I hear the door opening and closing, and her noisy clip-clop on the wooden tiles. She is home. Well, she never left, she’s just been in the schoolhouse that is technically another room in the building, but you know what I mean.
Work has been slow for me lately, which is kind of eye opening and scary at the same time. I have a significant decrease in number of clients every day ever since we became a thing. Still, business is business and I still make a considerable amount of Bits giving massages and scritches at the spa, but when I run out of clients I can leave. The schedule is pretty flexible, if a pony asks for my services and I’m not there, Lotus and Aloe just take note of them and make an appointment.
It felt wrong at the beginning, like I was treating them as animals when I petted them, but what started almost as a joke became my main source of income. The most profitable employment I’ve managed to ever have. Even if I count my previous life and the recent decrease in clients, and that’s kind of sad in part…
All my studies and college degrees to end up giving ear scritches, and the worst part? I wouldn’t change it for my previous job. No pressure, no bossy boss, no high mentally taxing tasks, and the payment? I was able to save up now, and I wasn’t able back then. Maybe a slower life train? Less bills to pay? Cheaper life in general? I’m not an economist, and even if I was, I don’t have the slightest idea of how much an Equestrian Bit would be worth back on Earth.
Cheerilee appears through the door and plops down on the sofa next to me. She looks tired, but the happy kind of tired with a pleasant smile on her muzzle.
“Hey.” I greet her.
“Hey…” She smiles at me.
“Any plan for dinner?”
“Uh… actually I was expecting you to… never mind, I guess not.”
“Let me see what’s in the icebox. I’m not really in the mood for cooking.” I am not that tired, just feeling lazy today.
“Ah, well, I guess that’s going to be it… Still, your quick dinning solutions are usually better than my regular bachelor chow…”
“You like my cooking skills then?”
“More like I like having a stallion bringing me dinner.” She winks at me, and I stick my tongue out as I disappear trough the kitchen door.
There is not a wide selection of groceries, but enough for a couple of quick sandwiches with our favorite stuff. I was even able to get some smoked meat from a griffon merchant.
Dinner goes as it always does lately. She has very good table manners, as she should to be an example for foals, she always eats in a kind of dignified pose, with a special attention to being polite, using ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in abundance, she always avoids to speak with her mouth full and all that.
Me… not as much I would say. Old habits die hard, and I was pretty used to my bachelor life where I didn’t have to worry about such things.
This causes her to go into teach-pony mode and chides me for every little thing, and I end up teasing her about it. To a degree, of course, not enough to be unpleasant to each other.
This comes as a little bit of a surprise, as she is not as tidy as she appears to be. Her house tends to become a mess with her stuff all over the place, school materials to review and papers to grade here and there. She is only tidy when in class, to be an example to the foals, or when she is trying to make a good impression of herself to others, like when we first met.
But not as much when she is relaxing at home and takes the least resistance path to manage her tasks. That path is not usually the more organized or clean, but an effective one nonetheless.
As a result, the house ends up looking a little bit like a mess. She was very embarrassed about it the first few times we met, when she was teaching me how to speak Harmonian. She tended to avoid going to her house proper and usually took me to the empty schoolhouse after the foals were gone for the day. Or she thoroughly cleaned her home before we had our sessions.
Now I live here and I can clean up and make the small household look better. I also cook for her sometimes, as it is what stallions appear to do here, kind of. I never had a problem with that, and I know how demanding being a teacher can be, and my job doesn’t actually require much in terms of physical or mental effort, so I kind of come back home pretty relaxed and full of energy.
She of course, teases me about that, being a ‘good stallion’ and all that, because she fully knows that human gender roles tend to be reversed compared to the pony ones. She teases me, but not enough to become unpleasant, we are just being playful with each other.
After living with her as a couple for a few weeks, we ran out of topics to talk about while we were having dinner, so we just eat in silence. A thunder storm is scheduled for tonight, and the pitter-patter of rain is starting to make itself known hitting the roof and the windows. The smell of rain is pleasant and the crackle of the fire in the hearth is relaxing, casting dancing shadows around us.
I burp quietly, but loud enough for her to hear. She scrunches her nose and frowns at me. I stick my tongue out and she puts her muzzle up high with an indignant ‘hump’.
“And remember to wash your teeth.”
“I no wanna…” I respond, tensing my vocal cords a little bit more than necessary, so I sound more childish.
“I’m not going to let you go to bed without.” She rolls her eyes.
I always wash my teeth, but I only pester her about it when she tells me out of the blue to do so.
There is no TV here to watch, and I don’t really miss it. I rarely watched TV back on Earth, but I miss a little bit my computer and the internet. Apart from that, life becomes surprisingly pleasant here, and I’m kind of thankful for it. Nothing like being transported to a fantasy world to get a true disconnection from the social media. I still miss my family and friends, I hope they are doing okay, as I’m doing just fine in here.
“Stallions first.” She says after we finish dinner.
“For what?”
“For teeth.”
“Why such a hurry?” I reply.
“Come on…” She insists and nudges me out of the couch with her muzzle.
Earth ponies are quite strong, surprisingly so, given their size, so, I only manage to oppose her for a while, until she uses her forehead instead and pushes me hard and I find myself standing.
“Okay, okay…” I say as I go to the bathroom.
I brush my teeth and come out just to find her on the other side of the door, waiting to get her turn in the bathroom. We switch places and I go back to the couch and plop down. Not a whole lot to do after having dinner, probably just the rest of the evening for ourselves. She comes out of the bathroom, sits down next to me and leans on my shoulder, resting her cheek on the crook of my neck.
“What got into you today about dental hy…” I start to ask, but I get silenced by the application of muzzle.
The kiss is brief, but surprising as she just pulls back after a fraction of a second.
“Can’t have you stinking like a griffon.”
“Uh… what? Um… I thought you liked predators…”
“Yeah, maybe, but what I definitely don’t is the taste of their preys when I kiss them.”
Oh, yeah… the meat in my sandwich… That could explain things.
“But you enjoyed that griffon salad.” I tease her.
“I endured the griffon salad.”
“So, you didn’t like it?”
“I… it… kind of made me uncomfortable. More like the fact that I found it palatable was the wors part of it. And that smoked meat of yours smells way stronger than those chicken bits did.”
“So, you just wanted to…” I try to articulate, but fail as she starts rubbing her cheek on my shoulder.
“Get rid of the smell and taste.”
“I see… is somepony feeling frisky tonight?”
“Nah, just some snuggles, maybe you could give me one of those massages.” She looks at me with her eyes half lidded.
Ponies don’t usually go for kisses as much as humans do. Ponies usually muzzle and lick, but on rare occasions also kiss. One thing I enjoyed a lot was to give her a quick peck between the nostrils, that usually discombobulated her and made her go cross eyed for a moment, and I found it utterly adorable. She then tried (and usually failed) to appear offended, which only succeeded in making her look even more adorable.
But now, after her little assault, she is looking at me with half lidded eyes… how dare she… time to act! I perform my practiced-into-perfection move and unleash the nostril kiss, but… As soon as I take the optimal position and launch myself I can, for a fraction of a second see an evil scrunchie on her muzzle.
Oh, no… It’s a trap!
She slightly pulls back, avoiding the kiss and I feel something warm and moist graze the tip of my nose. I go cross eyed and look back at her, her tongue is out and the scrunchie has intensified.
She licked my nose!
I narrow my eyes at her and launch a second attack. She is prepared, but I’m prepared too. I go for the peck; she goes for the lick… we end up in a French kiss and our tongues say hello to each other. We pull back at the same time, both surprised at the unexpected outcome.
Now that I think about it… It doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all.
I approach a little, and she takes the hint and closes the rest of the distance for another kiss. It is not an eager one, we don’t lose our breaths, our tongues don’t battle for dominance, they just show each other around and dance together as a team, listening to each other, leaving room as an invitation and then guiding one another in turns.
We are not a couple of teenagers. We take our time, we enjoy the moment, not like gorging yourself in cheap alcohol like the first time you got drunk, we enjoy each other like savoring a glass of fine wine in good company. If anything, we make sure the other one enjoys the moment. We keep our pace as we continue to breath slowly, I feel the light stream of warm air coming from her nostrils into my face with each breath, and I bet she feels mine.
I feel her shivering a little when her tongue finds one of my fangs, and I can’t help but feel how different she is from what I’m used to. An alien from another world, as different, and as exotic as it can get. She might look like a little equine, but her eyes spark with sapience. She is the girl who taught me how to speak their language. All the things about her show a high level of care and attention, and the slight minty clean flavor from the toothpaste tells me she was planning this kiss all along.
But then, she pulls back, sighs and looks down. Something is bothering her, and I’m wise enough to give her space. The last thing you want when you think about something unpleasant is someone pressing you. This has come more often than not, but it usually goes away after some minutes, then she goes back to her cheery self. I just give her space and wait, if there is something…
“We… we need to talk…” She mumbles.
There we go… the words everyone fears… Let’s see what’s going on…
***
“We… we need to talk…” I tell him after some hesitation.
The reaction is immediate, he scoots back a little and looks at me with his black eyes. And I get some chills down my spine and my tail twitches nervously. I know how stallions hate those words… Heck, we mares absolutely hate those words too if they come from our stallion, it usually means trouble in the relationship.
What’s in my mind? is it bad enough to call for this? Is it too late to take away those words? In reality I have been waiting to bring this up for a while now, and the longer I try to ignore it, the worse it becomes. I hope he understands. When I look up back to him, he has an unreadable expression, his sight is lost in the middle distance, towards the hearth that is crackling merrily in this grey afternoon.
“I’m listening.” Is the only thing he says. Well, there goes nothing.
“It’s about… well, our situation.” I introduce the topic.
“Aha…” He nods and urges me to continue. I can’t see any traces of emotions on his face, just his pair of black eyes, laser focused on mine.
“You see, um… what are your feelings on herds?” I try to inquire him about it.
“A what? I think I am not following you, what do you mean?” He looks utterly confused. Of course, he still doesn’t know pony culture in detail. I am the first contact he has ever had with pony relationships… maybe he needs some explanations before…
“Uh… you know, a pony family.”
“You want to… start a family? Like… having foals?” He seems a little bit alarmed at that.
“Uh… no, not at all, I know the chances we have at that are… well, astronomically small. Don’t worry about that.” I rub my muzzle with my fetlock, trying to rephrase an explanation.
“Then I’m even more lost than before.”
“I mean… there are other ponies interested in joining our family, if we decide to start one seriously.”
“What?”
“More ponies, other mares joining our family, you know…”
“Other… wait… like… becoming a trio with other mare!?” He asks, mildly surprised.
“Well… something like that. Adding more partners to our relationship. How do you feel about that?”
“Uh… I mean… this… well…” He hesitates. “I have never been in anything like that.”
“So, is it not normal for humans to form herds?”
“The standard for humans is… um…” He backpedals. “Is the… herd thing the normal thing for ponies?” He asks back, probably trying to gather more information before answering my question.
“Um… more or less. We like families of one mare and one stallion, but a few mares for each stallion are not uncommon.” I explain. Usually, a mare will try to get a stallion for herself as a couple, but that’s not always possible, as there are too many mares and too few stallions. Some mares go alone, other mares join a herd, and others might even get… creative. I might fit into that ‘creative’ category if I take into account that I’m basically dating a stallion from another species.
There is a pregnant pause, neither of us have any idea of how to break the silence for a while after this, until he talks again.
“…Would you like to be in one of those… herds?” He hesitantly asks.
“I… it depends… would you?” I want to get an unbiased response from him before going on, so I answer with another question, just like he did before.
“Why are you this to me?” Bingo… he knows there’s more than just a matter of preference.
“Because… well, there are other mares who might be interested, and I wanted to know your opinion in the matter.”
“Is this about the Lyra thing?”
“Yes and no. She has dropped plenty of cues that she might be interested, but there’s more… I mean… more mares.”
“Wait, wait, wait… What are we getting into? I don’t want to end up having a harem or anything like that.”
“Harem!? No, Smarty! It’s not anything like that! We mares are not the concubines for any stallion!” I suddenly get a little bit carried away.
“Then what’s going on in a herd!?”
“We would be a family and everypony would love each other, not anything like a harem, no pony is lesser than any other pony. There is the stallion and the first mare, but anypony is as important as the next one.” I try to convey the complexity of modern herds of nowadays.
“The first mare amongst equals…” He poetically and cryptically says.
“That was kind of a… way too convenient description.” Seriously, this Smarty… he keeps pulling this kind of things out of the blue.
“Uh… I’m not prepared for anything like that. I mean, one pony partner is more than enough weirdness. I mean… Last month I didn’t even think about the possibility of becoming a thing with… one of your species, you know…” He explains.
“Then you don’t want more mares in our family?” I ask.
“Not at all… One mare is shocking enough. A herd is a bridge I’m not prepared to cross, a bridge I’m not willing to prepare myself to cross if I can help it. Humans are usually monogamous, we only get one partner in most cultures, and I come from one of those cultures.”
“So… You humans don’t have herds?”
“I think there are some equivalent arrangements, but they are very, very rare and usually frowned upon. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about the love life of anyone, but I think I have monogamy firmly ingrained in my mind.”
“So… you are only willing to have one mare.” How did his society managed to work like that! They would need to have plenty of human stallions!
“Yes, anything else would make me feel really uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable having only me?”
“Goodness, no! After being alone for so much time…” I trail down at the end of the sentence, remembering my years of solitude and believing I would never get a chance.
“So… are we cool being just a couple?”
“Yeah… I’m cool being a couple…”
Another long silence. He looks back into the fire, and I distract myself in the merry flames, and my ears rotate to catch the sound of the rain outside.
“But...?” He asks… “I feel like there is something else bothering you.” He turns his attention back to me, his small black eyes again focused on my own and I feel like I was just under control but suddenly corralled and flanked by a predator.
Clever boy…
“I’m uncomfortable with your job at the spa…” Well, here goes nothing.
“Why is that?”
“Because I know many of the mares that go there to get a massage from you are doing so just to be around you, waiting for the perfect chance to snatch you up…”
He bites his lower lip at that and looks away.
“Truth be told… ever since we kind of became a thing, I ger fewer customers… That is also freaking me out, to be honest.”
“That’s why I asked for the herd thing. I know many mares who are interested, and by making ourselves an official herd, we could make it clear for any other mare interested in joining to come up front to me… and also to you about it. I don’t feel prepared to compete against other mares for you if we are not an official thing yet...”
“So, you are uncomfortable if I give a massage to another mare, but completely okay if I do so making it official that she is also my marefriend!?”
“Of course! I don’t want any mare making a move behind my flank!”
“Wow… you ponies are weird.” I snort at that, but need time to prepare an appropriate response. He purses his lips and arches his eyebrows, looking away for a moment. The little pause helps me to calm down my frayed nerves and prepare to take control of the conversation a little bit again.
“Allow myself to remind you that you are the weird alien in here.”
“And you are in love with said alien, so expect the weird that comes with him…” His response was so automatic that I almost felt like he was expecting me to say exactly what I said and was also preparing his answer.
And just like that, now it’s time for me to bite my lower lip and look away. Truth be told, part of his charm is how weird he is at times, the things he says, the things he does… Sometimes he does something incredibly smart that makes ponies feel silly in comparison, other times he seems to be unable to catch and process the most basic stuff, making him look utterly silly.
And I love both sides of him…
“I’m not quitting my job… I think is the best employment I’ve ever had like… ever. I get paid to pet fluffy things, and they love it, and they appreciate me, and I get enough Bits to live by comfortably and then save some. And my coworkers are nice, and I get to work flexible hours, and I don’t have to break my back plowing the fields…”
I sigh at that. Asking him to leave his job because I get suspicious would be a little too much, after all. But still…
“Yeah, I know… But I still get that nagging sensation that a mare is going to make a move on you, because we are not officially engaged. Ever since Hearts and Hooves Day we have been ‘kind of together’, but… We never made an announcement or stated that we were officially engaged. A crafty mare could take advantage of that.”
“And if said mare came to us openly and became… part of the family, would you be okay?” He added.
I don’t want to lose him… but that seems a little bit too much. We are not officially engaged yet, we have only ‘dated’ for the day, and that day was some time ago already, despite living more or less as a couple ever since, and becoming ‘a thing’, we haven’t made any official announcements to the general public. Him being monogamous made it even worse for me. If a better mare came into the picture, that would mean I would come OUT of his picture, and I get the feeling that there are plenty of really good mares interested. Now that he is kind of open to a relationship with a mare…
“If it makes you uncomfortable, then herds were never an option…” I explain.
Again, we stayed silent, watching the flames and hearing the rain and wind picking up some strength.
“Anyway… I can’t get my head around being that popular amongst mares. I mean, back in my world I struggled to even get the occasional date with a girl. And we are a whole different species.” He broke the silence.
“Like we talked before. There are not that many stallions around, so they tend to be shared or very contested.” I motioned him to wait, as he was about to interrupt me, most likely going to object to that. “EVEN if you are from a different species. We mares can get creative about that.”
“Wow… I still…”
“It’s like Iron Will all over again.”
“Who?”
“Iron Will the minotaur. He came to Ponyville to give a masterclass about assertiveness. Most mares didn’t need it, but they came along anyway, and cheered him, and supported him. More than half of them, I can assure you, weren’t even interested in the least about what he was saying, if you can get the hint.” I explained.
“So… you are afraid mares are coming to the spa not to get a massage, but to see if they get lucky with a happy ending?”
“Yeah…”
Again, the silence. I felt terrible breaking the mood for this perfectly rainy and stormy evening for staying inside and just cuddle, but this has been plaguing my mind recently.
“How many do you know of that might be interested?”
“Lyra obviously, and with her, Bonbon would come along. Roseluck directly asked a couple of times if we were going to start a herd and if she could join… her two sisters would most likely follow her. Goodness… even my cousin Berry Punch seems to be interested now that she knows we are a thing, and Cherry Berry is a wild card…” And Princess Twilight… please, PLEASE dear Celestia, make her just scientifically interested in his case and nothing more… Rich, intelligent, noble family, pretty, ALICORN, PRINCESS… against a regular, out of the mill earth pony teacher mare…
“Wow… that many?”
“Many more actually… but those would be the most serious about it.” Those and Twilight… or Starlight Glimmer…
“Gee… That’s scary.”
“And I’m feeling weird about it, like if some of them would go to the spa to snatch you away from me… Every time I hear somepony talk about the spa, or I see a mare going there, specially one of the mares that I know for sure are interested in you…”
“I’m not an object that can be stolen just like that, I’m better than that, you have to trust me. If they were able to ‘snatch me up’, then I wouldn’t be worthy of your companionship.” He says.
Direct to the feels… I blush at that and look away. This stallion I swear…
“What else can I do to help you trust me?” He adds.
“I don’t know…”
“They know we are a thing, don’t they?”
“Yeah, but as you said it… we are… kind of testing if we can work… you are my coltfriend, but we are not promised, as you said it, you wanted to take it slow. Some mare could take advantage of that…”
“They won’t. I will shoo them away if they try anything unbecoming.”
This stallion doesn’t work like a regular stallion at all. With how tall he is, I can totally picture him kicking a mare out of the spa. He can be such a janefilly sometimes. And a marely janefilly at that. He is so different, I feel like I can be myself around him, I don’t have to pretend, I don’t have to show my worth and that I can protect him all the time. He protects himself all alone, and as weird as it seems, I feel relieved. And sometimes, I feel protected by him. But I’m still a mare, and mares have to be marely to their stallions.
“We are so different…” I sigh…
“If we made it official somehow, would it help?” he asked.
My heart skipped a beat there… He isn’t… or is he…?
“It’s still too soon, but of all the girls around here, you are the only one I can picture myself to be with in the long run. If everything continues as well as it is going, in a few months, I wouldn’t mind marrying you.”
I fainted.
***
I would’ve been worried if not for the over dramatic way she fainted and how she landed on top of my lap, legs up in the air. And she had a content smile wrapped around her muzzle. So, I did the only thing that could be done…
I started to pet her chest fluff, and she puffed it out as much as it would go, so it would be extra fluffy for my fingers to slide along it. Earth ponies don’t have the silkiest coat, that would go to pegasi and unicorns. Unicorns felt more like a very smooth and velvety fox or cat, whereas pegasi were kind of weird, but also really soft and fluffy in a feathery way, when they puffed their coats, it felt like a mix of fur and feathers. That wasn’t the case for Cheerilee, she was an earth pony and had a slightly coarser coat, kind of fibrous, even prickly if rubbed in the wrong direction, closer to a dog or an actual horse from Earth, but still enjoyable, especially when they did the puffy thing with their chest fluff.
“So, would it mitigate the problem?” I asked as I saw her eyes fluttering open and setting into a seductive half lidded position.
“Any sensible mare would stay away from an engaged stallion.” She responded.
“And what’s the difference? I know Rarity already knows we are kind of knowing each other and kind of… you know, a thing. If she knows, Ponyville knows, I mean… she is the master gossip mare.” I inquired.
“Yeah, but ‘we are knowing each other and kind of a thing’ kind of leaves a lot of room to interpretation, and a cheeky mare could slip in and take you away if we don’t make it official.”
“So, until we get married, am I in danger of being ‘stolen’?”
“Kind of… well… maybe other mares might get their hopes up as long as we don’t at least announce that we are marefriend and coltfriend and are planning to get married.”
Yeah, I kind of see it. Back in my world, it wouldn’t be that rare that an unscrupulous boy seduced a girl out of her current relationship, that was part of the game, a game that I was really bad at, therefore my years of solitude. It seems ponies are not that different, but…
“I am not an object or possession that needs to be protected.” I flicked her muzzle with a finger, she went cross eyed for a moment and sneezed on my hand.
“…Eww.” I cleaned my hand on my trousers. For a moment I considered to clean it on her coat, but that seemed a little bit too rude given the circumstances, those circumstances being the fact that I was the cause of said sneeze, and would be counterproductive for petting her afterwards, I wanted maximum fluffiness.
“Hey, that’s what you get for that.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Bad girl, thinking I can be stolen like a bag of Bits.”
“Don’t ‘bad girl’ me, I’m a grown-up mare, and I can protect you, and make you safe around me. We earth ponies might not be able to cast spells or be able to fly, but we are mighty strong, I am stronger than you and… EEEK!” She suddenly squirmed as I poked her belly on the side.
“…and mightily ticklish.” I finished the sentence for her.
She retracted her legs to protect her exposed belly, but she was laying with her back on my lap, so it was a lost cause, as much as she tried to become an upside-down pony loaf, I had the upper hand this time and she knew it. She yielded and looked away, scrunching her muzzle.
“Okay, then tomorrow we will go to Berry’s and tell everyone that we are officially engaged and considering getting married, if that puts you at ease.” I told her.
She just relaxed again and resumed her half lidded look at me, and I resumed the chest fluff scritches. After a couple of weeks living with her as a ‘kind of a thing’, I have come to the realization that she was as close as I would get to a normal girl from Earth. Also, she was very stable (hah… cause she’s a horse) for a pony. I mean, mares around here in general are kind of crazy. I felt like I could tell her anything and we could talk our problems like reasonable adults. And I found it funny how protective she could become, even though I didn’t need any protection at all, but it was a pony thing. Here, the girls were the knight and the boys were the prince to be rescued. And mare princesses were badass heroes.
The wind and rain outside made the crackle of the fire and its gentle glow of orange warmth very comfy here on the couch, but it wasn’t big enough for the two of us to get really comfortable.
“Let me carry you.” She asked.
I let her get out of the couch and gently sat on her back. Despite how absurd it was, I found myself enjoying the ride as she proudly paraded me around the house. Well… she was kind of small and I had to bend my legs in order to not drag them on the floor, but seeing her all proud of herself made me want to squeal. She was adorable. Our adorable inside joke about how human and horse were meant to work back on Earth.
At first, I was kind of afraid of hurting her, but after a few times I got confident. She was strong indeed, she could bear my weight without a problem, and I could feel her small but powerful legs and muscles carrying me. Her back was rock solid under that layer of soft fluff.
We arrived in her bedroom and she dropped me on top of the bed, soon to jump herself on it too. The house only had originally one bedroom, and the small repurposed storage room that I rented as my own room. The glow of the fire was still kind of visible from here with the door open, so it still was cozy. Even cozier with a magenta fluffy pillow to hug, of course. She wriggled under the covers and made herself comfortable, and pressed her back to my stomach.
“Spoon me” She demanded as she just arched her back, pushing me into big spoon position.
I hugged her and grabbed one of her hoofs with my hand. She suddenly seemed a little bit self-conscious as I inspected it.
Slightly chipped hoof, some cracks and irregularities. The bottom was not very smooth, but not a complete mess, it was healthy, but worn down. There was no hoof polish, just a little bit of white chalk dust sprinkled around on the underside of the slightly pliable part of her hoof. The hoof of a hard-working mare.
She didn’t wear horseshoes. Farm ponies or traders who needed to cover long distances by hoof usually wore them. It was more of an earth pony thing. Pagasi didn’t need them as much, and unicorns were mostly focused on magic, so their worries were more about polishing their hooves to look good. Cheerilee wasn’t a farm pony, and her job wasn’t physically demanding, so she chose not to wear shoes, but her job wasn’t an easy one either, so she didn’t usually bother taking too much care of her hooves apart from the bare minimum for practicality and health.
It was just her naked hoof, slightly rough and slightly dirty from her day at school. I rubbed it clean a little with my thumb and then kissed it. She flinched a little and tried to recover her leg, but I hold it and she didn’t try too hard.
“Oh, my goodness… you…” She hid her furious blush behind her other foreleg, the pursed lips of her embarrassed muzzle were visible from under the fetlock covering her eyes.
“What?”
“I… I… didn’t even… oh gosh, my…”
“Yes?”
“I haven’t even polished it…”
“And?”
“But…”
I brought her leg close to my face and nuzzled her fetlock in what I learned was a display of affection for ponies. They nuzzled a lot.
“S…staaaaaph!” She wriggled a little.
“Do you want me to take care of your hoofs? I’m not an expert, but I’m learning at the spa, just in case Lotus or Aloe are too busy… I’ll give you a free ticket for the treatment, the one they give when a pony is learning to do it” I let her recover her hoof.
“It’s not that bad… It’s… um… I can…”
“The word you are looking for is ‘thank you’.” I said.
“Thank you!?” She snorted indignantly.
“You’re welcome!”
She just snorted scrunched her muzzle and frowned.
“Stupid stallion whimsy…” She mumbled to herself after a while.
We stayed like that for some more time. I started to comb her chest fluff with my hand, then moved on to give her some slow and relaxing belly rubs while my other hand just hugged her. Outside, the storm was at full force. The rain was hitting hard, and the wind was blowing, making the wooden structure groan and creak. The rain hitting the windows and roof at uneven intervals as the wind carried the droplets with more or less force depending on how strong the gusts were. The tree branches shook, and the leaves rustled in the wind, adding to the plethora of storm sounds. The rolling of thunder just added the finishing touches, and she flinched a little bit sometimes with that sound. Pony ears were kind of more sensitive, so it made sense.
The fire continued to crackle merrily, and the dancing light creeped through the open door. It was warm inside, specially sharing the body heat with Cheery. Ponies had a higher body temperature than we humans, so they made for good heaters in winter or in cold weather, and they had fur, and were soft, so it was nice. It wasn’t going to be as nice in the summer, but they controlled the weather, so, they might get it tamer than the great heatwaves from Earth, I hope, because they didn’t have air conditioners.
We were different. Different customs, different cultures, different species even, yet, surprisingly so, we were still the same where it matters.