Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 37: Anew

Thump thump thump.

"Snrgk! Guh! What?"

Rainbow Dash shot up, sitting bent and disheveled on her bed. Each of her legs were folded or twisted in a contorted configuration not unlike a squashed bug. One wing was spread and flattened under her like roadkill while the other wing poked out crumpled, twitching as it slowly stretched back into its natural shape. Her mane had taken on a strange mold like the side of her head had been blasted by a cannonball of hair gel, and each of her eyes blinked independently without regard for the other.

A few of her wits gathered together quickly: she was in her room at the Passion's Embrace, and that headache she felt was all that was left of last night's party.

Thump thump thump.

"Oh. Right. Wake-up call."

She shook her head and it rattled like a rolling tin can with a single bead inside. Slowly she dragged herself out of bed, but she had a hard time of it. Her bedsheet had been twirled into a rope overnight and had to be detangled from her, she had to wave her stiff and prickly legs until they finally began to obey her, and every crinkle had to be pushed out of her feathers one at a time. All the while she piled yawn on top of cavernous yawn.

The funny thing was: if she had actually gotten in a good nap yesterday then she wouldn't have been nearly this discombobulated now.

Thump thump thump.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm-... Be right-... Whatever."

Between four disorganized legs and two fidgety wings, she had some trouble hauling herself over to her room door. She nearly cracked her skull on it when she arrived, and she raised a hoof to open it when...

Thump thump thump.

The sound almost patted her on the back of her head. She looked with confusion at the silent door.

Thump thump thump.

Again the blunt sensation of the noise patted her from behind.

She gave her head another hard shake but there wasn't any sleepy cotton left stuffing her ears. Mystified, she turned to look back at her room.

From under her balcony curtain came fresh morning light and, though it was soft and mellow, it still felt like a beam of fire being shot straight into her freshly opened eyes. Immediately she shielded herself with a wing.

Thump thump thump.

"... What the...?"

It was a stumble to reach the other side of the room. Every effort to peek around her wing-blindfold only got her a sting of light. She knew she had made it to the curtain when she felt herself slap right into its heavy fabric.

Thump thump thump.

Much louder than at the door. Definitely something against the outside wall.

"Alright, what is going on?"

She squeezed her eyes shut to keep them safe and then flailed her wings and hooves about, catching the curtain in several places and little by little clawing it open.

The Carriaggean sun spilled in and smothered her face, though mostly by its hot reflection off the balcony's white stone floor, and this time she shielded herself with both her wings. Her first attempt to open her eyes was simply fire, and so was the second. By her third attempt her sensitivity had softened and she managed to endure for a few moments, reading the scene through the meshed vanes of her feathers.

There was somepony standing there on the balcony.

"Who're you?" she asked.

Nosedive didn't say anything, but his very next breath did come out of him rather hot.

He turned away towards the balcony edge, offering not even as much as a "good morning." Rainbow Dash could hear the brush his wings spreading.

"Breakfast is ready downstairs," he finally said.

"Uh... okay? But why did-"

"However," he cut her off with an edge of cold steel in his voice, "you're only going to get any if you win!"

And he took flight, soaring skywards.

"What?! Hey!"

Rainbow Dash popped her eyes open and powered through the bright agony. She could see the other pony ripping upwards towards some kind of marker floating in the sky, and there were other markers following it. She stapled her eyelids open so that she could focus on her target, absorbing the oodles of searing pain.

Nosedive leveled out as he blew past the first marker. It was a short bamboo post snuggled into a tiny puff of cloud, with a big fat leaf tied to the top to serve as a facsimile of a pennant. A crude design, yes, but technically it comported to all the requirements of an official race marker as laid out by the Association Regulating Aerial Competitions and Events.

Swoop! He banked hard around the markers which highlighted the first curve!

Vroosh! He dove but then pulled up, whipping through a tall loop and blasting out of it like a whizzing bullet!

Whirr! He spun in a corkscrew through a series of cloud-rings, deftly threading each shrinking needle!

There wasn't one zip of speed he spared; he sailed along the sky-track like tomorrow was chasing him down to devourer him! Not once did he look behind himself, instead always facing the razor-sharp winds as they tore into his wings and mane. The rushing air roared in his ears.

But somewhere under the screaming air he heard behind him a very different kind of roar.

Again he swooped low and tightly arced through another hard curve. He zigzagged with all his skill through a few camelbacks, daring to nearly shave some fluff off the staggered cloud markers. Afterwards he swung down sharply towards the next vertical loop, and he drew his wings in close to build speed.

The roar behind him grew louder; louder than even the ear-piercing wind.

Nosedive stayed focused. He tunneled his vision. He saw only the tube of air he was going to shoot through to start his perfect loop.

More precise than a hawk diving from the clouds into a white river and coming up with a fish, he nailed his entry and flawlessly slashed his way upwards. Cutting through the curve so strongly started a fire on his belly. And at the very peak of the loop, when he could see the upside down island above him, with early workers out in the orchard and blue waves lapping at the beach, he heard an explosion like a boom of thunder bursting in his ears.

A rainbow streak blazed by him. It existed for only a moment, blinking through the rest of the loop like a flash of lightning, and in its wake there was a loud shock wave of wind which nearly knocked Nosedive out of his arc. The mighty roar which had been haunting him followed after, panting and gasping as it tried to keep up with the rainbow trail.

Nosedive recovered and finished his loop, having lost only a little bit of speed from the error, but even as soon as he hit the bottom he saw how hopeless the rest of the race was. Strokes of rainbow were being drawn through the rest of the course, curling and cutting like cursive skywriting; an essay composed faster than the most quick-tongued race announcer could have possibly read.

If only for his own pride Nosedive tried to push himself back to full speed, but he had already conceded.

The finish line banner was of course just a checkered tablecloth wrapped between two shafts of bamboo, and even though Rainbow Dash blitzed under it at top speed she still managed to snap to a dead stop upon the small cloud it had been placed on. There was a moment of near-complete stillness, the only movement being the brushing of her mane and tail by a trailing wind. Then suddenly the surge of adrenaline gave her a latent kick in the rear.

"Aw heck yeah!"

She bounced up and unloaded a victory parade of heroic flexing. One fast race had been the only thing needed to have banished her tired, drowsy self to the forgotten oblivion of one minute ago. Goodbye snoozy, snoring Rainbow Dash! Ultimate winner Rainbow Dash was up, awake, and here to stay!

She must have been triumphantly kicking and posing and hyping herself for nearly half a minute before Nosedive at last glided over the finish line. He touched down on the cloud, folded up his wings, shook the sweat from himself, and put on a stoic face for what he now well knew was going to follow his defeat.

Right on cue Rainbow Dash pointed at him and crowed, "Boo-yah! Make my breakfast, lead-wings! Haha!"

"That was pretty amazing," Nosedive worked hard to take her bellowing in stride, and it wasn't too difficult; he was genuinely impressed. "I had a head start and foreknowledge of the course, and you still won by a huge margin. On a quick D length point-to-point, no less! I wish we had a timekeeper; that might have been some kind of record."

Chuffed, the winner lauded herself, "Ha! I set the record for number of records set by a single pony! Now then: I want pancakes, extra chocolate chips, and enough syrup that I can go swimming in it! Chop chop, slowpoke!"

"... Breakfast was already made. You've just won your share of it."

He then held back cautiously for a moment. The scales of risk went back and forth in his mind.

"It's Nosedive, by the way," he finally said.

"Well, Nosedive," Rainbow Dash retorted, and then she actually adopted a chummy and rather sportsponylike air, "better luck next time!"

---

Tweep tweep tweep!

"Oh, that's very good to hear," Fluttershy replied. However, her expression took a small but gloomy turn. "I mean, I was worried after all the trouble I had even finding one of you, let along getting one of you to talk to me..."

The friendly parakeet hooked his feet more securely to the balcony's stone railing and let his chest plumage puff a little.

Twee, twee tweep tweep!

"Yes, you are very brave," Fluttershy agreed, "and such a handsome shade of green, too. I'm very lucky to get to ask you so many questions."

An untrained eye would have read the bird's up-and-down bobbing as some kind of dance, and the hoisting of his wings as some kind of threatening display, but the experienced animal handler knew a showboating bird when she saw one.

She pressed on, "So, if everything is mostly nice on this island as you say, why do all of you hide from everypony?"

The parakeet waved a wing dismissively; he wasn't a hider, of course. He tweeted about his fellow animals who weren't quite so courageous, but only generally about the reasons why.

Fluttershy was shocked.

"‘They've seen some—’ what?" she echoed, and then she tenderly but sternly scolded the feathered foul-mouth, "Do you kiss your mama bird with that beak?"

It wasn't very bird-like to snort so instead the parakeet buzzed his beak to make a very grumpy sort of sound. Regardless, he reluctantly re-answered her question, this time using more politely chosen chirps.

"That's better, thank you. Now, what kinds of things?"

There wasn't a single peep from the bird. More strangely, his bravado greatly and rapidly shrunk. He idled away the time, peeking here or there, or just by pecking at the inside of his wings. If his biology had supported it, he would have intentionally coughed into a fist a few times.

"Well?" the pegasus pushed gingerly.

He was still unable to summon a detailed answer, but this time he at least summarized his thoughts in a few vague cheeps.

"I see," said Fluttershy. The explanation sat on her uncomfortably, and she shook her head. "I don't know. They all seem like very nice ponies to me."

Tweep! Tweep tweep tweep, twee tweep!

"W-W-What do you mean, ‘only H-Humb-ble H-Herd?’"

His name still made her stomach turn over nervously. The only reason she had even gotten out of bed already was because she had woken up and been too antsy about his upcoming wake-up call to have gone back to sleep. And that had been over an hour ago! The dread had only grown worse since; she felt by the weakness of knees that he was only minutes away from being at her door.

Not that she blamed him for any of her jitters.

"I mean, I d-do think he's a-... he's a-... r-real sweetheart... t-t-t-to be t-taking care of you all like he does, I mean! B-But, um, anyway, what do you mean only him? He had said something to me about how all of you would be friendly and talk to me so long as I was ‘nice.’ Are the other ponies somehow bad? Are they mean? What do-"

Tweep!

It wasn't what the parakeet had said about the stallion. It was how he had said it which tripped some unclear alarm inside of Fluttershy. Her head slowly listed to one side.

"‘Different’... how?" she asked.

Tweep tweep!

The answer left Fluttershy gobsmacked. Uneasily she glanced about the area, worried that somepony might have overheard the tweeps and been offended.

Sufficiently alone, she hesitantly replied to the parakeet, "... None of them seem ‘crazy’ to me."

The bird shrugged the tops of his wings, but in a superiorly dismissive way. He didn't have the time to educate somepony who didn't want to listen to what was obviously some very wise advice. She'd find out soon enough anyway.

"Well, I still don't understand," the pegasus pleasantly entreated. "What makes H-Humble H-Herd... not crazy?"

A bobble started at the bird's head and worked its way down through his whole body as he mulled over the reply he wanted to give. He clicked his claw against the stone railing a few times in uncertainty.

Tweep! Twee tweep tweep! Twee twee, tweep tweep!

"Oh. That's alright," Fluttershy said. And like the kind pony she was, she didn't need to put any effort into balancing earnest appreciation with honest-to-goodness cheeky chiding. "I can't blame you for not having all the answers, even when you're such a smart and eagle-eyed parakeet. I think though that if you animals spent a bit more time getting to know the other ponies as well as you know Humble Herd, then you'd discover that they're not so crazy after all."

The parakeet gave her a such a stare. It was all he could do since the only counter-tweet he had in mind wouldn't have passed her vulgarity test.

"You'll see," the pony asserted. She shut her eyes and in her head played some of the inspiring music from the night prior. Her heart swelled with confidence. "I'm going to get to know some of them better, and they're going to turn out to be very wonderful ponies!"

Tweep!

Fluttershy again turned her head at the bird's bizarre comment.

"No, I'm very young. I won't have ‘my funeral’ for many, many, many years."

Suddenly from inside her room came a knocking on the door.

The parakeet flinched, losing a few feathers in his frightened flapping. Quickly he got himself back in order, seizing his claws on the railing and transforming his fluttering into a suspiciously casual brushing of his beak. He muttered a few uneasy, forced cheeps; something about practicing an impersonation of a chicken.

He had no reason to have saved face, though; Fluttershy had flinched too. All that warm confidence hadn't done a thing to have stopped her back from arching like a cat caught in a dog kennel. It took an icy moment before she was able to get her body straightened out down the last hair and feather.

"I g-guess that's H-H-Humble H-Herd with my wake-up c-call," she said. "T-Thank you so much for answering my questions, mister parakeet. I hope I'll see you later?"

He huffed, as much as a bird can huff anyway. There was a dim, doubtful quality to his final chirp before he took off; not the kind of grim tone one wants to hear in an, ‘I hope so.’

Fluttershy returned inside, but she took every excuse to go as slowly as she could. She stopped to gently tug the balcony curtain closed. She double-checked her neatly folded bedsheets to ensure that they didn't have a single crease. (Even if the resort had ponies for such housekeeping, what a nice surprise it would be for them to have one less task!) Lastly she came and stood nervously before her nightstand.

On it laid her sapphire heart necklace, cold and blue.

She tried to remember the words from some of last night's songs, but suddenly they didn't play back clearly and her shuttering hoof could only click on the floor out of time.

The door knocked again.

Softly Fluttershy moaned. But, though the music couldn't find a center in her, she did remember the bold encouragements of her human friend and also the glorious bells which had filled the night brightly.

Standing before her door, just before she opened it, she paused to straighten the sapphire heart so that it wasn't hanging askew on her chest.

"Um, good morning, uh, Miss Fluttershy!" greeted the mare on the other side of the door when it opened.

"G-..."

The unfamiliar, unexpected face caused Fluttershy's jaw to lock shut. Every effort to get out a greeting failed before it began. She simply stared straight ahead as if nopony were there, dropping little g's onto the floor out of her broken, trembling lips.

The mare on the other side of the door was obviously a little flustered, though not just by the guest's strange behavior. She stood with hooves misplaced, never finding solid ground to stick them to, like a new understudy thrown onto the stage on opening night without a script.

She tried her best, "So, uh... this is your wake-up call, and... um... I'm your new valet. Anything you need, I'll take care of it; just ask. I really hope we'll become great friends! My name is Trivial Pur-"

"Where's Humble Herd?" Fluttershy asked. She looked past the mare, searching the empty hallway in confusion.

"Well, um... he's-, ah...," the other mare stammered uncomfortably. The utter and total absence of preparation couldn't have been more painfully obvious. "... I-I'm taking over for him for the rest of your trip."

"Why?"

"I-... w-well, you see... it was thought that, uh... I might be a better fit for you-... um..."

Fluttershy stood quietly, blindly in the doorway. The fumbling words from the other mare washed over her like freezing rain, and she began to shrivel from the cold.

"A-Anyway," the other mare soldiered on so awkwardly, "it's breakfast time, so why don't I take you down to-"

"He didn't want to bother with me anymore, did he?" interrupted Fluttershy. There wasn't a single light coming from her crumbled, withdrawn face. "He decided I was a hopeless cause?"

The other mare, utterly lost in the face of Fluttershy's seemingly inexplicable despair, wished she had been somewhere else. Not that she truly blamed the odd guest for the incredibly weird first meeting they were sharing. It was more that Venus and Vesuvius could have done a lot better than to have sprung this new assignment on her so suddenly.

She smiled weakly, repeating, "I-It's... time for breakfast. S-So..."

Fluttershy sighed. Buried inside the delicate sound was a brutal defeat.

"Just a minute," she requested quietly.

Soft in her steps, she turned around and went back inside her room. Before her bed she lowered her neck, and one of her wings slipped off her necklace. The feathers on the end surrendered the necklace slowly, letting it slide off onto the covers of the bed, making not one limp effort to save it.

---

Tak tak tak.

Summer Wind blinked her eyes wearily. Had she been awake, or asleep?

Every part of her which bent or moved felt like she had spent the whole night running around a maze of stairs. The aches had found their way in deep, clinging to her like a crust of dried mud, and when she pushed herself up they only squeezed together tighter. There was a slimy blanket of moisture stuck to only one side of her face, and she looked down to see a wet stain on her pillow with an indent the size and shape of her cheek. The salt had turned the once-soft pillowcase stiff.

She rubbed her moist, puffy cheek. Not enough sleep, however much she had gotten.

Tak tak tak.

This time the rapping struck her consciously, patting her ear drums. Each hit was a sharp, sudden, intrusive click of a sound. She sat up fully.

A good-sized spill of light was bleeding in from under the balcony curtain, and it wasn't the orange of an early morning. Her eyes leapt to the clock on the wall; it was indeed well past the scheduled time of her first duties for the day. What an unhappy un-surprise.

For the second day in a row she had missed giving Spike his wake-up call. Not that it really mattered...

She groaned and crawled out of her bed, going right into some fast but very unenthusiastic stretches, quickly and lazily cheating her way to limberness. Meanwhile she noticed her collection of figurines on her dresser. Even without any eyes they watched her silently, and she felt the uncomfortable pressure of their judgment; over a dozen tiny, fake ponies built by Humble Herd from twigs and dirt and feathers and leaves, all of them standing heroic, or powerful, or proud, and all unsympathetically disappointed in her.

With all the endless aches puncturing her, for once her immensely strong body felt as weak as the rest of herself always did. It was the least of her concerns that some other island pony was at the door waiting to reprimand her for being late.

Tak tak tak.

Though, that noise... didn't really sound like a hoof.

Just in case, she began to clean up her room and make it presentable, or at least as swiftly and minimally as she could anyway. The bedsheets she pulled up but left mountainous with wrinkles. She grabbed the discarded, unwashed towels and threw them carelessly into the bathroom without looking. All the scattered wing-weights she heaped up into a messy corner, flinging them one at a time; there were heavy thumps as each one landed.

The noisy activity summoned a voice from the other side of the door.

"... Summer Wind? Are you in there?"

Tak tak tak tak tak.

Summer Wind stopped in place, immediately caught by the higher, crisper register of the voice, and she lowered the last wing-weight onto the pile gently.

"Hello...?" she asked.

"Hey! Summer Wind! Open up!"

Tak tak tak!

The sharp clicks excitedly tapped on the wood of the door that time. The sound was way, way more precise than any broad hoof; more like the tip of a pen bouncing eagerly on a desk.

The answer to ‘who?’ became clear to Summer Wind, but what she didn't understand at all was ‘why?’ She trotted over and opened the door.

"Summer Wind! Good morning! How are you feeling?"

"Spike? What're you-...?"

The dragon was very oddly dressed: a pair of shorts that even in the casual lighting of the hotel hallway shimmered like nylon, a plain white top without any sleeves, and sweatbands snapped tight around his wrists and forehead.

"I asked around and nopony said they had seen you this morning," he explained to her. Either he was not seeing any of the stress and fatigue which soaked her so thoroughly down to her bones, or he was simply not put off by her haggard appearance and demeanor at all. He was the friendliest dragon on any of the islands in the Carriaggean. "Fortunately one of them told me where you room was and said I could check; real quiet guy; I think he was on his way to feed some animals or something. Anyway... here I am! I guess this is your wake-up call!"

"But...," the large pegasus was still so confused, "... I'm supposed to-... I mean, I should have been the one to-"

"Nah, don't worry about it," the dragon forgave her with no more than a claw thrown in easy dismissal, and then with his other he extended an invitation. "So," he asked welcomingly, "do you want to hit the gym?"

None of it made sense to Summer Wind.

"You... want to...," she murmured, giving the thought no finish.

Had she been awake, or asleep?

Spike generously gave her a fuller account, "You looked pretty unhappy yesterday. I mean, you seemed really deep in your own thoughts. I thought maybe it would be nice just to do a little something for you. You had said something about how much you like putting together the big, intense storms but, I mean, I can't fly or anything and I don't know the weather schedule here. So, I asked around and they said you guys have a little workout room down on the first floor. I figured you probably work out, so why not be your partner for a morning? What do you say?"

It was like a drop of worldly warmth plinked into Summer Wind's core. Like a little candle of dragonfire pleasantly shining inside.

Yet she protested, "Wait, you want to spend the morning with me? But... what about Rarity?"

"Hm?" Spike couldn't grasp her objection at all. "Rarity's the one who suggested this, actually. She even made me these great workout clothes last night!" He took a moment for himself, basking in the lovely dressmaker's amazing radiance through the fruits of her labors now hugging his body. The tingles made him scratch the back of his head. "She's really pretty incredible..."

"I-..."

The messy mix of emotions was so strange. It wasn't exactly like the storm of uncontainable, wild-running feelings that swamped her whenever her passion was opened, being both less overwhelming and more controllable. But the current tempest inside her was made from the same dark clouds as those more turbulent storms. It was only now that she wasn't in passion's embrace did she feel at least somehow afloat, like she knew the direction to go despite being tossed and turned dizzy by the tumult.

It was a terrible conflict. She felt her angry sadness lingering from last night, wrapped around her wings like heavy iron chains. She felt the wholesome hooves of friendship embracing her heart all because this stranger she barely knew was showing so much genuine care about her well-being. She felt frustration because the dragon was again inadvertently taunting her, presenting himself as a perfection in every way except for his inaccessibly young age. She felt the hope that came with seeing a faithful smile unconcerned with the unsightly flaws that bled openly during moments of weakness.

But above all else, she felt worried for Spike and Rarity because the dressmaker would be left unguarded.

"Don't you want to spend your vacation with Rarity instead?" she asked, this time being quite a bit more direct.

Her resistance still boggled Spike. The real answer she needed from him would have exposed his most tender feelings a little too much, so he kicked his feet softly into the floor and quietly gave away only as little as he believed necessary.

"I... like every moment I get to spend with her. But I don't need to be around her all the time. It's not like that dumb Sweet Nothing holds a candle to me- er, I mean... it-it's not like she can't take care of herself. And this is only a vacation after all."

Then, as if he had somehow sensed her anxiety, he said plainly, "I'm not worried. Well... except about you, I guess. I just want to help make you feel a little better since you've been so nice to me since I got here."

"I've hardly done anything to-"

The little voices of conscience, squeaking loud but inaudibly as they always did whenever her mind wasn't submerged in an ocean of passion, spoke to her; lifted her; gave her direction.

She chuckled, "I guess you wouldn't be worth Rarity's time if you weren't the sweetheart of a dragon that you are."

"What'd you say?" he croaked, having missed most of her mumbling.

Summer Wind gave him a crooked eye, sizing him up.

"So," she said, grinning mischievously, "you want to hit the gym, little guy? I gotta warn you, I do some pretty mean workouts; none of the other ponies can keep up."

Spike, feeling defensive, flexed. The scales on his arms and tail bristled as he folded himself, revealing absolutely no defined muscle; less of a gun show and more of an over-inflated balloon stand.

He pointed at himself, "I'll have you know, we dragons are one of the most powerful species in Equestria, and you underestimate us at your own peril."

"Haha, I guess we'll see! Come on! I'll show you down to the gym!"

She scooted around him out her door, already feeling the tired bindings coming loose.

---

"Really, Rainbow Dash?" Rarity sniffed the air distastefully. "You come to breakfast smelling like sweat and soggy linens? Did you even shower this morning?"

The colorful pegasus lifted herself in her seat and boasted mightily, "I smell like victory!"

"I should think victory might have an aroma that was more aspirational and less... euh... perspirational."

Meanwhile, heedless of the quibbling guests, Till unloaded tray after tray from his serving cart. Breakfast that morning was a bowl of bran sprinkled heavily with slices of various well-known tropical fruits, and on the side was a cup of milk for mixing and a tall glass of juice. It was of the same meager, almost store-bought quality as yesterday's breakfast, hardly able to compete with the superior caliber and expensive taste of the prepared dinner Till had made the first evening.

When all six guests had been served he wished them a happy meal and began to push his cart back towards the kitchen.

Rainbow Dash looked down at her not-pancakes rather glumly. It wasn't the breakfast of champions, that was for sure. But her stomach growled a little and, hey, any port in a storm. She lifted the bowl with her hooves, ready to throw it into her face.

"Rainbow Dash, come on," Twilight scolded her friend. "We should at least wait for Applejack and Spike to get here."

"Oh," Till overheard and stopped his cart halfway through the swinging kitchen door, "Applejack won't be joining you. She got up much earlier and had breakfast already. She's out working the orchard right now."

"You put her to work?" Twilight was bewildered.

Till shrugged, "Well... not quite like that. She asked."

He rolled the rest of the way into the kitchen, fondly reminiscing over the very early morning he had spent showing Applejack the basics of the orchard. He was not all that terribly concerned with the unanswered questions he left behind at the dining table.

"Great," Rainbow Dash huffed, and her sarcasm seemed suspiciously thin, if present at all. She dryly pouted, "Applejack's not spending her vacation with us. Oh no. What a shocker."

Rarity added, "We won't be seeing Spike, either. No worries though, Twilight; he's off handling some rather worthwhile friendship business."

"Oh. Okay...," Twilight accepted, but she was certainly dismal about it.

The whole vacation was specifically for her many friends! She had invited them all along so that they could relax, enjoy themselves, and use the reprieve from their everyday pressures to clear their heads and fix some of their small interpersonal sticking points. This was supposed to have been about polishing the edges off of their little friendship problems! After all, had she not already been able to use her time here to have grown a bit closer to James? They had talked honestly and bravely about their species' mutually different takes on... intimate engagement; a topic very, very, supremely difficult to discuss! How would the vacation help her friends if they weren't even spending time with each other?

Even missing only two of them made the breakfast feel empty. Perhaps it was an illusion caused by the overly large dining table emitting an inescapable sense of isolation; there were six of them clustered around the tiny end of a table for forty or fifty. She perused her gathered friends.

Rainbow Dash seemed unusually cranked up, and not in a good way. It wasn't like one of those days she had circled weeks in advance on her calendar, such as a Wonderbolts show in Ponyville. Her breakfast bowl was over her snout like she was five years old, devouring her food in some sort of sloppy race against... nopony, apparently? Actually, it was very clear that she was being a slob entirely to pester Rarity.

The dressmaker used her sturdiest grace to shield herself from the flying flecks of fruit juice, the bouncing crumbs of bran, and the obnoxious snarfing of Rainbow Dash's open mouth chewing. Rarity's glower alone turned her eye shadow the dark color of a moonless night, and every few moments there was an ear-scratching groan as she dragged her seat another inch away from her disgusting neighbor, too proud to admit defeat by freely and quickly vacating her space at the table. Twilight however didn't doubt that she was only seeing a grouchy symptom of something deeper; it was a cry for help that Rarity looked like she had spent less than an hour grooming herself that morning.

Fluttershy meanwhile was much more invisible than usual. The last Twilight had seen of her at the party, she had been glowing brightly! Not only had she witnessed a miraculous and musical display from one of the rarest insects in all of Equestria (a once-in-a-lifetime treat for an animal enthusiast such as her!), but she had also sat through a concert whose songs she had apparently absorbed in some very meaningful way. But now, the very next morning, she sat amongst friends but was somehow lonely and vanquished. Even her untouched breakfast bowl was looking up at her wondering what was wrong. It was like those two grand, inspiring events last night had actually been a thieving housefire which had left her suddenly homeless and friendless.

And Pinkie Pie? Pinkie Pie laughed, and smiled, and cheered, and joked, and bounced, and giggled, and wiggled, and wobbled, and hobbled, and cuckooed, and woo-wooed, and loo-looed, all without a single sign of unhappiness! She looked and acted so... Pinkie Pie. The real problem was that there suddenly wasn't a problem anymore, as if she had just turned her back on all of her troubles and they had vanished like an imaginary monster.

But the monster was right there, across the table from Pinkie Pie, seated next to Twilight. And compared to his usual self, something did seem monstrously wrong with James. He had drifted into the dining room like he had been floating on an inner tube down a lazy river, far far far more into the vacation spirit than he had been previously. He had sat down next to Twilight, folded his hands behind his head, and leaned as far back as he could have without taking a spill. The whole time he had been sitting just like that, eyes closed and breathing so gently that he wouldn't have disturbed the thick dust on a shelf in an one-thousand-year-old abandoned castle.

There was just the dumbest-looking little smile cemented onto his peaceful face.

Twilight used her magic to push her own untouched breakfast bowl aside.

"So...," she threw the lure out onto the middle of the table for anypony to grab.

There were no bites. Nopony looked up.

Twilight fought off a gloomy scowl and tried again, "... How is everypony's vacation so far?"

The few replies which came back were uncommitted and inattentive, save for Pinkie Pie's fast and favorable outburst, but even her speedy attention jumped elsewhere immediately. The man didn't give any response at all.

"Right... Me too...," the unicorn murmured back at her mess of friends.

Her strategy formed quickly: divide and conquer. Take one problem at a time. But who first? Who was she most ready to deal with?

She turned to her neighbor.

"And how are you doing?" she asked James.

At last the man opened his eyes, and they cracked apart slowly like a fissure breaking the earth. He looked down at Twilight without any answer; maybe without even having heard the question. A faded brightness reflected off his irises; it struck Twilight, as it wasn't the same gleam as his naturally bland brown. A trace of illness?

"Are... you alright?" Twilight asked.

The man yawned enormously, stretching his back and arms together before reseting himself into the same comfy position. The awful, serene smile stayed stuck on his lips like a fly caught in a spider web.

No illness, the unicorn decided.

"You look tired," she said.

"I guess I am," he responded. "I was tossing and turning all night."

"Oh. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah!" And the unnatural smile grew in power. "I mean, aside from being tired, I feel great. Like... great great. Everything is just so... mmm... perfect. Everything's right."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I dunno," he gave the happiest, plainest shrug, still with his hands locked behind his head. "For once it feels like everything's just how it's supposed to be."

Twilight gaped at him. This was not the man she had seen muddle about in confusion when he had first been delivered to Ponyville. This wasn't the man whom she had seen break down in hopeless tears over the loss of his old life. This wasn't even the thoughtful man who had gone back and forth with her in endless debates just to pass the time. This was...

... well, she had no idea what this was, besides being too fast to be a believable a cure, just like Pinkie Pie!

"Not hungry?" James suddenly interrupted her thoughts, and he tipped his head at her bowl.

"Oh. Uh. Not so much. What about you?" She pointed at his own untouched bowl.

"Nah, not with this stomach. Maybe should've controlled myself better last night."

"Well, do-"

"Hey, what do you think Celestia's having for breakfast?" the question just fell out of him unrestrained.

"What?"

"I dunno," he shrugged again. "I think she ate pancakes when I was there last time. Celestia seems like a pancake lady, don't you think?"

"H-How is that even-?!"

It was a good thing Twilight had forgone eating her breakfast because she might have started choking on it.

Indignantly she thrust a hoof against the tabletop and berated him, "First off, it's Princess Celestia, and-"

"This again?" James chuckled heartily. "If my butt wore a tiara, it'd be a princess too."

"Y-Y-You did not just compare Princess Celestia to your rear end!"

He smirked at her, "My human butt not ‘shapely’ enough for you to be princess-worthy?"

His echo of her reluctant admission from last night made Twilight withdraw into red-nosed silence. The glare she gave him was unpleasant, but more than that, hurt.

Immediately the man sat up proper in his chair and leaned close to her, bringing their conversation into privacy (not that the others had been paying much attention anyway).

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to fluster you like that."

"It's... fine," Twilight recovered.

She noted instantly his quick sincerity. It was his habit to needle her about many things, and his apologies for his mischief were always earnest especially whenever he went too far, but for this instance in particular he was exceptionally fast and almost innately attuned to her sensitivity.

She instructed him, "Just, please, show a little more respect for Princess Celestia. She's-"

Calmly James rested his hand on the unicorn's shoulder. She was unprepared for the touch itself, but even more unprepared for the warmth and relaxation that dripped from his palm. It wasn't a jolting shudder which hit her, but she was jostled by the smooth, even sensation it put through her.

"Twilight," even his voice was gentle and swollen with comfort, "don't get me wrong. I understand completely the idea of respecting a title or authority." His free hand gave a tiny, fast salute. "But like I said the last time we discussed this, she's not really my princess, you know? Trust me when I say that calling her by her plain name is just... part of how I show my respect for who she is to me."

Here and there, now and again, between this and that and all the other busy thoughts which always occupied her, Twilight had been putting some thinking into the matter since they had last spoken on it.

And she still didn't understand his position.

"... Do you address her like that in your letters?" she meekly asked, wincing at even the thought of it.

"Sometimes," he admitted. Then he must have recalled something hugely embarrassing, because it painted itself across his red face. "Sometimes I call her... other things," the words leaked out almost unintentionally.

Very quickly Twilight decided that maybe she wasn't ready to hear anything further. She stuck a pin in the very important thoughts, then threw the pinned thoughts into a chained-up lockbox which she chucked into the ocean. Whatever that was, it was for later. Much, much later.

"S-So," she steered things away as speedily as she could, shaking the man's hand from her, "why do you care what she's having for breakfast anyway?"

"I dunno," he repeated his new mantra. Once again he leaned back into his seat and folded his hands into a pillow. "Just on my mind for some reason."

The unicorn again studied him, and his odd behavior, and his exhausted relaxation.

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked seriously.

James shifted in his seat, then unexpectedly shifted again. He grimaced as his spine creaked a little. His hands came down and he pushed on different parts of himself, working out the aches.

It looked like he just couldn't find a comfortable center anymore; like the last bits of tranquility had finally faded away.

The dumb smile was gone.

"Yeah," he said. "I just need some better rest. We're supposed to have a free morning today, right? I think Prism mumbled something about it when she was leading me down here."

"Yes," Twilight affirmed. "There's nothing scheduled for this morning. They just want us to explore their amenities for awhile. Well... maybe ‘explore’ isn't a great word given Vesuvius'... um... insistent directives yesterday against just that. But I guess that's why they assigned ponies to stick with us."

Brief, nervous thoughts of Gallowayo's tantrum after his concert moved through Twilight's head. His wake-up call this morning had been exceptionally succinct. He hadn't even guided her down to the dining hall.

"Right, well," James said, "I suppose I'll just use the morning to catch up on sleep. I don't know what got into me last night that I was rolling in the covers... The alcohol I guess."

He looked at his hands, turning them over and over while sometimes shaking them. The tiredness was entrenched behind his eyes and in his limbs, but there wasn't the cloud of a hangover anywhere to be found. Not any nauseous bumping in his belly nor anything bothering his brain. Aside from just the lack of solid sleep, he really did feel great, or at least like everything had been great for a little while anyway. The windfall of peace seemed more past than present.

Twilight took a shot in the name of friendly revenge, "So if we have another party do we need to pick a committed carriagepony to get you home safely?"

"Hm!" the man graciously accepted her barb, bowing his head. More earnestly he suggested, "I think all I really need is to sit down and talk with you about what actually goes into pony-made alcohol. Turns out I don't have any frame of reference for what ‘80 Hoof’ means."

If Twilight wore glasses, she would have pushed them up her nose.

"Actually it's a measure of alcohol by volume (abbreviated ABV) based upon the size of a standard cask and how many hooves of displacement it would take to-... Hmm. First really, it's important to understand that a hoof in this case is not a colloquial unit of measure but actually an archaic one which was deprecated when a universally standardized system of measurements was adopted by treaty at the Equestre Convention of 875—"

As she kept her lesson going, James settled back into his seat not quite as supernaturally comfortable as before. He gave back to her the occasional requisite nod, affirming grunt, and listening "yeah," while taking in the information.

But truly, he was mostly just thankful for her help in returning him to a sleepy mood.

Comments

[Neverborn]

Yay new chapter, thank you!

[Jarvy Jared]

I'm legitimately confused.

Are the ponies on the island sex maniacs? That seems to be the implication, but then we're throwing in this weird mystery about the island's past.

Your certainly dragging the story effectively, but it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere... maybe that's just because there are a lot of plot points being integrated all at one time. I'm hoping for some sort of resolution, but with so many points to cover, I don't know if it'll be a satisfying one.

[Zurock]

8354033
Don't worry; I 100% understand. I've said it several times before: the story has indeed taken on the shape of a long-form serial which sort of just plods along slowly with its many overlapping subplots scattered over the main plot. And in that respect, I do apologize for indulging myself over anyone else.

These stories for James' saga all started out as roughly planned: I knew the starts, the finishes, and the basic beats, and I wrote chapters by navigating my way between these story beats. However, when I started Pride Goeth, that was a story I wanted to plan meticulously, and I did. The entire story – characters, arcs, themes, everything – was planned out in detail and completeness before I ever set pen to page on the prologue, and in the end that story wound being near close to exactly as I had laid it out.

With all my planning energies put there, I let myself change to writing Necessary Love as very improv. For awhile now much of it has literally been chapter by chapter writing. I still know where it ends, but I've mostly dropped understanding the story beats ahead of time. There are a few exceptions; the bell moth chapter was a long-time coming, for instance. Less so, James' dream sequence was fairly off-the-cuff; I had only decided on it about three chapters prior. This latest chapter is a nice example of spur-of-the-moment writing: I opened the new blank document and then decided that Nosedive's subplot hadn't seen movement for a bit, so I wrote out that first scene. Then hey, as long as I was doing some a "wake-up call" thing, why not do several scenes in that vein? No single scene here was known ahead of starting on this chapter.

So... as far as "what's going on with this island?", you're exactly where I expect readers to be: drowned in the implication that the island ponies are some kind of drug-fueled sex cult, but then very clearly there are some oddities which don't fully fit with that narrative, and also some unsolved things which haven't revealed themselves yet. The sense that the plots aren't going anywhere probably does just come from how slow things are going.

But they are going. Whether they go all the way to a satisfying end is something we'll all find out together.

(Just as an example of pace and steady if lumbering progress: we've had all these long-going implications of a drug-fueled sex cult since about Chapter 21 I think, and just a bit ago we finally just had our first protagonist try the "drug." But contrary to almost everything prior, he quite specifically did not have a sexy reaction!)

[Neverborn]

I really hope this story is not dead. Please come back author!