It was uncommonly warm for a spring morning at Sweet Apple Acres, but by no means unpleasant. Beams of sunlight colored the inside of Big Macintosh’s eyelids tangerine, and the balmy air cradled the crimson stallion like his favorite quilt; in fact, he slowly realized, it was his favorite quilt. He nestled further under the blankets, relishing in their embrace. But it wasn’t just his quilt holding him. Without opening his eyes he traced two slender hooves which had wrapped themselves securely around his middle, and to his delight and surprise found that there was a whole pony attached to them. His hooves ran over a velvety coat and through the long strands of a silky mane. Sweet breath tickled the back of his neck, the steady ebb and flow of air matching the slow but powerful tattoo of his own heartbeat.
‘Ah could get used ta this,’ the work stallion thought, or perhaps he said it aloud, for Fluttershy sighed behind him, seemingly in agreement. Big Macintosh permitted himself a goofy grin regardless. Eyes still closed, he turned his head and nuzzled the mare behind him, and a friendly robin began echoing their contentment with his song.
Actually, now that he thought about it, he had never heard a bird song quite like it; it was decidedly rhythmic, precise in its beat. For a moment he was tempted to open his eyes and glimpse the strange bird, but some part of his still sleepy mind knew that if he did, his contentment would be broken.
Tweet.
‘Just a silly ol’ robin anyhow,’ he thought, turning his head away from the window.
Tweet.
‘Sure is a persistent little thing.’
Tweet.
After hearing it a few times, he noticed it really wasn’t a bird sound at all. What he had at first taken as a ‘tweet’ was really more of a ‘beep.’ Again he almost opened his eyes to see the strange robin, but caught himself just in time.
Beep.
‘No, Ah don’t want ta wake up yet.’ Like a snake-charmer’s tune, the bizarre bird call was luring his eyelids apart, tempting him to chance a look at it.
Beep.
‘Y’all knock that off now, y’hear?’ His resistance was failing, and though he screwed up his face and scrunched his eyes shut tight, he could not ignore his burning curiosity.
Beep.
‘Consarnit!’ The scarlet earth pony finally felt his will give way and his eyes shot open, only to be met with blinding white light. The harsh scent of chemicals and linoleum filled his nostrils, and it was not his favorite quilt but rather a thin, scratchy grey blanket that kept him warm. The odd bird call sounded again, and he blearily looked round to see that it was no bird at all, but rather some fancy machine covered in buttons and wires making the beeping sound.
One thing remained from his dream, however; Fluttershy was in fact wrapping him tenderly in her hooves, though she was not alongside him in the bed but asleep in a metal chair next to it and had apparently drifted off holding him. A warmth that could not be credited to the scratchy grey blanket filled his stomach and bubbled up in his chest as he watched her softly breathing in and out, the smallest crease belying worry on her forehead.
‘Wait a minute, where the hay are we?’ Mac thought, his groggy head only just catching up with the situation. His apple green eyes swept the room with interest, and from the machine which he now realized was a heart monitor to the sickly green gown he was wearing he surmised he was in the hospital. He racked his brains for reasons he might have wound up in such a predicament, his mind still working at a sluggish pace.
‘Was it an apple buckin’ accident?’ He wondered, laying back down on the flimsy pillow behind him. Big Macintosh stretched, feeling no aching in his muscles. ‘Nah, Ah don’t feel sore.’ He scratched his chin, only to realize that his jaw felt oddly shaped beneath his hoof. Moving up to his cheeks, he found that they were painfully swollen, and strangely stretched-feeling as though they had been much larger than they were now, despite already feeling excessively puffy. The farm stallion was more puzzled than ever at this latest development, but his fuzzy thoughts could not find a reason for his current state. His gaze fell again on Fluttershy sleeping awkwardly in the angular chair, and in her bed-ruffled hair he caught sight of a wilting flower, a pink peony to be exact.
In an instant, the entire evening came flooding back to him, from taking the wrong train to the mob of insane fan ponies to the horrible waiters to the disastrous food, which he had realized all too late had had mushrooms in it. The weight of his failure seemed to crush Mac back into the hospital bed, and he groaned loudly, pressing his eyes to his hooves. His attempt at a romantic evening had been nothing short of a disaster.
“That must’ve been the worst date ever,” he muttered.
“I think it was nice,” a delicate voice said. Big Mac’s eyes shot open to see that Fluttershy had woken and was looking at him with a sleepy but genuine smile. “I mean, well, not the night itself,” she retracted, “that was pretty awful.” He groaned again, glancing around for a blunt object against which he might bang his head. “But all your efforts to try and make it special were very sweet.” With a soft flutter she brought herself level with his nose and placed on it the gentlest of kisses, like the tickle of butterfly wings.
All of his frustrations, anxiety, and even the pain in his face seemed to flow away with that tiny kiss. He gazed unabashedly on his marefriend as she settled down next to him on the bed, the very image of patience and compassion. And then, without even knowing what he was doing, acting purely on his determination to salvage some part of the night, he began to speak.
“Fluttershy, Ah know tanight wasn’t quite perfect,” he started, rubbing a hoof behind his neck. “But Ah want ya ta know that Ah’d do anythin’ ta make ya happy, and, well,” he reached to his jacket on the nightstand and rummaged through it, searching for the small velvet box. “Ah just want ta say,” he continued, grunting as he fumbled with the cloth. “Ah just have ta tell ya,” he wheezed, becoming frantic with each passing second that he did not lay hooves on the box. “Ah wanted ta say… Oh ponyfeathers.” Dread hit him like a bushel of apples; his perfectly planned proposal was now officially ruined. He thought he would at least be able to get this part right, but how could he possibly propose if he had lost the ring?!
‘Ya dang featherbrain,’ he berated himself, ‘can’t do nothin’ right, can’t even keep track of one lousy—’
“Um, are you looking for that?” Fluttershy asked timidly, pointing at the ground. Mac glanced down and saw the ring box protruding out from under the bed. He lunged for it, hurling the entirety of his weight at the linoleum. Unfortunately, in an effort to help Fluttershy dove for it too, and with a spectacular thud, the two ponies collided headfirst. Mac could not see, for the bed sheets had caught him in their web on the way down and in the chaos the blanket had gotten caught on his head. He was at once trying to escape his blankety prison and weeding through the layers of fabric frantically for the box, and when he finally surfaced from the bedding he found the object of his search lying only a few inches from his nose. Fluttershy, in a similar state of disarray, was just on the other side of it, her eyes enormous as she stared at the little box.
Mac attempted to sit up and banged his head against the bottom of the hospital bed, which he had somehow fallen under in the fray. His head and face aching, his dignity almost entirely gone, he extracted a hoof from the sheets and pulled the dainty lid open to reveal the golden ring within.
“Marry me, darlin’?”
For a long time Fluttershy said nothing, and merely stared with a blank expression at the ring. As the seconds ticked past, Mac began to feel like a complete foal.
‘Ah’m such an idjit,’ he cursed himself, ‘course she don’t want ta marry me now. What mare in her right mind would want ta marry a stallion who can’t even propose right?’ A tightness came to his throat that had nothing to do with his swollen glands, and just as he was about to pick himself off the floor, apologize, and promise to never bother her again, he looked up and saw she was smiling. It was a shy smile, the kind she had given him right after their very first kiss, the kind that let him know she could hardly believe what had just happened.
Slowly, nervously, she gave a single nod. And, with her dress torn to shreds and her bits all spent on bribes, her mane a mess and stomach empty, lying on a hospital floor in a tangle of sheets at three in the morning, she wrapped her slender hooves around his neck and kissed him hard. And somehow, despite everything, it was perfect.