-Fizzle, two months later-
I woke up with a start and I was feeling alright with the world, in my hooves was a sleeping Jade and I found myself feeling really conflicted about snuggling her like this. I was also conflicted that she was okay with being in the same room with me.
How can she sleep so peacefully after what I did to her months ago? How can I? I’m surprised that nobody absolutely hated me after I did that, they all almost unanimously sided with me. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I was happy that everyone around liked me, but at Jade’s expense?
Why do I even still like Jade? I should not want anything to do with her, yet there’s something compelling about her actions and why she did exactly what she did. She brought out my insecurities and showed me that strength wasn’t everything, after all what did my strength do other than hurt her? She hadn’t even screamed and she just took it, her tolerance for pain was just plain absurd.
Why did Jade even do that to me? One thing was sure, Jade hadn’t actually attacked me with her full ferocity and I did far worse to her than she did to me.
Jade might have been a huge jerk, but being angry at her was hard when she was apologizing for it all so well without having to apologize out loud.
Now that I’ve had time to contemplate things, I noted that she had never even used her claws against me. She got aggressive with me, sure, but she never gave me more than a few mild bruises. I bloodied her and wrenched her arms out of their sockets and she, sort of, made me do it. Only my actions were my own, that she gave me a smile and a kiss afterwards had me both angry and scared in a different way.
Nobody even said a word about how I pulled her arms out of their sockets or even helped Jade force them back in. If she wanted to prove to me that I was strong and cared for, that had to be one of the absolute worst and dumbest ways to go about doing it. Making everyone hate her, just so I’d know that they’d care for me even if I did something horrible. I’m still more than a little confused about it even now.
It had pushed me towards training with Sekhet to get a handle on my emotions, I remembered she was quite knowledgeable about the subject. I had yet to ask her what she thought of the situation, but she didn’t seem upset with Jade at all.
Didn’t Jade know how upsetting what she did to me was? I didn’t want to be like Maud, but I wanted at least some control of my anger towards Jade for pushing me to hurt her like that. I was angry at myself for actually hurting her. Jade actions were just so frustrating and out of nowhere!
I guess she was actually making it up to me by letting me cuddle her. She really didn’t have to do this for me, but it did make sleeping easier at night and she was a really comfortable pillow.
Now I felt a blush running through my entire body, I couldn’t think of my current position without feeling a bit awkward about how much I liked it. She’s average or less than average in appearance by Abyssinian standards, but to me she was something beautiful, special and unique. She still was, but it was only slightly muted by her odd actions.
Logically, Cheerilee and Fresh Start were both a bit scared of me after that. Yet Jade was still willing to lay next to me and let me cuddle her at night to prove there were no hard feelings. I was having trouble coming to terms with this and no longer feared that I couldn’t protect her, I feared that I cared for someone who was a bit sanity challenged.
Surprisingly enough, this made me feel normal and that’s probably what she was aiming for. Normal in the sense that my horn was definitely something along the lines of yesterday’s news. I had a broken horn, but I wasn’t going to cry too much over it anymore.
She didn’t want me to be hurt, but I still wanted to protect her. In the same vein she wanted to protect me, but I didn’t want her getting hurt on my behalf.
Maybe that’s why I’m not as upset as I could be, we both wanted the same thing. To keep each other safe, even if it meant getting seriously harmed for it. Insert the painful tiebreaker Jade set off, so we'd hurt each other. She showed me just how much we could hurt one another and it was so easy for her to do, starting with a single callous action.
It was totally stupid, Jade forces me to hurt her physically while hurting me emotionally. She upset just about everyone she cared about doing it. She didn’t even care it’d change how people thought of her.
She wasn’t afraid of being hurt by me, but I had been afraid of being hurt by her. I was more worried about her now than ever and was actually less scared of being hurt by her. I’m still trying to figure out how that works!
“Still upset about what Jade did to get you to stop being so anxious?” I looked up at mom, she was up earlier than usual as she walked towards us. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tussled my mane affectionately. “You seem comfortable my adorable unicorn daughter.”
“Oh I’m still anxious, but about completely different things now. My previous anxiety was obliterated when Jade decided to go through with her idiotic plan, why did you even let her do that mom?” I asked as I clutched Jade tightly and nuzzled her neck, she was a heavy sleeper. I had finally asked the question that had been on my mind, mom let this happen and even knew what Jade would do. Why didn’t she stop Jade from doing something it? Better yet, why didn’t she stop me? Everyone just let us fight. “Also, why did it take you so long to come talk to me about it?”
“I’m glad that you’re still calling me mom after what my Jaded made you do to her.” You’d always be my mom Kuril, I wouldn’t ever want to disappoint you. “Jaded has been a bit upset that you wouldn’t be her friend anymore after what she did. I let her do it because she wanted to make a mistake and she felt like it was the right thing to do. Do you forgive her for it?”
“What kind of question is that, it should be obvious!” I was still snuggling Jade after all. “Of course I forgive her, how can she ever forgive me?! She didn’t go all out against me and barely even bruised me at all. I temporarily crippled her!”
A friend I still loved despite her highly flawed plan actually working. If it was flawed and it worked… was it really flawed to begin with?
“She psychologically scarred you Fizzle, my kitten deserved exactly what she got for doing that to you. Just know that that was just as hard for her as it was for you.” I wanted to tell her that Jade didn’t deserve what I did to her, but I couldn’t.
"Things just haven't felt right around here since that happened." I sighed loudly, putting my face against Jade's shoulder and smiled a bit. Wait… why was mom holding a camera? I blinked the spots out of my eyes after the camera flashed.
“Now that’s a real keeper.” Kuril smiled warmly at the picture she was holding. “It’s almost like that fight never happened.”
"Oh believe me, it did." Sarcasm was a form of defense right? "I was there for most of it mom."
“I swear you two will drive each other insane. I did say she would do crazy things in the name of love, but that took the cake and then some.” She showed me the photo she just took of me nuzzling Jade, I could even see the smile on the cats sleeping face and the blush showing through my fur on my own smiling muzzle. I could feel my heart slump a little at the adorable sight. ”I’ve been punishing Jaded in my own way and I think her punishment is just about up, just think about all the meals we’ve been having and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“You haven’t made potato stew once ever since Zecora started staying here, also you’ve held back on giving her desert for dinner.” Her favorite meals were practically banned and here I thought I had been cruel to her, at least I hadn’t taken away Jade’s favorite meal or sugary treats. “You aren’t the only one punishing her, why hasn’t she said anything about how you’re all treating her? I’m the one that beat her up! Why am I the victim? She’s as much a victim of her own plan too!”
“She has you, she doesn’t need to say anything. She’s perfectly content with whatever punishment you’re willing to ask of her that will lead to forgiveness. I would have told her to continue staying away from you for a while, but you already went and approached her anyway. I think punishing her with affection isn’t the best way to go about things, but it’s your relationship.” She shook her head with an amused smile. “Now come on and get up, no reason for Jade to wake up next to a beautiful face in the morning. A reminder, its Jacky’s birthday today. Despite the fact that you’ve already forgiven her, never forget that it happened or that my biological daughter is weirder than you think she is. You’re my daughter too Fizzy and I don’t like seeing you two being so quiet around one another.”
I loved Jade… those last words she said to me on that day before we spent the rest of it in silence were quite ominous. We didn’t talk after that and today, I would try to talk to her.
She could wait forever for me to ask her out on a date, could I do the same for her?
-Jade-
Mom was right, love will make me do crazy things. I woke up alone and didn’t mind. As long as Fizzle hadn’t run away because me, I’d be fine. If she had, then I’d feel quite horrible. I tried to get up only for Fizzle to come back in the room with a tray on her back.
“Fizzy…” I was going to apologize to her and she put a hoof over my mouth, a freshly washed hoof at that. It smelled nice.
“No, I’ve got something to say to you Jade!” Just like that she released my mouth and put the tray in my lap. “I love you, you complete and utter jerk. It’s been two months Jade, stop being so quiet. You're supposed to be a charismatic rogue for crying out loud, did you dump your intelligence and charisma stats for luck?”
She said it so dryly and flatly that I giggled, she didn’t glare at me and just smiled a bit.
“Love you too Fizzy and breakfast in bed? Really? You’re being way too nice to someone who hurt you as much as I did.” She nuzzled me and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. “Fizzy?”
“Jade, what you did was upsetting. I want you to explain it to me step by step why you thought any of that was a good idea.” The look in Fizzle’s eyes made me winced and looked away, she crawled up onto the bed to take a spot next to me and the currently untouched food. “I realized you pulled your punches. I was so angry that you slapped me the second time, I didn’t recognize what you were doing at the time.”
“Well, I wanted to do something absolutely stupid in the name of love, so what was one of the worst things I could ever possibly think of doing after hearing what Fluttershy told me you told her that could end in a positive outcome? To start off... Make you important and supported by everyone. Stopped you from being afraid of me not caring anymore by trying to make you stop caring for me first, which was the only thing that didn’t work.” The only hiccup in the plan really. “You needed to support yourself before you can support others, so I forced you to stand up to me. Thus the fight was needed. Your special talents feels limited to you, so I limited myself to what I’m normally capable of, especially as if Magical alchemy had never been invented. Incidentally you can use the horrible memory in case I ever get mind controlled by magic, replaced with a changeling and or have an evil clone made of me. I reduced my number of friends around here so I could be yours exclusively and you wouldn't have cared as much about me anymore, so I'd basically be putting myself in your position before you ended up in Airship Mauled and would be able to know how you feel despite how much I tried to keep you happy. To that end I even stopped using Magical Alchemy for the last two months to get a good feel of what it's like to be missing a horn. In all I really think you can do so much better than me Fizzy, I'm being quite serious here. All this took was me making a pariah of myself for you. Most of my goals were achieved, so mission definitely accomplished and I’m a literal magnificent bastard. On a side note, did Maries bother you?”
“More like a literal genie that Fluttershy let out of the bottle and I should really read your comic books to find out if that’s where you came up with the plan… that ultimately worked in exactly the ways you likely thought it would. As for Maries, they only asked me two things.” Fizzle started laughing. “When will we get our other prospective mate back and when can we start courting the two of you together?”
“I’ve been back, just not as responsive… why is there so much on the tray?” Scooting up next to me Fizzle deftly forked a piece of pancake.
“Why do you think?” Okay Fizzle’s words may have made me blush a bit, before she actually told me why. “I haven’t eaten breakfast with my professional idiot in a while.”
“The best and brightest at jumping off of high places, I got to know Arizona better.” The cow didn’t see a single problem with my bizarre actions. “She’s the only one who sided with me. Mom was truly neutral. Sekhet knew why I did it and I’m surprised you didn’t ask her or that she didn’t tell you.”
“This weekend.” Her words made me pause in the middle of taking a bite of egg.
“Hm?” I queried before shoving the bit of egg into my mouth.
“We’re going on a date this weekend and we’ll air out everything we like and hate about one another.” Fizzle’s mood was surprisingly chipper, I did give her two months to cool down.