As Ye Sew, So Shall Ye Rip

As Ye Sew So Shall ye Rip

A Coco Pommel in the Vogonverse Tale

The Morning After

(Ten Minutes Outside of Las Vegas)

I woke up the next morning feeling stiff, a little cool, and a bit out of sorts. The memory of the night I had spent with Miles came back to me. I’d spent the night, in the back of the pick-up truck he had rented, and watched the stars with him until we both fell asleep. I could feel something poking me right beside my tail. My clothes were still on, my panties had never left me, and instead I was simply greeted with the presence of Miles’ morning visitor. A soft chuckle escaped me, and instead I snuggled myself against him.

I wanted to take things slow, but I wasn’t a prude. I filed this under a chance to be close to him without taking that one final step. His arm slipped around my waist, and I felt him pulling me close.

“Morning,” he groggily said.

I felt two lips touching the back of my head through my mane. I was determined to take this slow, to not simply be a causal roll in the hay. I wanted to build a relationship with him, and after seeing how sweet, understanding, and kind he truly was, I felt determined to work on this. The only thing about him, about Miles, that I didn’t like was his profession, but I more than realized that we, all of us, are more than what we do. Miles himself may be in a brutish profession, but it doesn’t define him as a brute.

It gave way to the thought of potential foals, scampering around, hanging off their father, and him playing with them, being part of their lives, and never, ever hurting them. I put the thought away. It was early, far too early, to be thinking about foals. Instead I wanted to enjoy the moment I was having with my coltfriend. A moment that seconds later was ruined by the thunderous sound of my stomach rumbling. There it was. The sound of hunger, the need for food, and the single most embarrassing way to ruin what was otherwise a beautiful and romantic moment.

I expected to hear a laugh, but instead I felt the arm on my waist tighten. The body behind me shifted, and I could feel the muscular chest of my coltfriend completely against my back.

“It might be time for us to get some breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I could go for some pancakes, or waffles, either would work,” he said.

Waffles, oh the buttery goodness of blueberry waffles. In Manehattan I had often visited Short Stack’s House of Waffles, and when I did I would order a short stack from Short Stack. “Waffles sound good,” I admitted.

Slowly I could feel him starting to sit up, pulling me up into a sitting position with him. The night had been calm, beautiful, and the morning was more of the same. The tracks created from our drive out here still lay behind us. Miles slowly got up, got out of the bed of the pickup truck, and then he held out his hand to me. I walked over, took his hand, and climbed out behind him. The two of us got into the cab, and he started it.

We drove back toward Las Vegas, and I looked to see him looking at the buildings and shaking his head. After a few moments his eyes widened, and he pointed to a yellow and brown building standing alongside some of the bigger buildings. It was almost comical in the sense of its size compared to those around it, but we soon pulled into its parking lot.

“It’s been forever since I’ve been in a Waffle House,” he said.

We walked into the building and I could smell the delicious fragrance of blueberry waffles drifting over to me.

The drive back into town was mostly silent. I don’t know if I blame Coco and all for this. It was a romantic night, an even more romantic date, and if her stomach hadn’t declared its intentions, it would have been a romantic morning. I didn’t know Vegas well enough to know where the nearest IHoP was, so I was driving around aimless. I was lost, even more so because I refused to use GPS service; I had one of those once and I was even more lost with it than without.

It would have been a fruitless morning searching if I hadn’t figuratively stumbled on a Waffle House just as I was turning off The Strip. The place was rather comical, considering the glitz of Las Vegas; the building was understated and homely compared to the monuments of man’s excess everywhere else. It was early enough in the morning where none too few parking spaces were open. I slotted my Ram into a rank just opposite the front door and helped Coco out of the cab.

“Can I ask you something?” Coco wondered.

“You already did,” I joked, “but go ahead and ask.”

She smiled, so sweet and innocent, asking, “Why do you drive such a big carriage?”

“You mean my truck?” I clarify.

She nods, so I answer, “I live in Colorado. Plenty of mountains out that way, and paved roads are too few. As ungainly as it looks, this old Ram can take the trails and foothills like a champ. Sure, it’s too big for most any city driving, but given what I haul in the bed, it works for me.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I answer, “I tend to buy a lot of lumber. You can’t haul that up a mountain in a Ford Taurus. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

She gave a small, and gentle, laugh as we walked into the Waffle House. The smell instantly hit us. It had been years, several years, since I’d been in a Waffle House, I wasn’t kidding about that, but even with having been so long those smells were exactly the same as I remembered. We found a seat in a booth, and I touched the menus. Like I remembered, they were clean, but some of the old sticky residue from the various customers holding the menus in syrup covered hands still remained.

Coco touched it, sniffed the menu, and a small smile crossed her face. She looked like the scent and the touch of the menu was bringing back pleasant memories.

“Reminds of you someplace?” I asked.

She nodded, “Mmm, it does. There was a place in Manehattan called Short Stack’s House of Waffles. The menus remind me of that place.”

I grinned, but it wasn’t because I was trying to be overly polite. No, I grinned because the touch, the smells, and hopefully the taste of the place reminded me of Jared. The old boxer had been like a father to me, and every morning he had a ritual of taking me to the Waffle House down near his gym. He liked to visit them because while they were part of a national brand they were independently ran.

“Getting breakfast here means that the money goes out and makes sure that several folks in this town get to have breakfast as well,” he had told me so long ago.

The waitress, a young griffiness helpmate, walked toward us and smiled as she asked what we’d like to order. I ordered a cup of coffee, two sugars, no cream, and a single peanut butter waffle. Coco looked at the menu, a small furrow formed on her brow and she looked at the waitress, “Can I make a special order?”

“Of course, what would you like?” she asked.

“I’d like a short stack of blueberry waffles, with honey butter, and blueberry syrup. I’d also like to order an orange juice,” she replied.

The waitress nodded, took our order back up to the kitchen and suddenly I heard something of an excited shout. There was a bit of an argument, for only a moment, but after about ten minutes I could hear someone heading toward our table. Coco’s eyes widened, her smile brightened, and the moment our food was set down I watched as my date, my marefriend, jumped up out of the booth and hugged the stallion carrying the food to us.

“Short Stack!!!!” she shouted.

“Coco, it’s damned good to see ya! Youse is the only one that ever ordered those blueberry waffles like that! How’s it been, and who’s the stallion?” he asked.

Coco looked at me and I nodded, I didn’t see any harm in an old friend joining us for a bit.

“Shorty,” Coco began, “this is Miles Malone. Miles, this is the owner of the diner I told you about, Short Stack.”

Short Stack was a unicorn stallion, but a unicorn in name only. Sure, he had the horn, but the rest him was fit enough for professional wrestling, the old school World Wrestling Federation style stuff Jared used to show me on his old Zenith CRT. A barrel chest, bulging biceps under cook’s whites, a neck thick and corded with tendons, all of it paired to a honey colored mane and sandy brown coat. One of his beefy hands was held out to shake; I took it, wincing when his palm tried to crush my own.

“Miles, is yah?” Short Stack asked, “And jes how many did yah run?”

Short and Coco laughed at his joke.

“No, seriously, how are yah, little colt,” Short said, “Ah ain’t seen Coco take a stallion before. You gotta be s’methin’ special to be keepin’ my filly’s eye.”

I smiled and shook my head, “I’m doing okay, but I don’t know about anything special. I just know that when I met her that I needed to get to know her.”

There was a smile that crossed his face that seemed surprised, well surprised and pleased. He patted my shoulder, “That’s a good answer. I wouldn’t youse ta go thinking than youse was Celestia’s gift to mares everywhere. A stallion like that wouldn’t be good for my filly here.”

Coco grinned at him. Slowly Short Stack got up, followed by Coco who gave him another hug, which he returned, and he looked both of us.

“Time to get back to the kitchen. Both of youse enjoy your breakfast,” he said before he walked back toward the kitchen and left us to our waffles.

“I had no idea that he was here,” Coco said before she looked at me, “Thank you, thank you so much for choosing here for breakfast. It’s so nice to see a small piece of home.”

“You must miss it,” I said, taking a bite of my waffle, “you’ve made good while you’ve been here, but I imagine you miss some of the small comforts you left behind.”

“Yeah,” Coco confirmed, “there are a few- well, actually, a LOT, of things i miss from back home. You cannot believe how hard it is to get an oat burger here-”

“An oat burger?” I asked.

Coco nodded, “Mmhmm. And hay fries are practically impossible to find. Those ‘french fries’ you guys eat are okay, but a little too greasy for my tastes. Way too salty, as well. I nearly fainted the last time i ate some from that place with the golden arches.”

“You went to McDonalds?” I asked, “What prompted that?”

“Well, Cheri and I were enjoying a joint one night,” Coco explained, “we sometimes do that after a shift, helps to calm us down. So, this one time, oh man, I have no idea where Cheri got this weed, but it was good.”

“I didn’t know ponies would smoke marijuana…”

“Well, it wasn’t illegal in Equestria,” Coco said, “just not abundant. Marijuana plants are kinda hard to find. There are other species that eat them as a primary food source. I think the Zebra use them in religious invocations…”

“So, you regularly do this? Or did this before?”

“When I worked for Suri, yeah, it was the only thing that staved off the headaches she gave me,” Coco answered, “over here, though, the stuff is everywhere. Anyway, Cheri and I got a good buzz going on and later we got a bad case of the munchies.”

“I can imagine,” I replied, dipping a hunk of my waffle into my coffee.

Coco laughed, “Yeah, maybe you can. Anyway, she is more outgoing than I am, so she was the one to suggest going to that McDonalds place.”

“Is that where you discovered the scarcity of oat burgers?” I questioned.

Coco nodded, “Yeah. When I asked, I got a funny look from the filly at the counter. I knew I was high, yet she acted like I had three heads.”

I was quick to stifle a laugh, “Then what?”

“Well, Cheri ordered for me,” Coco continued, “she got me salad, a fruit smoothy, love those by the way, and some of those fries. The salad was okay, if a little dry. The smoothie was heavenly, but it was necessary after choking down some of those fries. Why do your people insist on so much salt on everything?”

“It’s an American thing,” I answered, “even I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Coco murmured, “anyway, I promised Cheri I would hunt down a recipe for hay fries from Julia Mild if I ever found her…”

“Have you found her?”

“No,” Coco said sadly, “before all of- this, she was one of the first to disappear. I’ve talked with others who’ve been here a while longer than me and they’ve said they haven’t seen hide nor hair of her.”

“You know,” I comment, “that’s the first I’ve heard of talking about your home.”

Coco gives me a wan smile, explaining, “There’s a lot to talk about but- a lot of it is bittersweet. Before I came here, I lost so many friends. I’m not even sure how I even got here-”

“You don’t-” I begin, but she shakes her head.

“No, no, I want to talk about this,” Coco replies, “Equestria was so nice, so wonderful… It’s not so bad here, although you guys need some more green. I think even Los Pegasus had more green around it than this place.”

“We are in the middle of a desert,” I say.

“There is that,” Coco grins, “still- You can’t control the weather here. Your sun and moon move on their own. The animals all seem dead set to oppose you… It’s all rather-”

“Strange?” I supply.

“Alien,” Coco finishes, “it’s all so alien to what I know and understand. But, I’ve been able to work around it. It’s not so bad. I would-”

“Yes?”

“I would like to know if any of my other friends made it here,” Coco answers, “I would like that very much.”

I ask, “Who do you know that made it out?”

“I know Rarity did,” she replies, “for that I thank the Goddesses. I think I read somewhere about Applejack and her siblings… They have a peach orchard in California, I think. I heard something about Fluttershy, out in Neigh York or something…”

“New York,” I correct, which earns me a look, “go on.”

“I think Pinkie Pie is here. She lives with some author in- Okrahoma?”

“Oklahoma?” I say.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Coco confirms, “but until just now, I didn’t know if any others survived. Short Stack is one of the few from my days in Manehattan who I can recall.”

I knew about Equestrians, like Coco, and like almost everyone else I’d heard that several had just appeared. I didn’t know if this Julia was among those who simply appeared, but maybe if she was then eventually Coco might find her. I looked at the peanut butter waffle, or what was left of it, and finished it off in a bite. Coco had finished her food as well, and I quickly accessed the tablet at the table, pulled up our bill, and pressed my thumb against the indention. It took a moment for the tablet to access my thumb print, something I figured was due to the syrupy goodness of the waffles I had just eaten, and once it did it asked if I wanted to leave a tip.

Memories, nostalgia, and the pretty mare sitting across from me drove the decision to leave a tip. I have never worked in a restaurant before, but I had it on good authority that waiters and waitresses made very little, even in today’s money. So I left a 30% tip, thought about it a little more, then upped the tip to 50%. The atmosphere in this place was making me feel giddy; of course, that might have been Coco and her pretty smile.

We walked out of the Waffle House, getting a cheery goodbye from Shorty and an impassioned thank you for the griffiness. The truck was still where I parked it, so it wasn’t that far an excursion with bellies full. I helped Coco into the cab before getting behind the wheel. This had been the best date I had been on in a while.

“So, I began, “do you want to call this a date?”

“Mmhmm,” Coco agreed, “a very good date. I even think the good colt deserves a little something extra for showing a filly a good time.”

“You-” I started, “you don’t really need to so- that.”

“Do what?” Coco asked sincerely, “I was just going to confirm our next date. This was so- wonderful, so I thought I why not set up a second?”

“Oh, right,” I bluttered, “silly me.”

She gave me a slight grin as I fumbled with trying to keep from sounding like I was expecting more than being able to spend time with her. She leaned over and gave me a kiss, small, sweet, and hinted with blueberry syrup. It was one that I returned, but I held back keeping from putting everything into it. I didn’t want to scare her, or worry her. She looked at me, a bit of confusion on her face.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

I shook my head, “Was… Is that the best kiss you can give?”

I shook my head, leaned back in, and this time I kissed her with everything I felt. I let it bubble up, exit from me, and instead fill her in the process. She pulled back, her breath coming in a husky shutter.

“That’s better… Miles, I’m free next Tuesday through Thursday… You’ve seen where I live, here in Las Vegas, maybe it’s time I expanded out and see where you live,” she said.

I nodded, and looked at her.

“I’d like that. It’s not as busy as Las Vegas, but it’s a beautiful place, and there is a bit more green there,” I replied.

She looked at me for a moment.

“I almost want to contact work and inform them that I’d like to take a vacation. I haven’t used any of my days,” she said.

I thought about it, and it sounded good, but the last thing I wanted was for her to get into trouble with her employer.

“I’d like that, but I don’t want you to get into hot water over it,” I said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t. But I would like to give them more of a warning. Perhaps I’ll take off longer than the three days. I may go ahead and take off a full week. It wouldn’t be a bother would it?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” I said.