One would think that a pony, who exclusively walked on four legs, would enjoy working out their legs. Sure, a human might dislike working out legs in the gym because legs aren’t arms, or chest, or even back (the legs of the upper body), but a lot of a pony’s muscle is in their legs; you get those suckers bigger then it’s a guarantee that you’ll look bigger. You might think this, but you would be horribly wrong, just as Anny had been when he had assumed such.
You see, unlike their Earth counterparts, a pony is actually a pretty flexible creature, able to stand upright on their back legs and even walk using only three of their legs. The range in which they are able to move each hoof is almost ridiculous. So, instead of some weird leg-orientated/leg heavy gym that Anny had been expecting, there was actually just a normal human gym, complete with benches, power racks, treadmills, etc.
A pony on this funny little world could actually have a huge chest and tiny legs if that was what they wanted, just like a human, and Anny couldn’t help but feel a little relieved yet concerned when he learned this. He may not have been a doctor, or a vet, or even a particularly smart individual, but he was pretty sure that a pony shouldn’t be able to perform a deep squat without their knees exploding. But, like almost everything else that he thought was weird about this world, he just shrugged it off and went about his day.
Pony lifting habits aside, Anny had also noticed something else about many of the ponies that frequented that gym: each and every one of them (that he asked at least) hated working legs. Truly it seemed that the evil that was leg day transversed all worlds, all cultures, ruining someone’s day with a crackle and another set of lunges. And, because he worked out with a group of ponies that fully believed that one needed to work out the whole body each week, not just the upper body, his day of reckoning had come.
“Come on, Anny, you need to squat just a little bit lower… And remember to keep your back neutral!”
If he wasn’t desperately trying to force what felt like a mountain of weight upwards, Anny would have given his spotter, a sweaty but smiling Cadance, a piece of his mind, but since all of the blood had been taken from his brain and had gone to his legs, Anny was just trying not to pass out. “I’m… trying…” he grunted, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to go lower and lower, holding the bar on his back like his life depended on it.
“Come on, Anny,” the Princess of Love said encouragingly, clapping her hooves together. “You only have two more, then we can take a little break!”
Anny, still concentrating on not dying, didn’t hear a word the alicorn had said as he slowly and shakily stood back up, panting and red-faced as he did so. Come on, he thought, taking deep breaths. This isn’t that much weight and you have only one more to go. Come on, Anny, girls are watching!
Summoning up what will he had left, Anny lowered himself back down, his eyes shut tightly as Cadance quietly cheered him on while also making sure that he didn’t just drop the bar and kill himself. His leg muscles screamed, his glutes groaned, and his knees were wobbly, but after what felt like an hour, Anny got to the worst part of the lift: squatting to parallel.
Getitupgetitupgetitup!
With an inhuman groan, Anny rose himself back up, sweat dripping off his face as he slowly inched upwards, the safety pegs on the power rack his only salvation in this horrible, leg day world. Cadance’s eyes were wide as she watched the man.
“Come on Anny, you’re almost there!” she said, her encouraging smile turning worried when she saw a vein bulging out her friend’s forehead. For a second she considered just giving him a teeny tiny little nudge with her magic but she quickly decided against it. She was Anny’s spotter, and as a good spotter she wasn’t going to take his glory away from him, she was going to egg him on and tell him what a good job he did after he finished!
“Just a little bit more….”
With another groan, Anny rose to his full height and locked his knees, holding his position for a second before lurching forward, almost knocking himself over trying to rack his weight. With a happy giggle, Cadance helped the bar off him and onto the safety pegs.
“I told you you could do it, Anny!” she said with a little hop, her smile widening when she noticed the proud grin on Anny’s face.
“Yeah… I did… it,” Anny panted, leaning his head up against the weight bar and closing his eyes. “Are… we… done with… the squats… yet?”
To the human’s dismay, the mare just shook her head. “Nope, we still have to do a few sets of front squats!” she told him cheerfully.
Anny’s eye twitched and he looked up. Gods of fitness, why have you forsaken me? he wondered as Cadance dragged him toward the water fountain.
“So is everything ready for later today?” Cadance asked the waddling man.
Anny sighed, resisting the urge to look over at Celestia, who he knew for a fact was putting up at least fifty more pounds than he had just been doing. “Yeah, it took a bit longer than I would have liked but I got everything ready.”
Cadance nodded, her wings ruffling in excitement. “That’s great! I hope you two have a great time.”
This time Anny couldn’t help but sneak a peek over at his favorite princess, who was red-faced, sweaty, had a headband on, and was breaking his mind at how she just didn’t explode squatting that deep. He wasn’t even going to bother wondering how a sixty pound pony was able to squat nearly four times her body weight. In his mind the less he thought about it the better off he would be.
“I do too, Cadance,” Anny muttered, getting a drink of water before letting his workout buddy lead him back to their power rack.
It took them a minute to strip the weights and put on lighter ones for their new lift but they as soon as they finished, Cadance was up. To Anny’s bemusement, the alicorn rose up on her hind legs, gripped the bar in such a way that she was able to put it where her front legs met her shoulder, lifted the bar off the pegs, and started her front squats.
“You know, it really doesn’t make any sense how you’re able to do this,” Anny pointed out as Cadance went through her set.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to do this?” Cadance asked with a grunt. “We’re not even going heavy yet.”
Anny opened his mouth to say something but then promptly closed it. There was no way that he was going to even try to get into this, not when there was a pony a few feet from his that was somehow deadlifting over five hundred pounds despite not having any hands to hold the bar. So instead he shifted the conversation to something that had been bothering him for the past few days.
“Hey Cadance, did you happened to find that certain someone that the two of us were talking about the other day?” he asked, once again sneaking a glance around to see if anyone happened to be listening in on their conversation.
With a grunt, Cadance re-racked the bar. Wiping a bead of sweat from her brow with a wing, she nodded. “She’s hiding out in Blueblood’s room,” she said with a little smile, “waiting for the guards to stop looking for her.”
When Anny asked Celestia on a date, and said princess then hopped around the room shouting, “Yes yes yes!” for the next ten minutes, Fleur had, to Luna and her guards dismay, escaped her hoofcuffs and run out of the room during the commotion.
After everything had calmed down, and after Luna had disciplined her idiotic guards by giving them dungeon duty for the next three weeks, Celestia had ordered a citywide search for the renegade supermodel. But after over three days of searching, basically locking down the city to make sure that Fleur didn’t escape and having Luna scrying the dreamscape for the mare, and the guard combing the city for her, they hadn’t hadn’t found hide nor hair of the mare, and that was making Anny more than a little nervous.
When Fleur had announced her intentions to him he didn’t know what to expect, but he had been sure that he’d be able to handle it. But now, with everything that had happened, he just wasn’t sure. Right now Fleur was being backed into a corner, and that would make her dangerous. She had nothing to lose, and Anny knew for a fact that the mare still had a lot of very powerful, well-connected friends in the city, so what Anny had assumed was going to be a few romantic gestures could, and was probably going to, turn pretty ugly, and that was making him very, very worried.
Trying to keep his face cheery, Anny made his way over to the barbell. “Did you tell Celestia?” he asked, grabbing the bar. “She’d probably want to know where she is, and I’m sure Blue probably wants her out of his room by now. How long has she been cooped up in there, three, four days?”
Cadance grinned, peeking at Blueblood out of the corner of her eye. “Oh I’m sure that Blueblood just loves having her around,” she said knowingly. “And I think my aunt needs a few more days to calm herself before she can talk to Fleur; for both their sakes.”
As best he could with the bar awkwardly on his shoulders, Anny shrugged. “Whatever you say, Cadance. We need to do something about her if she tries to do anything at my date thought.” Anny frowned. “You know that she sent me a wagonload of blue roses the other day with some weird French poetry?”
Cadance watched Anny as he started his squats. “Oh? That actually sounds—“
“I got Twilight to translate it. She told me that it was… a little raunchier than I would have liked.”
The Princess of Love couldn’t stop herself from giggling. “Were the flowers pretty at least?”
With a tired sigh, Anny re-racked the bar. Leaning against it, he said, “They were some of the nicest I’ve ever seen in my life.” He rubbed his temples. “Twilight told me that these things are nicer than the roses up at the castle; she also said that they were some rare flower from Prance that cost an arm and a leg to buy. I think she called them Moonlight something-or-other.”
When Cadance realized the flower he was talking about was the Moonlight Septium, a flower that was renowned for its beauty, fragrance, and most importantly, its cost, her smile dimmed a little bit. “And her giving you those flowers bothers you,” she stated.
Anny nodded. “I understand that she likes me and all but I don’t like her dumping her money into things that she thinks I’ll like. Today was the flowers, yesterday was a box of chocolates that cost a thousand bits, the day before that was a shirt made by some famous fashion designer…”
Cadance patting him on the thigh. “If it makes you feel any better, Anny, Fleur is actually a very wealthy mare.” She ruffled her feathers. “What might seem like a lot of
money to you is nothing compared to her.”
Anny pushed himself off of the bar. “I know that,” he said. “I saw how nice her mansion was.”
“Is,” Cadance corrected, cutting him off. “I heard that the damages from the other day are already fixed.”
Anny gestured dismissively. “I just don’t like the idea of someone spending so much money on me.” He looked at her questioningly. “Do you even know how much one of those roses even costs?!”
Though Cadance did, in fact, know how much one of those roses cost, she decided to keep her mouth shut, instead gently pushing the worked up man out of the power rack. “We all do some silly things for love,” she told him, a smile coming back to her face. “I know a certain human who knows that all too well.”
That got a smile out of Anny; a little one, but a smile none the less. “I just need to figure—“ he began, only to be cut off by Cadance once again.
“You don’t need to figure out anything right now mister,” she said, eyeing the clock that was on the far side of the gym. “Right now you just need to worry about taking my aunt on the best date that she’s ever been on.” She pointed at the clock. “It looks like it’s time for you to get on out of here to go and get ready.”
“But what about the rest of my se--”
“You can do them another day. I might have actually kept you here too long.” Nudging him, Cadance nodded toward the door. “Go ahead, and make sure Celestia doesn’t see you.”
Anny nodded before looking at the clock. It was just about to strike ten. He had just over five hours to get back home and place the finishing touches on everything, so he was going to have to rush back to the Sparkle house. Checking to see if he had left anything around the power rack, Anny gave Cadance a wink before rushing toward the exit.
Everything’s going according to plan, she thought, eyeing her aunt to make sure that she wasn’t looking this way. I have Anny and Auntie pushed along well enough. As soon as Anny left the gym Cadance turned her attention toward Blueblood, who looked like he was about to throw up in the middle of a squat. Now it’s time to help Blueblood out…
With a mischievous giggle, Cadance turned back to her weights, neatly putting them away before trotting over to where Celestia and Blueblood were. “Blueblood,” she said to the panting prince, who had just finished his set, “could you come over here for a minute? I’d like to talk to you about something important.”
~-~-~-~{,<>,}~-~-~-~
The royal chambers had been a place where service, comfort, and elegance were at their greatest and most refined, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. From the servants to the food to the atmosphere, you knew that as soon as you stepped foot in that section of the castle you were in a different world. You name it, they had it in stock or they could get it within the hour - the finest beds, wines, cheeses; anything that you could want or need. It also boasted a royal spa room, complete with a sauna and a team of highly trained masseurs; a private kitchen that housed one of the world’s largest selection of wines, and even a janitor that would tell you the funniest knock-knock jokes that you ever heard in your life.
Yes, for anyone who had the privilege of being invited to stay a night in this magical part of the castle, it was a dream come true. For Fleur though, all of this finery was nothing. Her thirteen-thousand thread count sheets and plush feather bed was just another place to sleep on, the breakfast she ate this morning, prepared hours beforehand by a chef, nothing but fuel that she needed to sustain herself with.
Because right now Fleur was no longer Fleur de Lis the supermodel, or Fleur de Lis the noblemare who would have loved to stay at the castle for a few nights. No, Fleur had become a machine with one sole purpose: to win her human back from that backstabbing, no good, jerk of a princess by any means necessary. And, for the last few days, she thought she had gotten off to a rather good start.
After Blueblood had taken her in she had spent almost every waking hour putting her various plans into motion. A smile came to her lips when she remembered her friend’s kindness, and it helped make her feel a little better; not much better, mind you, but enough that she no longer wanted to just lay in a bed eating ice cream until she threw up.
She sent Anny candy, poetry, clothes, anything and everything that she could think of, using the human’s own wooing techniques against him. She spent hours picking out the best flowers, the best chocolates, the finest words and wine that she could find, trying to show him how much she actually cared, and when she felt like that wasn’t working she tried something else; something that really came from the heart.
Her words had slowly started to change from fancy and refined into simplistic, with her writing pages and pages of fluff and not much else, into more honest, and thought out, works that just complimented Anny on his merits and actions... Well, all of her poems except the, um, dirtier ones...
She didn’t write Anny as some mythical hero while she was the blushing princess he had rescued; he was just a normal, kind young man that she happened to really, really like. Fleur honestly could say that it felt better writing this way; it felt like she was getting everything off her chest with each little, lovingly crafted page.
She would have done more, would have trotted to the Sparkle house with a bouquet of flowers or maybe a guitar to play her love some songs or maybe she would have just asked him it he maybe wanted to see a movie with her something, you know, if he wasn’t too busy or anything, if not for the warrant for her arrest that Celestia put out the moment that she had escaped. To her, and Blueblood, and even to Anny, Luna, and Cadance, the warrant seemed a little extreme, but Fleur would continue nonetheless.
She was a smart, wealthy mare with connections all over Canterlot; even if Celestia found her here (which was highly unlikely) she could hop around a few houses and hideouts until the Princess had calmed down enough not to send her to the moon for what she did. All she had to do was simply wait for the heat to die down and for her gifts to soften Anny up before she could go and physically pursue him.
But that was a problem in itself. Fleur wasn’t the type of mare that waited when she wanted something, so being forced to do so was turning out be to a harrowing experience for the supermodel.
I hope that Anny got those flowers I sent him this morning, she thought with a worried frown, pacing Blueblood’s room like she had for the past hour and a half. Was sending him a crate full of them too much? I don’t want to seem like I’m trying TOO hard… Fleur bite her lip before taking a deep breath to calm herself down.
“I only need to keep myself hidden away for a few more days until I can go back to my home and plan my next move,” she muttered, walking over and sitting down in a chair, grabbing the cup of coffee that she had put on the table and taking a sip of it. “I just hope that Anny sees sense before then.”
Fleur laid her head down on the table and closed her eyes, letting everything that had happened over the last few days wash over her. Her house being damaged, her ordering her butler to dump paint on Celestia, and her confessing her feelings to Anny, and with thinking about these things there came doubts. Was what she was doing right for her? Did she actually love this odd creature that had all but fallen into her life? And if she did, in fact, love him, was there actually any chance at all that he would love her back?
Over the past few days she had attacked somepony, who had been a good friend of hers since she was a small filly, she had made a spectacle of herself in front of her fellow nobles, and she had been forced to hide herself away like a common criminal. For any lesser mare, this might actually lead them down the path of despair. Luckily, she was not a lesser mare. She was Fleur de Lis: supermodel extraordinaire! So what if she had been a little down on her luck for the past few days? Hers was a noble cause; her’s was a quest for love!
Slowly, Fleur rose from her chair, her gaze becoming fiery and stern.
Why would I even attempt to doubt myself, she thought, flicking her mane out of her face and striking a pose. There’s no need to worry about my love. Even if Celestia tries to woo him with her title or with her magic or with all of her ‘finery’ I will not be beaten! I will not be overcome by some hussy that steals colts from under their friends’ noses!
If she wasn’t worried about somepony hearing her from the hall, the mare would have raised a hoof in the air while letting out a cheer, but since she couldn’t do that she instead opted for a grin.
“I am sure that Anny loves the roses I sent him,” she said, a little pep in her step as she trotted over to her temporary bed and crawled into it, magicking over a book and cracking it open.
“Courting habits of monkeys,” she read aloud with a little giggle. “A little crude, but I have to start somewhe—“ Fleur’s head whipped over toward the door as soon as she heard the handle turning. Fleur rolled up into a sitting position, ready to hide under the bed in case it was another cleaning pony.
“Fleur, it’s me, Blueblood.”
With a relieved sigh, Fleur sank back down into the bed and reopened her book. “Dieu Merci, it’s just you, Blueblood,” she said with a sigh, not noticing how nervous the prince looked. “And how was your morning, mon ami?”
Blueblood nervously smiled, slowly walking over to her. “Well, I may have heard from a source that Anny is taking Auntie on that date of theirs in a few hours.”
That got the supermodel’s attention, Fleur hopping out of the bed and all but tackling Blueblood with rage in her eyes. “And here I thought I would have a quiet afternoon to read,” she growled in her native tongue. “You say that a source told you this, Bleu?” She cocked her head at him questioningly. “And who would this, how do you say it? ‘Fly on the wall’ be?”
Blueblood smiled nervously. “O-Oh well, unfortunately I’m not able to say,” he said, wincing slightly as he stuttered. “My contact would like to keep themselves anonymous, as it were.”
Fleur hummed in thought. “And how do we know that whoever this pony is is not trying to pull a fast one on us, Bleu?”
With as much flourish as he could muster, Blueblood pulled out the bundle of paper’s that he had been keeping in his saddlebags. Walking over to his coffee table and carefully making enough room, he spread the papers out for Fleur to see.
“This contact of mine has told us where they will be going, the likely paths they will be taking to get there, the likelihood of us being seen if we so wish to do anything, and I believe they even gave us what the two of them are going to be eating,” Blueblood answered, his little smile becoming more confident when he saw Fleur’s eyes light up. “My little bird may be a little suspicious but I promise you, Fleur, that they will be more than willing to help us in the future if we ask.”
“Oh, Bleu,” she cried, kissing the stallion’s cheek before trotting past him and pawing at the notes. “This is magnifique!” She grinned as she started reading, not seeing the dopey smile on Blueblood’s face.
“Bleu, come!” Blueblood yelped as he was magically dragged toward the bathroom, Fleur giggling to herself as she looked around the spacious room for her make-up kit. “The two of us do not have much time to get ready!
Blueblood yelped again when he was launched through the air and onto a stool, Fleur eyeing in critically. “Now, mon ami, what color blush will go best with your eyes?”
The prince gulped as he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Fleur shuffling around him. Oh dear, I hope this goes well... he thought, for a second cursing himself for letting the pink alicorn talk him into that crazy plan of her’s.
Even as he thought it over, Cadance’s plan still seemed crazy to him; in fact, Blueblood wasn’t even sure how his cousin could have thought up something so batty. If it had been any other pony, or if it had been for any other reason, he would have just laughed in their face and walked away, but…
“Thank you once again for letting me stay in your bedroom, Bleu,” Fleur said, nuzzling the stallion’s cheek before grabbing for a vial of deep bronze blush. “Not many ponies would be kind enough to let somepony into their homes on such short notice.” Blueblood sighed when he felt the supermodel brush a lock of his hair out of his face. There wasn’t another mare in the world that Blueblood would do this for, but to be fair there was no other mare in the world like Fleur. Her elegance, confidence, her beauty... Blueblood could help but wonder, for the thousandth time, why Anny didn’t hop at the chance to be Fleur’s special somepony.
“I can honestly say that I’m the luckiest mare in the world to have a friend like you,” Fleur finished, the warmth in her voice and that hint of her perfume turning the stallion’s legs into jelly.
If that wasn’t enough, he opened his eyes to see Fleur smiling kindly at him, and, for a second, he was almost ready to just tell her how he really felt about her. …Cadance better be right about this, he thought once again, hoping that all of the makeup Fleur was putting on him would help the cover up the blush on his face.