I pounded on the door a few times before waiting, dancing on the step in my impatience. When nothing happened after the first few seconds, I pounded on it again. “Come on, come on...”
It took too much time for my tastes, but the door finally opened to reveal the frustrated face of my friend. He snorted before demanding, “Davis… did you really have to knock so many times?”
“No time, Jake! No time!” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “I really, really need you! What do people do on dates?” Judging from the way his pupils contracted, the slackness in his jaw, the garbled whine that issued from his throat and the thud as his rump hit the ground, I think I broke him.
*************
It had been little over a month ago that the world changed. Well, things certainly did change on the global scale, but only North America experienced the physical transformation. Everyone, everywhere got turned into a pony. Like the ones from the that cartoon. No, I’m not going to pretend I know how that happened. Something about misusing the heart of magic for the entire continent and an emergency change.
I’m sure someone out there was making a textbook on magic. I just was not that person.
Either way, I was a colourful little unicorn; royal blue with seafoam mane and tail, and a pressing issue that I needed help with. Jake had been a friend since high school and I figured he would be my best bet at the moment. Speaking of, after he recovered, he hauled me inside and sat me down on the sofa before heading to the kitchen to both get me a drink and give us both time to put out thoughts in order.
“Okay,” he said, setting a tray down with a cup of water on the table before taking the seat across from me. Oddly enough, he had somewhat fearful expression on his face. “Can we try this again? And make sense this time!”
“Yeah… sorry, I was flustered,” I admitted sheepishly. A jade glow surrounded the cup as I grabbed it to take a sip.
“Yeah,” Jake nodded, his tone getting a little higher pitched. “I noticed that! What was all that? Why are you asking me out on a date! Did you and Stacy break up?”
“What? No!” In my surprise about a quarter of the glass went down the wrong pipe, and I ended wearing another half of it. Spluttering and coughing, I wiped at my face. At least it was just water. Getting juice in your fur could be a real pain. “Jeeze, man, why would you think that?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, waving his hoof. “Maybe because you came pounding on my door and asking me out on a date!?”
“Oooh…” I thought back to it. Yeah, I could see how that could have been misinterpreted. He was blushing too. How did a cinnamon coated dude blush? Well, considering it showed through fur, I suppose that was the least issue to be considered about. I groaned. “Okay, no. Just no.”
“Oh, thank God.” All the tension left his body and he relaxed with a sigh, sprawling out on the couch. “Okay, so what’s up?”
“Wait… what was that for? Are you saying you’re too good for me?” I demanded, ears flicked back.
“Oh ha, ha,” Jake deadpanned. “But seriously, what was with the pounding on my door?”
“Well… I kinda need your help,” I admitted.
“Yes, you said that.”
“I… okay, no beating around the bush. Stacy and I have our date Wednesday… and I still have no idea what to do!”
“You and Stacy haven’t gone out yet?” Jake blinked. “I thought you two already went out on dates. You’ve been dating for, what, two, three months? And you’ve been friends for ages before you decided to date. Which everyone thought you were doing already, by the way.”
“I know, I know,” I shuffled my hooves and looked away before sighing again. Apparently everyone thought that Stacy and I had chemistry long before we started dating. They just never mentioned it. Which was so helpful, considering I spent weeks trying to figure out how to pop the question. To start dating. That question, not the other question that a guy would pop on a girl he likes! Way too early for that.
Though… Mrs. Stacy Menard had a nice ring to it…
“Davis?” Jake’s concerned voice popped my imagine spot.
“Right! Um…” I had zoned out for a moment there. “We’ve been on two proper dates, not just hanging out with friends date, but proper ones. Then the whole ponifying happened and it made stuff… difficult.”
I felt my ears drop. Difficult didn’t begin to describe it. We have been taking and enjoying the night when it happened. She blamed me at the time. For… reasons? I don’t know. Hit me in the face actually. With her newly formed hoof. Twice. Hurt like a son of a bitch too. After that, with how everything was in a state of barely controlled chaos, we didn’t have time to think about the date.
“She only just got back from her folks last week. And this is gonna be the first time I’m the one planning the date…” And I had no idea of what to do. It’s not like I knew much about dating in the first place! I didn’t have sisters. Besides, everything I knew was for humans, anyway. We were ponies now. Not everything would apply. I mean, I found a long article with advice on how to dress. We didn’t exactly where clothes anymore.
“Not really planning, considering this is three days before,” Jake muttered. “So why are you coming to me?”
“Because you’re my best friend and you’re older than me?” I ventured. He didn’t look impressed, so I tried something else. “You have more experience?”
“You know I’ve never been on a date before either, right? Well, there was that one, with Kelsey, but then she found her girlfriend.” Jake had a contemplative expression, one that broke when he glanced at me. “What?”
The corners of my mouth were battling with my will, and my will was losing. It took all I had left to keep my tone emotionless. “You dated Kelsey, and she found her girlfriend.”
“You met Wendy,” Jake pointed out, missing the point that was tickling me. Speaking of; I burst out laughing. It finally clicked and he tossed one of the sofa’s cushions at me. “It wasn’t on the date that they met! It was a few weeks after, jerk.”
“Oh God, Jake,” I gasped between fits of laughter. “You dated a girl and she joined the other team.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m friends with you,” Jake grumbled as my laughter continued, picking up the tray and heading to his kitchen.
“For my sparkling personality.” For his sake, I got it under control, though I still couldn’t help the occasional snicker that slipped out every now and again. “And because we were in a group together in grade 9 and I helped you get full marks.”
“Never gonna drop that one, are you?” Jake called back. He returned in due notice and paused beside the sofa with a frown. “You done?”
I held up a hoof and chuckled a few more times. “Okay, now I’m done.”
“You know, you laugh at me when you don’t even know what to do on a date,” Jake continued, taking his seat and sprawling across it without much care. “And you’re the one who’s support to be the idea guy.”
“Okay, okay, sheesh,” I grumbled at him. It wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas, I just didn’t know if they were good ones. “Fine, you’re still older and should have more life experience. Can I at least bounce the ideas I do have off you?”
“Only if you give me a lift to work,” Jake grinned. “So, what were you thinking about?”
“Um… basic dinner and a movie?”
“Sounds like it could be a good idea. What’s wrong with it?” Jake asked.
“Nothing good is playing this month, and the one we might like we already watched,” I sighed. “I was thinking window shopping but…”
“You hate shopping…” Jake smirked. “And you don’t know were any good stores are. You always admit that. How about something simple? I took Kelsey to Tim’s.”
“Considered it, evaluated it, concluded it was too simple,” I reported. For a ‘first date in a while’, a ‘first date planned by the guy’ and a ‘first date since a major change in status’, it was way too low on the scale for those milestones. “Need something fancier than just a donut shop. Impacting. And I don’t want her to meet her new marefriend.”
“Funny,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. He gave me a look. “Marefiend?”
“I’ve been watching the show,” I explained without shame. Much shame. “And poking around some of the forums. Some of the terms stuck I guess.”
“You have? Never took you for the type really,” Jake admitted. “Wait, no. You’re totally the type to do that.”
“Well, I’m a pony now, so I figured the faster I learned more about it the better.” I chuckled sheepishly. “That and… I was hoping to get date ideas…”
He started laughing at me again. “That makes more sense. Did you get any?”
“No…”
He chewed thoughtfully. “So… how about a Fancy Dinner?”
“Too fancy!” I said quickly. “She doesn’t like big fancy restaurants either. And… I don’t have a suit or anything.”
“And you’re cheap,” Jake grinned. Well, couldn’t blame him for taking pot shots after my comment. “Hit the town? A bar?”
“Augh, no. Last time we did that it didn’t end well,” I stuck my tongue out at the memory. The bar was horrible, the music sucked and the drinks were watered down.
“Dancing?”
“With hooves? I literally got two left feet now,” I pointed out. “Haven’t learned to dance like this yet. No dance classes either!”
“Um… something fun? Like the arcade or something?”
“Too… childish?” I reasoned out. “Again, sort of a milestone date.”
“So… we need something fancy, but not too fancy, enjoyable, but not childish…”
“Yeah….”
“Welp,” Jake grinned broadly, “sucks for you.”
I groaned and slumped on the sofa. “Some help you are.”
*************
The time was counting down, and I still didn’t have a good idea for what the date could be! My browser was lagging from the sheer number of tabs I had open, each one some date idea or another. I stared at the computer sitting on the desk with a scowl, trying to will the answer from them.
My horn sparked and the screen flickered in response. Scared the every living hell out of me too, it did. I recoiled, jerking out of the chair and tumbling to the ground, the chair crashing beside me. Grumbling unkind and child-unsafe words, I righted it and climbed back up to stare some more. A strangled groan came from my throat and I buried my face in my pasterns.
It was the stupid ponifying’s fault. Most people still hadn’t adjusted fully yet. Half the things you could do were made… challenging with the lack of fingers and bipedalism. Another chunk of activities was nixed without hands. Even dinner and a movie was tricky. The typical theatre chairs were awkward and one place closed to replace them with benches. And as for food…
Maybe people wept when they realized meat tended to make them sick. I wept. Red meat was a no go. Bacon, ham and all the other pork stuff made me feel like hurling for hours. Even chicken turned my stomach most of the time. Fish was the best option. Unfortunately, Stacy wasn’t a fan of seafood.
And in my case there was something else to consider: the stupid horn. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the active magic part that came with it. I still remembered that thrill I got when I first used magic. In fact, I still got it at times. But magic didn’t exactly work the way I wanted to all the time, and reacted to random things. I had a running list of things it reacted badly to working on. I sighed heavily. It wasn’t even like it was all that strong. I could barely lift forty pounds, otherwise known as two large bags of rice, in my magic. Hopefully it would get stronger with time. I could manage a lot of little things though. Speaking off, I frowned at the mess.
“How is it that after all this time I’m still at square one?” I demanded of the empty room, gathering up the pages of interesting ideas I printed off. Pushing the laptop to the side, I spread the sheets I gathered out across the table. They were the more interesting stuff around town. I glowered at them, but not too hard, just in case my horn decided to take it as another invitation. “Maybe I should pin you to the wall and throw a dart…”
Before I could follow that potentially deposit risking line of thought, my phone filled the air with its call. I would have let it ring had it not been Stacy’s ringtone, her face, her human face, showed on the singing phone. (No, it wasn’t ‘Stacy’s Mom’. Nor did I have that set for her mom’s ring tone. That would have been creepy. Though she was pretty good looking for her age.) I put it on speaker as I continued my skimming.
“Hello Sweetie,” she said teasingly. Maybe a Doctor Who marathon could be the date? No, no; too casual.
“Hey’a, Stace,” I greeted, hiding my frustration slash desperation with the planning under casual tones.
“You’re stressing yourself out over the date, aren’t you?” She almost sounded smug.
“What? No!” I protested, perhaps too vehemently. “Everything is fine! Just… fine! Why would think I’m stressing?”
“Because I know you, Davis,” she giggled. She actually giggled at me.
I frowned at the phone before I slumped to the table. “What; am I an open book to you?”
“Not quite, but the summary on the back was nice,” she teased. Then she added a bit more in a flirty tone. “The cover art is nice too.”
I felt my cheeks warm ever so slightly. “Did you just call to flirt and stroke my ego?” I waited a beat. “Because if you did; you are welcome to continue.”
“You wish, blue boy,” she giggled again. “I called to make sure you don’t stress yourself out and spend all night on it.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad!” I whined at her. “And don’t giggle...”
She scoffed at my claim. “Remember when you had to make a report at work on traffic on the web page?”
“That’s hardly a fair comparison!” I quickly protested, glaring at the phone. “That was a legit presentation to management.”
“Or when we were planning that trip to cottage country and you were comparing everything from tents to gas prices for rental cars?” I could almost hear her roll her eyes.
“Okay, that time it was to make sure we-”
“And what about when-”
“Okay, okay! I get it, I can get carried with planning things,” I grumbled irritably. Jeeze. Try to make sure a few things are properly set up and you’re branded for life. Actually… considering the project folders on my flank… Sheesh! Just because a guy organizes a few things? I slacked off all the time! I didn’t even organize ‘properly’ according to most standards. Case in point: the scattering of printed pages.
“You still there, Davis?”
My ears flicked. I just put effort into things that were important to me. And this one was. She was. My voice was soft when I spoke up again. “I… I just want this date to do well. I don’t want to screw it up.”
“You’re not gonna screw it up,” Stacy insisted over the line.
“You don’t know that,” I sighed. “It took me a year to realize you like liked me, and even then I’m still fumbling.”
“Davis, it will be fine-”
“You can’t know that!” the words burst out before I could keep them back. It was as if flood gates broke, and all the worries of inadequacy, fears and worse case scenarios came back to mind. “I’m horrible at this stuff! I know I’m gonna mess it up and you’re gonna hate me!”
“That’s exactly why you won’t mess up,” Stacy pointed out when I paused for breath. “You care about it. Even if it’s not great, we can laugh about it afterwards. So don’t worry about it so much.”
“But-”
“You said you don’t have any ideas, right?” Stacy gently pressed on. “I’ll understand if you don’t get it perfect. I don’t expect it to, silly. But if it’s with you, we can make it fun. It might have taken you forever to actually ask me out, but you care enough that you called me when I was at Mom’s to ask me how I was doing. If it’s with you? It will be fine, okay?”
I hesitated, her words sinking in. I looked at the pages I printed off in a new light, a slight smile tugging at my lips. “That… was pretty sappy.”
“Well, you needed the sap,” Stacy said teasingly. “So feeling better?”
“Yeah, actually,” I grinned. I needed to check a few things online, maybe call an office, but I think I had a pretty good idea for a date.
“Got an idea?”
“Hey… I’m the unicorn here,” The grin hadn’t faded. “No reading my mind.”
“But it’s so easy,” she teased back. “Wanna tell me the plans?”
“No, not really,” I fished for a particular flier as she whined at me over the phone.
“Please?” I could hear her pout.
“Your pleading face doesn’t work when I can’t see it. It will be a surprise.” I chuckled lightly. A single sheet floated over to me. Two more joined it. Yeah… I think this could actually work. It wouldn’t have been first choice on my list, but we would both enjoy it more than my other ideas. Well, she’d enjoy it, and I might make a fool of myself, but that still might be fun, and she’d get a laugh out of it.
“Should I wear anything?”
That one gave me pause. “You… don’t need to. But something comfy if you feel like it.”
“So I guess that means it’s not a fancy dinner,” Stacy mused. “Thank God, was afraid you would go with that. Not sure if you could have made that one worth it.”
