- 15 -
Gelding teleported.
Only princesses in Canterlot teleported.
She teleported away with Safe in a bang and fizz of sparkles, after devising a deception where Pig Pen wore her distinctive cape and Citron wore Safe's. The colt couldn't levitate a pony weight for trying, but acted wounded as Pig Pen carried him away. The disguise flushed Green; he'd seen I'd made it so his wingpony would never fly again, and lost control. I kicked the quiver from him and broke his nose, while Citron set his tail on fire, at which time he zoomed away trailing smoke into the woods. I sliced up his javelins and ran for it, the deception working well enough that we encountered two scorched unicorns, one limping, who immediately split up upon recognizing their mistake and fled into the town.
#
Friendly C.A. met up with us in Cranberry Station, the drop point, late afternoon. They led us to an earth pony healer's new-age office. He'd grown a gourd the size of a house and filled it with so many herbs, weird sticks, and apothecary jars with dead animal parts and luminescent mushrooms, it left little walking space between worktables, bookshelves, and cauldrons. The mixed floral scents and alcohol made me sneeze.
He treated Safe who looked zombie-pale.
Gelding looked like she'd suffered a wagon collision. Her left eye had swelled up, despite ice and a mustard poultice. Cuts and bruises peppered her hide and she limped. I thought, Princessa Grim, as she rushed to us in relief, slapping away her cloak, which Citron offered. She hugged us briefly, like a stallion. "I'm so glad you got away. Good job. You saved us."
"We didn't do that much," I said, lowly.
"They couldn't follow us, not directly. Cyclone Beaujangles, who hates my guts, and Mustang bankrolled by breakaways in the syndicate wanted to kill me, all of us. They ambushed us. Anyway, their mistake. Here, take my bonus. Split it between you guys."
Ten gold bits!
She was the Family's princessa; they were fighting over her—and she didn't have a clue. Something else: She was a mare and—thanks to a few revelations I'd had about Daylily—I could smell it. Despite being beat up, her special somepony was going to have a good night. I felt bad for Citron.
I still had a premonition. Blood dried on my feathers and the bad guys laying in the gutter didn't change my dread.
I told Pig Pen, "I've gotta to visit my family."
"I'm going with."
When I explained that meant the Vanhoover cloud deck, he insisted more adamantly, though he would complain about drinking the Cloudwalker potion at the balloon terminal. ("Did they have to let the eye-of-newt go putrid?") We at least had the gold to pay for a railroad sleeper compartment and more to clean up in Vanhoover Below.
The two-leagues-in-radius cloud deck was as modern as Las Pegasus', with magically supported roads for the minority population of unicorns, unlike Cloudsdale still dominated by conservative old pegasus-first Zephryn clans who refused to modernize. Vanhoover remained dangerous: between roads and floors lay only clouds—and a half-kilometer drop for non-pegasi.
Midafternoon the next day, my breakfast oats causing heartburn, I pointed out the Supersafe-Always Ontime headquarters beyond fields of prismatic cirrus cloud. It sported a delicious wheat grass lawn, oak trees, black-veined marble steps, and flat walls that mimicked an eastern seacoast brick and glass Art Neighveau skyscraper. Ponies recognized me as we strode up. Buck Up, a crew leader I'd managed, flew in an upper door. I hoped no visitors were with the air marshals lest my whole daft idea blow up in my face.
Pig Pen commented, "Both company names are still up."
"Takes bits to remove 'em."
"After six months? Do you really want something to be wrong?"
I gulped and shook my head. "With syndicate Family business trying to implode, my gut sees all the fault lines in our two families."
"Don't tell me you're going to do your duty and marry Daylily? You know enough about yourself now that you know that won't end well."
My horseshoes clattered on the steps. "I know, and I'd never do that to Daylily. She may hate my guts, but I'm her friend. Our parents might try to force us, but I don't love her. Not in that way." He leaned against me and I reflexively put a wing over his back. I added, "You taught me so much."
"Then let's go back. Let's finish our first night together, at the hotel."
"I'd like that," I said, visions nevertheless crowding in of finding new management in place, finding Daylily's parents having run for their lives because Salernitano politics had clawed into Equestria, or inter-family squabbles driving the two formerly allied businesses into the ground. "We will, but I have to do this. I'm the glue—and I left."
Pig Pen slowed, eyes widening as we entered the cavernous atrium. Seeing me, pegasi scooted into the shadows of side halls and the dozen other levels. He reacted by touching shoulders and getting slightly ahead of me, despite being under my wing.
The architect had mixed classic miniaturized thunderhead cloud decks and dark updraft walls with continuous lightning illumination, curving marble staircases, and squared off empire-style columns. Sun streamed in windows as through breaks in storm clouds, burnishing them and causing contrasting shadows.
Pig Pen whispered, "Is i-it going to rain?", at which point from the uppermost deck a silhouette interrupted the light, not retreating but descending. He stopped us, eyes glaring as if he had spotted a giant eagle, muscles tensed to withstand attack.
She could have been an eagle. "Maybe," I murmured.
Salernitano ponies tended toward bronzes and browns, with dark manes. This tall, lithe pegasus was the negative of that, with fur the white of fair-weather clouds, hooves and muzzle the pearl-grey of dusk, and a mane the faded-reddish-yellow of daylily stamens. Her mane cascaded straight down like a thundering waterfall.
Daylily had a white daylily cutie mark. She wore a lace blouse with a yellow bow as she alighted before us, folding her wings, her unblinking arctic-blue albino eyes locked with caramel-brown ones.
She said, "I see you figured things out." Her eyes moved to examine the dark earth pony beside me.
I belatedly snatched my wing back to my side. "Daylily, this... is Pig Pen."
"Charmed, I'm sure."
"He's a colt-friend."
She shook her head as she proceeded around him not missing a detail, then pushed her velvety nose between our touching flanks and rudely confirmed his gender from hoof-lengths away. Geranium perfume mixed oddly with chocolate cologne as our fur gathered static, crackling while she pushed the rest of the way through. She swatted Pig Pen's nose with her tail.
"Hey!" he cried, snugging together.
She nodded. "A special somepony. Ruggedly handsome, and about flapping time, Crys. I approve!"
My mouth dropped open.
She sighed, shaking her head again. "I met Fidelity last year in Introduction to Business Management 2; he told me my 'brother' was 'hot.' Ponies see us as brother and sister, Crys! When I explained our engagement, he explained all the things I misunderstood about us. Flabbergasted, I tried everything to get you to lay me, short of pinning you to my bed. I really wanted to do that but understood, finally, and flung Fidelity at you to confirm it all—then arranged your escape to Baltimare."
Pig Pen looked from me... to her... and back as she added, "You're as dense as a stone. It's a wonder you can fly."
"He is," agreed Pig Pen, "Dense."
I sputtered. "Fidelity, you? I thought—"
Pig Pen said, "—Never were."
I threw a wing over him to keep from falling over. My friend, my friends...? Daylily and Fidelity weren't a couple? Were they... still my friends?
My heart beat rapidly. A cold sweat made my fur go damp. "I slashed his eye!"
"His eye's nearly healed. None of the cuts were deep. He insisted he'd make you admit it to yourself. Stubborn, pigheaded stallions, the both of you. Fidelity is going to give you a stern talking to, but I suspect you wanted to defend... your illusion."
I looked down and said weakly, "I don't love you."
"At least not in that way, I... know." She blinked as a tear rolled down her cheek. She lifted my face with a wing. "Crys, it's a real—" Her voice caught. "—gift to know I can now find my own special somepony without hurting you." She then lifted up Pig Pen's head, which caused him to start back, but she pulled him nose to nose. "You'd better take good care of him or I willhurt you."
He whinnied and shied back, but I held him. "I told you she's a bit coltish and very Salernitano."
Hooves crashed against the floor.
Shocked, I found my mère shaking with rage, my Dad rapidly trotting up behind her. The purple mare with the pink-striped blue mane crashed down again, her magenta eyes blazing. She yelled, cursing in Prench, causing a dozen set of pegasus eyes on all levels to jump out of view. "Tu ne vas—You are not going to break the marriage contract. Not happening!"
On the other side of the hall, the Always Ontime side, Daylily's parents galloped in, sliding to a halt a pony length from my parents. The dark brown stallion and auburn mare looked from my infuriated mother to us, back again, then zoned in on me, standing, holding Pig Pen. Dad stepped over to explain as my mère fumed and stalked toward us.
Daylily turned around, blinking at the outburst as much as I did. She sidestepped and interposed her larger body as Pig Pen added another layer between us. Her voice went down a register as she said, "Stop."
My mother did not, of course, stop. Never did. "Je me— I don't care about l'expérience sexuelle or... misbegotten beliefsabout stallions or mares. Ciels Cristal has une obligation to his family—"
"And I don't?" asked Daylily, coldly, ears folding forward.
"You will shut up."
I shook, infuriated. I shouted, "You aren't her mère!" and pushed forward, wings up—reflexively sharpened.
Daylily flared her wings and caught me with a rear hoof, barely missing Pig Pen with her thrashing tail. Mine thrashed, too. She said, voice even and darkly ominous. "Do you still want me to run the merged company?"
"That is not the issue! My son's stupid—"
"Or do you want me to quit? Crystal Skies will always be my friend whether I marry him or somepony else, and I will never ever let anypony hurt him."
I saw her parents nodding. My mère ground to a halt, but her red-faced frown shadowed further as I saw her boiler about to explode, this time for real.
Daylily said aside, "I'll handle this. It's going to take awhile, if you stay. Master Feather Flick says in face of family, retreat may be honorable—"
"Exactly," Pig Pen interjected. He did that thing earth ponies do, pushing his prickly nose under me, lifting me with his head; before I knew it, he had me on his back, rushing down the stairs into the sunshine.
"Sweet Celestia! I thought my folks were a pain in the flank! Your mother, that's a force of nature."
"Like Carne Asada, what she wants she gets. They have my address. Daylily will contact us, first. I'm betting on her."
My legs quivered and my wings felt so mushy I feared I might crash if I flew. I grasped him and held on with all six, nose in his mane. He smelled good, like chocolate and specialness. His muscles moving below me felt magical; his warmth made me feel protected. Loved. "I-I love you," I said into his ear, causing the hairs to rustle and his ear to flick.
"—and you love Daylily. I guess I should count myself lucky you prefer stallions!"
"You know," I nodded, feeling understood, "I do. I prefer you. And I'm glad." I hugged him.
"Running here!" he complained, then said to a pair of ponies waiting at an air taxi stand, magenta and green eyes wide, "Mypegasus."
I nibbled his ear. "You know, The Grand Zephyr Vanhoover does have land pony suites..."
- End -