If you felt satisfied with the open-ended ending of chapter 2 then please feel free to not continue reading if you wish too. If however you were one of the many readers who wanted more of Thank You Cider, or are interested in reading on then please feel free to read on because this here is chapter 3.
I will make my author notes to the point, this is not the final chapter of Thank You Cider, I also have a fourth chapter planned out for reasons I have already explained on my profile blog. I would also like to say thanks to Ugugg93 and Jangledorf, whose comments on the last chapter inspired quite a bit of this chapter. With all that said I hope you enjoy the extended story of Thank You Cider.
Chapter 3: Your Real Christmas Present and Morning.
T’ was the night of Hearth’s Warm, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, or there would not have been if this house wasn’t Sugar Cube Corner and Pinkie Pie hadn’t just recently been throwing a Hearth’s Warmth party. While the stockings had been emptied and the children had finally succumbed to sleep, those in their late teens and adult years had been everything but silent as they chatted and danced with winter mirth. As the night drew on though and the day to celebrate the founding of Equestria drew to a close, the party eventually began to dwindle, with many a pony withdrawing to sleep the rest of the night and wake the next with energy to spend cleaning up and organising the gifts recieved. Soon the place that had once held ten’s of ponies’ eager to play was empty except for two pegasus.
The owners of the house and business, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, had adjourned for the night already, feeling safe to nestle away together in their bed as Pinkie Pie promised to clean up the messy aftermath for them. Yet it was only two pegasus that remained in the blue floored room where on a working day customers would stroll on up to the till and order patisseries to satisfy their hungry bellies; the pink mare had disappeared, the blue and yellow mares had not.
“So Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy murmured to her cyan friend beside her, “What did you think of your present?”
“Huh,” Rainbow Dash turned to face the timid pony, having previously been lost in thought as she stared out at the slowly falling snow via the window, “Oh, it was great. Great!”
Rainbow Dash wasn’t one to lie often, being a rather blunt pony most of the time and when she did lie it was almost as obvious as Applejack, but here she needed too. It wasn’t that Fluttershy’s present was bad, being a nicely crafted model of the current Wonderbolts, it was that the rainbow mane pegasus knew that the presents Fluttershy gave her previous years were so much better. Even as fillies, when Fluttershy would have to save up change for months to buy a proper present, her best friend would always go to great efforts to ensure it was a present she would love. This year’s model though was one that could have been purchased at any stall in Cloudsdale, and when Rainbow Dash had opened the present to see what she had got the worrying thought of having done something to upset her old friend passed in her head and she had been pondering on it for a good deal of the party.
“So...now that we are alone...you can have your real hearth’s warming present...”
Fluttershy’s words came out in a seductive tone that tickled the speedster’s ears, heated her face, and much to her surprise caused her wings to shoot out with great speed. The pegasus threw a softly spoken curse towards her usually faithful feathered appendages, whilst Fluttershy started to giggle sweetly.
Rainbow’s face flushed even more out of embarrassment and stuttered back, “Well Fluttershy this is, uh...not what you think-I didn’t mean...well with the way you said it I just presumed...sorry.”
“Don’t worry Rainbow Dash, its okay,” she continues to say in a hushed voice as her yellow wings also perked up, “you were right to assume that after all.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash managed to squeak at the confusion suddenly implanted into her mind, and then proceeded to raise her volume upon realising her friend was actually being serious, “What!”
Fluttershy had a sly smile, Rainbow Dash had an unsteady jaw, Fluttershy had hungering eyes, Rainbow Dash’s were spooked. Fluttershy took a step forward; Rainbow Dash took a step back. As the usually shy but tonight surprisingly bold mare slowly closed the distance the usually bold but for good reason shying away mare rapidly expanded the distance.
“H-Hey Fluttershy, this is a pretty good joke and all, didn’t think you were much of a joker but hey you proved me wrong. You’re very convincing by the way.” Rainbow Dash muttered to her friend as she continued to back away.
“Oh Rainbow Dash, I-I thought you’d like my present. You don’t like it, I’m sorry.” Fluttershy returned to her norm of character, looking away from Dash with a downcast look, but resumed eye contact almost immediately with a lingering expression, “B-but you’re still going to have it.”
“Well it’s not that I don’t like your present,” the multi-coloured mane pony stammered out various words to which she would have to mentally scold herself for later, “But you know, from your wings and my wings I think your present you have planned may be something that, I don’t know...is a pretty big commitment.”
Rainbow backed into something hard and solid which to her displeasure she found out to be the wall, well heated in contrast to the gentle chill outside. Not like that was anything the fretting tomcolt could think of at the moment, her mind was too busy trying to process the strange situation of her friend coming onto her, and what she should do about this. If she needed to escape flying away would be an easy option however her wings were shaking and quivering in an odd mixture of fear and excitement, and her brain was fried enough to the point that the pegasus looked to her shoulders for aid from her conscience.
From the panicking athlete’s perspective a puff of red smoke blew forth on one side of her, a small red skinned pegasus with black horns jutting out from her dimly coloured rainbow mane appeared. Twirling a fork with a single hoof, the demonic Rainbow Dash nudged the non-demonic and much larger Rainbow Dash with a knee and whispered in her ear, “Go for it! She’s hot stuff.”
Not liking the cut of her devil’s convincing jib, Dash swung her head round to her other side, her angel side. In a puff of pink smoke and confetti appeared a pink earth pony with a puffy mane and two pieces of cardboard attached onto her back. The diminutive figure of laughter said in as serious a tone as she could do, “I say go for it. I missed out on the action in both of Fluttershy’s dreams and I want action already, give me results Dashie.”
“Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed with surprise, looking over to her currently shrunken friend as she messed about with her shoddy fake wings, “Why are you here? How did you get so small? Where’s my angel?”
“Oh, right here,” Pinkie snickered as she pulled up a white garbed Rainbow Dash with a golden hovering halo, and the new attire additions of rope wrapped round its body and mouth, “It’s funny, I tied her up so I could be your angel instead but I think she enjoyed it. I didn’t know you liked it with rope, are you and Fluttershy going to play with rope because that will be most entertaining for me.”
Before Rainbow Dash could wipe off her stupefied expression from her face and argue with her friend who had just invaded her conscience she felt a muzzle tap against her. Turning to Fluttershy, who stood just before her with flickering eyes and a dreamy smile, Dash’s shoulder angels disappeared. Ignoring both pieces of advice she had recieved the pegasus tried to get away at the last moment but of course the last moment was a moment too late as two yellow hooves pinned two cyan wings against the wall.
“Oh Rainbow Dash, please don’t resist.” The two eyes met one pair unmoving and focused, the other pair darting round and round in un-concentrated directions, “You know you want too.”
Fluttershy leaned forth, her sunflower coloured face inching at first towards the cyan prisoner’s own but then diverting to the side. The mare breathed a warming breath against Rainbow’s neck causing her to flinch and for her wings to lock up even tighter. She could feel the breathing continue to make its way from the side of her head until it reached her ears, the feeling of air and sensation of a lip pressed just against it confirming the location of her friend’s mouth.
“You know you want too...snuggle.”
Rainbow Dash awoke with a racing heart and a pounding head, eyes snapping open suddenly to bare witness to the bright rays of Celestia’s sun, and just as quickly screwing them up tightly. The rosy eyed equine allowed her stinging eyes to take comfort in the darkness, a comfort her headache did not allow her to enjoy. She had awoken to the world with pain being her greeting, some to her vision and some to her skull, her skill to which felt dull and woozy yet not enough to grant her the solace of numbness unlike her body which laid there unfeeling.
As her body was in fact numb and strained, unwilling to feel nor move, the usually happy sleeper groaned to herself in frustration, “Why does my head hurt so badly?”
Before she could attempt to answer her own question, the athlete took notice of her own thundering heart, an irritation also accompanying her hangover, and began to think upon it “Why is my heart beating so fast? Was it that dream? What was even up with that anyway? I mean, Fluttershy’s my oldest friend and all but that went way past friendship...even if it did turn out that all she wanted to do was snuggle.”
Thinking is never an easy thing to do when you first wake up, and when your mind is jumbled up, aching like mad, and being distracted by a consistent heavy heart beat it makes it even harder. The twittering of morning birds and scrambling of furry critters throughout the building also did not help.
“Guh, I wish all these birds would shut up,” Rainbow Dash quietly groaned before alarm seeped into her eyes in realisation, “Wait, birds?”
To the ceiling she looked, and thanks to the no longer blinding sunlight (though harm to her frazzled head it did cause) she could make out bird houses a plenty. Small ones of blues and reds and yellows and colours not restricted to the primary ones flew in and out of their houses, many going out through the windows but a few chose to fly out the bedroom’s door. Such was normal for a morning, a morning in Fluttershy’s sweet cottage.
“I’m in Fluttershy’s house, her room, her bed, and...” Dash looked down to the yellow form laid softly against her side, a mane of pink stroking just against her chin, and a lone hoof dropped against her body in a hug.
“F-F-Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash yelped far quieter than she expected, at least quiet enough for the noise to not disturb the sleep of the mare beside her, “Why is...Why am I-we in...What?”
Unwilling to budge with her friend practically on top of her, and being mostly unable due to the slow pace the feeling took to return to her body, her rosy pink ovals took to the task of skimming the room. On her right side she spotted the usually clean floor stained by leftover cider, Fluttershy exhaled a cooling breath of air, Rainbow’s heart beat faster. In front she couldn’t see much aside from the pink mane of Fluttershy, whom snuggled in closer, Rainbow’s heart beat faster. Then to her left was the direction of the sunbeams that must have been blocked currently by a drifting cloud for the rainbow mane pegasus could see without pain from the natural light, and what she saw was another cast away cider mug but this one was empty, Fluttershy’s loose foreleg tightened the affectionate embrace, Rainbow’s heart beat faster.
“Well we must have gotten drunk and then-and then we...” Rainbow Dash’s heart stopped for a moment at her next train of thought, a train she attempted to disembark quickly, “No, no, no. It only looks that way, I’ll get up and leave before Fluttershy wakes up and it will prevent any awkward presumptions about what we did-about what didn’t occur yesterday.”
The numbness of both brain and body had mostly seeped away, and from her regained ability to fidget on the spot she could tell movement was once again possible. Though she didn’t know where one of her hooves were, her left forehoof, and so tried to move it out from the soft and squishy pillow it was crushed beneath. Wiggling her foreleg, a strange sense of familiarity washed over her, as well as a hot flush upon her face when she heard her friend squeak.
To her friend her gaze turned but still trying to remove her leg, and watched as a flustered blush bloomed upon Fluttershy’s face and her wings quickly unfolded. Now flushing just as much as the napping figure beside her, she caught site of where her trapped leg lead to and then knew the cause of the plot. Her leg was underneath Fluttershy’s posterior.
“Okay, okay, this is awkward.” Rainbow Dash’s mind cried out, “C’mon Equestria’s faster flier this is, this is nothing new. This didn’t bother you when you had to push her towards the cider stand so why is it any different now?”
The answer was of course the current circumstance alongside the erotic dream of her friend she had just previously experienced but said answer eluded the troubled Miss Dash.
“You know what, stop thinking about it, and think about cider. That frothy and sweet beverage that sent cool waves down your throat and to which came in a mug small and soft and silky smooth-darn it!”
“I’m not going to worry though. This looks bad and all but it is more than likely we got tipsy and Fluttershy didn’t want me to be flying under the influence. We went over to her house and with only one bed just slept together in it. Simply an awkward wake up position, nothing else happened.”
A light thumping noise was somehow heard by the hung-over pegasus, who turned her face slowly to the direction of the racket. Standing in the doorway was a tiny figure of pure white. The rabbit grinned at the puzzled Dash and began to hop towards her while dragging a brown cardboard box equal in size to his body. Upon arriving to the bedside, the oddly much loved pet of Fluttershy tossed the box onto the bed, before proceeding with a large hop to gain footing on the covers as well.
Angel Bunny ignored Dash’s continuing stare, instead moving on over to the small box in order to open it. He first gave a grin to the contents, contents that Rainbow Dash could not see from her angle, and then looked over to the cuddling pegasus with an all-knowing smirk and a hint-hint raised brow. Keeping his suggesting look firmly locked on Rainbows, he whipped out two thing things; a match and a cigar, seemingly both from the box.
With a hop, skip, and a jump, Angel made his way to Rainbow’s muzzle, and then forced the brown wrapped cigarette into her mouth. Whether due to shock or simply being inactive in the mind that day, Rainbow Dash did not react with anything more than widening eyes of further bewilderment, which had alarm added into them when Angel Bunny struck the match alight. In seconds the cigarette was lit and smoke began to seep out, but as a pegasus used to the fresh and pure air of the high skies it didn’t take long for Rainbow Dash to find smoking to be a less than desirable choice of activity and so began to splutter and cough. Angel rolled his eyes, removed the cigarette, placed it in his own tiny mouth, and puffed out a small ring of smoke. Leaning forward he patted the cyan shoulder of the still coughing pony, and then slowly hopped away with the still lit cigarette, the matches, and the box.
“What the-“ Rainbow Dash tried to talk but had trouble due to still hacking away from the taste of smoke, “What the hay was that about?”
“R-Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow perked up, the hairs on her vibrant mane standing on edge as she heard the sound of what she hoped was her still asleep companion simply mumbling away in her sleep. Turning her head in said direction of sleeping companion and seeing her glazed over, flickering teal eyes staring up at her proved her wrong. Eyes meeting, Fluttershy quickly came to blush and moved her chin off of the cyan body and diverted eye contact, though her hoof remained lightly wrapped round the pony.
Rainbow however continued to stare, her brain trying to work out something to think about despite how overheated the gears had become from the heated assumptions. “Okay, she’s awake now, your friend who has got her hoof wrapped round your body is awake now. This is the best time to ask what happened, so ask her already.”
“H-Hey Fluttershy?” In response to her name Fluttershy turned to face the worry struck Rainbow Dash with drowsy eyes and emitted a small yawn as she did so, quickly covered by her spare hoof, “Okay, I must admit that was pretty cute.”
Becoming aware of what track her train of thought had gotten itself onto, mental train conductor Dash shook her head and focused her mind, switching the lever that changed the tracks of the train.
“Fluttershy...how was last night?” Rainbow Dash asked vaguely “Well I can’t say that I don’t remember and that I was too drunk. Besides I’m sure nothing happened.”
Fluttershy hesitated for a moment before cuddling up to Rainbow Dash further and squeaking out with elation, “It was the best night ever!”
“Oh we so totally did it.”
Rainbows face had two things; a nervous grin and a blush as bright as the apples that made the cider that got her into this mess, whilst her body had one thing; Fluttershy nuzzling her face just under her chin and against her chest. In such close proximity the perplexed brain of the athletes, struggling with anxieties, fears, and feelings that didn’t make a lot of sense to her, decided to simply shut off leaving the pegasus to lie there, staring distantly at nothing. Meanwhile the animal caretaker, whose loving cuddle was made in a brief moment of sleepy bravery, began to feel a displeasing smell tickle her nostrils. Lifting herself away from her rainbow mane friend in order to look her face to face, Fluttershy gave a look of disbelief.
“R-Rainbow Dash, have you been smoking?” The most recent waking pony asked, still with disbelief but as she recieved no reply from the daydreaming pony her disbelief turned into a disapproving frown, “Rainbow Dash!”
“Wha-Fluttershy, w-what’s the matter?” Rainbow snapped out of her stupor, turning to face her friend, and mumbling over her quickly spoken words.
“Rainbow Dash, I smell smoke. Y-you don’t smoke do you?”
“No! Of course not!” The pegasus burst out, “You probably won’t believe me but when I woke up your crazy rabbit just jumped onto the bed, shoved a lit cigarette in my mouth and then hopped off.”
As expected, the animal loving pony simply blinked a couple of times with an un-amused expression, not believing the absurd story, “Oh no, not again.”
Not only was the response different from what Rainbow Dash was expecting, she also did not expect her friend to climb over her, spring off the bed, and make her way out the door calling out for her troublesome but beloved pet. Rainbow lay there as the hubbub of Fluttershy’s clumsy but speedy hoof steps got quieter and quieter. When they could be heard no longer, the scruffy haired pegasus silently got out from beneath the covers, got onto her four numb yet aching legs, and took a deep breath. Then another deep breath. Then several deep breaths.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what do I do?” Rainbow Dash did not so much as shout these words but her voice was loud and the sounds were jumbled by fast paced panic, “This is...this is...what’s that thing Rarity is always saying? Oh yeah, this is the worst possible thing!”
Along with yelling out a line like her unicorn friend Rairty, the pegasus had also begun to pace round in a circle like her other unicorn friend Twilight. The sunlight continued to trickle into the room, its rays proving irritating to the panicked pony, but she was at least grateful that said irritation was trying to take her mind off the events.
“C’mon Rainbow Dash, calm down, things aren’t quite so bad. Fluttershy seemed happy with what we...what we...” The athletes attempts to her calm herself proved rather futile as further scenarios began to run through her head, “W-what if, what if she wasn’t drunk, and I said things to her, wooed her, and, and, and now she’s got the wrong idea. Thinks I...”
Rainbow Dash gulped “This is even worse than I originally thought. What will our friends say?”
Either a matter of her relapsing into a drunken state, her panicked thoughts beginning to cause hallucinations, or her imagination being very vivid, Rainbow Dash begun to see her friends appear one by one in the room. Along with appearing in the room, each one came with their voice and opinion.
“This is going to make a great letter to Princess Celestia.” Twilight said with a glee and appropriate grin.
“No, I don’t need anypony else knowing about this!”
The purple unicorn seemed to not take heed of Rainbow’s words as she had turned round and begun to call out for Spike, her words as distant as she was, the words becoming more distant as the purple unicorn faded away.
“Oh my, this sounds just like one of my romance novels.” Rarity said aloud as she gazed off into the distance, a dreamy look on her face.
“Yes Rarity, that’s why it’s a problem.”
The fashion pony pouted for a moment before opening her mouth to continue, only to be dispersed into a swarm of white and purple fireflies as the imagined/hallucination Pinkie Pie hopped through the hallucination/imagined Rarity.
“Ooh, can I join in?” A bouncing pink pony said with a wide, enthusiastic smile.
“Not helping Pinkie.”
The party pony motioned for the last remaining friend, distributor of the cider that created the problem in the first place, to talk next as she herself simply exploded out of existence.
“Well I for one think you need to take responsibility for this,” Applejack said in a stern voice, a hoof directed towards the rainbow mane pony, “Y' know what results after a hoo-ha right?”
“Wait, you don’t mean that she’s...”
Now even Applejack was beginning to fade away, but even with the last speck of her orange body disappearing the words continued to be spoken, “Just sayin, ya need to take responsibility for what ya darn done.”
Rainbow Dash’s brief moment of insanity passed, her mind still troubled and her eyes still stinging from the harsh (it was actually rather mellow but remember that the pegasus still has a hangover) luminescence. There were many questions unanswered and many answers she did not know if she wanted to be true but she had an objective.
The speedster sped out the room, or at least that is what she would tell ponies if they asked. Her body was still a tad shaky and her head wasn’t exactly in it so it was more of a crazy fast stumbling flop outside the room followed by tumbling head first into a wall. Her descent down the stairs was much more coordinated, zipping down with flighty hooves that didn’t even touch down on most of the steps.
Downstairs Fluttershy was still in the midst of attempting to scold her cigar smoking pet, “...and that is why you shouldn’t smoke my little Angel. Please promise me you won’t do it again, pretty please.”
The un-amused rabbit was quite lucky for the oncoming sound of heavy and rapid hoofsteps. Any more pressure from his owner and he’d be guiltily led into a promise, one he wouldn’t break. The distraction came through in the form of a flustered but determined cyan pegasus, who got heads to turn with her entrance.
“Oh, hello Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry I left quite like-Fluttershy did not get chance to finish as her friend came up to her in under a second and grasped her by both sides, an ‘eep’ ending what words she was going to say.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash yelled, with focused rosy eyes and sweat running down her face, “Marry me!”
Fluttershy first believed she had misheard but as she continued to look onto the serious face of Rainbow Dash she blushed, smiled, grinned, beamed...and then fainted happy.