August Fifteenthby NicknackChaptersTogetherMeerChangesBirthdayHeroDistanceTogetherI awoke, covered in sweat, in the middle of a muggy August night. The faint breeze from the window did nothing to abate the oppressive heat, so the air in my bedroom was still seasonably warm. In the past, I had always slept on top of my bed’s comforter during the summer months; it helped me stay as cool as possible. Gilda, however, did not make that easy. Whether she did it in her sleep or as we fell asleep, she had a habit of clamping herself to me in a vice-like, four-limbed hug. I supposed that, in the summer, four limbs was something of a blessing; I didn’t want to imagine the added temperature that her wings would bring to the equation. I preferred the winter months, at any rate. For the time being, it was summer—the early hours of the fifteenth of August, according to the glowing hand of my alarm clock. I was hot, my mouth was rough with thirst, and Gilda had taken her usual position around me. I loved her and her feathery softness, even as they both held me captive; the only difficulty in the situation arose from how I needed a glass of water. Actually, the bulk of the difficulty came from trying to get out of bed without waking her. I’d managed it enough times over the past two years that I had it down to a science—first, free my torso, then slip out from between her much-less-dexterous hind legs. By my faint night-light, I could see a blurry outline of her feathers on the side of her head that wasn’t nestled into my shoulder. More importantly, I couldn’t see her eye reflecting any of the light, so I hadn’t woken her yet. That was as good a starting point as any, I decided, so I stretched my hoof back to my spine and began trying to free myself. Part of Gilda’s embrace was that she somehow managed to interlock her fingers without putting her talons into my skin. That, I appreciated, though it raised the interesting observation that if she didn’t want to show her sharp parts, she was well-accustomed to keeping them in check. I prodded her hands and hoped that, like some nights, it would be enough to get her to release her grip. After a few moments without any luck, I moved on to another tactic—tickling the back of her palms. That also proved ineffective, so with a quick sigh, I craned my neck behind me to see what I could as I manually tried to unclasp her fingers. About two fingers in, I felt her head feathers brush against my chest. Still keeping my hoof on her hands, I turned to look down at her. Gilda blinked twice up at me before whispering an annoyed, “What are you doing?” I nosed her forehead before saying anything. Then, “I am thirsty.” “Mm-hmm.” She nodded and opened her hands. “If you don’t want to sleep like this…” “I told you I don’t mind, except for that I get thirsty.” “And sweaty.” Gilda raised her eyebrows in a friendly glare. I chuckled. “Well, yes. I love you, but you are like a furnace.” “Oh, so that’s supposed to be a hammer…” My eyebrow rose as I puzzled through her half-metaphor: “That… you wouldn’t put…” “Whatever.” She used a hand and a hind leg to roll me away from her. “Go to the bathroom.” I blinked at the ceiling before I finished rolling off my bed. Before I left the room, I offered to bring Gilda back something to drink, but she declined. I made my way down my L-shaped hallway and—after an admittedly necessary detour—I entered the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. The wells below Farrington were deep enough that our tap water was cool during the summer; after one and a half glasses of smooth, slightly metallic-tasting refreshment, my thirst was quenched. After washing the glass and putting it back in the cupboard, I had one last thing I wanted to check before going back to bed. I walked to the living room, noting the silhouettes of both of our Guard armors sitting on stands, side-by-side near the door. On the opposite wall, a few bookshelves were set into the wall, and that was where I had hidden something away. Gilda rarely concerned herself with my shelves full of history books, which made them a good hiding spot; still, I didn’t usually make it a habit to keep secrets from her. Yet tonight, in the middle of the August two years after we’d first met, I felt that subterfuge helped calm my nerves. I pulled two small books out of their place, where they wouldn’t have sat flush with the tomes around them were it not for the space behind them. In that space rested a small, wooden box. The hardwood floors usually betrayed any footsteps, but I still looked over my shoulder and saw I was alone. That night, like I had for nearly every other night that month, I reached back and took the box from its resting space. Just like every other night, I smiled when I opened it and looked at the bracelet inside. The materials had been somewhat difficult to order, but that was mostly because of their origin. Specifically, it was difficult to avoid suspicion when ordering a thin wire of white gold from Elpithasus that was inset with tiny carvings of another tribe’s insignia. I had managed that easily enough through an old friend of my father’s from Manehattan. Once I had the Elpithasan wire, it had been fairly straightforward to obtain a blued steel counterpart that was inset with Farrington insignias. Trickier had been to find a jeweler who could braid the two metals together and form a loop, but at the end of the project, I’d spent less than my Father had on his engagement ring. I knew that because, when I looked through my parents’ possessions they’d left me, I found the receipt, not the ring. A visit to Maxie had confirmed that she didn’t have the ring, either, which almost made me want to reopen ties with my uncle just to vent and explain how he had no right to pilfer… My head shook. That was the past, and I couldn’t do much to fix it Instead, I looked one more time at what I hoped would be my future: Gold and iron, bound together. After the initial effort to get the piece made, I had to admit that its beauty was well worth the expense. I smiled. We’d only been dating for two years, which wasn’t the longest I’d ever heard of, but after a happy and hug-filled round of advice from Starfall and Comet, I felt I was ready. In my heart, I knew Gilda was, too. Back in our bedroom— which, technically, Gilda still had her apartment that she spent about three nights out of every month in, but the lease was up in September, and she was “thinking” about taking me up on my offer to let her move into my home—Gilda was lying on her side with her back to the doorway. I climbed on top of the comforter and slid over to her. Even though my eyes were closed as I nestled my head into her neck, I knew by her breathing that she was still awake. “That took a while,” she mumbled. I stroked her chest and stomach, careful to avoid where I knew her scars were. My excuse, like it had been every other time that I’d pondered my hidden jewelry, was: “I wanted to check something in a book first.” “Nerd.” I returned her chuckle and kept stroking. When I kissed the inside of her neck, she snuggled my head appreciatively. “Lift your hoof a sec?” Gilda sounded half-asleep, but I complied. If she was thinking about positioning... Lighting-fast, she spun around and clamped onto me in a hug. She inched down my chest until she could put her head in her favorite spot—the crook of my right shoulder. As soon as we were together in our usual position, the only thing I could do was smile and slide a hoof under her wing. “Mein” was all she whispered. I bent my neck forward to kiss her good night. She let out a quiet, chirping sound of affection in response. Once again, the inner glow I felt in my chest told me that being “hers” was not a bad thing to be. Author's Note The first few times I wrote Summer Days and Evening Flames, I created a "reserved" character who was put through very trying circumstances. The result, I think, was that some of Iron's personality didn't necessarily begin showing through until the end of the story—after, one way or another, all the drama gets resolved. One thing I like about vignettes like these is how there's not necessarily a conflict that needs to be resolved. It basically lets me work with pure slice-of-life, and show how characters act in their "off" days. For most of these vignettes, I started with a central image, or idea—something I wanted to show about one of my characters. For this one, it's definitely the wedding band and Gilda's/Iron's sleeping position. I think they're cool and cute, respectively. MeerAuthor's Note Note: This story is a follow up to Schweigen Ist Folter. If you have not read that and are reading these vignettes in order, I highly recommend that you skip this and continue on to Changes. You won't miss anything. Meer Far to the west, the verdant growth of the Jägerwald met the vastness of a nameless sea. It only took three hours’ flight to reach, but the only map of the area I’d found didn’t label the black-inked waves. It was as if our ancestors, who’d cared more about cartography than any griffin left alive, thought a name would have diminished the sheer magnitude of the endless water that stretched onwards to the horizon, forever. There, I waited in the mouth of a sea-cliff cave. A cool breeze interrupted the late summer heat outside, and it carried a salty tang as it ruffled my feathers. Fifty feet below me, water crashed against the sheer rock face. Besides the wind and waves, no other sounds kept me company; their echoes in the cave behind me reaffirmed that I was entirely alone. We measured time with a cone-shaped rock formation—or specifically, we used its shadow. When the first of us showed up, we set two stones: one at the shadow’s current position, then one a palm’s length away. It took a few hours for the shadow to reach the second stone, and that was our time we had together. In that whole nightmarish romance, easily the worst times were when I showed up to our cave and found two stones, but no Stephen. Early on, I’d gotten used to weeks—or during winter, months—passing without any sort of romantic contact. In our homeland, we were friends who were growing more distant as age took us down different paths. I had my siblings to help look after, he had his whims of exploration, and if we risked appearing as close as we were, we would be killed. There weren’t enough males of our species left for two of us to be doing what we were. Intellectually, I knew that; mentally, I shamed myself for my selfishness and lack of a desire to prolong our dying race. Underneath that storm of surface hatred rested one calm, core belief: Whenever we found each other, alone, far away from our dead society’s laws, and no matter how scattered the few hours were, when I could spend time with Stephen, he made me happy. We had to be smart about our engagements, however—hence the rocks, the cave without any living beings nearby, and our separate arrival times. We couldn’t keep anything in the cave for the weeks between our visits; part of being careful meant we had to leave behind an empty cave. A camp in the middle of nowhere would be suspicious if found, suspicions would lead to questions, and questions might find answers. Since it was empty, there wasn’t much else to do in that cave—our cave—than to sit and wait. Every time I waited for Stephen, watching the shadows close in on our chance to be together, the same doubts crossed my mind: He’d been delayed. He’d been found. He wasn’t coming. He didn’t love me. It seemed crazy of a thought, to doubt the convictions of someone who was risking the same thing I was—everything—to spend time with me. However, just like I couldn’t stop myself from feeling how I did for him, my mind wouldn’t lay to rest the possibility that he didn’t feel the same way I did, or that he was only with me for the physical part of it… I shook my head. Those thoughts were probably some innate sense of self-preservation that reminded me of everything dangerous about what we were doing. Movement against the southern sky snapped me out of my musings and steeled my nerves. My chest swelled and I relaxed when I saw a familiar, black-headed griffin in the distance. He’d made it, this time, and I was glad—but instinctively, my eyes trailed behind him to make sure he wasn’t being followed. When I was sure Stephen was alone, I turned back to glance out to sea one more time. It gave me a vastly insignificant feeling, one which Stephen often referenced: We were just blips in a giant cosmic game, so what did it truly matter if we spent some time with or inside each other? His arrival didn’t entirely shake me out of my pensiveness. When he landed near me, I smiled and nodded, but even after checking one final time to see that he hadn’t been followed, I still felt sad. Empty. Stephen sat down next to me on my left, but instead of breaking the silence with a wisecrack, he wrapped his tail around my hips. My smile came back, and only then did he say, “Jerry. You made it. Everything okay?” I turned my left eye to him. “I did make it. Everything…” I trailed off. It didn’t feel right to lie to him, but it didn’t feel right to kill any prospective mood, either. Instead, I sighed and shook my head. “It’s one of those days, I guess.” He chuckled in the back of his throat, which was something I’d learned to cope with—Stephen could laugh at anything. He didn’t do it maliciously or carelessly, but for all the years we’d been together, it still bothered me when he took nothing seriously. “One of those days?” he asked, sitting closer to me. “We’re here, together. What more can you ask for?” To be able to do this more than once a month. I kept the answer in my head and instead went with, “I don’t know.” I pointed a claw at him and curled it to me. “Our fathers are starting something of a vie for power, which is just great.” “And that affects us how?” I held a sigh in my beak. “You don’t spend more than your sleeping hours in your own cave, let alone your father’s.” “So move out. Not like there’s twelve caves per griffin, or four if you count the females.” His simple answer made me chuckle, frustratedly. I brought my palms up to my eyes and rubbed, shaking my head. “That’s not the solution, and besides. Father needs me now, more than ever—” “Which I’m sure he tells you—” "—until the rest of his flock gets old enough to take their four caves.” I shot a heated glare at Stephen, but didn’t acknowledge his interruption any more than that. My father respected his children, if they deserved it, but I wasn’t going to take lectures on earning a parent’s love from someone who made a point of moving to the far end of the ridge from where his own family roosted. “Besides...” I shook my head and tried to change the subject from what was quickly turning into a quarrel. “That’s not all of it. That’s background aggravation, piled in with all the other things we’ve got to deal with. Like...” I paused, trying to think of how to bring up the frustrations I was having about our relationship. There was no simple way to phrase it without being curt. My silence stayed for too long, so he guessed the answer: “Thinking about your sister?” That took me by surprise, since it came from nowhere. “Sister? Which one?” To say that I had several sisters would be an understatement. Twelve of them still lived in my father’s household, two of them had moved into caves of their own in our village, and one of them… Stephen raised the insides of his eyebrows as he clarified which one. The dead one. “Wasn’t it about this time, five years ago?” I scoffed. Fifteen years of special lessons and attention from Father, and my younger sister by a year repaid his sentiments by falling to her death at some Beute-ridden children’s camp. “The accident, or whatever it was, happened in July. Father learned about it in August, and…” I shrugged. “It’s early September now, right?” “Dead middle of August.” Stephen grinned. “Just ‘cause your dad’s got a thing against calendars doesn’t mean you need to, too.” His grin widened at my glare, for a moment, before he fixed his face. “So, it’s not your home life, or memories of the not-so-recently departed... What’s on your mind, Jer?” I shot him a weak grin. “I was just thinking—” He nodded, disapprovingly. “Shove off,” I fake-snarled. “I was thinking about things like the present, the future…” “Sounds tense.” “Us.” I appreciated what he was trying to do, but it wasn’t the time for humor. Sure enough, Stephen sat up a little taller and folded his arms over his chest feathers. “Us? Anything I need to be wary of?” I shook my head. “Not really. We’re going as well as can be expected, correct?” “Yep.” He closed his eyes and wobbled his head. “And you’re worrying again. Stop it.” My arm shot out in a shrug. “How can I not?” “Easy.” He opened his eyes and leaned over to me, finally putting his arm around me in an embrace. Even though we were miles away from anyone, his voice dropped to a whisper that I could barely hear over the waves below. “I’ve told you a hundred times already, this ends in pain no matter what we do.” “That puts my mind at ease.” “It should.” Stephen shrugged. “I mean, imagine tomorrow, you decide to sever ties with your family for whatever reason, and we finally get the best-case scenario where we can spend the rest of our days traveling…” I pointed a finger at him. “That is your best-case scenario.” “Well, whatever you want that lets us be together, regularly, indefinitely, then.” He didn’t quite roll his eyes, but his half headshake served as a clear reminder that I didn’t have an answer to that question. The choice between Stephen and my family wasn’t open to compromise; I loved him and had a duty to them, so I was at an impasse. “Imagine, somehow, we get to live the rest of our days together, without secrets or crap like that. Even that ends, eventually.” My glare didn’t falter. “I still don’t see how that is supposed to make me feel better.” Stephen looked away, out to the sea in front of us. “Embrace death. Once you stop fighting the inevitable, you can enjoy the time before it.” That, however, took some of the harshness out of my gaze. “And that’s how you feel about us?” “Yeah, I…” His eye darted to me, then he turned the rest of his head. “Don’t look at me like that.” “You just said you don’t care this is going to end painfully.” “I didn’t say that.” He shook his head slowly. “Just because I know where this eventually goes doesn’t mean I’m not going to hate when it’s over.” “Which doesn’t worry you because…” “Why should I let ‘us’ end a million times in my head before it really happens?” I didn’t have an answer for him, which prompted Stephen to pull me closer to him and wrap his other arm around me. I didn’t return the hug, but I did pat his hand. Stephen chuckled. “Advice like that, and all I get’s a hand pat?” I scoffed, but not in a heated way. “Some advice.” I did my best to mimic his voice. “‘Feeling sad? Don’t worry; everyone you ever knew will eventually die, so none of this matters anyway’.” He laughed at that, and then slid himself around me so his stomach pressed against my spine. I felt heat involuntarily rise to my face as he pressed his hips forward to wrap his legs around mine. He completed the full-body embrace by resting his head on my neck. That close to him, in his arms, I felt some of my worries about the future vanish; for the present, things were nice, soft, and warm. Or so I thought. In his position, Stephen had enough leverage to grab my elbows and begin flopping my arms up and down in front of me. “‘My name’s Jerry,” he mocked in a falsetto, “I’m so used to everything being miserable, I’m afraid of anything that might change that.” Perhaps it was the absurdity of being turned into a griffin puppet, or maybe he’d finally broken through a gray shell in my mind, but I couldn’t suppress a grin. “I don’t sound like that.” Stephen dropped my arms and wrapped his hands around my stomach, pulling me back tighter. In my ear, he whispered, “Maybe not the voice. But don’t worry so much.” He burrowed his head deeper into my neck. “Okay?” He hit a reflexive nerve in my neck, so my head lurched over to rest on his. I kept it there, though, and I rested my hands on his. “I’ll try,” was all I could agree to. Maybe Stephen found it easy to dodge worries, but I still felt too burdened to fly as free as he did. I fell with Stephen as he leaned backwards and pulled me with him. His legs slid forward, spreading mine out forward too; in one fluid motion, we were lying down, with me on top, being held. Stephen's right hand began stroking its way down my stomach, which made me smile; I moved my arms to my sides so I wasn’t getting in his way. He pulled my left hand away, above both our heads. I rose when he drew a breath, and I melted down into him when he whispered, “I love you, Jer.” I clasped my left hand around his. For another fleeting moment, I knew why it was worth risking everything I was to be with Stephen. I closed my eyes and relaxed, trying to enjoy the moment. It was easier to do when we were together, and my doubts vanished when I could honestly say two words: “I know.” ChangesIn the two years since I moved in to Farrington, I started to notice changes in my life. Some of them, I enjoyed—like how I smiled more, or how I got to visit Dash in her town more often. Some changes, I struggled with—like every new time I found myself blanking on a word or phrase from my first language. I only truly hated the worst ones, like how I no longer had a little audience waiting for me at the hospital. However, because I started off as an outsider, most of the changes in my daily routine were small, neutral changes. Things like Iron’s kitchen etiquette or reading a daily newspaper became part of who I was, but I didn’t violently resist those changes anymore. Somewhere, amidst all that change, I found a weird sense of stability. Being a Farrington Guard definitely fell in line with that rigid sense of flow. I had my normal day-to-day routine—fifteen laps plus paperwork at the end—but that gave way to more interesting days, when I did my part on Farrington Guard’s Special Operations Squad. F.G.S.O.S.—how it’d been engraved on my nifty silver-lined shoulderplates—was, in my ever-supportive boyfriend’s words, “a bruiser squad”. He’d taken it back once I mentioned I was invited and considering joining, but after working with them for over a year, I had to admit that it fit. One of the most notable changes in the city that I’d had a hand in causing happened within the organized crime element. Long story short, organized crime tried to deal me a dirty death, so I shot its balls off. Or one of them. Anyway, during the aftermath, things had quieted down on that front while the new players in the underground game set down new rules. Once their activities started to have an impact on civilians’ daily lives, the Farrington Guard put together F.G.S.O.S. Simply put, organized criminals liked to hole up in fortified houses, and it was our job to blast the door down and put an end to them. That was why, on August fifteenth, my patrolling partner and I didn’t return to our Guard-designated route after lunch. Instead, we headed into the hustle and bustle of ponies in the Market District. There was more than shopping going on that afternoon: A reliable, if anonymous, source had tipped the Guard off on an illicit gemcrafting operation that was taking place. On our way to the raid, I turned to Special-Sergeant Starfall and made conversation. “So, uh. Market District. That’s a weird place for criminals, isn’t it?” He turned his armored, navy blue head and stared at me for a few steps. “It isn’t unheard of, but yeah. I don’t like having to clean out my backyard.” That started a friendly, chatting debate of which district was best to live in—Starfall lived in the Market District, and I had a dusty apartment in the Business District since I spent most of my nights in the Residential District with Iron. It was easy to keep things light, since I really didn’t have a preference. If Iron lived in a shack in the Mining District, I’d probably end up calling that my home. Our conversation tapered off as we neared the staging area for F.G.S.O.S. It was, smartly enough, a coffee shop a few blocks away from the target building. The shop’s owner was the wife of a patrolling officer who didn’t mind closing her doors to help us out, which was how we all got free, fancy coffees as we planned out that afternoon’s attack. After getting briefed by our commanding officer, we had confirmation that the target building—an abandoned potted plant shop—had become the base of operations for some illicit unicorns who enchanted gems to hold dangerous and life-threatening spells. It was a weapons factory, where explosions were one of the more boring things that might happen, and we got to kick down the front door. Fun times. I wasn’t walking into the fire naked, though. After each run-in that I had with Farrington’s organized crime remnants, I’d made a habit of getting my armor repaired and retooled to better protect me from whatever I’d been unprepared for the last time. When I put my facemask down, unless some criminal got a very lucky tactical shot, I was bolt-proof, flame resistant, electrically grounded, and a whole bunch of other cool, expensive precautions. Regardless, according to my armor enchantment guy, there was only a certain amount of passive protection one could get against magic spells. Barging into a building full of weapons-grade unicorns crafting weapons-grade magic artifacts probably wasn’t smart to do solo, which was why I was part of a team of guards who barged into stuff. We got our orders and sub-team assignments, so Starfall and I made our way to one block north of the building. From our alleyway, we were hidden from the windows of the shop. I looked southeast, and after establishing visual contact with the eastern team, I patted Starfall on the shoulder. He used his signaling mirror to let the western team know we were in position. After a few seconds, the signal completed its relay when the eastern team gave me three flashes. Everyone was in position. The risky part of pre-breaching protocols was the importance of stealth and surprise. Even though the ten of us were technically sergeants, we wore mostly matte-gray armor that didn’t draw extra attention to us when we were on our normal patrols. Sure, our silver-lined shoulder pauldrons gave us away to anyone who looked closely, but when we were on patrol, we usually did a good job of blending into the background. However, when we’d set up a two-block perimeter around the building, it wouldn’t take the sharpest mind to realize that the only ten bodies in the street were Farrington Guard. Starfall and I moved up slowly, steadily, and silently—magic silently—to the building. We got to the door we were going to turn into a window, and Starfall did the “auditory confirmation of suspects’ presence”. Less fancily, he put his ear to the door and nodded. From whatever he’d heard, the bad guys were still inside and didn’t know we were coming. I pulled my physical signal flare off my belt and fired it up into the air. Unlike a fire-based flare, the thing I shot was a quiet, spring-loaded tube that shot a weighted cylinder up into the air. About five hundred feet up in the air, a little yellow parachute opened, and as I watched, three different-colored parachutes joined mine. Starfall and I switched positions, since this time, it was my turn to bust down the door. I had a gadget for that, too: a quintet of gems that magically grafted themselves to whatever surface they were on. I arranged them in a big X on the wooden door. The outer four glowed green, the inner one glowed red, and Starfall patted my butt. I slid my facemask down and poked the red gem. The five gems, when activated, abruptly clenched together like magnets. When attached to something like a wooden door, that had the added bonus of making it collapse on itself. Bits of wood flew out of the implosion, but I rushed through the ruined doorway and into the combat zone. Corners. Starfall and I had a system: whoever went into a room first went left, and the second one went right. Inside the shop, front was clear, so I turned left. A stallion was already closing in with a knife. I dove forward, clearing the doorway for Starfall in case someone was behind me. The stallion—beige guy with a death wish—swung down with his blade. I grabbed his wrist and stood up on my hind legs. As I lifted him, he grabbed my gauntlet with his free hoof. I punched him in the diaphragm and felt something inside him crack. Behind me, Starfall called, “Clear.” I dropped the body on the floor. I checked the rest of my side, then confirmed: “Clear.” We made our way through the rest of the ground level; the only other contact we had were the other team members. Upstairs, southeast team called out that it was clear, which left northwest teams to the basement. The five of us gathered around the trap door entrance to downstairs; breaching those was always tricky, especially after you lost the element of surprise on the primary entrance. On top of that, due to the volatile nature of everything down below, we couldn’t throw down anything like flash powder or stun gas canisters. Well, I mean, we could. There just wouldn’t be much building left afterwards. Starfall knelt down and put his ear to the door. “’S quiet. They’re waiting.” “How’re we gettin’ down there?” Scales—one of the members of west team—whispered. “How about down?” asked Aria, one of the two mares in F.G.S.O.S. We watched as she broke away from the group and set up her breaching gems on the floor. Vigil Lance, the third member of west team, went to stand behind her. Starfall caught on to what she was doing and loaded his breaching gems on the trapdoor. Scales started a countdown; Lance and I shared a nod. In unison, Starfall and Aria pulled a pin and dropped a null-magic grenade on their red gems. The floor and door shredded themselves, and the cooked bombs fell down. Commotion sounded from below, but got drowned out by two familiar wumpf sounds. Starfall, then me, then Scales went down our hole; when I landed, Starfall had a unicorn pinned to the wall by his throat. Scales took out a guy on our right with a mean one-two punch, which left me to rush further into the cramped hallway to deal with the asshole with a freaking mace. He didn’t have combat training, so I ducked his blow and stunned him with a sharp, armored palm to the nose. Moments later he was down; one after another, two male voices behind me sounded off: “On you.” The doorway at the end of the hallway led to the main basement room where Aria and Scales fell in from; left was clear, behind me, right was cleared, and the five of us stepped over three more subdued criminals. Cursory checks—corners, tables, and other hiding places; finally, we reached a consensus of “Clear.” The dank stone basement we were in had two tables that lined the opposite walls, and they were stocked with what looked like four runic workstations—they were different than what I’d seen in Twilight Sparkle’s library, but they had some of the familiar pieces: Metal clamps, magnifying glasses, and a platform of what I guessed was pewter, inset with solid gold circles and etchings. The five of us set to work binding the three unicorns in the basement area; soon after, they joined the trio in the hallway to make half a dozen tied-up wannabe warlords. Once the area was secure, Scales called up through the trapdoor, “Suspects cleared; checking the workshop.” The second, more tedious part of our job was a preliminary survey of a suspected crime scene. While dangerous, it’d let the higher-ups know if they needed to send a more specialized team, like a bomb squad, to secure the place for the detectives. Scales led us back into the large basement room. He headed over to the wall opposite the doorway, where crates were stacked, and he cracked one open with his multi-tool. I heard him chuckle in disbelief. “Shit, Star, take a look at this.” Those two were long-time friends, so all four of us took it as an invitation to walk over. Inside the crate was what had to have been at least a thousand pink gems. Starfall chuckled. “What’re garnets good for again? Love charms?” Scales passed him a clipboard. “Shipping manifest says red diamonds. From Stalliongrad.” A small wave of nausea hit me; from what little I knew about the rising amount of weaponized gems we were running into, diamonds had a massive capacity for whatever spell they were filled with, and they could blast it all out in a huge radius. I didn’t know what red meant, in terms of diamonds or spell potency, but I couldn’t imagine it meant good things for whomever they were used against. Worse, I knew enough about Stalliongrad’s criminal climate to hazard a guess as to who had sent those gems. We finished our quick, preliminary survey of the room; from what we didn’t find, it seemed that our breaching gem-grenade combos had been mostly unnecessary. Unless those criminals had been idiots of the highest caliber, none of the diamonds had been charged. Weaponized gems did not like to touch each other, and the remaining crates held many padded casings that hadn’t been filled yet. So, we’d taken unnecessary precautions, but no one had died—not even the assholes we’d plowed through to get down to the basement. From the hole in the ceiling, Red Field looked down at us and laughed. “You guys blew through the floor?” I nodded up at him. “And six bad guys.” On that note, we started the long and arduous process of removing the shop’s inhabitants from their not-so-fortressy workshop. Moving unwilling bodies meant a lot of heavy lifting, but everyone’s—or at least my—adrenaline was still pumping, which helped. After we left the shop, I jittered through most of my debriefing; finally, they let us go for an hour of personal leave to go eat, rest, clean up, or whatever. There’d be extra paperwork for all of us after our patrols, but our lieutenant knew better than to put the ten of us right back onto the streets without a little bit of a break. The ten of us split up as we walked farther away from the post-raid meeting. Six went to the team’s usual bar, Scales and Aria drifted somewhere to go celebrate his recent divorce, and Starfall and I walked together to the south. He had a habit of keeping his armor and equipment at the Guard’s Citadel, since he had three kids at home. My usual post-raid ritual involved going to Iron’s house during his lunch break. When Starfall and I reached the intersection where I turned to head that way, he gave me a knowing grin. “Well, uh… see you in an hour?” I nodded. “At the Citadel.” As we parted ways, I found myself smiling. In that city, even changes of pace like today held their own sense of familiarity. In a serene way, I was glad to be home there. Author's Note Ironically, this being the longest of the vignettes, I really don't have too much to say about this. Gilda's a badass, she spends her money getting more bad-ass. Possibly something that I didn't include in this or Hero is how Gilda and Starfall started a Guard-sanctioned "Fight Club", for lack of a better term. It's basically sparring to keep one's physical edge when it comes to combat, plus a few instructional lessons once every few weeks or so. Another thing would be the physical ways in which Iron and Gilda are beginning to affect one another (no, not that). For example, in this chapter, she's a lot more fond of routine and Farrington, and she's got a lot of memories of the city to reminisce about. Stuff I have planned that may or may not have made it in here are things like how Gilda does a storytelling thing for adults down at the library, or how Gilda's convinced Iron to grow out his mane a little. The main idea I wanted to convey with this was to attempt to write a military-esque action scene. Despite the stigma around them, I am somewhat of a fan of the first two Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. One of the abandoned ideas I had for Summer Days, during the chase between Gilda and Fast Hooves, was to cut away up to one of the watchtower as they're taking pockshots at Ms. Hooves. In the end, I cut that because (1) it would've really, really messed with the chapter's pacing and (2) I don't think I can do the AC-130 mission from CoD:4 justice. BirthdayI spent my twenty-fifth birthday feeding the ducks and fish at Reservoir Park. It only cost two bits’ worth of seeds and pellets to let me sit on the bridge for an hour and feed the animals their dinners, but it was well worth the expense. It made me smile. Smiling was easy, because over time, it got easier to do. The grins I delivered the sergeants’ mail with made things happier around the Farrington Guard’s Citadel, which in turn made me glad—I didn’t fix everything, but positive changes usually began with a good mood! Below me, the ducks started to get ornery over their floating seeds. I tossed a few more hooffuls left and right to disperse the crowd, and their cute little quacks were all the thanks I needed. Some ponies thought I was weird. They were so concerned over growing and gaining—and I wished them the best; every pony deserved to be happy—so they wondered how I could be happy where I was. And sure, if I looked at it from their point of view, I could see it. I had a low-paying job that often sandwiched me between angry criminals’ families and Guard infighting. If I looked at it like that, it’d be harder to smile. That’s why I looked at it from my point of view, the Memo perspective. I saw the job as a necessary one for Farrington, and since I got picked for it, I did it as best I could at it. The money wasn’t as much as some council members or blacksmiths in the town, but it let me do my favorite things—like feeding the ducks. Daddy always taught me it was the little things in life that counted, and that made it easy to follow my mom’s advice of “always bring a smile” with you. Their card sat on my dresser, and I counted myself lucky that we were as close as we were. If you looked hard enough, there was always a reason to smile, and I’d gotten pretty good at it during my life so far. Now, that wasn’t to say I didn’t want anything more. Wants were a normal part of life, so denying them wasn’t going to make me any happier in a real way. However, with most of the things I wanted in my life, I gave a little tug and waited to see if they’d follow along. Sometimes, I doubted my convictions, since my nights always seemed to end days in the same way: me, in my affordable apartment, in a lonely bed. Each year, I started out with resolve to find that special stallion. Usually by April, I’d gone through two or three attempts to date someone; the stallions I always found seemed to be either assertive jerks who didn’t care about my front half, or worse, the self-proclaimed “nice guys” who weren’t as “shy” as they were self-absorbed and tactless. It usually hurt to break things off—temporarily. I’d rather endure a week where it was harder to smile than end up trapped in a lifelong relationship I didn’t want. Usually, the stallions understood, and some of them were still friends with me. One of my first and worst experiences with dating was the spring before I turned seventeen, when a guy wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. After I told him I didn’t think things were working out, he’d crept around and followed me places, like where I shopped, and my parents’ house. Those were some of the scariest, sleepless, tear-streaked weeks of my life, since I didn’t know where he was going to show up. It’d all ended when he cornered me, one time, in an empty street in the Business District. Things escalated, and I grew more and more afraid of what he was going to do to me… Then, he hit me. A bolt of blue and silver flashed down from the sky like lightning. I’d barely blinked away tears, and in front of me, one of the six A.P. guards had pinned my ex-boyfriend and current-stalker up against the building by his neck. Very plainly, over my ex’s whimpering, that guard told him that if he ever laid a hoof on me or anyone else, he’d be lucky if he ended up in Farrington General. That was when I both met and fell head-over-hooves for Sergeant-turned-Lieutenant-turned-Acting Captain-turned-Lieutenant-turned-Officer-turned-Special Sergeant Starfall. Those were all of his official titles I could ever remember his mail being addressed to, anyway; whoever planned things out in the Farrington Guard hadn’t done a very stable job with him. At least they were nicer than the names his wife called me. And I knew it was wrong, having a crush on a married stallion. Heck, it was unfair to him, with how rough his relationship with his wife had been ever since her accident. I tried to keep my feelings under wraps, but after Starfall got promoted to lieutenant and we started being forced into contact more and more, he immediately caught on that I “acted weird” around him. It wasn’t until the end of the year, at the Hearth’s Warming Eve party where I loaded up on punch and kissed him under the mistletoe, that he realized why. Despite the guilt, I smiled at the memory of that kiss and the sudden, shocked, cute expression he’d made. The aftermath had been profound. After a few awkward months of neither of us talking to each other, I broke down and apologized. He’d scooped me in a friend hug, as he’d called it—and I remembered how good he smelled—while giving me a long explanation of why things couldn’t and wouldn’t work out between us. In the years after that talk, I’d tried to abide by his rules. My crappy dating luck hadn’t quite helped me move on, though, and even almost five years after that Hearth’s Warming party, I still felt butterflies in my stomach whenever he so much as walked by my desk and said, “Hey, Memo.” I tried to think of things in a positive note. Part of me was glad that I knew him, even if we could never be together. Even if it hurt, he still made me smile—just once we were apart. And certainly, someone out there was waiting for me; I just had to find him. I tossed the rest of my fish pellets down to the pond. Below the surface, a frenzied swarm of fins rushed to the sudden boon. They were so pretty like that, especially when the sun caught their scales and they glistened. It made me smile, and that was enough to get my thoughts back to bright places—like the weather. Farrington got most of its weather naturally, since the Sharptalon Woods to the east and south were big and wild enough to make it hard for any long-term weather planning. When it was the best type of sunny bright, breezy cool weather on my birthday, it made me feel blessed. But even rainy days could be good, if I sat by the window to watch the rain pattering against the glass. The clock tower struck six, which told me I’d been in the park for close to an hour. I liked feeding the aquatic animals, but now it was time for my dinner. My favorite restaurant was offering “super salads” that week, as kind of an inside joke about customers who got confused about the available options for the first course. After throwing my seed and pellet bags away, I sauntered out of the park and made a beeline for the Business District. The whole way there, I got to watch the various ponies as they went throughout the city for their evening activities. I liked the smiles and general warmth of almost everyone; of course, in the entire city, a few individuals and couples weren’t enjoying my birthday as much as I was. “Hey, Memo!” A familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find Starfall, off-duty and naked, waving at me from the side of the road. I walked over to him, trying to tell my face to stop flushing and my belly to stop doing flops. No part of me listened except my hooves, when I stopped three feet in front of him—conversational space, but not too personal. I forced myself to mumble, “Hi.” Starfall raised an eyebrow then bobbed his head. After his little deliberation, he asked, “How’s your evening going?” The back of my throat dried out, painfully. I didn’t want to make things awkward or sad for Starfall by telling him I was going to a restaurant, alone, on my birthday. I hadn’t made a big deal about the day to any of my friends or coworkers, but I was okay with a good meal at my favorite restaurant. I didn’t know how much of that Starfall would understand. I wasn’t going to test it, either. He’d asked the question platonically, like we were friends. But… I couldn’t do that. Not with him. The best happiness I could give him was to nod back a lie. “Y…yeah, I’m meeting up with some friends for dinner. After that, I dunno…” I shrugged. “But it’s a night out with friends, right?” Starfall smiled. “That it is.” His eyes moved up to the clock tower behind me. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going… I’m late enough as it is.” Through the nausea, I grinned and lifted a hoof to wave a tiny goodbye. “Good evening.” “You too.” He nodded before walking away from me. Then, from behind me, he called out, “And Memo?” I turned around. He grinned at me. “Happy birthday.” It made me smile. Author's Note I suck at writing happy characters. I mean, I like Memo. She's one of those types who doesn't let things get her down very easily. Even when Gilda mangled Starfall, Memo was... kind of curt with her, but still helpful. But I admire Memo's perspective in life—focus on what you've got, and enjoy it. It's what I try to do, and it's been working out for me. I also like the idea of her going to the park and feeding ducks. It's a somewhat authoritative position, but she still does it with kindness. (Central image / idea, here). As for her doomed crush on Starfall... yeah. Maybe I'm too cruel to my characters. But she'll find someone single soon enough, I'm sure. HeroThe evenings after a successful S.O.S. raid, I had my routine just like everyone else on the squad. At five o’ clock in the afternoon, we were done with our patrols; before we could leave, we had one last debriefing from our lieutenant, paperwork, one drink at the bar as a squad, and then, finally, the walk home. I didn’t know what lay in store for them after we parted ways, but when I walked through my front door, I got the same thing I got every night I returned home: A hero’s welcome. No one came to greet me in the hallway, but that wasn’t what I needed. I smelled dinner cooking, so I stepped into the kitchen. In there was my wife, Comet, caught in her usual dance of caring for a fussy Corona and a trio of bubbling pots. My wife looked up briefly from the high chair and stove, nodded at me, and smiled. “Hey you.” “Hey yourself.” I smiled back at my wife and picked up our tiny daughter—yet, I reminded myself, she was almost twelve months old now. Corona calmed down from whatever was bugging her as I gently bounced her on my shoulder. To Comet, I asked, “How’re you two doing?” “Surviving.” She mocked strain in her voice, but still lowered it before turning her full attention to our dinner. “How many weeks until school starts again?” I coddled our youngest for a moment before answering, “Eleventeen.” That made Comet to slowly look at me, hiding a chuckle in her raised eyebrow. “What?” I shrugged my non-childbearing shoulder. “You’re the one with a fancy high school degree. They never taught my class the fancy stuff like numbers, or counting…” All Comet did was shake her head and chuckle at the stove. She stirred something that looked like sauce before changing the subject: “Dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so if you want your shower…” I put Corona back in her high chair before nodding. “I do.” Deeper in the house, in our living room, my other two kids were busy playing a board game. Moonshine was facing me, so he smiled and waved first. “Hi dad!” Hailey turned around to smile at me as I walked over to their game. I wasn’t well-versed with the rules enough to know who was winning—when we played inside, I usually let my kids tell me who won and when—so I just smiled and loomed over them. “You two playing nice?” I put a hint of warning into my voice; on Tuesday, things had apparently gotten violent between them. “Yeah.” Hailey nodded. “Mmhmm.” Her brother agreed. “Come play with us!” I nodded. “I’ve got to clean up for dinner, so after we eat.” A pause, then I added: “Unless your mom’s got chores for me. Then after that.” They sounded a little disappointed at that, and I was, too, but a little disappointment built character—or at least patience. Plus, S.O.S. raid or no, I’d been out in a metal suit in a hot city for most of the day; there was a practical matter to my post-shift shower. Once I made it to the bathroom, I started the water and grinned. When it was hot enough, I climbed in the tub, closed the curtain, turned the shower on, and lay down on my back. As the warmth washed over my abdomen and carried away most of the day’s stress, I tried to remember who first gave me the idea for showering like that. It wasn’t Iron; he didn’t have a shower. My dad would’ve thought the whole thing wasteful, given how tight our budget had been growing up. It wasn’t Comet, since she couldn’t lie on her back. That left someone in the Guard, but as I inhaled the steam from my hot torrent, I found it harder and harder to care about anything in particular. For twenty minutes, I lay like that, and I was the happiest stallion in the world. I had my wife, my kids, my home… and that was something worth fighting for. Every day in the Artisan District, I potentially put my life on the line patrolling the roughest part of a rough city. I was beginning to notice that I was starting to get older, too: injuries stayed longer than they used to, and it took more and more sparring in the ring to keep my reflexes razor-sharp. One day, I would have to admit that I couldn’t keep going; else I would die learning that lesson. For the time being—at least for the next few years or so—I had all the motivation I needed. I was a protector of the peace and avenger of the innocent. When I came home to four of the ponies who meant the world to me, all I needed was the knowledge that I’d helped keep their city safe for them for one more day. That was my hero’s welcome. It wasn’t as dramatic as Walhall or some of the other parts of her culture that my partner talked about, but my reward was a lot more grounded in reality. Though, in her defense, it didn’t sound like she literally believed her myths and legends. However, I’d never found it in me to ask, “Do you really believe that?” Given our history, it might come off as offensive. That made me grin. Even two years after meeting Gilda, I found it weird how much I trusted a griffin, of all things. But that was part of who she was, just like I was a pegasus, and I’d honestly given up counting the times we’d saved each other’s lives. The bathroom door opened, which brought me back down from gods and philosophy. Down on earth, Comet poked her head through the shower curtain at my feet. She looked down at me, shook her head, and withdrew. Moments later, her head popped through the curtain on the other end of the tub, and she smiled down at me. Hot cascades of water matted her mane down to her head, and I slicked it back as she leaned down into a kiss. I held her there as long as I could—her presence only improved my nirvana—but she pulled up out of my loose grip before things went too far. When she spoke, her voice was quiet: “Dinner’s ready.” I nodded up at her. “Thanks.” There, in the bathroom, was probably some of our only private day time together. She knew it, too, which let her bring up some of the things we never talked about in front of our kids. “Did everyone make it out okay?” Another quick nod. “Yeah. We hit ‘em before they even set up shop; hard and fast. Never saw us coming. No deaths on either side.” Comet, as a rule, didn’t like violence. I had to admit, too, that she was right to fear that one day, I’d end up on the wrong end of it. At the same time, I was one of the few guards who could actually handle the rigors of S.O.S. I owed them what I could give, and anything less would be a shortcoming to my duty to the Guard. So while I wouldn’t say she liked the idea of me getting suited up and knocking down criminal organizations, Comet at least understood why I had to. That was what I saw in her little nod back down at me before she added, “I’m glad.” I turned the shower off with my back hoof and used my front limbs to pull myself up into a sitting position. Once I was eye-level with Comet, I grinned. “Truth be told, there isn’t any real danger with Iron’s fiancée there—” “He asked her?” Comet’s eyes lit up. I shook my head. “No, not yet, but ‘as soon as the time is right’. With him, that means he’s decided on it, but it’ll be like a week to six years before he does it.” She chuckled, so I continued, “But yeah. She broke a guy’s ribcage. So that’s gonna be in the news, despite how the guy was rushing her with a knife.” Comet stared flatly at me. “Assaulting a griffin? Do these criminals ever learn?” “I know, right?” I shrugged. “And with a knife? Who does that?” She didn’t find it as amusing as I did, which put an end to our little tub talk. Comet grabbed her towel and started drying her mane; I followed her lead and got out to start drying my coat off. When we were both presentable, Comet lingered by the door for just a moment. I walked up and turned to face her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our fogged-up reflections in the mirror over the sink; her green blur leaned up to my blue one as I leaned down— Knocking interrupted us. “Mom, are you in there?” Hailey asked through the door. Comet failed at hiding her agitation in a stretched out, “Yep.” “Can we eat soon? I’m hungry!” “In a minute. Get your brother and set the table.” “’K.” I waited for a moment before saying something to Comet; in that time, she leaped up and gripped my neck with hers in a hug. I ran a hoof down her back, pulling her closer; she craned her head back to give me a quick peck on the lips. After she dropped back down to the floor, I offered my right foreleg to her, just like at our wedding. “Shall we?” She linked her arm in mine and nodded. “We shall.” I mouthed the door open, and the two of us walked to dinner together. It was all the hero’s welcome I could ever ask for. Author's Note I think out of all my ponies, Starfall's probably my favorite OC. I mean, he's (loosely) based off Elliot Stabler from Law and Order: SVU (whose departure from that show made me quit watching)—the well-meaning cop with a rough streak and a tough marriage. Is he an asshole? Unapologetically, when the need arises. But as weak of a character I wrote Iron Bulwark as, Starfall's there to be both the villain and the friend, and I like the way he does it. Even when he's like... borderline sexually harassing Gilda. He's not a perfect character, morally, in Summer Days. Anyway, I like this vignette as an "end" for Starfall. Meaning, unless I introduce more conflict into his life, he's basically in a good place and going to stay there for the rest of his pony life. More practically, I have absolutely no plans to write anything from his perspective ever again. It makes me glad to think about him, throughout the next few months or years, risking his life for F.G.S.O.S., but coming home to a hero's welcome. The main thing I wanted to write with this was showing how Starfall's home life is healing. I like the image of him, in a self-made rainfall, looking up at his wife, who's smiling down at him. It's not sexual or anything; I'm just glad that against the odds they made for one another, they ended up happy together. DistanceI enjoyed my walks home with Short Order. Summer evenings in Hoofington tended to be warm, and the setting sun’s glow was just enough to navigate home by. The tidy cobblestone roads weren’t packed; there were enough ponies out that it felt safe. Still, Short was a gentlecolt, for better or worse. Ever since our first date at his restaurant, he insisted on walking me home. Even though he was barely six months older than me, he held an old-fashioned sense of honor about that sort of thing. “Did you enjoy dinner, Max?” He tilted his head to look at me while we walked. I smiled up at him; he’d decided against using my nickname four months ago. After my initial push, though, I didn’t really mind. “Yep. Reminds me of the first time I had Canternese.” We walked together in quiet; part of what I liked about Short was that he didn’t need to fill every waking second with chatter. I liked being around him. However… As we turned through intersections and walked our familiar path, it started happening again. Or at least, I noticed it between us: Distance. We were two ponies, out on a date. We’d been dating for months at a pretty steady rate without any major personality hiccups. I liked him, and from the vibe he gave me, he liked me back. But, he had some pathological fear of contact or something. Oh, if I pointed it out, he’d drape a hoof over me and we’d walk in a romantic embrace. I liked it there. For my first boyfriend and real shot at a relationship, his presence was more than comfortable. He was fit, he was gentle, and he smelled nice; the problem came from how I had to initiate any sort of contact. I closed the gap between us during a right-hoof turn. Just like always, he started walking three-legged to hold me as we walked the final leg of our journey. My apartment complex was a two-story house whose paint complimented the tiny evergreens that framed the front door. There was a cozy little landing outside the front door, where visitors could ring a bell and wait to be greeted; it was in that landing where Short and I had what I knew was going to be the same conversation as always. “I’m glad you enjoyed tonight.” He smiled as he took his hoof off my shoulder. I returned his smile and tilted my head in. “It was fun.” After a pause came the same question as usual: “Do you wanna come in for a little bit?” The same headshake answered. “Thanks, but I have to get up early tomorrow.” I tried not to let it bother me. He did work mornings in his restaurant, the one he owned. He had responsibilities. Or heck, maybe he was just really, really clueless about dating. Still, I couldn’t keep making excuses for him. I had a job that needed me to get up early. If he didn’t know what I meant by “come in for a little bit”, I wasn’t going to bend over and show him, either. It’d been a year since I last went to Stalliongrad and drowned myself in mindless, drunken fun with a local stallion or two; in that time, I liked to think I’d earned back some self-esteem. Yet, every time Short turned down my offer or I had to ask him to hold my hoof or hug me… I sighed, out loud. It hurt. “Is everything all right?” I grinned and shook my head. “I’m not sure, Short. Is there something wrong?” After a few flustered blinks, he stammered, “I… I’m…” He frowned and then gave up. “Huh?” My hoof pointed up at the direction of my unit; of the four apartments that made up my building, it was the one on the top left. “You… do know what I’m really asking about, right?” He nodded, and his cheeks reddened. Good grief. I let my hoof fall and tried to keep my frustration off my face. “But every time, you say no…” I paused before shrugging. “Why?” Short swallowed, hard, but his voice actually cracked as he answered, “Because, I… I like you. A lot.” We’re the same age, we’re the same age… I repeated a little mantra in my head. My bottom eyelids rose as I pointed out, “That’s a weird way of expressing that.” “I mean, I don’t want to…” He brushed the back of his head and looked away. “Be… awkward.” “Well we are past that point.” I bit off the last few words, but I tried to do it in a light, friendly manner. He shook his head and looked down. “Well it’s…” The rest of whatever he said got lost to mumbles. Then, it hit me like a dead fish. I kept my hoof on the ground instead of smacking myself for not seeing it sooner: “You’re a… you haven’t been with anyone before, have you?” He kept staring at the ground, but offered a tiny sideways twitch of his head. I chewed my tongue as I thought about how I wanted to play this out. Finally, I shrugged. “So?” Short looked back up at me. “I… you just asked. Doesn’t that—” “Explain some things?” I nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I asked. But I don’t really care, at the end of the night. If we’re in this for the long haul, there’s got to be a bit of a learning curve as we figure each other out.” For a moment, I thought I’d convinced him. Then, Short’s lips thinned as he once again shook his head no. “I don’t want to rush things. I like what we’ve got.” “I don’t!” The words slipped out suddenly, and Short looked as surprised as I felt. A moment’s thought confirmed it, though, and I continued, “I mean, I really like you. You’re fun to spend time with, smart without being nerdy…” I trailed off, not wanting to do the whole cliché of listing all his good points before a criticism. Instead, it was time for a confession: “I hate sleeping alone. Like…” I waved a hoof, trying to dispel just how slutty that sounded. “I’ve got this like heated pillow thing, and that helps, but it’s not the same as knowing that someone’s there.” “I…” Short crooked his head to the side. “You want me to sleep with you? Like, literally?” “And in the sexy sense.” I chuckled. “I want the whole package.” He grinned lightly before it faded. “But, uh… how many stallions have you been with?” “I dunno. Like, fifty? Sixtyish?” “Sixty?!” His mouth hung open, and his wide, judgmental eyes seemed to bore a hole in me. Or maybe that was just the pain I felt. Far too late, Short righted his face and tried to recover. “I mean... how—er, when?” “Before I met you,” I cut back. “So if that’s a problem—” “No!” He shook his head, wide-eyed. “I mean... it’s just... surprising, is all.” “How?” “Because you seem... quieter, than that, is all.” He lifted a shoulder. My glare softened, but I still kept it sharp. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Short flapped his mouth open and shut a few times. Finally, he shook his head. “I... the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve been this quiet mare. I guess you’re a bit more… driven, with the physical side of things, but I…” He trailed off, bobbing his head a little. “I mean, what happened?” “Does it really affect you, even?” I tilted my head. He nodded. “I mean, if there’s like a health issue…” “No.” I shook my head and sighed, and my glare left with my breath. “I was always careful about that.” He took a few steps towards me and placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Then it doesn’t bother me.” Weakly, I grinned up at him. “You know, for a while, it bothered me, and I was the one doing it.” That caused his head to turn. “Then why’d you do it?” “It was fun. Exciting.” I shrugged. “Dangerous. Some nights, I really, really asked myself that same question, and I hated myself because I couldn’t bring myself to stop.” Short pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything. I shook my head. “But that’s all in the past now. I won’t really apologize for it, since I didn’t really do anything wrong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t carry a few regrets.” I blinked and locked eyes with my boyfriend. “And I know it’s not fair to you, but every time you turn me down, every time you just let that distance between us, it’s like there’s a completely new source—” He pulled me in and kissed me. Our tongues flecked over each others’ at first, and then I pressed farther into him as the embrace continued. Things only came to an end a few moments later, when Short pulled away for air and whispered, “I’m sorry…” “Don’t be; you didn’t know.” He nodded before kissing me on the cheek. After that, an awkward silence fell over us; it almost felt like we were waiting for each other to say something. At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, or what he might be waiting for, but then I chuckled and shook my head. It was obvious. “Do you want to come in?” For the first time, Short nodded. “I… uh… yeah. So… lead the way?” I turned around and lightly smacked his snout with my tail. I might’ve sauntered in a more pronounced manner as I led him through the apartment building’s entrance and up the staircase, but I was okay with that. After our little argument, a little bit of leading would work wonders to get us into the mood. And as it turned out, Short was pretty decent at following my lead. Author's Note I don't know when Seattle_Lite started the joke that Maxie's got a thing for her older brother, but damned if I'm going to stop giving her boyfriends that resemble him in one way or another. I mean, that's something straight out of Freud (girls wanting a boyfriend like their father ), and even if Freudian psychology is outdated, I still like the trope. Anyway, despite her choice in stallions, Maxie, too, has grown in the two in-story years since Evening Flames. She doesn't quite fight herself anymore, which has allowed her to firmly grasp who she is and change the parts of her she wants to. I like the idea of her sleeping with a body pillow—it shows that, even with her wild streak in Stalliongrad for a few years, she was only ever doing it because she wants intimacy and is really, really bad at showing it. The fact that, during the last sentence of this vignette, she screws the everloving virginity out of Short Order... Well, there's nothing wrong with liking sex. Unless you're a rapist. Then that's bad.
TogetherI awoke, covered in sweat, in the middle of a muggy August night. The faint breeze from the window did nothing to abate the oppressive heat, so the air in my bedroom was still seasonably warm. In the past, I had always slept on top of my bed’s comforter during the summer months; it helped me stay as cool as possible. Gilda, however, did not make that easy. Whether she did it in her sleep or as we fell asleep, she had a habit of clamping herself to me in a vice-like, four-limbed hug. I supposed that, in the summer, four limbs was something of a blessing; I didn’t want to imagine the added temperature that her wings would bring to the equation. I preferred the winter months, at any rate. For the time being, it was summer—the early hours of the fifteenth of August, according to the glowing hand of my alarm clock. I was hot, my mouth was rough with thirst, and Gilda had taken her usual position around me. I loved her and her feathery softness, even as they both held me captive; the only difficulty in the situation arose from how I needed a glass of water. Actually, the bulk of the difficulty came from trying to get out of bed without waking her. I’d managed it enough times over the past two years that I had it down to a science—first, free my torso, then slip out from between her much-less-dexterous hind legs. By my faint night-light, I could see a blurry outline of her feathers on the side of her head that wasn’t nestled into my shoulder. More importantly, I couldn’t see her eye reflecting any of the light, so I hadn’t woken her yet. That was as good a starting point as any, I decided, so I stretched my hoof back to my spine and began trying to free myself. Part of Gilda’s embrace was that she somehow managed to interlock her fingers without putting her talons into my skin. That, I appreciated, though it raised the interesting observation that if she didn’t want to show her sharp parts, she was well-accustomed to keeping them in check. I prodded her hands and hoped that, like some nights, it would be enough to get her to release her grip. After a few moments without any luck, I moved on to another tactic—tickling the back of her palms. That also proved ineffective, so with a quick sigh, I craned my neck behind me to see what I could as I manually tried to unclasp her fingers. About two fingers in, I felt her head feathers brush against my chest. Still keeping my hoof on her hands, I turned to look down at her. Gilda blinked twice up at me before whispering an annoyed, “What are you doing?” I nosed her forehead before saying anything. Then, “I am thirsty.” “Mm-hmm.” She nodded and opened her hands. “If you don’t want to sleep like this…” “I told you I don’t mind, except for that I get thirsty.” “And sweaty.” Gilda raised her eyebrows in a friendly glare. I chuckled. “Well, yes. I love you, but you are like a furnace.” “Oh, so that’s supposed to be a hammer…” My eyebrow rose as I puzzled through her half-metaphor: “That… you wouldn’t put…” “Whatever.” She used a hand and a hind leg to roll me away from her. “Go to the bathroom.” I blinked at the ceiling before I finished rolling off my bed. Before I left the room, I offered to bring Gilda back something to drink, but she declined. I made my way down my L-shaped hallway and—after an admittedly necessary detour—I entered the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. The wells below Farrington were deep enough that our tap water was cool during the summer; after one and a half glasses of smooth, slightly metallic-tasting refreshment, my thirst was quenched. After washing the glass and putting it back in the cupboard, I had one last thing I wanted to check before going back to bed. I walked to the living room, noting the silhouettes of both of our Guard armors sitting on stands, side-by-side near the door. On the opposite wall, a few bookshelves were set into the wall, and that was where I had hidden something away. Gilda rarely concerned herself with my shelves full of history books, which made them a good hiding spot; still, I didn’t usually make it a habit to keep secrets from her. Yet tonight, in the middle of the August two years after we’d first met, I felt that subterfuge helped calm my nerves. I pulled two small books out of their place, where they wouldn’t have sat flush with the tomes around them were it not for the space behind them. In that space rested a small, wooden box. The hardwood floors usually betrayed any footsteps, but I still looked over my shoulder and saw I was alone. That night, like I had for nearly every other night that month, I reached back and took the box from its resting space. Just like every other night, I smiled when I opened it and looked at the bracelet inside. The materials had been somewhat difficult to order, but that was mostly because of their origin. Specifically, it was difficult to avoid suspicion when ordering a thin wire of white gold from Elpithasus that was inset with tiny carvings of another tribe’s insignia. I had managed that easily enough through an old friend of my father’s from Manehattan. Once I had the Elpithasan wire, it had been fairly straightforward to obtain a blued steel counterpart that was inset with Farrington insignias. Trickier had been to find a jeweler who could braid the two metals together and form a loop, but at the end of the project, I’d spent less than my Father had on his engagement ring. I knew that because, when I looked through my parents’ possessions they’d left me, I found the receipt, not the ring. A visit to Maxie had confirmed that she didn’t have the ring, either, which almost made me want to reopen ties with my uncle just to vent and explain how he had no right to pilfer… My head shook. That was the past, and I couldn’t do much to fix it Instead, I looked one more time at what I hoped would be my future: Gold and iron, bound together. After the initial effort to get the piece made, I had to admit that its beauty was well worth the expense. I smiled. We’d only been dating for two years, which wasn’t the longest I’d ever heard of, but after a happy and hug-filled round of advice from Starfall and Comet, I felt I was ready. In my heart, I knew Gilda was, too. Back in our bedroom— which, technically, Gilda still had her apartment that she spent about three nights out of every month in, but the lease was up in September, and she was “thinking” about taking me up on my offer to let her move into my home—Gilda was lying on her side with her back to the doorway. I climbed on top of the comforter and slid over to her. Even though my eyes were closed as I nestled my head into her neck, I knew by her breathing that she was still awake. “That took a while,” she mumbled. I stroked her chest and stomach, careful to avoid where I knew her scars were. My excuse, like it had been every other time that I’d pondered my hidden jewelry, was: “I wanted to check something in a book first.” “Nerd.” I returned her chuckle and kept stroking. When I kissed the inside of her neck, she snuggled my head appreciatively. “Lift your hoof a sec?” Gilda sounded half-asleep, but I complied. If she was thinking about positioning... Lighting-fast, she spun around and clamped onto me in a hug. She inched down my chest until she could put her head in her favorite spot—the crook of my right shoulder. As soon as we were together in our usual position, the only thing I could do was smile and slide a hoof under her wing. “Mein” was all she whispered. I bent my neck forward to kiss her good night. She let out a quiet, chirping sound of affection in response. Once again, the inner glow I felt in my chest told me that being “hers” was not a bad thing to be. Author's Note The first few times I wrote Summer Days and Evening Flames, I created a "reserved" character who was put through very trying circumstances. The result, I think, was that some of Iron's personality didn't necessarily begin showing through until the end of the story—after, one way or another, all the drama gets resolved. One thing I like about vignettes like these is how there's not necessarily a conflict that needs to be resolved. It basically lets me work with pure slice-of-life, and show how characters act in their "off" days. For most of these vignettes, I started with a central image, or idea—something I wanted to show about one of my characters. For this one, it's definitely the wedding band and Gilda's/Iron's sleeping position. I think they're cool and cute, respectively.
MeerAuthor's Note Note: This story is a follow up to Schweigen Ist Folter. If you have not read that and are reading these vignettes in order, I highly recommend that you skip this and continue on to Changes. You won't miss anything. Meer Far to the west, the verdant growth of the Jägerwald met the vastness of a nameless sea. It only took three hours’ flight to reach, but the only map of the area I’d found didn’t label the black-inked waves. It was as if our ancestors, who’d cared more about cartography than any griffin left alive, thought a name would have diminished the sheer magnitude of the endless water that stretched onwards to the horizon, forever. There, I waited in the mouth of a sea-cliff cave. A cool breeze interrupted the late summer heat outside, and it carried a salty tang as it ruffled my feathers. Fifty feet below me, water crashed against the sheer rock face. Besides the wind and waves, no other sounds kept me company; their echoes in the cave behind me reaffirmed that I was entirely alone. We measured time with a cone-shaped rock formation—or specifically, we used its shadow. When the first of us showed up, we set two stones: one at the shadow’s current position, then one a palm’s length away. It took a few hours for the shadow to reach the second stone, and that was our time we had together. In that whole nightmarish romance, easily the worst times were when I showed up to our cave and found two stones, but no Stephen. Early on, I’d gotten used to weeks—or during winter, months—passing without any sort of romantic contact. In our homeland, we were friends who were growing more distant as age took us down different paths. I had my siblings to help look after, he had his whims of exploration, and if we risked appearing as close as we were, we would be killed. There weren’t enough males of our species left for two of us to be doing what we were. Intellectually, I knew that; mentally, I shamed myself for my selfishness and lack of a desire to prolong our dying race. Underneath that storm of surface hatred rested one calm, core belief: Whenever we found each other, alone, far away from our dead society’s laws, and no matter how scattered the few hours were, when I could spend time with Stephen, he made me happy. We had to be smart about our engagements, however—hence the rocks, the cave without any living beings nearby, and our separate arrival times. We couldn’t keep anything in the cave for the weeks between our visits; part of being careful meant we had to leave behind an empty cave. A camp in the middle of nowhere would be suspicious if found, suspicions would lead to questions, and questions might find answers. Since it was empty, there wasn’t much else to do in that cave—our cave—than to sit and wait. Every time I waited for Stephen, watching the shadows close in on our chance to be together, the same doubts crossed my mind: He’d been delayed. He’d been found. He wasn’t coming. He didn’t love me. It seemed crazy of a thought, to doubt the convictions of someone who was risking the same thing I was—everything—to spend time with me. However, just like I couldn’t stop myself from feeling how I did for him, my mind wouldn’t lay to rest the possibility that he didn’t feel the same way I did, or that he was only with me for the physical part of it… I shook my head. Those thoughts were probably some innate sense of self-preservation that reminded me of everything dangerous about what we were doing. Movement against the southern sky snapped me out of my musings and steeled my nerves. My chest swelled and I relaxed when I saw a familiar, black-headed griffin in the distance. He’d made it, this time, and I was glad—but instinctively, my eyes trailed behind him to make sure he wasn’t being followed. When I was sure Stephen was alone, I turned back to glance out to sea one more time. It gave me a vastly insignificant feeling, one which Stephen often referenced: We were just blips in a giant cosmic game, so what did it truly matter if we spent some time with or inside each other? His arrival didn’t entirely shake me out of my pensiveness. When he landed near me, I smiled and nodded, but even after checking one final time to see that he hadn’t been followed, I still felt sad. Empty. Stephen sat down next to me on my left, but instead of breaking the silence with a wisecrack, he wrapped his tail around my hips. My smile came back, and only then did he say, “Jerry. You made it. Everything okay?” I turned my left eye to him. “I did make it. Everything…” I trailed off. It didn’t feel right to lie to him, but it didn’t feel right to kill any prospective mood, either. Instead, I sighed and shook my head. “It’s one of those days, I guess.” He chuckled in the back of his throat, which was something I’d learned to cope with—Stephen could laugh at anything. He didn’t do it maliciously or carelessly, but for all the years we’d been together, it still bothered me when he took nothing seriously. “One of those days?” he asked, sitting closer to me. “We’re here, together. What more can you ask for?” To be able to do this more than once a month. I kept the answer in my head and instead went with, “I don’t know.” I pointed a claw at him and curled it to me. “Our fathers are starting something of a vie for power, which is just great.” “And that affects us how?” I held a sigh in my beak. “You don’t spend more than your sleeping hours in your own cave, let alone your father’s.” “So move out. Not like there’s twelve caves per griffin, or four if you count the females.” His simple answer made me chuckle, frustratedly. I brought my palms up to my eyes and rubbed, shaking my head. “That’s not the solution, and besides. Father needs me now, more than ever—” “Which I’m sure he tells you—” "—until the rest of his flock gets old enough to take their four caves.” I shot a heated glare at Stephen, but didn’t acknowledge his interruption any more than that. My father respected his children, if they deserved it, but I wasn’t going to take lectures on earning a parent’s love from someone who made a point of moving to the far end of the ridge from where his own family roosted. “Besides...” I shook my head and tried to change the subject from what was quickly turning into a quarrel. “That’s not all of it. That’s background aggravation, piled in with all the other things we’ve got to deal with. Like...” I paused, trying to think of how to bring up the frustrations I was having about our relationship. There was no simple way to phrase it without being curt. My silence stayed for too long, so he guessed the answer: “Thinking about your sister?” That took me by surprise, since it came from nowhere. “Sister? Which one?” To say that I had several sisters would be an understatement. Twelve of them still lived in my father’s household, two of them had moved into caves of their own in our village, and one of them… Stephen raised the insides of his eyebrows as he clarified which one. The dead one. “Wasn’t it about this time, five years ago?” I scoffed. Fifteen years of special lessons and attention from Father, and my younger sister by a year repaid his sentiments by falling to her death at some Beute-ridden children’s camp. “The accident, or whatever it was, happened in July. Father learned about it in August, and…” I shrugged. “It’s early September now, right?” “Dead middle of August.” Stephen grinned. “Just ‘cause your dad’s got a thing against calendars doesn’t mean you need to, too.” His grin widened at my glare, for a moment, before he fixed his face. “So, it’s not your home life, or memories of the not-so-recently departed... What’s on your mind, Jer?” I shot him a weak grin. “I was just thinking—” He nodded, disapprovingly. “Shove off,” I fake-snarled. “I was thinking about things like the present, the future…” “Sounds tense.” “Us.” I appreciated what he was trying to do, but it wasn’t the time for humor. Sure enough, Stephen sat up a little taller and folded his arms over his chest feathers. “Us? Anything I need to be wary of?” I shook my head. “Not really. We’re going as well as can be expected, correct?” “Yep.” He closed his eyes and wobbled his head. “And you’re worrying again. Stop it.” My arm shot out in a shrug. “How can I not?” “Easy.” He opened his eyes and leaned over to me, finally putting his arm around me in an embrace. Even though we were miles away from anyone, his voice dropped to a whisper that I could barely hear over the waves below. “I’ve told you a hundred times already, this ends in pain no matter what we do.” “That puts my mind at ease.” “It should.” Stephen shrugged. “I mean, imagine tomorrow, you decide to sever ties with your family for whatever reason, and we finally get the best-case scenario where we can spend the rest of our days traveling…” I pointed a finger at him. “That is your best-case scenario.” “Well, whatever you want that lets us be together, regularly, indefinitely, then.” He didn’t quite roll his eyes, but his half headshake served as a clear reminder that I didn’t have an answer to that question. The choice between Stephen and my family wasn’t open to compromise; I loved him and had a duty to them, so I was at an impasse. “Imagine, somehow, we get to live the rest of our days together, without secrets or crap like that. Even that ends, eventually.” My glare didn’t falter. “I still don’t see how that is supposed to make me feel better.” Stephen looked away, out to the sea in front of us. “Embrace death. Once you stop fighting the inevitable, you can enjoy the time before it.” That, however, took some of the harshness out of my gaze. “And that’s how you feel about us?” “Yeah, I…” His eye darted to me, then he turned the rest of his head. “Don’t look at me like that.” “You just said you don’t care this is going to end painfully.” “I didn’t say that.” He shook his head slowly. “Just because I know where this eventually goes doesn’t mean I’m not going to hate when it’s over.” “Which doesn’t worry you because…” “Why should I let ‘us’ end a million times in my head before it really happens?” I didn’t have an answer for him, which prompted Stephen to pull me closer to him and wrap his other arm around me. I didn’t return the hug, but I did pat his hand. Stephen chuckled. “Advice like that, and all I get’s a hand pat?” I scoffed, but not in a heated way. “Some advice.” I did my best to mimic his voice. “‘Feeling sad? Don’t worry; everyone you ever knew will eventually die, so none of this matters anyway’.” He laughed at that, and then slid himself around me so his stomach pressed against my spine. I felt heat involuntarily rise to my face as he pressed his hips forward to wrap his legs around mine. He completed the full-body embrace by resting his head on my neck. That close to him, in his arms, I felt some of my worries about the future vanish; for the present, things were nice, soft, and warm. Or so I thought. In his position, Stephen had enough leverage to grab my elbows and begin flopping my arms up and down in front of me. “‘My name’s Jerry,” he mocked in a falsetto, “I’m so used to everything being miserable, I’m afraid of anything that might change that.” Perhaps it was the absurdity of being turned into a griffin puppet, or maybe he’d finally broken through a gray shell in my mind, but I couldn’t suppress a grin. “I don’t sound like that.” Stephen dropped my arms and wrapped his hands around my stomach, pulling me back tighter. In my ear, he whispered, “Maybe not the voice. But don’t worry so much.” He burrowed his head deeper into my neck. “Okay?” He hit a reflexive nerve in my neck, so my head lurched over to rest on his. I kept it there, though, and I rested my hands on his. “I’ll try,” was all I could agree to. Maybe Stephen found it easy to dodge worries, but I still felt too burdened to fly as free as he did. I fell with Stephen as he leaned backwards and pulled me with him. His legs slid forward, spreading mine out forward too; in one fluid motion, we were lying down, with me on top, being held. Stephen's right hand began stroking its way down my stomach, which made me smile; I moved my arms to my sides so I wasn’t getting in his way. He pulled my left hand away, above both our heads. I rose when he drew a breath, and I melted down into him when he whispered, “I love you, Jer.” I clasped my left hand around his. For another fleeting moment, I knew why it was worth risking everything I was to be with Stephen. I closed my eyes and relaxed, trying to enjoy the moment. It was easier to do when we were together, and my doubts vanished when I could honestly say two words: “I know.”
ChangesIn the two years since I moved in to Farrington, I started to notice changes in my life. Some of them, I enjoyed—like how I smiled more, or how I got to visit Dash in her town more often. Some changes, I struggled with—like every new time I found myself blanking on a word or phrase from my first language. I only truly hated the worst ones, like how I no longer had a little audience waiting for me at the hospital. However, because I started off as an outsider, most of the changes in my daily routine were small, neutral changes. Things like Iron’s kitchen etiquette or reading a daily newspaper became part of who I was, but I didn’t violently resist those changes anymore. Somewhere, amidst all that change, I found a weird sense of stability. Being a Farrington Guard definitely fell in line with that rigid sense of flow. I had my normal day-to-day routine—fifteen laps plus paperwork at the end—but that gave way to more interesting days, when I did my part on Farrington Guard’s Special Operations Squad. F.G.S.O.S.—how it’d been engraved on my nifty silver-lined shoulderplates—was, in my ever-supportive boyfriend’s words, “a bruiser squad”. He’d taken it back once I mentioned I was invited and considering joining, but after working with them for over a year, I had to admit that it fit. One of the most notable changes in the city that I’d had a hand in causing happened within the organized crime element. Long story short, organized crime tried to deal me a dirty death, so I shot its balls off. Or one of them. Anyway, during the aftermath, things had quieted down on that front while the new players in the underground game set down new rules. Once their activities started to have an impact on civilians’ daily lives, the Farrington Guard put together F.G.S.O.S. Simply put, organized criminals liked to hole up in fortified houses, and it was our job to blast the door down and put an end to them. That was why, on August fifteenth, my patrolling partner and I didn’t return to our Guard-designated route after lunch. Instead, we headed into the hustle and bustle of ponies in the Market District. There was more than shopping going on that afternoon: A reliable, if anonymous, source had tipped the Guard off on an illicit gemcrafting operation that was taking place. On our way to the raid, I turned to Special-Sergeant Starfall and made conversation. “So, uh. Market District. That’s a weird place for criminals, isn’t it?” He turned his armored, navy blue head and stared at me for a few steps. “It isn’t unheard of, but yeah. I don’t like having to clean out my backyard.” That started a friendly, chatting debate of which district was best to live in—Starfall lived in the Market District, and I had a dusty apartment in the Business District since I spent most of my nights in the Residential District with Iron. It was easy to keep things light, since I really didn’t have a preference. If Iron lived in a shack in the Mining District, I’d probably end up calling that my home. Our conversation tapered off as we neared the staging area for F.G.S.O.S. It was, smartly enough, a coffee shop a few blocks away from the target building. The shop’s owner was the wife of a patrolling officer who didn’t mind closing her doors to help us out, which was how we all got free, fancy coffees as we planned out that afternoon’s attack. After getting briefed by our commanding officer, we had confirmation that the target building—an abandoned potted plant shop—had become the base of operations for some illicit unicorns who enchanted gems to hold dangerous and life-threatening spells. It was a weapons factory, where explosions were one of the more boring things that might happen, and we got to kick down the front door. Fun times. I wasn’t walking into the fire naked, though. After each run-in that I had with Farrington’s organized crime remnants, I’d made a habit of getting my armor repaired and retooled to better protect me from whatever I’d been unprepared for the last time. When I put my facemask down, unless some criminal got a very lucky tactical shot, I was bolt-proof, flame resistant, electrically grounded, and a whole bunch of other cool, expensive precautions. Regardless, according to my armor enchantment guy, there was only a certain amount of passive protection one could get against magic spells. Barging into a building full of weapons-grade unicorns crafting weapons-grade magic artifacts probably wasn’t smart to do solo, which was why I was part of a team of guards who barged into stuff. We got our orders and sub-team assignments, so Starfall and I made our way to one block north of the building. From our alleyway, we were hidden from the windows of the shop. I looked southeast, and after establishing visual contact with the eastern team, I patted Starfall on the shoulder. He used his signaling mirror to let the western team know we were in position. After a few seconds, the signal completed its relay when the eastern team gave me three flashes. Everyone was in position. The risky part of pre-breaching protocols was the importance of stealth and surprise. Even though the ten of us were technically sergeants, we wore mostly matte-gray armor that didn’t draw extra attention to us when we were on our normal patrols. Sure, our silver-lined shoulder pauldrons gave us away to anyone who looked closely, but when we were on patrol, we usually did a good job of blending into the background. However, when we’d set up a two-block perimeter around the building, it wouldn’t take the sharpest mind to realize that the only ten bodies in the street were Farrington Guard. Starfall and I moved up slowly, steadily, and silently—magic silently—to the building. We got to the door we were going to turn into a window, and Starfall did the “auditory confirmation of suspects’ presence”. Less fancily, he put his ear to the door and nodded. From whatever he’d heard, the bad guys were still inside and didn’t know we were coming. I pulled my physical signal flare off my belt and fired it up into the air. Unlike a fire-based flare, the thing I shot was a quiet, spring-loaded tube that shot a weighted cylinder up into the air. About five hundred feet up in the air, a little yellow parachute opened, and as I watched, three different-colored parachutes joined mine. Starfall and I switched positions, since this time, it was my turn to bust down the door. I had a gadget for that, too: a quintet of gems that magically grafted themselves to whatever surface they were on. I arranged them in a big X on the wooden door. The outer four glowed green, the inner one glowed red, and Starfall patted my butt. I slid my facemask down and poked the red gem. The five gems, when activated, abruptly clenched together like magnets. When attached to something like a wooden door, that had the added bonus of making it collapse on itself. Bits of wood flew out of the implosion, but I rushed through the ruined doorway and into the combat zone. Corners. Starfall and I had a system: whoever went into a room first went left, and the second one went right. Inside the shop, front was clear, so I turned left. A stallion was already closing in with a knife. I dove forward, clearing the doorway for Starfall in case someone was behind me. The stallion—beige guy with a death wish—swung down with his blade. I grabbed his wrist and stood up on my hind legs. As I lifted him, he grabbed my gauntlet with his free hoof. I punched him in the diaphragm and felt something inside him crack. Behind me, Starfall called, “Clear.” I dropped the body on the floor. I checked the rest of my side, then confirmed: “Clear.” We made our way through the rest of the ground level; the only other contact we had were the other team members. Upstairs, southeast team called out that it was clear, which left northwest teams to the basement. The five of us gathered around the trap door entrance to downstairs; breaching those was always tricky, especially after you lost the element of surprise on the primary entrance. On top of that, due to the volatile nature of everything down below, we couldn’t throw down anything like flash powder or stun gas canisters. Well, I mean, we could. There just wouldn’t be much building left afterwards. Starfall knelt down and put his ear to the door. “’S quiet. They’re waiting.” “How’re we gettin’ down there?” Scales—one of the members of west team—whispered. “How about down?” asked Aria, one of the two mares in F.G.S.O.S. We watched as she broke away from the group and set up her breaching gems on the floor. Vigil Lance, the third member of west team, went to stand behind her. Starfall caught on to what she was doing and loaded his breaching gems on the trapdoor. Scales started a countdown; Lance and I shared a nod. In unison, Starfall and Aria pulled a pin and dropped a null-magic grenade on their red gems. The floor and door shredded themselves, and the cooked bombs fell down. Commotion sounded from below, but got drowned out by two familiar wumpf sounds. Starfall, then me, then Scales went down our hole; when I landed, Starfall had a unicorn pinned to the wall by his throat. Scales took out a guy on our right with a mean one-two punch, which left me to rush further into the cramped hallway to deal with the asshole with a freaking mace. He didn’t have combat training, so I ducked his blow and stunned him with a sharp, armored palm to the nose. Moments later he was down; one after another, two male voices behind me sounded off: “On you.” The doorway at the end of the hallway led to the main basement room where Aria and Scales fell in from; left was clear, behind me, right was cleared, and the five of us stepped over three more subdued criminals. Cursory checks—corners, tables, and other hiding places; finally, we reached a consensus of “Clear.” The dank stone basement we were in had two tables that lined the opposite walls, and they were stocked with what looked like four runic workstations—they were different than what I’d seen in Twilight Sparkle’s library, but they had some of the familiar pieces: Metal clamps, magnifying glasses, and a platform of what I guessed was pewter, inset with solid gold circles and etchings. The five of us set to work binding the three unicorns in the basement area; soon after, they joined the trio in the hallway to make half a dozen tied-up wannabe warlords. Once the area was secure, Scales called up through the trapdoor, “Suspects cleared; checking the workshop.” The second, more tedious part of our job was a preliminary survey of a suspected crime scene. While dangerous, it’d let the higher-ups know if they needed to send a more specialized team, like a bomb squad, to secure the place for the detectives. Scales led us back into the large basement room. He headed over to the wall opposite the doorway, where crates were stacked, and he cracked one open with his multi-tool. I heard him chuckle in disbelief. “Shit, Star, take a look at this.” Those two were long-time friends, so all four of us took it as an invitation to walk over. Inside the crate was what had to have been at least a thousand pink gems. Starfall chuckled. “What’re garnets good for again? Love charms?” Scales passed him a clipboard. “Shipping manifest says red diamonds. From Stalliongrad.” A small wave of nausea hit me; from what little I knew about the rising amount of weaponized gems we were running into, diamonds had a massive capacity for whatever spell they were filled with, and they could blast it all out in a huge radius. I didn’t know what red meant, in terms of diamonds or spell potency, but I couldn’t imagine it meant good things for whomever they were used against. Worse, I knew enough about Stalliongrad’s criminal climate to hazard a guess as to who had sent those gems. We finished our quick, preliminary survey of the room; from what we didn’t find, it seemed that our breaching gem-grenade combos had been mostly unnecessary. Unless those criminals had been idiots of the highest caliber, none of the diamonds had been charged. Weaponized gems did not like to touch each other, and the remaining crates held many padded casings that hadn’t been filled yet. So, we’d taken unnecessary precautions, but no one had died—not even the assholes we’d plowed through to get down to the basement. From the hole in the ceiling, Red Field looked down at us and laughed. “You guys blew through the floor?” I nodded up at him. “And six bad guys.” On that note, we started the long and arduous process of removing the shop’s inhabitants from their not-so-fortressy workshop. Moving unwilling bodies meant a lot of heavy lifting, but everyone’s—or at least my—adrenaline was still pumping, which helped. After we left the shop, I jittered through most of my debriefing; finally, they let us go for an hour of personal leave to go eat, rest, clean up, or whatever. There’d be extra paperwork for all of us after our patrols, but our lieutenant knew better than to put the ten of us right back onto the streets without a little bit of a break. The ten of us split up as we walked farther away from the post-raid meeting. Six went to the team’s usual bar, Scales and Aria drifted somewhere to go celebrate his recent divorce, and Starfall and I walked together to the south. He had a habit of keeping his armor and equipment at the Guard’s Citadel, since he had three kids at home. My usual post-raid ritual involved going to Iron’s house during his lunch break. When Starfall and I reached the intersection where I turned to head that way, he gave me a knowing grin. “Well, uh… see you in an hour?” I nodded. “At the Citadel.” As we parted ways, I found myself smiling. In that city, even changes of pace like today held their own sense of familiarity. In a serene way, I was glad to be home there. Author's Note Ironically, this being the longest of the vignettes, I really don't have too much to say about this. Gilda's a badass, she spends her money getting more bad-ass. Possibly something that I didn't include in this or Hero is how Gilda and Starfall started a Guard-sanctioned "Fight Club", for lack of a better term. It's basically sparring to keep one's physical edge when it comes to combat, plus a few instructional lessons once every few weeks or so. Another thing would be the physical ways in which Iron and Gilda are beginning to affect one another (no, not that). For example, in this chapter, she's a lot more fond of routine and Farrington, and she's got a lot of memories of the city to reminisce about. Stuff I have planned that may or may not have made it in here are things like how Gilda does a storytelling thing for adults down at the library, or how Gilda's convinced Iron to grow out his mane a little. The main idea I wanted to convey with this was to attempt to write a military-esque action scene. Despite the stigma around them, I am somewhat of a fan of the first two Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. One of the abandoned ideas I had for Summer Days, during the chase between Gilda and Fast Hooves, was to cut away up to one of the watchtower as they're taking pockshots at Ms. Hooves. In the end, I cut that because (1) it would've really, really messed with the chapter's pacing and (2) I don't think I can do the AC-130 mission from CoD:4 justice.
BirthdayI spent my twenty-fifth birthday feeding the ducks and fish at Reservoir Park. It only cost two bits’ worth of seeds and pellets to let me sit on the bridge for an hour and feed the animals their dinners, but it was well worth the expense. It made me smile. Smiling was easy, because over time, it got easier to do. The grins I delivered the sergeants’ mail with made things happier around the Farrington Guard’s Citadel, which in turn made me glad—I didn’t fix everything, but positive changes usually began with a good mood! Below me, the ducks started to get ornery over their floating seeds. I tossed a few more hooffuls left and right to disperse the crowd, and their cute little quacks were all the thanks I needed. Some ponies thought I was weird. They were so concerned over growing and gaining—and I wished them the best; every pony deserved to be happy—so they wondered how I could be happy where I was. And sure, if I looked at it from their point of view, I could see it. I had a low-paying job that often sandwiched me between angry criminals’ families and Guard infighting. If I looked at it like that, it’d be harder to smile. That’s why I looked at it from my point of view, the Memo perspective. I saw the job as a necessary one for Farrington, and since I got picked for it, I did it as best I could at it. The money wasn’t as much as some council members or blacksmiths in the town, but it let me do my favorite things—like feeding the ducks. Daddy always taught me it was the little things in life that counted, and that made it easy to follow my mom’s advice of “always bring a smile” with you. Their card sat on my dresser, and I counted myself lucky that we were as close as we were. If you looked hard enough, there was always a reason to smile, and I’d gotten pretty good at it during my life so far. Now, that wasn’t to say I didn’t want anything more. Wants were a normal part of life, so denying them wasn’t going to make me any happier in a real way. However, with most of the things I wanted in my life, I gave a little tug and waited to see if they’d follow along. Sometimes, I doubted my convictions, since my nights always seemed to end days in the same way: me, in my affordable apartment, in a lonely bed. Each year, I started out with resolve to find that special stallion. Usually by April, I’d gone through two or three attempts to date someone; the stallions I always found seemed to be either assertive jerks who didn’t care about my front half, or worse, the self-proclaimed “nice guys” who weren’t as “shy” as they were self-absorbed and tactless. It usually hurt to break things off—temporarily. I’d rather endure a week where it was harder to smile than end up trapped in a lifelong relationship I didn’t want. Usually, the stallions understood, and some of them were still friends with me. One of my first and worst experiences with dating was the spring before I turned seventeen, when a guy wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. After I told him I didn’t think things were working out, he’d crept around and followed me places, like where I shopped, and my parents’ house. Those were some of the scariest, sleepless, tear-streaked weeks of my life, since I didn’t know where he was going to show up. It’d all ended when he cornered me, one time, in an empty street in the Business District. Things escalated, and I grew more and more afraid of what he was going to do to me… Then, he hit me. A bolt of blue and silver flashed down from the sky like lightning. I’d barely blinked away tears, and in front of me, one of the six A.P. guards had pinned my ex-boyfriend and current-stalker up against the building by his neck. Very plainly, over my ex’s whimpering, that guard told him that if he ever laid a hoof on me or anyone else, he’d be lucky if he ended up in Farrington General. That was when I both met and fell head-over-hooves for Sergeant-turned-Lieutenant-turned-Acting Captain-turned-Lieutenant-turned-Officer-turned-Special Sergeant Starfall. Those were all of his official titles I could ever remember his mail being addressed to, anyway; whoever planned things out in the Farrington Guard hadn’t done a very stable job with him. At least they were nicer than the names his wife called me. And I knew it was wrong, having a crush on a married stallion. Heck, it was unfair to him, with how rough his relationship with his wife had been ever since her accident. I tried to keep my feelings under wraps, but after Starfall got promoted to lieutenant and we started being forced into contact more and more, he immediately caught on that I “acted weird” around him. It wasn’t until the end of the year, at the Hearth’s Warming Eve party where I loaded up on punch and kissed him under the mistletoe, that he realized why. Despite the guilt, I smiled at the memory of that kiss and the sudden, shocked, cute expression he’d made. The aftermath had been profound. After a few awkward months of neither of us talking to each other, I broke down and apologized. He’d scooped me in a friend hug, as he’d called it—and I remembered how good he smelled—while giving me a long explanation of why things couldn’t and wouldn’t work out between us. In the years after that talk, I’d tried to abide by his rules. My crappy dating luck hadn’t quite helped me move on, though, and even almost five years after that Hearth’s Warming party, I still felt butterflies in my stomach whenever he so much as walked by my desk and said, “Hey, Memo.” I tried to think of things in a positive note. Part of me was glad that I knew him, even if we could never be together. Even if it hurt, he still made me smile—just once we were apart. And certainly, someone out there was waiting for me; I just had to find him. I tossed the rest of my fish pellets down to the pond. Below the surface, a frenzied swarm of fins rushed to the sudden boon. They were so pretty like that, especially when the sun caught their scales and they glistened. It made me smile, and that was enough to get my thoughts back to bright places—like the weather. Farrington got most of its weather naturally, since the Sharptalon Woods to the east and south were big and wild enough to make it hard for any long-term weather planning. When it was the best type of sunny bright, breezy cool weather on my birthday, it made me feel blessed. But even rainy days could be good, if I sat by the window to watch the rain pattering against the glass. The clock tower struck six, which told me I’d been in the park for close to an hour. I liked feeding the aquatic animals, but now it was time for my dinner. My favorite restaurant was offering “super salads” that week, as kind of an inside joke about customers who got confused about the available options for the first course. After throwing my seed and pellet bags away, I sauntered out of the park and made a beeline for the Business District. The whole way there, I got to watch the various ponies as they went throughout the city for their evening activities. I liked the smiles and general warmth of almost everyone; of course, in the entire city, a few individuals and couples weren’t enjoying my birthday as much as I was. “Hey, Memo!” A familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find Starfall, off-duty and naked, waving at me from the side of the road. I walked over to him, trying to tell my face to stop flushing and my belly to stop doing flops. No part of me listened except my hooves, when I stopped three feet in front of him—conversational space, but not too personal. I forced myself to mumble, “Hi.” Starfall raised an eyebrow then bobbed his head. After his little deliberation, he asked, “How’s your evening going?” The back of my throat dried out, painfully. I didn’t want to make things awkward or sad for Starfall by telling him I was going to a restaurant, alone, on my birthday. I hadn’t made a big deal about the day to any of my friends or coworkers, but I was okay with a good meal at my favorite restaurant. I didn’t know how much of that Starfall would understand. I wasn’t going to test it, either. He’d asked the question platonically, like we were friends. But… I couldn’t do that. Not with him. The best happiness I could give him was to nod back a lie. “Y…yeah, I’m meeting up with some friends for dinner. After that, I dunno…” I shrugged. “But it’s a night out with friends, right?” Starfall smiled. “That it is.” His eyes moved up to the clock tower behind me. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going… I’m late enough as it is.” Through the nausea, I grinned and lifted a hoof to wave a tiny goodbye. “Good evening.” “You too.” He nodded before walking away from me. Then, from behind me, he called out, “And Memo?” I turned around. He grinned at me. “Happy birthday.” It made me smile. Author's Note I suck at writing happy characters. I mean, I like Memo. She's one of those types who doesn't let things get her down very easily. Even when Gilda mangled Starfall, Memo was... kind of curt with her, but still helpful. But I admire Memo's perspective in life—focus on what you've got, and enjoy it. It's what I try to do, and it's been working out for me. I also like the idea of her going to the park and feeding ducks. It's a somewhat authoritative position, but she still does it with kindness. (Central image / idea, here). As for her doomed crush on Starfall... yeah. Maybe I'm too cruel to my characters. But she'll find someone single soon enough, I'm sure.
HeroThe evenings after a successful S.O.S. raid, I had my routine just like everyone else on the squad. At five o’ clock in the afternoon, we were done with our patrols; before we could leave, we had one last debriefing from our lieutenant, paperwork, one drink at the bar as a squad, and then, finally, the walk home. I didn’t know what lay in store for them after we parted ways, but when I walked through my front door, I got the same thing I got every night I returned home: A hero’s welcome. No one came to greet me in the hallway, but that wasn’t what I needed. I smelled dinner cooking, so I stepped into the kitchen. In there was my wife, Comet, caught in her usual dance of caring for a fussy Corona and a trio of bubbling pots. My wife looked up briefly from the high chair and stove, nodded at me, and smiled. “Hey you.” “Hey yourself.” I smiled back at my wife and picked up our tiny daughter—yet, I reminded myself, she was almost twelve months old now. Corona calmed down from whatever was bugging her as I gently bounced her on my shoulder. To Comet, I asked, “How’re you two doing?” “Surviving.” She mocked strain in her voice, but still lowered it before turning her full attention to our dinner. “How many weeks until school starts again?” I coddled our youngest for a moment before answering, “Eleventeen.” That made Comet to slowly look at me, hiding a chuckle in her raised eyebrow. “What?” I shrugged my non-childbearing shoulder. “You’re the one with a fancy high school degree. They never taught my class the fancy stuff like numbers, or counting…” All Comet did was shake her head and chuckle at the stove. She stirred something that looked like sauce before changing the subject: “Dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so if you want your shower…” I put Corona back in her high chair before nodding. “I do.” Deeper in the house, in our living room, my other two kids were busy playing a board game. Moonshine was facing me, so he smiled and waved first. “Hi dad!” Hailey turned around to smile at me as I walked over to their game. I wasn’t well-versed with the rules enough to know who was winning—when we played inside, I usually let my kids tell me who won and when—so I just smiled and loomed over them. “You two playing nice?” I put a hint of warning into my voice; on Tuesday, things had apparently gotten violent between them. “Yeah.” Hailey nodded. “Mmhmm.” Her brother agreed. “Come play with us!” I nodded. “I’ve got to clean up for dinner, so after we eat.” A pause, then I added: “Unless your mom’s got chores for me. Then after that.” They sounded a little disappointed at that, and I was, too, but a little disappointment built character—or at least patience. Plus, S.O.S. raid or no, I’d been out in a metal suit in a hot city for most of the day; there was a practical matter to my post-shift shower. Once I made it to the bathroom, I started the water and grinned. When it was hot enough, I climbed in the tub, closed the curtain, turned the shower on, and lay down on my back. As the warmth washed over my abdomen and carried away most of the day’s stress, I tried to remember who first gave me the idea for showering like that. It wasn’t Iron; he didn’t have a shower. My dad would’ve thought the whole thing wasteful, given how tight our budget had been growing up. It wasn’t Comet, since she couldn’t lie on her back. That left someone in the Guard, but as I inhaled the steam from my hot torrent, I found it harder and harder to care about anything in particular. For twenty minutes, I lay like that, and I was the happiest stallion in the world. I had my wife, my kids, my home… and that was something worth fighting for. Every day in the Artisan District, I potentially put my life on the line patrolling the roughest part of a rough city. I was beginning to notice that I was starting to get older, too: injuries stayed longer than they used to, and it took more and more sparring in the ring to keep my reflexes razor-sharp. One day, I would have to admit that I couldn’t keep going; else I would die learning that lesson. For the time being—at least for the next few years or so—I had all the motivation I needed. I was a protector of the peace and avenger of the innocent. When I came home to four of the ponies who meant the world to me, all I needed was the knowledge that I’d helped keep their city safe for them for one more day. That was my hero’s welcome. It wasn’t as dramatic as Walhall or some of the other parts of her culture that my partner talked about, but my reward was a lot more grounded in reality. Though, in her defense, it didn’t sound like she literally believed her myths and legends. However, I’d never found it in me to ask, “Do you really believe that?” Given our history, it might come off as offensive. That made me grin. Even two years after meeting Gilda, I found it weird how much I trusted a griffin, of all things. But that was part of who she was, just like I was a pegasus, and I’d honestly given up counting the times we’d saved each other’s lives. The bathroom door opened, which brought me back down from gods and philosophy. Down on earth, Comet poked her head through the shower curtain at my feet. She looked down at me, shook her head, and withdrew. Moments later, her head popped through the curtain on the other end of the tub, and she smiled down at me. Hot cascades of water matted her mane down to her head, and I slicked it back as she leaned down into a kiss. I held her there as long as I could—her presence only improved my nirvana—but she pulled up out of my loose grip before things went too far. When she spoke, her voice was quiet: “Dinner’s ready.” I nodded up at her. “Thanks.” There, in the bathroom, was probably some of our only private day time together. She knew it, too, which let her bring up some of the things we never talked about in front of our kids. “Did everyone make it out okay?” Another quick nod. “Yeah. We hit ‘em before they even set up shop; hard and fast. Never saw us coming. No deaths on either side.” Comet, as a rule, didn’t like violence. I had to admit, too, that she was right to fear that one day, I’d end up on the wrong end of it. At the same time, I was one of the few guards who could actually handle the rigors of S.O.S. I owed them what I could give, and anything less would be a shortcoming to my duty to the Guard. So while I wouldn’t say she liked the idea of me getting suited up and knocking down criminal organizations, Comet at least understood why I had to. That was what I saw in her little nod back down at me before she added, “I’m glad.” I turned the shower off with my back hoof and used my front limbs to pull myself up into a sitting position. Once I was eye-level with Comet, I grinned. “Truth be told, there isn’t any real danger with Iron’s fiancée there—” “He asked her?” Comet’s eyes lit up. I shook my head. “No, not yet, but ‘as soon as the time is right’. With him, that means he’s decided on it, but it’ll be like a week to six years before he does it.” She chuckled, so I continued, “But yeah. She broke a guy’s ribcage. So that’s gonna be in the news, despite how the guy was rushing her with a knife.” Comet stared flatly at me. “Assaulting a griffin? Do these criminals ever learn?” “I know, right?” I shrugged. “And with a knife? Who does that?” She didn’t find it as amusing as I did, which put an end to our little tub talk. Comet grabbed her towel and started drying her mane; I followed her lead and got out to start drying my coat off. When we were both presentable, Comet lingered by the door for just a moment. I walked up and turned to face her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our fogged-up reflections in the mirror over the sink; her green blur leaned up to my blue one as I leaned down— Knocking interrupted us. “Mom, are you in there?” Hailey asked through the door. Comet failed at hiding her agitation in a stretched out, “Yep.” “Can we eat soon? I’m hungry!” “In a minute. Get your brother and set the table.” “’K.” I waited for a moment before saying something to Comet; in that time, she leaped up and gripped my neck with hers in a hug. I ran a hoof down her back, pulling her closer; she craned her head back to give me a quick peck on the lips. After she dropped back down to the floor, I offered my right foreleg to her, just like at our wedding. “Shall we?” She linked her arm in mine and nodded. “We shall.” I mouthed the door open, and the two of us walked to dinner together. It was all the hero’s welcome I could ever ask for. Author's Note I think out of all my ponies, Starfall's probably my favorite OC. I mean, he's (loosely) based off Elliot Stabler from Law and Order: SVU (whose departure from that show made me quit watching)—the well-meaning cop with a rough streak and a tough marriage. Is he an asshole? Unapologetically, when the need arises. But as weak of a character I wrote Iron Bulwark as, Starfall's there to be both the villain and the friend, and I like the way he does it. Even when he's like... borderline sexually harassing Gilda. He's not a perfect character, morally, in Summer Days. Anyway, I like this vignette as an "end" for Starfall. Meaning, unless I introduce more conflict into his life, he's basically in a good place and going to stay there for the rest of his pony life. More practically, I have absolutely no plans to write anything from his perspective ever again. It makes me glad to think about him, throughout the next few months or years, risking his life for F.G.S.O.S., but coming home to a hero's welcome. The main thing I wanted to write with this was showing how Starfall's home life is healing. I like the image of him, in a self-made rainfall, looking up at his wife, who's smiling down at him. It's not sexual or anything; I'm just glad that against the odds they made for one another, they ended up happy together.
DistanceI enjoyed my walks home with Short Order. Summer evenings in Hoofington tended to be warm, and the setting sun’s glow was just enough to navigate home by. The tidy cobblestone roads weren’t packed; there were enough ponies out that it felt safe. Still, Short was a gentlecolt, for better or worse. Ever since our first date at his restaurant, he insisted on walking me home. Even though he was barely six months older than me, he held an old-fashioned sense of honor about that sort of thing. “Did you enjoy dinner, Max?” He tilted his head to look at me while we walked. I smiled up at him; he’d decided against using my nickname four months ago. After my initial push, though, I didn’t really mind. “Yep. Reminds me of the first time I had Canternese.” We walked together in quiet; part of what I liked about Short was that he didn’t need to fill every waking second with chatter. I liked being around him. However… As we turned through intersections and walked our familiar path, it started happening again. Or at least, I noticed it between us: Distance. We were two ponies, out on a date. We’d been dating for months at a pretty steady rate without any major personality hiccups. I liked him, and from the vibe he gave me, he liked me back. But, he had some pathological fear of contact or something. Oh, if I pointed it out, he’d drape a hoof over me and we’d walk in a romantic embrace. I liked it there. For my first boyfriend and real shot at a relationship, his presence was more than comfortable. He was fit, he was gentle, and he smelled nice; the problem came from how I had to initiate any sort of contact. I closed the gap between us during a right-hoof turn. Just like always, he started walking three-legged to hold me as we walked the final leg of our journey. My apartment complex was a two-story house whose paint complimented the tiny evergreens that framed the front door. There was a cozy little landing outside the front door, where visitors could ring a bell and wait to be greeted; it was in that landing where Short and I had what I knew was going to be the same conversation as always. “I’m glad you enjoyed tonight.” He smiled as he took his hoof off my shoulder. I returned his smile and tilted my head in. “It was fun.” After a pause came the same question as usual: “Do you wanna come in for a little bit?” The same headshake answered. “Thanks, but I have to get up early tomorrow.” I tried not to let it bother me. He did work mornings in his restaurant, the one he owned. He had responsibilities. Or heck, maybe he was just really, really clueless about dating. Still, I couldn’t keep making excuses for him. I had a job that needed me to get up early. If he didn’t know what I meant by “come in for a little bit”, I wasn’t going to bend over and show him, either. It’d been a year since I last went to Stalliongrad and drowned myself in mindless, drunken fun with a local stallion or two; in that time, I liked to think I’d earned back some self-esteem. Yet, every time Short turned down my offer or I had to ask him to hold my hoof or hug me… I sighed, out loud. It hurt. “Is everything all right?” I grinned and shook my head. “I’m not sure, Short. Is there something wrong?” After a few flustered blinks, he stammered, “I… I’m…” He frowned and then gave up. “Huh?” My hoof pointed up at the direction of my unit; of the four apartments that made up my building, it was the one on the top left. “You… do know what I’m really asking about, right?” He nodded, and his cheeks reddened. Good grief. I let my hoof fall and tried to keep my frustration off my face. “But every time, you say no…” I paused before shrugging. “Why?” Short swallowed, hard, but his voice actually cracked as he answered, “Because, I… I like you. A lot.” We’re the same age, we’re the same age… I repeated a little mantra in my head. My bottom eyelids rose as I pointed out, “That’s a weird way of expressing that.” “I mean, I don’t want to…” He brushed the back of his head and looked away. “Be… awkward.” “Well we are past that point.” I bit off the last few words, but I tried to do it in a light, friendly manner. He shook his head and looked down. “Well it’s…” The rest of whatever he said got lost to mumbles. Then, it hit me like a dead fish. I kept my hoof on the ground instead of smacking myself for not seeing it sooner: “You’re a… you haven’t been with anyone before, have you?” He kept staring at the ground, but offered a tiny sideways twitch of his head. I chewed my tongue as I thought about how I wanted to play this out. Finally, I shrugged. “So?” Short looked back up at me. “I… you just asked. Doesn’t that—” “Explain some things?” I nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I asked. But I don’t really care, at the end of the night. If we’re in this for the long haul, there’s got to be a bit of a learning curve as we figure each other out.” For a moment, I thought I’d convinced him. Then, Short’s lips thinned as he once again shook his head no. “I don’t want to rush things. I like what we’ve got.” “I don’t!” The words slipped out suddenly, and Short looked as surprised as I felt. A moment’s thought confirmed it, though, and I continued, “I mean, I really like you. You’re fun to spend time with, smart without being nerdy…” I trailed off, not wanting to do the whole cliché of listing all his good points before a criticism. Instead, it was time for a confession: “I hate sleeping alone. Like…” I waved a hoof, trying to dispel just how slutty that sounded. “I’ve got this like heated pillow thing, and that helps, but it’s not the same as knowing that someone’s there.” “I…” Short crooked his head to the side. “You want me to sleep with you? Like, literally?” “And in the sexy sense.” I chuckled. “I want the whole package.” He grinned lightly before it faded. “But, uh… how many stallions have you been with?” “I dunno. Like, fifty? Sixtyish?” “Sixty?!” His mouth hung open, and his wide, judgmental eyes seemed to bore a hole in me. Or maybe that was just the pain I felt. Far too late, Short righted his face and tried to recover. “I mean... how—er, when?” “Before I met you,” I cut back. “So if that’s a problem—” “No!” He shook his head, wide-eyed. “I mean... it’s just... surprising, is all.” “How?” “Because you seem... quieter, than that, is all.” He lifted a shoulder. My glare softened, but I still kept it sharp. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Short flapped his mouth open and shut a few times. Finally, he shook his head. “I... the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve been this quiet mare. I guess you’re a bit more… driven, with the physical side of things, but I…” He trailed off, bobbing his head a little. “I mean, what happened?” “Does it really affect you, even?” I tilted my head. He nodded. “I mean, if there’s like a health issue…” “No.” I shook my head and sighed, and my glare left with my breath. “I was always careful about that.” He took a few steps towards me and placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Then it doesn’t bother me.” Weakly, I grinned up at him. “You know, for a while, it bothered me, and I was the one doing it.” That caused his head to turn. “Then why’d you do it?” “It was fun. Exciting.” I shrugged. “Dangerous. Some nights, I really, really asked myself that same question, and I hated myself because I couldn’t bring myself to stop.” Short pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything. I shook my head. “But that’s all in the past now. I won’t really apologize for it, since I didn’t really do anything wrong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t carry a few regrets.” I blinked and locked eyes with my boyfriend. “And I know it’s not fair to you, but every time you turn me down, every time you just let that distance between us, it’s like there’s a completely new source—” He pulled me in and kissed me. Our tongues flecked over each others’ at first, and then I pressed farther into him as the embrace continued. Things only came to an end a few moments later, when Short pulled away for air and whispered, “I’m sorry…” “Don’t be; you didn’t know.” He nodded before kissing me on the cheek. After that, an awkward silence fell over us; it almost felt like we were waiting for each other to say something. At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, or what he might be waiting for, but then I chuckled and shook my head. It was obvious. “Do you want to come in?” For the first time, Short nodded. “I… uh… yeah. So… lead the way?” I turned around and lightly smacked his snout with my tail. I might’ve sauntered in a more pronounced manner as I led him through the apartment building’s entrance and up the staircase, but I was okay with that. After our little argument, a little bit of leading would work wonders to get us into the mood. And as it turned out, Short was pretty decent at following my lead. Author's Note I don't know when Seattle_Lite started the joke that Maxie's got a thing for her older brother, but damned if I'm going to stop giving her boyfriends that resemble him in one way or another. I mean, that's something straight out of Freud (girls wanting a boyfriend like their father ), and even if Freudian psychology is outdated, I still like the trope. Anyway, despite her choice in stallions, Maxie, too, has grown in the two in-story years since Evening Flames. She doesn't quite fight herself anymore, which has allowed her to firmly grasp who she is and change the parts of her she wants to. I like the idea of her sleeping with a body pillow—it shows that, even with her wild streak in Stalliongrad for a few years, she was only ever doing it because she wants intimacy and is really, really bad at showing it. The fact that, during the last sentence of this vignette, she screws the everloving virginity out of Short Order... Well, there's nothing wrong with liking sex. Unless you're a rapist. Then that's bad.
