Author's Note

As many of you have noticed, I like approaching stories from both main characters' points of view.

Anyway, here's chapter 2. Enjoy!

2. The Kindling

[One Week Later…]

The friendly neighborhood rooster’s rousing call echoed across the rock farm, doing well to banish Eric’s dreams from his groggy mind and pull him into the waking world.

Forcing his crusty eyes open, he knew right away that today was Saturday and two days until first day of classes. Taking a few moments to himself, he had gotten exposed to pretty much all of the tasks he would be asked to do here and there, as well as figuring out exactly what activities he would be better suited for as opposed to others.

On another topic, slightly tangential, he noted that his entire body hurt like no other. An unfamiliar intensity of muscle soreness radiated throughout his body and made it known that whatever he was doing, he was doing it right.

Getting out of bed was a little harder today, consequently. With a strained ‘fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck~’ at his muscles loosening and his bones cracking, Eric got started on his little routine for the morning... namely a three minute shower to wake him up, brushing his teeth, and getting dressed for his work. Eric adapted pretty easily to the routine, though the hardest part was the first day at waking up at the crack of dawn; he was never a morning person, and even back on Earth, Eric made it a habit to schedule his classes more towards the early afternoon whenever possible to account for this.

With the morning sun steadily casting more light over the land and through the house despite the overcast-ness, Eric bounded down the stairs dressed in a pair of his work jeans and an old, grey t-shirt that didn’t fit him as well as it used to. It was perfect for the occasion, since he didn’t have a dedicated outfit for manual labor. Plus, his jeans and old shirts were easy to maintain and wash by hand, if a little time consuming to do so at the worst.

“Morning, Limestone,” Eric greeted with a wave as he walked into the kitchen.

The mare in question, dressed in a usual, bland tank top and her own work pants, leaned against the kitchen counter. Holding a bowl of oatmeal in her left hand and eating with her right, Limestone shoved the spoon into her mouth and directed his attention to the table. There, two other bowls of the same food lay unclaimed, their steam trails beckoning their future consumers along with an intoxicating aroma that instantly cleared room in Eric’s stomach.

Limestone finally spoke, formally returning his earlier greeting with a fraction of her trademark sass.

“Hi Eric. Go ahead and eat; Marble’ll be down any minute."

It was certainly still there, but Eric had noticed that her attitude with him had lessened over the past week; a welcome change. He never faulted her for it in any sense, and to be honest with himself, she was already growing on him. Limestone had a great head on her shoulders, and that’s what Eric ultimately admired about the mare…

...that, and she was actually amicable even if she had sometimes obscure ways of showing it. Case in point: she would always cook everypony (Eric included) breakfast in the morning since she was always the first awake without question.

Eric did, however, notice a distinct absence of the elders of the house who had always happened to meet them in the morning before work thus far.

“Just Marble? Where’s Maud?... and Igneous and Cloudy?” he questioned.

“Something came up with Maud’s research and she had to head back to school early; she said to tell you she’s sorry that she couldn’t say bye… or whatever,” Limestone relayed a little message, stricken in hindsight at the slight oddity that accompanied such a request. “And mom and dad were heading south to maybe close a candy rock deal; could’ve sworn I told you yesterday,” she added, jogging her own memory for some answers.

“OH! Right, right,” Eric recalled, nodding as he shoveled some of his expertly-crafted oatmeal into his mouth.

Over his comparatively short stay in Equestria thus far, he was keen on the fact that food tasted immeasurably better in most cases than back on Earth, and even a simple meal such as oatmeal was packed full of something… something he couldn’t rightly place, yet, made all the difference. “And okay; I guess I’ll see Maud whenever she gets back.”

This is some bomb-ass oatmeal! Actual shit probably tastes better here too.

“Yup. So, we’ll just wait for Mar—” Limestone was cut off when Marble entered into the kitchen silently, slinking towards the table and mouthing ‘sorry’ as if she was making some sort of a scene. She promptly took her seat next to Eric and began ‘elegantly scarfing’ her food down. Getting a few-second look at her, she was dressed in her own work clothes that Eric had seen her wear pretty much every day, which included some black pants and a similar tank top to Limestone’s.

“Nevermind.”

“Good morning, Marble,” Eric said to her, smiling. She glanced back at him and blushed the moment she made eye-contact.

“H-Hey, Eric,” she replied gently before going back to eating, nothing extravagant but that was okay.

Over the course of the week, Marble had been at least talking to him a little more each day, so in Eric’s eyes, things were steadily getting better already.

In Marble’s eyes, she, too, felt that this was improvement. She could suppress the instinct to run away at first sight of Eric, especially after he had been so understanding with her initial outbursts, as well as being tolerant with her often less-than-conducive-to-friendship approaches to basic smalltalk. Nevertheless, things were certainly bettering, and the thought was that if she could keep this up, she’d be well on her way to beating her social anxiety.

Or at least… that was the hope.

Switching over to more of her authoritative side, Limestone began anew:

“Well, now that everypony’s here,” she said, taking another bite of her food . “Today’ll be an easy day with the weather forecast. I need to make sure that the ventilation into the crystal mine is properly sealed as well as rolling in the ore and loot we got two days ago. That means you two get to work together in the fields.

“Toward the southwest section of the fields, it looks like a fair bit of candy stone has been accumulating. Go ahead and dig up as much as possible for storage before it becomes... well, impossible,” she instructed, gesturing with her spoon while she talked.

“Sounds good to me! Half-days are always nice,” Eric remarked.

Marble, however, was most curious... especially so considering that Limestone would almost never shirk on any duties nor even think of half-days. So, she quietly asked:

“W-Why are we stopping early?”

“Thunderstorm later,” her older sister answered, and at the mention, Marble gripped her spoon that much tighter and her pupils seemed to constrict, along with a strong urge to hyperventilate welling up within her.

“The rain’s gonna turn the fields into mud, pretty much... and it’ll be Tartarus trying to dig out large rocks when your legs sink up to your knees,” she detailed, though more for Eric’s benefit rather than Marble’s.

The human nodded confidently at the task laid out before them.

“Got it!" he said.

‘Harvesting’ the rocks was one of the first things he was taught earlier in the week, and though grueling, digging them out and lifting those heavy stones provided a good, full-body burn like nothing else. Plus, he’d be working with Marble again.

Admittedly, he found her adorable, and dare he say, a ‘Cutie Pie.’

Hah… puns.

And as hilarious as that sounded to him, every bit of it was true.

I’m in trouble…

“Oh… okay,” Marble weakly added, her posture sinking in her chair as she continued to eat.

Limestone, on the other hand, had herself one last spoonful of oatmeal before taking the bowl to her lips and downing the rest of it in one gulp.

“Alright, well, you two get to it whenever you finish eating; no rush. I’m gonna get a head start though,” she announced, setting her bowl in the sink and briskly making her way out of the kitchen with a purpose. But, she had to share her last, traditional parting words with the both of them in her usual manner.

“And what’s the only rule?”

“Stay away from Holder’s Boulder,” Eric and Marble recited in unity, humoring the mare though clearly having heard the same spiel time and time again.

Eric had only been here a week and he already lost count of how many times Limestone warned him about such an endeavor; he couldn’t imagine how Marble or Maud put up with it, honestly. Further, he had actually seen Holder’s Boulder with his own eyes; it wasn’t really anything out of this world but it clearly held sentimental value to the lime-eyed mare. Eric, thusly, had neither the need, nor urge to test her patience.

Limestone nodded at the duo’s reassurances and disappeared from sight, the two of them hearing her exit out the front door and shut it behind her.

Being left to their own devices, Eric and Marble ate in relative silence, their spoons and bowls clinking together as they finished off their respective breakfasts. They ended up making some eye contact throughout but that usually ended with Marble blushing and closing herself off again. Eric had to stop himself from ‘squee-ing’ every time she did that; he was a man, and by the power vested within him as a man, no such sound would come out of his mouth… no matter how adorably cute Marble looked when she was embarrassed.

Eric finished off his bowl and got up to follow in Limestone’s hoof-steps

“Ahh… ready when you are!"

Marble was not that far behind either, and she brought the last bit of delicious energy elixir to her mouth.

Finishing with less flair, she too left her place at the table and set her bowl in the sink.

“Mhmm!”

Despite it being still ‘bum-fuck early’ in the morning, as per Eric’s words, the clouds had already rolled in courtesy of the local weather team, painting a picture of perfect white and gray gradients rippling seemingly endlessly across the sky.

Accompanied by the crisp morning air and occasional gusts of wind from the system that rustled the handful of trees across the drab landscape, this was indeed the telltale sign of a nice rainstorm (at the very least) to be upon them within the next few hours. The appropriate tools hefted and slung over their shoulders, Marble and Eric made their way to the designated section of the rock fields.

Silence, of course, reigned over the morning air and their respective hooves and feet compressed the soft, dew-stricken ground beneath them; ideal for digging up the rocks they would be searching for.

Eric carried a shovel and pickaxe over his left shoulder while dragging an empty, wooden wagon, bringing up the rear behind Marble who only carried her own set of tools. She, however, let her shovel and pickaxe lay across her upper back, using her arms to hold them in place behind her neck... and such an orientation allowed Eric an uncompromised view of her backside.

Like he wasn’t gonna look…

By the nature of her tank top and how her arms rested, he could see the underlying muscle through her coat that adorned her shoulders and arms; they weren’t large due to her overall slim profile, but they were proportional and certainly notable… which led beautifully to her currently-flexed back. Eric had always had a thing for ‘fit girls,’ and Marble certainly fit the bill thus far.

Letting his eyes wander a bit lower, Marble’s tank top rode up just a little bit, exposing her midriff and the coveted, mouth-watering back-dimples which were no doubt a testament to her working day after day on the farm. By virtue, it was almost necessary for a cute butt to be veiled through her pants, and that’s just what Eric observed. The way that Marble inadvertently (if subtly) swayed her hips and tail through her purposeful walking was nothing short of enticing and hypnotic.

Further, though Eric had enough sense than to just go around the other side and have a look, he knew that an ample bosom rested under her top, made much more prominent by such attire, which in turn led to a slim stomach and beyond.

This mare had it all, in Eric’s own unbiased and objective opinion. If she could work on her crippling shyness and break out of that shell of hers, he had little doubt of the power she could and would wield over others.

Man, I’m really in trouble…

...now quit perving on her, ya dick.

Bringing his thoughts back into the realm of propriety, he did notice that Marble seemed more… on edge today; stiff. So, he decided to catch up to her completely and match her stride next to her.

“Hey, you doing alright?” he asked, which startled the poor mare out of her thousand-yard stare with a gentle ‘eep.’

“H-Huh? Ooh yeah, I’m fine!” she said once she recovered, putting on a less than convincing smile for added effect.

Still, her natural apprehensiveness was showing even more than normal, and Eric was determined to find out why… though if she refused to be forthcoming for her own reasons, he, of course, would respect those boundaries.

“Are you sure? You look a bit… on edge,” he pointed out.

“Oh… heh well, I’m not on edge. I’m just fine,” she replied, again, not fooling anyone, but nevertheless Marble was not talking, and Eric had little desire to force it out of her.

So, he respectfully nodded and allowed her to continue leading the way.

Soon enough, both of them reached their apparent destination, further evident when Marble dropped her tools to the earth, stepped on the flat of the shovel and grasped the handle.

“Here we are,” she said softly, judging exactly where they should begin digging while Eric grasped his own shovel in preparation.

Jovial and ready to work, Eric fielded his question.

“Awesome. Where’d’ya want me?”

He was in a good mood today and eager to get on with things at Marble’s direction. The first time he worked with her went off as well as he expected, and true to her word, she had made a conscious effort to actually talk to him… though her usual habits of shying away unexpectedly or just flat-out avoiding conversation were still plenty common.

Nonetheless, Eric never felt offended by it.

Just as he was trying to do his best to fit in and not piss off his host family, Marble was doing her part to initiate conversation and stay her ground. Having a best friend back on Earth that had legitimate anxiety problems afforded him the requisite experience and patience. So far, he was having fun… though Eric wasn’t entirely sure he could say the same thing about Marble.

The mare in question pointed to the direct area where she felt was appropriate to begin.

“Ummm… c-could you start over there if you don’t mind?” she said.

He was lucky that she did point, though... because he could barely hear a goddamn thing she said with how softly she spoke.

With another genuine smile, Eric simply replied:

“Sure thing.”

And the instant that eye contact was established, Marble’s cheeks colored heavily and she averted her gaze. Eric enjoyed smiling, but he knew that part of him was just doing this on purpose because he found Marble’s antics cute as all hell. He knew quite well he was being a torturous twat, so he decided to instead get straight to work, going to the section Marble asked him to and jamming his shovel into the ground.

The process was straightforward: he would dig until the shovel would come into contact with a rock… which usually, he did not have to dig too deeply. Then, he would have to heft out said rock… but if it happened to be too big, the pickaxe would be used to help break it into more manageable pieces.

Eric also learned very quickly to heft the heavy rocks and stones out of the ground by use of his legs via squats… and not his lower back.

But after about half an hour of satisfying, yet silent work, Eric decided to break the silence more on account of his own sanity.

“Soooo, Marble…” be began, setting another stone atop of an accumulating pile in the wagon.

He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, feeling that the back of his neck needed scratching at this very instant. However, at that same moment, Eric realized that he had absolutely nothing to say to her.

Eric just wanted to talk to her, but in his possibly overzealous efforts to do so, he foolishly didn’t anticipate actually not having a focal point of conversation. Even worse, he couldn’t risk going back to what he was doing and playing it off like he didn’t say anything—Marble already was glancing at him over her shoulder expectantly with that mane of hers cutely obscuring one of her eyes—and risk looking weirder than he already was to her.

Punctuating this fact, she shyly muttered:

“Hmm?”

That was Eric’s cue, and his conscience was ever encouraging him onward.

Oh come on it’s not like you like her or anything. Just talk to her, damnit! Go!

“So about them rocks…” he uttered without thinking, to which Marble sunk her head a bit lower and cocked her eyebrow.

While he still kept his cheery exterior, Eric, on the inside, facepalmed with the force of all the tonnage fired during the First World War. While he instantly drew up plans to salvage his words, he gave some measure of pondering as to how easy it might have been to commit ritualistic suicide with a pickaxe.

Eric’s brain finally shifting into the next gear of rational thought, he decided to inquire properly and, admittedly, a bit more naturally.

“Ahem, what I meant to say was, ummm… you’ve been working around rocks presumably your entire life. Do you enjoy it?”

While he awaited her response (if she decided to even entertain him after his mild sperglord show) he resumed breaking apart the next stone he had been working on.

After stabbing her shovel into the dirt beneath her, Marble further pondered his question, but had an answer.

“Well, yeah I suppose,” she replied.

For Marble, though Eric may have phrased the question… oddly, she did appreciate the fact that he was trying to at least get to know her a little bit more and start conversation with her. It helped her stay true to her promise to herself while making said task a bit less daunting and onerous overall.

“I-It’s really all I know… and my cutie mark reflects my talent with my namesake,” she added with a bit more confidence.

He cocked his head, genuinely intrigued by her last statement.

“Oh yeah?” Eric asked. “You’re good at working with marble?”

Marble closed herself off a tad out of habit.

“It’s more of a hobby, really… though it does kinda come in handy around the farm often,” Marble detailed timidly. “I sculpt marble.”

Eric dug his shovel into the ground again before facing the mare.

“Really?” he asked, impressed. “That’s awesome! What do you make?”

She blushed profusely at the praise, and met his kind words with a humble reply of her own.

“Oh… just little things. I-It’s not that impressive. Just…y-you know, something to do when I’m bored,” she forced herself to elaborate.

“Still,” Eric said through a strained voice as he hefted another stone into the wagon. “Hobbies are cool, and sculpting marble on your free time sounds really interesting, seriously,” he affirmed.

What had his curiosity piqued was that the only sculptures of marble done by hand, at least back on Earth, were often massive busts and statues which often took massive amounts of time. Smaller, trinket-like sculptures could be even more difficult, which made it all the more impressive. He was no expert on this stuff, but often precise sculpting was done by machines.

“If you’d let me, I’d love to see some of your work,” Eric added, flashing her another friendly smile, though this time, Marble forced herself to not shy away from it.

Though it nearly killed her, she still held the eye contact with him and returned a little grin… though she compromised and decided to veil her face a bit more behind her mane; baby steps.

Returning the gesture, Marble gave a gentle nod.

“Okay…” she affirmed, removing a stone from the earth with some difficulty but eventually depositing it in the wagon where it belonged.

Eric returned the nod with one of his own and got back to working, happy to at least have not embarrassed himself completely in front of Marble. Hell, if he played his cards right, he might just make another awesome friend here! While he was living with his host family who had treated him incredibly thus far, Eric would be a bit hesitant to go as far as to say they were his friends. As social as he was, he personally did not like tossing around the word ‘friend’ willy-nilly. He felt it devalued the innate endearment of the title.

For the latter, the conversation could have ended right there, but deep down she knew better than to just continue collecting the candy rock in silence. Eric was putting forth the effort to try and get to know her, making conversation and genuinely making her feel nice. The least she could do was reciprocate and find out a little bit more about him; it was the perfect opportunity since last time they worked together did not entail that much communication on their parts.

And being honest with herself, Marble still felt the desire to learn about her new human friend.

...well, at least she hoped to be his friend eventually, as evident by a familiar, this time comforting heat rising to her cheeks.

No time like the present!

“Do you have any hobbies, Eric?” she asked, much to Eric’s pleasant surprise.

Feeling his cheeks rise up in tandem with the edges of his lips, he turned to her after fetching his pickaxe.

“Well, I had a few hobbies back on Earth at least, before I came here,” he began, positioning himself to properly strike the stone in the ground.

Eat, masturbate, read, masturbate again… not necessarily in that order.

“Like what?” Marble bade specifics.

“Well, hiking was one of them,” Eric answered. “Once in a while I just like getting lost. There’s some nice hills and trails by my university back on Earth that I would frequent after exams were done; helped with clearing my head,” he detailed, more than happy to share some info about himself.

From then on, conversation seemed to flow a bit more naturally between the two, and Marble ended up saying more to him then than the entire week combined. Of course, there were still long bouts of silence but neither minded; they were only times to collect their thoughts before one of them inevitably spoke again. What was different this time was that there were perpetual smirks and smiles all around.

All it took was a little overture and suddenly, the realization broke upon Marble like the gentle waves of the Equestrian coasts; there was nothing to be afraid of! Eric was physically… different, that was certain, but not all that different. He had already confirmed on the first day that they met (though ‘exposure’ would be a more apt term for the event) that he would do her no harm. In fact, while she had the urge to just bury her face in her shirt or hide behind her mane every time he smiled at her… her urge to literally run away had been foregone completely, barely a measurable presence in the back of her mind. No, these acts of timidity were the product of something else…

...and Marble didn’t particularly mind this development.

“...so what did he say to that??” she nearly begged, waiting on Eric’s words to the conclusion of his story while they actually got their hands dirty.

In a subtle, subconscious gesture that meant a great deal in her own perception of the world, Marble moved her mane behind her ear, allowing her unobstructed view of Eric from both of her eyes.

“Absolutely nothing! There was nothing for him to say; the dipshit,” Eric finished, but he quickly covered his mouth when he realized that he let some less-than-desirable (purely subjective) vernacular slip through his teeth, but today was all about nice surprises, especially since Marble giggled heartily.

“Don’t worry; mom and dad may be a bit more conservative but the three of us aren’t,” Marble noted, kicking her shovel into the ground again.

Another thought graced her mind and she erupted into another cute giggle fit, one that sounded chorus-like to the human’s ears.

“You should hear what Limestone says when things don’t go well down in the crystal mines; our parents would have heart attacks.”

Eric breathed a sigh of relief.

Got her to laugh. Score for me!

“In fact, just this last week—” Marble’s sentence was interrupted when the low rumble of distant thunder rippled over the environment, and turning both of their attentions to its source, the clouds from the south were definitely darker than those currently above them.

“Looks like the rain will be here soon… we should probably head back,” Eric voiced, but he too was startled slightly when a fat raindrop plinked him right on the nose.

He recoiled slightly before wiping away the cool water.

“Spoke too soon. Come on, let’s go,” Eric took the initiative.

Turning the wagon back towards the farmhouse came with its own set of difficulties due to the extra bit of weight held within its carriage. What Eric noticed more, though, was the absence of any words from Marble’s mouth... or any movement from her for that matter. What’s more, her eyes were strictly trained on the source of the thunder, and the variable signalling the storm’s inevitable arrival each time it sounded. She was breathing much heavier and her eyes had widened considerably.

“...Marble?” Eric called out behind him, noticing that she was frozen in place.

Her grip on her shovel had intensified to the point where her knuckles became white under her coat.

“Marble!” Eric yelled, and as the rain from above began to drop its initial salvos upon them, a two raindrops nailed her right on the hand and the muzzle, both of which helped pull her back to the real world.

Gasping at the realization, she nodded and quickly gathered her dirty tools onto her back.

She rapidly muttered, barely coherently, her cobbled-together reply as she ran past:

“YeahI’mherethat’srightlet’sgotodaywasreallyfunthanksEric!”

She beelined directly toward the farmhouse without sparing a glance back at him.

Eric blinked away the confusion but only shrugged, yanking the wagon into motion behind him and knowing that he had to get a move-on before the falling rain softened the ground further. If the ground became too soppy, the wheels of the weighed-down wagon would dig in and he’d be definitely having a bad time.

Shrugging at Marble’s antics, Eric heaved the wagon behind him with great effort, dragging the wheels through the quickly moistening ground but his efforts were not in vain, allowing him to secure the freshly-gathered rocks under an awning. Then, it was little effort to stride back inside the house, though Eric’s mind was more set on Marble and how she tore past him.

Yeah, this was along the lines of her usual behavior… but the way that she stiffened so rigidly and harbored a genuine look of despair on her face wasn’t too reassuring that things were ‘business as usual.’

“Marble?” Eric called out as he entered into the common room of the house, not finding a single trace of the timid mare, not even a trace of dirt or mud from her hooves.

Running both of his hands through his blonde hair and wiping some dried sweat from his brow (and smearing some dirt on himself in the process), he could only assume that she had retired to the bathroom and her room, possibly to be left alone.

Seeing no sign of Limestone either, Eric removed his shoes and quickly banged them against the porch to dislodge any pesky dirt and mud clots before heading upstairs. While it was a short day today in terms of work, Eric was no less tired from the accumulated soreness throughout his first week.

Ascending the stairs and being able to make out the distinct, soothing patter of the heavy precipitation now upon them against the roof, a blissful smile carved its way across his face. Rain had always been his favorite weather… mostly because in Southern California, he and his kin thought ‘water falling from the sky’ was naught but a myth.

Passing by the bathroom and noticing both the light on and the sound of water running confirmed his likely suspicion that Marble was probably showering before she scurried off to her room. Eric hoped he’d be able to catch her on her way out and tell her that today had been extra fun.

Otherwise, this would be an odd way to end the day.

“One week down,” Eric announced to the empty room, stumbling as he tossed his socks away. “And a bunch more to go!” he silently cheered, pumping his hands into the air as he began undressing himself.

Slipping into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt after wiping down his face and arms, Eric had half a mind to just waste the day away (as well as tomorrow) before classes started early on Monday.

Getting to his bunk and lying down, he had already done all the mental planning. In short, Eric would just have to wake up no earlier than normal, make his way to the train-station, finish his classes by noon or one in the afternoon depending on the day, head back and finish his chores which would leave him just enough time to study.

His musings were jolted when lightning flashed and thunder followed suit, along with a fair increase in the downpour which seemed here to stay. His hands behind his head, Eric was content to just listen to the aforementioned, soothing beat of the rain above his head as some white noise to catch an early-afternoon nap before he could properly shower off.

The rolling thunder was just a bonus; he loved thunderstorms, after all.

A gentle whimper just outside his door by the bathroom indicated that somepony didn’t particularly enjoy them.

Eric let it go, though; it wasn’t the first time that Marble had scurried back and forth from the bathroom in a bit of a hurry or in an anxious manner. He’d wait for a little while for the water to heat up again before going to rinse himself off.

So he resolved to rest his eyes again, arms folded comfortably behind his head.

As the thunder boomed quite loudly this time, however, that whimpering and sniffling outside the door didn’t go away… nor sound farther away, for that matter.

Opening his eyes and cocking his eyebrow, Eric directed his gaze towards the door; flashing lightning along with the same result confirmed his suspicions.

Curious, Eric swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped to the floor, opening his door and taking a peek outside towards the bathroom area.

“Marble?” he called as he scanned his outside surroundings, but instead of a verbal answer, he got a visual one:

Freshly showered and garbed in her usual, baggy comfort clothes, Marble was sat in a fetal position against the small bit of wall by the bathroom door. Her arms were wrapped securely around her legs while her chin rested squarely on her knees, and Eric noticed that her eyes were shut tight with a few barely-discernable tear rivulets beneath.

Further, the poor mare was quivering to her very core, and a sharp pang of pity hit Eric right in his heart at the sight… a sight he was unfortunately all too privy to back on Earth for a multitude of reasons.

Having a good idea of what he could do, Eric cautiously made his way over to Marble’s immediate left, sinking his back down against the wall which sat him right next to her.

“Hey…” he said in a soft, almost paternal tone to try and capture her attention. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

Better than he had hoped, Marble angled her gaze over to him, though her expression of misery didn’t lighten at all.

Further, when lightning and thunder made their presence known once again, Marble visibly flinched. While, in Eric’s uneducated opinion, this may not have been a full-fledged anxiety or panic attack (at least yet), his experiences with one of his best friends back on Earth who did suffer from such attacks allowed him to draw on a plethora of ways to handle the situation.

The only problem was risking either doing nothing on one extreme due to fear of overstepping boundaries, or accidentally doing too much.

In the end, Eric would be damned if he allowed himself to do nothing while this mare was figuratively shitting herself, and it would be easier, in his mind, to ask for forgiveness than for permission in this particular situation. So with that, he scooted up against her and draped his right arm over her, giving her the opening to lean against him if she so desired.

And as if subconsciously, still bearing that blank stare, Marble relaxed into him, angling her entire body and resting her head on his shoulder with Eric’s arm wrapped around her.

He sighed out in relief that she didn’t immediately scoot away in fright, as he had come to expect when Marble was faced with unfamiliar surroundings and situations… but further, he could feel her exhale gradually and take in controlled breaths to help calm herself down. The final touch called for him leaning his own head against the top of her own, which was exactly what he did.

A gentle aroma of freshly shampooed hair and washed body, one of subtle lavender, pleasantly filled his nostrils and served to bring a half-smirk to his face.

For Marble, she could not place exactly why she leaned into Eric so readily. That, or she just did not have the words to explain what she knew deep down the be a festering, fermenting truth… a truth which terrified her in an alternate sense. Still, this further helped to quell any residual fears about Eric; here he was doing his best to comfort her in her time of extreme need. Normally, she would beeline for Maud’s room for refuge and words of solace, but since she was not here, Marble felt she had no options; Limestone, bless her heart, was not exactly the paragon of bliss in these situations for her.

Then, along came Eric. Barely had it been a week with him around and she was already feeling noticeably calmer.

Now, the human knew it was time to draw her attention away from the storm.

“Tell me about your sculptures,” the human implicitly asked.

Marble blinked a few times as she processed his words.

“W-What about them?” she finally muttered her first words of the moment.

She quietly yelped when her thigh scraped against the floor.

“Ow!”

“Just… anything really,” Eric responded. “But as a suggestion, it may be a bit more comfortable if we sat somewhere better.”

He gestured to his room with a tilt of his head. It was an innocuous suggestion in nature, Eric knew this well but his ultimate fear was having those words misconstrued into something that was definitely not the case. ‘Inviting someone to your room’ could be interpreted in only a handful of ways when it involved two of the opposite sex who were (allegedly) straight individuals.

His ass was killing him though, and sitting on a bed was a much nicer alternative than a wooden floor in his eyes.

Thankfully, Marble was just as eager to get off of the unforgiving floor and, seemingly, did not take Eric’s words the wrong way in the slightest.

“Okay…” she said without hesitation.

Eric stood up first and offered his hand to the mare, who, with a grateful smile partially veiled by her mane, accepted the gesture.

Helping her off the ground, Eric kept his arm around the still-quivering mare and led her into his room, having them take a seat on the edge of the lower bunk under his own bed. The two scooted back against the wall for extra support, but the bed allowed them both to sit in a much more comfortable lotus position to relax in.

“So, what kind of little sculptures do you make?”

“W-Well…” Marble began, leaning back into Eric as if by habit, twiddling her fingers and flinching once when another bout of thunder rolled in.

“Just little things… like I’ll make tiny busts of ponies or some…” her words trailed off when her thoughts became a bit more muddled.

“Where do you get the material? Here?” Eric continued to ask his questions, and while the original purpose was just to distract Marble from the storm, he was genuinely curious.

“Mhmm. We have a tiny quarry with some white marble that we extract from every now and then,” she explained. “I’ll find some little pieces on the ground and if they’re not usable for us, I’ll take them.”

“Huh, interesting,” Eric expressed. “Back on Earth, marble sculptures are created with machines now, but in olden times they were done by hand with a hammer and a chisel. Is it kinda the same here?”

“Mhmm!” Marble nodded. “I don’t know anything about machines, but we use some magical chisels that allow us to carve much easier; it’d be really hard to make smaller pieces if that weren’t the case,” she elaborated.

In disbelief, Eric made his curiosity known.

“Magical chisels, really?” he asked, turning to look directly at her. “Now you really gotta show me this sometime,” he continued, eliciting a hearty giggle out of the mare, she covering her mouth out of propriety.

Gradually, the rain did not seem to matter that much anymore, and the storm could be weathered. In accordance with his original plan, Eric continued to field questions to draw her mind from settling on the storm system outside, but it became much easier as time went on and the major part of the storm advanced onward, only leaving the rhythmic sound of falling rain in its wake.

Neither party was sure how much time passed, but all Eric was certain of was that after who-knew-how-long, the two ended up lying down together on the lower bunk with Marble snuggled against his right side, her arm draped around his midsection and her head resting on his chest as if he were a giant stuffed animal.

Eric huffed in amusement as he looked down upon the quiet mare taking a nap on him, oblivious to the continual pitter-patter of the rainfall outside. With his left arm resting behind and supporting his head, he used his right hand to pull an errant strand of Marble’s mane out of her peaceful face and set it in its rightful place behind her ear.

There was little reaction from her on her part, except for her shifting in her sleep and donning a placid smile… one that was contagious enough that Eric had to form one of his own.

...but adding to the myriad of revelations he had this week, the young man removed his left arm from its place and let his head fall back onto the pillow in defeat.

Fuck, I like this mare…

I like-like Marble…

Goddamnit.

Indeed, glancing back down at her sleeping form, the familiar feeling of butterflies invading his stomach and fluttering around like degenerate assholes, as well as his heart rate pleasantly increasing was all the collective confirmation he needed.

This could all be Future-Eric’s problem, though… for now, Present-Eric was content enough to rest his right arm on Marble’s back and allow her to sleep while catching up on a little shuteye himself.

So, Eric lay back completely and let his free hand fall on Marble’s right shoulder, taking a deep breath and letting himself fall into the welcoming grasp of an afternoon catnap.

All the while, Marble’s eyes fluttered open just enough for her to realize her position… and she did not care in the slightest, only yawning, clicking her tongue once, and sleepily nuzzling her cheek back into its original position on Eric’s chest.

There, she drifted back into the realm of dreams, if only for a little longer, with the temporary peace of mind afforded to her by her new human friend she was beginning to find so… calming.