//------------------------------// // I don't know what to call this chapter... // Story: No Choice But To Love You // by Dawning Dusk //------------------------------// “This is a situation I never thought I would see.” Rainbow jumped from where she had been sitting in the flying carriage. What seemed like moments ago she had left with Soarin and his team on a huge covered carriage after a series of heartfelt goodbyes to her and her new…husband. I’m never going to get used to that word. She turned from where she had been looking out at the rapidly diminishing ponyville, feeling homesick already, to the source of the voice. “What do you mean?” A weight settled beside her and she turned to see the usually proud captain of the wonderbolts appear diminished and confused as she shifted about running a hoof through her mane. “You. When Soarin told us like, two months ago that he was getting married I expected a porcelain doll of a mare who would freak out over a speck of dust, not… you.” “Believe me,” she blew a section of yellow mane out her eyes, “I was pretty freaked out when I saw him standing with you guys. I actually didn’t recognize any of you at first.” She gave a soft chuckle and looked to where Soarin was sitting, looking at the far horizon as some of his teammates were trying to catch his attention with corny jokes. “I always thought I would be stuck with some mareizer. Or at the very least sompony creepy, some guy looking for a trophy wife or something even worse.” She smiled briefly. “Just not a guy like Soarin.” “That’s terrible.” Spitfire shuddered as images of what else could be implied flittered across her mind. “SUPER TERRIBLE!” a blur of white and yellow raced over to rainbow and put her face super close to Rainbow’s and spoke at a rapid fire pace. “I mean if you hadn’t gotten hitched with Soarin then he would never had gotten to have someone as cool as you.” After taking a second to process the word spew that had been aimed at her rainbow combined it with the appearance of the mare before her, a pale white mare with a bright yellow mane that was incredibly curly and poofy. “You wouldn’t happened to be related to a mare name Pinkie Pie would you?” The white mare let out a gasp that caused everyone around to cringe. “You know my sister? Oh well of course you know her, she was your bridesmaid of course so you must be the best of friends!” each word seemed to increase the volume of the mare’s voice. She then felt a heavy shaking sensation come from her hoof as the white mare was almost violently throwing her upwards and dragging her back down. “To formally introduce myself my name is Surprella Luanne Pie. Surprise for short. We are going to be best friends.” She then wrapped Rainbow in a powerful rib crushing hug before letting out another cringe inducing gasp and ran off in another direction. Spitfire observed how casually Rainbow reacted to the sudden encounter of the pie kind where as she had seen many run off in fear at the first shouted syllable. Dragging herself back to the conversation she sighed. “You know, Soarin never really told us much about this thing. Your marriage. How did you get into to this thing?” “That is a good question.” Rapidfire wandered over to the two of them. “Were you like some virgin sacrifice?” Just as she was about to speak Soarin spoke up “It’s a very long story, one based off the ramblings of some ‘spirit’ that my grandfather saw in the Everfree forest.” Seeing now the interested faces around him he sat up and turned to rainbow, “I’m guessing I’ll be the one telling the story?” “You kind of have to.” She blushed again, hating herself for doing so again, “My family was really never told why. We just thought my grandpa was weird and he found some weird way to make me miserable.” After thinking for a moment she blurted out “Not that I’m miserable or anything, I mean-no offense.” And ducked her head down embarrassed. Slightly smiling at her behavior he turned to the others and started from the very beginning. “Once upon a time...”