Chapter 1: Not Awkward At All
“Oh man, it’s been a rough day,” Soarin sighed, brushing a hoof over his sweaty forehead.
“Well, duh,” Spitfire replied, nudging the stallion with her shoulder and a smirk. “You just did, like, what, fifty laps around the track without a break. Do anymore and I wouldn’t be surprised if your wings burst into flames.”
The two were walking back to the Wonderbolt locker rooms after a long afternoon of flight training. A Wonderbolt must remain in tip-top shape all the time and on the time. The last part none of the crew knew much about, but since it was drilled into their malleable minds since the academy, they went with it.
“Wouldn’t that be more your gimmick than mine?” Soarin chuckled, pointing to her flame-colored mane.
Spitfire took a quick glance at her mane, shrugged and tried to hide a smirk. “Yeah, that’ll be one heck of a blazing finish if that ever happened.”
“You’d be a pony firework!” Soarin said in awe. “Well, except for the part about blowing up at the end. Which would kind of be a let down…”
“Oh hush, you,” Spitfire laughed, sharing a chuckle with her teammate. Arriving at the mares' locker room, which bordered the stallions', she said, “I’ll see you in a bit. Want to grab something to eat later?”
“Like pizza and ice cream?” Soarin asked excitedly.
“Whatever you want, champ,” Spitfire replied. She thought for sure his reply would be about pies. That stallion couldn’t get enough of the delectable, yet artery-clogging pastry.
Spitfire left for her locker room and Soarin for his. Though the stallion was much sneakier in his approach. Slowly stepping into the stallion-only locker room, Soarin took a glance inside. Not a pegasus in sight.
He hesitantly scooted in further, closing the door behind him with nary a sound. Looking around again, Soarin called out, “Anypony in here?”
With no reply back, he knew he was safe. Soarin practically glided through the air in glee as he quickly arrived at his locker. Muttering the combination under his breath, he opened it up to reveal the one set of items he’d been waiting for all day.
“Oh baby, you are looking fine,” Soarin said in a sultry tone. He grinned knowingly at the items he was addressing, having spoken to them in this tone of voice many times before. “So, were you waiting just for lil’ ol’ me?” he asked, reaching out to grasp his treasures. “Must’ve been waiting a long time, weren’t you? Well, don’t worry anymore, my little darlings. Daddy is here to play.”
Kicking his locker closed with a back hoof, Soarin went to the center of the locker room and laid his items down on the floor. Rubbing his hooves eagerly, the madly grinning stallion didn’t even bother to take his uniform off. He was just too enthralled by his beauties.
Laying on his stomach, Soarin touched one of the items delicately. He giggled and pulled away quickly. “Oh man, I’ve been waiting all day to do this,” Soarin said, reaching out to grab his much anticipated object.
A red crayon.
Pulling out a sheet of paper as well, Soarin started to scribble nilly-willy on its glorious blank canvas. From first glance one couldn’t tell what exactly he was doodling, but as time moved on this grew even less clear or coherent. It was basically a blob with sticks attached to it. Oh wait, now it had wings… or at least the closest thing to them. So it was a pony.
Trading the red crayon with a bright green one, Soarin began humming under his breath and kicking his back legs up and down as he relaxed on his stomach and continued to draw.
Okay, so now it was clear the weirdly grinning stallion was drawing what appeared to be grass. Or just random scribbling of green on the bottom. Either way, Soarin was enjoying himself immensely, his tongue stuck out in glee. Of course, his tongue was a bright red, having rubbed it raw from licking one too many pie tins.
Adding a tree on there for emphasis of whatever surroundings he was trying to scribble down, Soarin now moved onto his next color. Yellow. While yellow didn’t appear that well on white paper, boy did it ever look purdy.
Just as Soarin was about to color his next brilliantly styled expression of internal thought and emotional response to the world and society at large through the use of a yellow crayon, Spitfire walked into the locker room, calling out, “Hey, Soarin, do you want to call take out inste—”
Both ponies stared at another, stunned. Cue awkward silence as well.
Soarin looked down at his paper with his doodles, then back up at Spitfire, who was goggling at him with wide eyes. Opening and closing his mouth and floundering for a reasonable sentence, he finally said, “You didn’t knock.”
“Didn’t knock?” Spitfire repeated. She wasn’t exactly balking at the sight before her, but still… her mind was drawing a blank. Much like how Soarin had been drawing… whatever that was.
“You’re supposed to knock before you enter the stallions’ locker room,” Soarin reminded her.
Spitfire nodded. “Oh yeah… right.” She slowly backed away, exiting through the door right away.
The door then knocked, with Spitfire asking, “Hey Soarin, can I come in?”
“Sure thing!” he answered.
Spitfire entered back in the room, still shooting Soarin with an equally perplexed yet curious expression. “So, uh…” she began, rolling her hoof in the air in an attempt to grasp at the right—or really, any—words at the moment, “whatcha doing?”
“Just coloring,” Soarin replied. He stared back down at his work, nonchalantly scrawling his yellow crayon this way and that in an aimless pattern.
“That’s… just great,” Spitfire said with as much fake cheer as she could must. “So, about the pizza and ice cream. You want me to, uh, order take out for it instead?”
“That’d be great,” Soarin said, not bothering to look back as he continued to draw. The artist was at work, and his art called for his undivided attention and masterful strokes with his hoof to direct the birth of a true masterpiece.
“Okay then,” Spitfire said, slowly closing the door again to leave. Before she stuck her head back outside, she muttered, “Be seeing you… later, I guess.”
“Buh bye!” Soarin called out to the departing Spitfire. Returning his attention back to the yellow doodle he was scribbling down, he sighed and set his crayon down. Picking up his coloring, he raised a brow and stared at what he just drew intently. “I think I made Spitfire’s butt too big again.”
