The Life and Times of a Winning Pony

by Chengar Qordath

Rating: teen
Tags: Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Fluttershy, Derpy Hooves, Cloudkicker, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Blossomforth, Romance, Drama
Length: 349039

Cloud Kicker has a wild life, and Blossomforth gets dragged along for the ride.

Cloud Kicker might just have the wildest life of any pony in Equestria. Marvel at the insanity that is her life, and laugh at the suffering of her poor beleaguered best friend, Blossomforth. And maybe, just maybe, there's more to her than just the lovable sex maniac everypony thinks she is.

This is a semi-sequel to "The Incredibly Dense Mind of Rainbow Dash." Not really a proper sequel, since it's focused on Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth instead of Rainbow and Pinkie, but it's in the same continuity. So I guess that makes it a follow-up-side-quel story. Or something. You don't need to have read "The Incredibly Dense Mind of Rainbow Dash" to read or enjoy this, but you ought to read it anyway, just because.

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The central story of the Winningverse.

We got a tag for Cloud Kicker, but Blossomforth still deserves one too.

Published 2012-05-26 12:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-29 13:28:54 UTC

The Pony With Tiger Blood

One of the first rules of any Pinkie Party is that Pinkie will always be the first pony to come up and greet new arrivals, especially when the ponies in question were the guests of honor. Normally Pinkie said her hellos while eagerly bouncing around the room instead of standing still and wrapped around Rainbow Dash, but I could probably chalk that up to New Couple Syndrome. At least they weren’t using any vomit-inducing cutesy pet-names on each other.

“Hi Cloud Kicker! Blossomforth!” Pinkie called out with her usual bubbly enthusiasm. “Were you surprised? Huh? Were you? Were you?”

“Yeah, we were surprised.” Sure, I’d seen a surprise party coming, but I’m pretty sure if I told her I hadn’t been surprised she’d do something crazy like throw us random parties out of nowhere until one did surprise us. Besides, if I said it wasn’t a surprise it might hurt Pinkie’s feelings, and I didn’t want to do that. Especially not now that she’d hooked up with the boss – making your boss’s fillyfriend cry is not a smart career move.

Blossom tossed her two bits into the conversation. “This looks like a great party. Thanks, Pinkie Pie.”

“A party is the least I could do after you gals helped me and Dashie out.” Mentioning Rainbow’s name seemed to remind the party pony that she was still wrapped around Rainbow Dash, and she took the opportunity to plant a huge kiss on her fillyfriend’s lips. The kiss went on for long enough to make me tempted to tell the two to just go upstairs and bang already. Finally, Pinkie broke it off, leaving behind a Rainbow Dash whose face seemed stuck in a huge and very goofy grin.

Pinkie took advantage of Rainbow’s post-kiss catatonia to declare, “Seriously, I love Dashie to bits, but she can real poopy-head sometimes.”

“I am not a poopy-head,” the boss whined.

“You are so a poopy-head!” Pinkie shot right back. “I mean sheesh, Dashie. What more did I have to do? Lay down in front of you completely naked and scream, ‘Do me baby! Do me!’”

“You don’t normally wear clothes anyway,” Rainbow deadpanned.

“She’s got a point though, boss.” I couldn’t resist the opportunity to join in on the good-natured ribbing. “I can see missing one or two signals – nopony’s perfect – but didn’t you think she was acting just a little bit weird?”

“Pinkie always acts weird,” the boss answered just a bit defensively. “How was I supposed to know that this time the weird meant she wanted to be my special somepony, instead of just being the normal sort of Pinkie weird?”

“The flirting, innuendos, and double entendres might have been a hint,” I suggested.

“Not to mention how happy she was about spending Hearts and Hooves Day with you. She was acting very affectionate towards you.” I was a bit surprised that Blossom joined in poking fun at the boss. After Pinkie’s little ‘Do me baby!’ moment I’d expected her to spend the next few minutes blushing and mumbling incoherently. I guess the fact that Pinkie and I were already teasing Rainbow Dash made it easier for Blossom to work up her courage.

“Oh! And we can’t forget the puns!” Pinkie added in between giggles. “Secs!” Pinkie nearly lost her grip on Rainbow Dash as she burst into a fit of wild laughter.

“Okay, so maybe I missed a couple little hints,” Rainbow reluctantly conceded.

“More than a couple, and not that little,” I quipped.

“You know I can still fire you,” the boss remarked casually.

“Dashie!” Pinkie let out a horrified gasp and detached herself from Rainbow Dash. “That’s terrible! You can’t fire them at their own party!”

“What?” Rainbow seemed shocked that her fillyfriend had taken the casual threat seriously. “No! I didn’t mean it Pinkie, I was just messing around!”

“You better be, Dashie,” Pinkie growled as menacingly as she could manage. “You mess up my party and I won’t let you eat any of my pie for a week!”

My first instinct was to assume that ‘eating Pinkie’s pie’ was a double entendre, but considering the party pony’s fondness for baked goods, it’s more likely that she just meant exactly what she said: She wouldn’t bake any pies for Rainbow for an entire week. The boss always struck me as the kind of pony who’d take the physical side of a relationship way too seriously. I bet she hasn’t even banged Pinkie yet. Hay, I wouldn’t be surprised if the boss was a virgin like Blossom. She’d never shown any interest in romance or banging back when we went to Flight Camp together and nothing I’d seen since moving to Ponyville indicated that had changed. Well, until she hooked up with Pinkie Pie.

Regardless of the facts, I still preferred to believe the version of things that meant the boss was so fond of eating Pinkie’s Pie that she was completely whipped.

Blossom and I kept up some idle chatter with the boss and her mare, but I was mostly focused on checking out the rest of the party. And of course, the party guests. The best part about having a party thrown in your honor is that you’re practically guaranteed to get laid. With this being a Pinkie Pie party, pretty much every pony in Ponyville was here too. All in all, I was spoiled for choice.

A promotion within the weather team was a really big deal in a small town like Ponyville. Ponyville’s weather district is pretty big when compared against how many pegasi actually live here, so just about everypony with wings wound up doing weather work sometimes – even ponies who really shouldn’t, like Derpy and Fluttershy. I’m pretty sure every single pegasus in town was here.

Then you had all the farmers. The farmponies generally paid attention to what was going on with the weather team. After all, crops need plenty of rain, sunshine, and general good weather to grow. Make nice with the ponies in charge of your local weather and it’s a lot less trouble to make sure your crops get everything they need. Piss the weather boss off and suddenly Derpy’s in charge of running the weather over your farm.

On top of the pegasi and the farmers, there were all the ponies who’d just wandered in because hey, Pinkie Party. I’d say that the only thing you ever needed to get invited to a Pinkie Party was a pulse, except I’m pretty sure that if Pinkie ever ran into some zombie ponies, she would invite them too. Well, as long as they held off on eating the brains of the living party guests.

Bottom line, there were a whole lot of ponies here and as the mare of the hour I had pick of the litter. I should probably do a bit of mingling first, though. It was only polite to enjoy the party Pinkie had gone to all the trouble of setting up for Blossom and me. Plus it would give me a chance to scope out my options – just grabbing the first cute pony to show an interest might end up being a terrible waste.

Speaking of cute ponies, the town librarian was headed our way. Cute was a good word for her. She didn’t have the classic hotness of a true beauty, but she had that whole ‘cute geeky nerd’ thing going for her. Not my usual, but nice. Plus, she’s probably read all kinds of books. Books that could give her some very interesting ideas that I’ll bet she’s just itching for a chance to try out. Of course, she’ll need somepony experienced to help her out. Somepony who can show her the ropes (perhaps literally) and help her bridge the gap between theory and practice...

Sure, banging one of the boss’ friends would probably cause all kinds of trouble that just wouldn’t be worth it, but there was no harm in appreciating the view and pondering what might have been if life turned out differently.

“Hi everypony!” The librarian called out to us, cheerfully oblivious to the fact that I was busy admiring her cutie mark and surrounding environs. “Cloud Kicker, Blossomforth.” I hastily shifted my gaze to her face when I realized she was talking to me. “I just wanted to congratulate the two of you on your promotions.”

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Blossom answered.

“Yeah, thanks.” At the sound of my voice Twilight turned to look at me with a polite little smile on her face that was unintentionally sexy. Whoa! Down, Cloud Kicker! No matter how much fun she might be in the sack, a single night of fun is not worth messing up your entire career over. Not to mention she’s Princess Celestia’s golden girl. Twilight Sparkle might be deliciously adorkable, but there’s plenty of other flowers in the field that weren’t so hazardous to eat.

The librarian turned to her two friends, giving me another opportunity to sneak a look at her cutie mark. “Oh by the way Rainbow Dash, I got a letter from the Princess earlier. She wanted to congratulate you and Pinkie Pie on your new relationship, but she also said something I didn’t quite understand and I was hoping you could clear it up for me.” Twilight frowned in concentration, presumably trying to remember the Princess’ exact words. “She said that the answer to those two questions you asked a week ago were, ‘Yes, I can’ and ‘Yes, they do.’”

Pinkie and the boss shared a look. After a few seconds of trying to hold it in, the two of them started laughing like crazy.

Twilight grimaced at the two of them. “What questions did you ask her anyway?” I have to say, I was a little curious to find out the answer to that one myself, if only to find out why the Princess’ answer had the two of them laughing so hard.

Once the still relatively new fillyfriends stopped laughing long enough for Twilight to get a word in edgewise, she repeated her question. Pinkie immediately answered her, a comically serious expression on her face. “Sorry Twilight, can’t tell you. It’s a secret, and we all know that revealing secrets is the fastest way to lose somepony’s trust forever.”

“Oh come on Pinkie,” the boss objected. “It’s not like it’s that much of secret that–”

“FOREVER!”

Rainbow Dash raised her forehooves in surrender. “Okay okay, it’s a secret.”

Yup, the boss is totally pie-whipped.

“If it’s a secret, then you can’t tell me,” Twilight conceded.

“Yeah,” Pinkie was still sounding preposterously serious. “Very hush-hush. Nothing to see here. These aren’t the ponies you’re looking for. Move along.”

“Okay...” In the end, Twilight had no choice but to shrug and just try ignore Pinkie Pie’s randomness and move the conversation along to saner territory. “Anyway, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about...” Twilight began with the most delightful little thoughtful expression on her face. “I was actually reading about the history of pegasi weather teams the other day and–”

“You were reading about a bunch of boring egghead stuff? What a shock.” The boss loves her sarcasm.

“Uh, Dashie?” Pinkie looked at her fillyfriend in confusion. “Twilight’s always reading about her boring egghead stuff. It’s, like, all she ever does! Sheesh Dashie, you should know that by now!”

Twilight Sparkle and the boss both facehoofed and groaned. I was tempted to join them. No wonder Pinkie hooked up with Rainbow despite her missing hints about as subtle as a falling anvil to the head; these two were made for each other. Nopony else could possibly be so thick.

“Anyway,” Twilight resumed with the sweetest little hint of annoyance in her voice. “Did you know that pegasi weather teams actually date all the way back to the militias of ancient Pegasopolis? It really is fascinating; before Princess Celestia disbanded the Pegasopolan militias after the Lunar Rebellion and created the Equestrian Royal Guard, the weather throughout Equestria was under military jurisdiction. You can still see a lot of the old militia traditions lingering in how weather teams are set up, like how Rainbow Dash has the authority to draft any pegasus pony for weather duty if she needs to. It’s exactly like how one of the old Pegasopolan militia captains could call up pegasi to defend Equestria during an emergency.”

“Wait, hang on a second Twilight,” the boss cut in. “Did you just say that back in the old days, I would’ve been, like, a captain?” Rainbow actually looked kind of excited about what the librarian had said during her barrage of ancient history facts. I knew all that ancient history already, but I wasn't surprised that Rainbow Dash was drawing a blank on it–she always slept through history class. Not that I could blame her; our teacher had been so boring I wound up sneaking a couple naps myself.

“Well, yes.” Twilight Sparkle looked incredibly excited to see the boss showing some actual interest in the topic. “A district weather manager like you would be roughly equivalent to one of the old militia captains. You know, I could loan you one of my books on ancient Pegasopolis if you want to read it.” Twilight let out an excited gasp. “Or we could read it together and be study buddies!” Dear Celestia, I think she was on the verge of having a nerdgasm.

Sadly for the bookworm, the boss had no interest in a group study session. “Aw yeah! I always thought ‘Ponyville District Weather Manager’ was way too un-cool of a title for what I did! From now on, I’m gonna be Captain Rainbow Dash! Thanks Twilight!”

“What?” Twilight’s jaw dropped.

“Hey everypony!” Rainbow Dash called out to the rest of the pegasi at the party. “From now on, you can call me Captain Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow’s proclamation was met by a combination of laughter and cheering.

“Aye aye, Captain.” I shot off a joking salute to the boss. Deciding to play along for a bit, I gave Blossom a nudge in the ribs “Guess that makes you and me Lieutenants now, right Blossom?” Have to say, Rainbow had a point; ‘Lieutenant’ sounded much cooler than ‘Ponyville District Assistant Weather Manager.’

“I believe you’re right, Lieutenant Cloud Kicker.” Always nice to see Blossom getting into the spirit of things.

“I’m always right, Lieutenant Blossomforth.” I brought a hoof up to my chin and added contemplatively. “We’re gonna need uniforms. Mares dig uniforms.”

While Blossom rolled her eyes at me and facehoofed, Pinkie enthusiastically jumped into the conversation. “I wanna join too! Can I be a private Dashie? Or maybe a corporal? Can I? Can I?”

“Well, technically non-pegasi can’t be on the weather team.” Pinkie Pie immediately unleashed a truly impressive pleading look the boss’ way, including a set of big sad watery eyes that nopony could possibly resist. With a chuckle, the boss conceded. “Tell you what, I’ll make you an honorary weather pegasus. As long as you’ve got that crazy party cannon of yours, I think you’ve gotta be a gunnery sergeant.”

“But private and corporal are funny!” Pinkie whined.

“Hey, gunnery sergeant is one of the coolest military ranks ever!” the boss countered.

“I don’t care how cool it is if I can’t make funny jokes about it,” Pinkie shot right back.

Before the boss (or the Captain, I suppose) and her fillyfriend could get any further in their discussion of whether it was more important for a rank to sound cool or funny, Twilight finally recovered from being completely wrong-hoofed by Rainbow Dash’s logic. “Rainbow! You can’t start using military ranks! The Princess is going to think you’re reforming the pegasus militia to start a second Lunar Rebellion!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense, Twilight Sparkle,” Blossom cut in. “The Lunar Rebellion was over 900 years ago and there’d be no point to it now that Princess Luna’s back.”

Everypony except Twilight stared at her blankly.

“Am I the only one other than Twilight who actually remembers anything from her history classes?” Blossom whined.

“Probably,” I snarked, earning a facehoof from Blossom. Sure, I actually knew all that stuff since it was kinda tied into my family history, but why let a couple inconvenient facts get in the way of a chance to poke fun at my best friend?

Blossom’s effort to calm down the librarian didn’t seem to have worked. If anything, Twilight Sparkle was headed for a full neurotic breakdown. “Oh no, this is terrible! If Princess Celestia thinks Rainbow Dash is trying to start the Second Lunar Rebellion, she’s going to send Rainbow to the moon! And then she’ll send me to the moon too, because I’m friends with Rainbow Dash! Or worse, she’ll send me back to magical kindergarten! But what if Celestia doesn’t find out in time and Rainbow Dash starts a civil war? What if she wins and becomes the new ruler of Equestria? Then she’ll send me to the moon because I’m Celestia’s student! Either way, I’M DOOMED!”

Yup, she was taking a ride on the crazy train. I looked around for Pinkie and the boss, but the two of them had walked off together and were still busy arguing over whether Pinkie’s rank should be cool or funny. They were way too caught up in each other to notice Twilight was in the middle of a freak out. Guess that means it’s up to me to fix this.

I said the first thing that popped into my brain that might calm her down. “You know Twilight, you’re really cute when you’re frazzled.” When in doubt, play to your strengths.

“You – I – what?” Twilight started blushing furiously, which naturally sent her cuteness level up through the roof. At this rate, I might have to make an exception to my rule about not messing around with the boss’ friends; after all, it was really more like a guideline than an ironclad rule.

Twilight eventually managed to recover enough wits to speak semi-coherently, though her voice was an almost Fluttershy-esque nervous squeak. “I – I have to go write a Princess to the letter about a study I booked! Bye!” Twilight hastily fled the scene. She was cute leaving too.

Sadly, my appreciation of the view got cut off by a sharp hoof to the ribs. I turned and found myself facing Blossomforth’s uncompromising glare. “What?” I might have sounded just a bit defensive. “We wanted to stop her from freaking out and she’s not freaking out anymore. Mission accomplished. Besides, she is cute when she’s freaking out. Really, I was just pointing out the obvious.”

“And there was no way you could possibly resolve the situation without hitting on her?” Geez, Blossom was sounding really ticked about this.

I shrugged and let her anger just slide right off my back. “Apparently not.” That got an annoyed growl out of her and I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle her a bit more. “You know Blossom, Twilight might be cute when she’s frazzled, but you are utterly adorable when you’re angry.”

That got a frustrated scream out of her and then another even louder when she realized that getting mad would just turn me on even more. I’d had enough fun with her for the moment, so I decided to show a bit of mercy for once. The fact that we were getting some strange looks from all the other ponies didn’t help. “Alright, chill out Blossom.” I scanned the party for inspiration. “C’mon, there’s a whole table full of muffins over there. I bet you’ll feel better once you’ve had a muffin, right?”

For a second it looked like Blossom might blow her top at me, but then she let out a resigned sigh. “Fine. I’ll take a muffin.”

“Great, muffins it is.” I thought about tossing a foreleg or wing over Blossom’s shoulders, but decided against it. As much fun as messing with Blossom is, I do try to back off when it looks like I’m starting to go from a bit of harmless fun to really getting on her nerves. I’ve gone a bit too far with the teasing once or twice years ago when I was younger and stupider. Sometimes, it’s way too easy to accidentally cross the line between poking a bit of fun at somepony and seriously hurting their feelings.

We got most of the way to the muffin table when something happened that I really should’ve seen coming. “Muffins!” Next thing I knew, somepony slammed into me and then I found myself getting very closely acquainted with the floor of Sugarcube Corner.

In hindsight, I should’ve known that getting between Derpy and muffins wouldn’t end well.

“Cloud Kicker!” Blossom leaned down to help me up. “Are you alright?”

“Dunno. I think my spine might be broken. I’ve heard that the only way to cure that is to have sex with a virgin.” I grinned up at the white pegasus. “We should probably bang, just to be safe.”

“Yeah, you’re fine.” Blossom abruptly removed the support she’d been offering me, which made me stumble just a bit before I recovered my balance. Once I was settled on my hooves I grinned and fluttered my eyelashes at Blossom, who rolled her eyes in response.

I glanced over at the grey pegasus currently devouring her way through an entire table full of muffins and a thought struck me. “Hey Blossom, I think I’ve figured out a way to fix your little V problem.” I put a hoof to her mouth to forestall her inevitable objection. “Just sit back and watch the Cloud Kicker mojo in action.” Maybe she could learn from my example.

I trotted up to the table and snagged a couple muffins from the side of the pile, idly tossing one Blossomforth’s way. Derpy’s muffin-sense immediately detected the loss of two the couple dozen baked goods she was devouring her way through and her head whipped around to face me. It was probably a lucky thing this was technically my party, because otherwise I might’ve caught tartarus for taking muffins from Derpy. She might be a sweetheart most of the time, but that pony could go a little crazy when somepony took muffins away from her.

“Hi Cloud Kicker!” Derpy called enthusiastically. The devourer of muffins paused in her eating spree and looked me over, her smile slowly turning into a frown. “Um – was that you I bumped into on the way to the muffins?”

“Yeah,” I waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m fine though, it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m really sorry.” Derpy dropped her head in shame. “And right after I promised Rainbow Dash I would be more careful about not getting too excited over muffins...”

Uh oh, she was looking sad. While there are exceptions to every rule, you generally don’t want a pony feeling sad when you’re trying to get them into bed. Even in a lot of the cases where you could get a depressed pony into bed, it was a bad idea. It tended to lead to morning-after remorse and I don’t like that one bit. Banging is supposed to be fun. I don’t want somepony going around thinking that banging me was some sort of big mistake that they regret.

So if I was gonna do this, I needed to cheer Derpy up. Fortunately, there’s one topic that’s pretty sure to always put her in a good mood. I bit into the muffin I’d grabbed. Hmm, chocolate chip banana nut. Tasty. “Wow, these muffins are really good, aren’t they?”

Derpy’s expression immediately brightened. “Yeah! They’re great!” Reminded of how delicious muffins were, she immediately resumed eating them.

Alright, phase one complete. Time to break out the charm. I smiled at Derpy put just a slight hint of a pout into my lips and unleashed the bedroom eyes. “I bet when you bake muffins they’re a lot tastier, though. Too bad I’ve never had a chance to try them.”

Derpy looked over at me and blinked a couple times in surprise before looking at me in vague confusion. “Do you want me to bake muffins for you?”

“Oh, I don’t know...” I answered coyly. “Do you think I should eat your muffins?” I gave a casual flick of my tail so that it just barely brushed against one of Derpy’s back legs. The sort of thing that could have just been a total accident – though we both knew it wasn’t.

Derpy blinked again, her confused expression slowly shifting into a shy little smile. “Um – I don’t know – maybe?”

“You don’t know if you want me to eat your muffin or not?” I repeated back playfully. “Well, I think I’d certainly like to. I imagine it would be delicious.” I leaned forward and whispered into Derpy’s ear, earning a slight little shudder from the grey pegasus. “And maybe after that, you could try eating my muffin.”

Derpy pulled back a bit and gave a quick little nervous look around, as if she was worried somepony might be watching us. Wait – I hope she hadn’t brought Dinky to the party, ‘cause hitting on her in front of her filly would be seriously awkward. “Yeah,” she hesitantly agreed. “I think I’d like that.” A second later I felt her tail tentatively brushing one of my hind legs.

Score one for Cloud Kicker. “Great. I’ll come by this evening.” I decided to hold off on my usual parting comment where I threw subtlety out the window; it had a certain charm, but I didn’t want to risk leaving Derpy with the awkward task of explaining to her little filly what the nice mare meant when she said ‘We’ll bang, OK?’

Instead, I grabbed two more muffins and made a point of brushing against Derpy’s side as I walked away. Blossom was still nearby and had been faithfully watching the entire process. After tossing another muffin her way, I smirked and asked. “So, what have you learned from watching the mistress in action?”

“All you did was talk to her about muffins.” Blossom shot back testily.

I scoffed at that. “Oh please. Not even the boss could’ve missed how many innuendos were flying around in that conversation.”

“You were talking to Derpy Hooves,” Blossom countered. “She probably just thought you were actually talking about muffins, not mating.”

“Derpy’s smarter than most ponies give her credit for.” Sure, she’s no genius, but to hear some ponies talk you’d think she didn’t have a brain in her head at all. “Trust me, she knew exactly what we were talking about.”

“I think your obsession with mating has addled your brain.” Okay, so much for my idea of teaching Blossom by example. It seemed to be making her extra-snappy, if such a thing were possible.

Naturally, I just breezed right through her moodiness like it wasn’t even there. “So, you didn’t answer my question. What’ve you learned?”

“That you’re insane,” Blossom grumbled. “Oh wait, I already knew that.”

“If I was crazy I wouldn’t be so successful.” I grinned and wrapped a wing around Blossom. “First lesson: Confidence. Ponies like confidence. Sure, sometimes a bit of nervousness is cute, but you need to back it up with enough guts to go for the prize.” I pulled Blossom in close with my wing and tossed a foreleg across the back of her neck. “Second lesson: Directness. Don’t waste time dancing around and sending mixed signals. When somepony catches your eye, just go right up and let them know. Some ponies like to make a big production out of it, think there’s gotta be some perfect romantic occasion and everything, but in my experience it's a lot less trouble for everypony if you just go up to the pony and tell her you think she’s cute.”

“Cloud Kicker, get off of me,” Blossom growled. “Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?”

“I’m familiar with the concept, I just never cared for it.” I grinned and snuggled up a little closer to her. “Actually, that’s not true. You’re just an exception to the rules. I think it’s because you’re so soft and warm. Like a big huge pillow.”

“I am not a pillow, Cloud Kicker.”

“Hush.” I buried my face in her pink-and-green mane. “Pillows aren’t supposed to talk.”

“You are intolerable.”

“Y’know I think I like it when you talk, Blossompillow. It kinda makes you vibrate a little bit.” I pulled my head up so I could look her in the eye. “By the way, I’d believe you a lot more about the whole not wanting to be my pillow thing if you weren’t just doing a little token complaining while standing still and letting me get all cozy.”

A second later a pair of white hooves shoved me away, accompanied by a frustrated snarl. By Celestia, I really do love pushing Blossom’s buttons. “I’m going to go mingle for a bit,” Blossom abruptly announced, before turning her back on me and walking off into the crowd.

Oh well. While she was off mingling, I could see about scheduling a couple more liaisons. Sure I was meeting up with Derpy tonight, but that was just for tonight. If I played my cards right, I could schedule a whole week worth of fun by the time the party was over. I was supposed to be Ponyville’s resident casanova after all – I have a reputation to uphold.

Before I could find somepony fun for tomorrow night, I felt a hoof tapping on my shoulder. With any luck, I’d just been saved the trouble of looking. Any optimism I might have had about the situation lasted exactly as long as it took me to see just who I was talking too.

Only the most beautiful unicorn in Ponyville – and close friend of the boss.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the boss’ friends all being off-limits for me is horribly unfair. Think about it. For starters there’s Twilight Sparkle, the adorkable little nerd whose merits I’ve already elaborated on. Then you’ve got Applejack, the rough and tumble country gal who’s almost certainly up for a roll in the hay. Granted, she seems a bit too conventional for my tastes, but variety is the spice of life.

To be fair, not all of the boss’ friends were chase-able. Pinkie was obviously off-limits now that she was with the boss, though the same would be true if she were with anypony else. I’m a pretty open-minded kind of pony when it comes to relationships, but I’m definitely not cool with being the other mare. Naturally, the boss herself was also off-limits on account of being in a relationship as well as being – well – the boss. As for Fluttershy, she was even more of a no-go than Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash after everything that had happened.

And then there was Rarity. Sweet Celestia there was Rarity.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony who put so much care into her appearance – and let me tell you, it pays off. Most ponies are content with taking regular baths and spending a minute to brush their mane and tail every morning, but Rarity had higher standards. Rarity was an artist, and for her the equine body was a canvas to work her craft upon. It would be a crime not to appreciate her beauty after all the hard work she put into maintaining it.

“Cloud Kicker? Is everything alright?” I hastily snapped my attention away from Rarity’s body and looked her in the eyes. Unlike when I’d been looking Twilight over earlier, Rarity had noticed where my eyes had wandered. Judging by the smile on her face, she didn’t mind one bit.

Every artist appreciates knowing that they’ve produced something beautiful. After all, she didn’t spend all that time prettifying herself every morning so ponies wouldn’t look at her. “Everything’s fine,” I assured the vision of loveliness.

“Oh?” Rarity hardly looked convinced. “I think Blossomforth might beg to differ. She seemed quite put out with you. I do hope it’s nothing too serious – the two of you make such a lovely couple.”

“Blossom and I are just friends.” I wasn’t surprised by Rarity’s mistake; between my reputation and the fact that Blossom and I spend so much time hanging out together, a lot of ponies assume the two of us must be banging. Rarity was hardly the first pony to think Blossom and I were a thing and she probably wouldn’t be the last either.

If anything, Rarity looked even more skeptical after my denial. “The two of you are entirely platonic? I must say, the two of you seemed rather … physically affectionate for mere friends.”

“What can I say? I’m a very physical pony.” I shrugged. “The way I see it, a hug’s a much better way of showing somepony you’re their friend than a bunch of words. Plus, that kind of thing just feels nice.” I have to admit that as much as I enjoy everything up to and including banging, there’s always been something special about an entirely platonic hug. It was affection in its purest form, without any lust getting in the way of the simple enjoyment of another pony’s company.

“That, and it’s a fun way to tease Blossom,” I admitted with a chuckle. “It’s kind of like a game for us: I’ll get all huggy and snuggly with her and she’ll pretend it annoys her a lot more than it really does. Friendships are weird that way.”

Hmm. I just had an interesting idea. I should get Blossom to admit that she likes the way I tease her. I could tell her I wouldn’t lay a hoof on her anymore and see how long it would take her to crack. It was like a new form of messing with her; I would tease her by forcing her to admit that she liked it when I teased her. I can be fiendishly brilliant sometimes.

“I think I understand.” The fashionista tossed a look over at Applejack. “Friendships can develop in ways nopony would ever expect and even fewer would understand.” The farmer spotted Rarity looking her way and gave a casual wave of her hoof.

Well, a frilly fashionista and a country pony who couldn’t be less feminine if she tried were a bit of an odd couple. Kind of like an uptight worrywart of a pegasus and a easy-going pony who just enjoyed having a good time.

Rarity frowned at me. “Still, I had been so certain that you and Blossomforth were closer than mere friends. It offends my sensibilities that I was mistaken on that count.” The unicorn primly stuck her nose up into the air. “I am afraid I simply cannot be satisfied until you have found some way to make it up to me.”

“So since you jumped to conclusions about me and Blossom, now I owe you?” That was one twisted chain of logic. There was one way I could see this conversation heading and it wasn’t one that I particularly wanted to go in.

“That is hardly the way I would describe the situation,” Rarity answered. “Obviously, the only way I could have been mistaken about the two of you is if you acted deceptively. Clearly, you intended to provide other ponies with the false impression that you were in some sort of open-ended relationship. I think nothing less than a trip to the spa and a proper dinner will suffice to clear the debt you owe me for the wounds you have inflicted upon my pride.”

Yup. She was asking me out. In an incredibly strange and indirect way mind you, but it was still an invitation. That added a new layer of complication to things. Like I said before, chasing the boss’ friends was a bad idea on the general principle of not making my life messier than it needed to be. Problem was, it had never occurred to me that one of Rainbow’s friends might take it into her mind to chase me. Shooting her down could make things messy too – I don’t think the boss would be very happy with me if Rarity started crying about getting rejected.

“It should be a rather enjoyable excursion,” Rarity continued on, oblivious to my internal worries. “I must say, we really should have gotten better acquainted with each other before now. Why, I can hardly believe that we’ve never even exchanged more than a few passing words.”

A couple pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I guess it made sense really. Rarity took a lot of pride in her appearance and I had an entirely deserved reputation for chasing any unattached pony that caught my eye. How could Rarity be the most glamorous pony in all of Ponyville if the village’s most notorious tail-chaser had never even made a single pass at her? She might have no interest in a casual tryst with me, but it was a blemish on her pride that I’d never once even tried to get her into bed.

At least, I hope all she was after was a bit of an ego-boost. A bit of harmless flirting to reassure her that she was fabulous wouldn’t be a problem. I could also toss out a hint or two that if not for my concerns about messing things up with the boss, I’d be after her like a parasprite at an all-you-can-eat buffet. However, my judgement told me Rarity was the kind of pony who was likely to make things a lot more complicated than that.

Somepony very loudly cleared her throat, and I found that the two of us had been joined by a very disgruntled apple farmer who looked like she would enjoy treating my face like one of her trees during apple-buck season.

Hello complication.

“Applejack,” Rarity slipped into a tone chill tone that was obviously meant to get a rise out of the farmer. “Was there something you wanted?”

The farmpony turned to Rarity and her initial jealous rage transformed into awkward uncertainty. “Well – erm – Apples!” Applejack hastily blurted. “We got a um – there’s somethin’ mighty important comin’ up in a couple months, an’ I was wonderin’ – if’n it ain’t too much trouble – if ya could fix me up somethin’ nice to wear to it. ‘Cause – ya know – I wanna look nice … fer the thing that’s comin’ up an’ all … yeah.”

I should really find an excuse to challenge Applejack to a poker game sometime. I’d make a killing.

“Oh. I see,” I spotted a small satisfied smile on Rarity’s face. “Of course I could spare some time for a friend in need, Applejack. I imagine we would need to spend quite a bit of time together though; we can hardly put you in an outfit that is anything less than absolutely perfect, now can we? I trust you can spare some time from the fields for that?”

“I reckon I can spare some time for ya,” Applejack agreed, conspicuously looking at everything in Sugarcube Corner other than Rarity while sneaking quick glances at the unicorn out of the corner of her eye.

“Ah, excellent.” Rarity gave a nervous cough and joined Applejack at making a point of looking at nothing in particular. After a few seconds, they both happened to sneak a look at each other at the same time, and both of them blushed slightly while Rarity gave a nervous giggle.

Oh horseapples. I’ve seen this song and dance before and I didn’t want anything to do with their weird and just plain unhealthy ‘we like each other, but neither one of us wants to admit it’ relationship. Especially not when Rarity was apparently planning to use me just to get Applejack jealous enough to finally make a move. It was an incredibly stupid way of handling relationships, the sort of thing that only works in trashy romance novels (which probably explained where Rarity got the idea).

In the real world, making a pony feel hurt and scared is a terrible way to start a relationship. Applejack’s a smart pony; once she took the time to think for a while she would figure out what Rarity was up to and she wouldn’t appreciate it. Not one bit. Ponies don’t like it when you manipulate their feelings. It might be enough to torpedo the whole relationship before it got off the ground – and even if they did manage to work things out it would likely be in spite of Rarity’s little game, not because of it.

I was tempted to give Rarity a piece of my mind. The only reason I didn’t is that it would get me sucked into dealing with the rest of the mess surrounding these two ponies. Being their relationship coach is the opposite of not involved.

While the farmer and the fashionista were busy being awkward around each other, I quickly slipped away. I needed to find somepony to talk to before they noticed I was gone, or Rarity might track me down and try to rope me into the whole budding disaster again. Lucky for me, a huge chunk of the party guests were weather-pegasi and just about everypony who was likely to end up taking orders from me wanted to spend a couple minutes making nice with the new boss.

Speaking of, I’d probably need to be a bit more careful about getting involved with anypony who did weather work on a regular basis. I don’t want anypony getting the idea that I’m using my position to obtain favors. Not that anypony who knows me could ever think I would do something like that, but even the appearance of something improper going on could get me into trouble.

This could be my chance to move up in the world of weather-work. Rainbow Dash isn’t going to be stuck as a small-town weather manager forever. I wouldn’t be shocked if she made the Wonderbolts eventually and even if she didn’t, I couldn’t see Rainbow spending her entire life pushing clouds. Once Rainbow Dash moved on to bigger and better things, odds were Blossom and I would be the top candidates to replace her. Unlike Rainbow Dash, I think I would be quite happy as a district weather manager. Who knows, maybe I could even move up into the weather bureaucracy? A cushy desk job with a big paycheck wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit.

After an hour or so of mingling, I ran into Blossom again. I was in the middle of a chat with Lyra and Bon Bon to set up our next regular little get-together when Blossom caught my eye, smiled, and waved me over. I was pleasantly surprised when she gave me a friendly little nudge as I walked up next to her. She doesn’t usually initiate things like that, but it’s always nice when she does. I admit there have been one or two times when I worried that my habit of pushing her buttons bugs her more than she lets on, so it’s nice to get that occasional bit of confirmation that all was well.

Then I got a look at who she’d been talking to, and my good mood went the way of the dodo. “Hello Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy responded with a barely audible squeak that might have been my name. The yellow pegasus nervously pawed at the ground. I coughed. Painfully awkward silence reigned.

Blossom was looking between the two of us in confusion – a pony would have to be blind not to notice the tension in the air. After a few more seconds of awkward silence, she made an effort to start the conversation back up. “So Cloud Kicker, Fluttershy was just telling me about something her pet rabbit did the other day...” Blossom looked over at the timid pegasus, hoping her prompt would be enough to draw Fluttershy out of her shell.

Fluttershy squeaked again, and then finally managed to speak something coherent. “I need to go feed Angel Bunny.” A second later she was gone, fleeing as fast as she could without causing a scene.

Blossom stared after the fainthearted pony for a bit, and then rounded on me. “What was that about? We were talking just fine, then you show and suddenly she’s nervous and running away.”

“It’s Fluttershy,” I answered. “There’s a reason ‘shy’ is part of her name.”

Blossom shook her head. “No, it wasn’t just a case of her being nervous, you were acting weird too.” She frowned suspiciously at me. “Did something happen between you and Fluttershy?”

“No.” From the way Blossom’s frown deepened at my answer, I don’t think she bought it. Horseapples.

A moment later, Blossom had a chunk of my mane in her teeth and was dragging me outside. I went along with her, if for no other reason than to keep my mane relatively intact.

Blossom finally released me once she had me back behind Sugarcube Corner, out of sight of any other ponies. Once I was free I made my move, wrapping my forelegs around her neck while rolling to the ground. I caught her off-balance, and the end result was the two of us on the ground in a position that looked pretty darn compromising, with her on top.

I grinned, and pulled her face in close enough that I could feel her breath. “If you wanted some alone time,” I whispered breathily. “All you had to do was ask.”

“Eep!” I swear, if Blossom had been up in a tree, any Apple family pony would think they had a really good crop to harvest. She made a half-hearted effort to get away, but I maintained my grip around her neck, and leaned up a bit to nuzzle her cheek.

Blossom closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Dang it, that was cheating. When she spoke, she’d managed to get her raging embarrassment under control. “I know what you’re trying to do, Cloud Kicker.”

“Seduce you?” Even though she couldn’t see it with her eyes closed, I shot a coy grin her way. “I was kinda hoping that would be obvious.” If she didn’t open her eyes soon, I could find other ways of getting her attention.

It was probably taking every bit of discipline she had to keep talking coherently when I was using my best moves on her. I would be impressed, if it wasn’t really inconvenient at the moment. “You’re trying to distract me.”

I leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “Is it working?”

Blossom squirmed uncomfortably on top of me. “Cloud Kicker, stop it. Somepony’s going to see us...”

“I know. Isn’t it exciting?”

At this rate Blossom might make medical history by being the first pony to ever blush herself to death. I’m pretty sure the only reason she was still managing to keep some semblance of composure was that she had her eyes screwed shut so that she wouldn’t have to look at me. “Cloud Kicker! Cut it out and talk to me already! We’re supposed to be friends, so stop deflecting and tell me what’s going on! Don’t you trust me?”

“Hey.” I pulled her into a gentle and entirely platonic hug. “Don’t be silly Blossom. Of course I trust you.” I couldn’t keep a grin off my lips as I added. “I’m just not comfortable discussing this while Pinkie Pie’s watching us.”

Blossom yelped and finally opened her eyes, spotting the pink party pony sitting a couple feet away from us with her muzzle buried in a bag of popcorn. After a few seconds Pinkie stopped munching and grinned at both of us. “Oh, don’t mind me girls. You go right ahead with the smooching or talking about your dark secrets or whatever it is you’re doing.”

Needless to say Blossom was blushing all the way to her wingtips. “This isn’t what it looks like!” she hastily blurted out.

“Yes it is,” I immediately countered.

“Cloud Kicker!” Blossom shrieked indignantly. The white pegasus looked back and forth between me and Pinkie growing more and more frantic with each passing moment. “I – I should go.” Suiting action to words, she departed with haste.

Pinkie and I watched her leave. Once she was gone, the two of us exchanged a look and started laughing our flanks off.

“Chocolate chips.”

I dutifully passed the chocolate chips to Derpy.

“Sliced almonds.”

I passed the nuts to her.

“Cherries.”

“Sorry, I lost mine a long time ago,” I quipped. “Dinky’s pretty strong evidence that you can’t give me yours. I could go ask Blossom for hers though.”

Derpy frowned at me in confusion.

“It’s a joke.”

“Oh.” Derpy’s wall-eyed gaze lingered on me. “I don’t get it.”

I was almost tempted to explain what I’d meant, but restrained the urge. Everypony knows that if you have to explain the joke then there is no joke. Instead, I just passed over the cherries.

As I continued shuffling muffin ingredients over to Derpy, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was just the tiniest chance that Blossom might have been onto something. Back at the party I’d been completely certain that Derpy knew I was flirting with her and was flirting right back at me, but so far all we’d done since I showed up at her house this evening was put together the ingredients for a batch of muffins.

If Blossom found out about this, she was never going to let me live it down.

Fifteen minutes later, we just about had the muffins ready to go into the oven. I have to say, freshly baked muffins weren’t bad at all as a consolation prize. I’d had a pretty fun time hanging out with Derpy too. Honestly, the evening already ranked a lot higher than plenty of times when I did end up banging somepony.

I opened up the oven, and Derpy put the muffin tray in while I set the timer. Now there was nothing left to do but wait for them to finish baking.

Well, except for the cleanup. That’s the big downside of baking; once it’s done there’s a lot of cleaning up to do. That’s the reason I’d always been fond of sticking to daisy sandwiches and other simple fare when I’m just cooking for myself; I like a good fancy meal as much as anypony, but most nights it’s not worth the huge pain in the flank that comes from washing all those pots, pans, and dishes.

Derpy grabbed the bowl we’d mixed the muffin batter in, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Do you want to finish up the leftover muffin batter, Cloud Kicker?”

With how much Derpy loved anything related to muffins I’d expected her to take the leftover batter for herself, but I wasn’t about to turn her down if she was offering. “Sure.”

Derpy took a single step towards me, and suddenly her hooves slipped out from underneath her, sending her falling onto her back. She managed to save the bowl, but not before a bunch of muffin batter landed on all over her body.

For a second I was dismayed at the waste of perfectly good muffin-related products, until I noticed that Derpy didn’t look the slightest bit dismayed by the spill she’d taken, and not a single bit of batter had landed anywhere other than on her. “Where are your girls?” I asked, just to get a little confirmation.

“Sparkler took Dinky to a sleepover at a friend's house.” Derpy answered, a sly little smile on her face. “They won’t be back until they come home from school tomorrow.”

“So it’s just you and me all alone here. Huh. Imagine that.” I grinned right back at her. And Blossom said Derpy wouldn’t know what I’d meant when I flirted with her. As a general rule, when a really devoted single mom flirts with somepony and invites them over, then sends her kid off to stay with somepony else, it’s usually a pretty clear signal that she’s planning to do kid-unfriendly things.

I stepped forward, and shot a coy smile at Derpy. “Seems like a shame to let that muffin batter go to waste just because it spilled out of the bowl.” I deliberately let my eyes linger on a patch of batter on the side of her muzzle that included a nice big chocolate chip.

“Yeah, it does,” Derpy agreed breathily. She shifted a bit on the floor so her wings would have plenty of room to spread out. I have to say, between the muffin batter haphazardly splattered on her body, the wingboner, and the cute little smile on her face, Derpy was looking absolutely hotdorable. Adorasexy?

“Well, I suppose I could always just … eat it where it lies.” I leaned down and licked that patch of batter off the side of her muzzle.

Derpy gave a little shudder of pleasure at the contact. “I suppose you could,” she whispered.

And then we banged.

The Pony Who is a Total Frickin' Rockstar from Mars

Post-coital muffins taste better than any other muffins.

Derpy and I were curled up on her bed, engaged in a bit of the obligatory cuddling while demolishing our third plate of freshly baked muffins. Normally I wouldn’t stick around for the morning after, but Derpy got me to make an exception to the normal rule by tempting me with the prospect of wake-up banging and breakfast muffins. Don’t let the wall-eyes and tendency to be a clumsy goofball fool you, she can be one sneaky pony when she sets her mind to it. If baked goods were going to be part of the deal, I might even have to think about bumping this up from one-night-stand to a semi-regular friends-with-benefits sort of thing.

Eventually we shifted from the bed to the kitchen table. To be honest if we’d stayed in bed much longer the two of us would’ve ended up telling our respective bosses that we’d come down with a sudden case of pony pox and needed the day off. Possibly several.

If not for the fact that I’d just gotten promoted I probably would’ve done it. Tempting as the idea was, skipping out of work to have a non-stop sex marathon wasn’t exactly the best way to prove that the boss was right about tossing more responsibility my way.

At some point the two us started chatting about our Flight Camp days. Celestia, when did we turn into a couple of old grey mares who went on about the good old days? I guess Derpy had a bit of a head start on me there; her coat was already grey and she was a year older than me.

Derpy told me about one of the boss’ fillyhood exploits I hadn’t been there to see. “So then he says. ‘We’re all bigger than you and there’s four of us, so get out of the way! In fact, you better hand over your lunch money too.’ I was a little worried Rainbow Dash might just leave me with those bullies, but instead she just looked the colt straight in the eye and said, ‘So go get a couple more friends and it’ll be a fair a fight.’”

I couldn’t help chuckling at that; it was just like the boss. Most ponies who didn’t get to know her until later in life wouldn’t believe it, but Rainbow Dash has actually mellowed out a bit as she’s gotten older. Back when she was a filly, you probably could’ve convinced her that she could take Celestia, Luna, and Discord on in a fight and win.

Memories of Rainbow Dash and Flight Camp naturally brought the final member of our little group to mind. “Did you know it took me a week to learn Fluttershy’s name wasn’t ‘Eepysqueak?’” I asked in between chuckles. In my defense, when I’d introduced myself and asked her what her name was ‘Eepysqueak’ had been Fluttershy’s answer and she never corrected me when I started calling her that. By the time I learned her real name, I’d gotten so used to calling her Eepysqueak that it kind of stuck around as a nickname.

Too bad the fond Fluttershy memories didn’t last long. It was kind of hard to remember the good old days without thinking about what came afterwards.

Fortunately, two ponies coming through Derpy’s front door interrupted that train of thought before I could get mopey. Not-so-fortunately, the two ponies in question were her daughters.

Dinky was way too young and innocent to grasp the implication of my presence. On the other hoof, her adoptive big sister stared at me and Derpy with a look of mingled horror and fascination on her face. Sparkler was old enough to put two and two and two together and come up with ‘Sweet Celestia, my mom just had sex!’

Slipping out of the bedroom around three in the morning like I normally prefer doing makes it a lot easier to avoid situations like this. It’s not my fault; Derpy seduced me with the prospect of breakfast muffins.

Fortunately for the both of us, I knew how to come up with a good cover story. Kind of a necessity when you have my lifestyle. “Good morning, girls. Sorry to keep your mom from you, but I need to borrow her for weather duty.”

Derpy grinned and nodded, going along with the story. It was a semi-plausible excuse for why I would be at her house so early in the morning. Sparkler was sharp enough to still be suspicious, though. “I thought mom wasn’t allowed to do weather duty anymore?”

“I decide who’s on my squad, nopony else. The weather’s a pegasus thing, and last time I checked the Mayor’s an Earth Pony. Until she grows a pair of wings and gets promoted over me, she doesn’t have any say in who works the weather. Besides, your mom and I go way back. Same with her and Rainbow Dash. If I say your mom’s on my squad, it means she’s on my squad.”

Technically, all of that was true. However, the reality of the situation was a bit more complicated than the version I’d given Derpy’s daughters. While I was within my rights to just tell the Mayor to buck off when it came to my weather squad, pissing off the mayor of Ponyville would make life messy and complicated for everyone. There are plenty of things the Mayor could do to make things harder for the weather squad, not to mention that any conflict between the weather team and Mayor could end up turning into a pegasus vs earth pony thing.

Pegasi have always been a bit of a race apart from the other two flavors of ponies. After all, we could spend pretty much our entire lives up in the clouds if we really wanted to. Way back before Equestria’s founding, it was a point of pride for many pegasi to never set hoof on the ground unless they had to. We’re a bit more reasonable now, but we still take a bit pride in our independence. As a general rule, pegasi like doing pegasi things the pegasi way and to Tartarus with anypony who has a problem with that.

That kind of attitude makes for problems when it comes to dealing with groundbound authorities. It’s easy to mistake the pegasi independent streak for arrogance – a belief that we’re better than other ponies and don’t have to follow their rules. Most pegasi would see me bringing Derpy onto my team as me doing what team leaders do, and agree that the Mayor didn’t have any business involving herself with who was on my roster. On the other hoof, most of the groundbound ponies would see me picking a pony the Mayor didn’t want doing weather work as me deliberately defying the authority of the Mayor, and acting like the rules didn’t apply to me. It’d be easy for the whole thing to get blown out of proportion and turned into a big deal.

No wonder there’s an annual Heath’s Warming Eve play; without the reminder of how important it is to get along with each other in a dangerous world, we’d probably never get along. Then again, the fact that ponies like Celestia and Luna exist would seem to indicate that even in the pre-harmony days some ponies were able to look past the tribal barriers long enough to bang.

I gave Derpy a couple minutes to say goodbye to her fillies before the two of us left her home. Once we were safely out sight and earshot I spoke to my wall-eyed companion. “That was a close one. Think they bought it?”

“Sparkler is smart,” Derpy answered ominously.

Damn. Smart kids usually meant awkward talks after I left. At least Sparkler was old enough to know what was going on; I really hoped that she was also savvy enough to be evasive with Dinky until Derpy could sit her down and explain the birds and the bees. Or the birds and the birds, as the case may be.

However it worked out, Derpy telling her youngest the facts of life was something I didn’t want to get anywhere close to. “So, you’ve got work at the Post Office, right?”

Derpy shook her head. “I’ve got today off.”

Well, I had already kind of made the offer when I’d come up with the cover story for her kids... “Up for a little cloud pushing?”

“I can always use the extra bits, but I thought the Mayor didn’t want me to–”

“It’s like I told your kids; my team, my choice.”

Derpy gave me a tentative smile. “Alright then.”

I was a little disappointed to see that Blossom wasn’t around when we got to the town square. The bosses up in Cloudsdale didn’t think that Ponyville was a big enough town to rate its own weather center, so the Ponyville detachment usually just met up at the square or somewhere else that could accommodate a reasonable number of ponies. There was a weather office in Town Hall, but that was way too small to even fit a single squad; it was mainly so farmers and other ponies could have somewhere to submit their weather requests.

Rainbow Dash looked a bit surprised when I flew up with Derpy. Just to be safe, I cut off any potential objections before she could say them. “I’m just bringing her in for the one shift boss. My squad will take the high-altitude stuff; nopony on the ground’ll be able to tell she’s here too, and I’ll keep an eye on her.”

With any other pony my request would’ve fallen on deaf ears, but the boss didn’t need much convincing to toss a little work Derpy’s way. Derpy and I might not be her closest buddies any more, but were still old friends. That counts for a lot. “Alright, but stick close to her, Cloud Kicker. If I hear one ‘I just don’t know what went wrong!’ or ‘Oops, my bad!’ you’re gonna be responsible for fixing whatever it is she broke.”

Derpy shot me an innocently enthusiastic grin as I swallowed my terror. Derpy might be a sweetheart, but her capacity for accidental destruction was mind-boggling. Rebuilding half of Ponyville on an assistant manager’s salary would put me in the poorhouse for years.

I must’ve been doing something right to build up a lot of good karma, because work actually went pretty smoothly despite being partnered with Derpy for my entire shift. I just don’t know how I managed to get through an entire day with the most accident-prone pony in Equestria without a single thing going wrong.

Well, maybe all the accidents just hadn’t happened yet. Maybe as soon as I turned my back all the clouds would fall apart and explode. Clouds don’t normally explode, but when it comes to Derpy it’s not a good idea to rule out any potential catastrophe.

Then again, as long as the clouds didn’t explode during myshift, it wasn’t my problem.

Hanging out with Derpy was a blast (in the non-explodey sense). We had plenty of old stories about our fillyhood hijinks to toss around, and then there were Derpy’s stories about her girls and a couple of my crazier exploits. We hadn’t really had a chance to hang out since we both went to the Best Young Fliers competition up at Cloudsdale. Well, we’d run into each other at the Sisterhooves Social, but we hadn’t really spent any time together.

Gotta say, Derpy’s routine at the BYF was ... well it was something. I think the judges gave her the third place medal just because none of them wanted to admit that they had no clue what they’d just witnessed. Managing to leave the Wonderbolts dumbfounded was something to be proud of.

I might’ve snagged the silver medal (nopony stood a chance of beating the boss’ Sonic Rainboom) except that right in the middle of the most crucial part of my routine I spotted a pair of really hot twins waving at me. Sure, the distraction had cost me the competition, but considering what happened afterwards I still think I went home a winner.

Derpy and I did have a bit of a laugh as we remembered the boss’ pre-flight antics. I would’ve let her steal my number to give her a bit of time to deal with her stage fright, but I wound up with #3. Besides, I’d kinda been hoping that I might actually have a chance to win if the boss was down with nerves. In any case, Derpy was last on the list, and she made sure Dash didn’t have a hard time switching their numbers.

Y’know, in hindsight maybe I should’ve hooked up with Derpy a bit sooner. She was a great pony: fun to be around, a total sweetheart, and she has the best damn muffin I’ve ever eaten. Her baked goods were pretty tasty too.

Right as we were about to break for the day, I caught sight of the pony I’d been missing more than I’d expected to for most of the afternoon. I hadn’t realized it before, but the promotions Blossom and I got came with one big downside: Now that we each had our own squads to run, we wouldn’t get to spend nearly as much time working together.

“Hey Blossom!” I’d flown most of the way over to her and was just about to dive in for a good old tackle-hug when I noticed she didn’t seem all that happy to see me. Uh oh. I nervously landed on on the cloud she’d been sitting on. “Um – Blossom? Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know you,” Blossom snapped at me.

Okay... “Uh – yeah you do Blossom. It’s me. Cloud Kicker. Your best of best buds, remember? Do you have amnesia or something?”

“Best buds?” I was starting to think Blossom might be just a tiny bit peeved with me. The way she was screaming in my face kind of hinted at it. “Best friends trust each other! Best friends listen to each other! Best friends don’t just brush somepony off when they’re trying to help!”

I placed my hooves on her shoulders and shoved her back a bit to get her out of my face. “Geez Blossom, what the hay has gotten into you?” I nervously looked around; our budding argument was already starting to pick up a bit of an audience. At least being up on a cloud kept all of Ponyville’s groundbound citizens from joining in on the gawking. Still, we were making a bit of a public spectacle.

I was halfway tempted to do something crazy like kiss her in the hopes that it would leave her way too shell-shocked to think about being upset anymore. Under the circumstances that probably wouldn’t work though. At best it would be a temporary solution that would just make her twice as mad once she got over her shock, and at worst she would know exactly what I was trying to do and it would push her into full-on rage mode. Besides, I’m all for a bit of harmless teasing, but moving all the way up to kissing was taking things way too far. There are some lines a pony shouldn’t cross.

Blossom gave an aggressive flap of her wings that came close to buffeting me. “Oh I’m sorry, maybe I’m just a little mad that my so-called best friend doesn’t trust me! I thought our friendship actually meant something to you, but apparently it doesn’t. It seems to me like only part of our so-called friendship that you give a flying feather about is embarrassing me for your own amusement!”

I’d been starting to feel a bit defensive just on instinct, but that last comment deflated me in an instant. “Is this about the teasing? ‘Cause if it bugs you I’ll stop. I thought it was all in good fun; if I’d known it was bothering you I never would’ve...”

“It’s not about that!” Blossom snarled at me. For a second I thought she might actually slap me, but instead she just slumped down. It was as if she’d just suddenly run out of anger, and without her rage to push her forward she didn’t have anything left. “Why don’t you trust me, Cloud Kicker? Haven’t I been a good friend?” I saw the first hints of moisture gathering in her eyes.

Oh Celestia, here comes the guilt. On the bright side, the part of my brain that wasn’t feeling like absolute horseapples for making Blossom sad was finally starting to figure out what the problem was. “You’re upset because I didn’t tell you about the thing with Fluttershy?”

Blossom nodded and grunted out a weak affirmation.

“Oh Blossom...” I pulled her into hug. It gave her some comfort, and it meant that if she went from watery-eyed to full-blown crying I wouldn’t have to see the tears. “Sweetie, you are my best friend, and I do trust you. The whole Fluttershy thing ... it’s just a big nasty painful complicated mess that I don’t like talking about. I’ve never told anypony about it.”

Blossom hugged me back. That was usually a good sign. Crisis averted.

Just when it looked like everything was going to be okay, Derpy decided to help. “Hey Cloud Kicker, if you don’t wanna tell Blossomforth what happened I could tell her for you.”

Celestia.

Dammit.

Derpy.

Blossom broke off the hug. She looked ... calm. Not the good kind of calm. The kind of calm where a pony is so unbelievably enraged that they’ve moved completely beyond anger. I might’ve taken my best shot at running away, if not for the fact that Blossomforth still had her forelegs wrapped around me.

“You told Derpy.” Blossom’s tone was flat and emotionless. A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me it was because there was no way to fit all the anger she felt into her voice.

I hastily tried to explain myself. “Well, actually it was–”

“You lied to me.” Blossom’s grip tightened, and not in a good way. “You lied to me!”

“Wait! I can explain! It was–”

“I can’t believe you.” How was I supposed to clear this up when Blossom wouldn’t even let me get a word in edgewise? “You’ll spill the whole thing to one of your little one-night stands, but when I ask you to trust me you lie to me and–”

“Derpy isn't just some one-night stand,” I blurted out. I mean sure, my hook-up with her was (at least so far) a one-time thing, but the whole reason she knew about what happened with me and Fluttershy was because we were old friends, and she’d been there when the whole thing had gone down. The fact that we’d banged last night was totally irrelevant.

Blossom looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “What? You – you – what?” She took a few stumbling steps back from me and plopped her flank down on the cloud. “You – Derpy is – what? You don’t – you never...” Oh Luna. I think I broke her. And I’m not even sure what it was I’d done.

“Alright, show’s over everypony! Get outta here!” I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see the boss in my life. While there are times when I don’t object to having an audience, Blossom didn’t need to have most of the weather team watching our argument.

Derpy flew over to Blossom, and a second later I felt a blue hoof on my back. “C’mon, we gotta talk.” I shot a worried look over my shoulder at Blossom as the boss led me away.

Once we got to a reasonably private set of clouds, the boss started reading me the riot act. “I don’t need my two assistant managers getting into a yelling match in front of the entire weather team. I thought you two were friends. What the hay is going on?”

“I think Blossom and I are having some friendship problems.”

“No, really?” The boss took a couple deep breaths and toned the angry sarcasm down a couple notches. “What’s the deal?”

I sighed. “She found out about the thing with Fluttershy. She wanted to know about it, I didn’t wanna tell her, and it turned into a ... thing.”

The boss groaned and facehoofed. “That again? That was years ago! I thought you and Fluttershy settled it!”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to meet the boss’ eyes. “We apologized to each other and everything, but ... well things are still weird between us. Not everypony can fix their friendship problems by apologizing and letting you smack them.”

The boss let out a sheepish chuckle at that. “Hey, I didn’t get the whole story from Fluttershy before I ... well you were there, you know what happened.”

“Yeah, and I totally would’ve kicked your flank if Derpy hadn’t stopped us.”

Rainbow Dash let out a derisive snort. “Oh please! I had you on the ropes.”

“You know, if you’d actually won the fight you would’ve had even more to apologize for once it was all over. Either way, I was gonna win.”

“Yeah yeah, but I still would’ve won the fight.” Rainbow and I stared each other down for a few seconds, until we couldn’t keep straight faces anymore. Dash started laughing first though. It felt good to have a laugh after the whole mess with Blossom.

After a couple minutes of some much-needed stress relief, Rainbow Dash got back down to business. “Look, I don’t wanna get all mixed up in your personal lives, but you’re gonna come up with some way to fix this or else I’m gonna do the nastiest thing I can think of.” She smirked down at me as she delivered the most terrifying threat I’d ever heard come out of a pony’s mouth. “I’m gonna tell Fluttershy that you got into an argument with Blossomforth, and I’m gonna tell that the argument was about her.”

“Oh, that’s a low blow boss!” A part of me couldn’t help but be impressed by her ruthlessness. There was only one way telling Fluttershy about the situation could end; a tearful yellow pegasus begging me for forgiveness and laying down the most crushing unintentional guilt trip ever. Seriously, nopony can make you feel like a total mule quite like Fluttershy can. I would know.

“Hey, I got no problem with fighting dirty if that’s what it takes to win.”

“I do recall there being some feather-pulling and mane-yanking when you tried fighting me...”

“Which is why I would’ve won the fight,” Rainbow concluded proudly.

“Yeah sure, whatever you say boss.”

Derpy and Blossom were taking a lot longer to have their talk than Rainbow and I needed. Maybe the fact that Rainbow and I were both fond of taking the direct approach to things helped with that. These kinds of sensitive talks go a lot quicker and easier when both ponies involved just get right down to business and give straight answers instead of dancing around the subject and stuff.

Eventually, Rainbow and I got tired of waiting for the other two ponies. The boss told me to go home, and promised to send Blossom my way once she was done talking to Derpy.

I spent the time waiting for Blossom to show tidying my place up. I got rid of the last bits of grape jelly from a couple nights back, put clean sheets on the bed, and just generally made the place a bit nicer-looking. Having my home look presentable when Blossom turned up couldn’t hurt things. Besides, I’d go crazy if I didn’t have something to keep myself occupied while I was waiting.

I had just finished shoving some of my favorite toys into a box in the closet when I heard the sound of a hoof knocking on my door. I nervously checked my mane in the mirror. Then I checked my breath. Then I double-checked that I didn’t have any mud on my hooves. Finally, I stopped making excuses to put it off any longer and opened the door.

Blossom stood in my doorway. “Um – Hey.” Blossom coughed nervously and couldn’t bring herself to meet my eyes.

“Hey.” So much for my smooth and irresistible charm. Sometimes my life would be a lot less complicated if I was just trying to bang her instead of being her friend. My ‘get ponies into bed’ skills were more finely tuned than my ‘be a good friend’ skills.

“So...” Blossom finally broke the awkward silence. “You and Derpy, huh?”

Finally, a break from awkward tension. For me, anyway. “Yup,” I said with a nod.

Blossom took a deep breath and very artlessly declared, “You hit that. You tapped that flank. Was it – um – phat?”

I stared at her. “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Blossomforth?”

Blossom nervously pawed at the ground. “Sorry. I just ... I thought maybe it would help if I actually tried to – you know – talk about mating. Since, well...”

“I am kind of a big fan of it,” I conceded. I have to admit, the fact that she was willing to talk about a topic she was very uncomfortable with just to reach out a bit to me was pretty sweet. “So yeah, Derpy. Gal has the best muffin I’ve ever eaten. You should try it some time.”

“The best, huh?” Blossom arched an incredulous eyebrow. “I guess that would explain her obsession.”

“I don’t think she’s that flexible.”

Blossom immediately choked, which was an impressive feat to pull off with a mouthful of air. I suppressed a grin. “You’d like it,” I assured her. “Her baking’s pretty amazing, too.”

As Blossom sputtered haplessly in my doorway, I knew that this friendship problem was well on its way to being solved. Everything was back to normal. I wondered if the Princess would want a letter about this...

“Dear Princess Celestia: Today I’ve learned that one of the best ways to defuse awkward tensions among friends is to introduce other awkward tensions. It’s not really a defusal, per se, more like a deflection. Except not the bad kind of deflection, like happened when I wouldn’t tell Blossom about what happened with Fluttershy. It’s more of a fun deflection, like winning a pillow fight with a pair of wingies. Sincerely, Cloud Kicker.”

I can only imagine how Twilight would react if I tried to send that. Especially if I added a postscript asking the Princess if she wanted to bang sometime.

I hopped up onto my couch with Blossom half a step behind. We could’ve had plenty of space to ourselves, but instead we sat right next to each other. It seemed right to have that kind of casual physical contact. Like another way of affirming that everything was back to normal.

After a minute or so of companionable silence Blossom spoke up, “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s – how are things with you and Derpy? It – from what you said earlier it sounds like things between you two are – well – different from your normal.”

I frowned and thought that over. “Yeah, I guess they are. It’s weird. Maybe it’s because of that old friendship thing, but when it came time to pull my usual departure ... I didn’t feel like leaving.” Maybe not the most profound of explanations, but that’s really all there was to it. There was no plan or reason behind it; I’d stuck around because I felt like it. Considering how much I stuck to my rules and routines, it was kinda scary to break from the norm like that. And yet ... I was curious to see where it would end up leading.

Blossom tossed a nervous glance my way. “Do you think she might be The One?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the hopeless romanticism of that. “I just banged her last night, Blossom. Let’s not start planning the wedding yet. I’m not even sure there’s gonna be more to it than just the one night and being better friends from now on.” Well, if I had my way I’d definitely be getting a couple more bites at the muffin, and Derpy didn’t seem to mind the idea. “It’s probably not gonna be anything super-serious though. I don’t think either of us is looking for that, and it’s not like we’re head-over-hooves in love. It’s just ... fun.”

Then again, ‘fun’ is a good place to start any sort of relationship. Anypony who thinks it’s all about Love At First Sight, epic romance, and looks doesn’t have much experience with making real relationships last. Infatuation fades and unless you’re Celestia or Luna your looks are gonna start to go eventually, but fun lasts forever. If I’m gonna wake up next to the same pony every single day, it’s gonna be somepony I enjoy being around. So far, I enjoyed spending time with Derpy.

“Oh.” A slow smile made its way onto Blossom’s face. “I guess that’s good, right? Besides, I really can’t imagine you helping Derpy raise her girls.”

“Hey!” I gave her a playful little shove. “I’ll have you know I’m damn good with kids! I’d be an awesome role model parental figure-type-pony.”

“Yeah, sure you would. After all, you’ve got so much experience with foals.” Not even the boss’ fillyfriend could’ve missed that much sarcasm.

“Hey, if you don’t admit that I’d be awesome with kids then I’ll never tease you again,” I threatened.

“Oh no. Anything but that. I don’t know how I could possibly survive if you didn’t embarrass me on a regular basis.”

I grinned and snuggled up a little closer. “You’re cute when you’re a smartass.”

Blossom chuckled at me. “I thought you weren’t gonna tease me anymore?”

“I changed my mind.” I declared with every bit of primness I could muster. “It’s a mare’s prerogative to be inconsistent and change her mind whenever she pleases.”

Blossom and I looked at each other, and we both struggled to keep a straight face. She definitely started laughing first. Honest.

We spent the next couple of hours just chatting about nothing in particular. Having a night together just hanging out with each other was doing wonders to patch things back up.

Of course, the fact that alone time was the perfect thing for fixing our friendship meant that somepony started knocking on my door.

I went up to the door and took a look through the peephole to see who would dare to mess up my private time with Blossom. A second later, I was scrambling back from the door. “Hush Blossom!” I whispered. “If she doesn’t think anypony’s home, she’ll go away!”

“Who is it?” Blossom’s question came out way too loud for my tastes, so I shoved a hoof over her mouth. Instead of getting the message that she needed to shut up right now, she got annoyed with me, and went over to have a look for herself. After she’d looked out the peephole, she turned to me with a very worried frown. “Cloud Kicker, why are you hiding from one of the Royal Guards? Are you in trouble? Did you ... did you do something bad?”

“No!” I hastily whisper-shouted. “I’ll explain later, but for the love of Celestia just hide and be quiet until she’s gone!”

“Cloud Kicker,” the pony outside my door called out. “I know you’re in there. I can hear you and your little friend talking.”

With a groan, I signalled Blossom to open the door. A second later, a pony dressed in the armor of one of the Princess’ Royal Guards strode into my home. I forced myself to sound just a little bit cheerful. “Hi, Mom.”

“Mom?” Blossom’s jaw dropped as she stared between the two of us. “You’re Cloud Kicker’s mother?”

“Indeed I am.” Mom gave Blossom a critical once-over, and then turned to me. “I don’t know how you managed to win this one over. She seems much nicer than the ponies I usually catch you with. Certainly better than that griffin who was here the last time I visited.”

Blossom mouthed the word ‘griffin’ in shock. I shrugged. Where did she think hippogriffs came from? To be honest though, he hadn’t been all that great.

I should probably clear up any potential misconceptions before they got out of hand. “You got the wrong idea mom, Blossom and I are just friends.”

“Oh, I see.” Most parents might have been a bit skeptical of that claim, but Mom knew I wouldn’t bother lying to her about who I was banging. No real point in hiding my sex life after that time she walked in on me with the Doughnut Twins (Muncher and Hole), a can of whipped cream, and a donkey.

Now that had been awkward.

Of course, Mom couldn’t leave well enough alone. “I suppose I should’ve known the two of you weren’t involved; she seems a bit too respectable for you.”

I did my best to ignore the barb. “Why are you here, Mom?” In my experience, having Mom show up unannounced on my doorstep was rarely a good thing.

“There’s no need to be so confrontational dear,” Mom answered primly. The way she was trying to stand on the moral high ground as if she hadn’t done more than her share of bad parenting really got under my feathers. “Perhaps I simply wanted to have a pleasant visit with my daughter.”

Yeah right, and maybe I was about to adopt a celibate lifestyle. “Why are you here?” I ground out.

“You make it sound as if I must have some sort of ulterior motive.” Mom somehow managed to make herself seem like she was completely innocent and I was horribly wronging her by asking a perfectly reasonable question.

“Because you always do!” Well, there goes my self-control. “Let me guess, you want to chew me out for not telling you I got promoted? Or is it time for the semi-annual ‘You should settle down and join the Royal Guard like everypony else in the family’ speech? Or do you want me to do something for you instead of being here to tell me all about how I’m an inadequate daughter? Whatever it is, Blossom and I were kinda in the middle of a pleasant evening, so shoo.”

Mom sighed and moved into drama-mode. “I tried to be civil, but I suppose I was expecting too much of you to think you could actually carry on a conversation like a decent pony. Very well, strictly business then. My unit’s been called up for an emergency deployment to Fillydelphia and I couldn’t find somepony reliable to take care of your sister on such short notice.”

I did my best to reign in my temper. “You want me to foalsit for ‘lula? Well why didn’t you just say so? That’d be great!” With how I got along with Mom, I didn’t get many chances to hang out with my little sister. Apparently Mom was convinced I would be a bad influence on her or something, though I figure there was no way I could possibly be worse than that controlling she-witch who’d somehow produced the both of us.

No wonder Dad left her.

“Well, I would have said as much if somepony hadn’t been so hostile the instant I walked through the door.”

“Oh yeah?” I snapped right back. “Well maybe somepony shouldn’t have spent my entire childhood being such a–”

“Quit it!” Mom and I both went silent from shock when Blossom interjected herself into our conversation. Blossom turned to Mom. “Cloud Kicker’s little sister is waiting outside, right?”

Mom got a bit defensive at that. “Well yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with–”

“Then she can probably hear you two arguing.” Blossom cut her off. “How do you think she feels about that?”

“Oh.” For the first time in recent memory, Mom actually started to back down. “Yes, you’re right of course. I shouldn’t have risen to the bait when Cloud Kicker–”

“You started it,” Blossom snapped. “Trust me, I can recognize passive-aggressive button-pushing when I see it.”

Mom opened and closed her mouth a couple times, but couldn’t seem to think of a good response to that. Eventually, she just walked out the door.

I grinned at Blossom. “For the record, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen you do. I mean it. I have never been more sexually attracted to you than I am at this moment.”

“Thanks.” Blossom managed to get the word out with only a little bit of a blush.

A few seconds later Alula walked through the door, loaded down with her saddlebags. The last chance I’d gotten to spend some quality time with her was back during the Sisterhooves Social. Third place wasn’t shabby at all, and considering the shenanigans Applejack and Rarity were up to we technically got second because they should have been disqualified. Not that it really mattered, since there weren’t any prizes at stake beyond bragging rights. “Hey ‘lula. Been awhile.”

“Yeah it has, Kicky.” You could definitely tell ‘lula and I were sisters: her coat was a slightly lighter shade of yellow than my mane, and her mane was a pretty close match to my coat. “Were you fighting with Mom again?”

“Maybe a little.” Blossom might have read Mom the riot act for it, but I couldn’t help feeling responsible for my part in dragging ‘lula into the situation between me and Mom. It’s not like I wanted to drag her into it, but it’s kinda hard to hide the fact that I don’t get along with Mom. We’ve always butted heads from time to time, but for the last year or so things have been really bad. At least the fact that Dad also couldn’t stand being around her anymore proves it was mostly her fault things had gotten to the point where we couldn’t stand being in the same room with each other.

Well, nothing a quick and obvious change of topic couldn’t fix. “Hey ‘lula, I’d like you meet my friend, Blossomforth. Blossom, this is my baby sister, Alula.”

“I’m not a baby anymore,” ‘lula whined.

“Until you’re full-grown, I say you’re a baby.”

Blossom gave a little laugh at that, and held out a hoof for ‘lula to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“Well, how about you two get acquainted while I go set up the bedroom for ‘lula?” Well, perhaps ‘sanitize’ and ‘filly-proof’ would be better words to use. Sure, I’d done a bit of cleaning while I waited for Blossom to show up, but between my old wing-blades and the box of ‘toys’ a curious filly could find all kinds of things if she started poking her nose around in places it didn’t belong.

Once I finished relocating all the filly-unfriendly items to the upper shelves of my closet, I stepped back out into my living room. I counted my blessings that Flight Camp was still a while off for ‘lula – after she learned to fly, filly-proofing was gonna be a lot harder. ‘lula and Blossom seemed to be hitting it off, so I shifted to the kitchen to make sure I’d moved all the alcohol safely out of reach. Actually, as long as I was in my kitchen and had everything together... “Blossom, ‘lula, you guys thirsty?”

“Do you have any lemonade?” Figures ‘lula would ask for that; it was always her favorite. Lucky for her I was pretty fond of it myself, so I did.

“Lemonade sounds good to me too,” Blossom chimed in.

“Alright, lemonade for everypony then.” I opened up my fridge, and pulled out the lemonade. To my disappointment, there was only enough there for two ponies. Well, there was some more in the back, but that was my ‘special’ lemonade. Lemonade is always tastier when it’s 10% alcohol.

I poured out three drinks and took appropriate caution to make sure I didn’t get my lemonade mixed up with ‘lula’s. I’m probably not the best big sister ever, but I wasn’t gonna expose my little sister to alcohol until she was well into adulthood.

“Here we are.” Carrying three drinks at once was tricky to pull off, but good wing balance was one of those skills a pegasus has to learn if they want to fly. I kept ‘lula’s drink on my left wing so there’d be no risk of getting it mixed up with mine. Just as I was setting the drinks down, somepony started knocking on my door.

If it was Mom, I was so gonna sic Blossom on her again.

I gave ‘lula her drink and quickly put the other down as another set of knocks came from the door. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Sheesh, some ponies have no patience.

I opened the top half of my door, and found myself face-to-face with the possessor of the world’s most delicious muffin. “Oh. Hey Derpy.” Was she here to set up a second date? Despite it being a break from my usual policy, I don’t think I’d mind that. Just to be safe, I hit her with a bit of the old Cloud Kicker charm. “What’s a cute mare like you doing in a place like this?”

Derpy looked a little uncomfortable, and shot a nervous look over my shoulder. “Hey, sorry to bother you Cloud Kicker. You too Blossomforth.” I tossed a look over my shoulder, and I was a bit surprised to see Blossom glaring at the grey pegasus. Made me a bit curious about what the hay had happened when the two of them had their talk.

“Anyway,” Derpy continued. “I know it’s kinda last-minute, but I’ve gotta go do a special late-night delivery to Canterlot, so I need somepony to keep an eye on Dinky tonight. I’d ask Sparkler, but she left town earlier today to visit some friends.”

“Well...” I shot a look back into my home and shrugged. I was already keeping an eye on ‘lula, having another foal around wouldn’t be that much more trouble. Besides, it would give ‘lula somepony her own age to play with. “Sure, why not?”

“Great!” Derpy leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be by to pick her up in the morning. Thanks Cloud Kicker.”

Derpy gave her daughter a quick goodbye nuzzle and flew off. I opened up the door all the way to let Dinky in. The filly regarded me a bit of uncertainly. “Sparkler said you and Mommy are special friends now.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.” I’m still not exactly sure how that happened, but it was looking more and more like the night I’d spent with Derpy might not be such a one-time thing. I’m no romantic, but there was something to be said for having a regular friends-with-benefits arrangement instead of having to go out on the prowl every night I didn’t wanna sleep alone. Especially since it’s pretty rare that I’m in the mood for a lonely night.

Dinky trotted over to ‘lula, and the two of them started chatting about something that happened the other day at school. Before long the topic moved to the boss; ‘lula and Dinky were both part of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club after all. I could probably blame myself for ‘lula being a member; I had told her quite a few tales of the things the boss and I got up to back in Flight Camp.

While I talked with the fillies, I couldn’t help noticing that Blossom wasn’t participating in the conversation. In fact, she looked a little out of sorts and seemed to be in the process of draining her lemonade as fast as possible. Seeing her drinking reminded me that I had a glass waiting for me as well. I took a long sip of my drink and immediately noticed something seemed a bit off about how it tasted.

There was no alcohol.

Before I could start panicking about having corrupted my little sister, Blossom spoke up. “Cloud Kicker, I think I’ve been drinking your lemonade.” I turned to look at her as she very deliberately finished off the glass. Blossom slowly licked her lips and almost hesitantly asked. “Do you have any more?”

Even if she hadn’t commented on it being my lemonade, there’s no way she couldn’t have noticed the alcohol in the drink. Well, I had been trying to get her to loosen up a bit; adding in some social lubricant might be just the thing. On any other night I’d be all for it ... but there were fillies around.

On the other hoof, it’s not like my lemonade had that much alcohol in it. While I don’t mind a bit of social lubrication, I generally don’t like getting out-and-out drunk. It tends to lead to incredibly stupid decisions I end up regretting later. Besides, I’m pretty sure I could trust Blossom to be a responsible adult. Most ponies would say that she’s much better at the whole responsible adult thing than I am, even though she’s younger than me.

I gave my mostly-intact glass of lemonade to Dinky and went into the kitchen to pour some more of the special stuff for me and Blossom.

Then somepony knocked on my door.

Again.

“Oh for the love of Luna!” Why did everypony have to come pounding on my door on what was supposed to be a quiet night for just me and Blossom? I loved having ‘lula around, and it’s not like I minded keeping an eye on Dinky, but why did all of this have to be happening tonight?

I flew over to the door and opened it a bit roughly. “What?”

A rather frazzled-looking Rarity seemed rather taken aback at my brusque tone. “Did I come at a bad time?”

I sighed and forced myself to calm down. There’s no way Rarity could know about everything that had happened to me today, and taking out my frustration on her wasn’t remotely fair. “Sorry, it’s been one of those days.”

“Oh, I understand completely.” Rarity declared sympathetically as she turned about and prepared to walk off. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll just find somepony else to–”

“No, I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” I apologized “What do you need?”

Rarity turned back around and I noticed the bags under her eyes. Looks like somepony’s been missing out on her sleep, and not in a good way. “Well, I have a rather large order I need to get done by tomorrow and everypony else I’ve asked is terribly busy, so I was wondering if there was any you could possibly–”

“Foalsit Sweetie Belle?” I guessed.

“Well, yes.” Rarity frowned at me. “How did you know?”

I took a half-step back from the door so she could see ‘lula and Dinky. “It’s been that kind of day,” I repeated. For a moment I was tempted to turn her down, but I still felt a little bad about getting snappy with her. Besides, it was only one more filly. With three of them here, they could probably keep themselves busy instead of needing me and Blossom to serve as entertainment.

“Oh thank you ever so much darling,” Rarity gushed. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. Truly, you have no idea how much you’ve helped me. I promise I’ll do something lovely to make it up to you. Maybe a dress? A spa day for you and Blossomforth? Oh, I’ll figure it out later. Anyway, I’ll go get Sweetie Belle. If she asks, don’t let her cook anything. I’ll also let Applejack know to send the others here. Now, I’d love to stay and chat darling, but I’m already running terribly behind schedule so...”

“Great.” A second later, the other horseshoe dropped “Wait, what others?”

“Oh, her friends. The Cutie Mark Crusaders. I did mention they were planning to have a sleepover, didn’t I?”

No. No she hadn’t. “Wait a minute, I–”

Rarity was already galloping off before I got the first word off. She must’ve heard my voice though, because she called back over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in the morning to pick them up! Thank you once again, Cloud Kicker!”

A few minutes later the trio of rather infamous fillies were at my doorstep, escorted by a somewhat harried-looking Applejack. I spent the intervening time checking my home’s insurance policy. Apparently they hadn’t gotten around to including an ‘agreed to foalsit the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ exception to my coverage. Yet.

I looked down at the terrible trio, who returned my gaze with innocent curiosity. It was enough to make me wonder if maybe all the stories I’ve heard about the chaos these three could cause were exaggerations.

Scootaloo was the first to speak. “Is it true you and Rainbow Dash were fillyhood friends? That must’ve been so awesome!”

I chuckled at the enthusiastic hero-worship in her voice. Trust the president of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club to bring that topic up. As members of the club, Dinky and ‘lula seemed pretty interested too. “Yeah, it was pretty cool. I remember one time we–”

“I’m hungry,” Sweetie interrupted me. “Do you have anything to eat?” A second later her face brightened into a joyful smile. “I know! I’ll cook something for us!”

Oh no, Rarity warned me about her cooking. “I think I’ll just order out for some–”

Then Apple Bloom spoke up. “I heard mah sister an’ Big Mac talkin’ once, an’ she said yer a loose pony. What’s that mean? ‘Cause I don’t see anythin’ on ya that looks loose.”

Nice to know what Applejack had to say about me behind my back. “It means I might kick your sister in the face next time I see her,” I growled.

“No way!” Apple Bloom immediately took offense at the implied slur on her sister’s honor. “If you tried t’fight mah sister, she’d tan yer hide!”

“Would not!” ‘lula immediately spoke up in my defense. “Kicky would kick your sister right over the clouds!”

The argument promptly escalated, and soon I found myself holding the two of them apart to keep them from settling the issue with a fight of their own. “I’m not gonna get into a fight with Applejack, okay?”

“‘Cause you know that if ya did you’d lose!” Apple Bloom crowed.

“Nah, she just doesn’t wanna put your stupid big sister in the hospital!” ‘lula argued right back

Okay. That accomplished less than I’d hoped.

To be honest, the ongoing argument over which big sister was a better fighter had me just a tiny bit curious as to the outcome. A lifetime of farm work probably meant Applejack had the edge over me in terms of muscle power and raw athletic ability. Then again, there’s more to fighting than muscles and back when I’d gotten into that scuffle with Rainbow Dash I’d held my own. Since Rainbow beat Applejack in the Iron Pony competition, it was a pretty safe bet that she was the tougher of the two ponies. Going off of that, if I was an even match for Rainbow Dash then I could take Applejack.

On the other hoof, a fight back when we both hadn’t even been full-grown wasn’t a perfect measuring stick of where things stood now. Applejack and the boss both got a lot more exercise than me on a regular basis. Wait, I remember hearing about some scientific study that said that banging was actually one of the best forms of exercise a pony could get. In that case, wouldn’t it mean that I was in better shape than both of them? Plus, if we really got serious I could always break out my old wing-blades from my fencing days...

Why was I putting so much thought into this again?

While my brain was busy with that random train of thought the two fillies seemed to have caught on to the fact that I wasn’t going to let them beat the tar out of each other. Consequently, they had resorted to fighting with words instead.

“Fruity-tooty!”

“Featherbrain!”

“Sodbuster!”

“Airhead!”

“Dirt pony!”

As inevitably happens when two ponies start volleying insults, Apple Bloom decided it was time to hit below the saddle line. “Well at least ah don’t have a crush on Diamond Tiara!”

‘lula gasped and blushed. “I do not!” she immediately insisted.

“Then why’d ya give her a card for Hearts and Hooves Day?”

“It was a friendship card!” ‘lula argued right back. “You didn’t give Miss Cheerilee a card because you had a crush on her, right?”

“Miss Cheerilee don’t count!”

“Well neither does Diamond Tiara!”

“Alright, settle down!” I should’ve put my hoof down a bit sooner, but finding out my baby sister might have a crush on somepony had gotten me just a little bit curious. It was past time I tossed out a bit of foalsitter authority though. “Apple Bloom, go to that corner. ‘lula, go that one.”

“You’re putting me in time out?” ‘lula looked at me as if this were some sort of terrible betrayal.

“No, just sending you to opposite ends of the house. You two stay away from each other, and as long as you don’t fight anymore you’ll be fine.” Maybe it wasn’t the best way to discipline unruly children, but it was the most I was comfortable doing. Still, I probably needed to put a little bit more authority down. “If either of you puts one more hoof out of line though...”

The girls obediently went to their corners. A quick check of the room confirmed that Blossom seemed to have Sweetie Belle well in hoof. Blossom was tossing together something edible for the fillies (nothing fancy, just sandwiches and hay fries), while Sweetie commented that she was doing it wrong because nothing was on fire.

I’m starting to see why Rarity told me to keep her sister out of the kitchen.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dinky and Scootaloo were being reasonably well-behaved despite a lack of immediate supervision. The two of them had pulled out an old Thunderhead set I kept around for when ‘lula visited, and were busy playing the game while swapping stories of the boss’ awesomeness.

I joined the two girls and listened in on their conversation a bit before deciding to bring up the topic I was really interested in. “I’ve been hearing about a filly in your class called Diamond Tiara. What can you two tell me about her?”

For the next couple minutes the fillies talked my ear off about Diamond Tiara. The short version was that Diamond Tiara was a spoiled rich little brat, a bully, and from what they told me she didn’t have a single redeeming feature.

And apparently my little sister had a crush on her. Okay. That was bad. Really bad. How could ‘lula be interested in a filly like that? Well okay, maybe it was one of those cases of her liking the Bad Girl, but...

No. This was unacceptable. I was going to have to do something to fix this. But what? I couldn’t just try to ban her from liking Diamond Tiara. That was the kind of horseapples Mom would try to pull. In fact, come to think of it I bet Mom had a hoof in this. Hooking ‘lula up with Filthy Rich’s daughter had to seem pretty appealing to her.

I had to find a way to solve this without resorting to the sort of dirty underhoofed tricks that Mom would use. So what to do?

Of course! Give ‘lula an alternative to make her forget all about Diamond Tiara! But who? My eyes fell onto one of the fillies sitting in front of me and it all fell into place. Dinky was a good filly, certainly a much better choice than some spoiled rich little brat. Besides, if ‘lula spent more time hanging out with Dinky it would mean I could get quality time with my little sister whenever Derpy and I got together. It was perfect! Well, there was a bit of a weird-factor in hooking my little sister up with Derpy’s daughter, but the pros of the plan definitely outweighed the cons. Especially considering the alternative.

Now I just needed to get Blossom on board with the plan. Two heads were always better than one.

“Food’s ready, everypony.” Looks like Blossom had just finished the snack she’d been tossing together for the small army of fillies I’d somehow wound up being responsible for. Perfect! While the kids were busy gorging themselves, Blossom and I could make with the plotting. She always did have good timing.

As the foals dove into the food with the usual enthusiasm of the young, I pulled Blossom into the bedroom. It was pretty much the only place we could go in my house to get some privacy with all the girls running around. “Hey Blossom, something I wanna talk to you about.”

Much to my surprise, Blossom hit me with the cutest little pout. “You just want to talk? When you dragged me into the bedroom I thought you must have something else in mind...”

“Bwuh?” I can be quite eloquent sometimes.

Blossom wrapped her hooves around my neck and nuzzled my cheek. “You know Cloud Kicker, you’re right. We should’ve mated a long time ago.”

“Huh?”

The amorous pegasus began herding me towards the bed. “We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for. Let’s get nice and comfortable, and then we’ll bang, OK?”

The tiny part of my brain that wasn’t utterly shellshocked by this turn of events felt just a little offended that she’d gone and turned one of my own lines against me. There has to be some kind of rule against that.

Blossom leaned in – most likely as the first stage in her plan to start a sloppy make-out session –and I got a good whiff of her breath. That explained a few things. “You’re drunk.”

The liquored-up pegasus let out a tipsy giggle, and now that I was paying attention I heard her slurring her words a bit as she declared. “No ’m not. I only had, like, three or four glasses of lemonade. ‘m not drunk. I never get drunk. ’m a very responsible drinker.” Blossom thrust a hoof aggressively into my chest. “But you ... you are a sexy bitch, ‘nd ‘m gonna bang you, ‘nd nothin’s gonna stop me!”

Alrighty then. I think I need to upgrade Blossom from ‘a bit drunk’ to ‘utterly plastered.’ Either she was a lightweight or she wasn’t remembering things right when she claimed she’d only had three glasses of my lemonade, because there’s no way a couple glasses of my lemonade could get her this blitzed.

First things first, I needed to get out of this situation with Blossom’s virginity intact. Blossom was doing her level best to make that difficult; my fully spread wings made it quite clear that certain parts of my body were cognizant of the fact that there was a cute mare throwing herself at me. However – contrary to what a lot of ponies who don’t know me might expect– my brain was still running the show. “Not gonna happen. You’re drunk, Blossom.”

“Hey! I may be horny, but tha’ doesn’t mean ‘m not drunk.” Blossom grimaced and waved a hoof vaguely through the air. “I mean – y’know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I got the gist of it.” It’s too bad there wasn’t a camera around, because getting undeniable evidence of what Blossom was up to would’ve been gold. I don’t think the Equestrian language had enough words to express how embarrassed Blossom was gonna be once she sobered up and remembered what had happened, and having some hard evidence on hoof would’ve made it even better. Oh well; if her current performance was any indication, Blossom was a horny drunk – there would always be future opportunities.

Potential for future blackmail material aside, it was time to put an end to this. While it would be a lie to say there wasn’t a part of me that was a bit tempted, banging Blossom could not possibly end well. Hooking up with your best friend when she’s utterly sloshed is just a recipe for disaster. For starters, banging somepony who’s really drunk is kinda taking advantage of the fact that they aren’t thinking straight. I didn’t want Blossom waking up in the morning with a massive hangover, only to look over to the other side of the bed, see me there, and realize that she had made a colossal mistake.

Besides, banging my best friend would be weird. Sure she’s cute and all, but I really don’t think of her like that. Most of the time.

Blossom tried for a kiss, but between her sloppy drunk reflexes and my sober ones it wasn’t hard to keep it from happening. I eventually settled on a hug that bore a passing resemblance to a grappling hold. It seemed to satisfy her amorous desires for the moment and kept her in a position where she couldn’t do much worse than nuzzle me a bit.

“You shmell nice,” Blossom declared.

Before I could come up with a more permanent solution for the drunken pegasus I had on my hooves (or in them, rather), I heard the door creak open and unceremoniously shoved Blossom off of me. She landed on my bed and rolled over, shooting me a look which I’m pretty sure was supposed to be flirty. She was a bit too hammered to pull it off with the necessary subtlety though, and it wound up looking pretty cheesy. I ignored her and turned to face the intruder, silently praying that I had been fast enough.

“Apple Bloom, what are you doing in my room?” I asked. If anypony was going to start a conversation with an awkward question, it may as well be me.

“Yer sister an’ ah decided to settle things all gentlepony-like,” Apple Bloom said. “She said ya kept some fancy fencin’ swords in here.”

What? I thought I kept those old wing-blades from my fencing days on the top shelf of the closet (fencing might seem like a bit of an odd sport to get into, but mares love a pony who’s willing to get into a duel to defend their honor). How could ‘lula get to them? The things were way too blunt to be dangerous, but they could still cause enough damage just by flailing them around trying to hit each other.

On the bright side, my wing-blades wouldn’t come close to fitting ‘lula and – as the name rather indicates – an earth pony like Apple Bloom wouldn’t be able to use them at all. Odds were it would be harmless enough as long as they wore the masks (wing-blades don’t need to be sharp to put an eye out) and I kept a close eye on them.

“Got ‘em!” ‘lula’s voice echoed from the closet. “I dunno, though, Apple Bloom - this is a weird-looking sword.” My sister stepped back into view, struggling to balance on her hindlegs while holding in en garde position a long black--

Oh Celestia, don’t touch those sis! I know exactly where they’ve been! You know it’s a bad sign when I wished my little sister was playing with old rusty knives instead.

Blossom giggled. “So tha’s where you keep your stash. What elsh ya got in there?”

“Kicky has all kindsa weird stuff in her toy box!” ‘lula declared with innocent enthusiasm.

“Izat so?” Blossom grinned at me. “Lesh go havva look!”

“Hey girls!” I forced as much cheer as I could into my voice. “Those things are no good. If you really want to have a duel, I could let you use my old wing-blades and–”

“Wing-blades are boring.” ‘lula whined. “Mom wanted me to learn them, but it wasn’t any fun at all! Besides, Apple Bloom doesn’t have wings. And I’ve never seen swords like these before,” she continued “I wanna know how to use ‘em.”

Merciful Luna, kill me now. Please. Spare me from hearing another entendre leave my sister’s mouth.

I felt a hoof run across my cutie mark and gave a very uncharacteristic squeak. “Hey Cloud Kicker...” I felt Blossom’s hot breath against my ear as she hauled herself off the bed and draped herself indecently across my back. “Maybe we oughta, y’know, give the girls a little ... demonstrashun on how to use thosh things...” I felt her other forehoof run along the edge of one of my wings, which was much stiffer than it had any business being.

Stupid biological reactions.

Fortunately (if you can really call anything about this mess fortunate), I was far too mortified by the entire situation to be remotely tempted by Blossom’s offer.

With a burst of speed that would’ve impressed the boss, I snatched away the ‘swords’ the two fillies were using, tossed the weapons back into the closet and threw the girls out of the room. I locked the door behind them, and considering stacking up some furniture behind the door as well.

Never foalsitting again. Ever.

“Sho...” Blossom began doing some very improper things to my ear with her mouth in between words. “We’re all alone now...”

I unlocked the door, threw her out, and locked it again.

I had a few brief moments of wonderful peace and quiet, until I heard a slurred announcement on the other side of the door. “Hey! C’mere girls. Gotta tell ya ‘bout some shtuff. Since you’re shtayin’ in Cloud Kicker’s houshe, I gotta be responshible ‘nd tell ya ‘bout bangin’ ‘fore ya fin’ outtabout it on yer own...”

Oh Celestia no! My first instinct was to rush in and stop her by whatever means necessary, but I was pretty sure she’d just take that as an invitation to begin a live demonstration.

Okay. No point in denying it anymore. I was officially in over my head. Scratch that, I was in over my head a while ago. Now I was barreling at full speed towards utter disaster. I needed help. Expert help.

I fled into the night.

After a couple minutes of pounding on her door, a very groggy and justifiably grumpy Cheerilee answered the door. The look on her face told me it would be a good idea to keep my explanation short and to the point. “I got tricked into foalsitting the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

From the look on Cheerilee’s face no further explanation was needed. With a resigned sigh, she started walking along with me towards my place.

I opened the door, and Cheerilee gazed at the scene in wide-eyed shock. I’ve gotta admit, between Sweetie Belle’s attempt at dessert, the state of the kitchen after said attempt (thank Celestia that Dinky knew how to use a fire extinguisher), the three-way brawl between ‘lula, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo over which of their big sisters/idols would win in a fight, and the utterly hammered pegasus suggesting that we give the girls a ‘practical demonstration’ of the facts of life, things looked pretty bad.

Cheerilee looked at me. Then back at the warzone my home had become. Then back to me. “How did this happen?” A second later she sighed and facehoofed. “Oh right, it’s them. I've got experience dealing with the girls – can you take Blossomforth?"

Blossom immediately let out a loud cry of “YESH CLOUD KICKER, TAKE ME! TAKE ME NOW!”

Note to self: give Blossom’s share of the foalsitting pay to Cheerilee.

The Pony With Adonis DNA

Blossom woke up with what I could safely assume was one hay of a nasty hangover considering how she’d been acting last night. I grinned at her. “Good morning, sunshine!”

Blossom let out a long, loud groan. Most ponies would’ve just taken the groan at face value, but luckily for her I spoke fluent hangover-ese.

“It’s 10:30 in the morning, so it’s not too early to wake up. I’m whispering, so if you say one word about me being too loud I swear I’ll set the Crusaders on you.” OK, that would probably be way too cruel. Sure I was a bit peeved with her for getting hammered while we were supposed to be foalsitting, but unleashing the Crusaders on a hungover pony probably qualified as a form of torture. They’d been enough of a hooffull for me last night when I was functioning at a hundred percent.

On the other hoof, Blossom deserved a scare as payback for everything she’d put me through. Things wouldn’t have gotten nearly so bad if I’d had another responsible adult helping out instead of a drunk and horny pegasus adding to my problems. If nothing else, she deserved to suffer some retribution for the mild case of blue wings she’d left me with. Spending all night turning down the advances of a reasonably attractive and extremely horny pegasus will do that to a mare.

Blossom groaned again, and I quickly translated. “Last night? You decided to get drunk off your flank. You also spent half the night trying to get me to bang you.”

Blossom’s eyes snapped open as soon as she heard that. I’d already done her a favor and shut the blinds; I might be annoyed with her, but I’m not a sadist. Besides, I wanted her to see me.

In bed. With her.

Okay, maybe I’m a bit of a sadist.

“Up for round two, hot-flanks? This time we can do the fun stuff!”

Blossom unleashed a string of panicky mumbling and flailed about uncoordinatedly until she tumbled out of the bed. That got a sympathetic wince out of me, and I slid out of bed to help her back in. Blossom seemed content to lie on my floor clutching her head in her hooves and whimpering, but I eventually managed to corral her back into my bed.

Getting her in my bed prompted more panicky hungover-ness and mumbles about how she didn’t wanna because she had a headache, so I decided to have a bit of mercy on her. “Relax, that was a joke. You haven’t lost your virgin card yet, and my intentions are entirely honorable.” Besides, a witch of a hangover is a pretty big impediment to any type of banging. Speaking from experience here.

I grabbed a glass of water for her off my nightstand and managed to coax her into drinking it. Once she’d gotten some water in her I went to the kitchen to grab a refill. Blossom was halfway through her second glass when I heard a knock on my door.

I let the boss’ fillyfriend in. I’d asked Pinkie Pie to put together a hangover cure for Blossom earlier. Hard to beat Pinkie Pie’s hangover cures; part of being Ponyville’s #1 Party Pony is knowing what to do when somepony parties a little too hard.

I took a curious sniff of the jar full of greenish liquid she’d brought over – I’d never had a chance to see one of her hangover cures while sober before – and promptly wished I hadn’t. Hangover cures, much like the hangover itself, apparently exist to make ponies realize that drinking to excess is a terrible, terrible idea.

“It’s my Patented Pinkie Pie Peachy-keen Pulchritudinous Hangover Panacea! It’s got salt, pickle juice, an egg, and my special super-secret ingredient!” Pinkie happily informed me. “I’ve got lots and lots of pickle juice. I bought an entire barrel full of it, just so I could say I have a pickle barrel! Now I just need to get some kumquats and...”

I trotted off into the bedroom as the crazy pink pony continued rambling. Pinkie might be a lot of fun to be around, but I don’t know how the boss manages to put up with her all the time. Probably by giving her things to do with her mouth other than talk.

Blossom took one look at the hangover cure and did her best to shove it away with a hoof. I couldn’t blame her for being a bit wary of drinking a jar of weird green stuff, but it was good for what ailed her. “Blossom, be a good girl and take your medicine.”

“Dunwanna.” Looks the water had at least gotten her to recover to the point where she could actually manage something resembling pony speech. “Looks icky.”

“Ickier than being stuck with a hangover?” That got Blossom thinking, so I went in for the kill. “Do you really wanna see what I’d do to make you drink it? ‘Cause lemme tell you, I have a couple really fun ideas for how to distract you.”

Blossom blushed and obediently stopped resisting. She took a single sip of Pinkie’s cure and nearly gagged on it, but I put a hoof on the jar and tipped it up a bit and forced her to keep drinking. She’d thank me later.

Once she’d finished it all off I took the jar from her and grabbed her another glass of water. She drank the water with considerably more enthusiasm, no doubt hoping she could get the taste of Pinkie’s medicine out of her mouth.

Speaking of Pinkie Pie, the pink party pony seemed to have taken it into her head to check up on my patient. “Hiya!” Pinkie chirped enthusiastically. Blossom whimpered and put a hoof to the side of her head. Pinkie took a hint and lowered the volume; right now anything louder than a whisper would hit Blossom like the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice. “I brought you a cupcake to help wash my Patented Pinkie Pie Peachy-keen Pulchritudinous Hangover Panacea down.”

Blossom snatched the cupcake away and devoured it as fast as equinely possible. After a couple seconds to swallow, she waved me over with a hoof and whispered to me. “Cloud Kicker, what did you tell Rainbow Dash about why I’m not at work?” The fact that she was actually capable of forming and speaking coherent thoughts was a good sign for her recovery.

“I told the boss you were sick.” I answered helpfully.

“Sick?” Blossom tried to glare at me, but she still looked a bit too miserable to really pull it off. “You told Rainbow Rainbow Dash I was sick, then asked her fillyfriend to come over to make me a hangover cure?”

“Aw, don’t worry your pretty little head about Dashie-Washie.” Pinkie gave Blossom a reassuring pat on the head, which drew a whimper and a slow, half-hearted effort to brush the hoof away from the hungover pegasus. “Your Auntie Pinkie Pie has it all taken care of.”

“You’re not that much older than me,” Blossom grumbled under her breath.

“Pinkie’s right though, there’s no need to worry.” I reassured her. “The boss knows you came down with a nasty case of hasahangoveritis.”

Blossom let out a low moan of pain. “Why would you do that?

“Normally I’d cover for you, but considering all the trouble you got me into last night...” I trailed off with a shrug. What more needed to be said?

A blush was rapidly spreading across Blossom’s face as she asked. “Um – I can definitely remember some stuff, but could you tell me what exactly I did last night?”

I’m surprised she could remember anything; as hammered as she seemed, I’d half-expected her to be completely blacked out. “Well, do we start with the part where you wanted me to help you teach the girls about the facts of life by giving them a live demonstration, or the part where you were screaming for me to take away your virginity?”

Blossom let out a high-pitched squeak of terror and pulled the covers up over her head. Nice to see she was back to normal. “Did – did I really do that? In front of fillies?”

“Yes indeed.” Blossom let out a low moan of humiliation. “Don’t worry, I think between the two of us Cheerilee and I managed to fix most of the damage.” I just hope we’d done a good enough job to avoid the girls having some very interesting stories when they went home. Especially Dinky; I could live with Mom or Applejack being a bit put out with me, but Derpy was an old friend. Plus, you know, I wanted to bang her again. Derpy thinking I was a bad influence on her girls would make that kind of hard to pull off.

“Uh – where are the girls now? I should probably say something to them about–”

"Cheerilee took them to school.” I cut her off. “I figured that would at least buy you enough time to get over the hangover before you get some pissed off ponies out for your blood.” Although knowing my luck I would catch just as much of the blame for Blossom’s antics as Blossom herself. After all, she’d been getting drunk on my booze in my house.

Hopefully between Blossom’s drunkenness and the fillies’ innocence most of what she’d said had been lost in translation. Not having to deal with pissed-off pony parents would make my life a little easier.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach when I heard a hoof tapping on my door. I just knew it was going to be Applejack here to chew me out for corrupting her little sister, or Scootaloo’s parents. Maybe even Derpy coming here to revoke my muffin privileges forever and leave me with another former friend I could barely even talk to anymore.

I opened up the door and found Rarity on the other side. She looked exhausted, but had a faint hint of satisfaction lingering about her. Considering what she’d told me about why she needed somepony to keep an eye on Sweetie Belle, she’d probably just finished up with the work that left her pulling an all-nighter. The massive steaming cup of coffee she had floating along next to her was a pretty good hint too.

“Good morning Cloud Kicker.” Rarity let out a huge and most unladylike yawn. “I just thought I would stop by, ask how everything went last night. I do hope the girls weren’t too much trouble.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” I lied smoothly. “They did get a little out of hoof once or twice, but Cheerilee came over and helped me keep them under control.”

“Oh, that’s very nice of her. I’ll ask the girls to include her.” Rarity gave a couple owlish blinks and a sudden start. “Oh! Yes, right. I haven’t told you yet. I’m terribly sorry, but I’m just a touch drowsy at the moment. Anyway, I asked the girls over at the spa to give you and Blossomforth a deluxe treatment. Free of charge, of course. Well, not actually free since I’ll be paying for it, but...” Rarity yawned again and waved a hoof in the air.

“I get the idea.” I rescued the sleep-deprived pony from going off on a tangent. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” I hesitated for a moment before bringing the subject up considering the state Rarity was in, but I couldn’t just let the matter go by without comment. “Would’ve been nice to know that I was getting all three of the Crusaders when I accepted, instead of just Sweetie Belle.”

Rarity had been in the middle of taking a sip of her coffee when I dropped that little bombshell. I narrowly avoided getting a mouthful of hot coffee to the face. “What? I was so sure I had – oh, I am so dreadfully sorry, Cloud Kicker. That was just awful of me. I’ll ask the girls to do something special for you to make up for it. They should be ready to see you sometime this afternoon, perhaps around four-ish?”

“Sounds good. Now go home and get some sleep.”

“Oh yes, sleep sounds lovely,” Rarity agreed. “But there are still a few small things I need to take care of first.” Rarity started wandering off, swaying blearily across the streets of Ponyville.

“Hey, wait up Rarity! I’ll go with ya!” Pinkie Pie suddenly leapt out of my house. I’d almost forgotten the party pony was there.

“Oh. That sounds lovely Pinkie.” Rarity seemed woozy enough to not even question why Pinkie had suddenly jumped out of my house.

“Ooo, you’re a sleepyhead today!” Pinkie chirped. “Well, nothing Pinkie Pie's Patented and Perplexitivly Powerful Picker-Upper can’t fix! I drink it all the time, and it works great for me!”

Huh. That explained a few things.

Well, now I had an appointment set up at the spa. More to the point, I had an extra invitation, since Blossom wouldn’t be going. Even if she got over her hangover in time, she didn’t really deserve to share the rewards from foalsitting the girls. I felt a bit bad about cutting her out like that, but fair is fair.

There was one fairly obvious candidate. Well, I guess I could invite the boss, but since Blossom and I had the day off she was probably busy. Besides, the boss would probably say she didn’t want to go along with all that girly spa stuff.

Derpy, on the other hoof, would do just fine. Okay, it was a little weird to share my payment for foalsitting with the mother of one of the girls I’d been taking care of. However, I figured that taking Derpy to the spa would end up rewarding me anyway. With any luck, it would put her in the mood for some fun later.

I poked my head in to check on my patient. “Blossom, you gonna be alright by yourself while I run a few errands?” She seemed to have gotten past the worst part of her hangover thanks to Pinkie’s cure, but she was still probably gonna feel like horseapples for the rest of the day.

“I’ll be fine,” Blossom reassured me. I got her a fresh glass of water and put a plate with a couple slices of bread and some eggs in the fridge for whenever she felt capable of eating.

“By the way, we’re out of lemonade.” The girls had finished off my foal-friendly supply last night, and Blossom saw to the rest of it. “Want me to pick up some more?”

Blossom let out an aggravated groan and hit me with the best glare she could muster in her current state.

It didn’t take me too long to find Ponyville’s wall-eyed mailmare in the process of struggling with a particularly troublesome mailbox. “Hi Cloud Kicker! Just gimme a minute!”

I lent a hoof and helped her sort the problem out. “Hey Derpy, when do you get off work?”

“Once I’m done with all my deliveries for the day. Why?”

“Rarity set up a spa appointment for me and Blossom to pay us back for a big favor she owed us but Blossom can’t make it, so I figured I’d ask you instead.”

“Oh.” I was a bit surprised when Derpy hesitated a bit before she answered. “That sounds nice, but... Cloud Kicker, can I ask you something?” I nodded for her to go ahead. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“It’s not really a proper date; Cheerilee helped out too, so she’s gonna be with us. But ... well I guess it is kinda date-ish.” I shrugged and found myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “It’s just ... well, I had fun the other night. A lot of fun. So, I was thinking we could maybe make having some fun together a regular thing.”

“What about Blossomforth?”

What about my best friend? “I could ask, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be up for a threesome.”

“Cloud Kicker...” Derpy’s eyes narrowed in disapproval.

“Alright, serious business.” I sighed, and prepared myself to deal with something I’d rather not talk about. “I get it, okay? Blossom’s worried because she thinks that she might not be the most important pony in my life anymore. All of a sudden there’s this new mare I’m gonna spending time with and all that, and on top of that we’re banging. Don’t worry, I’ll spend some time with her and sort it all out, let her know she’s still my number one gal-pal.”

“Well, alright.” Derpy still looked a little worried. She always was a sweetheart. “How did things go with Dinky last night?”

“Not too bad. Dinky’s a good filly.” Well, my house probably hadn’t taken any permanent structural damage out of the whole ordeal. Not like the time they managed to tear Berry Punch’s house clear off its foundation. How could three little fillies cause so much unintentional devastation?

“Good to know she wasn’t too much trouble. Thanks again for keeping an eye on her.” Derpy leaned over and gave me a chaste peck on the cheek. “I’ve only got about a dozen deliveries left. You’re welcome to fly along, if you want.”

Once we finished up with her deliveries, Derpy mentioned that she needed to pick up a few things from the market. After playing foalsitter for half a dozen rambunctious fillies my food supplies weren’t exactly doing great either, so I went with her. Sweetie Belle’s disastrous efforts at cooking had also knocked out some of my stockpile of edible things. We trotted over to the market together, but went our separate ways shortly afterwards to do our shopping.

I stopped by Carrot Top’s stand first. I was a bit surprised when the earth pony greeted me with a wave and a smile; we’d never been particularly close. “Hi Cloud Kicker! What can I get for you?”

While I spent a moment to try and puzzle out why she was suddenly being so friendly, Carrot Top pointed a hoof to a freshly baked loaf of carrot breadand then leaned forward and offered in a conspiratorial whisper, “Those are Derpy’s favorites.”

Oh. Right, Carrot Top is Derpy’s next door neighbor. It would be kinda hard for her to miss the fact that I went over to Derpy’s place at night, got her to make some very interesting noises, and then left in the morning. Well, I guess there was no chance of keeping that particular liaison secret. Like any small town, Ponyville loves its gossip.

“Derpy’s favorite, huh? I’ll take it.” Springing some of her favorite bread on her would be a nice surprise next time I went over to Derpy’s place for a bit of fun (or she came over to mine; either way worked). “I also need half a dozen carrots. I promise I’ll put them to good use.”

“I’ve got some great recipes if you’d like,” Carrot Top answered with a grin. “Carrot cake, carrot salad, carrot bread, carrot stew...”

I tossed my bits onto the stand and took the loaf of bread and my produce. “Oh yeah, I guess I could use them for eating too.” Carrot Top stared at me in confusion for moment, until her brain added it all up. A moment later she was blushing and paying very close attention to the ground.

I trotted off with a chuckle and moved on to the next stand. Once I had the basic necessities taken care of, I decided I might as well get myself a little something special. I looked around the market for inspiration, and grinned when I saw a cherry stand. I’ve always liked cherries. Especially when they’re in a pie.

What?

When I got to the cherry stand, I saw somepony else had already beaten me there. “Ten bits for one cherry is outrageous!” Fluttershy declared. “I insist on paying you eleven bits!” I stared in dull shock as Fluttershy somehow managed to negotiate herself all the way up to twelve bits.

Alright, that just wouldn’t do. Direct intervention was necessary.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on here?” Fluttershy let out a startled squeak when she realized I’d walked up next to her. “You can’t be serious about charging her twelve bits for one cherry!”

“There’s plenty of other stalls.” The salespony shot right back. “If she doesn’t like my prices, she can go shop somewhere else.”

“Prices?” I feigned anger. “Oh, I see what’s going on here! Are you saying Fluttershy is poor? Just because she’s not as well off as you doesn’t mean you can go treating her like dirt!”

“Geez lady, what’re you–”

“Hey everypony!” I called out loud enough for entire marketplace to hear me. “This shop discriminates against the poor!”

The accusation set off scandalized muttering all through the market, and I spotted a unicorn who’d been trotting towards the shop glaring at the owner before abruptly reversing course. It didn’t take mister jerky cherry stand owner long to figure out he was in a bad spot. In a small town like Ponyville, doing business was all about your reputation. One rumor about his little cherry stand not dealing fairly could leave him very short on customers.

Time to go in for the kill. “Here’s how it’s gonna work, buddy I’m gonna stand right here and tell everypony who comes within ten yards of your stand about how you discriminate against the poor until you apologize to my good friend Fluttershy. Got it?”

The stallion did his best to stare me down, but I’ve dealt with tougher ponies than him. After a minute, he broke. “Okay, okay. Just take the damn cherry!”

Nice. I would’ve been fine with just getting a fair price, but getting it for free was even better. “Alright, but you still hurt my feelings.”

The storepony gave a disgusted grunt and started packing up his stand, stopping every once in a while to shoot a glare in my general direction. I nudged the cherry over to Fluttershy. “There ya go Fluttershy, one cherry.”

“Um – thanks.” Fluttershy squeaked nervously. “But – um – you didn’t have – I mean – I wouldn’t have minded – well, he was charging an awful lot of the that cherry– but – um – that wasn’t very nice to make him – not that I don’t appreciate your help but...”

I chuckled and cut her off with an upraised hoof. “Relax, Eepysqueak.”

“Don’t call me that,” Fluttershy snapped at me. Well, as close to snapping as she could get anyway – anypony who hadn’t known her for as long as I had would’ve missed the subtle change of pitch and the hint of terseness in her voice.

That got a little bit of a flinch out of me. Fluttershy getting as close to mad as she could get with anypony the instant I broke out the old nickname I’d had for her when we were friends was a pretty clear sign. She might appreciate the help, but things still weren’t right between us.

Fluttershy noticed my reaction, and a second later she clapped her hooves over her mouth in horror. “Oh my! I am so sorry Cloud Kicker! I didn’t mean to – I – um – I’m really, really, really sorry – I – sorry – meep!” From there her efforts at speech degenerated into a series of high-pitched squeaks of contrition.

Oh horsefeathers. I guess I’d kind of hoped that helping out with the cherry thing might ... well not completely patch things up between me and Fluttershy, but at least make things a little bit less weird. Instead, I’d probably gone and made it all worse. “Look, Fluttershy, I–”

“Um – I – I should go.” Before I could say anything else Fluttershy zipped away at a pretty impressive speed for a pony who’d been infamous for her lack of athletic ability back in Flight Camp.

I sighed and watched her go.

I wish I could fix things between us. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I guess it just wasn’t the kind of problem where you could say a little apology or do a good deed and everything would be fine. I wanted to go back to the days when we were friends.

I stared after the rapidly fading pegasus and whispered under my breath. “Sorry, Eepysqueak.”

After the run-in with Fluttershy, I headed home and dropped off my groceries. A quick check of the clock confirmed that I had a bit of time to kill before the appointment Rarity had set up for us at the spa. My first instinct was to get to work on cleaning up the damage five rambunctious fillies and a drunk pegasus had inflicted on my home last night, but somepony had already take care of all that.

A quick check of the bedroom confirmed that Blossom was gone, and I found a short note on the kitchen table. Went home. Tried to clean up. Sorry. Blossom’s mouthwriting wasn’t all that great, so I guess the hangover was still bothering her some.

So. I was at home by myself, with time to kill. There’s only so many things a pony can do in a situation like that, and I wasn’t in the mood to read a book. So I guess that just left doing a bit of “fencing” to pass the time.

I walked over to the closet and rummaged around on the top shelves. After Cheerilee had taken charge of the girls and Blossom had konked out for the night, I’d done some rearranging to better secure things that should be kept out of fillies’ hooves. Now that the crisis had passed, though, I couldn’t remember where I’d put everything. I rustled through my newly-organized oddities, shoving various and sundry items out of the way. Neck massagers, scented oils and chiropractic aids flew with reckless abandon as I searched through the closet, dead set on finding the object of my desire. I made a mental note to go and retrieve some of the more interesting favorites I hadn’t seen in a while for later use. I had struck a vein of, shall we say unusual literature (and something that vaguely resembled a sea anemone made of rubber) when a gleam caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Could that be–

Aha! Got it!

My wings twitched as my hoof ran along the familiar smoothness, and I looked everything over in anticipation before sliding it into place.

A few quick tugs secured the right wing-blade snugly against the appropriate appendage, and its twin quickly followed. I figured that some practice wouldn’t go amiss, since I had the time to spare. It had been a while since I’d dusted them off, and I didn’t wanna lose my skills completely.

Wing-blades are a tricky weapon. After all, slapping sharp chunks of metal on the edges of your wings and mixed in with your feathers really changes a pony’s balance when it comes to flying. Once you get used to using them though, you’ve got a pair of weapons that can thoroughly ruin somepony’s day if they piss you off. Sure, I was probably never gonna actually use the things, but after all the trouble I’d gone to learning how to use them it felt sloppy to not keep in practice.

By the time I needed to head to the spa I’d worked up a good sweat (making it rather fortuitous I was going to the spa after this) and managed to slice and dice the heck out of the air in my apartment. It was a good thing my set had dulled edges for practicing, or my couch would’ve been sliced and diced too. Maybe I was getting a little rusty; I should get back in the habit of practicing regularly.

I put the blades up and started heading towards the schoolhouse to meet up with Cheerilee and Derpy. Since we had to wait until Cheerilee was done with the school day to actually hit the spa, we might as well meet up there to save time. Besides, it would give Derpy a chance to check on her Dinky. Come to think of it, I needed to check in on ‘lula too. Like last night had proved, I wasn’t exactly used to the whole ‘being responsible for taking care of a filly’ thing.

When I got to the schoolhouse Derpy and Cheerilee were waiting for me along with the girls. To my relief, the terrible trio known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders were nowhere to be seen. ‘lula ran in for a quick hug and began babbling enthusiastically to me about her day.

‘Lula seemed a lot more energetic than she’d been yesterday. Not hard to guess why; an entire day away from Mom would do wonders for anypony’s mood. I did my best to follow along, but the intricacies of schoolyard life escaped me. I smiled and nodded in the right places, and that seemed to be enough for ‘lula.

I was starting to think I was a lot better at being ‘lula’s cool big sis than I was at actually being a responsible raising-the-foal type of pony. Oh well, I’d figure it out. Probably a good thing I’d hooked up with Derpy; she’d set me straight if I messed up.

I scooped up ‘lula – earning a half-hearted protest about how she was a big filly who didn’t need me to carry her – and a couple flaps of my wings brought us over to Cheerilee and Derpy. “Hey. What’s the plan for the girls while we’re having our spa day?” See? I can be responsible.

“Sparkler’s going to take them to the library to get some homework done.” Derpy answered.

Derpy’s adopted daughter gave me a nervous little wave of her hoof. Guess I couldn’t blame the kid for not being sure what to make of the pony that was banging her mom. “Yeah, I’ll take care of the girls. Don’t worry about them.”

“Good luck, they can be a hooffull.” Hopefully Sparkler shouldn’t have too much trouble. She was used to dealing with her little sister after all, and ‘lula was a good kid most of the time. Things hadn’t gotten really out of control last night until Rarity threw the Crusaders into the mix and Blossom got smashed.

The three of us trotted over to the spa for our well-deserved pampering. Rarity got us the deluxe package; I guess she was feeling a little guilty for dumping the Crusaders on us. Besides, as often as Rarity comes here, she’s probably got some kind of regular customer discount.

They started us off with just relaxing in the steam baths, which felt nice after my little exercise session. After that it was hooficures and preenings for me and Derpy. Then came the mane treatments and facials, followed up by mud baths to help our coats. Derpy and Cheerilee ended up lingering in the mud baths for a while longer while the twins moved me along to getting my massage.

I have to say that while the spa wasn’t usually my kind of thing, I could see why Rarity was so fond of it. There’s a lot to be said for any place where you can go and have a couple cute mares rub their hooves all over your body.

I let out a very contented sigh as Aloe worked her hooves over a knot at the base of one of my wings. According to her I had a lot of tension there. Guess that figures; doing weather work means spending most of the day on your wings. Whatever the case, her hooves felt very nice.

“Lotus, I’m going to be busy here for a while.” Aloe called out to her twin. “Do you think you could lend a hoof and take care of the rest of the massage?”

Lotus hopped to it, and now I had two sets of hooves working my body. Not bad. Not bad at all. A pony could get used to this kind of thing.

I relaxed and enjoyed while the two ponies did what they did best. Aloe was still paying careful attention to my wings, while Lotus worked her way down my back. Then over to my hind legs. Then my flanks. Then–

Hello!

I must have given a bit of a twitch when Lotus’ hooves moved to that rather interesting location, because the spa pony felt the need to speak up. “Miss Rarity asked us to attend to whatever you needed from us, Miss Cloud Kicker.”

“Whatever I want, huh?” Was this going where I thought it was?

“Indeed.” Aloe was still focused on my wings, but now I couldn’t help noticing that she was letting her hooves linger on some rather sensitive areas. “Miss Rarity asked us to make sure that every single part of your time at our spa was happy. From the beginning to the ending.”

No way. Rarity had set up a Happy Ending for me? Best foalsitting payment ever!

Before I could really start enjoying myself, a rather unusual thought struck me. Instead of thinking about the hot pair of twins who intended to do everything they could manage to fill me up with all kinds of warm fuzzy feelings, my mind was on the wall-eyed pegasus in the other room. Suddenly I was wondering if I should go through with this or find a way to politely decline.

Thinking of turning down a threesome with twins. That was a first.

Still, Derpy and I kind of had a ... well not really a proper relationship, but we had a thing. I didn’t wanna mess that up. Especially after how close I had come to traumatizing her daughter the other night. Well, okay, that was technically Blossom’s fault, but still...

I mean, it’s not like we’d talked about exclusivity or anything. I hadn’t made any promises, and Derpy was an old friend. She knew how I lived my life. She had to know that if I had a chance at banging twins, it was happening. And yet...

“Uh, girls? Could you hold that thought for a minute?” The twins looked almost as surprised at the request as I was. “There’s somepony I have to talk to first real quick.”

I bet I set some kind of indoor speed record getting from the massage room to the mud baths. It’s a good thing there weren’t any long corridors in the spa, or I might have been the second pony to ever have performed a Sonic Rainboom.

I overshot Derpy and nearly slammed into the wall, but managed to recover in time to come about and land in front of the grey pegasus wallowing in a mud bath. “Hey Cloud Kicker! What’s up?”

“Not much.” I tried to play it cool by pure instinct, even though there was something very, very big up. “So anyway, I was wondering ... um ...” Well, really no delicate to put this, so I might as well just be direct. “Will you be upset if I bang other ponies?”

Cheerilee gasped in shock. “How can you even ask something like that!? Isn’t she your fillyfriend?”

I suspect Cheerilee was just warming up for a rant about how inappropriate and inconsiderate I was being when Derpy cut off. “It’s fine, Cloud Kicker.” Cheerilee seemed even more shocked by Derpy’s answer than by my initial request, so the greatest fillyfriend in the history of Equestria took mercy on her. “Cloud Kicker’s been my friend for years, Cheerilee. I know I couldn’t keep her to myself even if I wanted to.” She shot me a coy look. “I don’t mind if she has a little fun on the side – I know she likes my muffin enough to come back.”

I grinned in triumph. Nice to know my principles wouldn’t keep me from missing out on a chance for some action. I like my rules, but sticking to my principles to the point of missing out on twins was a lot further than I’d ever wanted to test them out. There’s doing the right thing, and then there’s putting honor before reason.

“Cheerilee, wanna come with?” I was mostly just offering to tweak her nose for getting all self-righteous with me.

“I’m seeing somepony.” The schoomarm had a touch of frost in her voice.

“Oh. Sorry, didn’t know.” I took two steps towards the door, then turned around. “I’ll have to ask the twins, but I don’t have any problem with him joining in.” I held up a hoof to forestall any objections. “Kidding, kidding.”

“Wait Cloud Kicker!” Derpy waved me over with the cutest little shy grin on her face. “You came to ask my permission for twins?”

“Yeah.”

A pair of muddy hooves shot up out of the bath, wrapped themselves around my neck, and pulled my lips down to meet hers. A moment later Derpy weight hanging off my neck tipped me over, and I joined her in the mud bath. That didn’t stop us from having a little bit of a make-out session then and there.

Once we’d been going at it long enough to make Cheerilee cough uncomfortably and start looking at the door, Derpy finally let me go. Needless to say, I had mud in my everywhere by then. Tends to happen when you fall into a mud bath. Right as I was about to head out the door Derpy snagged me by the hoof. “Have fun. And... you may want to rinse off first.”

I smiled at my adorable fillyfriend for all I was worth. “No time! Twins!” And with that I bolted from the room, leaving a trail of herbal mud in my wake.

Now that all those pesky fidelity issues had been dealt with, I charged back into the massage room and hopped up on the table with a big grin, drawing shocked looks from the twins. “Alright, ladies. Where were we?”

A couple days later, Blossom and I had gotten together for a little friendly lunch. Since it was the first chance we’d had for some quality time together since her case of hangoveritis, I was naturally using the opportunity to tease her mercilessly.

“Wanna go fencing later?” I asked with the most innocent tone I could muster.

Blossomforth shot me a withering look.

“Hey!” I held up my hooves defensively. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m gonna start getting the impression you don’t want me to bang you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you Cloud Kicker? I don’t!”

“Really?” I feigned a puzzled expression. “Because ‘YES CLOUD KICKER, TAKE ME NOW!’ might be misconstrued by some ponies.”

Half the ponies in the restaurant were staring at our table after my brief imitation of her drunken antics, making Blossom’s face turn the most adorable shade of red. “Would you keep your big trap shut?!”

“C’mon, Blossom. You’re too uptight. Loosen up and live a little. It’ll do you good to get that stick out of your flank. Maybe even turn in your virgin card.”

Blossom glared daggers at me. I was starting to wonder if I might have pushed her buttons just a bit too hard. I didn’t want her getting seriously pissed at me again.

Then she giggled nervously. “There really is no holding you back, is there? Nothing stops you. You just say what you’re thinking no matter what it is.”

I smirked at the reprieve. “Yup. That’s me. Can’t keep a good mare down.”

“So – uh –” Blossom blushed and looked down at the table. “Why didn’t you do it?”

“Do what?”

The waiter brought out our food before Blossom could clarify, which distracted us a bit from the conversation. The boss had us working pretty hard today, and right now I wanted that daisyburger with hay fries a lot more than I wanted any conversation. Judging by the look Blossom was giving her sandwich, she was thinking the same thing as me. Food first, friendship later.

Once half my daisyburger had been relocated to my stomach, I was willing to slow down on the eating enough to actually do a little talking again. “So what was it I didn’t do?”

“Oh. Me.” A second later Blossom froze in shock, and let out an embarrassed little squeak. “Um – that is, you didn’t mate with me that night. Even though I asked you to. Why not?”

Oh Blossom, you should know better than to feed me opportunities like this. “Did you want me to? ‘Cause you’re totally hot enough that I’d bang you right here, right now. Seriously, let’s just clear off the table and get it on! We’ll put on a show, let ponies take pictures. C’mon everypony, pull up a chair! I probably oughta warn ya, those of you in the front rows may get wet!”

Blossom might have been developing a thicker skin, but she had her limits. “Meep!” I suspect it was taking all her courage not to try hiding under the table.

Great, I’d gone and broken her. At this rate we’d have to resort to communicating in code. One eep for yes, two squeaks for no, three squeals for ‘Faster! Harder!’

If I wanted to get any useful conversation out of her, I’d need to back off a bit. I gave her a couple seconds to regain her composure. Once she was in a fit state for engaging in coherent speech again, I gave her my answer. “It would’ve been wrong. You were drunk. Not thinking clearly. That was obvious to anypony with half a brain.”

“Well, yes.” Blossom agreed, for once looking embarassed for a reason other than me mercilessly teasing her. “But...”

I cut her off with a raised hoof. “Rule number three. Never take a pony to bed when their judgment is compromised. Drugs, alcohol, emotional or psychological things, whatever. If the pony isn’t thinking straight enough to agree, I don’t bang them. Simple as that.”

“Rule number three?” Blossom regarded me with obvious curiosity. “How many of those rules do you have?”

“As many as I need.” After a moment’s consideration, I decided I might as well give her the whole list. If I didn’t, the curiosity would kill her. “Rule number one: No regrets. I don’t want somepony waking up in the morning and realizing I was a mistake.”

“Rule number two: No complications: I’m all for a good night of harmless fun, but there’s a lot of times where it’s more trouble than they’re worth. Like with the boss’ friends. The boss might be friends with some real hotties, but banging one of them would get real messy real fast. The boss and I have a good thing going, and I’m not gonna mess it up just for one night of meaningless sex.

“You already know rule three, so no point in repeating it.”

“Rule number four: No banging friends.”

Blossom frowned at that one. “I thought Derpy was your friend.”

“Some of these are really more like guidelines than ironclad rules,” I admitted. “The thing about not banging friends is that it can really mess up a friendship if you’re not careful. I’m pretty sure me and Derpy can handle it, but it’s something you wanna be real careful about.

“Rule number five: No banging without safety gear. I don’t plan on finding myself with an STD or getting knocked up.

“Rule number six: No lying to get sex. Or at least, no really big lies. Everypony does a little bit of harmless exaggeration, but there’s a line. I don’t cross it. Ever.

“Rule number seven: No banging a pony who’s looking for romance. I got no plans to go for moonlight serenades and a big fancy wedding. I like my life the way it is, and don’t see much reason to change it.”

“Once again, Derpy.” Blossom objected.

“What Derpy and I have isn’t exactly some big romance. We get together every once in a while and give each other some very warm squiggly feelings, to our intense mutual satisfaction. It’s a bit more of a regular thing than I usually go for, but there’s a big difference between that and the big nasty complicated mess that is romantic love.”

“Hey!” Blossom took offense at that. “Love is a pure and wonderful thing!”

“Sure it is,” I agreed easily. “Look at the boss and Pinkie. They’re a great couple, and that works for them. It’s not like I’ve got some sort of huge hatred for all the love and romance and stuff. It’s just not something that I wanna go chasing after myself.

“Anyway, rule number eight: No banging somepony who doesn’t know what they’re getting into with me. Kinda goes with number seven. I don’t want to leave somepony pining after me for the rest of their life.” I hit Blossom with a cocky grin. “It’s a real risk with my raw animal magnetism.”

Blossom rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, sure it is.”

“It is! If I’m not careful, I’ll leave behind a string of broken hearts. It’s only my careful self-control that’s keeping everyone in Ponyville from continually pining after me.”

“Hey look!” Blossom pointed her hoof at something behind me. “Flitter and Cloudchaser are smearing each other with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, and they’re waving to you!”

“Really?” I whipped my head around, but the weather squads set of twins were nowhere to be seen. While I wasn’t surprised that Blossom was having a bit of fun at my expense, it was still worth taking a look just for a laugh. Besides, you never know when something like that might actually happen. Missing out on something like that would definitely break Rule Number One, because I would regret the lost opportunity for the rest of my life.

When I turned back around, Blossom was giggling into her hooves. “Great self-control, Cloud Kicker.”

“That was just cruel Blossom, getting my hopes up like that.” I was halfway tempted to start up with the teasing again, but if I did that we’d probably keep at it until our lunch break was over. I did still have four more rules to cover. “So, rule number nine: No banging ponies who are in a committed relationship. Well, unless everypony involved is onboard with it. I got no problem with helping a couple spice up their sex life, but I’m not gonna be the other pony. Somepony wants to cheat, they can do it with somepony else.

“And that’s the last of the big rules. There’s three more, but aren’t exactly ... well the first nine are the hard-and fast rules. The next three are more like ... words of wisdom.”

“The wisdom of Cloud Kicker? That’s a phrase I never expected to hear before.” I swear, Blossom has no respect for me. No respect at all.

Like any truly wise pony, I let her skepticism slide off my back. The truth would be revealed soon enough. “Rule number ten: No banging while flying. Trust me, it’s only a matter of time before somepony tries to talk you into it, and it is a terrible idea. Nopony can multitask well enough to pull it off.”

Now for another one of the rules I knew she would give me grief over. “Rule number eleven: No staying at the bangee’s house for too long after the deed is done. It leads to awkward talks with the kids, and the temptation to stay longer.” I cut her off before she could point out the obvious. “Yes, I know I broke that one with Derpy. She seduced me with breakfast muffins. I’m not made of steel. Besides, seducing a pony with breakfast muffins is a crime in some countries.”

That got a giggle-snort out of Blossom. Sure, she laughs now, but someday it’ll be her getting seduced by the prospect of fresh-baked muffins. And sex.

“And last of the lot, rule number twelve: No Diamond Dogs. Ever again.”

Blossom stared at me with an unreadable expression on her face. “Diamond Dogs?”

“Don’t ask. Just ... don’t. In fact, let’s just forget I ever even mentioned that rule.”

“Oookay.” I turned my attention to my food, and Blossom followed my lead. We spent the next couple minutes in companionable silence, until we’d finished off most of our meal. When Blossom finally resumed the conversation she avoided the subject which must not be mentioned.

“Cloud Kicker?” Blossom nervously nibbled on her bottom lip for a bit before she mustered up the courage to continue. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“More personal than my rules of banging? Go for it.” After the whole thing about my past with Fluttershy, I kinda felt like I owed Blossom a couple details when it came to my personal history. It’s not like I’d wanted to shut her out or anything, it’s just there’s some topics a pony doesn’t wanna talk about if they can avoid it.

“What happened between you and your mother?” Ohlook, there’s one of those topics right now: family drama.

Well, my messy family situation still wasn’t nearly as sensitive as the whole thing with Fluttershy. Most of it was ancient history that I’d gotten over a long time ago. At least, that’s what I told myself, though the fact that I couldn’t have a civil conversation with Mom lately kinda blows that one out of the sky.

Still, Blossom was my best friend. She kinda deserved to know the truth. Besides, maybe talking to somepony about it would help. “Kind of a long story, Blossom.”

Blossom shifted a bit to get comfortable, and asked the waiter for a refill on her tea. “I’ve got time.”

“Right.” I took a moment to figure out where to start it all. “Look, the thing you’ve gotta know about my family is that being in the Guard is kinda ... well it’s what we do. My Mom, my Dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, pretty much all of them are in the Guard. It’s been that way for a long time. It’s a family tradition. You ever have an afternoon to waste, ask my grandpa about the history of the Kicker clan, and he’ll tell you the entire family history all the way back to Shadow Kicker. Nine hundred years of tradition is a pretty big deal to some ponies.

“Of course, everypony expected me to carry on the family name in the Guard. Just like my mother before me, and her mother before her, and her mother before her, and ... you get the idea. They had me learning hoof-to-hoof combat and taking wing-blade classes before I could fly. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t so crazy about it to the point of not letting me have a childhood or anything, but they did start training me to be a good little soldier early on.

“I went along with it just fine for the most part. Everypony in my family expected me to grow up and join the Guard, so that’s what I expected would happen too. Soon as I finished up with school and Flight Camp, it was off to West Hoof Military Academy. I did pretty good there. Damn good, really. I enjoyed a lot of it, but...” I sighed, and tried to decide how to put it all into words. “I think what it was is that as long as it was about getting through the classes and competition I was alright, but once I was done with all that...

“I don’t know. It just started hitting me. Like, this is what my whole life was gonna be from now on. Second Lieutenant Cloud Kicker, reporting for duty.” I tossed out a half-hearted salute. “So I bugged out. Just ran out of the room right in the middle of the graduation ceremony.”

Blossom blinked and stared at me in surprise. “Just like that? You just decided you didn’t want to join the Guard after all and ran for it?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Most ponies would think I had much bigger reason for tossing all the family tradition out the window. “I guess it was just that I’d never really thought about it before. Or maybe it was just the whole teenage rebellion thing happening a couple years late.” I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“And things have been tense with your family ever since?” Blossom concluded.

“Not exactly.” That wasn’t the answer Blossom had been expecting. “I mean yeah, the whole ‘running off and breaking family tradition’ thing caused some problems, but we kinda sorted it out eventually. Sure we don’t always agree on things, but we’re still family. Mom and Dad bug me every once in a while about how they want me to stop doing weather work and accept my commission, but that’s about the end of it. Or at least it was.”

“It doesn’t seem like you’re getting along very well with your mother anymore.” Nothing gets by Blossom, canny observer that she is.

“Yeah, things kinda went to Tartarus between us about a year back.” I halfheartedly poked at my hay fries. “Not exactly sure what happened there. If I had to guess though... Well that’s about the time they appointed the new Captain of the Guard. I don’t really keep up with the internal politics of the Guard, but I’m pretty sure my Dad was on the short-list for ponies they were considering. Having his daughter run off in the middle of her graduation ceremony probably didn’t look good for him.”

I felt a little twinge of guilt at that.

“So maybe Mom blames me for him not getting the job. I dunno. Mom always did have big plans for the family. Blaming me for knocking them off the rails makes as much sense as anything else I can think of.”

An interesting thought popped into my head, and I added, “Well, that or she’s going through menopause and the hormones are driving her all crazy. That would actually make more sense. It’s not just me she’s having problems with; her marriage with Dad is falling apart too.” Come to think of it, maybe that’s why things have gotten rough for me and Mom. Not really sure when she and Dad started having problems, but that kinda stress probably wasn’t doing her mental balance any favors.

Blossom reached out and silently put her hoof on top of mine. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

I smiled at her for a long moment, until I moved along to wrapping up my story. “Anyway, after I finished up with military school, I wound up going into weather work. Found out the boss was doing the same thing, and moved here.”

I noticed Blossom’s eyes lingering on my last couple hay fries, so I nudged them over to her plate. Blossom expressed her appreciation by devouring them.

We split up the bill, though I was vaguely tempted to insist that Blossom should pay a little extra since she ate some of my hay fries. No real point doing that though; the monetary value of six hay fries is pretty negligible.

We were flapping along low over town square on the way back to work when we spotted some kind of disturbance going on. Two ponies getting into a scuffle. By itself that wouldn’t be anything shocking, but when I got a good look the ponies involved in the fight...

Some stallion was beating up Fluttershy.

“Oh, you just made the biggest feathered mistake of your life, buddy!” Sure things were weird between us right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna some jerk lay so much as one hoof on her. I shot down towards the two fighting ponies and was just about to deliver a very righteous flank-kicking when I noticed a couple things.

First off, this wasn’t so much a fight as a one sided assault. More importantly, it was Fluttershy doing all the fighting. “Nopony pushes New Fluttershy around! NOPONY!”

Okay...

That was unexpected.

Fluttershy whipped her head towards me, a furious snarl marring her kind face. The instant she recognized me she gave a nasty and very un-Fluttershy-like smile. “Well well well. If it isn’t my old friend, Cloud Kicker!”

Holy horseapples. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony oozing so much pure undiluted nastiness before. Everything about her, her body, her tone of voice, everything, all of it conveyed a picture of utter hostility. Just hearing sweet little Fluttershy talk like that was enough to put me back on my haunches from the shock of it.

“What’s the matter, Cloud Kicker?” Fluttershy sniped at me. “Did you run out of ponies to sleep with? Maybe you’ve finally whored your way through all of Ponyville.”

If it were any other pony that would have earned her a hoof to the face, repeated as needed until the lesson sank in. It wasn’t any other pony though, it was Fluttershy. Sweet, helpless little Fluttershy. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly being very sweet right now, but she was still Fluttershy. There are some ponies you just can’t raise a hoof against no matter what they do.

Blossom landed next to me, frowning in concern. “Cloud Kicker, what’s going on here?”

Since I had no idea myself, I didn’t know how to answer that one. Before I could even start to make sense of Fluttershy’s transformation from timid doormat to raging ursa, the yellow pegasus started in on me again. “It’s no wonder you can’t find anypony who wants to stay with you for more than one night.”

“Hey!” Blossom snapped. “You can’t talk to her like that!”

I put a restraining hoof on Blossom’s shoulder before she could do something I’d regret. “Blossom, let’s just get out of here.”

I turned around and would’ve walked away, except Fluttershy flew around to cut me off.“Off so soon? I guess it is all about convenience for you, isn’t it? You just come in when you feel like it, take what you want and leave without thinking of anything but your next roll in the hay. I bet Derpy going into labor wasn’t even the first time you left somepony out in the cold!

I glowered at her for that. She knew as well as I did that I’d wanted to be there when Dinky was born – it wasn’t my fault I was out of town when it happened. Nopony had expected the foal to come two months early!

With a nasty little smirk on her face, Fluttershy tossed out one last barb. “It’s for the best, really. You’re a bad enough influence on your sister. Of course, now that you and Derpy are together you’ll have plenty of chances to ruin her daughters, too.”

I felt my eyes start stinging and quickly ducked my head. No way I was gonna give her the satisfaction of seeing me tear up. I couldn’t hide it from Blossom though. She wrapped a wing over my back and shot a poisonous glare at Fluttershy.

The other pegasus was still indulging her sudden nasty streak. "So you’re a crybaby too? No wonder your parents think you're such a failure!" At least, I think that's what she was going to say – it was kind of hard to be sure of the last word since she got cut off by somepony's hoof connecting with her jaw.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any stranger, Blossom hit her again. "Shut your bucking mouth!" Blossom screamed. "You leave Cloud Kicker alone! I don't know what your problem is, b–OOF!"

Fluttershy cut her off with a wicked tackle that sent them both sprawling. Blossom tried to wrap her in a headlock, but Fluttershy rolled on top of her and tried to drive her muzzle into the ground.

As shocking as all this way, some distant analytical part of my brain couldn’t help noticing that the two of them were fighting like absolute amateurs. As my mom was always fond of telling me, pegasi had a proud warrior tradition stretching back thousands of years. I don’t think any of their ancestors were looking down proudly on them right now; Blossom and Fluttershy didn’t have a lick of hoof-to-hoof combat training, and it showed. Both of them were pretty much running on pure rage and making it up as they went along.

On the other hoof, I couldn’t help but be a bit impressed when Blossom chomped down on Fluttershy’s tail and yanked a mouthful of pink hairs out. You didn’t need much in the way of training to know how to fight dirty.

It was incredibly surreal watching Blossom and Fluttershy roll around the ground, doing everything they could to kick each other’s flanks. And yet at the same time...

The two of them were pressed up against each other in a grapple. Sweaty, panting, gasping in exertion. Furious emotion burning in their eyes. The utter wrongness of seeing two of the most gentle ponies I knew engaged in a knock-down drag-out mane-pulling and feather-yanking brawl. It was all so...

“Is it just me,” I asked out loud, “or is this kinda hot?”

Everypony else began slowly backing away from me. Everypony except Pinkie Pie. (Wait, when did she get here?) “Popcorn?”

I took the proffered bag off of Pinkie’s hooves. It would’ve been rude to say no. “Hey Pinkie, ten bits says Blossom wins.”

“You’re on!”

The Pony Who is On a Drug Called Cloud Kicker

“I can’t believe you!” Blossom ranted at me. “I was in the middle of a fight to defend your honor and you were gambling on the outcome!”

“Hey, I was gonna use the bits for your legal fund,” I offered in my own defense. “It’s a lucky thing that when the Guard came to break things up it was my cousin Lightning’s group.” Then again, odds were pretty good that any random group of guardponies would have a Kicker in their ranks. What can I say? The Kicker clan is pretty big, and aside from the occasional black sheep like me they’re all in the service.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Blossom growled at me.

“Well, if it’s consolation I was betting on you. I was halfway tempted to put my bits on Fluttershy and ask you to take a dive, but I resisted that urge.”

Blossom glowered at me.

Maybe it was time for a bit of a change of subject. Blossom had displayed a nice bit of flank-kicking ability just a bit ago, and her ire was still up since she hadn’t gotten the chance to finish her fight with Fluttershy. Might not be a good idea to push her buttons too much. “Anyway, it doesn’t look like you took enough damage to need a trip to the hospital, but let’s get you over to Nurse Redheart and get those bumps and bruises fixed up.”

Blossom glared at me for a bit longer, but she couldn’t keep it up. “Fine,” she conceded with a weary sigh.

“For what it’s worth, that was a pretty good fight.” I reached up and rubbed a hoof over the back of my neck. “And – well – thanks for the whole ‘getting into a fight to defend my honor’ thing. I appreciate it.” I tossed a foreleg across her back “You’re a good friend.”

She winced, and I moved my hoof off of a patch of twisted fur. “No problem, so long as your thanks come with an ice pack.”

“I’m sure Redheart’s got something to patch you back up. If it’s any consolation, Fluttershy definitely got the worst of it.” I let out a halfhearted chuckle. “She’ll probably need to get an extension to fix all the damage you did to her tail.”

“That does make me feel a little bit better.” Blossom confessed with a guilty little grin.

“You know, if you’re gonna make a habit of getting into fights you really oughta let me train you up a bit. Don’t get me wrong, you did pretty good for somepony who’s never gotten into a real fight before, but if you wanna defend my honor on a regular basis we’ll need to teach you how to do it properly.” I smirked and mimed a few jabs in the air with my hooves. “After all, if you’re defending my honor other ponies are gonna judge me by how well you fight. I can’t just have any amateur handling this.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Blossom answered with a wry grin.

“I could teach you all kinds of cool stuff. Hoof-fu, Wing chun, whatever. We could start with grappling practice. I know you’d enjoy that. It’d give you a perfect excuse to get your hooves all over my hot body. I’ll even let you cop a feel or two.”

Blossom blushed and looked away from me, mumbling something unflattering about me under her breath. She always says the sweetest things.

The two of us trotted down the street, drawing a couple looks on account of how tousled Blossom looked. A couple of local ne’er do wells by the name of Sticks and Stones seemed like they were about to say something monumentally stupid, until I shot them a meaningful look. Back when Derpy first moved to Ponyville they’d given her some trouble. Once. After they got out of the hospital, they started avoiding me. Not sure why; I certainly didn’t have anything to do with the severe lightning burns they suffered.

Or at least, that’s what it said on the weather report. Sometimes a lightning cloud just goes rogue and happens to shock a couple ponies who totally deserve it. Repeatedly. Lightning clouds can do that. Rainbow Dash signed off on the report, so there could be no doubt in anypony’s mind what happened. It was all just an unfortunate accident.

Fortunately for us the two local punks weren’t the only ponies out on the streets. Lyra saw the two of us passing by, took one look at Blossom’s very disheveled condition, and immediately drew the wrong (though understandable) conclusion. The unicorn trotted up to us with a big grin on her face. “So you two finally went and did it, huh? And with gusto! You shoulda gone easy on her, Cloud Kicker. She’s a delicate Blossom.”

Lyra giggle-snorted at her own pun, but I figured some kind of explanation was needed. “You don’t understand Lyra.” Blossom let out a relieved little sigh. She should have known better. “I wanted to, but she wouldn’t let me. Every time I started slowing down a bit, she screamed at me to go faster and harder.” I grinned and draped a wing over Blossom.

Blossom immediately pulled away, and slugged me in the shoulder with a hoof for good measure. “Ow!” I whined. She hadn’t actually hit me all that hard, but I figured it was worth milking whatever sympathy I could manage. “That hurt. I think I need a kiss to make it all better.”

“Do you want me to hit you for real?” Blossom raised her hooves threateningly.

“Not until we work out a safe-word.”

Blossom let out a groan of frustration while Lyra laughed at her misery. “Well, I’ll let you two go back to whatever the hay it is you’re doing; Bon Bon’s waiting for me.” Lyra grimaced and added. “She was getting rid of some garbage when somepony went and dumped the whole cart right on top of her! Can you believe it?” After giving us a wave of her hoof Lyra trotted off to attend to her unfortunate fillyfriend.

I felt a brief pang of jealousy as I imagined the fun Lyra would have helping Bon Bon clean up and consoling her. Baths have so much potential for fun. Then again, last time I’d helped a pony clean up that way the mess was muffin batter, not actual garbage. That probably takes some of the fun out of it; I don’t even want to imagine the aftertaste that leaves behind.

A couple minutes later the two of us finally got to Redheart’s clinic. Fortunately for us, the nurse wasn’t too swamped. She tends to get all the ponies who were sick or hurt enough to need medical care, but not badly enough that they needed to go to the hospital.

Since there wasn’t much of a crowd we only had to wait a couple minutes for the nurse to see us. Blossom gave a couple quick flaps of her wings to get up on an examination table, and Redheart gave her a once-over. When she was done checking over Blossom’s war wounds the earth pony scowled in disapproval. “Who did you get into a fight with?”

“Fluttershy,” Blossom answered simply.

Redheart’s scowl deepened. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least make up something believable.” The nurse cast a suspicious glare in my direction. “You’re not responsible for this, are you Cloud Kicker?”

“Of course she’s not!” Blossom immediately snapped out.

“Might wanna be careful there nurse.” I chuckled and wrapped a wing around my friend. “Blossom got into that fight because she was defending my honor. She’s such a sweetheart sometimes.” I gave her a playful kiss on the forehead, then immediately dodged out of the way when she took a half-hearted swipe at me with one of her hooves.

“I don’t know why I bothered,” Blossom grumped at me. “See if I ever defend your honor again.”

I hit her with a playful pout. “Aw, don’t be like that Blossom. Will it make you feel better if I do the sexy dance?”

Blossom rubbed a foreleg under her chin thoughtfully. “I guess that depends. Will you come back within hoof-range while you do it?”

Ooo, fiesty! “So what you’re saying is you want to get your hooves all over me while I’m doing the sexy dance?”

“Only to leave bruises.” Blossom really was learning to dish it out, and getting better at taking it too. I was so proud.

Not that I was gonna go any easier on her because of that. “I never knew you liked it rough. Don’t worry, I’m down with that.”

For a second I thought I might have broken her, but despite the hint of a blush on her cheeks she wasn’t out of the fight yet. “I bet you are; everypony knows how much you like going down.”

I laughed and raised my hooves in surrender. I probably could’ve kept it going if I really wanted to, but after coming out with that line I figured Blossom deserved the win. Besides, I could always just beat her next time.

Redheart had been watching our back-and-forth with an amused little grin. “You two bicker like an old married couple.”

Okay, let’s revise that; Redheart just won the game. Blossom went bright crimson at that, and I felt what had to be my first blush in years that wasn’t alcohol-induced. “Geez nurse, breaking out the m-word on us is just playing dirty.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” the nurse commented idly before moving on to Blossom’s check-up. Blossom came out of it with a couple bandages and an ice-pack for what looked like a budding shiner, but that was the worst of it.

I went into my saddlebags to cover the bill, but Redheart waved me off. “No need to worry about that, somepony else covered your bill.”

I was briefly confused by that, until the nurse opened the door and waved Rarity in. The unicorn looked just a little guilty when she saw the damage her friend had done to Blossom. Redheart stepped out of the room to give us some privacy.

“I’m so terribly sorry about all of this,” The unicorn declared sympathetically. “It’s just that ever since Fluttershy took that assertiveness seminar from that awful monster Iron Will she’s been going out of control. Pinkie and I are going to go have a talk with her later; hopefully we can sort this all out.”

“Good luck, I’ve never seen her like that.” I’d spent enough time with Fluttershy to get a chance to see most of her moods. Shy, bashful, nervous, apprehensive, timid, and extraordinarily passive. Violent psychotic rage though ... that was new.

“Yes, well, I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle,” Rarity answered uncertainly. “In any case, it seems I owe you some sort of recompense for your horrid experience. Perhaps the two of you would like another trip to the spa?”

“Sounds good to me.” I answered with a grin. “Especially if this trip comes with another happy ending thrown in.”

“A – what?” Rarity stared at me like I’d just grown a horn and declared myself the new Princess of Equestria. “I beg your pardon?”

Rarity’s mouth open and closed a few times before she actually managed verbal speech. “Well, I suppose I should have been more specific when I asked the girls to do something special for you to make your stay at the spa memorable.” Her tone turned musing as she added. “Though I suppose that does explain why the twins were so uncomfortable when I asked, and said they would only do it because I’d been their best customer for years.”

Oh. Well, this just became awkward.

“Does this mean I’m a pimp now?” Rarity tossed the question into the air. “Goodness, I hope not! Have you seen the way they dress? Always so garish and tacky!” The unicorn gave a little shudder of horror.

“Pretty sure an unintentional one-time thing doesn’t make you a pimp Rarity,” I reassured her.

“Oh thank goodness,” the fashionista gasped in relief. “Well, if you’ll excuse me darlings, I do believe I need to have a breakdown now.” Rarity proceeded to calmly walk through the door with perfect ladylike poise.

After the door closed behind her we heard a loud, dramatic cry, “Oh Lotus! Aloe! What have I done? My foalishness has destroyed your precious innocence! Why? WHY?” Despite the shut door between us, Blossom and I could very clearly hear her loud histrionic sobs.

“Uh, Rarity?” Blossom called out uncertainly. “You do realize you just walked into the supply closet, don’t you?”

Several seconds of embarrassed silence followed. Finally Rarity came out of the closet, adjusted her mane, gave a tiny little ladylike cough to clear her throat, and then stepped through the other door. Then she started her dramatics over from the beginning.

Blossom and I shared a look. “All of the boss’ friends are crazy,” I opined.

“I thought you were friends with Rainbow Dash too.” Ouch. Blossom was right; I had kinda just burned myself too.

Blossom got up from the examination table and winced. “Careful there Blossom. Now that you sat down for couple minutes the adrenaline’s out of your system and you’re gonna start feeling all those bruises.”

Blossom took another step and winced again. “Yes, I noticed.”

“I’ll fly home with ya. Or you could just crash at my place if you want.” Redheart had said her wings hadn’t taken any damage, but even a minor pulled muscle can be a problem if you don’t know about it until you’re a hundred feet up.

“I think I’d rather go to my own home, if that’s alright with you.” Blossom sounded a little terser than usual, but I didn’t pay it any mind.

“Darn. Don’t suppose I could change your mind.” I hit her with a saucy grin. “My bed’s a lot warmer than yours.”

For some reason that didn’t get the usual blush out Blossom, or even some sort of snarky response. Instead, she looked a little annoyed with me. Not the fun kind of annoyed, the serious type.

The two of us took off towards her home in painful silence. I wasn’t quite sure why we’d gone from friendly banter to icy silence, until Blossom finally deigned to speak with me again. “So. Rarity mentioned a trip to the spa.”

“Yeah.” Well, at least now I had a decent idea what she was pissed at me about.

“She seemed to be under the impression that the two of us had gone to the spa together,” Blossom answered in an icily brittle tone that had alarm bells going off in my head.

Time to head this one off before it blew up in my face. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t exactly tell her that I cut you out of the payment because you got drunk and tried to teach her little sister about the facts of life, now could I?”

For a second I thought that had effectively ended the argument before it began. I’ve always been a bit foolishly optimistic. “Fair enough. So who did you take in my place?” From the look on her face, she already had a pretty good idea what the answer would be.

I briefly considered fibbing. Technically Cheerilee had gone to spa with me too, so it wasn’t really a lie if I told her I’d gone with Cheerilee. It wasn’t exactly honest though, and the lie wouldn’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny. Sometimes being an honest pony has its downsides. “Derpy.” I braced myself for the oncoming storm.

“Derpy.” Blossom said the name flatly. It was right about then that it hit me. I had screwed up bad on this one. Dammit, I had known Blossom was feeling a little antsy about being replaced by Derpy. I guess I couldn’t really blame her; I’d gone from having one really close friend to having two of them, one of whom I was banging. It would be easy for a pony to start feeling like they were second best under those circumstances.

It looked like Mount Blossomforth was fixing to erupt on me. "I don't know if I should be angrier that you took her in my place or that you cheated on her while you were there."

“Hey, I did not cheat on Derpy!” Blossom glared at me for several long seconds, until I clarified. “I asked her if it was okay if I banged the twins first, and she was fine with it.”

“I imagine she did. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.” Blossom sighed. “When somepony new comes along, do you ever stop to think about who you’re pushing away to make room for them?”

Good thing I’m fluent in metaphor and subtext. I went and landed on an open cloud. “Blossom, sweetie.” I moved in for a hug, which she very stiffly returned. “You’ll always be my number one friend. Nopony could ever replace you, got it?”

“Derpy did,” Blossom bitterly grumbled into my chest.

“No.” I brought a hoof up to stroke her mane. “No she didn’t. She didn’t just ‘come along’, Blossom. Remember, I know her all the way back from Flight Camp. If anything, I made room for you when you became my friend.” I brought a hoof up under her chin and tipped it up so she could look me in the eyes. “Hey, if nothing else, I can tell you that Derpy never got into a fight with anypony for my sake.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. No matter what happens, you’ll always be the first pony who ever kicked flank to defend me, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Blossom smiled, and hugged me again.

I grinned and hugged her back. The two of us just sat on that cloud and held each other for a minute.

“Hey, if it’ll make you feel better I can start banging you too.”

“Cloud Kicker?” Blossom mumbled.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t spoil the moment.”

“Blossomforth, Cloud Kicker, I need to talk to you two. Come by my place after work.”

Something about the way the boss said that got me worried. It’s almost always a bad sign when your boss says she needs to talk to you like that. Well, it could just be assistant manager stuff, but the way she’d said it sounded too authoritative. When it was just normal work stuff she said it like she would say anything else. This time though, she said it like she was the boss talking to her employees. That worried me.

I had a pretty good idea what this was all about. There was a fairly obvious event a couple days back that would make the boss wanna talk to us.

Sure enough, when we got to Rainbow’s house there were two other pegasi waiting for us. The instant Blossom and I walked in the boss slammed the door shut and plopped a thick cloud into place over it. “Alright, here’s the deal.” The boss announced. “There’s only one door out, and I’ve just blocked it off. Nopony is leaving until we get the whole thing between Cloud Kicker and Fluttershy settled, got it?”

Fluttershy let out a terrified squeak, while Derpy nodded in agreement with the boss. Blossom just seemed a little confused, but I guess she was a bit of an outsider here. She didn’t even spend all that much time glaring at Derpy.

“Hey, I appreciate the effort and all boss, but there is a pretty obvious problem with that plan.” I stuck a hoof through one of her walls to demonstrate. “We’re not exactly trapped in here.”

“Yeah, but if anypony tries to make a run for it I’ll chase you down.” Rainbow countered with a confident smirk. “Everypony knows I’m the best flier in the room – hay, I’m the best flier in all of Equestria. Anypony who thinks they can get away from me is welcome to try.”

Nopony tried to dispute her claim. Once RD was sure she’d made her point she plopped down onto her puff of cloud.

“So, this is good, right?” Blossom whispered to me. “You and Fluttershy can finally settle things.”

“I’m not so optimistic,” I confessed. “This is the third time the boss has tried something like this since we moved to Ponyville. Then again, the second time was going alright until Derpy threw up on Fluttershy.”

“Are things really that bad between the two of you?” Blossom asked.

I shook my head. “That was back when Derpy was pregnant with Dinky. It wasn’t anything worse than morning sickness, but it did kind of kill the mood.”

“Alright, first things first!” Rainbow declared, leveling a hoof at Fluttershy and drawing another frightened squeak from pegasus. “You owe Blossomforth and Cloud Kicker an apology.”

“Rainbow.” Derpy said the boss’ name with just a hint of warning. The boss caught the hint, and toned it down a notch. That had always been Rainbow Dash’s problem when it came to playing mediator for Fluttershy and me. Passion and directness weren’t very good traits for someone who needed to be a neutral third party moderator. That was why her first try at making me and Fluttershy patch things up had been a total disaster.

Still, the boss had a point. Fluttershy had been seriously out of sorts, but she’d still said some pretty nasty things to me and not all the bruises she’d left on Blossom had faded yet. Granted, Fluttershy still had a couple battle injuries of her own, so that balanced the scales a bit.

Fluttershy looked back and forth between me and Blossom, terror in her eyes. I was starting to wonder if the boss had made a big mistake bringing us together this soon after the fight. Fluttershy had a habit of blaming herself for things. She’d even blamed herself when Derpy threw up on her the last time we tried this. Now that she was in a situation where, in all fairness, she’d messed up pretty badly...

“Look, we can handle the apologies later boss.” I sighed. “Besides, if we’re gonna go digging back into the old days it’s not like she’s the only one who has anything to apologize for.”

“No,” Fluttershy whimpered. “That’s not true.”

Huh?

“It’s just like what happened last time.” Oh horseapples, she was already starting to cry. “I’m a horrible friend. All I ever end up doing is hurting you.”

“Oh come on Fluttershy!” A second later I felt a stab of guilt for snapping at her and pulled my tone back. “We both know that’s not true. Everypony made mistakes back then.”

Fluttershy shook her head in an odd display of resolute depression. “No, Cloud Kicker. What happened to me a couple days ago taught me a lot of things. Not just about learning to stand up for myself, but also about responsibility. I said horrible things to Rarity and Pinkie Pie. They forgave me, and tried to tell me none of it was my fault. That I only said those things because of Iron Will.

“But they were wrong. Maybe Iron Will’s advice was bad, but it doesn’t change the fact that I said those things. Nopony made me. If I’m going to learn to stand up for myself, I also have to learn to accept responsibility for the bad things I’ve done.” Fluttershy sighed and tried to hide behind her mane for a moment, before consciously brushing it out of her eyes and meeting my gaze. “I’m not going to let you take the blame for something that was my fault.”

“Aw c’mon Fluttershy, I messed up too!” Rainbow cut in. “Things only got all out of control because I didn’t stop to listen before I got mad and went after Cloud Kicker.”

“But you only got mad because of what I told you,” Fluttershy countered. “So you see, it’s still my fault.” Fluttershy let a couple tears fall out of her eyes. “Everything is. And that’s why I’m not going to bother you anymore Cloud Kicker. Because every time I try to talk to you, I just make things worse.”

Fluttershy started sinking through Rainbow’s floor, but didn’t get more than halfway down before Rainbow Dash grabbed her by the tail. Normally that would have stopped her, but Fluttershy’s tail was still missing a chunk of hair from the last pony who sank her teeth into it. Fluttershy made her getaway, and Rainbow Dash was about to zoom off after her when Derpy put a restraining hoof on the boss’ shoulder. “Rainbow, maybe it would be better if I talked to her instead.”

I nodded in agreement. Whatever was going on with Fluttershy, it would probably take a delicate touch to handle. Nopony ever accused the boss of being good at the whole sensitivity thing.

The boss silently nodded, and sighed as she watched Derpy go after Fluttershy.

I groaned and sank down onto a puff off a cloud. “So. That went well.”

“Yeah, fantastic.” The boss groused as she took out her pent up anger on the floor-cloud Fluttershy had sunk through.

I felt a wing over my back, and leaned appreciatively into the hug Blossom was offering. After that disaster I needed a good hug. “Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”

“Not unless you know anypony who can change the past.” I sighed.

Eventually Rainbow Dash smashed enough holes in her floor to release most of her pent-up frustration, at least for the moment. After that, the three of us lapsed into a long painful silence as we waited for Derpy and Fluttershy to come back. When it had been more than half an hour, Rainbow finally spoke up.

“I don’t think they’re gonna be back today.” The boss sighed. “Sorry it didn’t work out.”

Blossom and I were about to leave when she called out to us. “Um, there’s actually some weather stuff we need to deal with, as long I’ve got you two here. You guys know the annual Equestrian Weather Conference is coming up in a couple days, right?”

“Yeah.” At this point, I wouldn’t complain about anything that could take my mind off the Fluttershy problem.

Anypony who does weather work knows about the annual conferences where all the bosses get together in Cloudsdale and spend the day hobnobbing with each other. Supposedly, the point of it all is for everypony to get together and swap ideas and techniques to improve the weather service for all of Equestria. I’m pretty sure the reality is that all the bosses just like having an excuse to have a couple days of vacation time. Doesn’t hurt that since it’s a work conference, they can take all their expenses out of the weather budget instead of paying for everything themselves.

Well, the boss deserved a bit of a break after everything she had to put up with. “Have fun; Blossom and I will keep the weather going while you’re gone.”

The boss shook her head. “I’m not goin’. Twilight got some kind of warning from the future about something bad that’s gonna happen, so she wants me to help disaster-proof Equestria. I’m gonna be busy with that, so I need somepony to go to the conference for me.”

I was pleasantly surprised when the boss turned to me. “Cloud Kicker, you’ve got family in Cloudsdale, right?”

“Yeah, my great-uncle Thunder lives there.”

“I thought Thunder Kicker was one of Celestia’s bodyguards?” The boss frowned at me.

“No, you’re thinking of my second cousin. Same name, different pony.” One of the downsides of having a large extended family. It probably doesn’t help that there are only so many names you can put on a pony that fit nicely with the requisite ‘Kicker’ ending. Well, not everypony in the family has to have a Kicker name, but it’s the standard tradition.

“Whatever.” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “Anyway, if you’ve got family up in Cloudsdale you can stay with them. Saves us money.”

Darn, I’d been looking forward to staying in a five star hotel on the weather team’s bits. Oh well.

“Plus,” the boss continued, “You’ve got all those family connections. Personally I’ve always thought the whole family name thing is silly, but some ponies still get all worked up about the old Pegasus clans.”

I shrugged in helpless agreement. It might be silly, but there are some ponies who give a flying feather whether your family history goes back a thousand years or you’re a first-generation pegasus born to earth pony parents.

“So what’s the plan boss? Just make nice with the bosses, kiss a couple flanks, and try to get us a bigger budget?”

“Actually, last time I checked our budget was doing fine.” Blossom cut in.

Rainbow and I shared a chuckle at her naivete. “First rule of dealing with any kind of bureaucracy. You always need more money. If you’re not constantly asking for a bigger budget, somepony starts thinking you’ve already got more bits than you need and cuts your funds.”

“Besides,” the boss added. “A bigger budget means pay raises, or I can hire more regulars to spread the work around.” Gotta agree with her there; getting paid more or not having to work quite as hard sounded nice.

“The budget stuff is small potatoes though,” the boss declared. “I got something really big I want you to set up.” The boss closed in and dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “Cloudsdale is gonna need its water supply replenished soon. I want us to get Tornado Duty this time. I don’t care nearly as much about some extra bits as I do about making that happen.”

Well, the boss wasn’t lacking for ambition. “Can we even manage Tornado Duty?” Blossom asked uncertainly. “That takes a lot of pegasi, and Ponyville’s weather team is pretty small...”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to draft pretty much everything with wings,” the boss admitted. “But I crunched the numbers – and had Twilight double-check them just to be sure – and not only can we pull it off, we’ve got a shot at breaking the record.”

Well, that explained the boss’ sudden interest in bringing extra work down on our heads. Rainbow Dash never could resist a chance to show off. Probably didn’t hurt in the slightest that one of the Wonderbolts was usually in charge of supervising Tornado Duty. The boss couldn’t ask for a better audience.

“Might wanna give me a copy of the math, just to prove we can pull it off if anypony objects.” As long as we could prove we were up to the challenge, it shouldn’t be too hard to grab Tornado Duty. It was a lot of extra work, and even the big weather teams in cities like Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Canterlot didn’t have enough regulars to pull it off.

Pulling in random untrained pegasi for weather duty was always a pain in the flank. On top of the obvious need for a crash course in weather management, there was the fact that regardless of what the law said most pegasi didn’t like being dragged away from their daily lives and put to work pushing clouds. Few things are more aggravating than dealing with a bunch of untrained ponies who don’t really want to be there in the first place.

Not that the boss would let a few little details like that get in the way of her big goal. Besides, getting Ponyville added to Tornado Duty rotation would probably net us a budget increase anyway. If nothing else, we’d need the extra bits to compensate all the ponies the boss would be drafting. Making ponies push clouds would ruffle enough feathers as it was; making them do it for free would leave us with a passel of pissed pegasi.

“Oh yeah, there’s one other thing,” Rainbow added. “Princess Luna’s gonna be in Cloudsdale doing some kinda state visit. She might stop in to check on the whole weather meeting thing, so don’t do anything that’s gonna make us look bad.”

“No embarrassing you by proxy in front of royalty. Got it.”

“Wait, Princess Luna’s going to be visiting Cloudsdale?” Blossom looked over at me and frowned. “Um – what about –” Blossom cut herself off with a facehoof and sighed. “I forgot, I’m talking to two ponies who slept through all their history classes. Anyway, Cloud Kicker’s family was one of the only pegasus clans didn’t join the Lunar Rebellion. Do you really think sending her is a good idea? I know it was nine hundred years ago, but Cloudsdale was where the rebellion started, and if Luna’s visiting it might stir things up.”

The boss shot that objection down. “Blossomforth, nopony cares about stuff that happened hundreds of years ago.”

“Well, my family does still like to brag about how we were one of the loyal few, so some ponies probably do still care about ancient history,” I conceded. “But nopony takes it very seriously. After all, Derpy and I always got along just fine even though her family was one of the ringleaders of the whole rebellion. Nopony’s gonna get all worked up about what our great-great-great-great-add about thirty more greats grandmothers were doing. Besides, now that Luna’s back she’d stomp on any of that stupidity in an instant.”

Blossom still didn’t look entirely reassured, so I broke out the trump card. “If you’re really that worried, I can always see about taking Derpy with me to Cloudsdale. Having a Doo around would be enough to deter anypony who really wants to make a big deal out all that stuff.”

It was a bit of a dirty move to bring up Derpy, but it worked. Blossom wasted no time in changing her position. “On the other hoof, I’m sure it won’t be that much of a problem”

Rainbow and I shared a look and smirked at Blossom’s reaction. The girl really needed to work on those jealousy issues. Even the talk we’d had the other day could only do so much. “Anyway Blossom, if I’m gonna be out of town for a couple days I’ll need somepony to keep an eye on ‘lula for me. I can count on you, right?”

That caught Blossom off guard, considering how well her last foray into foalsitting had gone. “Are you sure about that Cloud Kicker? I mean, after–”

I cut her off right there. “If I wanted somepony else to handle it I would’ve asked them. There’s nopony I think could do a better job of taking care of my little sister.”

Blossom gave a happy little grin when I told her that, which had been the entire point. Derpy would’ve been the obvious choice; she had plenty of experience with fillies after all. Given Blossom’s recent worries, I figured making a point of picking her over Derpy for something important would help.

“Why not me?” Oh right, the boss was in the room too. She crossed her forelegs over her chest and pouted. “I’m totally awesome with colts and fillies.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are boss. The problem is, I don't want 'lula to come home and start using the words 'awesome,' 'cool,' and 'radical' in every sentence.”

Rainbow Dash scowled and stuck her tongue out at me, but she couldn't keep up the fake anger for long. Soon all three of us were laughing. After what had happened with Fluttershy, it felt good to have a little bit of fun.

Once we settled down a bit, the boss had one last thing to say. “By the way Cloud Kicker, I heard you and Derpy hooked up.” Uh oh. Rainbow did tend to get just a little defensive of her friends when it came to me. Let’s hope this wasn’t going to be a problem...

“Good on ya.” Rainbow Dash grinned at me and slapped me on the back. Whew, crisis averted. “She seems really happy.”

“I do tend to have that effect on ponies,” I shot right back with a cheeky grin.

“Yeah yeah.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Still a little surprised to hear about it; I was sure Derpy’s barn door didn’t swing that way.”

I chuckled a brushed a hoof against my chest. “Hey, she might be straight most of the time, but everypony is Cloud Kicker-sexual.”

“I’m not,” Blossom immediately declared.

“Yeah, I’m not either,” Rainbow Dash agreed.

I put on my best pout-face. “Aw, boss, Pinkie and I had something special planned for your birthday. I was gonna pop out of the cake and everything!”

“Cloud Kicker!” Blossom cried out indignantly.

“Hey, you’re welcome to join in Blossom.” I smirked and casually brushed a wing across her back. “There’s always room for one more. You can be sort of like the cream filling in the donut.”

“Eep!” Blossom might be getting a thicker skin, but being in front of her boss made it a little easier to get to her.

Rainbow just laughed her flank off at the two of us, and started gently ushering us to the door. “You girls are crazy. I’ll see you later, alright?” Blossom and I were halfway out the door when the boss offered a couple final words. “By the way, Cloud Kicker: you feather this up with Derpy and I’ll kill you.”

The boss didn’t even give me a chance to answer before shutting the door in my face. Well, I could just poke my head through the clouds to do it, but sticking your head through somepony’s wall is just rude.

“Um – she wasn’t serious about that, was she?” Blossom looked just a little bit worried.

“Personally, I’m not gonna put it to the test.”

The weather conference was every bit as boring and uneventful as I’d expected it to be. Most of the time was spent going to seminars and listening to boring speeches about how some new technique somepony came up with could lead to a 2% increase in productivity.

In my defense, I paid a lot more attention to all that stuff than the boss would’ve if she were here. After all, the information itself was legitimately useful; it’s just all the packaging it came in that was mind-numbingly boring. Nopony should need to host a three hour long seminar to convey thirty seconds worth of information.

I did get some use out of the whole thing at least. One of the many topics of gossip and speculation for most of the ponies there was the boss herself. The near-universal consensus among the ponies there was that the boss was going places. She was one of the youngest weather managers in the history of the service, not to mention everything she'd done for the Princess as part of the whole Elements of Harmony thing.

The current weather boss was no spring chicken. There were lots of ponies saying that once he retired the new head honcho should be somepony young, energetic, passionate. Somepony who could shake things up.

Rainbow Dash being put in charge of all of Equestria’s weather. There’s a scary thought.

I couldn’t really see it happening though. Moving up the food chain would mean a desk job, and that wasn’t the boss’ style. She would want to be out in the field doing stuff. Not that I disagreed the boss was going places, but I didn’t see her making the jump to upper management. More likely, she’d be leaving the weather service entirely to sign on with the Wonderbolts.

Turns out the boss had done my career a pretty big favor by sending me in her place. Since everypony was convinced she was moving up in the world, the question of who would take over for her in Ponyville naturally came up. And now here I was, sent in her place to attend one of the bigger events in the weather community. It gave me a chance to get my hoof in the door, not to mention making a lot of ponies think I was RD’s choice to replace her. I didn’t really try to dissuade anypony from believing that.

Snagging Tornado Duty for Ponyville didn’t hurt. It was exactly the kind of thing everypony expected out of Rainbow Dash; bold, daring, and pushing the limits of what ponies could do with weather work. Since I was the one who actually sold the idea, I got some of the credit in the eyes of the bureaucracy. So when everything went well, my stock goes up along with my job prospects.

The boss might not want a desk job, but I would be just fine with one.

After a couple days of playing office politics, I was in the mood for a bit of relaxation time. One downside of living in a small town like Ponyville was a fairly dull and uneventful nightlife. Cloudsdale, on the other hoof, had a nice selection of nightclubs to choose from. Also unlike Ponyville, Cloudsdale was big enough that a single pony could blend in and just be another face in the crowd. In other words, I could afford to get a little wilder than usual and not worry about anypony tut-tutting at me afterwards.

Of course, my profusions of options did leave me with one rather difficult choice on my hooves. In Ponyville, a pony just went to one of the cafes or bars and grabbed whatever was available, but in Cloudsdale things were a bit more organized. Instead of everypony mixing up together, you had establishments that catered to specific tastes. It was kind of a necessity in a big city where you couldn’t know most everypony’s preferences. A straight bar would get me plenty of stallions, but if I wanted to bang a mare I needed to hit a fillyfooler bar. And if I wanted something a bit more exotic ... well there were places for that too.

I’ve never been all that fond of limiting my options, so the best course would be hit all the bars and clubs in sequence. With a little work, I might be able to set up some kind of group as I moved along. It had been far too long since I’d had a proper orgy.

I decided to hit a fillyfooler bar first. Maybe I could find those twins I ran into during the Best Young Fliers competition. Twins are always a good place to start. Sadly, the first bar I hit had not a sign of them. I was having some reasonable success chatting up some other mares though, and the cider was good enough to get me pleasantly buzzed.

Just when things started going nicely, it all went to Tartarus.

“Hey, this bar is awesome!” I groaned when I heard the voice of one the three stupidest ponies I’d ever met in my life.

“Yeah!” Idiot #2 chimed in. “We’re, like, the only stallions in the entire place!”

Oh Celestia, not these three. They’d annoyed me all through Flight Camp, and now five seconds after running into them for the first time in years they were already getting on my nerves again. “That’s because it’s a fillyfooler bar, you dumb mules.” I turned to pega-mule next to me. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she answered reasonably.

Unfortunately for me, insulting them just got their attention. Even worse, despite their utter lack of anything resembling intelligence, they recognized me. “Hey, Cloud Kicker! Been a long time!”

“Not long enough,” I growled under my breath. Well, it was too late to pretend I didn’t know them. Maybe I could get them to go away if acknowledge their existence. “Billy. Hoops. Score.” Or as I personally preferred to think of them, ‘Bully, Idiot, and Moron.’ “Still beating up fillies for their lunch money?”

“Nah. You still spreading for anything with hooves?” Billy, who was the leader by virtue of being the only one who had two brain cells to rub together, did his best to insult me.

“Nah, I don’t believe in limiting myself; dragons and griffins need love too.” I downed the rest of my cider, and signaled the bartender for a refill. “So why are you here, and what do I have to do to make you go away?”

“Well maybe we don’t wanna go away.” Billy did his best to swagger, and somehow managed to make himself look like even more of an idiot. His cutie mark is a dumbbell for a reason.

“You really do; mares don’t like it when stallions show up in fillyfooler bars. Especially not morons like you three.” It was too bad this place didn’t have a bouncer, or these three never would’ve gotten through the front door.

“Whatever.” Billy plopped down into the seat next to me, blithely ignoring the poisonous glare he was getting from the bartender. “Besides, you’re not a real fillyfooler, so you don’t count.”

The bartender passed me a fresh mug of cider and pointedly ignored Billy’s attempt to order a drink. I briefly considered dumping my drink on Billy’s head, but that would be a waste of perfectly good booze.

“So where’s your friends?” Billy demanded. “Rainbow Crash, Klutzershy, and that cross-eyed retard? I figure between the four of you me and my buddies can have some fun.”

Was he really that stupid? Wait, why was I even asking, of course he was that stupid. I set down my cider and started planning out exactly what I was going to do to the three of them. I could handle them being jerks to me, but once they brought my friends into it...

“Her name is Derpy,” I corrected in an even tone. “And for your information, I’m seeing her.”

“C’mon Kicky,” Billy said to me. “Bring her along too, we can still have some fun; I’m stallion enough to take care of both of you.” I spotted his hoof moving none-too-subtly towards my flank.

Okay, that was enough of that.

My back leg shot out, passing right through the cloud I was sitting on to make a solid impact with his ribs; at the same time, I flared my wings and hit him in the throat with enough force to make him wheeze. He collapsed behind me with a gurgle.

Three-to-one odds are pretty hard for anypony to face, even one who has a couple years of combat training under her saddle. In a three-on-one fight, any enemies with half a brain will flank you, have their buddies try to hit you from a blind spot, and coordinate attacks so that there’s no way you could block or dodge everything.

Lucky for me, the idiot trio didn’t have half a brain between them.

Hoops and Score got over the initial shock faster than I thought they would, and they tried to double-team me with a tackle. Under other circumstances, this would have been the lead-up to a lot of fun. Kind of a waste, really. I was able to dodge Hoops, but Score got a grip on me and we both tumbled to the ground. Not wanting to lose the advantage, I slammed my hoof into his cheek and twisted, using the edge of my hoof to score a deep cut just below his eye, and he jerked back and tried to roll away. I could’ve blinded him if I really wanted to, but these guys hadn’t pissed me off quite that much. Yet.

That didn’t mean I was going to let them off easy, though; I clapped my hooves over his ears with enough force to leave them ringing, and he struggled to reorient himself. A swift buck to the groin put an end to his desire to cause any trouble. By this time, Hoops was coming around for another shot at me, and I had to act fast if I was going to keep my edge.

Acting fast would’ve been a little easier if I hadn’t had quite so much cider before the fight started. I hadn’t had enough to turn me into an uncoordinated mess, but I was definitely not working at a hundred percent either. Losing a bit of your edge never does a pony any favors in a fight; it was a good thing Krav Pega didn’t rely on a lot of those precise little moves like some of the fancier types of unarmed combat, or I might have been in serious trouble.

I got to my hooves as quickly as I could, but he got in a few good jabs that would make some spectacular bruises the next morning. I grunted and tried to roll with the punches, but he had enough muscle that even a glancing hit was still pretty nasty. Stupid meathead. At least he wasn’t hitting me anywhere that really mattered.

I switched tactics and grabbed his hoof as he took another shot at me, hugging it close to my body as I rolled to the right. Unfortunately for him, his foreleg was meant to bend to the left, and I used the momentum from his attack to introduce his face to the counter. He left a nasty dent in the tightly packed clouds, and since the counter had a couple of bottles on it he got a face-full of glass as well.

I’d’ve thought that with both his buddies down for the count, Billy would take a hint. With Hoops unconscious and Score still curled up in a whimpering ball of agony the odds had decidedly evened out. Billy was back on all fours, gingerly rubbing his throat and glaring daggers at me. Our scuffle had cleared most of the tables around us, with the patrons who hadn’t fled the club were cheering me on. Always nice to have an audience, especially when they’re on my side.

“You really should just go,” I told him. “Take your buddies and leave before–”

He threw a half-empty glass at me. And here I was trying to be nice. As I dodged the halfheartedly thrown drink Billy closed the gap with surprising speed, wings flared as he came at me. It’s almost like he was eager for me to kick his flank some more. Maybe he’s into that kind of thing. Ew.

Fun fact: pegasi wings are really sensitive. They have to be, to detect and adjust to minor changes in air pressure while we’re flying. This sensitivity is a double-edged sword: on the one hoof, wing-play makes for some amazing fun in the bedroom, but on the other hoof even a minor wing-related injury can be excruciating. I almost felt bad for Billy. I launched myself into the air over him, bit down on one of his wings and pulled it in the opposite direction as hard as I could. It came out of socket with a satisfying pop, and Billy’s voice rose several octaves as he screamed in pain.

I looked down at the three thoroughly battered bullies and put some thought into what exactly to do with them. First things first, they owed some ponies apologies.

Since Billy was still the lead dumbass, I started with him. I hovered over him and dropped my voice to a menacing snarl. “Alright, this is what’s gonna to happen. Tomorrow morning, you’re gonna have Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber fly your crippled flank down to Ponyville. Then you’re going to go to Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Derpy, and you’re going to apologize to them. No, not just apologize, you are going to beg them for forgiveness. You understand me?”

“Go feather yourself! Soon as I’m healed me and the boys will go find the retard and teach her a lesson!”

Billy never was very bright.

“You must have a hearing problem.” I lashed out with my forehooves and smacked Billy across the face enough times to leave him with a very nice collection of developing bruises. For the next couple weeks, I wanted him to remember the consequences of pissing me off every single time he looked in the mirror. “I already told you: her name is Derpy.” I tossed in one last hit that broke his nose.

With idiots like these three you had to smack them down hard enough to make sure they never get back up again. Otherwise, they’ll just keep causing trouble once their injuries heal. I didn’t want to just stop them for tonight, I wanted to break them of bullying me, my friends, or anypony else. Permanently. The only things that get through tiny little brains like Billy’s are pain and fear.

I turned to his two even stupider sidekicks and started back from the top. “Alright, here’s what’s going to happen–”

“Yeah, no problem Cloud Kicker!” Hoops hastily declared.

“Whatever you say!” Score agreed.

“Smart. I don’t think I need to tell you what’s gonna happen if I catch you two causing trouble for anypony else ever again, do I?” The two bullies immediately shook their heads. “Good. I’m glad we had this talk.” I turned to the bartender. “Do you girls have a dumpster or something? I’ve got some trash to take out.”

“We’re going, we’re going!” Hoops whimpered, pulling himself up into a hover to avoid putting any weight on his injured leg. Between the nasty crack to the head and the dozens of small cuts on his face, he seemed to be having some trouble just staying level in the air.

Score staggered drunkenly to his hooves, his tail very carefully tucked between his legs as he did his best to help Billy out of the place. The crowd parted to let them out, but nopony seemed remotely inclined to lend a helping hoof.

Just when I was sure the whole mess had been resolved and I get back to having a pleasant night on the town a loud authoritative voice rang out from the doorway. “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?”

There’s only one pony I’ve ever met who has that rather distinctive delivery. The fact that everypony else in the bar was hastily dropping into a bow pretty much confirmed it. Rainbow Dash had mentioned that Princess Luna was in the city; I guess she must have noticed the loud violent bar brawl. Those things do tend to draw attention.

Lucky for me, the crowd was thoroughly on my side. Even the mares who weren’t close enough to overhear Billy and his goons talking themselves into some thoroughly deserved pain had seen enough to take a reasonable guess at what had happened. When a stallion walks into a fillyfooler bar and starts crudely hitting on one of the mares, he pretty thoroughly alienates everypony there. If I hadn’t had the situation well in-hoof I probably would have gotten help from the crowd.

Between the booze and the leftover adrenaline from the fight I was feeling pretty good about myself right now. Good enough to not be remotely intimidated by having one of the Princesses of Equestria here.

I admit, the last time I’d had a run-in with Luna we’d started off on the wrong hoof. You can’t really blame me though; at the time just about everypony still thought she hadn’t gotten over the whole Nightmare Moon thing. If Nightmare Moon came up to you, took off her robe, popped a huge wingie, and smiled at you then you’d be just a bit freaked out too.

Come to think of it, that might have been a bit of a huge missed opportunity on my part. By the time I’d figured out that Luna wasn’t going for the queen of evil thing anymore the chance to see if she’d been coming on to me was lost. Besides, hitting on her when she was being all cute and socially awkward and just starting to adapt might have messed things up. She needed Nightmare Night to go well for her a lot more than I needed the bragging rights of banging a Princess.

This wasn’t Nightmare Night anymore. “Hey Princess Luna.” I grinned and waved. “It’s me, Cloud Kicker. From Ponyville, remember?”

The Princess frowned at me for a moment, but I saw the spark of recognition in her eyes. “Ah, yes. I recall meeting thee. Thou art the daughter of Lieutenant Commander Tornado Kicker and Captain Nimbus Gust, yes?”

“Yeah, that’s my mom and dad.” Guess it figures the Princess would know my parents. Dad spent most of his time stuck in Canterlot ever since he’d hit Lt. Commander a couple years ago. Probably one of the things that caused all the trouble between him and Mom.

Luna nodded and looked me over, then surveyed the collateral damage the club had taken from our fight. “Pray tell, what transpired here?”

“Those three jerks said some very nasty things and didn’t know how to take no for an answer.” When in doubt, keep your story simple. “I was just defending myself.” Sure, I’d technically thrown the first punch, but when a pony takes a grab at your flank knocking him silly is still self-defense in my book. Besides, it was three-on-one; if I’d waited for them to start the fight at a time of their choosing I would’ve been in a tight spot. It doesn’t take brains to have two ponies grab your legs and wings while the third one wails on you.

Luna looked over the bar again, and I was a bit relieved when I saw several mares in the audience nodding in agreement. Always a relief to know I wasn’t gonna get in too much trouble for beating up some jerks.

“We concur that thou wert within thy rights to defend thyself.” Luna raised her voice for the declaration, though thankfully she spared us another dose of the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice.

“Now that the matter is resolved, we – I am pleased to welcome one of my dear friends from Ponyville.” Then Luna did something that caught me really off guard and gave me a casual little nuzzle.

Looks like I was getting a second chance at this after all. The orgy plan was going out the window; I had a Princess flirting with me. “Hey, can I buy you a drink Princess Luna?” Sure, buying a drink for a Princess was a bit silly considering how insanely wealthy she was, not to mention that most bars wouldn’t even dare to charge her in the first place, but it was the thought that counted.

That offer set off a round of surprised muttering amongst the crowd. Those whispers were nothing compared to what happened when Luna smiled and answered, “I would be most pleased to accept your offer.”

Even if I didn’t end up sealing the deal, I had just scored a date with a Princess. Not even one of the lesser royals like Blueblood or Cadenza, but one of the two Royal Sisters. That’s the kind of things rumors and legends are born from.

Too bad marriage isn’t my thing. If I could somehow manage to leverage this into a long-term thing, it would be pretty insane. I mean, the Kickers had gotten close-ish to being royalty with Shadow Kicker; considering how much my family went ga-ga over her, I could safely say goodbye to my parents ever complaining about me not doing enough with my life if I actually pulled it off with Luna. That would give ‘lula a tough act to follow, though.

I got two mugs of the most expensive cider they had and was vaguely relieved when my earlier guess about nopony daring to charge Luna proved true. The really good stuff was a bit on the expensive side.

I brought the drinks over to Luna and was slightly amazed when she downed the entire mug of cider in a single gulp. Not to be outdone, I followed her example. “A most excellent vintage!” The Princess declared happily. “Another!”

As the bartender nervously filled our drinks back up, I felt a brief twinge of sympathy for Luna’s guards. The premium stuff was genuine aged Apple-family brew, which is a terrible thing to miss out on. The Guard has pretty strict rules about not drinking on duty though, especially when escorting the Princess.

Three mugs later, I was starting to feel just a little tipsy. The high-quality cider had a bit more kick to it, not to mention that I’d already been buzzed before we even got started. It didn’t seem to be having any effect on Luna, which just seemed horribly unfair. Must be one of those alicorn perks.

Normally I would’ve stopped drinking by this point. I’m all for a little social lubrication (among other kinds), but getting up to Blossomforth levels of hammered is a recipe for trouble. Not to mention that the hangovers get real nasty, as Blossom also demonstrated. However, when a Princess buys you a cider, you drink the cider.

If I wanted to seal the deal and actually be able to remember doing it, I probably needed to go from casual chatter to something a bit more ... straightforward. “So, Princess Luna?” The alicorn turned to me with a polite little smile. “Care to show me your moon?”

Okay, that sounded a lot wittier in my head than when I said out loud. Did I mention that I was a little drunk?

Luna frowned at me. “Thou need but go outside to gaze upon our moon, Cloud Kicker.”

Well that didn’t work out quite as well as I had thought. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t a term she would have been familiar with back in the day. I wondered what idiot editor let that joke pass through my mind. Time to try something a little more straightforward. “Hey Luna, if I said you have a hot body would you hold it against me?”

Luna’s jaw dropped. “What didst thou say to me?“

Okay, time to throw any pretense of subtlety out the window. “You. Me. Bang. Now.”

Luna let out an angry snort and stomped the floor hard enough to punch a hole through it. “THOU WOULDST DARE?” Oh great, the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice was back. “THOU WOULDST DEIGN TO SPEAK TO THY PRINCESS AS IF SHE WERE A COMMON WHORSE? GUARDS! TAKE HER INTO CUSTODY!”

Okay... That could’ve gone better.

Ugh. I had a renewed sympathy for Blossom. Waking up with a fuzzy mind and only a vague recollection of how I got here is a disappointingly familiar sensation, though in recent years those occasions have become fewer and further between. At least this was pretty mild by the standard of hangovers, not that it made it stink any less. Especially since I didn’t have a sexy somepony staring back at me on the bed. For one thing, they would have fallen off the side. Jail cots are kind of tiny like that.

It’s probably for the best that I was alone in a dark cell anyway; anything more than the moonlight streaming in through the window would have upgraded the dull throb in my head to a proper headache. Still, there was one perk to my current alcohol-and-sleep-induced haze; I couldn’t really feel the bruises from my fight with the Dunder Triplets. Or much else, for that matter.

Still. Being in jail stinks.

For starters, being stuck in a single cramped cell is a huge pain in the flank, especially for a pegasus. When you’re used to having the entire sky at your disposal, an eight by eight by eight cell is incredibly confining.

Plus there was no way my entire family wouldn’t hear about this, which meant I could look forward to getting all kinds of grief from them. Especially since they were all in the Guard, so they could actually get rotated to guard my cell and start the chewing-out before I was even released. Mom was never gonna let me live this one down.

The worst part of all about being in jail though was that it was really boring. Since I’d been tossed into the Cloudsdale palace dungeons I didn’t even have anypony else to talk to. Pretty much all I could do to pass the time was sleep.

I’m not sure if I was asleep and dreaming or awake when I heard somepony opening the door to my cell, but the next thing I knew there was this odd, sudden sensation of movement.

Then I was lying on a cloud in the open night sky. I looked up and saw Princess Luna standing over me, an unreadable expression on her face.

This might all just be a dream, but even if it was there was an obvious starting point for the conversation. If this was really happening then I owed her an apology, and if this was all just a dream then it would be good practice for when I woke up. “Uh, your highness?” I began uncertainly. “Look, I know it’s no excuse, but I was kind of drunk and I’m really sorry about the whole–”

Luna gently placed a hoof over my mouth. “Peace, dear Cloud Kicker. While thy words were poorly chosen, t’was not thy intent which caused offense. Thou must realize that If thou dost desire a liaison with a member of the Royal House, a certain degree of discretion and propriety is expected, especially when in the public eye.”

Wait, was she saying what I thought she was saying? I admit, between the lingering effects of the booze and the surrealness of the entire situation, I was having a little trouble following her archaic vocabulary.

“But as I said, thy intentions were not unwelcome.” Then Luna leaned down and claimed my lips.

Okay, this part I definitely understood.

The Pony Whose Brain You Can't Handle

I woke up with a few lingering remnants of something like a hangover. Not debilitating or anything, but unpleasant enough to take a bit of the joy out of the new day. At least until I remembered exactly what had happened last night.

Or rather, what might have happened last night. Looking back at it, my encounter with the Princess of the Night had a fuzzy dream-like quality to it. To be honest, I’m not sure if it really happened or if it was all just a drunken sex dream. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’d dreamed about banging somepony, and after what happened earlier in the night it was only natural that I’d have Luna on my mind. In fact... Were those even mutually exclusive? We’re talking about Luna here, the Princess of Dreams. Who’s to say that the dream wasn’t the real thing at the same time?

However, now that I was more or less sober it seemed rather implausible to me that one of the Royal Sisters would decide to take yours truly into her bed. Especially after she’d tossed me into her dungeon for my less than entirely polite attempt to get her to bang me. Princesses generally want princes to come in and sweep them off their hooves or something, not some cheesy pickup lines from a random nopony with an overactive libido. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the whole thing was just a bit of wishful thinking on my part.

On the other hoof, there was a chance I’d just banged Luna. How cool is that? Given the choice between brushing it all off as just a dream or pulling off the ultimate banging-conquest (unless I could pull off a threesome with both sisters), I knew which one I wanted to pick.

That left me feeling good about myself for a little bit, until I thought things through. The nasty truth was that it didn’t matter if I’d banged Luna or not, because I couldn’t brag about it. From all her talk about discretion when we’d banged, I doubt Luna wanted me to go around telling anypony about what had happened. If I started going around claiming that I’d banged her she would deny anything had happened, and probably toss me into the dungeon again for good measure.

Okay, that was just cruel. What was quite possibly the crowning achievement of my entire sex life, and I could never tell anypony about it. It was almost enough to make me want to demand an audience with the Princess and ask her straight-up if we’d banged or not. Of course, if we hadn’t that would probably get my dungeon-time doubled. Or if we had, for that matter.

Come to think of it, I had no idea how long Luna was planning to keep me here. Nopony told me anything about how long my sentence was or when I’d be released. For all I knew, Luna might be planning to keep me down here as her personal sex toy for the rest of my natural life.

Admittedly that wasn’t the worst fate I could imagine, but spending the rest of my days as a royal pleasure slave wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when it came to life goals. Besides, I don’t do monogamy.

Before I could get too worked up about my possible status as a member of the royal harem my ears perked up as I heard the sound of hooves passing over clouds and the low murmur of two ponies talking. Looks like I was getting some visitors. Hopefully it was Luna here for round two, and not Luna here to toss some punishment my way and confirm that I had never banged her. Or worse, the first delegation of the Kicker clan coming to chew me out for making a mule of myself. Hopefully if any of the Kickers were coming it would be Mom, so I could get all angry at her and start an argument. Beats the hay out of having to deal with Dad being understanding but quietly disappointed or any of the family members whose opinion I actually gave a flying feather about.

To my immense relief my visitor was neither my parents coming to chew me out or a Princess coming to crush my very satisfying belief that she’d given me one hay of a good time last night. Instead, my visitor was perhaps the last pony I’d ever expected to see in any sort of dungeon. “Hey Blossom.” I stuck a hoof through the bars and waved to her. “How’s it going? You here to spring me, or is this a conjugal visit?”

“Cloud Kicker.” My best friend had just a hint of a frown on her face. I guess she wasn’t all that happy about having to fly all the way to Cloudsdale to (hopefully) bail me out of jail. Or maybe she just wasn’t in the mood for my jokes right now; she’s always been a bit of a grump.

I grinned and rested the side of my head against the bars. “So, if you’re here to bang are they gonna let you in here, or do we have to do it through the bars? I’m pretty sure I can...” I jammed my muzzle in between the bars. “Yeah, that’ll work. Alright, now just back up a bit and...”

“Cloud Kicker!” Blossom glared at me for several long seconds, until I got the message and stopped foaling around. I guess she really wasn’t in the mood for humor. Or maybe she felt like she had to start being all prude-y again now that we were in a royal dungeon. Probably both, now that I think about it.

Blossom moved up in front of my cell and I noticed a key-ring hanging off of one of her wings. Looks like she was here to spring me. Darn, I think I might’ve preferred the jailhouse banging. “So, is this a jailbreak? ‘cause if it is then I gotta say you are a truly awesome friend.”

Blossom shot another annoyed glare at me before she very tersely answered, “No.”

I guess expecting Blossom to bust me out of prison would be a bit much, she’s a bit too much of a goody four-shoes for that. Besides, odds were trying to bust out of Luna’s personal dungeon would just get her tossed in here alongside me. I didn’t want that happening to her, even if it opened up the prospect of us having prison-sex and a possible prison-threesome with Luna. Not even the interesting options that opened up to us with ready access to hoofcuffs was enough to change my mind on that. Though it did make things a little tempting.

“You’re being released,” Blossom answered stiffly. “Rainbow Dash intervened on your behalf; you’re lucky you’re friends with a pony who helped save Equestria twice.”

“So you are getting me out of here. Super.” To be honest, I’d never been all that pumped about the boss being the Element of Loyalty. Don’t get me wrong, I was proud of what she’d accomplished. It was just ... well, let me put it this way. My family is very proud of the fact that we’ve stayed loyal to the Princess for nine hundred years, that we’ve served her loyally for longer than any other pegasus clan out there. So yeah, it’s not hard to guess how the family reacted when the word got out that a pegasus from Ponyville had snagged the Element of Loyalty. And how they reacted once they found out it wasn’t me.

So yeah, it was kinda hard not to occasionally wish that I’d been the one to run into Twilight Sparkle and make friends with her instead of the boss. Snagging the Element of Loyalty would’ve been huge, more than enough to make up for the whole not being in the Guard thing. Now, my family hasn’t been crazy about that or anything; it’s not like they tossed me out and cut me off the way some families will do. Sure, things had been weird for a while, but we’d worked it out. Mom and Dad even moved to Ponyville for a while to patch things up and give me plenty of time with ‘lula.

But despite that, I couldn’t quite shake the sense that I’d failed. That I was a disappointment because I’d gone against the family tradition. Getting the Element of Loyalty would’ve proved that I was still doing right by Equestria, just in my own way. It would get rid of that lingering aura of black sheep-ness that always seemed to hang over my head whenever I interacted with my family.

I shook my head and pushed those thoughts aside. My family issues weren’t what was important right now; I was getting out of jail. “So the boss bailed me out? I owe her one.”

“A lot more than just one,” Blossom snapped at me. Looks like somepony was determined to be a grumpy bear. “She negotiated a very lenient deal for you; all you have to do is apologize to the Princess and everything’s fine. No jail time, not even a fine. You’re a free mare”

Well that’s a relief. I’d been a little worried Princess Luna was going to throw the book at me for offending her sense of decency. With the benefit of sobriety and hindsight, that had been a really dumb move on my part.

Blossom took the keys in mouth and opened up my cell. She didn’t even wait for me before turning around and heading for the door. After I caught up I made one or two efforts at small talk, but there was awkward silence hanging between us. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t quite sure how to fix it either. I couldn’t really sit her down for a talk about why she’d gone into grump-mode in the middle of Luna’s dungeons. The simplest explanation was that she was probably just annoyed over the whole getting me out of prison thing. Flying all the way to Cloudsdale to bail out a buddy from their own goof-up is a pretty big favor. If that was the case, the best way to resolve it would be to finish the whole mess up so we could move on.

Well, there was one other thing I could do. “Hey, uh — thanks Blossom. I really appreciate you going to all this trouble for me.” Blossom’s answer was a noncommittal grunt, but she seemed a bit less annoyed with me after that.

Luna was waiting for us in a rather stately room which contrasted rather markedly with where she’d been accommodating me just a short while ago. Not that the dungeons had been especially nasty or anything – being up in the clouds makes it hard to get most of the classic features of a true dungeon like filth and rodents – but the royal suite still puts it to shame. It must be a huge pain in the posterior to get all those tapestries enchanted so they don’t go falling through the clouds, though it was nice to see some color breaking up the normal cloud-home decor of white walls and blue sky.

The Princess herself looked every bit as nice as I remembered her being. I searched her face for something to indicate what had or hadn’t happened between us last night, but Luna had the best damn poker face I’ve ever seen in my life.

Blossom gave me a slightly rough nudge with her wing, and I remembered why I was having this meeting with the Princess in the first place. “Um. Your Highness.” I had a feeling sticking to all the formalities would be a good idea right now. “I just wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. I had a little too much cider and said some things I really shouldn’t have said to a Princess. So I apologize.”

Luna stared down at me imperiously long enough for me to start sweating before she gave a very slight nod of her head. “We accept thy apology. All is forgiven, Cloud Kicker.” I was relieved that she spared us the Royal Canterlot Voice; I guess she was learning not to deafen everypony she talked to. A hint of contrition entered her face as she added. “By imprisoning you We ... may have reacted somewhat more sternly than the situation required.”

“It’s all good.” Normally I would have given her a little pat on the back or something, but I didn’t wanna push my luck with the Princess. I’d just finished getting out of trouble for the last time I’d gotten a little too familiar with her. Still, I felt like I should offer some kind of olive branch. I tentatively extended a hoof to her. “Friends?”

The Princess’ eyes widened in surprise at that, but after a few seconds of silence she gave a slight nod and shook my hoof. “We accept thy friendship.”

My brain dredged up a couple old lessons on royal protocol I’d learned back at West Hoof, and I dropped into a bow. “Thank you, Your Highness. Do we have your leave?”

A slight smile appeared on Luna lips. “‘Tis a pity thou didst not display such refinement when last We met thee, Cloud Kicker. Thou havest our permission depart. When next We meet with thee, We hope it shall be under less troubled circumstances.”

I looked over to Blossom, who had been a bit unusually silent during the conversation between Luna and I. The sweat pouring down her brow and other classic signs of nervousness answered just why that was. Somepony was just a bit freaked at having a private audience with a Princess. It probably didn’t help that she’d missed all the fun and games last Nightmare Night thanks to being down with a nasty case of pony pox.

Maybe I was just a bit jaded when it came to dealing with Royalty. Being the daughter of two fairly high-ranking Guardponies meant I ran into nobles from time to time at parties and the like. Plus there was time back when I was still going to West Hoof when I’d gone for a late-night study break at Doughnut Joe’s and ran into Princess Celestia herself. Sharing late-night doughnuts with the ruler Equestria and chatting about nothing in particular does kinda change your perspective on royals.

Princess Luna seemed to have picked up on Blossom’s little problem too. “We would have thy name, companion of Cloud Kicker.”

“Oh! Me?” Blossom started flop-sweating. The poor girl looked downright terrified. “I — um — I’m Blossomforth, Your Highness.”

“We are pleased to meet thee, fair Blossomforth.” The Princess smiled magnanimously down at Blossom, and I tried to subtly give her a reassuring little pat on her hoof. “We hope that when next We meet with thee, it shall be under happier circumstances.”

“Likewise,” Blossom squeaked out nervously.

“Thou art a friend to Cloud Kicker, yes?” Blossom gave frightened little nod. “Then t’would seem fitting if thee were to be Our friend as well, neigh?”

“Okay.” Blossom wasn’t shivering in terror quite as much as she had been. I guess she wasn’t quite as scared of the Princess anymore.

“Huzzah!” Luna declared with a smile that somehow transformed her from regal to adorable in the space of single moment. “The making of new friends is always most pleasing to Us. We hope that in the future We may have the opportunity to engage in fun with thee!”

“Yes, that would be nice.” Blossom was almost back to her old self by now. Getting a chance to see the pony instead of the Princess seemed to be helping with her nerves.

“Then We shall meet with thee anon.” A bit of Luna royal aloofness returned. “For now, Our duties call to Us, so We bid thee good day.”

Once poor Blossom finally escaped from terrifying prospect of more social interaction with the co-ruler of Equestria, the two of us started on our way back to Ponyville. I have to say, after how problematic my last visit to Cloudsdale had been heading back home sounded like a good idea.

Well, for all the trouble I’d gotten to there had been one pit of silver lining to the cloud. Sure, I was supposed to keep that hush-hush, but I could trust Blossom to be discreet. “Hey Blossom, you’re never gonna guess what happened.”

“You got into a drunken bar brawl and propositioned Luna like she was a — well — a pony like you?” Blossom asked with a saccharine smile. Where does she get all that sarcasm from anyway?

“Okay, besides all the stuff that doesn’t really matter.” I waved a hoof dismissively, then leaned in to conspiratorially whisper to Blossom. “You’re not gonna believe this, but me and Luna? We totally banged! Arresting me was just her way of getting an excuse to bring me back to her place so we could be all discreet about it.”

I landed on a cloud and buffed a hoof on my chest. “Sure, staying overnight in the dungeon kinda stunk, but in exchange for banging a Princess? Totally worth it!”

Blossom’s response took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d expected her to react to the news. Probably shocked disbelief, or just dismissing my story out of hoof as a ridiculous lie. Maybe a bit of concern that saying that kind of thing could land me in Luna’s bad books again. All of those would’ve been expected.

Slapping me? Completely unexpected.

I gingerly rubbed a hoof against my sore cheek and shot Blossom an angry glare. “What the hay, Blossom?”

Blossom was glaring at me with more fury than I’d ever seen from her, and I’ve seen her get fairly aggravated before. “You ... inconsiderate ... whorse!”

“Whoa!” I took step back in surprise. Blossom hitting me and breaking out the bad language made for two very unprecedented events. Usually when somepony’s that mad at me I’ve got at least some idea why they’re so steamed. “Okay, seriously. What the hay is going on, Blossom?”

“Rainbow Dash sent you to Cloudsdale to represent her, remember?” Blossom shoved a hoof against my chest hard enough to plant my rump down on the cloud.

“Yeah, I do remember why I was there, Blossom.” It was a struggle to keep my own temper in check in the face of her fury, but getting mad wasn’t gonna sort anything out.

“Apparently you didn’t.” Blossom shot right back with a snarl. “Otherwise, why would you decide to humiliate her in front of all of Cloudsdale and one of the Royal Sisters?”

“Huh?” It took a second for what she was saying to click. I wasn’t here as Cloud Kicker, I was here as Rainbow Dash’s proxy. Out of all the ponies she could’ve sent to take her place, she’d picked me. So if I went and feathered things up, it made her look bad by association.

The worst part was, I probably did more damage to her reputation with the movers and shakers up in Cloudsdale than I had to my own. Another one of those fun little quirks of pegasus society. As far as most of the top-level management would be concerned, Rainbow Dash deserved most of the blame for picking somepony who wasn’t up to the job. It wasn’t my fault for screwing up the job she’d given me; it was Rainbow’s for hoofing an important task to a screw-up.

Still, none of that should matter. “Okay, look, all that stuff happened after the weather business was taken care of. I wasn’t on the job or representing her when I decided to hit the bars looking for somepony to fool around with. Besides, what I do in my private life is my business and nopony else’s. As long as I get the job I was sent to do done, what’s the big deal if I want to have a little harmless fun while I’m in the city?”

Blossom let out a frustrated growl and shoved her face into my personal space to the point where she was almost headbutting me. “So you don’t care if it makes Rainbow Dash look bad, or hurts Derpy or me or anypony else as long as you get to have your fun, is that it?”

“What? No! That’s not it at all!” I wish I didn’t sound quite so defensive when I said that.

“Oh really?” Blossom snapped at me. “Tell me something, Cloud Kicker. While you were having your ‘harmless fun’ did you stop even once to think about how you might be affecting the ponies who love you? How Rainbow Dash would react when she has to hear everypony in the entire weather service talking about how she sent a drunken lout who gets into bar brawls and was thrown in prison for public lewdness as her second? If it were anypony else, you’d be out of a job right now!”

I tried to say something about how nopony should blame me for defending myself from a couple creeps, but Blossom wasn’t in the mood to let me say anything in my own defense. “How do you think Derpy feels about all of this? It’s no secret you’re in a relationship with her, and by the time we get back what you’ve done is going to be all over Ponyville! How do you think she’ll feel if Dinky or Sparkler get teased over your antics?”

Blossom gave me another angry shove that backed me up right to edge of our cloud. “What about your little sister? She’s back in Canterlot with your mother, by the way. Not that you thought to ask after her when the pony who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her flew all the way to Cloudsdale to help your sorry flank!”

Oh Celestia, I hadn’t even considered that. My reputation wasn’t a big deal, and the boss would get over being mad at me after a couple days once everypony forgot about what I’d done. But if something happened to ‘lula or Derpy’s girls because of me... “Blossom, I — I didn’t think—”

“Exactly!” Blossom shouted me down. “You didn’t think about anypony except yourself!” Blossom’s glare suddenly turned from furious to downright toxic. She wasn’t even mad at me anymore, it was worse. Like I wasn’t even worth getting mad at. “I used to think you were brave, and strong. I looked up to you. Even —” Blossom cut herself off with an angry shake of her head. “But now ... you’re no mare, just an overgrown filly. You might have found new toys to play with, but you’d still rather run around having fun than grow up.”

I could take a lot, but everypony has their breaking point. “Oh come on!” I got right back up in her face. “Who the hay do you think you are? You, lecturing me on maturity? That’s rich, coming from a pony who’s two years younger than me! You wanna talk about maturity when you can’t even hold your liquor!”

Blossom shoved me back with a wordless cry of fury, then launched another verbal salvo. “Well at least I was never such an unrepentant and uncontrollable nymphomaniac that the sweetest, kindest pony in all of Equestria can’t even stand to be in the same room with me!”

“You do not want to go there,” I informed her, my voice deadly calm. “I can put up with a lot, but you do not use Fluttershy like that.”

“What’s the matter?” Blossom smirked at me triumphantly. “Are you ashamed of what you did to her? It must’ve been really bad to get to a pony as shamelessly self-centered as you.”

I was more than a little tempted to use my hooves to rearrange her face. She was gonna use Eepysqueak on me? Well fine. That’s the way she wanted things to be? Well two can play at that game! “At least I’m not nursing a silly little schoolfilly crush on my best friend!”

An instant after the words slipped out I wanted to take them back. In a single moment Blossom had gone from furious to utterly crushed. Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water, while herwings, ears, and tail all drooped down like she was a balloon that somepony had just let all the air out of. And of course, there were tears streaming from her eyes. “Blossom, I—”

Before I could get another word out she fled off into the sky. For a second, I thought about following her to apologize. I’d probably just end up making things worse though.

What the hay had I been thinking?

It was hard to miss the signs that Blossom had a bit of a thing for me. I’m no Rainbow Dash, but I’d kinda been ignoring it; I guess I was hoping she’d get over it after a bit and everything would go back to normal. The thing was ... well, Rule Seven and Rule Eight for starters. Blossom wanted love and romance, and I’m not the kinda pony who could do that. It was better for everypony if I just ignored her passing little crush until she got over it.

But was it really better for everypony, or just better for Cloud Kicker? Blossom’s accusations were still ringing in my head. Maybe I’d been ignoring her feelings because I just didn’t want my happy little status quo messed up.

I guess the why of it doesn’t really matter anymore. though. I’d taken her feelings for me, and I’d used them as a weapon to hurt her. That was just wrong. I’m no hopeless romantic, but taking somepony’s love and using it to hurt them ... that was low. Damned low.

Sure, I could say I’d been provoked. She knew Fluttershy was a sore spot for me, and she’d deliberately gone after it just to hurt me. A lot of ponies might say I was justified in hitting her right back by saying the nastiest thing I could think of. They’d be wrong. Maybe hitting her below the saddle like that was understandable, a very equine reaction. Doesn’t make it any less wrong.

Blossom was my best friend. Hay, Blossom was in love with me. And I had just hurt her in the worst way I possibly could.

It was well into the night before I finally got back to Ponyville. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to push myself. Going back to Ponyville meant going back to Blossom. Not to mention all the other ponies I’d let down. I couldn’t let the fact that I’d just emotionally destroyed my best friend distract me from the fact that I’d also failed Rainbow Dash and Derpy.

My first instinct was to go to Derpy’s place, but her lights were already off. Waking up her kids in the wee hours of the morning wasn’t the best way to start making things right.

Waking up the boss would cause just as many problems, so I guess the best thing to do would be to get a little sleep. At the thought of my bed a wave of exhaustion hit me like the Friendship Express. Right now, the thought of just collapsing on my bed and not getting out of it all for the next couple of days just sounded absolutely lovely.

I landed at my home, opened up the door, and was about to hit the hay when my stomach gave a very loud growl. Oh yeah, I hadn’t eaten anything since ... last night? I guess going more than twenty-four hours without food would make a pony hungry.

I turned on the lights and stumbled into the kitchen to look for something I could turn into food. I wasn’t in the mood for anything complicated, but now that I realized how long it had been since I’d eaten it was hard to think about anything else except how empty my stomach was.

I was halfway through throwing together a quick sandwich when somepony started pounding on my door. Whoever it was, it had better be really feathering important for anypony to come pounding on my door at — I did a quick check of my clock — two in the rutting morning. Huh. When did it get that late anyway?

The instant I opened the door Rainbow Dash barged in and started shouting in my face. “What the hay is going on Cloud Kicker? First I hear you’ve been arrested by Princess Luna herself, then I start hearing something about a bar brawl, and then when I send Blossomforth to go get you, she comes back alone, flies straight to her home, and starts crying like crazy and refusing to let anypony in! Now you’re finally coming back, what, more than half a day later? What gives?”

Oh Celestia, I was not in any condition to deal with this right now. I guess it was a good thing Derpy was sound asleep to stop me from going through with my idea of stopping by her place tonight. “Look, Rainbow Dash, can this wait until—”

“No!” Rainbow slammed a hoof down on the floor. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for answers? I spent the last fourteen hours going back and forth between here and Cloudsdale, thinking some monster must’ve gotten you or something! You’re gonna tell me what’s going on right now! Got it?”

My fragile self-control snapped. “Look, just get outta my face, okay? I said I’d tell you later, and that means I’ll tell you feathering later!”

Rainbow took half a step back in surprise before she came back twice as strong. “Like hay! Spill the beans now, Cloud Kicker! I’m not leaving until I get answers!”

Buck it. “Fine! I got into a fight with Blossom. That’s why she came back alone and she’s crying; because I was a total jerk to her. You happy now?”

Rainbow was still in her expressing concern through anger mode, but that news seemed to take a bit of the edge off of it. Just a little though. “What the hay did you two get into an argument about that has her getting that upset? And why are you getting back so late if you just got into a fight with her?”

I guess there was no avoiding telling her at least some of what had happened. “It started off just being about what happened in Cloudsdale, but then we both got mad and she brought up the whole Fluttershy thing, and then I —”

Rainbow cut me off with an upraised hoof. “Yeah, I can guess how things went after that came up. Does she even know what all happened there? She didn’t accuse you of—”

“No, it didn’t get quite that bad.” I almost tossed in a barb about how she hadn’t jumped to the same conclusion Rainbow had, but that was just my emotionally messed-up brain talking. Lashing out at the boss wouldn’t have done anypony any good.

Judging by the way Rainbow deflated a bit, the same thought had occurred to her too. She switched over to expressing her concern through sympathy and threw a comforting hoof over my shoulders. “Hey, friends get into fights. It happens. Wanna talk about it?”

I sighed and accepted the hug. “Maybe, but not now, okay?”

“Sure, later.” Rainbow held the hug for a bit longer, then suddenly pulled away and got right back angry aggressive mode again. “So that’s one thing, but that still doesn’t answer my other questions! What with all the horseapples that happened in Cloudsdale?”

I struggled to put it into words for a long moment, until I sighed, collapsed onto my couch, and settled on the simple truth. “I feathered up,” I admitted. “I wasn’t thinking, and I went and feathered everything up. I — I’m sorry, Rainbow.”

Rainbow still looked pretty angry with me, but after a couple seconds she just sighed and sank to the ground. “S’okay,” she reassured me, her voice bereft of the confrontational edge it had carried for most of our conversation. "Everypony makes mistakes.”

“Yeah, but this time it messed things up for you instead of just me.” It still seems kinda wrong that Rainbow would catch flak for my screw-ups. I guess I could get the logic behind it; as far as the big bosses were concerned Rainbow shouldn’t have sent a pony who was so out-of-control that she’d make a huge mess of things to an important meeting. Just ‘cause I got the logic didn’t mean I thought it was fair though.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself for what I had to say next. “I can — If you want I can resign.” I really didn’t wanna quit working weather, especially since leaving under these circumstances would pretty much kill my career. Leaving your last job on account of a massive and public failure wouldn’t look very good on my resume. However, it would take a lot of the heat off of Rainbow. Worst case scenario, I could always fall back on the family connections and go into the Guard.

Rainbow waved me off with dismissive snort. “You’ve spent too much time around all the Guard ponies in your family, got ya thinking the only answer to messing up is to fall on your sword.” Rainbow looked me dead in the eyes. “You leave now, and it’ll be months before you can get a new job. Besides, we’ve got Tornado Duty coming up in a couple weeks. I can’t afford to lose anypony right now.” Rainbow gave an angry shake of her head. “You gotta stick around and prove to everypony that your little mess-up was a fluke. That you’ve got what it takes. I’m not accepting any other answer! Got it?”

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she was sticking by me. She got the Element of Loyalty for a reason. “Yeah, got it boss.”

The boss sat down on the couch next to me and let out an amused little chuckle. “First time ya called me boss all night. Guess that means you’ve got it through that thick head of yours that you’re not getting out of this. Until I get on the Wonderbolts, you’re stuck working for me.”

“Guess so.” I agreed. I shot one last worried look her way. “You gonna get in much trouble for sticking by me?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” The boss gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. “They can’t fire me, I’m the best damn weather manager they’ve got and everypony knows it. Worst they’ll do is not offer me another promotion for a while, and I was sick of turning those down anyway. I do too much paperwork as it is; I go any further up the chain and I’ll spend so much time parked behind the a desk that I’ll forget how to fly.”

I let out a little chuckle at that. “You, forget how to fly? That’ll be the day. I bet you could spend the next year parked at Sugarcube Corner scarfing whatever Pinkie feeds you and still fly circles around most ponies.”

That got a laugh out of the boss. “Yeah, probably. But until I can fly circles around Spitfire and all the other Wonderbolts I’m not good enough. Though spending all that time hanging with Pinkie would be pretty cool. Still kinda getting used to the whole fillyfriend thing.”

I grinned and leaned in close to swap a little gossip. “How’s that working out for you anyway? Dating Pinkie Pie ... that has to be an experience.”

The boss smiled, put her hooves behind her head, and leaned back on the couch. “It’s cool. We hang out and have lot of fun, we go pranking, and every once in a while we make out.”

“Just making out?” I gave her a friendly little nudge with a hoof. “C’mon boss. You’ve been dating her for a while now, and you two still haven’t banged? You’re killing me here!” My curiosity about just how wild Pinkie Pie was in the sack was strictly professional, of course. Can’t blame me for being curious about how well Ponyville’s premier party pony does when the party is taking place under the covers.

“I dunno, maybe we’ll never do that stuff.” The boss stuck out her tongue. “To be honest, it all sounds kinda gross to me. Don’t know how you can stand it. The idea of letting somepony put their hoof or their mouth ... down there. It just kinda weirds me out, ya know?”

I swear, when Rainbow and I were born somepony went and sucked all the sex drive out of her and put it into me. That would actually explain a lot. “Don’t knock it ‘till ya try it, boss.” I was about to give her a couple pointers when a massive yawn hit me. Oh yeah, I had been planning on sleep before the boss showed up.

As so often happens with yawns, it proved contagious. Once the boss finished her own yawn, she got up and stretched her wings. “So, it’s late and we both need some sleep. I’m actually gonna be out of town for a bit; Spike’s going on some big ‘who am I’ journey, so me, Rarity, and Twilight are gonna go along to make sure nothing happens to the little guy.”

“Geez boss, taking time off for friend stuff again?” I poked her under the ribs with a wing. “Being Twilight Sparkle’s friend is practically your second job!”

The boss chuckled and gave a sheepish little smile. “Yeah, it does keep me kinda busy sometimes. Still, having awesome friends is worth it.” The boss’ smile turned wistful for a moment before she gave a little shake of her head and got back to business. “Anyway, Cloudsdale’s going easy on us for the next week or two, so the biggest weather thing you’ll need to deal with is keeping all the crops watered. You and Blossom can work out the details after you patch things up from your fight.”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure the fight Blossom and I had gotten into could be patched up, and certainly not overnight. No need to put that on the boss though. “Yeah we’ll work it out.” I’m not sure how we’d do it, but we would.

Taking care of things while the boss was away was the whole reason she’d bumped me and Blossom up to assistant managers. This was my first chance to really show my stuff; sure, we’d done little things while the boss was busy before, but there’s a big difference between keeping the weather working while the boss is on a picnic with her friends and running the show for several days while the boss is out of town.

I needed this to go well. The best way to recover from the disaster in Cloudsdale was to prove that I was still a damn good cloud pusher, even though my personal life might be in shambles. If I could at least do my job well, it would prove I wasn’t a total feather-up. If I did things right it might even fix most of the professional damage I’d done to myself and the boss; it’s a lot easier for the higher-ups to overlook a pony’s personal failures when they’re still putting in a good job performance.

On the other hoof, if I feathered this up... the boss was going out on a limb for me here. Leaving town and putting me in charge sent a very clear message that despite what had happened she still had my back. If I went and let her down again just about everypony would start questioning her judgement. Repeatedly hoofing major responsibilities over to a pony who wasn’t cut out for dealing with them would not look good for her. No way I was gonna do that to her. I’d caused enough trouble already; I was not going to let my friends down again.

I didn’t even start the work day before the first problem cropped up. I landed in the square for the usual pre-workday meeting of the weather team and was greeted with a chorus of resentful silence and angry glares.

A lot of ponies would be surprised to hear what a good boss Rainbow Dash is. She’s lazy, impatient, hot-tempered, stubborn, and thinks everything is a competition — not exactly the traits one looks for in a leader. However, she makes up for all that by having buckets of charisma.

Now, she’s not some kind of charming sweet-talker like most ponies think of when they say that a pony has charisma. Honestly, when it comes to most of her social skills she’s not that great. What the boss has going for her is this kind of personal magnetism that makes you believe in her, believe she can do all the crazy things she says she’s gonna do. Then she goes and sets some kind of impossible goal and pretty much everypony thinks she’s crazy, but you stick by her because deep down you know that she just might be able to pull it off. Then she goes and does it, and you know why you’ve been following her all this time.

Because to a pony like Rainbow Dash, ‘impossible’ isn’t so impossible after all.

Pretty much everypony on the weather team was in awe of her. It was hard not to be. More than that, we were all fiercely loyal to her. Maybe that’s why she got the Element of Loyalty; she’s not just personally loyal, she inspires that kind of loyalty in others.

And I’d gone and messed things up for the boss. As far as the rest of the weather team was concerned, that put me at a couple levels below dishonorable scum. Kinda hard to run a weather team when everypony on the squad hates your guts.

At least Blossom was still holed up in her home. I felt a sharp pang of guilt at the thought that she was too devastated to even come to work, but it was also a bit of a relief. I couldn’t deal with her right now, and adding our personal issues to an already volatile work environment was just a recipe for disaster.

I guess it’s a good thing I learned a couple things about running a team back at West Hoof. I might not have wound up in the Guard, but I’m not gonna deny that their training has come in handy from time to time. I dropped down in front of the crew and busted out my old officer’s voice. “Alright everypony, listen up!” First things first, if I was gonna take charge I had to act like I was in charge. “Here’s the deal: The boss is out of town for a couple days and Blossom’s sick, so right now I’m running the show.”

That didn’t exactly go over well. Most of the ponies started grumbling under their breath and shooting angry glares my way until one of the stallions in the crowd plucked up the courage to challenge me directly. “Why should we listen to you?”

“Care to step forward and say that again?” I almost added ‘soldier’ on the end of that sentence. Guess that’s one of the hazards of channeling your old military training. Too bad I started off at West Hoof with officer training, so I’d missed out on all the joys of being a fresh recruit getting verbally torn to pieces by a drill sergeant. We still had drill sergeants in the officer training program, but they were polite.

Don’t get me wrong, when it came to putting us through our paces they were even nastier than the ones the recruits had to deal with, but when they ordered us on our morning fifty mile flight in full combat armor and a couple hundred pounds of field kit they said ‘please’ first. Not that anypony could actually say no, but it was nice that they were at least nice about the whole thing. They even offered a few friendly little words of encouragement when it looked like we were all about to drop out of the sky after they tacked an extra ten miles onto the flight.

Fortunately, one of the things they covered in officer training was how to smack an uppity soldier back into line. I didn’t even give the pony who’d challenged me a chance to respond before I started ripping into him. “I think you’ve forgotten how things work around here. When the boss is gone, you take your orders from me. Nothing that’s happened changes that. You don’t have to like it, but you will fall in line. Got it?”

Nopony else tried to dispute my authority and I got a couple of cowed nods from the ponies under my command, so I guess I’d gotten the message across. “Alright, the weather schedule today is partly cloudy skies all day, so it should be nice and easy. The only big thing on our plate is some farm irrigation.” I sketched out a quick and dirty map of Ponyville and the major outlying farms. “We’ll split things up right here. Blossom’s team can take care of everything from the Carrot Patch on east, while my team will cover everything west of Sweet Apple Acres.”

Splitting the work between the two squads was a simple, commonsense division of labor. The fact that whenever Blossom got back on duty it would keep her and me far away from each other was just an added bonus. We both needed some time and space to calm down a little before we saw each other again; the last thing we needed was to run into each other while we were both still so emotional that we’d end up saying more things we would regret.

There was just one little problem with that plan; Blossom needed to sign off on the weather schedule first. Despite my little speech to the rest of the weather crew the boss had actually left me and Blossom running the show together. In hindsight, perhaps I should have told her just how bad things were between me and Blossom right now; if she knew that she probably would’ve just left one or the other of us in charge. Then again, considering my recent track record it almost certainly would’ve been Blossom filling in for the boss, which could’ve come with it’s own set of problems. I’m not sure how good Blossom would be at keeping charge after everything we’d put each other through.

Guess it’s a good thing for me that one of the things they teach at West Hoof is how to keep on task and get the job done even when you’re a long way from one hundred percent.

Still, since we were technically co-bosses of the weather team that meant she had to give her stamp of approval to everything I ordered. Well, just the big stuff like the daily weather schedule, but that was enough to cause trouble. Hopefully we could just keep things strictly business and put our personal issues off until after we were done cloud-wrangling.

Yeah, right. Can’t blame a pony for hoping though.

I sent the rest of the weather crew off to get started on taking care of the farmers and very reluctantly took wing for Blossom’s little cloud-house. I was sorely tempted to just delegate the delivery to somepony else, but from what the boss told me last night Blossom was probably still locked up in her room crying. Because of me. If I sent somepony else to make the delivery they’d probably just drop it off in her mailbox where she might not even notice it until she finished crying herself out.

Say what you will about the wisdom of going to Blossom’s place so soon after our fight, but the one thing I could be absolutely sure about is that if I showed up and knocked on her door she wouldn’t ignore me. Scream at me? Almost certainly. Throwing anything she had in her home that wasn’t made of clouds at me? A distinct possibility. But she definitely wouldn’t ignore me.

Plus ... well I wanted to get her out of her house and back on the job. I don’t know if Blossom had any other friends or family in Ponyville, but she’d never mentioned anypony. Blossom and I needed space from each other, but I didn’t want her to spend all that time locked up in her little house and stewing in misery.

Blossom’s house was a nice little patch of clouds hanging over the outskirts of Ponyville. It wasn’t terribly impressive by cloud-house standards. The house itself was a small and fairly simple design, and there were no non-cloud additions to it unless you counted the mailbox. There are the two big things a pegasus will judge a cloud-house on: how big and fancy the design is, and how much of the house isn’t made of clouds.

It might seem kind of counterintuitive that having a cloud-house without much cloud in it is a good thing, but having every single part of the house be the same cloud-white color can get a bit dull. Most ponies liked to liven things up a bit, like with the rainbow waterfalls at the boss’ place. The problem is that getting most physical objects to get along with clouds takes a bit of work. Even the most densely packed clouds can’t bear very much weight compared to what a pony can do with wood and stone. So with the exception of simple fairly lightweight stuff like food and basic personal necessities, having if you wanted something not made of clouds in a cloud-house you needed magic to make it happen. Magic is rarely cheap or easy to get. I’m pretty sure the only reason the boss was able to afford some of the more recent additions to her home was that Twilight Sparkle was handling the magic side of things.

Well, no sense in stalling for time any longer. I landed on Blossom’s modest little porch, which was really just a chunk of cloud that jutted out in front of her door, and tapped my hoof on her door a few times.

“GO AWAY!” Blossom predictably shouted.

I braced myself for whatever nasty reaction was about to come my way. “It’s me Blossom, I know you don’t want to —”

“GET OUT OF HERE CLOUD KICKER!” Blossom’s voice came shrieking out of her home, followed by a tuft of cloud that didn’t even come close to hitting me. “I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”

I decided the safest route was to just stick to business. It was way too soon to try to make peace, and keeping things strictly work-related would at least keep me from making the situation any worse than it already was. “Since the boss is out of town I need you to sign off on the weather schedule and all the other paperwork. I’m leaving it in your mailbox.” After a few seconds of silence to give her some time to consider what I’d already said, I added. “Also, I set up the weather schedule so our teams aren’t doing any work together. You won’t have to see me if you come into work.”

“Good.” Blossom shouted out to me. “Now go away!”

I dropped the paperwork off in her mailbox and retreated to a distant cloud, then buried myself in the cloud so I could watch the place unobserved. After a few minutes I saw Blossom’s door crack open and she stuck her head out to quickly search the area, presumably to make sure I was really gone. When she didn’t see any sign of me she quickly flew over to her mailbox, grabbed the paperwork, and retreated back into her home.

I guess that was a good sign. At least I’d gotter her out of her house for a bit, and if she’d gone out to grab the paperwork she’d probably take care of her part of our jobs. Well, unless she was scribbling ‘Die, Cloud Kicker, Die!’ all over the weather forms instead.

With the trip to Blossom’s out of the way I joined back up with the rest of the weather team and buried myself in my work. By the time we got around to Sweet Apple Acres I’d managed to mostly put the problems out of my mind. As long as I had all the work of managing the team my mind didn’t have much space to worry about all my other problems. It was rough going at first, but once we got into the swing of things we started making good progress. My weather squad was used to taking their marching orders from me, so once the whole issue with me messing things up for the boss was — well maybe it wasn’t completely handled, but it was at least shelved for the moment. In either case, now that it was out of the way we didn’t have a hard time taking care of business.

I’d just finished setting up a nice little rain shower over the east northern orchard when my eyes fell upon one of the proprietors of Sweet Apple Acres. Big Macintosh was — much like the name implied — a nice big hulking hunk of a stallion. I popped on down to have a word with him; it was standard procedure to talk things over when you’re watering a farmer’s fields, just in case there was anything special that needed doing.

A couple quick flaps of my wings landed me right next to the big fella. A second later I wished I’d stuck to the air instead; all the rain had done what is usually does to dirt, so my hooves were all muddy now. Even though I was still feeling pretty down over the whole Blossom thing, I forced a casually friendly smile onto my face. “Hey there Big Mac.”

“Howdy,” the stallion answered with his typical laconic flair.

“Got anything special you need us to take care of?”

“Eenope.”

“Water getting where it needs to?” I swear, it was contagious. If I spent too much time around him I’d probably switch to saying nothing more than ‘eeyup’ and ‘eenope’ too.

“Eeyup.”

“Alright — well good.” I wasn’t quite sure what to say next. Normally I would’ve made at least a token effort to flirt with him at this point. Maybe ask him if everything about him was big. If everything was proportional ... well let’s just say I wouldn’t mind if he plowed my fields sometime.

After everything with Blossom I wasn’t exactly in a flirting mood though. Yeah, I know, shocking. Hay, I’d probably turn down twins right now.

If it were anypony else I could probably manage a bit of small talk, but Big Mac’s not really much of a talker. Not exactly easy to carry on a conversation when the other pony won’t give you anything more than one-word answers. After half a dozen ‘eeyups’ and ‘eenopes’ I was just about to give up on the conversation when we were not-so-politely interrupted.

Applejack trotted up and very bluntly placed herself between me and Big Macintosh. “An’ just what in the hay d’you think yer doin’ talkin’ to mah brother?” Well, somepony was getting a little possessive. “Ah know what yer game is missy, an’ we don’t want none of that ‘round here. We’re decent ponies, so y’all gwan an’ shoo!”

So not in the mood to deal with this right now. “Relax Applejack, we were just talking. Right, Big Macintosh?”

“Eeyup.”

“Yeah, I bet you were,” Applejack muttered darkly. “Y’all have gone an’ caused enough trouble for RD, we don’t need no more of it here.” The farmer stepped forward and made a shooing motion with her forehooves. “Gwan! Git!”

I felt another spike of irrational anger. Who in the hay did she think she was? “You might wanna be a bit more polite, or this nice little rain shower you’re getting could turn into a thunderstorm.”

“Y’all do that an’ Rainbow’ll tan yer hide.” Applejack dug her hooves into the muddy ground. “After I’m done with ya, that is.”

“Sorry, you’re not my type.”

Things might have gotten nasty from there — a good fight would make for a nice bit stress relief right now — if not for the elegant voice that cut into out budding argument. “Oh please don’t tell me you’re going to starting fighting in the mud. I mean, honestly!”

“Rarity?” Applejack turned her attention to very prim unicorn standing in front of us with an umbrella-saddle on her back. “What’re ya doin’ here?”

“Well,” the unicorn began with a haughty little sniff. “I was going to stop by to say farewell before I went to keep an eye on little Spikey-Wikey while he’s on his journey, but if that’s how you’re going to greet me...”

“Now hold on just a minute there.” Applejack turned her back on me. I was almost tempted to take the opportunity to chuck some mud at her head. “Not like I ain’t happy to see you or anythin’ Rarity, I was just...”

“So you are happy to see me then?” Rarity smiled and gave a playful little flutter of her eyelashes.

Applejack trailed off, and I swear I could see a hint of a blush on the farmer’s cheeks. “Well, I — I reckon it’s always nice to see one of mah friends.”

Rarity’s amused little smile went away. “Oh. I see.”

Not this dance again. I was not in the mood to put up with more of their back-and-forth flirting that never quite led to either making a move right now. “For the love of Celestia, will you two just bang already!”

Applejack and Rarity turned to me with twin looks of open-mouthed shock. After several long seconds of silence, Big Mac added in his opinion. “Eeyup.”

Big Mac speaking up seemed to be enough to knock some words back into Applejack. “Big Mac, y’all best keep yer mouth shut ‘bout things that ain’t none of yer business.” The farmpony rounded on me. “An’ as fer you, just who in the hay d’you think ya are, talkin’ to me an’ Rarity like that?”

“Yes, I quite agree.” Rarity ran a hoof through her mane. “You shouldn’t be so horribly crude, Cloud Kicker.”

“Exactly.” Applejack gave a very satisfied nod. “I’ll thank the two of ya to keep yer noses outta me an’ Rarity’s private business.”

“It’s past time your business was with her privates,” I grumbled under my breath.

Big Mac looked like he was about to offer another ‘Eeyup’ until Applejack hit him with an utterly furious glare, daring him to do it. Big Mac was no fool; he kept his mouth shut. Once she was sure she’d made her point, Applejack went back to being offended. “Now as ah was sayin’ before somepony went an’ interrupted me, y’all keep yer noses outta mah business with Rarity. Ah’ll have a bite of her apple pie when ah’m good and ready.”

A second later Applejack’s eyes widened and she slammed her hooves over her mouth. Rarity looked rather pleased with herself, while Big Mac apparently considered this such a momentous occasion that it actually merited two words. “‘Bout time.”

Rarity stalked in like a predatory cat and began circling around Applejack. “So tell me darling. What precisely gave you the idea that I would allow you to ... eat my pie, as you put it? I am a lady, not some farmgirl you can just take up into your barn for a roll in the hay. I expect to be properly courted, at the very least.”

Applejack let out some indignant sputters that eventually started to resemble words. “Now just a cotton-pickin’ minute here—”

Rarity examined a hoof and daintily removed a fleck of mud that had somehow found its way onto it. “If you can duly impress me with an appropriate display of romantic appeal, I may bestow my favor upon you. But for you to just assume I would be willing to — no darling, that’s not how it works.”

Applejack glowered at the unicorn. “Well if yer gonna be this much of a pain about the whole thing I might outta change mah mind about it!”

“I should think not!” Rarity sniffed indignantly. “You can’t just declare your intentions and then drop the matter entirely! I expected better, even from you Applejack.”

“Well fine,” the farmer growled out at the object of her affection. “I’ll take ya on a date then if yer gonna be all prissy about it. Hay, I’ll even take ya to one of them fancy restaurants ya like so much.”

“Well I should hope so!” Rarity huffed.

“Fine!” Applejack shouted right back. “Though I say once the date’s over we oughta come back to mah place fer some kissin’. Is that what it’s gonna take to make ya happy Rarity?”

“That sounds lovely!” Rarity screamed furiously.

“Well alright then!” Applejack yelled at what was apparently her new fillyfriend.

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Applejack took an aggressive step forward into Rarity’s personal space. “Are ya happy now Rarity?”

Rarity extended her neck so she was eye-to-eye with Applejack for her next shout. “Extremely!”

As Applejack and Rarity continued their argument-slash-foreplay, I glanced over at the only other sane pony in the area. “Hey Big Mac. Has your sister always been this crazy when it comes to Rarity?”

“Eeyup.”

The Pony Who is Addicted to Winning

Sweet Apple Acres was the last farm the weather team needed to handle for the day, so after the rather bizarre ... encounter with Applejack and Rarity I was done for the day. I guess the only question left was whether those two are going to bang or kill each other. Either way, I could offer them some equipment and a couple pointers to get the job done. I’m a mare of many skills.

Now that I’d taken care of work, I could finally get back to dealing with all the fallout from my personal life. Since I didn’t want to deal with Blossom just yet and the boss was leaving town soon, that just left my fillyfriend. It was just a short little flight to get there; I thought about stopping to pick up some kind of gift for her or something, but I couldn’t think of anything that would work.

Derpy’s got a pretty nice little place. Well not all that little really; it’s a three-bedroom place, so it’s not exactly small even if it’s only a one-story house. The only reason she could afford it is because when she got it the place was a real fixer-upper. Lucky for her, she had some awesome friends who were happy to help with that. Her brother took some time off to come to Ponyville and lend a hoof too. Seven years of living there had given Derpy plenty of time to transform it from a basic functional living space to a home. That’s really the only word I could use to describe it. The place was ... homey.

Derpy opened up the door and smiled when she saw me. “Hey you.” Her voice was full of its usual cheerful bubbliness, but a second later her smile disappeared when she saw my downcast expression. “So I’m guessing there’s something to all those rumors floating around town.”

I struggled to put it into words for a bit. “Yeah. I’ve had a really rotten couple of days.”

“Oh.” Derpy opened up her door and stepped aside, inviting me in. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I needed somepony to spill all this to, and since I was on the outs with Blossom that pretty much left me with Derpy. I guess I could try Rainbow Dash, but the boss was kinda mixed up in everything. Plus, if I’m honest she just wasn’t that good at being sensitive and comforting. That’s not to say she wouldn’t try, but it’s not her strong suit.

Derpy led me over to one of the couches in the living room, then frowned in thought for a second before changing course and heading for the bedroom instead. “You could use a preening, and a backrub is always nice after a stressful day.”

I certainly wasn’t about to object to either one of those. I got comfortable on the bed while Derpy trotted off to the kitchen to grab a muffin out of her fridge for me. A minute later I had a beautiful mare rubbing her hooves along my back and gently nipping at my wings while I munched on a chocolate chip muffin. Gotta say, it was doing wonders for my mood.

That is, until things went wrong. “Ow! Derpy! That’s a pinion! Don’t–OW!” In hindsight, I should’ve remembered that there are downsides to banging a mare with a clumsy streak.

“Sorry!” To my immense relief Derpy took her teeth off of my flight feather. For a second I’d been worried she might yank the thing out. The last thing I needed was to spend a couple days flying like a filly fresh out of Flight Camp until it got around to growing back..

I shifted around so I could get a good look at Derpy’s face, and my annoyance with her instantly faded away when I saw her sheepish little nervous grin. It was the same look she always got on her face after she had one of her little accidents and it was so endearingly cute that staying mad at her was pretty much impossible. "Sorry," Derpy apologized again. “I guess I’m not very good at wing-play, am I?”

“It’s fine, sweetie.” A delightful idea sprang to mind, and with a quick shift of my haunches I had Derpy on her belly with me on top. One of the neat things about hoof-to-hoof combat training is knowing a couple moves that can have some very fun applications in the bedroom. “I bet you just need somepony to show you how it’s done. Now pay attention, ‘cause I don’t want you missing a single bit of this.”

Within minutes I had her melting like butter in my hooves. I’m no masseuse like the ones at the spa, but when it comes to filling a pony with warm fuzzy feelings I’m a pro. It’s a very useful skill to have for any playpony; you’d be surprised how many ponies will warm up to the idea of letting you into their bed after a good backrub or a nice preening.

I started things off nice and simple; if she was going to be preening me on a regular basis, I needed to show her how to do a good job of it. I leaned forward and traced one of her pinions with my lips, straightening the barbs of the feather out towards the end of her wing. It took a few passes to even things out; given her inexperience with me, I wasn’t surprised that she’d done a less-than-perfect job with her own feathers. Every once in a while I’d throw in a gratuitous tug–not a painfully hard tug, but definitely enough to send some sensation down her wing. I knew I was getting the job done when she let out a contented sigh.

It took a while to straighten out the worst of her feathers, but eventually I got everything reasonably groomed. Derpy was starting to furl her wings back in when I stepped things up a notch and ran a hoof down her back, eliciting a very interesting reaction. I recalled as much as I could about nerves and muscle mass from my krav pega lessons as I worked my hooves over her flight muscles, finding and kneading tense spots until they melted beneath me. Her work as a mailmare must’ve been pretty hectic given how much tension I found.

Derpy looked over her shoulder at me and stretched her neck a bit until she was in range to meet my lips with her own. A couple seconds into the kiss, I heard the front door opening and Derpy’s girls calling out that they were home. An instant later Derpy’s wings snapped shut and she shot from under me fast enough to bounce my skull off of her bed’s headboard.

Things went from bad to worse when I discovered that Derpy’s bedroom window had been painted shut. The worst part was that when I’d helped her fix the place up back when she first bought it on account of being pregnant with Dinky (cloud-houses don’t really work for baby unicorns), I was pretty sure I’d been the one to paint the window shut. It was like I hadn’t planned on needing to make a quick and stealthy exit from the bedroom when Derpy’s girls came home. Curse my lack of forethought.

After a bit of evaluation I decided that breaking one of Derpy’s windows wasn’t worth it just to make a clean getaway. That left me with no choice but to face the music.

I snuck out of the bedroom with a vague plan of finding some other way to get out unobserved, but Derpy’s house had a distressing lack of cover available. I guess she wanted to minimize the number of things she could bump into or knock over. Unfortunately, that meant I didn’t get more than five steps before I got busted. “Hi Miss Cloud Kicker!” Dinky called out with all the innocent glee of a filly who had no idea what was going on.

Well, there was no point in running for it now. All I could do was try to cover our flanks, though judging by the horrified look on Sparkler’s face it might be a bit late for damage control. Not that I blamed her for being freaked; it was kinda hard to miss your mom coming out of the bedroom, and then her fillyfriend trying to sneak out of the room a minute later. It was a good thing we’d heard them come in, or life would’ve gotten really, really awkward. Again.

Sparkler, Derpy, and I were all frozen in awkward silence, but lucky for us Dinky was there to fill the gap with childish enthusiasm. She trotted right up to me and proudly presented me with a simple drawing of herself, Derpy, and Sparkler having a picnic in a grassy field. I was a little surprised to see that I was also in the picture, pushing a cloud out of the way so they’d have plenty of sunshine. The words ‘Mommys friend Miss Clowd Kiker’ written above the figure in the drawing removed any doubt Dinky’s less-than-refined artwork might have left that it was me. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about being included in Dinky’s family picture, even peripherally.

“I made this in class today,” Dinky declared cheerfully, pointing a hoof at the drawing of me. “You’re in it, see?” Before I could come up with any kind of answer to that she continued on. “Did Mommy invite you over for dinner?”

Derpy and I wasted no time jumping on the excuse Dinky had so helpfully provided for us. “Yes muffin,” Derpy said just a touch too hastily “I asked her to have dinner with us. That’s why she’s here.”

“Okay!” Dinky accepted Derpy’s explanation with the innocent naivete of a filly. Her mother had said so, and that was good enough. “Can I help you make dinner, Mommy?”

Derpy beamed indulgently at her daughter. “Of course you can, muffin.”

The two of them trotted off into the kitchen together, leaving me alone in the hallway with Sparkler. Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. I gave a jerk of my head towards the living room, and the two of us trotted over to a couple of comfortably broken-in couches and took a seat. “So...” I began uncertainly. When in doubt, go with the direct approach. “I guess you know I’m banging your mom, right?”

Sparkler let out a strangled sort of gasping sound. Maybe I’d been just a bit too direct. “Oh Celestia,” the teen groaned.

Maybe a joke would help lighten the mood? “Funny, your mom says the same thing sometimes...”

Sparkler gagged and glared at me. Okay, so much for that idea. Thanks to Rule Eleven, I’m not exactly experienced when it comes to dealing with the bangee’s kids. “Sorry, that joke sounded a lot funnier in my head than ... yeah.”

Sparkler finally spoke up. “Just ... don’t ever mention anything like that again. Ever.” The unicorn still looked a little nauseous.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Awkward silence ensued. What could I talk to her about? She was what–fifteen, sixteen? When I was that age I’d been going to West Hoof and doing the sorts of dumb things most teens did. Well, since she wasn’t being trained to lead ponies into battle I could probably dump the military school experiences for common ground. If there’s one thing anypony her age is interested in (with the occasional exception like Rainbow Dash), it’s romance. All those teenage hormones will do that to anypony.

Well, I did have a decent grasp of that kind of thing; certainly better than most other topics I could take a try at. “So … got your eye on any cute colts? Or fillies? Or anything else?”

Sparkler glared at me suspiciously. “So help me Luna, if you’re about to try to offer me some kind of advice about mating I’ll–”

“No! Celestia no! Why would you even think that?” Oh right, this is me we’re talking about. I don’t even want to think what Derpy would do if I tried that. Doesn’t matter how good I am at eating her muffin, there’s some lines you don’t cross. “Okay, look, it’s not like that. I was just trying to–”

Sparkler cut me off with an upraised hoof. “Alright, that’s enough horseapples. What’s your angle here? I mean, really?”

So, guess we were going with the direct approach after all, just from a different direction than I’d expected. “Okay, here's how it is: I want to do right by your mom so I can keep doing your mom.” That got a shudder of revulsion out of Sparkler. “Oops, my bad. I didn’t think about that. Anyway, I just--well, this goes against some of my rules but...you're part of the package that comes with seeing Derpy. I guess it's fair to give you time too.”

Sparkler went silent for almost an entire minute before she finally responded to my initial question. “His name’s Ratchet. He’s an earth pony.”

Yes! I was making progress. So an earth pony? Not a bad choice; that natural stamina of theirs can be very, very useful. “So...” I leaned forward and did my best to mimic the sort of gossipy mannerisms I’d seen other ponies use. “Is he cute?”

Sparkler blushed just a bit when she answered. It was kinda hard to see with her pinkish coat, but it was definitely there. “Yeah. He’s really good with tools and designs–we met working on a project for school. He was really good with keeping all the little details straight, and he’s got these grass-green eyes that–” Sparkler cut herself off with an embarrassed little squeak that painfully reminded me of some of the other ponies in my life.

I did my best to put that aside and focus on the present. I forced a grin onto my face and gave Sparkler a playful little nudge. “Well go on, you were just getting to the good part.”

Sparkler’s blush deepened a bit, but she kept talking. “Well, his uncle Tool Time taught him a lot about working with his hooves and–um–well, it’s really paid off.” I cocked an eyebrow and gave her a knowing smile, this one genuine. After a few seconds she let out an embarrassed little mutter. “Flanks of an alicorn.”

She looked so embarrassed about her admiration for the colt that it was hard not to chuckle at her. Celestia, had I ever been that shy about banging? I kept that urge in check; making it look like I was laughing at her would destroy all the progress we’d made. First loves are a really big deal to everypony. “Sounds like he’s quite a catch. Since Tool Time works with your mom, you’ve got a nice little inside track too.” A worrying thought occurred to me. “Um ... you two haven’t been banging or anything, have you?”

Sparkler immediately turned redder than one of Applejack’s apples. “No! Of course not!”

I let out a relieved breath. “Good. I know I’m the last pony who should be telling anypony this, but you don’t wanna do that.” Admittedly, it was a little hypocritical for me to say that when I had been a couple years younger than Sparkler when I lost my virginity. “It’s fun, but take my word for it–doing that kind of thing before you’re ready can cause all kinds of problems.”

Sparkler nervously shuffled her hooves on the floor for several seconds before she finally spoke. “Um ... I know it’s probably just a silly rumor, but–”

I sighed and cut her off. “No, Dinky’s not mine.” I suppose it was really just a matter of time before that one cropped up again. The fact that I got around was more or less common knowledge, and being an old friend of Derpy’s had naturally put me on the suspect list when everypony was speculating on who had gotten her pregnant. Dinky turning out to have coat and mane colors pretty close to mine had done absolutely nothing to help there. Guess it figures that Derpy and I hooking up would start that old rumor circulating again.

Needless to say, it was completely ridiculous. Female-female pregnancies only happened when some very high-level and hard-to-get (not to mention expensive) unicorn magic was involved, or when the Magic of Love gets tossed into the mix. A one-night stand between two pegasi wasn’t likely to include either of those factors. Not that crazy rumors have ever been deterred by a few inconvenient facts.

Sparkler seemed a bit relieved to learn that Dinky wasn’t my lovefoal. “Sorry, had to ask. It’s just–well she sat me down for a talk about all that a few weeks ago after you and her ... yeah. You wanna talk about awkward...”

“Oh. That talk.” Might’ve been good if Mom and Dad had given me that talk before I’d gone and worked out some of it myself. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a bit awkward.”

“Trust me, it was,” Sparkler agreed flatly. “I think she’s warming up to Ratchet since she works with his uncle, but–well, she's trying to be a mom while being Mom. You know–'learn from me' with the bubbly offer of a muffin is kinda counter-productive.”

I giggled at that. “I think I know what you mean. Even after she had Dinky it took me a while to get used to the idea that Derpy was a mom.”

Sparkler snorted. “When she brought me home and said I was going to be a sister from now on, I thought she meant I was gonna be her sister. She was so … young. Hay, the first clue I had that something was off was when we got to the house.” She pointed at the front door. “One of my first memories of Ponyville is walking through that door and seeing this little thing in a blanket wriggling away from Rainbow Dash and waddling towards us. Dinky had Favorite over her face and couldn’t really see where she was going, and she latched onto me by mistake. Mom said she was happy to see that Dinky liked her new big sister.” Sparkler shook her head. “Lemme tell you: Mind. Blown."

“At first I wasn’t sure to think of it all. Here was my new mom, eight years older than me, and Dinky was just this little tiny thing she would probably want me to help her take care of...” Sparkler trailed off and warm smile appeared on her face. “But then Mom got this look in her eyes. She saw me and Dinky together and she was just so happy, like everything was right in the world. I think that’s when it first clicked for me, that this could all work out. That I had a family now.”

Sparkler looked over at me and I had this feeling, like something had changed between us. I’m not sure why, but it felt like I’d just passed some kind of test. I was Sparkler-approved now. Derpy’s daughter continued. “Mom’s almost always happy, but sometimes there’s this special kind of happy, you know? Not just the normal bubbly-happy, but something a lot bigger than that. She gets that way when Uncle Cirrus or Grandma and Grandpa come over to visit, or when she can do something special for Dinky and I. And–well sometimes she gets that same look when you come over.”

That caught me by surprise. I mean sure, Derpy and I enjoyed our little get-togethers, but what Sparkler was talking about sounded like a lot more than that. “Really?”

Sparkler nodded and gave me a knowing little grin. “Yeah. Sneak a look next time she’s doing something. You might surprised by how she looks at you when she thinks you’re not watching.”

I tried to ignore the implications of just what Sparkler was telling me right now, and instead smirked at the unicorn and gave her a playful little nudge with my wing. “What’s the deal here? Are you giving me advice on how to win some muffin points with your mom?”

Sparkler frowned in confusion. “What do muffins have to do with anything?”

I chuckled and decided to spare her any more trauma. “Long story, and in any case you’re avoiding the question.”

Sadly, Sparkler was sharp enough to put together some of the less wholesome implications of my question. She put her hooves to the sides of her head and groaned. “Oh Celestia, I did not need to know you could use the word muffin that way!” I gave her a few moment to recover from the unpleasant realization and hopefully drown out the traumatic mental images. “Please, if you do nothing else, never, ever talk about muffins in a remotely sexual context ever again.”

“Don’t ask me to make promises I won’t keep.” Sparkler glared at me, and I gave her a reassuring little pat on the back. “Relax, I’ll try to avoid ruining any more of your favorite snacks. Now, if you can drag your mind out of the gutter, how about answering that question I asked?”

After taking a few more minutes to rid herself of her self-inflicted mental trauma, Sparkler finally got around to giving me a straight answer. “You make Mom happy, and I can tell that you mean a lot to her. I guess that means you’re okay in my book too. I mean ... she’s a good mom. She deserves somepony who can make her happy like that.”

So I had Sparkler’s approval on top of Dinky’s family picture. First time I needed my bangee’s daughters to give the okay. “So does this mean that from now on when I come over I don’t need to sneak out to avoid you?”

“Let’s not go too crazy.” Sparkler was starting look a little green around the gills from all this talk about her Mom’s sex life. “I’m okay with you and Mom, but I really don’t wanna know when you two are ... y’know, doing that.” Sparkler shot a look over at me. “You know, your parents had sex too. And I bet they liked it.”

I giggle-snorted. “Please, you can’t get to me with that.”

Sparkler had evil little smirk. “Just imagine your mom and dad in bed. They’re all alone, and he gets on top of her and starts–”

I hastily cut her off. “Okay, that’s enough.” Apparently I’m not quite as jaded as I think I am.

Sparkler grinned. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“Still banging your mom,” I countered.

Sparkler shuddered and offered me a hoof. “How about we call a truce?”

I shook her hoof. “Works for me.” One of the lessons I learned back at West Hoof was how to recognize a no-win scenario.

After we declared a cease fire there was another lull in the conversation. This one wasn’t awkward and uncomfortable like the last couple had been though. I guess that’s another sign that we were starting to get along better. I might just be in this to get a couple more chances to nibble on Derpy’s muffin, but I did wanna get along with her kids too. After all, even if we stopped banging, Derpy was still my friend.

Maybe I should look into doing a little something to help cement my new status with Derpy’s elder child. “So, have there been any problems from my whole ... thing?” I guess that was as good a word as any to use for my colossal lapse in judgement. “I know ponies have been talking about it, so I’d feel kinda responsible if anypony ... y’know, gave you or Dinky or Derpy a hard time over it.”

Sparkler shook her head. “Nothing serious. Uh–Mom told me about the thing with Sticks and Stones back when she first moved here. I think after that everypony got the message that she was off-limits. The colts and fillies at Dinky’s school are too young to understand what happened with you, and me... Growing up in the system meant learning how to take care of myself when the adults weren't around to keep an eye on things. If anypony gives me trouble, I know how to handle it.”

Oh. Not the happiest place for this conversation to go. Not everypony learned how to fight from taking classes like I did. “Yeah, I’m sure you can take care of yourself. I was just thinking ... well if you’re having trouble there’s things I can do to lend a hoof that Derpy can’t. Not every problem can be fixed with a smile and a muffin.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I really don’t need that kind of help.” Sparkler sighed and sank down into the couch. “Back when I first moved to Ponyville there was this one filly in my class who called Mom a ... well, she called Mom something really bad. So I beat the stuffing out of her to teach her a lesson. I expected Mom to get mad at me--shout at me, spank me, something like that. Instead she just gave me this disappointed look and sent me to my room. Like she expected better of somepony she’d made part of her family.” Sparkler burrowed down a little further into the couch. “I mean, she never said that and I know she never would, but … I think I would’ve preferred getting hit or yelled at.”

Nice going, me. Tried to do a little more bonding, and instead I went and brought up some unpleasant memories. I rubbed a hoof nervously behind my head. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to go and remind you of anything painful.”

Sparkler waved my apology off. “It’s fine. You spend enough time in the system, you start picking up some bad habits; I've come a long way, but every once in a while I slip up. Mom's been really cool about working with me on that, though.”

“Yeah, Derpy’s one of the best ponies I’ve ever known.” Probably why I decided to upgrade things with Derpy from ‘impulsive one-time fling with an old friend’ to ‘steady relationship.’ That and the muffins. Both the baked ones and the other kind.

I was about to change the subject to something a little happier when Derpy poked her head into the room to announce that dinner was almost ready. She took one look at me and Sparkler sitting together and talking, and I got a good look at that extra-happy smile Sparkler told me about earlier. Welp, that confirmed it.

Horseapples.

When we’d started this whole thing up Derpy and I had kept it all very casual. This wasn’t some big romance or huge commitment, we were just friends with benefits. It was a perfect relationship. Friendship, banging, and baked goods all in one neat little package.

So why had she gone and fallen in love with me?

What the hay was I gonna do about this?

Rule Seven and Rule Eight were coming up again. If Derpy had gone and fallen for me, then didn’t I have an obligation to end things here and now? Otherwise I was leading her on, encouraging her to try to keep the relationship going under false pretenses. Derpy deserved better than that. Better to end things now and spare her the heartbreak.

Except it was too late to do that. I was already in a relationship with her. Ending things now would hurt her just as bad as if it fell apart later. Maybe even worse. If it all fell apart because I went and feathered up our relationship–as I inevitably would–by cheating on her or doing something else stupid, she would at least understand why things hadn’t worked out. If I broke up with her because of the rules ... she wouldn’t understand. Not in the same way. She’d try to change my mind, convince to me to make an exception to the rules in her case. As long as she was holding onto the hope that she could change my mind she’d keep holding onto those feelings for me, and those feelings would keep hurting her.

On top of that, I didn’t want to end things with Derpy. Not like ‘I enjoy banging her and wanna keep doing it.’ I mean I really didn’t wanna stop being in a relationship with her. The thought of just cutting her out of my life like that ... it hurt.

My face must have given away some of what was going on in my head, because Derpy was looking at me with a worried little frown on her face. “Cloud Kicker? Are you okay?”

I forced a carefree smile onto my face. “Yeah, fine. Just got a lot on my mind is all.”

Judging by the little frown on her face, Derpy wasn’t buying it. After a couple seconds her normal bubbly smile replaced the frown, but I had a feeling that Derpy was going to revisit the topic once she put her girls to bed. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you two know that dinner was almost ready. There are just a few little things left to take care of, but I was hoping I could have my daughter back so she could lend a hoof in the kitchen.”

Getting a little private time with Derpy in the kitchen would be the perfect opportunity to discuss some of those problems that were hanging over my head. Maybe even resolve one or two of them. “Actually, I could–”

I didn’t get any further before something adorable wrapped itself around my leg. I looked down, and Dinky smiled innocently back up at me. “Hi Miss Cloud Kicker! Can we play? Can we? Please? Mommy said it was okay as long as you didn’t mind!”

“–play with Dinky while you two take care of that,” I finished. Not at all what I originally planned to do, but one look at Dinky’s cute little face and I knew that I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Nopony could say no to that face.

“Yay!” Dinky jumped up and latched her hooves around my neck. Once she let go and I was finally allowed to breathe again, she beamed up at me and started bouncing up and down in excitement. “Can we play Battle Clouds? Can we? Please?” Before I could give her an answer she added. “Oh, hey Miss Cloud Kicker, guess what?”

Where do kids get all that energy from? “What?”

“I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue, see?” Dinky proceeded to demonstrate her new skill for me. “Ithn’t tha’ neat?”

I chuckled and ruffled her mane with a hoof. “Yeah, that’s very neat.”

Dinky pulled her tongue back in and grinned at me. “Uh-huh! I bet you can’t do it, can you?”

“Nope, I sure can’t.” I decided there was no harm in feeding her ego a bit more. “You’re one talented filly.”

“I’m not a filly,” Dinky insisted with a petulant stamp of her hoof. “I’m a muffin!”

“Then you’re a very talented muffin,” I conceded.

Judging by the hug I got, that satisfied her. “Can we play Battle Clouds now?”

“Sure thing, little muffin.” I have to admit, after some of the jokes I’d made about Derpy’s muffin, it was gonna take a bit of mental adjustment to get used to using that particular nickname for Dinky. I’ve dealt with worse, though.

I got up and was about to trot over to collection of board games sitting under the coffee table when Dinky put a hoof in front of me. “Wait, I wanna show you another really neat thing I learned how to do. It’s even cooler than touching my nose with my tongue!”

I sat down and waved a hoof for her to proceed. “Alright, show me something neat.”

Dinky screwed up her eyes in a look of intense concentration, and after a couple seconds a weak golden glow appeared around her horn and a box began slowly wobbling its way through the air in our general direction. It took nearly a minute for her to move the box across the room, but she got it done.

Once the box was finally in place Dinky relaxed and let out a breath. She was sweating a bit and looked like she’d just run a twelve-mile jog. I guess when you’re that age, using even a little magic takes a lot out of a pony.

I stomped my hooves in a quiet little round of applause. “Okay, you got me–that was pretty neat.”

“Thanks!” Dinky said in between gasps. “I’ve been workin’ really hard with Miss Twilight on my levi–levitat–lev–” Dinky gave up on the word with a frustrated little grumble. “Making stuff move.”

“Levitation,” I provided.

“Yeah, that. It’s kinda hard, though.”

“But it is really neat,” I encouraged her. “Besides, most things that are worth learning don’t come easy. If it wasn’t hard to learn then you wouldn’t have anything to be proud of when you got good at it. Some day, I bet you’ll be so good you can pick up your mom.”

Dinky’s eyes widened in amazement at that idea. “Really?”

“Really.” I grinned and tousled her mane again. “Hey, when you get really good with your magic do you think you could teach me how to do that too?”

Dinky let out a merry string of giggles. “You can’t do magic, silly! Only unicorns can do magic. You’re silly, Miss Cloud Kicker.”

“Yeah, well how about if I beat you in Battle Clouds you have to teach me how to do magic?” That got Dinky frowning in thought. “And if you beat me in Battle Clouds, I’ll show you a really neat little trick I know how to do.”

Dinky raised a hoof to her chin in thought and answered. “Well, I guess I could do that. But I’m really good at Battle Clouds, so you’re not gonna win.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I teased her. “I’m the best Battle Clouds player in all of Ponyville.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’m the best Battle Clouds player in all of Equestria!” Dinky countered with childish assurance.

“Well I’m the best in the world.”

“But I’m the best in–” Dinky paused for several seconds before asking. “Um–what comes after the world?”

“The universe?” I suggested.

“Oh yeah, I’m the best Battle Clouds player in the universe!” Dinky declared.

“Well in that case you shouldn’t have any trouble beating me.” I pulled out the boards and started setting up my pieces. Once Dinky was done too, I made my first move. “Sky one.”

We swapped a couple turns of back-and-forth salvos without scoring any hits. I was spacing things out in a nice methodical search pattern, while Dinky seemed to be placing her shots with random childlike glee. Which I guess figured, since she was a filly. Tactics beat randomness and I got her bumblebee first.

“No fair!” Dinky whined. “You’re not allowed to get my bumblebee yet! Cloud nine!”

I checked my board and subtly nudged a piece over one space. “Darn, you got my weather pony.”

“What does she look like?” Dinky asked.

“What does who look like?”

“Your weather pony,” Dinky said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Is she pretty?”

Ah, fillies. “Yeah, my weather pony is very pretty. She’s got a grey coat and a nice blond mane and golden eyes, and her cutie mark is a bunch of bubbles.”

Dinky fell back on the floor giggling. “That’s not a weather pony, silly. That’s Mommy!”

“Well your mom helps me with the weather sometimes,” I argued right back. “So that means she can be a weather pony, right?”

Dinky took a few seconds to mull that over. “Well, I guess so. But that was no fair tricking me into zapping Mommy.”

The two of us went back to the game for a bit. I’d already gotten a pretty good idea of where her pieces were, but since I wasn’t really playing to win I just used that knowledge to drag things out. Not that I went too easy on the filly; she’d enjoy it a lot more if she won by an appropriately narrow margin.

“Hah!” I cried out in exaggerated triumph. “Now I’ve gotten your weather pony!” I let out a couple evil cackles. “So what does your weather pony look like?”

Dinky smirked at me mischievously. “Well she’s got a purple coat and a yellow mane and purple eyes and her cutie mark’s a cloud over the sun.”

I adopted a very exaggerated thoughtful pose, sitting back on my haunches and rubbing a hoof under my chin. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“It’s you!” Dinky gleefully announced. “You just zapped yourself!”

“Oh darn.” I crossed my hooves over my chest. “You tricked me into zapping myself. You sneaky, sneaky little muffin.”

Dinky giggled again. “You’re funny, Miss Cloud Kicker.” The little filly and I got back to the game for a bit, until she paused and very hopefully asked. “Hey, next time you come over to visit Mommy could you bring Alula over too? I wanna play with her again.”

Huh. Hadn’t expected that. I mean, Dinky and ‘lula had gotten along well enough during the disaster that had been the sleepover at my place, but I didn’t think they’d gotten to the point of being friends. Not that I was complaining; my little sister getting along with Derpy’s little girl worked out very neatly for everypony. It was a lot easier for both of us if we could just have those two keeping each other entertained whenever I came over. Anything that meant more private time for me and Derpy was a good thing. Plus it saved us the bits and bother of finding a foalsitter.

Too bad it wasn’t an option at the moment. “Sorry Dinky; ‘lula lives with my parents and she’s already gone back to my mom’s place. Next time she comes over to visit me I’ll be sure to bring her over here though.”

“Aww...” Dinky looked down and scuffed a hoof on the carpet in obvious disappointment. “When’ll she be back?”

“I’m not sure, but when I know I’ll let you know.” ‘lula used to come over to stay with me pretty frequently, but ever since Mom started having problems with me and Dad the visits had kinda stopped being such a regular thing. “My dad moved to Canterlot a while back and Mom has to spend a lot of time out of Ponyville for work, so I don’t get a chance to see them as often as I’d like.”

Mentioning the capital caught Dinky’s attention. “Oh, that reminds me! Uncle Cirrus is coming this weekend to take me and Sparkler to Canterlot so we can see Gramma and Grampa! Maybe ‘lula can come visit us while we’re there?”

“Well that’s up to my Mom or Dad, but I’m pretty sure they’d be fine with it.” Well, Mom was a bit more of a wild card there, but she’s not completely unreasonable most of the time. Besides, the Canterlot branch of Derpy’s family was well-off enough to be ‘respectable’ to a pony who cares about that kind of thing. That cut out one thing Mom might make a bit of a fuss about; Mom cared way too much about maintaining the honor and dignity of the family name. I’m pretty sure Mom would’ve completely flipped if she’d been there back when Shadow Kicker turned down a chance to tack a horn onto our wings and join the ranks of all-out royalty.

Wait–didn’t the boss say something a while back about Twilight Sparkle having a time travel spell? Might be a good idea to make sure Mom never finds out about that.

Let’s just move away from that very strange line of thought. “So what’s the occasion with Cirrus taking you two to Canterlot? Just giving you another chance to visit your grandparents, or is there something special going on?”

Dinky thought for a bit and nodded. “Yeah, Mommy’s gonna be busy next week. Something about torn nados. What’s a nado?”

Oh, right. Tornado Duty was coming up, and Derpy had wings. The official announcement hadn’t gone out yet, but the boss probably gave Derpy a bit of advance notice so she could make arrangements for the girls. Derpy knew the basics of weather work, but from what I’d seen of the boss’ plans pretty much everypony involved was going to be busting their flanks to make this work. Didn’t leave Derpy much time for her girls, so this was the perfect time for a little vacation.

“Sparkler told me that Uncle Cirrus was also taking us to Canterlot so you and Mommy could have some private time together,” Dinky cheerfully informed me. “Are you gonna play Battle Clouds with her too?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna play some games and have fun.” Always nice when you can find a way to answer those kinds of questions honestly without destroying a filly’s innocence in the process.

“Okay.” Dinky frowned in thought for a moment. “Tell Mommy I said it’s okay if you borrow my Battle Clouds board.” She shook a chiding hoof at me. “Just as long as you don’t lose any of the pieces.”

“I’ll make sure we keep a very close eye on them,” I assured her. Have to say, a week of no fillies around should give Derpy plenty of time to find my weather pony and zap my thunderbolt. Maybe I could even talk her into raining on my cumulus ... Whoa, why does that last one sound way too dirty even for me?

Dinky’s face brightened up and she tugged on one of my hooves. “Oh, hey! I just had an idea Miss Cloud Kicker! Maybe instead of bringing over Alula you could bring over your friend Miss Blossomforth!” The unexpected mention of Blossom hit me like a kick in the gut, but Dinky continued on obliviously. “She was a lot of fun to be around, even if she did say some weird stuff before you brought Miss Cheerilee back. Plus Mommy was saying she wished she could get along better with Miss Blossomforth, though I don’t think she meant for me to hear that so it’s gotta be our secret, okay?”

Dinky got a couple words into her plans for what she could do to help Derpy and Blossom get along better when she trailed off, frowning at me. I guess I wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding the fact that hearing Blossom’s name kinda stung. I’d been trying to hide it–Dinky didn’t need to know about that kind of thing–but Blossom was still a pretty sore point for me.

It would’ve been a lot easier to sort out if I could work out whether I should be madder at her or at myself. On the one hoof, I’d gone way over the line using the crush she’d been nursing on me to hurt her. On the other hoof, she’d used Fluttershy against me. I told her not to go there, and she knew that was probably the nastiest, most hurtful thing she could possibly do to me.

It was a big nasty mess, and I had no idea how I was going to fix it.

Suddenly I was on the receiving end of another one of Dinky’s hugs. This one felt different from the previous enthusiastic little displays of childish affection. It’s hard to put into words exactly what was different about it, but it felt meaningful in a way that the cheerful little hugs she’d given me before hadn’t. It felt ... comforting.

She pulled back with an almost comically serious look on her face. “You looked sad, so I gave you a get-better hug. Get-better hugs fix everything. Do you feel better now?”

“A bit, yeah.” There must be something to those get-better hugs if one could make me feel a bit better about the whole thing with Blossom. Maybe all it would take for the two of us to sort things out was for Dinky to give us a bunch of hugs? Probably not, but it would be nice to think we could solve our problems that way. “Hey Dinky? Can I get another one of those hugs?”

Dinky didn’t hesitate to give me another one of her get-better hugs. They really did help.

“Hey Miss Cloud Kicker?” Dinky asked mid-hug.

“Y’know, you don’t have to call me miss,” I told her. “We know each other too well for that. Besides, it makes me feel old.”

“Okay!” Dinky declared with her usual enthusiasm. “You’re right; we’re not strangers! We’re family, and family doesn’t call each other stuff like ‘miss.’”

Whoa! Family? Where the hay did that come from?

Actually, I could see where she got the idea. I wasn’t just banging Derpy anymore. I was eating dinner with the family, bonding with her girls, stuff like that. That’s ... well that’s a bit past the kind of thing that’s part of the friends-with-benefits package.

This went so far beyond my rules … and yet, I wasn’t nearly as upset about that as I should be. Hay, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I was breaking my rules. That’s bad news. Really bad news. I made those rules for a reason, and if I start breaking them willy-nilly without bothering to think things through...

This whole thing, from start to finish, had all been one big mistake. I never should’ve banged Derpy in the first place. Rule Four. All my talk to Blossom about how Rule Four didn’t apply with Derpy and me because we were sensible enough to deal with the fallout of mixing friendship and banging was sounding pretty hollow right now. Derpy was in love with me, and I was getting sucked into her family and breaking more and more rules the deeper in I got. The worst part was that there was a significant part of me that wasn’t convinced that was a bad thing.

Just to put the icing on the cake Derpy walked into the living room, took one look at Dinky hugging me, and started smiling that damn loving smile again. I’d really gone and gotten myself into a big mess this time.

“Hey you two,” Derpy called out to us. “Dinner’s ready.”

My stomach gave an appreciative grumble at that news. Apparently I hadn’t quite made up for not eating properly yesterday. I took a few sniffs in the hopes of catching a whiff of whatever Derpy made for us (assuming we were eating anything other than muffins) and instead encountered... “Uh, Derpy? Why do I smell smoke?”

Derpy nervously flitted her wings. “That’s ... that’s not important.”

“Do I need to go get the fire extinguisher again?” Dinky volunteered helpfully.

Derpy gave her daughter an affectionate little nuzzle on the head. “No need for that muffin, Sparkler and I already took care of it.”

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Derpy and Dinky were talking about a kitchen fire so casually. Living with Derpy does require that one do a reasonable amount of disaster planning.

Derpy’s dining room was a nice enough little place. Perhaps a little too nice; the tablecloth looked suspiciously clean, considering the fact that two fillies and Derpy regularly ate at this table. For some reason, that tiny little detail really bothered me. She’d cleaned the tablecloth because I was eating dinner here. I mean, it’s nice that she’d go to all that trouble just to make a good impression, but at the same time that’s not something you do when an old friend’s coming over to visit. Well, not unless you’re a total neat-freak.

Dinner came out and another minor little wave of dread hit me. She was using the nice plates this time, not the cheap and nearly-indestructible ones she’d bought when she got the place. Oh Celestia, she really was trying to make a good impression on me. Why? We’d known each other since before we had our cutie marks, there was no reason for her to be making such a big deal out of all this. It was just dinner.

Unsurprisingly, muffins in several different varieties were a major part of dinner in Derpy’s home. Not that I was complaining, since our mutual fondness for the things was what brought Derpy and I together back when we were fillies. Seriously, if I’d known that banging her was the key to getting her to share her muffins with me instead of snatching mine away in a sudden fit of excitement, I might have done this years ago.

That’s not to say we only had muffins; there are simply some foods in the equine diet that can’t really be put into muffin form (though I wouldn’t be surprised if Derpy had tried at some point). I filled my plate up with a healthy serving of alfalfa–while it might taste like, well, alfalfa, it was kind of was a necessary part of our diet. Besides, I found out a few years ago that a side of alfalfa is a mild aphrodisiac. So there is that going for it.

Grabbing one of Derpy’s carrot muffins brought a nice topic of conversation to mind. Something not-at-all related to wall-eyed pegasi who seemed to be trying to make me a part of their family. “Hey, you get your carrots from Carrot Top, right? Reminds me, the weather team did a round of farm irrigation today; we got Carrot Top’s place along with everypony else’s.” That naturally got everypony else on the table talking about work or school. A nice and safely boring topic.

Or at least it was until Dinky suddenly perked up, swallowed the rest of her muffin, and eagerly turned to me. “Hey Miss –” Dinky went quiet with a thoughtful frown. “Wait, I’m not supposed to call you miss anymore, so what do I call you?”

“Just Cloud Kicker is fine, Dinky.” I swear, if she starts calling me mom number two, I am getting out of here so fast that the boss won’t be the only pony to have ever pulled off a sonic rainboom.

“Okay!” Dinky agreed brightly. “Cloud Kicker, there’s a school talent show in a couple weeks and I’m gonna be in it. It’s gonna be really neat! I’m gonna sing the Muffin Song, and Mommy made me a muffin costume to wear while I sing it. She even got Miss Rarity to help her make it!”

Dinky was going to be in a talent show singing something called the Muffin Song while dressed up as a big muffin? That whole idea just sounded sickeningly adorable.

“Anyway,” Dinky continued. “It’s gonna be really, really neat! Like, almost as neat as Rainbow Dash neat! So are you gonna come to the talent show? Please? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?”

I’d been planning to go to the talent show anyway; even when Alula wasn’t in it, the show was usually entertaining enough to be worth watching. If nothing else, I wanted to see if the Crusaders would manage to top their performance last year. Still, there’s a big difference between going to the talent show just for a little casual entertainment and going to it for Dinky.

Not that I had any choice in the matter; one look at the hopeful little smile on Dinky’s face and I knew I was stuck. It’s not like I could tell her no and watch her get all heartbroken. “Sure, I’ll be there.”

“Yay!” Dinky let out her happy little cheer, while Sparkler gave me an approving nod and Derpy gave me yet another one of those damned loving smiles. Oh Celestia, no matter what I tried I just kept getting pulled in deeper and deeper.

After dinner Sparkler volunteered to put Dinky to bed and discreetly let me and Derpy know that she was putting up a silence spell over her and Dinky’s rooms. Gotta admit, having unicorns around can be really handy sometimes.

To my disappointment, Derpy headed for the living room instead of the bedroom. She looked over her shoulder and gave a knowing little smile. “Later. We need to talk first, and if we got too comfortable I suspect talking would be the last thing on our minds.”

Well, she had a fair point there. With just a bit of reluctance I moved over to one of the well-used living room couches and took seat. Derpy settled in next me and gave me a patient, expectant look. I knew what that meant; the girls might have delayed things for a bit, but I had come here to talk with Derpy about everything that had happened over the last couple days. Time to spill the beans.

For a moment, I almost wished Dinky would wake up and provide a convenient distraction to get me out of this conversation. Figuring out Derpy’s feelings for me had added a whole new level of potential awkwardness to ... well everything I needed to do with Derpy. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like there was any way I was getting out of this one.

“Alright, I guess I’ll just start with what happened in Cloudsdale.” When in doubt, begin at the beginning. “I–in hindsight I made some bad choices there.” I paused and thought things over for a bit. “Actually, I’m not even sure if some of them were bad choices so much as just a case of me not thinking through all the consequences of my actions. Celestia, it’s just–look, I never meant to bring any trouble down on you or your girls, okay?”

Derpy gave me a reassuring little nuzzle. “I know you didn’t. That’s why I’ve already forgiven you.”

Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Not that I should’ve been surprised; you had to be a pretty spectacularly rotten pony to move beyond what Derpy was willing to forgive. Hay, she’d forgiven quite a few ponies that I personally thought she should still be holding some very justified anger towards. She’d even forgiven her parents for tossing her out while she was pregnant with Dinky, something I hadn’t been willing to let go of until she sat me down and asked me to do for her sake.

I’m pretty sure the only thing a pony could do that would ever put them past forgiveness in Derpy’s eyes would be hurting her daughters. To date, nopony had been that stupid.

“So, what happened after Cloudsdale?” Derpy prompted.

“Well, Blossom flew there to pick me up, but she was pretty upset with me.” I sighed and gave a nervous little flutter of my wings. “She had a lot to say. Most of it wasn’t very nice, but that doesn't mean that some of it wasn’t true.”

Derpy snuggled up close to me on the couch, pressing her body against mine and wrapping a comforting wing around me. I leaned into her for a bit before reluctantly moving on to where things started getting really bad. “Blossom and I–we got into a bit of a fight. Not just a normal little tiff, a real nasty one. She–she brought Fluttershy into it.”

Derpy pulled me closer and made a few wordless murmurs of sympathy. Just as I was starting to relax and let her start comforting me, she pulled back and hit me with an uncompromising frown. “Wait, if Blossomforth did that ... Cloud Kicker, what did you do to her?”

Horseapples. Derpy would know just how badly I’d take anypony dragging the Fluttershy thing into the middle of a personal argument. “You know Derpy, now that Sparkler and Dinky are in bed we’ve got the house all to ourselves. How about you and I shelve this discussion for a bit and eat some muffins instead?”

Derpy pulled away and held me at hoof’s length. “Oh no you don’t, you’re not getting out of this one. Whatever happened has you in bad shape, Cloud Kicker. You need to get that out in the open first. Then we’ll see about some muffins.”

I started idly stroking her foreleg. “Aw, don’t be like that Derpy. C’mon, I’ll do that special thing you really like. You know, the one where I–”

“Cloud Kicker,” Derpy interrupted me with a tone she’d obviously perfected while dealing with her girls misbehaving. “Do you really think you’re fooling me? Do you think that I can't see an attempt to get out of an awkward conversation? I'm a mother of two young fillies, I’ve got lots of experience with ponies trying to distract me from things they don’t want me to know about.”

Perhaps she does have experience, but I’ve got a few tricks in my arsenal that Derpy’s daughters would never use on her. I fluidly slipped around Derpy’s blocking hoof and started stroking one of her wings while I leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “Hey Derpy? Less talking, more banging.”

Derpy pulled back and gently but firmly removed my hoof. “Cloud Kicker, if you keep this up I might have to ground you for a bit.”

I spread out one of my wings so the feathers could travel slowly along Derpy’s side. “So we’re roleplaying now, are we? Great! I’ll be the naughty little student who needs a couple extra points to pass her class, and you can be the teacher.”

Derpy pulled back until there were several paces of empty space between us. “Do you know what I do when my daughters try to avoid talking to me about something?” She turned her back on me and trotted towards the kitchen. “I don’t talk to them about anything else until they decide they’re ready to tell me what they need to.”

I followed shortly behind her, enjoying the view all the while. “That’s fine Derpy, I’m not really interested in talking to you right now. Well, unless 'Oh Celestia, don't stop Cloud Kicker!' counts as talking.”

Derpy ignored my advances as she went about getting herself a glass of ice water. She didn’t seem to be flustering the way Blossom did when I tried this; maybe saucy flirting isn’t quite as effective of a distraction when you’ve already banged the pony in question several times. “Don’t get me wrong, Cloud Kicker, ordinarily I'd be right on board with what you’re suggesting. On any other day you and I would head to bed and get to work deciding who would get to start tonight. But right now, I think you need to chill out.”

And then she dumped the ice water over my rump, aiming it so it trickled down to some very sensitive places.

Gyah! That was cold!

“Derpy!” I whined in between shivers.

Derpy gave me an obviously faked sympathetic smile. “Oh, poor foal. That was a little mean of me, wasn’t it? Do you want me to help you warm back up?”

“Sounds good to me!” When several seconds went by and she did nothing to actually make good on her offer, I figured out the catch. “Let me guess: that offer is conditional on me spilling the beans on what happened with me and Blossom, right?”

Derpy gave me her most perfectly innocent bubbly smile. “That’s right, darling!”

I considered trying to hold out, but another wave of shivers convinced me that she had my number on this one. “That’s just mean Derpy. When did you learn how to fight dirty?”

“I’m raising a teenager,” Derpy answered as if that explained everything. Actually, it kind of did.

I sighed and reluctantly gave in to the inevitable. “Alright, fine. Confession time. I–well, after she dragged the whole thing with Fluttershy into our argument, I might have brought up that crush Blossom has on me. In a less than entirely positive manner.”

“Sweetie, tell me you didn’t...” Oh. There was that disappointed ‘I expected better of you’ look Sparkler had been talking about earlier. She hadn’t been kidding. I think I’d’ve preferred Derpy being angry with me; she’s really mastered the guilt-trip. Guess that figures, with her being a mom and all.

I sighed and hung my head. “I’m not exactly proud of myself for doing that.” Derpy just kept hitting me with the look of guilt-inducing until I caved completely. “Alright, so I was way out of line with that. Doesn’t matter that she went there first, I still went and said the nastiest, most hurtful thing I could possibly think of.”

That got a small, satisfied nod out of Derpy. “You are going to apologize to her.” That wasn’t a question or a request, it was a statement of fact.

“Of course I am.” I’d decided on that about five seconds after I’d gone and opened my big stupid mouth during my fight with Blossom. I felt another one of those flares of anger I’d been getting ever since the whole thing with Blossom blew up. “It’s not like I’m the only pony who has something to apologize for though,” I began hotly. “Blossom knew Eepysqueak was off-limits and she still–”

“Yes, she owes you an apology too.” Derpy cut me off before I could start ranting. “Both of you have things to settle if you want to get back to being friends.”

“Yeah, friends.” Of course, now that Blossom’s crush on me was out in the open instead of buried back in the little corner of my subconscious where I put all those unpleasant or inconvenient facts that I’d rather ignore... “Derpy, what’re we gonna do about the fact that she’s got a thing for me?”

“Fix your friendship first.” Derpy advised me. “Then we can deal with the rest of it.”

She had a point. No sense in worrying about my best friend having a crush on me when she might not even be my best friend anymore. Deal with one problem at a time.

“Right, so that’s everything settled.” I grinned and stretched my hooves out toward her. “Now, it’s banging time!”

To my immense disappointment Derpy put a blocking hoof on my chest again. “Not just yet, there’s one more thing we need to talk about.”

“You can top first,” I magnanimously offered.

“Thank you, but that wasn’t what I meant.” Derpy let out a resigned little nicker. “There’s something else bothering you. I don’t know what’s going on, but there a couple times when I caught you giving me these really weird looks.” I opened my mouth to try for my usual awkward topic evasion strategy, but after a second’s consideration decided there was no point. I do learn from my mistakes. Eventually.

Well, guess there was no avoiding it or putting it off any longer. Well, maybe I was worrying over nothing. Maybe I’d misinterpreted those looks Derpy’d been giving me. “Hey, uh, Derpy? Do you love me?”

Derpy didn’t even hesitate before she answered. “Of course I do. What’s–”

“Horseapples.”

Derpy’s ears fell flat on her head and a look halfway between shock and pain appeared on her face. “Huh? W–why did you...”

Oh for the love of Celestia, when will I learn to stop putting my hoof in my mouth? “I–it’s just ...” I sighed and took a couple breaths until I got my thoughts in order and calmed down a bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m flattered you feel that way about me Derpy, I really am. It’s just that I–well–you know, Rule Seven and Rule Eight.”

That seemed to clear up the worst of Derpy’s confusion and pain. “Oh. Right, your rules.”

“Exactly.” I leaned in and rested my forehead against hers. “I’m sorry it came to this Derpy. It’s my fault in the first place; I never should have broken Rule Four to be with you. I never meant to hurt you or lead you on or make you think I was taking this relationship in that direction. That’s why I have those rules in the first place; to try to keep stuff like this from happening. If I’d known we were going to end up here when I just went up to you on a whim and asked you if you wanted to eat some muffins ... well if I’d had any idea it would end up taking us here I never would’ve done it.”

Derpy took half a step forward and wrapped her forelegs around me. “I don’t think you made a mistake approaching me, Cloud Kicker. I admit I didn’t expect things to end up here either. I half expected you to be gone in the morning, and I would’ve been fine if that happened. But you stayed, and what we’ve had since then... I wouldn’t trade it for anything short of the girls.”

I sighed; she just wasn’t getting it. “That’s exactly what the problem is, Derpy. You’re a mom, and you’re my friend on top of that. I made those rules to keep problems like this from cropping up, so I wouldn’t end up causing other ponies problems. Banging is supposed to just be a bit of harmless fun for everypony involved, not some big complicated mess where I end up ruining somepony’s life by getting involved the wrong way.”

Derpy just tightened her hug on me. “Cloud Kicker, you’ve been involved in my life for a long time before we ever became involved romantically. You were my friend at flight camp, and you were one of the few ponies who went out of their way to help me when I moved to town. I always appreciated that, and after that first night I–well, I wanted you to keep involving yourself with me.” Derpy started gently stroking my mane. “I like what we have Cloud Kicker. I like having you in my life.”

I made a half-hearted effort to break out of the hug, but Derpy wasn’t letting me go. “Derpy, I wanna be in your life too, but now that you're ... we can't–” I took another moment to figure out how to say what needed saying. “Look, I can’t just go ignoring my rules. They’re there for damned good reasons. Hay, if I didn’t have those rules I would’ve banged you seven years ago.”

If not for the fact that it would’ve been close to impossible to pull off with Derpy wrapped around me, I would’ve facehoofed. That time she came on to me seven years ago she’d been feeling emotionally needy and was riding the pregnancy hormone roller coaster, and I was there. Naturally, I turned her down on account of Rule Three, and afterwards we laughed it off and agreed to forget it had ever happened. I just hope she wouldn’t be too upset that I–

“Knowing what I know now, I wish you had,” Derpy answered matter-of-factly.

“Bwuh?”

Derpy sighed and relaxed contently in my hooves. “We could’ve had seven more years of what we have right now.”

“More likely we’d have seven years of you hating me after I took advantage of you and broke your heart.” You’d think one of my oldest friends would understand how I worked. “Look Derpy, I wanna be in your life too. I’ve always wanted to be a part of your life, but I can only do that as a friend. Now that you're ... we can't keep banging now that–”

Derpy switched to a one-legged hug and gently put a hoof on my mouth. “I’m not her, Cloud Kicker. I know how much what happened hurt you, but you can’t spend the rest of your life running away from that. Holding onto what happened like you’ve been doing ever since then is only hurting you in the exact way your rules are meant to prevent.” Derpy moved her hoof off my mouth and tenderly stroked my cheek.

“Well better me getting hurt than anypony else,” I mumbled bitterly.

“No,” Derpy shook her head. “Cloud Kicker, please. Just ... just forget about some of your rules for a bit. I’m not asking you to completely rearrange your life. I’m not even asking you stop sleeping with other ponies. Just let me make you happy. Let me feel something more for you.” Derpy started moving in for a kiss and whispered one last thing before our lips met. “Let yourself feel something more for me.”

Could I really do this? Could I become something more than just friends-with-benefits with a pony like Derpy Hooves? I don’t know. That’s a pretty big thing. This wasn’t just two friends who banged each other every once in a while, it was the whole package. Feelings. Intimacy. Commitment. I didn’t know if I could handle it. But I think–I think I wanted to try.

I closed my eyes and slowly, almost tentatively started kissing Derpy back. The two of us slowly drifted back towards her bedroom, closed the door behind us, and settled down on the bed.

And then we made love.

The Pony Who is a Warlock from Canterlot

Blossom and I still hadn’t patched things up by the time Tornado Duty rolled around.

The week leading up to it just had me so busy that I barely had any time to worry too much about all the craziness going on in my personal life. I would’ve liked to get things settled with Blossom, but there was just never a good time for it. Or maybe that was just the excuse I used to keep putting it off.

Covering for the boss was enough to keep anypony busy, especially since a lot of the weather team was still mildly mutinous. Nopony outright challenged my authority again, but I had to spend a lot more time than I should’ve riding herd on everypony to keep them working. It helped when Blossom finally came back to work, since when she didn’t do anything to dispute or undermine my authority a lot of ponies resigned themselves to taking their marching orders from me. On the other hoof, we barely exchanged more than a dozen words, and all of those were strictly business. She might not be working against me, but she wasn’t exactly backing me up the way she normally would either.

Then there was the whole Derpy situation. Derpy and I were ... well things had changed a lot. I’d started eating meals over at her place. At first I told myself it was just because I wasn’t in the mood to cook after working my flank off, but it’s kinda hard to chalk up an entire week of spending the night at Derpy’s place to laziness.

A part of me wanted to get out of there while I still could. I was getting way too comfortable spending time with Derpy and her family, and they were getting a bit too used to having me around. Derpy and I had stepped out of the familiar safe territory of just being some friends who banged each other every once in a while and moved into some really scary places. Don’t get me wrong, I loved what Derpy and I had going, but it was one hay of a big change. The idea of getting all settled down and domesticated and ending up with some kinda lifetime commitment to Derpy was rather daunting.

I’d gone into this thing looking for a little casual fun, and now it looked like Derpy was aiming for a ‘till death do us part’ from me. That’s not to say that I didn’t lo–really like her, but the thought of going from my wonderfully irresponsible and fun loving self to Mrs. Derpy Hooves was just a little bit intimidating. I mean, that would make me stepmom to her fillies, and there’s no way in Tartarus I’m cut out for that kind of thing. A couple days ago Blossom was tearing into me for being nothing more than an overgrown filly myself, and now I was headed in a direction where I might be responsible for Derpy’s girls? I think being a little worried about that turn of events was reasonable.

The boss didn’t get back from her thing with Twilight Sparkle until the day before we were due to announce the whole Tornado Duty plan. That was a big relief for me; nopony other than Rainbow Dash could possibly pull off this crazy plan of hers. Oh, I could get everypony to turn out for Tornado Duty, but Rainbow’s plan called for everypony to bust their flanks to get their wingpower up to a solid ten so we could smash the old record to bits. Your average pegasus has around nine wingpower, so getting up to a ten with just a week to pull it off was gonna take some serious effort.

I could get everypony to turn out, and I could definitely work them hard, but if I was doing it they would resent every moment of it. I didn’t blame them at all–nopony wants to get yanked out of their comfortable everyday routines and shoved into a job they never signed up for, and then have to spend an entire week working themselves to exhaustion just to get the job done.

I could make them do the work, but Rainbow Dash brought something special to the equation. All she needed to do was give all the ponies a simple little minute-long speech, and they’d be cheering and stamping their hooves at the idea of being drafted into weather work for a week. Rainbow made it all sound like some kind of epic adventure instead of just a boring pain-in-the-flank civic duty.

I’ve never had enough raw force of personality to sway an entire crowd of ponies like that. One-on-one I can be pretty charming (at least when it comes to getting ponies into bed), but I’m no public speaker like the boss. I guess that’s why she’s the boss, and I’m just her right-hoof mare. I could be twice the manager Rainbow Dash was in every objectively measurable way, and the weather team would still never love me the way they loved her.

Then again, the boss would never be as good at plans, organizing, and details as I was. That was the way things had been ever since Flight School. Rainbow Dash could come up with some awesome plans, but I was the one who handled a lot of the details of making her master plans happen. At least when it came to weather work we didn’t have conflicting goals the way we did with her Flight School pranks. She still stinks at getting away with pranks; her exit strategy usually consists of pointing, laughing, and proudly proclaiming that she did it.

The next day saw just about every pegasus in Ponyville out on the training fields. About the only ponies who got an exception from the boss’ draft were pegasi who were too old or infirm to be able to fly and fillies who hadn’t gone through Flight Camp yet. Even a lot of those were still here, just to watch all the other pegasi in action.

The day’s training got off to a good start. It helped that I knew I was in good enough shape to beat the boss’ goal of ten wingpower with plenty of room to spare, so I didn’t need to bust my flank getting my numbers up. Sadly, you don’t get to take things easy when you’re an assistant manager. Instead of getting myself into shape, I had to work at getting everypony else ready for Tornado Day. There were a distressing number of pegasi who didn’t understand even the most basic principles of physical fitness.

Towards the end of the first day of training I found myself working with Flitter, Cloudchaser, and Thunderlane. None of them were slouches in the wingpower department, but they were all gonna need some help if they wanted to reach the boss’ goal of ten wingpower by next week. Getting a pony to bump their wingpower up by that much takes a lot of work. Some of that was pure muscle training, but a lot of it also came down to technique. Doesn’t matter how strong your wings are if you’re not flying the right way. You’d be surprised how much of a difference even a couple little tweaks in how you flap your wings or hold your body can make. Cutting down on drag does wonders for a pony’s speed, especially for something like Tornado Duty where high winds would be a given.

Unfortunately, the boss kinda stinks at teaching technique. It’s a side effect of being such a naturally gifted flier: since it all just came so easily to Rainbow Dash, she has a hard time explaining it to ponies who have trouble with that kind of thing. I was always better at the technical side of flying than the boss. She just beat me at all the parts of it that actually involved being in the air.

I was making good progress at working things out with them, but I didn’t think I’d have them up to the boss’ standards before the day was done. Working out the kinks in a pony’s flight style takes time, and getting them to get used to flying the right way is even harder. When I mentioned that we wouldn’t finish everything up today, Flitter and Cloudchaser had a quick little whispered conversation. A few seconds later both the twins were grinning at me, and Flitter spoke for both of them. “Hey, do you think you could give me and Cloudchaser a private training session once everypony else is done for the day?”

Judging by the sarcasm and eye-roll, Thunderlane had enough brains to read subtext. “Yeah, ‘training.’” A second later he had a hoof under his chin thoughtfully. “Although ... well, after I busted my flank making things nice for her on Hearts and Hooves Day my fillyfriend said she’d let me bring in a third pony sometime to spice things up. Whaddaya say?”

“Hey, we asked first!” Cloudchaser objected.

“Whoa!” The last thing I needed was ponies getting riled up over who I would bang first. “Look, with all the Tornado Duty stuff going on, I really don’t have time for that kind of thing right now.”

“Hey, I’m fine with waiting until after we take care of all the tornado stuff,” Thunderlane offered reasonably. “It’ll be a like a celebration for breaking the record!”

I thought it over for a bit. Thunderlane wasn’t a bad-looking stallion, but to be honest the whole idea of a threesome just wasn’t–I dunno, I just wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I normally was. “Look, I'm just not feeling in the mood for that kinda thing.”

Three ponies stared at me with equally shocked expressions on their faces. Sheesh, what’s the big deal? I know I’ve got a reputation and all, but it’s not like I’ve never turned down an offer to bang in the past. Cloudchaser was the first one to speak up. “...Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” I fixed the three of them with a slightly dangerous glare. “Why?”

Thunderlane’s ears went flat. “Whoa, none of us were saying–it's just that...” He stopped and took a moment to gather his thoughts and make sure he wouldn’t accidentally say something that would get him in trouble. “Well, it’s just that you’re usually always up for a good time. Especially a threesome.”

“Well, a lot of stuff's been going on, and I’m not in the mood.” I glowered at the three of them for a bit before I decided to just move on. “Anyway, Flitter, you need to tighten your wings up a bit. You've got the same problem Cloudchaser. Thunderlane, remember to tuck your legs in or extend them to cut down on drag.”

Thunderlane gave a quick and slightly nervous nod. “Um, right, tuck legs, got it.” The twins were just as quick to voice their acknowledgement.

“Right.” I turned my back on the three of them and trotted off at a brisk pace.

I was halfway across the training field before what had happened really sank in. I quickly found my favorite grey mare. “Derpy, I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Derpy tilted her head as both of her eyes focused on me. “What’s wrong, Cloud Kicker?”

“I just turned down not one, but two threesome offers. One of which involved twins!”

Derpy stared at me with an open mouth for a second, then burst into a peal of delighted laughter. I stared at her in confusion until she got over her strange laughing fit. Then she leaned over to kiss me on the cheek and say something that really threw me for a loop. “I love you too, sweetie!”

After dropping that on me, Derpy flew off, humming a happy little tune under her breath.

Was that what was going on here? Had I actually fallen so far in love with Derpy that I was starting to not want to bang other ponies? Maybe it was just a weird phase or something. I mean, I was still getting used to the whole ‘being in a stable committed relationship with a pony you have feelings for’ thing. I guess it figured there would be a few adjustments on my part, but the last time we talked about it Derpy said I didn’t have to be exclusive to her.

So why was I suddenly not comfortable with the idea of sleeping with other ponies? Maybe I just needed a better understanding of where I was with Derpy before I started bringing other ponies into the mix.

My ears perked up as the boss started making the rounds again. Like me, she’d been spending a lot of time helping out various pegasi who lacked in athletic ability, but she took breaks from that every once in a while to walk around the training ground and say a couple encouraging words to anypony that caught her eye. It really was amazing how she could make a pony start working twice as hard just by offering some tiny bit of praise.

I had almost tuned her out when she said something that caught my notice. “A little too much flexibility, Blossomforth.” I looked up at that, and saw that Blossom had somehow managed to get herself tangled up into an epic mess and was twitching helplessly on the ground. I have no idea how she managed to get one of her forelegs over around her back and twisted up between her hind leg and wing, but it definitely didn’t look comfortable. The boss looked right at me as she casually said. “Somepony give Blossomforth a hoof.”

I’d been worried the boss might try to force a reconciliation between me and Blossom. Having her two assistants at odds with each other wasn’t making things any easier on her. I guess it was lucky that she’d just opted for taking an opportunity to put me and Blossom together, instead of some big deal like what happened when she tried to patch things up with me and Fluttershy. I guess Rainbow Dash had learned her lesson there. Unfortunately, the boss’ sudden sense of social subtlety made it much harder to get out of actually talking to Blossom.

It’s not that I didn’t wanna patch things up with her, it’s just ... I didn’t want to do it right now. On the other hoof, if I didn’t do it, eventually things with Blossom would end up about where things with me and Fluttershy were.

I sighed and reluctantly started flapping towards Blossom. On my way there I passed by the boss, who was in the middle of sending everypony home for the day. She paused in the middle of telling everypony what a great job they’d done long enough to shoot a worried look my way. I just rolled my eyes and kept flying–I had the situation well in hoof.

My confidence lasted exactly as long as it took me to fly up to my entangled best friend. Judging by the glare I was getting, Blossom wasn’t exactly happy to see me. I tried to keep things strictly business, but that idea died the instant I touched her. “Hey!” Blossom cried indignantly. “Hooves off!”

I was a bit tempted to point out how silly that demand was under the circumstances, but the last thing we needed was for this to turn into another fight. Instead, I tried to stay as calm and reasonable as I could manage. “Well, you obviously can’t just untangle yourself, and I gotta get you un-stuck somehow.”

Apparently Blossom wasn’t in quite as much of a not-wanting-to-fight mood as I was. “It doesn’t have to be you helping me.”

“So you want some strange pony you barely know getting their hooves all over you instead?”

That seemed to put an end to her objections. at least for the moment. She let out a string of inaudible grumbling that probably wasn’t anything very nice about me, and then grudgingly accepted the situation. “Fine.”

Well, now that the initial hostilities had been taken care of, it was time to get to work on the problem itself. I slowly circled around Blossom while looking her over, trying to figure out just how she’d gotten herself all tangled up and what the best way was to fix it. Just tugging on her at random wasn’t going to fix things. When my examination took me behind Blossom, she snarled out, “Enjoying the view?”

“Trying not to,” I answered as dispassionately as I could manage. Of course, now that Blossom had brought it up it was kinda hard not to notice. I was in a pretty good position to see her everything, and it was a nice view, but that’s not what I needed to focus on right now. Stupid sexy Blossom.

Unfortunately, Blossom wasn’t about to just let the subject drop so we could get on with it. “Did you just imply that I was unattractive?”

How did she even get that from what I’d just said? It’s like she was going out of her way to twist things around. “No,” I answered flatly. If she was gonna play crazy twisting-words-around games, I just wouldn’t give her anything to work with.

Fortunately, Blossom didn’t seem to be in the mood to keep trying to cause trouble. Instead, she seemed almost wistful as she declared, “A month ago you would've given a leg to see me like this.”

I sighed. It wasn’t as bad as trying to start a fight, but I really didn’t need to think about the possible sexual implications of this situation. I was trying to keep the awkwardness levels down. “Not really.” I got to work on untangling her before she could say anything more to derail things, and grabbed one of Blossom’s forelegs. A couple tugs later, she was slightly less twisted up.

“Ow!” Blossom whined as she rubbed her newly-freed limb. I made a note to try to be a bit more gentle with the rest of the unsticking process. Unfortunately, once she was done complaining she went right back to the topic I didn’t want to discuss. “You would've enjoyed seeing me like this, don't lie.”

“I swear, you must be part pretzel or something,” I mumbled under my breath as I looked over Blossom’s new slightly-less-tangled configuration. I thought about just ignoring what she was saying, but I had a feeling she wasn’t going to let this drop until I gave her some kind of satisfaction. “Well, I won't deny there is a certain aesthetic appreciation that comes from seeing you this way.”

“Just an appreciation?” Blossom asked archly.

I almost laughed at that. It was just such an utterly un-Blossom thing to say. Maybe I have been a bit of a bad influence on her. “What, were you expecting me to start groping you the instant I had half a chance and you weren’t in a position to stop me?”

Blossom hesitated a bit before she nervously responded. “Honestly, yes, the way you used to always go on.”

I was a little hurt by Blossom’s answer; I thought she knew me better than that. If she actually thought I was capable of doing that kind of thing to somepony who didn’t want my hooves on them... “Look, that was just me joking around. I wouldn't do that kind of thing with somepony that didn't want me doing it. I know it’s not one of my rules, but that’s because some things are so obvious that you don’t even need a rule to know not to do it.”

I looked Blossom over again, and grimaced. “Um, speaking of touching ponies in inappropriate places. I'm gonna have to touch you on the sensitive parts of your wings in a bit. Sorry, it’s the only way to get you loose. It's just, you got your wing kinda tangled up in here. Lemme know when you're–”

Blossom abruptly cut me off with an embarrassed little squeal. Since I’d been looking at her wing at the time, it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out what had her so upset. I let out a justifiably aggravated groan. “Okay, popping a wingie isn't making this any easier for either of us.” Knowing she was getting off on the idea of my hooves-on help kinda sent the awkward levels through the roof, not to mention it would make untangling her leg from her wing a bit more complicated.

Unsurprisingly, Blossom was blushing up a storm. “Well it's not like I meant to do it!” she snapped defensively.

“Yeah, it’s just a biological reaction.” A very, very awkward biological reaction under these circumstances.

“You'd know about that, wouldn't you?” Blossom snapped at me.

I know she was probably just lashing out because she was embarrassed, but I was getting a little fed up with being the calm reasonable one while she got a free pass on any nastiness she tossed my way. “I'm not the one who pops wingies at the thought of her best friend helping her get untangled. How'd you get this tied up by accident anyway?”

Snapping at her could’ve easily gotten us into a fight right then and there, but to my immense relief Blossom took a page from my book and just let my snapping slide in order to focus on answering my question. “I was trying to save time by doing most of my stretching at once. I checked out a new book on exercises from the library to get ready for all the working out I would need to do, so I tried to work in some of the new stretches while doing my usual ones.”

“Yeah, probably not your best idea.” Blossom nodded and mumbled her agreement. “Then again, it gives you an excuse to get felt up by yours truly.” A second later I wanted to smack myself over the head. Sexual teasing was the exact opposite of what we needed right now, but it had just slipped out. I guess that was a habit I needed to break when it came to Blossom. “You ready? I'll try to keep this as quick and non-awkward as possible.”

Blossom sighed and buried her head in a free foreleg. “Fine, let's get this over with.”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself. “Alright. Here we go.” I tried to get things done as quickly as possible, but I wound up having my hooves on Blossom’s wing for several seconds before I finally got it free. More than long enough for things to get weird.

Blossom still had her face buried in her one free hoof, but I heard a couple muffled sounds from her. I tried very hard not to think about what those sounds meant, or why exactly her wing came out stiff and fully spread after I freed it.

My life was so much less complicated back when my best friend wasn’t sexually attracted to me. Or at least when I could pretend she wasn't sexually attracted to me.

Derpy had apparently stayed behind to keep an eye on me and Blossom, and now she came trotting up to the two of us with an unreadable little frown on her face. “Um, Cloud Kicker? Do you want any help?”

Blossom let out a startled squeak, but a second later she seemed to be back to her old assertive self. “No, she doesn’t.”

Great, Blossom’s jealousy was back in full force now. I guess that figured: now that her crush on me was out in the open, there was no point in pretending she didn’t have big issues with my current fillyfriend. I let out the nervous chuckle of a pony who really doesn’t wanna get caught in the crossfire. “I think this is horrendously awkward enough with just me and Blossom.”

Derpy gave a reluctant nod. The fact that Blossom was currently doing her best to drill a hole through Derpy’s head with her concentrated death glare probably contributed. Derpy gave a nervous little laugh of her own and stepped back. “Ah, okay. I'll just leave you to it then.” She turned around and was about to fly off when she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. “Oh, one more thing! Could you pick Dinky up from school today? I've got another out-of-town delivery that'll keep me away until this evening.”

“I ... yeah, sure. Of course.” I hadn’t been expecting that request and wasn’t quite sure about doing something so parental-esque as picking Dinky up from school, but I wasn’t gonna leave Derpy and her daughter hanging. Her request was just a bit odd though. “I thought you had the week off because of Tornado Duty?”

Derpy sighed and shook her head. “Yes, but it's an organ donation for the hospital–Tool Time says it has to be tonight, and I’m the best flier of anypony at the post office.”

Alright, I couldn’t really argue with that. Stuff like organ donations was a bit too important to just let wait for a couple days. “You sure you'll be alright? The boss has kinda been working you and everypony else into the ground.”

“I talked to Rainbow, she's letting me count the delivery as part of the training,” Derpy reassured me. Now that she mentioned it, the boss had set a kinda easy workout routine for her today. It probably also helped that Derpy was above average when it came to wingpower, so the boss mostly had her working on improving her coordination. “Rainbow just wants me to time myself during the delivery,” she added with a bubbly laugh.

Yeah, that sounded like the boss. I was about to start laughing along with Derpy when Blossom interrupted the both of us by very loudly clearing her throat. “Still tangled up here.”

Oh, right. For a moment I’d forgotten that I was in the middle of something “Uh ... just a sec Blossom.”

Derpy’s laughter faded away, and she shot me another one of her concerned little frowns. “Cloud Kicker, we talked about this...”

“What’s the matter?” Blossom cut in venomously. “Am I interrupting your happy couple moment? Oh, I am so sorry! I'd leave, except I'm kinda incapable of movement right now!”

Derpy’s ears fell flat on her head. “Sorry, Blossom, I didn't mean to cut you out like–”

Blossom’s mouth opened up and judging by the snarl on her lips she was fixing to dish out another dose of nasty. I could put up with that when it was directed at me, but when she was going after Derpy... “Hey!” I gave Blossom a sharp little nudge. “You can stay like that if you don't ditch the attitude.”

Derpy shot me a disapproving frown and a hint of warning entered her voice. “Cloud Kicker...”

Right, losing my cool. Calm down, deep breaths.

Once I had things back under control, I turned to Derpy and offered an apologetic shrug. “Yeah. Um ... maybe you better go, Derpy.” Blossom obviously wasn’t in the mood to be remotely civil while Derpy was around.

Derpy’s ears dropped and she let out a resigned sigh. “Yeah, that would probably be best. Don't forget about Dinky, okay?” She turned to Blossom. “Sorry to keep you, Blossomforth.”

“Just go,” Blossom growled back.

I rounded on Blossom once Derpy had flown off. I had my temper under control, but I was still less than happy with my best friend right now. “That was uncalled for and you know it.”

Blossom flared her one free wing. “The only reason she came over here was because she was mad that you were helping me!”

Well, that was a load of horseapples. “Derpy doesn't get mad. That was pure jealousy.”

Blossom let out a long-suffering sigh as if she was the victim here. “Okay, okay, fine–maybe I’m jealous of her! Are you happy now?”

“Not particularly.” We needed to get off this topic; Blossom was getting defensive, and I was still mad about how she’d treated Derpy. At this rate we were gonna end up fighting again. “Look, Blossom. We...” I trailed off uncertainly, trying to figure just what it was I wanted to say.

Blossom filled in the gap with a resentful little grumble. “You bang. Regularly. I get it.”

I placed a placating hoof on her shoulder. “Yeah, we do. But that doesn't mean I'm not still your friend.”

“No, of course not,” Blossom’s voice was dripping acid. “It's not like you used my crush on you against me in a fight or anything.”

I flinched as the guilt of that hit me. I still felt like a total mule for that. “Look, Blossom, I'm really sorry about that.”

“That hurt, Cloud Kicker.” Blossom looked so vulnerable when she admitted how badly my words had torn into her. “That really hurt.”

I stewed in guilt. “I know. For what it’s worth, that fight has the number two spot on my list of things I’d change if I could go back and do it all over again.”

Blossom’s voice went carefully neutral. “Yeah. Good.” There was a long, awkward silence before she hesitantly added. “Number one is what happened with you and Fluttershy, right? I, um... it wasn't really fair for me to bring up Fluttershy like I did either. Sorry for that.”

My temper flared up a bit when she reminded me of that. I’d said some nasty things, but only after I’d been provoked. “You're right, that was out of line.” I remembered Derpy’s advice, and took a couple deep breaths and reined myself in. “But ... yeah. We both said some things we regret.”

Blossom let out a heavy sigh. “You hurt me, I hurt you, let's just forget about it, okay?”

I gave a sharp nod. “Sounds like a good idea.” Putting the whole fight behind us sounded like a damn smart thing to do. Unfortunately, that was probably easier said than done.

Right now Blossom and I were both dealing with a gigantic mess of complicated emotions. On the one hoof, we were both still mad at each other and feeling pretty hurt about the fight, even if we were trying to move past it. On the other hoof, we’d been best friends for long enough that we still cared about each other, even if we were on the outs right now. Then there’s the more-than-friendship feelings Blossom was nursing for me, just to toss another layer of complication onto the whole situation. It would be nice to get this all sorted out so Blossom and I could go back to being able to have a simple conversation without our emotions bouncing all over the place. Hopefully, we’d taken the first step along the path to resolving this whole problem.

Blossom let out an annoyed little grumble. “So we’ve settled that. Great. Now that we've kissed and made up, could you get me out of this position? My leg is really starting to hurt.” It was oddly relieving to hear her voice return to its normal moderate grouchiness. It beat the pain and anger that had been there ever since the fight.

For the first time since our falling out, I felt like Blossom and I were gonna make it work out. There was still stuff we needed to deal with, but we could get it done. I grinned at her. “Yeah, back to getting you free.” I took hold of her hind leg and pulled it free without too much trouble.

That was enough to free Blossom completely. She let out an extremely satisfied grunt as she stretched her legs and wings. “Aaah, that's so much better.” She shook out the back leg I’d just freed and let out another groan. “Oh, that's going to cramp for sure.”

Yeah, I guess being stuck like that for as long as she was would make her cramp up. I had a solution for that. Good thing the boss had already sent everypony home for the day, because Blossom would probably die of embarrassment if anypony else saw this. “I'll probably regret this, but lie down.”

Blossom tucked her tail, clearly uncertain about what I had in mind. If that wasn’t enough, she even shot a nervous glance off to one side. “Um, okay.” She very slowly settled down onto the ground.

I sat down next to her, took her cramping hind leg in hoof, and started kneading at the muscles. “I do know a bit about massaging. Can't have you stuck with a leg you can’t use.”

Blossom let out a moan of relief as I set to work on her poor abused leg. Before long she was sporting another wingie and chuckling sheepishly. “Sorry.”

I removed one of my forehooves from her for long enough to apply it to my face. “This is gonna complicate our friendship, isn't it?”

Blossom let out another nervous little laugh. “I didn't think things could get any more complicated after the lemonade. I–uh, I was planning to tell you about how I felt. That day. At first I thought the alcohol would make it a little easier to spit it out, but it ... kinda didn’t go the way I planned.”

“No, really?” The two of us shared an awkward little laugh at that, before I waved a hoof dismissively “Nah, the lemonade thing was just booze and some bad timing on your part. This...”

Blossom very slowly nodded in agreement.” Yeah...um, well, it did kind of put things out in the open. This was a ... what’s the word for it? Right, this was a catalyst.”

If my admittedly somewhat vague understanding of the word was correct, she was right. “Yeah. This ... thing you’ve got for me. It isn't some passing little crush you're gonna get over in a bit once you find some new hot piece of flank, is it?”

Blossom shifted around uncomfortably under my hooves, and she was blushing horribly. “Um, well ... no, not really.”

So much for there being an easy solution to the problem. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.” The two of us lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. I continued working out the tension in her hind leg, until my forehoof slipped off target. Unfortunately, it ended up brushing along exactly the sort of place I really shouldn’t be touching right now. “Sorry, my hoof slipped.” I gave a very nervous little laugh. “I didn't mean to be sending mixed signals.”

Judging by the gasp and shudder my slip-up produced, Blossom was quite fine with it. “N-no worries...” she answered shakily.

Okay, that made things considerably more awkward. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to stop the massage here. What I’d done should be more than enough to keep her leg from cramping up. “Uh. Speaking of mixed signals, it occurs to me that all the joking around might've done that sometimes. I owe you an apology for that.”

Blossom still seemed to be riding the high of my little error and was barely even listening to what I said. “Yeah, I–right.” A second later she noticed that my hooves weren’t working their magic anymore, and let out a little whine of protest.

I sighed, and mentally prepared myself to say something that probably wouldn’t go over all that well, especially with my little goof during the massage. “Look, Blossom, I–you can do a lot better than me, you know?”

Blossom stared at me in blank incomprehension. “H-huh?”

Yeah, this was probably a lost cause. It was still worth a shot, though. “Just ... y'know, I'm an irresponsible self-centered sex maniac. There are a lot of ponies out there who would be better for you than I would. I mean, why would you want a pony like me?”

“Because I love you.” I was shocked at how matter-of-factly she said it, not to mention hearing the words themselves. I’d already known she felt that way, but actually hearing those specific words directly from her still had an impact.

There wasn’t really much I could say against that. Blossom took my silence as a cue to continue. “You're also my best friend, and ... well, Derpy's asking you to pick up her daughter. You can't be that irresponsible.”

I felt a slight flare of resentment at that. Complaining about what she’d just said made it a little easier to not think about the three-word bomb she’d just dropped on me. “So now I’m not irresponsible? That's not what you said the last time we talked.”

Blossom took her time very slowly getting back onto her hooves before she finally answered me. “Last time we talked I wasn't really in the best mindset. I–we said things we shouldn't have, and that was one of them. You've balanced your sex life with work almost flawlessly over the years and still got to assistant manager of the weather team. That's pretty responsible.”

That was true; aside from the mess in Cloudsdale I’d done a pretty good job of keeping my personal life from messing up my professional life. However, ‘aside from the mess in Cloudsdale’ was a pretty big exception. “Well. You did have a bit of a point. I wasn't exactly thinking things through when it came to the trouble I might be causing for other ponies.”

Blossom shook her head and placed a hoof on my shoulders. “You've never had anypony else to worry about before. Besides, those jerks at the bar probably deserved it.”

I felt some righteous fury boil up at the memory of that confrontation. “Oh yes, they very much deserved it. They called Derpy a retard.”

Blossom gasped in shock, before her eyes narrowed in anger. “You were too nice to them. I can’t believe anypony could say something like that!”

I have to admit, I was relieved by that reaction. A small part of me had been just a bit worried that Blossom’s jealousy might get the better of her decency when she found out I was defending Derpy’s honor in that fight. “Yeah, those three were jerks. I mean, you hate Derpy, and even you think they had it coming.”

“I don’t hate Derpy,” Blossom mumbled uncomfortably.

I looked appropriately skeptical about her claim. “You do remember what happened five minutes ago, don't you? When I had to ask Derpy to leave because you were completely incapable of showing her basic civility?”

Blossom began intensely studying the ground as she self-consciously pawed at it. “I don't hate Derpy. I just … really, really don't like her all that much.” She lifted her head and met my eyes defiantly. “But even though I don’t like her, I would never call her a retard!”

Credit where it was due: even at her worst, Blossom was better than those jerks. “I know you wouldn't say something like that to her, Blossom.”

Apparently Blossom had gotten herself riled up at the thought I was lumping her in with the likes of the jerks from Flight Camp or Sticks and Stones. Considering the category that put her in, I could understand her displeasure. “How could anypony insult Derpy like that? I mean, yeah, she's a little clumsy, and there's the eyes, but … she seems okay. I've met Dinky once or twice at the library, and she seems like a decent enough filly … so I guess Derpy does okay with her.”

“She does better than okay.” There was a hint of fierce pride in my voice as I declared. “She's the best damn mom I've ever known.” Blossom didn’t seem entirely sold on the idea of Derpy Hooves as the best mother ever, so I explained myself a bit more. “I've never seen a pony who tries as hard as she does to do right by her fillies.”

Blossom didn’t seem to care for the praise I was heaping on her romantic rival. “How could she be such a great mother? She's all over the place with her job.”

I took half a step forward and hit her with an annoyed glare. I made sure my disapproval was very clear from the harsh tone of my voice. “She's ‘all over the place with her job’ because she needs enough money to take care of two growing fillies and give them everything they need to grow up happy.” I suppose that was one advantage of her hook-up with me: if we did end up making it a long-term thing, she could afford to cut back on the post office hours some. . Between my assistant manager salary, a little bit of carefully invested family money, and the fact that I wasn't supporting two fillies I was a lot better off financially than she was.

Blossom’s ears fell back flat on her head and she held a forehoof up. “I didn't mean it like that. Of course she needs a job to take care of them. I–I just meant, well, how does she have time for them if she's so busy?”

“Simple.” There was still a little bit of anger in my voice, but I tried to reign it in. “She makes time for them.”

“Oh.” Blossom went quiet for a bit, until she almost grudgingly admitted. “I ... guess that's pretty cool. I dunno how she does it.”

“She works her flank off,” I answered simply. “She rarely gets more than six hours of sleep a night, and she doesn't have much of a social life. I'm the first special somepony she's had since Dinky was born, and even when we were just friends she had to leave me hanging more than once because her girls needed her.”

Blossom gave an uncomfortable little flutter of her wing. “Um ... I didn't know that.”

“Well, now you do,” I answered simply.

One unpleasant adjustment to spending time at Derpy’s house had been discovering that unless the girls were asleep, there was a very good chance that any funtime I had with Derpy would get interrupted at some point. One time, Dinky had come in because she’d had a nightmare, and I wound up exiled to the couch so Derpy could sleep with her filly. I suspect Derpy and Dinky might have been alright with me staying, but that was getting way too far into parental territory for me. I didn’t mind lending a hoof with the girls, but I wasn’t their stepmom or anything.

Blossom seemed to be struggling to come up with what she wanted to say. She was probably wary of seeming too critical of Derpy’s parenting ability right after I’d chewed her out for doing so. “Yeah. Um ... I know she's got a reason with Dinky, but why did she take Sparkler in? She had to have been busy enough with one filly.”

I’d wondered that myself when I first heard about the adoption, but there a simple answer to it all. “Because her heart's too big for her own good sometimes. When I asked why she was going through with the adoption, she just looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘Because every filly deserves to have a mommy.’”

I suspect Derpy’s personal history might have tied into it the decision to adopt another filly as well, though she had never said anything about that to me. A lot of the foals that end up in the adoption system had been given up by single, teenage moms–almost exactly like the position she’d been in when her foal had been born. I guess deciding to raise Dinky despite all the trouble that came with that decision gave her a different perspective when she saw somepony like Sparkler who wound up stuck in the adoption system.

Blossom sighed almost wistfully. “I guess she is a sweetheart ... even though I don’t like her, she doesn't really seem to hate me.” Her voice turned bitterly resentful as she scowled at nothing in particular. “Why should she hate me? I'm not a threat to her.”

I stepped up next to her and put a foreleg over her shoulders. “Hey. It's not like that. She doesn't hate you because that's not the way she is.”

Blossom rolled her eyes and shrugged my foreleg off. The bitterness in her voice was joined by a helping of sarcasm.“Yeah yeah, she's just so much better than me. That's why you fell for her instead of me, right?”

Oh Celestia, I did not want to be having this conversation, even though I knew it couldn’t be avoided. “You and Derpy are both great in your own ways. You had your chance and you didn't take it.” I let out an annoyed sigh. “Besides, I'm still trying to figure out how I fit into all of this relationship business–I’m not exactly used to dealing with this whole lovey-dovey thing.”

Blossom was staring at me open mouthed, blinking her eyes owlishly. “Did–did you just say that I had a chance? I never told you because I thought you'd just turn me down, but...”

Alarm bells were ringing in my head, and I tried for a quick change of subject. “Well, yeah, you're just too prudish about the whole banging thing. It was fun to tease you about it, and, well ... as great as things are with Derpy, I hate seeing you hurt like this.”

Blossom gave an aggravated stomp of her hoof. “You're not answering me, Cloud Kicker. Did I have a chance with you, or not?”

Damn, I wasn’t getting out of this one. “Well ... yeah.”

“Oh.” Blossom sat down in the dirt, a dumbfounded look on her face. “I ... had a chance. And I lost it.” She gave a loud sniffle, and I saw moisture gathering in her eyes. “That's ... dammit!”

Then the tears started.

Well, that’s just great. I have enough trouble with this emotional stuff when it's the good emotions! Despite my best efforts to prevent it, I’ve broken a heart or two in the past, and I’ve never been too good at handling the fallout. “Aw, Blossom. Um...” I awkwardly reached over to start patting on the back. My instincts told me to give her a hug, but I wasn’t sure if she’d take that the wrong way or not.

“It's not fair!” Blossom howled out in between sobs.

“I know, I know,” I reassured her as best I could, even thought I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t really work. “I, um ... I do love you as a friend at least. That’s something, right?” Feathers! I was starting to think I should have lied, even though I’m normally a fan of trying to stay honest. Blossom had it bad for me, and telling her she’d missed her chance hurt.

Blossom was inarticulately blubbering despite my lackluster efforts to reassure her. She eventually managed to get a few comprehensible words out.“Wu-why didn't you tu-tu-tell me?”

I decided to throw caution to the wind and gave her that hug. It seemed to do more good than the words I’d been using before then. Once she’d regained her composure, I gave Blossom her answer. “Rules seven and eight. You wanted more than I was ready to give.” Four was also in the mix, but regardless of how legitimate of a reason it is, ‘I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship’ rarely goes over well.

Blossom pulled back and glowered at me. “So then I never had a chance after all?’

I sighed and tried to explain what I’d meant. “Maybe I should have told you about my rules earlier. I was hoping you'd realize that I'm a not a 'commitment' pony, and move on.”

Blossom shoved me back a cry of rage. “Why did you tell me I had a chance if I didn't! Celestia dammit Cloud Kicker, stop jerking me around! Is messing with my emotions some kind of feathering game for you?”

“You had a chance, dammit!” I snapped before she could build up too much rant momentum. I might not be a perfect pony, but I don’t go for sick mind games with ponies I care for. “You just needed to adjust your expectations!”

“Adjust my expectations?” Blossom shrieked indignantly. “Oh, you'll make an exception to all your stupid rules for Derpy, but all I get is 'adjust your expectations!' That's horseapples, and you know it!”

I wanted to be mad at her. That would be a lot easier than actually facing what she’d just said. It was a fair point: I’d violated my rules to Tartarus and back when it came to Derpy. If I made exceptions for her, it wasn’t exactly fair to deny Blossom on those grounds. That’s not to mention that ... well Derpy had kind of pointed out that quite a few of my rules weren’t quite so noble as I’d believed. Especially the rules I’d always told myself made Blossom off-limits. It’s possible I might have some commitment issues.

In the end, there was nothing I could do but give her the honest truth. She’d gotten a raw deal from me, and there was nothing I could do to change that. “Blossom ... I'm sorry. I know it's not what you want to hear, but I don't know what else to say.”

Blossom glared at me, but she was hurting too much to put any real fire into it. “This isn’t something you can fix with a simple ‘I’m sorry,’ Cloud Kicker.” She got back up and turned her back on me. “I think I want to be alone for a while.” Without another word she took to the air, leaving me behind.

So much for patching things up.

On the bright side, I hadn’t feathered things up so badly with Blossom that she spent the next couple days locked up in her home crying again. She was back for the next day of training, and aside from the fact that things were still a long way from right between the two of us, she seemed to be doing alright.

I was a little surprised to see that Eepysqueak had turned out too. When she skipped out on the first day of training, I’d assumed she was a lost cause. She’s always been a weak and very nervous flier, so to be honest I’d kinda been expecting her to drop out. I’d even double-checked the math to make sure we could still break the record without her.

Not that having her here was a bad thing. Well, it was a bit awkward for me, but I could bury my personal issues to get the job done. We might be able to set a new record without Fluttershy, but every extra bit of wingpower helped. Besides, helping out with Tornado Day might give her a bit of a much-needed confidence boost.

I looked over the passel of pegasi gathered together for another day of training, and noticed that one of these ponies did not look like the others. What was Twilight Sparkle doing here? She does kinda suffer from a distinct lack of wings. I spotted her tinkering with some kinda device, and I wondered out loud. “What she’s doing?”

“She’s checking her anemometer.” I was bit surprised that Blossom answered my largely rhetorical question. “It’s for measuring our wingpower.”

“Yeah, I know what an anemometer is.” I don’t even know why I snapped at her. “I was pushing clouds back when you were still in school.” Blossom flared her wings and hit me with a death glare, but I held up a hoof and cut her off before she could give me a piece of her mind. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just ... sorry.”

Blossom sighed, tucked her wings back in, and went quiet. The talk yesterday might have settled one or two issues, but things were still a long way from right between us. We might at least be talking to each other again, but both our tempers were still frayed. One wrong word from either one of us would set the other off. Still, at least we were talking. That was progress, right?

When Blossom finally spoke again, it was in a very level, carefully neutral tone. “I helped Twilight get it working. She needed a pegasus to test it out, and I ended up making a couple little tweaks to her design.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Blossomforth shot back testily. “Twilight and I get along pretty well, and I like machines. Did you think you were the only friend I had? Or that I didn’t have any hobbies that don’t involve spending my free time with you.”

I backed up a step and held up my hooves placatingly. “Okay, okay. Chill out, Blossom.”

Unfortunately, once Blossom’s temper gets going it can be hard to get her settled down again. “You call yourself my best friend, but the truth is that you don’t even know anything about me.” I tried to object to that, but she didn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “Who were my parents, Cloud Kicker? That’s a basic enough thing for anypony to know about their best friend, isn’t it?”

I opened my mouth to answer her, and found myself drawing a complete blank. Absolutely nothing. I didn’t know their names, what they did–hay, I didn’t even know if they were both pegasi, or if she came from a mixed marriage. She could even be a throwback from non-pegasi parents, like the Cake Twins. Complete and total blank.

Right as I was about to start going into panic mode, I realized something. I don’t have a photographic memory or anything, but I’m generally not in the habit of completely forgetting something as big as my best friend’s parents. If I was only remembering a couple unimportant little details that would be one thing, but I was a drawing a complete blank. In other words... “That’s a trick question. You never told me about your parents.”

Blossom’s righteous indignation faltered at that. “Well–but you never asked!”

That was true, but it was a weak counter-argument and she knew it. After spending a couple seconds with her mouth hanging open as she tried to come up with something more to say, it was Blossom’s turn to apologize and shuffle her hooves while looking slightly ashamed of herself. “I–that wasn’t really a fair question for me to ask. I was a foundling somepony dropped off at the Cloudsdale Orphanage, so...”

Oh Tartarus. “Look, Blossom, I’m sorry about–”

“Don’t,” she cut me off. “There’s no point in you apologizing for something that you had nothing to do with.” Blossom sighed and ran a hoof through her mane. “It wasn’t that bad, really. It was actually pretty nice, aside from the fact that it was an orphanage and all. The caretakers were nice, we had everything we needed to get by, and I even got a couple presents on Hearthswarming and my birthday. Or at least, the the closest guess they could make to what my birthday was. Nothing like some of the stuff that goes on in the groundside places. I guess it must be one of the side effects of how militaristic pegasus society used to be–taking care of orphans would be more important in a warrior culture.”

Well, that was a bit of a relief. I hadn’t gotten the full story from Sparkler, but some of the stuff she’d said made it clear that her own time in the orphanage system hadn’t been all that pleasant. At least there weren’t two ponies in my life who had gone through that sort of thing. I made a mental note to dig out some spare bits for a donation to a Cloudsdale Orphanage. It would be a better use for the money than most of the things I would do with it in any case.

I was pondering whether or not I should mention that to Blossom when she started coughing. Not bad or anything, but it was a bit worse than just one or two little coughs. The boss and Twilight Sparkle came to the wrong conclusion about who must’ve been doing the coughing though, because a second later Thunderlane was getting sprayed with disinfectant while the boss chewed him out for faking an illness, despite the fact that he was protesting his innocence. The boss followed that up by volunteering him to be the first test flier.

Blossom giggled at Thunderlane’s plight, at least until she started coughing again. Okay, one cough I could ignore, but now I was just a bit concerned. “Blossom? You alright?”

She coughed a couple more times before she finally answered. “I’m fine. I just had a little something caught in my throat.”

“Are you sure?” I was a little surprised to see that Derpy had worked her way over to us. Not that I wasn’t happy to see my fillyfriend, but after how badly things went between the two of them yesterday I’d figured Derpy would be keeping her distance for a while.

Fortunately for my peace of mind, Blossom seemed content with just glaring at Derpy and refusing to acknowledge her question. Things might have gotten hazardous if not for the very convenient distraction provided by Thunderlane taking his practice run. To my vague annoyance, he didn’t remember my advice about tucking his legs in. Despite that, he still managed nine point three wingpower.

From the way the draftees started cheering and Cloudchaser started fawning over him, you’d think a nine point three was actually good. I mean, it’s an above-average score, but it’s nothing that amazing.

The boss seemed to be thinking the exact same thing. One look at her face, and I knew what was coming up next. Rainbow Dash never could resist an opportunity to show off.

“Might be a good idea to brace yourselves, everypony.” At least she wouldn’t have too much time to build up speed. I was there for both the times that she pulled off a sonic rainboom, and I’m perfectly fine with only knowing what it looks like from a safe distance. That rainbow-colored shockwave might be very pretty, but it would not be a fun thing to experience up close.

One sixteen-point-five-wingpower hurricane later, just about everypony was staring up at Rainbow Dash in awe. Naturally, that was the perfect time for her to bust out another one of her little inspirational speeches, and despite the fact that I knew she was putting on a show I found myself getting into the swing of things. I tried to tell myself I was just doing my part as assistant manager to help her work the crowd, but the truth is that when the boss really gets going it’s kinda hard not to get caught up in the moment.

After that it was on the wingpower tests for everypony else. Getting everypony’s numbers would tell us who needed some serious help getting their numbers up and who we could afford to let handle things on their own. Not to mention we could stick some of the strong fliers who already had a ten or better on mentor duty for the weak ones. The boss and I probably wouldn’t be able to take care of everypony.

I parked myself next to the boss so we could talk things over while everypony else was testing. So far we were off to a good start; most of the numbers we were getting started with a nine. Bumping up a pony’s numbers by a couple decimal places in a single week was small potatoes, a little working out and style cleanup would handle that just fine. It’s when you need to start going up by whole numbers that some serious work is needed.

“They’re not doing bad at all for a bunch of civilians,” I commented. “Looks like we’ll have time for those teamwork exercises I wanna run.”

The boss frowned a bit at that. “We’ll see. Not everypony has gone yet, and there’s no point in doing teamwork stuff if they can’t even put out enough wingpower to get the job done.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Besides, all they need to do is fly in a circle. Anypony with working wings can do that.”

I sighed and carefully restrained the urge to facehoof. “No offense boss, but you’ve never tried to run anything this big before. One thing I learned at West Hoof, there’s a big difference between getting one pony to do something simple and getting a hundred to do something simple in the same place at the same time, all without getting in each others’ way.”

The boss gave a noncommittal grunt, and took advantage of one of our draftees managing to break ten winpower to avoid answering me. “Nice going, Silverspeed!” The boss turned to the next pony in line, one of our weather regulars. “Hey Lightning Bolt! You gonna let a draftee beat your wingpower numbers?”

“Encouraging rivalry between the weather team and the ponies we’ve conscripted. That’s gonna do wonders for teamwork.” That bit of sarcasm earned me an annoyed glare from the boss, and in fairness I kinda deserved it. Sure, the boss was in the wrong here, but there was a better time and place to point that out that out in public where everypony would see and hear if we got into it. It didn’t matter that the boss was wrong, in fact that probably made it worse. Nothing undermines a leader’s authority quite as badly as pointing out to everypony that they just messed up.

Fortunately, it didn’t look like anypony except Twilight Sparkle and her pet dragon had overheard us. If any of the trainees had heard me, the boss might’ve had no choice but to smack me down just to save face. Instead she just grunted and gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. Anypony who knows her as well as I do knows that’s Rainbow-ian for ‘we both know you’re right, don’t make me admit it.’ The boss can have complicated ways of communicating sometimes if you don’t know how she ticks. Sorta like how she usually expresses concern through anger and frustration.

After a couple seconds, the boss decided to make it official. “Once we get closer to Tornado Day, you can start working everypony who’s already got their numbers high enough through teamwork exercises.”

“Thanks, boss.” I’d gotten her to almost admit that she’d been wrong and I’d been right, I wasn’t gonna push my luck any further.

The boss and I went back to watching the wingpower tests for a while, until we got two pegasi who only managed a score in the eights, followed by a seven point nine. Three low scores in a row put a little dip in everypony’s spirits. The boss nudged me with a wing. “Cloud Kicker, you’re up.”

Technically I was one of the last ponies on the list, but I knew why the boss was shifting things around. She needed a good performance to get morale back up. Sure, seeing a couple ponies do badly wouldn’t cause that much damage, but the boss wasn’t one to take chances. A whole lot was banking on everypony keeping their spirits up.

One flight later, everypony went from worried to cheering after Twilight Sparkle proudly announced “Twelve point one wingpower!” Four years at West Hoof had whipped me into pretty good shape, and pushing clouds kept me on my wings often enough that all that hard-earned muscle stays there. Not to mention that banging is a pretty good form of exercise.

Since I’d posted the second highest wingpower number of anypony so far, the boss couldn’t resist commenting. “Twelve point one?” The boss gave a very unimpressed little nicker. “I’ve seen better numbers from Junior Speedsters.”

Her attemept at getting a rise out of me was less than successful. “Well get some of them in here, we could use the extra wingpower.” I think it’s always vaguely bugged the boss that I don’t rise to her competitive baiting more often. Or at least, not when it came to flying capabilities. There were plenty of areas where I could compete with Rainbow Dash if I wanted to, but there was no denying that she was the better flier.

After my little morale boosting exercise, everypony went back to the testing with gusto. Soon enough it was Blossom’s turn. I wasn’t sure if I should cheer for her or not; I didn’t want to make things weird, but I also wanted to throw a little support her way. In the end, I opted for risking the potential for weird. “Whoo! Go Blossom!”

Judging by the little grin that put on her face, I’d made the right call. Blossom shot by with more speed than I’m used to seeing from her, and Twilight Sparkle blinked in surprise when she saw Blossom’s number. “Nine point seven wingpower? That’s a lot higher than she ever managed when she was helping me calibrate.”

“Guess she just needed a little motivation from me,” the boss declared proudly. A second later, she was frowning. “Still ... not even ten. That’s kinda low for a pony that’s supposed to be one of my assistant managers.”

Sometimes the boss’ jock tendencies could really get on my nerves. “You promoted her because she’s good at running things, not because of her wing muscles.” I wasn’t surprised when Twilight Sparkle glared at the boss and gave a sharp nod in agreement–the local bookworm would back me up on the idea that brains were more important than brawn.

Rainbow gave another grunt and hoof-wave of concession. It can be an interesting experience, having a friend who usually won’t outright admit she was wrong unless you backed her into a corner.

The boss unsurprisingly turned her attention back to the testing list, looking for some way to change the subject away from the fact that she’d been wrong. “Fluttershy, your turn!”

I tried very hard to stop myself from flinching. I knew Fluttershy well enough to know that showing even the slightest hint that I expected her to fail horribly would kill what little self-confidence she had. However, the unfortunate truth was that Fluttershy wasn’t a very good flier. “Boss, do you have a plan here?”

“A plan for what?” the boss asked.

“Fluttershy.” I shot a look at trembling pegasus standing at the starting line. “She’s not gonna put up a good number. How are you gonna handle that?”

“She’ll do fine,” the boss insisted.

“Sure she will,” I agreed. “But just in case she does end up having trouble, what’re you gonna do? We need a plan here.”

The boss’ eyes narrowed and she dug her hooves into the ground. “No, we don’t. She’s gonna do fine.”

I sighed and gave in–there was no arguing with the boss when she got like this. “Whatever you say, boss.”

The two of us watched Fluttershy take to the air and start heading for the anemometer. She wasn’t exactly making good time. I quickly crushed the urge to say any variant of ‘I told you so.’ I would’ve been a lot happier if Rainbow had been right.

Just to make matters worse, when Fluttershy was most of the way to anemometer she choked. I’m not sure what happened, but she suddenly dropped from flying at a slow but passable pace to moving so sluggishly that I was amazed she had enough speed to actually stay airborne. The anemometer barely even turned when she passed it.

The entire training field went dead quiet. Everypony with eyes knew that Fluttershy’s performance was–well I hate to say it, but that was bad even for her. The only way it could’ve gone worse is if her wings had locked up and she couldn’t fly at all.

After a hushed conversation with Twilight Sparkle, the boss turned to Fluttershy and forced a grin onto her face. “Great job, Fluttershy! You measured uh ... um ... point five.”

I couldn’t hide my wince at that. Point five? I’d been expecting something bad, but ... wow.

“Point five?” Twilight Sparkle’s pet dragon grumbled. “Isn’t that like, less than one?”

That comment earned him a hoof to the head, but that came too late to fix anything. Not that his comment really made a difference, if he hadn’t said it somepony else would’ve. It’s kinda hard to get around the fact that Fluttershy’s wingpower test had gone horribly.

Seconds later Fluttershy was running for it, with the boss following close behind. I was more than a little tempted to follow them, but it wouldn’t have done any good. When it came to ponies who might be able to comfort Eepysqueak, I was pretty much at the bottom of the list. I’d just end up making it worse just being there.

I did the only thing I could do–since the boss had gone after Eepysqueak, I was technically running the show. At least keeping this working until the boss got back was better than doing nothing. “Alright everypony, show’s over, back to work. Who’s next on the list, Twilight Sparkle?”

The town librarian seemed to be too busy staring after the boss and Eepysqueak to actually answer my question, so I improvised. “Derpy, you’re up.” Clumsiness aside, Derpy had enough wingpower to put up a good number and get everyponys mind back on the training. That beat sitting around while everypony gossiped about Eepysqueak.

Unfortunately, Derpy wasn’t exactly on-board with that plan. She flew up next to me and put a hoof over my shoulders and whispered. “Cloud Kicker, the training can wait. We should–”

“The boss’ll take care of Fluttershy,” I whispered back. “Right now we’ve got a hundred ponies who need to get pointed back to training ASAP, or else all they’re gonna do is gossip about how horribly Eepysqueak’s wingpower test went. You think she needs that being the talk of the town?”

Derpy blew out a long breath and slowly shook her head. “Yeah, okay.”

After Derpy’s successful wingpower test (well, as long as you don’t count the crash-landing), the rest of the ponies slowly started getting back into the training mindset. By the time the boss returned, things had almost gotten back to normal.

I would’ve asked how it went, but the way the boss’ ears and wings were drooped so far down they were practically dragging on the ground and Fluttershy was nowhere in sight made that question unnecessary. It hadn’t worked out at all. “Boss, I–”

Rainbow’s head snapped up and her lip curled in a snarl. “Yeah yeah, you told me so!” Her wings went from drooping to aggressively flared. “You said she was gonna choke, and she choked! Are ya happy now?”

I instinctively took a step back. “Whoa! I wasn’t–”

The boss didn’t even give me a chance to get started. “If she choked, it was your fault! She was probably all nervous ‘cause you were here!”

“Rainbow!” Derpy rushed in to my defense. “That’s not fair, and you–”

“Stay out of this, Derpy!” Rainbow snapped at her before turning her attention back to me. “So having you around is gonna mess up Fluttershy? Fine. You’re fired. Get outta here!”

My jaw dropped at that. “Boss, I...”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Rainbow snarled. “I said you’re fired! Get lost!”

I hesitated for a second, and then slowly turned my back on her and started flying away. What could I say to that? If she really wanted to fire me, she could. Kinda goes hoof-in-hoof with the whole employer-employee relationship.

I distantly heard Derpy saying something to Rainbow Dash, but I didn’t care to listen in. She was probably yelling at Rainbow Dash. Because that’s what our fragile little circle of old fillyhood friends needs, more arguments.

I flew back to my home, but before I’d barely closed the door before somepony started pounding on it. I considered just ignoring it, I wasn’t really in the mood for company right now. Rainbow would probably hire me back once she calmed down a bit, but the fact that she’d chucked me out of a job just because she was in a bad mood still stung. Friends aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing to each other.

Whoever was knocking kept at it long enough to wear down my resistance. I opened up the door, and found Blossom on the other side. A moment later I was on the receiving end of a comforting hug. “Are you okay, Cloud Kicker?”

“Been better,” I grumbled. Aside from Derpy, it seemed like pretty much every friendship I had was headed straight to Tartarus.

Blossom must have guessed at what was going through my head, because she pulled out of the hug and there was a slightly uncomfortable frown on her face. “I ... I know things aren’t exactly right between us. But–but you’re still my friend, and I want to help you.”

That touched me. Even with all the problems we still hadn’t sorted out, Blossom was willing to be there for me when I needed a friend. “I–thanks Blossom. That means a lot to me.” I thought about it for a moment, and made a decision. “I could use somepony to talk to right now.”

Blossom didn’t even hesitate before answering. “Of course.” She guided me over to one of my couches, and the two of us settled.

I took a deep breath, and prepared myself. “I–I think you need to know the truth about what happened with me and Fluttershy. It’s–it’s the only way to really explain all this. And, well you’re my friend. You deserve the truth.” I took a couple more deep breaths, and mentally prepared myself for the confession.

“Fluttershy was the first pony I ever banged.”

The Pony Who is Here to Right Every Single Wrong

That filly had gone and fallen off of Cloudsdale.

I still didn’t know all the details, but Rainbow Dash had gotten herself into a race against some of the Flight Camp bullies to defend the honor of their latest victim. That was all well and good, except that during the confusion of the race the filly Rainbow was supposed to be defending had gotten knocked-over. Normally falling off the clouds wouldn’t be a big deal–almost any kid at the camp could at least glide down to the ground. However, from what Rainbow Dash told me, the whole reason the bullies were after this filly was because she was a weak flier. Between that and the fact that nopony had seen her since she had fallen, we had a real problem.

The camp counselors were no help. After the filly fell, I stopped watching the race and spent several minutes looking for an adult, but none of them were around. It was their duty to watch out for all of us and be there if we needed help, but aside from when they were giving us flying lessons they were never around.

Flight Camp is supposed to be a big deal. I’d been looking forward to it for a long time; spending my summers learning how to fly was a lot more exciting than going to school. Not that I hated school or anything, but this was flying! Ask any pegasus who hasn’t earned their wings yet, and they’ll tell you that flying is the coolest thing ever. Since spending a couple summers at Flight Camp is how you learn to fly, then obviously Flight Camp must be cool too. Except it wasn’t–the flight lessons weren’t all that good, and except for the lessons the counselors were never around. It was like they all went AWOL as soon as lessons were over. Flight Camp was not what I’d been looking forward to.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. At least I’d met Rainbow Dash. At first we hadn’t gotten along–I thought she was a troublemaker, and she thought I was a goody-four-shoes. That all changed the first time the both of us caught some of the bullies giving another filly trouble. After that ... well she still thought I was a goody-four-shoes and I still thought she was trouble, but that didn’t stop us from being friends. Especially since a pony needs to get friends wherever she could at Flight Camp.

I’d just about given up on finding any adults to help when Rainbow Dash caught up with me. She was even more energetic than normal, to the point where she could barely stop flying around for long enough to actually talk to me. “Hey Cloud Kicker! Didja see that? I was wicked awesome! I kicked those jerks in the flank! And that’s not all, look!” Rainbow actually stopped moving for long enough to give me a chance to get a good look at it. “I got my cutie mark. Pretty cool, huh?”

It was a pretty cool cutie mark, but right now I had bigger things to worry about. “Rainbow, that filly you got into the race to protect fell off her cloud, and nopony’s seen her since.” Rainbow’s eyes went wide as dinner plates when I told her that. “I’ve been trying to find somepony, but none of the adults are around and I can’t–”

“Alright, let’s go get her then!” Rainbow probably would’ve flown off right then and there if I hadn’t grabbed her by the tail.

“Wait!” I held onto her tail until she stopped trying to break free and actually started listening. “We’re not allowed to leave the camp, remember?”

Rainbow whirled on me and flared her wings. “So what, you’re just gonna let...” She trailed off with a frown for a few seconds before she finally said. “You’re gonna let whatever-her-name-was fall down and get hurt because the rules say you can’t help her?”

“Of course not!” I might care about sticking to the rules more than Rainbow the rebel, but I wasn’t gonna take that to the point of leaving somepony in danger. If a rule is getting ponies hurt, then it’s a dumb rule that needs to get changed. “We’re gonna go look for her, but we’ve gotta have a plan first! Where do we look for her? What’re we gonna do if she’s hurt? Stuff like that.”

Rainbow never had the patience to think things through. “Look, do you wanna stand around talking, or do you wanna go find her?”

“We’re gonna find her, alright!” I swear, sometimes it was like talking to a brick wall. “Alright, here’s the plan. We go to where she fell, and head straight down from there. I’ll grab a chunk of cloud we can use to carry her back if she’s hurt.”

“Yeah, whatever, let’s just go!” Rainbow Dash shot off ahead of me. Not like normal either–she’s always been a bit faster than me, but now it was just crazy. Guess it figures that when she got her cutie mark, her special talent would turn out to be flying way too fast for her own good. This was gonna make it a lot harder to keep her from running off and doing something stupid whenever some poorly-thought-out idea popped into her head. Unfortunately, Rainbow tended to get bad ideas that she was eager to put into action all the time.

Rainbow looped back around and flew over me, then came around and started flying backwards in front of me. She never could resist a chance to show-off. “What’s the matter Cloud Kicker? Can’t keep up? Geez, I wish I’d gotten my special talent earlier! This is awesome! No, it’s more than just awesome, it’s like ... supercoolradicalawesomazing!”

“Yeah, great.” I wonder how long it would take me to get my cutie mark anyway? Now that Rainbow Dash had hers, mine shouldn’t take too much longer. Actually, since I was a couple weeks older than her I should’ve gotten mine first, but cutie marks are kinda weird like that. The filly we were both going to rescue was from the year ahead of ours, and she was still a blank flank. I hope it didn’t take me that long to find my special talent.

We got back to the place where Rainbow’s race had started from, and I quickly grabbed some cloud and hammered it into something that could comfortably accommodate another pony. Then the two of us headed groundside, with Rainbow very impatiently matching my speed.

I was a bit relieved when she started talking to me–as long as she was talking, she wasn’t likely to go running off on her own. “Hey Cloud Kicker, you’ve been to the ground before, right?”

“Yeah.” It was kinda hard to imagine that there were actually pegasi Rainbow’s age that hadn’t been to the ground before. After all, that means stuff like probably never seeing a unicorn or earth pony before, which is a pretty big part of life in Equestria. Then again, I’d spent most of my life on the ground‒but even then Mom and Dad had taken me up to Cloudsdale a couple times, and we spent about six months stationed in Las Pegasus. My life might’ve mostly been on the ground, but they made sure I had some experience with the cloudborne side of pegasus life. For other parents to leave their kids so ignorant of something that important just seemed weird.

Dad told me once that too many pegasi stick to the clouds instead of spending time on the ground. Something about how they think that never going to the ground makes them better than unicorns and earth ponies. Seems kinda dumb to me, since anypony who’s seen the Hearthswarming play knows all three types of ponies need each other. Besides, Shadow Kicker wanted all the pegasi to be part of Equestria, and everypony knows that, aside from the Princess, Shadow Kicker was the coolest pony ever!

After a bit of hesitation, Rainbow spoke up again. “So what’s it like down there?” There was just a hint of nervousness in Rainbow’s voice. “I’ve heard it’s like, really freaky. Like, there are these creatures that look harmless, but then they swallow ponies whole! Some of the second-years who’ve actually been down there were telling me all about it.”

Sheesh, the things some ponies will believe. I was tempted to debunk that, but poking fun at her sounded so much more amusing.“You scared?” I smirked over at her. “I thought you weren’t scared of anything.”

“I’m not scared!” Rainbow snapped defensively. “I just wanna know if there’s gonna be some kinda freaky ground-monsters or something!”

I couldn’t resist taunting her a bit more. “Scaredy-cat.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

We went back and forth about a dozen times before Rainbow decided that she needed to say something a bit more than just ‘Am not!’ and declared, “I’m not scared of some stupid ground, okay?”

I wasn’t about to let her get out of it that easily. I flew over to her and wrapped a forehoof around her neck. “Don’t worry little Dashie. I’ll protect you from all the scary little bunnies and squirrels. I’m a Kicker, it’s my duty to protect other ponies. Even when those ponies are scaredy-cats.”

I was expecting Rainbow to shove me away and keep insisting that she wasn’t scared, but instead she started giggling like mad. When she was still laughing after several seconds, I gave into my curiosity. “What’s so funny?”

“You said doody!” Rainbow gasped out. Actually saying what was so funny moved her from giggles to full-out laughter.

“Duty, not doody!” As soon as I said that out loud I smacked myself on the forehead and groaned.

“You said doody again!” Rainbow crowed. “Twice!”

I let out another groan. There was no reasoning with her when she’s like this. The two of us finally got to around ground level, and to my amusement Rainbow kept hovering quite a ways above the treeline. A quick search confirmed that she wasn’t in the immediate area. That was probably a good sign–if she’d hit the ground hard enough to be really hurt, she’d still be here. She’d probably just wandered off looking for help.

“Alright Rainbow, let’s split up and go looking for her.” I thought about suggesting some kinda systematic search pattern, but there’s no way Rainbow Dash would stick to any kind of complicated plan. Best to keep things simple enough that a pony with her non-existent attention span could handle it. Instead of making a plan, I just pointed to the left. “You go that way, I’ll go the other way. Just keep looking around, and we’ll find her eventually.”

“Who put you in charge?” Rainbow growled rebelliously. “I don’t have to listen to you! I’m gonna go that way!” Before I could even say anything in response Rainbow shot off in the exact opposite of the direction I’d suggested she go in. Typical Rainbow Dash, being contrary for the sake of being contrary. I just hope she doesn’t get lost, and I end up having to find her too.

I flew off in a rough half-spiral pattern that should cover my half of the search area reasonably well, looking for any sign of the yellow filly. I could see a rainbow blur off in the distance haphazardly zooming all over the place. She was probably passing over the same spot several times and leaving huge chunks of terrain completely unsearched. Did she ever use her head for anything other than a place to attach her mane?

After about a minute of searching I spotted a flash of yellow and pink through the trees, and came around for a lower, slower pass. Sure enough, the target was there. She looked like she was talking to some bunnies, squirrels, and other little critters. The weird part was that all the wild animals seemed to be getting along just fine with her. A second later I had a guess as to why–she had her Cutie Mark now. Must be her special talent or something. I was starting to get just a little jealous of all the ponies who were getting their marks now.

I landed a short distance away, but she was too busy talking to her animal friends to notice me. After a couple seconds, I decided to get her attention. “Hey, you alright?”

She immediately let out a startled little scream, and the animals scattered. She didn’t actually say anything to me though, so after a few seconds I took a couple steps towards her. She immediately let out a frightened squeak and shied away from me.

“Whoa, easy there.” What was she so nervous about anyway? I guess she must be one of those really shy kinds of ponies that don’t like talking to anypony they didn’t know. If that was the problem, then she just needed to get to know me. “Look, Rainbow Dash and I saw that you fell down, so we wanted to make sure you were alright. You remember Rainbow Dash, right? The filly who got those bullies to leave you alone?” I don’t think Rainbow actually bothered to introduce herself, but that crazy mane of hers makes is pretty easy for a pony who’s met her to guess who I’m talking about.

The filly still looked nervous, but she’d gone from looking like she was a second away from fleeing to just very uncomfortable. Alright, I was making progress. That’s good. “I’m Cloud Kicker. Have you ever heard of my family? Well, we protect other ponies and stuff, so you don’t have to be scared.”

She very briefly looked out from under mane at me. That was a good sign, but now I was starting to get a little nervous on account of how flighty she was. It was hard not to be a bit on-edge when you’re talking to somepony who seems like she would go running for the hills if I said the wrong thing. No wonder the bullies gave her so much trouble. Come to think of it, she was probably so unsure about dealing with ponies she didn’t know because she kept having trouble with bullies.

I tried to give her a nice, reassuring smile. “So anyway, like I said before, I’m Cloud Kicker. What’s your name?”

The filly gave a high-pitched squeal. Okay, at least I’d gotten some kind of answer from her. I had no idea what she’d just said, but at least she was trying to talk to me. I guess I needed to give her a bit more reassurance first though. “So, you got your cutie mark, right?” She shot another nervous look at me out of the corner of her eye before very slowly nodding. “That’s really neat. I wish I had a cool cutie mark like yours.”

“I’m sorry!” She quickly blurted out before taking several steps back and started cowering on the ground. “I’m sorry!”

“Huh? What are you apologising for?” That was a pretty weird way to react when you tell somepony that their cutie mark is neat. Most fillies are really happy when they finally get their Mark and joyfully showed it off to everypony they could find. Even with a rescue mission hanging over our heads, Rainbow couldn’t resist showing hers off.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered again, covering her eyes with her hooves. “I–I’d give you my cutie mark if I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry, please don’t...”

Oh Celestia, she thought I was mad at her. The bullies must have done a number on her if someone telling her something as harmless as ‘I like your cutie mark’ had her that scared. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m not gonna hurt you. Don’t you remember what I said earlier? My entire family protects scared ponies. We’re kinda awesome that way. So you don’t need to be scared, okay? I’m here to help you, so why would I hurt you or be mean to you?”

That got her to very slowly start removing her hooves from her eyes. I realized I was kinda towering over her now that she was practically lying flat on the ground, and dropped down to roughly her level. I was tempted to try stroking her mane or something, but as nervous as she was that would probably just make her think I was about to hit her or something.

Rainbow and I were being way too nice to the jerks up at Flight Camp. Once we got back, it was time to start teaching them some serious lessons.

“Anyway, Rainbow and I brought a cloud down for you.” I tried to keep my voice and body language as gentle and non-threatening as I could manage. “Once you’re ready to go, you can just hop right on it and we’ll fly you back up. It’ll be like having your own little private chariot. If you want I could even make you some cloud-reins to give me and Rainbow directions and give us a little smack if we start going too fast or slow.”

“Oh no,” she squeaked. “I–I could never do that.”

I decided to say something before she started apologizing again. “Relax, I was kidding about the reins.”

“Oh, it was a joke?” She ducked her head down under her mane. “I’m sorry I didn’t laugh at it. It was funny.” She let out a weak, very obviously forced laugh.

If not for the fact that it probably would’ve upset her more, I would’ve sighed and applied hoof to face. Was there anything I could possibly say to her that she wouldn’t interpret as something she needed to apologize for? It was like a conversational minefield. “Look, um ... Rainbow Dash and I are both good ponies, okay? Well, Rainbow can be a little rough around the edges, but I promise that she means well. Look, the bottom line is we’re here to help, and you don’t need to be scared of us. Okay?”

She very slowly nodded I was at least getting her to communicate, but I still felt like I needed to do something to get her to believe that Rainbow and I were good ponies. But what?

I grinned as the perfect idea came to mind. “Wait right here, I’ll be back in just a bit.” She let out a little squeak that I took for acknowledgement, and I took to the sky for long enough to grab the cloud I’d brought down from Cloudsdale. I could see Rainbow Dash still zooming around in the distance, looking for the pony I’d already found. I thought about calling her over, but I wasn’t sure how Supershy would react to me coming back with another pony. Plus ... well this filly needed to be handled with a delicate hoof, and Rainbow Dash isn’t good at that kinda thing.

“So, here’s the cloud.” I’m not sure why I said that–anypony with eyes could tell that it was a cloud. “So anyway, I was thinking that instead of taking you back to Cloudsdale on a plain old ordinary cloud, I should do something really cool with it. Y’know, so you can go back in style and all that.”

“Oh, I could never ask you to go to that much trouble,” she mumbled uncomfortably.

A wonderfully devious idea occurred to me. “So ... you’re saying you don’t want me to get this cloud all nice-looking for you?” I faked a very disappointed frown and forced my ears to droop down. “Oh, well–I guess that’s okay...”

It worked like a charm. “Oh my, I’m so sorry. Of course you can do whatever you want with that cloud.” I felt a little bad for guilting her, but if that was the only way I could get her to let me do something nice for her, then that’s what I would do. “Um...” She hesitantly pawed at the ground before whispering barely loud enough for me to hear, “Maybe you could put a bunny on it?”

“Bunny rabbits. Gotcha.” I put hooves to the cloud, and before long there was a roughly life-sized rabbit sitting on the front of the cloud.

“Oh, that’s incredible!” I was a little stunned when the pony who had barely spoken above an uncomfortable whisper suddenly went up to something that almost qualified as a normal speaking voice. I’d been hoping to get to open up a bit, but I hadn’t been expecting this much. Not that I was gonna complain about being too successful.

“So...” I took another tuft of cloud in hoof and started idly toying with it. “What next? Maybe a little hummingbird?”

She nodded eagerly. “Oh yes! Please!”

I spent the next couple minutes creating a veritable menagerie out of the cloud I brought down. Before long it started getting to the point where there would barely be any room on cloud to actually carry the formerly nervous filly back. It would’ve been smart to stop messing around with making cloud animals, but one look at the enraptured smile on her face and I knew that wasn’t an option. The little cloud critters just made her so happy that I didn’t have the heart to take them away.

Plus, I kinda liked doing this. I mean, it was pretty cool to be able to just take a chunk of ordinary cloud and turn it into something interesting that put a smile on a pony’s face. It was weird though–I mean, I’ve always kinda had a knack for messing around with clouds, but right now I was doing a hay of a lot better than I’d ever done before. Normally turning a little chunk of cloud into something that looked like a rabbit or a bird would’ve taken some effort, but right now whenever I grabbed that cloud I could just kinda ... feel it. It was like everything was falling into place, and I could figure out exactly what I needed to do to make the cloud change into whatever I wanted.

I don’t know how long the two of us would have kept at it, with me making little cloud critters and her happily gushing over every single one, if Rainbow Dash hadn’t found us. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that her complete inability to make any kind of methodical search had eventually resulted in her crossing over to my half of the search area. She zoomed down to the two of us and hit me with annoyed scowl. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over the place for ya! Why didn’t you let me know you’d found her?”

The arrival of a strange new pony had the expected effect on my new friend, and she fluttered shyly behind me. I was strangely happy about that–she might be scared and nervous, but she was expecting me to look out for her now instead of just running away. I gave her a quick little reassuring grin before I answered Rainbow Dash. “You might have noticed that she’s a just a little bit shy.”

Rainbow took one look at the nervous pegasus, and shot me a smirk. “Ya think?”

I turned back to the nervous nellie. “You can relax, that’s Rainbow Dash. You met her before, right? She’s alright, even if she acts like a bit of a jerk sometimes.” I pointedly ignored Rainbow’s grumble of protest at that description, and once she was done whining I turned to her. “So Rainbow, this is...” I drew a complete blank as it occurred to me that she never had gotten around to telling me her name. I quickly turned back to the filly hiding behind me. “Um ... what was your name again?”

“Eepysqueak.” In hindsight it would be obvious that this was just another one of her numerous frightened little squeals, but the problem with hindsight is that it usually comes too late to do anypony any good with their current problems.

“So yeah, this is Eepysqueak,” I finished my hanging sentence. “She’s a bit shy, but she’s pretty neat once you get her to open up.”

“Um–excuse me?” I was a little surprised when Eepysqueak actually injected herself into the conversation. Rainbow and I both turned to her, and she flinched down to the ground at the sudden attention focused on her. “It’s just... well you might want to look at your flank. I–um–I noticed it while I was hiding,..” she trailed off with a weak little murmer I couldn’t even begin to hear. With what I know now, she was probably trying to point out that I’d gotten her name wrong, but lost her nerve at the thought of correcting somepony like that.

In any case, whatever it was she’d been trying to say was immediately shoved out of my head when I got a good look at my flank. “By Shadow’s right hoof! I’ve got my cutie mark!” A picture of the sun partially covered by a cloud was now sitting proudly on my lavender fur. Not as cool as my dad’s wing blade and shield cutie mark, but not too shabby at all. I guess that means my special talent is messing around with clouds? For a moment I was disappointed that I hadn’t gotten something like a wing blade cutie mark that would be useful once I started working in the Guard with Mom and Dad. However, before long it occurred to me that messing with clouds would be really handy for stuff like setting up ambushes and blocking line of sight. Maybe I could even hit the bad guys with some nasty weather stuff. Like lightning! That would be cool.

Yeah, my new cutie mark and special talent were definitely awesome.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty cool cutie mark,” Rainbow Dash declared with a grin. A second later she crossed her forelegs over her chest and petulantly added. “Mine’s cooler though. Plus I still got mine before you did.”

“Sorry,” Eepysqueak whimpered as she wiped the blood off my muzzle. “I’m so sorry, Cloud Kicker.”

“It’s fine, Eepysqueak.” I gave her a reassuring little pat on the head pat with one of my forehooves. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s not your fault that bully was giving you trouble.” I’d gotten to know Eepysqueak pretty well over the last month or so at Flight Camp. After a couple weeks I found out her name was really Fluttershy, but by then the nickname had kinda stuck. However, one thing that hadn’t changed about her was her tendency to apologize at the drop of a hat.

“But ... but if I hadn’t gotten into trouble you wouldn’t have been hurt trying to protect me,” Eepysqueak mumbled uncomfortably.

“Hey.” I put her a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t you remember what I told you back when we first started being friends? I’m a Kicker, it’s my job to protect other ponies.” I gave her a cheeky grin, and quickly regretted it when that sent a pulse of pain shooting straight through my muzzle. “Think of it this way, Eepysqueak–you’re really kinda helping me out here. Someday I’m gonna protect the Princess just like my Mom and Dad, so taking care of ponies like you is good practice. After all, I wanna grow up to be loyal and strong and honorable, just like Granny Shadow!”

“But you’re already strong,” Fluttershy assured me. A second later she reverted back to being self-deprecating. “A lot stronger than me at least. If I wasn’t so weak and helpless you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“Hey.” I very deliberately looked her in the eye. “None of that, Eep. You wanna know why I got hurt? It’s because I didn’t duck fast enough, so that jerk managed to bop me one. It happens, I’ve gotten way worse from training with my family.” That wasn’t exactly true since my family used safety equipment when training that prevented bloody muzzles or other injuries, but with Eepysqueak sometimes the occasional white lie is the only way to keep her from working herself up too much. “Next time I run into some no-good punk who needs a good kick in the head, I’ll remember not to let him hit me.”

“Um...” Fluttershy shuffled her hooves uncomfortably for a bit before very quietly saying. “I don’t think anypony ever needs to be kicked in the head.”

“Not even jerks who give you a hard time?”

Eepysqueak gave tiny little nervous grin. “Well ... maybe they deserved it just a teeny tiny bit...”

That got a chuckle out of me. Still, it was good to see even that tiny little shred of assertiveness out of her. At this rate I might actually be able to get her to start standing up for herself just a tiny little bit by the time we got out of Flight Camp. Probably not to the point of actually smacking ponies when they deserved it, but any progress I could make would be good. Rainbow Dash and Derpy would do their part to help too. I hope I could keep in touch with her once Flight Camp was over–I was really gonna miss her once I had to go back to Canterlot.

Still, even with all the progress we made, she’d probably always be a bit of a doormat. That’s just how she was. “Eepysqueak, you’re really way too sweet for your own good sometimes.”

“Sorry,” she apologized as she wiped the rest of the blood off of my muzzle.

It was a struggle not to roll my eyes at her apology. I know that’s just the way she is, but it could get a little aggravating sometimes dealing with a pony who couldn’t have a conversation without apologizing almost every time she opened her mouth. “Eepysqueak, you don’t have to apologize unless you’ve done something wrong, okay?” I ran a hoof through her mane and gave her a reassuring little smile. “I like how nice you are. It’s part of why we’re such good friends, so you don’t need to apologize for that. All I was saying is that you don’t need to apologize for every little thing, okay?”

“Okay,” she meekly agreed. “I’ll try not to apologize too much. Sorry.” She let out a nervous little cry. “Oh my, I didn’t mean to apologize just then, I’m so sorry!” Eepysqueak let out a horrified gasp. “Oh no, that’s twice now! I’m sor–”

I gently put a hoof over her mouth to cut her off before she could have a complete meltdown. In hindsight, I really should’ve seen that one coming. If there was anypony in all of Equestria who could apologize for apologizing, it was Eepysqueak. “Just forget I said anything. You’re fine the way you are. Actually, I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

That got another tentative little smile out of her. “Okay.” On impulse I wrapped wing around her and pulled her into a friendly hug. Eepysqueak gave a happy little squeak and nuzzled my cheek.

If not for the fact that I was still bleeding a little, we might’ve stayed comfortable like that for a while, but not even the prospect of a friendly hug was enough to deter her from the need to fuss over me like a mother hen. She always made a big deal over it when I got a little roughed up. Even if sometimes she got way too worked up over nothing sometimes, I tried not to let it bother me since that was just how she showed she cared. It was kinda nice, having somepony get all worried when I got a little bump or bruise like that.

Eepysqueak pulled off another little tuft of cloud and wiped the last bit of blood off of my muzzle before gently but firmly pressing down on the injury. It was kinda hard to talk with her hoof on top of my nose like that, so I settled for giving her an occasional friendly pat on the shoulder with a forehoof.

After a minute or so she removed the cloud, and a quick check of my muzzle confirmed that the bleeding had stopped. Not only was it really cute the way she always played nurse for me, but she was also pretty good at it. “Cool. Great job, Eepysqueak.”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything that special,” she answered with a bashful little blush. “Anypony could have cleaned you up and stopped the bleeding. I’m sure the camp nurses could’ve done a much better job than I did. Well, if they were here anyways...”

I grinned at her and tossed a hoof over her shoulders. “Maybe, but I like it a lot better when it’s you doing it.” That little bit of praise didn’t do anything to fix Eepy’s modest blushing. I pulled her into another one-winged hug. “Anyway, thanks for patching me up.”

“Oh no, you don’t need to thank me.” I swear, if she started blushing any more her coat would stop being yellow. “If anything I should be thanking you. I mean, I don’t really like seeing other ponies get into fights or getting hurt, but I still really appreciate you doing that just to protect me. So ... um ...”

Whoa, she was sounding nervous. Like, more nervous than she usually is. I turned my head towards her so I could see what the problem was. “Eeps, is something–”

The rest of what I was about to say got cut off by what had to be the most unexpected thing in the world. Eepysqueak’s lips.

Holy Celestia! Eepysqueak was kissing me!

And it. Felt. Awesome! No wonder the adults liked this kinda thing.

A second later Eepysqueak pulled away from me with a terrified little squeal. If not for the fact that I’d been wing-hugging her I think she probably would’ve tried to fly away. Well, that and the fact that her wings usually locked up whenever she was scared. Instead she just drawing in gaspy, panicked breaths while her eyes started darting around wildly. Okay, get her to calm down first, then I could deal with the whole ‘what the hay do I do about getting kissed by a friend’ thing. “Easy, Eepysqueak. It’s okay, calm down. Everything’s alright, Fluttershy.” Normally I preferred sticking to her nickname, but when she got all nervous and panicky–moreso than usual, that is–sometimes using her real name helped her to relax.

After a bit she started getting less terrified, but that just meant she went from hyperventaliting to crying. “I’m sorry!” she wailed out. “I didn’t mean to–I was just trying to give you a kiss on the cheek but then you turned your head and instead I...” She clapped her hooves over her mouth for a second, and then quickly added. “Not–not that I was saying it was your fault or anything! Of course not! It was my fault, and I really shouldn’t have done that without asking you first and I’m so sorry! Please don’t hate me!”

I brought up a hoof to wipe her tears away and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I could never hate you, Eepysqueak.”

Eepysqueak seemed to calm down a bit when I said that. She was still pretty scared, but at least she wasn’t on the verge of giving herself a heart attack or anything. Finally, she very quietly murmured. “But ... I kissed you.”

“That’s okay, Eepysqueak.” I felt my own cheeks go hot as I told her. “I didn’t mind it. It was ... actually kinda nice.”

That seemed to finally get her to stop worrying, though it made her blush return full force. “Really? Um ... I um–I liked it too.”

“Cool.” I let out a nervous little chuckle. I hesitated for a moment before I said. “Y’know, if you want we could do it again.”

Eepysqueak nodded very slowly, and then nervously leaned forward to give a second very tentative and experimental little kiss. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but this one was even better than the last one. I guess because this time I wasn’t surprised, so I could actually take a bit of time to enjoy it.

By the time she pulled back both of us were blushing like mad. I managed to overcome my nerves for long enough to speak first. “Wow. That was ... wow.”

“Yes,” Eepysqueak agreed breathily. “That was ... nice.”

“Nice?” Nice wasn’t even close to a good enough word for what that felt like. “That was the best thing ever!” There were so many things going through my head right now that I had no idea what to make of them all. One thing I knew for sure though–kissing Fluttershy was great, and I wanted to do more of it. Like, a lot more. “D’you wanna, um ... you didn’t have to stop.”

“Oh?” The smile Eepysqueak gave me was extremely tenuous, but it was also the biggest smile I’d ever seen from her that didn’t come from nurturing some cute little ground animal. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind if I ... um ... if I kissed you again?”

I grinned right back at her. “Eeps, I can’t think of anything I would mind less.”

Life was great.

I had a fillyfriend. Words cannot describe how amazing that is. Every day after lessons Eepysqueak and I would find somewhere nice and isolated, and do some more kissing and other stuff. It wasn’t hard to find somewhere private to do stuff for a while, especially since there were never any counselors around.

Eepysqueak and I had a lot of fun. Some of it was a little weird since we were kinda figuring it all out on our own, but once we got the hang of it all it was pretty cool.

And then there was that first time when we ... well. Wow. I mean, wow. I don't even remember any of the adults talking about that at any point. I had no idea I could ever feel like that, but Eepysqueak ... wow. Yeah, after the first time, we started doing that every time we got together.

So yeah, life was going pretty good for me. Good friends, completely amazing fillyfriend who I was getting to slowly come out of her shell, and even the fact that Flight Camp still kinda sucked wasn’t nearly enough to offset all that.

In other words, life was going great.

Then Rainbow Dash tackled me. And this wasn’t like some friendly little tackle like she’d do when she was feeling energetic, this was a full-speed hooves-first slam. I dimly heard and felt something in my side cracking when she hit me.

The two of us rolled along the clouds for a while until she slammed me down on my back. Rainbow was on top, resting her hindquarters on my stomach and pinning me down with her forelegs. “Rainbow, what the hay are you–”

The rest of the question got abruptly cut off by a hoof to the face. Then she hit me again, and started screaming at me. I couldn’t even understand most of what she was saying, especially since I was a just a little distracted by the fact that she kept punching me in the head, but I could make out that it was something about Eepysqueak.

I brought up my left foreleg to try to stave off any more hits from Rainbow. “Rainbow, stop! What the hay is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?”

“Feather you! You feathering know what you feathering did, you feathering featherer!” I was about to praise her creativity in throwing out obscenities when she slammed both her forehooves into my upraised foreleg, and it hurt! When I finally stopped shrieking I tried to move my foreleg, but even a tiny twitch of movement hurt enough make me scream again.

That’s when it really started dawning on me. This was not an ordinary little schoolyard scuffle where we ruffled some bully’s feathers and gave him a little bruise or two. This was serious. Rainbow Dash was trying to hurt me bad, and she wasn’t gonna stop unless I made her stop. If I didn’t do something to make her stop, she was gonna kill me!

I had to hit her back, and I had to hit back hard. I tried to remember what Mom told me when she showing me a little bit of Krav Pega. That would’ve been a lot easier to do if Rainbow wasn’t punching me in the head so much.

Eventually one of those lessons popped into my head and gave me a decent solution. I took my unbroken right foreleg, and slammed the hoof right into one of Rainbow’s eyes.

The psychotic pegasus threw her head back and screamed, clutching both her forelegs over her injured eye. For a brief moment I felt sorry for her, until I remembered that the smack in the eye was the only reason she wasn’t still trying to smash my face into pulp. If I didn’t do something to stop her, she’d get right back to doing it again. I needed to hurt her bad enough that she would stop trying to kill me

I followed up my first shot with a hoof to the throat that cut Rainbow’s screaming off into a choking gurgle. I followed up with a shot to the chest while I rolled my hindquarters, and I finally managed to get her off me.

As soon as I got back onto my three working hooves blood started pouring into my eyes. Dammit, she must’ve opened up a cut on my forehead or something. While I’d been on my back it hadn’t been a big problem, but now that I was upright all that blood was headed straight down. A couple quick swipes of my undamaged foreleg managed to get the worst of the blood away, but there was still more coming down.

What was I supposed to do now? My first instinct was to run for it and find help, but there was no way I could get away from Rainbow Dash if she chased me. Hay, she was faster than most of the counselors here, let alone me. If she caught me in the air, I was dead. Smack. Fall. Impact. Dead.

I felt a little short of breath, but when I tried to take a deep breath, it felt like my entire right side was on fire. Then I started coughing, and every single cough felt like I was getting stabbed in the side. When the coughing fit finally stopped, the section of cloud underneath my mouth was covered in blood. I’ve read enough books to know that’s bad. Really bad.

Rainbow seemed to have finally recovered from the hits I’d landed on her, although the eye I’d put a hoof into was squeezed shut, and she was stalking towards me with a predatory grin. “Go on. Run. I dare ya.”

That wasn’t an option. It was fight, or die. Even then, I was in bad enough shape that she’d win if we kept going at it. I needed to change the dynamics of the situation, and fast.

I did have one advantage–her right eye was closed up. If I could get around to her blind side, it would give me a chance to get some hits in and turn the fight around. The only problem was that if Rainbow had half a brain, she’d know that too, and since she was faster and in better shape than me...

Lucky for me, Rainbow Dash has never been all that good at the more subtle aspects of tactics. I had to switch to hovering just over the surface of the clouds; I wasn’t gonna be moving very fast with one of my forelegs not working, and I needed maneuverability for this. Rainbow started hovering too, a confident smirk on her face.

I darted towards her blind side, and she immediately started turning to keep her good eye on me. Unfortunately for Rainbow, the first move had been a feint. I pulled a quick turn that sent me past Rainbow’s left side and clamped my teeth into her wing. With the two of us flying in opposite directions, I had more than enough momentum going to wrench the wing out of it’s socket.

Rainbow plummeted down to the clouds with a howl. I was home free–with one of her wings out of commission I should be able to make my getaway. At least, that was the idea–before I could take any pride in that victory or put the plan into action another nasty coughing fit hit me. By the time it passed. I was back on the clouds, and RD was charging me despite the limp wing hanging at her side.

So much for flying away. I might have two working wings, but the rest of me was too messed up for that to count. It was kinda funny, in a perverse way. Everything but my wings were broken, and I couldn't fly. Rainbow could run fast enough that if I went down again before I got help she’d be on me. Hay, as bad as I was doing she might not even need to chase me; I might just crash all on my own before I could find somepony. If I was going to have any chance at all, I had to stop her from chasing me.

I took advantage of Rainbow’s biggest weakness by using tactics again. I played possum until she was almost on top of me, then quickly rolled aside. A particularly ingenious idea idea popped into my head as Rainbow started going past. I knew from messing around with Fluttershy that both of us were very sensitive Down There. I planted my one worked forehoof into the clouds and bucked out, slamming both of my hindhooves right under her tail.

Rainbow went down screaming. That'll show her not to mess with a Kicker!

“Gotcha!” I hissed triumphantly.

Before I could do anything more, my working legs collapsed underneath me as a wave of exhaustion slammed into me like the Friendship Express, and I started coughing up blood again. All those injuries I’d been trying very hard to ignore while the fight was still ongoing were reminding me that they were all still there. Okay ... OW! My face hurt. My left foreleg hurt. My ribs hurt. Just feathering breathing hurt. And my head really, really feathering hurt!

After that things got a little blurry. I don’t know how long I was lying down on the cloud before Eepysqueak and Derpy showed up. Probably not that long though–Rainbow Dash was still screaming just as loud as she’d been when I took her down.

“Eebysqueak?” My voice came out badly slurred.

Eepysqueak frantically looked back and forth between me and my completely insane ex-friend, her mouth letting out a constant stream of panicked babbling. “Ohmygoodness ohmygoodness ohmygoodness!”

Seeing Eepysqueak reminded me that Rainbow had been screaming something about Eepy when she attacked me. Wait ... was Rainbow trying to hurt Eepysqueak? That bitch! I staggered to my hooves, drunkenly swaying from side to side as I tried to get over to Rainbow. “C'mon, geddup! m’not done wid you!” Ugh, I was still slurring my words. What was up with that? Maybe it because Rainbow slugged me in the mouth a couple times, or maybe it had something to do with that nasty headache I had.

It took a couple seconds for my fuzzy brain to figure out that Rainbow Dash was not trying to hurt Eepysqueak. In fact, Rainbow was currently curled up into a ball and screeching in pain. I must’ve really hurt her. Good. Crazy feathering psycho.

As soon as I’d confirmed that Eepysqueak was safe, the burst of energy that had very briefly gotten me onto my hooves faded and I tumbled back to the clouds. Even the soft little impact of hitting fluffy cloud was enough to trigger another coughing fit.

Derpy managed to recover her wits before Eepysqueak, who was still busy panicking. Derpy flew over to the two of us and started looking us over, her jaw slack in disbelief. “What the hay happened? Rainbow? Cloud Kicker!”

Derpy’s shouts seemed to finally snap Eepysqueak out of her shocked state of paralysis. To my vague annoyance, she flew over to Rainbow Dash instead of me. I tried to say something, but another nasty coughing fit hit me right then. I watched as Eepysqueak carefully removed Rainbow’s hooves from the area underneath her tail, and Eepysqueak let out a horrified gasp. “Oh...my...Derpy, she's really, really hurt.”

While my fillyfriend was busy worrying about the crazy lunatic who had just tried to kill me for no feathering reason, Derpy was busy checking on me. “Whoa! Fluttershy, Cloud Kicker’s in really bad shape too! Geez, she looks like she got into a fight with a dozen griffons! Who did this to them?”

Eepysqueak stopped trying to take care of Rainbow Crazy and pawed at the clouds several seconds before she finally answered. “Um, I think they did it to each other. I–” she cut herself off when she noticed that our resident psycho was twitching her dislocated wing. “No! Rainbow Dash, you mustn't do that! You'll make it worse!”

Derpy’s jaw hit the clouds. “What? They – what? Why would they do that? What the feather happened?”

“Dat fea’ing cra’y ‘itch trydta kill me!” I snarled weakley.

Eepysqueak was still trying to take care of Crazy McPsycho, who seemed to be trying to keep her from helping. As far as I was concerned, Eepy should take a hint and leave Rainbow be. I’d gone to a lot of trouble to hurt her that much. “No, Rainbow, stop!” Eepysqueak’s eyes widened in horror when she noticed that there was a nice little pool of blood under Rainbow’s rump. “Oh, NO!”

Meanwhile, Derpy was doing what my fillyfriend should’ve been doing, and trying to take care of me. She’d grabbed a chunk of cloud and was trying to clean all the blood off of my face, but the instant she touched my muzzle it sent a lance of pain shooting up it that made my eyes water. I pulled away, and then another coughing fit struck me and Derpy got a face-full of blood. “Oops.” I groaned. “My bad.”

Derpy wiped her face off, and paled when she realized that I’d coughed blood onto her. “Oh geez, I think Cloud Kicker's ... I think she’s in really bad shape! She’s coughing blood! We ... we gotta get them to somepony who knows what to do!”

Eepysqueak looked back and forth between me and my ex-friend, and nodded. “Okay! I'll go find somepony, you stay and keep Rainbow from–no! Don't put cloud on it, it won't help!”

Rainbow was still sobbing in pain like a little filly. Which was tragic. Just tragic.

Derpy shook her head. “No way Fluttershy, you know what you’re doing here better than I do. You stay here and take and take care of them while I go get somepony!” Derpy took off and immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs. “HELP! SOMEPONY HELP!”

Unfortunately, Derpy flying off meant I was all alone, while Eepysqueak was busy playing nurse for the insane pony who’d put me in this condition in the first place. For a second I was mad at Eepysqueak, until I realized that she probably had no idea what happened here. She thought Rainbow Dash was still our friend, not some lunatic who went around trying to kill ponies for no good reason. I had to warn her! I should’ve told her sooner, but it was so hard to think when my head hurt so feathering much. “Eep!” I called out to her, which prompted some more coughing, but I did at least manage to get attention. “C’mere Eep. Gotta tell ya ... warn ya ‘bout Rainbow...”

Eepysqueak hesitantly moved away from the dangerous lunatic and flew over to me. I tried to start explaining what happened, but just then another coughing fit hit me. Eepyqueak punched a divot into the nearby cloud and quickly turned my head so the blood landed in the divot instead of spraying all over the place. “You're okay. Okay, that's good. Um...just stay there, okay? Breath into the cloud and–” Eepysqueak looked back to check on Rainbow again, and let out a panicked shout. “No, Rainbow! No! You’ll hurt yourself if you–”

Now that my head was turned to the side I couldn’t see what was going on, but Rainbow was screaming again while Eepysqueak was desperately trying to calm her down. The screaming was different this time, scared instead of hurt. She better be scared–as soon as I healed up I was coming for her. Let’s see how good she does when she doesn’t start the fight by ambushing me.

I couldn’t let thinking about the re-match distract me though, Fluttershy was in danger and she didn’t even know it. I had to warn her! “Eep! Gotta geddaway! S’dangerous! Gotta geddaway from Rainbow ‘fore she...”

Something happened that I really wasn’t expecting–Eepysqueak yelled at me. “Not now, Cloud Kicker!” Then she turned her attention back to Rainbow and started desperately reassuring her. “No no, it's okay, it's okay, you're going to be okay...”

That’s when it clicked. Fluttershy was ignoring me and taking care of Rainbow, and that didn’t make any sense. Unless Rainbow hadn’t gone crazy and attacked me for no reason after all. She’d been trying to take Fluttershy away from me. No, if Fluttershy was acting this she wasn’t just trying, she’d... “Eep? You’n ... Rainbow?”

I had to get outta here. I tried to get up to my hooves so I could take off, but it was kinda hard to do when just about every single part of my body hurt. I had to do it though–I did not want to be around those two right now if they’d...

Fluttershy rushed over in front of me and gently placed her hooves on my shoulders. “Oh, nono! Stay down! If you have a concussion and fall, you'll hurt yourself even worse! Just–um, dig a pit into the cloud and spit into it, okay?”

“No.” I stubbornly shook my head, which was a mistake since it made my headache spike up bad enough that I swayed on my three working hooves. “Leavin' Dunwanna beround you’n Rainbow.”

I tried to take off, and Fluttershy gently but firmly held me down. “No! Please, don't move! Please!”

I tried to get loose, but as battered as I was Fluttershy was more than a match for me. Wow, Rainbow had really done a number on me if Fluttershy could overpower me. “You'n Rainbow’re ... Lemme go. Wanna go.”

“No!” Fluttershy wrapped her forelegs around my neck to hold me down, and I was a little surprised when I realized that her cheeks were soaking wet. She was crying. I guess that shouldn’t have been such a surprise after all. “Cloud Kicker, please stop! If you try to fly right now you'll crash! That could kill you!”

Okay, this wasn’t making any sense. Why was she all worried and crying if she was leaving me for Rainbow? Why was everything going so crazy? Ugh, this would be so much easier to work out if my head didn’t hurt so much! First things first, I had to know. “Flu'shy? Gotta askya...”

Fluttershy tightened her grip around my neck very slightly. “Of course. W–what is it?”

I struggled for a moment to figure out how to put my fears into words. “Flu'shy? You'n Rainbow? Izzat why she–” The rest of the question got cut off when I started coughing blood onto Fluttershy’s back.

“Oh goodness!” Fluttershy went from hugging me to bracing my head until I got all the blood out of my throat. She didn’t even mention the blood I’d coughed onto her; she really is a sweetheart. Once I was done, she answered my question. “No, Rainbow and I didn’t–it's not like that. She's been a really good friend, and, um ... after we ... um, I wasn't really sure about some ... things and went to ask her for some advice.”

Oh thank Celestia. When I thought she’d been leaving me for somepony else, and that’s why this whole thing had happened... but she wasn’t. We were okay. “Good. Love you, Eepy.”

I let out a contented little sigh when Eepysqueak nuzzled the top of my head. I might be in buckets of pain, but at least I had my fillyfriend taking care of me. That made it ... still agonizingly painful, but not quite as bad as it could have been. “Yeah, um... me too, Cloud Kicker.” A second later she let out a relieved breath and started waving her forehooves above her head. “Oh thank goodness, Derpy! Over here!”

It was a relief to see that Derpy was finally back, and a real relief to see that she’d actually managed to find one of the elusive camp counselors who were supposed to be keeping an eye on us. Not that they’d ever actually done their job–I’m pretty sure the only reason Derpy actually managed to find one was because she’d been screaming her head off.

The counselor took one look at the condition we were in and his jaw dropped. “What the feather happened here?” He sweating and nervously flapping his wings. “Oh horseapples! This is bad, this is really bad! I am so fired...”

To my utter amazement, Eepysqueak actually yelled at him. “Forget your job, look at them!” Eepysqueak pointed a hoof at me. “My fillyfriend is coughing up blood, her nose and one of her forelegs are broken, and I think she has a concussion!”

I had a concussion? Oh. I guess that would explain why it felt like Rainbow was still pounding the hay outta my head and I couldn’t talk right.

“And–and Rainbow Dash is...” Eepysqueak flitted over Rainbow Dash and tried to move her tail, prompting a moan of protest from the lunatic pegasus and a half-hearted attempt to get away. “Look at–nono, Rainbow, please trust me, I need to move your tail, okay?” Rainbow struggled for a little bit longer, but after Eepysqueak whispered to her a bit more she went along and let Eepysqueak display the damage.

I wasn’t at a good angle to see just how bad it all was, but from the way the counselor winced when he saw it must be really bad. Nice to know I’d left a mark on her for going all psycho-murderer on me. “Oh ... oh geez.” The counselor started nervously pawing at the ground. “Oh this is bad. This is really, really bad. I–uh–look, can you two help her?” He pointed a forehoof at me, “If you two can get her to the nurse’s station, then I can carry–uh–Rainbow.”

Rainbow gasped and started trying to crawl away. “N-no. Duncarry. Duntouch...” Her voice was incredibly hoarse, probably from all the screaming she’d been doing earlier.

The counselor looked back and forth between me and Rainbow a couple more times, and pulled off his ballcap to wipe sweat out of his eyes. “Oh geez, this is way too much for me to handle. I'm going to go find the nurses and–no, feather that. This is too much for them, I’m gettin’ Life Flight out here.” He turned to Derpy and Eepysqueak. “You two stay with your friends while I go get them, okay?”

The mostly useless counselor flew off, leaving the four of us alone. To be honest, I was just a little bit shaken up that he was actually calling in Life Flight. They only do that for ponies who are in really, really bad shape. Yeah, I hurt all over and there was the whole coughing up blood thing, but knowing that somepony was calling for emergency medical care somehow made it all seem so much more real. They don’t call in Life Flight unless somepony’s gonna die if the doctors don’t get to them in time. I wasn’t just hurt, I was hurt bad enough that there was a risk I would end up dead!

I started panicking, which made the pain in my side start flaring up horribly. A second later. Eepysqueak’s hooves were on my shoulders, and she was looking me in the eyes with barely concealed panic. “No! Cloud Kicker, you have to calm down! Please! If you start hyperventilating with your lungs hurt...” Fluttershy ran her hoof through my mane and whispered more gentle reassurances, and I eventually managed to calm down.

Once I stopped panicking about myself, I remembered that I wasn’t the only wounded pony. Rainbow might have gone all crazy killer on me, but I didn’t want her dead. Well, not much. “Cansee ... habad’s Rainbow?”

Derpy carefully helped me get onto my three working hooves so I could turn around and get a look at Rainbow. “It's ruptured, Kicky. She’s ... she’s really bleeding a lot down there.”

I felt my carefully controlled anger spike back up at how much concern both of them were showing over Rainbow. “Gud.” I had to cough up a bit more blood before I could finish the thought. “Cra'y 'itch trydta kill me.”

Rainbow was still curled up and shivering in pain, but she managed to recover enough to get out a few choice words. “Biteme ... you ... raping cun‒AAAAahahahaha!”

Derpy’s eyes went wide and she instinctive stepped away from me. “W–what?!”

Okay, that tears it. She was going to make up completely insane lies like that about me on top of attacking me for no feathering reason. “Gonna kill you!” If Derpy hadn’t immediately interposed herself between the two of us, I would’ve done my best to make good on that threat.

Eepysqueak started flapping between Rainbow and me, as if she wasn’t sure which one of us she wanted to talk to first. Finally, she landed a bit closer to Rainbow and let out a stream of panicked babble. “Rainbow, do you think she ... she...” Eepysqueak gave a sharp shake of her head. “No! Rainbow, she didn't–I was just confused, I–oh, this is all my fault! I ... I...” Eepysqueak broke down into tears and started sobbing hysterically.

Seeing the filly I loved in so much pain was not doing anything to convince me not to kill Rainbow. Unfortunately, Derpy was still in my way, and I wasn’t in good enough shape to get around her right now. She put a gentle but firm set of hooves on my shoulders and carefully put me back down on the clouds. “Sit. Now.” Derpy took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “What happened with you and Fluttershy?”

I took a moment to try to unjumble my thoughts as best I could with my horribly aching head before I answered. “She's muh fillyfriend. Love her.” I angrily waved my one working foreleg in Rainbow’s general direction. “Pshycho lyin' ich. Jush jealoush!”

Rainbow managed to stop whimpering in pain for long enough to spout out more of her poisonous lies. “Not jeaAAaalus ... you raped ... ohcelestiakillme”

If Derpy hadn’t been holding me down, I would’ve made another effort at getting up to beat the feathers off of her. “You liar!”

Eepysqueak let out an ear-piercing screech. “Stoppit! Both of you stop it!” She flew right up to Rainbow and looked her dead in the eyes. “I wasn't–she didn't–Rainbow, she did not do that to me! Do you understand me? She did not! Why didn't you stop to listen to me?”

Derpy let out an exasperated groan and probably would have applied hoof to face if she didn’t need both her forelegs to hold me back. “Rainbow, you idiot. You jumped into a cloud without checking for lightning. Again.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved that Rainbow hadn’t gone completely nuts on me after all, or enraged that she actually believed I was capable of doing something like that. “Tolja. Ne'er do that! Luv Eepy!”

Rainbow’s ears drooped so flat against her head that they were practically touching her neck and she let out a low, pained moan. “She's my ... frien'. I–I Didn' think ... wantedta help.”

Eepysqueak’s voice dropped back to it’s usual soft and understanding tone. “I'm very grateful for that, but hurting somepony never helps!”

Meanwhile, my anger was starting to win out over my relief. “You ... Rainbow, you really think I'd...” I gave a very annoyed snort. “Still kinda wanna kill ya.”

Eepysqueak flew up to me and put her hoof down. “Cloud Kicker, despite everything she’s done Rainbow Dash is still my friend, and I don’t want to see her get hurt. I'm very sorry she hurt you, and she is too.” Eepysqueak paused and shot an uncompromising look Rainbow’s way. “Isn’t that right, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow groaned and shot an apologetic look my way. “Yeah. M’sorry, ‘kay Cloud?”

I was still pretty mad at her, but I could at least kinda understand what had happened now. Rainbow had been incredibly stupid and impulsive, but that’s not exactly unusual for her. I might be justifiably pissed off that she’d completely flown off the handle, but I couldn’t exactly hate her for what she’d done. She might be an idiot, but her heart had been in the right place. “Rainbow, yer dumb.”

Rainbow let out a sigh that turned into another groan of pain halfway through. “Yeah, ‘m really dumb. Sorry, Cloud. Sorry, Flutter.”

Eepysqueak sighed and very hesitantly said. “I ... I can forgive you, Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy flew up to me and put a gentle hoof on my shoulder. “I understand that you’re still mad at her. I–I’m upset with her right now too, but you mustn’t hate each other. I couldn’t bear for my friends to hate each other. No matter how angry you are with her, I want you to understand that she only did what she did because she thought she was protecting me.”

Derpy sighed and slowly nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she really jumped to a conclusion, but that's how she works. Can we just ... put all this behind us now? Please?”

Fluttershy dropped down and looked into my eyes imploringly. “Cloud Kicker, please. When I see my friends get hurt it hurts me too, and I don’t want that.”

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating–Eepysqueak was too much of a sweetheart for her own good. “'Kay. Sorry Eep. Wouldn’ really kill ‘er, juzmad at ‘er. Would'n hurt you. Ne'er hurt you. Luv you.”

Fluttershy nibbled at her lower lip for a bit before she spoke up again. “Cloud Kicker, I–um ... you–really hurt Rainbow Dash. I–I know I shouldn’t be mad at you for defending yourself, but she’s bleeding and in so much pain and I...”

My temper flared up at that. I could understand being upset that Rainbow was hurt, but taking it to the point of criticizing me just for defending myself? “She hit me first! Sa' she wuzgonna kill me! Hadta fight back!

“Calm down, Cloud Kicker,” Derpy chided me gently. “I mean yeah, Rainbow was pretty upset, but she wouldn’t really try to kill you, right Rainbow?”

Rainbow buried her head in the clouds. “M’sorry, ‘kay? M’really sorry. I really feathered up.”

Derpy let out a horrified gasp, while Eepysqueak let out a low moan of horror and started crying again. “Nonono ... this is my fault.” Eepysqueak wrapped her forelegs around Derpy and started sobbing into her shoulder. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!”

Eepysqueak was crying. She needed me to be there. I managed to myself sitting more or less upright on the clouds, and then got my wings flapping fast enough to give me a little lift. It hurt like hay, but Eepysqueak needed me. It was hard, but I eventually managed to get up to her start stroking her mane with my uninjured foreleg. “S'okay Eep, s’notcher fault. S'okay. Dunhafta be scared. Luv you.”

Eepysqueak initially tensed up when I touched her, but a moment later she let go of Derpy and whirled around to wrap her hooves around my neck instead. I was kinda grateful for that, since now I could lean on her to keep my balance. “No, it is! It is!” After that words started spilling out of her in a torrent. I tried to follow along, but between my massive headache and the way her words were mixed with all the sobbing, it was kinda hard to actually understand what she was saying. I got the most important part though–she was blaming herself for everything that happened.

I said the only thing I could think of that make it right. “S'okay, Eep. S'okay.”

Before I could think of anything more sophisticated to say than that, the camp counselor who’d flown off to go get help came back several other pegasi carrying a couple clouds. “They're right over here, hurry! Two of them are really–oh feathers, that's a big bloodstain...”

A mare who was presumably some kind of doctor if her medicine-y cutie mark was anything to judge by quickly flew up to Rainbow Dash and did a quick examination. “Oh Celestia, I’ve never seen that much blood in a camp setting before.” She dropped down in front of Rainbow Dash and looked her in the eyes. “Sweetie? are you okay? How do you feel?”

“Dumb.” Rainbow groaned. “Hurt m’friend ‘cause’m dumb. Stupid Rainbow.”

The doctor put a hoof on Rainbow’s withers and gave her a very gentle shake. “How do you feel physically? What hurts?”

“Wing’s kinda sore, can’ see s’good outta m’eye.” Rainbow answered woozily. “Was hurtin’ bad down there, but it’s not s’bad now ... just gotta warmup ... kinda cold...”

The medic quickly checked Rainbow’s nethers, then pulled back and hissed something under her breath before she turned to one of the pairs of pegasi carrying a cloud. “She's lost too much blood, she’s going into shock. Get her to Cloudsdale General, and get her there fast!”

All three of us stared as the pegasi hastily loaded Rainbow onto a cloud before they took flying fast enough to give Rainbow Dash a run for her money. Derpy asked the question that was on all our minds.“Is ... is she gonna be alright?”

“She’ll be fine.” I might have felt just a bit more reassured if her voice hadn’t held just a touch of dismissal or if she’d looked me in the eyes when she said it. In hindsight, I can’t really blame her for being too busy keeping me and Rainbow alive to bother with holding Derpy and Flutterhy’s hooves, but at the time it rankled on me. My friends were scared, and she wasn’t even making a token effort to help them calm down.

Before I could come up with some way of expressing my displeasure, the doctor was up next to me.“Young filly, look at me!” I tried to do exactly that, but for some reason it was really, really difficult to focus on her. It’s not even like I was getting distracted or anything, I just couldn’t focus at all, no matter how hard I tried.

The doctor mumbled a couple things to herself, and then started asking me questions again. “Can you breathe? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Okay, answering questions. That, I could deal with. “Breathin'” I answered shortly. Another coughing spasm hit me before I could answer the second question. I thought about trying to catalogue all my injuries for her, and I just couldn’t pull it off. When I tried listing it all out in my head, I lost track of what I’d been thinking way too fast. In the end, I settled for just keeping my answer simple. “Hurtin' alotta places.”

The doctor nodded to herself. “Okay, you're going to the hospital too. We’re going to put you down on a patch of cloud, and you’ll need lean your head back to help your airway open up.” She pointed a hoof at Eepysqueak and Derpy. “You two stay with her on the cloud and let the gentlecolts pushing you know if she starts having serious trouble breathing.” While the two Life Flight pegasi carefully loaded me onto the cloud, the doctor turned her attention on the counselor. “You, I need whatever medical records you have on those two. I do not want to find out after the fact that they have a drug allergy or some other condition that‘s going to complicate their treatment.”

The cloud started moving underneath me, and I quickly lost sight of the other two ponies. Derpy and Eepysqueak were still on the cloud with me, though. Derpy was almost frantically pacing around the tiny cloud, while Eepysqueak was sitting a bit behind me with her forehooves bracing the side of my head. I guess she making sure I didn’t have too much trouble breathing or something. More importantly, there were tears trickling down her face. I said the only thing I could think of to make her feel better. “Eep? Luv you. Always. 'kay?”

That didn’t seem to help her at all. If anything, it actually made her start crying harder, and she started rocking back and forth on the cloud and quietly mumbling to herself. “What have I done? What have I done?”

I said the only thing my punch-drunk brain could come up with to reassure her. “S'gonna be okay, Eep.”

Eepysqueak let out a single broken sob. “No, Cloud Kicker! It’s not okay! Nothing’s okay! You’re hurt and Rainbow Dash might be dying and it's all my fault! I went to her and now she's dying and it's my fault!”

Derpy ran up to Eepysqueak, grabbed her by the shoulders, and gave her a couple quick shakes until she managed to regain a tiny bit of her composure. “Fluttershy, calm down! It is not your fault and she is not dying!” Derpy turned to the two Life Flight Pegasi pushing our cloud and her ears drooped. “She ... she’s not dying, right?”

“Cloudsdale General is one of the best hospitals in Equestria,” one of them answered neutrally. “Hold on, and watch your friend's head.”

That didn’t do much to reassure Eepysqueak. With my brain as addled as it was, I couldn’t really think of much to say that would make her feel better, so I opted for speaking through my actions instead. After a bit of work I managed to get my unbroken foreleg around Eepysqueak’s neck and guide her down to a point where I could lean up enough kiss her on the cheek. The kiss left a bloody spot on her fur–I guess I should’ve expected that, with how much blood I’d been coughing up ever since the fight. It’s too bad I was in no condition to give her a proper kiss right now, because she really looked like she could use one. “Eep? Luv you.”

I’d hoped that between the kiss and the words she’d start feeling a bit better, but instead I just made things worse. Eepysqueak’s last bits of composure shattered, and started sobbing as if her whole world was falling apart. “I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker! I s-so su-su-sorry! I wuh-went for advice ... and I hurt my f-f-ffillyfriend and got another one of my friends killed. I'm a terrible pony!”

Seeing Eepysqueak in so much pain hurt more than half the injuries I’d picked up during the fight. I was almost frantic to try to calm her down. “No! S'okay Eep. S'gonna be okay. Yer a gud pony. S'why I luv ya.”

“You’re hurt and Rainbow Dash tried to kill you and now she might be dying andit’sallmyfault!” Eepysqueak shrieked in between sobs. “Good ponies don't get their friends hurt or killed!”

Derpy grabbed Eepysqueak’s shoulders again, and this time there was an unreadable little frown on her face. “Fluttershy ... what did you say to Rainbow Dash? How in the hay did she get the idea that Cloud Kicker had ...”

Eepysqueak sniffled and tearfully confessed. “I tuh-told her that...” Eepysqueak sniffled and wiped some tears out of her eyes. “I went to Rainbow and asked her–um, I asked her if she knew anything about...” She let out a very nervous squeak, and the next two words came out in a barely audible whisper “About sex. She, um, asked me why I wanted to know, and I said that Cloud Kicker and I had ... but I wasn't really sure if I, um had been ready and I ... well, I wanted to ask more, but she was already out the window.”

It had been a bit tricky to follow what she’d said, but I’d gotten the most important parts of it. “Eep? Yer ... not sure? About us?”

Eepysqueak whimpered and nervously started pawing at the clouds. “Well, I mean, it was ... nice, but I, um ... may have um ... had a few questions when we ... I just ... it’s all been so ... fast.”

She might not have said it outright, but even with how messed up my head was right now, I could put two and two together. “You ... you dunlove me.”

Fluttershy let out a low little whimper. “I want to, but...” Her entire body started trembling as she admitted, “I'm sorry, but it’s just all been happening so fast and I don’t know what to think and I'm not ready!”

Oh.

Oh Celestia.

I put my one working foreleg over my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at her right now. I’ll spare you the usual melodramatic descriptions and just say that it would’ve hurt less if she’d ripped my heart out of my chest, tore it to pieces, and threw every piece into a fire.

Even though I couldn’t see her, I could still hear her guilt-filled voice. “And I've hurt my fillyfriend again! I’m so sorry! I'm such an awful pony.”

There was only one thing for me to say. “No ... not fillyfriend. Dunlove me.”

Fluttershy gasped at that, and her voice came out as tiny, broken little whimper. “I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker. I want to, but I'm–I'm just...”

I buried my own pain for long enough to say what had to be said. “S'okay Eep. You dunlove me. Dunhafta pretend anymore. Sorry.”

Fluttershy let out an utterly broken wail. “I'm so sorry for everything!”

After what she’d done, all the ‘sorry’ in the world wouldn’t have made me feel any better. That filly might as well have punted me off of Cloudsdale.

The Pony Who is On a Quest to Claim Absolute Victory

“... and that’s what happened,” I finished.

Blossom stared at me in open-mouthed shock from the other side of my couch. I couldn’t blame her–I’d dumped some rather big revelations on her just now. I decided to give her a little help getting her brain back into gear. “So, I’m guessing you’ve got a lot of questions to hit me with right now. Go ahead, toss them out there while I’m still in the mood to talk about it all.”

After a couple seconds to untangle her brain, Blossom finally came up with the first thing she wanted to ask. “What happened after ... after all that?”

“Well, I was in the hospital for a while, so a lot of the details are kinda fuzzy,” I admitted. “I did have a mild case of brain damage. And a broken leg. And the brain damage. And a punctured lung. And the brain damage. And the brain damage. Did I mention the brain damage?”

“It might have come up,” Blossom answered with a wry grin. “So ... brain damage. That explains quite a bit.”

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up.” Just because I’d deliberately set myself up for the joke didn’t mean I couldn’t grumble when she went for it. “The doctors said there wasn’t anything permanent though. Or at least, there won't be anything as long as I don't give myself any more concussions.” I gave a weak little laugh as a horrible joke popped into my head. “Well, maybe I didn’t completely avoid taking some long-term damage,” I confessed. “According to Derpy, I snore. I guess now we know why I have so much trouble getting anypony to sleep with me more than once.”

That got a giggle out of Blossom. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Don’t say that until you’ve heard it,” I warned her.

“I’d like to.” A second after the words left her mouth Blossom started blushing, but she didn’t take them back. “Hear it. Some day.”

Okay. That just made this conversation a couple levels more awkward than it needed to be. Time for a change of subject. “So yeah, snoring. That leaves me in better shape than Rainbow Dash.”

Blossom’s eyes widened in surprise and a little bit of horror. “You didn’t do anything permanent to her ... down there, did you?”

For a moment I considered telling her the truth, but honestly that's a pretty intimate detail. Better to go with a white lie. “Nah, as far as I know all her lady bits are still working. I did a lot of damage down there, but the docs were pretty good when it came to fixing her up. The worst she’ll probably have to live with is Pinkie Pie needing to put some extra effort in to get her off.” Assuming the two of them ever got around to actually banging. Come to think of it, some of Rainbow’s reluctance to have another pony messing around with her nethers might not just stem from her general lack of sex drive.

That thought added on another layer of guilt when I finally confessed where the damage happened. “The thing is, when I popped her in the eye...” I sighed and scuffed a hoof along the floor. “Look, Rainbow’s never said anything about it, but a lot of the time when she crashes, it’s ‘cause she missed something that’s on the side that I got her on. I’d like to think that’s a coincidence, but...”

Blossom winced. “Oh. That’s ... oh.” A second later her face pulled into a pained grimace. “Isn’t perfect vision a requirement for joining the Wonderbolts?”

“Yeah, glasses and contacts don’t exactly get along with high-speed stunt flying.” Another nasty little twinge of guilt hit me. “Maybe there’s nothing to it though. I mean, she got into the Junior Speedsters after Flight Camp, and they’ve got vision rules too. Besides, she’s the only pony to ever pull off a Sonic Rainboom. If I was running the Wonderbolts, I’d care a lot more about that than whether or not her eyes are perfect.”

“You...” Blossom trailed off with a confused shake of her head. “I don’t understand how you think sometimes. From the way you tell the story, Rainbow Dash tried to murder you, and now you’re friends. Hay, you feel guilty for defending yourself!”

“I...” I sank back into the couch with a groan, and tried to get my thoughts back in order. “Look, Rainbow’s heart was in the right place. Her head was being really stupid, but I can’t hate her for thinking she was protecting Fluttershy. Hay, if I ever thought somepony did something like that to you, they’d end up in a shallow grave out in the Everfree forest.”

“Uh–thanks, I guess.” Blossom gave an uncomfortable little flutter of her wings. “Nice to know that even with how weird things have been with us, I still rate as a good enough friend to merit a revenge fantasy against anypony that hurts me.”

I tried to shrug the little awkward moment off. “What can I say? I get pissed when anypony I care about gets hurt.”

I caught a little hint of a smile on Blossom’s face. I was a little surprised that just something as minor as saying that I cared about her got that kind of reaction. I hope she wasn’t taking what I’d said the wrong way. Yeah, I cared about her, but as my best friend, not as a potential fillyfriend. Not that I would have minded seeing that happen if things had worked out differently, but that’s not where we were right now.

After just long enough for the silence to get a little awkward, Blossom tossed out another question. “How did Rainbow Dash not end up in ... well, in a lot of trouble? Did everypony just overlook it because you were all still fillies?”

“Hold that thought for a sec.” I went into the kitchen long enough to grab myself a glass of my lemonade–to be honest, I’m a bit surprised I’d managed to get the whole story out without wanting a little something to smooth out my nerves. I was about to pour Blossom a glass when I remembered that she was a lightweight and a horny drunk. Two things we really didn’t need right now.

I settled down on the couch and took a sip of my mildly boozy lemonade before I got down to answering her question. “Being fillies helped, yeah. As far as the law was concerned, it was mostly the adults’ fault for letting things get so far out of hoof in the first place. Pretty much everypony at Flight Camp lost their jobs, and I heard a couple of them even got in legal trouble. Criminally negligent endangerment of fillies and all that.”

I sighed and swallowed some more lemonade. “That’s not to say that Rainbow got off with nothing. My parents were really pissed, even after I told them I didn’t want press any charges. Still, it could’ve been a lot worse: they worked out a deal where she spent a couple years going to weekly therapy sessions instead of anything really bad. In a way, it actually kinda worked out for the best–part of her therapy was writing a couple letters to me for closure and stuff, and that got us talking again.”

“And that’s all it took for you two to be friends again?” Blossom looked a little skeptical. I couldn’t really blame her for that–now that I thought back to everything that had gone down at Flight Camp, it did seem a little crazy that Rainbow and I could even have a semi-normal friendship afterwards.

“Well, there was a bit more to it than just that.” I sighed and dug a little into the mental box of things I usually don’t like thinking about. “After I bugged out of military school, I needed a place to stay and some help getting things figured out. With the whole military tradition thing running in my family, staying with them wasn’t really an option. Rainbow and I were still swapping letters, and she mentioned that the Ponyville weather team needed a couple new pegasi. When I really needed a friend, she was there for me. That counts for a lot.”

Blossom was still frowning at me. “So a couple letters and a favor or two, and you’re back to the way things were? Doesn’t that seem a little too easy?”

“Maybe a little, but being mad at her for the rest of my life wouldn’t do me any good. I’d rather just put the past behind us and try to be friends with her now. It’s not exactly an easy thing to keep going,” I admitted. “We usually get along pretty good, but there have been plenty of times when things got awkward. That’s why I don’t even think about banging her friends–there’s way too much baggage there for that to end any way that isn’t disastrous. Plus there’s the whole Fluttershy thing.”

“Yeah.” Blossom glanced at my drink. “I’m going to assume that I can’t have any of that after what happened last time, but I am kind of thirsty.”

Lucky for her, I’d stocked up on non-alcoholic lemonade to prevent any repeats of the last incident. After double checking to make sure her drink was completely clean, I passed it over. “It’s funny,” she commented in-between sips. “You would think working things out with Fluttershy would be a lot easier than Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, Fluttershy’s a lot easier to get along with than Rainbow.” I emptied out my own glass of lemonade, and wanted to smack myself over the head for not thinking to get a refill while I’d been getting Blossom’s. Perhaps that was for the best though–I really didn’t need more than one glass of alcohol in my system right now.

“The thing is, being so easy to get along with is exactly what makes it so hard for me and Eepysqueak to get back to normal. With Rainbow, when there’s a problem she won’t hesitate to get right in your face and let you know that there’s a problem. She might not be direct about what’s bugging her sometimes, especially if she feels like she’s at fault for whatever’s wrong, but she at least let’s you know there’s a problem.”

I was a little surprised when I felt Blossom wrap a wing around me, but I didn’t complain. I could use a little friendly contact right now. I shifted around a little until we were both comfortable, and then continued. “Fluttershy’s pretty much the exact opposite. She doesn’t want to sit down and have a serious talk about what’s wrong, she just apologizes and hopes that’ll fix everything. That’s what got me into so much trouble with her in the first place.”

“Because she didn’t want to talk to you about the problems with your relationship,” Blossom concluded.

“Yeah, pretty much.” It occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t be quite so comfortable letting a pony who hadn’t exactly made a secret of her romantic interest in me get so close. On the other hoof, Blossom was a good friend, and right now I needed that. Besides, our friendship was still fragile enough that throwing a fit every time she made a little bit of friendly contact with me would cause way too many problems.

“She should’ve told you what the problem was.” I caught just a hint of disapproval in Blossom’s voice. “If she thought things were going too fast she needed to tell you, not go behind your back to somepony else.”

Even though Blossom was probably right about that, I still felt an irrational urge to lash out at her for saying it. “It wasn’t Fluttershy’s fault,” I answered as levelly as I could. “Okay, she made a mistake. We both made a lot of them, really. We were way too feathering young to be getting into a sexual relationship. It wouldn’t be fair to expect her to handle everything perfectly, especially when I didn’t either.”

Blossom frowned at that. “You didn’t say anything about that. From the way you told it, everything was going fine right up to the moment when Rainbow came after you.”

“Well yeah, at the time I thought things were going great.” I sighed and studied my hooves for a bit, prompting Blossom to tighten her wing-hug on me. “In hindsight though, there were definitely some warning signs that I missed. When you’re young and eager to keep banging as much as possible now that you’ve discovered how awesome it is, it can be kinda easy to miss that your fillyfriend saying ‘Okay’ while not making eye contact isn’t exactly a good sign.”

“You were just a filly, that hardly makes you a mind reader–especially back then.” Blossom gave me a friendly little nuzzle that had me once again pondering whether I should ask her to back off or not. I really didn’t want to drag our own issues into the mix here, but at the same time I didn’t want to seem like I was encouraging her.

“Yeah, missing some signals is understandable,” I conceded. “But with a pony like Fluttershy, that kind of thing is important. She’s really bad at any kind of actual confrontation, so if you don’t catch the little subtle hints that something’s bothering her, then that’s it. The bottom line is, Fluttershy didn’t approach me with what was bothering her because I put her in a place where she felt like she couldn’t talk to me.”

“Cloud Kicker...” Blossom’s wing tightened around my shoulders in a gentle squeeze. “It wasn’t your fault, okay?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t really anypony’s fault,” I agreed. “Nopony was out to be cruel or hurtful–we just all made the sort of mistakes fillies dealing with relationships for the first time in their lives will usually make, and it all kinda spun out of control.”

Blossom gave me another little nuzzle, and the two of us fell into a companionable silence for a bit. I have to admit, I’d missed having Blossom around. Eventually, she spoke up again. “So, is all of that why you...” Blossom waved a hoof around vaguely as she tried to come up with a diplomatic way of stating the obvious.

“Why I do a lot of banging?” I finished for her. I thought about it for a moment, and shook my head. “Okay, it’s probably true that all of that happening kinda had an impact, but the simple truth is that I bang a lot because I like banging. It’s fun, and it feels good. I liked banging Fluttershy, and I’ve liked banging most of the ponies I’ve fooled around with since her.”

I might’ve gone into some of the details on why exactly I liked banging so much if not for my current company. Going into a bit too much detail on the physical side of things might get Blossom a bit intrigued about it all. Worse, going over those memories might get her or me a bit too excited. Considering my little slip of the hoof earlier while I was helping her uncramp her leg, the last thing I needed to do was send any more mixed messages by doing something like detailing the warm, squiggly sensations that accompanied banging.

“Look, the bottom line is that I made the big decisions about how my life has gone,” I concluded. “I’m not gonna pretend that if not for what happened with Fluttershy, I’d be some kind of picture of perfectly boring conventional monogamy. It’s my life, and I made these choices for myself.”

“Speaking of your life and choices...” Blossom trailed off uncertainly for a bit before the gathered the resolve to continue. “What are you going to do about your job?”

“I’m not too worried about it.” Well, that wasn’t completely honest–I was just a little bit worried. Not a huge amount, but a little. “Rainbow blew her top at me, but once she’s had a bit to calm down and realize what a mule she’s been, she’ll come around. That’s kinda the way she works. She’ll make plenty of mistakes, but she always makes things right after she feathers up.”

Less than a second after the words left my mouth, there was the sound of a hoof knocking on my door. I wasn’t even surprised when a quick check through the peephole showed Rainbow Dash on the other side–the universe has an odd sense of humor like that sometimes. “It’s Rainbow,” I informed Blossom, before putting a carefully neutral expression and opening door. “Hello Rainbow Dash.”

She might be here to apologize and try to make peace, but that didn’t mean I needed to make it easy for her.

Rainbow tried to put a casual little smile on her face, but it very clearly didn’t reach her eyes. After an awkward couple seconds of silence she let out a nervous little laugh, then finally found her voice. “So ... uh ... hey Cloud Kicker. What’s up?”

“Not much.” I tried to force myself to stay calm, but that just made me sound coldly furious instead of reasonable. “You know, I was about to go update my resume, start filing some job applications. The kind of thing a pony does when they’re unemployed.”

Rainbow flinched at that, and spent a couple seconds intently studying the ground and scuffing her hooves in the dirt. If she’d done just about anything else I might have thrown her some little bit of encouragement to make it a bit easier on her, but she’d fired me. That’s a couple steps beyond the kind of thing I can just overlook on account of friendship. Finally, she swallowed enough of her pride to say what needed to be said. “Look, you don’t have to do that, okay? You’ve still got your job.”

As far as apologies go, that was pretty weak. Blossom was quick to say as much. “I think you need to do better than that, Rainbow Dash.” She got up from the couch and walked up to the door, standing a little behind and to the side of me. “You fired Cloud Kicker for no good reason. Do you know how much something like that hurts?”

Rainbow turned to her and let out an angry snort. “What the hay are you doing here, Blossomforth?” My ex-boss turned a baleful glare on me, and her voice dropped down to a low, threatening growl. “I wasn't kidding with what I said about Derpy, you feather things up with her and I'll make you regret it.”

Oh, great. Rainbow was getting to the point where she tried to find some way to shift the blame or change the subject instead of just admitting that she’d made a mistake. Over the years I’ve developed a degree of tolerance for Rainbow's personality quirks–it’s a necessary part of being her friend. However, Blossom didn’t seem to be in the mood to put up with Rainbow’s unique way of doing things. “Hey! Maybe I'm just trying to look out for a friend who got hurt for no reason. Besides, what we do with each other in our personal time isn't any of your business!”

“Rainbow, you really don't wanna go there right now,” I added in. It took a bit of effort on my part not to add a couple more choice words onto that. Rainbow was out of line, but turning this into a fight wouldn’t do either of us any good. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm and in control. “Look, I'll come back to work for you, but I need some kinda guarantee this isn't gonna happen again.”

Rainbow glared at the two of us and stubborn set her hooves. “I can always hire another manager, you know...”

Blossom gave an angry shake of her head. “No, you try and hire somepony else, and I'll quit over that, too. What you did was wrong, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow’s lips curled back from her teeth in an angry snarl. “Fine then! I’ll–” Rainbow seemed to catch herself, and took a couple deep breath before continuing in a slightly reasonable tone. “Okay, fine ... I was ... not okay, firing Cloud Kicker.”

Oh for the love of Luna. Pulling an Ursa’s teeth would be easier than getting Rainbow to feathering apologize. “Not okay? That's it?”

“It's more than not okay,” Blossom agreed. “You don't just fire somepony and then think it’s fine just because you admit that your decision was ‘not okay.’ You fired her for nothing but personal reasons today.”

“Fine!” Rainbow gave an exasperated roll of her eyes, as if we were the ones being completely unreasonable here. “I fired you because you pissed me off! You happy now, Cloud Kicker?”

I swear, it was like she was trying to make this apology go as badly as she possibly could. “No, Rainbow. I'm a pretty long feathering way from happy right now.”

Rainbow Dash gave a frustrated little snort, then turned a baleful glare on Blossom. “Blossomforth? Bug out. This is old stuff that doesn't concern you.”

Blossom didn’t budge. “Like hay it doesn't. You took something that happened years ago, and attacked Cloud Kicker for it. Maybe you should stop flying off the handle on her everytime you think she might have upset Fluttershy.”

“Years ag–?” Rainbow rounded on me and shouted, “You told her!?”

I met her fury with the stoic tranquility my family and West Hoof spent years drilling into me. “Yes. She's my friend.”

Blossom took a step forward, putting her side-by-side with me. “And friends stand by each other.” A hint of her nasty sarcastic side showed when she added, “What, are you mad that your dirty little secret got out from your closed circle?”

Rainbow’s ears drooped for a moment, until she decided to hide her shame with some more anger. “That–that's ancient history! It doesn't involve you!”

“Then why did Cloud Kicker get fired for it today?” Blossom shouted right back. “Your ‘ancient history’ feathering does involve me when it starts hurting my friend and affecting my job!”

“Okay, fine!” Rainbow shot back at her. “You're fired too! It’s none of your business now, so get outta here, Blossomforth!” Blossom’s mouth dropped open in shock when she heard that.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Only Rainbow Dash could end up making things worse when she tried to apologize. “Rainbow. Chill.”

Rainbow took a step forward and angrily flared her wings at me. “Don't tell me to chill! Try telling Fluttershy to chill! It's your damn fault she was too panicked to even try today!”

“What the feather did I do?” I demanded. “Exist?”

Blossom seemed to finally be getting over her surprise at getting fired out of hoof, and now she was ... well, Mount Blossom was getting ready to blow. “So that's it! I work my flank off for years and this is how you repay me! You're the biggest feathering idiot I've ever seen. Congratulations Rainbow, you've ruined Tornado Day for yourself, because nopony is going to feathering listen to you now. And you even think this is going to stick? When Cloudsdale finds out how you feathered this all up, and fired us for the stupidest reason you could, they'll demand you rehire us, and write us a feathering letter of apology on top of it. Hay, you’ll be lucky to keep your job at all!”

Rainbow tried to glare back at her and come up with a snappy retort, but it wasn’t going too well for her. “I–you're–I–” She slammed a hoof down in the ground in impotent rage. “All right! Fine, I–fine!” Rainbow took several heavy breaths, before she actually managed to pull off a minor miracle for her, and back down a little bit. “You're right, I was...wrong, to fire both of you. You have your jobs back, no complications.”

That wasn’t nearly good enough for Blossom. I felt the same way, but I couldn’t really get a word in edgewise now that Blossom was in full rant-mode. “I–No complications! No complications! I didn't do a feathering thing wrong! You just realized how badly you feathered up, and you’re trying to put the broken pieces back together. I want a real apology for us, Rainbow Dash! Right now you’re treating the both of us if we’re expendable. You're acting like some tin princess, not a proper weather manager!”

Rainbow’s head and wings both drooped, but she was glaring resentfully at the two of us. “Look, I–okay, I acted stupid and fired you both out of hoof. Just–just take your damn jobs back, okay?” Then she did something I really didn’t expect, and very softly added, “Please?”

That moment of vulnerability was enough to knock Blossom out of rant-mode, but she was still very put out with our semi-ex-boss. She sat down in the doorway and gave Rainbow a very skeptical frown. “I'm not even sure I can believe you right now.”

“You’re not exactly doing much to make us think we’ll have any job security,” I agreed. So far she’d been bouncing back and forth between angry and apologetic so quickly I was kind of surprised her head wasn’t spinning in circles from it all. “How do we know we won’t just get fired again the next time you blow your top because Fluttershy sneezed in my direction, or one of us pointed out that you’re being stupid?”

Rainbow’s mouth opened and closed a couple times before she actually managed to give us any kind of answer. “Because ... because you're not gonna, okay?” Well, that just inspired all kinds of confidence. “Just leave it at that and take your feathering job back. Hay, I’ll give you a twenty percent bonus.”

“That's it?” Blossom growled. “Not even a bit of explanation of any guarantee this won’t happen again, you're just going to try and bribe us with bits to make us forget about all this?”

I had to agree with Blossom, throwing some extra bits our way wasn’t good enough. It’s like she was ... well, do you want to know what the opposite of what an apology is supposed to be looks like? Here’s a hint, Rainbow was doing it right now. To be honest, thinking she could just toss some money my way to fix this was just making me madder at her. “Rainbow, I thought we were friends.”

That actually got a flinch out of her. “We were. I mean, we are!” She hastily corrected herself. “We're– we're fine, okay? just ... just take your damn job back, okay? Derpy and Fluttershy and Twilight and ... well, lots of ponies. They’re ... they’re kinda pissed about me firing you, okay?”

“Oh, so that’s how it is now?” My willingness to give Rainbow a chance to muddle her way through an apology was definitely slipping away. “I'm only getting my job back because you don’t want other ponies to be mad at you? That's all you've got to say for yourself? Look, I would’ve been okay with you stumbling around trying to apologize if you were actually sorry, but right now it sounds like you’re only apologizing to get everypony off your back.”

“Shut up!” Rainbow screamed at us. “You ... you didn’t hear what Derpy and Fluttershy said! Derpy said she'd ... that she'd made a mistake making me her girls’ godmom, and Fluttershy ... Fluttershy...” Rainbow shuddered a little, and her voice dropped down to a shaken little whisper. “She yelled at me. Like, really mad yelling. She ... I thought she was okay with what happened back at Flight Camp, but I guess she just never said it all. The only way either of them are gonna forgive me is if I make up with you.”

So, pretty much exactly what I said. Rainbow didn’t actually feel one bit of regret, she was just trying to dodge the consequences of her actions. “So other ponies are mad at you? Guess what, Rainbow? That's not my problem.”

“But ... but you gotta forgive me!” Rainbow’s voice hit a frantic pitch. “Derpy thinks I’m gonna be a bad influence on her girls, and Fluttershy said I was a bad friend! I can’t just ... you gotta help me fix this!”

And she was still only thinking about herself. “To be honest Rainbow, right now you haven’t given me much of a reason to disagree with either of them. ”

Rainbow’s voice dropped down to an angry snarl. “Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? You already have Derpy in your bed, so what's the need for a godmom when you can be a whole second mommy. And I bet you’ve just been aching to go after Fluttershy again on the side. Yeah, I bet that’s it–you broke her heart and went to Derpy, and now Derpy gets her turn to get messed up by you! Hay, I bet–”

I never found out what Rainbow was going to say next–Blossom’s hoof smacking into her face kinda cut her off. From the looks of things, she’d learned a thing or two about how to throw a proper punch since her scuffle with Fluttershy. To be honest, I was a little glad Blossom’s temper had snapped, because otherwise Rainbow might have kept pushing it until it was me hitting her instead. That could have gotten real ugly real fast.

“Shut the hay up, Rainbow!” Blossom growled. “You can take your feathering job, and shove it! Cloud Kicker and I have an ironclad wrongful termination lawsuit against you right now, and I can’t think of a single reason we shouldn’t clean you out.”

Rainbow was still reeling from the hit, and brought a hoof up to rub at what was probably a developing shiner. “I should ... I should ... fire your plots for this ... but ya know what, I–” Rainbow cut herself off by smacking the back of her own head, and then shaking it for good measure. “Just take your feathering jobs back, so I can fire you!”

Okay, I could put up with a lot from Rainbow, but there’s a limit. Love and tolerance were officially going out the window for the next couple minutes. “Tell me something, Rainbow. Can you think of a single pony who's done more to feather up my entire life than you?”

Rainbow grimaced and bared her teeth at me, and her voice dripped with contempt. “Oh, that's rich coming from you! I–oh, Luna stuff my flank with moon rocks, I–” Blossom and I both jumped in surprise when Rainbow slammed the side her head into my doorframe. “There!” Rainbow blinked a couple more times before she seemed to regain her bearings. “That's rich coming from you. I–I promise I won't ... fire you again for what happened.”

Blossom and I didn’t know quite what to make of how Rainbow was acting. To be honest, I kinda suspected she was playing at being hurt to try and get some sympathy points. I know RD's taken harder hits then that before and brushed it off with no problem. However, there was no doubt about what she was saying. Blossom was the first to speak up. “Are you just saying that because you really care about us, or because you want to keep Tornado Day on track?”

“Or because you just want ponies to stop being mad at you for acting like a mule?” I added.

Rainbow glared at us, but then a second later she was staggering on her hooves. “I don't care about everypony being mad at me ... just a few.”

Okay, I was starting to get a little worried about how strange she was acting now. Not to mention that her comment sounded like it might be leading in to making a proper apology instead of her very half-flanked efforts so far. “Rainbow ... what are you trying to say?”

I wasn’t the only pony getting a little worried about how strangely Rainbow was acting. Blossom was looking back and forth between the hoof she’d smacked Rainbow with and the obviously not-quite-right pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, are you okay? You ... you don't look good.”

Rainbow violently shook her head. “I don't ... I don't wanna ... don’t wanna have Fluttershy and Derpy mad at me, okay? Just ... just take the job back.”

Nope, she wasn’t actually apologizing, just going on and on about herself. “Rainbow, this isn't about what they think, this is about us.”

“Derpy said she'd ... made a mistake, making me their godmom,” Rainbow whined. “Fluttershy said I ruined the only romantic relationship she’d ever had. So it is about them. Just shut up and take the job back, okay?”

Alright, this was just getting pathetic now. “Rainbow, for the love of Celestia, get over yourself! Can you give me a single feathering reason to take my old job back that doesn't center around it being good for you?”

Blossom gave a sharp nod in agreement. “All I'm hearing here is regret that you caused problems for yourself, not that you regret hurting us.”

Rainbow decided to try to play the wounded gazelle a bit more in an effort to milk some sympathy from us. “I'm so sorry for not wanting to be cut off from my damn goddaughters or have Fluttershy feathering hate me, alright?”

“Me, me, me, me, me!” Blossom shot back with mocking sarcasm.

“Okay, fine!” Rainbow yelled at us. “I was wrong–I fired you because you hurt me and because I thought you were still hurting Fluttershy. There! I said it! Happy now?”

“Maybe I’d believe it if you showed anything resembling actual sorrow or remorse instead of giving us the worst apology ever..” I put my forehoof on the door and was getting ready to slam it in her face. “You're not the pony I thought you were.”

“I–” Before Rainbow could go any more about herself, I shut the door. If I was lucky, it might have bonked her in the snout.

I’d given her a fair chance to make things right. Hay, I’d given her a dozen fair chances. It should’ve been a simple, easy thing. ‘Hey, I feathered up, sorry.’ The sort of thing ‘lula or Dinky could manage without any trouble. What did I get instead? The Rainbow Dash Drama Show. Five minutes of Rainbow’s ego gone wild, and Blossom getting fired just for putting her neck out to help make Dash listen to reason.

So that’s how she wanted things? Fine. Maybe Blossom had a point about how crazy it was that I kept forgiving Rainbow. I didn’t need some self-absorbed backstabber for a friend.

Before I could share that particular thought with Blossom my door started shaking. Somepony was hitting it hard enough that I’m pretty sure it was gonna need some repairs. It wasn’t exactly hard to guess who that was. Rainbow always had to keep pushing things–it sounded like she was gonna break the door down at this rate. I opened up the top half of my door before she could do any more damage. “Rainbow, what the feather is your problem!?”

Rainbow took a staggering step back and plopped down on the ground, clutching her head in her hooves. There were a couple scrapes and budding bruises on the right side of her face that hadn’t been there before... had she been slamming her head into my door? I was even more surprised when she spoke up and actually sounded mournful. “I was wrong to fire you, and I'm sorry. Please, um.... Please. Feather Tornado Day, and feather the record, I just... I'm sorry, Okay? I'm... I'm sorry.”

Okay ... that was unexpected.

Rainbow’s right eye had squeezed itself shut, and I could swear I saw brimming tears in her other eye. “Please, I'm... I'm not good at this, I'm just sorry, okay?”

Wow. Rainbow had just managed ... well that was an incredible apology by her standards. No waffling or attempts to mitigate it, not even a hint of any ulterior motive. Just a pure and simple ‘I was wrong, and I’m sorry.’

I opened up my door the rest of the way and took a couple steps closer to her. “Look, Rainbow. We’ll work it out, okay?”

Blossom came up next to me, and shot a concerned frown at the pony who was hopefully our boss again. “Rainbow Dash, is your eye ok?”

“It’s fine!” Rainbow snapped at her, opening up her right eye. Blossom let out a horrified gasp when she saw Rainbow’s eye. I kinda shared the sentiment–her right eye had rolled up so far into the back of her head that I couldn’t see anything but white.

“Rainbow?” I took another hesitant step towards her. I felt a little guilty for thinking she’d been faking the injury now that I could tell there really was something wrong with her. “Your eye is very much not fine.”

Rainbow let out a very forced laugh and smacked a hoof on the right side of her head. “It’s fine, it does this sometimes. It just gets a little weird on me sometimes ever since the thing at Flight Camp.” She gave herself another smack on the head. “It's fine, see?”

From the look on her face, Blossom was even less convinced by Rainbow’s explanation than I was. “Rainbow, maybe we should take you to the hospital, and then we can talk this out.”

“I. Am. Fine,” Rainbow insisted with impressive stubbornness. Insisting you’re not hurt when anypony with a working brain can tell you are is a bit beyond the normal level of mule-headedness you can expect from a pony. “I just jumped into a cloud without checking for lighting again and ... I'm sorry. It won't happen again, okay? I'll promote you or something. Won't ever have to worry about me again.”

Blossom shook her head, and her voice shifted to a gentle, soothing tone. “Rainbow Dash, I'm worried about you right now. I think I hit you harder than I meant to. Can we take you to the hospital? Just to let them take a look to make sure everything is okay.”

I stepped up to Rainbow and was about to try to help her up when she turned an absolutely furious glare on me. “Touch me again,” she snarled hatefully. “I dare you. I feathering dare you.”

I took several surprised steps back, and held my forelegs up in front of myself. “I didn't touch you at all, Rainbow.”

Blossom took a few steps back away from Dash, and raised a hoof in a calming motion. “Whoa there, Rainbow Dash. Cloud Kicker is just trying to help.” She let off a laugh that was pure nervousness. “I t-think I might have gotten your eye there a bit.”

Rainbow turned her glare from me to Blossom. “Yeah, you and her both ... what, do you want a shot at my plot while you're at it? I bet you and Cloud Kicker laughed it up when she told you how she kicked me there.” Rainbow let out a shaky breath, and pulled a conversational one-eighty. “I'm fine, really I'm–I'm fine. Just ... please. You're not fired, okay?

Okay, Rainbow Dash had always been a bit mercurial, but going from pure nasty to practically begging us to take our jobs back in the space of a couple seconds was just ridiculous. The fact that she’d been smacking her own head around in some kind of effort to fix her eye probably wasn’t doing her brain any favors. “Rainbow? You’re kinda sending a mixed message here...”

Rainbow staggered back up to her hooves and shouted at us. “Shuddup! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry!”

Blossom very slowly and cautiously stepped up towards the irrational pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, can you at least come in and sit down for a minute? It's been a long day, and it’s probably getting to you. We can get a Life Flight if you need it.

Rainbow nearly smacked Blossom in the face when she flared her wings out. “Don’t call Life Flight!” Blossom hastily scrambled out of Rainbow’s reach before she could lash out again. “I don't need Life Flight, okay? I just ... I just need ya to know that I was wrong. 'm sorry.”

Blossom was staring at Rainbow, and her knees were shaking a bit. I don’t think Rainbow meant to come close to smacking Blossom with one of her wings, but that didn’t change the fact that it had nearly happened. That made this a lot more serious. “Okay, Rainbow, something's seriously wrong here.” I wasn’t being gentle and reasonable anymore, my voice had a whip-crack of authority in it that I’d learned back at West Hoof. “You're going to the hospital. Now.”

“To Tartarus with the hospital,” Rainbow snarled at me. “I. Am. Fine.” Rainbow growled and swiped a hoof in my general direction. “You try to touch me and I'll break one of your legs again. I've taken lessons since Camp, Cloud Kicker, I'll buck you up...”

Oh Luna, we did not need this on top of everything else. Now she was getting violent on top of all the other problems. I tried to keep my voice as calm and non-threatening and possible. “Rainbow, I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm trying to help you.”

I shot a look over my shoulder and at Blossom, and carefully whispered to her. “Blossom, you might wanna step back.” Blossom very slowly nodded, and then carefully backed away until she got to a point where Rainbow could not easily see or get to her.

I very reluctantly took a step to the side, so that there would be no way for Rainbow to get to Blossom without her going through me first. I didn’t think Rainbow was likely to just attack her out the blue, but with how belligerent and unpredictable she was right now... “Rainbow, just let me take you to the hospital. For my own peace of mind.”

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or worried when she took a couple steps forward, into my door frame. With all the crazy mood swings, it was hard to tell if she was calming down and walking up to us as a friend or just getting into an attack position. Rainbow cracked her neck, and made a point of keeping her bad eye shut. “Don’t wanna go to the hospital ... too much touching. Too much... no. I’m fine. Just wanna get things settled with you, okay?

Okay, maybe we could still talk our way through this. “Yeah, we're fine Rainbow.”

“Yes, everything’s forgiven,” Blossom chimed in. “Just let us get you to the hospital. We’re both really worried about you.”

“Rainbow, the ponies at the hospital are going to help you. Okay?” I took a single step forward and offered her my hoof.

That was a mistake. Rainbow’s wings flared out defensively, and jabbed a couple quick punches through the air. “I’m ... I'm twenty percent more okay than you will ever be. Just ... go feather yourself off and take your job back, okay? I’m sorry.” She mimed a couple more punches in my general direction. “You just try it ... try it, and I'll ... Luna dammit, not again! Stupid feathering eye!” Rainbow slammed the side of her head into my wall hard enough to put a bit of a dent in it. “Try it and I'll kick your flank. I’m fine, just need to go see Fluttershy and Derpy. I’m sorry.”

Okay, this wasn’t gonna work. Rainbow was bouncing around between moods a mile a minute, and if I let her leave she was gonna go looking for Derpy and Fluttershy. With the violent tendencies she was showing towards me, there was no way in Tartarus I was letting her near anypony I cared about. I didn’t know what the deal was with her, but it was bad, and she was unstable enough that ... no, I didn’t even want to think about what could happen. “Rainbow, at this rate you're gonna end up hurting yourself, or somepony else. I can't let that happen.”

Rainbow took a single step forward and threw a halfhearted jab at me, but I could’ve dodged a shot like that with my eyes close. “I'm going, then,” Rainbow mumbled. “Fluttershy and Derpy need to know we're good.”

Oh Celestia, I did not want to have to do this. Not again. Why are you making me do this? “Rainbow. Last chance. You’re my friend, and you need help. Please, just let us take you to the docs. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Rainbow Dash, please stop!” Blossom’s eyes were darting back and forth between the two of us, and her breath was coming in small, panicky gasps. “You're acting stupid, and you’re scaring me.”

“Rainbow, let’s just go to the hospital.” With the way she was acting it was probably pointless, but I had make one last effort to reason with her. “They can patch you up and get your eye fixed, and Blossom can go get Derpy and Eepysqueek to meet you there, okay?” Blossom quickly nodded in agreement with my suggestion, her eyes practically begging Rainbow to take me up on the offer.

“I don't need to go to the hospital, I'm fine!” Rainbow snarled as she dropped down into a defensive crouch “You wanna do this? I’m gonna kick your flank, teach you not to mess with me. Always wanted a rematch with you, Cloud Kicker. Think you’re so good, beating me. I hate losing.” Rainbow paused and blinked a couple time before shifting tracks again. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

There was nothing for it, Rainbow looked like she was one wrong word away from turning violent. No way I could let her go looking for Derpy or Eepysqueak while she was like this. There was only one choice. I whispered a quick set of instructions to Blossom. “Stay back. As soon as it’s safe, get outta here and go get some Life Flight ponies.”

Blossom very slowly nodded before she started backing away. There was a worried frown on her face as her eyes shot back and forth between Rainbow and me. “Cloud Kicker, be careful.”

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” With any luck I should be able to take her down quickly and cleanly. I know she’d started hoof-to-hoof combat classes after Flight Camp, but hopefully she hadn’t learned enough to be a problem. I very reluctantly faced my friend down. “Rainbow, it doesn’t have to go this way.”

Rainbow gave me a tight, nasty little grin. “Yeah it does. I’ve been waiting more than ten years for a chance to kick your flank!” A couple quick flaps of her wings got her in the air, and then she was coming right at me with two extended forehooves. I tried to dodge, but all I managed to do was take the hit on my shoulder instead of right to the face.

Celestia, how had Rainbow managed to get even faster than she’d been the last time we fought? It was a good thing we were in my house–at least this way she wouldn’t have enough space to really get going.

Blossom stumbled away from the two of us and let out a terrified shriek. “Look out, Cloud Kicker!”

Rainbow came around for another pass at me, but this time I was ready for just how ridiculously fast she could be. Rainbow had learned some lessons since Flight Camp–this time she was being real careful to keep her wings safe from me.

Too bad for her that West Hoof taught me a couple dozen other ways to take a hostile pegasus out of the sky.

I dropped flat onto my back right as she was about to hit me, and stuck my legs straight up. That tangled her badly enough to cost her some control. Not a huge amount by most standards, but when you’re fighting indoors it doesn’t take much to get a high-speed pegasus in trouble.

Rainbow was still trying to shake off effects of slamming head-first into my living room wall when I jumped her. There were several ways I could’ve ended the fight right then and there, but I hesitated. Contrary to what you might read in some of the kids books, It’s kinda hard to incapacitate a pony to the point where they can’t fight without hurting them pretty badly in the process. Therein lay the problem: I didn’t want to hurt Rainbow Dash.

That’s one of the problems that comes from learning a military martial arts discipline. Most of the techniques involved killing or crippling your opponent. Not what you wanted when you were trying to disable a friend who was hurting herself already. I tried to grapple and pin her instead–it still wasn’t exactly a gentle process, but it would get her down with the least damage. Plus, whatever classes she took in martial arts were probably in a style that let her use that crazy speed of hers, and a grapple took that away.

Unfortunately, I was rusty enough with my relatively harmless grappling to give her enough of an opening to chomp at my ear. If I’d been a bit slower to react she might’ve gotten a good grip on my ear, which could’ve lead to all kinds of trouble. A quick hoof to the diaphragm knocked the wind out of her and got her teeth off of my ear before she could do serious damage. Rainbow managed to catch her breath right around the time I put a hoof to the uninjured side of head and pressed it down into my carpet. “You want a piece of me?” Rainbow snarled up at me. “Bring it on, then! Come at me pone!”

Blossom was screaming something at us, but I couldn’t afford to take my focus off of Rainbow Dash for a second. Now that I had her grappled she was mostly just flailing around and doing anything she could to get loose. She got some hits in, but the angle was all wrong for her to actually make them count. The closest she got to actually hurting me was when she managed clip the tip of my nose hard enough to sting and remind me of the time she broke it. I broke out one of my favorite little dirty Krav Pega tricks, and put my mouth right next to Rainbow’s ear before I shouted “Rainbow! Stop this!”

Having somepony screaming into her ear disoriented Rainbow for a just a second, giving me enough time to drop my hind quarters onto her spine and used my rear legs to pin her wings against her ribs. As soon as she realized what had happened Rainbow started wildly trying to buck me off. “Lemme go! I am not gonna lose one of my oldest friends because of you! You’re not gonna take my goddaughters away from me! Just take your feathering job back already!”

Just when I was starting to get the situation under control, Blossom went and did the sort of stupid thing most ponies with no combat training tend to do. Instead of clearing out to go get help like I told her to, she ran up to Rainbow and started trying to calm her down. “Rainbow Dash, please! Stop it! You're hurting yourself!”

Rainbow was way past the point where she could be reasoned with. Instead of calming down, she sank her teeth into Blossom’s foreleg.

I quickly bit down on her mane and pulled back until Rainbow lost her grip on Blossom’s leg. As soon as Blossom was loose, I put both my forelegs on Rainbow’s head and slammed it back down onto the floor harder than I should’ve. “Mess with me all you want, Rainbow. I can take it. But don’t you feathering dare hurt her!”

As soon as she was free Blossom scrambled away from Rainbow, favoring her injured leg. Rainbow immediately started thrashing underneath me again. “Cloud Kicker, you bitch! I knew you'd cheat on Derpy!”

Okay, that one stung a bit. Blossom was fighting back tears, though I’m not sure how much of that was from what Rainbow said as opposed to fact that Rainbow bit her. Either way, I wasn’t in the mood to put up with any more of it. “Rainbow? Shut up.”

Rainbow might not be getting away from me, but unless I gagged her there wasn’t much I could do stop her from lashing out verbally. “Oh, please! You thought you'd just bring Blossom over here and write it off as a tea party? I told you what I'd do if you feathered it up with Derpy, I'll–argh! Again with the eye! Stop getting all weird on me, you stupid eye!” Rainbow went quiet for a second, and then started slamming her head into my floor again. Hard enough to make me wince.

I let out a relieved breath when Blossom grabbed a pillow off my couch and shoved it under Rainbow’s head to stop her from doing any more damage. Still, me pinning Rainbow down wasn’t a perfect solution, especially since we still needed to get her to the hospital. “Blossom, I've got some rope in my closet. Go get it.”

Blossom stared at me blankly for a second before shaking her head and snapping out of it. “Uh, right. I’ll be right back.” A minute later she came back, my rope in her teeth. “‘ere, I go’ it.”

“Not what I normally use this for, but it'll have to do.” I took the rope from her and got to work tying Rainbow up. I was a little surprised she wasn’t causing more trouble for me when it came to getting her restrained–I might have been relieved if she didn’t look so glassy-eyed and unfocused. She’d been hitting herself in the head a lot, and hard.

Blossom watched the two of us with a small frown on her face. “I really hope that is clean. I had it in my mouth.”

“I wash it after I use it,” I distractedly reassure her. “Otherwise, it starts to get an ... odor.”

Rainbow made a weak, half-hearted effort to get loose from me. “Whorse...”

“What do we do with her now?” Blossom asked. “Are you sure that rope will hold her? Do we take her to the hospital, or...”

I finished roping Rainbow up before answered that one.“Yeah, she's not getting loose.” I trotted over to Blossom and checked the bite she’d gotten from Rainbow. “That rope can hold a stallion about the size of Big Mac suspended from my ceiling.”

Blossom stared at me with her mouth half-open. “Why do you need a rope that strong?” A second later it all clicked for her. “You ... you know it’s that strong from experience, don’t you?”

“You'd be surprised what some ponies are into.” That got a little squeak out of Blossom, but right now I was more worried about her leg than her innocence. As far as I could tell, Rainbow Dash hadn’t done any serious damage. The bite was gonna leave a nasty bruise, but her fur should cover that up for the most part. She’d probably be doing a lot of flying for the next couple days, though–walking on that wouldn’t be very much fun. I looked back up at Blossom’s face. “You’re gonna be fine, but we should have somepony who knows what they’re doing check it anyway. Just to be safe.”

Blossom’s brain seemed to be having a bit of trouble moving past the whole rope issue, if the next thing that came out her mouth was any indication. “A stallion the size of Big Mac, or a stallion named Big Mac?” A second later she facehoofed and groaned. “You know what, forget I asked. I’m happier not knowing. So, hospital now?”

Rainbow weakly slammed her head into the pillow. “Cheating whorse...”

I sighed. “Yeah, hospital. Let’s find a cart for her.”

Getting Rainbow to the hospital and explaining everything took a bit of doing, but we got it done. Either the staff was made up of stone-faced professionals, or Ponyville’s hospital deals with enough of the really bizarre cases, because nopony even batted an eyelash when we brought Rainbow in.

Then came the really hard part: waiting to see if Rainbow would be okay.

Blossom shuffled uncomfortably on the hard wooden benches of the hospital’s waiting room and finally asked the question that had been on both of our minds for a while. “What are we going to do? What do we tell everypony?”

“We do our duty,” I answered her stoically. “Rainbow's sick, so you're in command of the weather team now.”

Blossom took a couple deep breaths as she wrapped her mind around that. Whenever we’d needed to cover for Rainbow in the past, she’d always kind of deferred to me. After a few seconds she nodded. “Alright, well first thing I'm doing is offering your job back. Let's just get that out of the way.” Blossom sighed and ran a hoof over her face. “After that, I guess we need to contact Rainbow's friends and family to tell them she's in the hospital.”

“Yeah.” At least Blossom and I had cleaned ourselves up enough to hide what damage Rainbow had done to us. Derpy would freak if she found out Dash and I had gotten into another fight, and I don’t even what to think about how Eepy would take it. I tried to distract myself from all that by focusing on the job. “You'll need to be the official boss though–keeping Tornado Day on track is gonna be hard enough without expecting everypony to take orders from me right after they all saw Rainbow fire me.”

Blossom gave a slightly shaky nod. “Right, I'm in charge.” She stopped to let a couple nasty-sounding coughs. “So, we tell everypony who needs to know what happened, and then we deal with the weather stuff in the morning. We keep going with Tornado Duty preparations as though nothing were wrong.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Blossom was handling all the responsibility getting dumped on her a bit better than I’d expected. “As for Rainbow Dash, we’ll tell the rest of the weather staff if it's ... pony pox or something.”

Blossom frowned and shook her head. “I'll just say Dash had another flying accident. That happens so often everypony will buy it.”

“Whichever you think would work better, boss.” Blossom gave a surprised little jump when I called her that. I guess that kinda drove it home–she was the boss now.

Before we could get any further into the implications of that, Derpy crashed through one of the walls and hastily flew up to us. “Cloud Kicker! I heard Rainbow Dash is in the hospital! What happened?” She landed front of me and gave me a quick kiss, earning an annoyed eye-roll from Blossom. “You’re alright too, right? First I heard Dash was hurt, and that you were here too, and after what happened between you two earlier today I feared the worst had happened. You didn’t ... please tell me you two didn’t...”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” I hastily reassured her. I didn’t want her thinking I’d put Rainbow in the hospital again. Sure, there’d been a bit of a scuffle, but compared to what happened ten years ago...

“Okay.” Derpy let out a relieved breath. “I ... when I heard you were both here, I was so scared...” Derpy wrapped her forelegs around me and kissed me just a bit longer and harder than most ponies would think was strictly appropriate for a public setting. When she finally pulled back, there was a hint of a nervous blush on her face. “I just ... I’m glad you’re okay.” Derpy nervously cleared her throat. “So, what happened to Rainbow anyway? Another flying accident?”

I was considering whether or not I should tell her exactly what had happened when Blossom put a hoof on my shoulder and shook her head very slightly. Much as I hate to admit it, she kinda had a point there. Considering the history, Derpy wouldn’t take the news that Rainbow and I got into a scuffle very well. Hay, I wasn’t taking it very well. I sighed, and tried to figure out how I wanted to put it all. “Rainbow’s first try at apologizing didn’t go all that well. You know he she can get. After that ... well, I think all the stress kinda got to her, and she started hitting her head against the wall and stuff until ... yeah.”

It’s not like I was lying to her, not really. Everything I’d said was true, I was just leaving out a couple little details that nopony needed to know about. If Derpy found out that Rainbow and I had exchanged blows, she would get all worked up.

“Don’t tell anypony,” Blossom quickly added. “It’s ... we’re going to tell the weather team that she just had a flying accident.”

Derpy very slowly nodded her head. “Yeah, I suppose that’s best. Rainbow’s problems ... she deserves a bit of privacy, not having them be the talk of the town.”

“Thank you, Derpy.” Wow, that’s three words I hadn’t expected to hear out of Blossom’s mouth. Derpy gave a wall-eyed blink of surprise, and after a couple of seconds an embarrassed little blush appeared on Blossom’s face. “I ... I owe you an apology for how I acted last time.”

"Oh..." Derpy seemed unsure how to act for a second, then put on one of her classic bubbly smiles. "That's very grown up of you. I’m glad we settled that, because I do want to be your friend. Apology accepted."

Blossom gave a little twitch, then took a deep breath and very calmly added. “With all that said, I also want to tell you that I love Cloud Kicker, and I'm not gonna let you take her away from me.”

Well, so much for my hopes of my best friend and fillyfriend getting along. “Okay, Blossom, I'm flattered that you really want me, but–”

Blossom cut me off with a gentle hoof on my mouth. “No, Cloud Kicker. I'm not gonna give up on you.”

Derpy let out an annoyed grumble as she walked up and pointedly removed Blossom’s hoof. “I love Cloud Kicker too, Blossomforth. We’re in a relationship, and you need to learn to deal with that.”

Blossom met Derpy’s eyes with a determined glare. “No, I don't. I need to kick your sorry flank and get my mare.” A second later she spotted my less than approving look, and abashedly amended, “I–I didn't mean the part about flank-kicking ... um ... literally. I meant...” She gave a quick shake of her head, and got her determination back “What I meant was that I am not going to let you beat me.”

Derpy sighed and broke out the tone she usually used on her daughter whenever Dinky was being particularly troublesome. “Blossomforth, I understand that you and I both want the same somepony...”

“I am pretty amazing like that,” I snarked.

Blossom giggled and gave me a playful little punch in the shoulder. “Quiet, you.”

“Hey, it’s the truth!” I grinned and buffed a hoof on my chest. “It’s like I said, I’ve got irresistible charm. It’s no surprise that I’ve got ponies fighting over me.”

Derpy loudly cleared her throat and hit the both of us with a disapproving glare. Guess that’s one of the advantages of having eyes like hers; she could glare at both us at the same time. I gave an apologetic little flinch at my fillyfriend’s obvious disapproval, but Blossom just glared right back at her. “What?” she spat defiantly. “Do you have a problem?”

Derpy let out a long-suffering sigh, and very patiently began. “Blossom, you need to accept–”

“No,” Blossom cut her off. “I really don't.”

Derpy’s face screwed up in annoyed frown. “So what then? Are you going to attack me, or try some foalish plot to force me away from Cloud Kicker?”

“No, nothing like that.” Blossom smirked. “I just have to be better than you.”

Derpy’s upper lip curled up slightly. “Oh yes, you're off to an amazing start.” I swear, even Pinkie Pie might have been able to detect that much sarcasm.

Blossom shot her a tight, competitive little grin. “Better than you realize. I guess you haven’t heard what my special talent is. I don't give up, and I don't lose.”

“I didn’t want to have this conversation, but if you insist...” Derpy sighed into her hoof. “Love isn't a competition, Blossomforth. It’s–”

“You're in between me and the pony I love,” Blossom cut her off. “I don't know about you, but right now I feel pretty feathering competed against right now. If you don’t want this to be a competition, then get the hay out of my way.”

“You had your chance!” I was a little surprised that Derpy actually snapped at her like that, even with Blossom needling at her like she had been–Derpy’s normally very even-tempered. Even more surprising, Derpy kept going. “For years you had your chance and you didn't take it! I don't know why you waited until you did to even admit to yourself that you liked her, but you are the only pony to blame for not trying to connect with Cloud Kicker.”

“You're right,” Blossom admitted. “I missed a lot of chances. I was too scared of being rejected to put my heart out on the line. I guess seeing you and Cloud Kicker hook up put things into perspective for me.” Blossom turned to me and gave me a tender smile. “I know what I want now, and I'm going to fight for it.”

Whoa, what the hay had gotten into Blossom? For a pony who used to blush and squeak at the mention of anything sexual, she was getting really direct about this. Maybe it was like she said, and the threat of losing me to Derpy had motivated her to start stepping outside of her comfort zone a bit more.

Derpy frowned at Blossom, but took a couple deep breaths before she spoke. “I understand that we have our share of disagreements, but your passive-aggressive attitude is not helping things, Blossomforth.”

That got Blossom up out of her seat and glaring at Derpy. “Am I supposed to pretend I'm completely okay with you taking away the mare I love? And for the record, I'm not being passive-aggressive. I'm being very actively aggressive.”

“No, you're not.” Derpy shot back hotly “You've been throwing out snide remarks and angrily avoiding me like Dinky when she’s throwing a temper tantrum. I've been more than patient, Blossom, but even I have my limits!”

“I don't want your patience,” Blossom snapped right back. She took a couple steps forward, placing her well within Derpy’s personal space. “I want Cloud Kicker, and you're in my way. I'd suggest you get out of it.”

I was a little stunned when Derpy actually flared her wings and shouted. “I will not!” Blossom took a step back in shock, and Derpy blinked in surprise a couple times as she realized that she’d lost her cool. After a couple deep breaths, she continued on in a more level, reasonable tone. “Put yourself in my horseshoes, Blossom–I have been alone all my life because of the stigma and responsibilities that come with being a single mother. Now I've found my special somepony, but her self-entitled friend wants to take my fillyfriend away from me! I swear, if you were one of my daughters, I'd–”

“You’d what?” Blossom shot back challengingly,

“I’d give you a good spanking!” Derpy snarled.

“Ooo, kinky.” That earned me glares from both the mares currently fighting over which one of them should have me. It was worth it though.

Once the two angry mares were done glaring at me, they picked their argument back up right where they’d left off. Blossom sneered at Derpy and growled. “I’m self-entitled? That's rich, coming from a pony who was born in Canterlot with a feathering silver spoon in her mouth. I grew up in an orphanage and earned every single feathering thing I have by fighting tooth and hoof for it. Some ponies don't get life hoofed over to them on a silver platter!”

Derpy snorted and rolled her eyes. “So just because you’re an orphan, that makes it fine to just waltz in and steal my fillyfriend?” Derpy’s voice was laced with more contempt than I’d ever expected to hear from her. “Oh, poor baby who started out with nothing. If you wanted Cloud Kicker so badly, you should have put your muzzle between her legs when you had the chance!”

“Oh ... you ...” Blossom sputtered and fumed for a bit before finally shouting “Well maybe I should just do that right now! I bet I could have her melting in my hooves so fast she'd forget all about you!”

“Go ahead and try!” Derpy snapped back. “Do you really expect to impress her with your extensive experience? I bet you wouldn’t even know where to start!”

I was a little tempted to object to Derpy just volunteering me like that, but speaking up would probably just get them both glaring at me again. Personally, I was inclined to stick with my current ‘stay quiet and hope they don’t remember I’m here’ strategy. That seemed to be what the receptionist was doing. It was a pity somepony like Redheart who wouldn’t put up with this nonsense wasn’t around–getting chucked out the hospital might be enough of a wake-up call to stop these two from arguing. Or maybe it would just get them fighting over whose fault it was that we’d been thrown out.

Blossom scoffed. “So you wanna talk bout experience, huh? You think she would prefer your soggy, over-used muffin? Did you ever find out who Dinky's father was? I'm sure there so many different stallions, it was hard to keep track.”

“How dare you bring my baby into this!” Derpy looked beyond furious, and I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t hastily interposed myself between the two of them it would’ve have come to blows right then and there.

I gave Derpy a hug that would hopefully be tight enough to keep her from breaking loose and jumping Blossom. “Derpy, calm down! It’s not worth it.” I turned to face Blossom and hit her with my best disapproving glare. “Blossom, that was way out of line and you know it. Look, I’m flattered that you feel that way about me, but that does not give you the right to take a cheap shot like that at Derpy. To hay with banging, I’d suggest you pick your next words very carefully if you wanna keep being my friend at all.”

Blossom’s ears went back flat on her head. “I ... I wasn’t trying to ... I’m sorry.” Blossom sighed and scuffed a hoof along the floor. “I didn’t mean it that way–your daughter doesn’t deserve to get pulled into our argument. I’m sorry.”

Derpy was still glaring daggers at Blossom, but after several seconds of awkward silence she very slowly nodded her head. “Apology accepted, but if you ever bring my Muffin into this again I swear I’ll...”

“Right.” I released my hug on Derpy and let out a relieved breath–that was one potential crisis defused. “Okay, good. Glad that’s settled.” I sighed and rubbed a hoof on my forehead. “Look, I get that there are some issues here that we really need to resolve. I’d really like to not have my best and my fillyfriend at each other’s throats. Hay, I’d really like to think that I could have a serious romantic relationship that doesn’t end up going to Tartarus.”

Blossom flinched at that. “I–I’m really sorry, Cloud Kicker. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories of what happened between you and Fluttershy.”

Next thing I knew, I was on the receiving end of a less-than-pleased look from my fillyfriend. “Cloud Kicker! You told her?”

I felt a twitch of annoyance with my fillyfriend. “I'd just been fired for it, Derpy! Sorry if it upsets you that I decided to tell my best friend why our boss just chucked me out on my flank. I figured if she’s gonna get mixed up in all this she deserves to know what the deal is.”

Blossom stepped up and gave me an affectionate little nuzzle. “She needed somepony to talk to, and I was there for her. What’s so bad about that?”

Derpy hit Blossom with the most furiously jealous wall-eyed glare I’ve ever seen, and her voice dropped down to angry growl. “She has a fillyfriend, Blossomforth.”

“Then why weren't you there when she needed you?” Blossom demanded, wrapping a possessive wing around me. I was more than a little tempted to shrug her off, but that would make it look like I was taking Derpy’s side. But letting her do that made it look like I was on Blossom’s side ... argh! Why were these two putting me in a position where I couldn’t just be nice to my best friend or my fillyfriend without worrying that they’d see it as me taking a feathering side?

Derpy’s upper lip pulled back in a snarl. “I was trying to talk some sense into Rainbow, you bi–” Derpy cut herself off before she could finish the curse. “I was trying to actually get Cloud Kicker her job back without resorting to underhoofed tactics. You know, like letting your boss beat the feathers out of herself.”

Dammit, I couldn’t let that one slide. “Derpy! That is not what happened!” They could toss a couple snide remarks at each other and I’d stay out of it, but when it comes to something like accusing Blossom of deliberately injuring Rainbow to get me my job back I had to step in.

Unfortunately, Derpy took that exactly how I’d been afraid she would, and shot me a confused and slightly hurt look. “We're in the hospital, sweetie. Rainbow would never come here on her own. Somepony made her come here.” Derpy tossed a positively toxic glare at Blossom.

Considering that I’d been the one to tie Rainbow up and drag her here, Derpy’s words sent a twinge of guilt through my gut. Blossom took note of my reaction, and met Derpy’s glare with an equally furious one. “Derpy. Drop this. Now.”

Derpy’s wings flared. “Rainbow Dash is my friend, my daughters' godmother, and she has a history of self-destructive behavior. I beg your pardon for worrying about her!”

I was surprised when Blossom actually backed down a bit, tucking her wings back in and shooting a concerned glance towards the operating room. “I'm worried about her too, okay? She's my boss, and I'd like to think she's a friend as well.”

Sadly, Blossom’s disinterest in continuing the argument seemed to be a one-sided thing. “If you’re so worried about Rainbow Dash, then why did you slink after Cloud Kicker when your 'friend' clearly needed your help?”

That knocked Blossom right out of her moment of moroseness, and she came back twice as furious. “Gee, maybe because I care about Cloud Kicker too, and thought she just might need a friend after she lost her feathering job!”

Derpy scoffed at that. “Cloud Kicker's a big filly, she can take care of herself for a little bit.” Derpy smiled at me with lidded eyes, and her voice slipped into a surprisingly seductive purr. “Once I was done with Rainbow I was planning to drop by your place to help you unwind...”

Next thing I knew, I was on the receiving end of demanding stares from both the mares who wanted me in their bed. Too bad a threesome was probably out of the question. When several seconds of carefully neutral silence did nothing to deter them, I knew I was in trouble. I was on the spot, and they weren’t gonna let me out until I’d said something. I gave an uncomfortable little shuffle of my wings, and tried to give the most neutral but honest answer I could. “I really appreciate what you were trying to do, Derpy, but it was nice to have somepony to talk to right after all that went down.”

Blossom shot a victorious smirk at Derpy, who gave a guilty flinch. Dammit, so much for trying not to take sides. Derpy met my eyes with an apologetic little grin “Oh ... I’m so sorry, sweetie, I was just trying to help ... I guess I'm not very good at that, either.”

“Oh, it's fine.” Blossom’s voice was thick with condescending sarcasm. “You were just more worried about Rainbow Dash than your fillyfriend, that's all.”

I let out an annoyed little grumble and shot a less than happy look at Blossom. It would be really nice if these two could just stop sniping at each other for five minutes.

Derpy hit Blossom with a watery-eyed glare. “And you're so much better, being so busy trying to split things up between me and my fillyfriend that Rainbow hurts herself under your snout? Were you too busy looking for a pity shag to notice her self-destruction, or did you want a promotion as well as a clopjob?”

Great, these two were already getting out of control. Again. Before I could step in to try to calm things down, Blossom lost her cool and shouted. “Go feather yourself, Derpy! You weren't there, you don't know what happened!”

Derpy shot a nasty little smirk at her. “Hey, somepony had to keep the training for Tornado Day on track after you abandoned us to chase after your crush.”

Blossom’s voice turned positively acidic. “Out of curiosity, how many other things are there that are more important to you than your comforting your distraught fillyfriend? Were you planning to run a couple errands and read a Daring Doo book before you got around to checking up on her?”

Derpy furiously stomped on the floor. “I would have gone to her right away if I didn't have to do your job on top of mine! Some ponies have a sense of responsibility!”

Blossom broke out the nasty sarcasm again. “Oh, I'm so sorry that my concern for Cloud Kicker's well-being cause you a minor inconvenience. Now that I understand where your priorities are...”

“Bite me, you lazy, selfish, inconsiderate child!” Whoa! I don’t think I’d ever seen Derpy just completely snap like that before. She’s normally such a bubbly sweetheart, but now... And the most incredible part was that she wasn’t even done yet. “No wonder you’ve gone through your entire life without ever being loved by anypony!”

Oh Celestia, why did she have to go there? I had to abandon my position of comfortable neutrality again. “Derpy, that’s ... that’s as cheap of a shot as what you thought Blossom said about Dinky, except she didn’t mean it.”

Blossom’s breathing was pretty unsteady as she glared at Derpy, and it took her a few tries to actually say something. “And I'm sure you don't know anyone who went most of their life without anypony loving them,” I could barely hear her as she whispered, “And how much that hurts.”

Horrified guilt slowly dawned on Derpy’s face. “I ... Oh Luna , I ...” Derpy’s hind legs collapsed underneath her, and she clapped her hooves over her mouth. A second later she was glaring at Blossom again. “You ... how could you use one my girls against me like that?”

Okay, I was getting sick of trying to be the neutral peacemaker while these two tore each other to bits and kept dragging me into the middle of it. “Y'know what? Feather this.” Both of them jumped in surprise when I said that. “I'm gonna–y'know what, I don't even know what I'm gonna go do, but I'm gonna go do it for a while. You two can figure your stuff out on your own.” Both of them had their mouths open, probably to try to accuse the other one of starting the whole fight or something, but I didn’t even give them a chance. “You think you're tired of this, I'm the one caught in the middle. Yeah, I’ve got commitment issues, but the rules were also there so I wouldn’t have put up with this kinda horseapples! Figure something out, or you can both learn to live by yourselves.”

I stormed up to the front desk, and dug out a nurse who looked like she really just wanted to be anywhere else than trapped in a hospital lobby with two furiously arguing mares. “What room is Rainbow Dash in?”

“Um–she hasn’t been cleared to have visitors yet...” the receptionist began uncertainly.

“Do I look like I care?” I growled. “Room number. Now.”

“Um ... she’s in room A113, but...” I didn’t even bother to hear the rest of what she had to say before I took off. In hindsight it might’ve been a good idea to ask for directions to the room first, but I was a bit too pissed off to think about details like that.

It took me a couple minutes of wandering before I worked out the hospital’s room numbering system and found my way to Rainbow’s room on my own. Perhaps that was a good thing, since it gave me a little time to calm down from dealing with all the stupid drama with Blossom and Derpy. For the first time since it all happened, I was starting to wonder if hooking up with Derpy had been the right move. I mean, being a swinging single had a lot going for it, like not having to deal with all this stupid relationship drama and stress. Just going around and banging who I want, when I want was so much easier.

Rainbow Dash looked up in surprise from her bed when I walked in the door. There was a bandage over the right side of her face that covered up her eye, but aside from that she looked like she was doing alright. Or at least, she had been doing alright until she saw me. Her ears went flat, and she started studying her hospital gown intently. “Um ... hey, Cloud Kicker.”

“Yeah, hi.” Okay ... this was a bit awkward. Maybe coming in to see her like this wasn’t my best idea. Too late to leave now, though. “So ... um, how’s the thing with your eye?”

“They fixed it up alright,” Rainbow answered with forced casualness. “Just gotta take it easy for a couple days, and I’ll be fine. I’ll even be good to fly for Tornado Day, s’long as I wear flight goggles.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Yeah.” The awkward silence came back for a bit before Rainbow announced. “Um ... tell Blossom it’s not her ... uh, look, her smacking me just kinda ... well, I’d done most of the damage myself with crashing and stuff before, the hit was just the last little bit it needed. So it’s not her fault that my eye got all ... y’know. Besides, I kinda deserved that hit.” Rainbow sighed and turned her head toward me, but still couldn’t quite look at me with her one uncovered eye. “Hay, I deserved a lot worse. I think I was kinda hoping you’d kick my flank for everything I’d done. I feathered up bad this time.”

I very slowly nodded. “Yeah, you did.”

Rainbow looked down and rubbed her hooves together uncomfortably. “I'm sorry, okay?”

No half-flanking this time, just a simple, genuine apology. “S’alright. Everypony makes mistakes.”

“Yeah, but this one was bad.” Rainbow sighed and fidgeted with her bedsheets. “I ... y’know how I had to do that therapy stuff after Flight Camp? I ... probably oughta get back to that. Maybe Twilight knows somepony who’d be good at that.”

“Yeah, she probably would,” I agreed.

“Cloud Kicker?” Rainbow asked with unusual hesitation. “We okay?”

I smiled and nodded to her. “Yeah. We're okay.”

The Pony Who is Tired of Pretending Her Life Isn't Perfect

I was late getting into work the next day.

I generally try to be a punctual pony. It’s a habit my parents encouraged, and West Hoof made it pretty much mandatory. When your CO tells you to be somewhere at 0600, it’s in your best interests to plan on being there by 0550 at the latest. Bad Things happen if you don’t make it on time.

In my defense, I had some pretty understandable reasons for not showing up on time. If I’m being completely honest, a big part of it was down to the fact that going into Tornado Day meant dealing with Derpy and Blossom again. I had no idea how or if they had worked out their disagreements, though judging by the lack of catastrophic collateral damage it seemed that the fight hadn’t come to blows. Still, I had a feeling that having to spend all day working with both of them had a lot of potential to get interesting, especially since Blossom was the acting weather boss now that Rainbow was in the hospital.

Of course, it might also bear mentioning that the mare I’d banged last night woke up in the mood for a couple more rounds this morning. After all the crazy drama yesterday, I needed the purely physical one-night stand to blow off a little steam and provide some much-needed tension release.

I arrived at the training grounds and met to find a group a ponies that looked noticeably smaller than yesterday’s crop. Nothing extreme, but we were short a couple ponies. I guess the news about Rainbow being out hadn’t gone over all that well. Blossom and I might be great at all the technical nuts and bolts of management, but neither of us had Rainbow’s knack for making a bunch of draftees actually want to do weather work.

Don’t get me wrong, we could round up the strays. It’s called Tornado Duty for a reason–ponies aren’t allowed to just pick up and go home because they’re not sure about showing up. Without Rainbow’s force of personality, odds were we’d have to resort to less pleasant methods of getting things done. Reminding ponies that shirking Tornado Duty carries a very hefty fine would get them all to show up, but there’s a huge difference between the fired up enthusiasm Rainbow could generate and sullen resentment we would get from strong-hoofing ponies into showing up.

That’s not to say that we were planning to use all stick and no carrot: a couple picnic tables had been set up off to the side of the training area and loaded down with enough baked goods to represent a significant chunk of Sugarcube Corner’s inventory. Free food is always a good way to make ponies show up for something.

Blossom was in the middle of a conversation with Raindrops, but the instant she saw me she waved me over. I wasn’t all that surprised to see that both of them didn’t look very happy with me. I suppose I couldn’t really blame them–I’d picked a bad day to show up late for work. Blossom probably would’ve felt better taking over if I’d been there to back her up, and Raindrops has always taken weather work a little too seriously for her own good.

Guess I better get started on the apologies. “Sorry I’m late. Stuff happened, and...” I tried to come up with something that would give me a legitimate reason for not showing up on time, and couldn’t find one. Well, not unless I wanted to start lying or saying that my personal life being a gigantic mess made it okay for me to leave the ponies who needed me hanging. Even if I wanted to try and sell a line of horseapples like that, Blossom was mixed up in it too and she’d managed to get to work just fine. “I’ve got no excuse. Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Blossom sighed and gave a sharp little nod. “Well, you’re here now, that’s what matters. Raindrops is filling in for me while I fill in for Rainbow Dash, so–” Whatever she was about to say next disappeared into a coughing fit that sounded nasty enough to get me a bit worried. I gave her a couple pats on the back, and after a while she coughed herself out. “I’m fine,” she insisted hoarsely. “It’s just a little cough.”

“You’ve had that ‘little’ cough all morning,” Raindrops grumbled, though I was pretty sure I could detect a hint of concern underneath the sourness. That’s kinda how Raindrops works–don’t let the grumpy and serious exterior fool you, she’s a sweetheart deep down.

Blossom let out an annoyed growl that transitioned into another couple coughs. Okay, definitely starting to get a little worried about her now. A healthy pony doesn’t cough that much. Despite the fact that it was very obviously not true, Blossom stuck to her story. “I’m fine, really.”

Raindrops and I shared a look, and I’m reasonably sure I was mirroring the worried frown on her face. A blind pony could tell that Blossom wasn’t all that healthy. Blossom seemed to pick up on our silent exchange, because she sighed and very reluctantly conceded. “Okay. I’m a little under the weather. What do you expect me to do about it? We need a manager running things, and after what happened yesterday I’m the best pony for the job. I don’t have time to be sick.”

“It doesn’t really matter if you have time to be sick or not,” I declared. “The fact is, you’re clearly coming down with something.” Blossom opened her mouth to argue the point, but instead of words all that came out was another coughing fit. Thanks for proving my point, Blossom. “Look, I can handle things here. Go home and get some rest.”

Blossom gave a stubborn shake of her head. “No. Morale’s shaky enough as it is, if we change who’s running Tornado Day on everypony again things will go to Tartarus.”

Okay, she had a fair point there. Few things are worse for morale than not having a clear chain of command. All the ponies who didn’t want to be here anyway would start feeling like they could get away with shirking their duties, and every single pony that didn’t show up would encourage the rest to drop out too. Once your command authority collapses, it’s very hard to start building it back up again.

Still, that meant we were leaving a sick pegasus in charge. Hopefully, we could find ways to mitigate that. “Okay, you’re the boss, Blossom. Just try to take it easy and run things from the ground. Maybe send Twilight to Zecora’s to get some medicine for whatever you’ve got.”

“We could send Twilight if she was here,” Raindrops grumbled. Sure enough, a quick look around showed no signs of Ponyville’s sexiest librarian. Darn.

“Not much we can do except hope she shows up on her own,” Blossom added with a sigh. “She was helping with Tornado Duty as a favor to Rainbow Dash. If she doesn’t want to keep helping out now that Rainbow’s not running the show, there’s not much we can do.”

“Relax, she won’t leave us hanging,” I reassured Blossom. “She probably just caught up in one of her research projects or something.”

Raindrops looked between the two of us with a frown and took a deep breath before speaking. “I have a suggestion to make that I’m pretty sure isn’t going to be very popular, but hear me out.” Both of us turned to face the temporary assistant manager. “I think we need to consider canceling Tornado Day. I looked over the numbers, and Rainbow’s plan depended on just about everything going right. Right now our manager’s in the hospital, our backup manager is sick, and our other backup manager is in a pretty shaky position to actually take over. No offense, Cloud Kicker.”

“It’s fine,” I reassured her. “Rainbow did kinda fire me right in front of everypony. Sure, we settled things up later, but until the boss tells everypony I’ve got my job back it’s gonna be a little hard to make all the draftees accept me as an authority figure.” I gave a quick shake of my head and got back to the more important topic. “Still, we can’t just cancel Tornado Day. Well, we could technically do it, but that would just kill the boss.”

“This is her dream project,” Blossom added. “I wouldn’t feel right about pulling the plug on it while she’s in the hospital.”

“More like a vanity project,” Raindrops grumbled under her breath. Hate to admit it, but she did have a bit of a point there–this whole Tornado Day thing definitely had some of Rainbow’s classic over-ambitiousness. “If you’re that worried about how canceling it will affect her, think about how she’ll take it if things fall apart on her completely. Right now she can back out and not get hurt too bad by it. She’s in the hospital, Cloudsdale would understand. If it gets all the way up to Tornado Day and it all explodes in her face ... that would be bad.”

That’s not to mention that the weather bosses wouldn't be the only ponies Rainbow was failing in front of. “Especially since one of the Wonderbolts is gonna be here to supervise.” I shot a worried look in the direction of Ponyville Hospital. The boss could live with having the folks above her in the weather service food chain being unhappy with her, but having a big project crash and burn in front of a Wonderbolt would tear her apart. I’m pretty sure that a big part of why she wanted the break the record for strongest Tornado came down to the fact that she would be doing it in front of the captain of the Wonderbolts. Hay, it was probably a big part of why she hatched this whole Tornado Day scheme in the first place.

Blossom was frowning at both of us. “So we either kill Rainbow’s pet project, or we risk having it fail spectacularly.” Another coughing fit cut off anything else she might’ve been planning to say, but she’d gotten the main point across.

“Not sure which one of those options I hate more.” I frowned and scuffed a hoof along the ground. “Maybe we should talk to Rainbow about this. This ... I wouldn’t feel right making a decision like this without checking in with her first.” One thing’s for sure, if we pulled the plug on Tornado Day she wouldn’t take it well. Rainbow and I might’ve patched things up, but I was a little hesitant to go against her on a project she was so invested in. She might not be a perfect pony, but she was still my oldest friend.

“Rainbow won’t let you end Tornado Day.” Raindrops frowned at nopony in particular. “You both know it, she’ll say something about how everything that’s going wrong can still be fixed if we all just buckle down and give a hundred and twenty percent. She’s not going to let this go until it crashes and burns.”

Blossom shot her a worried frown and pondered that for moment, then firmly declared. “You’ve got a point, but I think it’s a little early to say that Tornado Day is doomed. If we can round up the rest of our strays that weren’t tempted back by all the free food Pinkie Pie gave us, then we’ll be fine. I don’t know if we'll be able to break the record like she wants, but we’ll have more than enough wingpower to pull off the tornado.”

Cutting off the trickle of deserting ponies would do a lot to restore everypony’s confidence. That just left the question of who was on roundup duty–I didn’t want Blossom doing it when she seemed to be one bit of physical exertion away from coughing up a lung and Raindrop was just a temporary emergency assistant manager. So, I guess that left only one pony cut out for the job. “I’ll see what I can do. Between a little sweet-talking and reminding everypony that there’s a big fine for skipping out on weather duty, we should be able to get everypony back. Just give me a list of all the ponies who’ve gone AWOL on us, and I’ll get to work.”

Blossom looked to me and gave a quick nod. “Okay. We’ll need to have somepony actually do a proper head-count. Twilight was handling most of that before, and since she’s not–”

The rest of what Blossom was about to say abruptly vanished when a flash of purple light in the middle of the training field revealed our local librarian. The unicorn was nursing a very large cup of coffee, and shot the three of us a sleepy smile. “Sorry I’m late, I had an absolutely incredible night of studying.”

“It’s fine,” Blossom quickly assured her. Blossom looked every bit as relieved as I felt to see the unicorn back in action–Rainbow had shifted a lot of the finer points of organization for Tornado Day over to Twilight, to the point where it’d be kinda difficult to keep it all running without her. Not sure if that was a smart move on Rainbow’s part; Twilight was great at organizing, but leaning so heavily on a non-weatherpony for getting Tornado Day to happen didn’t quite sit right with me.

“So...” Twilight took a long pull from her coffee. “Where do you need me?”

“Could I get a quick headcount? We’ve got ponies missing, and I need to know who isn’t here so we can start rounding them all up.” Blossom sounded surprisingly ... in-charge. I guess being the weather boss kinda suited her.

Twilight finished off her coffee and gave a sharp nod. “Yes. Listing ponies. I can do that. Spike! Where’s my list of ponies? Spike!” Twilight frowned and looked around for her pet dragon for a bit, then facehoofed. “I ... think I left my number one assistant at the library. I should probably go get him. And maybe some more coffee too.” A second later she teleported away, presumably to retrieve both of those things.

Blossom stared at the space our volunteer organizer had so recently occupied and huffed, then turned back to face me. “Well, while we’re waiting for her to get your list ready, there are a couple things I need to talk to you about, Cloud Kicker.” She shot a slightly sheepish look at Raindrops. “Not weather-related things.”

“Right.” Raindrop gave a quick nod. “I’ll keep an eye on all the trainees.” With that said, she trotted off to give the two of us a bit of privacy.

“So, I’m guessing you want to talk about what happened at the hospital, right?” Kind of an obvious subject to discuss, though I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to bring it up or not. I guess I couldn’t just spend my entire life ignoring it, but I really didn’t want to discuss the whole drama issue between Blossom and Derpy. Too bad just pretending none of that had happened wasn’t an option.

Blossom shot me a slight frown, then seemed to force it away. “I ... look, Cloud Kicker ... why didn’t you tell me things with you and Derpy had gotten serious? You told me the two of you were just friends-with-benefits.”

Okay, that one caught me by surprise. I guess I should’ve seen it coming though; of course Blossom wouldn’t know that Derpy and I had gotten closer while I was on the outs with her. I hadn’t intended to leave her in the dark, but... “Do I start with the part where we were barely even speaking to each other, or the part where I figured you would get upset if I told you that I was getting serious about somepony else?”

Blossom grimaced and gave a pained nod. “Okay that’s fair. It’s just...” Blossom trailed off with a sigh. “I might have tried not to be quite so confrontational if I’d known the two of you were starting to care about each other like that.”

Oh. Yeah, I guess that would explain a thing or two. I’d been a little surprised that Blossom was so gung-ho about breaking me and Derpy up, but if she thought the two of us were still nothing more than banging buddies to each other that would make a bit more sense. “So ... does that mean I’m not stuck in a crazy drama-filled love triangle anymore?”

Blossom ducked her head and couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Sorry. It’s a little late for me to take all that back. I don’t feel right about wanting to break up a serious ongoing relationship, but I still want something more with you.” Blossom tentatively reached and put a hoof to the side of my face. “I just ... I missed my chance with you because I was scared of being rejected. I don’t want to end up repeating that mistake by not fighting for the pony I love.”

Okay ... getting into awkward territory here. Nothing a hasty change of subject couldn’t fix. “So ... did you kiss and make up with Derpy?”

Blossom took the hoof off of my face and gave a self-conscious cough. Or at least, I hope it was self-conscious. I guess it’s a good thing I got my Feather Flu shot a month ago. When you’ve got my lifestyle, staying up-to-date on your vaccinations is just common sense. “We ... worked a few things out,” Blossom conceded, “and we’ll try to keep things from ever getting that badly out of hoof again. But ... well, it’s hard to get around the fact that we both want the same pony.”

“So ... no kissing and making up? Darn.” I gave her a playful little poke in the ribs. “I would like to see that. Especially the ‘kissing’ part.” I smirked and nudged her again. “Hay, I’ll make you a deal: you kiss and make up with Derpy, and you’ll get one smooch from me.”

Blossom grimaced for a moment, and then called out, “Derpy, I need to speak with you.”

Wait, she wasn’t really going to...? No way, I’d obviously been teasing her with that. She was just counter-teasing or bluffing, there’s no way she would ever really...

Derpy trotted up to the two of us with a slightly worried frown on her face, though she shot me a quick little smile. “Yes, Blossomforth? Is there something– Mmph!”

Okay. Wow. Yeah, Blossom was gonna do it.

They were kissing. Well, Blossom was kissing her, while Derpy was just kinda standing there in shock. In any case, it was incredibly hot.

After a couple seconds of lip-lock, Blossom pulled away from an utterly shell-shocked Derpy. After pointedly wiping her lips, she turned to me and announced with a smirk. “I don’t like to lose. I’ll collect on that kiss you owe me later, right now I need to wash the taste of muffins out of my mouth.” That's an innuendo that would've left her blushing like a–well, Blossom, if I'd've called her on it two weeks ago. Now? I wasn't even sure if it had been unintentional.

She made a point of brushing against me as she walked past. What the hay happened to my prudish and easily embarrassed friend?

Oh, right. Me.

Derpy still looked like she’d just seen a buffalo in a tutu dance by. “Uh, Derpy? You alright there?”

Derpy blinked her mismatched eyes a couple times, and gave a quick shake of her head and reattached her jaw from when it had hit the ground. “I–uh, Cloud Kicker? Did Blossomforth just kiss me?”

“Yeah,” I answered with a grin I wasn’t even trying to hide.

Derpy started blushing furiously. “She used tongue, Cloud Kicker!”

And ... yep, popping a wingie. “How good was she?”

That earned me a very annoyed glare from Derpy. “Cloud Kicker, why do I have a feeling you had something to do with this? And what was that about how you owed her a kiss?”

“Uh ... I might have made a joking comment about how much I’d like to see the two of you kiss and make up ... in a literal sense.” I let out a slightly sheepish chuckle and scuffed a hoof on the ground. “I wasn’t expecting her to jump on it like that.”

Derpy gave an aggravated flick of her ear. “Cloud Kicker, she just kissed me. In public.” Oh yeah, we kinda did have just about every pegasus in Ponyville for an audience. Oh well. I’ve done far worse than kiss while other ponies were looking, though I will say that the whole thing back on the campus lawn at West Hoof hadn’t been planned quite that way. Apparently the Background Pony spell I’d gotten put over the two of us couldn’t quite stand up to what happens when I started banging a real screamer. The demerits were so worth it, though.

Still, I had an aggravated fillyfriend to calm down.“Hey, it was just a little kiss, it’s not that big a deal, Derpy.” I grinned and leaned in close enough that our noses were almost touching. “I think I see what the problem is–you want me to kiss you so you can stop thinking about what Blossom’s lips felt like, don’t you? And so everypony know you’re my fillyfriend.”

I was a little surprised when I felt a hoof on my chest pushing me back. “Cloud Kicker...” I found myself on the receiving end of a annoyed, wall-eyed glare. “You need to stop leading Blossomforth on. Stunts like this are only going to encourage her to keep holding onto that crush–the sooner you stop stringing her along and–”

“I am not stringing her along!” I snapped at my fillyfriend.

“You. Just. Promised. To. Kiss. Her.” Derpy ground out between clenched teeth. “So either you’re stringing her along, or you really meant it. Which is it?”

“I was just joking around with her, okay?” Great, now I was getting all defensive. “I didn’t think she would take me seriously!”

“You...” Derpy let out a groan and applied hoof to face. After a couple seconds of frustrated silence, she let out a heavy sigh. “Cloud Kicker, please, for the love of Celestia think before you do things like that,” she pleaded. “You know Blossomforth is interested in you, and you should know better than to say something that will encourage her like that.”

“Hey, we were just joking around, it’s not a big deal.” Derpy didn’t even dignify that with an answer, she just hit me with that wall-eyed look of displeasure I was really starting to dread seeing. I guess if I’m completely honest with myself, she had a point. I mean, Blossom had been getting pretty bold and assertive about her interest in me. Her jumping right on something I told her might get a kiss from me ... yeah, I guess that shouldn’t have surprised me so much.

Now I was in a bit of a tight spot. I might have been joking when I said it, but I had still offered to kiss her. After what she did with Derpy, odds were she was expecting me to make good on the offer. That would complicate things. “Uh ... I think maybe I messed up a little.”

“Ya think?” Derpy grumbled.

“So, um ... Blossom might be under the impression that I owe her a kiss now...” I began uncertainly. “If I were ... well ...”

“No,” Derpy answered firmly. “Let her down easily, but you are not going to kiss that mare. Do you have any idea how much worse that would make things?” Derpy let out an aggravated groan. “Cloud Kicker, maybe you need to start asking yourself if you’re ready for a serious relationship or if you want to just keep fooling around with somepony else.”

Uh ... whoa. That sounded bad. “But Derpy...”

Derpy cut me off with an angry wave of her hoof. “Don’t you ‘but Derpy’ me. Leading that mare along has caused us–me, especially–enough headache and her enough heartache. We can't change her mind for her, but you can change yours.” She went ominously silent for a long moment, and then very quietly added. “And I can change mine, too.”

Oh. Oh horseapples. Yeah, I was in big trouble here. I had to fix this. Now. “Look, it’s just that Blossom’s my best friend, but I haven’t exactly been that great of a friend to her lately. I just wanna do right by her, okay?”

Derpy glowered at me and gave an aggravated flick of her ear. “So your idea of doing right by her is to dangle a muffin in front of her and then constantly pull it out of reach?”

“No!” I stared at Derpy, aghast with horror. “That's ... Derpy, that's not what I'm trying to do!”

“Well it is what you’re doing!” Derpy snapped at me. “That mare wants you bad enough to yell at me in the hospital and kiss me just to get a scrap of affection from you! Maybe you need to start thinking about what you did to put her in that state.”

All my frustration with this whole situation just came boiling out. “Well gee, if she's that desperate for me to show her a little affection, then maybe I should kiss her!”

Derpy’s eyes narrowed and she gave an angry little snort. “Fine. Go kiss her. It won’t bother me. I did say I didn't mind you sleeping with other ponies, so what's a kiss? You can even go and sleep with her if you want, what’s that but another notch on the record?”

I’m not sure whether I was offended or hurt that she actually thought I was the kind of pony who would go around banging ponies for some kind of trophy thing. Banging is something a pony does for mutual fun, not some shallow point-scoring trophy thing.“It's not like that, Derpy!”

“Could've fooled me.” Derpy grumbled bitterly. She hesitated for a moment and licked her lips before continuing. “Cloud Kicker, you're hurting a lot more than just her by teasing her like that. It wasn’t a big deal when it was all just fun and games for you two but now that she's serious about things ... sweetie, I fought with her while our friend was hospitalized. Dinky came back from foalsitting with some very awkward questions following Blossomforth's attempt to seduce you, ones I had to answer after you practically moved in with us a couple weeks ago.” She took a single step forward and looked me straight in the eyes (as best she could). “So if it's not like that then please, tell me what is it like?

I took a deep breath, and tried to answer as calmly and reasonably as I could. “Look, I just wanna do right by both of the mares I care for. That's all.”

“You're not,” Derpy answered bluntly. “I’m ... wait, both of the mares you care for?” Derpy looked off to the side at Blossom, who was in the middle of talking to Twilight. Then she turned back to me and very quietly murmured. “I see.”

“I...” Oh horseapples, that whole ‘both’ line really shouldn’t have come out. It’s just–well Blossom’s my best friend, of course I care about her! Anypony would! “Look, Derpy, I didn’t mean it like–”

Derpy didn’t even give me a chance to explain myself. She just turned her back on me and walked away.

Great.

Just abso-feathering-lutely great.

I trotted over to Twilight and Blossom. Right now, some work to get me out of here and keep me distracted from the whole Derpy situation just sounded lovely. “You two got the list AWOL ponies together yet?” My voice came out a lot terser than I’d intended.

“Yeah, right here.” Twilight helpfully levitated a list of ponies in front of me.

“Cloud Kicker?” Blossom shot me a concerned look. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy,” I answered tightly. “I’ll be back with the rest of our conscripts.”

I really should’ve thought this through.

In theory, getting all the ponies who’d run off on us back on weather duty was a simple enough job to pull off. At first it had all gone simple enough–the ponies who weren’t pretty much instantly shamed into coming back on weather duty when I showed up at their house all hopped back into line when I mentioned just how big the fine for shirking weather duty actually was. The closest I had to a real problem was one or two ponies who just didn’t answer the door when I showed up at their homes, but I figured the notes I slipped under their doors would get the job done.

There was just one problem–the last pony on my absentee list. Well, technically her name was right at the top of it, but I certainly wasn’t going to go see her first. Guess it figures Twilight would notice that Fluttershy wasn’t there before anypony else.

For a moment I seriously considered just heading straight back to the training grounds. I’m pretty sure Blossom wouldn’t blame me for not going to Fluttershy’s place, and in all honesty we didn’t really need her to pull off the Tornado anyway. I had plenty of excuses for dodging this.

So why was I walking up the path to her cottage?

I guess part of it might be that I wanted to check up on her after what happened with Rainbow yesterday. Rainbow did say something about getting into an argument with Fluttershy, and considering what Rainbow had been like yesterday that was enough to make me understandably worried.

That sounded a bit like an excuse though. I guess ... well, maybe with how much what happened back at Flight Camp had been hanging over everypony’s head lately, I just wanted to see her. It sounds strange when I put it that way, but ... yeah, I wanted to see Fluttershy, and have some words with her. I’m not even sure why.

I knocked on her front door, and after a couple seconds a bunny opened it. If it were anypony else’s home, a rabbit answering the door would be weird. The rabbit crossed his paws over his chest, and glared at me suspiciously.

“Um ... hi.” How are you supposed to talk to a rabbit anyway? That was Fluttershy’s thing, not mine. “So ... is Fluttershy around?” Kind of silly to even ask that question when as far as I could tell the rabbit wouldn’t even give me an answer.

In fact, all the rabbit did was keep his arms crossed and continue silently glaring at me.

Right, looks like I wouldn’t be getting anything out of the rabbit, and there was no sign of Fluttershy. Well, if I’m honest, I’d been pretty torn about coming here in the first place, so I guess I could just call it a bust and move on.

I turned around and started trotting down the path away from Fluttershy’s home. However, I only got a couple steps before something smacked into the back of my head. I turned back around, and saw Fluttershy’s doorkeeper looking at me with a smug little smirk on his face. “Did you just throw something at me?”

The bunny gave a very self-satisfied nod.

So Fluttershy’s pets hated me. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. “Look, I’m going, okay?” I turned around, and got all of two steps before a half-eaten carrot bounced off the back of my head. I whirled back around to glare at the belligerent bunny. “Okay, seriously. I’m a nice and generally pretty easygoing kind of pony. I don’t want trouble, but I’ve had a couple pretty rotten days, and if you keep pushing me...”

I turned back around and started walking, then jerked my head to the side on pure instinct. Just in time to to see a rock come shooting over my shoulder to pass through the space my head had just been occupying.

Okay. Fine. I turned back to face the annoying little rabbit and cracked my neck. “You called down the thunder, now get ready to reap the whirlwind, little bunny.” After all the horseapples I’ve been dealing with, a little cathartic violence against a jerk of a bunny sounded ... rather nice.

Fluttershy walked in on us right as I was in the process of pinning the little hell-rabbit down on the floor of her living room. I’m not quite sure what I was really planning for it, beyond teaching the little bunny a lesson about how I was not a pony to be trifled with. I didn’t want to seriously hurt him or anything, just ... establish dominance, I guess.

My childhood fillyfriend stood in the doorway of her own home, her jaw slack with surprise as she stared at the two of us. “C–Cloud Kicker? What are you doing here? Why are you fighting with Angel Bunny?”

The rabbit’s name was Angel? Never knew Fluttershy had an ironic sense of humor. I felt a tiny little pang of guilt as I removed my hoof from the tiny little beast, who made a couple of very rude gestures at me before hopping off to go do ... whatever it is rabbits do. I felt like I owed Fluttershy some explanation for why I was in her house, beating up her pet bunny. “He started it.”

Fluttershy surprised me by actually looking me in the eyes and putting a little steel into her voice. “I’m very sorry that he did that, but he’s still just a little bunny, and you’re a big strong pony.”

Great, I’ve been in her home for less than a minute, and I’ve already assaulted one of her pets and made her upset. Gee, no wonder our relationship didn’t work out.

Fluttershy seemed to give a slight shake as her moment of assertiveness left her, and soon she was hiding behind her mane and shooting me nervous looks again. “Um ... why are you here?”

Oh, right. After the little skirmish her inappropriately named rabbit, I’d almost forgotten why I’d come over in the first place. “It’s about Tornado Duty,” I answered stiffly. I guess trying to keep things a bit formal and businesslike was one way to cut down on the massive awkwardness. “You didn’t show up at the training grounds, so...”

“Oh.” Fluttershy gave a guilty little flinch that made me feel like a complete bully. “I’m sorry, it’s just ... I thought it would be better if I trained on my own for a bit, so that’s why ... um ... why I’m here. That’s ... that’s not a problem, is it?”

“No, you’re fine.” I certainly didn’t want to kick up a fuss about the fact that she technically wasn’t turning out for weather duty. If she said she was training on her own, then that was good enough for me and would be good enough for Blossom. I certainly wasn’t going to slap Fluttershy with a five hundred bit fine for shirking.

“So what kind of training setup do you have anyway?” I asked in a desperate attempt to keep the conversation going. “Weightlifting? Wing-ups? Flying trials?”

Fluttershy was about to answer when a squirrel ran up to her with a mask in it’s paws. A mask with a pony’s face on it. My face, in point of fact.

Okay. That was ... that was something.

“Uh ... Fluttershy?” I shot an understandably questioning look at the little critter. “Why is that squirrel carrying a mask with my face on it?”

“Meep!” Oh great, Fluttershy was getting to the point where she was too embarrassed or scared to actually speak coherently. That hadn’t taken me very long.

I thought about dropping the matter to spare her any further humiliation, but my curiosity got the better of me. “For that matter, why do you have a squirrel-sized mask with my face on it in the first place? Please tell me this isn’t some kind of really weird fetish...”

Well, so much for not making Fluttershy any more embarrassed. Maybe Derpy had a point about me needing to work on the whole ‘think before you open your mouth’ thing.

Fluttershy immediately began blushing furiously and couldn’t even bring herself to peek out at me from behind her mane. I did at least startle her badly enough that she actually managed to regain the capacity for coherent speech. “N-no! It's not like that. It’s for the training I’ve been doing.” Fluttershy shuffled her hooves uncertainly, and her ears went flat against her head. “It’s ... well you know how nervous I can get while other ponies are watching me, so...”

Oh. So the pony-mask was for some sort of performance anxiety training exercise. I guess that made sense. I mean, Fluttershy’s not a very strong flier on a good day, but she’s a lot better than point five wingpower. Hay, I’d seen how badly she choked while doing the test yesterday. Training to beat her nervousness would do her a lot more good than building up her muscles–it didn’t matter how good her wings were if she couldn’t find the courage to actually use them. “Okay, got it. Sorry about the whole...” I waved a hoof vaguely in the air. “That was just me making a bad joke.”

That seemed to make Fluttershy slightly less mortified than she had been. “Oh. Okay.” A moment later she peeked out at me from under her mane. Okay, we had eye contact. That was a good sign. “It’s just–I want everypony to see that I really can be a good flier, and to do that I need to learn to not be so nervous when ponies are watching me. So ... um ... I was thinking that maybe–well, sorry, but you really, really make me nervous when you’re around. So–I was wondering if maybe you could...”

Oh wow ... she was actually kind of reaching out to me. That was a really bold move on her part. Not that I was about to complain, especially since it sounded like she might be trying to work her way around to asking me to actually spend a bit more time around her.

Fluttershy let out another high-pitched squeak and broke eye contact with me a for a bit, but after a couple seconds she seemed to find enough courage to speak again. “I was ... if it's not too much trouble, could you stay a while? While I–um, while I train. And just watch? If–if that wouldn’t be too much trouble for you. Actually, I know you’re probably very busy right now getting ready for Tornado Day, so maybe ... um...”

I jumped in before she could talk herself out of asking me to help. “Oh, I’d be happy to lend a hoof, Fluttershy. You’re the last of the ponies who didn’t show up for training that I needed to check on, so I’ve got time to help you.” Technically I should be heading back to give Blossom a hoof, but Tornado Duty could wait for a bit. Fluttershy was actually asking me to spend time with her. That was huge.

This might be a chance to start patching things up with Fluttershy. If Blossom was here, she’d tell me to forget about Tornado Day in a heartbeat.

A very tentative little smile appeared on Fluttershy’s face. “Oh. Good.” She gave a nervous little flutter of her wings before rapidly blurting out. “It’s just that if I'm gonna stop being nervous when ponies watch me fly it makes sense to have the pony who makes me the most nervous of all help me train, right?”

Okay, we were definitely ... yeah, this was big. Helping her train was a big deal, and it meant we’d be spending a fair bit of time around each other. Like, several days. This was quite possibly the best chance I would ever get to patch things up with her, and I certainly wasn’t going to let it slip past. Had to wonder why she had suddenly gotten so bold as to reach out to me like this though. “Um, alright, I guess. Fluttershy, are you sure that's what you want? I mean, I know how badly you react to me–you could start off with somepony a little less nerve-wracking.”

“Well, maybe, but...” Fluttershy actually brought her face out from behind her mane to look at me directly. “It’s just that if I'm going to be ready to do my part on Tornado Day, then I don't have time to take things slowly. I–I want to stop being so scared, and show everypony that I really am a good flyer. I don't want to just have point five wingpower when everypony else is flying with ten or more, and I don’t want to be scared anymore!”

I very slowly approached and hesitantly put a supportive hoof on her shoulder. She gave a surprised little jump at the unexpected physical contact, but she didn’t break away or gave any sign that she minded it. “Eepy, you stared down and yelled at a dragon last year, and you’re terrified of dragons. I know you have it in you to deal with a little performance anxiety”.

A disturbingly cute blush appeared on Fluttershy’s face. Dammit, stop thinking that way, Cloud Kicker. I really didn’t need to start lusting after her right now. “I ... um ... maybe. I–I guess that dragons are scarier than other ponies, but–well, I’m still scared of dragons. I just got a little upset at the one that hurt my friends and–um–forgot I was scared of him for a bit.”

“So now all we have to do is help you forget that you’re scared of other ponies, and we’ll be fine,” I concluded with a hopeful grin. Always good to have a game plan.

Fluttershy ducked her head and her lower lip started trembling. “But ... but what if I do badly and everypony laughs at me and makes fun of me? And everypony's going to be watching me, so if I make a mistake everypony is going to see it!”

I knelt a little closer to her–I still gave her enough space to respect her personal bubble, but I was near enough to show some support. “Eepy, I make mistakes all the time. Hay, Derpy makes mistakes about twice a day, and she doesn't care. You’ll be fine. Besides, if anypony makes fun of you for it, they've got something else coming...”

Fluttershy turned away from me with a nervous little squeak and quietly whispered. “Oh ... you would ... for me?” She gave a quick shake of her head and met my eyes. “I mean, you shouldn't hurt other ponies just for saying something, even if it is mean, but you would really do that for me even after ... after?”

“Of course I would,” I confirmed. “I ... I know things haven’t been right between us for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t ... well, you’re still an important pony, okay? Besides, we both know that what happened back at Flight Camp was mostly my fault, so I figure I ought to at least keep an eye out for you to make up for it.”

Fluttershy surprised me by looking me straight in the eyes and speaking firmly. “No! It wasn't your fault. I um...” Her moment of assertiveness faded away into an embarrassed blush and a tiny little whisper. “I was the one who kissed you first...”

If kissing was all we had done, there wouldn’t have been any problems. “Yeah, but I kept things going when you weren't comfortable. I...” Now it was my turn to trail off uncertainly and nervously paw at Fluttershy’s floor while I gathered my thoughts. “If it weren't for your personality, you could've ended up with my reputation. I really would've earned Rainbow's beatdown for that.”

If Fluttershy’s directness had taken me by surprise then what happened next absolutely floored me. It actually took me a moment to process just what the narrowing of Fluttershy’s eyes and the sudden tightness of voice mean. Fluttershy was angry. “You didn't deserve what Rainbow Dash did to you. I know she means well, but sometimes she just makes me so frustrated.” Fluttershy’s voice started going from its normal gentle tones to something hard and furious. “She’s been such a horrible friend to you! We were so happy together, and then she ruined everything!”

Oh. Wow. I’d been a little surprised when Rainbow said that Fluttershy had yelled at her yesterday, but now I could believe it. I guess it made sense, really. It took me and Rainbow a lot of work to sort through what happened at Flight Camp, and I won’t deny that I spent a while severely pissed at her. The first couple apology letters she sent wound up in the garbage, but eventually I just got tired of being angry at her. Even then, we spent a lot of time talking things out.

I’d bet Fluttershy never did that. Fluttershy’s not good at confrontation. Rainbow and I sat down and talked things out, but I’d be willing to bet every bit I had that she just told Rainbow that she wasn’t angry and buried all those negative feelings deep down. That’s kinda been a problem Fluttershy’s had for a while: when all that anger gets buried, it inevitably starts building up, until one day it all just explodes out when the right stimulus comes up. Finding out Rainbow just fired me over what happened at Flight Camp was one hell of a trigger, especially if Fluttershy was already feeling emotionally fragile after what happened during training.

Maybe that was why she was reaching out to me now. I’d come here because the whole Flight Camp thing had been on my mind a lot lately. Guess it figures that what happened might be on her mind too.

I sat down beside her. “Look, Fluttershy. Rainbow made a mistake. It was a big one that hurt all of us. Hay, Rainbow’s still hurting for it every day. I don’t think she’s ever really forgiven herself for what she did. Hay ... um ... don’t tell anypony this, but she’s not in the hospital because she crashed from stunt flying. She ... she got a little self-destructive, and basically forced me to hurt her. She ... afterwards she said she felt like she deserved a beat-down from me.” I could feel my eyes actually watering a little bit when I said that. “I ... I hated her for a while, but holding onto all that anger just hurts too much.”

Fluttershy let out a sad little sniffle, and I scooted a bit closer to her. “I know,” she whimpered, “and she tries so hard to be a good friend now, but there are still times when I just ... when I can’t help but be upset with her. And then I feel just awful about being angry at one of my friends, but no matter how bad I feel about being upset with her, I can’t stop feeling that way!”

I scooted a little closer to her. “Hey, it’s okay, Fluttershy. You don’t have to beat yourself up for being upset with her. Rainbow wouldn’t want that.” I gave an awkward little cough and added. “Besides ... well, even if she hadn’t jumped to conclusions, it’s not like we were doing fine up to that point. I mean, the whole reason she blew up was because you weren’t okay with us doing ... what we were doing.”

Fluttershy looked at me out of the corner of her eye and immediately started blushing. “I ... I didn't mind it so much ... the first time. It was ... nice. It’s just that ... um...”

I felt my cheeks getting a bit warm as well. It was kinda hard to think back on my first bang without actually, you know, thinking back on it. “Yeah, I liked it too, but we were both too young for that.”

Fluttershy couldn’t quite bring herself to meet my gaze. “We were both young, but I was the older one, so ... um...”

I shook my head; no way I was going to let her put all the blame for this on herself. “Eepy, we were–what, twelve? Thirteen? We didn't have any business doing the business.”

Fluttershy gave another one of her dangerously cute little squeaks and ducked her face partially behind her mane. “Well, I suppose not. I ... I'm sorry I didn't tell you. That I was ... that I was uncomfortable. I should’ve talked to you instead of going to Rainbow Dash...”

For some reason, one of the razor-thin scars Rainbow had left on my muzzle itched. I ignored it and scooted away from Fluttershy ever so slightly. “Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, Fluttershy. What Rainbow did wasn’t your fault. Besides, with the way I kept pushing ... I could have really hurt you. Hay, in a way Rainbow was right–you were so scared of telling me no that I pretty much did ra–”

“NO!” I about jumped out my horseshoes in surprise when Fluttershy cut me off and actually yelled at me. “You did not! Never say that!”

“I pushed you into it!” I insisted. “You didn't want to do it and I did it anyway!”

I jumped in surprise when Fluttershy put a hoof on my chin and turned my head to meet her eyes. “You did not rape me!” She declared with uncompromising firmness. “Never say that! Never ever ever!”

I hesitantly put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “Eepy–Fluttershy...”

Fluttershy started trembling, and I could see tears starting to form in her eyes. “I was scared and nervous, but it was the first relationship I'd ever been in! You were probably scared too! Anypony would be nervous!”

I sighed and lowered my head to stare uncomfortably at the floor. “Yeah, it was my first time too, and I was a little nervous. That’s probably why I pushed ahead way too fast for you.”

Fluttershy let out a tiny little whimper, and when I looked over at her I saw that her shaking was getting worse. Great, now I was making her feel bad again. Nice going, Cloud Kicker. “Maybe, but that's something I should've talked to you about. You would've stopped if I asked you to. Instead I went to Rainbow Dash, and then she tried to kill you!”

“And Rainbow had a right to!” My voice cracked a bit as the memories resurfaced, from the memory of the fight as much as the night Fluttershy and I had leading up to it. “I did force it, Fluttershy–you weren't comfortable, and I didn't pay attention to the warning signs.”

Fluttershy gave an angry shake of her head. “No, she did not have the right to hurt you!” She let out a bitter little sniffle. “I went to her for advice, and instead she ... she...” What little self-control Fluttershy still had broke completely, and she began openly sobbing. “I'm sorry Cloud Kicker, I'm so sorry! It’s all my fault and I’m so sorry!”

Seeing Fluttershy crack was enough to break my own self control, and soon I had tears coming down too. “Aw, jeez, now I’m getting all weepy too.” I very hesitantly lifted a wing for her, and Fluttershy didn’t even hesitate before moving under it and wrapping one of her own wings over me in response.

For a while we lay there together, wrapped in each other’s wings and crying our eyes out. Just two hurt ponies, trying to see if being with each other could finally make the pain go away. Celestia, why did it have to hurt so much? “We've both been living with this for so long. I knew we were both hurting, but I had no idea it was eating you like this...I'm so sorry.”

That just made Fluttershy let out a tiny little mewl of pain. “No, I'm sorry.” I felt her wing tighten around me. “I know some ponies think you must've done something to me, when it's really me who was awful to you...”

I pulled up a little closer to her, so we were pressed up right against each other, and looked her dead in the eyes. “You were not awful. You were you–nervous about what we'd done, then horrified when the boss misunderstood. You just didn't know how else to react.”

Fluttershy let out a guilty little whine and turned away from me, though she was still looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “But ... but you were so hurt...”

I forced a smile onto my face for her sake. “Yeah, I got a little busted up, but nothing that didn’t heal. The scars aren’t that bad, and you can't even see them under my fur. Besides, a Kicker needs a couple battle scars. I got better. You ... you were the one who really didn't come back from it. You were one of my best friends before we bumped things up, and I ... well, I backed you into a shell.”

Fluttershy sniffled and put a hoof on my cheek. “Where you got hurt here, from Rainbow ... that healed. But–but where I hurt you, you’re still hurt.” Her hoof moved down to my chest, resting right over my heart. “You haven't had a happy, meaningful relationship since then. I know that's not a coincidence, and I know it’s because I hurt you.”

I let out a heavy sigh and tried to figure out how to put what I wanted to say next. On the one hoof, it wasn’t fair for Fluttershy to blame herself for the way I chose to live my life, but at the same time it’s kinda hard to deny that happened back at Flight Camp probably had a big influence on ... well just about everything with my life. “Yeah, kinda been doing the swinging single thing for a while, but ... Derpy and I ... I dunno, we might be onto something...”

Fluttershy smiled at me, but there was something ... I dunno. I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it, but there was something a bit off about Fluttershy’s smile. “R–Really? That's ... I'm so happy for you.”

Seems wrong that Fluttershy was happier about me hooking up with Derpy than I was right now. “Yeah ... I dunno, Fluttershy. Dinky's cute, Sparkler's cool, and I really like spending time with Derpy, but ... I'm kinda freaked out.”

Fluttershy put concerned hoof over her mouth for a moment, and then gave me a gentle little squeeze with the wing she still had wrapped around me. “Oh my. What's wrong?”

I let out a weary sigh. “Well, there’s a couple things that are really tripping me up. First is just trying to figure it all out, y'know? I mean, this isn’t exactly the light-and-casual kind of thing I’m used to dealing with. At first I thought it was just me and Derpy being bang buddies, but I feel like I’m getting pulled in deeper and deeper, into this big relationship I never signed up for the first place. Hay, Dinky and Sparkler are starting to get attached to me too ... like ...” I let out a frustrated groan. “I didn’t sign up for a big committed relationship, and now I’m not only getting that with Derpy, I’m also slowly turning into Mom Number Two for her girls. I mean, they’re good fillies and all, but...”

“It’s a very big adjustment,” Fluttershy finished for me. “Being a caretaker is a huge responsibility, even if you’re just somepony who helps out a little instead of full-time.” I guess a pony who spent her life taking care of animals would know a thing or two about how much work being a nurturer is. “So what was the other thing that’s bothering you?”

Yeah, because just getting into a relationship I probably wasn’t entirely ready for wasn’t nearly enough. I swear, I almost wished I’d tossed together an impromptu Orgy Night earlier instead of just having a one-time bang with a single pony. Hay, if the drama kept up at it’s current rate I might just tell everypony to go feather themselves while I went off to Las Pegasus and took a crack at setting a new record for the biggest orgy in the history of Equestria.

“So, yeah. The other thing is, Blossom has a crush on me.” I groaned and corrected myself. “No, it’s not just a little crush, this is something a lot bigger than that, and it's not gonna go away unless I shut her down hard. And I really don’t want to do that because of how this whole thing with Derpy got started ... I’ve got these rules that I said kept me and Blossom from ever hooking up, but then I went and broke them for Derpy. ”

Fluttershy shot a confused little frown at me. “What are these rules of yours?”

Oh, yeah. She wouldn’t know about all the rules I came up with after things between us got bad. It’s not like I had ever sat her down and told her why I had a bunch of rules I’d come up with to stop something like what happened at Flight Camp from ever happening again. “After ... well, us, I came up with rules so that nopony else I banged would get hurt. I came up with a couple of them after what happened at camp and others got added to the list over the years.”

Fluttershy flinched and gave a miserable little squeak. “Oh. I ... I'm sorry you had to do that because of me.”

I gave a quick shake of my head. I swear, I could stub my hoof and Flutters would find a way to blame herself for it and start apologizing to me. “Nah, after what happened I needed the guidelines. Problem is, the one time I break my rules I hurt somepony I care about all over again.”

I felt Fluttershy’s wing tighten around me again in a reassuring little squeeze. Have to say, nopony can top Fluttershy when it comes to offering a little bit of gentle reassurance. “But you didn't mean to hurt anypony, did you?”

I massaged my forehead with a hoof. “Hay no. But it doesn’t really matter if I meant to or not, because I did. Blossom and I–well, we got into a fight. It's not as bad as us, but ... I'm scared it could turn into it again. And Derpy, jeez, I don't wanna hurt her or her girls, but the longer this thing with Blossom keeps going on...” I trailed off with a weary sigh. “They’re both really important to me, and I don’t want to hurt either one of them, but I can’t see any way out of this without breaking somepony’s heart. The problem is that trying to play the pony in the middle just ends up hurting both of them instead. I just ... is it too much to ask to want a way out of this that doesn’t hurt anypony?”

Fluttershy shot me a worried a little frown. “Oh dear, that is quite a difficult situation. Um ... I know you would never want to hurt any of them, and you'd try to do what's right. Um ... I'm sure you'll find a way to take care of things.”

I sighed and snuggled up a little closer to Fluttershy. “Celestia, I hope so. The manticore's way outta the cave now, and it’s too late to put him back in.” I gave a short, bitter little laugh. “Kinda an ironic choice of words, considering one of my family’s old marriage rites involves killing a manticore to prove the strength of your love for your intended.” One of my family’s stupider traditions, though thankfully one that died out a long time ago. In fact, I’m not completely sure Dad didn’t just make that one up to mess with me.

Fluttershy let out a horrified gasp. “That’s terrible! How could anypony do that to a poor little manticore?”

Poor? Little? Okay, I know Fluttershy can be a total sweetheart, but that pony has a very different definition of those words from what everypony else uses. Most ponies don’t use terms like ‘little’ to describe a giant pony-eating beast. Then again, I was talking to a mare who according to Rainbow Dash could reduce a full-grown dragon to tears in about a minute. After you’ve made a dragon cry, I guess manticores do seem little by comparison.

Fluttershy gave an awkward little cough and returned the conversation to the subject we’d been on before getting sidetracked by my stupid family traditions. “So, um ... you blamed yourself for what happened with us, right? Even though you really shouldn’t have. Because – because you felt like you'd done something that hurt me. If – if hurting somepony worries you that much, then I know you'll try as hard as you can not to hurt Blossomforth or Derpy or her fillies.”

My head dropped down and I rested my chin on my hooves. “I've already hurt Blossom. It was a stupid stupid fight, and the fact that I’ve been ... not fair to her is hurting her too.” I let out an annoyed little snort. “Plus Derpy kinda pointed out that I might be ... unintentionally encouraging her to keep holding out hope for me. I don’t know, I just want things between her and me to be okay, but it seems like trying to fix things just makes them more and more complicated. Plus ... well Derpy was pretty understanding about it at first, but I can’t really blame her for being a little bugged that I’m trying so hard to bond with a mare who’s made no secret of the fact that she wants to bump Derpy out of the way so she can have me for herself.”

I sighed heavily and admitted something I’d kind of been reluctant to face. “Blossom deserved a fair chance with me. I knew how she felt about me, and I just pretended not to notice for a long time because I didn’t want to mess up our friendship.” I let out a disgusted little groan. “No, our friendship could’ve survived it. I just didn’t ... Blossom’s not a casual kinda pony, and she means a lot to me. Hay, we’ve never even kissed or anything, and I care about her more than all but two of the ponies I’ve banged. If we’d ... there’s no way I could’ve hooked up with her and not had it get serious. She means too much to me to be a one-night stand. Hay, I seriously thought about running for it when I realized how serious things were getting with Derpy, but by the time it all came hammering home for me it was too late to get out without hurting everypony involved.”

I gave a bitter, humorless little laugh. “So there you go. I hurt my best friend because I was scared of getting pulled into a relationship with her. I let my personal ... thing cause trouble for us, and now I’m stuck in a situation where no matter what I do, I’ll end up hurting somepony I care about. Yeah, I’d say I’m a pretty rotten pony.”

I felt a hoof on my chin as Fluttershy turned my face so she could look me in the eyes. “Cloud Kicker, you are not a bad pony. You’re a pony who made some mistakes, but you just told me a little bit ago that everypony makes mistakes. And you're going to fix everything that went wrong because of the mistakes you make, right?”

On an impulse, I leaned my forward a bit to rest it on Fluttershy’s shoulder. It just felt so ... right. I guess that’s just something about Fluttershy; just being around her could make a pony feel safe and comforted. “I'm trying, but I’m not sure how to balance what everypony needs. How do I deal with Blossom being in love with me when I’m already in a relationship with somepony else? I mean, if I just tell her back off she’ll be crushed, and it’s really not fair to do that to her after everything else I’ve put her through. But the longer she goes on chasing me ... Derpy’s already starting to wonder why I’m not doing much to discourage her, and she’s worrying that maybe it’s because I care more about Blossom than I do about her. What am I supposed to do to fix this without hurting one or both of them?”

Fluttershy gave my cheek a gentle little nuzzle. “I'm sorry, I don't know.” I saw the corners of her mouth turn up in a cautiously optimistic little smile. “But I'm sure that with as much as you want to find a way to fix things, you will.”

I groaned and buried my face in Fluttershy’s wonderfully soft fur for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I hope so. ‘Cause if I don’t find a way to patch this mess up–I don't want things with Blossom or Derpy or maybe even both of them to end up like another ... us.”

A hint of steely determination I wasn’t used to hearing from her entered Fluttershy’s voice. “That will not happen.”

Seeing how resolved Fluttershy was kinda gave me a bit of a morale boost. Her strength helped me be stronger too. “Damn straight. Blossom's been my best friend for years and I’ve known Derpy since Flight Camp, I'm not gonna just let that end.”

Fluttershy favored me with another one of her optimistic little smiles. “As long as you feel that way, there's hope.”

“I had hope with you, Fluttershy.” I answered mournfully. “I need more than that for this. Losing Blossom or Derpy would be bad enough, but there're fillies in the mix this time around too. That’s ... Celestia, if Dinky or Sparkler got hurt ‘cause of all this ... that would kill me.”

That got me another little reassuring nuzzle from Fluttershy. “They won’t be hurt, because I know you'll find a way. I believe in you.”

Okay, Fluttershy’s optimism was starting to get a little infectious. If she really believed I could find a way to fix of all this ... well maybe, just maybe, she was right. “Thanks, I...thanks.” I took a moment to just relax and enjoy this. Her. It felt like a part of me that had been missing for a decade was finally back in place. “I've missed having you around, you know.”

Fluttershy’s eyes started watering, but she was smiling at me through the tears. “I missed you too, Cloud Kicker.”

Next thing I knew, there were a pair of yellow forelegs wrapped around my chest, squeezing like they never wanted to let go. To be fair, I was hugging her back as hard as I felt comfortable doing. Apparently Eepysqueak was comfortable with hugging me hard enough to start making my ribs creak. “Missed you too Eepysqueak, but I kinda need oxygen..."

The pressure on my lungs dropped down to manageable level, and Eepy gave an apologetic little flinch. “Oops. Sorry. I was just so excited that we’re finally...” She trailed off and shot me a nervous, almost frightened. “Um ... we are friends again, aren’t we?”

I tightened my own hug on her a back and added in a nuzzle. “No. We never stopped being friends.”

I couldn’t see her face, but somehow I still knew she was beaming. “Yay.”

As we sat there holding each other, something finally clicked for me. Why I’d finally come to Fluttershy. It was simple, really. With all the crazy going on in my life, I needed a friend to turn to. Rainbow was still in the hospital, not to mention that she was ... well, historically speaking she doesn’t handle delicate issues all that well. Plus, even though we had patched things up it was probably gonna be a bit before I felt like turning to her in a moment of weakness. Blossom and Derpy were obviously out, since they were right at the center of this whole mess.

That left me with pretty much no close friends to turn to. I’ve got plenty of casual acquaintances and bang buddies I could’ve talked to, but this whole mess isn’t the kind of thing you dump on anything less than a really close friend. Threesome buddies are great for a little casual fun, but unless you’re looking for a bit of consolation sex they’re not so great when you need emotional support.

So when push came to shove and I needed a pony I knew would be there for me, I found myself on Eepysqueak’s doorstep. I’d spent years hiding from her because I was so afraid that I might hurt her again that I never really tried to fix what had gone wrong with us. I’d patiently tolerated Rainbow’s ham-hoofed attempts to make us settle things, but deep down I guess a part of me always thought it might be better this way. That as long as there was this distance between the two of us, I didn’t have to worry about hurting her anymore.

I can be a real idiot sometimes.

Eventually the two of us came out of the hug, though we didn’t quite let go of each other. It was almost like we were afraid that if we did, we might lose what we had if we stopped holding onto each other. “So ... everything’s good now?”

“Yes,” Eepysqueak confirmed with an ecstatic smile. A second later her smile faded away into uncertainty. “Well ... there is one thing. Um ... well, Twilight gave me a book about repressed anger after what happened with Iron Will, and ... um ... considering what happened with Rainbow Dash yesterday, I think maybe I should ... um ... tell you that there is still one teeny-tiny little thing I'm just the slightest little bit upset with you about.”

I felt a sudden knot of dread in the pit of my stomach. Oh Celestia, please don’t take this away from me. Not now, not when we’re so close... “Yeah?” I could hear the tiny little tremble of fear in my voice.

Eepysqueak seemed to pick up on my sudden worry, and gave me another reassuring little hug. “No, no, it’s nothing bad. It’s just that ... um ... you never really gave me a chance to explain.” Eepysqueak ducked her head behind her mane for a moment, then took a deep breath and gathered her courage. “I ... um ... I did love you back then. It was just ... well I was scared and confused. But ... when I tried to explain you thought I didn't ... and then you never let me...” She gave a quick shake of her head. “No, I should’ve gone to see you in the hospital, but I was too ashamed to. The important thing is ... I just want you to know that I wasn’t–”

My eyes were already watering when I gently cut her off with a hoof over her mouth. “I got it Eepy. Thanks.”

Once I’d had enough time to think back rationally on what had happened that day, I started wondering if maybe I’d made a bit of a snap judgement breaking up with Eepysqueak. That sense of perspective didn’t come until years later though, and by then it was way too late to fix things if I’d been wrong. Besides, it was easy to come up with ways to justify my decision in hindsight. Hay, I’m pretty sure our parents would’ve been pretty strongly opposed to us continuing as a couple after everything that happened at Flight Camp in any case. Mom and Dad had not been happy when they found out I’d lost my virginity, and I expect Eepy’s parents felt the same way.

Plus, in my defense, I did have some mild brain damage when I decided to break up with her.

But hearing that, and finally knowing for sure that she really had loved me just as much as I’d loved her? Yeah, that was big. Hay, if I’d known that it might’ve ... well, let’s just say thinking she didn’t love me played a part in a couple other bad decisions I’ve made over the years. Not that I was gonna shift the blame on those choices. After all, I’d still been the one to make them.

Eepysqueak cleared her throat very softly and started blushing bright red. “I ... there’s one other thing I need to tell you. Um, after Camp, I began thinking ... and then years later, when Derpy moved to town, there was that Pegasopolian guard costume ... it's why I didn't come out on Nightmare Night after that. I, um, didn't want to risk hurting you again, but...” She let out a high-pitched squeak before confessing in a barely audible whisper. “I liked what I saw.”

My jaw dropped at that. Saying she loved me back at Flight Camp was one thing, but now it sounded like things hadn’t stopped there. “Eepy ... did you really still ... all this time?” I tentatively brought a hoof up to stroke Fluttershy’s cheek. “If ... if you'd told me...”

Eepysqueak gently nuzzled my hoof, and let out a tiny little whimper. “I wanted to, but I was scared of hurting you again! And I was ashamed, because after what happened at Flight Camp, how badly I hurt you, I didn’t deserve to love you anymore!”

Oh Celestia, she was tearing up on me again. I brought up my other hoof and gently cupped her face. “It’s okay Eepy.” I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit when I added. “You don’t need to start beating yourself up just ‘cause you liked the way I looked in that silly costume. I mean, the whole idea behind it was ‘Sexy Pegasus Soldier.’” Mom and Dad had certainly been less than amused by that particular choice, especially since the whole dropping out of West Hoof thing was still a little fresh in everypony’s mind.

Eepy gave an adorably little blush as squeaked out. “Oh! Well, um ... it did help me appreciate ... your ... um, yes. But, I don’t think I really realized that I still l–loved you until I saw how you helped care for Derpy when she moved here. You were there to help when she needed you, and you were so kind ... and I started really remembering the filly I had a crush on and saw how she'd ... grown into a mare I could care for. But after everything that happened I know I don’t deserve to feel that way, because I hurt you so much and if I keep feeling that way I’m just going to–”

“Eepy,” I gently cut her off. “It’s okay. I really wish I'd known how you felt about me. I should've talked to you after what happened at Flight Camp instead of jumping to conclusions and running off. If I'd known you felt something for me ... I would've given you the time you needed, Eepy. You were worth the wait.”

I leaned down and and gently kissed her on the lips. It seemed like the thing to do. Eepy’s eyes went wide with shock, but before long she started to hesitantly return the kiss. After a couple seconds I pulled back. Eepy tried to follow my lips, and let out a very quiet little whine of protest when the kiss finally ended. I could relate. Kissing her just felt so ... right.

Eepy was blushing bright red, and from the heat in my cheeks I’m pretty sure I was in the same condition. For a long moment we both just sat there, staring at each other with open mouths. To my surprise, Eepy was the first to regain the capacity for coherent speech. “That was ... I’ve wanted ... um ... yes. Thank you. I ... I don't want to lose you again. Your friendship means so much to me...”

Hearing her say that made something click–it hurt, a little bit, that it took me this long to come around and say it, but at the same time I was happy I could finally tell her. “I don’t want to lose you either.” I’ve spent enough time around ponies to get decent at reading body language. Between her flushed cheeks, the way her hooves were twitching like she wanted to wrap them around me, and how her lips were still pursed very slightly, I could tell what she wanted. If I was being completely honest with myself, I wanted it too. I nervously licked my lips and almost hesitantly suggested. “Um... how about one more? For good luck.”

Eepy very slowly nodded, and leaned forward to meet my lips again.

The Pony Who Has One Gear: Go!

Two point three.

Eepy had busted her flank all week, worked as hard as she could to get her numbers up. She’d frankly amazed me with how hard she was willing to work and her utter determination to keep going no matter how painful it got. She threw herself into the training, pushed herself beyond her limits just to prove to everypony that she wasn’t going to let a couple stupid bullies from way back in Flight Camp hold her back. It was a brand new Fluttershy—she’d traded out being weak and helpless for strength and determination. She threw everything she had into bumping her wingpower numbers up as far as they could go.

And what did she have to show for all her hard work? Two point feathering three wingpower.

I considered going to her and trying to offer some comfort, but what could I say? I’d promised I would help her get her wingpower numbers up, and I hadn’t. Hay, dumping Alula on her probably did a lot to distract from all the training. Eepy’s always been the type who will put somepony else’s needs above her own, and I should’ve known that putting a sick filly in front of her would make it just about impossible for her to focus on her training.

So instead of trying to help Eepy feel better about the fact that Tornado Day was tomorrow and she wasn’t anywhere close to Rainbow’s wingpower goal, I was ... well technically I was dropping by Mom’s place to pick up a couple things for ‘Lula. Nothing major, just a couple of the ordinary little things like her toothbrush. Between Mom getting called up on a short-notice emergency deployment and ‘Lula being sick, they hadn’t exactly done a great job of packing.

Well, if I was being completely honest, I was probably doing more indulging in a bit of general mopiness than picking up ‘Lula’s things. It’s not like anypony could blame me for feeling a bit down about Eepy’s troubles, even before you tossed in some of the other issues I had hanging over my head, like what to do about Blossom and Derpy. Officially I was just putting all my time into helping Eepy, but there’s really no point in lying about it. I was avoiding both of them.

It’s a perfectly understandable reaction, considering what I’d figured out about my problems with the two of them. Realizing that you’re in love with three different ponies is the kinda thing that’ll knock a pony back on their hooves for a bit. Well, I already knew I was in love with Eepy, but that wasn’t a problem. I was pretty comfortable with loving Eepy, and we’d already made some progress in sorting that out. We loved each other, but banging and romance just weren’t in the cards for us. Not to say it could never happen, but Eepy wasn’t about to jump into the messy love triangle I’d gotten myself mixed up in and turn it into some sort of love square-thingy. We needed a lot of time to get back to normal before the possibility of any kind of banging even entered the equation. Not to mention that Eepy probably couldn’t make any effort to take me from Blossom and Derpy without feeling utterly horrible about it. That kind of tooth-and-hoof competition just wasn’t in her nature.

Of course, if I wound up being single, we probably would end up taking another shot at, well, us. Competition might not be in her nature, but if Derpy and Blossom weren’t a factor I’m pretty sure she’d jump on the opportunity. Eepy would never break somepony else’s heart just for her own happiness, but if she got what she wanted offered to her on a silver platter...

Anyway, if Eepy and I were keeping our love deep but strictly platonic (for the moment) that was one less thing to worry about. Still left me with a big problem when it came to Blossom and Derpy.

Unlike Eepy, the two of them had made it pretty clear that when push came to shove, they’d fight over me. As flattering as having two beautiful mares fighting over me was, the only way that kind of conflict would end was in heartbreak. I wanted both of them, and they both wanted me. With how much they were not getting along right now, I wasn’t exactly optimistic about my chances of working out a way to have that not be a problem.

Ugh, enough moping. I was here for a reason, and it was past time I got it taken care of. Unlike the whole Derpy and Blossom thing, I could at least help ‘Lula feel a bit better by picking up her manebrush, favorite pillow cloud, and a couple other little things. Nothing huge, but those tiny little homey touches might be just the thing to keep her spirits up. Plus I had no idea how long 'Lula was even going to be staying with me. When it comes to something like a short-notice emergency deployment, the only answer I was likely to get was something along the lines of ‘I’ll be back when the Guard doesn’t need me anymore.’

It had been a while since I’d been by my parents’ cloud-house. Well, I guess technically it was just Mom’s now, ever since Dad moved back to Canterlot. In any case, the move hadn’t really changed the house much. Probably because there wasn’t much to change—like I’ve said before, cloud-houses tend to be pretty spartan unless you really wanna spend the bits and go to the effort of fancying them up, which neither of my parents did.

Not that bits would’ve been an issue if my parents really wanted to beautify their Ponyville house a bit. The Kickers aren’t exactly swimming in money, but any family that sticks around as long as the Kickers have will start picking up assets. Buy up a blacksmith so we could get discounts on our gear, have somepony save up their pay from the Guard to start up a small business once they were done with their tour, stuff like that. Multiply that by almost a thousand years, and you get quite the hodgepodge of business interests. Quite a few of the Kickers who’d retired from the Guard or wound up unfit to serve had full-time jobs managing all of it.

That’s not to mention the odd times like with Mom where a noble marries into the family. Adding her inheritance to the clan patrimony certainly wouldn’t hurt, even if it was just a minor little barony. Of course, if Mom hadn’t married into a family that went by old Pegasopolan customs (and aside from the Kickers, not many did) then I would be inheriting the land instead of it going into the clan patrimony. Not that I was complaining—I can’t exactly imagine I’d fit in too well with all the stuffy Canterlot nobles. Besides, Mom was from House Cumulus, and with how many ponies were in that house her inheritance wasn’t much anyway. In all likelihood, being a Kicker just meant I wouldn’t get to manage half a dozen mud farms in the middle of nowhere.

So yeah, the bottom line is that my family might have some money, but we never spent it on a bunch of luxuries and stuff. Guard life does tend to encourage a kind of utilitarian outlook on things. Not a single thing had changed since the last time I’d dropped by the house. The secret cloud-compartment in Mom’s office was still in the same place.

One of the downsides of living in clouds, it’s hard to make a locked door or wall-safe or just about any kind of security really. Even if you did go to all the trouble of installing a wall safe for anything you wanted to keep private (like whatever Guard stuff Mom was working on), when the walls are made out of cloud it’s pretty easy to just steal the whole safe.

Instead of one big stash kept in a supposedly-impenetrable fixture, most pegasi rely on hidden little cloud compartments. It’s pretty easy to just have a random chunk of wall, roof, or floor hide a tiny little space, and if you don’t know where to look you could spend days looking. Or at least, anypony whose special talent isn’t cloud manipulation would need to. I’d kinda found my parents secret stash by accident a couple years back—I noticed the floor felt kinda funny in this one spot and decided to check it out, and next thing I know I’ve got classified documents in my hooves. That could’ve gotten awkward fast.

Though I’ll admit that I was maybe just a little tempted to have a look through whatever secret stuff my parents had access to, I resisted the urge and put everything back where I found it. Getting my parents in trouble for a security breach like that just would’ve been bad for everypony.

Why was I even in Mom’s office anyway? Ugh, my brain must be a little scattered, though between the troubles with my love life and how badly Eepy’s wingpower test went I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that I couldn’t quite focus.

“Okay.” I grumbled under my breath. “Soon as I’m done here, I’m gonna go do something cathartic. No idea what, but I need to do something to get all these horseapples off my mind.” Too bad I couldn’t just go with my usual solution of finding somepony cute to bang—right now, doing that would probably just make things even more complicated than they were already.

Before I could come up with another form of stress relief, I heard something crashing around in the attic. It might seem a little silly to have an attic in a cloud house since there’s no structural reason for it, but my parents tend to make their cloud-houses more-or-less exactly like a ground-house, just with different building materials. Probably because they’ve spent most of their lives living groundside, so why change things up now?

I hopped out through the wall and looped around so I could pass through the walls of my attic. I could’ve gone through the floor, but the attic is carpeted so my parents can use it for storage. Probably what caused all the commotion up there—some bird tried to fly through the clouds, and suddenly ran into a bunch of boxes and other solid objects.

I entered the attic and found—well, I’d been mostly right. The only thing I hadn’t got right was that the winged creature that crashed into attic wasn’t a bird. “Hey, Derpy.”

Derpy pulled a mostly empty cardboard box off her head, and shook some packing peanuts out of her mane and ears. “Hi, Cloud Kicker.” She shot me a sheepish smile and finished disentangling herself from something that looked like one of Mom’s old dress uniforms. “Guess I found you.”

“Guess you did.” I would’ve preferred it if Derpy didn’t crash into my Mom’s attic, but if you wanna be with Derpy, you just kind of have to accept that some collateral damage is going to happen. At least nothing was broken, just a little low-level chaos. “So, why were you looking for me?”

Derpy’s smile faded into a worried frown, and she got to work carefully putting up everything she’d knocked out of place. It was a couple seconds before she answered me. “I saw what happened with Fluttershy’s wingpower test. I thought you might want somepony to talk to. You weren’t at home, and you weren’t with ... any of the ponies you would go to if you wanted to talk. So I started looking around, until...” She gave a little shrug, then nodded towards the hole in my Mom’s roof.

I gave a couple flaps of my wings, and closed up said hole. “Thanks, Derpy. You don’t need to worry about me, though. I’m—I won’t say I’m not feeling a bit down about how things went, but I can handle it. Eepy’s the one who could probably use some comforting right now.”

It didn’t look like Derpy was taking the bait. One downside of dating one of your oldest friends—it’s a lot harder to trick a pony who knows how your brain ticks. “You know...” Derpy neatly folded Mom’s old uniform before putting it back up and turning to face me directly. “You did amazingly at helping her. Between the two of you, you more than quadrupled her wingpower in a single week. That’s incredible.”

“Kinda easy to make that kind of jump when she’s so far behind to begin with.” That came out sounding a lot more bitter than I expected it to. I made a couple other little touch-ups on Mom’s roof, just little maintenance stuff to give me something else to think about for a couple seconds. “Sure, we more than quadrupled her effective wingpower, but that’s still less than a quarter of what she needs to hit Rainbow’s goal.” I held up a hoof to forestall the obvious objection. “Yes, I know every bit counts, but I’m not the one who needs to be convinced. Eepy just won’t feel right about herself unless she’s pulling a solid ten just like everypony else.”

Derpy gave an unhappy little shuffle of her wings at that, and I could kinda understand where she was coming from. It’s a little uncomfortable talking about how bad Eepy’s number are when both of us are beating Rainbow’s goal by a healthy margin. One of the perks of us both having jobs that required spending most of the day on our wings.

Then again, nerves might still be dragging down Eepy’s numbers. Hard to know for sure—in hindsight, I really should’ve borrowed Twilight’s anemometer for a bit so I could measure Eepy’s wingpower when she wasn’t freaking out over the fact that a whole lot of ponies were watching her.

Unfortunately, the sad truth was that she probably still wouldn’t be close to Rainbow’s target number even if she was fearless. For the most part, Eepy’s flying had more in the way of precision and delicacy than raw wingpower. It’s not that she was a hopeless flyer or anything, it’s just that what Rainbow needed for Tornado Day was raw muscle, and that was Eepy’s biggest weakness. Derpy might be hopelessly clumsy in the air, but she didn’t lack for raw muscle, so, the fact that Eepy could pull off all kinds of little precision tricks that would only end in collateral damage for Derpy didn’t matter. All that mattered was wingpower.

I sighed and picked up a couple of winter scarves that Derpy had knocked loose. Now that Derpy was here, I knew there was no way we could avoid trying to work out the whole relationship thing. Sure, we could get away with spending a couple days away from each other to sort things out in our own heads, but if the separation went too long we’d end up practically breaking up by default. I definitely didn’t want that happening.

Of course, I wasn’t all that eager to jump into a painful and awkward relationship conversation either. I was almost relieved when Derpy brought up a different topic. “Whoa! Hey, Cloud Kicker, what’s this?”

I turned around to get a good look at whatever Derpy was hopefully not damaging, and my stomach fell. Derpy was studying a full suit of Guard armor resting on top of something that vaguely resembled one of Rarity’s dress forms. I recognized the suit on sight, even though it had been more than seven years since I saw it. Suddenly, the prospect of a difficult talk about where things were going with us didn’t sound so bad.

“It was supposed to be my graduation present for West Hoof,” I confessed. I walked up to the suit of armor and idly adjusted the helmet, which had been knocked very slightly askew, probably by Derpy’s crash-landing. “My own custom-made suit of armor. Thunderforged steel, with a little spidersilk in the joints to give protection while keeping it light and easy to maneuver in. All the usual enchantments, and probably a couple bonuses thrown in. It’s ... real quality work.”

I sighed and traced a hoof along one of the silver highlights on the armor. “Mom and Dad were really looking forward to it. Me graduating and following in their hoofsteps by joining up with the Guard. Luna, the looks on their faces when I told them ... and then the fight we had...” I let out an annoyed little snort and shook my head. “They shouldn’t have spent so much on this for me. Or at least, not something like this. It’s all custom work, no good for anypony else and not exactly the kinda thing you can return to the store and get a refund for.” My voice turned bitter and mocking as I imitated my mother. “Hey, our daughter’s a feather-up, can we get our money back?”

Derpy stepped up next to me, and very tentatively wrapped a wing over my shoulders. “You’re not, Cloud Kicker. You know that, right?”

Yeah, objectively that was true. I had a good job, a home, and was even taking one or two steps towards becoming a semi-respectable member of society. But still... “I probably would’ve made captain by now. Get a nice little company command, or maybe sign on with the Long Patrol and get some monster-hunting experience. It’s dangerous, but getting that kind of combat experience is great for a pony’s career. Hay, my parents were probably planning to groom me for Captain of the Guard some day.” I checked the armor’s wing-blades—still sharp. “Instead, my parents keep this old suit of armor in the attic, polished and maintained so it’ll be ready in case I ever change my mind. Meanwhile, my Dad loses out on his promotion to some noble brat who got in on nepotism ‘cause he had to pull strings to keep me from being classified as a deserter, and my parents’ marriage is falling apart. Not hard to see where it all went wrong.”

Derpy tightened her wing-grip on me and gave my cheek a comforting little nuzzle. “Sweetie, you can’t blame yourself for everything that went wrong with your parent’s lives. Trust me, as a mother I’m quite aware of the fact that my mistakes are my fault, not my daughters’. The same is true for your parents. Besides, you wouldn’t have been happy in the Guard, not if you were just doing it to make your parents happy.”

I let out a frustrated huff of breath and turned my head so I could look at Derpy properly instead of moping over a suit of armor I’d never even worn. “That’s the thing, Derpy: it wasn’t just about making them happy. I liked going to West Hoof, and not just because I had tons of bang-buddies there. I was good at it too, I was close to the top of the class despite spending as much time chasing tail as I did studying. Plus ... well sometimes I think I really did wanna join the Guard, and I just had a case of pre-enlistment jitters. Just about every soldier gets them right before they sign up, except instead of working through them like I should’ve I let them ruin my life.”

Derpy flinched a bit, and didn’t say anything. I had a pretty good idea of what was going through her head right now—a while after she moved to Ponyville, we’d kinda gotten into a fight over the whole me-dropping-out thing. A lot of what made my whole pre-enlistment panic thing so bad was that there wasn’t anypony for me to talk to about it. It’s not like I could tell my parents I was having doubts about the career they’d planned for me practically since the day I was born.

Thing was, Derpy and I had both lived in Canterlot ever since the whole Flight Camp thing. You’d think going to her when I really needed a friend would’ve been the logical thing to do, but we’d probably exchanged less than a dozen words in the five years between Flight Camp and when she moved to Ponyville. Sure, Flight Camp had very obviously messed things up for me with Rainbow and Eepy, but in a lot of ways Derpy keeping her distance from me hurt the most. In hindsight I could understand why things had been so weird between us, but at the time all I cared about was how abandoned I felt.

But there was no point in bringing up ancient history and reopening old wounds now. I let out a low groan and leaned against Derpy, taking what comfort she could offer me. It was a while before I spoke again. “I can’t help but wonder sometimes if ... if it all went horribly wrong somewhere. If I’m supposed to be a Guardpony who married my Flight Camp sweetheart instead of being ... well, me.”

Derpy just let me lean on her for a bit, silently supporting me, until she spoke with gentle reassurance in her voice. “Cloudy, your life is not a mistake. You might not have done what your parents had planned for you, but I think you’ve still made a pretty decent life for yourself. Don’t you think so?”

“I guess,” I agreed without much enthusiasm.

Derpy worried at her lower lip and couldn’t quite bring herself to meet my eyes. After a couple painful moments of silence, she very quietly asked. “Do you really hate your life that much?”

I knew enough about ponies to recognize the real question there, especially with how sad and worried Derpy looked. “It’s not—I don’t hate my life. I just ... I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t made some of them.” I let out a self-deprecating little chuckle and added, “Plus I’m just in a mopey mood right now.”

Derpy nodded with the patient understanding that can only come from raising a teenager. “Nothing a muffin won’t fix.”

I almost said something stupid to that, but at the last second I reined my mouth in. Stupid, downtrodden, and mildly depressed moods don’t tend to lead to good judgement calls.

Derpy chuckled, making a reasonable but for once inaccurate guess about where my thoughts were going. “Not like that, Cloud Kicker. Mind—gutter—exit.” She gave me a hesitant little smack on the forehead. “You have what my mom calls a ‘cookie face’—it requires a cookie to get somepony talking about how they’re feeling. I just took the concept and … derpified it.”

I let out a short, humorless little bark of laughter. “Seems like I’m talking about what I’m feeling just fine without any muffins, wouldn’t you say?” Not that I was gonna complain if I got some baked goods out of the bargain.

I barely heard Derpy’s understanding but slightly miffed sigh. “Right now you’re moping about the fact that you’re moping. I can stay for that, but if there’s something you really want to talk about … I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

Okay, she had me there. “I’m just ... worn out by all this stuff, okay? Seems like I can’t go a single day without some new problem rearing its head. Even the good things just end up leading to more complications, like when I patched things up with Eepy.”

“It’s still progress.” Derpy shifted slightly. “I mean … it’s been over a decade, but you’ve finally mended things with her. You’re friends again—right?”

I’ve got enough experience dealing with ponies to know what Derpy was really asking there. Ever since Eepy and I patched up, we’d been spending pretty much all day together. Even without the flight training, there was a lot of lost time to make up for. But that meant a week of not spending time with Derpy. She might be just a bit worried that I was spending so much time with an ex-fillyfriend I’d just reconciled with.

Not that I could blame her for being concerned, considering how close Eepy and I came to banging. It didn’t help that our relationship had been a little rocky even before then. It was past time I did something about that. “Look, Derpy, we need to talk.”

I didn’t quite miss the gasp that Derpy tried to cut off, or how her pupils suddenly shrank. “Talk? Okay, um ... yeah. Let’s talk, then.”

Great, Derpy looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. At least hanging out with Eepy so much had been good practice for dealing with scared, nervous ponies. “Derpy, things haven’t been going well with us for a while now, and ... look, there are some things I need to tell you that you probably aren’t going to be very happy about, but I need to be honest with you.”

“Li—” Derpy’s voice cracked, and she licked her lips and cleared her throat before trying again. “Like what?”

I took a deep breath, and tried to think of the most diplomatic way to tell my fillyfriend that I was in love with her and two other ponies. After a bit of pondering, I couldn’t really come up with much that would soften the blow. “I, look, me and Eepy are—”

“You want to go back to her.” She swallowed and turned away from me, idly watching her hoof dig out a small section of cloud. “I guess it’s been a long time coming, huh? I haven’t really done much to keep you lately, and...”

“What? No!” Oh Luna, that’s what I get for being a bit hesitant about spilling, now Derpy had gone and jumped to conclusions. I gave her a quick little nuzzle, trying to comfort her with something a bit more meaningful than words. “Derpy, it’s not like that, okay? I’m not dumping you for her.”

She eased up a bit as I nuzzled her, but she was still tense enough that her wing-hug felt forced. “I want to believe you, Cloudy, but—why did you take your sister to her if Alula’s sick? Whatever we’re going through, you know I wouldn’t hesitate to help. I do have some experience with fillyhood illnesses.”

Finally, an issue I knew how to answer without saying something that might make Derpy feel even worse than she already did. “It was a simple timing thing. Eepy showed up at my place a couple minutes after Mom dropped her off and, well...” I tried for a chuckle, but ended up sounding just a little forced. “She took one look at ‘Lula and went into nurture-mode. You wanna be the one to tell Eepy she that she can't take care of a sick filly when she’s like that?”

Derpy went just a little pale at that. Eepy might be all gentle and non-threatening most of the time, but once she starts getting all nurturing and protective, not even Celestia herself would stand in Eepy’s way. Hay, she’d actually gone and stolen Celestia’s pet when she thought it needed some nurturing. After a couple seconds Derpy rallied enough courage to answer. “I-I certainly know a bit more about taking care of fillies than she does!”

I shrugged and smiled, hoping I could keep the mood relatively lighthearted. “Feel free to go right up to her and try to take my baby sis out of her nurturing hooves. I'll be watching from a safe distance.”

Derpy let out an annoyed grumble and shuffled her wings, ending the contact she’d worked so hard to keep just a minute ago. “I'm glad you two made up, but—you know I'm here for you too, right? With experience? All you had to do was ask.”

“Of course I know that, Derpy.” I was a little amazed that Derpy was actually getting jealous over this. I guess it made sense that she’d feel a bit threatened, but normally Derpy’s just not the type of pony to go green with envy. “It's just ... well you know how assertive Eepy can get like when there's something she wants to nurture.”

Derpy shot a slightly nervous glance out the window. “Yeah, I’ve seen her in action. She's a very ... she takes her nurturing very seriously.”

“No kidding.” I couldn’t help laughing a bit at the memory. “She just kinda ... very nicely, gently and completely took over 'Lula's care without even asking my permission.”

That got a tiny little laugh from Derpy too, which was hopefully a good sign. “That ... sounds about right, actually.” Derpy tried to smile, but it was so obviously insincere that after a second or two she ducked her head down so I couldn’t see her face. “Fluttershy doesn't do things halfway when somepony needs help.”

So, Derpy was clearly not okay. Time to get to the bottom of this. “Derpy, does me fixing things with Eepy really bother you that much?”

Derpy closed her eyes, and very slowly nodded her head. “It's .. not right for me to feel that way about the two of you making up. I should be happy because it’s a good thing; it's been way too long since you two were able to even talk to each other. I’ve always hoped that the two of you would find a way to reconcile, but now that it’s actually happened...” Derpy trailed off and turned her head away, unable to bring herself to look at me.

“Hey.” When Derpy still wouldn’t look at me I reached and placed a hoof under her chin, and turned her face back towards me so I could look her in the eyes. “Look, Eepy and I were great together, but that was a long time ago. Things have changed.”

She hesitated for a couple seconds before she met my eyes. Her eyes seemed especially crooked right now—I’ve never been sure if that means something about her current mood or not. “Then why is somepony from our—” Derpy blinked in surprise, and hastily corrected herself. “Your family with her?”

I’ll admit that I was starting to get a bit annoyed by now. I’d already explained the situation to her, and now Derpy was not only continuing to rag me over getting bull-rushed by Eepy, but she was getting all possessive of ‘Lula too. Celestia knows I never would’ve gotten on her case about how she raised Dinky and Sparkler. “What, do you think I should’ve given Eepy a smack upside the head and maybe even kicked her out of my house when she was just trying to help? After the two of us just finished patching up?”

Derpy flinched, and her ears went back flat on her head. “No, that’s not what I—like I said, it was stupid. Forget I asked.”

“Look, Derpy...” I thought about trying to soften the blow, but there really wasn’t any point in dancing around the issue. “I love Eepy, and she loves me. That hasn't changed. She’s always gonna be special to me.” I put a hoof over her mouth to forestall whatever she was about to say. “But that doesn't mean I'm gonna toss you out on your plot. Eepy and I are gonna spend time together reconnecting, and that’s probably gonna involve taking a night to get some closure at some point, but we’re not hooking back up.”

Derpy let out a long, relieved breath. After a couple seconds of relaxing, she brushed my hoof off from her mouth and shot me an annoyed look. “Then what did you want to talk about?” she snapped at me. “'We need to talk' are four words that usually don't have a good ending. Is it just you making up with her, or something else?”

I groaned and applied hoof to face. Me and my big, stupid mouth. “Okay, that wasn't the best choice of words on my part. It's just ... we do need to talk. Things have been kinda messy for us, and it’s past time we sorted it out.”

“Yeah.” Derpy bit her lip and turned her head slightly. “I'd forgotten how cold that bed can be sometimes when it’s just me by myself.”

“I know what you mean.” Spending most of a week coming home to an empty bed every night wasn’t much fun. “Letting 'Lula snuggle up with me makes a pretty poor substitute.”

Derpy let out a snort. “If Dinky wasn’t visiting her grandparents I’d be trying the same thing. Hay, I might even have tried letting Sparkler in but she won't come near the bed anymore, diligence in doing laundry or no. I guess she is a little old to still be sleeping in bed with her mother anyway.”

Derpy scuffed a hoof along the floor, and hesitantly met my eyes. “Look, last time we talked I didn’t really get a chance to say it so ... I'm sorry about the mess at the hospital. You were right, that got way out of hoof. You'd think breaking up my own kids' fights would tell me when I'm being foalish.”

I gave her a quick little reassuring nuzzle. “Derpy, it's—it’s not okay, but I understand. You and Blossom were both under a lot of stress, and things just kinda blew up.”

Derpy sighed and shook her head. “They didn't just 'kind' of blow up, you were so fed up that you nearly walked away from both of us.” A slight tremble passed through Derpy’s body, and her voice came out a bit shaky. “I'm not gonna lie, that scared me. I like what we have. I—I love you, Cloud Kicker. I don't want that to change.”

“Me either,” I admitted. “Look, Derpy, about what I said: I didn't really ... I was just frustrated with the both of you. I admit I was pretty tempted to run off to Las Pegasus and take a crack at setting a new record for the largest orgy in Equestrian history, but I wouldn’t really throw everything we’ve got out just because you and Blossom are getting snippy with each other.” I took a deep breath, and got myself ready to say some words that I’d never expected to use again until recently. “I love you too.”

After a second of shocked silence, she beamed at me and let out a happy little squee. All the tension left her body, and she dropped her head onto my shoulder and contentedly leaned against me. After a minute of comfortable silence, a considerably nervous Derpy asked, “So...what did we need to talk about?

“Just...” I trailed off and gave vague wave of my hoof. “Trying to sort this whole big mess out before it gets any worse.” I’m not quite sure how it could get worse right now, but I wasn’t about to rule anything out.

Derpy gave me an encouraging nod, and if possible her smile got even wider. “Alright. Well, Blossom and I have tried to talk things out some while you’ve been busy ... we're not PFFs by any stretch, but I think we’re not going to be at each other’s throats again.” Derpy gave me a playful smack on the shoulder. “And no, we didn't seal it with a kiss, or a First Night Consummation. Sorry to ruin your fantasy.”

“Darn...” I hadn’t been seriously expecting something like that would happen, but you have to admit that my life would get a lot less complicated if the two of them decided they’d be okay with sharing a bed. “Still, the two of you getting along a bit better is good.” I mentally prepared myself for an unhappy fillyfriend. “Because ... well there's a bit of a complication.”

Derpy went stiff as a board, and after a couple seconds of painful silence gave an impatient wave of her hoof for me to continue. With considerable reluctance, I did. “The things is, Derpy, I'm ... not just in love with you.”

Derpy’s eyes went wide, and she very slowly removed her wing from around my back and stepped away from me. “Cloud Kicker, I think you need to explain exactly what you mean.”

Okay, at least she wasn’t screaming at me and trying to hit me or throw anything at me. That was a good sign. “It means about what you think it means.” I groaned and flopped onto my back, and my wings gave a couple quick twitches to turn the cloud into something comfortable. “I've ... kinda got a thing for Blossom too. She's been somepony special to me for a long time, and I'm just starting to figure out how special.”

Derpy’s face went carefully blank—I’m not sure if that’s because she was trying to keep a lid on her less than happy feelings about that particular revelation, or if I’d just hit her with so many bombshells that she wasn’t sure what to feel anymore. “So.” Something about the way Derpy said that single word sent a nervous shiver up my spine. “Blossomforth's not just somepony who's on your banging radar any more. I should’ve seen it coming, you’ve been holding her up on a pedestal for years.” Derpy fixed me with a piercing, slightly accusatory glare. “There are only a couple reasons you wouldn’t have dragged her into bed at some point after all this time. You obviously like her enough to be friends with her and she’s reasonably attractive and unattached, so it’s all down to which rules are involved. How 'special' is she to you? What we have?”

I tried to come up with an answer for how much Blossom meant to me, and drew a blank. “I don't—I'm not sure.” I sighed and pulled a tuft of cloud out of the floor so I had something to occupy my hooves while I tried to come up with a better answer. “I guess it’s kinda hard to know where we’d be romantically when we're just friends right now. What I can say is that I think the way I feel about her is one of the reasons Blossom and I never actually banged. I knew if we did, it would get serious.”

Derpy’s eyes narrowed and a very slight grimace appeared on her face. “From the way she’s acting now, I’d say it’s pretty clear you never could’ve just had a casual one-night stand with her. She wants you bad, bad enough to—well, you were there, you saw how far she would go.” Derpy’s voice turned harsh as she snapped out. “Thing is, she had her chance.”

“No, she didn't,” I confessed. “I never gave her one.” Sure, I might’ve danced around the subject a bit and maybe even subconsciously dropped a couple hints her way, but I’d never done anything serious about it. “I knew she had a thing for me, and instead of addressing the issue I just stuck my head in the clouds and hoped the whole problem would just go away on its own.”

Derpy’s shoulder slumped and her wings drooped down. “Oh. I, um...” She awkwardly pawed at the clouds as she tried to figure what exactly she was going to say. “I really don't know how to respond to that,” she finally admitted.

“It is what it is.” I could feel my face slipping into a stoically blank mask as I tried to keep my emotions under control. “You deserved to know the truth, Derpy.”

“Doesn't really make me feel better,” Derpy snapped at me. She closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths, and continued a bit more calmly. “I ... put me in her horseshoes and I'd still be—well, not alone, but definitely wanting. And now that you've come around...” She took a couple more breaths, and then said with forced calm. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

“At least I got that part right,” I grumbled bitterly. “I really feathered this one up, didn't I?”

Derpy sighed and nodded. “Royally. I won’t say all of it is completely your fault, but your relationship with Blossomforth is something you should have sorted out a long time ago.” She dropped down next to me and gave my cheek an encouraging little nuzzle. “We'll find a way to fix this, okay? Together.”

I hesitantly wrapped a wing around her, and was a bit relieved when she didn’t try to shrug me off or anything. “Yeah. So, guess I better ... actually, I'm open to suggestions.”

Derpy snuggled up a little closer to me, and took a while to think it over before she answered. “I really wish I knew. I don’t have much experience with these sorts of relationships—all I really have to draw on is how things work with my girls, and that’s not exactly something you can apply to romance.”

I decided to offer the only good answer I’d been able to come up with, though I wasn’t very optimistic about how Derpy would take it. “So ... do we try sharing?’ I let out a very weak chuckle, and added, “It's not like it would be the first time I got around a bit.”

Derpy let an amused little snort. “You would suggest that.” She looked over at me and grinned, only for her smile to slowly fade away when I didn’t return it. “You — you’re not joking, are you?” I shook my head.

She spent a minute in very uncomfortable silence, before very carefully saying. “I don’t want anypony getting hurt, but I feel the way I feel about you. I don't think she'd tell you any differently. This ... trying to be with both of us at the same time is a bit different from your normal attitude. You're not just 'getting around' any more, you're splitting yourself. Emotional bifurcation like that isn't easy to adjust to when banging is involved.”

“It's not...” I trailed off as I realized that she had a point. There’s a big difference between banging around and trying to keep some kind of deep, meaningful relationship going with two different ponies. “I don't want to have to choose. I love both of you.”

Derpy reached up and brushed a hoof along one of my cheeks. “And I love you, and I don't want to lose that! And Blossomforth—I know she feels the same way.” She heaved out a sigh and ran a hoof over her face. “I don't know, I just don't know. I hope you—I hope we can find a way to make things right. Blossomforth and I don't get along right now, but I don't hate her. A broken heart isn’t something I'd wish on her.”

I rolled over onto my side so I could face Derpy directly. “I guess fixing this is gonna take a bit more than just spending half my time with you and half with her.”

Derpy’s mouth was halfway open to say something when she seemed to catch herself. When she finally spoke it was with careful, deliberate slowness. “If I were her, I wouldn't want these kinds of plans made without me. Much as I hate to say it...” Derpy sighed and very reluctantly conceded. “This is something all three of us are going to have to talk about.”

I couldn’t really argue with that, but at the same time putting those two into a room to talk things out wouldn’t work until we had some kind of baseline to work with. “Of course I’m going to talk to Blossom about all this too, and we are all going to need to sit down to work out some kind of final solution, but right now we need to settle where things stand with us.” No point in bringing up sharing with Blossom if Derpy wouldn’t go for it.

“Okay.” Derpy nodded half to herself, as if confirming something in her own mind. “I want you here, with me and my girls. That's the 'us' I want.” She gently put a hoof on my lips to forestall any answer, and her eyes teared up. “I know, I know, it's selfish, but see it from my perspective: I've been alone since Dinky came, and now that I finally found somepony...”

I winced and let out a long sigh. “So ... sharing's a no-go for you then?”

Derpy gave a rueful shake of her head.

“Super,” I growled. “There goes my only real plan for not breaking somepony's heart.”

Derpy flinched and her ears went back flat on her head. “I don't like it either, it's...” She let out a sad, frustrated little sigh.

I could feel anger and frustration starting to boil up inside my chest. “So I might end up having to pick one of you. That's great. That's just fea—” I cut myself off before I could completely blow my top, and took a couple deep breaths to calm down.

Derpy reached out as if she was going to put a hoof on my shoulder but stopped halfway and ducked her head with a guilty little whimper. “I'm sorry, Cloud Kicker.”

I let out a miserable little grumble and waved her off. “Can’t change how you feel, Derpy. I’ll have to talk to her about it, but honestly I can’t see Blossom going along with sharing either.”

Derpy gave me a paper-thin smile. “No, probably not. So, that's a 'no' from both of us ... sour grapes and all, but it still isn't fair to you.”

I sighed and rubbed a hoof over my forehead. “So ... I guess...” Oh Celestia, how was I supposed to make a choice like this? Figures, I finally go and fall in love again, and I end up having to break somepony’s heart the next day.

My fillyfriend sighed and uncomfortably pawed at a loose tuft of cloud. “I wish there was a better way to handle this, I really do. You're...” She let out a short little laugh that was devoid of any mirth. “Cloud Kicker's too loving for her own good.”

“Yeah.” That might’ve been funny if it didn’t hurt so much.

Derpy let out another tremble, and spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “What happens if you do have to pick one of us?

I sighed, and thought the problem over until I hit the only answer. “I guess ... there's really only one choice I could make. I don't want to, I really don't, but if I had to pick one of you...” Derpy let out an audible gulp, and was clearly struggling to keep her own emotions in check. Oh Luna, I was making this some big painful drawn-out drama production. “I love you both, but if I do end up having to pick, I guess I would have to pick the pony I'm already with.”

Derpy’s mouth opened and closed several times as she tried to think of something to say, until she finally settled for wrapping her hooves around me and squeezing with everything she had. “Th-thank you, Cloud Kicker! I—” She let out a sob of joy and buried her head in my chest. “I love you, I love you so much.”

I tried to hug her back and match her enthusiasm, but I wasn’t feeling very happy at all right now. “Love you too, Derpy.”

Derpy sobbed into my chest for a minute or so, struggling to regain her composure. Luna, what had I done to her to get into this state? She wiped the worst of her tears off against my coat, though when she spoke her voice was still pretty shaky. “I'm s-sorry to put you in th-this position, but...” The forelegs around my chest tightened enough to make my ribs creak as she cried out. “Thank you thank you, thank you!”

“Yeah, sure.” It was kinda hard to share Derpy’s joy in the moment when all I could think about was how crushed Blossom was gonna be if I couldn't steer this thing away from where it was heading and had to give her the bad news. She’d been holding a torch for me for so long, and the thought that I might end up shooting her down for good just when she was starting to think she might have a chance. Well, if things didn’t work out with Derpy maybe we could ... no, telling her something like that would just make it worse.

I guess Derpy must have figured out what was going through my head, because her good mood slowly evaporated, and she gave an awkward little cough. “You’re thinking about Blossomforth, aren’t you? I...” Derpy let out a guilty sigh. “I really don't want to hurt her, I swear.”

“Not like that would stop you.” I slapped my hooves over my mouth a second too late to stop that bitter little snipe from getting out. “Sorry, I ... sorry.”

Derpy flinched and pulled back from me, refusing to meet my eyes. After several long moments, she whispered. “I don't want to, Cloud Kicker. Change things a little and that would be me happily flitting along to training, without a clue my heart's about to be shattered. Changes things a little more...” She trailed off with a sigh.

“Yeah, I know.” I carefully reached out and put a hoof on her shoulder. “It wasn’t fair of me to take it out on you, but I just...”

Derpy gave my hoof a nuzzle and sighed. “If she's that important to you...” Her mouth was stopped halfway to whatever she was about to say next.

“I love her,” I answered simply. “Just like I do you.”

Derpy let out a guilty little whine, then turned back around and slowly wrapped herself around me. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

I groaned and wrapped my hooves around her, resting my chin on top of her head.. “I ... Derpy? Look, asking me to make a choice like that, even just as a worst-case-scenario thing ... that really hurt, okay?”

I felt Derpy’s head rub against my chest. “I'm sorry for that, I really, really am. I wish I could’ve ... I’m sorry. I just...” I could feel fresh wet spots on my chest fur—she must be crying. “I’m so sick of waking up every day and wondering if this is the day you’re going to tell me that you don’t need me anymore because you have Fluttershy back, or you’d rather have Blossomforth.”

I tried to give her a comforting little nuzzle, but I was still stinging a bit too much to put my whole heart into it. “Derpy, no matter what happens, I’m never gonna just throw you away like that. That’s a promise.”

“Thank you.” Derpy and I just stood there, her head resting on my chest as I held her. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything at all?”

I slowly ran a hoof up and down her back while I tried to figure out what to say next. “Just try to understand if I need a little space sometimes, okay? It’s gonna take a bit for this to stop hurting.”

I could hear a hint of pain in Derpy’s voice, though she tried to hide it. “I understand.”

I tightened my hold on her just a bit, and very quietly asked. “Derpy? Can we just stay like this for a bit?”

Derpy slowly wrapped her wings around me and started very gently rocking me. It felt relaxing, almost maternal in a way. I guess it was probably something she’d learned to do for her girls when they were feeling bad. “I’ll be here for you as long as you need me. Thank you, Cloud Kicker. I love you. We'll—we'll get through this, okay?

I slowly let myself relax and accept the simple comfort she offered. “Yeah. Thanks, Derpy.”

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Blossom before the next day, but that was probably for the best. With Tornado Duty staring us in the face, the last thing she needed was a big relationship drama bomb to distract her. Blossom’s just not the kind of pony who can compartmentalize and put her personal problems aside in order to get the job done. The way she’d reacted to our initial falling out made that pretty clear.

We started assembling at sunrise. For the final confrontation. It was going to be epic. Very epic.

Appropriately, the day started with pancakes. Derpy’s muffin pancakes, to be specific. They’re ... kinda hard to explain to somepony who’s never seen them, but what matters is that they’re absolutely delicious.

Anyway, after I had some food in my stomach the two of us went out to the highland reservoir. I had to show up a little early to help get everything ready—which turned out to mostly consist of getting Twilight’s huge anemometer set up. I was just a bit annoyed by Blossom’s absence during all that, mostly because she probably would’ve been much better at helping put everything on the giant-sized anemometer together. I knew enough about basic weather engineering to know how to make a simple anemometer, but Twilight’s giant machine was the opposite of simple.

Ponyville’s entire pegasus population had started showing up by the time I was done helping her attach the primary whatsit to the secondary thingamajig. Normally Blossom and I were on roll-call duty, but she was still AWOL. I was a little worried about her—it did seem like she was coming down with something a couple days ago. I hoped it wasn’t anything serious, though if it was bad enough to keep her home on a day like today...

“Rainbow, we have a problem.” Rainbow Dash sighed and braced herself for the bad news. “It’s time for roll call, and Blossom hasn’t shown up yet.” With as many pegasi as we had on our hooves, getting a headcount would take a long time if I was doing it all by myself. I guess I could ask Raindrops to help out, since Blossom did make her a temporary assistant manager, but...

Twilight interrupted that train of thought with a loud and authoritative cry of, “Spike!” Her pet dragon dutifully trotted up, a list clutched in his claws. “Help Cloud Kicker handle the roll call.” She shot me a quick smile and added, “It’s the least I can do after you helped out with the anemometer.”

Roll call is one of those boring but necessary tasks that happens with any big project. Especially with something like this, where every single pegasus was making an important contribution. Not to mention that skipping out on Tornado Duty could get a pony slapped with a hundred bit fine if you didn’t have a good reason for missing it. One of those little downsides of being born with wings, weather work was a civic duty.

We started down the line. “Raindrops?”

“Here.”

“Silverspeed?”

“Right here.”

“Flitter and Cloudchaser?” I should technically have called them separately, but the twins were practically joined at the hip.

Sure enough, I heard two simultaneous calls of, “Here.”

“Wild Fire?” Distinctly ominous silence followed. “Wild Fire?”

Right, so we had a missing pony. Annoying, but that kind of thing happens. “Spring Wind?” Again, nopony answered. “Spring Wind?”

On to the next name. “Sunny Skies? Anypony seen Sunny Skies?”

A third pony in a row that wasn’t here ... okay, we officially had a problem.

By the time I got back with the final numbers, things were looking grim: we were missing a lot of pegasi, and I’d gotten several reports that our absentees seemed to be coming down with something a couple days back. Then the real bad news came when I got back to Rainbow Dash—the Ponyville weather squad had been hit by the Feather Flu.

Thank Celestia my lifestyle encourages me to keep up with all my vaccinations. Feather Flu is one of the nastiest seasonal bugs out there—the disease itself wasn’t much worse than the normal flu, but the reason it’s called the ‘feather’ flu is because it also forces pegasi into an early molt. Losing perfectly healthy feathers can get nasty fast—Thunderlane was already in the hospital from complications after he dropped some blood feathers.

My wings gave a sympathetic little twinge at that. Anything going wrong with your blood feathers was not fun. If you damage those growing feathers that still have blood vessels and stuff in them, the only real way to fix it is yank the feather as fast as possible—feathers don’t exactly clot very well compared to skin. Make a mess of it and it’s easy to lose more blood than you can afford to.

Even when there weren’t any nasty complications, a forced molt means a week of being grounded and stuffing your face while you grew all those feathers back. Not a fun experience. To be honest, I was just a little tempted to ask Rainbow to put Tornado Day on hold for long enough to check up on Blossom. Duty comes first, though.

Though duty might have been a moot point, since after Twilight crunched the numbers it was bad enough that we might not be able to pull off the tornado at all. There was just one problem with that ... Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow took a look at Twilight’s abacus and quickly double-checked her math. “Yeah, it looks pretty bad, but we can still pull it off. Right, Twilight?”

Twilight frowned over at the large and yet entirely too small collection of pegasi. “It’s not very likely, but theoretically if everypony hits their highest performance numbers from training and can sustain those numbers for long enough it might be possible.”

Rainbow Dash being the pony she was, her brain apparently edited out all the conditionals in Twilight’s statement so that she ended up with the answer she wanted. “Alright, we can still pull it off if everypony gives a hundred percent.” She flew up to address the crowd. “Okay everypony! Let’s give it all we’ve got! On the sound of the horn, we take off!”

After Ponyville’s resident baby dragon gave the signal, we were off. Things started off well enough—with Rainbow Dash pulling her usual morale officer routine, everypony was putting everything they could into the tornado. It was way too loud inside the funnel to actually make out Twilight’s running count of our wingpower numbers, but I knew we were getting close when I could see the water starting to build up.

Shooting a look down at the reservoir was probably a mistake, since it meant I wasn’t looking at the pony in front of me for a couple seconds. Naturally, it was during those seconds that Raindrops’ wings gave out, and next thing I knew a wall of yellow and aquamarine slammed into my face.

By the time I regained my bearings I was on the ground and thoroughly entangled with poor Dropsy. Not that I was going to complain too much about the fact that my head was currently resting on a very nicely-sculpted flank. From what I could feel, Raindrops wasn’t exactly getting a bad deal either. “Hey, Dropsy, as much fun as we had on that little side trip we took while retrieving the southern birds, this really isn’t a good time.”

“Cloud Kicker.” Raindrops shifted around a bit in effort to disentangle herself from me. “Get. Off. Now.”

“Move your right hoof a little bit further south, and we can work on that.” I couldn’t see her face well enough to be absolutely sure, but I had enough experience with Raindrops to know that she was probably glaring at me. “Look, I’m not in the best of positions to return the favor right now, but if you shift your hindquarters around some maybe I can—”

“Cloud Kicker...” Okay, Raindrops was going from annoyed to bordering on losing her temper. Time to rein in my sense of humor. It took a little work, but the two of us managed to disentangle ourselves without too much trouble, especially once Derpy spotted my predicament and trotted over to lend a hoof.

Derpy’s motives might not have been entirely altruistic though, judging by the smirk she was giving Raindrops. “So that’s where you two vanished to last Winter Wrap-up! And after Rainbow sent you with me so I wouldn’t end up going north looking for the southern birds again ... shame on you both.” The smile on her face took any bite out of the condemnation. “What was it Rainbow said when she picked you, Raindrops? Something about needing a pony she could count on to not be distracted by Cloud Kicker?”

Raindrops actually blushed a little bit as she ducked her head and halfheartedly grumbled that nothing had happened. Nopony was convinced, especially not me since I was there for it. One thing I will say, once you got past the grouchy and serious exterior she was a pretty nice pony. Darn good bang too—she’s got a lot of muscle mass for a pegasus and she knows how to use it.

There was no time for basking in fond memories though—thankfully the tornado falling apart hadn’t caused too much damage to anypony. There were more than enough bumps and bruises to go around, but that was the worst of it. Unfortunately that wasn’t quite as good of news as it could have been, since it meant that everypony was still flight-capable.

Rainbow took one look at the situation, and came to exactly the conclusion you’d expect from her. “We’ve got to try again!” I groaned and applied hoof to face—Rainbow Dash never knew when to quit. Twilight beat me to the punch on making all the sensible arguments: We hadn’t managed to pull it off when everypony was fresh and ready to go, and now that we had a lot of tired and sore ponies on our hooves it could only get worse. Then there was the fact that it was lucky nopony got seriously hurt when the funnel broke up the first time around—we might not be so lucky if we went for a second attempt, especially with a lot of ponies not at a hundred percent anymore.

Not that logic and reason had any effect on her. Twilight made her case, and Rainbow brushed her off and did the most dangerous thing she could’ve possibly done. She started talking. “No! We’re going one more time! I’ve gotta know we gave it our all, and if I go down, I’m going down flying! C’mon ponies, let’s make this happen!”

It was completely insane. Common sense said that there was no way Rainbow’s plan should work—the numbers just didn’t add up. I saw Twilight shooting a look my way, and I could take a guess at what she was thinking. I could shut Rainbow down if I really wanted to—it’d be messy, but I’d be within my rights to challenge her on this. She was making a completely irrational decision that put ponies at risk of injury, or worse, chasing a plan that simply couldn’t work. The smart thing to do, the responsible thing to do would be to put a stop to this.

Except ... I believed in Rainbow Dash.

Faith can be a crazy thing like that. Rainbow wasn’t some goddess or even some kind of honored ancestor, she was just a normal pony with (if I’m being honest) some pretty big character flaws. She was suggesting a crazy plan that math and common sense said she just couldn’t do, but since when has Rainbow let something like that stop her?

Our friendship had gone through all kinds of hell, not just over the past few days, but for a pretty big chunk of our lives. I’d spent a couple years hating her guts after Flight Camp, and there had been plenty of times when things had gotten rocky on us. Despite all that ... I believed in her.

I believed that she just might be able to pull this off after all.

We all took back to the air with a little extra something pushing us. So we couldn’t pull it off when everyone gave a hundred percent? Well then—I know it sounds horribly cheesy to say it, but we would just have to give more than a hundred percent. Rainbow ... kinda has that effect on ponies.

We were getting close now, I could see the water starting to build up in the funnel, but we needed a little bit more. One last push—I still couldn’t hear Twilight’s running wingpower call, but I was dead certain it had to be something in the seven-nineties. I tried to put out one last little burst of speed, something to put us over the edge, but there just wasn’t enough left—even pushing as hard as I could, I had my limits.

And that’s when the most unlikely savior imaginable appeared. “Eepy?” I don’t think I’d ever seen her fly like that before. Fast. Powerful. Fearless.

Dammit, this was not a good time to start thinking about how hot seeing her like that made me.

Eepy gave us the final push we needed, enough to go from almost there to done. I felt the change in the tornado, the way the air currents shifted when we finally pulled it off. Sure enough, a quick glance to the side showed us the water shooting up through the funnel, and a minute later I heard Spike blowing the horn again, letting us know that the job was done.

Rainbow beat me to hugging Eepy first, but I didn’t leave her waiting long. “Eepy, that was amazing! Incredible!” From the slight blush that little bit of praise left, I decided to leave off mentioning that it was also sexy as hell. At least, I’d save that for some time when we weren’t in front of a hundred witnesses. One thing’s for sure—Derpy and I might be a settled thing, but there was no way in Tartarus I was letting Eepy slip out of my life again. She might not be my special somepony anymore, but she was still one hay of a special pony.

It took Blossom a while to answer her door. To be honest I probably shouldn’t have bothered knocking and making her get up out of bed, but I wasn’t comfortable just barging in uninvited.

Blossom looked ... about as unsexy as I’ve ever seen her. Her mane was limp and unkempt, her eyes were half-focused and bloodshot, her fur was cowlicked from being in bed most of the day, I could smell the faint odor of over-the-counter medicines on her breath, and her feathers were a complete mess with way too many of them in the process of molting. That’s the nastiest thing about the feather flu—having perfectly good feathers start molting will ruin anypony’s day.

Despite her obviously miserable state, she still smiled when she saw me. “Cloud Kicker. Hey. How’d the tornado go?”

“We did it.” I stepped into her house and idly shuffled some cloud around to freshen things up a bit. No major remodelling or anything, but simple stuff like bumping up airflow a bit and rotating all the clouds. Houses with sick ponies tend to acquire a kind of ... sick and medicine-y smell to them, but rotating all the clouds will freshen things right up. You’d be surprised how much of a difference things smelling nice and fresh can make—I guess it’s because that whole sick house aura is pretty dang depressing.

“Cool,” she rasped, settling back down onto a comfortable patch of cloud. “The boss take the whole thing about not breaking the record okay?”

“Yeah—she wasn’t happy about it, but she knew what her priorities were.” I settled down next to her and fluffed up the cloud around her some. “Getting the job done was more important than setting a record, and with how many sick ponies we had just pulling off the tornado at all was a pretty big deal. Good enough to get Rainbow a compliment from Spitfire after everything was done.” I chuckled and leaned back against the wall next to her. “You should’ve seen the look on Rainbow’s face when the captain of the Wonderbolts started congratulating her on having a lot of guts. I thought she was about to start squeeing right then and there.”

Blossom shivered a little bit and pulled some of the cloud around her. “Great, not like her ego’s big enough or anything.” She smirked and knowingly shook her head as she covered a particularly large bald patch on her left wing. “Seriously, though, that’s good. She came pretty close to not being able to pull this off at all.”

“Yeah, we cut things real close.” I grabbed a relatively fresh clump of cloud and used it to wipe away some of the accumulated sweat, medicine-y smell, and general sickness funk Blossom’s body was currently radiating. “Twilight kept saying that with the way the numbers looked it was just about impossible for us to pull it off, but you know Rainbow ... if it’s not completely impossible, she’ll try. No, actually, she’d try even if it was.” I let out an amused little snort. “Probably still find a way to pull it off too. Crazy mare.”

“And she gives some crazy motivational speech if she cah—ca—” She was interrupted by a string of dry coughs, and took a sip from a nearby bottle of apple juice before trying again. “If she can’t make the facts line up with what she wants to see.” She idly craned her head to one side as I dabbed at her jawline. “So how close did we cut it? Close enough for one of her Rainbow Chats?”

“Oh hay yes.” Blossom closed her eyes as I ran the cloud over her face. Once that was done I had to toss that clump out, and go get a fresh one. One advantage of just finishing up Tornado Day—there was no shortage of fresh cloud to work with. “It was an amazing speech. Epic. I’m surprised Pinkie Pie didn’t pop out of somewhere to jump her bones, because Rainbow was at her best right then. I guess she was too busy planning the big party to celebrate our success.”

“Probably, knowing her. If you’re going, do me a favor and bring back a slice of cake. I could use some to wash down all this stuff.” She waved a hoof at a steel container holding a bunch of different medicines from her bathroom cabinet.

“Um...” I rubbed a hoof on the back of my head and let out a slightly sheepish chuckle. “Party’s already going on, Blossom.” I moved the cloud down to start washing along the base of one of her wings, taking care to use as delicate a touch as I could manage. The last thing I wanted to do was mess around with her wings and cause her pain or discomfort.

“Oh.” She looked at me, then took a sudden interest in her apple juice. She raised her wing a little bit, exposing a patch of skin where her scapular feathers used to be. “Um... I’d’ve been okay for a bit, you know.”

I shrugged and very gently cleaned the exposed skin. “Priorities, Blossom. With Pinkie Pie around there will always be plenty of other parties.”

She grunted and gave a small nod, half-watching me out of the corner of her eyes. If it weren’t for the fever that was a part of the Feather Flu package, I’d’ve worried that the slight shiver I felt was from me being so close to her wing. She either felt the same way or was just too sick to think about anything else, and curled her wing a little more out of my way.

I tried to finish washing the area as quickly as I could without going too fast, and moved on to safer territory. “Besides ... I didn’t really know how sick you were. I was worried, especially after I heard Thunderlane was in the hospital. Complications with some of his blood feathers.”

“Thunderlane’s where?” her ears perked, and I could see a tiny bit of alarm in her blue eyes. “Is he okay?”

“I didn’t stop to ask for details, but if they got him to the hospital and his brother turned out for Tornado Day, he’s probably fine.” Admittedly, about the only medical knowledge I’ve got is some basic combat medical training—how to patch yourself up enough to get to a field hospital and stuff. On the other hoof, dealing with blood feathers is just part of being a pegasi, and it’s an easy guess that complications probably meant bleeding ... lots of it. Not fun at all, but that’s the kind of thing they could fix pretty reliably if you got to the hospital in time.

I carefully looked over her wing, drawing a tiny little whine of protest from her. I guess I’m not surprised she didn’t like the idea of me seeing her wings in their current state, but her pride took a backseat to her health. The inspection went reasonably well, but not perfectly. “Blossom, you’ve got a blood feather that’s in bad shape. Probably best if we take it out now.” Getting bad blood feathers out is a pretty simple process when you’ve got some medical supplies and somepony there to help—the trouble usually comes when a pony tries to handle it themselves, especially a pony who’s already sick.

“Mmm.” She didn’t offer much more beyond a grumble as she extended her wing in front of me. Blood feathers hurt when they came out wrong, but I think hearing that one of our co-workers had been hospitalized was enough to undermine any protest. “All right, go ahead and get it.”

“Right, I’ll try to make it quick.” Fortunately Blossom had the foresight to add the standard feather maintenance stuff to her medicine tin, so I had everything I needed to take out a damaged blood feather right at hoof. The process itself was pretty simple, just very tricky to pull off on your own. The angle is tricky, especially when the flu has you feeling awful to begin with, and most ponies tend to panic a bit at the sight of their own blood. If I had to guess, trying to take care of the problem himself was probably what landed Thunderlane in the hospital.

After I got the gauze and some coagulant out and ready, I leaned down to gently grasp the base of her feather in my teeth, and then quickly and smoothly yanked it out. I got the gauze onto the wound as fast as I could, before she lost any significant amount of blood. Blossom was a real trooper about the whole thing—she barely even let out a whimper during the entire process.

“...ow.” She turned her head and examined her wing, looking over the same patch several times in a row before giving up with a cough. “Please tell me that’s the only one.”

I went back to examining Blossom’s wings, and gave a sympathetic flinch. “You’ve got three more that don’t look so great. Can’t be sure anything will go wrong with them, but it’s probably safer to take them out than risk one of them breaking on you when you don’t have somepony here to fix it up for you.”

“Horsefeathers.” We both snorted at the ironic appropriateness of the turn of phrase. “This is gonna suck... lemme grab a bit more to drink first, I don’t think I’m gonna want to move after.”

I gave another sympathetic wince and nodded. “You’ll probably wanna take it easy for a bit after we’re done.” Normally losing a blood feather isn’t the worst thing in the world, but when you’re sick on top of that it makes just everything hurt twice as much. “I’ll stick around until you’re feeling mobile again. Although ... I gotta say, feather flu in a cloud-house you live in by yourself is a bad combination, Blossom.”

Blossom shuffled off the clouds around her and trotted to her ice-cloud, grabbing a couple bottles of apple juice before hurrying back. The whole trip took about thirty seconds, but by the time she settled back into her little nook she was shivering again. “Yeah, it’s kind of a hazard of not living groundside.” She buried herself again up to the shoulder and re-extended her wings. “And, um … thanks.”

I let out a humorless little chuckle. “You’re probably not gonna be thanking me in a bit.”

A couple minutes later, the blood feathers were out. Blossom’s grimace faded into merely keeping her eyes shut for a minute as she fought back a few pained tears. I’d tried to be as quick about the whole process as I could, but even slightly damaged blood feathers were still connected to nerve endings, as well as her bloodstream. I hated seeing her in pain, especially pain I was causing, but rushing things could cause all kinds of problems.

Once it was done and the worst of Blossom’s whimpers and tears died down, I brought my patch of cloud to wipe her face again, cleaning away the tear lines. “Blossom? You okay? I’m sorry that hurt so much.”

She nodded after a moment’s pause. “Luna, I hate this bug.” She folded one wing back against her side, but hissed as she moved the other one. I didn’t blame her, two of the three feathers had come out near the joint. She let it flop next to her and dug it into the cloud. “That’s … better than needing Life Flight to cart me out of here, I guess.”

“I suppose,” I answered neutrally. To be honest, I’ve never quite understood why some ponies have so many issues with going to the hospital. Maybe that’s just because of the way the clan raised me though—one lesson we learned real early was to take anything worse than a papercut to a medic, just to be safe. There’s plenty of stories out there of ponies getting themselves in serious trouble because they had a minor bug or a little flesh wound that went bad on them because they didn’t get medical help when they needed it.

I briefly considered dragging Blossom to the hospital over her protests, but in her current state she could hurt herself if she made a big fuss about going to the hospital. That’s not to mention that there are probably rules about treating patients who don’t want to be treated. Well, as long as those patients are reasonably lucid and coherent, instead of screaming and flailing about like mad to the point where they’re a danger to themselves and others.

So dragging her the hospital was out ... but it did make for an effective lever to get something a bit more realistic. “Look, Blossom, staying up here by yourself in your current state really isn’t safe. Now, the way I see it we have two options—either I take you back to my place, or I take you to the hospital.”

“So that’s what it...” her mumble was cut off by another cough. “I was gonna ask to borrow a blanket anyway. Fine, let’s go to your place, I guess. M’not a huge fan of hospitals if I don’t need to be there.” She stood up and let out a soft gasp as the cool air rushed around her. Her hoof tapped the container which held her ruined feathers. “P-probably should’ve gone down first, huh?”

“Probably,” I agreed. “You’re lucky I’m up-to-date on all my vaccines.” This did mean Eepy was gonna be holding onto ‘Lula for a bit longer though—I don’t know if either of them had gotten their feather flu shots, and the last thing ‘Lula needed was to catch the feather flu on top of what she already had. I guess my little bachelorette pad was gonna be a plague house for a bit.

I let my hooves sink down into Blossom’s floor, until I was at a level where she wouldn’t have any trouble getting on my back. “You gonna be able to climb on and get a good grip, or do you need me to just come up under you?”

Blossom lifted a foreleg, then put it back down again, unconsciously shuffling her wings only to hiss again when she tried to fold the tender joint. “Would you mind?” she asked with a sheepish grin. “I’m really not feeling too hot after that.”

“No problem.” It was fairly easy to just sink a little lower into her floor, walk underneath her, and then come back up so she was more or less draped over my back. “Try to get a good grip, and keep clear of my wings. I’ll take things as slow and careful as I can.” Blossom was just about settled into position when her body went a bit off-kilter and her hind leg dropped over my right wing. After giving her a couple seconds to correct the problem on her own, I spoke up. “Nono, you gotta shift so you’re centered.”

Blossom shifted around to a position that was less bad than where she had been, but still pretty far from ideal. “Sorry, I’ve never done this before.”

Huh, so she’d never mounted anypony before. Big surprise. “Look on the bright side, you’re finally getting to ride me.” That actually got a very weak laugh out of her—she must be really sick if she thought that was a good joke. “So, you’ve really never ridden on somepony’s back?”

“No.”

Really? I mean, that’s a pretty basic part of childhood for anypony, especially a pegasus. My parents were pretty light on affection, and even they’d taken me out for flights on their backs every once in a while. It was one of the standard things parents did with their ... oh. Right.

“Okay Blossom, here’s what you need to do...” After a couple minutes I had her reasonably well placed, but just to be safe I grabbed a chunk of Blossom’s floor and whipped it into a very basic harness for her. It wasn’t much, but it would keep her in position long enough for the flight down.

Thankfully nothing went wrong on the way down, and since every healthy pegasus in Ponyville was packed into Sugarcube Corner for the big post-Tornado party I didn’t even have to worry about running around town with a contagious mare on my back. Once I got her settled in I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a quick note on it, then stuck it on my front door. Odds were all the healthy pegasi would be flocking to the clinic to get feather flu shots now that everypony knew it was going around, but it was still best to warn folks that I had a sick pegasus here. No sense taking chances.

Once that was done, I checked back in on my patient. Blossom was already making herself comfortable in my bed, though she seemed just a bit frustrated by the fact that my mattress and pillows were a bit too solid compared to what she was used to. “Blossom, you need anything?”

“Could I bug you for a glass of water? Coughing’s left me a little sore.” Blossom’s voice did sound a bit scratchy.

“Yeah, no problem.” I trotted off to the kitchen and got her some water, and even helped her hold the glass until she’d had her fill. “So ... I guess I need to break out that nurse outfit, huh?”

“Of course you’d have one on hoof.” Even through her laugh, I didn’t miss the intrigued gleam in her eyes.

“It was a Nightmare Night costume,” I offered in my own defense. Admittedly, I did hang onto those costumes for the one or two times when they came in handy for ... other contexts. Even the Sexy Royal Guard outfit I’d made from my old cadet armor had seen a couple interesting uses over the years.

“So that’s why Redheart was giving you the evil eye the next day.” She had largely stopped shivering and snuggled a little more securely into the layers of blankets. “Bet it looks nice.”

I couldn’t help chuckling a bit. “Maybe I can put it on for you later.” I hesitated for a moment, then leaned down to give her a quick little nuzzle. I probably shouldn’t be showing her this kind of physical affection until I let her know what Derpy made me ... what Derpy and I had worked out, but it’s not like I could break the news to her now.

The heat from her cheek traced against mine as she nuzzled me back. “Cloudy... Thanks. I owe you.”

“No problem,” I whispered to her. “S’what I do for ponies I love.” It took a second for my brain to process what I’d just said. That ... probably could’ve been handled better.

A soft smile formed on Blossom’s lips, and she slowly brought her head up to mine. I had plenty of time to stop it if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t stop her.

By most objective standards, it wasn’t much of a kiss. Even if lack of experience wasn’t an issue, Blossom was way too sick to manage anything amazingly romantic or sensual that could knock a pony off her hooves. It wasn’t quite down to the level of a simple little peck though, and somehow that brief little kiss carried a meaning. A promise of kisses to come, that would be a hundred times better.

Blossom settled her head onto my pillow and let out a contented little sigh. As she started fading to sleep I heard her whisper back: “I love you too, Cloud Kicker.”

Okay ... I definitely could’ve handled that better.

The Pony Who is All Passion

I woke up in bed after the best night of sex I’ve ever had.

I let out an immensely satisfied groan and gave a slow, languid stretch, reveling in that special kind of worn out soreness that only comes after a night of wild, no-holds barred banging. Once I had worked all those wonderful little kinks out of my body, I rolled over in bed and put a hoof across my partner’s chest. “I don’t know about you, but I think that was officially the best sex ever.”

My partner rolled over in bed, meeting my eyes with his own bloodshot green orbs. “Yes,” the Diamond Dog announced with a grin that showed a huge collection of yellowed teeth. “Nice pony. Pretty pony.” The creature reached out and ran a single grubby, dirt-caked claw through my mane. “We do doggy style again, yes?”

Under the circumstances, I think my reaction was appropriately restrained.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA—

“—AARGH!” I woozily tumbled off my couch, frantically searching the room for any sign of the Diamond Dog. After a couple seconds of terrified confusion my brain started putting the facts together. I was sleeping on my couch in the living room, not my bed, and there certainly hadn’t been anything else sleeping with me.

“It was just a nightmare,” I reassured myself. A horrible, horrible nightmare.

I gave one last shake of my head to dispel the memories of that terrifying dream, and took a quick look around the room just to reassure myself there were no Diamond Dogs lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce the instant I turned my back. Diamond Dogs will do that. I swear, one time when I’m really, really, drunk and they all think I’m on the market for them. Well, if they thought they could get a piece of me, they’d have another thing coming. Damned dirty Diamond Dogs.

My bedroom door slowly creaked open, and I immediately went on guard, ready to dispense a righteous beatdown to the first canine I saw. Thankfully, there were no Diamond Dogs lurking in my home, trying to trick me into banging them. Instead, it was just a slightly drowsy Blossomforth. “Cloudy? You okay?”

I let out a massive yawn and stretched all my limbs, working out a few bits of soreness I’d picked up by virtue of my tumble from the couch. “I’m fine, Blossom. Just had a nightmare is all. Sorry I woke you up.”

“‘Salright,” Blossom reassured me. “You didn’t wake me up. Wanna have a midnight snack while you talk about your dream?”

“Not really.” I’d be much happier just doing everything in my power to repress the memory of that particular dream. Stupid Diamond Dogs.

Blossom settled down on the couch next to me and gave me a gentle little nuzzle. “Well maybe we could have a midnight snack and just hang out a bit until you’re up for getting back to sleep?”

“I’m not really hungry.” Just the thought of one of those things ending up in my bed again had pretty much killed my appetite. Not just my appetite for food either—having a sexy mare sitting right next to me was doing pretty much nothing for me right now.

Blossom wasn’t about to let the matter drop. “Well maybe I could make us a midnight snack, and then—”

I gently cut her off with an upraised hoof. “You’re hungry again, aren’t you, Blossom?”

Even with none of the lights on, I could see the faint blush rising up on her cheeks. “Hey, growing back feathers takes a lot of energy.” She sounded just a touch defensive. I might have been teasing her a bit about how much she’s been eating lately. She didn’t even wait for me to answer before she trotted off to the kitchen to start rooting around in my icebox.

To be fair, the old mares’ sayings about how you should feed a fever goes double when it comes to the feather flu. Replacing all the feathers a pony drops during the flu is heavy work. At least Blossom was over the flu itself and had gotten to the feather re-growing side of things. Still, after a week of dealing with a severely sick pegasus, and another week of dealing with a mildly ill and ravenously hungry one, I was about ready for her to be back to one hundred percent healthy.

No reason to let a couple inconvenient facts get in the way of some quality teasing time, though. “Better be careful, Blossom. You’re gonna end up eating me out of house and home, and all that food you’re stuffing in your face is gonna end up going right to your flanks.”

“Oh shut up.” Blossom’s answer might have been a bit more forceful if she wasn’t speaking around an apple slice. For a second she looked like she might hoof me in the shoulder as well, but after careful consideration she decided that smacking me wasn’t worth the risk of dropping her loaded down plate of apples and banana bread. “B’sides,” she grumbled around a piece of said bread, “You like big flanks anyway. Derpy’s got that huge bubble butt.”

“Okay, that’s a fair point.” Derpy never did get around to shedding all that baby fat she picked up from having Dinky. Not that I was complaining in the slightest—it’s not like she was anywhere close to being obese, she just had a little bit of bouncy curviness to her. It certainly beat Rainbow Dash’s tiny little flank full of dense, tightly packed muscle.

What? I can’t help noticing these things.

Granted, there have been times when I wouldn’t mind a bit of a happy medium between Derpy’s wonderful bubble butt and Dash’s nonexistent rump. Eepy and Blossom both fell into that category. Blossom was reasonably fit from all the work she did on the weather team, but didn’t quite go to Rainbow Dash’s level of pushing herself until her body fat content needed a decimal point after the percentage. Eepy was in the same category, but with the added bonus of weekly spa treatments keeping everything back there nice and loose, and her coat so wonderfully, lustrously soft.

“Cloud Kicker,” Blossom announced with a hint of a smirk. “You’re drooling.”

“Am not.” I wiped my mouth anyway, just in case. At least now I had confirmation that the horrible Diamond Dog nightmare hadn’t done any permanent damage to my libido. That would’ve been a real tragedy. We’d have to hold a massive funeral for my sex drive. Mourners would come from across Equestria, and beyond. Speeches would be given, tears would be shed, and the world would be a sadder, emptier place.

I cuddled up a little closer to Blossom, who spared a moment in between shoving food into her face to wrap a wing around me. Now that I had a plate full of food sitting in front of me a midnight snack didn’t sound so bad after all. Blossom didn’t say anything when I snagged a piece of banana bread off her plate, but the look she gave me made it clear that taking anything more would be pushing my luck. At the rate she was putting the food away, I’d be lucky to put a hoof on the plate and not end up having her bite it off.

Even love only gets you so much when you’re dealing with a starving mare.

Once the hungry beast had sated herself for the moment, she wiped a few breadcrumbs off her muzzle and turned to me with a slightly sheepish grin. “Sorry about eating you out of house and home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I reassured her with a casual wave of my hoof. “I asked Rainbow for an advance on your pay. That’s what I’ve been paying for all the food with.”

“How considerate of you,” Blossom broke out the dry sarcasm.

“Yeah, I’m just a big ol’ softie like that.” The two of us shared a look, and then we were both giggling like schoolfillies. Luna, it had been way too long since we had a moment to just sit down and talk like this. No pressure, no worries, just the two of us being friends and enjoying each other’s company. Getting back to the fun back-and-forth teasing that had always been the foundation of our friendship instead of being caught up in all the stupid relationship drama that just kept dragging things down into the pit of Tartarus.

Blossom and I scooted a little closer together, just basking in each other’s presence. Sadly, the moment couldn’t last. Blossom had to break it by blushing and very hesitantly speaking up. “Um, I’m feeling a lot better now. So, you know, you don’t have to sleep on the couch anymore. If—if you’d like to sleep in your bed instead...” Blossom was positively flaming as she very quietly confessed. “I think I’d be okay with that.”

Some part of me couldn’t help critiquing Blossom’s seduction technique. To be honest, she didn’t get many points from a strictly technical perspective. Her expression was all wrong: she should be smiling at me with just the tiny little hint of a pout while coyly fluttering her eyelashes at me, not sitting next to me, not quite able to bring herself to actually look me in the eye while she worried at her lower lip. She didn’t look like an experienced seductress trying to lure me into her bed, she looked like exactly what she was: a nervous virgin who had just decided to give her virginity up, almost as scared by the prospect as she was excited.

What her seduction lacked in skill, it made up for with simple sincerity. Blossom was offering herself to me, blemishes and fears and all. It might not have been sexy by any conventional definition, but I was still sorely tempted to take her up on the offer. She was just so genuine and earnest in her desire to get me into bed.

Sadly, discipline beat out desire. I leaned forward and gave her a single loving but carefully restrained kiss. “Blossom, sweetie.” I ran a hoof through her mane. “I’d like that, I really would, but I think you, me, and Derpy all need to sit down and have a big talk before we do something like that.”

“Oh.” Blossom’s gaze dropped down the couch, her cheeks burning with shame. “Right. I—sorry, I shouldn’t have...”

I cut her self-deprecation off with another kiss. “It’s fine, Blossom. Really.” I should’ve set something up with Derpy a lot sooner. I’d kissed Blossom and confessed my love two whole weeks ago, and I still hadn’t done anything to sort this whole mess out. It was past time the three of us sat down and worked out some kind of solution. Sure, Blossom had been sick for half of that time, and was still recovering now, but I couldn’t deny I’d been doing a little procrastinating on that point either. I really wasn’t looking forward to sitting down with the two mares I loved and trying to work out some way to make them both happy when as far as I could tell they were both determined to break the other’s heart.

Blossom shifted around on the couch, brushing against me in ways that made me wish we didn’t have to hold off on jumping into bed. Stupid self-discipline and concern for the feelings of others. The worst part was that she wasn’t even trying to get me riled up, she was just being awkward and insecure. Unfortunately, Blossom being Blossom was all it took to start getting me riled up. Now that I’d finally started dealing with the fact that I wanted her, it was kinda hard to just shut off my attraction.

I gave Blossom another quick peck on the lips, and had to struggle with the urge to push the kiss a bit further than that. “Look, maybe we better go back to bed. Separately.” I added the last part as much for my own benefit as for hers.

“I—yeah, I guess so,” Blossom reluctantly agreed. After lingering for several seconds, she very reluctantly pulled herself away from me, slowly walking back to the bedroom. “Good night, Cloud Kicker.”

“G’night, Blossom.”

I woke up to the smell of frying haybacon and Rainbow Dash knocking my hindquarters off the couch. “Oops.” She gave me one of those patented Rainbow Dash grins that managed to look slightly sheepish without quite crossing over into actually admitting that she was wrong. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have knocked me halfway off the couch.” I stretched and let out a massive yawn, reluctantly dragging myself into the land of wakefulness.

“Well you were taking up the whole couch,” Rainbow offered up in her own defense.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Not that I normally minded having Rainbow around, but normally she wasn’t waking me up out of a fairly comfortable rest. To her credit Rainbow had been great about me needing some time off to help take care of Blossom, letting me come into work whenever I had spare time and even taking some time to play nurse in my place so I could get out to pick up groceries and check on Alula.

“Came by to see how you two were doing.” Rainbow settled down onto the portion of the couch I’d just vacated. “Since Blossomforth’s doing better I was thinking I could leave some paperwork for her.” Rainbow pointed to a somewhat massive stack of papers occupying one of my end tables. “Gives her something to do, means I can pay her for doing a day’s work, and if she’s handling all the paperwork left over from Tornado Day then I’m not stuck in the office doing it myself.”

“Sounds good. Blossom has been getting just a little stir crazy.” Now that she wasn’t seriously ill or contagious anymore we could at least go out and about, but she was still feeling bad enough that she wanted to spend most of her time indoors, taking it easy. A pony can only spend so long reading books or messing around with a couple of her little engineering projects before she wants a change of pace.

Speaking of my temporary roommate, I could see the top of Blossom’s head bobbing around over the kitchen counter, so I guess that answered the question of who was making haybacon. Not that I was surprised—ever since she’d started feeling only mildly sick Blossom had taken over cooking duties to pay me back for helping her out. Blossom was a pretty good cook, though she ran into the occasional issues from the fact that she was used to doing her cooking on thunderclouds, not stoves. Besides, I liked my haybacon slightly burned anyway.

“So,” I prompted Rainbow, who seemed to be making herself entirely too comfortable for a pegasus who’d just come by to drop off some paperwork. “You dropped off the paperwork, and we’re fine. Why are you still here, sitting on my couch?”

“Blossomforth’s making breakfast,” Rainbow answered shamelessly.

“Moocher.” I casually hoofed her in the shoulder.

“Yeah, well I sign your paychecks, so there.” Rainbow stuck her tongue out at me. She’s a real paragon of maturity sometimes. “Besides, the haybacon smelled really good and Blossom invited me.”

Blossom took a break from making said haybacon to drop off a plate with a couple bagels and strawberry cream cheese. Judging by the bagel she currently had clamped between her teeth, the smell of haybacon had riled up her appetite enough that she needed something in her stomach right away. To be fair to her, it wasn’t like she was the only one whose stomach was grumbling a bit. Frying haybacon has to be one of the most appetizing smells out there.

I grabbed a bagel and immediately started applying some spread to it, and was a little surprised when Rainbow didn’t join me. She’d been eager enough to grab a seat on my couch and order up some food, and Blossom made a point of bringing out a bagel for each of us. I set my bagel down and turned to look at her. “Something wrong, Rainbow?”

“Not really.” I’m fluent enough in Rainbow Dash-ese to know that meant ‘yes.’ I gave her a bit of time to build up her courage and get comfortable—getting Dash to talk about anything that was bugging her was an exercise in patience. She wasn’t timid like Eepy or prone to letting things bottle up like Blossom could be, but she could be stubbornly independent-minded. It could be a lot of work to get Rainbow to admit that there’s something bothering her that she can’t handle on her own.

The key was to let her set her own pace working up to a confession. Badgering her would just make her set her hooves and start getting defensive. Instead, I let her approach the issue on her own terms. “So,” Dash began, “I was thinking...”

I couldn’t resist a snarking opportunity like that. “First time for everything.”

Dash let out a snort and slugged me in the the shoulder. “I do lots of thinking. I’m a total thinking-type pony. Just not an egghead.” Having settled that matter, Dash shifted around the couch a bit, knocking my blanket and extra pillows off onto the floor to give herself a bit more room. “Anyway, I was thinking about stuff with me and Pinkie. ‘Cause, you know, we’ve been together for a couple months now, and she’s been really awesome for the whole time. Especially with all the stuff I’ve had going on lately. So I was thinking that maybe it was time for us to finally think about, um...” Rainbow waved a hoof vaguely in the air for a while until she worked up the guts to say the actual word. “Banging.”

“Oh.” I sank down onto the couch next to her, and wrapped a wing over her shoulders. It says a lot about how much this was bothering Rainbow that she didn’t mind the contact. Rainbow’s not exactly a huge fan of casual physical contact most of the time. Especially from me. “You and Pinkie doing the business? That’s ... that’s a big step.”

“No kidding.” Rainbow shifted a bit so my wing lay a bit more comfortably around her. “So ... do you think I'm ready?”

I thought carefully about my answer. “I think that if you wanna do it, you're ready.” With all of Rainbow’s somewhat understandable issues when it came to that kind of intimacy, actually wanting to have sex was a pretty huge first step.

Rainbow took a couple seconds to mull over that before she nodded, took a deep breath, and very slowly let it out. “Okay. Go time.” She must have been feeling better, because she reached across the plate to snatch away the bagel I’d gone to all the trouble of applying spread to, instead of taking the one Blossom had set aside for her. Judging by how quickly the bagel went from Dash’s hooves to her stomach, it was a darn tasty one. Rainbow let out a loud, approving belch to confirm it.

“Moocher,” I grumbled.

Rainbow gave a completely unbothered shrug. “Eh, I prefer schnorrer.”

After briefly struggling with the urge to pin Rainbow down and tickle her into submission, I picked up another bagel and got to work putting the fruit spread on this one. I made a point of using up every last bit of the spread, so Rainbow wouldn’t get any more. “So, you and Pinkie are finally gonna do the business?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Rainbow idly poked at the empty plate, as if hoping that a fresh bagel would suddenly appear out of thin air. “Well ... she's been wanting to and it's the sort of things fillyfriends do with each other, right?”

“Yeah, true.” Hay, I’d idly poked fun at them for not banging more than once. I hope that wasn’t a factor in Rainbow’s decision-making. “You sure you're gonna be okay with it?”

Rainbow puffed out her chest and put on a fearless grin, though I knew her well enough to catch the hint of worry in her eyes that gave away her false bravado. “Of course! Why wouldn't I be? I'm Rainbow Dash, t-the awesomest pony and um ... stuff.” Rainbow shot a nervous look in the general direction of the kitchen, making sure Blossom was too busy cooking to hear what we were talking about.

“'Course you are.” You have to feed Dash’s ego a little when she’s being all nervous and lacking in confidence, or else she’ll just completely crash on you. Not too much, though, or she’ll start getting a big head. It’s a delicate balancing act, but I’ve got plenty of experience dealing with her. “So ... want some advice from the master?”

Rainbow hesitated and shot another look at the kitchen to make sure Blossom wasn’t listening, and then instinctively scoped out the rest of the room to make sure nopony else was around. When she finally spoke, it was in a hushed, nervous whisper. “I just ... I mean, it's so weird!”

“Weird? How so?” Pinkie hadn’t been into anything that strange the one time we hooked up and banged years ago. Come to think of it, that fact made this whole conversation just a bit more awkward. Considering the fact that we were discussing Rainbow Dash’s sex life, we really didn’t need any help bumping up the awkward levels.

Rainbow gave a slightly melodramatic shudder. “It’s just that the idea of having somepony touching you, ya know, down there ... I mean, I don't even like touching myself there!” Okay, I would’ve been fine not knowing that, even though she probably just meant the nonsexual reasons a mare would do that. I was much happier not thinking about Rainbow Dash clopping.

Come to think of it, that didn’t do much to make the rest of this conversation any less awkward. Dear Celestia, this might be the worst banging-related talk I’d had to deal with since my parents belatedly sat me down to have The Talk with me. I tried to rein in my rising gorge and just focus on helping my friend. “It might seem a little strange at first, but trust me, you'll like it once you get into the swing of things.”

Rainbow shot me a worried frown. “A-are you sure? I mean, it can't feel that good. Can it?”

I smiled indulgently as a plethora of very fond memories drifted into my mind. “Trust me, it does. It’s pretty much the best feeling in the world, especially when you’re doing it with somepony you love, and who loves you back.”

The dam finally broke, and Rainbow let some of her fear show. She clutched one of my forehooves in both of hers, and an edge of barely controlled panic entered her voice. “But what if I'm not good at it? I mean, I'm good at everything but ... I mean, what if I don't make Pinkie feel good and something goes wrong and then she'll just laugh and my reputation will be ruined forever and she'll break up with me and hate me and everypony'll laugh and...”

I put a hoof over her mouth to cut off the stream of terrified babbling. “Dash, relax. Just tell her it’s your first time, and she'll understand if you’re still figuring things out. Besides, she loves you to bits, and that’s not gonna change. You'll be fine.” I grinned and tightened my wing around her, pulling Rainbow in a little closer for a confidential little whisper. “You know, as long as you're here, I guess I could give you a couple pointers.”

Rainbow let out a nervous gulp. “Uh, yeah. That sounds good. Thanks.” I sure hope she wasn’t thinking something silly, like that I was planning to give her ‘hooves-on training’ with a practice bang or two. Having sex with Rainbow, even just as practice for Pinkie was just ... no. Not that she was ugly, but there was just too much history there. Advice, however, was just fine.

Well, first things first, I needed to figure out what I had to work with. “So ... how much do you know about banging beyond basic sex ed?”

Rainbow opened her mouth to answer, but nothing beyond a slightly strangled sound came out. Her cheeks started flaming, and she rubbed her forelegs together in a vague sort of motion that was clearly supposed to convey something, but failed. Finally, she very shakily managed to declare. “I know ... stuff. And things. Y’know ... a lot of it.”

So, we were pretty much working with a blank slate here. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about knocking any bad info out of her head. “How about I just cover everything?”

For a second it looked like Rainbow might object, but for once sense won out over pride, and she conceded with a weak nod. A second later, she tried to salve her damaged ego. “Yeah, sure. It’ll be like a review session or something.”

Oh, Rainbow Dash. Never change. “Now, first things first, you gotta take things slow.” I grinned and gave her a teasing little nudge. “I know you, you'd wanna jump right to the big finish.”

“Yeah yeah, of course!” Rainbow gave an eager nod, only to pause with a confused frown a few seconds later. “So, how do you take it slow? What is 'it’?”

Oh Celestia, we really were starting with an absolute blank slate here. “Okay, Rainbow Dash, when two ponies love each other very very much, they—”

“I know that part!” Rainbow cut me off, her cheeks bright red with an embarrassed blush. “My moms didn’t leave me completely in the dark!”

Rainbow really is too much fun to mess with sometimes. I bit back a snort of laughter and got back to work on helping her out. “Banging would be 'it'. I would suggest you start with the simple stuff, some kissing and touching. Foreplay and all that.”

She gave a slow nod, a very tentative smile on her face. “Okay. Kissing and touching, I can do that. Hay, I already do that with Pinkie sometimes.”

It occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea to loan Rainbow my copy of the Kamare Sutra. Between the book itself and my fairly extensive notes in the margins, she would have plenty of material to work with. Well, that was a thought for the future—no point in worrying about the little details until we hammered out the big picture stuff. “Pay attention to how Pinkie's reacting to you. What makes her happy, and what doesn't. For example, she really likes being touched around the base of her tail.”

“Okay, thanks I—” The last bit of what I said slowly worked its way through Rainbow’s brain, and she faced me with an unreadable expression. “How do you know that?

She didn’t know? I kinda figured she would’ve put two and two together, but then Rainbow Dash does seem to have a bit of a mental blank spot when it comes to general understanding of romance, relationships, and banging. I sighed and laid it out for her. “You remember that one Nightmare Night, the first one after Derpy moved to Ponyville? Do you remember how Pinkie and I went off together about halfway through, and you didn't see me again until the next day?”

From the bemused look on her face, Dash still didn’t get it. “Yeah, what abou—” Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped as the facts finally clicked. “What? You banged Pinkie!?”

I winced a bit at her volume—Blossom definitely overheard that part. I’m generally not in the habit of advertising or bragging about my bang partners. Not that I’m ashamed of them or try to hide them, but a bit of discretion is usually a good thing. No time to worry about privacy issues right now though, I needed to run a bit of damage control with Rainbow. “It was seven years ago, Dash. You two weren't even friends yet, let alone a couple.”

Rainbow’s jaw was still just about resting on the sofa. “Yeah but...” Rainbow’s nose crinkled up and she gave a slight shudder. “Eww.”

Well, as far as reactions to finding out I’d banged her special somepony go, I could do a lot worse than ‘Eww’. At least she wasn’t mad at me. I tried to smile at her and break the tension with some bad humor. “Look on the bright side. You know I've got good advice now.”

The joke didn’t seem to work, since instead of laughing Rainbow went darkly silent. After long enough to start making me just a little nervous, Rainbow asked with a hint of a sullen pout. “Who else has Pinkie, um, been with?”

Oh great, there’s a big old relationship landmine. I don’t really pry too much into the sex lives of other ponies, but you can’t help hearing things. Small towns love their gossip. “I don't really know for sure about Pinkie, but she wasn't a virgin when we did it. And there have probably been other ponies since me.” Simply put, banging is fun, and Pinkie Pie is well known for being a fan of all things fun.

“Swell,” Rainbow grumbled and flopped back against my couch hard enough that I felt the need to pull my wing out of her path. “That just means that she's been with a bunch of other ponies and knows what to expect.”

I judged it safe to go back to wing-hugging her. “Yeah, but none of those ponies were you.”

“But I've never—” Rainbow applied both hooves to her face and let out a loud, frustrated groan. “This sucks. How the hay am I supposed to beat all the other ponies she’s been with who actually knew what they were doing? Hay, how am I supposed to do better than you on my first time?”

Okay ... ow. That was almost enough to make me regret that one night with Pinkie. I’ll admit, I’m pretty damn good in the bedchamber. Now wasn’t the time to brag about my prowess, though. “Dash, you'll be fine. Really.”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs over her chest in a stubborn pout. “How do you know?”

Time to go with my usual strategy for dealing with a sullen, pouty Rainbow Dash whose self-confidence was getting a bit low. Feed her ego. “Because you're Rainbow Dash, and you're awesome.”

There’s a reason that’s one of my oldest and most frequently used tricks when it comes to her. It almost always works like a charm. Sure enough, a hint of a smile started working its way onto her face. “Yeah.”

“Damn right you are.” I grinned and gave her a friendly little nuzzle. “Trust me, you'll knock Pinkie's socks off ... assuming she's wearing any.”

That tentative smile on her face got a little bigger. “You really think so?”

“'Course I do.” I figured one more compliment ought to be enough to push her into feeling appropriately good about herself. “When have you not been awesome at anything?”

Instead of getting pumped full of excited confidence like I’d been hoping for, Rainbow’s eyes drifted to a couple of barely noticeable dents in the side of my doorframe. Then she bit her lip and just gave me a sad, heartbroken look.

Oh. Right.

I let out a pained sigh and slowly wrapped her in a hug. Great, here I was trying to make her feel better about herself, and instead I go and remind her of some of her biggest feather-ups. Nice going, me. I ran a hoof over her mane, gently murmuring nonsensical words of comfort to her.

After a minute or so, Rainbow let out a sigh and pulled back a bit. Not completely out of the hug, but she put a little bit of distance between us to let me know she was okay now. “I just—I have this really bad habit of screwing things up with my friends. And this...” Rainbow’s eyes dropped down to intently study my sofa. “If I screw things up with Pinkie Pie, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

I put a hoof under her chin, and brought her eyes back up to meet mine. “Rainbow, the past is the past. You won't mess this up. Besides, even when you do screw up, you always fix things. You fixed things with me, after all. Compared to that, you and Pinkie will be fine.”

Rainbow let out a very quiet little sniffle. “Doesn't mean I don't get tired of always messing up and hurting my friends.”

“Nopony's perfect, Dash.” After a moment’s hesitation I did something slightly risky, and gave her a quick peck on the lips. There wasn’t anything romantic about the kiss, it was pure love and friendship. Dash stiffened in surprise, and for a second I was worried she might freak out on me or misunderstand my intentions, but then she let out a breath and relaxed in my hooves.

“Heh, looks like you finally put the moves on me.” Dash and I shared a slightly awkward laugh at that. A friendly kiss and a bad joke were an unusual way of sorting out a crisis of confidence, but they seemed to do the job. When Rainbow spoke again, she didn’t sound nearly so worried. “So, how do I make Pinkie really happy when we're, you know...”

“Banging.” At least Dash wasn’t as bad as Blossom used to be about the word. Normally she wasn’t too shy about the subject, but I guess the prospect of actually doing the business in the near future had her nervous. “Well, the first thing you do is—”

Our conversation came to an abrupt end as Blossom walked into the room, balancing a plate heaped down with waffles, haybacon, and eggs on each wing. “Breakfast is served. I know Cloud Kicker’s going to want lemonade, but what can I get you to drink, Rainbow?”

Rainbow gave a slight wince, followed up with a painfully forced smile. “Hey Blossomforth. Um, lemonade’s good for me too.”

Blossom shot a slight frown of the two of us, presumably picking up on the fact that she’d disrupted our conversation. “Okay. Um, I’ll be back with your drinks and my breakfast in a bit, okay?”

“Sounds good.” While Blossom bustled back into the kitchen, I turned back to Rainbow and added sotto voce. “Maybe I can come by your place later to finish this up?” We couldn’t really get into the fine details of how to bang while Blossom was in the room. Well, we could, but Rainbow wouldn’t be comfortable with it.

Rainbow gave a slightly nervous nod. “S-sure. Sounds good.”

Blossom came back with our drinks and her own, much more heavily loaded down plate, and for a while the three of us were companionably silent as we demolished our breakfast. Unsurprisingly Rainbow Dash was the first one to finish, though Blossom was following pretty closely behind even though she’d started out with more food.

Now that she was done mooching a free meal off of me, Rainbow was ready to head in to work. Not that there was much weather work to do today—the weather squad was still on light duty while everypony recovered from the combination of Tornado Day and the feather flu. “Thanks again for the food, Blossom.” Rainbow was halfway out the door when she stopped, then looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, hey, just remembered. You’re going over to Fluttershy’s to see Alula today, right Cloud?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” I confirmed around a mouthful of waffle.

“Well, Derpy told me that Dinky’s been asking about her, so she wanted to know if you think Alula’s doing good enough to have visitors.” Rainbow shot a fond grin in the general direction of Derpy’s house. “I bet Alula’d like to see the squirt too. Gotta be a little boring with just Fluttershy for company.”

I thought it over for a bit, and nodded. “Yeah, sure. Alula’s been getting better.” Whatever it was she’d come down with had really knocked her for a loop, but she’d been getting a little bit stronger and healthier every day, so I wasn’t too worried. “Could you stop by Derpy’s place and let her know?”

“Yeah, no problem.” Rainbow shot a quick glance at Blossom and a very slight frown, then added. “She’ll probably wanna come along too. She’s kinda been missing you.”

I gave a slight guilty flinch at that. It’s not like I wanted to neglect my fillyfriend, but between taking care of Blossom, keeping an eye on Alula, and squeezing in work shifts whenever I could, there just hadn’t been time for her. It didn’t help that I’d been getting a bit affectionate with Blossom in the meantime, even if I’d made a point of not letting things go too far. “Yeah, sounds good. Be nice to see her and Dinky both.”

Two seconds after I knocked on Derpy’s front door, it shot open and something adorable attached itself to my right foreleg. “Hiya Miss Cloud Kicker!” Dinky beamed up at me while doing her best to cut off the circulation in my leg. “Didja bring me anything?”

“That’s not how you say hello, Muffin.” There was just a hint of parental disapproval in Derpy’s voice as she trotted out after her daughter and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Dinky went quiet for a long moment, then grinned up at me, her face a picture of fillyhood innocence. “I love you, Cloud Kicker.”

Willpower fading ... fading ... gone. Some rational part of my brain knew Dinky was playing me like a fiddle, but I didn’t care—she was just too adorable. “Well, I think a filly as cute as you are deserves some candy.”

“Yay!” Dinky tightened her grip on my foreleg for a bit, then started clambering up onto my back. “Ponyback ride! Ponyback ride!”

Derpy tossed another one of those special loving smiles of hers at the two of us. I’m pretty sure being good with Dinky was earning me tons of muffin points with her. “You know,” she commented with a hint of bubbly laughter in her voice, “she’s got you completely wrapped around her hoof. You’re going to end up spoiling her rotten at this rate. Just watch, soon every time you see her you’ll be giving her candy and ponyback rides.”

“Don’t care, she’s too adorable.” I grinned and gave the filly riding on my back a quick nuzzle. “I have a confession to make, Derpy. The whole reason I hooked up with you is just so I could spend more time with your daughter.”

“Well, I can hardly blame you for that.” Derpy stepped up next to me and planted a kiss on her daughter’s head, drawing a giggle and a half-hearted whine of protest from Dinky. “Everypony knows my little muffin is the best filly in Equestria.”

“Yeah!” Dinky gave her mom a precocious grin. “I’ve been a really good little muffin, so that’s why I deserve lotsa candy!”

“Spoiled. Rotten,” Derpy grumbled good-naturedly. “She’s always this way after she gets back from visiting her grandparents.”

The three of us headed over to Ponyville Market to pick up the candy. I’d been planning to pick up a little something for ‘Lula anyway, so getting Dinky something as well wasn’t a big deal. I ruled out Sugarcube Corner—as much as I liked dropping by the bakery, if they had fresh muffins there would be no hope of dragging her out of there until she’d finished devouring the Cake’s entire stock. Besides, it had been a while since I’d had a chance to stop and say hi to Bon Bon. All the relationship stuff and work responsibilities and general life stuff had kind of put a bit of a damper on my usual casual banging around, including the slightly more established stuff like playing third pony for Lyra and Bon Bon.

Damn, it had been way too long since I had a good threesome.

To my vague surprise, Lyra was running the candy stand instead of Bon Bon. She grinned and waved when she saw us, and that grin only got bigger when the three of us walked up to what was temporarily her stand. “Heya Cloud Kicker! Wow, it feels like it’s been forever since we ran into each other!”

I gave a casual shrug, and made a point of shifting a bit so Lyra could see that Dinky was riding along. One of her more charming qualities was the ability to crack the occasional raunchy joke, so I wanted to forewarn her that there was a filly present. “Yeah, sorry about not being around, Lyra. You know how it is, work stuff was keeping me busy, and then there was the whole feather flu thing.”

The unicorn rolled her eyes and gave an annoyed little grumble. “Yeah, tell me about it. Stupid work.” She waved a hoof at the stand she was managing. “Bons asked me to cover for her today. I dunno how she manages to do this every day.”

“The bits probably help,” Derpy suggested.

Before Lyra could offer any further thoughts on the matter, Dinky took advantage of her perch on my back to put her forehooves up on the stand, eagerly surveying all the candy on offer. “Ooh! I want summa that!” She pointed a hoof at a collection of chocolates, only to change her mind a couple seconds later when she saw some mints. “No, I want those instead!” Then her eyes went wide when she spotted the taffy. “No, I want that!” Her face screwed up in childish concentration. “Or maybe some of the gumdrops? I dunno, it all looks good!” She turned to me with a hopeful smile. “Can I just get some of everything?”

As much as I loved spoiling her, even I have my limits. If Dinky had her way I’d end up buying her enough candy to ruin her supper and empty out my coinpurse. However, I didn’t account for the fact that Lyra was also getting hit with a full dose of Dinky’s adorable enthusiasm. The unicorn brought up a foreleg to ruffle Dinky’s mane, and dropped her head next to hers to offer in a conspiratorial whisper. “I always have a hard time deciding too. Tell you what, Bon Bon has these sampler platters that actually have a little bit of everything on them, sounds like it would be perfect for you. What do you say?”

“Okay!” Dinky eagerly bobbed her head.

Lyra’s horn glowed, and she pulled a fairly large box out from underneath the stand. “Here you go.” From the size of the candy box, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that Lyra had just conspired with Dinky to turn a nice profit. Turning down the big sampler box would make Dinky get all sad and pouty on me, which rather defeated the purpose of buying her candy to spoil her.

I was reluctantly preparing to part with my bits when Lyra cut me off with an upraised hoof. “It’s on the house, Cloud. No charge for friends.”

I gave her an appreciative grin and carefully suppressed the urge to point out that Bon Bon never handed out big freebies like that. Sure, she might give me a little discount or at least not barter quite so vigorously, but there’s a big difference between giving your friends five percent off and just handing stuff over for free. I wasn’t gonna complain too hard about free candy, though. “Thanks, Lyra.”

Dinky wasted no time taking the top off the box and stuffing a chunk of peanut brittle into her mouth. The filly finally remembered her manners after Derpy cleared her throat and gave her a rather pointed look. Her words were just a little bit muffled by the fact that her mouth was still stuffed with half-eaten candy. “Sank yoo Miss Lyra.”

“Aw, you’re welcome, Dinky.” Lyra took advantage of the open candy box to help herself to one of the mints, then turned to me with a hopeful grin. “Hey, any chance you could come by our place sometime soon? It’s been a long time since Bon Bon and I got to hang out with you.” Lyra gave a slight nod in Dinky’s direction, just to make it clear that she was watching her words on account of the young and innocent ears present. Taking note of Dinky seemed to remind her that Derpy was there as well, and she shot my fillyfriend a slightly nervous smile. “Uh, you’re more than welcome to come too, Derpy.”

Well, that was one way to resolve the faux-pas of propositioning somepony for a threesome right in front of their special somepony. Upgrading things to a foursome sounded like a fine plan to me, but Derpy met my hopeful smile with a singularly unimpressed look. After a couple seconds, I reluctantly dropped the idea.

I guess I couldn’t really blame her for not liking the idea. Being a single mom in a small town like Ponyville came with a little bit of a stigma. Sure, all the stupid talk about her being loose had died down pretty quickly once it was clear that there was nothing to it (not to mention that unfortunate accident suffered by Sticks and Stones after they talked a bit too loudly), but the fact that it had happened at all stung her. The wound had mostly healed over, but it was still raw enough that she clearly wasn’t too happy about the idea of joining me in banging around.

Besides, aside from me Derpy had never really shown much interest in mares. Dinky’s father was a stallion, after all.

From the way Lyra’s face fell, she’d obviously figured out that her offer hadn’t gone over too well. Her horn glowed, and fresh candy shot into our box to replace what Dinky had already eaten. “Look, never mind. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll see you guys around, okay?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” As the three of us trotted off with our box of candy, I couldn’t help feeling just a little down about the fact that apparently I wouldn’t be visiting Lyra and Bon Bon anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, for all the crazy horrible confusion my love life was currently going through, I didn’t regret being a little more settled down. Still, I did kinda miss being able to just drop by a friend’s house for a little casual threesome action. Maybe once things were a little more settled down I could get back to that kind of thing. Maybe.

Things between me and Derpy might’ve gone awkwardly silent for the trip to Eepy’s cottage if not for the presence of Dinky. As it was, Derpy’s little muffin was more than eager to fill any lapse in the conversation with a non-stop stream of chatter about anything and everything. Mostly stuff like what she’d been doing at school, her recent trip to Canterlot to go visit her grandparents, or general commentary on Sparkler. Being an excitable filly, she didn’t tend to stick to any one topic for very long, but I certainly didn’t mind hearing about whatever happened to be on her mind. After all, Dinky was adorable.

I was in the middle of learning all about when she brought her fire extinguisher to show and tell and how Miss Cheerilee said she did a really good job on her presentation when we got to Eepy’s. A couple seconds after I knocked on her door Eepy opened it with a fond smile for me, which slipped just the slightest bit when she noticed Derpy, only to redouble when Dinky made her presence known by hopping off my back and running up for a hug.

“How’s ‘Lula doing?” I felt a bit guilty about jumping straight to business with her like that, but when it came to my little sister I think I’m allowed to be a bit of a worrywart. Eepy certainly understood that I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything.

“Can I play with her?” Dinky chimed in before Eepy could give me an answer, unleashing one of her heart-melting smiles on Eepy. “‘Cause I really, really wanna! Even if she’s gotta stay in bed we could at least do Battle Clouds or something! You do have a Battle Clouds board, right? I was gonna bring mine, but I forgot until just now because Cloud Kicker bought me candy! Well, actually Miss Lyra gave it to us! She’s really nice. You’re nice too, though. Will you give me candy too?”

“Don’t be greedy, Muffin,” Derpy chided her. “You already have more candy than you could possibly eat.”

Derpy might be one of the best mothers out there, but I think she might be wrong on that point. “Never underestimate a foal’s ability to tear through anything with an unhealthy amount of sugar in it, Derpy.”

My fillyfriend let out a slightly pained sigh. “True. If I don’t put my hoof down at some point she’ll eat so much that she’ll be bouncing off the walls all night again.” Derpy had my sympathies there—Dinky might be cute as a button, but could be a bit of a hooffull even when she wasn’t riding a huge sugar high.

Eepy stepped in to defuse the situation. “I’m sure Alula would love it if you shared some of your candy with her, Dinky. And of course you can play with her, just try not to push her too much. She’s still getting better from being sick, so she needs her rest.”

“Okay! Thanks, Miss Fluttershy!” Dinky stood up on her hind legs to give Eepy a peck on the cheek. My heart immediately melted, then exploded. While all the adults in the room were busy processing the sheer adorableness of her actions, Dinky grabbed her box of candy and trotted off into Eepy’s bedroom. A couple seconds later Dinky’s voice excitedly chattering away from the other room, followed by ‘Lula’s slightly more subdued voice.

As much as I wanted to poke my head in to check on her, I decided to let the fillies have some time for themselves instead of disrupting things with my adult-ness. Instead, I trotted over to the couch and took a seat. “So ‘Lula’s still getting better?”

“Yes,” Eepy confirmed with relaxed smile. “All she needed was plenty of bedrest and a little kindness.”

“What about medicine?” There was just a hint of challenge in Derpy’s voice, and she made a point of settling down on the couch next to me and putting a wing around me. “Love and kindness is all well and good, but it takes a little bit more than that to help a sick filly.”

“Oh, well of course I’ve been giving her some herbal remedies to help her immune system too.” If Eepy noticed the tiny bit of hostility in Derpy’s voice, she very carefully ignored it. “Though to be honest I’ve never seen this particular illness before, so there’s only so much I can do to help her.”

“Perhaps somepony who’s a bit more familiar with fillyhood illnesses could help,” Derpy offered. “It might be something Dinky’s come down with before.”

“Oh, I’d be happy to have any help you could offer.” Eepy once more gently dodged past the verbal landmines in Derpy’s words. “I just want Alula to feel better.”

Eepy might be okay with Derpy’s prickliness, but I sure as hay wasn’t. “Eepy, I’m a little thirsty. Could I possibly bother you for some tea?” I’m normally not all that huge on tea, but making some would get Eepy out of the room for a few minutes. I think Derpy and I needed to have a bit of a chat.

Eepy’s hooves shot up to her mouth in horror. “Oh my, I should’ve offered you something sooner, I’m so sorry! I’ll go make some right away!” She wasted no time bustling off to the kitchen, leaving me alone with Derpy.

As soon as Eepy was safely out of earshot, I rounded on my fillyfriend. I wasn’t quite mad at her, but I was definitely getting a bit annoyed with her. “Derpy, I love you to bits, but what the hay do you think you’re doing?” She opened her mouth to offer something in her own defense, but I didn’t give her a chance. “No. You’re trying to pick a fight with Fluttershy of all ponies. You’re better than that, so cut it out.”

“Well excuse me if I’m just a little bothered by it,” Derpy grumbled, crossing her forelegs over her chest and refusing to look at me. “I think I’m allowed to be just a little upset that you left your sister in the care of your ex-fillyfriend, who you’ve outright admitted to me you’re still in love with. No, not just that, you told me you were planning to sleep with her again, and apparently I don’t even have any say in the matter!” Derpy sighed and bit her lip, then resentfully added. “I’ve barely seen you at all for the last two weeks, but you always had plenty of time to visit Fluttershy. Not to mention Blossomforth moved in with you. Can you really blame me for being a little upset?”

Okay, if I’m being completely honest I could understand why she was a little unhappy with the current situation. That didn’t mean I was okay with the way she was handling things. “Look, you know Blossom’s at my place because she’s got the feather flu. No other reason.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Derpy rolled her eyes, and some tiny part of my brain couldn’t stop giggling at how silly her wall-eyes looked when she did that. “You’re just having a mare you’ve already admitted you have feelings for sleeping in your bed. I’m obviously overreacting.”

“And I’m sleeping on the couch, Derpy.” I was starting to raise my voice just a little, so I held up a hoof to forestall any answer from her while I took a couple deep breaths. I might be getting just a bit exasperated with her, but I really didn’t wanna lose my cool. Especially not with Eepy, ‘Lula, and Dinky all in the house. “Look, Derpy, you know how nasty the feather flu is. Even if we were sleeping in the same bed, she wouldn’t be in the mood for anything or in any condition to follow through on it.” Not that it had stopped her from offering last night, but Derpy definitely didn’t need to know about that. I leaned over and put my forehooves on top of hers. “Look, Derpy, I’m not gonna go and sleep with her behind your back. That’s a promise.”

“I know she’s sick, and I know I should trust you.” Derpy put both her forehooves on her forehead, and let out a frustrated groan. “I know I’m being silly about all this, but I just...”

“What was I supposed to do, Derpy?” I reached over and gave her a quick comforting nuzzle. “It’s not like leaving her alone in her cloud-house was an option when she’s dropping half her feathers. She needed to go groundside, and somepony had to help take care of her until she’s better. Eepy was already taking care of ‘Lula, and somehow I don't think you're gonna play nursemare for Blossom.” Though I will admit that the idea of Derpy in my sexy nurse costume was rather appealing.

“I know all that, Cloud Kicker,” Derpy snapped at me. “I know she’s sick and she needs somepony to take care of her, I just wish she wasn’t in your house, sleeping in your bed, keeping you away from me all day.” She shot a baleful look at nothing in particular, and added. “Don’t tell me she hasn’t been using the opportunity to get closer to you, even if she’s too sick to do anything sexual. Especially since she can use the fact that she’s sick to win sympathy points from you.”

“Well what do you want me to do?” I stopped myself to take a couple more deep breaths. “What am I supposed to do about this that won’t upset you, Derpy? I can understand you’re worried she’s gonna somehow seduce me in between the times when we’re pulling damaged blood feathers or something, but she's still my friend. There’s no way in Tartarus I'm gonna leave her alone when she's sick and needs help.”

Derpy deliberately turned her back on me, and mumbled just loud enough for me to hear. “Is that really it, or are you just punishing me because I told you I wouldn’t be okay with sharing you?”

“Really?” I gave her a flat look. “After everything we've gone through, you think I'm that petty?”

Derpy let out an angry huff. “Well excuse me if I'm just a bit unhappy about my fillyfriend spending all day with a pair of ponies she's admitted that she wants to sleep with!”

I’ll admit, I was starting to get a little fed up with her. I’d done pretty much everything I could to reassure her, and she still wouldn’t budge. “What do you want from me, Derpy? Should I toss Blossom out on her plot when she can’t even get back to her own home? Push Eepy around and make her feel bad when she’s just trying to help? Do I need to wear a feathering chastity belt whenever I’m not around you?” I knew I was getting loud enough that ‘Lula, Dinky, and Eepy could probably hear us, but right now I was almost frustrated enough to not care about that. Almost. I reined my temper in, and dropped back down a normal speaking voice. “Look, you're welcome to come over if you've had your feather flu shots, and Fluttershy’s already said she’d be happy to let you help out with ‘Lula.”

“Yes, she’d be happy to let me help, but your sister’s staying here,” Derpy groused. Her voice turned positively poisonous as she added, “Please. We both know she’s just hoping that taking care of your sister will help her get back into your bed. Because that ended so well the first time you two slept together.”

A second after Derpy said that there was a loud squeak from the general direction of the kitchen, and the sound of a very expensive tea set crashing to the floor. A second later Eepy poked her head around the corner, tears clearly visible in her eyes. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t listening to you or anything, but you were talking so loudly I couldn’t help but overhear, and now I’ve ruined your tea and everything! I’m ... I’m ... please don’t hate me! If you want to take care of Alula instead that’s fine, Derpy! I don’t mind at all!”

Okay, I have now officially hit my breaking point. I wasn’t just angry or frustrated with Derpy, I was actively furious with her. Going after Eepy and hurting her like that was just unconscionable. “You want Alula that much, Derpy? Fine. Take her and go.” I tossed a significant look at Eepy, who was quietly sniffling as she tried to clean up the remnants of her tea set. “I hope it was worth it.”

Derpy looked back and forth between Eepy and I, her mouth hanging open slightly as the full impact of what had just happened sank in. “I—Fluttershy, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

I cut her off before she could get any further. “Derpy, I think you should leave.” She opened her mouth again, and once more I stopped her from saying anything more. “Now.” Right now I was righteously pissed enough that I was on the verge of doing something I would regret later, like telling her that things were over between us. I loved Derpy, but she’d just crossed a huge line by making Eepy cry. There were no words for how not cool that was.

Derpy’s ears went flat and her head slowly drooped, as if the guilt was literally dragging her down. “Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry.” She very slowly plodded over to Eepy’s bedroom, her shoulders slumped, and she knocked on the door. “Muffin? It’s time for us to go. Alula’s coming with us.”

The bedroom door slowly creaked open, and Dinky very hesitantly stepped out. Oh Celestia, from the way she was acting she’d definitely heard us fighting. I hadn’t wanted that—it’s bad enough that Derpy and I got into it, but for her daughter and ‘Lula to have heard everything on top of it—I hope the bedroom door at least muffled things enough that the fillies didn’t hear too much of what we were fighting about.

Dinky slowly wrapped her forehooves around her mother’s neck, holding onto the hug for several seconds. When she was done hugging her mother, she immediately moved on to Eepy, maintaining the hug until Eepy hugged her back and stopped sniffling. Then it was my turn to get what I recognized as one of Dinky’s get-better hugs. It didn’t exactly fix everything, but it did at least burn a little of my anger away.

Dinky tightened her hug around my neck a bit, and then very quietly asked. “Were you yelling at each other ‘cause I got too much candy? ‘Cause I can give it back.”

Oh Celestia, she thought us getting into a fight was her fault. I hugged her back and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head. “No, Dinky. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve been a very good little filly, okay? We’re just being a bunch of stupid adults, fighting about stupid adult things that have nothing to do with you.”

“‘Kay.” Dinky gave me one last little squeeze. “I love you.”

Despite how upset I was with her mother at the moment, hearing that still made my heart melt. “I love you too, Little Muffin.”

Dinky trotted back over to her mother, who already had ‘Lula on her back. I wanted to go over and say something to ‘Lula, but that would mean going over next to Derpy. That ... didn’t seem like it would be a good idea right now. Dammit, why did the girls have to get caught up in the middle of things? It wasn’t right for them to get caught in the crossfire like that. Alula gave me a sad, slightly weary wave and a weak smile. Then Derpy and the two girls silently walked out the door.

I let out a long, pained breath. What a disaster.

I trotted over to Eepy and gave her a very gentle nuzzle. “You doing okay? I’m sorry about that.”

Eepy let out a loud sniffle, and the tears started right back up again. “No. I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker, I shouldn’t be crying like this and making you worry about me when it’s all my fault you and Derpy just got into a horrible fight. I’m so sorry, I’m a terrible pony!”

“No you’re not,” I firmly reassured her. “You are the most wonderful, sweetest mare I’ve ever known. Derpy was way out of line saying those things about you.”

“But she was right.” Eepy let out an agonized whimper, fresh tears streaming down her face. “Not about me taking care of Alula just to make you like me more, but I did kind of hope that would happen. Even though you’re already special someponies with Derpy and you’re in love with Blossomforth too and it would just horribly greedy of me to take you away from both of them I still want to. So it’s okay if Derpy hates me, because I deserve it for being such a terrible pony who wants to steal you from her.”

“Eepy—Fluttershy.” I stepped up to her and kissed her cheeks, then around her eyes. I could taste her salty tears with each kiss as I slowly took her sorrows away. “You are not a bad pony. Derpy was wrong to say those things about you, and even she knew it.” I gently kissed her lips. “If you were as bad as you think you are, I wouldn’t love you so much.”

Eepy wrapped her hooves around me, whimpering into my shoulder until the last of her tears passed. “You still—even after finding out that I’m a horrible special-somepony-stealer, you still care about me?”

“Always.” I leaned in to kiss her again. This time, I didn’t break away after a couple seconds. I kept going, gently pushing against her while I wrapped my hooves around her. After a moment of frozen indecision, Eepy started kissing me, hesitantly at first, but swiftly mounting passion. As we continued kissing I started moving towards the open door of her bedroom, slowly and gently pulling Eepy along with me.

Eepy’s eyes went wide as she realized what I had in mind, and she broke the kiss. “C-Cloud Kicker! We can’t!”

I gently shushed her with a kiss. “Yes, we can.”

Eepy whimpered against my lips even as she hungrily kissed me back, torn between what she so very clearly wanted and what her brain was telling her was right. “But what about Derpy and Blossomforth? They’ll—”

I cut her off with another kiss. “This isn’t about them. This is only about us. You and me. This is our moment in time. For the next couple hours, there is no world outside of this room, this bed. There is nothing but us, and the love we share. For once, let’s not worry about every little thing other ponies might think. The only thing that matters right now is that we love each other. So let’s ignore the rest of the world, and take just a little bit of time for ourselves.”

Eepy hesitated for a long moment, and then hesitantly reached out to kiss me, wrapping herself around me and melting into my hooves. And for the next hour, there was nothing else in my world but Eepy, her bed, and love.

After a great deal of lovemaking that only came to a reluctant end when our bodies were on the verge of exhaustion, Eepy and I lay in bed together, content merely to lie together for the moment. I idly traced a single hoof along the contours of her body, feeling all the old familiar places and a few new ones. She felt just as perfect as I remembered, though there had definitely been some changes since the last time we’d been together. As a filly she’d been leggy and just a touch awkward, but she’d filled out wonderfully since then. The early promise of her awkward cuteness had blossomed into rich curves and delicious lines that I just couldn’t get enough of.

Her coat felt different from the way I remembered it being back Flight Camp. It was silkier now. Smoother. I guess I could attribute that to her weekly spa dates with Rarity. Back at Flight Camp a pony couldn’t really get much in the way of beauty treatment beyond scrubbing down with a cloud and cheap soap, and maybe a bit of work with a manebrush. Weekly spa pamperings were clearly paying off for Eepy—hay, if spa treatments could get my coat feeling like that I might need to start going more often myself.

I started gently kissing along Eepy’s neck, grinning at the way that sent a pleased shudder running through her body. A sudden, mad notion popped into my head. “You know what we should do?” Eepy let out an inquiring little murmur. “We should elope to Las Pegasus. Tonight, before we have a chance to change our minds about it. Just take wing and fly all the way there, and come back in the morning as newlyweds.”

Eepy let out a surprised little gasp, then kissed the top of my head before resting her cheek against it, running a hoof through my mane. “That sounds really, really nice.”

“Yeah.” My lips travelled down to the hollow of her neck. “I can sell that little bachelorette pad of mine. Use the money to help pay for sprucing this place up some. Fund some expansion so there’s a bit more room for two ponies to live here. Maybe even foals.”

“I would love that.” Eepy tightened her grip around me, gently tracing the edge of one of my ears with her lips. “We would have beautiful foals, and they would brave and strong and loving, just like you.”

“Nah.” I ran a hoof over Eepy’s chest, reveling in the silkiness of her coat and her soft, ever so slightly toned body. “Can you imagine how horrible those poor kids would turn out if they were like me? They’d be a mess. I’d rather have them like you. Gentle and kind and just completely wonderful in every way.”

“They would be the best of both of us.” Eepy ran a hoof down my back, slowly passing over my spine. “It would be so perfect.” After a couple seconds, she let out a very soft little giggle. “Rarity is going to be so upset with me when she finds out. Can you imagine? Us eloping off to Las Pegasus instead of letting her arrange a perfect storybook wedding, make gowns for both of us, and be my best mare. She might not speak to me for weeks.”

Eepy and I lay there together, dreamy smiles on our faces as we imagined the future we might have. We could do it. Just fly off to Las Pegasus, and make things official. We both wanted to do it so badly. Sure, it was sudden and spur-of-the-moment, but it’s not like it was coming completely out of left field. Hay, when I’d first moved to Ponyville I might have had one or two vague hopes that Eepy and I might pick up where we left off. Hopes that had died when I saw how bad things were between the two of us, but now we’d finally fixed that. Ponies might be shocked at how quickly we’d gone and eloped, but I don’t think anypony would be that surprised Eepy and I were tying the knot. I’d loved her since I knew what love was. Hay, there’s a reason Derpy had been worried she might be getting the boot ever since I reconnected with Eepy.

Derpy...

She’d be devastated when she got the news. The first time she’d really opened herself up to a relationship since having Dinky, and I go and marry somepony else. Blossom would be hurting too—I’d just started opening that door to her, letting myself return the love she’d been harboring for me for so long, and then I go and slam the door shut in her face. It would be hard to break the news to either of them without tearing both of their hearts to pieces, and as much as I loved Eepy, I loved them too. I didn’t want to hurt them.

I guess my thoughts must have been showing on my face, or maybe Eepy can just read me like an open book. Either way, she was giving me this sad, understanding little smile. “It would be wonderful if we could just drop everything and go to Las Pegasus to get married, but we can’t really do that, can we?”

“No.” Admitting it hurt, but the truth was the truth. “We can’t. It makes a nice fantasy, but actually going and doing that to everypony ... doing that to Blossom and Derpy...”

Eepy let out a tiny, guilty little squeak. “I couldn’t do that to them either. They’re both such nice ponies, even if Derpy was just a teeny tiny bit rude earlier.”

“So what do we do now?” I raised my head from her chest, and craned my neck to peck her on the lips. “I mean, I know I said we didn’t need to worry about the rest of the world right before we banged, but I guess if we’re being realistic about things, we can’t really avoid the issue forever. Do we...” I trailed off and let out a humorless chuckle. “Hay, I’m already stuck in a messy love triangle. It’s not like turning it into a love rhombus could make my life that much worse than it already is. Hay, you get along with Blossom and Derpy both a lot better than they get along with each other.”

“Oh. Um...” Eepy pulled back from me just a little bit, chewing on her lower lip. “That—I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Derpy seemed so upset with me earlier, and if I was really trying to take you away from her she would just be even more hurt. Blossomforth too. I just couldn’t be happy with myself if the only way I could be with you is to hurt other ponies like that.”

“Eepy, it’s ... you wouldn’t have to hurt other ponies just to make yourself happy.” I hesitated for a moment before taking the plunge. “Look, I did a bit of checking, and it would actually be legal for me to marry multiple mares if—”

Eepy gently cut me off with a hoof over my lips. “I don’t think that would work, Cloud Kicker. Derpy would be very angry with me, and Blossomforth would probably feel the same way. They’re already angry at each other too. Even if you could get everypony to agree to it, how happy would you really be with three wives who hate each other and are constantly arguing and yelling?”

Okay, that was a damn good point. Even if I got everypony signed on with the idea, it’s not like I’d be getting sexy foursomes every single night. More like having to play a constant balancing act just to keep the three of them away from each other’s throats. Not even how much Dinky would probably love having four mommies could make up for how screwed up that family dynamic would be. Especially since, as we’d just had painfully shoved into our faces, she would pick up on the fighting.

Not to mention that with three wives I could look forward to a non-stop stream of nagging and complaints. The little things are important too.

“Okay, so sharing won’t work, and you won’t break any hearts just to have me for yourself. That doesn’t exactly leave us with many other options.” I tightened my grip around her, squeezing her hard enough to draw a surprised little squeak. “I don’t wanna let you go, Eepy.”

“You have to.” Eepy leaned down and gently kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be fine, Cloud Kicker. I promise. Just knowing you’re happy is enough for me.” A very faint blush appeared on her cheeks. “And, um, there just might be somepony else that I’m just the slightest bit interested in, so you don’t need to worry that I’d be horribly heartbroken and lonely without you.” A tiny, tentative little smile appeared on her. “You keep saying I’m beautiful and kind and wonderful. If that’s really true, then I shouldn’t have any trouble finding somepony else to make me happy.”

“So you’re bowing out?” I felt tears start to sting my eyes. “Dammit Eepy. You pulling yourself out of the running because you don’t wanna win if it means breaking somepony else’s heart just makes me love you even more. I wish...” I wished a lot of things, but wishing doesn’t make it so.

“I do too.” Eepy leaned down and gently kissed around my eyes, emulating my actions from earlier in the day. “But we can’t change the past, and you can’t just run away with me to Las Pegasus to get away from your problems with Derpy and Blossomforth. You have to face this, and find a way to fix it. I’ll be there for you to help however I can, and I will always love you ... but we might have to just be friends.”

I heaved out a reluctant sigh. “Yeah. I guess so. It sucks, but you’re right.”

“But, um...” A very faint blush entered Eepy’s cheeks. “You don’t have to face it right away. We might not be able to have our entire lives together, but I think we could have just a little bit longer.” She leaned down to meet my lips, and we made the most of the time we had left together.

I was very reluctant to leave Eepy’s, but as much as I wanted to I couldn’t stay there forever. I hated walking out that door—it seemed like such a final gesture. Even through all the years of separation, I’d always expected that I’d reconnect with Eepy eventually. Now I was finally giving up on that. Closing the door, making the final curtain call. It was over. We were over.

That hurt, it really did. But at the same time, there was an odd sense of relief that I couldn’t quite shake. It seems strange to say it, but a part of me felt good about closing things out with Eepy. Yes, knowing that we wouldn’t be together was painful, but at the same time it felt oddly relieving to have finally resolved things with her. After a decade of pain at the mere thought of her, followed by weeks of uncertainty as we started reconnecting, we finally had everything sorted out in a way that left us both happy.

Yes, a part of me would always wish that we could’ve made a go of it. That we’d just decided to damn the consequences and run off to Las Pegasus together. It was a pleasant fantasy, but the harsh reality of things was that we just couldn’t go down that path. No, that’s not true. We both could have made that choice if we really wanted to. But we didn’t. I’m not sure if it was the right choice or if we’d given up on things a bit too soon, but either way it was the choice we made. Eepy and I still loved each other. We always would. We would always be there for each other, always support each other. We would always be friends.

But nothing more.

And the strangest part was, I think I was going to be okay with that. There was still a sharp pain in my heart from saying goodbye to her, but we’d closed things out just about as well as any two ponies could possibly hope to. We made our choices, and we were both okay with how it had all worked out. This wasn’t like what happened at Flight Camp, where a series of horrible misunderstandings tore the two of us apart. Instead, we sat down, looked at where we were and where we wanted to be, and made a rational decision. And then we closed things out in the best possible way, chasing away all those bad memories and all the nasty baggage of Flight Camp by making love for one last time.

Well, technically a lot more than just once, but you get the idea.

Getting rid of all that baggage was huge. I felt light, sort of like that feeling of relief after you close out a long day on patrol, come back to the barracks, and finally take off all that armor and the rest of your kit. All that weight had been there, pulling me down for so long that I’d gotten used to it being there. I didn’t even think about how heavy it all was, I just kind of accepted it and kept plodding on. Then I finally get a chance to take all that goddess-damned weight off, and suddenly all my muscles are screaming in relief, and all I can think about is how much better I feel now that all the heavy baggage I’d almost forgotten about is off my back.

So, strange as it might seem, I was actually feeling pretty good when I got back to my house. Almost optimistic, I guess would be the word. My problems weren’t all solved, far from it, but for the first time since this whole mess with Derpy and Blossom flared up I was starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, I really could find a way to deal with it all. I’d fixed things with Eepy. Compared to that how hard could it be to resolve a simple love triangle? Maybe it would get a little messy, and I might have to make some difficult choices, but I’d find a way to pull it off. Derpy and Blossom were both going to come out of this okay, and I would too.

Plus, proposing to Eepy like that might just be a sign that I was starting to get a handle on those pesky commitment issues of mine. Hay, sorting things out with Eepy was probably gonna do a lot to help with that particular set of baggage. If nothing else, it gave me one less pony to constantly waffle between and dig myself deeper with.

Yeah, I’ll admit it, I kinda got myself into this whole situation with Blossom and Derpy. I won’t say it was all my fault, but there was some pretty indisputable feather-ups on my part. Pretty much all those mistakes boiled down to one big problem: whenever I had to face up to a difficult or potentially life-altering choice I ended up in paralyzed inaction instead actually doing something about my situation. About the only times I’ve ever been good at making those big and difficult decisions is when I impulsively stumble into something like I did with Derpy and nearly did with Eepy. That, or when my inability to commit to making a big choice ends up being a pretty huge decision on its own, like bailing on the Guard.

Having things resolved with Eepy ... I dunno, I guess it was like an epiphany or something. One of those moments of clarity when you gain a new level of understanding about yourself. Yeah, I’d made some bad decisions along the way, but now that I realized what I’d done I could get to work on fixing the problem. I could start by sorting out this whole situation with Blossom and Derpy. Then I could get to work on some other big issues, like puzzling out whether I wanted to to stick with being a weather pony or see about signing on with the Guard. I guess the answer to that one would kind of depend on how things worked out with Blossom and Derpy.

I’m still not sure how it’ll play out, but for the first time in a while I felt like I had everything under control. I felt like when it came down to it, I could make the big choices, and stick to them. If nothing else, I owed Eepy a huge debt for that.

I opened up my front door, and an instant later a blur of white, pink, and green wrapped itself about me. “Well hello to you too, Blossom.” I chuckled and hugged her right back—normally getting glomped the instant I walked in the door was more of a Dinky thing, but I wasn’t gonna complain. “I guess you missed me, huh?”

A second later the sound of somepony else clearing her throat tore my attention away from Blossom. The smile on my face from Blossom’s unexpected greeting only got bigger when I saw an all too familiar light blue coat and pale purple mane. “Aunt Wind! What an unexpected...”

My smile faltered when I got a good look at Aunt Wind’s face. She didn’t look even a little bit happy to see me—in fact, she looked downright grim. My mind went a mile a minute as several unpleasant facts connected.

Aunt Wind’s a Guard counselor. Showing up at my place without a word of warning, looking as tough and stoic as I’d ever seen her. And Blossom’s hug was starting to feel less like an enthusiastic greeting, and more like a desperate clutch.

One of the things Guard Counselors have to do is comfort the family of ponies who have fallen in the line of duty. Aunt Wind tends to handle that kind of thing when it’s a Kicker who died. And now she was here.

“Aunt Wind?” I could hear the desperation and denial in my voice. “This is just an impulsive out of nowhere surprise visit, and you’re feeling grumpy ‘cause I kept you waiting, right?”

Aunt Wind very slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker.” The bottom of my stomach dropped out. Aunt Wind didn’t leave me wondering just how horribly my life had gone off track for long. “It’s your mother. She’s missing in action.”

The Pony Who Has Always Had a Plan

Aunt Wind couldn’t really stick around for long after giving me the news.

I would’ve liked to have had her around, but apparently she needed to get back to Canterlot to help Dad. The Princess had put Dad in charge of the rescue mission to find Mom, probably because that was the best way to keep him from doing anything crazy on his own. That was most likely part of why Aunt Wind had to get back before too much longer—she needed to keep an eye on him and help him keep it together. Sure, Dad’s not normally the kinda pony who will go running off without any plan, but this was Mom we were talking about.

Mom...

I started shaking again. I’ve been doing that ever since I got the news. Blossom took note of it and wrapped her forelegs around me.

It still wasn’t quite clear what had happened to them. Mom and Machwing Company had gone on border deployment on account of some kind of trouble that had been cropping up along there—Aunt Wind had to be a little fuzzy on the details since it was an ongoing military operation and I was more-or-less a civilian.

Which brought to mind a pretty important fact. “I shouldn’t be here.” If not for the fact that Blossom was still hugging me with everything she had, I probably would’ve gotten up and headed out the door right then and there. “Instead of sitting here being a lump on the couch I should be out there, helping them look.” I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t have the slightest objection to letting me go back on active duty for the duration.

Blossom gently ran a hoof over my mane, and hesitantly licked her lips before she answered me. “Cloud, there are already—” she fumbled uncertainly for a few moments before continuing on, “—however many ponies there are in a company out looking for her.” She shot a look off to the side, her ears drooping slightly. “Your sister needs somepony from her family here for her, and you need somepony too. This isn’t the time to go running off joining the Guard.”

I knew she was right. The problem was that a big chunk of my brain didn’t give a flying feather about things like logic and rationality right now. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing while my mom is lost out there!”

“You’re not doing nothing,” Blossom gently reassured me. She tenderly ran a hoof over my cheek. “Alula’s gonna need her big sister—you can be there for her.”

“I can be there for her? That’s just...” So the sum total of my contributions was being there to hug my little sister when she got the news? That’s all I could do to help? No, not even that—Aunt Wind had already gone over to Derpy’s to check up on ‘Lula, so apparently I couldn’t even be trusted with her. I let out a frustrated scream and kicked the couch with one of my hind legs. ‘What am I supposed to do to help her, huh? Just go up to her and say, ‘Hey ‘Lula. Mom’s gone. Maybe, we don’t know for sure. So let’s just sit here, not knowing, and hope that somepony else finds her for us!’ Yeah, that’s a real valuable contribution.”

Blossom latched her forelegs around my barrel and pulled me into a hug. For a minute or so I just sat there, letting her hold me. Once I wasn’t quite so agitated, she lovingly ran a hoof across my back. “Cloudy, I know you feel like you’ll go crazy if you have to sit around waiting for news, but how is running off and leaving your sister alone going to help?”

I didn’t have a good answer for that. Running off to the Guard and leaving my sister with nopony to be there for her... “Look, Derpy and Eepy are way better at the whole maternal comfort thing than I am. They could...” Just saying it out loud made me realize how wrong it sounded. I couldn’t just pass ‘Lula off to somepony else with the vague excuse that they’d probably do a better job than I would. She was my sister—she deserved better than that. “Dammit!” I kicked the couch again. It didn’t really accomplish much, beyond letting me vent a little. “I—I feel like I’m gonna go nuts if I just have to sit here day after day after day, waiting for answers. I wanna go out there and do something!”

“I know.” Blossom gave me a gentle, understanding little smile. “Well, kind of. I can’t really relate to what you’re going through, but if it were you that was missing, I’d wanna be out there too. I wish I knew what to tell you, I really do. I just—I don’t know what I could possibly say that would make it hurt less.”

I groaned and sank back into the couch. “Not like anything you could say would change the way things are. I wanna go out there, Blossom. I wanna find my mom. I wanna find whoever or whatever took her away from me, and I wanna destroy it. I wanna ... feathers, I want to do anything other than stay here, waiting for news.”

Blossom shuffled around a bit so that her side was pressed up against me, letting her wrap a wing over my shoulders. “I don’t blame you.” She let out a slightly nervous little chuckle. “Hay, I’d be right with you if you went running off like that, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” I leaned over and nuzzled her cheek. “That would be a terrible idea, though. No offense, sweetie, but I saw your scuffle with Eepy. You’re not very good at fighting.”

Blossom crossed her forelegs and jutted out her lower lip in a pout that I probably would’ve found utterly adorable under most circumstances. “Oh come on, I held my own against her!” From the weak little laugh she let out Blossom was clearly aware that fighting Eepy to a draw wasn’t much to brag about, and her tone remained light as she continued. “Besides, I could keep … well, whatever’s attention while you hit it. ‘Look at me, I’m a distraction!’”

For a brief moment, she got a smile out of me. It couldn’t last though, not with Mom hanging over my head like that. I gently put my hooves on Blossom’s shoulders. “I appreciate that, I really do, but there’s no way I’d let you do that. What if you got hurt? I don’t wanna lose two ponies I love at the same time...”

For a moment Blossom smiled at me, but then her smile slowly transformed itself into a frown as some of the unintended implications of my words sank in. Blossom’s wing tightened around me, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “You’re not gonna lose anypony, okay? They’re gonna find her.”

“I hope so. I—” The rest of what I was about to say disappeared into a choked sob, and my vision got wet and blurry with unshed tears. “I know we argued and got into a lotta fights and stuff, but she was still Mom, you know?”

Blossom leaned in and nuzzled me again, wiping away my tears. “Is. Still is, okay? If she’s half the hardflank you are, I wouldn’t write her off just yet.”

“Yeah.” I felt a tiny little surge of hope at that. Mom was the kinda pony who could eat iron ore and leave thunderforged steel in her droppings. “She’ll probably come back to camp dragging the head of a dragon or something.”

Blossom let out a weak little snort of laughter at that. “I don’t think anypony in town has a mantel big enough for that. I guess you’d have to leave it at your family’s compound.” She paused in thought for a moment, then added, “I don’t think Twilight Sparkle would take that too well though, what with Spike and all...”

Besides which, mounting remains as war trophies stopped being socially acceptable centuries ago. Equestria’s a bit too peaceful and civilized for that kind of thing. I sighed and turned to Blossom, idly running a hoof up and down her chest as I thought. “I know you never really got to know Mom, except for that one time she came over and we were all snippy with each other. Mom was ... I guess we’ve got too much in common, in some ways.” Despite the way the memory was a bit bittersweet now, I couldn’t help laughing at it. “Dad used to always grumble that he had no idea where I got my hardheadedness from, because he knew for a fact that Mom kept all of hers.”

Blossom laughed along with me. “You each have your own brand of stubbornness, I guess.” She paused uncertainly for a few seconds, before adding. “She can’t be too bad, though—I mean, Alula seems like a nice filly, and … well, you turned out pretty good.”

I nodded. “Yeah. She might be stubborn and stiff as a board sometimes, but I could do a lot worse for a mom.” One thing I’ve learned from Derpy:, being a parent is one hay of a tricky thing to pull off. I guess it’s no surprise Mom didn’t always get it right. “You wouldn’t believe it, but she did all the normal kind of ‘mom’ stuff back when I was a little filly. Taught me stuff, nurtured me, all that. Granted, most moms don’t teach you how to cripple a griffon in five wing strikes, but that’s kinda how things go with the Kickers.” I leaned back on the couch, staring up at my ceiling. “Mom might not have been born a Kicker, but from how well she fit in with the clan you never woulda guessed it. Does make for one or two fun memories whenever somepony starts whining about snooty Canterlot nobles with no practical skills—most ponies never would’ve believed Mom was noble-born. I guess not too many ladies prefer a combat drill to a night at the Gala.”

Blossom shot a tentative little smirk at me. “She certainly doesn’t sound like your stereotypical snobby noble.” She put a hoof to her chin. “I gotta say, her daily schedule would make for an interesting read: wake up, breakfast, nurture, Guard stuff, mother-daughter sparring time, ice cream.” She gave me a slight nudge with her shoulder. “Do you have memories that particularly that stand out?”

Hard not to call any Mom memories to mind, considering the circumstances. “Yeah, I can think of a few. First one that springs to mind was when I was in the hospital after the whole Flight Camp thing.” Blossom gave a sympathetic wince at that. “I was in there for weeks, and Mom was there for every minute of it. Not being all super-huggy and lovey and stuff, that wasn’t the way she worked. But she was there. All day, every day. She wouldn’t even go out for food unless Dad was there to keep me company while she was gone. She brought an old army cot so she could sleep in the room with me. It was technically against hospital rules, but nopony had enough guts to tell her that.” By the end of the tale I could feel my eyes watering again.

Blossom opened her mouth to say something, but after leaving it hanging open for a few seconds she silently closed it. Instead she just rubbed a hoof over my back and murmured something unintelligible to me.

I let out a little sniffle. “She wasn’t a perfect mom, not by a long shot, but she was Mom. That was enough.”

Blossom leaned forward and pressed her forehead against mine. “Is. She is your mother. They’ll find her, okay? And I’ll be here for you until then.”

“Yeah ... thanks.” I gently moved in and met her lips. This was different from the tentative little kisses we’d shared up to this point: it was softer and gentler, but at the same time so much more certain. I suppose it was also less complicated—for once our whole relationship mess wasn’t hanging over both our heads every time we so much as touched. We just kissed each other because we were in love, and she wanted to take away a little fraction of my pain.

Right as the kiss was starting to make me feel just a little bit better, we were rudely interrupted by somepony frantically pounding on my front door. Blossom pulled back, and for a second she looked like Dinky when Derpy caught her with her hoof in the cookie jar. When the pounding on my door didn’t stop, she bit back a frustrated grumble. “Want me to get that?”

I wasn’t really in the mood for random visitors, but from how emphatically the pony on the other side of my door was knocking it was a pretty safe bet this wasn’t some door-to-door salespony or Mayor Mare soliciting donations. “Yeah. Thanks, Blossom. Unless it’s really important, or somepony like Rainbow or Eepy...”

“No visitors, got it.” Blossom nodded, then gave me one last peck on the lips before trotting over to the door. When she opened up the top half of the door she gave a guilty little flinch that made me fairly sure who the other pony was, even before Blossom spoke her name. “Um, hey Derpy.”

“Blossomforth.” Derpy’s voice was distinctly cool, but after a second or two she continued in a much more civil tone. “Is Cloud Kicker here? I just—her aunt came by to see Alula, and told me that ... I have to talk to Cloud Kicker.”

Oh. I guess Aunt Wind gave Derpy the news. Makes sense, considering the fact that Derpy was keeping an eye on Alula. Blossom’s ears went flat. “Oh. Yeah, she’s here.”

After a couple seconds of painful silence, Derpy spoke up again. “Um, could Icome in?”

Blossom blinked a couple times, then hastily opened the door for her. “Sure, sure.”

I gave Derpy a weak wave from my seat on the couch as she trotted in. “I guess Aunt Wind just gave you the news about my mom, right?”

Derpy didn’t bother with answering my question, she just cantered up to me and hugged me. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry...” She sat down next to me on the couch, and gently but insistently pulled my head down next to hers. “I asked your aunt to keep an eye on your sister for a few minutes while I came to check on you.”

Some tiny little part of me wanted to still be mad at her for what had happened with Eepy. I couldn’t really bring myself to muster much righteous fury about the whole thing, though. It was hard to care about much at all with the news about my mom kinda overwhelming all the other crazy stuff that had been going on in my head. All that really mattered for right now was that Derpy was here, and she was offering me comfort. Comfort I desperately needed. Compared to that, her saying some nasty stuff to Eepy in the heat of the moment, things she regretted the instant the words left her mouth, just didn’t seem all that important. “Yeah, I know...”

Blossom settled back onto couch on my other side, and after a moment of hesitation wrapped her wing on top of Derpy’s to put me in a double-sided wing-hug. Under any other circumstances, being sandwiched between a pair of beautiful mares would be a dream come true, but right now I was hardly in the mood to appreciate any of that.

After several seconds of silently letting the two ponies I loved comfort me, I spoke up. “How’s ‘Lula handling it?”

Derpy gave a guilty little cringe at the mention of my little sister, probably on account of the circumstances surrounding her becoming ‘Lula’s caretaker. She licked her lips, and very slowly responded. “She’s doing really well.” She gave a hesitant little smile, and added, “I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t have any sweets or not while she’s still sick, but she and Dinky have been making plans to go to Sugarcube Corner later.”

“I don’t think some sweets would be a problem.” I let out a heavy breath and rested my chin on one of her forelegs. “So I guess that means Aunt Wind didn’t tell her about Mom?”

Derpy very slowly shook her head. “She just told her that she was in town for the afternoon. I don’t think she wants me to say anything to her about your mother, so I’ve been trying to watch what I say.” Derpy worried on her lower lip for a bit. “It’s not easy to keep quiet. It’s like when somepony tells you not to think of muffins—I can barely even look at Alula without thinking about the fact that her mother is missing.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I thought it over for a bit, and slowly nodded in agreement with my absent aunt. “MIA could mean anything. I guess there’s no point in telling ‘Lula until we’ve got a better idea of what’s going on. No need to get her all worried, just to have Mom come back in a couple days.”

I left the other half of it unspoken. The unfortunate truth is that when it comes to a pony who’s gone missing, if they don’t get found within the first day or two, they usually won’t be. Sure, you get those occasional miracle stories of ponies who have been missing for years before they turn up one day, but usually when a military pony disappears in the field without a trace it’s because something bad happened to them. Maybe she’d been captured by the enemy, whoever that was. An officer like her would have valuable military intel. Not that Mom would tell them anything, but they’d probably spend days trying to get it out of her. Or maybe she’d just been snagged by some monster, and it dragged her body to its cave for a midnight snack. Or...

No. I can’t just sit around here, coming up with all kinds of nightmare scenarios. I had to keep hoping that Mom would come back in one piece, or I would end up driving myself nuts.

Derpy fidgeted uncomfortably next to me, and tried to drag the conversation back to safer territory. “Um, Alula’s been a bit more energetic since she came over, probably thanks to Dinky encouraging her. It feels wrong to crush her just when her mood’s finally starting to pick up. I, uh, don’t really know how Guard families handle this sort of thing, so if you think that not telling her anything for now is the right move, then that’s what we’ll do.”

I gave a slow, very reluctant nod. “There’s no point in telling her Mom’s MIA until we’re reasonably sure she’s—” I choked on the words, and had to take a brief moment to compose myself before I could continue. “We won’t tell ‘Lula anything until we’re pretty sure that Mom won’t be coming back.”

By unspoken mutual agreement, Blossom and Derpy both nuzzled opposite cheeks. I guess that was some tiny little silver lining to all of this. It had at least gotten Derpy and Blossom to call a truce to their ongoing cold war against each other. Thank Celestia for that, because I don’t know what I would’ve done if the two of them started tearing into each other now, of all times.

“Hey,” Blossom gently chided me, “don’t talk like that, okay? Your mother’s going to be fine. Trust me.”

Derpy put one of her hooves on top of mine and shot me a nervous, hopeful little smile. “My brother’s in her company. There’s no way he’s not doing everything he can to help look for her.”

That might’ve meant just a bit more to me if Cirrus Doo was some sort of hypercompetent fieldpony tracker or something instead of a supply sergeant. I’m sure he was busting his flank allocating those supplies, but it’s kinda hard to think of that as being an important part of finding Mom. Sure, the ponies looking for her needed food and equipment and all that, but ... ugh, I’m overthinking this. Derpy was trying to give me a little comfort, and instead of appreciating that I was getting all bogged down in the little details of how her brother could help. Still, I guess thinking about stuff like that kept me from getting all morose and depressed, at least for a little bit. Mentally working out all the finer points of a rescue operation beat sitting around and crying my eyes out.

Blossom gently pressed herself up against my side. “There’s no way you’re staying alone tonight. Just so you know.”

A ghost of smile worked its way onto my face. “Not letting me sleep on the couch tonight?” I admit, having another warm body next to me sounded really good. Being stuck alone at night, with nothing to think about but what might have happened to my mom ... yeah, that wouldn’t go well.

“You’re not gonna be sleeping on your own,” Blossom insisted.

“And certainly not on your couch either.” Derpy hesitantly put a hoof on my cheek, turning my head to face her. “Sweetie, I want you to come back to my house for a while. Or at least let me bring Alula back here—you two should be together right now. But ... I think having more ponies around would be good for you.”

“I could use some time with ‘Lula.” Sure, we might be keeping my little sis in the dark about what was going on, but I still wanted to see her. To be honest, I wanted to head over to Derpy’s rather than bring ‘Lula here—having Dinky around would probably be good for ‘Lula, and if it was only me and my baby sis I’d probably just spend hours hugging her. There was just one problem with heading over to Derpy’s: I didn’t wanna leave Blossom behind.

I guess my feelings must’ve been showing on my face, because Derpy was looking between me and Blossom with a slight frown on her face. “You...” Her eyes shifted to me, and her ears went flat against her head. Derpy took a deep breath, then turned to Blossom. “Blossomforth, you’re welcome to come too, if you want.”

Blossom gave a couple surprised blinks and then shuffled her wings, clearly taken aback by Derpy’s offer. “You’re sure you’re okay with that? I mean, we’re...” Blossom waved a hoof vaguely in the air, struggling to come up with a diplomatic way to bring up the fact that they mildly loathed each other.

“Yeah, we are.” Derpy sighed and scuffed a forehoof along the side of my couch. “But right now, Cloud Kicker needs everypony she can get. That includes her best friend.”

Blossom smiled and gave a grateful nod Derpy’s way. Unfortunately, the general mood of harmony didn’t last for long. When Blossom spoke up again there was more than a hint of stubbornness in her voice, though she did at least seem to be making an effort to not sound too harsh. Then again, considering just what Blossom was saying, I don’t think a nice tone would’ve helped much anyway. “I’m not leaving her. Um, once it’s night.”

I felt the wing Derpy had over my shoulder tighten around me possessively, and she adopted the same borderline belligerent tone. “Well I’m certainly not leaving my fillyfriend either.”

Okay, were they seriously gonna do this? It was bad enough having to deal with the last time the two of them got into it, but for them to start up another argument now? I was so not in the mood to put up with anymore of their horseapples. I swear, if they start shouting I’m going to toss them both out on their plots and see about taking Lyra and Bon Bon up on that threesome offer. Maybe grab two or three other ponies on the way there. I love the both of them, but there are limits to how much I’ll put up with, and they were getting damn close to pushing me too far.

Thankfully, Blossom seemed to realize just how out of hoof things were getting. Instead of yelling at Derpy, she went conspicuously quiet for a bit, and then very softly asked, “So ... how do we sort this out so we can both be there for Cloudy?”

Derpy put her ears back flat on her head, and I saw a flash of guilt cross over her face. “Yes, of course.” Derpy’s cheeks flushed bright red, and she nervously rubbed her hooves together. “Um … I think my bed’s large enough for three ponies.” Okay, that was unexpected.

Blossom’s head snapped back and she a hint of surprised blush popped up on her cheeks. “Oh. Okay. Um ... yeah, I guess that would work, we’d both still be with her that way. With her together. Not ‘together’ together, but...” Blossom awkwardly cleared her throat, and hastily asked, “Cloudy’s staying between us, right?”

Well, if Blossom was worried about the details of the sleeping arrangements, then that meant she was okay with the whole bed-sharing thing. I have to admit, having both of them there would be nice—like Derpy said, I needed all the comfort I could get. If not for how awkward it would make things, I’d be halfway tempted to see about dragging Rainbow and Eepy in as well. I actually felt a tiny little bit of a smile on my face, and managed to crack a weak joke. “So ... does this mean I’m getting a cheer-up threesome?”

Derpy let out an amused snort and slowly shook her head while tightening her grip around me. “Oh Cloud Kicker, don’t ever change.”

Blossom let out a giggle, but after a few seconds she went awkwardly silent. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, letting out uncertain little sounds that vaguely resembled speech as she struggled to figure out how to put whatever she wanted to say into words. “Um, actually...” Blossom blushed bright red in a way I hadn’t seen in a long while and shot an uncertain look at Derpy. “Maybe, well—if it would really make you feel better...”

My fillyfriend stared back at Blossom, her cheeks slowly turning pink. After a couple seconds of dull shock, she shook her head to clear out the mental cobwebs and regain the capacity for rational thought. “I think Rule Three says no, right now.”

“Yeah.” Sometimes I really wish I didn’t have all those rules. “I’m not gonna guilt you two into giving me a sympathy threesome ‘cause of what’s going on with my mom.” For once, I wished I was a slightly less ethical pony. A sexy threesome would do a lot to take my mind off things. Probably not good for our relationship though, and to be honest I don’t think Blossom or Derpy could go through with it without getting cold hooves. “Thanks, though. Both of you.”

Derpy shot a look at Blossom, then shifted her gaze away, a ghost of a blush still on her face. “You’re welcome, Cloud Kicker.” I felt her lips against my cheek. “I love you.”

A few seconds later I felt a kiss on my other cheek, though this one was a bit more tentative. “Um ... yes. Me too.” Blossom shot a slightly apologetic look Derpy’s way.

One of Derpy’s ears twitched and she had her mouth halfway open to say something, but at the last second she caught herself and remained silent.

“Thank you, both of you.” I know it wasn’t exactly easy for them, but Blossom and Derpy were trying really hard to at least keep some kind of truce going for my sake. I appreciated the heck out of that. “I love you both.” I gave each of them a quick kiss on the lips. Derpy raised an eyebrow at me kissing Blossom, but thankfully spared me any comment on the matter. “So ... I guess we oughta get going? I’d kinda like to see ‘Lula.”

Derpy nodded, and a hesitant little smile appeared on her face. “Your poor aunt can only take so much of her and Dinky together. You know how fillies can get when they start winding each other up.”

Oh yeah, I could still clearly recall just how bad things got when Dinky, ‘Lula, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all egging each other on during that one sleepover. Thankfully, by now the memory was distant enough that I could laugh at it instead of cringe. “Don’t underestimate Aunt Wind. She does have plenty of mothering experience from raising Storm and Star, not to mention the whole head-shrinker thing. She’ll probably have them both wrapped around her hoof by the time we get there.”

I got up and headed for the door, with Blossom and Derpy half a step behind me. When we got to the front door Blossom and Derpy both froze for a brief moment, trying to decide who would follow me out first, until Blossom took the lead after shooting a slightly guilty look Derpy’s way.

Derpy let out an inaudible sigh as she met Blossom’s gaze and gave her a conceding nod, but she did go up to a trot for a little bit to catch up with us and pull alongside me. Blossom did the same on my other side, but thankfully after that their jockeying for position ended. The truce between the two of them was shaky, but it was still holding for now.

The three of us walked to Derpy’s in silence. I wasn’t really in the mood for small talk, and neither of them seemed to be able to think of much to say beyond the usual sorts of platitudes you offer a pony whose mother has disappeared without a trace. Thankfully it was getting towards early evening, so most ponies were headed home for the day instead of being out and about. The last thing I needed was some cheerful casual acquaintance stopping me for some small talk.

As soon as we got to Derpy’s home I barged through the front door without even knocking first. A bit rude, but since Derpy was with me I think it was forgivable. Dinky and ‘Lula were both sitting with Aunt Wind, playing a game of Lunar. I didn’t waste any time with saying hello to everypony—I just trotted up to Alula, snatched her up, and hugged her as hard as I could.

‘Lula seemed to be bit more energetic than she’d been back at Eepy’s, if the way she started excitedly chattering away at me was anything to judge by. “Hi Cloudy! Aunt Wind’s here, and we’re playing Lunar! I got Clan Kicker, of course, and Dinky’s playin’ Clan Doo, and Aunt Wind got the Canterlot Royal Guard. Dinky and I teamin’ up, and we’re actually winning! And after the game we’re gonna go to Sugarcube Corner and...” ‘Lula finally seemed to pick up on the fact that I was desperately hanging onto her as hard as I could, instead of just giving her a normal sort of hug. “Cloudy?”

Dinky looked like she was seriously considering jumping in and making this a three-way hug, but Derpy stepped up and gently grabbed a chunk of her daughter’s mane, holding her back. I gave her a quick little appreciative nod—as much as I love Dinky’s adorable hugs most of the time, right now I really wanted a moment with my sister.

After my death-grip on ‘Lula finally loosened up just a tiny bit, Aunt Wind stepped up. She gave me and ‘Lula both a quick nuzzle and put a hoof on my shoulder. “I wish I could stay longer, but I’m afraid duty calls. I’ll be back when I can, and don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if anything comes up, okay?”

I nodded and gave her a quick nuzzle back before returning my attention to ‘Lula. “Yeah, will do. Tell Dad we’re thinking of him, and...” For a second I almost said something about signing back up for the Guard, until I remembered the talk I’d had with Blossom about the issue. After a moment, I decided to say something a bit more open-ended. “Just tell him that if there’s anything I can do to help him, I’ll be there.”

Aunt Wind’s eyes widened slightly, then she gave me a nod. “I’ll tell him. I think he’d be glad to hear that.” Aunt Wind gave me and my sister one last nuzzle, and stopped halfway out the door to shoot one last look at us before reluctantly taking wing and heading back to Canterlot.

‘Lula seemed to have picked up on the fact that something had the adults in the room worried, even if we were all trying to keep it under wraps. She squirmed around in my hooves so she could get a good look at my face. “Cloudy? Is somethin’ wrong?”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and forced my face to go stoically blank. I had a lot of practice at the whole straight face thing from Guard training, but I’ll admit it’s one of the skills I haven’t used in ages. “No, little soldier. Nothing’s ... everything’s gonna be fine, alright?”

I spared a glance for the others. Blossom was standing off the side, apparently unsure of what she should be doing in a situation like this. I guess the whole family relations thing would be unfamiliar territory for an orphan. Derpy was still keeping a hold on Dinky, who was beginning to rebelliously attempt to wriggle her way loose so she could join in on the hugging.

Derpy gently but firmly put a hoof on her daughter’s shoulder, and whispered a few words to Dinky that seemed to calm the filly down for the moment. Now that she wasn’t occupied with wrangling her daughter, Derpy spoke up. “I, um, can get some dinner ready for us if—”

“I’m a step ahead of you, Mom.” Sparkler’s voice rang out from the kitchen. A couple seconds later she walked out and took a look around, frowning slightly. “Did Miss Wind already bug out?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “She couldn’t stay for very long. That’s Guard life for you—always on call.”

Derpy’s older daughter gave a look, then nodded and offered a sympathetic smile. I guess she didn’t really count as one of the fillies we needed to keep in the dark, what with her being pretty close to adulthood. A second later she spotted Blossom, still uncertainty standing off to the side. “Oh … um, hey. Guess we might not have leftovers after all.”

“Yeah, guess so.” Blossom shuffled around on her hooves, clearly still feeling a bit like an unwelcome guest—which I suppose she kind of was, really. Derpy might be tolerating her for my sake, but Blossom wasn’t under any illusions about Derpy actually wanting her there. A second later Blossom’s eyes widened slightly as she spotted a way out of her awkward position. “Say, um, do you need any help with the cooking?”

“I’ll get it,” Derpy quickly cut in. “I wouldn’t be much of a host if I made my guests help out with the cooking.” Oh, I really hope Derpy wasn’t gonna try to be some sort of super-hostess in an effort to show up Blossom. Well, I suppose there were much worse ways for them to handle their whole mutual hostility thing. Derpy trotted off to the kitchen, Dinky still in tow, though she stopped along the way to give Sparkler a quick little wing-hug. “Thanks, sweetie. I didn’t mean to leave in the middle of—”

Sparkler cut her off with an upraised hoof. “It’s fine, Mom.” She stepped aside to let Derpy and Dinky into the kitchen, and after a moment’s hesitation walked into the living room. She shot a look at me and ‘Lula, but thankfully decided to give us a little privacy for the moment. For lack of other options, she trotted over to Blossomforth. “So... hey, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Blossom seemed grateful to finally have somepony to interact with instead of just standing awkwardly off to the side. She extended a hoof to Sparkler. “Blossomforth.”

“Heard a lot about you,” Sparkler announced neutrally. That could be taken a couple different ways—I sure hope Sparkler was mostly talking about Blossom’s status as my PFF, rather than something like Derpy grumbling about her being a homewrecker. Thankfully it didn’t seem to be the latter of the two, since she shook Blossom’s hoof a moment later. “Sparkler. I‘m Dinky’s big sister.”

The two of them started exchanging a little small talk, and I kinda stopped paying attention to them and went back to hugging ‘Lula. By now my baby sister was starting to get a little tired of hug time, and before long she started fidgeting and squirming. Fillies generally aren’t fans of staying in any one place for too long, even when they’re kinda sick and lacking in energy. After holding onto her for a couple seconds longer, I very reluctantly let her go. ‘Lula trotted off towards the kitchen, presumably to hunt down Dinky.

Sparkler excused herself from her chat with Blossom, and trotted up to me. “Um .. hey.” She hesitated for just a moment before hugging me. “I’m sorry about your mom, okay?”

I hugged her back “You know?”

“Nopony outright told me what’s going on, but I overheard enough to put it together.” She gave me a little squeeze. “Hope you find her.”

I just nodded and gave her a tiny little nuzzle. I thought I should probably say something, but what could I say that wouldn’t be kinda obvious and pointless? Of course I wanted my mom to come back home in one piece.

Sparkler gave me one last squeeze before letting go. She shot a look over her shoulder at the kitchen, where we could hear Dinky and ‘Lula chattering away at each other. Then she turned back to me, a tentative little smile on her face. “So are you and your sister sticking around for a bit? I think Mom would like that, and I know Dinky would.” Sparkler scuffed a hoof on the floor before adding. “I wouldn’t mind either, even if it means I’m gonna have my hooves full keeping an eye on another filly.”

“Yeah, I think we’re gonna stick around for a while.” I sighed and trotted over to Derpy’s worn-down but comfortable couch. “I don’t really wanna be alone right now, y’know?”

Sparkler nodded and gave me an understanding smile. “Yeah, I can’t blame you.” Sparkler frowned in thought for a bit, until her eyes passed over the Lunar board. “Say, how about we start up a new game? That way I could get the fillies out of Mom’s mane, and we’d have something to do while we wait for dinner.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” The game would certainly make for a nice distraction from everything else. Plus it would give Blossom something to do other than stand off to the side feeling like she didn’t belong. I managed to force a tiny little smile. “We might have a hard time settling who gets to play Clan Kicker and Clan Doo, though. I suppose we’d better let the fillies have them, or they’ll get pouty on us.”

After everything else I had to deal with today, the prospect of listening to a couple fillies argue about who got which pieces in a board game made for a nice change of pace. The whole Mom thing was still hanging over my head, but at least for a few hours it wasn’t pressing down on me quite so heavily.

Despite the fact that going to bed as the veggies in a Blossom-Derpy sandwich would normally have been a fantasy scenario for me, I didn’t sleep very well. There certainly wasn’t anything wrong with the bed—Derpy’s bed is surprisingly soft and comfortable considering how sturdy it is. The rest of it was great too—there’d been a little awkward shifting around by the other two to make sure they could both maximize their own contact with me while not touching each other, but in the end I had Derpy snuggled up against my chest while Blossom molded herself to my back.

No, the physical side of things was great. Just about perfect, really. I could definitely get used to sleeping like this. The problem was, not even being with a pair of beautiful mares who I loved to bits was enough to keep me from thinking about Mom. Sure, they both wanted to be there for me, but it’s not like I could shake them awake in the wee hours of the morning just to tell them that I was feeling down again. Don’t get me wrong, the company was great for comfort and keeping me from brooding too much, but no amount of pleasant diversions would be enough to keep Mom off my mind. Hay, if I’d talked them into a threesome I probably wouldn’t have even gotten past the afterglow before it all came crashing down again. I couldn’t use banging or anything else to hide from the fact that my mom was MIA.

I still managed to get a few fitful bits of sleep in between all the worrying, so the night wasn’t a total loss. I’m not sure how much time I spent sleeping versus how long I was in bed just brooding, but eventually the sun came up and I was tired of staying in bed.

Extracting myself from the two mares wrapped around me without waking either of them up took a bit of doing, but I’ve got a lot of experience at delicately slipping out of bed. I slipped into the bathroom and carefully shut the door behind me, then hopped into Derpy’s shower. The hot water felt good on my coat, and washing up gave me something else to focus on other than Mom. Maybe that was the trick to it—I just needed to find things to keep me busy and moving. As long as I was doing stuff, I didn’t think about Mom. It was when I didn’t have anything to keep my mind occupied that I started brooding.

Thankfully I’d shifted some bathroom stuff to Derpy’s place before things had gotten a bit weird with us, so I didn’t have to use an unfamiliar brand of shampoo or grab Derpy’s poor, heavily battered manebrush. Those little things matter, and before the troubles had started up I’d been spending a lot of time at Derpy’s.

I eventually ran out of things to do to pretty myself up in the bathroom, unless I wanted to make like Rarity and escalate to all-out primping. I’ve got no objection to making myself look good, but I don’t see much reason to go overboard on it. Plus, growing up as a Guard brat meant my general opinions on personal beauty tended to be a bit on the spartan side. After all, the Guard has rules against slathering yourself with a bunch of cosmetic goop that might end up causing problems in the field.

Still, taking a couple minutes to make myself look better did help my mood a bit. Everypony likes to look nice, and the simple morning ritual felt comfortable. At least until brushing out my mane reminded me of the way Mom used to do that for me back when I was a filly.

I almost broke down sobbing right then and there, just from that one memory. In a horrible way, Mom being MIA was worse than her just being dead. If Mom was dead, I could at least get to work on dealing with it. I could curl up somewhere, cry my eyes out, and move on. When your family’s in the Guard, you spend most of your life knowing that something like this could happen any day. Hay, I’ve lost a few distant aunts, uncles, and cousins before their time. I’d handled those well enough, but there’s a world of difference between losing a family member who you pretty much only know from the occasional get-together and losing your mother.

Instead, I was stuck not knowing. I knew the odds weren’t good—by the time a soldier’s officially listed as MIA and the family gets notified, the Guard’s exhausted all the obvious places to look. Sure, there are examples of ponies surviving behind enemy lines or out in the wilderness for weeks, months, or even years after they drop off the radar. Hay, there was that one story about that Lunar soldier who went missing, only to turn back up again three decades after the rebellion was over. However, the reason those stories get passed around is that it’s pretty darn rare for a pony to show up again after they drop off the radar for several days. Especially with a pony like Mom, who wouldn’t have deserted or just run off to go partying for a couple weeks.

And ... so much for distracting myself. Dammit.

I finished toweling off and trotted back into Derpy’s bedroom. There, I finally found a sight that put a smile on my face.

Derpy and Blossom had been in full-on snuggle mode when I slipped out of bed. Once I was gone, the two sleeping ponies had presumably done a bit of tossing and turning, until they instinctively sought out the nearest source of body heat to cuddle up with. Seeing the two mares I loved spooning had to rank up there as one of the more beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. It’s too bad that once they woke up the moment would be ruined.

Still, I was gonna enjoy this while it lasted. I stepped up to the side of the bed and gently tugged the blanket back over the two of them. Once I was done tucking them in, I kissed each of them on the forehead, and told them I loved them.

Blossom let out a contented little noise, and slightly tightened her hold on Derpy, while Derpy shifted a bit in Blossom’s forelegs and sleepily murmured, “I love you too, darling.” The cutest thing about it was that she’d slipped back into that old high-class Canterlot accent she used to have. Seven years of living in Ponyville had mostly taken the Canterlot out of Derpy’s voice, but every once in a while, usually when she was less than fully awake or in the immediate post-bang afterglow, her old accent would creep back in.

Normally the Canterlot aristocratic accent sounds kinda snooty and stuck-up, but on Derpy it just kind of worked. Like she wasn’t talking that way to show off how refined and cultured she was, it just happened to be the way she talked.

With Derpy being so cute I had to kiss her again, and then I naturally had to kiss Blossom as well to keep things balanced. Blossom sleepily squeezed Derpy and nuzzled one of her ears, while Derpy mumbled something about me smelling funny. Obviously she must be smelling Blossom, since I’d just gotten out of the shower.

Much as I wanted to keep watching the two of them for a bit, and possibly even wake them up just to see how they reacted to finding themselves in each others’ hooves, I needed to get going. After all, I had a duty to the weather team, and even if my mom was MIA, clouds still needed to get pushed. Besides, what else was I gonna do? Sit around and mope all day?

I trotted over the kitchen to dig a couple muffins out of Derpy’s icebox before heading into work, but to my surprise I wasn’t the only one awake.

Dinky and ‘Lula looked at me like ... well, like a couple fillies who’d just been caught with their hooves in the cookie jar. Apparently the two of them had gotten up early and worked out some kind of scheme to raid said cookie jar—and judging by the crumbs on the floor, they’d been at it for a while when I caught them. It was a struggle not to smile at the sight of them trying so very hard to look innocent despite the fact that I’d caught them red-hooved and surrounded by the evidence of their crime. “So ... what’re you two doing?”

“Nothin’,” Dinky answered evasively. “Wanna cookie, Cloud Kicker?” She pulled her hoof out of the cookie jar and offered me one.

“I would love a cookie, thank you, Dinky.” I let myself be distracted by the baked good for long enough that the girls started hoping they’d actually gotten away with it before dropping the other horseshoe. “So, how many cookies have you two eaten? Am I getting the last one left in the jar?”

“No,” Alula shifted her eyes back and forth, presumably checking for other witnesses to their little cookie heist. “There’s still another cookie left.”

“A single cookie?” If not for the fact it would’ve crushed the cookie in the process, I would’ve facehoofed. “I remember there being more than a dozen cookies in that jar when I went to bed last night.”

The two fillies took a second to ponder the matter, and apparently decided that they were busted. “Dinky ate way more cookies than I did!” ‘Lula announced, levelling an accusing hoof at the filly in question.

“Nuh-uh!” Dinky shot right back. “I hadta give a cookie to Cloud Kicker, so you got one more than me!”

“Did not!” ‘Lula crossed her forelegs over her chest. “You had, like two more cookies than I did, even though you couldn’t get to the cookie jar without my help! I saw you sneak-eatin’ them when you thought I wasn’t looking!”

“That was only one cookie!” Dinky offered in her own defense. A second later she blushed and hastily amended, “I mean, I didn’t sneak-eat any cookies when you weren’t lookin’.”

Ah, fillies. “You know, both of you were technically sneak-eating cookies on the rest of us.” I tried to look down at the two of them with appropriate adult authority figure disapproval, but it was hard to pull off when the two of them were being so cute. “So ... I don’t think there’s any way the two of you aren’t going to get in trouble for this.” The two fillies immediately hit me with synchronized wide-eyed pleading looks, as if to ask how I could possibly punish two utterly adorable and completely innocent fillies for such a minor transgression. After all, it was only a dozen or so cookies, and surely I wasn’t a completely heartless monster.

Thankfully, Guard training has some useful secondary applications when it comes to dealing with fillies trying to adorable their way out of trouble. Discipline is a useful thing that way. “Alright, Alula, since you just finished stuffing your face with cookies, I’d say you’ve had about a week’s worth of desserts just now.” ‘Lula flinched and grumbled, but knew better than to argue the matter any further. My parents weren’t exactly the kind of ponies you could argue with when they decided to lay down the law, at least not when you were ‘Lula’s age. While I try to be a little more easygoing than they were, when it came time to lay down the pseudo-parental big sister authority, I tended to take my cues from them.

Dinky looked up and me nervously. “Are you gonna take away my desserts too?” She broke out the sad, pleading puppy dog eyes again.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the one who had to lay down the law with her. “That’s up to your mother.” Just mentioning the word mother sent a stab of pain through my chest, but I did my best to ignore it and press on. If I got all weepy and emotional now it would lead to lots of awkward questions from the girls.

Dinky stared up at me in horror, oblivious to my internal struggles. “Y-you’re gonna tell on me to Mommy?” From the look on Dinky’s face, you would think I was threatening to steal her comfort blanket, Favorite, away from her.

“Kinda have to tell her, kid.” I swear, if I didn’t do something about those sad puppy eyes of Dinky’s she was gonna find a way to make me crack. I turned a bit to the side, so that I at least wasn’t getting hit by them full force. “After all, when Derpy wakes up and checks the cookie jar she’s going to notice that it’s empty.”

“There’s still one cookie left, so it’s not really empty...” Dinky shot me a hopeful little smile, but I wasn’t buying it. I swear, she can be so sweet and innocent most of the time that it’s easy to forget she’s still a precocious little filly. I got a nice little reminder of that when a particularly sneaky little grin popped up onto her face. “Oh, I know! We could put the last cookie next to Sparky’s bed, and get some crumbs and stuff and put ‘em around her. Then Mommy will think Sparky ate the cookies instead of us!”

‘Lula eagerly nodded along. “Great plan! That way Sparkler gets in trouble and we won’t!” ‘Lula shot a look my way, and her enthusiasm suffered a sudden catastrophic failure. “Um ... except that Cloudy kinda already caught us.” ‘Lula frowned and rubbed a hoof under her chin. “But she got a cookie from us, so doesn’t that mean she’s a ‘complice now? So she’s gonna get in trouble for being a cookie-thief too, unless she helps us blame Sparkler.” ‘Lula shot an impish grin up at me, seeming quite satisfied with her chain of reasoning.

Were—were they trying to blackmail me? That’s a new one, I’ve never had fillies try to run an extortion scheme on me before. I guess there’s a first time for everything. Still, if they wanted to play dirty... “You know, ‘Lula, you seem like you’re bouncing right back from being sick.”

“Yup!” My little sister announced. “I was feelin’ all tired and icky and stuff for a while, but now I’m doing lots better!”

I grinned and moved in for the kill. “So, ready to go back to school today?”

‘Lula froze for a couple seconds, then let out several obviously faked coughs. “I still dun feel completely un-sick an’ stuff,” she announced, managing to sound significantly more miserable than she’d been earlier.

“Of course.” I gave a sagely nod. “You’re at that stage of illness where you’re well enough to go out to play, eat lots of sweets, and wake up in the wee hours of the morning to steal cookies, but not quite well enough to go back to school.”

“Yeah.” Alula agreed with the guilelessness of youth. Well, I suppose I could at least take this as a positive sign that ‘Lula was bouncing back from whatever she’d been sick with. She’d been sick enough when she first came home that I was a bit worried. I guess it was just like Mom said though—when it comes to fillies they can be sick as a dog one day, bouncing and brimming with energy the next.

I was about to let ‘Lula know that the only pony she was fooling was herself when we were rudely interrupted by a shout from Derpy’s bedroom. “Argh! Derpy!”

“Waaugh!” Derpy screamed right back. “You’re not Cloud Kicker! I thought you were Cloud Kicker!”

“I kind of figured that out from the way you were rubbing my flank!” Blossom screeched indignantly.

“Says the pony who was nibbling on my ear thirty seconds ago!” Okay, maybe I should cover up the fillies’ ears before the two of them got much further. That, or beat a very hasty retreat. It certainly looked like the tentative truce between the two of them was starting to get just a little shaky. Probably a good thing I didn’t talk them into a threesome; if just a little spooning and cuddling had them this worked up, all-out banging probably would’ve touched off the apocalypse.

“So girls, who wants to go to school?” I didn’t even give the two fillies a chance to answer before I dragged them out of the house. It’s probably a sign of how much the two of them didn’t want to be there listening to Blossom and Derpy argue that ‘Lula forgot that she was supposedly too sick to go to school.

After dropping the two of them off with Cheerilee, who was quite happy to finally have ‘Lula back in her classroom, I headed over to work. It seemed a little strange to just go to work like everything was normal the day after finding out about my mom, but I needed the routine of it. The mom thing didn’t bug me quite so much when I had something to keep me busy—it was when I didn’t have anything to do with my time but sit around and think that it really got to me. Last night’s general lack of sleep made that pretty clear. As long as I could stay up, stay occupied, and just keep moving, I think I would be okay.

The next couple hours passed in a numb blur of passing out assignments to my subordinates, allocating resources to different squads in my team, and pushing clouds whenever I didn’t have any of the leader-stuff to take care of. I preferred the managing to the actual doing—managing took up more brainpower, while most of the actual weather work was simple enough that it left my brain free for thinking. Right now, thinking was a bad thing, because there was only one topic I could think about.

Thankfully, the ponies under my command were giving me plenty to manage. I guess Rainbow taking things easy on them ever since Tornado Day was starting to have an effect, because I’d never seen my team acting so sloppy before. Clouds were being improperly placed, teamwork was practically nonexistent, and the general rate at which things were getting done (or rather, not getting done) was appalling. They couldn’t even do the simplest things right.

“Dammit, Silverspeed! That’s not how you bust up a cloud!” I shot over to the mare in question, who actually flinched back as I approached. “What the hay is wrong with you? Have you forgotten how to do something as simple as kick a feathering cloud?” Silverspeed had her mouth half open to say something in her defense, but I bulled right over her. “No! No excuses.” I pointed to a particularly large clump of clouds. “We’re gonna go through every single one of those clouds, for as long as it takes for you to get it right!”

Silverspeed hesitantly flew over to the first cloud and bucked it with the worst technique I’ve ever seen in my life, and that’s counting the times Derpy and Eepy had been pulled in for weather work. “Wrong! Try again!” After a dozen more tries, she wasn’t showing any improvement, and I was starting to get fed up with her. “What is your major malfunction, Silverspeed? Why can’t you manage the simplest task a weather pony can do? I bet your daughter could do a better job of bucking clouds, and she can’t even fly yet! Are we gonna have to spend all day hammering the basics into your head?”

Two things happened in rapid succession. First, Silverspeed started faking tears in an effort to get me to go easy on her. Naturally, I wasn’t falling for it, but some of the other ponies on my team were a bit more gullible. This led to problem number two—Raindrops flying over and getting in my face. “Okay, that does it!” She glared at me defiantly and poked me in the chest with one of her hooves. “You’ve been riding us hard all day for no good reason, and I’m sick of putting up with it! You need to back off!”

I swatted her hoof away and glared right back. “Do you think I’m gonna put up with this kind of insubordination, Dropsy?” I crossed my forelegs over my chest, and gave a couple flaps of my wings to rise a bit higher than her. “Fine. You can join her in basic cloudbusting exercises then.” After a moment’s thought, I raised my voice so everypony could hear me. “In fact, I think all of you need to work on the basics! So we’re gonna run drills, and keep running them until every single one of you has them down perfect. Got that?”

Most of the ponies in my squad looked to Raindrops, who was apparently setting herself up as the leader of this budding little mutiny. Dropsy glowered at me for a while, and then growled. “Feather this, I’m going home. I’ll come back to work when you stop acting like a crazy bitch and start acting like Cloud Kicker again.”

Before I could really start reading her the riot act, I spotted Rainbow Dash double-timing it over towards us. Kinda hard not to notice the small crowd of ponies yelling at each other. Rainbow placed herself between me and mutineers, and immediately took charge. “Okay, what the hay is going on here?”

Raindrops spoke up before I could get my side in. “Cloud Kicker’s been working us to the bone all day, and yelling at us whenever something isn’t completely perfect.” She gave an angry shake of her head and shot a glare at me around Rainbow. “No, even when we get stuff right, she still finds an excuse to yell at us. I’m not getting paid enough to put up with that kind of horseapples! She made Silverspeed cry!”

If I’d rolled my eyes any harder, they probably would’ve popped right out of their sockets. “Oh come on, she’s obviously faking it to get sympathy.”

Rainbow shot a look back at Silverspeed, then frowned at me. “You sure about that? ‘Cause she looks pretty upset to me.”

I turned to the faker as well, to prove my point. It’s not like I would have to try very hard to find something that proved it was all just a big act. I mean, just look at the way she had those blatantly faked tears trickling down her cheeks while Medley comforted her, or the way her shoulders were bobbing up and down, or...

Oh. Oh horseapples. I don’t think that was an act. Not unless Silverspeed was one hay of a talented actress.

Rainbow had obviously reached the same conclusion. She sighed, and turned back to Raindrops. “Can you keep an eye on things for a bit? I think Cloud Kicker and I need to have a talk.”

Once she was sure the weather wouldn’t go to Tartarus in her absence, Rainbow hooked a foreleg behind my back and dragged me off to a relatively private chunk of sky. She wasn’t quite laying down the law on me and hitting me with the full boss disapproval thing, but from how tense her shoulders were and the way she was flapping her wings harder than she needed to I could tell she wasn’t happy with me.

Once we had a nice, isolated cloud to settle down on, she got straight to business. “Okay, what’s going on with you? Something’s got you all pissed off, and I wanna know what.” That was a bit more insight than I’d expected from Rainbow—she’s usually not the most socially subtle of ponies. I guess my surprise must’ve shown on my face, because Rainbow followed with, “When you’re being grouchy enough that even Raindrops says that you’re going overboard, that’s a pretty clear sign that something’s going on. Now spill.”

For a moment I was tempted to be stubborn about it, but there was really no point in denying it. I was out of sorts, and anypony with half a brain could see it. Besides, I’d been planning to tell Rainbow sooner or later anyway. After all, we’d been PFFs for a long time, and compared to some of the stuff we’d gone through this wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Hay, if something had happened to one of her moms I would wanna know about it, so I could be there to offer her my support.

So I spilled the beans. There was no point in beating around the bush, not with Rainbow. “My mom’s MIA. I found out yesterday.”

“Oh.” Rainbow sat down on the cloud next to me, and uncertainly reached out to put a hoof on my shoulder. “That’s ... wow. That sucks.”

“Yeah.” The same part of me that thought yelling at Silverspeed until she started crying was a good idea wanted to tear into Rainbow for that comment. I feathering lost my mom, and the sum total of her thoughts on the matter and only effort to offer me some kind of comfort is ‘wow, that sucks.’ Yeah, great job being a supportive friend in my time of need, Rainbow.

Going after her like that wouldn’t be fair, though. Let’s face it: I’ve known Rainbow Dash for most of my life. If I’d been looking for a pony who could be sensitive to my needs and offer loving kindness and emotional support, Rainbow wasn’t the best choice. Besides, she was trying really hard, if the horrendously awkward effort at a hug she was giving me was anything to judge by.

“Um...” Rainbow gave me a few tentative little nuzzles in between the fumbling attempts to say something comforting. “Look, if there’s anything I can do to, y’know, well—look, you don’t have to come into work until the thing with your mom gets worked out, okay?”

I appreciated the offer, but I really needed work to keep my mind occupied. Or at least, that had been what I thought up until I spent my time on the job being the worst boss ever. I owed some apologies and explanations to all the ponies on my team, especially Silverspeed. On the other hoof... “Okay, I know I wasn’t exactly doing a very good job, but even if I’ve got stuff going on in my personal life I’ve still got a duty to the weather team, so...”

Rainbow groaned and facehoofed. “Cloud Kicker, please don’t get started on the whole doodie thing. Just take the time off, alright?”

It said something about my current situation that Rainbow Dash was serving as the voice of reason. She was right, though. Trying to just keep calm and soldier on wasn’t going to work for me—the way I’d treated the ponies under my command made that abundantly clear. Sure, I had a commitment to the weather team and all that, but I could hardly fulfill that duty in my current state of mind. So I guess that meant now I had an obligation to get myself squared away before coming back to work. That wasn’t likely until things with the whole Mom situation were sorted out.

Well, there was one thing I needed to take care of first. “Alright, let me apologize to everypony, and then I’ll head out.” I didn’t wanna leave everypony feeling hurt and resentful for however long I was going to be off the job. Sure, giving everypony a couple days to cool off was probably a good idea, but putting an apology out there first was still important. I just wouldn’t feel right until I’d made some effort to settle the matter.

Rainbow frowned and thought it over, then nodded. “Yeah, okay. I gotta go take care of something real quick while you do that.” As soon as she said that Rainbow zoomed off, leaving me to face the music all by myself.

I took my time flying back to the rest of the weather squad—you can’t exactly blame me for not being terribly enthusiastic about going up to a bunch of ponies who were justifiably upset with me. Once I was back in sight of the team pretty much everypony stopped what they were doing to stare at me. A couple of them, like Raindrops, were glaring at me. Others, like Silverspeed, looked nervous, almost scared of me. Seeing fear on the faces of other ponies hurt a lot more than anger.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared myself. “Look, I’m sorry everypony. I’ve been just about the worst boss ever today.” I hesitantly extended a hoof to Silverspeed. “Especially with you. I was completely out of line being that hard on you when you were doing perfectly good weather work.”

Raindrops continued glaring at me for a few seconds longer, then very slowly nodded and stopped looking like she wanted to put a hoof through my face. I guess she’d decided that I was being honest with my apology. “Okay. So what was the deal? Why have you been in bitch mode all day? You were acting like a drill sergeant from one of those bad Guard stories.”

I had my mouth halfway open with an explanation when I froze. What was I supposed to say to them? ‘Oh, my mother’s MIA, so I’m allowed to treat you like horseapples.’ Yeah, I’m not gonna use my mom as an excuse for my behavior. Sure, the whole Mom thing is why I was acting all crazy, but I was still the one acting like that, and it was my choice to come into work today. Trying to shrug off my personal responsibility there was not the right way to handle things. My head drooped and I felt my ears go flat on my head as I miserably announced, “I have no excuse for my behavior.”

Silverspeed frowned at me, “That doesn’t make any sense. You don’t normally act this way, Cloud Kicker. What’s going on?”

I froze, trying to think of a way to explain that didn’t sound like I was just using the situation with my mother as an excuse for my bad behavior. Before I could come up with a way to say it, Rainbow Dash returned and resolved the situation with her usual level of diplomacy and tact. “She just found out her mom’s missing in action. That’s why she was acting weird.”

That set off a round of muttering amongst all the weather ponies. I probably should’ve been annoyed at Rainbow for showing all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, but her announcement had at least succeeded in answering the question and improving the mood of all the other ponies. Now I was getting sympathetic looks instead of angry glares. To my vague discomfort, Silverspeed actually flew up and hugged me. I guess that’s good since it probably meant she’d forgiven me, but I still felt a bit uncomfortable. Probably because I still hadn’t forgiven myself.

Shortly after Silverspeed detached herself from me, a yellow-and-pink blur slammed into my side and latched on. “OhCloudKickerI’mSoSorryIfThere’sAnythingICanDoToHelp...”

Oh. So Rainbow ran off to go get Eepy? Well, I can’t blame her for that—when you need somepony to be gentle and comforting, it’s hard to beat Eepy. I started hugging her back by pure instinct and rested my head against her shoulder. After holding onto me for a bit, Eepy seemed to get over her initial burst of near frantic comforting and toned things down a little. “Cloud Kicker? Would you mind if I took you home?”

“Yeah, home sounds good.” Some part of me felt just a little self-conscious about holding Eepy like this so soon after we’d put an end to things, but most of me didn’t care. I needed somepony to hold me, and Eepy was here. “I’m staying with Derpy for now. Wanna be close to ‘Lula and all that.”

“Oh.” Eepy hesitated for just a moment before nodding and gently starting to guide me to Derpy’s. “Alright. I hope she won’t mind if I stay for a while. I just ... I want to help.”

“Yeah.” Eepy stiffened just a tiny bit when I nuzzled her, but after an awkward moment she returned it. It was gonna take us a bit to get used to being platonic friends, but we were both willing to work on it. “Thanks Eepy. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me.”

“Yes I did.” I was a little surprised at how confident she sounded when she said that. Eepy can surprise you with how strong she is sometimes. A second later she smiled back at me, all gentleness and warmth. “Besides, it was no trouble at all.”

While Blossom and Derpy were doing everything they could to help, not to mention Rainbow and Eepy coming by a couple times a day to check on me, after two more days of waiting around for news I was starting to go just a little stir crazy. Not knowing what the hay had happened to my mother and whether or not she would come back home was just killing me. Now that going to work wasn’t an option I didn’t have much to do with all my time except think about Mom, and every time somepony tried to offer me a little comfort it just drove things in a little deeper. Mom was out there, probably in big trouble, and all I could do was sit on Derpy’s couch and worry.

I finally cracked on the third day after Aunt Wind gave me the news. I flew over to Mom’s place and went looking for her little secret storage cloud. Sure, I could probably get in trouble for digging through Mom’s personal files, but I felt like I was gonna go nuts if I didn’t do something. I just wanted a look at her op order so I would at least know what the hay had happened to her beyond her disappearing while checking out some kind of problem on the border. Obviously her orders wouldn’t tell me everything, but at least I would know what problem and which border. Just knowing something more would help.

I certainly hadn’t planned on grabbing my armor from the attic as soon as I was done checking through Mom’s papers. It just kinda happened. After I’d looked through everything and knew what was going on, I had to go after her.

Armoring and arming up took longer than it should have, but in my defense I hadn’t put on my armor for years. It felt odd at first, but before long I was getting used to having that familiar weight resting on my back. It actually wasn’t as bad as I remember armor being from West Hoof, though you could probably attribute that to this suit being custom-made for me and enchanted with a lot of nice little goodies.

Speaking of which, a couple quick adjustments turned off the uniform enchantment and shifted my armor from Guard gold to Kicker red. I didn’t wanna run around looking like a member of the Guard when I wasn’t really one. This was private family business.

Now I just had to figure out how the hay I was supposed to get out of town without somepony spotting me and making a big deal out of it. Since the weather team knew my mom was MIA, it was a safe bet that rumors were spreading to the rest of the town. If somepony saw me wearing armor and picking up supplies for a journey, it wouldn’t exactly be hard to connect the dots. If word got back to Rainbow, Derpy, Blossom, or anypony else before I was out of town, I could expect things to get complicated fast.

Thankfully Derpy was still at work, the girls were still at school, and Blossom wasn’t sticking around Derpy’s house by herself now that she’d finally regrown all her feathers and could fly again, so raiding Derpy’s fridge for supplies was easy enough. I left behind some bits to cover the bill and a quick note to explain my absence.

I almost made it out of town without getting caught. I’m not sure if somepony else spotted me and let her know, or if Rainbow Dash saw me herself while she was doing weather work, but I was on the outskirts of Ponyville when she caught up to me. Sadly, outrunning Rainbow Dash just wasn’t an option, especially not with a couple days’ worth of food and my armor weighing me down.

I pulled up and waited for her to save myself the indignity of being tackled to the ground by her. She pulled in front of me and smacked a hoof against my armored chest, probably hurting her hoof more than me in the process. “Where the hay do you think you’re going?”

I offered her the only explanation I could. “It’s my mother, Rainbow. I have to—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She cut me off with an annoyed wave of her hoof. “Look, just wait here for a bit, okay? I’ll be back in five minutes, tops. And don’t even think about running while I’m gone, ‘cause we both know I would eventually catch you, and when I did, you would so regret it.”

With that said, Rainbow shot back towards Ponyville, leaving me hanging there in mid-air. Despite her boasting, I probably could’ve shaken Rainbow Dash if I really wanted to. Sure, I could never outrun her, but tracking somepony through the air is pretty close to impossible. Not to mention that unless she’d changed a lot from the way she did things back in Flight Camp, Rainbow wasn’t the type to run a methodical search pattern. All in all, odds were pretty good I could find a way to get away from her, unless Rainbow got really lucky with her random searching.

The only problem was what would happen when I came back to Ponyville. Rainbow would not be happy with me, and since she was probably flying off to get everypony else I was gonna catch trouble from all of them too. I didn’t wanna burn all my bridges.

Sure enough, when Rainbow came back Derpy and Eepy were both following along. I was a little surprised that Blossom wasn’t with them, but maybe Rainbow hadn’t been able to find her fast enough. What surprised me was that they weren’t the only ones—four other ponies were following along behind them on the ground. Looks like Rainbow had got her little world-saving crew together for this one.

The pegasi all landed out of courtesy to the wingless members of the group, and I got right to business. “Look, there’s no way you’re gonna convince me not to go after her, so you can just save your breath.”

“We’re not trying to stop you, idiot,” Rainbow grumbled at me. “We’re coming with you.”

Oh. Well, that could complicate things. I was a little surprised there were so many ponies ready to go off a dangerous mission into the unknown at the drop of a hat, but I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised, After all, Rainbow’s little cadre of friends had gone head-to-head with Nightmare Moon, Discord, dragons, and a bunch of other stuff. Running off on an adventure at a moment’s notice wasn’t exactly unusual for them. Still, I was a little surprised that Rainbow could mobilize them all just to help me out.

There was just one problem with the whole situation: while all of them being ready to go out on a potentially hazardous mission just to help me was undeniably touching, the whole issue with my mother was something I needed to take care of myself. I didn’t want anypony else coming along, and certainly not an entire squad of ponies, even if they had a whole bunch of really useful skills. This was private family business.

I’ll admit that I was still a little gobsmacked by the fact that Rainbow had gotten the whole “Fighting evil gods and saving Equestria” crew ready to help me. The fact that I was still a bit shocked probably explains why the first thing I could think of to say to dissuade any of them was to turn to Applejack and say, “But ... you don’t even like me.”

“It’s your ma,” the farmer answered as if that explained everything. Considering what had happened to her own parents, maybe it did. Sure, we’d butted heads from time to time, mostly because she was a little old-fashioned when it came to banging and just a touch overprotective when it came to her brother and mares who wanted to bang him, but some things are more important than those little personality conflicts. It says a lot about Applejack that she’d come running to help a pony in need, even when it was a pony she didn’t always get along with. I mentally moved her up several places on my bangability list for that.

Still, I needed to find some way to keep this army of ponies from tagging along with me. Thankfully, there was one obvious issue to bring up for most of them. “Look, I really appreciate the offer, but we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time, and there’s quite a bit of terrain in the way.” I spread my wings a bit for emphasis. “Gonna be just about impossible to keep up if you can’t fly.”

None of Rainbow’s groundbound friends looked very happy with that answer. but they couldn’t really argue with it either. Being able to move in three dimensions does kind of give pegasi a huge advantage in the mobility department. Twilight Sparkle decided she needed to get her two bits in. “I know you can fly over things the rest of us would have to walk around or through, but I know spells we could use to deal with that.”

“I’m sure you do.” High-level unicorn magic was about the only thing that can come close to competing with the mobility of pegasus flight, and Twilight definitely had that. There was just one complication: “You’ve got a lot of magical talent. I’ve just got one question—how many of those spells can you cast a day? Especially after you’ve been walking for most of it. No offense, but you’re not exactly used to that kind of all-day physical effort. You really think you can handle all the walking, and teleporting your friends past mountains, swamps, and mud puddles?”

“There are going to be mud puddles?” Rarity gave a dramatic little shudder. “Well, thank goodness I thought to pack some of my new boots. I’m sure they’ll look amazing, even with a little mud on them. Besides, one must endure the little indignities when there’s a pony’s life at stake.”

“Oh, and there might be more than just mud, too!” Pinkie enthusiastically chimed in. “Cause we might be walking through a forest at some point, and the other day when I was looking for Dashie I found her all cuddled up on a cloud and snoring, but then after I started talking to her she was a bit grouchy so I asked her if I woke her up. Instead of just telling me, she said, ‘Do bears leave their droppings in the woods?’ Well, that’s not actually what she said, but the real words would upset Fluttershy. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she was napping when I found her, so I guess that means that if we go into the forest we’ll find bear poop!” Pinkie cocked her head to the side, staring at Rarity. “Why’s your eye twitching like that? Oooh, are you getting a Rarity Sense like my Pinkie Sense? What does an eye twitch mean?”

“Reckon it means ya oughta stop talkin’, Pinkie.” Applejack announced with a good-natured chuckle. Everypony had a brief laugh at the fashionista’s expense, before the farmpony turned back to me and her smile faded away. “Can’t say I much care for it, but I’m afraid you’re right. Twilight’s got some powerful magic, but she can’t take care of everythin’ for us. Closest she could manage is that spell to give a pony wings, and even then just casting it once left her plum tuckered out. Not to mention, them wings weren’t all that strong.”

“Thank you so much for bringing that up again, Applejack darling.” Rarity grumbled under her breath.

The rest of the groundpounders reluctantly agreed with Applejack’s reasoning. That still left me with Eepy and Derpy to deal with. Of the two, Derpy was the easier one to deal with. “Derpy, sweetie, you’ve got kids. This could get dangerous, and I’m not gonna risk taking Dinky and Sparkler’s mommy away from them.” I kissed her on the cheek and shot her a tentative little smile. “Besides, somepony has to keep an eye on ‘Lula while I’m gone.”

I felt a bit bad about using Derpy’s girls on her like that, but it was the simple truth of the situation. Derpy had daughters, and that meant she couldn’t just go running off into danger with me. One of the things I’ve learned about being in a romantic relationship with a mother—as much as Derpy cares for me, her daughters would always come first.

That still left Eepy to dissuade from tagging along with me. This one might be a bit tricky to handle, simply because Eepy was so sensitive that I could really hurt her feelings if I said the wrong thing. There was a tricky balance to being firm enough to make sure she didn’t try to tag along, but not so firm that I ended up hurting her feelings or something. After all, when Eepy’s feelings get hurt she starts crying, and when Eepy starts crying I end up feeling like a complete and total mule for making her cry.

I tried to keep my voice as soft and gentle as possible. “Eepy, I’m gonna be setting a pretty fast pace here. No offense, but it would be pretty hard for you to keep up with me. Not to mention that we’re going into a situation that’s probably gonna be really, really dangerous, and you’re not exactly much of a fighter.”

That also led into the other big reason I didn’t want Derpy or Eepy in particular tagging along. Odds were there would be combat once I got to where Mom was, and I wasn’t planning on fighting with one wing tied to my side. Neither of them would handle that well, and I don’t know if they would ever be able to look at me the same way after they saw me take a life. It took Derpy a long time to make things right with me after the Flight Camp fight, and Eepy was Eepy. Neither of them would be comfortable seeing that side of me.

Hay, I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing that side of myself. Sure, I’d been trained for war and been in plenty of little scuffles over the years, but now I was getting into the real thing. That was a pretty big deal. There's a huge difference between beating down some bullies and actually killing somepony.

Eepy stared at me for several seconds. Not The Stare, just a normal sort of inquiring little stare, as if she was trying to work out what was going on in my head. After looking at me for long enough to make me just a bit paranoid that she might somehow be reading my mind or something, she gave a small nod. “Okay. I’ll stay here.”

Well, one less thing to worry about. I turned to the only pony I hadn’t gotten around to dissuading from coming along with me. Rainbow stubbornly crossed her forelegs over her chest and gave me a challenging glare, practically daring me to tell her she couldn’t come along. Instead of doing that, I grinned and offered her a friendly pat on the back. “You packed up and ready to go, Rainbow?”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped and she babbled out a few stunned half-syllables before she finally managed to get her mental hooves under herself again. “Bu-wha? You’re not gonna try to talk me out of coming along?”

I shot her a faintly amused grin. “Is there any logical, rational argument I could make that could possibly convince you not to tag along?”

“‘Course not,” Rainbow answered, giving a very unladylike snort.

“So, there you have it.” I gave a helpless little shrug. “No point in fighting a battle I can’t win.” Besides, if there was one pony I could probably trust to have my back in a fight, it would be Rainbow. I’d still be happier if I was doing this all on my own, but if I didn’t have a choice in the matter, then she was perfect for the job. “One condition—we’re going after my mom, so that means this is my show. I give orders, you follow them. Got it?”

Rainbow chewed that over for a couple seconds, and finally accepted with an annoyed wave of her hoof. “Fine, you’re in charge. I’ll be a good little soldier and do what you say, as long as you aren’t telling me to do something really stupid or pointless.”

That was probably the best I was likely to get out of Rainbow. By her nature, Rainbow Dash was not that great at the whole discipline thing. She never would’ve made it very far in the Guard, unless she signed on with a formation like the Long Patrol where orders tended to be very vague and open-ended. “Alright. Ready to get flying? Well, first we need to say our goodbyes, but—”

The rest of what I was about to say died in my mouth when a pink missile shot up from the ground and wrapped itself around Rainbow Dash. “Be extra super-duper careful, Dashie!” Pinkie screeched while doing her best to crush Rainbow’s ribs. “Don't cross the road without looking both ways, don't eat cupcakes unless they’re properly cooked, always eat your broccoli, even if it is icky-tasting, but all the stuff that’s good for you kinda tastes weird, at least when you’re a kid, but when you get older it tastes just fine, I never did understand that, but...” Rainbow’s ears started twitching and she began struggling to free herself from Pinkie’s death-grip hug and non-stop verbal onslaught. While Pinkie didn’t let Rainbow escape her grasp, she did at least start moving her stream of babble towards a conclusion. “Don’t take any candy from strange ponies, unless they seem nice and it looks really super-duper yummy. Oh, and don’t let anything happen to your eye, ‘cause the surgery’s not until next week!”

Derpy tried to glomp me just like Pinkie had done with Rainbow, but it didn’t work so well for her. Full plate armor tends to make hugging a bit problematic, especially when you’re trying to be forceful about it. Hopefully she wouldn’t bruise. She didn’t bombard me with advice like Pinkie did—instead she just kept hanging onto me. At first I hugged her back without complaint, but when she was still firmly wrapped around me after several minutes had gone by, I felt like something needed to be done. “Look, Derpy, I know you don’t wanna leave me, but you’re gonna have to let go. I kinda need to go find my mom and stuff.”

Derpy slowly met my eyes, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “It’s not that. It’s, um ... my hoof got caught in your armor.”

Rainbow facehoofed. “Derpy...”

We’d gotten a bit of a late start, so we only managed a couple hours of flight time before we needed to make camp for the evening. I hadn’t planned on having any tagalongs, and from what I could tell Rainbow’s preparation for the trip had consisted of shoving random items into her saddlebags. Still, the two of us had enough basic wilderness knowledge to make a passable camp, even if we were roughing it a bit.

Right about the time we’d finished setting everything up, a third pony flew into the campsite. Blossom’s mane was a mess, and she needed a couple minutes of lying down and gasping for breath before she could actually explain what the hay was going on. “I came after you as soon as I heard! It’s a good thing you two made a campfire, or I never would’ve found you!”

Note to self: no more campfires when trying to stay under the radar.

I leaned over and put a hoof on Blossom’s shoulder. “Look—Blossom, you just got over the feather flu, and this could get really dangerous. I think it would be better if—”

Blossom gently placed a hoof over my lips. “No. I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of perfectly sensible reasons why I shouldn’t come along. Most of them are probably right. But I don’t care. Unless you tie me up or break one of my wings or something, I’m coming with you. That’s just how it is.”

For a brief moment, I was tempted to do just that. Well not literally, but if I stopped by my mother’s command and asked them to keep Blossom in ‘this civilian will get herself killed out of romantic stubbornness’ custody, they’d go along with it. The only problem is, that would mean letting the Guard know I was in the area. That could cause all kinds of complications I would rather avoid.

The other option would be to just outrun her. Blossom wasn’t as strong a flier as me or Rainbow, especially not when she had just bounced back from being sick. The problem was, in her current mood I don’t think Blossom would just give up and go home. If she tried following us anyway, she could easily get lost or wander into something hazardous. Since a pretty big part of why I didn’t want Blossom tagging along in the first place was to keep her safe, a solution that just shifted her peril out of my immediate line of sight didn’t really work.

I hate to say it, but there weren’t many options when you had a pony who was that stubbornly determined to tag along. If we’d been back in Ponyville I might’ve been able to do something, but that wasn’t an option now. Turning back, hoofing Blossom over to somepony who could make sure she wouldn’t follow us, and getting back on the road would eat up most of another day.

Blossom had me dead to rights. “Fine. But stay close to us, follow orders, and at the first sign of trouble find somewhere safe to hide and stay there until the fighting is over.”

Blossom nodded eagerly. “Yeah, okay.” Blossom settled down a bit more comfortably next to the campfire and pulled some food out of her saddlebags. “So,” she asked in between bites of apple, “what’s the plan? We hooking up with the Guard for a bit to find your mom?”

Rainbow’s eyes brightened a bit at that. “Oh yeah, we do need a plan-type-thingy. I hope we can get some sweet armor and awesome weapons and stuff.”

I thought about it for a moment, and decided I might as well spill the beans. If they were coming with me they would find out eventually, and telling them now in camp was better than it all coming out in the heat of the moment. “We’re not working with the Guard. In fact, I’m hoping we can avoid them entirely.”

“Huh?” Blossom shot a confused frown at me. “That doesn’t make any sense. The Guard could do a lot to help you rescue your mother, and you’ve got plenty of family who would be happy to help you. Plus, like Rainbow said, they could give us a lot of things we don’t have right now. So why are we avoiding them?”

I sighed, and took a deep breath, preparing to drop the bombshell. “Because we’re not going on a rescue mission to save my mom.” I pulled the papers I’d retrieved from my mother’s hidden storage area out of my saddlebag. I hadn’t wanted to believe it myself, and to be honest it didn’t make sense to me, but the evidence was all there in black and white. “My mother, Nimbus Gust, has betrayed the Princesses, clan Kicker, and all of Equestria. We’re not going out there to rescue her.” I licked my lips, and struggled to keep any hint of uncertainty out of my voice. “I’m going to kill her."

The Pony Who Loves Her Family Violently

Rainbow Dash took the news better than I’d expected.

“Feathering—what the feathering feather? How the feather—feather this feathering—what the feather are you thinking, you feathering featherhead? You feathering can’t just feathering go and feathering—feathers!”

Well, that certainly illustrated the diversity of the word.

After a while, she managed to at least calm down enough to string together a coherent sentence that didn’t involve any expletives. Rainbow glowered at me for a few seconds, then threw up her hooves and gave a frustrated scream. “It's official! You've truly gone and banged your brains out! That's the only possible explanation! I knew it’d happen one day!” She let out a loud, exasperated groan. “Or is Discord back? ‘Cause that’s the only other thing that could explain why you’re being so feathering stupid!”

At least Blossom was freaking out quietly, though I don’t think she’d have much luck trying to out-shout Rainbow Dash anyway. Once Rainbow was done yelling at me for the moment, Blossom spoke up in the sort of careful, very even tone that tends to get used when dealing with violent and dangerously unstable ponies. “Cloudy, this is your mother. The same mare you've been a wreck over all week because you thought she might be dead. You're not seriously planning on killing her, are you?” Her voice took on a slightly desperate yet hopeful tone. “That’s, like, a figure of speech or something, right?”

I really wish I could’ve gotten away on my own instead of having two tag-alongs. Sure, Rainbow would be a big help in a fight, but it still would’ve been a lot less complicated if she wasn’t here. For starters, I wouldn’t have to explain myself to two other ponies. “I ... look, I have a duty to take care of this.”

Rainbow gawked at me incredulously for a bit, then shook her head and got back to yelling again. “To kill your own mom? What the feather? That's a load of doodie all right!” Wow, even when she’s royally pissed off, Rainbow still won’t let the whole duty to doodie thing go.

I shot her a flat, slightly annoyed look. “Did you miss the part where she's a traitor? That’s kind of a big deal.”

“She's your mother!” Blossom cut in. “Nothing could make you killing your own mother some kind of duty!”

Rainbow let out a loud snort and gave an angry wave of her hoof. “Besides, you’re talking about Missus Stick Up Her Plot being a traitor? Yeah right. I don’t buy it for a minute, and if you do then you’re even dumber than I thought you were.”

I’ll admit, it was a pretty big pill to swallow. I’d spent a good half hour after finding out just trying to come up with some other explanation for everything. “It's ... the evidence is all right there, in black and white.” I pointed to the stack of papers I’d recovered from my mother’s little hideaway cloud.

Rainbow rolled her eyes at me. “Oh yeah, ‘cause if it's written down then it must be true.”

I let out a heavy sigh and nodded to Rainbow. “Yeah, thought about that.” I gave a helpless shrug. “Sure, it's possible this is all some kind of elaborate frame-up, but it doesn't make sense. Setting up something like that is just way too complicated, and there’s too many things that just wouldn’t fit with it. If someone planted all those papers, you’d think they’d report it to the Guard to finish up the frame-job instead of just waiting for them to turn up when one of her family members stumbled over them. Especially since—well, if not for my sense of duty I might’ve just burned all the evidence to protect her.” The idea of just covering it all up was more tempting than I wanted to admit.

That’s not to say that things made perfect sense as it was. If I was gonna be some sort of spy deep in enemy territory, I wouldn’t leave anything that could implicate me lying around, even if it was pretty securely stored. Hideaway clouds were reasonably safe, but all it really took to find one was enough time and determination. If I were in Mom’s horseshoes, I would’ve destroyed any evidence that I was a spy as soon as possible. But then, Mom wasn’t me. Maybe there was some reason she needed to hold onto that stuff, or maybe she’d just gotten sloppy. She wouldn’t be the first spy to get caught because she’d made an easily avoidable mistake.

Rainbow grabbed the stack of documents and started reading over the first one. “Alright, let’s see what the big deal is.” Rainbow Dash started skimming through papers while constantly mumbling under her breath and tossing out the odd expletive and dirty look in my direction.

While Rainbow occupied herself looking over the damning evidence, Blossom appealed directly to me. “So, what? Seriously, you've been in a funk half the week over her being missing, and now...” Blossom swallowed and pawed nervously at the ground. “Cloudy, you're really starting to scare me.”

Dammit, this is exactly why I hadn’t wanted Blossom tagging along in the first place. To be honest, I had kind of hoped that spilling the beans on what I was planning to do might be enough to persuade her to go back to Ponyville instead of staying so stubborn about tagging along with me. After all, the main reason I was even letting her come along was that she’d be more trouble outside our group than in it. I took a deep breath, and reached out to place a hoof on her shoulder while trying to make my voice as gentle and reassuring as possible “Look, Blossom, everything’s gonna be okay.”

“How is it gonna be okay?” A note of hysteria entered her voice. “You’re planning to murder your mother! That’s not okay! That’s the exact opposite of okay! That’s okay's evil twin brother, intent on killing okay and burying it in a shallow grave by the train tracks!”

Before I could come up with some way to get Blossom to relax a little, Rainbow cut in with a question. “All this stuff is talking about how she’s been stealing defense info, but there’s nothing about who she’s working for other than mentioning that she’s working for some queen. Any idea who that is?”

I gave a helpless shrug. “No idea. Could be one of the Griffon Queens. There are plenty of dragons or other nasty things out there that have a big enough ego to call themselves Queens. It could even be some group of nobles within the court that want to overthrow Celestia. Hay, it could even be the Zebras or Saddle Arabians for all I know.” Sure, Equestria got along quite well with them, but even countries with friendly relations spied on each other. “Doesn’t really matter who it is she’s selling Equestria to, does it?”

Rainbow stubbornly crossed her forelegs over her chest. “Yeah, it kinda does. How the hay do you know it's treason if you don't know who she's giving this stuff to? Maybe the Princess sent her on a secret mission or this is some kind of under-the-table deal! For all you know she could be a double agent or something instead of a traitor!”

I suppose that was theoretically possible, but Rainbow was clutching at straws. Besides, if everything going on now was part of some big master plan of Celestia’s, I’d like to think that she wouldn’t leave my entire family completely in the dark about what was going on. She had to know an entire clan full of military ponies might be prone to doing something a bit rash if she withheld too much important information from us.

Blossom leaned over to take a quick look at the documents Rainbow had been going over. After a little bit of reading, her eyes went wide and she flattened her ears. “Okay, it looks bad. Really bad.” Her ears shot back up, and she looked me dead in the eye. “But I still think that matricide is going way too far!”

Rainbow nodded and casually tossed the incriminating document down before adding in her own two bits. “Yeah! How you gonna explain to Alula that you went and killed your mom, huh?”

“What am I supposed to do?” I snapped at the two of them. “Let 'Lula grow up as the daughter of a traitor? Do you know what having something like that hanging over her head would do to her? And it would kill Dad, not to mention it would destroy his career and position in the clan.”

Rainbow gawked at me as if I’d started speaking in Zebrican. “His career? You’re putting your dad’s career over your mother’s life? Are you serious?”

Before I could even start explaining that Rainbow was pretty seriously misinterpreting what I’d just said, Blossom came charging in to offer her own thoughts on the matter. “You really think bringing them her head won’t make things even worse?”

That one I at least had an easy answer for. “You think I’m planning on letting everypony know about this? As far my family and the rest of Equestria is going to know, my mother is gonna die valiantly in the line of duty.”

Rainbow stomped her hooves on the ground and let out a furious snort. “Oh, so that's what this is about. You don't really give a flying feather about Equestria or your mom—you just want to make sure your precious clan's reputation for honor and loyalty doesn’t get messed up by her. What’s next, talking about how she’s not really a part of your family because she married into the Kickers? Or maybe—”

I missed whatever Rainbow was about to say next, on account of being just a little distracted by a white hoof smacking me in the face. Her next comment was clear enough. “Go Blossom! I think I’m gonna give you a raise just for that.”

I admit, I was pretty stunned at getting slapped by Blossom of all ponies. I mean, she’d just kind of whimpered and taken it when I’d completely lost my cool and said some very hurtful things to her, but my mom turning traitor was enough to push her over the edge into smacking me?

While I slowly brought a hoof up to my cheek in dull surprise, Blossom went into full screaming rant mode. “You have a lot of nerve, just writing your mother off like that! There is nothing—nothing—in Equestria worth killing your own mother over! Honor, duty, career, none of it!” Rainbow solemnly nodded her agreement.

For a very brief moment, I was tempted to point out that she seemed to know an awful lot about the importance of mothers for a pony who didn’t have one. Thankfully, my common sense asserted itself before I could say something that unforgivably stupid and hurtful. Again.

Still, the fact that I was even thinking of saying something that hurtful had to be a sign that I was getting a bit too worked up. Not that anypony could blame me for getting worked up about something like this. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down just a bit before answering her. “Nothing’s worth killing my mother? Not even the rest of my family? She's more important than 'Lula, Dad, Aunt Wind, my cousins, and everypony else?”

“Only when she doesn't ruin their careers, apparently,” Blossom shot back acidly.

Dash hit me with a glare, and her voice turned icy cold. “Kicker ... you've done a lot of stupid things, but I think you might be setting a new record with this one. Seriously, you’re really gonna kill another pony, your feathering mother, just for the whole stupid clan and duty thing? Can you imagine what Fluttershy would think if she found about this?”

I had a pretty good idea how Eepy would react to seeing me kill; it was why I had been so adamant about not letting her come along. Eepy would never be able to look at me the same way after she saw me with blood on my hooves, especially the blood of another pony. Hay, if Rainbow wasn’t okay with the idea of me breaking out lethal force on a traitor to all ponykind, how would the gentle-natured pacifist take it? Having Eepy be scared of me, or treat me like some kind of monster, would just about break me.

I was starting to get a little annoyed with Rainbow—using Eepy on me like that was a pretty dirty move, and she and Blossom both were starting to go from being shocked at some huge revelations to just being downright nasty. Either way, this conversation was starting to get me a bit hot under the collar, and I wanted it over. Preferably before somepony blew their top completely. “She was trading away stuff about our defenses to whoever she’s spying for. If somepony attacks Equestria, who do you think's gonna be on the frontlines of the attack? Which ponies are gonna be the first ones to die?”

“You can’t be absolutely one hundred percent sure that she did any of that,” Blossom insisted stubbornly. “'Probably' isn't good enough when you’re talking about killing somepony! Especially not your own mother!”

“Well, I can’t be absolutely one hundred percent certain that you’re not just a figment of my imagination, Blossom.” I gave an annoyed little flick of my tail. “There’s a lot of very good evidence saying my mom’s guilty. That’s not to mention the fact that 'Lula got sick with something nopony recognized right when she needed me distracted. The timing on that is just a little too convenient for me to believe it was a coincidence.”

Rainbow let out an incredulous huff and rolled her eyes at me. “Oh come on! Now you're accusing your mom of poisoning your sister too?”

Blossom shot me a look that was about halfway between annoyed and condescending. “Um, hello? Just about everypony was sick. Feather flu season, anypony?”

“Whatever it was that made ‘Lula feel so bad, it wasn't the feather flu.” I shot Blossom a meaningful look. “Trust me, I’m pretty familiar with the symptoms by now. Besides, I stopped by the clinic real quick before I left town—my mother said she took ‘Lula there to get checked out, but Redheart didn’t remember it.”

“That doesn’t prove anything!” Blossom insisted. “Fillies get sick, that’s just how things work. And maybe Redheart wasn’t at the clinic when your mother brought Alula in, or maybe she just forgot—it would be weeks ago by now. Besides, why would she even do something like that? Your sister was mostly well before she even went missing.” Blossom set her hooves on the ground and tried her best to glare me down. “She. Is. Your. Family, Cloudy, and with one as big as your clan is, I thought that meant something.”

Okay, accusing me of not caring about my own clan was really pushing things. The whole reason I was doing this was for the good of my clan. “Family’s more than a single pony, Blossom. If she's gonna betray Equestria and tell some foreign power how to kill the rest of my family, then she isn't my mother anymore.”

Rainbow exploded at that. “Oh feather you, if that’s what you really think! Your mom is always gonna be your mom no matter what! And if—if—she's betraying Equestria, then we'll bring her back and let the Princess or the guards deal with her. Alive. Even if she's guilty of backstabbing Princess Celestia and everypony else, you don't get to commit murder just because you don't want your family getting embarrassed!”

Ugh, they just didn’t get it. Maybe it’s because Rainbow and Blossom don’t really know what it’s like to have a huge extended family the way I do. Even Rainbow only had her moms and a couple other relatives like that uncle of hers. “So according to you, one traitor's life counts for more than the rest of my family.” I broke out the sarcasm. “Yeah, sure, that makes sense. Save the pony who turned against clan and country, even if it destroys 'Lula and Dad and everypony else in the process.”

“Yes, they’ll be upset when they find out about your mother,” Blossom conceded, though the way she was scowling at me kept it from seeming like much of a concession. “But they'll live, and recover. Because they haven’t been murdered.”

“Exactly!” Rainbow shouted at me. “Are you seriously saying that some embarrassment and a career are more important than a pony's life?” She spread her wings and alternately lifted and lowered them like they were a set of scales she was using to weigh the two options—right up until she shot me a disgusted look and smacked me upside the head with one of them. “Yes, your mother counts for more, you moron!”

I facehoofed—what was I supposed to say to make them understand that I had to do this? “It's not just embarrassment, it's the legacy and honor of the entire clan at stake here! We’ve got more than nine hundred years of—”

“Yeah, whatever.” Rainbow cut me off. “You and your huge family that’s almost as old as Celestia. You know what? Big. Feathering. Deal. Get over it, and get over yourself. What's your clan’s legacy and honor worth if you have to lie and kill in order to protect it? I don’t really get all this doodie stuff you keep going on about, but there’s gotta be something wrong if you’re preserving your family’s honor by doing a whole lot of dishonorable stuff.”

Okay, she had a pretty good point there, but at the same time... “So what, I just let her bring my entire clan crashing down?”

“Your clan’s been around for more than nine hundred years,” Blossom countered, stepping up to gently place a hoof on my chest. “Do you really think a single bad apple is enough to destroy all of that? Besides, it's a risk worth taking. Because family matters.”

Dammit, this argument had been going on way too long, because now all the stuff they were saying was starting to make just a bit too much sense. No, I couldn’t let them change my mind. I had to stick with this, do what was right for my family, no matter how nasty it was. “Yeah, family matters. That's why I have to stop her from hurting my family any more than she already has.”

Rainbow snorted and gave an angry wave of her hoof. “Oh please! You didn't care that much about your family's reputation when you ran out on your graduation.” One of my ears started twitching—why did she just have to go there? “Or is that what this is all about for you?” Rainbow rolled her eyes at me and made air quotes with her hooves. “Is this some sort of stupid attempt at 'making things right' or something? You kill your mom and bury her dirty little secret and that balances everything out? Pff. You're not being loyal or honorable—just selfish.”

Blossom nodded, then hit me with an utterly uncompromising glare. “Cloud Kicker, you’re not acting like the mare I fell in love with. You’re acting like a completely different pony, and I’m not sure I like her.”

Okay, that hurt. Blossom and I had been close for a long time, and now it sounded like she was darn close to calling it quits with me over this. Considering some of the stuff she’d put up with over the years, it really stung that me trying to do right by my family was what seemed to be pushing her over the edge. “Look, Blossom, I know you’re not used to seeing my dutiful side, but—”

“You’re damn right you’re full of doodie!” Rainbow took a couple steps forward and shoved her face so far into my personal space that our noses were practically touching. “So what’re you gonna do if we don't go along with your whole crazy plan? Suppose I say that I'm gonna tell everypony what your mom did. You gonna kill me to save your family's rep? Or Blossomforth?”

Whoa, where the hay did that come from? I looked at Rainbow like she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “Of course I wouldn't! That’s crazy, Rainbow!”

“You're the one wearing wing blades,” Blossom snapped at me. “If you’re willing to kill your own mother for some stupid honor thing, then who knows how far you’ll go? Most ponies would put their mother above their friends.”

It was like beating my head against a brick wall! It’s like they thought being willing to kill a single traitor who was a threat to everything I knew and loved meant I was some sort of bloodthirsty kill-crazy madmare who was just gonna go running up and down Mane Street butchering everything that came within reach of my wing blades. “It's not—you don't understand! I...” I sighed and sank down to the ground. “You think I want to kill her?”

“Well I’ve got good news for you, Kicker,” Rainbow sat down and brushed a hoof over her chest. “You don't have to kill your mom anymore, because the truth's coming out either way. I’ll just tell everypony what happened.” Rainbow gave a very self-satisfied nod. “Check and mate. I win.”

“You bet your rump we will,” Blossom chimed in her agreement. “If you’re gonna insist on being so stupid about killing your mother to hide what she’s done, then we’ll just take that option away.”

My face fell at their proclamations. “You can't just go and tell everypony!” Even if I burned all the evidence so they didn’t have any proof, just putting the accusation out there would be enough. After all, Rainbow had the whole Savior of Equestria thing going for her—if she went public a lot of ponies would believe her. “Rainbow ... Blossom ... please. You don't know what you'd be doing to my family.”

“I wouldn't be killing one of them.” Blossom stuck to her point mule-headedly. “That puts me a step above what you’re doing. Plus I'd be finding a way to undo whatever damage you think she's done to Equestria. If she really is a traitor or a spy or whatever, won’t the Guard want to interrogate her or something? That’s how it usually works in spy books.”

Okay, she had a legitimate point there, much as I hated to admit it. We didn’t even know who my mother was working for right now, and if we killed her out of hoof we would never know. At the very least, I needed to drag that piece of info out of her before I finished her off. Maybe we would get lucky—since we were headed for the place where she was supposed to rendezvous with the higher-ups, maybe we could just take her down, then stick around and snag her contact. That way we bring back the intel, and tell everypony my mother died heroically capturing this spy. Nopony would believe the spy when he claimed that the pony who gave her life to help capture him was actually a traitor. The clan’s honor would be safe, and we wouldn’t mess things up for the rest of Equestria in the process.

Now to just explain all that to them. “Look, guys, there’s a way to make sure Equestria’s safe without messing things up for the rest of my clan in the process. We just have to—”

“Oh, enough about your stupid clan honor already!” Rainbow snapped throwing her hooves into the air with a frustrated shout. “Look, I met your family, and I guess they’re pretty cool for a bunch of ponies with sticks up their plots, but I really don’t care about them right now. You're the pony I'm worried about, not your whole clan and their inflated sense of honor. You may think you’ve got some kind of duty or something, but I know what it'd do to you if you went through with this featherbrained scheme.” Okay, you know Dash is being serious when she actually uses the word duty properly instead of using the excuse to make a joke even Dinky would think is immature.

I’ll admit, I’d been trying real hard not to think about how the hay I was going to deal with having my mother’s blood on my hooves. I couldn’t afford to worry about how I would handle the aftermath of this whole mess right now. I could deal with the trauma later, after the mission was over. You have to keep your priorities straight. “Yeah, it’s not gonna be an easy thing to deal with, but I have to do this, Rainbow. I have to.”

Rainbow took a step forward and very deliberately planted her hooves on the ground. She met my gaze challengingly. “If that’s how it is, then I have to stop you.”

A second later Blossom was at her side, looking every bit as stubborn as Rainbow. “Me too.” Blossom swallowed, and a slightly nervous tremble passed through her body as she added. “If you're going to kill the mare who raised you, then you can cut through two of your closest friends, friends who love you so much that they’d rather die than watch you do this to yourself.” Blossom gave another little shudder, and Rainbow put a wing over her back before returning her attention fully to me, pawing at the ground and practically daring me to call their bluff.

Needless to say, that wasn’t happening. There’s no way in Tartarus I could do something like that to either one of them, and they both knew it. They were just trying to guilt-blackmail me into backing off on the whole Mom issue, because they still didn’t seem to get that there’s a huge difference between killing my mother and killing a traitor to clan and country who happened to be my mother. “So that's it, then? My entire clan's counting on me, and you two are determined to make sure I let them all down again?”

“Horsefeathers they're counting on you to do some in-house wetwork,” Blossom grumbled under her breath.

Rainbow gave a sharp nod to show her agreement with Blossom, then glowered at me. “Let them down again, huh? So this is just some sort of stupid thing you’re trying to do to make up for not being a good little soldier. Sheesh, does your clan know that you're gonna kill your mom for them? ‘Cause somehow, I don't think your dad and everypony else would like you making that kind of decision for them.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes at her. “Of course they don't know. Think, Rainbow! The entire point of getting rid of her and saying she died in the line of duty is to make sure nopony aside from the three of us ever knows what she did!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes right back at me twice as hard. “Well if your family doesn’t know, then how the hay can you be sure that your clan would even want you to do this? Maybe if you actually asked your dad, y’know, the pony who’s out there busting his flank right now trying to find your mom, he’d tell you that she counts for more than all that stupid honor and legacy stuff! Maybe he’d tell you that you’re being a feathering idiot, and that you need to stop being so stupid!”

I buried my face in my hooves and let out a frustrated scream. “Dammit! I never should've told you two! I thought I could trust you, and instead you're—”

“We’re what?” Blossom demanded, abandoning her position at Rainbow Dash’s side to fly up into my face. “Telling you to stop and think before you kill somepony you love? Telling you to think before you do permanent damage to somepony else? Telling you that maybe, just maybe, you should be absolutely sure before you go and commit murder?”

Blossom dropped down to the ground, and hesitantly reached out to put a hoof on my chest. “Cloudy, this isn’t you. You’ve somehow gotten it into your head that you have to do this thing, but you don’t. You’re a good pony. Please ... I’m trying to stop you before you do something that you’re going to end up hating yourself for.”

“Yeah, we’re just trying to be the voices of reason here,” Rainbow added. Okay, I’ll admit that gave me a pretty compelling reason to sit down and think. When Rainbow Dash of all ponies tells you that you need to sit down and think things through before you go off and do something dangerously impulsive...

Rainbow was staring at me with a thoughtful little frown on her face. “I just really don’t get it. You really thought we'd be okay with you offing your own mom? Either you don't know us at all or...” Rainbow trailed and eyes widened “...or you never wanted to kill her at all. You told us because you want us to stop you. Like, on an unconscious level. You don’t wanna kill her, but you can’t find a way out that’ll satisfy all your stupid clan honor stuff, so you tell us so we can talk you out of it.”

Before I could even figure out how to answer that Blossom frowned at me and tossed out a question. “Cloudy. Do you want to kill your mother? Forget all about what you think the honor of your clan and your weird sense of duty tell you, and just answer that one simple question. Do you want to kill her?”

I tried not to think about that question. I’d been trying not to think about it ever since I realized what I had to do for the sake of my clan. Now that Blossom had put it out there, though, I couldn’t ignore the issue any longer. The uncomfortable truth that I’d been trying very hard to ignore ever since I found out Mom had turned traitor came boiling out. “Of course I don't wanna kill her! She's my feathering mom!”

“Then don’t!” Blossom and Rainbow both shouted at me at almost exactly the same time. Rainbow had a bit more to say than just that, though. “Nopony's making you! Not the Princess, not your clan, not even you! You don’t wanna kill her, so just—just stop!”

I wanted to. Celestia, I wanted to. But no matter how much I wanted to just forget about this whole thing... “But the honor of my entire clan is at stake here.” My voice sounded weak, like even I didn’t really believe what I was saying. Probably because I didn’t.

Rainbow sighed and shook her head, then fluttered up to put a hoof on my shoulder. “Cloud Kicker, every pegasus clan in Equestria backed the wrong pony in the Rebellion except for yours. And you know what? They're all doing just fine.”

Despite the utter seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t help letting out a tiny little snort of laughter at that. “Uh, Rainbow? The clans that weren’t just outright killed off during the war were all forcibly disbanded.” There’s a reason Derpy’s family is just her parents and her brother instead of the massive extended clan that I’ve got, even though the Doos were about on par with the Kickers back in the day.

Rainbow’s face fell, and she gave a frustrated little flick of her ear. “Oh. Guess that’s what I get for sleeping through all my history classes. Anyway,” Rainbow hastily changed the topic, “that's not important. My real point was, are you so sure your clan cares so much about its honor that it'd want you to kill your own mom? What do you think that'll do to you, having to comfort Alula for something that you did?”

“Your mother's life is on the line.” Blossom looked me in the eyes and worried at her lower lip. “Especially if you're wrong ... Cloud. Could you really live with yourself—hay, could your oh-so-important clan live with it if you killed her and found out afterwards that you were wrong?”

I sighed and sat down—even though Rainbow and I hadn’t flown all that far or hard today, I felt tired. Drained, and not in a good, post-Orgy Night kind of way. “I know, Blossom, I know. I know that things look really bad, though there’s always a chance Mom’s innocent. But I can't stop thinking about everything else too. How a century from now, we're gonna be the clan that always stayed loyal ... until my dad was in charge. How 'Lula's gonna spend her whole life with the shadow of being a traitor's daughter hanging over her head. How am I supposed to handle all of this? I’ve got the fate of my entire family resting on my shoulders, and if I feather it up...”

My eyes started stinging, and my vision got watery. Well that’s just great—my family’s counting on me to take care of this, and here I am just sitting around and crying like a little filly. Rainbow silently trotted up and wrapped a wing over my shoulders. Though she’d deny it vigorously if you ever said it to her face, Dash can be a real sweetheart sometimes.

I let out a frustrated little sob and moved up against Rainbow. “It doesn't make any sense! Why would Mom even go traitor? Sure, the evidence is all there to say that she did it, but I don’t understand why! Money? We've got enough. Power? Sure, Mom's always been ambitious, but not that kind of ambitious. It doesn't fit!” I ran a hoof over my eyes. “But why she did it doesn't really matter, because there’s no reason that could change the fact that this is gonna rip the heart out of my entire family!”

“You’re right.” Rainbow tightened her wing around me. “None of this whole thing with your mom turning traitor makes any sense. So maybe we should go find her and get to the bottom of this. If she’s guilty we pound some answers out of her, and if something else is going on we figure out what it is and take care of it.”

Blossom stepped up and nuzzled me before gently guiding my head onto her shoulder. “Cloudy, we want to do whatever it takes to help you. But killing your mother isn't going to get you the answers you're looking for. It's just going to drive away the other ponies who're looking for them.” I felt Blossom shake a little as I buried my head into her shoulder. “And it’s going to drive us away from you.”

I wanted to promise the two of them that I wouldn’t kill my mother, but much as I hate to say it, I couldn’t completely rule out that possibility. Let’s face it, if Mom really was a traitor she wasn’t likely to come along quietly. If she tried to make a serious fight of it, holding back and trying to avoid using any potentially lethal strikes could get all of us killed. Rainbow might be good in a schoolyard scuffle, but she’d never gone up against a fully armed and armored Guard. Neither had I, unless you counted training and friendly sparring matches. Even then, all that training was seven years back, so I was probably a little rusty—not to mention that I’d learned wing blade combat from Mom in the first place.

We could deal with that when we got to it, though. No sense worrying about how a full-force fight with my mother would go when I couldn’t even be sure if that fight would happen or not. My shoulders shook a little, and I wiped my eyes against Blossom’s coat. “Yeah, okay. We look for answers first, then we decide where to go from there. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow slowly wrapped her forelegs around me. “C'mere, you dodo.” Blossom joined in on the hug, carefully avoiding my wing blades, while Rainbow held me, gently rubbing a hoof up and down my back as best she could through my armor. “S'okay, Kicky. Everything’s gonna be okay...”

For a while I just let the two of them hold me. Nopony said anything for a while—sometimes words aren’t needed to really communicate. Eventually, I managed to choke out something resembling a sentence. “Maybe she's not—maybe somepony is mind controlling her or somepony’s trying to make it look like she’s stabbing Equestria in the back or something, and she's not really...”

“Maybe.” Rainbow whispered back. “But whatever's going on, me and Blossom are here to help you through it, okay? You don't have to do this alone. We’ve got your back.” Blossom nodded emphatically, before leaning in to nuzzle my cheek. “It'll be okay,” Rainbow continued. “No matter what happens, I can guarantee you that you’re gonna be okay. Know why?”

“Why?”

Blossom kissed me on the cheek. “Because we're with you.”

“And because you're Cloud Kicker, one of the most awesomest ponies out there.” Rainbow puffed her chest out a bit. “And of course, you’ve got me along with you, and we all know I’m the coolest pony in the history of cool ponies. Between the two of us, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Blossom gave a very weak little smile at both of us. “So I guess that means my job is to keep your hooves on the ground, because if you two don’t have somepony keeping an eye on the two of you then your egos will run rampant.”

It wasn’t the best joke I’ve ever heard in my life, but under the circumstances it was good enough to get a laugh out of me. “Yeah. Thank you, both of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I gave Rainbow a peck on the cheek, and Blossom a kiss that was decidedly less platonic in nature.

Rainbow blushed just a bit, though I’m not sure if it was because I’d kissed her or because she was still kind of hugging me and Blossom while we were kissing. She let out a nervous little chuckle and idly ran a hoof through her mane. “Heh, well, you'd do the same for me.”

I broke the kiss with Blossom, and just went back to hugging them. “Thanks. I love you both to bits, you know? Not exactly the same kind of love, before Pinkie gets worried, but it’s still love.”

Blossom didn’t hesitate to return the sentiment, but Rainbow was her usual self. “Yeah, well, uh ... me too. You know, stuff. Yeah.” Rainbow very loudly cleared her throat and tried to shift the topic away from the whole feelings and emotions thing. “Okay, that’s enough of this sappy stuff!” Rainbow tried to use one of her hooves to noogie me, but my helmet kind of got in the way. Unperturbed, Dash turned to me. “We’re camping out here, aren’t we? You better have brought enough snacks for s’mores, or I'm kicking your butt!”

After a night full of stressing out and not getting nearly as much sleep as I should’ve, we got moving again. If we had set a fast enough pace we might have been able to make it to the cave where my mother was supposed to be meeting with whoever it is she’s working for before we had to camp for the night. It was probably a lucky thing Mom had to go to ground in order to duck all the ponies who were out looking for her, or she might be long gone by now.

Pushing ourselves too hard would just mean that we would all be exhausted by the time we actually got to my mom’s hideout, though. Taking her on when the three of us were all tired and worn out wouldn’t end well. That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t push as hard as I could, though.

It’s not that Blossom’s in bad shape. Spending all day and quite a few nights on your wings doing weather work is gonna put some muscle on a pony. It’s just that there’s a big difference between being reasonably fit, and hitting the Rainbow Dash level of athleticism. Plus, two weeks of relative bedrest due to the feather flu probably hadn’t done her body any favors. Bottom line, when we set up camp for the night Rainbow and I felt fine, but Blossom was looking pretty bushed.

I had a bit of a dilemma on my hooves now. Back when I’d been in full cover-up mode, I didn’t have much choice about letting Blossom tag along. However, if I was gonna be operating a bit more out in the open, I had some options available to me. After all, if I headed into camp I could hook up with the rest of the clan, and getting somepony to keep Blossom out of harm’s way no matter how stubbornly determined she was to tag along with me wouldn’t be hard. While I appreciated the gesture and was glad she’d been there for me last night, the simple truth was that Blossom really didn’t belong here.

On the other hoof, while I wasn’t gonna jump at the chance to cover things up anymore, I’d still rather keep things discreet if I could. If I just walked into my Dad’s camp and told them exactly where to go, I’d have a lot of difficult questions to answer. Once it got out that there was evidence that Mom might be a traitor, she’d have a hard time shaking that stigma even if she turned out to be innocent. It would be a lot cleaner to just bring her home and never mention that for a while I thought she might have gone bad on us.

Hopefully I could sit Blossom down to talk about it—and hopefully she wouldn’t take it the wrong way when I did. I wasn’t too worried about getting her to understand the practical side of things. A day of reasonably strenuous flying was enough to make it pretty clear that, her initial optimism aside, she was gonna slow us down. The problem was that after the way things had gone last night, she might see it as me trying to get her out of the way so I could go all kill-happy. While Rainbow is a damn good pony, she’s probably not the best choice when you need a pony to exercise lots of moral restraint and authority. She’s got just a few too many vices of her own.

The conversation could wait for a bit, though. Right now Blossom was ravenously tearing into her share of our trail rations. Since my supplies had pretty much all come from raiding Derpy’s fridge, that meant she was eating muffins. Heh, Blossom was eating Derpy’s muffin.

We were about halfway through our meal when I heard something moving around in the trees. I instantly went on guard—we weren’t someplace like the Everfree where you couldn’t take five steps without running into a pony-eating monster, but there were plenty of ordinary wild critters like bears that might make things complicated. Normally a campfire would’ve scared any wild animals off, but I hadn’t wanted to risk one tonight. If the Guard or my clan had any patrols in the sky, we might as well have just started shooting off fireworks and shouting ‘Hey! We’re over here! Come find us!’

A couple seconds later a form emerged from the treeline. The good news was that it wasn’t a hungry bear or some other animal that might mess up our nice little campsite. The bad news was that it was a pony in red armor. One I recognized quite well—it might be a fairly dark night out, but that dark grey coat with the little flecks of white in it was fairly distinctive. Guess it figures that if we were gonna get found out by a pony, it would be her. Tracking and location spells were her special talent, after all. I decided to play it cool. “Hey Star, been a while. Wanna muffin?”

“Yeah, sure.” Star Kicker casually trotted into camp and found a comfortable patch of ground to settle down on before taking the offered muffin. Her silver-blue eyes looked the baked good over for a moment, then took a bite.

Rainbow and Blossom were both understandably confused by the arrival of this strange new pony, so I took it upon myself to handle the introductions. “Rainbow, Blossom, this is my cousin Star. Star, my friend Rainbow and fillyfriend Blossomforth.” Star idly waved to the two of them, and gave a proper greeting once she’d finished swallowing a mouthful of muffin.

“Your cousin?” Blossom frowned over at Star. “But she’s a unicorn. I thought the Kickers were a pegasus clan?”

Star let out an amused little snort as she pulled a twig out of her light-blue mane. “The Kickers have also spent nearly a thousand years living in a unicorn city. Is it really that much of a surprise?” She nibbled at her muffin for a bit, then shrugged and added, “If it’s any consolation, my sister Storm’s got wings.”

Looks like Star still had that wry sense of humor I’d tried very hard to encourage back when I’d been around the clanhold more often. Nice to know clan living and West Hoof hadn’t completely crushed her sense of fun.

While the two of us easily could’ve spent a couple minutes dancing around the subject and idly swapping small talk as if we’d just run into each other by happy coincidence, I wasn’t really in the mood for that, so I cut right to the chase. “So, how’d you find me?”

With a hint of a self-satisfied smirk, Star announced, “Mom put one of my trackers on your armor when she went to Ponyville to give you the news.”

Damn, I should’ve known Aunt Wind would pull something like that. I guess it made sense, really. Even before I found out about the whole ‘possibly a traitor’ thing, I’d been pretty tempted to armor up and go running out looking for Mom. I probably would’ve done the same thing if I were in Aunt Wind’s horseshoes.

“So,” I took a deep breath and slowly let it out, “what happens now?”

“Oh, I’ll escort the three of you to our basecamp.” Star floated the last bit of muffin into her mouth, and left us all waiting while she chewed and swallowed. “Your father and everypony else will be glad to see you, and we’ve got room for your friends to wait while we get this all sorted out.” She gave a conceding nod in Rainbow’s direction and amended, “I’m sure we could find something useful for ponies of their talents to do. If half of what I’ve heard about Rainbow Dash is true, slapping some armor on her and putting her in one of our patrol squads would be a very smart move.”

A scowl appeared on Blossom’s face, and her voice turned positively arctic. “So you expect me to just sit in your camp like a good little filly and not get in the way while Cloudy and everypony does the real work? I don’t think I like that idea.”

Rainbow took a couple steps forward and very deliberately placed herself at my side. “Thanks, but not happening.” Rainbow couldn’t help preening a bit as she announced. “As good as I’d make the rest of you look, especially if you guys gave me a really sweet set of armor or something, we’ve got things under control.”

I gave the two of them grateful nods—I really appreciated the backup, especially after how things had gone last night. “Well, you heard the ladies, cousin. They don’t wanna go, and I don’t think I want to either.”

Star let out a resigned sigh. “I told Mom you’d say that, but she insisted that we had to give you a chance to come in willingly.”

“Sounds like Aunt Wind.” While she wasn’t afraid of being forceful when she needed to, my aunt always did prefer a soft touch. Speaking of forceful... “So what happens now, Star? Are a dozen Kickers gonna drop out of the sky to ‘escort’ us to camp?” Sure, I couldn’t see a single pegasus in the sky, but at night it’s not exactly hard to hide if you’re high enough up.

Star chuckled and shook her head. “No, Mom figured that if I came in with a squad of ponies to back me up you’d get all defensive and angry, and there’d be no reasoning with you.” I’ll give Aunt Wind credit where it’s due, she was probably right about that. Sometimes diplomacy works a lot better when it isn’t blatantly backed up by the threat of force. “So for now, it’s just you and me sitting down and discussing things like a pair of reasonable ponies. So ... why are you pulling the whole solo act instead of working with the clan?”

I took a couple seconds to think about how best to explain it without giving anything away. “The situation’s gotten complicated.”

“So, cryptic reasons you refuse to explain to me.” Star always did seem to share her mother’s knack for getting right to the heart of things. “I’m guessing there’s no point in trying to get the rest of the story out of you?”

I couldn’t help grinning at her. “You catch on fast. Not even out of West Hoof yet, and you can already tell when a pony’s stonewalling you. I didn’t even have to break out the whole ‘need-to-know’ information line.”

Star smiled right back and gave an amused shrug. “I always was a fast learner.” She let out a heavy breath. “So, things have gotten messy, and for some reason you’ve gotta solve it while keeping the rest of us in the dark about it. I’m guessing that this is important enough to be worth running the risk that your father and Alula might lose two ponies they love at the same time?”

Okay, that line really would’ve stung if I wasn’t so sure that I had to do this. To hay with it, it still hurt thinking about something like that—the pain just didn’t change the fact that I had to take care of things on my own. “Yeah. It’s my mother. This is something I need to do for myself, even with all the risk that goes along with that.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Star grumbled under her breath. “I’m halfway tempted to just throw Mom’s whole diplomacy thing out the window and drag you back to camp by your tail. Lock you in a room with Mom for an hour, and you’d finally start giving straight answers instead of a bunch of cryptic comments that just make me wanna know more.”

Aunt Wind probably could pull that off—she’s annoyingly good at getting inside my head. Thankfully, I had a couple tricks to leverage on Star. “Yeah, I guess you could try that. Except that would mean crossing your cool older cousin who you’ve always looked up to.” Technically Star had a big sister already, but Storm was only a little more than a year older than her, while I was quite a bit older than both of them, so I’d kind of fallen into a cool big sister-ish role for both of them back when I’d still been around the clanhold on a daily basis.

Star didn’t give me any answer, and I knew I’d scored a point. Time to quickly follow it up before she got her hooves back under her. “Star, trust me, this is really important. It’s my mom, for Celestia’s sake. I can’t tell you what’s going on, not yet, but I promise you that I’ve got good reasons for doing this, and when everything’s over I will explain it. But for right now, I need you to have faith in me. Please?”

Star’s head dropped down, and for several seconds she studied the dirt intently. Finally, she made her decision. “Shadow’s teats, Mom warned me you’d try to talk me over to your side, but she didn’t tell me you’d be so good at it. Fine, you win.” She let out a very annoyed sigh. “I’m supposed to send up a flare when I find you, just to let ponies know. Red if we’re coming back on our own, green if you still need ... persuading. I can give you a fifteen minute head start before I give the signal.”

“Thanks, Star.” I gave my cousin a quick nuzzle. “Once this is all done I’ll help you hook up with that cute pony you’ve got your eye on.” I didn’t know for sure that there was such a pony, but Star was in the middle of that hormonal late-teen phase, so it was a pretty safe bet that there was.

Still, a fifteen minute head start wasn’t much—especially since it was night and all of us, especially Blossom, had already gone through a pretty rough day of flying. Even with a bit of lead time, we probably wouldn’t be able to avoid all the fresh and well-conditioned ponies looking for us. Unless we did something like split up, or have Blossom stick to her promise of serving as a distraction to pull all the patrols away.

Wait ... oh, that’s a great idea.

“Actually, cancel the whole head start thing, I’ve got something way better.” Star shot me a confused look, but gave me a chance to say my piece. “First things first, can you take that tracker off of my armor?” I grinned and gave her a teasing little nudge. “By the way, I did notice you didn’t mention that when you offered me that head start.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Star grumbled under her breath. Bluish-silvery light flared up from her horn, and a second later a tiny sapphire floated out from one of my shoulder joints. “Okay, tracker’s off.”

“And the backup one,” I prompted her.

Star let out another, much more annoyed grumble as she removed a second gem, this one hidden around the tail section of my armor. “Okay, you’re off the radar. Now what?”

Now came the tricky part. “Hey, Blossom, I know we’re a little early in our relationship for gems to be an appropriate gift, but since when have I been one to worry about what’s appropriate?” I took the two gems out of of Star’s telekinetic field and passed them over to Blossom.

It took Blossom a couple seconds to figure out exactly what I was up to. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I offered to help.”

“Well, you did say you were willing to serve as a distraction.” I stole a quick kiss from her before I turned back to Star. “So, here’s what I’m thinking: you followed your trackers and found Blossom here flying around with both of them. Blossom, our story is that I found the trackers and hoofed them over to you so that you could throw everypony who’s keeping an eye out for me off track.”

Blossom was scowling at me, but compared to how pissed she’d been at me last night this was a pretty mild state of fury. “When I offered to serve as a distraction I wasn’t being serious, and I certainly wasn’t planning on leaving you in the process.” She took a step closer to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “I want to stick with you on this.”

I sighed and gently nuzzled her hoof. “I know, but things have changed. Besides, I’ve still got Rainbow with me.” Hopefully that should calm any worries she might have about me flying completely off the handle.

Blossom’s glare intensified, but when she spoke I could hear a hint of pain in her voice. “Yeah, but she’s not me.”

Damn, I hated seeing her hurting like this, but this was just how things had to be. It got the clan off my tail for enough time to get things done, and put Blossom somewhere safe and far away from the action. “I know, sweetie, but if we all end up stuck in camp...”

Blossom petulantly crossed her forelegs over her chest. “So why isn’t Rainbow being the red herring instead?”

“‘Cause I’m blue,” Rainbow answered with her usual level of subtlety. “Also, I’m a little too fast for ‘em to try and keep up with. Besides, you kinda suck at fighting.”

I applied hoof to face. “Smooth, Rainbow. It’s a wonder you don’t have a cutie mark in diplomacy.”

Blossom’s wings flared out a bit. “Hey, I held my own against Flu—okay, bad example.” She sighed and shuffled her wings uncertainly as she turned back to me. “I just hate being left out of this, Cloudy.”

“I know. You are helping, okay?” I stepped up and gave her one last kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” She gave me a second kiss just for good measure, then reluctantly broke away from me. “I just hate waiting, y’know?”

Considering how crazy I’d been going waiting for word about what happened to Mom before the world went and turned itself upside-down, I could definitely relate. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back before you have time to miss us.”

Blossom was still frowning, but at least she didn’t seem outright mad at me anymore. “Be careful, okay? Don’t make me come looking for you.”

“Yes ma’am.” I snapped off a salute to her.

Star let out a snort and smirked at the both of us. “Done yet, lovebirds?”

“Oh, shut up,” Blossom grumbled.

Star rolled her eyes, and blew her light-blue mane out of her eyes as she returned her attention to me. “Anyway, Cloud, use this if you need it.” She hoofed over another one of her enchanted gems, though this particular gem was of noticeably low quality even to my untrained eye. “Granted, if you do use it I’m so busted, so try not to.”

“Will do.” I recognized this particular little trick of Star’s. Ever since her magic came in she’s had a real knack for making little enchanted gems, even though her talent’s in tracking spells and other sorts of location-based magic. Anyway, this particular little gem was one of her staples—smash the gem, and it would send a message back to Star. Given how tricky any kind of communication magic was (unless you had a dragon to serve as a direct line to Princess Celestia) those little gems were all kinds of useful, especially for the two-thirds of ponykind who can’t cast spells at all.

The fact that she had one of those gems on her said a lot. Sure, maybe she just happened to be carrying one of her communication gems in case she needed it, that was plausible. It was also plausible that my aunt sent out my little cousin on the grounds that if anypony could talk some sense into me, it was her. However, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe my aunt, with her keen insight into the equine mind, had actually guessed that I might talk Star around, and made sure that if I did she could still do something to help me out.

I guess it didn’t really matter either way—I still had to go find my mom regardless. “Alright ... well, I’ll be back with my mom.” One way, or another.

With Blossom and Star covering for us, we didn’t have any trouble getting to the rendezvous point the next day.

It was a cave, an ordinary looking little hole in the ground. Well, the side of a hill, but whatever. I’d been expecting something ... more than just that. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to find—I knew from the papers I’d found at Mom’s place that it was gonna be a cave. I don’t know, it’s just that the place seemed so small and insignificant. Considering just how huge whatever was in there was gonna be for me and my entire family, the place should really be a bit bigger and grander than just some dank little cave.

Rainbow settled down next to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, you know that whatever’s in there, I got your back, okay?”

I took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yeah.” I shot her a quick smile. “Thanks, Rainbow.”

“‘S no big deal,” Rainbow replied with surprising modesty. “You’d do the same for me.”

“Yeah, I would.” There was a short little pause as I pondered just what to do with Rainbow. A hug or kiss didn’t feel right for this moment—we were about to go into battle, now wasn’t the time to start getting all sappy and stuff. After a little bit of thought, we settled on the old standby of a hoof bump. For a very brief moment, I envied Pinkie Pie—Dash really was one hay of a mare.

I mentally prepared myself, and the two of us stepped into the cave.

It didn’t look much like the classic image of a cave. No stalactites and stalagmites or small, cramped tunnels; just a single big, empty cavern. Judging by a couple sets of very old, parallel gashes in the walls and floors, I guessed that something like an Ursa or a young dragon had used this place as a home. Hay, the creature might have hollowed the entire lair out on its own.

Whatever the case, the place’s original inhabitant was long gone, and it had thoughtfully left behind a nice big cave for us to use. There were a couple patches of some strange green substance spread around the cave that gave off an easy phosphorescent glow bright enough for us to see by, if not as well as I would like.

My first instinct was to keep things quiet and low-key until we knew what was going on, but unfortunately I was here with Rainbow Dash. “Hey!” my less-than-subtle companion shouted. “Whoever’s here, come out right now, and tell us what the hay’s going on here!”

After a couple seconds of eerie silence, something started moving within the shadows of the cave, and my mother slowly trotted out into the light. Her armor’s uniform enchantment was apparently off, but aside from her coat being its natural light yellow and her close-cropped mane being brown she looked the very image of a proper Royal Guard. Certainly not like a pony who was being held against her will, or was stuck hiding because of some horrible misunderstanding. “Rainbow Dash, Cloud,” she said our names casually, as if we’d just happened to pass her on the street instead of running into each other in the middle of a cave out in the middle of nowhere.

I really wasn’t in the mood for beating around the bush, so I just pulled out the papers I’d snagged from her cloud-house and slammed them down in front of her. “Explain.”

Mother trotted up to the stack of papers and flipped through a few of them, an annoyed grimace forming on her face. “So, you found my papers. That is ... inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient?” Dash exploded. “We find a whole bunch of evidence that says you went and betrayed the Princess and your entire feathering family, and all you have to say about it is that it’s feathering inconvenient?”

“Yes,” my mother replied levelly.

I needed a couple seconds to calm down, or else I would end up mirroring Rainbow’s reaction. That stoic calmness was pretty darn infuriating, not to mention that her not even being a little surprised by the evidence didn’t say good things about her potential innocence. “Mom, please. Give me some kind of explanation for all of this. Tell me you were framed, or it isn’t what it looks like, just ... something. Anything.”

My Mom very slowly shook her head. “It is as it seems,” she announced simply. “For the last year I have undermined the defenses of all of Equestria in the service of my queen.”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach as she confirmed my worst fears. “Why?” The question echoed through the cave, having left my lips before I even knew I’d asked it.

My mother looked at me as if I’d asked her why the sky was blue. “As I said, my actions were all performed in the service of my queen.”

“That’s not an answer!” I didn’t even realize I was screaming at her until I heard my voice echoing through the cave. “And who in the hoof is this queen of yours anyway?”

“You do not require that information.” Something about the way she said that just infuriated me all the more. Not only was she admitting she was a traitor and completely shutting me out and refusing to tell me anything about why the hay she had done this, but she was just being so distant. Mom’s never been all that great at the touchy-feely stuff, but she was acting like a total stranger, like the bond between mother and daughter meant absolutely nothing to her.

“So that’s how it is, huh? Fine.” I’d given Mom a more than fair chance to offer some kind of feathering explanation or something, and she’d turned me down flat. That left me with exactly one option for resolving things. “We’re taking you back to camp. Take off that armor—traitors don’t deserve to wear a Guard uniform. You’d best drop the wing blades, too.”

“Unacceptable.” Mom snapped her wings open, brandishing her blades. Rainbow and I both went tense, but she didn’t make any further hostile movements. “You will leave this place immediately, and inform none of my presence here.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Rainbow snapped at her. “You’re going back to Canterlot to answer for your crimes. The only choice you’ve got is whether we do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

“Rainbow,” I hissed under my breath, “be careful. She’s got blades and armor, you don’t. You should—”

“Cloud,” Rainbow cut me off and whispered right back, “If you start spouting off some horseapples about how this is something you’ve gotta take care of yourself without any help from me, I’m gonna smack you silly.”

“Feather that.” One thing I’ll say for West Hoof’s training, they do a good job of getting silly romantic notions like that out of a pony’s head. “I’m fixing to go blade-to-blade with a pony whose special talent is bladework—I need all the help I can get. I’m just saying, be careful. You’re gonna have to time things just right if you wanna land a hit that’ll count and not get sliced up in the process.”

“Oh. Cool.”

Thankfully, things weren’t quite that grim. After all, my mother wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore. Not to say she was ancient or anything, but she was hitting the age where she was getting older and slower, while I was still in my prime. Of course, there was the slight detail of me being just a bit rusty with my blades. Hopefully a little mortal peril would be enough to bring all those skills flooding back before I ended up dead.

Rainbow was a pretty big advantage for me too. Sure, she might not have a good weapon for busting through Mom’s armor or any armor of her own, but she was still a second combatant on the field. Especially as, given Dash’s speed, Mom would have to keep a close eye on her or risk getting outflanked or hit from behind. Even if Dash didn’t do much damage herself, that would create openings for me.

That still left the matter of Mom having a talent for wing blade combat. That was a pretty huge advantage, but I’d figured out a long time ago that there are tricks to get around it. Sure, Mom would win any straight wing blade fight, but that just meant I’d have to be an idiot to actually take her on with nothing other than my own wing blades.

Mom and I slowly closed on each other, warily looking over each other’s defenses and searching for openings. Mom’s stance looked a bit different from what I remembered, but she was probably deliberately changing things up to throw me off. We’d sparred often enough that I was reasonably familiar with how she fought. Thankfully, I’d also made a few adaptations of my own over the years.

Mom took a couple swings at me. Nothing too serious, she was just testing out my defenses and reaction time. I should probably be doing the same, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to actually attack. Sure, I’d sparred with Mom plenty times in the past, but this was no sparring match. This time, if I got through and made a kill stroke, it wouldn’t end with a padded wing blade at her neck and the two of us laughing, or her telling me I did well. Dear Celestia, those sparring matches had been one of the ways we did a lot of the usual parent-child bonding. I’d never thought that one day I’d be putting all that training to work to actually kill her.

I saw something that might have been an opening, or might have just been Mom baiting me. Either way, I froze. I guess Blossom and Dash would’ve been glad to hear it, but I just couldn’t actually take a swing at her. It’s easy to talk about doing your duty for clan and country around the campfire at night, but now I was actually here, crossing blades with my own mother. I just couldn’t do it—I couldn’t go after my own feathering mother with the intent to kill.

If not for Rainbow Dash, I probably would’ve died. I might be freezing and choking, but Mom wasn’t having any problems in that regard. Thankfully, she was so sure she had me on the ropes that she stopped keeping an eye out for Rainbow, and Dash wasted no time jumping on that opening. Even without any weapons, Dash still slammed her hooves into Mom’s side hard enough to send her staggering.

Dash wasn’t quite fast enough at getting away though, and when Mom sent an awkward, off-balance slice at her I saw a bright line of crimson appear along one of Rainbow’s flanks. It looked like just a flesh wound thankfully, but that didn’t change the fact that Rainbow was bleeding. My mother had just drawn blood from one of the my best friends.

That hesitation I had about actually fighting my own mother went away in an instant. This fight wasn’t just about her and me—Rainbow’s life was on the line too. Sure, I could try to tell Rainbow to get out of there, but it would be easier to pull off a foursome with Celestia, Luna, and Discord than to convince Rainbow Dash to leave my side in the middle of a life-or-death fight. That made things pretty simple—if I didn’t get my head in the game, Rainbow was probably going to lose hers. I wasn’t okay with that.

I took the opening Dash had created for me, moving into ideal wing blade distance. Instead of making a wing blade strike like anypony would’ve expected me to do, I took another step forward and slammed a steel-shod hoof right into Mom’s face. I might not be able to beat her at bladework, but thanks to Dad’s Krav Pega lessons I had an advantage when it came to straight brawling.

Mom went staggering back, and I quickly stepped up and hit her again. And again, and again. If I eased up Mom might get her hooves back under her and then we’d be back to fighting an even match. Right now I was too close for her to effectively use her wing blades on me, and there was no way I was going to surrender such a huge advantage now that I had it. So instead I just kept pounding the feathers off of her, all the while desperately trying not to think about the fact that I was beating the hay out of the mare who’d given birth to me.

Mom tried to fend me off by wildly kicking out with her forelegs, but she didn’t have the leverage to make the blows really count, especially since her hooves were smashing into my breastplate instead of anything sensitive. Her real plan became apparent when she finally managed to land a solid hoof strike—thanks to my armor the attack didn’t hurt, but the force of it still stopped my advance in place, buying her a quick moment to slide back to wing blade range.

From anypony else I would’ve suspected that the next strike just got lucky—even for Mom, it was one hay of a well-aimed slice. Her blade slid right into the gap between my peytral and crinnet, and if I’d been a fraction of a second slower in pulling back I might have wound up with worse than a nasty cut at the base of my neck. Necks are a pretty important part of the equine anatomy, and I preferred mine intact.

I backed up further as Mom worked her blades through a series of defensive flurries. No sense in trying to take her on in a pure wing blade fight, and she couldn’t keep up such an intense defense for long. Let her tire herself out holding me off. I was pretty sure I’d come out of that exchange ahead.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a very close call with my mother’s wing blade just then—to be honest I was just a little shaken up by how close I’d come to dying. But aside from being a little shaken and losing a tiny bit of blood, I wasn’t too badly off. Mom, by contrast, had taken a good dozen hoof strikes to the face. With any luck, one of her eyes might swell shut, or I might have left a cut on her forehead bleeding down into an eye. I might have even busted her nose, which would mess up her breathing quite a bit.

Any one of those injuries could be a fight-ender. Not literally a fight-ender, but those sorts of wounds are the kind of things that turn an even match lopsided. If I knew it, then Mom almost certainly knew it too. “Time to throw in the towel and come quietly. It’s over—we both know you can’t win unless you get really lucky.”

Mom finally stopped whirling her blades in a defensive pattern, allowing me to get a good look at her face. To my immense disappointment she didn’t look nearly as battered as I’d expected—her face had a nice collection of budding bruises, but none of the game-ending injuries I’d been hoping for. I must have overestimated just how effective a hoof strike to the face is. In my defense, Krav Pega usually advises against hitting a pony in their face. After all, faces have a lot of hard bones in them, and you can usually get better results from hitting somewhere else. Too bad most of those places were covered by Mom’s armor.

To my further dismay, Mom’s defensive flurry hadn’t just kept me off of her for a while, it had also bought her time to fall back to the edge of the cave. Now she had a wall at her back, which would make it a lot harder for Rainbow to flank her.

This was just getting better and better.

Maybe the smart move would be to pull back and withdraw from the cave—have her follow us out into the open, where we’d have a sky’s worth of room in which to outmaneuver and double-team her. Not to mention I might be able to throw another couple surprises her way if I had access to some clouds.

There was just one problem with that plan: Mom would have to be an idiot to follow us into the open. Sure, Dash and I could just withdraw from the cave and keep an eye on the entrance while we tried to wait her out, but that assumed the cave only had the one way in and out. If Mom had been planning her little bolt-hole for a while, odds were she had another way out of there than the front door.

I still had the call stone I’d gotten from Star. Unless I got insanely lucky or things got weird the fight with Mom would be long over by the time anypony got here, but it’s not like I had anything to lose by using it. Besides, maybe the threat of it would be enough to make Mom back down. I pulled out the cheap piece of quartz. “Mom, I’m warning you. Surrender and come quietly, or I’ll bring the whole clan down on your head.”

“We both know they won’t arrive in time to save you,” Mom snapped at me. A second later a cruel smile appeared on her face. “I suppose I should thank you, though. I admit, some of my plans did not develop entirely to my satisfaction, and the fact that you found my papers earlier than planned was unfortunate.” She turned to Rainbow and shot her a particularly nasty smirk. “However, I’m sure my queen will overlook such minor affairs when I present her with the corpse of one of the Element Bearers.“

“Over my dead body!” Dash shouted back.

There was a brief and slightly awkward pause, then Mom let out an annoyed little huff. “That would be the idea in presenting your corpse, yes.”

If not for the fact that it would mean taking my eyes off of Mom, I would’ve facehoofed at Rainbow. I was a little tempted to ask what Mom meant about the whole finding her papers early thing, but it wasn’t hard to connect the dots on my own. Hay, I’d already gotten pretty close to guessing it. The scandal of finding out my Mom was a traitor would be a nasty body blow to the entire clan. Since from what I could tell she was done with whatever mission she’d been performing, I guess she must have decided to throw one last nasty little parting shot on her way out—thank Celestia it had backfired on her.

Well, it might be a little early to call that a goof on Mom’s part—she was still very much in the fight right now. First things first: I dropped the call stone and smashed it. Even a one-in-a-million chance that backup would get here before the fight was over was better than no chance at all. Plus, it might push Mom into rushing the fight, and ponies who are rushing are more likely to make mistakes.

Sure enough, Mom went on the offensive a second later. She wasn’t going for an all-out blitz, but she was definitely being a lot more aggressive than usual. After all, time was definitely not on her side right now, especially if she wanted to have enough of a head start to get away from the rest of the clan while lugging Rainbow’s body along to present it to whoever the hay her queen was.

I parried as fast as I could, but it was a lot of work just keeping those blades away from me. After all, Mom was quite possibly the best wing blade user in all of Equestria. Thankfully, all the blocking and dodging took every bit of concentration I had—for the first time since walking into that cave, I wasn’t worrying about the fact that I was fighting my own mother. There wasn’t any time to think about that, or anything else except the rapid-fire slash and riposte of battle.

Now that I was finally in the zone, I felt my body slipping into the old familiar rhythms—patterns of attack and counterattack and careful hoofwork Mom had spent countless hours drilling into my head, just so I’d be ready for a day exactly like today. Suddenly those attacks Mom kept sending my way didn’t seem so dangerous anymore.

In fact, now that my brain had finally kicked into pure adrenaline combat mode, I realized something I should’ve picked up on a lot sooner. Mom was fighting horribly. I’d been so wary of facing her blade combat that I hadn’t noticed that her skills weren’t anywhere near what they should be. The timing and coordination of just about every single attack was subtly wrong in ways your average pony might not grasp, but a skilled bladesmare could easily see. She was practically fighting like an amateur—like she knew how the moves were supposed to work, but her body just wasn’t used to fighting on that level.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this—there was no way Mom could be fighting this badly unless it was deliberate. What could it mean? Was she somehow being forced to fight against me, either through magical compulsion or something a bit more mundane? Maybe she really was some sort of double agent or something, and she had to put up a fight against me to maintain her cover?

Whatever the case, I wasn’t sure what to make of this change in the situation, so I decided to make an effort at getting a better handle on things. I didn’t throw any killing strikes, but I started escalating things beyond the level Mom was currently fighting at. Not much, but enough to let her know I’d figured something was up. If we started shifting tempo up and down, we would’ve managed some rudimentary form of communication just through bladework. I’d know something important—that as serious as this fight was, neither of us was out to kill the other.

Instead of matching my escalation, Mom actually got worse with her blades. Before long I started noticing gaping holes in her defenses, and I saw a hint of barely-concealed fear in her eyes. This wasn’t some sort of effort at communication. I was just plain outfighting her, and that fact terrified her. Something was very, very wrong here.

Before I could puzzle out what was going on, Rainbow let out a battlecry and charged in on Mom’s flank. A quick twist of my left wing and flick of my right let me lock both of Mom’s wings up above her head, leaving her completely exposed to Rainbow’s charge. There was nothing she could do but helplessly stare at the rapidly approaching pegasus.

And then something shifted in Mom’s throat. It was a strange sort of movement, and just subtly wrong. I’m not a doctor or anything, but when it comes to basic equine anatomy I know that a pony’s throat just isn’t supposed to move like that. A second later Mom’s mouth opened wide, and she hacked out a huge glob of some kind of green goo. The goo hit Rainbow in mid-air, and she dropped like a stone as it tangled up all six of her limbs. “What the feather?”

I turned back to the thing I’d spent the last minute or so fighting. “I don’t know what the hay you are, but you’re not my mother!”

The creature smirked at me, and then my mother’s form disappeared in a sudden flash of green fire. The thing that stood in her place only had the vaguest resemblance to an actual pony. It had the usual head, body and four legs of a pony, but instead of coat, mane, and tail the creature’s body was covered in insect-like black carapace with a horn-like protrusion on the forehead. In place of my mother’s feathered pegasus wings it had the wings of an overgrown housefly, and its eyes were soulless blue voids.

I said the first thing that came to mind. “You are one ugly bug.”

The beast opened its mouth, revealing a nasty set of fangs. “SKREEE!”

I slugged it across the face with one of my forehooves, but while the blow staggered the creature it didn’t seem to cause any lasting harm. I guess that explained why all my other punches hadn’t worked so well—I was going up against a creature with an exoskeleton. That kind of changes things.

On the bright side, the thing’s insectoid wings couldn’t support my mother’s wing blades, and the weapons collapsed to the cave floor. Her armor wasn’t sitting too well on it either, though with how tough its exoskeleton was having the armor sit awkwardly didn’t give me much of an advantage.

I quickly pulled my muzzle back as the thing snapped at me. Normally biting isn’t a big part of pony combat tactics, but ponies don’t have inch-long fangs. I countered with a wing blade to the face, which accomplished absolutely nothing against the creature’s carapace. The creature responded by smacking me in the face with one of its chitinous hooves, which hurt me a lot more than my similar strikes had hurt it.

Damn. If only I had a weapon that was better-suited to busting through armor. Wing blades need a certain degree of finesse. If I had a couple minutes to sit this thing down and study it I’m sure I could find all the little chinks and weak points in its exoskeleton, but I doubted the monster would cooperate with that. My only choice was to smash it with brute force. Too bad my mother’s special talent wasn’t in the charge lance or hammer hooves.

Judging by the stream of expletives coming from her general direction Rainbow was still thoroughly entangled in that green goop the monster had hit her with, so I was on my own. First things first, then. I might not be able to smack through its exoskeleton, but there was one rather major portion of its anatomy that wasn’t armored. As luck would have it, that happened to be the very part of pony anatomy a wing blade is designed to take off.

I took another swing at the creature, deliberately pulling the blow just of the beast’s face. Just as I’d hoped would happen, the monster took the bait and chomped into my foreleg. For the record, getting bitten with fangs like that hurts.

However, like Steel Striker once said, sometimes you have to be willing to trade blood for victory. I gritted my teeth and used my good foreleg to yank on my wounded one, letting out a shout that was half battlecry and half scream of agony. The creature didn’t have anywhere near the leverage to resist my pull, and I yanked the thing completely off balance. Operating on instinct, the monster flared its wings to serve as a counterweight to my pull.

My blades sliced out, and I took its wings.

The beast let out a high-pitched squeal of agony, freeing my leg from its mouth in the process. My right foreleg was gonna be useless for the rest of the fight, but the creature just had two tiny little ichor-spurting stubs where its wings had been. A pegasus can still fight at fairly close to to full effectiveness with only three usable legs, as long as their wings work.

More to the point, now that I’d taken away its flight, I had the advantage of three dimensional movement. I got up as high as the cavern ceiling would allow. That wasn’t very much, but every bit of height I could get would help. The creature spat out another glob of goo, but I’d seen the warning signs from when it snagged Rainbow, and I knew when to dodge.

The monster seemed to have guessed what my plan was, and it chittered nervously while scampering around on the cavern floor, trying very hard not to be anywhere close to directly beneath me. A normal hoof strike might not do too much to its exoskeleton, but if I dive-bombed it to gain momentum and managed to put its body between my hind legs and the cavern floor, I could probably do some real damage.

That’s when the monster made a big mistake—it focused all its attention on me, and staying where I couldn’t get to it. Not a bad tactic, except that it had forgotten there was another player left on the field. With the beast so focused on avoiding me, it was practically child’s play to slowly herd it towards Rainbow’s position. Thankfully, Dash seemed to catch on to what I was doing, and stopped cursing and trying to break free.

Finally, after half a minute of maneuvering for position, I feinted a dive, and the creature dodged right into hoof range of Rainbow. Dash immediately latched onto its rear legs, and I dived for real. It was rather satisfying to see the look in its eyes right before my hind legs connected, when it realized just how utterly screwed it was.

Trapped between my hind legs and the stone floor, the creature’s carapace cracked open in a dozen places, and more green ichor started pouring out of the cracks. The beast twitched pitifully and let out several weak chitters before it finally stilled. Just to be safe, I smashed its head against the rocks a couple times, until I was absolutely sure it was dead—I hadn’t gone through all this mess just to fall for a possum play.

“Pretty sure ya got it, Cloud,” Rainbow grumbled, having resumed her struggle to free herself from the adhesive green goo. “So, do ya think you could get me outta this stuff? I’m kinda stuck here, and this thing’s kinda bleeding on me and getting its guts in some really awkward places.”

“Yeah, yeah.” A couple of quick but carefully measured slices of my blades cut Dash free and restored basic mobility, though she wasn’t going to be flying anywhere until she had her feathers thoroughly preened.

“Thanks.” Dash looked down at the beast and idly kicked its corpse. “Okay, so if the thing we thought was your mom was actually some sort of shape-shifting bug-monster thing, then where the hay is your real mom anyway?”

That was a damn good question. “Okay, let’s search the area and—” A stab of pain from my foreleg as the adrenaline started wearing off forced me to reassess my priorities. “Okay, let’s get a bandage on my leg, and then we can start searching.”

For the record, bandaging your own foreleg is pretty hard to do right. Rainbow tried to help, but she doesn’t exactly have a light touch on the best of days, and with all the sticky goo and bug guts covering her I could just see the potential for all kinds of disaster. Fortunately, a team of ponies from Mom’s Machwing Company showed up when we were about halfway through the process, and one of the pegasi had enough fieldcraft to get the bandage on for me while the others went about securing the area.

Once I was bandaged up the team leader, a sergeant judging by his insignia, hesitantly trotted over. His demeanour instantly put me on edge—he was just too subdued for a situation like this. “Ma’am. You’re Lieutenant Cloud Kicker, the Major’s daughter, right?”

Wow. I don’t think anypony had ever actually addressed me by my technical military rank that didn’t actually count for anything before. I got even more apprehensive. He was being formal and solemn. “Yeah.” I couldn’t keep a quiver out of my voice as I asked. “Why?”

He said exactly what I was hoping he wouldn’t. “There’s something you need to see.”

I didn’t want to see it. Celestia, I didn’t. But at the same time, I knew I had to. I’d guessed as much ever since I realized the thing pretending to be my mother wasn’t her, but I didn’t want it to be true. Maybe these shapeshifter things needed to keep the original alive for some reason? Like, to keep the disguise up or something. It was possible, right?

I slowly followed the sergeant to a dark little corner of the cave, while Rainbow supportively walked alongside me and draped a goo-covered wing over my back. Finally, the sergeant stopped, nervously shuffled his hooves, and announced, “I’ll give you some time alone. I’m so sorry, ma’am. The Major was...” He didn’t finish that thought. He just slowly drifted away.

For a long moment I refused to look down. As if it wouldn’t be real as long as I didn’t see it. In the end, though, I had to. Mom deserved at least that much.

I looked down. I saw her. The tears started flowing. “Momma...”

The Pony Who Is a Battle-Tested Wing Blade

The next couple of hours were a bit blurry for me.

I don’t really remember the details of what happened, just vague sorts of flashes. A couple of the soldiers recovering Mom’s body. The way none of them could quite bring themselves to meet my eyes as they went about their business. Rainbow’s wing over my back and her awkward, scratchy-voiced attempts to comfort me.

The strange thing was, all I could think about was how I should be crying. For the love of Luna, Mom was dead. That’s something most ponies would cry like foals over. On top of that, I’d made my first kill against that bug monster thing. I’ve never taken a life before, and everything I’ve heard says that the first time it happens is supposed to leave you really shaken up. I should be a complete sobbing mess right now, but instead I just felt ... numb.

We eventually got to the Guard’s field camp. It was unsettling, the way almost all activity in the camp ceased once we got close enough for the ponies to see that we were coming back with two bodies. Dear Celestia, I didn’t wanna deal with this right now. Ponies staring at me, recognizing who I was, and then realizing that I was coming back to camp with Mom’s corpse.

Thankfully, we had a good excuse to not go mingling with the rest of the Guardsponies. My foreleg was still a complete mess thanks to getting chomped on by that bug-monster, and there’s a big difference between slapping a bandage on it and getting it looked at by a proper doctor. Not to mention Dash and I had picked up a couple other cuts and bruises that ought to get checked out. Better safe than sorry.

Guard medics tend to come in two flavors—young and idealistic, or old and cynical. I got the latter of the two, a grey-maned old unicorn mare whose face seemed to be stuck in a perpetual scowl. “Alright, have a seat and let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”

I wasted no time following her instructions. Guard medics tend to have a reputation for showing zero tolerance for any form of horseapples. Rainbow was likely to get a rude awakening if she was her usual sullen and uncooperative self whenever medical stuff came up. Then again, I half-suspected that Redheart had done a few years as a Guard medic to pay for med school. She certainly had the attitude for it.

The medic took the field dressing off my leg with a few precise telekinetic flicks, and I got my first good look at the damage since the fight. From how bloody the bandage was I could tell it was gonna be bad, but I still wasn’t quite prepared for the sight of it. A pretty big chunk of my foreleg was a nasty mess of mangled flesh, and I was immensely grateful when the medic tossed an anesthetic spell onto the injured area. Now that I wasn’t pumped full of adrenaline or too out of it to think straight, my leg feathering hurt.

The medic gave a neutral grunt, and got to work cleaning my leg up. When it comes to just about any delicate medical work, it’s hard to beat a unicorn’s precision telekinesis, not to mention some of the other spells they could do. Her anesthetic spell was good enough that there was barely any pain, though after a while I had to stop looking at what she was doing. That bug thing had sported a really nasty set of fangs, and I probably hadn’t done my foreleg any favors by wrenching on it while the monster still had its teeth in me. I’m pretty sure I saw bone before I looked away. “So what’s the damage, doc?”

“Couple dozen stitches, at the very least.” The medic frowned, and waved a hoof at the cut on my neck, which I’d almost forgotten about. “Plus three or four more for that. Could’ve been a lot worse, though. You had a nicked vein in your leg, but no other major blood vessels took damage, and the bones are a bit battered, but no serious damage. If you’re lucky, you won’t even come out of this with a limp. Gonna leave a nasty scar, but your coat should cover it up once it grows back.”

“Grows back?” It took me a second to put two and two together. Blame it on the blood loss and emotional trauma. “Right, right, gotta shave the area you’re putting the stitches in.”

The medic gave a nod. “You’ll need to take it easy on your leg for the next week or so, until the stitches are ready to come out. After that ... well, it’ll depend on how you’re healing up.”

Any further talk about how my leg was doing came to an abrupt end when I heard an indignant squawk coming from the other side of the room. A second later Rainbow Dash zoomed past me, before perching on top of an IV stand. “Look, it’s just a stupid little scratch,” she snapped. “I don’t need some weird pony I don’t know getting his hooves all over my butt! It’ll heal up fine on its own, so back off!”

A couple seconds later a medic came trotting along in her wake, forcing a patient smile onto his face that belied the way his ear kept twitching in annoyance. “Miss, if you don’t let me treat your injury it could get infected.” When that argument didn’t get Rainbow down from her perch, he tried switching tactics. “Or you could end up with a scar. You don’t want a big ugly scar there, do you?”

Rainbow hit the medic with a suspicious glare. “Hey, eyes off the prize, buster—this mare’s taken. Besides, you’re old enough to be, like, my grandpa or something.” Rainbow was exaggerating a bit there—at most, the stallion was only old enough to be her grandfather if Rainbow was the age she was acting right now.

“I swear, Dinky handles visits to the doctor better than she does,” I told my medic, making sure to pitch my voice loudly enough for Rainbow to hear.

Sure enough, that pulled Rainbow’s attention off the medic trying to help her and onto me. “Oh yeah?” she snapped. “Well you—”

Before she could get any further, the medic took advantage of her distraction to nail her with a paralysis spell. Rainbow tumbled off the IV stand she’d been perched on, and thankfully got snagged in a telekinetic field before she hit the ground. From the way they moved, I had a feeling they’d had a bit of practice at this type of thing. Rainbow probably wasn’t the first uncooperative patient they’d dealt with.

Now that Rainbow couldn’t put up any more resistance beyond harsh language, the medic got her on a table and started patching her up. For her part, Rainbow loudly and at length discussed the medic’s heritage, making several wildly improbable and contradictory accusations.

As soon as our wounds had been treated, the medics let Blossom in. Two seconds later, she was wrapped around me and doing her best to crush my ribs. Guess that explains why they kept her out until they were done fixing me up. Once she was done with the initial hug, she shifted to something a bit more gentle, taking care to avoid my bad foreleg while holding me and gently running a hoof through my mane. “Cloudy, I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry...”

I brought my good foreleg around her and halfheartedly returned the hug. Getting my wounds checked out and Rainbow’s antics had provided a brief distraction, but now that empty numb feeling that had been hanging over me ever since I found Mom was back. Still, the contact felt good. “So I guess you heard about...”

“Everypony’s talking about it,” Blossom confirmed.

“Oh.” I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Rainbow trotted over to join in on the hug, and for a while I just sat there and let the two of them hold me.

A while later, the three of us got hustled to Canterlot, along with a substantial escort. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but presumably word had come down the chain of command from Dad.

Once we got to Canterlot a couple of guardponies I vaguely recognized as Kickers pulled Blossom aside, while Rainbow and I were hustled deep into the secure sections of the castle. I didn’t know for sure what was going on, but I could take a pretty good guess that it had something to do with the whole bug-monster-spying-on-Equestria thing. That was a pretty big security issue.

Sure enough, five minutes later Rainbow and I were in a secure underground room deep in the bowels of the palace. To my vague discomfort, the two of us were alone in the room with the battered remains of the creature that had taken Mom’s place. Being alone in a room with a corpse was incredibly awkward, especially when it was a corpse I’d created.

The longer we waited, the more uncomfortable I got. I hadn’t recognized the ponies who’d brought us here. Who was to say that they weren’t more of those shapeshifting bug monsters? If they’d replaced Mom, surely they could’ve gotten other ponies too. Maybe they’d already infiltrated Canterlot, and now Rainbow and I were about to get rubbed out to keep the conspiracy under wraps. I’d had a hard enough time dealing with one of those bugs; if we had to go up against a whole squad of them...

Thankfully, when the door finally opened we didn’t get swarmed by bugs. However, we faced something that was just as intimidating—a grim-looking Princess Celestia. Rainbow dropped into a bow, while I tried to manage as best I could with one foreleg in a sling, until she waved me off. “No need for formalities, especially when you’re injured. I’m very sorry for your loss, Cloud Kicker. Nimbus Gust was an exemplary pony.”

I gave a vague sort of nod to her. “Thank you, Your Highness.” I probably should’ve said something else to her given the circumstances, but I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound stupid or pointless.

Princess Luna followed her sister in, which was just a tiny bit uncomfortable considering what had (probably) happened the last time we’d met up. A second later I felt a wave of guilt hit me in the gut for even worrying about that. Mom was dead, and there I was thinking about stuff like whether or not I’d done the business with one of the co-rulers of Equestria.

Rainbow didn’t seem to have my problem with figuring out something worthwhile to say. “What’s going on, Princess? Everything’s gone crazy on us! One minute Cloud Kicker’s mom has gone missing, and then suddenly we’re thinking she’s a traitor, and then it turns out that she’s been replaced by some weird freaky bug thing that can turn into other ponies! What gives?”

Celestia held up a hoof to forestall any further questions. “Patience, Rainbow Dash. I might have an easier time answering your questions if you gave me a chance to speak before moving on to the next one.”

Rainbow’s ears went flat on her head and she gave the Princess a sheepish little smile. “Uh, right. Sorry. I just—I’m a little freaked out right now, okay?”

“It’s quite understandable.” The Princess turned to look at the thing I’d killed, and gave it a quick once-over. “An encounter with a changeling Infiltrator can be a most unsettling experience.”

So these things were called changelings, then? Well, I guess that works better than ‘Shapeshifting Bug-Monster.’ Once more, Rainbow chimed in with the obvious question. “Okay, so we’ve got these changeling bug things running around. The one we nailed said it was working for somepony—something—else. Some queen or something. So are we fixing to get invaded by a bunch of freaky bug things?”

To my immense relief, Celestia shook her head. “This particular entity is a changeling Infiltrator, not a normal drone.” Rainbow’s blank, slightly slack-jawed expression made it very clear just how little that distinction meant to her. In her defense, I didn’t get what the difference was either, and even Princess Luna had a faintly confused frown on her face. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a changeling Infiltrator is probably better at, well, infiltrating, but aside from that rather obvious point I didn’t get what the difference was.

Thankfully, Celestia seemed to pick up on the fact that nopony else had a clue what she was talking about. With a weary sigh, the Princess made herself comfortable and started explaining. “Conventional changeling drones are actually very poor at imitating ordinary ponies or any other creature they might replace. While their shapeshifting abilities allow them to take the form of anypony they wish to, their nature as philouphages makes it all but impossible for them to properly mimic pony behavior, save in the most superficial of ways.”

Rainbow Dash actually raised her hoof, like she was still a schoolfilly. “Uh, Princess? What’s a filofage?”

“An emotion-eater,” Princess Luna helpfully clarified for us.

“Well why didn’t ya just call it that instead?” Rainbow grumbled under her breath.

While I was pretty sure Rainbow hadn’t meant for Celestia to hear that, the Princess’ ears are apparently pretty sharp. “Perhaps knowing the proper terminology will be of use to you at some point in the future, Rainbow Dash.” The Princess delicately cleared her throat, and got back to explaining things. “Now then, because changelings are emotion-eaters, they can’t properly imitate or understand the way emotions impact equine behavior. While the changeling can perfectly imitate a pony’s appearance, any sort of social contact beyond the the basic pleasantries will quickly give away that they’re not what they seem to be.”

“But that wasn’t the case with...” I waved a hoof at the changeling I’d killed. “I mean yeah, in hindsight there were a couple things that were off about how she was acting, but nothing so huge that I ever thought there was something seriously wrong, up until the fact that she was spying came out. So, I’m guessing this is where the difference between these normal changelings and the Infiltrators comes in?”

“Indeed.” Celestia frowned at the changeling corpse. “Queen Chrysalis, their leader, destroyed thousands of her own children while experimenting to find some means of overcoming that limitation. Eventually, she succeeded, and the changeling Infiltrators were created: changelings capable of experiencing and understanding the full range of normal emotions, and thus capable of far more accurately imitating their targets.”

Luna hissed something under her breath that was in a language I didn’t recognize, though from the context I could make an educated guess that there were obscenities involved. “How could she manage such a thing?” the Princess of the Night demanded. “Everything we understood about the nature of the changeling hive mind says that—”

“She partially disconnected them from the hive mind,” Celestia gently cut her sister off. “That’s how she was able to create agents capable of independent thought and emotional depth. However, her success would ultimately prove to be her downfall.”

“Lemme guess,” Rainbow chimed in. “She gave them a bit too much freedom, so they stopped following orders?”

“Precisely,” Celestia confirmed.

“S’just like what happened in ‘Daring Do and the Golden Golems’,” Rainbow announced with a satisfied nod. “Guess she never read that book.”

“That novel is a wildly inaccurate account of the incident in any case,” Luna grumbled. “I certainly do not recall Daring cavorting about with a useless mare who did nothing but scream in terror for the entire adventure, and there were certainly no ponies running about with preposterous names like ‘Alotta Plotta,’ ‘Tail Tosser,’ or ‘Muffins Galore’.”

Rainbow let out a giggle-snort at the horribly punny names, which earned her a mildly disdainful glare from Princess Luna. “What?” Rainbow snapped out, sounding just a tiny bit defensive. “Those names are hilarious, and you know it.”

While I normally would’ve agree with Rainbow wholeheartedly, and probably made a crack about how Derpy would leave me in a heartbeat to hook up with a pony named ‘Muffins Galore’, I really wasn’t in the mood for jokes right now. “Could we get back to the matter at hoof?” I asked testily. “Or shall we continue talking about pulp adventure novels?”

Rainbow fell silent, though Luna shot me a somewhat offended glower. Guess it’s not everyday somepony corrects her like that. To be honest, I was having a hard time caring if I’d gotten her annoyed with me right now. Compared to everything else that had happened today, getting a Princess mad at me just didn’t seem like a very big deal.

Princess Celestia delicately cleared her throat, and got the conversation back on track before anypony else’s feathers could get ruffled. “Just as Rainbow Dash said, eventually Chrysalis’s new Infiltrators grew tired of obeying her commands and used their freedom to rebel against her. Some of them simply abandoned the hive completely, while the remainder banded together and attempted to overthrow her. They somehow managed to steal control of many drones from Chrysalis, perhaps by using some residual connection to the hive mind. The battle for control of the swarm was devastating. Chrysalis eventually won, though I believe she died at least a dozen times during the fighting.”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow cut in. “How did she die a dozen times? Wouldn’t she be, y’know, dead?”

“Not quite,” Celestia explained. “You see, Chrysalis herself is not a distinct individual entity, but rather a manifestation of the swarm’s gestalt consciousness. Thus, the destruction of her physical form is little more than a temporary inconvenience.”

“Oh yeah, that explains it.” Rainbow vigorously nodded her head, trying to make it look like she actually understood what the Princess had just said.

“In any case,” Celestia continued, “the civil war between Chrysalis and these new Infiltrators pushed the species to the brink of extinction.”

“Not close enough,” I grumbled under my breath. I tried to accompany it with an annoyed wave of my hoof, but having my foreleg in a sling kinda killed that idea.

To my surprise, Luna nodded in agreement. “A civil war that left the changelings on the verge of annihilation would have been a perfect opportunity to remove the threat once and for all, sister. I am surprised you didn’t act upon it.”

Celestia gave both of us a pained look, and I could hear the disappointment in her voice. “Do not be so quick to suggest exterminating another species. Xenocide has no place in a society dedicated to love and harmony.” The Princess took a calming breath, then continued, “The few Infiltrators who escaped Chrysalis’s purges fled as far from the swarm as they could. Some have remained in hiding, simply living out ordinary lives in their assumed forms, but a few have opted to put their skills to use. Chrysalis made them to be the perfect spies, and there are many who would pay handsomely for their services.”

Well, damn.

“So knowing that it was a changeling doesn’t really tell us anything at all.” I let out an annoyed sigh. “If these Infiltrator things are working as mercenaries, then just about anyone could be paying the bills.” For a moment, I almost regretted killing the creature. There were a whole lot of answers that died with it. However, I had a hard time really caring about the fact that Equestria’s national security might have been compromised. It was hard to think about the big picture when the primal part of my brain kept screaming about how that monster had murdered Mom.

“Well, it does tell us one thing, I guess,” Rainbow said. “If this Queen Chrysalis is all pissed about wanting these Infiltrators dead, it probably wasn’t her.”

“Indeed,” Celestia confirmed. “And while some of the Infiltrators might be working as mercenaries, even if Chrysalis cast aside all reason and tried to hire one, none would work for her. Not to mention our long-standing treaty with her—Chrysalis would not casually violate an agreement that has stood for centuries.”

“You made a treaty with Chrysalis?’ Princess Luna sounded positively stunned. “Sister, what could possibly have possessed you to do such a thing?”

“Necessity,” Celestia answered shortly. “It was an agreement I neither sought nor desired, and one that was made for me in my absence, but the fact remains that for the last nine hundred years the changeling swarm has avoided our borders. Changelings have gone from being a perennial plague on the ponies of Equestria to the stuff of ancient legends, forgotten by all but a few historians. I will not apologize for that.”

Luna let out an annoyed grumble before waving a hoof and reluctantly conceding. “I do not approve, but it is in the past. It would seem the agreement has served Equestria well enough in my absence.”

“Yes, it has.” Celestia went silent for a bit, then turned back to me and Rainbow Dash. “Did the creature say anything to you that might let you know who it was working for?”

“Not much,” I admitted. “Pretty much all we got was it saying that it was working for some queen or something. That doesn’t narrow it down much, especially since spies aren’t exactly known for being honest with their enemies.”

“No, it doesn’t.” An annoyed grimace crossed Celestia’s face. “I’m sure the Guard will arrange to have you two properly debriefed. If you can think of anything, anything at all that might be of use, no matter how insignificant, please let me know.” Rainbow and I both assured the Princess that we would. “Thank you.” She hesitated for just a moment before adding, “I’m afraid there is one other matter. I’m going to have to ask both of you not to tell anypony the details of what happened. Not even Blossomforth, or Twilight Sparkle and your other friends.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash burst out. “Why not? They’re my friends! Besides, we’ve saved Equestria loads of times before, we can deal with whatever this new thing is!”

“This is not an affair for the Elements of Harmony,” Celestia announced gently, but firmly. “The Elements are a powerful tool against the likes of Discord, but the Elements of Harmony were designed to contain and defeat a single powerful being. Against an invading army, the Elements are not a very effective weapon. Even if you used them against a general or this queen who threatens us, the army would remain. Leaderless, but still dangerous. Also, I do not wish for knowledge of this infiltration to become widespread. It could incite a panic, especially if ponies learn that there are beasts capable of almost perfectly imitating their friends and loved ones.”

“Well, okay,” Rainbow’s face briefly fell, but a second later her ears perked right back up. “But we could still help even if the Elements wouldn’t be all that useful and we gotta keep things quiet! Twilight’s got her magic, and I’ve got my awesome flying, and Fluttershy’s ... look, the point is we could help out!”

“No, Rainbow Dash.” Celestia’s voice lost the gentle part of its previous gentle but firm tone. “Twilight and your other friends are wonderful ponies, but you are not soldiers. This is something for the Guard to take care of.”

“Yeah, ‘cause they’ve got a real great track record so far,” Rainbow Dash grumbled under her breath.

If not for the fact that my foreleg was in a sling, I would’ve smacked her upside the head for that. I couldn’t use a wing for the job either, since I still had my wing blades on. “What the hay is wrong with you, Rainbow? Mom hasn’t even been buried yet, and you’re gonna start dumping all over the Guard and what they do?”

Rainbow’s ears went back flat on her head, and she scuffed a hoof along the floor. “I—Kicker, that’s not how I meant it. I was just...”

“Just what?” I demanded. Rainbow Dash just stared at me, her jaw awkwardly working open and closed as she tried to come up with some kind of adequate answer.

Before Rainbow could figure out what to say, the door opened up again, and two new ponies entered the room. First up was Shining Armor, Captain of the Guard. No surprise he was showing up for what was apparently a pretty big national security problem. If the Princess was talking about a possible invasion, having the head of the Guard close at hoof made sense. Even if said Captain was a noble brat who only got the position because his sister was the Princess’ personal student and his father had connections.

After him was... “Dad.”

Dad turned to me and gave a single quick nod. “Cloud.” A big part of me wanted to just run up and hug him right then and there. Now wasn’t the time for that kind of thing though; we were in the middle of a meeting with the Princess, for pony’s sake. Duty to the crown came before all the personal family stuff.

Dad stopped next to the body of the creature that had been impersonating Mom, and spent a while just staring at it. While he did that, Shining Armor stepped up and pulled out a scroll. “Your Highness, in light of this new threat I’d like to suggest we implement Defense Plan Seventeen at once.”

“Pray tell, what is Defense Plan Seventeen?” Luna gave a slightly annoyed flick of her wings. “There are so many of these plans that I can barely recall the difference between them. When I was Commander of Pegasopolis, we did not bother with constructing these elaborate scenarios.”

“Military strategy has evolved a great deal in the last thousand years, Your Highness.” Shining Armor tried to keep his tone polite and deferential, but I could pick up on just a tiny bit of annoyance from him. I guess I couldn’t really blame him, though. Princess Luna was kinda bashing his plans. The simple strategy of ‘take an army in the general direction of the bad guys’ might’ve worked back in the dark ages, but a thousand years of progress makes for some big changes. For starters, these days the Guard was a combined force of all three types of ponies, instead of the all-unicorn Royal Guard and the pure-pegasus clan armies. Not to mention stuff like having ways to communicate near-instantly instead of only getting messages as fast as a pegasus could fly. Fast long-distance communication makes a huge difference when it comes to keeping armies coordinated.

“A great deal has changed in our—in my absence,” Luna conceded. Considering the fact that she was still working on getting all the nuances of speaking modern Equestrian down, I guess expecting her to have caught up on modern military procedure was a bit much. “I suppose I shall defer to your knowledge, for the moment. What is this Plan Seventeen, then?”

Shining Armor shot a look towards Rainbow Dash, presumably wondering if he should be talking about this with a civilian in the room. However, an impatient wave of Luna’s hoof snapped him out of those concerns. “Right, Plan Seventeen. If we’re up against an unknown external threat, we concentrate our forces in Canterlot, fortify the city, and put up a dome shield to protect it, while maintaining a tripwire force on the border so we’ll know the instant anything crosses. That way, whenever the threat manifests, we have a powerful mobile reserve in position to launch an immediate counterattack.”

The discussion of strategy seemed to finally snap my father out of the fugue he’d been in ever since he entered the room. “It’s a purely reactive plan,” he commented with a disparaging snort. “It cedes the initiative to the enemy and leaves all of Equestria outside Canterlot practically undefended.”

“We are facing an unknown external or possibly even internal threat,” Shining Armor countered tersely. “The prudent thing to do is maintain a large force in reserve, ready to respond the instant our enemies reveal themselves. We’ll have enough forces on our borders to provide early warning of an impending attack, and hold the line until our reserves arrive.”

“Assuming our garrisons manage to hold the line, and the tripwire force isn’t completely overrun before it gets word back to us,” Dad countered. “If we try to maintain a watch on the entire border and a large reserve in Canterlot, we’ll be spread thin. Depending on who we’re up against, they might be able to punch through undetected.”

“Would you care to offer an alternative then, Lieutenant Commander?” Shining Armor asked tersely, putting just a bit of emphasis on my father’s rank.

“I prefer Defense Plan Fourteen,” Dad announced decisively. “We probe along our own borders, scouting for any concentrations of enemy troops or other signs of preparation for an impending attack. Even without crossing the border, we should be able to look for signs of supply dumps, base camps, new border forts, the usual indications. Once we know where the attack will come from, we can concentrate on that border and draw up a proactive defense plan, or maybe even launch a preemptive strike to foil the invasion before it happens. You don’t win wars by sitting back and letting the enemy do as they please.”

“No, that’s far too aggressive,” Shining Armor announced with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “Do you have any idea how the rest of our neighbors would react if we increased activity on their borders? It would be a diplomatic disaster, and before long they would all start putting troops on their borders to match our deployment. Not to mention that if we don’t find out anything useful in time, it will leave our forces dispersed when the enemy strikes.” Shining Armor paused for a few seconds, and one of his ears twitched before he added, “And on top of that we haven’t ruled out the possibility of a ... strike from within.” He shot a quick look around the room.

“If we are facing a threat from a foreign power, our strategy can’t just be to sit on our hooves and wait for their next move,” Dad countered, starting to sound just a little bit agitated. “And if it is an internal threat, then the gendarmerie should be more than capable of seeing to the matter.” Dad had a point there—the Guard has a law enforcement division for a reason. If we were dealing with a couple nobles plotting a coup or something, they’d probably be much better at handling it than frontline soldiers.

“Both plans have their merits,” Princess Luna cut in firmly before the argument could go any further. “Perhaps we could craft a strategy incorporating elements of both? Shining Armor is correct that until the nature of the enemy is known we should be prepared for attack from any direction, but at the same time we should make every effort to learn who threatens Equestria.”

“Well said, Princess.” The Captain of the Guard took a deep breath, and spoke very gently. “I have no intention of sitting back on my hooves, Lieutenant Commander. I understand you’re upset about what happened to your wife, but we can't allow our personal problems to dictate the Guard's strategies. With all due respect, you're too close to this, and I think it’s compromising your judgement. For all our sakes, take a step back. We need to look at the big picture, think about what’s good for all of Equestria. Not go off on a quest for personal vengeance.”

“Hey!” I snarled at the noble-born brat. “Don’t bring Mom into this!” Seriously, Mom wasn’t even buried yet and this brat who’d bought his way into the Captaincy that should’ve gone to my father was gonna use Mom to take pot-shots at him?

“That’s enough, Cloud Kicker!” Princess Celestia’s voice hit me like a ton of bricks. She wasn’t yelling and didn’t sound angry or anything, but there was just this raw authority to it that had me shutting up and trying to figure out how to bow when I only had one working foreleg.

I tried to stumble my way through an apology, but the Princess waved me off. “While he could have been far more diplomatic in raising the issue—” the Princess paused to shoot a meaningful look at her Captain, “—Shining Armor does make a valid point. Nimbus Gust’s death is no doubt paining the two of you immensely. It was thoughtless of me ask for your advice on matters of strategy when this wound is still so fresh.” The Princess turned to Dad, her voice brimming with compassion. “Tornado, we can work out the details of a strategy incorporating elements of both of your plans later. Right now, your family needs you more than I do. Take as much time as you need to attend to your wife.”

Dad went stiff as a board. “I am to be cast aside, then?”

The Princess’s ears went flat on her head. “That was not my intention, Tornado.”

“Just the result of your actions, it would seem,” Dad growled under his breath.

Luna bristled at Dad’s tone. “Lieutenant Commander, that is not an appropriate way to address your Princess.”

“It’s alright, Luna,” Celestia gently cut her sister off, playing good gendarme to her bad one. The Princess turned to face Dad, and very gently said, “I'm aware of the sacrifices your family has made for Equestria over the centuries. Nopony is expendable to me.” She took a deep breath, and then continued, “I am not casting you aside. I am simply giving you the time you need to take care of your wife and daughters. For their sakes, if not your own. I need you, Equestria needs you, but right now the ponies closest to you need you more.”

Dad shot Princess Celestia a stoically neutral look. “How many of those ponies do you remember? Faces, names, cutie marks? Whether they died for you, or just lived?”

Princess Celestia closed her eyes, and let out a pained sigh. “I remember too many, and at the same time too few.”

That answer didn’t seem to satisfy Dad, but before he could say anything I stepped up to his side. I was about to put a wing over him when I remembered that I was still wearing wing blades. “Dad, calm down. Getting mad isn’t gonna convince anypony that you’re thinking straight.” If I was gonna be completely honest with myself, Dad probably did need some time off. If I couldn’t manage a weather team, he probably couldn’t run an army either. “Let’s just go home, okay?”

Dad turned to me and let out a weary sigh, before reluctantly nodding in agreement. He gave a quick salute to the Princesses and respectfully but quickly said his farewells, then started heading for the door. A moment later I followed suit, and after a second of hesitation Rainbow came with us as well.

After we’d shut the door behind us, he turned to me and very quietly mumbled under his breath, “I wonder what Shadow would think of the state of Equestria today?” With that the three of us walked out the palace, leaving the Princesses and Shining Armor behind. Dad and I really weren’t in the mood for conversation right then, but Rainbow Dash was more than willing to fill the silence with a lengthy rant about everything that had just happened. In an odd way, I was grateful for her chatter. Otherwise, I would’ve been stuck trying to figure out what the hay I could possibly say to my father after what we’d just gone through.

“And that Shining Armor guy!” Rainbow gave an angry wave of her hoof. “I mean, bringing your Mom up like that just wasn’t cool. It’s a good thing I’ll never have to see his ugly face again, or I’d ... well I don’t know what I’d do, but he wouldn’t like it.”

“I’m sure you would, Dash.” It felt strange, to fall into our often-repeated routine of Rainbow blowing off steam and me listening to her calmly. It was an old, familiar way of doing things that simultaneously felt oddly comforting, and completely wrong. It was nice to do something so normal, but how could I be doing anything normal when Mom was dead? I’d found her body earlier today, and I was already back to doing normal things. That just seemed ... wrong. How could I be doing normal, everyday pony things at a time like this?

I found myself slowly drifting away from Rainbow Dash and over to my father’s side. Dad ... okay, if I’m gonna be completely honest, he looked like a mess right now. Dad had always been this pillar of fatherly strength ever since I was old enough to remember, but now he just looked worn out. The Sisters' horsefeathers out-of-hoof dismissal was just more weight on him, adding to the lines under his eyes. His usually neat-cut amber mane was looking ragged, and his white coat looked like it hadn’t been brushed out properly in days. His wings were—well, functional, like he'd done enough half-awake preening to make himself airworthy and not much else.

In short, he looked bad enough that I could almost understand why a pony might think that the whole thing with Mom was getting to him enough that he needed a break. Almost. Yeah, he was hurting, but Kickers don’t let our personal problems get in the way of doing our duty. Sure, I’d made a bit of a mess of my efforts to run the weather team, but Dad was made of tougher stuff than me. I mean ... he’s Dad. But now Princess Celestia had told him that he was useless, on top of being a widower. From the way his shoulders slumped and his wing-tips were practically dragging on the ground, I could tell that the one-two punch was getting to him.

I tried to think of something, anything I could say to make him feel better, but I had nothing. What can you say in a situation like that? There were no words that could come remotely close to doing the job, so I did the only other thing I could. I walked alongside him, in the vague hope that my silent presence might at least offer some small measure of comfort. I would’ve put a wing over his back, but I was still fully armed and armored, so even that wasn’t really an option. Wing hugs really don’t work when you’ve got a wing blade on, and even without the blade he wouldn’t really feel it through his own armor.

Eventually, the three of us got to the Kicker Compound. The place had started off as old red-granite fortress on the edge of Canterlot back in Shadow’s day, but nine hundred years of Canterlot growing and the clan living there had done a lot to change it. Now, it was more like its own neighborhood within Canterlot. As I passed through the gates, I couldn’t help noticing that we had the Equestrian flag and our clan banner at half-staff. It seemed like a small thing to notice but it somehow made it really hit home for me. I knew Mom was dead, I’d seen her feathering body, but coming home and seeing the flag hanging low in mourning ... I dunno. It was like that made it more real or something. It wasn’t just me anymore, it was all of us.

There was a subdued air hanging over the entire compound, and once ponies there saw me and Dad it got worse, until all conversation and signs of life just stopped. Every single pony there, even the non-Kickers, was just quietly staring at us in respectful silence, aside from offering the occasional sympathetic murmur. I suppose I should’ve appreciated the gesture, but for some reason it just made me ... I dunno, almost mad. Now Dad and I couldn’t even walk home without a bunch of ponies stopping, staring, and thinking about how Mom was dead.

Aunt Wind and Blossom were waiting for us when we got home. As soon as I walked through the door Blossom walked up to me and wrapped her forelegs around my neck, while Aunt Wind went up and gave Dad a sisterly nuzzle. I got a hug from Aunt Wind too, once Blossom finally let go of me.

After a long, painful silence, Aunt Wind spoke up. “Storm should be back tomorrow, but Star’s going to be tied up for a few days longer. They think her talents might be useful for the investigation into Nimb—into what happened.”

Blossom shuffled on her hooves, and quietly added. “The Princess sent somepony to collect any messages we wanted to send to Ponyville.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet my eyes as she said, “I wrote a quick letter to Derpy about—about what happened. She’ll probably be on the first train to Canterlot in the morning with Alula.”

Dad nodded and gave a vaguely approving grunt. Any joy I might feel at having my baby sis close at hoof again didn’t last long, considering the circumstances. Dear Shadow, how the hay were we supposed to tell ‘Lula about Mom? I could barely handle the news myself, and now I was gonna have to explain to my baby sister that her mommy was gone? Or even worse—that she'd been calling that feathering thing 'Mom' for who-knows-how-long.

Aunt Wind looked between me and my father, and gave a slight nod. Then she turned to my two friends. “Rainbow Dash? Blossomforth? Could you two help me put together a quick dinner? I think we could all use something to eat.”

I thought about telling them I wasn’t hungry, but it just didn’t seem important enough to actually come out and say that. Besides, it wasn’t that I wasn’t hungry per se—I’d had one hay of an active day—it was just that food ... didn’t sound good right now. I dunno. It was hard to really build up much enthusiasm for anything in my current state of mind.

Blossom gave me one last hug before following my aunt out of the room, while Rainbow opted for awkwardly hoofing me in the shoulder and offering a shaky little smile on her way out.

And then it was just me and Dad, alone together.

Dad walked over to the couch, shedding his armor as he went. If I’d ever treated my armor with that sort of casual disregard back at West Hoof I would’ve had every single Sergeant Instructor within eyesight getting on my flank, or Dad himself if it had happened at home. It was the closest I'd ever seen him come to losing it; his helmet hit the ground with a dull clang, any reverence or respect for what it stood for discarded like the bit of shiny metal it really was. Backplate, peytral, crinnet, his heavy hoofguards, every last bit of pointless gold was tossed aside.

A part of me was tempted to follow his example, until I remembered just where my armor had come from. This wasn’t just another set of Guard-issue plate from the armory, this was something my parents, my mother, had made especially for me. Armor she’d held onto for nearly a decade, in the hope that one day I would finally come home and take it up. This was the legacy she’d left me, and it deserved more respect than that.

I removed each piece slowly and carefully, not wanting to risk the slightest scratch or dent. As I removed it, I realized there were still several bits of dried blood and ichor covering it—I’d have to clean that up later. No way I was letting that thing’s ichor stay on Mom’s armor. It deserved to be clean. Unblemished. I wasn’t going to let the monster that killed her stain the last gift she’d ever offered me.

Next thing I knew, I had a wet washcloth in my good foreleg, furiously scrubbing at the armor. I had to clean it. I just had to. I couldn’t leave it like this.

I got most of the mess without any problem, but no matter how hard I scrubbed I just couldn’t get it all clean. There always seemed to be some tiny bit of gunk lingering in a crevice or hiding in one of the joints, and as soon as I cleaned that off I found three more dirty spots. It was like some kind of impossible task, like no matter how hard I scrubbed I could never get it clean again. That thing had ruined Mom’s armor, and nothing I could do would ever fix it.

But I couldn’t stop now. If both my forelegs were in working order I could probably get it all, so that meant I just needed to try harder. I owed it to Mom to make this armor absolutely spotless, no matter how much effort it took. I started trying to work my bad foreleg out of its sling. Sure, I might pop a couple stitches or something, but I could always get those put back in. This was more important than losing a little blood.

Before I could get my other foreleg free, I felt my father’s hoof on my shoulder, gently restraining me. “Cloud.” His voice sounded scratchy and hollow, like he could barely manage to get the words out. “It’s clean, Cloud.”

I looked down at the piece of armor in my hoof for several long seconds, before finally setting it aside. I sat there for a while, trying to work through everything going on in my head right then. It was like my brain was running at a mile a minute, yet at the time same barely working at all. Finally, I managed to get a few words out. “I failed her, Dad. She needed me, and I let her down.”

Dad wrapped his hooves around me, pulling my head onto his shoulder. I knew I should probably be crying right now, but for some reason the tears just wouldn’t come. However, now that I’d finally started talking the words just kept tumbling out. “If I’d joined the Guard like she wanted me to I would’ve been there for her. That bug thing never would’ve gotten her, or I would’ve figured out something was wrong before it was too late, or I might’ve gotten to her in time to save her. But no, I had to be a greedy little foal and run away from my family duties, and now because I wasn’t there Momma’s ... Momma’s...”

Dad’s hold on me tightened, and his deep, strong voice rumbled out of his chest. “No, Cloud. It’s not your fault. You did everything we could’ve asked of you, and more. You found her when none of us could.” Dad choked up for a bit, before finally adding, “And nopony could’ve saved her, but at least you avenged her.”

“Revenge.” I let out a weak little sniff. “Is revenge supposed to make me feel better? ‘Cause I don’t think it’s working. What’s the point of avenging her when she’s already dead? I don’t want to get revenge for her. Well, I do, but what I really want is her back here. Alive. But that can’t happen, and now she’s dead because I let her down. Avenging her doesn’t change that.”

“Cloud,” my father said, a bit more firmly. “What happened to your mother is not your fault.”

“Yes it is.” I know he was trying to help, but he didn't understand. There's no way he could—me deserting had cost him Mom, not just some stupid position. I’d destroyed my own family. To hay with being disgusted at the state of Equestria, Shadow would be disgusted with me. “Mom needed me, and I wasn’t there for her. I failed her as a daughter. I failed the entire clan when I ran away from West Hoof. That’s all I’ve ever been for her and the family. A big, useless failure. And now she’s dead because of it.”

“You are nota failure.” I felt my father’s forelegs tighten around me, and he spoke in a gentle, soothing tone, the one he used back when I was a scared little filly. “I know you didn’t walk down the path your mother and I planned for you, but what child does? You made your own way in the world, and while it was difficult, we learned to accept that.”

“But I—”

Dad gently cut me off. “Cloud, your mother and I were both proud, very proud, to call you our daughter.” Dad took a slightly shaky deep breath before he added, “And if your mother were here, I know she would say that you did well. Very well.”

I felt my body start trembling in my father’s forelegs. I nearly broke, hearing that. Nearly started sobbing like a little filly, and let my daddy hold me until I cried myself out. I’m not sure why I didn’t, really. Maybe I just hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of losing Mom yet. I’d just been hit by too much, too fast, and now my brain couldn’t slow down enough to really wrap itself around what had happened. I knew Mom was dead, but some part of my mind just couldn’t quite manage to comprehend that fact. Like I kept expecting her to walk in the front door and explain that there had just been some huge misunderstanding, and she was fine.

Or maybe it was something simpler than that. Maybe I wouldn’t let myself break yet, because I knew I wasn’t the only one hurting. So I just let Dad hold me, and buried that pain. “Thanks, Dad. It—it really means a lot to me, to hear that.” I took a deep breath, and took one last moment to think things through. “Dad, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things. Even before what happened with Mom, I was thinking about coming back into the Guard. And now that she’s gone ... I wanna do it. I wanna help keep Equestria safe. I want to help make sure that nopony else has to bury anypony they love. Especially if there’s some kind trouble coming up. At a time like this, we need to be together.”

I’m not sure how I expected Dad to take the news. After all, my parents had been hoping I’d change my mind and gently (or sometimes not-so-gently) nudging me to come back to the Guard ever since I ran away from my graduation at West Hoof. I guess I expected that the news would make him happy. Well, maybe not happy, it was hard to be happy at a time like this, but ... less sad, I suppose. I thought that having me be there with him would do something to salve his pain.

Instead, Dad pulled back from me with a startled little whinny, sharply shaking his head. “No, Cloud! You can’t do that!”

I blinked, and had to work my jaw a few times before I could speak again. “What? Why not? Dad, I—”

Dad just seemed to deflate, with all the strength and authority I was so used to seeing around him slowly slipping away. For the first time in my life, Dad looked ... old. Tired. “Cloud, I’m sure you would make a wonderful soldier. I know if you came back to the Guard you would have a brilliant career, but...” Then, suddenly, it was Dad that was shaking in my hooves. “I can’t—Cloud, I just lost your mother. If you come back to the Guard, and then something happens to you too...”

I couldn’t believe it. Ever since I was young enough to crawl, Dad’s been this solid, unshakable pillar of strength for me. There’s no way to really explain it, except to say that he was Dad. He was always there for me, always strong. It wasn't ever a question, it was a given. Like my wings pushing me into the air, or Princess Celestia raising the sun every day. Sun shines, grass grows, and Dad’s my solid rock. And now, that unshakable pillar of strength was ... shaking. Trembling in my hooves.

“We don’t even know when that thing took her,” Dad choked out. I saw tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. I’ll never even know when I spoke to her for the last time. I'll never know the last time I told her I loved her...”

And then ... Dad started crying. Not the single, stoic, tear you’d expect to see from a tough soldier. No, this was full-out, broken sobbing.

I did the only thing I could. Dad had been my unbreakable rock ever since I was a little filly. He’d always been there for me, but now he needed me to be there for him. “Daddy...” I choked back the tears that were threatening to take me as well, and reached out to slowly pull him into the best embrace I could manage with one working foreleg, letting him sob into my shoulder. “I’m here, Daddy.”

I held Daddy until he cried himself to sleep. I thought about trying to get him up to his bed, but threw that idea out pretty quickly. There would be too many reminders of Mom in their bedroom, and when he woke up and saw that big empty gap where Mom was supposed to be... No, that just wouldn’t do. It would be salt in the wound. I eventually moved him into our guest bedroom. It would leave Rainbow and Blossom sleeping on the couches, but they could deal with that.

Once I had Dad settled, I went out for a flight. I heard Blossom and Aunt Wind calling out after me as I left, but I didn’t care about the dinner they’d been making. Not that I didn’t appreciate them going to all the trouble, but I just wasn’t hungry right now. I needed to get out for a bit, clear my head and stuff. There would still be food left when I got back.

Night had fallen over Canterlot, but that just meant the lights were turning on all over the city, somehow making it seem even more bustling and alive than it did in the daytime. For a while I just flew around, looking at everything and yet nothing in particular. I don’t even know what I was hoping to accomplish with this, really.

As I continued flying around and watching all the other ponies in the city, I found myself starting to hate them. Not because they’d done anything wrong; I’m sure most of them were perfectly nice, ordinary ponies. But that’s just it. They were going along with their perfectly nice, ordinary lives. Like nothing had changed. Like it didn’t matter that Mom was dead. Mom was dead, and for the rest of Equestria life just kept on going along as if nothing had happened. Shopkeepers did business, young couples went out on dates, all the usual stuff.

Mom was dead, and the universe didn’t seem to give a flying feather. If all the ponies down there even knew about what happened to Mom, they probably didn’t care. Or if they cared, it was that vague, distant sort of caring. They’d say ‘Oh, that’s too bad, I feel sorry for her family,’ and go on with their lives.

Eventually, I went to the only place I could think of where ponies wouldn't be going along with their ordinary daily lives. The clan cemetery was certainly a fitting place in my current mood, and seemed quite appropriate under the circumstances.

The Kicker cemetery was a bit smaller than you would expect, considering the fact that the clan’s been around for such a long time. You could chalk a lot of that up to the old Pegasopolan custom of burying or cremating our dead on the battlefield. For a long time the clan cemetery only contained Shadow’s tomb and the graves of a few other notable clan heroes, though we’d eventually started bringing more and more of our dead back for a proper burial instead of just burying them where they fell. These days, it was pretty much standard procedure. Not that I would’ve left Mom in that damned cave even if we still stuck to the old ways. No way in Tartarus I was gonna leave her in that dank, musty cave where the bug kept her for Celestia knows how long.

I bet if I wanted to, I could look around the place until I found the grave they were digging for her. I didn’t really wanna do that though. I wanted to ... Shadow, I don’t know what I wanted. I guess I wanted to be alone. To think, get my head clear, and sort this all out.

And that told me the perfect place to go. It’s ... kind of a strange ritual sort of thing, but a lot of Kickers go to Shadow’s tomb when we feel like we need guidance. Guess it figures, really. Shadow was our big famous legendary ancestor after all. I don’t buy into the hero-worship thing that surrounds her as much as some of my clanmates, but even I think she’s fairly impressive. Compared to saving Equestria, telling a pony how to deal with death wasn’t a very big deal.

Granted, Shadow couldn’t literally give anypony advice, on account of being dead and all that, but the one or two other times I’d gone by her tomb I’d felt this sense of ... connectedness. It’s hard to put it into words, but it was like I could feel her watching over me from wherever the hay it is ponies go after they die. It was almost enough to make me buy into the old stories I’d heard around the clanhold, about how Shadow was still around in some form. Like her spirit was still watching over us, or something.

Whatever the case, Shadow’s tomb seemed like a good place to go now. Going off her memoirs, Shadow would’ve been fine with a simple anonymous grave like any other soldier, while just about everypony else wanted to build a massive memorial. Eventually, they settled on a large but fairly modest stone sarcophagus. Well, it had started out as modest, at least. Over the years, enough embellishments had been added that I had to wonder if Shadow’s bones were spinning around in the middle of it.

The sarcophagus proper rested in the center of a rectangular stone structure, with spaced columns in place of walls so that it would resemble the cloud styles of old Pegasopolis, and a domed ceiling. The sarcophagus itself was covered with engravings depicting her battles and victories, and atop it stood what was supposedly a perfectly-to-scale statue of my ancestor. Personally, I suspect that they bulked up Shadow’s proportions a bit, just to make her look more impressive. Not that she needed it.

Unfortunately, when I got there somepony else had already beaten me to it. I wouldn’t have been shocked to run into another Kicker at the tomb considering what had happened to Mom, but I hadn’t expected to run into Princess Celestia herself. The ruler of Equestria was just sitting there in front of the tomb with her eyes closed as if she were deep in thought.

After a moment’s hesitation, I turned around to leave. I certainly didn’t want to interrupt Princess Celestia herself while she was doing ... well, whatever she was doing. On top of that, it just seemed wrong to intrude on a private moment like that. With the rest of the clan, Shadow’s tomb is a big public thing that’s really more a monument to a heroine than anything else. But Princess Celestia was probably the only pony in all Equestria who had actually known Shadow while she was alive. It might be a monument to us, but for her it was the grave of a pony who, at least judging by what I’d read in Shadow’s memoirs, the Princess was rather fond of.

The Princess spoke up before I could clear the area. “You don’t need to leave, Cloud Kicker.” I’d have asked how the hay she knew it was me when she still hadn’t even opened her eyes, but this was Princess Celestia we’re talking about. “In fact, I think I would prefer that you stay.”

“Um, okay.” I uncertainly settled down in front of the tomb, a respectful distance away from the Princess. I’ll admit, my initial plan of sitting down for a bit to think and clear my head was pretty much dead in the air now—pretty much all I could really think about was the fact that Princess Celestia was right there, just a few steps away from me.

For several seconds an awkward sort of silence hung in the air between the two of us. Then the Princess turned to me, her voice oddly subdued. “Do you agree with your father, Cloud Kicker?” Her eyes drifted over to Shadow’s tomb. “Do you also think she would disapprove of my handling of this matter?”

I took a couple seconds to mull things over before I gave my answer. Now that I’d had a couple hours to calm down and look at things a bit more objectively I was feeling very slightly less pissed off, but I still wasn’t happy. “Yeah, I still think Dad’s got the right idea. Somepony—something—is out there, and you’re hiding from it.”

Princess Celestia’s eyes widened, and her tone picked up a bit an edge to it, as if I’d offended her. “I am not hiding. It is only prudent to act with caution while the true nature of the threat against Equestria remains unclear. For all we know, whatever power is planning to launch an attack might have canceled those plans after their agent was uncovered.”

“There’re a lot of ponies that don’t live in the most heavily guarded city in Equestria,” I countered. “Showing how strong we are at the heart of the realm doesn’t do a lot of good to anypony outside of the city limits, and there are a lot more places to infiltrate.” And a lot more ponies out there who could get nabbed by these Infiltrator things.

The Princess bowed her head in silence for several seconds before finally answering me. “According to our most recent intelligence reports, there are less than a dozen Infiltrators left in the world—and most of them of them either work in fields other than espionage or were last seen far from Equestria’s borders. Chrysalis was very thorough in her campaign of genocide. The odds that any of Equestria’s enemies could enlist multiple Infiltrators are infinitesimal.”

“Yeah, well what did your intelligence reports say about the chances that there was a spy in the heart of your armed forces, Princess?” I could feel the bitterness welling up in my voice as the words spilled out. “Hay, how many times did you meet with that thing pretending to be my mother and not notice anything wrong?”

The Princess gave a very slight flinch at that, then fell silent for several seconds before she took a calming breath and continued. “I did not come here to argue with you, Cloud Kicker. The last thing I wanted was to introduce more bitterness and pain to your life at a time like this. I regret that things went so poorly with your father. It was never my intention to pour salt into an open wound.”

“It just happened that way.” I stubbornly set my jaw, almost wanting to pick a fight with her. Hay, a fight sounded like a perfect way to blow off some steam. Sanity eventually prevailed, though, and I let out a weary sigh. “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

It was several seconds before the Princess answered me. “I come here, sometimes. When I find myself dearly missing her counsel.”

“Mm.” No need to ask who this ‘her’ was when we were sitting in front of Shadow’s tomb. I was tempted to toss out something bitter about how she didn’t seem to have much interest in getting advice from Kickers who hadn’t been dead for over eight hundred years, but the words wouldn’t leave my throat. Instead, I opted for something just a bit more diplomatic. “So what d’you think her counsel would be, here?”

The Princess took a few moments to consider that question before giving her answer. “Most likely that I should throw all the nobles out of Canterlot and use them as bait.”

I admit, that got half a snort of laughter out of me. I could certainly give the Princess a couple of suggestions on particularly expendable nobles. “Bait isn’t supposed to repel what you’re hunting, Princess.” My smile didn’t last long, though. It couldn’t, not on a day like today. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? She’d tell you to get out and hunt down the threat and deal with it. Find out who’s planning to come after Equestria and neutralize them before anypony else dies. Not turtle up and hope the numbers are right.”

The Princess very slowly nodded in agreement. “As your father said. His suggestions might have been too aggressive in some aspects, but there was still merit to his overall position. However, Shining Armor was also correct to say that we must maintain a secure base and a mobile reserve in a central position in order to quickly respond to any attack.” After taking a few seconds to think it over, Celestia gave a sharp nod to herself. “A division of forces, then. Luna will seek out the source of this threat, while I see to the safety of Canterlot.”

I wasn’t quite sure I felt about that solution. I guess it was a decent compromise, but it still seemed a bit too defensive. Then again, right now anything short of burning whatever nation sent that spy to the ground and salting the earth sounded a bit tame to me at the moment. “And who else? Princess Luna is...” I needed a couple seconds to come up with the right word to describe the Princess of the Night. “She’s formidable, but she’s only one pony.”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Princess Celestia’s lips. “I am to negotiate my entire defense plan with you then, Cloud Kicker?” When I didn’t return her smile, it slowly faded away, replaced with a more serious, businesslike expression. “I am sure Luna will pick appropriate ponies to assist her.”

I shifted around a bit, wondering if there might be some way to get myself on the team helping out Luna. Probably not an option, though. Even if Dad’s fears of losing me too weren’t an issue, there’s the fact that I would pretty indisputably be emotionally compromised when it came to going after whoever or whatever it was that killed Mom. Well, not literally what killed her, but they gave the orders that resulted in her death. Same thing, really. “S’long as they get the bastards that killed Mom, I guess I’ll be alright.”

“You have my word, Cloud Kicker,” the Princess announced firmly. “I will not let this attack go unanswered.”

“Good.” I gave a single sharp nod, and let out a sad little grumble. “‘Cause she deserves better than that. She deserves to be alive. They took that from her. They took that from us.”

“Yes.” I could hear the sadness in Princess Celestia’s voice. Not the sort of polite faked sadness that a lot of ponies would offer in a situation like this, which probably would’ve just gotten me mad at the Princess again. No, this was the real deal. I guess that counted for something, that Princess Celestia was genuinely sad about what had happened to Mom.

“Your mother deserved to live a full, happy life.” The Princess turned to me, and dipped her head slightly. “I am truly sorry for your loss, Cloud Kicker.”

I had to blink a couple times to clear my eyes, then I turned to her and nodded. “Thanks, Your Highness.” I turned back to Shadow’s tomb, trying to think of anything else I could say to the Princess. Nothing else sprang to mind, and I was suddenly cognizant of the fact that I was kind of intruding on what might be a fairly private moment for her. Besides, Aunt Wind, Blossom, and everypony else were probably wondering where I’d run off to. “Um, I should go.”

The Princess gently called out to me before I could even get to my hooves. “Stay a moment longer, Cloud Kicker. There are things I would speak to you of, and I hope that some of it might offer some small measure of comfort to you in this difficult time.” The Princess lifted her wing facing me, a clear invitation.

At first I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. On any other day I probably would’ve been too gobsmacked that Princess Celestia herself was offering me a wing hug. I mean, this was the ruler of Equestria we were talking about.

Well, technically she was the co-ruler now, and I hadn’t had much hesitation when it came to making a move on the other half of the diarchy, but Celestia was different from Luna. Maybe it was because Celestia had been here for all those centuries, while Luna hadn’t come back to Equestria until I was well into adulthood. Whatever the case, Princess Celestia just had this kind of mystique to her that made the gesture seem like so much more than an ordinary wing hug.

Right now, though, I didn’t really care all that much about the whole ‘power and grandeur of the Princess’ thing. She was offering me comfort, and I needed it. I settled down next to her, moving slowly and carefully on account of my damaged foreleg, and she wrapped her wing around me like a giant white feathery blanket. For the record, Princess Celestia is warm. I guess that figures, what with her being Princess of the Sun and all.

The Princess just let me sit under her wing for a while, probably letting me get comfortable with this strange new position before she started the conversation back up. Once I’d settled in, she looked down at me and spoke in a gentle, almost maternal voice. “You have walked a very unique path, my little pony. Does that trouble you?”

“It’s not about the path,” I grumbled. “It’s always been about who’s there with me. About who’s not there, anymore.”

The Princess closed her eyes for a few seconds. “I cannot heal that wound, Cloud Kicker. Not even I can restore the dead back to life, nor make their absence hurt any less.” The Princess let out a soft little sigh. “All I can do is offer you some small measure of comfort, on the matter of your path in life. I will ask once more; do you regret your decision? Do you think you made a mistake by refusing to join my Guard?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s the family tradition and everything. Besides, I was really good at all the classes at West Hoof, so I could’ve made a pretty good guard.” Now that I’d started talking, the words just came tumbling out. “But all that’s not really important, what matters is that I could’ve done something if I’d stayed—I would’ve noticed that Mom was acting different, seen ‘Lula get sick and figured out it was ‘cause that monster was feeding on her. Hay, I would’ve been there to see ‘Lula be born. I could’ve been spending all that time together with Mom, and instead I was running around Ponyville and...” The stream words babbling out of my mouth gradually trailed off, and I opted to just rest my head against the Princess’ shoulder.

The Princess gave me a while to compose myself before she spoke again. “You feel as if you’ve abandoned your destiny.”

My destiny. I guess that’s as good a way of putting it as any. It was like my life had gone horribly off track somewhere between Flight Camp and running out on graduation from West Hoof, and I’d been spending all the years since then running from the problem or trying to find a way to get things back to how they were supposed to be. It was almost like one of those stories you read, where a pony was stuck in this life they don’t feel like they belong in, until the truth comes out that they really don’t belong there. Except this time, it wasn’t some evil sorcerer or something that was throwing my destiny off track, it was my own stupid mistakes. I nodded, not quite trusting my voice at the moment.

The Princess gave me a compassionate smile for a moment, then turned to look back up at my ancestor’s grave. “Consider, if you would, whose tomb we both lie in the shadow of.” A hint of old yet never quite healed pain entered her voice. “It was her destiny, from the moment of her birth, to rule Equestria at my side. When the time came, I told her of that destiny. And once I’d explained everything to her and asked her to take up her rightful place at my side, she looked me in the eye and lovingly but politely refused.” The Princess turned back to me. “She too had a destiny, yet she didn’t feel compelled to follow it when she wished to walk a different path. If your venerated ancestor can do such a thing, then surely you can as well.”

I could see the point she was trying to make, but it just didn’t work for me. “It’s not the same, Princess. I didn’t refuse power for the good of Equestria, I abandoned my family. And now Mom’s dead because of that. There’s nothing to venerate, nothing worth remembering about that.”

The Princess slowly shook her head. “You give yourself too little credit, my little pony.”

It didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything she could say that could make anything I’d done since I’d left seem worthwhile. Everything paled in comparison to what it could have been, should have been. Having her offer a comforting wing like this just made it worse, in a way. Everypony was small next to her—almost foal-like.

That’s when the question came blurting out of my mouth without even stopping to consult my brain first. “Are you my grandmother?” For a second I considered trying to pretend I hadn’t said anything, but it was too late now. The question was out there, so I might as well ask it properly. “Well, not my literal grandmother, but my great-great-great-whatever grandmother. Y’know, by way of Shadow’s younger daughter.” Her biological daughter, whose sire Shadow had never publicly acknowledged. Needless to say, rumors had been quick to fill in the gap with just about every pony Shadow shared more than two words with ... which included Celestia.

The Princess let out a tiny little snort. “Would you believe, Cloud Kicker, that in all the years since then I could count on my hooves the number of ponies who have dared to ask me that question?” For second I wondered if I had horribly overstepped myself, but then she offered me a gentle smile. “All of my little ponies are my children, Cloud Kicker.”

My eyes narrowed at that blatant non-answer, and after a few seconds the Princess saw fit to clarify. “There were many silly rumors about Shadow and I, just as there are ridiculous rumors about the relationship between my faithful student Twilight Sparkle and I in more recent times. I can assure you, no such relationship exists between my faithful student and I, nor would I ever desire such a relationship.” Her expression softened a bit, and she added, “I can tell you, though, that whoever it was that sired Shadow’s younger daughter would be very proud of you, just as I know your mother was.”

I started to realize that it had been silly of me to ask about those old rumors—even if they were true, it’s not like Celestia could replace Mom. As Princess Celestia’s wing settled over my back, a hundred memories all flashed through my head. All of the gentle encouragement from Mom, the silent pride when she looked down at me after a sparring match, or the quiet concern in the hospital. All the promises I’d made just by being her child, shattered and left to gather dust with my armor. The years I’d lost since then, the distant, stoic looks that were the closest she’d ever come to pleading whenever we talked about me coming back to serve in the Guard. To be a part of her family again. I’d give anything to have those times back again.

“I just want my mom back.”

By the time I got back home, it was well into the night. Nopony was waiting up for me, which was probably a good thing. Sure, it would’ve been a nice gesture and all, but I would’ve felt bad about having somepony staying up this late just waiting for me to come home. Plus, I would be stuck answering a whole lot of awkward questions about where I’d gone and what I’d been doing. I just really wasn’t in the mood to deal with that right now.

I walked through the house, trying to make as little noise as possible so I wouldn’t wake any sleeping ponies up. The house felt oppressively quiet, this late at night, almost like it was completely empty. But then, it was empty in a way, wasn’t it? Not completely empty, but there was this gaping hole where Mom used to be.

It was silly, but I had to check on them, make sure they were all okay. Rainbow and Blossom would probably be napping in the living room, which was a lot closer, but I needed to go check on Dad first, even if it meant going the long way around. I knew nothing could have happened to him while I was gone, but I still needed to make sure he was alright. Just in case.

I was halfway to my parents’ bedroom when I remembered that Dad wasn’t sleeping there tonight. Too many memories. So I trotted over to the guest bedroom and cracked the door open. Dad was still asleep, and as far as I could tell he was okay. But how could I tell from all the way over here? Sure, he looked fine, but it’s not like I could see him that well with the lights out. I had to be sure.

I carefully opened up the door as quietly as I could, and walked up to Dad’s bedside. I stopped once I was close enough to hear the sound of Dad breathing, and I could see him well enough to be sure that he hadn’t been nabbed and replaced with some kind of bug monster. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. Dad was okay.

I went back to check up on Rainbow Dash and Blossom next. I didn’t know if Aunt Wind was staying here tonight, or if she’d gone back to her own place, so I could wait to check on her until after I knew the other two were safe. Then there were cousins Storm and Star to consider. I felt a quick tremble pass down my spine when it hit me that they were both still out in the field. What if something happened to them? What if whoever was behind what happened to Mom decided to launch their big offensive tonight, and the two of them got caught up in it?

I took a deep breath, and forced myself to calm down before I got worked up into a complete frenzy. Check on the ponies who were here first, then I could start worrying about everypony else. Blossom and Rainbow were each curled up on our couches, with a couple spare blankets to make things a bit more comfortable. Well, Blossom was neatly curled up, while Rainbow was just kind of sprawled all over the place. I could at least confirm that Rainbow was alright without much trouble, thanks to the way she was lightly snoring and one of her hind legs was twitching. It’s an odd thing about Rainbow, but she only ever tosses, turns, and snores when she’s sleeping groundside. Guess she’s just too used to clouds.

Then I turned to check on Blossom. Thanks to Rainbow’s snoring, I had to get pretty close to actually make sure Blossom was okay and still breathing. Too close, as it turned out, though I still assign some of the blame for that to Rainbow Dash. Her snoring was probably keeping Blossom from getting into a proper deep sleep.

In any case, my nose was just a couple inches away from Blossom’s when her eyes fluttered open, and she gave a couple sleepy blinks to make sure I was really there. “Cloudy?”

“Hey,” I whispered back, trying to keep it down so we wouldn’t wake up Rainbow. While she was usually a pretty heavy sleeper, there was no point in taking a needless risk, especially since Dash tends to be a bit cranky when she’s woken up in the middle of the night. “I just ... I was just checking on you. Sorry I woke you up. Just go on back to sleep, love.”

Unfortunately, Blossom didn’t take my advice. Instead of burying herself back under her blankets, she shrugged them off and stretched a bit. “I c—” She cut herself off as she remembered that Rainbow was still asleep, and dropped the volume down to a whisper. “I can sleep later, Cloud. Are you okay? You just flew out of here without saying a word to anypony.”

“I’m fine.” I tried to give a reassuring little wave of my hoof, but I couldn’t really pull the gesture off with my foreleg in a sling. “I just needed a little fresh air. Quick flight to clear my head and all that.”

“Cloudy...” Blossom brought a hoof up to my cheek. “You’re not okay, Cloud. Your mom just died. How could you be okay after something like that?”

“I’m alright, really.” From the frown on her face, Blossom wasn’t buying it for a minute. I couldn’t really blame her for that, since even I could tell I wasn’t okay. Yeah, I was hurting. How could I not be? But if I told her that, she’d make a big fuss about it, and it would be hours before either of us got to sleep. I didn’t want to deal with that right now. “Look, I’m a Kicker. We know how to handle death, it comes with being a Guard family.” Sure, Equestria had been relatively peaceful aside from the Nightmare Moon and Discord incidents, but even during peacetime you had the occasional monster attack and such. Mom’s funeral wouldn’t be the first one I’d attended for a Kicker who’d died in the line of duty.

“Cloud...” Blossom didn’t have to say anything else, the worried frown on her face got the message across just fine. There was no way I was getting out of this.

I let out a resigned sigh, and gave in to the inevitable. “Not here, we don’t want to wake up Rainbow Dash.” Blossom nodded, and I led her to my old room. It was the one place we could talk while being reasonably sure we wouldn’t wake anypony up.

My room hadn’t changed much, but I guess that figured when I didn’t use it very much. My parents kept the place squared away for when I visited, though I’d pretty much moved all my personal effects to Ponyville. Not that my room had ever been all that fancy in the first place, but now all that was left were the books I didn’t love enough to take back with me to Ponyville, and a couple other odds and ends like family photos I already had copies of.

As soon as I’d shut the door behind us Blossom wrapped her forelegs around my neck, hugging as hard as she could while being careful of my injuries. “Cloud Kicker, I’m sorry about your mom, I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t slowed you and Rainbow Dash down...”

“Hey, none of that.” I couldn’t bring a hoof up to her lips, so I had to improvise by pecking her instead. It got the job done. “You can’t go blaming yourself for something that isn’t your fault. The only one to blame for what happened to Mom was that thing that killed her.”

Blossom sniffled and swiped a hoof across her eyes. “I ... yeah. Thanks, Cloudy.” She broke the hug, which I somewhat appreciated, given the mild difficulty of keeping my balance with her hanging off of me. Ponies really aren’t meant to get around on three legs. Hopefully my leg wouldn’t be out of action for too long—I was probably gonna be getting a lot of hugs over the next couple of days.

I guided Blossom over to my bed, mostly so the two of us would have something to sit down on. She needed a second to compose herself, then asked one of the most painfully awkward questions she could’ve broken out. “What happened, anyway? I couldn’t get a straight answer from anypony; all I know is you and Rainbow Dash came back hurt, and your mother’s...”

It would’ve made my life less complicated if she hadn’t asked that, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Blossom would wanna know what had happened to Mom, especially since she’d followed us for more than half the trip out there. Unfortunately, the Princess still wanted the details of that kept quiet, so I couldn’t spill the beans just yet. Thankfully, there was a safe middle ground between full disclosure and outright lying. “A monster got her.”

Blossom frowned, and I got the feeling she wasn’t quite buying it yet. “What about that whole thing with you thinking she was a traitor. I’m guessing she wasn’t, but...” She trailed off meaningfully, waiting for me to fill the gap.

“Mom was loyal, I just didn’t have all the facts.” I really didn’t want to outright lie to her just to keep Celestia’s secrets, and from the thoughtful little frown on her face I could tell she was going to keep asking questions. That left me with the honest, but unsubtle, approach. “Look, Blossom, it’s kind of an ongoing national security thing at the moment, and I’m not supposed to talk too much about it. Sorry.”

Blossom sighed and gave a reluctant nod as she dropped the subject. She shifted nervously on the bed next to me, and let out a resigned sigh. “Okay then. Is there anything I can do to help? I just ... I feel so useless here. Rainbow Dash was there for you, she even helped you fight the thing that got your mom, and then there’s your family, and...” She trailed off and gave a frustrated little grunt. “I just feel like I should be doing something more for you, but things have been so crazy that this is the first chance we’ve really had to do anything.”

“Just having you here helps, okay?” I turned my head, planning to look her in the eyes and smile, but those plans went out the window when my eye passed over the nightstand. There were a few random family photos there, the usual little collection of moments. A big family photo for ‘Lula’s first Hearth’s Warming, me helping Storm and Star with their homework, a big group shot from the last big clan get-together, stuff like that. But the one that got me was a photo of me back when I was about ‘Lula’s age, getting ready for wing blade training with Mom. I had the sort of big excited grin you’d expect on a filly who was about to do something rambunctious, and Mom was looking down at me with that quiet maternal pride of hers.

I’ve mentioned it before, but Mom wasn’t the type to get all lovey-dovey. Some ponies would think that made her cold, or distant. The truth was different. She didn’t say those kinds of things because she didn’t need to. We both already knew it.

For some reason, it was that picture that finally did it. Everything just came pouring out without so much as a moment’s warning. One second I was fine, the next I was sobbing my eyes out. Blossom immediately leapt into action, wrapping her forelegs around me and pulling my head down to her shoulder, gently stroking my mane and murmuring reassuringly.

I’ve got no idea how long she held me. Long enough for to finish crying myself out, I guess. It took a while, but eventually there were no more tears left to shed, just a hollow pit in the middle of my stomach. I felt ... empty. Like everything good had just been drained out of me. I wanted to find something, anything, to fill that void.

I’m not particularly proud of what happened next.

Blossom jumped a bit when I kissed her. I guess me going from crying to kissing so suddenly must’ve caught her off guard, but it didn’t take her long to respond in kind. First she met my lips, then she moved to my eyes, kissing away the last remnants of my tears. “I’m here, Cloud,” she gently reassured me.

I didn’t say anything, instead I just kissed her again. This one was different from the kisses we’d had in the past. Less gentle and loving, more ... hungry. I just felt so empty, and I wanted something, anything, to fill that hole in my heart. At first Blossom responded in kind, but as we kept going she started hesitating. She might not have ever done this before, but some instinctual part of her brain could tell what I was building up to. When my good hoof moved down to her flank, she finally put a stop to it, breaking the kiss and gently putting a hoof on my chest to keep me from just getting right back to it.

“Cloud...”

I could see the uncertainty and doubt on her face, and I knew I needed to do something to make it go away. I didn’t want to stop, not until the pain went away. “Blossom ... please...” I slipped around the hoof holding me at bay and started gently kissing her neck. “We’ve both wanted this for a long time, and right now I need you.”

“I know, but...” She nibbled at her lower lip, torn between her worries and the way I was making her feel. Then my good hoof moved down to her flank and started gently rubbing her cutie mark, and she let out a soft little gasp. “Cloud ... but ... um ... what about your foreleg? We might hurt it.”

“I’ll be careful.” It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d banged with an injury. Heck, there was that time back in the day when I was home from West Hoof thanks to a hoof injury, and I’d snuck Lyra and a bottle of chocolate syrup up into my bedroom. Then Mom had walked in on us and...

I moved back to Blossom’s lips, driving the bittersweet memories away. Blossom returned my kiss fully this time, her initial hesitation melting away as I worked my magic on her.

And then ... well, let’s just say nopony will be able to tell virgin jokes about her anymore.

Author's Note

So, Big Announcement Time:

Comma Kazie and I are currently looking into the viability of following in the footsteps of stories like Fallout:Equestria and Flight of the Alicorn by making a print version of The Life and Times of a Winning Pony. We're still looking into the practical details, but if there's enough interest to make it worth going forward, we will find a way to make it happen.

The Pony Who Has Magic in Her Wingtips

I woke up feeling pretty good. Post-bang afterglow and all that.

Blossom was still cuddled up against my chest, drooling ever so slightly on me. I couldn’t really complain about that, though—considering what we’d gotten up to last night, a bit of drool wasn’t a big deal. I kissed her on the forehead and tightened my forelegs around her, savoring the moment. It felt good, to just have a beautiful mare cuddled up against me, resting in my forelegs, with the faint lingering odor of banging still hanging in the air to remind me of just how much fun we’d had last night.

It was a perfect moment. I felt kind of sad that Blossom wasn’t awake to share it with me, but at the same time, her being awake might have spoiled things. There’d be awkward morning-after talk instead of her just silently cuddling up against me and being adorable.

I couldn’t hold onto that moment for very long. Blossom might still be asleep, but before long I was awake enough to remember ... well, everything else that existed outside of my bed. All the stuff I’d been trying to get away from by banging Blossom.

Remembering what happened to Mom sent a fresh stab of pain through my gut. It still hurt. I don’t think it was ever gonna stop hurting, really, but it wasn’t so bad compared to the way it felt yesterday. There was still this big hollow ache in my heart, but ... I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess I kinda felt like I could handle it now. The pain wasn’t gonna go away overnight just because I’d had a good bang, but I did feel a bit more together than I’d been yesterday. I was hurting, but I felt like I was gonna be able to pick up the pieces and keep going.

That’s what Mom would want, right? Or at least, that’s what ponies always say in this kind of situation. That she would want me to move on with my life and find a way to be happy. Ugh, that sounds like a bad cliche, but I suppose it istrue. Love is all about wanting to make the ponies you care about happy.

Love. I looked down at Blossom and kissed her on the head again, drawing a sleepy little mumble out of her as she tightened her forelegs around my chest. I did love her. Then again, love has never really been the problem for me. I loved lots of ponies, even ones like Rainbow that I had never banged. It was the whole long-term relationship and commitment thing that tripped me up. That, and not always thinking things through.

I really shouldn’t have banged Blossom last night. I had kind of used her to get away from my own pain. If our positions had been reversed, I probably would’ve tried to gently let her down on account of Rule Three. I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind for a bang, especially not something as big as Blossom’s first time. Losing her virginity should’ve been something special, and instead I’d turned it into nothing more than a mood-booster for me. That wasn’t right.

It was a bit too late to take it back now, though. It’s not like I regretted banging her, I just had bad timing. I could make that up to her—take her out on a nice fancy date, treat her like a princess, and just generally make it clear that she meant a whole lot to me. Then I could show her the difference between banging and making love.

I slowly slid out of bed, taking care not to wake Blossom up. It can be a little tricky to slip away from a pony who’s all snuggled up against you, but I’ve had plenty of practice at it. I’m not sure what I planned to do after that. Probably check on Dad.

My stomach let me know that it had other priorities. Come to think of it, I don’t remember eating anything since my breakfast before the whole thing with the Changeling. I’d kind of had other things on my mind. Still, need to keep the body fed and running. One of the many lessons they pounded into my head at West Hoof was that a pony needs to stay fed and hydrated as much as possible. Sure, ponies won’t starve to death if they miss a meal or two, but a bunch of grumpy, short-tempered soldiers who are thinking more about their next meal than their mission aren’t very effective.

When I got to the kitchen, the icebox was already open and I saw Dash’s rather distinctive tail poking out from behind the door. Guess it figured she’d be hungry too, since she’d been right there with me for everything that had happened yesterday. Dear Celestia, did all that really only happen a day ago? It felt so much longer than that. How could so much stuff have happened in a single day?

I cleared my throat to get Dash’s attention. “Hey, can you grab something for me too?”

I guess I must’ve caught her off guard, because when she heard my voice she jumped and ended up smacking her head against the top of the icebox’s door. I gave a sympathetic little wince, but didn’t say anything about it. Rainbow being Rainbow, she’d get all proud and defensive about it if I called attention to the whole thing, so it was probably best to just salve her ego by pretending it never happened.

Rainbow rubbed a hoof on the side of her head for a couple seconds, then pulled out a bowl full of carrots, celery, and corn, and set it down on the kitchen counter. “Hey, Kicker. Didn’t hear you come in. Hope you like vegetables, ‘cause that’s what was in the icebox. You want something cooked, you’ll hafta make it yourself.”

Raw veggies wasn’t the fanciest of breakfasts, but food is food. I wasn’t in the mood to go to all the trouble of cooking. In Dash’s case, I could guess that she was either too lazy and/or hungry to cook, or she didn’t want to admit that she’s not so hot when it comes to groundside cooking. She’s a decent enough chef when she’s doing pegasus-style cuisine, but there’s a big difference between using a thundercloud and using a stove.

For a while the two of us just munched on the veggies until the grumbling in our stomachs died down. Once she was in a position to use her mouth for talking rather than for shoving food into, Dash looked over at me and for once her brash, scratchy voice sounded almost gentle. “So, um, how you holding up, Cloud?”

Some ungrateful part of my mind wanted to rant about the stupidity of a question like that. How did she think I was holding up? My mom was dead! I reined that nasty impulse in—Dash was just trying to help and be supportive, in her own way. Hay, I wasn’t even really mad at her, just pissed off about what had happened to my mom, and Rainbow seemed like a good target to vent on. I wouldn’t do that to her, though. Not after she’d stuck with me through this whole mess. “Hurting,” I answered her question as calmly as I could. “I’m a little better than I was last night, but...”

“S’kinda like when I was in the hospital after my eye went wonky on me again,” Rainbow cut in. “By the second or third day in I was doing a lot better, but I still felt like horseapples.”

“Yeah, not a bad way of putting it, I guess.” I pushed the rest of the food away—I’d had enough, and I wasn’t really in an eating mood anymore.

I was a little surprised when Rainbow pulled me into a hug. She’s normally not very big on getting all sensitive and touchy-feely like that, but I guess even she could tell that I really needed a hug right now. I leaned into the hug, just basking in what comfort her lean, muscular body could offer. Some distant part of my mind said I should kiss her. Not one of those restrained, friendly little pecks, but a full-bore one. Just go all out on her, take every bit of comfort she could offer me and hope that maybe that would be enough to make me stop feeling like ... this.

No. Dammit, I needed to stop thinking that way. Trying to escape from what happened to my mom by jumping into hedonism wasn’t a solution. Well, okay, it wasn’t hedonism as such, but still...

I looked up at Rainbow Dash, wondering if maybe she could tell what had been going through my head just then. Thank Celestia, Luna, and Shadow, it didn’t look like she knew. That would’ve been awkward. She seemed to be fine with just holding me, and being the amazing and supportive friend that I really, really needed right now. “Rainbow... thanks. I mean it. Just—thank you. For everything.” I tightened my hug around her.

I’m pretty sure I caught a hint of a blush on Rainbow’s face before she answered with uncharacteristic modestly. “S’not a big deal, Cloud Kicker. You’d do the same for me.” That was the funny thing about Rainbow Dash—she would brag until you were sick of hearing about it when she did little stuff, but she never felt the need to rub it in when she was there for the big stuff.

“I mean it, Rainbow.” Partially because I wanted to make sure I had things under control, and partially just for all the usual reasons, I kissed her. Thankfully, my brain was in the right place, so I kept it chaste and friendly. “You’ve been a great friend.”

No doubt about it now, she was blushing. “Oh, stop it.” Her embarrassment didn’t last too long though; a second later, she got her hooves back under herself and her normal brash confidence was back in place. “Or, y’know, you could keep going on about how awesome, cool, and radical I am. You can cover those in any order you want.”

I left out a soft little laugh at her blatant egotism. Celestia, I’d needed that. “Never change, Rainbow.”

“Why should I?” She grinned at me. “Can’t improve on perfection.”

The two of us trotted over to the couch in the living room Rainbow had just spent the night on, but instead of sitting on the couch like two ponies normally would I leaned back against her chest, letting her wrap those trim, athletic forelegs of hers around me. It felt safe, I guess. Like I could count on her to be a strong protector for me. I rested my head against her neck and shoulders, and then she put her wings around me, which made me feel even more secure than I’d been before.

For a while the two of us just sat there silently, with her being my big feathery security blanket. Unfortunately, that moment couldn’t last forever. I felt the rumble in her chest when Rainbow cleared her throat, and I saw her eyes lingering on the other couch, where Blossom had been sleeping when I got in last night. That spot was rather conspicuously empty now. “So...” Rainbow Dash began, shifting her eyes back down to me. “You and Blossom. You uh, you did the business?”

“Yeah.” I suppose I could’ve tried to lie about it, but aside from how wrong that would be, I don’t think there was any way I could fool her. “What gave it away?”

Rainbow let out a little snort. “Blossom’s not there, and you smell like a brothel. I can do the math on that easy enough.” She took one of her hooves off me and waved it front of her nose. “Seriously, Kicker, you reek. You better grab a shower, ‘cause if I gotta put up with how much you stink all day...”

“And yet, you’ve been hugging me for a while now.” I wanted to thank her for starting off with a joke—I don’t know what would’ve happened if we’d jumped right into the big serious talk about me sleeping with Blossom. Joking about it made it easier to deal with, at least. I wonder if she picked that trick up from Pinkie Pie? In any case, I played along, and gave her a teasing little nudge. “How do you know what a brothel smells like, anyway? You been up to something naughty?”

“You wish.” Dash rolled her eyes and nudged me right back. “You took me to one, remember?”

“Oh yeah...” I grinned and fondly shook my head at the memory. I’d kind of done it on a whim during one of her trips to Canterlot while I was still at West Hoof. Mostly as a joke, though maybe I had been a bit curious to see what Dash would go for. “Still can't believe you passed on that. I mean, that place was like an all-you-can-eat buffet, except instead of food it was banging.” Maybe I should’ve tried more of a specialty place—like one where the employees were all dressed up in Wonderbolt costumes or something.

“You would’ve had more luck taking me to a real all-you-can-eat restaurant,” Rainbow grumbled. “Instead of things getting all weird and awkward, we could’ve skipped breakfast and lunch, then showed up for dinner and eaten so much they lost money on us. It would’ve been awesome.” She let out a quiet little scoff. “But nooo, you had to go for something banging-related instead. On top of that, well, they were all way more interested in you anyway. Kinda like they all knew you by name or something.” She paused, and her grin took on a distinctly teasing tone. “Come to think of it, they did. I’m pretty sure you had one of those repeat customer discount cards when you went in.”

I gave her my best confident and completely unflappable grin. “Well, I had to make sure the place was good enough for my best friend.” The truth was perhaps a bit less flattering—it was actually a clan-owned establishment. Most of the clan’s business interests catered to the military in some way, and one of the things soldiers need is a place to blow off steam after a hard campaign. Obviously, the staff were hired from outside the clan.

Back when I was young, I hadn’t quite mastered the art of swag, or the equally important art of sorting out who was worth banging and who to pass on. There was something to be said for the simplicity of a guaranteed good bang from a good pony, even if it cost me some bits. Besides, I’d learned a lot of useful things that way.

Not exactly something I could really talk over with Rainbow Dash, though. Especially since I’d made a point of taking her to that brothel on a night Posey had off. Dash did notneed to meet that sweet little earth pony with a mane and coat color pretty darn close to Fluttershy’s. I guess that’s one way to deal with a nasty breakup.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and broke out one of the nastiest weapons in her arsenal: sarcasm. “Yeah, I’m sure you were going to the brothel just for my sake, and no other reason.” She went from sarcastic to just the slightest bit pouty as she added, “Probably would've helped if they'd tried to jump my bones instead of yours. Or, y'know, if I actually went for all that banging stuff.”

“Well, not my fault I was so good that by the time I was done they wanted to pay me.” Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but why should Rainbow be the only pony who gets to have fun with rampant egotism? “Seriously though, you had your pick. Any mare or stallion in a room full of beautiful ponies, and you turned them all down.”

“Eh.” Rainbow gave an unimpressed shrug. “They were nice enough, but...”

“But nopony caught your interest.” I finished for her. “Why do you think I figured you were just about asexual until you hooked up with Pinkie?”

“It’s like I always tell you when you wanna start talking about banging,” Rainbow began, proudly puffing out her chest. “It’s not that I’ve got no interest in it, it’s just that until Pinkie I hadn’t met anypony who could handle the sheer awesomeness of Rainbow Dash.”

“You’ve never said that before,” I immediately pointed out.

“Well if I haven’t said it before, I should’ve,” she answered with an airy wave of her hoof. “That’s basically the same thing, so it still counts.” Rainbow gave a self-satisfied nod after delivering that little pearl of wisdom.

“Yeah, whatever.” I gave her a friendly poke in the shoulder, and settled back into place.

Rainbow went back to holding me, but couldn’t go for long without having to spoil the moment. “Seriously though, Cloud Kicker, you need to at least take a shower or something. Hay, I’m gonna hafta take one too just from being so close to you.” She promptly put a hoof over my mouth. “And no, before you ask, we’re not taking that shower together. I know you wouldn’t try anything, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t be looking at me and thinking ... things.”

“Guilty as charged.” What can I say, the idea of Rainbow in the shower, her wet mane plastered against her head while water dripped down her flanks... Sure, she might be off-limits as far as banging was concerned for a whole lot of good reasons, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t even look and appreciate.

The two of us went quiet for a few seconds, before Rainbow finally worked up the courage to talk about the really big and awkward topic we’d kind of been avoiding. If it had all been up to me, I probably would’ve kept dodging the topic for as long as possible. “So. You slept with Blossomforth.”

“Yeah.” I felt a little shiver of guilt go down my spine.

Rainbow let out an annoyed little groan. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but the worst part is that I’m really not.”

“Just disappointed,” I finished for her, before sighing and facehoofing at my own stupidity. “Dammit. I guess I’m kind of predictable that way—things get bad for me, and I go looking for a bang to help me feel better.” I gave a guilty little shuffle, uncomfortably aware of just how close I was to Rainbow Dash. “If it was you that woke up last night instead of Blossom, I probably would’ve ended up trying to seduce you instead. Hay, the idea’s still tempting me more than it should. I just ... I just want it to stop hurting, and now I’m at the point where just about any warm body will do.”

“Nah, that isn’t it.” Rainbow tightened her grip around me. “If you’d just wanted to bang anything with a pulse, you would’ve gone out looking for ponies or hit the whorsehouses. Instead you came back here, to ponies that ... y’know, you care about. That’s a pretty important difference, right?” I slowly nodded in agreement. Hey, just look at how good this bit of platonic cuddling with Rainbow was making me feel. “I figure you wanted love and reassurance and stuff, not just a quick bang with the first willing pony you could find.”

“That’s ... that does make me feel a bit better. Thanks.” I gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “When did you get so smart about relationships anyway?”

“I’ve always been this smart.” Rainbow assured me with her usual level of modesty. “I just like to save all that brainpower up. For stuff that’s important, y’know?”

“Yeah. Sure thing, Dash.” I reluctantly removed myself from her comforting hooves and sat up. “Still, now that I’ve gone and banged Blossom...”

“No point crying over spilt cider,” Rainbow concluded with a sage nod. I was rather tempted to point out that Rainbow had literally done that in the past. “I’m not gonna chew you out over it, partly ‘cause you already know you feathered that up, and partly ‘cause—look, I can’t say I know how you feel, but I know you were kinda a mess all day yesterday. Really, I should’ve stayed up all night waiting for you to get back.” She rubbed a hoof along the back of her mane, and there was a slight nervous crack in her voice as she added. “I mean, I probably could’ve handled you trying to hit on me a lot better than Blossom did, just ‘cause I don’t wanna bang you in the first place.”

I gave a quick shake of my head. “No, Rainbow, don’t try to take responsibility for this. It was still my decision, so it’s my responsibility to make it right.” I held up a hoof to forestall any objections. “That doesn’t mean you can’t help me, it just means that I won’t let you take the fall for me. At the end of the day, this is my problem.”

“S’not like it’s all your fault.” Rainbow grumbled under her breath. “Blossomforth had to know you weren’t in good shape, but she banged you anyway.”

That got my temper flaring, just a bit. “She did not take advantage of me!” I paused, and made myself take a couple deep breaths before I could get too worked up. “It was mutual, okay? Hay, I started things—I kissed her first.”

Rainbow shifted a bit, and couldn’t quite meet my eyes as she murmured, “Just ‘cause a pony who isn’t thinking straight kisses you and says she wants to bang doesn’t mean it’s all okay. Don’t you have a rule about that sort of thing?”

I couldn’t really dispute that, so instead I reluctantly conceded the point and started working on damage control. I didn’t want Rainbow jumping to conclusions. “Yeah, if I’d been in Blossom’s horseshoes, I would’ve said no because of my rules. But those are myrules, not ones everypony else has to follow. Besides, it’s not like Blossom swooped in with some nefarious scheme to take advantage of me in my moment of weakness. Hay, at first she tried to tell me it might not be a good idea, but...” I trailed off uncertainly, and settled for a weary sigh instead of finishing the sentence.

Thankfully, I’d gotten enough of it out for Rainbow to complete the thought for me. “It’s just that when a pony she’s been pining after for a long time started going all out on her, she didn’t say ‘no.’”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the size of it.” I felt my ears droop and my shoulders slump as the full implications hit home. “I mean, Blossom doesn’t really have much relationship experience. Hay, until last night she was a virgin. She wasn’t prepared to handle a situation like this, didn’t have the experience to know what was and wasn’t a good idea.” I sighed and took a moment to gather my thoughts before continuing. “I guess what I’m saying is we both made a mistake last night. Me ‘cause I wasn’t thinking straight, and her ‘cause she didn’t know any better.”

“So banging Blossom was a mistake?” Dash prompted me.

“Banging her last night was.” I put just a bit of emphasis on the timeframe. “I don’t think I could regret banging a pony I love, but I can sure as hay regret doing it at a time when we weren’t in the right place mentally. Hay, I took her virginity on a comfort-bang. And that’s not to mention how Derpy’s gonna take the news...”

“So you’re gonna tell her?” Rainbow was looking at me with a bit of a frown. I’m pretty sure she thought that was the right thing to do, but for once what was going on in her head wasn’t clear just from looking at her face. She’s normally the sort to wear her heart on her fetlock.

“Derpy deserves the truth.” Besides, if you wanted to look at things pragmatically, telling her now was a lot better for everypony than trying to cover it up. Lying to her would just make things worse, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get everypony to go along with it in any case. Asking Dash to lie to Derpy for me would put her in one hay of an awkward position, especially for a pony who’s so loyal she can go and weaponize that loyalty for the purposes of blasting evil and/or insane beings of god-like power. I wasn’t gonna put her in a position where she had to choose between her friends.

So yeah, I was going to confess. “Just one thing, though. Can I wait until after the funeral to tell her?” I scraped one of my hooves along the carpet. “It’s just that I don’t wanna dump all this on her right in the middle of everything else. Not sure I could really handle breaking the news to her all that well right now, and it’s just all so much to deal with.”

Rainbow thought it over for a bit, then nodded. “Yeah, probably a good idea. Just as long as it doesn’t become one of those things where there’s always another excuse to put it off for a couple more days. I know a lot about procrastination.”

“It won’t,” I promised her. I knew she would hold me to that promise too. I was committed now—Derpy was going to get the truth.

Once everypony was up and moving around, we headed for Canterlot Station to meet Derpy and everypony else coming from Ponyville. I only knew Derpy and Alula were coming for sure, but I’d be pretty surprised if Eepy wasn’t coming along as well. Sure, we might have given up on trying to turn back the clock, but that didn’t mean she could just stay in Ponyville while I was hurting. There were a couple other ponies I wouldn’t mind seeing either—honestly, right now I would take all the love and support I could get.

Canterlot Station was just as busy and bustling as it would be on any day. Between being in the capital of Equestria and being a major railroad hub, Canterlot Station pretty much always had a bunch of ponies going going about their daily business. It still seemed weird to me, how all these ponies could just keep going along with their normal routines and daily lives as if nothing had changed. Then again, nothing had changed for them.

Things were awkward and painfully silent as we all waited for the train. In hindsight, I probably should’ve gone back to bed and had a talk with Blossom when she woke up, but by the time I finished with my shower to get rid of the post-banging funk everypony else was waking up. Between that and the fact that we were waiting for Derpy to get here, things were way too weird between us right now. Yet another reason sleeping with her last night had been a bad idea: I wasn’t really in a good place to handle all the post-banging awkwardness with everything else going on in my life.

So, I couldn’t really talk to Rainbow or Blossom until I was in a better place, mentally speaking. Dad came to the station too, probably to pick up ‘Lula, but what could we say to each other? I went over and put a wing across his back anyway. It might not have been much, but at least it was something.

Thankfully the train from Ponyville actually came in a minute early, so we didn’t have a long wait. Pretty much the instant the train came to full stop, Alula bolted out of the doors and ran up to Dad and me, jumping up and latching her forelegs around our necks. Dad quickly brought up a foreleg to support her. “Easy there, little soldier.” Dad’s voice was still a lot more subdued than his usual tone, but he sounded a lot more like his old self than he did yesterday.

‘Lula tightened her grip around Dad and let out a muffled sniffle. “M’sorry, Daddy,” she whimpered, “I know I’m s’posedta be strong an’ brave an’ not cry or anythin’, but...” The rest of her words were swallowed by a series of muffled, poorly-suppressed sobs.

“It’s okay, ‘Lu.” Dad rubbed a hoof up and down her back, being the strong, solid and fatherly rock she needed right now. It felt good to see him like that again, after how shaken up he’d been yesterday. “It’s okay to cry right now. I miss her too.”

After that bit of reassurance that she didn’t have to be some sort of emotionally dead exemplar of stoicism, ‘Lula finally broke down and let it all out. Dad settled down on his haunches so he could pull her up tight against his chest, wrapping his wings around her. Now that she had a bit of privacy, Alula let the tears flow freely. After a couple seconds, Dad looked over at me and opened up a small gap in his wings for me to join in on the comforting.

I did what I could to help ‘Lula, but with Dad hugging her like that there wasn’t much left for me to do except stroke her mane a bit and offer the usual reassuring words that not even I really believed. I felt so inadequate, like there should be something more I could do to help my little sister when she really needed me. She was sobbing her eyes out, and all I could do was rub her mane and spout a bunch of platitudes about how everything was gonna be okay.

I spotted Derpy and her girls stepping off the train out of the corner of my eye. Dinky was whining and trying to squirm her way out of Derpy’s hooves. I could take a guess at what was going through the little filly’s head—she saw ‘Lula crying and wanted to give my sister one of her patented get-better hugs. Despite the innocence of her intentions, Derpy and Sparkler obviously didn’t want her interrupting a private family moment.

Once ‘Lula settled down a bit and Dad stopped covering her with his wings I gave a nod to Derpy, and she let her daughter loose. Dinky crossed the train station so fast I could’ve sworn she teleported, and latched onto ‘Lula and Dad both. Derpy and Sparkler followed behind her at a slightly more sedate pace. I was a little surprised when Sparkler actually beat her mom to hugging me, not that I was going to complain too much about getting hugged. Derpy joined in on the hug a second later and followed it up with a gentle little kiss on the cheek. Not much by our usual standards, but it’s not like I was really in the mood to start making out with her then and there. Especially not with her daughter hugging me too.

“Oh, Cloud.” Derpy gently nuzzled my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“How’re ya holding up? Sparkler chimed in. “Anything we can do to help? Well, aside from the usual being here for you.”

Dammit, all this love and support was just making me feel worse than ever, thanks to the whole thing with Blossom. A part of me wanted to just spill the beans right then and there to get it all over with, but I knew that would be a bad idea. That was the kind of news you need to break delicately once you’re in the right frame of mind, not just blurt out in the middle of a crowded train station.

The three of us spent a bit of time talking, but there wasn’t really much we could say. Even if the Princess hadn’t asked me to keep quiet about what had happened, it’s not like I would’ve wanted to give Derpy a play-by-play of what happened with Mom. I just wanted ... feathers, I don’t even know what I wanted.

Well, aside from Mom back.

After a while Dinky came over and wrapped herself around one of my forelegs. Looks like I was on the receiving end of one of her get-better hugs now. I leaned down to give her a nuzzle, but unfortunately this was one of those problems that not even a get-better hug could fix. It still helped, though.

After Dinky had spent a while latched onto me, Derpy gently tried to pull her away. I could see Lyra talking with Dad and Eepy nervously standing off to the side, so I guess Derpy was worried about monopolizing me. Dinky wasn’t about to let go—if anything, her hold on my leg just got tighter. Geeze, she had an iron grip. That’s a pretty normal filly thing, though; ‘Lula could be like that sometimes too. Hay, back when I was all little and huggy ... with Mom. Celestia, I was even younger than Dinky, last time that happened.

Dammit, I couldn’t even get a hug from Dinky without my mind going back to Mom.

After a couple more gentle tugs, Derpy let out a slightly annoyed grumble and just left Dinky latched onto my leg, then gave me one last nuzzle before she made room for Lyra.

A second later there were now two ponies hugging me. “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” Lyra whispered. “I promise, everything’s gonna be okay. We’re all here for you.”

“I’m here too,” Dinky chimed in, giving my leg another squeeze. “‘Cause I love you.”

“Thanks.” That word sounded so inadequate when it came to trying to convey just how much I appreciated having them there, but it was all I could come up with. “Just ... thanks.” I really hadn’t spent enough time with Lyra lately. With all the crazy stuff going on in my life there just hadn’t been much time for her, and that was a real shame. “Hey, is Bon Bon here with you?”

“Nah, she’s busy with work stuff in Ponyville, and she couldn’t get away.” Lyra shifted her hold on me a bit and sounded just a little uncomfortable as she added, “Plus—well, she never really met your mom or anything, so she was a little worried that she’d just end up getting in the way if she came.”

From the worried little frown on her face and the way she was shuffling her hooves, it was obvious something was bugging Lyra. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She very obviously wasn’t. “We just ... had a bit of a discussion about her not being able to come.” From her subdued tone, I had a feeling this was one of those discussion that involved a lot of yelling and tears. Dammit, I didn’t want to be the cause of Lyra and Bon Bon getting into a fight.

“Hey, it’ll be fine.” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek for reassurance. Dinky, taking note of which pony needed comforting, promptly let go of my foreleg and attached herself to Lyra instead.

“Yeah, thanks. And thank you too, Dinky.” A second later Lyra let out a frustrated little groan and facehoofed with the foreleg Dinky wasn’t latched onto. “Dammit, I was supposed to be comforting you, not the other way around. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Harpflank.” I pulled her in for a bit more of a hug, then reluctantly let go so I could move on to Eepy. Unsurprisingly, Fluttershy was patiently standing off the side, trying not to do anything to disrupt our moment, but I could still kind of pick up a sense of impatience that was very unusual for her: a bit of tension in her legs, the way her wings were just very slightly open, stuff like that. While Eepy would never go and say something like that outright, her body language made it clear that she wanted Lyra to leave so she could have some time with me.

As soon as Lyra let go of me and started walking away, Dinky still firmly attached to one of her forelegs, Fluttershy flew up to me. She was so eager to get into hugging range that she actually came darn close to shoving the unicorns out of the way in her haste. A second later she was half-sitting on her haunches, using her wings to help stay balanced, and pulling me into a gentle but very insistent hug, bringing my head to rest against her chest. The gesture just felt so ... maternal.

Aw horseapples, I was gonna start crying again. As the tears started, Eepy pulled me in closer, and brought up her wings to give me a little privacy.

Once I’d cried myself out Fluttershy relaxed her death grip hug on me, giving me one of those soft little nurturing smiles of hers. Now that I could see something beyond Eepy’s chest and my own tears, I noticed Rarity talking to Dad and ‘Lula. Wonder what she was doing here? I mean, she was nice and all, but it’s not like I was especially close to her. A quick scan of the train station showed that none of Rainbow’s other friends were here, just Rarity. Well, I could ask her about that later.

When he noticed I was looking over at them, Dad caught my eye and gave a subtle little twitch of his head. I knew him well enough to interpret the gesture—he wanted to head back to the clanhold. I couldn’t really blame him for that. We didn’t need to be standing out in the middle of a crowded train station, wailing and carrying on for hours. So, home it was.

The next couple days ... happened. I’m not quite sure what to say about them, really. I mostly spent the time being depressed while everypony else tried to comfort me. It doesn’t exactly make for the most compelling story. It was pretty much just a constant cycle of me feeling down and somepony hugging me and telling me everything was gonna be alright, my friends and lovers were here for me, and so on. Even with all that support, it takes a while to really recover from losing your mom, especially considering exactly what had happened with Mom in my case. Finding her in that cave, killing that thing that was wearing her face....

Since everypony was planning to stay in town until the funeral was finished, we needed to make arrangements for them. Thankfully, between having a large clanhold and being a military family, there were always some unoccupied quarters to use for accommodating guests. Derpy and Lyra both had family in Canterlot, so we really only needed to put up Rainbow, Blossom, Fluttershy, and Rarity. I’m pretty sure part of why Rainbow offered to be roommates with Blossom was to make sure I wouldn’t bang her again. Probably a smart precaution.

That left Rarity and Eepy rooming together in the other house. Since Rarity had mostly come along to give Fluttershy emotional support, that worked just fine. The only problem was while Eepy is undeniably sensitive, she doesn’t need constant hoof-holding even in a situation like this. Rarity did have some work for her business to keep herself occupied when Fluttershy didn’t need her. However, whenever Rarity wasn’t out making contacts, buying materials, and all the usual fashionista stuff, she decided it would be a good idea to help out with the funeral arrangements.

Since Mom was having a Cult of Shadow funeral, that didn’t turn out so well. Thing is, the Shadovars are big on austerity and stoicism, while Rarity ... isn’t.

Having to deal with uncle Typhoon Season grumbling about how Rarity was disrespecting all the sacred rites while Rarity grumbled about how she’d just wanted to make the funeral a little nicer was not my idea of a good time. Naturally the two of them came to me to sort the whole mess out, seeing as Rarity was my guest and all. Thankfully, once I made them sit down and actually talk things out like grown-ups, they managed to work out a reasonable compromise where Rarity could help so long as she exercised a reasonable degree of restraint. In other words, no covering everything with bright sparkly gemstones.

Aside from that little crisis, things pretty much just went along until the day of the funeral itself. Well, technically I should say the night of the funeral. I spent most of the actual day of the funeral napping and taking things easy—kind of a necessity when the funeral itself was starting about two hours before dawn and carrying on well into the morning.

So, I wasn’t surprised when somepony came into my bedroom and gently nudged me awake in the middle of the night. I was a little surprised by who it was, though. “Hey, Storm. Thought you and Star were gonna be tied up with the whole investigation thing?” Storm was supposed to have gotten back a couple days earlier, but the Guard being what it is, scheduled leave time is never one hundred percent reliable.

“Yeah, it’s been pretty nuts. The investigation’s been keeping us really busy, but Princess Luna wasn’t going to let us miss the funeral.” Star ran a hoof through her dark grey mane; even with the lights mostly out, the white streak in it still really stood out. “Sorry, I could’ve gotten back a little sooner on my own. They didn’t really need another pony from the Long Patrol there, but I didn’t wanna leave Star behind. She’s my little sis.”

Star spoke up from the doorway. “I’m only a year younger than you. I think I could’ve survived on my own for a couple days.”

Storm brushed a hoof over her light blue chest. “Doesn’t matter, you’re still my little sis. With everything going on I wanted to ... y’know, keep an eye on you and stuff.” Oh. Considering everything that had been going on, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep a closer eye on her little sister for a while. Storm shot a slightly shaky grin at Star. “I mean, you’ve got a non-combat talent, so it’s kinda my job to look out for you and blast anything that looks at you funny with one of my lightning clouds.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m just so weak and helpless.” Star rolled her eyes, then turned back to me. “Anyway ... Dad sent us to let you know that the funeral’s gonna be starting in about an hour or so. Anything you need to, um, help get ready? We’ve got some food waiting downstairs, if you’re hungry.”

“Cool. Think I’m gonna grab a quick shower first, though.” It’s not like I was especially dirty or anything, but I wanted to be fresh and clean for the funeral. Mom deserved that much.

I was about halfway to my bathroom when Storm spoke up. “Oh, hey, Dad said the Princesses were gonna be showing up, just so you know.” That wasn’t a huge surprise—Princess Celestia usually made a point about trying to attend the funeral for anypony who died in her service. Well, just another reason to make sure I cleaned up beforehoof, I suppose. Even if things had been a bit rocky last time we ran into the Princesses, they were still the Princesses.

One shower later, I was feeling as close to ready as I was going to get for something like Mom’s funeral. I trotted into the living room to find just about everypony sitting around nibbling on the snacks and talking in quiet, subdued tones. Most of the conversation stopped for half a second when I walked in, and I was on the receiving end of more sympathetic looks and quick hugs than I could count before I got over to Dad. ‘Lula was riding on his back, and he was in the middle of talking to Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon.

There was no sign of the Princesses yet, but I suppose they couldn’t really participate in the pre-funeral mingling without making things a bit awkward. The Princesses do tend to be the center of attention wherever they go.

“Hey.” I took a moment to swap quick nuzzles with Dad, ‘Lula, and Aunt Wind. I thought about giving Uncle Typhoon one too, but we’d never been all that close. Probably because he ran the Cult of Shadow, and I could charitably be described as a lapsed member. I had plenty of respect for Shadow, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the cult’s whole dogma of stoicism and austerity, or the way they put her up on a pedestal. In my defence, Shadow’s memoirs made it pretty clear that she wasn’t all that wild about the Cult either.

Technically ‘Uncle’ Typhoon wasn’t really an uncle, since he and Aunt Wind weren’t married. Still, they’d had two kids together and he did all the usual dad stuff for their daughters, so that pretty well qualified him as a de facto uncle in my book. He was a dapple like Star, though more of a bluish-grey, and his blue mane had a couple of white streaks in it just like the one in Storm’s mane. Thankfully, neither of them had picked up on his whole grim, stoic, and just generally no-fun-at-all personality. Supposedly he was capable of unclenching in private, but I’d never seen it happen.

When you think about it, Star and Storm came out remarkably well-balanced considering the fact that they were raised by a shrink and a religious leader.

There wasn’t much for the five of us to talk about, really. Uncle Typhoon was going through all the funeral arrangements and such, going over all the ceremonies, telling us where Mom would be buried, and all that. It was important for us to know the the planned funeral rites, but that topic’s not exactly the kind of thing that leads to a very lively conversation.

There was a pretty big gathering for the funeral. Not huge or anything, but between the family members, friends, and the ponies who’d served with Mom, we had a fairly large crowd. To my vague distaste, there were some high society types too, though I settled down once I realized that none of the really bad ones were there. I might not care for the Bluebloods of the world who pretty much just serve as giant social parasites, but with a group as large and diverse as the nobility you get all sorts of ponies, including plenty of decent ones like Lyra and her parents or Fancy Pants.

I felt a bit bad for Derpy, though. I appreciated her being here for me but, considering all the family history, showing up for a Cult of Shadow function had to be a bit awkward for her. Still, she hadn’t complained or even mentioned it once. She just put up with it so she could be there for me. I owed her a big thank-you for that.

Eventually, it was time to move on to the funeral proper. Ponies started gradually filing outside and heading over to the clan’s graveyard. It was still dark out, so Typhoon and his ponies had a bunch of torches set into the ground to keep ponies from tripping over their hooves on the way to the graveyard, and give us enough light to see by for the funeral itself once we got there. I could see the little aesthetic touches, like some flowers and a few touched-up banners and battle flags, that were almost certainly due to Rarity’s influence. Thankfully, she showed a lot more restraint than I’m used to seeing from her, but still did a lot to make things look nicer. I suppose I should’ve expected that in hindsight—a fashionista would be familiar with the idea that, sometimes, less is more.

I walked side-by-side with Dad and ‘Lula for the whole trip. Other ponies passed by to say a few words, the usual offering of condolences and stuff, but I didn’t really pay much attention. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the sentiments, but right now I was mainly focused on Dad and my sister, not every random pony who wanted to stop by and say a few words.

After a walk that felt like it took forever, even though the graveyard is normally two minutes away at a casual trot, we finally made it to the big circle of torches that marked the spot where the funeral would be taking place. Uncle Typhoon and a couple of his followers had trotted up ahead at some point to get everything ready, and were currently clustered around the coffin. I could see the Princesses standing off to the side, halfway outside the circle of torches, trying not to steal too much attention from the proceedings. It was hard not to notice them though, when they just had so much raw ... presence.

Then there was Mom.

The mortician had done a good job of cleaning her up: right now I could almost think she was just peacefully sleeping. Too bad I could still remember what she’d looked like when I found her in the cave. Her body hadn’t been desecrated or anything, but...

Ugh, I really don’t wanna think about that.

Anyway, now she looked very nice and peaceful, resting in her coffin in her red burial robe. I wonder if Rarity had sewn it? It might’ve just been plain red cloth, but something about the way it was cut and rested on Mom had a kind of understated elegance to it. Not the sort of thing I could imagine my uncle coming up with, or being part of the traditional funeral rites of my clan or the Cult.

For some reason, it really bugged me that Mom had a peaceful smile on her face. It just seemed like the wrong expression for her to be buried with. Mom was never much of a smiler to begin with. Or maybe I just didn’t think it was right for her body to go into the ground with a smile on her face, considering how she’d died. It just didn’t seem fitting.

Dad set ‘Lula down and stepped up to the coffin. I gently pulled my little sister over to my side, and the two of us took a couple steps back to give him some privacy. He leaned down so his head was practically inside the casket next to hers, and I could hear him whispering to her but wasn’t close enough to make out the words. Oh Shadow, he was looking bad again—I had never realized that my big strong Dad could look so ... hurt and broken. He’d always been that pillar of strength in my life, and now I could see his shoulders bobbing up and down in quiet sobs.

As soon as he stepped away from the casket, I trotted up and hugged him. I felt so lost right now, I just had no idea what I could possibly do to help him. I guess I was in the same place a lot of my friends were when it came to trying to help me—there wasn’t anything I could do to make him magically feel better. All I could do was be there to support him.

That came to an abrupt end when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted ‘Lula trying to scramble her way into the coffin. I let go of Dad and quickly went over to help her get to a place where she could see Mom. ‘Lula stood there on the edge of the coffin with one of my hooves on her back to help her stay balanced, staring down at Mom with this fillyish look of ... incomprehension. Like some part of her just couldn’t wrap itself around the idea that Mommy was never going to wake up again, that this was the last time she would ever get to see her.

That thing wearing my mother’s face had probably fed on ‘Lula too. It would explain why she’d been so sick. Come to think of it, she’d been a little tired and listless the last couple times I’d seen her. How long had that monster been hurting my baby sister? How much of what happened to her did ‘Lula even remember or understand? Why hadn’t I noticed that there was something horribly wrong while there was still time for me to fix it?

Alula looked down at Mom for a bit, then leaned down and gave her a quick poke with her muzzle, like she was just trying to wake Mom up from a nap. ‘Lula stared at her for a couple seconds, her ears drooping and her eyes watering as the truth finally started sinking in. Just when I thought she was about to break down crying, she bit her lower lip and sucked the tears back up, then shakily raised her left hoof to salute the casket instead. She was being the brave little soldier, trying to keep a stiff upper lip when she should be crying.

I wanted to just pull her into a big hug until everything was better, but that would ruin the moment for her. If ‘Lula wanted to be strong, then I should let her.

After a few seconds, her hoof shakily dropped from the salute. I quickly picked her up and set her back down on the ground so she would have a chance to get back to Dad before the dam broke. Maybe it was silly to care about something like that, but I felt like she needed to keep that brave face up. Like letting everypony see her crying like ... well, like a filly who’d just lost her mommy, would’ve stung her pride just a bit too much. She could have her tears in private, but all the ponies in attendance would only remember the brave little filly who saluted her fallen mother.

Once Alula got back to Dad, it was just me and Mom left. I stared down into the coffin and tried to think of something to say to her. It felt like I should be saying something deep or profound. Some big, meaningful statement that would set everything right, and perhaps give me closure on this whole thing. That’s how this was supposed to work, right? I should know exactly what to say and do, have some big speech ready about what a great mom she was, have some touching gesture that would show everypony here just how much I loved her.

To be honest, these sort of semi-public funerals have always kind of annoyed me. The idea of getting up in front of all these ponies and being expected to put on some kind of performance to show everypony how much I loved my mom and how sad I was that she was gone just didn’t sit right with me. It seemed almost like we were making a big public spectacle out of her death and our mourning. That just seemed wrong. Almost obscene, in a way.

So instead of putting on a performance, I just did what I wanted to do. I leaned down into the casket and gave my mother a final kiss on the forehead. “Bye, Mom. I love you.”

Then I turned around and walked away. I guess I could’ve talked about all the other stuff, like how I’d left the family legacy behind, or all the times we’d butted heads, but none of it really felt like it mattered anymore. All that really mattered, all that I needed to say to her, were those five words.

Once I finished, a couple more of Mom’s friends and family members stepped up to say a quick private goodbye, I kinda felt bad about not even knowing who some of those ponies were. Back when she was still around, getting to know all of Mom’s friends from the Guard hadn’t seemed important, but now it just seemed so wrong to me that there could be ponies out there who meant so much to my own mother and I didn’t even know who they were.

Once a pony that I was reasonably sure was Mom’s second-in-command stepped away from the coffin, Princess Celestia stepped up and gently cleared her throat. “Nimbus Gust was one of the finest soldiers ever to have served in my Royal Guard. Her dedication to serving the realm and her skilled leadership of the ponies under her command were an inspiration to all who knew her.” Princess Celestia paused and turned to look directly at Mom’s coffin. “I am proud, very proud, to have called Nimbus my Guard.”

From there, the Princess went into the rest of the fairly standard ‘say lots of nice things about the pony who just died’ speech. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate having the Princess herself delivering Mom’s eulogy, but I bet she’s done this so many times she’s got the speech memorized. How many ponies had died in her service? How many soldiers’ funerals had she spoken at? Did she really remember every single pony who died in her service over more than a thousand years?

How long would it take her to forget Mom?

Once her speech had run its course Celestia stepped back, and the pony I was pretty sure was Mom’s second-in-command stepped up and talked about Mom for a while. That’s really what most of a standard Cult of Shadow funeral was; just ponies stepping up, and saying a bit about the pony who died. Some of the stories were sad, some of them inspiring, and one or two of them were actually pretty funny. It was all about connections, I guess. The only thing all those had in common was how Mom had changed that pony’s life. That was the only thing that mattered, I suppose.

Once we were getting pretty close to dawn, Uncle Typhoon took over the proceedings to wrap it up. “I have prepared a brief reading from the Book of Shadow which I think suits the occasion.” Oh goody. Supposedly the Book of Shadow was a collection of Shadow’s wisdom and sayings, but I figured a lot of them were probably just something somepony made up, and attributed to Shadow to make it sound better. Then again, the Book of Shadow was pretty much just a bunch of Lyequine philosophy with tweaks and adjustments to modernize it and make it more universally applicable, so I guess Shadow probably wouldn’t mind having her name slapped on it anyway.

“Death,” Uncle Typhoon began, “follows soldiers for all their lives. We seek to bring it upon our enemies and prevent it ‘mongst our friends and allies. We do not fear death. Not because we are fearless, but because we have known it too long and well. Ponies fear that which they neither know nor understand, and all soldiers know death.

“That is not to say that our losses bring us no pain.” Uncle Typhoon paused, and gave a quick nod to Dad, ‘Lula, and me. “The loss of a comrade will always be an occasion for sadness and mourning. But we must honor them in death as we did in life. We must carry on, despite our pain, and fulfill our duties. When a soldier falls in battle, their comrades close ranks and stand firm. We will shed our tears in private, when the living no longer need us and the dead can have their time.”

Uncle Typhoon gave a very slight nod to the Princess. “But we must always remember that for all our losses, no matter how bleak life may seem in the face of death, a new day shall dawn.” Right as he delivered that line, the sun poked over the horizon. It was a nice touch—the Cult normally likes a funeral to wrap up right around sunrise for all the usual symbolic reasons, but when the Princess is attending getting the timing of that down is a lot easier. “The old words of our clan say that death waits in the dark. If that is true, then it also means that life lies in the light.”

That little bit of showmareship pretty much marked the end the funeral proper. They closed the coffin, and the burial itself went pretty fast. I heard somepony start crying when the first shovelful of dirt hit the coffin, as if it was just now finally sinking in that Mom was dead. Not sure who it was, aside from the fact that I could safely rule out Fluttershy. Eepy had been crying pretty much non-stop ever since the funeral started.

Mom’s grave was pretty simple, the way most Kicker graves were. Just her name and two simple words: “For Equestria.”

It wasn’t much, by most ponies’ standards. It was enough for us though, as long as we had our memories.

Celestia had set aside one of the ballrooms in the palace to host the post-funeral reception. That’s not quite as big of a deal as it sounds—the palace has a lot of rooms. A pretty big chunk of the palace was actually used for high-society parties, big public conventions, and just about anything else that required a large gathering of ponies. No point in letting all those rooms just go to waste when ponies could be using them. Especially since the ridiculously high rental fees were a huge source of extra income for the Crown. Well, Crowns, now.

The Princess was kind enough to cover the costs for the reception herself. Maybe that was her way of making up for how things had gone with Dad in the aftermath of Mom’s death. Or maybe she just wanted to do something nice for us. The room was pretty nicely done up, which I might have Rarity to thank for. Too bad a thank-you bang was off the table.

In any case, Princess Celestia didn’t stick around for the actual reception. She did kind of have to get back to the whole ‘running Equestria’ thing. I was a little surprised when Princess Luna didn’t leave with her. Luna had been kind of hanging in the background for most of the funeral, to the point where I’d pretty much just assumed she was only there because Celestia was. Now, I wondered if there were bigger reasons for her being here.

I didn’t need to wonder that for long. Once the initial round of well-wishers had passed by, the Princess herself came up to me and Dad. After the usual passing on of her condolences, she got straight down to business. “Lieutenant Commander, Cloud Kicker; there is a matter I would discuss with both of you.”

Well, that caught my interest. From how serious and formal her tone was, she clearly wanted to talk about something big. Dad glanced down at Alula, who was leaning up against his side and seemed to be half-drowsing. Between the unusual hours and the fact that she’d just gone through Mom’s funeral, my little sister didn’t seem to have much energy left.

Princess Luna glanced down at my little sister, then swung her head around and settled her eyes on Star, who was in the middle of chatting with Lyra and Sparkler. A second later Star gave a surprised little twitch, then turned around and trotted up to the four of us. “Um, hey Uncle Tore. I'll keep an eye on 'Lula while you talk to the Princess, okay?” I guess Luna must’ve done some sort of alicorn magic thing to let Star know what she wanted.

After several painfully long seconds of complete silence, Dad reluctantly removed his wing from around Alula, letting Star pick the tired little filly up and settle her in place on her back. Alula’s eyes snapped back open when she realized we were going to be leaving her, but a second later a faint glow emanated from the Princess’ horn and her eyes slowly closed again. “Rest, child,” the Princess softly murmured. “Dream of happier times, and let the trials and pains of this day fade into memory.”

“Thanks, Your Highness.” I stepped up and gave my little sister a quick kiss on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Little Wing.”

Star stopped to give me and Dad a quick goodbye nuzzle before turning around and heading back over to Lyra and Sparkler. Star did seem to be getting along pretty well with Derpy’s elder daughter—I’d have to remember to tease them about that later. Sure, as far as I knew Sparkler still had her crush on that one cute stallion in her class, but why let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good tease? Besides, it’s not like her having a crush on a stallion precluded the possibility of her having the hots for my cousin too.

Star got maybe three steps away from us before Eepy and Dinky descended on her, though their real focus was on ‘Lula. Hopefully the two of them would be able to work out some compromise where my sister could be simultaneously Flutter-nurtured and given one of Dinky’s get-better hugs.

Dad kept his eyes on ‘Lula for long enough that he was almost at the point of being rude. Before I could work up the nerve to say anything, though, he finally turned to Luna. “You wanted to speak, Princess?”

Thankfully, Luna seemed to be in an understanding mood instead of getting all prickly about it. “Indeed I did. If the two of you will follow me?” Luna led us to a relatively private corner of the ballroom, and then her horn glowed midnight blue for half a second or so. Once the spell settled down over us I vaguely recognized it as something like the good old Background Pony spell, except ... more. I guess that figures, when it’s a princess casting the spell. Presumably the general effect of making our presence and conversation seem supremely uninteresting to anypony else in the room was much the same.

I was understandably curious about just what Luna wanted to talk to us about that required a privacy spell. Thankfully, Luna was not one to mince words or waste time on idle pleasantries. Probably why she’d been so popular back in Pegasopolis. “I thought it proper to provide both of you with an update on our investigation into the circumstances surrounding Nimbus' death.”

Dad instantly went stiff as a board. I took a couple deep breaths, then wrapped a wing over his back. “Thank you for that, Princess. What can you tell us?”

“Princess Cadance,” a hint of a frown crossed her face at the mention of the junior princess, “and the Equestrian Intelligence Service have uncovered information that implicates Griffonia as the ultimate sponsor of the creature that struck down Major Gust.”

I couldn’t help but wonder what her beef was with Cadance. Maybe she just didn’t like Celestia expanding the alicorn population. Or maybe she figured that the timing of Cadance’s ascension meant that Celestia had probably intended Cadance as a backup plan to take Nightmare Moon down. That would make things just a bit tense between them. Or maybe Cadance borrowed her toothbrush once without asking. It always pisses me off when ponies do that.

Dad’s eyes narrowed. “I see. What do we know so far?”

“At her coronation, the new High Queen confirmed her claims to Westmarch,” Luna answered.

By itself, that wasn’t convincing. It had been more than eight hundred years since Equestria had snapped Westmarch off of Griffonia and turned it into an independent republic under our protection. Hay, the griffons there had absorbed so much pony cultural influence that they didn’t even eat meat anymore. Not to mention that the whole merchant republic thing meant that they were a lot better off than Griffonia proper, since there weren’t civil wars over succession every generation.

Having a new High King or Queen make one or two obligatory noises about reclaiming Westmarch was normal, but anypony who looked at the balance of forces knows the griffons wouldn’t stand a chance. Westmarch could probably give them a nasty enough fight all on its own, and once Equestria got involved as well it would all be over. “Anything else?”

Princess Luna went quiet for several seconds, then reluctantly spoke up. “Some months ago, somepony claiming to be a representative of the Griffonian government approached me with a proposal for a sort of ... joint venture. They would aid in the overthrow of my sister in exchange for Equestria’s neutrality in a Griffonia-Westmarch war.”

Guess it figures that talking about a foreign power offering to help her usurp the throne from Celestia would be a bit awkward for Princess Luna. Hitting a bit too close to home when it comes to the whole Nightmare Moon thing. Still, it did explain one or two things. “That’s still pretty nuts, but I guess I could buy that maybe griffons would believe that could work.” I shrugged and thought back to what I knew about Griffonia. “They can't go a generation without having some kind of civil war over who should be running the country. They might think we’d be the same way.”

“Indeed.” Luna let out a faintly derisive snort. “According to Princess Cadance’s intelligence, the griffons also attempted to contact Discord, Chrysalis, and several dragons. Her agents even intercepted a party in the far north, searching for the ruins of the Crystal Empire.”

“So they're fishing for allies,” Dad concluded. “Makes sense; everypony knows they can’t win on their own. Who would want to join forces with them, though?”

“We do not know for certain.” Luna grimaced. “All we know is that their efforts to locate allies ceased a few months ago, and now Cadance’s agents say they prepare for war.”

That definitely sounded bad. “So does that mean they think they can pull it off? That they have somepony—something to help them? Something big enough to even the scales?”

“It would be prudent to proceed upon the assumption that they do.” A distant look came into Luna’s eyes, and her voice turned almost contemplative as she added, “There are many forces in this world. There are some weaker than my sister and I, and some greater. And there are some against which we have not yet been tested.”

“Do we have any idea who they’re working with?” Dad asked.

”We do not yet know,” the Princess admitted with an aggravated little snort, “but we intend to discover the truth as quickly as possible. Princess Cadance has our intelligence service investigating every party Griffonia is known to have contacted. However, until we can be certain who they have aligned themselves with we must be on guard against a strike at Canterlot. The removal of myself and Celestia would badly destabilize Equestria and largely destroy our capacity for organized resistance.” I could swear I heard just a hint of annoyance in Luna’s voice as she added, “T’would seem that Equestria has grown far more centralized and reliant upon our leadership than it was in ages past.”

Dad and I prudently decided not to comment on royal politics and just stick to the security threats. “What about the Guard’s efforts at scouting for enemy activity?” Dad asked. “And what commitments have we made to monitor or counter the griffons?”

“My sister and I intend to send a battalion of guardponies to supplement Westmarch's forces,” Luna announced. That certainly got my attention—a battalion was a pretty large chunk of the Guard’s peacetime strength. Equestria hadn’t really had much incentive to maintain a large standing army after a couple centuries of peace (aside from the usual wandering monsters and such) when a small, elite force could do the job just as well. There’d been some talk of expanding the Guard after the incidents with Discord and Nightmare Moon, but to be honest your average guardpony just wasn’t equipped to deal with that kind of thing.

Dad thought it over for a bit, then gave an approving nod. “That should be more than enough to sustain Westmarch unless things go catastrophically wrong.” Admittedly it would be a very small force compared what a fully mobilized Griffonia or Westmarch could field, but between the Guard’s training and the fact that they were all equipped with unicorn-enchanted gear, modern guardponies tended to have a frightening amount of concentrated striking power.

“As for scouting,” Luna answered the second part of Dad’s question, “the bulk of our forces not occupied in the defense of Canterlot are engaged in scouting along our borders. If the enemy believes they have sufficient strength to strike at Canterlot and decapitate the Equestrian government, then any advanced warning our scouts might provide could be vital. I intend to return to the border myself once my business here is ended.”

It sounded like we had things somewhat under control, but there was one big issue I could see. “You're sure about Cadance's intelligence? Seems like we’re basing a whole lot of our defense plans on it.”

“The management of our intelligence services is part of her role in the government,” Luna announced coolly. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that Cadance did ... well, much of anything. A lot of ponies had been really excited at first when we learned that Celestia had raised a new alicorn princess, but the novelty of it wore off pretty fast. Especially since Cadance didn’t seem to really do anything except exist quietly in the background, largely forgotten by everypony.

Okay, her running Equestria’s spooks kind of made sense in light of that.

“Nonetheless, we are working to confirm all the intelligence Cadance has gathered.” Nice to know Luna was playing it safe. Then she turned her attention fully onto me—I felt just a little uncomfortable at being the center of a Princess’ attention. The worst part was, I still couldn’t spot a single thing to answer the question of whether or not we’d really banged. “However, the issue of scouting raises the final issue that I would discuss with you. Machwing Company is in need of a new commanding officer.” Luna was still hitting me with that unnervingly intense look of hers, and after a couple seconds I figured out exactly what she had in mind.

So did Dad, and he didn’t like it. “There’s already a significant pool of qualified candidates, Princess.”

I could understand him not wanting me out in the field right after what happened to Mom, but there was a lot more going on. Offering me Mom’s old command was a pretty big deal. I was admittedly a bit low on rank and experience for a position like that, but I guess the Princess figured that I was up to it. A lot of the soldiers might appreciate having their old CO’s daughter running things and it would definitely feel like I was carrying on her legacy.

Besides, it sounded like Equestria might be in for a rough fight. I’d always kind of told myself that if the Guard actually needed me, I would come back—maybe it was time to prove that I’d meant it, and wasn’t just rationalizing away my guilt for semi-deserting.

Hay, the fact that the Princess herself was asking me to come back to active duty was a pretty big feathering deal. “Dad.” I hesitantly licked my lips. “M-maybe it's time. If there's a war, shouldn't I be there to do my duty? For Mom?” If I’m gonna be honest, it wasn’t just duty for me. Sure, I wanted to do right by Equestria, but a part of me also wanted payback. It’s not very noble or heroic, but that’s how it was. They’d killed Mom, now I wanted to kill them back.

Dad sighed, and a took a couple deep breaths before answering me. “Our duties to the living are more important than our duties to the dead, Cloud. If there's a war, you'll have a duty to Alula—not many of us will be able to be there for her.”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple times before I could actually work out what to say. “There's still everypony at the clanhold to help with Alula. Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon aren’t exactly line officers. Hay, they’d probably do a way better job of taking care of her than I would.”

Dad went quiet for a bit, probably because he wasn’t too fond of the idea of having a family argument in front of royalty. That didn’t stop him forever. “No, Cloud.”

“With respect, Lieutenant Commander.” Luna kept her voice gentle as she cut in, but there was a hint of royal authority in it. “It is your daughter’s decision.”

I flinched at that; I hadn’t meant to get Dad corrected by one of the Princesses. She was right, though. This was a decision I needed to make for myself. “Can I have a couple of days to think about it? Talk about it with family and everypony? This isn't the best time.”

Princess Luna’s face softened into a sympathetic smile. “Yes, of course. You can have a week to consider the matter. I wish I could offer more, but in light of the current situation...”

I raised a hoof to forestall any apologies. “I understand; the unit needs a CO.” Well, Mom’s number two could probably handle things just fine if it came down to it, honestly. Hay, even if I did take over I’d probably spend a lot of time just doing what he suggested until I got a proper feel for things. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

Dad, for his part, was about as close to glaring at Luna as he could get away with. “Was there anything else, ma'am?”

Luna couldn’t have missed my Dad’s tone, but thankfully she decided to maintain her royal composure and pretended not to notice it. “I believe that is all. I thank you both for your time, and once more convey my sincerest condolences for your loss.”

Dad saluted her, and after a moment’s hesitation I joined him. If there was a chance I might be going back into the Guard, I should probably get used to doing that again.

As soon as the Princess was an appropriate distance away, Dad turned back to me. “Cloud, you know I don’t want you returning to the Guard. Not now, when Alula’s just lost her mother. She needs her family. Do you really want us both to be out in the field, where something could happen to both of us? Yes, Wind could look after her, but how do you think she would feel, knowing that the rest of her family might not come back?” Dad paused and shuffled his wings. “I—if Equestria didn’t need me, I would hesitate to enter the battlefield myself. As it is, I recently received an offer to take up a teaching position at West Hoof. Once this current crisis is resolved, I intend to take it. I do notwant Alula to lose another parent.” His gaze softened for a moment, then became rock-hard. “And I have no intention of ever burying a daughter. The rest of the clan will do its duty, but I think my family has given enough of its blood for Equestria.”

It was hard to argue with that. I could talk about how Equestria needed me, and that trumped my family’s need, but I’m not sure I could really believe that. Abstract concepts like duty and honor are hard to keep believing in when they’re up against the fact that your family needs you. “I would do it, Dad. Join the Guard. I'm not afraid anymore, not gonna second-guess myself.” Again. I took a deep breath. “But right now my family needs me where I am. Maybe, once all this is over and you’ve got that nice cushy desk job far away from the battlefield, I can think about the Guard again.”

It felt like the right choice. Like I’d sorted something out. I still wasn’t completely sure what I would decide, especially when there was still a whole lot of my life hanging in limbo, but I felt like I could make that choice now. Like if it came down to it, I wouldn’t lose my nerve and run away again, or just keep waffling indecisively until something else resolved it all for me.

“I’ll be there for ‘Lula, Dad,” I reassured him. “For as long as she needs me, I’ll be there for her.”

I was a little surprised when Dad pulled me into a hug, but wasted no time in returning it. “I need you to make sure that Alula recovers. From this, as much as...” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. That thinghad hurt my sister, on top of what losing Mom had done. That would take a lot of time and love to heal.

I felt my eyes starting to mist up a bit, but held the tears back. We were Kickers, and this wasn’t a time for crying. “Yeah, I'll do that. I love you, Dad.”

Dad tightened his hug around me. “I love you too, Cloud.”

Author's Note

Also, I'd like to remind folks that we're in the middle of the Winningverse Group's Cloud Kicker Month event. Check out the following stories that have already come out for the month, and keep an eye out for more to come before the month's over, including the Blossomforth one-shot I'm planning to release at the end of the month.:

"The Incredibly Blitzed Night of Rainbow Dash"

"The Incredibly Dextrous Hands of a Music Mare"

"Winning in Los Pegasus"

"The Incredibly Grumpy Life of a Weather Pony"

The Pony Who Can't be Processed With a Normal Brain

The bit I tossed landed moon-side up. Guess I was going to talk to Blossom first.

I’d made up my mind to sort things out with both of them before we left Canterlot. Well, sorting out this whole big messy love triangle in just a day or two might be a bit ambitious, but at the very least I needed to start making some kind of progress on the issue. I’d barely exchanged a dozen words with Blossom since I’d taken her virginity—maybe it was understandable that I hadn’t wanted to deal with a painful, ugly relationship talk on the eve of my mother’s funeral, but she deserved better than that. As for Derpy, I’d feathered up, and I wasn’t going to lie to her about it. She also deserved better than that.

At least my family seemed to be doing ... well, not okay, but better. The funeral had kinda helped us get some closure, at the very least. We were all still hurting from losing Mom, but Kickers are made of pretty tough stuff. We would shed our tears in private, then grit our teeth and carry on as best we could. It’s what Mom would want—or at least, that’s the kind of thing ponies always say about mourning your loved ones. I guess it was true in a way, though I suspect that if she were still here her response would not involve much in the way of gentle affection and telling me to let go and move on. Instead of getting all sappy, Mom probably would’ve wound up lightly swatting me upside the head and telling me to stop moping and being an idiot.

Dad wanted me to take ‘Lula back to Ponyville with me. I wasn’t sure about taking her away from the rest of the clan; at a time like this she needed all the family she could get. It wasn’t too hard to guess why he wanted ‘Lula out of Canterlot, though. At the reception, Luna seemed to think the thing that got my Mom was just an advance scout for a larger attack. If there was trouble coming, and especially if that trouble was pointed at Canterlot, then of course Dad would want my little sister out of the line of fire.

I suspect part of it was also him wanting to get me out of town. The longer I stayed in Canterlot, the harder it would be to resist the urge to go back into the Guard. I know ‘Lula needed me right now, but at the same time my sense of duty was telling me I should be out there on the frontlines. Plus, there was a big part of me that wanted to find whoever or whatever was responsible for killing Mom and rip them to pieces. So yeah, going back into the Guard was really tempting. My recent history has undeniably shown that I’m not that good at resisting temptation.

It’s hard not to wonder if maybe part of what made the Guard tempting was that it would also give me a way out of the whole nasty love triangle mess. It was the perfect excuse to get away from the whole situation for a while: shoot off a few platitudes about how Equestria needed me, and then just start running and not looking back again until my life got a little less crazy.

So, I was heading back to Ponyville tomorrow morning, to put one long train ride between me and temptation. I hadn’t ruled out coming back to the Guard at some point later on, once things had settled down a bit and Dad got a new post that took him off the frontlines, but for now my sister needed me.

In any case, if I was heading back to Ponyville in the morning and wanted to set things right with Blossom and Derpy before then, I needed to hurry it up, not waste time thinking about other stuff. Shadow, why did all these horseapples have to fall on my head at the same time? I’d been overwhelmed enough dealing with my mess of a love life, and then the whole mess with my mom came down on top of it. That had knocked my hooves out from under me just when I thought I had things under control.

Ugh, now if Mom were still here she’d be swatting me and telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself and start getting to work on dealing with it. Mom wasn’t the most sentimental of ponies, but it was hard to argue with her practical streak.

I found Blossom in the guest house she’d been sharing with Rainbow Dash for the last couple days. Thankfully Rainbow Dash was out doing whatever it was Rainbow Dash did while she was in Canterlot, so we would have some privacy. Not that I would be uncomfortable talking about things like this with Rainbow around, but Dash wasn’t good at silently sitting on the sidelines; her commentary would just make this talk even harder than it was going to be already.

Blossom opened the door within a couple seconds of me knocking on it, and I saw half a dozen different emotions flash over her face when she met my eyes. Love, compassion, anger, hurt, all of it. I probably should’ve said something deep and meaningful, but I couldn’t come up with anything that would work. Eventually, my brain spat out the best it could offer. “Heya, Blossom.”

Her ears went back a bit, and her head drooped down. Her voice was subdued when she responded, “Hi, Cloud.”

“We need to talk.” A second later I was kicking myself for using that exact turn of phrase. Everypony knows that nothing good ever comes of saying ‘we need to talk’ to a pony you’re in a relationship with. Too late to take it back now, though.

Blossom sighed and slowly nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we really do. Come in, I guess.”

She stepped aside to let me in. As I took a cursory look around the guest house, I suddenly noticed how strangely similar it was to my apartment. Sure, my place had plenty of personal touches to it that a guest house obviously wouldn’t have, but both places had this kind of simplicity to them. Not exactly spartan, but not big on luxuries. Guess it says something about me that my home back in Ponyville still ends up looking really Kicker-y even after I’ve spent years away from the clanhold. I suppose it’s like the old clan saying goes—you can take the pony out of the clan, but you can’t take the clan out of the pony.

Okay, I needed to stop getting distracted and focus on talking to Blossom.

The two of us settled down onto the living room couch, and a painfully awkward silence descended. I guess she was just as nervous about this as I was.

I eventually gathered my courage, and jumped in. “Look, I’m sorry about not talking to you for the last couple days. I just—after we slept with each other I knew we needed to have a big talk to sort things out, and with everything else that’s been going on...”

Blossom picked up where I’d left off. “Yeah, I understand, not exactly like you can sit down and sort things out when you haven’t even buried your mom yet.” She bit her lower lip and shuffled around on the couch, and her voice came out as a quiet, pained whisper. “You still could’ve said something to me, though. Yeah, we weren’t ready to deal with the big stuff, but you could’ve said ... something.” She sighed and rested her chin on her hooves. “I gave you my virginity, Cloud. That means something to me. Having that happen, and then you not even saying two words to me afterwards—hay, even going out of your way to avoid me—it hurt. It really hurt.”

That got a guilty flinch out of me. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.” I wouldn’t blame her for having some very nasty thoughts about me after I pulled something like that. Banging a pony, then ignoring them for several days afterwards isn’t something you do to a pony you love. She’d probably been scared that she might have been wrong about me all this time: that now that I’d banged her, I’d gotten what I wanted out of our relationship, and had no more interest in her. She should know me better than that, but fear isn’t a rational thing, especially when you mix it with love.

First things first, I needed to nip any thoughts like that in the bud. I took one of her hooves in both of mine, and brought it up to my lips. “I love you, Blossomforth. Have for a while now. And I want you to know that the night we ba—the night we made love meant something to me too.” I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You gave me something special, something that meant a lot to you, because you wanted to help me. Because you saw I was hurting, and you wanted to take my pain away. And you did, sweetie. You did.”

Blossom was starting to tear up by the time I finished, so I pulled her into a hug, letting her bury her face into my shoulder until the worst of the emotional turmoil had passed. She didn’t cry, but there were a couple of dry sobs, and she hugged me back as hard as she could. “Th-thanks, Cloud.” She pulled back a bit and wiped her eyes. “I ... I needed to hear that. I love you too. I have for a long time now. I just needed a while to figure it out.”

“Not much longer than I needed.” I gave her a quick peck on the lips, which might’ve led to something more if I hadn’t been making a point of keeping my sex drive on a tight leash. “Blossom, I want you to know that what we shared that night was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life.”

How true that was really depends on your perspective, I suppose. Looking at things objectively, it had been about as awkward as sex with a virgin usually is. Having to stop two or three times to tell her she was doing things wrong and give a little advice does kinda throw the whole experience off. But the thing is, there’s more to banging than the simple physical mechanics of it: the whole emotional love and support thing we shared was a lot more important than how good we were at the physical side of things. Hay, even her little goof-ups just made things feel closer and more intimate than it would’ve been if everything had gone perfectly.

I smiled at her, and brought a hoof up to stroke her cheek. Now was when we got to the tricky part of things. “I could never, ever, regret making love to you. That said...” I took a deep breath, and mentally went over exactly how to say what needed saying. “I think we both know that the timing of things could have been a bit better.”

Blossom grimaced at that, and slowly nodded her head. “Yeah. Rule Three, right? No banging a pony who isn’t thinking straight.” She let out another little sniffle and wiped her eyes. “I should’ve said no. Hay, I tried to tell you no, but then you started kissing me and I just ... couldn’t. I was weak. I let you down at a time when you really needed your best friend to be strong for you.” She let out tiny, pained little whimper. “I took advantage of you. You were vulnerable, and I used that to get the sex I’ve wanted for a long time.”

“No.” I kissed her on the forehead and started running my hooves up and down her. “No, it wasn’t like that, Blossom. If anything, I used you. I knew you wanted me, and you were inexperienced enough that I could pretty much just turn off your brain by kissing you the right way. Hay, I took your virginity for a quick little comfort bang.”

Blossom put a hoof over my mouth to keep me from saying anything more. “No, that’s not true, and you know it. Hay, you just got done telling me how it meant more than that for both of us.” She leaned in and gently nuzzled my cheek. “How about we agree that we both could’ve handled things better, and leave it at that?”

I let out a low groan and conceded the point with a wave of my hoof. “Yeah, I guess that works.” I still felt like the bulk of the responsibility was on me, but then Blossom clearly felt the exact same way, so I suppose it balanced out. No point in arguing about which one of us was more to blame for it in any case, especially not when there were still a bunch of other issues hanging over our heads. “So, next question: where do we go from here?”

Blossom turned her face away from mine, pensively staring out the window as she worried at her lower lip. After a long silence, she gave a slight nod and answered me. “We’ll need to talk to Derpy. There’s a lot to sort out with her, and I want to do that before there’s another fight.” Her shoulders slumped, and she seemed to shrink down into herself. “I hate fighting with Derpy. I’ve been getting so mad at her, so frustrated with this whole situation. And the worst part is, I’m getting used to it. Fighting. Being an angry, scared pony who’ll say and do nasty things just to try and win some stupid contest over you. I don’t want to be that kind of pony, but I still feel myself changing, and I don’t like what I’m changing into. I want to be better than that.”

I sighed and settled back onto the couch. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. This whole thing is just getting out of control; a lot of my rules boil down to not using banging in ways that hurt other ponies. Lately, I haven’t been doing such a good job of sticking to that principle. I’ve gotten myself into a big huge mess, and I’ve got no idea how I’m supposed to fix it without leaving a bunch of broken hearts in my wake.” My voice dropped down to a quiet, broken little whisper as I added, “Although at the rate things are going, I’d be lucky to salvage any kind of anything with either of you.”

Blossom sighed and slowly nodded in agreement. “It’s gonna get messy, Cloud, even more than it is already. But I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided on something really important you need to know.” Blossom reached out and took my hoof in both of hers. “I want you to pick me. Hay, I’ve thought you were good-looking since the moment I met you, and even if you didn’t make the best first impression you won me over pretty quickly.”

I shot my best attempt at a sultry grin her way. “I knew you’d fall for my irresistible charm sooner or later.”

Blossom let out a weary little chuckle. “Guess you were right. Just don’t expect me to ever admit it where anypony can hear us.” We shared a little smile, but the lighthearted moment could only be short-lived when we still had so many serious matters to discuss.

Blossom cleared her throat with a delicate little cough and got back to what she’d been saying. “Cloud, you mean more to me than I’d ever thought a pony could. All my life, I’ve always tried to play it safe. Got a degree in something that would give me a secure job, never took any big chances, and never let anypony get close enough to hurt me. I had no idea how empty my life was, how much I was missing by keeping ponies at hoof’s length. I should’ve taken a chance with you, I should’ve asked you for more, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to risk losing you, and now it’s caused us both so much trouble and pain.”

She went quiet for several seconds, licking her lips and shooting nervous looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “And that’s why I want to tell you this: I want you to pick me over Derpy more than anything, but if you don’t—” Her voice cracked a bit at that, but she forced herself to keep going. “If you don’t, I am going to try as hard as I can to still be a good friend to you.”

There was only one response I could give to that: I kissed her. Repeatedly. At first she met my lips every bit as eagerly, but once I brought a hoof up to start stroking one of her wings she placed a hoof on my chest and gently but firmly pushed me back. It’s not like I’d been planning on banging her again, but I guess her stopping me before we got too into the makeout session was probably a good idea. Those sorts of things do have a habit of escalating.

Once I’d reined my lust in, I got to work on giving her a better answer. A beautiful little speech like the one she’d given me deserved a proper response. “Blossom, no matter what else, I love you, and I'll be coming back to you. You've been my friend for years, and now that we've taken this step I'm not going to go back and pretend it never happened. I'm here to stay.” My wings gave a nervous little flick—to be honest, I was making this all up as I went, and I wasn’t sure how well it was coming out. “I have to sort a few things out first. Things are probably gonna be ugly for a bit, and I've got nopony to blame for that but me. But whatever happens, I'll come back to you. I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to end up meaning to each other, but you will never just ... just drop out of my life like I forgot you.”

I reached out to gently stroke her cheek. “Y'know why? 'Cause you're my anchor. You help keep me steady and grounded, and I need a pony like that in my life.” My ears went back flat against my head. “I haven't been the best friend to you. I could tell you were pining for me, on some level, and I tried to push you into being open about it instead of just talking to you. But from now on, I'm going to do right by you. And I hope that once things stop being so crazy, we can make love and not feel bad about it afterwards.” I leaned in and shared a tender little kiss with her. “I wanna give you as much as you deserve.”

I pulled Blossom in for a hug, and the two of us shared a tender moment. Then Rainbow Dash barged through the front door and ruined it. “Okay, seriously, I heard you guys talking, and that was beyond gross. Feathering Rarity would say you two were overdoing it on the sappy talk. I think I threw up in my mouth just listening to you.”

Blossom and I looked each other in the eyes and nodded.

Every loose pillow on the couch went flying in Rainbow Dash’s general direction.

After how things had gone with Blossom, I was cautiously optimistic about my chances of sorting things out with Derpy. I wasn’t so naive as to think the news that I’d slept with Blossom was going to go over well, but hopefully we could chalk it up to me making an understandable mistake in a moment of extreme distress, and work on figuring out where to go from here. I still had no idea what I was going to do, but I damn sure wasn’t going to just let this whole mess linger like some kind of malignant tumor in the middle of our relationship.

Since Derpy was staying with her parents, I had a bit of a walk on my hooves to reach their place. At least the bite wound on my foreleg had finally healed up. While it was working fine, it had still been a bit twinge-y during the funeral.

The Doos had a pretty nice place—not a huge mansion or anything, but well above average in both size and luxury. Her father, Klutzy Doo, had a very profitable import/export business, and her mother, Alta Stratus, was from the perpetually-poor noble House Cumulus. A classic tale of rich common pony and poor noble pony marrying up.

Yes, Derpy was technically a fancy Canterlot noble. Most ponies are pretty stunned when they learn that.

I wasn’t terribly fond of her parents—when she’d gotten pregnant with Dinky, they’d tossed her out on her flank instead of giving her the love and support she needed. Sure, they might’ve patched things up later, but it’s kinda hard for me to just forgive and forget when it comes to that sort of thing. Hay, I’d done a lot worse by my parents when it came to dropping out of the Guard, and they still backed me up. Sure, things got a little rough, and there were times when I felt like a bit of a black sheep, but they damn sure never threw me out of the house and disowned me.

I guess you could say there was some old history between Derpy’s family and mine, going back to the Rebellion. To be honest though, it didn’t really come up all that often—nine hundred years is a lot of time to get over an old grudge. Plus, while the Kickers might still be very conscious of our past thanks to sticking together as a clan, the Doos went a different way. Not that they’d had a lot of choice when it came to having their clan broken apart. While there were plenty of ponies with Doo DNA, most of them didn’t carry the old clan name, and even the ones that still did usually didn’t know much about what being a Doo really meant.

I’m not sure if a lot of that old history being lost is a shame, or just a sign that the Doos have adapted to modern Equestria a lot better than my family has. I love my clan, but a lot of our traditions are a bit out of touch with—well, everything that’s happened since Shadow bought the farm.

I knocked on their front door, and a pony who pretty much looked like a stallion version of Derpy, aside from blue eyes and a slightly darker coat, answered it. “Hello, Cloud Kicker.”

“Cirrus.” My tone wasn’t hostile or anything, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either. I’d butted heads with Derpy’s big brother in the past—he was pretty much the reason I hadn’t had any contact with her until she moved to Ponyville. I know he was just trying to protect his little sister after how crazy things got at Flight Camp, but he’d still cost me four years of friendship with Derpy. I’ll say this for the guy though—at least he backed Derpy up when she needed him. That puts him way above his parents, in my book.

He stood there awkwardly in the doorway for a couple seconds, then hastily stood aside and opened the door for me. “You want to talk to Dee, right? I’ll go get her.” He started heading deeper into the house, but stopped after a couple steps, then turned back to me. “Sorry about your mom. The Major ... she was a good officer.”

“Yeah, she was.” It seemed like there should be something more to say about Mom than just that. I guess it’s one of those things you can’t ever put words to; there’s nothing you can really say to capture how much you lose when a pony dies. There was so much to Mom, and now all that was left of her was the same headstone every other Kicker got: her name and the words ‘For Equestria.’ It seemed so inadequate, but the way Uncle Typhoon explained it to me once, there’s really no way a tombstone can ever tell you much about who the pony really was anyway. My memories of Mom are what counts, not what’s written on a piece of rock.

I moved into the living room and found a couch to make myself comfortable on while I waited. After a couple seconds, I could dimly hear Cirrus’ voice in the other room. “Dee? Visitor for you.”

A second later Derpy’s slightly indignant voice came out of the other room. “Cirrus! Didn’t you hear the shower running? I’m not decent—get out!”

There was the sound of a door slamming, and then Cirrus shouted through it. “You don’t even wearclothes normally! A towel’s actually more modest!” I sighed and facehoofed at that. There are some things a lot of ponies just have a hard time understanding about each other. I suspect it’s related to the fact that a whole lot of pony social customs just don’t make any kind of logical sense. Hay, just look at how a bunch of ponies had panic attacks over a bunny stampede.

Derpy trotted in after a minute or so, still slightly damp from her recent shower. When she saw me her amiable smile slipped a bit, but she still trotted over and gave me a quick nuzzle. “Hey, Cloud.”

“Hey, Derpy.” I leaned in for a quick kiss. She returned it, but there was a reserve in the way she kissed me that I wasn’t used to from her. Come to think of it, she’d been a bit out of sorts ever since she’d gotten to Canterlot. I hadn’t really thought much of it before, what with being preoccupied by funeral arrangements and all that, but she hadn’t exactly been showing me her usual levels of affection ever since she’d gotten here. I had a feeling this wasn’t just her way of trying to give me some space to mourn, either. Had some sixth sense mare’s intuition clued her into the fact that I’d done something wrong?

I thought about trying to make some small talk with her, but there wasn’t any point. It would only be delaying the inevitable. It was kind of like taking a band-aid off—sometimes the best course of action was to just get the painful part of it over with already. I took a deep breath and got to it. “Look, there are some things I need to tell you, Derpy.”

Before I could say anything more, Derpy put a hoof over my lips and gently shushed me. “I already know, Cloud Kicker.”

What? How could she have found out? The only ponies who knew I’d slept with Blossom were Rainbow and maybe Dad and Aunt Wind, if they’d overheard anything. Rainbow had promised to give me a chance to tell Derpy the truth, and I couldn’t imagine anypony in my family rushing to spill the beans on me—especially when I hadn’t exactly been keeping either of them up to date on the details of my love life anyway.

I guess my confusion must’ve been showing on my face, because Derpy sighed and took one of my hooves in hers. “Fluttershy told me on the train ride over.” One of Derpy’s ears gave an agitated flick, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m not very happy with you over that. You knew I was worried about losing you to her, and you slept with her anyway. Hay, you proposed to her!”

Oh. Oh feathers. After all the craziness that had happened over the last week or so, I’d just about forgotten that I’d slept with Eepy too. “I didn’t mean to—look, I’m sorry Derpy. I didn’t mean to hurt you by sleeping with Fluttershy, I just...” What could I even say? There wasn’t much of a defense I could offer beyond ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Well, that and the fact that I had been completely honest with Derpy about the fact that I was going to sleep with Eepy, but I don’t think mentioning that would do my cause any good.

Derpy let out a frustrated growl, then closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths. “Okay, you screwed up big time, and I’m still very upset with you. However, considering the circumstances and everything that’s happened since, I can forgive you.”

Okay, this was bad. This was very bad. I was more than a little tempted to just drop the subject and wait until Derpy had gotten over me sleeping with Fluttershy before I moved on to the next confession. Not sure if that would actually do any good though—the longer I left the issue hanging, the more it would hurt when I got around to confessing. Lying, even if only by omission, would hurt Derpy every bit as much as actually sleeping with Blossom had.

That’s not to mention that Rainbow’s promise to not tell Derpy was contingent on me fessing up within a reasonable amount of time. If she thought I was dragging my hooves too much, she’d tell Derpy herself, and that would be the absolute worst thing that could happen. Hearing about it from anypony else would hurt a lot more.

So, I guess there was nothing I could do but get it over with. Going by the way her whole body tensed up, Derpy had probably picked up on the fact that something else was bothering me. Even if I wanted to back out, it was too late now, not unless I wanted to outright lie to her. Okay, here we go. “Derpy, that’s not all there is. I...” I needed a moment to gather my courage for the actual confession. “I slept with Blossom. The night after we found Mom. I was hurting and—”

“Are you motherbucking kidding me?!” Derpy’s eyes went wide with shock, and she bolted up from the couch, glaring at me. “Her too? Who haven’t you cheated on me with? Are you banging Rainbow on the side as well, or have you just not gotten around to it yet?”

Okay, I deserved that, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Especially since with the state I’d been in, I probably would’ve at least tried to sleep with Rainbow if she’d woken up first, or any one of a dozen other variables. I doubt I would’ve succeeded, but just trying would’ve been be bad enough. “Derpy, I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I really feathered up.”

“You feathered up?” Derpy snarled at me, her eyes blazing with indignation. “You feathered up!? No, me bringing down Town Hall was a feather-up! Me setting the stove on fire is a feather-up! Hay, what happened back at Flight Camp was a feather-up! Even sleeping with Fluttershy was a feather-up! This?” She looked me dead in the eyes. “This is a betrayal!”

I flinched and let my head hang in shame. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deny it.

“You gave me your word that you wouldn't sleep with Blossomforth, Cloud Kicker!” Derpy continued, angrily pacing back and forth across the room, her wings giving several flicks as she went. “Do your promises mean anything at all?”

“My mom had just died!” I offered in a feeble effort to defend myself. “I was a complete mess. I know that doesn’t excuse it, but it’s not like I...” I trailed off, unsure of how exactly to explain what I meant. Sure, I hadn’t intended to hurt Derpy, but that’s mostly because at the time I hadn’t been thinking about how it would affect her at all. I slept with Blossom because I’d been so focused on my own pain that I hadn’t thought about what it would do to her or Derpy.

Derpy took a couple deep breaths and managed to put a lid on her anger, at least for the moment. “I know you’d just lost your mother, and I am so sorry, Cloud. I am.” She took another breath and then continued. “I was on my way the second I heard, because I wanted to be there for you. I thought about trying to fly straight to Canterlot that night—if not for your sister, I would’ve.”

Okay, she’d moved from screaming at me in burning anger to sniping at me in cold fury. I could tell the beginnings of a guilt trip when I heard them. “I know. Thanks for looking out for ‘Lula, Derpy.”

Sure enough, Derpy’s eyes hardened, and she started really hammering the guilt home. “One train ride. One feathering train ride. That's all the time I needed to get to you, to come to the pony I thought I could trust.”

The worst part about guilt trips is that they’re incredibly effective when you’ve got something to feel guilty about. I couldn’t think of anything I could possibly say that could make the situation less horrid for her. “Derpy, please. What can I do to make this right?”

Derpy was silent for a long time, and then very quietly asked, “Do I mean anything to you at all, Cloud? Or was I just another pony for you to bang until you could hook back up with Fluttershy, or finally make your move on Blossomforth?”

Did she really think it was like that? I reached out and tried to grab one of her hooves, but she promptly yanked it away from me. Despite that failure, I did my best to tell her the truth. “Of course you mean something to me, Derpy! I love you!”

Derpy let out a frustrated dry sob. “If you really love me then why are you so quick to trample my heart? I just don’t understand you anymore! Ever since Rainbow hurt her eye again, you've found more and more ways to hurt me!” She angrily swiped a hoof across her eyes. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“I'm sorry.” The instant I said that, I realized how utterly inadequate it sounded. ‘Sorry’ didn’t come anywhere close to fixing this, but it was the best I could think of to say. “I don't want to hurt you, I never wanted that!”

Derpy let out a disgusted little snort. “For a pony who says she doesn’t want to hurt me, you're getting very, very good at doing it.” Despite my best efforts to do so, I couldn’t find a way to sink down into the floor through sheer shame at my own actions. Derpy took a breath and gave a slow, resolute nod. “If I can't trust you with this, why should I trust you with my children?”

Okay, that line of thought could only lead to ominous places. “Derpy, I promise you, it won't happen again.”

“You also promised you wouldn’t sleep with Blossomforth, so I think we both know how much your promises are worth.” Derpy shot an uncompromising glare at me. “No. You don't get to make promises to me anymore. And if you ever want me to let you come within earshot of my girls again, I want a straight answer from you right now: why. Should. I. Trust. You. With. Them?”

The thought of never seeing Dinky or Sparkler again stung a lot more than I expected it to. They were good girls, and they deserved better than to get caught up in the fight between me and Derpy. Some small part of me that didn’t feel like a complete mule over my recent feather-ups resented Derpy using her daughters to hurt me. “Derpy, I know I've screwed up with you, but you have to know I would never hurt them.”

“And you'd never hurt me either, would you?” Derpy shot right back. A particularly nasty look crossed Derpy’s face as she added, “Sparkler’s past the age of consent in Ponyville. Considering your track record, I think trusting you with her would be an incredibly poor decision.”

“Oh come on! That was way below the saddle-line and you know it!” I might have some promiscuity issues, but I wasn’t the kind of pony who goes around hunting down teenagers and banging them the instant they turn legal.

“I’m not sure of a lot of the things I thought I knew about you,” Derpy growled out at me. “I hope your little fling with Blossomforth was worth it.”

“What do you want from me, Derpy? I’m getting a little tired of just being your punching bag.” I let out a frustrated groan and slumped back against the couch. “I completely and utterly screwed things up with you. I admit that. I can completely understand if you want to break things off with me. I don’t want that, but I’ll understand if that’s the decision you want to make. Hay, I can even stay out of your way for a while so we can both adjust. But cutting me out of your life completely, and not ever letting me talk to the girls again? That’s too much.” I ran a hoof through my mane and let out a weary groan. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. All I can think of is to keep telling you that I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Sorry?” She let out a dark, mocking little scoff. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? That you’re sorry? You lie to me and rut that whorse, and then you have the gall to use your mother's passing as an excuse for everything you’ve done? Sorry doesn't begin to cut it!”

“Yeah, I know it’s not good enough.” I rubbed my temples with my hooves for a bit. “But what else is there? How many other ways are there to say that I made a big mistake in a moment of weakness? Now I just want to find a way to make it up to you.”

“Maybe you could keep your promises to the ponies you say you love!” Derpy snapped.

“I will,” I answered her without a moment’s hesitation.

Derpy went quiet for several seconds, and when she spoke again her voice was eerily calm. “No. I don’t believe you. It’s too late for any more promises. I don’t trust you. I’m not sure I can ever trust you again after what you just pulled—and if I can't trust you, you're not coming anywhere near my children.”

“Derpy, I...” I was having a hard time keeping it together. It was hard to keep a conversation running when I wanted to just start bawling my eyes out, but that wouldn’t do me any good. To be honest, I think the only reason I hadn’t started crying already was that I was in one of those odd places where you’re in so much pain that the tears just won’t come. Our romantic relationship looked pretty dead to me, and now it was just a question of whether we could salvage any sort of friendship at all. “I know I hurt you, but the mistakes I made with you aren’t the kind of mistakes that would hurt your girls. There’s a huge difference between being good with fillies and being a good fillyfriend.”

Derpy turned her back to me, her shoulders trembling. Then, in a very quiet voice, she announced, “I think you should leave, Cloud Kicker.”

I froze, mostly because I wasn’t sure whether I should start heading for the door or make one last effort to at least leave the door open for some kind of reconciliation at some point. “Okay, I’m going, but if you or your girls ever need anything, anything at all—”

“Get out!”

I got up and started slowly backing up towards the door. “I’m going, I’m going, I just wanted to say that—”

“GET OUT AND STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

Derpy spun around, and a second later I saw a grey hoof heading for my face. I probably could’ve dodged or blocked it if I’d really wanted to, but after everything I’d put her through, I figured Derpy had kinda earned the right to smack me one. What caught me off-guard, however, was just how hard she struck. Well, in hindsight, I should have noted how she basically put her entire weight behind the swing. In my defense, I was a bit preoccupied with my broken heart.

Bottom line, when she connected, it hit hard and knocked me down.

Okay, next time I decide a pony deserves a free hit on me, I’m going to remember to roll with the punch.

Derpy stood there looming over me, the fury in her eyes tempered by just a little surprise at how hard she’d hit me. After a long silence, she repeated in a quieter but no less angry voice, “Get out.”

“I’m going.” I slowly picked myself up off the floor and started making my way to the door. “M'sorry.”

“If you were sorry,” Derpy snarled, “it would never have happened.” I could hear the beginnings of tears beneath the pain and anger in Derpy’s voice.

I opened the living room door to discover that we had an audience. Dinky and Sparkler were both standing off to the side of the door, like they were trying to stay out of sight but not doing a very good job of it. Cirrus was there too, beside them and shuffling his hooves uncertainly, probably torn between wanting to get the girls out of there and whatever sibling responses were going through his head when he heard the fight between me and Derpy.

Dinky and Sparkler both had the kind of dull, shocked expressions you usually see on somepony who’s just had a nasty bit of trauma dropped on them—like hearing their mom getting into a fight with her new ex-fillyfriend. Dinky was trembling, and Sparkler had her forelegs wrapped around her little sister.

I was wrong. The mistake I had made with Blossom didwind up hurting Derpy’s girls too.

Derpy followed me out, no doubt wondering why I wasn’t getting the hay out like she’d told me to, and let out a small gasp when she spotted her daughters. After taking a second to try and get her voice back to something resembling her normal tone, she said, “Girls, go to your room.”

Neither of them did. Instead Dinky wormed her way out of Sparkler’s grip and trotted up to me, then wrapped her forelegs around my neck and squeezed for all she was worth. After a moment’s hesitation, I hugged her back. I knew Derpy probably wouldn’t like it, but if there was ever a pony that looked like she desperately needed a hug right now, it was Dinky. Getting exposed to this kind of thing can’t be good for a young and impressionable filly.

Dammit, I’d just wanted to bang a cute muffin-obsessed mare. Now I had somehow ended up in a situation where I needed to worry about creating an unhealthy home environment for a little filly.

Derpy trotted over and gently tried to remove Dinky’s hooves, but the little filly stayed stubbornly clamped around my neck. Derpy let out a frustrated snort and tried again, a bit less gently. “Dinky Doo, let go of her and go your room.” Dinky still gave no sign of budging. “Now!”

I saw a hint of anger flash in Derpy’s eyes, and started getting very, very worried. Considering everything Derpy had just gone through, having Dinky defy her in order to hug me was not going to go over well. It was bad enough that they’d heard us fighting—the thought of Dinky actually getting caught in the crossfire...

Thankfully, Sparkler stepped in before anything happened. “I got her.” She quickly trotted up and whispered something to Dinky which got the filly to let go of me and transfer her death-grip to Sparkler instead. Sparkler was about to carry Dinky off when she glanced at me and froze, letting out a tiny little gasp.

Oh Celestia, Derpy must’ve hit me hard enough to leave a mark. I didn’t know all the details of Sparkler’s time in the foster care system, but I knew enough to guess that she wouldn’t react well to the idea that her mother had the capacity to hit other ponies.

A second later her face went carefully blank, and she shot a wary look Derpy’s way before carrying Dinky off. I couldn’t help but notice that Sparkler made a point of keeping her own body between Dinky and Derpy the whole way. Luna, did she really think Derpy might do something to Dinky? Derpy was just about the most loving and caring mother I’d ever known.

What have I done to this family?

Right as Sparkler was about to carry her out of the room, Dinky poked her head over Sparkler’s shoulder. “Bye, Cloud Kicker. I love you, 'kay?”

“Bye, Dinky. Bye, Sparkler.” The words had an uncomfortable ring of finality to them. My voice dropped down to a pained whisper. “Love you too, Little Muffin.”

Derpy pointedly cleared her throat. “It's past time for you to leave.”

I flinched at the reminder, but I guess I should’ve known Derpy wouldn’t take any interaction with the girls well. “Yeah, okay, I’m going.” I turned around and walked out the door.

The instant I was outside the door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the lock slide into place. Then I heard Derpy’s and Cirrus’ voices on the other side of the door. It took less than five seconds for Derpy to start crying.

I turned my back on Derpy’s home and started slowly trudging back to the clan compound.

Dad was out when I got back to the compound. Probably busy doing Guard things, now that the funeral was over. Or maybe he was doing something with ‘Lula. Hay, he could be doing both at once, for all I knew. Point is, Dad and my little sister weren’t around. That might have been for the best—them being around would lead to them asking questions, and then I would have to start answering questions. A quick look in the mirror showed the beginnings of a black eye, and I couldn’t imagine anypony taking that very well.

I’d considered heading over to Blossom and Rainbow’s, but I knew they’d both make a big fuss over the whole situation. Finding out I’d gotten smacked by Derpy was sure to set Blossom off, or possibly result in me getting her to ‘comfort’ me again. And Rainbow Dash would almost certainly do something impulsive and poorly thought out. No idea exactly what she would do, but she’s pretty consistent about having a very extreme reaction when one of her friends gets hurt.

I would have to tell them what happened eventually, but not now. Preferably not until the mark on my face was gone. Better for everypony if they think I just got slapped instead of punched.

I’m not sure how long I lay there on the couch, feeling like horseapples. Eventually, I heard a couple ponies right outside the front door, cheerfully chattering away about nothing in particular. Too late, I realized that the living room wasn’t the best place to be if I wanted to avoid running into other ponies. I’d been so worn down after the fight with Derpy that I’d just slumped down on the couch instead of walking the extra distance to my room.

I hastily tried to rearrange my mane so it would cover my bad eye, but without a mirror or anything to check my work, I don’t think I did a very good job. At least the fact that my couch had its back to the door would buy me another couple seconds. The front door opened, and now I could make out Lyra and Storm’s voices, the two of them fondly reminiscing about better times. Lyra and I had been pretty good bang buddies back in our college days, and she’d spent enough time hanging around the compound to get to know my family. Luna, I missed those simpler times, when I could just bang around with a bunch of nice ponies and not have things get all complicated and messy.

Well, there was no way they weren’t gonna notice me, so I might as well start up the conversation on my terms. “Hey, guys.” I waved a hoof over the back of couch, so they’d know where I was. “Just taking a bit of a break.”

I’d vaguely hoped they would leave it at that and go back their conversation, but instead of moving on they both came trotting over. “Hey Kicky.” I didn’t even need to see Lyra’s face to know she was grinning. “We were talking about that time Storm accidentally electrocuted me.”

“It was only a little bit,” my cousin grumbled. “And for the record, Kicky is a incredibly non-specific nickname for Cloud.”

“I’m not always hanging around in a place where you can’t throw a stone without hitting a dozen Kickers,” Lyra shot back good-naturedly. “And you’re changing the subject because you don’t wanna admit that you zapped me because you were trying to show off your special talent.”

“In my defense, I did manage to bounce that lightning bolt off every single one of the targets. S’not my fault it went after you once it was done.” Storm settled down on a pillow opposite the couch, while Lyra telekinetically grabbed another one for herself. “Besides, by the time that bolt got to you, there was barely any juice left in it. Fifty thousand volts, max. Isn’t that right, Cloud?”

“You say fifty thousand volts like that’s not a big deal,” Lyra groused, turning to me and looking for some support.

“It’s really not.” Storm gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Or at least, it wasn’t in those specific circumstances. I mean, I didn’t zap anything thatvital, plus you still had your freshmare flab keeping you safe.”

One of Lyra’s eyes twitched. “Did you call me fat?”

“Lotta ponies put on a couple pounds when they’re in college,” Storm answered with an uncaring shrug. “It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.” She cocked her head to the side, and smirked. “Now that you mention it, you’ve still got a bit of padding there.”

Lyra gave my cousin a decidedly ominous grin. “One day, when you least expect it, that’s when it’s gonna happen: revenge.”

Lyra turned back to me, and her teasing little smile slipped. I thought about trying to make up an excuse to get out of there, bathroom break or something, but before I could come up with anything she got up, marched over to me, and brushed my mane away, giving her a nice view of my eye. She let out a soft little gasp when she saw the bruise. “Kicky! What happened?!”

“Nothing.”

Storm flew up to get a look for herself, and scowled. “Not buying it, Cloud.” She brought a hoof up to my eye for comparison, and her frown deepened. “This is a hoof mark. Who did this to you?”

Horseapples. I needed to come up with a good explanation. Fast. “I tripped and hit myself.”

Dammit, even Applejack could’ve come up with something better than that.

Since they weren’t idiots, Storm and Lyra didn’t fall for it. “Kicky, stop lying.” Lyra reached out and stroked my cheek. “Be honest with me. Please.”

Dammit. After that rather spectacular failure of a lie, there was no way I could get them to believe something wasn’t wrong. I guess there was nothing for it but to tell them the truth. “Okay, but do you promise you won't freak out?”

“Saying that just makes me even more worried,” Storm grumbled under her breath.

Lyra shot an annoyed look at her; my cousin sighed and nodded, and then they both turned back to me. “We promise.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, look, I got into a fight with Derpy, and she got mad and kinda gave me a little slap, but—”

“She what?!” Storm’s voice was positively brimming with fury as her wings flared out. “Your fillyfriend hit you?!” She got up, looking like she intended to grab the nearest lightning cloud and pay a visit to the Doo household.

“Whoa, calm down Storm!” Lyra put a restraining hoof on my cousin’s shoulder. “I’m mad too, but let’s not do anything crazy yet.” She took a few calming breaths, then turned back to me. “Why would Derpy ever do something like that? She’s not a violent pony.”

I slowly nodded along. “I don’t think she even meant to hit me as hard as she did. Besides, I did kind of give her a pretty good reason to smack me, so it's not her fault.”

Storm gave an angry snort. “Listen to yourself, Cloud! ‘It’s not her fault,’ and ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to hit me.’ Could you sound any more like a stereotypical battered partner?”

“Storm, chill!” Lyra chided my cousin. “Let’s at least let Kicky finish telling us what happened!” She let out an annoyed little huff, then turned back to me. “So what were you two fighting about anyway? Must’ve been bad if you think it was okay for Derpy to hit you.”

My mouth opened and closed a couple times as I tried to figure out the best way to explain what had happened. “I slept with a couple other ponies.”

“So what?” Storm gave an angrily dismissive wave of her hoof. “It’s not like you were in an exclusive relationship with her or anything. You’ve always been a playpony—hay, you were dating Lyra back when you were at West Hoof, and that never stopped you from having some crazy party nights!”

Lyra gave a bit of jump at that reminder. Like most ponies who are good friends and bang on a regular basis probably would’ve, we’d taken a look at whether it was worth moving our relationship past being simple bang buddies. It didn’t work out.

I held up a hoof to forestall any further commentary from Storm. “Things have changed a bit since I was going to West Hoof, Storm.”

“Did you agree to see her exclusively?” she demanded.

I sighed and shook my head. “Not exactly.” Granted, the last time we’d discussed exclusivity was a long time back, and a lot had happened since then. “The problem is, I’d promised not to sleep with Blossom, but then the night after we found Mom...”

“You broke a promise and slept with her?” Lyra paused for a bit, chewing on her upper lip as she thought it over. “Okay, at least now I understand why she would get so upset—”

“So you’re saying it was okay for her to hit Cloud?” Storm let out an angry snort. “Yeah, breaking a promise is bad, but her mom just died! Nopony’s gonna be using their best judgement after something like that. Besides—” Storm paused, and shot a brief apologetic look my way, “—well, Cloud’s always kind of used sex when she needs to let off some steam or she’s going through a rough patch. It’s not exactly surprising that it happened. Hay, needing to do something kinda life-affirming is a pretty normal response to dealing with death—or at least that’s what Mom says.”

“I’m not saying it was remotely acceptable for Derpy to hit Kicky, there's no excuse for that!” Lyra took a couple seconds to calm down, then continued. “Sorry, this is a lot to deal with.”

“I did kind of screw up.” Hopefully now that I was talking, the two of them would stop debating the whole situation as if I wasn’t even there. “Bottom line is, Derpy got hurt because of my actions. Yeah, I wasn’t thinking straight when the thing happened with Blossom, but that doesn’t change the fact that I slept with her and broke a promise, and doing that hurt Derpy. I can’t throw out any responsibility for my own actions whenever things go bad.”

That’s not to mention the whole situation with Fluttershy. Storm was right that I technically hadn’t broken any rules or agreements by doing it. Hay, I’d been nothing but honest with Derpy when it came to my intentions to bang Eepy again. That didn’t change the fact that having sex with Fluttershy wound up hurting Derpy. I’m not a fan of hurting ponies I love.

Lyra let out a heavy breath and slowly nodded. “Well, facing up to your mistakes is the first part of making things right.” She walked over and gently nudged me off the couch. “C'mon, sweetie, get up. You're staying with me tonight.”

I let her pull me off the couch, but made no further moves to follow. “You sure that's a good idea? I mean, I’ve got my family right here, and even if we didn’t do anything, hanging out with one of my bang buddies would probably make Derpy mad. Well, madder.”

Lyra let out a snort. “I don't care if Derpy gives me two black eyes, you're staying with me tonight. You need the company of somepony who isn't in the messed-up triangle.”

“She doeshave a whole big family right here,” Storm groused. “I mean, I can get not wanting to worry Uncle Tor or little ‘Lu about Cloud’s relationship drama, but Mom and Dad probably wouldn’t mind having her over for a bit. And it’ll keep her close at hoof in case her dad or sis need her.”

Shadow, were they really gonna get into a fight over which one of them got to take care of me? “Look, girls, if you were stallions I’d be telling you to pull them out and measure them already.” The two of them at least had the good grace to be a little chastened at that. “Anyway, I think talking to Aunt Wind might not be a bad idea.” Thank Celestia Rainbow hadn’t been there, or I would’ve been subjected to her poking fun at me over the fact that I wanted to talk to a head doctor. Still, if anypony could help me sort out what to do next with this whole mess, it would be the pony who specialized in understanding what goes on inside the heads of ponies.

Lyra actually pouted a bit. “But I wanna look after you and talk things through and give you the love you need right now. I can’t just hoof you over to somepony else to take care of...” She thought it over for a bit, and then reluctantly gave in. “I could go with you to Aunt Wind, I guess.”

“Sounds like we got a plan, then.” Storm gave a satisfied little nod. “Head to Mom’s and let her sort things out. Dad might be around too, if we’re lucky.”

To be honest, I wasn’t too hopeful about getting any good advice out of Uncle Typhoon. Not that he’s a bad pony for advice, it’s just that when it comes to most moral dilemmas he goes for very black-and-white answers. Any advice he offered would boil down to ‘try to do the right thing’. Too bad the Book of Shadow doesn’t have much about how to deal with love triangles. Then again, her advice would probably be not to get caught in a love triangle in the first place. Seems like the kind of simple and practical thing she would suggest.

Lyra leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Always here for you, Cloud. I’ll go grab you an ice pack for that eye of yours first, and then we’ll get going. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” While Lyra trotted off to the kitchen to get some ice, I rubbed at my eye to get an idea of how tender and swollen it was. It wasn’t hurting too bad, but my idea of what counted as a serious injury might be a bit off, considering the last injury I’d acquired involved a changeling biting my leg bad enough that I was lucky not to be stuck with a limp for the rest of my life. Or worse.

I gave my eye another little poke. “Gonna need something to cover this up before too many ponies see it.” There was a long list of ponies who wouldn’t be too happy about me walking around with a black eye: Dad would be worried and mad, Rainbow would almost certainly blow her top, and Blossom would either be furious with Derpy or try to comfort me in ways that would almost certainly end with us banging again, considering my current state of mind. Though if things with Derpy were as bad as I feared they were, it probably wouldn’t be long before my reasons for not wanting to bang Blossom went away.

Storm took another look at my eye, then offered a shrug. “Once the swelling goes down some, we can probably put some makeup or something on it to cover the bruise. Just need to find something that won’t stand out too much.” That sounded like a good idea; ponies would comment if I started walking around as prettied-up as Rarity. Makeup’s not something most of the Kickers use all that often, since the Guard has rules against wearing a lot of it. Having your mascara running into your eyes in the middle of a battle is a very bad thing, not to mention it didn’t really fit the whole austerity thing the clan had going.

Lyra trotted back into the room levitating a kitchen towel loaded with ice and gently tied it into place over my eye. “There you go, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Lyra.” I leaned in to give her a quick nuzzle. “You're great. I don't appreciate you enough, sometimes.”

With all the relationship craziness I’d been caught up in lately, it had been real easy to lose sight of the fact that, well, there were a whole lot of other ponies that I’d banged. Sure, some of them were casual one-night flings that weren’t much more than two nice ponies having some fun together, but some of those meant a bit more. The thing about friends-with-benefits is that it includes being friends. I loved ponies like Lyra, Bon Bon, Raindrops, and a couple of my other regular bang buddies. Our relationships had history, meaning, and depth. Plus a whole lot of mind-blowingly good sex. Don’t even get me started on Lyra’s hand spell, or the way Raindrops could—

Okay, losing track of my train of thought there. Anyway, my point was that I’d been so focused on my whole big romance thing that I’d never stopped to think about the fact that there were other ponies out there that I loved. Sure, not in the same way I loved Eepy, Derpy, or Blossom, but it was still love. It really wasn’t fair of me to more-or-less shove them off to the side while this whole stupid love triangle drama played out.

Lyra grinned and gave me a reassuring little nuzzle. “Hey, you're caught up in a whole bunch of really crazy stuff lately. I don’t think anypony could blame you for not having enough time for all of the other ponies in your life.”

“Still, you've been a good friend.” I put a wing over her back and gave her a teasing little grin. “Maybe I should just marry you and Bons instead of bothering with the whole crazy love triangle thing.”

I’d heard worse ideas. Lyra, Bon Bon, and I got along fine. There was a rather satisfying lack of jealousy and relationship drama to the whole thing. Hay, when Lyra and I had tried dating in college it worked out pretty good, until we ran afoul of my scars from the Flight Camp thing. She could tell I was hurting, and I didn’t want to talk about it. As casual bang buddies, me holding onto some big and painful secrets wasn’t a big deal. When we’d taken a crack at being more than that...

That’s old history, and even though it hadn’t worked out, I’m glad Lyra and I had tried. We had good times, and she’d opened me up a bit more to the whole emotional side of things. Having a relationship that kind of ended with a mutual downgrade back to being friends-with-benefits instead of exploding in a massive, life-scarring catastrophe of pain and drama did make me a bit less utterly terrified of opening up to the ponies I banged on a regular basis.

Lyra smiled and let out a light little laugh. “You, me, and Bons all getting hitched? I wouldn't mind that.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me, too.” It’s a pity we couldn’t actually do that. I could certainly do a lot worse than to just hook up with two good friends who I’ve had a bunch of really enjoyable threesomes with. That would be taking the easy way out, though. I wasn’t going to run away from this whole situation, and hooking up with other ponies would be doing that every bit as much as signing on with the Guard would.

“Yeah, would be a nice plan.” Lyra gave a slightly resigned sigh, then nodded. “Anyway, guess we should get going to your aunt’s.”

“Yeah, Mom-wards we go,” Storm chimed in. As the three of us set off on the epic thirty second walk from Dad’s place to Aunt Wind’s, Storm casually offered her own opinion on the matter. “Lyra’s cool and all, but I always figured Cloud would end up with Rainbow Dash eventually. I mean yeah, there was that whole Flight Camp thing, but they worked it all out and now they’re really tight.” My cousin shot a grin over at me. “Plus, Rainbow’s way cooler than anypony else you could end up with.”

It’s worth mentioning at this point that Dash’s visits to the compound back when Storm was still young and impressionable might have had a bit of an influence on her. At the very least, I don’t remember Storm being quite so ambitious and eager to prove herself back before she met Rainbow. Still, at least she wasn’t starting up a fan club and running around in a Rainbow wig.

I was going to knock on Aunt Wind’s front door, but Storm just opened it and walked right in. Oh, right, it was kinda her home too, so there’d be no reason to knock. Since Storm was usually gonna be out in the field, there wasn’t really much reason for her not to still live with her mom whenever she was on leave. “Mom!” Storm called out as she walked in. “Got Cloud and Lyra here, and Cloud wants to talk to you!”

Aunt Wind came trotting out of the kitchen, wearing an apron that looked oddly fitting considering it was being worn by a military mare. Then again, it’s not like Aunt Wind was regularly out on the front lines kicking in heads—being the Guard’s chief counselor was very much a desk job. I’m not saying Aunt Wind was out of shape or anything, but she definitely didn’t look quite as honed as, say, Storm. Then again, Storm was in the Long Patrol, and anypony who’s regularly getting into the thick of things with hodags, bandersnatches, manticores, and whatever else the Long Patrol runs into would want to be in good shape.

My aunt took one look at the ice pack over my eye, and her smile disappeared. “Right, I think Typhoon can handle the rest of the casserole on his own.” She trotted over and started gently nudging me towards her couch. “Just to be safe, why don’t you two go lend him a hoof?”

Storm knew better than to argue with her mother, but Lyra stubbornly set her hooves. “I’d rather stick with Kicky, if you don’t mind.”

Aunt Wind politely cleared her throat. “I do mind, actually. Please excuse us.” The words didn’t sound overly hostile, but she delivered them with this uncompromising tone that made it clear she was not to be feathered with. “Please go help Typhoon chop up the carrots.”

Somehow, the fact that she started both her sentences with the word ‘please’ just made them seem even more like ironclad orders. Must be a psychologist thing.

Lyra gave a cowed nod and scampered off to the kitchen with no further prompting, leaving the two of us alone. She settled onto the chair opposite me, and hit me with what I always called her Psychologist Look. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it was basically this sort of carefully neutral-but-attentive look. Like she wanted to hear everything you had to say, and she wouldn’t pass any judgement on you for saying it. Normally it kind of bugged me when she broke it out, since being analyzed tends to annoy me a little on general principles, but right now somepony who would listen and not judge was exactly what I needed. Lyra and Storm were great, but they weren’t exactly the kind of ponies you’d go to when you needed a calm, rational, objective analysis of your personal life.

I took off the ice pack without even needing to be asked. Her expression tightened a bit when she saw my black eye, but she gave no other reaction, patiently waiting for me to explain the situation. I decided to give her the quick version, then go back and fill in the details later. “Derpy smacked me for breaking a promise and sleeping with Blossom.”

Aunt Wind hissed something under her breath, but the expression on her face never wavered. “Is this the first time she's hit you?” she asked after a couple seconds.

“Derpy's not an abuser!” I snapped out. “I just made her mad at me!” Aunt Wind gave me a flat look for several seconds, until I facehoofed and started backpedaling. “I know that saying it's not her fault because I provoked her makes it sound worse, but she’s a decent pony, really! I put her in a bad situation, and she reacted badly. That was the first time I’ve ever really seen her get violent, and I don’t think it would ever happen again.”

“Enough stress can make ponies act in ways they normally wouldn’t.” Aunt Wind pursed her lips in thought for a bit, then nodded. “As long as nothing like this happens again, I don’t think we need to worry too much. We'll table that issue for now, but do let her know that overlooking this is a one-time thing—assuming your relationship survives the fallout of the whole incident.” Aunt Wind shot a quick glance at the door to make sure nopony was listening in on us before breaking out the obvious question. “I assume you need somepony to talk to?”

“Little bit, yeah.” I groaned and leaned back on the couch. “It’s a big crazy situation, and ... well, you're the only pony I can trust to not go off the handle over this. If Lyra and I hadn’t stopped her, Storm would probably be dropping lightning bolts on Doo Manor right now, and Lyra’s a wonderful pony, but she thinks with her heart, not with her head. Let’s not even get into what’s going to happen if Rainbow Dash finds out. Or Blossom.” Fluttershy would probably flip too; it was just a question of whether she would go into super-nurturing mode on me while blaming herself for everything, or go unleash the mother of all guilt trips on Derpy.

“Hmm.” Aunt Wind gave a slow nod. “I’m going to assume you don’t want Tor or ‘Lula finding out about this either. It might be a bit late to completely hide what happened—too many ponies know—but I could have a word with Storm and everypony else about not telling him until a better time.” She sighed and rubbed a hoof along her muzzle. “Neither of them need any more troubles on their heads right now. For that matter, you don’t need to be dealing with this sort of thing either, although that’s never stopped you in the past.”

“No kidding.” I let out a bitter, humorless little laugh. “If I could get a cutie mark in making bad decisions...”

“That’s not a special talent, Cloud.” She reached over and put a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “Everypony makes mistakes.”

“You have to admit, I do it better than most.” I dragged a hoof down face, wincing a bit when I got too close to my eye. “You wanna hear all the nasty details of the last couple months’ worth of feather-ups?”

“As much as you can manage before dinner, at least. Just a second...” Aunt Wind trotted out of the room, returning a few seconds later with a blank scroll, a quill, and some ink. “Alright, now let’s start at the beginning and work our way forward.” She took the quill between her teeth, patiently waiting for me to start giving her something to take notes on.

“Seriously, Auntie?” I fought against the urge to facehoof, but eventually gave into it. “What’s next, am I supposed to lie back on the couch? You gonna start breaking out the inkblot tests? Am I supposed to tell you about my relationship with my mother?” I gave a bit of a wince at that last one.

“Taking notes helps me think, Cloud,” my aunt grumbled good-naturedly. “Now stop stalling and tell me what’s been going on. Sometimes just talking about what’s wrong with a pony who’s not already neck-deep in the mess can help.”

“Well, you already know about Flight Camp, so we can skip that.” Needless to say, Aunt Wind had put in a lot of hours with me after that disaster. “So let’s start with Blossomforth: she kinda bumped Rainbow Dash out of my best friend slot after Dash started spending more time with other ponies. Nothing serious, Dash and I still get along great most of the time, it’s just that we’ve kinda been going in different directions for a while.” I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the memory of the one time where Rainbow and I hadn’t gotten along so well. “So anyway, Blossom’s my new PFF, but she’s also got a bit of a thing for me. She’s kinda been nursing that crush for a while, but she’s got a bit of a problem when it comes to not wanting to take big risks, and confessing your love for another pony is a pretty huge risk.

“On top of that, I hooked up with Derpy, and we were starting to get really close—past the point of just being casual bang buddies. That scared Blossom, and eventually her feelings for me came out into the open too.” I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane. “Problem is, they’re both pretty special to me, and neither one of them likes the idea of me doing the sensible thing and hooking up with both of them. They both want me to be exclusive, even though Derpy said she didn’t mind me banging around! I don’t get it! Why can’t I love the ponies I love, and not have that be a problem?” I was starting to get a bit too worked up to just stay lying down, so I sat up. “Why do they both have to bring in this whole stupid possessive thing that I never wanted any part of in the first place?! Now I’ve got both of them demanding I not love anypony else, especially not their rivals, and I never signed up for anything like that! I’m not some feathering trophy for them to fight over!” I slammed a hoof down on the table to emphasize my point and let off a little steam.

After a couple seconds of absolute silence, I started realizing how pissed off I was about the whole situation. It was just so stupid. It’s not like the fact that I loved other ponies meant that I loved either of them any less. Why couldn’t they understand that, instead of making some big stupid dramatic production about which one of them I loved more?

Maybe that’s where I’d been wrong the whole time. I kept looking at this whole thing as a love triangle where there were only two real outcomes. The problem was, that whole situation was a no-win scenario. I’d end up having to pick one of them eventually, and that would end with me and the pony who didn’t get picked both feeling rotten—not to mention I’d probably end up resenting whoever I did end up with for forcing me to make that choice in the first place.

Maybe it was time to apply one of those old lessons from West Hoof: when you can’t win a battle, change the terms of engagement. There was no reason I had to go along with the whole love triangle where I had to make a painful choice, except that Derpy and Blossom both seemed to think that was the only way the whole situation could possibly go. Thing was, they were wrong about that. The only reason the whole drama about which pony I would eventually end up with kept playing out was because we’d all kind of accepted it.

There was no reason things had to be that way. Maybe it was time for them to adjust to the fact that there was no reason I had to pick between them. It’s not like I could up and decide I loved one of them less than the other. Love doesn’t work that way. You can’t put a number on it, or set up a bunch of graphs to scientifically analyze it (though that hadn’t stopped Twilight Sparkle from trying).

“I think I figured it out.” I felt a hint of a smile make its way onto my face. “Love triangles suck, so let’s not play that game. I’d floated the possibility of them learning to share before, Derpy shot it down, and I just let it rest there. Starting to think maybe that was the biggest mistake I made in this whole thing. When two fillies are squabbling over a toy and refuse to share, you don’t sit back and let them fight until one of them wins. You sit them both down, and you make them learn how to share!”

Too bad I hadn’t figured that out sooner, in time to stop the whole situation from blowing up the way it had. I might have been able to save things with Derpy. Instead ... well, right now Derpy and I were pretty much dead as a couple. I didn’t want to give up on her just yet, though. Call me stubborn, but I don’t give up on ponies I love. I had to at least try. Hay, even if there was no hope of hooking back up with Derpy, I still owed her a better ending than what we’d gotten. And part of properly closing things out would be looking at where things had gone wrong for both of us.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, though. Hopefully I could still fix this.

“See? Talking about things did help.” Aunt Wind smiled at me. “Now you know why they pay me so many bits to do this for a living.” She set her notepad and quill down—she hadn’t even gotten around to taking any notes yet. I felt slightly robbed; I’d been expecting the whole analysis experience. That, or the beginnings of a grocery list which included almonds, cashews, and pistachios.

Lyra trotted in from the kitchen, shooting an unreadable look Aunt Wind’s way as she came in. She probably knew that Aunt Wind was looking out for me, but I doubt that made her any less happy that somepony had bumped her out of her role as my designated carepony. “Uh, you two still talking? 'Cause dinner's ready.”

“I think we’ve reached a good point for a break.” My aunt shot me a faintly teasing smile. “As I recall, Cloud is rather fond of Typhoon’s carrot casserole. It might be best to hurry and fill our own plates before Cloud gets there.”

My stomach grumbled at the thought of food. I don’t think I’d eaten much of a breakfast, and I’d been too busy feeling like horseapples after the talk with Derpy to bother with lunch. Food sounded good. Really good. Plus, I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of food—Uncle Typhoon’s casseroles tend to come out big enough to last for several days of leftovers.

“Sounds like somepony’s worked up an appetite.” Lyra grinned at me and led the way into the kitchen. Uncle Typhoon and Storm were already waiting, and the lot of us settled in around the dinner table, then got down to the serious business of eating. I noticed that Lyra made a point of sitting next to me, and seemed to be trying to stare down Aunt Wind. Somepony was obviously still stinging about being booted out of the room for our private talk. For her part, Aunt Wind seemed faintly amused by Lyra’s territorial hostility.

Once I’d put a couple bites of casserole in my belly and silenced the worst of the growling, I noticed one unoccupied place at the table. “Where’s Star run off to?”

“Said she had something to look into before dinner,” Uncle Ty offered by way of explanation. “I expect her empty stomach will bring her back soon enough.”

“Pity we can’t track her the way she tracks us,” Storm grumbled, though there wasn’t any real annoyance in her tone.

Dealing with Star once her magic had started really coming in had been a bit of a pain at times. Tracking spells combined with the boundless curiosity of a young filly was a recipe for all kinds of trouble and aggravation. Storm got the worst of it, though—sibling rivalries are bad enough without your little sister being able to magically follow your every movement.

I suppose I should be glad Mom and Dad didn’t have ‘Lula until I was way too old to need to deal with that kind of thing. Granted, that just meant I wound up with a little sister who looked up to me and wanted to follow my example instead, but that was the lesser of two evils.

I was just getting started on my second helping when I heard somepony at the front door. The lack of knocking was already a pretty good sign of who it was, but Star’s voice confirmed it a second later. “Mom, Dad, I’m home! And I brought company!”

Star was bringing somepony over to her parent’s place for dinner? Oh, the teasing possibilities this raised. Storm looked even happier about it than I did—like I said before, sibling rivalries and all that. My good mood abruptly vanished when I got a clear look at Star’s guest. “S-Sparkler?”

Derpy’s daughter gave me a shaky wave, her eyes lingering on my less-swollen but still very noticeable bruise. “Hey. I, uh, I needed to get out for a bit, and I don’t really know anypony in Canterlot other than Miss Doo—” She caught herself, took a breath, and then made the correction. “Other than Mom’s family and you guys. So...”

Oh, that was not good. Sparkler slipping and calling her mother ‘Miss Doo’ definitely said a lot about her mental state—she hadn’t called Derpy that since the first months after Derpy brought her home. Not to mention that she’d come looking for me rather than, say, Rainbow Dash. Granted, Rainbow was staying in the clan compound anyway, but it would be a typical angry and confused teenager response for Sparkler to come looking for the mare who Derpy had just very clearly stated wasn’t welcome around her daughters anymore.

Let’s just hope Derpy didn’t go completely ballistic when she found out where Sparkler was staying. The last thing any of us needed was another blowup right now. “Look, Sparkler, maybe it would be better if you stayed with—”

She cut me off with an upraised hoof. “Yeah, probably, but I think I’ll stick with you anyway.” She paused, then awkwardly shuffled her hooves. “I figure we kinda got some stuff to talk about. Y’know, with Mom and everything.”

I sighed and reluctantly nodded. “No kidding. How’s—”

Sparkler interrupted me again. “Can it wait until morning?” A pained grimace crossed her face. “I’m really not in the mood to talk about it just yet. Gotta sort out where I stand before I can even start thinking about how I wanna talk to you about this whole thing.”

“Fair enough.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d be up to talking things over with one of Derpy’s kids either. Sparkler clearly needed some stable adult influence to help her deal with what she’d seen and heard during the fight, and I wasn’t really in a good place to provide that right now. “Aunt Wind, you think you could put Sparkler up for the night?”

"Not a problem at all.” Aunt Wind offered the teen a maternal smile. “Assuming Star or Storm don’t mind sharing a bedroom, or she’s okay with sleeping on the couch.”

“She can bunk with me,” Star offered.

Something about how quickly Star made that offer called to mind the way I’d seen the two of them getting along so well at the funeral reception. For that matter, it sure was a coincidence that Star just happened to run into Sparkler. Sure, Sparkler was headed for the clanhold, but the fact that Star apparently met her halfway was still a bit convenient. I wondered if maybe Sparkler had one of Star’s trackers hidden somewhere on her. Star was good at hiding those things, and she tended to slip those little gems of hers onto anypony who she had an interest in...

Yup, there was definite teasing potential here. After everything I’d been through today, I could use a good laugh.

“Sure, you two bunking together sounds fine.” I hastily hid a grin behind an upraised foreleg. “Just be sure to toss up a silencing spell once you start banging. Some of us would like to get a decent night’s sleep.”

The slack-jawed expressions of surprise and horror on both of their faces made me that much more convinced that teasing them was a perfect idea. Like any good sister would, Storm immediately jumped on the opportunity to poke fun at her sibling. “Yeah, I'm sure Cloud knows all sorts of good positions you two could try out.”

As the first hints of a blush started working their way onto the mares’ faces, Lyra joined in on the fun. “I know a ton of good spells you two could use to really spice things up, if you want.”

“Now now,” Aunt Wind gently chided us, “let’s all be nice.” The two embarrassed young mares shot my aunt a grateful look, only to have their hopes cruelly crushed as a merry light entered her eyes. “Star’s an adult, and we should all respect her choice in romantic partners.”

“Moooooom!” Star whined, her face positively flaming.

My terminally humorless Uncle Typhoon gave Sparkler a frank, appraising gaze, then offered a slight nod. “She’ll do.” He gave the comment a second to sink in, then added in perfect deadpan, “I just hope she’s not a screamer.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!” At that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Star had bolted for the door.

Between Uncle Ty’s remark and the way Star was whining, I finally lost it and started laughing my flank off. It didn’t take long for everypony other than Star and Sparkler to join in. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

Mostly, I was thinking about how good it felt to laugh again.

Author's Note

So, time for the latest announcements:

And that announcement is about (pause for dramatic effect): Merchandising.

Yup, we're working on merchandise that doesn't use or mention any of Hasbro's trademarks or copyrights, and thus should be safe enough to sell. So if you ever wanted to buy a Winning Pony Shipping coffee mug, a mousepad featuring the Derpy Killing Bastard (AKA Comma-Kazie) or a thong with the Rule of Banging written on it (seriously, that's an option), now's the time to get it.

The Pony With Fire-Breathing Hooves

Everypony in the house woke up to the sound of somepony pounding on the front door.

Since I was camped out on the living room couch, I got to the door first. Things at Aunt Wind’s were a little crowded, even after Lyra went back to her parents’ place for the night. I could’ve bunked with Storm, but I’ve got a couple habits that can kick in when I’m in bed with a beautiful pony. Derpy and Blossom unintentionally spooning might be hilarious and sexy, but me doing that with my little cousin would be a dozen different flavors of gross. I’m open to just about any kind of kink or taboo a pony can think of, but I draw the line at incest.

I opened up the front door, and found myself face-to-face with an extremely agitated Rainbow Dash. The instant she saw me she latched onto my shoulders and started shaking me like a rag doll. “Cloud! Sparkler left Derpy’s place last night, and she hasn’t come back yet! You got any idea where she might be?! What about your cousin, the one who’s good at finding stuff? Aw geeze, if she ran away or something happened to her or—”

I put a hoof over her mouth to cut her off, while hastily re-arranging my mane and ducking my head to hide my black eye. “Relax, Rainbow. Star found Sparkler last night and brought her back here. Spark just needed a little space after ... after what happened at Derpy’s.”

Rainbow let out a relieved breath and slumped against the doorframe. “Okay ... she’s okay. That’s a huge load off of my mind. Geeze, when Derpy told me she didn’t come home last night...”

That got a guilty little twinge out of me. In hindsight, I should’ve checked with Sparkler that Derpy knew where she was, or thought to send somepony over to Derpy’s place to let her know where Sparkler was. “Rainbow, can you go let Derpy know her daughter’s here and that she’s okay?”

Rainbow glowered and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “Yeah, guess I could do that, but I’d rather drag her back to her mom so Derpy and I can spank her until her butt looks like a pair of tomatoes! Do you have any idea how freaked out Derpy was when Sparkler didn’t come home? Or how much I ... y’know, got a little concerned?”

Oh Rainbow, even when you’re acting like a worried mother hen, you can’t quite bring yourself to admit that you were scared.

While I would normally sympathize with Rainbow’s feelings, and probably even agree with them to the point of joining in on the spanking, the circumstances here were anything but normal. I stepped up and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Look, Rainbow, there’s a reason Sparkler didn’t want to stay at Derpy’s place last night. I don’t really think dragging her back there’s a good idea.” Not to mention that if Sparkler had gotten so shaken up by Derpy hitting me, the last thing she needed from Rainbow was corporal punishment.

“What the feather happened with you and Derpy anyway?” Rainbow demanded. “I mean, I figured she’d be pretty pissed about you banging Blossom, but when Derpy found me she was a complete mess and Spark’s freaked out and run away from her, and...” Rainbow trailed off as her eyes narrowed, and then she put a hoof under my chin. There was no point in trying to hide it if she already suspected something was up, so I let her tip my head back, exposing the shiner Derpy’d left me with. “Cloud...” Rainbow’s voice came out as a shaky little whisper. “Please tell me you tripped and smacked your eye on a doorknob or something.”

“I wish I could, Dash.” I ducked my head back down. “Let’s not make a big deal out of it.”

“Not make a big—” Rainbow’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut as she gave an angry flick of her wings. “This ... you—urgh!” She slammed a hoof on the ground hard enough to get a sympathetic little wince out of me. “What the feather am I supposed to do now?! Not make a big deal. Celestia, you’re so stupid sometimes, Cloud! And so’s Derpy! You’re both stupid! Stop being stupid!”

Well, looks like I was right about Rainbow flying off the handle. My only hope was to give her something else to do before she started coming up with ideas on her own. “Dash!” I grabbed her by the shoulders, just like she’d grabbed me a little while ago. Sometimes you have to speak to Rainbow in her own language. “Focus. Right now, the most important thing is for you to go find Derpy and let her know that Sparkler’s okay. We can deal with the rest of this later.”

“Right.” Rainbow gave a shaky little nod. “Find Derpy, let her know Spark’s okay. I can do that.” Rainbow turned around and got halfway out the door before she stopped, then looked over her shoulder. “Don’t think I’m gonna forget about the eye thing though, Kicker.”

“Kinda figured you wouldn’t.” Sure, I’d been desperately hoping she would, but I’m not that lucky. Rainbow can get incredibly stubborn when it comes to anything involving her friends getting hurt. To be fair, it is something we’re all going to need to deal with. It might not be an abuse thing—everypony knows that I can defend myself just fine if it comes down to that—but it’s still not okay to hit a pony you love. Just another thing Derpy and I would need to talk about.

I shut the door behind Rainbow, and somepony in the hallway cleared her throat. I turned around, and saw Sparkler tentatively poking her head around the corner. “Um ... she gone?”

“Yeah, Rainbow went to go tell your mom you’re alright.” That got a bit of a twitch out of the teen. “Something wrong with that?”

Sparkler’s ears drooped, and she shuffled around. “S’just, what if she decides to come here? I’m not exactly ... I think I need a bit before I can deal with her again.”

“I kinda figured, what with you staying over for the night and everything.” I stepped over to her, and tried to offer an understanding smile. “I mean, if you wanna get really technical about things, you kinda ran away from home. It’s just not a big deal, since you landed with us instead of being out on your own.”

Thank Celestia that Star had tracked her down, though. If Sparkler had been running around Canterlot on her own last night, things might’ve gotten messy. The Princesses put a lot of work into keeping the capital nice and clean, but it’s still a bit hazardous for an attractive and vulnerable young mare to go wandering the streets in the wee hours of the morning. Especially if Sparkler was too freaked out over what had happened with her mother to be aware of her surroundings. Where would she have gone, anyway? Like she said last night, she doesn’t know any ponies in Canterlot other than her own family.

Well, as long as she was here and we seemed to have a bit of relative privacy for the moment... “Hey, last night you said you wanted to talk to me, right?”

Sparkler hesitated a bit before answering me. “Yeah, I guess I did.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to look me in the eye, and her next words came out as a nervous mumble. “Um ... maybe a little breakfast first? M’kinda hungry.”

“Right, food.” I suspected she was just stalling, probably because she was shaken up by Rainbow’s arrival, or maybe it was just ordinary procrastination when confronted with an uncomfortable topic. Either way, I didn’t mind giving her a bit of time to work up her courage.

I wasn’t in the mood to bother with properly cooking something, not to mention that between how long it would take and the smells of breakfast cooking everypony else would probably be up and around Well, assuming Rainbow’s visit hadn’t woken them up already. Sure, she’d made some noise, but between the clan compound and life in Guard barracks Kickers learn to sleep through a racket. Breakfast, on the other hoof...

In any case, I didn’t want the rest of the family swarming in just yet—a crowded house full of hungry ponies wouldn’t be the best setting for a private conversation. So, instead of cooking, I just warmed up some of the leftover casserole from last night.

Since discussing the whole Derpy situation seemed to be a non-starter for the moment, I went for the obvious icebreaker. “So, how many times did you and Star bang last night?” The fact that I timed my question for right when Sparkler had a mouthful of orange juice was pure coincidence. I swear.

Needless to say, Sparkler made a bit of a mess.

I grabbed a napkin and got to work on cleaning up the mess I was mostly responsible for creating, while Sparkler sputtered indignantly. She finally managed to string a coherent sentence together around the time I finished cleaning up. “We didn’t do anything!”

Of course they hadn’t, but where’s the fun in admitting that? “Nothing at all?” I frowned and gave her a little nudge with one of my wings. “What, is my cousin not good enough for you?”

Sparkler’s jaw dropped, and she hastily shook her head. “No, she’s great!” She blinked, then hastily clarified, “Great in a completely platonic we-are-not-about-to-have-sex kind of way.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Teenagers are so much fun to tease. All that early relationship awkwardness, before they’ve hit the point where they’re comfortable admitting that they find ponies attractive. Still, I didn’t want to overdo it. Teens can be sensitive about that kind of thing.

In any case, objective achieved: the ice had been broken and I’d started a conversation. “So, Sparkler, why’d you run away from home and come here?”

Sparkler went quiet, scuffing a hoof over the kitchen table and poking at her reheated casserole for a bit before finally answering me. “Didn’t plan on coming here, specifically. I just ... I needed to get out for a bit, clear my head and stuff. Then I ran into Star, and I was kinda hungry and she said I could come back to her place for dinner, and...” she trailed off and gave a helpless little shrug. “Was kinda thinking I’d look for Rainbow or somepony to stay with after I ate.”

She hesitated for a bit, refusing to make eye contact with me. “Um, there’s some stuff you kinda need to know, if you wanna understand why I freaked out so much. Kinda goes back to what happened back when I was with Foal Services...”

Ouch. I’d never really gotten the full story about what happened with Sparkler before Derpy adopted her, but I knew enough to put together some of the pieces. Kinda hard to miss the fact that one of her forelegs was in a cast when Derpy brought her home, or that it had taken a couple months for her to stop calling her new mom ‘Miss Doo.’

Sparkler let out a little snort. “S’kinda weird, though. I mean, no offense, but you really wouldn’t understand what it’s like, growing up in the System. Hay, you’ve got more family than you can shake a hoof at.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that.” I waved a hoof around to encompass my aunt’s house. “Kinda got family all over the place. Hay, the biggest thing I needed to adjust to after I moved to Ponyville was not having a dozen relatives ready to pop out of the woodwork at the drop of a hat. Even when Mom and Dad had been stationed somewhere other than Canterlot while I was growing up, it’s pretty hard to go anywhere that had a significant number of guardponies without there being some Kickers in the mix too.”

That’s when an idea popped into my head. Maybe not the best idea I’ve ever had, but compared to my recent feather-ups I didn’t think it was too bad. “I might not know what it’s like to grow up in the adoption system ... but I know a pony who does. Mind if I bring her in?”

Sparkler hesitated for a bit. “Um, she’s not a pshrink like your aunt, is she?”

One of my ears twitched a bit. It bugs me a little when I hear ponies take a shot at what Aunt Wind does for a living. Sparkler probably didn’t mean anything by it, but ‘pshrink’ wasn’t exactly a complimentary term. “She’s not a psychologist, no.”

Sparkler’s ears went flat, and I felt a bit bad for rebuking her like that. “Right, sorry, I didn’t mean...” She gave a vague sort of gesture with her hoof, then shrugged and just shifted subjects to something a bit more comfortable. “But yeah, I guess we could bring somepony else in, s’long as you trust them.”

“Cool. Soon as you’re done eating, we’ll get going.” I grabbed my own empty plate and headed for the kitchen to drop it off in the sink.

Sparkler spared a glance for her half-eaten casserole, then slumped down against the table. “Think I’ve had enough. M’not really all that hungry right now.” She telekinetically picked up her own plate and followed me into the kitchen. “If we can get coffee wherever it is we’re going, we can head out now.”

“Sounds good.” After a quick clean-up, the two of us headed out the door and began our epic journey of about two blocks to another house in the compound.

“It’s another pony in your family?” Sparkler let out a little snort. “Sheesh, how many Kickers are there?”

I couldn’t help chuckling at that. “There’s a Kicker for everything, Sparkler.” I brought up a hoof and knocked on the door. “But this one’s not a Kicker. At least, not yet.”

A couple seconds after my knock, Blossom opened the front door, a cup of coffee in hoof. “Hmm?” She gave a slightly drowsy blink, then her eyes widened as her half-awake mind registered my presence. “Oh! Good morning Clou—” She abruptly cut herself off, either because she’d noticed my eye, or because she’d realized that Sparkler was there. After Rainbow’s visit I’d pretty much tossed the idea of keeping my little bruise a secret out the window—aside from the fact that Blossom had a right to know, there was the fact that Rainbow would probably have told her before too long.

Sparkler’s face went carefully blank, and there was a forced neutrality to her words when she spoke. “Miss Blossomforth.” Yeah, bringing Derpy’s daughter to talk to the pony I’d hurt her mom by sleeping with might not have been a great idea, but it was the best one I could come up with. Maybe that says something about my decision-making process.

Blossom hesitated, her mouth hanging halfway open as she tried to figure out just what in the hay she was supposed to say to Derpy’s daughter. Eventually, she settled on the basics. “Hello, Sparkler.” She gave an awkward shuffle of her wings and opened the door the rest of the way for us. “Um ... come on in, I guess.”

“Thanks.” Sparkler shot a sidelong glance at Blossom as she stepped inside, presumably trying to get a feel for the mare. As far as I knew, Blossom and Sparkler hadn’t really gotten to know each other yet—I wasn’t even sure if they’d properly met before now. Blossom starting off as the mare who was partially responsible for breaking Derpy’s heart wasn’t the best first impression.

I followed Sparkler in, slowing down a bit as I passed by Blossom to give a bit of an explanation. “The talk with Derpy didn't go so well.”

Blossom leaned in to take a closer look at my eye, and started scowling. “I can tell. Once this is settled, I think I’m going to have words with her.”

Sparkler froze, a conflicted grimace on her face. At a guess, she was feeling pretty torn between wanting to be upset with her mom and feeling that instinctive family loyalty that comes up whenever a pony criticizes your parents. Eventually, she settled on a hasty change of subject. “S'that other pony you wanted me to talk to around, Cloud, or do I have time to grab a cup of coffee?”

I gestured in the general direction of the kitchen. “Go ahead and get some, as long as Blossom doesn't mind, but she's who I wanted to bring in.”

Blossom looked back and forth between the two of us, obviously lost by the conversation. After a bit of thinking, she seized upon the one part of that exchange she’d definitely understood. “I've got plenty of coffee since Rainbow doesn’t drink it. Help yourself.”

Sparkler was silent for long enough to make things just a bit awkward, then very slowly nodded. “I'll be right back.” She half-turned to go the kitchen, then looked back to me. “You want any?”

I waved her off. “I'm fine without. Never been a huge fan of coffee.” Blame it on my time in West Hoof. Needing a caffeine fix to fully wake up doesn’t mesh with needing to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at whatever hour the sergeant-instructors figured would be best for us to start our exercise. Trying to do a light five mile jog when your brain is still in a half-awake haze never really worked for me. Though the fact that this guest house came with a percolator showed that not everypony in my family thought that way.

Since she’d never gone through the joys of Guard training, Blossom took a sip of her coffee and settled down on the couch. “So can one of you two tell me what's going on? Something tells me you’re not just here so Sparkler can raid my coffeepot.”

Sparkler grabbed a mug and poured herself some coffee, then took a few sips before she sighed and turned around to face Blossomforth. “I went for a walk last night after Mom...” She waved her cup in my general direction. “Wound up running into Star, and bunking at her place for the night. Kinda figured Cloud and I needed to talk, and she wants you in on it for some reason.”

I jumped into the conversation to explain. “I figured that since some of the stuff Sparkler wants to talk about goes back to before Derpy adopted her, while she was still in the system...” Sparkler made a noise and shuffled her hooves at that, then hid her face behind her coffee mug. “It’s just that when we were gonna start talking about what’s been going on, Sparkler kinda pointed out that I don't have the first clue of what it's like to be an orphan. I’ve got more family than I know what to do with.”

Blossom gave a bit of a wince at the reminder of her own family situation. “Oh. So I'm here to ...what? I mean, I guess having another orphan in the conversation would help give you some perspective, but it’s not like Sparkler and I have some magical orphan connection that’ll help us bond.”

Well, that made me feel like a bit of an idiot. It did get a little snort of laughter out of Sparkler, at least. I gave them the best explanation I could offer. “Well, when Sparkler said I needed a pony who could understand what she went through, you were the first one who came to mind.”

Sparkler was giving a Blossom a curious sort of look, probably adjusting her mental picture of the mare to account for the new information. If nothing else, she was hopefully starting to see Blossom as a pony, rather than an evil witch who helped break her mother’s heart. After a while, she carefully said, “When you said we were gonna talk to a pony, I didn't quite think you'd meant the one you'd...”

Blossom let out a slightly bitter snort. “Sparkler, if we had to cross all the ponies Cloud’s been with off of the list, you would be stuck talking to her close family and nopony else.”

“That’s hardly fair,” I grumbled. “I’ve never banged Rainbow Dash. Or Princess Celestia, though depending on which old family legends you like to believe she might qualify as family too.” Sparkler snorted and rolled her eyes at that—I guess she’s not a believer in that one. In fairness, I’m not sure I buy it myself. The whole idea that Celestia fits somewhere in my family tree seems a bit too much like wishful thinking. I’d like it to be true, though. Because really, how cool would that be?

Blossom wasn’t all that interest in talking over old family history, though. “Soooo,” she drew the word out, then took a sip of coffee before moving on to the main event. “What did you wanna talk about, Sparkler?”

Sparkler went quiet for a long time, taking several sips of her own drink as an excuse for her silence, then let out a resigned sigh. “I kinda just bolted after Mom hit Cloud. I didn't quite panic and run away but...” She trailed off uncomfortably, then shook her head and forced herself to continue. “Well, I kinda made sure Uncle Cirrus wouldn't leave Dinky alone with Mom until I got back. Then I ran away.” She fell silent for a bit, then shook her head and clarified. “Well, I didn't exactly run away, I just needed to get out of that place. You know, clear my head and get away from her and all that. S’not a big deal or anything.”

Blossom struggled with what to say next for a while, shuffling on her hooves. “I don't really know Derpy all that well, but she's never seemed like a violent pony.” Even as she said that, she couldn’t help glancing at me. Or more specifically, my eye.

I chimed in with my own defense of Derpy. “She made a mistake, but only after I did some really stupid things that hurt her. I can’t really blame her for reacting the way she did. Hay, it wouldn’t have been hard for me to block or dodge, if I’d wanted to. I kinda had it coming, though.”

Sparkler grimaced, and there was an odd, haunted tone to her voice. “I know how it goes. She made a mistake, and she's sorry for it, and she had an excuse and it'll never happen again.” Her voice came out as a quiet, cynical little whisper. “Yeah, right.”

“Sparkler?” I took a step towards her, and took the conversation to a place that I knew had to be dangerous territory. “What happened to you before Derpy adopted you? I mean, I know when Derpy brought you to Ponyville you were—well, you had a cast on...”

Sparkler let out a tiny little whimper and wrapped her forelegs around herself. Oh geeze, it was just as bad as I had been afraid it was. After a little hesitation, I moved up and hugged her. She jumped a bit at the contact, but after a couple seconds she slowly relaxed, and then leaned into it. Blossom hesitated for a bit, then joined in, hugging Spark from the opposite side.

The two of us gently guided Sparkler over to the couch and then just sat there, holding her until whatever bad memories she was currently reliving passed. I also made a mental note to find out just who had put her foreleg in that cast and make sure he suffered for it.

Once Sparkler was looking a bit less shaky, Blossom made an effort to engage her. “Um, look, Sparkler ... I know what it's like, growing up in the system. So, if you need somepony to talk to about what happened...”

Sparkler blinked a couple times, then turned to face Blossom. “Did you grow up groundside, or cloudside? Kinda a big difference.”

“Cloudsdale Orphanage,” Blossom answered her.

Sparkler let out a bitter little laugh. “Lucky you.”

“Didn’t feel all that lucky,” Blossom murmured. She blinked and flicked an ear, then softly continued, “We heard stories what things were like groundside, though. Some of the older kids used to tease us about how if we acted up we'd get sent to one of the ground orphanages. Other ponies said the ground was way better.”

Sparkler’s voice turned wistful. “It was kinduva mixed bag. Groundside’s big on foster families. You get a good one, it’s great, but there are bad ones out there too. From what I’ve heard, cloudside runs things differently.”

“Yeah.” Blossom nodded. “Cloudsdale goes for more of the big systematic orphanages. Weeds out all the bad apples, but to most of the caretakers you’re just Orphan Eighty-Three. They were always very nice. Very ... professional.” As she spoke, there was an odd little catch in her voice that made me want to wrap a wing around her and hold her close. So I did.

Sparkler nodded to Blossom. “I got lucky the first time. I don't remember a lot about my first caretaker, I can’t even really remember her name. She was this old mare, real sweet—Gramma reminds me of her, a bit. Well, Gramma’s a little more stuck up, but then again, I was just a little filly when I was with my first caretaker. I’m probably all nostalgic about her and stuff.” Sparkler sighed, and she seemed to shrink down into herself. “She was old, though. After she had a stroke, she couldn’t take care of kids anymore, so they moved me to a new home. My foster dad at the new place ... he was a real piece of work.”

“Was he the one who...” I waved a hoof at her foreleg. Now that I was looking at it and thinking about the injury, I could make out a faint scar on the leg.

Sparkler shivered and pulled her foreleg up against her chest. “He kinda took 'spare the rod' to new heights. I don't think he meant to hurt me as bad he did, though. Not ‘cause he actually gave a flying feather, s’just that you can’t cover up a broken leg. That’s what got me outta there and his worthless plot in jail.” She paused, and shot a look at my eye. “Bruises are pretty easy to hide, though. Especially if you put ‘em in the right places, I found out.”

Well, at least the guy was in prison. He’d better hope he never gets out, or I’ll be waiting for him. Granted, Derpy would probably beat me to the punch on that one.

Ouch. Derpy, punch. Not two words I liked hearing that close to each other just yet.

I focused on just giving Sparkler a reassuring hug while my brain got off that particular train of thought. Unfortunately, it just jumped the tracks to something far worse than the idea of Sparkler taking a beating. “Your foster father, um, he didn't...” I hesitated, trying to figure out the least sickening way to ask the question. “He only hit you, right? Nothing else?”

Blossom let out a horrified little gasp, then tightened her hold on Sparkler.

Sparkler sighed and shook her head. “He was pretty equal-opportunity about taking a swing at whoever was close at hoof once he got drunk. I learned to go hide the smaller kids once I picked up on the warning signs that he was getting into a mood.”

Oh dammit, she was dodging the question. Guess I couldn’t blame her—asking the question was pretty hard to do, answering it couldn’t be very easy for her either. “Sparkler, you know that wasn’t what I was asking about.”

She looked down, uncomfortably fidgeting between Blossom and me. “Nothing worse than him getting punchy. That other kindsa stuff wasn’t his deal. S’more what lonely, single ponies took older kids home for, if you listened to some of the jerks.”

‘Lonely, single ponies?’ Oh, that sounded ominous. Blossom connected the dots just a split-second faster than I did. “Oh, you must've been terrified when Derpy adopted you.”

Sparkler sighed and very slowly nodded. “Well, the first time I came home, Rainbow was watching Dinks, and I thought the two of them were married. I mean—hay, the way Rainbow hangs around Dinky sometimes, you'd think she was the one that gave birth.” Sparkler managed a small grin at that.

I had to agree with her there; Rainbow has always doted on Dinky. Not that I could blame her, with how utterly adorable the filly can get. Hay, Dinky’s first word was ‘Boe.’ As in Rainbow. There’s a reason Rainbow got to be Dinky’s godmother. Hay, if not for the utter lack of romantic chemistry between them, Derpy and Rainbow probably would’ve hooked up at some point. Shadow knows Rainbow would be better at helping Derpy raise her kids and providing a good home environment than I could ever hope to manage.

Sparkler cleared her throat and shuffled a bit. “Anyway, we settled in, had dinner and I started relaxing a little bit. I figured I’d lucked out, and gotten adopted by a nice storybook couple. Then I find out they’re not married, Rainbow left for the night, and all those rumors about the single ponies stopped sounding so petty.”

I flinched at that. I know Derpy would never do anything like that, but that’s because I’ve known Derpy for years. A freshly-adopted filly, on the other hoof...

Sparkler shifted around a bit, lightly shrugging off the double-hug Blossom and I had been giving her. “So yeah, I was a little freaked out at first. Wasn’t so bad though: I got time with Dinks and Mom gave me plenty of space to adjust, and—” Sparkler gave a little hiccough, and turned her face away from me for a bit until she was more composed. “A-after I peed myself the first time she came to tuck me in, I kinda figured out that she wasn't like him.”

Blossom gave a sympathetic wince. “But then she hit Cloud, and now all those nasty memories are coming back up again.”

Sparkler bit her lower lip and nodded.

“It's not the same, Sparkler!” I paused, and took a couple deep breaths to calm down. Yelling would not help my cause. “What happened with Derpy and me isn’t even remotely similar to what happened with your foster father.”

“Yeah?” Sparkler gave an angry snort. “How's it not similar? She feathering loves you, Cloud! She's known you longer than she's known me, and that didn’t stop her.”

My wings gave an agitated little twitch. “There’s a big difference between a pony who beats little foals up for kicks, and one who lashes out at a pony who's hurt her pretty bad. C’mon, Sparkler, you know that Derpy’s not like that!”

Sparkler broke out the deadliest weapon in a teenager’s arsenal: smartflanked sarcasm. “Yeah, Mom would never hit a pony she loves, would she? Where’d you get that black eye again?” She gave a cynical little scoff. “Sure, you say she had a good excuse. Ponies can make whatever excuses they want for hitting somepony close to 'em, but it's just a matter of time before the excuses stop, or stop being anything more than a load of horseapples. If you asked my foster dad, he’d tell you I had my little flight down the stairs coming too.”

“I still say you’re comparing apples and oranges,” Blossom grumbled. She shot a troubled look my way, and then continued, “Besides ... well, not sure how to say this other than to just come out and say it, but Cloud knows how to defend herself. She killed that whatever monster got her mom, right? I’m pretty sure Derpy’s not that big of a threat.”

Sparkler just rolled her eyes and deployed more teenage sarcasm. “Oh, well that makes everything fine, then. She can lash out at the ponies she loves as much as she wants to, so long as they can defend themselves?”

Blossom’s ears went flat on her head. “That wasn't what I meant.”

“Funny, it's what you said,” Sparkler shot right back.

Okay, this wasn’t going to get us anywhere. Sparkler had kinda hit that stubborn position where she wasn’t going to change her mind no matter how many facts we brought up. Deep down she was scared out of her wits, and you can’t really logically argue away fear. So, it was time to try a new angle. “Look, Sparkler, you have to admit that the only reason any of this happened is because I really screwed up with Derpy.”

That got me a teenagerly snort. “Technically I think you screwed up with somepony else.” She gave Blossom a loaded look, which made Blossom flinch and shrink down a bit. “Buuut... yeah, you’re right about that.” One of her hooves brushed along my cheek, right underneath the shiner Derpy had left behind. “If it hadn't been for this, I'd be back with Mom helping her explain to Dinks why you couldn't come over anymore.”

Okay, that really stung. The idea of never getting to see Dinky again really got to me. “I’m kinda hoping it doesn't come to that.”

For a moment, genuine anger flashed in Sparkler’s eyes. “You hurt her, Cloud.” Sparkler took a moment to calm down before she continued. “I don’t exactly like your chances of patching things back up with Mom. Hay, just staying friends with her is gonna take some work. I'm amazed she didn't flip out after the mess with Miss Fluttershy, let alone what happened after it.”

Blossom let out a worried murmur. “What mess with Fluttershy?”

I facehoofed, then regretted it a moment later when my eye gave a painful twinge at the contact. I should’ve told Blossom about the whole Fluttershy thing beforehoof, but just like with Derpy it had slipped my mind. In my defense, I hadn’t really had a good chance to let Blossom know since being reminded of it by Derpy. Still could’ve found a better way to let her know than having Sparkler mention it mid-conversation.

Sparkler gave a flinch when she realized what she’d just done, then shot a faintly annoyed look my way, no doubt blaming me for not telling Blossom sooner. “Yeah, way to set that bar, too. ‘Don't make me mad, or I'll go sleep with somepony else.’”

That got me bristling. “That's not exactly the way I meant it, Sparkler.”

“Nah, but that's the way it happened.”

“It’s really not.” I tried to sound more firm than angry—I’m not sure how good of a job I did. “I slept with Fluttershy because I love her, not as some kind of twisted method of punishing Derpy for getting into an argument. If I wanted to punish Derpy, I’d be having her sleep on the couch or something.” I paused as the obvious problems with that particular example came to mind, given that we tended to sleep at her house. “Well okay, I can’t actually do that, but you get the idea. I’d express my displeasure in ways other than having sex with another pony. Using sex to punish ponies is just wrong.” I thought for a moment, then revised my previous statement. “Well, unless it’s a bondage thing, but that’s different.”

I took a bit to think about how to raise my next point. “Look, Sparkler, the bottom line is that I can't really do the whole monogamy thing. I’m just not built that way, and if Derpy’s gonna get upset every time I sleep with another pony...”

“So what, then?” Sparkler demanded, stubbornly crossing her forelegs over her chest. “You gonna do the whole playmare thing forever, and if she’s not okay with just being another line in your little black book, then too bad?”

“No, that’s not it all. I wanna...” I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane. “I like being with Derpy, and I like having you and Dinky around too. I never really thought much about settling down, but after having a chance to see what the whole family life would be like ... I kinda like the idea of getting a bit more stability.” That got a surprised little grunt out of Sparkler, while Blossom was giving me a neutral, unreadable look. “I might not want to be a total playmare anymore, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love a lot of ponies. I don’t wanna settle down if it means shutting out all the other ponies in my life. I love Derpy. I also love Blossomforth. And Fluttershy, and Lyra, and Raindrops, and...” I trailed off and gave a little shrug. “Well, you get the idea. I love a lot of ponies, and I can’t just switch that off.”

Sparkler gave me a flat look and deadpanned, “You're gonna bankrupt your clan with that dowry.” That got a giggle out of Blossom. It probably was a good thing the Kickers were still too Old Pegasopolan to go for dowries. The lighthearted mood didn’t last long before Sparkler got back to business, though. “Mom has a bit of a different expectation, you know?”

“Yeah.” I let out a resigned sigh. “Derpy wants me to be exclusive to her. I know she said she's okay with me still running around, and maybe she was at first, when we were just friends with benefits. But now ... now she's not.”

“No, really?” The teen let out a snort. “There's kinduva big difference between running around and going to ponies she knows you love, like she wants you to love her.” Sparkler grumbled a bit, and poked at the couch with one of her hooves. “If I had to guess, she's scared of you leaving her. She’s wanted to have somepony else in her life for so long. Hay, in a way I think I wasn’t exactly wrong about Mom and Rainbow. Not that they have a thing for each other, but I think Mom was kinda leaning on Rainbow to fill the gap.” Sparkler shifted around on the sofa and stared down at the floor for a bit. “S’probably not a coincidence that she hooked up with you pretty soon after she couldn’t lean on Dash anymore to make up for being alone.”

Ouch. Now that Sparkler brought it up, the timing on it was kinda hard to miss. I know Rainbow wouldn’t start neglecting Derpy’s kids just because she’d hooked up with Pinkie Pie, but Derpy might still be nervous about it on a subconscious level. Besides, even if she wasn’t, I knew enough about ponies to know that any single mom getting into a long-term relationship has a very different set of concerns. She might love me, but providing a good home for her daughters was always going to be Derpy’s top priority.

Nothing would kill my relationship with Derpy faster than me doing anything that made her think I was hurting her girls, even indirectly. The biggest point of worry for me when it came to fixing things up with Derpy wasn’t the fact that I’d hurt her, but the fact that Dinky and Sparkler had gotten caught in the crossfire. Derpy could forgive me for hurting her. I don’t think she could forgive me for hurting her kids.

Sparkler sighed and rubbed a hoof over her forehead. “So yeah, you turned up right when she’s feeling a bit worried, then you helped out with me and Dinks, just like Rainbow did, and on top of that you actually love Mom. She’s been alone for so long, and then somepony comes along and gives her what she’s always wanted.” Sparkler chewed at her lower lip for a bit. “Yeah, I think I can appreciate how bad she'd wanna hold onto that.”

Blossom whispered under her breath. “I know exactly how she feels.”

Okay, now I was starting to feel like a mule.

Sparkler was staring at Blossom, her head cocked slightly to the side. After a few seconds, she very slowly nodded. “Yeah, I guess you would, wouldn’t you?”

“I do love her, you know.” I reached over and rubbed one of Blossom’s hooves. “You too, Blossom. It's not like loving one of you means the other means less to me.” I turned to Sparkler. “S’like with you and Dinky, to Derpy. She loves both of you. No ifs, ands, or buts. She didn’t start loving Dinky less just ‘cause she adopted you.”

Sparkler mulled that over for a bit, then slowly nodded. “Guess that makes sense. That’s probably something you should've laid out for her a long time ago, though. Mom’s not the kinda pony who gets stuff like that right off the bat, and you don’t exactly do the whole ‘safety and stability’ thing very well. S’pretty easy to assume that you’re not in this for keeps, especially when you wanna keep running around on her.”

I groaned and flopped back against the couch. “I thought I had laid it all out for her, that she knew how I worked. I mean, Derpy knew me for years before we hooked up. I figured she knew I wasn't going to be exclusive, and that me loving her didn’t require it. Hay, every time we discussed it, she said she didn’t expect me to be exclusive.”

Blossom sighed and shuffled around on the couch. “She knew you as a friend, but she’d never been in a relationship with you before, Cloud. Trust me when I say those are two very different things. And even then, just because she knows you probably can’t be exclusive doesn't change the fact that deep down, she would want you to be.”

Sparkler gave a sharp nod. “The fact that she hooked up with you at all meant that she wanted some kind of exclusivity, Cloud. Maybe not totally, but definitely a little more than just another consolation prize for you after Miss Fluttershy.”

That got a flinch out of me, though for all that it hurt, it also made me a little mad. I don’t know if Sparkler knew the whole story on Flight Camp or not, but either way, using Fluttershy on me like that was not okay. Blossom must’ve picked up on how much that particular barb had gotten to me, because she put a hoof on my shoulder, then turned and frowned at Sparker. “That wasn’t very fair, Sparkler.”

“Doesn't make it any less true,” the teen countered, stubbornly crossing her forelegs over her chest. “Do you honestly think she would've come for either of you if Miss Fluttershy'd said yes?”

Blossom frowned at that. “If Fluttershy said yes to what?”

This time, I managed to explain myself before it was entirely too late. “I kinda proposed to Eepy after we banged. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but...” I trailed off as Blossom flinched and turned away from me. Yeah, that hadn’t exactly gone over well.

While Blossom refused to look at me, Sparkler met my eyes with a steady stare. “If you want any kind of stability, you should probably stop pushing away the ponies that want to give it to you. Can’t blame Mom for being scared when it looks like all it’d take is one word from Miss Fluttershy, and you’d run off and leave her for good.”

Blossom took a deep breath, then shook her head. “No, Cloud wouldn’t do that.” At first her voice was barely above a whisper, but as she continued her voice slowly grew louder and more confident. “Cloud's ... it's like she said, she loves a lot of ponies. She loved Fluttershy first, but she loves me and Derpy as well. She wouldn't leave us out in the cold.”

“Maybe not intentionally.” Sparkler directed a frown at me. “But that’s kinda your problem, Cloud. Just because you don’t mean to hurt other ponies doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

Blossom shook her head again. “She makes mistakes, but she wouldn't abandon a pony she loves. Cloud's just not built that way.” Blossom smiled at me, though it was tinged with pain. “If Cloud could just fall out of love with a pony, our lives would be a lot less complicated. Think about it—she held onto her love for Fluttershy for how long?”

Sparkler frowned and had her mouth halfway open to argue, but nothing come out. After a few seconds, she shut it, and just shifted around on the couch.

I moved a bit closer to my fillyfriend, possibly the only one I had anymore. “Blossom, I...” I hesitated, wondering just what I was going to say next.

Blossom put a hoof over my mouth before I could figure it out. “Cloud, you know you would've come back for us. If you didn’t give up on Fluttershy after everything that happened between you two and all the years since you were together, there’s no way you’d give up on me or Derpy just because you’re getting a little frustrated with us.” She sighed and shifted her hoof to stroke my cheek instead. “Maybe if things between you and Fluttershy had never gone wrong at Flight Camp, you would’ve ended up with just her and nopony else, but you’ve changed since then. Deep down, you have to know you couldn't have turned back the clock with Fluttershy.”

I blinked a couple times as Blossom’s words sank in. I’d known getting back together with Fluttershy like nothing had ever happened just wasn’t in the cards, but I’d missed out on a big part of why it wouldn’t work. Or rather, Blossom had articulated all the stuff I couldn’t really put into words. It’s weird, that Blossom could figure out something like that about me.

“That sounds real nice, Miss Blossomforth.” Sparkler rolled her eyes and gave a vague sort of wave of her hoof. “Guess we’ll never really know though, will we?”

“Maybe not,” Blossom conceded, “but thinking about that made me realize something.” She paused, took a deep breath, and then dropped a bombshell on us. “If Fluttershy can’t make her stop loving other ponies, I probably can’t either. I’m not sure I like that, but loving lots of ponies is a part of who Cloud is. So as long she’s...” Blossom sighed and gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t know. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I get that Cloud loving me doesn’t mean she has to stop caring about other ponies. So we can work something out, when it comes that.” She gave a slight shrug. “If nothing else, I’m pretty good at adapting.”

I blinked a couple times as Blossom’s words processed. I made a few halting attempts at some kind of verbal response, but no words seemed adequate. Finally, I just pulled her in for a hug and the best damn kiss I could give her. That seemed to get the message across well enough.

Sparkler shot a vaguely annoyed look at the two of us and let out a little snort. “Yeah yeah, free love conquers all. Woohoo. Once you two are done sucking face, d’you think we could maybe get back to the stuff that actually matters?” Blossom and I reluctantly broke apart, though I kept a wing wrapped around her, and my side pressed up against hers. “The big question is, what're you gonna do about the problems between you and Mom? You know, the other pony you say you love.”

I thought that over for a second, then gave a resigned, helpless little laugh. “Blossom's right. I can't give up on Derpy.”

Sparkler’s ears perked up, and for the first time in a while, she actually seemed to be looking a bit more like her usual cheerful and smartflanked self, instead of the cynical fatalist we’d been dealing with up to this point. “You're going back to Mom?”

I nodded. “I have to at least try to sort things out with her. If I just left things where they stand right now, I’d never be able to forgive myself. It’d just keep eating at me until it drove me completely nuts.”

“I dunno...” Sparkler’s brief little burst of optimism seemed to be fading, and her nihilistic side was showing itself again. “Things sounded pretty final when I bolted.”

Blossom frowned, and her eyes drifted over the shiner Derpy’d left behind at the end of that discussion. “I'd have to agree; trying to talk to Derpy again, let alone get back together with her, is not a good idea.” She thought for a moment, then let out a soft little groan. “But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you Cloud?”

I thought it over for a moment, then nodded. I knew it would probably end with Derpy shooting me down, but I couldn’t give up on a pony I loved.

A determined gleam entered Blossom’s eyes. “You’re not gonna talk to Derpy alone this time, Cloud. I'm coming too.”

Me, Derpy and Blossom, alone in a confined space? Yeah, that had all kinds of potential to go horribly wrong. “Blossom, I really don't think that’s—”

“I'm going to be there,” she cut me off, her steely tone making it clear this wasn’t up for negotiation. “Like it or not, I’m up to my withers in your relationship problems with Derpy. Trying to help you sort them out is the least I can do. Not to mention that the three of us are long overdue for a serious talk about what we’re going to do about this whole mess.” She thought for a moment, then reached out and stroked my hoof. “Besides, I want to be there for the pony I love, in a time when she needs to have somepony there to support her.”

I leaned over and gave Blossom a quick peck on the lips. It was the best way I could think of to thank her for backing me up.

Sparkler frowned at both of us, but there was still a hopeful little perk to her ears. I guess that fit the mood—she knew this probably wouldn’t end well, but she couldn’t stop herself from holding out hope that we just might pull it off. That little bit of cautious optimism didn’t blind her to the practical problems, though. “I'm taking Dinky outta there, then. No way I’m gonna risk her getting caught up in another nasty fight between you guys. It was bad enough having to explain that the sound she just heard was Mom smacking her fillyfriend. That’s not happening again. Ever.”

I didn’t like the idea that things might go that badly, but it made sense to take precautions. Just in case. “That might be a good idea. Derpy'll probably be calmer—hay, if I know her she probably feels pretty horrible about how it all happened—but the discussion is probably gonna get a bit heated.”

Sparkler’s ears went flat against her head, and there was an angry growl in her voice. “She'd better keep a lid on it. If she...” Sparkler trailed off, but the way her eyes drifted over to my bruise said everything that needed to be said. “I dunno what I'll do, but there’s no way I’m sticking around if anything like this happens again. And if I have anything to say about it, Dinky's not going back to that either.” She cut off any objections with a wave of her hoof. “Yeah, I know what you’re gonna say, but I don’t care. S’far as I’m concerned, there’s just no excuse for it.”

“It’s not going to happen again, Sparkler.” I tried to keep my voice as confident-sounding as possible as I continued. “I promise you that. What Derpy did was a complete anomaly, caused by a whole bunch of crazy stuff that’s never gonna happen again. You got that?”

Sparkler was quiet for a long time, refusing to look at me or acknowledge anything I’d said. When she finally spoke again, she wound up dodging the issue completely. “I think Dinks and I need a place to hole up for the night whenever you talk to Mom. Plus I’d kinda like to keep hanging out here for however long it’s gonna take before you figure Mom’s chilled out enough. So, you know, it could be a while.” She slumped back against the couch and let out a weary grumble. “D'your aunt and uncle have room for a few freeloaders for a little longer?”

“That’s really something you’d need to ask them about,” I pointed out. “But I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t mind. Especially since the place won’t be as crowded once Storm goes back to the Long Patrol and Star’s back at West Hoof.” Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon were usually pretty hospitable, especially when it was for stuff like this where a pony really needed a place to lay low for a bit. Not to mention that having a bit of private time with Aunt Wind would be good for her; Sparkler clearly had a few issues left over from what happened with her foster father.

Still, I was a bit worried about how Derpy would react to Sparkler hanging out with my family for however long she needed. Thankfully, there were other options. “I bet Rainbow would love to have you two stay with her for a bit.” Sure, there might be some complications once we got back to Ponyville on account of Rainbow having a cloud house, but there were ways to deal with that. “Fluttershy would be fine with having you guys over too, though Dinky might get hugged to death if she does something too adorable.”

Sparkler gave an apathetic shrug. “Either of those works, I guess. Dinks’d probably love hanging out with Rainbow, but staying with Miss Fluttershy might be a bit weird after what happened.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I’ll probably stick with Rainbow too, if Star’s heading back to West Hoof pretty soon. It’d be weird staying there without her around, especially with all those creepy statues all over the place.”

I knew this was still a pretty serious conversation, but I couldn’t resist an opening like the one Sparkler had just given me. I’m only equine. “So, you’re saying that whether you stay with my aunt or Rainbow hinges on the question of whether or not Star’s around? Guess that pretty much confirms things.”

Sparkler gaped at me for a moment, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject. “I—it’s not like that! Sheesh, you make it sound like we went on a romantic moonlit walk, she brought me home and introduced me to her parents, and then we went to bed together.” She took a moment to think about what she’d just said, blinking several times as the color rose in her cheeks. “Which is not at all like what really happened, because ... because ... because shut up! It’s not the same!”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Sparky.” I would’ve teased her more, but honestly, Sparkler had set herself up so perfectly that there wasn’t anything for me to add to it. I wonder if this was some cunning new strategy on her part? She would preemptively tease herself, so that I couldn't.

Blossom glanced at the slightly flustered teen for a bit, then giggled. “Wait, so you have a crush on Cloud’s cousin?”

“No.” Sparkler crossed her forelegs over her chest in a pout.

A downright mischievous grin appeared on Blossom’s face. “So you're saying she's not attractive?”

“No!” Sparkler hastily blurted out. “She's pretty!” A moment later she realized what she’d just said, and tried to salvage things. “Cool. Pretty cool.”

Blossom snorted at Sparkler’s very obvious and completely failed attempt to cover for her slip-up. Naturally, I jumped on the opportunity. “So, what didyou and the pretty mare you were in bed with get up to last night?”

“Absolutely nothing but sleeping,” she insisted. “And I didn’t even get as much sleep as I would’ve liked.” Before I could jump on that comment, Sparkler clarified. “Star has this creepy little statue on her nightstand. I swear it kept watching me all night long, with its evil, beady little eyes...”

It took me a second to figure out what the hay she was talking about. “What, you mean the little Shadow icon? Well, that’s what you get for lusting after the daughter of a Shadovar.” Star and Storm weren’t fanatics about the Cult of Shadow or anything, but they were definitely believers. Hay, I had one of those devotional icons tucked away somewhere in my house. Not anywhere close to my bed, though—having it in a position to see some of the things I’d gotten up to would’ve been awkward.

Bah, enough of that, there was Spark-teasing to be done. “So, you were scared of a tiny little icon, were you? Well, good thing you had big, brave Star there to protect you. Cuddle up with you and make you feel all safe. Give you some comforting little kisses...”

“Nothing like that happened!” Despite the continued denials, Sparkler’s body language betrayed her. I know a fair bit about the ways a pony’s body reacts to arousal, and the way Sparkler’s tail flicked was a classic sign.

Naturally, I had to point it out. Quite literally, as I leveled an accusing hoof at the limb in question. “Tail flick! Or should I say tail toss? Really, Sparkler, you might as well just track her down, tackle her, and start screaming for her to take you now.”

Blossom joined in on the fun, wearing a muffin-eating grin. “Somepony's got a cruuuush!”

Sparkler’s cheeks were positively flaming. “I do not!”

“So you don't want to kiss her?” I gave her a little nudge in the side with one of my wings.

“No!” Sparkler’s blush intensified. “You ... you ... argh!” She let out several frustrated groans that were oddly reminiscent of a certain librarian. Guess she must’ve picked that up from Twilight, thanks to those magic lessons she’d been getting.

Blossom went for the kill. “So you’re saying you don't want her hooves running down your back? You don’t want to gently massage her little magnifying-glass flanks? And you definitely don’t want to have her nibble on your neck as she guides you into bed...”

By the end of that little barrage of teasing Sparkler’s jaw was hanging halfway open, and there was a blank and very distracted look her face. Needless to say, there was some heavy-duty tail twitching as well. I swear, if Star were in hoof’s range, Sparkler might have just jumped her right then and there.

I have to admit, I was impressed by Blossom’s results. I leaned over and whispered to her, “Nice work, I think you broke her brain completely. How did you get so good at teasing?”

Blossom grinned and bumped rumps with me. “I learned from the best.” She let out a devilish little giggle. “No wonder you like doing this so much. It’s fun!”

“Sure is.” Admittedly, you need to take one or two precautions to make sure that you don’t go overboard on the teasing, but that’s the kind of thing you have to work out as you go. Give it a bit of time, and you’ll discover where the lines are between a little harmless fun and going too far. Hopefully without anypony’s feelings getting hurt in the process.

I turned my attention back to our current victim, who seemed to slowly be regaining her wits. I decided to back off a little bit, but still have some fun with her. “Oh, you've got it bad, Sparky. What would Ratchet think? Remember him? Mister ‘flanks of an alicorn.’ Or did Star’s sexiness knock him completely out of your head?”

Sparkler’s blushing awkwardness disappeared in a heartbeat, and instead her ears went back flat against her head while she gave a pained little grimace. “He ... we kinda broke things off. Good terms and everything, s’just that his family moved out of Ponyville, and took him with ‘em. Really sucks—we didn’t even get to do much other than go on a couple dates to try and figure out what our deal was. Right when we’re finally sure we wanna hook up for serious, he has to go. We never got to do any of the...” She trailed off and waved a hoof in my direction. “Y’know, your kinda thing.”

“Oh.” Remember what I said about how sometimes teasing can go just a touch too far? Yeah, this was an example. “Sorry about that, Sparkler.”

“S’alright, you didn’t know.” Sparkler started pacing around the room a bit, stretching out her legs. “How couldja? I didn’t say anything. Haven’t even told Mom about it yet.” She paused in her pacing, and ducked her head a bit. “Not ‘cause I don’t want Mom to know or anything, s’just that she’s already got a lotta stuff going on. No reason to dump my problems on her too.”

“Hey.” I trotted up to her and gave her a quick wing-hug. “I’m sorry about that, okay?”

“S’fine.” Despite her best efforts to sound neutral and unbothered, she was clearly still a bit down about the whole thing.

Things went awkwardly silent after that. Not much any of us could say, really. I felt a bit bad about the way I’d teased Sparkler, now that I knew she was coming off a recent breakup. On the other hoof, maybe a little teasing was just what she needed. When you’re a teen, a breakup kinda seems like the end of the world. A little teasing nudge or two might help her realize that life goes on.

Plus, it was looking like she had the hots for my cousin. I’ll admit the idea of setting her up with Star did kind of appeal to me. Well, if I worked things out with Derpy it could lead to some family tree awkwardness, but I could live with that—it’s not like we’d be getting into squicky territory. At the very least, I'd get to subject Star to endless teasing over it, which is always a plus.

The painful silence came to an abrupt end when Rainbow Dash just walked in through the front door like she owned the place. Well, it was the guest house she and Blossom were sharing. “Hey, Blossomforth, Cloud’s not at her aunt’s place, you got any idea where she...” Rainbow trailed off as her brain finally got around to telling her mouth that Sparkler and I were standing right in front of her. “Oh. Huh. Well, there you are.”

Sparkler’s ears perked up a bit at the welcome distraction, but a second later she remembered why Rainbow had dropped by earlier. “Oh. Um ... hey, Rainbow.”

Rainbow immediately trotted over and hugged her. Sparkler stiffened at first, but eventually she relaxed and accepted the hug. After a couple seconds Rainbow put a hoof on Sparkler’s chest, and gently pushed her back at foreleg’s length and glowered at her. “Do you have any idea how much you scared me—er—how much you scared your Mom? I oughta...” Rainbow trailed off, struggling to think of just what she would do to the teen. Thankfully, she had enough presence of mind to not mention any kind of corporal punishment. “Well, I dunno what I oughta do to you, but you wouldn’t like it! Got that?”

Sparkler stared at her and blinked a couple times. “Yeah, sure. That was completely clear.”

“Good.” Rainbow gave a satisfied nod, either missing or choosing to completely ignore the teenage sarcasm. “Anyway, kid, I’ve got somepony who wants to talk to you.”

Sparkler tensed up. “Oh yeah?” There was a forced casualness to her voice.

“Yeah.” Rainbow gave her a hopeful little smile. “You cool with that?”

Sparkler shuffled her hooves and refused to meet Rainbow’s eyes for several seconds, then took a deep breath and turned to face her. “No, actually. I’m not.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow rubbed a hoof on her chin for a moment, then shrugged. “Well too bad. I’m gonna use some of that godparental authority on ya.” Rainbow took a couple steps back, then stuck her head out the door. “Sparkler’s in here.”

In the blink of an eye, a small purple-and-gold blur shot through the door and attached itself to one of Sparkler’s forelegs. “Sparky! You’re okay!”

Sparkler gave a couple surprised blinks, then stared down at her little sister. “Dinks! Yeah, I’m fine.” She leaned down to give the filly a quick nuzzle.

Despite her older sister’s reassurances, Dinky tightened her hold on Sparkler’s leg to the point where I had to wonder if it was going numb. “I waz so scared after last night, 'cause Uncle Cirrus wanted me t' stay close to him an' I couldn't see you or Mommy or Cloud Kicker or 'Lula, an' as much as I wanted t' see 'Lula 'cause she's so sad I wanted t' see you more 'cause you were so scared an' you were gone!” The filly paused to take a breath, then resumed the torrent of words. “I didn’t even know if you were gonna come back soon, or if you were gone forever like Missus Nimbus, ‘cause Mommy was rilly cryin’ a lot an’ sayin’ she was scared, and Rainbow Dash wuz scared too, but I’m not s’posta tell you that. Oops. But now you’re okay, an’ I dunhafta be scared no more!”

“Hey, hey...” Sparkler idly stroked the filly’s mane as she returned the desperate hug. “Chillax Dinks, I'm here. I'm back, and I'm never gonna leave you, okay?” As she continued gently reassuring the filly, Sparkler’s eyes drifted over to Rainbow Dash.

Speaking of her, Rainbow trotted over to me with her ears flat, her wings drooped, and her whole manner just generally subdued. “Uh, look, Cloud. I talked to Derpy, and she feels pretty rotten about the whole ... y’know.” She waved at my eye. There was a bit of a painful silence, and then Rainbow shifted her attention to Sparkler. “For what it's worth coming from me, Derpy said you can come back whenever you want, and she loves you. And she's sorry that you and Dinky got caught up in the whole thing between her and Cloud.”

Sparkler was still hugging Dinky, running a single hoof up and down her little sister’s back, but Rainbow’s remark drew an angry snort from her. “Yeah, I bet she is. I bet she also promises that it's never gonna happen again, doesn’t she?”

Rainbow winced at that. “Well of course it’s not gonna happen again.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” the teen demanded.

“Well, it won’t happen again ‘cause ... ‘cause it won’t,” Rainbow finished lamely.

Needless to say, Sparkler was not impressed by Rainbow’s logic. “Uh-huh. Sure it won’t.”

One of Rainbow’s ears twitched. I’d had a bit of a hard time not getting annoyed with Sparkler for the way she acted like Derpy had gone into full-on psycho mode. I definitely needed to have a few words with Aunt Wind about getting Sparkler some help. The kid had issues. Anyway, Dash was getting annoyed now, and she had a much shorter fuse than I did. “Oh come on, Spark! You know her! She’s your mom, for pony’s sake! She loves you and Dinky!”

“Mhm.” Sparkler shot a level look Rainbow’s way. “And good parents don't ever hit the ponies they love, do they? Not even when they get mad because those ponies made a big mistake.”

Rainbow let out a frustrated growl. I hate to admit it, but Sparkler was getting really hard to argue against. Not that I agreed with a single word she was saying, it’s just that she was stubbornly sticking to her position, and there was just enough twisted logic to it that we couldn’t argue her down from it. Sure, I could point out all the years of Derpy being the best damn mom she could for Sparkler, but there’s only so many ways a pony can say ‘Derpy’s not like that!’ Especially when all Sparkler would have to do is point out that I was still sporting a shiner, courtesy of her mom.

Rainbow responded the way she usually did when she couldn’t find a good way to beat somepony else’s logic. She got mad. “Oh shut up! You know she'd die before she did anything like that to either of you!”

“Rainbow,” I warned her, “you need to calm down.”

Rainbow glowered at Sparkler and gave an aggravated snarl. She stayed annoyed with the teen for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and dropped her voice down to a tight whisper. “Dinky's hearing all this! You think she needs to listen to Sparkler talking about their mom like that?”

My eyes drifted down the little filly who still had a death grip on Sparkler’s leg. A distinctly un-Dinky-like frown was forming on the filly’s face as the budding argument took shape around her. We needed to put an end to this, fast.

Dinky met my eyes, let go of her big sister, then marched right up to me and unleashed the angriest glare she could muster. “You made Mommy cry. An’ now Sparky an’ Rainbow are fightin’ ‘cause of you. Mommy usedta always be happy, but now she gets sad an’ yelly all the time, an’ it’s your fault!”

Right, well that felt like a throwing spike to the gut. Having Dinky of all ponies call me out on all the trouble I’d caused for Derpy’s family definitely hit home. I mean, she’s Dinky, the perpetually adorable and innocent little filly. And now she was getting seriously mad at me. It wasn’t hard to see why: she might not know what I’d done, but even a kid could figure out that ever since I became her mother’s special somepony, things had gotten rougher around the household.

My ears drooped down, and I knelt down a bit and lowered my head to Dinky’s level. “I know. I’m sorry, and I’m gonna try to make that right.”

Dinky fixed me with a glare full of fillyish suspicion. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Dinky thought it over, and decided a normal promise wouldn’t cut it this time. “Pinkie Promise?”

“I will make things right,” I assured her. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Well, I was definitely committed to it now. Nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise.

Dinky’s frown disappeared and her atypical dark mood seemed to lighten a bit after the declaration, though she was still a long way away from her normal cheerful self. So, I jumped on the first thing that sprang to mind as a way to lighten the mood a bit. “Hey Rainbow,” I raised my voice so everypony in the room would hear, “did you know Sparkler’s got a new fillyfriend?”

Rainbow was completely wrong-hoofed by the sudden shift in the conversation, but Blossom caught on to what I was doing and backed me up. “Yeah, Sparkler’s been lusting after Cloud’s younger cousin.”

“I am not lusting over Star!” Sparkler indignantly squawked.

Rainbow seemed to have caught on to what we were doing, and her prankster spirit came to the fore. Rainbow let out a most un-Rainbow-like little coo, then wiped fake tears away from her eyes. “Aww, my little godfilly’s all grown up. I just hope you don’t go crazy about the whole banging thing the way Cloud does.”

Dinky looked up at her big sister with a faintly confused frown. “But you usedta get all cootie-faced over Ratchet, an’ Star’s a mare.” She tapped her chin a few times in an adorably thoughtful pose as the gears turned in her filly brain. “I guess that’s good, ‘cause only colts have cooties, but that means ya gotta be ... um ... bicentennial?”

Sparkler stared at all of us, then let out a frustrated groan. Then another louder and longer one, since apparently the first groan wasn’t enough to convey her utter frustration with us.

I decided to show her a tiny bit of mercy, and mixed a little helpful advice in with my teasing this time. “You know, making such a big fuss over a tiny little bit of teasing just makes you look more guilty.”

Sparkler let out a few flustered sputters. “Wuh—well, you should quit making things up then!”

I heard another unexpected visitor clear their throat, and turned to see Star at the doorway. Ah, excellent—the teasing shall be doubled! Star evaluated the situation and applied hoof to face. “Spark, you know they only needle you for reactions, right?”

“Says the pony who was blushing and whining like a filly last night,” Sparkler grumbled.

Dinky trotted up to Star and hit her with a full dose of her usual adorableness, accompanied by the bright smile I’d been hoping to see after that atypical serious and dark moment. “Hi! I’m Dinky, an’ you’re Star, Sparky’s new special somepony. Can I hug you?” Star gave a faintly bemused nod, and the filly immediately attached herself to one of Star’s forelegs.

Star stepped inside as best she could with Dinky latched onto her. “So, I was kinda wondering where everypony had run off to when you guys missed breakfast. Hope I’m not interrupting.” There was no need to ask how she knew where to find us—a quick search last night let me find where she’d put her tracker on me, and I was willing to bet she’d probably planted gems on every other pony in the room too. She’d gotten a little tracking-crazy ever since the funeral. Can’t say I blamed her—if she’d been tracking Mom, none of this would’ve happened.

Okay, it sounded really bad when I said it like that. I didn’t mean for it to come out like I was blaming Star for being insufficiently paranoid or anything. Really, if anypony was to blame, it was me for not figuring out that something was seriously off about my own feathering mother...

Ugh, I didn’t wanna go over that again. I jumped on the opportunity to do other things, and grinned at Star. “So, you just couldn't go any longer without seeing your lady love?”

Sparkler groaned and slammed her head into one of the pillows on the couch. For her part, Star managed to maintain a bit of composure. It probably helped that this time she was only getting teased by me, rather than her entire family. Plus, we weren’t exactly catching her completely by surprise this time.

Blossom tried and failed to stifle a giggle behind her hooves. “You two do make a lovely couple.”

Rainbow joined in on the fun, looking the two over critically. “I’m gonna give the two of you as a couple ... seven out of ten on coolness, nine out of ten on awesomeness, and only a six on your radical score. Still, not bad at all, and you can always bump those numbers up.”

Sparkler threw up her hooves and screamed to the heavens, “All of you are absolutely infuriating! And you’re evil. Evil!”

Star sighed and rolled her eyes, gently pulled her foreleg away from Dinky, then trotted over and gave Sparkler a few calming pats on the back before turning to face us. “Fine, I admit it. It's all true. Last night Sparkler and I had sex. Tons of sex. Sexy, sexy sex. You happy now?”

Sparkler’s jaw hit the floor. “STAR!”

I grinned at Blossom and Rainbow. “Called it.”

One of Sparkler’s eyes started twitching, and she let out a nervous squeak that reminded me of Fluttershy. Star leaned over and whispered something to her, and the younger unicorn’s eyes widened, then she very slowly nodded along. “Oh yeah ... We had very sexy sex. Sexily.”

Well, not hard to guess what Star’s game was: take away all our ammunition by pretending it was true. It is rather hard to tease somepony about something when their response is to just agree with you and move on.

Star tossed a foreleg over Sparkler’s back. “And now Sparkler and I must go. To have sex. Again. Because that's what we do.” She started tugging Sparkler towards the door.

“Yes,” Sparkler agreed, still sounding a bit wooden and forced. “Sex. And banging. Fornication. Coitus. Pearl-diving. Doing the pony pokey. Dancing the horizontal tango. Making muffins.” Sparkler froze and gagged a bit at the last one.

The two young mares headed out the door, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Blossom, Rainbow, and I were all giggling at them. As they walked Sparkler’s tail flicked out and brushed along Star’s flank, prompting my cousin to jump a bit, then move half a step closer so that the two of them were practically touching sides. “Stupid teases teasing me teasingly...” Sparkler grumbled under her breath as the two of them made their departure, still walking a bit too close to each other for ‘just’ friends.

I shared a look with Rainbow and Blossom, and then all three of us started laughing like a bunch of madponies. What can I say? Young ponies in love are funny. Especially when they both still seem to have not quite figured it out for themselves yet.

Our laughter was cut terribly short by one of the most horrifying things imaginable: in all the fun of teasing Sparkler, we’d forgotten that her little sister had been there the whole time. Dinky looked at the three of us, her eyes full of innocent fillyish curiosity, and asked, “What’s that sex stuff Sparky was talkin’ about? And what’s it gotta do with makin’ muffins? Are she and Star gonna make some muffins for us? ‘Cause I rilly like muffins, even when they’re not Mommy-muffins.” Dinky leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “Mommy says her muffins are the best ‘cause she makes ‘em with love.”

“Oh, horseapples,” Rainbow groaned under her breath.

Well said, Rainbow.

I took a crack at salvaging the situation. “Um ... well, you see Dinky, it’s...” My brain completely failed me at that point.

“It's a thing adults do,” Blossom helpfully supplied. “You wouldn’t like it. It’s really boring.”

Dinky immediately pouted like—well, like a little filly. “Ponies’re always sayin’ that whenever I ask about stuff! I wanna know now!”

“It’s something you gotta ask your mom about!” Rainbow hastily blurted out. “It’s a rule. Only moms can tell their kids about it. Because.” Dinky frowned at Rainbow, still not completely sold on her explanation, and Dash went for one of the tried and true methods of deflecting uncomfortable questions from a kid: bribery. “Say, wanna stop by the bakery and get some banana-nut muffins? I bet if we hurry, we can get there right as the muffins are comin’ outta the oven.”

Dinky pondered this offer for a time, then her face brightened up in a gleeful smile. “A’kay!”

Whew, crisis averted. And there are ponies who say Rainbow Dash isn't smart.

Dinky started heading for the door, then turned around and hopped onto Rainbow’s back instead. “Ponyback ride!” She made herself comfortable on Rainbow’s back, then her ears perked up as a new thought occurred to her. “Is there a book we can read about this?”

Rainbow started sweating for a moment, until she found a way out. “Yeah there’s books, but there's a part in the Godmom Contract that says your mom has to be the one to read it to you.”

Dinky let out a petulant little grumble. “Fiiiine. I'll go ask Mommy about readin' it to me, but I'm also gonna tell her that she needs to fix the Godmom Contract, 'cause I like readin' with you about important stuff. You do those rilly funny an’ neat voices!”

Rainbow’s face went from relieved to horror-stricken in an instant. I’d be about the same, if Derpy found out Dinky was asking her questions about sex because of me. I’d gone to a lot of effort to avoid spoiling Dinky’s innocence on that subject.

Rainbow summed up her thoughts on the matter quite succinctly. “Well, my life is officially over.”

Author's Note

In other news, Nicolas Dominique has created an album of Winning Pony-inspired music. It is incredible.

Get it here!

The Pony Who Is Tired of Ignoring That She Marches to a Different Beat

Things started going wrong before Blossom and I even headed out for Derpy’s place.

The first—and hopefully (but not likely) last—problem to crop up was a fairly simple one: we needed somepony to more-or-less moderate the talk between Derpy and us. After how badly things had gone wrong last time, having a neutral party who could tell us when to calm the feather down seemed like a good idea. Problem was, we were a bit short on candidates.

Aunt Wind probably would’ve been ideal, but when I asked her she pointed out the obvious problem with that plan. Namely, that she was Aunt Wind. She couldn’t exactly be a neutral observer in a discussion between her niece and the pony who’d left her niece sporting a shiner. Even if I was using some makeup to cover it up now, everypony still knew it was there.

I thought about asking Aunt Wind to recommend somepony to sit in on the meeting, but that seemed like a step too far. I dunno, there’s a big difference between bringing in my aunt who happens to be a psychologist, and pulling somepony else into this whole mess in a professional capacity. I didn't think things were quite that bad just yet.

Unfortunately, Derpy and I didn’t really have big social networks in Canterlot beyond our families and close friends. There wasn’t really anypony close at hoof who was good for moderating a big relationship talk. Nopony whose name ended in Kicker would be safe from family bias, and that ruled out ninety percent of the ponies I really knew here. I mean, there was Lyra, but she would probably be biased in my favor too.

Eepy would’ve been a great choice, except the fact that I’d slept with her was part of what set this whole mess off. Plus, from what Rainbow told me about how she took the news, I have a feeling she would be pretty much the exact opposite of moderate.

The only pony who wasn’t withers-deep in this mess or too close to one side of it was Rarity, and I just wasn’t sure about asking Ponyville’s resident drama queen to mediate a tense, drama-filled discussion. Plus, while she wasn’t mixed up in things, to some extent that was the problem. Derpy and I both rated more as acquaintances of Rarity’s than real friends. Even if Fluttershy had spilled the beans about what had happened at Flight Camp and some of the other stuff, there would be a lot we’d need to fill her in on. I’m not sure either one of us would’ve been comfortable sharing that much of ourselves with her.

In the end, Rainbow Dash kinda wound up being the mare in the middle by default. It would be a stretch to call her unbiased, but on a good day her biases all kind of balanced out, and her heart was in the right place. She just needed to be better about stopping and thinking before she charged in full speed ahead.

So at the end of the day it was me, Rainbow, Blossom, and Sparkler heading to Derpy’s place. I’d thought about asking Sparkler if she wanted to bring Star along for moral support, but decided against it. There would already be enough ponies talking and things to settle without introducing Derpy to Sparkler’s not-fillyfriend on top of it.

Cirrus met us at the front door. Derpy’s brother didn’t say anything for a couple moments, until Sparkler slowly walked up and hugged him. For a while the two of them just held each other, while the rest of us kinda stood awkwardly off to the side.

After a minute, Sparkler pulled back and shot a look inside. “Dinky?”

“She’s upstairs,” Cirrus answered. “Figured it might be a good idea to keep her out of the way while we’re talking.”

Sparkler shot a nervous look over her shoulder, towards the den where she probably figured Derpy was. “Think I’ll go keep an eye on Dinks for a bit—make sure you guys don’t have to deal with an inconspicuous cardboard box trying to listen in on the talk or anything.” From the way she kept looking around the rest of the house, I had a feeling she wasn’t just thinking about her little sister. I guess I couldn’t blame her for wanting to put off her meeting with Derpy for a little bit longer.

In any case, once she’d confirmed that Derpy wasn’t lurking in any corners waiting to pounce, Sparkler scampered upstairs after her sister. That left me, Blossom, Rainbow and Cirrus standing in the foyer of Doo Manor.

“So...” Rainbow shuffled her hooves and rubbed the back of her head. “Um, yeah. Here we are. I’m gonna go talk to Derpy, I guess. Make sure she’s up for this and stuff.”

“She’s in the living room, Rainbow Dash.” A second later, Cirrus pointed in the proper direction, earning him a faintly annoyed look from Rainbow. I guess she didn’t like being given directions. She had visited a few times in the past, so maybe she took offense at the idea that she didn’t know her way around. Then again, you never could be completely sure what was going in Rainbow’s head. She could be a bit of an odd pony sometimes.

Well, that left the rest of us with not much to do for the time being. After a few awkward moments of silence, Cirrus turned to me. “So ... welcome back, I guess. Your eye’s looking better, I was afraid it would be in bad shape after—well, what happened.”

“I’m wearing makeup to cover it,” I answered tersely. That got a flinch out of him, and I hadn’t planned on guilting him for something that wasn’t his fault. I decided to change the subject before things got worse. “So how have you been managing over here?”

Cirrus took his time answering. “It could be better, but at least we're talking things through. Having Dee run off and leave when there’s a big family disagreement didn’t end well last time, so we've at least learned that lesson.” He sighed and a quick little flick of his wings. “Thanks for keeping an eye on Sparks after she rabbitted. Hate to think what could’ve happened with her out on her own in the middle of a big city.”

“It’s not like I was gonna turn her away when she showed up on our doorstep. Besides, you should be thanking Star, she’s the one who found Sparkler and brought her home.” I sighed and rubbed a hoof across my forehead. “Sparkler got shook up bad by what happened.”

“I figured as much, what with her history and all. Guessing you got the whole story on that from her?” I nodded, drawing a faint grumble from Cirrus. “Yeah, I guessed she would want to fill you in. I never thought she'd leave Dinky behind for anything, especially...” He sighed and shot a look over at the living room, where Derpy was. “Between the two of us, I think the only reason she left her little sister was that she trusted me to be there as a Guard instead of their uncle. That's ... not what I had in mind when I came home to visit my family.”

That got a sympathetic wince out of me. “Yeah, I can imagine. I think Sparkler's doing better now, at least. We kinda talked things out with her, and I think we made some progress. Got my aunt to recommend a few ponies she knows from her work, if you wanna get some proper treatment.”

“Yeah? Might be a good idea.” He sighed and shot another look towards the living room. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Dee’s still the best damn mom in Equestria, but there are some problems that you can’t fix with a smile and a muffin.” No wonder he’d shot a look at the room Derpy was in before he’d said that—daring to doubt the power of muffins in front of her could get a pony in trouble. Hopefully Derpy and I could find a way to work this thing out, because if we couldn’t I didn't think I’d ever be able to eat a muffin again without thinking of her.

Things went silent again. That seemed to be happening a lot. Probably because none of us wanted to talk about the reason I was actually here. It probably didn’t help that Blossom and Cirrus didn’t even know each other. Eventually, Cirrus decided to go for the universal icebreaker. “Hey, you want anything while we wait? Water, cider, something harder?”

“Water sounds good.” Something hard sounded really tempting right then, but if I was going to talk to Derpy later I really shouldn’t get hammered. Judging from the fact that Blossom made the same drink order I did, she was probably thinking along the same lines.

Cirrus reluctantly nodded. “Damn, I was hoping I’d have an excuse to break out the good stuff. I could use a good drink right now.” Well, I could certainly sympathize with that feeling. “Maybe next time. We've got plenty of quality booze to choose from. One of the advantages of having your family in the trading business, I guess.” He shrugged and started trotting towards the kitchen, then paused to toss back, “Hey, I don’t know long Rainbow Dash and Dee are going to take, but it might not hurt to find somewhere comfortable to sit down for a bit. We’ve got space in the dining room.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Blossom and I followed him into the dining room. It was hard not to be a little impressed with Doo Manor. Like with most wealthy homes here, the Doos had gone all-out on the decorating. Being on the side of a mountain meant that space was at a premium in Canterlot, so most families with any money invested in fancying up their homes rather than going for huge sprawling mansions. With the Doo’s house, there was lots of nice wood panelling and a whole bunch of random art pieces, a lot of which looked non-Equestrian. Being in the importing business probably helped the Doos a lot, since they could pick up all sorts of knicknacks from outside of Equestria to keep around the house. Not to mention a big chunk of their income came from supplying neat foreign stuff to every other family in Canterlot that wanted to show off how wealthy they were. Which, come to think of it, was just about all of them who weren’t Kickers.

Granted, the clan didn’t just avoid showing off our money because of the old Pegasopolan austerity thing. Sure, we had a lot of clan assets, but in terms of actual liquid wealth, we weren’t exactly swimming in bits. Not to mention a fair bit of the actual money the clan had ended up going into maintaining the clan armory, keeping the compound in working order, and stuff like that. Besides, Dad couldn’t throw the clan’s money into fancying up his personal house without pissing off every single Kicker in the clan.

Then again, considering the Doos’ line of work, ponies would expect them to have a bunch of foreign junk to show off. Keeping up appearances is a big deal in Canterlot. Hard not to wonder if part of why the clan stuck to its traditional austerity was just because it was expected of us by now. Canterlot’s weird that way.

Cirrus came in carrying our water and a drink of his own. It looked tasty enough that I was almost tempted to indulge myself; I probably would’ve if not for the upcoming talk with Derpy. My self-discipline always picks the worst possible time to kick in.

Once Cirrus was settled in across the table from Blossom and me, we all just sat there for a bit. Then his eyes suddenly went wide, like he’d just thought of something. “Hey, as long as you’re here, could you help me out with something real quick?” He trotted off again, and came back a minute later rummaging through a set of saddlebags. “Do me a favor—if Dee comes in before we’re done, see if you can distract her for a bit? This isn't really something I want to talk to her about yet. Or ever, really.”

Well, that was intriguing. “Yeah, sure. What's going on?”

Cirrus shuffled uncomfortably in his seat as he pulled out a small stack of paperwork. “Well if she asks, I'm...” He struggled to think of a cover story on the fly. “I dunno, something. Refinancing my armor, looking for a toaster repairpony—anything that needs a lot of paperwork.” He passed the top sheet over to me. “Between the three of us, I need to rework a few legal things.”

I took one look at what the paper and winced. In light of recent events I couldn’t blame him, but still ... ouch. “So you need me to be a witness when you sign the paperwork and whatnot?”

“Yeah.” He quickly checked over the rest of the documents before passing it on to me. “Kinda handy that both of you are here. Dot all the 'i's and what not.”

I passed the papers over to Blossom, and she let out a surprised little gasp when she read them over. “This is a will!”

Cirrus sighed and slowly nodded. “I've had one in place since I signed on with the Guard. Thing is, that was the better part of seven years ago. Plus—look, I may just be a supply sergeant, but I can read the signs. I’ve got the brass breathing down my neck to make sure we’ve got enough of everything we’d need to handle a major deployment, and every other pony working in logistics tells me the same thing’s going on in their units.” He shot an apologetic look my way and added, “Plus, with some of the other stuff that happened recently...”

I could guess what he’d meant. Cirrus was one of the Machwings, so Mom’s death had to be on his mind. “Yeah, I guess it would make sense to update now.” That’s one advantage of the clan tradition of just rolling assets into the patrimony: it meant not having to deal with wills and the like. Dad kept Mom’s personal effects, and everything else went to the clan.

A quick scan of the will showed that Cirrus had things a bit more complicated. Nothing too unexpected; a bit set aside for Dinky and Sparkler, while the rest went to Derpy. Like a lot of soldiers who’d been in for a while, Cirrus had a decent amount of pay saved up. He might’ve gone into the Guard to help Derpy through the rough patch she’d gone through on account of her pregnancy, but Derpy had gotten on her hooves financially years ago. He wasn’t rich or anything, but if worst came to worst he’d leave his nieces with a pretty good start on their college funds.

Blossom’s wing wrapping around my shoulders snapped me out of that line of thought. Enough moping, I had issues to deal with in the now. “Yeah, so, where do I sign?”

Cirrus leaned over and pointed to a couple spots. “Here, here... this one needs two... and this one as well.” Blossom and I both signed off on everything. “Thanks. Needed somepony to sign off that this is my real will, and since everypony else in the house is listed as a beneficiary ... well, except Rainbow, but you know she’d make a big deal out of this.”

Yeah, I could see Rainbow making a bit of a fuss over the whole thing. Probably start insisting that there was no need to update his will because he wasn’t allowed to die or something. Not that I was terribly fond of the idea of Dinky and Sparkler losing their uncle. “It should be fine though, right? I mean, you're a supply sergeant. Not exactly a frontline role.”

Cirrus let out a strained smile and grumbled something under his breath about a transfer. “Normally I’m in camp, yeah, but you probably know how things can get during a fight.” He let out a sour little chuckle. “That fancy West Hoof officer education you went through had to tell you that much, at least.” I’ll admit, I was vaguely curious about how Basic Training compared to what I went through at West Hoof. From what I’ve heard, the sergeants at Basic were a lot rougher around the edges, but the ones at West Hoof managed to push twice as hard while being unfailingly polite the whole time. “Bottom line is, things are getting tense, and the current plan from our dearly beloved Captain of the Guard means that all hooves are on deck. Reserves are on standby, too.”

I couldn’t miss the sarcasm in Cirrus’ voice when he mentioned Shining Armor. I guess he wasn’t a fan either. To be honest, while I felt obligated to say that my father would make a better commander, by all reports Armor had done a decent enough job, and I could understand the strategy he had in mind. If the only thing we knew about our enemy was that they were coming for Canterlot, it made sense to focus our forces there. Still, it felt too much like we were ceding the initiative for my tastes.

“Oh. Yeah, the reserves.” Like me. Sure, so far I’d just had an offer made if I wanted to come back voluntarily, but if the Guard needed the ponypower bad enough, they wouldn’t hesitate to just call me up regardless of my feelings on the matter. And to be honest, despite the talk with Dad, I didn’t completely hate the idea of that happening.

Cirrus shot a knowing look my way. “So far they’ve only called up the Canterlot reserves. Most of the talk I’ve heard says that they’re not calling up anypony else yet.”

“Yet.” I knew the Guard well enough to realize that plans were subject to change on a moment’s notice. All it would take was one unit coming in a bit understrength or one gap in the formation, and I might be in the next batch of reservists they called up.

Blossom gave me a worried squeeze with her wing. “Cloud, do you really think that could happen?”

Cirrus thought it over for a moment, then shook his head. “I don't think it'll happen. Not right now.”

“Well, it was just a thought.” I shook my head and got back to the paperwork.

Unfortunately, Cirrus wasn’t willing to let the matter drop with just that. “If you're thinking what I think you’re thinking, I think you should think about another line of thought.” I was tempted to point out just how incomprehensible that sentence was, but it didn’t seem like a good time for being a smartflank. “Big mobilizations like this don't just happen overnight.”

I tried to wave them off and just focus on the papers in front of me, but I could feel Blossom and Cirrus both frowning at me, not even trying to hide how worried they were. It made it rather hard for me to just focus on sorting out all the paperwork.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Cirrus pounced the instant I’d finished initializing the last sheet of paper. “Can I offer you my two bits?”

“I'm listening.” It’s not like saying ‘no’ would’ve done me any good.

“If you want to go active, now's not the time. I’m sure you’re aware of all the logistics of bringing you up to speed, not to mention assigning you a command and all the red tape that comes with that.” I couldn’t argue that point; pushing clouds for years since I’d left West Hoof hadn’t exactly done much to prepare me for a battlefield command. “On top of the practical problems, it's a bad call because it's an emotional decision. It’s not hard to guess that you want back in so you can get revenge on whatever took down the Major. That’s not a good reason to join the Guard, especially as any kind of officer.”

“I’m not even saying I want back into the Guard, okay?” I grumbled as I passed the papers back to him. “It’s just—well yeah, it’s hard not to think about going back, with everything that’s been going on lately.”

“You might not have said it, but you’re obviously thinking it,” Blossom murmured.

Cirrus gave a sharp nod to Blossom. “Look, Cloud Kicker, take it from a pony who impulsively enlisted and wound up hating life for a few years.” He shot a look over his shoulder at the living room. “Joining the Guard isn’t something you ever want to do unless you’re damn sure about it.”

“Which is why I won’t make any decisions like that until I’m sure,” I answered him, just a bit testily.

Blossom shared another worried look with Cirrus, then spoke up. “Cloudy, for what it’s worth I don't think it's a good idea either.”

One of my ears flicked a couple times before I could rein in my annoyance. I really didn’t need another problem put on my plate right before the big talk with Derpy. “Right, right. Fine. I'll drop it.”

Neither of them had anything more to say, but from the way Cirrus kept shifting around in his chair while Blossom shot me worried looks and kept a wing wrapped around my shoulders, I could tell they were both still thinking about it. The silence quickly became awkward.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash came to the rescue before too much longer. It was hard to feel too optimistic when I saw the look on her face, though. Her ears were flat against her head, and her voice sounded far too subdued. Rainbow was never subdued; even when she was in the dumps, she tended to be very loudly and energetically depressed. “Hey guys. Derpy's ready.”

“Oh.” Any lingering thoughts on the Guard flew out of my head at that. “Well, I guess we’d better go see her then, right?”

“Yeah,” Blossom mumbled. “Guess we should.”

Cirrus gave RD a quick nod. “I'll be right out here on standby if you need me. Sparkler's upstairs with Dinky, keeping her out of earshot.”

Rainbow gave a weak little laugh. “In that case, you better keep your eyes peeled for any inconspicuous cardboard boxes trying to sneak in.”

Cirrus let out a half-hearted snort. “I’ll be sure to double-check any boxes that say they’re making box noises or cause nearby ponies to go into diabetic shock.”

“Heh, yeah.” Rainbow gave a few chuckles at the image, then reluctantly turned back to face Blossom and myself. “So... guess we'd better get started with Derpy, right?”

I mutely nodded, and the three of us stepped into the living room. Every section of wall leading into the room held either a bookshelf or had some kind of artwork centered on it—all of them hung conveniently above the reach of young, curious hooves. Thankfully, the paintings were largely impressionistic landscapes rather than more modern forms of artwork, so it was less of an assault on the senses than it could have been. An olive-and-silver shield engraved with the Doo Clan coat-of-arms hung over the fireplace, telling visitors whose house they were in with about the same sense of subtlety as Uncle Ty or Aunt Wind’s house—which meant to say, it was only slightly less obvious than anything Rainbow did in her life.

My eye caught a quick glint of reflected light from the mantle below it—picture frames, taking up most of the space on the ledge and displayed front-and-center for anypony who would have been hanging around in the room. There wasn’t any order to how the pictures were sorted, but it wasn’t hard for me to guess who was in them: I saw a few slightly faded photographs of Derpy and Cirrus when they were closer to Sparkler’s age, but most of what was there was more recent. Derpy and her girls were there in spades, obviously, as well as a couple of snapshots of Cirrus in his Guard armor—a couple in the usual Guard gold, though it wasn’t hard to miss how the ones with him in the traditional Clan Doo olive green were displayed a bit more prominently. I guess I couldn’t blame them for that, given how much pride Kickers took in our clan reds when they weren’t on duty. Not to mention that Cirrus was the first Doo to actually bear arms in centuries, unless you counted the descendants of the ones who'd gone into exile after the Rebellion.

The walls were adorned with more of the fruits of the Doos’ trading efforts, most of it Zebrican. From what I’d heard, the Doos did a lot of business with the zebras, to the point of having some zebra DNA in the family tree. Not that I could talk: the Kickers are a military family, and it’s far from unheard of for a pony to go off on deployment single, then return to Equestria with a new spouse. One of my great-great-great grandparents was a Westmarch griffon, and my third cousin once removed is married to a rather nice donkey.

Derpy was sitting in a recliner that looked like it would be really comfortable under ordinary circumstances, but from the way she was constantly shifting and shuffling around, you’d think she was on a bed of coals. As soon as she saw me, she gave a guilty little flinch and her eyes flicked onto my injured one. For a moment, I was almost tempted to rub the makeup off, just so she could have a good look at what she’d done. “Hello, Cloud Kicker.” Her voice was soft and scared, a far cry from the bubbly tones I was used to hearing from her.

“Hey.” I gave her a slightly awkward wave, for lack of any better idea of what to do or say in this situation. Blossom didn’t say anything, but between the faint glower she was directing Derpy’s way and how the wing she had across my back tightened protectively, she didn’t really need to open her mouth to get the message across.

Rainbow looked between the two of us, then gave a faintly annoyed grumble and waved a hoof at one of the nearby couches. Once Blossom and I were sitting, she grabbed a spare cushion for herself, then plopped it down on the floor and pointedly sat down between Derpy and me.

Once we were all seated, things were painfully silent. I guess nopony wanted to be the first one to say something. After a few seconds of quiet, Rainbow started loudly tapping her hoof on the wood floor, her patience already running thin. Derpy decided to make an attempt at getting the conversation going before Rainbow exploded completely. “Um, hello to you too, Blossomforth.”

Blossom offered a very cool nod in response. “Miss Doo.”

That got a flinch out of Derpy, and I shifted so I wasn’t sitting quite so close to Blossom. I’m not sure if Blossom was deliberately echoing Sparkler’s habit of calling Derpy that to show her anger or not, but either way the choice of words stung. It wasn’t a good note to start things off on; we’d all hurt each other more than enough already.

After a couple seconds, I sighed and got down to business. “So, I guess we need to talk, right Derpy?”

“Yes. Yes, we need to talk.” Her wings drooped down, and she slumped into her chair. “Before we start, I just want to apologize for hitting you. Yes, I was upset and hurt, but that’s no excuse. I—anything else I could say would just sound cheap, I guess, but that doesn't mean I don't mean it. I'm sorry, Cloud, I shouldn't have done that.”

“Damn right you shouldn't have!” Rainbow snapped at her. “What the hay were you thinking, Derpy?”

I quickly put a restraining hoof on Rainbow's shoulder. “Dash, calm down.” Like I’ve said before, Rainbow is not the best choice of pony for a neutral moderator. I don’t think she was taking sides, exactly, but she tended to be way too passionate and outspoken. She didn’t want to sit back and let other ponies talk. She wanted to take action.

Sure enough, Rainbow turned and glared at me. “Oh, don’t give me that, Kicker. We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you knew how to keep your tail down!”

“Rainbow?” Derpy’s voice had turned dangerously sweet. “Could you please do us both a favor and shut up so Cloud and I can actually talk things through?”

“Fine,” Rainbow grumbled, crossing her forelegs over her chest and all but pouting.

Well, at least Rainbow’s little outburst had gotten things moving along a bit. I decided not to let that momentum go to waste. “Look, Derpy, it's—well, it's not okay, but it's not as bad as it could be. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but you lashed out after I’d hurt you pretty badly. It’s not like you just started pounding on me ‘cause you were in a bad mood or had too much to drink or something. And, well...” I awkwardly shuffled on the couch, trying to think of the best way to word my next point. “I think we can both agree from past encounters with certain other ponies that I can take care of myself.”

Blossom let out a faint noise of protest. “Just because you’re stronger doesn’t make it okay for her to hit you!”

“It doesn’t,” I agreed. “But it does make it a bit less bad.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make any difference how tough Cloud is,” Derpy cut in. “I can’t hit ponies just because I’m upset with them. Especially not when I’ve got Dinky and Sparkler to think about, too.” She sighed and gave a resigned shake of her head. “I didn’t just hurt you, Cloud, I hurt them too. That’s ... that goes against everything a mom is supposed to do.” She groaned and rubbed a hoof over her face. “But yeah. We're here, talking about our problems in a reasonable fashion like civilized ponies, so that's something I guess.”

“Beats where we were a couple days ago.” I took a deep breath, and asked the question we’d all been dancing around. “I suppose now the big thing we need to sort out is where we go from here.”

Rainbow cut in once more to offer her own opinion. “All three of you need to stop being stupid.”

Derpy forced a small, polite smile onto her face. “Rainbow? Is that really helping?”

“What?” Rainbow groused defensively. “You know it's true.”

Blossom loudly cleared her throat. “In any case...” She reached over and put one of her hooves on top of mine as a show of support.

Derpy’s smile turned brittle, though I’m not sure if it was because of Rainbow’s running commentary or the fact that Blossom was acting the role of fillyfriend instead of her. Probably a mixture of the two. “Yes, moving on from that...”

Well, there was no point in dancing around the painful questions we both knew were coming. “Derpy, what do you want from me? From our relationship?”

Derpy let out a pained sigh, and her ears went flat. “For now? Space.” She shot another guilty glance at my eye. “If the way our last talk went was any barometer, I don’t think things between us are going to work. Even after this whole mess I still care about you, Cloud, but there’s just—there’s just too much baggage weighing everything down now.” She groaned and poked at her chair a few times. “It’s just ... it’s all too much to deal with anymore. You've been my friend for a long, long time, and if nothing else I want to try and walk away with that.”

Even though I’d been ninety-nine percent sure that things were going to end with me and Derpy calling it quits, hearing her actually say it still hurt. Rainbow’s ears had gone flat on her head as she looked back and forth between Derpy and me, while Blossom had scooted a bit closer so she could offer me a hug. I accepted it while trying to think of what I could say to Derpy. “So ... yeah. I guess that makes the breakup official then?”

Derpy’s head drooped until she was practically staring at the floor, and her voice was hoarse, as if she were struggling to keep herself from breaking down completely. “I still care about you. You still have a place in my heart. I really wish things were different, but after all this I'm not going to kid myself and say we can go back to what things used to be.”

I hated to agree with her, but the truth was the truth. “Yeah. I still love you and everything, but some big lines got crossed. By both of us.”

Derpy shifted around in her seat, and refused to meet my eyes for a few seconds. “Yes. We both made huge mistakes, and I wish I could take mine back. But I can’t.”

I shot an awkward look at Blossom, who still had a wing wrapped around me, then returned my attention to Derpy. “I ... I guess my screw-up was a bit more complicated. Blossom’s important to me, Derpy, and I can’t call loving her a mistake. But I damn sure regret that I ended up showing that in a way that hurt you, Derpy. I really do. Love should be about making ponies happy, not hurting them.”

I sighed and tried to figure out how to put it all into words. Knowing what I wanted to say was very different from being able to explain it in a way that would sit right with Derpy. “I think part of why I went wrong was just with how I approached this whole thing. I love you, Derpy, but I don’t love justyou. The way I’ve lived my life, the choices I’ve made to get to this point ... I’m not a one-pony mare. Maybe I could’ve been, if a lot of things that happened a long time ago had worked out differently, but here and now, that’s not how I work.” I ran a hoof over my face, only to hastily withdraw it when I realized I’d taken a bit of the makeup off of my eye. “Trying to be something I'm not just to make you happy was never going to work.”

I guess I must’ve done enough damage to the cover-up on my eye, because the next time Derpy looked at me she flinched, then rubbed at her own eye. “I wanted something more than you could give me. That was just wishful thinking, and it wound up getting all of us hurt.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Derpy.” I shot a slightly self-conscious look at Rainbow Dash. “You wanted a pony you could depend on to come home every night, help you raise your daughters, stuff like that. I wish I could be that one pony for you, but that's just not how I am. There are a lot of ponies I care for.” I gave Blossom’s hoof a light squeeze. “Some more than others, but I can't just push all of them out of my life to make room for you.”

“I understand that now.” Derpy’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“I'm sorry. You deserve better than that. Better than me.” I leaned a bit closer to her. “You're still special to me, you know? One of the most special ponies in my life.”

“Everypony's special to you.” I flinched when I heard the bitter resignation in her voice. “Being special doesn’t count for much when you spread it around like that.”

Okay, that hurt. Before I could even think of an answer, Derpy held up a hoof to cut me off. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. It’s just ... I don’t know, I guess we just had very different expectations. I know how you think of things, that having other ponies you love doesn’t mean you love me any less. But for me... It’s hard to feel special when I’m just another name in your little black book.”

I admit, I was pretty stung she thought things were like that. “Derpy, you know that’s not how I think of you.”

“Yes, I do.” She let out a frustrated groan. “I know that it’s wrong, but I still can’t help feeling that way sometimes. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I am.” Derpy was silent for a long time, then very gingerly reached out with one of her forelegs. “You're still special to me. You know that’s how I think of you, right? Even if I’m hurt over how things have gone, I still care.”

Rainbow tensed a bit when she saw Derpy’s hoof moving towards me, but once it was clear she wasn’t winding up for a punch or anything Rainbow backed down. After a couple moments of hesitation, I closed the distance with the foreleg that Blossom wasn’t holding onto. Derpy wrapped her foreleg around mine, and gave it a gentle little squeeze.

“Still friends?” I asked.

Derpy offered me a slightly sheepish smile. “If you'll have me.”

“Of course.” I tried to give her the most genuine smile I could, under the circumstances. “You’re one hay of a good pony, even if you do go a little muffin-crazy sometimes. Well—always, really. Besides, if I didn’t have you around, I'd miss your girls.”

Her smile shrank a bit, but turned a lot more genuine, so I called that a win. She looked like she was a lot closer to being back to her usual upbeat, bubbly self. Not all the way there yet, but a lot better than she’d been when I’d gotten here. “Sparkler and Dinky would miss you too.” Her ears perked up a bit. “Sparkler especially, after what happened. Thanks for finding her after she ran off, and keeping an eye on her for the last couple days.”

“Thank my cousin Star, she's the one who found Sparkler and brought her home.” Blossom and Rainbow both offered slight smirks as they sensed what I was planning to unleash next. “The two of them do seem to be getting along well. Really well, in fact.”

Derpy’s smile widened for a moment, then trailed off into a faintly bemused grin. “Huh. After Ratchet, I thought she only went for stallions.”

Rainbow shrugged. “So’d I, but I guess we were wrong. Or maybe there’s just something about Kicker mares that makes everypony turn into a fillyfooler for them.”

“Well, I have always claimed that everypony is Kicker-sexual.” I buffed a hoof against my chest. “And Star has always kind of looked up to me, so I guess it figures that she absorbed some of my natural charm and all that.”

“Cloud, you’re making Rainbow look modest now.” Blossom gave me a teasing little nudge with her shoulder. “That’s a bad sign.”

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow demanded, looking just a bit annoyed. “I’m totally modest. I’m the most modest pony in the history of Equestria. After all, it’s not bragging when I really am that good.” I had to wonder if Rainbow was actually using some self-deprecating humor, or if her ego really was so huge she could even brag about being modest. From the faintly amused grin on her face, I was guessing it was the first one. “But enough about how amazing I am, the point is that Sparkler and Star totally wanna bang each other, even if they deny it.”

Derpy blinked a few times, then gave a horrified little shiver. “Gyah! Rainbow! I don’t need those kinds of mental images! Bad thoughts, bad!”

Rainbow stared at Derpy, looking completely mystified by her reaction. “Wha'd I do?”

Derpy groaned and rubbed the side of her head. “I don’t need any mental images of my daughters having sex. Ever. Think, Rainbow, then speak. Please?”

I couldn’t resist an opening like that. “Derpy, remember who you're talking to.”

Blossom had a giggle at Rainbow’s expense, while Rainbow responded by grumbling and pouting in a somewhat immature but absolutely adorable manner. Derpy shot Rainbow a flat look, and used her best deadpan voice. “Point.”

That just made Rainbow get even more grumbly, so I grabbed her by the neck and noogied her for a bit. As anypony who knows Rainbow Dash will tell you, a noogie is Rainbow-ese for ‘you’re my friend, and I’m just messing with you.’ Rainbow-ese is a complicated language.

After a couple seconds of noogie-ing, Rainbow pulled her head free and gave me a playful shove back. Naturally I couldn’t let that pass unavenged, and soon we were having a playful little wrestling match. After a little bit of tussling, I let Rainbow win; we’re a pretty even match when we’re just messing around, but I usually give Dash the win. It makes her happy.

As I got up from the floor, I spotted Blossom passing a few bits over to Derpy. I couldn’t let that go by without comment. “Oh, so when I gambled on your little wrestling match with Fluttershy I was being horrible, but it’s perfectly fine for you to place bets on me and Rainbow?”

“Yes,” Blossom agreed with a prim nod. “If it’s any consolation, I didbet on you.” She gave me a playful little glare. “You just cost me two bits.”

“I don’t know how I’ll ever make it up to you,” I deadpanned.

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” Rainbow shot a smirk our way. “Especially now that you two are banging and stuff.”

Derpy let out a barely audible little whimper, and the lighthearted smile she’d been wearing a moment ago faded away. She awkwardly shuffled in her seat, then turned to Blossom once more and tried to force a cheerful grin onto her face. “Congratulations, I guess.”

Blossom’s ears went flat, and she started intently studying the floor. “Thanks.” The word came out with about as much enthusiasm as Derpy’s felicitations.

And things had gone back to being awkward again. Dammit. At least Blossom and Derpy seemed to have finally put the whole fight over which one of them would get to have me aside. I guess that was one less problem on my plate, for the moment. It did bring some other issues to mind, though. “So, I was thinking. I think we could all use some space for a bit.”

Derpy sighed and nodded. “I think that'd be for the best. I like having you around, Cloud, and I still want us to have a lot of fun times together, but right now things are just too messy. Once we’ve all had a bit of time to adjust and our feelings have cleared up, you and Alula are both always welcome to come over anytime.”

“Thanks for that, Derpy. I know Alula would be crushed if she couldn’t play with Dinky anymore.” If they were five years older, I might have given Dinky and Alula the same treatment that Star and Sparkler got. Well, that just meant I had five years to figure out exactly how terribly I should tease them when the time came. After all, it’s the sacred duty of big sisters to tease little sisters.

Still, that did bring up another issue. “I was thinking I might stay in Canterlot for a while. It’d be nice to have some more time with my family.”

Rainbow put a hoof on my shoulder, wearing a gentle and understanding smile that was completely at odds with her usual brash and cocky demeanor. “Hey, take as much time as you need, Cloud. Blossomforth and I can keep the weather running until you’re feeling ready to come back.” Blossom quickly nodded her agreement on that point.

Derpy shot a look at her own family photos on the wall. “After everything you’ve been through lately, I can’t say I’m surprised that you'd want to be around family for a while.”

I felt my own eyes lingering on Derpy’s family photos, especially the ones of Cirrus in his Guard armor. It kinda put some things into perspective for me. I knew there was trouble coming for Equestria, and the idea that there were other ponies with families putting their lives on the line while I sat back safe and sound in Ponyville just didn’t sit right with me. Burying Mom and helping Dinky and Sparkler’s uncle update his will kinda put all the risks those ponies were facing into perspective.

First things first, though. “Speaking of, could one of you take care of 'Lula while I'm in Canterlot?” That got me a whole bunch of confused looks, so I knew I had to offer something in the way of explanation. “Dad thinks it might be good for her to get out of the city for a while.”

Blossom frowned at me again, while Derpy tapped her hoof on the side of her chair, a thoughtful little grimace on her face. “After everything that’s happened, why would your father...” Her eyes went wide as the pieces fell into place. “Something’s happening, isn’t it? That’s why Cirrus has been spending so much time with me and the girls while he’s on leave.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Your mother wasn’t just killed by a random monster, was she? She must’ve figured something out, and now everypony’s getting ready for war.”

“Huh?” Rainbow shot a nervous look my way—Derpy was getting worryingly close to putting together some facts the Princesses didn’t want publicly known. A moment later, Dash gave an extremely forced laugh. “That’s crazy, Derpy. Nothing weird’s going on at all.”

Derpy’s eyes narrowed and she hit Rainbow Dash with a suspicious glare. “You’re lying to me, Rainbow Dash. You wouldn’t do that unless there was a very good reason. Like if you and Cloud found something out when you went out after her mother.”

Okay, Derpy had officially made her way to dangerous territory. I needed to cut in before she figured out enough to start getting her in trouble. “Hypothetically, if anything like that did happen, which I can neither confirm nor deny that it did, then the Princesses would’ve told me and Rainbow to keep our mouths shut. State secrets, and all that.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed with an emphatic nod. “Hypertheticly.”

I decided that an abrupt change of subject was in order. Hopefully, Rainbow and I had gotten the message across. “I’ve been thinking ... Derpy, do you know what Cirrus asked me to do while we were waiting on you and Rainbow?” Derpy tensed up, and motioned for me to continue. I felt just a little guilty as I told her, “He wanted to update his will. 'Cause of things that may or may not be going on.”

Derpy let out a quiet, worried little hiss. “I told him he shouldn’t have joined the Guard. I told him not to sign up for a second tour, too. I swear, if anything happens to that blockhead...”

I gave a quick reassuring pat on the hoof. “Nothing’s gonna happen to him, Derpy. He’s a supply sergeant, he’ll be as safe as a pony can get. But I’ve been thinking ... well, if something does go wrong, a whole lotta ponies are gonna be putting their lives on the line. Not just Cirrus, but my Dad, my aunt and uncle, my cousins—hay, pretty much every single pony in my clan, and a lot of others besides.” I ran a hoof through my mane. “Makes a mare think about some things. And the more I think the harder it is to stay where I am. What gives me the right to sit this one out when so many other ponies aren’t?”

“Are you talking about going back into the Guard or something?” Rainbow wing-smacked me upside the head. “I thought I told you to stop being stupid! Now you’re being the exact opposite of not-stupid. Which is stupid!”

“Thank you, Rainbow,” Derpy remarked dryly, before turning to face me herself. “I can tell you exactly why you should sit this one out. For starters, you're not really a part of the Guard. Secondly, it's an incredibly bad idea.”

Blossom gave a sharp nod to signal her agreement. “Cloud, can you think of anypony, anypony at all, who thinks that you rejoining the Guard sounds like a good idea?”

“Look, I am technically in the reserves, and I spent four years at West Hoof. Maybe I’d be a little rusty, but it’d all come back to me soon enough.” I shot the three of them a faintly annoyed look. “And for your information, Princess Luna herself offered me a command if I agreed to come back to active duty.”

Derpy frowned at me. “'Technically' being in the Guard doesn't really count for much, even if you weren't rusty.” She gave me a level, unimpressed look. “And as for Her Highness ... some of the rumors I’ve heard about what happened between the two of you at Cloudsdale inclines me to think that she may not have the best reasons for wanting you active.”

I decided not to comment on the Princess Luna issue. I still had no idea whether I’d actually banged her or not, and regardless of the outcome she’d probably be less than happy if I started telling ponies that I had gotten her in bed. Besides, there was another point to discuss. “I'm not that rusty, Derpy.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow chimed in. “Sure, I helped and did a lot of the hardest stuff, but we totally kicked flank in the fight against the ch—” Rainbow thankfully caught herself before she could give anything away. “Um, against the thing that got Cloud’s mom.”

Derpy scowled at Rainbow. “Dash, you’re not helping.” She turned back to me, and resumed the lecture. “There's a big difference between doing a few warm-up exercises in your living room and actively training with ponies who know the business as well as you do.”

I let out an annoyed little growl at that. “Derpy, I spent four years at West Hoof, and was raised in a family chock-full of military ponies. I think I might know a thing or two more than you do about what it takes to cut it in the Guard.” I held up a hoof to forestall any comments. “And before you mention your brother, I think I should point out that officers and enlisted ponies play different roles in the Guard, and need completely different sets of skills.”

Derpy let that particular issue drop with some aggravated grumbles, but wasted no time moving on to her next objection. “Regardless of whether or not your skills are up to the task, and I’m still far from convinced that they are, you're forgetting about something else. Or rather, somepony: Alula.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow shouted, apparently having been shifted back into Derpy’s camp now that her fighting prowess wasn’t being indirectly questioned. “Your sister matters way more than a bunch of stupid Guard stuff, dummy!”

“Alula is important,” I agreed. “She’s one of the most important ponies in my life. But so is the Guard. I feel like I just have to do this. I can't sit back doing nothing while there are ponies putting their lives on the line.”

Derpy frowned at me. “Do you really believe that feeling like you’ve done your duty to Equestria is more important than caring for a little filly who's hurt even worse than you are?”

“Yeah, I thought you Kickers were all about how important family is,” Rainbow chimed in. “Besides, it's not like you've had a hard time letting other ponies take all the risks of being in the Guard for the last seven years.”

Ow. That hurt. That reallyhurt. I’m not proud of the way I ran out on the Guard, but having it tossed into my face like that added to the pain. A second later Rainbow’s brain caught up with her mouth, and she facehoofed before mumbling out a vague apology. That didn’t save her from getting wing-whapped and rebuked by Blossom. “Rainbow, that wasn’t very nice!”

Derpy, on the other hoof, was notable by her silence. I had a feeling that if I’d forced an answer out of her, she would’ve admitted that she didn’t completely disagree with Rainbow’s point.

I sighed, and tried to come up with a good way of explaining things to them. “It’s different now, okay? You know what I've always told myself after I left the Guard? To make the whole thing seem less wrong? I always said that if Equestria needed me, I'd come back. That there's a big difference between running out on the Guard in peacetime, and hanging Equestria out to dry in the middle of a crisis.” I self-consciously ran a hoof through my mane. “Hay, I spent most of Nightmare Moon’s return trying to find somepony I could report for duty to.” I felt a guilty little twinge in the back of my mind as I remembered that one of the Guards Nightmare Moon had blasted was a Kicker. “Would’ve done the same for the Discord thing, if things hadn’t gone completely crazy.”

Derpy let out a frustrated little grumble. “That’s all well and good, Cloud Kicker, but it doesn’t change the fact that joining the Guard right now would be abandoning somepony in your family at a time when she really, really needs you.” She shot a look at one of the photos of her parents and bit her lower lip. “Take it from me ... that hurts.”

“But if I don't come back to the Guard now, then it makes everything I've done with my life since then a big fat lie.”

“That's absurd!” Blossom exclaimed. “Why do you have to rejoin the Guard now of all times? Do you really think that’s the only way to prove that your life counts for something?”

“Exactly.” Derpy shot a grateful nod Blossom’s way. “Everything you’ve done since you left Ponyville was done with your family in mind. Why should you change that now?”

“Because now I need to do something for all of Equestria.”

Rainbow let out an angry snort and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, Cloud Kicker. The Guard, the Elements of Harmony, the Princesses, and everypony else are just gonna be completely doomed unless you join up. ‘Cause you’re that important.”

Okay, when Rainbow Dash is calling you out for egotism, it’s time to step back and take a look at things. “Dash, it’s not that I think everything’s gonna fall to pieces if I don’t go back into the Guard. But just because I’d only be one more officer in the ranks doesn’t mean I don’t need to do my part.”

“You already have,” Derpy insisted. “I don’t know what happened out there with your mother, but if half of what I suspect is true, then you’ve already done a lot to help Equestria. Now it's time to do something for your family again.”

“No.” I shook my head, and shot a guilty look Derpy’s way. “I made a promise to myself about what I would do if there was ever serious trouble coming Equestria’s way. I think I’ve broken enough of my promises already.”

One of Derpy’s ears twitched and she grimaced at me. “Cloud, you're not thinking straight about any of this, and an officer who isn’t thinking right will get ponies killed. Maybe even yourself.”

Did she really think I was so messed up over losing Mom that I couldn’t even competently command a unit? It’s not like I was frothing at the mouth and bouncing off the walls or anything. I was just trying to do the right thing. “I have a du—” I quickly caught myself, and shot a look Rainbow’s way. “I have an obligation to the Guard and Equestria. I can't run out on it if I'm gonna start living up to my promises.”

“That obligation ended before Dinky was even a distant dream,” Derpy countered.

“No, it's still there.” I groaned and rubbed a hoof over my face. “The whole point of having West Hoof is so the Guard has a big trained pool of officers whenever something big comes up. Hay, even if I’m not on active duty, I’ve been in the reserves for years.”

“You’re only very technically in the reserves, Cloud,” Derpy jabbed one of her hooves at me to emphasize her point. “Do you even do any of the normal reserves training you’re supposed to do? I know you don’t get paid for being in the reserves like most ponies would.”

That was true; Dad had enough to deal with just by sticking me into a reserve unit to keep me from being classified as a deserter. No way he was going to let me collect a paycheck on top of that. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m still in the reserves, so I’m supposed to report for duty when Equestria needs more soldiers.”

Blossom frowned at me. “Well, if they needed you wouldn’t the Guard be calling you up? And since you’re not talking to us in armor, I’m going to guess they haven’t done that yet. Maybe you should leave it up to the ponies running things to decide whether or not they need your help, instead of chomping at the bit to volunteer.”

Derpy unleashed her wall-eyed look of disappointment on me. “It’s starting to sound like this is less about what Equestria needs, and more about making yourself feel better.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow leapt into the fray once more. “I mean, c'mon Cloud! You've got a job and ponies who count on you back in Ponyville! You can’t leave them all hanging while you run around being a Guard again!”

“Not to mention your sister,” Derpy pointedly added.

Dammit, why was it so hard to just make them understand? It wasn’t like I was just talking about rejoining the Guard on a whim or something. This was serious business, and I had good reasons for doing it. “So how am I supposed to start living up to my promises by breaking one of the most important ones I've ever made?”

Derpy’s ear flicked again at the mention of promises. “Cloud, I’m starting to think you might have a bad habit of making promises you shouldn’t. Maybe instead of trying to live up to something you promised yourself years ago you should just accept that you’ve moved on from there, and focus on what’s important now.” Derpy’s gaze lingered on some of the family photos for a bit longer. “I promised myself a lot of things, back when I was in school before I had Dinky, right around the same time you were leaving the Guard. I ended up breaking most of those promises, but they didn’t matter anymore, because I’d moved on from them. A lot’s changed in your life since West Hoof; it’s past time you accepted that instead of constantly looking back over your shoulder and regretting your decision to leave.”

Rainbow nodded emphatically. “If you wanna talk about promises and doing the right things and stuff, maybe you should think about the ponies who care about and even lov—er, l-word you. I think they all count for more than something you promised to yourself a long time ago.”

Blossom latched onto my forehoof, holding onto it like she was afraid I would just fly out the door the instant she let go. “Cloud, listen to them. Please?”

I let out a sad little snort. “Oh, this is just perfect. When I’m not living up to my promises I get lectured by all of you, and now that I wanna do that I’m getting another set of lectures about how I don’t need to do that anymore. Could you ponies just make up your minds?”

“It’s not just about promises, Cloud, it’s also about priorities.” Derpy put one of her hooves on my chest. “Your sister needs you, Cloud. Not being shipped off to one of your friends’ houses while you go play Guard for however long it takes you to get your head on straight. If you turn your back on Alula now, every promise you keep from then on will be pointless compared to the one you broke with her.”

I stared at her, cocking my head to the side. “What promise am I breaking with 'Lula?”

“The promise every big sister makes to their little sister,” Derpy answered me. “That you’ll always be there for her when she needs you the most. That no matter what happens, you will always, always have her back. That you’re her big sister, the pony that can be there for her when everypony else is getting ready for—for whatever it is that's coming.”

“Think about everypony you’d be leaving behind, Cloud!” Rainbow all but shouted at me. “Sure, you might’ve screwed things up with Derpy, but aside from that I'd say you've been doing a pretty good job with your life in Ponyville. Derpy's kids like you, Alula looks up to you, and you've saved me from going nuts with all the paperwork I gotta deal with.” She gave an overdramatic shudder of horror. “Not to mention that you kinda helped Lyra and Bon-Bon get together, you got Raindrops to chill out a bit, plus your whole banging thing just made a whole lot of ponies in Ponyville happy.” She slugged me in the shoulder. “There's a lot of ponies who can be in the Guard. There's only one pony who can do all the stuff that you do back home. We’d all go crazy missing you if you left. Even I’d be a bit sad—not as bad as everypony else, but I’d be a little down.”

Blossom and Derpy both rolled their eyes at Rainbow’s inevitable scramble backwards when it came to expressing any sort of ‘sappy’ feelings, but nodded their agreement with the rest of what she’d said. Hay, I couldn’t really argue that point either. I’d set down a lot of roots in Ponyville, and leaving behind all the ponies I’d grown to know and love would hurt. “I don't wanna leave Ponyville forever, but I have to do right by the Guard. I’m only going on active duty until this whole mess gets sorted out anyway; once things settle down, I should be able to come home.”

“And how long will that be?” Rainbow demanded. “Yeah, I might’ve slept through most’ve history class ‘cause it was just a bunch of boring names and dates, but even I know that there were wars that took years to sort out! And what about the next mess that'll come up after that? And the one after that?” Rainbow looked me in the eyes. “Like you said, there’s already been two other things that nearly pulled you back into the Guard. What do you wanna bet there’s more ancient evils sealed up somewhere or whatever, and you’ll have another crisis after this one?” She got right up into my face, to the point where her nose was practically touching mine. “If you're gonna let some guilt trip take you back in the Guard, it's never gonna let you go. S’like you always said about why you left in the first place; you always said that you just knew that once you were in the Guard, you were never gonna be able to make yourself leave.”

Derpy shot Rainbow a nod and a grateful little smile. “Cloud, if you go back into the Guard now, Alula will be getting her own commission before you're ready to hang up your helmet again.”

“What happened to all your talk about how important your family is, Cloud?” Blossom demanded. “Does it not count when it comes to your little sister?”

My ears went flat against my head as I tried to explain the whole situation to them. “It’s not like that! If you wanna talk about family, how about the fact that my little cousins are gonna be on the front lines if there’s any kind of fight? Hay, Storm's in one of the most high-casualty units the entire Guard! I can't leave them on their own!”

“So you're going to leave Alula on her own instead?” Derpy shot right back. “Along with Dinky? And Sparkler? Blossom? Rainbow? Fluttershy? Lyra? Bon Bon? Raindrops?” Derpy ran on down the list of the other Ponyville ponies I had connections to, before her voice dropped down to a quiet, vulnerable little whisper. “And me?”

For all their talk about how I was guilt-tripping myself into the Guard, Derpy sure wasn’t shy about unleashing a guilt-trip or two of her own. I guess that’s one of those skills which mothers just naturally develop as they’re raising foals. “You'll miss me, and I’ll miss you, but we’ll survive.”

Rainbow let out a snort.”You wanna talk about surviving? Cloud, I've met your cousins and all the other ponies in your family. Trust me, they can take care of themselves. Besides, you think they'd want you to join up just to look after them? That's a great vote of confidence, I'm sure they'll love hearing that!“

“Rainbow, you don’t understand! I can't lose anypony else!”

“If you don’t drop this idea then you are going to lose ponies, Cloud!” Derpy groaned at me. “You're pushing everypony who cares about you away so you can go chasing after a dream you should’ve given up on years ago!”

“Joining the Guard won't make your family any safer!” Rainbow snapped at me. “Or us! All it’s gonna do is take you away from us and risk your own life for no damn reason!”

“It’s not for no reason, Dash!” I snapped right back at her. “If I'm there for them, like I wasn't there for Mom, then I can make sure they’ll be okay!”

Blossom hugged me again as soon as I mentioned Mom. Rainbow, by contrast, just seemed to get pissed off about it, letting out a loud, frustrated growl. “Cloud, you are such a dope! What happened to your mom wasn't your fault, so stop talking like that!”

Derpy got out of her chair and moved over to the couch and sat on my left side, opposite Blossomforth. She took one of my forelegs in both of hers and started gently rubbing it. “Cloud, for the love of Luna, listen to us. We’re trying to help you.”

“I know you are.” I let out a frustrated little groan. “It’s just that you don’t understand. I have to do this.”

“No, you don't,” Derpy gently insisted. “I don’t know how you’ve gotten it into your head that you’re obligated to do this, but you aren’t.”

Rainbow, unsurprisingly, was a lot less diplomatic in expressing her opinion. “You have to do this?” She waved a hoof at me. “That's what this is all about isn't it? What you want. This is just something that you want to do, nevermind how anypony else feels. You don’t care about Alula or any of us, ‘cause at the end of the day it’s all about you!”

“It's not about me,” I growled at her. “It's about my duty!” A second later, I realized my mistake.

“You're full of doodie!” Rainbow responded, much to nopony’s surprise. “Geeze, Cloud Kicker, use that big stupid head of yours for once! It’s like as soon as the word ‘duty’ crops up you just turn off your brain and start getting seriously dumb!” Rainbow paused and took a couple deep breaths to try and calm herself down. “You walked away from the Guard seven years ago. Going back in now won't change a damn thing. Not your relationship with your parents, not what happened with your mom, not keeping your family or Equestria any safer, nothing!”

“No, it will change something.” Derpy gave a sad little shake of her head. “It'll hurt the relationships you already have. Going to the Guard now is lose-lose for everypony involved.”

“But I have to do it!”

Before anypony could answer me, Cirrus stepped into the room and loudly cleared his throat. “It’s getting a little noisy in here. Everything still all right?”

I was about to give him an answer, but Rainbow beat me to it. “Cloud’s being stupid and saying she’s gonna rejoin the Guard.” She turned back to me, looking me dead in the eyes. “Cloud, read my lips: you don't have to do squat except not throw your life away because of some stupid guilt and duty thing! You got that?”

“I wasn't planning on dying, Dash.” You’d think Rainbow, of all ponies, would know that I was still more than capable of handling myself in a fight. She’d seen how I did against the Changeling. “I know how to handle myself. You know I can do just fine in a fight. Plus, I was close to the top of my class at West Hoof.”

“Nopony goes into the field planning to die, Cloud Kicker.” Now that he was in the room, Cirrus had apparently decided that he might as well throw his two bits into the conversation. “Just ‘cause you don’t plan on it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Don't go running into a dangerous situation without any kind of plan like a hothead.” He paused for a moment, then deadpanned. “That's Rainbow's job, and you know how much she hates being upstaged.”

Rainbow promptly wing-whapped Cirrus in the face without even taking her eyes off me. “Maybe you were really good at West Hoof, but that was a long time ago, Cloud. You’ve been pushing clouds for years, not training to do military stuff.”

“Exactly,” Blossom chimed in. “If you don't use it, you lose it.”

“It won't take long to get back in the swing of things,” I argued. “Yeah, I'm a bit rusty, but you never forget Guard training. Besides, most of what I’ll be doing is leadership stuff, not personally kicking flank. I’ve had plenty of practice when it comes to running a group of ponies.”

“You still need your combat skills, Cloud,” Cirrus insisted. “Unless you’re planning on just being a REMF, but I can’t see you doing that. Nopony comes running back to the Guard in the middle of a crisis just so they can sit far away from the fighting pushing supplies around. If you wanna be a line officer, you need to be up to snuff, and getting you to that level is going to involve time and resources the Guard can't spare right now.”

Rainbow poked me in the stomach with one of her wingtips. “C'mon Cloudy, do you really think that if you join the Guard that you'll make that big a difference? That Equestria will be safer and your family won't get hurt? I mean, you're awesome, but you're not a supermare. Even I couldn't do all that.” She paused, and then revised her statement. “Well I couldn’t do all that right away.”

Cirrus let out a little snort and took a sip of the drink he’d brought in with him. “Modest as ever, Rainbow Dash.”

“Egotism aside, she's got a point,” Blossom argued.

“Yeah, I know just one mare isn’t gonna make a huge difference,” I conceded. “I was good back at West Hoof, but I wasn’t some sort of military genius or something. But I think if I don't try, I'll always wonder if I could've made some kind of contribution, however small. If having me there makes enough of a difference that even one pony might be able to come home to his or her family because of something I did, I’d call that a fair trade.”

“And what if having you there makes things worse instead, and somepony gets hurt because you make a mistake?” Derpy countered. “How would you feel then? And do I even need to go into all the ponies who are going to be hurt if you don't come back?”

“I know the risks, Derpy,” I shot back just a bit testily. “Trust me, after what’s happened, I’m very aware of just how dangerous Guard life is.”

Rainbow scowled at me. “You know what I just realized, Kicker? The way you’re talking, you make it sound like everypony who isn't in the Guard is some sorta slacker or something. Not cool.”

“That's not how I meant it, and you know it, Dash,” I grumbled. “A lot of ponies do all sorts of great things for Equestria without ever joining the Guard. But I can't save Equestria with magical friendship, or be the best mom ever. All I can do is be a Guard.”

“To hay with being a Guard!” Dash shouted at me. “Instead of trying to do all that, just be the best Cloud Kicker ever! Forget all that Guard horseapples and bust your flank being an awesome friend for me, a super-cool fillyfriend, and an amazing big sister to Alula!”

“If nopony else needs to join the Guard to make a contribution, then neither do you,” Blossom pointed out. “What makes it so you have to be a Guard, and that’s your only option?”

“How about the fact that I spent most of my life getting ready for the day I would join the Guard?” I argued. “That’s kind of a big deal.”

Cirrus cleared his throat. “If you want to talk about your family legacy, Cloud, then think about the legacy Major Gust left for you. A little filly whose first salute was her farewell to the mare that loved you both. You ask me, that’s way more important than you feeling like you’ve lived up to your clan name.”

I let out an exasperated groan and slumped back against the couch. “Okay, fine, I can't out-argue you guys! You win the logic-off. Congratulations.” Why was I even having this argument in the first place? It’s not like I needed their permission to go back into the Guard. It was my choice.

“Well of course I win,” Rainbow shot me a confident little smirk. “I’m awesome. And right.”

I cut Rainbow off before she could start doing a victory dance. “No amount of logic is gonna change the fact that going back to the Guard still feels like the right thing. Like what I need to do.”

Rainbow stepped up close, and dropped her voice so that only I could hear her. “Cloud, remember when you said that before? About something else you thought you had to do because it was the right thing to do. The other thing involving your mom?”

Oh she did not just go there. For a minute I was tempted to give her a piece of my mind about just how far below the saddle-line that shot was, but what good would it do? It was obvious I wasn't going to be able to change their minds, and everypony was just gonna keep ganging up on me until I gave in. So fine. Whatever. I was sick of dealing with this whole thing—no, I'd been sick of it five minutes ago. The whole argument just wasn't worth the trouble. "Okay, fine, you're right."

“Well of course I am.” Rainbow, who seemed to have completely missed that I was pretty grouchy about my concession, stepped up and wrapped her forelegs around me. “S'gonna be okay, Kicky.”

After a couple seconds, I reluctantly returned the hug. “Thanks, Rainbow.” Sure, she might be stubborn and infuriating, but she was looking out for me in her own way.

“It’s what I do.” She gave an affectionate squeeze. “Be there for my friends and be awesome while I'm doing it.”

“Yeah. Sometimes, you make for a decent moral compass, Rainbow.” I thought about that for a moment. “Oh Shadow, you’re my moral compass. We’re doomed.”

“Aw, shuddup.” She gave me a gentle whap up the side of my head, but kept on hugging me.

Blossom and Derpy joined in on the hug, creating the sort of situation that normally would’ve left me commenting on how nice it is to have three beautiful mares hanging off of me. Now probably wasn’t the time for a cheesy bit of innuendo, though. Some hugs don’t need to be sexy to be enjoyable.

I held onto the group hug for a bit, then reluctantly let go of them. “Thanks, girls. You too, Cirrus.” Derpy’s brother nodded, seeming perhaps just a tiny bit envious of the fact that I had three beautiful mares hanging onto me at the moment. Well, the fact that one of those mares was his sister probably decreased the appeal. “So yeah, that’s settled, I suppose. No Guard stuff for me. Well, maybe someday, but not anytime soon. I think I’m still gonna stay in Canterlot for a bit, though. I need some more time with my family, and Derpy and I both need some space from each other for a bit.”

“There’s plenty of space between our houses in Ponyville,” Derpy mumbled under her breath.

Rainbow fixed me with a scrutinizing glare for a bit, like she was trying to puzzle out whether I was trying to pull some kind of trick on her. I wouldn’t lie about joining the Guard, but I guess I can’t blame her for being just a little bit suspicious. Once she was reasonably sure I wasn’t trying to pull anything sneaky, she nodded. “Yeah, sure, fine. How much time are you talking about?”

I thought it over, and gave an uncertain shrug. “I dunno. A couple weeks? With all the other stuff going on, I haven’t really had all that much time to deal with everything. I haven’t really given Dad and Alula the attention they deserve.”

Blossom frowned, and shot an uncertain look at Rainbow Dash. “I don't think I can stay in Canterlot that long. I’ve already been out of Ponyville for a more than a week, and I don’t have any vacation days saved up, so...”

Rainbow winced, and reluctantly nodded. “Yeah. I mean, Cloud, you've got bereavement leave coming, no sweat. But I don't think the weather management is gonna let me get away with missing much more time than I have already, and running things without either of my assistant managers would raise some eyebrows too. Sorry, Blossom.”

“It’s fine, Dash.” I turned to Blossom, and tried to think of the gentlest way to break the news. “Um, Blossom, I love you and all, but I could kinda use some space from both sides of the love triangle. It’s just—look, now’s not the best time for us to start working out our relationship and everything. I definitely want there to be an us, but I need to get myself squared away before I can really give you the time and attention you deserve. Okay?”

Blossom’s ears wilted, and she pulled back a bit. “Oh. Yeah, okay.”

Rainbow grimaced and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “I don't like the idea of leaving you up here alone.” She blinked and corrected herself. “I mean, alone aside from your huge-flank family and all that. It just sucks that we all have to leave and stuff. Plus a lotta your family’s gonna be shipping out sooner or later, right?”

“Yeah, with everything else going on, bereavement leave isn’t gonna last much longer.” I shifted around on the couch a bit. “Storm’s supposed to be shipping back out pretty soon; her platoon can’t go without a CO forever. Not everypony’s leaving right away, though. Star'll still be at West Hoof unless she’s doing more fieldwork, and Dad and Aunt Wind both have jobs that keep them in Canterlot most of the time, so it’s not like I won’t have any close family nearby.”

“So you won’t be alone by any means,” Derpy confirmed. “And it’s only a few weeks, then you’ll be back in Ponyville and everything can get back to normal.” Derpy thoughtfully tapped a hoof against her chin. “I was planning to head back to Ponyville once Sparkler came home. I have a job too, you know.” She offered me a slightly lopsided little grin. “But I think we should all spend a bit more time with Cloud before we have to go. Have a last night on the town or something.”

“Sheesh, it’s only two weeks, Derpy. You make it sound like I’m never coming back.” I let out a slightly awkward little laugh. “Still, a mares’ night out does sound good. And this one won’t end with me gathering up a bunch of random ponies for a huge orgy. Promise.”

“Well good, if you tried to mess this night up with more of your banging horseapples I might have to kick your flank.” Rainbow gave me a playful little nudge. “Way too many of our mares’ nights out got messed up by your stupid weird banging thing.”

“It sounds like a good idea to me, too,” Blossom announced. “I think we could all use some nice, relaxing fun right about now. I don’t really know Canterlot, though—any ideas where we should go?”

Cirrus cleared his throat once more. I felt a bit bad about how he’d been cut out of so much of the conversation, but to be honest none of us really knew him all that well. Well, none of us but Derpy, that is. Rainbow and I got along with him alright now, but for the most part he was just Derpy’s brother to us, and Blossom had never even met him before. “Don’t mean to interrupt or anything, but before you all head out I wanted to get a quick picture of me with Dee and the girls. You mind?”

“Yeah, no problem, Cirrus.” Nopony else objected either, so he trotted out of the room, presumably to go get his nieces and a camera. After he left, nopony said much of anything; I guess we were all waiting to see how things would go when Sparkler got down here.

If not for the fact that I was keeping an eye on the door, I would’ve missed her entrance. She looked oddly washed out, her colors faded to the point where she kind of blended into the background, and she didn’t make a single sound when she entered the room. The faint purple glow from her horn explained both of those things—she was probably keeping up a silence spell, along with some sort of halfway-done invisibility spell. I guess she wanted to make sure the coast was clear before revealing herself. After a couple seconds, she stepped out of the room, dropped her spells, and walked back in. “Hey, everypony. Uncle Cirrus and Dinky’ll be right with.”

Sparkler seemed to be pointedly not looking at Derpy, while Derpy was twitching in her seat and clearly struggling to suppress the maternal instinct to run up to her daughter and hug her. I decided to step in and keep things from descending to a completely awkward mess, getting off of the sofa and trotting over to the teen. “You doing okay, Sparks?”

“Better.” After a moment of hesitation, she hugged me. “So, um, what'd I miss?”

“Me being awesome and keeping Cloud from doing something dumb,” Rainbow answered.

Sparkler turned to Rainbow and offered a sassy little grin. “So, I’m gonna guess you did something even stupider to distract her?” Unsurprisingly, that promptly earned Sparkler a vigorous noogie-ing from her godmother. Rainbow’s pretty consistent that way. Still, if Sparkler was getting back to her old smartflanked self, that was a good sign.

As much fun as it would be to watch Rainbow and Sparkler poke at each other for a bit, I figured I should at least get the most important stuff settled right away. “Derpy and I had a talk, and we’ve pretty much sorted everything out.”

Sparkler’s ears perked up hopefully. “Yeah? What’d you come up with?”

Derpy fidgeted some more in her seat, then took a deep breath, and got to the painful part. “Cloud and I have agreed that it’s probably best if we break things off for now, but we both still want to be friends.” I gave Spark a nod to confirm what Derpy said.

“Oh.” Sparkler shot an uncertain look between the two of us for a while. “Well, I guess that's good, then. At least things are settled.” She went quiet for several seconds, then very slowly turned to directly face Derpy. After a few seconds Derpy hesitantly opened one of her wings, offering Sparkler a hug without trying to pressure her too much. For a long time Sparkler just stood there, staring at the open wing like she was trying to work out what to do with it. After almost half a minute of standoff, Derpy started to slowly lower her wing. That seemed to knock Sparkler out of whatever train of thought she was currently in, and she quickly stepped up and hugged Derpy.

Everypony in the room let out a relieved sigh at that; I guess we’d all been a bit worried that things between Derpy and Sparkler had hit a breaking point of some sort. Nopony looked more relieved than Derpy herself, who was probably exercising every bit of self-control she had to resist the urge to hug Sparkler hard enough to be mistaken for Pinkie Pie. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally found the words she wanted. “I'm sorry, sweetie.”

Sparkler’s side of the hug seemed tense and awkward, but she very slowly started relaxing into it the longer it went on. “Yeah. Sure.”

Derpy gave a slightly nervous swallow, and tightened the hug just a bit. “I love you.”

Sparkler tensed for a moment, then slowly relaxed fully into the hug. “I know.” The next words came out at barely above a whisper. “Love you too, Mom.” Her hold on Derpy tightened a bit, and she gave her mother a tentative little nuzzle.

The quiet, tender moment was abruptly shattered by a fillyish squeal echoing down the halls, accompanied by the sound of tiny hooves thumping on hardwood floors. I grinned at the others. “Beware! Something adorable this way comes.”

The pitter-patter of little hooves rapidly approached until Dinky charged into the room, leaping up and literally bouncing off one of the walls as she came. “Halp! Ya gotta hide me! Uncle Cirrus is after me, an’ he’s got cooties! An’ he’s a zombie cannabis pony who’s gonna gobble me up!”

Cirrus slowly shambled towards the door, his forehooves extended as he let out an eerie moan. “Diiinky Dooooo! I’m going to gobble youuuu!”

Dinky scrambled over to the couch and leapt onto Blossom’s lap. I was a little surprised she went to Blossom of all ponies, but a second later I had a pretty good guess why: Dash, Derpy, and Sparkler would all have a decent chance of selling her out to Cirrus just for giggles. To be honest, I probably would’ve too. Dinky unleashed a near-toxic level of adorable cuteness as she hit Blossom with desperate sad puppy eyes. “Quick! You gotta hide me from the zombie cannabis pony!”

There was no way Blossom could possibly resist that. She ruffled Dinky's mane with one of her hooves, then lifted up one of the seat cushions so Dinky could scramble underneath it, resulting in a slightly conspicuous lump which Blossom tried to cover up by draping her tail over. After a moment's consideration, I trotted over and positioned myself in front of the couch, so it would be harder for Cirrus to spot said conspicuous lump.

Cirrus slowly shambled into the room, still playing the part of the zombie. “Oooo. I will find the filly and gobble her, then turn her into a zombie Dinky! And give her cooties toooooo!”

The threat drew a very loud giggle from a certain conspicuous lump in the couch. Blossom tried to cover for Dinky by letting out a loud giggle of her own, but the damage was already done. Rainbow took it upon herself to leap to the rescue. “Nopony’s gonna gobble up my godfilly if I have anything to say about it!” A second later a flying pillow smacked Cirrus in the face.

For a few seconds after the impact, Cirrus’ eyes were just as crooked as his sister’s. Once he’d recovered from Rainbow’s high-velocity pillow, he began shambling in the general direction of the couch. “Zombie pony Cirrus hears the giggles of a delicious young filly for him to gobble up!”

Blossom rolled her eyes. “I haven't been a filly for years, but I suppose I should thank you for the compliment. Cloud would probably object you gobbling me up, though.”

“Yeah, no gobbling my fillyfriend.”

Blossom shot a mischievous little smirk my way. “I suspect Cloud is far too fond of eating me herself to ever share.”

Whoa. Blossom really was getting pretty bold when it came to the teasing and innuendos. That one was worthy of me.

Unfortunately, a certain young little filly heard just enough of what Blossom said to jump to conclusions. Dinky let out a horrified little gasp from her hiding spot underneath the couch. “Cloud Kicker’s a cannabis pony too? Oh no! Run, Miss Blossomforth!”

Cirrus ripped off the couch cushion, revealing Dinky’s hiding place. “There you are! Mwahaha! I’ll gobble you up!” He grabbed Dinky and pulled her into a hug, while making some very exaggerated eating noises.

“Eeee! Nooooo! Somepony save me from bein’ gobbled!” Dinky squealed and wriggled, trying as hard as she could to work her way free of her evil zombie uncle.

Unfortunately for the young filly, Derpy and Sparkler were both far too busy laughing their plots off to do anything to save her, even if they were inclined to. Blossom and I weren’t laughing quite that hard, but were both giggling up a storm and enjoying the show far too much to put a stop to it.

Right as Cirrus was about to start gobbling his niece up, another pillow slammed into his head, courtesy of Rainbow Dash. “I gotcha, kiddo!” She hoisted another pillow up above her head, striking a dramatic pose. “There’s no need to fear! Your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!”

For a brief moment, I wondered if Rainbow breaking out her old heroic catch-phrase would prompt Twilight and the others to pop out of the woodwork in order to upstage Rainbow Dash and subject her to a little public humiliation ‘for her own good.’ I know they’d meant well, but they’d really handled that whole thing rather poorly.

Rainbow’s sudden assault of flying pillows distracted Cirrus enough for Dinky to squirm free. Seeing that his prey had escaped, he shifted his sights to Rainbow Dash. “If I can’t eat Dinky, then perhaps I should eat you instead!”

Dinky immediately reversed course on her flight away from her pretend-zombie uncle. “Nooo, you can’t gobble Rainbow Dash!” She leapt up and latched all four of her limbs onto one of Cirrus’ legs. “I'll save you! You leave Rainbow Dash alone, you big nasty zombie pony!”

Cirrus staggered, feigning a takedown for Dinky’s benefit. “Aaaugh! Hugs! The one weakness of zombie cannibal cootie ponies! Urrrgh!” He fell onto his back, his legs all pointed straight up in the air.

“Woohoo!” Dinky grinned exuberantly, bouncing up and down in joy. “Whoa, that was close, Rainbow Dash! It’sa good thing I was here to save ya, huh?”

Rainbow grinned and give Dinky a quick little noogie. “Yeah, kiddo. I would’ve been toast if you weren’t here. Well, unless I broke out one of my extra super-cool moves, but I like to save those for special occasions.”

“A’kay!” Dinky grinned and gave Rainbow a quick hug, then trundled over to Blossom. “Thanks for hidin' me, Miss Blossomforth! You’re rilly nice, so you can have a hug too!”

Blossom grinned and scooped Dinky up for a hug. “Well, I was just glad to help such a cute little filly like you, Dinky!”

I was pleased to notice that the lingering awkwardness between Derpy and Sparkler seemed to have faded away in the face of the whirlwind of innocence and cuteness that was Dinky. The two of them were standing next to each other, looking almost as perfectly at ease with each other as they’d been before this whole mess started. Sparkler grinned over at her little sister while giving her mother a companionable little nuzzle. “Oh, Dinky... don't ever change.”

“Ever,” Derpy agreed.

Cirrus decided that he’d played dead for long enough, and slowly got back to his hooves. “Oof. You tackle like a drill instructor, Dinky. I'll be feeling that tomorrow.”

Dinky grinned at him and gave a delighted little giggle. “I gotcha good, huh?”

Cirrus chuckled and rubbed the foreleg Dinky had tackled. “You sure did!” He groaned and stretched out his limbs. “Anyway, I think it’s time for our family picture now.” He stepped out of the room for a brief moment, then came back with the camera; presumably, he’d left it somewhere just outside of the room so it wouldn’t be damaged during his horseplay with Dinky. He passed the camera over to me, then turned to Blossom and extended a foreleg. “Ma’am, do you think I could have my niece back for a bit?”

Blossom hoofed Dinky over to him, while Derpy and Sparkler trotted over to join in the group picture. Dinky quickly scrambled loose of Cirrus’ hold and hopped onto his back, then jumped over to Sparkler’s back, and from there to Derpy’s. “Can we do a picture with funny faces? Pictures where everypony’s smilin’ are just so boring, but funny faces are funny!”

Derpy smiled and nuzzled her younger daughter. “Of course we can, Muffin. But let’s take a good one first, all right?”

A thoughtful look crossed the filly’s face as she pondered this proposal. “A'kay!”

I took a look at the camera in my hooves to make sure I could figure out how everything worked. It all looked simple enough; all the usual controls, and nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary. “So, just snap a couple photos of the four of you, and that’s it? Or did you want some with Rainbow in them, since she’s Dinky’s godmother?”

“Ooh, ooh!” Dinky immediately started bouncing up and down on Derpy’s back. “I wanna have a picture with Rainbow next! An' then one with Miss Blossomforth, an' one with Cloud Kicker, an' then one with Mommy and Rainbow Dash and Miss Blossomforth and Cloud Kicker all together, an’ then one with—”

Derpy gently cleared her throat before Dinky could talk everypony’s ears off. “There’s a fresh roll of film in the camera, so I think we should have enough to get pictures of everypony. But let’s just take a few photos of us together with Cirrus first, okay Muffin?”

“A’kay!” Dinky nodded her head so eagerly I was a little amazed it was still attached to her neck.

The Doos all gathered together, and I snapped a nice family photo.

The Pony Who Goes on Strafing Runs in her Underwear

Dinner the next night was a little awkward.

Mom’s absence really started sinking in, now that everypony else had gone home. In a weird sort of way, having all the drama going on with Derpy had actually helped. It gave me something else to think about. Now, it was just me, Dad, ‘Lula, and the huge gap in the dinner table where Mom should be sitting. The silence hanging over the table was downright oppressive.

What with Dad being in his Guard armor and everything, it was hard not to start thinking about that again. Sure, I’d told the others I wouldn’t be going back in, but to be honest I think it was mostly just that I’d been browbeaten into agreeing. Really, I just didn’t want to fight over it anymore. I was sick of all these arguments. Sometimes it felt like they were never going to end, like things would never just get back to normal again.

I halfheartedly poked at the casserole sitting in front of me. It was a carrot, cheese, and breadcrumb casserole, an old family favorite, but nopony seemed all that enthusiastic about eating it. In fact, it didn’t seem like anypony had much in the way of enthusiasm about anything. Yeah, we were pushing forward, but at times like this it was hard not to feel Mom’s absence.

Eventually, the silence got so oppressive that I had to say something, anything,to break it. “Hey, Alula. How’s school been going?”

“It’s fine.” Sheesh, a recording would’ve sounded more enthusiastic and lifelike than ‘Lula did just then. “I kinda like going to school in Ponyville better. The teachers here are nice, an’ I guess it’s neat havin’ other Kickers around in school, but I miss Dinky and Pip an’ Miss Cheerilee.” She fell silent for a bit, listlessly nibbling on her food.

Well, so much for that avenue of conversation. I decided to try talking to the other pony at the table. “Hey, Dad?” He gave a grunt to let me know he was listening. “Just wondering, how’ve things been going in the Guard? Any word on all the defense prep or what’s going on?”

Dad thought for a moment, then took a sip of water to buy himself a bit more time. “Cloud, I really can’t tell you anything about what we’re up to right now. We’ve been taking security a lot more seriously lately, especially after everything that happened with Nim—after what happened.”

Ouch, nice going, me. I try to get some small talk going, and I end up rubbing Dad’s face in the fact that Mom was gone. Dammit.

Dad surprised me then by speaking up himself. “Are you still thinking about going back on active duty?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. My mind went back to the big argument with Rainbow, Derpy, and Blossom. “I’m a bit rusty to be taking a command in the middle a big crisis like this, but yeah, it’s been on my mind. Even before—before stuff happened, I’d been thinking about it. I guess I just need... I dunno.”

Dad looked at me for several seconds, his face carefully neutral. Last time the subject had come up, he’d been pretty mixed in his opinions. On the one hoof, he wanted me to join the Guard and carry on the family legacy. On the other, after what happened with Mom he was understandably wary of letting me throw myself into the dangerous sort of work the Guard does. I can’t blame him for that; I was worried about him and my cousins too. It was just a complicated mess.

I nearly jumped out of my seat when Dad spoke again. “I have a proposal, of sorts.” I nodded to show him I was listening. “If you’re going to be staying in Canterlot for a couple more weeks, we need to give you something productive to do with your time. Having you lying around the house brooding all day won’t do you any good.”

He had a point. I’d just about forgotten Mom was gone while I was busy trying to keep my love life from falling into a complete shambles, so perhaps what I needed now was something else to just keep me occupied until I got back into the rhythm of normal life. “What did you have in mind? I guess I could do a little temp work with the Canterlot weather team if they’ve got some open space, but...”

“No, nothing like that.” Dad took a bite of his casserole and chewed it over thoughtfully. “You’re thinking of rejoining the Guard, once things settle down. Let’s put you to work on something that’ll help you sort out which direction you want to go with that. Not to mention we can knock the rust off, for if you do end up going back to the Guard.”

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. “You want me to join the Home Watch?” Dad nodded to confirm it.

Huh. The Home Watch was pretty much the closest thing the Kickers had to an actual standing Clan military anymore. It wasn’t much of an army, since all the ponies of proper fighting age and inclination were busy in the Guard, so the Home Watch ended up mostly being filled out by ponies who’d retired or were too young to be in the Guard proper yet. Hay, back when I’d been around Star’s age, I’d done a bit of Watch duty whenever I was on break for West Hoof. It was mostly a ceremonial formation—stuff like having a couple ponies in Kicker-red standing guard by the main entrance and the like. Every once in a while they did a little bit of keeping the peace if something went wrong within the compound. The Home Watch tried not to step on the Gendarmerie’s hooves or anything, but if a saddlebag-snatching happened right in front of a Watchpony, he’d do something about it. Really, the most exciting thing the Watch did was help with training the kids.

Dad’s idea was a pretty good one. Spending a few weeks in the Watch was as good of a way as any to help me work my way back into fighting shape and get an idea of whether I really wanted back into the Guard life or not. I could get comfortable with wearing weapons and armor again, and if Dad was putting me in a leadership post—which was a safe bet—I could get used to having a command again. Sure, being in charge of some cadets and retirees wasn’t the same as having an actual squad, but it was something.

Then again, being a weather manager probably meant my actual leadership skills were going to be a lot less rusty anyway. Most of the principles that go into being a competent boss are pretty universal at the end of the day. Soldiers and weatherponies both want to feel like the pony running the show is competent enough to get the job done, and decent enough to look out for their best interests.

“Yeah, Home Watch sounds good.” If nothing else, I always did like the way I looked in Kicker red. Though that was going to be the one downside of working in any kind of clan business: all my co-workers were off-limits for banging. Genetically speaking, there were gonna be Kickers who were total strangers to me. Hay, Derpy was a very distant cousin on Mom’s side, and thus probably closer to me on a genetic level than some of the Kickers. But ... well, clan is clan. At the end of the day, anypony whose name ended in ‘Kicker’ was family to me, no matter what their bloodline said.

Now that we’d settled on me doing a quick little stint in the Home Watch, Dad and I managed to stave off any more awkward silence by getting into all the little details. I guess one advantage of the whole informal nature of the Home Watch was that I wouldn’t be stepping on anypony’s hooves if Dad put me in charge of it for a couple weeks. That would’ve been one big issue with taking up Princess Luna on her offer; putting aside the issue of whether or not I was qualified, I would’ve ended up having ponies under my command who didn’t care for some outsider coming in and taking over. For Home Watch, it wasn’t as big of a deal—especially since all of us being family meant I could get a little more sympathy when it came to getting back into the swing of things. The Guard tends to be a bit more hardflanked about that.

Once dinner was over and we’d finished cleaning up, Dad had more work to do hammering out some new duty schedules. I spent a while going over all the stuff for the Home Watch, just to make sure I was up to date. For her part, Alula listlessly poked at her homework; she was normally a pretty good student, but I was pretty sure Cheerilee and whoever was helping keep Alula up-to-date while she was here would be understanding if her schoolwork suffered for the next couple weeks.

Time passed, and eventually ‘Lula started yawning and losing focus on her assignment. Since Dad was still busy, I took it upon myself to get her into bed. I trotted over and picked up her textbook and half-finished math assignment. “C’mon, ‘Lula. It’s time for sleep.”

Alula nodded, and slumped bonelessly in my forelegs when I picked her up. I hated seeing her like this, but I had less than no idea how I was supposed to fix her being sad about losing Mom. I mean, there’s just no way to fix that, period. All I could really do was try and be a good big sister and hope she could work her way through it on her own.

Since it looked like Dad was gonna be up with work for a while, we headed for my bedroom. I got her under the covers, tucked her in, and gave her a quick little nuzzle. Then I turned around and was about to head for the door when a small hoof grabbed me. “Don’t go, Cloudy.” Alula was trying not to sound too upset, but I couldn’t miss the slight note of fear and desperation in her voice. From what Dad told me, she’s been a bit insistent about not sleeping on her own ever since it happened. Not that I could blame her for that in the slightest.

Needless to say, I turned back around and settled down on the bed next to her, giving my little sister a hug. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere, ‘Lula. I’ll just be out in the living room, taking care of a few more things before I get ready for bed.”

My sister gave a couple confused blinks, then shook her head. “Nuh-uh, not that.” She paused, and one of her ears gave an annoyed little twitch. “Well, ‘kay, I don’t wantcha to be gone all night either, but...” Her ears drooped down a bit, and her voice came out in a scared little whisper. “Mom went away all the time, and then she didn’t come back. An’ now you’re thinking of goin’ away too. An’ it’s ... I dunno. Aunt Wind and Uncle Ty tried to talk to me about it an’ stuff, but all the talking stuff is just dumb.” She let out a frustrated little growl and swatted at her bedsheets. “It’s stupid. They’re stupid. Everything’s stupid.”

“Hey.” I gave her a little reassuring squeeze to take the sting out of the upcoming little scolding. “Don’t talk about Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon like that, okay? You know they’re just trying to help.”

“Still stupid,” Alula grumbled under her breath. After a couple more seconds of muttering under her breath, she shifted around a bit so her cheek was pressed up against my chest. “Do I still hafta be a Guard when I grow up?” She bit her lip and went quiet for several seconds before reluctantly admitting, “I usedta be all ‘xcited about how one day I was gonna grow up an’ be big an’ strong an’ be a Guardpony just like Mom and Dad, but ... not if it means I’m gonna go away someday too. I dunwanna go away, I wanna stay with you an’ Daddy an’ everypony else forever!”

Oh Shadow, I reallydidn’t need to face that particular idea right now. ‘Lula was my little baby sister. The idea that one day she was going to grow up into a Guardpony who regularly threw herself into mortal peril ... no. Just no.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I was gonna try and convince Alula not to join the Guard or anything. Mom and Dad had learned their lesson after my rather abrupt departure from West Hoof, and seem to have tried to use a gentler touch with Alula. I think I could’ve handled all the pressure of West Hoof a lot better if I hadn’t felt so locked into it. It’s a lot easier for a pony to snap and do something stupid when they don’t feel like they have any choice in the matter. On the other hoof, I wasn’t bitter about getting Guard training or my time at West Hoof—I might not want Alula to feel like she was being pressured to go into the Guard, but by the same token I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to talk her out of it either. It was supposed to be her choice.

I know there are other Kickers who’ve had trouble with being pressured. Yeah, my parents had been pretty reasonable about it, but the thing about families is that they don’t move in lockstep. Especially since ... well, the internal dynamics of the clan can get a little complicated. See, there are Kickers, and then there are Kickers. My immediate family was currently on top of the internal clan totem pole, what with Dad being the paterfamilias and a top-ranked military official, plus my other relatives like Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon held major positions too. For me, my cousins, and Alula if she went down that route, there was never any question that we would end up going to West Hoof and working our way up the chain of command.

So yeah, we’re kind of the elite of the clan, in a way. It was part of what made me feel so pressured, but at the same time it made Dad feel a lot less pressured to make me achieve something. With a lot of other Kickers, there was more of a drive to try and move up the ranks, and a fear of looking bad in front of the family. It was weird, but the lower down you got on the family’s internal structure, the more the ponies tended to be—well, for lack of a better word, Kicker-y. I guess they just felt like they had more to prove. Sometimes, that led to stuff like putting way too much pressure on their kids to live up to some sort of Kicker ideal.

Thankfully, Alula wouldn’t have to deal with anything like that. I gave her one last reassuring hug. “Hey, ‘Lula? I promise you’re never gonna go away like Mom did, alright? ‘Cause Dad and I would never, ever let anything like that happen to you. Okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay.” Alula gave my chest a quick hug and snuggled up against me. After a bit of internal debate, I decided to at least stick with her until she went to sleep. From the way she was right now, it might take her forever to get to sleep without somepony else in bed to keep her company. Besides, sticking around until she conked out would save me from needing to deal with any awkward goodbyes.

It didn’t take long for her to close her eyes and start snoozing. Pretty much as soon as they stop having enough energy to bounce off the walls, kids will go out like a light once you put them somewhere warm and comfortable. I was a little tempted to stick with her, but there was still work to be done. Sure, the Home Watch might just be a collection of retirees and Kickers-in-training, but for the next couple weeks it was going to be my collection of old farts and brats. If I was going to do this, I planned to do it properly. And that meant reading up on all the procedures, duties, and expectations.

Dad was still on the couch, working on whatever the Guard needed to get done when I returned to the living room. He looked up from his papers when he heard me enter. “Alula get to bed all right?”

“Yeah.” I debated letting him know about her worries with the Guard, but ultimately decided to let it drop for now. The Guard was a long way in ‘Lula’s future, if she still wanted to go down that path; no sense worrying about it now when we had bigger and more urgent issues on our plates.

I decided to try for a little shop talk. I knew Dad wouldn’t discuss any specifics, but I could probably get away with a few vague generalities. “How’s the paperwork coming along?”

“Could be better,” Dad grunted. “Doesn’t help that Captain Armor seemed out of sorts today, so the rest of us have to pick up the slack. Though I suppose I can’t blame him, what with the upcoming wedding and everything.”

“If he’s not up to the job, maybe they should’ve given it to somepony else,” I grumbled.

“Best secure that mouth of yours if you’ve got an intention of rejoining the Guard.” Dad wasn’t quite snapping at me, but there was definitely a bit of that military authority in his voice. “He’s the Captain of the Guard now, and he’s done the job well enough so far.”

Ouch, Dad-rebuke. Guess I should’ve known better; Dad might not always agree with Shining Armor, but he’s a big believer in the chain of command. The debate over who should’ve been Captain of the Guard was over and done with, and he would toe the line and support his new CO. I wisely opted for a quick change of subject. “So he’s getting married?”

Dad let the question hang for a second or two before answering with a grunt and a nod, then returning his attention to his paperwork. “To Princess Cadance.”

Wow, he’d managed to snag a princess? Granted, Cadance wasn’t quite on the same level as Celestia and Luna, what with being mortal and all, but she’s still a princess. “Not bad. I didn’t even know the two of them were a thing.”

“Apparently they kept the courtship private to avoid having to deal with all the publicity.” Dad finished signing off on what looked like a supply report, though I made a point to not look too closely. “And now the wedding’s being rushed forward. Planning to make it a big event, too. Nopony’s said, but I imagine they’re doing it for morale.”

Yeah, having a big wedding party wouldn’t hurt morale. Everypony loves a party. Plus—with all due respect to a certain pink earth pony—parties tend to feel a lot more meaningful when there’s a solid reason for having them. It made everything seem like it mattered more, and with the prospect of some serious trouble on the horizon, a wedding was just about the perfect way to remind everypony that there was more to life than conflict. Plus, weddings are a great place to pick up ponies for a little funtime. Gets everypony thinking in romantic terms. You just need to make sure you’re clear about what’s what.

Let’s just hope that if there was a war coming, Shining Armor didn’t knock Cadance up, then make a habit of carrying a picture of her around and telling everypony how much he loved her and was looking forward to seeing her again. At least he wasn’t two weeks away from retirement, too.

Things just kind of went comfortably silent after that. Dad and I both had work to get done, so there wasn’t much point in talking or anything. It was funny, but reading up on the Home Watch was actually starting to make me a bit enthusiastic about the whole thing. Sure, it wasn’t the actual Guard, but we still did enough Guard-like things to give me some of the experience. Even if most of it was for show, we still had patrols, guard duty, and regular training exercises. It was a good starting point for getting back into the swing of things, if nothing else. Get used to all the little differences between managing weather ponies and managing soldiers, not to mention working myself back into proper fighting shape. Plus, part of Watch duty was training the kids. I’d always had a bit of a soft spot for doing that. They were all just so ... eager.

As an added bonus, taking charge of the Home Guard meant that, as long as Star was on compound grounds, I could give her marching orders. The clan’s West Hoof cadets usually end up doing a fair bit of Watch duty to help them keep their edge when they’re at school. Sure, Star usually wound up deferring to me anyway on account of me being the cool big cousin and all, but it would be nice to have some formal authority backing me up.

That line of thought came to an abrupt end when I heard a sharp little hiss from Dad. When I looked over there was a grimace on his face and a haunted look in his eyes. After a bit of hesitation, I chanced a look down at the papers he was going over to see what had him so shaken up. It took me a while to figure out, since by all appearances it was just an ordinary supply and readiness report. Then I got a look at which supply sergeant had signed off on it, and it all fell into place.

Mom’s old unit.

I climbed up on the couch next to him, and after a second or two he put a wing around me, seemingly by parental instinct. Then he signed off on the form and got back to work. After taking a bit to make sure he was alright, I got back to work on my end of things too. I wasn’t in any hurry to get off the couch though, and Dad seemed fine leaving his wing where it was.

For the next couple weeks, things slowly fell into a kind of routine. I wouldn’t say they got back to normal, but there was definitely a sense of developing normalcy. I got up in the morning, ate breakfast with the family, walked ‘Lula to school, then went to work.

Sure, work was running the Home Watch instead of being an assistant weather manager, but the basic principles stayed the same: I met up with a whole bunch of ponies, half of whom knew their jobs better than I did, and just told them to keep doing exactly what they normally did before I showed up. No reason to disrupt a system that was already working.

That’s not to say I sat around doing nothing and being a lazy bum. There was all the usual administrative stuff, and every once in a while something happened that I would need to sort out myself. No big crisis stuff or anything, but things happened, and for now I was the pony in charge.

Not to mention that I was putting a lot of hours in on the training grounds to knock all the rust off, and getting used to running around in armor and wing-blades again It took a while to get used to lugging several dozen pounds of steel with me everywhere I went, even with the extra little enchantments on my armor to make it less of a bother to wear.

Really, in a way it was weird how little change there actually was with my work. Granted, a lot of that was probably because I was running the Home Watch and just taking care of the normal day-to-day stuff rather than an actual military unit gearing up for war. It’s a lot easier to go through that period of adjustment when the stakes are lower and there isn’t anywhere near as much pressure to get incredibly important stuff done right away. Not to mention that if I goofed on a decision, I didn't have to worry about my bad call getting somepony killed.

It wasn’t long before Shining Armor’s wedding was on the horizon. The whole city was abuzz with the news of the big royal wedding, if only because it made a welcome change of subject from the way Canterlot was gearing up for war.

Obviously, I wasn’t in the loop on the latest intel, but between the late-night hours Dad was pulling and all the Guard we had roaming the streets, it was pretty obvious that whatever was fixing to hit us was going to be very big and very bad. Hay, they even had a bubble shield over the city, and I don’t think we’d done anything like that since the Siege of Canterlot during the Rebellion. Granted, it probably helped that Shining Armor could shield the city on his own, compared to the dozen top-level mages they’d needed back then.

Okay, credit where it’s due: he’s a damn good spellcaster. I still say Dad would’ve made a better Captain of the Guard, though. Maybe I’m a little biased.

Anyway, I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that Twilight Sparkle and company were going to be showing up for the wedding. Her brother was getting married after all, and the rest of her friends tended to stick pretty close to her when it came to big events like this.

Not to mention that it was only sensible to have the ponies tied to the Elements of Harmony close at hoof when there was trouble brewing. Sure, an invading army might not be something the Elements could fix completely on their own, but I’d still prefer to have the Element-wielders close at hoof. After all, giant rainbow explosions of weaponized friendship are useful to have on your side.

In any case, it’d be nice to see Rainbow and Fluttershy again—especially Fluttershy. Between needing to spend time with my family and the whole situation with Derpy, I hadn’t really been able to give Eepy any of my time, even though she came to support me for the funeral. I felt kinda bad about that; I know she’s not the most social of ponies, and coming to meet my family must have been horribly awkward for her. She deserved more from me after she came all the way to Canterlot just for my sake. I suppose I can’t really be blamed for overlooking stuff like that in the middle of my mom’s funeral, but I still felt a bit bad about it.

A few quick inquiries told me where to find the two of them—apparently, Princess Celestia had roped them into helping set up the wedding. I guess that was no surprise, what with how last-minute everything was getting set up. Two weeks isn’t much time to throw together a royal wedding. I just hoped it wouldn’t be another repeat of the Grand Galloping Gala; Rainbow, Eepy, and the others don’t have the best track record with Canterlot high society. I kind of felt a bit sorry for the bride and groom-to-be; apparently they’d tried to keep their courtship private to avoid being the center of a media circus, and now their wedding was going to be the big social event of the season because Canterlot needed a morale boost.

Anyway, since Rainbow Dash was supposed to pull off another Sonic Rainboom to cap off the wedding, it wasn’t hard to guess where I’d find her. She would need enough open space to practice all of her flying, and there were only a couple places in Canterlot that had that. Between space being at a premium in general and the fact that a lot of Canterlot architecture involved building nice big towering spires, getting a lot of wing-room wasn’t easy unless you wanted to fly well clear of Canterlot proper. And ... well, all things considered, that wasn’t the best way to practice potentially dangerous stunt flying. After all, flying clear of the city would mean she was way out in the open, where it was a long way to the ground.

Since I couldn’t hear Rainbow’s screams of joy from halfway across Canterlot, it was a pretty safe bet she wasn’t using the Wonderbolts’ training facilities. The castle grounds were a possibility, but with all the wedding preparations going on that didn’t seem likely. All it would take was one little incident with her flying, and a whole lot of work could get smashed to bits. So that left the Kicker training grounds or West Hoof’s. Since West Hoof’s grounds were probably tied up with all the military buildup going on, that narrowed it down even more.

So, I’d just spent an hour wandering around Canterlot trying to find Rainbow when odds were that she had been back at the clanhold the whole time. Go me.

Sure enough, once I got close to the fort I could see a rainbow contrail zooming about through the air over the compound. Hopefully Fluttershy would be there too. She did tag along to watch Rainbow’s stunts on a semi-regular basis, mostly because Rainbow always liked to have an audience, and Fluttershy always gave positive feedback. Then again, if she was putting on an informal show over the compound, odds were good that she’d already have ponies watching her anyway.

Compared to the exercise yard at West Hoof, the Kicker training grounds were pretty modest. There are benefits to having government funding. Plus, a private training area for the clan just didn’t need to be as big. Not as many ponies used it, and there was a lot of stuff we just didn’t use. After all, the clan is almost all pegasi and unicorns, so we didn’t really need much of a setup for earth ponies, and we didn’t need a training area rated strong enough for an Alpha-level unicorn to cut loose like West Hoof did. We’ve had some reasonably skilled unicorns in the family tree, but never anypony that dangerous—and if we ever did, it made sense to just have them train somewhere else rather than blow bits on a huge upgrade to our facilities just for a single pony.

Still, even if the clan’s setup wasn’t quite as fancy, it had all the basics. Training dummies, a decent selection of practice weapons, tons of safety equipment to keep training accidents to a minimum and, most importantly for Rainbow Dash, plenty of open space. I think there were some passive enchantments to cut down on the damage from crash-landings too, though I’m not sure how much good they would do against the sort of extreme stunts Dash liked to pull. It’d probably take Celestia-level magic to make plowing into the ground at supersonic speed survivable.

Sure enough, Rainbow had attracted a small crowd of admirers. To my vague annoyance, a couple of my Home Watch were among them. I could definitely understand wanting to watch the show Dash was putting on, but they were supposed to be on the job. “Copper, Shield, don’t you think you should stop gawking and get back to gate duty? Watch the show from the entrance if you have to, but stay at your posts.”

The two ponies in question looked suitably chastened as they trotted back to the compound’s entrance. At least Copper had the excuse of being one of the kids in the Watch, but Shield was one of the old-timers. Ponies who are older than Dad should know better than to let a one-pegasus show distract them from their duties; it was setting a bad example for Copper, and one of the whole points of the Watch was to teach the younger Kickers a bit of discipline before they joined the Guard or hit West Hoof.

“Sheesh, a couple weeks in uniform, and you’re already turning into a total flank-buster.” My ears perked up at the familiar bit of teenage sass, and a quick search of the crowd revealed Sparkler. She offered me a casual little wave when I made eye contact. “Hey. Came in on the train with Rainbow.”

“Yeah? Cool.” I trotted over to her, but halfway there my smile slipped a bit when my brain reminded me just whose daughter she was. Yeah, Derpy and I had done a decent job of patching things up before she’d left, but I wasn’t exactly ready to see her again.

Sparkler must’ve guessed what was on my mind, because her smile slipped a bit too, only to come back with a bit of forced cheer. “Uh, came on my own. Mom’s busy with work, and Dinky’s got school stuff. So ... yeah. Just me, this time.”

I saw a way to get past a rather awkward topic of conversation and seized on it. “So, what’s the reason for coming all the way to Canterlot on your own?”

“Eh, just wanted to check up on you.” There was just a little bit of forced casualness to Sparkler’s tone. “You know, since nopony’s seen you for a while. Figured there was no harm in tagging along with everypony else heading here.”

I gave her a teasing little nudge in the shoulder. “Plus you’ll get to see Star. Did you let her know you’re in town yet, or should I send somepony? She’s got classes at West Hoof, but I bet she’d get a day pass to come visit if she knew you were here.”

Sparkler rolled her eyes and let out a faintly annoyed grumble. “Are you still on about that?”

“Depends. Are you still crushing on my cousin?”

“Cloud, you really need to get your mind out of the gutter.” She gave an annoyed little ear flick. “Seriously, you can be worse than Miss Rarity when it comes to seeing romance everywhere. Well, except you tend to see lust instead of love, but whatever. Look, the bottom line is that Star and I are friends Good friends. But just friends. I mean, she’s fun to hang out with and everything, but there’s nothing romantic going on, okay?”

“Okay, fine, I believe you.” I grinned, and closed in for the kill. “But just to be safe, how about you Pinkie Promise that you’re not trying to hook up with my cousin?”

“Erm...” Sparkler gave a nervous little swallow, and her eyes darted back and forth, possibly searching for a particular peppy pink party pony. “That’s not a bad idea, I guess, but I don't need to—because anypony with two brain cells to rub together can tell that I'm totally not hot for her, so there's no need to bug Miss Pinkie with one of her promises. Y’know, it’d just be too much trouble for her when she’s really busy...”

I brought a hoof up to my chin, and made a thoughtful little noise. “Or you’re just scared of what’ll happen if you make a Pinkie Promise we all know you won’t keep.”

That got another one of her trademark frustrated groans out of her. “Fine! I Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! I do not now, nor will I ever, have the slightest bit of romantic interest in Star. Our friendship is completely platonic and non-romantic. Got it?”

Less than two hours later, I caught Star and Sparkler making out behind the equipment building. So much for Pinkie Promises.

Tempting as it was to pop out into the open and triumphantly denounce them, I decided that the decent thing to do would just be to make a discreet exit, and let them enjoy the moment. There would be plenty of time to rub their noses in it later; for now, they could just enjoy their hook-up. Despite all the teasing, I really did wish the two of them all the best. It was nice to see young love without all the messy history and complications I had to deal with. I hope things stayed that way—after all the horseapples she’d been through, Sparkler deserved some happiness, and I naturally wanted my baby cousin to do well for herself too.

Still. Ruthless teasing would ensue in a couple hours. I might have a bit of a soft-hearted romantic streak, but there are some things a pony just can’t compromise on.

Between trying to make a quiet exit from the scene and being just a little preoccupied with thinking about the kids, I didn’t notice the other pony behind me until her muzzle bumped into my rump. The muffled squeak that produced gave me a pretty good idea of who it was, and turning around confirmed it. “Hey, Fluttershy,” I whispered, so as not to disturb the young lovers around the corner. “Sorry about that, wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Oh, there’s no need to apologize, I should’ve been more careful.” She wasn’t whispering like I was, but since this was Fluttershy we’re talking about, her normal speaking voice was about at whisper level for most ponies. She gave her muzzle a little rub with her hoof, and it belatedly occurred to me that I’d just shoved my rump into her face. Not that I would normally have a huge issue with that, but shoving your butt into the face of a pony you have a long and complicated romantic history with—and only recently broke things off with—isn’t a great move.

From the faint blush on her cheeks when she delicately cleared her throat, something similar must have been going through Fluttershy’s head. “Um, yes, anyway, Rainbow Dash was wondering where Sparkler was, so...”

My mischievous side got the better of me. “Sparkler? Oh, she’s right around the corner.”

Yes, I was pranking Fluttershy. In my defense, she’s tougher than a lot of ponies give her credit for. I’m not saying it’s open season on her for any kind of prank a pony can think of, but she does have a sense of humor. As long as there’s not the slightest hint of mean-spiritedness to it, you can get away with it. I guess that’s why Dash and Pinkie have their no-pranking policy on her; they’re great ponies, but neither one of them is known for picking up on all the social subtleties that go into stuff like what kinds of pranks are Fluttershy-appropriate. Or maybe I can just get away with more because I’m good in bed.

Fluttershy shot me a grateful little smile, then trotted around the corner. A couple seconds later she very slowly and carefully walked back, her cheeks absolutely flaming. “Um, they’re ... um ... oh dear.”

“They weren’t going too far, were they?” I shot her my most utterly shameless grin. “A little making out’s fine, but if they’ve moved along to the point where they’re getting under each other’s tails, I might have to go find a garden hose and spray them with cold water.”

“Um, no, they were just...” Fluttershy trailed off, substituting vague hoof motions for coherent speech. After a couple seconds of that, her eyes suddenly widened, and a bit of the blush left her cheeks. “You knew what they were doing.” Her eyes narrowed just a tiny bit. “You pranked me, Cloud?”

“Sure did.” I felt a little nervous about confessing it. I’d been reasonably sure I was on safe ground, but what if I’d overextended myself? The instant the prankee isn’t laughing with you, your prank goes from a bit of harmless fun to something a lot nastier.

“Oh dear.” A hint of a smile crept onto Eepy’s face. “I suppose I’ll have to prank you back then, won’t I? Goodness, I have no idea what to do. I suppose Rainbow Dash and Pinkie could help me come up with something.”

Well, that took the prospect of getting pranked by Fluttershy from harmless and innocent to a fairly legitimate threat. At least I could count on Eepy to veto the worst that those two could come up with.

“So, Sparkler and Star are a couple.” Fluttershy shook off the last of her lingering embarrassment at catching the two in the middle of a makeout session. “That’s nice. I’m happy for them.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s—”

Whatever I was about to say next was lost to the sound of rushing air and hooves screeching to a stop as Rainbow Dash landed next to us. “Hey guys, either of you seen Sparks? I’m not worried about her or anything, and I know she’s totally old enough to take care of herself, but since Derpy’s not here I am kinda supposed to keep an eye on her and stuff.”

Fluttershy and I exchanged a look, and a pact was forged. With the most perfectly innocent and harmless smile imaginable, Fluttershy said, “Oh, she’s right around the corner of the building.”

“Cool, thanks.” As was her way, Rainbow wasted no time trotting along to the designated location.

I gained just a tiny bit more fear for Eepy’s prankster potential. Sure, she might be way too sweet to go for any but the most harmless pranks, but when she did decide to pull one, she was just so cute and innocent that you would never see her coming. Maybe I would need to watch my back for as long as she was in town. Every time she offered to do something nice for me could be another potential prank setup, and considering just how often Fluttershy did nice things for ponies ... yeah, I could be in trouble.

The potential prankster extraordinaire at my side gave an awkward little shuffle. “Um, actually, Cloud, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. You see—”

Rainbow Dash trotting back around the corner, her eyes wide as dinner plates and ears pressed back against her skull brought whatever Fluttershy was about to say to an abrupt end. Rainbow thrust a shaky hoof in the general direction of the amorous young couple.

Fluttershy gave Rainbow another smile that was pure innocence. “Rainbow Dash? Remember that time at Flight Camp when you replaced my seat with a thundercloud, and it startled me in front of everypony? Well, we’re even now.”

Okay, definitely upgrading Fluttershy on my prankster dangerousness scale.

Eepy gave a polite little cough to get our attention. “Um, weren’t we supposed to be getting ready for the wedding? I was just thinking that since we’ve found Sparkler now...”

“Yeah...” Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck and let out a forced little laugh. “She—she definitely looked like she was doing fine, and I guess we can count on Star to keep an eye on her and stuff. So ... yeah, I think we’re good here.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to give them a little more privacy either,” I chimed in. Sure, we were being careful not to disturb them, but eventually they were gonna stop making out. When that happened, it wouldn’t do for them to walk around the corner and run into the three of us. They were definitely smart enough to figure out that they’d been busted, and I didn’t want to spring that on them just yet. Sure, there would be ruthless teasing galore, but I wanted to give them some time to work through post-makeout awkwardness first. After all, it was a safe bet that this was their first time: Sparkler wouldn’t swear a Pinkie Promise she’d already broken. Breaking Pinkie Promises is serious business.

The three of us started trotting—or in Rainbow’s case, flapping—away from the young couple. Once we’d put enough distance between them and us that I felt comfortable going back to a normal speaking voice, I turned to Fluttershy and asked, “So, I know Rainbow’s supposed to be performing a Sonic Rainboom to cap off the ceremony, but what are you going to be doing? Another musical performance with your birds?”

“Yes.” She shot a quick glance upward, and when I followed her gaze I saw a small swarm of birds following us. “I was thinking maybe I could practice with them here, so I could watch Rainbow Dash at the same time. And, well, you could stay and listen too, if you’d like.”

Wow. That was a pretty big gesture on her part, given how nervous Fluttershy tended to get whenever somepony was watching her. I think the only way she ever managed to do public bird performances was that the birds had to do all the actual performing. Plus, at things like a wedding the music was part of the background. It was an expected part of proceedings, but all the attention was going to be on the bride and groom. The only time anypony would pay attention to the musicians during the ceremony was if something went wrong. Which, come to think of it, probably just gave Eepy all the more incentive to make sure nothing went wrong.

“Yeah, that sounds great, Fluttershy.” A moment later, I remembered that before Rainbow had interrupted us she had been on the verge of telling me something. “Hey, what was it you wanted to tell me about earlier?”

Eepy shot a nervous look up at Rainbow, who didn’t seem all that interested in our conversation, but that was beside the point. Rainbow was there, and that made Fluttershy clam up. “It wasn’t anything important. We can talk about it later, maybe.”

I might have pushed a bit if it were anypony else, but that would’ve been counter-productive with Fluttershy. She just generally doesn’t respond very well to pressure. Best policy was to just let her open up to me on her own terms. If she was already nervous, getting on her case about it would only make things worse.

After that things went quiet for a bit, until Rainbow decided to break the silence. “So what’s with the new get-up, Cloud? I haven’t seen you running around in red like this since back when you were at West Hoof.” One of her ears twitched, and she amended. “Well, okay, you were in armor when we went looking for your mom and stuff, but that was different. Then, you were wearing it ‘cause we were on a big adventure and everything. Now you’re just kinda running around doing normal stuff, except in full plate and wing-blades. It’s weird.”

“I think she looks really nice in armor,” Fluttershy commented, shooting me a hesitant little smile. “It makes her look very brave and strong. Not that she doesn’t always look that way, but with how the peytral makes her look more muscular there than she already is, the helmet makes her look so noble, and I really like the way the croupiere emphasizes her, um ... erm...” Fluttershy slowly trailed off, and her cheeks pinked. I guess she noticed she’d been gushing just a bit. “It—it looks nice, is all.”

Rainbow, who I was pretty sure didn’t know armor terminology well enough to grasp that Eepy had just complimented my derriere, let out an unimpressed snort. “I bet my grouper-thing would look way better if I was wearing armor like that. And I’d have it in a better color than red. Like rainbows.” She flapped her way in front of us, flying backwards so she could look us in the eyes and offer a big cheesy grin. “C’mon, you Kickers are cool and all, but I could make the best clan ever. Clan Dash! And our armor would be rainbow-colored, ‘cause rainbows are cool. And we’d run around beating up dragons and manticores and being radically loyal and stuff. It’d be awesome.”

Urge to bonk Rainbow on the head ... rising.

Unaware of my budding irritation, Dash continued blathering on about the awesomeness of her imaginary clan for a couple more minutes. Putting up with the occasional bursts of ego is just part of being friends with Rainbow. You learn to love it eventually. That, or you strangle her in her sleep.

Since I’d kind of mentally tuned out Rainbow’s non-stop chatter about the awesomeness of the clan she was going to create one day, she caught me off-guard when she actually broke out a serious question. “So anyway, what was with you ordering ponies around earlier? Not only were you taking away members of my audience—not cool, by the way—but you were acting all authoritative and stuff.” Rainbow looked over my armor again, and grimaced. “Don’t tell me you did something stupid while we weren’t around to stop you...”

Fluttershy shot a worried look between the two of us, sensing a budding conflict. “What are you talking about, Rainbow Dash? Is everything okay?”

“No.” Rainbow let out an angry snort, and waved a hoof at me. “That dumbflank’s been talking about going into the Guard again. It’s stupid. She’s stupid.”

While I was tempted to dispute the point, I really didn’t wanna put up with more arguing over it. Dash didn’t like the idea, and it’s usually close to impossible to change Rainbow’s mind once she’s made it up. Yeah, you can prove her wrong every once in a while, but nine times out of ten, Rainbow doesn’t care for anypony trying to confuse her with inconvenient facts. It was probably best to just let her run her mouth until she got distracted by something else and let the matter drop.

Well, that’s what I would have done. Fluttershy had a different way of handling it. “Rainbow Dash!” I recognized Fluttershy’s tone all too well, and felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Rainbow. A lot of ponies will tell you that Eepy is one of the most naturally maternal mares they’ve ever met. The thing about her maternal knack that a lot of ponies don’t get is, it’s a full-spectrum thing. When she decides to give somepony a lecture about how they’re behaving badly, it really stings. Especially since it’s Fluttershy doing it, so you knew deep down that you must have feathered up big time if she was so angry at you that she felt a need to chew you out. Hay, she made a dragon cry once.

Eepy crossed her forelegs over her chest and hammered Rainbow with her glare of maternal disappointment. “Rainbow, if Cloud Kicker wants to rejoin the Guard, you should understand and respect her choices, not tell her she’s being stupid. It’s her decision, not yours. How would you feel if she told you that wanting to join the Wonderbolts was stupid?”

Rainbow’s ears went flat, and she flinched back just a little. “It’s—c’mon, it’s not like that, Fluttershy. I was just...” She bit her lip, and turned away from the two of us for several seconds. When she finally spoke, her voice came out in a scared little whisper. “Y’know why she said she wanted to go back into the Guard? ‘Cause it was dangerous, and she was worried ponies were gonna die. That means that if something goes wrong with her, then she could...” Rainbow trailed off, waving a hoof vaguely in the air.

Her head dipped a bit lower, and her voice turned just a little husky. “Look, you gotta promise you won’t tell anypony this, but, back in the cave when we were fighting the, uh—” She shot an uncertain look at Fluttershy, no doubt remembering that the Princess had ordered us to keep quiet, “—the thing that got Cloud’s mom. Well, there was this one part where the fight wasn’t going so hot, and I got a little scared. I mean, if things had gone wrong back there we could’ve died. Like her mom did. I mean, yeah, we’ve done lots of dangerous stuff before, but when it was all over everypony came out of it fine. Hay, we took on Nightmare Moon and Discord, and came out of it fine. But if some weird bug thing in a cave can get Cloud’s mom, and nearly get us too...” She trailed off, dropping down to the ground and shuffling her hooves. “It just makes a pony think about some stuff, y’know? Like, mortality and everything.”

Rainbow’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t supposed to go that way. Cloud’s mom was supposed to be in trouble, and then we’d fly in, kick flank, and save her. Not...” She waved a hoof in general direction of the clan’s graveyard. “S’not right.”

I stepped up and put a wing over Rainbow’s shoulders; in a rare moment of tenderness for her, she leaned into the touch despite the fact that there were other ponies in eyeshot. It had never even occurred to me to wonder if what happened to Mom might have shaken up Rainbow Dash too. Everypony had naturally focused on the pony who lost her mother.

The thing about Rainbow Dash was that she’d always been a risk-taker. The kind of pony who laughed when you told her how dangerous something was, because she knew she could always beat the odds. Sure, she might have known death was a theoretical possibility, but there’d always been this sense that it couldn’t happen to her. That she could always find a way to cheat death, no matter how bad the odds were. I guess what happened with Mom had changed that; it’d forced her to face the fact that sometimes all the awesomeness in the world wasn’t enough to save everypony.

Rainbow closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, then pulled out of the hug and gave me a quick, slightly awkward pat on the shoulder. “Look, Cloud, I still think going back to the Guard is a really bad idea, but ... just be careful, okay? You do whatever you gotta do and be awesome doing it, but watch your back. If you turn into a Guard, then go and do something stupid that gets you killed, I’m gonna find a way to bring you back to life just so I can kick your plot for getting yourself killed. Got it?”

“Got it.” I gave Rainbow a reassuring little smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not running around in armor and passing out orders ‘cause I’m in the Guard. Just the clan’s Home Watch. Gives me something useful to do with myself while I’m in Canterlot, and lets me knock some of the rust off while I think about things. So far, the worst I’ve had to deal with is helping a really drunk clan-mate find his house.”

“Oh. Cool.” Rainbow let out a relieved little sigh. “Look, sorry about getting on your case so bad last time the Guard thing came up.” She offered me a hoof bump. “We cool?”

I bumped hooves with her. “Yeah, we’re cool.”

Fluttershy gave the two of us an approving smile, which made me feel kind of like we were just a pair of squabbling fillies, and she was the responsible adult mother figure. Which, considering the fact that I banged her, was more than a little awkward.

“Aaanyway.” Dash stretched her wings out along with the word. “Cool talking with you and all, but I kinda need to get back to practicing for the wedding. Gotta make sure my Rainboom is as awesome as possible. Plus, I gotta make sure nothing goes wrong with ... y’know.” She waved a hoof at her eye. “We’re getting something set up to fix it, but the whole wedding thing kinda threw that off. Should be cool, to finally have that taken care of.”

So Rainbow was finally getting her eye looked after and fixed for good? That was a relief. “Good to know, Dash.” On an impulse I leaned over and gave a quick little kiss on her eyelid, earning me some grumbling and a half-hearted swat.

“Better watch yourself, Kicker. Pinkie ever catches you doing that...”

“Nah, Pinkie would know I’m just being friendly, not trying to put the moves on you.” Hay, I would even go so far as to say I’d turn down a threesome with Pinkie and Rainbow, on the off chance that they ever made an offer. Rainbow and I just aren’t the kind of friends who would ever bang, barring some sort of extreme circumstances. There have been one or two times I regretted that, but for the most part I like having Rainbow as the friend I’m never going to bang. It made things a lot less complicated, and let us just focus on being friends.

Rainbow let out a little snort. “Bet you’re going nuts being cooped up with your family for weeks. Kinda surprised you haven’t lost it from lack of banging.”

I just rolled my eyes at that. “Believe it or not, Rainbow, I don’t have to have sex every single day just to function.” Admittedly, the next time I saw Blossom I might end up taking a long weekend to show her every single trick I knew, but that was beside the point.

Rainbow smirked at me. “You’re right, I don’t believe it.”

“Jerk.” I casually slugged her in the shoulder, “So, how’s Ponyville been doing?”

“Same as ever,” Rainbow answered with a shrug. “A little more boring without you around, but whatever. All your stuff was getting a little too crazy anyway.”

“Yeah, it really was,” I conceded. “Part of why I wanted to get out of town for a few weeks. I think the time away is gonna help things settle down some.” I paused, and my wings gave a nervous little flick. “Uh ... how are Blossom and Derpy holding up?”

“Derpy’s good,” Rainbow answered with a smile that seemed just a tiny bit forced. She tried to keep up a happy front for a few seconds longer, but it couldn’t last, and her ears went flat, her voice subdued. “I mean, she’s doing alright and everything, but she’s kinda sad too. I think she misses you. Y’know, having you around and stuff.”

“Yeah.” I sighed and found myself briefly wishing I wasn’t in the compound. One thing about the walls, they meant I couldn’t look down the mountain, and see that tiny little speck on the horizon that was Ponyville. “I miss having her around too. Kinda got used to waking up in bed with somepony, and eating muffins for breakfast.” Sure, Derpy and I had broken things off amicably in the end, and we were still friends and all, but it just wasn’t gonna be the same anymore. Hanging out as friends was going to be awkward for a long time, and there was probably gonna be that subtle little undercurrent of tension between us for a while. Kinda hard to turn back the clock and pretend nothing had happened.

Still, I didn’t regret it. Derpy and I had some good times, and I’d gotten a chance to get a lot closer to her and her daughters. Plus, if not for us having been a thing, Star and Sparkler never would’ve hooked up.

“Um.” Dash and I both jumped a bit when Fluttershy spoke up. With the way Eepy can sort of fade into the background of a lot of talks and is just generally a very quiet, soft-spoken pony, it’s easy to forget that she’s there sometimes. “I’ve been talking with Blossomforth some, ever since the funeral. I think we’re friends now, if that’s okay? She’s doing fine too, but she’s really very worried about you.”

Huh, so Eepy and Blossom were getting along? Well that was good to know. Anything that cut down on the potential drama points in my life was great news at this point. “Well, once you get back to Ponyville, let her know that I’m fine, and I miss her too. And I love her.”

At the mention of the dreaded l-word, Rainbow made some exaggerated gagging sounds. She’s a very classy pony, that way. Mostly, I think she’s just trying to hide the fact that underneath all the brash, tough attitude, she’s a total sweetheart. I hope she gets over that someday; her sweet side is just so nice that it really deserves to be shown more often.

Once she was done acting a couple decades younger than her age, Rainbow shrugged and snapped her wings open. “Anyway, if you guys are gonna get all sappy and talk about feelings and emotions and how you feel about your emotions, I’m gonna get back to flying.” With that, she took off again and got back to what she did best: being an awesome flier.

That left just me and Fluttershy. She shot a slightly apologetic look my way. “I hope you don’t mind, but I really need to work on getting my performance ready for the wedding too. We can still talk some while I work, but I am going to need to focus.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Eepy.” I settled in to watch Fluttershy work her magic. It’s a lot of fun to watch her with her animals, the way she communicated with them and everything. Partly because it’s one of the few times you can really see her come into her own. With ponies, she was usually way too nervous to really show off everything she could do. But put her around animals, or the couple ponies she really knew and trusted, and you could see a whole other side of her. I liked that, and not just because it was nice to see her showing some confidence for once. It felt ... special, having Fluttershy share this whole other side of herself that most ponies never got to see.

For a while I just sat back and watched her work with her birds, throwing together a very nice musical score. Once it looked like she had things well in hoof, I decided it was safe to make a little small talk. “So, how’ve you been, Fluttershy? Feels like it’s been way too long since we had a chance to talk. I don’t think we’ve really had a proper conversation since ... well, that day at your cottage.” The day we’d made love to each other.

“Yes, that day.” Fluttershy blushed a bit at the memories. “That was a nice day.” She let out a tiny little cough and hastily changed the subject. “Anyway, I’m doing fine, thank you for asking. I do miss having you in Ponyville, but it is nice to have things be a little quieter again. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to spend more time with Blossomforth, since she really is a very nice pony, but it's not the same without you. Things are still good, don't get me wrong—just different. We’d all really like to have you back, but don't worry about flying back just for us.”

Well, that brought a few things to mind. Things that I’d kind of been trying not to focus on when it came to the whole question of whether or not I would rejoin the Guard. “You’ve probably picked up that I'm thinking about going back to the Guard. It’s tough. I mean, I feel like I’ve got a duty, but the idea of leaving everypony in Ponyville behind doesn't sit right. But neither does just sitting on the sidelines. It’s just a big mess.” I let out a weary sigh.

“You feel like you have to choose between duty and abandoning everypony you care about.” Fluttershy stepped up to my side and gingerly wrapped one of her wings around me. “I won't tell you what to do or try to make your decision for you. I would be a little sad if you had to spend most of your time away from Ponyville, but I'd also be happy that you're doing what you want to do.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts, and then continued a bit more firmly. “I do think you need to make sure going into the Guard is something you want to do, though.”

Considering I’d been wrestling with exactly that question for a while now, I could hardly argue the point. “Yeah. Either way, it's not a decision to make lightly. That’s part of why I'm doing this Home Watch thing—it gives me some time to sort things out.”

“Well, that does make sense,” Fluttershy conceded. She paused, worrying at her lower lip for several seconds before she spoke again. “There is one teeny-tiny little thing I’ve been worried about, though. I was just wondering if maybe part of why you want to join the Guard is so you can escape from all your problems with Blossomforth and Derpy. If that is part of what’s going on then I don't blame you for that, Cloud. I can only imagine how awful you must be feeling about everything that’s happened.” She gave me a sympathetic little squeeze with her wing. “I know you’re not scared of stepping up and dealing with all of this, especially now that the worst part of it is over. It’s just—well, like you said, the Guard is a really big decision. I just want to make sure that whatever choice you make, you’re making it for the right reasons.”

“Yeah, thanks for looking out for me.” I gave her cheek a quick nuzzle, drawing a startled little squeak from her. “For what it’s worth, the whole Guard thing has been weighing on my mind for a long time. Hay, I’ve been second-guessing my decision to leave the Guard ever since about five seconds after I bolted from graduation. It’s been a long, messy thing.” I groaned and ran a hoof over my face, then hastily changed the subject. “So what was it you wanted to talk about earlier?”

Fluttershy tensed up at the question, pulling her wing back and shifting her focus back to her bird ensemble for a minute or so before she actually answered me. “It can wait for another time. It wasn't all that important anyway.”

“Oh. Alright then.” I was a bit annoyed at her shutting me out again, but there was nothing for it but to give her time. Fluttershy would tell me what was on her mind when she was ready to talk. I won’t deny I was a little tempted to try and squeeze an answer out of her though—I almost certainly could get her to fess up if I pushed hard enough. The problem is, pushing Fluttershy tends to make her get really nervous and uncomfortable, which makes me feel kinda guilty. So instead of lingering on a subject she obviously didn’t want to discuss, I shifted topics again. “Say, how are things going with you and that new special somepony of yours?”

Before Fluttershy could give a proper answer to that question, an enraged cry of primal fury rent the air around us. “Sparkler Doo! You Pinkie Promised!”

Well, somepony just got busted.

Fluttershy shot a worried look towards the building where we’d left the young couple. “Oh dear. We should probably do something before Pinkie gets too upset with them. You haven't seen Pinkie when she gets really, really upset, Cloud. It's scary...”

Admittedly, the list of things Eepy found scary could be rather long. Still, that was worth getting a tad concerned about. “Well, if you’re that worried about it then maybe we should—”

That line of thought came to an abrupt end when I spotted a bit of a commotion on the other end of the yard. A closer look at the cause revealed a pink alicorn decked out in regalia. I’d never met Princess Cadance, but it wasn’t hard to guess that it was her. Alicorns don’t exactly grow on trees. “Sparks can fend for her herself, we’ve got incoming royalty.” It was a pretty safe bet she was here to check on the wedding preparations—one that was confirmed by the fact that she seemed to be headed straight for the two of us.

Once Princess Cadance was close enough, Fluttershy and I bowed to her. Sure, I might not care much for a lot of the lower nobility, but everypony respected a Princess. Even a lesser one like Cadance.

Princess Cadance slowly walked up to the two of us, exuding an air of regal haughtiness that was just a little bit irritating. When she spoke, the slightest hint of annoyed condescension in her voice. “So, you're Fluttershy? The pony in charge of the music for the wedding?”

Fluttershy slowly stood up, her customary nervousness at dealing with strange new ponies reaching new heights now that she was dealing with strange new royal ponies. “Um, yes I am, Your Highness. I've got the best selection of the most beautiful birds I could find to sing for you, and they’ve all been working really hard to make sure your wedding will be absolutely wonderful.”

While Fluttershy and Cadance went over some of the arrangements, my attention was occupied by the trio of mares following behind her, presumably her bridesmaids. It was kind of hard not to notice that one them was Lyra, especially since Lyra was wildly waving to me while wearing the goofiest grin ever on her face. “Kicky! Hey there! Hi, Kicky!” She was practically bouncing up and down in excitement—not that that was anything all that unusual for Lyra.

Cadance took a break from her conversation with Fluttershy to shoot an intense glare at Lyra, which the excited unicorn didn’t even notice. Thankfully, her dentist friend Colgate, who was somehow another one of Princess Cadance’s bridesmaids, had enough presence of mind to whap Lyra upside the head, which seemed to be enough to remind her that she was supposed to be tending to her duties. I had to wonder just how Lyra and Colgate of all ponies wound up being royal bridesmaids; there had to be a pretty interesting story behind that.

Satisfied that her bridesmaids had sorted out their little discipline problem on their own, Cadance turned back to Fluttershy and offered a polite little smile. “Well, it sounds like you know what you’re doing, unlike some of the ponies I’ve talked to today. Let's hear your birds, then.”

Fluttershy gave a little jump at the request. “Oh, yes, of course! Right away, Your Highness.” She fluttered over to her little choir, and hastily urged them all to take their positions. “Okay everyone, it’s going to be just like we practiced, so I know you’re all going to do wonderfully.” She cleared her throat and started waving her hoof in time with her music they would shortly be providing. “And a one, and a two, and a one two three...”

The birds started singing, with Fluttershy playing the role of conductor. As expected, the whole performance was amazing: every single bird fit their role and complimented the others, with Fluttershy keeping them all in perfect sync and even tossing in a few little vocal flourishes of her own. Everything was going perfectly, until about two thirds of the performance one of the birds started singing horribly off-key. I didn’t know much about music other than what I’d picked up through osmosis hanging out with Lyra, but even I knew that bird was messing up.

Unsurprisingly, Princess Cadance didn’t take the mistake well. Between the fact that she was checking up on Fluttershy and the way she’d grumbled about the other ponies handling wedding preparations, I’d already kind of guessed that she was one of those high-strung brides who blows her top over everything not being absolutely one hundred percent perfect with her wedding. Still, yelling at a bird was going a bit far. “What? You think that kind of performance is good enough for my wedding!?”

For an instant after the Princess raised her voice at one of her pets, Fluttershy looked beyond furious, her eyes narrowed in barely restrained anger. The moment passed quickly enough though, and soon she was back to her normal self. “Oh dear. Um, I’m sorry about that, but Percy is really, really trying his best, and he's got a lot of heart, so I just know with enough practice it'll be amazing. It’s just going to take a little bit longer to get everything ready.”

Cadance rolled her eyes, grumbling under her breath. “Whatever. Just makes sure he gets it right in time for the ceremony, or I’ll feed him to the Long Patrol.” After dropping that nasty little threat she stomped off, presumably to go make somepony else’s life miserable. I kinda felt sorry for Shining Armor, if he was facing the prospect of an entire life married to her. The bridesmaids followed along in Cadance’s wake, Lyra much more reluctantly than the other two.

Once I was certain she was safely out of earshot, I cut loose. “Wow, what a complete and utter nag.”

Eepy shot a quick glare at the Princess, and seemed to be on the verge of agreeing before she caught herself and took a single, calming breath. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair, Cloud Kicker. I'm sure she's just stressed about the big day.”

I stared out after the Princess for a moment, then conceded the matter with a shrug. “Yeah, I guess it could just be that.” I’ll admit, I’ve heard plenty of stories of otherwise decent mares going on a rampage right before the wedding. Not to mention I have a hard time imagining that Princess Celestia would tolerate having such an utter nag as a Princess. I’d like to think Celestia has higher standards than that.

After that, Fluttershy went back to work with her birds, trying twice as hard to make sure there wouldn’t be any more problems. I had planned to stick around for a bit longer, but I did have duties to tend to as well. Duties I was quickly reminded of when I saw a pony in the clan’s red armor headed my way. What really caught my attention, though, was the pony walking alongside one of my Watchponies: there’s only one stallion in all of Canterlot who wears that distinctive set of purple armor, and I couldn’t imagine why he would want to talk to me.

Shining Armor, Captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard, seemed to be in bad shape. There was a haggard look in his eyes, like he hadn’t been getting enough sleep and was under a ton of stress. Not that this was surprising, considering the double whammy of an upcoming wedding and all the planning for the current deployment. Either one of those would be enough to put most stallions through the wringer, let alone both at once.

I was surprised when he walked right up to me. “Cloud Kicker. If you have a moment, there’s something I would like to talk to you about.” He paused, and shot a look at Fluttershy. “Alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I had no idea what he could want from me, but I might as well hear him out. I just hope it wasn’t something stupid, like him wondering if I would show up at his bachelor party. I shot Fluttershy a quick apologetic look, which she met with an understanding smile. Then the two of us trotted off to a relatively isolated area of the compound, which actually wasn’t all that far off from where Star and Sparkler had their little hidden make-out nest.

Once we were somewhere private, I waited patiently for Shining Armor to tell me what was going on. Then a bit less patiently. Then I started getting downright annoyed. “Okay, what’s the deal? You said you had something to talk to me about, so talk.”

“Sorry,” Shining Armor answered, sweat beading on his forehead. “It’s just that it’s difficult to—I have to find the right words.”

“Uh-huh.” Well, this was starting to get into strange territory. To be honest, I was equal parts curious and annoyed over it. I wanted to know what the deal was, but at the same time I had to wonder why he couldn’t just get to the point.

“There’s ... something I need to tell somepony,” he began. “I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s not a problem worth telling the Guard or the Princesses or anypony else important about. It’s just that ... well, I’m worried about the wedding. That something could go wrong during it. And I felt like I needed to tell you that.”

I was about to ask him just what in the feather that was supposed to mean, and why he was talking about it to me of all ponies, when we were interrupted. To my immense displeasure, it was Her Royal Bitchness, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. “There you are, Shining Armor! I’ve been looking all over for you!” One of his eyes twitched a bit when he saw her, and she immediately swooped in, showing off a tender nurturing side. “Oh, my poor Shiny. Are you having another one of your headaches? Let’s go home, and I’ll take care of it for you.”

Shining Armor’s ears went flat, and his shoulders slumped. “That sounds lovely, dear. Thank you.”

Cadance turned to me, still all smiles and sunshine. Maybe the earlier little show of her being a complete and total nag really was just a case of wedding stress. “I’m sorry if he was bothering you. It’s just that keeping the shield up all day, every day is so stressful for him. He gets these terrible headaches, and when they get bad enough he can start acting a bit oddly and saying the strangest things. Just don’t pay him any mind; I hope he didn’t say anything he’ll need to apologize for later.”

“Nah, no damage done.” Ouch, I hadn’t even considered the fact that on top of the Guard duties and the wedding, he was also single-hoofedly maintaining a bubble shield over the city. “Hope your headache clears up, Captain Armor.”

Shining Armor just rubbed the side of his head, looking faintly annoyed by the proceedings. I guess I couldn’t blame him. Nasty headaches do make just about everything a pain in the—well, head, I suppose.

Princess Cadance was halfway to leading her fiance home when she paused, and turned back around to face me. “I just realized, you’re Cloud Kicker, aren’t you? I feel I should say that the incident with your mother was most unfortunate. Her death was a very great loss.” She paused, and her head darted to the sides, as if she were checking to make sure we were still in private. Sensible, considering how the details of what happened with Mom were technically still a state secret. “I just hope that whoever or whatever hired her doesn’t take personal offense at losing such a valuable agent. That could be most unfortunate for you.”

A second later the sound of rapidly displacing air warned me of Rainbow’s impending arrival. I looked up just in time for her to buzz by barely a hoof’s-width over my head. No doubt that was her idea of a prank. I instinctively ducked and flinched away from the incoming pony. “Dammit, Rainbow!”

As the prankster pegasus flew off, cackling gleefully to herself, Princess Cadance blinked and gave a quick shake of head. “Good day, Cloud Kicker.” She turned and started walking off, Shining Armor in tow. “I hope I see you at the wedding. If nothing else, at least come to the reception; I’ve heard the buffet is going to be absolutely delicious.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Your Highness.” I gave a casual little wave as the soon-to-be-newlyweds walked off.

Despite Cadance’s perfectly reasonable explanation for what was going on, and the fact that every single strange thing Shining Armor had done would probably just be written off as pre-wedding jitters if I tried to explain it to anypony, there was something about the whole situation that just didn’t quite sit right with me. Nothing solid I could put my hoof on, let alone bring to anypony else, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something about this whole situation felt off. Whatever it was, I planned on getting to the bottom of it.

The Pony Who Is the New Sheriff in Town

I wasn’t any closer to figuring out what was rotten in Canterlot when Rainbow Dash dropped by the compound the next day. She was pacing around, flicking her wings and stomping her hooves, and I was conversant enough in Rainbow-ese to know that meant something was bothering her. As soon as she spotted me, Rainbow all but bolted over to me. “Cloud, we got a problem. I need to talk to you about the you-know-what and ... stuff.”

Well, that was wonderfully vague. From the way her eyes were darting around, I was pretty sure all that vagueness was deliberate—whatever was on her mind, she wanted to talk to me in private. “Sure thing. Let’s go to my office.”

One minute and a short walk later, I was dealing with a very unimpressed-looking Rainbow Dash. “Kicker, this is just your bedroom.”

“Yeah, well, I do most of my patrol planning and stuff from here, and the title of Captain of the Home Watch doesn’t come with an official office,” I grumbled. That was the one downside of the Home Watch: it might not be quite as much work or pressure as a real Guard command, but it came with absolutely noneof the perks. Admittedly, being around my family was nice, but with as many Kickers as there are in the Guard it’s not like I’d be completely starved for clan interaction there either.

I grinned and gave Dash a teasing little bump with my hip. “Besides, telling you to come to my office makes everything sound all official and businesslike. Asking you to come my bedroom makes it sound like I’m trying to seduce you, and then you’d probably get all freaked out and blushy.”

“Would not.” Rainbow gave an irritated flick of her wings. “Seriously, with as much time as I spend around you, I’m totally immune to all your weirdness.”

I couldn’t let a challenge like that go unanswered. Sure, I might be in a place where I needed to tone things down a bit, but I still had my pride. “Immune, huh?” I dropped my voice to a low, husky whisper, before nuzzling Rainbow’s ear. “So it wouldn’t get you even a little hot and bothered if I did ... this?” I planted a kiss on her cheek while one of my hooves slowly trailed down the edge of her wing.

Rainbow stayed stock still for a couple seconds, though the faint tremble in her legs and growing heat in her cheeks gave her away. Finally, right about the time I gave one of her pinions a teasing little tug, Rainbow let out an almost Fluttershy-esque squeak and pulled her wing away from my grasp. “Um, n-not that that kinda thing was bothering me at all or anything, but I got stuff to talk to you about, so there’s no time for any of your ... your you-ness, okay?”

I pulled back from her, reasonably content in my victory for the moment. We both knew I’d gotten to her, so there was no point in rubbing her face in the fact. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Rainbow.” I gave her a couple seconds to get over any lingering embarrassment before getting back to the matter at hoof. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Rainbow blinked a couple times, then her ears perked back as her mental railroad recovered from the rather nasty derailing I’d inflicted on it. “Oh yeah, that. Right. The thing...” She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Well, there was kinda a problem with the whole wedding thing. Y’see, we were doing a big wedding rehearsal earlier, and Twilight just stormed in and started ranting and raving about how Cadance was evil ‘cause she was trying to steal her big brother from her and stuff, and we needed to cancel the wedding.” Her tail gave an irritated little toss. “Not that it’s any surprise she hates Princess Cadance. She was all pissed from the moment she found out her brother was getting married. I’m surprised she didn’t accuse the princess of kicking puppies and eating foals!”

Well, it sounded like I wasn’t the only one whose life was messy and complicated. I guess I could kind of sympathize, given the kind of impression Cadance had left on me, but cancelling the wedding was a pretty huge step—especially considering how the Princesses were turning it into a big morale-boosting celebration. Let’s face it, a five-minute meeting with the mare in the middle of a bunch of hectic and stressful wedding preparations probably wasn’t going to leave the fairest first impression. It’d be like judging Fluttershy by the one or two times she’d freaked out under massive stress, when ninety-nine percent of the time she’s a complete sweetheart.

“Okay, so Twilight’s not a fan of the wedding.” I gave Rainbow a faintly confused look. “That’s definitely a problem, but isn’t it something you should be talking to her about? Why come all the way here?”

Rainbow went silent, idly walking up to the armor stand sitting in the corner and and taking a few practice swings at it. “That’s the thing that’s really got me bugged now. I mean, at first we were all kinda mad at her going all nutso on us, but then I started thinking we oughta find her and see what the deal was. I mean, I could kinda understand being a little freaked out about the idea that her brother’s gonna be shacking up with some mare she barely even knows.” She paused, and let out an annoyed little snort. “Though you’d think if she cared about her big brother that much, she would’ve told her best friends about him. I didn’t even know she had a brother until a couple days ago!

“Anyway, we were gonna go find her to try and talk to her and stuff, but that’s when things got weird. ‘Cause nopony in Canterlot has seen her since the fight during the rehearsal. I checked her room, all the libraries and museums, all the other egghead places, the stadium where they do the Wonderbolt Derby, that doughnut shop, everywhere! It’s like she just dropped off the face of Equestria!”

That got me worried. Twilight Sparkle having a stress breakdown just meant it was Tuesday again. Twilight Sparkle disappearing without a trace was a much bigger deal, especially when the city was already on high alert. Even if nothing fishy was going on, she was a high-strung Alpha-Plus unicorn. The last two times Twilight got a bit overstressed, she tried to break the space-time continuum and started riots with an errant mind-control spell. “I’m guessing you’ve already asked her family too?”

“Duh,” Rainbow grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Her brother figures she’s just off sulking somewhere after everypony told her that making the bride cry in the middle of a wedding rehearsal isn’t cool. He thinks she’ll be back for the wedding to apologize and stuff. Guess I could see that, but I’d still feel a bit better if I knew where she was.” She shrugged, and her wings gave an irritated little flick. “It just doesn’t sound right to me. Twilight’s usually not a sulky loner type, but I guess her brother knows her better than we do.” Rainbow let out an annoyed grumble, and broke out the sarcasm as she added, “Y’know, since they’re so close that Twilight never even mentioned him, and he didn’t even bother to let her know he was getting married.”

Rainbow gave a wave of her hoof, as if she were tossing the matter aside. “Anyway, if she’s pulling a Rarity and going all ‘I vant to be alone!’ on us, I guess she could do a pretty good job of keeping away with all the teleporting and stuff—though if I knew where to look I’d find her eventually.” She paused for several seconds, then trotted over to my bed and slumped down on it. “You know if there’s any way Star could find out where she is?”

I thought it over for a minute, then shook my head. “You’d have to ask her, but probably not. I don’t think Star’s ever had a chance to slip one of her trackers onto Twilight, and even if she could get her hooves on some of Twilight’s hair or something, I’d be surprised if the Princess’ personal student doesn’t know how to deal with a simple tracking spell.” Like pretty much everypony related to Star, I’d learned a fair bit about how tracking spells worked and how to counteract them. Between that and the usual West Hoof training in what kind of things unicorns can do, I like to think that I know more about magic than the average pegasus.

“Figures,” Rainbow groused. “Things can’t ever be easy.” She shifted around on my bed a bit, then turned to face me. “But yeah, Twilight going missing made me start thinking about the last time a pony went and suddenly disappeared without a trace. Y’know, the whole thing with your mom and stuff.”

That got a bit of a flinch out of me, but by this point Mom’s death was ... well, still painful, but kind of like a wound that had scabbed over and stopped bleeding. Especially considering the implications of what Dash said. “You think she might have been replaced by another one of those bugs?” Last I’d heard, the Princess didn’t think whoever was causing trouble had the resources and connections to hire another one of those mercenary shapeshifters, but there’s a big difference between ‘not likely’ and ‘impossible.’

“Yeah.” Rainbow nodded, taking a couple more swings in the general direction of my armor stand, though it was too far away for her to even come close to hitting. “I mean, it’d make sense to go after her, right? Aside from Spike, she lives on her own, and except for her magic she can’t really fight. Seriously, she’s got no muscle at all, unless you count her eye-muscles. So yeah, one of those bug things just sneaks up on her, nabs her, and next thing you know you’ve got a spy who’s Princess Celestia’s personal student.”

Feathers. That actually sounded like a plausible scenario. Granted, going after an Alpha-Plus unicorn like Twilight was taking a big risk, but if you were trying to get an agent close to Princess Celestia it would be hard to find a better choice than her personal student. Not to mention taking her out would deprive Equestria of the Elements of Harmony. If a changeling had replaced Twilight, nopony would think there was anything out of the ordinary if she spent a couple of days holed up in the library while the bug settled into its new role. Even a unicorn with a ridiculous amount of raw power can get ambushed, especially since she needs to sleep just like everypony else.

There was just one fact that didn’t quite fit. “So if there’s some evil bug monster pretending to be Twilight, why call so much attention to herself by trying to mess up the wedding? You’d think she would be trying to avoid doing anything out of place and flying under the radar.”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed, “unless she’s up to something else. Like, if she’s getting something outta busting up the wedding that’d make the risk pay off. Her brother’s in charge of keeping up the big shield over the whole city, right? So maybe she figures that with the wedding coming up there’s no way she can get to her brother without somepony figuring out something weird’s going on, but if she can break it up then all she needs to do is tell everypony he needs a couple days off to think about stuff, and then she can get to him and have him take down the shield without anypony noticing.”

I frowned at Rainbow, thinking it over. “I dunno, that seems a little thin.” It’s not that there was anything in her idea that made absolutely no sense, but those ideas had to jump through a lot of mental hoops to get to where Dash wanted them. You’d think that if Twilight had been replaced by a changeling infiltrator, it could come up with a less complicated plan for taking Shining Armor out. Heck, it wouldn’t be that hard to lure him somewhere for a private conversation, then pull a surprise attack and take his place to avoid raising any alarms.

Come to think of it, that could also explain why Twilight had vanished without a trace. She’d been replaced, but now the bug had upgraded to a new assumed identity. That was a worrying thought for the day. Rather than linger too long on that paranoia fuel, I threw another question Rainbow’s way. “You tell Princess Celestia any of this? She’ll know more about what’s going on than we do.”

Rainbow immediately nodded. “Yeah, it’s just an idea. Not sure I buy it myself, but once I thought of it, I couldn’t un-think it. Either way, I still wanna make sure Twilight’s okay. Just a question of whether or not I need to kick some bug’s sorry plot to make sure she’s alright.” Rainbow took a deep breath and got back on track. “As soon as the whole changeling thing occurred to me I checked with Princess Celestia, just ‘cause I figured she would know if there might be anything to it beyond me having a brain fart. She didn’t say anything though, she just gave me her Princess Look.”

“What princess look?” I asked.

“Y’know what I mean.” Rainbow waved a hoof in the air. “The Princess Look.”

“If I knew what you meant, would I be asking?”

One of Rainbow’s ears gave an irritated little twitch. “C’mon, you know the look. The one that’s all ... Princess-y.”

Rainbow Dash really does have a way with words sometimes. “Dash, how about you try explaining the look to me without using the word ‘Princess’ anywhere.”

Rainbow grumbled a few less-than-complimentary things about my intelligence, then got to it. “It’s that look where she’s all ‘I’ve been alive for more than a thousand years, so I totally know stuff that I’m not gonna tell you about, and what you just said is something I’m gonna think about and act on without necessarily telling you anything.’” Rainbow’s ears twitched a bit. “Now do you get it?”

“Yeah, now that you’ve actually explained what you were trying to say in clear, comprehensible Equestrian, I do understand what you were trying to say.” Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’d also been on the receiving end of that look when I talked to Princess Celestia in the graveyard. I trotted up and gave Rainbow a mildly condescending pat on the shoulder. “See how much it helps when you use actual words?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rainbow rolled her eyes at me. “Well if Princess-y isn’t a word, it should be. So, that’s pretty much the same thing, really. I mean, am I really supposed to spend five minutes explaining what I mean when instead I could just say that she’s being all Princess-y?”

“Yeah, forcing everypony to learn your made-up words is clearly going to be far less effort than just using comprehensible Equestrian that everypony else understands.” Sometimes, I really have no idea how that mare’s brain works. “Anyway, so Princess Celestia gave you a Princess Look and didn’t say anything. That tells us ... pretty much nothing.”

In my admittedly limited experience, the Princesses tended to keep their own counsel on a lot of things. Apparently around the same time immortals get all their powers, they lose the ability to simply and clearly explain themselves without holding back any secrets. While I’m sure they probably knew a ton of secrets that ordinary ponies had no business knowing—anypony who knows their history can tell you about how much trouble the knowledge of Ascension has caused—there were times when they could be a little more forthcoming. Then again, Rainbow Dash certainly didn’t need to know anything that might prompt her to go and do something stupid and impulsive. I guess at the end of the day, deciding which secrets should stay secret is always gonna be complicated.

I will admit that it’s kinda cool having secrets that nopony else knows. One of the perks of being a long-standing Guard family is that the Kickers do know a few things that most other ponies aren’t privy to. Not huge Equestria-shaking secrets, but we do have a couple little bits of hidden knowledge, like how to open the vault containing Shadow’s armor.

“Well, I’ll let everypony know to keep an eye out for Twilight,” I offered. Sure, the odds that Twilight would just randomly stumble onto the clan’s compound and run into one of my watchponies were pretty close to zero, but it couldn’t hurt. Plus, it would make Rainbow feel better. “I’ll see about getting Star on finding her too.” Once again, it was a longshot, but sometimes those paid off.

Judging by the relieved smile on Rainbow’s face, I’d made the right call. “Yeah? Thanks, Cloud.” She clambered off of my bed and gave me a quick punch in the shoulder by way of thanks. “Nice to know you’ve got my back.”

“Always.” I couldn’t resist throwing in a little bit of smartflankery. “If nothing else, the view is nice.”

“Aw, shaddup.” Rainbow punched me again, this time a little bit harder, but she was still smiling when she did it. She’ll never admit it, but Rainbow enjoys the ego-boost that comes from a little casual flirting from yours truly. “Anyway, I’d like to stick around, but we’ve got a wedding coming up tomorrow. Between the first rehearsal turning into a total bust and the fact that we need a new best mare for Shining Armor, things are even more nuts than they were before. Plus now I’ve gotta do bridesmaid stuff on top of doing a Sonic Rainboom...”

Wait, that was new. “What do you mean you have to do bridesmaid stuff?” I’d met Cadance’s bridesmaids yesterday, and I’d seen one lazy minty-fresh mare, one mildly obsessive dentist, and a third cute unicorn I didn’t recognize but wouldn’t mind getting to know a bit better sometime. Rainbow Dash was notable only by her absence among the Princess’ bridesmaids—it’s hard to miss the self-proclaimed most awesome pony in all of Equestria, ever. “Since when are you a bridesmaid, Dash?”

“Princess Cadance changed it up last night,” Rainbow announced with a casual wave of her hoof. “I guess it was her way of apologizing for being such a nag yesterday. You know, with the whole bridezilla thing?”

“Huh.” Seems like a weird way to make an apology, but it’s not my wedding. I would imagine a lot of ponies would see being a royal bridesmaid as a pretty big honor, even if it is for one of the lesser mortal princesses. Royalty is still royalty, after all. “So, what, does she have eight bridesmaids now? Seems like an awful lot of ponies.” Though considering how last minute all the wedding preparations were, I could see the pragmatic side of stacking up a lot of bridesmaids—hay, I’ve done that once or twice after a wedding. Well, there were two bridesmaids and a bunk bed involved. Good times.

Leaving those pleasant memories aside for the moment, bridesmaids were usually expected to help out with keeping the wedding on track. Of course, Dash and her friends had been doing that already. Maybe that was part of why Cadance gave them the job: pretty much the only part of bridesmaid duty they hadn’t already signed up for was standing around in pretty dresses at the wedding itself.

Rainbow Dash’s answer caught me off guard. “Nah, she got rid of her old bridesmaids. Shining Armor said something about how the only reason they even took the job was ‘cause she was a princess and that being bridesmaids would make them look good.” Rainbow frowned at that, and shrugged. “Doesn’t really sound like Lyra, but I figure they probably just got tired of putting up with all her horseapples while she was still in psycho-rage mode and quit.”

I’ll admit, I could see Lyra throwing in the towel after an entire day of putting up with bridezilla, but something about that explanation just didn’t quite sit right with me. It took me a moment to put my hoof down on what exactly I didn’t like about it. “You seen Lyra since she quit? You’d think she’d drop by just to talk about what an utter nag Cadance was, if she was that pissed.”

“Huh.” Rainbow scratched her chin for a moment, then shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’s hanging with her parents instead, or went back to Ponyville and Bon Bon. Or she could’ve decided to go get hammered after she quit.” Rainbow let out an annoyed snort. “Not that I’d blame her. Princess Cadance isn’t acting as bad as everypony said she was yesterday, but she’s still .... well, it’s enough that I’m gonna see if I can steal some cider off of Applejack tonight. All this wedding stuff is a real pain in the flank.”

Lyra hitting the bars I could definitely see. Sure, she’d tried to tone down the drinking ever since she’d hooked up with Bon Bon, but she wasn’t a teetotaller or anything, and a long, stressful day would be enough to send anypony running to a bar. However, you’d think if that was what she had in mind, she would’ve come looking for me first. Ever since that thing a couple years back during the Summer Sun Celebration she’d been pretty careful about always having a drinking buddy when she went out on the town. Besides, she would want somepony to tag along with her while she was bar-hopping so she’d have a sympathetic ear to complain to. Not to mention the likely prospect of a drunken bang once the night was over.

Normally Rule Three applies when it comes to having sex with drunk ponies, but with as long as Lyra and I had been banging it wasn’t a big issue. There’s a world of difference between dragging some pony who’s too drunk to see straight and has never even met you before back to your bed versus doing that with a pony I’ve regularly banged for years. The whole issue of consent was a lot less thorny, although I still tried to make sure she wasn’t too drunk.

I might not have been all that worried about Lyra under most circumstances—her dropping off the radar after a really stressful day wouldn’t be too strange, but with everything else going on I was starting to get a bit wary. Maybe I was being a little paranoid, but two ponies disappearing without a trace in twenty-four hours sounded a bit suspicious to me.

Granted, if I took it to the gendarmes I would probably get the usual runaround that without any evidence of foul play other than a gut feeling, they would tell me to wait for a day or two before reporting anypony missing. As it was, if I went to them they’d trot out most of the exact same reasons Rainbow had just offered: there were a dozen perfectly rational explanations for where the two had gone that wouldn’t require a Canterlot-wide ponyhunt. The gendarmes get a bit annoyed when they’ve got half the force combing the city for a mare who’s just hanging out with an old college buddy. It’d probably be even harder to get anypony to listen now, between all the general military buildup and the chaos caused by needing to provide security for a hastily-planned royal wedding

Luckily for me, I had an ace in the hole when it came to finding missing ponies.

I found the lovebirds out in the training yard. They weren’t getting up to sexytimes, but it was possible Star had gotten advance warning of my arrival and cut that off. From the looks of things, Star was working through some combat evocation drills and putting on a show for her new fillyfriend. She looked at one of the training targets, concentrated, and half a dozen little balls of light popped out of her horn, floated around for a second or so, then homed in on the target.

Star’s no battle mage—she didn’t have the talent or the raw power to fling attack spells all over the place—but any unicorn who goes through West Hoof is gonna be reasonably proficient in how to use their magic as a weapon. Even the old Unicornian knights used a decent amount of combat magic, and they were famous for having far more physical combat skill than traditional unicorn soldiers. Training a unicorn to fight without working in combat magic is like training a pegasus to fight without including any wing-work, or earth ponies not taking advantage of their natural strength and knack for engineering. At the end of the day, different ponies have different skills, and ignoring that is just stupid.

Admittedly, from what I’ve heard Star had to put in a lot of work to get her battle magic down. Pretty much any time a unicorn wants to learn spells outside of their special talent, it’s a pain in the flank. It’s sort of like if I wanted to learn how to play the piano: if I really wanted to put in all the time and effort I could probably get decent at it. However, it would probably take me a lot more effort to manage than it would for pony whose talent was in music, and I’d probably never get up to the level that a pony with talent could reach.

It’s why a lot of ponies never bother to learn too many skills outside of their special talents; having to put in so much effort when the ponies with a natural edge just do it so easily can be rather disheartening. Granted, ponies can come up with a couple ways to cheat the system if they’re sneaky enough. It can’t be a coincidence that every single attack spell I’ve ever seen Star practice involves shooting out little blasts of fire, ice, or magic that home in on her target. I guess tracking them with fireballs gets the job done.

Sparkler stomped her hooves in approval of Star’s latest display as I trotted up to the newly-minted couple. I suppose I could’ve been all nice and supportive, but teasing them seemed like it would be much more fun. “So, you two are finally out in the open. I guess that means I can’t tease you anymore.” The two young mares knew me far too well to actually fall for that line, but that didn’t make delivering the follow-up any less enjoyable. “So, have you two done the dirty dance yet? If you want, I can totally loan you a couple of my old toys and my copy of the Kamare Sutra. Just wash everything thoroughly before you bring it back, and be careful; some of that stuff has a lot of sentimental value.”

Derpy’s daughter was already blushing and stammering, but my cousin was made of slightly tougher stuff. Or maybe she was just more used to putting up with me. “Thanks for the offer, Cloud, but Sparks and I already took care of that. We spent all of last night going on a massive orgy involving lots of alcohol and illegal drugs. Plus, of course, the sex. Lots of it.”

“Yes,” Sparkler finally managed to squeak out. “We had lots of sexy, sexy sex. Very sexily.”

Ah, classic Star deflection tactic. Throw out a sarcastic confession to something a dozen times worse than what she’s being accused of in the hope that everypony forgets what she was really suspected of doing. Too bad for her I already knew most of her tricks—hay, I’d taught her some of them. “Oooh, sounds like fun. So, did you get a chance to show Sparky the ropes, Star? Literally? Or did you get a chance to break out the toybox?” I leaned over and gave a quick little aside whisper to Sparkler. “I can tell you right now, Star doesn’t have anything close to matching The Empress.”

Despite the blush on her cheeks, Sparkler’s ears perked up just a bit. Not even getting teased could squash that natural teenage curiosity. “I’m probably gonna regret asking this, but what’s an empress? ‘Cause I got a feeling you’re not talking about royalty.”

“The Empress,” I announced, trying to convey the fact that the device deserved capital letters on account of being, well, The Empress, “is pretty much the most amazing banging aid ever invented. Just name a feature, pretty much any feature you can think of, and it has an option for it. Hay, I don’t think I’veeven had a chance to really explore all the things it can do.” Granted, I’d run through most of the basic options by now, but it turns out you can combine multiple modes at once ... well, let’s just say that for all my reputation, even I haven’t had enough banging time to run through all the possibilities yet.

Before I could have too much more fun with them, Star decided to chime in. “Hey, Cloud, aren’t you technically supposed to be working or something?” Before I could come up with a good counter for that, she hit me with the second part of her one-two combo. “Also, unless my eyes are going bad, I’m pretty sure I saw you and a certain rainbow-maned pegasus slip away for a bit. Dare I ask what you two were up to? Alone. For all that time. In your bedroom.”

“Oh shush. You know it wasn’t like that, Star.” Despite the fact that she was completely off-base and we both knew it, Star had still succeeded in getting under my skin to a degree. Like most younger siblings, she had a real knack for being an annoying brat when the mood struck her. Thankfully, I’ve learned a few tricks for dealing with that kind of thing. First off, you can always point her at another target, and there was one pony she’d never waste a chance to go after. “Don’t get me wrong, Dash is smoking hot, but we both know it’d break Storm’s heart if I ever messed around with her.”

Star grinned as the eternal sibling rivalry sprang up once more. “True, she has been nursing a crush on Rainbow since the first time she saw her. It was puppy love at first sight.”

It wasn’t, of course, but no proper sibling would let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a perfectly good teasing opportunity. As far as I could tell, Storm really was just a straight mare who had a reasonable amount of admiration for an admittedly cool pony. That hadn’t stopped me from trying to get Rainbow to hit on Storm for a prank, but Dash didn’t want any part of it. In hindsight, that was a good move on her part. Way too much potential for the whole thing to come across as mean-spirited, especially if it turned out that Storm was actually only ninety-nine percent straight. Let’s face it: if a straight mare was gonna have an exception, Rainbow was a pretty good choice.

Then again, this is coming from a mare who’s wondered more than once how things might have gone if I’d ever made a serious effort at hooking up with Dash. Not pining after her or anything—if I’d wanted Rainbow, I would’ve done something about it—but it’s hard not to wonder about life’s what-ifs sometimes. Between my overactive sex drive and messy personal life, I’ve got plenty of room to wonder about that kind of thing.

However, I didn’t come here to get all misty-eyed about what might have been or speculate on my little cousin’s sexual orientation. I had actual business to take care of. “Got a couple missing ponies I need you to find for me, Star.”

“Well, you definitely came to the right mare, then.” Star grinned and trotted over to her new fillyfriend’s side, giving her a quick hip bump once she was in position. “So, who did you lose?”

“Like I said, we’ve got two missing ponies.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning as I noticed how Sparkler and Star were leaning against each other. New couples are so cute. I bet they were gonna play hoofsie at the dinner table too. “Alright, first off: Lyra’s gone missing on us. You won’t have any trouble finding her, right?”

“Harpbutt’s vanished on us again?” Star groaned and shook her head. “Figures. And I guess getting me to ping her tracker is faster than checking every bar in Canterlot. Well, at least I put a fresh tracker on her a couple weeks ago, and she actually tries to keep ‘em on her and in good condition.”

Sparkler shot Star a curious look. “Wait, she’s not only okay with you following her everywhere, she’s actually a fan of it? I mean—no offense, sweetie, but I’m just starting to get to the point where I’m not creeped out by your whole tracking device thing, even if it is kinda cute. In a weird, uncomfortable, stalker-y kinda way.”

Star unleashed a full-force pouty frown on her new paramour. “Aw, don’t be like that, Sparks. Besides, if it bugged you that much, you wouldn’t have spent an hour last night helping me refine the new tracking gem I’m making for you.”

“Always watching meeeeee.” Sparkler grinned and nuzzled her. “Guess you must like what you see.”

My cousin nuzzled her back. “Guess so.” Her ears perked up, and her brain started working again instead of being overwhelmed by hormones and horniness. Granted, those two things are pretty much the same thing when it comes to teenage unicorns in love, but whatever. “Anyway, yeah. Lyra got into a tight spot a while back, and it was only my tracking spells that let me and Storm find her and help her out in time. Ever since then, she tries to keep my trackers on her and in good shape. They’ll still burn out eventually, but if you’re careful with them they can last for a long time.” She leaned over and half-whispered to Sparkler. “Of course, I’m making a special rechargeable one for my sweetie.”

“Awww.” Sparkler turned around and kissed Star on the cheek. “That’s so sweet ... and maybe just a tiny bit disturbing. But mostly sweet.”

“Hey!” I cut in. “Focus, lovebirds.” The last thing I needed to deal with was listen to them going all love bunny on each other. There’s only so many ‘schmoopies’ a mare can take. “Star, if it won’t be any trouble to find Lyra, then how about you do it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Star grumbled, reluctantly taking a step away from Sparkler so she could concentrate on getting her work done. “Who else was it you wanted me to find? As long as I’m pinging trackers, I might as well get them both at once.”

“Twilight Sparkle, the Princess’ student.”

Star’s eyes went wide at that. “Are you kidding? I don’t think I’ve ever properly met her, and even if I’d ever had a chance to put a tracker on her, it probably wouldn’t work. I mean, she’s the first natural Alpha-Plus ever, and she’s the Princess’ personal student! She’s probably better at tracking magic than I am!”

Well, that was pretty much the answer I’d expected. Like I told Rainbow, it wasn’t likely. Still, might as well make sure I’d covered every possibility. “What about your other spells that don’t need a tracker?”

Star let out a snort at that. “Yeah, not likely. Most of those need some kind of connection back to the pony you’re tracking—hair, blood, stuff like that—and I don’t leave anything like that lying around because I don’t want to be tracked. Let alone some of the nasty dark magic something can pull off if it has some of your blood. I can’t imagine Twilight Sparkle would be sloppy about that kind of thing either. Unless she somehow managed to forget every single thing she ever learned about thaumaturgy, she’d know to be careful about not leaving samples of her blood and hair all over the place. Even if she did slip up, it’s not like her family or the Princess would just hoof some of her blood over to anypony who asked.” Star paused, gaving an annoyed tail flick. “Even if I did manage to get my hooves on something to base a tracking spell off of, she’s probably got some way of countering it.”

“It was worth asking,” I said as gently as possible. Star was looking just a little worked up. I wonder if the idea of an untrackable pony bugged her? Or maybe she just didn’t like the idea of a pony who could beat her at her own game?

“Yeah, sure,” Star grumbled. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, while her horn let out a soft blue glow. From what I understood, Star didn’t know where every single one of her trackers was at any given time; having that information constantly bouncing around in her brain would probably make it just about impossible to concentrate. So instead, she needed to concentrate on a specific tracker whenever she wanted to know what that pony was up to.

Once my cousin got the information back from her tracking device on Lyra, she frowned. “Feathers, we’ve got a problem. Lyra’s down in the caves.”

Sparkler sighed and applied hoof to face. “Lyra, I know the difference between 'tavern' and 'cavern' may seem small at first, but—”

“S’not something to joke about, Sparks.” There was a bit of snap to Star’s voice, causing Sparkler’s ears to press back against her head. Star saw the reaction, and immediately apologized, “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound so pissed. It’s just that, well, remember that time I was telling you about when she got into a lot of trouble trouble a couple years back? That was down in the caves. I don’t think there’s any way she’d go wandering around down there on her own without telling anypony.”

“Which means if she’s down there, odds are pretty good it’s ‘cause she’s in trouble,” I concluded. “Star, I want you to take a patrol and go check it out.”

“I’ll go with her,” Sparkler immediately volunteered.

Star had her mouth halfway open to answer when I cut her off. No idea what she was about to say, but either way it was better if I did the talking. “You’re staying topside, Sparks. You don’t have combat training or even a proper suit of armor, and I don’t need Star thinking more about her new fillyfriend than she is about the mission.”

Sparkler gave an annoyed little twitch at my answer, then stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, I know I'm not a Guard, but it’s not like I'm gonna go all Rainbow and charge head-first into the dark, spooky caves. S’just that Lyra's also my friend, and if you're both worried about her, then I’ve got a pretty good reason to be nervous too.”

For a second I was tempted to order her to shut up and fall in rather than debate the matter, but I’m pretty sure that would’ve accomplished less than nothing. Sparkler seemed like the kind of teenager who would buck authority figures just on general principle. Guess I would have to reason with her, then. “I understand how you feel, Sparkler. She's your friend, and you want to help her. But going down there isn't gonna do anything to help her. No offense, but you'd just be getting in the way.”

Needless to say, her teenage pride did not care for the implication that she was just a damsel in distress in a combat situation. “I don't wanna sit up here wringing my hooves and just hope that my friend'll be okay. If I have to stay at the back of the squad and be ready to run the second somepony tells me to, then I'll do that—but it beats the hay outta the waiting game.”

“Ready to run, huh?” I frowned at her skeptically. “So you know your way through the Undermountain caves? The way I hear it, unless you’ve got an up-to-date map or you really know your way around, it’s pretty easy to get lost down there.”

“Wouldn’t be that hard to just go back the way I came,” Sparkler grumbled. “I’m also pretty good at hiding, if it comes to it. I’m pretty decent with veils thanks to my talent being light refraction.” She paused, and gave a small little shiver. “And thanks to you and Mom, I have a silence spell down like it’s my special talent.”

While that comment brought back a few bittersweet memories, I tried to stay focused on the present. “Hiding and getting lost isn't gonna do Lyra any good.” I mulled it over for a bit, and shifted gears. If her big objection was not wanting to sit uselessly on the sidelines, then there was a better solution than just giving her a flat no. “Besides, there's something else I need your help with up here.”

Sparkler scowled at that, presumably because she suspected that I was just trying to come up with some kind of make-work for her while Star went on a potentially dangerous mission. “S’this more important than finding our mutual friend?”

“I’d say it’s more about finding both our mutual friends,” I answered her. “While Star's running down Lyra, I need you to help me follow up a lead on where Twilight might be.” I didn’t know if Twilight technically qualified as a friend to Sparkler, but from what I knew they got along well enough. After all, Twilight did teach her that silence spell to deal with the problem of certain nightly noises whenever I stayed over at Derpy’s.

Sparkler was still frowning, but she didn’t look quite as pissed now as she’d been when I first brought it up. She scooted a little bit closer to Star, then reluctantly conceded. “I'm not saying yes, but I'll let you finish making your point.”

Willingness to put up with teenage stubbornness fading ... fading ... gone. “Sparkler, Lyra might be in trouble, and I don’t have time to debate this with you.” I turned to Star and gave her marching orders. “Take a team, and go find Lyra.”

Star gave me a slightly reluctant nod, followed up with a quick salute. “Yeah, sure thing, Cloud. She’s pretty deep in, and we’ll need to go slow and quiet, so it might take a while. Need a bit to get the maps and supplies too.”

“Then you’d best get started right away,” I concluded.

Sparkler took my exercise of command authority exactly as well as I’d expected her to. “No, you don't get to play that game. Maybe you can make Star go all ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am, three bags full ma’am’ on you, but I’m not one of your little soldiers. I told you I'd listen to you, Cloud, but if you think you can just pull the rug out from under me, I'm gonna go with Star without listening to a word you say.” To underline her declaration of teenage defiance, she pressed herself against Star’s side and gave her a quick nuzzle.

Star jumped to my defense, keeping her voice gentle and loving to take the bite out of her words. “Sparks, she's right. I need to be focused on Lyra, not keeping an eye on you.”

I gave my cousin a quick grateful nod for the backup. “Plus, finding Twilight's just as important as finding Lyra, maybe even more important. And I need your help with that, Sparkler.”

Sparkler gave a frustrated little grumble, then turned and latched onto Star. “You stay safe down there. I'll kick your plot if you let anything happen.”

Star hugged her back, and added in a quick kiss for good measure. “I will be.” Sparkler returned the kiss, and then very reluctantly let go. For the moment the two did the expected wistful staring into each other’s eyes, and then Star began very slowly trudging off to get ready for her expedition.

I walked up to Sparkler and silently put a hoof on her shoulder. Yeah, I might’ve been a bit harsh when it came to separating the two of them, but I’m not heartless. At first she tensed up at the touch, but after a second or two she slowly relaxed, then reached up and put her hoof over mine. I gave her a quick supportive little nuzzle, then got back to business. “C'mon. Let's hit the library.”

Sparkler couldn’t help letting out an amused little snort at that. “Sounds like a good place to start looking for Miss Twilight.”

It was, but that’s why the libraries had been the first place Rainbow checked. I had something else in mind. “We’ve got some research to do.”

Her ears perked up in curiosity at that. “Yeah? Guess it’s got something to do with this lead we’re following up on, right?”

“Yeah. We need to dig up everything we can find about changelings.” I’m still not sure if I actually bought Rainbow’s theory about Twilight being replaced by a shape-shifting spy, but it made enough sense that it seemed prudent to follow up on it.

Sparkler gave me a confused frown. “Changelings? What have they got to do with—” She trailed off and her jaw dropped as the obvious implication sank in.

“We need to follow up on every lead, even the strange ones.” That said, I started double-timing it to the clan library, with Sparkler breaking into a quick canter to keep up. While we walked, it struck me that she hadn’t asked the expected question of, ‘What’s a changeling?’ That bore following up on. “Do you know anything about them already?”

The teenager gave a quick shake of her head. “Nothing much. Just the odd story about 'em from Grampa whenever he talks about the times he went to Freeport—and when he does that, it's usually either about trade or to visit our distant relatives there. They just pop up in one or two of the stories about what goes on there.” Her nose scrunched up as she dug through her memories. “With the whole shapeshifting thing, they’re kinda famous for being the best spies and contract killers gold can buy. ‘Course, most of the stories from Freeport are pretty crazy, so I’m not sure how much I’d believe about any of that. Plus I heard there was kind of ... like, factions or something.”

After a moment’s consideration, I decided to give her a bit of quick clarification. I don’t think just explaining that much would be hoofing over info Princess Celestia wanted under wraps. “Yeah, there's the one little breakaway group, and the big hive mind swarm. From what I’ve heard, they don’t get along, and there was a civil war or something.”

Sparkler stared at me, a confused frown on her face. “A civil war in a hive mind? How's that even happen?”

“Apparently they decided to experiment with free will or something.” I shrugged, and picked up the pace a bit as the library came in sight. “One of the things that we'll be reading up on.” The Kicker clan library wasn’t all that large, especially compared to the royal one, but it did have the virtue of being a bit more tightly focused than most. It wasn’t completely filled with military-related books, but you’d definitely find a lot more of those than you would light fiction. We also had a decent selection when it came to general information on other species and nations. Know thy potential enemy, and all that.

Sparkler let out a slight grumble at the faster speed I’d set, but kept up. “So let me in on something—how's this a lead on Miss Twilight? I can guess at why you wanna look up info on shapeshifters right after Miss Twilight went missing, but why would you think one of them got to her? Who else d'you have looking for her?”

Now she was getting into dangerous territory. I was already in treading on thin ice when it came to my oath of secrecy to Celestia, and telling her anything more about why I might suspect that another one of those changeling mercenaries was involved would be crossing a big line. “Need to know, Sparks.”

Unsurprisingly, that got her back up again. “Well, I need to know, considering you just sent my marefriend down into the heart of the mountain.”

I shook my head as we stepped up to the entrance of the library. “No, you don't need to know. You want to know. As far as national security is concerned, that’s not the same thing.”

Sparkler stubbornly set her hooves at the entrance, refusing to cross the threshold. “Well, if you want my help then that's the price. You're already keeping me from looking for one missing pony I care about and keeping me away from Star in the process, but you're damn crazy if you think I'm going to let you do that again without giving me some kind of hint as to who's looking for her.”

One of my ears started twitching in aggravation, but there was no harm in throwing her a bone here. She wasn’t digging for the classified information I was justifiably wary of hoofing out. “Once you’re settled in I’ll tell the Watch to keep an eye out for her, and Rainbow’s already talked to the Princess.”

Sparkler gave a triumphant little grin as she stepped into the library. “That wasn't so hard, now was it?”

I gave an annoyed little flick of my wings at her attitude. Now wasn’t the time to correct it though, as long as it wasn’t causing problems. “I thought you were asking about other stuff. Stuff I can't tell you.”

She let out a little snort. “Got a good enough theory on what that stuff is anyway. Don’t have any details, but I can guess the basics.”

I gave a carefully neutral nod and quickly changed the subject. I didn’t want to get stuck saying ‘no comment’ or ‘I can neither confirm nor deny’ while Sparkler started wildly speculating about what happened with Mom. “We’ve got work to do and a ticking clock to get it done in if Twilight’s in as much trouble as I’m afraid she might be.”

Sparkler started checking over the reference list to figure out where the books we would want were stored. The Kicker library is modest compared to any of the royal libraries in Canterlot, but it could still take a while to find the right book if you didn’t know where to look. “Question is, if she hasn't been replaced, how can we tell?”

“That’s part of what I plan on finding out,” I answered her simply. “So far, all I know is that they can shapeshift, spit sticky goo, are hard to kill, and their blood’s green. Plus, I don’t think they can copy all of a pony’s skills, so I guess we could always check that Twilight still has all her magic. Either way, now I want to know the rest of it, starting with how to spot them and deal with them.”

“Uh-huh.” Sparkler was staring at me askance, probably because I’d pretty much given away that I had personal experience with a changeling and had probably gotten into a life-or-death fight with one. Well, it probably wasn’t anything she hadn’t already guessed, just from the fact that I was talking about them at all.

Sparkler led the way to our section for all things non-Equestrian, and grabbed the first book she saw with ‘changeling’ on the spine. She turned it over, revealing a picture that bore at best a vague resemblance to the creature I’d fought in that cave. She held the book up and showed me the cover. “Is that what they really look like?

“Not exactly.” I thought about the best quick way to sum it up. “They kinda look like ponies crossed with bugs in their natural form.”

Sparkler carefully assimilated that information, and after further consideration announced her verdict: “Ew.”

I went over the shelves and pulled out a couple more books that seemed like they might have some useful information about changelings, then set them down on a nearby table for Sparkler. “Alright, you get started on these. I’m going to go check in with the Watch and make sure they know to keep an eye out for Twilight, and then I’ll be in here working on this with you.”

“Right.” Sparkler hesitated for a moment, then shuffled over and hugged me. “S’everything gonna be alright, Cloud?”

“Yeah.” I gave her a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.”

The rest of the day proved distressingly fruitless. The Watch failing to turn up any sign of Twilight Sparkle wasn’t a big surprise—I honestly would’ve been shocked if they’d actually come across her. Regardless of whether she’d been replaced by a shapeshifting bug monster or was just off sulking because she’d gotten into a fight with her friends, it seemed like she—or the bug monster that had replaced her—didn’t want anypony finding her. The odds that she would just come wandering into my clan compound weren’t exactly high.

What was more of a disappointment was that Sparkler didn’t turn up anything terribly useful. That’s not to say we didn’t dig up any information, just that nothing came up which really expanded my knowledge base, beyond confirming a few things I’d already been reasonably sure about. Most of the suggested measures to uncover a changeling were the kind of things anypony with a working brain could come up with if you gave them a few minutes. Ask something only that pony would know, have them display their special talent, stuff like that. Certainly not bad ideas, but I’d been hoping for something I couldn’t come up with on my own.

As an added problem, most of the tests for uncovering a changeling being so basic and common-sense probably meant that changelings had at least some idea of how to counter them. If I was a veteran spy who knew that something as simple as making sure my blood was red could blow my cover, I’d have some kind of backup plan ready. Same for most of the other basic tests.

On top of that, Star wasn’t back yet. That wasn’t a big deal, considering how big the Undermountain caverns were, and Star along with a team of watchponies should be more than capable of looking after themselves, but I still didn’t like it. Maybe I just wasn't comfortable with the idea that I’d sent my little cousin into a potentially dangerous situation. Whatever the case, I hadn’t gotten much sleep that night. Too busy worrying about my cousin.

I’d also forwarded what I knew to Dad. I knew there wasn’t a lick of hard evidence to back me up, and a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations that didn’t require going on high alert, but I still wanted to follow up on the worst case scenario. Maybe I was being overcautious and wasting a lot of ponies’ time and effort, but I’d rather follow up on a dozen false leads than let something bad happen to somepony—potentially a lot of ponies, considering the stakes.

Hopefully Shining Armor was right about Twilight Sparkle turning up for the wedding. It’d be one less issue on my plate. It was kinda strange to think that Sparkler and I might be wasting our time sitting in the library reading up on changelings for the second day running on the off chance that she’d been replaced. For all we knew, Twilight might be slipping into the palace, offering a sheepish grin and quick apology to everypony while we had our noses buried in these books. Kinda put things in perspective.

I hadn’t planned on going to the wedding proper; in my experience, both weddings and any public event involving royalty are incredibly long, boring, tedious, and filled with entirely too much pageantry. If I ever end up tying the knot, I figure I’ll keep things nice and simple: just give me a nice dress (though no way in Tartarus I’ll be able to get away with wearing white), some friends and family, and a quiet little ceremony. Anything more than that’s just showing off.

Bah, all the wedding talk going on must be getting to me. Listen to me, planning my wedding like I’m a schoolfilly who just got her first crush. I swear, I’m going to need to spend a day with Rainbow talking about all things awesome, cool, and radical to make up for this. Maybe we could go find a monster and beat it up once we’re done with that.

In any case, if I’d managed to find Lyra and Twilight in time, I’d head for the reception. That’s where the real fun of weddings comes in: partying, cake, music, alcohol, all the good stuff. It’s a pity I’d probably have to pass on picking up anypony there, but my love life was complicated enough as it was.

Well, okay, maybe Luna if she made a pass at me and let me know whether or not I’d actually done anything with her other than make a fool out of myself. Or I could just bring Lyra home for some fun. I’m not made of stone.

I glanced over at my temporary study buddy. From the glazed look in her eyes and the goofy smile on her face, I was going to guess that wedding fever was hitting Sparkler hard. No doubt she was imagining something utterly cheesy where she and Star called each other love muffin, had the the most ridiculously fairytale wedding ever, and of course capped it off with the all-but-required wedding cliche of a small horde of doves and butterflies.

I let her have her fantasy for now; it made her happy, and it’s not like our work had been all that productive so far. I wouldn’t say the research had been a total bust, but after all the hours of reading the most useful thing I’d gotten for my trouble was a single reasonably accurate diagram of a changeling in its natural state, which gave me a chance to find a few weakpoints in their exoskeletons. I’d still rather have a weapon that’s just better suited to busting armor, but the only Guard-issue weapon I’d kept reasonably practiced in was my wing blades. I didn’t like my odds if I tried to start using hammer hooves or a lance when I hadn’t practiced with either one since West Hoof.

I was just starting to get a little bored with watching Sparkler daydream when one of my watchponies galloped into the library. “Captain! Star and her patrol are back, and she said she needs to see you ASAP!”

Sparkler snapped out daydreaming at the mention of her marefriend, though the silly grin on her face only widened. She must have missed the urgency in the watchpony’s voice on account of being all excited about her fillyfriend’s return. “Star’s back?”

I wasn’t as optimistic. Star saying she needed to talk to me as soon as possible probably meant something had gone wrong. If everything was fine, she would’ve come in complaining about having to drag Lyra’s hung-over plot back from out of the caves. Sending a runner to get me sounded too serious.

I’d been ready for a lot of things to have happened, but when I finished following the runner at full gallop to Star’s position, I got a nasty surprise. There was already a small cluster of ponies, some Watch, some off-duty Kickers, and the rest the usual mix of friends, visitors, and ponies who just happened to be passing by and wondered what was going on. Everypony made a path for me quickly enough, with Sparkler following in my wake.

Once I was through the cluster of onlookers I was able to confirm that my patrol had at least made it back with everypony accounted for, though Star looked worse for the wear. A medic was checking her over, and even her dark coat couldn’t completely hide the nasty set of bruises around her neck. Needless to say, Sparkler immediately ran over to Star’s side and started fussing over her. The bruises were ugly, but what really caught my attention was the fact that they were in a very distinctive pattern.

Lyra’s hand spell leaves some very unique marks. I just never figured on seeing them around my cousin’s throat.

“What happened?” I demanded.

Star rubbed her throat for a few seconds, and when she spoke her voice came out weak and scratchy. “Lyra. Mind control. Bad.”

One of the watchponies who’d gone down into the caves with Star stepped forward. “I’m sorry, ma’am. When we found Miss Heartstrings everything seemed like it was on the level, then she asked to have a word in private with Star, and a minute later we heard the two of them fighting and the target was trying to strangle Star.”

“She got away,” Star rasped out. “Ran for it, dropped her tracker. Could’ve taken hours to find her down there. Had to get word back.”

“You did the right thing,” I quickly reassured her, before stepping aside to let the medic get back to work. Granted, if she’d managed to make it all the way back to the surface after being attacked deep in Undermountain she was probably fine, but better safe than sorry.

Feathers. So much for hoping everything was going to turn out nice and peaceful. Lyra being mind-controlled and running around Undermountain was bad news. My gut told me that Twilight’s disappearance was tied to it somehow too. The timing was too convenient for it to be a coincidence.

I was about to start barking out orders when I spotted something strange on the other side of the bubble shield protecting the city. It was a bit hard to tell what with the purple-pink dome between us and the outside world. At first I thought it might be just some random bits of dust in the wind or something. Once again, some sixth sense told me it wasn’t anything that innocuous. Whatever it was, I wanted a closer look. “Somepony get me a telescope, or some binoculars—or something!”

“Just a sec, I got it.” I was a little surprised when Sparkler stepped away from Star long enough to cast a spell, and then a small circular section of the air in front of me turned weirdly distorted. It took a second for it to click: Sparkler’s talent was light refraction, and telescopes were pretty much all about redirecting light. Useful spell to have.

It took me a moment or two to figure out which way to look through the zone of magically distorted light to actually get a clear view, but when I did see what we were up against, my blood ran cold. Those little black specks weren’t dust particles; they were chitinous beasts I recognized all too well.

Changelings. A whole feathering army’s worth of them.

The Pony With an Army of Assassins

Most ponies probably would’ve started panicking and running the instant they saw an army of bug monsters approaching the city. I’ll admit, I was pretty tempted by the idea too. However, my West Hoof training kicked in, and reminded me that for the moment I was the officer in charge. Right now the safety of every single pony in the Kicker compound was my responsibility. I wasn’t planning to let any of them down.

First things first, I needed to remind everypony of that. I clamped down hard on my own fear and took charge. “Sparkler, stick with me for now. Everypony else, get ready for battle. I want every watchpony and anypony else who knows how to fight on the walls, and anypony who can’t handle themselves in a fight somewhere safe.”

A pretty generic set of orders to start things off, but it would at least get ponies moving. It also gave me a little bit of time to think it all through. Time to try and figure out just what the hay my next move should be.

“We’ve still got the shield,” Sparkler commented, a hint of barely restrained fear in her voice. “There’s no way they can get through a shield like that.” From the way she was saying it, I’m pretty sure Sparkler was trying to convince herself as much as anypony else.

Sadly, I couldn’t do much to reassure her. I didn’t want to terrify her out of her wits or anything, but pulling my punches wouldn’t do her any favors either. Downplaying the threat would just make things worse. “Maybe the shield will hold them off, but I think we should get ready for a fight regardless. Plus, I don’t think an army’s worth of shapeshifters would be openly showing themselves unless they were ready to make their move.”

“So I guess that means Miss Twilight got changelinged after all,” Sparkler concluded. “And she’s up to something that’ll take the shield down. Bet the wedding must be getting pretty interesting right about now.”

“Seems likely.” If the enemy was planning on taking down the shield, they would have to knock Shining Armor out of the picture one way or another. With the wedding going on right now, it was a safe bet that something crazy had happened during the ceremony. So far, the best guess I could come up with was that the Twilight changeling had gotten to him somehow and whatever she had planned to take him out of the equation had already happened. Either the shield was about to go down, or it had been weakened enough that the bugs wouldn’t have a hard time busting through with a sustained attack.

Speaking of changelings, I needed to make sure I wasn’t going to get jumped by a shapeshifter the instant I turned my back on anypony. I didn’t think it likely the bugs would have snuck somepony into the city to take me out, but it was better to play it safe. I walked over to Star, one of the few Kickers who wasn’t running around trying to fulfill my orders on account of what happened with Lyra, and flicked a wing. The blade left a shallow little cut across her cheekbone, with a few drops of blood trickling out.

Star didn’t manage more than a raspy yelp, but Sparkler was quite ready to leap to her fillyfriend’s defense. She quickly interposed herself between me and Star, then got way too far into my personal space for an unarmed mare facing off against a pony in full wargear. “Cloud! What the hay are you doing?”

The only answer I gave was to put an identical cut across her cheek, and then one on myself too for good measure. I checked what color the blood was once it had hit the ground. All red. I hadn’t been too worried about Sparkler being a changeling—or myself, obviously—but checking Star was prudent after she’d been gone for most of a day.

Sparkler backed off on the righteous indignation once she’d figured out what I was doing, which was a welcome relief. I really didn’t need to deal with teenagerness on top of everything else. She even explained it for Star’s benefit. “Those bug things are shapeshifters. One of the best ways to tell whether they’re for real or not is that they bleed green.”

“Only once the blood leaves contact with the body, though,” I cautioned. “Keep an eye out for any ways of getting around it—odds are the bugs know some.” I turned to my cousin. “Star, check the soldiers. Sparkler, I want you checking all the noncombatants. Recruit what help you need to get the job done, and test everypony. Not even Princess Celestia comes on the compound without bleeding first.”

“Plan?” Star asked. Her voice seemed a bit better than it had been right after she got back, but I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be barking orders in a parade ground voice anytime soon.

“We hold the compound.” I scowled up at the shield. “Whatever’s going on at the palace is either something Celestia, the Solar Guard, and the Element-bearers can handle, or so far out of our league we wouldn’t make a difference. Or both.” I would’ve felt a lot better if we had Princess Luna around too, but she was off with the Long Patrol checking the borders for threats. Clearly, the swarm of changelings had slipped past them; not hard to do if they just shifted to look like ordinary ponies and didn’t cross the border all at once. Shapeshifters don’t fight fair.

I moved on to the part of the briefing that concerned Sparkler. “Going to be a lot of scared civilians out there, and most of the smart ones are going to run to the nearest strongpoint for safety. For everypony who lives in sight of the compound, that’s us. You’re going to have a lot of incoming civilians to check, so find plenty of noncombatants to lend a hoof. I don’t want to be stuck choosing between turning ponies away and worrying a bunch of bugs are going to jump out of the siege bunkers and hit us from behind.”

I took a look over the compound, dredging up everything I remembered from my lessons at West Hoof that might apply. “Check for anypony with useful skills too. Probably going to be some veterans who aren’t in the Home Watch. Get them to help you maintain order, and send any you can spare to the armory. We’ve got enough chainmail and weapons to bulk up our numbers some, even if it’s not as good as proper platemail.” I thought that over for a moment, then added. “Also, keep an eye out for somepony who can take charge, once you’ve done some bug-testing. No offense Spark, but I’d rather not put a teenager in charge of a horde of refugees.”

“Keep an eye out for doctors too,” Star suggested. “Or anypony close enough to do the job. Even a vet knows enough basics to keep a pony from bleeding out.”

Sparkler looked back and forth between the two of us, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and her eyes were so wide they looked like they were in danger of popping out of her head. When she spoke, there was an unmistakable tremble of terror in her voice. “Cloud—Star—this is ... I don’t...”

Under any other circumstances I would’ve been gentle and understanding with her, but right now we didn’t have time for her (completely understandable) panic attack. I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a slightly rough shake to snap her out of it. “Sparkler! I know I’m throwing a whole lot of responsibility on you, but right now you’re one of the two ponies in the hold I can be one hundred percent sure isn’t a changeling. It’s not fair of me to ask so much from you when you’re still just a kid, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to grow up a little faster. Can you handle that?”

“I—” Sparkler closed her mouth, and took a couple shaky breaths. The shaking died down, and when she spoke she still sounded scared out of her wits, but in control. “Yeah. I got it.”

With that settled, the three of us double-timed it to the clan’s siege bunkers. The bunkers were there for exactly this sort of scenario: Canterlot under attack, and a lot of civilians needing a safe place to stay. Sure, the bunkers were old and most of them had been converted into storage areas, but they would still keep ponies safe. I just hope we didn’t run out of room for civilians on account of all the random stuff ponies had shoved into unused bunkers over the years.

I concentrated what Watchponies I had around the bunkers themselves. The bugs had wings, so there wasn’t much point trying to hold onto the compound’s outer walls. Three dimensional warfare made terrain much less of an issue. I didn’t plan on letting the changelings set one hoof in the compound without giving them a fight, but the only fixed points I absolutely had to defend were the entrances to the bunkers.

The worst part of the whole situation was how helpless I felt when it came to really controlling the situation. Sure, I had the Home Watch, but a company’s worth of ponies, most of whom were either too old or too young to be on the battlefield, wasn’t much of an army. Nothing compared to the battalion of Solar Guard at the palace, and however many other units were spread around the city.

The ugly truth was, I had no real say in how this battle went down. One company mostly made up of kids and ponies in their golden years wasn’t going to be enough to change the outcome of the battle for Canterlot—that would be up to the Princesses, the Guard, and maybe Rainbow and the other Element-bearers. All I could really do was try to keep myself and everypony else in the compound alive until the day was saved. I didn’t like feeling that helpless.

Once I’d gotten everypony into position, there wasn’t much more I could do, other than watch and wait as the changelings slammed themselves against the shield, and deal with the steady trickle of civilians coming into the compound for shelter. From the look of things, Sparkler had managed to get some kind of testing regime set up, because I could see ponies getting checked for blood as they entered the bunkers. I didn’t think it too likely there were changelings masquerading as random Canterlot civilians, but there’s a big difference between ‘incredibly unlikely’ and ‘impossible.’ If nothing else, it would put ponies’ minds at ease, and get everypony used to the idea that all new arrivals needed to be tested.

There was just one thing about this whole scenario that didn’t add up: from what Princess Celestia had told me, the changelings like the one who’d gotten Mom were pretty rare, and didn’t get along with the rest of them. I know Cadance’s intelligence service had slipped up on letting Mom get snagged, but it was hard to imagine them getting basic facts like that wrong.

Most of the possible explanations were a bit worrying. Could we have missed the changelings who broke away from the hive mind, somehow going from a few isolated holdouts to an entire army? Or had the hive mind found a way to work out the flaws in their imitation process? That possibility was especially scary, since if the hive mind had come up with a way to make better infiltrators, they might have found a way around the few changeling detection tricks Sparkler and I had discovered during our research.

If either of those were the case, we could be in huge trouble. Princess Celestia mentioned that they would be checking for any more changelings after what happened to Mom, but if the bugs had a way to elude any efforts at detection then there was no telling how many key guardponies might have already been replaced. A sick feeling of dread settled deep into the pit of my stomach when I realized that they might have gotten Dad too. Even if they hadn’t, Dad was at the wedding, right in the middle of whatever might be happening there...

No. I couldn’t afford to think about that. I needed to stay focused on what I could deal with. Right now, that meant the Kicker Compound. Even if I could get to the palace in time, if whatever was going on there was something Celestia and everypony else couldn’t handle, then one more mare wouldn’t make much of a difference. The Home Watch would be a drop in the bucket compared to all the Solar Guard and all the other ponies at the palace.

I had to assume the changelings hadn’t completely undermined everything in Canterlot, if only because otherwise they wouldn’t need to openly attack at all. I also had to assume the testing tricks I knew were still effective for similar reasons. Frankly, if the bugs had already infiltrated everything and I had no way to figure out who was a changeling and who wasn’t, we were all probably doomed anyway. For the moment, the best move was to proceed on the assumption that we weren’t all doomed, and that these changelings still followed the old rules. Sure, the one infiltrator we’d found was part of the breakaway group that didn’t like the hive mind, but Princess Celestia said that some of those rogue changelings worked as mercenaries. There might be bad blood between the two groups, but mercenaries are known for being able to put up with quite a lot of things if the price is right.

The sound of changelings smashing into the shield quickly became a constant, thudding roar in the background. I didn’t even need binoculars or Sparkler’s long distance viewing spell to see the cracks spreading along the shield’s surface. Looks like we’d been right about something happening at the wedding; if the shield over the city had been at full strength, it would’ve taken more than a couple bugs smacking against it to start cracking it.

I could feel the dread settling into my stomach as the shield grew weaker and weaker with each passing moment. A part of me really wanted them to just hurry up and break through already, because there was no way the actual fighting could be as bad as just sitting there, waiting for them to attack. It was silly to think that way when every minute it took them to break through the shield bought us more time to get more ponies to safety, but a part of me did just want them to get on with it.

The changelings didn’t keep us waiting for very long. After a couple minutes of pounding there were cracks all over the shield, and then with a rumble that the whole city probably felt, the bubble shattered. The bugs wasted no time pouring in through our now wide open defenses.

I would’ve liked to have given some kind of appropriately epic and awesome speech to the ponies under my command right before the first wave hit. Something really stirring where I talked all about our clan’s long and proud history, what the stakes were and how everypony was counting on us to hold the line. You know, the sort of speech you’d see in an epic play. Hay, I would’ve settled for a badflank one-liner.

Instead all I managed before the first wave hit us was, “Feathers, that’s a lot of bugs.”

I guess I’m not cut out to be an action hero. The worst part was, five seconds after I’d said it, I came up with a perfect quip about needing a big can of bug spray.

The changelings didn’t give me a chance to come up with anything better. Cones of green magic sprang up around them as they dive-bombed into the city, allowing them to slam straight into buildings or even the streets while doing far more damage to the stone than they did to themselves. The largest concentration of bugs seemed to be headed for the palace—no surprise, Celestia and most of the guardponies in the city were there. However, plenty of other changelings landed elsewhere in the city, probably aiming to grab easy food and just generally cause as much chaos as possible.

And some of the changelings landed in the Kicker compound.

The only thing I could think of to describe what it was like when they hit was to compare it to accounts I’ve read of what happened when Equestria’s battlemages cut loose. There were explosions all around us as changelings slammed into streets, houses, and anything else unfortunate enough to get in their flight path. One of the civilian stallions we’d slapped some spare weapons and chainmail onto was our first casualty when a changeling slammed right into him. Somepony screamed his name, giving him just enough time to turn and look. The bug hit hard enough to leave a hoof-deep crater, and when it stood up, it shook itself like a dog to rid itself of several broken mail rings stuck in its chitin.

When the changelings finally stopped coming down, the sudden silence that came after the explosions stopped was deafening. That silence only lasted for a few moments before it was replaced by a new sound: a whole lot of civilians—and probably some of my ponies too—screaming in terror. Those screams slowly died down to frightened whimpers; there were still bugs hitting a few other the city, but it was a small trickle compared to the initial torrent. All the impacts had kicked up enough dust and powdered concrete that I could barely see anything. I breathed a sigh of relief when the dust cleared enough for me to see that the siege bunkers hadn’t been breached.

Then a single sound cut through all the dust and smoke. “SKREEEEE!”

The first changeling I saw was the one who’d taken out that militia stallion. Or at least, I was reasonably sure it was the same one. The fact that it was halfway through shifting into his form when I put a wing-blade in between two of its chitinous plates gave it away. I was a bit surprised by how easily it went down, compared to the one I’d fought in the cave. Then again, the bugs that went rogue from the hive mind were supposed to have been an attempt at making a better type of changeling, so maybe the normal ones were weaker. I certainly wouldn’t complain if we had a slightly easier fight on our hooves.

Then again, in the cave me and Rainbow were double-teaming a single bug. Now it was a whole swarm of them that probably outnumbered all the ponies-under-arms in Canterlot a couple times over. Quality is nice and all, but numbers will tell.

Soon I could hear grunts of exertion, changeling battle screeches, and sounds of weapon hitting chitin from all over the battlefield. All the dust kicked up by the changelings’ arrival made it hard to see exactly what was going on, though. That was probably part of their whole plan; the more confusion and chaos they caused, the easier it would be for some of them to slip into our lines unnoticed. I could already tell we would need another round of blood tests once we dealt with the first attack. Assuming we made it through at all.

The civilians gathered outside the bunker went wild once the attack started, trying to bullrush their way inside. The bugs did everything they could to encourage the panic, with several of the bugs in their natural state buzzing the crowd and snatching up one or two civilians at a time.

“Protect the civilians!” I wasted no time leading by example, flying up at the bugs. It wasn’t just a matter of decency and altruism; if we couldn’t keep the changelings off of the refugees they were sure to go into a full scale riot trying to get to the bunkers. The last thing we needed was to get into a fight with the ponies we were trying to save.

About a dozen pegasi took to the air with me, but the first strike went to Star and the other unicorns in the clan. Star shot out three golfball-sized blasts of energy that homed in on one of the bugs and punched holes into its chitin, while one of the other unicorns managed to bring two bugs down to the ground with some sort of net spell. The crowd of civilians made sure they didn’t get away.

Then I closed in, along with the pegasi who’d tagged along with me. Wing-blades aren’t the best weapon for punching through heavy armor, but they’re wonderful when it comes to air-to-air combat. I promptly demonstrated that to one of the changelings by slicing one of its thin, insect-like wings in half. Those chitinous exoskeletons might be hard to get through, but their wings were exactly what you'd expect from an insect; nothing but thin, fragile membranes that could never hope to stop a blade.

I was a little surprised so many of the bugs kept trying to fight un-shifted instead of trying to make themselves look like ponies. Maybe it was hard for them to fight and pretend to be ponies at the same time? Maybe they had to concentrate on it, or focus some. Not enough to be crippling, but to the point where there was a benefit to fighting in their natural state. Or maybe it was part of some bigger strategy. Either way, I didn’t have time to worry about that while there were changelings to deal with.

The changelings broke contact pretty quickly after our counter-attack started. Going after a bunch of scared unarmed civilians is a lot different from facing off against proper opposition. The Home Watch might be full of retirees and kids, but they were retirees and kids with combat training, weapons, and full plate. That made all the difference.

That’s not to say the fight was a cakewalk. One of my younger watchponies was pinned, and nearly had his throat ripped out by a changeling’s fangs before his grandmother struck the beast down. Another dived at the Watch’s unicorns, snatching a red-armored pony and carrying her up above the rooftops, then letting go. I saw one of the pegasi try to catch her before she hit the ground, but in all the chaos of the battle I couldn’t tell if he made it in time.

The bugs also left plenty of trouble in their wake, even after we’d seen them off. I spotted one of our civilian conscripts getting into a scuffle with one of my younger watchponies out near the edge of our battle line. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. That’s the problem with fighting shapeshifters—they don’t play fair. I rushed to the scene, wing-blades at the ready. Needless to say, the instant I arrived on the scene each of them cried out in near-perfect unison: “He’s a changeling!”

I didn’t waste any time with niceties. A quick scan showed that each of them had picked up some cuts and bruises, either from the fight with the bugs or their own scuffle. Both of them was bleeding, and a quick look down confirmed the situation. “Break it up and check each other’s wounds, you two.”

They did as instructed. Both of them had left some blood on the streets, and all of it was red. The two backed off from each other, each looking a bit sheepish. The conscript shuffled his hooves and mumbled, “Tried to see if he was a real pony by asking if he knew what Sapphire Shore’s top-rated song was, but he got it wrong. Figured anypony who didn’t know that...”

“Well, you figured wrong,” I grumbled, struggling against the urge to facehoof. I didn’t want to get on the stallion’s case too much; he was actually thinking and showing some initiative, even if it hadn’t worked. Asking stuff like pop culture trivia that most ponies would know, but outsiders probably wouldn’t wasn’t a bad idea as such, but it was the kind of thing where a pony could easily get caught in the crossfire. Plus, with the way the hive mind worked pretty much any questions, callsigns, or anything else would get compromised pretty quickly. Those sorts of tricks might trip up one or two changelings, but up against a hive mind swarm they wouldn’t last. As soon as one bug overheard the right answer, the rest of them would know it too.

I rounded up the rest of the pegasi who’d helped chase off the changelings, and we headed back for the bunkers. When we got back, we found another me, busily directing the defenders to much weaker positions and letting in refugees far too quickly.

I really don’t like fighting shapeshifters.

“Get that bug!” the fake me immediately ordered the rest of my soldiers. Under other circumstances, I would’ve taken a moment to appreciate the irony of that statement. All the soldiers the changeling had stolen from me immediately tensed up, as did the squad I’d taken out to lead the counter-attack on the bugs. I tried to come up with some proof I was the real me, and fast. The last thing we needed was to start fighting amongst ourselves.

Star stepped up, earning a bit of deference from the other watchponies on account of her rank and age. Between being very close to graduating from West Hoof and her own position within the clan, she was effectively the second-highest ranking pony in the Watch. She looked between the two of us, concentrated for a moment, then telekinetically grabbed a spear from one of the conscripts and rammed it into the fake Cloud Kicker’s side. The bug let out a pained shriek and reverted to its true form, and was promptly finished off by the other ponies.

“It might have been a perfect copy of Cloud,” Star explained, “but it didn’t have a tracking gem on it.” I don’t think I’d even been more grateful for the fact that my little cousin is the sort of crazy where she thinks planting tracking devices on all her friends and family is a normal bonding thing.

“Good work, Star.” I looked around and took stock of the situation. Between getting into a pitched fight with the changelings and the fact that one of them had taken my place for a bit, we would need to do another round of checks to make sure all the ponies here were ponies. I hoped the Princess and the Guard managed to turn the tide on this fight soon; if we had to deal with multiple waves of attackers, all the blood testing would start being a real pain. Still, better than the alternative.

“Looks like we’re in the clear for now,” one of the older watchponies announced. “Guess the bugs weren’t ready for somepony who could actually put up a fight!” The remark drew a few muted cheers from the nearby Kickers.

“We gave them a bloody muzzle,” I confirmed, drawing some approving stomps from the crowd. For a moment I was torn between playing morale officer and building up their confidence, or pointing out the grim realities of the situation. I wound up settling for something halfway between the two. “Let’s not get sloppy though. We’ve showed them we can fight back and sent them packing. They ran off because they knew they couldn’t take us, but when they come back, they’ll probably bring a lot more of their friends with them.”

It didn’t take much more than a quick look out over the rest of Canterlot to make the grim reality of the situation sink in. We might have pushed the changelings back, but the Kicker Compound was just one tiny little corner of a very big city. I wasn’t under any illusions that we’d scored some kind of crushing victory, and we certainly hadn’t broken the hive mind’s morale. Odds were, they’d pulled back because there were a whole lot of easier targets to go after.

If I were running the hive mind, I’d hold off on attacking any strong points or fortified positions and focus on mopping up all the ponies who weren’t offering any kind of organized resistance. Not to mention dealing with the obvious big threats, like Celestia and the Elements of Harmony. All they needed to do with the Kickers was set up a cordon around the compound to keep any more ponies from getting in or any of us from breaking out. There was no reason to commit the forces the changelings would need in order to take the compound. Not when there were more important battles going on elsewhere.

“So, when do we start hitting ‘em back?” I was a little surprised when Sparkler of all ponies spoke up, and moreso when she stepped out of the crowd wearing a suit of chainmail that didn’t quite fit and awkwardly carrying a spear. “Once I got enough ponies doing checks on the civilians they didn’t really need me anymore, so...” she said in response to my unasked question.

My first instinct was to tell her to get her teenaged plot back into the bunkers. A second later I reluctantly dismissed the notion. I just knew if I tried to order her to safety she’d dig in her hooves and get all teen-stubborn and rebellious on me again. If I shoved her back into the siege bunkers she’d just try and sneak out again, and I really couldn’t spare the effort it would take to have ponies watching her to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. At least if I kept her where I could see her, I could keep her from doing anything too stupid.

Another, slightly more cynical line of thought popped into my head a moment later: Twilight and Star had both mentioned, just in passing, that Sparkler had a fair bit of magical muscle. She was a long way from a trained mage—heck, Star found out about her muscle because of how much energy she wasted due to sloppy casting—but raw power has its place too. Sparkler might be a useful asset.

I just hoped I could keep her safe. If anything happened to her, Derpy would kill me, slowly and painfully. If I was lucky and the bugs got me first, she’d find a way to bring me back just so she could make sure that I’d suffered enough before I bought the farm.

Well, first things first: I needed to answer her question. If I were dealing with proper guardponies I could’ve just ignored the civilian trying to comment on our tactics. However, the Watch wasn’t very formal, and I had a bunch of combat-capable civilians who’d been pressed into service too. Military discipline wasn’t on the table. “We can’t even start thinking about going on the offensive until we get all the refugees processed and in the bunkers. Until they’re all safe, we won’t be doing anything other than holding the line.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sparkler readily agreed, nodding along. “You’ve gotta get 'em outta the way so you can focus on a counterattack or something.”

I frowned and gave a quick shake of my head. “I’m not sure we're going to launch a full-scale counter-offensive at all. We've got a strong position here, but we don’t have much in the way of numbers. Attacking will take away all our defensive advantages and leave us vulnerable. Not to mention splitting up makes it a lot easier for the bugs to pull some kind of trick.”

“Sure, okay, but...” Sparkler looked out over the rest of the city, spotting a few distant colorful specks fleeing from a mass of black chitin. “Look, you're lucky enough to have your own little private army to give your family time to hole up, and nice big bunkers to hide in. Most of Canterlot doesn't have that, and I'd bet that pretty much everypony that can fight is already fighting.”

“I know.” I let out a pained sigh as I saw several of the black specks swoop down on those distant ponies, snatching them up. “I know there are a lot of ponies in trouble out there. But if I spread my forces too thin to try to save everypony, I'll end up losing them and not saving anypony.” I grimaced as I laid out the grim mathematics of the situation. “The bugs won't make many kills; they want to take ponies alive for food. I don't plan on turtling up and sitting the fight out, but I have to be realistic about what I can accomplish.”

“'Many' kills?” Sparkler grumbled. “With as many ponies as they’re grabbing, even a small percentage is a lot of funerals.” For a moment I was afraid I was about to be on the receiving end of a long self-righteous teenage rant, but then her shoulders slumped down and her ears went flat. When she spoke, there was a weary, defeated tone to her voice. “The worst part is, I know you're right. I hate it. I hate these damn bugs, and I hate what's happening. And worst of all, I hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do to change any of it.”

Star stepped up and put a hoof on Sparkler’s shoulder, then gave her a supportive little nuzzle. After a moment, Sparkler responded, weakly nuzzling back and leaning against her fillyfriend for support.

I raised my voice a bit, just to make sure the rest of the Watch and ponies-at-arms could hear me. “We're gonna make it through this, everypony. We don’t need to take on every single changeling in Canterlot, we just need to hold out long enough for Princess Celestia to turn this thing around.”

“How’s she gonna do that?” Sparkler grumbled under her breath.

“Well she's the Princess!” A nearby conscript answered her. “She’s got all kinds of ways to save us! Or maybe the Elements of Harmony will deal with it, like they did with Discord and Nightmare Moon!”

“Celestia doesn’t always save everypony,” Sparkler snapped back. “There used to be a lot more Doos around.” One of her forelegs shifted, to rub along the scar her foster father had left her with. Well, the only visible scar. “And sometimes when she does show up to do the saving, it’s too late.”

Star gave Sparkler a rather pointed nudge to get her attention, then frowned at her and gave a quick shake of her head.

Sparkler flinched at her fillyfriend’s disapproval, her ears flattening. “Sorry. S'an old instinct to get mad when I get scared, and I'm kinda terrified right now.”

I stepped up to the side of Sparkler that wasn’t plastered against Star and put a wing over both of them—taking due care with my wing-blade. “We're all scared, Sparks. A pony’d have to be crazy not to be scared with all this stuff going on. But right now, we need to keep it together.”

Sparkler closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths, then gave a single sharp nod. “Right. We’ve just gotta keep these bugs off of us until the Guard or the Element-Bearers or Luna or ... somepony, can figure something out.”

Luna was a long-shot, but I wouldn’t rule her out. Sure, she might be out on the border right now, but I was willing to bet that if Princess Celestia could get in touch with Twilight at a moment’s notice, she could do the same with her sister. Probably with something a bit fancier than having a baby dragon burp out letters. With any luck, Luna was already on her way back to Canterlot, and she was bringing an army with her.

I tightened my wing around the two of them. “We're gonna get through this thing. Promise.”

Sparkler gave a small tremble, and her voice came out as a small, almost child-like whimper. “Pinkie Promise?”

“Pinkie Promise,” I confirmed. No reason not to offer it; if things went bad, the fact that I’d broken a Pinkie Promise would be the least of my worries.

Things went almost eerily quiet after we dealt with the first wave of the changeling attack. We could hear the battle going on all across the city, but they didn’t launch another full-scale attack on the compound. That’s not to say they left us completely alone; there were a couple more probes just to test our defenses and keep us from getting too comfortable, and we found a few bugs mixed in with the refugees. One of them managed to slip past our blood tests—our best guess was that it kept a hoof touching the blood after it hit the ground. We didn’t realize what had happened until it snuck into the armory and had wrecked enough stuff to effectively cost us a whole squad’s worth of conscripts.

Once we had our refugee problem under control, I sent out a couple probes of my own, just to find out what the situation was. Like I’d suspected they would, the bugs had just set up a cordon around us. No reason to waste all the changelings they’d need to attack a fortified position when they could just cut us off from the rest of the city. A couple of the groups I sent out ended up tangling with the bugs; the results made it pretty clear going on the offensive was probably a non-starter. Fighting from a fortified position in the clan compound gave us a big advantage. Out in the open, where things would turn into a fast-moving chaotic urban brawl where I would have a hard time exercising any kind of command authority, the advantage shifted to the side with a hive mind.

Finding that out cost me five Kickers, and twice as many conscripts. I don’t think it was a very good trade. I hoped the bugs took them alive, but from what I’d seen they tended to be a lot less shy about using lethal force on guardponies than they were on civilians. I suppose that figures; most unarmed civilians couldn’t put up much of a fight, but a warrior could do a lot of damage if their opponents pulled their punches and avoided killing blows. The bugs might want to take ponies alive for food, but they had all of Canterlot as a buffet. Losing a lot of extra drones just to take a few more ponies alive wasn’t a very good trade.

Still, we were holding out. That’s all we really needed to do. Just hunker down and ride the storm out until help came. Even if I couldn’t go on the offensive, we were keeping some of the changeling forces tied up just by having a strong position. The hive mind had to keep some of their bugs back keeping us contained and preventing anypony else from making it to the compound. I might not have seen what Dad and the rest of the Guard had planned for the defense of Canterlot, but I would bet every bit I had that the compound was one of the Guard’s rally points. If the bugs didn’t keep a solid perimeter up, enough soldiers might trickle in to give me a substantial force to work with.

As it was, about a squad’s worth of guardponies had managed to get through before the changelings finished tightening the noose. No officers, just enlisted ponies. Most of the ranking officers had been at the wedding—another reason that was probably the first target for the changelings. I had the guardponies and a few of the older watchponies seeing what they could make out of our civilian conscripts and filling up the sergeant roles. I wasn’t too happy about slapping weapons and armor on anypony with muscles and an inclination to fight, but I wasn’t in any position to be picky. Considering the fact that we were nothing but food to the bugs, I didn’t expect the changelings to respect the traditional rules of warfare when it came to unarmed civilians anyway, so we might as well have everypony who could give them a proper fight.

I took a quick jog around the compound, checking how everypony was holding up, helping a few of the conscripts get their armor on right, and offering a few encouraging words. The usual sort of platitudes you’re supposed to offer about how everypony’s been doing a good job. It felt hackneyed and clichéd to me, but that kind of thing is supposed to help morale. Morale’s always important, but especially so during a siege—ponies can endure a lot, as long as they believe that they just need to keep holding out until help arrives.

I was about halfway done with my tour of the compound when one of the Kicker pegasi I’d posted as a forward scout flew down from the roof of a nearby tower. “News, ma’am.” The stallion was young, barely older than Sparkler. Probably in his first year at West Hoof. I couldn’t remember his name off the top of my head. “We’ve got movement out in the no mare’s land. Looks like some guardponies managed to break through the cordon.”

I flew up to his position and took a look for myself. Sure enough, I could see the distinctive white and gold of the Guard moving quickly between buildings in the zone between the compound and the edge of the changeling perimeter. For a moment I was curious about why the bugs weren’t giving them more trouble—there looked to be about two dozen guardponies there. That was a big group to slip past the changelings unnoticed. My first instinct was to think it might be a trick and they were all disguised bugs, but if that was the case the changelings probably would’ve tried to sell it a bit harder. From what I’d seen of their tactics so far, the hive mind wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice a few drones to gain a larger tactical advantage.

Or maybe the changelings knew that I knew how they operated, and were trying to work a double-bluff on me. Or maybe they knew that I knew that they knew that ... argh. I guess there was nothing for it but to test them once they got close enough.

A closer look at the guards revealed another reason the bugs might have let them in. They weren’t moving very quickly because several of them were being carried on stretchers, and there was a lot of red mixed in with the white and gold. Not the kind of red that signified Kicker armor, though the shade was about the same. Maybe the changelings figured that saddling me with a bunch of guardponies that couldn’t do much beyond use up my very limited stock of medical supplies was worth giving my numbers a small boost. If most of them were too hurt to fight, it wouldn’t do my situation any good.

“Sparkler,” I called down. “Need another one of your vision spells!” I’d been keeping the teenager relatively close to hoof, since that was about the safest place I could think of for her aside from in the siege bunkers. Besides, that spell of hers was handy; there hadn’t been any good opportunities to look around for a set of binoculars or a telescope.

A closer look didn’t tell me much about whether I was dealing with bugs or ponies, but it did show me something else. The soldiers seemed like a pretty mixed group, but that wasn’t a surprise. What was important was that one of the wounded on the stretchers was a grey stallion whose armor had Machwing Company unit markings. “Shadow’s teats, no!” I didn’t think it likely that the Machwings had two grey stallions in their ranks. I couldn’t tell just how badly Cirrus was hurt from this distance, but the fact that he was on a stretcher and his armor had been banged up enough for the uniform enchantment to fail didn’t bode well.

“Sparks, tell the doctors to get ready for incoming casualties.” It’s not like I could keep her from finding out about her uncle’s injuries forever if this was the real deal, but I’d rather spare her the worry if it was a changeling trick. And if it was legitimate, it would at least put off her freakout until after we’d gotten him into the makeshift field hospital we’d rigged up in the bunkers. Maybe I could get her to stay in there with him, instead of running around the battlefield. Silver linings.

I mustered up a couple squads, and we met the incoming guardponies at the gates. Up close, they were in even worse condition than they’d looked from a distance. I didn’t see a single unwounded pony in the lot of them, and most of the ones who could still walk looked like they were only standing through sheer stubborn willpower. Most of the serious wounds had makeshift bandages, but the amount of blood they were dripping onto the ground meant we didn’t need to do much in the way of testing.

When I got a good look at Derpy’s brother, I felt like I’d been bucked in the guts. He had the usual collection of minor battle wounds, but that was nothing compared to the state his right wing was in: I couldn’t see the actual injury underneath all the bandages, but there were jagged bumps that shouldn’t be there, and the bandages themselves were nearly soaked through with blood. My own wings gave a sympathetic twinge at the damage.

The instant my ponies finished checking the two or three ponies on stretchers who weren’t already leaving blood samples on the ground, I sent them to our field hospital. After a moment’s consideration, I turned to one of the Guard sergeants who’d trickled in during the lull in the fighting. “I’ll be in the hospital, seeing if any of them have any intel. Hold down the fort, and find me if anything happens.”

“Yes ma’am.” I was a little surprised when the guardstallion saluted me, but I chalked that up to force of habit from the guardpony. When you’ve spent most of your adult life saluting anypony who gives you orders...

The walk to the field hospital was a short one by most standards, but it felt like it took far longer than it should’ve. Probably because I knew what was waiting for me at the end of it. Maybe it was selfish, but I’ll admit that I was thinking as much about how Sparkler would react to seeing Cirrus as I was about getting useful information regarding the battle. My West Hoof training might be telling me to look at the big picture, but basic equine compassion reminded me that the big picture was made up of a whole lot of little pictures sewn together. As long as the bugs didn’t try anything, I could spare a few moments to give Sparkler some comfort.

I picked up the pace a bit to make sure I got to the hospital before Sparkler saw her uncle. It was better if I warned her before she saw him for herself. When I got there, she was busy helping out the docs with preparing our field hospital for new patients. Well, one of them was an actual doctor, albeit a pediatrician. We also had a retired Kicker combat medic, a West Hoof cadet halfway trained to be a Guard surgeon, and a few civilians who’d been pressed into service as nurses and orderlies. Sparkler seemed to have temporarily joined that last group helping fetch medical supplies and get them in place so the docs would have everything close to hoof once the new casualties got here.

I caught Sparkler’s eye, and the teenager trotted over once she’d finished up her current delivery run. Halfway to me her pace slowed and her eyes went wide with dread. I might not have said anything, but I would guess I was looking pretty grim. Sparkler’s always been a bit too sharp for her own good; she put two and two together faster than I would’ve liked. “No. Nononononono. Who is it? Who’s hurt?”

So much for breaking the news gently. Trying to work my way up to it would just make the dread build up and give her even more time to panic. So instead I put a foreleg around her, pulled her into a hug, and told her. “It’s your uncle. He’s hurt bad.”

Sparkler let out a terrified little whimper, and her forelegs wrapped themselves around my barrel in a desperate hug. “How bad? Is—is he going to...?”

“The docs’d know better than I would.” Not the most reassuring answer I could’ve given, but an honest one. I gave her a quick, reassuring squeeze as the wounded guardponies started filing in. Sparkler immediately wriggled out of my grasp and rushed to her uncle’s side, clutching one of his forelegs and desperately whispering to him.

After a quick check to make sure our doctors had everything in hoof, I figured it was time I got back to the frontlines. The medics were already starting on triage, sorting out which ponies would need long-term care, who was in danger of dying, and who they could quickly patch up and send back to the battlefield.

Right as I was about to leave, I spotted our pediatrician-turned combat medic stepping up to one of the walking wounded guards. He took a wet washcloth to one of the guard’s wounds to wipe away the blood dripping from the injury so he could see and treat the actual wound. When he did so, the wound wasn’t just cleaned, it was wiped away completely. I realized what had happened just in time to shout a warning as the changeling reverted to its true form and pounced on the doctor. With one of their number revealed, the other walking wounded guardponies all shifted back to their true forms.

Dammit! The bugs had grabbed a couple real casualties—the ponies on the stretchers had all been tested—and faked bleeding wounds that would pass a cursory inspection. We could’ve found them out if I’d thought to look more carefully, but seeing Cirrus and the others in such bad shape had tripped me up. I’d thought with my heart instead of my head, and wound up letting fifteen changelings right past all our defenses and into our field hospital.

I rushed in and jammed a wing-blade through the eye of the changeling that had taken our pediatrician down, but the damage was already done. The other changelings went after our other two doctors and the medical supplies; only the cadet-doctor managed to get a shield up in time, and even he’d taken a couple nasty hits first. At least the old medic managed to take one of the bugs with him.

“Changelings in the hospital!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. I wasn’t sure if it would do any good. Right now I was outnumbered thirteen-to-one; backup might not make it in time before I got swarmed.

I took one’s wings off with a passing swipe, and managed a hoof strike that crushed another’s throat. For a second I thought I might actually manage to pull it off, but then I saw their throats moving in a way I recognized all too well from the fight in the cave. I managed to dodge the first couple globs of green goo, but there were still eleven bugs, and all of them were spitting at me. It wasn’t long before they landed a couple hits and had me stuck to the floor. I could hear a commotion outside as my ponies rushed for the tent, but I didn’t think the bugs would let me live long enough for backup to arrive.

Before I could get around to resigning myself to my impending demise, the whole bunker started shaking. I wasn't sure what the deal was, until I managed to turn my head enough to spot Sparkler. Her eyes had gone pure white, her mane and tail were smoldering, and she was floating in mid-air. I’m no expert in unicorn magic, but I know a wild magic surge when I see one.

“You hurt my family.” There was a blinding flash of light, and several of the changelings just collapsed as if they’d been carved to bits by a razor-sharp knife. “You don’t get her too.” That light flashed again, and the rest of the changelings went down while the goo holding me in place dissolved.

With the bugs gone, Sparkler slowly drifted back down, her magic fading away and her eyes returning to normal. When her hooves hit the floor she staggered a bit, and I noticed blood trickling down from her nostrils. She turned to me and offered a very woozy grin. “Just realized. Light refraction means I can do lasers. Cool, huh?”

Then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she collapsed.

I slowly got back to my hooves, still shaking from the after-effects of adrenaline and everything else that had happened. A couple squads of Watch, including Star, had arrived just in time to catch the tail end of Sparkler’s magical performance. Star naturally rushed to her fillyfriend’s side, helping a barely conscious and only vaguely coherent Sparkler to one of the cots while the drained teenager weakly protested that she was completely fine. While Star did that, the rest of us got to work on assessing the damage.

It was pretty bad. Out of our three doctors, two were down and the last one was beaten up enough that he wouldn’t be doing much doctoring anytime soon. On top of that, we’d lost a lot of medical supplies, unless we wanted to risk using spoiled medicine and dirty bandages. Even with Sparkler’s power surge containing the damage, they’d just about ruined our field hospital.

The stretcher-bound guardponies started stirring and shifting some. In hindsight, they’d been a bit too quiet when they came in. At the time, I’d just assumed it was because they were busted up bad enough to need to be carried in on stretchers. Now, I was starting to think the bugs must have had them under some sort of spell to keep them docile so they wouldn’t give anything away.

I had to wonder about them grabbing Cirrus, of all ponies. Coincidences tend to make me wary. Maybe he’d been trying to get to the compound—either for safety or to find Sparkler—when the bugs nabbed him. Or maybe ... well, the changelings probably knew some stuff about me on account of one pretending to be my mother for so long, and the hive mind knew I was running the show here. For anypony who knows my history and relationships, it wouldn’t be hard to guess that bringing in a wounded Cirrus might throw me off.

At the end of the day, I guess it really didn’t matter. What was important was that Cirrus was here, and he was hurt. Now that we’d effectively lost all of our doctors, Derpy’s brother might end up dying on my watch.

It didn’t take Cirrus long to come around, and at least he seemed relatively lucid once he did. His eyes immediately locked on Sparkler once he spotted her lying on the cot next to his. I took the liberty of answering his unspoken question. “She’s fine. Just a bit of magical burnout. She got pissed when she saw what the bugs did to you.”

Cirrus slowly nodded, his eyes flicking back to his bandaged wing. “How bad?” he rasped out, his voice tight with pain.

“Sorry, can’t say much for sure. The bugs hit our docs pretty hard.” The one who was still alive seemed to at least be coherent enough to tell a couple nurses how to bandage up his own wounds, but I wasn’t optimistic about his treating anypony else. Especially not when we we’d lost so many supplies too.

Cirrus gave a single pained nod, shuffling around a bit. “Painkillers?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” From what little I’d seen, the bugs had been more interested in stuff like bandages and disinfectant than pills. It was worth asking one of the nurses, at least.

There was still one other matter to deal with. I didn’t like the idea of grilling a wounded stallion for information, but we were in the middle of war. “Cirrus, what can you tell me about what’s going on out there? The bugs have had us pretty much pinned down since the first wave. Any idea what Princess Celestia has planned to deal with them? There any way we can help those plans?”

“Princess Celestia?” Cirrus paused, slowly turning to face me. “Y’haven’t heard? They got her right at the start of the fight. Their queen took her out in front of all of Canterlot.”

Every other conversation in the hospital came to sudden halt with those words. Princess Celestia was down. Beaten. Maybe even dead.

It’s hard to put into words just how terrifying that thought was. For more than a thousand years, Princess Celestia had always been there whenever her little ponies needed her. Yeah, we’ve gone through some rough times in the past, where things looked pretty grim. Nightmare Moon, Discord, that kind of thing. But no matter how bad things got, we all knew that she would find a way to save us in the end. I mean, we don’t even have very much in the way of reliable history about what Equestria was like before Celestia. Bits and pieces, sure, but a long way from a proper historical account. The records we had for ponies like Lyequinegus involved as much legend and myth as actual fact. One of the only things we know for sure is that before Celestia and Luna, things were a lot worse than they are now.

The idea of an Equestria without Celestia ... it’s pretty terrifying.

Not to mention that the plan I’d hinged just about all of our own hopes of survival on was for us to hold out until Celestia could save the day. That plan was pretty much dead, now.

This was going to kill everypony’s morale; maybe more than most of the ponies here could take. Sure, there were still the Elements of Harmony, but most ponies tended to see Rainbow, Eepy, and the others as an extension of Princess Celestia. Not literally, but they were her top problem-solving agents. If she’d been beaten, what chance would they have? Besides, Celestia had mentioned that the Elements were more for taking down a single big nasty monster than an entire army of bugs. From what I understood of the hive mind, killing the changeling queen wouldn’t be much more than a temporary inconvenience.

The same would go for any prospect of help from Luna. Even setting aside the whole Nightmare Moon issue, she was Celestia’s younger and presumably less powerful sister. How could she solve a problem that Celestia couldn’t? We didn’t even know when she was going to get here; technically, I didn’t even know for sure that she was coming at all. It was a reasonable-sounding assumption, but that’s a lot to ask ponies to stake their lives on.

I was facing off against the very real prospect of morale completely crashing. Sure, surrender might not be a realistic option when you’re up against changelings, but panic and everypony deciding to just look out for themselves was. I had to find some way of getting them to keep it together. We needed hope. A symbol. Something to bring us all together, and give us a decent shot at actually making it out of this whole mess in one piece.

Lucky for me, the Kickers have a little something set aside for just these kinds of situations.

“Star!” My cousin jumped a bit when I called out her name, reluctantly turning away from her barely conscious fillyfriend. “I need to you to take over for a while.”

“Huh?” She shot a confused frown my way. “Why? What are you gonna be doing?”

“I’m heading down to the family vault,” I answered her. “I think it’s time we brought out Shadow’s Armor.”

Star gave a surprised blink, while Cirrus shifted about on his bed. There were a couple other Kickers still in the hospital and all of them went silent at my declaration. Sparkler, who still looked incredibly groggy after her recent magic surge, was the first one to speak up. “Okay, what gives? From the the way everypony’s acting, something tells me this is a bit bigger than when Mom uses her grandma’s nice dishes ‘cause we’ve got company.”

“The Armor’s more than just an heirloom,” Star explained to her. “After the fight between Honored Shadow and the Avatar of Nightmare Moon, Princess Celestia decided that she needed ... well, a bit more firepower. The Elements of Harmony hadn’t been found, and Princess Celestia couldn’t be everywhere at once. So she made the Armor.”

“There are a lot of rumors about how she pulled that one off,” I added in. “Everything from the semi-plausible, like using some special kind of metal, to crazy stuff like saying that the reason she wears her mane so that it covers one eye was because she’d traded the eye for the knowledge and power needed to make the Armor.” As usual, the crazy rumors tended to crop up whenever ponies are bored and don’t know the truth.

“So why haven’t we been using it since the start?” Sparkler demanded. “You’d think if you’ve got some super-strong badflank magical armor...”

“Honored Shadow left orders that it was supposed to stay locked up unless things got really desperate,” Star answered her. “If the bugs took Princess Celestia out, I’d say this qualifies. Just a matter of getting through all the defenses now.”

“I’ve heard there are a whole bunch of mechanical saw blades that will slice you to bits if you don’t know the exact timing to dodge them all,” one of the younger Kickers commented. “And puzzles where you have to answer questions in old Pegasopolan and Unicornian, and if you mess them up you fall into a bottomless pit. The floors are covered in a bunch of hidden pressure plates that shoot out poison darts or drop spiked ceilings on you if you trigger them. Then there’s the giant boulder that will crush you if—”

I turned to the stallion and cut him off with an upraised hoof, then summed up my thoughts on everything he’d just said in a single sentence. “You’ve been reading too much Daring Do.” Any traps that elaborate would just be way too fancy to be practical. Where would we even fit all of that? Not to mention how much of a pain resetting all those elaborate deathtraps would be every single time a pony needed to go into the vault.

The actual defenses were a bit more practical, if a bit boring. Massive locked vault doors, a null-magic zone, to keep teleporting and other magical tricks out, and a bunch of alarms to let Dad, Princess Celestia, the Guard, and a lot of other very important ponies know that somepony was opening the vault. Once you got past that first layer of security, there was another identical one. Five vaults in a row, each door set up to use different locking mechanisms so any safecracker would need to start over from scratch to figure out how to open it. Not the fanciest defenses in the world, but all the vaults really needed to do was slow a break-in down enough to give the clan, the Guard, and Celestia time to get there and catch whoever was trying to get in.

Of course, when Dad showed me how to open the vaults, we’d never even touched the final layer of security on the Armor itself—mostly because we didn’t really know how it worked. The only clue we had was that the Armor would only allow itself to be wielded by ‘those who are worthy.’ Would it have killed Celestia or whoever put that spell on it to go into a little more detail about what exactly she meant by ‘worthy?’ Just saying, worthiness is subjective.

The part that really worried me, though, was the one rumor about how the Armor worked that I’d never heard confirmed or denied. I knew it was probably just another one of those crazy rumors that was completely baseless, but it’s not like anypony in living memory had ever put the Armor on to test it out.

The thing was, the Armor didn’t exactly have a very good track record when anypony other than Shadow tried to use it. There were a lot of guesses as to why; maybe the whole ‘test of worth’ thing ended up deciding that nopony was ‘truly’ worthy, maybe the Armor was cursed, or maybe it ate up the user’s life force as a power source. Though it could just be that we never actually brought the Armor out unless things had gone to Tartarus, and then a normal pony used it to try and take on something we’d normally leave to Celestia. But the bottom line was, whether it was because of a curse, dark magic, or just from tough fights, everypony since Shadow who’d tried using the Armor wound up dying in it.

The Pony Who Doesn't Fit Into Their Little Box

Thankfully, the bugs didn’t launch another attack in the time it took to get to the central keep. It would’ve been just my luck to get jumped by a bunch of changelings while I was on my way to go get Shadow’s armor.

It had been a long time since the compound’s central keep had actually served as a fortified fallback position for the clan when all else was lost. After all, it had been nine hundred years since Canterlot had come under direct assault, and its backup purpose of serving as the headquarters of the clan leadership wasn’t nearly as important these days. Sure, Dad was still paterfamilias of the Clan, and we still had a sense of clan hierarchy, but things weren’t anywhere close to as regimented as they were in Shadow’s time.

It was no surprise that eventually ponies looked at the big building in the middle of our compound that nopony really used and tried to figure out what to do with it. For a while, like a lot of empty buildings, it got used as a storage area for all sorts of random junk. Then somepony took a look at all of the cool things we had stored there and decided to do some organizing of the whole collection, and set up the best of what we had on display. A few years later, we had a proper clan museum starting up.

At first it was just random artifacts and memorabilia—anything Shadow had ever touched, and some other stuff like original copies of a few of Gale’s decrees from her time as Grand Vizier of Equestria. We’d eventually diversified things a bit, mostly on account of having picked up several more centuries’ worth of history and general clan life. Pretty much any time a Kicker does something especially noteworthy, they end up with some kind of display in the museum. It’s not all guardponies either; the clan as a whole might have kept our military focus, but we’ve produced more than a couple artists and cultural icons. Painters, sculptors, singers, all that good stuff.

Aside from the museum proper, we had a couple of public areas—meeting halls and the like, plus the inevitable gift shop. There had been talk of adding a restaurant for visitors too. At this rate, the place might end up turning into a shopping mall in a few generations. Maybe I’m just being stubborn, but that’s a bit too much change for my tastes.

However, what was important for my purposes was the fact that the family vault was underneath the compound’s central keep. The vault had been built back when the keep was still the military headquarters of a private army, and nopony had ever bothered to move it after the keep started getting civilianized. Moving the vault would have been a huge and very expensive undertaking, and the clan kept coming up with better things to spend bits on. We did seal up the entrances from any unsecured areas of the old keep, at least; we didn’t need random curious visitors wandering in setting off the alarms.

The first obstacle I ran into was somewhat underwhelming: an ordinary locked door. It seems ridiculous, but while I knew all the combinations to open up one of the most secure vaults in Equestria, I didn’t have a key to get past the ordinary locked door to the private areas of the museum. Without that, I couldn’t get to the actual entrance.

I’m sure one of my watchponies or one of the clan’s noncombatants in the bunkers could’ve gotten the door unlocked for me, but I didn’t want to waste all the time it would take to actually track down somepony. Especially not when I had access to the Royal-Guard-approved universal key: three sharp bucks to the latch. Thankfully, the keep’s original solid oak doors had long since been replaced with modern flimsy ones. I think it had to do with the fire code; oak doors are great for keeping out invaders, but when that hasn’t been a concern for centuries...

Five minutes of trotting and another application of the Guard’s universal key later, I was at the entrance to the vault. I left my armor and weapons outside; after what I’d heard happened when Storm took one of Star’s trackers into the anti-magic field around the Vault, I wanted to play it safe with my own gear. After all, that armor had been a gift from Mom. I left the trackers Star had planted on me behind too, for similar reasons.

The vault itself was ... well, about what you’d expect a vault to be. A massive metal door set into the wall, with a huge and obvious locking mechanism. The first vault door was ridiculously oversized, mainly because we’d put several progressively smaller vaults inside the main vault. Have to love redundant security systems.

As I got to work unlocking the vaults, my mind went back to the last time I’d been down here. Nearly a decade ago, when I was getting close to graduating from West Hoof. Dad had taken me down here once or twice before, but that time had been special. He was teaching me how to unlock the vault. That’s a big deal, for a Kicker; we keep enough ponies trained so that there should always be somepony on hoof to open the vault in a crisis, but it’s still a small and elite group of ponies. After all, the secret combination to open the vault won’t stay secret for very long if too many ponies know it. As it was, we’d probably end up changing the combination after this—with all the shapeshifters running around Canterlot right now, there was a non-zero chance that current one would be compromised. Rather annoying, considering we’d changed it a couple weeks ago on account of what happened with Mom, but ‘better safe than sorry’ is a philosophy that extends beyond the bedroom.

It was hard not to think about that day. Dad standing by my side, looking so feathering proud of me as he showed me how it all worked. Symbolically passing the torch to a new generation, saying that he could trust me with this kind of power. That one day I would be good enough to take his place. Little did we know that five years later he would be teaching Storm the exact same thing, so one day she could take his place instead.

Dad ... I hope he was alright. I knew Alula was safe down in the bunkers, but Dad had been at the wedding. If whatever trick the bugs had pulled there was nasty enough to take out Princess feathering Celestia...

No. I couldn’t afford to worry about him, not with everything else going on. I had to put that West Hoof training to use, and just shove that problem into the back of my mind. Whatever had happened to Dad was out of my hooves for the moment; I needed to stay focused on the present. The last thing I needed to do was mess up on opening the vault because I was distracted. I wasn’t sure exactly how all the alarms hooked up to the vault worked, but I knew they would let Celestia know whenever the vault was opened, even when everything was done properly. If the bugs had her, they might be able to find out what I was up to, and they would definitely try to stop me.

So I kept focused, and if the changelings did know what I was up to they didn’t manage to scramble their forces in time to stop me. Each vault opened up in turn, until I was staring at Shadow’s armor.

The armor didn’t look like much on the surface. I mean, it was obviously a quality suit of full plate, and anypony who knew their armor could point out all the usual Pegasopolan design quirks like the extended cheek guards, full ear coverings, and streamlined aerodynamic design. However, aside from those differences there was nothing obvious about it that said it was more than just a good set of armor. Or at least, nothing tangible. However, just by looking at it I could feel a sense of power from it. A sense that there was so much more to it than met the eye.

There was no time to dwell on that, though. I came here to put the armor on, not gawk at it. I tried to resist the urge to get all religious over it—I might not be too big on the Cult normally, but I’m usually not using Shadow’s own armor. It was just a tool; one I needed to use in order to save everypony I knew and loved. I slowly stepped up to the armor, and extended a single hoof towards it.

The instant I touched it, the world disappeared in a flash of white.

Next thing I knew, I was back home. Mom and Dad’s place, from back before I’d left West Hoof. The family photos gave it away; after I’d bailed from West Hoof, my parents didn’t keep any photos of me in my cadet uniform sitting on the mantle. A bit too much of a sore point for everypony.

Why I was there was the bigger question. The only thing I could think was that this had to be the ‘test of worth’ or whatever it was that happened before I got to actually use the armor. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be something simple like beating up a manticore. I suppose that figures: if I were Celestia, I’d be more worried about an evil pony getting their hooves on the armor than a wimpy one.

Despite being ready for just about anything, I was still very surprised when the front door opened, and Rainbow Dash stepped in. Especially when Rainbow followed up her entrance by unleashing a nasty glare that had me tensing and taking a step back before I even realized what I was doing. Then she started talking, her words dripping with venom. “You know, it’s funny that you’re always saying I’ve got an ego when you’re the one who’s so arrogant.”

Okay ... Rainbow Dash calling me an egotist was not what I was expecting from a metaphysical test of worth. I suppose I didn’t have much choice other than rolling with it for now, though. Besides, Rainbow saying a pony is stuck up and self-centered is a massive case of the pot calling the kettle black. “Since when have I been arrogant? Especially compared to you?”

Rainbow—or whatever weird mental projection thing I was dealing with that looked like Rainbow... Feather it, I was going to stick with thinking of her as Rainbow, just to avoid tying myself up in a bunch of mental knots. Anyway, Rainbow let out an angry snort and flicked her tail. “Yeah, you think you’re so much better than you really are. Like the whole sex thing. You’re always going on about how you’ve got these rules so you’re responsible, but then you turn around and talk about how you’re all liberated and open-minded too, and anypony who’s not the same way is just being stupid or backwards. Like how I’m a weird prude for not wanting to bang anything with a pulse.”

Okay, this definitely wasn’t the real Rainbow; Dash can’t talk about banging without getting blushy and mumbling. She paused, and her expression darkened. “It really boils down to one thing: you’re just sooo perfect when it comes to all that banging crap, and you think everypony else oughta be doing the exact same thing as you are. ‘Cause really, your way of doing things is just that much better than the way everypony else lives their lives. No way anypony could ever be happy with sex and love unless they’ve joined the Cloud Kicker School of Responsible Free Love.”

Okay, weird mental projection or not, I wasn’t going to let anypony ... anything ... whatever talk to me like that. “Yeah, I do think a lot of ponies would be better off if they had my attitude towards sex. Know why? Because they probably would. I’ve seen a lot of perfectly good relationships go down the toilet just because—”

Rainbow cut me off with another annoyed snort. “Like I said, arrogant. You think everypony oughta be like you, and if they’re not it means there’s something wrong with ‘em. Or they’re just too stupid to not understand how much better you are.”

Dash rolled her eyes, and started circling around me. “But I don’t care about any of that banging horseapples. It’s just a stupid waste of time, and all that’s nothing compared to what you’ve done now.” Rainbow met my eyes for a few seconds, then let out a mocking little scoff. “I mean, seriously, Cloud? Now you think you’re actually so great that you can just go trotting up and borrow feathering Shadow’s Armor? What’s next, saying you’re the prophesied Chosen One? Shadow Kicker reincarnated?”

“Oh come on!” I let out a frustrated little growl. “Not even you are that stuck up!”

“Nah, that’s a level of ego that’s reserved for the high and mighty Cloud Kicker,” she shot right back. “I mean, seriously, you’re a West Hoof dropout who abandoned her family for years! Where do you get off thinking that you’re capable of inheriting Shadow’s legacy? Your family’s already given up on you completely—your Dad’s been grooming Storm to take over the clan ever since you chickened out, and do you really think it’s a coincidence your parents had another kid right after you bailed on West Hoof? So why do you think you deserve something that only the best Kickers can use, even though you’re one of the worst ones ever?”

“Well maybe I don’t deserve it, but I need it or a whole lot of ponies are gonna die!” I shouted at her.

“Oh, you need it?” Rainbow repeated back with a mocking sneer. “Well why didn’t you just say so? Obviously we can just turn off all the security around the armor for anypony who comes in and says that they really want the armor.” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “As for ponies dying ... you mean like all the ones who the changelings got ‘cause you insisted on running the show? ‘Cause a West Hoof dropout is definitely who I’d want in charge in the middle of a crisis. It’s not like you had Star there, who hasn’t spent years forgetting everything she learned in school. Or a bunch of veterans in your Watch who have actual experience. Or real feathering guards you could’ve handed things over to. Nope! It’s gotta be Cloud running the show, and too bad if anypony bites it ‘cause you can’t command your way out of a wet paper bag!”

Ouch. That one hurt, especially since I had made mistakes. I should’ve seen that ambush at the field hospital coming, but... “Everypony makes mistakes, Dash.”

“But you make a lot more,” she snapped right back. “And now you’re making ones that are getting ponies that are actually worth something killed. Though I guess that’s not too far removed from your whole stupid ‘let’s do an honor killing of my mom’ thing you were going on about a while back.”

I winced at that one. With the benefit of hindsight, I’d been horribly wrong about how to handle the situation with Mom. It’s a good thing my friends had been there to snap me out of that idea. That’s part of what makes a true friend so important: a good friend will back you up whenever you need them, but only your best friends will know when they need to pull you back from the brink and slap some sense into you. Granted, I needed to get a bit better at letting ponies slap some sense into me before I did something boneheaded, but still...

Rainbow glared down her muzzle at me, waiting for an answer. When I didn’t have one, she let out a final snort. “Just tell me one thing, Kicker. Do you really want to get the Armor to protect all the ponies here, or is this just some way to try and prove to everypony that you haven’t failed your clan? ‘Cause if that’s what the deal is, then all your ego and stupidity really just boils down to one big thing: you’re not worthy.” Something about the way she said that last bit sounded ... weighty, I guess. Significant.

“You say that like her ego’s her biggest problem.” I jumped in surprise as Blossom suddenly walked in from the corner of my eye. She wasn’t there a second ago, and her back was to a solid wall, so I don’t know how she could’ve gotten there when I wasn’t looking. Then again, this was all probably going on in my head or something, so I guess she didn’t really need to follow the rules of the real world.

Blossom slowly walked up to me and gave me an angry little shove. “Rainbow was right about one thing, though: you do think your rules make you better than you really are. You talk like they make you some sort of moral paragon of responsible sex. The way you actually live your life, on the other hoof, says something else. I mean, can you actually look back at any of your rules and point to one you haven’t broken in the last couple months?”

“Well, I haven’t banged any Diamond Dogs or tried mid-air sex.” I gave her best attempt at a charming smile, but it fell completely flat in the face of her pissed-off glare. “Just trying to lighten the mood a bit,” I confessed lamely.

When that earned me even more glaring, I sat down and gave that question some actual thought. The results didn’t look very good. I hadn’t lied to any of them or had an affair with another pony in a committed relationship, but otherwise ... yeah, eight out of twelve rules broken. That’s not a very good track record.

“You know, when I first heard about your rules, I was really impressed.” Blossom smiled and briefly stroked my cheek. “I thought there was this whole side to you I’d never really seen before. Sure, there had been glimpses of you being considerate and more than just a hedonist, but you’d never really put it all out there on the table before. I felt like l was finally getting to know the real you instead of the facade you put up for everypony else to see. You know, the old story about the pony who seems shallow on the surface, but deep down there’s so much more to them?”

Blossom growled and gave an angry toss of her head. “Sounds like a story out of a cheap romance novel. Turns out that just like those, it’s also a big load of horseapples. Maybe you do have that deeper layer to you, but underneath that is another, even deeper layer that’s just like the surface. You might care about your rules on some level, but your track record shows that when push comes to shove, you’ll pick your own pleasure over following most of them.”

“Oh come on!” My wings gave several angry flicks as I tried to come up with an answer that didn’t involve a string of profanity. “You know that’s not true! You want me to admit that I don’t follow my own rules all the time? Fine. I admit, I screw up on them. That’s why I have those rules in the first place. Because I’m not a perfect pony, and I know that I’m gonna be tempted to do a lot of things I shouldn’t. So I need those rules to remind me that even though my incredibly sexy best friend is throwing herself at me right now, sleeping with her while she’s drunk would be a bad move.” I sighed, and ran a hoof through my mane. “But just because I’ve made some huge mistakes, and broken a lot of those rules doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in them. That I don’t try to follow them.” I paused, and took a deep breath as I gathered my thoughts. “I think I’m a better mare for having those rules, and for trying to live up to them. Not perfect, not even close to it, but better than I’d be if I didn’t have any rules.”

“Nice little speech,” Blossom offered with a sneer, “but none of that changes the fact that you can’t even follow a set of rules you made up yourself. You don’t deserve Shadow’s Armor if you can’t even manage that.”

This time I wasn’t even surprised when Derpy came in from the edge of my peripheral vision and started talking. I think I was starting to figure out how this whole thing worked—I was pretty sure that after Derpy finished chewing me out for not being ‘worthy,’ Fluttershy would show up next to start ripping into me.

“This isn’t right, Cloud. You trying to use this armor ... it’s wrong.” I was a little surprised that Derpy wasn’t yelling at me the way Rainbow and Blossom had. Instead, she was just using that sad, quiet, disappointed tone. The same one she used whenever Dinky or Sparkler had been misbehaving. In a way, that made it harder to deal with. When a pony starts yelling in your face, it’s easy to get defensive and yell right back at them. Quiet disappointment, on the other hoof...

“Cloud, think about everything you’ve done in your life. All the ponies you’ve hurt.” She stepped in front of me, and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Think about all the choices you’ve made, ever since Flight Camp. All the ponies you hurt and abandoned. Your friends. Your family. Your lovers.” Derpy paused for a second, her voice broke as she added, “Me.”

At that moment I didn’t care if she was just a figment of my own imagination conjured up as part of this test, she still looked like she desperately needed a hug. So I gave her one. I just can’t look at a pony who I care about suffering and not do anything to comfort them. I’m just not built that way. “Derpy, I’m so sorry about that. Really. I know I’ve said it dozens of times already, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I am so sorry about everything that happened with Blossom.”

“If you were really sorry, it wouldn’t have happened,” Derpy offered a sad shake of her head. “Think about it, Cloud. As long as I told you we could keep things easy and casual, just be friends with benefits and nothing more, you were fine. You couldn’t be happier about having sex with me as long as it came with no strings attached. But then we started getting closer to one another, and...”

“Yeah, it didn’t end well.” One of my ears gave a slightly annoyed twitch. “I made a single mistake in a moment of weakness, and—”

“A single mistake?” Derpy’s tail flicked, and her eyes narrowed in anger. “I can forgive a single mistake, but don’t act like that’s all you did. If you didn’t want to make a commitment to me, you should’ve just said as much. I would’ve understood; I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but I would’ve understood that you weren’t ready. Instead, you led me on and let me think we were building up something special. Then as soon as you were done with that, you went right back to chasing the two ponies that actually mattered to you.” Her ears went flat against her skull, and her voice turned bitter. “I should've known I was just another placeholder for Fluttershy.”

“Derpy...” I tried to pull her in for a full-body hug, but she set her hind legs into the floor and refused to budge. “You weren’t just a placeholder to me. I don’t do that kind of thing to ponies.”

“Then why did you abandon me to go chasing after your best friend who couldn’t spit it out, or your ex who broke up with you more than a decade ago?” She gave an angry shake of her head and pushed me back a foreleg. “Saying I’m not a placeholder would’ve counted for a lot more if you didn’t respond to me asking for a serious commitment by spending more time with other ponies.”

“Well, what did you expect?” I grumbled. “I liked the idea of us being a couple, but...” I tried to think of the most diplomatic way to put it, then gave up on diplomacy and settled for blunt honesty. “You started getting really clingy, and it got on my nerves.”

“But the whole reason I started acting that way was because you abandoned me,” she shot right back. “If I was moving too fast for you, you should’ve talked to me about that. I could’ve slowed down and given you time, or adjusted my own expectations. Instead, you kept making promises you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep. You can say that you only slept with Blossomforth because you had a moment of weakness, but it was obvious for weeks before then that you were drifting away from me and towards her. As for Fluttershy ... I’m still not convinced that every single pony you’ve bedded since Flight Camp wasn’t just an effort to fill the gap she left behind.”

“Derpy, I...” I took a moment to find the right words. “Firsts are always a big deal to a pony. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Fluttershy is always going to have a special place in my heart, no matter what happens. But that doesn’t mean that the ponies who have come into my life after her count for any less than she does. That would be like saying you love Sparkler less than Dinky because you had Dinky before you adopted her. Besides, if it was all about who I’ve known and loved the longest, wouldn’t that mean you count for more than Blossom does? That would make it pretty silly for you to be scared of her.”

Derpy offered a gentle smile. “That's a very sweet thought, Cloud.” The smile faded, and her eyes hardened. “And it would mean something if you hadn't lied to me about bedding Blossom and Fluttershy.”

“When did I lie to you?” I demanded. “At most, I put off confessing a bit to deal with everything else that was going on in my life first. You know, like burying my mother.”

Derpy let out an annoyed little snort and waved a hoof dismissively. “Maybe you didn’t lie as such, but you haven’t been completely honest with me either. I understand that you’ve been going through a lot, Cloud—but just because you need to wait to apologize to me doesn't mean you should do more things to apologize for until then.” She let out a pained sigh and gave a resigned shake of her head. “The simple truth is that you've taken every opportunity to hurt me at every turn. I felt a lot of things when I found out you’d slept with Blossomforth. Betrayed. Heartbroken. Devastated. But ... the one thing I didn’t feel was surprised. I’ve gotten used to being hurt by you. I'm just surprised you stayed with me for as long as you did. I’m sorry, but I can’t say that you’re worthy.”

As soon as Derpy finished telling me I wasn’t good enough, I spun around to try and find Eepy when she made her inevitable appearance. After all, Blossom and Derpy had both shown up from out of my line of sight. Maybe I was just being stubbornly contrary, but I wasn’t going to play along too much with whatever little cheap dramatic tricks this mind screw spell wanted to pull on me. When Fluttershy finally showed up, she walked through the front door like a normal pony instead of dramatically appearing behind me. I counted that as a small victory.

Eepy walked up to me, gave me a quick once-over, and was about to get started when I beat her to the punch. “Let me guess: my numerous personal failures mean that I’m not qualified to wear Shadow’s Armor, right?”

Fluttershy flinched back, refusing to look at me. Despite the fact that I knew this was all in my head and I wasn’t dealing with the real Fluttershy, I instantly felt like a monster and started trying to apologize. It’s just a matter of instinct whenever I’m faced with a sad Eepy.

After a couple moments, Fluttershy seemed to have recovered from that little meekness attack and turned to face me. “Cloud Kicker, I wish I could say you’re a good enough to deserve this, but I’m afraid I can’t. It’s just that, well ... um, I know a lot about what it’s like to be afraid. To run away from your problems instead of facing them. So, well, I think you need to get just a teeny tiny bit better about not doing that before you can use the armor.”

Okay, I could deal with a lot of things, but being called a coward kind of got to me. “Five minutes ago I was fighting hoof and wing against the changelings! The only reason I’m here now is that I need a better way to fight them off. Sitting back and holding the line was all well and good when we could count on Celestia to save us, but if she’s gone...” I gave an angry shake of my head. “Other than the Elements, Shadow’s Armor is the only thing I know of that might be able to turn this around. Even then, it’s probably gonna cost me my life if I try to take on the bug queen wearing it, but ... if it comes down to that, I’ll do it.” My eyes narrowed in determination. “I’ll do my damndest to make it out of this in one piece, but if it comes down to giving my life to save everypony else ... I think I can make that trade. Does that sound like something a coward would do?”

Eepy gave a sad shake of her head, then reached out and put a hoof on my chest. “There’s more than one kind of bravery, Cloud Kicker. You can be very brave on the battlefield and still be afraid when it comes to your personal life. There’s nothing wrong with that; sometimes a broken heart hurts far more than a broken bone.” She stepped forward and gently nuzzled my cheek. “That’s why it was so much easier for you to reconnect with Rainbow Dash than it was for you to even start rebuilding with me.”

“You say that like Rainbow didn’t do anything worse than rough me up a bit,” I grumbled. “It was ... hard, getting back to being friends with her. The fight with her hurt me just as much as losing you did. If she hadn’t kept reaching out to me, even after all the times I rejected her, we probably never would’ve gotten to a point where we could become friends again.”

“So why didn’t you try to reach out to me?” Fluttershy demanded. A second later she answered her own question while pulling me into a hug. “You were afraid of being hurt. That’s okay, really. Anypony would be afraid after what you went through. I know I was. But you let your fear control you. Instead of reaching out from me, you ran away from me.”

“I didn’t run away,” I grumbled. “I moved to Ponyville. You know, the town where you live?”

“But then you just avoided me.” Fluttershy stepped back and gave a sad shake of her head. “We could’ve worked things out so much sooner, but instead you wouldn’t talk to me. Was there any reason the talk we finally had to settle things between us couldn’t have happened years ago?”

I let out a frustrated little growl. “Well it’s not like you were trying to reach out to me.”

“I could have,” she admitted. “In fact, I should have. But this isn’t about me or us, Cloud. It’s about you. It’s about whether you have the qualities needed to use your ancestor’s armor. Let’s be honest, I’m not the only problem you’ve run away from. West Hoof. Your family. Derpy. Blossomforth. You have a bad habit of trying to run away or hide from your problems. You knew you couldn’t avoid hurting Derpy or Blossomforth if you didn’t make a choice, and you kept putting it off.”

“How was I supposed to choose between two ponies I love?” I demanded, stomping on the floor. “It’s impossible!”

“Then you should have told them that,” Eepy answered, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “At least it would have made things clear, instead of leaving them both hanging in limbo. You could have just insisted on having an open, loving, non-exclusive relationship. Instead, you kept trying to do whatever you thought would make them happy at that moment. You were so worried about hurting them a little that you would up making things worse by not taking a stand.” She turned away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Then ... there’s me.”

“What about you?”

She met my eyes, tears brimming in her own. “Do you really think I wanted things to be over between us?”

“No.” Admitting that felt like getting kicked in the guts. “The whole ... closure thing. It sounded nice, but I don’t think either one of us really wanted to put an end to things.” My ears went flat against my skull. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about, isn’t it? Well, the real you,” I reminded myself. It was way too easy to forget that I was dealing with some spell version of her. “You don’t want things over between us. I bet the only reason you even said as much was to make it easier on me.” The rest of the truth came crashing down. “And I let you. I let you back out of a relationship we both wanted, just because it would give me one less problem to deal with.”

“It wasn’t all your fault,” Eepy said, giving me a reassuring little nuzzle. “I made mistakes too. A lot of ponies have. But we can’t ignore our own mistakes just because other ponies make them too. Running away from your problems is never a solution. I’m afraid that until you learn that, you won’t be worthy to use Shadow’s Armor.”

I was hurting too much from everything I’d just heard to think about trying to disrupt the spell. One or two ponies pointing out my flaws, I could try and brush off. Four of them was enough to start getting to me. I just hoped that this was the end of it. I’d had just about all I could take of ponies pointing out every single reason I didn’t deserve Shadow’s Armor.

Then Mom showed up.

I felt something inside me snap when I saw her. I might’ve been beaten down, but I damn sure wasn’t broken yet. Using my friends and lovers against me was one thing, but trying to hurt me with my own mother ... it was just beyond the pale. “Let me guess, now I get to hear all about how I’ve failed and abandoned my family? How I’m a blight on the clan’s entire history because I ran out on West Hoof and the Guard?”

I stepped up and gave her a little shove in the chest. “What do you want from me? So I’m not perfect. Nopony is! Rainbow’s self-centered and insensitive, Blossom has spent her whole life playing it safe, Derpy’s so focused on making her daughters happy that she tried to rope me into being a stepmom as soon as I got close to her, and Fluttershy’s so scared of conflict that she gave up on us.” I walked up to the image of my mother and looked her in the eyes. “And Mom ... I love you. I always have, and always will. But you could be a stubborn, inflexible bitch who showed me less affection in your whole life than Derpy shows her girls in a single day. I know you loved me just as much, but would it have killed you to give me a feathering hug and say the actual words every once in a while?”

I turned my back on her, and started pacing. “So, you want me to admit that I’ve got a long list of feather-ups in my life? Fine, I admit it. But that’s just part of living life. The only way anypony can go through life without screwing something up is if they never do anything at all. So yeah, I’ve made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Some of them, I’m going to regret for the rest of my life. Some of them I’ve learned from, and others I’m still trying to learn from so I don’t make them again. That’s just how life goes. You wanna rip me a new one because some of my mistakes wound up hurting other ponies? Sure, I’ll give you that. Just explain to me how the hay anypony can go through life without ever getting hurt. Relationships are all about opening yourself up to other ponies. Sometimes that’ll go badly and ponies will get hurt, but that’s a small price to pay for all the wonderful things you can only experience with another pony.”

Mom stared down at me for several seconds, her face a neutral mask. “Then you say your inadequacies are irrelevant to your worthiness?”

“What I’m saying,” I growled back, “is that if this test of worth is gonna shoot down anypony who isn’t perfect, then it’s a load of horseapples. Everypony makes mistakes and all of us have flaws.”

“So that excuses your errors?” Mom demanded. “That you are allowed to be as much of a failure as you wish and suffer no consequences, simply because perfection is impossible?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think you could say that I haven’t paid for any of my mistakes. I’ve lost a lot, and sometimes other ponies have suffered because of that too. Thing is, you can’t just give up on life because you’ve feathered up once or twice. You can’t change the past, and spending your whole life complaining about how things went wrong isn’t gonna fix anything. Whenever you make a mistake, you have to pick yourself up off the ground, try and learn from it, and move on. So yeah, I’m not perfect. I’m probably never gonna be perfect. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit back and accept all of my flaws.”

I waved a hoof at the mental versions of my friends. “A lot of what they said hurt, probably because there was a lot of truth in there. But you know what? I’m gonna listen to them. There are things in my personal life that aren’t right, and I need to fix them. I need to tell Fluttershy that she doesn’t need to back off to make me happy. I need to stop running from my feelings for Blossom. I need to have a big talk with Derpy about how much she means to me, and what I wanted from a relationship with her.”

“And your family?” Mom asked.

“I love my family,” I answered. “I always have, and I always will. But ... I’m gonna love them on my terms. I don’t need to be in the Guard to spend time with my family, or let them know how much I love them. Dad, Alula, Star, Storm, Aunt Wind, all of them. None of them loved me any less after I left the Guard. Things got a bit awkward, yeah, but they still supported me and stuck with me. I always kind of think of myself as the black sheep of the family, but ... I think I’m the only pony who does, really. I don’t need to go back into the Guard to make my family love me, ‘cause they already do. I have a life in Ponyville, and I shouldn’t throw it away to go chasing after the past. Especially when I don’t need to.”

Mom stared at me for several seconds before she finally answered me. “That was a nice speech, Cloud. However, I’m afraid it doesn’t change the fact that you are not worthy.” She met my eyes, and offered me the small, proud, loving smile I remembered seeing a few times when I was a filly. “But that will never change the fact that I will always love you.”

Right after she said that, my parents’ house started fading away around us, slowly dissolving into gentle white light, along with my friends and family. Before Mom could completely fade away, I grabbed her and pulled her into one last hug. “I love you too, Mom. I love you too.”

I kept holding on until she was completely gone.

Next thing I knew, I was back on the main field at the Kicker Compound. Except ... a lot of stuff wasn’t right. There were open areas where I remembered there being buildings, and the reverse. More than that, the whole place had a starkness to it that I didn’t remember. The Kicker Compound I’d grown up in was a fortress that had been serving as a home for so long that you could easily forget that it was a repurposed military installation. This Kicker Compound felt more military than the cadet barracks at West Hoof or most of the Guard camps I’d seen.

Then I saw Her, and it all made sense. I guess this must have been what the Compound looked like in her time. I slowly started walking towards her, trying to figure out what I could possibly say. I mean, it’s Shadow Kicker! What does a pony say to her? Soon I was standing in front of her, and my mouth decided to outrun my brain and just say the first thing it thought of. “I thought you’d be taller.”

Shadow just raised a single eyebrow at my comment, looking down her muzzle at me. I like to think I’m a bit bigger and buffer than the average mare, but Shadow was tall enough that I needed to tilt my head back to actually look her in the eyes. After a few seconds of painfully awkward silence, she gave a faint smirk and answered. “My apologies then, descendent, for failing to meet thine expectations.”

Huh. Well that’s not what I’d expected to hear right after everypony kept telling me how terrible of a pony I was. Wait, did this mean that... “So ... did I pass the test?”

“Neigh.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “Thou art not worthy to bear my armor into battle, though it gives me no pleasure to say it.”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it still hurt to hear her actually come out and say it. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance this is one of those tests where how I handle with getting turned down is the final ring I need to fly through before I actually get it?”

“‘Tis not,” Shadow answered. “Though if thou wouldst e’er seek an artifact of Commander Celestia’s, I might advise thee to be watchful for such an artifice.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever try to use the Elements of Harmony,” I answered dryly. I thought over my literary clichés for a bit. “So ... that’s it? Just a flat no? It’s not gonna be something like I have to prove myself by trying to fight the bug bitch queen, and after I heroically sacrifice myself I will have proven that I deserve the armor and come back to life with it? Or that admitting I’m unworthy is the test?”

“Neigh, on both counts.”

I thought about it for a bit longer. “If it turns out that the armor does nothing, and the whole point of this thing was just some sort of ‘you had the power within yourself all along’ thing, I’m gonna smack you.”

“‘Tis nothing of the sort,” Shadow answered. “I would not advise striking me, regardless.”

“Huh.” My ears went flat. “So that’s it? I’m not good enough, and there’s no way I’m ever gonna be qualified to wear your armor? That’s ... that kinda sucks. No, that really sucks.”

“I did not say that thou wouldst never have the needed qualities,” Shadow corrected. “Thou art not possessed of them now, aye, but that is a thing that can change given time. Had I wished to simply deny thee, I would hardly have needed to make thee face such a trial.”

I shot her an annoyed glare. “So what was the point then? Throwing my friends and my mother at me was...” I struggled to find the right words for it, and eventually gave up on the effort. “Bottom line, I’m not happy with you right now. If you were gonna put me through all of that, and then just tell me that I never even had a chance, then you’re not the pony I thought you were.”

Shadow stood tall, and imperiously stared down her muzzle at me. “Firstly, I am not Shadow. Merely ... an echo of her, left behind. As for what passed within thy mind, thou didst hear hard words, aye. Mayhaps e’en cruel. I think them needful nonetheless. Mind them and take them to heart, and when next thou seekest to claim my armor, thou shalt be worthy of it.” She looked down at me for a seconds longer, then said, “I would also remind thee that a suit of armor can hardly know all of the events of thy life. The trials thou didst face were drawn from thine own knowledge and memories.”

It took a moment to see where she was going with that argument. Sure, it was obvious that the armor had to have had a look at my memories, but I didn’t really see why she felt the need to point that out. Eventually, I connected the dots. “You’re saying the armor didn’t just read my memories and build off of them, it took all the criticism from my head too?”

“Indeed.” She fixed me with a piercing gaze. “In the quiet places of our own mind, we are always our own harshest critics.”

“Well that’s just feathering great.” I started pacing around, growling under my breath. “So now a whole bunch of ponies are going to die, and all because I have issues.”

Shadow glowered down at me. “If the thought of such suffering troubles thee so, might I advise that thou desist from thy wallowing in melancholy and do what thou canst with the power thou hast at thy hooves? In all times past when thou didst find thyself in dire straits, didst thou wail and lament at those options closed to thee, or didst thou act to solve thine own problems?” She gave a final shake of her head. “My armor cannot solve thy troubles. Only thou canst do so. Though ‘twas an old saying e’en in my own time that the armor is only as good as the pony who wears it.”

Shadow stepped up and put a single hoof on my shoulder. “Be at peace, descendant. The Armor is far from the only path to victory. The changelings are at their most dangerous when hidden; unveiled, they will fall soon enough. ‘Tis only a question of who shall deliver the final blow. E’en Celestia’s seeming defeat may simply be part of some larger strategy.” She gave me a smile that was so quick and small I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t just imagined it. “Fear not. There is always hope, e’en in the darkest hour.”

After delivering those parting words, she started slowly fading away; I guess neither of us could really afford to stand around shooting the breeze while there was a war going on.

It was strange, but I didn’t feel nearly as depressed as I should’ve about getting turned down by Shadow’s Armor. I mean, you would think that being told you weren’t a proper member of your clan, and unsuited to carry on the legacy of its greatest hero would be a real kick in the gut. However, I wasn’t feeling that way. To be honest, I was hurting more from the psychological beating I’d taken before Shadow showed up. That’s not to say the rejection didn’t hurt at all, but I felt okay about how the whole thing had gone. Maybe it was just because of how I was turned down. Less ‘you’re a terrible pony who doesn’t deserve this’ and more ‘you’re not quite ready for it, but one day you will be.’

Maybe that was why I said what I did. “Hey, Shadow. Before you go, can I ask you one question?” When she nodded for me to proceed, I did so. “Sorry, it’s just ... I have to know. Did you and Celestia ever bang?”

Instead of giving me an answer, all I got from Shadow was a disapproving scowl as she faded away. Soon it was just me, and a rapidly fading mindscape. Right before it was gone completely, I offered my own conclusions. “You two totally did it.”

My good mood lasted until I left the vault and ran into Star nervously pacing around outside. That’s when the reality of the situation all came crashing back in on me. Everypony had been expecting me to get the armor and bring some extra firepower in on our side, not to mention give everypony a much-needed morale boost after the news that Celestia had been captured by the bugs. I don’t think telling everypony that I’d gained a bit of personal enlightenment would do much for morale.

Sure enough, Star’s grin when she spotted me quickly turned into a confused frown when she realized that I was still wearing the same old armor. She needed a couple seconds to actually figure out what to say to that. “Cloud, please tell me that Shadow’s Armor has some sort of stealth spell on it or something.”

I sighed and gave a small shake of my head. “Sorry, but it doesn’t. We’re on our own for this one. Probably not a good idea to spread that particular fact around.”

Star winced and couldn’t look me in the eye. “I already told a couple ponies you were going into the vault. You know, to help soften the blow once the news about Celestia got out.”

“Super.” I groaned and facehoofed. “So when I show up without the Armor on, everypony’s gonna know that I couldn’t get it. Could things get any worse?” In hindsight, I really should’ve known better than to tempt fate like that.

Star grimaced and shot a look out at the city. “Our forward observers said there’s a lot more bug activity near the compound. Apparently things really picked up after you went into the vault.”

Oh feathers. I’d been aware of the possibility that the bugs might intercept whatever message Celestia was supposed to get whenever somepony opened the vault, but back when I’d expected to get the Armor that hadn’t been as much of an issue. With it, I could’ve knocked the bugs back, and maybe even tried to push back to the palace and free Celestia. Yeah, enough bugs could probably swarm me down, but Shadow’s armor was supposed to be a huge force multiplier. If I’d hit hard and fast enough, I might’ve broken through before the changelings could mount a proper defense.

Instead, all I’d managed to do is make the changelings think I was a major threat without actually getting my hooves on anything that could alter the course of the battle. So far, the changelings had seemed content to keep us locked up in the compound while they hit the rest of the city. However, thanks to me they would probably start coming after us for real—I didn’t like my odds when it came to holding out against a concentrated assault by overwhelming numbers.

“So how about we move on to the good news?” I offered lamely. Under the circumstances, it was the closest thing to a joke I could manage.

“When we get some, I’ll let you know,” Star answered dryly. “So what’s our next move?”

I didn’t need long to work that out. “I’m going to go check out what the changelings are up to. Maybe I can get lucky and spot a weakness or something. You get your plot down to the vault and see if you can get the Armor.”

“What?” Star’s jaw dropped. “How am I supposed to get it if you couldn’t?”

I stepped up and put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “You’re a better Kicker than I am, Star. Besides, we have to keep exploring every option. I’m not so proud I’ll let the Armor sit in the vault just because I couldn’t use it.”

Star stared at me for a long moment, shuffling her hooves uncertainly, then finally nodded and got moving. I’ll admit, there was a very tiny and extremely petty part of me that hoped I wasn’t about to be shown up by my little cousin. It was nothing compared to my hopes that we could still bring the Armor into play, and how proud I would be of Star if she could pull it off, though.

I took a deep breath, and then risked a quick flight to get to a good vantage point. There hadn’t been any real aerial clashes with the changelings after their first wave came in, but I still didn’t want to get too far from the ground. In this kind of situation, flying too high would leave me isolated and mark me as a clear target for the bugs. Thankfully, I made it to one of the observation posts without any trouble.

Naturally, I picked a place where I’d already posted somepony. No sense in letting a good vantage point go to waste; even a minute’s warning before the bugs launched an attack could make a huge difference. The conscript manning the post looked like he was around Sparkler’s age; too old to still be a colt, but still not quite up to proper stallionhood. As soon as he spotted me he gave a valiant effort at making a proper salute with the wrong hoof. “Uh, hello ma’am. Captain. Ma’am!”

I considered just telling him to put his hoof down—he wasn’t a proper soldier and normal Guard policy on saluting in the field was fairly lax—but there was probably no harm in humoring him. If we were going to rely on civilian conscripts to add some extra ponypower, they deserved to be treated like real soldiers. I quickly returned the salute and got down to business. “What’s the situation?”

From the way he needed a second to gather his thoughts before he answered, I got the feeling I’d rattled him a bit. “Um, right. That.” He cleared his throat, then waved a hoof towards the palace. “The bugs have been moving around a lot. There’s a pretty big group of them headed towards the palace, and I’ve seen a lot of them moving around near us. About ten minutes ago, I started seeing a lot more.”

“How many more?”

He gave a helpless shrug. “A lot. It’s hard to tell for sure when they all look the same.”

Having a more specific number would have been nice, but I couldn’t really fault him for not knowing them. After all, even a trained scout usually couldn’t manage much more than a fairly accurate guess at how large an enemy army was. Expecting a civilian to manage that was probably hoping for too much. “Don’t worry about it,” I reassured him. “Keep up the good work—” I paused, feeling a bit self-conscious as I realized I didn’t know his name. “Keep up the good work.” I finished lamely.

If he noticed that I’d blanked on remembering his name—assuming I’d ever known it in the first place—he gave no sign of it. Instead he grinned and gave me another salute that made up for its lack of technical accuracy with its enthusiasm. “Yes ma’am!” I returned the salute, and was about to head to the next observation post when he called out, “Ma’am, I think you need to see this!”

I turned back around, and followed his pointing hoof to see a single changeling slowly walking towards the compound. What was weird about it was that the changeling was wearing what looked like a white tablecloth over its back. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together. “I guess the bugs couldn’t find a flagpole harness on short notice.”

“So that’s supposed to be a white flag?” The conscripts turned to me with a confused frown. “They’re surrendering?”

“No, a white flag just means they want to talk.” If there was going to be any talk of surrender, it would probably be the bugs trying to get me to throw in the towel. That wasn’t happening.

“Huh.” He glared suspiciously at the approaching changeling. “Could be a trap.”

“I wasn’t planning to go out and talk to him until he gets close enough for everypony in the compound to cover us.” I looked down at the slowly approaching bug. “Them wanting do some negotiating is an interesting move. Might find out something useful talking to it.” If nothing else, negotiation might buy us some more time. Luna had to be on the way with reinforcements by now.

Once the changeling was within spitting distance of the compound walls, I flew down toward it. I did a quick check of the area to make sure there weren’t a dozen changelings lurking around to ambush me the instant I landed, then dropped down in front of the emissary.

The changeling just stared at me blankly for a couple seconds after I landed. It didn’t take me long to lose patience and start things myself. “I’m Cloud Kicker, Captain of the Kicker Home Watch and commander of this position. If you want to talk, get to it.”

The bug stared at me for a second longer, then started twitching. Several green, veiny lines slowly appeared on its carapace, and soon I realized that it was actually growing. A lank, dark blue mane and tail sprouted from its head and hindquarters, and it’s blank blue compound eyes shifted into slitted green ones. The horn went from the stubby little protuberance most changelings had to a long and jagged one. By the time the whole transformation was done, I was face-to-face with something that looked was a bit taller than me and covered in this glowing green veins of what I assumed was some sort of magical energy. The effect was rather intimidating, though I tried not to show it.

“Ah, there you are.” When the bug spoke it had a female-sounding voice, though there was an odd sort of reverberation to her words. “I would apologize for not coming to see you personally, but to be honest you’re really not important enough to take me away from the palace. I’m far too busy gloating over Celestia.”

Ah, the most important opening phase of diplomatic negotiations. Trash talk. “So, I’m guessing you’re Bug Bitch-Queen, then.” I was willing to bet that the weird transformation thing the changeling had gone through was supposed to let it act as her mouthpiece for a while. Hive minds are useful that way.

The changeling gave a slight twitch at that. “You are speaking to Queen Chrysalis, yes.” The bug smirked at me. “And really, that was the best insult you could manage? I’ve heard far better. Creatures can become so creative when you’re destroying everything they know and love.”

“Guess you’ll have to live with never hearing my best insults then,” I shot back.

“I didn’t have much hope for you anyway.” Chrysalis met my eyes and grinned. “When I captured your mother, she didn’t say anything beyond a few grunts.” She brought a hoof up to her chin. “Though in hindsight, that was probably because I’d glued her mouth shut.”

Bringing up Mom was a blatant ploy to get me pissed off, but being obvious didn’t make it any less effective. “You’re going to pay for that,” I growled.

“Oh please.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “You’re all self-righteous and angry just because I killed your mother? I've killed thousands of mothers; what makes yours so special? Besides, you’re nowhere close to as mad as the mothers get when I eat their children first. So really, I was doing you a favor.” She gave a cavalier toss of her head. “And really, why stop at just your mother? I’ve also kidnapped and ... persuaded one of your closest friends to serve Equestria’s new queen. I also have an appreciable amount of your clan cocooned in the palace for later feeding, including your father. Perhaps I should finish him off now, for symmetry?” She gave a thoughtful little frown “Hmm, I suppose your sister is in your clan’s bunkers, right? Maybe I should see how he reacts if I make him watch while my children consume her until she’s nothing but a withered husk. It’s not like it would take very long, after how much my mercenary fed on her.”

She waved a hoof towards the palace. “Also, just in case you were holding out any hope for a rescue, my children have also just captured one of your lovers and your best friend when they tried to get the Elements of Harmony. The rainbow one was especially troublesome to contain—she might have gotten away if not for her loyalty to her friends.”

She paused, then glared at me. “That matter aside, let’s not forget that you killed my mercenary. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good help these days? Especially when every single mercenary I can find thinks I'll just eat them after the job's done instead of paying them.” She paused, then smirked. “They're right, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less inconvenient.”

By now I was having a hard time containing myself. Between confirmation that the bugs had Dad and her claim that they’d caught the Element Bearers, she was definitely getting under my skin. “Yeah, well, you made a big mistake. I know why you’re here; you know I’ve got Shadow’s Armor now, and that just might give me enough firepower to take you down. Especially after however much it took out of you to deal with Celestia.”

If the bluff had any effect on Chrysalis, she didn’t show it. “I hope you aren’t about to break out into one of those terrible, cliché-filled speeches about how I’m finally going to pay for my crimes and blah blah justice for all my victims...” She fixed me with a piercing gaze. “I do wonder, though, why you’re not wearing this special armor of yours right now. It’s enough to make one suspicious that maybe you don’t have it after all.”

That guess was way too close to home, so I kept my face as unreadable as possible and threw out the best excuse I could think of at a moment’s notice. “You think I’d give you a chance to study the Armor before I use it on you?”

It looked like she bought the explanation, mostly because she’d seized on a different perceived opening. “Afraid I might find a weakness, are you?”

“The only thing I’m afraid of,” I answered levelly, “is that somepony else might beat me to killing you.” If I wanted her to buy that I had the armor waiting in the wings, my best bet was to keep up a strong facade. If she knew just how weak my fighting position really was, there was no way I could get out of this in one piece.

“Well, that does sound rather dangerous.” She took a step closer, into my personal space. “If this armor of yours is so powerful, maybe I should just kill you right now, while you’re not wearing it?”

Oops. I think I might have oversold the threat.

I tried very hard not to show any signs of budding panic, and look as unbothered by the idea as she was. “You can feel free to try that. But we’re right next to a small army of my clanponies, and you’re not nearly as dangerous when you’re working through a mouthpiece.” I was talking out of my plot on that last point, but it wasn’t a completely bad one. If she could just grab any random changeling in her swarm and give it all of her power, she wouldn’t need to have the real her be at the palace keeping an eye on Celestia.

“Hmmm.” She mulled that over for several seconds, while I tried very hard not to sweat. Finally, she gave an uncaring shrug. “I suppose we do technically have a truce right now. It would be bad for my reputation if I broke it. Besides, killing you would mean wasting perfectly good food.” She waved a hoof like she was tossing a bit of garbage over her shoulder. “So then, since I’m not going to murder you, how about we get down to business?”

“Sounds good.” I was getting way too used to casually dismissing the prospect of dying slowly and painfully.

Chrysalis smirked down at me. “So, you and your little group are dug into a fortified position, and you do have a rather potent magical artifact under your control. Nothing I couldn’t wear down with my vastly superior numbers, but doing that would cost me far more of my children than I’d prefer. In light of that, I am willing to discuss terms of surrender.”

I thought that over for all of half a second, mostly because I wanted to make sure I had my smartflanked answer down perfectly. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t accept your surrender. I’d like to, but the clan’s compound just doesn’t have large enough facilities to hold that many changelings.”

“Sarcasm,” she commented dryly. “How original. Nonetheless, my offer stands. Surrender. Give me the armor and your compound, and I’ll allow all of the ponies within safe passage out of the city.”

“So, give up all of bargaining chips in the hopes that after I do, you’ll still keep your end of the bargain?” I summed up. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“Pity, I was hoping you were that stupid.” She let out a vaguely annoyed sigh. “Very well then, a more realistic offer. My changelings withdraw to form a clear path out of the city for everypony in your clanhold. You keep the armor until you reach the city limits, then leave it.”

I suppose that was theoretically a better deal, if only because it would be slightly harder to break. Still nothing any sane pony would actually accept. “Not happening.”

“Oh very well then, I’ll sweeten the pot.” She leaned in. “Once you reach the edge of the city, I will trade your father, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Lyra Heartstrings for the Armor.”

Ouch. Common sense still said that cutting any sort of bargain with her was a terrible idea, but being reminded that she had a whole bunch of ponies I cared about under her control stung. I still wouldn’t take any deal she offered; I had no reason to believe she was negotiating in good faith, so whatever she offered was pretty much meaningless. Still, that offer was just tempting enough that I might be able to use it to my advantage. “I need twenty-four hours to consider that proposal. Do we have a truce for that long?” Buying an entire day of peace would give me some much-needed breathing room, and would hopefully give Luna and the rest of the Guard enough time to get to Canterlot.

Chrysalis thought that over for a moment. “Not twenty-four hours, but I can give you a little bit of time. Here is my final offer: I’m going to release this avatar, and gloat over the fact that I’ve crushed just about every other potential threat in Canterlot. I do need to show Celestia that the Elements of Harmony won’t be able to save her, after all. Once I get bored of rubbing my victory in her face I’ll come back here for your answer. Do pick wisely; my patience is not infinite. Normally I wouldn’t even give you a chance to think it over, but I’m in a good mood. This day has been just ... perfect.”

The veins of magical power disappeared, and the changeling flopped to the ground and began slowly reverting back to its original state. For lack of any other idea on what to do with it, I just left it there. Lying on the ground.

I trotted back into the compound and let everypony know what the deal was. “We’ve got a temporary truce with bugs until the Bug Bitch-Queen, in her own words, gets tired of gloating over her victory. So we’ve got anywhere from five minutes to five years.” That got a few grim chuckles out of everypony. “Keep an eye out for an attack, but don’t start anything just yet. The longer the truce lasts, the more time it’ll give for reinforcements to come in.”

A quick look through the ranks was enough to find Star, but between the way her head was hanging low and the fact that she was still in her old clan armor, I didn’t even need to ask how things had gone. I was a little curious about why she got shot down by the armor, though if I had to guess it might just be that Shadow was wary of hoofing it over to a cadet. Or maybe she figured that putting trackers on everypony was a sign of some deeper issues. I wouldn’t blame her for that under most circumstances, but right now I really would’ve liked it if she was just a bit less picky. As it was, we were gonna be in a lot of trouble as soon as—

My line of thought was rudely interrupted by a massive pink explosion that rocked the entire city. When the blast wave got to the compound, it just passed right through everything and everypony there, unless you counted one random pony that reverted to a changeling when light hit it, then got sent flying. When the light hit me, I was bombarded with tons of random mental images. Derpy hugging her daughters and laughing. Blossom with a cute little grease smudge on one cheek. Fluttershy smiling at me, half-hidden behind her own mane. Rainbow hugging me and trying to pretend she wasn’t feeling all sappy and affectionate. In a word: love.

In the aftermath of the blast, I could distinctly see thousands of tiny changeling shapes flying over the horizon, including one that looked like a larger version of the Chrysalis avatar I’d just been talking to.

“Oh. Huh.” I stared blankly at the rapidly fading changeling army, trying to wrap my head around the fact that something had just thrown the whole lot of them out of the city. “Well I guess that takes care of that.”

The Pony Who Has Been Blessed With a New Brain

The aftermath of battle feels ...weird.

There’s really no other way to describe it. While the bugs had been on us, there hadn’t really been any time to slow down and think. My brain had been running a mile a minute,

But now all of that was over. We were still trying to piece together what exactly happened, but most of the reports said that Shining Armor and Princess Cadance had managed some kind of spell to toss the bugs out.

It was over.

Well, aside from repairing all the damage the bugs had caused. Not to mention taking care of all the casualties. The things had gone to a lot of trouble to take ponies alive whenever they could—no point in wasting perfectly good food—but we had still lost ponies. I had lost ponies.

A shiver went down my spine at the thought.

While the battle had still been ongoing, I’d just kind of turned off several parts of my brain so I could stay focused on what was going on around me. There hadn’t been time to think about stuff like how I’d feathered up and let a group of bugs hit our field hospital. Not beyond the most immediate terms, like how to salvage the situation and make sure the changelings didn’t get past our defenses again. When you’re in the middle of a crisis, there just isn’t any time to stop and beat yourself up over your screw-ups. At least, not unless you run into magical armor that tests your worth.

Now that the battle was over, now that I finally had enough time to sit down and think for a bit, it was all catching up to me. The battle. The consequences. My decisions. My mistakes. Making a decision in the heat of the moment is easy; it’s dealing with that decision after the fact that’s hard.

I’d kept things together long enough for the Guard to show up, and for some proper doctors to start taking care of our wounded. Long enough to make sure Dad and ‘Lula were okay. Lyra’d been found wandering the streets of Canterlot, lost and confused, so at least she was alright. Rainbow and Fluttershy had gotten out of the fight with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises; apparently Chrysalis was too busy gloating to get around to cocooning them. I think as long as I had everypony else to worry about, I could manage to hold off thinking about myself. All of that had been taken care of now, though.

So there I was, sitting in my bedroom, staring at the blood and ichor stains on my armor and shaking like a leaf.

I’m not sure how long I’d been like that when Fluttershy found me. She didn’t say anything, she just walked up to my side and wrapped a single wing around me. After a bit she reached up, slowly undoing one of the clasps that held my wing-blades in place. Once they were off, she moved on to my armor, and then finally my helmet. When all my wargear was sitting on its stand again, she pulled me in for a proper hug, her hooves rubbing my back as she guided my head to her shoulder.

We didn’t say anything. I guess we didn’t really need to. She just held me, and that was enough.

Once I’d settled down, she took my hoof and gently led me to the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what she had in mind, but I went along with it. I’m not sure I could’ve mustered up the willpower to say no to her at that point anyway.

Her intentions became clear pretty quickly, as she dampened a washcloth and began rubbing it along one of my cheeks. It came away with bits of blood, ichor, and changeling goop.

Oh. Right. I guess I was probably messy after the whole battle against the changeling army thing. For that matter, I’d gotten some of it on Fluttershy when she’d hugged me. Eepy didn’t complain about that, naturally. It just wasn’t in her nature to do something like complain about getting dirty in the process of giving a hug to a pony that needed one.

I winced and pulled back a bit when the washcloth passed over the cut I’d put on my cheek to prove that I wasn’t a bug. It’s easy to ignore those kinds of injuries in the heat of battle, when you’ve got a ton of adrenaline pumping through your system. Once you’re not in the middle of a fight, your body actually starts worrying about things like pain again.

Fluttershy pulled back and let out a sympathetic little murmur. “I’m sorry, but I need to clean the wound. I’ll be as gentle as I can, but it’s going to hurt a bit. It’s the only way you’ll get better, though.” She used her free hoof to hold my head in place, and quickly got to work cleaning the cut. It stung, but I wouldn’t be much of a big, tough, semi-ex-guardpony if I couldn’t deal with a little bit of pain. Once she was done, Fluttershy beamed at me and ran a hoof over my belly. “That was very good, you were so brave.” She grinned and scratched behind my ears. “Who’s a good girl?”

I gave Fluttershy a flat look, and after a couple seconds she flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry, Cloud Kicker. I’m just used to taking care of animals, not ponies.”

I chuckled and leaned forward to give her a quick nuzzle with my freshly cleaned cheek. “It’s fine, Eepy. Honestly, it’s kind of cute.”

That remark got a smile and a faint little blush out of her. “Thank you, Cloud.” She poked around in my medicine cabinet, found some disinfectant and a bandage, and got to work on binding the wound. “Cloud?” There was a moment of hesitation before she continued. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

That reminded me of what all had happened when I was trying to get Shadow’s Armor. A couple of rather difficult truths about what had happened between the two of us had gotten shoved into my face, and it was past time I dealt with them. “Yeah, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you too. Now’s as good a time as any to get it done. You want to go first, or…?”

Fluttershy’s ears wilted slightly. “I don’t mind waiting. I’m sure whatever you wanted to talk to me about is much more important.”

Oh, I did not want this turning into another one of those times when Fluttershy was so focused on being kind that she wound up causing more problems out of a misplaced desire to make me happy. That’s how we’d gotten into our current mess of a relationship to begin with. “Eepy, why don’t you go first? Please?”

“Well, if you’re sure...” Fluttershy took a deep breath, and then the words literally exploded out of her. “I lied to you. There isn’t anypony else I’m interested in. There never was. There’s only you. And I lied to you because I wanted you to be happy with Blossomforth and Derpy, and I’m sorry because I shouldn’t have lied to you but I just wanted to make you happy and I know that makes me a terrible pony but I still love you and—”

I cut her off the only way I could. With my lips. For a second she froze in shock at the kiss, but before long she was gently returning it. I held it long enough for her settle down a bit, then gently backed off. “It’s okay, Eepy.” I thought it over, and amended, “Well, it’s not okay, exactly. I would’ve preferred honesty and trust, but at least you lied because you were trying to make me happy. That doesn’t make it alright, but it does count for something.” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Besides, I’m not really in a position to criticize anypony for how they handle themselves in a relationship.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy’s ears wilted even as she shifted closer to me. “But—but where do we go from here? I don’t want to get in the way of—”

I gently interrupted her. “You’re not in the way, Eepy. You could never be in the way.”

“What about you and Blossomforth?” she demanded. “Or Derpy? I care about you, Cloud, but it just wouldn’t be right for me to hurt other ponies just so I can be happy.”

I sighed and tried to come up with a more diplomatic way of phrasing things. I couldn’t really pull it off, not after the day I’d gone through. “Eepy, it’s not much of a secret that we still care about each other. I think that in a lot of ways, trying to hide from that just makes it worse.” I gave a bitter, humorless laugh. “If there’s one thing I’ve been getting hammered into my head lately, it’s that trying to run away from your problems just ends up making the problem even bigger than it was before. I think ... I think it’s past time we sat down with Blossom and Derpy, and had a big, long talk to sort all this out. We need to reach a point where all of us are happy, or at least as close to that as we can manage. And all of us includes you.”

It also included me. That was part of where I’d gone wrong with Derpy: I’d wanted to keep our relationship working so badly that I’d stopped working at making it something that made us both happy. On some level, I’d started resenting her for pushing me towards monogamy when I didn’t want that. But instead of facing her over the issue, I’d just tried to say some nice words to reassure her and preserve the status quo. Once again, I’d avoided the problem and made things worse.

Fluttershy and I sat there in silence for a bit, then she picked the washcloth back up and started cleaning me again. It felt good, having her wash me off. Like she was doing more than just getting all the grime out of my coat. It didn’t just make me feel clean, it made me feel purified. It was silly, but just sitting there and letting her run that washcloth over me felt like an almost spiritual thing. Like it wasn’t just the literal dirt she was taking away, but all the metaphorical taint that had accumulated from the battle.

Or maybe I just really needed a bath.

Once I was feeling up to going out in public again, there was only place to go: the hospital. Dad, Alula, and Lyra were all there. I’m pretty sure they’d moved Cirrus and the other wounded ponies from the compound there too. Better facilities, and all that.

Unsurprisingly, the hospital was completely packed with ponies. There were a lot of wounded ponies after the attack on Canterlot, and even more ponies looking for loved ones they’d gotten separated from during the fight. I imagine the Guard would be very busy for the next few days tracking down all the ponies who were MIA after the attack. Most of the cases would just be ponies getting separated in all the chaos and needing some help to find each other again. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be too many ponies missing for other reasons—at least the changelings’ sudden ejection from Canterlot meant they wouldn’t have been able to take anypony with them.

After a bit of hesitation, I went to check on Dad and ‘Lula first. As worried as I was about Lyra, family is the most important thing. It probably also helped that Dad was enough of a VIP that some of the hospital staff knew his name when I started asking around. Top-ranking guardponies do draw some notice, especially in the aftermath of an invasion.

Apparently, he was also important enough to actually get a private room—it was a small one, but after a major attack hospital bed space was going to be at a premium. When I found them, Dad was lying in bed holding Alula. My sister was sleeping, but from the way she was twitching and groaning in her sleep she wasn’t sleeping very well. Probably nightmares. Shadow knows she’d been through enough to give anypony some bad dreams. Dad was so focused on my sister that he didn’t even notice me walking through the front door. “Dad. I’m here.”

His ears perked at my voice, and he turned to face me, letting out a relieved sigh. “Cloud.” From the look on his face, I think he would’ve given me a nearly Pinkie-level hug if he wasn’t already holding my sister. I trotted over and settled in on Alula’s other side, hugging the both of them. There wasn’t anywhere near enough room for one filly and two full-grown ponies on a single hospital bed, but right then I didn’t care. I needed to hug them, so I found a way to make it work.

Dad held me for a minute or so; apparently he was so relieved to see me that words weren’t necessary. I wound up breaking the silence with the obvious question. “Are you and Alula okay?”

“We’re physically unharmed,” he answered, his eyes drifting down to my fitfully sleeping sister. “The changelings captured us, but we weren’t fed on.”

I let out a relieved sigh, and tightened my hold on both of them. “I was so ... I didn’t wanna lose you too, Dad.” He gave me a reassuring squeeze. “And Alula ... I hope she never has to see another changeling again. Those damned bugs have already put her through too much.”

Dad grunted and protectively cradled my sister. “I’ll need to talk with Wind about getting her some help. She’s ... been through a lot of things a filly her age should never experience.” He sighed and shook his head, then turned to me. “I heard you saw some action at the Compound.”

The change of subject was rather abrupt, but I could hardly blame him for not wanting to linger on the topic of my sister’s psychological damage. “Yeah, the bugs came after us. Not as hard as they could’ve—once we bloodied their muzzles, they mostly left us alone to focus on softer targets.” I thought back to the way the bugs had hit our field hospital. “Mostly.”

Dad set a hoof on my shoulder. “You lost ponies?”

I nodded, and my voice came out as a faint whisper. “Yeah, I lost some. The ones that were just bad luck I can handle, but ... I made mistakes. The bugs managed to slip one or two tricks past me, and other ponies paid the price for it.” I sighed and shook my head. “Having ponies feathering die because I screwed up is ... yeah.”

“Happens when you’re in command,” Dad answered as gently as he could. “Remember what you learned at West Hoof? A lot of battles aren’t about who has the most clever ideas, but just who makes the fewest mistakes. You did the best you could.”

“I’m not sure if that was good enough,” I answered, slumping down into the bed. “Feathers, I was the officer in command. You should’ve seen how all those ponies were looking at me. Like they were counting on me to get them through that whole crazy mess in one piece. It was ... I think for a while I was more frightened by all that responsibility than I was by the invading bugs.”

“Leadership isn’t easy,” Dad agreed. “You make mistakes, and other ponies pay the price for them. But somepony has to be in charge—all you can do is try to handle your duties to the best of your abilities. If you held the compound, you kept a lot of civilians from being taken by the bugs. That counts for a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.” I sighed and scooted closer to him. “S’crazy, isn’t it? I never figured I’d be fighting off an army of shapeshifting bugs. I’m a nymphomaniac weatherpony, not a warlord.” I groaned and shook my head. “Stupid of me to try and pretend I could still be a soldier when I was years out of practice.”

Before Dad could come up with an answer to that, he stiffened in bed to sit up and salute. Considering there was only one pony in the Guard who outranked him, it wasn’t hard to guess who must have walked in. I turned around, and sure enough the Captain of the Guard was standing in the doorway. After a bit of indecision, I saluted too. After all, I was technically in the reserves, and I didn’t want to be the odd pony out while the two of them did the whole Guard thing.

If Shining Armor thought there was anything weird about me saluting him, he didn’t comment on it. After he returned our salutes, he made the usual polite inquiry into how Dad was faring. Dad pretty much repeated exactly what he told me, though he left out some of the more personal stuff about Alula.

The Captain of the Guard heard Dad out and then surprised me by turning to me. “I’ve heard you saw some action too, Lieutenant.” He paused, frowning thoughtfully. “Or should it be captain?” He shook his head. “Way too confusing when you’ve got one rank in the Guard and another in your clan’s militia. I think I might just have to promote you so I can keep everything straight.” He paused, looking over at Dad. “I’ve heard you were thinking of coming back to active duty. After the way you held the line against the changelings, I don’t think there’ll be any objections to it.” He paused, and his ears went flat against this head, his voice taking a quieter, mournful tone. “There’ll probably be plenty of openings too.”

I winced at that. “How many did we lose?”

“Too many.” Shining Armor sighed and walked over to a couch, slumping down onto it. “Gonna be a while before we get an exact count, especially since we’re still taking stock and finding everypony the bugs cocooned up. They took ponies alive whenever they could, but...” Shining Armor trailed off, letting out a bitter little grunt. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it? The strongest out of us were the ones most likely to end up dead because the bugs wouldn’t be able to take them alive. The only ponies who got captured were the ones who were too weak to put up a good fight.”

Considering the fact that the bugs had captured Dad, I resented the implication. From his scowl and the way his ear started twitching, Dad had picked up on it too. “I was dressed for the wedding, sir, not for battle. I think I gave a good account of myself until they captured my daughter.” Dad looked down at my sleeping sister and gently stroked her mane. “It was stupid of me to surrender and let them capture both of us, but ... it’s hard to think rationally when a monster has your child.”

Shining Armor blinked in surprise, then threw his hooves up in surrender. “No, wait, I wasn’t trying to say that you...” He trailed off, looking a lot more shaken that I would’ve expected out of the Captain of the Guard. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.” He let out a humorless little chuckle. “You know how it goes. You wake up looking forward to your wedding day, and then next thing you know your bride’s turned into a mind-controlling bug monster who wants to take over the world.”

Oh, right—Rainbow and I had kind of gotten the identity of the changeling wrong. In fairness, Twilight Sparkle had been acting a little crazy, and neither of us had really known Cadance well enough to realize that the whole bridezilla act was out of the ordinary for her.

“Yeah, the bride turning into an evil monster would put a bit of a crimp in the wedding plans.” It seemed weird for me to be telling jokes at a time like this, but I was getting kind of used to trying to find the humor in even the worst parts of life. It reminded me of one of those corny old sayings I usually don’t put any stock in: sometimes ponies laugh because it hurts too much to cry. “Look on the bright side: at least you found out she was giant evil bug monster before you said your ‘I do’s.” Or got around to consummating the marriage.

“I suppose that is something,” the Captain agreed. “I don’t even want to think about what my in-laws would’ve been like.” He paused, then shook his head. “Guess it wouldn’t have made too much of a difference, though. We’ve gotten word that Princess Luna and the border guards caught the changelings right after Cadance and I threw them out of Canterlot. Hit them hard before they even knew what was happening.” A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Her Highness was disappointed when Princess Celestia refused to let her mount Chrysalis’s head on a pike over the gates.”

“So we got her? Good.” From what I’d seen and what Princess Celestia had told me, Chrysalis wouldn’t stay dead for long, but it was still rather satisfying to know she hadn’t gotten away cleanly. If nothing else, it would take them time to rebuild their numbers.

Shining Armor nodded emphatically. “Hopefully, that’s the last we’ll see of the changelings for a long time. Hay, after this maybe the Sisters will start looking for a way to get rid of Chrysalis for good.” From the sounds of things, Shining Armor was carrying just a bit of a grudge against the changeling queen. Not that I could blame him for that. He took a deep breath and calmed down a bit. “Getting back to the good news, your niece Storm acquitted herself very well in the battle. Luna’s putting her up for a commendation: her platoon found the bug queen and kept her pinned down until Luna could come in to finish her off.”

“Sounds like she earned it, then.” For a brief, bitter moment, I wondered if Storm would have had any trouble getting past Shadow’s test. I had a feeling she would’ve passed; she was a bit more of a traditional Kicker than I was. Hay, she was only out of West Hoof for a year and a half, and she had already gotten a promotion and the attention of one of the Sisters. That mare was going places.

It did sting a bit, realizing that in all likelihood Dad would hoof clan leadership over to Storm instead of me when the time came. I wasn’t bitter about it, mind you. Well, not anymore. I guess the whole thing with the armor and bugs had put a few things into perspective for me. I wasn’t exactly happy about being shown up by my little cousin, but I think a couple weeks back it would’ve gotten under my skin a lot more.

The thing was, I think I’d finally gotten past the point of feeling like going into the Guard was something I should have done. When I’d been in that state of mind, Storm’s successes would’ve bothered me a lot more because somewhere in the back of my mind I would feel like they should’ve been my successes. Now ... well, it was a lot easier to just feel happy for my cousin. “Good for her. I think she’s already planning to be the next Captain of the Guard once you retire, Shining Armor.”

I’d meant it as a bit of light-hearted ribbing, but Shining’s face fell as soon as the words left my mouth. There was an awkward silence, and then he murmured. “Don’t think she’ll make it in time.”

That got Dad’s attention. Mine too. “Sir?”

Shining gave a resigned shake of his head. “Tor, you know there’s been a lot of talk about how being married to a princess means I’ll have a ‘conflict of interest’ and ‘divided loyalties’ and all that. After everything else that’s happened today, you can bet there’ll be more of that.”

“What do you mean ‘after everything that’s happened?’” I demanded. “Look, I’m not your biggest fan by a long shot, but from what I’ve heard it was you and Cadance who pulled off the spell that kicked the bugs out of Canterlot.” I might not have backed off on believing that Dad was the best pony for the job, but I couldn’t deny that Shining Armor had some impressive spellwork.

“Sure,” Shining conceded. “But the only reason the bugs were even able to attack Canterlot in the first place was that Chrysalis got into my head.”

“You really think anypony’s gonna give you grief over that?” I let out an annoyed little snort. “Okay, it’s been a while since my training at West Hoof, but I’m pretty sure that when I took my classes on resisting mind control they said something about how some entities were just too strong for anypony to fight them off with pure willpower. I’m pretty sure a bug queen that took out Celestia in single combat qualifies.”

Shining Armor gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Maybe, but I didn’t even get a chance to fight her. She was wearing Cadance’s face, and I didn’t see it coming until she was already in my head. And that was probably after she’d fed on me a couple times to build up her strength.” He paused, and a shiver of revulsion went down his spine.

Dad went silent for a few seconds, then quietly offered, “I’m sure you know that my sister’s discretion is absolute, if there’s anything you need to discuss with her, sir.”

The Captain of the Guard closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “I’ll take that under consideration, Tor. Anyway, like I was saying, she got the drop on me. I tried to fight her off a couple times, but I never really managed. Closest I got was disagreeing about a couple wedding arrangements, and that time I tried to warn your daughter.”

“Yeah, sorry I missed that.” In my defense, his effort at passing along a warning had been so vague that there hadn’t been anything remotely actionable. “I’m guessing she had your brain locked down pretty hard by that point.”

Shining gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah. I could barely say two words to the Princesses, my sister, the other Element-bearers, or anypony high-ranking in the Guard without having the compulsion kick in. Not that she gave me much more freedom with anypony else; after the wedding rehearsal she just turned me into a puppet. And the whole time, even when she had me take down the shield, I just ... I couldn’t stop her.” He slammed a hoof onto the floor. “The Captain’s got to be better than that.”

“Shining.” Dad’s voice was gentle, but firm; the way he’d talked to me whenever I was going through some rough times. “Go spend some time with Cadance. I can handle whatever comes up.”

The Captain went silent for a couple seconds, then offered Dad a small nod. “Thanks, Tor.” Without another word, he turned around and left the room.

Once Shining Armor was safely out of earshot, I asked the question that had been burning in my mind for a while. “Is he really going to lose the captaincy?”

“Seems likely,” Dad answered shortly. “He’ll probably take charge of Cadance’s personal guard, but he can’t keep his current position. Too many potential complications. What he did today might actually hurt his case; if his love for Cadance is that powerful, what happens if Cadance’s needs come into conflict with those of Equestria?”

I scowled at the door. “That’s not fair. Don’t get me wrong, a big part of me wanted him out of the Captaincy so you could take it, but ... not like that.”

“Military politics can get nasty.” Neither one of us said anything after that. Really, what was there to say? It seemed like every time we finally got a bit of good news, something new had to crop up to spoil the mood.

Dad finally broke the silence with some very good advice. “Go check on your friends. They need you more than I do.”

He was right about that, but there was one more thing I needed to do before I left. I hugged him. “Love you, Dad.”

“You too, Cloud.”

Once I wrapped things up with Dad, my next stop was the nearest nurses’ desk. After all, I couldn’t check on my friends if I didn’t know where to find them. Canterlot General was a huge hospital, and in the aftermath of the attack things were very chaotic. I could’ve spent hours wandering around randomly and probably not find any of the ponies I was looking for. As it was, it took one of the orderlies nearly half an hour to get me the information on where I could find everypony. It probably would have taken even longer if not for the fact that the staff assumed I was somepony important since they’d seen me talking to the Guard’s leadership five minutes earlier.

Lyra and Cirrus were my top priorities. I wanted to check up on everypony who’d been at the compound—it felt like it was my responsibility to check on everypony who’d gotten hurt under my command—but making sure my friends were okay was the most important thing. Call me biased, but ponies I actually knew and cared about mattered more to me than relative strangers.

Cirrus was still in surgery, so visiting him wasn’t really an option. I’m sure Sparkler was probably sitting in a waiting room and worrying, but until the doctors finished with her uncle there wasn’t much I could do for Sparkler other than wait with her. Lyra, on the other hoof, was in the psych ward going through post-mind-control treatment. I didn’t know too much about how that kind of thing was treated, but I was pretty sure after what she’d been through Lyra could use a good friend.

On the way to the psych ward, I tried to remember everything I’d learned about mind magic in West Hoof. It wasn’t very much; unless they’re specializing in warlock hunting, non-unicorns only get a single semester’s worth of education in magic. A pegasus needs to know the basics of unicorn magic so they’ll know how to use any unicorns under their command and how to deal with hostile spellcasters, but you’ll only get so much value out of teaching anypony without a horn about spells.

Still, I knew a few things about mind control. I knew it was the kind of dark magic that could get a unicorn fast-tracked to getting a reform spell, though that obviously wasn’t a concern for Chrysalis. I also knew that it caused all kinds of problems for the victims, beyond the obvious issues of having your free will taken away. Minds are complicated things, and having something break in and start messing around can cause a bunch of nasty side-effects.

Shining Armor probably got spared the worst of it. Chrysalis might have been in his head for longer, but she’d needed him to act relatively normal, and had plenty of time to sink her hooves into him. That meant she used a subtler, more delicate touch on him. With Lyra and the other bridesmaids, on the other hoof, there had been no reason to be gentle. As I understood things, mind control was a lot nastier for the victim when it was done quickly, and pushing Lyra to the point where she would try to outright murder Star would’ve required utterly dominating her will. Both of them lost their free will, but the slow and subtle way had fewer side-effects.

Bearing all that in mind, I was pretty worried about how Lyra would be handling everything. Chrysalis had probably scrambled her brain pretty badly, and then she would have to deal with the guilt of attacking Star and the trauma of whatever else Chrysalis put her through. I had a feeling she was going to be putting in a lot of hours with one of Aunt Wind’s counselors before she was back to normal.

I followed the directions I’d gotten from the orderly, stopping every once in a while to make sure I was still going the right way. Once I got to the psych ward things got a lot less hectic; most of the hospital was packed with ponies who’d been hurt during the battle, but this area was practically deserted. Most likely, a lot of the staff had been pulled away to help deal with all the other patients. Any nurse or doctor will do in a crisis, and long-term mental patients could wait while the more immediate problems were dealt with. I was a little surprised they’d moved Lyra down here—probably just a matter of saving bedspace for ponies with physical injuries.

Since the psych ward was operating with skeleton staff, there weren’t any ponies around to give me directions to Lyra’s room. It wasn’t too hard to work out the numbering system and find her, but the extra delay was still bothersome. The longer I had to think about what Lyra was going through, the more I worried about her. When I finally reached her room, I nearly forgot myself and just barged through the door instead of remembering to knock and quietly enter.

Lyra was in bed, and one glance was all I needed to confirm that I wouldn’t be able to do much to comfort her. She was sound asleep, and judging by the restraints on her limbs I had a feeling she wasn’t just taking one of her usual afternoon naps. That wasn’t a good sign for her mental health; the docs wouldn’t have sedated and restrained her unless she was in really bad shape.

I was a little surprised to see that Bon Bon was already there, since Lyra hadn’t mentioned her being in town. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, given how the two of them generally stick so close together that I’m surprised they haven’t fused into a single pony. LyraBon. Or would it be BonRa?

Bon Bon’s presence wasn’t the only surprise. She was dressed up in a set of chainmail that, judging by the crest, had come from my clan’s armory. I didn’t remember seeing her in the compound, and even with all the chaos and confusion of the battle I’d like to think I wouldn't have missed Bon Bon completely. Then again, I’d take overlooking Bon Bon over the far grimmer explanation of how she could’ve gotten Kicker armor; that she’d gotten it from one of my militia mares who couldn’t use it anymore.

I settled down next to Bon Bon, and slowly wrapped a wing over her shoulder. “Hey.”

Bon Bon jumped in surprise at my touch, tearing her eyes away from Lyra and doing a double-take when she realized I was sitting right next to her. “Cloud? When did you—I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. I guess was too focused on...” She trailed off, her eyes already slipping back to Lyra again.

“It’s fine, Bon Bon.” I couldn’t blame her for being so caught up in worrying about Lyra that she wasn’t minding her surroundings. I’d probably be the same way if it was Fluttershy, Blossom, or Derpy in the hospital. I glanced down at Lyra and gently smoothed out her mane. “How is she?”

Bon Bon stared down at Lyra for so long that I was about to repeat the question when she finally answered me. “She’s safe now, and the changelings didn’t hurt her.” She sighed, and shook her head. “...Physically,” she amended. One of Bon Bon’s hooves gently stroked Lyra’s forehead, while the other rested over her heart.

I tried to think of something I could say to comfort Bon Bon, but the only thing I could think of was the usual useless platitudes about how Lyra would be alright. For lack of a better idea, I settled on being honest with her. “From what Star said, the Bug Bitch Queen really got into her head. For what it’s worth, apparently Luna chopped her head off. Won’t keep her from coming back eventually, but...”

Bon Bon gave a single grim nod. “Just knowing she’s dead for now helps.” She fell silent, rubbing one of Lyra’s forelegs. “She’s been asleep since they brought her here. It’s for the best, I suppose; she probably wouldn't recognise you if she was awake. When I found her, she almost didn’t even remember who I was.”

I pulled her into a hug, trying to silently reassure her. There weren’t any words that wouldn’t sound like empty reassurances, but a hug is always genuine. She returned the hug almost desperately, reminding me that she was a lot more muscular than you would expect from a pony who sold candy for a living.

Now that I was up close and personal with her, I could tell that Bon Bon had seen some action. Nothing too serious, but there was a bit of changeling ichor in her fur, some bruises, and a few shallow cuts that nopony had gotten around to bandaging up yet. I hadn’t really checked myself in the mirror recently, but I probably looked about the same way. Well, except for the fact that Fluttershy had helped clean me up and put some bandages on. “Looks like we both saw some action.”

Bon Bon offered a single dull nod. “Yeah, I guess we did. I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours.”

“I held the compound against a couple waves of bugs, protected everypony I could, and eventually managed to bluff the Bug Bitch Queen out of attacking us long enough for Shining Armor and Cadance to kick her out.” Huh. When I said it like that, it sounded like I’d done a hay of a lot more than it actually felt like I had. “What did you get up to?”

Bon Bon looked down at her bedridden lover and grabbed one of her forelegs, squeezing it. “Saving her. We were staying with her parents, and after Cadance replaced her as a bridesmaid and she didn’t come home the next day...”

“You went looking for her,” I finished. I glanced over at her armor, particularly the unmistakable clan crest on her chainmail. “Mind if I ask where you got that? It does technically belong to my clan.”

Her ears went flat against her head, and her tone was faintly apologetic. “When the changelings broke through the shield, I took cover. I wanted to find Lyra more than anything, but even I knew I couldn’t fight my way through an entire army to get to her. Once they stopped landing all over the place, I went looking again, and found a group of ponies that ... well, they weren’t going to be using their gear anymore, and I didn’t want to wander around Canterlot naked and unarmed.” She must have run into one of the patrols I’d sent out to try and find out how the battle was going for the rest of Canterlot. So much for hoping all of them had just gotten cut off or captured.

Bon Bon was looking a bit nervous about the fact that she’d looted gear from my clan, so I put those fears to rest. “I’m sure they would’ve been happy knowing their equipment was used to take the fight to the bugs for a bit longer.” I didn’t mention that most of the chainmail had gone to the civilians we’d conscripted into service. Bon Bon didn’t need to know that I might be talking out of my plot.

Bons pointed at a large, ichor-stained mace sitting in the corner of the room. “I did try to put that to good use. I'm not a soldier like you are, but my parents were blacksmiths who did a lot of work for the Guard. I helped around the shop, and you can’t really tell if you’ve made the weapon properly unless you have some idea of how to swing it. You know, to check the balance and such.” A grim smile made its way onto her face. “I don't think those monsters expected us to put up much of a fight. They might feed on love, but I don’t think they really understand what it is, or how much it means to us.” She took one of Lyra’s hooves and pressed it to her cheek. “I'd always go down fighting. Especially for her.”

“I know exactly how you feel.” I’d been ready to put Shadow’s Armor on, even though there was an old family legend that putting it on meant dying. At the time, it had seemed like the thing to do. Now that the battle was over ... well, I didn’t like the idea of dying. Life was good, and I liked being alive. I still think I made the right call trying for the Armor, though. There are a hay of a lot of ponies I love, and if it came down to it, I’d die to keep them safe. Even if protecting the ponies I care about wasn’t a factor, I wasn’t the kind of pony who would just roll over and let a bug monster take over Equestria.

Bon Bon and I sat together for a few minutes, just silently being there for Lyra. The silence was finally broken by Bon Bon shuffling around in her seat slowly working her way out of the armor. She met my eyes and shrugged. “You'll want your armor back, right?”

“It does kinda belong to the clan.” I reached over and squeezed one of Lyra's hooves. “No need to rush on it, though. You’ve got more important things to worry about than a borrowed suit of chainmail.”

Bon Bon offered a simple nod, her attention returning once more to her fillyfriend. “I don’t know if she’ll be able to hear us, but is there anything you want to say?”

There aren’t that many things to say to a pony who’s sedated in a mental ward after having a bug crawl around in her head and mess everything up. “I'm sorry, Lyra. Get better soon, okay?”

I felt Bon Bon’s hoof settle onto my shoulder. “You can't blame yourself for what happened to her, Cloud. It’s not like you could have anticipated Princess Cadance being an evil shape-shifting bug monster, and you certainly couldn’t have guessed that Lyra was being mind-controlled when you sent Star to go find her.” She paused, and gave me a teasing bump in the shoulder. “Besides you know what Lyra would say if she heard you getting all mopey and acting like you owed her something.”

Despite the circumstances, I felt a smile creeping onto my face at the thought. “Yeah. She’d call me a goof and bop me on the nose, then suggest a threesome.”

For the first time since I’d walked into the room, I saw a hint of a smile on Bon Bon’s face. “You left out the part where she would do all of that while sitting on your couch, eating your food and drinking whatever alcohol you had in the fridge.” She shook her head and let out a sad little chuckle. “All she’s ever wanted from you is for you to be happy.” She paused, and nudged me again. “Well, that and a good bang every once in a while.”

I smiled, and snuck a quick feel of Bon Bon’s nicely developed flank before she playfully swatted my hoof away. “Lyra always did have excellent priorities.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “You just like her because when it comes sex she has almost as much of a one-track mind as you do.”

“Almost,” I agreed. We shared a laugh at that, but the jovial mood didn’t last very long. It was rather hard to stay upbeat when we were both sitting next to a knocked out and traumatized Lyra. I got back to business before things could get too grim. “You need anything, Bons?”

She let out a pained sigh. “The list of things I need right now could go on for hours, But right now it’s hard to think of much beyond needing Lyra to be okay.” She paused and frowned. “I'll have to put my business on hold to look after her, so things might get a little tough for us, but she’s more important than bits.”

As romantic as that line of thought was, ponies making sacrifices in the name of love still need to buy groceries. Thankfully, I could help with that issue. “If things start getting hard for you, I've got some bits saved up.” Growing up as a Kicker had left me with enough of the clan’s traditional stoic asceticism that I didn’t really spend a whole lot of money on needless luxuries. I liked to pick up a good book or some extra-nice food every once in a while, but at the end of every month a decent chunk of paycheck went into savings. Especially after the raise that came along with being promoted to assistant weather manager.

Bon Bon shook her head. “I'm hoping it won't come to that. You’re not the only pony who has bits saved up. Thanks, though. I appreciate the offer.” She set her head on my shoulder and took a shaky breath. “For right now, all I really want is for you to be here. I'm not asking you to devote all your time to us, but I don’t want to be alone. Other than Lyra’s parents, I don’t really know anypony in Canterlot. So, it’d be great if you could stop by every day and just be you. That kind, brave, sexy, and maybe a little bit too-loving mare that we adore.”

“I can definitely do that.” I shifted around in my seat, feeling a bit guilty as I confessed, “I’m afraid I can't stay too much longer, though. Sparkler’s probably freaking out somewhere worrying about her uncle, and I ought to check up on the ponies who came here from the compound. They got hurt under my command, the least I can do is stop by the hospital and ask them how they’re holding up. Plus I’d like to find wherever Rainbow’s gone off to at some point; Fluttershy already told me she’s fine, but...”

“You’d like to see her for yourself,” Bon Bon finished for me. She paused, then offered a reluctant nod. “I guess I understand that—we’re not the only ponies you have to worry about right now.” She reached over and put a hoof on my chest. “Just one thing: while you’re busy running around and trying to take care of everypony, just remember that if you ever need somepony to talk to, you can come find me.”

“I'm fine, Bon Bon.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I could tell they weren’t entirely true. They certainly didn’t sound remotely convincing.

From the frown on Bon Bon’s face, her horseapples detector was working just fine. “Don't lie to me, Cloud. At the very least, don't lie in front of Lyra.”

Ouch, there was a double-helping of guilt. Nothing for it now but to fess up on some of what was on my mind. “I was in command during the fight. A fight where a lot of ponies ended up coming here, and others weren’t that lucky.” I held up a hoof to forestall any objections. “Yeah, I know you’re going to say that I did the best I could, I already heard that from Dad. I know it’s true, but I’m still gonna need a bit to wrap my head around ... well, all of it.”

I was surprised when Bon Bon leaned over and nuzzled my cheek. “This might sound out of place, but I'm proud of you. You could've run or left command to somepony else. But you didn't. You stood up for the clan. No, not just the clan, you stood up for Equestria itself. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem important, but I think it is. I bet if you asked all the ponies you kept safe in your clan’s bunkers, they’d say the same thing. You did a good job, and don't you dare think otherwise.”

Um ... wow. By the end of her little speech, Bon Bon had started sounding really passionate. I hadn’t expected her to react that strongly. I guess she just really cared about me. “Noted. Thanks, Bons.”

Bon Bon paused, and a faintly embarrassed flush passed over her cheeks. “Sorry, I got a little worked up. It’s been a long day, and ... I'm just glad you're safe..”

I pulled Bon Bon into another hug, just because. “Same here. I’m glad you’re safe, and that Lyra’s gonna be okay.”

Bon Bon shot a worried glance at her fillyfriend. “I hope so. I don’t know what I’ll do if she ... Celestia, give me the strength to pull through this.”

I gave her a reassuring little squeeze. “You've already got it, Bon Bon.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

She nodded, and a bit of her usual self-assured confidence came back to her. “Yeah. I fought through an army of changelings to find her; I’m not going to lose her now.” She went silent, and that brief burst of confidence slowly ebbed away. “I know you have other ponies you need to check on, but you can stay a little bit longer, right?”

I leaned over and nuzzled Bon Bon’s cheek, then planted a kiss on Lyra’s forehead, drawing a sleepy smile from her. “Yeah, I don’t have to leave right away.”

It took me ten minutes to actually find Sparkler in the hospital’s waiting room. Canterlot General Hospital has a pretty huge one, and the place was packed to capacity with ponies. On top of all the ponies who had friends and family injured in the attack, you had all the ponies checking at the hospital because they didn’t know where their loved ones were. In the aftermath of an attack like this, the hospital is one of the first places ponies check for anypony they can’t find. Odds were, there were quite a few happy reunions happening in this very room. Maybe not very many, but even one was enough to count for something.

The place was actually getting so crowded that some guardponies had come in to maintain order and make sure nopony interfered with the hospital staff. They were starting to turn ponies away from the waiting room on account of overcrowding, but lucky for me one of ponies on duty was a Kicker. Well, maybe there wasn’t that much luck involved; it’s a running joke in the clan that every single squad in the Guard has at least one Kicker in it.

Once I let Blaze Kicker know what was going on, he let me into the waiting room and I got busy looking for Sparkler. I found her plonked down near the reception desk, staring blankly towards the doors that lead to the operating room. Her eyes were dull and unfocused, like she wasn’t even really paying that much attention to what was going on around her. She’d taken off the chainmail she’d worn during the battle, but there were still a few bits of changeling ichor and blood on her. I was pretty sure that as soon as the fight was done she’d tossed the armor off, rushed over to the hospital with her uncle, and hadn’t moved from her current position since.

A quick look at the pony occupying the seat next to Sparkler was enough to get the message across, and he reluctantly shifted over. I settled in next to the teenager and wrapped a wing around her. She jumped slightly at the contact; apparently she was either so focused on the door that she’d missed my approach, or she’d just zoned out worrying about her uncle. “H—hey, Cloud. Doin’ alright?”

Considering our relative states, I don’t think Sparkler needed to waste any time worrying about me. Fluttershy cleaning me up had done a lot to help me re-center myself after the battle. “I’m alright. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” Despite her claim, Sparkler looked the exact opposite of fine. She jerked her head towards the operating room doors. “I haven't seen him since they brought him in. One of the orderlies told me to wait here and they’d lemme know once they were done, so I've just been ... waiting.”

I pulled her in a bit closer, and added a foreleg to the wing I’d put around her back. Right now, I figured Sparkler needed all the comforting she could get. “Hey, some of the best docs in Equestria work here. He’ll be fine.”

Sparkler offered a shaky, disbelieving nod. Well, not exactly disbelieving, more like she wanted to believe me, but her cynicism wouldn’t let her. “Yeah, sure, best docs and all that, but there’s not enough of them to go ‘round. S'not like I'm gonna tell 'em to drop everything and work on Uncle Cirrus, but—” She cut herself off and her ears perked up when she spotted some activity near the OR doors, but when nopony came our way she slumped back down, giving a resigned wave of her hoof. “A lotta ponies went through that door.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I opted for trying to reassure her instead. “They'll do everything they can for him. ”

“They do that for everypony,” Sparkler grumbled. “My uncle deserves more.” She paused, her ears drooping down as she added in a quiet, frightened whisper. “Their best isn’t enough, sometimes.”

I tightened my hug on her, and threw in a gentle little nuzzle for good measure. Worrying about Cirrus was unavoidable, but I really wanted to snap her out of the depressed, dead-on-her-hooves funk she seemed to be in. Having her just sitting here feeling miserable wasn’t going to do her or anypony else any good. First things first, I needed to get her brain back to working again. “When’s the last time they updated you on his condition. Is he still in surgery? Has anypony given you a rundown of how they think his chances are?”

Sparkler blinked several times as the barrage of questions slowly began restarting her mind. “I dunno. I've just been here since...” She frowned as she tried to piece together the memories. “...dunno. Since whenever I came here with Uncle Cirrus, I guess. It‘s all kinda a blur. I didn’t really talk to anypony or anything, just followed him here, and then one of the nurses told me to go sit in the waiting area. Then you showed up.”

Yeah, Sparkler was seriously out of it. I guess being in shock was to be expected, after everything that she’d been through. For an untrained civilian, she’d handled herself incredibly well during the battle. Now that she wasn’t running on adrenaline and desperation, everything she’d been through was starting to catch up with her. Toss the post-battle shakes on top of what happened to her uncle, and it was no surprise she was a bit of a wreck. I decided on more questions, this time unrelated to Cirrus. Anything to get her mind off of that for a few minutes. “I kinda figured Star'd be with you, what with you two practically having your tails tied together these days.”

Sparkler’s ears perked up at the mention of Star, and a little more life came back into her previously dull eyes. “It’d be nice to have Star around, but I know she's probably got her own things to deal with first. Y’know, with your clan's militia and stuff.”

I had no idea where my cousin was at the moment, but I could make a pretty reasonable guess. “Last I heard, they're still finding all the ponies the bugs captured. It'd be something Star could really help with.”

“That’s probably where she is, then,” Sparkler concluded. “I kinda understand what Rainbow meant about how you Kickers get about duty. One minute Star’s my awesome smartflanked marefriend, but bring up duty and she gets all grim and serious.” She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. “Still, she’s fine. I mean, you're asking about her, so that means she was okay the last time you saw her.” Sparkler paused, and a small hint of panic slipped into her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but I could practically hear the unspoken ‘Right?’ at the end of her last sentence.

I moved quickly to calm her fears. “Yeah, Star's fine. There’s no way any bugs could be left in the city after the barrier went up, so she's safe.” Sparkler let out a relieved breath and settled a bit further into my hug, seeming to finally relax a little.

Sparkler spent a while just letting me hold her, gradually getting more and more comfortable. I might not have Dinky’s skill with get-better hugs—I wouldn’t be surprised if that filly ends up getting a hugging cutie mark—but I like to think I’m reasonably skilled when it comes to comforting embraces. Plus, I’ve got wings. I swear, one of the most important secondary uses for a pegasus’ wings is big, soft, feathery hugs. Nopony can resist them.

Sparkler rested her cheek on my chest, and took a few deep breaths. “Thanks. Needed that.” She paused, and her ears drooped down a bit. “Y’know, it really sucks that things didn’t work out with you and Mom. Gonna miss having you around.” She let out a sad little chuckle. “And just when I was starting to think that as far as stepmoms go, you could be a pretty cool one.”

“Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the whole evil stepmother cliche, so I decided to buck the trend.” My voice shook a bit when I delivered that bit of snark. I’ll admit, I’d never given much thought to the whole idea of motherhood, step or otherwise. Well, beyond stuff like ‘I’d better use protection so I don’t end up pregnant.’ Still, I’d kind of settled into something of a maternal-like capacity for Derpy’s girls while we’d been a couple. I’m not saying I was a full-fledged mother figure to them or anything, but I’d like to think I moved a bit beyond just being their slightly-less-cool-than-Rainbow honorary aunt. Even though our last talk had put me back on semi-amicable terms with Derpy, I wasn’t sure I would get to keep that special relationship with Dinky and Sparkler. To be honest, the thought of losing that hurt almost as much as losing Derpy herself.

I offered a nonchalant grin, and dropped a maternal little peck onto Sparkler’s forehead. “I guess you did kind of grow on me, kid. Sort of like a weed in my front lawn.”

“S’what happens when you get lazy and forget to keep a close eye on it,” Sparkler shot right back, finally getting back to her usual smartflanked self. She paused, and then gently nuzzled my chest, right over my heart. “Hey? Think for the next couple minutes, we could kinda forget all that stuff happened, and just pretend? I could use a mom right about now.”

I tightened my grip around her, and felt an odd lump in my throat. “Yeah, sure thing.”

She smiled and squeezed me back. “Thanks ... Momma.” She shot a sassy little grin up at me. “Gotta call you something a bit different, otherwise I’ll mix you up with Mom.”

“Rainbow goes with Awesomom and Cool-Mom,” I suggested. “Amazing-Mom, Super-Mom, and Damn-Sexy-Mom would also work.”

“Momma?” Sparkler gave me a sharp little poke with her horn. “Stop spoiling the moment.”

I went back to just hugging her. “Fine, fine. Sheesh, I’ve been a mom for less than a minute, and I’m already having to give up on my fun to be responsible.” I let that remark stand for a bit, then gave in to the inevitable. “Aw, to hay with it. You’re worth the trouble.”

We stayed snuggled up for a while, just watching and waiting. Every once in a while, an orderly would show up and pull somepony aside, presumably for news about whoever they were waiting for. From the reactions, it looked like the news was good, more often than not. I don’t think that would be much consolation to the ponies getting bad news, though.

My mind drifted over to thinking about my family, which naturally lead to Sparkler’s family. “Have you gotten word to Derpy yet? Let her know you're okay?”

Sparkler blinked in surprise, and her face slowly fell. “Um ... not yet, no. Horseapples, I didn't even think about that. She's gonna be worried outta her mind when she hears about what happened!”

“Yeah. It’d be good if the first thing she hears about the attack is that you’re safe.” Otherwise, once news of the attack on Canterlot reached Ponyville, Derpy would either force her way onto the next train headed our way or just fly here directly if getting a train ride would take too long. No, scratch that, she’d be rushing to Canterlot even if she got a letter from Sparkler saying that everything was okay. Not to mention Cirrus’ condition.

Sparkler let out a pained sigh. “Yeah, I need to let her know what’s going on. Just gotta wait until I know more about...” She trailed off, and waved a hoof towards the doors. “Besides, s’not like I can leave to go find a post office right now. Even if there was one working, it’d mean ... I gotta stay here until I know, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know how you feel.” In the aftermath of the attack, finding any way to get word back to Ponyville wasn’t going to be easy. Despite Sparkler’s comment, sending a normal letter through the post office was an option. Even if things weren’t a big chaotic mess, Derpy wasn’t going to wait for however many days it would take a letter to work its way through the postal system. This news was a bit too urgent for conventional channels. “Want me to find a way to get the news to her?”

She thought it over for a bit, then slowly shook her head. “I'll get it. Thanks, but s'kinda something I wanna do myself. Soon as I know how everything else is gonna work out, I’ll see about getting in touch with her.”

I set a hoof on her shoulder. “Yeah, I figured I would leave what to say up to you; I’d just work on finding a way to get in touch with Derpy at all. It’s gonna take some doing to get word to her before the news hits Ponyville.” Assuming everypony there didn’t know something was up already. Being perched on the side of a mountain does make Canterlot highly visible.

Sparkler frowned in thought. “Yeah, I guess it’s not like we can wait for the mail system to do its thing. Especially with how clogged up things’re gonna be now.” She gave a slow nod. “Yeah, thanks. I'll get something ready to send off once I know what’s gonna happen.

“Agreed.” Things went quiet again for a while, until I remembered that I should probably say something to help her through the post-battle shakes. She was probably going to need some time with a counselor before this was all over, but I could at least give her a little comfort. “Hey, Sparkler? You did real good, back at the compound.”

The teenager blinked in surprise at the sudden change of subject, but adapted quickly enough. “Thanks. I dunno where any of that magic stuff came from, really. I just—there were bugs all over the place and Uncle Cirrus was hurt and you were down, and then next thing I know—well, you were there, you saw what happened next.”

“Yeah, I did.” Judging by the display I’d seen during the battle, I had a feeling that whenever they got around to testing Sparkler’s magic level, it was going to turn out pretty high. Probably Beta-level, though I wouldn’t rule out the bottom level of Alpha. Star would probably try to get her to apply for the Mage Corps, but I couldn’t really see Sparkler in the Guard. Still, I wasn’t just thinking of her as a spellcasting battery. “I wasn’t talking about how good your laser spell was, although that was a pretty nice piece of work.”

“Oh.” She shot a hesitant, almost shy look at me. “...Really good, huh?”

“Yeah, really good.” I confirmed. “I bet Derpy would be so proud of you.” I paused, then nuzzled her forehead. “I know I am.”

Her uncertain little smile widened considerably. “Thanks. Means a lot to hear you say that.”

“You earned it.”

She perked up a little bit more at that, smiling and nodding. “Yeah, guess I did.”

We went back to silently waiting after that, with Sparkler snuggling up with me again. I was a little surprised when I realized I wasn’t suppressing any dirty thoughts about the nubile young teenager curled up with me. Now, even on my worst day I wouldn’t go chasing after Derpy’s impressionable teenage daughter, but sometimes a mare can’t help noticing things. Except that I wasn’t. Instead, I just held her, and did everything I could think of to help her feel better.

Guess Sparkler was right when she said I’d make a good stepmom.

Our silent companionship lasted until Sparkler spotted one of the hospital staffponies talking to a couple of stallions. I guess she must have remembered how I’d quizzed her on Cirrus’ condition earlier, because once the mare was done talking to the stallions, Sparkler flagged her down. “Hey, excuse me! You got a minute?”

The mare trotted up, wearing the faintly annoyed frown of somepony who has a long and stressful day, and doesn’t need any more worries. Sparkler shuffled self-consciously at the nurse’s obvious irritation, but didn’t back down. “Sorry, I know you’re probably really busy and stuff, but my uncle's back there and I haven’t heard anything about how he’s doing since they brought him in. Um, his name’s Cirrus Doo, he's a sergeant. I've been waiting for a while now.” Her eyes dropped to the floor, and she let out a worried murmur. “I just wanna know if he’s alright, y’know?”

Sparkler’s barely restrained nervous terror seemed to break through the nurse’s understandable case of weary cynicism. She offered a sympathetic smile and spoke in a gentle, reassuring tone. “I don’t know anything about him, but I can check. Do you know which unit he was in?”

“Unit, er—Machwing Company,” Sparkler answered.

“He would've come in with the Kicker casualties,” I added in. “He was one of the wounded who made it to the compound for sanctuary.”

The nurse’s face shifted to the carefully neutral professional mask. “I’ll check, and let you know what I find.” I could guess at her reasons: most of the wounded guards the changelings had brought in as cover for their sneak attack had been in bad shape, and then the sneak attack had cost us most of our doctors and medical supplies. Considering the circumstances, it was likely that not all those guardponies made it. All I could do was hope for Sparkler’s sake that Cirrus was one of the exceptions.

After the nurse trotted off to get our info, there wasn’t much for me or Sparkler to do except sit and wait for a bit longer. I couldn’t really think of anything to say: most of the reassuring phrases that came to mind would’ve just made things worse by making her think of all the bad things that might be happening. I stuck with just holding her; it’s pretty hard to screw that up.

The nurse came back a couple minutes later, her professional mask still carefully in place. “Come with me, please.” That was probably a good sign. If Cirrus was in really bad shape, she would probably be acting more sympathetic to try and soften the blow. Then again, if the news was good she would probably be smiling. Well, unless she had a rotten bedside manner.

Sparkler and I got up and followed the nurse as she led us deeper into the hospital. I stuck close to Sparkler, who was looking even shakier now that we were about to find out what had happened to her uncle. From how hard she was leaning against me as we walked down the corridors, I had a feeling she wouldn’t have been able to stay standing without me there for support.

The nurse led us to a small, well-insulated room strategically laced with seat-cushions and several tissue boxes. That definitely did not bode well. “Please take a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly.”

Sparkler and I settled down onto the cushions, and she let out a resigned sigh. “Great. More waiting.”

Thankfully, this time we weren’t kept waiting for very long. After a couple minutes, a doctor who looked even more worn down than the nurse who’d escorted us here stepped through the door. His scrubs and white coat had several specks of blood on them, there was a surgical mask hanging down from his neck, and his brown mane was a frazzled mess. He levitated a clipboard up, and quickly read over it. “You’re here about Sergeant Cirrus Doo, right?”

Sparkler bolted to her hooves fast enough to give an uncomfortable yank on the wing I’d been keeping wrapped around her back. “How is he? What about his wing? Is he okay? Can I see him? Is he awake yet? And what—”

The doctor quickly cut her off before she could unleash the next dozen questions on him. “Easy, miss. First things first, I’m Doctor Lancet, and I was one of the surgeons working on your...” He glanced down at the clipboard. “Your uncle, right?” When Sparkler nodded, he continued. “Alright then. We’ll start with the good news: he's alive, he's out of danger, and he should be able to recover and lead a full life.”

I let out a relieved sigh at that, even though I could tell there was still bad news coming. At least he was going to be alive. No matter how bad the inevitable bad news was going to be, none of it could top the news that he was alive.

Sparkler didn’t seem to share my tiny bit of optimism. She’d relaxed a little at hearing that her uncle was alive, but there was still a quiet sense of dread hanging over her. Like she was tensing for the other horseshoe to drop. When she spoke, her voice carried a sense of quiet resignation. “And the bad news?”

Dr. Lancet took a deep breath, then lowered his clipboard and looked Sparkler in the eyes. “While your uncle can still lead a full and happy life, he is going to have to make some very difficult adjustments. If you’d prefer, I could spare you the details, and just—”

“I’d rather hear it all,” Sparkler answered, swallowing. “He had to deal with having it happen to him. ‘Least I can do is know about it.”

The doctor took a deep breath, and gently put a hoof on Sparkler’s shoulder. “Very well. His right wing was badly lacerated near the lower joint, where the radius, ulna, and humerus meet. I'm not familiar with changeling anatomy, but they seem to have considerable bite force. All three of the bones suffered severe compound fractures, and despite our best efforts...”

“You couldn't save his wing,” I finished. I hate to say it, but I wasn’t surprised by that. His wing had looked pretty bad when they brought him in, and a couple hours in the medical bunker with no real treatment probably didn’t do him any favors. For a moment, I wondered if preventing the changelings from pulling off their ambush would’ve been enough to let him save his wing. It’s probably a mercy that I’ll never know the answer to that.

Dr. Lancet offered a single grim nod, and I felt a twinge of sympathy pain in both of my wings. Not being able to fly is one of those nightmares just about every pegasus has at some point. Now Cirrus would have to live it. The doc tried to force a bit of optimism into his tone. “Prosthetics have advanced very quickly over the last couple of years. There aren’t any flight-capable designs in production yet, but there a few that can handle very simple gliding, and given a little more time...”

I pulled Sparkler into another hug, and as soon as she was in my forelegs she started shaking like a leaf. The trembles passed after half a minute or so, and she gave one of my legs a single squeeze, then gulped down a breath. “C—Can I see him?”

The doctor gave an understanding nod. “He was heavily sedated, so he won’t be waking up for some time yet, but he'll be moved to the recovery ward shortly. I think it would be best if he had family at hoof when he wakes up. If possible, we’ll have a counselor on hoof too: it’s usually best to have a professional to help.” He checked his clipboard again, then jotted down a quick note for us. “You’ll find him in room 42; here are directions to the ward. I'd take you there myself, but...”

“S’alright.” Sparkler sighed. “Probably got another dozen patients waiting on you while you’re talking to us. Thanks for—for doing everything you could.”

“Thank you, miss.” Dr. Lancet paused, and offered one last sympathetic look for Sparkler. “I’m sorry for your loss.” With that he trotted out, probably to take care of the next trauma case, or give somepony else news on their loved ones.

I held onto Sparkler for a bit longer, until she gently pulled herself out of my hooves and stood up, shakily heading for the door. I wasn’t completely sure if she wanted to be alone with her uncle, or if I should get to work on finding a way for her to get word to Derpy, so I decided to ask. “Need me to come with, Sparks?”

Sparkler paused at the doorway, then turned back and gave a single trembly nod. That was all she needed to say; I quickly trotted up to her and planted my side firmly against hers. After a moment of self-conscious hesitation on account of Cirrus’s injuries, I put a wing over her back too. Sparkler jumped at that, then took a slow breath and leaned over to very gently nuzzle my wing.

A short walk through the hospital’s packed halls brought us to the recovery ward. Sparkler froze in front of the double doors to the ward, then licked her lips and very slowly walked through. The ward itself was slightly less packed and frantic than the waiting area, but there were still a whole lot of ponies visiting their loved ones, not to mention the constant shuffle of beds as patients were shifted out and brought in.

After a little searching, we found Cirrus’ room. There was another pony in the room, but the privacy screen was up and we could hear the quiet murmur of voices on the other side. Cirrus was lying on his left side with a bunch of bandages wrapped around his torso, though only for about a hoof-length on each side of his wing-joint. Maybe it was a little selfish, but I was incredibly grateful for the fact that there were so many bandages and so much padding over the joint that I couldn’t really tell how much of his wing was left. I have a feeling that if I’d gotten a good look at the injury itself, whatever was in my stomach would’ve ended up on the hospital floor. For that matter, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten. Breakfast? Shadow, this morning felt like it had happened ages ago.

Cirrus was still out cold, and from what Dr. Lancet told us, that was going to be the case for a while yet. I’d imagine they have to put a pony under pretty heavily in order to handle an amputation. He was still hooked up to an IV and a bunch of the usual monitoring machines, and from what little I could tell by looking at all the devices, he was in decent shape. Or at least none of them were shrieking and beeping the way they do when something’s wrong.

Sparkler let out a small whine from the back of her throat upon seeing her uncle, and trotted over to the side of his bed. She spent a minute just staring blankly at him, as if she was trying to find some way to make sense of what had happened to him. I settled in place next to her, and she latched onto me with quiet desperation. When she finally broke her silence, her voice was thick with hollow exhaustion. “That letter to Mom's gonna have to wait for a bit. S’gonna be a while before ... y’know ... s’just too much.”

I offered her a sympathetic little squeeze. Anypony would be overwhelmed by all this, but especially a kid like Sparkler. Sure, she was old enough to be an adult in some legal senses of the word, but right now she was very much a scared kid. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Find some way to let Mom and Dinky know I’m okay,” she answered dully. “Find a way to get Mom over here. Find Star.” Her gaze dropped to the floor, and she whimpered out, “Some way to lemme wake up and have all this be a bad dream.”

I gave the only answer I could. “I’ll do everything I can to help, okay?”

“Thanks.” She gave her uncle’s foreleg a squeeze, then turned to face me. “Hey, Cloud? Think you could pretend to be my stepmom for a bit longer?”

“Of course.” I pulled Sparkler in for a full body hug, doing my best to project an appropriate air of maternal-ish-ness. I’ve got no idea how that works, or even if it works, but judging from the way Sparkler buried her face into my chest and held onto me for dear life, I must have been doing something right.

The two of us sat there for a long while, just waiting for Cirrus to wake up. To be honest, I was starting to feel a little torn about keeping Sparkler company. I mean, she obviously needed somepony to stick with her, and I wasn’t about to leave her all alone under these circumstances. However, I hadn’t even gotten to checking on the other ponies who’d been at the compound, not to mention Dad, Alula, and Lyra were still here too. I didn’t want to leave Sparkler hanging, but I had a lot of other ponies I wanted to check on too. That’s the problem with caring about lots of ponies; sometimes all of them need you at once, and you have to pick and choose.

I decided to at least stick with her until Cirrus woke up. Once he was awake and in good enough shape to talk to her they would probably want a little private family time anyway.

I was so focused on taking care of Sparkler that I missed the hushed whispers from the other family in the room—though in fairness, part of that was probably due to the sound-dampening spells that kick up when the privacy screen is in place. Even if there hadn't been any magic involved, I had more important things occupying my attention than the intimate conversations of total strangers. Regardless, I didn't notice the other pony in the room until she was practically standing beside us.

“Excuse me.” I looked up, and saw Princess Celestia herself standing in the doorway. On any other day I probably would’ve bolted to my hooves and promptly bowed to her, but right now I was just too burned out to worry about protocol. From the fact that nopony got on my case over it, I’m pretty sure they all understood.

Sparkler’s ears perked up, and she turned to the Princess, a quiet, hopeful plea in her eyes. “Are—are you here to heal Uncle Cirrus?”

The Princess gave a barely perceptible flinch and reluctantly shook her head. “I am sorry, Sparkler, but the doctors have already done everything that can be done for him.” I took a close look at the Princess, and noticed her mane seemed a bit less colorful and flowing than it usually did, her eyes were slightly sunken, and there was still a small scorch mark on the tip of her horn. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she looked a little haggard, if she’d lost a fight to Chrysalis.

Sparker let out a soft snort, and her gaze dropped down to floor. She let out a quiet, resentful murmur. “What good are you, then?”

Celestia apparently chose to diplomatically pretend she hadn’t heard Sparkler’s last comment. If I had to guess, I’d say the Princess was pretty close to tapped out, as far as alicorns go. Whatever she had left after the fight with Chrysalis had probably been spent on saving ponies who were in worse shape than Cirrus. That wouldn’t be much comfort to Sparkler, though. Knowing a dozen ponies she’d never met before had their lives saved by the Princess’ healing wouldn’t make her uncle any less crippled, and that was all she cared about right now.

It wasn’t hard to guess why Celestia was walking around the Recovery Ward. I knew that visiting the soldiers who’d gotten hurt under my command was the proper thing to do, and Princess Celestia was a lot better and more experienced at the whole leadership thing.

The Princess took a deep breath, and then stepped up to Cirrus and cast a spell. The glow around her horn looked a lot weaker, and flickered a bit while she was casting: that was usually a sign that the spellcaster was running on empty. After a few seconds she stopped her casting, and there was an undercurrent of profound weariness to her voice as she spoke. “I have done what I can to ease his pain.”

Sparkler frowned at her for a bit longer, then her expression softened slightly and she grunted out, “Thanks. Sorry about—”

Princess Celestia waved the apology away before she could even get started. “It’s quite understandable. It has been a long, difficult day for all of us.”

Sparkler shuffled uncomfortably, shooting an awkward look up at the Princess. “Um, say, d’you think there’s any way you could get word to my mom that I’m okay?” Sparkler’s eyes dropped the floor, and she continued in a nervous mumble “S’just, I don’t want her freaking when she finds out Canterlot got hit.”

Celestia nodded. “I’m sure I can arrange something.” She then turned to me. “I hate to impose any further than I already have, but I need to borrow you for a few minutes, Cloud Kicker.”

Sparkler deflated, her ears going flat against her head. “Oh. Yeah. Alright then. I’ll just stay here, I guess. S’not like I got anywhere else to be.”

I instinctively tightened my grip around Sparkler. I’m normally not the type of pony who would refuse a royal order, but I really didn’t like the idea of leaving Sparkler alone right now. Thankfully, the Princess stepped in to smooth any ruffled feathers. “It will only be for a short while, and we’ll just be on the other side of the room, under a privacy spell.”

I reluctantly removed myself from Sparkler’s grip. I still didn’t like the idea, but it’s not like I would be leaving her completely alone, and the Princess probably had a good reason for wanting to talk to me. I stepped over to an isolated corner of the room, and a second later I felt a spell snap into place. Celestia might be weak and tired by her standards, but an exhausted alicorn’s still probably a step above most rested unicorns.

Princess Celestia turned to me, and her shoulders slumped down, while her mane grew even more frayed than it already was. She looked a lot less regal and princess-like than she’d been a minute ago. I guess she’d been trying to keep up a good front for the troops, but now that she had a privacy spell safely in place she could finally allow herself to show a bit of how tired she was. She sat down, and seemed to need a couple seconds to gather herself before she could actually speak. “I’ve been informed that you attempted to recover Shadow’s Armor.”

“Yeah.” I self-consciously scuffed a hoof along the floor, suddenly feeling like a filly who’d been caught with her hoof in the cookie jar. “You can probably tell that it didn’t exactly work out.”

Celestia placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Don’t judge yourself too harshly for that, Cloud Kicker. The Armor’s standards are extremely high; Shadow was very emphatic in her insistence that she would rather see it go unused than risk it falling into the wrong hooves.”

I guess I could understand that. If I had a magical artifact with my name and legacy attached to it, I’d probably want to make sure it didn’t wind up in some evil overlord’s collection too. Still... “We would’ve been in a tight spot if Cadance and Shining Armor hadn’t pulled off their love shield of doom. Seems like a bad design to have your emergency super-armor be so picky that almost nopony can use it. And while we’re on the subject, what’s up with the armor killing the ponies who wear it anyway? Isn’t that the opposite of what armor is supposed to do?”

The Princess smiled and let out a soft chuckle. “You always were an inquisitive one, Cloud Kicker. Very well, I shall answer your second question first, since it is the simpler one. The Armor itself does not kill anypony. However, fighting entities with powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary mares and stallions is a very hazardous business. The Armor might have given you strength to match Chrysalis, but she still has a vast intellect, millennia of experience, and an army of drones.”

“Huh. So there is no curse. Figured.” The armor being cursed made for a nice legend, but I did kind of figure that it was only a legend. An emergency superweapon with a killer curse on it wouldn’t be much good, and you’d think Celestia or somepony would’ve just gotten rid of the curse if there was one.

Granted, it was a lot easier to be rational about how the curse was probably just an old mare’s tale when I wasn’t thinking about putting the Armor on. Superstition always gets a lot more convincing when you’re looking it in the face.

“As for your other question,” Celestia continued. “as I said, the consequences of the armor falling into the wrong hooves could be most severe. The Elements of Harmony require that their users hold their virtues near to their hearts. Equestria could have fallen to eternal darkness if Twilight and her friends had not succeeded in demonstrating why they were worthy of wielding the Elements. Even though it is a less powerful artifact, Shadow’s Armor must be similarly protected. I would not see the armor I forged for a pony who was very dear to me used by one who would profane her legacy and use its power for foul ends.”

Call me a dirty-minded mare if you will, but my mind latched onto her particular choice of words. Probably because discussing that was a lot more fun than getting into a long debate over how much security was too much. Really, that’s just going to boil down to politics and personal opinion anyway. Political debates are boring, especially compared to what I was thinking of now. A sly grin snuck onto my face. “So ... Shadow was ‘very dear’ to you, was she?” I winked at the Princess.

“She was,” Celestia confirmed. “As are all of my little ponies.”

“Nope, no dodging the question.” Maybe all the stress had just made my mind finally snap, but I was determined to get a straight answer. “Shadow wouldn’t tell me while I was trying to get the armor, but you can. Come on, I promise I won’t tell anypony...”

The supreme ruler of Equestria quirked a single eyebrow at me. “You really are determined to get an answer, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” I confirmed. “Not gonna drop this thing until I get a straight answer.”

“Well then...” Princess Celestia paused, and a teasing smirk worked its way onto her face. I felt an understandable bit of trepidation as she readied her response. “I do distinctly recall hearing that you once attempted to seduce my sister. You do realize that if you were, in fact, my descendant, then any acts you performed with Luna would be—”

“Gah! I get the idea, you can stop talking now!” I groaned and pounded a hoof on my forehead in a vain attempt to get rid of that particular line of thought. I hadn’t ever considered things from that perspective before, but ... yeah. Ew. Sure, one could point out that the thirty or so generations between me and maybe-Celestia was far more than enough time for that there wasn’t any perceivable genetic tie between me and Luna, but it was still ... ew.

It didn’t help that Celestia had a hoof over her mouth, and very quietly snickering at me. That evil, evil mare.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll drop it.” I groaned and gave a couple shakes of my head to try and bury that line of thought into one of the deep, dark places of brain I never visited. “You win.”

“I usually do,” Princess Celestia answered lightly. Thankfully, she decided to spare me any further suffering by changing the subject. “Now, there was one other matter I wanted to discuss with you. I understand that my sister has offered you the chance to return to the Guard. In light of your actions today, I would like to second that offer. I won’t pretend that it will be easy, and you will certainly have to atone for your past mistakes, but the option is present if you wish to pursue it.”

Yesterday, that offer might have been tempting. A lot had happened in the last day or so. “Thank you, Princess, but I think I’m fine with being a civilian.”

“Very well then.” She paused in thought for a moment, then declared. “I suppose the least I can do is put an end to your current awkward status within the Guard.” She concentrated for a moment, and a single scroll appeared in mid-air, then floated into my hooves. I opened it up, and read the first couple lines.

Discharge papers. Better than that, it was a full honorable discharge. Nopony would ever say I hadn’t done my duty for clan and country again. It was everything I could’ve hoped for. The whole situation was perfect.

Too perfect.

Yeah, getting out of the Guard with an honorable discharge would’ve been nice, but that’s the kind of thing a pony ought to earn by actually spending their years in the Guard. Getting out of the Guard with a certificate saying I’d done my duty wouldn’t count for much, because a piece of paper wouldn’t change the fact that I’d run out on the Guard. Hay, if not for Dad pulling strings to shield me, I would’ve classified as a deserter. Sure, I’d stepped up and done my duty today, but you can’t spend one day fighting and then claim you were a good soldier. You get an honorable discharge for years of service.

“Thanks again, Princess, but no thanks.” I hoofed the papers back over to her. “I’ve been getting into a whole lot of trouble lately because I’ve been running away from my problems and responsibilities. I think it’s about time I started facing them. It just seems like walking away from the Guard with an honorable discharge wouldn’t be very ... honorable.”

Celestia frowned down at me. “Surely you don’t want to be court-martialed for desertion?”

I winced at that. I might be trying to do the right thing, but getting put on trial was a bit of an extreme step to take. Still, trying to do the honorable thing doesn’t really count for much if you’re gonna half-flank it. “Do you think that’s necessary?”

The Princess slowly shook her head. “I think, if you will agree, I can save us both a good deal of time and trouble by ruling on the matter personally.” I nodded, then waited for her verdict.

Since she was going by the military code, there was really only one way she could rule. My next set of discharge papers looked almost exactly the same, except that now every mention of honorable discharge had ‘dis’ in front of it. That hurt, but at the same time ... well, I’d earned it.

To my surprise, after handing down the ruling Princess Celestia kept talking. It seemed that she had one last trick to pull on me. “While abandoning your responsibilities to the Guard was a severe error, you’ve been a good citizen of Equestria since, and I cannot ignore the importance of your actions earlier today. Although your dishonorable discharge currently stands on record, I would be willing to offer a royal pardon if certain conditions were met.”

My ears perked up at that. “What kind of conditions?” A pardon would at least wipe out the black spot on my record from the dishonorable discharge. Being kicked out of the military for bad behavior doesn’t look good to anypony.

Celestia tapped a hoof against her chin a few times. “Well, the normal rules for West Hoof are that you serve in the Guard instead of paying for your education. Since you never served...”

“Oh.” I think my bank account just cried out in agony. Blossom was always grumbling about paying off her student loans, and I had a feeling the technical college she’d gone to was a lot less expensive than West Hoof. “Um ... got a ballpark figure for how many bits that’ll be?”

Celestia named a number. I tried not to faint. All those bits I’d told Bon Bon I had saved up were gone. So much for decompressing from all this crazy horseapples by taking a long, debaucherous vacation in Las Pegasus. “Do I have to pay all of that back at once?”

“I’m sure we can work out the details of a reasonable repayment plan later,” Princess Celestia assured me. “As for the bits themselves, I know a number of charities that could put them to good use.”

“Super.” Yeah, my bits would do a lot more good going to some charity, but a tiny, greedy portion of my mind felt that the only charity I should be spending bits on was seeing if I could find that one mare I’d met on my last trip to Las Pegasus who liked to cover herself in whipped cream and then let me lick it off. At least, I’m pretty sure that her name was Charity. Or something like that. Or was it Vanilla Sky who did the whipped cream thing? It was hard to be sure, I’d been a bit drunk at the time. What mattered was that I could’ve spent those bits on a week of living in luxury and inventing enough new ways to bang to put out my own version of the Kamare Sutra.

Apparently, being responsible includes making some unpleasant sacrifices. It wasn’t even all that bad, really. In a way, it felt oddly uplifting to get smacked with a huge fine for past misconduct. At least I wouldn’t have that issue hanging over my head anymore. No more unresolved guilt over my mistake in running out on the Guard, and everything Dad had to go through to shield me from the consequences of that. I owed him a lot for that.

My ears twitched when Princess Celestia cleared her throat. “Oh, yes, one other thing, Cloud Kicker. You’re acquainted with my student Twilight, yes? Talk to her about writing a friendship report for me about everything you’ve learned from this experience.”

“A friendship report?” I let out a skeptical cough. “Seriously?”

Princess Celestia delicately cleared her throat. “So, about the interest rate on your repayment plan...”

The Princess fights dirty.

I gave the only answer I could: “When the report’s done, do you want me to deliver it directly to you or should I just give it to Twilight?”

“Either will do.” Celestia paused, then offered me a gentle smile. “Though I always do appreciate it when family visits.” She allowed just long enough for the implications of that to sink in before adding, “I consider all of my little ponies a part of my family.”

“Okay, now I know you’re just messing with me,” I grumbled. Seriously, is there something about being an alicorn that requires you to constantly make cryptic, open to interpretation statements?

“Perhaps a little,” Celestia admitted with a soft chuckle.

I guess that was just more proof that, for all her stoicism, Shadow must have had a good sense of humor. No way she could’ve hooked up with Celestia if she was as dour and stoic as some ponies claim.

That particular line of thought came to an abrupt end as Celestia set a single hoof on my shoulder. “Cloud, regardless of what your discharge papers say or what happened when you tried to claim Shadow’s Armor, I think you should know that I am very proud of you. I think that if they were still here, Shadow and your mother would be too.” Then she did something I really didn’t expect, and pulled me into a hug. I guess privacy spells let her get away with being a bit less formal than she normally is. “I am proud of you, Cloud Kicker—the mare you are, the lives you saved, and so, so much more.”

At first I was frozen in surprise at being hugged by the ruler of Equestria, but it didn’t take long for my brain to adjust, and soon I was returning it. I have to admit, I’d needed a bit of a pick-me-up after getting those discharge papers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold out forever. “So ... when you say you’re proud of me, do you mean proud like a monarch is of her subjects, or more like a thirty generations removed grandmother?”

She let out a snort of laughter. I guess even Princess Celestia herself couldn’t resist the charm of bad jokes and unshakable persistence. “Oh, Cloud Kicker...”

The Pony Who is Bi-Winning

“What a load of horseapples!” Rainbow Dash growled, stomping across the compound’s outer wall to emphasize her point. “You kick a bunch of changeling plot and help out a lotta ponies, and all you get for it is getting chucked out of the army, called dishonorable, and then there’s a giant fine on top of that! That sucks!” She trotted up to my side and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Cloud, I’ll sort this out. I mean, I did help save Equestria twice, that’s gotta count for enough to clear up some stuff like this.”

I suppose I should’ve known Dash wouldn’t take the news well, or understand my decision. One of the things I’ve noticed about the two of us, Dash tends to take a smaller view of things. I don’t mean that as anything bad about her, it’s just she tends to look at the world in fairly immediate terms. Abstract ideas like ‘duty’ and ‘honor’ didn’t mean much to her compared to her friends, family, and any other ponies she cared about. A pony could argue with Dash until the sun died about how I hadn’t earned an honorable discharge, and all Dash would see is somepony taking a shot at one of her friends.

“And another thing,” Rainbow continued. “Lemme into your big secret family vault, so I can kick that stupid set of armor’s ... um ... whatever it is you kick on a suit of armor. Whatever, the point is that it shouldn’t have said you weren’t worthy. ‘Cause, you know, you’re cool.”

“Yeah? Thanks.” I stepped over and gave her a teasing nudge with my shoulder. “Of course, you’re still cooler than me.”

“You can’t really quantify cool like that,” Rainbow answered breezily.

“You do that all the time,” I shot right back. “You’re always counting up how cool things are, and comparing that level of cool to other things.” Not to mention she also looks at awesomeness, extremeness, amazingness, radicalness...

There are many factors to Dashian Mathematics.

Rainbow snorted and rolled her eyes. “I say a lotta stuff, and all of it’s right. It’s just that some of it’s more right when I say it, and some of it’s kinda, you know, universally more right.”

I couldn’t resist that opening. “So now you can quantify rightness as well as coolness?”

“Kiss my plot, Kicker.”

I’ll give you three guesses what I did next. From the way Rainbow yelped, you’d think I’d used tongue.

“Gyah! You freaky weirdo perverted crazy ... argh!” At that point Rainbow’s rage broke completely, and she just started ranting in gibberish. On the bright side, her rump was very nice—small, tight, and muscular. I usually like a bit more bounciness in a plot, but sometimes anything more than a hooffull’s a waste. I really should seduce her someday. Well, if not for her being hooked up with Pinkie Pie. Thankfully, there’s an obvious fix for that. Now I just needed to figure out how to sell them on a threesome...

“Hey, how are things with you and Pinkie anyway?” I put a wing over Rainbow’s back, which she accepted despite still grumbling over my latest lovably wacky antic.

“They’re good.” Rainbow shot me a playful glare. “Though you’re so gonna get it when she finds out you kissed my butt.”

“You kidding? She’d probably think it was hilarious.” There was no mystery why Pinkie Pie wound up with the Element of Laughter; that mare could find the funny side of a blank wall. Give her something genuinely funny, like me teasing Dash, and she was guaranteed to crack up.

“Shut up.” As anypony fluent in Dash-ese knows, ‘shut up’ means ‘you’re right, but I don’t want to admit it.’ It’s an interesting language.

I snuggled in a bit closer to Dash, thoroughly enjoying how it felt to nestle up against her. “Hey, Dash? Just figured I should let you know I love you. Not in the ‘I wanna drag you into bed and give you all kinds of funny feelings sense.’” I thought that over, and made a correction. “Okay, not just in that sense. But mainly ... you mean a lot to me. You’re one of my best friends. Always have been, always will be.” I tried to think of where I’d been going with that idea, and drew a blank. “I dunno, I think I was gonna say something really deep and profound, but I lost it. I guess I just wanted you to know I love you.” I capped that declaration off with carefully platonic kiss to the cheek.

“Sheesh, such a sap.” Despite her best efforts to play it cool, the blush on Rainbow’s cheeks gave her away. Underneath the cool, tough exterior, Dash is a total softie. After a couple seconds, her blush intensified, and she mumbled something under her breath.

“What was that?” I had a pretty good idea what she’d said already, but I wasn’t about to let her get away with just mumbling it.

“Love you too,” Rainbow grumbled, her cheeks positively flaming. “In a ‘try something pervy on me now and I’ll rip your tail off’ way.” For once, I suppressed my sex drive and just opted for hugging her hard enough to make Dinky envious. To my surprise, Dash gave me a quick little peck on the forehead. Like I said, total softie.

We probably would’ve stayed like that for a while, if we hadn’t heard somepony cooing behind us. Rainbow and I turned around, and found Fluttershy wearing a sheepish smile accompanied by a faint blush. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you, but you two just looked so cute together that I couldn’t help...”

“You didn’t hear anything, right?” Rainbow asked as she hastily disentangled herself from me.

Fluttershy offered her gentlest, most reassuring smile in response. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash. It’ll be our secret.” She threw in a conspiratorial wink which, since it was Fluttershy, was utterly adorable.

“Good,” Rainbow grunted. “I’ve got a reputation to protect and stuff. Do you have any idea how many ponies would be lost and confused if they learned that for a moment I stopped being awesome and got all sappy and stuff? It’d cause a mass panic in Ponyville.”

While I was tempted to try and deflate Rainbow’s ego a bit, I couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that she was right. Once you’ve seen Ponyville descend into wild terror over a bunny stampede, it’s hard to rule anything out.

Fluttershy delicately cleared her throat to get our attention. “Before I forget, I wanted to remind you that the train from Ponyville is going to be here in an hour.”

Oh. Yeah, that train. The one with Derpy, Dinky, Blossom, and probably a lot of other ponies on it. I knew where I stood with Blossom, but I still wasn’t sure how I should handle things with Derpy. We hadn’t really done anything together since our breakup, but we wanted to try and get along. Plus, right now she could probably use a friend. On the other hoof, maybe I’d just be getting in the way when she really wanted time with her family. After what happened to Cirrus, he was going to need all the help he could get. But was I supposed to be helping, or staying out of the way?

Ugh. Relationships are so complicated and messy. Maybe I should just focus on the ones I know how to handle. “Hey, Fluttershy?” Eepy turned to me, a gentle smile on her face. “I owe you and Blossom a big talk about ... well, us. Might be something to do, once Blossom’s in.”

Fluttershy considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Alright then.”

“Finally gonna get your love life sorted out?” Rainbow let out an annoyed snort. “It’s about damn time.”

“Rainbow Dash, that’s not very nice,” Fluttershy chided.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Rainbow grumbled.

If I’m being completely honest with myself, I had to agree with her. I’d let the whole situation spiral too far out of control, and it was past time to get things back to normal. Just trying to stay out of the drama and hope it all blew over without me getting involved was never going to work. After how badly things had blown up with Derpy, I owed it to Blossom and Fluttershy to make sure nothing like that happened again.

For the moment, I didn’t particularly want to linger on that subject. Not when there were much more fun things to discuss. “So, Dash, about you and Pinkie finally getting around to banging...” One of Rainbow’s ears flicked, and I detected a vulnerability. “You know, mating. Sex. Boinking. Clam jamming. Amorous congress. Buttering the muffin. Waging war on chastity. Doing the eight-legged frolic. Riding the wild pony hard and putting her away wet. Sticking a flesh rocket in a hot pocket. Giving her the lickaroo. Doing the old in-and-out. Making the beast with two backs. Doing some flanking maneuvers. Taking a plot piledriver. Drinking protein shakes. Special exercises.” A particularly devilish idea occurred. “Having a couple bites of Pinkie’s pie. Making Twilight sparkle. Diving for Rarity’s pearl. Bucking Applejack’s trees.” I paused, and shot a teasing grin over at Eepy. “Making ‘Shy flutter. Or making Eepy squeak.”

Fluttershy flushed a bit, then offered an uncertain smile. “Kicking the clouds?”

“Nope!” Rainbow slammed her hooves over her ears, vigorously shaking her head all the while. “No! Just no! Cloud doing it, I can live with. But if Fluttershy is getting in on it ... no. No! This isn’t happening! Not listening!” She turned and unleashed a death glare on me. “This is your fault, Kicker. You’re corrupting Fluttershy with your...” She trailed off, one hoof circling in the air as she searched for the right term. “You-ness.”

“My me-ness is known to be very corrupting.” I’ll admit that I let Dash have that one partially just because it seemed to annoy her. “It’s all part of the irresistibly charming Cloud Kicker package. Besides, if I didn’t have my me-ness, I wouldn’t be me. And then who would I be? Probably really boring, unless I stole somepony else’s them-ness.” I paused, tapping a hoof against my chin. “And really, taking away a pony’s them-ness right after an invasion by shapeshifting bugs would just make me look like I’m ripping them off.” It felt weird, joking about the changeling invasion so soon after it all happened. Maybe it was still too soon, but sometimes really bad jokes were a way to cope.

Dash apparently didn’t share that line of thought, judging by the gentle wing-whap she gave me. “Seriously, I don’t even know why I put up with you sometimes.”

“It’s because you secretly lust after me. All the prudery and complaining is just overcompensating to hide your gigantic crush.” To be fair, that was pretty much what the deal was with Blossom. I didn’t think that was the case with Rainbow, but I’ll take any excuse I can get to mess with her.

“Me crushing on you?” Rainbow rolled her eyes and snorted. “In your dreams, Cloud!”

I nuzzled her, and whispered seductively into her ear. “Every night, Dash.” Just for fun, I threw in a couple little kisses around the edge of her ear.

Rainbow’s ear twitched, and a bit of color came into her cheeks. “Cut it out, Cloud. I‘m really not in the mood for you getting all weird on me.”

“Fine, fine...” I backed off, even though I was pretty sure that in this case the mare didst protest too much. Rainbow might not be secretly lusting after me, but I’m pretty sure there was at least a tiny part of her that secretly liked getting some Cloud-loving. No point in pushing her too far, though. “So, back to you and Pinkie...” From the way Rainbow started frowning, I had a feeling I needed to say something to keep her from getting a bit grouchy on me. “You need any help with that, I’m here for you. I won’t pry, but you can tell me anything you need to.”

“I’d be happy to help too.” I jumped a bit when Fluttershy spoke up—I’d just about forgotten she was there. Eepy had, unsurprisingly, gone silent so she wouldn’t bother me and Dash while we were messing around. Not that either one of us would have minded having her participate, but sometimes Fluttershy just assumes that kind of thing. I understand she’s just trying to be considerate, but it would be nice if she didn’t let it push her to the point of inaction. I have learned one or two hard lessons about how much trouble a pony can get in when they let their fear of hurting another’s feelings drive them into paralysis. Then again, after how badly Rainbow had freaked out from hearing a relatively benign euphemism coming from her, maybe it was for the best that she sat out when I was having some fun tease-flirting with Dash.

“Pinkie and I are fine,” Rainbow assured us. “Just, y’know, we’re taking our time on things. Not everypony wants to rush into bed as soon as they start dating. We’ll get to it when we’re ready.” Rainbow let out a faint snort. “I mean, what’s the rush? There’s nothing wrong with not doing all that banging stuff. Hay, Twilight hasn’t done it either.”

“You mean she didn’t tell you?” Fluttershy paused, then put a hoof over her mouth. “Oh, if she didn’t tell you I probably shouldn’t have mentioned...”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “The egghead beat me? No way! That’s ... just ... what?” A second later I found myself on the receiving end of a piercing glare. “Cloud Kicker, what did you do?”

It was a struggle, but I resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about how it was pretty obvious that I was being accused of doing Twilight. “Why are you automatically assuming this is somehow my fault?” Granted, whenever a sexy pony loses their virginity, I’m probably a reasonable prime suspect. And there was a non-zero chance that she was right to suspect me, but that’s not really important. What matters is that she was accusing me without any evidence to back up her claim.

I had a feeling protesting my innocence wasn’t going to get me anywhere with Dash, though. For some reason, she seems to believe I’m a sex-crazed nymphomaniac. I have no idea where she gets those crazy ideas from. Thankfully, there was an easy out. “Oh, hey, look at the time. We better get to the train station!” I wasted no time suiting action to words, bolting off to get as much of a head start on Rainbow as I could manage.

After running and hiding long enough for Rainbow to calm down, I headed for the train station. Thankfully, Dash tended to get bored with vengeance-seeking pretty quickly. Unless she’s seriously worked up, Rainbow tends to calm down as soon as the source of her ire is out of sight. That’s not to say I was completely in the clear; Dash would almost certainly prank me within the next day or so. I guess it’s not so much that she forgets as it is that she defers her vengeance to a later date, and gets more creative about it. Still, that was a problem for Future Cloud.

Sparkler met me at the train station. From the way she was constantly pacing and nervously shifting on her hooves while we waited for the train, I was tempted to point her towards the bathroom. I’m not sure why she was so worked up—maybe it was just that she wanted to see Derpy and Dinky so much that having to wait any longer felt like torture. She was spending a lot of time checking the clocks and looking down the tracks for any sign of the train from Ponyville.

I put a wing over her back and gently pulled her up against my side. “Relax, Sparkler. With everything that’s been going on lately, it’s no surprise the trains aren’t exactly running on time.”

Really, the fact that we had anything like normal rail service going on the day after the changelings hit Canterlot was pretty amazing. They’d even rescheduled Shining Armor and Cadance’s wedding for tomorrow. I guess Princess Celestia had decided to handle the whole invasion thing by giving everypony a swift assurance that the threat had been dealt with and life would carry on as normal. Probably a smart way to calm down any lingering panic over the whole thing. Personally, I still felt like letting Luna show off Chrysalis’ severed head would’ve done a lot to calm ponies’ fears, even if the bug bitch-queen wouldn’t be staying dead for long. I guess I’m a bit vindictive that way.

Sparkler pressed against my side, tossing in a quick little nuzzle for good measure. “Thanks, Momma.”

I grinned and pulled her in a little closer. “Still calling me that?”

Sparkler offered a sassy smirk. “Well, you’re still mothering me. So ... yeah.”

I responded with a playful little swat on the rump. “Nopony likes a smartflank, Sparkler.” I paused in thought, then corrected myself. “Actually, that’s wrong. Everypony loves a smartflank. I’ll make you a deal—you keep on being a good little Snarkler, and I’ll keep being your cool Momma. Deal?” I ruffled her mane a bit. “And don’t even think about saying anything about how I’m not cool, ‘cause Rainbow Dash just admitted I was, and everypony knows that if she ever sprouted a horn she would be the Supreme Princess of All Things Cool.”

“Cool, and all synonyms and related terms thereof,” Sparkler agreed. She paused, looking around the train station. “Kinda surprised she’s not here. I’d figure she’d wanna say hi to Mom and get some quality Dinky-hugging time.”

“She’s probably busy helping everything get set up for the next try at the royal wedding.” That, or she was still hunting for me to extract some righteous vengeance. It seemed a bit silly to me—if she was that worked up about being the last virgin in her circle of friends, she should be looking for Pinkie Pie. She would be more than happy to help fix that issue. “Besides, if Dinky really wants to hug her, she’ll track Rainbow down. No force in Equestria can stop Dinky when she’s in a huggy mood.”

Sparkler rolled her eyes. “The only time Dinks isn’t huggy is when she’s being a brat. And even then she mixes the two of ‘em a lot. Don’t let the cute exterior fool you—she knows exactly how adorable she is, and will shamelessly use it to con you into giving her cookies and letting her stay up late.” She let out a chuckle. “Spend enough time around her, and you build up an immunity. Well, that or end up wrapped completely around her hoof, like Rainbow Dash. She might be a great foalsitter, but Mom knows not to expect Dinky to do any homework while Dash is over.”

“Figures. Dash always hated doing it herself.” Between the three of us: Eepy, Derpy, and I managed to keep Dash from slacking off too much back in Flight Camp, but there were one or two times when she’d just ended up copying our homework five minutes before we needed to get to class. I drew the line at helping her cheat on tests, though—partly out of that sense of duty my parents had pounded into me, but mostly because I’d been scared of getting caught. In my defense, Dash’s problem with homework was usually more that she didn’t have the patience for all the busywork rather than failing to understand the material.

Sparkler let out an over-the-top fake gasp of shock. “I never would have guessed that the mare who used to call anypony who liked books an egghead wasn’t a very good student.” She let out a quick little snerk. “Seriously, the first time I actually took a break from playtime to go do my homework, Dash actually seemed a bit annoyed about it. Said I could always do homework after she left.” Sparkler rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face gave away her true feelings. “She’s still the best foalsitter ever s’far as Dinky’s concerned, just don’t expect her to get top marks in the whole ‘responsible adult who sets a good example for the kids’ thing.”

“Sounds like her, yeah.” I glanced down the platform and saw a train slowly chugging towards us. Looks like my strategy of getting Sparkler chatting for a bit in order to distract her had worked out. I guess there’s a reason Shadow’s Armor didn’t take any potshots at my tactical acumen.

Of course, spotting the train undid what little calm Sparkler had managed to find, and soon she was frantically dancing on the tips of her hooves again. Clearly she wasn’t the only Doo suffering from a bit of separation anxiety, because as soon as the train doors opened a grey blur shot out and tackle-hugged Sparkler, a smaller lavender blur following behind her. I had a feeling Derpy and Dinky were going to be all but surgically attached to Sparkler for the next couple days—Derpy had probably been scared out of her wits once she realized her daughter was in a war zone.

I didn’t want to intrude on their family moment, and there was a watermelon-maned mare trotting off the train too, so I went up to Blossom. Even though Sparkler’s letter had presumably let everypony know that I was alright, she still let out a relieved breath when she saw me. Reading a letter is a poor substitute for seeing that a pony is okay with your own two eyes. Sure enough, I was shortly on the receiving end of a hug that didn’t quite reach Dinky levels of squeezing, but was definitely in that neighborhood. “You alright, Cloud?”

“Yeah. Better now.” I leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. It still felt a bit odd to just kiss her like that. Not in a bad way or anything, but I was still kind of adjusting to the idea that we were at a point where I could kiss her without it being a big deal. Two lovers doing a little smooching after they’d been apart for a while was a perfectly normal thing to do. Still, even if it wasn’t something I’d adjusted to yet, it was definitely something I wanted to get used to.

It probably didn’t help the awkwardness levels that Derpy gave an odd little twitch when she saw us kissing. I guess that was to be expected though; even if we’d managed to end things on reasonably amicable terms, it would probably be a while before things stopped being a bit weird between us. Transitions are always hard when a relationship ends that suddenly. Blossom caught Derpy’s look too, and offered a single half-apologetic nod. She was probably thinking about the same thing as me: we didn’t want to upset her, but we weren’t gonna hold ourselves back just to spare her feelings. It’s hard to have a romantic relationship when you can’t even kiss your loved ones for fear of upsetting an ex.

Blossom turned back to me and got my brain off the subject of Derpy. “What about the rest of your family? You didn’t lose anypony, did you?”

“Nopony close. Dad and ‘Lula were pretty shaken up, but nothing too serious—they stayed at the hospital overnight to be safe, but they’re out and okay now.” It might seem a bit heartless to say it, but having a fifth cousin twice removed die didn’t really bother me all that much. I mean, any death is a tragedy, and I care more about another Kicker than I would a random stranger on the streets, but it’s hard to get too upset when you never really knew the pony to begin with. The clan ties were a big deal, but it was more a matter of a shared legacy than a deep, personal connection. Those personal connections are what matters most, at least to me. “The clan’s alright; the worst of it’s what happened with Lyra and Cirrus.”

“I heard about Cirrus,” Blossom shot a sympathetic look to the Doos. “Derpy spent half the train ride here holding onto me, and she doesn’t even like me that much. But I guess any port will do in a storm.” She sighed, her ears going flat against her skull. “How is he?”

“Still heavily medicated enough that I’m not really sure it’s sunk in.” That was probably a good thing, in a way. Having Derpy there would help a lot more than anything I could’ve done when he finally realized what had happened to him. Hopefully their parents would be back in Equestria before too much longer—being in the import/export business meant they spent a lot of time out of the country. I might not be overly fond of Derpy’s parents on account of how they reacted to her getting pregnant, but they were still Cirrus’ family.

Blossom had her mouth half-open to respond, but seemed to be at a loss for words. I guess there’s not really much a pony can say about that kind of situation. She finally settled on pretty much the only thing she really could say. “I hope Cirrus makes it out alright. He seemed like a nice pony when I met him.”

“Yeah, he’s alright.” The conversation died after that. Instead of talking, I just held Blossom for a bit. Really, some of the most important things one pony can say to another don’t need to be put into words. Or maybe it’s just that words aren’t always the best way to convey things. Blossom could’ve told me she loved me until she was blue in the face, but that was nothing compared to having her hold me, and just feeling it.

When you really think about it, love is one of those words that can mean all kinds of things. I mean, take Rainbow Dash, Blossom, and Dad. I love all three of them, but in each case it means something very different. Friendship, romance, family—love covers all three of those things. Considering the fact that those are pretty much the three most important ways ponies can connect with each other, it seemed really imprecise to use the same word for all three of them. Then throw stuff like having a general love for all of ponykind on top of that, and things just get even messier.

Seriously, whoever was responsible for creating the Equestrian language really dropped the ball when it came to love. I mean, love is such an important part of what makes ponies be ... well, equine. Without it, we wouldn’t really be ponies anymore. That’s why the changelings had never stood a chance against us: love was too integral to all of ponykind for them to ever really take it away from us. I guess it’s ironically appropriate that even though they fed on it, the bugs didn’t really understand what love was. That’s why at the end of the day Cadance and Shining Armor blasted the bug’s bitch queen out of Canterlot, and then Luna caught her and finished the job.

I gave Blossom another kiss, probably on account of the fact that I was in a fairly romantic mood after getting all philosophical about the nature of love. I made a mental note to give a Blossom a very in-depth lesson on the matter later that night. Actually, screw waiting for tonight—with a little work, I could get Dad and ‘Lula to leave the house for a bit while we took care of business. “Hey, Blossom? Stop by the compound for a bit? I’ve got a few things I would really like to teach you. Mostly about love, and how to make it.”

Blossom grinned, then checked one of the clocks. “It took ten minutes after I stepped off the train for you make a try at getting me into bed. I’m impressed—I half-expected you to just drag me straight to the bedroom the instant you got your hooves on me.”

“Normally that would’ve been how I handled it, but yesterday was pretty crazy.”

“No kidding.” Blossom paused, and her ears perked up. “Hey, speaking of taking me to your clan compound and teaching me a few things, that reminds me...” She paused, and gave me a playful little whap on the chest. “And just to preempt whatever’s going through your head, no, it has nothing to do with sex. I was actually thinking that I’d like to get some training from the rest of your family.”

Well that was a surprise. “You want to learn how to fight?”

“Yeah.” Blossom paused, shuffling uncertainly on her hooves. “I mean, during the whole thing with your mom, I wound up just being that useless tagalong filly who only wound up getting in the way until you found somepony who could take me off your hooves. And then with everything that happened here ... I couldn’t have done anything to help. If I’d been in Canterlot, I wouldn’t have done anything to help you, I just would’ve been another damsel in distress, hiding in one of your clan’s bunkers and hoping everypony else could take care of me.”

Personally, I thought Blossom might be selling herself a little short on that point. Not that I would’ve slapped her into full plate and put her on the front lines, but she wasn’t the type to just sit quietly and wait for all the scary noises to stop. She certainly could’ve done bug-checking, helped out at the field hospital, or any one of a dozen things. I didn’t want to seem like I was interrupting, so I didn’t point any of that out. Yet.

“I’m not saying I expect to become some sort of elite flank-kicking super soldier,” Blossom continued on, “but I would like to know a bit about defending myself. And everypony else I care about. At least enough that next time you get mixed up in something dangerous, you don’t feel like you need to send me away so I’ll be safe. I’d rather be there with you, helping out.”

“I don’t think I’m too likely to end up in another war zone. I had a word with Princess Celestia, and I’m officially out of the Guard now.” Not on the best of terms, but out was out.

“Yeah? I wanna hear about that later.” Blossom gave a little shake of her head, and got back to what she’d been saying. “Anyway, even if you’re not in the military anymore, we live right next to the Everfree Forest, not to mention all the crazy stuff that can happen in Ponyville. It’s still a good idea to make sure I can take care of myself next time something weird happens.” She paused in thought for a bit, then put a hoof over my heart. “Besides, even if you’re a civilian now, your family’s full of soldiers, and you spent years learning to be one. I guess it feels like I need to understand that a bit more if I’m going to be a part of your life from now on.”

I couldn’t really fault her logic. “If you really want to learn, I’m sure I can find somepony willing to teach you. I should warn you that the clan’s training isn’t exactly easy.” That was a big part of why I didn’t particularly want to train Blossom myself. As much fun as I could have with stuff like teaching her grappling, I don’t think I’d be able to really push her as hard as I might need to. One of the downsides of being in love with a mare is that you’ll end up wanting to use a softer touch with her. When it comes to combat training, sometimes you need to push hard.

Besides, Blossom could probably find all kinds of evil sneaky ways of bribing me into letting her get out of exercise. Delicious, sexy bribes. Possibly a twin foursome or something.

Wait, why was I not running her training program again? After a week of calisthenics, she’d probably be up for just about any kink in the book if it would get her out of another day’s workout.

That rather pleasant line of thought came to an abrupt end on account of Blossom swatting me on the chest. “What?” I protested, trying to put on my most innocent, harmless smile. I don’t think it was very convincing, mostly because Blossom knows me too well.

“You were leering.” Blossom let out a long-suffering sigh, but couldn’t quite hide the hint of a smile on her face. “Really, Cloud, can you go five minutes without thinking about how to get me into bed?”

“I could probably come up with something if I absolutely had to.” I reached over and blatantly grabbed a hooffull of her flowery plot. “But it’s so much more fun this way.”

“Is this pervert bothering you, Blossomforth?” I jumped a bit at the sound of Derpy’s voice, mainly because I’d been a bit too focused on the sexy mare in front of me to notice her walking over to us. Thankfully, Dinky was busy trying to break Sparkler’s ribs, so we didn’t need to worry about keeping things filly-friendly. “Don’t let it bother you, it’s how she blows off steam. Like a coping mechanism, I guess.”

“Derpy, talking about my coping mechanisms makes you sound too much like my aunt.” As a rule, ‘hot sexy mare’ and ‘reminds me of Aunt Wind’ are two things that shouldn’t go together in the same sentence. Well, not unless I had some serious unresolved issues. I have plenty of kinks, but incest isn’t one of them.

“I did take a couple psychology courses back in college.” Derpy offered me a wall-eyed grin. “Sadly, we never got into anything that would let me understand what’s going on in Cloud’s head. Well, aside from the obvious.”

“Yeah, my brain’s just a giant echo chamber with the word ‘bang’ constantly bouncing around.” Just to make sure there was no doubt about that, I started fooling around with one of Blossom’s wings. Nothing too serious—we were within Dinky’s line of sight, after all—just running one of my hooves over it.

For whatever reason, feeling Blossom up reminded me of one of the main reasons I’d wanted to see her. Well, other than my keen desire to get her into bed and spend a couple hours giving her all kinds of warm squiggly feelings. “Hey, Blossom, sometime later today I was thinking we could get together with Fluttershy, and see about hammering out the whole ... ‘us’ situation.”

“Oh.” Blossom’s shoulders slumped a bit, her eyes shifting over to Derpy and a slightly guilty flush on her cheeks. “Right. That. Yeah, I guess we do need to get everything settled.”

Derpy nervously licked her lips, her gaze darting between the two of us. She let out a hesitant little noise from the back of her throat before she finally built up the courage to speak. “I’d like to be there too, if that’s okay.” She paused, one hoof awkwardly scuffing along the pavement. “I know we’re not exactly together anymore, but there are a couple things I’d like to talk over with the three of you.”

Huh. I guess I should’ve expected that she might have something to say. Needless to say, a big part of me was hoping that whatever she had to say might include her reversing course on her decision to break things off with me. Sure, the breakup was probably the smart thing for both of us right now after everything we’d gone through, but I still loved her. Always would. “Yeah, I think it would be good to have you there.”

“Good.” Things went awkwardly quiet after that, until Derpy made an effort to lighten the mood a bit. “And for the record, Cloud, I am so siccing Rainbow Dash on you if it turns out that this ‘talk’ is just an elaborate attempt to set up a foursome.”

Blossom and I both had a chuckle at her snark, then my flower-plotted best friend and lover turned to me with a smirk. “I’m sure between the three of us, we can keep her in line. With as much time as I’ve spent around her, I know exactly what to do with her once she starts acting up.”

Then she spanked me. Hard. Needless to say, I enjoyed the hay out of it.

“Yeah, encouraging her is definitely the best way to rein her sex drive in,” Sparkler commented as she trotted over to join us, her little hug limpet in tow.

Blossom smirked at the teen. “Who said I wanted to make her stop?” She leaned over and gave me a quick nuzzle, while her hoof snuck one last feel of my plot. I don’t think I’ve ever felt prouder of her. Blossom’s eyes shifted to Derpy and the kids. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay Cloud?

“Sure thing.” I gave her a quick goodbye kiss, enjoying the show as she trotted off.

Dinky quickly demanded my attention by being her usual adorably innocent self. “What was that sex drive thingy Sparky was talking about? Is it like driving a cart? And why was Miss Blossom spankin’ Cloud Kicker? Did she do somethin’ bad? It musta been really bad, ‘cause Mommy doesn’t spank me even when I steal from the cookie jar.” She paused, then hastily corrected herself. “Um, I mean t’say even when Sparky steals from the cookie jar and tries t’make it look like I did it.”

“Brat.” Sparkler pulled her little sister into a bear hug and applied a noogie to her head. Older siblings must noogie their younger sisters and brothers; it’s practically the law. While Dinky whined and tried to squirm her way to freedom, Sparkler shifted her attention back to me. “Seriously though, it might be a good idea to tone it down a bit, Momma. Before we have to explain too much to Dinks.”

Thankfully, Sparkler’s comment had given Dinky something far more interesting to focus on. The filly let out a shocked gasp, then scampered up to us. “Did Sparky just call you ‘Momma?’ Does that mean she’s got two mommies now? That’s. So. Cool! And it means she gets twice as many mommy hugs and cookies and birthday presents and Hearth’s Warming presents and candy and...” She trailed off, her young brain quickly drawing the only logical conclusion she could, and she promptly latched onto one of my forelegs. “Can you be my other mommy too? Please? I’ll give you hugs every day!”

Dinky’s concentrated adorableness was just short of a lethal dose for most ponies, but this time she had overplayed it. Or maybe I’d started developing an immunity to it, on account of spending so much time around her and being a semi-responsible mother-type figure. Though if all it took was time around Dinky and being in the maternal-ish position of godmom, you’d think Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be so thoroughly under her thrall. Though Rainbow was really more like a cool aunt for Dinky: good for coming over and spoiling her a bit, but she never had to enforce bedtime or make sure Dinky did her homework. Maybe that’s what made the difference; I was starting to feel like I had to be responsible when it came to Derpy’s kids instead of just having fun with them.

Still, just because the innocent and adorable act didn’t work on me anymore didn’t mean I wanted to crush her hopes entirely.“ Maybe you’ll get a little something extra if your mother tells me that you’ve been good, and you’re treating her extra-nice.”

“Aww. Pleeease?” Dinky unleashed the cutest little pout she could manage, but I clenched my metaphorical teeth and resisted the attack. Dinky might have weapons-grade cuteness at her disposal, but the Guard does give their officer candidates willpower training. It’s not just for resisting mind control magic, it’s also good at stopping precociously adorable fillies from wrapping you around their hooves.

Derpy ruffled her daughter’s mane and gently chided her, “Don’t be greedy, Muffin.” She gave her younger daughter a fond smile, then shifted to look between Sparkler and me. “So ... ‘Momma.’”

“Yeah.” Sparkler hesitantly trotted back over to my side, pointedly lifting up one of my wings and snuggling under it. “Lotta stuff happened, you know? I needed a mom-type pony, and she was there for me. S’not a problem, is it?” Sparkler tried to keep her chin up and seem calm and composed, but she couldn’t quite stop herself from chewing on her lower lip. For all the stubborn pride of teenagerdom, she was still mommy’s little girl underneath it all. Sure, she’d technically been adopted, but only a fool would think that made Derpy’s approval matter any less to her.

“No, of course not.” Derpy answered hastily, her gaze resting on myself and the two fillies currently attached to me. After a couple seconds she gave a single nod, half to herself, and smiled. “So then, ‘Momma,’ I hope you’re ready for all the work that comes with the title. Helping them get up in the morning, cooking for them, getting them to school, picking them up from school, homework, chores, enforcing bedtime, the whole deal? You’re up for all of that?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure about all that, but one look at Dinky and Sparkler, and I knew what I wanted. “You know what? I think I’d like that.” I paused for a moment, then grinned down at Dinky. “But only if I get lots and lots of mommy hugs in exchange.”

Just as I’d expected she would, Dinky let out a loud gasp and started working as hard as she could to cut off the circulation in one of my forelegs. Dinky’s very consistent that way. Sparkler got in on the act too, though obviously her hug was a bit more sedate. My ribs were appropriately grateful for that; Sparkler was far enough into teenagerdom that she was pretty much adult-sized: she was a bit small-ish for a full-grown mare, while I could comfortably look most stallions who weren’t Big Mac sized in the eye. Still, an adult unleashing a Dinky-style hug would be less cute and more crushing.

After her daughters spent a while testing whether it was possible to hug a pony to death, Derpy cleared her throat to get our attention. She spent a second or so smiling at us, then her ears slowly drooped as she brought in the bad news. “I hate to be a wet blanket, but we do need to get to the hospital.”

Oh. Right, Cirrus. In all the excitement, I’d almost forgotten the other reason Derpy was here. I reluctantly let go of my two pseudo-daughters so they could go back to their real mother. I was a bit tempted to tag along with them and see how Cirrus was doing, but... “I wouldn’t mind checking up on him, but I’d guess you probably want your trip to be a private family visit.”

Derpy thought it over, then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I do. Which is why you should come along.” She reached over and took one of my hooves, slowly pulling me over to join the group. “Welcome to the family, Cloud Kicker.”

The visit to the hospital was just painful. Cirrus was still far too doped up on painkillers to do much more than return all the hugs he got from Dinky, and manage the odd sentence or two of conversation. Usually some variation on asking whether everypony else was okay. It’s nice that he cared, but since he wasn’t in any condition to carry on a conversation, we mostly spent our time at the hospital just looking at him and feeling miserable. There was a dark cloud hanging over the whole room, and I couldn’t see any way of getting rid of it.

About half an hour into our visit, he fell asleep again. I didn’t know how long Derpy was planning to stay, and I certainly didn’t want to come across like I was trying to rush her out, but there were too many other ponies who had a claim on my time for me to spend all day at the hospital. As it was, I’d already stepped out for a few minutes to check in on Lyra again. I took a deep breath, and tried to keep my voice as even and gentle as I could. “Derpy? I hate to interrupt, but I can’t stick around much longer.”

Derpy turned to me, blearily wiping eyes filled with unshed tears. “Oh, right. Yeah, that’s okay.” She hesitated for a long moment, then slowly rose from Cirrus’s bedside and staggered to her hooves. “We still need to settle things with Blossomforth and Fluttershy too, don’t we? Just give me a minute, and...”

“Hey.” I reached over, putting a gentle restraining hoof on her shoulder. “It can wait, if you want to stay with him for a bit longer. I’ve put this talk off for more than a month now, another day or two won’t make any difference.”

“No.” She gently shrugged my hoof off, slowly shaking her head. “It’s—I think if I had to stay here all night, I’d go crazy. I can’t talk to him about it or anything, I’d just be spending the whole night looking at that bandage where his wing—” She cut herself off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you for being so considerate, Cloud, but I think I need to get out for a bit, and just find something—anything else to think about.”

I put a wing over her back, using a few feathers to gently wipe her eyes. While I comforted her, my gaze shifted over to Sparkler and Dinky. Sparkler looked to be holding up fairly well, probably because this wasn’t her first visit. Dinky, however, was just staring at her uncle with this blank, puzzled frown. She didn’t look sad so much as she just didn’t seem capable of wrapping her head around the scene before her. Some portion of her innocence was slipping away, right in front of my eyes.

Maybe it was selfish of me, but I couldn’t bear to see that happen. After taking a few seconds to think up a plan, I waved Sparkler over and passed her a hooffull of bits. “Take Dinky out somewhere nice for a while and put a smile back on her face.”

Sparkler tossed a look over her shoulder at her little sister, then took the bits and offered a single nod. “Yeah, no problem. There’s lots of places for kids in Canterlot, and the bugs probably didn’t get to all of them.” She went over to her sister, wrapped a foreleg around her, and began gently pulling her towards the door. “C’mon, Dinks. Wanna go to Game Stable?”

Ah, Game Stable. I’d taken Alula there once; the main things I remember about the place were the constant kiddie music, the overpriced pizza, and the large collection of coin games that could rip through an adult’s bitpurse at an impressive rate. It was the sort of place Dinky would love.

“Yeah-huh!” Dinky’s frown almost instantly disappeared at the mention of the restaurant. “I wanna play Pin the Tail on the Pony and Manticore Madness and Hoptrot and Hydra Hunter and...” The filly slowly trailed off, her eyes turning to her uncle again. “Hey, I was thinkin’ ... Uncles Cirrus had Favorite before me, so he can have it back for a little bit, 'cause it always makes me feel better when I get sick or owie. Can I bring it next time?”

Sparkler winced at the innocent earnestness of that comment, pulling her sister in for a quick half-hug. “Sure thing, Dinky. Now c’mon, I heard they’ve got a new game: Super Battle Clouds 1000. It’s like Battle Clouds, but super and taken up to a thousand.”

“Oooooh!” Dinky’s ears perked up, and she grinned eagerly. “I wanna play that one, too!”

Once Sparkler was done carting Dinky off for some much-needed stress relief, Derpy and I headed back to the clan compound. My family home probably wasn’t the most neutral location for this get-together, but it did have plenty of room, and presumably Blossom would be staying there with me. I guess we could’ve tried the palace where Fluttershy was staying, but I doubted they could spare the room for us between the post-battle aftermath and preparations for the second try at the royal wedding. Besides, I had a feeling that if we had our big talk too close to Fluttershy’s other friends, they would feel compelled to join in. Sure, they would just want to help, but this was an issue I felt like the four of us needed to settle for ourselves.

So that’s how I wound up sitting in my living room with Derpy, Fluttershy, and Blossomforth. We were all clustered around the coffee table, with Blossom and Fluttershy on opposite ends of a couch while Derpy and I sat across from each other in the two big comfy chairs. Fluttershy made tea for us, but right now the mugs were sitting on coasters, slowly cooling.

Somepony needed to break the ice, and since this whole situation was my doing, it might as well be me. “So ... um ... I guess we should get started?”

Blossom and Derpy offered mute nods, while Eepy took it upon herself to try and get everypony a bit more comfortable, offering us all a reassuring smile. “I think sitting down and talking everything over is a good idea, and I’m glad we’re finally doing it.”

It would’ve been a good idea before things had blown up so badly with Derpy. Now ... well, better late than never, I guess. “Great. So...” I ran a hoof through my mane as I tried to come up with something intelligent to say. The four of us were long overdue for a talk, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was we all needed to say. Maybe that was a good thing to sort out before we went any further. “I was thinking we could start by just having everypony say what it is they wanted out of this deal. Seems like that's the first step to finding some way to sort this out that everypony'll be happy with. Sound good?” Once I got answering nods from the other three mares, I continued. “Great. So, I guess I'll get started, since I'm not very complicated. I love all of you, and I want to show that in any way you'll let me.”

Derpy took a deep breath, and then spoke up. “And I love you too. Even after everything that happened, I still care.” She offered a conceding nod to Blossom and Fluttershy. “All of us do. Sparkler and Dinky too. Well, Dinky loves everypony, but...” She trailed off for a moment, then closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts before continuing. “My daughters both need a stable home to grow up in. If that's what they need, then that's what I want, period.” She paused again, then offered me a slight nod. “However, I think we would all like you to be a part of that life, as long as things don’t get too crazy. Romance might be off the table, but I don’t think Sparkler would forgive me if I didn’t find some place for her Momma in the family.” That remark earned Derpy a pair of quizzical looks from Blossom and Eepy, so she quickly explained Sparkler’s new nickname for me.

“Congratulations on the promotion, Cloud.” Blossom offered me a grin, “I never would’ve figured you for the maternal type when I met you, but I guess you’ve opened my eyes to a lot of things.” She took a deep breath, then jumped into outlining her position. “My turn now? For the record, I love you too, Cloud Kicker. And, well, I guess the main thing I want is you.” She blushed a tiny bit at the confession; it was nice to see that even if she’d loosened up a lot, there was still a tiny bit of prudery left in her. “I don't really know how to sort this whole situation out, or how I should balance everypony's needs. I'm willing to make some adjustments if I need to, but I never really thought too much about all of that when I first got into this mess. All I know is that I want to be with you.”

I could certainly sympathize with Blossom on that point. I had never planned on getting into a big complicated tangle of a love life. Quite a few of the entries on my list of banging rules were about avoiding those kinds of issues. All I’d really wanted was to have some fun sexytimes with a bunch of cute ponies. Some of whom also happened to be good friends of mine. I’d never expected things to get this messy.

Unsurprisingly, Fluttershy had remained deferentially silent while Blossom and Derpy said their pieces. Now that they were done, she finally spoke up. “What I think is most important is that we try and make everypony happy. I know everypony has been through a lot recently, but I would like to think that even if we disagree, there’s a way for everypony to be able to get along.” She hesitated for a moment, and I gave her an encouraging little nod. “But ... I do like being with Cloud Kicker, and when I say I want everypony to be happy, that includes me.”

I looked over the mares and offered my best charming, diplomatic smile. “Okay then. That all sounds pretty reasonable. Derpy wants a stable home for her daughters, Blossom wants me and is willing to adjust to make it happen, and Fluttershy wants me, as long as it doesn’t hurt anypony else in the process. I think we can all agree that there's some way to work this out so everypony gets what they want.” I took a deep breath, and waved a hoof across the room. “So let's get to it.”

Derpy cast a loaded look between myself and Fluttershy. “You two have been my best friends for the better part of the last decade, and even past that. We’ve had our ups and downs, but at the end of the day I always know I can trust you, and count on you.” She turned to Blossom, shifting in her seat and tracing a hoof through nonsense patterns in the air as she struggled to find the nicest way to put things. “You don't quite have our history.”

Blossom’s ears drooped a bit at that. “Yeah, I know I'm the newcomer in the group. I've only known Cloud for ... what, a bit less than two years?” She looked to me for confirmation, and after thinking back I nodded. We’d met a couple weeks before the whole Nightmare Moon thing, and that had been about two months short of two years ago. “Anyway,” Blossom continued, “just because I haven’t known her as long as you two have doesn't mean that she means less to me.”

“Of course not,” Fluttershy instantly reassured her. “I’m sure Derpy didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. Many of us have been friends for a while now, and that shared history does play an important part in our relationship with her. But Twilight’s a really important friend to me too, even though I’ve known her for less time than Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth have known each other. And, well, we know how powerful that friendship is. So, I hope we can all agree that we have strong feelings for Cloud, and how long we've had those feelings isn't as big a deal as the fact that we have those feelings.”

Derpy offered Blossom an apologetic smile. “Of course your feelings count just as much, sorry if it came out like I was saying otherwise. I didn’t mean to say that how long we’ve known Cloud makes us count for more, it’s more that Fluttershy and I at least have our old friendship to fall back on. But you and me, or you and Fluttershy...” She trailed off, her hoof waving between the three of them. “We don’t really have much in common with you, Blossomforth. There’s no connection, unless you count the fact that we all care about Cloud. And that makes it a lot harder to avoid conflict.”

“Well, maybe it's time we changed that,” I suggested. “It does seem like you three have been trying to get to know each other a bit, so why not just keep working at it?”

Blossom rolled her eyes and gently whapped me in the chest. “Work on our connections? You're just hoping to get a foursome out of this.”

“Blossom! I am shocked and appalled that you would even make such a suggestion!” Such a wonderful, sexy suggestion. I turned to the others, my face a picture of wounded innocence. “Derpy, Eepy, would I do something like that?”

“Yes,” Blossom instantly responded.

“In a heartbeat,” Derpy agreed.

“Um ... maybe?”Ah, Fluttershy, always the diplomat.

I tried to keep up the facade, but it was clear none of them were falling for it. That’s the problem with being in love with ponies; they start figuring you out. “Yeah, I would love a foursome. You have to admit, it would solve all the romantic complications.”

That earned me flat, unimpressed looks from Blossom and Derpy, while Fluttershy started blushing. Blossom then hastily changed the subject. “Anyway, I do think Derpy brings up a good point. I've only really talked to the two of you a couple of times.” She paused, offering a slight nod to Derpy. “I know we butted heads a few times, but whenever we weren’t fighting I got the impression that you were a pretty decent pony. Same thing with Fluttershy, minus the fighting. I wouldn't mind getting to know either of you a bit better; I think we could be friends.”

“I would like to be your friend too, Blossomforth” Fluttershy offered a gentle smile, and scooted a bit closer to her on the couch. Her smile didn’t last anywhere near long enough, though. “Although ... I don't want to make this more complex than it already is, but there are also other ponies in Cloud's life.”

“We're not bringing them in here too, are we?” Derpy deadpanned. “I don't think there'll be enough room, not to mention Cloud’s secret evil plans would have to upgrade from foursome to an all-out orgy.” She took a moment to get her mind back into serious mode. “I’d say the other ponies in her life are part of the overall big picture, but right now it's just about the four of us.”

That got a nod from Blossom. “The three of us need get ourselves sorted out before we move on to what role Cloud's...” She paused, struggling to come up with a proper term for my bang buddies. “How we all feel about her friends-with-benefits.”

“I don’t want to neglect them completely,” I agreed. Friends-with-benefits were the best kinds of friends, after all. “You three are the most special ponies in my life, but you aren’t the only ones I care about. There’s also ponies like Lyra and Bon Bon, and a bunch of other who aren’t on the same level, but they're still a part of my life, and I still love them. I don’t want an arrangement where I have to cut them out of things.”

Considering I’d just given them a rather difficult condition to swallow, I decided to follow it up by offering a concession. “On the other hoof, I have been thinking about toning things down a bit. It’s just that ... sharing that stuff counts for a lot more when it’s with a pony I love. I mean, it’s always fun with a decent pony, but I don’t really need to hit the clubs looking for somepony when I’ve got somepony to come home to, you know?”

“I think I know how you feel, Cloud.” Derpy offered me a smile full of maternal-ish wisdom. “I guess I had to settle down earlier than most ponies, on account of Dinky. But yeah, it is nice to have a bit more stability in your life once you get out of the young and stupid phase where you think you’re going to live forever.”

Blossom grinned and nudged me with one of her wings. “Are you saying Cloud’s getting older and more mature? I guess that’s something. Just as long as she doesn’t give up on the wild and crazy completely. It is part of her irresistible charm.”

“So, Cloud needs to find a balance where she’s still herself, but a bit more restrained and reliable?” Fluttershy concluded. “I’m sure she can manage that. After all, if she changed too much she wouldn’t be the mare we all fell in love with. But I think she can still be herself while also being somepony we can all rely on to be there for us. Because I already believe in her.”

“Thanks, Eepy.” I leaned over and gave her a quick nuzzle. “So I’ll still be my lovably crazy self, just within a slightly smaller circle. I can work with that.”

Now that the question of my general fondness for banging had been addressed, Derpy turned to Blossom and got the conversation back on track. “Look, I know I wasn't always at my best around you; otherwise I would have seen that you were a pretty good pony too. I think the two of us trying to be friends is a good place to start.”

“Friendship is always good, even if nothing more ever comes of it.” Fluttershy offered the other two mares a smile brimming with warmth and kindness. “I would love to keep being Derpy’s friend, and be better friends with you, Blossomforth. I know you’re both good ponies, and even when you make mistakes, you’re still good deep down.”

Blossom hesitantly extended a hoof towards Derpy. “So ... friends?”

Derpy took her hoof and slowly shook it. “Friends it is.”

Fluttershy gave the two an approving smile. “I think that's a very good first step.”

Well, that made for one less problem. It’s amazing how much was getting taken care of once we all sat down and talked things out. Maybe there’s a lesson there; I did need some sort of lesson I’d learned from all this to fill out that report I owed Celestia. Talking to other ponies about your problems instead of letting them get worse seemed like a good moral to the story. In any case, the report to Celestia wasn’t the most important thing on my plate at that moment. The supreme ruler of all Equestria could wait until after I was done taking care of the mares I loved.

Now that we’d settled some things about where I stood and gotten things between Derpy and Blossom settled, it was time to deal with what was left of my proper love life. I turned to Blossom and Fluttershy, smiling at both of them. “So I guess the next question is if I can be with both of you at the same time without causing problems.” I thought that over for a minute, then hastily amended, “Well, not the same time. Not that I would mind, but....”

Derpy let out a loud snort, grinning and shaking her head at me. “Cloud, you are completely incorrigible. But seriously; baby steps, Cloud.”

Blossom and Fluttershy exchanged a look, and then both of them hastily looked away and started blushing. Surprisingly, Fluttershy recovered first. “Um, I think I can be okay with that. I mean, I’m really not sure about this, but if it’s what everypony else wants I can at least try it and see. Only the first type of sharing though, not the second. Not that there’s anything wrong with Blossomforth, she’s a very attractive mare, but it’s just that, um...”

“It’s okay, I understand what you meant,” Blossom assured her, giving her a slightly awkward wing-hug. “For what it’s worth, I feel the same way. You’re nice and all, but I’d have to get to know you a lot better before I could even consider more than just being friends.”

I grinned at the two of them. The cute blushy awkwardness was adorable, and I didn’t miss the fact that both of them seemed at least somewhat open to the idea of trying a threesome at some undefined point in the distant future. I didn’t want to rush them or make them feel pressured to participate in something they weren’t ready for, but it would be a lie to say that I didn’t want it. What can I say, I’ve got an overactive sex drive, and the idea of having two mares I loved in bed at the same time was ... yum.

Still, I had to be responsible about it. “No need to get awkward around each other. Let’s focus on getting a status quo we’re all happy with before we even start thinking about threesomes.” I got up and trotted over to the couch, settling in between Blossom and Fluttershy, then wrapping a wing around each of them. “You two being happy is more important to me than that.”

“Thanks, Cloud.” Blossom chuckled and ran a hoof through her mane. “Hay, I’m still a bit amazed you even managed to talk me into taking a try at this whole sharing thing. I guess I’m where Fluttershy is at on it; I’m not one hundred percent sure, but if it’s what you want I’m willing to at least try. Besides, if I tried to chase off every other pony who cares about you I’d wear myself out and probably end up driving you away.”

“Yeah, you would,” Derpy replied hollowly. That got a flinch out of me; I guess Derpy had learned that lesson the hard way.

Fluttershy spotted the budding conflict and moved quickly to defuse it, offering me a grateful smile and small nuzzle as she quickly shifted the subject. “Thank you for being so understanding about Blossom and I needing some time to adjust, Cloud Kicker. The two of us are going to work very hard at getting along for you.”

“Yeah.” Blossom shifted a bit so she could look at Fluttershy without me being in the way. “Though I'd like to be friends with you just for our own sakes. I mean, getting along so Cloud will be happy is all well and good, but I’d also like us to be on good terms just because you’re a nice pony, and I’d be honored to be your friend.”

Fluttershy beamed at her. “Thank you, Blossomforth. I’d like to be your friend too.”

While the three of us were busily hugging one another, Derpy sat to the side, feeling a bit awkward about getting left out of things. I felt a bit bad about that, but after the talk Blossom and Fluttershy had gone through, they’d more than earned a hug. Still, it’s always awkward when one pony isn’t part of the group hug.

Before I could come up with a non-awkward way of inviting her join in, Derpy took the initiative. “Hay with it.” She trotted up to the three of us, and after a moment’s hesitation wrapped her wings around Fluttershy and Blossom, while pulling me in with her forelegs.

Fluttershy quickly shifted positions so she could properly join in on the four-way hug as well, smiling and offering a satisfied nod. “There, now everypony's hugging. That’s usually a sign that all the fighting is over, and we can all be friends now.”

Blossom nuzzled my cheek while hugging the other two mares. “That sounds about right.”

“Group hugs are always the best way to end a conversation,” Derpy agreed. She spent a good while just hanging onto the three of us. Once the hug started winding down, Derpy looked over the three of us, then took a deep breath and said, “My girls need stability. That was always my biggest worry about getting involved with Cloud Kicker, or anypony else for that matter. I didn’t want Dinky and Sparkler dealing with a revolving door of suitors coming and going once I got back into the dating game. More than that, I needed somepony I could count on too. But now ... it seems to me like this could be pretty stable, if it all works out.”

That caught my attention. “Derpy? Are you saying...”

“No, Cloud.” She sighed, and couldn’t quite bring herself to meet my eyes. “I wish I could just hop right back into bed with you. I still love you, but what happened with Blossomforth and Fluttershy hurt. Maybe I shouldn’t have had such unrealistic expectations of you, but it still hurt.”

“No, it’s not all on you.” I gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I’m not saying you had a right to expect exclusivity from me when we’d both agreed that wasn’t on the table, but I should’ve thought more about how my actions affected you. I think it’s fair to say we both messed up.”

“Yeah, we did. And we both got hurt by it.” Derpy sighed, slumping down against me. “I’m not ready to risk that again, especially when I’m still not sure about how this multiple relationship thing would work. It sounds good right now, but whether it’ll still be working a year from now...”

“I don’t think any of us know that, for sure,” Blossom chimed in. “We’re all in uncharted territory right now. It’s probably going to be hard, and it might end badly. I’m willing to risk it, but ... well, I don’t have kids. You do. That makes a huge difference.”

“Yeah, it does.” Derpy frowned and reluctantly broke off from the hug, looking me in the eyes. “But after what happened with your mother and Cirrus ... well, I guess that put some things into perspective for me. Despite everything, I still care about you, and being mad over everything that happened is just too painful. When I heard Canterlot was being attacked, I was just as scared for you as I was for Cirrus. Sparkler was still my number one worry, but you were ... a lot closer than I’d expected.” She took a break to rub her face and gather her thoughts. “I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not ready yet, but don’t count me out.”

“Okay.” Not the answer I’d hoped for, but a lot better than I’d had any right to expect. “So that's a very definite maybe?”

Derpy offered me a tired but teasing smile. “Maybe.”

I reached over and took one of her hooves in my own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Derpy, no matter where we end up, I’ll always be there for you. For years before either one of us seriously thought about jumping into bed with the other, we were friends. And I will always be your friend, even if that ‘maybe’ turns out to be a ‘no.’ Same thing goes for your kids.” I turned to Blossom and Fluttershy. “Fair warning, spending so much time with Sparkler and Dinky has woken up my latent maternal instincts. Sparkler and Dinky are ... hay, when I first hooked up with Derpy, I was scared they’d expect me to be some kind of parental figure. Now? Sparkler’s calling me Momma, and once you win over the acceptance of the teenager who has issues with authority figures ... yeah.”

Derpy nodded. “You've been great with my girls, even after things got to a bad place with us. If I can trust you with my daughters ... I think there’s a chance I might be able trust you with my heart again. And even if that doesn’t happen, I’m glad we tried. Even if things ended on a bad note, I think the good parts of our relationship outweighed the bad. And what we gained, what my girls gained ... I don’t think you can put a price on that.”

We all went quiet after that, giving what Derpy said a bit of time to sink in. Blossom was the one who finally broke the silence. “So where do we go from here?”

“Forward.” I was a little surprised when Fluttershy was the one to answer her question. A second later her ears went back on her head, but she smiled at all of us. “Um, I don't entirely know where 'forward' will be, but I think I know a few ponies I'd like to go with.”

I smiled at the mares I loved. “Forward it is, then.”

The Pony Who's Done With Winning, Because She's Already Won

H.R.H. Princess Celestia Solaris of Equestria, The Unconquerable Sun, Pony of the Three Tribes, Sovereign Diarch of Ponykind, Protector of the Western March, and probably a dozen other titles I’m forgetting:

You did ask me to write you a report, so here goes.

Now, according to Rainbow and Fluttershy, the whole point of these friendship reports is to let you know what I’ve learned from my experiences. I’m not sure why you’d need to know that; I imagine you know basic stuff like ‘friends support each other,’ ‘don’t be a doormat,’ and ‘books are awesome.’ It’s probably not about us telling you stuff you don’t know, though. The point is probably for us to put it all down in writing for our own benefit.

So, what have I learned? Well, sometimes friends and lovers will screw up, make stupid decisions, and get into arguments with each other. Sometimes we’ll even really drop the ball and end up really hurting each other. But no matter how badly we mess up, at the end of the day true friends always apologize, try to set things right, and find a way to work it all out.

Rainbow Dash dropped a large bag of bits in front of me. “Take it, Cloud.”

She was fighting dirty this time. Bringing Blossom, Derpy, and Eepy along as backup was to be expected. I could even deal with having Sparkler on my case, but using Dinky against me was just nasty. Said filly had, of course, firmly attached herself to one of my forelegs. I couldn’t find any crowbars to pry her off, so for now I was stuck with her. Or rather, she was stuck on me.

Dinky looked up at me, and unleashed a smile that was far too full of innocence to be genuine. Somepony must have coached her, especially given what she said next. “Mommy said you were havin’ money trouble ‘cause of needin’ to pay for school an’ stuff, which is rilly bad ‘cause I dunlike school, and I get to go for free. But then I told Mommy that if ya needed some extra money t’pay for school, then ya could have my allowance for this week. I dun need candy, ‘cause I’d rather use the money t’help you, ‘cause you’re super-nice an’ I love you.”

Urgh. At this rate, I would need to use the bits to treat the nasty case of diabetes Dinky seemed intent on inflicting upon me. Dinky-induced diabetes. Dinkybetes?

“We all gave what we could spare.” Fluttershy stepped up to give me a quick nuzzle. “I’m afraid I didn’t have very much, but I suppose I can hold off on expanding my chicken coop for a while...”

Derpy good-naturedly nudged Eepy in the ribs with a wingtip. “Not very much? Most of the bits in that bag came from you and Rainbow.” She paused, offering me an apologetic smile. “Not that I didn’t want to help, but the single mother with two girls doesn’t have as many spare bits as the animal caretaker or the weather manager. Go figure.”

“Same thing here.” Blossom waved a hoof. “I just haven’t had much of a chance to get any bits saved up. That’s what you get for dating a mare who’s five years younger than you: youthful good looks, but no financial resources.”

“That’s the beauty of sharing.” I settled in between Fluttershy and Blossom, throwing a wing over each of them. “I get to have both.” I let out a lame chuckle, and my eyes drifted down to the bag of money. “Seriously, I really appreciate the offer, but the whole West Hoof debt thing is something I’d rather take care of for myself.”

Sparkler rolled her eyes at that. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Momma. Never mind that if it was anypony else who was in a tight spot financially, you’d be there insisting they stop being a stubborn mule and let you help them.”

The kid had a point. Hay, a couple hours before I got saddled with all this debt, I’d been trying to convince Bon Bon to let me help her out. Maybe I should put the horseshoe on the other hoof this time.

Rainbow snatched the bag of bits up again, and stubbornly shoved it into my hooves. “Cloud, shut up and take our money.”

I hesitantly accepted it. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, alright?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rainbow answered with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “You need the help, we’re here. S’what friends are for.”

While I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my friends, I think the ones I made with my family caused me a lot more trouble. It’s hard to explain exactly why; it’s not like I love my family more than my friends. Family and friends both mean the world to me, but I think the difference is that my family’s a more fundamental part of who I am. Hay, it’s right there in my name: Cloud KICKER.

Plus, there’s how everything worked out with Mom. A part of me still wishes I’d been able to snag Shadow’s Armor and rip Chrysalis’ head off for what she did. Aunt Wind would probably say that chasing after revenge isn’t healthy, but it sure would’ve been satisfying. Still, as long as Chrysalis is out of the picture, I guess I can live with it. It’s not like killing her would bring my mom back. I really wish I still had her around. There’s a lot of stuff we never really got to say to each other.

I guess it doesn’t really matter, though. Hay, if she was still alive we’d probably still be butting heads. Dad always said that he had no idea where I got my stubborn streak from, because Mom kept every bit of her own hard-headedness. What matters is that we loved each other despite all that. We didn’t need some big, deep, meaningful talk to hammer that out, because we always knew it, even if some stupid horseapples stuff got in the way of it sometimes.

Dad walked into the living room, holding my discharge papers under a wing as he moved over to the couch. Princess Celestia had already signed off on them to make it official, but he needed to as well. A princess’ signature might be enough for most ponies, but the military bureaucracy was picky about having every little detail in place.

I took a quick look at the latest, final set of discharge papers I’d gotten. Celestia had pulled out a couple versions of them while we were hammering everything out, so I wanted to make sure we’d gotten the right papers this time. Rainbow might think I was being stupidly self-deprecating by refusing an honorable discharge, but it still felt like the right thing to do.

Thankfully, the paperwork now said that I was getting a clemency discharge, as it should. I’d feathered up bad by running out of the Guard, but between trying to do the right thing during the changeling attack and paying back my education costs I’d come close enough to making up for it to clear my name. It was sort of like the equivalent of getting a royal pardon, as far as my reputation was concerned.

I sighed and curled up against Dad, resting my back against his chest. “Not exactly what you wanted out of me, is it?” I waved a hoof over the papers. “Less bringing honor and glory to the clan and family, and more managing to fix my screw-ups enough that I don’t end up going to jail.”

Dad slowly put a wing over me, and pulled me up against him. “You’re right, this isn’t exactly what I had planned for the end of my daughter’s long and glorious military career.” He set a hoof on my shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. “Are you happy?”

“Yeah, I think I am.” There were a lot of problems left to sort out with my life, but I think I had it under control. And really, who goes through life without ever having to deal with trouble? Life getting messy is just part of the package. It’d be nasty, unpleasant, and complicated, but I could deal with it. Maybe that was another thing to put into that report for Princess Celestia?

Dad nodded, and gave me another squeeze. “The way you’ve lived your life might not be something your mother and I planned for, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t what we wanted. What we wanted, what we always wanted, was for you to be happy.” He paused, and let out a wistful sigh. “Well, that and for you to visit more often. And grandfoals.”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at the last one. “Sheesh, I’m barely into a semi-stable relationship, and you’re already bugging me to start procreating. Give us a little bit to settle in before I have to turn into a foal factory for you.” My joking mood slowly faded as my mind turned to the rest of what he’d said. “I guess ... after West Hoof, I kinda felt like I didn’t belong anymore, you know? Always told myself I was the black sheep of the clan, a failure and disappointment. Now ... maybe I was just being stupid about it. I used to always think Mom bugged me about coming back to the Guard because she didn’t want to have her daughter fail to live up to the clan legacy, but now ... maybe she just wanted me to come back.”

“Nimbus ... didn’t always express herself clearly,” Dad confessed. “And she could be stubborn and proud, much like somepony else I could think of.” His wing tightened around me.

For some reason that made me smile. If nothing else, Mom and I at least had our flaws in common.

That fond reminiscing was interrupted by a set of filly-sized hooves clambering up onto the couch. Alula pulled herself up next to us, then trotted over and squeezed in between Dad and me. That is one advantage of being a kid; it’s a lot easier to fit into group hugs. Once she’d comfortably settled in, she turned to face me. “Daddy’s right, you gotta come visit more.”

Well, I guess somepony had been listening in for a while before she decided to get some paternal and sibling affection. “I will. Promise.” A thought popped into my head, and promptly shot out of my mouth. “After all, you’re getting big enough that it’s about time to start your early wing training. Gotta start getting you ready to fly, and teaching you how to use wing blades.”

Alula’s ears perked up a bit at that. The one thing you can almost always be sure will catch a filly’s attention is any discussion of them growing up. When we’re young, all we dream about is growing up, only to turn into adults who long for the good old days of being kids. Ponies are weird, complicated creatures.

Though sometimes, things are less complicated than they look. “You’d have to come visit, like, every day if you’re gonna train me!” Alula chirped out.

“Well, I don’t know about every day.” I did still need to hold down a job in Ponyville, not to mention two fillyfriends and Derpy’s family. One of the problems of trying to live more responsibly, you start picking up responsibilities. “I’ll be around as much as I can in between everything else, though. Every other weekend, as long as nothing goes crazy.”

Alula thought that over, a slight frown of concentration on her face. “I can come visit too, right?”

“Anytime you want.” I tightened my wing around Dad. “That goes for you and everypony else in the clan too. I know it’s gonna be a lot easier for me to come visit you guys than the other way around, but still ... I’d like you guys to come over, sometime.”

“We will, Cloud.” Dad squeezed back, and my little sister joined in on the hugging. “I know Ponyville’s your home now. Just don’t forget you have a home here as well.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

I know Rainbow and Fluttershy always try to end their reports with a lesson of some sort. You know, talk about what they’ve learned as a result of everything they’ve gone through. I don’t know if I can really do that myself. I mean sure, I’ve learned a lot over the last couple months, but it’s not really the kind of thing I can just sum up with a neat single-sentence moral.

A lot of stuff happened. Some of it bad, some of it good, and all of it changed me. I’m not the same pony I was before all this. I’d like to think that, overall, the change has been for the better. I’ve picked up some new scars, but eventually they’ll heal over, and I’ll move on. I guess that’s the thing about ponies: we’re good at healing. Yeah, we screw up a lot, sometimes really bad. But we never let that stop us from carrying on. Maybe it takes us a lot longer than it should, but eventually we get back up and try again. I spent a long time hiding from what happened with Fluttershy, but it wasn’t forever. I’d like to say I managed to bounce back all by myself, but the truth is that I never could’ve managed it without a lot of help from some very special ponies. Some of those ponies need my help now, and I plan to be there for them, just like they were there for me.

“I picked a terrible time to stop drinking.” Lyra and I slowly trotted around the hospital courtyard, letting her stretch her legs for the first time in the last couple days. They were still holding her for psychological evaluation, but the fact that she was conscious, lucid, and capable of going for a walk with me, even in a closed environment, was a good sign. Plus, she was complaining about little stuff. If she could put up a fuss about how she couldn’t have any mint-tinis while she was in the hospital, she was definitely getting back to normal.

“I’m sure I could smuggle something in for you, if you want.” Hospitals generally frown on patients doing much other than focusing on recovering, and getting drunk falls into that category. Sex does too, aside from that one nurse a couple years back who I’d persuaded to join me for some ‘intense one-on-one physical therapy.’ Good times. Sure, my days of randomly seducing anything attractive and alive might be over, but nopony said I couldn’t fondly reminisce. Lyra and I certainly had our share of memories worth hanging onto.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather stick this thing out.” Lyra glanced over at Bon Bon, who was sitting on one of the courtyard benches to give us a little time for ourselves. I was pretty sure that this was the first time she’d been more than ten feet away from Lyra since the invasion. “I did promise Bons that I would cut back, and it’s a lot easier to avoid falling off the wagon when the hospital staff says I’m not allowed to drink anyway.” Lyra lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Besides, if Bon Bon caught me—and you know she would—I would never hear the end of it. I love her to bits, but once she makes up her mind, the smart thing to do is just give her what she wants.”

Lyra paused, shivered, and took a steadying breath. “I’m not gonna let those bugs get to me, y’know? I might still be freaking out every time I run into a pony I don’t know ‘cause I think they might be a changeling, but I’m not gonna go back to getting drunk every night ‘cause of the bug bitch. It’s gonna be hard, but I figure if the bugs can’t make me drink to deal with them, then I can work out the rest of it eventually. Especially with Bons there to help me.”

“Bons won’t be the only one helping.” I gave her a quick pat on the back. “Don’t forget I’m around too. Granted, after the whole discharge thing I don’t have any spare bits to help you guys out if you’re in a tight spot financially, but anything else I can do...”

“Just being here is enough, Kicky.” Lyra gave me a hug worthy of Dinky to prove her point. “And don’t worry about money. Apparently Princess Celestia set up a charity for everypony who got hurt in the changeling attack, so we’re covered.”

Oh yeah, Celestia had mentioned something about that. Hopefully some of the bits I’d thrown her way to cover my West Hoof debts wound up in Lyra’s pockets.

Lyra nudged me in the shoulder to get my attention. “Thanks for the visit and all, Kicky, but I’m not the only pony who could use some cheering up.” I followed her pointing hoof, and spotted an all-too-familiar grey stallion. The too-flat bandage over where his right wing should have been still made me wince every time I saw it.

Cirrus was sitting on one of the courtyard benches, idly tossing some food to a few of the local birds. Judging from the way he was staring at them, and how he flinched every time one of them flew somewhere, he was brooding. Obviously, I needed to do something about that. I trotted over and took a seat next to him on the bench. “Hey, Cirrus. How you holding up?”

He slowly turned to face me, his face a roadmap of depression. Baggy, slightly red eyes, flat ears, a messy mane that clearly hadn’t been properly brushed for days, and a bit too much fur growing out on his muzzle. For a couple seconds he just stared at me, then slowly turned away and tossed some more breadcrumbs to the birds. “Think I’d like to be alone right now, Cloud Kicker.”

“Horseapples.” I scooted a bit closer to him instead of backing off. “You didn’t come all the way out here and just happen to sit on a public bench twenty feet away from me all so you could be alone. You could’ve done that just fine by staying in your room. Tell you what, though—if you really want to be alone that much, you can just get up and go somewhere else. I won’t follow you.”

The stallion stared at me for a while, then offered an uncaring shrug and went back to feeding the birds again. Looks like I’d called that one right. “Rather not be in my room right now. S’hard, every time Dee and her girls come to visit. You know how it goes: gotta put on a brave face for them, let everypony know I’m doing okay. S’not like I can tell Dinky about how I freak out every time I just try to use my wings without thinking, and then...” He sighed, running a hoof over his face. “S’not what ponies wanna hear, though. They wanna hear about how strong I’m being, and how I’m not letting being crippled get me down. You know, the whole ‘brave veteran who willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of Equestria’ deal. So that’s what I show ‘em. War heroes aren’t supposed to cry.”

My first instinct was to give him a wing-hug, but doing anything with my wings might not be the best thing for him right now. The last thing he needed was another reminder of what he’d lost. Instead he got a slightly awkward pat on the back. “You talked to anypony about this?”

“One of your aunt’s ponies came by.” Cirrus slumped down, the rest of the bread tumbling out of his hooves to be eagerly set upon by the birds. “Talked to him some. I guess it helped.” He fell silent, then abruptly changed the topic. “So ... 'Momma,' huh?”

“You heard about that?” Guess I should have expected it. Once Dinky finds out about something that excites her, she’ll tell everypony she runs into. Kids. “Yeah, Sparkler kind of adopted me. Not something I’d anticipated, but I’m starting to like it.”

“Hope you know how important that is.” Cirrus shot me a loaded look. “It took Sparks months to really accept Dee. She doesn’t trust easy, so if she thinks you're all right you must’ve earned it.” He glanced down at the birds and shook out the last of his breadcrumbs. “She and Dinky need more than just Dee in their lives. Granted, Rainbow's all but surgically attached to Dinky, but godmoms and uncles in another city don't really compare to a proper mom. Besides, kids their age need responsible adult role models, and Rainbow’s still a big kid at heart.”

“If you’re looking for responsible adult role models, you really messed up when you picked me.” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “I’m pretty sure Derpy would kill me if either of her daughters wound up anything like me.”

“I didn’t say you were perfect.” A ghost of a smile crept onto Cirrus’ face. “Still ... you're a way better pony than I gave you credit for, back when we first met.” He paused, and his ears went flat. “Sorry about that, by the by. Don't think I've ever said that.”

“Water under the bridge.” Getting an apology was nice, but I wasn’t going to carry a grudge against a crippled stallion over something that happened a decade ago. “You gonna be okay?”

“Doesn't feel like it,” Cirrus grunted. “Hard to get over losing a wing. Your aunt's subordinate said that was just the ... how'd he put it? ‘Melancholy of the moment.’” A flicking ear and an annoyed grumble in the back of his throat made it clear what he thought of that diagnosis. The doc was probably right, but knowing you would eventually bounce back doesn’t make the low points sting any less. “I'll keep talking to ‘em. Two kinds of therapy to keep up with, but I'm alive. I'll take that and run with it. Besides, I do have some stuff to look forward to. Bedspace is kind of a commodity here, so the docs are gearing up to transfer me to the hospital in Ponyville for therapy. Be nice to be more than just the uncle who spends the weekend once or twice a year. Silver linings, right?”

“Hope you’re ready to deal with getting Dinky hugs on a daily basis. I swear, at the rate she’s been going, my shin is to have an impression of her body permanently molded into it.” We shared a quick laugh at that, but it didn’t last anywhere near long enough. There was too much else to talk about. “Any word on getting a prosthetic?”

Cirrus slowly shook his head. “Not too enthusiastic about one, unless I get something that's flightworthy. It's ... this might sound stupid, but I don't see the point if it's not going to do me any good. If I can’t fly on it, it’d just remind me. Acceptance, right? It's not there, so no point in pretending it is.” Cirrus reached over and scratched at his bandage. “Still, not all doom and gloom. They’ve got a couple things close to the testing stages, and they got a bunch of new donations after the attack. Guess we’ll see if anything comes of it.”

Just like last time, too much discussion of his injuries led to a quick change of subject. Not that I could blame him for not wanting to talk about losing a wing, but it was kind of the elephant in the room. “So, I guess being 'Momma' means things are on the mend with you and Dee?”

“Yeah, seems like we finished patching things up.” My voice turned a bit wistful. “Romance is off the table for now, but at least we saved our friendship.”

“Good to hear. You two go back a long way.” He let out a humorless half-chuckle. “Never would’ve thought I’d say it, but I was kinda hoping you two would work things out. Still, staying friends is the most important thing.”

“Hey, don’t count me out yet.” I gave him a quick nudge in the shoulder. “When a mare’s as sexy and charming as I am, there are always possibilities.”

Cirrus quickly held up a hoof to forestall any further commentary. “Let's stop that line of thought right there. Not that that's not good news, but I need enough therapy as it is without learning the details of my sister’s sex life.”

That got a snort out of me. “Wuss.” Still, if he was cracking bad jokes, he was probably getting better.

I think I managed to do a pretty good job of working everything out. I’m not saying I got everything perfect, but I’m pretty confident about my future. Yeah, things are gonna be difficult; I don’t expect the whole ‘sharing’ solution to my love life to go off without a hitch. Still, I think we’re good enough to get through the rough spots. Like Derpy said, we’ll just keep going forward together. When problems come up—and they almost certainly will—we’ll find a way to deal with them.

Thus concludes the first and only friendship report of former Lt. Cloud Kicker of Her Royal Highness’ Guards. Hope I see you at the wedding reception, and try not to spend all the bits I sent you in one place.

Shining Armor and Princess Cadance’s wedding reception was a much more high-energy affair than I would’ve expected for a royal wedding. In hindsight, I probably should’ve guessed that would happen; Pinkie Pie was running the festivities, after all. It was certainly a lot more fun than the sort of stodgy, stiff-necked affairs Canterlot high society normally liked.

Pinkie had pulled out none other than the legendary Vinyl Scratch to DJ for the reception. And by that, I mean literally pulled out from under the table—I had no idea that Vinyl was under there until Pinkie brought her up into the open air. It raised some fun and interesting questions as to what she was doing under said table while Pinkie was conveniently standing so close to it, but that's a line of thought for another time.

Unsurprisingly, Vinyl's choice of music was not the fancy full-orchestra-starting-off-with-a-waltz music that tradition called for, but aside from Storm and a couple of the noble snobs everypony was quite happy with that. The newlyweds trotted out into the yard and got the dance properly started, as long as you overlooked the groom accidently stepping on the wife’s hooves a couple times. Between Shining Armor’s showing and what I’d heard from Rainbow, I could only conclude that bad dancing was coded into the Sparkle DNA. Soon enough other couples started drifting out onto the dance floor: Rainbow and Pinkie, LyraBon, Aunt Wind and Uncle Typhoon, and plenty of others.

Derpy and Dinky took a small corner of the floor to themselves, sharing a mother-daughter dance that made up for a lack of skill with no shortage of energy, enthusiasm, and the potential for mass destruction if anypony came too close. Star seemed to be in similarly dire straits; Sparkler danced with the kind of wild abandon that made it quite clear she was enjoying herself far too much to be fully aware of where her hooves were in relation to her partner. Still, Star was smiling, so I guess they were alright.

That was when the problem emerged. On the right, Blossom was trotting over to me with a grin on her face. On my left, Fluttershy was slowly inching towards me, offering a hesitant smile when she caught my eye. Unfortunately, my dancing skills weren’t up to handling two mares at once, unless we were doing the horizontal tango.

Blossom was first to the punch. Her dress obviously wasn’t as nice as the dress Fluttershy had gotten for being a royal bridesmaid, but the simplicity of it suited her. “Hey Cloud, I think you owe me a dance.”

That gave Fluttershy the final little push she needed to make her own move. Unsurprisingly, Eepy was her usual elegant, drop-dead gorgeous self. “Actually, I really wanted to dance with her too...”

That got a slight frown out of Blossom. “Well, I did ask first...”

Oh. Super. Another argument over who got to spend time with me was brewing. Just when I was hoping we were done with those.

Fluttershy’s ears instantly went flat, and she took a half-step back. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to—of course you can have the first dance.”

Blossom’s ears immediately flattened as well. “No no, I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry, I think that came out a little harsher than I meant it. If you really want to have the first dance with her, I don’t mind.”

“I would hate to impose...”

“No, please. I insist.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all if you want to go first.”

“You and Cloud were together long before I entered the picture, you deserve to go first.”

“Cloud and I have already had plenty of time together, I would love to let you have the first dance.”

Well, that didn’t go the way I’d expected it to. I guess them fighting over who got to politely stand aside worked just fine. Still, from the look of things they could keep going for hours, and I’d spotted somepony else who needed a dance partner, as well as giving me a graceful way out. “Excuse me for a minute, girls.” I left the two of them behind, and caught up to my father, sitting by himself with my little sister. “Hey, Dad. Think I could have this dance?”

Dad met my offer with a smile, but slowly shook his head. “Sorry, Alula beat you to it. Maybe you can have the next one.” ‘Lula took advantage of the fact that Dad’s back was turned to stick her tongue out at me, then latched onto his foreleg and dragged him out to the dance floor.

Well, so much for that bright idea. I turned back to my two fillyfriends, only to discover that they were headed out onto the dance floor as well, hoof-in-hoof. Normally I would’ve been happy about the two of them bonding like that, except that it left me without a dance partner. I swear, sometimes the universe just has a cruel sense of humor.

Before I could spend too long feeling sorry for myself, somepony tapped me on the shoulder. The large white hoof with a golden shoe gave away her identity, and the voice confirmed it. “May I have this dance?”

I turned around, and offered my most charming grin. “Well, it’s not like I could turn down a princess.” I let Princess Celestia escort me out onto the dance floor. It was a touch awkward trying to dance with a mare who was twice as tall as I am, but I found a way to make it work. Or rather, she knew what she was doing, and I didn’t manage to mess up badly enough to be obvious about it.

“Your friendship report made for some very interesting reading.” Celestia offered me that all-knowing smile she seemed to use as a default expression. “I’m glad you learned something, even if it wasn’t anything you could properly put into words.”

“Me too.” She spun me through a quick circle around her, which felt a bit strange on account of the size difference. I probably looked like Alula dancing with Dad, except I didn’t have the excuse of being a filly. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I noticed, after I paid off my West Hoof debt, that if you took the charity money Lyra and Bon Bon got, and added it to a large anonymous donation the hospital received for their new prosthetics program, you wound up with the exact same amount of bits that I paid you.”

“Is that so?” A hint of a smirk graced her royal lips. “What a crazy random happenstance. Life is full of such curious coincidences, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Coincidences. Sure.” I offered her a knowing smirk of my own. “So, what are the odds that all my friends who loaned me enough money to pay off my debts will ‘coincidentally’ happen to get large bonuses in the next couple months to make up for the cost?”

The supreme ruler of all Equestria answered with a coy grin. “Why Cloud Kicker, you make it sound as if two of the wielders of the Elements of Harmony haven’t earned a reward for everything they’ve done for Equestria. And after her display in your compound, I suspect my school for gifted unicorns will be very interested in Sparkler Doo. I think she’s more than earned a scholarship, too. As for Blossomforth, I have been hearing excellent things about her performance as part of Ponyville’s weather team.”

I shook my head in bemusement. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it seems like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble just to help me out. Not sure what I did to deserve it.”

Princess Celestia kept her cryptic, teasing smile firmly in place. “Why do you assume I’m only helping you? Maybe I wanted to help Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy—they are both Element-bearers after all—and that meant helping you in the process. Or perhaps I was more interested in Blossomforth or Ditzy, and that brought you to my attention.” She leaned down, and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Or perhaps I just enjoy a bit of good-natured meddling in the lives of my subjects. It’s rather interesting to see how a few small acts of kindness can ripple out to make so many ponies so much happier.”

Huh. That last one sounded more like her. I guess it says something about the princesses, that they can look at Equestria on that level. Could make for some fun philosophical pondering at some point in the future, but not right now. “I was just wondering if maybe the old conspiracy theory about you being my secret grandmother was right,” I shot back. “It would explain your interest.”

Celestia didn’t give that any answer beyond a faintly amused chuckle. To be honest, I’m not sure how much I bought into the old family legend. If Aunt Wind was around, she’d probably say something about how I’d fixated on the old story in response to what happened to Mom, so I could use Princess Celestia as a replacement mother figure. Whatever; it did make for a fun subject to tease Celestia about, though.

The dance number wound down, and the two of us slowly parted ways. “Thank you for the dance, Cloud Kicker.” The Princess offered me a final smile. “Enjoy the rest of your evening. And even if you don’t owe me any more reports, I would welcome another update on your family.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I grinned up at her. “For the record, that was one of the best dances I’ve ever had.” In truth I’d been more focused on the conversation than the dancing, but one does not just dance with a mare—and especially not Princess Celestia—without offering a compliment afterwards. After a moment’s thought, I amended the statement. “Well, the best dance that didn’t involve the kind of dancing I’m usually into.” Not that I would’ve wanted to break out the sexy bump-and-grind moves on my maybe-really-distant-grandmother.

I turned about and trotted over to Blossom and Fluttershy, who had just finished up their own dance and were both headed my way. I still had no idea which one of them I should dance with first. Maybe I should try both at once and just see how well it worked. Worst case scenario, we’d trip over each others’ hooves, fall flat on our faces, and end up with a couple bruises we would need to kiss better once we were all done.

Blossom met me with a grin. “Well, I suppose I can forgive getting passed up for a dance when Princess Celestia wants one. You’re not getting out of it this time, though.”

Fluttershy didn’t say anything as assertive as that, but she took one of my forelegs in her own and held onto it with a grip that felt as gentle as silk while being as unbreakable as steel. I got the message loud and clear. Since she didn’t need to say anything about the dancing, she went for small talk. “It looked like you had a nice chat with the Princess. Would you mind if I asked what you two talked about?”

“Oh, nothing major,” I answered, a casual smile on my face. “She just wants to join my growing harem.”

The two mares I loved exchanged a look, nodded, and simultaneously wing-whapped me on the back of the head. Despite the obvious reprimand she’d just delivered, Blossom was chuckling. “You never change, do you, Cloud?”

I suppose I could’ve given them a big, long, boring speech about how I’d grown over the last few months, but who wants to listen to that? “Nope. It’s part of my charm.”

Author's Note

Well, that's it. Wow. Hard to believe it's over.

First off, I'd like to thank all of my pre-readers; the story wouldn't have been as good without you guys. And, of course, due thanks to everyone else who's helped add to the growing shared universe this story spawned. And the readers, since you guys are all pretty cool too.

Just to remind everyone, we are still planning on doing a print edition of this down the line, though we'll need to do final revisions first. Nothing too major; just the usual checks for any grammar issues I missed, continuity gaffes, and maybe a few tweaks to one or two scenes I'm not 100% happy with.

The Pony With Irresistable Charm

“C’mon Blossom, we’ve got celebrating to do!”

It’s not every day that a pony makes team leader on the weather squad. Technically Rainbow Dash had promised the two of us promotions last week, but it takes time to make these things official and I’d held off on the celebrating until the paperwork got through. Everypony knows that firing up the festivities before it’s all been made official is just asking for trouble. Then again, after what we’d done for Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, the odds were high the paperwork was as good as done anyways.

Playing matchmaker for the boss and Ponyville’s top party pony had really worked out for us. Keeping the weather working on the rest of Hearts and Hooves Day had probably counted for a lot, but it’s a safe bet that helping the boss finally get some action was the main reason Blossom and I would be earning bigger paychecks from now on.

“Celebrating?” Blossomforth sounded a touch uncertain about the plans I was already hatching. “What kind of celebrating?”

“Oh you know.” I gave a casual wave of my hoof. “Go out for a night on the town, have some fun, do something a little crazy, the usual.”

Blossom narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “You’re not trying to seduce me, are you?”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Sheesh Blossom, keep asking me that and I might start thinking you actually want me to.” Predictably, that made a blush appear on her freckled face. She’s always been a bit of a prude when it comes to sex. I decided to have a bit of fun with her. “Is that what it is Blossom? You want a bit of the old Cloud Kicker charm? ‘Cause if that’s all it is, you just had to ask; moving things up to friends with benefits sounds great to me.”

Needless to say, Blossomforth was now blushing like crazy and nervously pawing at the ground. Having a white coat didn’t do her any favors there. “No! I wasn’t – I don’t want to –”

I put a hoof to her mouth before she could dig herself too deep. “Relax Blossom, I’m just messing with you.” I really needed to help her loosen up a bit sometime. I’d kind of hoped that when she got a date for Hearts and Hooves Day she might get a bit less tense about anything related to love, romance, and banging, but the date ended pretty disastrously. I still hadn’t gotten the details from Blossom; she hadn’t even told me what guy she’d gone out with.

“Anyway, Pinkie Pie’s planning to throw us a surprise party,” I informed her. “So I don’t think you need to worry about things getting too crazy for you to handle.”

“Not much of a surprise party if you already know about it,” Blossom pointed out.

“Well technically speaking I don’t know. I’m just ninety-nine percent sure it’s going to happen. Ever since she hooked up with the boss, Pinkie Pie has been throwing parties at the drop of a hat.”

“Guess you’re right about that,” Blossom agreed. “A Pinkie Party should be fun; we had a pretty good time at the ‘Applejack’s hat fell off her head but didn’t get damaged or end up all muddy and icky, so let’s have a party’ party.”

“You know Pinkie’s heard about us getting promoted now that she and the boss are banging on a regular basis.” Even if she wasn’t in the mood to party at the smallest excuse, we’d earned points with Pinkie for helping her out on H&H Day. Pinkie was the kind of pony who gave a lot of credit for good intentions, even if the execution was a bit sloppy. Besides, sloppy or not, it had worked. Pinkie and Dash were a thing now. If a plan works, it’s a good plan.

“So where do you think Pinkie’s planning to hit us with the surprise party?” Blossom asked.

“Well since it’s supposed to be a surprise, it’s probably going to be at one of our homes instead of Sugarcube Corner.” I reasoned. “Probably my place; it’s a lot easier for an Earth Pony to set up a surprise party on the ground than in a cloud-house.”

“I don’t know how you can put up with living on the ground.” Blossomforth gave a slight frown at me. “Ground-houses are so much trouble compared to clouds. You have to get wood and stone, hire ponies to build it, and it’s all so…fixed.”

“It would be nice to be able to move my place whenever I get bored of the view out the window,” I admitted. “Kind of makes it hard to bring anypony other than pegasi home though. Not everypony wants to go back to their place, and trust me – doing it out in a grassy field isn’t nearly as fun and romantic as you’d think.”

Blossom sighed and gave another annoyed roll of her eyes at that. “Of course. It would be all about that.” The two of us trotted along for a bit, but I couldn’t help noticing the way my friend was frowning at me. “I don’t get you, Cloud Kicker. Half the time you talk as if the only thing you care about is, well…”

“Banging?” I suggested. “Mating? Fornicating? Intercourse? Coitus? Coupling? Copulating? Having congress? Making love? Screwing around? Gaining carnal knowledge of other ponies? Sex? F–”

“You can stop now!” Poor Blossom looked like she was about two second away from dying of embarrassment.

“Sheesh, they’re just words Blossom.” I don’t know how she could be my friend for so long and still be so uptight. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s completely natural, and trust me, it’s one of the most fun things two ponies can do to waste a bit of time. Hay, I’ll bet you that there’s at least one couple that’s banging right now somewhere in Ponyville.”

“That’s what confuses me about you,” Blossom grumbled. “You spend so much time going on about…” The prudish pegasus took a moment to gather her courage and very quietly whispered, “Mating.”

“Nice work Blossom!” I gave her a pat on the head that was only mildly condescending. She brushed the hoof away and shot me an annoyed look.

“Anyway, you spend so much time talking about that and you don’t mind making fun of the fact that I’m not quite comfortable talking about it, but then you keep insisting that there’s more to you than just your obsession with mating.”

Wow. She’d gotten to the M-word without even a stumble that time. At this rate, I might actually be able to get her to the point of being able to discuss the topic like a pair of grown mares. Possibly by the time we’ve both turned old and grey. Still, it’s a relief to know we won’t be dancing around the subject like a pair of flight camp fillies forever.

I have to admit, it felt nice to actually have anything even resembling a proper conversation on the subject with Blossom. She was fun to hang out with, but my personal life had kind of been the hydra in the room that neither of us was willing to talk about. It was kind of ironic, considering one of the things that made me decide to become friends with her in the first place was the fact that our relationship was the most platonic one I’d ever had in my life. We probably wouldn’t be able to have such a good friendship if I hadn’t decided a while ago that she was absolutely off-limits for banging. Teasing was still fine, though.

“There’s a real simple answer to the whole ‘do I only care about banging’ thing, Blossom,” I told my friend. “Think about it this way: Derpy likes muffins, right?”

“I guess?” Blossom answered uncertainly. “I don’t really know her all that well.”

“Well she does.” I’d forgotten that Blossom wasn’t a Cloudsdaler, which meant she had missed out on the dubious honor of going to summer flight camp and having known most of the pegasi on the weather team since we were all foals. Then again, even if she’d been a Cloudsdaler, she would’ve been two years behind me – and I was a year behind Derpy, so they wouldn’t have been all that acquainted anyway. Even if I didn’t have very fond memories of my time there, summer flight camp had been one of those formative experiences. After all, Cloudsdale was the weather capital of Equestria, so a lot of the pegasi that went into weather work were Cloudsdale natives. When most of the ponies you go to school with wind up working in the same industry as you, those old schoolyard rivalries and friendships can be all kinds of important. Hay, flight camp history had nearly killed my chances of getting a job in Ponyville at all.

“Anyway.” I got back on topic. “Derpy likes muffins. A lot. But as much as she likes muffins, there’s a lot more to her than the fact that she likes muffins. She’s got a kid, she’s one of the most well-intentioned ponies I’ve ever met, and she’s a huge klutz.”

“I think I see what you’re trying to say,” Blossomforth said contemplatively.

“Yeah. I like banging, but it’s not all there is to me.” I flashed a grin at her. “I’ve got depth. A hint of mystery, if you will. It’s part of that irresistible charm that makes everypony like me.”

Blossom rolled her eyes. “So even in the parts of your life that have nothing to do with mating, in the end it still somehow ties back into your obsession with mating.”

“What can I say, I’m consistent.” I do have a reputation to maintain, after all. That’s the one downside of living in a small town like Ponyville. Up in Cloudsdale or over in Canterlot, a pony could generally fade into the background, just one of the thousands of ponies going about their ordinary daily lives. In Ponyville on the other hoof, odds were you’d be running into that cute stallion or mare from a couple nights back all the time. Then again, having a rep meant not having to deal with ponies that had the wrong idea about what I wanted, so it’s not as if being a bit of a known quantity was a bad thing.

Any further discussion on my personality and sex life ended because the two of us were at the door to my home. I smirked at Blossom. “Act surprised when everyone jumps out at us. It’s supposed to be a surprise party, after all.” I nudged open the door and turned on the lights.

And found my home exactly the way I’d left it – completely empty, save the dirty dishes in the sink from this morning’s breakfast.

Huh. Well that wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

“Oh wow.” Blossom broke out the sarcasm. “This is such a surprise. Thank you so much for coming, everypony.”

I couldn’t believe I’d been wrong. “I was sure Pinkie was gonna…”

“Ninety-nine percent sure, as I recall,” Blossom snarked at me.

I gave a philosophical shrug. “Well, that’s what I get for thinking that I could actually predict what Pinkie Pie would do.” I have to admit, I kind of envied Rainbow Dash; something told me Pinkie was likely to be one interesting pony to get in the sack with. Then again, a pony as athletic as Rainbow Dash probably wouldn’t be any slouch in that department either. The two of them probably got all kinds of wild when they banged.

Note to self: If I ever end up in a situation where Rainbow Dash is no longer my boss/co-worker, make careful inquiries into the possibility of a threesome.

While my mind was on that particular subject… “Anyway Blossom, since the party’s a bust, I’m gonna hit the town. Want to come with? I’ll even wingmare for you, if you want.” My motives weren’t entirely altruistic. Given her general lack of confidence when it came to all things romance-related, playing wingmare for my poor naive and inexperienced friend was a very safe move; most of the ponies that made a good match for me would be terrible for her anyway.

“Yeah, no thanks Cloud Kicker.” Blossom took to her wings. “I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”

“Okay then. See you tomorrow.” Darn, hanging out with her would’ve been fun.

Oh well, her loss. Time to hit the town.

I woke up the next morning feeling sticky and satisfied. That feeling lasted for all of five seconds before I figured out what had woken me up: The sound of somepony knocking on my door. “Alright, just a minute,” I grumbled sleepily. My partner from last night had already cleared out, which saved me the trouble of having to clear him out myself. It’s always nice when you get a pony who knows a one-night-stand for what it is. Trust me, nothing is more awkward and uncomfortable than having a pony decide they’ve fallen in love with you after a brief and completely meaningless little fling. There’s no graceful way to tell somepony that what they saw as a deep and meaningful romantic encounter was just a little bit of fun for you.

You’d be surprised how many ponies will mistake ‘Hey. You’re cute. Want to go back to my place? We’ll bang, OK?’ for ‘I am interested in a serious, committed, long-term relationship.’

I opened up my door and found myself face-to-face with my boss. Always a great position to be in when you’ve just woken up and haven’t even washed your face or brushed your mane yet.

“Hey – uh – Cloud Kicker?” Rainbow Dash looked a bit too confused to start laughing. “You’ve kinda got some jelly in your … everywhere.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” I cast a glance around my place and spotted several patches of jelly splattered over the wall, floor, and ceiling – not to mention all the jelly left on me. “Last night got weird.”

“Okay…” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, and by unspoken mutual agreement we just set that matter aside completely. Discussing my sex life with my boss would get into awkward territory fast. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I want to talk to you and Blossomforth a bit about some of the stuff that comes with your new jobs. You know, what kinda stuff you need to do, how to handle things when I’m not around, who to talk to in Cloudsdale if we need anything from them – that sort of thing.”

Ah yes, all the boring necessities of work. “Sounds like a plan.” I let out a massive yawn, and idly scratched one of the dried-out patches of jelly on my back. “Uh, were we gonna talk about all that right now or…”

“Nah, meet me in Sugarcube Corner in half an hour.” Great, that should give me plenty of time for a quick bath and a bit of waking up. Showing up to work half-awake and covered in dried jelly wasn’t the best way to demonstrate that Rainbow Dash made the right choice when she decided to toss some more responsibility into my hooves.

At least I wouldn’t need to worry about breakfast if we were meeting up at Sugarcube. A second later, the other facts about just where we were going to be having this meeting clicked in my brain. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Rainbow’s reasons for having our morning meeting at Sugarcube Corner had very little to do with the easy accessibility of breakfast food. “Sure you won’t be too distracted if we’re meeting at your fillyfriend’s place, boss?”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine.” Rainbow tried to play it cool, but she wasn’t doing a very good job. The big goofy grin that popped up on face as soon as Pinkie Pie’s name came up kind of gave her away. The two of them were still in that early phase where they were ridiculously happy about being in a relationship. It was cute. It also meant that despite her assurances to the contrary, Rainbow Dash would almost certainly be distracted whenever Pinkie Pie was around. I wasn’t going to complain though; those two ponies deserved every bit of happiness they could grab.

“Alright, see you then.” As Rainbow idly turned around and prepared to take off, I got to work on figuring out the best way to clean up dried-out jelly.

Half an hour later, I was walking over to Sugarcube Corner. I’d successfully de-jellyfied myself and managed to clean up most of the jelly splattered around my home, but the place was still going to smell like fruit for a couple days. I’d need to finish cleaning up soon though: I didn’t want to get bugs. Trust me, it is a serious turn-off to a pony when the first thing they see in your home is a bunch of creepy-crawlies.

I ran into Blossom about halfway to the bakery. We waved and exchanged greetings as we fell into place alongside each other. After a few seconds of flying along the streets of Ponyville at a slow, leisurely pace, the white pegasus let out several loud sniffs and frowned over me. “I’m a little scared to ask, but why do you smell like grapes?”

I grinned over at her. ”Do you really want to know?”

Blossom grimaced. “Probably not.”

“Then I won’t traumatize your innocent virgin ears with the tales of my wild debauchery.”

“Thanks,” Blossom answered flatly, looking just a touch annoyed with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the V word; from how skittish she was about the subject, it was probably a safe bet that she didn’t have a lot of experience. Hay, for all I knew she might actually be a virgin. It’s not like I had ever just flat-out asked her or anything.

“Hey Blossom, are you a virgin?”

It was a good thing we were only a couple feet off of the ground, because as soon as her brain processed the question, Blossom’s wings locked up and she plowed face-first into the dirt. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked her that while we were flying. I helped her back up and gave her a quick once-over to see if anything other than her pride had been injured. “You okay Blossom?”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Blossom was too busy blushing and sputtering incoherently to answer either of my questions. Hay, just yesterday she’d barely even been able to bring herself to say the word ‘mate,’ so asking her about her sex life completely out of the blue might have been taking things a little too far. Her reaction was pretty darn hilarious, though.

Eventually, Blossom managed to recover her composure enough to indignantly declare, “That’s none of your business!”

“Which part?” I shot back with a smirk. “Being a virgin, or whether you’re alright after getting a faceful of dirt?” I thought about just leaving it there, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as pushing her buttons a bit more. “Oh, by the by Blossom,” I faux-whispered to her. “Getting all huffy when somepony asks you if you’re a virgin is pretty much admitting that you are.”

“Why am I still friends with you?” Blossom whined.

“I’m just brimming with irresistible charm, remember?”

“Irresistible charm my hoof,” the girl grumbled. “I swear, I never should’ve talked to you. Everypony else on the weather team warned me about you, but I strike up one conversation with you on one shift, and now I’m stuck with you. Worst mistake of my life.”

“Blossom, you say the meanest things sometimes.” I tossed a foreleg across her shoulders and pulled her into an entirely one-sided hug. “It’s okay though, I know you don’t really mean it.”

“I totally and completely mean it.” Blossom insisted, though she couldn’t quite hide the tiny little smile on her face. “I hate you.”

“That’s silly, nopony can hate me. I’m far too lovable.”

Blossom half-heartedly tried to worm her way out of my hug. “You are not lovable.”

“Well now you’re just being ridiculous, Blossom. Everypony knows that I’m the most lovable pony in the history of Equestria. Seriously, I love everypony, and they all love me right back; in fact, I challenge you to name a single pony that doesn’t love me.”

“I don’t,” Blossom immediately chimed in.

“Well we both know that’s not true,” I promptly countered. “Hay, you spend way too much time hanging out with me not to love me.” I freed her from the involuntary hug and contemplatively tapped a hoof under my chin. “Well, unless this is all some kind of elaborate scheme to get into my pants, but that would be really pointless. By now you ought to know that if you wanted to bang, all you’d need to do is ask.”

“That’s not – I’m not–” Blossom really was too much fun to rile up sometimes. Eventually, her poor frazzled mind settled on the one thing it could handle. “You don’t ever wear pants!”

“I could if you want me to,” I shot right back, dropping my voice into a low, husky tone. I tossed in a suggestive little grin for good measure.

Judging by the frustrated scream Blossom let out, I’d pushed her to the breaking point. “You are, without a doubt in my mind, the single most impossibly aggravating pony I have even known in my entire life!”

“And yet, I’m still your best friend.” I took a few quick flaps into the air and struck a pose. “Do you know why? Irresistible. Charm.”

The two of us lapsed into a friendly silence for the rest of the walk to Sugarcube Corner, probably because Blossom couldn’t find any way out of admitting that she’d been taken in by my overflowing animal charisma. It’s a problem she seems to suffer from a lot.

Fortunately for the innocent children walking the streets of Ponyville on this fine day, we got to Sugarcube Corner before Blossom lost control completely and tried to make wild passionate love to me right then and there. It’s a common effect of overexposure to my charm. One time I forgot to turn off my charm before I went to bed and woke up the next morning with half a dozen mares I’d never seen before in my life, all under the covers with me.

No wait, that was just what happened on my last trip to Las Pegasus. Ah, good times.

I opened up the door to Sugarcube Corner, only to find that the shop was pitch-black. That was weird. The shop should’ve been open for a while now, and we were actually a minute or two late for our meeting with the boss. Maybe Rainbow Dash had gotten here before us, and she and Pinkie had gotten a bit “distracted” and closed the shop for bit?

The lights clicked on and revealed a room practically packed with ponies. “SURPRISE!”

Oh. That surprise party I’d been expecting. Apparently, Pinkie had figured that I expected the party to happen it last night and went and planned it for a time when I wasn’t expecting it. In hindsight, I should’ve expected that too.

I grinned over at Blossom. “See? I told you there was going to be a surprise party.” Sure, I’d gotten the timing wrong, but that was a minor detail.

She didn’t even respond this time, just facehoofed and walked the rest of the way into Sugarcube Corner. Well, Blossom’s already speechless? Sign of a good party!

The Pony Who Makes Celestia and Luna Look Like Droopy-eyed Wingless Foals

So there I was, making out with Fluttershy.

Some distant little part of my brain was telling me that this was probably a bad idea. Most ponies seem to have a part of their brain that exists to tell them ‘I probably shouldn’t be doing this.’ Ponies being ponies, we tend to spend a lot of time ignoring that part of our brain and doing stupid things anyway.

“Cloudy.” Eepy softly whispered my name as she kissed me again. It was feather-light, almost as if she was asking permission instead of just going ahead and kissing me. It was such an Eepy thing to do–even now, she wants to be sure I’m okay with this.

So I let her know that it’s fine. I want this. I’ve wanted it for more than a decade. All that stupid running around I did was probably just some kind of way to replace something that’s been missing from my life. This.

Eepy got the message and wrapped her forelegs around me, pressing her body up against mine. She felt so ... right. There’s this softness to her, a gentle delicateness that made me hesitate to be a bit too vigorous with her. It was like I could break her if I pushed too hard.

Then she surprised me by taking the lead. That’s the thing about Eepy–at first blush she seems so nervous and uncertain that you think she’ll give herself a heart attack, but once she gets her confidence up a bit she’ll be surprisingly assertive. Let her know it’s okay to kiss you, and next thing you know you’ve got her tongue in your mouth and her hooves on your wings. Not that I was about to start complaining about either of those things.

Fluttershy broke the kiss and started lightly trailing her lips along my jawline. “Cloudy. I want this. I’ve wanted it for so long. But ... but I don’t think we should...”

“No,” I agreed as I started working my way down her neck. “We probably shouldn’t.”

She didn’t stop. Neither did I.

Her wings brushed against mine, with each little touch sending shocks of pleasure running through my body. She’s always had this delicate touch that’s perfect for getting things just right when she knows exactly where to go, and back in Flight Camp we spent a while finding all of each other’s spots. We’ve changed a lot over the years, but some things stay constant.

Our bodies fell back into all the old familiar rhythms–we’d done this often enough in the past that it wasn’t hard to remember how it all worked, especially not with current events jogging my memory. Eepy still liked it when I ran my hooves over her cutie marks, and she still knew just how to touch the base of my wing to drive me wild.

I felt Eepy’s hoof on my chest, and it took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t caressing me, she was gently pushing me back. I took a closer look at something other than the parts of her I was getting my lips and hooves on, and that’s when I realized she was crying. Oh ... that’s probably a bad sign. “Eepy? What’s wrong?”

“We...” Eepy tried to swallow back some of those tears. “We can't.”

I tried for another kiss, but when she didn’t respond after a bit I backed off. “Why can’t we?” I wish I didn’t sound quite so hurt and petulant, but considering the circumstances I think I was allowed to be a little put out. “I want this. You want this. What’s the problem?”

Eepy whimpered and couldn’t bring herself to meet my eyes. “What about Derpy? Or Blossomforth? They both love you, and if they find out that I ... that we ... I ... no. We can’t. I can’t hurt them like that.”

“But Eepy–” I didn’t get any further into explaining myself before she cut me off with a gentle hoof over my lips.

“It would hurt you too. We both want to–um–yes...” Fluttershy trailed off with a delightfully cute little blush. I swear, the way a grown mare like her could get so embarrassed whenever she so much as started to mention sex was just so cute.

Okay, need to get the urge to bang under control. Considering our history, the last thing Eepy and I needed to do was bang when one of us wasn’t one hundred percent sure if we wanted to or not. I do try to learn from my mistakes. I don’t always succeed, but I do try.

“Okay, let’s...” It took just about every bit of self-discipline I had, but I removed myself from physical contact with Eepy. Between the old love and the fact that we hadn’t had done anything with each other in a decade, we were both kinda struggling with the urge to keep going no matter how much our heads told us it was a bad idea. Even a little incidental touching could start escalating pretty quickly, especially since I’m–well let’s just say my hooves have a habit of wandering a bit when there’s an attractive pony in them.

Deep breaths, Cloud Kicker. Get that libido under control. Eepy needs you to talk to her about whatever’s bothering her, not keep trying to bang her until she’s screaming your name. Which just reminded me of the fact that back when we had been banging Eepy was a bit of a screamer. Or at least, she was a screamer by Eepy standards–her screams are quieter than some ponies’ whispers. I remember this one time...

No. Dammit, getting my brain to stop thinking about banging Eepy was not proving to be a simple task. Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts. Think about Granny Smith naked on a cold day. With Diamond Dogs.

Okay. Libido defeated. Nausea was a bit of a problem now, though.

In any case, once I fought down the urge to projectile vomit, my sex drive was finally dead enough for me actually talk to Eepy instead of wanting to use my mouth to do ... other things. “Okay. So ... no banging?”

Eepy whimpered and slowly shook her head. I hesitated for a moment before I pulled her into a hug. Touching her still kinda fired me up, but it was a distant thing now–I was aroused, but I was in control of it. “I ... I don’t ever want to hurt anypony,” Eepy whispered. “If we did this now, it would hurt Derpy and Blossomforth.”

I flinched at that. She had a fair point. I hadn’t exactly been thinking about ... well, much of anything beyond the fact that I really wanted to bang Eepy silly. I guess I’d gotten just a little caught up in the moment. I seem to have a bit of a problem with losing perspective when faced with the prospect of imminent banging.

Still, Derpy would understand. Blossom probably would too. I mean, I’d finally patched things up with Eepy, that’s a pretty huge deal. Besides, Derpy and I were still in an open relationship, and Blossom was just my best friend who was hoping for a chance to get under my tail. It’s not like either of them had any right to veto my banging habits. Especially not when it came to Eepy.

But maybe just because I had the right to bang Eepy doesn’t mean I should. Just because Blossom and Derpy wouldn’t have any legitimate complaints doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be hurting. Especially when you look at the timing of it all–banging Eepy right when I was getting seriously fed up with the both of them ... yeah, that looked kinda bad. They’d probably think I was doing it was some kinda way to get back at them or something, which is just not okay. Banging is supposed to be fun, not something you use to hurt other ponies.

Fluttershy brushed a hoof against my cheek. “It’s not just them, either. If we ... if we had sex, we would regret it later, and I never want to regret doing that with you.”

“Yeah.” I sighed and slumped back onto her couch. “That’s rule number one. No regrets.”

Eepy and I had just sorted things out, the last thing we needed to do was have sex we weren’t sure we wanted and weren’t emotionally ready for. I’d like to think that I do eventually learn from my mistakes.

“Okay, banging’s off the table.” I felt a stab of guilt in my gut. “Look, sorry if I got pushy on you. The last thing you need is me pushing you into sex you’re not ready for. Again.”

Eepy gave a sharp shake of her head. “No. I ... I wanted it too. When I started having doubts I asked you to stop, and you did.”

I let out a humorless little chuckle, and a touch of dark humor entered my voice. “Well, nice to know that we’ve learned from our old mistakes, at least. This time we didn’t have emotionally unhealthy sex we weren’t ready for that would end up hurting all the other ponies around us. I think we’re learning.”

Despite knowing what a horrible idea it would’ve been, a part of me wished we’d kept going anyway. Not just because I was seriously lusting after Eepy right now, but also because it felt kind of ... right. Like banging her would make for a proper resolution of things.

Huh. Resolution? Where did that come from? I mulled that over for a bit, and then started thinking out loud. “Eepy, we’ve changed a lot since Flight Camp.”

Eepy flushed a little and looked away for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes. You’re ... we’re both very different ponies from the fillies we were back then.” She let out a nervous little squeak and hastily added. “Not that there’s anything wrong with how you are now. You’re a very different pony, but I still care for you.”

“Yeah, same here. Just because you’ve changed doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.” I shifted over on the couch to wrap a wing around her, but made sure to keep an eye on my own hooves and wings to make sure they didn’t start doing things of their own accord to try to get us back to banging. Spend a decade getting ponies into bed, and some of those flirty behaviors will get to be downright habitual.

I took a few moments to put my thoughts together and figure out how to say what I wanted to say next. “The thing is, we can’t just turn back the clock, can we Eepy? It’s nice to think about just forgetting all the crazy stuff that’s happened and try to pick up where we left off back at Flight Camp, but that wouldn’t really work. Too much has happened, and we’ve both got way too much baggage.”

“I–yes, so much has happened,” Fluttershy agreed. She let out a whine and flinched down a bit into the couch. “A part of me would like to try to ... um ... try again, but I would feel just awful about taking you away from Derpy like that. Blossomforth too–I don’t know her very well, but she seems like a nice pony.”

“Not to mention we’d both be bringing way too much baggage into the relationship.” I’m not a big fan of messy complications in my relationships, and getting back together with Eepy would just be one huge bundle of them. Sure, we love each other. We probably always will. But that doesn’t mean getting into another serious long-term romantic relationship is a good idea. Hard to imagine anything that would mess both of us up quite as bad as taking another try at a relationship, and having it crash and burn.

I made a decision. Eepy stiffened in surprise when I kissed her again, but after a couple seconds she caught on to the intent behind the kiss. This wasn’t the passionate and forceful kind of kiss we’d been sharing a little bit ago, it was quieter. Calmer. Not any less emotional, but it was carrying a very different set of emotions. Most importantly, while it was full to the brim with love, it was very clearly not the kind of kiss that leads to eventual banging.

Eventually, like all good things, the kiss ended. “I love you, okay Eepy? Always have, always will.” I was tearing up again, but I didn’t mind. Some things are okay to cry over.

Eepy surprised me by not crying. Instead she just held me, gently running a hoof through my mane. You know things have gone crazy when I’m the one sobbing my eyes out and Eepy’s the one being stoic and strong for me. She probably wanted to cry just as much as I did, but Eepy’s always been at her strongest when somepony else needs her.

I sniffled into her chest and wiped away the last of my tears. “Do me a favor and try to find a special somepony, okay? Somepony who can treat you like a princess, and make you so ridiculously happy that you never stop wearing a big goofy smile on your face. A pony like you deserves somepony like that.” I swallowed a couple more tears and tried to crack a joke. “Besides, I wouldn't wish a decade of celibacy on anypony. I’m not gonna feel right with a pony as sweet as you being all single and lonely. To be honest, I’m a little surprised you don’t have ponies beating down your door to get a date.”

Eepy let out a nervous little squeal. “I hope that doesn’t happen. It would be very ... loud.”

Hmm. I guess Eepy’s usual state of barely-restrained terror at the thought of social interaction with anypony she’s not comfortable with would explain her lack of a dating life. Massive hotness and a sweetheart personality might attract a lot of suitors, but poor Eepy probably ran away anytime somepony actually tried to ask her out. That tends to discourage most ponies. “Um...” I was a little surprised when Eepy nervously pawed at her couch and very hesitantly said, “Maybe if you know somepony who's really nice you could ask them if they might ... if it’s not too much trouble and they’d be interested ... I–um, I don’t really know many ponies I could...”

So Eepy wanted me to keep an eye out for datable ponies? Yeah, finding my ex who’d I just nearly banged a date wouldn’t be awkward at all. Not that I was surprised she needed a little help; her social circle was vanishingly small, and most of the ponies in it were already dating somepony else. Hay, I’m pretty sure the only pony she had any sort of social contact with that was still single was Twilight.

Well, no reason I couldn’t think it over and see if a solution came to mind. Actually, the blindingly obvious one already had, but taking some time to think it all through would probably be a good idea. That could wait for later, though. “Well, this didn’t exactly go the way I had planned,” I confessed. “I came here to help you and you wound up helping me instead.”

Eepy shot me a tiny, tentative little smile. “Maybe it's that we're both helping each other?”

I grinned and pulled her in for a proper hug. “You haven't lost your optimistic streak. Thank Luna for that, because I don’t know what I’d do if I had to deal with a Fluttershy that wasn’t all sweetness and light. Guess you haven’t changed so much after all.”

Fluttershy shot me the tiniest of little smirks. “And you still worry about taking care of everypony else and making them happy.” She gave a sad little smile and idly traced a hoof down my chest. “That’s why you have so many problems with Blossomforth and Derpy. You want both of them to be happy, but you can’t find a way to do that. But I’m sure you will. I believe in you.”

“Yeah, I’ll figure something out.” I’m not sure what could work aside from getting Pinkie Pie to sing her ‘Gotta Share’ song until they gave in, but I’d work it out. Too bad fixing the whole thing with one big happy threesome didn’t seem to be an option. I guess that would be a little too easy a solution though. “Whatever I do, I’m not gonna end it with one of them feeling like I just tossed them aside. I care about both of them, and I’m a Kicker, so I’ve gotta protect the ponies I care about.”

Eepy beamed and snuggled up a little closer to me. “Yes, you are. You’ve changed a lot, but in your heart you’re still the pony I love.”

Gotta say, I was never gonna get tired of hearing those words from her. Sure, it might be a bad idea for us to bang right now or get into any kind of serious relationship, but maybe sometime when things were a little less crazy, we could have one last night together. But for now... “Tell you what: I won't change too much if you won't. Deal?”

“Deal.” Eepy leaned in and nuzzled my cheek for good measure.

The two of us just sat there for a while with our wings wrapped around each other, basking in our renewed friendship. Sure, I still had two hooffulls of trouble waiting for me once I left here, but right now none of those seemed quite so pressing. I’m pretty sure Discord and Nightmare Moon together wouldn’t be enough to disrupt the wonderful afterglow of finally patching things up with Eepy.

It was just too bad this moment couldn’t last forever. I let out a short little laugh and gave Eepy a friendly little squeeze. “Well, one thing's gotta change: your wingpower.”

Eepy let out one of her customary nervous squeaks, and the warm glow of contentment surrounding her faded a bit. “Oh ... yes. Right.”

The wingpower thing was clearly weighing on her a bit. Well, I certainly couldn’t let something like that ruin her good mood. Besides, she deserved a chance to put up a better number than point five. She might not be the best flier in Equestria, but she was better than that, and everypony should see it. Including Eepy herself. “I’d have to clear it with Blossom first, but I can help you work out and get your numbers up to–”

The rest of what I was about to say disappeared due to a certain pegasus trying to squeeze the life out of me. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

“Whoa, easy there. I need to breathe, Eepy.” The hug loosened up a bit, and I nuzzled the top of her head. “And you worry about your wingpower. You could crush a dragon with that bearhug. C'mon, show me whatcha got, friend.”

Eepy smiled at me with just a tiny little hint of budding confidence. “Okay, friend.”

Well, the good news was that Eepy did make some progress by the end of the day. In her defense, that one butterfly that kept beating her in the tug-of-war must have been freakishly strong. Even after we’d patched things up, having me there watching her definitely seemed to be throwing her off. I guess that figures–we might be getting along again, but it was gonna take a while before things between us got back to any kind of normal.

If I wanted to keep helping her bump her wingpower numbers up and work on those performance anxiety issues, I was gonna need a couple days. Considering that we were right in the middle of the Tornado Day preparations, this wasn’t exactly the best of times to cash in some of my vacation days. Especially since all the prep-work had been thrown for a loop with Rainbow’s problems. It was kinda neglecting my duty to just drop out of all the prep work and take a couple personal days when I really needed to be on the job.

On the other hoof, it was Eepy. Sure, we’d patched things up a little, but it might not stick unless we had some bonding time. I didn’t just want us to get to a point where we could be in the same room and have a conversation without being complete wrecks, I wanted us to be proper friends again. Besides, it’s not like I’d be abandoning my duty to help with Tornado Day–I was getting Eepy’s wingpower numbers up and getting her confident enough to actually come back on duty. Having Eepy there would make for great guilt-trip material for anypony who was still trying to shirk Tornado Duty too.

Yeah, okay, that sounded a little flimsy. Maybe I was putting my personal desires over my duty to help out with the tornado stuff. Could anypony blame me though? Tornado Day is just weather work–at worst, they’d just have to move it to another town. Compared to a chance at fixing the biggest feather-up of my entire life ... yeah.

By the time I finished up with Eepy the training fields Rainbow requisitioned for the weather team were empty, so it was off to Blossom’s modest little cloud house. It looked about like I remembered it–small and simple, but comfortably so. The kind of small and simple that seems like it’s born from moderation rather than not having the bits to get something better. Not everypony sinks a big chunk of their paycheck into having a small mansion with several rainbow fountains. Then again, Rainbow Dash got a bigger paycheck than we did.

I knocked on Blossom’s front door. Well, I didn’t exactly knock per se, since it’s pretty hard to knock on a cloud. However, the doors for most cloud homes carry a slight electrical charge. Not enough to start shooting out bolts of lightning or anything, but enough to get a bit of a rumble when you kick them.

After a couple seconds the door opened up, and I found myself face to face with the cutest-looking Blossom I’ve ever seen. I can’t exactly put my hoof on what it was about her–maybe it was the screwdriver hanging limply in her mouth or the slight little smudge of grease on her cheek, or maybe even the small collection of screws tucked behind her ear, but something about it just looked really cute. A nerdy kind of cute, but still cute. “Oh, hey Cloud Kicker. What’s up?”

After taking a couple more seconds to appreciate the wrench wench look she had going for her, I decided I should probably stop ogling her long enough to give an answer. “Oh, there was some work stuff I wanted to ask you about, but...” I very blatantly looked her over. “What’s with the engineer getup?”

“Oh, right.” Blossom quickly trotted back inside so she could drop her screwdriver onto one of her enchanted rugs. Those are kind of a necessity if you want to have anything substantial in your cloud house–even a tightly packed cloud can’t handle very much weight. At first I’d assumed Blossom had kept her house small and modest because she just wasn’t one for showing off her bits, but I think I had a different theory. Almost her entire living room had rug coverage, and most of the room was occupied with some weird contraption that looked like it was supposed to be some sort of flying machine, along with a couple other odd projects in various states of completion. Any furniture was notable only by its complete absence.

Blossom caught me staring at the flying machine. “It’s Pinkie Pie’s,” she explained. “I’m fixing it up for her to pay her back for all the catering she’s been doing for the Tornado Day practice sessions.” She trotted over and nudged one of the pedals on the bottom, which made the blade part at the top start spinning. “I think I’m getting pretty close to getting it fixed up. I’m sure Pinkie will be happy about having this working again.” Blossom picked up her screwdriver and made a couple more adjustments. “A flying machine is useful when you’re an earth pony dating a pegasus.”

“It would be handy, though as long she’s falling through clouds that’s not a perfect solution.” Then again, Rainbow could certainly afford to make a couple rooms of her house earth-pony friendly. Assuming the two of them ever actually got around to banging, it would probably be a relief for the Cakes if they could do it at Rainbow’s place. Though come to think of it, Pinkie Pie probably had to put up with the sounds of the Cake Twins getting made.

“There are cloud walking spells that can last for a long time, and they’re friends with Twilight Sparkle,” Blossom added. I guess that is a nice perk of being friends with one of the most magically powerful unicorns in Equestria, though you’d think Twilight would get a bit annoyed if they used her as a free spellcasting service all the time.

Blossom moved onto another weird little device that almost resembled a set of wing-blades, except there were no actual blades on them, and there seemed to be some kind of elastic cord connecting all the joints. “Hey, you think you could try these on for me? I already tested them on myself, but getting another pony to check that they work would help.”

I was getting just a little thrown off by all this. Blossom had said something about spending some time hanging out with Twilight Sparkle, but I’d never known that mad scientist-ism was a contagious disease before. Blossom seemed to catch onto my worries after a bit, and let out a slightly annoyed snort. “They increase tension on your wings and make it harder to flap. I was thinking something like this could be handy for helping ponies bring up their wingpower numbers.”

Okay, that made sense. Still not sure why Blossom was custom-designing training equipment when you could probably just buy that kind of stuff, but at least there was a reason behind it all. Hay, the Guard did some similar stuff to get our wingpower number up, except that they liked lead-cored wingblades, and making us do drills in full armor and kit. Slap a hundred or more pounds of weight on a pony before you send them out flying, and they will start building up muscle.

So a minute later my best friend was strapping me into something that was theoretically exercise equipment, but felt more like some weird kind of fetish gear. At least it worked as advertised–it definitely added a lot of resistance when I gave a couple experimental flaps, so it would work for helping a pony build up muscle tone. Rainbow would probably insist on getting a pair for herself once she was out of the hospital.

Speaking of our boss... “So how did things go with training today? Any problems?”

“No, we–” Whatever Blossom was about to say next disappeared into a coughing fit. Great, looks like she was still sick. Yet another reason why I probably shouldn’t be taking off time for my personal issues. Honestly, even with the fact that this was my chance to patch things up with Eepy, I was starting to think I might need to find a way get back to normal with her after all the Tornado Day stuff was taken care of. Duty comes first.

Once Blossom bounced back from her coughing, she tried to carry on talking as if nothing had happened. “We managed fine without you. It seemed like you did a good job rounding up most of the ponies who were trying to duck out of Tornado Duty, but what happened to you? You just kind of disappeared on us.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I gave a slightly guilty shuffle of my hooves. I’d been so eager to patch things up with Eepy that I might have dropped the ball a bit when it came to my current friends. At the very least, I owed Blossom an explanation for that. “Thing is ... well the last pony on our list of AWOLs was Fluttershy.” Blossom let out an intrigued grunt when I mentioned her name. “So, I went by her place, and then we got to talking...”

“You talked to her?” Blossom shot me a hopeful little smile. “It must have gone well if the two of you were at it for hours.”

“Yeah.” I realized that Blossom’s lack of furniture in her living room/tinkering area meant I didn’t really have anywhere to sit. I grabbed a chunk out of her walls and quickly fashioned it into something resembling a comfortable resting area. I probably could’ve turned it into a couch if I had a bit more material to work with, but doing too much reshaping of somepony’s home was a bit rude. Snooping was also out, even if I was a bit curious about the place. “Eepy and I got to talking, and ... I think we might be fixing things up.”

Blossom was practically beaming at me. “That’s great news, Cloud Kicker! I’m really happy for you.” A couple seconds later Blossom’s smile slowly turned into a frown when she noticed I didn’t seem to be sharing in her enthusiasm. She immediately jumped to an only slightly incorrect conclusion. “Oh Celestia, you mated with her after you two made up, didn’t you?”

“No.” I thought about just leaving it at that, but Blossom probably deserved to know what had happened, and I needed somepony to talk to about the whole thing. “We started heading down that path, but we both decided that it would probably do more harm than good. The last thing we need is to have more sex we’re not sure about.”

“Yeah.” Blossom slumped down onto her floor, and idly dropped her screwdriver. I was a little surprised when it rolled off of her enchanted rug and didn’t fall straight through the clouds. Guess she must have gotten tools made of Thunderforged steel. A bit expensive, but having your tools fall down through the floor every time you put them down in the wrong place would get to be a pain in the flank after the third or fourth time it happened. Not to mention painful for whatever poor sap was walking below your house at the time. “So I guess this was one of those times when your rules actually counted, huh?”

“Actually, she’s the one who stopped me.” I sighed and shifted around a bit on my improvised cloud-seat. “I got a little caught up in the moment, and she reined me in.”

“Oh.” Blossom let out a bitter little laugh. “That’s right, the only pony your rules have ever actually stopped you from mating with is me.”

Okay, ouch. I wanted to fly over there and give her a hug, but under the circumstances that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. “Blossom, it’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Blossom snapped at me. “As far as I can tell, I’m the only thing in Equestria with a pulse that you won’t mate with.”

I flinched back. “Okay, that’s really not fair, Blossom.”

“Fair?” Blossom was back up on her hooves, and I’m pretty sure her wings weren’t flared out in arousal. “Don’t you talk to me about what’s fair! I spent months pining after you, and all you did was ignore me or push me away! Then when you finally do decide to acknowledge that my feelings exist, it’s just to throw them in my face!”

I groaned into my forehooves. “Do we really need to have this conversation again? Yes, I didn’t handle your feelings for me very well. Do you have to throw that into my face every time we get into a conversation that’s even tangentially related to my love life?” I’ll freely admit that I hadn’t been a great friend, but why did she have to pull our personal issues into a conversation about Eepy? Right now I needed a little support from my best friend, not another lecture on failures as a potential romantic partner.

Blossom glowered at me, and slowly growled out. “Did you enjoy watching me make a foal of myself by kissing Derpy? I’m sure you thought that was hilarious.”

“Actually, I thought that was really hot.” Blossom hit me with a furious glare, and I facehoofed at my legendary poor timing. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say. I guess she would be a little mad at me about that whole situation. “Look, I was just joking around with you, I didn’t expect you to really go and kiss her like that.”

“You didn’t exactly try to stop me either,” Blossom countered.

I had my mouth half-open to respond when I realized there wasn’t really much I could say to that. I’d had more than enough time to speak and let Blossom know that I hadn’t been serious about the whole kissing Derpy thing, but instead I’d just eagerly sat back and watched the whole thing play out. I’d been so caught up in enjoying the (admittedly very hot) spectacle that I hadn’t really stopped to think how it might be affecting the other two ponies involved in it.

So, I needed a way to make things right. I nervously licked my lips and got up to my hooves. “Look, Blossom. I know I was just joking around when I said it, but ... I guess I do technically owe you a kiss now.”

Blossom went stiff as a board when those words left my lips. By the time I was done walking up to her, her entire body was shaking. That’s not exactly the most encouraging of signs. I reached a hoof out to tip her chin up so that she was looking me in the eyes. “Blossom, do you want me to kiss you?”

Blossom licked her lips, and briefly looked away before squarely facing me. “Yes,” she whispered.

Okay. So ... I guess I was gonna kiss her then. Wow. Alright, here we go. I’m going to kiss her ... in just a couple seconds. Why was I hesitating so much? I wanted to kiss her, I really did. Blossom was certainly attractive enough that the physical desire wasn’t a problem. But ... after everything that had gone wrong with us, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her again. Then again, not kissing her would hurt her too.

I got about halfway to her lips when she turned her head to the side. “Cloudy, I ... I’m not sure we should...”

To be honest, I was pretty relieved when she said that. “Yeah. It’s not that I don’t want to, but ... it might not be a good idea right now.”

Blossom pulled back a bit and wrapped her wings over her chest. “I’m sorry, Cloud Kicker. I’m asking you to kiss me, and then halfway through I go and change my mind. I just...” Before I could come up with something to say that would make her feel less horribly, she got up and bumped me out of the way as she fled back into her bedroom.

I followed her. She tried slamming the door in my face, but that really doesn’t work when your door is made out of cloud. “Blossom, wait. Look, this whole mess is complicated. You know that. Running isn't going to fix anything.”

Blossom hit me with a glare that might have been a bit poisonous if her eyes weren’t so watery, and threw herself onto her bed. “But your dumb bet was? Or me getting so stupid and trying to make you pony up on your end when I wasn’t ready?”

I groaned and applied hoof to face. That whole joke-bet was really looking like one of my stupider ideas, and I’ve had some dumb ones over the last couple days. Ever since this whole mess with Blossom started blowing up in my face. “I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” I sighed and took a deep breath. “Look, we need to sit down and talk about this.”

“Talk?” Blossom sobbed indignantly. “Talk?” She grabbed a book and halfheartedly sent it flying at my head. Thank Celestia it was a paperback. On the other hoof, her bookcase was full of ammunition if she wanted to chuck more at me. “Half a second ago we were about to kiss, and now you want to talk? All you've done is talk! Talk about how much fun banging is, what kinds of encounters you've had, all the good times and warm, squiggly feelings you get to have–and when it comes time to nut up or shut up, I get left out in the cold.” Blossom sank down into her bed and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “So yeah, go ahead and talk. 'Cause apparently that’s all we can ever do.”

“Blossom, it’s not–” I groaned and facehoofed again. I was gonna need to be careful about my choice of words here, because with Blossom in her current mood, it wouldn’t take much to get her even more pissed at me. “Look, you mean more to me then some random pony I've banged. I didn't want to hurt you because your friendship means the world to me, and I didn't want ruin that. I never wanted to hurt you.” I let out a humorless little laugh. “I feathered that up pretty hard, didn’t I?”

Blossom’s upper lip pulled back in a furious snarl and she angrily swiped the tears out of her eyes. “Ya think? Yeah, I bet you're sorry. I’ve got half a mind to–” Blossom deliberately cut herself off and took a few deep breaths. Once she’d calmed down a bit, she continued. “You've banged other friends, what puts me on a pedestal?”

“I ... I don't know.” That’s not much of an answer, but at least it was honest. “I guess it was because we'd been friends for so long without banging, and I didn't want to lose what I had. Most of the ponies I hang out with I end up banging in no time, but that didn't happen with you.” I sank down onto the bed next to Blossom. She didn’t exactly look happy about it, but she wasn’t trying to push me off either. “The only other platonic friend I’ve got is Rainbow Dash, and things’ve always been a bit weird with us. You ... you’re my best friend, and I was terrified at the idea of losing that. I still am.”

“You're playing cat-and-mouse with my emotions, and leaving me so mixed up I don’t know whether to be mad at you or cry.” Blossom tossed a little chunk of cloud at me, which didn’t really accomplish anything beyond hopefully making her feel a little better. “You damn well better be scared of losing my friendship.”

That got a flinch out of me. Oh Celestia, I’d just started fixing things with Eepy, and now I was on the verge of losing somepony else who meant just as much to me. “Look, years of habits and not knowing when to keep my mouth shut have kinda caught up with me. It’s hurt a lot of ponies I care about, including the one pony I never wanted to hurt.”

Blossom let out a disbelieving little snort. “Which one is that, now? Derpy? Fluttershy?”

“You!” I took a couple seconds to calm down. Angrily yelling at a pony that you care about them does kinda send a mixed message. “I don't want to hurt you, okay Blossom? You don’t deserve that, and knowing that I hurt you makes me feel like a complete jerk. I turned down banging Eepy because I didn't want to hurt you or Derpy.”

Blossom resorted to the nastiest weapon in her arsenal–bitter sarcasm. “I'm flattered you care as much about me as you do the pony you decided on a whim to bang into screaming oblivion.”

Okay, I was getting just a little frustrated with her now. “Could you please stop trying to turn this into a fight? I'm trying really hard to not get into a shouting match with you, but you're making it pretty damn hard.” I put a hoof on her shoulder–she jumped a little but she didn’t seem to mind the contact. “Yes, you both matter to me, and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that. I don't want to hurt you or Derpy, and I don't know how to make one of you happy without hurting the other.”

“You know how to make me happy. I. Want. You.” Blossom emphasized each word with a tap of her hoof on my chest. “I've wanted you for months. I've wanted you to care for me as way, way more than a friend. I've wanted you to bang me until I have to call in sick because I can't fly straight.” Blossom blushed a little, and this time I’m pretty sure those spread wings weren’t only being caused by anger. “Um ... is it a little warm in here, or is it just me?”

I backed up a bit, so that I wasn’t having any contact with her. No need to make things worse than they already were. “Blossom, if I bang you then I'm going to hurt Derpy. How would you feel if we’d hooked up, and then it was Derpy who kept trying to add herself to the equation?”

Blossom shot me a rather pointed look. “I’d certainly be a lot happier than I am right now. You've been banging her and not me for–hay, almost two months? Why?”

“Because she said yes first.” Again with the answers that were honest, but didn’t seem to be making Blossom very happy. “You had plenty of chances to bang me if you wanted to. How many times did I let you know that I was more than willing to let you into my bed? A hundred? Two hundred? More? Maybe I thought that if you were really serious about it you would’ve jumped on one of those chances. I asked Derpy once, and she said yes. How long was I supposed to wait for you to make up your mind?”

Blossom put a hoof under her chin, and her tone turned mockingly contemplative. “Gee, I think ‘Yes Cloud Kicker, take me now!’ is pretty hard to mistake as anything other than me saying I wanted you.”

“You were drunk,” I answered with a slightly annoyed snort. “Rule Three, I couldn't take anything you were saying seriously then.”

“You could have talked to me about it instead of just trying to write it all off as some big joke caused by alcohol,” Blossom snapped at me. “Maybe sat me down and talked about why as soon as I got a little alcohol lowering my inhibitions, I started trying to get you into bed.”

“And you knew the only reason I shot you down was because you were drunk!” I shot right back. “I as much as told you that the first time you asked me about it. A blind pony could’ve read between the lines on that one! What more did I have to do, give you an engraved invitation? It’s kinda obvious that if I tell you that the only reason I turned you down is that you were drunk, then if you ask me when you’re sober...”

I slowly trailed off as I realized just what I was saying. Maybe Derpy had a point about me sending Blossom way too many mixed signals. “Okay ... I could have handled that a bit better”

Blossom gave me a very saucy grin. “In any case, I'm saying ‘yes’ now.” She very slowly settled back onto the bed. “If you really, really mean that all I needed to do is say it, then yes.” She flicked her tail to the side and spread her hindquarters just a bit. “I want you to bang me. Take me now.”

Okay, time to conjure up those horrifying and libido-destroying mental images again. No matter how much my brain my told me it was a bad idea, there was still a part of me that wanted to dive head-first into that little flower of hers. “Listen, this isn't what you really want. You don't want for our first time together to be because you're angry, frustrated, or trying to prove something or get back at Derpy. You want it to be something special.”

Blossom let out an angry snort and rolled back over, and made a point of covering up with her tail. “I knew it. You say all I ever needed to do was say yes when you asked, but it was never really going to be that simple, was it? You spread yourself around with enough ponies, what's one more?” Blossom started trembling, and I’m pretty sure I saw tears forming in her eyes. “What’s wrong with me? Why is it that any random pony on the street can hop into bed with you, but your best friend who loves you with all her heart can’t even get a single little kiss? Why do I mean so much less to you than all those other ponies?”

“Blossom, look at me.” At first she refused to, but when I reached over to turn her around so I could look in the eyes she didn’t try to stop me. “You do not mean less to me than all those other ponies. You mean more, so much more. That’s part of why we never...” I sighed and took a deep breath as I prepared myself for a slightly painful confession. “Look, you want to know the honest reason why I never made a serious effort to get you into bed? It’s because I was scared. I knew if we banged, it could never just be a simple kind of friends-with-benefits thing. You would never be alright with us just having a one-time bang ... and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be alright with it either.”

Blossom pulled back in shock. “You...”

“Yeah.” I groaned and sank into the clouds. “If we’d ever banged ... it would’ve been like when Shadow Kicker and the rest of the clan left Cloudsdale. Point of No Return. Everything about our relationship would’ve changed. Everything. Doesn’t that scare you a little too?”

“A little?” Blossom let out a snort with a tiny bit of genuine mirth behind it. “No, it doesn’t scare me a little. It terrifies me. Why do you think I always said no when you offered to bang me? I want you so much, but at the same time ... I’m scared of it. It’s just so much to deal with, and if we ever take that step then nothing will ever be the same again. It’s ... as much as I want something more with you, there’s a part of me that’s so scared of making such a big change that I never wanted to ... commit to making that change.”

I couldn’t help but let out a short little back of laughter at that. “Guess I’m not the only pony with commitment issues after all. Maybe that means we’re meant for each other.” I sighed and settled in next to her. “Blossom, I wanna sort this thing out. I wish you and me had talked things over before I hooked up with Derpy, but we can’t change the past. I’ve got a good thing with Derpy, and I don’t wanna break her heart now that she’s letting me into it. And her girls ... hay, for a while there I was getting scared that they’d expect me to get all maternal and stuff, but now–well, I’m getting a little attached to them. I’m maybe not entirely terrified by the idea that I might be a kinda-sorta role-model to them. They’re good girls.”

“Two impressionable fillies looking at you as a role model.” Blossom let out a snort. “That is a terrifying thought.”

I paled a bit as the implications of that hit me. “If Dinky turns out like me, Derpy will kill me, and they’ll never find the body.”

Blossom smirked and put in her two bits. “You corrupt a filly as innocent as Dinky, and I’d probably help Derpy do it.” Blossom blew out a long, slow sigh. “I don’t hate her, you know? She seems like a nice pony, and her girls are good kids. I don’t want to hurt them just to make myself happy with you. It’s just ... you said it yourself, we’d be together if you hadn’t gone and hooked up with her.”

“It’s not that simple, Blossom.” I hesitantly snuggled up next to her. “Even if me and Derpy weren’t a thing, I’ve ... kinda got some baggage from the whole Flight Camp thing with Eepy. It’s not like I can pretend that having my first love blow up spectacularly in my face has had no influence on me not wanting to get into any sort of serious relationship. I wanna ... look, I want to do right by both of you, and I’m starting to think that in order to do right I need to get my own issues sorted out first.” I sighed and shot a look in the general direction of Eepy’s cozy little cottage. “Probably part of why I went to see her today. Until I’m right with myself, I don’t think I can do right by either of you.”

I nervously licked my lips. “I’ve ... got a kind of huge favor to ask, considering what’s going on with Tornado Day. Eepy needs help getting her wingpower up to ten, and she’s asked me if I could lend a hoof with all the training. This ... this could be my big chance to settle everything with her. I think resolving my whole thing with Eepy is the first step to figuring out how to do right by the two of you.”

Okay, that was sounding a little too much like I was trying to blackmail her into going along with this. Promising to sort out your potential romantic relationship on the condition of getting a couple days off of work wasn’t exactly an ethical way doing things “Look, I can fix things up with Eepy after Tornado Day, if you need me on the training field. I need to sort my personal life out, but I’ve got a duty to the weather service too. I’m not gonna shirk my duties just because my personal life is in shambles.”

Blossom put a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “No, it’s okay. I’ve got things under control, and I know if Rainbow Dash was here she would want to give you a chance. Besides, Pinkie Pie told me Rainbow’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow afternoon, so it’s not like you’d be leaving me all on my own. I can handle things tomorrow, and after that Rainbow will be back on the job. Go to Fluttershy–you two deserve a chance to make some kind of peace with each other.”

I was just about to thank her when she shrank down a bit into her bed and very quietly added, “But ... can I ask you for a favor too?” I had a bad feeling about this, but she deserved a chance to least make her request. “Could you stay here tonight?”

Yeah, definitely a bad idea. “Blossom, we can’t–”

Blossom cut me off with a trembling hoof over my mouth. “I’m not asking you mate with me.” Her eyes started watering, and the rest of her body started trembling along with her hoof. “Just ... hold me. And stay. Please?”

I took one look at that open, vulnerable look on her face, and I knew there was only one answer I could give. “Yeah, sure.”

The next day of training with Eepy went pretty well, all things considered. By the end of the day, it took two butterflies to beat her in a tug-of-war, and she was actually putting up a serious effort at winning. Granted, butterflies have a whopping .01 wingpower each, but at least Eepy was making progress.

More importantly, getting some time together was doing wonders for the two of us. If not for how worried I was about the possibility that things might happen, I’d probably be spending the night at Eepy’s place too. It should probably be a while before Eepy and I tested things to the point of sleeping under the same roof. In my defense, Eepy being the one to make the first move was as much of a danger as me. She wouldn’t be as quick to escalate things as I would, but if Eepy made a serious move on me, I’m not sure I’d have the self-control to say no to her. Rejecting Eepy when she’s hitting you with those sad, hopeful eyes and you know she’s gonna run away sobbing if you say no ... that’s hard to manage.

Since things with Derpy were still a little rough, I was back to sleeping at my place. Considering how badly our last conversation had gone, I thought it was probably a good idea for the two of us to have a little time to cool off. The last thing we needed to do was get into another argument that ended with her implying that she might be thinking about breaking things off. Hopefully a bit of a break and me sorting out the whole Fluttershy thing would be enough to get things back on track.

I was halfway through breakfast when somepony knocked on my door. This early in the morning, it had better be something important. Maybe it was Eepy? She had mentioned something about coming by my place and bringing me something to eat. I told her she didn’t need to go the trouble of doing something like that for me, but getting Eepy to not do something nice for you was always a difficult proposition. Back at Flight Camp it took me weeks to convince her that she didn’t need to make my bunk, share her dessert with me, or do any other minor little favors.

Even then, sometimes she could wear me down by just being so relentlessly kind that I had no choice but to let her do something nice for me. I’ve never known another pony who could actually make me feel like some kind of monster for not taking half her cookies.

Unfortunately there was no nervous and cute old Flight Camp friend waiting at my front door. Instead, it was one of the last ponies I’d ever expected or wanted to see. “Mom.”

I was a little surprised to see her out of uniform. It’s not like guardponies always went around wearing their armor when they were off-duty, but Mom was usually in uniform unless she was hanging around the house. She went around in full armor so often that I was pretty sure she’d sunk some bits into getting some comfort-enhancing and self-cleaning enchantments put on it. Trust me, if you wear that armor all day it’ll start getting pretty darn uncomfortable, and living in the West Hoof barracks educated me on just how quickly armor could build up horrifying levels of body odor if it wasn’t regularly cleaned.

I swear, the real reason I dropped out of the Guard wasn’t down to fear of getting locked into a lifetime commitment, it was just that I didn’t wanna put up with decades of smelling the armor funk of hundreds of ponies.

Without her armor, Mom looked ... almost like a normal pony. A bit too trim, and you could tell from the way she she carried herself and kept aware of her surroundings that she wasn’t a normal civilian, but the only thing that gave her away as Guard was her close-cropped brown mane. Without her armor’s uniform enchantment her coat was even back to its natural soft yellow instead of being parade-ground white, and it had been so long since I’d seen that that I could swear I’d almost forgotten she wasn’t a natural whitecoat.

It seems kind of wrong that my own mother looked almost like a stranger to me when she was out of uniform. Armored or not, she was knocking on my door, and that rarely boded well. Still, I should probably try to be a bit diplomatic. If nothing else, there was a passable chance that she was here because she wanted me to keep an eye on 'Lula again. I’d rather not get into another nasty family argument within earshot of my little sister. “So, what can I do for you, Mom?”

Mom gave a surprised little blink–I guess she wasn’t expecting me to actually make an effort to be civil. I’m not sure why I was doing it myself. Maybe all the stuff with Eepy had me in a reconciling type of mood, or maybe I was just getting tired of all the fighting and awkward distance between me and the ponies I cared about. Yeah, Mom and I had some pretty huge disagreements about the way I lived my life, but at the end of the day she was still ... Mom. No argument was gonna change that.

When Mom answered, she was a bit slow and hesitant, like she wasn’t quite sure how to handle moving into the uncharted territory of us actually having a civil conversation. “Something’s come up–emergency deployment. I need you to keep an eye on Alula again. Please?”

Whoa. Mom was actually using words like ‘please’ now? “Yeah, no problem.” Wow, we were actually talking to each other like normal family instead of two mares who could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. This was progress.

I’m still not sure why I cared so much about patching things up with her right now. Maybe it was the same reason I went to Eepy’s place a couple days back. I needed a friend then ... maybe I needed a mom now. I decided to offer an olive branch. “Mom? Can we ... talk?”

Mom frowned at me, and very slowly shook her head. “I ... I’m sorry but I have an urgent mission. There’s really no time for–”

“Once you get back, then.” I opened my door up all the way and took a hesitant half-step towards her. “We used to get along. I’m not gonna say we never got into any fights, every family does, but things had never gotten this bad before. I’m tired of it. Hay, is all this stuff about you wanting me to join the Guard again and me wanting to live my life the way I wanna really worth all this stupid fighting? Can we just drop it all and try to be a family again?”

I took another step towards her and awkwardly rubbed a hoof along the back of my neck. “Look, I don’t know what exactly is going on with you and Dad, but you two loved each other. Hay, you gave up your titles to marry him. I just ... I’m tired of fighting with you. Tired of my family being a big complicated mess that makes me feel guilty because I can’t stop thinking that I let you all down. I ... Things aren’t right with us, but I wanna fix them. Can we?”

Mom just stood there, staring at me for a long moment. She looked uncertain, like she had no idea how to handle things. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Five minutes ago, I wouldn’t have believed I’d be trying to make peace with her either. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought I’d be doing. Or not doing, as the case may be. Finally, Mom answered. “Very well, Cloud Kicker. I ... think I would like to speak with you as well. We ... we have a great deal to discuss.”

On an impulse, I hugged her. After an awkward moment, she started hugging me back. “I know it’s been forever since I said it, but ... I love you, okay Mom? Even if you are a stubborn, controlling old hag who drives me up the wall sometimes, I still love you.”

“I ... yes.” Great, Mom was getting all awkward on me now. She’s kind of always been this way–showing the maternal love was never her strong suit. I suspect it might be the very large stick that was surgically implanted up her plot when she was born. Plus, the Kickers have always been a bit on the stoic side, not so much for the touchy-feely stuff. Mom might have married into the family, but she definitely fit right in. Combine her not being so great at the affection thing with the way she could have a pretty forceful and not exactly pleasant way of expressing herself when she didn’t get her way, and it’s no wonder we’d had more than our fair share of troubles.

I held onto the hug for a little bit longer, then had mercy on my poor emotionally distant mother. “So, where’s 'Lula at? I’ve got a little baby sister to take care of and embarrass.”

I was a little disappointed when 'Lula didn’t make any of her customary complaints about being called a baby. Even though she was–as far as I was concerned, she was gonna be a baby at least until there were two numbers in her age. Maybe not until she was done being a teenager. Oh Celestia, my cute little baby sister was gonna turn into a teenager one day.

I craned my neck around to look behind Mom for ‘Lula, but instead of seeing her playfully trotting around like I’d expected, she was riding on Mom’s back. “There you are, Little Wing.” A couple casual flaps of my wings took me right over Mom so I could get a proper look at my little sis. “I’m gonna be busy with work, but we can still ... you okay there, ‘Lula?”

'Lula did not look good. Her wings were half-hazardly flopped against her sides, and she was lying so flat on Mom’s back that it looked less like she’d made herself comfortable, and more like her legs had just collapsed underneath her. No wonder she hadn’t said anything when I started calling her a baby–right now she seemed to be half-asleep.

I scooped her off of Mom’s back and gave her a quick once-over. It didn’t look like there was anything seriously wrong with her, but she seemed so tired and listless that I could tell that something wasn’t right. Maybe I was getting worried over nothing though. At least, I sure hope that’s all it was. “You work her out too hard or something, Mom? She doesn’t look so good...”

Mom reached over to tuck Alula’s wings back up against her sides. “Relax, Cloud Kicker. She’s just going through one of those ordinary fillyhood illnesses, there’s some kind of bug going around. Nothing you need to get yourself worked up over,” Mom assured me. “I took her by the clinic yesterday, just to be safe, and Redheart assured me that your sister will be fine. You remember how it was back when you were her age–too sick to get out of bed one day, and then the next you’re tugging my tail and begging me to teach you how use wing-blades.”

“Heh, yeah.” I let out a fond little laugh as my mind went back to simpler times. It was nice when Mom was just one of the two coolest ponies ever (in an eternal conflict with Dad for the top spot). Why did things have to go and get so complicated on me?

It was hard to believe that ‘Lula was supposed to bounce back to normal in a couple days how sick she looked right now, but kids do tend to be a little extreme that way. One day they’re sick as a dog, the next they’re bouncing off the walls again. I don't know where they get all that energy from, though I suspect they must steal it from the adults around them. Like vamponies. Tiny, hyperactive little vamponies.

‘Lula shifted around a bit and tried to wrap her own forelegs around my chest. “Cloudy ... I dun feel good. I’m sleepy.”

I gave her a quick little nuzzle. “Hey, you’ll be fine. You’re just a little sick.” I shot a worried look over at Mom. “You sure she’s alright?”

“Of course. Trust me, she’ll be back on her hooves and bothering you to play with her in no time.” Mom gave me a reassuring smile and dropped down to give ‘Lula a quick nuzzle. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I have to be in Canterlot by 0800 or my CO is going to be out for blood.” She rather pointedly spread her wings.

I gave a sympathetic little wince–Mom was gonna have to double-time it if she wanted to make it as it was. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got it.” If Mom and Redheart said that ‘Lula was fine, then she was. After all, both of them have a lot more experience at dealing with fillyhood illnesses than me. Derpy might be getting me more involved in her daughters’ lives, but so far neither of them had come down with anything serious enough for me get drafted for nurse duty.

I took ‘Lula inside and settled her into my bed. She did look pretty tired, so I guess the bed was as good a place as any to put her. “‘Lula, you feeling okay?”

“I’m sleepy,” my little sister groaned. “Can I take a nap?”

“Yeah, sure.” I dropped down for another quick nuzzle. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

“‘kay.” 'Lula wasted no more time before curling up in my covers and hitting the hay.

After a quick run by the market, I got to work on making a big pot of egg and noodle soup. That’s supposed to help when you’re dealing with a sick filly. At least, I’m pretty sure it helps in all the books and stuff.

Maybe I should get Derpy? She’d know all about how to deal with a sick filly. Sure, we were supposed to be taking a couple days to cool off, but she wouldn’t hesitate to help if I told her my sister was sick.

My pot of soup was about halfway done when somepony very gently knocked on my door. I didn’t even need to open it to know who it was–Eepy has a pretty distinctive way of knocking. So soft you can barely even hear it, probably because she’s worried about disturbing somepony who doesn’t want to be bothered. I wouldn’t have been shocked to discover that she’d spent a couple minutes on my doorstep before she finally even worked up the courage to knock on my door at all.

I checked to make sure that the soup wouldn’t boil over or something in the next thirty seconds or so, and then fluttered over to open the door for her. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting Eepy.” I did a quick check of my clock–I was about an hour past due for getting to her place to help out with the wingpower training. Oops.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she assured me with all her usual gentle understanding. “I just thought you might need help, because I know you would have been there to help me with my training unless something really, really important came up. And if it’s important enough for you drop my wingpower training, then it must be important enough that you need my help too. So ... here I am.”

Was ... was Eepy trying to guilt-trip me? Nah, Eepy wouldn’t do something like that. At least, not intentionally. She’s pretty good at the unintentional guilt-slinging though. I have to admit, I’d feel like an absolute mule if I didn’t have a perfectly legitimate reason for–scratch that, I did have a good reason for not making it, and I still felt kinda bad.

“Sorry, it’s just that my mom dropped Alula off this morning, and she’s kinda sick so I–” I couldn’t get another word out before Eepy bolted straight for my bedroom. A couple seconds later she flew back out, carrying a bundle of blankets and my little sisters in her forelegs. From the looks of it, she was rocking 'Lula back and forth and singing to her. Something about happy little bouncing bunnies, which was just such an Eepy thing to do that I couldn’t help but smile fondly at the two of them.

After doting on my little sister for a bit, Eepy shot me a worried look. “Cloudy, what’s wrong with her? She looks really sick...”

“Not sure,” I admitted. “Mom said she took her by the clinic to get her checked out, and it’s just some childhood bug that’s been going around.” I shot another slightly worried look 'Lula’s way, and tried to make myself calm down. Fillies get sick sometimes, it’s not a big deal. Certainly nothing worth working myself up into a panic over.

“Well, to be honest I know more about taking care of bunnies and kitties than fillies,” Eepy confessed. “It doesn’t look serious though, so if Nurse Redheart said it’s nothing to worry about, then I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Eepy brought 'Lula up for a gentle little nuzzle. “Don’t you worry little one, I’m gonna help Cloudy take care of you until you’re all better.”

Well, I wasn’t going to complain about having some help here, especially from somepony like Eepy who practically oozed nurturing gentleness out of her pores. Besides, it’s not like I could tell her no. If I tried to deny her the opportunity to be a caregiver, she’d break out her entire arsenal of begging, pleading, imploring, beseeching, requesting, and asking very nicely to make me change my mind. If none of that worked, then she would hit me with the most devastating weapon she had. She would get sad. Very sad. There might even be tears.

So yeah, Eepy was gonna help me take care of Alula. “Well, I’ve got some egg and noodle soup cooking, that should help her feel better, so...”

Eepy fluttered over and took a quick taste test of my soup. “Oh my. Well, that’s very nice of you, but could I make just a few teensy-weensy little adjustments to your soup?”

Before I could even say yes, Eepy hit my spice rack like a very gentle, soft-spoken hurricane. Five minutes later, Eepy still wasn’t happy with the results even though I thought it was just fine. Then again, I’d thought it was just fine before she went to work on it. “Cloud Kicker, how old were the eggs you used in that soup?”

“Only a couple days,” I answered her. “And I’ve been keeping them in the icebox, so they should be fine.”

“Oh, there’s the problem,” Eepy muttered under her breath. “Don’t worry, I can go back to my chicken coop and get some freshly laid eggs for her. Maybe pick some fresh natural herbs too, they’re much better than any of the processed stuff you can find in the markets. I have some wonderful sage growing in my garden that would be just perfect for this.” Eepy beamed at me. “I know, we could just take her over to my house!”

Oh Celestia, it was like a steamroller of kindness. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate what she was trying to do, but she was kinda taking over the whole process. Getting help with 'Lula was great, but having her more-or-less completely take over as 'Lula’s caretaker was going a bit further than I was really comfortable with. “Look, Eepy, I really appreciate it, but–”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Eepy gently reassured me. “I would love to take care of your sister. She’s just such a wonderful little filly.” Before I could come up with a way to very gently explain my concerns to her, Eepy let out a soft gasp and covered her mouth with one of her hooves. “Oh my! I didn’t mean to be so presumptuous! I just thought of all the things I could do to help, and then I got so excited that I never even asked you if it was okay! It is okay, isn’t it? Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me!”

Oh, for the love of Luna. Now she was on the verge of tears just from thinking I might be upset with her. I love Eepy, I really do, but sometimes she can be a bit too sensitive for her own good. There was only one way this conversation could possibly go. “Relax Eepy, it’s fine. I really appreciate how eager you are to lend a hoof.”

We were halfway back to Fluttershy’s cottage when we passed in the general vicinity of Ponyville Hospital and spotted an unmistakable rainbow-colored streak circling over it. Just as I was about to ask Eepy if we should stop to say hello, the rainbow blur stopped in mid-air, then zoomed towards the two of us fast enough to make me just a little nervous.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash actually managed to pull off a precision stop right in front of the two of us instead of overdoing it and bowling us over. I’d still kind of taken a half step forward and to the side to put myself in front of Eepy and 'Lula. Letting the two of them get tackled by an overenthusiastic Rainbow Dash would probably be a bad idea. “Fluttershy? Cloud Kicker? You guys are ... you’re ... No way!” Rainbow dropped to the ground in front of us and sank down onto her haunches. “I mean, Pinkie told me that Blossomforth told her that you two had ... but ... you’re really...”

I grinned and took a pointed half-step closer to Eepy. “Yeah. Eepy and I finally patched things up.” Eepy let out a squeak and gave me a friendly nuzzle on the cheek, just to hammer the point home.

Rainbow’s smile put Pinkie’s huge face-stretching grins to shame. “That’s awesome!”

All three of us were grinning like loons for a bit, until Eepy let out a soft little gasp and quickly passed 'Lula over to me before launching herself into Rainbow and latching onto her. I wasn’t sure what to make of that until Eepy started apologizing and trying to stammer out a string of apologies in between the tears. That’s when I remembered that she’d kind of lost her cool with Rainbow. Of course she’d be begging for forgiveness now.

“Relax, Fluttershy,” Rainbow murmured with just a hint of self-conscious embarrassment as she ran a hoof through Eepy’s mane. “It’s cool. You don’t need to apologize.”

“B–but I said such awful things to you!” Eepy blubbered out. I was tempted to go up and try to comfort her, but I didn’t wanna interrupt the moment she was having with Rainbow. I could always give her a big hug after the two of them were done talking.

“Yeah, it was pretty rough.” Rainbow gave a little tremble that she’d probably been trying very hard to suppress. If Rainbow was admitting that something had hurt and actually showing a sign of weakness, then it must’ve really hit her pretty hard. “It’s fine though, Fluttershy. I really kinda deserved everything you said. Hay, I deserved worse than that after the way I–” Rainbow caught herself, and gave a quick shake of her head.

I shot a worried frown Rainbow’s way, and Eepy opted for latching onto her for another hug. “You alright there, Rainbow?”

“Yeah, I’m ... not okay, but I’m gonna be.” Rainbow sighed and settled for silently hugging Eepy back for a while. “I talked to Pinkie about ... well, all the stuff. Y’know, the whole Flight Camp thing and all that. She was a pretty big help. Best. Fillyfriend. Ever.” Rainbow let out a nervous little laugh and dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got my first appointment with the shrink scheduled for after Tornado Day. Don’t spread it around though, I do have a reputation to maintain.”

Eepy gave Rainbow one last squeeze then backed away and shot me a hopeful little smile. I knew her signals well enough to tell that she was clearing space for me to hug Rainbow, but that’s never been the way Rainbow and I worked. I passed 'Lula back over to her, trotted up to Rainbow, and then casually hoofed her in the shoulder. Not hard or anything, but enough to rock her back just a little bit. Eepy let out a worried little gasp, but Rainbow just grinned and hoofed me right back. Rainbow and I have a weird way of doing things sometimes, but I think it works.

Rainbow went back to grinning at the both of us like it was going out of style. “So, I was just doing a quick practice run over the hospital. Redheart’s insisting on checking everything out before she’ll clear me for Tornado Duty, and when I saw you two walking together, I had to come check it out.” She let out a giddy little laugh. “Wow, I still can’t believe it. You guys are ... I was scared that I’d kinda ... ruined everything for you forever, but ... hay, if you two can patch things up–that’s great. Really.” She grinned and leaned her head forward. “So what’re you two up to? Pinkie mentioned you were gonna be helping Fluttershy with her wingpower training. I’ve got a couple sweet exercises you could try that’ll get her numbers up like that!” She clopped her hooves together to emphasize her point.

“Oh, we’re going to be doing more training later,” Eepy answered with a smile, before bouncing 'Lula in her forelegs for emphasis. “But right now Cloud Kicker’s sister is sick, so we’re taking her back to my place so she can relax and get better. I promise we’ll get back to training as soon as she’s settled in.”

I thought about trying to wake 'Lula up–'Lula is a member of Rainbow’s Fan Club, so she’d probably appreciate a quick ‘get well soon’ straight from Rainbow’s mouth. On the other hoof, if 'Lula could sleep through Eepy and me carrying her across Ponyville, passing her around, and the two of us talking to Rainbow, then she probably really needed the sleep.

Rainbow shot a look at Eepy and and 'Lula, then leaned in next to me and whispered, “You went and knocked her into nurturing mode, didn’t you?”

I couldn’t help chuckling a bit. “Maybe a little.”

Rainbow shot me a knowing look. “Here’s hoping 'Lula gets over it fast, then–for both your sakes. Otherwise Fluttershy might end up trying to adopt her. Throw anything that she thinks needs nurturing in front of her, and she can get a little ... yeah.”

Rainbow wasn’t wrong about that. In all honesty, I was a tiny bit annoyed about getting hit by the steamroller of kindness and good intentions, but that’s just how Eepy works. Hay, it’s part of what I love about her. Everypony’s got their flaws, but with the best ponies those imperfections just serve to remind you of why you love them so much in the first place. Like Fluttershy being a bit too kind for her own good, or the way Derpy would do something clumsy and slightly destructive and just give me the bubbly, helpless little smile. Or how Blossom seemed to have that fondness for accumulating random bits of junk, and then got grumpy whenever she couldn’t find a way to fix one of them.

So yeah, a hot-to-trot plot will get me interested, and a nice personality might make me stick around for a bit, but it’s those little imperfections that really make a pony ... fall ... in love.

Oh.

Uh oh.

I’m ... in even more trouble than I already thought I was.