• Published 21st Jul 2022
  • 2,632 Views, 763 Comments

Anchor Foal II: Return Of The Cringe - Estee



When you love somepony, you have to deal with everything which comes with them. Fleur is perfectly aware that she's effectively inherited Zephyr. She just doesn't understand why she isn't allowed to kill him.

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Solutions Which Require Rainbow To Shut Up Are Automatically Dubious

When it came to what had turned ultimately out to be the most important part of the operation, Fleur hadn't been a particularly skilled blackmailer: the good ones didn't get caught. Similarly, she wasn't sure that she truly qualified as a detective. With ponies, the latter skill set was usually indicated through an extremely specialized, rather rare icon, and when it came to the former... she supposed it was possible for somepony to have 'extortion' as their mark talent, and also felt that the associated imagery wouldn't openly advertise.

She hadn't exactly compiled clues in order to find out what some of her clients would pay to keep secret. Fleur had put herself in a position where her talent could go to work and once those puzzles were within her gallery, the answers had essentially offered themselves up: it was then her job to figure out which ones could be used to commit a crime. Yes, there had been the occasional need for backup evidence: something physical tended to be a tremendous assistance. And a few of the more obscure sex toys had been assembled from carefully-stored parts, in part to see how everything went together and, with a number of the stranger specimens, so she could figure out how a pony was supposed to get it out.

So that hadn't really been detective work. (Locating where said toys had been hidden was mostly a matter of instinct and some well-practiced skills in burglary, along with merely understanding that just about anypony who owned a painting that big was probably storing something behind it.) And when it came to the times when the palace called upon her --

-- she knew it was necessary.
She did what she could.
She would have given nearly anything to never be summoned again --

-- in Fleur's opinion, that wasn't working with clues either. She would simply find herself confronted with living evidence, and then do whatever was necessary to prevent more of it from being forced into the world.

Neither her criminal activities nor her law enforcement duties qualified for detective work. But she'd galloped with the gangs in her youth, spent the early part of adulthood moving through Canterlot's gossip circuit. In both cases, it had put her into situations where she generally needed to figure out what was actually going on in a hurry -- preferably before anyone managed a strike against her.

It meant she listened. Fleur felt there were some commonalities between the tracking of clues and gossip: in both cases, you were looking for the places where ponies slipped. And when survival depended on paying close attention to words...

Don't just follow the gossip. Watch the speaker. What's their body posture like? How are they carrying their tail? An instinctive tucking against the body can be the outwards expression of an internal need to defend -- or a sudden surge of fear: in order to determine exactly which is taking place, it's probably necessary to check the ears. Did they hesitate before they brought out that last name? Speaking a little too fast, or much too slowly? A surge into excessive volume can substitute for confidence, or show exactly where the lie began.

And what about the times when terms slip? Using words they don't quite understand, accelerating somewhat to get through them and slurring it all together. Sudden changes of subject can point towards something else entirely, especially when they come right after the speaker has been challenged.

It could all mean something, although discovering exactly what often required the observer to learn quite a bit about the sapient who had been doing most of the talking. Because Fleur knew it wasn't just about what they said. There was usually a why. The reason for speaking could be crucial.

And there was a flipside to that.

Fleur and Fluttershy had remained at Sugarcube Corner for a little while after the unicorn's talk had ended, because the pegasus had been trying to review the books and any conversation with a baker in an active shop was going to wind up taking place across multiple customer transactions. Pinkie rejoining the workforce had done a lot to lighten the verbal distraction load. And Fleur had waited for everything to finish, staying a little closer to Pinkie's side of the counter because there was only so much of the display cases which could be blocked before customers started to complain --

-- ponies generally came into Sugarcube Corner to make purchases. Place future orders and, as long as they were standing around, they gossiped. Pinkie heard most of it, and surprisingly few ponies recognized just how much she remembered.

But they also entered for other reasons.

Fleur automatically shifted away from the blue unicorn mare who approached Pinkie's portion of the counter: she was no longer quite so obsessed with time's passage, but the former escort had a long way to go before feeling comfortable at the sight of an hourglass mark. The mare had signaled the baker, Pinkie had gone over, and then a periwinkle mane had done its best to obscure lip movements as words were whispered across the counter.

The lips were obscured. The whisper itself was rather inexpert.

"...I just saw her. Stomping around, with her talons scratching up the street. And I remembered the party, and -- how it ended. So I came straight here. I thought you needed to know she was in town, Pinkie. Just in case she --"

"-- I knew," the earth pony softly answered. "And I'll be careful. But it really really means a lot to me, that you thought I needed to be told first. Thank you."

Fleur wasn't a detective. But the acquisition and sorting of information was a survival skill, something which lay very close to instinct. It meant she'd had to learn.

Clues potentially existed within the vacuum where words weren't.
Because Minuette had come in to warn Pinkie.
Rainbow hadn't.


Why?

One word, summarizing much more than a single question. The things she needed to answer.

The queries didn't exactly haunt Fleur as she accompanied her love through Ponyville, because ghosts didn't exist. It simply lurked in the vicinity of her hindbrain and, whenever she was trying to concentrate on something else, tried to get in a kick.

They'd planned on visiting the open-air market before heading back, because they were both away from the cottage and that kind of time was precious: scarcity had a way of increasing value. Fleur took the time to adjust Fluttershy's hat before they left the bakery, and watched the pegasus wriggle.

She still thinks I want to get her out of the dress later. When we weren't scheduled to be gone the whole day, there's a few late afternoon clients coming in, and she hardly ever works while wearing anything because the cottage has a thousand kinds of staining to offer and Barnyard Bargains can't quite match that number on soap. So she'll have to get undressed anyway, and then it'll be hours before --

-- it had been a trip to the fertility doctor, and Fleur's saddlebags were packed with a moon's worth of supposed hope. The wriggling indicated a fully reasonable expectation: the execution was just going to take place on time delay.

They reached the market in fairly short order, and found a surprising amount of variety on display. Most of that fell outside of the produce booths: even with earth ponies at work, there hadn't been quite enough springtime yet for there to be more than a few samples of fresh crops to offer. But the season also meant that some ponies had felt the urge for spring cleaning, and surely a stable sale held in the market had to draw more traffic than one which just coated half the street in front of their home in desperately-priced junk. And it did, which meant a truly impressive number of ponies trotted away without buying anything.

Fleur recognized a couple who only seemed to set up their space on a seasonal basis, because creating enough small, solid black ironwood sculptures to fully occupy three tables required quite a bit of time. The former escort had yet to learn their names -- there were several thousand residents in the settled zone, she had no real need for the product, plus one-half of the pairing was visibly socially reticent to the point where she very nearly possessed the same reluctance to communicate that Fluttershy had --

-- used to have --

-- but they both were distinctive enough to have set up a place in her memory. The actual sculptor was a pale-pink unicorn with a somewhat oversized horn, added to a mane so deeply brown as to approach black and a field to match her eyes: deep grey. She was almost always in the company of a tall (if not on Fleur's scale) pearl pegasus with vibrant blue eyes and what was very nearly a pure white mane: a certain hitch of the hips suggested that one had done some (unpaid) modeling work, and currently did nearly all of the selling. And they always set up near the edge of the market, presumably so the sculptor would have a clear escape path during any sudden urge to run.

But it was a pleasant day, just as the Bureau's schedule had dictated: it took a major weather breach from the wild zone to teach ponies about the concept of 'rainout', and a number had been known to go weak at all four knees just from looking up the word in a dictionary. And they'd just escaped the fertility clinic, the cottage was on temporary hold, and there were booths, tables, and cart setups to examine.

(Fleur had to gently steer Fluttershy away from the stable sales. The majority of the cottage was already decorated in Stable Sale or worse, Things Left In Front Of The Fence After The Sale Ended Because Nopony Was Ever Going To Pay For Them. The unicorn was still trying to replace the majority, and had found that a pegasus who was prone to bringing home lost voles had a lesser tendency to give that poor abandoned armoire one last chance.)

The first stop was a certain produce stand run by a familiar pegasus stallion: one whose non-decision in facial hair styling had recently been duplicated. He spotted them coming, and once again found himself unable to close up his entire business before Fleur was upon him. The former escort had once been told all about some extremely creative pricing within the cherry market and, when it came to showing that particular male how negotiating really worked, still took great pleasure in verbally walking all over Mr. Bunko. Slowly, with quiet intensity of syllables and while taking special care to occasionally pause and grind her hooves directly into the heart of what had once been his profits.

After finally releasing the stunned seller to curl up and protectively whimper next to the tenth-bits which represented her generous payment of two percent over cost, they moved to pick up the one fruit category which Fluttershy would never purchase from anypony else.

They got a little lucky at the apple cart. It was too early in the season for its mistress to put out more than a few teasers, and the majority of what Applejack had brought along was already making its way to pony homes. It meant there wasn't any customer traffic, and the earth pony, who was visibly happy to see them drop by, actually had the chance to talk. And because news of sibling existence was still spreading, Fleur then got to watch the hat slowly slip forward as the farmer become progressively less happy.

"Brother," Applejack finally said.

"...yes," Fluttershy softly tried. "I'm pretty sure I --"

"Okay," emerged at the rather low speed of stun. "Brother. That really rare specimen which takes 'bout a decade for the verbal pregnancy."

"...Applejack?"

With just a little too much calm, "'cause based on when y'first came t' ground, Ah'm pretty sure we needed around ten years for that word t' come out of your mouth. Anythin' else Ah should know 'bout your family?"

"...such as?"

"Ah don't know," however, came out as a rapid-fire burst of frustration. "It's your family. An' given Surprise Brother Number Two in our little set, Ah ain't entirely sure where t' start. But since we're on the topic... ain't sure you ever really covered your parents with me. Better get 'em pinned down now."

"...okay. What did you want to --"

"-- for starters? Which Princess is your mom?"

Fluttershy blinked.

"...I... Applejack, what...?"

"Look," the earth pony somewhat too reasonably said, "at this point, Ah'm jus' gonna start with the craziest possibilities an' work mah way down. An' your dad? That would be Moon, right? Explains why you're usually up for most of the night."

Fleur, who had more or less seen it coming and knew her love wasn't going to suffer more than a light (and virtual) ear blistering, took a few casual steps away from the cart. Bearing Honesty took a number of conversational options out of Applejack's groupings and unfortunately for any number of those who'd done the farmer some degree of offense, sarcasm wasn't one of them. Regardless of cause, not bothering to bring up family meant Fluttershy had a few hundred syllables of payback coming. Fleur could step back in if matters went beyond that and since it was Applejack, it wouldn't.

The unicorn positioned herself slightly to the left of the unfolded cart, then let her gaze wander across nearby booths and wandering shoppers. It left her facing the wrong way for registering the one whose eyes had just found her, and she only registered the pony who'd just trotted into the lamppost on audio.

Oh, Fleur casually noted as one of the senior residents came to the non-victim's aid. New arrival in town. Glanced back at the two Bearers, noted the set of both Applejack's hat and Fluttershy's ears, then judged that the payback was going to be doled out for some time.

So think. Before they got back to the cottage, and Fleur was sto -- and time and thought were stolen away. Why?

Narrow it down...

Gilda. Start with the way she acted when she was here.

'Griffon in a completely new area' usually explained a lot, although it took locals with some previous experience to consider extending that into forgiveness. The new chain had to be worked out from scratch, challenging everything was the fastest way to do so and for every form of domination to exist, there was a griffon.

But it didn't explain what Gilda had done to Spike, because there were dragons in Protocera. Not many -- but enough that any citizen knew they were part of the population. Some of Fleur's earliest memories from school concerned having been taught just how many species had learned to have a griffon's heart -- and because she had been too young for the majority of words, there had been a lot of pictures.

It hadn't been a question of not recognizing the species and figuring Spike for a rather small adult. A Protoceran who'd been to primary school knew what a dragon youth looked like. Hearing him speak simply reinforced the lack of years: his vocabulary was well beyond what it normally would have been (which could be blamed on the Gifted School, Twilight, and living in a library: not necessarily in that order), but the tones had yet to reach adolescence.

Gilda would have known Spike was a child, and done so on sight. And she'd shoved him anyway.

And there's another factor.

'Griffon in a completely new area' could explain a lot -- but it assumed that every last link needed to be freshly forged, because the griffon knew nothing about anything. It all had to be figured out from first peck. And when it came to Gilda --

-- Rainbow was already here.

If you reach new territory and have an established connection in place, part of the initial instinct can be to initially follow their chain. There's always a few who will just strike out on their own, no matter what -- but for the majority, it's a place to start. It makes everything easier, and you can always adjust later.

If you trust the person you're following...

But if Gilda had gone that route while truly trusting Rainbow, then she would have treated Pinkie with a degree of respect. There would have been some degree of pushing and prodding, trying to figure out just who was stronger: there always was. An attempt to determine whether the baker was worthy of Rainbow wasn't exactly off the table. But for the most part, if somepony new had been accepted by your local link as a friend -- then you had to grant them some degree of chance.

Somepony you trusted.
Saw as an equal.
Who was in charge?
What was the relationship between them like at the time?
What kind of relationship --

"Okay, Ah think we've got that cleared up. Let's move on t' uncles. An' Ah mean other than Discord."

"...Applejack!"

"Tell me that wouldn't go an' explain nearly everythin'."

-- no. In Protocera, maybe. But here...

At home, griffon-pony relationships were... 'a significant minority' was fair. Lump them in with every other species combination which had entered linklock, and the grand total might wind up at about four percent of the adult population. In Equestria, a city the size of Canterlot was lucky to get up to four marriages and a few dating couples. And with Rainbow...

...no. I've solved her puzzle. I know pieces can change over time. New ones appear, and some of the oldest can fade until I can barely make out what was on them at the start. And she's reciprosexual. If somepony looks, she's at least going to think about looking back. But that's somepony. There's a species barrier.

Or maybe there's just one now --

-- no. Faded or not, Fleur was sure she would have spotted that. She'd grown up in a part of the world where she'd been -- well, not exactly surrounded by it, but at least in the midst of an ongoing chance to spot the brass ring as the rotating dovecote's accelerating chains swung the ride's laughing children out from the central pole.

And those were just the real pieces, because sapients occasionally tried to tell themselves that they might find themselves sexually attracted to something if they simply tried it out a few times. Something which registered to Fleur's unique sense as a light coating of thin liquid watercolors: easy to see through, incapable of drying, and forever dripping off the edges.

Quite a few Protoceran adolescents talked themselves into experimental phases, because there were a lot of species around to experiment with: for most, the pieces eventually dripped clean. But with a few...

Which means I'd need to get a look at Gilda's puzzle. It didn't feel like a particularly strong theory: if nothing else, the weight of odds worked against it. But it was still something Fleur prospectively needed to check.

She also had to speak to Rainbow, and soon.

Fleur had been keeping watch, searching for a prismatic streak moving through the sky or sleep-limp tail dangling off the edge of a roof. Nothing. And the planned path for the day didn't take them anywhere near the right part of town.

Who was in charge?

Rainbow's been trying to keep Gilda from seeing her. But Gilda knows where she lives. The molded cloud had a little bit of natural drift, because it was hard to make any vapor structure completely motionless -- but it tended to stay over the same patch of land. Rainbow's impulse spending could mean a lot of incoming packages, the mailbox was at ground level, and there was a special annoyance in missing out on a delivery because the house had moved. Are they avoiding each other?

And why hadn't Rainbow warned Pinkie? All of the cautions had been frantically applied to Fleur.

Too many questions. Too many thoughts. She seemed to be crowding an increasing amount of thinking into the hours spent away from the cottage, as if those were the only times when she truly got to think at all --

"An' those are the last cousins?"

"...yes."

"Good. Are they ponies?"

Fluttershy blinked.

"...what?"

"Look," Applejack reasonably pointed out, "with this family? Ah've gotta ask. Are the twins ponies? 'cause they could be griffons --" paused "-- huh. Ain't sure this ever came up in school. Fleur? Griffons. Eggs or live births?"

"Live births," the Protoceran distractedly replied without so much as a glance towards the cart.

"Thanks. Wasn't sure how you'd get twins out of an egg."

"...it happens!" Fluttershy half-protested. "I see it sometimes with the chickens. Applejack --"

"-- so Ah'm jus' gonna assume griffon twins," the farmer contemplated. "They walk alike, they talk alike, Ah guess they'd even squawk alike --"

-- which was when Fleur saw Zephyr.

She was the only one facing the right way to spot him, and he never noticed her from his position on the absolute outskirts of the market. He wasn't quite within shopping range of any booth, and hawker calls didn't seem to reach him. Actually listening to the activity going on behind him would have required rotating his ears. It was a sacrifice which his mane just wasn't willing to make. And to be entirely-if-painfully fair about it, he was also somewhat distracted.

Fleur had spotted him, and she wasn't the only one.

When it came to the sheer power of his appearance, Zephyr wasn't on the same level as Blueblood and on an absolute scale, he was also somewhat below Fluttershy. It was possible that somepony might one day swoon from Zephyr's mere presence, but they would be reacting to the needs of some very particular puzzle pieces. Blueblood could potentially create a ten-pony faint just by breathing a little too deeply and exactly as with Zephyr, any attraction incited by the movement tended to last until the followup exhale formed actual words.

But there were three mares and one stallion who were regarding Zephyr, because he offered something to look at. (Fleur tried not to question their taste: after all, to her knowledge, Zephyr hadn't talked yet.) And he hadn't noticed any of that either, which meant he got to completely miss out on the one earth pony who was openly tracking the movements of his rear.

And the tail.

At the current stage of insect attack, it was mostly about the tail.

Fleur had yet to decide whether Zephyr had a healthy musk or an artificial one. The bugs didn't particularly care. All the horn flies knew was that there was pony musk in the air, and that gave them something which could be tracked to the source. After that, it was just a matter of finding the right place to bite, and it was generally advised for each fly to move quickly because there was quite a bit of competition for the best spots.

It was a special problem of spring: that all of the bugs came back, and that included the ones who found ponies delicious. It was also a problem which Fleur and Fluttershy didn't have. Both mares made use of a rather special soap: something which kept all of the cottage's odors off their bodies -- while simultaneously negating nearly all of their natural scent. Biting flies who landed directly on them tended to do so more or less by accident, because there was just about nothing left to seek. But to insect senses, Zephyr reeked. And his tail was swishing in a way which suggested that a pony with somewhat more energy would have been at full lash (or a more sensible open retreat) some time ago, his legs were actually moving up and down, and Fleur suspected that the ears might budge just as soon as a fly tried to get into one. Or they might wind up trying to nest in the mane.

That might have already happened. It looks a little bulkier --
-- can't go after him: too many witnesses --
-- Mr. Rich said he mostly got grooming items. Fur isn't bad. Nothing being done about the jaw shadow. The mane is still a mistake. It doesn't look like he's been missing meals, but I can't get a look at his teeth from here; no idea what he's been eating.
There's still something off about his wings.
I can't pin it down --

-- and Zephyr decided he'd had enough.

The limbs unfolded. Moved out to their full span, and flapped.

It was almost casual.

The results were not.

Air surged around the stallion, moved outbound in a spheroid.

The gust hit the flies first. Every last one was blasted away. Some went into the ground, others found themselves in a fully-unintended part of the atmosphere, and more than a few reached the vendor tables. Several hit with enough force to stun, it was possible that a number had died from the impact, and far too many went directly into the sculptures.

Which, as damage to merchandise went, wasn't a primary problem for very long. The actual gust was right behind them.

Multiple sculptures fell over. Some had the dense wood clatter against their table. Others plummeted towards cobblestone.

The pink unicorn's horn immediately ignited, and the grey field lunged -- but the artist could only manage to split her attention in five directions at once, and only three of those projections managed to reach their targets. The other nine pieces hit. And while the dense ironwood would not break from such a short fall, it could still dent and splinter.

Multiple cracking sounds split the air, and none of them made it through the sarcasm which now surrounded the apple cart. The wind kept racing outwards from there, jolting paintings, sending cloth pieces off their hangers, and making multiple Sun-shading portable roofs jump.

The sculptor's features twisted into misery, her eyes wet with newborn tears. The pearl pegasus began to race out from behind the table, mouth opening for the shout --

-- Zephyr never noticed. And if he had, then... Fleur couldn't make herself believe that he would have cared.

The spread wings flapped again, and the stallion took off. Flew away and, within seconds, was out of sight.

...okay. He's got some power.
(This felt like an understatement.)
But he could have just flown away from them. A pegasus can outrace a horn fly. And if he was going to use wind, there's subtler methods available. Things which would have been more controlled.

He'd freed himself from the swarm. The rest hadn't mattered.

The four ponies who'd been watching Zephyr were now staring at the place where he'd been. One of the mares snorted, then turned to face the sculptor's table, lowered her head, and carefully began to pick up fallen pieces. After a moment, Fleur ignited her horn and moved to join in.

"...and I think that covers just about every known living sapient species native to the world," Fluttershy's exasperation announced. "Unless you want to make sure none of my relatives are seaponies?"

"Naw. Ain't no such thing as seaponies. But why stick with the natives?" The farmer arced her neck forward. "How y'all fixed for centaurs?"


She didn't tell Fluttershy everything. Fleur never had, and often felt as if she never should. It was another reason why she didn't understand Honesty as a virtue, because to bring absolute truth into every part of a relationship was like tempering metal. Bring the heat to the right level, and it was possible to make the bond that much stronger. But apply too much for too long, and everything dissolved.

So she didn't tell Fluttershy about having seen Zephyr, because there was no reason to inflict that level of stress upon her love. But some things couldn't be hidden, not without risking greater damage. And unlike Rainbow, Fleur felt that the second problematic arrival in town was unlikely to come anywhere near the cottage. If there was a target among the Bearers, it was probably Pinkie --

-- why didn't she warn --

-- but there had been a roar. Something born from an attempt to dominate, and the tiercel had arguably won. It was possible that a griffon who was trying to establish a new chain for the second time might attempt a shortcut. Simply pick a previous victory, and... repeat it.

So the topic which Fleur currently saw as the most important was raised as they began to pass the place where a mill had once been. Because Fluttershy had to know. And because she could look directly into her love's face --

-- what's visible of her face --
-- Zephyr arrives, and the mane goes forward --

-- instead of having to constantly force her attention away from vacuum.

"There were ponies talking in the bakery," Fleur technically didn't lie. Minuette and Pinkie qualified for a plural.

"...they do that," the pegasus observed. "What were they talking about?"

Fleur forced a breath.

"About having seen a griffon in town," the Protoceran said. "And I heard a name --"

"-- Gilda," her love softly cut in. "If they're talking about a griffon, and you had to tell me... then it's Gilda." Her head raised, turned towards Fleur until the one visible eye was focused on the unicorn's face. "Am I right?"

Fleur nodded. Fluttershy silently turned to face the path again, and several hoofsteps went by.

It wasn't ignoring Fleur: the unicorn knew that well enough. There were a lot of requirements for being in a relationship with Fluttershy, and one of them meant regularly producing the semi-illusion of being comfortable with long silences. The pegasus was just using the time to think: something which was indicated by a certain rustle of the wings. There was a completely different posture associated with actually being ignored.

"...I don't know how much you've heard about what happened," Fluttershy eventually said. "The first time she was here."

And the more I say, the more you'll want to know where I heard it. And when. "Pinkie told me a few things," seemed safe enough.

"...because it came up at the bakery," the pegasus decided.

"I know she roared at you."

More hoofsteps. They were getting close to a bend in the path. The bridge would be visible all too soon.

"...I know you're worried," Fluttershy softly acknowledged. "Because I did run. I wasn't ready for what she did, and she was loud, and... she was my first. I hadn't dealt with a griffon before that, not really. It felt like... running was the only thing I could do. Because that way, the ducks would follow." A brief pause. "I flew. After the first few hoofsteps. The ducks caught up eventually. I understand why you're worried, Fleur. And maybe she's just here to... try and be friends with Rainbow again. I think that might be good for Rainbow, if they could work things out. I hope that's what happens, because... Rainbow wasn't in the best shape after Gilda left Ponyville. I'd... like to see her be happy. To have her friend back, if that's possible. If it can happen without her being hurt..."

The birds would sing. They would cross the arch together. And then the cottage would take over.

"...but I can take care of myself," her love finished. "I'm... not quite who I used to be."

No. You're not. But you're not quite the mare I've been living with for more than a year. You're backsliding a little. And that's from Zephyr, and I have to get him out...

"...you're very quiet," the pegasus said.

Fleur's lips quirked.

"I think that's my line."

"...because you're still worried?"

Because I'm thinking. While there's still a chance to think.
Before the cottage starts thinking for me.

The unicorn risked a nod.

"...you can be worried," Fluttershy told her. "But... don't start anything with her. Please."

The words were even, controlled. The intent behind them was edged in steel. "And if she starts something with me?"

Fluttershy's duties towards the cottage and those who came there were effectively endless. One of them was veterinarian. A profession which, on any given day, might find death waiting at the door. And there might be a fierce, angry demand to know what the pegasus could ever do to stop it, at least for now: the victory was always going to go to the opposition in the end.

But just as often, if death came calling... it would be with a gentle knock. Quietly asking if this was the time, because if the ponies had nothing left which might take away the pain... then one option still remained. The last one.

Fluttershy had to make potentially fatal decisions in every moon of her adult life, and it hurt her. There were nights when it left the pegasus weeping into Fleur's fur for hours.

But it also encouraged a certain amount of practicality.

"...then what she'll get," Fluttershy quietly stated, "may not be what she was expecting. Don't start with her, Fleur. But if she starts with you? Then I want you to be the one to finish."


They crossed the bridge.

Snowflake went home. Fleur was briefly possessed by a vague, uncertain sense that there was something she should have told him. But Fluttershy asked for some help with getting the dress off, and wriggled just a little too much the whole time.

It stopped at wriggling, because there were clients waiting in the sitting room. They had to go back to the working part of the cottage.

(Every part was the working part.)

And as soon as they arrived, a fresh arrival opened the door -- which gave one nervous canine the perfect opportunity to make a break for freedom, and life more or less resumed from there.

There was labor. There always was. Feedings and appointments and still more feedings and Angel had picked a fight which he couldn't win while expecting the mares to get him out of it. Bookings arrived on time and got stalled out by the animals who'd found a way to make sure their time ran late. Fleur just barely managed to get into the bathroom for a few minutes, and The Square loomed.

Eventually, Sun was lowered. They both ate. And there was a fresh supply of miracles in Fleur's saddlebags, waiting next to their nest. So Fluttershy put a portion of the day's outfit back on, largely because she wanted to have Fleur remove it for the second time. And then they went into the bedroom. Cleared out every last animal, hung the double mirror over the nest, and made sure the slightly-glossier side was aligned properly.

The device was triggered. The mares climbed into the nest. And a trained escort offered the first nuzzle, then allowed her horn to ignite as gentle, softly-vibrating energies went there and there...

It was Fluttershy and for Fleur, joy came from being with her. But there was none in the act.

They were just... trying again.

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