🥜
I was surprised I could walk so long without the horse legs growing tired. And even though Andrew’s current form looked to be about the same size and weight as me, somehow he was quite light. But pain still surged every few seconds from the flanks of this wretched horse body, and even if the horse wasn’t tired, I was. We woke up early for the Con, and I had spent the day before driving. So, in the past 48 hours, I’ve only had about seven hours of sleep.
“This is where I leave you,” said Midnight. “Or do you need me to hoof-hold you all the way to the motel? Or perhaps the daycare?”
“I think we’ll be fine from here,” I answered.
Andrew stepped between us. “Does this mean I can talk again?”
“No,” Midnight and I answered in sync. We looked at each other in surprise.
“Mrrrhmmp!” said the batpony.
“Jinx, you two owe me a soda,” Andrew said quietly.
“That’s not how that works!” I told him. Please, not right now, Andrew!
“It’s how it could work!” he said in a stupid singsong voice.
Midnight dramatically opened his beautiful wings. His entire body was something like gothic architecture in pony form. Beautiful, dark, mysterious. If he were a character on the show, I’d love his design, but I’d hate his tough ‘oh, I’m so edgy and cool’ personality. Just get over yourself and smile when people say thank you, dude. It’s not that hard. But he’s the kind of character Andrew would love and rant about while I was trying to prepare for bed or cook dinner.
“Wait, M-M-Midnight!” called Andrew.
The emo pony didn’t bother looking back at us, and swished his tail. But he didn’t fly away; instead he simply stood there, waiting. The batpony rested limply on his back, glaring at Andrew.
“How do we get in touch with you? Wh-w-where do you live?” Andrew asked. Why are you stuttering?
“You don’t,” answered Midnight. With a great gust and a flap of his wings, Midnight took to the air and quickly began ascending to the sky.
“Hrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm!” screeched the batpony through the gag.
“Darn it, Midnight!” Andrew yelled back. “Come back here, you… you… you winged horse, you! I’ll wander around the Everfree Forest again! Next time I see you, my tongue will jabber so quickly you’ll… you’ll cower before my words of esteemed excellence! Dang it! Thank you for saving me, you jerk!” He shook a blue hoof in the air at the quickly disappearing black dot into the violet sky.
“What the heck?” I practically coughed. “Why are you acting like that? He saved us, and led us to Ponyville. Why should he give us anything more?”
“Because he…” Andrew stopped to think. “Because he reminded me of me. When I was depressed. He told me he didn’t have any friends, got angry when I asked about his parents, and even though he acted annoyed, he liked my jokes. Joked back, even. Plus… I don’t know how it looked when he was fighting with the bats, but, when he was fighting the rattlesnatcher… I… it was incredible. I don’t even know how to describe it. He… the monster fr-f-fr-fetting… fetting? What even is that? I wasn’t even trying to cuss. I was trying to say f-f-fr-fetlocks.” Andrew blinked. “I can say jerk, but not f-fr-f-fetlocks? Fetlocks.”
I smirked at his frustration.
“Whatever!” he continued. “The rattlesnatcher fr-fr-fetting snapped a whole tree in half! Like it was nothing! And he fought it. Came out of nowhere and took it out! It took me everything to get out of a single vine, and he just cut through all of them while looking like he was just practicing a ballet routine or something!”
“I didn’t get to see much of what happened with the batponies. I was really disoriented when he was tying up the one you saw him carrying. And by the time I could actually stand up again,” I ‘hoofed’ the ground. “I noticed you were unconscious and tried to wake you up. Midnight told me there were others, but they got away.”
“How did he react to me being unconscious, by the way?” Andrew said with a devious smirk and a risen eyebrow.
“Why do you want to know? I don’t think it’s important.” The teasing goes both ways, Andrew.
“Because he smiled at one of my jokes! I saw it! He pretended to not care, but he saved me! Tell me, please!” Andrew dropped to the ground and wrapped his forelegs around mine. Her eyes–his eyes had three sparkles again and his pupils got wide.
“Okay, okay, get off!” I jumped away. “He didn’t react at all. No expression. He just walked over to you and put his hoof on your forehead. After that, he picked you up and put you on my back and said he thought you would be fine.”
Andrew looked thoughtful for a moment and suddenly turned away. Wait, was that a–
“How’d you get there, anyway? You came out of the sky, didn’t you?” He looked back at me.
It was my turn to look away. Stupid ears, twitching. Stupid tail, swishing. “Discord.”
“Discord? What did he want?” I could see Andrew out of my peripheral, his blue head tilting to the side. “And was he reformed or evil?”
“I don’t know.” Tail still swishing. “He… offered me a chance to go home. And to be a h-h-h-horse…” Silence. Lil-Andrew waited expectantly for me to finish. “You know what I mean.”
“And what did you say?”
Dang, Andrew! Always perceptive. Always the questions. I looked down at the valley, to the tiny little flickering lights growing dimmer in the steadily brightening sky. “I said I wouldn’t leave without you. And then…”
“And then he sent you barreling towards me like a comet?”
“Yes.” Wait. No.
Silence. My heart throbbed. I shuffled the horse legs into the grass, watching how the grass bent under the movement.
“Thank you,” said Andrew. “Always my Samwise the Brave!”
I chuckled. “Anything, Mr. Frodo.”
How prrrrrrecious.
“Mrs. Frodo,” corrected Andrew. “Wait, I mean Miss Frodo.”
The horse tail flicked. “I don’t want to talk about what Discord made me see. I want to get to Ponyville soon. This has been a very long day. And night.”
Suddenly I was tackled. Andrew was wrapped around my heck.
“Ah!” I yelped. “What are you doing?!”
“What does it look like? I’m hugging you!”
“W-well, get off! Not when I don’t expect it!” His grip became tighter. “Seriously, An-n-Lily, let g-go!”
A moment later, I tripped and found my head pressed into the wet grass with Andrew’s current form atop me. The dew soaked blades smelt sweet. “Lilyheart!”
“Sorry!” he squeaked while jumping up.
I stood up slowly after him and used one of the hooves to wipe the water from the muzzle. Why can’t you be normal? Why can’t I stop thinking like this? Holy Jesus… why do thoughts like this always come up in my head? I need sleep.
“Uh, Robin, what is that?” Andrew was pointing a hoof at my flank–at the flank.
“I was attacked by a bunch of porcupine things. Midnight said they were probably something called puckwudgies.”
Andrew walked around me. A moment later, he made a spluttering cough. And then a loud, cackling laugh. I turned around to find him with a hoof over her mouth, poorly covering a smile.
“It isn’t funny,” I said with a frown.
Lil–Andrew burst into a series of giggles and collapsed to the ground, rolling back and forth, her legs flailing about. “You look like a turkey!” She cackled, slapping her forehoof into the grass. “Puckwudgies? Those little things attacked you?”
I felt myself blush. The horse tail swished back and forth. That hurts, you stupid thing!
Andrew burst into yet another series of giggles.
And before I could help it, a smile began cracking on my face, too.
“Your tail is like a fiber optic Christmas Tree!”
Suddenly, I was laughing, too. I buried my face into my front legs while Lilyheart continued her maniacal tossing about. We laughed like that until the sun crawled up over the neighboring mountains.
“Well, you look like Smurfette!” I shot back between laughs.
“You look like one of those cheap My Little Horse knock off toys!”
“You look like moldy bread that grew fur!”
“You look like a s'more somep-p-pony dropped in the fire!”
“You look like mold somep-pony sprayed cheese whiz on!”
“Hey, you already used that one!” said Lilyheart.
“It’s true, why change it?”
Lilyheart put a hoof to her chest, assuming the pose she made when putting on a character. “I,” she declared, “Am a divine creation, cut from the summer morning sky, and formed from the sunlit dyed clouds!”
I only snorted in response. And then continued in cackling.
“Okay, that was supposed to be funny, but not that funny!” complained Lilyheart.
Control. Get control. Breathe. Just breathe. “You j–jerk. Calling me a turkey!” I coughed out. “These hurt, you know? I’ve been putting up with them all night!”
“I’m sorry!” exclaimed Lilyheart with a bright smile. “Here, I’ll get them out!”
“With what?”
Lilyheart looked at her forelegs with a frown. An idea seemed to hit her. “I got it! Just need to hold still.”
Before I could do anything, she leapt over to me, bit down on a quill, and pulled. Pain shot through my side.
“Ow! What are you doing?”
She spat out a green quill. “What does it look like?”
“I don’t want you to pull them out with your mouth!”
“I had to do more disgusting things when I worked in special ed,” she said, reaching for another.
I leapt away. “I don’t want you doing it!”
“We have to get them out somehow,” she countered.
“Yes, but not you! I want a professional to do it. Or Twilight might just use her magic to take them out all at once! It’s too weird if you do it!”
“Fiiiiiinnnne,” she whined. “But only if you get the soda you owe me!”
“I don’t owe you a soda!”