Chapter 33
Five fillies, one stallion and a god-like, all powerful ruler of all that can be seen by the day light hours sat around a table enjoying their breakfast. Rick never imagined he would ever be able to enjoy a muffin flavored with alfalfa, but here he was, doing just that. He also never imagined he’d be doing so with a supreme ruler of a country, but once again, that was exactly what he was doing now. He certainly never imagined, with the exception of his wildest teenage fantasies, he would have more than one girl having any sort of romantic interest in him, but…
“So, ladies, did you all sleep as well as Rick did?” There aren’t many questions that can make five ponies all freeze at the same exact time, whether they had food in their mouths or not, but this one had that very effect. Celestia seemed not to notice as she enjoyed some of her pancakes with cherries and whipped cream.
“Oh yes, Princess, that bed was as soft as a cloud,” Rainbow Dash answered, completely oblivious to the tension.
“Um, Ah can’t speak fur the others, but Ah slept quite well, thank you,” Applejack said through a nervous smile.
“Oh, as did I. As Rainbow Dash said, the beds were very soft indeed.” Rarity quickly took another bite to avoid having to elaborate.
“Yes, um, very nice beds,” Fluttershy hid in her mane to hide her blush.
Twilight was unable to answer due to the fact that she was trying to cough her breakfast back up.
“Hmm, I’m very glad to hear that the beds were so… soft. And I trust they were also large enough that you didn’t have to… lie atop one another.” Rick knew she was doing this just to mess with them, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. He didn’t want to spoil her fun, but mostly, he didn’t want to dig this hole any deeper. Having been married, he had lots of practice dodging certain questions. The others joined Twilight in her coughing fit. Rick lifted a glass of water to each of the four coughing mares with his magic. The act catches Celestia’s eye.
“That is quite a unique way to use levitation magic. Rick, would you mind if I looked a little closer?”
“Of course not, Celestia.” A large, translucent, orange hand hovered in front of her. She leaned in to investigate more.
“Interesting, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Pray tell, why do you form these…?”
“Hands, Princess,” Rick provided. “Well, when I was training with Zecora, she told me that magic requires a lot of concentration and since I was used to hands, it just made since to keep doing so. But that’s not all I can do.” A small orb appeared above the table and started to change its shape until it became a stylized image of the sun. Celestia seemed to be captivated, so Rick decided to show off a little more, just for the fun of it. The tiny sun started to move through the air over the flowery centerpiece and set, then, a crescent moon started to rise up from the opposite side and followed the same path. All the ponies were completely absorbed in watching these micro heavenly bodies float over the table.
The miniature moon started to sink and the sun began to rise again. As this was happening, two tiny figures appeared on top of the centerpiece. There wasn’t a lot of detail to them, things that small are hard enough to get details into when you aren’t juggling two astro-bodies at the same time. Both little creatures appeared to be horses that had a pair of wings and a horn, one was just a little bit smaller than the other. The two creatures leaned their heads together in a show of affection as the scene began to fade.
Rick lowered his head and started panting as though he had just run a marathon. Controlling his puppets was difficult, controlling four took just about everything he had. Around the table came the sound of clapping hooves and quiet cheers. He smiled at them through heavy breaths, happy that he could have pleased and entertained them. They all offered praise and admiration at his feat, all but one particular purple alicorn who simply stared, through unwavering eyes, at him as she slowly applauded.
“That is quite amazing indeed,” Celestia complemented, “how do you do this?”
“Concentration and imagination. I used to tell Annie bedtime stories every night to help her sleep. One has to get pretty creative in a hurry to do that.” He looked out the windows over the land of Equestria, “she would have absolutely loved it here. Although, I think she would just spend all day asking everybody for a pony ride.” He couldn’t help but snicker to himself. “Though I never could have imagined I would end up in a place like this or that I would ever have friends so loyal as to chase me down through the woods when they thought I was in trouble. I truly do love this land.” He turned back to the table, the ponies seated there where all looking at him with big smiles on their faces. His eyes darted from one to the next, “what?”
“It would seem that you have finally accepted this land as your home. What’s more, you finally have something to show for it,” Celestia was pointing to Rick’s flank with an extended hoof.
“Huh, what are you talking abo…?” An image filled his vision, “is that… a… cutie mark?”
Chapter 34
After their breakfast, the group walked to the hot air balloon that Celestia had arranged to take them back to Ponyville. Rainbow Dash had decided to fly on ahead, saying the balloon was far too slow for her taste and somepony needed to tell Pinkie that they had found Rick safe and sound.
“Celestia, thank you for taking care of us, as always. I would also like to ask to tell Luna I said ‘thank you’. I hope to- WOULD YOU STOP TOUCHING THAT?!” The outburst from Rick was brought forth due to the fact that for the hundredth time since it first appeared, a pony was poking at his new cutie mark.
“I am sorry, Darling, it’s just that I’ve never seen one like it.” Rarity pulled her hoof back blushing warmly. “I don’t know if anypony here has either.” Rick looked at all the ponies who were nodding in agreement.
“You must forgive them, Rick,” Celestia defended, “they are just so excited because this means that you are now fully Equestrian, both inside and out.
He sighed, “I get that and I’m happy too, I’m just not crazy about everyone touching my as… butt.”
“It’s just… every other cutie mark represents a special talent possessed by that pony. I don’t know of any mark like this one,” Twilight offered, “or what it could mean.”
Rick turned to look at it once again. The mark could be said to be completely un-masculine, but that didn’t bother him, ponies don’t seem to place much stock in that kind of thing, seeing as even the train to town had a heart shaped light and front window, but this was a bit extreme. A heart, seemingly made out of crystal adorned his rump. The heart had been jaggedly split down the middle. Both halves were being held together by a single strategically placed bandage. Rick wasn’t sure what it meant exactly either, but he had some ideas.
“Well, whatever it means, know that I am happy for you.” She smiled as the four fillies boarded the basket. “And this is for you, Rick,” Celestia floated a scroll to him, “you will know the appropriate time to open it.”
“Alright, thank you again, Celestia,” Rick embraced the Solar Princess in a gentle hug, which she returned, “I hope to see again soon, under better circumstances.”
Celestia giggled, “yes indeed. Now, take care of yourself and these girls.” She bade them farewell as their balloon floated off towards its destination.
Rick was enjoying the view immensely, but had something that needed to be said. “I can’t tell you girls how much it means to me that you all went so far just to find me. I’ve never had friends who would have done that. Thank you all so very much.” The four fillies all cooed and snuggled up against him. Although, due to his large frame, that meant they were barely snuggling against his shoulders.
“Of course we did, we all care about you so very much, there is no way we would ever let you get away.” Twilight smiled as she nuzzled the front of his barrel. The others all hummed their agreement. Rick closed his eyes, smiled and rested his chin on her head, careful to avoid her horn.
“What did I ever do to deserve this?”
“Seriously? Ya’ll still haven’t figured that out?” Applejack playfully punched Rick’s shoulder; he carefully and successfully concealed the pain.
“You protected me from the rain and that bully in Canterlot,” Fluttershy informed him.
“Yes, you did the same for me and you saved my dear sister, injuring yourself in the process, then you carried her all the way back to town,” Rarity added.
“That’s right, Sugarcube. Yah did tha same fur mah sister, twice. Ya’ll even said that at the time yah thought she was jest somepony’s pet.”
“Three times you put yourself in harm’s way for my sake. The first was when you exhausted yourself making sure I got medical attention. The second was when you shielded me from that avalanche then you saved Princess Cadence. The last time… ” Twilight found it difficult to finish that sentence. She looked at his scars, first the ones on his barrel, then up to the ones on his face. Her gaze drifted to and locked onto his eyes.
“I would do it all again,” he formed his magic hands and wrapped them all up in a fierce hug, “I would never let anything happen to any of you.” His magic grip was released. “That’s actually why I’ve been having nightmares. I was so worried that if I had pursued any one of you, then the rest of you would no longer want to be around me or worse, would start to hate each other and I couldn’t handle that.”
This revelation shocked the other passengers. “How could you think that would happen?” Twilight was almost disgusted by the sheer thought. “If Discorde couldn’t drive us apart, then there’s no way you could. Oh, no offense.”
“While I agree with your sentiment, Twilight Darling, but matters of the heart are different entirely from matters of friendship and I can totally understand his fears,” Rarity defended. “Although, you must know that such a thing would never happen.”
“I know that now, Luna helped me realize that last night. That’s when my cutie mark appeared, well, to be more precise, it appeared when I woke up and found myself at the bottom of a pony pile.” The stunned silence from the mares was quite amusing. “Though I think it first tried to appear on the train when we had that nice group hug and one of kissed me on the cheek. Which one of you was that anyway?” A muffled ‘eep’ was the answer. Rick was overwhelmed by the cuteness and quickly wrapped Fluttershy up in his forelegs and tried his best to squeeze more out of her.
As he let her down, he was wanting for the girls to be angry at him for this singular show of affection, either his hug or Fluttershy’s apparent earlier covert smooch. Instead, there were smiles. Not angst, not horror, not revulsion and not even shock. There were smiles on all their faces, signs of acceptance instead of disapproval. A thought struck Rick and he pulled out the scroll from Celestia.
Dearest Rick,
I know that you are feeling anxiety and are even unsure of which path you should chose to follow when it comes to the Elemental Bearers. Luna has informed me that this has caused you some troublesome nights. I will admit to being ignorant to the ways of coupling of humans on Earth, but that does not truly matter for you are neither human anymore nor are you on Earth.
There is a very important thing you should be made aware of, ponies are naturally herding creatures. One stallion would couple with several mares in family groups none as bands. This is no longer common practice, but due to the high number of female births and the low number of males, this tradition is still practiced on occasion. This means that there is no reason for you to choose between the girls who care so much for you.
~Happy Hunting~
Princess Celestia
~P.S. Frankly, I am very surprised that none of them mentioned this to you.
The letter was released from his magic and floated over the side of the basket. A huge smile spread from Rick’s muzzle in excursion to connect his ears via oral canal. Once again, he pulled all four of them into a huge, tight hug. He still wasn’t certain where he would go from here, but there was one thing he was certain of, happiness had found him again he wasn’t letting it go again anytime soon.