While the Nimitz home port was Everett Washington, I was able to spend some shore leave in Southern California. With the white sand beaches, and beautiful blue water, it was an ideal place to have fun on the shore. Well, I'll tell you, the beach that Rainbow Dash had sent both Twilight and I put those beaches in the running for second place. White sand, crystal blue water, and many, many, ponies. Though I did notice that the ponies, for the most part, stayed out of the water. The sun was gentle and warm, but not oppressively hot. It was early October, and in this part of Equestria, it was just the beginning of fall, but the days were still warm. I trotted with Twilight out onto the sand.
We had visited a beach rental booth, and Twilight had gone all out with a large beach towel, an umbrella, and various other things. She had also gotten a huge picnic basket full of food, she just smiled at me when I offered to pay for the food, and very firmly pushed my bit purse back into my saddlebags with her magic. I was getting used to having her pay for everything, but I was on the lookout for something nice to get her. I was wearing a new lavender rose behind my ear. Twilight looked very happy. Before long, we were set up, and munching on some sandwiches from her picnic basket.
"Hey, Twi, want to go swimming with me?"
She looked scared for a moment, then shook her head, "I think I want to lay in the sun."
"Can ponies even tan?"
Her brow drew down in a frown, "Tan?"
"Well, where I'm from, we don't have fur coats, when we go out in the sun, we use the suns power to tan, which means our skin gets darker."
"Really? Wow." She stopped to consider my words, "No, Nick, we will lay out in the sun for the warmth, it’s comfortable. Too much sun can get us overheating, but I can duck under the umbrella if I get too hot."
I smiled at her and gave her a kiss, "Well, don't get too hot. I'm going to enjoy the water." With that I spread my wings and took off, heading right for the water. I got a good distance from the shore and checked out the water depth. Should be right. I folded my wings and dove. With my forehooves out in front I hit the water in a graceful dive. In moments I touched the bottom, nearly thirty feet deep. I opened my eyes and looked around. Immediately noticing two things that shocked me. First, my eyes have a third eyelid, apparently pegasi have natural protection for sensitive eyes when they are flying. I've never noticed it before, but I could feel it draw closed as I entered the water. The second shock was breathing. After about thirty seconds, my lungs are usually screaming for air. I'm not even feeling any need to head to the surface for a breath. Another pleasant surprise, I'm neutrally buoyant. It takes almost no effort to stay underwater, and yet the feel, it feels very much like flying to me, I'm in my element here.
I can see why some ponies are afraid of swimming, without positive buoyancy, it would be easy to be overcome and not be able to surface easily. Well, I've been swimming longer than I've been flying. Let's see what these huge wings can do in the water. I cautiously extend my wings about half way, and flap them a bit, it's a lot more effort than when in the air, but I can see how I can make it work, several minutes of experimentation and I'm gliding through the water fairly quickly. Fast, short strokes like you see a penguin do in the water seem to be the key. I use my rear legs as a rudimentary rudder and I'm off. This is fun.
I think I've been underwater for about ten minutes when my body decides to let me know I need some air. I angle my wings and shoot up, breaking my head above the water. I take in great deep breaths for a minute, looking around. My wings are ideal for treading water. I look back at Twilight on the beach. She was at the edge of the water, apparently I scared her by being underwater for so long. She immediately brightens at my waving and waves back. I kick myself backwards underwater, snorting a bit as I go under to keep too much water from entering my nose, and I'm back underwater. With the bright sun, the water is clear, I can see the white sand at the bottom. This is amazing. I'm beginning to really like Equestria. After several minutes of swimming I find I'm pretty far out from the shore.
Well, time for another experiment. I use my legs, doggy paddle style to bring most of my body out of the water and I extend my wings out into the air, I shake them a bit to get most of the water out of them, then I flap them a bit to try to take off. I have to keep them out of the water otherwise I'll just drop back in. But after a few flaps I'm pulling my legs out of the water. I'm airborne again. A huge grin splits my face as I fully take to the air. I fly over to Twilight and land in front of her. She had some sunglasses on, and was laying on her back, I think she fell asleep while I was playing in the water. I smile, just a few months ago I just saw these ponies as animals, intelligent animals, but certainly a different species as myself. Now, after getting used to this new body, I don't really think of them as some weird alien, but just another person like me. And I've gotten a handle on beauty in this world. And by those standards, Twilight is near the top. I'm a lucky pony, I'll let you know.
But I think I'm going to have fun, I'm still dripping wet from the ocean. I glance over at the picnic basket, it's closed. Good. I move closer to Twilight, careful to not tip her off with my shadow. Time for some fun. I shake as hard as I can, giving a sleeping Twilight an impromptu shower. She yelps and jumps up.
"Nick!" she screams.
I fall over laughing. As I'm lying there, laughing my flank off, I notice something that cuts my laugh off mid chortle. I know that laugh. I glare up at a nearby cloud. "Rainbow Dash, I can hear you."
A cyan face with a prismatic mane peeks over the cloud. "That was awesome dude! You totally got Twilight!"
I hear the slight hum of Twilight's magic and before I can do anything, the cloud is enveloped by the aura of her magic, and it dissipates. Dropping Rainbow Dash, though I'll give the speed demon credit as she only smiles and let her wings bite the air as she lands next to us. I get a tail to the face as she walks up to Twilight. "He got you good, Twilight. That was fun!"
Twilight seems to be a pretty good sport about that, she shyly smiles at me then turns to her friend. "What are you doing here Rainbow Dash?"
"Well, I know you guys were going to be having fun, but I didn't want to miss out on the fun too. So, I grabbed the girls and we came out today. The rest are almost here. I flew ahead to see if I could find you guys."
Twilight lowered her voice and moved closer to the cyan mare, "But isn't this supposed to be a romantic trip?"
Rainbow Dash's smile got wider, "So, you are saying you two have made a connection here?" She looks back at me, then at Twilight. Twilight's response is a blush and to drop her head. I move over next to Twilight and pluck the rose that I had stashed on the picnic basket up, placing it behind my ear I turn to Rainbow Dash.
She starts jumping up and down, "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. You two are perfect for each other. Well, we don't need to rescue you guys from each other, so I'll steer our friends farther down the beach and let you guys have your privacy."
"No, Rainbow. We can spend time on the beach with our friends. Nick and I are enjoying our time together, but a good time shared with friends is even better, am I right Nick?"
I smile at her. "You’ve got it Twilight. We will have plenty of time to ourselves this weekend."
She smiles at me then waves, I look over and the rest of the girls are there. Wait a moment, not just the girls, I see Big Mac's big frame there, Granny Smith is behind him, and riding on his back are three fillies. I know one of fillies, Apple Bloom, and I assume the other two are her friends. I turn to Twilight and open my mouth.
Only to get tackled by Rainbow Dash. I look up from being on my back to the overexcited pegasus. "So, am I going to totally whip your flank playing volleyball?"
I smirk at the cyan mare, "Good luck there Skittles, I'll take AJ and Big Mac, you pick any two ponies here, and we'll wipe the sand with you."
"You are so on." She jumps off of me and shoots over to Big Mac and Applejack. I get back up and again move to address Twilight.
"Wanna referee the game, Twilight? You are a princess after all."
She blushes and gets up, "I'll be happy to Nick. Let's have fun."
The first game was 5-4, with a hotly contested final point that Twilight had to award to me. And the inevitable rematch was 5-3, with Team Rainbow, her, Pinkie Pie, and Scootaloo, on top. I'll tell you, Pinkie Pie has an absolutely terrifying serve, and Scoots makes up for her small size by being wicked fast and utterly fearless. That filly face planted more times than I did learning to walk as a pony, but she made it to the ball most of the time, no fear at all.
After the games it was time for food, more beach towels had been laid out by Rarity and Fluttershy, two more baskets full of food, and we all had a wonderful lunch. Though since Twilight and I sat right next to each other, we had to endure about a million questions from her friends about us. She intertwined her tail with mine and we both patiently answered the questions. Every pony said they were happy for us. Even Big Macintosh uttered more words than I had ever hear him say before.
Eventually every pony was satisfied, and I reached over and nudged Twilight, "C'mon Twilight, time for a swimming lesson." She froze, her face a mask of fear. She shook her head very slightly. I reached forward with my hoof to her cheek. "What are you afraid of Twi?"
Her voice quavering, she took forever to respond, "I told you, I don't know how to swim."
I smiled reassuringly, "Twilight, I can see you are terrified, there is more than that isn't there?"
She sighed, then nodded. "When I was very young, I wandered away from my family, and I fell in one of the canals in Canterlot. If Shining Armor hadn't noticed I had gone off, I would have drowned, I've been afraid of water ever since."
I embrace the scared alicorn, "Mi Amore, I will be there with you the whole time. You will be safe."
"Mi Amore?"
"It's Spanish for My Love."
"I know that, silly." She put her hoof to my cheek, "you just called me your love in front of everypony here."
My ears flattened as I looked around, apparently everypony was paying attention. I looked around at them, "Yes, I'll admit I've fallen in love with this beautiful mare here." Smiles all around as I turned back to Twilight. "Do you trust me?"
She looked down for a moment, then looked back up at me, "Yes, Nick. I trust you."
"Then, let us go." I stand up and urge her to her hooves. We trot out to the water.
She's confident until the water touches her hooves.
"I don't think I can do this, Nick."
I give her a kiss, "Twilight, I was a certified lifeguard, I've been swimming almost before I could walk. I will make sure you are okay, you said you trust me right."
She sniffled a bit and nodded.
I drew her into the water, her eyes tightly shut as we walked through the waves until the water was just touching her body. When she felt the water touching her chest, she squeezed her eyes tighter. I stopped at that point and put my face in front of hers.
"Twilight, look at me."
No response.
"Please Twilight, I promise that nothing bad will happen to you." That worked, her eyes slowly opened.
"Good, now I've discovered us ponies are neutrally buoyant. That's different than being a human, we are positively buoyant, to an extent. So, underwater, it's hard to determine which way air is. You've told me that alicorns like yourself have attributes from all the pony types, right?"
Imparting knowledge is certainly one of Twilight's favorite things, she quickly loses her fear as she responds, "That is true, Nick. We typically have earth pony strength, pegasi flight, and unicorn magic, but what does that have to do with swimming?"
"Actually, a lot. I found that I could hold my breath for over ten minutes, my best in the Navy was a bit over three."
"Oh, that's simple, pegasi can store oxygen in their bodies for times when they are flying high, also it's good for a strong burst of speed, it allows your muscles to burn oxygen faster than your lungs can deliver. And your lungs are about thirty percent more efficient than any other pony race."
"Well, that was a surprise to me, but the relevance of this is that you have some of my attributes, can you hold your breath for a long time?"
The terrified look comes back, "I don't know, Nick."
I put a hoof on her shoulder, "Twilight, I'm not asking you to dive underwater. Yet, that is. First I want to work on basic swimming. Your wings are a wonderful tool in the water, I've found out. Let's use them." I crouched down and extended my wings a bit to let them support my body. "Just do what I do."
Over the next hour or so, I work to get Twilight acclimated to how fun the water can be. I supported her in deeper water to try paddling around, I'll admit, getting to hold her in my hooves sometimes made my wings hard to move, which she noticed, and her wings stiffened as well, along with plenty of blushing on both our parts.
"Geez, get a room already," Rainbow said as she hovered above the waves. Then she adroitly avoided the splash of water I sent her way with a wing. She blew me a raspberry and dropped into the water to attack me better. Of course, Twilight decided she needed to defend me, so I was holding onto Twilight for dear life in pretty deep water as she used her hooves and wings to splash Rainbow Dash. Before too long all of Twilight's friends had made it out to us and Twilight herself started to become more confident, even straying from me to swim on her own. She did discover that she could hold her breath even longer than I could, damned alicorns, they do everything.
As the sun was heading into the western sky, I found myself laying on my back, soaking up the rays and enjoying the warmth. Twilight was curled up next to me, her head on my chest. I was content, and trying not to nap while I stroked her mane. I was exhausted. After a while she shifted to have her face in front of mine.
"Thank you, Nick."
I looked at her quizzically.
"You helped me get over a pretty bad fear today, I'm still nervous, but as long as you are with me, I don't have to be truly afraid."