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// Chapter 59: Puppy Time 
// Story: Marshmallow Dreams 
// by Halira 
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"Ow! You're pinching my wing!" Drizzle cried out.

"Sorry, I thought that went in that way," Jordan said apologetically. 

"Why would you think that!" Drizzle yelled. 

"I'm sorry! This is my first time doing this!" Jordan shouted in frustration. "Rebecca, how do I do this?"

I was busy dealing with my opponent on the couch and didn't want to look away. "I don't know how it works either. Why would you think I know?"

"You're the adult, and you're a pegasus," Jordan answered. 

"Oh, when the going gets rough, you stop being practically an adult, huh?" I asked with a grin.

"You're still a pegasus; you have to know how this works. Please, help," Jordan pleaded. 

"Do I look like the type to wear full-body suits?" I answered with a snicker as I tried to picture myself trying. Yeah… that wasn't happening. I refocused on my foe. "You stay right there; I'm going to get this collar and leash on you yet."

Wrinkles, a white and grey English bulldog pup, crouched his lower body down while wagging his tail. For having massive folds of skin all over him, like the ones I would likely have if someone sucked all the fat out of me, he was surprisingly fast. I had the collar and leash hanging on the edge of my wing, and I just needed to catch and hold the puppy still long enough to put it on him. 

I tried to advance slowly, but he hopped backward and yapped, tail still wagging, still panting away. I moved some more, and he started hopping around like a jumping bean. Finally, I dived forward to try to catch him, but he evaded me again, leaving me with my face buried in a plush couch pillow and him jumping off the couch before beginning to hop and run around the couch. 

"Wrinkles likes to play. He thinks you're playing with him," Drizzle called out. "Ow! My tail!"

"Sorry!" Jordan apologized again. "I don't know why they make that slit so small."

I picked myself up and looked back at Jordan's progress at getting Drizzle into her Wonderbolts outfit the filly was so proud of. 

"Isn't your sister on the flight team at her school?" I asked the younger teen. "Shouldn't you have experience helping her with a flight suit?"

Jordan shook her head as she continued to pull at the suit with her magic. "Jackie just started. They haven't made her wear one yet. Plus, they would teach her how to put it on herself. She'd be embarrassed if she had to ask me for help. Jackie gets weird about showing she can do things herself—at least with anything marginally related to flying. Which I guess would count getting into her uniform."

"Mama has a fancy flight uniform too!" Drizzle exclaimed. "Only hers is mostly gold with blue stripes. She puts hers on all by herself, but she has to help me get mine on."

"Gold with blue stripes, yuck. Why those colors?" Jordan asked as she examined Drizzle's Wonderbolt uniform more closely to see what she was missing. 

"Those are our school colors," I answered. 

Jordan shook her head. "Glad I'm not going to that school when I graduate. I'm going to Winthrop, like my mom."

"Winthrop's colors are gold and garnet," I said with a chuckle. "I don't think that is better." I looked around for Wrinkles. "Now, where did that puppy run off to?"

Jordan looked around and then pointed. "He's peeing on the kitchen floor!"

Drizzle gasped. "Bad Wrinkles! Good puppies pee-pee outside!"

I dropped the leash and collar and went running for the kitchen. "You haven't housebroken him yet?!"

"We've only had him about a week. He's still a baby and learning!" Drizzle shouted. "He knows Mama doesn't like it when he pee-pees on the rug."

"Well, he didn't pee on the rug. So she won't be upset about that," I called back as I looked at the pungent yellow puddle on the kitchen floor. Wrinkles was now bouncing around me and trying to get me to play with him. I looked at him and shook my head. "I'll deal with you later. I need to clean this up."

I found some paper towels and wiped everything up. Wrinkles lost interest in me while this was happening and went back into the other room. When I finished cleaning, I washed up my hooves in the kitchen sink to get any urine that had soaked through the towels off of me. After finishing up, I returned to the living room. Drizzle now was in her Wonderbolt flight suit—even though her magic was still too immature to allow her to fly—and the filly had succeeded in getting the collar and leash on her puppy.

"Are you sure you can control him on that leash?" I asked the tiny blue filly. "You don't weigh that much more than he does, and I don't want him dragging you around."

"Yeah! I've got him!" Drizzle said as I watched the puppy literally drag her across the floor. 

Jordan giggled and lit her horn, grabbing both Drizzle and Wrinkles with her magic and pulling them back towards her. "Don't worry. I've got them if they start to get away."

"Seems like we are ready to go outside," I said, and immediately my phone started running. "Hold that thought." I answered the call. "Rebecca here; who is it?"

"This is Pudding Snack from Capital One on a recorded line. I'm looking for Rebecca Riddle."

"Uhhh...I don't have a credit card. Bye!" I replied.

"Wait! I'm not calling about a credit ca—" The call ended as I hung up. 

My phone immediately started ringing again. 

"They really want to talk to you," Jordan said in a bemused tone. 

I groaned and unanswered my phone. "Hey, I just said I don't have a credit card."

"Hi, it's Russell," the caller responded in a confused tone. "Getting a lot of spam calls?"

I went wide-eyed. "Russell! Hi! Sorry about that. I just had someone calling me about a credit card I don't have. How are you? I thought you were busy today."

"Been hauling dirt for my ma all morning," Russell replied. "Taking some downtime right now, before I get back to work, and decided to give you a call."

"Who you talking to, boy?" a female voice said in the background of the call. "Is that a girl? You datin'?"

"Leave him be, Jasmine," another voice, male this time, said in the background. "He doesn't need you ridin' him like a horse."

"A horse pun, Terrell? I will remember that next time you try to ride me," Jasmine shouted. 

"Oh, you don't need to do me like that," Terrell answered back. The two continued to go at it, but their voices faded more in the background, perhaps because Russell moved from where he was at. 

"Sorry about that," Russell said in a long-suffering voice. "My ma gets nosey. My parents bicker a little, but they're good folks."

I tittered. "No problem. My mom gets nosey, too, sometimes. I'm foalsitting right now, so I can't talk too long."

"I won't keep you long. Ma is going to be demanding I get back to helping her with her garden any minute now. I wanted to know if you wanted to go catch a movie tomorrow night and maybe get some dinner before."

My ears perked up. "That sounds great. I really enjoyed myself on our first date and looking forward to seeing you again."

"Date?!" Jordan exclaimed. "You went on a date?!"

Drizzle started to hop around. "Rebecca an' Russell sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Wrinkles began jumping around and yapping with his person.

"I don't think a tree branch could hold Rebecca," Jordan said as she calmed down for a second. "She needs to tell us all about this date, though!"

"I'll meet you at the common area of your dorm building tomorrow at six then," Russell said. "Don't let the fillies drive you too crazy."

"And don't work too hard," I replied with a laugh. "See you tomorrow!"

As the call ended, I turned to see Jordan and Drizzle grinning at me. 

"I thought you said you didn't go on dates!" Jordan exclaimed. 

"I wasn't lying when I told you that. It was my first date last night," I explained. 

"Are you going to bring your stallionfriend here?" Drizzle asked. "I had a foalsitter named Miss Puddles that brought her stallionfriend over. They went into Mama's room and jumped on the bed while having a screaming contest. Miss Puddles won, but Mama didn't let her come back after that. I guess she didn't like them jumping on her bed."

Jordan choked back a laugh and gave me a sly look. "Yeah, are you going to jump on a bed and have a screaming contest?"

I gave the teenage unicorn a flat look. "You're too young to be asking about that."

"But she's old!" Drizzle protested. 

Jordan turned and stared with her mouth open at the younger filly. "I'm thirteen!"

"Yeah, and that's old!" Drizzle countered.

"It's all relative," I said with a chuckle. "Imagine how old Drizzle must seem to Wrinkles."

Jordan stuck her tongue out at me. "Well, that means you are practically prehistoric!"

"That's Auntie Sunset," Drizzle said confidently. "She is old enough that… that she must have seen the dinosaurs!"

I shrugged. "She's old enough that she spent more years as an adult human than a pony. That counts as old to me."

"But Auntie Sunset turns into a human all the time," Drizzle said in confusion. 

Jordan gave Drizzle a stern look. "You aren't supposed to talk about that." She then got a worried expression. "You shouldn't be making up stories about Auntie Sunset doing things."

Drizzle pointed a wing at me. "But she's seen Auntie Sunset turn into a human!"

I nodded. "That's true, but Jordan is right. Don't talk about that, okay?"

Drizzle pouted. "Okay."

I looked at Jordan. "You can relax; I already knew about it. Sunset Blessing used her weird hocus-pocus on me the other day. Being human was a very different experience. Let's not talk about that either."

"What?!" Jordan said in outraged disbelief. "She never let me try that!"

"Auntie asked Mama once if Mama wanted to try it. Mama said a lot of words in Mandarin that she said I wasn't allowed to say," Drizzle chimed in. 

This seemed like the perfect segue to change the subject to something less dangerous. "Do you know a lot of Mandarin, Drizzle?"

Drizzle nodded rapidly. "I know lots of words! Mama is always teaching me new words, but talking in it is hard."

"Well, that's better than me. I know some broken Spanish, not enough to hold a conversation. You should be proud," I complimented. "Now, let's go walk your pup and let him do his doggie doo-doos outside before it rains."

The tiny pegasus filly laughed and jumped. "Come on, Wrinkles, it's outside time. Doggie doo-doos! Woohoo!"

"I have never seen someone so excited about dog poop," Jordan said dryly.

The dog immediately picked up his owner's enthusiasm and began jumping and yapping again. I smiled and opened up the front door. Drizzle went galloping out with Wrinkles right on her tail. Jordan took a second to respond, but went running after so she wouldn't lose sight of the pair. I quickly stepped through the door and pulled it closed behind me.

The complex had plenty of open green grass, some short apple trees no more than twenty feet and height, and some bushes. The parking lot was a strip of assigned spaces that ran parallel to the driving area, and each space had a charging station with a lock for owners only to use—most cars in Skytree were electric, as was typical for pony-dominated areas.

Wrinkles was already near a bush, doing his business with Drizzle standing close by. I looked at the sky and saw heavy clouds coming in. My pegasus weather senses weren't great, but it didn't take magical senses to know that it wouldn't be long before the rain started to fall. I needed to keep a close eye on those clouds. It was up to me to be the responsible adult—partly because I was the only adult present, but also because I needed to be sure I didn't mess anything with this job up and have Lántiān hate me even more than she already did.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Jordan announced. 

I raised an eyebrow at her. "We were just inside. Why didn't you go before we came out here?"

"You didn't give me time or ask before you opened the door," Jordan whined as she started doing the pee-pee dance.  

"Go ahead and go pee," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I can keep an eye on Drizzle for a few minutes without your help."

"Thanks," Jordan replied quickly and went scampering back to the apartment with her back legs clenched up high. 

I focused back on Drizzle and Wrinkles. The two were running around, seemingly with no particular direction or goal. I was glad to see them enjoying themselves but felt the need to be cautious. 

"Hey, stay away from the parking lot and road!" I called out to the filly. "Stay in the grass."

"I know!" Drizzle shouted back to me. She continued to run around with her dog, giving them both plenty of exercise.

The clouds were definitely getting darker. I tried to feel out things like air pressure and other weather factors out of instinct, but my cruddy pegasus magic betrayed me. For all I knew, Drizzle could feel those things out better than me. I wanted them to get as much play and exercise as I could, but Lántiān had made it clear the puppy couldn't handle getting soaked in the rain. 

"Ah! Wrinkles, leave the kitty alone!"

My head snapped back from the sky to Drizzle and the pup. Wrinkles had based a tabby cat up a tree, and the feline was now hissing down at the down as Drizzle tried to get her puppy away from the tree. I considered flying up and rescuing the distressed cat, but thought better of it. The cat was safe in the tree and not too high up to get back down. If I tried to get it down, it would almost certainly try to fillet me. I wasn't in a hurry to get ripped up by the arch-nemesis of all pegasi.  The cat would be fine, and the dog would get bored or distracted.

Distraction came quick. A squirrel came running by, and Wrinkles immediately started running after that instead, dragging Drizzle along for the ride. I almost laughed, but my breath caught as I saw that the chase was going to drag them across the parking lot, and there was a car coming!

I went running, adrenaline pumping, and beat my wings to get airborne to catch up. This was not something I would typically try to do with flight, but it was the only way to close the gap between us fast enough. I flew over Drizzle and came crashing down on the leash, bringing Wrinkles to an unceremonious stop. A millisecond later, Drizzle went crashing into my rear. 

"Owwie," Drizzle whined. I didn't know why she was acting hurt. I was the one who just face-planted into the dirt. She had face-planted into me, and I happened to know I was much squishier than the ground. Even Wrinkles had it worse than her; the leash had given him a momentary choke. 

A drip of water hit my snout. That finalized things. It was time to go back inside. Wrinkles had enough exercise for the moment.