//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Princess Cadance's Lonely Hearts Club Land // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// “Life is really weird sometimes, you know?” Crop Duster leaned forwards with her hind legs tucked together, and shifted her weight to her front hooves, which rested against the floor. “I mean, I come to the Crystal Empire, I get married to a stranger while I am stone cold sober, and now, I am about to drink hard liquor with my dustpuncher husband. That’s a book of some kind, I’m sure of it. Would this be a comedy?” Behind her, her tail had spilled out in a beautiful, messy, curly mass. “There is something wrong with me, Mister Mustache… I am actually more scared of what I’m about to do right now than jumping into bed with you.” With his good front leg, Furious poured a generous portion into the two waxed paper drinking cups that sat between him and his wife on the floor. “Now, the ‘Bird, the Mockingbird, it ain’t no sippin’ tequila. You gotta drink all of it all at once, or else the ‘Bird’ll get ya. It’s mean and that’s how we like it on the prairie.” “I love listening to you talk,” Crop Duster said in a voice filled with hesitation, fear, and doubt. She looked down at the paper cup that was filled almost halfway with the glistening golden liquid and her eyes lingered for a time before making the journey back up to look at her husband. Reaching out with her wing, she touched the withered side of his face and her primaries came to rest on the scar that protruded out from beneath the the eyepatch. “You walked out the door without it…” “And scared a few decent sorts afore I remembered to slip it back on,” he added. Her soft touch lingered and she leaned forwards a bit, still fearful, still worried. In a rare moment of softness, Furious leaned into her touch and her soft feathers slid over the withered, pinched half of his face. They were close now, real close, deep within each other’s personal space, the great undiscovered territory. “It’s funny how feelings can change.” Crop Duster’s words were almost, but not quite, a whisper and her primaries slid over Furious’ scarred, taut cheek. “I know in the back of my mind that I should be repulsed by this, and I probably would be, but I’m kind of getting to know you and I might be starting to have some feelings for you, and now, when I look at this and even when I am touching this, my nethers don’t clench up and hurt in that weird way. I just feel bad for you, that it happened to you. It’s funny what empathy can do. Your poor face…” Looking into her eyes, Furious saw twin violet pools of sympathy. His one eye darted left, then darted right, trying to take in both, and he felt a stirring within his barrel. The sound of her breathing was now important, it was of immeasurable value to him and his ears strained to listen. Her soft touch inflamed him and left him with a burning desire to pull her close. His slow, shuddering breath was the only hint of his struggle to be a good pony, and he was determined to let her come to him. Moving with the special brashness that was unique to pegasus ponies, Crop Duster lifted up her paper cup with her other wing and held it up in front of Furious. He did the same and something of a makeshift toast took place and they continued to stare into each other's eyes, which were now watering from the tequila that was strong enough to almost singe their noses. She giggled now, a nervous but happy giggle that caused the tequila in her paper cup to slosh. “Wait, we have to say something witty!” Furious paused. “What?” “We should say something witty so we’ll remember this.” Crop Duster let out a giggle that dared to transcend the boundaries of lewdness and with her eyes bright and merry she said, “Here’s to the hole that never heals, the more I rub it the better it feels!” “Honey darlin’, that’s lewd.” Furious’ eye narrowed and his cauliflowered ears almost drooped. “Those books yer reading, they’s worrying me a bit.” He chuckled, because what else could he do, and then he raised his own paper cup in salute. “The dustpuncher’s code… here’s to lying, cheating, stealing, and drinking… if you’re going to lie, lie for a friend. If you’re going to cheat, cheat Death and dry gulch that bastard. If you’re going to steal, steal a heart. If you’re going to drink, drink with me.” “Okay!” Crop Duster lifted her cup to her lips and never looked away from Furious… Tilting her head back just a bit, she poured the cup of tequila down her throat just as Furious did the same. Grimacing a bit, Furious endured the burn, but Crop Duster didn’t. She exploded in a flurry of movement and began bucking around the room while snorting and whinnying. She did a few straight leg leaps, pronked, bounced over the bed, bounced on the bed, flapped her wings, and then let out wheezing pants while her tongue dangled from the side of her mouth. All of this movement, all of this sudden activity meant that she could no longer squeeze her hind legs together, and in mid-pronk began a trumpeting, brassy blast, which showed no signs of stopping any time soon. She fell to the floor, landing with a clattering of hooves, and then stood there with her fanny flugelhorn squealing out a wavering, tail-fluffing note. At the ten second mark or so, Furious dropped his paper cup and Crop Duster’s eyes went wide with alarm. After another fifteen seconds or so, the impromptu concert ended on a high note. After a nervous licking of her lips, Crop Duster only had one thing to say: “Tada.” Furious fell over as if he’d been poleaxed, clutched his sides, squeezed his eye shut, and then began to laugh. Confused, Crop Duster watched him with wide, fearful eyes, which were now tearing over from the powerful sulphurous stench, a miasma that was redolent with the nasal-wrecking, nostril-clenching reek of rotten eggs. “Sakes alive!” he whooped as he rolled over and his laughter was now peppered with fits of coughing. Reaching out with his bent foreleg, he grabbed the bottle of Mockingbird Tequila, placed it to his lips, and took a long pull to help himself recover. After swallowing, he panted and fanned his face with his wing. “That’s it?” Crop Duster asked and she appeared to be baffled. She flapped her own wings, trying to fan the stink away, and she shook her head while tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, that was a bad one… a real eye burner… ugh!” She sucked in a deep breath and then in an almost angry voice she made her feelings known: “I almost feel offended! I’ve been holding that in for who knows how long and I endured all of that pain and suffering and cramping and I was trying to do what you said about being honest and so I was letting that build up and you don’t even seem phased by it!” “Oh, you’ll have to do better than that,” Furious replied while he set the bottle down on the floor. “I done flew down the throats of brimstone burning twisters from Mount Maud. Yer a bad one, I’ll give ya that, but you ain’t no witch of the wind that burns my hide and leaves me covered in blisters.” “Ugh! Why am I so angry?” Crop Duster stomped her hoof and then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Blisters?” “Some kind of rotten egg acid in the twister,” Furious drawled and he looked up at his flustered bride with a grin. “Ya gots a powerful stink, girly, I’ll admit it, but you’ll have to try harder if’n ya want to chase me away.” His words made her stomp both of her front hooves against the floor and her tail swished from side to side in a most fetching manner. “It was a good effort, but next time, put some feelin’ into it—” “Oh, shut up!” She bit her lip for a moment and kept making little stomps of annoyance. “I feel insulted and I don’t know why! It’s driving me crazy!” Deep furrows appeared across her forehead and she stomped over to where the bottle of Mockingbird stood on the floor. She stared down at it, her face contorting with frustration, anger, and hurt. “This is a condition that defines my life and it affects everypony that shares my life with me. And you… you… you don’t even seem phased by it! I spent all of this time worrying and fretting and fearful and crying and there was so much buildup and I sweated and I… I suffered! My suffering has defined my life up to this point and you… and you… you…” Her words failed to come but her mouth kept moving for a time until at last the energy of anger failed her. Now, her lips puckered into a pout that left her lower lip protruding. “I’m sorry, honey bunches, but if’n you want to stink me out, you’ll have to try harder.” “Oh, I will!” she snapped. “If it is the last thing I ever do, I’m going to run you out of a room!” “Good luck with that, darling.” He waved at the bottle with his crooked leg. “Have a drink, you’ll feel better.” Reaching out her foreleg, she snatched up the bottle in her fetlock and lifted it. Trembling with anger or maybe rage, she stared at her husband while he lay on the floor and her violet eyes glittered with both tears and emotion. The stench still lingered like an unwelcomed guest determined to stay. Raising the bottle, she had this to say: “Here’s to nipples, without them, teats wouldn’t have a point.” Stomping, she took a swallow, then another, and struggled to get down the third. When she pulled the bottle away, she coughed, hacked, and sputtered from the burn. “That’s dirty—” “Yeah it is!” Crop Duster bellowed while she did a full body shimmy from the burn. “The sailors always had dirty toasts they said when they drank wine with the maiden they were about to ravish… and I remember just about all of them!” “Yer like a smut… whatchamacallit, a smut carne sewer… I think it’s some kind of burro word, I can’t remember.” Reaching up, he pulled the bottle away from his still sputtering bride, angled his head just right, and took a long, long drink. Then, when he was done, he made the ‘tequila is burning my innards’ face and almost swallowed his own mustache. Squinting one eye, Crop Duster cocked one hind leg out at a rough forty-five degree angle and let rip. Her ears drooped, but relief could be seen on her face while a squeal—muffled by her tail—began to warm up for a crescendo. “Oh, that feels so much better when I don’t have to hold it in.” The entire time she spoke her crepitation continued to gain both volume and force, the pressure of that which was expelled caused her tail to ripple in an obscene wind. “Nuts and gum,” Furious swore when his eye began to water. The blast continued and Crop Duster began to kick her cocked-out leg, trying to release as much of the built up pressure as possible. Whole seconds passed but the rancid wind remained strong, unyielding, having peaked in volume. With the tushy trumpet still blowing strong, Furious passed the bottle of Mockingbird to his bride. “That’s gotta be about a good seven point something on that rectum-damn-near-killed-’em earthquake scale thingy that sometimes I hear talked about,” he said while she took the bottle. “How does it go for so long?” With a howling shriek, the Tartarian torrent coming from the now promoted tushy tuba ended and Crop Duster began fluffing out her tail, trying to shake the stink out while still gripping the bottle her husband had given her in her fetlock. “I feel like I wasted my time being so scared of this moment,” she grumbled while the foul miasma assaulted the walls of the hotel room, finding the hidden places that would ensure that it would never leave long after Crop Duster had checked out. Then, she took a long pull on the bottle, guzzled some down, and almost choked. Her wings began with some wild flapping and she would have dropped the bottle had Furious not caught it the moment that it tumbled from her grasp. She whooped and wheezed, her eyes wide and watery, a victim of the Mockingbird’s dreadful assault. “Whew!” Crop Duster suffered a powerful shivery-shudder that caused a sharp, muffled hiss from her backside that ruffle-fluffled her tail. “Here’s to colon bowling! That’s a strike!” Clutching the bottle, Furious crawled away on the floor, shaking his head, and dragging his hind legs behind him. “That ain’t no innocent little fluffy butt dumpling, that’s a turd honkin’ fer the rightaway, boy howdy!” “Thanks, Mister Mustache… I feel better.” Swaying just a little, Crop Duster giggled. “Say, you want to head back out and have a little fun on the town? I feel so warm and happy now… like I want to sing and tell the whole world how happy I am.” “Some time outdoors sounds fine—” “Then let’s not waste another moment and let’s go! I feel great! Let’s have an epic adventure!”