• 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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It's A Lot Of Material To Cover

And then the cottage tried to take over.

There were times when Fleur would have sworn that the structure was both sapient and partially telepathic. It almost had to be capable of spotting those moments when she truly needed a chance to think, followed immediately by moving in to stop it. But to truly believe that meant giving the building credit for possessing several additional forms of magic, most of which would have centered around changing reality to its liking. Having feedbags rip open at inconvenient moments, which would lead into scuffles between new residents as they squabbled over who could get more of the unexpected bounty. Such little battles could quickly lead into minor veterinary emergencies, and then another hour had bled out from the clock.

To believe the cottage was fully capable of that was to allow it magic which, even when expressed on a very localized level, partially matched Discord. And Fleur knew that was very nearly the purest of nonsense. There were any number of differences between the two. Just for starters, it was possible for a sufficiently delusional or desperate sapient to talk themselves into believing it was possible to reach some level of mutual accommodation with Discord, and you clearly couldn't say the same about the cottage.

She needed a chance to think. To plan

to be myself

and that meant everything began to work against her. But what she required just as much was fresh information to consider, and Fleur knew she was missing too many pieces of the story -- especially since Gilda's arrival had brought an extra character onto the stage. One for which the displaced Protoceran had no true concept of the griffon's self-assigned role.

Time to think, and things to think about.

She had to get off the grounds.

And the cottage kept blocking her.


Of course, even the cottage had its limits -- at least in theory. Fleur would have needed to personally witness wood chomping down on paper before she would have believed it capable of eating the mail. Of course, practically speaking, summoning a gust of wind or having a stray animal run off with a crucial envelope was probably a much simpler affair --

-- but none of that happened, and so Miranda's note got through.

Of course it arrived, required only a few seconds of reading. There's nothing here.

On one level, Fleur knew the investigation required more time. There had only been enough to see the nearest neighboring settled zones check in, and they had reported that Zephyr had no outstanding warrants in those locations. Beyond that, the mail was traveling, and Miranda's carefully-written words took pains to remind the former escort that the police chief was still waiting on the majority of a continent. But Fleur had been hoping for something, anything to shift Zephyr out of the area. It just made the unicorn feel as if Miranda was living up to every last expectation of uselessness. Some of that probably had to be blamed on the profession: something which was producing the same immediate lack of results as the use of Most Special Spell and stick --

-- although unlike that particular increasingly-loathed combination, at least something was being produced from vacuum. Fleur found another negative deeper into the note, managed to somehow focus on it while several mice searched her tail for nesting material, and immediately birthed a question.

Miranda had also checked Ponyville's hotels. Zephyr wasn't booked with any of them.

So where is he staying?

It was possible that he was commuting in from a Canterlot room, but prices were higher in the capital. Even if he was saving the trainfare through flying to Ponyville, the difference in booking costs alone...

Or he could be perching with a friend in Canterlot.

She tried to picture Zephyr having friends.

...maybe they haven't sobered up yet.

No, that was unfair. That level of ego might have simply found somepony who was willing to agree with all of it, at least until the bills truly started to come in. Or... Zephyr might have simply signed up for a rental somewhere in Ponyville. It was even remotely possible that he had Fleur's old rental. She certainly knew how to get into that building, although Miranda would have objected to most of the methods.

Or he could have a swagger-lair. Mold a cloud hollow every night, push it to wherever nopony's looking, close the entrance and sleep in. And hope nopony's scheduled to disperse that area in the morning. But swagger-lairs were very much an adolescent thing, and --

-- it's probably a swagger-lair.

She needed more information. But when it came to Zephyr, the sources were limited. And the mare who might have known the most was letting more of the coral mane slip in front of her features with every successive day.

I don't want to hurt her...

She needed privacy in order to confront Zephyr. Privacy and time. But when it came to Gilda, what Fleur currently needed was information.

She had to meet with Rainbow.


Trying to set up a meeting with Rainbow was a rather involved process, and came with the additional option to renew a rather frustrated exploration of advanced thaumatology theory.

On the global scale, Equestria was sometimes considered to lead the world in sheer magical strength. Fleur was willing to admit this was likely true -- right up until the moment you factored the alicorns out because once that happened, you had a society which was 98% ponies. The nation had limited access to the magic of the other sapient species, because it barely had any other species within its borders. And for what was there... just about every citizen of Equestria seemed unwilling to explore their true potential, because the vast majority of ponies avoided whatever they feared and to truly recognize what their magic might be capable of might leave the residents trying to get away from their own skin. By contrast, Protocera, whose population was considerably more mixed, typically enjoyed chances to experiment and did so with a citizenry which was rather more inclined to be bold.

Equestrians didn't have all of the power. Every species brought something to the table, and nearly all of them seemed to specialize in a category of magic. Something which could potentially be summarized as a single word: strength, domination, stability, destruction, harmonics -- and true power came from recognition of just how much that word might fully define.

(Nearly every species. The exception was the unicorns, and Fleur had wondered about the scattershot, near-random nature of those magics. There was the telekinesis granted by a field, and then there was -- well, when regarded across the whole of the population, just about anything else. Her own kind lacked not just a unifying theme, but a true definition of their abilities -- and there didn't seem to be any Equestrians who were really thinking about that either. Twilight might have been an exception, but Fleur had enough trouble with just getting the little alicorn to speak with her about finding a good time to visit Spike.)

Take a species. Find its power, record that word. And if you assembled all of the terms on a single page...

...you would see the gaps.

Because there were gaps, and Fleur occasionally wondered if that was because a number of sapients simply hadn't been found. Perhaps each portion of vacuum upon the page represented a hidden nation which existed within the vastness of the unexplored wild zones, each waiting to step forward and claim their place within magic's glossary. The most recent discovery of such a species had been a mere twenty-nine years ago, and that had provided an entry for exchange. And it had taken the rather unexpected arrival of a decidedly singular centaur to create an entirely new, moderately terrifying section: countermagic.

Gaps, each of which potentially represented an unknown species.

Unfortunately for Fleur, whoever had drawn communication from the pool had yet to announce themselves. This was possibly ironic, potentially paradoxical -- and when it came to setting up a meeting with Rainbow, mostly came across as extremely annoying.

There were a few exceptions. Spike could send scrolls, but Fleur had known him long enough to have learned the secret: it was the result of retraining, taking the normal dragon potential for teleporting their hoard away and focusing it onto paper. And it was sending: something which happened in one direction, and the youth had to serve as the launching point into the aether.

Of course, if you couldn't reach the library while carrying the required fueling gem and a few kind words, there was the option to stretch a taut wire between two cans. This was extremely effective for any distance up to fifteen body lengths: after that, somepony would usually fly into the wire. And Fleur had heard legends of paired devices, supposedly made in the North: stand in front of one facet and even if the matching surface was gallops away, your image would still appear in the other. Anything which happened after that was presumably a matter of holding up signs. And the Empire had returned to the world -- but the crystals were rumored to be in the process of recovering most of their own magic and until that happened, the majority of their exports were going to be either decorative or canine. (The howls of the latter were likely intended to keep ponies ordering replacements for the former. Shaddap had yet to shatter glass, much less crystal -- but it was just a matter of time.)

Fleur couldn't get into town: something which didn't so much exclude Spike's kindness as make it unnecessary because if she could have escaped from the cottage for a few hours, it would have been much more practical to just head directly to Rainbow. Using the postal system for sending letters within the settled zone was typically at least a day in each direction, with a chance for two. Private couriers were available, but the price was too high. She couldn't talk to Rainbow just by wishing for it. And when the weather coordinator hadn't dropped by (or crashed into) the cottage...

There was no help for it. She had to use the birds. And that meant involving Fluttershy.

Fleur had been somewhat surprised to learn about the cottage's private airmail system, and had initially seen it as a potential source of income -- but her love's soft words of explanation had torn down that theoretical support pillar within minutes. Because sending scrolls via flame required Spike -- Celestia could work a version of the effect, but that was still one-way -- and if you wanted to post a letter by bird, you needed Fluttershy. And then you had to be willing to work with a lot of limits.

The pegasus didn't use homing pigeons. Fleur understood how those avians operated: you took them a very long way from their home, tied a tightly-rolled letter to one leg, and then hoped that whoever you wanted to communicate with was close to the original nest because as soon as you let go, that was where the bird was headed. This had uses, particularly in military operations for anyone willing to take the pigeons along -- but it was still one way. However, it was possible to train a pigeon by taking it to one place, feeding it there, then carrying it to a distant location and providing another meal. Repeat the process a few dozen times and eventually, the pigeon would start commuting on its own. Between those two spots, at predictable hours, and there had better be a food bowl put out every time. Also, it meant that whoever you were communicating with needed to be willing to host a pigeon. The food had to be paid for, but the shed feathers and guano were absolutely free.

With Fluttershy involved, it was easier. The pegasus just needed birds who possessed some carrying capacity. Ideally, they would be more intelligent than the average pigeon. (This wasn't a particularly difficult requirement.) And then she took them around town. This is the bakery. This is the library. This is the right cloud, and please don't get too close to the fountains.

She taught them to recognize the places they were supposed to go. Told them that when a letter was being delivered, they had to wait patiently while the pony took it off their leg. (Normally, that would have been the tricky part -- but Fluttershy knew a surprising amount about sewing, and had memorized several temporarily-secure knots which came with long, trailing pieces of string.) And then they had to keep waiting until the pony had finished composing a response, followed by absolutely not flying away while the next letter was being placed on their leg by somepony who couldn't simply ask them to hold still.

'Please don't peck' had been a natural followup request and as such things went, had been made just a little too late.

The airmail system was still limited. Each participating bird only had a few locations memorized. The majority were strictly short-range, and some of them became distracted easily. Any message sent to the Boutique had to contend with Opal, and a bird who'd been asked to wait patiently until the unicorn arrived usually dumped several kinds of non-letter weight at the moment the cat turned up. Owlowiscious would only treat small predators with respect, Winona barked at just about everything...

The cloud house presented additional problems. Any bird who went to Rainbow's home had to find ways of alerting the owner that there was a message waiting: this had eventually led to the weather coordinator hanging a small pecking bell outside her bedroom window, and the Bearers had promptly discovered that she was perfectly capable of sleeping through that too. However, Tank usually heard the alert and would loyally take the walk to his napping pony, ready to nudge her awake. This typically added at least ten minutes to the delivery time, or up to an hour if the tortoise had been on the porch.

Fluttershy was willing to send out birds on Fleur's behalf. She never asked to see just what Fleur was writing down, any more than she tried to get a look at the responses. (Admittedly, you had to look at the responses from about half a hoofwidth away to have any hope of making them out: Rainbow's mouthwriting was horrible.) But it meant making the request. Requests. Over and over. Because Rainbow wasn't committing to anything in a hurry.

...except for not coming out to the cottage. The weather coordinator immediately announced that she wasn't going to visit the cottage. Rainbow wanted the meeting to take place at her house.

No, not under. In.

...well, why couldn't Fleur just cast the cloudwalking --

-- oh.

Well, you can self-levitate, right? So just come on up! Through the floor. I'll tell you which section of floor. You'll want to avoid the parts of the cloud which have the plumbing storage areas. There's pockets for the post-dehydration uric salts. And pucky. You don't want to know about the pucky. And once you're in, just pick a piece of furniture! The furniture's solid enough. Just don't get up. Ever. Or go into the kitchen. Or try for the bathroom unless you absolutely have to. I'll have to explain how the bathroom works -- okay, maybe we do need to talk about pucky. Also, you'll need to be in disguise. Or at least a dress. And bring your own food. Actually, you should bring enough for two -- maybe you do need to go into the kitchen. Can you self-levitate and move things around the kitchen at the same time? Also, my kitchen needs cleaning. So arrive early --

--- and why aren't we doing that?

Fine. Not my house. For some dumb reason. But you WILL be in disguise -- in a dress. Or at least layered. So what are you wearing?

(It would have been irritating enough as a normal conversation. Having to wait an average of two hours between each round of Ego wasn't exactly helping.)

It took some time to set up. Three days of it, as the cottage continued to steal hours and all Fleur could do was fume, try to hurry the process along, use a few moments of scant respite within the bathroom to rephrase the next missive for extra (implied) urgency, and feel vaguely thankful that at least Zephyr hadn't tried to drop by again.

Which was also three days of attending to Fluttershy's emotional, social, and occasionally physical dowry.

She was trying whatever she could to keep her partner's spirits lofted. It wound up leading to two more sticks.

Another pair of failures.


It was a heavily overcast day, one where the air was heavy with moisture and the promise (or rather, schedule) of a heavy spring thunderstorm shortly after sunset. The day had been designated as muggy, and the fact that Ponyville was effectively and eternally under construction had added some unwanted heat to the local mix: there was a crew working on a nearby building, and the black contents of a vat were bubbling away at ground level. Fleur had already ordered her appetizer, and was expecting the drifting odor of tar to add unwelcome spices.

The sky was a nearly uniform dull, leaden grey: something the approaching weather coordinator had been at least partially responsible for -- and yet she kept glaring at the thick clouds, with magenta flashing open malice every time she looked up. Half-stalking across the cobblestones while directing her anger into the atmosphere.

Fleur wasn't entirely sure why Rainbow was stalking. It was rare enough to see the pegasus trotting: stalking was a whole new lack of refinement. Possibly it had something to do with the disguise, or at least what Rainbow had decided currently passed for one. Because a disguise was about changing your appearance and Rainbow was arguably the Bearer most dedicated to meeting the world while covered in nothing more than her fur. So for a disguise, Rainbow had -- gotten dressed.

For whatever it was worth, the dress itself was a quality creation. Every Bearer had at least a few dresses in their closet, and they all came from the same source. Fluttershy, as one of Rarity's more frequent models and sources of inspiration, arguably had too many. Fleur was currently at -- two. She associated with Rarity now, but... it was hard to be in the Boutique. There was a certain discomfort built into the design sessions: one still thankful, and the other having no idea what to do with that. And Rarity liked to talk during the fitting process. A lot.

So Fleur had two dresses from the Boutique. (She was perfectly aware that Rarity wanted to make more. The designer had even asked if Fleur was willing to model. Her excuse for avoiding both was that it took more material to cover Fleur than it did for nearly any other mare, and it made her an exceptionally bad example to bring before the public. Fluttershy's wings were slightly oversized and the tail came along roughly once in every ten thousand mares. Fleur was one of the tallest unicorn mares to exist, capable of just about looking Cadance in the eye. A more average pony envisioning how they might look in a dress after seeing Fleur wearing it had to do a lot of scaling.) Rainbow presumably had a half-dozen or so, and long hours of osmosis-based learning had given her some idea of how to wear them. However, the hat was still giving her some trouble, and all of the upward glares had to work their way past the wide brim.

Cyan went exceptionally well with cool grays and soft whites, both of which were currently covering the pegasus from neck to hidden tail. Most of her features were shaded by the hat. And yet just about everypony she passed on the street was capable of identifying and (just barely) reconciling a trotting, dressed Rainbow, because the pegasus absolutely refused to cover her wings. Not a single feather had been concealed by fabric, and the exposed limbs occasionally flared out as an expression of irritation, flapped a few times before Rainbow remembered that she was apparently supposed to be trotting and flying was currently right out. That last didn't exactly help her mood.

Ponyville knew those wings, remembered most of the places they had turned up, and their owner refused to put them away.

Fleur, who'd been waiting under the awning on the restaurant's outdoor patio deck, watched her friend reach the first place from where the unicorn could be readily spotted and then made a very visible point of looking at the nearest clock.

Twenty minutes late.
Because Rainbow.

The pegasus didn't notice. She simply stepped onto the deck and half-stalked her way across the last of the distance before hard-plopping the covered sleek form onto the opposing bench.

"I hate this," Rainbow muttered. "Of all the days to have total cloud cover on the schedule. I don't know what's up there. I tried to see as much as I could through it, but it's too thick. If anyone puts a hole in it..."

"We're under the awning," Fleur tried to remind her. "There's some shielding." And there was more inside the actual building, but you usually didn't meet Rainbow within walls. As with most pegasi (with Fluttershy as an exception), the weather coordinator had a degree of claustrophobia. And given what they were about to discuss, Fleur wanted Rainbow to be as comfortable as possible.

"Not enough. Not from the right angles." The frustrated head shake nearly dislodged the hat. "And I could have gone up there to get a look, but then it would have just been me going up there. To get a look. And anyone could have seen --"

She stopped. Shook her head again, a little more slowly.

"It should have been my house," Rainbow decided. "Or a lot more birds. But at least you're in a dress." A Rarity-trained evaluation moved across the unicorn's covered form. "Maybe it should have been more of a dress. I think that one's going to leave your hips exposed if you shift them too much. And you shift your hips a lot. And where's the hat?"

"It's the design," was a near-automatic protest. "And I don't need a hat when it's this cloudy. A hat on an overcast day just draws more attention --"

Which was when Rainbow cut her off. "Fleur, I know this is about Gilda. You said it was about Gilda. We could have just written back and forth about Gilda. I don't know if we're clear or not."

The unicorn had anticipated that. "It takes too long by mail." And I know Twilight's been working on your grammar, but something has to be done about your tooth grip. The quill skids all over the paper. "We can wrap this up more quickly face to face --"

"-- I can't even stay that long."

Fleur blinked.

"Yesterday, you said --"

"I know what I said!" Fabric distorted along the back bulge of the dress: the hidden tail lashing. "I just got the letter this morning, and I can't send you a bird unless Fluttershy sends me one first! I have to go into Canterlot right after this. There's a schedule. And if I'm late --"

So you can be late with me, but not with --

The sleek head dipped.

"-- then it probably gets worse. It's the Bureau, Fleur. I have to meet somepony at the capital office. And I didn't know about that until the courier landed on my porch. I swear. And that's what stalled me."

The unicorn took a slow breath.

"They moved the deadline? It's today?"

The mare's voice felt far too weary. "No. This is just reminding me that the deadline is gonna be there. Personally. Putting on some extra pressure, you know? And seeing if they can get an answer out of me today --" fiercely "-- which they won't, because I'm still thinking. They'll probably come out to Ponyville at the end, and I'm fine with that. Make them work for it. But I've gotta be there on time. Maybe the dress will help. Somehow. But I can't afford to let the schedule slip. Not on this. I would have given you more time, but..."

Fleur gently nodded.

Her own life. Her own problems.
And I'm still not going to bring up Fluttershy's schedule slip. It's Rainbow. Not doing things exactly on time is part of the territory.
...maybe Fluttershy missing an assignment counts for copyright infringement...

"Just go when you have to," she said. (And wanted to ask for an exact minute, but it was Rainbow.) "But until then, we have to talk about Gilda."

"What about her?" Even for Rainbow, the words were far too quick. "I know she hasn't been out to the cottage. At least not where you saw her. You would have written --"

"-- I talked to Pinkie," Fleur calmly broke in. "About what happened when Gilda came to town the first time."

The sleek head went down again.

"I should have figured you'd ask around," the pegasus quietly stated. "It's what you do --"

"-- and I couldn't talk to you, not just then. That's what this is for," Fleur quickly established. "Rainbow -- after I finished with Pinkie, Minuette came into the bakery. To tell her that Gilda was in Ponyville."

"...I forgot she was at the party," Rainbow's lowered gaze told the table. "That was kind of nice of her."

Slowly, "Minuette warned Pinkie. Minuette. Not you."

"...yeah," Rainbow softly Fluttershied.

"Why?"

"I didn't need to," the pegasus said (and the voice was far too soft, too low and tired). "Nopony did. Gilda wasn't going to go anywhere near Pinkie. Or any of the other Bearers."

Carefully, "How do you know?"

"It's..." A too-deep breath, and the wings rustled. "...a long story."

We've been friends for a while.

You talk about yourself. A lot. Enough to turn some ponies off, and scare others away. You can go for hours without repeating yourself. Sometimes you enjoy 'the rest is classified' a little too much. But after a while, I started to see where the gaps were. There's things you never bring up. Like how you became Ponyville's weather coordinator in the first place.

'It's a long story' means this is something you don't want to talk about.

But I need this.

"Rainbow --"

The pegasus had partially turned upon the bench. Facing the construction crew.

Get her on the topic --

"There's Zephyr," Rainbow casually said. "Did you spot him?"

"-- what?"

"Up there." A foreleg gestured. "On the roof."

Fleur looked. Then she got off the bench, trotted forward enough to get her sight line clear of the awning, and looked again.

The stallion was on the edge of the new roof. (She had to search for height and mane: most of the body was covered in a protective blue garment.) Looking down at a patch of hot tar, and the pile of shingles which were supposed to be placed atop the sticky layer. And when it came to activity, 'looking' was the whole of what he was doing.

"It's not the first time I've seen him," Rainbow announced. "He's mostly been getting outdoor jobs."

"Jobs," Fleur carefully repeated. Plural? Is he trying to pay for a rental? Or putting together a lot of money in a hurry so he can get a house and move here --

"Well, he could be working indoors," the pegasus allowed, and snickered again. "I've only seen him get fired from the stuff outside."

The unicorn blinked. Her horn ignited, and a quick flare of field brought her bench around to the side of the table. Set it down again, moved the plate, and then she took her seat again. Repositioned to keep half an eye on Zephyr.

"Fired," she echoed.

Zephyr hadn't noticed either of them, and -- Fleur was starting to wonder about that. A mare who had so many ponies staring towards her beauty quickly developed a sense of when she was being watched, and the fur on the back of her neck seemed to be reacting accordingly. But nopony was in view.

Maybe he's just really good at glancing away in time.

Fleur watched him for a few seconds. His attention remained on the shingles. No labor occurred.

"He's good at getting fired," Rainbow smirked. "I know what Fluttershy wanted, Fleur. For me to back off. But I haven't needed to try anything. I think about getting started, and he sabotages himself! I'm starting to wonder if that's his talent! He's just so good at it --"

Line of credit at Barnyard Bargains, and now this. More proof that he needs money for something.

What is his talent? That mark doesn't suggest construction. Why isn't he looking for work in the right category?

"How many times has he been fired?" Fleur asked.

"That I saw?" One more snicker. "Twice." Which was followed by a giggle. "One of them was for napping -- oh, come on, Fleur! You've at least gotta have the common sense to get a job where naptime is built in! He just fell asleep during his shift! And he didn't hide all that well. I figured out there was a pegasus under that tarp in about a second. So did his boss. Maybe two seconds --"

Maybe he'll fail his way out of town, if he can't keep a job.
Or if he can't earn money, he'll try to steal.
Again.

"-- you're changing the subject," Fleur softly said. "And you're good at it. But this is about Gilda, and you said you don't have a lot of time. Rainbow, if this is a long story -- then I need you to start telling it."

Slowly, far too slowly, the pegasus turned to face her -- or almost so. Both eyelids were half-closed, and the visible portion of the gaze was staring at the table again.

"And now you," Fleur quietly told her.

"Huh?" emerged as something bleak.

"It's been days of dealing with pegasi who only half-look at me," the unicorn morbidly announced. "I was sick of it after the first two minutes. Rainbow, why didn't you have to warn Pinkie?"

The weather coordinator shuffled on her bench.

"Because I won," she quietly offered. "For the last time."

Fleur did the hardest thing. She went silent, and listened.

"There was always a little fighting --" and Rainbow paused. "Competition. And not always. It just felt like that after a while, once we knew each other. Once she felt... safe, I guess. Like there was somepony who was safe. She didn't feel that way at first. Not at camp."

Just let her talk...

"You didn't see her then," the pegasus steadily offered, still looking at the wood. "I've got a picture somewhere. Both of us are in it, because one of the counselors took it on the last day and mailed it to my house after it was developed. Nice guy. But that was after she got better. On the first day..."

Silence for a moment. Magenta eyes briefly came up, searched until they found the clock. Placidly noted the position of the tines, then went down again.

"I told you," Rainbow went on. "Junior Speedster camp. But I don't know if you thought about what that would have been like. Her parents wanted her to pick up some other-species tips. And you can do that in Protocera, but -- the pegasi there mostly fly like griffons. They wanted her to get the pure stuff. But that meant sending her away. The rest of us were away from our homes and she was out of her nation. The only griffon there. And we were young, we were all so young and... I didn't even see her at first, when I got into where we were all staying. I thought I was the first one in. The other kids were way behind me. Still saying goodbye to their parents. And then I just heard this sniffling coming from under the lowest bunk..."

She sighed, soft and low. Feathers rustled, and all of the brashness dropped away.

Fleur could almost picture it. A shadowed room, because first in meant all the lights wouldn't have been on yet. The residual scents of bravado twisted up with fear.

The soft sound of weeping.

"I think you understand," the pegasus decided. "Fluttershy would too. She was hiding. Crying, because she was so far from home and just scared. And... It's like seeing a scared kitten and a frightened eagle chick, only at the same time. Helpless. You can't let anything happen to someone like that, not if you can care at all. So I made some noise. Just a little, so she'd know I was there. And then I asked if I could come under the bunk with her. She... didn't say yes for about a minute..."

Too young. She couldn't be dominant on her own. Too scared to build a chain. Before adolescence, most grifflets just try to follow their parents' lead. Or -- copy off a role model. Pick someone they can trust, then echo.

Helpless. It's part of why you protect them. Because you know how weak they are. Weak and frightened.

And if you raise them properly, they grow up to claim their link.

The kitten became a cat.
The cat was a predator.
Predators killed.
And the cycle went on.

"She needed somepony," Rainbow continued. "The right pony. I'd already had some run-ins with the wrong ones." And snorted. "Not there. Not the first hour, anyway. Some jerks in Cloudsdale who still haven't grown up. So I went under the bunk with her. We talked until she came out. And then she just sort of followed me around for the first week of camp. Doing whatever I did, staying close..."

Who was in charge?

It wasn't necessarily a question with a single answer, because time passed and links shifted. But in those first days, in a new place, frightened and seeking both shelter and guidance -- there had been a single steady portion of chain to which a grifflet could anchor herself.

In the first days, Gilda had needed someone to be in charge. Her parents had likely assumed that the role would be taken by one of the camp's counselors.

But it had been Rainbow.

The pegasus went quiet. Portions of the hat's brim wilted from the moisture.

Fleur glanced towards the construction site. Zephyr had managed to get another pony up to the roof. Based on what the unicorn could see, the stallion was asking for a demonstration of the shingle placement method. The mare accommodated him.

"It was a long way to go," Rainbow finally said. "Maybe too far. But she'd asked her parents for that. To fly with Equestrian pegasi."

"Why?" Fleur softly asked.

It got her a matter-of-fact statement. "Because she wanted to be a Wonderbolt."

She still felt as if she was being watched. She also felt her jaw actively trying to drop, and managed to get control just in time.

"It's been -- almost twenty years," the expert quietly determined. "Almost that long since Celeri retired. Long enough that the casual audience, even some of the self-titled fans start to forget. That there's no species restrictions on applying to the Academy. If you can fly, then there's a routine which is waiting for just that type of wings to be in the center of the formation. Or no wings, because self-levitating unicorns have been on the team." The smile was quick, and oddly faint. "Not gonna be you, though. I've seen your turns, Fleur. Your momentum redirection sucks. But some griffons make it. You just don't see very many during the practical trials, because -- most of them don't think they can get onto an Equestrian team. And Gilda wanted to try. She talked so much about going for it -- once she was talking -- that we sort of..."

Another stop.

Fleur didn't want to look at Rainbow's eyes. She risked another glance towards Zephyr, and found that the mare was still demonstrating for him: something which was making the stallion begin to smile. Then the coworker abruptly realized that she'd demonstrated her way along two complete rows, and the shouting began.

It caught Rainbow's attention.

"Hear that?" the pegasus asked. "Almost got her to do it for him. If that's his forepony, he may be looking for another job in about a minute."

This is basic. I could place shingles. Anypony could. It's time and patience and being willing to deal with the tar --
-- and now I'm the one going off the subject.
Whose dream was it, Rainbow?

It was the wrong question, and the right one was something which couldn't be voiced.

Who had that dream first?

The angry mare went back to ground level, then began waving her forelegs at the rest of the crew: half-caught words suggested it was something about not having anypony else go up to that work area. Zephyr, still at least temporarily employed, was staring at the tiles again. There was still a lot of roof left.

"You had to see her opening up, week by week," Rainbow finally said. "Little games. Competitions. Mostly with me. I played along because it gave her something to do and she was having fun. Then I was having fun. And... when camp ended, all the parents showed up at the same time. I made sure to bring Gilda over to mine. Then we went to hers. Made sure they saw us together. Because she lived in another nation, and -- the only way we were going to see each other again was if they knew we had to."

Fleur slowly nodded.

"I was wondering about that," she admitted. "How the two of you stayed in touch."

"My dad," Rainbow promptly said. "Her mom. We'd say things, they'd write them down and post the letters. It was weeks back and forth, sometimes moons. But our families made sure we didn't lose track. So there were more camps. Then I went to her ranch."

Did you ever go to Protocera as an adult?
Was there any talk of her coming to Cloudsdale? Meeting somewhere in the middle?
-- no. Just listen.

"The thing is..." The pegasus took a deep breath: portions of the dress shifted, and the hat slipped. "...she listened to me. We challenged each other. Pushed. We always had races, because there was someone to race against. But she listened to me. If I told her something was going too far, or felt kind of weird -- she stopped."

Felt kind of --

"Until that last visit," emerged a little too quickly. "Until..." The wings flared, curled back in, and then volume dropped. "Pinkie told you about the party. What was the last part of her story?"

"The..."

"The last thing she saw." And the tone had gone bitter. "Pinkie remembers just about everything. But she can only remember what she was there for. What was the last part?"

Fleur concentrated. "Gilda tried to stalk out. She told you that she was leaving --"

"-- that we were leaving," Rainbow immediately corrected.

It was an order.
Testing the chain.
Potentially seizing the link.
...I still feel like there's someone behind me.
There's a construction crew. Staring at mares is almost part of the job description.

"-- and you refused. You told Pinkie it wasn't her fault. Gilda left town --"

It was barely a whisper, and ears which had been trained through more than a year of living with Fluttershy strained for the words.

"-- she didn't."

And then Fleur was staring at her friend.

"She went to my house," Rainbow softly said. "She was waiting there when I got back. And we had one more fight. That was the last fight. I..."

Watching feathers curl and twist with pain.

"...I don't want to talk about it. I'm..."

The back of the dress jerked to the left, and half of the body fabric twisted from the sheer force of the barely-contained tail lash.

"...not gonna talk about it. Not right now. Not what we said, what we did," Rainbow half-spat. "It was a fight. The last fight. What I thought was going to be the last time we ever talked, and it nearly all turned into screams. And then she was crying again. I made her cry. We became friends because she was crying under a bunk and I couldn't stand to see that, and then she was fighting me and screaming at me and crying at the same time..."

The sleek body slumped, almost collapsed upon itself.

"I got a promise out of her," the Bearer of Loyalty stated. "For the last time, as just about the last thing we ever said to each other. That she would never go after any of my friends. And I had to name everypony, one at a time. She swore that she'd leave them alone. She swore on stuff that mattered. But you weren't there, Fleur. It was years before the palace sent you in. The promise doesn't cover you. And I thought about it, and then I didn't want to come to the cottage because I didn't want her following me out there. Seeing me with you. It's why I'm worried about the cloud cover. About the awning. About everything. And I've been trying to find her, because she came back and maybe we can talk, maybe we can really talk, but I'm not always the best with words and I can't find her. I can catch up if I see her, I can chase her down, but she's got to be going into some strange places and..."

She stopped. Her eyes fully opened, and then she looked past Fleur. Focusing on the clock.

"I've got to go," Rainbow abruptly said. "Keep your eyes open and your ears rotating. You know how to check for a griffon. Better than anypony. And you know what to do if she makes a move. I've got to trust you. I've got to --"

The wings flared to their full span. Wind backblasted against benches, table, and deck. Fleur's plate nearly went onto the floor. And then Rainbow was gone.


The former escort stayed at the restaurant for a few minutes. Almost motionless, and even her mind felt as if it was still. There was some level of thought taking place, but most of that was just -- processing. Trying to come up with the next questions.

She watched Zephyr. The stallion still hadn't made any progress on the shingles. He looked down at the pile, then at the fitted shoes with the flared-out half-hollow metal fork at the front. Something designed to allow anypony to pick up and plant shingles. Then you precisely set them into the tar so that the alignment was right the first time, pressed hard while knowing that your hoof was protected by the garment...

Basic labor. Anypony could do it.

He slowly shifted his left foreleg. Pendulumed it towards the pile of shingles, so that the edge of the fork began to slide forward around the topmost specimen --

-- stopped. Pulled back, setting the hoof down.

Zephyr looked at the shingles.

His wings spread, began to flap.

Afterwards, once she truly had time to think about everything she'd seen (and that would be delayed by far more time than she ever would have wished for) -- Fleur would still have no true idea as to what Zephyr had thought he could accomplish. It was certainly possible to propel an item with wind, and the shingles were light. But the aim would be less than precise. And with shingles, which had to be layered just so...

Perhaps the most talented pegasus in the world -- one who was patient, working with tight, controlled gusts, and focused on a single tile at a time -- that pegasus might have been able to get a few shingles to land in a rough row. Three of them, certainly: Fleur could picture that. Five on a particularly good day. And perhaps they would have hit with enough force to embed them.

Zephyr's generated mega-gust was clearly attempting to send most of the pile into the tar, and he succeeded at that. With the wind speed he'd just created, embedding was effectively guaranteed.

But they went everywhere, creating a scattershot mosaic pattern all the way up the roof. Some of the blast hit the demonstration shingles, and the portions which hadn't completely set went out of alignment. The new pieces hit with enough force to make some of the tar splash --

-- once she truly thought about it, Fleur concluded that the majority of ponies confronted with a spray of tar would have recoiled. So far as basic reactions went, Zephyr had done nothing wrong there. However, she was also sure that those same ponies would have also instinctively tried to protect their eyes.

Zephyr's movements prioritized for what was truly important, and the desperate attempt to shield his mane sent him off the roof.

Everypony who was in range to hear the startled yelp looked up. It meant they saw his wings flare out again, bringing him into a recovery glide before he hit the ground. But looking up meant they saw what had happened to the shingles, potential hours of extra labor just to correct it all, the mare who was rather obviously the forepony raced up to the stallion and began shouting into Zephyr's face (or given their height difference, into his two-tone chin), he was very clearly being fired again --

-- and Fleur laughed.

Even after spending over a year with Fluttershy, it was a rare thing for her. Even then, she generally laughed in front of her love, almost never in public. But there were too many thoughts in her head. The Protoceran was trying to work out everything Rainbow had said, while also attempting to piece together the words which had gone unvoiced. She was distracted and stressed from multiple sources and she kept losing little wars against sticks. Fleur didn't like Zephyr, the stallion had just done something idiotic, and -- she laughed.

He heard it. Ignored the forepony's shouts, quickly turned his head to focus on her alone.

There was very little of his sister in Zephyr's form. A suggestion in the overall shape of that much smaller tail, and little more. Certainly no part of the bloodline had become manifest within the eyes.

But he tried. And at that too, he failed. He couldn't stare at Fleur, not in any way which suggested the capital. There was no true power there. Just frustration and a lack of full comprehension, melded into the horror of having been caught in the midst of failure.

All he could do was glare at her. And the cerise eyes became acid.

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