Sunshine, Serenity, and Socks.
Serenity. In and of itself, the word is an evocative catalyst, drawing from the mind vivid images of grassy fields, blue skies, babbling brooks and generally pleasant images. That said, it could be argued that at this moment in time, Silver Spoon lay passive in the epicenter of all that is serene or rather, that she was one drop of nirvana shy of such a perfect state. Acres of rolling, lush green grass tickled her underbelly, providing both a delectable and picturesque grazing pasture. Where the pasture ended, a quiet beauteous river, rivaled in its pure azure complexion only by the sky itself, took the lead in this waltz of the eye, its gentle currents, lazily ushering families of geese and other waterfowl along the banks. It was the kind of setting that graces the wet-dreams of landscape painters with the delicacy of a butterfly, and Silver Spoon had it all to herself. Not another pony in sight for miles, and therein lay the problem.
Reaching into her saddle bags, she procured a silver pocketwatch and popped it open with no delay. 1:37PM, it read, her brow furrowing deeply in dismay. "She's late,"the irate filly grumbled, swatting the seeds from a nearby dandelion. The novelty of her surroundings had worn off half an hour ago, and each passing second of isolation transformed the world around her from a pristine meadow into a bog of frustration. After all, what good was paradise without somepony to spend it with?
With a sigh, she began to entertain the notion of just returning home early for no reason other than teaching the other party a lesson in the importance of punctuality. However, that train of thought found itself derailed before it could even depart as a high-pitched voice cracked through the air. "Silver Spoon!" the voice squeaked.
Silver Spoon turned toward the source of the voice, greeting the swiftly approaching unicorn with an unamused, flat expression; she hated to be kept waiting, even if the pony making her wait had a smile like sunshine given form.
Sweetie Belle on the otherhoof, slid to a halt, and began to grovel almost immediately, forsaking reprieve from her spent body in favor of forgiveness from a filly scorned. "Silver Spoon, I'm so, so sorry for being late! Please forgive me!" she panted through the burning in her lungs.
Silver Spoon said nothing, instead choosing to let her piercing gaze speak volumes for her while Sweetie Belle's body succumbed to the effects of overexertion. "Hmm..." she stalled, teasing at the now hyper-ventilating unicorn's anxiousness.
"Please, Silvy?" Sweetie Belle begged.
"I don't know, I was about to go home..." Silver Spoon pouted, turning away.
"Don't go!" Sweetie Belle seized Silver Spoon's hoof. "I'll make it up to you!"
Silver Spoon's ears perked up. "Oh, really?" She smirked, raising a challenging eyebrow to Sweetie Belle. "How?"
Sweetie Belle hadn't expected Silver Spoon to one-eighty so quickly. "Well... umm... I brought us a picnic..." With unsteady hooves, she dropped her saddlebags from around her waist, and began digging through their contents. She produced a few store bought pastries, a vine of surprisingly uncrushed grapes, a few milk cartons and a jar holding what appeared to be a viscous, smoldering mess of liquefied ash. Silver Spoon would be later shocked to learn that the ashen-like substance in the jar was allegedly a salad that Sweetie Belle prepared herself.
"It's a start..." Silver Spoon said, a note of expectancy evident in her voice.
Sweetie Belle took the hint and began racking her mind for more ways to butter Silver Spoon up. At that moment, an especially spicy prospect Twiddling her hooves Sweetie Belle began to sputter, “I...I could... you know... maybe... I mean if you’d let me...”
Intrigued, Silver Spoon rose an eyebrow as Sweetie Belle fumbled for words. “Yes?”
“...if you’d let me feed you grapes while you lay on my lap?” Sweetie Belle finished sheepishly, her cheeks flushing a dangerous scarlet.
Drinking in the skittish reaction like it were a fine wine, Silver Spoon tapped her chin in thought. “Well, that does sound nice...” she said, her voice once again lacking any real finality; she was going to milk this situation for all it was worth.
Sweetie Belle chewed her lower lip nervously as she contemplated some sort of deal sealing last resort. Her eyes shifted to a particular pocket on her saddlebags and the articles that lay within. “Well...” she fished a hoof into the pocket. “I’ve got... t-these.” Shyly hiding her face behind her mane, she withdrew two pairs of pink-and-purple striped socks and held them out for Silver Spoon’s scrutiny.
Silver Spoon had to fight to hide her astonished delight at such bold proposal. Being fed grapes was one thing, but for Sweetie Belle to proposition socks in recompense for her lateness? “Apology accepted,” Silver Spoon said smugly, pleased that her little charade had paid off. But regardless, there was still something off about her swirly-maned marshmallow of a companion. It was as though the unicorn were hiding something. “Something wrong?”
“Well, the thing is...I kind of brought some for you too.” Sweetie Belle produced another four socks from the bag, their striped color scheme reminiscent of the intended wearer’s metallic coat and its natural complement of baby blue. Silver Spoon’s mouth, once curled up in a foxy little grin, now hung agape. “Y-you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to! I mean I just brought them in case—” Sweetie Belle found herself swiftly hushed as Silver Spoon hesitantly took the socks and turned away, cheeks reddening.
After a moment of awkward silence Silver Spoon finally spoke. “You’re still feeding me grapes you know,” she huffed. Sweetie Belle’s eyes lit up. “N-now t-turn around so I can put these silly things on.”
“Sure.” Sweetie Belle turned away as per Silver Spoon’s request, and began putting her own socks. It tickled slightly as she gently pulled the first of the socks snugly over her hindhooves, only to find that the article was just a smidge too spacious to be form fitting. She silently cursed herself for not having used a mannequin when she was crocheting them a night prior. Still, flawed final product or not, they had come out mostly correct, which was surprising considering how many failures and spools of wool had been scrapped in the process.
Sweetie Belle quickly pulled on the other three ill-fitting socks and stood up to see the damage. She pranced in place to get a feel for the material, finding that the thick wool felt foreign yet somehow pleasant on her hooves. Satisfied with the fruits of her labors, she turned around to find Silver Spoon nervously rubbing her foreleg with her freshly adorned garments.
“S-so, what do you think? Do they look good on me?” she asked, nervously pawing at the ground, doing her best to avoid eye contact.
“Mhmm.” Sweetie Belle hummed, her eyes dancing delightedly over the sight of Silver Spoon’s snug-fitting socks
“Mmmmf!” Flustered, Silver Spoon puffed her cheeks out. “Stop looking at me like that!” She swiftly turned her nose up to hide her embarrassment. “It’s not like I like wearing these or anything...”
“Of course not,” Sweetie Belle chuckled, rolling her eyes.
“Anyway, it’s time for you to make good on your promise.” Silver Spoon nudged the bushel of grapes forward with her nose.
Retiring to her haunches, Sweetie Belle scooped up the grapes in one socked-hoof and patted the grass next to her thigh with the other, an invitation the pewter pony didn’t hesitate to accept. Sauntering over to claim her place on the grass, Silver Spoon wasted no time resting her head on the lap provided, nuzzling into the warmth of her better half’s cream-white coat in the manner that a foal would welcome their mother’s bosom.
Sweetie Belle beamed down at the amourous earthpony, giving the silver mane a compassionate stroke before plucking a single grape from its perch on the stem. With steady patient hooves, she brought the grape to Silver Spoon’s mouth, but didn’t drop it. “Say ahh, Silvy.”
The ludicrous request was met with an appropriately flat frown. “You can’t be serious.”
“Ahhh...” Sweetie Belle insisted.
SIlver Spoon sighed and shook her head, but ultimately ceded to Sweetie Belle’s demands. “Ahhh.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Sweetie Belle popped the grape into Silver Spoon’s mouth before her metallic-maned muse could offer any blade-tongued rhetoric in return.
The grape, having delivered its sweet juicy payload in one glorious burst, had gone just as quickly as it arrived, thus leaving Silver Spoon wanting for more. “Can I have another?”
“He-he, of course,” Sweetie Belle said, plucking another one of the fruits before dropping it promptly into SIlver Spoon’s mouth, fuss-free to Silver Spoon’s relief. The two carried on in relative peace and autonomy— Sweetie Belle cycling through the finite amount of grapes while admiring Silver Spoon, who was enjoying every second of the pampering— until one of the fruits slipped from her hoof, tucking itself behind Silver Spoon’s ears.
“Hey...” Silver Spoon whined lazily.
“Sorry, Silvy, let me get that.” The unicorn craned her neck down to retrieve the grape with her mouth, but was completely unprepared for Silver Spoon’s reaction as her wooly socks brushed past the earthpony’s ear.
“H-hey, that tickles!”
Sweetie Belle cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re ticklish, huh?”
“Sweetie Belle? What are you doing? Stop... Stop! Stop! Kyahahaha! That tickles, that tickles! Ahahaha— cut that ou— ahaha!”
Sweetie Belle’s tickle assault was met with much resistance which only served to invigorate the unicorn’s efforts. Pushing, shoving and rolling with all her might, Silver Spoon found herself unable escape from Sweetie Belle’s tummy-seeking hooves, though her efforts managed to relocate the conflict down a small hill where the pair rolled head-over-hooves until they hit the bottom. Once Silver Spoon’s orientation caught back up with her, she was less than pleased to find herself once pinned between the legs of her tickle happy unicorn.
“Hey, Sweetie Belle?”
“Yes?”
“Could you get off of me, please?”
“Mmm...” Sweetie Belle playfully tapped a hoof to her chin before coming back with a simple, “Nope.”
“No? What do you mean ‘no’?”
Sweetie Belle said nothing, instead choosing to let silence and her bedroom eyes convey the change in intention.
“Umm... Sweetie, Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Sweetie Belle asked, playing her hoof at oblivity.
“Like... like that.”
“You mean like... this?” Sweetie Belle inched her face closer to Silver Spoon’s, close enough to the point that they could feel their breath on eachother’s lips.
“Yes,” Silver Spoon giggled nervously. “Like— mmmf!”
Sweetie Belle would never know the end of that sentence as she darted forward, selfishly stealing the lips of its constructor with her own.
The End.