Auntie Tia's Matchmaking Service

by Shaslan

Chapter 8

The new week brought with it a new letter from the Princess.

Dear Zap Apple, it began, identical to the first, I was sorry to hear from you that you didn’t feel Thornstone was a good match. However, only through experience can we learn, and I congratulate you on learning the first lesson of this process — the sort of partner you don’t want.

I have another potential match to offer you. Dust Devil is a pegasus mare, currently a senior member of the wonderbolts. She is a little older than you, but has enough energy and drive to run rings around most ponies. She shares the key interest you mentioned in your last letter (flight and excelling in that field) and after meeting with her several times over the course of the last few months, I can assure you that she is not boring. She has agreed to meet with you at Wonderbolts HQ any morning that suits you. Once again, I look forward to hearing how your meeting goes. Yours Sincerely, Auntie Tia (Princess Celestia, Ruler of the Day, Diarch of Equestria, Princeps Solaris, Sol Invictus, The Sun Eternal, etc).

The photo enclosed this time caught his attention. It showed a lithe, lean pegasus mare, small but covered with wiry muscles, and with a wingspan far too large for her diminutive frame. She must be a powerful flier. Her cutie mark was a yellow arc of light. Her amber eyes, the same shade as her mane, were narrowed, and a sardonic grin spread across her muzzle. She looked confident, tough — all those things Zaps had always wanted to be, but felt that he somehow fell a little short of. The look on her face seemed as though she were somehow setting him a challenge, and he couldn’t help wanting to meet it.

The next day at breakfast, he tried to casually drop it into conversation with his parents. “I’ll join you on the flight to Wonderbolts HQ today, Mum.”

Rainbow’s ears flicked bolt upright. “Wait, really, kiddo? Why? You want another tryout for the Bolts?”

Zap Apple waved a hoof. “Ugh, Mum, no. How many times? I’m meeting somepony there, that’s all.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash shared a look, their expressions alight with interest. “Really?” Applejack asked, attempting to strike a casual note. “Anypony in particular?”

Zap Apple sighed. He was going to have to tell them. “One of Auntie Tia’s potential matches.”

Applejack gasped audibly and Rainbow drummed her hooves on the table with excitement. “She’s setting you up with a Wonderbolt? That’s awesome news!”

“Ah thought we all agreed that an earth pony would be best,” Applejack objected.

“Mum!” Zap Apple groaned. “Please don’t be so…so racist. I’m interested in the ponies, not in whether they have wings or not.” Though he couldn’t deny that Dust Devil’s creamy white wings held a certain…allure.

“Never mind that!” Rainbow Dash clopped her hooves together. “Tell us who it is!”

“Dust Devil,” Zap Apple said reluctantly, hoping against hope that his mother wouldn’t know the wiry little amber mare.

Rainbow Dash chewed on her lip. “Dust Devil? Isn’t she the one who…? She’s…she’s Lightning Dust’s daughter.”

Zap Apple spread his hooves. The name was familiar to him, but he didn’t immediately recognise it. “So what?”

Rainbow Dash harrumphed and Applejack hastily patted her shoulder. “Lightnin’ Dust is your momma’s nemesis, Zaps. They’re arch-rivals — pretty much the one pony Twilight could never convince Rainbow to make proper friends with.”

Zap Apple sighed and put his head in his hooves. “Mum, come on. Don’t make this into a problem. I actually really like the look of Dust Devil. She can’t help who her mother is.”

Not any more than he could help who his own were.

Applejack shot Rainbow Dash a look, and Rainbow nodded hastily. “Of course, kiddo. Of course. I was just — it was an overreaction. You can date whoever you like. Even…even if it is Lightning Dust’s kid.”

“I think I’ll fly up to Wonderbolts HQ alone,” Zap Apple decided, pushing his chair back. He didn’t want to risk dragging any of his weird family drama into his first meeting with Dust Devil.

Rainbow reached out a wing to stop him. “Oh — but I wanted—”

“Sorry, Mum.” He was already halfway out the door. “But I don’t want to listen to an hour’s retelling of your brilliant duels against Lightning Dust.”

Rainbow’s eyes grew slightly bigger with hurt, but Applejack put a restraining hoof around her shoulders. “Best to let him go, Shug. Got to let him do this on his own.”

---

“Let’s go!”

As she yelled the word, Zap Apple leapt straight up, his powerful hind legs propelling him into the air. He glanced over and saw Dust Devil spread the great feathery sails of her wings, catch the wind, and thrust herself higher and higher.

Panting and grinning all at once, he hurtled after her.

He could feel the air currents spiralling skywards, and it was a matter of instinct to pick out the right threads and chase them upwards. But Dust Devil was still ahead of him, grinning down at him, her nearly alicorn-sized wings bearing her up with every sweep.

Zap Apple felt the blood coursing through his veins, and the wind sang against his fur. He didn’t feel afraid anymore. In the sky, nothing could stop him. It was his kingdom, the place where he was master of everything his wings could touch. He could leave all the hurt and worry on the ground, and once he was up, it was just him and the air. And now Dust Devil, too. An addition that he definitely did not mind.

They circled up and up, chasing each other all the way, and then collapsed panting onto a cloud.

“I can see why you’re a Wonderbolt,” Zap Apple laughed, the contest banishing any remnants of nerves that he felt. “You’re fast!”

“And I can see why Captain Dash is always bragging about her wunderkind son,” chuckled Dust Devil. “Theres not many civvies who could keep up with me. Hell, you could almost be a Wonderbolt if you wanted to be.”

Zap Apple laughed again and waved the flattery off. “If I had an apple for every time my Mum said that to me.” He rolled onto his front and looked into Dust Devil’s eyes, trying to steer the conversation away from his mother. “But let’s talk about us. Tell me about your favourite things to do.”

Dust Devil giggled and kicked her hooves in the air. “Flying, obviously.”

“Your favourite manoeuvre, then.” Zap Apple was entranced. She was the most beautiful pegasus he had ever met.

“I actually have my own,” she confided, sitting up and shooting him a sly smile. “I call it the Arch of Glory.” She flicked her head at her cutie mark. “Wanna see it for real?”

Zap Apple leaned closer, so close his many-hued mane almost mixed with her own butter and lemon locks. “More than anything.”

Dust Devil snickered and jumped to her hooves. She kicked off from the cloud and abruptly dropped out of sight. Zap Apple surged to his feet and craned his neck to try and trace her flight path.

Then she was whooshing past him, a blur of amber and cream, curving around the cloud in a vast circle, building up her speed. He could just detect a trace of a yellow contrail, and then it was streaming out of her, and she soared overhead, perfectly recreating the golden arch of sunlight that graced her flank. Zap Apple whooped and stomped his hooves in applause, realising too late that would destroy parts of the cloud he sat on.

Dust Devil laughed at his predicament as she swept around him once more, letting the Arch of Glory fade out. She backwinged and gracefully alighted beside him on the considerably smaller cloud. “What about you?” she challenged. “What’ve you got?”

Zap Apple gestured at his cutie mark, the red and orange whirlwind. “I can make real dust devils, baby.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he blushed and paused. It wasn’t like him to be so…so smooth. He sounded like a new version of himself. A better and more confident version. Then indecision seized him. What if it hadn’t been the right thing to say?

But Dust Devil was laughing, and Zap Apple was laughing too, heady with exhilaration and relief.

“Go on, then!” she demanded. “Show me.”

And before Zap Apple knew what he was doing, he was diving off the cloud, and circling her, tighter and tighter, faster and faster, his wings thrumming like a hummingbird, his body crackling with the electric power only he could summon. And then the cloud was torn away in his tornado, ripped into little wispy shreds, and Dust Devil was laughing and clapping her hooves, and then she was flying with him, circling round, tighter and tighter, those great wings of hers adding even more power to his whirlwind, until they were both thrown out of it and fell away, laughing, to watch it spin upwards and dissipate in the clouds above.

Feeling happier than he could ever remember, Zap Apple followed Dust Devil as she glided smoothly back to the clifftop landing strip. His face ached from smiling so much. Who would have believed that one little coffee date could result in seven hours with somepony, each feeling better than the one before?

Dust Devil landed as gently as a feather, and folded her glorious creamy wings carefully against her side. Then she flicked her head, inviting him to walk with her, and Zap Apple hastily landed and trotted after her.

“I’m a big believer in being honest, Zap Apple,” she said suddenly, and Zap Apple’s heart stuttered.

“Oh?” he said, as casually as he could.

“Yes,” she nodded firmly, that determined glint he already felt he knew so well appearing in her eyes. “I’ve met with enough of Auntie Tia’s potential matches now to know what I like and what I don’t like — and I like you, Zap Apple.”

Zap Apple sucked in a breath, his wings spreading in unconscious elation. “Really? I like you too, Dust Devil! I really like you.” Being with her was effortless, like riding a thermal up and up and far away from the terrors of the world below. His date with her had gone as differently from his date with Thornstone as could be imagined.

Dust Devil chuckled. “That’s great!”

Zap Apple wished she would stop walking for a moment, so he could just stare into her amber eyes and bask in this moment. The moment he had finally found his special somepony. Who would have guessed that Applejack had been right? That finding a partner could add so much to your life, that—

“But we’ve gotta talk serious for a minute,” Dust Devil went on, and Zap Apple abruptly came crashing back to earth.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that most ponies who go to Auntie Tia — they want the same sort of stuff. But I need to know for certain that we’re on the same page before we take this any further. I’m a few years older than you, and I know what I want. I want to get married, soon, and I want to have foals soon too.”

Zap Apple felt the euphoria sucking away from him. Cold reality was hitting, stinging like a blast of winter air. “Uh…how soon?”

Her answer was immediate and brutal. “Within the next two years, so that I can be back on top form for the next Equestrian Games.”

Zap Apple clutched for a moment longer at the heady joy of the afternoon they had spent together. “Don’t you, uh, think it’s a little soon to be discussing that sort of thing?”

Dust Devil stopped walking at last and turned abruptly to face him. “No, I don’t. And I’ll tell you why — I’m attracted to you, and I like your personality, but I haven’t got time to waste, Zap Apple.” That spark of challenge was back in her eyes. “I’m getting older and I need to move quickly if I want foals of my own, but I’m not giving up my career. I know what I want and I need it soon. Auntie Tia’s running a marriage service. What did you think you were signing up for?”

Zap Apple stuttered, still feeling like the clouds had suddenly parted beneath his feet and left him tumbling down into unknown depths. “I— uh — I don’t know, I—” He had thought he was signing up to do only what his mothers had asked of him; to meet a few ponies and see if anyone clicked. And somepony had, but now she was demanding the impossible. How was he meant to know if he wanted to marry somepony and raise foals with them within the first seven hours of knowing them?

Dust Devil, for her part, looked bitterly disappointed. “I see. I’d hoped we’d be on the same page about this.”

“But I—” But Zap Apple couldn’t think how to finish the sentence.

Dust Devil gave him a few seconds, and then began again. “I’ll give you a few days, Zap Apple. Reach out to Auntie Tia if you decide you want to see me again.”

“But I do want to see you again!” He was sure of that much at least.

Dust Devil shook her head, her beautiful white wings, so soft and downy, shifting back and away from him. Oh, how he longed to be wrapped in those wings! Zap Apple put out a hoof to pull her back, but she skipped neatly beyond his reach.

“You’re too uncertain, Zap Apple. Too young. I can’t afford to waste my time on somepony who isn’t sure they want the same things as me. I just can’t.”

And in a whirl of creamy-white feathers and sweet-smelling plumage, she was gone, and Zap Apple was left alone on the landing strip, feeling strangely bereft.

Comments

[Coranth]

God damn it, Dust Devil......

[Magi Tail Welkin]

Have to say, I really love the drama from this story.

[StubobNumbers]

Dust Devil knows what she wants. I'm with her on this. The hoofball is in Zap Apple's court.

Also, Dust Devil sounds really hot.

[Boltstrike58]

I'm beginning to think Celestia is screwing with everypony on purpose.

[TCC56]

I mean, fair, I can respect Dust Devil's candor.

But still, ouch. You can see her mom in there.

[vren55]

Actually... damn I wish i met women who were that upfront with me. He's lucky!

[Get_in_Gear]

Dust sounds like she wants to have foals just for the sake of having them. Naturally Zap is uncertain about this relationship.

[Phantune]

*sigh*...

[iSleep]

F in the chat

[RegMoDII]

My respect for Dust Devil throughout this chapter only grew as it went on. And as I read and thought back on Lightning Dust, I realized that while somewhat careless and rather reckless (as a recruit in boot camp) we think of her with an unfair degree of animosity. Also "senior member of the wonderbolts" my ass, she's a second lieutenant at best, that's a junior member. Celestia doesn't seem to account for family feuds of the target's (since the client is the family) struggles. Cozy glow and Luser would do well to send cease-and-desist letters and Cozy might consider suing for emotional damages, were she anybody else.