“Ugh, I can’t believe this!” Starburst groaned as she and Annie left the classroom along with the rest of their class.
“You know,” Annie began; when Starburst glared at her, she saw that the blind mare was clearly holding back laughter, “I think everypony in our class is envious of getting that assignment.”
It took great effort from Starburst to not lash out at her. One of Miss Cheerilee's methods of teaching was, every now and then when starting a brand new topic, to give out an assignment to randomly chosen two ponies. They had to read up on a subject related to whatever they were studying and make a presentation about it for the class. Some ponies liked to joke around that Miss Cheerilee was doing that so that she would have less work to do (and, to be fair, considering how many ponies she was teaching, she could do with having less work), but Starburst knew (partially because her mom explained it to her) that she was doing that to encourage her students to conduct research on their own and better remember information.
Unfortunately for her, when starting the subject of reproduction on their biology class, Miss Cheerilee had decided to give two ponies the assignment of making a presentation about a related topic to the class, and Starburst had to be the one of them.
And because life hated her, Annie was the other one.
“I know you have something to do with this,” Starburst hissed at her angrily, ignoring her earlier remark.
Annie did a great show of rolling her blind eyes. “Honestly, Star, you overestimate my capabilities and resources. Just how in Celestia’s name would I get Miss Cheerilee to pick the two of us for an assignment when we’d start the ‘reproduction’ subject in our biology class?”
“I don’t know how, I just know that you apparently did,” she replied; the more rational part of her mind did know that it shouldn’t be possible for Annie to do that, but all things considered…
“And how can you be so sure?”
“Because you didn’t even bother volunteering us,” Starburst said, eyes narrowing at her blind friend.
“And it didn’t occur to you that, considering what you had been through last night, I didn’t want to upset you?” Annie asked another question.
“Considering all the fun you’ve made of me just a few hours ago during the break?” Starburst countered with a question of her own. “No, it did not.”
Annie blinked at that in surprise. “Oh. Come on, Star, it’s not really ‘making fun of somepony’ if you’re being serious, right? And I was. I said I was impressed, didn’t I?” she said, uncertainly. As Starburst didn’t answer (continuing to just glare at her angrily), she uttered a sight and said “Sorry, I didn’t realize I went too far.”
Her apology did little to placate Starburst after the indignity she had to endure; she might have coped with it hours ago, but the biology class and the prospect of having to work on an assignment with Annie reawakened her anger.
“Well, you did,” she told her plainly, snorting.
“Sorry,” Annie repeated, a little quieter. As Starburst glanced at her, she saw that her friend looked troubled, and her anger ebbed away a little. “I… guess I got a bit too excited and… jealous.”
That, more than anything, gave her pause. Starburst physically had to stop (and reach out with her wing to Annie so she would stop too) and stare at her for a few seconds. “Come again?” she finally asked, unsure if she hadn’t misheard her.
Annie, who still looked troubled, moved her nearly blind gaze from one side of the corridor to the other, as if trying to spot something with her poor eyesight. “Are we near one of the bathrooms?” she asked while twitching her ears.
Realizing that she wanted to speak in private, without all the other students overhearing them, Starburst looked around. “Um, yeah, over here,” she said and began leading Annie to the nearby fillies’ bathroom, her anger almost forgotten.
It didn’t make any sense for her to hear that Annie could be jealous of her. She was the “Little Miss Perfect” of practically the entire town; she was liked by everypony, friendly to everypony, had good grades, was very good with magic… heck, there had been moments when Starburst had thought that her own mom preferred to spend time with Annie than her. To hear that she was apparently jealous of her in some way… well, suffice to say that it was enough to give her anger a pause.
After entering the bathroom, she quickly made sure they were alone and turned back to Annie. “Okay, can you run that by me again? I mean, I can get that ‘too excited’ part - obviously - but what’s that about being ‘jealous’?” Starburst asked, frowning.
The unicorn scratched the back of her head sheepishly. “Well, you see, um…” she trailed off, then sighed and turned her blind eyes to her. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with the way things are between me and T, and I don’t mind waiting with moving things further until after we’re married and stuff… buuut I can’t help but be a tiny bit jealous of all the stuff you and Starfall are doing,” Annie confessed with an embarrassed smile. Before Starburst could react in another way besides blinking and opening her mouth silently, she continued, “Now, I don’t mean it in the sense that I’d wish T was as… affectionate as Starfall is with you - although, to be honest, I wouldn’t totally mind that,” Annie added with a smirk that was much more like her than this sheepish demeanor she was exhibiting, “and I don’t even think I have to add that I wouldn’t mind at all if he could just create copies of himself like it was nothing - but more so in the sense that I wish I was more, well, bold like you. I mean, come one,” she added with a chuckle, as if sensing Starburst’s confusion and disbelief, “you made out with your coltfriend and shared a bath with him while your parents were in the house! That’s badass!”
“Um…” Starburst hesitated, a little embarrassed at the remark. “W-well, I suppose one could look at it that way…”
“I really mean it, Star,” Annie said, once again smiling sheepishly. “I wish I would be bold enough to just pounce on my coltfriend and not care that somepony could walk in on me.”
Starburst looked away and scratched the back of her head, growing more embarrassed by the odd praise. “Yeah, well I- wait a minute,” she said as a sudden suspicion creeped into her. Narrowing her brows at Annie, she asked: “Are you just saying that to butter me up so I won’t be mad at you?”
The blind unicorn rolled her eyes and sighed. “Honestly, Star, are you going to suspect I have an ulterior motive in everything I say or do now?”
“I strongly feel that I should,” Starburst returned, crossing forelegs on her chest.
“Eh, alright, fair enough,” Annie replied,shrugging. “But I really meant what I said; aaand if it makes you stop being angry with me then that’s just a bonus for me.”
“Ugh,” Starburst grunted, too tired to argue or to continue to be mad. “I suppose I can believe you’d be honest about something like this…”
“Does this mean you’re no longer mad at me for earlier?” Annie asked hopefully.
“Yeah, fine, I’m not,” Starburst replied, not without some resignation.
Annie beamed up. “Awesome, because I have something important to ask-”
Celestia dammit…
“- how exactly do you do it?” she finished, tilting her head. “I mean, how are you just… confident enough to literally pounce on your coltfriend like that?”
Embarrassed, Starbrust stammered, “Um, I don’t know, I- wait a second, are you going to take notes or something?” she exclaimed, frowning.
Actually, the pegasus thought at the same time, it is sorta flattering that Annie would be trying to learn something from me…
The blind unicorn in question pointed at her eyes. “I would have to write them down in Braille, remember? I could record you,” she added dismissively, before Starburst could feel abashed by the reminder, “but I can imagine how you’d react if I even asked.”
Shaking her head, Starburst sighed and tried to reply to her question, “Yeah, I wouldn’t be happy. I dunno what to tell you, really. It just sorta… happens in the heat of the moment, you know? Star gets affectionate, and I just… feel like continuing. I don’t recall ever ‘pouncing’ on him out of the blue.”
While she talked, Annie stared at her intently, as if absorbing every word she said. As Starburst drew to the end, the unicord began nodding her head thoughtfully, and then the pegasus princess noticed something that made her insides curl in worry; Annie’s lips twisting into a smirk for a brief moment.
“What was that?” she immediately asked, full of suspicion.
“What was what?”
“You smirked.”
“No I didn’t,” Annie replied, dismissively.
“Yes, you did,” Starburst argued, growing more annoyed, but the unicorn was already getting up.
“I’m really glad that we had this talk, Star,” she began, turning around, “but I think we better go, I don’t want T worrying about- uogh!” Annie grunted in surprise as she bumped into the wall.
“Two steps to the right,” Starburst told her impassively.
“Thank you,” Annie replied, adjusting herself so that she could walk through the door.
Rolling her eyes, Starburst followed after her. “Annie, I saw that smirk,” she tried again as they walked through the corridor. “Please tell me you’re not planning some scheme-”
“Annie!”
Guess he already got worried, Starburst surmised as she saw T trotting over to them, relief on his muzzle.
Annie glanced at her in passing with a good-humored smirk, her blind look all but saying ‘see what I meant?’ “Sorry to make you worry T,” she told him, trotting over and brushing against his side while the half-dragon wrapped his wing over her. “Star and I were talking and lost track of time.”
Starburst uttered a defeated sigh; there was no way she could resume their talk with T there. Hoping that the smirk she had noticed meant nothing too nefarious, she decided to focus on another important matter.
“Yeah, we got a presentation to do for our biology class,” she told T, then turned to Annie: “Anyway, I would like to get it done as soon as possible; do you mind if we go get started on it now?”
To her mild confusion - as she expected Annie to jump right on the idea - her friend shook her head. “Sorry, Star, can’t right now, I’m coming over to T’s for dinner.”
“Oh…”
“Besides,” Annie added meaningfully, “don’t you have something important to do back home?”
Starburst blinked, recalling the reason why she had that talk earlier with everypony. “Crap, that’s right,” she groaned, facehoofing. She had to come back home and talk with her mom about what she had seen in her room last night, and all things considered it would probably be better to do it sooner rather than later. “Yeah, I have, thanks for reminding me… even if I think I would actually prefer to work on the assignment…”
“Well, I can imagine,” Annie said, a little amused. “Wish you luck. But back to the assignment, we can meet up in a few hours.”
“Oh, great,” Starburst replied, relieved. “What time do you wanna come over?”
“Actually, I was thinking that we could do it at my house?” she said, to her surprise. As if sensing it, she added “I mean, I just assumed that, given what you’re about to do, you’d want to avoid doing such an assignment at home?”
Starburst had to admit, what Annie had said did make some sense… heck, she would prefer to not work on a presentation about a subject regarding reproduction at her home at the best of days, last thing she needed was her mom offering to help out…
However… this was Annie. Starburst couldn’t help but become suspicious.
“So we should do it at your house, with your mom trotting around instead?” she asked. “I do recall her being a bit… well, skittish, I guess, when such a topic is being talked about?”
“Well, fortunately, my mom is out of town right now,” Annie explained, much to Starburst’s surprise. “My uncle Zephyr caught a cold over the weekend, so mom went to check on him, she won’t be back until late at night or even tomorrow. Meaning we can work in peace.”
“Huh…” Starburst mused, finding the idea on working on this stupid presentation without any adult looking over their shoulder (as if the situation wasn’t embarrassing enough) was alluring. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
T, whom she had noticed had been looking from her to Annie and back in confusion, finally asked “What are you talking about?”
“Miss Cheerilee gave us an assignment for biology class,” Starburst explained with a sigh. “Anyway, I’ll come to your place around six?” When Annie nodded, she added “Great, should give me enough time to talk with my mom… and Star, assuming I can find him.”
“Oh, he’s at Sweet Apple Acres.”
Starburst blinked in surprise at T.
“I ran into him when I was returning a book to Del before coming here,” the half-dragon explained.
Except that wasn’t the part that needed an explanation. “The hay is he doing at Sweet Apple Acres?” Starburst asked, confused… and a little worried.
It did not help her apprehensions that T appeared uncomfortable and confused, too. “Um… working?”
Starburst opened her mouth, but found no words to say. She blinked, closed her mouth, then sit down on the floor, lifted her forehooves to cover her eyes and slowly, very slowly rub them lengthily for several seconds, before uttering a sight, dropping her hooves down, looking back at T and finally asking in a tired voice, “What?”
“I don’t know,” T confessed, clearly understanding her reaction. “I asked him what he was doing, he said that he’s working, but before I could ask anything else he mentioned that ‘he’s not keen on finding out if Miss Applejack treats slacking employees as his last employer had’ and went back deeper into the orchard.” Starburst groaned again, amazed by her coltfriend’s latest antic. “I tried to ask Del about it, but he didn’t know why he’s working there either.”
“Of course he didn’t know, nopony can know why that idiot does the things he does,” Starburst hissed, facepalming.
Not two days ago she had overheard him saying how he wouldn’t want ponies to laugh about Princess Starburst dating a magic performer, believing - somehow - that her dating an unemployed, uneducated homeless pony (something Starburst was still trying to wrap her mind around) was better for her image or whatever. But in those two days he decided that it’s fine if he’s a farmhoof instead? And how in the hay did he get Del’s mom to hire him?!
Taking a deep, calming breath, Starburst tried to organize her thoughts. “Okay, guess that’s another thing I have to talk about with him… which is thing number five I believe,” she exclaimed, feeling tired; why did all of this had to happen on a school day? Turning to Annie, she couldn’t help but say “You know, one of you could have warned me that dating will be so mind-boggling!”
“I’m pretty sure we did,” Annie replied, amused.
“No, you warned me about kissing a pony with fangs and gave me a box of condoms, you didn’t warn me that colts are insane!”
“H-hey,” T tried to interject, a bit hesitantly.
“Oh hush,” Starburst snorted while Annie giggled.