//------------------------------// // <3 // Story: Lesbian Sheep Syndrome // by SilverNotes //------------------------------// Two mares and an ewe laid in the grass of the east orchard. Fleeca was huddled against Lamb Chop's side, and the feeling of a woolly body beneath her wing helped soothe the frustrated tension she'd been feeling. Fleeca's ears continually flicked in the direction she'd come from, trying to listen for the bleating of her fellows. Lamb's ears also frequently moved, listening for any kind of distress from either the sheep or the drafted Crusaders. While she knew that Rainbow Dash had been joking about explosions--before they'd fetched Fleeca, she'd requested she keep such humour to herself while actual sheep were present--she still worried about the three fillies being left with the flock for too long. Rainbow had a little more distance from both of them, and her motions weren't restricted to just her ears. It seemed to Lamb that the other pegasus needed to be constantly in motion, be that motions of her hooves, stretching her wings, lashing her tail, or any other twitch of her muscles that her body chose to make to relieve the desire to move. "So..." Lamb started as she looked from sheep to pony and back again. "I was thinking we could maybe... try a gift... first?" The halting words were paired with a nervous fluffing of her wings. Fleeca's ears perked. "I like that ide--" "I guess that could work," Rainbow cut in with a roll of her eyes and wave of her hoof. "If the gift is awesome enough." Bolstered by the reluctant agreement by the resident (supposed) romance expert, Lamb kept going. "Alright, well, in Griffonstone shiny objects are common, but I think the classic move here in Equestria is flowers." She looked at Fleeca with a gentle smile. "Are there any that Dolly really likes to eat?" "Well, she--" "No no no! You're thinking too small!" Rainbow hopped to her hooves, as if her body couldn't bare to lay in the grass for one more moment. "It's gotta be something rare and valuable, like a first edition Daring Do book." Lamb tilted her head. "I thought you said reading was for eggheads." "They're novels. It's different." Lamb shook her head slightly, deciding to simply concede to Rainbow logic for the moment and turn to the black poof at her side. "Does Dolly like to read, Fleeca?" "Ummmm..." Fleeca shook her head a little. "I don't think so, not unless you count maaagazines. She does buy a lot of things from them, though. Maaakeup, mostly." Lamb's face brightened. "That's an idea. We could get her some cosmetics--" "Boooooring. You're still thinking too small." Rainbow soon went from on her hooves to in the air, and each flap of her wings sent a cool breeze washing over the pair. "Besides, it's a really bad idea to buy makeup for somepony else. It's actually really complicated, getting the right colours to match your fur. There's the base hue and undertones and--" She blinked as she caught the stares being aimed at her. "What? Rarity talked my ear off about it once." "Moving on..." Lamb gave Fleeca an encouraging nudge. "So, what other hobbies does she have?" Fleeca shifted a little in place, before offering, "She really likes music." Haltingly, looking unsure if she even could voice her own suggestion, she added, "We could... get her a record?" Lamb smiled. "That sounds good, you can let us know what artists she likes and what she has alread--" "And we've gotta make it a special one!" Rainbow grinned as she angled herself toward town. "C'mon, let's get bits together and--" Lamb's loud clearing of her throat stopped her, and she looked back toward sheep and guardian. "What's the holdup?" "Sheep wealth," she said simply, as she nodded toward Fleeca, in all of her cloud-shaped glory. "Isn't all in bits." Lamb Chop slipped her forelegs out of the loops attached to the sheep shears and slowly lowered out of her rearing stance. Her back would be stiff later for spending so much time on two hooves, even with help of her wings in keeping steady, but it was worth it. Fleeca was now a fraction of her size, and she gave a few hops through the grass to enjoy the loss of the wool that had been weighing her down. Rainbow, who'd looked bored through most of the process, was now staring at the three bags full of black wool incredulously. "How the hay did you get that much wool off of her?" Fleeca paused in her frolicking to fire off a helpful bleat of, "Maaagic." Rainbow blinked, looking at Lamb. "Uh, is she--" "She's serious." Sheep didn't really do sarcasm, but Lamb knew she didn't need to go on that particular tangent right now. "There's a lot of little subtle magics surrounding their wool, but part of it is that there's always a little more of it once it's off them than on them." "A little?" She waved one of her hooves at the piled sacks. "Just one of these bags is bigger than she is." "She's a bit of a prodigy." Lamb carefully looked over the sheep shears as she spoke. They weren't hers after all, and she had to make sure they'd be returned in the same condition they'd started in. Applejack had given her a look of exasperation when she'd come to get them, but hadn't pried into why she had a sudden interest in taking over shearing duty as well as guard duty. "Also it kind of fluffs out more after it's off. A bit like when you groom a dog and the resulting pile of fur looks like more than it is." The pegasus whose only pet experience was with a reptile could only shrug at that. "Right. Okay." She took to the air and flapped over to the bags. "Anyway, let's get this wool to market and see what awesome stuff we can get with it." "So," Lamb Chop started, as she placed the record down into the grass. "We gave your wool to Bumblesweet, to trade it for some honey..." "...And then," Rainbow Dash continued, chest puffed up with pride, "We gave that honey to Harry so he'd catch us some salmon..." Lamb shivered. Getting Harry involved had very much been Rainbow's idea. Bears were one of those animals that were known to live on the razor's edge of sapience, but she still hadn't expected having a friendly conversation with one, through his soft-spoken interpreter, to be something she did today. "...And then we gave the salmon to Berryshine for food for her cat..." "...So we could get the salad bowl to give to Drizzle..." "...And the tea set to give to Holly Dash..." "...So we could get that comic book to give to Spike..." "...And that board game to give to Jetstream..." "...And that set of rare beanbag animals to give to Noteworthy..." "...Who traded us the Songbird Serenade album for them!" Lamb nudged it further toward Fleeca. "It's from her Abyssinia tour." Fleeca blinked several times, leaning down to peer at the golden lettering on the album cover. "Wow... three little baaags of wool led to all thaaat?" Rainbow's proud grin grew all the wider. "That's the power of awesomeness in action!" "And the power of barter." She nudged the record again with her snout. "Go on, go give it to her." Fleeca looked from the record, to Lamb, to the record again, then took a deep breath and leaned down to pick it up, giving a muffled, "Thk yu," before she turned and headed for the pasture. Lamb's sharp eyes followed her, a little hastily-moving spot of freshly-sheared black among the sea of wool, until she stopped in front of Dolly. The placid bleating was broken by a sudden burst of high volume and high pitch, a sound many would be surprised a sheep could make, and yet was immediately recognizable. It was the sound delighted fans everywhere, regardless of species, made when presented with something from their favourite star, and the two pegasi gave a brief hoof-bump of triumph. The gramophone at the far end of the pasture sprang to life--it'd been a purchase made together by the flock, Lamb had been told--and the tones of Songbird Serenade filled the air, making the other sheep raise their heads and perk their ears as the instrumentals and distinct vocals washed over them. Fleeca eventually came wandering back over, and Lamb frowned when she saw that the little black sheep wasn't smiling. Rainbow, however, didn't seem to notice, eagerly getting right into Fleeca's personal space. "So how'd it go? All over you, right?" "She saaaid it waaas really thoughtful of me." "And?" Lamb verbally nudged. "Thaaat's it." Rainbow deflated like a popped balloon, hitting the ground like a fainting goat and laying there for a moment with her legs in the air. "Uuuugh..." She peered at Lamb from her place in the grass. "Plan B?" Lamb blinked. "We have a plan B?" Rainbow made another agonized, "Uugh..." squeezing her eyes shut, until they suddenly snapped back open. "I got it!" She leaped her to hooves, then into the air, zipping over to Fleeca again. "If giving her something didn't work, you should take her somewhere awesome!" "I still think a Wonderbolts show would've been cooler..." "Shhh." "Or big concert in Canter--" "Shhh," Lamb repeated, giving Rainbow a poke with her hoof as they sat on wooden benches in the town square, watching as four ponies assembled themselves on stage. She briefly waved at Big Mac, who looked surprised at the sight of her before his fellow singers nudged him to remind him to get into place. "They wouldn't want to be away from their flock that long. And Applejack still doesn't want me 'sticking my snout' in all of this, so she'd probably try to chaperone a farther trip herself." "Ehhhh." Rainbow gave a casual wave of her hoof. "I'd've been able to get her to loosen up and let us take them." She grinned. "I can play that farmpony like a fiddle." "Shhh!" Lamb adjusted herself on the bench, fluffing her feathers against the autumn breeze. Not too chill, of course, since the local weatherponies wanted to make sure that the charity concert went off without a hitch. She nodded toward the pair of ewes a short distance ahead of them, as the Ponytones started into their first song. "Let them enjoy the show." And enjoy they did. Even Lamb couldn't help but smile and bob her head to the beat. She hadn't known that Mac could sing like that, or Applejack's unicorn friend--she was starting to feel a bit bad for forgetting her name, and wondered if maybe she should take her up on the makeover to make it up to her--and the four blended together nicely. It wasn't quite like the music back home. Acapella didn't have a huge audience. Griffonstone was fond of drums and other percussive instruments, and weaving their voices in between the pounding beat. A lot songs from her childhood had been modified work or war songs, with a rhythm to labour or march to. But for a time, she could put that on hold and just enjoy the new experience. Just a townspony in the crowd, listening to a performance in an ordinary Equestrian town. ...An Equestrian town that had an alicorn librarian. So mostly ordinary. One song flowed into another, hooves stomping their applause after each one, and once the quartet had given their final bow, Lamb looked over to the see Fleeca and Dolly huddled close, sharing an affectionate nuzzle. "Awww..." She nudged Rainbow with her shoulder. "Look at them." Rainbow chuckled. "Yeah, we totally got this." She offered her hoof for a bump that Lamb gladly returned. "Toldja it'd work." Slowly, the crowd around the concert broke up, ponies peeling off in groups with ones they'd arrived with, all of them heading for home. It was close to when the flock would be rounded up for the night, and Lamb and Rainbow fell back to let Fleeca and Dolly take the lead, even if it seemed to physically pain Rainbow to take things at an easygoing walk. She would often take a few steps, hop, then take wing for a few beats and land again. The two ewes chattered in low voices, and the pegasi attempted conversation as well, though Lamb had to, again, stop Rainbow from trying Griffish. "What? Do I really sound that bad?" she asked with a huff. "That's not it," Lamb assured, thankful that she, herself, was not a sheep, and so could lie. "It's just that I'm an Equestrian now. I should talk like it. I didn't get this fluent by switching back to my native tongue all the time." "Hey, have a little homeland pride." On one of her hops, her shoulder met Lamb's in something between a nudge and a playful shove. "You don't have to act like you were never Griff. I bet Griffonstone has a lot of awesome things to be proud of." Lamb gave a sad smile. "It does." She looked up at the sky, and for the first time in a while, she felt a genuine itch to fly. Not just the need to be on a high perch to better watch her surroundings, but to fly for the sake of it. "I miss it every day. I grew up in a small town, high in the cliffs, about half pegasi and half griffons. Well..." She gave a small laugh. "And one donkey. Everyone kept an eye on him, in case he got in trouble and needed wings to get out of it, but in private we said that he probably could fly, just by staring down gravity and telling it to cut it out." Rainbow laughed too. "See? That's a cool way to grow up, and nopony in town has a story like it." She gave another hop, and the playful shoulder-to-shoulder contact happened again. "You're awesome in your own way, and being a Griff is part of it. Don't throw it away." "Thanks, Rainbow." Lamb sighed a bit. "I guess it gets to me sometimes, how different Equestria is." The night steadily grew colder as they followed the path to Sweet Apple Acres, right on schedule. "So, why'd you leave?" The tone of the question was casual, and yet the weight of it nearly knocked Lamb Chop off her hooves. "I..." "It's just, sure, Equestria is clearly the best place around. It's got me, and my friends, the princesses, me, and everything. But like I said, Griffonstone's pretty cool too, and it's a long way to go for just shee--" "Bits." Rainbow blinked. "What?" "My family is poor, Rainbow." Her eyes went to the moon as it rose above the horizon. The same moon that her old community would be looking up at it as well tonight. "My town is poor. It's not bad everywhere, it might not get bad everywhere before it gets better, but Griffonstone's been in economic decline for years. My best chance to do more than scrape by was to get out." The words felt like acid on her tongue, and she was disgusted with herself for saying them. Her homeland would pull out of this, she knew it would, but until then, it was true. She wasn't just following her mark. Ponies had moved to Griffonstone during its height and now in its low, immigration was flowing back the way it'd come. Applejack paid her more than her previous employers had ever been able to dream of having to spare. She had mostly been working for food and a place to sleep. And she'd still nearly stayed. After the storm-- Can't fail. --She'd had a job for life if she wanted it. Yet, she'd left. Nearly everything had gone into her train ticket, and she'd walked out of the first station in Equestria with less bits than she'd had hooves, praying that she wouldn't need to rely on eating grass and sleeping on hastily-molded clouds for too many days before she found something. "Hey, uh..." Rainbow didn't touch her this time, just stepping a bit closer. "Look, I didn't know--" Lamb picked up her pace to a trot. "Come on. We're almost back." The sheep were settling into their pen, and two pegasi stood at the edge, the awkward silence having well and truly settled over them as they waited. Rainbow Dash occasionally started to say something, but Lamb Chop's eyes never left the sheep, and eventually she gave up, shifting back and forth on her hooves as numerous goodnight bleats were exchanged and lambs tucked themselves against relatives or friends to sleep. Eventually, a spot of black peeled off, and Fleeca approached them. Possibly desperate for some chatter after the silence, Rainbow took wing and zipped over with particular haste. "So, was I right or was I right? A complete success." Fleeca shuffled her hooves. "Well..." "What? Seriously?" Hooves met the grass again. "Still nothing?" "She saaaid she haaad a really good time and waaants to do it agaain?" "Uuuugh." Rainbow shook her head furiously. "She's a tough nut to crack. Okay, time to pull out all the stops." If she had not been so focused on getting into the pen herself for some much-needed sleep, Lamb Chop may have raised an alarm at those words. But as it is, she just walked over to Fleeca and lowered her head to nudge her back to the pen, so she could close and lock the gate behind them. "Tomorrow. We'll do more tomorrow. See you in the morning, Rainbow." Sleep wouldn't come to her that night either.