//------------------------------// // The Pony Who Makes Celestia and Luna Look Like Droopy-eyed Wingless Foals // Story: The Life and Times of a Winning Pony // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// So there I was, making out with Fluttershy. Some distant little part of my brain was telling me that this was probably a bad idea. Most ponies seem to have a part of their brain that exists to tell them ‘I probably shouldn’t be doing this.’ Ponies being ponies, we tend to spend a lot of time ignoring that part of our brain and doing stupid things anyway. “Cloudy.” Eepy softly whispered my name as she kissed me again. It was feather-light, almost as if she was asking permission instead of just going ahead and kissing me. It was such an Eepy thing to do–even now, she wants to be sure I’m okay with this. So I let her know that it’s fine. I want this. I’ve wanted it for more than a decade. All that stupid running around I did was probably just some kind of way to replace something that’s been missing from my life. This. Eepy got the message and wrapped her forelegs around me, pressing her body up against mine. She felt so ... right. There’s this softness to her, a gentle delicateness that made me hesitate to be a bit too vigorous with her. It was like I could break her if I pushed too hard. Then she surprised me by taking the lead. That’s the thing about Eepy–at first blush she seems so nervous and uncertain that you think she’ll give herself a heart attack, but once she gets her confidence up a bit she’ll be surprisingly assertive. Let her know it’s okay to kiss you, and next thing you know you’ve got her tongue in your mouth and her hooves on your wings. Not that I was about to start complaining about either of those things. Fluttershy broke the kiss and started lightly trailing her lips along my jawline. “Cloudy. I want this. I’ve wanted it for so long. But ... but I don’t think we should...” “No,” I agreed as I started working my way down her neck. “We probably shouldn’t.” She didn’t stop. Neither did I. Her wings brushed against mine, with each little touch sending shocks of pleasure running through my body. She’s always had this delicate touch that’s perfect for getting things just right when she knows exactly where to go, and back in Flight Camp we spent a while finding all of each other’s spots. We’ve changed a lot over the years, but some things stay constant. Our bodies fell back into all the old familiar rhythms–we’d done this often enough in the past that it wasn’t hard to remember how it all worked, especially not with current events jogging my memory. Eepy still liked it when I ran my hooves over her cutie marks, and she still knew just how to touch the base of my wing to drive me wild. I felt Eepy’s hoof on my chest, and it took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t caressing me, she was gently pushing me back. I took a closer look at something other than the parts of her I was getting my lips and hooves on, and that’s when I realized she was crying. Oh ... that’s probably a bad sign. “Eepy? What’s wrong?” “We...” Eepy tried to swallow back some of those tears. “We can't.” I tried for another kiss, but when she didn’t respond after a bit I backed off. “Why can’t we?” I wish I didn’t sound quite so hurt and petulant, but considering the circumstances I think I was allowed to be a little put out. “I want this. You want this. What’s the problem?” Eepy whimpered and couldn’t bring herself to meet my eyes. “What about Derpy? Or Blossomforth? They both love you, and if they find out that I ... that we ... I ... no. We can’t. I can’t hurt them like that.” “But Eepy–” I didn’t get any further into explaining myself before she cut me off with a gentle hoof over my lips. “It would hurt you too. We both want to–um–yes...” Fluttershy trailed off with a delightfully cute little blush. I swear, the way a grown mare like her could get so embarrassed whenever she so much as started to mention sex was just so cute. Okay, need to get the urge to bang under control. Considering our history, the last thing Eepy and I needed to do was bang when one of us wasn’t one hundred percent sure if we wanted to or not. I do try to learn from my mistakes. I don’t always succeed, but I do try. “Okay, let’s...” It took just about every bit of self-discipline I had, but I removed myself from physical contact with Eepy. Between the old love and the fact that we hadn’t had done anything with each other in a decade, we were both kinda struggling with the urge to keep going no matter how much our heads told us it was a bad idea. Even a little incidental touching could start escalating pretty quickly, especially since I’m–well let’s just say my hooves have a habit of wandering a bit when there’s an attractive pony in them. Deep breaths, Cloud Kicker. Get that libido under control. Eepy needs you to talk to her about whatever’s bothering her, not keep trying to bang her until she’s screaming your name. Which just reminded me of the fact that back when we had been banging Eepy was a bit of a screamer. Or at least, she was a screamer by Eepy standards–her screams are quieter than some ponies’ whispers. I remember this one time... No. Dammit, getting my brain to stop thinking about banging Eepy was not proving to be a simple task. Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts. Think about Granny Smith naked on a cold day. With Diamond Dogs. Okay. Libido defeated. Nausea was a bit of a problem now, though. In any case, once I fought down the urge to projectile vomit, my sex drive was finally dead enough for me actually talk to Eepy instead of wanting to use my mouth to do ... other things. “Okay. So ... no banging?” Eepy whimpered and slowly shook her head. I hesitated for a moment before I pulled her into a hug. Touching her still kinda fired me up, but it was a distant thing now–I was aroused, but I was in control of it. “I ... I don’t ever want to hurt anypony,” Eepy whispered. “If we did this now, it would hurt Derpy and Blossomforth.” I flinched at that. She had a fair point. I hadn’t exactly been thinking about ... well, much of anything beyond the fact that I really wanted to bang Eepy silly. I guess I’d gotten just a little caught up in the moment. I seem to have a bit of a problem with losing perspective when faced with the prospect of imminent banging. Still, Derpy would understand. Blossom probably would too. I mean, I’d finally patched things up with Eepy, that’s a pretty huge deal. Besides, Derpy and I were still in an open relationship, and Blossom was just my best friend who was hoping for a chance to get under my tail. It’s not like either of them had any right to veto my banging habits. Especially not when it came to Eepy. But maybe just because I had the right to bang Eepy doesn’t mean I should. Just because Blossom and Derpy wouldn’t have any legitimate complaints doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be hurting. Especially when you look at the timing of it all–banging Eepy right when I was getting seriously fed up with the both of them ... yeah, that looked kinda bad. They’d probably think I was doing it was some kinda way to get back at them or something, which is just not okay. Banging is supposed to be fun, not something you use to hurt other ponies. Fluttershy brushed a hoof against my cheek. “It’s not just them, either. If we ... if we had sex, we would regret it later, and I never want to regret doing that with you.” “Yeah.” I sighed and slumped back onto her couch. “That’s rule number one. No regrets.” Eepy and I had just sorted things out, the last thing we needed to do was have sex we weren’t sure we wanted and weren’t emotionally ready for. I’d like to think that I do eventually learn from my mistakes. “Okay, banging’s off the table.” I felt a stab of guilt in my gut. “Look, sorry if I got pushy on you. The last thing you need is me pushing you into sex you’re not ready for. Again.” Eepy gave a sharp shake of her head. “No. I ... I wanted it too. When I started having doubts I asked you to stop, and you did.” I let out a humorless little chuckle, and a touch of dark humor entered my voice. “Well, nice to know that we’ve learned from our old mistakes, at least. This time we didn’t have emotionally unhealthy sex we weren’t ready for that would end up hurting all the other ponies around us. I think we’re learning.” Despite knowing what a horrible idea it would’ve been, a part of me wished we’d kept going anyway. Not just because I was seriously lusting after Eepy right now, but also because it felt kind of ... right. Like banging her would make for a proper resolution of things. Huh. Resolution? Where did that come from? I mulled that over for a bit, and then started thinking out loud. “Eepy, we’ve changed a lot since Flight Camp.” Eepy flushed a little and looked away for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes. You’re ... we’re both very different ponies from the fillies we were back then.” She let out a nervous little squeak and hastily added. “Not that there’s anything wrong with how you are now. You’re a very different pony, but I still care for you.” “Yeah, same here. Just because you’ve changed doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.” I shifted over on the couch to wrap a wing around her, but made sure to keep an eye on my own hooves and wings to make sure they didn’t start doing things of their own accord to try to get us back to banging. Spend a decade getting ponies into bed, and some of those flirty behaviors will get to be downright habitual. I took a few moments to put my thoughts together and figure out how to say what I wanted to say next. “The thing is, we can’t just turn back the clock, can we Eepy? It’s nice to think about just forgetting all the crazy stuff that’s happened and try to pick up where we left off back at Flight Camp, but that wouldn’t really work. Too much has happened, and we’ve both got way too much baggage.” “I–yes, so much has happened,” Fluttershy agreed. She let out a whine and flinched down a bit into the couch. “A part of me would like to try to ... um ... try again, but I would feel just awful about taking you away from Derpy like that. Blossomforth too–I don’t know her very well, but she seems like a nice pony.” “Not to mention we’d both be bringing way too much baggage into the relationship.” I’m not a big fan of messy complications in my relationships, and getting back together with Eepy would just be one huge bundle of them. Sure, we love each other. We probably always will. But that doesn’t mean getting into another serious long-term romantic relationship is a good idea. Hard to imagine anything that would mess both of us up quite as bad as taking another try at a relationship, and having it crash and burn. I made a decision. Eepy stiffened in surprise when I kissed her again, but after a couple seconds she caught on to the intent behind the kiss. This wasn’t the passionate and forceful kind of kiss we’d been sharing a little bit ago, it was quieter. Calmer. Not any less emotional, but it was carrying a very different set of emotions. Most importantly, while it was full to the brim with love, it was very clearly not the kind of kiss that leads to eventual banging. Eventually, like all good things, the kiss ended. “I love you, okay Eepy? Always have, always will.” I was tearing up again, but I didn’t mind. Some things are okay to cry over. Eepy surprised me by not crying. Instead she just held me, gently running a hoof through my mane. You know things have gone crazy when I’m the one sobbing my eyes out and Eepy’s the one being stoic and strong for me. She probably wanted to cry just as much as I did, but Eepy’s always been at her strongest when somepony else needs her. I sniffled into her chest and wiped away the last of my tears. “Do me a favor and try to find a special somepony, okay? Somepony who can treat you like a princess, and make you so ridiculously happy that you never stop wearing a big goofy smile on your face. A pony like you deserves somepony like that.” I swallowed a couple more tears and tried to crack a joke. “Besides, I wouldn't wish a decade of celibacy on anypony. I’m not gonna feel right with a pony as sweet as you being all single and lonely. To be honest, I’m a little surprised you don’t have ponies beating down your door to get a date.” Eepy let out a nervous little squeal. “I hope that doesn’t happen. It would be very ... loud.” Hmm. I guess Eepy’s usual state of barely-restrained terror at the thought of social interaction with anypony she’s not comfortable with would explain her lack of a dating life. Massive hotness and a sweetheart personality might attract a lot of suitors, but poor Eepy probably ran away anytime somepony actually tried to ask her out. That tends to discourage most ponies. “Um...” I was a little surprised when Eepy nervously pawed at her couch and very hesitantly said, “Maybe if you know somepony who's really nice you could ask them if they might ... if it’s not too much trouble and they’d be interested ... I–um, I don’t really know many ponies I could...” So Eepy wanted me to keep an eye out for datable ponies? Yeah, finding my ex who’d I just nearly banged a date wouldn’t be awkward at all. Not that I was surprised she needed a little help; her social circle was vanishingly small, and most of the ponies in it were already dating somepony else. Hay, I’m pretty sure the only pony she had any sort of social contact with that was still single was Twilight. Well, no reason I couldn’t think it over and see if a solution came to mind. Actually, the blindingly obvious one already had, but taking some time to think it all through would probably be a good idea. That could wait for later, though. “Well, this didn’t exactly go the way I had planned,” I confessed. “I came here to help you and you wound up helping me instead.” Eepy shot me a tiny, tentative little smile. “Maybe it's that we're both helping each other?” I grinned and pulled her in for a proper hug. “You haven't lost your optimistic streak. Thank Luna for that, because I don’t know what I’d do if I had to deal with a Fluttershy that wasn’t all sweetness and light. Guess you haven’t changed so much after all.” Fluttershy shot me the tiniest of little smirks. “And you still worry about taking care of everypony else and making them happy.” She gave a sad little smile and idly traced a hoof down my chest. “That’s why you have so many problems with Blossomforth and Derpy. You want both of them to be happy, but you can’t find a way to do that. But I’m sure you will. I believe in you.” “Yeah, I’ll figure something out.” I’m not sure what could work aside from getting Pinkie Pie to sing her ‘Gotta Share’ song until they gave in, but I’d work it out. Too bad fixing the whole thing with one big happy threesome didn’t seem to be an option. I guess that would be a little too easy a solution though. “Whatever I do, I’m not gonna end it with one of them feeling like I just tossed them aside. I care about both of them, and I’m a Kicker, so I’ve gotta protect the ponies I care about.” Eepy beamed and snuggled up a little closer to me. “Yes, you are. You’ve changed a lot, but in your heart you’re still the pony I love.” Gotta say, I was never gonna get tired of hearing those words from her. Sure, it might be a bad idea for us to bang right now or get into any kind of serious relationship, but maybe sometime when things were a little less crazy, we could have one last night together. But for now... “Tell you what: I won't change too much if you won't. Deal?” “Deal.” Eepy leaned in and nuzzled my cheek for good measure. The two of us just sat there for a while with our wings wrapped around each other, basking in our renewed friendship. Sure, I still had two hooffulls of trouble waiting for me once I left here, but right now none of those seemed quite so pressing. I’m pretty sure Discord and Nightmare Moon together wouldn’t be enough to disrupt the wonderful afterglow of finally patching things up with Eepy. It was just too bad this moment couldn’t last forever. I let out a short little laugh and gave Eepy a friendly little squeeze. “Well, one thing's gotta change: your wingpower.” Eepy let out one of her customary nervous squeaks, and the warm glow of contentment surrounding her faded a bit. “Oh ... yes. Right.” The wingpower thing was clearly weighing on her a bit. Well, I certainly couldn’t let something like that ruin her good mood. Besides, she deserved a chance to put up a better number than point five. She might not be the best flier in Equestria, but she was better than that, and everypony should see it. Including Eepy herself. “I’d have to clear it with Blossom first, but I can help you work out and get your numbers up to–” The rest of what I was about to say disappeared due to a certain pegasus trying to squeeze the life out of me. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” “Whoa, easy there. I need to breathe, Eepy.” The hug loosened up a bit, and I nuzzled the top of her head. “And you worry about your wingpower. You could crush a dragon with that bearhug. C'mon, show me whatcha got, friend.” Eepy smiled at me with just a tiny little hint of budding confidence. “Okay, friend.” Well, the good news was that Eepy did make some progress by the end of the day. In her defense, that one butterfly that kept beating her in the tug-of-war must have been freakishly strong. Even after we’d patched things up, having me there watching her definitely seemed to be throwing her off. I guess that figures–we might be getting along again, but it was gonna take a while before things between us got back to any kind of normal. If I wanted to keep helping her bump her wingpower numbers up and work on those performance anxiety issues, I was gonna need a couple days. Considering that we were right in the middle of the Tornado Day preparations, this wasn’t exactly the best of times to cash in some of my vacation days. Especially since all the prep-work had been thrown for a loop with Rainbow’s problems. It was kinda neglecting my duty to just drop out of all the prep work and take a couple personal days when I really needed to be on the job. On the other hoof, it was Eepy. Sure, we’d patched things up a little, but it might not stick unless we had some bonding time. I didn’t just want us to get to a point where we could be in the same room and have a conversation without being complete wrecks, I wanted us to be proper friends again.  Besides, it’s not like I’d be abandoning my duty to help with Tornado Day–I was getting Eepy’s wingpower numbers up and getting her confident enough to actually come back on duty. Having Eepy there would make for great guilt-trip material for anypony who was still trying to shirk Tornado Duty too. Yeah, okay, that sounded a little flimsy. Maybe I was putting my personal desires over my duty to help out with the tornado stuff. Could anypony blame me though? Tornado Day is just weather work–at worst, they’d just have to move it to another town. Compared to a chance at fixing the biggest feather-up of my entire life ... yeah. By the time I finished up with Eepy the training fields Rainbow requisitioned for the weather team were empty, so it was off to Blossom’s modest little cloud house. It looked about like I remembered it–small and simple, but comfortably so. The kind of small and simple that seems like it’s born from moderation rather than not having the bits to get something better. Not everypony sinks a big chunk of their paycheck into having a small mansion with several rainbow fountains. Then again, Rainbow Dash got a bigger paycheck than we did. I knocked on Blossom’s front door. Well, I didn’t exactly knock per se, since it’s pretty hard to knock on a cloud. However, the doors for most cloud homes carry a slight electrical charge. Not enough to start shooting out bolts of lightning or anything, but enough to get a bit of a rumble when you kick them. After a couple seconds the door opened up, and I found myself face to face with the cutest-looking Blossom I’ve ever seen. I can’t exactly put my hoof on what it was about her–maybe it was the screwdriver hanging limply in her mouth or the slight little smudge of grease on her cheek, or maybe even the small collection of screws tucked behind her ear, but something about it just looked really cute. A nerdy kind of cute, but still cute. “Oh, hey Cloud Kicker. What’s up?” After taking a couple more seconds to appreciate the wrench wench look she had going for her, I decided I should probably stop ogling her long enough to give an answer. “Oh, there was some work stuff I wanted to ask you about, but...” I very blatantly looked her over. “What’s with the engineer getup?” “Oh, right.” Blossom quickly trotted back inside so she could drop her screwdriver onto one of her enchanted rugs. Those are kind of a necessity if you want to have anything substantial in your cloud house–even a tightly packed cloud can’t handle very much weight. At first I’d assumed Blossom had kept her house small and modest because she just wasn’t one for showing off her bits, but I think I had a different theory. Almost her entire living room had rug coverage, and most of the room was occupied with some weird contraption that looked like it was supposed to be some sort of flying machine, along with a couple other odd projects in various states of completion. Any furniture was notable only by its complete absence. Blossom caught me staring at the flying machine. “It’s Pinkie Pie’s,” she explained. “I’m fixing it up for her to pay her back for all the catering she’s been doing for the Tornado Day practice sessions.” She trotted over and nudged one of the pedals on the bottom, which made the blade part at the top start spinning. “I think I’m getting pretty close to getting it fixed up. I’m sure Pinkie will be happy about having this working again.” Blossom picked up her screwdriver and made a couple more adjustments. “A flying machine is useful when you’re an earth pony dating a pegasus.” “It would be handy, though as long she’s falling through clouds that’s not a perfect solution.” Then again, Rainbow could certainly afford to make a couple rooms of her house earth-pony friendly. Assuming the two of them ever actually got around to banging, it would probably be a relief for the Cakes if they could do it at Rainbow’s place. Though come to think of it, Pinkie Pie probably had to put up with the sounds of the Cake Twins getting made. “There are cloud walking spells that can last for a long time, and they’re friends with Twilight Sparkle,” Blossom added. I guess that is a nice perk of being friends with one of the most magically powerful unicorns in Equestria, though you’d think Twilight would get a bit annoyed if they used her as a free spellcasting service all the time. Blossom moved onto another weird little device that almost resembled a set of wing-blades, except there were no actual blades on them, and there seemed to be some kind of elastic cord connecting all the joints. “Hey, you think you could try these on for me? I already tested them on myself, but getting another pony to check that they work would help.” I was getting just a little thrown off by all this. Blossom had said something about spending some time hanging out with Twilight Sparkle, but I’d never known that mad scientist-ism was a contagious disease before. Blossom seemed to catch onto my worries after a bit, and let out a slightly annoyed snort. “They increase tension on your wings and make it harder to flap. I was thinking something like this could be handy for helping ponies bring up their wingpower numbers.” Okay, that made sense. Still not sure why Blossom was custom-designing training equipment when you could probably just buy that kind of stuff, but at least there was a reason behind it all. Hay, the Guard did some similar stuff to get our wingpower number up, except that they liked lead-cored wingblades, and making us do drills in full armor and kit. Slap a hundred or more pounds of weight on a pony before you send them out flying, and they will start building up muscle. So a minute later my best friend was strapping me into something that was theoretically exercise equipment, but felt more like some weird kind of fetish gear. At least it worked as advertised–it definitely added a lot of resistance when I gave a couple experimental flaps, so it would work for helping a pony build up muscle tone. Rainbow would probably insist on getting a pair for herself once she was out of the hospital. Speaking of our boss... “So how did things go with training today? Any problems?” “No, we–” Whatever Blossom was about to say next disappeared into a coughing fit. Great, looks like she was still sick. Yet another reason why I probably shouldn’t be taking off time for my personal issues. Honestly, even with the fact that this was my chance to patch things up with Eepy, I was starting to think I might need to find a way get back to normal with her after all the Tornado Day stuff was taken care of. Duty comes first. Once Blossom bounced back from her coughing, she tried to carry on talking as if nothing had happened. “We managed fine without you. It seemed like you did a good job rounding up most of the ponies who were trying to duck out of Tornado Duty, but what happened to you? You just kind of disappeared on us.” “Yeah, sorry about that.” I gave a slightly guilty shuffle of my hooves. I’d been so eager to patch things up with Eepy that I might have dropped the ball a bit when it came to my current friends. At the very least, I owed Blossom an explanation for that. “Thing is ... well the last pony on our list of AWOLs was Fluttershy.” Blossom let out an intrigued grunt when I mentioned her name. “So, I went by her place, and then we got to talking...” “You talked to her?” Blossom shot me a hopeful little smile. “It must have gone well if the two of you were at it for hours.” “Yeah.” I realized that Blossom’s lack of furniture in her living room/tinkering area meant I didn’t really have anywhere to sit. I grabbed a chunk out of her walls and quickly fashioned it into something resembling a comfortable resting area. I probably could’ve turned it into a couch if I had a bit more material to work with, but doing too much reshaping of somepony’s home was a bit rude. Snooping was also out, even if I was a bit curious about the place. “Eepy and I got to talking, and ... I think we might be fixing things up.” Blossom was practically beaming at me. “That’s great news, Cloud Kicker! I’m really happy for you.” A couple seconds later Blossom’s smile slowly turned into a frown when she noticed I didn’t seem to be sharing in her enthusiasm. She immediately jumped to an only slightly incorrect conclusion. “Oh Celestia, you mated with her after you two made up, didn’t you?” “No.” I thought about just leaving it at that, but Blossom probably deserved to know what had happened, and I needed somepony to talk to about the whole thing. “We started heading down that path, but we both decided that it would probably do more harm than good. The last thing we need is to have more sex we’re not sure about.” “Yeah.” Blossom slumped down onto her floor, and idly dropped her screwdriver. I was a little surprised when it rolled off of her enchanted rug and didn’t fall straight through the clouds. Guess she must have gotten tools made of Thunderforged steel. A bit expensive, but having your tools fall down through the floor every time you put them down in the wrong place would get to be a pain in the flank after the third or fourth time it happened. Not to mention painful for whatever poor sap was walking below your house at the time. “So I guess this was one of those times when your rules actually counted, huh?” “Actually, she’s the one who stopped me.” I sighed and shifted around a bit on my improvised cloud-seat. “I got a little caught up in the moment, and she reined me in.” “Oh.” Blossom let out a bitter little laugh. “That’s right, the only pony your rules have ever actually stopped you from mating with is me.” Okay, ouch. I wanted to fly over there and give her a hug, but under the circumstances that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. “Blossom, it’s not like that.” “Isn’t it?” Blossom snapped at me. “As far as I can tell, I’m the only thing in Equestria with a pulse that you won’t mate with.” I flinched back. “Okay, that’s really not fair, Blossom.” “Fair?” Blossom was back up on her hooves, and I’m pretty sure her wings weren’t flared out in arousal. “Don’t you talk to me about what’s fair! I spent months pining after you, and all you did was ignore me or push me away! Then when you finally do decide to acknowledge that my feelings exist, it’s just to throw them in my face!” I groaned into my forehooves. “Do we really need to have this conversation again? Yes, I didn’t handle your feelings for me very well. Do you have to throw that into my face every time we get into a conversation that’s even tangentially related to my love life?” I’ll freely admit that I hadn’t been a great friend, but why did she have to pull our personal issues into a conversation about Eepy? Right now I needed a little support from my best friend, not another lecture on failures as a potential romantic partner. Blossom glowered at me, and slowly growled out. “Did you enjoy watching me make a foal of myself by kissing Derpy? I’m sure you thought that was hilarious.” “Actually, I thought that was really hot.” Blossom hit me with a furious glare, and I facehoofed at my legendary poor timing. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say. I guess she would be a little mad at me about that whole situation. “Look, I was just joking around with you, I didn’t expect you to really go and kiss her like that.” “You didn’t exactly try to stop me either,” Blossom countered. I had my mouth half-open to respond when I realized there wasn’t really much I could say to that. I’d had more than enough time to speak and let Blossom know that I hadn’t been serious about the whole kissing Derpy thing, but instead I’d just eagerly sat back and watched the whole thing play out. I’d been so caught up in enjoying the (admittedly very hot) spectacle that I hadn’t really stopped to think how it might be affecting the other two ponies involved in it. So, I needed a way to make things right. I nervously licked my lips and got up to my hooves. “Look, Blossom. I know I was just joking around when I said it, but ... I guess I do technically owe you a kiss now.” Blossom went stiff as a board when those words left my lips. By the time I was done walking up to her, her entire body was shaking. That’s not exactly the most encouraging of signs. I reached a hoof out to tip her chin up so that she was looking me in the eyes. “Blossom, do you want me to kiss you?” Blossom licked her lips, and briefly looked away before squarely facing me. “Yes,” she whispered. Okay. So ... I guess I was gonna kiss her then. Wow. Alright, here we go. I’m going to kiss her ... in just a couple seconds. Why was I hesitating so much? I wanted to kiss her, I really did. Blossom was certainly attractive enough that the physical desire wasn’t a problem. But ... after everything that had gone wrong with us, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her again. Then again, not kissing her would hurt her too. I got about halfway to her lips when she turned her head to the side. “Cloudy, I ... I’m not sure we should...” To be honest, I was pretty relieved when she said that. “Yeah. It’s not that I don’t want to, but ... it might not be a good idea right now.” Blossom pulled back a bit and wrapped her wings over her chest. “I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker. I’m asking you to kiss me, and then halfway through I go and change my mind. I just...” Before I could come up with something to say that would make her feel less horribly, she got up and bumped me out of the way as she fled back into her bedroom. I followed her. She tried slamming the door in my face, but that really doesn’t work when your door is made out of cloud. “Blossom, wait. Look, this whole mess is complicated. You know that. Running isn't going to fix anything.” Blossom hit me with a glare that might have been a bit poisonous if her eyes weren’t so watery, and threw herself onto her bed. “But your dumb bet was? Or me getting so stupid and trying to make you pony up on your end when I wasn’t ready?” I groaned and applied hoof to face. That whole joke-bet was really looking like one of my stupider ideas, and I’ve had some dumb ones over the last couple days. Ever since this whole mess with Blossom started blowing up in my face. “I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” I sighed and took a deep breath. “Look, we need to sit down and talk about this.” “Talk?” Blossom sobbed indignantly. “Talk?” She grabbed a book and halfheartedly sent it flying at my head. Thank Celestia it was a paperback. On the other hoof, her bookcase was full of ammunition if she wanted to chuck more at me. “Half a second ago we were about to kiss, and now you want to talk? All you've done is talk! Talk about how much fun banging is, what kinds of encounters you've had, all the good times and warm, squiggly feelings you get to have–and when it comes time to nut up or shut up, I get left out in the cold.” Blossom sank down into her bed and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “So yeah, go ahead and talk. 'Cause apparently that’s all we can ever do.” “Blossom, it’s not–” I groaned and facehoofed again. I was gonna need to be careful about my choice of words here, because with Blossom in her current mood, it wouldn’t take much to get her even more pissed at me. “Look, you mean more to me then some random pony I've banged. I didn't want to hurt you because your friendship means the world to me, and I didn't want ruin that. I never wanted to hurt you.” I let out a humorless little laugh. “I feathered that up pretty hard, didn’t I?” Blossom’s upper lip pulled back in a furious snarl and she angrily swiped the tears out of her eyes. “Ya think? Yeah, I bet you're sorry. I’ve got half a mind to–” Blossom deliberately cut herself off and took a few deep breaths. Once she’d calmed down a bit, she continued. “You've banged other friends, what puts me on a pedestal?” “I ... I don't know.” That’s not much of an answer, but at least it was honest. “I guess it was because we'd been friends for so long without banging, and I didn't want to lose what I had. Most of the ponies I hang out with I end up banging in no time, but that didn't happen with you.” I sank down onto the bed next to Blossom. She didn’t exactly look happy about it, but she wasn’t trying to push me off either. “The only other platonic friend I’ve got is Rainbow Dash, and things’ve always been a bit weird with us. You ... you’re my best friend, and I was terrified at the idea of losing that. I still am.” “You're playing cat-and-mouse with my emotions, and leaving me so mixed up I don’t know whether to be mad at you or cry.” Blossom tossed a little chunk of cloud at me, which didn’t really accomplish anything beyond hopefully making her feel a little better. “You damn well better be scared of losing my friendship.” That got a flinch out of me. Oh Celestia, I’d just started fixing things with Eepy, and now I was on the verge of losing somepony else who meant just as much to me. “Look, years of habits and not knowing when to keep my mouth shut have kinda caught up with me. It’s hurt a lot of ponies I care about, including the one pony I never wanted to hurt.” Blossom let out a disbelieving little snort. “Which one is that, now? Derpy? Fluttershy?” “You!” I took a couple seconds to calm down. Angrily yelling at a pony that you care about them does kinda send a mixed message. “I don't want to hurt you, okay Blossom? You don’t deserve that, and knowing that I hurt you makes me feel like a complete jerk. I turned down banging Eepy because I didn't want to hurt you or Derpy.” Blossom resorted to the nastiest weapon in her arsenal–bitter sarcasm. “I'm flattered you care as much about me as you do the pony you decided on a whim to bang into screaming oblivion.” Okay, I was getting just a little frustrated with her now. “Could you please stop trying to turn this into a fight? I'm trying really hard to not get into a shouting match with you, but you're making it pretty damn hard.” I put a hoof on her shoulder–she jumped a little but she didn’t seem to mind the contact. “Yes, you both matter to me, and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that. I don't want to hurt you or Derpy, and I don't know how to make one of you happy without hurting the other.” “You know how to make me happy. I. Want. You.” Blossom emphasized each word with a tap of her hoof on my chest. “I've wanted you for months. I've wanted you to care for me as way, way more than a friend. I've wanted you to bang me until I have to call in sick because I can't fly straight.” Blossom blushed a little, and this time I’m pretty sure those spread wings weren’t only being caused by anger. “Um ... is it a little warm in here, or is it just me?” I backed up a bit, so that I wasn’t having any contact with her. No need to make things worse than they already were. “Blossom, if I bang you then I'm going to hurt Derpy. How would you feel if we’d hooked up, and then it was Derpy who kept trying to add herself to the equation?” Blossom shot me a rather pointed look. “I’d certainly be a lot happier than I am right now. You've been banging her and not me for–hay, almost two months? Why?” “Because she said yes first.” Again with the answers that were honest, but didn’t seem to be making Blossom very happy. “You had plenty of chances to bang me if you wanted to. How many times did I let you know that I was more than willing to let you into my bed? A hundred? Two hundred? More? Maybe I thought that if you were really serious about it you would’ve jumped on one of those chances. I asked Derpy once, and she said yes. How long was I supposed to wait for you to make up your mind?” Blossom put a hoof under her chin, and her tone turned mockingly contemplative. “Gee, I think ‘Yes Cloud Kicker, take me now!’ is pretty hard to mistake as anything other than me saying I wanted you.” “You were drunk,” I answered with a slightly annoyed snort. “Rule Three, I couldn't take anything you were saying seriously then.” “You could have talked to me about it instead of just trying to write it all off as some big joke caused by alcohol,” Blossom snapped at me. “Maybe sat me down and talked about why as soon as I got a little alcohol lowering my inhibitions, I started trying to get you into bed.” “And you knew the only reason I shot you down was because you were drunk!” I shot right back. “I as much as told you that the first time you asked me about it. A blind pony could’ve read between the lines on that one! What more did I have to do, give you an engraved invitation? It’s kinda obvious that if I tell you that the only reason I turned you down is that you were drunk, then if you ask me when you’re sober...” I slowly trailed off as I realized just what I was saying. Maybe Derpy had a point about me sending Blossom way too many mixed signals. “Okay ... I could have handled that a bit better” Blossom gave me a very saucy grin. “In any case, I'm saying ‘yes’ now.” She very slowly settled back onto the bed. “If you really, really mean that all I needed to do is say it, then yes.” She flicked her tail to the side and spread her hindquarters just a bit. “I want you to bang me. Take me now.” Okay, time to conjure up those horrifying and libido-destroying mental images again. No matter how much my brain my told me it was a bad idea, there was still a part of me that wanted to dive head-first into that little flower of hers. “Listen, this isn't what you really want. You don't want for our first time together to be because you're angry, frustrated, or trying to prove something or get back at Derpy. You want it to be something special.” Blossom let out an angry snort and rolled back over, and made a point of covering up with her tail. “I knew it. You say all I ever needed to do was say yes when you asked, but it was never really going to be that simple, was it? You spread yourself around with enough ponies, what's one more?” Blossom started trembling, and I’m pretty sure I saw tears forming in her eyes. “What’s wrong with me? Why is it that any random pony on the street can hop into bed with you, but your best friend who loves you with all her heart can’t even get a single little kiss? Why do I mean so much less to you than all those other ponies?” “Blossom, look at me.” At first she refused to, but when I reached over to turn her around so I could look in the eyes she didn’t try to stop me. “You do not mean less to me than all those other ponies. You mean more, so much more. That’s part of why we never...” I sighed and took a deep breath as I prepared myself for a slightly painful confession. “Look, you want to know the honest reason why I never made a serious effort to get you into bed? It’s because I was scared. I knew if we banged, it could never just be a simple kind of friends-with-benefits thing. You would never be alright with us just having a one-time bang ... and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be alright with it either.” Blossom pulled back in shock. “You...” “Yeah.” I groaned and sank into the clouds. “If we’d ever banged ... it would’ve been like when Shadow Kicker and the rest of the clan left Cloudsdale. Point of No Return. Everything about our relationship would’ve changed. Everything. Doesn’t that scare you a little too?” “A little?” Blossom let out a snort with a tiny bit of genuine mirth behind it. “No, it doesn’t scare me a little. It terrifies me. Why do you think I always said no when you offered to bang me? I want you so much, but at the same time ... I’m scared of it. It’s just so much to deal with, and if we ever take that step then nothing will ever be the same again. It’s ... as much as I want something more with you, there’s a part of me that’s so scared of making such a big change that I never wanted to ... commit to making that change.” I couldn’t help but let out a short little back of laughter at that. “Guess I’m not the only pony with commitment issues after all. Maybe that means we’re meant for each other.” I sighed and settled in next to her. “Blossom, I wanna sort this thing out. I wish you and me had talked things over before I hooked up with Derpy, but we can’t change the past. I’ve got a good thing with Derpy, and I don’t wanna break her heart now that she’s letting me into it. And her girls ... hay, for a while there I was getting scared that they’d expect me to get all maternal and stuff, but now–well, I’m getting a little attached to them. I’m maybe not entirely terrified by the idea that I might be a kinda-sorta role-model to them. They’re good girls.” “Two impressionable fillies looking at you as a role model.” Blossom let out a snort. “That is a terrifying thought.” I paled a bit as the implications of that hit me. “If Dinky turns out like me, Derpy will kill me, and they’ll never find the body.” Blossom smirked and put in her two bits. “You corrupt a filly as innocent as Dinky, and I’d probably help Derpy do it.” Blossom blew out a long, slow sigh. “I don’t hate her, you know? She seems like a nice pony, and her girls are good kids. I don’t want to hurt them just to make myself happy with you. It’s just ... you said it yourself, we’d be together if you hadn’t gone and hooked up with her.” “It’s not that simple, Blossom.” I hesitantly snuggled up next to her. “Even if me and Derpy weren’t a thing, I’ve ... kinda got some baggage from the whole Flight Camp thing with Eepy. It’s not like I can pretend that having my first love blow up spectacularly in my face has had no influence on me not wanting to get into any sort of serious relationship. I wanna ... look, I want to do right by both of you, and I’m starting to think that in order to do right I need to get my own issues sorted out first.” I sighed and shot a look in the general direction of Eepy’s cozy little cottage. “Probably part of why I went to see her today. Until I’m right with myself, I don’t think I can do right by either of you.” I nervously licked my lips. “I’ve ... got a kind of huge favor to ask, considering what’s going on with Tornado Day. Eepy needs help getting her wingpower up to ten, and she’s asked me if I could lend a hoof with all the training. This ... this could be my big chance to settle everything with her. I think resolving my whole thing with Eepy is the first step to figuring out how to do right by the two of you.” Okay, that was sounding a little too much like I was trying to blackmail her into going along with this. Promising to sort out your potential romantic relationship on the condition of getting a couple days off of work wasn’t exactly an ethical way doing things “Look, I can fix things up with Eepy after Tornado Day, if you need me on the training field. I need to sort my personal life out, but I’ve got a duty to the weather service too. I’m not gonna shirk my duties just because my personal life is in shambles.” Blossom put a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “No, it’s okay. I’ve got things under control, and I know if Rainbow Dash was here she would want to give you a chance. Besides, Pinkie Pie told me Rainbow’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow afternoon, so it’s not like you’d be leaving me all on my own. I can handle things tomorrow, and after that Rainbow will be back on the job. Go to Fluttershy–you two deserve a chance to make some kind of peace with each other.” I was just about to thank her when she shrank down a bit into her bed and very quietly added, “But ... can I ask you for a favor too?” I had a bad feeling about this, but she deserved a chance to least make her request. “Could you stay here tonight?” Yeah, definitely a bad idea. “Blossom, we can’t–” Blossom cut me off with a trembling hoof over my mouth. “I’m not asking you mate with me.” Her eyes started watering, and the rest of her body started trembling along with her hoof. “Just ... hold me. And stay. Please?” I took one look at that open, vulnerable look on her face, and I knew there was only one answer I could give. “Yeah, sure.” The next day of training with Eepy went pretty well, all things considered. By the end of the day, it took two butterflies to beat her in a tug-of-war, and she was actually putting up a serious effort at winning. Granted, butterflies have a whopping .01 wingpower each, but at least Eepy was making progress. More importantly, getting some time together was doing wonders for the two of us. If not for how worried I was about the possibility that things might happen, I’d probably be spending the night at Eepy’s place too. It should probably be a while before Eepy and I tested things to the point of sleeping under the same roof. In my defense, Eepy being the one to make the first move was as much of a danger as me. She wouldn’t be as quick to escalate things as I would, but if Eepy made a serious move on me, I’m not sure I’d have the self-control to say no to her. Rejecting Eepy when she’s hitting you with those sad, hopeful eyes and you know she’s gonna run away sobbing if you say no ... that’s hard to manage. Since things with Derpy were still a little rough, I was back to sleeping at my place. Considering how badly our last conversation had gone, I thought it was probably a good idea for the two of us to have a little time to cool off. The last thing we needed to do was get into another argument that ended with her implying that she might be thinking about breaking things off. Hopefully a bit of a break and me sorting out the whole Fluttershy thing would be enough to get things back on track. I was halfway through breakfast when somepony knocked on my door. This early in the morning, it had better be something important. Maybe it was Eepy? She had mentioned something about coming by my place and bringing me something to eat. I told her she didn’t need to go the trouble of doing something like that for me, but getting Eepy to not do something nice for you was always a difficult proposition. Back at Flight Camp it took me weeks to convince her that she didn’t need to make my bunk, share her dessert with me, or do any other minor little favors. Even then, sometimes she could wear me down by just being so relentlessly kind that I had no choice but to let her do something nice for me. I’ve never known another pony who could actually make me feel like some kind of monster for not taking half her cookies. Unfortunately there was no nervous and cute old Flight Camp friend waiting at my front door. Instead, it was one of the last ponies I’d ever expected or wanted to see. “Mom.” I was a little surprised to see her out of uniform. It’s not like guardponies always went around wearing their armor when they were off-duty, but Mom was usually in uniform unless she was hanging around the house. She went around in full armor so often that I was pretty sure she’d sunk some bits into getting some comfort-enhancing and self-cleaning enchantments put on it. Trust me, if you wear that armor all day it’ll start getting pretty darn uncomfortable, and living in the West Hoof barracks educated me on just how quickly armor could build up horrifying levels of body odor if it wasn’t regularly cleaned. I swear, the real reason I dropped out of the Guard wasn’t down to fear of getting locked into a lifetime commitment, it was just that I didn’t wanna put up with decades of smelling the armor funk of hundreds of ponies. Without her armor, Mom looked ... almost like a normal pony. A bit too trim, and you could tell from the way she she carried herself and kept aware of her surroundings that she wasn’t a normal civilian, but the only thing that gave her away as Guard was her close-cropped brown mane. Without her armor’s uniform enchantment her coat was even back to its natural soft yellow instead of being parade-ground white, and it had been so long since I’d seen that that I could swear I’d almost forgotten she wasn’t a natural whitecoat. It seems kind of wrong that my own mother looked almost like a stranger to me when she was out of uniform. Armored or not, she was knocking on my door, and that rarely boded well. Still, I should probably try to be a bit diplomatic. If nothing else, there was a passable chance that she was here because she wanted me to keep an eye on 'Lula again. I’d rather not get into another nasty family argument within earshot of my little sister. “So, what can I do for you, Mom?” Mom gave a surprised little blink–I guess she wasn’t expecting me to actually make an effort to be civil. I’m not sure why I was doing it myself. Maybe all the stuff with Eepy had me in a reconciling type of mood, or maybe I was just getting tired of all the fighting and awkward distance between me and the ponies I cared about. Yeah, Mom and I had some pretty huge disagreements about the way I lived my life, but at the end of the day she was still ... Mom. No argument was gonna change that. When Mom answered, she was a bit slow and hesitant, like she wasn’t quite sure how to handle moving into the uncharted territory of us actually having a civil conversation. “Something’s come up–emergency deployment. I need you to keep an eye on Alula again. Please?” Whoa. Mom was actually using words like ‘please’ now? “Yeah, no problem.” Wow, we were actually talking to each other like normal family instead of two mares who could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. This was progress. I’m still not sure why I cared so much about patching things up with her right now. Maybe it was the same reason I went to Eepy’s place a couple days back. I needed a friend then ... maybe I needed a mom now. I decided to offer an olive branch. “Mom? Can we ... talk?” Mom frowned at me, and very slowly shook her head. “I ... I’m sorry but I have an urgent mission. There’s really no time for–” “Once you get back, then.” I opened my door up all the way and took a hesitant half-step towards her. “We used to get along. I’m not gonna say we never got into any fights, every family does, but things had never gotten this bad before. I’m tired of it. Hay, is all this stuff about you wanting me to join the Guard again and me wanting to live my life the way I wanna really worth all this stupid fighting? Can we just drop it all and try to be a family again?” I took another step towards her and awkwardly rubbed a hoof along the back of my neck. “Look, I don’t know what exactly is going on with you and Dad, but you two loved each other. Hay, you gave up your titles to marry him. I just ... I’m tired of fighting with you. Tired of my family being a big complicated mess that makes me feel guilty because I can’t stop thinking that I let you all down. I ... Things aren’t right with us, but I wanna fix them. Can we?” Mom just stood there, staring at me for a long moment. She looked uncertain, like she had no idea how to handle things. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Five minutes ago, I wouldn’t have believed I’d be trying to make peace with her either. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought I’d be doing. Or not doing, as the case may be. Finally, Mom answered. “Very well, Cloud Kicker. I ... think I would like to speak with you as well. We ... we have a great deal to discuss.” On an impulse, I hugged her. After an awkward moment, she started hugging me back. “I know it’s been forever since I said it, but ... I love you, okay Mom? Even if you are a stubborn, controlling old hag who drives me up the wall sometimes, I still love you.” “I ... yes.” Great, Mom was getting all awkward on me now. She’s kind of always been this way–showing the maternal love was never her strong suit. I suspect it might be the very large stick that was surgically implanted up her plot when she was born. Plus, the Kickers have always been a bit on the stoic side, not so much for the touchy-feely stuff. Mom might have married into the family, but she definitely fit right in. Combine her not being so great at the affection thing with the way she could have a pretty forceful and not exactly pleasant way of expressing herself when she didn’t get her way, and it’s no wonder we’d had more than our fair share of troubles. I held onto the hug for a little bit longer, then had mercy on my poor emotionally distant mother. “So, where’s 'Lula at? I’ve got a little baby sister to take care of and embarrass.” I was a little disappointed when 'Lula didn’t make any of her customary complaints about being called a baby. Even though she was–as far as I was concerned, she was gonna be a baby at least until there were two numbers in her age. Maybe not until she was done being a teenager. Oh Celestia, my cute little baby sister was gonna turn into a teenager one day. I craned my neck around to look behind Mom for ‘Lula, but instead of seeing her playfully trotting around like I’d expected, she was riding on Mom’s back. “There you are, Little Wing.” A couple casual flaps of my wings took me right over Mom so I could get a proper look at my little sis. “I’m gonna be busy with work, but we can still ... you okay there, ‘Lula?” 'Lula did not look good. Her wings were half-hazardly flopped against her sides, and she was lying so flat on Mom’s back that it looked less like she’d made herself comfortable, and more like her legs had just collapsed underneath her. No wonder she hadn’t said anything when I started calling her a baby–right now she seemed to be half-asleep. I scooped her off of Mom’s back and gave her a quick once-over. It didn’t look like there was anything seriously wrong with her, but she seemed so tired and listless that I could tell that something wasn’t right. Maybe I was getting worried over nothing though. At least, I sure hope that’s all it was. “You work her out too hard or something, Mom? She doesn’t look so good...” Mom reached over to tuck Alula’s wings back up against her sides. “Relax, Cloud Kicker. She’s just going through one of those ordinary fillyhood illnesses, there’s some kind of bug going around. Nothing you need to get yourself worked up over,” Mom assured me. “I took her by the clinic yesterday, just to be safe, and Redheart assured me that your sister will be fine. You remember how it was back when you were her age–too sick to get out of bed one day, and then the next you’re tugging my tail and begging me to teach you how use wing-blades.” “Heh, yeah.” I let out a fond little laugh as my mind went back to simpler times. It was nice when Mom was just one of the two coolest ponies ever (in an eternal conflict with Dad for the top spot). Why did things have to go and get so complicated on me? It was hard to believe that ‘Lula was supposed to bounce back to normal in a couple days how sick she looked right now, but kids do tend to be a little extreme that way. One day they’re sick as a dog, the next they’re bouncing off the walls again. I don't know where they get all that energy from, though I suspect they must steal it from the adults around them. Like vamponies. Tiny, hyperactive little vamponies. ‘Lula shifted around a bit and tried to wrap her own forelegs around my chest. “Cloudy ... I dun feel good. I’m sleepy.” I gave her a quick little nuzzle. “Hey, you’ll be fine. You’re just a little sick.” I shot a worried look over at Mom. “You sure she’s alright?” “Of course. Trust me, she’ll be back on her hooves and bothering you to play with her in no time.” Mom gave me a reassuring smile and dropped down to give ‘Lula a quick nuzzle. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I have to be in Canterlot by 0800 or my CO is going to be out for blood.” She rather pointedly spread her wings. I gave a sympathetic little wince–Mom was gonna have to double-time it if she wanted to make it as it was. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got it.” If Mom and Redheart said that ‘Lula was fine, then she was. After all, both of them have a lot more experience at dealing with fillyhood illnesses than me. Derpy might be getting me more involved in her daughters’ lives, but so far neither of them had come down with anything serious enough for me get drafted for nurse duty. I took ‘Lula inside and settled her into my bed. She did look pretty tired, so I guess the bed was as good a place as any to put her. “‘Lula, you feeling okay?” “I’m sleepy,” my little sister groaned. “Can I take a nap?” “Yeah, sure.” I dropped down for another quick nuzzle. “If you need anything, just let me know.” “‘kay.” 'Lula wasted no more time before curling up in my covers and hitting the hay. After a quick run by the market, I got to work on making a big pot of egg and noodle soup. That’s supposed to help when you’re dealing with a sick filly. At least, I’m pretty sure it helps in all the books and stuff. Maybe I should get Derpy? She’d know all about how to deal with a sick filly. Sure, we were supposed to be taking a couple days to cool off, but she wouldn’t hesitate to help if I told her my sister was sick. My pot of soup was about halfway done when somepony very gently knocked on my door. I didn’t even need to open it to know who it was–Eepy has a pretty distinctive way of knocking. So soft you can barely even hear it, probably because she’s worried about disturbing somepony who doesn’t want to be bothered. I wouldn’t have been shocked to discover that she’d spent a couple minutes on my doorstep before she finally even worked up the courage to knock on my door at all. I checked to make sure that the soup wouldn’t boil over or something in the next thirty seconds or so, and then fluttered over to open the door for her. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting Eepy.” I did a quick check of my clock–I was about an hour past due for getting to her place to help out with the wingpower training. Oops. “Oh, it’s okay,” she assured me with all her usual gentle understanding. “I just thought you might need help, because I know you would have been there to help me with my training unless something really, really important came up. And if it’s important enough for you drop my wingpower training, then it must be important enough that you need my help too. So ... here I am.” Was ... was Eepy trying to guilt-trip me? Nah, Eepy wouldn’t do something like that. At least, not intentionally. She’s pretty good at the unintentional guilt-slinging though. I have to admit, I’d feel like an absolute mule if I didn’t have a perfectly legitimate reason for–scratch that, I did have a good reason for not making it, and I still felt kinda bad. “Sorry, it’s just that my mom dropped Alula off this morning, and she’s kinda sick so I–” I couldn’t get another word out before Eepy bolted straight for my bedroom. A couple seconds later she flew back out, carrying a bundle of blankets and my little sisters in her forelegs. From the looks of it, she was rocking 'Lula back and forth and singing to her. Something about happy little bouncing bunnies, which was just such an Eepy thing to do that I couldn’t help but smile fondly at the two of them. After doting on my little sister for a bit, Eepy shot me a worried look. “Cloudy, what’s wrong with her? She looks really sick...” “Not sure,” I admitted. “Mom said she took her by the clinic to get her checked out, and it’s just some childhood bug that’s been going around.” I shot another slightly worried look 'Lula’s way, and tried to make myself calm down. Fillies get sick sometimes, it’s not a big deal. Certainly nothing worth working myself up into a panic over. “Well, to be honest I know more about taking care of bunnies and kitties than fillies,” Eepy confessed. “It doesn’t look serious though, so if Nurse Redheart said it’s nothing to worry about, then I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Eepy brought 'Lula up for a gentle little nuzzle. “Don’t you worry little one, I’m gonna help Cloudy take care of you until you’re all better.” Well, I wasn’t going to complain about having some help here, especially from somepony like Eepy who practically oozed nurturing gentleness out of her pores. Besides, it’s not like I could tell her no. If I tried to deny her the opportunity to be a caregiver, she’d break out her entire arsenal of begging, pleading, imploring, beseeching, requesting, and asking very nicely to make me change my mind. If none of that worked, then she would hit me with the most devastating weapon she had. She would get sad. Very sad. There might even be tears. So yeah, Eepy was gonna help me take care of Alula. “Well, I’ve got some egg and noodle soup cooking, that should help her feel better, so...” Eepy fluttered over and took a quick taste test of my soup. “Oh my. Well, that’s very nice of you, but could I make just a few teensy-weensy little adjustments to your soup?” Before I could even say yes, Eepy hit my spice rack like a very gentle, soft-spoken hurricane. Five minutes later, Eepy still wasn’t happy with the results even though I thought it was just fine. Then again, I’d thought it was just fine before she went to work on it. “Cloud Kicker, how old were the eggs you used in that soup?” “Only a couple days,” I answered her. “And I’ve been keeping them in the icebox, so they should be fine.” “Oh, there’s the problem,” Eepy muttered under her breath. “Don’t worry, I can go back to my chicken coop and get some freshly laid eggs for her. Maybe pick some fresh natural herbs too, they’re much better than any of the processed stuff you can find in the markets. I have some wonderful sage growing in my garden that would be just perfect for this.” Eepy beamed at me. “I know, we could just take her over to my house!” Oh Celestia, it was like a steamroller of kindness. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate what she was trying to do, but she was kinda taking over the whole process. Getting help with 'Lula was great, but having her more-or-less completely take over as 'Lula’s caretaker was going a bit further than I was really comfortable with. “Look, Eepy, I really appreciate it, but–” “Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Eepy gently reassured me. “I would love to take care of your sister. She’s just such a wonderful little filly.” Before I could come up with a way to very gently explain my concerns to her, Eepy let out a soft gasp and covered her mouth with one of her hooves. “Oh my! I didn’t mean to be so presumptuous! I just thought of all the things I could do to help, and then I got so excited that I never even asked you if it was okay! It is okay, isn’t it? Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me!” Oh, for the love of Luna. Now she was on the verge of tears just from thinking I might be upset with her. I love Eepy, I really do, but sometimes she can be a bit too sensitive for her own good. There was only one way this conversation could possibly go. “Relax Eepy, it’s fine. I really appreciate how eager you are to lend a hoof.” We were halfway back to Fluttershy’s cottage when we passed in the general vicinity of Ponyville Hospital and spotted an unmistakable rainbow-colored streak circling over it. Just as I was about to ask Eepy if we should stop to say hello, the rainbow blur stopped in mid-air, then zoomed towards the two of us fast enough to make me just a little nervous. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash actually managed to pull off a precision stop right in front of the two of us instead of overdoing it and bowling us over. I’d still kind of taken a half step forward and to the side to put myself in front of Eepy and 'Lula. Letting the two of them get tackled by an overenthusiastic Rainbow Dash would probably be a bad idea. “Fluttershy? Cloud Kicker? You guys are ... you’re ... No way!” Rainbow dropped to the ground in front of us and sank down onto her haunches. “I mean, Pinkie told me that Blossomforth told her that you two had ... but ... you’re really...” I grinned and took a pointed half-step closer to Eepy. “Yeah. Eepy and I finally patched things up.” Eepy let out a squeak and gave me a friendly nuzzle on the cheek, just to hammer the point home. Rainbow’s smile put Pinkie’s huge face-stretching grins to shame. “That’s awesome!” All three of us were grinning like loons for a bit, until Eepy let out a soft little gasp and quickly passed 'Lula over to me before launching herself into Rainbow and latching onto her. I wasn’t sure what to make of that until Eepy started apologizing and trying to stammer out a string of apologies in between the tears. That’s when I remembered that she’d kind of lost her cool with Rainbow. Of course she’d be begging for forgiveness now. “Relax, Fluttershy,” Rainbow murmured with just a hint of self-conscious embarrassment as she ran a hoof through Eepy’s mane. “It’s cool. You don’t need to apologize.” “B–but I said such awful things to you!” Eepy blubbered out. I was tempted to go up and try to comfort her, but I didn’t wanna interrupt the moment she was having with Rainbow. I could always give her a big hug after the two of them were done talking. “Yeah, it was pretty rough.” Rainbow gave a little tremble that she’d probably been trying very hard to suppress. If Rainbow was admitting that something had hurt and actually showing a sign of weakness, then it must’ve really hit her pretty hard. “It’s fine though, Fluttershy. I really kinda deserved everything you said. Hay, I deserved worse than that after the way I–” Rainbow caught herself, and gave a quick shake of her head. I shot a worried frown Rainbow’s way, and Eepy opted for latching onto her for another hug. “You alright there, Rainbow?” “Yeah, I’m ... not okay, but I’m gonna be.” Rainbow sighed and settled for silently hugging Eepy back for a while. “I talked to Pinkie about ... well, all the stuff. Y’know, the whole Flight Camp thing and all that. She was a pretty big help. Best. Fillyfriend. Ever.” Rainbow let out a nervous little laugh and dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got my first appointment with the shrink scheduled for after Tornado Day. Don’t spread it around though, I do have a reputation to maintain.” Eepy gave Rainbow one last squeeze then backed away and shot me a hopeful little smile. I knew her signals well enough to tell that she was clearing space for me to hug Rainbow, but that’s never been the way Rainbow and I worked. I passed 'Lula back over to her, trotted up to Rainbow, and then casually hoofed her in the shoulder. Not hard or anything, but enough to rock her back just a little bit. Eepy let out a worried little gasp, but Rainbow just grinned and hoofed me right back. Rainbow and I have a weird way of doing things sometimes, but I think it works. Rainbow went back to grinning at the both of us like it was going out of style. “So, I was just doing a quick practice run over the hospital. Redheart’s insisting on checking everything out before she’ll clear me for Tornado Duty, and when I saw you two walking together, I had to come check it out.” She let out a giddy little laugh. “Wow, I still can’t believe it. You guys are ... I was scared that I’d kinda ... ruined everything for you forever, but ... hay, if you two can patch things up–that’s great. Really.” She grinned and leaned her head forward. “So what’re you two up to? Pinkie mentioned you were gonna be helping Fluttershy with her wingpower training. I’ve got a couple sweet exercises you could try that’ll get her numbers up like that!” She clopped her hooves together to emphasize her point. “Oh, we’re going to be doing more training later,” Eepy answered with a smile, before bouncing 'Lula in her forelegs for emphasis. “But right now Cloud Kicker’s sister is sick, so we’re taking her back to my place so she can relax and get better. I promise we’ll get back to training as soon as she’s settled in.” I thought about trying to wake 'Lula up–'Lula is a member of Rainbow’s Fan Club, so she’d probably appreciate a quick ‘get well soon’ straight from Rainbow’s mouth. On the other hoof, if 'Lula could sleep through Eepy and me carrying her across Ponyville, passing her around, and the two of us talking to Rainbow, then she probably really needed the sleep. Rainbow shot a look at Eepy and and 'Lula, then leaned in next to me and whispered, “You went and knocked her into nurturing mode, didn’t you?” I couldn’t help chuckling a bit. “Maybe a little.” Rainbow shot me a knowing look. “Here’s hoping 'Lula gets over it fast, then–for both your sakes. Otherwise Fluttershy might end up trying to adopt her. Throw anything that she thinks needs nurturing in front of her, and she can get a little ... yeah.” Rainbow wasn’t wrong about that. In all honesty, I was a tiny bit annoyed about getting hit by the steamroller of kindness and good intentions, but that’s just how Eepy works. Hay, it’s part of what I love about her. Everypony’s got their flaws, but with the best ponies those imperfections just serve to remind you of why you love them so much in the first place. Like Fluttershy being a bit too kind for her own good, or the way Derpy would do something clumsy and slightly destructive and just give me the bubbly, helpless little smile. Or how Blossom seemed to have that fondness for accumulating random bits of junk, and then got grumpy whenever she couldn’t find a way to fix one of them. So yeah, a hot-to-trot plot will get me interested, and a nice personality might make me stick around for a bit, but it’s those little imperfections that really make a pony ... fall ... in love. Oh. Uh oh. I’m ... in even more trouble than I already thought I was.