//------------------------------// // Surprise, Surprise! // Story: Beyond Sisters Love // by Harmony Split //------------------------------// Chapter eight: Surprise, Surprise! The day dragged on and the cleaning took the sisters quite a while. Exhausted and aching from their hard work, they decided to take the evening slowly and enjoy their time together. Cloudchaser made her way down to the living room and slumped upon the carpet, as they didn’t have a couch yet. Meanwhile, Flitter inspected the bedroom: it was big, but something necessary was missing — there was no bed, no closet, or anything else. Just a bare room with curtains and a small flowerpot on the window ledge. Sighing, she made her way downstairs to find her sister snoring quietly on the carpet. She stepped closer slowly and planted a peck on her sister’s muzzle, just to be abruptly pulled into her winged embrace after that. “They’re taking too long,” Cloudchaser mumbled. Flitter looked confused. “What?” “Dash and mom — they’ve been gone for hours,” Cloudchaser mumbled against her chest, softly nuzzling her. “Are you worried?” “No, not really. I thought they were only going sightseeing. I can’t imagine why that would be taking so long in this little town.” Cloudchaser pulled her closer. “You know, I could stay like this for my whole life.” Flitter felt the same, she just didn’t say it back with actual words. The mare closed her eyes and inhaled deeply of her sister’s scent. She was sweaty from a hard day’s work; they both were. Still, she smelled like Cloudchaser, and that was one smell she would always love. “You were right, Flitter.” Cloudchaser spoke softly into her sister’s ear. “Oh, what about this time?” Flitter laughed as her sister started to nibble on her ear in just the way she liked. “This house… us being together. That is what’s important — what I needed. I just needed you.” “Seems like it’s something we both need reminding of from time to time,” Flitter said as she started kissing the side of Cloudchaser’s neck. “Promise me you’ll always remind me of that?” “Sure. Just promise me the same thing,” Flitter replied with a smile. They both pulled back and held their foreheads together with their eyes glued on the other’s. With a smile upon their lips they both said, “I promise.” They sealed their promise with a kiss. There was no tongue play, no fancy maneuvers to try and rile the other up into taking it someplace more. Rather, they simply pressed their lips together as a way to seal the deal. When they pulled back, Cloudchaser let loose a small yawn, an action that earned a giggle from her sister. “Sorry I made you work upstairs all day.” “Ah, don’t be, it had to be done and one of us had to do it. I’m happy I could do it for you.” “Still,” Flitter said as she ran a hoof through her sister’s mane. Cloudchaser was never a mare that cared all that much about her looks, but even she would be horrified by its current state. Flitter frowned when her hoof ran though a small clump of confetti that was caught in a few tangles. For her part, Cloudchaser felt her eyes starting to shut again. She’d already been half asleep when she’d heard Flitter coming down the stairs and only awoke when she tried to steal the kiss. Now being held in the hooves of the pony she loved more than any other she couldn’t help but feel the cold grasp of sleep coming back to claim her. “Sleep,” Flitter said as she held her sister’s muzzle against her chest. Cloudchaser was taken aback at first. Then she closed her eyes. The sound of her sister’s heartbeat became the trifecta that guaranteed she could not keep her eyes open. Her sister was always such a caring soul, and being held the way she was only made Cloudchaser feel that much more loved. Flitter looked down at her sister’s muzzle and saw the smile on her face. It was a smile that conveyed appreciation and love, happiness and contentment. It held all of these emotions and more at the same time. She kissed her sister’s forehead, an action that earned her a coo of pleasure from Cloudchaser in her dreamlike state. “I love you, Cloud,” Flitter said with a smile. She glanced around the living room. In her mind’s eye she didn’t see an otherwise bare carpeted room, with plain walls and no furniture whatsoever. She pictured a couch, framed photos hanging up of the two sisters, scatter cushions, coffee tables, guests, books, and them. She pictured them, being together, holding each other, laughing with each other, smiling with each other, and most importantly, she pictured them happy. They were happy here… together. That thought made her smile. She closed her eyes and buried her muzzle in her sister’s mane. Flitter wasn’t tired per se, but resting her eyes wasn’t out of the question. “This is our home, because this is where we can be together,” Flitter said right before sleep came to claim her. Held in the wing of the pony she loved more than her own life, enjoying the warmth they shared, she truly was no longer worried about the future. Whatever came, they could face it with their heads held high — after all, that was what was really important. *** Cloudchaser awoke drowsily, raised her head, and tried blinking her eyes clear of sleep. She thought she had heard knocking, but now there was nothing but the sweet snoring of her love in her wings. She went to close her eyes but then she heard it again; several sharp knocks on the door. Sighing, she looked for an escape from her situation without waking Flitter. With careful movements she folded her wings, doing her absolute best not to disturb Flitter. As she left their shared embrace Flitter’s muzzle scrunched and she curled up into a ball, but thankfully, she didn’t wake up. Cloudchaser walked to the door and opened it, to be greeted by a muscle-packed earth pony. “We’ve got your stuff here,” he said and gestured behind him where several guards were unpacking a few carriages. Cloudchaser couldn’t fight back a rather rude yawn. “Oh, thank you. Please bring it in,” she said with a blush at the scowl on the pony’s face. The pony frowned but turned back to the others. “Alright guys, bring it in.” Turning around, Cloudchaser realized she had to do the one thing she really did not want to do: she had to wake up Flitter. But, if she had to do it, she would do it just the right way. Smiling, she approached her sister, looking down at her. Carefully, so nopony else would see it she laid down, slowly trailing licks around her sister’s neck and peppering kisses at her muzzle. “That tickles,” Flitter said with a few giggles. Cloudchaser pulled back with a grin on her face. “Don’t stop,” Flitter replied. There was a small amount of laughter as she looked down at her. “Sorry, but our stuff’s here.” It was at that moment Flitter noticed the moving ponies hauling in the first of the boxes. “Oh, right,” she said with a blush as she stood to her hooves. The two didn’t have a lot of stuff, but packed up it still filled quite a few boxes. For the most part the girls spent the time just telling them where to drop off the boxes. The actual unpacking would come later. However, what happened next surprised both of them. “Knock knock!” Lightning said with a smile as she walked in. “Hey, mom!” Flitter yelled as she ran up and gave her mother a hug. Lightning wrapped a hoof around her daughter’s neck and smiled at her. As she held her she took a quick look around. The girls had done quite a remarkable job cleaning up. Of course it would still take another few hours worth of work to unpack everything and put it away, but that could wait until the movers were finished. “I thought you two were going to clean up?” she said in jest. “Hardy har, what took you?” Flitter asked with a pout on her muzzle. “Is mom back?!” Cloudchaser yelled from upstairs. “Hey, we don't yell!” Lightning yelled back upstairs. It was an action that earned her a bit of laughter from both her girls. That had always been the number one rule in their house growing up. “We need to make room so they can take the bed upstairs,” Rainbow said as she flew in and saw that the boxes were definitely going to be in the way. “Bed?” Flitter asked. “Rainbow, you’ve ruined my surprise.” She blushed at that. “Sorry, but they’re not going to wait around outside forever.” As she saw the confused look on her daughter’s face, Lightning just shrugged. “Well, cat’s out of the bag now. I got you two a bed, and a second one for one of your spare bedrooms too.” “Cloud!” Flitter yelled. “Come down here!” Cloudchaser flew down from upstairs. “What’s up?” “Mom got us a new bed,” Flitter said with a smile. Cloudchaser didn’t exactly look happy at that. She had wanted to go pick one out with Flitter — one that would be their bed. Lightning noticed this look and smiled. “Trust me. Let’s just move these boxes out of the way so they can bring it in.” “I’ll make sure the path upstairs is clear,” Rainbow commented as she flew up the steps. There was hesitation in Cloudchaser’s movements, but she did as instructed. In no time at all, there was a clear path for the bed. Lightning flew to the doorway, “Alright, you can bring in the big one,” she said to unseen ponies. Unlike the moving ponies, these pegasus worked for the sales company. They would not simply bring in the parts and let the ponies that purchased the bed assemble it for themselves. Their product was purchased directly and assembled by professionals at the location the client wanted. Flitter and Cloudchaser watched as the strangest assortment of parts were brought into the house and flown upstairs. It had the basic design of a bed, but a lot of what was there did not look like a bed. There was no mattress, no boxspring, but there was a lot of pipes and other devices that neither mare could recognize. “I thought she bought us a bed?” Flitter asked her sister. “That’s… that’s what she said,” Cloudchaser whispered back. “Stay down here for a minute. I’ll call you two up when it’s done,” Lightning replied with a wink as she flew up to the bedroom, the last of the parts having made their way upstairs. Cloudchaser and Flitter looked at each other in uncertainty, an uncertainty that was short lived as another set of boxes made their way inside. “Where do you want these?” the pony carrying them asked. Flitter took one look before replying, “kitchen.” The two sister’s shrugged and went back to work. With a glance outside Cloudchaser saw that they were almost done bringing the boxes in and that soon all that would be left was the couch at the back of the truck. “Well, we’ll find out what my mom bought soon enough,” she said to herself as she heard some very strange noises coming from upstairs. *** The moving ponies finished first. With the couch brought in, they simply held up a piece of paper for Cloudchaser to sign. She did so and watched them leave from the doorway with a smile of gratitude. Not so much because they provided excellent customer service, but just to see them gone. With a quick glance to her right she saw the other moving truck that had brought whatever ‘bed’ her mom had got them. The second bed in the back of the truck looked a lot more like what she had expected to see. “What did she…” Cloudchaser said before stopping herself. The side of the truck gave her the biggest clue yet — it was from Cloudsdale. “Girls, it’s ready!” The shout came from upstairs. The sisters shared a look before slowly making their way upstairs, each of them trying to guess what kind of bed it was exactly. As they made their way upstairs and to the master bedroom, what they saw shocked them both. “A… a cloudbed?” Flitter asked, surprised. “You like it?” Lightning asked as she stepped to the side allowing both sisters a better view of the bed she had purchased for them. To say it was easy to get a cloudbed on the ground would be the same as saying it was easy to raise and lower the sun. The cloud has to be generated and maintained in place by mechanisms in the bed itself — something that is not easy to do even for the most talented unicorns. The number of bits it cost spoke volumes for the difficulty in a cloudbed’s construction.   “Mom… I… I don’t know what to say,” Cloudchaser mumbled. Flitter had no such issue, with a flap of her wings she leaped on the bed, a shout of “YAHHH!” in her wake as she bounced once on the cloud before sinking down into the bed itself. Lightning smiled, “Sorry it took so long. They didn’t have what I wanted to buy, so I paid extra for them to make it specially.” “What do you…” Cloudchaser stopped herself before she noticed something off about the bed. When they brought in the pieces she had thought it at least had the shape of a normal bed. Assembled, she could see that thought had been wrong. She flapped her wings and flew above the bed. Cloudchaser had indeed been wrong — she had been wrong about a lot. The bed was not in the shape of a normal bed. It was in the shape of the cloud she and Flitter had made all those months ago. They’d even managed to reproduce their cutie marks in the design. It wasn’t to scale, but there was no denying what it was made to look like, or just how right it felt. Flitter looked up as she felt tears falling on the top of her head. “Sis?” she asked. Cloudchaser beelined it straight to her mother and tackled her to the ground. Lightning looked confused, afraid she had done something wrong until she felt Cloudchaser’s head smash into her coat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the mare gave off muffled cries into her mother’s fur. Flitter looked on, confused about what was going on. That was until her eyes fell to Rainbow’s and she saw the mare glance up into the air, a gesture that told her to take a look herself. With a small amount of apprehension, Flitter did just that. She flapped her wings and gained what little height the room allowed for. When she looked down at the bed she saw exactly what her sister had seen. The pipes and the devices they had brought in made the cloud conform into a very familiar, very welcome shape. “You… you did this for us?” Flitter asked with a gulp. “She sure did,” Rainbow said with a smile as she placed a hoof on the bed, pushing it. “She even paid extra for the self-cleaning option.” “Cleaning option?” Flitter looked at her mother who blushed. “What? I don’t know what could… well, cloudbeds are very fragile against any dirt…” “Mom!” Cloudchaser yelled and blushed as she realized what her mother meant. Flitter flew down and joined her family in a hug. Rainbow Dash felt uncomfortable. After everything her friends had been though, she was happy to see them happy, but touchy-feely had never been her thing. Her saving grace came from the delivery ponies walking to the door. “We’ve set up the bed in the other room. Sign here and we will be out of your manes.” “I’ll take care of it,” Rainbow said eagerly as she flew over and signed for the bed — something Lightning was eternally grateful for as it let her hold her daughters a little while longer. It was Flitter that finally broke the silence. “Why did you buy two beds?” “Oh, that,” Lightning said as she started to get up, an action that forced the girls to move off her. “Well, if you want me too, and you’re under no obligation to say yes, but I’d like to stay with you two for the next few days — just until you’re settled in,” she said with a blush. Cloudchaser walked over and hugged her again. “Of course you can stay with us, You’ll always be welcome here.” “And I don’t want you girls to act any different just because I’m around. Well, there will be one thing different: you’ll be eating better,” she said with a smile. Flitter walked over and kissed her sister’s lips at that. When she pulled back there was a smile on her face. “We’ve got the best mom ever.” “Yeah, we do,” Cloudchaser replied with a smile. “Well, if you girls don’t mind, I’m going to head home now,” Rainbow said as she saw the sun’s rays starting to lower though the window. “Thanks for everything, Rainbow,” Lightning said. “Yeah, thanks,” Cloudchaser added. “Thanks,” Flitter said cheerfully. “Remember, you two, in two days time I expect you to report to work. No slacking on my crew!” “Yeah, that’s your job,” Flitter joked. Rainbow just smiled as she flew down the stairs and out of the house. Once she’d left, Cloudchaser and Flitter moved to a pile of boxes at the other end of the room. Using their wings they started to unpack, in the hope of getting one room done before it was time for bed. Lightning saw this and went to the other side of the room. She lifted a box herself and started to lay out clothes that needed to be put away. In the second pile she felt something strange, a box in the clothes. Her curiosity piqued, she opened the box and looked inside. “You know, strapons are a lot more fun,” Lightning said as she pulled out a small collection of dildos, “and the double-headed ones give you both enjoyment at the same time.” “MOM!” both girls yelled at the exact same time. Lightning just giggled a little before putting most of the items away. She hid one under her wing as she pulled out another collection of clothes. After all, she had her own needs that had to be taken care off. *** Flitter held her sister tightly against her chest as she laid on the bed. This, this small little gift from their mother, meant so much. It symbolized their love for each other, where they came from, where they were going, and most importantly, their acceptance by the only other mare that truly mattered to each of them. She closed her eyes, her sister already asleep after a hard day of moving and unpacking. That morning they’d awoken in their cloud home, but tonight they were falling asleep in their new ground home — a home neither of them had wanted, but they were both quickly learning to love. After all, it was their home now. What was not to love about it? “We should do something nice for her,” Cloudchaser said with a smile. “You’re still awake?” Flitter asked in surprise. “Yeah. Too good company to fall asleep,” she laughed. “We should do something nice for mom.” “I agree. What’d you have in mind?” “Ménage à trois?” Cloudchaser joked, an action that earned her a small hit on the back of her head by Flitter. “Seriously,” Flitter said with a laugh. “What if we make her something? You know, like we used to?” Flitter thought about that for a while, “That's… that’s a great idea.” “I just don’t have any clue what.” Cloudchaser pouted. “I guess we already did everything for her when we were just little fillies. Is there anything left that could surprise her? I doubt that.” “Don’t be so negative, my love,” Flitter hummed. “We’ll come up with something together,” Cloudchaser said as she nuzzled deeper into her sister’s stomach. “That’s better,” Flitter smiled softly. In her gentle embrace, Flitter felt the mare in her hooves drifting off to sleep. She smiled as she looked out of the window and saw the moon hanging over the sky. The mare in the moon seemed to be looking down at them. Flitter probably imagined it, but a small twinkle seemed to come from the tip of her horn. With a smile, she closed her eyes and soon joined her sister in sleep’s peaceful embrace. *** Lightning awoke the next morning to a pounding coming from downstairs. Groggily, she stepped off her bed and onto the hard floor. “Ugh, who could that be?” she asked nopony in particular as she made her way out of the room. As an afterthought she used her wing to cover a particular item that was sitting on the side of the bed with a sheet. “Mom?” Flitter asked when Lightning made her way out into the hallway. Lightning looked up. Seeing the forms of both her daughters looking at her, she was sure the look on their muzzles matched her own. Before anypony could say anything, the knocking began again, louder this time. “Ouch,” Cloudchaser said as she ran a hoof over her head, no doubt nursing a small headache that was only getting worse. Lightning shrugged in response and made her way downstairs, her two girls in tow behind her. Whoever this was, they really wanted to be noticed, and were not going away without a conversation. She threw opened the door with all her might. “WHAT?!” Lightning yelled at the pony on the other side. The steel-blue stallion with the dark blue mane waiting in front of the door wasn’t amused and examined her with his turquoise eyes. “Wave Chill!” Lightning whispered, stepping back. Flitter and Cloudchaser both stuck their head beside their mother, only to quickly duck back after they let out a weak, “Dad!?” This wasn’t what they had expected at all.