FemmeFiction

by J Carp

Femmeterlude

“Here.” It was awkward having a conversation through an open window above a busy street, but Moon Dancer knew she was making it even more awkward with the way she kept unnecessarily looking over her shoulder.

“Uh. What’s this?”

“It’s all the cues. See?” Moon Dancer magically highlighted several important bits. “The timing has to be perfect! I have it all in my head, beat for beat, and it’s perfect!... but only if it goes well. And it will!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Moon Dancer asserted quickly, convincing no one. “So take this, memorize it, and then eat it.”

“...You want me to eat it.”

“Yes! So no one finds it lying around!”

“...Okay. See, but no, I’m not gonna eat it.”

Moon Dancer gasped, then got worried her loud gasp was timed perfectly to cause her to miss hearing someone coming into the room, so she looked back. Satisfied no one was there, she fixed her intense gaze back out the window. “You have to! What if Fluttershy finds it?”

“Then Fluttershy will probably be relieved she’s not marrying a lunatic who makes ponies eat pieces of paper.”

“Nooo!” Moon Dancer nearly moaned. “I’m being serious! I have a feeling in my gut there’s going to be shenanigans, and Fluttershy deserves better than shenanigans! It has to be just the way I envision it, and it’s like the universe is conspiring against us all!”

“Uh, look. You know how you hate when I tell you to chill? You say it’s condensing.”

“Condescending.”

“Right, whatever. And you made me promise to only do it when you really, seriously do need to actually chill?”

“...Yeah?”

“Chill.”

Moon Dancer sighed. “I just don’t think you have perspective on how quickly things are getting out of control.”

“Dude. You’re with a bunch of friends in a swank hotel in the middle of Manehattan. Nothing is...”

A sound, barely muffled by the wall, burst out from next door. It came again, high-pitched and ugly.

“Uh, what’s that?”

Moon Dancer took a step closer to the wall, but she didn’t really need to. The sound was very easy to identify. “That appears to be Rarity and Trixie screaming at each other.”

“Rarity and Trixie? Why would…”

“Shen. An. Ig. Ans.”

“... I’m still not gonna eat this thing. I’ll tell you what, I’ll fly up to the Broncs and throw it away there. Or maybe even Stallion Island. Fluttershy won’t ever go all the way out there.”

“That’ll have to do, I guess.”

“...Huh. ‘Fluttershy doesn’t have any reason to go to Stallion Island.’ There’s a joke in there, somewhere.”

“Please under no circumstances try to make it,” Moon Dancer muttered, hanging her head. “Guh, I have to go see if Fluttershy is okay.” She did not move. “I’m dumb, aren’t I?”

“What?”

“Planning out this big, elaborate thing. Trying to make it all just perfect. Desperately flailing away to impose reason and order onto a random universe, indifferent to our suffering.”

“Uh. That’s a little philosophical for me.”

“Yeah. It’s overwrought, anyway.” Moon Dancer nodded morosely. “I just need to take a second to try to remind myself, sometimes things aren’t disasters. Right?” She winced as Trixie’s voice babbled in incoherent anger. “Someone, somewhere is doing something, and it’s actually going well. That can happen, too.” Someone either threw something or stomped their hoof on the floor really hard, and Moon Dancer finally started towards the door. “...maybe.”

---

“Annnnnd here we are!” Miss Pommel trotted in, grinning nervously. “This where the magic happens!” She desperately staved off a grimace as Luna trotted in past her. “That was the dorkiest thing anyone has ever said, I’m sorry.”

“No,” Luna said, simply. Miss Pommel was not sure how to react, but Luna continued: “The dorkiest thing anyone has ever said was when Soft Pretzel told Celadon about what happened in the Forest of Rubber Trees.”

She grinned as Miss Pommel, who tried to grin back but her mouth just wouldn’t.

“Celadon?” Luna prompted. “Of the pegasus…” She paused, then her face fell. “That would have been hilarious eleven hundred years ago.”

“Um,” Miss Pommel said. That exchange had, at least, gone on for more than a single back-and-forth, which was better than most of the walk over had been. But each failed attempt at conversation was ending with what were almost beginning to feel like audible thuds.

But Luna was already approaching the crawdad tuxedo. “Oh but look at this, this is so…” She noticed the geode-inspired moccasins, oohing as she walked closer. “I see!” She looked up at Miss Pommel, excitedly. “It’s your usual themes of artifice and armor, but… more natural? Not frilly and decorated, I mean.”

“Y...yeah!” Miss Pommel walked closer, still too nervous to stand too close. Luckily, her workshop contained numerous topics of discussion. “I’ve been going to science lectures, just at the universities around town. I don’t understand a lot of it, but it’s been really, really inspiring. I like being aware of the chemistry in the materials I use.”

Luna gasped. “That’s what I did, when I had my first creative block after coming back! Ponies had learned so much about physics while I was on the moon. Like, apparently it was physically impossible for me to live for a thousand years on the moon!” She laughed. Miss Pommel did not. “...um, well, anyway, so I used meteors a lot, but I didn’t really understand a lot about how they worked, and learning more about it inspired me. I saw some lectures by Clockwork Angel, about his theories of how gravity affects celestial movements. You know, he postulates gravity is actually a fundamental force of the universe, completely unrelated to magic. Isn’t that interesting?”

Miss Pommel, who had no clue if that was interesting or not, stared back. “Uh…”

“So!” Luna continued, almost manic, “that was when I did my big meteor shower! Do… you remember that? About six years ago, in the winter?”

“Uh. No. ...sorry.”

Luna frowned. “Oh. I. Well, I just… I was very proud of it.”

“I would have really liked to!” Miss Pommel exclaimed. “It’s just, I’ve always lived in Manehattan, and the light pollution here makes it really hard to see the sky sometimes.”

“Oh. I see.” Luna glanced around, apparently finding nothing about any of the clothing designs nearby (not even the mantis-overalls!) worth commenting on. “I… saw a lecture about light, too. You know, the team of researchers wanted to ask me about how stars maintain their glow! I helped as best I could, but, um.” She trailed off. “They included me as an author on the manuscript, though!” She grinned, small and hesitant. “Fifth author, but. Still.” She stopped grinning, looked down at her hooves, and fell silent.

“She’s trying to impress me,” Miss Pommel suddenly thought.

Two days ago, she would not have been able to reach this conclusion. Even now, after seeing the brightest-shining diamond in all of Equestria turn out to have an ignorant and thoughtless side, it felt ludicrous.

“F...fifth author is still meaningful!” Luna argued, flustered. “They said I deserved it! It wasn’t just ceremonial!”

Miss Pommel thought that was a strangely defensive way to react, but then she suddenly realized she had been laughing. She sat down, her haunches plopping to the floor, and kept giggling.

Luna gaped at her, looking caught halfway between anger and embarrassment. “I don’t know why you’d laugh at me, but…”

“I’m not laughing at you!” Miss Pommel assured her, still laughing. “This is just so silly. Neither of us has any idea what we’re doing, but we’re both just trying to have A Normal First Date as if this wasn’t all totally insane.”

“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” Luna asked, raising an eyebrow, more than a hint of testiness in her tone. But Miss Pommel was past the point of being scared of that.

“I wouldn’t know!” she replied, smiling like an idiot. “I feel like I stepped into a surrealist painting two days ago. Luna, you can’t possibly imagine how bizarre it is to be me right now.”

Luna frowned. “You asked me out.”

“Yeah, because I didn’t think it would actually happen!” This was very funny to Miss Pommel, but before she could start chuckling again, she caught the expression on Luna’s face, and she didn’t feel like laughing anymore. “No… Luna, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to. I just…” She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Um, if I kept going, I’d start talking about stuff that’s too much for a first date.”

Luna did not reply for a moment, then she offered hesitantly, “The… rules and norms of first dates are there for a reason. I guess neither of us are in a place to do this right now.” It sounded very much like she was saying “Oh, well.”

Miss Pommel looked at the exit, knowing deep in her heart she should escort Luna out so they could go their separate ways, but she just felt too tired. “I’m gonna break the rules,” she said.

Luna was already beginning her stride to the door when she actually heard what Miss Pommel said, and she stopped so short she almost fell over onto her face. “You are?”

“I’m exhausted!” Miss Pommel wailed. “I’ve been on more dates this weekend than in the entire last year combined, and the first one was with Rarity, who’s wonderful and amazing and also the most frustrating pony in the entire world because everything just has to be this waltz of unspoken innuendo, and she was so bad on the date I was so ready to just be angry, but then after the date she was perfect again and I couldn’t even do that!”

“Um,” Luna said. “But… wait, when did asking me on a date come up?”

“I don’t even know! I just said it!” Miss Pommel waved her hooves around helplessly. “That was the result of this weird drug trip I was having, except instead of drugs, it was high self-esteem!”

“...Ah.”

“But then the reality hit me and I could barely even sleep last night, and…” She took a deep breath, looking up at Luna, almost pleading. “I just can’t do a normal first date right now. I just want to see if we connect. Can’t we do that?”

Lune did not say anything for a while, her expression stony. Finally, she sighed. “You said I didn’t know what I was doing,” she pointed out.

“...Yes?”

“Well.” She inhaled and exhaled quickly, through her nose. “If it were the case that one didn’t know what one was doing, because hypothetically let’s say the entire concept of a ‘date’ was invented thousands of years after one was born, then that would be eminently reasonable.”

Miss Pommel considered that, then nodded. “Of course.”

“The sensible strategy is to be light, friendly, and flirtatious,” Luna continued, the testiness halfway back in her voice. “And if that wasn’t working, because one has always been terrible at being in any way ‘light,’ then perhaps…” She trailed off, searching for the right words. “Perhaps…” She sighed and gave up the remnants of her little persona, sitting down on the floor. “It's just. What if I frighten you away?”

“Um. Then you frighten me away, I think.”

“I see,” Luna said, nodding stiffly. She stopped nodding stiffly, then resumed it. “That outcome was terrifying until you just said it so plainly, and then it felt very mundane. How odd.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” Miss Pommel replied, shrugging. “I never dated in school, and then I had this awful boss who made me work eighty hours a week so there was never time, and then I had one stupid sex dream about that horrible boss and I had to deal with that in therapy for about another year, and that pretty much catches us up.”

Luna stared. “Um. I’ve always thought dating was foolish until very recently. My only exposure to it was terrible romance novels and other ponies’ nightmares. Not yours!” She added that last clarification with some alarm, but Miss Pommel was grateful for it anyway. “Just a lot of ponies smiling at their date and then their teeth fall out.”

“Teeth falling out is a big dream dating thing?”

“It is. I napped last evening and had one of those dreams, myself. So.” Luna shook her head ruefully, sighing. “I suppose it can’t hurt to admit I’m nervous. Well: I’m nervous. You made my teeth fall out last night. Dating makes me very nervous.”

Miss Pommel nodded, smacking one hoof against the other. “Yes! We’re not perfect! Let’s keep going.”

“Keep going?”

“Yeah! Let’s get it all out of the way. All the reasons we feel awkward and dumb and scared!”

“You…” Luna tilted her head like a confused dog. “You just want us to say bad things about ourselves?”

“Yep!” Miss Pommel answered cheerfully. “I’ll start, okay? I resent ponies thinking of me as cute, but I still feel offended whenever anyone doesn’t!” She shivered slightly. “Oh my, I really can’t believe I said that out loud.” She nodded smartly to her date. “Your turn.”

“I…” Luna closed her mouth and took a deep breath. “This is difficult. I seriously don’t think this is how first dates should go!”

“Apparently, it’s how this one is going!” Miss Pommel declared. “Sometimes I think my cutie mark looks more like a flying saucer than a hat! That one was for free. Now you really have to do one.”

Luna grimaced, then closed her eyes and spoke quickly. “I threw a tantrum several weeks ago that I’m very ashamed about? Dr. Pipp made some criticisms about the ways Equestria hasn’t been inclusive to non-pony creatures, and even though I agree with her, I reacted defensively and immaturely. I apologized, but I think I lost her respect, and it caused me to doubt I did the right thing in joining the committee in the first place.”

“I’m kind of a wimp,” Miss Pommel stated. “I take on too many responsibilities, because I’m never brave enough to say no, and then when I get in over my head, I just use that as more evidence for why I shouldn’t trust myself to say no to anything.”

“I… Luna blinked. “I keep having the same conflict with my sister over and over, even though it’s simply not that large an issue: I’m an introvert and she’s an extrovert, and we have to make allowances for one another. But sometimes I just can’t help myself, and I’m grumpy about it, even though I know perfectly well how it always goes.”

“I had a terrible date with Rarity, and it was all her fault!” Miss Pommel shouted, grinning; very vaguely noting how cathartic this was turning out to be. “But I was secretly relieved, because a part of me really resented how perfect she was, and I always stomped down on that because I thought it’d make me like the really awful fashion ponies I know!”

Luna replied quickly, the energy really starting to flow now. “I often enjoy the Grand Galloping Gala, but my sister acts like that’s wrong, like anyone smart would find it boring, and that makes me worry the things I like are somehow objectively dull!”

“I hate Bridleway musicals. Hate them, hate them, hate them!”

“I enslaved the entire world and had to be banished to the moon for a thousand years!!”

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

Luna stood up, then sat back down. Her blush was huge. “That, perhaps, was a step too far.”

“I think it might not have been.” Miss Pommel took a hesitant step forward, then another, and then she was close enough to nuzzle Luna, so she did. When she pulled back, it felt like she was looking at someone exactly the same age as herself. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you feel so awkward dating.”

“I know I shouldn’t,” Luna mumbled, “because anyone I could date wouldn’t have been around for it. ...Because I was banished to the moon for a thousand years for doing something horrible, so of course they wouldn’t.” She kept looking down at the floor, miserable.

Miss Pommel frowned, but something familiar came upon her. Normally she hated it when this happened and she had company over, but this was different.

She walked over to the easel she used for sketches and flipped to a new page. Idly noticing that Luna was watching her in surprise, she grabbed a pencil in her teeth and quickly began drawing.

“What are you doing?” Luna asked, sounding too bemused to be sad anymore.

Miss Pommel held up a hoof to indicate she demanded silence for the moment. She beheld her sketches, nodded once, and spat the pencil onto the floor. “I am making you a hat,” she declared.

“You… what?” Luna walked closer, perplexed. “Why?”

“Because you inspired me!” She walked over to the shelves of fabric, eyeing them critically. “It’s got to be fairly simple if I’m going to get it done today, but I follow my muse when she comes to me.”

Luna gaped at the design, then over to Miss Pommel. “It’s… it doesn’t look simple.” She looked back at the design, tilting her head a bit. “It doesn’t even look like it fits in three-dimensional space.”

“That’s an illusion; you’ll see how it works. And it’s the point!” Miss Pommel pulled out some felt, which was close enough to what she needed, and walked over to the cluttered design table. “You don’t make sense to anyone. Because you’ve been alive for over a thousand years; how can anypony else possibly understand that? But see?” She wiggled the material around. “It’s frilly and floppy. This isn’t armor; it’s delicate. Because the same thing making you strange also makes you sensitive and real.”

Luna was just staring at her.

“And and and!” Miss Pommel continued. “As you know, art isn’t just its display. Art is its creation! So that’s why you have to help me make it. You’ve got to be in charge of the colors. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Luna replied, sounding as if she had no idea what that word meant even as she said it.

“Great! See, this hat has to be incomprehensible, but at the same time, it could only have been made by two ponies working together towards the same goal. Because this isn’t hopeless. You aren’t hopeless.” She held the fabric up to her own head and let it dangle oddly. “See? This is about how communication, even through a thousand years, is possible.” She giggled childishly in delight. “This is great!” She went to get some measuring tape, but paused as a warm blob of magic held her in place.

She turned back to see Luna looking at her with outright wonder. “What is even happening?”

“Umm…” Miss Pommel suddenly felt her creative energy subside a bit. “I’m sorry! Am I railroading you? I… I meant what I said about my muse, but I also just thought it’d be fun to do together. It’s just a hat.’

“The hat is important,” Luna said firmly. She seemed to reach a decision, and she nodded once. “The hat is very, very important. Because you just seduced a princess with that hat.”

Miss Pommel’s mouth fell open. Luna didn’t look the same age anymore; she had the confidence of a goddess in her movements. “We should get to work. But first.” She leaned forward very, very slightly. “May I?”

Miss Pommel couldn’t do much more than squeak. “Uh huh, yes please,”

The kiss was very brief, and it lasted a thousand years, simultaneously. When Luna pulled away, she looked eternal, calm, sweet. “May I tell you a secret? I was not expecting this to go well. Not because of you, just because it felt impossible to even imagine.”

“Mm hmm? What do you think now?”

Luna leaned down and kissed her again, more playfully this time. “It’s easier to imagine, now.”

Miss Pommel bopped her on the nose lightly. “Good.” She turned and went over to the designing table, leaving plenty of room next to her. “Help me measure?”

Luna came over, leaning close, almost touching. They got to work.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Oh wow this is so good. Coco and Luna just baring all of their fears to eachother, and then kissing and art and aaaaaaaaaa. Also Moon Dancer is proposing, or whatever.

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

I was a little afraid it was just going to be awkward the whole chapter at first.

I shouldn't have worried. This felt so real. I'm proud of Coco too, for being herself, for asserting, and my gosh, seducing a Princess with a hat. That takes skill.

Also, a sex dream about Suri Polomare? Yeah, I'd need therapy for a year after that too. Yeesh.

[Shrinky Frod]

So glad this is working out for somepony!

And Moondancer? As absurd as this sounds, Trixie's in the right this time, just prevent homicide.

[Autumn Colors Fall]

I think I'm missing a little bit of context here. Who is Moon Dancer talking to in the first part of the chapter?

[Reese]

Well, things with Coco and Luna seem to be going well. :)
...Other thread in the chapter, perhaps not quite so much, but I expect the Shenanigans will be fun to read about. :D

[FanOfMostEverything]

I hate Bridleway musicals. Hate them, hate them, hate them!

This may be the most shocking revelation in this chapter.

Glad I'm finally caught up. Good to see somepony work through their dysfunction. I can only hope Coco and Luna set the tone for future chapters.

[J Carp]

10647925
Sometimes you realize your story had too many awkward scenes in a row and so you have to put a semi-separate pleasant story in there just to cool things down.