The crumpled sheets. The slightly acrid smell, typical, with a little something more… like a sweet fragrance. Chewing-gum, or rather strawberry chewing-gum. The hearts pounding wildly a couple of minutes before, now calmed, quietened. And in the darkness of the room, lucidity found back. To realize what had just happened.
A bit of guilt sprinkled over the rest. She was so… innocent. Even in moments like this. With others, he never had such a feeling. That he had soiled purity.
Just rewind, remembering the facts. She had not led him on, she had not reject him. Things had happened without ulterior motives, without questions. It was an obvious thing for no one, her and him. Not even for themselves. They were friends until then. And surely they still would be after that, although… there would definitely be this thing, this brand new sensation. To know what is never showed.
Big Macintosh noticed for the first time the frame on the bedside table. The pink mare was on a picture with another stallion with a straw-colored coat and a chocolate mane, as curly as hers. Her brother? Impossible. She was an orphan, this he knew. And even within the dark, something inside their eyes was perceptible. A coltfriend?
Not good, this was not good. The past was likely to repeat. He already had given in to forbidden charms, and the whole affair did not have a happy ending. She was engaged to somepony else. A pony from the Cavalry who had all the intentions of being revenged… And then, the exile, life as a foreigner. Far from his family, his friends, from the mare he loved secretly. Or was it love? Was it not this need to covet what is forbidden? An assumption that did not match his shy nature so much it made the perspective even more alluring.
“Hmph.”
Behind him, he felt Pinkie Pie moving. She rode up the quilt and covered her head completely. Only the curly strands of the top of her head were popping out.
Maybe he would have better leave. She probably would not hold a grudge against him for that. There were few chances that she expected much from him. It had happened without any of them looking for it.
The shape under the wooly pink quilt moved again. She turned around and from under it emerged a half-closed pair of blue eyes. Just by seeing her sleepy eyes, Big Macintosh could feel she was smiling, although her mouth remained hidden. None could not answer to such a sweet smile.
In her own personal way, she was kind of pretty. It was a safe bet that being pretty was no part of her pastimes. If he considered how her little bedroom was decorated, said pastime rather had something to do with pastries, candies and parties. The first ones were not a problem. As for the last one… Less obvious. Especially when known that most of the parties happened at night and so did their watch.
“I’m going to head home”, he said with echoes of scruples resounding in his baritone voice.
“Why? You’re not obliged to go. You don’t annoy me by staying.”
With a real lover, they would have been faking. They would have played the act of love. But Pinkie Pie seemed to be conscious of the truth between them. No need to be faking anything. He cared for her but simply as a precious good friend. She knew it and did not hold it against him.
She did not try to cuddle up to him. She did not try to stroke his face, did not comment about what had happened. Rolled into a ball under her quilt, she looked at him with this smile that rarely left her face. Always innocent, despite it all.
“Why?”
He did not want to say it. Words had popped up without him to even realize, like water runs inside a stream.
All the same, it was true. Surely there was a reason about what had happened between them. Any friends did not stumble into these kind of quirks, at least not as far as he knew… Well, Applejack and Caramel were something else. Somewhere they always had been in love with each other. Since they knew each other since their earliest foalhood, all this time it had been almost natural for them to deny the truth.
Up until recently, of course.
Then Big Macintosh sobered up. This was not the first time it happened to him as well. Of course, it was different with her… With her, he had hoped. There was something for him, which felt like love. She, on the other hand, and he knew for sure now, had seen in him only a good friend in whom she could seek for some kind of physical comfort, from time to time.
His thoughts suddenly came back to Pinkie Pie, who was under his own eyes. In reality, the situation was incomparable. He had been wrong.
She was still smiling, imperturbable.
“I’ve helped Applejack wrapping the blindfold around Double Diamond’s eyes. It was painful, because we were friends. I don’t like when my friends leave. I wish I could make everypony smile.”
The memory, fresh, came back to his mind. It had been hard not to feel despondent after a morning such as the one they had been going through the day before. Double Diamond probably had one of the shortest stay in all of The Militia history. Barely a year.
Big Macintosh felt as if he still could feel his sister’s head against his shoulder, could still hear the tears that none him or Caramel had been able to ease down for hours. The guilt which had taken over Applejack had been hard to swallow. It was as if none of what he would say or do had the power to soothe her heart.
Smiles were far from being required in such circumstances.
“Everypony was sad today. Why did you invite me?”
She shrugged as if what she was about to say was nothing. Even if Big Macintosh knew it could not be nothing.
“Everypony assumes Pinkie Pie only thinks about laughing and having fun… Yet I also observe the others a lot to know how to make them feel happy. You were the only one sad even before we saw Double Diamond. I know this is because Rainbow Dash has found a very special somepony.”
The surprise was so huge it made Big Macintosh dizzy. No pony, he was sure… No pony had ever noticed his specific fondness of the pegasus mare. This feeling he could not determine and called “love” by default, he had concealed it with meticulousness.
It was not that hard to do when shy and placid like him. They were few able to discern the emotions he kept inside. His friends almost had all the decoding keys between their hooves, except for this one key. At least that was what he always thought.
Like many others before him, he had underestimated Pinkie Pie. He had only relied on her smiles, her jumps, her screams, her songs and items from out of nowhere. And on this darker side, also, which only expressed itself in very accurate conditions, and that it was best not to shake. But overall, he had let himself be fooled by what laid on the surface.
All shells could be broken. Sometimes, all you needed was a good hammer.
Big Macintosh did not comment, did not bring any precision. It did not matter in fact. She knew. Maybe she even had always known. Today a dyke had split up for good inside of him. First, he had swallowed back his vexation, his frustration. Proof was Rainbow Dash’s reaction each time he had chosen not to answer a glance she made at him, even intentionally. She never suspected anything. Hope had just lost its last petal. After that, the piece of information had gained ground, quickly. The one she had chosen seemed to accept who she was, to accept the weight of responsibilities it represented, to be who they were. No turning back. The best was to renounce and to accept.
“What would he think about that… the pony of the picture?”
Pinkie Pie hid under the quilt, her tinkling laugh choked by the wool. Why did he ask this question, Big Macintosh did not really know? Curiosity, maybe. A way to show her he had been observant as well.
“That’s not like that between us. Since he’s on the road a lot, I can’t see him very often. So we never ask each other questions about who we had met, except if they’re only friends, I mean friends who you do friendly things with, like… modeling clay. Have you ever done modeling clay? Because it’s super fun!”
She giggled again, still half-hidden under her quilt. Innocence incarnated. Pinkie Pie was like this. The only one able to answer to some serious topic with seriousness only to deviate on a detail out of the context, incongruous in view of its absence of continuity.
This was the reason of her charm. Undoubtedly what the pony of the picture might love about her to accept his marefriend to live her life without him. Some very possessive stallions would have none of it. He assumed it was only fair, after all, if he could do the same while away.
That was how he decided to stay. To make the most of a friend’s warmth and, before anything else, to make the most of this piece of innocence that had not been drowned within darkness and cold. As long as this small gleam would shine, hope of a better tomorrow would keep on piercing through.
He closed his eyes.
All shells could be broken. Even his.
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More than ever, Rainbow Dash needed it. A tenderness that was never challenged. Warranted, it led to no sensation of awkwardness or embarrassment. Most of the ponies were affectionate with their mothers. There was no reason for her to be the only one to avoid the rule.
It was her dread to make the same nightmare again that had led her here, after a restless sleep fitful by the unpleasant feeling to be suffocating. The morning before, she had brought herself to do what no Head liked to do. When it was dishonest gangsters, rapists or killers, she asked herself no questions. That was what she was here for. But when it was a friend…
She did not even want to think about the horror it would have been if the body had been one of her closest friends. Her foalhood friends, who were a part of her family. If of course, her misconducts with Big Macintosh were excluded, since it was not at all a healthy family behavior.
At the thought of it, she could not help it, Rainbow Dash blushed. Each time, she had wondered what had been on her mind. It still felt so strange. Like… kissing your cousin, or something like that. But she had been feeling lonely after Time Stellar’s death and in his own way, the stallion had displayed consideration. Never too ostentatious. So she had given in to the unthinkable, with a great deal of guilt each time it happened.
Undoubtedly, the worst had been when Applejack had guessed. She had been very scared that her best friend, her soul twin sister, would be terribly mad at her. But the mare had only spoke her mind about it.
Firefly quickly noticed something was wrong about her daughter. Her being so silent suddenly… Though she knew she had just been through a painful ordeal, she knew Rainbow Dash well enough to sense that something else was on her mind right now.
It was especially blatant since the moment before she was busy braiding her mother’s long blue mane, then, lost in her thoughts, she had suspended her actions.
“Dashie… Are you worried about something?”
“What?”, she asked out of her drowsiness.
“You look awkward.”
“It’s nothing, just… All that had happened recently’ve been trying for any of us.”
Firefly immediately turned around to look Rainbow Dash straight into the eyes. She often lied to them. She knew it and acted as if she did not. Inside of her, there was a will to protect the ones she loved which sometimes put up with details of this kind. Even with her closest friend, she never treaded that carefully. It gave the impression she thought her family was too fragile to handle such truths.
Yet, she had been told. As a foal, she had enjoyed the many stories of Firefly and Melrose back when they were royal bounty hunters and roamed all Equestria, looking for criminals to arrest. It never stopped Rainbow Dash from fearing they would not bear some facts. It was most likely that, if she had the chance, she would not even had talked to them about the real reason behind Double Diamond’s absence during the big family dinner they had once a month.
With Firefly and Uncloudy Shelter’s wedding anniversary coming around, things would probably not go for the better.
However, this time her lie was of a different kind. It was about something deeper, more personal, and this, Firefly could have bet on. She knew very well Rainbow Dash was embarrassed by love matters but she was her mother, after all. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
“Although I know it makes you sad, and angry too, I know you, Dashie… It’s not about Double Diamond. Is it because you FINALLY have found a new coltfriend?”
Immediate reaction: her cheeks turned as crimson as The Militia’s traditional cloak.
“How—How do you know? Is it Applejack? I swear I’ll kill her!”
“No, Melrose told me so. A very handsome, tall and athletic stallion, just like my Dashie”, she rounded off nuzzling her daughter.
“Mommy!”
“Oh, come on, stop fighting, I know you like cuddles in fact. As a baby, you used to purr with laughter each time you had little tickles on your stomach.”
Sometimes it was difficult for Firefly to realize her only child had grown up so much. She felt as if it was only yesterday since she learned how to fly with her father, had her first wooden sword and showed her desire to become of Pony of the Cavalry, her former dream.
Now she was a young mare frisky and passionate, with a very high code of honor and more responsibilities than Firefly ever had. She had been in mourning long enough and deserved to be happy now. As happy as she was herself close to her husband and this wonderful family built due to the circumstances.
“Come on, tell me everything… What’s his name? How did you choose him?”
Both had always been conniving given their similar character of “tompony”. The only difference was that her mother liked to know about such things as feelings while she, on the other hand, rarely took personal matters on, except occasionally with Applejack… They had spent a few nights exchanging secrets about their dreams and sometimes about stallions, hidden under the sheets so the confessions would remain as intimate as possible.
Rainbow Dash sighed and resigned.
“Soarin, that’s his name. He just asked me and I said yes, simple as that. To be honest, he’s rather silly sometimes… unless it’s called being clumsy. Something like that.”
She paused, tied her mother’s mane with a pink ribbon that fit her coat, before she ended:
“But I like the fact that’s the way he is. I think it is… refreshing. And after all, you told me you were surprised to see that daddy was so clumsy when you first met him!”
“Oh yes, it’s true”, Firefly answered, laughing. “He was a trotting disaster for a pony with such an implacable reputation. Maybe Soarin’s the stallion of your dreams… Who knows?”
Rainbow Dash immediately blushed even harder, and like quite often, she lowered her eyes to look at the floor, too ashamed to meet someone else’s eyes when such a topic was mentioned. Firefly found it sweet and funny… because she had been like her. In her youth, nothing embarrassed her more than sentimental conversations.
The door opened on Uncloudy Shelter, an oil lamp in his mouth that he put next to him as soon as he had trotted inside the room he shared with his wife.
“So, how are the mares of my dreams doing?”
In view of its close formulation with her mother’s words, the question, though insignificant, made Rainbow Dash feel even more awkward. As if they both had spread the word to each other – it was a possibility.
Uncloudy stepped closer, his huge shadow standing out on the wooden floor. He pecked his daughter’s cheek then sat down in order to let Firefly positioning herself on his back.
“It’s time to go for a little wander in the sky”, he said to her. “Ready?”
“To fly? Always!”
After a very difficult labor, Firefly had completely lost the use of her wings. When the Fratricide War had ended, life conditions had been really hard for a long time, more than what it was today. The various free clinics were closed or overpopulated with veterans in agony… The physician ponies were swamped and drops were plain, in stables or barns. With the lack of post-operative treatments, many mothers died in childbirth or delivered stillborn foals. In reality, it was not the end of the world that Firely had only suffered from a trauma that damaged her wings, now atrophied.
As a young filly and mare, she had enjoyed flying a lot. It was her favorite pastime and she would have given anything to be famous for her flying techniques. In fact, her Cutie Mark testified for this consuming passion that almost was a way of life. When she had learned, seeing Rainbow Dash growing up had been the only thing that had kept her from drowning. And Uncloudy Shelter always volunteered to make sure she would not miss it too much.
The latter, once his wife in security on his back, gave his daughter a glance full of benevolence while she was putting the hairstyling tools away inside the chest of drawers made for that.
“I’ve met Applejack who told me you guys had an exceptional assembly tonight… Is everything fine, Dashie?”
“Oh yeah. It’s just because of Double Diamond’s death, you know. Some kind of… wake.”
“Alright”, he said while emphasizing on the last syllables.
Rainbow Dash would have bet on it. Her parents knew something was going on. She often wanted to tell them the truth. And she held herself back because she remembered the oath she had made when she had become The Militia’s Head. “To protect with my life Ponyville and Equestria’s citizens from all the threats that could downpour on it”. She did not run all over the city to tell the ponies what they had luckily escaped on the previous night. Why would she consider her family like more than citizens she had to protect at the risk of her life?
The truth was that she did not want them to be concerned about her. They already had been through so many hardships… She would have feel bad to worry themselves sick. And, it was not as if they knew nothing about The Militia, and about how things were supposed to be. Spitfire lived with them. She could talk and talked with pleasure; no pony had to apply the Sacred Law as often as she did. Whether it was for The Militia or by Royal Decree. No pony. Not even Rainbow Dash.