I smoothed back Hitch’s mane as he took a breath and sat up from puking the trash can. “That doesn’t seem like allergies.”
“No…” he moaned. “Even still, I’m not feeling too bad, I guess. Maybe all the bad stuff just went out. Huh, weird.”
“You good?” I asked.
He considered it. “Well, I’m going to go have to gargle now, so I’m getting out of bed anyway.”
Maybe it had been dinner the night before. I hoped not, because I’d made it. Maybe the giant flower pollen just had weird effects. Either way, it didn’t seem like Hitch was going to stay sick. We both shrugged it off.
I got a video call from Pipp and Zipp. “Hey Sentra, Mare’s Day is coming up and we want to do something special for our mom.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We wanted to do fireworks.”
“...I’m listening.”
I agreed to help out a little with their plan. It would involve a trip to Zephyr Heights. As it happened, Hitch and I had just been summoned to appear in court related to Bonesaw’s apprehension.
The girls got ready to go, and Hitch and I made arrangements to leave town. Sparky the baby dragon was still with Phyllis. Cool, that was all we needed to check.
Upon arriving to Zephyr Heights, though, we discovered Queen Haven was too busy with normal queen stuff to even watch a fireworks show.
“New plan, let’s give her a day off!” Pipp said. “We’ll take over being queen for a day. Surely between all of us, we can handle everything.”
I knew this kind of thing was exactly what Zipp had been trying to avoid, and even despite that, there was a reason they wanted her to be the heir, not Pipp. Fortunately, Sunny was also there to help out, but who knew if her alicorn magic was going to act up again. Hitch and I already had an out, which was almost a shame because I sort of wanted to see how Izzy was going to mess this up. From a safe distance, of course.
The court appearance ended up taking all day, though, and given the lack of explosions or anything from the castle, whatever ended up happening must not have been too crazy.
In the courtroom, both Hitch and I were called as witnesses. Apparently we were just there to confirm what had happened with Bonesaw and testify for the record what he had admitted to us while in our custody.
Hitch had gone first, and because his dealing with Bonesaw had been shorter, he was on and off the stand quickly. Then it was my turn.
The prosecutor made his case and was done. The defense attorney, a mare wearing a suit jacket and a monocle whose name I didn’t catch, stepped up.
“Ms. Marshall Law, please tell the court what you were doing the night that Mr. Bonesaw turned himself in?”
“I was off-duty, in fact, and was just about to go to bed when he called the sheriff station phone saying he wanted to turn himself in.”
“Please tell us exactly what you were doing.”
I glanced at the prosecutor, who didn’t seem to think this was objectionable. Well, okay. “I was dressed as a cheerleader and was in the act of seducing Sheriff Hitch.”
“And when Mr. Bonesaw interrupted this, did you take it out on him as a fit of revenge?”
Yes. I said, “Could you tell me what you mean by that?”
“You placed a call to Princess Pipp and told her, I quote, ‘I need your help to meangirl someone.’”
A murmur ran through the crowd. I decided to leverage Pipp’s reputation. “I think we all know that Princess Pipp would have been happy to meangirl anyone, anywhere, at any time, so my invitation in this instance does not imply special treatment.”
“Then what about the rest of your behavior? You invited Mr. Bonesaw to, and I quote again, ‘Take me by force.’”
“I’ll remind you this was right after he said he would.”
“And after you baited him to do it. You were asking for it, with your slutty makeup and beckoning lipstick.” She took a few steps forward. “That lithe body and exotic features. Those eyes, practically begging for it.” Her monocle popped out and she put her hooves on the rail of the witness box and leaned forward, licking her lips just inches in front of my face. “I bet everypony wants to rut you, dressing like that.”
I held my ground, but couldn't help but be weirded out. “Was there a question in there, or…?”
She backed off, smoothing her suit jacket and turned away. “The defense rests.”
Bonesaw was convicted unanimously.
Maretime Bay was set to host the first ever Equestria Games. Well, apparently not the first ever, if I’d heard correctly, but the first since the three tribes had recently been reunited.
“It’s so exciting!” Sunny gushed. This was despite her mostly being the organizer. She was also going to be representing the entire earth pony tribe at the games, while Queen Haven and Alphabittle would be coming for their tribes.
The opening ceremony was quite a show, with paper lanterns and magical ribbon twirling. Well, then they got tangled up and made a big mess.
That sort of set the theme for the event. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every tribe used its unique abilities to try and gain an advantage. Pegasi were flying, unicorns were doing magic, and earth ponies were doing everything else.
I was just sitting back and watching, because it was more fun that way and I wanted to cheer on Hitch, and also we still weren’t totally sure if I was a pegasus or not.
Hitch did pretty well in the individual events. He was athletic enough, and was on home turf. I could tell I was getting looks from people. I mean, I always did, but my cheering might have been distracting.
But it was worth it. Down on the field, Hitch glanced up and smiled.
“That’s my boyfriend!” I shouted, making sure everyone knew. I wouldn’t be doing this for just anyone.
Eventually, the tribe-wide cheating got to be too much and Sunny used her authority as master of ceremonies to disallow teams. The event finished with mixed groups of every race.
I guess that was a solution, though one that sort of got a meh from everyone. I guess better than doing something that would have been condemned by everyone.
I had petitioned Sunny to let me perform either the opening or closing ceremony. She’d said a flat no to the closing, apparently wanting something a little more sentimental and soothing. It was like she was accusing that I couldn’t do that. I was plenty sentimental and soothing, just ask Hitch.
As for the opening, I got outbid by Pipp. Apparently me offering to do it for free wasn’t good enough.
On the other hand, I felt marginally better knowing that Pipp had been suckered into paying just to be the one performing.
I met up with Hitch after the event and we went to have a celebratory dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Maretime Bay. While he’d done well, nobody in the Games was given more than a participation medal.
“Leave it on tonight,” I told him, grinning and giving his hoof a squeeze.
“We have a dress code,” interrupted the snooty guy at the restaurant desk.
“Oh. Well…” Hitch glanced at me.
I was about to tell him I wouldn't be disappointed if he didn't, and we had reservations to make, so he might as well take it off. Just for dinner, anyway. However, the restaurant guy interrupted again. “No, not you. Her.”
“What dress code?” I said. Hard to be wearing the wrong thing when everyone in the world was naked.
“This is a very fancy establishment, miss. Surely you must know that? To enter, ladies must be wearing a minimum of two square feet of lace.”
I should have done my research before making the reservation. But his attitude made it impossible for me to be apologetic. “As high as your nose is right now, I might be able to weave some out of the hairs I see.”
“Ahhahaha,” Hitch said, fake-laughing as he took me aside. “She’s so excited, she just forgot.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to him more quietly. “I should have planned this better.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “I have a plan.” He glanced up to the ceiling and said quietly, “Hey guys, can you help us out?”
“Who are you talking to?” I asked, but got my answer immediately as a crowd of spiders descended. With Hitch’s coaching, they quickly crafted the most awesomely metal little lace number I could have imagined. It was fragile, but looked amazing.
The restaurant guy was apparently more creeped out by spiders than I was, and now was also forced to accept me.
“You’re the best,” I whispered in Hitch’s ear as we were led into the restaurant.
He asked, “Tonight, are…are you going to wear the-”
“You know it.”
One day, Sunny invited us over to the Brighthouse to pick berries for pie.
Despite living there for a while, I was surprised just how extensive the grounds of the Brighthouse were. It had to have been several acres, and included a well-manicured garden.
Perhaps that was why Hitch had overpacked for the trip, bringing along camping equipment including a tent, portable fire, and a backpack with a robot arm map-holder.
“I never knew you had all this,” I sad. “We should put it to use sometime, going out in the wilderness, just the two of us.”
Sunny was a little miffed by the amount of gear that he’d brought, but encouraged us to pitch in. “Let’s get picking. That schmoogleberry pie isn’t going to schmooglebake itself.”
“Wait, hold up,” I said. “What’s a schmoogleberry?”
“How have you never heard of a schmoogleberry?” Sunny said.
“I keep telling you, I’m not from around here.”
She showed me the bush, and its red berries that were clustered sort of like grapes. Though grapes, I knew, grew on vines.
As we approached, though, the bush started to rustle and Hitch stepped in front of us protectively, brandishing a camping spork. “Watch out! This bush could be dangerous. Never trust anything that starts with schmoogle.”
That seemed like sound advice.
As Hitch parted the bushes, though, he found a raccoon and a snail fighting over the schmoogleberries. Well, no, a raccoonicorn and pegasnail because nothing in Equestria made sense.
“They’re fighting,” Sunny gasped.
“Watch this,” Hitch said. “You’re about to see a master class in critter talkery.”
He began to communicate with each of them, which was more boring than it sounded because to Sunny and me, it was just animal noises.
“Anything you need from us?” Sunny asked.
“Nope, I’ve got it handled,” Hitch replied.
“Okay, well, we’re going to get some apples for the pie. Come on, Sentra, I could use somepony who can fly.”
The Brighthouse gardens really were extensive. There was a whole apple orchard, albeit a small one. I started to pick a few, but Sunny asked me to wait. “I want to try this technique I’ve been reading about, how earth ponies used to harvest apples.”
She kicked the tree. Nothing happened.
“Um, was there more?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sunny said with a frown. “I can’t think of what else ‘applebucking’ could mean.”
“Maybe it got lost in translation,” I said. “Anyway, here’s the basket.” I’d already filled it mostly full.
We returned to Hitch only to find a full-on critter war going on. Apparently the Hitch-brokered peace agreement hadn’t helped in the slightest.
“It didn’t work!” he wailed. “I only made things worse!”
Considering the creatures were all in violation of the deconfliction documents he had created, and knowing a thing or two about opposed humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, I did what anyone would have done and hugged Hitch. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault that agreements between sovereign nations are fraught with the irrationality of their citizens.”
“I tried my best.”
“Yes you did.” I gently rubbed the back of his head.
“Um, maybe we could instead try to bring the raccoonicorns and pegasnails together and see what they have in common,” Sunny broke in.
That actually seemed to work out. Everyone liked pie. Unfortunately, the new combined pielliance of the two critter species suddenly turned on the brokers. Suddenly, we had raccoonicorns and pegasnails all over us, keeping us from the berries.
I was about to begin punting them, as they were much smaller to the point of it being comical, but Sunny and Hitch had already decided to run and me staying only to be surrounded and outnumbered was already a bad idea, not to mention the two of them might know something about these creatures that I didn’t, so I also turned tail for a tactical withdraw.
Political Science is stupid.