Luna was bothered by my comments on the flight home from my parents house, to say the least. I don’t blame her, I suppose I was a bit harsh. But it was the truth. My parents were very much afraid of her. I wasn’t really surprised or bothered by that, though. I knew they would be. What I was really upset about was the fact that now they were afraid of me. They were afraid of the power I had, what I could do with it, and what I could become. Nevermind what I was and they knew I was. They just saw a very changed son than the one they raised. Luna understood, to some degree, but I didn’t talk about it for a while and it began to grate on her nerves. Finally, about two weeks after the dinner, she confronted me about it.
“Honey, ever since we had dinner with your parents you’ve been in a slump. What’s wrong?”
“They’re afraid of me now,” I said mater-of-factly.
She sat down on the couch next to me where I was watching TV. “yes, but didn’t you know that would happen? I mean, it’s a lot to take in. I think that telling them earlier would have helped them get used to it, but-“
“I knew they would be afraid of you, frankly, but I had hoped that they would realize I’m still their son. I’m the man they raised, just with bonus features now. If anything, I’m better than I was. Because of Equestria, because of the girls, because of you.”
“Yes, but dear, surely there was some small part of you that knew or suspected that-“
“Yeah, I knew somewhere deep inside that they would be afraid, but I hoped that they wouldn’t. Maybe they could see me for me. Like they used to.”
“Yes, but they aren’t entirely afraid of you. They were still proud of you for what happened in the bar last-“
“I’m done talking about this.”
I turned the volume on the TV up, letting the canned laughter attempt to drown her out. She quickly put her hoof down on the mute button, though, and pushed it away from me. “No, you aren’t. is this about the bar? Why is that important? That has nothing to do with the situatin with your parents. They-“
“It has everything to do with them. In the bar, Ashley went insane. Because of me. When my sleeve had fallen down, the entire bar was afraid. Because of me. Had I taken off my sweater off, they would have seen my wings. And been afraid. Because of me.”
She sighed and put a comforting hoof on my arm, but I wasn’t very comforted. “Dear, it’s natural for people to be afraid of things they don’t know. A man with a skeletal arm is something none of them have ever seen before, and they’re afraid of it. They’re afraid of me too. Or at least, they would be if I showed-“
“But they aren’t. you can cover your wings and blend in to the human population. No one notices a pretty black haired women, except to notice she’s a pretty black haired woman. They see me and they see a freak with a bad arm. I can’t easily cover it up. It’s cool in some situations, but it makes everyone and anyone afraid. Then I go to Equestria. Ponies are afraid of me because I’m from a different world. I’m a human. Even if I’m a pony, I’m a human. Or, if they see the pony, they see an alicorn. A symbol of power. A powerful being they have no previous experience with and therefor no real comfort with. I’m a symbol of fear in whatever world I enter.”
She looked at me angrily for a second and the hit me. Not a slap, like you may think, but she full on punched me in the face. Difficult to do with a hoof, let me tell you. She hit me hard enough and caught me off guard enough that knocked me to the floor. I held my cheek and looked at her in shock. She was fuming angry, and at the time I didn’t realize what I had done wrong. “You arrogant jackass. Stop bitching. And don’t you dare interrupt me again. Don’t you think I know what you feel right now? Being seen as a fearful being? Ever since I came back from being Nightmare Moon, I’ve been the embodiment of nothing but fear. Do you remember Nightmare Night? Ponies cringed and cowered at the sight of me. Told children I would eat them if they didn’t shower me with sweets and praise. Twilight began to help me and others get past that, but it’s still there. In the back of everypony’s eye. ‘What if she’s still Nightmare Moon?” “Is she really safe?” I’ve been through exactly what you’ve been through, and yet you sit there and talk like your problems are so much worse than mine. What the buck are you thinking?”
I stood and faced her angrily. “My parents fear me. My best friends. People I’ve known since grade school and used to do everything with. Now all of a sudden I’m a walking freakshow. At least you have earth. You have a place you can walk relatively freely and be accepted as a normal person.”
“Yet in order to be accepted as one of you I have to completely change my body. I have to change my physical appearance and in a way my way of acting. If you wore long sleeves and a pair of gloves you’d be just waved through and ignored. To get that kind of attention I have to undergo an unpleasant magical transformation. And as for your parents, they still love you. They still talk to you. You can still have your father stand next to you at the alter and tell you he’s proud of you and that he’s proud of you. He didn’t have to lock himself away in the sun because you turned out so horribly wrong that your mother and father had to lock themselves away in their respective celestial orbs so that your sister could use magical artifacts to blast you into the moon, turning a safe haven into a place of fear, sorrow, and bitterness. Into someplace you feel frightened to go back to. At least you have a loving family!”
“You have a loving family too! How can you not see that?! Twilight and her friends, Tia, they all love you! And what about me?! Am I not good enough to be a member of your family?!” We were both yelling and screaming at this point. Our faces were reddening from the exertion and we kept inching closer and closer to each other.
“Of course you’re good enough to be a member of my family, how could you even ask that?! But Tia, Twilight and the others still fear me, and you love me so unconditionally I can’t bring myself to believe that there isn’t some amount of fear controlling even your actions! Why do you even put up with me?! I’m mean through sarcasm more often than not, I’m prideful, I’m used to getting what I want! On top of a dark past and social awkwardness, I don’t see how you can live with me, much less want to marry me! Why in Tartarus do you?!”
“Because I love you, you moron!”
It was a classic movie moment. All the passion from that argument, all the emotion cascading off out tongues and zinging off the walls all imploded and we wrapped each other up into a massive, passionate kiss. I pulled her as tightly as I could, kissing her long and hard. The harder I kissed her, the harder she kissed back. Frankly it was the best kiss I had ever experienced. It felt as though everything in the world, every little problem or minor global emergency, had fallen into our living room and we had instantly been tasked with dealing with all of it. And this was the release. I gripped at her mane, bringing her so close to me her coat may have started to mesh into my skin. Despite her not having fingers at the moment, I felt her hooves moving slowly yet almost frantically along my back, smoothing out every muscle in me.
We broke away at the same time, each panting heavily. “I’m so sorry,” I started. “I didn’t mean a thing I said. Of course you have the right to feel a little put upon on earth, having to disguise your pony form.”
“No, I’m sorry,” she babbled. “Your parents, who have never truly feared you in your life, are questioning your very nature now, as are the rest of the people who see and know you. You deserve to feel a little shut out, and I need to understand that.”
I nodded quickly. “Sounds good. Bedroom?”
She shook her head. “Too far away.”
“The sofa pulls out. You do that, I’ll change into a pony.”
She growled cutely and we quickly got to work.
…
We both lay on the sheet-less sofa-bed. There had been a sheet, but it had gotten… thrown off. We were both ponies, and we were laying in such a way that I was able to hold her with one arm and have the other hoof free. We both wore satisfied smiles as we stared at the ceiling. Nothing was said. Of course, there was nothing much to say. There was one thing I felt the need to point out, though.
“We have got to have more screaming matches. Way more screaming matches.”
Luna laughed a little bit and ran a hoof over my chest. “Or we can skip the fighting and go straight to the making up. I’d like that a lot more.”
I nodded. “Mmm. That sounds nice too. Not sure I liked the sofa-bed though.”
She nodded. “The springs kind of hurt.”
I squeezed her in another hug. “Remember that next time you make me sleep on the couch.” She giggled just as someone knocked on the door. Both of our eyes grew wide and I jumped out of the bed. “Who-who’s there?”
“Building supervisor. Can I have a word?”
“Oh, of course,” I groaned. “All right honey, can you turn into a human again real quick?” She nodded and we both changed back. She dug underneath the covers and I grabbed a pillow and put it over myself. Opening the door a bit, I just poked my head around the corner and smiled at the unhappy looking man. “Hey, Larry. What can I do for you?”
“It’s John, and can I come in? We need to have a word.”
“Uh, no. no you cannot.”
“Then you need to step out here. Is that better?”
“Why can’t we just talk like this?”
“Because it’s weird.”
“Me coming into the hall is much more weird.”
“Please step into the hall, sir.”
“All right, but you asked for it.” I stepped out and closed the door behind me, clutching my pillow. “Whatcha need?”
He looked me up and down quickly, like he suddenly realized his mistake. He didn’t seem embarrassed, though, which was a little bit unsettling. “We’ve had noise complaints from the people in all the rooms adjacent to yours. Above, across, below, and to both sides. Reports of two people fighting and yelling?”
I ran a finger through my hair. “Uh, yeah, that was us. My fiancé and I had a little… tiff. It’s settled now, thanks.”
He glanced back at the pillow. His eyes lingered a little longer than I think they should have. “Uh huh. I see. Well, in the future, please keep it down. Have a good day.”
"You too. Thanks Gary.”
“It’s John.” He was a very grumpy man. Means well though. He needed a fellow. Bad.
I sighed and turned to go back inside, but the door handle didn’t turn. I knocked on the door. “Luna! Open the door please! Oh, hey Mrs. Fulcher. No, no! Oh, come on, put away the camera!”