When the Plot Met the Clop and Neither Cared

I sneer and push the glass determinately away.

“You should’ve asked me before poisoning him.”

“I never poisoned anypony,” she says, clearly offended by the notion. “Not anypony I couldn’t have cured, anyway.” The leftover glass hits the table. Apparently the invite is still open: she’d have drunk it otherwise.

“It has been awhile since you brought a stallion this far,” she notes.

“It has been a while since you were out of the house for the night. Or at least should have been.”

“That’s a lame excuse and you know it. Now, did he pass all the tests or did you finally give them up?”

Briefly I consider the option that she played Freight out of the picture in order to talk with me. The proposition is not entirely ridiculous. After all, under all the glitter, self-esteem and parties, under all the Cy’, there rests Cyclone Skyfall, an heiress to a commercial empire. At times I get a glimpse of her. On every such occasion, I get the nasty feeling that everything I know about Cy’ is what Cyclone wants me to know about her.

“For all it’s worth to you, he has been a most pleasant company for the whole evening. Considering that, a chemical knockout is a poor reward.”

“Oh, he’s still conscious all right, but not in the way he has ever known. I think it has something to do with the herbs I got from that zebra; she said they’re meant for shamans who wish to travel into the spirit world.”

“Luna’s craters…”

“I know: cool, huh?” She giggles, way too girlishly to sound real. “So you’ll keep him, then?”

“If his brain hasn’t fried as we speak, I might very well extend his probation time, yes.”

She sighs. To my annoyance, the disappointment sounds very real. “That’s a bucked-up way to think, you know that?”

“For a pony who spends half of her waking hours in partying, that’s quite the statement.”

“And stop averting the topic. You ain’t going to scheme your way out this now.”

We are treading on unfamiliar ground. It’s not like Cy’ to indulge in my affairs this hard. Distrurbingly, it’s not like Cyclone either, as far as I know.
“Scheming?” I answer meekly. “Such a nasty thing to say to a friend.”

“See? You’re doing it again: hiding behind your little strategies. That’s all you do when anypony gets close enough.”

I frown. Where the hay did that come from? “Where the hay did that come from?”

She pauses. “Well, technically I’m supposed to be your personal assistant. But lately I’ve come to think that all I ever do for you is to fly to the work with you.” Another pause, accompanied by what I can only imagine is the sound of Freight drooling. “To be frank, it’s all you ever let me do for you.”

Has she been talking with her mother again? “And I originally accepted you exactly because I was sure you’d be just as content with that state of affairs as I’d be.”

She pauses again. Is she trying to sound more serious that way?

“I just want to help you, Snowy. We all do.”

Ah, and “we” would really mean your mother and her bad conscience. One would think that she’d have gotten over the whole thing already years ago. I know I did.

“And I appreciate that help more than you know. There’s no reason, not from anypony’s part, to make me stop appreciating it.” I stand up. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed. Good night.”

“What about him?” she asks.

Ah, yes, I knew I had forgotten something. “You tell me. Is it safe to leave him on the couch for the night?”

“If nopony puts a pillow on his face.”

“I trust that nopony will. Get a blanket for him, will you? The night is chilly.”

I get upstairs, to my room behind the blue door and to the bed. The sleep comes not long after.

***

Half an hour after Snowdrop got to her room, I sneak behind it to listen. No sound carries from the other side, not for another five minutes. It’s unlikely that she’d fake that long, or that she suspects anything in the first place, but with Snowy, you can never be too sure. A sphinx with dementia would be easier to read.

As I get downstairs, Freight looks at me. “She fell asleep already?”

“Not so loud,” I whisper. “Let’s get outside.”

“But it really is chilly outside.”

“It’ll be the new ice age inside if we wake her up. Come already. And take that note with you.”

“What, this?” he picks up a small piece of paper from the floor. It reads, with hasty hoofwriting: “Drink this and play dead.”

“Yes. Throw it over the edge.”

He does, right as we get outside. The wind catches it immediately and runs away with it. In seconds, it’s lost forever. I wish the same could be said for the memory of it.

“So… How did I do?” he asks.

I shrug. It’s the most honest answer I can give. “She brought you home, so that’s a start. But it’ll take more than that to get to the next level.”

“Which is…?”

“You’ll know when you get there.”

Her rolls his eyes. “She seems nicer than you told me. How long do we need to keep playing?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Right.”

I look at him in the pale moonlight. He does seem to be a bit on the edge. “You would’ve wanted to screw her, wouldn't you?”

He glances at me quickly. “Yeah, so? Who wouldn’t? I know you do, too.”

“But you remember that we can’t, right?”

“Right,” he echoes, turning his eyes away. “I remember that much.”

“‘Cause if she gets laid, it’s the end of the story,” I go on. “The last line; the end-stop.”

“Jeez, sis… It’s like we never talked about this before.”

“Just preparing you for the future, bro. It’ll get bad, mark my words. And you’re not exactly the hardest sale on the market, figuratively speaking…”

“Hey, I got this. You know I once spent a whole month without sex?”

“Without clopping, too?”

“You crazy?”

I shake my head. “You don’t get it. Whenever somepony, anypony, gets an orgasm, the story ends. You cum, you’re no more. Blow somepony and you blow the whole world. Capish?”

He is quiet for a long while. “We’re screwed.”

“Not if we play it by the script. But for that, the story needs to finish properly. All we need to do is play for time.” I put a encouraging hoof on his shoulder. “Every clopfic has a plot, every one. It may be thin, it maybe about a housewife opening the door for the mailpony, but it’s there. That’s why they’re called a clopfics. All we need to do is live to see the end of it.”