Recluse

Whilst I finished the last of these five day old dishes, Rainbow blitz looked over to my book rack and stared at the variety of books that I read. They ranged to heavy encyclopaedias all the way to children's stories. It's rather Dusk Shine's fault for sending me the easier books, but I don't really mind what they are so long as I have something to do in the evening.

"I never knew you were a fan of Daring Do." He said.

"I'm not, it's just one of the books Dusk Shine sends me everyday." I reply back.

"So, is he like your personal librarian or something?" He looks at me. "Like, he gives you the books that you ask for?"

"No. He's just someone who comes here every day to give me what I need for the evening." I wipe the sink clean of any fluids, using the wire wool to erase any grime that has accumulated over the months. I dry my hands, looking at the bag of groceries that I placed down on the coffee table. If I remember correctly, I think there's some sugar, some carrots, a bottle of milk and a random assortment of sweets and cupcakes in there.

I move over to the bag, dipping my hand in to fetch the box the cupcakes were held in. I bought them over from Bubble Berry's workplace. What was it called...the Sugarcube corner? I think that's it. The cupcakes have slightly smudged the transparent front of the box, but that's not much of a problem. I can happily lick that off anyway.

I open the box and take out two cupcakes that looked the least damaged. I handed one over to Rainbow Blitz and one for myself. "Here." I said. "You'll get another one if you actually do some cleaning this time."

"Heh, sorry." He said, rubbing his mane. "But it's fine, I'm good with only one of these because I stopped by the Sugarcube corner for one earlier in the morning."

"What? Are you on a diet or something?" I jeered.

"No! I just have a terrible sweet tooth, that's all." He replies defensively.

"Fatty." I smirk. He pouts.

He starts clearing out the other contents of the brown grocery bag, laying them on the clear and clean side of the kitchen sink. I quietly scarf down breakfast with my injured hand whilst I grab all the mugs I can with my other hand. I managed to get four, which only left me with 2 rotting coffee mugs to put by the sink and wash another day.

"Blitz, wash these mugs." I place the mugs by his side.

"Dude, I'm not touching that. It smells of bad coffee and it's probably sticky." He instinctively moves away from it.

"Well someone has to do it." I said.

"And that won't be me." He replied.

I sighed.

"Fine, just wipe the damn coffee table and let me do it. If you can't even do that, then I'm kicking you out." I grumbled.

"That's not nice." He mutters.

"You know what's not nice? having a moron not help you out when you ask him to. The most you've done here is eat one of my cupcakes." I returned to the sink and grabbed the wire wool.

"I dried your clothes." He said.

"Only because you came around. Otherwise I'd still be naked." I said. "Just do what I've told you and be quiet for a bit, I'm not in a mood to talk right now."

And so, we cleaned in silence.

Peaceful silence.

We managed to clean most of my apartment, and by 'we' I mean '90% me, 10% Rainbow Blitz'. I ate the rest of the cupcakes whilst Blitz took a carrot or two from me. He apologized after I finished the mugs, which is what he usually does when he knows he's done something wrong. That's one thing I like about him. He's already manlier than most of the testosterone-built men I've met.

I still haven't washed the bed, so I might try and look somewhere else to crash, hopefully Fluttershy's. I'm too tired to wash the entire duvet and bed sheets and my hands have been poorly working ever since I woke up. I just hope I haven't infected my injury whilst I washed the mugs and plates. Keeping them wet is always a bad idea.

"So, what're ya going to do now?" Rainbow Blitz said.

"I don't know. I might head over to Fluttershy's place with some books." I replied.

"That's boring." He said.

"Not to me." I said.

I grabbed two books from the 'unread' row and grabbed my keys. I adjusted my shirt and pulled up my pants whilst Rainbow Blitz observed in silence. I found my hairband and carefully tied a large percentage of my hair into a ponytail. I couldn't tie up the rest so I left them hanging on my fringe and my ears like some weird hybrid hairstyle.

"So where are you heading? I'm going off to Fluttershy's." I say as I open the door.

"Uh, I don't know." He replied. "I usually follow whatever the heck you do when you go outside."

Oh, alright then.

"You can tag along, but we're not going to places where there might be a lot of people. I'm not used to those things." I opened the door and stepped out, blocking my eyes from the bright sunlight. Rainbow Blitz follows and grabs the railing in front of my door. He vaults over it, falling through 2 stories until his wings take action and soften his landing.

I closed my apartment door and locked it, though there wouldn't be any sense in locking it in the first place since there's really nothing valuable in there. I looked down at Blitz, who was looking at me.

"Catch!" I threw the books at him, to which he promptly dodged them as they crashed on the floor.

"What are you doing?!" He shouted.

"I said catch you moron!" I replied.

"Eh, it doesn't matter, they're just books." He said as he picked them up from the floor. One of them had doggy-eared three quarters of its pages, whilst the other remained perfectly fine, if not for a bit of dirt on the pages. I leisurely walked down the building, stepping down the stairs and sliding down the rails until I got to the bottom floor. Rainbow Blitz was cleaning one of the books and gave the other one to me. We started walking towards the town center, but I managed to steer our course away from it.

People- I mean ponies saw us as we walked, but none of them minded, save for the select few who whistled or whispered behind our backs as we walked through. Blitz seemed fine with it, smiling all the while whilst I pretended to read the blurb from one of my books.

"This is why I hate walking where there's a lot of people. There's too many women talking about me behind my back." I grumbled.

"Relax, you're some weird alien creature. Obviously ponies are gonna start talking about you." He replied, patting my back. I look back at him and his face, it looks like he's smiling. "I mean, the way we're walking right now, it's now wonder they're gossiping about you."

"What do you mean 'the way we're walking right now'?" I said.

I noticed that we were a bit too close to each other as we walked, and that the arm that Blitz patted my back with hasn't really left it. In fact, it was groping my left shoulder, instinctively pulling me in closer to him. His wings also flared up, and a slight hint of a blush wiggled under his pony cheeks.

I held my books close, pushing them up to my breasts as I slowly pulled my body away from him.

"Looks like you finally noticed." He chuckled.

"I'm glad I did, I don't want others looking at us like we're a couple." I faced away from him, staring straight ahead.

"That's a bit harsh."

"How so?"

Rainbow Blitz stopped, his mouth agape but with now words coming out of it. He stuttered a few sounds until he started to clear his throat.

"N-nothing, nevermind." He forced a smile. That's weird, he's acting a bit funny.

"Dude, did I do something wrong?" I ask.

"It's nothing, just leave it, yeah?" He rubbed his mane.

There he goes again, rubbing his mane. I think he did that when he apologised. Is he saying sorry? It doesn't feel like it. Or is this another way of saying sorry? But what did he do to make him apologise? Argh!

"Let's just keep going. Maybe get an ice cream along the way." I continued to walk, causing Blitz to follow.

We walked in silence after that, which I kind of enjoyed a bit. Though, what happened earlier still bugged me. I can ask Fluttershy about it when I get to her place anyway. We decided to walk through some alleyways to pass through the ponyville square and plaza, and we took up a small bite at a local cafe for lunch. I paid the bill, of course.

That reminds me, my landlord's gonna come at me for my rent, which I think is due in three days.

We walked past an ice cream stand and Blitz raced past me when he saw it. I shouted at him to get me a vanilla ice cream, and he did. It looks like he DOES have money, after all. He's probably even poorer than me if he couldn't man up to pay back at the cafe. He got me a double-headed vanilla ice cream cone, whilst he got himself a blueberry flavour ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and blue syrup. I giggled a bit when I saw the mixture of colours scattered around his ice cream.

"You look like a child when you hold that." I mocked him.

"Is that the only face you make, Liz?" Blitz said. "You were giggling a second ago, but your face doesn't really say so."

"Hm? My face is always like this." I reply. "Anger, sadness, happiness, when I injure myself, when I come, it's always the same. What's different is what I say afterwards."

"So, is your face stuck like that because someone used magic on it?"

"Nope."

"Well, I'll try my best to change this stupid look of yours."

"Good luck trying, kid."