The train, rocking from side to side, made its way along a barren, cactus strewn ridge where vultures circled overhead, waiting for the train to hit something so they could have dinner. In the distance, a cloud of rust coloured dust rose from the horizon, which was no doubt a vast herd of buffalo moving from place to place. On this train was a group of friends and these friends—the guests of honour—were going to the Appleloosa Friendship Festival.
For Princess Twilight Sparkle, this was a happy time—all of her friends were together in one place, something that didn’t happen as often as she might like. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were having a quiet conversation about the happenings of Ponyville. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were busy whispering words into each others’ ears and then snortling as they clutched one another. As for Rarity…
“Darling, I have some… how shall we say… concerns…” Rarity made a theatrical flourish with her hoof and leaned in a little closer to Twilight. “Twilight, I am somewhat worried about them.” Batting her eyelashes, she pointed over at Pebble and Sumac, who were sitting together with a foal-sized tree dragon crammed into Pebble’s seat.
“What sort of concerns might those be?” Twilight asked, as she had no real concerns of her own regarding Sumac, Pebble, and Boomer. If trouble came along, trouble would be dealt with, it was just a matter of whom might reach trouble first that would determine if that trouble was smashed, pummeled, pulped, burnt to a crisp, or had its molecules dispersed into the aether.
Leaning in a little closer, Rarity dropped her voice down to a low whisper. “They’re at that age when they get all curious… and snoggy.”
“Rarity—”
“Twilight, please, I have some idea of what I am talking about, don’t just dismiss me. Just because I haven’t had foals of my own doesn’t mean that I am clueless as to what they do.”
Groaning, Twilight rolled her eyes as Rarity clutched her leg.
“If you don’t believe me, just ask them,” Rarity insisted with a haughty sniff.
Rubbing her chin, Twilight considered her options. Rarity wasn’t going to be quiet about this, Twilight already knew that Rarity was just going to keep going on about this until she had proven that she was right, because that was what Rarity did. Ears perking, she considered Sumac and Pebble, who were both age eleven. When Twilight was eleven, she certainly wasn’t snogging anypony, she was sensible and she kept her nose tucked into books, where it belonged.
“Sumac, Pebble, I have a question for the both of you,” Twilight said, her voice sounding a bit hesitant. For a second, she was distracted by the sound of Spike’s pen scratching and she drew in a deep breath, feeling unsettled without knowing why. “Pebble, Sumac, have you two been snogging?”
Both foals blinked and Boomer’s frills stood out. Applejack stopped mid-word, prodded Pinkie Pie to make her shut up, and then she turned a stern eye on Sumac. Fluttershy gasped and Rainbow Dash began sniggering. Rarity drew in a deep breath and held it, waiting for an answer.
“Sumac,” Pebble deadpanned, “we’ve been discovered. They’re onto us.”
Rarity’s held breath came out in a huff, Applejack looked both proud, worried, and scared, all at once, Pinkie Pie began giggle-snorting, Fluttershy appeared as though she might begin hyperventilating, and Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a funny look.
“You egghead, what do you think they’ve been doing every chance they get when they think we’re not looking?”
“You mean you’ve seen them?” Twilight demanded.
“I see everything,” Rainbow Dash replied, not caring how her words might sound.
“But… eleven!” Twilight let out a gasp and felt a tightness growing in her barrel.
“Twilight, what do you think little foals do from about the age of ten or so onward?” Applejack elbowed Pinkie Pie and the two earth ponies both watched and waited for Twilight to say something in return.
“Especially little earth ponies,” Pinkie Pie added. Then, she placed her hoof up to the side of her mouth, leaned over, and put her muzzle next to Applejack’s ear. “We get urges.”
“Uh-huh.” Applejack nodded and her green eyes glittered with glee.
“Awwwk-ward,” Rarity’s voice was a sing-sing falsetto as she pulled away from Twilight.
“But I… but they… but when I was eleven… but…” Twilight, stammering, couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence, so she just gave up with a snort.
“Well, at least we don’t need to hide it anymore,” Sumac said as he wrapped his forelegs around Pebble, closed his eyes, and leaned in for a smooch.
“Don’t you dare!” Applejack barked just as Sumac’s lips almost touched Pebble’s. “I done brought me my rope for lassoing, don’t make me practice!”
With a grunt, Pebble shoved Sumac away from her, and something that was almost a smirk appeared on her muzzle as she did so. Beside her, Boomer covered her mouth with her claws and giggled like a sugar-buzzed chipmunk.
“Aw, pears—”
“Don’t you talk with that kind of language!” Applejack’s eyes narrowed as she reached up and pushed back her hat. “You keep your magic words to yourself, Mister Latrine Lips, you little stinker! You know just what to say to set a pony off!”
Clutching her sides, Rainbow Dash rocked back and forth with laughter and beside her, Fluttershy seemed caught between laughter and panic. Pinkie Pie laughed so hard that she oinked, which completely destroyed Applejack’s serious mien. Batting her eyelashes, Rarity shook her head and gave herself a silent reminder that she was no longer around the more cultured members of society, and she now had to deal with expletives of a most vulgar variety.
“How… how long has this been going on?” Twilight wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer. It felt like butterfly refugees from a heavy metal concert had formed an impromptu mosh pit in her stomach.
“Since my ninth birthday, when I got frosting all over my face and Pebble licked it off,” Sumac replied with just the faintest hint of a nervous squeak in his voice. “Twinkleshine shoved a piece of cake into my face that year, it was her turn to do it, and when I went into the bathroom to clean myself up, Pebble snuck in…” The colt’s words trailed off and he gave Twilight a sheepish grin.
Saying nothing, Applejack held out her hoof, blinked once at Pinkie, and then Pinkie gave Applejack a hearty hoof-bump. Fluttershy had turned a lurid shade of pink and was hiding behind her forelock. Twilight squirmed in her seat and Rarity let out a pleased-sounding sigh of contentment.
Boomer, looking bored, drummed her claws on the edge of her seat and her tail swished from side to side. Her yellow eyes gleamed with mischief as she looked at Spike, her idol and favourite dragon. Spike, however, did not notice, as he was absorbed in his writing. To any sharp-eyed observer, it was clear that Boomer was plotting something, and the little dragoness was up to no good.
“There are times,” Twilight began, her voice a bit dry from emotion, “that I feel out of place. Because of my own perceptions being what they are, I thought I was normal, but as life goes on, with each day passing…” Twilight did not finish her sentence because Rainbow Dash exploded with riotous laughter and fell out of her seat.
Pulling out a hoof file and a buffer, Rarity went to work, her blue eyes sparkling as her mouth pulled into a tight, pouty pucker. She waited a bit for Rainbow Dash to quiet down, and when Rainbow finally recovered enough to pull herself back up into her chair, Rarity turned to face Twilight with one raised eyebrow.
“Twilight, if you can forgive me for being so blunt, I think you could do with a bit of romance in your life—”
“Rarity, not this again!”
“I keep thinking that Seville would be perfect for you—”
“Rarity, we’re just friends… really close friends and I am sick to death of everypony trying to make more of it than it really is! The newspapers, Princess Celestia, and you.”
“Darling, he’s just your type, he’s quiet, he’s studious, and the two of you get along so well.” Rarity turned away from Twilight and looked down at her hoof as she continued to smooth out the rough edges.
“But he’s just my friend!” Twilight blurted out. “Besides, you don’t even know what my type is!”
“Oh, darling, of course I do, I’m your best friend and I know everything there is to know about you.” A smug smile spread over Rarity’s lips and a strange silence settled over the train car.
“Well then, just what is my type?” Twilight’s face now had a flinty expression.
“Why, Seville of course. He’s perfect for you.”
“Rarity… has it occurred to you that I might be gay?” Twilight asked in a voice that was raspy from strain.
The hoof file stopped, Rarity took a deep breath, and then turned to look at Twilight as the others were now holding their breath, wondering if this would turn into yet another squabble between the two. Rarity and Twilight stared at one another, both had narrowed eyes, and it seemed as though Rarity might be studying Twilight.
“Oh, pish posh… as your best friend I would know something like that,” Rarity said after several tension-filled seconds had passed. She made a dismissive wave with her hoof and then let out a demure huff. With a toss of her head, she flung her mane out of her eyes and let out a nervous laugh. “All of us are mares, and without calling anypony out, some of us are quite open to romantic advances from both genders. Certainly, by now, if you leaned that way, Twilight Sparkle, our little group would know about it. Something would have happened.”
Scowling, Twilight let out a snort and turned away from Rarity as her barrel expanded. Her wings fidgeted against her sides and she shook her head in disgust. “You don’t know as much about me as you think you do. Seville and I are very, very close, I’ll admit to that, we’ve even slept in the same bed together during that retreat in Griffonstone, but we’ve never done anything. Why is it that a mare just can’t be friends with a stallion without everypony making gross assumptions?”
“Darling, public image isn’t fair, but then again, neither is life,” Rarity said as she returned to filling her hoof. “We are slaves to our public image. To some degree, all of us stand out in the public eye, some of us more than others.”
“If the press comes to my house, they get a black eye,” Applejack proclaimed. “Hidden Rose is real fond of ambushing unwelcomed guests, and I don’t do a thing to stop her. I think that there filly might have a future in the guard doing something sneaky.”
Applejack’s words did nothing to disperse the tension in the train car.
“Tarnish has the right idea, walling himself off and surrounding his house with stuff to keep away unwanted visitors.” Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat and let out a sigh. “I used to like the attention, but I’m sick of being hounded all the time. I actually know how Twilight feels, kinda… I’ve seen the tabloid headlines claiming which Wonderbolt I’ve slept with this week. And somepony is always trying to take my picture if I go to any of the big cities. I hate it, I hate all of it.”
“I don’t even have the luxury of hiding myself away, I have to manage my public image and keep public interest piqued.” Buffing the spot that she had just filed, Rarity’s ears drooped and she slouched, a rare display of awful posture. “I shouldn’t even be taking this vacation, there’s been something of a public relations fiasco in Fillydelphia with one of my store managers, and I should be there in pony to reassure the public. This is going to hurt sales and my public image is going to suffer for a season or two.”
“No more talking about business.” Fluttershy’s words came out as a nervous squeak. “I mean it. We need this vacation together. No more talk about the fashion industry, no more talk about the Wonderbolts, and no talk about about being a princess.”
“Fluttershy, darling—”
“Rarity, I mean it!” For a second, real anger could be seen in Fluttershy’s eyes, and then it vanished. She peered out from behind her pink mane, her nostrils flaring, and her lower lip quivering. “Pinkie Pie doesn’t talk about being a baker, Applejack doesn’t talk about being a farmer, and I leave what I do at home. That’s why we go on vacations, to get away from all that stuff—”
“Yup.” Pinkie Pie’s head bobbed up and down.
“—and Rarity… what you did to Twilight was very rude. Apologise.”
“Fluttershy—”
“Apologise. Now.”
“But I—”
“But you want to have these bad feelings fester between you and Twilight? Is that what you are about to say?” Fluttershy, in a rare display of actual anger, pointed her hoof at Rarity. “We’re not your public. We’re not swayed by your clever words and subtle expressions. We can’t be managed. We’ve seen you make mistakes, bad ones, terrible ones, and all of us have been there for you during those times when everything fell apart for you. You can’t just smooth over your mistakes with us with pretty words.”
“You’re right.” Rarity slumped over a little more and her ears sagged. She sniffled a bit, drew in a deep breath, and then closed her eyes. After a few seconds she said, “I’m doing it right now… without even thinking about it. My entire reaction was what it was to generate sympathy. Those sniffles weren’t even real ones. My goodness, I am disappointed with myself right now.”
Twilight’s hard expression softened.
“Twilight, I’m sorry.” Opening her eyes, Rarity turned her head and looked Twilight in the eye. “I really am sorry. I can be very overbearing sometimes with my need to manage everything. I shouldn’t have said what I said”—again, her head turned, and Rarity looked around at her friends—“and to all of you, I’m sorry. Fluttershy was absolutely right in everything she said. And she’s also right that I shouldn’t talk shop on vacation.”
“Apology accepted,” Twilight said to the pony sitting beside her. “Now, enough of this. We went on vacation together to have a good time. No more acting like moody jerks.” Twilight smiled, a real smile, a warm, genuine smile, and she gave Rarity a pat. “We should be in Appleloosa soon, I can’t wait…”
Appleloosa had changed, but such was the nature of things. Appleloosa, once a settlement, was now a city. It had grown and changed with rapid maturity, very much like an apple tree left in the care of one of the Apples. Standing on the platform, Twilight took a moment to take it all in, and there was so much to take in, because so much had changed since her last visit.
Prince Gosling’s promise to bring new life to impoverished places was paying off. Appleloosa had become a railway hub for the entire southwest region, with Mount Maud, a major source of resources being right next door. Several massive railroad turntables had been built, an aqueduct had been constructed, for both the trains and irrigation, and clever canals flowed through the city, useful for everything from growing plants to moving cargo from place to place.
Appleloosa was thriving.
It was also very, very hot. Twilight already felt parched and she had only been outside just a few minutes. Her wingpits already felt moist and a bit itchy, which she didn’t like at all. Ponyville had a far more temperate climate that she prefered, although it was no Canterlot, it was nice enough. But Appleloosa? It was hot.
And to make matters worse, it was dusty. The volcanic dust from Mount Maud blew in on the desert winds, making magic somewhat unpredictable and risky. The earth ponies that lived here weren’t bothered by this much at all, but Twilight just knew that she would be irritated by it and her patience would soon run out, probably about the time that she dropped her spoon for the umpteenth time or couldn’t hold up a scrub brush in the shower.
“Braeburn!”
Applejack’s voice snapped Twilight from her thoughts and she turned to face the approaching pony who had a wide grin of welcome upon his face. She waved, because she liked Braeburn, and she was not at all surprised to see that Braeburn was aging well. He had only become more handsome and distinguished with a few touches of silver in his mane and tail.
“Or should I call you Mayor Braeburn?” Applejack asked as she began to chuckle.
“The ponies of Appleloosa voted, I have no idea what they was a thinking,” Braeburn replied. The middle aged stallion stopped, looked down at Sumac, and gave the colt a nod. “Glad to see you again, Cousin. Mayhap we can has ourselves another adventure. Whaddaya say, pardner?”
“How ‘bout no?” Sumac replied, shuddering at the memory of the last time he and Braeburn had ‘gone adventuring.’ The colt adjusted his glasses as a nervous tic tugged on the corner of his mouth. “That mine was filled with giant dung beetles… giant dung beetles... and the product of said dung beetles.”
“Sho’ did have a stank to it.” Braeburn nodded.
“You didn’t fall into the dung storage shaft!” Sumac quivered with revulsion and his ears went erect at the sound of Applejack’s laughter.
“But we did find out who and what was stealing our valuable compost and fertiliser.” Braeburn looked proud and he gave Sumac a nudge with his hoof. “The city of Appleloosa thanks you.”
“The dung storage shaft?” For a moment, it appeared as though Rarity was going to swoon and Spike, the noble, attentive dragon that he was, rushed to her side. Rarity placed her hoof up against her temple, wobbled on her hooves, and then spoke in a low moan, “Oh, I think I need a bath after hearing that.”
“It was in my mouth,” Sumac grumbled.
“I didn’t mind.” Boomer flexed her claws while she spoke, causing them to tap against the wooden platform.
With a piercing, almost ear rending wail, Rarity fainted dead away, landed on the wooden planks with a heavy thud, and almost crushed Spike, who failed to catch her. Pinned beneath her, Spike huffed and puffed, trying to extricate himself from beneath Rarity’s prone, limp, passed out, marshmallowy body.
“Ooof! Don’t tell Rarity I said this, but I think she’s put on a little weight…”
The fanciest hotel in town wasn’t very fancy at all and the Princess Suite was smaller than her bedroom back at home in Ponyville, but Twilight liked it. The hotel was made out of adobe over compressed hay bales and sandstone bricks, which made it quite cool inside. Passive coolers abounded, with fans circulating air through falling water. The hotel was quite packed for the festival and ponies were delighted for a chance to meet their princess.
They didn’t have rooms just yet, because the hotel staff were busy preparing everything, trying to leave a good impression, but they had given Twilight a tour of the Princess Suite with the hopes of impressing her. More than anything, Twilight just wanted to find a place to rest, maybe take a shower, and have a nap.
The dining room was crowded and the clink of the silverware and glassware made Twilight’s ears twitch as she meandered through the crowd. She moved towards the corner, where she saw her friends, while also trying to be polite and waving when she was waved at.
As it turned out, her friends were eating, which was no surprise. Several pies were on the table, and Twilight, hungry, eyed them as she sat down on a wooden chair worn smooth from use. She let heave a sigh of contentment, looked around the table, and in a voice dry from the dust she asked, “What are we eating?”
Lifting her head, brown, sticky juice dribbling down her chin, Rainbow Dash replied, “Pinto bean pie. Try some, it’s delicious!”
Twilight doubted that. Pinto bean pie? Eyebrow arching, Twilight gave the pie a dubious stare as her friends continued to eat. “Is it a sweet or a savory pie?”
“Sweet,” Fluttershy replied and then she gobbled down another bite. She chewed a few times, swallowed, and then added, “And it has some sweet green chilis, but they’re not hot at all.”
Sniffing, Twilight wasn’t entirely convinced. Still, she was hungry, and her friends seemed to be enjoying it. Turning her head, she looked over at her most trusted assistant and best friend to seek his opinion. “Spike, tell me truthfully, how is it?”
The dragon did not reply right away, because his mouth was full, but he chewed and chewed with a great deal of lip smacking, then swallowed and began to lick his sticky claws. Eyeing Twilight, he said, “It’s good. I like it!”
Hesitant, Twilight’s ears pinned back when Applejack slid over a bright blue earthenware plate that had an enormous slice of pie on it. Horn glowing, Twilight found that she had to concentrate to hold her spoon and she gave the pie a friendly poke to have a better look at its contents.
There were pinto beans alright, some sweet yellow corn, and little diced bits of green chilis. Her eyes darted around the table, eying each of her friends in turn, and she couldn’t help but notice that they were all a little sweaty. Twilight’s tummy rumbled and in the end, hunger won out. She stabbed the pie with her spoon, scooped up a bite, and throwing caution to the wind, she ate a huge bite.
Right away, it felt like the time when Shining Armor had accidentally bucked her in the face when they were little. The fires of Tartarus ignited somewhere in her sinuses, and her nose began to run. Her eyeballs began sweating, sweating so much that rivulets of liquid ran down her cheeks. Twilight was certain that there was steam coming out of her ears and she felt her nethers clench as she thought about how hot this might be later, when she was sitting in one of the outhouses out back.
She whimpered.
Looking annoyed, Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, and she let out a little snort of disgust. “Twilight, stop being such a foal and just eat your pie. I swear, sometimes you are as bad as Rarity.”
Beside the sunny yellow pegasus, Rainbow Dash began sniggering as she continued to shovel more pie into her mouth. Applejack chortled and glanced over at Sumac, who was sitting beside Pebble and laughing as he ate. Ignited, Twilight began to fan her mouth with her wing, fearing for the state of her backside, and wondering where she was going to be able to get a meal in this town that didn’t have ‘sweet green chilis.’
“I gotta make this at home,” Pinkie Pie said around a mouthful of food. “I think I’ve already figured out the recipe. This would sell well at Sugarcube Corner.”
Pebble nodded, but said nothing.
“What’s for lunch?” Rarity asked as she approached the table, looking a bit disheveled and out of sorts.
“Pinto bean pie,” Applejack replied.
Rarity came to a dead halt and her face contorted as her left eye began twitching. “There is no way in Tartarus that I am sharing a room with Rainbow Dash after a meal of pinto bean pie… egads!”
“What?” Rainbow looked confused. “Why?”
Her lip curling back in disgust, Rarity shook her head. “I’d rather sleep with Applejack.”
“So you admit it!” Applejack banged her hoof against the edge of the table and then waggled her eyebrows at Rarity. “Finally admitting that ya have the hots for me after all these years, Rarity? Ready for a little mud wrassling?”
“Darling, no… I… oh, no no no, I didn’t mean it that way!” Rarity stammered as her entire body turned a bright shade of pink. She took a step back, shaking her head, and she looked as though she was going to swoon again. She wobbled, shuffled on her hooves, and her nostrils flared wide.
This time, Spike did nothing, having learned his lesson from the last time he had saved Rarity.
“Aaaaaiieeee!” Turning tail, Rarity fled, her hooves clattering on the wooden floor.
Elbowing Spike, Applejack nodded and chuckled as she ate, and the little dragon had a good laugh. Twilight was trying to recover, still fanning her mouth, and she was having an internal debate about whether or not the second bite would be fatal. Pinkie Pie giggle-snorted, which caused a deluge of sticky brown bean juice to go running down her fuzzy chin.
“I didn’t want to sleep with Rarity anyway,” Rainbow Dash said as she made a dismissive gesture at the fleeing mare. “She snores.”
“Boy howdy, does she ever, Rainbow…”
The Princess Suite now had flowers, a box of candy, a bowl of fresh fruit, and four small cot beds for Sumac, Boomer, Spike, and Pebble. Twilight had a good look around, finding things to appreciate, and trying to distract herself from the fact that this hotel didn’t have indoor plumbing. Oh, it had showers, it had baths, and it had sinks, but it had no toilets.
The desert was a hostile place and the flood plains, though fertile, still needed a little extra oomph. Every last bit of available fertiliser was hoarded here in Appleloosa and used to revitalise the surrounding lands. In some places, the desert sands had been pushed back and there were now a few more inches of precious black dirt, given life by the industrious earth ponies of Appleloosa.
Sumac was jumping on the bed and trying to get Pebble to join him. Twilight didn’t mind and she did nothing to make him stop, she liked it when he acted like a foal and not a teeny, tiny little adult trapped in a foal’s body. Feeling weary, she watched him bounce up and down. Somewhere deep inside, Twilight was jealous, and she wished that she was small enough to join him. It was fun bouncing on the bed.
“Nervous, Pebble?” Sumac asked as he bounced almost high enough to bonk his head on the ceiling and causing Twilight to flinch, because Sumac had endured more stitches and staples to his head than any foal had a right to.
“Yes.” Pebble’s reply came out as a hiss.
Head swivelling, Twilight focused on Pebble, trying to read the filly’s mood, which was almost impossible. The only ponies that knew Pebble’s mood with any certainty were in short supply. Eyes blinking, Twilight looked for warning signs, stress fractures that might indicate a potential Pebble eruption. Venting was good though, and Twilight hoped that Sumac might help Pebble blow off a little steam.
“You’ll do fine in the Shatterstone contest.”
Ears perking, Twilight continued her intense study of Pebble, feeling worried and maybe just a little afraid. Shatterstone was an ancient, mystical earth pony practice that very, very few earth ponies were capable of. The practice involved punching a block of stone, just one hit, a single punch, and something would come forth from the stone; a chair, a table, a statue, a cradle, a candelabra, almost anything.
Pebble took all of this with a seriousness far beyond her age, and was prone to punish herself for failure. Twilight had studied the magic of Shatterstone, trying to understand it, and she had learned very little. Princess Celestia, who was very in touch with her inner earth pony, was the undisputed master of the artform, but she didn’t compete, as she felt that it was horrendously unfair for her to do so. Princess Luna found it a colossal waste of time, and no help could be had from Cadance, who didn’t understand it at all.
“I don’t want to do ‘fine.’” Pebble sounded a bit sulky and her monotone was quite pronounced. “I want to win. I am sick and tired of not winning.”
“We can’t always win,” Twilight remarked.
Eyes narrowing, Pebble settled a little deeper into her sulk and she folded her forelegs over her barrel as she sank back into the overstuffed armchair near the bed. Bouncing on the bed, Sumac almost bonked his head on the ceiling again, and Boomer’s head bobbed up and down while she watched him with a gleeful, mischievous expression.
With a cry, Boomer launched herself, timing her assault so she crashed down onto the bed just when Sumac was landing, giving him a double-bouncy. Her sudden weight impacting the mattress sent Sumac shooting straight up, and sure enough, there was a terrific crash as he slammed his head into the ceiling.
“Oh FRONK!”
The air around Sumac sizzled and crackled with arcane energy from his expletive and he came crashing back down to the bed while Boomer scurried away, giggling with sadistic glee. The flowers beside the bed wilted and one of the roses dessicated into a dried, withered husk of its former self. A little wisp of smoke curled up from the now dead rose and a dreadful smell filled the air.
At least nothing had caught on fire this time, and Twilight was thankful.
Snortling, the yearling sized tree dragon shot beneath the bed and vanished, leaving Twilight to wonder if she had packed the super glue and all of the proper first aid supplies that she was sure to need during the trip. Sighing, Twilight turned and began heading over to her suitcases, realising that it was time to unpack.
At long last, things were finally settling down, and for this, Twilight Sparkle was grateful. It was going to be a big day tomorrow, the festival would officially start, and she wanted to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the opening ceremony that she would officiate. Things weren’t perfect, but at least things were quiet, and Twilight could appreciate quiet.
Pebble showed a few worrying signs, but Sumac was managing her mood with Boomer’s help. Fluttershy seemed a bit high strung, a worrying sign indeed. Rarity was, well, Rarity was Rarity and there was nothing that could be done about that. At least everypony else seemed to be having a good time.
The heat of the day was gone, replaced by the deep chill of the night. Twilight had the window open for a bit of much needed fresh air, that lunch of pinto bean pie was coming back to haunt them, and the dinner served in the hotel was chili and cornbread, much to Twilight’s dismay.
It had been as hot as the blazes too.
In the distance, the sound of a train chugging out of the railyard could be heard, and Twilight rather found that she liked the sound. The trains running meant that the empire was humming along and doing well. Mount Maud and the Ashlands were no doubt the most profitable region in Equestria for now, and no doubt for the foreseeable future as well.
Standing near the window, Twilight drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the cool night air, and as she did so, she savoured the unique feeling of friendship that could be found here in Appleloosa. She felt it, it went through every fibre of her being, she felt it in her frogs, her wings, and her horn. The magic made her strong. The ponies of Appleloosa were steadfast sorts, stubborn, they embodied the very best that the earth ponies had to offer, making life where there had once been very little to be had. With the help of the buffalo, Appleloosa had been turned into an oasis of life and civilisation.
The pegasus ponies and the unicorns of the town managed the weather and pushed back the never-ending threat of monster attacks, allowing the earth ponies and the buffalo to work in peace, unmolested by a cold, unforgiving, savage wilderness. For Twilight, there was a lesson to be learned here, a powerful and good lesson, and already, she was sorting out all of these details in her mind so that she might teach the good students in her school the ways of harmony.
She had, of course, learned this from her own teacher and mentor, Princess Celestia. A teacher is never without lessons to offer, if only they pay attention to the details of life all around them. There were a thousand lessons to be had, and all one had to do was be observant. Now older, now wiser, Twilight had taken this to heart, and she had grown a great deal as a pony and as a teacher.
One day, the next generation of teachers would view Twilight in much the same way she viewed Princess Celestia.
The silence, while treasured, did not last. Outside the window, on the distant horizon, a bolt of purple-green lightning flashed, turning the night as bright as day, and a few seconds later thunder rumbled through the town of Appleloosa. The hotel shook, the windows rattled, and there was a terrified, throaty honk from Boomer, who had a keen fear of thunderstorms.
The tree dragon, terrified, went for the one place of safety that she knew, her place of comfort, her refuge. She launched herself at Sumac’s horn, the place where she had spent most of her life when she had been a hatchling. The trouble was, Boomer was no longer a hatchling, she was no longer tiny and little, and Sumac’s horn was no longer a suitable place for her to roost in times of trouble.
Reflexes were powerful things however.
She collided with Sumac’s head, her claws scrabbling for purchase, and this caused Sumac’s glasses to fly across the room. The impact knocked Sumac right out of his chair and sent him sprawling over the floor as Boomer let out a gibbering cry of terror, her claws still trying to find a secure place to grip.
Blood dribbled.
Sumac, who had endured this more times than he could count, pulled himself up into a sitting position almost right away, wrapped his forelegs around Boomer, pulled her close, and did his best to restrain her before she tore off his ears or clawed out his eyes. She gripped him, clutching him, clinging to him as she cried, and nature, being cruel and unforgiving, caused another thunderclap.
Boomer’s high pitched shriek caused a spiderweb of cracks to appear in the window glass and on the mirror as well. Pebble covered her sensitive ears with her hooves, waiting for the long cry to end, and Twilight Sparkle, the clever pony that she was, blocked out the sound of the thunderstorm before Boomer had a full blown freak out.
Dozens of scratches could be seen on Sumac’s hide and little ribbons of scarlet ran down. With one foreleg, he gripped Boomer, holding her close as they sat together on the floor, and with the other foreleg, he stroked her long, slender neck, trying to soothe her, to calm her fears.
Spike lept out of the chair he had been sitting in, waddled across the room, picked up Sumac’s glasses from the floor, and then sat down next to the pair. He gave Boomer’s long prehensile tail a tug with one hand and passed Sumac his glasses with the other. Boomer’s tail curled around Spike’s arm, clinging to him for comfort. Spike had been Boomer’s friend long enough to know that she was inconsolable in this state.
The door opened and several worried heads poked in. With a grunt, Fluttershy pushed past Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who blocked up the door. She crossed the room, looking more than a little timid and nervous herself. Fluttershy had never liked the big flashy thunderstorms of this region, they were wild, feral brutes, and like any feral storm, the ancient enemy of the pegasus ponies.
The yellow mare sat down, extended her wings, and drew in both Sumac and Boomer. “There there,” she said, her lips brushing up against Boomer’s ear frills, and she wrapped her wings around the pair to comfort them both.
Outside, there was a ringing bell and shouting. Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up, her whole body tensed, and all of her feathers fluffed out. She looked very solemn and serious when she said, “I’m needed. That dirty feral storm is gonna wreck stuff.” Spreading her wings, she sprinted across the room, and lept from the open window.
“You got this, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Fluttershy responded. “Go and help the others, Twilight. I have a bad feeling about this. That storm is dangerous.” Lowering her head, Fluttershy made a cooing sound into Boomer’s ear frills and felt Spike brush up against her wings.
Spreading her own wings, Twilight Sparkle lept out the window, but not with the grace of Rainbow Dash. She tripped and tumbled over the windowsill, then fell into the night shouting, “FRONK!”
Dripping with water, Pinkie Pie appeared in the open doorway, and after a quick look around the room, she rushed over to where Pebble was to check on her. Satisfied that Pebble was okay, Pinkie then flopped over onto Fluttershy, and somehow swept up a pegasus, two dragons, and a unicorn foal into a giant, comforting hug.
Pebble came down off of her chair and settled in beside her aunt, pressing up against her.
Crossing the room, Applejack closed the window then watched as more lightning flashed in the distance. She could see the silhouettes of an army of pegasus ponies that had taken to the air. No thunder rumbled through the room, causing the wise earth pony to marvel at Twilight’s magic. Lightning flashed again, lighting up the sky as bright as day, and Applejack could see that the pegasus ponies were now forming a defensive formation as they prepared to do battle with the dreadful feral storm.
Applejack could feel it in her bones, this was the sort of storm that might destroy a town. Appleloosa was well constructed, but she didn’t know enough about adobe to know how it might hold up to a feral, magical tornado infused with the magical ash dust from Mount Maud. Hail began to thump against the glass of the window and it pounded a staccato rhythm against the outside walls.
The hail was the size of grapes and Applejack winced, knowing that both Rainbow Dash and Twilight were going to take quite a beating. She couldn’t help them now, but she could help those that needed her. She backed away from the window, watching with a wary eye, wondering if the hail would break the already cracked glass. She didn’t much care for this situation at all.
“It’s really hard for Boomer,” Spike said in a low voice that trembled with fear. “She’s at that stage of dragon development when she’s just starting to get emotional intelligence. It can be really overwhelming and I remember what it was like for me… and what it’s still like for me.” As he spoke, Boomer’s tail coiled even tighter around him. “Every feeling hits you really hard and it’s overwhelming. I think it is why so many dragons become jerks. They don’t have friends to help get them through the really emotional rough spots.”
The sound of sobbing filled the room and Sumac began to rock himself and Boomer back and forth. Some of his wounds had already stopped bleeding, leaving his pelt matted with blood, while others still trickled or flowed. It was hard, when your sibling had dangerous claws, and Sumac knew that better than anypony. Never once did he ever hold that against her, never once did he become angry, and never once did he lose his temper and start shouting. Love, and big brotherhood, bore all things.
Rarity came into the room, her head wrapped up in a big pastel green towel that had an agave plant embroidered onto it. She looked about, her lips protruding in a duck-billed pout, and a soft growl of worry could be heard in the base of her throat. Her horn glowed a bright, brilliant blue, it glittered with powerful magic, and in seconds, the cracks in the window and the mirror vanished, the glass restored. She slid the curtains shut to keep the flashes of lightning out, and then she looked at the others.
“Is my Spikey-Wikey okay?” she asked, causing Spike’s scales to darken.
“I’m fine,” Spike replied, sounding flustered, “but Boomer is a mess.”
“Poor dear, she and thunderstorms don’t get along. I can sympathise, having had Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark, something about that experience left me with a lingering dreadful fear of thunderstorms. Princess Cadance seems to think that it is a lingering bit of pegasus pony instincts that I somehow got when I had Rainbow’s mark.”
Boomer lifted her head, blinked away a few tears, and with a curious stare, she focused on Rarity, distracted by the promise of interesting information. She didn’t release her death-grip on Sumac though, and little curls of smoke rose from her nostrils. Fluttershy, who understood what Rarity was doing—of all ponies, Rarity knew how to manage the neurotic types, she employed so many—gave a little nod for Rarity to keep going.
The steady thump-thump of hail outside filled the room, providing a soothing background noise that seemed to calm the nerves of everypony—and every dragon. Rarity sat down on the floor beside Spike, nudged up against him, and marvelled at how different the two dragons were.
“Having Rainbow Dash’s mark gave me a lot of insight into how she is, how she thinks, and her motivations.” Reaching out, Rarity brushed away a bit of non-existent lint from Spike—more of an excuse to touch him than anything else—and then she continued, “I treasure that experience, it’s made Dash and I closer, we’re better friends for what happened. Why, Rainbow Dash hates feral storms in much the same way I hate tacky clothes or poor interior design.”
With a flash of magic, Rarity yanked a few tissues from the floral-printed box by the bed and then went to work cleaning up Boomer’s face, as no lady, pony, dragon, or otherwise, wanted a snotty face. “We both exist to protect ponies from the dangers that these threats pose.”
Rolling her eyes, Applejack snorted, but she didn’t say anything.
Snuffling, Boomer responded well to Rarity’s ministrations, and she let out a shuddering, shivering sigh as she began to calm down a bit. She let Rarity wipe her face and for once, she didn’t try to eat the snotty tissues, because she was too scared to misbehave, even though snotty tissues were so tempting and delicious.
“Those were strange times.” Pinkie Pie’s blue eyes twinkled and she looked over at Applejack. “I learned that Applejack’s cutie mark drives her to work, even if she doesn’t want to or doesn’t feel like it. I hated everything I was doing, but I couldn’t stop.”
“The less said about what I endured, the better,” Applejack deadpanned, and she offered no further elaboration.
“I know what I learned.” Fluttershy’s voice was soft, demure, and it made Boomer’s ear frills extend. “But I don’t know if I should share it. It seems private.”
“Oh, go right ahead. We’re old friends and there shouldn’t be any secrets between us.” Pinkie made a dismissive gesture with her hoof and gave Fluttershy a reassuring smile.
“When I had Pinkie’s mark, I think I got Pinkie’s fear as well, and why she tries to be so funny.” Fluttershy swallowed, took a deep breath, and paused while she recalled the memory. She blinked a few times, recalling that moment of her life, and then she continued, “I remember wanting to make ponies laugh, so that they were laughing with me… I was so scared that they would be laughing at me.”
A strange solemn expression appeared on Pinkie Pie’s face, and her blue eyes glittered when she looked into the eyes of each of her friends. One ear twitched and riotous curls seemed to lose their vibrant lustre for a brief second. After a few seconds, Pinkie Pie nodded.
“Yep. That’s pretty much it. That’s me in a nutshell.” Pinkie’s confession caused the pink pony to be unusually serious and she gave Pebble a tight, extra-squeezy hug. “I don’t have Limestone’s confidence or Maud’s stoic self-assurance. I was a scared little foal, so I learned to be funny. I might’ve turned out like Marble, otherwise.”
“Those were our best days,” Rarity breathed in, in a manner most dramatic. “What happened to us? How did we stop being so close? This feels so nice, just doing this again.” Rarity gestured in a vague way, trying to take in everything around her to give feeling and meaning to her words. “I don’t understand what happened, not at all.”
“Life,” Fluttershy said, her voice soft and squeaky. “Life happened. Some of us put down roots and some of us, well, some of us moved on. Our cutie marks drew us together, but they’ve also pulled us apart.”
“I’m sorry, darling, I”—there was a pause and Rarity wiped at her eye, being fresh out of the shower, she had no mascara to smear— “oh goodness me, I seem to be having a moment, excuse me.” Try as she might, Rarity could not blink away the tears as they started to fall, and one splashed down on Spike, causing his whole body to twitch.
“I packed a suitcase full of goodies just for moments like this one!” The smile returned to Pinkie’s face and she bounced up onto her hooves. “I’ll be right back, don’t have fun without me!”
Sore, but full of optimism for what was sure to be a bright, wonderful day, Twilight Sparkle lifted up her glass of apple juice and took a long, unprincessly drink. She had been pummeled and battered the night before by the storm, but she had also had a wonderful time. With her magic being a little unpredictable, she hadn’t been able to just cast a spell to banish the storm, no, she had to go about it the hard way, with muscle and sinew.
She felt better for it.
Rainbow Dash had flown right into the swirling heart of the seething vortex with her, along with an entire wing of brave, fearless pegasus ponies, and together, they dismantled the storm before it did any real damage to the town. Now, today was going to be a beautiful sunshiny day, a perfect day, and Twilight was looking forward to the opening ceremony.
Body jerking, Twilight suffered a shiver of excitement as she thought about the chunks of hail and seeing lightning flash inside of the tornado as it formed. There was a pleasing tension in her guts and the muscles of her stomach tightened. Twilight enjoyed doing battle with storms, and as the years passed, she became more and more in tune with her pegasus pony and earth pony parts.
The parts of her that were a pegasus pony were a scrapper with a need for violence.
Chewing, Rainbow Dash elbowed Twilight and with a knowing wink, she said, “Feels good, don’t it?”
Lowering her glass, Twilight nodded. It did, indeed, feel good. She was bruised, battered, covered in lumps, and she felt great. She looked atrocious though, but she didn’t care. Last night, she had been awesome, even if she had tripped trying to take flight from the window. She would never say it aloud, but this vacation trip was worth it just from fighting the tornado.
“Ceremony starts at high noon and we need to all be there for Twilight,” Applejack said to everypony around the table. “So don’t go getting lost or distracted, or I’m guessing you’ll be getting yourself a lecture from Fluttermom.”
“Applejack—”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Applejack lifted up her hoof and tried to look apologetic as possible.
Sighing, Fluttershy deflated a little bit and hunched over the table. “Oh, I love my little charges so much, I love foalsitting, and I love teaching them about animals, but I need time away from them.” The mare’s eyes narrowed and when she continued, her voice changed, becoming huskier and gritty. “They wear on my last nerve, sometimes, and intentionally try my patience to see if they can get a reaction out of me. Urgh.”
“Spa,” Rarity said, saying it as though it was somehow a magical cure all for everything. “You and I are going to the spa so we can sort ourselves out. My nerves are frazzled too.”
“Flutters, every mother needs a break, and I done reckon foalsitters do too.” Applejack pushed her empty plate away and leaned over the table to have a better angle to look Fluttershy in the eye. “I love my two little fillies… I do… but I get sick of looking at them sometimes. They wear down my patience something awful. I just get fed up with the little cusses and then I gots to get away from the little cuss-headed pains in my plot before I do something I regret.” Blinking, Applejack ignored the shocked looks on the faces of her friends. “Like now. I’m here, they’re at home, and I can blow off some steam. When I go home once all of this is done, I’ll be a better mom and I won’t constantly be thinking about throttling the little imps or tying them up with some rope.”
“Oh… oh… oh my…” Fluttershy stammered as her ears fell limp against the sides of her face. “You wouldn’t believe some of the thoughts that go through my head when they misbehave. I thought there was something wrong with me.” She sucked in a deep breath with a whistle, and then let everything out in a long, slow, exhale that made her nostrils flare.
“Eenope.” Applejack grabbed the bright orange earthenware pitcher and poured herself another glass of apple juice. “It’s normal to want to strangle the little scamps.”
Closing her eyes, Fluttershy sighed. “Oh, that’s a relief.”
“Do I…” Sumac paused for a moment, looking a bit hesitant, and his ears twitched. He swallowed, then tried again. “Do I make y’all feel this way?” A curious-sounding Apple-drawl manifested in Sumac’s voice.
“Yes!” said every mare present at the table all at once.
The colt’s mouth fell open from shock and surprise.
“Never, ever have I met a more curious foal, not even myself.”
Sumac tried to defend himself. “Twilight, I—”
“Pulling apart things that don’t need no pulling apart to see how they work!”
Again, Sumac tried to justify his behaviour. “Applejack, I can explain—”
“All those attempts to weaponise music with Vinyl Scratch,” Rarity said as she stirred her coffee. “All of Ponyville had to get their ears checked.” Looking sour, Rarity clucked her tongue a few times as Fluttershy inhaled. Rolling her eyes and making a dramatic wave with her hoof, she added, “That last time, everypony in Ponyville broke out dancing and there was quite a row.”
“Mind controlling a chicken army!”
Beset from every side, Sumac turned to face Fluttershy with the hopes to smooth everything over. “Fluttershy, that would’ve worked if I—”
“Hey, credit where credit is due, those chickens did eat a lot of bugs before everything went wrong.”
Every adult present turned and looked at Pinkie Pie. Eyelids and ears twitched. The corners of mouths ticced. Sumac slumped down in his chair and Pinkie Pie, sitting beside him, wrapped a foreleg over his shoulders. In bold defiance, Pinkie Pie stared down her friends with a courageous smile on her muzzle and her blue eyes twinkled.
“He gets a free pass for the chicken army, that was epic.”
“And Fluttershy was able to gain control of them again with her stare,” Sumac added as he thought about melting into a puddle of embarrassment beneath the table.
Some questions were best left unasked.
It took Twilight a little time and self-reflection, but she discovered that she now felt a little disheartened. Her friends were scattered to the four winds again, off doing their own thing. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack had gone off to the Appleloosa spa. Pinkie Pie had pronked off with two dragons and two foals. Rainbow Dash was now signing autographs for her adoring fanatics.
Noon felt as though it was a long time from now and Twilight felt like a foal again, wondering how to while away the long day. She thought about the halcyon days of her foalhood, when boredom was the most terrible threat that she faced, when she was home from school and left to her own devices. Mornings spent reading, or playing school, where she was the teacher and Smarty Pants was her devoted, faithful, ever-attentive student. She thought about lunches, her mother fixing macaroni and cheese, with corn, peas, and carrots. Twilight loved the colours, the bright, vibrant green of the fresh peas and the cheerful orange of the carrots.
Then came the long afternoons, sometimes spent with her father, but often spent with Cadance. Building book forts, or pillow forts, and that warm, secure, cosy feeling of holing up inside of a structure that one had made for oneself, safe from the outside world. The long hours of the endless afternoons that stretched out forever and were napped away with Spike.
When she was a foal, there had been too much time. Now, as an adult, as a mare, as a princess, there was far too little time. Hours passed in eyeblinks. Days vanished without warning. Time was something that fled, that escaped, it was ever-elusive and had to be managed with schedules, lest everything slip away, unchecked.
But noon? Noon was a long, long ways away, and Twilight Sparkle sighed, wondering if she could get away with building a book fort in the public library.
Somehow, time had slipped away from Twilight Sparkle, as time tended to do. She had, in fact, gone to Appleloosa’s public library, and she had, in fact, been tempted to make a book fort, but she had, instead, started Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Reading Hour. A sizeable army of little foals and even a few adults had packed in around her and then almost four hours passed in an eyeblink.
It was just what she had needed. Feeling great, she hurried her way through the crowd, making her way to the central stage in the town square. Buffalo crowded the street, as buffalo tended to do, they were big sorts that needed a lot of room. The narrow streets of Canterlot would not be ideal for the buffalo.
She wasn’t late, but she wasn’t early. A quick glance at the town’s clock tower told her that she had a few minutes to spare. Grinning, she made her way through the throng of onlookers and trotted up the rather steep steps to the top of the stage. On the last step, she stumbled and staggered out onto the stage, realising that she had left her reading glasses on. Hearing laughter, her ears perked and she had herself a good laugh as well as she recovered her dignity.
Licking her lips, Twilight looked at her friends while her wings fidgeted against her sides. How long had it been? How long had it been since the Elements of Harmony had reunited for a public show? It had been long enough that Twilight was having some trouble remembering. She stood there, feeling the eyes of the crowd, wondering how things had turned out the way that they had. She pulled off her reading glasses and with a flashy pop of magic, she sent them away to her luggage, tucked away at the hotel.
“Greetings, residents of Appleloosa!” Twilight’s words were well chosen, as Appleloosa has residents who were not ponies. She had to be mindful of such things, as any slip of the tongue was in invitation for the less savoury elements of the press to rip her apart. The clopping of hooves—difficult to hear over the cheers of the crowd—alerted her to the fact that Braeburn was now crossing the stage to stand beside her.
“I am, as you know, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and these are my dear friends. You know them as the Elements of Harmony. In no particular order, we have Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness. Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty—”
“And I’m the Element of Awesome too!” Rainbow hooted.
Undeterred, Twilight continued, “Applejack, the Element of Honesty. Rarity, the Element of Generousity. And last, but not least, Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter.” When the crowd roared, Twilight waited for the hubbub to die down and she watched her friends wave at the ginormous crowd.
When the crowd quieted down enough to continue, she did. “We came together to battle Nightmare Moon and stop perpetual darkness. It was our friendship that pulled us through that trying time… we certainly weren’t adventurers back then.” Twilight shook her head and she heard laughter, both from behind her and from the crowd. “Friends do amazing things together. My friends and I saved the world a few times. Because of them, I became a princess.”
Pausing, Twilight felt her throat grow tight and there was now an annoying sting in her eyes, which blurred over just a little bit from excess moisture, which was no doubt caused by the dust in the air. “I owe my friends quite a lot, actually, I wouldn’t be where I am now without them. Everything I have, everything I’ve accomplished, all I have done, it’s because of them.”
Twilight heard a rather snotty sounding sniffle and knew that it was Rarity. “Which brings me to why we are here today… the Appleloosa Friendship Festival! Mayor Braeburn wanted the central theme to be appreciating your friends. So let your friends know how amazing they are while you have a good time together!”
“Thank you, Twilight,” Braeburn said as he sidled up to the microphone and stood beside Twilight. “We all thank you, for being here and for everything you’ve done for us. You’re our friend, Twilight, and we appreciate all your hard work. We, the fine alicorn-fearing residents of Appleloosa, we thank you.”
Extending her wings, Twilight turned about and gave Braeburn a hug, pulling him close and closing her eyes. After a few seconds, she pulled away, mindful of her public image and the ravenous eyes of the press, whom she disliked a great deal. Blinking, Twilight cursed the dust and she looked at Braeburn’s smiling face.
“Let’s all have fun,” Twilight said. “I now declare that the Appleloosa Friendship Festival has begun!”
Foalsitting duties fell upon Applejack, and she didn’t mind in the slightest. She and Pinkie Pie roamed the town, having themselves a good look’n’see, with Boomer, Sumac, and Pebble in tow. There was a lot to see, but the big attractions hadn’t yet settled in on the first day of the festival. There were a few rides, and Applejack eyed those with anticipation.
Sumac, a gentlecolt, carried a parasol in his magic, something he was accustomed to doing. With Vinyl being an albino and Pebble being so sun sensitive, he was always holding up a parasol for one or both of them. The colt wasn’t bothered at all about holding a frilly, lacy parasol and he walked with his head high.
Pinkie Pie was rather sedate, which worried Applejack, and as the mare trotted along the dusty road, she wondered how to bring up the subject without sounding like an overbearing busybody—Applejack didn’t want to be mistaken for Rarity. There were also the foals to think about—Applejack saw Boomer as a foal and not so much a dragon.
After much lip chewing and worry, Applejack settled on the direct approach. “Pinkie Pie, you should be all happy but you seem as out of sorts as a two tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” As Applejack spoke, she heard Pinkie sigh and the pink mare bobbed her head.
“I’m worried, Applejack.”
“Well, why are you worried?” Applejack’s drawl grew a little thicker from concern and her words stretched out like taffy.
Some of the bounce in Pinkie Pie’s trot vanished and a few curls went limp as she slowed. She blinked a few times, and Applejack saw all of the warning signs that something wasn’t quite right. Her eyes darted to the left and she saw Sumac looking up at Pinkie, and Pebble as well. Boomer, on the other hoof, was doing her protective little sister act, and she had her eyes on the crowd around them, ready for trouble if it came.
By Applejack’s reckoning, pound for pound, there wasn’t much that was more fierce in all of Equestria than Boomer Apple, and this was a source of pride for Applejack, who took every chance she could to boast about it.
“Applejack, Cheese is gonna be here tomorrow,” Pinkie Pie said in a voice that was difficult to hear over the crowd.
“Oh.”
“No, Applejack, it isn’t what you think.”
“Pinkie, why don’t you tell me what it is, so that I don’t have to make a fool outta myself, guessing and getting it wrong.”
There was a sigh from Pinkie Pie, who drooped and stared down at the road. Her tail twitched a bit, along with one ear, and she licked the dust from her lips with her bright orange tongue. Feeling just a little annoyed, Applejack wished that Pinkie Pie would just spit it out and quit messing around. The sooner she got it all out, the sooner she would feel better.
“Ain’t you a bit sweet on ol’ Cheese?” Applejack asked, her drawl now as thick as molasses in February.
“Yeah”—Pinkie nodded—“and that’s just the problem, Applejack.”
“I don’t understand.” Applejack didn’t understand, not in the slightest, and even though she loved Pinkie, there was just so much about her that didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Applejack,” Pinkie began as she lifted her head and looked at the mare beside her. “The problem is, Cheese isn’t the type to settle down. He’s the wandering type. He goes and he wanders the frontiers, doing what his cutie mark tells him to do, and that’s a big, big problem.”
Applejack waited, hoping that Pinkie would explain.
“Every year, Equestria’s borders grow just a little and the frontiers keep getting pushed farther and farther out,” Pinkie Pie said, rewarding Applejack’s patience. “That’s the nature of frontiers, they don’t stay in one place, and neither does Cheese Sandwich. And when I think about him, I think about myself, and it makes me sad.”
“I don’t get it.” Applejack was starting to feel thirsty, it was hot, dusty, and she was nervous from being in unfamiliar territory with Pinkie Pie.
“He’s a party pony, and I’m a party pony… and I’ve come to realise, party ponies aren’t good ponies to settle down with.” A few more of Pinkie’s curls sagged and there was an alarmed inhale from Pebble. “He and I were doomed from the start, Applejack. He can’t stay in one place and I can’t seem to settle down and be responsible. No wonder nopony wants me.”
“Pinkie… I… you can’t just say that…” Applejack’s words trailed off when she came to the conclusion that she didn’t have a convincing argument ready to change Pinkie Pie’s mind.
“I’m going to see Cheese, and he and I are going to talk, and my heart is going to feel all squishy for him, and I’ll do the same old song and dance of trying to convince him to stay just a little while longer, and he’ll get frustrated, because he wants to stay, but he can’t. He just can’t. The festival will end and Cheese will return to the frontier and I’ll return to Ponyville, and I’ll just bury myself in parties to make myself feel better, because that is what my cutie mark expects of me, and at some point, I’ll convince myself that everything is okay and that I’m happy. Another year or two will pass and I’ll keep getting older. And someday, I’ll see Cheese again, and we’ll laugh about all of this, because, what else can we do?”
Turning her glance downward, Applejack saw Pebble looking up at her. Applejack knew from experience that Pebble had to be worried and maybe even a little fearful. She was out of her league and she knew it. No amount of earthy wisdom or pithy words could fix this, and Applejack felt the keen sting of feeling disappointed with herself. Pinkie Pie was in trouble, and Applejack couldn’t see anything that she could do about it.
Frustrated, Applejack grumbled, “Oh, nuts and gum…”
Sitting on a padded wooden stool, Twilight Sparkle signed an autograph. The line was long and stretched out of sight around a corner. Rainbow Dash was supposed to be here beside her, to help chat up the crowd and to be Rainbow Dash, but the flighty pegasus had slipped away. At least Fluttershy was sticking around, much to Twilight’s relief, but she wasn’t much for talking to the crowd. She just sort of waved and made a lot of squeaky sounds.
A nervous looking stallion hoisted a tiny filly up onto the table and then stood there, looking flustered and embarrassed. Twilight looked the filly in the eye, that was important, and she extended her hoof so she could wave. The little filly watched with wide-eyed adoration.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Twilight replied. “What’s your name?”
Blinking, the tiny yearling filly looked rather startled that a princess wanted to know her name. She backed up a step and would have fallen right off of the table if her father hadn’t stopped her, planting his broad hoof into the middle of her precious little backside.
“Her mother called her Mizuna,” the stallion said as his eyebrows rose and fell. “My wife traveled a bit and got herself a fancy education. Little Mizuna has some trouble saying her own name.”
“You have a beautiful name,” Twilight said, making small talk.
“Thank you,” the tiny earth pony filly squeaked.
“And good manners, too!”
Looking bashful, the filly shuffled around and made little hoofy-kicks as Twilight signed her name on a glossy photograph. The quill moved with a few well-practiced strokes and then, struck with inspiration, Twilight added a personal touch.
Mizuna, I hope you grow up to be as curious as your mother. Go and see the world. Travel. Always push to see what is just beyond the horizon.
With a flash of magic, Twilight dried the ink, then rolled up the photo, and with great care, she slipped it into a decorative plastic tube and held it out to the filly. She took it, holding it in her teeth, it was a bit too big and ungainly for her though. She passed it to her father, who slipped it into his saddlebag.
“Thank you for coming to see me, Mizuna. I hope we meet again.” While Twilight was speaking, Spike, being the dutiful assistant that he was, dropped another stack of photographs down upon the table.
“You’re a nice princess,” Mizuna said as her father lifted her up and placed her upon his back. She waved goodbye, smiling, and then clung to her father’s neck. “Goodbye, Princess!”
A strange calm had settled over Pinkie, which left Applejack feeling a might worried. A calm Pinkie was a cause for concern, or so Applejack reckoned. Pinkie was even smiling, though Applejack had trouble telling if it was a real smile or a fake one. Still, Pinkie did seem to be enjoying herself after getting a few things off of her barrel.
The warning signs persisted though, and Applejack was wise to them. They had passed by a cotton candy vendor and Pinkie Pie had made nary a peep. She hadn’t freaked out or made a big deal about any of the sugary treats that were all around.
And then, without warning, Pinkie Pie reacted to something, but it wasn’t food. Applejack hurried to follow after Pinkie, wondering what had drawn her attention, and Applejack was more than just a little relieved to see Pinkie pronking. She checked on the little ones and was glad to see them keeping up.
Pinkie’s pronking lead her to a booth where an earth pony and a young adult buffalo were sitting together. Applejack had herself a look around and saw a banner strung between two poles that said, “The Unity League.”
“Hiyas,” Pinkie said, offering up a chirpy greeting. “What’s this?”
“We’re the Unity League,” the earth pony replied as he pointed up at the banner hung over his head. “Our goal is to inform everyone that we have more in common than we think. The earth ponies and the buffalo actually have a shared, common heritage.”
“How so?” Pinkie asked, her head tilting off to one side.
Applejack said nothing—something had caught Pinkie Pie’s attention and for this, Applejack was grateful. Pinkie was a mare that needed distractions, and this was a fine distraction indeed. Sighing, Applejack ignored the sweat rolling down her sides and dripping down to the dusty road. She thought to herself that maybe it was time to get a drink, once this was over.
“We share a common bit of mythology,” the buffalo said in a strange, clipped accent that wasn’t the usual drawl common in Equestria’s southern reaches. It sounded a bit more like Fancy and a blend of Canterlot twang. “Though we might be two different tribes and two different species, we both share the myth of the Three Sisters.”
“Ooh, what’s the Three Sisters?” Pinkie Pie quivered with anticipation for a good tale.
“I learned this in my pre-college preparation courses.” Pebble’s ears angled forwards and she said nothing else, offering up no further elaboration. She took a step away from Sumac as it was just too hot to be too close to anypony at the moment.
“The earth pony tribe from the old world, before we came to Equestria, believed in the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash. Three spirit sisters that worked together to keep harmony in the land and the soil.” The earth pony made a gesture with his hoof and he glanced over at Boomer for a moment, because the little dragoness was eyeing him.
“The buffalo also believe in the Three Sisters,” the buffalo said, “which is amazing, because we were two tribes separated by an ocean and vast distance. But at some point, perhaps far, far back in the distant past, our tribes must have had some form of contact.”
“Neat!” Pinkie Pie’s blue eyes glittered as she listened with rapt attention.
“It is a growing practice that preserves the land,” the earth pony began. “The corn grows tall, giving the beans and the squash a place to climb. But corn drains the soil of life and makes it dusty. Beans grow, climbing the corn, and the beans give life back to the soil. The squash grows around the bottom, covering the ground with runners, holding down the topsoil and preventing it from washing or blowing away. The squash is also aggressive, and it chokes back weeds.”
Lifting up her left front hoof, Pinkie Pie began tapping it against her chin as her face contorted from concentration. Applejack couldn’t help but feel a little mystified, she herself grew corn, beans, and squash together, it was just common sense. She had never heard of the Three Sisters before, but she knew the reasons for the practice. The corn allowed the beans to grow without poles and kept them away from the bugs on the ground. The beans put nitrogen back into the soil, which the corn drained out. The squash kept the dirt black and moist, which kept the dirt down on the ground, where it belonged, and out of the air or off the kitchen floor, for that matter.
Applejack might not have been the shiniest bit of corn in the meadow muffin, but she was no dummy. She had paid attention in school when it came time to learn earth pony farming practices and she had picked herself up a little science from Twilight over the years. It was a matter of pride, really—Applejack had bragging rights for producing some of the highest yields based on the square acreage of land. She did more with less and she never missed a chance to brag about it.
“Do you think it was the centaurs?” Pinkie asked, confusing poor Applejack to no end.
The buffalo, looking startled, shifted and almost fell off of his stool. “Uh, that’s been discussed, actually,” he replied as he stared at Pinkie Pie. “At Canterlot University, where I work as a professor, there has been much academic debate about that subject, if the centaurs created mythology and religion as a means to pass on important information through the generations.”
“Thought so!” Pinkie Pie cried out in a sing-song voice. “Twilight is always accusing me of not paying attention when she goes off on one of her tangents about centaurs, but usually I’m baking or cooking and keeping my hooves busy and when my hooves are busy I can actually pay attention better and I remember every single word she says, and she has a lot to say about the centaurs and how much they’ve engineered everything to try and ensure our survival.”
Startled, the earth pony beside the buffalo stared at Pinkie, and so did Applejack.
“This is great, that we have so much in common! I want to join your league and offer support. How much is it?” Pinkie Pie, overcome with excitement, bounced in place and clicked her hooves together.
“Well,” the earth pony replied, “we offer yearly subscriptions and a lifetime subscription, if you are interested…”
The acrid dust was bitter and the sensation of it in her mouth was like touching her tongue to a battery, something she had done once as a foal, much to her father’s amusement. Rarity, covered in dirt and grime, looked up and felt a sense of accomplishment. An orphanarium was being constructed with the hopes that it would be completed during the Appleloosa Friendship Festival. Finishing it would depend entirely upon the generousity of strangers, and Rarity was determined to do her part, even if her magic seemed a bit off.
A silken scarf was wrapped around her head to protect her from the sun, and she somehow managed to hold up a parasol as she laboured. Her sunglasses were speckled with dust, mud and sweat, though she would never, ever admit that she was sweating. Above her, Rainbow Dash lifted compressed hay bales and they were lowered into place so they could be slathered down with adobe. The building was a tall, bulbous dome with the floor sunken down into the ground to help maintain a stable temperature.
Rainbow Dash, small and slight even for a pegasus, was far, far stronger than she looked. She lifted multiple bales with ease and flew with them, quite a feat in this heat. Rarity marvelled at her friend’s endurance and wondered what sort of changes she had endured in the Druid’s Grove along with Fluttershy. Both had gone together, and both had returned… different. Fluttershy didn’t talk about what had happened very much at all, but Rainbow, Rainbow Dash never said anything, steadfast in her refusal to talk about it.
It made Rarity worry.
Pinkie Pie had stopped acting funny and that worried Sumac just a little bit. That was the thing with Pies, you had to watch them the most when they acted as though there was nothing wrong. Sly Pie, Pebble’s little brother, was not at all like his mother, Maud. Sly was a bit like Limestone, with a touch of Marble, and a smattering of Pinkie Pie tossed in for flavour. When Sly got quiet and shy, everypony panicked.
And then there was Pebble, who was doing her darndest to show that there was nothing wrong, and it was from this that Sumac know that she might crack from the pressure. It was just a matter of who had a meltdown first; Pinkie Pie or her niece, Pebble Pie. Sumac knew that Applejack was aware of the danger, but Applejack wasn’t saying or doing much of anything, causing him to wonder what she was up to. Applejack was wily and with each passing year, Applejack only became more canny, becoming wiser and slicker with age.
She was becoming Granny Smith.
What Pebble needed was her sister, Megara, but Megara was at home, getting schooled in singing and piano lessons. Sumac wasn’t sure what the point was, Meg didn’t sing so much as she yowled, but Tarnish swore that there was talent there, and Octavia insisted that there was as well.
Not only was love blind, but it was deaf too.
Love did funny things to ponies, and Sumac knew this first hoof. He had reached a different stage of love with Pebble, a hot, bothersome, confusing stage that brought with it a lot of unsettling emotions. He had dreams at night of kissing her and a whole lot more, feverish dreams that left him sweaty and damp when he woke up, not to mention being quite embarrassed, as his mothers, all three of them, knew exactly what was going on. Of them all, Lemon Hearts was the worst, as she had a pressing need to talk about it.
Even worse, he could no longer look Princess Luna in the eye, at all. She knew.
He hadn’t worked up the courage to slip Pebble the tongue quite yet, but he had plans, grand plans, plans that involved sweeping her off of her hooves, seeing her naked, and finally finding out what her cutie mark was. So far, there had been quite a number of sweaty, gropy, nervous practice kisses while he worked up his nerve to go for something bolder. Following Twilight’s advice for success, he had a schedule, a checklist, and a roadmap to success.
As his relationship with Pebble advanced, it felt as though his relationship with her family had soured a bit. Oh, they still loved him, but there was tension there now, a strange tension that Sumac could not ignore. Cloudy gave him funny looks and he lived in mortal fear of her spoon collection. Maud still loved him, of that there could be no doubt, but there were times when Sumac discovered that Maud was staring at him in some odd way that made him feel like digging his own grave.
And then there was Tarnish.
Tarnish could be scary.
Fluttershy, much to her own surprise, had many admirers. Much to her frustration and distress, visitors were asking her for her autograph, which was baffling. She was no hero, the others were the heroes. Fluttershy always just sort of saw herself as tagging along to offer emotional support.
Yet almost everypony that asked for her autograph seemed to be a bit like her, something she was just now starting to realise. Shy sorts, who stammered, who huffed, who puffed, and who struggled just to make a simple request. It dawned upon Fluttershy that she was a source of inspiration, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. Ponies, and other creatures as well, those who were just like her looked to her for inspiration, how to survive as a shy, reclusive introvert in a hostile, overbearing, unforgiving world.
Everypony was looking at her, looking to her, watching her every move, and trying to emulate her. The very idea was panic inducing and Fluttershy didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all. She didn’t know how she had ended up in this terrible, dreadful, awful mess.
It made Fluttershy want to hide under the table just thinking about it.
“I’ve reached my end,” Pebble announced, having reached her end and feeling the need to say something about it. She was with ponies that she trusted, that she loved, ponies that were family. And then there was Boomer, but her relationship with Boomer was complicated, too complicated for words.
Hunched over the table, miserable, sweaty, and far too hot, Pebble let out a groan. “I think I’m about to have a full blown freak out. I can’t deal with this crowd or this heat. I’m tired, I’m stressed, and I can’t stop worrying about the Shatterstone competition. I’ve been practicing nonstop for the past eighteen months for this and I just can’t deal with the pressure any longer.”
“You wanna go back to the hotel?” Pinkie Pie asked as she lifted her head up and away from her glass of minty lemonade and the straw scraped against her fuzzy chin.
“I’m either going to start crying or punching stuff if I don’t,” Pebble replied.
“Uh oh.” Boomer looked a little worried, and the drink she held in her tail trembled, causing the ice cubes to clink.
“Well thank you for actually saying something, rather than just exploding. I appreciate that.” Applejack, looking quite sweaty and worn out, let heave a tired sigh. “You know, being back in the cool might be nice. It’s too darn hot out here. When I was younger, I didn’t mind the heat so much, but I am tuckered out.”
“You don’t need to act tired,” Pebble said in a flat deadpan. “I don’t need a foalsitter to watch over me in the hotel. I can nap without having my hoof held.”
“Don’t get snippy, Missy.” Narrowing her eyes, Applejack stared down the chocolate brown filly with a stern scowl. “I am actually tired and I wasn’t trying to treat you like a foal.”
Head dropping, Pebble looked down at her half-eaten plate of food. “Sorry. I’m out of sorts right now. I didn’t mean it. This is why I need to go back to the hotel.”
Wickering, Applejack let the issue drop, much to Pebble’s relief. Sumac nibbled on his cornmeal fritter and Pinkie Pie resumed slurping her minty lemonade through her straw. When Pebble pushed her plate away, Boomer took the opportunity to gobble everything down. Nothing ever went to waste with Boomer around, as Boomer was fond of eating everything.
“I have trouble being perfect,” Pebble said while Boomer gobbled down a jalapeño-laden cornbread fritter. “I want this, more than anything else, I really, really want this. It eats away at my insides and I’ve been having trouble sleeping at night. Princess Luna has even been tormenting me in my dreams because of this.”
“Tormenting?” Pinkie Pie’s tone was incredulous and a bit worried at the same time. “Tormenting is a strong word, Pebble. I thought that you and Princess Luna were friends.”
“Well, it feels like torment,” Pebble replied as she folded her forelegs over her barrel. “Princess Luna and I are penpals and I’ve written to her about my dreams, and she hasn’t said anything in return yet. I feel like she’s avoiding the issue.”
“Huh.” Pinkie gave Pebble a sweaty shrug.
“You don’t lose very well.” Boomer, looking a little afraid, ducked her head down low and her yellow eyes were fearful. “Sorry., but it’s true.”
“It’s true,” Pebble admitted, “I don’t lose very well. It’s why my aunt Limestone and I get into fights. Neither one of us loses very well. And that’s what happens in my dreams. I lose, and then I lose my marbles, and in the last dream, my Aunt Marble lectured me for destroying all of Ponyville.”
“Some dream.” Boomer spoke with a smoky whisper.
“Getting lectured by Marble is the worst,” Sumac said, wincing. “It’s like being lectured by Fluttershy. You just kinda know that if either of them are lecturing you, you’ve crossed a line and you deserve it. You can’t complain about it, you can’t protest it, you just have to take it.”
“Yeah,” Pinkie sighed, having been lectured by both.
“The chicken lecture will become a legend in Ponyville, I think—”
“Shut up, Boomer.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up, Itchy!” Boomer’s head swiveled around and she glared at Sumac with a taunting smile. After a few seconds, Boomer slumped down when Sumac didn’t take the bait, so she resumed eating everything in sight.
“Getting lectured by Octavia is no picnic either.” The corners of Pebble’s mouth contorted downwards and made her whole face wrinkle as her ears drooped. “Ooh ooh ooh… look at me, I’m all prim, proper, and perfect, and I’m going to explain to you in detail why you suck with my snooty Trottingham accent… blah.”
A loud snort escaped Applejack and she covered her mouth with her hoof to keep from laughing, because she knew that she shouldn’t be laughing. When the hoof didn’t work, she pulled off her hat and began chewing on the brim, her whole body shaking with silent laughter that she couldn’t keep in. Tears, like sweat, rolled down her cheeks, causing stray strands of her mane to cling to her face.
Across the table, Pinkie Pie wasn’t faring much better, and she squirmed as she fought to hold everything in. Sumac was far too stunned to laugh and he sat there with his mouth hanging open, having been the victim of far too many Octavia lectures… he and Vinyl both. He and Vinyl both had actually spent a fair amount of time stood in the corner together, with the hopes that they might learn from their misdeeds.
It hadn’t worked yet, but Octavia was a hopeful sort who never gave up.
“I’m tired, I’m itchy all over, my dress is soaking wet in all of the wrong places, and I wanna go home… back to the hotel… whatever.” Pebble’s eyes darkened and her ears angled out over her face, revealing the pink flesh inside of them. “I feel hideous right now, ugly, I know I’m stinky, and I absolutely hate everything about this place. It’s noisy, it’s crowded, it’s hot, it has to be over a hundred degrees in the shade, and I am miserable!”
“Let’s go back,” Pinkie said, hoping to avoid a full blown Pebble meltdown. “I’ll carry you on my back, Pebs.”
“It’ll be all hot, sweaty, and gross.” Sulking, Pebble slumped down and a low, rumbling growl could be heard. “But thank you, Aunt Pinkie. You’re the best.” Pebble’s words were low, flat, and difficult to hear, but hear them, Pinkie did.
“Aw, thanks, Pebble.” Pinkie turned a brighter shade of pink and she clapped her hooves together. “I wonder if I can get you to smile?”
The evening promised to be cool and glorious, with a gentle breeze coming in from the west. The sun hadn’t set, not yet, but it would soon, and this time of day made Twilight think of her friend, Sunset Shimmer. A train blew its whistle, a longing and mournful sound, though Twilight could not say why she thought this way.
Fluttershy had wandered off to find food and Twilight knew that she should be doing the same, but she couldn’t help but have a bit of a look around. It was right then and there that Twilight, unprepared, was assailed with hugs from all directions, and in her confusion, she almost defended herself out of surprise until she realised what was going on.
“It’s been a while!”
Wrapping her wings around her assailants, Twilight nodded. “It sure has, Piper. How’ve you been?”
“Trying to keep up with this lot!” was Piper’s shrill reply and then she started laughing as she adjusted her glasses, which had been knocked askew during the huggle-struggle.
Recovering herself, Twilight found that she was out of breath from Hennessy’s hug, and she looked up at the colt that had grown long and tall. “All of you look great… I’ve missed you.”
Her head turning, Twilight had herself a good look at the crowd, all of whom were wearing sunglasses. Flicker, the stoic, was the same as he ever was. Big, burly, over-muscled, he was the largest short pony that she had ever seen and his neck alone had to be as big as her barrel. Hennessy was tall, slender, and some might say feminine in a rough sort of way. Piper had never filled out, she remained scrawny, too thin, and frail looking. Twilight’s smile became a pinched frown of worry as she thought about Piper’s study habits—Piper was another Moondancer. And then, much to Twilight’s delight, a sight that turned her frown back upside down…
“Stinkbug! Celaeno! What are you two doing with these incorrigible reprobates?”
Sitting on Stinkbug’s back, Celaeno gave Twilight a proud smile. “We’ve joined the Underwatch. Stinky here is good at making vermin drop dead and my knowledge of poisons can be used for good.”
“It’s really good to see all of you again. It’s so rare that I get to see you in daylight, if much at all,” Twilight said as she took another step backwards so that she might take all of them in. Ponyville’s fall purge was when she had seen them last, she reckoned, because she hadn’t been present for the spring purge.
“We stay busy,” Flicker replied in a gruff voice that sounded as though he had been gargling with whiskey, gravel, and shards of broken glass. “It’s nice to have some downtime though. We don’t get aboveground much these days.”
“Celaeno…” Braeburn’s thick drawl filled the air. The stallion hesitated, looking uncertain. “I done came to find Twilight and tell her that her friends want her back for dinner. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Brae, how ya been?” Celaeno’s eyes became misty and the little harpy fluffed out, making herself look twice as large as she was.
“Feelin’ bad for what I did all those years back,” Braeburn replied as his drawl became thicker and huskier.
There was a faint rustle of feathers as Celaeno shifted on Stinkbug’s back, and then, with a flap of her wings, she lept to Braeburn’s back and perched there, mindful of her sharp claws on soft, fleshy pony skin. “You didn’t know and you did the right thing. My kind are dangerous to your kind. There’s no hard feelings, Brae. Never has been, never will. My heroes guide says that heroes aren’t supposed to hold grudges and I do my best to live by the book.”
No one present said anything to contradict Celaeno as it had been Twilight that had written A Harpy’s Guide to Heroic Endeavours.
Blinking a few times, Braeburn, aware that everypony present was staring at him, let out a muffled squeak of embarrassment. “You came to help us when our poo done got pilfered. We had ourselves a grand adventure—”
“Those were good times,” Celaeno said.
“—and at some point, you became my dear friend. Not a day passes where I don’t feel regret over what I did… I just didn’t know and I’m so sorry.” Braeburn’s tone was apologetic and his snuffles were sincere.
“You tear up every time you see me.”
“You’s my friend and I done near killed you before I had a chance to get to know you!” Braeburn blurted out. “I feel powerful bad ‘bout that.”
Smiling, Twilight excused herself. “I’m going to find myself some dinner. It was nice seeing all of you again. Piper, keep in touch, okay?”
“Okay,” Piper called out, waving at Twilight.
“Come on, Braeburn, let’s go catch up on old times,” Stinkbug said. “Piper, Flicker, Hennessy, we’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
“Okay…”
The dining room in the hotel wasn’t nearly as crowded and it had a pleasant coolness. Twilight shivered as she passed through the doorway, the evapourating sweat from her body causing her to feel cold and clammy. She knew from experience that the feeling would pass, but extreme temperature transitions had always made her uncomfortable.
Quite a spread was laid out on the table, a light meal, lots of fruit and greenery. Twilight’s eyes lingered on the green, orange, and pink bits of melon as she approached, and she licked her lips without realising it. Inviting moisture glistened in the harsh light of the bare electric bulbs hanging from the ceiling up above.
Rainbow Dash was leaning back against the wall behind her with a bottle of soda clutched in her fetlock. Beside her, Applejack was eating a green, leafy salad. Fluttershy had a tall glass of iced tea clutched between her front hooves, and her dainty lips were wrapped around her straw. Rarity, looking quite dirty, grimy, and sweaty, slouched in her seat while chewing on ice cubes that she fished out of her glass of iced tea. Pinkie Pie was chowing down on some kind of fruit ambrosia salad, with Pebble and Sumac sitting on either side of her.
Spike was being pestered by Boomer and all was right in Twilight’s world.
Twilight sat down with a fatigued huff and rested her forelegs on the edge of the table in a very unprincesslike manner. Rarity poured a glass of iced tea, which Twilight accepted with a grunt of thanks. Twilight realised that she was sweaty, gritty, and matted with salt. She also had a strong suspicion that she was smelly, with funky wing pits that might knock a pegasus from an outhouse roof.
“Pebble made a pretty stool,” Fluttershy said to Twilight.
Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Sumac, Pinkie Pie, Spike, and Boomer all started giggling and Twilight didn’t know what was so funny. Rarity rolled her eyes and her lip curled back in disgust. Taking a sip of her iced tea, Twilight shivered with relief as her parched throat moistened and she felt Fluttershy touch her foreleg.
“I had a good look at Pebble’s stool, it’s amazing.”
More sniggering. Twilight, feeling annoyed, didn’t get the joke.
“It was perfectly smooth, with no lumps,” Fluttershy continued.
Rainbow Dash shot soda out of her nose and then hissed in pain while Applejack clapped her on the back. Clutching her sides, Pinkie Pie fell out of her seat and crashed down onto the floor with a curiously pink-sounding thump. Shaking her head, what little patience Rarity had departed for its own vacation, and the dirty white mare let out a groan of utter disgust. Spike and Boomer both were now clinging to each other with their eyes squeezed shut, laughing, their tails twitching.
“I’m rather proud of my stools,” Pebble deadpanned. As she spoke, one ear twitched. “Sumac watched me do it and I’m glad he was there to coach me along. You know you’re comfortable with your coltfriend when you can make a stool with him watching.”
Now it was Applejack that fell out of her chair and she pulled Rainbow Dash down with her. The two clutched at one another as several of the guests in the dining room watched. Twilight still didn’t know what was so funny, and was now feeling vexed because she didn’t get the joke. Pinkie Pie was now pounding the floor with her front hooves while she howled with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Fluttershy asked, blinking in confusion while her yellow face turned as pink as her mane. “Why is everypony laughing?”
To which Twilight replied, “I wish I knew…”
Gathered in Twilight’s Princess Suite, Rarity, now fresh and clean, addressed her friends. “I’ve reserved a number of the hot mineral springs for us this evening. I thought that after a long day, we could all use a good soak. I know that I’m dying for one.”
Nodding, Twilight thought that sounded pretty good right now. She was sore, achy, and tuckered out, to borrow a phrase from Applejack. A nice soak in the springs and maybe, just maybe, they could take turns rubbing each other's’ backs. That might be nice. Twilight felt a growing tightness in her barrel brought on by anticipation of a good backrub. Without realising it, her eyes settled on Rainbow Dash, a silly pony that laughed far too hard at words like ‘stool.’
Rainbow Dash made Twilight’s feathers feel all tingly, and she didn’t know why. Perhaps it was a pegasus thing that she just didn’t understand.
“There is no way I am soaking in a hot spring with a bunch of mares,” Sumac said as he folded his forelegs over his barrel in defiance.
“Ooh, darling, there will come a day when you will think back on what you just said and you will feel a lasting sense of regret,” Rarity said, breathing the words in her most fabulous way. A coquettish giggle escaped her lips, her head turned, and she batted her eyelashes at Spike in a knowing way.
Spike collapsed in upon himself, clutching at his cheeks with his claws, and he let out a peculiar sounding giggle that made Boomer roll her eyes. She held up her hand in mimicry of one of Rarity’s theatrical poses and the dragoness pantomimed fainting, which made Rarity’s lower lip protrude in a pout.
“Boomer gets better and better at that with each passing day,” Applejack remarked and her words earned her the stink eye from Rarity.
“She’s just jealous, because Spike adores me.” Rarity’s head tilted back and she let out a sniff.
“I am not!” Boomer retorted as all of her frills and spines stood out. “Am not!”
Feeling as though she was back in her school, Twilight sucked in a deep breath. “Time out,” she said in her patient teacher’s voice. “No fighting, no bickering, and no being rude. That’s enough out of both of you. Rarity, she apologised for leaving a dead trout in your heat vents, so stop being catty.”
Turning to look at each other, both Applejack and Rainbow Dash began sniggering, much to Rarity’s dismay. The white mare huffed, made a dismissive wave with her hoof, and then let the issue drop. Twilight waited and watched Boomer, ready with a scolding, but the dragoness thought better of her actions. Her frills and spines relaxed a bit, much to Twilight’s relief.
But Fluttershy, it seemed, had other plans.
“You know, Rarity, that was really uncalled for.” Fluttershy’s voice was calm, smooth, and without anger, she spoke like a foalsitter. “Boomer even helped you out to make up for what she did and she discovered a love of sewing. You found a competent, gifted assistant that is eager to help you and puts so much pride in her work.”
“You’re right, darling.” Rarity, ears drooping and looking ashamed, held out a foreleg to Boomer. “Come here, Boomer, and let me hug you. I’m sorry. Are we still friends?”
Reluctant, Boomer slithered off of the bed, scurried over the floor, her claws clicking and her tail swishing from side to side. She went over to where Rarity was sitting and the two embraced, with Boomer being snatched up to be hugged by Rarity. A beatific smile appeared on Fluttershy’s face, and she beamed at the two friends making up.
“You know, darling, Spikey-Wikey used to be my little loyal helper around the shop, but he just got so busy.” Rarity squeezed the dragon she was holding and Boomer let out a smoky sigh of contentment. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and your dextrous little claws.”
Secured in Rarity’s embrace, Boomer stuck her long, forked, serpentine tongue out at Spike, and all was right in the world.
As Rarity might say, the hot spring waters were divine. After being baked all day, Twilight wasn’t so sure about having a dip in a pool full of hot water, but it was just what she needed. There was a splash as Rarity kicked out her legs and got a little more comfortable, and Fluttershy yawned. The water had an eggy, coppery smell, and Twilight had been certain that Rarity would have complained, but there had been not so much as a single peep as of yet.
Her eyes closed, Fluttershy let out a sigh and relaxed her wings, allowing them to fall open. The pegasus mare’s pale yellow stomach was visible just below the surface of the water, and she floated with a pegasus pony’s natural buoyancy. Twilight, distracted, could not stop looking at what Fluttershy was showing, as there was something appealing about the drenched, wet flesh on display.
“Rarity…”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Do you… do you…” Twilight stammered, and then she paused to steady herself. “Do you really think that Seville is a good match for me?”
Opening just one eye, Rarity looked at Twilight as she shifted her bulk around to get comfortable. “Darling, why do you ask?”
“It’s been what, five or six years now? Seville and I have been close… so very close. I trust him implicitly because he is so discreet, and also because Celestia, Luna, and Gosling all trust him. I have to confess though, I’ve never seen him as more than a very close friend.” Twilight, resting against the hot, sloped stone, pressed her front hooves together. “Rarity, I don’t know my type… to be honest, I don’t even know if I’m gay or not. I haven’t thought about it much. I was in love just once, and I got so hurt from that… that… that I just sort gave up on it altogether.”
“Ah yes, the as of yet unknown that broke your heart by marrying another,” Rarity breathed in reply.
“Yeah.” Ears drooping, Twilight slid down the sloped stone side of the basin and submerged more of herself in the water. A few stray fine lavender hairs floated in the water around her. “Please don’t laugh… I know it seems silly, but it really hurt me. I was so certain that we were meant to be together.”
“Darling, crushes crush, that is why we call them crushes.” Reaching out, Rarity placed a hoof on Twilight’s foreleg, and gave her friend a gentle, sincere caress. “You were young, a very tender age, and you had your heart crushed. Some of us can deal with that, it happens, and we move on. Some of us have very tender hearts though… like you.”
Twilight let out a sigh of relief, because Rarity was now more herself and a lot less catty.
“Darling, honest question…”
“Okay.” Twilight sucked in a deep breath and waited.
“Do you find Seville attractive?”
“Well, I don’t know… maybe? Truthfully, I just try to ignore it. But I have found myself distracted by him though.”
“Now, tell me, Twilight… do you find mares attractive?” Rarity asked, her voice taking on a sultry quality.
“Well…” Twilight drew out the word, allowing it to linger on her tongue. “I keep finding myself distracted by Fluttershy right now.”
“Meep!” There was much splashing as Fluttershy flailed around in the water.
“Well, Fluttershy does have a perfect pair of teats, oh, how I envy her natural assets. Well centered, firm, with taught, flawless, but supple skin…” Rarity’s words trailed off into an appreciative hiss.
A nervous, coquettish giggle escaped from Fluttershy, who was trying to cover herself with her hooves. She had turned a bright shade of pink that clashed with the soft pastel pink of her mane. “I’m a supermodel,” she whispered to her friends. “It’s all very flattering.”
“I feel guilty for looking.” Twilight, already dark from being wet, turned a little darker. “I’m sorry Flutters, but you’re kinda, well, distracting.”
“Thank you.” Fluttershy’s demure squeak made both of Twilight’s ears perk.
“Even very shy mares want to know that they are pretty,” Rarity said as her own eyes lingered on Fluttershy’s body as it bobbed in the water.
“Rarity and I, we, uh, we still get together for, well, uh…” Fluttershy’s hesitant stutter cut off and she collapsed into giggling as she covered her face with her sopping wet forelegs, leaving her underside exposed.
“Are you two—”
“No, darling,” Rarity cut in. “Fluttershy comes to my boutique for some very private photography sessions. She poses and I take pictures. It’s become quite a thing for Fluttershy, and it is how she expresses herself.” Rarity began fanning herself with drenched hoof and she batted her eyelashes.
“You could join us, if you’d like,” Fluttershy offered in a very coy voice from behind her forelegs. “I wouldn’t mind you looking… I’d like that… a lot, actually…”
“Okay… maybe?”
Sumac was alone, and that suited him just fine, though he was a little miffed that Boomer had gone off with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Pebble, and Rainbow Dash. He had the entire stone basin to himself, free to do as he pleased. It felt good to be away from the giggly, gossipy mares that ruled his life.
Alone, he was free to do as he pleased. Why, he could fart in his bathwater if he wanted to, with no consequences, because he was alone, and he was free to do as he pleased. He did so, but it was a half-hearted (or in this case, would that be half-farted?) effort. There was nopony around to be offended, so it wasn’t nearly as fun. Boomer wasn’t here to join him.
The colt, feeling a bit lonesome, thought about swallowing his pride. It was a tough thing, hard to swallow, but the awful feeling would go away and he would have somepony to talk to. He didn’t like being alone as much he as he thought he might. He was just about to pull himself out of the basin when the door opened a bit.
“If you’re in there wanking off, I’m going to run away. I’m too young for magical colt custard.”
Ears burning, Sumac sat up in the water, too embarrassed to reply as Pebble slipped into the small room built around the stone basin. He grinned so hard that the muscles in the corners of his jaw ached and he could feel the tension in the back of his neck as his scalp went tight. Pebble looked nervous and she wasn’t doing anything to hide it. In fact, she looked downright scared.
Sumac wondered what was up.
Before Sumac could assess the situation, Pebble took off her one-piece swimsuit, slipping out of it with a practiced ease, and before he could even register that she was naked, she slipped into the water with him, giving him an awkward, burning stare. Quailing, Sumac realised, much to his own existential horror, that he hadn’t seen Pebble’s cutie mark during the few brief seconds he had seen her nude.
His mouth fell open and a strange, creaking squeak came out.
“This was a bad idea,” Pebble said in a somewhat fractured deadpan. Some very noticeable cracks could be heard in her voice.
“Why?” Sumac asked, sounding very much as though he was five years old again.
“Because I have body image issues, you twit, and now you can see how gross and chubby I am. Ugh!” Pebble ducked down into the water until only her head was visible. “I thought this was a good idea, but then I realised that you might throw up if you saw my flabby filly flaps!”
Not moving, Sumac wondered what might happen if he got a little closer to Pebble.
“Fronk, I’m naked and I don’t like it.”
“I’m naked too,” Sumac said, trying to be helpful.
“But you’re almost always naked, so that’s normal.” Pebble’s voice was now a nasal, whiny monotone. “And other than being a skinny little stringbean, you’re attractive. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
With what could only be described as suicidal bravery, Sumac edged forwards in the water, moving with exquisite slowness so he wouldn’t spook his prey. All those hunting lessons from Megara were about to pay off. There was a strange, delightful tension in his belly, and he liked it. He felt it more and more when he looked at Pebble, and he was feeling it now as he thought about her nakedness.
“There is nothing wrong with being pleasantly plump,” Sumac said, his words bearing the weight of magic. He was emboldened when he saw Pebble’s ears perk and her nostrils, a mere inch above the waterline, flared at his approach.
Now was not the time to think about how much Pebble looked like a hippo in the water.
“You know, Mrs. Cake found a husband… and he’s a skinny stringbean.” Sumac, free to operate without consequences with no adults around, pressed his advantage with the hopes of pressing his body up against Pebble. “Mrs. Cake is kinda good looking, too.” Saying this earned him a nervous giggle from Pebble, who splashed water at him.
Without warning, Pebble lunged, and Sumac let out a startled yelp of surprise as Pebble’s forelegs wrapped around him. He had a terrifying moment of awareness that they were now belly to belly together, with no clothes in between them. Pebble’s body was hard, but also soft and plush. Beneath her well cushioned curves was a bedrock of solid, unyielding muscle, which no doubt made her look much larger and bulkier. Parts of Pebble were much, much hotter than the hot water, and Sumac’s brain had trouble dealing with all of these new sensations.
Clinging to Pebble, Sumac planted a somewhat slobbery peck upon the corner of her mouth, and he could feel the fuzziness of her muzzle against his, which sent little tingles of electricity running up and down the back of his neck. He ran his forelegs down Pebble’s sleek sides, relishing the sensation of her bare body, now free of clothes.
It was as glorious as he imagined it would be, and he had spent a lot of time imagining it, when he could get just a few minutes alone.
Pebble nibbled his lip, which made him feel shivery all over. He could feel her flat, hard teeth pressing into his flesh, and she gave his lower lip a tug as he continued to grope her. Leaning in, he gave Pebble his best fuzzy-wuzzy-muzzle-nuzzle, a move they had practiced quite a few times, and there was a feeling almost like static electricity as they rubbed together.
“Sumac,” Pebble moaned in an almost breathless whisper.
“Yeah?” Sumac responded, now breathing into Pebble’s damp, fuzzy ear.
“Tell me I’m pretty and that you want me…”
Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense tingled alarmingly and she sat upright with a splash, feeling alarmed. Her ears pivoted around, she sniffed, and the muscles in her neck pulled taut. Eyes narrowing, Pinkie’s brows furrowed with worry and she stood up in the water.
“Pinkie?” both Applejack and Rainbow Dash said together.
“I gotta go,” Pinkie replied, sounding distracted. “An Apple and a Pie are thinking about making a hot, sloppy, sticky dessert together and I can’t let that happen!”
“What? You mean—OOF!” Rainbow Dash let out a wheezing gasp as Pinkie stepped on her stomach in her hurry to leave, and Rainbow’s eyes went wide with pain. “Applejack, I’ve gone blind! She stepped on my teats!” Rainbow clutched her stomach as Pinkie stomped to the door, dripping and leaving puddles in her wake.
“Rainbow, talk to me, can you feel yer hind legs?” Applejack asked as she shook Rainbow, who was doubled in half from pain.
Pinkie stormed through the door and it slammed behind her.
“Jackie, Jackie, help me, I can’t breathe, Jackie!”
Stomping through the hallway, her hooves clopping against the stone, and her lips moving as she mouthed silent profanities, Pinkie Pie moved to intercept. Maud and Tarnish had trusted her, left her responsible, and she had given them her Pinkie Promise that she would be a good and attentive aunt.
Nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise, and most certainly not Pinkie Pie.
She rounded the corner, snorting and chuffing like a sexually frustrated locomotive, and slammed right into another pony, almost bowling them over. It took her a few moments to regain her senses, precious moments, now lost in time like cheese sprinkles on spaghetti.
“Pinkie!”
“Cheese...”
“My Cheesy Sense told me you’d be here and I thought I’d come and find you—”
“Hold that thought, Cheese! I have to go and save two foals from making an awful mistake, and I have to save myself, because I made a Pinkie Promise! Tarnish is scary, but Maud is scarier!”
“Hmm, my Cheesy Sense is tingling… I think I’m about to get to throw somepony a ‘Hey, You Lost Your Virginity Party!’ Those are always fun—”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Pinkie howled as she went streaking off in a pink blur that smelled like pink frosting, panic, and mineral water.
Pinkie Pie’s lower jaw quivered with rage and her blue eyes were fierce. Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Princess Suite had a bit of a crowd, but Pinkie didn’t notice any of them, no, her eyes were tight-focused on Sumac and Pebble. All over Pinkie’s body rage was evident—her ears twitched, her lips were pressed into a ferocious scowl, her tail jerked up and down, and there was a foamy, sweaty lather all along her back.
“You almost made me break a Pinkie Promise,” she growled to her niece and Sumac.
“I wasn’t going to do anything!” Sumac said as he took a single step backwards.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that.” Applejack pressed in closer to Pinkie, and she squinted down at Sumac, her green eyes wary and worried about Sumac using his slick magical words. “If I even think for a moment that you’re using magic to lie to me, you, me, and Pebble are catching a train home tonight.”
Pebble let out a little moan at Applejack’s words, but Sumac took a brave step forwards. Swallowing, he looked Applejack in the eye, his knees knocking together, and he licked his lips as he tried to prepare himself to speak. What came out was a squeak, a reminder of himself at half his current age.
“I was just going to slip Pebble the tongue and maybe find out what her teats feel like,” Sumac said to Applejack. “I have a checklist, one of Twilight’s roadmaps to success. I could even show it to you when we get home.” Hearing a long, feral sounding growl from Pinkie, Sumac ducked his head and took a step back.
“Will both of you stop it?” Pebble demanded, her voice cracking. “You’re acting like a hick and a feeble minded nitwit.” Anger blazed in Pebble’s eyes as she pushed Sumac aside and stepped forwards to face the two much larger mares. “Stop interrogating Sumac. It’s not always the colt that is the aggressor, you know, and just assuming that he did this is hurtful and wrong. I did this. I jumped him. I went in there with the intention of making something happen.”
“But why?” Pinkie cried, now too confused and bewildered to be so angry.
“Why?” Pebble sucked in a deep breath, and it felt as though the very hotel room itself trembled in anticipation. “Why? I’ll tell you why”—the filly’s voice rose in pitch—“since you asked. I got tired of feeling like a fat, disgusting lump, that’s why. I got tired of worrying about the Shatterstone competition, that’s why. I’m sick and tired of all of these urges and no matter what I do to service myself, I can’t seem to scratch this itch between my legs and it is driving me crazy. I wanted to win… to succeed at something… I wanted to feel good and I wanted Sumac to say all of those nice things that he says about me, but I wanted to hear him saying them while I had him pinned to the floor beneath me, as I was grinding out my itch.”
Cheese Sandwich’s mouth fell open and so did Applejack’s. Pinkie Pie stood there, dumbfounded, and Sumac suffered a full body colour shift, his pale, cream coloured hide becoming a flustered maroon colour. His ears turned an exotic shade of purple that couldn’t be observed in this light spectrum, but a mantis shrimp might find it attractive. Maybe even sexy.
Sucking in a deep breath, Pebble visibly relaxed, perhaps having some sort of catharsis.
“What do I do, Applejack?” Pinkie Pie whispered. “Being an aunt hasn’t prepared me for this. Please, please help me.”
“Nopony panic,” Applejack drawled. “I gots this!” Reaching out her foreleg, she draped it over Pinkie Pie’s drooping neck. “You, Pinkie Pie, you’re going to go off with Cheese Sandwich, and the two of you are going to have a nice time if’n you can tonight. You ain’t been right since we got here, and you need sorting out.”
Turning to Sumac, she poked the colt in his chest with her hoof. “You need to breathe! Breathe, damn you, breathe!” When Sumac didn’t breathe, Applejack cuffed him hard enough to make him suck in a deep breath involuntarily, and then it sounded as though he might start hyperventilating. Realising that Sumac was left on the wrong setting, Applejack cuffed him again, causing him to stagger backwards, and this seemed to fix the problem. Applejack had a lot of experience resetting Sumac when he forgot to breathe and she considered herself an expert.
“Cheese… do you think you can take Pinkie out and show her a nice time?” Applejack asked. “It’s an emergency.”
“I sure can!” Cheese replied, still looking a little shocked by Pebble’s outburst.
“Good, go now.” Applejack gestured at the door with her hoof.
“Right!” Cheese Sandwich, a smooth operator, swept Pinkie up and herded her towards the door. “Come, Miss Pie. We’re going to hit up the hotel bar and get a few drinks in you. The party tank is empty. After that, we’ll go dancing, and then after that, maybe I’ll serenade you.”
When the door clicked shut behind them, Sumac gulped, fearing whatever was about to happen next. Applejack had a peculiar look upon her face, a look he had never seen before, and it scared him like nothing else in his life, not even Catrina, or his mother, Belladonna.
“Sit down, both of you.” Applejack’s tone left no room for discussion or argument and both foals sat down. Applejack sat down herself and she sucked in a deep breath. “Now, we’s about to have ourselves a long, long talk about earth pony sex education. I ain’t one for reinforcing stereotypes, but it’s true. Earth ponies are born and bred for sex. Hot, horny horsey sex, with heavy breathing, and plenty of it. We can be insatiable. I think that’s the right word, I’ll need to ask Twilight.”
Letting out a shrill squeak, Sumac fell over onto the floor with a thump.
“And if’n we get stressed out, sometimes, those urges can become unbearable. Now, Twilight says it has something to do with evolutionary biology, and that during times of trouble, earth ponies go to make more earth ponies, as trouble is best faced in numbers, or, if something bad happens, at least we have a way to repopulate.” Brows furrowing, Applejack leaned in a little closer to the two foals. “Twilight and I talk about sex a lot. She comes to me for my earthy wisdom to help her round out the sex education courses in her school, seeing as how I have two little fillies of my own and I was married. Twilight is smart like that.”
Pebble, her eyes glittering, listened with rapt attention.
Sumac on the other hoof, not so much.
“To deal with those overpowering urges, we have to deal with the source of the problem, if’n we can…”
Twilight wasn’t quite sure what had happened or how it had happened, but she was now sitting around a small wooden table with Fluttershy and Rarity having drinks. This was new to her. Oh, she had drank a few times before, but never quite like this, sandwiched between two mares, and feeling their hot, fuzzy bodies pressed against her as the burning liquor slid down her throat and made her shudder.
To her left, Rarity was sucking on a section of lime, while on her right, Fluttershy was pouring something called mezcal into three small shot glasses. Twilight was feeling a little warm, a little sweaty, and a bit buzzy in the crotch, as if a swarm of bees had taken up residence between her legs.
Much to Twilight’s surprise, Fluttershy took a long, long pull from the bottle, and guzzled down almost a third of it, causing Rarity’s eyebrow to arch upwards. Even more surprising, Fluttershy didn’t seem affected by it in the slightest—she covered her mouth with her hoof while she let out a terrifying, cute little belch that made Twilight Sparkle’s eyes water and burn.
“‘Scuse me,” Fluttershy said in a husky voice.
“And you and Fluttershy do this often?” Twilight asked in disbelief, and she thought about her sentence. Something didn’t quite feel right about it, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
“Oh, darling, we do this every chance we get. Fluttershy won’t drink alone and neither will I. Alcoholics drink alone, and Fluttershy and I are not alcoholics.” Rarity began to giggle, causing her to jiggle against Twilight’s side. Lifting up a shot glass, Rarity continued to chuckle a bit. “It’s been ever so long since we did this last though.”
Twilight followed Rarity’s lead, and lifted up a shot glass. Fluttershy lifted one, clutching it in her fetlock. Together, the three mares drank, and as the mezcal trickled down Twilight’s throat, the buzzy, electric sensation between her hind legs intensified. Twilight realised that she was feeling pretty good at the moment, and she didn’t have a care in the world.
Fluttershy, a helpful, kind sort, filled up the three shot glasses once more, and then took a long drink from the bottle, the pourer’s tax.
“We’re going to need more mezcal if you keep that up,” Rarity said in a dramatic whine. “At least Twilight is starting to look a little relaxed.”
“I feel great!” Twilight said, feeling great, and she leaned against Fluttershy to give her friend a snuggle.
There was a gasp from Fluttershy as Twilight’s foreleg slid around her lower belly, and Fluttershy’s face turned a dark shade of pink as the pegasus mare lifted the bottle to her lips. She guzzled more down as Twilight nuzzled her neck, and then, setting the almost empty bottle down upon the table, Fluttershy returned Twilight’s overly affectionate snuggles.
The hour approached midnight, but Pinkie Pie was somehow just hitting her stride. In front of her, there was a big ridiculous fruity drink that hid all of the awful taste of alcohol and a platter of fried cheese sticks. Her hooves were sore from dancing, but she didn’t care. She was with Cheese again, and all was right with the world, even though nothing was right in the world.
The pink pony’s lips puckered around her rainbow coloured straw and she slurped in a sip of her fruity drink as her eyes drank in the sight of Cheese Sandwich, who was sitting across from her. He was different from when she had seen him last, and no doubt, she was as well. Her lips slipped from her straw and a little booze dribbled down her chin.
“You got a little snow on the roof, Cheese.”
Eyes crossing, Cheese Sandwich looked up at his mane and eyed the pale grey streaks that could be seen there. Pinkie smiled, she couldn’t help it, the sight of Cheese with his eyes crossed made her face cramp up with the need to smile. Cheese lifted up his own glass in his fetlock, and grinned at Pinkie.
“It makes you look distinguished,” Pinkie said, being honest. “I’ve gotten older too, and a good bit pudgier. All those sweets like to hang out on my backside.”
“I didn’t notice,” Cheese replied.
“Liar.” Pinkie Pie felt herself growing pinker. “You’ve been checking out my backside all night. You even groped me while we were dancing.”
Grinning, Cheese said nothing in his own defense, but he took a drink, and then picked up a fried cheese stick. He nibbled on one end and chewed, his eyes lingering on Pinkie, and Pinkie resumed slurping from her straw. Pinkie thought about being groped, and giggled as she thought about the fact that she had groped him first.
The pleasant, amicable silence persisted for a time, but it was Cheese that broke it. “Still having some trouble being an aunt, I see.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Pinkie replied as she hunched forwards over the table. “It seems like every time I get Pebble figured out, she changes, something new comes along, and then I gotta start over from scratch.”
“From the looks of things, you’d make a good mom,” Cheese Sandwich said to Pinkie in a low whisper that was difficult to hear over the background murmur of the bar. “When you went storming in, you could have done anything, said anything, but you went in there and started hugging both of them. That says a lot about you, Pinkie Pie.”
“Do you think so, Cheese?”
“Yeah, I do,” he replied. “Pinkie, why are you wasting your time with me?”
“I… I… I…” Pinkie’s squeaky stammer trailed off into just little snorty-squeaks.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why we do this to ourselves,” Cheese said, admitting his feelings. “I can’t settle down, and you won’t settle down. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Pinkie, as I roam the frontiers and prance from town to town.”
Her blue eyes shimmering, Pinkie just stared at Cheese Sandwich and did not reply.
“I know you got hurt, Pinkie. I remember that, and I think about it a lot. And I can’t help but feel that you cling to this relationship that we have, such as it is, because it allows you to say you’re attached without actually being attached.”
Her lower lip quivering, Pinkie Pie nodded.
“The problem, as I see it, is that I love you, and I allow it happen.”
Clutching her large, oversized drink, Pinkie Pie hugged it to her with a slosh.
“It also gives me the same protection that it gives you, Pinkie. I can roam from town to town, free of entanglements and the ties that bind, free from all of the complications, and I can say there is a mare waiting for me back home, and it allows me to slip away with no fuss, no messy feelings.”
“Free to go from party to party,” Pinkie squeaked.
“Yep.” Cheese Sandwich sighed. “Free to go from party to party…”
Something feathery tickled Twilight’s nose, which caused her to sneeze. The sneeze was explosive, a whole chain of explosions happening all at once, which was really quite awful for Princess Twilight Sparkle, She of the Exploding Head. Her skull space exploded, over and over, it felt like a thousand morbidly obese earth pony stomp dancers were practicing a new routine inside her skull. Twilight’s face exploded, but also imploded, and she sucked in a mouthful of hair and feathers. As all of this was happening, her consciousness exploded, and she gained self awareness, becoming aware of herself and her intense desire to not exist.
The hair and feathers were an interesting flavour of blue, though Twilight could not comprehend how she knew this. Stabbing pains lanced through her skull and she couldn’t tell if her eyes were going to pop out or be sucked in, perhaps going down her throat. Her mouth had a flavour that could only be described as what Twilight imagined the basement walls of an ancient outhouse must taste like.
About eight inches or so away from her muzzle, a pair of eyelids fluttered open on a blue face, revealing a rosy looking eye. Twilight contemplated screaming, but her head hurt far too much. She felt moist, sticky, slick in all of the wrong places, and the air smelled just like it did the time she walked in on her mom and dad having a very enthusiastic go at one another.
“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight croaked, “did we…” She found herself unable to finish the question, as bile rose up in her throat.
“No.” Rainbow grinned and her one open eye glittered with glee. The other eye was pressed down into the pillow.
It was then that Twilight muttered the immortal words: “What happened last night? I don’t remember anything.”
Giggling, Rainbow Dash almost caused Twilight to have a seizure from the sound. “You came into my room last night. It was late. You crawled into bed with me, you cried a bit, and then you commanded me to make you my mare. You said it was your orders as a princess. I told you no. You got upset. You cried a whole lot more and I held you. When I tried going to sleep, you mashed your meat curtains and started shouting somepony’s name over and over.”
“Oh no,” Twilight moaned. “Who?”
“I can’t tell you. That was a private moment with your drunken self.”
“You can’t tell me?”
“Nope. I follow some very specific rules.” After a moment, Rainbow added, “I’m not telling anypony else, either. And no, it wasn’t my name.”
“And you didn’t do anything with me even though I threw myself at you?” Twilight’s disbelief felt a lot like queasiness and her doubt tasted like stomach bile.
“Twilight, I saw some stuff when I was abroad with Tarnish and Daring Do. It made me clean up my act. Look, it’s no secret, I’ll sleep with almost anypony, but I have some rules. Like Rarity, I have rules, the Rules of Rainbow Dash. Rule number one, there is nothing sexier than consent.”
“Oh.” Confused, Twilight closed her eyes and focused on shallow, steady breathing.
“Last night, you could not give consent. You were compromised. That’s a turn off.”
“I see.” Twilight, who was certain that she was on the verge of death, decided to test her friendship with Rainbow Dash, to determine its limits. “And what about right now, if I was to ask you, would you?”
“No, because of the H.A.L.T. rule.”
Perplexed, Twilight cracked open one eye to look at Rainbow Dash. “What?”
“The H.A.L.T. rule.” Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, reached out her foreleg, and booped Twilight on the nose. “Hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Never fronk a pony that is too hungry, too angry, too lonely, or too tired. Hungry can be replaced with hungover. All of these conditions can compromise our ability to give consent. This is how I keep my conscience clean.”
“Ponies have sex when they are angry?” Twilight squeezed her eye shut as a lance of sunlight streamed in through the window, and she thought about all of the horrible things she wanted to do to Princess Celestia. Some of them were quite unpleasant, but most of them were pretty tame.
“Twilight, can you do me a favour?” Rainbow asked.
“What?”
“Stop talking. Stop breathing on me. Please, I’m begging you, let me help you shower. I can’t take another minute of this torture.”
Feeling very bad, and also very guilty, Twilight Sparkle nodded her head, which made her ear rub against the pillow. Reaching out, she took Rainbow’s fetlock into her own, and she gave it a squeeze. There was no friend more loyal than Rainbow Dash, and for this, Twilight was thankful.
It sure did feel good to be a princess. Applejack sprawled out in the opulent luxury that was the bed in the Princess Suite and thought about how she could get used to this. To her right, curled up against her side, was a warm, fuzzy lump. To her left was another warm, fuzzy lump. There were also warm, scaly lumps in the bed. This made the bed extra-opulent, as it was heated, and it felt oh so good on all of her sore, achy places.
It was nice having two foals in the bed, it was a luxury that often turned against her. When Hidden Rose and Ambrosia got into the bed, well, shucks. They always started punching or wrassling one another, and Applejack couldn’t quite recall how many times she had been woken up by one of her own piledriving the other right into her stomach. It was like one was trying to force the other back into the womb, and that gave Applejack powerful nightmares, yes indeedy.
And poor Big Mac? Right square in the apples.
Pebble and Sumac understood how to sleep in a bed, and Applejack attributed this to exceptional parenting, though she didn’t quite make the connection of how this also applied to her, but in the reverse. Feeling the first few rays of sunshine, Applejack, half-awake, waited for the rooster to crow, but none did.
“Oh good… you’re awake.”
Of course Pebble would be awake, Applejack thought to herself.
“I have a confession,” Pebble said, her voice muffled from beneath the blanket.
“How long you been awake?” Applejack blinked her eyes, yawned a powerful yawn, and wondered what might be for breakfast.
“Oh, a while now,” Pebble replied as she pulled the blanket away from her face. “I borrowed one of Rarity’s books—”
“Oh for the love of the alicorns, here we go.”
“—one of her trashy romance novels. It’s in my bag right now, and it sort of set me off. I got all hot and bothered by it, and it kinda contributed to what happened last night.”
Closing her eyes, Applejack tensed her whole body, focusing her earth pony strength, and it made her spine crackle, starting near her neck and working its way down to her dock. She shivered from the sensation, her teeth clicking together, and she felt a pressing need to visit an outhouse out back.
“What was it about?” Sumac asked, his voice sounding both hesitant and muffled.
“It was about the torrid love affair between a unicorn and an alpaca.” Pebble drew in a deep breath, then let it all out in a dreamy sigh. She took another deep breath so she could continue with what she had to say. “The unicorn, he was a tailor, and he specialised in exotic materials. His shop assistant was an alpaca, and she had perfect, beautiful wool—”
“Oh my gosh,” Applejack gasped.
“—and when the time was right, he would shave her, and it was perfect, beautiful, and romantic. He would caress and buzz every inch of her body with his clippers, which buzzed, and vibrated, and his clippers would linger along her every soft, supple, feminine curve, buzzing and tingling, and he would get her all worked up—”
“I ain’t surprised by Rarity’s reading habits, not at all.”
“And when she was shorn, and all worked up, he would ravish her and have his dirty way with her, fondling every inch of her shorn body, and revelling in the touch of her pink, perfect skin, now free to see the light.”
“Oh.” Sumac rolled over in the bed, turning his back to Applejack, and laying on his side. “Oh,” he breathed again, and there was a shudder in his voice.
“And in a reversal of the long held belief that alpacas and llamas spit, she swallowed—”
“That’s it!” Applejack cried. “Out of the bed! Pebble, you’re getting a cold shower and I think I am too!”
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, festooned with festive colours. Little bits of red, green, orange, and yellow bell peppers could be seen in the eggs, along with onions and sweet green chilis. There were black beans, also served with sweet green chilis, and soft, supple, fresh made corn tortillas. The breakfast table was crowded and many of his tablemates were wearing sunglasses, but Sumac only had eyes for Pebble.
Today was the Shatterstone competition, and ponies had come from all over Equestria to both watch and compete. This was, perhaps, the single most important cultural event for the earth ponies of Equestria, and this year, Appleloosa was the city to host it. It meant a lot of things to a lot of ponies, but mostly it meant that Appleloosa had grown enough to be considered a true city, and not just some little podunk frontier town.
“This wheat-meat chorizo is pretty good,” Pinkie Pie said, her face blocked by an enormous pair of sunglasses with bright blue frames. She was subdued and each of her movements was slow. “Oh, I wish it was quieter.”
“You and me both, Pinkie, you and me both.” Cheese Sandwich, wearing black shades, hunched over his food and took a few deep breaths. “There are accordions in my head…”
There were all kinds of colts in the world, and Sumac was a colt raised by three mares. Three attentive mares who had no problem vocalising exactly what the ideal stallion should be, and guiding Sumac down that path. This was especially true of Lemon Hearts, who encouraged warm, sincere sensitivity, and rebuked Big Mac for trying to teach Sumac how to be a little gruff.
All in all, Sumac had turned out well rounded, and if the situation demanded it, he could be a little gruff. But now was not the time for being gruff, no, Pebble needed his smooth talking support, because she was showing all of the symptoms of having a breakdown.
It was time to muster the troops.
“Are we all going to be at the Shatterstone competition today?” Sumac asked.
“No.” Twilight looked disheartened and a fair bit alarmed. “I have to be one of the judges at the anvil ringing contest.” Twilight’s whole body shuddered with enough force that it caused her teeth to click together, making a terrific clack. “What is it with earth ponies ringing anvils? They’re not bells.”
Leaning over, Applejack gave her friend an answer. “You wouldn’t understand, Twi.”
“Cheese Sandwich has to manage Appleloosa’s talent contest.” Pinkie Pie turned her head and glanced at the pony beside her. “But I’ll be there for ya, Pebble.”
“I wouldn’t mind listening to the anvil show, it’s gonna be great, I think, but I know where I belong—”
“Singing in the talent show, Applejack?” Rainbow Dash asked as green taco sauce oozed from the corner of her mouth.
“Why yes, Rainbow, you and I is gonna sing ourselves a duet together… Loyalty… and Honesty… living together in perfect… harmony—”
“Aaaaaah, I wanna die,” Twilight cried as she clutched her head with her hooves.
Fluttershy, sitting beside Rarity, wrapped her wing around her face, covering it, and leaned her head back against the wall behind her. She panted a bit, quick, rapid, heavy breaths, and Rarity clutched Fluttershy’s foreleg. The two mares moaned together, and it made Sumac have a funny feeling in the base of his guts.
“I know where I’ll be.” Rainbow Dash grinned as she glanced at Pebble. “Front row and center. I’ve been looking forwards to this. It’s always neat to see what happens and I’ve been watching Pebble do this for a long, long time.” Shifting in her chair, Rainbow’s expression turned serious. “Of course, I’m missing seeing the guy I like from Nine Inch Tails performing in the anvil ringing contest, but I know what’s important.”
Pebble, who lifted her head away from her plate, looked over at Rainbow Dash with glimmering eyes now slick with moisture. “Thank you, Rainbow. It means a lot to me. I’ve gotten used to seeing you out there.”
“Eh, don’t mention it,” Rainbow replied. She leaned forwards, wiped the green taco sauce from her muzzle with her foreleg, and sounding very serious for being the sort of pony that she was, she said this to Pebble: “Look, I understand competition. As a Wonderbolt, I understand what it means to have that one fan, that one that keeps you going. When you look down into the crowd, you can always count on seeing them, and it gives you that little extra oomph that you need to give your one hundred and eleven percent. You don’t do this as a hobby, Pebble… that much is obvious. This is what you do. I fly fast, and you do Shatterstone. It defines us and makes us who and what we are.”
“Rainbow, I…” Twilight Sparkle pulled off her sunglasses and began to daub at her eyes.
Ignoring Twilight, Rainbow remained focused on Pebble. “After we get done eating, I’ll give ya a rub down with some liniment and we’ll see if we can warm up those muscles of yours. I have a good feeling about this year, Pebble… I think this will be the year that all of that hard work might pay off a little.”
Looking shy and vulnerable, Pebble nodded. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash…”
The ringing of the anvils was nothing compared to the ringing inside of Twilight Sparkle’s head. It was already too hot and much to Twilight’s dismay, there was some humidity in the air, making it far, far worse. The black sunglasses she wore did nothing to shield her eyes and the sound muffling spell she had cast did nothing to shield her ears, for some peculiar reason.
She wasn’t sure if watching the Shatterstone competition would be much better. More than anything, she wanted to find some place that was nice, cool, and quiet. This wasn’t the first time she had been hungover, but it might be her worst hangover ever.
As the earth ponies pounded away on their anvils with their exuberant earth pony enthusiasm, Twilight thought of the times that she had drank enough to be hung over. Most of those times had been with Seville. They were quiet drinkers together, and Twilight found that she shared Seville’s love of orange juice and rum. They weren’t party ponies—quite the opposite in fact—but they knew how to have a nice, quiet time together.
Twilight suffered a mortifying thought. What if Seville really did carry a torch for her? She had strung him along now for five years or more. The thought threatened to make her head split, and she felt awful. Seville was a lot like Fluttershy in that he hardly ever spoke up for himself. Yes, that was quite an apt description, Seville was Gosling’s Fluttershy. Hotspur had to be Rainbow Dash… but what about Hush?
Hush was the biggiest, scariest, most violentiest pony that Twilight Sparkle knew and she didn’t have an analogue for him among her own friends. Even though she trusted Hush, with her own life if necessary, there was something about the big, mostly silent brute that terrified her. She was fond of Hush though, and she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he struck an anvil.
Probably something amazing.
It was difficult to pretend that the crowd didn’t exist, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that Pebble felt, fat, horrid, and disgusting. She was wearing a sleeveless smock so she could perform, and she was absolutely certain that the ponies in the crowd had to be looking at her fat, porky front legs. Over and over again, Pebble Pie thought about just walking off of the stage and quitting, because she didn’t want the audience looking at her flabby, gross body.
Rainbow Dash was right where she said she would be and this was the only thing that kept Pebble from bolting.
She had one shot to be perfect. Exactly one shot. So much depended upon the simple act of a hoof striking a stone. One had to be perfectly in tune with the latent energies of the earth for anything to happen. This was all about perfection. Even a slight distraction in your connection to the humming of the earth would result in your stone block turning into dust or rubble, and not a work of art. The slightest moment of mental weakness meant failure, spectacular failure.
Pebble had suffered many spectacular failures.
She had turned blocks into dust, piles of rubble, and once, a puddle of lava. A little too much energy had been put into that one, it was supposed to have been the general likeness of a stone dove. She was still hearing about that failure from her grandmother, who had been righteously indignant about there being a puddle of bubbling lava on her kitchen floor.
Some ponies had a tendency to overreact.
Sweaty, clammy, and far too nauseous, Twilight Sparkle had excused herself from the anvil ringing competition with an apology. She now lay in bed, sprawled out over the top of the blankets, spread-eagled and trying to get cool. She moaned and made a promise to herself that she was never going to drink again.
The same promise she had made the last time she had felt this way.
It was awful, it felt as though she had the flu, and Twilight Sparkle really hated having the flu. She clutched at her head, squirmed in the bed, and could feel the tug of friction on her pelt from the blankets beneath her. She moaned again, rolled over, and tried to get comfortable, but the stupid wings that she had made that difficult.
The door opened and shut, but Twilight didn’t notice as she was too busy thrashing around on the bed. A short, squat figure waddled to the bed, looking concerned, worried, and a bit apprehensive as he flexed his clawed fingers. Saying nothing, he backed away from the bed, and again, Twilight did not hear the door open and close as she lingered near a state of delirium.
Spike had felt that there was something wrong, some weird sensation that he couldn’t explain, and sure enough, there had been something wrong. Twilight was sick, hungover, and he had never seen it this bad. Carrying a basin of cool water along with a bundle of towels pressed against his back with his tail, he returned to the Princess Suite.
Twilight was frothy with sweat, which was a bad sign. Frowning, Spike pressed a wadded up towel into the basin full of water, soaking it, and then he pulled it out. He wrung out most of the excess water, flung out the towel, and laid it over Twilight’s exposed belly. There was a moan from Twilight, and she went still.
He prepared another towel, getting it damp, and this one was placed over Twilight’s exposed crotch, Which Spike did his best not to look at, as that was just weird and creepy. He repeated this process, laying wet towels over Twilight’s legs, her barrel, her neck, and then her face.
She was still now, she seemed to be sleeping, and Spike figured that was for the best. Even though he wanted to be watching the Shatterstone competition, his place was here, with Twilight. She needed him, and as she had said so many times, she would always need him. Spike climbed up into a chair that was beside the bed, sat down, and settled in to watch over Twilight. The towels would need to be moistened about every twenty minutes or so to keep her comfortable.
Spike would see it through, because he always saw it through during times like these.
There had been some magnificent results in the competition so far, and Pebble was a little bit worried about how well she would fare. Bird baths, chairs, furniture of all types, and the busts… the busts. Some of the most amazing busts had been produced. Lifelike, detailed busts. Pebble was envious of the busts that had been freed from the nondescript stone blocks.
“Pebble Pie,” the announcer called out.
A large block of stone was brought out, one of Pebble’s most favourite materials. Granite. It had a notorious reputation for being difficult to work with, it was a stubborn stone, full of spite, and Pebble was pleased by the gasps of shock as it was wheeled out. The stone block was eased off of its trolley and set down upon the smooth stone surface of the allowed workspace.
Pebble approached the block of granite with some reservation, and gave it a good looking over. This was burly granite, black-grey, with lots of glittering speckles. She walked in a circle around it, taking it all in, no longer thinking of her fat, gross, disgusting body. The filly sat down and looked up at the block of granite, which was taller than she was.
Music drifted in on the breeze from somewhere distant, the sounds of ponies enjoying themselves on the rides could be heard, but Pebble was deaf to these sounds. She rose, moving with a feline grace that belied her well-padded frame, and when she stood near the stone, she rose into a bipedal stance with a grace that she had inherited from her mother.
Reaching out, she placed a hoof upon the stone, feeling it, and caressing it with her frogs.
“I’m sorry, granite, but this is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me,” Pebble whispered, feeling sorry. She had once had a conversation with a stone that she had punched, and oh… the things that stone had said to her. It wasn’t quite as gifted as Sumac when he went off on one of his tears, but the stone had been around for a very long time, and knew words that Sumac had never dreamed existed.
Taking a deep breath, Pebble pulled back, and then she struck the stone with terrific force. There was a sound like a thunderclap even before her hoof struck the block of granite and flashes of light were visible, dancing along her leg before the impact. The air filled with dust as a shockwave pregnant with heat radiated outwards, impacting the crowd and everything around them.
The dust began to settle and a chair could be seen. Not just any chair, but a magnificent chair. It had a tall back, two arms with arched supports, and four legs that had a graceful curve that followed the golden ratio. It was perfect, smooth, flawless, it appeared as though it had been polished.
It wasn’t quite as beautiful as some of the busts, but it was a technical piece. This was a chair fit for royalty, and Pebble knew it. The chair had its own austere beauty, graceful, swooping curves, clean angles, and straight lines. Everything appeared to be perfect and symmetrical. It was a good chair, and Pebble knew it.
She had trouble containing her excitement and she flashed her jitter-inducing smile.
“Next up, our returning champion, Prickly Pear!”
Upright on her hind legs, standing on her tippy-claws, Boomer was just able to grab the door handle and give it a tug. It was tough, being little, and frustrations abounded. She wasn’t much larger than a yearling filly, much to her dismay, and there was nothing scary or intimidating about yearling fillies.
It seemed that everypony was bigger than she was, even Sumac, and he was a stringbean, as Pebble called him. She pushed open the door and peered into the room, looking for her favourite dragon. She had slipped away, unnoticed, super-duper sneaky, she was the ninja of dragons, and even Rainbow Dash had said so.
“Spike—”
“Shh!” Spike put a clawed finger to his mouth and shushed her while pointing at the towel covered lump on the bed.
“Sorry,” Boomer whispered. “Spike, I missed you, Spike. You left me.”
“Twilight is sick,” Spike said in a low voice to Boomer, explaining his disappearance and absence.
Scurrying over the floor, Boomer was far more comfortable on four legs than Spike was, and faster too. Being faster was important, as Boomer had to be better than Spike at something. Moving with a fluid grace, Boomer mounted the bed and had herself a good look at Twilight, who was covered in wet towels. Reaching out her tiny clawed hand, she smoothed out a few tangles in Twilight’s tail, knowing how important it was to always look pretty.
She had taken lessons from Prince Gosling, lessons she had taken with dragon-levels of seriousness. She had to be serious and she had to be a go-getter, because Spike was better than her at just about everything, and that sucked. It sucked a lot. It was a never-ending torrent of frustration to be second best at dragoning.
For Boomer, things that sucked, well, they sucked. They sucked like a milk-slurping mammal. Not that mammals were bad, no. Some of Boomer’s best friends were mammals, and she adored them, even if they were soft, squishy, and couldn’t sleep in the fireplace with her. It had to suck, being a mammal.
Thunderstorms sucked big time. They were at the top of Boomer’s List of Top Ten Things That Suck. Everything in life fell into two categories for Boomer Apple—things that were awesome, and things that sucked. Rainbow Dash had taught her the difference, and Rainbow Dash was awesome.
Twilight Sparkle being sick sucked.
It sucked like a egg sucking dragon that stole eggs from Fluttershy’s henhouse, not that Boomer would ever do something like that. Never-ever. Nope. Stealing eggs was wrong, and doing wrong sucked. That said, stolen-eggs tasted awesome, they were the best eggs, not that Boomer would know anything about that.
Nope.
“Read me a story, Spike?” Boomer begged.
“Twilight is sick,” Spike replied in a soft, subdued whisper.
“Whisper me a story, Spike.” Letting her frills and spines droop, Boomer did her best to look pathetic and she tried to make her lower lip quiver, but that was difficult because her lower lip was hard, and meant for nipping. “Spike, pleeeeeeeeease whisper me a story, I’m bored.”
“Boomer, Twilight is sick.”
“Spike, for the love of Princess Flurry Heart, read Boomer a story and shut her up!” Twilight snapped.
Sighing in defeat, Spike acquiesced with a wave of his claws. “Fine, I’ll tell you a story—”
“Goody!” Boomer’s shrill exclamation made Twilight’s whole body twitch.
“Once upon a time, there was an annoying little dragoness, and all she ever did was pester her big brother—”
“Ooh, I like this story already,” Boomer said, interrupting and not caring. “Annoying big brothers is awesome. Boogity, boogity, it’s story time!”
Blinking, Spike’s face took on a very Twilight Sparkle-esque expression as Twilight herself let out a weak-sounding giggle from beneath her towel. Disgusted, Spike threw his claws up into the air and prepared to fetch a book so he could tell a real story to Boomer.
There was a lull in the action while Prickly Pear prepared. Applejack, sitting on a low wooden bench beside Sumac, realised that this was a chance to have a good talk with the colt. She wasn’t so sure if Big Mac had good, proper talks with Sumac about anything other than construction, farming, and roleplaying.
That was okay though, Big Mac kept Sumac’s head screwed on straight for the most part.
“Sumac Apple… tell me what you see when you look at Pebble.”
“Um… what am I supposed to see?”
Chewing on her lip for a moment, Applejack tried another angle of approach on what was sure to be a tough subject. “Sumac, that fillyfriend of yours… she’s high strung and she has herself a few problems. She has her father’s fragile ego. Now… Tarnish’s ego… well, it’s got him into some trouble, and the same thing goes for Pebble.”
Sighing, Applejack just spit out what needed to be said with no care for how she was saying it. “Sumac, your fillyfriend thinks that she is a fat little hambeast. Now, tell me, what do you see when you look at her? Be honest, now, this is important and I’ll be upset with you if’n you ain’t honest.”
“She’s chubby,” Sumac whispered to Applejack, “but that’s okay, I like chubby.”
“You scruffy little chubby chaser.” Applejack smiled, adjusted her hat, and continued, “Now, listen here, colt… she don’t see herself as being chubby. She’s not happy with how she is, not at all. And it’s gonna fall on you to help her through those rough moments she’s bound to have.”
“I sorta figured that out on my own.”
“Hmm, I done reckon you did. You ain’t stupid, Sumac Apple. Now, you sit back and you listen to me, and I’ll tell you what you can do to help her…”
Standing with the other contestants, Pebble watched and waited. Prickly Pear was ancient, old, and the undisputed master of Shatterstone. As such, Pebble both loved him and hated him. Loved him, because she admired his work—Pebble had an almost religious reverence for his work—and hated him, because there was no way to beat him.
Whatever colour he had once been was now gone, and his hide was a faded, sunbleached grey. Most of his mane was gone and only a few white strands could be seen on his crest. Pebble knew his history, the story of his life, she had read every word printed about him.
He had started as a miner of exceptional skill, a digger that could burrow into any mountain. With but a punch he could open an entire mineshaft, smashing his way in, and all that had to be done afterwards was clear away the rubble. In time, he had learned the art, and thus, a legend had been born.
Now, there were shrines scattered around Equestria’s southwest that were dedicated to Prickly Pear, and Pebble had visited a few. He was ensconced as a figure of significance to the earth ponies of Equestria. Mothers brought him their foals, hoping for some sort of blessing, and lovers-to-be came to him to be married with the hopes that he would bestow upon them a blessed, prosperous union.
With a gasp, Pebble released the breath that she hadn’t been aware that she was holding and watched as Prickly Pear drew back his hoof. For being so old, so ancient, he had remarkable balance, he was a figure of marvellous kinesthetic perfection. The old earth pony moved with an exquisite slowness…
“Kai-yee!”
Whatever happened was invisible to the naked eye. A shock wave radiated outwards, blowing off hats and bonnets. Little squiggles of blue light danced in the air in a wide radius. The sound was deafening and there could be no doubt that it could be heard from miles away. The block of pale pink marble suffered a radical transformation, and dust poured from it like a liquid.
A statue of an alicorn stood where the block of pale pink marble once stood and Pebble felt her heart leap up into her throat, choking her. Even from where she stood, she could see the details of the feathers, the graceful curves of wings unfurling, and she knew right away that she was looking at a near-perfect likeness of Princess Celestia. Even her serene, beatific smile could be seen. It was all too perfect.
Prickly Pear staggered backwards on three legs, clutching his barrel, and he let out a gasp. His eyes went wide as he looked up at the statue he had freed from the stone, and his lips moved as he said words that nopony heard. His face sagged in an odd way, almost like melting wax, and his left eye went bloodshot. A thin ribbon of scarlet poured from his left nostril and the left side of his body went limp, causing his legs on his left side to collapse beneath him.
He fell over onto the platform and did not move.
“Holy alicorn shit, I think he’s dead!”
As one life ended, another began. Watching with eager anticipation, Pinkie Pie attended a very special birthday party. Some foals were just so impatient, and this one demanded to be born right now. There was no time to get the mother to the town’s clinic—Appleloosa still wasn’t big enough for an actual hospital—so now there was a very special birthday party with hundreds of ponies in attendance.
What a special, lucky little foal.
Applejack, sitting in the dust, held the mare’s head and stroked her mane. Braeburn, who had a knack for showing up just when he was needed, he had brought the nurse, and somepony was off looking for the doctor. Pinkie, being the helpful sort that she was, sat down in the dirt beside Applejack and let the mare hold her fetlock.
Sumac, who had tried to flee the area, now found himself held by Rainbow Dash, who had him in a very firm and unyielding hug. The colt’s face had turned a peculiar shade of green that clashed with his green eyes. For Sumac, fillies and mares were for fantasising what he wanted to put in them, and he didn’t want to think about what came out of them. That was unpleasant and no doubt, it was going to be very, very difficult to fantasise about what he wanted to stick into Pebble after this.
Up on the stage, a blanket had been laid over the late Prickly Pear and the only pony not watching the birth was Pebble, who sat hunched over beside the still corpse of her beloved idol, looking very sad indeed. Her ears hung limp and she sat on her chubby plot with her front hooves held pressed together, a look of infinite sorrow upon her face.
The mother to be screamed bloody murder and Sumac Apple, his eyes wide, tossed his cookies down into the dirt as Rainbow Dash clapped him on the back. Pinkie Pie squirmed as her fetlock was being squeezed—from happiness or pain it was impossible to tell—and Applejack continued to try and offer a little comfort. Rarity fainted dead away and Fluttershy fanned the unresponsive fashionista with her wing, trying to revive her.
Life went on…
A very sweaty Pinkie Pie had a horrible squishy feeling in her barrel that grew to be unbearable as she looked at her niece. During the commotion, Pebble had been a bit… neglected, and now, Pinkie Pie was wondering what soul shredding guilt felt like. Probably a lot like the horrible squishy feeling that she had in her barrel right now.
It was quiet, the crowd had cleared, Prickly Pear’s corpse was gone, and all that was left was Pebble Pie, sitting on the stage, all alone with the pale pink statue of Princess Celestia. A bright orange ribbon sat on the ground beside Pebble, and for whatever reason, she did not know why she felt this way, Pinkie worried that the ribbon would blow away.
Treading across the platform, Pinkie approached Pebble, and then eased her bulk down to sit beside her niece. She picked up the ribbon, which was face down, and had a look. Honourable mention: technical perfection. Sighing, Pinkie Pie felt a crushing sadness without understanding why she was feeling it.
“Pebble, your ribbon, it’ll blow away if you aren’t careful with it,” Pinkie said, trying to start a conversation with her sorrowful looking niece.
“I don’t care,” Pebble replied in deadpan, “I didn’t win. It’s just some worthless reminder that I didn’t win. I just wasn’t good enough.”
“Oh.” Pinkie felt something heavy press down on her and she tucked the ribbon away in her mane for safe keeping. “Pebble, doesn’t achieving technical perfection mean something to you?”
“It didn’t mean anything to the judges…” There was a faint gurgle from Pebble’s stomach and it sounded as though she was choking a bit on her own words. “They picked stuff that was pretty, stuff that looks good. That’s all that matters in life, being pretty. If you’re not pretty, the best you can hope for is an honourable mention.”
Reaching up with her forelegs, Pebble began scrubbing at her eyes, and her whole body began hitching. Pinkie Pie, not knowing what to do, put a foreleg over Pebble’s withers and pulled the filly closer. Sitting beneath the stony gaze of Princess Celestia’s statue, Pinkie suffered through yet another moment of being an aunt, a moment that she was ill-prepared for.
“I’m not pretty,” Pebble moaned, her voice cracking. “I’m fat and disgusting! My whole life is going to be an honourable mention!” With that, Pebble collapsed against her aunt and began blubbering.
With her niece wailing, Pinkie Pie found herself in over her head once more, and she didn’t know how to make this better. She didn’t know how to make Pebble smile. Sniffling, a few of Pinkie’s curls went limp, and she squeezed Pebble even tighter, trying to comfort herself. As her curls lost their bounce, a bright orange ribbon poked out and stood out in sharp contrast against Pinkie’s vivid pink mane.
With a wry smile, Rainbow Dash set down two bottles of sarsaparilla on the table and gave Sumac a nod. Little wisps of smoke-like vapour rose from the necks of the bottles and Rainbow Dash sat down in a wooden chair opposite of Sumac. Reaching out, she slid a bottle over to Sumac, smiled, and pulled her own bottle closer.
Sumac, still looking a little green, wiped his muzzle with one foreleg and lifted up the bottle with the other. As he held it in his fetlock, he gave the bottle a curious look, and then he focused on Rainbow Dash, who was making herself comfortable in her chair.
“What’s this about?” Sumac asked.
Lifting her head, Rainbow replied, “We’re celebrating.”
Sumac looked around the saloon and his ear twitched in time to the piano music. “We are?” After a moment he added, “What are we celebrating?”
“Yes we are.” Rainbow Dash took a sip from her bottle, tipping it back, and her throat bulged as she had herself a refreshing drink. She then raised her bottle to Sumac and said, “We’re celebrating that today, you are now a stallion, and you deserve to have a drink with a mare like me, ‘cause I’m awesome and good looking.”
Confused, Sumac’s head tilted off to one side. “I’m a stallion now?”
“Yes you are!” Rainbow Dash’s eyes glittered with gleeful playfulness.
“I don’t get it.” Shaking his head, Sumac’s eyes focused on the bottle he was holding.
“I’m gonna talk to you like an adult,” Rainbow Dash said to Sumac, “because you are one now. Well, adult enough for this talk, anyway.”
“Okay.”
Leaning forwards, Rainbow Dash’s playful expression vanished. She now looked very serious, and Sumac, a little scared, slouched down in his chair as he felt Rainbow Dash’s eyes penetrating into his very soul. He held his bottle close, clutching it, and he doubted that he was the adult that Rainbow thought him to be.
“Sumac,” Rainbow Dash began, “you just took your first real step towards being a good stallion, the right kind of stallion. The best kind. For the first time, you’ve realised that a mare is more than your spunk receptacle. She’s more than just a fantasy for you to wank off to or use to scratch your itch. You’re a smart one, Sumac Apple, and I’m betting that what you just saw is gonna change you.”
Eyes narrowing behind his round glasses, Sumac gave thought to Rainbow’s words.
“You’re being raised by three mares that love you and adore you, and I know they think you’re innocent, but I know you and I’ve been watching you. I see everything, Sumac Apple, I am one observant pegasus, and I know what you do in the apple orchard when you think nopony is watching.”
Sumac’s ears turned reddish pink, standing out in contrast to the greenish tinge still seen upon his face.
“It’s fine to do that. Heck, I do that every chance I get. It feels good, it’s good cardio, and I see it as part of my workout routine.” Rainbow Dash waved her bottle around as she made a gesture, and a serious smile could be seen upon her face. “There is nothing wrong with what you are doing and it’s perfectly natural. But things can go wrong if you try to treat the real thing as you would your fantasy. That’s where a lot of males screw up, and they treat mares more like masturbatory toys than living, breathing ponies, who have feelings, needs, and fantasies of their own.”
Squeaking, Sumac slumped down in his chair just a little bit more.
“Mares bear the consequences, too,” Rainbow Dash continued. “Sure, you can just climb right on and scratch your itch, and that’s gonna happen soon, I don’t care how innocent and sweet the others think you are… I know differently.” Grinning, Rainbow returned to making her point. “Once you scratch that itch, you’re free to go your own way. But Pebble”—here, Rainbow paused and her grin vanished as she became quite stern and solemn—“or Olive, or Silver Lining… don’t you dare look surprised, I told you I see everything!”
Sumac gulped.
“The point I’m trying to make is, the females in your life are more than warm, wet, willing holes for you to scratch your itch with. You can keep up the sweet and innocent act with the others all you want, but I’m onto you, and I’m gonna keep you accountable, because you are my friend. I know for certain that at some point, you’re going to bang one of them like a screen door, or maybe all three of them, and that’s fine too, and I’ll even give you some pointers to keep everything nice and fun… but you are going to be responsible… I am more than willing to be your wingpony and help you out, but I swear to Princess Cadance, if you fronk this up, I’m gonna be the one to make you regret it. Got it?”
With a squeak, Sumac nodded.
“Now, you can’t exactly go and ask your mothers for rubbers, because let’s face it, you wouldn’t survive whatever would happen next. Out of all of the dangers you’ve faced, and there’s been quite a few, those three mares would be your undoing. I’m thinking that Twinkleshine would be the one that ends you. She values your innocence the most, but Lemon Hearts, we all know what happens when she loses her shit.”
Again, Sumac nodded and he clutched his bottle in mortal terror. All lived in fear of Lemon Heartless, and for good reason. The colt shuddered.
“So…” Rainbow Dash popped her lips and her ears pivoted around a bit as she considered her next words. “So… when the time is right and you plan to lay some pipe into a willing, consenting partner, you come and you find me, and I’ll hook you up with what you need so you can have your fun, consequence free. You got me?”
“Yes,” Sumac replied, sounding as though he was five years old again.
“Good.” Rainbow nodded. “Now, I am going to talk to you about the H.A.L.T. rule and I’m going to teach you the super-secret sexual sorcery that is consent. Consent is a special form of magic all its own, and it is powerful, sexy magic. Now, listen up and pay attention, ‘cause I’m gonna lay some heavy stuff on ya, Sumac Apple…”
There was a low and distant rumble of thunder that made Boomer let out a keening wail. Without needing to be told, Twilight closed the window and soundproofed the room. It had been almost quiet as the evening settled in, though the festival continued outside. Twilight, who felt a little better, was in the company of two tuckered-out foals, two dragons, (one of which was now terrified) and one Pinkie Pie.
The Pinkie Pie was stuffing her face and Twilight knew that it was from nervous worry. The Pebble Pie was also stuffing her face, but was trying to look like she wasn’t doing it. Twilight didn’t know why she thought of them the way she did, but suspected that some of Pinkie’s influence had worn off on her.
It was strange, but Twilight was enjoying this trip. She had learned a few things, gained some insight, and she had survived an epic hangover. With some help from her friends, she had discovered that the old hurt from long ago, her crush, it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe time had healed it or maybe she had just allowed herself to grow up. Maybe alcohol had killed the brain cells responsible for keeping that particular memory.
Either way, it was time to move on, and maybe experiment a little.
It was also time to return the favour.
“Pinkie Pie…”
“Yes, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie licked electric blue frosting from her lips but missed a good sized dollop sticking to her snoot just above her nostril.
“I think I can look after Pebble, Pinkie. I’m feeling better. Why don’t you go and see if you can find a nice Sandwich to satisfy you.” Twilight grinned, feeling both proud and ashamed of her pun.
“I dunno if I should,” Pinkie replied.
Sitting on the floor, Pebble looked up at her aunt, blinked once, and swallowed what was in her mouth. Her tongue flicked out for a moment, clearing her lips of frosting, and then she looked over at Twilight. After a moment, her ears pivoted forwards and with a sigh, she turned to look at Pinkie once again.
“Just go,” Pebble insisted. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, Pebble, I don’t think I’ll be fine.” Pinkie Pie sat there on her pudgy bottom with frosting on her nose looking at her niece. She had eaten so much fudge that her belly now had a pudge and she didn’t dare budge.
“Two slices of Pity Pie,” Pebble sighed while her eyes rolled.
“Are you kidding? With as fat as I am, I count as at least two slices all by myself.” With her hoof, Pinkie poked her stomach, once, twice, and on the third time, she poked a little too hard. A thunderous belch filled the room, causing everything to rattle, and Pebble’s mane blew back away from her face. “Ooh, more room!”
Boomer, still a little spooked, stared at Pinkie Pie with unabashed, seething envy.
“Pinkie, the time you have with Cheese is short. You should make the most of it. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Pebble reached up and began to fix her mane, which was now a mess.
“I’ll regret it if I do…”
Hearing the pain in Pinkie’s voice, Twilight winced.
“If you’re going to break this off, at least have the courage to say goodbye and make this memorable for the both of you. Aunt Pinkie, Cheese is your friend. It really hurts when your friends avoid you and don’t tell you why. Olive did that to me for a while and I wanted to punch her skeleton right out of her body.”
With a sigh, Pinkie nodded and appeared to deflate. She slumped over and rested her front hooves against the floor while avoiding Pebble’s gaze. For a brief moment, the two of them looked very much alike, and it was more than just family resemblance. Seeing her aunt’s distress, Pebble rose from the floor, took a few steps, leaned in, and kissed Pinkie Pie on the snoot.
The blue frosting was now smeared on both of them.
“I gotta go,” Pinkie Pie announced. “There’s a party I have to throw.”
“Good luck.” Pebble gave her aunt a pat.
“Yeah, Pinkie, good luck,” Twilight said, echoing Pebble.
Lifting a hoof, Sumac waved, and was joined by Spike and Boomer.
A brave smile spread over Pinkie’s muzzle as she rose to go to the door.
It was easier to face the crowd with Rarity and Fluttershy followed close behind her friend. Lightning flashed off in the west, in the direction of Mount Maud, and her ears pivoted towards the sound. With the dark of the night came a blessed coolness and Fluttershy walked with her wings flared out from her sides, just a little, but not enough to look aggressive. Looking aggressive might give a pony the wrong idea, and then poor Fluttershy would be mortified.
Fluttershy still hadn’t worked up the courage to go on the ferrier wheel, it was scary and no doubt, it would give her vertigo. She had gone on the carousel with Rarity—Fluttershy had ridden upon a mustached, bespectacled walrus—and the swift up and down motion of the carousel had left her dizzy.
Where Rainbow might give her some good natured teasing, Rarity was gracious and she understood. Of course, Fluttershy no longer minded Rainbow’s good natured teasing, that was just Rainbow’s way of being affectionate.
“Oh goodness, darling, they have a collection of pickled punks… how ghastly!”
“Oh… oh my, I don’t think I could look.” Fluttershy paused in front of the tent with Rarity and looked at the sign. It promised pickled punks of all shapes and sizes, chimerae, monsters of all stripes, all manner of grotesquerie was on display. Shivering, but not from the cool air, Fluttershy looked at the tent flap that led inwards, and then at the pony sitting on a stool and collecting bits for entry.
“How positively gruesome… but also irresistible. I have to look… how could I not?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed, “how gruesome.” If Rarity went in, Fluttershy would follow. If necessary, she would peek out from between the feathers of her wings. She would be brave. She would be bold. Into the gallery of pickled punks she would go, a shy, sweet pegasus in a display of horrors.
Oh, who was she kidding, she would probably faint.
When she saw him, her heart lept up into her throat and Pinkie Pie wondered if her heart climbed up just a little bit higher, what would it taste like? The thought was distressing but it persisted, because her heart was thump-thump-thumping away in her windpipe. Her tail twitched, her knee jiggled, and she felt her frogs grow damp with sweat.
Just what was her Pinkie sense trying to tell her now?
The notorious pink pronker stood there for a moment, pondering, heart-farting with a dreamy expression in her eyes. Cheese was sitting at the bar, drinking a mug of cider, and there was a plate full of grilled cheese sandwiches in front of him. He was handsome, he was perfect, and somewhere, deep inside of her, Pinkie Pie still had hopes that it would work out somehow.
After heart-farting for just a few moments more, Pinkie Pie found the pep in her step that she needed, and she pronked her way over to the bar. She climbed up onto the barstool beside Cheese, settled in, and waved at the bartender.
“One butterscotch rum on the rocks,” Pinkie said, blurting out the first thing that came to her mind, with no knowledge if it tasted good or was even a real thing. “Make it a double!”
With a grunt, the mustachioed bartender nodded and shuffled off to get Pinkie’s drink.
“Say,” Pinkie Pie said in a sing-song voice to the pony on her right. “What’s a handsome fella like you doing in a dive like this?”
“Hardening my arteries,” Cheese replied with a straight face as he gestured at the grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Well then… how’s about when we get done, we go to your room, and we’ll see if we can get something else to harden… I’ll sit in your lap and then we can have a talk about the first thing that comes up.”
Eyes wide, Cheese Sandwich did not reply, but gulped down his mug of cider.
Cheese Sandwich’s hotel room wasn’t what Pinkie expected for a guest of honour. She and her friends had great hotel rooms—Cheese Sandwich had a closet with a foldaway bed in it. It was a bit warm, had one narrow window, and a bare naked lightbulb hung down from the ceiling.
Was this how he lived? An endless series of terrible hotel rooms, when he wasn’t resting his head beneath the stars? Just thinking about it made Pinkie’s barrel feel tight. She stood near the window and Cheese stood near the door. She gave him a coy smile—she did so without even realising she was doing it—and her bright blue eyes twinkled.
“There’s something I want from you,” Pinkie Pie said to Cheese Sandwich in a chirpy, somewhat sultry voice.
“And what would that be?” Cheese replied, playing along.
“I realised on the way over here that I can’t have you…” Pinkie’s words trailed off and her lips puckered as she did her best to be flirty. “But then I realised, if I can’t have you, I can have the next best thing. A little reminder of you.”
Cheese’s smile vanished.
“You don’t look as excited as I thought you’d be.”
“Well, Pinkie… I—”
“Hear me out, Cheese,” Pinkie insisted as she turned herself around to look at him directly. “No strings attached. No obligation. You give me what I want, I give you a little something special in return, something to remember me by, and then we go our separate ways.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Cheese’s sides expanded and he exhaled through his nose. He looked at Pinkie, and she at him, and the two stood staring at one another for what felt like a long time. All of Pinkie’s flirtiness vanished and she stood there, a pleading look in her eyes, her loneliness evident and plain to see.
“No, Pinkie, I don’t think this is a good idea—”
“Why not?” Pinkie demanded as she stomped her hoof.
“Because, I feel like you’d use whatever I left behind to lure me back to Ponyville. You’d find reasons. A birthday. A cute-ceañera. That’d be terrible for the both of us, and even worse for your little reminder. Pinkie, I’m sorry, but this is a rotten idea.”
Blinking, pondering the words said to her, Pinkie replied, “You’re right. What was I thinking?” Now looking a bit panicked, her nostrils flared and Pinkie Pie pawed the floor with her hoof. She let out a wicker and her gaze dropped down to the weathered, dusty grey floorboards. “I just didn’t want to be lonely anymore, Cheese. I thought if I couldn’t have you, I could have the next best thing. I want what my sisters have… I want to be an earth pony and I have earth pony needs—”
“Pinkie, not all of us feel that way. Some of us earth ponies have some powerful wanderlust. I can’t stay in a place much more than a few days without feeling that powerful pull to move on. I can’t fight it. I feel it even now, right now, at this moment.”
“Maud has it, but she always comes home.” Pinkie felt a case of the sniffles coming on. Even worse, she felt stupid, because she had made a fool out of herself. As she stood there, watching, trying to hold herself together, she watched as Cheese Sandwich began to toss his few possessions into a pair of weatherbeaten saddlebags.
“Leaving so soon?” Pinkie asked and she felt her throat go tight. She saw Cheese’s eyes squeeze shut and he swallowed. Why did she ask a question when she already knew the answer? Of course he was leaving. He was leaving because she was staying, she was staying with her friends, the place where she belonged, and he was heading off to the frontiers, where he belonged.
The frontiers were his prison, Pinkie realised, as she suffered a thought so deep that she couldn’t understand it. It was incomprehensible, painful, and Pinkie Pie realised that the basement of her mind had some very scary depths indeed. She had been scared of the cellar when she was a foal, and she was terrified now. The staircase leading down to her subconscious was long and dark. A pony could take quite a tumble if they weren’t careful.
There was a lot more to her than she realised, depths that she had not yet explored.
Not a word was spoken as Cheese cinched his saddlebags shut. He slipped them on, put on his poncho, and placed his hat on his head. Tilting his head, he looked at Pinkie, and Pinkie peered back at him. With hesitant, jerky movements, she raised her hoof, waved, and watched as Cheese stepped out the door.
The door closed with a click, leaving Pinkie with the feeling that this was an act rife with painful, unwanted symbolism that she just didn’t understand. She listed to the sound of hooves out in the hallway, stunned, maybe in shock at what had just taken place. Her loneliness had driven her to this, and right now, she felt it, it was like a caged, ravenous animal trapped in her guts.
Sighing, Pinkie Pie knew that there was only one cure for loneliness.
With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound, the rampaging dragon knocked the buildings down. The awful, horrible, terrible three-hundred and fifty foot tall—no, four-hundred and fifty foot tall dragon went on a berserk spree of destruction. With her tail, which was easily over three times the length of her massive, muscle-bound body, she knocked over residences, towers, grand palaces, and chicken coops with complex, unfair locks placed upon them.
She picked up a wagon and threw it back down as she waded through the buildings towards the center of town.
Throwing back her head, she let out a fearsome, smoky roar, then kicked over a high rise apartment complex. Kicking was fine, but if she used her terrible fire, the wrath of the alicorns would fall upon her. With a hearty smack, she leveled a shop and sent rubble flying. That would teach them to lock their chicken coops with locks that she couldn’t slip a claw into. That’d fix them good!
“I have become annoyance,” the empress goddess dragon shouted as she waved her frills and spines, “inconveniencer of alicorns! All shall know me and feel alarmed! RAWR!” She wiggled her backside in an irreverent, disrespectful manner, not caring about consequences, because she was five-hundred feet tall, far too big to be spanked or sent to bed without a snack.
Turning her body about, another building tumbled over, sending the panicked residents running through the street, screaming in mortal terror of her dragon superiourity. She lifted a chunk of rubble high over her head, and then flung it at another building, which collapsed on impact. She snatched up more rubble with her tail, then slingshotted it at a graceful arch. With a terrific crash, the arch collapsed, and the ginormous dragoness bellowed with laughter. She most certainly didn’t squeak, as only puny, insignificant little teeny tiny dragons squeaked.
“RAWR! No mercy!”
Amused, Twilight watched as Boomer went on a rampage of destruction, destroying an entire town made of blocks. The little dragon had constructed the city herself, and now, lost in a world of her own imagination, she was at last the big, powerful dragon that she dreamed of being. She stomped, kicked, and rampaged, roaring out her tiny, bellicose fury.
Not far away from the rampant destruction, Sumac, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were playing cards. Sumac had to be cheating, he had to be, but Twilight wasn’t sure if the colt was even aware of it. His talent for grift, his knack for vice, he was his father’s son, no doubt. Applejack and Rainbow Dash, two very competitive ponies, looked rather irked that they were losing to a foal while playing poker.
Pebble was getting a makeover from Rarity, and Fluttershy offered helpful advice.
And then there was Spike. Poor Spike. Twilight watched him, grinning, and it was obvious that he wanted to join Boomer on her spree of mayhem. Alas, poor Spike wanted to be mature, grown up, well behaved, so he sat there in his chair, watching, and looking a little sad that he couldn’t join.
“Four aces! You little cuss, I’m gonna tan your worthless, cheatin’ hide!” Snatching off her hat, Applejack slapped Sumac with it as her cards fell to the floor like autumn leaves.
Sumac tried to duck away, but Applejack was faster by far, and she pulled him into a tight embrace. He kicked and wiggled, trying to get free, but Applejack was bigger, stronger, and knew more about wrassling uncooperative critters. With a sigh, Twilight realised that Applejack wouldn’t be bigger than Sumac for much longer—oh, no doubt, she would outweigh him, but Sumac was growing tall and slender.
“No! No! Not the noogies!”
“Yes, noogies!” Applejack cried as she went to work. “I gotta keep you honest, somehow, you conniving little grifter!”
“I wasn’t cheating, honest! I just got lucky!”
“Give him the business, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash pumped her hoof into the air and grinned at Sumac’s attempts to get free.
“RAWR!” A single block flew in a perfect, beautiful arc, and then bounced off of Rainbow’s skull with a hollow sounding conk. “OOPS!” Covering her mouth with her claws, Boomer stood there, looking mortified at just having brained one of her idols.
“Ugh, I am dead!” Clutching her head, Rainbow toppled over and died, hitting the floor with a muffled thud.
“No!” Raising her claws over her head, Boomer shouted, giving voice to her grief for having killed Rainbow Dash during her rampage of destruction. “I killed Rainbow Dash with brain damage!”
“No you didn’t,” Pebble deadpanned. “You can’t damage what isn’t there. This game of imagination has gone too far and has become unbelievable.”
Opening one eye, Rainbow Dash’s ear twitched as she lay in a heap on the floor. “OW! I need some burn cream! Somepony help!”
“Darling…” Rarity held an ornate comb over Pebble’s head and her lips puckered into a fine moue. “What is it with you, your mother, and your positively savage roasting?”
“Everypony has to have a hobby,” Pebble replied. “Some ponies just make it too easy and we can’t resist. Lightning strikes trees, and my mother and I burn ponies. It is the natural order of things.”
“OW!” Rainbow cried, clutching at her barrel.
Covering her mouth, Fluttershy began giggling, and got a dirty look from Rainbow Dash for her troubles. Applejack’s noogies had ceased and she now sat hugging Sumac, who still kicked and squirmed, to no avail. Boomer had gathered up blocks and was trying to construct a mausoleum around Rainbow Dash.
The door to the Princess Suite opened and Pinkie Pie walked in…
The room had a dreadful silence that Twilight didn’t like at all. Something had happened, Twilight was sure of it, but what had happened was still unknown. Squinting, Twilight checked for limp curls, but Pinkie’s mane seemed as bouncy as ever, which made the situation even more perplexing. She was even smiling, sort of.
She said nothing as she moved through the room, her hooves making soft thumps against the wooden floor. While everypony else had gone still, Boomer was still making a mausoleum for Rainbow Dash, perhaps because Boomer was too young to understand that something was going on.
When she reached where Pebble was sitting, Pinkie Pie sat down and pulled Pebble into a warm, affectionate embrace, and that was when Twilight realised just how much Pebble had grown. She wasn’t much smaller than Pinkie Pie now, and both were of similar build. Heavyset, but in a good way, a body made for hugs and snuggles.
Twilight knew that something had to be said, but her mouth had gone dry and she couldn’t find the words. She could feel that something was wrong, something terrible had transpired, but try as she might, she couldn’t seem to say anything.
“Darling…” Rarity began, and then she too, fell silent, struck by the same affliction as Twilight.
“What happened, Pinkie?” Pebble asked.
“I almost made a terrible mistake,” Pinkie replied, her voice shrill with emotion. “I let my loneliness get the better of me and I almost goofed.”
Without even looking in Rainbow’s direction, Twilight Sparkle knew that Rainbow was looking at her, staring even, and Twilight thought about the H.A.L.T. rule, though she didn’t know why it sprang to mind. Twilight’s throat grew tighter and her mouth, drier.
“I was so focused on what I thought I wanted that I somehow forgot what I had,” Pinkie admitted as she began to stroke Pebble’s mane. Leaning over a bit, she smooched Pebble on the cheek, closed her eyes, and pulled her niece closer.
“I keep telling you, if you are lonely, you can take Sly. I don’t mind.”
A half-hearted fit of giggling made Pinkie Pie’s body jiggle. “I can’t take your brother—”
“Oh yes you can,” Pebble insisted. “Nopony would mind. I know I wouldn’t.”
“Pebble, your mother has a special place in her heart for Sly, because your grandmother, Cloudy, finally got the colt she’s been wanting to spoil.”
“Which is why he needs to go.” Pebble gave her aunt a squeeze, and her eyes darted around the room at the ponies (and dragons) watching her. “He gets away with everything and that’s not fair.” After a moment, Pebble added, “Besides, you named him. That makes him yours.”
Sighing, Pinkie redoubled her grip around Pebble, closed her eyes, and began to rock back and forth on the floor. For Twilight, the resemblance between the mare and the filly soon to be a mare was uncanny. Different colours, sure, but there was something about them both, some unknown, unexplainable magic that made them special.
“Darling, what happened?” Rarity asked, finally getting the question out.
Pinkie Pie did not reply, not right away, but continued to squeeze Pebble. Fluttershy, with hesitant, jerky movements, turned the hug between the pair into a group hug, piling onto Pinkie and squeezing both her and Pebble close. The sound of wooden blocks being stacked around Rainbow Dash filled the room, and for a time, it was the only real sound there was.
Applejack was still holding Sumac, though now for very different reasons, and her hat lay on the floor, forgotten. Rarity sat by herself on the floor, looking apprehensive, still holding a comb in her telekinesis, which filled the area around her in a glittery, pale blue glow. Twilight watched as Spike got up from where he sat, and he waddled over to where Pinkie was to be with her.
Spike and Pinkie had always shared a special relationship that made Twilight a little jealous at times.
“I made a fool of myself,” Pinkie began, her voice cracking. “I thought that if I couldn’t give Cheese a reason to stay, then maybe I could have a little something-something as a memento. He saw right through that though, and he was right, I was looking for a way to lure him back to me.”
“Oh, Pinkie, I’m sorry—”
“Rarity, don’t be sorry.” Pinkie Pie flashed her friend a bittersweet smile. “I had to grow up sometime. It hurt a little, but I’m okay. Really, I am. I’m just glad that it happened with my friends here to cheer me up. I don’t know what hurt more, actually… the rejection, my own stupidity, or the fact that I made a fool out of myself.”
“Pinkie… I…” Rarity set the comb down upon the floor beside her.
“I think… I think I’m all partied out,” Pinkie Pie admitted. “The party I just tried to throw fizzled out, and I’m glad it did. I almost made a big mistake. It’s time I settled down a bit, acted my age, and maybe, just maybe, it is time I thought about my own needs instead of focusing so much on others. I just put myself into a real desperate spot.”
“I had to deal with this problem too,” Fluttershy whispered. “I was no good with ‘me time’ and I burned out. I just wanted to be kind to others and help out. That is why I am so insistent that we have a good time on this vacation… this is my ‘me time’ and I’ve become a little more assertive about getting it.”
“Is this why you vanished to the Crystal Empire for seven months?” Pinkie asked.
Her face turning pink, Fluttershy nodded. In a shrill, squeaky, embarrassed voice, she replied with one word: “Yes.”
“Well… once we get done here, I think that’s where I’ll go. I need to get myself sorted out and I don’t trust myself to do it on my own.” Holding Pebble close, Pinkie Pie leaned into Fluttershy’s embrace and let out a sigh. “Terminal burnout sucks.”
Swallowing a few times, Twilight found her words. “I brought my sleepover book.” Her voice cracked, so she coughed to clear her throat and tried again. “I brought my sleepover book in anticipation of being spontaneous and having all of us together in one room, just like this. We should make the most of this night… right now, when we’re all together. I think we need each other.”
“Twilight’s planned spontaneity,” Applejack grumbled and she grinned at Twilight.
“It’s been a while, Applejack.”
“It sure has, Sugarcube.”
“Maybe this time, after all these years, we can finally get it right.”
“Not a chance of that happening, Rarity.”
“You’re still angry about that game of truth or dare, aren’t you?”
“Not angry, no, just disgusted.”
“Girls!” Twilight raised her voice and it felt like old times. “Girls, behave!”
It was the third and final day of the festival, the end of a long and wonderful weekend. Appleloosa had to get back to work as did Twilight and her friends. The Princess Suite was crowded with sleeping bodies, save two. Amid the sleeping, snoring ponies all piled into the same bed, two figures stood out and both were standing near the window, watching as the sky turned pink.
Spike stood, his front claws resting on the windowsill, and he was just tall enough to peer out. Boomer, beside him, was perched on the windowsill itself, and her face was pressed up against the glass. Her long tail was curled around Spike’s arm and the tip of her tail twitched with happiness.
The two dragons couldn’t be more different; Boomer was a tree dragon and a wyvern by technicality. Spike was an earth dragon and one day, he would grow into a massive, lumbering land drake. Yet, for all of their differences, there were remarkable similarities. They were both dragons raised by ponies, they both struggled to fit in, and both were bonded to their companion equine in such a way that neither understood the connection, but both were aware of it.
Both were the first lines of defense for their bonded equine companion. Spike, a consummate professional, even though he was a baby dragon, micromanaged all of Twilight Sparkle’s affairs. His perfect dragon memory was the real secret behind Twilight’s success as a princess, and it was the two of them working together, covering each other’s strengths and weaknesses, that allowed Ponyville and the surrounding environs to prosper. He protected Twilight from her shortcomings and from bureaucrats wanting to waste her time.
For Boomer, the protection she offered Sumac was more straightforward. She was his literal first line of defense. Boomer was a fire breathing creature made of thick scales, sharp claws, and when she was provoked, she had a mean streak a mile wide, because she was still struggling with the advanced equine concept of ‘being nice.’ Boomer was a dragon, which meant that she was one of nature’s natural jerks. She wasn’t nearly as refined as Spike was.
“I think Twilight needed this trip,” Spike whispered to his adoring coconspirator.
“Yeah?” Intrigued, some of Boomer’s spines rose, an indicator of dragon curiousity if ever there was one.
“Now that I think about it, we all needed this trip.” Spike drummed his claw tips on the windowsill. “Boomer, I’m gonna do something bad.”
“You are?” Boomer asked.
“I am.” Spike nodded and swallowed. “We’ve drifted apart, Boomer.”
“We have?” Eyes blinking, Boomer managed to look quite sad.
“No, not you and I, Boomer… but us. All of us.” Spike gestured at the pile of ponies in the Princess Suite bed. “Boomer, dragons don’t have a roar for what we are, all of us together.
Relieved as much as she was confused, Boomer let out a gasp, pleased to know that she and Spike were still best buddies, but puzzled by Spike’s words. She didn’t quite understand what was going on, but that was okay. Spike was older and he was in charge. She didn’t need to understand what was going on, she only needed to trust in Spike. Trusting in Spike was a good idea, because Lemon Hearts said so, and Lemon Hearts was never wrong.
“I think I’m gonna start filling in time with Twilight’s friends into her schedule and take advantage of the fact that she can’t always remember the little details.” Spike let out a sigh and looked guilty. “If I tell her that she should maybe go to the spa with Rarity on a spur of the moment sort of thing, she always tells me that she can do it tomorrow. And the next day, when I make a suggestion, she says that it can be done tomorrow. Problem is, Rarity leaves for Manehattan. Or Fillydelphia. And tomorrow never comes.” The little dragon let out another dejected sigh. “Twilight never argues with the schedule though. At least, not often. If it’s written in ink, she does it. She just assumes that she told me to ink it in. There is so much power in ink.”
“This is bad?” Boomer asked, flexing her tiny clawed fingers into fists.
“Bad, but good,” Spike replied, his voice strained and cracking as it rose in pitch, but not volume. “It’s a bad thing to do, but I’m doing it for the right reasons… I think. I don’t know, but things can’t keep going on the way that they are. I’m really unhappy, Boomer. They’re my friends too, and I miss them.”
Extending his arm, Spike pointed at Sumac, who was being used as a pillow by Pebble. He looked at them for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and his tail swished from side to side behind him. “Boomer, you would keep them together, even if it meant getting in trouble, right?”
Hunching over, Boomer gave thought to Spike’s words, and she gave her tummy an absentminded scratch. Her head tilted off to one side, her spines twitched a bit, and then she replied, “Trouble with Twinkleshine?”
Cringing, Spike recoiled in horror and he slumped down to make himself look as small, helpless, and harmless as possible. A faint whine of fear could be heard, and Spike clutched his own tail, trying to comfort himself after suffering the terrible thought. With a slow turn of his head, he looked at Boomer, who was still thinking, still pondering.
Some ponies had a reputation.
“I would keep them together,” Boomer whispered to Spike, her claws twitching as she struggled to understand the complex feelings she was experiencing. Feelings were hard, and it was easier to be a jerk. Feelings required hard work, while being a jerk required no effort at all.
Nodding, Spike looked relieved. “That’s what I thought.”
Emerging from the hotel, Twilight Sparkle was surprised that her friends did not immediately rush off to do their own thing. There was a feeling of togetherness now, something that Twilight hadn’t even been aware that was missing. The gang was all here and everything felt good.
Pinkie Pie had her smile, smile, smile and a bit of a pronk in her step. Fluttershy seemed calm, collected, and confident. Rarity didn’t seem so high strung. Pebble wasn’t slouching and she walked with her head up for once, which made Twilight happy, though she couldn’t say why. As for Twilight herself, it felt as though she had been given a temporary reprieve from the crushing weight of the crown upon her head. She had her friends again, and while things weren’t quite like they were in the old days—much had changed and such changes were inevitable—but things were still pretty good.
In fact, things were great.
Twilight was ready to do some princessing after her total failure and breakdown yesterday. It was time to be the princess that the ponies of Appleloosa needed her to be. She felt regal, noble, she felt majestic. Reaching out her wing, she gave Sumac a soft slap to get his attention.
“Stop slouching,” Twilight commanded with a smile, finding it easy to begin her princess duties. A princess’ sorcerer had to look presentable, after all, and being a sullen, moody adolescent was no excuse.
Almost as if on cue, Braeburn approached, his hat pushed down over his eyes. Twilight was ready for… well, anything. After her failure at the anvil ringing competition, Twilight was ready to do anything to make up for it. Hog calling? She could do that, she had Applejack. A fashion review? She had Rarity. A pet show judge… she had Fluttershy. Twilight could do anything, just so long as she had her friends with her.
“Well, ‘allo there, Princess Twilight,” Braeburn drawled. “Ready for the big event?”
Big event? Twilight was ready. She nodded.
“You look eager… I am too.” A worried smile crossed Braeburn’s muzzle. “Cheese Sandwich just skipped town without a word why, so I guess it falls on me to announce the big event. I done reckon I won’t do anything fancy, just announce y’all as the Elements of Harmony.”
“Um, just wondering, what is the big event?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, we’s havin’ us a big ol’ quesadilla eatin’ contest,” Braeburn replied in his thick, syrupy, slow voice.
Twilight’s left eye began twitching. “What?” Her voice was reedy, almost a whine.
“A big ol’ quesadilla eatin’ contest,” Braeburn repeated. “And y’all is expected to participate. Prince Gosling, see, he done got this idea that he wants to showcase the princesses as common ponies, in touch with the common pony folk, and it was his idea to have the Elements of Harmony come to Appleloosa and join our eatin’ contest. Which is why all of you is here. Princess Luna is in Vanhoover right now, for the Flapjack Friendship and Family Festival they have.”
“I am so going to kill that prancing, puffed up peacock!” Twilight’s voice was a squeaky, strained growl. She took a step backwards, and bumped into Fluttershy, who let out a startled squeal of alarm from the sudden, unexpected contact.
“And it goes without saying,” Braeburn continued, “no using magic to cheat, no shrinking the quesadillas down to make them bite sized, no fancy tricks, just eatin’.”
Eye twitching, the corner of her mouth jerking, Twilight’s face took on an expression that Spike hadn’t seen since the Smarty Pants incident, and the little dragon panicked, clutching at his cheeks with his claws. Tugging on his face, helpless, Spike watched as his best friend had a meltdown, knowing that he was powerless to do anything about it.
“Twi?” Rainbow took a step forwards, then took a step backwards, looking fearful.
“Is something wrong?” Braeburn asked as he pushed his hat back.
“Yep!” Pinkie Pie blurted out in response, her voice sounding very chipper. Nimble-quick, she pronked out of the way as Twilight fainted and tumbled over into the dust, crushing Spike beneath her. Being a brave, noble dragon he had tried to save her just as he had tried to save Rarity, and Pinkie Pie figured she owed him a Brave, Noble Dragon Party. “Twilight Sparkle has turophobia!”
“My poor, little Spikey-Wikey!” Rarity laid him out on the bed and stuffed a fluffed-out pillow beneath his head. “Such a perfect gentledragon… to suffer the same indignity… twice… on the same trip...” Of course, she said nothing about how she had been one of the ponies responsible for crushing Spike on this trip.
“I can’t believe that you carried Spike but you made us carry Twilight!” Applejack cried as she dumped Twilight from her back and onto the bed. “Ugh, she weighs a ton! I swear, every year, she gets heavier! Why is that?”
“Alicorns get more durable as they age,” Sumac responded in a calm, nonchalant voice, and the colt was glad to have a chance to show off his knowledge. “The increased density makes them resistant to damage. Princess Celestia says body density is an earth pony power and it is how ponies like Maud and Pebble are nigh invulnerable and can punch through rocks.” Feeling eyes boring into him, the colt turned to look at his filly friend, who had a ferocious stare. “Don’t look at me like that Pebble, when I’m quoting scientific facts.”
“We can be hurt,” Pebble mumbled, “and some of us have fragile egos that we get from our father.” The filly snorted, her eyes narrowed, and she scowled. “Body density… ugh! Disgusting!”
“We have until noon to get Twilight sorted out,” Applejack said, taking charge of the situation. Turning her head about, Applejack eyeballed her own broad, well padded hips. “Well, that explains a few things, I done thought that fancy new scale I bought was a lyin’ to me.”
“No, Applejack, you’ve gotten considerably heavier as you’ve aged, I can’t even lift you with my telekinesis without straining… I, uh… ulp!” Slouching, Sumac tucked his tail between his legs and looked down at the floor, unable to bear Applejack’s suffocating glare.
“Keep talking, Smart Guy,” Applejack said to Sumac as her eyes narrowed and her ears pivoted forwards beneath her hat. “You know, there are times when it just ain’t good to be honest, and it’s better to just shut up.”
“Right,” Sumac squeaked, sounding just like a yearling.
“Me, I just got fat.” Pinkie grinned and leaned up against Applejack’s side. “It’s the sweets. Now I jiggle-wiggle when I pronk.”
“You carry it well, darling.” Rarity had a nervous smile because of this discussion about weight, and she hoped that nopony brought up or discussed her own marshmallowy body, which now required a somewhat larger, but not too much larger dress size. The best defense, Rarity found, was to be pleasant and complimentary.
Rainbow Dash extended a wing and began fanning Twilight with the hopes of reviving her. Twilight’s prone body did nothing to respond to the cooling breeze and the rainbow-maned pegasus looked a little worried. “She freaked out and was too hot. Twilight still isn’t used to her wings and she just doesn’t listen to me about the warning signs.”
“Poor dear, overheating…” Fluttershy also began fanning Twilight, and Spike as well, even though Spike didn’t have problems with the heat. It was just a kind, affectionate gesture.
“So, how are we gonna come together and save Twilight from herself?” Pinkie Pie asked her friends. “Those quesadillas aren’t going to eat themselves!”
Twilight Sparkle seemed to be recovering as she drank some water and Spike the Dragon was no worse for wear after having been crushed for a second time on this trip. Spike looked embarrassed and a bit sheepish. It was one thing to be smushed by your crush, but to Spike, Twilight was like… a sibling. Icky. Twilight on the other hoof, looked haunted as the noontime hour approached.
“So, uh, Applejack, you ready to team up?” Rainbow Dash asked. She seemed more concerned about winning than she did Twilight’s current state of mental health.
“Sorry Dashie, that won’t be happening,” Applejack replied in a slow, apologetic drawl.
“What? Why not? We’re a team, Jackie!” Rainbow stared at her best friend and best rival of many years with a look of astonished disbelief.
“Sugarcube, we was a team.” Applejack’s eyes narrowed and she pulled the hat off of her head, revealing her drooping ears. “I’m sorry, Dash, but I’m gonna pair up with Fluttershy. This ain’t about winning, but I want her to have some fun and I don’t want her to feel like she has no chance at all.”
“Traitor!”
“Shoutin’ it don’t make it so.” Applejack’s expression hardened a bit as her competitive nature manifested. Rainbow Dash was a fine friend, and that was good and all… but Applejack prefered her as part of the competition.
Ears twitching, Pinkie Pie’s gaze darted over to Twilight, and then returned to Rainbow. “Sorry, Rainbow. I think I’ll stick this out with Twilight. She needs me.”
The sound of panic could now be heard in Rainbow’s voice. “Spike?”
“Boomer and I plan to win.” As Spike spoke, Boomer giggled and made rude gestures with two raised middle claws, mimicking the ancient pegasus wing signals for war. Dragons were nature’s jerks and no amount of nurturing against their nature could prevent that.
Looking alarmed, Rainbow’s eyes fell upon Sumac, but she never got a chance to say anything.
“You should know that I’m going with Pebble,” Sumac said to Rainbow Dash, sounding apologetic and fretful. “We also plan to completely crush you with our adolescent appetites. Prepare to be wrecked, Rainbow Dash. It’s nothing equinal, it’s just that you are old and you suck.”
“She stinks like your sheets do on washday,” Pebble deadpanned.
Twilight Sparkle choked on her water and it went shooting out of her nose.
“Savage!” Applejack cried, not sure whom she should feel sorry for.
Mouth falling open, Rainbow Dash looked indignant as she glared at both Pebble and Sumac, unable to believe the sheer audacity that the pair of them had to talk that way. Some ponies were just poor sports. Her lip curled back in a snarl at the dastardly duo, she shook her hoof at them, and then she cried, “Fine! Rarity then!”
“Oh, sure, darling… as if I want to team up with you… what was that horrendous thing you had to say about ponies who are picked last in sports?” Rarity let out a haughty sniff and turned away. “I am forced to accept of course, as we are expected to compete. Harrumph!”
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Rainbow Dash went to hug Rarity, who resisted at first, but then gave in with grudging acceptance. Rarity’s cold affection warmed, then she gave in and began stroking Rainbow Dash’s mane, trying to smooth it, which was probably Rarity’s single most affectionate gesture. Rarity only fixed the manes of those she loved, and Rainbow was dear to her heart.
In the times of greatest trouble, it fell upon Pinkie Pie to pick up Twilight Sparkle. That was just how it was, Pinkie Pie accepted it, and took it as a sign that the universe favoured her as Twilight Sparkle’s bestest friend. There was no need to rub the noses of her friends in this fact, but Pinkie was pleased that the universe had chosen her.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was a big, hopeless, nerdy, introverted, book-reading dork and what she needed in her life was less lists and more laughter. And maybe therapy, but that was the realm of Princess Cadance, and not Pinkie Pie. Focusing upon the task at hoof, Pinkie Pie pushed the distractions from her mind. The noontime hour approached. High noon.
It sounded so dramatic!
“Twilight, what happened to you?” After a hot, quick minute, Pinkie added, “Don’t play dumb or else I’ll play rough.”
“I can’t talk about it,” Twilight responded as she shrank back on the bed where she sat, all too aware that her friends, the two mouthy savages, and two dragons were now staring at her.
“What happened, Twilight? Don’t make me keep asking. As your bestest friend, I have ways of making you talk. I really, really love you and I want to help you.” Pinkie Pie, sitting on the bed, leaned in until she was snoot to snoot with Twilight Sparkle. Reaching out her front hoof, she booped Twilight on the nose to show that she meant business, and would play rough if she had to.
If a Pie booped you, they meant business, and Sumac could testify to that fact. He pulled Pebble a little closer, his face solemn, knowing that Pinkie was about to work her magic. Pinkie Pie was a witchy mare who worked in mysterious ways, something both Sumac and Pebble could attest to.
“Pinkie Pie, don’t do this to me,” Twilight begged.
Her eyes darting around, Pinkie Pie saw her friends nod one by one and the committee formed a silent majority. Reaching out, Pinkie Pie put her foreleg around Twilight’s neck, a firm but gentle reminder that right now, her friends loved her and wanted what was best for her. It was time to make Twilight better and make her face one of her silly hangups so that she could be happy.
Pinkie Pie had come a long, long way, and was now a lot more confident doing this. She had learned to be gentle, to be subtle, and now, it was just something she did. Typically to Tarnish when he was having one of his moments, but also to Pebble. Helping ponies smile through the pain was just one of many services that Pinkie Pie provided.
“Twilight, you might as well tell me what happened.” She watched as her friend of many years began chewing on her lip and Pinkie Pie gave Twilight’s neck a squeeze.
“M-m-my mother told me not to do it,” Twilight stammered, her words hesitant and squeaky. “She told me it would happen, and it did… ‘They’re just so cheesy,’ she said to me, and now, those words haunt me… she was right… she was right.” The apprehensive, anxious, anxiety-ridden alicorn began to rock herself back and forth.
Nopony laughed.
With a little moan of worry, Pinkie Pie pulled Twilight into a hug before she rocked herself off of the edge of the bed. Feeling it was the right thing to do, she kissed Twilight on the cheek and for a second, there was an electrical connection, like static cling on blankets just pulled from the dryer.
“I loved quesadillas,” Twilight confessed in a hissy, sibilant, almost serpentine whisper. “I fixed them in the same way that Sumac fixes grilled cheese sandwiches… I didn’t need a pan or a spatula… I could just make one without interrupting my studies too much.”
“Oh, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie sighed, seeing where this was going.
“B-b-b-but just like my mother said would happen, there was an accident!” Closing her eyes, Twilight clung to Pinkie, rubbing her forelegs over Pinkie Pie’s soft, plushy curves and seeking comfort. “All the cheese oozed out and landed right inside my book… and I could just hear my mother shouting, ‘I told you so!’ It was awful.”
“Did your mother actually punish you?” Pinkie asked.
It took a while to answer. Twilight was far too busy rubbing her forelegs up and down Pinkie Pie’s well padded ribs, an act that caused Rarity’s eyebrow to arch as she prodded Rainbow Dash. “Well, no, she never found out I did it. I hid it from her. I was so ashamed though… I hid it from her and I studied, and I studied, and I tried to find a way to clean up my own mess… Cadance found out…” The confession just trailed off and she pressed her face into Pinkie’s neck. “She’s so nice, and soft, and pink, just like you,” she whispered.
For reasons she could not explain, Pinkie Pie’s heart was thrashing against her ribs and it was difficult to breathe.
“I was able to clean it up… I cleaned it up and I made the mess go away… it went away…” Twilight was squeezing Pinkie Pie with enough force now that rolls of velvety, silken flesh collected in her embrace and oozed like pink frosting through her encircled forelegs with a delightful slowness. “I still feel so guilty… it makes me panic now and I just feel so disgusted with myself. Cadance was there to comfort me though… she was there… but she can’t be here now.”
Rainbow Dash and Rarity turned to look at one another while Twilight continued groping Pinkie Pie in the most arousing therapy session ever.
“In my dreams, my mother just kept lecturing me, over and over, saying, ‘I told you so!’ and, ‘They’re just so cheesy.’ I thought the book was ruined. I thought I had ruined a book. It was so awful.” Shuddering, Twilight somehow redoubled her grip around Pinkie Pie, whose eyes were now bulging from advanced alicorn affection. “I even had dreams that my father spanked me when he found out, and Cadance… Cadance would come and rescue me and she would toss the mean old tyrant down the stairs… my father never spanked me, and he was always nice, but these were dreams and they didn’t make sense. Cadance was just so perfect, and she rescued me. I was like a princess in a tower and she saved me and Smarty Pants from the tyrannical Sir Spanksalot.”
“Um…” Pinkie Pie had the distinct feeling that there was a lot more to this than just quesadillas. She also had trouble not melting into the bed, because Twilight was doing something wonderful to her fat rolls, and Pinkie did not want this to stop, because this was the greatest thing ever. Gasping, Pinkie was having some trouble breathing, and she gave Twilight a reassuring pat.
Twilight continued squeezing Pinkie Pie like a squishy stress ball.
“Um, Twilight… I think it is going to be okay… you can stop punishing yourself. You can—OH!—stop punishing yourself because everything is okay, your parents love you, and you learned some new magic to make everything better. You can go back to loving quesadillas again without worry… they, uh, ooooh, Twilight… they, uh, uuuuh, yeah, right there, along my spine, Twilight… you have nothing to worry about.”
Freezing, Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, blinked once, and said, “You’re right… I don’t.”
“That got weird,” Sumac whispered to Pebble.
She nodded.
“My glasses fogged over.” The colt sat there on the floor, his hind legs tucked together, and he sat with rigid, unyielding posture. He looked over at Rainbow Dash and Rarity, who were whispering something to one another, then back at Pebble. His fillyfriend was plump and squeezably soft. If he wanted, he could squeeze her just like how Twilight had squeezed Pinkie. His tail swished over the floor as his dock twitched and he thought about all of the ways he wanted to squeeze Pebble.
He would start by squeezing himself between Pebble’s thunderous thighs…
As the noontime hour drew ever closer, Twilight Sparkle was not the least bit panicked. She was feeling good about… well, everything. Pinkie Pie had somehow fixed her brain, which Twilight might have worried about under normal circumstances, but this was a much needed vacation and normal circumstances did not apply.
Rainbow Dash and Rarity kept whispering to one another, no doubt discussing their strategy and planning how to win the quesadilla eating contest. Twilight was okay with that, paired up with Pinkie, she felt that there were some good odds that she and Pinkie could beat Rarity and Rainbow Dash.
Applejack’s hat circled the floor, like a shark patrolling the ocean, and a long, prehensile tail trailed out behind it. Twilight smiled, Boomer was no doubt playing submarine or something. Lifting her head, Twilight looked over in Pinkie Pie’s direction.
Sunlight poured in through the window, surrounding Pinkie Pie in a beautiful, rosy, golden glow. She was staring out the window, smiling, her body bouncing to music that only Pinkie Pie could hear. A hot flush, almost painful, took over Twilight’s face and crept down her neck. She thought of another pink pony and the thought was almost too much to bear. The quesadilla incident, as Twilight called it, was when little filly Twilight knew.
She had a crush on her foalsitter.
The thought went through her mind without panic. She didn’t freak out, she didn’t start screaming, and she didn’t cringe from the overwhelming sense of awkward embarrassment that usually followed such thoughts. Much to her surprise, she was okay with it. She was okay with it and everything was fine, just like how she was now fine with quesadillas.
No doubt, she had avoided the cheesy, delightful treats because of some sort of psychological aversion, just like how she avoided thinking about her crush on Cadance. It was time to grow up and get over that. The two events were forever linked together in her mind. There were other pink ponies in the world… and orange ones too… there was a whole world of ponies available to her… and quesadillas.
Twilight was almost one-hundred percent absolutely certain that she had shouted Cadance’s name when she had drunkenly masturbated next to Rainbow Dash in the bed. It was time for a long talk with Rainbow Dash, maybe her most loyal friend could help her set straight her sexual priorities.
It was time for that next step… those dangerous, dreadful steps into a perilous romance…
But that would come later, for now, it was time to eat.
High noon. It had to be one-hundred and eleventy degrees outside, or more. Following Rainbow Dash’s advice, Twilight kept two damp towels tucked and hidden away beneath her wings to help keep her cool. She walked towards the tables like a prisoner towards the chopping block and all of her friends formed an impromptu parade behind her.
She was having second thoughts already, now that she had seen one. They’re just so cheesy. Her mother’s prophetic words haunted her, made her soul shrivel in fear. Hesitating, Twilight felt cold prickles crawling over the flesh of her neck and she let out an involuntary wicker of fear. She thought she was okay with this, that she was over this, that everything would be okay because she had faced the issue.
A muzzle tickled the base of her ear, and she knew that it had be a pink one. “Twilight, there is a reason it is called a phobia. It’s an irrational fear, sillyhead.”
The words were comforting, but not enough. She froze in place, unable to move, and she retreated into her own logic. Pizzas were fine, she didn’t mind those and ate them all the time. Cheesy hayburgers were great, and she was constantly being photographed out in public pigging out on those when she was stressed. And she was always stressed—thus, she was always getting photographed. It was a distressing, almost paradoxical problem that had no easy solutions, other than becoming a hermit or a telegraph sex operator.
“Pinkie, no amount of giggling at the ghosties is going to fix this,” Twilight whispered to the pink mare standing beside her. “I thought I was okay. I thought everything was all better. I mean, I tackled the problem and admitted what it was. Why is this so hard?”
Twilight wondered if it was even turophobia if it was only triggered by quesadillas. Quesadillaphobia? Was that even a word? She didn’t know. Right now, at this moment, she would rather face other fears, other terrors, like mixing chocolate ice cream with vanilla. Twilight loved vanilla ice cream, it was her favourite, and she tolerated chocolate ice cream, but she found it was a little too exciting for her tastes. Vanilla was the ice cream of choice for sane, reasonable, responsible ponies who had their heads screwed on straight, and Twilight was a sane, reasonable, responsible pony who had her head screwed on straight.
But mixing them together in the same bowl? No. No. No way. That was just a little too much excitement in one day, and she didn’t like it, not one bit. Just thinking about it left her flustered and a bit panicky. Murmuring to herself, Twilight closed her eyes and tried not to think of neapolitan.
“Stop thinking about mixing ice cream,” Pinkie Pie whispered.
How? Twilight bit down on her bottom lip and began chewing. How? At some point in her life, Twilight just had to understand how Pinkie Pie did what she did. Twilight found that she needed the great mystery that was Pinkie Pie, the one unfathomable thing that she didn’t understand. Of all of the great unknowable mysteries that could be found in the world, Pinkie Pie was the most intriguing. She was the great unknown in Twilight’s life, a mysterious book that begged to be read, but could not be translated.
Bowing her head, Twilight Sparkle allowed herself to be led forward by Pinkie Pie…
“—and some of the quesadillas will be hot!” Braeburn warned, his voice amplified by the sound system. “They will be delivered to your plates by a small army of helpful pegasus ponies. The judges have cast a few spells on the plates to help us keep count. The contest will go on as long as it needs to, until there is a clear winner.”
Twilight was about to say something, she was about to tell Pinkie that she couldn’t go through with this, but she felt a squeeze on her fetlock. Turning her head, she saw Pinkie Pie looking at her, and her face was solemn. She saw Pinkie inhale, and for a moment, Twilight felt her throat grow tight.
“Everything is gonna be okay, Twilight. For the both of us. I have to face my fear too, just like you have to face yours. When this is over, we’ll talk, and maybe you can help me with my problem. Everything is gonna be fine, though, just you wait and see.”
Being one of the guests of honour wasn’t helping at all, and Twilight was certain that everypony was watching her, judging her, ridiculing her for her absurd phobia of ooey, gooey, melty cheese inside of a toasted tortilla. A bowl of guacamole was plunked down in front of her and Twilight almost jumped right out of her skin.
Why guacamole? she asked herself.
Lubrication, the voice of her logic replied. It will help the quesadillas go down, and later, it’ll help them come out. You’re gonna have more toots and brassy notes than a burro mariachi band, Señora Sharty Pants.
Gritting her teeth, Twilight wished her logic would go and fronk off. Since when had logic ever done anything for her? Logic was a fronking ridiculous and illogical concept for equines anyway. The corner of her eye twitched and one fuzzy ear bobbed from side to side like a manic metronome. What need did she have of logic? She was a colourful, magical, one-horned, flying purple pony princess with a rabid fear of mixing ice creams together… when she should just be eating grass, hay, and oats. Logic did not apply here, it was not welcome, it was not wanted. Phobias were a consequence of daring to have a cultured palate. It was time to go back to happy horsie food.
Twilight whinnied, wishing she could be a happy horsie.
“Jackie, I’m scared…”
“I am too, Dashie… maybe it’ll be a soft break and she’ll just sit there and drool for a while.”
“Are we that lucky, Jackie?”
“I dunno, Dash, I dunno.”
Talking about the monster and facing the monster were two entirely different things. Rocking back and forth in her seat, Twilight stared down at the steaming quesadillas on her plate and tried to ignore the sounds of ponies eating all around her. Talking about the monster was not as easy as facing the monster, nope.
All around her, rivalries played out. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were busy stuffing their faces, smacking their lips, and eating quesadillas. They would never be happy horsies, no, never. No, they were evolving, with each bite of quesadilla, with each smear of guacamole, they were evolving, changing, becoming Equus Crepitatus. The dreaded Break Windigos. Chaotic, demon-wind spirits.
Grinning, Twilight’s eyes drifted in different directions as her head bobbed up and down.
Sumac and Pebble were giving the adults around them a run for their bits. Pretty much all of Ponyville suspected that Sumac had four hollow legs as well as a dimensional void stashed somewhere inside of his skinny, scrawny frame. Pebble was a machine when it came to eating and she crammed in whole quesadillas slathered in chunky green guacamole.
A few seats down, Flicker and Hennessy were engaged in a fierce competition against all comers, and the residents of Appleloosa were cheering on the muscle-bound brute that gobbled two quesadillas at a time. Not far away, Piper was screaming at Flicker to pace himself if he wanted to win this, and her aggression had contorted her face into something frightful, something unnerving. Piper was all murderous fury packed into a rail thin, scholarly body.
Rarity, her face smeared with bright green guacamole, was somehow keeping pace with Rainbow Dash. The marshmallowy little mare grunted between bites and her narrowed blue eyes were fierce as she glared at both Fluttershy and Applejack. Fluttershy had her eyes on her plate, not on the crowd, and the pegasus mare’s dainty nature had vanished. She was a snarling, growling pegasus warrior, come to destroy all things cheesy. Her snapping jaws ripped quesadillas apart—she did not take bites, no—and picante sauce dribbled from her muzzle like blood as she continued to disembowel her prey.
With a demented giggle, Twilight gave into her madness.
The first bite was an explosion of cheese that spurted into her mouth. All of the joy of her youth, previous to the incident, came back to Twilight in a flood. Cooking a quesadilla was considered little filly Twilight Sparkle’s first real grown up act. She could cook a meal and feed herself, she didn’t need grown ups telling her what to do anymore. Tears streamed down Twilight’s cheeks and her breath whistled through her nostrils as a hot, steaming load of cheese flooded into her mouth and tickled the back of her throat, almost making her gag. Twilight took it like a champ, just like she had as a filly, and continued, licking her lips.
This was bliss. Wrapping your lips around hot, toasted happiness, followed by the sensation of the hot, sticky, clingy mess being blasted into your mouth. Twilight savoured the moment, giving her quesadilla a squeeze as she licked the hot, moist, stiff edges of the tortilla, her tongue plundering into its depths, and she was rewarded with even more of the quesadillas’ hot, ooey-gooey liquid treat, which coated her tongue in long, stringy strands.
Pulling away, she gazed into the cheesy depths. How many years had it taken to rediscover what joy there could be hidden inside of a toasted tortilla. Oh cruel, needless misunderstanding! Oh, stubborn, self-willed exile from the cheesy teat! Two onion-scented tears trickled down the sides of her muzzle to mingle with picante and sour cream. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. She had won the victory over herself. She loved cheesy quesadillas.
Moaning with pleasure, Twilight gave herself into indulgence.
After waddling up the stairs, Sumac huffed and puffed his way down the hall to the Princess Suite. A trip to the outhouse had done nothing to ease his discomfort and the little colt was both ecstatic and miserable at the same time. Halfway down the hall, he saw Pebble, which made breathing just a little more difficult.
He stopped and tried not to think about his distended stomach.
“Sumac.” Pebble sounded as though she was having some trouble breathing.
“Pebble.” Lifting his left front hoof, Sumac waved, feeling all dorky and not knowing why.
“I was just heading out back…” Pebble’s confession trailed off when she realised that colts didn’t want to think about fillies pooping. Or maybe they did. It was just too disgusting for her to think about. Colts could be so gross, but there was something intriguing to Pebble about letting Sumac watch her poop and now, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“And I just came back in,” Sumac replied as he thought about what sort of interesting faces Pebble might make when she was pooping. He felt his ears grow warm and unable to stop himself, he grinned. “Number two.”
“You’re so mature… it keeps me infatuated with you, but I keep having lengthy discussions with my mother as to why we both love dopes.”
“No, Pebble, we’re number two.”
“Now is not the time to be calling me Pebby Poops, Spunkpuddle.”
“Pebble”—when she blinked her eyes at him and he saw mischief, Sumac relaxed a little but continued with his words—“we scored second place. We should be proud. I really hope you won’t mope over this.”
“We were destroyed by Fluttershy. My feelings on this subject are confusing. On one hoof, I wanted to win. On the other hoof, it’s Fluttershy. She cried because she won.” Pebble shuffled around and made little hoofy kicks as her tail swished from side to side.
Stepping forwards, Sumac thought about what Applejack had said, about making Pebble feel special. She was looking at him right now with wide, but sleepy looking eyes, and she reminded him of her mother. Another step closer and Pebble’s muzzle was now inches away from his. Tilting his head, Sumac realised that at some point, Pebble had reached almost equal height with him, but that was okay because fillies matured faster than colts and he had plenty of time to get taller, but he got to enjoy the fruits of Pebble’s rapid maturity now.
“Are you about to kiss me?” Pebble asked.
“I was thinking about it,” Sumac replied. “I want to kiss you passionately on the lips… and then, when I’m done, I’m gonna move up and kiss your belly button.”
Pebble’s nostrils widened and her sides bellowed outwards as she made a sharp inhale. It was obvious to anypony that knew her well that she was struggling to maintain her mother’s deadpan expression. “Fantastic. I have to go and pinch a loaf and my pervy coltfriend wants to kiss me.”
“I could come and hold your hoof,” Sumac offered.
Snorting, Pebble shoved him away and the corners of her mouth kept being tugged upwards. “You just want to see my cutie mark, you cad.”
“Well, duh.” Sumac closed the distance once more and gave Pebble his best rakish grin. “We’ve raised a dragon together, we’ve been the best of friends for the longest time, I have a little piece of your soul that you gave me after most of mine got stolen by my mother, and I played a game of poker with Pale to free you from the realm of the dead. I think it’s about time I saw your cutie mark. I’m owed.”
“Hah, no.” Then, with predatory half-open eyes, Pebble leaned in, pressed her muzzle against Sumac’s, and kissed him with all of the savage, clumsy, awkward ferocity that a horny adolescent filly besieged by hormones could muster. Being an earth pony, Pebble could muster quite a bit.
The colt returned the kiss with slobbery enthusiasm and he let out a nervous squeal of surprise when Pebble’s tongue slipped between his slurping lips. It remained for only a second, a stealthy, well-muscled invader that shocked and surprised him by licking the roof of his mouth, then it was gone. Pebble pulled away with a moist slurp and Sumac saw that she had a coy, almost nonexistent smile.
“I’m gonna go drop a deuce. Don’t wait for me…” And with that, Pebble trotted away with her tail hiked high in the air. “‘Cause I love to see you smile, smile, smile… yes I do…”
Sumac watched her go, feeling a peculiar feeling, and wanting to follow her.
Twilight, sprawled on the bed, watched as several ponies darted away from the door. They had stood with their ears pressed to the door, but now, the door was about to open. Feeling bloated and full, Twilight watched the door open and Sumac stood in the doorway, looking around with one suspicious raised eyebrow.
“HAH HAH! YOU GOT WRECKED!” Within a split second of uttering these words, Fluttershy covered her mouth with her front hooves and looked mortified. She let out an alarmed squeal and her body posture became that of extreme submissiveness.
“Way to go, ‘Shy. You’ve successfully dominated a foal and then gloated about it.” Applejack, now laying on the bed beside Twilight, had been standing with her ear pressed to the door just a few seconds before. “Are you proud?”
“Yes!” Looking shocked by her own admission, Fluttershy stood there with wide eyes, then wiggle-waddled over to give Sumac a hug. She sat down on the floor, hugging him, somehow looking both apologetic and dominant. “Oh, Sumac, I’m so sorry, I’m not used to winning anything.”
“All of you were standing at the door, eavesdropping,” Sumac said as he allowed himself to be hugged.
“No,” Applejack replied, which was technically true. Not at all of them had been standing at the door, just some of them. Her muzzle crinkled as she turned to Twilight, just daring her to say something.
As for Twilight, she didn’t say anything, she didn’t feel the need. She was still experiencing the afterglow of her cheese-gasm. She had only eaten one quesadilla, yes, just one, and then she had been overcome with emotion. What a glorious experience it had been though, and now, she was free to experience the cheesy indulgence at any time.
Turning her head, Twilight glanced over at Rainbow Dash, who was sleeping on a cot in the corner, with two cuddly little dragons. The lithe little pegasus had become a fuel reactor, and was now converting biomass into a high octane gas. Sighing, Twilight admired the adorable sight of Rainbow snuggling with Spike and Boomer.
She came, she saw, she had conquered the cheese quesadilla.
“I really liked the ones with those paper thin slices of green apple and that Fancy white cheese,” Applejack said as she rolled over onto her side. “Those is perfect and I’m gonna make ‘em at home.”
Nodding, Twilight half-listened, but her attention was focused on Fluttershy and Sumac. It was obvious that Sumac didn’t want to be hugged or cuddled, but was bearing it for Fluttershy’s sake. Fluttershy looked somewhat distressed because of her competitive nature surfacing. The bed creaked and Twilight felt herself being pulled into the depression caused by Applejack, who had rolled over against her. Looking over her withers, she smiled at the pony snuggling up against her side.
“Twi, this was just what we needed,” Applejack said in a low voice as both she and Twilight watched Pinkie Pie join Fluttershy and Sumac. “We all just get so caught up in our own lives now… some of us more than others. I don’t want this trip to end. We’re all gonna go home and go our separate ways. Rarity has to be in Manehattan or somewhere in just a few days. Rainbow Dash is planning some trip with Daring Do. And you, you’ve got to do your princessing stuff.”
“I plan to have Spike clear my schedule so I can stay home for a bit,” Twilight confessed to her friend in a soft whisper. “Lady Lulamoon can run Ponyville for just a little bit longer. There’s some things I need to do for myself, Applejack.”
“Twi…”
“Yes, Applejack?”
“If’n you can forgive me for stickin’ my snoot where it don’t belong, Twi—”
“Forgiven,” Twilight said to her dear friend.
“Be careful with Pinkie,” Applejack said in a very low whisper after she pressed her muzzle close to Twilight’s ear. “She’s on the rebound and she’s gonna hold all of this hurt inside of her and pretend like everything is fine. And then one day, at some point in the future, it’s all gonna come out. The best thing you can do for her right now is just be her friend. Give her a shoulder to cry on. If’n something comes from that, so much the better. But don’t try to organise no relationship and start setting up checklists of things you need to do for progress.”
“Okay, Applejack.” Twilight was surprised by how subdued her own voice sounded.
“And Twi…” Applejack’s whisper was halting and hesitant. “Twilight, sometimes, sometimes the things we hold most near and dear to our hearts are the things we don’t understand. And if’n we try to understand them, if’n we unravel the mystery, they stop being special to us. Once you find out a music box is just a collection of cogs, springs, and gears, it stops being so magical and just becomes something mundane. If you pull it apart, it stops making music. What I’m sayin is, Twilight, is that you shouldn’t try too hard to understand Pinkie, or else you’ll ruin what makes her special.”
“Thanks, Applejack.”
“Don’t mention it, Twi.”
It would be time to go soon. There was a sleeper car reserved for them that would be leaving on the evening train. There was all the usual frantic going about and getting everything packed up. Twilight wasn’t worried too much, as she hadn’t brought much. She had brought two dragons and one nephew, all of which were accounted for.
“Play kitty with me!” Boomer begged as she rubbed up against Sumac.
“No! I’m too big to play kitty with you.”
“Meow?”
“No!”
Twilight smiled and wondered if perhaps, she should have played more games with Spike. She moved over to where Spike was, sat down beside him, and pulled him close with her wing. He was marking off a checklist of accomplishments, things that had been achieved here in Appleloosa. The list was long and had quite a few checkmarks.
“Hey, Spike, got a moment?”
“For you, always.”
“Spike… how would you feel about me going on a few dates with Seville and Pinkie Pie?”
Looking up from his checklist, Spike looked Twilight right in the eye. “Are you asking me for my permission or something?”
“No.” Twilight reconsidered. “Maybe?” After a bit more consideration, she shrugged. “I don’t know, Spike.” She gave thought to Spike’s feelings and how all of this might impact him. “I just want to make sure that you’re okay with it. I know that you are very close with both Seville and Pinkie—”
“And you plan to marry them?” Spike asked.
“What? No!” Twilight began to sputter and she turned away from Spike’s solemn, penetrating stare. “Gah, Spike… no… I mean, not right away, it’s just… just… I sorta figured that it was time for me to grow up a bit and learn how to date, and I needed a safe space with ponies I trust to do that, and Seville and I are close friends, and Pinkie Pie and I are close friends, and Spike… I’m not even one hundred percent certain of my sexual orientation.”
“Oh.” Spike blinked.
“I’m gonna need you, Spike. You know all of my warning signs. All of my triggers. You know how to keep me safe from myself. You proved that with the, uh, Smarty Pants Incident. I have some anxiety issues, and while I trust Seville and Pinkie Pie, I trust you most of all.”
“I understand.” Reaching up, Spike grabbed Twilight’s ear and gave it a tug. He then stroked her cheek and gave it an affectionate pat. “I can run interference if I need to.”
“Thanks, Spike.” Twilight paused and and her expression became one of pain. She swallowed, lowered her head down a bit, and whispered, “You know, Spike, without you, I think I might have been a mentally stunted shut-in. You’ve always been the one that has pulled me out of my comfort zone and then kept me going while I panicked and acclimatised to uncomfortable surroundings.”
Not knowing what to say or how to respond, Spike put his arms around Twilight’s neck and hugged her. The pair of them sat there and watched as Boomer followed Sumac around and acted like a kitty. Both of them began to remember simpler times, when Spike was a baby dragon without complications and Twilight was a little filly that so desperately wanted to understand the world.
Boomer belched, and because her tummy was still far too full, she set Sumac on fire. The colt didn’t panic, not in the slightest, and he was quick to use an extinguishing spell before real harm befell him. Then, while Spike and Twilight watched, Sumac—still smouldering—pulled Boomer into a hug to comfort her before she started crying.
“Hey Spike… if you’ve ever wondered what friendship looks like in action…” Twilight Sparkle pointed with her hoof at Sumac and Boomer. “That’s us. That’s how the world sees you and I.”
“One dragon, one pony, best friends.” Spike gave Twilight’s neck a squeeze. “You know, Twilight, it might be nice to have Seville around in the mornings. He can cook and he makes the best orange juice.”
“Spike…”
“Just saying, you have the ways and the means to make him stay till breakfast—”
“Spike!”
“—and you know how hungry you get when you stay up all night reading.”
Squinting, Twilight wasn’t certain how innocent Spike was. Her brows furrowed, but she took him at his word and gave him a nod. She felt an odd sense of relief knowing that Spike was still innocent.
“We’re gonna need an early warning system though, like Starlight Glimmer’s ribbon hung on the door when Sunburst visits. I don’t want to walk in on you and Seville or Pinkie—”
The train made its way north via north-northwest, rocking back and forth on the tracks. Twilight enjoyed the gentle sway, she found it comforting, and to her it felt like the rocking of a cradle. Being rocked in a cradle was nice, but Twilight had a secret; she thought that perhaps, maybe, rocking a cradle of her own might be nicer.
Being an aunt had made her grow up quite a bit, it had forced her from her comfort zone, and she discovered the great joys of making friends with ponies not your own age. Her nieces and her nephew had given her a new perspective on friendship, as had her students, all of them. Each one was a treasure in their own right, with something unique to them to teach her.
With her head resting against the glass window, Twilight hoped that this time, things would work out for Trixie and that there would soon be a new niece or nephew running around. Being with Trixie through those agonising moments of heartbreak had changed Twilight profoundly and she now had a new perspective on the sanctity of life. Sighing, Twilight tried not to think about it too much. She had mourned the loss of those potential nieces and nephews with Trixie and moved on, just as Trixie had. It had been another friendship lesson, one that Twilight had written a bestseller book about—bonding through loss.
Feeling the soft touch of a foreleg resting upon her own, she glanced over and looked at Rarity, who took the opportunity to lean up against her. She and Rarity had bonded through mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder, making their bond special and unique. It too, had inspired Twilight to write a bestselling novel. Mental illness had a tough bit of social stigma, there was a fight waiting to happen, and Twilight planned further salvos in the future to aid in Cadance’s crusade.
“Applejack never learns, darling.” Rarity nodded her head in Applejack’s direction.
Blinking, Twilight glanced over at Applejack, who was once again playing poker with Sumac and losing. Twilight smiled at the look of frustration on Applejack’s face, which she found quite amusing, and was somewhat distracted by the sensation of Rarity breathing on her.
“Sumac was born for a life of graft,” Rarity whispered into Twilight’s ear, causing it to flicker. “It’s amazing that Trixie has done as much as she has with him. He’s a rogue, but a charming one.”
“I dunno, I think Applejack is smarter than you give her credit,” Twilight whispered back to Rarity. “I also think that Applejack knows exactly what she is doing.”
“How so?” Rarity’s lips puckered into a fine moue.
“Sumac can’t lose when he’s gambling,” Twilight began, and she paused for a moment to pick her next words with great care. After some time spent considering what to say, she continued, “He can lose to another pony with a talent for graft that matches or exceeds his own, but ponies like Applejack don’t stand a chance. And I think Applejack is smart enough to have figured that out by now. I don’t think that Applejack is trying to win at all.”
“Then what is she doing?” Rarity asked, breathing the words.
“I think what Applejack is doing is trying to make Sumac a gracious winner. He’s a good colt, but he can be a little smug and a whole lot smarmy. He gets that from his mama, Trixie. Now more so than ever because he has a little piece of her soul. Sumac can’t help but win, and he’s not a good winner.”
“But Applejack is teaching him to be.” Rarity’s eyebrow arched as she cottoned on.
“Yes.” Twilight nodded.
“I see.” Rarity rubbed her foreleg over Twilight’s as she continued to lean up against her dear friend. “Twilight… we can be more than our cutie marks, right?”
Turning her head, Twilight looked Rarity in the eye.
“I can’t seem to stop whatever it is I’m becoming. I keep taking on more and more, chasing the next rung of success, and I just can’t seem to be happy with where I am. I am in a very good place, but it is just not enough. I feel this rush of happiness, but it only lasts for a while and then I feel the itch to keep going. Every day, I lose just a little bit more of myself, and I know for certain that I am losing my connection to all of you. Last year, I spent more days away from Ponyville than in Ponyville by a very large margin, according to my dayplanner. Sweetie Belle spends more time in my home than I do.”
Twilight worried, fearing that Rarity would make her mascara run if this kept up. She didn’t know what to say or how to respond to the mare leaning up against her. Twisting off to one side, Twilight reached out, touched Rarity’s neck, ran her hoof up along the graceful curve, paused for a moment along the corner of her jaw, and then she stroked her best friend’s cheek.
She watched Rarity shiver a bit in response.
Pulling her hoof away from Rarity’s cheek, she gestured over at Applejack and Sumac. “With our dear friends and family, anything is possible.”
