Chapter 4
Somehow, by some power Celestia herself surely gave me in that moment, I politely manage to decline Macintosh’s offer. He nods in a soft sort of understanding that’s echoed by the rest of his family. I think he offers some kind of thank you to me for being lady enough to thank him personally, but I can’t be sure. Because I only start thinking clearly again after a wave of guilt hits me on the road back to Ponyville. You should have stayed, the guilt tells me. I roll my eyes. Yeah, no shit self. I can’t even muster the energy to fly back like I’d originally planned.
As I enter back into Ponyville proper, I actively resist the desire to drown my confusion over the whole deal in a tavern. That’s what had sent me from a slow burn to a glorious blaze of utter failure in the first place. No, I just need a smoke or two in my room. I can go to bed, sleep off all the roiling gut wrenching going on in my chest, and just focus on not making a fool of myself the rest of the time we’re here. Hopefully.
The loft owner isn’t around when I come back, but I’m grateful. I’m not really in a state to be talking to anypony right now. Knowing my luck… I briefly cut off my own thoughts to enter my room and do a check on my remaining cigs. I step out onto the balcony and just let my arse plop on the unpolished wood. The cigarette lights nice and hot, and the sweet familiarity of a puff and the hit of nicotine gives me a little push. I close my eyes and breathe out heavily, and maybe it’s not serenity I get, but I’m at least in less of an emotional hole. That’s what it seems like. Until I start thinking again. I scowl, cig jutting out the side of my mouth. Yeah. Knowing my luck, I’d just end up a teary mess if anypony tried to coax anything out of me right now.
“Come on, Fleetfoot,” I grumble to myself, tapping the roll on the balcony. “You know what you want. And there it was. Staring you right in your dumb face. Did you take it? No…” My scowl proceeds to become a straight glare. I scream through my teeth and stamp the unfinished cigarette on the balcony wood. “Nope! No you didn’t!” I continue to yell to the unhearing night. I whip around. I need bed. I need rest. I… Spitfire is standing in the doorway to the balcony with a very uncomfortable look on her face.
Great, exactly what I didn’t need. She opens the door and makes to come out, but I speak up first. “I’m coming back in,” I say curtly, brushing past her and trying to put my military bearing back in place. I mean sure, we’d known each other since both of us were nubs on the team, but she still was my captain. And I was already on her watch list as it was.
“Um… Did PR not go so well?” Spitfire asks me apprehensively. I collapse my back onto the bed and spread eagle. I really am tired now that I’m lying down… sheesh.
“It was fine,” I say. I gulp. This is not good. I’m tired, confused, and honestly… I’m mad at myself. The recipe for a bawling breakdown couldn’t be more perfect. Yay. With any luck, I can get Spitfire to bounce fast, and I can keep my dignity and adulthood intact and fall asleep without crying.
“You look a far sprint from fine,” Spitfire says, and I hear her sit on my right side. I keep staring at the ceiling. “You need somepony to talk to about it? I’m your friend right now, Fleet.”
“I -” I start to say, to reiterate how ‘fine’ I am, but when I rock my head over to look at Spits, she’s just sitting there smiling gently. She’s exercising what little patience she’s got (which isn’t a whole lot, really), and… it gets me. To Tartarus with it. I’ve never put a whole lot of stock in it, but maybe just talking about it will make it easier to get over. At the very least, I’ll probably sleep better. “Big Macintosh is a gentleman of a stallion,” I say. Just throw it out there. Flat and plain. I don’t even know what emotion I’d even have put into the statement if I had the energy.
But Spitfire catches on (which in no way surprises me, not after… last time), and says completely unhelpfully, “Oh… ah… hm.” This is why I don’t put much stock in talking about these things. “Well, what’s the problem then? You look like a… you look pretty bad, Fleet.”
I feel Spits lean on the bed with her forelegs. “I walked away, that’s what’s wrong,” I say, disappointment making it’s way into my words. “He invited me to stay for dinner and everything. And I just up and walked away from it. Could I have been more… stupid!” I hiss at myself at the last. It all came spilling out once I got going.
“No, no!” Spitfire tells me, and I eye her in confusion. What about this whole situation could be good? What exactly? “This is good. You’re learning right? After what happened with your last coltfriend. You’re not just running headlong into things.”
“You make it sound like I was rationalizing,” I say. “If I were that good, I’d not still be thinking about him.”
“Now I didn’t say that,” Spitfire chuckles. And something in me flares up at how flippantly she seems to treating this whole thing. “You did the smart thing, but now you’ve just gotta get through… well what we all have to go through from time to time.”
“Which is?” I ask, riding out every last sarcastic lilt.
“The doubt,” she says like it’s nothing. I’m feeling the heat building up in my chest. Maybe it’s better than crying, but yelling at Spits is very rarely desirable. “Just try to avoid him, and it’ll go away nice and easy.”
“It’s not doubt!” I sit up and yell, making Spitfire jump a little and take her legs off my bed. “It’s guilt! I shouldn’t have said no…” I trail off and take a deep breath. Yelling at Spits is a bad idea, I reiterate to myself.
“Still,” she answers, brows furrowed and her voice harder after my outburst. “Just keep away from him, and you’ll be over it soon. I know. I’ve been through it.”
Shut it, Mom, I seeth, and I feel my wings tensing angrily. I’ll… I’ll. Hmph. Nopony thinks I’ve got common sense about this stuff. And futzes galore! I don’t. But I’ll take two dragons with one kick. Prove my gut right and Spits’ wrong all at the same time. Hmph. “I’m going to bed,” I tell Spitfire, flopping back onto the bed and rolling over, my back to her. For better or worse, she’s helped me make up my mind. I’m finding Macintosh in the morning.
It takes a few minutes of me silently listening to her breathing, but Spits eventually leaves, and I mercifully pass out in a neutral mix of anxiety, jitters, and frustration. I’m such a romantic basket case…
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I wake to the only partially noisy clunks and plonks of a growing town’s morning. I roll over and groan with a wince when light hits my eyes from a slit in the balcony drapes. But I am also distinctly aware it’s not inducing a string of pain in my head. No more hangover. Thank Luna’s… Just thank Luna. I don’t sit up quite yet, but my stomach doesn’t wait for stumbly hoofsteps to remind me how I’ve been ignoring it.
I crawl out of the bed and struggle a little to get the sheet to stay instead of cling to me. Without even thinking about it (I’d be a right mess without morning military routine…), I start preening on my way to my single flight bag. With any luck, there’ll be some granola still left. That’ll at least get me through the beginning of the morning. There is indeed some of the tasty crunchies in my bag (two even!), and I start munching.
But with my basic necessities satisfied, my brain fully wakes up. Each thoughtful crunch brings more and more of my determination from last night back, and graciously what I think is finally some common sense. “Barging out there into town first thing in the morning is just silly,” I murmur to myself. “Don’t want to be too obvious…” I shift some of the second granola (wow, that first one went fast) into my cheek to think.
Who was I kidding? Not even myself this time. Obvious was standing in front of an attractive stallion sputtering half-words or straight spacing out. I had done a fantastic job in that department. “Desperate, yeah. No self-respecting stallion likes a desperate… er…” I trail out of my own mumbles and resume crunching. Me? Not desperate? I don’t even think the media could tell a bolder lie.
“Buck it all Fleetfoot!” I stamp my hoof down and trot to the washroom. “You… eurghhhh…” My confidence in just going to hell with trying to rationalize staying doesn’t exactly dry up, but my current face is neither cute nor pretty, or any admirable adjective really. “Staying for a shower it is then,” I tell my reflection with a shiver and the first of today’s coughs.
The steamy hot water comes in nice and quick, and I just stand there soaking for a while. “Hoo… hhhk… you have all day,” the hot water helps me tell myself. But the longer I stand there, doing nothing, the farther and farther my extra nice mind decides to take me on how finding Macintosh could go. And of course, it doesn’t take long for the unfortunate scenarios to start coming more frequently… until I just bang my head on the shower wall and focus on bathing.
I exit the shower even more steel willed to go through with this… whatever this is. I take a comb and brush to my mane which to the surprise of nopony, actually does a better job of straightening out my mane than just the comb. I do what I can with my hoof to straighten my eyelashes, then… I have a thought. And I hesitate. It’s not something I’ve done… in a very long time. My mane is just hanging over my right eye like it was yesterday. And I could easily leave it that way… but. “Careful, Fleet…” I whisper scratchily to myself.
I walk back to my small flight bag and pull it out. My mouth does some strange acrobatics, but I take it back to the vanity, re-brush my hair to lay evenly on both sides, do a quick swipe of the comb to flush my bangs off to one side behind an ear… and in goes the only barrette I own, a little flat red thing. I stare in the mirror a good while. And somewhere deep in the back of my head… “Careful Fleetfoot,” I tell the dangerously cute pony in the mirror. “Don’t set yourself up too much…” I take one last long look at myself before turning to head out of my room.
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I must have been in the shower a lot longer than I thought… that or I just never expected such a small town like Ponyville to be this busy in the morning. It doesn’t bother me. Not in the slightest. I can’t claim to be a city filly by any stretch of the imagination (anypony from the Los Pegasus suburbs knows better than to imply as much), but whenever I stay in a city, I expect activity day and night. Twenty-four hours without rest. I guess I just supposed a smaller town would take a bit longer opening up all the shop doors.
Not Ponyville. The coffee shops are already spilling out that icky, bitter smell, the bakeries graciously wash it away with the warm scent of bread, and all the ponies already walk and talk like a whole day has already happened.
It’s nice though, because in their hustle, nopony is pays me any attention. I’m just somepony else from out of town. I mean, granted, I look nothing like what most ponies associate with ‘Fleetfoot’, but still… it’s nice they have things on their minds more important than spotting celebrities. Boy do city ponies know how to pick you out of a crowd… sheesh.
I keep walking, my own one-track mind giving me a similar pace to the ponies around me, and it isn’t long before I realize why this atmosphere feels so distinctly alien. I turn a corner, and there I am, right in the middle of Mane Street. I check my initial thought on Ponyville actually being a busy place. I had no idea my little temporary loft was this close to the center of town, and I doubt the clamoring of vendors and salesponies reaches much farther than a street or so out. “Celestia forbid Macintosh is in this mess,” I grunt to myself. “Geeewillikers!” I yelp and cough when an attempt to make my way into the mass of milling ponies is literally cut off by a cart wheel. “Cloudsdale sky lines are better than this,” I continue my barely audible complaining, searching for a chance to jump in. I briefly consider just jumping to the clouds like a half-smart pegasus would, only to remind myself that if missing somepony on the ground would be easy, it’d be almost guaranteed from the air. That and well… experience says the ground-bound types don’t exactly like it when you buzz their ears with your hoofsies… heh.
Nope. I just wait, and take a chance to butt in… Only to immediately wonder what my escape strategy is. At least in the city, there was some general direction everypony wanted to travel. Here… futz it. This is just straight chaos. I dart out into an opening between two stalls (one with flowers and the other… a basket with strange glowy balls and ‘love fireworks’ scrawled on a card in front). Thank you, universe, I roll my eyes. Didn’t need reminding I’m walking on thin ice.
“Oh, waddya know? Ain’t that a suprise! Miss Fleetfoot!” a recently familiar voice calls my name, and my base reaction to reel and snarl at them to shut it dies when I whip around. Applejack is waving me over not two stalls from the flower stand, a silly smile on her face and standing right next to Macintosh who is manning their own display with a strange, kind stoicism. My heart skips a beat. I decide I hate ‘love fireworks’.
I skip around behind stalls to make it to them only to erupt into my first hacking fit of the day, which decides to be hateful and stick around long enough to be awkward. I avoid lip smacking when it’s over and giggle like a school filly at both Macintosh and Applejack’s worried looks. “It’s okay. I’m fine,” I scratch unconvincingly.
“If ya say so,” Applejack replies. Not an ounce of belief in those words. Macintosh only arches a brow my way before being distracted by a customer. “But watcha doin’ out ‘round Ponyville business?” Applejack keeps on. “Woulda thought all ya’ll Wonderbolts’d want to sleep in now ya got the chance.”
“Well… could… could we keep bandying about my occupation to a minimum?” I sidestep the conversation briefly. I go to flick my mane with a swish of my head, but remember half-way through I have it different. “It’s nice not being accosted by ponies wanting your hoof print all the time.”
“Sure thang, sugarcube,” Applejack says and winks. Aaaaaand then looks at me expectantly. It take me a minute, but when it hits I blink in silent terror. I really had no expectation of meeting Macintosh around anypony particularly close to him, and even then, I really had no plan of what to say in the first place. My heartbeat is picking up and I can feel my stare starting to go blank. Raw determination can’t keep me going like this much longer. Gotta find something. Anything.
I cough. It’s silly and predictable and I might as well have told Applejack the real reason I’m here; but that one cough got me just enough focus. Wonderbolt training for the clutch! “I felt bad for not staying after I was invited me to dinner,” I say, which is no lie. “I dunno.”
“Uh-huh,” Applejack says slowly, and her eyes slowly scan me up and down. Well, I blew it. She did see right through me. I’m done for. Good try Fleetfoot, but you went in on what is probably one of the dumbest - ! “Well!” Applejack interrupts my self-berating, her tone completely back to its energetic self. “Ain’t me was askin’ ya ta stay,” she says, wrapping a foreleg around my neck and gesturing toward Macintosh with the other. “Why don’ ya hang ‘round the stall with Mac for a bit? I’m sure he’d enjoy some company!”
“I - ah… uh - ah…” I try to protest (why you moron?!) with interspersed half-coughs, but Applejack doesn’t seem to hear me. She leads my stuttering and breathless pegasus arse around the stall, Macintosh steps to the side, and just seconds after I thought I’d done myself in, I’m standing right next to him. My decidedly shorter shoulder is only just separated from Macintosh’s larger, farm work toned one and the little school filly inside me is squealing in delight. “Hi,” I say, looking at him.
He turns to me with a friendly grin and simply says, “Eeuyp.” We both go back to watching the crazy, milling Mane Street, and a small giggle escapes me. But the giddy smile on my very, very nervous lips keeps me from caring too much. And in some side bit of my brain, I realize Applejack is no longer anywhere to be seen. But forget trying to not make this whole situation awkward in front of his sister, now I am faced with not coming off as a complete sap to Macintosh.
“Sorry about… hee… bouncing last night,” I venture. I mean, it worked well enough with Applejack right? That and my kinda one-track mind isn’t changing course any time soon. “I had a lot going on.”
“That’s alright,” Macintosh replies with a simple nod that’s as much for me as a customer. “Sir?” he asks the prospecting stallion. Said colt gives a perplexed look, and I resolutely smack down with a friendly smile the part of me that says I should be verbally ear boxing him. Never thought that press experience would ever come in handy for anything else...
“Just a pair of whichever for breakfast, Big Mac,” he returns his attention to Macintosh while also sliding the bits. And in a motion I can only describe as muscle memory, apples make their way to the counter and bits to a basket under the stall in one smooth arc.
“You, ah… you’ve done this for a while,” I say lamely.
“Eeyup,” Macintosh answers with the same quip. “Since I was old enough.”
Ooo! That I can latch onto. Phew… “Lucky,” I say ruefully, and I mean it. “I didn’t really consider stunt flying until I got my cutie mark. I think I was already thirteen when that finally happened.”
“Mah little sis, Apple Bloom, got ‘ers late too,” he tells me. “Was a real weight off Granny’s shoulders.”
“Pretty sure my parents were thinking of taking me to a doctor all the way in Canterlot they were so worried,” I say. “They’ve never told me though.”
“Sound like carin’ folk, eeyup,” Mac says, his deep tone hitting me again.
“Mom’s still a bit clingy sometimes,” I giggle. “But yeah, they’re great.” I’m just about to ask him about this mysterious second sister of his when all my thoughts are blown to the wind by an abundantly excited filly’s voice.
“SWEET CELESTIA, Mac!” the voice says, only to gain a body second later in the form of a short, orange pegasus filly propping her forelegs on the stall to ogle me. Ogle. “Since when did Wonderbolts hang out with you?” I sense Macintosh’s coolness level has risen by several degrees.
“Settle down, Scootaloo,” he tells with weary amusement. “It ain’t nice ta stare an’ all.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” I say with a nudge to his side and grin for the filly, Scootaloo. “The fillies and colts’re the only fans I can always count on to be genuine.” I give her scruffy purple mane a ruffle.
“Ya’ll didn’ seem so forgivin’ when AJ was hollerin’,” he nudges me back, and I whirl my head with wide eyes to see him wink at me.
I swallow and try to hold it in, but the sass that has landed me in more trouble than I care to admit pushes through. “Cheeky, but that was different,” I say with a slight, swishy adjustment of my wings.
“If ya say so, eeyup,” Mac concedes in a tone that tells me he doesn’t believe me for a second.
“Mac! Don’t let her leave, okay?” Scootaloo implores him and drops down from the stall. “I gotta find AB and Sweetie!” She vanishes on a scooter without waiting for his reply trailing a pretty fantastic dust cloud.
“Ah ain’t gonna make ya stay,” Macintosh tells me matter-of-factly once the cloud settles.
“It’s fine,” I chuckle but develop into a small coughing bout. It luckily ends quick enough, just not in time for me to not make an impression.
“Ya’ll okay?” Mac asks me with legitimate concern. “Ya’ll need any water?”
“Thanks, no, I’m alright,” I snap curtly and immediately regret it. “Sorry. I’m just used to the team not makin’ a big deal out of it anymore.”
“Some kinda bug gotcha?” he says, and we’re now looking at each other as we talk. His eyes are so green.
“If only,” I let myself grouse a bit. “No, it’s all me. I smoke.”
“Well, ya’ll don’ smell like it,” he replies with what I think is encouragement. I think. “An’ ya don’ seem like ya enjoy it.”
“Heh, now that’s the understatement of the year,” I say with some pure resentment. I can’t count how many times I’ve tried stopping. One week. That was all it took for an old hat like me. And I expect Macintosh to suggest I quit. Everypony does. And my old arguments are just about to the surface when all he does is give a low hum of acknowledgment.
I think I melt. If not for romantic sense telling me doing so would be tantamount to self-destruction, I feel like hugging him tightly for a solid minute or so. Nopony has ever just let me be with the whole thing, and not having to defend myself over it just leaves me with a light, airy feeling I definitely could get used to.
I jolt out of my thoughts with a physical jump, feeling my cheeks going beet red when Mac smiles and chuckles. “Oh. Oh!” I try to recover. “I meant to… ah, to ask. Your little sister, Apple Bloom? I didn’t know you had two.”
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The last small whine escapes my mouth as I wipe clean of now dry frosting the final apple of the bunch for sale at Macintosh’s stand. “Ya’ll didn’t eat none, did ya?” I hear him ask from the other side. I toss the rag I’d been using to a bucket filled with similarly frosting saturated cloth. “No,” I sigh in response. “I just… how? Why?” I try to rationalize the sweet flood that had burst from Sugar Cube Corner only to end up just as exasperated as I had been.
“Pinkie,” Mac says, and I peer around the bushels to stare at him with a raised brow.
“Is that an explanation or the start of one?” I ask, feigning disinterest. Sweet Celestia, I feel like I’m putting on Spits…
“Eeyup,” Mac chooses to only frustrate me further with a smile before tossing his own rag to the waiting bucket. “Best not ta think ‘bout it.”
“Or?” I continue anyway, following him back into the stall and watching the (much more calm and normal) early afternoon Mane street.
“Yer sanity,” Mac says with a shrug. “Ain’t nopony gonna figure Pinkie Pie soon. Best to leave ‘er be.”
“How do put up with that kind of… I still don’t know what I just saw…” I say.
“Apple family patience,” Mac replies and that only makes me give him a larger single brow.
“And that leaves everypony else where?” I ask.
“Practice,” he says, nodding to a waving pony before exiting the stall and retrieving the cart Applejack had left earlier that morning. I flip around to follow his movements, my thoughts a little fuzzy over what exactly he was doing.
And of course, I open my mouth while still confused, “What’re you doing?” Brilliant. You either sound like an accusatory bitch or scared filly, Fleetfoot. Just fantastic. Can’t just let a good time end nicely can you?
But Macintosh doesn’t seem to mind. He drops the cart by the bushels and starts to load them up. “Packin’,” he says between loads.
“Do you want some help?” I ask, mentally clamboring for how to gracefully make myself a less than embarrassing exit and taking to hovering beside the apple baskets. “I haven’t really done much except laze around…”
“Ya’ll’ve been good company, Miss Fleetfoot,” Macintosh tells me, and I feel my heart stop only to start again like it wants to burst with every beat. I hope the heat isn’t going to my cheeks. And thank Luna’s plot I started hovering, else I’m sure my wings would’ve pompfed.
“So you’ve got it?” I ask even as he puts the last bushel into the cart with a huff.
“Eeyup,” he says, hitching in.
“I… well, thank you for letting me stay around. It… it was nice to get to know you a little,” I jitter out the sappiest goodbye a filly could come up with. I almost face hoof, but Mac is still eyeing me with a… contemplative look in his eye.
“Do ya’ll have plans for lunch, Miss Fleetfoot?” he asks me without any pomp or circumstance. And the lack of either stifles me for a moment. Is he really…? I think, dropping to the ground and struggling to keep my wings at my sides.
“No…” I say, caution keeping down the unbelievable excitement I can feel growing stronger and stronger by the second.
“Ya’ll want some at the farm?” Mac keeps on. And he doesn’t even seem nervous! This is unfair. “Yer good company.”
“Sure!” I all but blurt, trotting up alongside him with a barely concealed shiver of energy. My inner dam of caution is pretty much… no, it is gone. Spitfire is probably going to kill me now, but I don’t even care. Not at the moment. “You’re some pretty good company yourself,” I say on instinct, just letting it take me where it will.
I remember how good this feels.