THE BIG REVEAL
If we’re going to do Azalea’s confession somewhere, my house seems like pretty good place to do it. Not perfect, granted, especially given that Kicky technically still lives here. Although you’d never know it with so much of her stuff packed up, and when she is around I’m still on the receiving end of the silent treatment. I did make a point of telling her the plan I’ve managed to talk Azalea into, as well as that Blossomforth will be a part of the little group Az was willing to approve. I’m pretty sure Lyra won’t have any problem with the changeling thing, and I’m counting on her to bring Bon Bon around if it comes to that. Blossom’s a wild card; she took Kicky’s revelation pretty well, but given what’s come to light since then who knows if she’s changed her tune?”
Azalea paces back and forth in the living room, driving me to distraction as I make a last-minute pass over the drinks and veggie platter I’ve set out. I’m banking on ponies with full mouths being less likely to start flinging accusations at an inopportune moment, knock on wood. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” asks Azalea. “Maybe we should tell them next weekend instead of today.”
“Come on, Az. No chickening out now,” I reply.
“It’s just...” she stops pacing long enough to bite down on her bottom lip, “...I’d really feel better with both you and Kicky here. Moral support.”
“Blossom and Kicky in the same room when we’re talking about changeling stuff is a recipe for disaster right now. We talked about this.” I don’t mention that me and Kicky in the same room together would be just as big a problem. In a lot of ways it’s going to be a relief when she finally heads to Canterlot for good. She and Mom deserve one another. “Just stick to the plan and I really think everything going to work out. This’ll be a good practice run for when you finally come clean to Twilight after she gets back.”
“I almost did that one time!” she insists. “It was just bad timing with those drones. Then she got all sucked up in her new research, and you saw how she was. She hardly needed the distraction.”
“Okay,” I say, noncommittally as possible. I’m pretty sure that if she really wanted Twilight to know she would have found a way to make it happen by now. There’s been a whole lot of shuffling around and finding convenient obstacles where she’s concerned. But before I can get myself into trouble by saying so there’s a knock on the door and I trot over to it. “Remember,” I say with a hoof resting on the doorknob, “just stick to the plan and nothing is going to go wrong.” With that I swing the door open.
Boy, whoever the pony was who first came up with that phrase about how no plan survives first contact with the enemy really knew his stuff.
“Hi Blossom. Hi Davenport.” Technically, I never told Blossom she couldn’t bring her coltfriend, but I had certainly assumed she wouldn’t. But there’s the happy couple at my threshold, both of them looking surprisingly tense for two ponies attending an informal gathering of a few friends. I guess Blossom’s dreading the possibility of running into Kicky while she’s here, and brought along some backup.
“Good to see you again, Cloud,” says Davenport, bumping a hoof against mine.
“You too. You’re a brave stallion to subject yourself to this much mare talk. I’d have invited a few more guys if I’d known you were coming.”
He chuckles. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll have something to talk about. Don’t worry too much about me.” The corner of both their mouths twitch with the tiniest hint of a suppressed smile. Okay, now I’m downright suspicious.
I let them in anyway. I can hardly turn Davenport away with Blossom right there. Azalea greets both of them warmly and waits for them to turn their backs to inspect the snacks on offer. Then, the moment they’re looking away, her head whips around and I see her eyes screaming for me to abort this whole thing. All I can do is shrug. We’ll roll with the punches as best we can. The four of us mingle for another quarter-hour before Lyra and Bon Bon arrive, and the extra time gives Azalea’s moment of panic a chance to pass by. Once the two of them have added a small plate of cookies to my veggies and poured themselves some cider, she’s doing a pretty passable imitation of ‘relaxed.’ Probably the best I can hope for, and I wrangle everypony to the ring of seats for the big event they don’t even know they’re about to see.
I catch Azalea’s eye, and raise an eyebrow. Moment of no return for her. And I’m so proud when she gives me the curt nod that means she wants to go ahead and do this, just like we planned.
“Excuse me,” I say, raising my voice above the casual chatter. It quickly dies down. “Thanks for coming over today, girls. And Davenport.” I get a little chuckle at that. Just gotta keep this light and breezy, nothing to worry about. No Equestria-shattering revelations, just a mare who wants to come clean to the ponies who care about her. “I’ll be brief. There’s somepony here today who has something to tell you all. I’ll let her have the floor.” With that, I take my place back on the couch.
Only for Azalea and Blossomforth to both stand up at the same time.
When they each notice the other, it’s hard to say who’s more surprised. “Um, Blossom? She meant me.”
“Oh, I, uh, I thought maybe Davenport had pulled Cloud aside and asked her to... geez, I’m sorry,” says Blossom. “I do have something I wanted to tell you all, though, and I just figured that while we’re all together like this would be a good time.”
“I guess you weren’t the only one,” says Bon Bon.
Next to her, Lyra’s grinning from ear to ear. “Come on, you two. Don’t keep us waiting. What’s the big news?”
“Az, I promise I didn’t mean to steal your spotlight like this. I really didn’t know. But... can your thing wait? It’s obviously something important, and I don’t want to have my thing overshadow yours.”
Shifting her weight from hoof to hoof, Azalea weighs her options. Needless to say, we never rehearsed for this particular possibility. “Sort of doubt that my thing would be the one that got overshadowed.”
“Trust me, it would.”
“Trust me, it wouldn’t.”
Stalemate, and Azalea’s already shaky confidence is starting to crumble. “It really is something pretty big, Blossom,” I interject to try to salvage this.
“Well...” Blossom looks back at Davenport, who seems just as lost for words as she is. “I guess ours can wait for another day.”
“What? No! You can’t tease something like that and then not tell us!” says Lyra. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a curious part of me that completely agrees. “Inquiring ponies demand to know!”
“I mean, if I say my thing now we’ll probably end up talking about it for a while. We might not even get to yours before somepony needs to leave,” says Azalea.
“Okay, but if we do my thing first, then that’ll be what we spend all our time—”
A hoof banging down on the coffee table cuts Blossom off and nearly spills my drink. “For crying out loud,” says Bon Bon, glaring at both Blossom and Azalea in turn. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to start counting, and on three both of you stop beating around the bush like this and spill the beans. One.”
“But that doesn’t—”
“Two.”
“No, wait, I’m not as ready as I thought I—”
“Three!”
“I’m a changeling,” says Azalea.
“I’m pregnant,” says Blossomforth.
“You’re what?” says every single pony in the room at roughly the same time. We all plunge into silence, but only briefly before a shrill scream rips through it. I had expected that one of the girls might scream or act out when they found out about Azalea’s history. What I hadn’t expected was for Azalea to be the one doing the screaming.
“You’re pregnant?” She leaps over the table with a single beat of her wings and grabs Blossom in a hug. That’s enough to break the spell over the rest of us. “Oh my gosh Blossom, that’s amazing! Is it a filly or a colt? Do you know yet? When did you find out? When are you due? It’s Davenport’s, right?”
“Hey!” says Davenport with a glare.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” says Azalea, unhooking one foreleg to wave away the inadvertent accusation. “I meant... I don’t know what I meant, but it wasn’t that. I just... I can’t believe... Blossom, you’re pregnant!”
Blossom responds with a hesitant, nervous nod. “And... you’re a changeling?”
“Was. I was a changeling, before the invasion and the Elements and everything did the same thing to me it did to most of the others. I was...” her enthusiasm wanes a bit. “I was scared that you’d all find out and not want me to be your friend. But I promise, I’m the Azalea you’ve known ever since that day. All of that was true, I swear. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had each and every one of you.”
Lyra slips in to where she can join in on the hug and rest a hoof on Azalea’s shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you feel like you could tell us now. I think I speak for all of us when I say that it’s wonderful that you’re finally comfortable trusting us with this.” She runs her hoof through her mane a few times while she gathers her thoughts. “Even so, what exactly did you—”
“You’re right, it wasn’t easy to come out and tell you about this,” interrupts Azalea. “I told Cloudy by accident, but you, Bonnie, and Blossom are the first three ponies I’ve ever actually chosen to trust. Even Twilight doesn’t know. Really, if you hadn’t been okay with it, I think I might have just about died. But hey, why are we even talking about this when right this second a tiny baby foal is growing right here in Blossom’s tummy?” She caresses Blossom’s stomach as she says it. “I can already feel the extra pudge!”
Blossom looks down at her. “The doctor said we should be able to feel the bump from outside around a month from now.”
“Which... is... why it’s so hard to believe that you’re really pregnant when you’re still so slim!”
Not the smoothest save on Az’s part. Meanwhile Bon Bon, rather than trying to squeeze through the other two to get to Blossom, canters over to Davenport and wraps him in a hug of his own. “Congratulations. Both of you.”
Alright, that’s more than enough sitting on the sidelines. I trot over to Blossom and wait for her to look up, catching her eye at last. She gently extricates herself from Azalea’s embrace and lets me move in to take her spot. “I love you, Blossom. This is fantastic.”
“I love you too, Cloud.”
“Wait, is that why you quit drinking coffee?”
She grins. “Doctor’s orders. I have to cut down on the caffeine. Not much wine in my future either.”
I let out an exaggerated groan. “Looks like I’m really going to have to step up my game to keep you from turning all boring on me. Oh, and I call dibs on being the cool aunt.”
Blossom’s snigger is music to my ears. “I can’t imagine it any other way.”
“So, what’s next for you two?” asks Lyra. “I assume you’re going to be moving in together, at the least.”
Davenport nods. “Yeah, we’ve started looking at places big enough for three. Most of the homes in our price range are cloud-based, but we need something groundside. Especially if she doesn’t end up inheriting her mother’s wings.”
“Her mother’s wings,” I repeat, smiling even wider. It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea of that sentence referring to Blossom, but I guess I’d better get used to it. “Big step.”
“Not the only one, actually,” says Blossom. Her eyes dart over to Davenport again and then back to me once she’s found whatever signal she was looking for. “If I’m bringing a foal into this world, there’s going to be a family waiting for it. A stable one, with two parents who are as fully committed to one another as they will be to him. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not willing to have a foal out of wedlock.”
I sit there trying to force that statement to its logical conclusion. I know exactly what she’s saying, but that doesn’t mean I understand. Azalea, on the other hoof, doesn’t seem to be having the same problem. In fact, it’s only Lyra’s quick thinking in throwing a hoof over Azalea’s mouth that saves Blossom’s eardrum from being entirely obliterated by her squeal of unrestrained joy. “You’re getting married?” I ask.
“Congratulations again!” says Lyra, giving Blossom an extra squeeze.
Davenport reaches over to grab Blossom’s shoulder, seeing as she’s weighed down by quite a few mares at this point. “We don’t have the budget or the time to plan anything really ornate. Probably just something intimate at the local courthouse, maybe a small reception afterwards. You’re all invited once we’ve picked a date, naturally.”
“I... I mean...” I stammer.
Blossom’s smile starts to slip. “You will be there, right? You’re the one who introduced the two of us to one another, for goodness sake.”
“Of course I will. I’m just having trouble taking all of this in at once. It’s all happening so fast.”
“Trust me, I know the feeling.” Blossom looks more reassured than I feel. “Azalea? Are you okay?”
Azalea finally manages to push Lyra’s foreleg away from her face, revealing the titanic grin it had been concealing. “Do you have a dress? I can ask Twilight to get you an appointment with Rarity. And have you started thinking about vows? Do you have a gift registry set up yet? Can...”
I’ll admit, there’s only so much wedding stuff I can endure at one time. I tune it out a bit and just relish the feel of Blossom’s embrace. How is she possibly going to be the first one of our little gang down the aisle? I mean, it was hard to see Lyra and Bon Bon as anything but inevitable, but...
Wait, where is Bon Bon?
In all the excitement, I think I lost track of her. At some point the headcount in here went from six to five. Weird time to go to the bathroom. Azalea shows no sign of slowing down with her interrogation, and since it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting a chance to contribute to the discussion I slip out from under Blossom’s slack foreleg and trot down the hallway that leads towards Kicky’s bedroom. The bathroom door is ajar, and nopony seems to be inside of it. Where would she—
And then a loud, mucousy sniffle derails my train of thought.
I follow it to the door of my bedroom, and silently push it open. None of the lights are on, but there’s just enough ambient light to make out a figure and the bit of her pink and blue tail that’s laying in the little sliver of light that’s slipping through the closed curtains.
“Bonnie?”
She sits bolt upright as one of her forelegs snaps to her face and starts rubbing. “Oh. Hi Cloud.” That is not the confident and willful tone of the mare I’m used to.
“Everything okay?”
“I just needed a minute,” she says as she manages to steady her voice. “Thought it would be better if I got this out of my system in private. Today isn’t about me, y’know? It’s about her, and she deserves it.”
I trot over to take a seat alongside her, draping a wing over her back. “Something on your mind?”
She lets out a hacking and rueful chuckle, her heaving shoulders sending a few tears spattering against my chest. “I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
She finally lifts her face high enough that she can see me, although the shadows in here are so deep I can’t read the expression on her face. “Funny, isn’t it?” she begins. “A year from now, where are each of us going to be? Blossom... I don’t remember ever hearing her say this was something she wanted. But by this time next year there’s going to be a brand new life that didn’t exist before. And it’s going to need her. Everything from the milk it drinks, to the warmth it snuggles up against as it falls asleep, to the love and safety it gets to bask in during every bucking moment, all from her and Davenport. Want to guess where I’ll be? I’ll tell you. I’ll be one year closer to being permanently barren. The other details don’t really matter, and I don’t want to talk about them. So does that answer your question?”
“Sort of,” I say. “I take it that’s what you want too? What Blossom’s going to have?”
She stares at me for a long while, but then turns away. A hoof thrusting into my chest knocks most of the wind out of me as she shoves me away from her. “Cloud, I know that you’re trying to help me. I know everything you’re saying is coming from a place of love. But the last time we talked about this... it hurt. You said something that hurt me. Badly. And I don’t want to do that again.”
I manage to sit up, despite the coughing fits and tightness in my chest. “I hurt you?” I ask between coughs. She turns away from me. She can’t believe I would ever do something like that intentionally, could she? “All I remember saying last time we talked one on one was that you’d be a good mother.”
Something catches in Bon Bon’s throat, and it takes her quite a while to recover. But when she does she glares up at me with a degree of outright hate I’d never think she was capable of. “Of course I would be.”
“So what exactly is the—”
“Actually? Scratch that. I’d have been a phenomenal mother,” says Bon Bon. “I would have rocked my little foal to sleep every night if that’s what it took. Sat up with him as long as he needed me when he had a fever. Been firm with her when she wouldn’t eat her watercress because she thought it was just too yucky. Never let a day go by where I didn’t find a chance to say ‘I love you, Wintergreen’ no matter how busy I got. You’re right; I would have been amazing. But I never will be. I’ll never do any of those things. Apparently we don’t want them.”
Doesn’t take me very long to puzzle out what she means. “Because of Lyra.”
Bon Bon looms over me, apparently having managed to get far closer than I realized until just now, and smiles. She leans into me and we both sink a bit deeper into the shag carpeting that covers my bedroom floor. “Of course because of her. She doesn’t want that. Any of it. Couldn’t tell you why, but that’s how she feels.”
“Okay, so you made it work,” I say. “You compromised.”
“Compromised?” she repeats as she pulls away from me.
“Well, didn’t you?”
“Compromised.” Boy does she seem to be fixated on that word. “Do you think there was some sort of agreement I reached with her? Some kind of quid pro quo? ‘Hey Lyra, could you try to pay a little more attention to the dirty dishes building up in the sink? In exchange, I’ll agree to never raise a family with you.’ Something like that?” It’s still dark in here, and Bon Bon’s face is still cloaked in shadows. But I can tell she’s glaring at me though all of that. I’ll need to count my lucky stars I’m not getting the brunt of it in a better-lit room.
“So what then?”
“Let me clue you in to how we ponies here in grownup land handle love, Cloud,” she says. “No, this wasn’t a compromise. It was a sacrifice. Because sometimes that’s what love takes. Because that’s what I had to give up to be with her. Because she knows what she wants and it isn’t some version of me that’s toting a foal everywhere. Yeah, it hurts, but so what? She’s worth it. Compared to not being with her, it’s a bucking pleasure cruise.”
“Bonnie,” I say, “That isn’t something you should have to accept if it isn’t what you want.”
She just scoffs. “You don’t get it. She’s what I want. What I need. I need her more than I need my next breath, and I’ll give up some of myself if that’s what I have to do to be with her. But I don’t need somepony pointing it out. If somepony came up to me tomorrow and told me I had to choose between losing Lyra or chopping off one of my legs, I wouldn’t think twice before I asked them to pass me the hatchet. But now that I’ve hacked it off, why in Celestia’s name do you imagine that having somepony trot by me as I’m bleeding out on the street, patting me on the head as I stared down at the piece of myself I’d just murdered, and telling me that ‘Gosh, I bet you would have been a great distance runner’ would make me feel better at all?
“You picked out a name?”
I had a brilliant and devastating retort all planned out, really, but it’s lost when both of us are frozen by the appearance of a new voice. Bon Bon finds her response first, although for the moment she’s too terrified by the voice’s source to turn and face it head-on. “Lyra?”
We both eventually manage to turn towards the unicorn sitting in the doorway, her silhouette more rigid than I’ve ever seen it. Bon Bon’s breathing quickens just a bit as that voice pierces the blackness once again. “Our foal’s name is Wintergreen?”
“No, I just... it was this stupid thought I had. I figured if our coats blended together that the hue might work decently with that name. Doesn’t matter now.”
“Why wouldn’t it matter?” asks Lyra.
I finally get sick of sitting here in the dark, trot over to the window, and throw the curtains open. Bon Bon squints against the sudden burst of light, and it reveals the deep tracks her teardrops have left as they’ve run down her cheeks. “You said foals are a dealbreaker,” says Bon Bon.
“Yeah, becoming a mother is kinda a terrifying idea. But.... cutting your own leg off? Really?” asks Lyra, trotting into the bedroom to take a spot by Bon Bon’s side. “How could you think I’d let you do that? I mean, you don’t mess with perfection.”
Bon Bon lets a half-hearted chuckle escape her lips. “What would I possibly need perfection for? I have you.”
The two of them are quiet for quite a long time before Lyra speaks up again. “Cloud? Could you head back into the other room? Azalea’s going to run out of things to talk about eventually, and I’d like there to be somepony else there when she does.”
“Sure.” With a glance back at the couple embracing on floor, which doesn’t show much beyond Lyra whispering promises into Bon Bon’s ear that really aren’t for me to know, I head back to my living room.
“And I think you want to go with stripes over spots for the nursery wallpaper, and... oh, Cloud! I didn’t realize you’d left,” says Azalea. Blossom and Davenport have a somewhat dazed expression on their face, either from Azalea’s verbal assault or the dawning realization of just how different things are going to be for them now. I’m okay with either possibility.
“Az, give them a chance to breathe, will you? The point of transforming you was that you wouldn't latch on to loving couples anymore.” As she realizes I’m here to offer salvation, the thankful look on Blossom’s face goes a long way towards easing my mind over any worries I had over disappearing for a few minutes like that.
“I’m not...” to Azalea's credit, the realization settles over her pretty quickly.”Oh gosh, I promise I wasn’t thinking about how I used to want to feed on you or anything! I mean, yeah, a pregnant mother-to-be would have been quite the delicacy back then. Baby-filled devotion is some of the best stuff out there, but..." She trails off as she notice the abject horror Blossom and Davenport are looking at her with. "Maybe I've talked enough for the time being."
"Not like you'd have been the only one who snacked on me back then," Blossom grumbles. Lyra and Bon Bon, looking like she's pulled herself together again, trot back into the room. She looks different than back in the bedroom a moment ago, too. Not so much sad as dazed by something. “Where did you two vanish to?”
“Oh, nowhere important,” says Lyra. She leans over to give Bon Bon a kiss on the cheek, which she’s still too stunned to even acknowledge. “We were just talking about whether or not I’d date Bon Bon if she only had three legs.”
“Um... oooooooookaaaaaay,” says Blossom, struggling to wrap her head around that which I can hardly blame her for, “Did you decide that you would?”
“You know, I don’t think I could,” says Lyra, a serene and knowing smile across her face. She winks at me. “I think I just have to have the whole package. But we’ll talk more about that later, okay hon?”
“Sure,” says Bon Bon. Her voice is distant until she blinks a few times and clears her throat. “Sorry. But come on, don’t hold back the details. Even if it’s going to be on the low-key side, there must be something we can do for your wedding to make it special.”
It turns out there are a few things. Actually, several hours worth of ideas once the group brainstorming session really gets up to speed. Bon Bon has the most to contribute, though I wonder if she’s giving the game away to Lyra with how much she’s clearly had weddings on the brain for a while now if she’s gathered all this information. Davenport is the first to bow out when the combined estrogen flowing through the room finally becomes too much. Azalea disappears soon after with only the most cursory of goodbyes. Not pressing her luck on how much longer she has before the others raise more changeling-related questions, I imagine.
It’s nearly sundown by the time Lyra and Bon Bon finally throw in the towel and leave together, tails flicking against one another's flanks as they walk out the door. The minute I shut it behind them, Blossom flops down on the couch and lays a foreleg over her face. “That was exhausting.”
I grin, trot over to the couch and give her an extra-gentle poke in the belly, which makes her spasm and flinch enough for me to claim a spot up there as well. “It wasn’t that bad, was it? We just want to get in on the excitement.”
She sighs. “I guess it was a good warm-up run for when I have to run the gauntlet with Davenport’s family. I’ve never really done the big family gathering thing before.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t have.” The conversation lapses into a silence that’s bordering on uncomfortable, so I decide a change of subject is in order. “When exactly did you find out?”
“Remember that night you and Kicky showed up on our lawn while Davenport and I were having dinner?”
I tense up, which she has to have noticed but it doesn’t change the dead-eyed way she’s looking at me. “Sure.”
“Well, three guesses what we were celebrating that evening.”
“Oh,” I reply. I mentally try out half a dozen things to say after that, each one seeming dumber than the last. Then, totally out of nowhere, a completely inappropriate notion pops into my head and I fail to suppress a little snort.
Blossom shifts when the little gust of air blows against her side, just enough to square up and look at me properly. “Please don’t tell me there’s something about that night you think is amusing.”
“No, it’s not that,” I’m quick to assure her, “it was something else. Life’s weird, you know?”
“How do you mean?”
“Just, everything that’s happening for you and Davenport now, and I know that it wasn’t necessarily easy to get there, or that it’s going to be easy from here on out. But it is amazing. I mean, you’re getting married, Blossom! And you’re going to be a mom! There’s so much great stuff ahead for you, but when I think about everything that had to happen to get here, like, exactly here instead of somewhere else, it kind of boggles my mind. Look... I don’t know how much sense I’m making, exactly, but isn’t it good that the bad stuff happened like it did if it leads to good stuff now?” I stop for a second, in the hopes that Blossom will somehow sift out a really insightful point that may or may not actually be anywhere in there.
Nope, she just looks more confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Well...” buck it, time to go for broke. “What if Kicky, still-a-changeling Kicky I mean, what if she’d never pretended to be me? What if she’d never, you know...”
“Ground my heart into paste because she was feeling peckish?”
I wince. Is this even a risk worth taking? I don’t really have a satisfactory answer to that question before I open my mouth again. “Yeah, that. Because what if she hadn’t? Would you still be into me? Because I honestly don’t think you would be, by now, because back-then me wasn’t necessarily the best mare at dealing with that kind of thing.”
“Yes, it’s clear from the direction this is going that you’ve really come a long way in being sensitive to my feelings. Truly a spectacular, bang-up job you’re doing at that right this second,” says Blossom. Which I know sounds bad, but if we somehow keep this at ‘dry sarcasm’ levels of anger instead of escalating it into a screaming match I’m calling that a win.
“Coming out of it, though. Big picture, it was always going to hurt. I was always going to hurt you.” I think my saying that stings me more than it does her, and just for a second the building anger behind Blossom’s glare is tempered with a bit of sympathy. “If Kicky hadn’t done what she did when she did it, though, you might have missed Davenport completely. And who knows where you’d be now, and how okay we’d be as friends at all. But things could be a lot worse. I think...”
“You think I’m better off in the long run because of what Kicky did,” finishes Blossom. She looks like she’s actually thinking about it. Or at least thinking about where she should punch me to get me to shut my big stupid mouth the quickest. Could go either way.
“I mean, at the very least I think you can blame her once the morning sickness starts.”
So remember how the entire point of that digression in the first place was to make the silence between us less uncomfortable? Not exactly a rousing success. A few minutes tick by, and I’m close enough to Blossom that I can still feel that her heartbeat’s picked up in pace.
At last she starts to speak to me again, which I’m acutely aware wasn’t necessarily a guarantee when I brought this topic up. “She lied to me.”
“She was a changeling. She lied to everyone. Azalea lied too, and for longer. You didn’t jump down her throat when you found that out.”
Blossom raises an eyebrow. “So because I didn’t punch Azalea in the face at any point this afternoon I’m some kind of hypocrite? That really makes me wonder why you invited me to her confession party in the first place if you actually don't see a difference. Azalea told me the truth when she didn’t have to. You saw how scared she was today. And sure, she jumped on my being pregnant and engaged so she didn’t have to face up to it all at once, but I’m not going to begrudge her for that. She still made the effort. Kicky didn’t. Ever. Be honest with me; would Kicky ever have told me the truth if you hadn’t spilled the beans?”
I bite my lip. “She’s trying to be open with other ponies about this stuff. She didn’t have to tell me what I told you. I think there’s a lot she’s working through, and I think some of it’s really, really bad. And yeah, she could have handled it way better than she did. She was getting there, though.”
“So you don’t know, basically,” says Blossom. “Let me tell you what I think she would have done. I think she’d have just kept cruising along like nothing was wrong and she’d try very, very hard to pretend there wasn’t actually any sort of problem at all. And I think everything would have been fun and games on the surface, and once she was off to Canterlot to enlist she’d breathe a sigh of relief that she got away with it.”
That draws a frown from me. “That’s a little pessimistic, isn’t it? I don’t think you’re giving the ponies who used to be changelings a fair shake. They aren’t like that.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s what she’d do because she was a changeling,” says Blossom. She winces and turns her gaze away from mine. “I think that’s the pattern of behavior she inherited from you.”
“I... oh. Oh.” I have that to think on for a couple extra seconds, all while Blossom still won’t look at me. “Blossom, that’s not... I mean, I’m not... I wouldn’t... look, this is about Kicky, not... I’m...”
“Look, it’s fine,” mumbles Blossom.
“It’s not fine,” I say, maybe a little bit louder than I really mean to. “And if it is... you really think I would let you just hurt like that?”
Before Blossom answers, she wraps her wings around me in a hug. Somehow that manages to make me feel even worse. “You have flaws, Cloud, and that’s a part of who you are. A couple of them are actually kind of charming sometimes. Princesses know I have plenty of my own, by the way. How would it be fair to expect you to act like you’re perfect?”
“That doesn’t make it ‘fine’ that you end up getting hurt.”
I feel Blossom shrug, resigned. “It is what it is. And I say that it’s fine.” I don’t respond right away. I don’t really know if I could, with the pounding in my head just now. It’s all just a bit too familiar. “Cloud?”
“FINE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” I wriggle away from Blossom and out of her grip, but it doesn’t help relieve that tightness gripping my chest. Pacing the room should help me catch my breath, but it doesn’t, and all it’s doing is making Blossom progress from concerned to full-on scared. “It’s not good enough, Blossom! You think I’m going to get up at your wedding to toast you two and say ‘yeah, they’re fine,’ and everypony’s going to stomp and applaud for that? I’m just supposed to be okay with you and Kicky hating each other because of me? Just because, oh, she’s leaving to enlist soon so it’s fine. You’re fine, I’m fine, everypony’s fine, so who cares that it’s... that it could be...” The head of steam I’d built up peters out, and all I have to show for it is a splitting headache.
Then there’s a wing draped over my back, nudging me back towards the couch. “Okay, not fine then,” says Blossomforth, barely daring to raise her voice above a whisper. “Not fine, if that isn’t what you want.”
“Like it matters what I want,” I mutter a bit louder than I probably should.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it matters,” says Blossomforth. “But that said, I’m not going to let Kicky off the hook because you want me to. I’m just not.”
Once she’s gotten me lying on the couch again, Blossom strokes a hoof along my back which feels absolutely heavenly. I take a moment to bask in that, and I’m pretty sure I could pass out right here if I let myself. All the problems with Blossom and Kicky seem gloriously distant, and it’s barely even bothering me that I’m not on the same page as Blossomforth when it comes to whether Kicky deserves to be forgiven for what she did. I can just close my eyes and everything...
Everything will be pretty much fine. Fine and no better.
“I don’t get to decide.” Well, what actually emerges from the couch cushions pressed into my face is just a series of unintelligible gibberish, but Blossom stops rubbing my back and lets me pick myself back up a bit. Just the absence of her touch is almost enough to abandon this plan all by itself, but I press on. “Somepony told me something the other night that I’ve been thinking about. She said that nopony gets to decide how you feel about somepony else. It stuck.”
Blossom smiles and nods at me, too happy to agree. Probably better that she doesn’t know what the context of that quote was or I doubt she’d be quite as eager. “That sounds pretty wise.”
“I thought so too. At the same time, though, I felt like there was something about it I was missing. Like it was too easy. And I think I’ve figured out why.”
“Want to share?”
“Yeah.” I screw up my energy for this next part. It wouldn’t be easy anyway and I’m just so tired of all of this. “I can’t just decide whether or not you’ll care about Kicky anymore after what she did to you.”
Blossom nods. “Glad to hear you admit it. That’s very mature of you.”
“Neither can you.”
Her nod slows until she stops with her head slack and her brow furrowed. “You lost me.”
“You can’t decide whether or not to care about Kicky. Well, you can make a decision but it won’t have any more of an impact than mine will. Don’t get me wrong, you can decide that it doesn’t make sense to care about her. Or that she doesn’t deserve to be cared about after what she did to you. It just doesn’t make a difference.” Blossom’s pulled away from me and crossed her forelegs over her chest. In the face of her skepticism all I can do is plow onward. “See, that’s what was too easy. You hear ‘nopony gets to decide’ and you actually think that means ‘nopony except for me,’ but it doesn’t. Do you have any idea how much I wish it did? Because if I could just decide once and for all that I didn’t care whether some pony in particular liked me, or respected me, or was... or was proud of what I’ve actually accomplished with my life, I think I’d be a lot happier. And I also think maybe it’s the same for you.”
Blossom’s not willing to give up that easily. “Well, maybe I cracked the code and figured out something you missed. I washed my hooves of Kicky just fine.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that a lot,” I snap back, “and I have to wonder why it is that ponies who don’t care spend so much energy shouting from the rooftops about how little they do. You’re angry, Blossom, and everypony else can see it. You’re really, really angry at Kicky for what she did. I’m not going to try to convince you that you shouldn’t be. But don’t lie to yourself about how you’re taking it.”
Blossom huffs. “Okay, you win. I’m upset. Glad we cleared that up. Gosh, look at the time.”
I grab at her shoulder and manage to preempt her trying to turn and make for the door. “Do you like feeling this way? You don’t look like you do. Sit down.”
“I need to get home and get dinner started before Davenport—”
“Sit. Down.” I think if it really came to it I’ve got enough training to keep her pinned to the couch, though I can’t imagine that would help with the rest of the conversation. Fortunately she’s willing to put up with me for at least a bit longer, if only under duress, and she sits. “How much work do you think it’ll take to plan your wedding?”
Completely thrown by the shift in topic, Blossomforth has to think about that one for a second. “What does that have to do with Kicky?”
“That’s really up to you. I’m no expert, but I hear it takes a lot out of you. Do you really have the energy to spend on carrying a grudge at the same time?” I take a pause to slip my hoof lower down onto her belly and let it rest there. “Don’t you think you have better things to worry about?”
“So what? You’ve already said that I don’t get to decide not to care,” says Blossom, “oh, and don’t think I haven’t noticed how conveniently this whole change of heart works out for you. You don’t get to decide how you feel about anything, so nopony can blame you for whatever you happen to feel anyway. Great excuse not to think about the things you’d rather avoid, isn’t it?”
Don’t take the bait... don’t take the bait... it requires some grinding of my teeth but I manage to hold back. “It’s not great at all, and it doesn’t mean I’m trying to avoid it. Look, if you broke your leg, you wouldn’t go around telling everypony that you decided it wasn’t broken anymore and you limping everywhere was just a coincidence. You’d have to get a cast and actually do the hard stuff for it to get better. Believe it or not, I’m trying to do that too. I mean, this entire conversation is only happening because I’ve been thinking about my feelings. How easy do you think that’s been?”
I think Blossom expected me to just snap again, because that catches her off guard. I’m a little surprised myself at just how not-angry I sound. Forceful, sure, but not as out of control as a few minutes ago. “I guess I hadn’t noticed.”
“You’ve been busy. Plus a lot of it is because of what happened with you and Kicky, and how much of that is my fault, which you didn’t want to go anywhere near. But all this is beside the point right now. You’re right that you shouldn’t go back to being friends with her because I want you to. I haven’t earned that. And even if you can’t decide to just shut off your caring for her, you can decide you’re better off cutting her out of your life. So I guess what I’m saying is if that’s what you’ve decided, you should do it right. Not because it’s better for her, or for me, but because it’s better for you.”
Blossom raises an eyebrow. “Now you think I should cut her out of my life?”
“That’s... it’s up to you.” The words catch in my throat, and a big part of me is screaming that I have no right to give up on the two of them like this. It’s not okay for them not to be friends at all. Because if she can drop Kicky like a bad habit, how much longer is it going to be until I’m the friend on the chopping block? “But you have to sit down with her first. You have to tell her how things are going to be and why. Even if she doesn’t like it. I don’t know if she’ll scream or cry or beg or how she’ll take it, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be miserable for everypony involved. But after that it’ll be resolved one way or another. And maybe after a while you actually will stop caring about her, but I know that won’t happen if you just let her go to Canterlot without saying anything. I mean, she’s joining the Guard, and that’s a really big deal. It’s not all salutes and marching in parade formation, even during peacetime. They do dangerous stuff. I promise you that if something happens to her out there you’ll wish you’d sat down and talked to her while you had the chance.”
“Do not try to guilt trip me into this, Cloud,” says Blossom.
“Why not? Am I wrong? You’re the one who said you don’t care.” I shift my weight away from her so that I’m no longer half-snuggling, half-pinning her against the couch. She shivers a bit at the warmth disappearing. “There’s always the possibility that, for whatever reason, Kicky may never come back to Ponyville at all.”
“That’s really morbid of you, and kind of unfair.”
“Doesn't mean it isn't true.” With that, I'm officially out of cards to play. Nothing to do but sit back and hope. And if that doesn't break this impasse, well, at least nopony can say I didn't try. Not this time.
“...It would have to be somewhere public.”
“Huh?”
“Or at least somewhere neutral,” says Blossom. “If I'm going to talk to her again. And I’m bringing backup.”
“Wait, you're actually open to meeting with Kicky again?” I ask.
“Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are. And you can be there too, but only if you promise to behave.”
It's slowly dawning on me that I'm actually pulling this off, and that brings the biggest, most authentic grin in recent memory to my face. “Well I can’t promise the impossible. If we have a really cute waitress all bets are off.”
Blossom doesn't laugh, even though I'm pretty sure she wants to. “You can't take her side. I don't care how guilty you feel about your part in what happened. I can't handle both of you at once.”
“Heh. That’s what—”
“Don’t.”
“Sorry. I promise not to pile on. I mean, I’ll try my best.”
Blossom sniffles and rubs at her eyes. “She won't like it. I have no idea what I'm going to say yet, but there's a big part of me that wants to see her lying on the ground in a puddle of tears just so I’ll have the chance to kick her while she’s down. I'm not proud of that, but it's there. And I don't think that part of me would feel all that guilty if you got hurt in the process too.”
Maybe that confidence before was just a bit premature. “I guess that’s just where we are these days.”
“Yeah. I guess it is.” With that she stretches out and takes her time getting down from my couch, looking just about as exhausted as I must look. “I can’t think about details right now. Talk it over with Kicky and we’ll figure it out at work sometime.”
“Sounds good.” I walk Blossom to the door, but stop before I open it for her. “Thank you for this, Blossom. Oh, and congratulations again.”
She smiles and leans in to give me a peck on the cheek. “Thanks. And I have to say, thinking about your feelings really works for you. Maybe you should do more of it.”
“Like I need more homework.” I return the kiss and bid her goodbye, shutting the door behind her. The couch is about fifty paces away and calling my name. I get half of the way there before everything catches up to me and my knees start shaking too badly to walk the rest of the way, and it all comes tumbling down from there.
The wall’s there to support my weight and make it a more gentle collapse than it could be, so I get to slide down from a sitting position to lying on my side. The prospect of trying to move would hurt just enough more than not moving, so I don’t really see myself going much of anywhere for a little while. Was Blossom trying to hurt me? I don’t know if I want to believe she was making an effort to be cruel. Maybe she was, and she thinks I deserve it. Or maybe she just thought that if it was so obvious to her what kind of pony I am, I must already know it myself. But I wouldn’t hurt her like that, ever. Would I? But she sounded so sure that I would, and I can’t really deny that it sounded like she was speaking from first hoof experience.
When the sobs do come, they come hard and fast. Just for a second I got to see myself the way I think maybe Blossomforth has seen me for a long time, and what I saw just makes me want to turn and run in the opposite direction. When Blossom started seeing it in Kicky too, she wanted nothing to do with it. So why do I get a pass? I don’t want a pass. But what if the alternative is that there’s no room for me in the new family she’s making for herself all of a sudden? Does she want her foal to grow up around a mare she’s only keeping around out of pity and force of habit? How much of an entitled brat would I have to be to want her to want that?
Questions keep flying fast and thick through my head, from the half-formed to the self-accusing, and none of them are courteous enough to bring along any of the accompanying answers. I’m not really sure how long I stay there, although it’s the clock striking eight that rouses me enough to get myself to the couch at last just so I can collapse again in a slightly more comfortable position for round two. It does occur to me about a quarter of an hour later that I could have turned on the lights before I did, but sitting alone in the dark works just as well.
Somewhere beyond running out of tears but before I reach the point of passing out from exhaustion, I hear the front doorknob start to rattle. My legs protest as I work the stiffness out of them enough to wipe off my face before it opens.
“Kicky? Is that you?” I hear approaching hoof steps, but I’m still getting the brunt of the silent treatment from her. She pointedly doesn’t look in my direction as she walks past the couch. “So Azalea told everypony about what she used to be. It went really well, if you care at all.” Still no answer. Instead she just leaves me to wonder why I just went so far out on a limb to help a pony who’s treating me like this. I hear the kitchen cabinets open and shut again, and the sound of water flowing as she turns the sink on and begins filling a glass. “Oh, and Blossom is pregnant.”
No response. I know I said it loud enough for her to hear. But the water keeps flowing, and a few seconds later I hear it pattering against the sink’s lining. I give her another moment before trotting in after her, and when I do I see her frozen at the sink just staring at the glass that’s continuously overflowing from the water pouring into it. She doesn’t acknowledge me as I step up beside her, shut off the tap, and then back away again.
“What?”
“Oh, so you can still talk. Glad to hear it.” On a whim, I slip alongside her again, grab her glass, and take a long sip. It’s extra satisfying, as is the little smack of my lips when I lower it again. Gotta rehydrate those tear ducts somehow. “She’s also getting married to Davenport. It’s been a wild afternoon.”
“That’s not funny,” says Kicky, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I’m absolutely serious. Just thought you’d want to know.” I take her glass with me as I start walking away. “There’s something else about her, and it’s something you’re going to want to hear. So when you’re ready to drop this whole ‘I’m mad at Cloudy so I’ll pretend she doesn’t exist’ thing once and for all, I’ll be waiting in the other room.”
I settle into a chair that faces the couch, because I’ve had more than enough of lying on that couch for one day thanks very much, and sip my water as I wait. It’s a credit to Kicky’s stubbornness that it takes her a full two minutes to follow after me, but she does. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. And she wants to talk to you.”
That takes her even longer to process than the pregnancy news. “Cloudy that’s... I can’t... How? She said she never wanted to see me again, and I think she meant it.”
“Hey, don’t forget who you’re talking to here.” I probably shouldn’t be enjoying this part quite as much as I am as I slap on my best cocky grin. “A few well-placed winks, maybe the promise of an unspeakably lewd sexual favor or two, what mare in or out of her right mind is gonna turn that down?” The grin slips a bit. “Look, don’t go into this thinking she’s looking to forgive and forget, okay? Some of what she was saying sounded pretty final. But I think she’ll at least hear you out.”
“I’ll take it. I’ll take anything.” She charges at me and nearly tips my chair over backwards tackling me into a hug. “Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.”
I bask for a moment, savoring this. “I missed you so much, Kicky. I want us to go back to being okay again. Can we do that? Please?” My voice breaks at the end, and she replies by squeezing me even tighter.
“I think that sounds like a good idea. I missed you too.” She lets go of me and steps back a bit to let me breathe. “She’s getting married? For real? When did this happen?”
“It’s like when you aren’t teetering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown every other day, you actually have time to get all kinds of stuff done.”
She smirks. “Somepony really should have told us that. It could have saved us a lot of trouble.”
“Mom probably did at some point, but we missed it because she decided to explain it in the most arrogant way possible,” I say, rolling my eyes and going for another drink of water.
Kicky clears her throat and gives me a stern, disapproving glare. “Now Cloud, you’ll never make the rank of Super-Ultra-General-Captain-Commander before your eleventh birthday unless you schedule your tantrums as perfectly as I do.” There’s a spasm in my gut and I try to wave Kicky off long enough to swallow this mouthful of water, but she has no intention of showing that kind of mercy. “Have I ever told you how I was scheduling them when I began dating your father? I think you could really learn a lot about being an independent and successful mare like myself by doing exactly what I say and never deviating even a little bit from this forty-year life plan I’ve drawn up for you.”
That does it, and the twitch in my gut turns into one of those laughs that you’re still feeling the next day. The first choking cough sends little spurts out the sides of my mouth, and then the terrible, irresistible snorting begins. A bit of the water shooting out of my nostrils hits Kicky, though not as much as she deserves, but all the rest of it pours onto my chest as I gurgle it back up. Or I should say almost all of it does, since just enough of it goes down the wrong tube to send me into a hacking, coughing fit to go with the laughter.
“That’s what you get for stealing my water, by the way.”
The coughing passes eventually, and with her lust to avenge her drink sated for the time being there’s a lot to fill her in on after everything that happened today. Mentions of Blossom still make her go quiet, though. She’d better not be this lost for words when it comes time for the two of them to actually sit down together, and being reminded that we both have that looming somewhere in the future makes things just a little bit less joyful than they could be.
“So,” says Kicky once she’s been sufficiently updated, “you and Sweetie Drops. Where did that come from?”
“You heard about that, huh? It was a good evening.”
Kicky lifts her hooves up to her temples and starts rubbing at them. I’ve got a headache going too, and if I were a smarter pony I probably would have called it a night about an hour ago. I’m certainly tired enough. “You’re being careful with her? Not treading too close to the line when it comes to any of your rules for this sort of thing? I’m just making sure.”
I shrug. “I saved her life, and she was grateful. Who am I to keep her from repaying that gratitude?”
She rolls her eyes. “Wow, I must have completely forgotten just how selfless you really were.”
“Glad I could remind you.” I puff a lungful of warm air onto the surface of one front hoof, and find a dry spot on my coat to start polishing it against. “You know, with all the outrageous stuff that happens around this town, words and phrases like ‘heroine’ or ‘champion of righteousness’ get thrown around a lot...”
“There was a reason I decided I should start talking to you again, right? For the life of me I can't imagine what it was.”
“It's a real struggle being responsible for this much bangability all of the time. But when things get hard, and believe me when I tell you they do, I get through the day by reminding myself of the public service I'm providing to the less fortunate.”
“Cloud, come on,” says Kicky. “I'm being serious here and you're just deflecting. I remember pulling that little move way too many times before to fall for it now. If there’s any mare in Ponyville who doesn't need any extra heartache right now it's Sweetie Drops.”
My smile slips away. When did this stuff stop being easygoing fun? “I’ll leave it as a one-night deal if that makes you feel better. My impression was that she wasn't going to be around that much longer anyway. I assume Azalea will want her guest room back eventually.”
When she starts to reply, whatever Kicky was about to say is cut off with a yawn. “Maybe we can worry about that tomorrow.”
That yawn? It's highly contagious. “You're probably right.” I rise from my spot and walk over to give Kicky another hug. “Whatever ends up happening, with Sweetie Drops or Blossom or anypony else, can we promise each other that we won't ever let things get this bad again?”
“I would like that,” says Kicky. But then she looks away. “A lot of that is going to depend on whether you ever pull another stunt like that again, though. Was there something I did to you that was a bigger deal than I thought? Help me understand.”
“When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know. Goodnight.” With that I leave her to do some thinking of her own, which she doesn't need me around for, and follow the siren call of my bed. While I’d love to just pass out under my blankets and call it a night, there’s one last thing I need to do first. Right on top of my desk is the journal that’s been giving me so much trouble with its final page. A gentle nudge and the back cover falls open, still ready and waiting for me to say whatever I need to. And since there’s absolutely zero chance of my having the energy to even begin putting today into words, I can grab my quill and be unusually brief.
My life won't always be fine.
Crawling under the covers at long last, I think that’s something I can live with.