Blossoming: Learning How To Fly

by nanashi_jones

This Must Be Life, There's No Instruction Manual

I wondered if anyone noticed the mildly out of place, low-flying cloud with two winged ponies having lunch on it? I mean, I could see a skyscraper nearby, but the reflected glass meant I couldn’t see if we were disrupting somebody’s work day.

“So does this make you a salad convert?” Jess asked, teasingly.

I munched on the large salad we’d gotten at Wendy’s and swallowed.

“Considering how nauseous the smell of cooked beef made me? Yeah, I think I’m full on for salads now.” I popped a cherry tomato into my mouth using my wing.

“Beshides,” I said around the morsel. “Veggies never tasted like this before.”

“Yeah...” Jess noted, her gaze unfocusing as she looked at the bowl before her.

I didn’t say anything. The expression was becoming common for her. Little quiet moments when I couldn’t tell if she couldn’t tell I was watching her, or she was that absorbed in her thoughts. I knew Jess prefered contact when she was unnerved, but sitting next to her on our travel cloud, Suzy, I couldn’t think how to get any closer.

This was one of the gulfs we worked on in our relationship: Jess felt better when someone was there for her. Hugging her, holding her, listening to her. She could box up stress and do her job, but after work, she needed someone right there. I was the other way. When I was stressed, I’d box up and put on a mask, putting distance between my thinking and my emotions, period. This meant I didn’t touch people as much and came off as cold until I sorted out my feelings.

Before we dated, it hadn’t been much of an issue. Every friend, even very close ones, copes with stress differently and a certain amount of privacy is respected.

Now that we were together, my aloofness under emotional pressure came off as uncaring or outright ignoring her. We’d had a few impressive fights once the honeymoon aura waned. The issue of my emotional availability still flared from time to time, but we knew we loved each other and that held us up during the worst of it. And we had survived the worst. At least, the worst we’d known.

What was helping these days was how I once shared that I’d get these instinctual urges when Jess was upset and ignore them because they didn’t seem to be part of my usual, detached, rational process. After the third time describing what my instincts advised of me, Jess said, “Trust those. They know what they’re doing.”

As we munched on our food, I looked inward to my instincts and got “put a wing around her.”

So I did.

She leaned against me and sighed.

“I was fine at work. I was fine for the flight. I was fine in the park. I just... I think this is catching up to me,” she said in a quiet voice.

I nodded.

She rubbed at her face, looked at her hoof, sighed.

Again calling on the instincts to guide my feelings, my words, I offered in a hopeful tone, “You can fly.”

Jess snorted a small laugh and a smile came to her. She nodded.

“Yeah. Yes, I can. And that... Is pretty cool.”

Since I’m still learning about them, my instincts strike me as a mystical force in my head: knowing in unknown, wisdom in naivete, understanding in ignorance. At the very least, they’re clearly smarter than I am when it comes to things like this.

The instincts aren’t separate from you, Blossom said. I don’t feel like I’m hearing a different voice in your head when you listen to them.

Really? I asked, a bit incredulous.

Again with the internal nodding. It feels like you’re just doing what I do when I’m thinking something through.

Huh. Thanks Blossom. It’s really helpful having you in my head.

Yet another sentence that said a lot about my life at the time.

Don’t mention it.

I picked up the iPad and connected to the nearby Wendy’s wifi. Tapping my left hind hoof on the cloud, I waited through the login prompts and pulled up the Cloud and Blossom Travel Page. I marked our location; not much change from our last marked spot at the playground, really, but it was progress. As I smiled at the supportive comments, I noticed a message for the admin, i.e. me.

“Hey hey,” I said.

“Mmm?” Jess asked from her relaxed nuzzle against me.

“Looks like there’s a Nashville meetup. We’re invited.”

“Meetup?” Jess asked opening her eyes slightly. “Of what?”

I tapped through the invite in the message and read through.

“Local ponies and a group of the Day Guard with a Night Guard rep to answer questions.” I turned to Jess, who was passively looking over the information. “Wanna go?” I asked.

Her brow furrowed and she sighed. Her gaze went to the middle distance and I realized that was forever going to be her “Cloud is saying or sharing something” face. I made a mental note of it.

Do you think we look like that? Blossom asked.

I’ll try to stand near a mirror soon.

Jess nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Is that at me or...?” I asked.

“Cloud made a good point. Maybe I could meet some ponies who’re like me.”

Her eyes widened and I realized that this may have been the first time in our relationship Jess ever said anything that could be construed as a slight against me. I wasn’t taken aback, but I was stunned.

“Is there something about-” I started.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Jess said quickly. “Those were Cloud’s words and I... Rrrrgh!”

She slumped and I reapplied my wing to her back. She shook slightly, whether from anger or some other emotion, I couldn’t tell.

“Why is this so hard?” she asked quietly.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay,” I murmured, holding her close and wrapping a foreleg to add to my already draping wing.

“How are you doing this?”

I took a moment. Because my instincts weren’t talking. They were just reinforcing the “be with her” notion. The instincts were good, but they weren’t terribly wordy most of the time. When I had to talk and use them, it involved focusing on a slippery, elusive feeling I didn’t fully understand.

“I treat Blossom like a character,” I said, slowly. “Like... A character in my head. She interacts with the others and responds and knows what’s on my mind, so she’s a lot like Nanashi in that respect. But I know she isn’t a character so...”

I shrug.

“She’s just somepony in my head. We get to trade off who’s driving the body. It could be worse.”

“Oh?” Jess said, bitterly, tears threatening at her eyes.

“She could have taken over and booted me out long ago,” I said, my voice a bit flat.

What?! Blossom shrieked.

“What?!” Jess said, matching the voice in my head for volume and tone.

I winced.

I would never do such a thing, how could you even-

I am trying to make a point! Shut up!

I felt Blossom retreat and I realized Jess wasn’t the only one regretting what had come out of her mouth, even if mine was mental.

“I’m in her body,” I went on, rubbing my ear. “Her mind’s here. She’s scared, to be sure, but she could easily have snuffed me, overwhelmed me... Something.” I shrugged. “She doesn’t because that’s not who she is.”

Inside, I felt Blossom’s head raise up from the hurt I’d sent her down.

“She’s a kind, friendly, gifted pony who is in way over her head. Cloud’s in the same boat, but I don’t think she has Blossom’s virtues that make us work so well for me.”

I poked at Jess’s chest with an indicative hoof.

“You can’t treat what I’m going through as where you should be. Who Cloud is and who you are is going to mix very differently in your head versus how Blossom and I are mixing in mine.”

Jess’s lips pressed into a thin line and she snorted. Very pony like.

“I know that intellectually,” she said. “But you just make this all seem so... Easy and... And now I feel like I’m whinging and I hate whinging!”

My first reaction was to placate her, soothe her and tend to her, but we’d gotten into that fight before. I wasn’t her therapist, I’m her marefriend. That meant being honest with her. My instincts approved.

“So whinge!,” I said, throwing my hooves up for emphasis. “I don’t think it’s whinging to bitch about not getting along with the psychically bonded equine in my head! I mean, if you’re going to whinge, that’s a pretty fucking good thing to whinge about.”

I smiled at her crookedly and held it.

Jess stared at me and snorted, less pony like and more laugh like as she shook her head.

“You are very silly,” she said.

“I am,” I replied, and wrapped both wings and forelegs back around her to reinforce a hug.

“And you are so nice to put up with me.”

I smiled, through closed eyes as I cuddled her close. “I don’t put up with you,” I said. “I love you. You put up with me and my Sherlock-like moodswings.”

“I don’t put up with your Sherlock like moodswings,” Jess retorted opening us up so I could see her smirk and the warm look in her new amethyst eyes. “I love you, so I love them.”

I smiled at her, more broadly. She smiled back.

“Love you, Firefly,” I said.

“Love you too, Cupcake,” Jess replied.

We kissed and held it. Warmth blossomed in my chest and I adjusted my grip to bring Jess in closer.

For once, Blossom didn’t wince. Instead, she hesitantly stepped forward to explore the feeling, the kiss with the combination of her best friend and my marefriend. I could feel her care and curiosity and I let her look. As she explored with me, I also felt when Cloud tried to slide in from the other side as the kissing style started moving and Jess stopped her, separating us.

She smiled at me. I smiled back.

“I have a very horny pony in my head,” Jess said with a smirk.

“Mine’s a bit terrified of sex,” I replied.

“How’d they ever become friends?”

“Life,” I said with a shrug.

We held each others’ hooves for a minute. I broke contact first to hold up the iPad.

“So. You game?”

She sighed, a smile playing to her lips.

“Sure. Let’s go meet some ponies.”

Comments

[Thibi]

It's been a long enough passing for me to not recognise the spelling of whinge until I sought out the definition...

For what it's worth to those who think it to be a misspelling, whinge is the British form of whine.

Edit: The use of the British spellings are not an issue. Sorry if I came across as such initially. This one merely threw me off a bit more than the normal variances...

[Pinklestia]

This is the start of a beautiful relationship.

[TheGradualGhost]

I know this can be explained away with cartoon ponies it is so because plot but...

I popped a cherry tomato into my mouth using my wing.

...tomatoes are poisonous to equines.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

5171790 We've seen ketup in MLP. I think Equestrian's can handle a tomato

[CrystalWaters]

This chapter came out really well.