“Well, we fly the Princess around!” The guard said, looking unreasonably proud.
Fleetfoot snorted, Stupid colt, he knows the Princess has her own wings, doesn’t he?
The Royal Guards were just the worst sort of ponies. Well, maybe that wasn’t strictly true, obviously there were criminals and foal-abusers and all that, but in Fleetfoot’s world, the Royal Guards were some of the most grating ponies she had ever had the misfortune to meet. Every one of them of them was an arrogant ass, and none of them were donkeys. The decent ones, like their Captain Shining Armour, were far and few between.
It’d probably be different if these ponies were proud of something real, like, for example, actually defending the Princesses, but none of them seemed to grasp the fact that all the Princesses were more capable and more powerful than themselves. They certainly didn't need a bunch of armoured unicorns to defend them or pegasi to pull them around. Probably because of all the stallions in the outfit: too much testosterone flowing around between their legs and between their ears for any of them to think straight.
That’s what she hated the most about these silly cross-training exercises. The whole of the senior Wonderbolts had flown down to Canterlot to train these Guards in the finer points of flying—which for these dumb nuts was pretty much everything from flapping their wings to knowing when to piss—and it went in one ear and came out the other.
Bloody idiots, Fleetfoot thought as she poked the guard in his chest with her hoof. “The Princess can fly herself around, bro. When things get sticky, she calls us, the Wonderbolts. The fastest and best fighters there are so take your crap and stick it in your mouth!”
“Oh, please.” The other pegasus of the pair rolled his eyes. “You’re just a bunch of civvies pretending to be soldiers. If you Wondersucks didn’t jump in hooves-first so much, sat back and thought about what you were doing, maybe you wouldn’t suck so much.”
“Yeah, didn’t your whole team get knocked out by a stupid unicorn a couple of years back?” The first stallion sneered. “Or have your tail kicked by a baby dragon?”
“You shut your bloody mouth,” Fleetfoot snapped, jabbing her hoof against the pony extra hard, “I have half a mind—”
“Really? You must be the lucky one then,” the second guard quipped, “I’m surprised you Wonderbolts have enough gray matter between you to make up a quarter of a mind.”
“Oh,” Fleetfoot snarled and stepped forward, leaning inward menacingly. “It is so—”
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” Fleetfoot immediately snapped to attention, although she didn’t bother to spin to face Spitfire. The Captain landed softly and walked over to the three of them confidently.
“No, Madame,” Fleetfoot barked as Spitfire came into her field of vision. “These two…” Fleetfoot smirked at the two guards and hoped Spitfire wouldn’t notice. “trainees were just mocking the Wonderbolts, Madame.”
“Is that so?” Spitfire’s voice took on a dangerous tone, and Fleetfoot almost grinned like a colt with candy as the Captain turned her hardening expression on the two Guards. “You know what we call a Wonderbolt who’s taken a lightning bolt to the wing, Cadet?” she asked, addressing both of the Guards, although she didn’t bother waiting for a reply. “A Royal Guard.”
“Let me be clear to you two colts,” Spitfire spat, and try as she might, Fleetfoot felt her muzzle breaking into a huge grin. “The Wonderbolts are the very best there is at what we do, and anyone of us can fly circles around any one of you. You can bet your Cutie Mark on that!”
“Is that so?” Fleetfoot almost collapsed with shock as one of the Guards actually spoke up. Spitfire was Captain of the Wonderbolts for a reason, and the mare cut a commanding presence wherever she went with whomever she met. Once, Fleetfoot had heard the Captain went with Princess Celestia herself to take part in the peace talks in the Gryphon Kingdoms on her stare alone. It was usually enough to cow anypony—except, apparently, these two Guards.
“You know, we work for Her Majesty directly,” said the second stallion, “and we’ve seen the reports—for somepony who’s supposed to be the best, you sure get your ass handed to you a lot, Spitfire.”
“Don’t you talk to the Captain that way!” Fleetfoot half reared onto her back hooves—but not too far, never too far, she wasn’t wearing her flight suit after all—and halfheartedly kicked in their direction, only for Spitfire’s wing to smack her in the face. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to get her to back off and back down before she wound up in jail or something.
“Gentlecolts,” Spitfire’s voice was silk smooth, but not in a pleasant way. “Are you saying—the very thought strikes me as absurd—that you’re better than me?”
If the two Guards weren’t intimidated now, they certainly paused and took a moment to glance at each other. Fleetfoot was sure she saw doubt in their eyes, and for a moment she was sure they were going to back down and—
“Yeah,” said the first Guard, “I guess we are!”
“Oh, so unwise,” Spitfire said softly, “both of you, on the track, with me and Fleetfoot. Perhaps when we’ve sent you back to your mommas, cryin’ like the day your marefriend dumped you, you’d know to respect us.”
“Any day of the week, Captain,” the second Guard spat, in a tone of voice that made the honorific into a curse. Then the two of them snapped their wings open and headed over to training yard’s track, heading, naturally, for the cloud-ring that hovered over the ground-based track.
Spitfire watched the two Guards go for a brief moment, before grabbing one of the spears they had left behind and slamming it point first into the ground. Off came her sunglasses and formal uniform—it wasn’t until she was already stripped that she noticed Fleetfoot wasn’t doing the same.
“Well come on FeeFee, we can’t let the bastards win by default,” Spitfire said, eyeing Fleetfoot before breaking into a series of stretches. Spitfire didn’t normally take place in the training directly, at least not in Fleetfoot’s memory.
“Shouldn’t we… get into our flight suits?” Fleetfoot asked, before realizing it was futile as Spitfire gave her an incredulous look. “Right, well.” Fleetfoot slowly stripped her own uniform off, making sure to lay it neatly on the grass, before following Spitfire up to the cloud track.
It was a fairly standard ring, if a bit narrower than most racing tracks. Usually a track like this was used to test a pony’s speed, or in the case of a Pegasi, her or his wingpower, but it wasn’t used for sporting events so it was a single lane. It’d make passing a chore, but now that she was standing beside Spitfire, flexing her wings and growling—sort of—at the two Guards, it was a bit exciting too. Time to put those stallions in their place.
“Rules are fairly simple, twice around the ring,” Spitfire barked, getting everypony’s attention. “First one across the line twice wins.” The Captain’s grin grew wolfish. “Not that there’s any question about who that’ll be.” When the two Guards looked away, Spitfire caught Fleetfoot’s gaze and gave her a wink, bringing a blush to her cheeks.
An outsider would be forgiven in thinking that all the Wonderbolts were the same, with the same talents and skills. That wasn’t strictly true. They were, of course, very close, and all had the same competitive spirit and desire to excel, but their similarities in flight were the result of hard work and more than a few shed tears. When they let lose, they typically were quite different.
Fleetfoot, for example, was the fastest, and could keep that speed for the longest of all the Wonderbolts. Soarin could beat her in short bursts, but she was more than capable of beating him in the long term; but she simply had more endurance. That’s why she was often used as a scout, or to deliver messages between different squads.
Compared to most of the flying she did, this was going to be easy as eating a slice of pie.
The Guards themselves fussed with the armour for a moment and pulled it off—only to let the heavy metal fall through the clouds like idiots. The only problem was, now that their armour was off, Fleetfoot could tell both Guards were heavily muscled, in a way that suggested they were powerful fliers. They might just give them a run for their money.
Not bloody likely though, Fleetfoot thought with a grin as she assumed the proper position for a high speed take off on the track.
Spitfire slammed her hoof against the cloud, and Fleetfoot could feel a burst of lightning working its way through the hardened material, which normally wouldn’t be able to produce lightning at all. At the crack, the four of them took off like shots from a bow.
As she crossed the finish line the first time, Fleetfoot didn’t know why she was so worried—the two stallions were behind them, and Spitfire was behind her. She, of course, took the lead, and a comfortable one too. It wasn’t until halfway through the second lap that she suddenly realized the two Guards were holding back.
There was noise behind and below her, and glancing down in that direction for a moment, Fleetfoot was greeted with the sight of the first loud-mouthed stallion coming up behind them… and below them. Fucking idiot! She swore. Normally they’d have trouble passing them in the lane made out of cloud, but only a fool would try passing them above or below. Too many things could go wrong, and the first thing they were taught as Wonderbolts was to never try what these two stallions were doing.
She was about to shout something indignant at the two Guards, but then one of them looked up. And looked up in the right way. It was only years of training and discipline that kept Fleetfoot’s wings form seizing up. The look of surprise was unmistakable though, and the stallion hadn’t had the same sort of training. His wings seized up, and the next thing he knew he was running into his partner.
Winning was, naturally, easy after that. Sort of. Fleetfoot knew, she knew she had lost, even coming in first.
She wasn’t out of breath, of course, but she was panting anyway as she landed back on the cloud track’s starting line.
Oh Celestia! Please, please! Pleasepleasepleaseplea—“ Fleetfoot’s panicked prayer cut off as the two Guards slowly landed on far end of the finish line. Both of them were laughing their heads off.
Oh.
“What’s so funny, chuckles?” Spitfire snorted, pointing her hoof at the two Guards. “You lost!”
Oh, Spitfire, please not now.
“Lost? Sure—” The second of the two Guards stopped talking for a moment as his laughter cut him off. Even when he regained his composure enough to speak again, it still coloured his voice. Fleetfoot felt like shriveling up.
“Sure we did,” he continued, “but at least we’re not pretending to be mares, isn’t that right, Sissyfoot?”
“I-I don’t know w-what you’re talking about,” Fleetfoot stammered out. Great, she thought, as if they needed confirmation.
“Oh can it, Sissyfoot,” The first Guard said, “we both saw it; you’ve got a dick! Sissyfoot of the Sissybolts. Hey Spitfire. You got one too?”
“What the hay are you two fuckers going on about?” Spitfire said, as Fleetfoot stepped backwards off the cloud and flicked her wings to drift away from it. “I’ve known her for years and I—”
Fleetfoot took off before she had to listen to her Captain defend her anymore. Defend her with lies.
**
By tradition, when Wonderbolts came to Canterlot, for whatever reason, they stayed in the palace. Which was nice, if a bit intimidating. Fleetfoot hadn’t exactly grown up in poverty, and as a Wonderbolt, she did pull a fair wage, but she certainly had never had servants or maids or whatever else running around trying to make her happy.
In fact, she was pretty sure she hadn’t had a servant the past two days, so why she had suddenly gained one seemed both a bit strange and a bit sudden. Of course, with the day she was having, she could almost use someone else in the room with her, even standing passively over in the corner.
Fleetfoot would really rather be alone, in truth, but still, the warm tea was certainly welcome, even if she never drank the stuff normally. Moreover, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the mare to go away. She only left the room long enough to fetch the tea, or hot towels or whatever else she could think of, and all those appeared to be almost supernaturally close, since she was never left alone for more than a couple of minutes.
By tradition, the Wonderbolts met after these training exercises too, but obviously she wasn’t going to do that. Not today, possibly not ever again.
She had fucked up, it was as simple as that. She should never have tried to be something she wasn’t, and she… Fleetfoot closed her eyes exasperatedly and let out a long sigh; and he was going to pay for it.
Why did life have to be so damn hard?
All his life, he had wanted to be a filly. No, 'wanted' was the wrong word; his whole life, he had seen himself as a filly. He wasn’t delusional, of course, although some ponies he had told about his feelings had called him so.
In his head, in his thoughts, he thought of himself as a mare.
In his dreams, he was a mare.
In the waking world, outside his head, he was… a he. A stallion. Born, with all the right parts and bits, just not the right head, he guessed.
Eventually his family had moved from the Bitish Isles to Cloudsdale, and—with the reluctant blessing of his family, he stopped telling people what was in his head, and started acting on them. Dresses didn’t always fit right, but Fleetfoot had learned to sew quickly, and acting just right was a bit of a stretch, but he learned how.
In some ways, being in the Wonderbolts made the whole thing easy. So long as Fleetfoot had kept his tail down and was careful, like wearing his flight suit as much as possible, and showering alone, no pony would notice. The other Wonderbolts just passed the whole thing off as him being body-shy, which wasn’t too far from the truth but…
They also thought he was a mare. He wanted them to think that, he wanted to be a mare. And now the Captain had caught him redhoofed.
Lying probably wasn’t the sort of offense he could get kicked out of the Wonderbolts for, of course, although he imagined there’d be all kind of hell to pay with the record’s office. But that wasn’t the problem.
Flying could be dangerous business, and hundreds of Ponies, even experienced ones, got into crashes more often than not. Flying in a group, in formation, that took skill, training, and a stormcloud full of trust. If you couldn’t trust the ponies flying at your wingtips, and they couldn’t trust you… well everypony was only a wing stroke away from disaster.
That’s why Spitfire was so nasty to newbies, that’s why they had pizza together every Thursday night, that’s why they went to social occasions together or met after cross-training exercises to eat. To vent, to laugh, to trust one another.
And Fleetfoot hadn’t been honest with the other Wonderbolts, and by now Spitfire knew it. She might be sceptical at first, but Spitfire was a smart pony; she’d piece it together, even if the other ponies on the Wonderbolts never did. Assuming those Guards didn’t tell everypony from here to Cloudsdale. He’d probably have to move. Maybe Zanzebra or somewhere remote. Or something like that.
The first step in that, of course, was writing a letter of resignation, except, now that he had the paper and ink and quills in front of him, sitting next to his cup of tea, Fleetfoot couldn’t bring himself to write. How do you explain something like this? How do you explain lying to the ponies you trusted, called your friends, cared about? Fought alongside?
He didn’t know.
Outside, it had started to rain, and in spite of everything going on, it cheered him up a bit. Living on top of the clouds, Pegasi rarely got to see a downpour like this from the other side, let alone feel it running through their mane and coat. And it was really coming down, too, since they had asked the local Weather Pegasi to hold off the rain for a couple of hours for the training session. They clearly had doubled the speed at which it was coming out of the clouds so they could get the sky clear at the appointed time.
Briefly, Fleetfoot felt like running outside and just prancing around in the mud and puddles where no pony could see or care about him or his sex. Except, as he thought about it, the idea struck him more and more like the sort of thought a unicorn or earth pony would have.
Maybe he hadn’t been even born into the right tribe! The thought soured his mood back to what Fleetfoot suspected was the appropriate level of bitterness and frustration.
He really, really wished that maid would go away. He’d like to be alone. No pony would miss—
There was a knock at the door.
Both he and the maid flinched, but before either could open the door, it opened on its own, and Spitfire stomped in.
She regarded him calmly before sweeping the room with her practiced gaze. “I didn’t realize they gave you grunts such large rooms.” Her eyes settled on the maid briefly. “Or… such pretty mares to look after them.” Spitfire’s eyes narrowed. “Get out.”
The unicorn squeaked and darted for the door, leaving Fleetfoot a bit mystified. Why hadn’t he been able to get the maid to leave? Must be Spitfire’s commanding presence. Maybe one day he’d learn how… to… Well.
“Okay, Fleetfoot,” Spitfire said as she bucked the door closed. “Level with me: are you a stallion?”
“S-sort of?”
“I’ve not met too many ‘sort of’ stallions, FeeFee.” Spitfire said calmly, before trotting over to the bed and hopping onto it.
“Well, I-I…” Fleetfoot swallowed and let out a long sigh. There wasn’t any point to this. “I am a stallion.”
“You don’t look like a stallion though,” Spitfire said after a second. “I would have noticed those, I mean—” To his amusement, Spitfire’s cheeks coloured a little bit. Even outside of the Wonderbolts, Her preferences in special someponies were well known.
“I was gelded, to prevent myself from becoming, you know,” Fleetfoot gestured helplessly with his wing tip. “I asked for it.”
“Because…”
“Because I wish I was born a mare!” Fleetfoot’s voice came out more as a snarl than he had intended, and got up and paced in front of the door. “I know I’m not, I know that’s wrong, and—”
“Wrong?” Spitfire’s voice had a touch of disbelief in it. “I don’t think it's particularly wrong, Fleetfoot. I guess it’s a bit unusual—I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a stallion who wanted to be a mare before.” She flashed Fleetfoot a half hearted grin. “But hey, I can see why.”
“Now you’re just mocking me,” Fleetfoot slammed his hoof against the floor and snorted in anger. “Just like those fucking Guards. Just like every pony I’ve ever met and told!”
“Whoa, whoa, look I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mock you,” Spitfire held up her hoof in front of herself and stumbled off the bed. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I just meant it as a bit of good natured teasing between friends.”
“Well it’s not funny.” Fleetfoot tried to remain angry, but after a second of glaring at Spitfire, all the strength and drive behind the emotion drained out of him. “It’s just… not,” he repeated tiredly.
“I’m sorry.” Spitfire said again. Then she paused and neither of them said anything for what felt like an hour. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Tell you what? That I’m a gelding who thinks himself as a mare?” Fleetfoot barked out a bitter laugh. “Because, Spitfire, I want to see myself as a mare, for others to see me as a mare, not somepony playing pretend. ‘Oh look, there’s Fleetfoot, he wants to be a girl!’” Fleetfoot added, distorting his voice as if it was somepony else was saying the words. He had heard them often enough. “or ‘that mare’s got a dick,’ or—”
Fleetfoot cut off as Spitfire put her hoof in his mouth to shut him up.
“I think I get the picture.” Spitfire said dryly, “I imagine it couldn’t be easy.” The Captain looked thoughtful for a second and pulled her hoof out of Fleetfoot’s mouth. “’Himself’?”
“What?” Fleetfoot blinked for a second and thought back to what he had been saying, then sighed heavily. “Well, there’s hardly any point in pretending anymore, is there? By this time tomorrow all of Canterlot’ll probably know I’m not a mare. Maybe I should just accept what I am and—”
“What you are, is a mare and my friend, Fleetfoot, nothing more,” the edges of Spitfire’s mouth turned up ever so slightly. “and nothing less.”
“I, well,” Fleetfoot huffed, “Thanks, I guess, but that won’t change the fact that—”
“Those two Guards won’t be doing any talking.” Spitfire said, and for a brief moment Fleetfoot grew alarmed—Spitfire hadn’t gone and…? “I chewed them out, of course, and so did Celestia, when she caught wind of it.”
“Doesn’t mean there won’t be rumours,” Fleetfoot said weakly. Princess Celestia had intervened? Oh, Cele—err, Luna, Oh Luna!
“Then we’ll just have to start our own rumours, won’t we?” Spitfire snorted and rolled her eyes. “Like how a certain Captain kicked a maid out of Fleetfoot’s bedroom so they could ‘talk’ and spent the night.”
“I… I don’t understand,” Fleetfoot shook his head, as if shaking it would make her thoughts tumble into some semblance of order. “What are you saying…?”
“Well, everypony knows how much of a fillyfooler I am,” Spitfire snorted, “I certainly wouldn’t be sleeping with some stallion pretending he was a mare, would I now?” Her smile grew a bit wider, “Of course not, I’d only be with another mare, mm?”
“But…” Fleetfoot rubbed her head, and followed the line of thought. “If ponies thought you and I were… then…” Fleetfoot frowned. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course, FeeFee, you silly mare.” Spitfire said with a laugh, “that’s what friends do, isn’t it? I know I’m your CO and all, but I’ve always thought we were friends too—we are, aren’t we?”
“I-I well, of course.” Fleetfoot sputtered, “I didn’t think you’d want to be, not after I well…” She pawed the ground embarrassedly “lied and all.”
“I can’t say I’m thrilled that you lied, but…” Spitfire shrugged her wings “you didn’t really lie, you just left a couple things out, I guess. You’ve always been a mare to me, and you always will be.”
“Thanks, Spitfire.” she said softly, and leaned in to nuzzle her friend’s face. Fleetfoot was pleasantly surprised that the mare didn’t flinch away or anything like. “But you know,” she added as she pulled back from Spitfire’s ear, “I wouldn’t be much of a marefriend if I didn’t take you out somewhere nice and fancy.”
“I suppose that’s certainly true,” Spitfire chuckled.
“Come on, then,” Fleetfoot said as she draped her wing across Spitfire’s back. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
Author's Note
Normally I wouldn't write something of this nature, not because I find the material disturbing or some non-sense, but rather because I'm not convinced I have the skill necessary to pull this sort of story off.
However, since it seems a lot of my friends are having a go at it, I figured, what the hay, eh?
Contest Entry for Futaquestria '13.
Inspired partly by Norm's Single White Unicorn Times Three entry, and motivated by Archonix's The Berds and the Biis and you should go read them both.