“Honey, what are you doing?”
“Nailing my feet to the ceiling.”
“No really.”
“Same thing as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. Trust me, Luna.”
I really don’t know why she had to keep asking. It was the exact same thing every day. “Adam! Nag nag nag nag! Responsible! Nag nag nag nag!” “Luna! I’m a big boy! I know what I‘m doing!” But in all seriousness, I was still just trying to think of something good for my wedding vows. Jokes were out. Or at least, the one Robert Downey Jr. used in Iron Man. Apparently Luna didn’t want me to throw notecards over my shoulder and proclaim that I’m Iron Man. Said something about it being improper.
I suppose I can’t really blame her for not believing that I was thinking. Bastion, while one of the best games I’ve beaten a dozen times, isn’t much of a thinking game. At first glance, at least. Her hoofs clicked against the floor as she came in from the kitchen, her face disapproving. She used her magic to turn off the screen as I was entering a tough fight. I tossed up the controller in mock anger.
“You always shut me down at the worst possible moment, you know that?” I grinned.
She bent her head down and kissed me. “Well, you need to get dressed. Rarity needs you for another suit fitting, remember?”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “Aww, man! I forgot about that.”
She gasped in mock surprise. “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed.”
Giving her another quick kiss, I went to the bedroom to find pants. “That’s fine, I can get some help from her on my vows. She knows lots of words. I think.”
She followed me into the room, but just leaned against the door. “Yes, she does. Why don’t you take whatever you already have written with you?”
I tugged a collared shirt over my head, grinning widely. “Right, so that I‘ll show you my hiding spot for my wedding stuff? Right. Still can’t find it, huh?”
She glowered. “Yeah, and it’s driving me nuts. And I didn’t appreciate the note in the air vent saying ‘Nah, nah, not here either’.”
I kept smiling, adjusting the collar. “You aren’t even close yet.”
She blew a raspberry and her horn began to glow softly. She buttoned the top button and tugged the collar into place. “Just behave. Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep making appointments. You won’t be coming back to the florist. I could barely get him to reschedule until I promised that you wouldn’t be there.”
“Which is why I’ve cleared my schedule next Saturday. Noon to one thirty, right?”
She groaned. “Oh, come on. I promised him. Just don’t go to this one. Please?”
I tossed the portal up into view, watching her squirm. “No promises, sweet pea!”
…
Rarity had made a few different tux options for me. She and I both knew that I would pay her a little more money for them all, despite her not wanting payment in the first place. What I was really there to do was to try them on and get some help deciding which one would be the best to wear. That took all of ten minutes and I didn’t get a lot of help from her. She knew a lot of rhymes and I liked the stuff she said, but it just didn’t sound me. I decided to visit someone a little bit less… verbose.
AppleJack was where I knew she would be, out working the fields. She looked happy. She knew every tree and bucked each in a particular place in a particular fashion. It wasn’t quite the harvest time, but it was beginning to get close. She would be harvesting fresh apples right about the time she and the Cakes would need to start preparing for the wedding, by my best guess. She noticed me from fairly far away and she smiled and waved a friendly hoof. I waved back and quickened my pace to keep her from waiting.
“Well howdy, Adam!” she called out. “What brings you here?”
I spread my arms happily. “Just enjoying this beautiful day! The pegasus did a marvelous job! Wish we could get some on earth.”
She chuckled good humoredly. “I’m sure you could get Rainbow to make a visit, for all the good it would do ya. She’d probably get all riled up with the new world.”
I shrugged. “It isn’t so wonderful a place when you compare it to Equestria. War, anger, mute equine. Or near enough. No formal vocabulary. Mr. Ed doesn’t count, he’s probably dead now.”
She laughed again. “Well, I suppose you’d know best about your own world.”
I shrugged and smiled again. “I try to stay out of the affairs of the world. My world. I prefer those of yours and… the next.”
I saw her face darken a little bit at the mention of the Crossroads, but she kept smiling. “I suppose that’s so too. But ya’ll never come around just because you enjoy the day very often. Did you and the Princess save a wedding date?”
I smiled and gave her a hug as I finally made it all the way to her. “We sure did. Fifth of August?”
She grinned widely. “Well, that’s just wonderful! Ya’ll are gonna have it here, then?”
I rocked my head back and forth as though I were trying to decide. “Weeell, sort of. Here, there. Both.”
She cocked her head. “Whaddya mean? Both?”
I nodded. “Yeah, one here, one on earth. After all, we have friends in both, I have family on earth, there’s a whole legal process on both. It’s just simpler all around to have two.”
“Two weddings? Making things simpler? You sure do have an odd view of ‘simple’.”
I smiled, picked an apple, and slipped a bit onto the brim of her hat. She gave an expert flick of her hat and caught it in her teeth. She tucked it into her saddle bags, muttering a quick thanks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Everything I do is simple.” She chuckled, but didn’t respond. I turned the apple in my hand. It was pretty. Plump and red, not soft but not overly firm. I took a bite and talked around the fruit. “I’m on my way to the Cakes, but I wanted to let you know that your help at both weddings would be greatly appreciated. You are the only Equestrian caterer I’m asking, though. I’m sure the Cakes have other bakery business.”
“An’ I don’t have mah work cut out for me here on the farm?” She raised an eyebrow.
I laughed. “We both know you do, but I also know that Luna wants you and the other five to be her bridesmaids in both words. Meaning if you agree, you’d be there anyways. Honestly, AJ, I know you. You’ve already decided you want to, so now it’s just a matter of whether or not you want to do the food in both places.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Golly. Since when did you become so gal-durn good at readin’ ponies? When we first met you couldn’t tell a stunned face from a peeled apple.”
I grinned a bit. “I just know my friends, AJ. Especially my best friends. And I just guess a lot.”
She shook her head. I’m not sure whether in awe or amusement. “Well, you guessed right. Ah’d love ta help ya’ll with anything you’d like. An like I said before, I’d be honored to be a bridesmaid for the Princess.”
I smiled and slunk down against the tree. “You know, I’m sure she’d like it if you called her Luna. She likes fewer formalities than Tia does.”
She took a seat next to me. “Ah’ll have to remember that.”
I gave her a pat on her front left leg. “Thanks. And while we’re talking about the wedding, I do have one more tiny favor to ask of you.”
She looked at me with false suspicion. “And that would be…”
“Well, since you offered, some help with my vows would be nice.”
“Ah didn’t offer.”
“Don’t worry, I heard you the first time. You don’t have to beg. You can help. So far I have this.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket. “It’s not much.”
She looked at it, read it, and turned it over in her hooves. “All is says is ‘My dearest Luna.’. This is almost nothing.”
“There are three words.”
“Only three.”
“Three heartfelt words.” She looked at me with a look like, ‘Really?’ I smiled just a bit. “Ok, just three words. But I really need help. For all my thinking, I can’t think of anything that actually puts my feelings on paper.”
She chuckled. “You’ll never really put true feelings into those vows. You cannot put something like that, with all them emotions, into your words. No matter how many fancy words you have.”
I nodded and just kind of hummed. I looked in the apple in my hand. I had actually kind of forgotten about it. “Yeah. I guess. So I’ll just have to realize I won’t be able to make it perfect?” She nodded silently. “All right. I guess.” I stood and brushed dirt off the seat of my pants. “Thanks. I’ll have to remember that.”
I quietly set up the portal, ready to go home and write. I turned and gave AJ an affectionate ruffle of her hat before stepping through, prompting a mutter of some sort. I stepped back through to find Luna searching under the bed springs for my notes. The portal is silent, meaning that I took her by surprise. “Ooh, you’re way off.”
She jumped all the way up to the ceiling. “Damnit, honey! Don’t do that!”
I smiled and bit another chunk off the apple. “Do what, catch you searching for my stuff?”
She blushed and pawed at the floor a little. “Well, yeah. I guess.” She picked the apple out of my hand with her hoof and took a large bite out of it.
I touched her horn with just the tip of my index finger, almost tauntingly. “It’s ok. You won’t find it.”
She smiled and flipped her mane. “Well, we’ll see about that. How did things go with Rarity?”
I had already moved from the apple over to the bag of salt and vinegar chips on the counter. “Oh, that took all of ten minutes. We agreed to a price for all of the suits. By the way, can I borrow two hundred bits?”
Her jaw dropped. “She asked that much?”
“Umm, no. I talked her up to that. She only asked one hundred. For four suits of that quality? That’s highway robbery. Fifty bits a suit is fair.”
She groaned, but nodded. “Well, I suppose. I just didn’t expect it. Yes, I’ll pay her next time I see her. But if that took ten minutes, where else did you go?”
I held up a finger as I finished a mouthful of chips. “Tah sheep Abum hap.”She just sighed like she didn’t understand. I don’t know how that was anything but clear. “To see AppleJack.”
She nodded, getting it. “Ah. What did she have to say?”
I shrugged and smiled mischievously, popping another chip in my mouth. “Nothin’. Don’t worry.”
She jabbed me with her horn. “Come on. Did she help you out at all?”
I nodded and rubbed my side. “Ow! Yeah, she helped me. Be nice.”
She smiled a little bit. She gently poked me again. “Well, what if I just stab you until you tell me where your stash is?”
I pushed the pointy appendage away from me, chucking her softly under the chin. I think that’s the expression, at least. “Or you can just not stab me because it won’t help you.”
She pouted. “C’mon. please?”
“You need to think of better interrogation tactics.”