Four of us sat in the counselors' hut, the Drover Room as the goats called it since we were herding students like a goat drover herded its herd. Me, Lightning Dust--cleaned up but glowerin' at me, my junior counselor--whatshisname, and Snowflake. He wasn't supposed to be 'ere. An' he wasn't 'Snowflake' anymore. He was goin' by a different sobriquet. I couldn't deal with this.
After shifting like I needed shittin', I got up and left the room.
We'd done introductions. It'd been... a lot.
"What's wrong Fid-" my junior counselor stood.
"Headache," I said. "Back in a bit."
I stumbled outside, around the back of the building and looked to my left, my right, my back. Just a single grizzled goat chewin' grass. I bucked the back of the building, cussin' up a rage an' stompin' at the grass an' spittin'. Then I looked down at the musical note cutie mark at my thigh and took a deep breath. One. Two. Three. Four. Four count time. Measure by measure. Fine. No need ta' bolt. I walked back into the room.
My junior counselor was laughing when the door opened. Laughter cut off and they all stared.
"How's your head?" Snowflake asked in sotto-voce.
"Mezzo-forte," I mumbled.
"Not fortissimo... strong?"
"Not as much."
"Wha?" Lightning Dust screwed up her face and looked over at my junior counselor.
He explained: "Fiddlesticks fancies music. Note her cutie mark," he indicated the treble clef--a G-clef--on my hip. "And Neightalian terminology."
Lightning Dust moved back in her wooden chair. "Wow. Nerd."
I ignored her and met Snowflake's eyes. "Hey," I said and went to my chair.
Lightning Dust squeaked a hoof so it sounded like I farted when I sat. I fixed her with a disgusted expression.
"Ugh," Lightning made a face. "Didn't wipe yahself when you went?"
"I had a *headache*. Not a bathroom jaunt."
"Meh. Heard youse kicking dirt, covering it up."
"We have an outhouse."
"Thought that was just for city ponies?"
"Who in Celestia's name deemed you qualified to babysit foals at camp?"
"Same pony who appointed me," Snowflake spoke up, with a gruffer, harder voice than I remembered him having. And devoid of stuttering, now that I thought about it. He'd had an impediment when I'd known him. Good that he'd gotten over that. He'd been teased mercilessly--unfairly so--but kids were kids--jerks.
"Why... why are you here?" I asked.
He took a deep breath, then growled. Maybe the growling covered up any slipping of the tongue. "I may not be here the whole season, but the counselors... had an accident."
"Trying to save an Earth Pony," Lightning Dust yawned. "She was wandering in the Everfree Forest by herself, looking for her parents."
Looking for her... Oh Celestia. I'd been warned about one of my campers. The lemon-coated one with the red mane--Apple Bloom--a distant cousin of mine. Her grandmother had told her that her parents had been "lost" an' the filly took it literally. Then she got herself lost. Her big brother and sister went looking for her and some pegasi joined. The pegasi hadn't fared too well in tha' Everfree Forest an' my cousins were payin' for their medical bills... not out of requirement but out of duty.
"And I was EEA-approved." The Equestrian Education Agency (EEA) licensed our counselors. "I'm older than my majority, you're right." He fixed me with a gaze that seemed to question my skepticism. "But this is the best they could do on short notice." He looked away, at the wall, but I could tell his face had flushed.
I looked down, hiding my own blush. Celestia-be-damned, I didn't wanna deal with this tha' whole season....
"But pegasi will be fine despite Bulk Biceps' infirmity." Lightning Dust smirked and indicated Snowflake's tiny wings, little appendages on a body that had bulked up significantly since I'd sighted Snowflake two years ago, when his name was... Snowflake. But now he was "Bulk Biceps"... an' I couldn't take that name seriously. C'mon. Really. "Bulk". Nearly laughed. But I also wanted ta' cry. I'd left his letters unanswered after camp two years ago. I'd kissed him and hugged him and left him behind. An' I was never gonna see him again. But he was here.
He stared at me with a neutral expression now. My mouth was dry. The room was silent.
"I can fly," he said, meeting my gaze. I stared at his body. Ridiculously buff compared to where he was two years ago. He'd been a bit stocky when I'd known him--good for an earth pony--less so for pegasi who needed streamlinin'. He'd been teased and picked up and tossed into th' lake. He couldn't swim. I got the water out of him and took him back to the Drover Room. And the counselors hadn't been around. And we'd been talkin'. And touchin'. My tick'lish G-spot--the indicative part of my hip-borne cutie-mark G-clef, y'know--I was so young then. An' there weren't many days left at camp.
"Fly?" I had nothin' else to say.
He nodded and came off his chair. He beat his tiny wings--so out of proportion to his body and an eighth the size of a normal pegasi's--faster and faster like an out-of-control oscillating fan. And he rose into the air. Puffing out his cheeks, he rose and gained height. His body, muscled and strained, more like that of an Earth Pony's than a pegasi's. He rose from the ground and fluttered around. He was making it work--an awkward fly--but it functioned. Then he alighted back in his chair.
I was wide-eyed: "Congratulations."
He acknowledged with a slight nod.
*
After we got through the counselor's meeting, we found the young'uns hadn't gotten up to too much trouble. The goats who had been watchin' them masticate their dinner from afar nodded to us and hoofed back supervision. Nary a word, but the goats liked it like that. A few bleats, a few nods, a few stomps--all they needed to convey what they wanted--which was mostly bits an' to be left alone.
Camp was lightly staffed, just four counselors. If a problem arose, we had a semaphore to signal for help. Celestia had convinced the EEA ta' let this camp be a developmental place--youths only--to find themselves. It was special... And I loved it.
But this year was... somethin' else.
We roasted s'mores and taught camp songs an' I played my fiddle. Even pegasi joined in the dancin', albeit in air moreso than on the ground. Even Snow-Biceps joined in. He didn't look much at me though. Blearily through the smoke of the flickerin' fire, I watched him move more elegantly than he had two years ago. Last time he'd been unsteady--gawky. I'd helped him wit' the traditional earth steps: the cotton-pickin' line, the foreleg over foreleg, the fetlock raise, the twist, the cocky chicken dance, the ... stuff. We'd been sweaty, happy... Not important.
Tha' pegasi joined tha' camp on tha' ground for sleepin' in solidarity. Happened every year. I forced our campers a'sleep as early as possible 'cause we all needed a bushel of rest 'cause every time the pegasi slept on the ground it was the same drudgery the next day.
*
Bright an' early our campers rose--tha' pegasi especially complainin' about their backs from sleepin' on hard dirt instead of soft clouds. A few ponies roused resting compatriots who failed to heed the breakfast bell.
"Ya' softies!" I'd called. "Gonna prove yerselves today then ya' can go back to them clouds if ya' want." Last time, most pegasi spent their nights in the clouds--except Sn-Bulk Biceps. That gave us lots'a chances ta' talk.
My promises and threats stopped the campers' whining. Pegasi snapped to attention.
But there was a problem.
For our team-building hike up the goats' premier mountain, we were traditionally paired mare to stallion (when possible--there were only three stallions among earth pony campers and four for the pegasi). That meant as counselor-guides 'Bulk' Biceps was to be my partner. But I didn't want that awkwardness. So, stupidly, I approached Lightning Dust.
"Veteran with newbie,' I'd laughed an excuse.
"Youse loves me," Lightning had winked, surprisingly chipper despite her bleary eyes--her experience on the ground had been no different from her charges'. Our campers heard and they oohed and awwed. One started a supportive cheer of "Mare Mates! Mare Mates!" Lightning laughed at the japery.
I shuddered. Never with that mare. We set off.
*
Lightning Dust threw away the map.
I couldn't bawl her out in front'a the campers. Well, I could. Could'a called her a bird-brained cloudy-puff. But I shouldn't. So I didn't. Not that time at least.
"Where'd you toss it?" I asked, with gritted teeth.
"Intaw a pond."
No way ta' recover that. Ponds were too muddy. And mucky. Even if we found it, it'd be a miracle if it was usable.
I'd closed my eyes. "Fine. I remember this path. It's overgrown, but we need ta' go right."
"I'll fly to scout," Lightning Dust suggested.
"That's against tha' spirit of our orienteering--" I held out my compass ineffectively.
Dust was off, fast, into the sky, doing tricks and slides along branches as she ascended above the canopy. Soon, she returned, to cheers and claps of eager campers.
"This way!" Dust exclaimed and darted up the left path.
"Wait!" I counseled. But the campers raced after Dust.
*
Much later that night when it was dark, we returned covered in brambles and briars. To her credit, Lightning Dust and her pegasi hadn't abandoned us earth ponies. But she was the one who'd gotten us lost and completely off the pony-made trails onto some nightmare of a game or goat trail that had an unsteady cliff-slide.
Bulk Biceps approached us, frowning. "Are the campers safe?" he asked.
"No thanks ta' this bird--" I tossed my head at my nemesis.
She scoffed. "I got us back."
"She ditched tha' map."
"And scouted out--"
"Which was prohibited--"
"Youse was guessing. You'd have gotten us into trouble."
"And you didn't?" I pulled a prickly branch off my haunches.
"Worse trouble," Lightning Dust clarified, scratching herself in a place that maybe disturbed some small parasitic critters that had al'most certainly hopped a ride onto her.
"And the campers?" Bulk Biceps asked.
"I don't see how some barely-qualified city pony's allowed ta' even be with tha' campers--" I'd shouted.
My assistant, who had apparently gone to look after the youths, returned and reported to Bulk Biceps about their scrapes, ailments, and assorted woes.
Bulk--I'll call him Biceps since that was the only way I could think about his new name--had grunted, loudly, and taken out a small notebook--one I recognized as him having used as a journal two years ago. And he wrote in it.
"You're writing us up?" Lightning Dust surmised.
Biceps shrugged, "It's about the campers."
"What'd ya' write?" Lightning Dust was persistent. "Youse got a problem, just say it."
Biceps shook his head. "It's private. You two might consider being... a bit kinder. A bit more conscientious." He walked off.
"Conscientious?" I'd shouted. Then I'd clapped a hoof over my mouth.
Lightning Dust cocked her head at me. Then she took off behind Biceps, who hadn't looked back, despite my ejaculation.
*
Later.
Lightning Dust sidled up beside me hoverin' with a thick-as-thieves look on her face. "I got what Bulk Biceps wrote. It didn't have anything to do with either of us."
"You stole it," I observed.
"From his bedroll."
"Uh-huh."
"I know. So, youse can rest at ease." Lightning Dust winked.
"You're gonna put it back, right?"
Lightning Dust grinned and held the journal aloft.
"Right?"
She shook her head. "Gonna read it."
"Invasion of privacy! Not friendly behavior--" I started.
She tsk-tsked and started to fly away. I couldn't let her. Biceps had written in it when we'd had our... hugs and kisses... and it might mention Biceps thoughts about me. If not for myself, then for Biceps--poor Biceps--I had to get the journal. I raced forward with a jump, grabbed it in my teeth, turned, and ran.
Lightning Dust was on me in an instant. We tousled and rolled in the dirt. She kicked sand in my eyes, tore into my neck with sharp teeth and I dropped the book.
"Heh-heh. Dusted!" Mealy-mouthed, she declaimed, spitting out some hair. And she took off and flew straight into Biceps' barrel chest with a whomp!
*
Later.
I held a bag of ice over one o' my eyes and another on my neck. Lightning Dust held her head in her hooves. Momentarily, she looked up at me, an expression of slight terror across her face. "He's probably not gonna write anything to the EEA. It'll look bad that we're not getting along." She tried to convince herself.
I focused on my own strategies. I could tell Biceps I was just tryin' to get the book to give it back to him.
When Biceps emerged from the Drover Room with his journal, he just stared at me. No blush, just a frown. My assistant delivered the decision. Biceps didn't want to talk. T' be fair, I wasn't worthy of talkin' to him.
*
We stared into each other's eyes, barely able to make each other out due to the clouded darkness and lack of stars or moon overhead, hearing the bleats of our host goats in tha' near distance.
Tonight was supposed to be another s'mores roast. And music. But we were in time out, supposed to talk things out. Friendship detention.
I spoke up first. "Lightning Dust. Why're you such a jerk?"
"Why're you so mean?"
"Me: Mean?"
"Youse heard me." She sneezed as some dust blew into our faces. The wind was picking up.
"What've I done to you... unprompted?"
"Youse insult me all the time."
"Same from you."
Silence.
"Look," Lightning Dust sighed. "Bulk Biceps is gonna wanna see some progress was made, so why don't we kiss and make up?"
"What?" The nerve of her. "Yer speaking evocatively?"
"No," she shook her head. "Nothin' real, but something obvious. A light dustin' of kisses. Bites on the neck, right?"
I tilted my neck to display what violence she had done to me earlier.
"This is more than enough."
"Nope," She grinned very white teeth. She breathed short, anticipatory breaths.
I responded, breathing longer heavy expulsions, listnin' to tha' crickets and tha' wind. Tonight wasn't gonna be quite as hot a night like tha' past few.
"Just a few nips'll sell that we made up." So smug.
"--that how they make up in Manehattan?"
"Sure,"
"'S not how we do it here."
"Sex?" She'd asked.
"What?"
"Do it. Makeup sex?"
"No!"
Lightning Dust shrugged. "I wasn't askin' for some. I was askin' if that's what farm ponies did. Youse have a lotta relatives. Lotta kids. Like youse got three cousins at this camp alone."
"That's because many don' practice birth control--but no--I--biting my neck?" I took a sharp intake of breath. "You like me!"
"No, no," she vigorously shook her head. "I'm just--it's the simplest way. They'll think we're love-hate."
"It's hate-hate."
She nodded. "Yeah."
Goats bleated.
"Just like I hate that sound," she expanded on her thought.
"It's our hosts."
"Why are we even here?"
"Punishment."
"I mean here. On goat property. This camp, root-brain."
I humored her. "Pegasi, on your off rotations meet with griffins, right?" She nodded. "Unicorns' community service goes in border areas where they become better acquainted wit' donkeys, mules an' cows. We got the goats."
"Why goats?"
I shrugged.
"Why pegasi? Why unicorns? Why anything?"
"What?"
"Why are we trying so hard to be friends? Like, country earth ponies can't even fly. We'd probably never see each other if we didn't come here."
"Windigoes." Legend had it that if the pony tribes stopped being friends, the windigoes would come and freeze the world in ice as thick as the hatred in ponies' hearts.
"Fairy tale. But I guess if the tribes don't work together, there'd be more conflict. Pegasi are self-sufficient, though--can move to warmer pastures. Better than youse rich dirt ponies and unicorns. We'd be fine."
"Where does your food come from? Those farms you're lookin' down on?"
"... I suppose. But we can hunt." She grinned that carnivorous pegasus stare. Some ate fish. And there were rumors of other consumed meats. My vegetarian-friendly stomach rumbled, pondering that.
"And you give us requested weather," I acknowledged the role of the pegasi.
"I guess."
"Whether we're rich or poor."
"All youse farmers are rich."
"What?" She'd stated that before but it hadn't quite registered.
"Youse are rich. You've got land. You own your houses. Like Cloudsdale pegasi."
"You're from Manehattan?"
She sniffed.
"You don't own your home?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Manehattan's great. Lots of places ta' party. But we've got congestion and flying rules and a pony can't just go to the outskirts to fly unless there's supervision--loads more rules in Manehattan than in the country with youse rich ponies."
"We're indebted to insurers," I explained. "We could lose the farm on a couple of bad harvests."
"Least you've got food--"
We went back and forth for a while. Then, still thinkin' about it, we lay back on the ground. Goats bleated aggressively.
"What are they bucking doing so loud this late?" Lightning Dust asked.
"Sex."
"Bucking no."
"Yup."
"Huh." The bleating went on. "Should we move?"
Hooves were stamping. The bleating cadence was rising. "Nope," I said.
"Um. But they don't know ponies are here. We're supposed to be at the fire."
"Just be quiet."
"You like hearing that?"
I whispered. "We have to stay. This is our punishment... not these precise sounds but...goats only sleep about five hours. They're out and about when we're restin'. If we move, though, we'll be in bigger trouble."
"Uh." Horns were locking. "Sounds pretty intense... are they harming each other?"
I rolled over on my side and didn't answer. Cows did similar things on the farm when bulls visited. These weren't new sounds to me.
"Um," Lightning Dust's voice quivered. "Are they hitting each other? That can't be right."
Sounds certainly implied they were. Goats had horns to an extent that non-unicorn ponies did not. And culturally, they loved smacking them around. "Yeah,"
"Isn't that hurting--like illegal? Should we get a-police?"
"They're goats. They do this. It doesn't hurt."
"I'd, um..." she trailed off. A few minutes later she finished her thought. "I'd want ponies to go to ... police if that was my..."
I can sometimes pick up on subtext.
"That happen to someone you care about?"
"Uh,"
I hugged her. She didn't shrug me off. And she was shaking. "Usually, mares dominate. It's embarrassing. Celestia--I should shuddupaboutit!" She sobbed. "But... yeah. Let's stop this."
"They're goats, Lightnin'. They're not in pain. This is what they do." This hug was bringing back memories...of Biceps. I bit my lower lip. I was... really, this caring instinct of mine. This was why I'd become a counselor. Well, I wanted to heal with my music--use my cutie mark--but I couldn't have that here, so I fell back on older methods...
"I don't wanna hear it."
I held my hooves over Lightning Dust's ears. She whimpered and tucked her head against my body. I felt her snort quite a lot at first, but her sniffling subsided... although it left me sticky.
Eventually, the goats went to sleep.
I detached myself from Lightning Dust and rubbed the stickiness on the grass. Then she reached for me. It was getting colder, so I accepted and pressed closer against her. I really hated her but this punishment had been more intense for her. Sleepily, she turned to my face and held me, muttering something about "Cumulus". And we slept... more or less... hugging.
The wind blew and a light dust settled over us as we dreamed, Lightning Dust twitching from a disturbed dream or a chill every now and then. The calm probably wouldn't last.