Itinerant Kingdom

by Istaran

Chapter 1: First Date

Author's Note:

As with my other writing, square brackets [ ] represent direct mental communication, while angled brackets < >, if they show up again, represent untranslated English words.

Wind Chaser and I strolled down the dusty, seldom used road in silence together. My changeling companion bore the form of a pegasus, yellow of fur and feather, with a cutie mark depicting vague swirling lines, a common glyph representing the wind. While I had been a pegasus just minutes ago, when we watched the portal to Earth, my last chance to go home, collapse, I chose to carry on as an earth pony now.

While wings could have their uses, even on the ground, I was flightless now. I had exchanged challenges with the Text, the strange being that brought us to this world, and I did not dare fail his challenge lightly. The underpinnings of all of the magic I had learned so far was off limits to me, and shapeshifting was all I had managed to relearn thus far. Being an unusually weak earth pony was a lot easier to keep unnoticed than being a flightless pegasus or a magicless unicorn, so earth pony it was. I went with a light blue coat, and an upside-down compass as a cutie mark. 'South Wind' wouldn't be much of an alias for a earth pony, so I went with 'Southward Road'.

I wondered what Wind Chaser was thinking about. In the memories she had given me, my other self had been able to access her thoughts and memories easily, but I apparently did not have that privilege. Turbine, the consciousness of the nanospider network in her blood, shared with me only the thoughts she chose to send. It was.. kind of a relief to me. My former self had done everything all wrong with her. Theirs had been a relationship of necessity. He needed her as a guide to this alien world, a teacher of magic, and a comrade in arms. And she had needed him to love her, to feed the supernatural hunger that changelings had for love. So they had jumped in bed together at the first opportunity, embraced each other hastily and desperately, and never let go. But as much as I was him, I wasn't him. I wanted to start fresh, and do things right from the beginning.

And so, we were on our way to our first date. My former self had never found time to actually take her on a proper date, even after the war ended and we had the time to take things a little slower. So it would be a first for her, as well as me. Wind Chaser had lost her access to the crystals as well, and with it her ability to teleport. She wasn't skilled enough with her horn to pull off the spell normally, so we were left hoofing it.

The only eatery nearby was a roadside café a few miles away; not the fanciest place for a date, but it would do. The Rhubarb Stop played host to changelings unawares often enough, it had picked up a bit of a reputation for, what was the term? 'Easily lovable individuals.' 'Loose-hearted stallions.' The euphemisms of this world could be disturbingly adorable. But the majority of its patrons were simply couriers, travelling merchants, and other travelers looking for a quick meal along the way from one town to another.

We traded awkward smiles as we approached the eatery. A small bell announced our arrival, and a ruddy red unicorn mare with a slice of pie depicted on her flank, directed them to a table while levitating a couple menus for them. "Welcome to the Rhubarb Stop. I'm Rhubarb Pie, and I'll be your server. Would you like anything to drink?" We requested a few simple glasses of water as we took our seats, on a pair of low cushions on opposite sides of a table.

The menus served as one final distraction. I saw that they had a couple fish dishes which tempted me. As a human it had been rare for me to have even a single vegetarian meal, and the more inhuman cuisine seemed particularly suspect. But I decided a date was a nice time to try something new, and that it would probably also be best to avoid drawing attention, so I settled on an apple sandwich with hay fries. Wind Chaser settled on a simple salad, to keep up appearances. It reminded me what she was really hungry for.. what I wasn't ready to give her just yet.

"So.. where do you want to go next?" I asked, as Rhubarb Pie left with our orders and menus.

"Wherever you go, I just want to follow," she answered, with a shy smile. "Where do you want to go my k-.. handsome stallion?" I was always a bit surprised when she struggled like that to avoid breaking cover. Acting a part, pretending to be something she's not was a key part of her very being. Was her devotion to me as 'king' so hard to keep below the surface?

"More than anything I just want to be at your side," I said, returning her smile a bit more forwardly. It was.. an exaggeration I knew. My heart wasn't hers yet, not like I remembered it being in that other time. I felt confident it could be, that it would be. But the trouble with dating someone who feeds on love; it's impossible to fake it with them, even for a little while. She drew in a quiet breath with her eyes closed, a subtle attempt to hide her disappointment that didn't get past me. I sighed in return, looking into her eyes apologetically.

I thought a moment, needing something to think about other than our emotions about our emotions. "We should travel. Perhaps to Gryphonia first, then see as many other nations as we can. There's.. things that are going to happen here in Equestria that I would just as soon stay out of the way of, and we could learn a lot of interesting new things travelling the world. We can pick up odd jobs to pay our way, and may find the odd chance to save the day, like some kind of itinerant heroes."

"Itinerant kingdom," she countered, dredging up memories from the time undone. "Do you think we should try to recruit Bardrick again?"

"I wouldn't mind him as a comrade in arms, but how would we even go about it? I mean, we could certainly find their farm again, but what do we say? He didn't want to train me in the first place, and now that the world isn't hinging in the balance, we have even less to inspire him to join us."

"It wasn't your claims of importance or urgency that inspired him to join us, it was your absurd devotion to training yourself. Speaking of which, you're grounded again, and as weak as a hornless unicorn. Aren't you going to need some kind of crazy training montage to get back on your feet?"

Rhubarb Pie gave us odd looks as she stepped into the conversation with our meals. "Is there anything else I can get you two?"

"Nothing for me, thanks," I said, before starting to poke at the hay fries tentatively. I'm sure it must have looked like I was just being unsure of something, either the fries themselves, or more likely the conversation in progress. In reality, in this timeline, I had never picked up anything with one of these fingerless hooves. My copied memories only had so much detail, enough to know it was something I could do, just like anypony else, but not enough to actually know how to work it. I recalled my former self solving the problem with magnets first, when it was a spear he was trying to grasp, but I doubted hay fries were particularly attracted by them.

Wind Chaser waved Rhubarb off, and smirked at my troubles, knowing them for what they were. "You know, it's never too late to go back to foal school. It maybe would do you some good to learn the basics before we go off globetrotting."

I triumphantly managed to get a fry into my mouth, munching on it until I was sure Rhubarb was out of earshot again. "I suppose I could make the change, but then what? Would you be my 'mother'? Hopefully no one, err, nopony catches us being a little too affectionate?"

Wind Chaser frowned, looking away. She hadn't thought about the logistics, and I realized playing my superior was something she wasn't comfortable with. "I wish I could be your filly, instead, but you're the one who needs to learn the basics. And I would probably need to earn the bits to support us."

I closed my eyes, imagining her as my filly before glancing to make sure no one was eavesdropping and asking quietly, "Do you think you and I could, you know, have a filly of our own someday? I mean.. I guess you wouldn't know for sure, alien biology and all that.."

She looked a bit hurt as she shook her head. [You would need a proper Queen for that, not a drone like me,] she answered through our spiders' link, not wanting to say something so risky outloud. [I... I would if I could, though. Believe me!]

I blushed at her answer, munching quietly for a bit as I absorbed her words. "We should.. in our travels, we should keep an eye out for any way to overcome that, any magic that might help. We might not find anything but, you never know."

I got a cheek peck for that, but I caught her muzzle in my hoof before she could pull back, and drew her into a longer kiss, full on the mouth. I let her draw back after several seconds, returning to our seats and blushing at one another.

"You should eat your sandwich," she said at last. "You'll need your energy." She hadn't touched her salad, but she was already looking a bit less hungry, I thought.

"Sure, and I'll have a taste of your salad if you don't mind." I focused on eating for a bit, imagining what kinds of uses she had in mind for my energy.

[Get your mind out of the gutter.. at least for now. You don't have the, ahem, self control to be thinking those kinds of thoughts in public.]

I blushed all that much harder as I adjusted my position to be sure no one else got an unseemly peek while I tried to regain my composure.

"I'll go pay our bill, and get you some pie to go. We should head for the inn up the road, to get a nice bed for the night before we finalize our plans. Think about my suggestion."

I nodded my agreement. I was annoyed a moment by being obliged to let her pay, but I didn't have a bit to my name, yet, and I eventually remembered we were in a matriarchy. Mares treating stallions was as common here as men treating women back on Earth, more or less. We took our leave, shortly thereafter, following the road farther, towards the inn she had mentioned.

"This was a good date, I think. I trust we'll have many more," I said. "How did you like it?"

"It was good. I'm glad you suggested it. But.. I also hope you're up for consummating our relationship tonight."

I blushed, trying to bring myself to say no, but I couldn't deny my own libido that easily. "I'm really not feeling up for being your colt," I said with a wink. "You'll just have to settle for a foalish stallion."

Comments

[Dark_Night]

Oooh this could be good. +1 favorite!

[Istaran]

Thanks! I hope you like it.

[Wind of the Skies]

nu! it shall be highly amusing for him to be a small child with an adults mind. and a smart way to learn how to use his body. wind chaser had a good idea and he rejected it. i think. disregard this if i misunderstood the last part. damned ponies and their pride. accept the inner child!