//------------------------------//
// Ch. 11: Domestic Affairs 
// Story: Good Griff! 
// by Von Snootingham 
//------------------------------//


Good Griff! 


Part 2 – The Road to Nowhere


Chapter 11 – Domestic Affairs


(In Which Nothing Eventful Happens And Everything is Happy Happy Happy)




‑=VERMONT: THE EIGHTH DAY=‑


Awkward. Again.

“Soooo….” I mumble.

“Soooo….” Bones echoes, levitating a glass of orange juice to her lips. I remember lips. They were pretty cool.

We sit in the kitchen, avoiding looking at each other from opposite ends of the card table, eating the most awkward breakfast ever. Of all time.

“Yeahhh…” I try again to break the silence. 

“Yeahhh…” Bones echoes from behind her orange juice.

“Yeah!” exclaims Sunny Daze from my right. To my left sit Flim and Flam, shaking their heads at him. Like I said, “of all time”.

I idly swirl the shredded wheat around in my bowl. Fucking pony food. Why’d we have to be out of bacon? We do have eggs (the twins are eating theirs scrambled), but somehow eating them just seems wrong to me now. Just eat the wheat, Gilda, so you can get out of here.

“Hey Gilda!” Oh my god, Sunny, watch what you say next or I will punch your face so hard you’re gonna to be crapping out teeth. “So that was pretty cool last night.”

“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t even know I could sing,” I agree. “But don’t expect an encore.”

“Nah, not that,” he dismisses and waves a hoof. “I mean the two of you finally doing the do.” The rest of our eyes all go wide and Bones sprays half the table with juice. He continues, “Sure took ya long enough. I lost the pool and now I owe-”

Flam interrupts with a fake-sounding cough. I also hear a meaty thud under the table and Sunny yelps. “Ah, heh heh. Yes,” Flim mumbles.

“Indeed. Ignore the ignoramus,” adds Flam. Then to Sunny, “Try to tout some tact, trogladyte.”

“I say, some discretion is in order, boy,” hisses Flam.

“Jeesh! Sor-RY!” Sunny whines.

I go back to my cereal, the other three to their food, while Bones sits there, melting into her seat. At least for a few peaceful seconds.

That’s when Flim pipes up. “Hey Flam.” Uh oh. I can sense trouble brewing.

“Yes, Flim?”

“By the by, brother, what do you believe is the best breed of bird?” Is that a dig at me?

“Best bird?” Flam asks with what even I can tell is fake confusion.

“Do you have a favorite feathered friend?” Oh, this is definitely something about me. But now I’m kind of too interested in finding out where this is going to stop him.

“Why, I don’t believe I’ve ever thought of it, brother.”

“You haven’t?” Flim responds with fake shock. “But surely, everyone has a brand of bird they like best! Why, my favorite is the finch. And I know for a fact that LB here enjoys a night-in-gayle!” he finishes with a flourish and the two of them burst out laughing. Sunny joins in. Bones sinks so far into her seat she actually falls out of it. After that, there’s a flash of yellow green light and she hurries out of the room.

The three stooges are laughing their balls off until I slam my palms flat on the table with a bang. They stop suddenly.

“What the fuck, cocksuckers!? What’s your fucking problem?” I bellow.

“Oh, do keep your feathers on,” smirks Flam.

“We were merely making some merriment with the mare. Right, ma chou-fleur?” adds Flim as he turns to her empty seat and abandoned breakfast.

“Da hey? Where’d she go?” asks Sunny as they all look around.

“You didn’t see her run off? Real nice,” I scold.

They at least have the decency to look sorry. Flam apologizes, “I assure you, we meant no indignity.”

“Intended no injury,” chimes Flim.

“And no injustice,” finishes Flam.

“Uhhh... included no igloos?” adds Sunny. The sound of hooves meeting foreheads is the only response he gets.

Okay, so they’re sorry. They didn’t mean to scare her off. But it was still a dick move and I’m damn well sure gonna make sure it doesn’t happen again. I put on my most intimidating scowl. “Okay, use those huge goddamn horse ears and listen up,” I start, “you douchnozzles hafta get that shit outta your system, fine. I get that. But you do that shit to me. I can take it. Bones… Well we all have crap we’re dealing with, but she’s... got more crap than the rest of us and she’s, like... fragile or whatever?” This is falling apart. Wrap it up, Gilda. “Anyway, you just leave her out of your stupid horseshit or you gotta deal with me. Capiche?”

I’m expecting some meek “Yes, Gilda”s, but instead I get the brothers clapping their hooves in applause.

“Bravo! How noble! Defending your one true love’s honor,” smiles Flam.

“I wouldn’t have guessed you were such a gallant girlfriend, Gilda,” gushes Flim.

Sunny just sits there looking thoughtful. It’s an usual look for him. “Sooo…” he starts, a shit-eating grin beginning to creep onto his face, “did you just give us permission to screw with you as much as we want?”

Oh shit, I think I did, didn’t I?

“Why, I do believe she did!” answers Flam.

“You’ve just declared it open season,” agrees Flim. “Now we need to know about last night. Give us all the gory gossip, Gilda.”

“Spill the beans!” adds Flam. “Did you sweep the filly off her hooves? Was it ever so romantic?”

“Didja bone her?” Sunny blurts.

“You! I! What!? I don’t even have a bone!”

They’re all quiet for a few seconds. Ha, my ironclad argument shut them up.

“So you did, then?” Godammit Sunny.

“How did the encounter eventuate?” asks Flim.

“Can I watch?” GODAMMIT Sunny!

“Nothing happened!” I screech.

“Oh, don’t be bashful, big bird.”

“Yes, there’s no need to play it coy.”

“NOTHING. HAPPENED,” I repeat.

“Nothing?” the twins ask in disappointment at the same time.

“No! What the hell did you think? I dragged her upstairs and right away started fucking her brains out?” I question.

They’re both quiet again, looking guiltily away from me. “Uhh… yeah! I mean, come on, duh,” spouts Sunny.

I facepalm so hard I see stars. These morons think I’m some sort of crazy sexmonster. “Oh you fucking tardlings. I have a girlfriend back in New York, idiots.”

They all let out a collective, “Ohhhhh.”

“Besides, Bones is… well, she’s still not sure about a lot stuff. She tried getting into it, but she’s… yeah,” I try and fail to explain.

Bones really did try at first. But she just kept getting more and more nervous until she started to hyperventilate and almost passed out. It was so sad it started to be funny and then all the way around back to sad. I had to make her breathe into a pillowcase while I got her a glass of water. Then she got all down on herself. I told her not to worry since I was still technically involved with Ellen anyway. She kept telling me I was going to “leave my marefriend soon” to “achieve my destiny”, but as far as I’m concerned, Ellen and I are still together. I may be a terrible girlfriend, but at least I’m not a cheater.

“So what did happen?” inquires Flim. Oh right. I’m still being interrogated by these three clowns.

“We watched TV until she fell asleep,” I answer. It’s true. Bones downloaded the latest episode of Portal that we missed and we watched it. She conked out sometime in the last five minutes, mumbling something about, “the messenger in the window’”. The end. 

A look of just the most extreme disappointment washes over the trio.

“Oh COME OOOON!” whines Sunny.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to disappoint you and your creepy stalker expectations,” I mock. “What’s with you guys? Why are you so obsessed with this?”

“We’re BORED!” Flim and Flam shout in unison.

“There’s not even a dash to do around this domicile,” Flim explains.

“We’re not accustomed to being stationary for such a protracted period of time,” Flam elaborates.

Flim continues, “Not to mention further... physical frustrations.” I don’t think I want to know.

I look at Sunny, expecting him to add his two cents. He catches me looking. “What? I just think two chicks are hot.” Jesus, this guy. Then he furrows his brow and looks toward the ceiling like he’s thinking out loud. “Wait. Is ‘chick’ racist? I mean, a chick is like a bird. And you’re like a bird. But… I got wings now too,” he punctuates this by giving them a flap. “So does that make me sort of a chick too? I… huhhh…. Well whatever, it’s still hawwt.”

We all take a minute to fully absorb those words of wisdom. Or just try to forget they ever happened.

That’s when I notice someone standing at the back door, peering in through the screen. What the holy FUCK!?

“I’m not quite sure what I’m more confused about. What I’m looking at here or what he just said,” the intruder says.

The sun is behind the person, so I can’t see them very well, but I recognize the voice. “Ellen?”

“Gayle?”

Holy shit, this is awkward. And weird. I was JUST talking about her. Talk about a coinci- wait, what am I thinking, Ellen is here. How is Ellen here?

“You are Gayle, right?” she asks through the screen door.

“Ooooo! It’s the old girlfriend!” crows Sunny. “This is gonna be good. This is better than a movie. Oh! Popcorn! I need popcorn!”

“Sunny, I swear to god I am gonna punch your face off. It’s going to be so amazing they’re gonna make a movie about it. It’ll be called ‘Face Off’.”

“There’s already a movie called “Face/Off.”

“Then Face Off 2! The Repunchening! Fuck. Off.”

“It IS you!” exclaims Ellen. “Only Gayle has that miraculous way with words. Can I…” she knocks lightly on the door, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah. I guess you better,” I allow her. She opens the door and steps inside. “It’s not like you haven’t already seen us.” Then more to myself, “God, we are REALLY bad this ‘staying hidden’ thing.”

“Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. If you’re trying to avoid being seen, why would you leave the door open?” she asks.

“Hey, it was hot,” Sunny chirps. Of course. A round of eyerolls all around.

Ellen approaches me. She reaches out her hand, but then pulls it back. “I can’t believe that’s you. This is so strange.”

“Oh, oh, this weird for you,” I deadpan.

Ellen holds up her hands apologetically. “Ohhh, I know this is obviously stranger for you. But you’ve had more time to get used to it. I’m just seeing this for the first time. I mean, it’s real live ponies from your roommate’s show. It’s one thing to know about it. It’s quite another to see it in the flesh.” Know about it? What does she mean she knew about it?

Before I can ask about that, Flim speaks up, “Gilda, do you intend to introduce us?”

Ellen looks confused. “Who’s Gilda?”

“I’M Gilda,” I answer.

“You’re Gilda?” she echoes.

“I’m Gilda,” I repeat.

“You’re Gayle,” she counters.

“I’m Gayle and Gilda.”

“I’m Sunny!”

I groan. This kid is killing me today. Anyway… I introduce them one at a time and point to each as I go. “Ellen, this is Flim… Flam… and idiot.”

“Charmed,” nods Flam.

“Ah mon exquise beauté. Je sais que vous êtes déjà pris, mais lorsque vous avez terminé avec l'oiseau, je serai ici pour vous, mon amour. Vous ne savez même pas ce que je dis, mais si je le dis en français, vous êtes putty dans mes sabots,” Flim spews in rapid French. I have no idea what he said, but I’m pretty sure he just hit on my girlfriend.

“Vous feriez mieux de fais gaffe, Romeo. Je suis armé,” Ellen shoots back. She can speak French? It’d be nice if they cut the frog talk for the rest of our sakes.

“Ah heh heh,” Flim chuckles nervously, then cocks an ear “Is that the washing machine? I think can hear my clothes calling. Ciao!” he declares and backs out of the room.

“What was THAT about?” Sunny wonders and looks at Flam.

Flam shakes his head. “Don’t look at me. I’m none the wiser. I only speak a bare minimum French. I’m fairly limited to ordering in a restaurant, finding a bathroom, and asking ‘Where is the shoe store?’ My fool brother picked it up for the intention of also picking up women. I didn’t follow what what was just said here.”

We turn to Ellen expectantly. She shakes her head, “You don’t want to know.” She turns to Sunny. “Steve, who are these guys? Brony friends of yours?”

What? She thinks Sunny is…?

Sunny looks just as baffled. “Who’s Steve?”

“That’s Bones,” I remind him, “She thinks you’re Bones.”

“Oh,” he says flatly. Then a goofy grin comes across his face and he giggles, “Hehhehhehheh. You’re barking up the wrong tree there, lady.”

“Where’s Steve?” she asks, “I thought he was with you.”

“Probably upstairs,” I reveal.

“Then who the heck is this?” she asks me.

“I’m Sunny!”

Ellen rolls her eyes. “Your real name, fool.”

“Sunny Daze.”

She growls in annoyance. “What does your mother call you?”

“Dave.”

“Who the heck is Dave?” she asks me again.

“I’m Dave!”

She drops her face into her hands. “Oh my god, didn’t we just do this? Gayle, a straight answer. Who are these… people you’re with?”

I shrug. “Eh, just some guys we picked up along the way.”

Flam raises a hoof, “An interjection, if I might. We actually picked you up, if you recall.” Whatever. Who can remember the little details?

“You… just happened to run into ponies; other people like you; on the road and let them join you?” Ellen asks in amazement. And maybe some frustration. I know that feeling.

“Believe me, I know,” I agree. “All of these coincidences. It’s fucking weird. I keep saying, it’s like there’s this connection between us. Of all the people in all the places in the entire world, we just happen to be conveniently thrown together.”

Suddenly, a thought hits me. “Wait a second. Speaking of coincidence, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you,” I quickly add. “But how did you find us?”

“Through my work, of course,” she answers like it should be obvious.

It’s not. “Uhm, where do you work?”

Ellen sighs and shakes her head ruefully. “Gayle, Gayle, Gayle… What am I going to do with you? You really don’t listen, do you?”

Um, what? The hell did I do now? Was I supposed to know where she works? More little details, man. 

“I believe I’m going to give you two some privacy,” Flam cuts in, making an awkward moment even worse. He floats his plate over to the sink (which seems to shock Ellen) and drops it in as he walks out of the room. That just leaves…

Sunny is staring at us with his full attention, grin plastered across his face, head held in his hooves, elbows on the table, like he’s watching a really exciting movie.

“Do you mind?” Ellen challenges.

“No no, I don’t mind. Keep going. I gotta see how this turns out,” he encourages us.

“Don’t bother,” I advise Ellen. “He’s like a parasite. We’re not going to get rid of him if he doesn’t want to go. So how did you find us?”

“Gayle, I’m a computer tech for the FBI,” she reveals. “I’ve told you this more than once. Why do you think I didn’t want you calling me at work?”

“Oh shnikes! The feds know about us!?” Sunny shouts in alarm and jumps out of his seat. That’s actually a good point. He’s on the ball for once. He trots around in circles a couple times, and dances in place in a blind panic. Okay, maybe I spoke too soon. He leaps over to me and starts yanking on my foreleg. “We gotta get outta here! Come on! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Cool the fuck out, man! Leggo!” I order.

He’s not having it. “Don’t you get it!? The FBI knows we’re here! They’re on their way here right now! Them or the CIA or the Men in Black or... or... or Section 18 are gonna come and cut us open!”

I pull my foreleg away from him. “Calm your tits, man. Ellen’s cool,” I reassure him. Then as an afterthought, “Wait, what was that last one?”

Ellen answers for him. “Supposedly some shadowy fringe science group. But it’s just an urban legend passed around between conspiracy nuts. There’s no record it ever existed.”

“You WOULD say that! You’re a fed!” Sunny accuses. “They’re probably right outside the door! I like my insides where they are!”

“Calm down. No one knows you’re here,” Ellen reassures him.

“You do!”

“Just me, then,” she corrects. “After Gayle and Steve ran off, I started a little investigation on my own. I covered my tracks so no one else knows about it.  You might think about trying a little of that yourself.”

What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

“It means you’re leaving a trail of destruction in your wake so wide a monkey could track you,” Ellen answers the question I didn’t mean to actually ask. 

“What do you mean?” I do mean to ask. At least, Sunny seems to have calmed down and sat back down.

“Just after you left, your credit card was used at an outdoor mall in Yonkers, where there was a report of an altercation involving a woman matching your general description, wearing a ‘feathered hat’,” she recites as if reading from a report. “Shortly after, Steve’s debit card was used to purchase gas at a rest stop outside Saratoga Springs. And again a few hours later at a campsite just east of there.” Uh oh. I guess we’re busted.

But Ellen isn’t done yet. She continues, “Over the next two days, there were reports of a large animal in the area, culminating in a man claiming he was assaulted by a, quote, ‘giant, talking monster that had the bottom half of a cat and the top half of a bird.’” Monster? I knew I should have eaten that guy. “He claims this ‘monster’ was accompanied by two colorful horse-like creatures, attacked him, swore profusely, and after he escaped, they drove away in a powder blue Passat. Like the one Steve drives. Then, a traffic camera in Vermont snapped a picture of the same car, with Steve’s license plates. Now, there have been similar reports of a large animal here in the South Burlington area for the past week.” Yeesh. Okay, I guess we ARE really bad at this.

Ellen opens her mouth to continue. Oh jeez, she’s not done yet? “And all of that evidence is completely redundant because I’ve been tracking both of your phones and Steve’s computer. You should probably destroy those,” she concludes.

I put two and two together. “Oh! So that’s what you meant when you said you knew about there being ponies.”

Ellen shrugs. “Well, ‘strange creatures drive off in my girlfriend’s roommate’s car’ equals ‘they must have transformed into said creatures’? That alone is kind of a leap.” She pauses. “But about two weeks ago, we got the first report of a person with horse ears and a tail. Everyone thought it was a joke. But then the boards started lighting up across the country, and even from foreign branches, with similar reports. And then they were about full-on ‘ponies’. Even DC knows about it. We’re trying to keep track of it all, but we can’t really get any solid evidence and no one knows what to make of it. When I was going through your case, I figured what must have happened,” she finishes.

Sunny’s hoof is tapping nervously. “You’re, ah, you’re gonna keep this to yourself, right?”

Ellen sighs. “Yes. I got rid of all the evidence that could be used to find you here. Which is highly illegal, by the way. I could lose my job and be sent to prison if anyone found out. I hope you appreciate that,” she scolds.

“Yeah, well we don’t want anybody losing their jobs over us. I mean, what’s a little dissection?” Sunny interjects sarcastically.

“Ignore him. He’s an idiot. You’re the best, babe,” I coo and lean in to kiss Ellen.

She leans away as I move in. 

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Gayle, I can’t. Not when you’re like this,” says firmly.

“But you were taking it so well,” I object.

“It isn’t just that. It’s… you and me. We would never...” She trails off with a sigh. What’s she getting at?

“What? If you have something to say, say it,” I challenge.

“I think we need to… well, you know.” She’s dancing around what she wants to say.

“Oh, I get it. You’re dumping me. No one dumps me. I dump people,” I rant. I have to admit, I have kind of a streak going. 

“You-”

“Ohhhh. I get it now. You’re racist against birds,” I accuse.

“Racist against...? What? That’s not what this-” She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Gayle, there’s a difference between understanding your girlfriend has a beak and actually wanting to shove your tongue in it.”

“Ooooo! BURN!” snickers Sunny.

“Shut up!” Ellen and I turn and shout in sync. “Why are you here again?” she barks at him.

“Because! You guys are better than my soaps,” he grins.

“If he isn’t going to leave, is there somewhere we can go that’s a little more private?” she asks.

“Yeah. Actually, this probably involves Bones too. Let’s go upstairs,” I suggest.

“Bones? You mean Steve?” she questions. I nod as we get up and start to leave the kitchen. Sunny starts to follow us.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I demand of him.

“I’m coming to watch!” he answers.

“No, you’re staying here,” I tell him. “Have you never heard of privacy?”

“No way, dude. I’m coming,” he argues. “I need my stories. We’re just about to get to the part where they reveal the love triangle.”

“The what?” Ellen snaps and looks between us.

I look away. “Uhhhhh…”

“See? This is gold!”

“We’ll talk about this with Bones in private,” I tell Ellen. Then to Sunny, “Sit, boy.” I press down on his rump and force him into a sitting position and start to leave again.

When he stands up again, I wheel on him with a glare that could peel paint. “But… my stories…” he whines.

I point at him and grunt, then point at the ground and bark, “Down.” He slowly lowers his ass back to the floor. “Good boy.” He whimpers at me and gives me the puppy dog eyes. “No. Stay. Come on, let’s go, Ell.” Sunny continues giving me the big, sad eyes as we leave the room and head upstairs.

Now that we’re both standing even, it’s weird looking up at Ellen. I used to be a good eight inches taller than her, but now I have to look way up to look her in the eye. The only other human I’ve been around since I went on all fours has been Liz. I didn’t know her before and she’s so tall anyway, I guess I didn’t notice just how short I am now compared to regular people. I don’t like it.

Bones’ door is closed, so I knock. “Hey Bones. It’s me. You feel like seeing a visitor?”

“I don’t care if they apologise, they can go… jump in a lake!” she shouts through the door.

“‘Jump in a lake’? Did you just come out of the forties?” I ask in bewilderment.  “Man, you used swear right up there with the best of ‘em, like me. What happened to your foul mouth? I miss it.”

“I can’t help it!” she cries.

Ellen taps my shoulder. “I thought we were going to see Steve. This sounds like a woman,” she whispers. I just raise my eyebrows at her.

“Well ready or not, we’re coming in!” I warn Bones.

I open the door and we enter the room. Ellen and Bones stare at each other for a beat.

“Steve?”

“ELLEN!?”

With that, Bones flies across the room to her sleeping corner and tries to hide herself under her blanket. I say “tries” because her whole ass is still sticking out. But then her entire stance shifts, like someone flipped a switch. Her head pops up, blanket still draped over her, and looks at us. “Oh, right. Ellen. I wasn’t expecting you until afterward.”

“What? Steve? But you’re… Wait, you were expecting me?” Ellen questions.

“You might say that.” She magics the blanket off her head.

“What does that mean?” Ellen asks, “And why are you female? You are female, right? What did you mean you were expecting me?” 

Bones and I share a “You wanna take this?” look with each other. She sighs and tries to explain her crazy idea that she’s psychic, which leads from there into us telling our whole story from the start and our theories about what’s going on. Finally, Ellen repeats for Bones how she found us.

When Ellen is finished, Bones smiles knowingly. “Ahh, the fact that we’re all here. What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together!”

That sounds kinda like what I said downstairs. “...Um, what?” I ask.

Bones rolls her eyes. “Dickens, you philistine. Bleak House?”

“Mmhm, that’s definitely Steve,” nods Ellen.

“Anyway, I appreciate you covering our tracks,” Bones thanks her.

“I hope so. I risked a lot to do it,” Ellen says.

“Ultimately, it doesn’t make any difference, but thanks for the thought,” Bones responds, causing Ellen to frown. I roll my eyes. So close. We almost got through the whole explanation without Bones being crazy.

An edge creeps into Ellen’s voice. “So what’s this I hear about a love triangle?”

Bones blushes. “Oh, right. That. Well, you see… I’m gay.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What!? What do you mean ‘you know’?” Bones shouts.

“I may not be a field investigator, but you don’t get into the FBI by being unobservant. Not that it took much. I had you pegged from the start. You were pretty obvious,” Ellen answers. “But you were still in, so I figured it wasn’t my place to say anything…,” she trails off.

A lightbulb goes on over her head and she turns to me. “Ohhhh. This makes sense now. When your friend downstairs said ‘love triangle’ in relation to Steve, I thought it meant you were going straight on me, but this… This makes sense.”

She’s taking this… surprising well. Like, suspiciously well. “You’re not mad?” I ask.

“Well, I’m not exactly pleased that you’re cheating on me-”

“Technically, she isn’t,” Bones interrupts. “All we did was acknowledge a mutual attraction. I had a vision of us getting together in the future, but we haven’t actually done anything. Gilda insisted we couldn’t because you and she were still together. And I’m just a whole mess of social defects.”

“Huh. I don’t know what to say, Gayle,” Ellen says with both surprise and admiration. “I didn’t know you were so loyal.”

The fuck is that supposed to mean? Does she really think I’m that shitty? I just shake my head. “What does it matter if we do anything or not? You were going to dump me anyway,” I accuse Ellen. “During the hardest time of my life- err, of this life anyway- when I need support the most. I turn into a griffon and you dump me.”

Ellen cringes a little. “Welll… yeah that’s a factor. But that’s not the main reason. Gayle, do you know why I didn’t support you when you needed it? How could I? You ran off without telling me!” she accuses back.

She continues, “If we were ever going to work out, you would have come to me for help. You’d know what I do and that I could have helped you out. We would trust each other.” That one stings. Mostly because it’s true. “Gayle, how much longer do you honestly think we were going to last?”

I sigh. I don’t have an answer.

“I looked into your romantic history,” she reveals.

She did... “WHAT!?”

“Like I said; no trust,” she shrugs. “I’m the longest you’ve ever been with the same person, and we’ve only been together for four months. What does that say?”

That can’t be right, can it? No, yeah, that sounds about right.

“It says... that I was doing really good this time?” is my weak answer.

“And now you’re moving on to the next girl,” Ellen counters.

Bones pipes up, “Um, neither of us is actually actively trying for that. It’s just what’s going to happen, despite our best efforts.”

“No, it’s alright,” Ellen assures us. That’s surprising. “Gayle, we were never going to work out. I know it and you know it. It’s not anyone’s fault. I’m intrusive and jealous and have trust issues. You’re aloof and thoughtless and have problems forming attachments.”

“No, please, don’t sugar coat it for me,” I snark.

“See? Right there,” she says and punctuates it by jabbing a finger at me. “It was going to happen sooner rather than later. This,” she waves her hand in a circle at me, “just gave us a solid reason to break it off.”

I glare at Ellen with disgust. “And you had to track me down and come all the way out here just to dump me personally?”

To her credit, she actually meets my gaze without flinching. “Gayle, despite what you may be thinking, I’m not doing this out of spite. A breakup isn’t something you do over the phone, right?”

I shrug.

She drops her face into her palm. “Oh god, you’ve done it over the phone.” I shrug again and she continues. “Even if we weren’t meant to be, what we had was important to me. I’ll always care about you in some way, like my other exes. I felt I owed it to us to do this in person. We both deserve the closure.” She smirks and playfully punches me in the flank. “And I’ll admit I wanted to see if this whole pony thing for myself.”

I pause a beat. I may not like what she’s saying, but I have to admire how straightforward she is. I mean, I did fall for her for a reason, and this is it: she’s got balls. Errr, not balls balls. Whatever.  I mean she’s a firecracker. But that’s over now I guess. I snort. “Well, at least you’re honest.” I pause. “So this is it?”

“I guess it is,” she answers.

The three of us stand up, looking awkwardly at each other.

“Sooo…” I drone.

“Soo…” Ellen echoes.

“Been a lot of ‘so’ this morning,” Bones points out. I chuckle in agreement.

“At least you’ve got that,” Ellen smiles.

“What?” I wonder.

“A rebound,” she fills in.

Bones blushes and starts to apologize, “I’m really sorry! We-”

“Stop,” Ellen interrupts. “I’m happy for you. For all of her faults, Gayle’s a…” she scrunches her face up and looks me over with one eye, like she’s sizing up produce at the store, then turns back to Bones. “... a pretty good person. Rough around the edges and terrible girlfriend, sure.” She knows I can hear her, right? Her eyes flick over to me briefly and she smirks. “But she’s got her good qualities. She’s got a lion’s heart. I could even call her an out-of-this world chick.” Ugh. Those jokes are awful. They’re so forced. I’d break up with her just for that.

Then she gets serious again. “But if anyone can reign her in, it’s you, Steve. I’ve seen the two of you together back home. You’re practically an old married couple already. And if you apologize, this feels like an affair and a dumping. She and I might have been bound to break up sooner or later. It may have been exacerbated by this… this whole strange situation. But I want it to be mutual. So save your apology.” Finally, she turns and steps up right in front me. “Let’s end this on a high note.”

Ellen reaches out a hand and hesitantly pats the top of me head and rubs a few times, like I’m a dog. Then, just as I’m about to tell her to stop ruffling my feathers, as if just figuring out that I’m not some bizarre monster, she kneels down and pulls me into a bonecrushing hug. Well, crushing for anyone else who’s not a super tough griffon. I rebalance myself and hug her back. She rubs my back, running her fingers through my fur. I remember she always had a thing for cats so I purr a little, both for her sake and just because I feel good. She lets out a tiny squeak of delight.

“Wait, you can purr?” Bones pipes up from off to the side. “But your chest and throat are bird. How can-”

I shoot her a glare over Ellen’s shoulder. “Don’t ruin the moment.” She makes a zipping motion across her mouth and looks away.

“I guess I won’t get to cash in that birthday raincheck now, huh?” I joke.

Ellen chuckles ruefully into my feathers. “Always a one track mind, huh?” She leans back to look me in the face. “See what happens when you only have pussy on the brain? You become one.”

Ha, she’s got me there. She always had me. Even in the face of all of this, she’s so cool and makes it look so easy. I wish I knew how to say it right. God, I love you, Ellen. 

“I love you too, Gayle. I’m sorry it couldn’t work,” she whispers back.

With that, we separate and the hug is over, and with it, our relationship. 

“Well, this was fun,” I mumble, almost out of habit.

“Yeah. Fun,” she parrots.

We walk over to the door so I can show her out. “Thanks again for helping keep us secret.”

She grabs the doorknob but stops. She half turns her head to look at Bones side-on. “Take care of the old fool for me. Lord knows she needs it.”

Bones salutes her and says, “It’s why I’m here.” I roll my eyes. I can take care of myself.

Ellen turns the knob and pulls the door open, revealing Sunny standing right there with his head turned sideways and his ear cocked, like he was listening through the door. Oh, this little SHIT. What did I tell him? He’s getting it good this time. I clench my fist and start to raise it. I’m gonna-

Then I see his face. His eyes are watery, the fur beneath them is all wet, and he’s wearing the biggest, sappiest grin in the world. I hesitate. He lunges at me, knocking me to the ground, and wraps me in a bonecrushing hug. Actually crushing this time. Even for a griffon. Must be that pony strength.

Ellen smiles at us warmly. “I guess I’ll see myself out. Bye, Gayle. Steve.”

“And Sunny!” he chirps though his hot, snotty tears.

“And Sunny,” she adds. She gives us a little half wave and walks out.

I kick Sunny off of me and sit up. “What is the matter with you!?” 

He just grins at me like an idiot.

“I told you to leave us alone. I told you this was private!” I scold.

“I know.”

“Why the hell are you eavesdropping? I oughta tear you a new cloaca,” I threaten and grab him by the tuft of fur on his chest.

“Go ahead. If it’ll make you feel better,” he sniffles

I… what?

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” he chirps.

He… huh? I left go of him. “What?”

“I was worried how you were gonna be after she was done with ya. You’re always so hard on yourself, so down and always so mad. It’s not good for you. I just want to make sure you and LB are alright,” Sunny explains, his lip still quivering.

“Why do you care?” I wonder.

“Because! You guys are my friends!” he blurts in his usual “it should be obvious” way. 

I’m not sure what to say to that. We’re not… Are we?

He continues. “Hey, I know I’m not the sharpest bulb in the crayon box. I can't figure out what to do and I know that isn't changing. I can’t do magic like those guys, and I’m not tough like you. I don't invent stuff or see the future. ...But... I can try to make sure you all can laugh and smile and stuff. I don't mind being laughed at. Makes me feel like I'm doing something…”

Well shit. When did Sunny effin’ Daze become my friend and how did I not notice it happen? I sigh. “Goddamnit. Come here, you dummy,” I grunt and lightly put my arms around him, awkwardly patting his back as he… snuggles into my chest. Ugh.

Bones pipes up from behind me, “So wait, Sunny. Are you saying you’re trying to be-”

“Yup!” He looks up at me with bright, watery eyes. “Gilda… can I be your Pinkie Pie?”

Welp, that’s the end of that. I push him away. Gently, this time. “You sure know how to ruin a moment, don’t you?” I growl and stalk out of the room.

“But I just wanna see you smile, smile, smile!” he calls after me. I can’t help but feel the corners of my mouth turn up.

I go to one of the other bedrooms, where I’ve got some of my stuff stored. I don’t sleep in there (Don’t want to ruin the carpet with the moisture from Claude the cloud), but it’s where my stuff is. I dig through one of my bags until I find what I’m looking for: a silver necklace. Inside is a picture of me and Ellen from our third date. She gave it to me on our one month anniversary. She’s sappy like that. And kinda pushy, now that I think about it. I never wear it, but I still like to have it around. It’s just… I dunno?

I leave the room again and I look out the window at the top of the stairs and see Ellen walking down the driveway. There’s a little round turnaround area a little ways down about the point where it starts to curve around back of the house, right before the tree line. Her car, a little green Accord, is parked over there in the shade of a giant oak. She must have stopped down there and walked the rest of the way so we wouldn’t hear her driving up. Pretty sneaky.

I open the window and shout down to her, “HEY!”

Ellen turns to look for the commotion.

I squeeze through the window and jump out. Even from here, I can see the look of horror on her face before she realizes I’m not falling, but flying. I sail over her head and land on top of her car with a heavy thud, bouncing the thing.  She closes the distance between us, looking impressed.

She puts her hands on her hips and looks up at me. “Always have to show off, huh?”

“You know me,” I smirk. 

“If it helps, I think it suits you. The flying too.”

“Thanks? I guess.”

“So, what, did you miss me already?” she asks.

“Nah. I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget me,” I answer.

“Oh, right. Because that was a danger. Trust me, after everything you put me through, I won’t be able to forget you no matter how much I want to.” Her face is stern, but I can hear the smile in her voice.

Here. I’ve got something for you,” I offer and shove my closed claw at her. 

Ellen reaches out and I put the necklace in her outstretched hand.

“This is...” She chokes up. 

“Something to remember me by.”

“I didn’t think you-” 

I silence her with a quick peck (no jokes) on the cheek. Then with a leap and a mighty flap, I shoot into the air and soar back toward the house. I look back and see her holding her cheek and staring at the necklace in her hand. This is the tricky part. I hit the house kind of hard, but I manage to grab the window sill and scrabble inside. I look back out and watch Ellen shake her head, give one last glance back at the house, then climb in her car and drive off. After she’s gone, I stay at the window, staring at nothing. Even though it went better than I could have hoped, I can’t help but feel a little bitter about the whole thing. I feel something settle in on my right side, then another on my left and a wing wraps around me. Well… maybe it’s bittersweet.


»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»


“Come on, Bones, just put it in there!”

“It won’t fit!

“Try flicking it!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder! You’re losing me here!

“I’ve never done this before! How will I know if I’ve found the right spot?”

“Trust me, you’ll know. When you get it, I’m gonna blow.”

“Alright, here I go!”

I hear a creak over off to my side and catch the movement of the door opening slightly out of the corner of my eye. Then, the yellow-green glow of Bones’s magic wraps around the knob and yanks it open. Sunny, Flim, and Flam fall through the doorway in a big heap. They quickly untangle themselves and look up at us eagerly. They’re just in time to see Bones flick her game controller with her magic. On the computer screen, her character chucks a bomb at my base, landing in just the right spot to blow the whole thing up. “P1 Wins!” flashes across the screen.

I don’t think anyone’s face has ever gone from such pure joy to crushing disappointment as fast as it has for these three guys.

“You’re just vying in a video game?” asks Flim in disbelief.

“Yeessss…?” answers Bones suspiciously. “What else would we be doing?”

“More importantly,” I growl, “What are you three doing at our door? What did I say about privacy?”

They squeak out their apologies and I throw them out of the room. Literally in Sunny’s case. He actually gets some air time. I lock the door and then lay back down next to Bones.

“‘Our’ door?” she asks me with one raised eyebrow.

“What can I say? I work fast.”

She loses her smile. “Remember what we talked about.”

Earlier we talked about “us”. Ellen did give us her blessing and all. I actually said I thought Ellen took the whole thing pretty well. The break up and the whole “Hey-Gayle-turned-into-a-griffon” thing. But Bones pointed out she was probably just putting on a brave face and probably completely lost it and broke down as soon as she got out of the driveway. So then I felt fucking awful about that. Thanks, Bones.

But anyway, now me and Bones are free to hook up, but she wanted to have a long talk about it first. I could bore you with the details, but long story short, she’s still nervous and wants to take it slow. She even planned out numbered phases. So anal. Plus, she’s still super freaked out by my cloaca. That’s gonna be a real hurdle later.

“I know. Relax, I’m kidding.”

She closes the laptop and yawns. “The interruption was just as well. I do believe it’s about that time.”

I scratch the back of my head. “So, uh, you want me to go orrr…”

She shakes her head. “No, I think we can go to step three.” She lays down and rolls over, her back to me. Phase three is “sleepy time cuddles”. I didn’t name it. I scoot in behind her and wrap my front legs around her. In under two minutes I feel her breathing slow and she’s completely out.

It’s late and I’ve been up for probably twenty hours. I mean, that’s normal for me now, so no biggie. I just mean I think it’s time I got some shuteye too. I shut my eyes and squeeze Bones a little closer. The movement disturbs her and she starts muttering in her sleep.  “And one and two and through and through. The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. Goo goo gajoo.” It’s just more weird shit about walruses, eggmen, and bandersnatches.

Doesn’t matter. I’ve learned to tune out the crazy. And even if I hadn’t, I can sleep through anything. I fade out pretty quickly, lulled to sleep by the slow rhythmic movement of her breathing and the quiet music of her voice. The last thing I hear before I drift off is, “If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?”


~~~~~~~~~~~~zzZZZZ~~~~~~~~~~~~


‑=VERMONT: THE NINTH DAY=‑


“Who is it?” asks Flam.

“What do they want?” asks Flim.

“And when will they go away?” asks Flam again.

The two of them plus Sunny turn to Bones expectantly. She holds up her hooves defensively. “Hey, don’t look at me! I don’t know anything about this!” The rest of them still think she knows everything that’s going to happen.

About noon, a little bit after Liz’s visit for the day, I just happened to be outside, chilling in my treebox, when a car pulled up the driveway. I was watching Flim and Sunny screwing around in the little garden patch when I caught a glint of light out of the corner of my eye. It was a good thing too, or I might not have gotten everyone inside in time. The car stopped at the turnaround, and it’s just been sitting there for half an hour or so. Whoever’s inside is just sitting, probably watching the house.

We’re all just sitting ourselves, peeking out the windows, watching back. The house doesn’t have any curtains, so we have to be careful not to be too visible.

“Who is it?” Flam asks for the probably the tenth time. Yeah, that’s not getting old at all.

“What do they want?” Flim follows.

“And-”

The car door opens and the driver steps out. He’s tall, with dark hair, and handsome. I gotta admit he’s good looking, if I was into that sorta thing. He looks around, then starts approaching the house. He stops to examine the Winnebago and try to look inside, then continues toward us again.

“Everybody upstairs!” I bark.

“Why? Who is that?” questions Sunny.

“Fuck if I know! But if we’re down here, he can just look in the windows and see us. Now move it!” I order.

The five of us dash upstairs and crowd around the window overlooking the driveway.

“Where is he?” asks Sunny.

“I don’t see him,” answers Flam. 

Everyone splits up to a different room to look around. I don’t see anything from the window in the master bedroom or the attached bathroom.

I feel something brush my flank. Instinctively, I spin around and grab the intruder. Sunny looks more surprised than I do. Quickly, I release his neck and he rubs it with a forehoof, coughing.

“Why’re you sneaking up on me like that? You can’t do that, man,” I hiss.

He coughs again. “Sorry,” he rasps. “Bones spotted him from her room.”

I follow him out and we catch everyone else coming out of her room. Bones gestures to us to follow and we go into the room where I was storing my crap. We peek out the window, and I see the man creeping around the back of the house, trying to peer in windows.

“Jeez, what is it with us and random guys snooping around our hideouts, huh, Bones?” She just shrugs. I whisper smugly, “See, guys? If we were down there, he’d have seen us.”

“But he’s already eyed the Eagle,” Flim points out.

“What? He never saw me!” I argue.

“The RV, fool,” Flam corrects.

“Right. I knew that.”

 “Yeah, and all our stuff is down there. He can still see that,” Sunny points out.

Oh. Well shit. “Oh yeah. Um. Well then all he knows is that someone’s here. He doesn’t know who or what we are ‘cause he hasn’t seen us,” I rationalize.

“I think he saw us!” gasps Flam. “DUCK!”

We all drop to the floor. After a few seconds, Bones cautiously edges back up to the edge of the window and looks out. “I think it’s okay. I don’t think he saw anything. He’s going around the corner of the house.”

We file out of the room and into Sunny’s. Only Bones looks out the window, and carefully this time. The creeper is still on the move, looking in windows. Almost immediately, we make our way to the unoccupied master bedroom, this time Flam playing lookout. We shift to a different window as he rounds to the front of the house. 

That’s when the doorbell rings.

We sit and stare at each other for a few seconds before Sunny whispers, “We’re not going to answer it, right?”

“Of course, not!” hisses Flam.

“Don’t be a dunce!” follows Flim.

The man starts pounding on the door. “I know you’re in there! Open up, you son of a bitch!”

Ummm… what? “We sure we don’t know this guy?” I wonder.

Everyone shakes their heads.

“He sure sounds like he knows one of us,” I mutter.

We stealthily watch him as he rings the bell, bangs the door, and yells and screams, calling someone a “bastard”, a “douchebag”, and every other insult in the book. He seems to get tired of that after five minutes or so and stomps off back to his car. We return to the first window and watch him go. Along the way, he stops to pick up a rock and throw it at the Winnebago.

Flam springs up and squawks in outrage. “My beautiful baby! That miserable son of a nag! I’ll murdalize him! I’ll give him whatfor!” He starts to run out of the room, I guess to go attack the guy, but Flim catches his tail in his teeth.

“Becalm yourself, brother. He won’t be worth it.”

Flam quietly simmers, eyes wide and nostrils flaring before rushing back to the window. The stranger has gotten back into his car and is starting to drive away. Flam’s horn lights up green and suddenly the car backfires loudly. It sputters and chugs, belching black smoke until it’s out of site.

“Whoooa. Did you do that?” Sunny asks in amazement.

Flam snorts. “I’ve told you. I’ve a talent for machines and all things technical.”

“Well,” Bones says with a chuckle. “That was sure exciting.”

“What do you think that was about?” Sunny wonders.

No one offers any answers beside a shrug or two.

I throw my hands up in a ‘who knows’ gesture. “He probably had the wrong house. Whatever. I’m sure it isn’t anything we’ll have to worry about again.” ...Right?


»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»


The rest of the afternoon was a lot less exciting. The guys were mad that we’d been holding out the video games on them. I’m not really a gamer and I didn’t know Bones had any games on her laptop before we played last night, so I was innocent. But they wanted to play, so that’s what we did. Even Flam, who normally spends most of the day holed up in the RV by himself got in on it. We only had the two controllers, so the four of us took turns. Bones went and took a nap.

Like I said, I’m not a dweeb- I mean gamer. But Flam definitely is, so he kept beating me in this shooter game. He’s a bad winner and I’m a bad loser, so Sunny had to keep stopping almost-fights.

But eventually we got tired of it and it was getting to be about dinner time. Flim and Flam decided they wanted to cook a fancy dinner for everybody instead of everyone just kinda picking at something when they got hungry. Sunny dragged me out to his little garden to help him get ingredients. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be anything since we’ve only been here nine days, but he’s already got herbs ready to go and he’s even starting to get some vegetables. He really must be from a family of earth pony farmers after all.

The big stuff like the tomatoes weren’t ready yet, but we got some small stuff like beans,  mushrooms, pea pods, and some tiny carrots. The carrots could definitely have used more time to get bigger, so we left most of them for later. I have no idea where he even got the seeds for all of these things, but I know better than to ask. It’s better to just accept things.

We brought the produce in and now the brothers are cooking it all up. It all smells really good. The only way it could be better is if there was some meat in here. I finished my last pizza for lunch and that was it for meat in the house. Oh well, I shouldn’t bitch. How often do I get guys cooking fancy meals for me?

When they tell me the food is almost done, I go to wake up Bones to eat. I find her curled up half under her blanket, hugging her pillow. As soon as I enter the room I can hear her. She almost never stops now. If she’s asleep, she’s probably mumbling something. Her brain must be working overdrive. I feel bad for her.

“Hey, Bones, dinner,” I try.

“The fruit, it is the soul. The scale, it takes the toll. The window shakes, it’s panes rattle before the fiercest breeze. The ship carries all from common ports out to distant seas.”

Oh jeez, more of this “Head the ship for England” crap. I lightly put my hand on her shoulder. “Bones, wake up.”

“I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation, like chasing the wind. In my beginning is my end.”

Well that sounds cheerful. I shake her gently. “Hey, wake up. You’re getting all creepy and threatening again.

Her eyes twitch under her lids and she shifts slightly. “All is farce. All is folly. Abandon all hope. I see a bad moon a-risin'. It's dangerous to go alone. You have no chance to survive make your time.”

Wait a sec. Is she fucking with me?

Her voice goes lower and she barks, “You must construct additional pylons! Join the Nintendo Fun Club today!"

Yeah, she’s fucking with me. I swat her on the rump. “That’s not funny.”

Bones giggles and cracks one eye to look up at me. “Yeah, it was.” She stickers her tongue out at me.

“Hey, watch where you point that tongue. You leave it out and I’m gonna take it and use it for whatever I want,” I tease her back.

She eeps and her tongue shoots back into her mouth. Ha ha, gotcha.

“So were you messing with me this whole time?” I ask.

“Umm… I don’t think so. I don’t know how long you were there for, but I woke up when you were telling me I was creepy,” she informs me.

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Whatever. It’s time for dinner. Come down and eat.”

Bones rolls to her hooves and follows me downstairs.

On the way to the kitchen, we pass Sunny.  “Don’t touch the red bowl. That one’s mine. I claimed it,” he warns us, then heads into the toilet. Huh. You know, now that I think about it, he’s the only one of us without fingers or magic. Man, that’s gotta be tough for him to… Ugh. Godammit, don’t think about that. 

We find Flim and Flam setting plate after plate of food on the card table. There’s colorful vegetable medleys, steaming stuffed mushrooms, a big bowl of thick oatmeal full of cut-up apples and smelling of cinnamon. It just keeps going. The table is so full, I’m not sure how we’re actually going to eat at it. It’s actually pretty impressive. They even classed it up with a nice white table cloth. Where’d they get a tablecloth?

“Take a seat!” announces Flam.

“Be our guest!” insists Flim.

Bones picks a seat and I take the one on the side of the table to her left. To my left is a setting that already has a red bowl set on the plate. That must be what Sunny was talking about. Across from me there are two settings, I guess for Flim and Flam. 

“I gotta admit, this is pretty impressive, you guys,” I tell them.

Flim responds, “I don’t like to brag-”

“You love to brag,” I interrupt.

He quirks an eyebrow and smirks as he continues, “but we have a gift for gastric goodness.”

“I would have taken the two of you for microwave and diner folk,” says Bones.

“Oh come now, it’s not that I-can’t-believe-able. Don’t let the pretty faces fool you,” smiles Flam, “I’ll have you know, we’re the full package. The way I see it, cooking is nothing more than a form of chemistry, which has always been an area of particular interest for me. And my brother here learned to do it for the same reason he learns anything.”

“Ha ha! Right you are, Flam!” Flim chuckles. “I assume you are aware of the adage, ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’? Well it works on women as well.”

I roll my eyes at that. Of course he’d say that. He takes a deep breath and puts on his showman voice, “So without further ado, let’s devour us some dinner. May I present ‘La Fête Magnifique’!” His horn lights up green and suddenly the entire spread is glowing as well in a warm golden light with little sparkles and bursts of color. Whoa.

“How’d you do that?”questions Bones. I don’t really care enough to bother to wait for an answer before reaching for an ear of corn. He put out the invitation, and I’m starving. And that corn is dripping with butter.

“Well, ma choufleur, since my specialty is showmanship, it seems a section of that is simulation,” he says in a way like it explains everything. Or anything. Or even makes sense.

“Uhh… whah?” I ask around trying to bite my ear of corn. It’s not going real well with my beak.

“Simulacrum,” he adds.

“In English?” I blink.

“He means he can make little illusions,” Bones clarifies, “like that glow.”

“Oh.” I’m having a fuck of a time with this damn corn cob. I can’t really get a good start on it without risking making a mess everywhere. Maybe it’s not worth it. “Well why didn’t he just say that?”

“Simpleton,” Flam shakes his head.

“Silly goose,” Flim smirks.

I throw my corn at him. Eh, I couldn’t get into it anyway. He catches it with his teeth. “Ssanks!”

“Weren’t we going to wait for Sunny to start?” asks Bones, gesturing toward the bathroom.

“Shcrew h’m!” announces Flim definitively. 

I offer Bones a “what can you do” shrug. “The man has spoken.”

With that, we dig in and man, it’s not pretty. I mean, the food looks great. We don’t. We’re like one of those nature shows where a pack of lions just tear into a gazelle. Well, I am half lion, sooo…

Sunny’s taking a while in there. Like, a while while. He’s gonna miss all the food. That gets me wondering about the bowl he claimed. So I ask. “Hey. Sho whas de deal wish Sunny’sh rehd bowl?” I may sprayed some rice onto the table when I asked..

“Hmm, why, I’m not certain,” Flam answers.

“We didn’t prepare that plate,” Flim agrees.

“Let’s find out,” Bones says, even as she’s already nabbed the bowl in her magic. She looks inside and “oh”s before floating something green into her mouth. She chews once, then twice. Then she moans such an “mmmmmmohhyah” that you’d think she just came.

“What is it?” “Let us try!” the brothers chime in. They slide out of their seats and over to Bones’ right side. They take some of the green things and pop them in their mouths. “MMMMMM!” they moan in unison. All three of them start just shoveling the whatevers into their maws.

“By jove!”

“They’re delectable!”

“Delightful!”

“Divine!”

“I dare say, they may be the most delicious dish I’ve ever dined on!”

“I know, right?” agrees Bones. Way to keep my in suspense, jerks.

“What is it?” I ask.

“SUGAR PEAS!” she answers.

“DROP EM!” Sunny demands from the doorway. He gallops the short distance to the table, lunging for Bones and the red bowl. Before he reaches her, I spring up and throw myself between them. He tries to get around me or at the very least reach behind me , but I’m not budging. 

Bones is floating the bowl just out of reach and Flim and Flam are giggling to each other like little girls.





“They’re mine! They were claimed!” Sunny protests, his voice a shrill shriek.

“So sorry. Chef’s statute is ‘first come, first served’.” Flim informs with fake sympathy.

“To put it another way, you snooze, you lose,” Flam grins.

“But that’s not faaaaiirrrr!” Sunny whines and slumps to the ground. I relax, but keep my eyes on him. He shuffles around to the other side and takes his seat. I take mine too.

He sits there moping like someone just shot his dog, hanging his head and moaning, “Claimed. They were claimed…”

Jesus. Get over it. “Aww, baby gonna cwy ‘cause he didn’t get his bottwe,” I coo mockingly.

Flam nudges me with his magic. (That feels weird.) “Hey now.”

“There’s no need for needling,” Flim chastises.

Bones floats the bowl over to Sunny and sets it down on his plate. “Hey,” she gently prods, “Here you go. You don’t think we’d hog it all, do you? The rest are yours.”

Sunny looks up and smiles gratefully.

“Hey, what about me? I don’t get any?” I ask in indignation.

“No. Sugar peas aren’t for buttmunches,” Sunny pouts.

I look around at the others for support. They’re all nodding in agreement, even Bones. “You’ll get no sympathy from me,” she shrugs, “...buttmunch.” She snickers and sticks her tongue out at me. Traitor.

“Absolutely, we aren’t about to abide a buttmunch,” accuses Flim playfully.

Flam knocks his hoof on the table three times. “The defendant stands accused of buttmunchery in the first degree!” he calls out. “How finds the jury?”

“Guilty!” Flim answers.

“Guilty!” Bones echoes. 

“Guilty!” Flam calls out. Wait, isn’t he the judge?

“Gurdy!” Sunny shouts with a mouth full of peas. 

Flam knocks again. “Gilda the griffon,” he announces. Hey, I do have a last name.  “We find you guilty of being a first degree buttmunch! Your punishment shall be withholding of peas in perpetuity! Court is adjourned.”

...The hell just happened? I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Fine, I didn’t want any fuggin’ peas anyway.” 

“Ha ha! Of course you didn’t, friend!” chuckles Flam. Something slaps me on the back hard. I whirl around and see it was a green magic field.

Oh man, I’m so pissed at… Wait. No, I’m not. I feel… weird. They’re being dicks to me, but I’m not mad at them. I actually kind of like it? Am I… happy? I always figured I was happy with shit the way it was, but if I’ve learned anything in the past two weeks, it’s that I was seriously fucked up. I think… I think I’m happy for the first time in... I don’t know.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in here feels very different. I get that weird sensation of the air changing feel/taste, but I dismiss it. I just sit and listen to the guys eating and chattering about nothing and everything. They’re raving about how good Sunny’s vegetables are. About how, if he could find the right middleman, Flim could sell that kind of high quality organic produce for big money. That Flam could do remote IT work. That they could pull their savings, since they won’t be able to use them much longer anyway, and put a down payment the house from Liz. It all sounds too good.

Bones doesn’t seem too into it, but the other three sound like they’ve got everything figured out. They want me to help with the farming. They want me. Is this what it feels like to belong? …To have a family? One that cares about you, I mean? I look around at the four of them. I’m not sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line we went from being a ragtag bunch of random dicks stuck together to something else. These guys are my family.

They’ve got it all figured out. We could earn money, have Liz be our go-between, stay secret. This could work. We could have a life here. We could be happy.

CRASH!

The sound of a door slamming open stops all conversation. Liz is standing in the back door, breathing heavily and soaked from rain. Wait, when did it start raining? I can see the downpour behind her, I just don’t know when it started. She’s dripping wet, and not just from the weather. Her face is a mess, a storm of fury and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Sunny jumps up. “Beth! What-”

“You have to go!” Liz cries.

“Wh-”

“Get out of here!” We all just stare at her. No one says anything for a beat. “NOW!

Sunny springs up and rushes over to his sister. “Beth, what’s going on? What happened?”

“THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” Liz screams at him before her anger breaks and she breaks down. Her features twist up in despair, her tears flowing harder. Sunny helps her over to his chair. She sinks into it and sobs. 

“Why is this happening? I tried so hard. I always did everything right.” She grabs a napkin and blows her nose. She’s still got a big old snot bubble. Gross. “You just had to try to help, Liz. ‘He’s your brother, Liz. You have to help him and his weirdo friends, Liz.’ Uncle John calls and asks if anything out of the ordinary is going on and you just have to say ‘no’. So of course the next day your deadbeat brother shows up. Oh, and he’s turned into a pony and you spend the next two weeks taking care of him and his pony friends and a foul-mouthed bird monster,” she rambles to herself. 

Hey! I swear to god, if one more person calls me a monster…

“Wait, what was that about Uncle John asking about weird stuff?” urges Sunny. He looks over at the rest of us. “You don’t think-”

“And then your boyfriend gets suspicious and finds out!” Liz wails. “You’re coming and going at weird times, coming here all the time, so of course he’s going to think you’re cheating on him! And then he follows you here!”

“Hold a second,” Flam stops her. 

“Gorgeous guy?” Flim asks.

“Dark hair?” Flam again.

“Perhaps 6’3”?” finishes Flim. Ohhhh… That guy from this morning! THAT’S who that was!

“You met him!?” Liz gasps in horror.

No no no, my dear,” Flam responds quickly.

“It was a purely partisan predicament. The peckerwood peeked around the premises, pounded powerfully on the portal, then pushed off,” explains Flam.

“He saw all of your things! He thinks I set up another man in a secret love nest!” Liz wails. 

“So the jerk’s coming here right now?” asks Sunny in alarm. “I’ll make him sorry he made my sister cry!” Huh, who’d have thought he had it in him?

“No! He broke up with me, then reported to my office that I was housing a squatter in company property! They fired me! And my boss is on his way here with the police to evict you right now!”

OH FUCK

“EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP!” They all stop and look at me with wide eyes. “Liz, how long do we have?”

“Maybe thirty minutes.”

“Okay, we can work with that. If we’re fast that should be plenty,” I reassure them. “We need to get rid of as much evidence as we can. There’s no way we’re gonna completely wipe out all traces. There’s still gonna be little bits of fur and that horse smell, but that’ll just leave them guessing. So that just leaves our shit. I want to be out of here in ten minutes, twenty tops. ”

I point at Sunny. “First things first. Sunny, start grabbing everything from upstairs. There’s no time to carefully pack, so throw it in the RV. I’m talking fast, fast, fast. Don’t bother with the stairs. Go out the window. I’ll be up to help soon. GO!” I clap my talons and he’s off.

“Liz, I know you’re upset right now, but if you pitch in we might be able to salvage this. You and Bones grab everything from down here, minus the kitchen. GO!” I clap my talons again. Bones dashes off. Liz slowly gets to her feet and staggers after. I see Sunny glide past the window with a bag wrapped around both forelegs.

I point at the twins. “Flim, Flam. Sorry about this, but the dinner’s gotta go. Take the garbage bags. Everything goes in the trash, plates and all. Same for anything else we have that’s perishable. Bag ‘em and put in the Passat. Any food we can save, plus all the non-food goes in the RV. Chuck the table in the woods. Don’t waste time going too far back. Just make sure it’s not visible from house. When you’re done, clean up in here. It doesn’t need to be spic and span. You don’t need to eat off it. Just give it a good once over so it doesn’t look like someone was just making a mess in here. GO!” I clap my talons one last time.

I don’t even wait to see if they’re doing what I order because I’m already on my way upstairs. For the next fifteen minutes, we clear out the house, shoving anything loose into any available box or bag and rush them out to the RV, where we throw them in a pile. Eventually, all that’s left is feathers and fur in the carpets. Nothing much we can do about that or the fact that place smells like a goddamn barn. Oh yeah, and the garden. Shit. Oh well.

I finish wiping up the rain we tracked onto the hard floors and at last, we’re all finished. The carpets’ll be wet too, but there’s nothing to be done for it. We’re all gathered in the garage next to the Passat. Everything is out and the place is locked up tight other than the open garage door. I look over my unit, err… my friends with pride. “Alright, good fucking job, people. We may survive this yet.”

I address the twins. “Flim and Flam. I know you don’t have any reason to stick with us anymore. You could take all of our shit and ride off into the sunset. But I’m trusting you. There’s an airport a few miles northeast of here. I’ve seen it from the air. I’m sure you can find it. I want you to take the Winnebago and meet us there. What’s-his-face saw your RV and I don’t want to risk you passing him on the road, so go now, and go fast.”

They hurry out of the garage into the night.

Next I turn to Sunny’s sister. “Liz, you’re done. Sorry we fucked your life up so much, but what’s done is done. Your boyfriend may have seen that someone was living here, but hopefully we’ve done a good enough job covering it up and it’ll be his word against yours. Now get out of here before they get here. Go home or to your mom’s or wherever makes the most sense and play innocent.”

Her car is just outside the garage, so after a quick, strained goodbye to her brother, she walks over and drives off as well.

That just leaves Bones, Sunny, and myself. “You two are with me,” I bark and gesture at the Passat. “Get in. We have to dump the trash.”

I’m driving, obviously, with Bones riding shotgun and Sunny squeezes himself in with the trash bags in the back seat. I ease the car out of the garage, but immediately stop. I have to close the garage door or the whole jig is up, and I don’t have a remote. I dash back into the garage, hit the button on the wall, and dash back out before the door closes, careful to jump over the sensor beam.

When I get back behind the wheel, Bones nudges me. “You know, I could have just hit the button from here, right? I clench my eyes and snort through my nose. Fucking doh.

Whatever. It’s done. We take off down the driveway and I don’t even bother to spare a look back at the house. It’s the third place we’ve been chased out of in two weeks. This is getting to be a pattern that I hope doesn’t continue.

We get to the end of the street and take a left turn. In the rearview mirror, I see a cadillac and a cop car coming from the opposite direction and turn onto the street we just left. Ha ha, holy dick balls, that was close.

We drive for a little bit in silence, enjoying our good luck. Wait, what am I saying? Good luck? This was all thanks to my kickawesome leadership. We get into a more built up area with more lights and plenty of people on the road. It may be raining, but until the sun finishes setting, I won’t be comfortable being out in the open like this.

I spot a McDonalds and pull in. I stop next to the dumpster out back, roll down the windows and turn around to Sunny. “Fire when ready, man.”

Without even getting out of the car, he chucks all of the garbage bags into the dumpster.

“Good job, gunner,” I praise him and then we continue on our way.

“So, um.” Sunny squeaks in response. “Where are we going?”

“We’re meeting Flim and Flam at the airport,” I answer. Doesn’t he listen?

“But we can’t fly anywhere like this,” he argues. “The TSA’ll stop us and then the FBI’ll come, and then we’re right into Area 51.”

“We’re not. We’re all driving in the RV.”

“But then why-”

“You’ll see,” I cut him off. 

“How do you know they’ll be there? They might’a left,” he asks, sounding worried.

“I just know it. They’ll be there,” I answer with full confidence.

“Okay, cool cool. So we’re driving,” he nods. “Back to the first question, then. Where?”

Jesus, always with the questions, this guy. And he had to pick the one I don’t have the answer to. “Uh, yeah, I haven’t figured that part out yet. Any suggestions?”

“Don’t look at me,” he shakes his head.

I glance quickly over at Bones. She’s been quiet through all of this. “How about you? Got anything in mind, navigator?”

Instead of answering the question, Bones asks, “What was that your sister said about your uncle?”

“Oh hey, dude, yeah, that’s right!” Sunny exclaims. “It sounded like my Uncle John called her and randomly asked her if anything freaky was going on.”

“Yeah, so? What’s the point?” I wonder.

“Well I don’t know everybody Beth talks to all the time, but we never really saw or talked to him and his family all that much. It’s weird that he called her out of the blue like that. So I think that maybe, you know, because it was right when we were all turning into…” he trails off. I see where he’s going with this. Suddenly, he squawks right in my ear and shouts, “Oh dude, crap!”

“Ow, jesus, man,” I hiss, rubbing my earhole. “I’m trying to drive here! ‘Crap’ what?” 

“It is! My cousin Andy! John’s son. We have the same birthday!” he answers.

If I weren’t driving, I’d facepalm. As it is, I still swerve the car pretty badly. “You just thought of that now!?”

“And Liz didn’t think her uncle asking about strangeness was at all suspicious or connect it with our strangeness,” Bones adds.

“Your whole family is morons,” I accuse.

“HEY!” Sunny is indignant. “What do-” he starts, but he’s cut off by Bones floating her phone into his face.

“Call them,” she instructs him simply.

He takes the phone in his teeth, but doesn’t do anything with it. After a few seconds he asks, “Uh, can ya dial ‘or ‘e?”

Bones takes hold of the phone in her magic again and dials the number he recites. It must have rung a couple of times because it takes a bit before starts talking.

“Hi! Uh, Uncle John! It’s Sun- uh, Dave. ….Dave. ….DAVE! Your nephew! ….Yeah, I know. ….Hey, um, Uncle John, you know how a couple weeks ago, you called Beth and asked her if anything weird was going on? ….Oh man, I hope I’m right about this, because if I’m not, you’re gonna think I’m crazy. Oh! But, like, I don’t hope I’m right because then that would suck for Andy and that’d be mean, and that’s just not right. So I’m in the right to hope that I’m not right about being right about- ….Oh. Sorry.”

That’s our Sunny. What an idiot. He kind of groans in thought for a few second, probably trying to figure out the most strategic way to ask about this subtly, before he starts stammering.

“So… uh… I guess… like… DidAndyturnintoapony? ………Yeah. ….Uh-huh. ….Uh-huh. ….Nuh-uh. ….Yeah, me too. ….Sunny Daze. ….Really? No way! That’s awesome! Tell her I said ‘hey’. ….It was a whole ‘Discord-took-over-the-world-and-cursed-us-for-twenty-five-years-and-it-wore-off-on- our-twenty-fifth-birthday-esque’ kinda thing. ….She’ll know what I meant. ….Oh, okay, bye.”

What, he’s done? That was sudden. He sits looking pleased with himself, a big, dumb grin plastered across his face. He doesn’t offer to fill us in.

“So?” I ask.

“So what?” he wonders in genuine confusion.

“So what’s going on!?”

“Oh!” he grins. “Dude! My cousin Andy is actually my cousin Amber Waves. I remember she was in my dreamemory. That’s the dream that had my memory in it.”

“Focus! What else?”

“That’s it,” he shrugs.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” I demand.

Sunny’s face scrunches up and his tongue pokes out. “Um... Well, then he said he had to go do something. I don’t know why, but he sounded really annoyed.”

Bones and I glance at each other.

He furrows his brow. “What? I found out my cousin’s a pony too. Come on, that’s why I called, wasn’t it?”

Bones answers, “You called because you were supposed to ask if we could stay with them.” Oh hey, that’s a good idea.

Sunny’s eyes go wide with understanding. “Ohhhh. Well I’m sure it’s cool. They have a farm in Illinois, so I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

A big, spacious, private farm? It’s perfect. Except one thing. “Ponies living on a farm? Isn’t that kinda cliché?” I point out.

Neither of them has anything to say to that. Instead, Bones urges, “Sunny, shouldn’t you call back and ask for certain if we can stay with them?”

He waves her off. “Nah. Uncle John said he had something to do. Besides, talking to him was awkward.”

Meanwhile, I’ve been driving, following signs, and a runway becomes visible on the left side of the road. I hang a left to run parallel to it, then merge right into the airport’s main entranceway. We pass under the sign welcoming us to Burlington International Airport. It looks kind of small. How international could it be? We slowly cruise down the road between the main terminal on the right and the long parking garage on the left, looking for any sign of Flim and Flam. 

“See? I told you. They ditched us,” moans Sunny.

“They’ll be here,” Bones and I say at the same time. Huh, weird.

Near the entrance to the garage there’s a sign that says, “All Vehicles over 7’0” Proceed To The Park And Shuttle Lot” with a sign pointing further down the road. That sound promising. We come to the end of the road and on our right is another parking lot with mostly cars, but also some trucks and RVs. And there, sitting justing inside the entrance like a glorious golden god, is Flim and Flam’s old-ass Winnebago.

“See? And you doubted,” I needle Sunny. We pull into the lot up alongside the RV, next to the door, putting it between us and the street. When the door opens, we quickly hop out of the car and into the cover of the RV.

“I take it the mission was a success?” smirks Flam, and cocks his head to one side.

Sunny leaps over and hugs the both of them fiercely. “You guys! I knew you wouldn’t leave us!”

“That was incredibly impressive, I must say,” Flim admits.

“Right you are, brother mine,” Flam agrees. “Who’d have thunk Gilda’s considerable surliness could be harnessed for good?” They share a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up while you can, chucklefucks. It’s not gonna be so funny when you’re driving us halfway across the country,” I smirk.

Both of their jaws drop. “Come again?” they sputter.

“We know our next port of call,” Bones answers.

“Long story short, turns out Sunny’s cousin’s a pony too,” I fill in.

“And you didn’t deign to divulge this data because…” Flim trails off.

“I just found out. His, err, her name is Amber now!” Sunny responds in his usual clueless manner.

I shrug that off. “Yeah, so anyway, they have a farm in Illinois. The plan is the five of us are taking the RV there. We want to avoid attention, so we’ll only drive a few hours at night, staying at the speed lim-,”

“Wait, wait, wait. ‘We’?” interrupts Flim.

“You presume that we’re taking you anywhere?” asks Flim. “We have no obligation to band together with you three vagrants.”

Sunny, Bones, and I share a look and burst out laughing. 

“Oh, you’re so convincing,” says Bones sarcastically.

“Yeah, you’re so tough,” laughs Sunny. “Come on, you guys love us.”

“Just admit it,” I accuse, “You dicks couldn’t take not seeing my beautiful fucking face every day.”

They mutter and grumble under their breath in defeat.

“Alright, you all stay right here,” I instruct them and hold up a finger. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

“Where are you going?” Sunny asks.

“I gotta get rid of the other car,” I answer.

“What? You’re leaving behind LB’s car?” he gasps and looks between Bones and me.

“Well we’re not driving two vehicles to Illinois, and the car is too small and leaves us too visible.”

“You’re okay with this?” Sunny asks Bones.

“What must be done must be done,” she assures him cryptically.

“How precisely do you plan to dispose of an entire automobile? Bury it?” asks Flam.

“Submerge it in a swamp?” suggests Flim.

“Drive it off a cliff?” Flam offers.

“She’s going to hide in in plain sight,” Bones answers.

“Uh, yeah. That’s right,” I say haltingly. Well, Bones IS the smart one. “If we do something crazy with the car, someone’ll find it, check the VIN number and connect it to us,” I explain. “Even if we just leave it somewhere, after a while, someone’s gonna get suspicious and have it towed, and it gets connected to us. So we leave it in plain sight, exactly where it’s supposed to be. That’s why we’re at the airport. I’m going to put the car in long term parking. No one’ll think twice about it being here for a long time.”

“Ha!” Sunny guffaws. “I get it! In “plain sight”! ‘Cause it’s in sight of planes!”

Uh, that wasn’t really the point, but whatever makes the kid happy.

“I say,” starts Flam, “you plotted this whole scheme out in the thirty seconds before you started barking out orders at the house?”

I shrug. “Well, I came up with the airport part while we were cleaning up, but pretty much, yeah. All you doubters may not think so, but behind all this hotness, I can be pretty fucking smart in a clutch.”

“So if one were so inclined, they might say you came up with it… ‘on the fly’?” says Flam with the most irritating grin I’ve ever seen.

“And you were… ‘winging it’?” adds Flim, looking equally shit-eating. That’s it. I can’t take any more goddamn puns.

Without a word, I step out and get back into the Passat for its last voyage. I saw some signs on the way in that said the long term parking was in the parking garage, so I circle back around to the airport’s entrance, and back to the garage. There’s an attendant on staff, but luckily, the way these things work, you only have to deal with them when you’re exiting. And since I don’t plan on ever picking the car up, it’s not a problem. I take my ticket and drive up to the next to top floor. I park in a quiet spot in the northwest corner.

Now to get back. If I had to go back down on foot and out the entrance, someone would see me for sure. It’s about twilight and it’s still raining, but it’s an airport, so it’s pretty well lit up. Luckily, I’m not limited to taking the stairs.

I look out the side of the garage. Below me is a rental car lot, then the road, then the lot where the others are. I can even see the Winnebago from here. With a short running start and a flap, I leap up to the top of the wall of the garage, through the opening, and push off with my back paws. It’s not a far flight, but I still work my wings hard to make it as quick as I can, careful to stay high enough to keep out of the lights on the ground. It only takes a few seconds and I’m right over the RV, about forty feet up. 

I veer upwards, going into a loop, pulling out of it when I’m facing downward. I dive straight down until I’m maybe 10 feet up, then flair my wings and flap to brake, and I land on the roof of the RV with a light thud. Perfect ten point landing, yo.

I hear some cries of alarm from inside. I peek over the edge and knock on a window, but they have the curtains drawn so I can’t see in. “Hey, you jerks miss me?” I call out.

The door opens and I literally drop in.

“From now on, could you conceivably not cause us a coronary?” Flim chides me.

I give him a friendly punch on the shoulder as I pass. “No promises.” It’s the best I can do.

Everything may have gone to shit in the last hour. We may be out on our asses. But for some reason I feel good. Things mostly worked out and we’ve got a new goal in sight. Everyone was a mess, but I rallied them, got them organized, and got them working together on my plan. I don’t know what, but something deep down inside me feels right. “SO! Let’s get the tub going, huh?”

Flim is still rubbing his shoulder where I hit him, but then trots over and slides into the drivers seat. He starts the ignition with his magic and we head out. It’s weird watching a pony sit in the seat and drive, not actually touching the wheel or the pedals.

“Not to nitpick, but do we know our navigational itinerary? Some notes would be nice,” he calls back to us. Oh yeah. Just “Illinois” is kind of a vague travel plan.

“Hey Bones, you’re good at Google, right?” I ask.

She pulls out her phone and starts punching buttons. “Hai. My google-fu is strong,” she says in a bad 70s kung-fu movie accent without even looking up. “I already have Maps open.”

I look from her to the window, pull the curtain aside and look out. Watching the buildings go by as we make our way out of town, it feels familiar, starting another crazy trip with only the most basic of plans or goals. I turn back to Bones. “Well then, Navigator! Lay in the course to our next adventure!”

“As you command, Captain.”


/_‾_‾_‾TO BE
CONTINUED‾_‾_‾_〉