Fallout: Equestria - Wasteland Bouquet

by Cascadejackal

Chapter 28: Full House

---CHAPTER 28: Full House ---

"Mark your calendar, missy, 'cause this right here's your lucky day! I'm headin' north to the Crystal Empire myself for a delivery."

---

I rolled over and raised my head slowly, shaking it to clear away the last cobwebs of sleepiness. "I had the wierdest dream... there were flutterponies, and... guys? Guys? Guys, where are you?" Rubbing my eyes, I looked around. "Better question, where am I?!"

I was in what looked like a stockroom, shelves filled with assorted stuff up against all the walls and crates stacked together over in one corner. I was laying on a pile of surprisingly clean blankets and pillows that was spread out over most of the floor, my jacket folded neatly and sitting on my bags by the door. There was a lamp on one of the crates, turned down low, but still giving off enough light that I could just see. The door was open a crack, letting in a small sliver of light, and I could hear low voices outside.

"Rose? Ibis? That you?" I called out, hoping it was the perverts out there. I didn't get an answer quickly enough, so I rolled to my hooves and got up, stumbling a bit when I stood up too fast. I shook my head again, though, and moved towards the door, pausing to listen. It sounded like Rose was out there, talking to a mare whose voice was kinda familiar.

Carefully, I trotted towards the door and nosed it open, sticking my head through. I had to squint, the light outside the room a lot brighter than where I'd woken up, but when I could finally see again, I let out a sigh of relief. "There you guys are."

"Lily! You're awake!" Rose was waving at me from a booth across the room from the storeroom I was in, a broad grin on her normally blank face, with Ibis on one side of her and a vaguely familiar mare on the other. "See, Miss Damsel?" She turned to the mare beside her. "I told you Lily was okay! She's just a bit silly sometimes."

"I see that now, cousin." The mare turned away from Rose and smiled at me. "Oh, I'm so glad you're alright. Our cousin has been telling us all about you, and-"

I missed the rest of what she said on account of my brain kinda short-circuiting. Turned out I hadn't been dreaming. Rose really had found a flutterpony.

So, faced with another Breezie Tale come to life, I said the most intellectual smart thing I could. "Bwah?"

---

A minute later (and lots of shoving by Rose and Ibis), I was seated next to Rose (Ibis was on her other side) in the booth, doing my best to let the whole 'Flutterponies are real' thing sink in. I shot the occasional glance at said flutterpony, who was smiling at me from across the table, but for the most part I was focused on Rose.

"Hold still, will you? If you did this regularly, like a proper unicorn, it'd be easier on all of us," I grumped, forcing Rose's head into place with my magic and examining her horn. Splitting my attention, I grabbed the largest, roughest file from my grooming kit and, with a grimace, set to work.

Ignoring Rose's squirming and the demented faces she was making as chunks of dead horn flaked away, I glanced across the table. "Miss... Damsel, was it?"

The tall, pretty mare, who wouldn't have looked out-of-place in a prewar fashion magazine if it wasn't for the big butterfly wings fluttering on her back, smiled at me. "Just Damsel."

"Rrright..." I paused in my filing to blow the dust from Rose's horn and tilt her head to see what I'd accomplished, ignoring how she'd gone cross-eyed and was shuddering from the sensation. Not my fault, though. Only a coarse file could budge that much crud! Jerking Rose's head to another angle and resuming my much-needed work, I glanced back at Damsel. "So, you're really a flutterpony? I mean... I thought you were, y'know, a breezie tale..."

Damsel smiled softly. "Oh, no. We're quite real." She raised her hoof and gestured at the rest of the ponies in the former cafe with us, milling around and doing the many things groups do when they're not travelling. "We just don't come to Equestria that often."

"Rrright..." I said hesitantly, looking around at the rest of Damsel's group and not seeing a single other pony with butterfly wings. Just a mix of earth ponies, unicorns and a single pegasus. "So... you're... all flutterponies, then?" I gave Damsel a doubtful look. "I mean, I'm just curious. You're, y'know, the only one with the wings... everypony else is kinda... normal looking..."

A small laugh escaped the flutterpony, as soft as her speaking voice, and then she blushed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't laugh. It's just, you Equestrians have the funniest ideas sometimes." She smiled bashfully. "We flutterponies are just like Equestrians. We have earth ponies, and unicorns, and pegasi." She fluttered her wings and blushed again. "I'm actually a pegasus flutterpony."

I just stared at her, taking it all in... and trying not to run away screaming. Giant bug wings, butterfly or not, gave me the crawling heebies. For a few seconds, the only sounds were the low background noise of the group going about their business, Ibis shuffling in his seat, and the scrape-scrape of Rose's horn being filed back into something acceptable in polite company.

"So..." I started hesitantly, "if it's not the wings, then... how's a flutterpony different from an Equestrian pony?"

Damsel blinked at me. "You mean... you really don't know?" I shook my head. "But our cousin-" She pointed her hoof at Rose, who had a face like she'd just munched a sour candy from the constant filing, "said you're like sisters. Surely you know that-"

"Hold on a sec," I interrupted, giving Damsel an irritated look, "why do you keep calling Rose your cousin?" Setting aside the coarse file, I blew on Rose's horn to clear the dust off. My dopey looking sister relaxed slightly now that I was done filing, but I didn't let go of her head as I inspected it. "Me and my parents are Rose's family..." I paused again when Ibis cleared his throat and gave me a meaningful look. "And Ibis and Magpie too, I guess," I grumped, before taking up another, finer file, a round one this time, and started work on Rose's horn spiral, ignoring the shudders and twitches running through her body at the sensation.

"Look," I said, turning back to the curious looking flutterpony, "what I'm trying to say is that Rose doesn't have any other family. So why the heck do you keep calling her your cousin?"

The flutterpony looked surprised. "It's because she's a flutterpony, of course."

"What." Dumbfounded, I looked between Damsel and Rose. "Rose is a flutterpony? I don't... you... she..." I just couldn't make sense of it. On the other side of Rose, Ibis started snickering. I glared at him. "What's so funny?!"

"It's Rose's thing, you idiot." He snickered and patted Rose's twitching flank, caused by me still working the file up her horn and trying to get some definition to her frustratingly shallow spiral. "Her empathy?"

I snorted at him. "What, you expect me to believe there's a bunch of wierd ponies that do Rose's freaky feeling thing? And that they're breezy tales come true?! And that Rose is one?!" I looked from Ibis, who was smirking, to Damsel, who was nodding and smiling at me. Then I drooped and let out a groan, my ears going flat. "That's exactly what you expect me to believe." I threw a half-hearted glare at Ibis. "How the hay do you know?"

He shrugged and smirked. "They filled us in while you were passed out."

I let out an exasperated groan and shook my head. "You know what, fine. Just, Ibis? Short version it for me."

"Easy." He shrugged again. "Rose is a flutterpony. This bunch-" He waved his claw, indicating Damsel and her group, "-are all flutterponies as well." He smirked at me. "Short enough for you?"

I snorted at him, then turned back to Damsel, ignoring the griffon. "So, flutterponies are empaths? They share feelings and stuff?" I shuddered at the thought of it. Knowing Rose was always 'listening in' was bad enough already, but a bunch of strange ponies? Ugh. Creepy.

Damsel nodded. "Our connection is what makes us flutterponies. We are all a part of the infinite chorus, our minds singing in unity." Her smile slipped a little as she looked at Rose, who was still squirming under the ongoing grooming. "Our cousin is odd, though. Her voice in the song is... muted... dull..."

"Wait wait wait," I exclaimed, my ears going back and my eyes wide as I realised what Damsel'd said, "you can hear each other's thoughts?!" I stopped grooming Rose and leaned back, suddenly very uncomfortable and very aware that I was surrounded by mind readers. I glanced around nervously. "You... can't really hear thoughts, or whatever, right?"

"Oh, yes," Damsel said, watching Rose shaking her now free head in relief. "Flutterponies are never alone. We can always hear each other."

"Even," I swallowed nervously, ignoring how Rose had scooted away from my side (and the file hovering in my aura) and pressed herself tightly against Ibis while rubbing her horn on his feathery chest, "even my thoughts?"

Damsel blinked at me, looking surprised. "Of course not. You're not a flutterpony."

"Oh... that's... good." I relaxed slightly, now that I knew the inside of my head was a no-go zone for bug ponies. "So... you said... something's up with Rose? How does that even work?"

A small smile crept onto Damsel's muzzle as she watched Rose and Ibis together. "Our cousin-"

"Her name's Rose," I interrupted, giving the flutterpony an irritated look.

"Rose," Damsel continued, giving me a sidelong smile, "isn't... clear. We can feel her, but not hear her, not properly." Her eyes lit up with realisation and she went silent for a second, looking around the room at the other flutterponies. Her ears twitched, then all the other flutterponies' ears started twitching, including Rose's.

I shuddered, realising that they must've been talking to each other. Bleagh. Freaky. From the disconcerted look on Ibis' face, he felt the same way.

Finally, after a minute or so of silent conversation, Damsel nodded and smiled at me. "Our cousin-" She ignored my frown "-is like a foal. She doesn't know how to speak in the hivemind." She gave me a curious look. "But it doesn't make sense. Her parents should have taught her." She got a distant look in her eyes and her ears started twitching again, aiming at one of the flutterponies in light armor.

I banged my hoof on the table, startling Damsel. "Hey!" I frowned at the butterfly-winged pony. "Not all of us are flutterponies, remember? Ain't polite to talk about folks when they can't hear you."

"Ah, my apologies." The armored flutterpony approached, revealing itself to be a lightly built unicorn stallion. He dipped his head in a polite nod and smiled at me. "My name is Broadside. Medical division."

"Um, hi?" I responded, waving my hoof a little. "So..."

Broadside glanced at Damsel, who nodded, then he spoke to me again. "Our cousin, Rose," he indicated Rose, who was happily watching the other flutterponies going about their business, "did either of her parents show signs of the hivemind?"

I stared at him blankly. "What?"

He sighed a little and muttered "Equestrians..." under his breath, before clearing his throat. "Did her parents share her empathy? Maybe telepathy?"

Bewildered, I shook my head. "Uh, no... I don't think so."

Broadside gave a triumphant smile, like he'd figured something out. "Thats what I thought." He nodded to Damsel, addressing her instead of me. "Our cousin is a wild flutterpony. I'm sure of it."

Damsel's eyes went wide, her ears going back in shock. "There hasn't been a wild flutterpony found in years!"

"Wait, what's a wild flutterpony?" I butted in, looking between the pair and feeling completely lost.

Damsel shook her head and turned to me, glancing at Rose as she spoke. "A wild flutterpony is one born outside of the hive. It..." She hesitated for a second. "It's not very common. Broadside knows more than I do."

Broadside shuffled into the booth, Damsel moving over to give him room. By this point, Rose had started paying more attention to what we were talking about, blinking curiously at the stallion. Beside her, Ibis looked interested as well. Broadside cleared his throat and sat up straight, like he was giving a lecture or something. "Wild flutterponies are, like Damsel said, our kind born outside of the hive. Their sires and dams are, typically, Equestrian ponies, one or the other being several generations removed from their flutterpony heritage."

I just stared at him, still feeling confused. Ibis was the one who spoke. "That's why Rose doesn't know how to speak in this hivemind thing, right?"

Broadside nodded, watching Rose curiously. Rose, for her part, just blinked at him. "Growing up without a hive, our cousin would never have learned." He shook his head sadly, then smiled at Rose. "Don't worry, cousin. We'll help you. Would you like that?"

Rose blinked him, then smiled. "Yes please."

I raised my hoof, waving it to get everyone's attention. "Uh, hey, can I talk to my friends for a second? In private?"

Damsel nodded. "Of course."

"Thanks." Plastering my best grin on my face, I slipped out of the booth, tugging Rose's ear and Ibis' wing with my magic. "C'mon, guys." Ignoring their struggling and protests, I hauled them across the cafe, past the watching flutterponies, and into the storage room I'd woken up in. Kicking the door closed behind us, I turned the lantern up to full so I could see and rounded on my companions.

"What in the name of Celestia's sunny flank is going on here?!" Wide-eyed, I tried to keep from yelling. I kinda succeeded. I don't think the flutterponies heard me, anyway. "Fucking breezie tales, guys! Am I the only one freaking out right now?!"

Rose just blinked at me curiously when I grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her. "They're saying you're a flutterpony, Rose! " I shook her harder. "A flutterpony! You're not a flutterpony!" I dropped her to the floor and buried my face in my hooves. "Oh Celestia... you're... you're a flutterpony... a fucking flutterpony," I sobbed. "What the hell are mum and dad gonna say when we tell them... 'Hi, mum! Did you know Rose is a breezy tale? And that uncle Jazz or aunt Blues was one?!' They'll think I'm off me bloody rocker!"

"You're not going to pass out again, are you?" Ibis asked, sounded amused. I could practically hear his smirk.

I pulled my head from my hooves and glared at him. "You. Why aren't you freaking out about this? You've been having sex with a mythical creature, for Luna's sake!"

He shrugged and sat down next to Rose, who was sprawled out on the floor, her eyes rolling in their sockets from being shaken like a magic eightball. "It's not the wierdest thing that's happened to us. Besides, does it really change anything?"

"Of course it does!" I yelled at him, waving my hooves in the air frantically. "It changes everything!"

"Like what?" He challenged, tilting his head at the unicorn flopped on the floor beside him, who had gotten over her dizziness and was watching us passively, blinking occasionally. "Rose is still Rose. She's still my mare, still a unicorn, still does her thing. The only thing that's changed is that now we know why she can do her feeling thing."

"You... I... she... they..." I sputtered, then threw my hooves in the air and let out a defeated scream, slumping to the floor. "I... I just can't deal with this." I looked up at Ibis, giving him a pleading look. "I'm a caravaneer, damn it. I just want something normal. I want a nice, straightforward job that doesn't end up with us getting chased by bounty hunters, or dealing with crazy mares, or chasing wagon thieves, or slogging through cursed swamps, or finding out somepony's a mythical creature."

Sighing, I shook my head and looked at Ibis, hope in my eyes. "Just... just, is there anything good that came out of this? Something... something that isn't wierd?"

The big griffin shrugged and dropped his claw to Rose's pale tummy, rubbing it. "The flutterponies consider Rose part of their family. Does that count?"

Groaning, I rubbed my forehead with a hoof. "Close enough. What about you, Rose? Anything to say?"

Rose blinked up at me from her spot on the floor. "I have cousins now, Lily." She smiled. "Lots of cousins."

I shook my head again, finally managing a small smile of my own. Rose was happy, at least. "Good enough." Then I sighed. "Where the hay did they even come from? I've never even heard ofanypony seeing flutterponies before."

Ibis shrugged again, still scratching Rose's belly idly. "A Stable'd be my guess."

I stared at him, confused. "Why would you think that?"

The overgrown buzzard gave me a disbelieving look. "You're serious? You didn't notice? They're wearing Stable barding. I recognised the vests. How about Damsel? She's wearing one of those Pipbucks." He waved at my Pipbuck-clad foreleg. I looked down at it, then back up at him, my ears going flat as I considered what he'd just said.

"Seriously? How the hay did I miss that?"

"Because you're an idiot?" Ibis suggested with a smirk.

Glaring at him, I snorted. "And you're a jerk."

Right then, Rose chimed in from her spot on the floor. "Lily, miss Damsel says we're invited to dinner. It's getting late, and she wants to talk to us some more."

I twitched one ear to point at the door, then frowned. "I didn't hear anything... oh." I shot Rose a bemused look. "Rose, are they talking in your head?"

Rose blinked and gave an upside-down nod.

I just shuddered. "That's creepy."

Ibis nodded and fluffed himself up, glancing at the door like he expected to see a flutterpony standing there. "For once, Lily, I agree with you."

---

Dinner was... surprisingly normal, if you ignored the fact we were eating with flutterponies. There were a few surprises, of course.

They gave me, Rose and Ibis an apple each. Actual apples. One for me, one for Rose ,one for Ibis. Proper, real life apples. Like, twenty-caps-each apples. For free.

At that point, I whole-heartedly agreed with Rose. Those wonderful, generous flutterponies were family.

There was also some polite dinner conversation, like where the Serenity was (parked safely in an alley behind the cafe), why we were in a cafe (they were using it for a basecamp) and why they were in Equestria (they were a salvage team).

Turns out Ibis was right, too. They came from a Stable, somewhere to the south.

After we'd all had our fill, the topic turned to us leaving.

"Oh, no," Damsel protested, looking sidelong at Rose, "you don't have to go." She waved her Pipbuck-clad leg (how the hay didn't I notice she had one?!) at the cafe's broken windows, and the impenetrable darkess outside. "Please, stay with us." She smiled at Rose. "Wouldn't you like that, cousin?"

Rose stared at Damsel and the other flutterponies, probably listening to them doing the freaky flutterypony hivemind thing. I shuddered at the thought of it. It was creepy. After a few seconds, Rose turned and gave me a pleading look.

"Gah," I muttered, looking away from her, "stop that, Rose." I risked another look towards her and flinched. She was pulling out all the stops and hitting me with the most begging puppy-dog eyes she could. "GAH! Rose, quit it! We can't just stay here!"

"Nowhere else to be," Ibis chimed in. "Don't particuarly want to go back to the rest stop in the dark, either."

Outvoted, I sighed. Opening my eyes, I nodded to Damsel and put on a grateful smile. "Fine. We'll stay the night. We'll just get our stuff from the Serenity and set up out here, if you don't mind."

Damsel shook her head and the other flutterponies gathered around us. "Oh, no. We couldn't leave you alone like that." She smiled sweetly at us as her group pressed in close and started herding the three of us towards the back of the cafe, and the storage room I'd worken up in. "Don't worry, cousin," she said to Rose, who was looking disturbingly happy at having a bunch of strange ponies pressed in around her, "we'll show you what you've been missing out on. I promise."

Ibis fluffed himself up and hissed, getting a bit more room for himself and slipping in beside Rose... which left me with flutterponies on all sides and a growing worry about what we'd gotten ourselves into.

---

Flutterponies sleep in pony piles. Like, everypony draped over or cuddled up to each other, in a big, fluffy mass. Oh, sure, they gave us our space, but that didn't mean much when the storage room was so full of bodies the three of us ended up in a huddle of our own.

I'd asked about who was on watch, since everyone was crammed into a single room. Ibis had pointed out that sneaking up on a herd of empaths would be damn near impossible, and Damsel had mentioned that at least two flutterponies would taking watch anyway. 'Taking watch' meaning they stayed in the huddle with the rest of us, listening or whatever for anything coming nearby, and woke up the next shift after a couple of hours.

Say what you like about flutterponies, but sleeping huddles are comfortable. The blankets and pillows all over the floor were just there for comfort, the heat of our massed bodies keeping the room nice and warm, and there was just something reassuring about the sounds that came with being in the middle of a sleeping herd. The soft breathing, feathers rustling, coats rubbing against each other, even the occasional sleep-fart; it was a part of equine nature, and I quickly found myself lulled to sleep, my head on Rose's side and my body covered by Ibis' wing.

---

My Pipbuck said it was early in the morning when I woke up, the little clock ticking away in the corner of my eye. I didn't pay much attention to it, though. I was warm, I was in that comfortable half-asleep state where everything's just right, and I'd woken up snoot-to-snoot with Rose.

I remember thinking how pretty she was, watching the cute way her ears wiggled in her sleep. She looked so content and happy for once... and to my sleepy brain, she looked so very kissable.

Slowly, I moved my head forward, my lips heading for hers.
Just a little kiss, I thought to myself, Maybe a nibble. She won't mind.

Beside me, Ibis grumbled in his sleep and rolled over, the sudden movement bringing me back to my senses. I realised I was less than an inch from smooching Rose, and as quickly as I could without waking anyone else up I wriggled free of the ponypile, got my hooves under me and slipped through the door to the cafe proper.

Once safe, I slumped down against the door, my face burning and my ears splayed. Groaning, I buried my face in my hooves. "I can't believe I just did that."

"What did you do?" I almost had a heart attack, jumping up and shoving my hoof in my mouth to stifle my scream as Damsel came from around the corner, blinking at me curiously.

"Fuck..." Taking deep breaths, I glared at the flutterpony. "Don't... don't sneak up on me like that... fuck..."

Damsel just smiled at me. "I'm sorry, but you felt upset. Is something wrong?"

I kept glaring at her, my heart still pounding, then slumped. "It's... it's nothing..."

"Are you sure?" She blinked at me again, and I nodded. "Well, in that case, would you like some coffee?"

Less than a minute later, I was seated at the cafe's counter and sipping a steaming cup of bitter coffee. "Oh, that's terrible." I grimaced at the cup, then took another sip and shuddered.

The flutterpony behind the counter, whose name I hadn't gotten, shrugged. "Sorry. All I could find was decaf."

I waved my hoof at him. "No, I mean, ugh." I sipped it again, my ears going flat at the taste. "This stuff shouldn't be freeze dried. Think it was this bad back in the day?"

The flutterpony just shrugged again. "Must've been. It was all that was left in the cupboard here." He took a swig of his own coffee. Beside me, Damsel did the same, buzzing her wings slightly.

It was just the three of us, the rest of our groups still sleeping. Outside, the streets were slowly being lit by Celestia's light, the world waking up for the start of another day. We didn't say anything, really. I was mulling things over, and the flutterponies probably didn't need to talk out loud.

Eventually, though, I sighed. "Look, I'm... I'm not comfortable talking about this, but... but maybe you can help."

Damsel turned to me, listening patiently.

"See," I continued, staring into my mug, "a while back, Rose got real hurt. A lot of stuff happened, and she... she lost her thing. She couldn't do that wierd feeling thing you guys do. Then, well... she got it back." I chuckled ruefully. "All it took was a good rutting. Thing is, I kinda walked in on her and Ibis when they were going at it, and Rose... her horn kinda went off." I sighed and took another swig. "We all started feeling each other, and... some of Ibis got stuck in me. His love for Rose." I swirled my mug, not really looking at Damsel. "It went away, though. We can't feel each other now, or anything, but... now I kinda..." I sighed and just spat it out. "I think I'm in love with Rose, and I have no idea what to do about it." I looked up at Damsel, my gaze pleading.

Damsel blinked at me and frowned. "I'm sorry, but what's the problem?"

I groaned. "The problem is, I don't just love Rose, I love her. Like, I wanna kiss her, and hold her, and stuff. But it's wierd, because it's not really me that's in love with her, and she's practically my sister!"

Damsel sighed. "I'm sorry, but I don't think there's anything I can do." Her wings slowly beat as she looked into her own mug. "I've never heard of anything like this happening." She paused to take a drink. "If we were in the Stable, I know someone you could talk to."

I let out a small, bitter laugh. "Yeah, well, pity we're not in your Stable, then."

We shared a few moments of silence before Damsel perked up. "Our cousin told us you're a caravan for hire."

"So?" I asked, draining the last of my decaf coffee with a grimace.

She just smiled at me. "I think we can help each other. If you were to deliver our salvage to the Stable for us, you might find some help."

I eyed her carefully. "That's it? Just deliver your stuff? No catch?"

"None." She shook her head and smiled. "You would be saving us a lot of time as well. We have as much salvage as we can carry already; we were going to leave in a few days. It's a long trip, though, and-"

"And this way you don't have to make it twice." I finished for her. She nodded again.

"That's right."

I mulled it over, thinking about it. On the one hoof, it sounded like a long trip, and we'd be in a Stable full of ponies like Rose. On the other, Rose would love it, I might finally be able to stop checking her out, and an isolated Stable could lead to a big payday if we put them on our route. The Serenity's route, not my parent's route, of course.

With a sigh, I nodded. "You know what? Why not." I smiled. "So, where are we headed?"

Damsel extended her Pipbuck-clad foreleg to me with a smile of her own. "Let me see your Pipbuck and I'll mark our home for you."

By the time the rest of our groups had woken up, me and Damsel had sorted everything out. We spent some time loading the Serenity with the flutterpony's salvage (crates of food, parts and equipment scrounged from all over Manehattan), had lunch, said our farewells (which took a while; lots and lots of enthusiastic hugging between Rose and her newfound cousins) and set off back home, leaving the flutterponies to continue their salvage operations.

We were an hour out of Manehattan and making good time, Rose's flank bobbing nicely as she pulled our wagon along, when I sat up suddenly, something dawning on me. "Oh, fuck. What am I gonna tell my parents about this?!"

Author's Note:

Bleagh. Dialogue heavy chapter. This was so darn hard to write. I just couldn't settle down and work on it for more thana few minutes at a time. Next chapter, things start to heat up.

So, how about Fallout 4, huh? I bet you're all expecting me to say there'll be a delay while I play it, right?
Nope! I'm waiting for the inevitable GOTY version to come out. And I never finished Wasteland 2, so I should probably get back to that.

Comments

[Cascadejackal]

6624020

Most important thing is. How much till the end?

No more than ten chapters at most, I should think. There's two more arcs after this one, and then it's over.

[Reese]

Let's see now, what happened at the end of the last...
Oh.
Right.
That.
This ought to be interesting. :D

Interesting. So if Damsel is what a flutterpony pegasus looks like... who's the non-flutterpony pegasus in the group?

Oh. Now that is interesting! :D

"This bunch-" He waved his claw, indicating Damsel and her group, "-are all flutterponies as well.""
...So what is going on with that pegasus?

"Rose ,one"
That comma and space appear to be switched.

"At that point, I whole-heartedly agreed with Rose. Those wonderful, generous flutterponies were family."
:D

And another excellent chapter. :)

6624114
"No more than ten chapters at most, I should think. There's two more arcs after this one, and then it's over."
Aww... Well, at least then you'll have more time for other stories. And this one isn't over yet! :)

[Cascadejackal]

6625486

...So what is going on with that pegasus?

Still a pegasus flutterpony. Just, a bit more pony than flutter.

[Reese]

6626315
Interesting. I'm guessing that Lily doesn't ask further because, well, breezy tale bug ponies?

[Cascadejackal]

6626319 Eeyup.

[Peaceful Treasure]

Oh, empty sky! I just love the direction this chapter is headed! I can at least sympathize with the difficulty of pushing through and writing things out, but you did an incredible job as always, Cascade.

even the occasional sleep-fart

<I think this might have been the best part of the chapter.

No more than ten chapters at most, I should think. There's two more arcs after this one, and then it's over.

So that's about all she's got left, huh? It's been a wild ride, but it ain't over yet, that much is for sure. I'm looking forward to the next chapter, as always Cascade. Still haven't beat Wasteland 2, huh? I'm still stuck in Fallout 1, haven't even started Fallout or Wasteland 2. Currently working my way through the Dust mod of New Vegas, when I'm not working.

[Cascadejackal]

6668414 This is pretty well thought out. Wrong on some points, but still very good.