When we got to the mall, Shining Waterfall stepped out of the car and looked around at the other ponies. Like me, this was clearly the first time she had been in public looking like a mare. I smiled as she turned to look at me while I shut the door I had just carefully climbed out of. I was surprised at the differences in posture I needed in order to keep my image as a mare. It was hard to learn that after having previously living my life with my natural stallion postures.
I gingerly walked around the car and put a reassuring hoof on Shining's shoulder, "You're going to be fine. Look, the ponies around us don't even know we've got dangley bits."
I looked at her eyes lighten as I said it. She smiled and nodded at me, effortlessly keeping her female posture. She had come out to her family who were generally accepting of unusual types like us. Those close to her likely encouraged her to practice acting and sounding like a girl. I had to make an excuse about using as few voice actors as possible in order to even get the voice right. And the posture was even more difficult to practice. I still managed, and I had gotten the walk down perfectly.
The three of us pranced cheerfully toward the large building, ready to have a fun day. The first store we hit was a shoe store. We tried on several pairs of fancy looking shoes each. I bought Shining a pair she had been eyeing after the whole time we were at the store, it was her birthday, after all. We moved on to a dress shop. We each got similar simple white dresses made by a fashion designer of growing popularity named Rarity. After that, we went to get hooficures and talked about how much we were enjoying the day and I gave Shinning a long winded speech about how I was so happy we actually got to do this.
When our hooficures had dried, we went to the food court and ordered some Old McDonald's. When we got our orders, we sat down next to an indoor fountain that shot patterned jets of water upwards in intervals, catching the liquid before sending it flying back up in another momentary jet. We all watched it as we ate, mesmerized by the hypnotic pattern of dancing geysers firing toward the skylight to come crashing bacl down onto the small, black, granite pyramid.
"I've always loved that fountain." I said when I finished my burger and hay fries.
Aurora responded, "You know, when it gets dark out, they turn on some colorful lights in it."
"It has lights!?" Shining gasped in awe.
Aurora giggled a bit, "It sure does."
"That's amazing." I remarked.
I hadn't realized that a stallion had scooted his way next to me as we had our conversation. He was starring right at me. He was clearly waiting for the right time to make a move, as he cleared his throat after my remark.
He complimented me, "Not as amazing as your eyes."
"Hehehehehe... I uhhh... I'm... ooooooohhhh, I'm so sorry... I'm not single..." I got up and pushed Shining over to where I was sitting, "But she is!"
She looked at me, "Aria..."
"Shining, it's okay. You can do this. And look at him. He's really hot!" I attempted to encourage her.
The stallion spoke up, "You have really nice looking eyes too. I always liked green."
"Thank you. I-I like your eyes too. Blue is one of my favorite colors." She giggled a bit.
He smiled at her, "My name's Lightning Strike, what's yours?"
"I'm Shining Waterfall. How old are you?" Asked Shining.
He said, "I'm sixteen. How about you?"
"Oh, Celestia... I'm eighteen today." She blushed intensely.
He also blushed as he stood up, "Whoa there, sorry. Didn't know you were a legal adult AND oit of my league... heh, no chance for me here... see ya..." He walked away.
"A sixteen year old, really hot, huh?" Aurora chuckled a bit at me.
I glared at her, "How was I supposed to know he was still a colt!?"
The two just laughed at my mistake. I sighed and laughed with them. There was no point in trying to reason about it anymore. I misread somepony's age, and, well, it was fairly funny. Once we finished laughing, we went to the computer store, as I had talked about getting the two into gaming, and I knew the owner of this store, so we could likely get a couple gaming laptops for cheap. That's exactly what we did, and I was so excited to get them started on my favorite MMO. It was a sci-fi fantasy game that took a lot of inspiration from several ancient god mythologies.
We went around for a little while longer until we decided to walk into the game store and buy a few PC games. We then set up at the nearest WiFi hotspot/charging station and started up the computers we had bought. It was a good thing I decided to buy them mice as well. Using the pad on those laptops was always a nightmare. While they downloaded and installed the MMO, I went and got my gaming PC to join in. When I pulled it up with them, they had finished setting up their characters. We all friended each other and I started a Pantheon for us to be in, which was this game's version of a guild. We played together until they had leveled up quite a bit and the mall was nearing closing time.
We shut our computers down and made way towards the exit. On the way, we stopped and looked at the fountain with its colorful lights showing in the columns of water. It gave off a glow I would never forget, and every time I thought of it, I would think of this day, I saw it as the best day of my life so far, and I looked forward to having another in a year. I was going to make it every year come Tartarus or high water. I was glad we got to make Shining's day great, and I was so happy her birthday was a good one.
We got to Aurora's house and Shining and I bid farewell to Aurora before switching to my pickup. I drove Shining home and watched her grab her stuff and get into her house. I then made my way home, thinking about what the consequences of telling them my personal situation would be. I dreaded the reaction I knew I was going to get, but I would face it head on.