She Drives Me Batty

by I Thought I Was Toast

Razing the Battlements Part 4

“There.” I sighed and slipped the suppressor ring over Pushing’s horn. The little menace burbled and giggled merrily as the magic keeping Rarity’s mannequines waltzing about the room dispersed, and they fell to the floor in a heap. “Thank you, Miss Rarity.”

“Oh, no problem at all.” The fashionista tittered as she picked up her mannequines one by one to twirl them back in place with a hum. “You’ve got such a darling little princess, Mercy. I must say, it’s simply marvelous to see such elegance at a young age.”

“Well, her father was the former heir to his house.” My aunt smirked for a second before her face melted into a wistful smile. “He was… too noble for his own damn good.”

“He sounds like a good stallion.” Rarity gave the dresses on her mannequines little touch-ups with them back in place, carefully examining each one while pointedly avoiding looking at Aunt Mercy.

“He was.” Aunt Mercy sniffed and covered it up as a snort, a smirk, and a lewd hoof gesture that had me checking that the twins were still good and distracted building blocks with Elusive as we prepared to leave. “Good in the only way that really matters.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and similarly hid her giggle with an affronted snort. “Now, now. No need to be crass. You can spill all those secrets later when we hit the spa—you know, like a proper lady.”

“Screeheehee! I’ve run from being a proper lady all my life.” Aunt Mercy cackled as she puffed out her chest and flared her wings. “What makes you think I’ll be any less crass at the spa?”

Arching her brow, Rarity simply stared. “Darling, you don’t understand. You act like I don’t want every lurid, little detail; you are a walking, talking trashy romance novel, and I adore trashy romance. Teehee! Oh, we are just going to be the best of friends!~”

Oh, sweet milk of Luna… I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes and ushered the twins towards the door. “Careful you don’t give her ideas, Miss Rarity. She’s already going after Mom and Dad. No need to make it even more trashy.”

“Oooooh, I didn’t think of that~” Rarity’s laugh was the tinkling titter of a mad mare hopped up on smile dip. “But no, no… you’re absolutely right. I’d much rather see things continue as they are—maybe even help her out a little.”

Discord damn it all. That was almost worse.

Almost…

At least I didn’t need to worry about Sweetie Belle becoming my aunt.

“Besides, I’m already taken.” Stars above, Rarity was still going? Please stop, please stop, please stop.

“The good ones always are.” No! Bad Aunt Mercy!

I groaned and stopped at the door, burying my head in my hooves and taking a deep breath. Looking up, both Rarity and Aunt Mercy were grinning at me like sharks, so I scowled at them and pouted hard. “Stop it. It isn’t funny.”

Miss Rarity had the decency to look away with a light blush—unlike Aunt Mercy. “Yes, well, this is why such gossip and jokes are for the spa. What happens at the spa, stays at the spa, no matter what you may think, Nightingale. Gossip I may be, but the entire town would probably die from embarrassment if I told half the secrets I actually know.”

“Oh! Oh!” Red hopped up and down, waving his hoof from beneath my wing. “So you know all the secrets? I wanna know where Pushing came from! Did Aunt Mercy really plant a bunch of daisy seeds and grow her like Daddy said? That doesn’t make any sense! She’d have a bunch of sisters if there was that much seed!”

“I… Ummm… Huaaa.. Huhh?” Vengeance was sweet as Rarity burned black as the Nightmare. She floundered hard under the onslaught, face darkening more and more. “I’d just love to share that little secret with you, but I really must start Elusive’s bath, see?” She gestured to the sparklingly radiant colt still playing with blocks. “Absolutely filthy!”

“Huh?” The well-mannered colt blinked and looked down at himself. “Nuh-uh!”

“Yah-huh!” Rarity gave a nervous laugh as she reached out to rustle and ruin his carefully coiffed and wavy mane.

“Ahhhhh! Mom! Fashion emergency! Fashion emergency!” It really said a lot about Rarity that her three-year-old had heard those words enough to not stumble over them.

“See? Fashion emergency! And I’ll be so very busy even after it’s handled so if you could just show yourselves out! Ta-ta, now! Bye!~” Rarity was gone in a flash of white, leaving me to grumble a few bad dad words as Red and Rolling took that as a cue to look up at me expectantly.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.” I sighed as we left the boutique to start walking home. “You won’t have clearance for that information for another few years at least.”

“I mean, if your Dad starts feeling frisky they might find out sooner~” Aunt Mercy’s smirk was as smug as a slug. “Screep!”

“Don’t you start again.” I muttered as she dodged under my wing. “It’s time we get home and clean up the nursery. We only got enough time for one more shot.”

“Pffft! Fine, but don’t blame me if I turn it up to eleven when your Dad gets home. Gonna have to make up for lost time. Screeheeheeheehee!” Ducking under another swing, my aunt pranced away grinning like a loon under moon.

“Whatever.” Taking a second to rub the bridge of my snoot, I sighed once more as I gathered up the pups and readied for take off.

“Awwww, cheer up, Night!” Both the little buggers hugged my neck hard enough to briefly choke me. “We’ll help you rebuild your room! Right, Red?”

“Yeah!” Red vibrated a little as he buzzed his wings. “We can’t finish that fight between Smitey McSmiterson and the Moony Maiden ‘til everything’s all fixed!”

Smiling ruefully, I shook my head and leapt for the sky. “You should be helping ‘cause it’s the right thing to do, doofuses, not ‘cause you wanna play games with my stuff.”

“But Night!” Rolling pouted hard enough to make me wince as I turned toward home, forcing me to correct the angle of my approach. “I wanna help! Red’s just being a dum-dum!”

“Hey! You wanted to finish, too!”

“I also wanna help!”

“And who says I don’t?”

“You, dum-dum!”

“Well, I do wanna help, so there! Who’s the dum-dum now, dum-dum?!”

Banking around the long way, I resisted the urge to roll the squabbling squawkers off and to their doom, instead staying level and taking slow, steady turns to hit the chimney thermals from Sugarcube corner a few times until we were high enough to finish the trip with little more than a glide, but instead of landing at the door to let the twins in, I brought us straight up to the nursery and dumped them in the clouds.

“Ten-hut!” I stomped a hoof and the remains of the nursery crackled, but the troublesome twerps kept bickering, taking their sweet time getting their heads out of the clouds.

“Ten-hut!” I tried again and they paused this time, ears twitching as they looked at me with my rockhard salute. Then they giggled and I sighed, giving that particular lesson up for now. “Look, guys. Just get in line with Aunt Mercy, alright?”

My aunt’s salute was surprisingly crisp, though it did little to inspire the twerps to action.

“Okay?” Rolling tilted his head as he looked around. “We aren’t gonna have to sit here and watch you two work, are we?”

“What?!” Red was instantly in front of me, pouting. “That’ll be so boring. Why are you being mean! We offered to help clean your room!”

“Can’t clean my room until we’re sure the nursery won’t collapse on me again.” I nodded at the scattered ruins and geese feathers. “So you might as well start up here. If I’m giving Aunt Mercy weather lessons, I may as well give you two a lesson, too. You can’t be worse than she is, after all.”

“No way!”

“Really?!”

“So cool!”

“I wanna learn to make lightning!”

“Hey!” Aunt Mercy barked out a laugh and let her stance go slack. “Are you saying I’m worse than a pair of untrained pups?”

“As a matter of fact…” I smirked as Aunt Mercy stuck out her tongue and flipped the frog at me. “Oi. None of that. We all know you’ve got a lot of bad habits to unlearn if you’re gonna live in the clouds with us day dwellers.”

Settling down on my haunches, I gestured Red and Rolling forward, digging a bit of floof from the floor to dangle in front of them. “Alright, you two, I want you to tell me the difference between this and the floor.” I let go of the cloud so it floated before them and nosed it closer when they both hesitated. “Go on. Give it a look. I know you two figured out that much. You wouldn’t be getting in trouble for making stuff if you didn’t know how to see.”

Red’s feathers sort of vibrated a little as he edged closer, little breath-sized breezes and bits of air haphazardly being strewn about as he squinted at the cloud puff and poked the floor. “It’s… floofier.” He beamed as I nodded.

“Yes, yes it is. Do either of you know why?” I looked to Rolling, who was squirming, tufted ears flapping wildly as he clicked like mad. Chuckling, I just ruffled his mane. “And stop trying so hard; listening to weather doesn’t work like that, Rolling. You need to relax, and just try to feel it.”

“But it’s so hard,” Rolling pouted with a shrill, squeaky whine. “I barely feel anything. Why doesn’t it echo back?”

“It’s not supposed to echo well. It’s cloud.” I let out a few clicks of my own, the sound merely scattering into the open sky. “Inside the house is a bit different, but that’s ‘cause you, me, and Dad can pack the walls with bits of shadow. Trust me, looking for echoes isn’t gonna help here.” Shaking my head, I lowered my head to make eye contact as he shrank and squirmed, booping his snoot with my hoof and knocking his shades slightly askew. “You gotta listen like Red listens. It’s gonna be quieter for you—you aren’t a pegasus—but I know you can do it.”

Noogying him again, I managed to get a giggle out of the little guy. “Think of it like hunting. You gotta be quiet and patient.”

Squirming away from me, Rolling circled about the little puff frowning. Red was pulling on my leg and waving right in my face to answer the still unanswered question I’d asked, but a look from me got him smiling sheepishly and settling back down. His wings twitched in impatience, though, and—

“It’s not part of the house!” Red beamed even as his shout made Rolling flinch.

That was fast.

“No, actually.” I hummed as I turned my glower back on. “But give your brother a chance and I’ll get to why it’s ‘floofier.’”

“Whaaaaaaat?! But I’m totally right! What else could it be?!” Puffing his chest out and flaring his wings, Red stomped forwards.

“It could be a lot of things.” Scooping up another cloud puff, I set it before him. “Does this one feel poofy?”

“Ummm… N-no?” Red deflated and fell to his haunches with a pout. “Why doesn’t it feel poofy?!”

“I don’t know.” I smiled softly as he scowled ferocidorably. “You tell me.”

“You— You— You cheated or something! Did something to it!” With a stomp, Red made the teeniest crackle of thunder and immediately turned to look his hooves over, ire forgotten. “Ah! How did I do that?!”

“You cheated, of course.” Nightmother above, messing with them was fun. No wonder Mom had been the one teaching me even after she finished teaching Dad.

“But… I… Wha…” Red’s face squinched deep in thought as I confuzzled him, letting me check on Rolling once more. He was still focusing with silent but deadly determination, inching closer and closer to the cloud. His head was low; his waggling butt was high, and I snerked at seeing him take the hunter analogy to heart.

It was working, though. His ears were swiveling not towards the sounds of Ponyville but towards the cloud and its many many secrets.

“It is floofier,” he whispered with hushed awe as he finally looked back up at me.

“And why is that?” I couldn’t make my smile as dad-ly as Dad’s, but I tried.

“It… umm…” Rolling looked down at his hooves. “You made it like that?”

“Sort of.” My nod was enough to snap Red out of his thoughts.

“So you did cheat!” He pointed accusingly.

“No, ya little bugger.” Aunt Mercy broke her not-so-silent snickering to laugh. “Cheating would be if I did it for her. Your sister is just working clouds like any other pegasus or thestral.”

“But how?!” The twerps’ double whine made me laugh so hard I accidentally inhaled one of the cloud puffs.

“The secret’s in why the puff is floofier.” Patting my chest, I coughed up what was left of the puff, still laughing, and scooped another up for them to study. “Come on, guys. You got this. You managed a glide today, after all.”

“But… that made you mad.” Red tilted his head at me, little wings buzzing. “You wanted to punish me!”

“Mad? Of course I was mad, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t proud.” Shaking my head, I grinned like a loon under moon. “I disciplined you for being reckless, featherbrain, not because you managed a glide, and this is about the best I can reward you guys with because of it. I’m not gonna give you extra dessert for putting yourself in danger.”

“Oh…” Red fell back on his little haunches at that.

“Does that… mean I gotta glide now?” Rolling tilted his head.

“Oh my—” Hoof met face. “No, Rolling. You don’t. I’m giving you the lesson, aren’t I? Just… think about it, you two. Poke at the clouds if need be.”

They poked; they prodded; they raspberried, but little progress was made. My smile was ruined as I bit my lip, and the little twerps were just getting angstier and more frustrated every time they gave a wrong answer. I didn’t wanna just tell them, but…

Why did I think I could do this, again? Mom would have been so much better. Maybe I should just take them in, and—

Wait. Was that construction noise again?

“Oi! Pipsqueaks! Watch!” Aunt Mercy smirked as the twins and I looked over. She had gone from watching to cloud gathering and had two big piles of clouds in front of her. “‘Floofy.’” She gestured to one and bucked it, the clouds dissipating so finely there wasn’t even mist left. “‘Not-floofy.’” This one broke apart into big chunks as she bucked it, and Red and Rolling clapped with glee before running forward to investigate.

Poking at the clouds, Red nosed one and sneezed, the little puff completely evaporating as it took the brunt of his blast. “Night! Aunt Mercy lied! All this cloud is super floofy!”

“It is now.” With a nod and a smirk, Aunt Mercy gathered the puffs up and put them back together. “See?”

Rolling poked at the cloud, face squinching and ears flicking. “It’s not floofy now! Is… Is…” My face brightened as I saw the little gears turning. “Is floofiness better for bucking? The floofy clouds just go poof!” He fell back on his haunches, waving his forehooves wide.

“Took ya long enough.” Aunt Mercy smirked at me and my hackles rose. “Maybe somepony needs teaching lessons~”

“Hey!” I blushed black, wings rustling as my aunt laughed.

“But yeah, twerps. Floofier clouds are like floofier mares. Better for bucking, smashing, and turning into your little toys.”

“What?!” I wasn’t sure if Red, Rolling, or I shouted louder, though I was the only one not doing so excitedly. Both twins pranced forward asking all kinds of questions, while I shook my head and stormed up to my aunt with a growl. “And I’m the one who needs lessons? Aunt Mercy!”

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em.” She shrugged and smirked, eyebrows waggling with dangerous intensity. “Besides, I’m not wrong.”

“They don’t need to know that!” I hissed, gesturing to the twins, who had quickly moved on from questions the instant it was clear we weren’t answering them. All kinds of puffballs—floofy and not—had been scooped from the floor to leave it looking like swiss cheese as they experimented with bucking and floofifying and failing to make any lightning.

“See?” she laughed. “They’ve already forgotten. Cut me some slack. I got them to figure it out without just giving them the answer, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“Night, Night, look!” Red interrupted us by running over to drag me to a huge cloud they’d made out of the holes in the floor. “Not floofy!” He and Rolling set their hooves on the cloud and scrunched their faces. “Aaaaaaaand floofy!”

I smiled as they both bucked it apart, even if it vaporized a decent bit of my ceiling to do it. “Good job, you two.” I ruffled their manes. “You’re ready to help now, alright? Before now you’ve just sorta been trying whatever and it sorta comes out anywhere from lightning to rain to hail, right?”

“Yuh-huh!” They both threatened to nod their heads off as they shook affirmatively.

“Well, that ‘floofiness’ is pretty much how you control any weather magic using clouds. Different kinds of floofy do different things, okay?” I nodded to the ruined nursery around us. “For now, though, Aunt Mercy and I need to round up some new clouds to use for construction, and I need you two to start making the clouds we bring in the same kinda floofy that the rest of the house is, alright? Don’t patch any holes yourselves, though. The house clouds are enchanted with a bunch of stuff, and you can’t just shove new clouds in there without causing a mess.”

“Is that why everything was going so wrong before?” Aunt Mercy arched her brow at me.

“Partly.” I blushed a nice, rich, delicious iron. “Didn’t think of it, then, but it’s not like I teach this stuff for a living, alright?!”

“Sheesh. Calm down, pipsqueak.” Aunt Mercy gently waved me down. “I’m not mad or anything. I still suck at this stuff in general. Kinda surprised my floofy example didn’t explode in lightning and hail.”

“Teehee! Teach us, Auntie! Teach us!” Red giggled and clapped his hooves. “I wanna do that!”

“I would if I could.” Aunt Mercy had the most guanoguzzling grin on her face. “But sadly, I have no idea how I do it. Your sister’s teaching me, though!”

“Huuuuuuuuuh!” Red’s sharp little inhale was more than enough to signal the oncoming storm.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” Red and Rolling ran into my room just as I was putting the finishing touches on it.

No battlefield yet, but all my other stuff was sorted and accounted for. I had my posters hung and my shelves lined: my bed was a bit bigger, but I’d been meaning to do that for a while. Most importantly, I’d managed to find all the minis, ‘cause those were bucking expensive.

I groaned and stretched, cricking my neck and glancing to the ceiling. One quick flap, and I poked my head through to check that everything was still in place. “You hear that?”

“Yeah, I heard.” Aunt Mercy rose from near the crib with a smirk to saunter over and noogie my head back down. “Now stop messing up all our hard work.”

“Screeheehee!” I giggled as I fell back into my room, and Aunt Mercy sealed the hole behind me. The front door opened, and I could hear Mom and Dad laughing as Red and Rolling charged them. When I sauntered out to join them, I did so with an extra cocky sway to my hips. Mom and Dad were by the entrance playing with the twerps, but they looked up to smile at me as I made my way over.

“You’re looking smug as a slug right now, champ,” Dad rumbled as he stopped flying Rolling through the air on one hoof to set him on his back. His eyes and fangs glinted as he grinned at me, arching his brow as he looked me over. “Diamond come over for some help with biology again?”

“I wish.” It was a testament of resolve that I only blushed a little as I kept moving forward. “I got stuck foalsitting four foals instead of just two all day.”

Dad’s brow arched further, though it was Mom who spoke with a frown as she put Red down and took off her helm. “Oh dear… Your aunt didn’t cause too much trouble, did she?”

“Nah.” My grin grew as I waved them off. “She just sucks flank at doing anything weather related, and somepony—” I waggled my brow at Dad. “—keeps having her rebuild the nursery. Had to give her some lessons after she trashed my room.”

“Oi, fotze!” There was a shout from above. “I thought we agreed you’d leave that part out!”

“We fixed it, didn’t we?” I shot back with a smirk.

She hadn’t, of course; I said I wasn’t gonna let her touch my room with a ten-hand pole, and I hadn’t, but Mom and Dad didn’t need to know that. She did good today when push came to shove. I smiled a little more sheepishly as I looked back at Mom and Dad. “I had to give her some lessons, but we got everything ready before you got back. Wanna see?”

“Why do I feel like you aren’t giving us the whole story still?” Both Mom and Dad arched their brows at me, but while Dad was grinning like a loon under moon, Mom was frowning pensively.

“She’s not,” Dad chuckled as he stepped up to slug my shoulder. “You are a terrible liar, kiddo. For one thing, you don’t even let me touch your room anymore, and you worship the caves I creep in.”

“I… uhhh…” Squirming beneath their combined gazes, I licked my lips. “Okay, maybe there were a few other hiccups, but me and Aunt Mercy managed to muddle through.”

I waited for the axe to fall, but no reprimands came my way. Looking up, Dad was still grinning, and though Mom was still frowning, her gaze was off towards the nursery as she pursed her lips.

“Well?” Dad waggled his brow. “You gonna show us all your hard work or not?”

“Not just hers!” Red hopped up and down on Mom’s back, wings buzzing furiously. “We helped, too! Me and Rolling! We learned how to make things floofy!”

“Floofy?” Mom smiled and turned her head to nuzzle him. “Is that what she called it?”

“Yeah! Cause it feels all floofy and poofy and makes clouds go fwoooosh!” Red reared back as he spread his hooves wide.

“I would have gone with ‘fluffiness’ myself,” Mom giggled. “Floofiness works just as well, though.”

“Po-ta-to, po-tah-to! You lot coming or what?!” Aunt Mercy’s shadow reared up from the ground to tug the immovable wall that was Dad. “Screeheehee! Come on, already! We’ve got more than a few surprises waiting for you~”

Her shadow popped out of existence as I led everypony through the house and up into the lion’s den. The door was first to stand out as the frame was a smooth, curvy and playful hourglass shape. The door itself had Pushing’s name inscribed upon it, as well as a small picture of a mound of daisies.

“Ta-da~” Smiling, I pushed into the room with a wink.

At first glance, it was little more than one would expect—a crib, a toy chest, some hoof-me-down foal’s toys that had just been sitting in the attic—but a closer look would reveal that we’d molded the walls into a series of pictures and stories. It turned out that Red had a bit of a knack for it, and while it hadn’t gotten him a cutie mark, he and Rolling had had a blast decorating the walls as Aunt Mercy and I took care of the furniture and the toys.

“Made for foals by foals.” I smirked and ruffled Red’s head as he preened from his perch atop Mom.

“Awww… how adorable!” Mom giggled and added to my noogy by nuzzling Red simultaneously. “Looks like we might have an artist in the family!”

“If you think that’s adorable, then check out this.” Aunt Mercy gestured to the headboard of the crib. She’d been watching Pushing sleep with a smile as we came in, and that smile had only grown as we looked about. “This one was all mine.”

The cloud crib was carefully anchored to the floor to make sure all the enchantments from the house stuck with it—including the cloudwalking spell. The bars were whimsically spiralling spires, while the headboards had been molded much like the walls. Two stallions reared back to back over the little unicorn foal, standing silent vigil over their daugh— charge.

The looming thestral with his wings spread wide was so obviously Dad I could see it despite my aunt’s… unique art skills, and Dad smiled, reaching out toward it as he saw. The other was a unicorn, horn lit up with magical swirls carved into the crib around him, and it was there Aunt Mercy reached with a wilting smile.

She allowed herself a single solitary sniff as Mom and Dad both leaned into her. “Thinking about getting a good, solid wood one when I can—something she can see and appreciate when she’s older. But, yeah!” Quick as it wilted, Aunt Mercy’s smirk was back. “Now she’s got both her fathers watching over her while she sleeps!”

Mom and Dad shared a brief momentary look over Aunt Mercy’s shoulder as they embraced her, silently communing as all good parents can. Exasperated, worried, smiling softly with a nod, their faces ran the gauntlet, but at the end of it all they stayed by Aunt Mercy’s side to hold her.

Dad in particular, seemed almost afraid she would break if he squeezed his wing too tight, but his smile was warm as he leaned down to nuzzle my aunt. “You know, I remember a time when doing something like this again and again would have had you out the door and flying off on some new adventure. It’s nice to see you trying. Still can’t say where this’ll all end up going, but…”

Mom hummed and joined him. “But whatever happens, we’ll be here to help you all the way.”

Author's Note:

Sorry about the speed folks. Stuffs been happening, been kinda distracted, and I'm also still trying to juggle both this and the Batty original fiction.

That said, responses have been good from the couple of folks I've had pre-read the original stuff, so with any luck I'll eventually get that published.

This is the end of this arc, though. Next up should be a trip to Canterlot.

Comments

[badninja]

That was nice. I hope one that her brother gets his mark in being an artist.

[Spamotron]

The mention of echolocation in this chapter made me wonder, does Glory know how to do it? It's a skill that can be learned by anyone with working stereoscopic hearing after all.

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

As entertaining as this is, I do have to criticize you on one paragraph.

“Why do I feel like you aren’t giving us the whole story still?” Both Mom and Dad arched their brows at me, but while Dad was grinning like a loon under moon, Mom was frowning pensively.

The problem is the quote. Specifically, how there's no indicator on who is saying it. Yes, it can be figured out, but doing so breaks the immersion as the person has to stop to do so.

[Noobblue]

10583112
I agree that that's certainly a grammatical error that is an easy fix; and that should be fixed, even if it is understandable.

[Munro]

wonderfull chapter

[Alaborn]

I wasn’t gonna let her touch my room with a ten-hand pole

Only one-third as useful as a ten-foot pole.

[swyrl]

11020955
They are little ponies after all.

[Asolem2]

“He sounds like a good stallion.” Rarity gave the dresses on her mannequines little touch-ups with them back in place, carefully examining each one while pointedly avoiding looking at Aunt Mercy.

Rarity is a mare with tact

“Besides, I’m already taken.” Stars above, Rarity was still going? Please stop, please stop, please stop.

And we are simply dying to find out by who