Auntie Tia's Matchmaking Service

by Shaslan

Chapter 13

Zap Apple grunted as his forelegs took the strain, and sweat broke out across his forehead as he tried to drag himself up the sheer surface of the crag. He found purchase with one of his hind hooves, but the other was still dangling loose in the darkness. Zap Apple gritted his teeth and tried not to give in to the impulse to spread his wings for balance. Leaftail’s opinion on flying up tough bits of the climb had been made very clear to him.

“Come on, Zap Apple!” she called down to him now, her voice as even as it would have been had they been calmly walking along the street, and not dangling seventy feet in the air above the flat black surface of an underground lake. She didn’t even sound out of breath.

Zap Apple’s own breath was coming faster and faster, and his blind pawing at the rock face became more frenetic. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hang on.

He didn’t waste effort on looking down. It was too dark to see anything beyond the thin beam of his own headlamp. But he felt uncomfortably aware of the yawning space beneath him; the glossy dark mirror of the lake, and the untold depths beneath. Zap Apple was fine with heights — he was a weather pony, for crying out loud — but he was learning fast that underground heights were not his cup of tea.

“Are you alright down there?” Leaftail’s voice echoed from above him, and Zap Apple set his jaw. He didn’t want her coming down to rescue him.

He finally found a tiny crevice to wedge the very tip of his hind hoof into, and although it felt wildly unstable, he steeled himself and threw his weight onto it. From there, he was able to straighten his leg and shove himself up another few feet, where he found another few precious hoofholds and clung on for dear life.

He sucked in a few more gulps of air, and then looked over at Leaftail. She was splayed against the cliff face, her legs contorted into unnatural positions that she nevertheless held as though it was effortless. He could see the wiry muscles in her legs outlined in perfect bas-relief. His daring manoeuvre had brought him level with the tip of her long, almost prehensile tail, which twitched and swayed to keep her balanced. He had hoped she would be impressed, but the expression on her face suggested that this was no more than she expected from him.

When she noticed him looking up at her, she flashed him an encouraging grin. “Nearly there!” Then she was off again, clinging to the most minuscule cracks and swarming up the vertical ascent — more like a spider than a kirin.

Zap Apple clenched his screaming muscles and reached out a quivering hoof for the next hold. His breath was ragged now, his limbs aching. Zap Apple was an athlete, and prided himself on being the fastest and strongest flier in his whole squadron. But this was altogether a different kind of endurance test. He felt like he’d climbed a thousand cliffs, not a mere one.

Above him, Leaftail had reached a narrow ledge — still no more than a hoofspan wide, by Zap Apple’s guess, but still more substantial than the little crevices he was hanging on to. Leaftail hopped onto it and stood poised like a mountain goat. She tripped delicately along it, bunched her muscles, and sprang upwards like a cat, all four hooves pushing off together. Zap Apple’s mouth opened, too late, to cry a warning, but then the glow of Leaftail’s headtorch stabilised again as she landed lightly on another narrow strip of rock a few bodylengths above the first. Zap Apple let his breath rush out in a sigh of relief, and when she turned to smile down at him, he shook his head and gave a small laugh. She was showing off.

Reach after aching reach, Zap Apple pulled himself up the cliff after Leaftail. She seemed to spend an inordinately long time hanging stationary as she waited for him, her position always misleadingly casual. Then when he finally dragged himself alongside her, she would burst into motion again, and with another few quick little motions, have clambered beyond his reach once more.

“Come on, nearly there now!” she called down, her tone encouraging.

Zap Apple no longer had the energy to pretend that he was capable of a normal conversation. He sighed, jammed his hoof into a crevasse, and heaved himself up once more.

A little scuffling sound drifted down from above, and Zap Apple squinted up into the shadows just in time to see Leaftail’s bushy green tail vanishing over an outcropping of rock.

“We’ve reached the top!” Her voice sounded oddly distant and echoey. “You’re almost there!”

Zap Apple gritted his teeth and summoned what little will he had left. His saddlebags felt like they were stuffed with boulders. His legs responded slowly to his mental commands. It was like trying to swim through jelly. But just a little further up was the promise of rest, time for his poor overworked muscles to rest. Somehow, he found the strength to haul his carcass a little further up. His left hoof found a wide, comfortable grip and he bore down on it, replacing his front hoof with his rear and pushing himself upwards once more. He made rapid progress, and before long his questing forehoof found the flat surface of the cliff top.

Almost ready to weep with relief, Zap Apple surged upwards, his weary bones forgotten for a moment. For a split second, his entire bodyweight rested on the tenuous grip of his right hind hoof. It held for a moment, but just as Zap Apple reached for the cliff edge with his second front hoof, the tiny strip of rock supporting the edge of his right hoof collapsed.

Zap Apple’s chest hit the sharp edge of the cliff, knocking the wind out of him. His rear hooves both hung loose, and for one horrible moment he was sliding backwards, scrambling for purchase on the smooth rock with his front hooves, that deep black lake opening in his imagination to swallow him whole. But then sharp teeth closed with a snap in his mane, and he was being hauled roughly forwards. He lurched forward onto his knees, breathing hard, and looked up into the face of his rescuer.

“You okay?” Leaftail asked, actually sounding a little concerned now.

Hastily, Zap Apple struggled back to his feet and attempted a nonchalant nod. “Yeah. Fine.”

Leaftail grinned at his casual denial, and Zap Apple attempted a nonchalant stroll away from the precipice. But his legs were still shaking from the strain, and he only managed to totter a few steps away from the edge before he flopped back to the ground.

Leaftail rewarded him with another of her flash of her sharp little fangs. “That was one of my toughest climbs, you know,” she said, her tone almost conversational. “I’d never take a newbie up that.”

Zap Apple was aghast. “What? But I told you I’d never gone spelunking before!”

Leaftail’s eyelids lowered a little and her smirk widened. “I know. But I thought I’d see how you did on it. Honestly, I expected you to give up halfway through — or just fall off.”

Zap Apple opened his mouth, angry words ready on the tip of his tongue, but they didn’t come. Instead, he shook his head, and despite himself, began to laugh. With fumbling hooves he pushed his sweat-soaked mane out of his eyes.

Leaftail giggled along with him. “I’m sorry!” she said contritely, and Zap Apple was reminded again of his first impression of her — under all the attitude and curly green hair, Leaftail was actually a very attractive kirin.

He groaned and stretched his aching forelegs, and winced as he heard his joints crack. “How did you get so good at that? You were going up that cliff like you were stuck to it!”

Leaftail laughed again. “I grew up in the Perilous Peaks! You can’t get around there unless you have some serious climbing game. Besides, if I’m being honest,” she leaned a little closer, as though she was going to share a secret, and Zap Apple found himself mirroring her movement, “These give me a little bit of an advantage over you ponies.” She raised one cloven hoof, its tough surface split cleanly down the middle, and as Zap Apple watched, she wiggled the two sides independently.

Zap Apple’s eyebrows rose. So his assessment of her climbing style as goat-like hadn’t been so far off the mark after all. He considered his own smooth, round hoof and shook his head. “I bet that comes in really useful in a lot of ways, not just climbing.”

“Oh yeah,” Leaftail said lightly, reaching for her saddlebags, and Zap Apple watched in amazement as rather than scooping it open from the underneath, she pinched it between the two halves of her hoof and lifted the flap from above. Like a rudimentary griffin’s claw.

Zap Apple blew air out in a slow whistle. “Wow. Very cool.”

Leaftail gave him a flirtatious wink. “You bet. I impress tons of ponies with that.”

Turning his attention to his own saddlebags, Zap Apple raised himself onto his aching elbows and snagged the strap in his mouth to pull it towards him. “Right. So we said we’d do a picnic, yeah?”

“You know it.” Leaftail was already rummaging in her bags. “What’d you bring?”

Zap Apple nudged his bags open with his nose and picked up the checkered blanket. “Picnic rug, for a start.”

“Ace, ace,” Leaftail said approvingly. “Slap that bad boy down.” She gestured him towards a particularly large, flat rock with one hoof and produced a candelabra with the other. “I got us covered with lighting.”

Zap Apple clambered back upright and winced at the spike of pain in his front legs. He had definitely pulled something. “I think I’m definitely going to be flying back down.” He scooped up the picnic blanket and with an awkward flick of his head, unfurled it to lay it down across Leaftail’s indicated rock.

Leaftail laughed. “I expected as much.”

There was a sudden whoosh of flame, and Zap Apple jumped and looked around wildly, to see Leaftail blowing casually on one hoof, the flickering candles on their candelabra held in her other hoof.

Zap Apple shook his head. “Damn. I don’t think I could ever get used to that.”

Leaftail placed the candelabra carefully down in the centre of the rug. The flickering orange flames cast a gentler light than the harsh white of their gemstone-powered headtorches, and Zap Apple gratefully tapped the button on his that would turn it off.

“I’ve just always had flame powers,” she shrugged. “To me, flight would be pretty wild.”

Zap Apple flexed his wings; his back was definitely where his strongest and most oft-used muscles were, but today they had hardly even been stretched out. “Well, maybe I could fly you down, if you want?”

Leaftail whirled back to face him, some delicate hay sandwiches dangling in her magic. “Really?” she demanded.

Zap Apple smiled. “Sure! Gliding down and carrying somepony is well within my capabilities. And even if I mess up, we’ve got that lake to crash land in.”

“Wow, that would be awesome.” Leaftail produced a pair of plates and laid the sandwiches out on them. Zap Apple added his own offerings; milk fresh from the herd at home, a single mango, a pair of oranges, and some freshly grown apples, the cream of Sweet Apple Acre’s latest crop. When they were done, Zap Apple regarded the picnic spread with no little satisfaction. Not bad at all, for saying everything had been dragged through several miles of tight cave tunnels and bashed against Luna knew how many rocks.

They settled down to eat in companionable silence, and for a few minutes at least Zap Apple gave himself over to the task of stuffing his face enough to help him recover from that brutal climb. He glanced over at Leaftail a couple of times, and was both relieved and amused to see her wolfing her food with equal abandon.

When the initial edge of Zap Apple’s hunger was gone, he slowed his pace, and munched slowly on an apple as he gazed out into the cavernous depths of the darkness below. He felt warm fur brush his wing, and looked over in surprise to see Leaftail snuggling up against him.

Wow. Well, this is…unprecedented.

Unexpectedly, he saw a sudden flash of Dust Devil’s challenging smirk, the way her wings had shone white in the sunshine. He flinched a little, and Leaftail frowned up at him, her expression questioning.

“I just remembered,” Zap Apple said hurriedly. “I don’t know what Princess Cel— I mean, Auntie Tia told you, but I’m not — that is, I don’t want — I’m not in a big hurry to get married. Or settle down. I’m just trying to…explore, you know. See what’s out there.”

Leaftail was silent for a moment, and Zap Apple scrambled to fill the pause.

“I just don’t want there to be any crossed signals. Just so we’re both on the same page.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Leaftail said at last. “It’s good to hear. I’m only on Auntie Tia’s books to satisfy my Grandpop. He’s on his last legs and it’s his dying wish to see me married, or something. It makes him so happy to hear about the ponies I’m meeting that I’m giving it a try. But honestly, I’m in no real rush. I just want to go with the flow. See what comes.”

Calm flooded through Zap Apple, and he let the breath he had been holding flow out through his nostrils. “Princesses, I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.” Thank Celestia that there would be no abrupt halts, no demands for foals in one year’s time, no stinging rejections. This afternoon could just be what it was; a first date. Just two ponies — well, a pony and a kirin — getting to know one another. Simple. Easy.

“I know,” Leaftail replied, a laugh dancing at the edge of her voice. “I think I’ve met with four or five creatures now? And every one I’ve had to turn down, because they’re all desperate to get married in, like, a week’s time!”

Zap Apple let the sweet sound of her laughter wash over him, and closed his eyes. By all the stars, he was tired.

And when he felt the sudden press of Leaftail’s muzzle against his own, it felt like everything else had since they had reached the top of the cliff. Simple. Natural, easy. So he kissed her back, and held her close, and let her long tail twine with his own.

Comments

[Boltstrike58]

Cute.

[NovemberDragon]

This look really adorable!

[ObamnaSoda]

Pog

[Lord Legion]

Oh nice, Zap found someone with similar desires as him. Hopefully this can be the start of a good relationship.

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

i was kinda rooting for Dust devil and zap, but zap and leaftail are quite adorable together. very well done