A Pegasus Is Fine, Two

by stanku

That Kind of an Atmosphere

It had been a strange summer. And if the signs were any good, the autumn wouldn’t be any less so.

Rainbow Dash sat in the Heartmend Cafe, the only place in Ponyville that could boast of including the cutest napkins in Equestria. They had tiny hearts in them. They were pink. And, if you sniffed carefully, you could notice this slight fragrance of cinnamon emanating from them. Why do they smell like cinnamon? wondered the azure pegasus while eyeing a rackful of the things with suspicion. It felt to her that they were sneering at her. She sneered back at them, taking a sip of her drink. All it does is makes me wanna eat buns…

The empty glass hit the table as she burped loudly, which made the nearby patrons cast disapproving glances at her. Dash muttered an apology of sorts, cracking a smile that certainly did not befit the atmosphere of the cafe. The atmosphere in question was best described by the notion that nopony, Dash excluded, seemed to mind the napkins. And they were, with one exception, sitting by pairs, their gazes interlocked and mouths curved in shy smiles sprinkled with hopes, promises and, in some cases, thoughts that could only be whispered with a husky voice. Candlelight was compulsory, as was the delicate music, played by a cellist who could make the hollow wood go soft. That kind of an atmosphere.

I swear, another ten minutes and I’ll wing it. Fluttershy can reserve a table from the moon for all I care; if things get any sweeter, I'll get diabetes. Dash grabbed the glass again, emptying the rest of it in one go. The continuous flow of the sweet nectar was her only haven in the seas of commercial romance, and she wasn’t going to let go of it. “Another one, please!” she said, somewhat louder than in the last five-ish times. This stirred another annoyed reaction, not only from the nearest table, but from the three others beyond that. Dash tried her best to ignore their glares, but still saw it wise not to underline her request by knocking the table with the empty glass. The waiter came soon enough anyway, carrying what Dash could only call a life-saver.

However, before the waiter – an earth pony stallion with, yes, a bowtie with little hearts on it – set the glass ahead of the parched mare, he leaned closer in the way that waiters do when they want to express a state of mind rather than simple words. “Miss Dash? There is a certain concern that would require your attention.”

Dash blew a curl of mane out of her eyes. “No worries, pal. The pay came just last week – I got the bits.” She reached for the frosty glass with a not-so-ponderous hoof.

The waiter, to Dash’s dismay, moved the tray out of her reach. “I’m certain you do. However, that is not the issue.”

Dash looked the stallion in the eyes. “What is, then?”

He coughed. “You see, the evening is quite busy, and since this is a table of three which you have been occupying alone for the last twenty minutes…” The suggestion that followed was not said. Rather, it was written on his forehead.

Dash tapped the centre of the table with a hoof. “But it’s reserved, right?”

“Yes, but the rules of reservation say that if the table is not claimed half an hour after the appointed time–”

“It has been claimed!” said Dash, her volume escaping her by a few ticks. The cider in her wasn’t into small details.

A momentary frown visited the waiter’s brow. “Claimed by the whole group that made the reservation, it actually says.” The suggestion materialized again, with some more insistence this time.

Dash tried to think quickly, but the cider wasn’t too big on running, either. “Uhh… Hey, the table has been paid for, right? You can’t just throw out a paying customer!”

The stallion winced. “That would indeed be out of the question. I was merely going to suggest that perhaps you could settle for a table of one instead? We’ve already had to turn away customers because of the lack of appropriate tables.” He pointed with a hoof.

Dash followed with her eyes. In a quiet corner, next to a pot plant, there stood a lone table with a lone chair. It was the saddest thing she had seen all week. The idea of waiting there until Thunderlane and Fluttershy arrived made the creeps run along her spine. Still, the stallion had the edge of reasonability, a tough nut to crack anywhere. Fortunately, Dash had just the right antidote in mind: bargaining.

“Look, I’m sure the others are right about to walk in here,” she said, looking at him again. “Cut me a deal of te–fifteen minutes, okay?”

The waiter considered this with a face of one who’d rather be the one doing the selling. “Miss Dash… The rules are there for a reason.”

“Hey, you said the limit’s thirty,” said Dash quickly. “Let’s just stick to that and see where we are then, how about that?”

The waiter gave her a look. “Very well. But after–” he glanced at the watch on his wrist “–seven and a half minutes, I must ask you to change the table.”

Dash paused for a moment, giving the impression that she was seriously considering the offer. “Deal, but I’ll reserve the right to open the negotiations in the future. Now, can I get that cider?”

The waiter set the glass on the table and left at once. Over her sip, Dash watched him go, wondering if she could buy more time by demanding to see the actual rules of reserving. But what’d be the point? If Shy and Lane ain't coming in ten minutes or so, why should I be hanging here any longer either? Obviously they got something better to do than being on time. And the worst part is that I’ve a pretty good picture of what that something might be…

The whole thing still didn’t quite fit in her mind. Ever since their little ménage-á-trois had kicked in some months past, Thunderlane and Fluttershy had been acting… weirdly. After a few weeks, Dash had been positively surprised when Fluttershy had suggested that they’d replay their little threeway, this time in Fluttershy’s house. Thunderlane had been more than eager to comply. It had been an awesome afternoon, and the morning hadn’t been bad either. It was after that when things started to get tricky.

Thunderlane had stayed with Fluttershy when Dash had left, and already then she had gotten the impression that he wasn’t in it just for the brunch that Fluttershy had graciously offered to cook up. That was all fine and proper, of course: if the two got along without her as the apron, all the better for everypony, right? Heck, that was what Dash had been hoping for in the first place; to help Fluttershy get over her stiffness in what came to sex. And Thunderlane was a cool stud; he’d be a joy to have around more often.

In the next month, they had more threesome sessions than Dash cared to count, and they were all great, no, they were just amazing. Really awesome. Three people having sex had the advantage that one could always just watch and rest while the others went on, and the talk in between the rounds rarely grew stale. Three ponies naturally had more to share than just two, in every way imaginable. It came to the point where they were skipping time with their other friends, just to hang out in one of their houses, at which point Dash started feeling overworked. There was more to her world than sex, after all, even more than great sex with her best friends. There was a sky to keep clear, drills to plan, Pinkie to do pranks with. With time, their sessions had climbed up in frequency, peaked, and then started a steady drop.

At least the sessions of all three of them had. While they were spending more time together than ever, Dash had noticed that she was spending less time with Fluttershy alone than she had for… longer that she could remember. Thunderlane was always there, it seemed, when she looked back at the summer. And when he wasn’t, Fluttershy had often asked that he’d be invited, even if they weren’t planning for sex. Again, this was all fine and proper for Dash. Even the fact that Fluttershy and Thunderlane were starting to spend more and more time with just the two of them was totally acceptable, and that was the magic word – acceptable. Not awesome or amazing, just… acceptable. Totally.

I even caught them doing it, once, thought Dash while surveying the couples in the dimly lit room. The memory never seemed to grow old, even though it had happened already over a month ago. There she was, flying to Fluttershy’s, already on the door when she had heard something in the garden. A giggle, and some whispering. A moan. She had sneaked on the roof to take a peek, and had almost dropped down at the sight of it.

They were doing it among the carrots.

The carrots.

With Dash, Fluttershy wouldn’t do it on the bed if there was but one crumb of sand on the mattress. It was uncomfortable, she would say.

Dash hadn’t interrupted them or made her presence known. She hadn’t even stayed to watch, although that would’ve been easy, the way how immersed they had been in their… fun. Instead, she had just gone with Pinkie instead. They had filled a bucket with water and seen how well it stayed over Twilight’s new castle’s front door. It didn’t, really, as Spike had found out. Dash had almost managed to ignore the notion that Thunderlane had been doing stuff with Fluttershy that she had thought would be impossible. How about that.

But what did it matter, at the end of the day? It was still Thunderlane. It was still Fluttershy. And the carrots were just carrots. Heck, maybe Fluttershy’s changed? Ponies change. But how didn’t I notice it earlier?

A quiet cough by her side pulled Dash out of her thoughts. She looked up.

“Yet alone, I see,” said the waiter. There was a sense of smugness in his voice that didn't play well with Dash’s current mood. Well, really it wouldn’t have played well with any mood she might have had.

“There’s no fooling you, is there?” she asked. She tried to sip her drink again, but found it empty. The stallion flinched as the glass was pushed in front of his face in a flash. “Won’t you bring me another one, eh? We can talk business right after.”

The waiter opened his mouth.

“Rainbow!” called a familiar voice from the door. Both the waiter and Dash turned their heads, although it was only Rainbow who smiled afterwards.

“Come here, Shy!” she called back, waving with a hoof. “And you too, Lane!”

Followed by some frowned eyebrows, Fluttershy and Thunderlane made their way past another waiter by the door. After the compulsory greetings were exchanged, Dash turned a victorious look to the waiter. “The table has been claimed, by all the rules you can come up with. Now, to start off, why don’t you go fetch two buddies to the cider I just ordered? Please?”

The stallion smiled. It wasn’t a very kind smile. “Yes, miss Dash.”

“What’s up with him?” asked Thunderlane after he had gone.

Dash couldn’t help but to notice that the dark-grey pegasus had pulled his chair closer to Fluttershy’s than hers, right after the two had sat down. “Oh, we had to go over some formalities. Like why you guys were half an hour late.” There was the tiniest question mark at the end.

Thunderlane and Fluttershy looked abashed, but in a way that hinted that they were a bit proud about it. Dash made a mental note about that.

“Uhh… We just lost the sense of time,” said Thunderlane after a while, rubbing the back of his neck.

Fluttershy nodded, a faint blush glowing on her cheeks. “Yes. We definitely did.” She gave an apologetic look at Dash. “I’m really sorry, Dashie.”

“We both are,” said Thunderlane hurriedly. “It was my fault, more than anything.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” cooed Fluttershy, smoothing his mane.

Dash studied them with a rising sense of weirdness. “Yeah, whatevs. At least you’re here now.” She reached for the small table nearby, crabbing a few menus. “I leafed through these four times already, so trust me when I say that the appetizers aren’t much to look at. And the deserts gave me so many quips that I had to write down the best of them.” She offered the pink leaflets to the two.

Fluttershy accepted them, but put them on the table unopened. She exchanged a quick look with Thunderlane, who gave her the faintest of nods. Even against the cider sloshing in Dash circulatory system, she figured out that something was up.

“Dashie…” started Fluttershy. “There’s something we need to tell you.”

Dash looked at her, then at Thunderlane. The shortest fuse lighted inside her mind, only to blow up a big barrel of hasty conclusions. “Oh, hay no…” She leaned over the table, eyes wide. “Are you pregs?”

The two jumped a bit at the word. “No!” they yelped, to the general irritation of the closest table. The waiter was giving them looks, but Dash didn’t give a damn at the moment. “You sure? You’ve been doing it like mad for the past weeks.”

“I eat my herbs,” mumbled Fluttershy, red as a strawberry. Thunderlane was doing his best to look at the ceiling.

Dash’s shoulders relaxed, and the relief was audible in her sigh. She leaned back in her chair, rocking it a bit. “Yeah, of course you do… Heck, you grow the damn things. Of course you know how to use them.”

Fluttershy, still fighting with the blush, cleared her throat. “Anyway… There really is something we need to tell you.” Under the table, she squeezed Thunderlane’s hoof. He pulled his eyes from the ceiling.

“Yeah?” said Dash. With her neck hanging over her shoulders, she was oblivious to the change that took place in the other two. “You finally up for that foursome?”

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “We’re engaged.”

Dash crashed on the floor.

Comments

[The Blessed One]

Now I must finish the first one! I can't wait to start this!

[Shadowrain1000]

Wat.

[Frizzy]

Oh shit.

[Wolfy]

Well I thought that they were gonna say that they're a couple but no jump right in to engagement, it's more fun that way.

[Ravemastaj]

Waitwaitwait, hold on Fluttershy.

So you called dibs on Rainbow...*suddenly a realization happens as I write*

Oh I see. Rainbow is too free-spirited to trap in that kind of cage, which is why you never did it. It still seems like a dick move to get engaged to her friend, and then leave her out of it completely. Couldn't you at least have asked her to be best mare? Or a bridesmaid? Or something?

[Iroh Legoman]

Ooo, Somehow I think I saw that coming