//------------------------------// // A Nudge // Story: Grief is the Price We Pay // by Scyphi //------------------------------// The beach they were on was a largely unbroken stretch of white sand running along most of Vanhoover’s coastal side, but as it happened, near to their spot of the beach, there was a large and slanted outcropping of rock, jutting out from the white sands. It was about six feet wide, and at its highest peak was about ten feet tall. Thanks to continued wearing down from the lapping seawater and ponies scaling it over the years, its tip stretched out over the edge of the sea and save for a roughly pony-sized boulder that rested to one side of it, its top was relatively flat. Because the water directly below this edge happened to be several feet deeper than it typically was elsewhere along the coast on average—even at low tide—and free of any other dangerous obstructions, this outcropping of rock was often a popular spot for the older ponies to scale up and then jump off of, diving ten feet down into the waiting water below. By this time of day however, there were oddly few ponies around it at the moment, and as such, Thorax had paid little attention to it, especially as Fly Leaf and Spike had been sticking to the water directly in front of him, some tens of feet to the left of the rock. However, when he suddenly heard Spike calling for his attention, he looked up from his book and saw that, for the first time, the dragon had gradually moved downcoast until he floated near where the high edge of the rock dropped away into the water below. Wondering what Spike needed, Thorax set aside his book and wandered closer to the rock so to better hear Spike, but also maintaining a good distance from the water that lapped at the sandy beach. “What’s up?” he called back to Spike once the disguised changeling had drawn close enough that he stood virtually right next to this jagged outcropping. He glanced around and noticed their boss was absent. “Where’s Fly Leaf?” “She saw somepony she knew and went up the coast a bit to talk with them for a while,” Spike explained before getting back to his problem. “Anyway, I was playing with a beach ball when I threw it too high and it landed up on this big rock!” he continued, and pointed one claw at the top peak of the rock, mostly just out of sight from Thorax’s view where he stood. “Can you go get it for me?” Thorax glanced up at the peak then back at Spike. “Why can’t you?” he asked. “You’re closer,” Spike replied, which was only true now because Spike had first called Thorax over, but Spike was clearly overlooking this. “Please?” “All right, all right,” Thorax said and started to clamber up the outcropping at its base. “Up here, you said?” “That’s right! Should be right near the edge I think…it’s hard to see for certain from down here, though.” Though slanted as it was, the surface of the rock was largely level with enough divots pitted into its worn surface that Thorax figured that even if it wasn’t where Spike indicated, the ball wasn’t likely to have rolled far. However, after a minute of searching, he wasn’t finding it. “I’m not seeing it up here, Spike!” he called back down as he continued searching, but the relatively open peak didn’t have many places the ball could be hiding in. “I’m sure it’s up there!” Spike called up, having paddled a bit further out into the ocean so he could see Thorax’s head poking up above the edge of the peak. “Keep looking!” Thorax obeyed so to humor the purple dragon, but it quickly became clear it was a useless endeavor. “I don’t think it’s up here, Spike!” he called. He walked up to the edge of the peak to peer at his friend down in the water. Even though the disguised changeling was no stranger to heights, his leeriness of the seawater below made the drop feel dizzying. He instinctively gripped the rock face under his hooves tighter with the changeling grippers that enabled him to walk up walls. “Are you sure it even went up here?” “Positive!” Spike called back. “You sure you’ve looked everywhere? Maybe it rolled away someplace!” Thorax glared down at the dragon, confident the ball wasn’t here. “Spike, it’s not like there’s a lot of place—OOF!” He was cut short when, jumping out of an unknown hiding place while Thorax was distracted, Fly Leaf rushed up and threw her weight into Thorax’s rump, trying to give him a shove off the peak and into the waiting water below. But because Thorax had been discreetly gripping the peak’s edge with the grippers in his hooves, she was hardly able to budge him. Blankly, Thorax gazed back at Fly Leaf and her attempts to push him, then down at Spike who had begun to look guilty and was avoiding eye-contact, before finally glancing back at Fly Leaf. His blank gaze quickly started to turn into one of unimpressed annoyance. Meanwhile, Fly continued to try and push him over the edge unsuccessfully. “Sheesh, you’ve got really a good footing here, Thornton,” she muttered as she threw her whole body into the fruitless task, apparently oblivious to Thorax’s withering gaze. “…this was all a ploy to try and force me into the water, wasn’t it?” Thorax finally asked flatly. Fly looked up from her pushing at last and gave her employee an impish grin. “Is it really that obvious?” she quipped, trying to make light of the failure of the plot. “It was all Fly’s idea!” Spike called up in his defense, jabbing a claw up at the orange mare. “Yeah, but you were in on it!” Thorax fired back, shooting a glare down at the dragon. “What did you even hope to accomplish with this?” “Well, it worked for my sister in helping her overcome her fears of the water…” Fly began. “I’m not afraid of the water!” Thorax snapped. “It’s more about—well—uh—GRR! I just don’t feel comfortable getting in the ocean with all these other ponies around, all right? Can’t you two understand and respect that?” Fly and Spike exchanged guilty expressions. “Look, Thornton, we weren’t trying to be mean or anything,” Fly explained simply. “We just wanted to help you see you had nothing to worry about, so you could join in the fun.” “You’ve spent the whole time at the beach on your own, after all,” Spike added from down in the water. “You were left out of the group and all the fun…and that didn’t seem fair. We wanted you to be able to enjoy all of that too.” “And yeah, I got the idea that if we possibly gave you a…nudge into the water, you’d see there wasn’t anything to be afraid of,” Fly admitted. “Even though it didn’t work, that still probably wasn’t the best of ideas, and I apologize.” She put a hoof on Thorax’s shoulder. “But when I suggested going down to the beach today, I was really envisioning all of us doing it together and having fun as a group. You may be my employee Thornton, but I also consider you a friend, and Spike too. All I wanted to do was spend some friendly activities with you both…and that wasn’t happening while you were on the beach and we were in the water.” “Maybe we weren’t being very good friends by trying to force you to come with us into the water like we did, instead of trying to respect your fears and worries and maybe doing something instead you could have been comfortable with,” Spike continued in a heartfelt tone. “But at least we were being good friends in a way by trying to help you overcome your fears…and Thornton…I really do wish you could join us and have fun with us in the water too. It seems silly to let the fact it’s a little crowded stand in the way of that.” Thorax was silent for a moment, gazing back and forth between the two, but he could easily sense in their emotions the friendly concern and longing for him to be included, all demonstrating their good intentions, and it soothed the anger in his heart. With a sigh, he peered down at the water below him. “It really means that much to you two, huh?” he said softly. He saw Spike nod. “I guess I ought to be flattered you care that much then.” He leaned a little over the ledge to get a better look at the water far below. Just the thought of jumping into it sent a shudder down his spine and he involuntarily raised his gaze to peer worryingly at the other ponies frolicking on or near the beach. “It’s just…something that I can’t ignore though.” “If you really feel that strongly about it Thornton, we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to, and again I’m sorry if we made you feel like we were at any time,” Fly stated, stepping up so to be standing beside Thorax. She then made a sweeping motion out at the other patrons on the beach with her hoof. “But look at all of these ponies who have been out here messing around both on the beach and in the water just as long and as much as we have this whole time, and they’re all fine. Don’t you think that if there was really something that was going to harm them out there, it would’ve tried it by now?” Thorax saw her point, but he also knew she didn’t understand the full depth of Thorax’s fears, and that he had other fears to consider as a changeling in hiding that a pony wouldn’t. “But what if that threat’s just waiting for me to get into the water, where I’d be vulnerable?” he couldn’t help but utter out. Fly folded her front hooves and gave him a disbelieving look. “And why in all of Equestria would any pony want to do that, Thornton?” she asked bluntly. Thorax averted his gaze, knowing he couldn’t explain without revealing his true nature. But at the same time…he also didn’t really have a good answer. Assuming that his and Spike’s attempts to keep their true identities secret from the Vanhoover public had been successful thus far—and currently they had every indication that they were—then there really wasn’t any reason to expect any of these ponies present at the beach to do that. In fact, it now occurred to Thorax that letting himself be so leery of getting into the water would probably be more telling that he could be a changeling to onlookers than if he relented and swallowed his fears. “Even if there was a danger,” Spike added from down in the water as Thorax debated to himself. “You know you can trust us to help keep you safe from it…right?” Thorax peered down at the water and sighed again. “I do,” he admitted. “I really do.” He licked his lips, thinking to himself that maybe he was being a bit silly about this. And, being disguised as a unicorn, it wasn’t like he could rely on flying to escape should a threat arise anyway. He still felt a visceral tremor of concern shudder through him every time he thought of getting into the water though. He glanced over at Fly Leaf. “…you really think just jumping in and getting it over with will help?” he asked hesitantly. Fly smirked a little. “Well, it’d at least have the advantage of not giving you a chance to chicken out at the last second,” she pointed out. “That’s why it worked for my little sister.” Thorax bit his lip and pranced nervously in place, trying to keep the hidden grippers in his hooves from instinctively latching onto the rock under him while he leaned slightly over the edge of the outcropping of rock, working to find the nerve to just do it. “If you’re not comfortable with that though, I’m sure we could think of something else gentler we could try,” Spike suggested. “No, no,” Thorax said, shaking his head. “Miss Fly’s probably right, it’d probably be better to not give myself a chance to chicken out.” He leaned forward until gravity caused him to tip forward slightly, but he gulped and his front hooves scrambled on the rock edge to keep from falling. He let out a pitiful whine. “I just have to keep myself from chickening out long enough to even think about jumping.” “Thornton, if you’re really this uncomfortable about it, it’s not really that big of a deal,” Spike assured. “No, no…I think I need to do this,” Thorax assured as he tried again to leaned over the edge again, only to scramble back the moment he felt gravity start to take over. “…just as soon as I figure out how…” He yelped when one of his hooves finally slipped and Thorax found his front hooves falling out from under him, the front half of his body dropping down onto the edge and teetered warningly, ready to drop off the ledge entirely. The disguised changeling letting out a panicked shout, immediately tried to backpedal and regain his balance, but Fly took the moment to plant a gentle push to Thorax’s rump and at last he fell free of the ledge and plunged headfirst into the water below in a spectacular splash. Initially he shot down deep into the water in a sort of misshaped dive, but with a skill that proved he did indeed know how to swim, Thorax soon rocketed back up to the surface and his head burst out of the water, first to gulp in air, then to immediately thrash about in a panic. Spike quickly swam over to provide aide to his panicked friend, listening to him shout out what sounded like curses in multiple languages. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you!” he said, grabbing onto Thorax, supporting him. Thorax responded by immediately wrapping his forehooves around Spike in a death grip. “Get me out, get me out!” he pleaded, urgently treading water in a vain attempt to keep as much of his body out of the water as he could at a time, which wasn’t considerably much. Spike didn’t get a chance to respond before Fly Leaf leapt off the rocky peak and into the water herself. “CANNONBALL!” she yelled as she dropped, splashing into the water with an almighty clap of sound. It startled the already on-edge Thorax, and instinctively, he lit his horn and fired off a spell in the direction of the splash. Fortunately, his aim was off and Fly hadn’t surfaced yet, so the spell missed completely and struck the base of the rocky crag in a harmless shower of cyan sparks. But once Fly did surface, it only took a quick glance at Thorax’s masked face to see how terrified he was. He was also on the verge of pushing Spike under the water in his desperate attempts to try and push himself as high out of the water as he could, so Fly quickly swam over to help. “It’s okay Thornton, we’ve got you, you’re not in danger,” she said gently as she put her hooves on Thorax and so to take some his weight off of the beleaguered dragon. She was rewarded by Thorax wrapping a hoof around her in a death grip too, but being straddled between her and Spike did seem to get Thornton to start to thrash less. Spike repositioned himself so he wasn’t at risk of Thorax accidentally pushing him under anymore, but still be where he could render support for his friend while remaining in hoof’s reach. “Just calm down, Thornton,” Spike urged, adopting Fly’s calming tone too. “Take a deep breath and relax.” Thorax obeyed and took a few deep breaths. It seemed to help and gradually he settled down into a calmer state, better able to tread water to keep himself afloat under his own power so much so he didn’t really need Spike or Fly’s help for this anymore. But he didn’t relax his grips on either the dragon or the mare much, and his eyes continued to dart around, ever alert and fearing for some kind of danger to come and snatch him up. Spike let him do so for a moment before continuing. “So, you’ve been in the ocean despite your fears for about a minute now and nothing bad has happened,” he said. “What do you think?” Thorax thought for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He suddenly shuddered. “Water’s a little cooler than I expected,” he observed simply. Spike and Fly both laughed then started to direct Thorax away from the outcropping of rock and back towards their usual spot in the ocean. At Fly’s suggestion, they brought Thorax to slightly shallower water to let him further acclimate to being in the ocean. Here, the water was shallow enough that Thorax’s hooves could touch the sandy bottom to stand, but still be deep enough that the water covered his back, reaching up to his withers. Regardless, Thorax seemed a bit more comfortable with this arrangement because despite showing he knew perfectly well how to swim, he seemed to trust his ability to walk out of the water more than his ability to swim out of it, and liked having that option to just turn and run out of the water should he feel the need. However, he remained and bore through his instinctual desire to flee out of the water, and voluntarily joined in when Spike retrieved the beach ball from where he and Fly had truly stashed it to start up a simply game of catch. At first Thorax participated in the game with very rigid and calculated movements, and was easily distracted whenever he sensed something that wasn’t Fly or Spike move in the water nearby. He nearly went into another panic attack when an adventurous little fish, barely bigger than Spike’s pinkie, came up and playfully nibbled at the changeling’s disguised hooves. But as the day gradually wore on and the longer Thorax went in the water without coming to harm and further seemed to be at no risk of it, the more he began to relax. As noon rolled by, the changeling was soon getting actually rather playful and they had moved on to other water based activities, including one-on-one water volleyball, a game of Marco Polo where they all took turns as the seeker, and even a swimming race. At one point, Spike, seeing Thorax was growing increasingly less afraid of being in the water, challenged him in a race to swim out into deeper waters, almost to the very border of the established swimming safety zone, and Thorax readily followed…though at a cautious rate that caused him to lose the race. But upon returning to shallower waters, Thorax made it clear he was ready to do it all again. They also built a sand castle by the water, which Spike then destroyed upon completion in a silly reenactment of a cheesy monster film he had seen once. And as the tide went out later that afternoon, revealing a series of tidal pools nearby (and Spike fluent in tidal pool life thanks to a summer vacation some years back in which Twilight spent nearly the whole time studying tidal pools), Spike took Thorax, who was completely unfamiliar with tidal pools, from pool to pool giving him a tour of the life they found within, to the changeling’s utter fascination. Soon Thorax’s book and sun umbrella he had brought with him were forgotten, and the three instead spent their time together playing in and around the ocean lapping at the beach. In fact, to Spike and Fly Leaf’s amusement, when it started to grow late and it was time to start heading back for the shop, Thorax didn’t want to leave the water, despite shivering as the precursor chill of the oncoming evening started to settle on the beach. Regardless, he was eventually convinced, and the three collected their things and started the walk back home. Thorax was fairly quiet for the first part of that walk, but then finally he sheepishly spoke up again. “Hey Spike, Miss Fly?” he said timidly, getting their attention. He gave them a small grin. “About getting me into the water…thanks.” “Think nothing of it, Thornton,” Fly immediately stated, returning the grin. “I’m just glad you were able to join in all the fun.” “And I’m glad I didn’t let myself miss out,” Thorax added. And, all agreeing they had a fun day at the beach, they walked on, cheerfully chatting like the trio of friends they had become.