The good news was that Leech’s almost preternatural knowledge of bushcraft meant they’d have a bed of soft moss to rest on - the bad news was that they’d be sleeping much, much closer to one another than he’d anticipated. He actually wasn’t opposed to dozing off beside her, but that was the issue. Though he was still struggling with the concept, it was impossible for him to deny that his feelings for her had done nothing but grow stronger since he’d started living with her - a sentiment he suspected she mirrored for him.
“See,” she said through a mouthful of lightly roasted tuber, “perfectly edible!”
Shaken from his stupor, he peered over and up at her. “Don’t you want some salt or something to put on them?”
“You brought salt?!” she coughed, nearly choking on her bite of cattail root. He leaned over, dug around in his bag, and produced a salt shaker. “Man, I would’ve killed for a little spice rack when I was on the road.”
“Well you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he weakly laughed, skewering a steaming tuber from beside the fire.
Taking an experimental nibble from the arrowroot, he was pleasantly surprised by the slightly crunchy texture and subtle earthy flavor. While it wasn’t as good as a loaded baked potato, he could definitely see how someone would get by eating the things - that was if they could find a steady supply of them, of course. Waving down at the pan of sizzling fiddleheads, the young buds of a type of furn, he peaked a brow.
After swallowing his mouthful, he glanced up at her. “How long do these have to cook?”
“They shouldn’t take too long,” she remarked, motioning at the greens. “They can actually make you sick if they’re too mature - like when they uncurl, but those ones should be fine.”
“Huh,” he grunted, equally amused and fascinated by her know-how.
He couldn’t be happier with how the day was shaping up. Leech seemed to be in better spirits, being away from the hustle and bustle of the city was extremely refreshing, and he'd learned more useful stuff about nature in a single day than he had over the course of his entire life - still, there was something he needed to address. While the yoga incident hadn’t bothered him much at all, the same couldn’t be said for Leech.
Waiting for the right moment to speak with her, he finished up cooking the meal and ate beside her. He didn’t want to ruin their dinner with what may be a heavy discussion, so he waited until they’d finished up and began assembling their s’mores. There would be no right time to talk to her, so he summoned his courage, speared marshmallows on a pair of sticks he’d sharpened, and cleared his throat.
“Can I ask you something?” he began.
She shifted and looked over at him, smiling all the while. “Of course you can, honey! You don’t need my permission.”
Exhaling through pursed lips, he closed his eyes. “Have you been ok? Ever since we did yoga that Saturday morning nearly a month ago, you’ve been acting kinda off.”
He held his breath and waited, hoping she’d say something - anything, yet only the still silence of the forest, the crackling of the fire, and a soft breeze greeted his ears. It was with the utmost reluctance that he opened his eyes and looked up at her, though he ultimately wished he hadn’t. All mirth had fled from her, she bore an anguished look, and she gazed off into the darkness. Shifting the lengths of wood into his off hand, he reached out and touched her thigh.
She instantly recoiled and shifted her leg away from him, releasing a shuddering, uneasy breath as she hung her head. “You’re not going to let this go ~ are you?”
“You don’t have to answer,” he warily admitted, “but I would like to know what’s going on - if…if you’re comfortable talking about it.”
As she swept her gaze down to the fire, flickering amber and golden hues danced over her amethyst, cat-like eyes. “I…I haven’t always been the mare I am now.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he endearingly clucked. “You have a house, food on your table, and -”
“No,” she cut him off, glowering. “When I was younger, I struggled with urges - urges that I regret and that still rear their ugly head from time to time.”
On the verge of replying, he kept his mouth shut. He’d always assumed she’d harbored some secret about her amorous side, having skirted the subject whenever it was even remotely broached, yet he couldn’t have fathomed it had been a source of torment for her. Inching closer to her, he offered one of the two marshmallow-laiden sticks.
“I think that’s something everyone struggles with at some point,” he murmured, peering down at the flames. “Almost everyone has a wild streak at some point or -”
“You don’t understand,” she huffed, pinching the bridge of her snout. “I’ve tried - sweet, merciful Celestia, I’ve tried to keep myself under control for so long. It’s just that…” she trailed off, her frustration eclipsed by anguish. “It’s just that I don’t want to drive you away or scare you off.”
It was at that moment that the pieces finally fell together. Her rare moments of being flustered, her naiveté, the crushing weight of her natural appeal - if what she was saying was true, and he had no reason to doubt it was anything otherwise, she was or at least had been a beast of carnal nature. Unsure of what to do, he took a gamble, extended his arm, and lovingly patted her thigh.
“For what it’s worth,” he faintly uttered, “I’ve been having a hard time behaving myself around you too…”
“Poor choice of wording,” she softly snickered.
Elbowing her side, causing her to peek down at him, he fought to frown. “You know what I mean.”
Though some tension hung in the air, it felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Everything she’d been doing, the sudden aloofness that she’d been adopted, wasn’t because he’d done anything wrong - it was because he may have inadvertently done something right. They may have had more differences than he could shake a stick at, ranging from their species and age to the way they’d grown up, but something was budding between them - something mutual.
Sitting mute, he tilted his head back and gazed up at the stars. “We should do this more often.”
“Awkwardly sit in the woods together?” she snorted, only just keeping herself from laughing.
Ignoring the small jab, he nodded to the heavens. “It’s not like this where I’m from - well not in most places; there are so many cities and factories that the light blinds out the night sky. Unless you go way, way out in the country, you can’t see the stars like this.”
“I still miss it sometimes -” she sighed, “not that I’d trade having a home and a stable life for it, but living on the road had its perks. I could go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted to, and there was nobody to hold me back.”
He glanced over at her. “I’m not holding you back ~ am I?”
Turning her eyes over to him, she shook her head. “No - no, honey, of course you’re not - if anything, I’m holding you back.”
“How?” he pressed, genuinely curious.
“You’re young, attractive, and kindhearted,” she mused, reaching out to brush his face. “It won’t be long until you find and run off with some cute little mare.”
“And…” he gulped, losing himself in her eyes. “And if I don’t…?”
She slowly leaned toward him, bringing her muzzle to within a hair’s breadth of his nose. Her eyes were like glittering gemstones, the warmth of her breath washed over his face, and her subtle but unmistakable scent caused his pulse to quicken. He’d spent more time than he cared to admit wondering exactly what they were to one another, especially as of late, and he was finding it harder and harder to shake her from his thoughts.
“If you don’t,” she breathed, the fingers of her hand drifting to the back of his head, “I guess that means you’ll have to put up with me…”
His mouth went dry, his heart pounded wildly, and his thoughts ran rampant. What few flaws she had were outweighed by her generosity, good nature, and stunning looks, he couldn’t have cared less about what she’d done in the past, and the prospect of being with her, not as a son but as something more, filled him with a longing like he’d never known. His fingers closed around her hand and tilted his head to the side.
“Well,” he quietly replied, “I guess we’ll just have to put up with each other until - Fuck!”
He shot back and scrambled to his feet, stricken with raw, unfettered panic. Their tent, supplies, and a small portion of leaves around them was ablaze, likely having caught fire by some errant ember. Leech followed suit moments later, yet she wasn’t paralyzed by the unforeseen and chaotic development. Leaping into action, she flung her bag away from the small inferno and began stomping out the blaze.
Doing what he could to help her, trying and failing to save the tent and most of their provisions, he threw what water they’d gathered on the fire before resorting to kicking dirt on the conflagration. Though they were lucky enough to put out the blaze in a matter of minutes, their little camp had been devastated. The tent was gone, reduced to singed metal rods and molten polyester, the bags of pre-packaged food were torched, and not a single marshmallow had been spared from destruction.
“Damn it,” he raged. “Mom, I’m so, so…”
He fell silent as she broke into loud, raucous laughter, bending over while wiping her face. Considering she was just as screwed as he was, he’d expected to see her angry - instead, it sure as hell looked like she’d lost her marbles! Wiping a tear from her cheek, giggling and snorting like a kid who’d just heard a really raunchy fart joke, she struggled to stand up straight.
“It’s so much funnier when it happens to someone else,” she shakily noted, tittering as she spoke.
“I’m - um - guessing this has happened to you before?” he grumbled nonplussed.
Lumbering over to him, she patted his shoulder. “More than a few times, yeah, but I’ll tell you about them in a bit. Here - take my hand.”
Without questioning her, blindly fumbling for her hand in the darkness, he did as she asked. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to go to one of my old haunts,” she answered, guiding him forward before stopping to pick up her pack. “There’s a little bridge not far from here that I used to hide out under when the weather was bad. As long as we don’t make enough noise to have the royal guards called on us, we should be able to sleep there for tonight.”
Cautiously placing one foot in front of the other, unable to see a damn thing, he furrowed his brow in the gloom. “So we’re going to camp under a bridge, in the dark, without any way to stay warm - perfect.”
“Ah ah -” she tutted. “We might end up under a bridge, but we won’t be getting too cold. Packed dirt might not be the easiest thing to relax on, but it’s better than rock. Your mom might not be a spring chicken, but she’s got a few tricks up her sleeve.”
The harrowing journey felt like it took forever, although in actuality it probably lasted no longer than ten minutes or so. Emerging from the woods and into a field, under the cloudless night sky, he spotted a little bridge in the distance. He held her hand and continued along beside her, immeasurably thankful that he could finally see where he was going.
“And you said you used to come here?” he inquired.
“Oh yeah, more times than I can count,” she responded. “You might not believe it, but I used to have a little shelter built under that thing. It might not have been as good as a room at the Mareiotte hotel, but it kept me dry, safe, and relatively warm.”
After crossing through the patch of grassland, she stooped down and moved under the arched cobblestone bridge. Though it was hard for him to make out much of anything, he realized how right she’d been. Two earth berms shielded the underpass from wind, the stonework overhead would protect them from any rain, and the stream lay a dozen paces from the abutment.
She released his arm, stepped over to the wall anchoring one side of the bridge, and turned to face him as she sat. “About staying warm…”
He’d heard that sharing body heat with someone was a good way to keep from getting cold, yet the conversation they’d just had, paired with the fact that he’d almost kissed her, gave him a moment for pause. “Couldn’t we start another fire?”
“We could make a little one,” she groaned, “but someone might notice the smoke and come to investigate. I’m not sure about you, but I’d rather not explain why a grown mare and her little man are hunkered under a bridge on the outside of town.”
Groaning and rolling his eyes, he rubbed his temples. “If you’re going to keep calling me your little man, I’m going to start calling you my big mare.”
She kicked her legs out, spread them, and patted the earth between her thighs. “I’m gonna hold you to that. Now come over here and get comfy.”
He’d only said what he’d said as a joke, hoping she’d take offense at his emphasis of calling her his big mare, but the jab had blown up in his face. Defeatedly shuffling over and wheeling around, he eased himself down and rested his back against her. Without a care in the world, her breasts sandwiching his head, she pulled a second, smaller blanket from her bag and threw it over them.
Her soft, downy coat and the heat radiating from her were staggeringly comfortable - so comfortable that he found himself stifling a yawn. She folded her arms around him, holding him close while she placed her chin on his head. All his worry about her, fearing that some schism had started to develop between them, evaporated with her embrace.
“Mom…” he whispered.
Pulling the blanket tighter, she adjusted her positioning. “Yeah?”
“About what you said before,” he muttered, lovingly rubbing her forearms. He waited a moment, collecting himself while listening to her deep, steady breaths. “I wanted to tell you that I’ll never leave you…”
Anticipating some sort of pithy reply, he got anything but. The steady rise and fall of her chest and lack of response told him that she must have dozed off, but he wasn’t upset - in a way, he was a bit relieved. He cared for her more than anyone in Equestria - hell, she meant more to him than most people back on Earth, so it may have been for the best that she’d gone to sleep. Closing his eyes, he drifted off in her embrace. What the future held for them was a mystery, but he was sure of one thing - so long as he was with her, he’d be happy…