37 - Faux Pas, Part 3 of 8
They sat silently, and Cloud Blazer kept watch, mostly of the battle. The space they were in was cramped, but just large enough for the two of them. Turning around proved difficult, mainly because his injuries made it so painful. The rough surfaces didn't budge. When he was finally certain that nopony had seen them, Cloud Blazer turned his attention back to their little hiding spot and his blind friend. She was shivering.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she spoke through chattering teeth.
The wind was one thing that penetrated their little fortress with complete ease. It was cool and constant. It continually swirled around and against them, and Pixyglitter was coated with sweat. There hadn't been much space between them anyway, but Cloud Blazer moved between her and the wind and laid down against her body, on her left side. The stabbing in his ribs nearly took his breath away again, but he managed a position that was more or less comfortable. She continued to shiver. Carefully, Cloud Blazer rubbed on her back to create friction with his right front leg, the most recently injured one. They sat this way for a time, and she shivered a little less frequently than she had before.
"Thanks," Pixyglitter broke the silence, "but I'm still mad at you."
More than a little confused, he asked, "Me? What did I do?"
They spoke quietly in order to not attract attention of anything that might be lurking in the darkness.
"Oh, goodness, I don't know," she used a tone heavily laden with sarcasm, "how about nearly getting us killed today?"
"What was I supposed to do?" he defended. "Besides, it worked; we're fine."
He tried to sound confident and reassuring, but he definitely didn't feel it. He had actually been fairly certain that he was going to die when he'd made that jump.
“At least warn me next time you're going to do something that stupid!”
"You would have stopped me," he replied, and of that he was certain.
"It's not like I'd have had a choice in the matter," she said. She almost sounded hurt, "That quick release works from either end, but it can't be locked out. You should have trusted me."
He hadn't thought of it as a matter of trust. If that is what it meant to her, it at least made sense why she was angry. Maybe he could get her to meet him half way.
"Okay," he said with some finality, "I won't do that again. I will keep you informed of my harebrained schemes, should I come up with more of them, but we work together. I come up with plans; you help me pull them off."
"Deal," she surrendered after a long moment, though she didn't sound happy about it.
They continued to sit in silence for a long time as the night lingered on, but neither were able to sleep. Cloud Blazer was too afraid of unseen dangers to allow himself to drift off. The cold only grew more intense as the night continued. That awful wind was assaulting his left side and stealing his warmth. The fighting at Manehattan had slowed, but there was still a consistent exchange of magical fire and lightning. A soft sound brought his attention back to his comrade.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
He knew her better than that. She was crying.
"Hey, he said softly; what is it?"
She swallowed hard before speaking.
"I don't know how to live anymore. When I thought I'd lost you, I didn't dive down to find you again." She took a deep breath, "I was going to kill myself."
Cloud Blazer felt his body go cold from the inside. He probably shouldn't have spoken, but he did before thinking.
"Why?" he asked in horror.
"What else could I do? I can't land on my own, and even if I could, how would I find my way back to anywhere that is even remotely safe?" she spoke fervently, but they both had the sense to keep their voices low. "More likely, I'd get injured on landing and linger for days before... So yeah, I'd rather hit the ground at full speed. At least then I wouldn't have to suffer."
He felt completely mortified by what he was hearing. He hadn't even considered what she would do if he had been killed.
"So here's the deal," she said with conviction. "Whatever this is that we have, we have it together. For as long as we are depending on each other. So if you do anything else that stupid and get yourself killed, just realize that you're killing me too."
He understood and felt terrible about it. He'd been incredibly thoughtless and brutish. There was only one thing he could think to say.
"I'm sorry, Pixy.”
Quiet filled the space between words for a few moments.
"So what are we exactly?" she asked finally.
This was another thing that he hadn't really considered too deeply, and he got the feeling that he wouldn't like where the conversation was headed either.
"I don't know how to answer that," he replied with a shrug.
"Am I a charity case? You take pity on the blind girl and help her out?"
He was rather insulted by that remark and responded hotly, "You know me better than that!"
"What then?"
His anger at the way she had lashed out made his mind foggy. He tried to regain the upper ground but couldn't think of what to say.
"I don't know."
"Then what are we doing?"
"You know what we're doing," Cloud Blazer replied. "We're trying to save the princesses. They talked to us in our dreams."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"We're friends," he said, unsure why it took him so long to come up with that much.
"And that's all?"
He shrugged again, "I don't know. I didn't exactly plan for my life to take the turns it has, any more than you did. What are your expectations?"
She sighed.
He didn't know how to make this better, but speaking seemed the wiser course to try and work out what was bothering her.
"When I first met you, it wasn't charity that attracted me to you. Even before the dreams, you were like me. We both had lost something that was very important to us. At first, I thought we might help each other heal. It wasn't pity exactly; I just thought you might be a kindred spirit."
"I don't have as many senses as you do," Pixyglitter said, the anger was gone from her voice, but she was definitely still upset. "The remaining four I have are giving me signals that I don't know how to deal with."
"Like what?" Cloud Blazer asked, still confused.
"You said we had a relationship; you practically begged me to stay at the Apple's farmhouse with you. Not only that, but you just said you were attracted to me, and you're laying by me and holding me. I don't know how to take any of this. What are my expectations? The better question is, what are your intentions?”
To himself, Cloud Blazer had to admit that her short summary did sound like he was pushing for a relationship that was more than what he had actually intended. But what precisely was his purpose? Certainly, nothing romantic was on his mind. He wanted to choose his next words carefully, but he decided to be direct.
"If I have caused any confusion, I'm sorry. I'm not looking for anything more than friendship from you, and right now I don't have anything more than friendship to offer."
"Because of her?" it was almost more a statement than a question; she meant Scootaloo.
"No," he instinctively answered. "Well, yes. It's complicated, and I haven't sorted it out for myself yet. Either way, I'm only trying to be a friend as far as you’re concerned."
Pixyglitter sighed again, but it didn't sound like exasperation this time. It sounded like relief. Perhaps she'd been feeling pressured by what she had mistakenly considered advances on his part. It was understandable why that would have made her uncomfortable. Cloud Blazer had helped her regain some sense of worth, and if he had been asking for something in return, she might have felt obligated in a way. The very thought of taking advantage of anypony when they needed help was disgusting to the stallion.
"And how long will that carry us?" she asked. "At what point do we go our separate ways?"
"To be honest, Pixy, I just haven't thought that far ahead," he spoke in complete sincerity. "I'll always count you a friend, but I don't have any plans for... well, anything really. I mean, other than rescuing the princesses... I'm just trying to make it through a day at a time."
He decided to shift the subject slightly, "You're from Manehattan, and we'll be there tomorrow, if we don't get killed first that is."
She snorted a laugh.
"If you want me to help you find your family, I can find another way to get back to Ponyville... If that's what you want."
They sat in silence for a while. In spite of the increasingly cold breeze that was blasting through the rocks and chilling Cloud Blazer, his right at least was warmed by shared proximity with the mare.
"I don't even know what I want," she finally replied; she was crying again.
"Hey, it's okay," he said as he held her again, delicately so he didn't aggravate his injuries further. He added, "But I'm only comforting you in a platonic friendship sort of way, okay?"
She let out a genuine giggle that melted the emotional ice that had formed between them.
"Deal," she replied.
In the cold of night, darkness again covered the land as the EUP flares died out. The sounds of battle became almost nonexistent, and the two wayward travelers huddled as close as they could for warmth.
Cloud Blazer's mind turned over the conversation and his situation with Pixyglitter for a time. It certainly was unique. His thoughts eventually wandered to the seemingly unsolvable riddle with Scootaloo. Surely, they'd be able to fix that friendship when they were able to see each other again, but every opportunity they'd had while both were still in Ponyville, she had avoided him. Even now, months after things had broken, thinking about it was enough to make him depressed. He'd been surviving by trying to occupy his mind with other things, to little success. He missed his friend, and he was heartbroken that everything had gone so wrong.
Pixyglitter eventually broke the silence and his reverie.
"I'm sorry. Sometimes I feel the need to know exactly where I stand. I was okay until that changeling found us. I thought we were going to die. For a minute there, I thought you had died."
"Forget it," Cloud Blazer answered. "I probably spend too much time trying to not think about stuff. For the record, anytime you need to vent or talk, I'm here for you. That's what friends are for."
"As much as I appreciate that, I think I'd rather you had remembered to bring a blanket or two," she said in a lighthearted tone that lifted his spirits.
"Hah, well, I don't think either of us were planning to be out this late."
In the end, weariness from their harrowing journey caught up with them, and sleep took Pixyglitter for a while. Cloud Blazer was far too cold for his body to rest. However, despite the broken friendship and his brush with his own mortality, having a friend to share it with made everything seem okay somehow.
Cloud Blazer is clueless, amiright? 
Yep, just friends. Definitely nothing to see here. 
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It's spelt "platonic", not "plutonic". That means something else. According to google it's, and I quote "relating to or denoting igneous rock formed by solidification at considerable depth beneath the earth's surface." so I'm pretty sure you meant the other one...
8621160
Haha! You caught me.
I indeed meant the other one. Only Maud Pie would have used it the other way. Thanks for catching that. Have a cookie. 🍪
I should have known that too, because Plato, not Pluto. I doubt I’ll ever mix that up again.
Whooaaaa
That's dark
This is starting to feel like dangerous NOT cloudaloo talk
That is not acceptable.
8756313
1) Yeah, she's is a bad place.
2) Cloudaloo?
I don't think either of them really know what they want right now. But even when it's not romantic, there is something romantic about huddling together to keep warm like that. 
If I got to be honest, I would have completely expected Pixyglitter to have had a freak meltdown by now, given she just ran away from danger, got shot at, and then had Cloud Blazer detach from her, all while she can't see a thing. But she did have military training and some combat performance before getting blinded and hospitalised, so I guess the life of a soldier pony managed to rub off on her enough that she's merely having a mild breakdown. If anything, I almost get the sense that Cloud Blazer, despite having his sight, still feels relatively more crippled by the loss of his wings (and Scoots not talking to him for a while). Still, at least being out of the way of civilisation, they might be at risk from the elements, but they're certainly a lot less liable to be discovered by changelings.
8788228
Well... she did nearly suicide when he detached from her... That's kind of like a freak out?
Also, she has always been kind of strong and independent... though, she is less so now. Even still, she strives for as much self sufficiency as she can. As for the military training, she was in several battles before being blinded. I think that's an interesting take that Cloud Blazer seems the more lost of the two. Valid points.