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Three

A Sleeping Rose
Three
Admiral Biscuit

Rose shifted around in the bed, getting her hooves under her. It looked awkward, and there was one moment where her body shifted when I thought she was going to fall on me, but she caught herself. “I'm going to use the little filly's room,” she said as she cautiously stepped over me.

“Don't take too long,” I muttered.

She paused, halfway across me, a look of concern in her eyes. “I can wait, if you—“

“No, it's your house; you ought to go first. I can hold it for a while longer.”

She didn't reply, just hopped off the bed and headed out of the bedroom. I watched her leave, already missing the warmth of contact, then flopped back down on the pillow. I idly reached over toward the wall and pulled the covers toward myself, but I knew in my heart that the time for sleeping was gone. The bed had turned against me, like all beds do when too much time is spent in them.

I stretched once, still lying on my back, before rolling upright and letting my feet fall to the floor. I gave my body sufficient time to adapt from horizontal to vertical mode, then stood up, one of my knees cracking. I hate that; I'm too young to have bad knees.

One step away from the bed I performed my first real stretch, lacing my fingers behind my head and arching my back. There were no further cracks or pops, which was a relief, although my right bicep cramped slightly. I sighed. I'd been having problems with muscle cramps for months. I couldn't remember if it was potassium or vitamin K that helped prevent cramps—whichever it was, it was in bananas. Which ponies didn't seem to have. Or maybe they did and they'd just always been sold out at the market. Whatever the case, there were no mares or stallions with banana cutie marks, and I hadn't seen any banana trees in town, either.

I gently massaged my aching muscle, while I looked around Rose's bedroom. It was a part of pony home I'd never seen before.

It wasn't surprising that it looked pretty much the same as any woman's. A mirror hung on the wall above a vanity, which was littered with small jars of beauty supplies and brushes and combs. Nearer to the bed was a small end-table, which held a pitcher of water and a glass, which had a rose in it. It was hard to tell if she'd meant for the glass to serve as a vase, or if she'd happened to have the rose in her room and wanted to put it somewhere. Based on my memories as a young adult, it could have been either.

On the far wall was a wooden frame that held a clothes rod; three dresses were hung from that. Next to it was a dresser, and I considered going through her drawers to see what she kept in it.

When I rented my house, I'd been surprised to discover that the small loft bedroom didn't have a closet. In hindsight, it made perfect sense that it wouldn't.

Like most peoples', the top of her dresser held a few framed photographs. Since she wasn't back yet, I decided to walk over and get a look. There were a couple of her with her friends—Lily and Daisy—a faded black and white of her as a filly with what I could only assume were her parents, and a fairly recent signed photograph of her standing beside some unicorn in a sweater who was wearing black glasses. He had the kind of face that you either love or hate, and I fell into the latter camp. Whoever he was, I'd never seen him around Ponyville. He was probably some sort of celebrity.

The one thing I didn't find were my shorts and underwear. I finally got down on my hands and knees and was peering under the bed when Rose finally returned. Oddly, I didn't hear her hooves in the hallway; instead, she announced her presence by snickering as she came in.

“What's so funny?” I pulled my head out from the under the bed and turned to face her.

“You look like . . . like a tail-less mare with no coat when you're standing like that,” she told me.

“I can't find my shorts,” I whined. “I don't know where they went.”

“They're in the little filly's room,” she said. “I—do you need me to get them?” She looked me up and down as I got to my feet; once again her eyes locked on my bare hips, which of course meant she was essentially staring at my crotch. I self-consciously moved a hand to cover myself, before giving up and pretending I just needed to scratch. She was going to stare either way, and it wasn't like I hadn't checked out a few ponies in the past.

“I'll just go, and use the bathroom, and get my shorts.” I shuffled out the door, to Rose's bemused look.

When I was halfway down the stairs, I remembered that I was fully nude, and Rose had two room-mates. She'd said that they were gone yesterday, but that didn't mean they still were. Maybe she'd spent a little extra time catching up with them . . . and while I'd become enough of a fixture in town that they didn't scream and run when they saw me, how might they react if they saw me in their house wearing my birthday suit?

I couldn't turn around and tell Rose that I was afraid to use her bathroom on my own, so I was committed. Still, I hesitated when I got to the foot of the stairs, peering around the wall to make sure there were no unexpected mares to view my progress.

There were none. I safely made it to the bathroom, where my shorts and underwear were indeed tossed into a corner. I was sure I knew why I'd left them there—the squat toilets the ponies favored had given me all sorts of trouble, and undoubtedly last night I'd simply removed my clothes to prevent accidentally peeing on them.

One of these days, I thought as I took aim, I'm going to convince a craftsmare to build me a human-style toilet. An actual flush toilet might have been beyond what I could afford, although such things did exist, but maybe just a seat would make the smallest room of my house feel more like home.

The unisex bathroom in the hospital had a urinal for the mares. That still struck me as odd.

“Sam?” A hoof gently tapped on the door. “I'm going to make breakfast. Do you want anything?”

“Do you have milk?”

“I think so.”

“Cereal or oatmeal will be fine.”

“Okay.”

“Are Lily and Daisy home?”

“No; they won't be back until tomorrow. Why?”

“I. . . .” I looked over at my clothes. How could I explain that I'd actually begun to get used to not wearing them? I wasn't ready to go out into town without—maybe one of these days I'd get up the courage to—but I actually didn't feel like putting them on just yet. I couldn't quite work through it in my mind, but somehow it felt as if the act of not getting dressed was an important step towards fitting in socially.

Maybe I'd ask Nurse Tenderheart about that next time we met.

“Sam?”

“Sorry! I just didn't want to, ah, surprise them.” I picked up my clothes and opened the door. Rose took a step back. She glanced at my hips again before she looked up into my eyes.

“You're just . . . I'm sorry, but you know that monsters come out of the Everfree sometimes.”

I rubbed my hand in her mane. “I know.”

“How come you didn't put on your clothes?”

“I didn't feel like it.” That statement felt oddly liberating, especially when it wasn't met with outrage from Rose.

“Okay.” She turned and headed for the kitchen, with me trailing behind. There was still a small part of my mind insisting that this was in no way normal, but that voice had been getting quieter and quieter for months.

Rose busied herself with sorting through the cupboards, while I set our places at the table. Last night when I'd done the dishes, I'd put away the salad bowls, so I knew right where they were. Since she was an earth pony, she didn't have any silverware. Once upon a time, that would have been a problem for me, but now it was just another social convention I'd managed to unlearn.

Mostly.

I had a set of silverware at home, and I ate my meals with them. The dichotomy of pony society was subtle, but always present. Unicorns invariably used eating utensils, while the other two tribes normally did not. I could only imagine what sort of planning went into hosting a mixed-tribe formal dinner.

I'd grown used to the raw oats that ponies loved so much for breakfast. It really wasn't bad with a little milk added to soften it up, although I always got odd looks when I emptied my glass in the bowl and stirred it around, and Rose was no exception. She, bless her heart, didn't say anything, but the raised eyebrow got the message across just fine.

We ate breakfast in silence. I washed the dishes over Rose's protests, arranging them neatly in the dish rack beside the sink. I thought about drying them and putting them away, but it seemed politer to give her something to do later.

We both looked at each other. It was that awkward silence when both people know it's time to part ways, but neither knows quite how to phrase it. Wordlessly, I stepped into my underwear, doing a one-legged hop around Rose's kitchen as I got both legs through the appropriate holes.

“You could—“

“I'm just not ready,” I said. “Not yet. Baby . . . uh, foal steps, Rose.”

Rose sighed and hooked my shorts with a hoof. She lifted them in front of her face and looked at them thoughtfully. I could hear the clink of bits in the pocket, and I suddenly had a vision of the golden coins falling out of the pocket one-by-one while I chased them through the kitchen.

We stood that way for at least a minute. I was too polite to demand that she hand over my shorts, and I could tell that she had something she wanted to say.

She moved her hoof forward, and I reached my hand toward her. Just as I was about to touch the fabric of my shorts, she spoke. “You're a nice human.” Her pupils shrank as if she'd just confessed to replacing the mayor's mane dye with Nair. “You just don't fit in.”

“I wonder why not?” I muttered sarcastically as I took my shorts.

“It's because you act like you're hiding something all the time,” she said, clamping a hoof over her mouth as I glared at her.

I've been told I have a withering glare. Some of the effect is probably lost when my shorts are around my ankles, but it was still enough to get Rose to back up a step.

“Mules don't have cutie marks,” she said defensively. “And we get along just fine.”

“That's not what I'm covering,” I told her.

“Well, if it's your weird coat you're concerned about, ponies would get used to it. Besides, you've got a thin coat under your arms and you don't cover that.”

I can't believe I'm having this conversation with a pony I just ate breakfast with, after sharing a bed. “It's not—“

“What, then?” She shook her head. “What are you hiding? You can't help being human.”

“Rose.” I buttoned my shorts and then put a hand on her head. “It's okay.”

She sighed and leaned her head against my hip. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't judge other ponies.”

“Come on, Rose.” I knelt down in front of her and looked her right in the eyes. “You're a wonderful mare. I really enjoyed working with you yesterday, and I sincerely thank you for letting me spend the night.”

Her ears perked up and she looked me in the eye before gently nuzzling my face. “I didn't want you to get wet, and . . . and. . . .”

“It's okay,” I said again, gently stroking her mane. “Hey, listen—I wonder if maybe you could come over to my house later, and give me some advice on a flower garden? Could you do that for me, Rose?”

She sniffled, and then leaned forward and rubbed her muzzle against my cheek. “I . . . it's going to rain this afternoon.”

“I, ah.” I cleared my throat. “It's okay. I've got a big enough bed to share.”

Author's Note:

Who wants to see Rose's side of this story?

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