One Interesting Day
I wake up to feeling of something small and wet on my face and a certain familiar weight on my chest. Opening my eyes I look down slightly to see a cobalt blue snake with purple streaks down its neck. I yawn saying, "Good morning Blue Berry. What time is it?" I look up at the curtains of my window and still don't see any light coming in. I groan realizing that it's far too early to be up yet. "I'm guessing it's time for your breakfast then?" I get a small flicker of her tongue as an answer. Having had her for such a long time now, I know that's a definite yes. "Alright, I'll get up in a minute just let me rest for a little bit more okay?"
I see her flick her tongue again, looking rather pleased with herself for waking me up about half an hour earlier than usual, and slithers away off my bed and out of my room. I lay my head back down, sighing. I lay there for about another minute or two, trying to wake up a bit more, then get out of bed and open the curtain of my window letting the little bit of sunlight that's up at this time into my room. While I don't really enjoy the feeling of getting up this early I do have to admit that I find seeing the sky at this time while the sun is still only barely up to be quite beautiful. That's about the only thing I have to thank Blue Berry for after waking me up like this. I yawn once again, stretching out my arms and wings letting them both fall to my sides. "Guess I may as well get this day started then."
After giving Blue Berry her breakfast and taking a hot shower, because that's simply the best kinda shower, I throw on my favorite outfit of my black and gold hoodie that has a sword on the front (I have a sort of obsession with swords) and my gray pants with the orange stripe a little past the knee that also has my music note cutie mark on the hip where pockets usually would be, but I don't really have a use for them anyway. I also have my silver necklace with an amethyst crystal hanging off it on, never actually taking it off except for maybe four times since it was given to me as a gift from a friend about seven years. Almost everypony agrees that the outfit my personality very well and I really do like the look of it on me and it's very comfortable as well. Before I leave the bathroom I look into the mirror to see a pair violet eyes looking back and smile. Purple is my favorite color so I have genetics and my parents to thank for my eyes. Now I find myself in the kitchen again making myself the breakfast this time. As I sit at the table eating I feel something nudge at my leg and hear a small hiss. "Yes Blue, what is it?" I say as I look down. She has a pleading look on her face as she looks up at me. "Yeah, alright," I tell her as I put my hand out toward her and she slithers up it into my lap. So I enjoy a good breakfast with one hand while petting my little snake in my lap with the other one. After a few minutes I've finished the food and have washed the dishes from just now and the one's left from last night's dinner.
"Well little one I think that it's about time I head out to go help Twi with her spell. Will you be alright without me around? I have a lot of stuff planned so I probably won't be back until pretty late tonight, if at all." She flicks her tongue at me once more with a bored look on her face, telling me that she can take care of herself, though that wouldn't explain why she had to wake me up so early. I nod at her and pet her head for a little more while chuckling at my own joke of her waking me up, and then I'm gone to go help Twilight out with her new spell, being more than a little nervous of how it will turn out.
Once I finally make it to Twilight's tree..house...library....thing, after having a bit of a run in with Derpy after having her fly straight into me, I knock on the door waiting for either her or Spike to open the door, and start thinking of what all I need to do today. Gotta help Twi with her spell, I told AJ that I'd hang out with her once she gets a break from working her apple farm, Lyra's lyre lessons for me are scheduled for today, Pinkie was wanting me to help her with baking a cake later in the day, Vinyl was wanting me to listen to some of her new tracks that she'd made recently, and then I had asked Fluttershy out on a date and today was one of the few days that she knew that she wouldn't be overly busy taking care of her animals, though it still would take most of the day for her to finish up anyway. While I'm mulling over how I'm going to get all of this in in just one day I notice the door start to open and a certain dragon being the one to open it. Though this was what I expected since Twilight rarely opens her door, especially when she's busy trying to get something together or get prepared for something, like a new spell. "Hey there Cloud!" Spike says very enthusiastically giving me a huge grin. He's dressed in his usual purple zip-up vest that reached down to his belly button that's only half zipped up, elbow length-fingerless gloves, and his black pants with a chain hanging off his right side.
"Morning Spike," I say giving him a smile, "is Twilight ready to start yet?"
"Yeah she's waiting around back for you, come on, I'll take you to her," he says as he steps out, closes the door behind him, and starts leading me to the back of their house where I can now hear what sounds like sparks and can slightly see a glow. Taking a wild guess I'd say it's Twilight starting to practice a few times before she tries it on an actual person, or more specifically, me.
After greeting each other she spends a few more minutes looking over the spell in her book to make sure she has all the details down. As she does this I notice how she looks today, wearing a purple dress with stripes near the top that match the streaks that go through her hair with her cutie mark that looks something like a star with some sparkles around it and a pair of bracelets that have the same color effect. I start to wonder where she finds the time to plan out an outfit like this with all the time she puts into studying up on new things, much like this spell but then just figure that Rarity probably made the outfit for her, considering how much she loves to make that kind of stuff for us as random gifts. She soon closes the book with a slight *thwap* breaking me out of my little internal rant. "So, do you think you're ready to try it out now?"
She puts on a thoughtful face, as if she hadn't actually considered if she herself was ready, instead just making sure that she knew all the steps, and after a few seconds looks at me with her purple eyes and answers with, "I think I'll be able to pull this off, so yes, I should be."
This doesn't make me any less nervous than I was, instead possibly making me even more so. "Well I guess that's the best I can ask of you then. I'm ready whenever you are." She gives a slight nod, obviously already starting to concentrate, and closes her eyes making sure she can't be distracted by seeing anything, like a certain Pinkie running around holding a stack of cakes too high for anypony to carry or even Derpy flying around, which is almost never actually in a straight line. I start to see a glow emanating around her horn and then hear the now familiar crackle that comes with the use of magic. Soon I'm able feel a wind pick up around me and start to circle around me and can see the air around me changing color as I'm soon wrapped in a blue light.
Soon the light and the wind have died down along with a small tingling that I had started feeling after a couple more seconds of being changed. Once I'm back on the ground and can see again I look at Twilight to see her reaction to the change. It's not good, which can only mean one real thing. "Please tell me it worked out Twi."
"Um...well, I'd like to, but unfortunately it didn't."
"Then what did it do? In Celestia's name please don't let it be something that you can't fix."
"No, no, it's nothing like that, I can fix it with a little looking over some notes, but you better come inside so that you can see for yourself what happened." I nod to her, and as we walk to go back inside her house I can't help but notice that she's silently giggling to herself and that there are more than a few ponies looking at me very strange. I get the feeling that I probably won't like what I see once I finally actually do.
I stare into the mirror completely dumbstruck. "I'm really sorry Cloud but I think I can easily fix this just give me one minute please," she says as she pats my arm. She walk away to go find a book as I continue staring into the mirror. My beautiful mane... Apparently what happened is that while Twi was trying to concentrate since this is a very complex spell, Spike started to yell at Owlicious, Twilight's pet owl, because all he kept saying was "Who?" because Spike somehow still can't understand that that's all he can actually say. So instead of the spell actually working, which the intended effect was to turn me into a unicorn, it turned my black and purple streaked mane and tail into a pink color with a lime green streak going through it. I hear Spike bust into a fit of laughter for the third time since I walked into the house and give a deep sigh. Though it could've gone a lot worse than it did I suppose. "I'm back Cloud, and I think I have everything figured out now!" Twilight says energetically as she walks back up to me holding a red book with silver lines on the side.
After another good five minutes she finally has everything sorted out and I start to make my way to the Apple family's farm, promising Twi that I'd help her out again with the spell soon. After a few minutes of flying I notice a very familiar blue coated, and rainbow maned female lounging on a cloud. I fly over to the girl wondering if she's asleep and if I should bother her at all, but upon closer inspection I notice that she's slightly bobbing her head every couple of seconds and that she has her custom made headphones in that are in the shape of her three colored lightning bolt coming from a cloud cutie mark. She's dressed like she's ready to start a race at any moment, and knowing her she probably is, in her red zip-up jacket with a white tank top underneath and her very familiar blue track pants that actually look like shorts from farther away because while the legs are the same light blue as her coat it changes into a much deeper blue near her upper legs. I poke her in the shoulder to get her attention so that I can talk to her and possibly get some sort of company over to AJ's farm.
She opens her eyes looking to see who would dare bother the fastest thing in all of Equestria, and I can't help but notice how beautiful those pools of cerise can be sometimes. I give her a smile and a wave as she takes out her phone to pause her music, obviously going to listen to it again at some point today, and takes her headphones out then looks at me once again. She smiles back at me and says, "Hey there Cloud, what're you doing up here?"
"I'm on my way over to AJ's farm. She was wanting to hang out for a while since it'd been some time. You wanna fly over there with me?" I see that all too familiar flicker go through her eyes once I say "fly" indicating that she just came up with an amazing idea.
"How about we race over there? It's been awhile since our last one and I think the score is two to three," she smirks knowing that the three belongs to her. While she may have the title of being the fastest thing in all of Equestria, self-given I might add, I'm still very fast as well. Of course while I did have to train very hard for it, and it was specifically to beat her, it's still no small feat to have beaten her, especially twice.
"Well it would certainly make the trip over more interesting. You're on Dashie!"
Only about three minutes into the flight I already notice how fast we're flying, even though it's just a friendly competition. Of course it's no surprise we're moving this fast, Dash has maxed out at going Mach ten when she pushes herself past all of her limits, and I've made it to Mach eight so I'm not far behind, even though I still hate admitting that I'm behind at all no matter what it is I'm behind on. I start to wonder if she'll actually do a Sonic Rainboom during this simple little race which would make me have to use my Light Flicker. It'd seem like a waste but when it's against Dash even the smallest thing can be turned into a full blown competition. By this point I start to see some of the apple trees that indicate the farm is coming up and that we're neck and neck now. So I push myself as hard as I can without accidentally going into Light Flicker by moving too fast.
"There's no way!" Rainbow exclaims at me, pouting a little.
"There is a way Dashie, and it happened. That would tie us up at three to three I believe," I say giving her a triumphant smile followed by a loud laugh at the frown I get in return.
"Hey ya'll!" I hear a very familiar, slightly southern voice yell from the opening in the fence to the farm. Dash and I wave giving Apple Jack our own greeting from a little down the road barely away from where we landed after our flight since we only just started walking up it, needing to take a small breather from flying. As she makes her way to us I notice that she's in her all too familiar work clothes, her yellow shirt with what I can only call a brown half-cape (I smirk at my own little description of it), along with her brown shorts that are more for practicality than to show off her legs, like most of the girls that would wear them, that have her cutie mark of three apples on each side of them, and her signature cow-girl hat. As she walks her long blond ponytail bobs with each step, almost mirroring her tail at the same time. Her dark orange coat has dirt in it around her face, showing how she's really been working pretty hard. She looks over at us with her deep green eyes and says, "Hey Rainbow Dash, hey Cloud Flicker, how're ya'll today?"
"Pretty good so far. I had my mane and tail changed to pink earlier today from a slight mess up of Twilight's, but I just made up for it by destroying Dashie here in a race," I say smirking once again knowing fully well that this would probably get on Dash's nerves. And that it does.
"You did not destroy me! You only barely beat me, and that's because I was taking it easy on you!"
"Yeah that's why you're sweating just as much as I am, you were taking it easy on me." She puffs her cheeks out at me in response, putting another pouting face on.
"Ah swear, ya'll two are just like brother and sister," AJ giggles as she says this making both Dash and I blush a bit but smile at the idea that we could be considered siblings by anyone, but it wouldn't be the first time anyone has ever said this before. Of course it doesn't really help either that both our coats are blue, mine just being a little darker of a tint.
After a couple more minutes of talking Dash flies off, saying she needs to go train so that she can leave me in the theoretical "dust" next time we race. I yell to her that I look forward to her as she flies off and turn back to AJ. "So, whaddya wanna do?" I ask her once everything is a bit quieter.
"Well how would you like some lunch? It's getting about that time."
"Sure I'd love some. What sort of apple concoction shall it be this time?" I ask as I smile to her.
"Ah was thinking just some simple apple pie for today, is that alright with you?"
"Of course! I always love your apple pie, it's definitely the best I've ever had." She smiles at me for the compliment as we make our way to her house to get some lunch.
As we sit eating the best apple pie I believe I've ever had, a thought comes to me and I just have to ask. "So were you really just wanting to hang with me or is there something you were specifically wanting to talk about?"
Her eyes widen a bit in mild surprise, a sure give away that there is definitely something on her mind. "Well yeah there is, but right now isn't the time. Let's finish up first m'kay?" She says this putting up another smile and I can't help but smile back, it's very contagious. So we continue on eating and talking about random things, normal stuff usually but I get the feeling that she's trying to work up the courage to say what she wants to me when the time soon comes.
After finishing our meal we decide to go for a small walk out around the farm. After about a minute or two we stop and lean against the fence that surrounds her apple trees. I look over to her wondering if she's figured our exactly how to word what she wanted to say and if she's even ready to say it. "How long has it been since you and Fluttershy started dating?" This certainly caught me by surprise, I suppose this answered my question.
"Well it's been a little over a month now. Why do you ask?"
"Ah was just making sure that Ah had the time about right. How're things with ya'll?"
"I'd say we're doing pretty amazing myself. We get together almost every day, though sometimes our work can kinda throw us off because one of us will get busy and not be able to make it to our usual place," I explain while trying to understand where this conversation will be going to very soon.
She smiles at my answer and then says, "That's really good. I'm glad ya'll are so happy with each other. You know she comes to me every so often to talk about you?" This surprises and slightly confuses me at the same time.
"I'm not sure if I should feel good that she would take the time to tell you how we are together or be slowly backing away now," I say giving a small grin to show that I'm just playing around even though it really is how I feel on the inside.
She gives a small laugh to what I've said and continues, "Oh no, it's never anything bad. In fact I don't think she's ever said a single bad thing about you to anypony, other than in a joking type of way anyway."
Hearing this makes an amazing feeling wash over me and all I can do is smile at this thought. "But the reason Ah bring it up," she continues, "is because Ah just want you to know, if anything ever happens to her, and Ah hear that it was because of you, Ah'm coming straight for you." I stare at her completely taken aback by how serious this suddenly got. Of course the cliché of it all almost makes me laugh but I hold it down with how out of place it'd be right now and out of simple fear that AJ's disapproving stare may actually kill me on the spot.
"There's no need to worry about that AJ, nothing bad will happen, I promise you that," I say giving her the most sincere smile I can muster. She returns the smile with one of her own, and I believe it's the best smile I've ever seen from her. She must have been genuinely scared that something was going to happen even though I don't know where it could've possibly came from.
After about half an hour of just talking with her about random things, mostly gossip and jokes about other random ponies we know, I check my phone and see that it's about time for my lyre lessons. I tell this to AJ and we give each other a farewell along with a promise to each other to do this again sometime, just hopefully with less threat making. When I make it to Lyra and I's usual lyre spot I find she's just getting there herself and just now setting the two lyres she was carrying down, preparing to wait for me. "Good evening Lyra."
She jumps a bit, surprised to hear me, and quickly turns around. "Oh, hello there Cloud! I didn't think you'd actually make it on time!"
"Hey I take offense to that!"
"Just calling it based on your track record," she says giving me a warm smile. I can't help but smile back, I'm starting to think that all these girls are infecting me with something that makes me smile more. Maybe this is what cooties really are.
I notice she's wearing her usual lyre playing outfit, a deep green sweater that stop just before reaching the shoulder's, so that she has more freedom to move her arms, with her lyre cutie mark at the bottom left side along with her tan shorts that reach just to her knees. Her mint green coat seems to somehow blend quite well with the cloudless sky and the small hills behind her. Her very light blue-green mane with the white streak going through look a little messy, but somehow still looking fixed around her horn, showing that even with it being almost halfway through the day already, she probably only recently got up and had to rush to get here on time, showing she's more like me than she lets on sometimes. "So how are you today Lyra? Bon Bon hasn't been bothering you too much lately has she?"
She giggles at my little joke, Bon Bon being her best friend, replying with, "I'm very well thank you. And no she hasn't been, though she did try to wake me up at around five this morning, which did get on my nerves. And it was so I could cook her some breakfast because she's too lazy to do it herself."
"That sounds pretty familiar. Blue Berry woke me up at about the same time this morning because she got hungrier than normal," I reply laughing.
She giggles at this as well, then asks, "Well are you ready to get started?"
"Right down to business today, huh?"
"Yeah it's probably better if we go ahead and start. I remember you telling me that you were really busy today, right?"
"Yeah you're right. I still have three more friends to get together with when we're done here." So we sit down and she hands me my lyre, silver with red fins on both sides of the top, as she gets ready to use her own, golden with both sides of the top of it looking curled back down, almost an exact replica of her cutie mark, and she starts to teach me how to play a pretty complex song on them.
About an hour later we're sitting back to back, having found a few lesson days back that this is a very relaxing way to play after I've learned all the steps of the song we're on. I suddenly realize that we've been at this for quite some time now and take out my phone to check it and realize that it's already a little past our lesson time. I turn to get Lyra's attention but see that she's already looking back at me with her brilliant amber eyes, waiting for me to tell her something since I had stopped playing. I smile at her and say, "It's that time again."
She returns the smile saying, "Yeah I figured that it was getting there. This was a really good lesson, you've improved very well. No wonder your cutie mark is a music note, you're definitely supposed to do this with how easily you can pick up with a new instrument." I can feel a small blush come up from the sudden compliment and she giggles at me. I smile at her while getting up and offer her my hand to help her up. She takes it and very gracefully gets up and grabs her lyre in one fluent movement. I sometimes wonder where she learned to do that. I pick up my lyre and offer it over to her but she only shakes her head at me.
"No it's yours now. Consider it a gift for being such a great student. And this way you'll be able to practice at home too." My eyebrows lift slightly as I'm startled by her generosity.
"Wow Lyra. Thank you so much."
"No thank you necessary. Besides with how fast you learn this you should practice at home. That way you don't have to wait just to move forward two days every week."
"Well still, thank you. I'll definitely be practicing when I make it home if I get the time. But I thinks it's about time I go on, still got the other's waiting on me and I'm sure you have some plans too, right?"
"Well actually I don't today, probably just gonna go have some dinner in a little while."
"You know we should do that together sometime. But I really do need to go now, I'll see you soon Lyra!"
I say as I turn around and fly off. Before I'm completely out of ear shot I hear her yell, "I'd love that sometime soon! Bye Cloud!"
In about a good seven minutes I've made it back into Ponyville and am now in front of Vinyl and Octavia's house, they being roommates, knocking on the door hoping somepony can possibly hear it over the ever present loud music that is obviously Vinyl's. Amazingly for someone that is always around loud music, especially considering it's dubstep, Vinyl apparently has really good hearing, coming and opening the door in only a matter of seconds. I notice she's wearing a shirt that slightly similar to Lyra's only it's white with "DJ-PON3" written near her left shoulder with a white and blue striped tank top underneath, some jeans with holes at the knees, along with her trademark sunglasses, and a necklace with her music note cutie mark on it. Her sapphire, electric blue streaked mane is all over the place, even wrapped around her horn, an obvious indication that she's been head banging recently. Not surprising considering she's done this every day since the day I first met her, and probably long before then as well. She gives a bright smile upon registering that it's me and yells, "Yo Cloud! Come on in man! I was just about to crank up the music!" and ushers me inside as she closes the door and makes her way over to her turntable.
"So you have some new songs you wanted me to listen to?" I ask.
"Oh yeah man! I hope you love 'em, I've been working on them for a few week now!" As she says this she presses pause on her turntable turning the music off momentarily and suddenly it's completely silent in her house. It's still a little strange to not hear any music at all in her house, since it seems to be on 24-7. It wouldn't be surprised if she even fell asleep with some music playing but I'm sure that that would actually be kinda quiet so that her alarm can wake her up. Which by the way also blares dubstep, which I found out through Twilight, who has complained about it on more than just one occasion.
"Are you ready man? Because this is some serious stuff. I actually had Dash help me work on one of the songs and Trixie on another one."
This actually takes me by surprise. "Really? I never would've seen either of them working on music at all. Well except maybe Dashie on a guitar. That'd be pretty cool for her to learn." Vinyl takes off her sunglasses, showing off her beautiful scarlet eyes (I'm starting to think I have a thing for red-ish eyes) and looks over at me. I know this means that she's about to get really serious, only ever doing this in that situation, when she's thinking very deeply about something, or when she sleeps. Sometimes not even then.
"Yeah I could see her playing guitar. She's totally shred at it. But anyway, yeah I asked them to help me out. I asked Dash to after I heard her say something like 'It needs to be about twenty percent cooler' a while back. You remember those lyrics I had you record a few days ago? Those were what she made up. And I asked Trixie to help after Twilight told her she could finally come back here, having her record a few lines and I just put wubs all over the place with that one," she gives a flashy grin and laughs whole-heartedly to this. I laugh too, mostly just at the word "wubs" because I've always found it to be a funny word, and am also slightly amazed that it was Dash that'd made those lyrics, considering how good they really were. I'd have to remember to ask her to help me at some time with some songs too.
After about half an hour of "wubbing" with Vinyl and us talking all her new songs over, we say goodbye to each other, saying that we'll get together to make some new recordings soon. Now I'm walking down the street to Pinkie's house to help her bake her cake. I think this was mostly just a way for her to hang out with me, since we don't really get to as much as either of us would like to, but that's perfectly alright with me. I like spending time with her because of how crazy she is. I knock on the front door and am almost immediately greeted with, "HELLO!!" from the already opened door.
Pinkie stands there looking down at me with her light blue eyes, dressed in a pink and white striped dress the reaches her waist and some slightly darker pink shorts the goes just above her knees with her cutie mark of three balloons on both sides of it, and has some gloves with some pretty large bracelets that seems a little excessive but somehow fits her perfectly. Her vibrant dark pink hair, fluffy in all meanings of the word along with being very curly, bouncing along with Pinkie's laughter just like the rest of her.
"Hey Pinkie! How are you?"
"I'm awesome Cloud! How're you?" she asks as she steps aside letting me step into her house.
"I'm doing quite awesome as well. Had a pretty eventful day so far, to say the least. Have you had a good day?" I ask as I take a look around, realizing that I've actually only been in here a few times before and those few times weren't for very long. But then again this is probably more just because Pinkie doesn't really like to stay inside very much, preferring the outdoors so that she can bounce around and not break too many things.
"Yeah! Of course I have Cloud! Do I ever not have a good day?" she asks giving me a grin that looks like it may just outstretch her face. While this is for the most part true, she rarely has a bad day, I can't help remembering a few of those rare bad days. It makes me think back to how her mane somehow droops automatically when she gets upset, almost as if it too is alive, and how she doesn't even seem like the same pony anymore. It sometimes makes me wonder if she has dual personalities and if there is anything I, or anypony for that matter, can do something about it.
Her ever cheery laughter breaks me from my internal ramblings about her to see her still wearing that grin. I smile back at her, remembering that she's still waiting on an answer, and reply, "Nah, you don't ever seem to. Sometimes I wonder how you do it." Her cheerful personality is quite comforting when you get thoughts like this.
"All you gotta do is smile and laugh it off and everything is just better!" she exclaims, never losing that grin of hers. I can't help but to continue smiling back at her as well.
"Well we should probably go ahead and get started on that now, huh?"
"Oh yeah! I'll go get the ingredients and you get the dishes okay?" I nod to her and follow her into the kitchen to get started on baking. About twenty minutes later we've got almost everything done and we're just waiting for the cake to finish baking.
"So about how much longer will this be anyway?"
"You're so impatient sometimes Cloud-chan! It won't be much longer now though." Cloud-chan...she started putting chan at the end of everyone’s name since she found Katawa Shoujo on my laptop and met Misha on it. She then went on to beg me for three days afterward to borrow my laptop. After the three days I finally gave in and let her borrow it and she kept it for about a week, trying to beat as much as she could of it. I smile at the use of it every time though, for one it reminds me of the game and it always was able to put a smile on my face, and two it just seems like a friendlier way of saying someone’s name.
"Sorry, I'm just pretty hungry. You sure it's not ready yet?" I ask moving over to the oven to open it and check on it, I guess I really can be impatient sometimes but I am really hungry.
"Yeah Cloud-chan I'm sure of it! Make sure not to open the oven though, my secret ingredient doesn't do to well until it's fully cooked!" I already have the oven open by the time I hear this.
"Wai-" that's all I get out before the contents of the cake explode out of the oven covering everything in front of it in the still half-batter, now half-baked cake. Especially me. I hear an all too familiar giggling sound and look over to Pinkie.
"Pfffft-HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!" the only sort of condolences I get from my pink coated friend, laughter. Though once again, I find it be contagious and am now on the floor laughing, rolling around in what's left of the cake and soon enough Pinkie is right beside me laughing harder than I've ever seen her since we've first met. And that's really saying something.
After another hour she and I are sitting at her kitchen table eating pieces of cake, smiling to each other at the memory of what happened, having only finished cleaning the place and ourselves up a few minutes ago. After we've finished cleaning our dishes, we say goodbye, giving another round of laughter at my accident, and I'm walking my way to Fluttershy's house carrying a container with two pieces of cake. On my way I see Rarity's shop/house, the light of her office still on showing that she's still working. I decide not to bother her since she's probably too busy to want to talk, and the fact that showing up to Fluttershy's early wouldn't have too many dire consequences.
As I'm almost out of sight of her house I hear her window open and her yell, "Cloud, darling! Good evening! Would you care to come in for a minute? I have something to show you!" I turn around to answer her but see that she's already closing the window. I guess she just expects me to come in whether I'm busy or not. So I make my way to her door and just go ahead to see if it's unlocked and, upon finding that it is, I let myself in to wait for Rarity to come down and show me whatever it is that she wants me to see. After about another minute I hear a door open at the top of her stairs and look up to see Rarity making her way down the stairs holding a rather good load of clothes. She's wearing her ever high-fashion dress, white with blue linings around the arm holes, since the dress has no sleeves, which go all the way down to her ankles and has her cutie mark of three light blue diamonds on the right side at her hips. Her purple mane, long and flowing as ever, is a stark contrast to her white coat and her dark blue eyes look over at me once she makes it to the end of the stairs and gives me a very wide smile. "Hello darling! How are you today?"
I return her smile saying, "I'm doing quite fine. Just had a small cake related accident with Pinkie about an hour ago now. How're you?"
"Oh my, that sounds horrific, did it get in your mane? Oh and it's been a rather slow day for me. I only sold two dresses today."
"Yes, I'm afraid it did. Took some time to get it out too." I give her a small laugh and wave my hand in front of my face, dismissing any worries she has for my mane.
"Oh, I'm quite sorry dearie, but at least you got it all out. Oh yes, here these are for you," she says handing the bundle of clothes she was carrying over to me, "Go try them on in my dressing room. I'll be waiting to see you once you're finished putting everything on." I make a move to stop her and tell her that I'm in a bit of a rush to meet with Fluttershy, but she's already pushing me toward her dressing room, completely ignoring any protests I try and make.
After just a few minutes I have everything on and am now standing on a small pedestal looking into a mirror. She's given me a new outfit she made herself and I'm simply shocked at her amazing it looks on me. I now have a black sleeveless shirt on with two purple star outlines, one near the middle of my body toward the right side and one at the bottom on the left, and one purple moon outline more toward the top of the shirt and also on the left side, along with some tan shorts that reach a little below the knees. She also gave me a dark red scarf, something that I normally wouldn't wear but that seems to go effortlessly with the outfit, and some red sneakers the match the scarf perfectly. I still stare at myself in the mirror, amazed while Rarity stands behind me, hands behind her back, looking rather pleased at herself for leaving me completely speechless.
"Wow Rare...this looks amazing," I say barely able to even get that out.
She gives a very warming smile to me and says, "Thank you. I remembered you saying how much you loved the stars and the sky in general so I thought I'd make this for you."
This statement touches me deeply, and I give her a smile right back hoping it's just as warm as hers. Not wanting to mess up anything that she so expertly made for me, I decide to excuse myself as I take it off and neatly fold everything. After getting redressed in my usual attire I make my way to the main room of her store/house and find that she's waiting on me. She notices me come in and grabs a bag that was sitting beside her and hands it me. "Here you go dear. So that nothing happens to any of it," she says smiling once more.
I smile back to her and nod, taking the bag and carefully placing the clothes in it. I set the bag down gently and make my way over to her. "Thank you so much Rare, this really does mean a lot to me," I say as I move closer to her and give her a hug.
She returns the hug saying, "Of course dearie, it's absolutely no problem. I just thought that with all the nice things you do for everypony else that I'd do something in return. And besides this is the first outfit I've made for you before so it needed to be special." I smile once again at how nice she really can be before breaking the hug and picking the bag back up and heading toward the door.
"I'll talk to you soon, all right?" I say once I'm out the door.
She gives one more smile before saying, "Alright Cloud. Have a wonderful night with our good friend Fluttershy!"
I turn back to her, not able to hide my surprise, and ask, "How did you know I was going out with her tonight?"
She giggles a bit, putting her hand up to her mouth, and replies, "I can always tell when you’re going to go out with her. You get this dreamy look in your eyes."
I blush at this, making her giggle once more, but still smile. "Well...I really like her, so I guess it makes sense."
"I suppose it does dear. I'll see you soon," she says and then closes the door. I take out my phone to check the time to see that I only have a few minutes left before our date time so I decide to go ahead and fly over there.
A minute or two later I find myself at Fluttershy's door knocking. While waiting, I look up at the night sky and watch the stars. I really do love the stars. They're always beautiful. I've done enough research on them to know that even though I can see them, almost all of them have already burned out, and we're only just now getting to see they're beautiful lights. While I'm lost in thought of the stars the sound of the door opening brings me back to where I am, in front of Fluttershy's door, and I look straight ahead expecting her to be the one behind it. Instead I'm greeted with just air until I look down and see Angel, Fluttershy's pet bunny, standing there looking up at me with his wide eyes. "Oh, good evening Angel. Is Fluttershy still here?" The little bunny nods his head vigorously, and bounds back into the living room leaving the door open to let me in. As I'm closing the door behind me it occurs to me that I have absolutely no idea how he actually manages to open this door by himself. I may have to think up a plan with Lyra and Rainbow to figure out exactly how he does it.
Once again, I get lost in thought but am able to shake it off and make my way over to the couch in the living room, waiting for Bunny to bring Fluttershy to me. As I hear footsteps coming from the stairs I sit back up from my lounging position and look towards them. She quickly makes her way down them and stops at the end to look over to me, giving me a beautiful smile that seems to be imprinted on my heart. "Hello my fluffy cloud!" she says excitedly, using the pet names that we only recently gave to each other.
"Hello my little butterfly!" I reply, moving closing and giving her a small, quick kiss. I notice that she's wearing a yellow sweater that I'd given to her about a week ago, having had Rarity help me make it to make sure it'd look nice and fit for her as well, that has her cutie mark of three butterflies on the left hip along with a pair of darker yellow pants that went very well with the sweater and her very light yellow colored coat. Her already long, pink mane looking slightly longer than I really remembered with the neat little curls at the two ends that went around her face. "Are you ready to go out?" I ask once I'm back from being transfixed by her.
"Yeah I think I am. Angel will you be alright without me for a little while?" she asks the little bunny.
He nods his head a few time and then shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "Of course I will be. Just go have fun."
She smiles at him and turns back to me and puts her arm through mine as we walk out of her house into the night air, her holding a small basket while I'm carrying the container with the cake in it.
We walk for a little while before her stomach growls, making her blush intensely while I just chuckle at her. "Would you rather fly there? It'd be quicker so that we can eat sooner."
"Umm, yes I think that's be best," she answers giving an embarrassed smile to me. I nod as we start to take flight, us both being pegasi really does help sometimes. In just about one minute we're at our spot already spreading the blanket that she brought with her and setting the food out. I sit down and look up at her patting the space beside me for her to sit by me. She gives a smile and sits by me as we start to pick through the food deciding what we want.
"Wow Flutters, you sure made quite a good bit of stuff. And it all looks really good. Especially these dandelion sandwiches!" I say, almost drooling at the sight of them. Sometimes the fact that I can, and will, eat everything in sight can really backfire.
Fluttershy giggles at this, adorably so I'll add, and smiles at me saying, "Thank you Cloud. I worked for about two hours on this meal so I hope that you enjoy it."
I stop myself right before taking a bite and look at her in surprise. "Two hours? Really?" I ask feeling kind of guilty that she did all that work for us while I was just out having fun all day.
"Oh it's not actually a problem. I love cooking, remember? Besides it wasn't all spent on just our meal, I also had to feed all the animals which, as you know, takes quite a bit of time too. But please don't look that way," she adds this last part pouting and that makes her just all the more adorable.
It makes me smile over to her and reply, "Alright, but only because you're giving me that absolutely adorable face again. But next time tell me to come earlier and I'll help you out."
"Well I would, but it needs to be more of a surprise than that!"
"I guess I can't fight you with that one. Speaking of surprises though, look I brought with me!" I say as I pull out the container with the cake.
Her eyes light up as I see her curiosity, and asks, "Oooooooh, what is it?"
I laugh at her slightly childish statement and pull out the cake saying, "It's a cake that Pinkie I made earlier today."
"Oh I love cake! Can we eat some now?" she asks with a hopeful glint in her eye.
"Of course we can, lovely," I reply with a smile.
After what seems like quite some time has passed by, neither of us wanting to ruin the mood and check what time it actually is, we've both finished eating. Amazingly barely any of the food is left. And just as amazingly, I actually wasn't the one to eat the most amount of it. So now here we sit, she looking out at the small lake and I at the sky, with the moon hanging in the air just to our right, and we lean against each other, both for warmth and affection. After about a minute of this I look over to her and am amazed at the sight. She sits there with a small smile on her face, looking completely at peace, while the wind blows her mane ever so slightly, all the while the moon behind her illuminating her in its light, makes her seem even more beautiful than I'm used to thinking of her as.
"You're so beautiful..." I whisper without even realizing that I have until it's already out of my mouth.
She seems surprised at my comment, looking over to me with her cyan eyes and a blush starting to raise to her cheeks. "D-do you really think so?" she asks shyly.
"Of course I do butterfly. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I answer without even hesitating. Her eyes widen a bit as the blush only deepens but never breaks our eye contact. She smiles to me, showing me the most genuine smile I believe I've ever seen.
"Thank you Cloud," she says, and I realize she doesn't only mean for the compliment, but also simply for being with her.
I return the smile to her, feeling as if mine is just as genuine as hers, and reply, "Of course Fluttershy. I'm just speaking the truth..." I trail off from what I'm saying and lean closer to her and kiss her. This isn't our first kiss, but it most definitely is our most meaningful so far. After what feels like an eternity we finally break the kiss and just sit there in our embrace that I suppose happened at some point during the kiss, but can't actually remember.
"Hey butterfly?" I ask to get her attention after some time of just sitting together.
"Yes my fluffy cloud?"
I back away just a bit and look down at her as she opens her eyes and looks me in mine.
"I love you."
She seems taken aback by this sudden statement and just sits there for about half a minute. At this point I'm starting to think that maybe this actually wasn't the right time for this, but then see the tears that start to flow from her eyes. She looks up at me, with a giant smile on her face, and replies with the magic words, "I love you too Cloud."
And so we kiss again, this time with even more feeling than the last, under the moon and stars, as I run my hand through her luxurious mane. As we sit together in our embrace once again I think back to the day that I've had. It certainly has been one interesting day, with a beautiful ending.
