Chapter 6: “Maybe like… five stupid?"
Hiding behind a cone of chocolate swirl ice cream is much harder than it seems. I’m trying to cower in shame in the corner, but my new manecut makes that almost impossible. It took us forever to get out of that salon, both because Runway had to order every possible service they offered, and the sheer volume of attention just a handful of gossip mares can produce.
And somehow, probably because I was a puppy-kicking carton-drinker in a previous life, Runway frogmarched me into the nearest ice cream shop. According to her, I was being a “Grumpatron MK 5”.
The nearest ice cream shop, naturally, is the one I go to all the time, where everypony knows me personally. “So, Lightning…” one of the vendors says slowly, leaning over the counter and calling to me across the store. This has the rather undesirable effect of drawing the attention of all the other patrons, who had already taken their shots at my new look.
The manecut was inevitable, but I’m still not entirely pleased with it. They cut it much shorter than I like, and draped part of it over one eye. Which, being a professional flyer, obscured vision and I do not get along. And I don’t know what that prissasaurus did to it, but I can’t like, tuck it behind an ear, or move it out of the way at all. My tail looks like it went through the world’s gayest pasta machine. It’s all flat and sparkly. And the hair I have left on the back of my head has been braided and thrown over one shoulder.
To be honest, if I wasn’t so mad, I’d totally do me right now. “What do you want, Rocky?”
Rocky Road, the aforementioned softserve jockey, grins annoyingly over a half-empty carton of vanilla bean ice cream. “Did you uh, run facefirst into a glamour magazine? Or were you mugged by a bunch of disturbed Homecoming Queens? What’s the getup for anyway? I mean, what kinda mare you think you gonna land with a getup like that?”
“Your sister,” I reply dryly, all but shoving my face into my ice cream. Or, at least, I try too, until Runway stops me.
“WaitwaitWAIT!” she screeches. She looks like I was aiming a gun at a foal. Or her makeup bag. “You can’t ruin your makeup so quickly! The party’s not for another hour!”
I groan loudly as the surrounding tables snicker. “Runway, I love you, but I’m actually going to murder your legs off if you try to come between me and my ice cream again.” I try to laser vision her face off, but all that happens is a rather unpleasant glare.
She quickly pulls her hof away, but the panicked expression stays. “Ok, ok, but just be careful. DO you have any idea how expensive some of that stuff is?”
I feel an eyebrow twitch coming on. “NO. Please do remind me and MY WALLET how much money WE just spent because SOMEPONY left their bits AT HOME.”
She has the decency to look sheepishly ashamed. “I said I’d pay you back when we got home, I mean… I am sorry.”
I know she means it, and most of my tension dissolves. “It’s ok, I know you are. It’s not a big deal, I’m just really uncomfortable right now.”
She switches gears from apologetic to flippantly amused so fast I get whiplash. “Pffft, why? I mean, I’m straighter that most of the dicks I’ve had-”
“RUNWAY”
“-and I’m still totally into the new look. That eyeshadow is doing miracles for your eyes,” she finishes, completely ignoring the indignant shouting.
I slump a little in my chair. “Look, it’s just… you remember when I came out to our folks? How super douchey mom was about the whole thing?”
She frowned, somehow staying just as attractive as always. “Of course I do. Why do you think I don’t spend much time at home any more? I mean, they didn’t kick me out, but I still wasn’t happy about it. Where we goin with this?”
I let loose another sigh, which seems to be a developing habit of mine lately, and set my ice cream on the table. “Well, she didn’t kick me out right away. Her first reaction was to try to… cure me. She didn’t send me to like, a conversion camp or anything, but she tried shoving all this girly stuff down my throat. I mean, I still like makeup and perfume a little, but getting all dolled up, it feels like I’m a teenager all over again, with a mom who wouldn’t accept me, and a dad who wouldn’t stand up for me. I guess she thought if I was more like you that being straight would just… wear off on me, or something?”
I look up from my heart-spilling monologue to see an expression on Runway’s face not unlike that of someone who just tasted butt. Unintentionally, of course. I have to choke back a laugh, because I’m trying to be serious here. “Wow,” she says quietly. “that’s not how I remember it at all.”
“Runway...”
She waves a hoof. “No, I mean, I totally believe you. But mom always told me that you prettied yourself up like that to… well… be more like me. I guess I’ve just been dragging you around to all these girly thing every time we hang out cause I thought… I thought that’s what you liked. I had no idea she was trying to straightwash you like that.”
I raise an eyebrow, and suddenly a lot of stuff makes sense. I always wondered why she kept dragging me around when I wasn’t exactly cooperative. “Well, it’s not like it’s something I like talking about. You know?”
She crams a bite of ice cream in her mouth just as it’s her turn to answer. “No, I poally ge it.” Slight pause. Swallow. “No, I totally get it. It’s like, why would you keep bringing it up over and over? That’s like listening to your least favorite song on the album a bunch of times in a row on purpose. That’s like, infinity stupid. And I know your not infinity stupid.”
Another one of those sneaky smiles finds me. “Gee, thanks.”
“Maybe like… five stupid? Yeah, five is a good number,” she chides through another grin, quickly filled with more ice cream.
“Oh yeah? Better than like, fifty stupid. You’re totally fifty stupid.” My words come out like laughter, almost, and I feel five years old again. In the good way.
She pokes me with her spoon just as I’m trying to take a bite, right in a ticklish spot, and chocolate swirl goes all over the table. “Oh you are so dead!” I yell, and tackle her out of the booth.
Of course forgetting that we’re in public, but most of the store doesn’t seem to mind. After all, I’m just the kind of mare that would surround herself with ponies that would see two sisters wrestling on the shop floor and start yelling “Twin fight! Twin fight!”
We giggle like idiots as we wrestle in front of a small crowd, at least until a very familiar “AHEM” breaks up the noise.
I don’t even have to look to see who it is, my whole body sits up in attention, and I reflexively push my sister comically to the side, where she lands back in the booth with a loud “BRRF.”
As I expected, my Captain is standing just feet from our table. “Captain Spitfire, ma’am!”
She gives me a quizzical look. “You know, of all of my cadets, I can think of maybe three -EVER- that I go out of my way not to ask them what the hell they’re doing. You, of course, are one of them. So please understand that it’s with the utmost morbid curiosity that I ask: What the flying sideways buck are you doing?!”
As if on cue, Runway pops her head up. Before she can say… words, I answer, “Ma’am, this is my twin sister, ma’am!”
Spitfire’s expression goes from firm Captain’s disapproval to amused coyness. “Oh. And here I thought it was something inappropriate.”
“Uh, Captain?” I ask tentatively.
She waves a hoof. “At ease, rookie. I’ve got family, too.”
I almost collapse with relief. Then, of course, Runway has to say things. She leans in next to me, and says in a rather obvious stage whisper, “Hey sis, who’s the power lesbian? Does she have a-”
“RUNWAY.”