“So then, to add a final cherry on top of that nightmare, I end the field trip by confusing a Ponet painting for a Rembridle in front of the entire class!” Poppy explained, laughing softly as she ended her story with what she assumed was a fairly amusing anecdote. Thunder Crackle just kind of stood there with a blank look completely failing to grasp why the joke was funny or the story interesting. Poppy took immediate note of this and prematurely terminated her laughter, choosing instead to clear her throat awkwardly. “I uh…guess you had to be there?”
“Yeah sorry it’s just, I’m not that big an art buff… or an art buff at all really, so I don’t even know who those ponies are,” Thunder Crackle apologized.
“It’s alright. I probably wouldn’t know the finer points of super storm busting either… although way more ponies would probably find your story more exciting,” Poppy admitted.
“Hey, if it makes you feel any better I have days where I wish I did something nice and calm like painting for a living,” Thunder Crackle offered as a catering pony rolled in a cart of freshly baked pastries and started cutting up pie slices to be arranged on the table next to which they were talking.
“Really?” Poppy replied, brightening a bit.
“Yeah! I mean, not often, but they exist. Like... maybe once every four months or something… maybe,” Thunder Crackle slowly dwindled, proving somewhat insufficient at all this reassuring business.
“Hmph,” Poppy responded with a slight frown. Her eyes briefly diverted up and to the side before her face lit up again. “Ooh, okay then! How about the time Chappy and I almost got thrown in prison?”
“Pfft, what?!” Thunder Crackled laughed incredulously.
“Yeah! Chappy actually got arrested but then... oh, uh… maybe I shouldn’t be telling this story,” Poppy stopped with a faint blush of guilt.
“Your call, but it sounds like an interesting one,” her companion added with a mischievous grin.
Poppy paused for another moment thinking it over before the smile crept back onto her face. “Weeeeell I guess if I edit out some details it would be okay.”
“Alright then, spill it!” Thunder Crackle encouraged, intrigued by what sort of antics that could lead to as calm a couple as them getting in trouble with the law.
“Hehe alright! Well it all started when Chappy was up really, really late trying to finish something by the dead... line,” she began before catching sight of the stallion in question and Cirrus Blazer engaged in a bit of discussion over by the punch table at the other side of the lawn. “Oh hey look at that! Our boyfriends are actually talking!”
Thunder Crackle blinked at the sudden topic shift before glancing over as well. “Oh yeah, that’s good. Maybe they’ll smooth out the wrinkles a bit. Didn’t sound like they hit it off too well in line, from what you told me.”
“That would be nice, then we could all hang out together!” Poppy added happily. However the faces of bother mares fell slightly when both of their beaus turned and glared down an interloper before resuming their discussion. Upon closer look the expressions they wore did not suggest anything becoming at all smoother.
“Oh, okay. Never mind,” Thunder Crackle said with a grimace.
“I should go over there I think,” Poppy said, taking a step before her friend stuck out a wing to stop her.
“No no no, trust me. I’ve seen plenty of stuff go down, and injecting a mare into that kind of situation almost always escalates things,” she explained quickly. It didn’t take long for the stallions to finish talking, and then stare each other down before Blazer grabbed Chappy by the collar.
“How about now? Can it escalate any further than that?!” Poppy asked urgently before Thunder Crackle responded with a grim nod. She growled in frustration and looked around, laying eyes at the uncut pies on the cart next to them.
“Uh, wait! Hey!” the catering pony piped up as she grabbed one.
“Fine then, if I can’t inject myself into the situation I’ll inject something else!” Poppy proclaimed before letting fly the fruit filled pastry.
——
“Hope you’re ready for an assault charge,” Chappy said dryly as he kept staring down the stallion that literally had him by the throat.
“Like you could afford any lawyer, let alone one better than mine,” Blazer taunted before the left half of his head suddenly disappeared beneath a mess of crust and fruit filling in a now somewhat bent aluminum pie tin, leaving both stallions mutually surprised and wide eye after the impact.
——
“Hey! Don’t throw pies at my boyfriend!” Thunder Crackle retorted indignantly after the unexpected display of pie marksmareship.
“Are you seriously getting mad at me when your boyfriend was about to-you know what? Fine, let’s just make it even!” Poppy snarled before grabbing another pie.
——
“What just happened?” Blazer asked perplexedly as bits of apple stuffing oozed down the side of his head.
“That was a pie,” Chappy didn’t so much answer as state his realization aloud. He turned to look in the direction from which the pie had come before his vision was suddenly and completely compromised by the bulls-eye impact of another flying confection, leaving another ruined pie tin skewered on his horn. “As was that,” he noted, voice muffled by the mass of baked goods on his face.
——
“And while we’re at it!” Poppy added, now thoroughly beyond the point of return on her pie chucking rampage as she grabbed a third despite the catering pony’s increasingly agitated protests.
——
“I’m sorry about all the comments earlier Sky Chirp. I admit I might just be down because of what’s been happening, and maybe I’m taking that out on you unfairly,” Star Beam began in apology.
“You think?” Sky Chirp deadpanned, having been left to talk with her ailing friend whilst Thunder Crackle and Poppy were off having a good time.
“I just want you to know that it’s coming from a good place though. We’re living in an unrepentantly mare-hostile world and we need to stick together against the oppression forced on us by all stallions and their inherent all consuming power,” she continued.
“Never mind the fact that the highest authority in the land and her sister are both mares,” Sky Chirp noted.
“Oh they’re just figure heads. You’ll see, when all the slovenly piggish stallions have been forced from society as they so rightly deserve-”
Sky Chirp’s eyes widened briefly as she saw something interesting a ways in the distance. She remained silent and retained her resolute expression however. Star Beam failed to notice the change on her friend’s face, so caught up was she with her explanation.
“-everything will fall into place, all problems will be swiftly solved, and everything will be bright and beautiful again without the scourge of equine kind known as stallions arou-” She was swiftly interrupted by a precision thrown apple pie hitting her square in the back of the head, leaving her to sit there with a stunned and horrified look on her face for a solid six seconds. The look of shock then turned into a scowl at the friend sitting across the table from her. “You saw that coming. Why didn’t you say anything?!”
“Oh I don’t know, might have something to do with the single father and three older brothers that raised me, and how I love them all dearly,” she replied in mock contemplation, complete with diverted eyes and a hoof placed thoughtfully upon her chin.
——
“Wow…you’re good at that,” Thunder Crackle said, her ire at her boyfriend having been pied overwhelmed by the sheer force of how impressed she was at Poppy’s aim.
“Yeah, wow, thanks! I’ve never even practiced before now!” Poppy replied cheerfully.
“FOOD FIGHT!” a certain pink party stallion shouted out of nowhere, prompting both mares’ eyes to shoot wide open.
“Wait! No! I wasn’t trying to start a food fight!” Poppy called out in a desperate bid to halt what she had so unwittingly started.
“NOPETOOLATETHREE'STHELIMITFOODFIGHT!” the overly bubbly voice repeated. Somewhere in the crowd another pie hit an expensive dress, causing a mare to cry out in surprise and then retaliate. Then as the dominoes quickly fell, the air steadily filled with shrieks, laughter, and edibles of all sorts. Poppy and Thunder Crackle glanced worriedly at one another before taking off towards the tables, barely dodging out of the way of a barrage of bundt cake slices.
By sheer force of luck, the first wave of bored ponies that opted to join in on the confectionery conflict and start throwing whatever food was near at hoof hit Blazer far more than the already blinded unicorn in his grasp. The sheer concentration of food firepower broke the pegasus stallion’s focus and Chappy soon found himself with front hooves back on the ground, free of Blazer’s grip. He stumbled a few steps while still completely blind, hearing a few bits of food whizz past his head before he finally managed to partially regain his sight by dislodging the pierced pie pan off his horn with a strong shake. Noting that he suddenly had to squint more than usual, he realized his glasses had come off in the mush that had once been a proper apple pie, and bent down to retrieve them just in time for a cup of punch to fly through the air right where his head had been.
“Just keep running, I’ll flip over one of those tables!” Thunder Crackle took to the air and zipped on ahead as Poppy kept running, keeping low instead of pitting her comparatively lesser flying skills against the unpredictable battle going on around them. The super storm buster dodged and wove through a dense beignet hell and for a few seconds it looked as though she would weather the storm of strudel, but all hope was dashed as she was blindsided by a baklava. Landing briefly to try and get the bits of chopped nuts off her face, she didn’t stand a chance as a cherry pie tore through the air and struck her on the side just behind her wing, knocking her off balance and horribly staining her dress.
“No! Thunder Crackle!” Poppy cried out as she saw her friend cut down.
“Don’t bother, I’m done for! Keep going!” she ordered, stumbling a few steps while looking back at the grievous red stain on her dress. A second cherry pie impacted with her shoulder and sent her tumbling to the ground as red fruity filling and chunks of cherry flew everywhere in a grisly display of imminent overspending on dry cleaning and stain removal.
Still staying low, Poppy made sure that her friend’s tragic sacrifice would not be in vain, managing to get herself and her expensive dress over to the tables. She picked one out at the edge of the prom grounds and flipped it over, forming somewhat adequate cover behind which she could hide until the chaos she’d unwittingly unleashed died down. Risking a peek over the edge, she spotted her boyfriend wandering around seemingly looking for her, a pair of apple filling covered glasses floating nearby as he squinted as hard as he could.
“Chappy!” she shouted while waving her hoof, prompting his ears to perk up as his gaze snapped over to her. He started towards her at a trot, but then Poppy saw a pony in the crowd behind him with her eyes locked on the grey unicorn, a large slice of strawberry cake held maliciously in her hoof. “Behind you!”
Chappy turned to see the airborne pink pastry approaching, but it was stopped dead by the grip of a magical blue aura that destroyed its momentum before unceremoniously dropping it to the ground so that the unicorn responsible could duck behind the table with his marefriend, completely ignoring the cries of “CHEATER!” behind him.
“Thanks Poppy, I don’t know what the buck is going on!” he said, eyes focused on his glasses as he starting magically levitating all the sticky bits of pie off of them.
“I threw a pie at Blazer and now everything’s out of control and Elusive is going to kill me!” she wailed, holding her head in her hooves.
“What?! So you threw a pie at Blazer and then somepony else threw one at me, then obviously a third pie was thrown or else the food fight never would’ve triggered,” Chappy deducted as he gave one final squint at his glasses to check for anything he’d missed.
“Wait, how do you know that?” Poppy asked while looking up at him with a raised eyebrow.
“The third thing is always the thing that is different or interesting, as it takes a minimum of two previous things in order to set a pattern which you can then break with the third thing,” he explained as he put his glasses back on and blinked a few times. Things looked clearer though still a bit blurry from pie filling.
“This isn’t one of your books Chappy, or any book! Also yes that was totally some other pony that threw the other two,” she agreed with a scrunch faced side eyed ‘I threw two other things’ expression.
“And why would Elusive kill you anyway? Even if everypony here is wearing his merchandise they’ve already paid for it!” he asked further while sneaking a peak over the side of the table, letting out a small exclamation as he intercepted a blueberry pie that had been flung his way.
“You don’t know Elusive as well as I do…”
——
Subi looked at her boss with concern. They’d been burning some of the midnight oil trying to catch up on orders that had been temporarily set aside to finish the prom rush, and suddenly the white coated stallion had dropped everything he was working on and had gripped his head with a pained expression. “Uh…Elusive…are you alright?” she asked tentatively.
He slowly let go of his head and looked out a nearby window with a grave daze to his eyes. “It’s as if trillions of tiny little fibers cried out in terror, and were suddenly stained a garish color that in no way matches or complements the rest of their respective ensembles…”
——
“We should probably not stick out as a big target and hide under a different table,” Chappy recommended as he magically caught a pecan pie to go along with the blueberry pie.
“Right,” Poppy agreed before they waited for the attention of the various combatants to shift away from them long enough to sneak to an adjacent table that would be less conspicuous.
“If anyone finds us here we’re at least packing heat,” he said as he set the pecan pie in front of her, keeping the blueberry for his own defense.
Poppy sighed. “This would be so much more fun if I hadn’t seen how much you paid for these,” she mused sadly as she looked down at the dress she was wearing.
“Not for me, ponies with glasses can’t exactly enjoy the sort of fun that involves getting things thrown at your face,” Chappy pointed out, the couple wincing as some errant hors d'oeuvre landed on the top of their table.
“Oh yeah, breaking your glasses wouldn’t be very fun,” she replied with a nod.
…
“Maybe this whole thing really was a bad idea like you said. I can’t even decide if I pushed this for us, or to prove somepony else wrong anymore. I’m sorry I roped you into this,” she apologized while looking down guiltily at her pecan pie.
“Nope,” he answered immediately. She looked back up to see him looking out intently, unable to see through the tablecloth but still listening closely for events on the outside. “You didn’t rope me into anything. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve put my hoof down and not come. So I don’t accept your apology in the slightest, and you know what else? Maybe this idea turned out badly, but I’m still going to the Prance Prance Revolution tournament like we were talking about. If you’re doubting yourself, you can stay home and I’ll tell you about it when I get back.” He ended his reply with a sidelong look at her and a small smirk.
She was silent a few moments but then smiled and place her hoof on his. “Well if you’re going to be like that about it I guess I’ll have to just go along with you.”
“Guess you will.”
They waited a while longer, until the shrieks, wails, and laughter had died down to a series of various murmurs. It seemed the coast was relatively clear, and they prepared to emerge from their hiding spot when something strange happened that made them reconsider. Even the casual voices had died down, and there was the audible sounds of hoof falls closing in and spreading out around them.
“We know you’re in there! Come out and get what’s coming to you!”
“You don’t start a food fight and then just get away with it mess free!”
“You spoiled that whole book for us you big grey jerk!”
“Come out and we’ll open fire!”
“Don’t you mean come out or we’ll open fire?”
“No.”
The two hiding ponies looked at each other wide eyed before Chappy sighed and his horn lit up.
“I guess this was inevitable,” he muttered just loud enough for Poppy to hear as as the two pies floated into the air and were magically divided into eight pieces each.
“I’m not going down without a fight,” Poppy nodded with determination as she unfurled her wings and put four pecan slices on each, ready to be flung in a single delicious shotgun strike of pie.
“Not that it’ll make much difference, they’re all probably a mess already,” Chappy noted as his eight blueberry rounds of ammunition orbited him.
“Yeah but this is still more fun,” Poppy replied.
“Probably. Table’s up in three, take the ones on that side and I’ll take the ones on this side.”
“Got it.”
Three seconds later the crowd was shocked when the table glowed blue and shot up into the air. In their last stand, the two ponies managed to make a few blue and caramel colored marks on a few dresses and tuxedos. But the odds were simply overwhelming, and when the surprise wore off, the counter attack came. That was the last that anypony heard from them…
…until they had gotten all the food off of their faces. Talking through several layers of cake is kind of hard.
——
“Well, at least I get paid the same,” Flash Charge moped, trying to find a bright side in the sudden complete lack of couples wanting their pictures taken. It wasn’t very exciting work, but he still enjoyed getting just the right composition even for something so mundane as prom pictures. “Might as well pack it up.”
“Excuse me!” a mare called out as she approached with what he assumed was her prom date.
“Yes, miss?”
“Are you still taking pictures? We’d like to get one,” she explained with a bright smile on her face as Chappy caught up. He was no pegasus when it came to sprinting after all… or a pegasus at all, for that matter.
“Oh? That’s surprising, most everypony didn’t seem interested in getting a picture of themselves right after that ruckus, but sure. My stuff’s still all set up, just take your spot under that arch,” he replied while pointing to the arch in question.
“Hee, thank you!” she beamed, wings briefly lifting her off the ground as they flapped with excitement.
“You sure about this, Poppy?” Chappy asked whilst they made their way to the arch.
“Yes. I don’t care if we’re a mess, I want something from tonight to put on our mantle,” she affirmed enthusiastically.
“Alright now, that’s a good pose. Just inch over a smidge to the left… no, my left… perfect!” Flash Charge directed before setting up his camera and then moving behind it to peer through the lens finder for some last minute adjustments. “And smile for the camera!”
They did smile, but Poppy decided that the perfect addition would be a peck on her boyfriend’s cheek as the flash of the camera went off.
After giving the photographer pony an address to which their developed pictures could be sent, the young couple couldn’t help but notice that the party seemed to be winding down. A great many of the attendees had seen fit to take off early to grieve the heinous staining of their fancy dress clothes, leaving a bunch of ponies that couldn’t be bothered to care, the catering staff still scrambling about trying to fix everything, and one DJ who would go on to tell her room mate how the prom turned out to be way less lame than she had anticipated.
“Got your picture taken huh?” Thunder Crackle asked as she approached them, still bearing the large assortment of cherry pie stains she’d suffered earlier.
“Yep!” Poppy answered with a smile and nod.
“Heh, well suit yourselves I guess. I didn’t want to, considering how I look right now,” She looked back at herself with a brief grimace. “Anyway, me and Blazer are taking off and I figured I’d stop by and give you my mailing address. Write me sometime huh?” she continued, pulling a piece of paper from her saddlebag and offering it to her.
“I sure will Thunder Crackle, thanks! Say hi to Sky Chirp and Star Beam for me,” Poppy added before the two mares met in a friendly parting hug. “Have a good night!”
“Thanks, you too!” With that she took to the air again and departed, leaving the two alone again.
“Star Beam too?” Chappy asked with a raised eyebrow when Poppy’s new friend was out of earshot.
“Just being polite…besides, when she gets over the break up she might just be an okay mare for all we know. Now let’s go get my saddlebag. It’s been wonderful but I think I’m ready to go home, take a nice bath, and lounge around the house for the evening,” she said shortly before a soft yawn escaped her.
“That is the best thing you’ve said all night,” the grey unicorn agreed with a somewhat tired smile. After picking up their things they took one last look back at the slowly resolving prom and then made their way out the front gate heading to town.
“Hrm… maybe we could stop someplace for a bite to eat at one of those places that’s still open this time of night?” Poppy asked.
“What? You’re hungry?” Chappy replied incredulously.
“I could eat… none of the stuff they were serving was very appetizing after so much of it was thrown at us and all.”
“Oh, yeah. Good point…how about-”
“HEY CHAPPY! HERE’S YOUR PUNCH!”
“What the-” the grey unicorn started before being brutally cut off by a red hoof punching him in the side of his jaw. His head recoiled, his glasses went flying off his head, and he stumbled back a few futile steps before his brain decided to hang up the out of order sign, letting the rest of him collapse onto the grass.
“And see? I actually brought punch, it wasn’t just a pun about beating some sense into your worthless skull!” Cirrus Blazer said cheerfully, briefly shaking the impact pain out of his hoof before using the other to pour a cup of punch right onto Chappy’s head. “Yeah, good stuff isn’t it? Enjoy that, buddy.”
…
“Hello?”
…
Blazer poked the unicorn’s still form and then immediately started laughing. “Pfft hahahaha! Wow, you got knocked the buck out from that little tap? What a bucking gelding!”
“Get away from him!” Poppy shrieked as she rammed headlong into her former friend and stood over her boyfriend defensively, wings raised and teeth bared aggressively.
“Whoa whoa whoa, easy there Poppy! This was just between me and him, and judging from all the being conscious he’s not doing, I think it’s pretty safe to say I won. So that’s awesome. But something tells me you’re probably not going to want to talk to me ever again, seeing as I just dropped what could generously be referred to as your 'boyfriend' like a sack of potatoes that’s worth ten times as much as him. With that in mind, I’m gonna make tonight even more awesome and get something off my chest once and for all,” Blazer explained as he moved a few steps back and took a seat.
Poppy was quite obviously not keen on the idea of moving from her spot over Chappy, eyes glued to the red stallion.
“Alright then, peachy! I just wanted to thank you, from the bottom of my heart. See, deep down, I believe every one of us tries to get the best mate they think they can manage, because that’s just the drive right there. So in hindsight I’m just really, really thankful that you weren’t into me in high school, because otherwise I would’ve had to find out first hoof what is so messed up about you that that loser down there is all you think you’re worth.”
“Sounds like sour grapes to me,” Poppy snarled back.
“Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t! I don’t have to care anymore. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a verifiably great bunch of grapes probably still looking around for me at the prom grounds. You two have lovely evening, I know I have!” Blazer said before taking wing and leaving them behind.
She slowly eased down her defenses as he grew more distant, then finally hung her head with a long, sad sigh. She spent a few moments pondering things she could have said to him to really tell him off… but they weren’t coming to mind. She was mostly just glad the whole bitter, ugly thing was over. It was difficult to feel as though she’d lost a friend that night, because from the sound of things he’d never been that to her anywa-
“CAN OF LIGHTBULBS!” Chappy blurted out as he shot awake with a small flail of his hooves beneath her. “I… ow… what happened?” he asked after his good senses returned right and proper, bringing up a hoof to rub at his jaw.
“Some jerk I’m never going to talk to again punched my boyfriend, that’s what happened,” she growled as she backed off and helped him up, her angry face melting into one of concern. “Are you okay? Does it hurt? Do we need to go to the hospital? We should take you to the hospital. We’re going to the hospital!”
“Wait wait no, I’m okay.” He’d stopped her just short of starting to push him in the general direction of Ponyville General. “It hurts but everything still works, see?” He moved his jaw side to side demonstratively, and his enduring ability to talk was rather self evident by that point. “Just… help me find my glasses and let’s go home okay?”
“Okay,” Poppy relented as they split up and started searching.
Two minutes later and neither of them had seen anything.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“No, you?”
“Me neither, I just hope I don’t-”
There was a small crunching noise under her hoof at the very next step.
“-step… on them… accidentally,” she said through a grimace and then looked beneath her hoof. “Oh it’s just an acorn! Phew!” she added hastily with a relieved sigh.
“Yeah that didn’t sound like a lens breaking to me. A lens breaking is less hollow sounding and more like-”
There was a much different crunching noise under his hoof at the very next step.
“…that.”
——
“Thank goodness I brought your shades as a backup… or else you’d be tipsy and blind right now,” Poppy groaned as they made their way through the evening streets of Ponyville.
“Nice expositing, also they’re not shades they’re… you know what I don’t even give a buck right now!” Chappy chimed in cheerfully before taking another swig of whiskey. Public drunkenness was usually frowned upon but there seemed to be an unwritten consensus that ponies of age will do as they will after sunset. Besides, he’d just gotten decked right out of his skull and Poppy wasn’t about to object to him easing the pain a bit. At least she was there to make sure he didn’t wander off or anything.
“I still don’t see what you like about that stuff, it’s… icky,” she mused, making a face at the memory of having tasted it. Once. Ever. “Why do you drink it?”
“Well yeah it’s awful tasting and it hurts to swallow but uh… um,” he started before stopping and looking thoughtful a moment, as though his mouth had just outpaced his brain. “Oh! It’s like my brain is this box right? And when I’m sober there’s stuff pushing inward on each side, so to get it to move anywhere is a real hassle. But when I’ve had a bit to drink it’s like… like the force on a couple sides went down, so I can just… do and say stuff without all the mental horse apples… you get it?”
“Your… brain is a box?” Poppy replied with a slight head tilt.
“Totally. My brain is the brainest box what ever brained!” he answered without missing a beat before hiccuping.
“You dork,” she admonished with a smile.
“Actually, while I’m able to not think about it, I got a question for you since you had a question for me,” he continued on whilst leaning against a street lamp.
“Oh? Okay, what is it?”
“Why do you stay with me?”
“W…what?”
“Because trust me when I say that you could get some laughably more well off stallion than me for minimal effort. Like for instance there’s that dude behind you sneaking a peek at your derriere and then taking a look at me with a look of confusion kind of like 'how did that guy score that mare?’ And now he’s noticed I’m talking about him and it’s really awkward for him right now because he’s not drunk so he’s kind of trotting off at that sort of 'wanting to gallop but can’t without looking weird’ pace,” Chappy rambled before Poppy blinked and glanced behind her to see that there was indeed a stallion retreating from them at a brisk trot.
“I don’t understand, you were so confident before and now it sounds like you’re looking for a reason to break up or something,” she replied sadly, ears lowering.
“Pfft if I had to look for them I wouldn’t be bothering to ask, and for your information that last time I came up to allow you to dance with me, I had been intending to break up with you, at first, which changed obviously,” he blurted out casually.
“What?!”
“Yeah, me and Blazer got to talking, assuming talking is defined as me getting told, and I really couldn’t argue with anything he was saying. But one particular bit stuck out, and that was when he knew I’d never asked you that question before, because for all these years I’ve assumed you felt sorry for me, but I didn’t want to know for certain. So here I am, asking that question, because buck worrying about it anymore,” Chappy explained, his words suddenly flowing quite smoothly as thought they’d been waiting for a chance to escape.
Poppy stood there anxiously looking from Chappy to various spots on the ground and back again. Several times her mouth opened only to close again as she fidgeted. After a few uncertain moments she looked down at the cobblestone in front of her boyfriend quite intently. Blazer had apparently gotten something right when speaking to him so… maybe he’d gotten something right when talking to her as well. She mulled it over for a few moments more and then smiled as she looked her boyfriend in the eye again. “You’re weird.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. That’s the reason. Most of those stallions you’re talking about are expecting just a normal mare, and they’d probably take off once they found out even half the things you know about me. It’s not like you just put up with me either. You’re not even fazed by it that much, and you actually participate in a lot of it just to make me happy, if nothing else. So that’s why I stay with you. You’re weird like I am Chappy,” she elaborated, ending by giving him another peck on the cheek.
“Hrm… alright I'll take that one I guess,” he replied with an exaggerated placement of hoof on chin. “Now let’s get home so I can fall asleep in some location that is actually awful for sleeping but seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And then in the morning I can make up stuff to tell you that you did last night since you can’t remember!” Poppy chirped happily as she lead him along.
“I’m not that drunk Poppy.”
——
“And then he spent the night sleeping on top of the washing machine,” Poppy concluded as Shoreline and herself waited for their lunch to arrive about a day and a half after the prom.
“Wow… maybe I should’ve gone to the prom after all,” the other pegasus said while staring at her friend in wide eyed disbelief.
“Maybe you should’ve, and from now on I’ll thank you to remember this story next time you feel like second guessing my choice in stallions,” she replied with a hint of smugness.
“Hi Poppy!” Bubblegum greeted in his usual overly enthusiastic fashion.
“Oh, hi Bubblegum!”
“Hello,” Bubblegum’s white coated companion deadpanned as he looked at the cream coated mare with an unnervingly neutral expression.
“And hello to you Elusi-ghk!” Her eyes shot wide open and her mouth scrunched shut in alarm at the sight of the fashionista whose work she’d been responsible for making a complete mess of the night before last.
“Bubblegum had quite the… interesting story for me regarding a certain recent event,” Elusive explained as the quiet fury of his gaze continued to bore a hole through the poor mare’s skull.
“Yeah! Was that totally great or what?!” Bubblegum asked with the expected energetic hop.
…
“ByeShorelineyoucanhavemylunchweshoulddothisagainsoon!” Poppy rattled off before rocketing off toward the highest cloud she could find.
The End