Chapter 1: Romance
Dear Terramar, wrote Scootaloo. She chewed on the end of the quill, looking out the window of the fifth-floor dorm room she shared with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Thick snow swirled outside, covering Canterlot.
Subtle, be subtle! She couldn't just write I'm sick of pretending we're just friends. I want to officially be your special somepony and I want to have a special somegriff! No, she needed to be... smooth. Adult. Mature.
She continued writing:
Thank you so much for the birthday card. But, you silly seahorse, my birthday is the third of next month, not the third of this month!
So my birthday's over spring break this year. I think Manehattan College is on the same schedule as we are. Are you going home to Mt. Aris?
I have an idea. This year, I asked for bits instead of presents. I looked at Mt. Aris hotels and train prices. Train tickets aren't bad, but hotels are expensive. Anyway, if I'm careful with my money, I can spend two days and one night in Mt. Aris and take a night train back to Ponyville. If you can play tour guide, I want to see your homes again! I haven't been there since the other Crusaders and I helped you on that mission nine years ago.
Let me know what you think!
Your friend,
Scootaloo.
Yeah... yeah, that was good. Better than the ten crumpled-up drafts in her wastebasket. The part about the hotels and the night train should get even through Terramar's head and he would offer Scootaloo a guest bedroom in his mom's or dad's houses.
She put the letter in an envelope and stamped it.
"Writing another letter to Terramar?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Yeah. How did you know that?"
"I can smell the puddle in your chair from here," said Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo waved and closed the door behind Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. She turned around and looked at the mess in her aunt's Ponyville living room: wrapping paper, dirty plates. Frosting on the walls.
"Thanks for a great party, Aunt Holiday, Auntie Lofty!" Scootaloo went to the closet and grabbed a broom, tucking it under her left wing. "I'll get cleaning. Dinky's mom..."
"Slow down there, slugger," Lofty said, and sidled up to Scootaloo, resting a wing over her back. "Go sit on the couch for a second."
Scootaloo looked at Lofty, then at Holiday, and flicked her ears. She leaned the broom against the wall and hopped up on the couch, wrapping her tail around her hooves. "What's up?"
"First of all," Holiday said, sitting on Scootaloo's left, "we'll clean up the mess. Your train leaves at four in the morning. You need to get to bed."
"It's okay," Scootaloo said. "I can sleep on the train."
"And second," Lofty said, sitting on Scootaloo's right, "we want to talk to you for a minute. Serious talk. Grown up talk."
Scootaloo swallowed and nodded. "Okay."
"Your friend Terramar," Lofty said.
"We like him," Holiday said. "He's a nice young stallion."
Scootaloo nodded and raised one eyebrow.
"You're in love with him," Lofty said.
"I never said that!"
"You've been in love with him for years," Lofty continued, "but... you don't really know him. You love the idea of loving him."
"We've met up eight times," Scootaloo said. "Since he moved to Manehattan for school, and I went to Canterlot—"
"Our point is," Lofty said, "that you two know each other, but not very well."
"You've been pen-pals for over nine years now," Holiday said, "but that's not the same as knowing each other."
Scootaloo sat silently.
"And..." Lofty said. "Keep in mind that even if you two do become an item, it might not last."
"Who said I want to be his special somepony?" Scootaloo huffed. "Maybe I just like Mount Aris and he's a good tour guide."
Lofty and Holiday laughed.
"You don't need to say it, slugger," Lofty said. "We can see it in your eyes and your ears. And how your tail lifts up when you talk about him."
Holiday grinned. "We were nineteen and horny, once, too, ya know."
"Argh!" Scootaloo buried her face in her forehooves.
"We hope it works out, if that's what you want," Holiday said. "But keep some things in mind, okay?"
"Okay..." Scootaloo said. Her tail thrashed and her stomach soured, the birthday cake and ice cream preparing to come back up.
"One," Holiday said. "You're different species. That means you'll have more misunderstandings than most. Lofty and I are an earth pony and a pegasus, and that nearly cost us a divorce, more than once, back when we were younger and learning how to be a couple. We came close to murder a few times."
"What?" Scootaloo gasped. "No way."
"My first molt after we got married," Lofty said. "Feathers everywhere!"
Holiday chuckled. "I thought she was doing it on purpose. You and Terramar, pony and hippogriff... that's even farther apart. "
“Oceans apart,” Lofty said.
Holiday facehoofed.
Scootaloo nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I suppose."
"Two," Lofty said. "He's a member of their Royal Family. He's, what, fourth in line for the throne?"
"Yeah," Scootaloo said. "That's right. His cousin Skystar is Crown Princess, his mom second, his sister third, then him."
"Potential problems, there," Holiday said. "What if Queen Novo decides he needs to be married off to some princess in Yakyakistan as a diplomatic maneuver?"
"She would never!" Scootaloo's wings flared straight up.
"'Never' is a long time," Lofty said. "Look, slugger, we're not trying to stop you, or scare you, okay? But you're nineteen today. You're an adult. You're a college sophomore. We want to make sure you're thinking like a grownup, not like a little filly with hearts in her eyes."
"Do you..." Scootaloo whispered. "Do you think I shouldn't go to Mount Aris?"
Holiday hugged her, and then Lofty wrapped her wings around both of them.
"Not at all!" Holiday said. "We wish you the best of luck. We just want you to be thinking like an adult, not like a little filly with a crush."
"We also have a last present for you," Lofty said, "to prove that we're cheering for you."
"Oh?" Scootaloo said.
Lofty walked across the room, opened a cabinet, and returned with a small package wrapped in blue paper. She winged it over to Scootaloo.
She opened it, finding a small bottle of painkiller pills. "Ibuhoofen? What?" Scootaloo frowned at the bottle, then at Holiday.
Holiday blushed and said, "Hippogriffs' naughty bits might be shaped like ponies' naughty bits, but they're twice our size or more."
The train's doors opened, and Scootaloo took a deep breath. She wobbled as she walked down the aisle. Several hippogriffs rushed past her, their feathery manes and tails tickling her flanks, and a hippogriff filly accidentally flicked Scootaloo's nose with the tip of her tail.
Feathery manes: just one of those differences Holiday had meant.
Scootaloo sneezed.
The hippogriff filly turned around and looked at Scootaloo. "You okay, ma'am?"
Ma'am. Scootaloo shook her head at that. "Yeah, I'm just, I mean, I'm okay."
"You look nervous."
"Well, a little."
She cocked her head. "Why?"
"I'm meeting somecreature."
"Is it a stallion?" the filly asked with a grin, wings flicking.
Scootaloo smiled.
"There aren't many ponies living in Mount Aris."
"Oh!" Scootaloo said. "I'm meeting a hippogriff."
"Really?" the filly frowned. "What's his name?"
"Terramar."
"Ponies!" the filly said, and stomped away, beak in the air.
After staring in surprise for a few seconds, Scootaloo fetched her saddlebags. Mount Aris was warmer than Equestria, so she wore only a light scarf, and her bag held a thin jacket. She had her toothbrush, a camera, some bits, the ibuhoofen, and a few other minor essentials.
She adjusted the scarf around her neck. She was proud of it: the exact same aquamarine color as Terrmar's eyes, and it offset her orange coat and purple mane fairly well.
The train station swarmed with hippogriffs and ponies. The crowd pressed around her, feathers and coats against her shoulders, the platform bustling compared to her last visit.
She stretched her neck and looked around. Like her mother, Scootaloo was tall for a mare, but adult hippogriffs towered over her, blocking her view.
Hippogriffs leaped into the air, flying rather than walking.
Scootaloo looked up, watching the angry filly fly away.
Why had she reacted that way to Terramar's name?
Scootaloo's wings flapped a few times, softly, and her ears drooped. She wanted to fly after that filly and ask her—
"Why such a sad face?" came a voice from behind her.
Scootaloo spun and saw Terramar. He stood a few steps away, and he rubbed his mane with one hand, making his goofy grin.
"Terramar!" Scootaloo shouted, and launched herself at him. He caught her in a hug, but her momentum bowled him down to his rump.
"I've missed you!" he said. They nuzzled each other, hugging tight. Terramar's wings wrapped around her withers.
She drew her head back a few inches and surprised herself by kissing him right on the beak.
He squawked and his wings flapped.
Her own eyes went wide at the sensation of her lips against the hard keratin, instead of the soft warmth she expected.
Terramar's hands moved her back a few inches. "Hi! Sorry, you surprised me with the... uh... didn't mean to squawk in your ear."
"Yeah, sorry." Scootaloo released her hug and he stood. Even by hippogriff standards, he was tall. She looked up at him.
"Don't be sorry," he said. "The kiss was nice. Just a surprise."
"You've grown since Hearth's Warming," Scootaloo said.
"I—" he began, when another hippogriff dropped out of the air and landed next to Terramar.
"Miss Scootaloo..." said Sky Beak, Terramar's father, with a curt nod. "A pleasure."
"Mr. Sky Beak, how are you, sir?"
Sky Beak looked at Terramar for several seconds, then looked at Scootaloo. "Excellent. Let's get back to the house. Ocean Flow's above water today, cooking lunch."
Sky Beak flared his wings and leapt into the air. After about half a minute, he looked behind, saw the other two were still standing on the train platform, and flapped back. "Are you two coming?" he asked as he landed.
"Ummm..." Terramar said, looking at the ground.
Scootaloo's wings sagged and her ears wilted.
She made eye contact with Sky Beak. After taking a deep breath, she forced herself to stand up straight and perk up her ears.
Thanks to years of practice, Scootaloo kept her voice completely calm and level: "I can't fly."
Silence, for several seconds, as he stared at her filly-sized wings. "I had no idea. My apologies, Miss. I'll fly ahead and let Ocean Flow know you two'll be arriving soon."
"Sure," Scootaloo said.
Sky Beak flew off.
Scootaloo frowned at her hooves.
"Can I take your saddlebag?" Terramar asked.
Scootaloo almost said no, but cut herself off. Terramar's ears perked forward in anticipation, one hand already reaching for the bags.
"Thank you, Terramar."
He placed one hand on her spine, just in front of the bag, and the other at the base of her tail, just behind the bag. A tiny shiver ran up Scootaloo's back as his hands touched her coat.
Her tail lifted an inch.
Act cool, Scoots, she told herself. Be cool. Don't act like an abyssinian in heat.
He started to reach underneath her belly, his hands going toward the saddlebag's buckle, barely inches in front of her—
"Would you prefer to unbuckle it yourself?" Terramar asked, raising one eyebrow.
Scootaloo grinned at him and winked. "You've got hands, go ahead."
He gave a half-grin, blushing. His right hand touched her cutie mark and his left touched her chest, between her forelegs, and he ran both hands along her coat, underneath her, toward the saddlebags' buckle. His touch left a trail of fire on her skin where his hands had just been, and the coat between her shoulder blades stood up.
As he worked on the buckle, she felt a fire in her belly, where his fingers brushed her coat so close to her moist—
Silverstream landed with a load squawk. "Scootaloo!"
Silverstream, even taller than Terramar, picked Scootaloo up, off the ground, and hugged her. Scootaloo gave a forlorn glance toward Terramar's hands.
"Scootaloo Scootaloo Scootaloo Scootaloo!" Silverstream said, spinning in place on her back legs, Scootaloo held tight to her chest. "Scootaloo!"
"Silverstream! Hi!" Scootaloo gasped. "I can't breathe!"
Silverstream dropped Scootaloo. "Oh you're here I was so glad to hear you would be here I haven't seen you in ages! Let me get your bag."
"But—" Terramar said.
"He—" Scootaloo said.
With a flash of her hands, Silverstream had Scootaloo's bag unbuckled and slung over her own shoulder. "Mom's cooking lunch, let's trot!" Silverstream said, and headed for the exit to the train platform.
"Sorry," Terramar said quietly to Scootaloo, "but you know Silvers."
A light-yellow hippogriff mare landed and picked Scootaloo up, spinning her even faster than Silverstream had. "Scootalooooooo! Scootaloo! Scootaloo!"
"Skystar! I'm gonna throw up, I'm getting dizzy!"
Skystar put her down, and she and Scootaloo hugged. "Let's trot!"
As the four walked, Scootaloo rubbed the tip of her nose against Terramar's cheek and whispered, "Your hands felt nice."
His ears twitched. He looked away from her.
"You can give me a belly rub later," Scootaloo whispered.
Terramar tripped and went down, beak-first.
Ocean Flow and Sky Beak hustled around the kitchen of their Mount Aris house. Scootaloo's bag was already in an upstairs guest room. Without needing to pay for a hotel, with Terramar's family cooking most of the meals, she could stay the whole week of Spring Break, not just overnight.
"Scootaloo," Ocean Flow said, placing a serving platter of smoked salmon on the table, "we know ponies tend toward vegetarianism. Don't eat anything you don't like."
Scootaloo stared at the salmon, eyes wide, and swallowed several times. "Thanks for understanding."
"Kelp chips?" Silverstream asked, holding serving tongs.
"Please!" Scootaloo said.
Skystar distributed chopsticks to the hippogriffs, looked at Scootaloo's hooves, and put the sixth set away.
Ocean Flow placed a sweet potato casserole of some sort onto a hot pad, then sat down.
"So, you two," Sky Beak said, sitting as well, "do you have big plans for this week?"
Terramar and Scootaloo looked at each other, then at Sky Beak.
"Well, Dad," Terramar said, "nothing firm. It was too hard to plan by mail. Scoots and I'll talk it out after lunch."
Ocean Flow looked at Scootaloo. "You're attending Canterlot University, right? What are you studying?"
"Education. Princess Twilight is paying the expenses because she wants the other Crusaders and I to teach at the Friendship School when we graduate."
"That's strange," Silverstream said. "Twilight and the others did a good job without teaching degrees. Without degrees of any kind, other than Twilight."
Scootaloo flicked her wings and ears. "Yeah, but Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and I, we all thought we could do a better job with the formal education than we could do without. And if Twilight wants to pay a stipend and cover the full freight to the most expensive school in the world, well, who are we to say no?"
Sky Beak nodded. "Most wise. Unusually so for a teenager."
"Uhhhh, thanks?" Scootaloo said.
Skystar and Silverstream giggled.
Terramar patted her shoulder, then pulled his hand back to himself. "She's doing great! I have some suggestions for things for us to do this afternoon, but we still need to pick."
"Education degree, hmmm?" Sky Beak tapped his beak. "The Museum of Hippogriff and Seapony Culture has a new exhibit. They dug up a stash of ancient cavegriff artifacts recently. That would be a good opportunity to learn about the heritage of many of the Friendship School students. At last count, ten percent of the student body was Hippogriffian."
Scootaloo's ears perked up and she nodded. "Hey, yeah! One of this semester's classes requires some outside-the-library research. That'll be a great!"
Sky Beak looked at Terramar and gave a stern expression. Terramar cocked his head and said, "Wha...?"
Scootaloo mentally shrugged: another one of those cultural things Holiday and Lofty had warned her about.
"First thing I want to do," Scootaloo said, "is Harmonizing Heights."
"I thought Sweetie Belle was the one who lost her mind over the Heights?" Skystar asked.
Scootaloo grinned and rubbed her hooves together. "Yup. I brought a camera. I want to get a picture of me field twirling in the Heights to mess with her."
At Harmonizing Heights, Scootaloo danced and capered in the grassy fields while Terramar shot a whole roll of film. She had made a point of surreptitiously raising her tail at the camera for a few of the pictures. She would mail those shots to Terramar after they got developed, if this week went as she planned...
It was a fifteen-minute trot from the Heights to the museum.
Scootaloo said, "That's a moat. There's a moat around the museum. And no bridge."
"Hippogriffs like water features," Terramar mumbled.
Scootaloo felt her wings spread. She couldn't stop them. Years before, during the whole Washouts and Lightning Dust unpleasantness, she had acknowledged that she would never fly. Said it aloud for the first time.
But the fifty-foot wide gap of saltwater reminded her, once more, that she still hadn't accepted her disability. Not entirely.
Her ears fell and she kicked a pebble.
Terramar sat and rubbed his chin. "Yeah... so, with the train line, we're getting lots of pony tourists, and some immigrants, but they tend to be pegasi."
Scootaloo glared at him.
He continued quickly, "But they aren't all pegasi. The main parts of town, like the Palace or the hospital, or Harmonizing Heights, have all been fitted with ramps and stairs. Silverstream was in charge of the re-stairing project, she did a great job. But this?"
Terramar pointed to the museum, and shrugged. "Few tourists. Low priority."
"There's a boat," Scootaloo said, pointing a hoof across the moat.
"I can go fetch it."
"Wait," Scootaloo said, and pointed her nose at his necklace. "Could you seapony me and I swim across? I've been wanting a good seapony session for years."
Terramar ground his beak, working it back and forth. "Fancy places don't like griffs, or ponies, tracking in saltwater. We could totally seapony when we're done though. Should I go get the boat? Or I could..."
He trailed off, looking at her, frowning slightly, eyes running up and down her body, and tapping his beak with one talon.
She tilted her head. "What?"
"How much do you weigh?"
"Hippogriffs and ponies use different measurements. Pounds and conchs."
"Can I carry you?" Terramar said, smiling slightly.
Scootaloo gave a flirty twitch of her tail and hindquarters. "Do you think you can handle me?"
He leaped into the air and hovered just above her. His breath ruffled the back of her mane and tickled her ears. She closed her eyes for a second, savoring the sensation.
Terramar placed a quick kiss against the back of her left ear, with a tiny bit of a sharp-beaked nibble.
"Niiice...." Scootaloo said.
His hands grabbed underneath her rib cage and he grunted into her ear as he lifted, pressing her spine into his belly.
"Yeah, you're not very heavy," he said, panting. He flapped up about two more feet, and Scootaloo's hooves dangled down. His arms pressed her wings to her sides and that felt... odd... but in a nice way.
At the base of her tail, she felt a soft pressure...
...and realized it was his ballsack. "Ohhh..." she breathed, and wiggled her hips ever-so-slightly, and felt his balls rolling against her. They seemed... huge. A pilot light seemed to be burning just underneath her tail, now. A somewhat moist pilot light...
"Ready?" Tarramar said, voice thin with exertion.
"Yup!" She wasn't actually very confident, given his gasping and grunting, but Scootaloo swam well. And if he dropped her, she would be able to tease him for years!
He flapped up and across the water, and his grip shifted on her as he flew, pulling her up and forward. The soft pleasantness of his balls shifted backwards and off her tail, disappearing.
Halfway across. He panted, but seemed to be doing fine. This was much better than taking the boat!
She felt pressure, right at the base of her tail every time his wings beat downward, and it released with each upward beat.
"Oh!" he gasped. "I– I– I– oh sweet Novo I'm sorry."
Scootaloo was about to say For what? when she realized his hard-on was poking the base of her tail.
She bit her tongue. It seemed there was no correct thing to say. Just because she could swim didn't mean she wanted to have a salty mane all day.
They reached the cobblestone courtyard outside the museum and he dropped her from about two feet height. She went to her knees to absorb the impact, and then turned and looked at him.
Terramar landed and sat on his rump, arms straight down and hands flat on the cobbles, elbows together, wings unfurled around his arms, shielding his naughty bits from Scootaloo's view.
"I am so sorry!" Terramar said. "I didn't know that... that... that..."
Scootaloo looked at him, and batted her eyes. "What? You didn't know I was good looking until right then? You've never popped a boner about me before?"
His beak dropped open and his eyes widened. He screeched.
Scootaloo paced around him in a circle, sashaying her hips and tail, but keeping her tail low enough to prevent him from seeing anything.
"Scootaloo, you're not helping."
"I'm in no hurry," she said. "I can do this all afternoon."
"My dad," Terramar said with a facepalm, "is an unmitigated dolphin."
Scootaloo looked over the carved stone and bone artifacts in the museum display case.
"Apparently," she said, "your ancestors, and mine, were acquainted with each other."
Terramar squawked and fluffed his feathers.
The artistry was crude, Scootaloo supposed, but good by the standards of cavegriffs.
Cavegriffs clearly had one particular thing foremost on their minds: most of the display case showed bone- or stone-carved penises or vulvas.
The centerpiece of the exhibit, however, was a life-sized marble carving of a hippogriff stallion mounting a pegasus mare. Thousands of years of erosion and mishandling had broken off her wings and his balls.
The statue's utterly tremendous penis remained, however, crammed into her small marble vagina.
"I'm trying to get a read on her face," Scootaloo said, "but it's very weathered. Do you think she was happy or sad?"
"Hmmmm... I hope he was making her happy. I'm taking Pre-Sisters Equestrian History this semester. There's evidence of trade and intermarriage between the various races for thousands of years, but also of warfare, kidnapping, plunder, murder and... and, well, rape. I don't suppose we'll ever know what this particular sculpture meant."
"Why did you call your dad a dolphin?"
"He's on the board of the museum. He had to know this was a sexy exhibit. Was he trying to make you uncomfortable? Run you off?"
Scootaloo moved to the next display case, which showed well-polished bronze swords, whose handles were penises and whose pommels looked like testicles. "He doesn't seem not to like me. If they wanted me gone, they could have refused to loan me a guest room. I've only got the bits for one night in a hotel."
"My dad... he's odd. He likes ponies as a nation, or he wouldn't have stood up to the Queen when she tried to veto my decision to attend Manehattan College. But... I'm not sure he respects ponies individually."
"What do you mean?"
"Every time I see him, he asks me if I've 'conquered Equestria.' He means—"
Scootaloo laughed. "I understand. ...have you conquered Equestria?"
Terramar looked at her. "No. I've not even gone on a date since I left Mount Aris."
"Sure you have," Scootaloo said.
"Huh?"
"You came and visited me in Canterlot a few times, and I visited Manehattan."
"Were those dates?"
She grinned up at him. "We can call them that. Is this a date?"
"I hope so."
"Me too." Scootaloo turned and walked to the next display case, and flicked his beak with the tip of her tail... while giving him a very fleeting glance under her tail.
He squawked.
Late that evening, not long after sunset, Scootaloo and Terramar arranged a blanket on the beach.
"No 'griff will bother us," he said.
Scootaloo looked around, expecting Silverstream or Skystar...
"Hippogriffs aren't much for nighttime on the beach,” Terramar continued. “The Storm King invaded at night, so most griffs go home and lock up..."
Scootaloo looked at him. "Are you okay out here?"
He looked left and right, up and down the beach, then looked at her. Luna's full moon was just rising above the sea on the eastern horizon, and his bright green eyes took a silvery glint. "I am. It's a generational thing. I was a newborn, so I don't remember it personally. In a few years, hippogriffs will take the night back. But for now?"
Terramar gestured to the empty beach, then smiled down at her. "Just you and me."
Scootaloo reached her nose up, and kissed him on the neck. His feathers still smelled a little salty from the several hours they had spent swimming as seaponies earlier that day.
He made a happy hmmmmm sound.
"Dinner," Scootaloo said, and opened their picnic basket.
They had hit a pony grocery earlier that day and bought some hayburgers. The clerk, an earth pony mare, recognized Terramar as a member of the Royal family, and gave Scootaloo a jealous smile as she made change and packed up their order. ("My husband's a hippogriff," the clerk had whispered to Scootaloo, "and I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.")
Smoked salmon, wrapped in butcher paper, came out of the picnic basket next, along with a set of chopsticks. Fried potatoes, baked kelp chips, and two cupcakes rounded out the meal.
Lastly, Terramar removed a metal flask of pineapple juice and vodka. He popped the lid and took a sip, then held it out to Scootaloo. She smiled and took the flask in her hooves and sipped it herself. The acid of the fresh pineapple juice tingled on her tongue, and the alcohol burned its way down her throat, but she welcomed the relaxation that slowly began to spread through her, starting at her belly and then percolating down to her throbbing—
Terramar grabbed a bite of his salmon with his chopsticks, popped it into his beak, and then pointed the chopsticks toward the southern sky. "We're a lot closer to the equator than Equestria. Different constellations."
She scooted her bottom across the blanket until their hips and shoulders touched. "I bet you all have different constellations than we do, even for the same stars. Tell me some."
"Do you know the pony constellations?" Terramar asked.
Scootaloo's heart seemed to misfire, and she set down the hayburger, suddenly nauseous. She took another large swig of the vodka-spiked pineapple juice.
"What's wrong?" Terramar asked. "What did I say? Your ears and wings just went limp."
"It's—it's nothing you said. It's just... all pegasus teenagers are required to take, and pass, a celestial navigation class. Memorizing the constellations is part of that. It doesn't matter if the teenager in question will never fly. It's a requirement."
"I'm... I... that sucks."
"Tell me some hippogriff constellations," Scootaloo said, rubbing her flank against him again and picking up her hayburger.
He described them to her: the tuna, the galleon, the mountain, the telescope. They shared the kelp chips and the potatoes, Terramar using his chopsticks to feed them both in turns.
After popping the last bite of his salmon into his beak, he pointed his chopsticks northeast. "The Pegasus," he shifted the chopsticks an inch lower. "And the Stallion. He's a hippogriff, I should clarify. He chases her around the sky forever, never able to catch her, because she's too good for him and she knows it."
"You just made that up," Scootaloo whispered, her throat suddenly thick.
"Yes. It's true, though."
Scootaloo took another sip of the booze, and felt the relaxation slowly reaching the tips of her hooves, ears, and tail. She hoofed the flask to him, and he took a long swig too.
They ate the cupcakes, smiling at each other.
"Let's clean up our mess," Scootaloo said, and gathered up the crumpled wrappers of her hayburgers.
"Are we done?"
She smiled. "Not even close." She grabbed his left hand between her hooves, and raised it to her lips and gave the palm a little kiss. "You still owe me a belly rub."