A Dream That Wasn't

Chapters

1: The Commencement of Events
2: The Town
3: The Picnic
4: The Park
5: The Day Shift
6: The Preparations
7: The Errand
8: The Confrontation
9: The Date (Finally!)
10: The Ponyville Gala
11: The Calm Before the Storm
12: The Revelation
13: The Complication
14: The Dungeon
15: The Training Begins
16: The Dream
17: The Decline
18: The Best Laid Plans
19: The Culmination
20: The Confession
21: The Cost of Vengeance
22: The Sentencing
23:Words Meant to Dwell in Darkness Shall Never See the Light of Day
The End of a Dream

1: The Commencement of Events

Chapter One

The Commencement of Events

Everybody has wondered what it would be like to go somewhere else, to just leave all of their problems behind and make a new life for themselves somewhere else. Back in the day, one could just hop on a ship and strike out for a new land. In today’s era of technology and information interconnectivity, this is impossible. You are tracked from the moment you buy a ticket. Those who seek you will find you; and more often than not they will bring you back. So there goes the dream of leaving it all and starting over, right? That’s what I thought as well… at least until that one fateful night… but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Nobody ever stops to think ‘Hey? What if I actually did go somewhere new and I missed this place more?’ No, nobody ever says that, because we are sure that our fantasy worlds are the bees’ knees and we would never want to return. Let me tell you, that's not always the case. Let’s rewind and take it from the top, shall we?

Imagine, if you will, that you had a nearly ideal life: a beautiful, loving wife; a happy, healthy, and lovely little boy. You had a good job with the Military that even came with a security clearance. You had a brand new motorcycle, and a host of tools and gadgets for recreation. This was my life. Sounds great, right? After all, I had the three things most people want; family, money, and toys. Yet for some reason, this wasn’t enough for me. Inside I felt hollow, like there was something missing from me, missing from my life. I’d tried to fill the void… hence the motorcycle and the gadgets. Despite my plethora of attempts, I found that nothing worked. This was the state in which I lived; the state in which this story begins.

My name is Dave, last name is unimportant. I am twenty one years old, and you already know the basics of my life. There is a whole sob story back there, but I’ll not be boring you with that right now. Suffice it to say that my childhood was not the greatest and move on from there. One thing that sets me aside from most is my unabashed and unashamed love of a certain show that most people would say "is for little girls."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen; I am a Brony.

Now that you know a bit about me, let’s continue on with the story, shall we? Like I said, I was not very happy, though I had every conceivable reason I should be. There’s likely a deeper issue there somewhere, but I don’t care enough to get into it. I suppose that right there is a reason for it as good as any other; apathy. I had quite a bit of apathy on tap, ready to be dispensed at a moment’s notice. So much apathy, in fact, that I’m pretty sure if I bottled and sold it I could end all war, because nobody would care enough about anything to fight over it. Not to say I cared about nothing, but I had and still have the ability to let damn near anything go; to not dwell in the past, even to a fault. This brings us to the start of the narrative.

The lair of Dave, 19:30HRS (7:30 PM)

I’d just gotten home from work, after having my ass chewed at work for things that I had no conceivable control over, and set my bags down in the living room. Even as I was standing up, a voice echoed from the kitchen, “You know your bags don’t go there. Put them up right, love.”

“Yes, dear” I responded, shouldering my bags again. With a sigh, I lumbered down the hall into the bedroom and deposited everything on the floor. No sense unpacking everything I’d be taking with me in the morning anyways, right? I dropped my helmet and stripped out of my riding gear, piling it neatly alongside the bags. The smell of stir-fry wafted in from the kitchen as I removed my boots. I hopped into the shower briefly, trying to rinse the day off of me. The cool water was as refreshing as ever, and by the time I stepped out of the shower I felt like a new man.

Throwing on some shorts, a tee shirt, and my lucky hoodie, I moseyed into the dining room. A sad sight greeted me, though I’d expected it. There was only one plate on the table, piled high with food that had long since gone cold. Of course they’d eaten without me. I’d gotten home a good hour later than usual, courtesy of the ass chewing I’d received. Sighing, I sat down to my meal in silence, barely tasting the food.

I finished up and placed my dishes in the sink before joining my wife on the couch. I could feel the tension in the air as I walked up, the scattered bills on the table a very likely culprit. Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right. As I sat down, she remarked on how we were going to be short again this month. And thus it begins. This fight had happened so often that it’d become a finely choreographed routine. We’d argue about what spending we could cut, what we could put off paying till the next check, and the like. Sooner or later, it always came around to the blame game.

When I asked why she was buying snacks instead of food, she turned it around on me and went in for the kill. “We would be fine, if not for that stupid motorcycle payment.”

And there it was. Without fail, it always ended there, just like that. For what it’s worth, she was right though… the motorcycle payment was crippling us financially. In a fit of self indulgence, I’d bought the motorcycle; I was thinking only of myself when I did it, and that’s what hurt the most. Ordinarily, this point in the argument was where I shouldered the blame for all of humanity's problems and admitted that I was the worst human ever, just to end the fight. Ordinarily, I didn’t just get my ass chewed by my Commander for an hour. I had soaked up enough undeserved blame for the day, and I couldn’t take any more. Where we usually ended the argument was only just the beginning of a new argument; one that would be far worse than usual.

I’ll not repeat what was said, more out of shame than anything else, but by the end of the verbal altercation, I stormed out of the house and into the cool night air. If I hadn’t, who knows how much worse it would have gotten; how much louder I would have yelled. As I left, I witnessed something that would break my heart again and again in times to come; my wife reached into the crib and picked up our crying son. He didn’t know what was going on, he couldn’t understand what was being said, but he knew that mommy and daddy were yelling, and it scared him. The last time I saw my son was with tears in his eyes, and his mother was fighting her own tears as she held him. I was the monster that did this to them both. And, God help me, I was proud of it. I was proud of the suffering I could put others through after suffering so much myself. And then I walked away into the night, slamming the door in my wake.

I was about a block away from the house when a police car came roaring around the corner. I guess someone had heard the yelling and figured that somebody was being murdered. I scoffed and continued walking. The only things I had on my person were a watch, my keys, and my wallet. I was furious, and I was looking for a place to vent the anger I still had pent up inside. I quickened my pace with no destination in mind, and in about half an hour I wound up at my local watering hole.

As soon as I walked in, I made a beeline for the bar and ordered a pint of Guinness. I took this holy beverage and walked over to a booth, deep in the shadows of the building and made myself comfortable. Out of the corner of my eye, I took note of a large, ominous looking figure in a black overcoat as he rapidly approached my table. I could feel my heart speed up as the adrenaline kicked in and time slowed down; I was ready for a fight. Instead of attacking me, the imposing figure held up a brace of Guinness bottles with a smile. If I had any emotion remaining in me, I might have felt bad that I hadn't spotted my best mate Dan when I walked into the bar. I shot him a dirty look as he slid into the booth across from me. Dan was a good friend of mine and had been since we were kids, and he was without a doubt the person I would go to when the world went to hell.

And thus we began our Saturday night ritual on Friday. We drank a beer or two each as I listened to him recounting this grand tale of how he acquired his new black leather duster. I admired it, but I was too internally preoccupied to say much of anything. Seeing that I was in a funk, he declared that we needed to get away. I suppose I agreed… my head did the little nodding thing, anyways. He told me to meet him in the parking lot out back of the bar in thirty minutes with my bike. I nodded, drained my beer, and shuffled into the night. I could feel myself loosening up, as the Guinness took the edge off of the day and allowed me to relax a bit. With the limber gait of a man without a care in the world, I sauntered home to get my gear.

Normally, I would never ride my bike after even a single beer, let alone two. But right now, none of that mattered; nothing mattered. My apathy welled up and swallowed me whole. I got home and pulled out my keys, unlocked my truck and climbed in. Strewn in the backseat of the cab were various articles of clothing. I dug out a pair of jeans, some gloves, and my spare helmet and dressed myself thus. I locked the truck back up and made my way up the lot to my bike, pausing a moment to take it all in.

The harsh light of the street lamp was reflected by the metal flakes in the paint, causing the whole machine to glimmer with an appearance of speed, even while stationary. The bike had always looked like a bird of prey to me, the way all of its sharp lines and jutting angles swooped about, culminating in a very pointed front cowl that I’d always thought was reminiscent of a beak. In the dim light, you couldn’t see the smaller scratches that marred the paint, battle scars of flying gravel being kicked up by cars in front of me.

I slid the key in and watched as the gauges spun and settled. I fired it up, reveling in the deep, throaty roar of the motor. I can’t really explain the feeling that seeing such a finely tuned machine evoked in me, but some of you out there must know what I’m talking about.

I fastened the strap on my helmet and climbed into position. All the inebriating effect of the alcohol seemed to have vanished by the time I kicked up the stand and set out on my way. As I pulled into the bar, I gave a quick rev of the engine, a gesture that was answered from the shadows. Dan kicked on his lights and rolled out to greet me. Where my bike was angular and jagged, his was smooth and fluid; almost like black silk in darkness. With a nod, we took off. We rode the surface streets for a while as we threaded our way to the highway. Once we were on the highway though, all hell broke loose.

It started innocently enough. We began to jockey for position on the ramp, one of us edging forward and then the other passing him; and then we were off, just like that.

We took off like bats out of hell. Well… he sped off, and I soon followed. We were doing about a hundred and thirty kilometers an hour on the on ramp when he split, and I dropped from sixth gear to fourth, my tachometer dancing as I swiftly passed him at no less than two hundred kilometers per hour. And with that, the race was on. It was about twenty-one hundred and the highway was mostly clear. Even so, we rocketed past several cars at a speed so high it was not dangerous but suicidal. Trivial things like mortality meant nothing to us; we were Gods. We were the embodiment of speed.

Even so, we eventually slowed down to a sedate hundred and twenty kilometers per hour and started pulling stunts in feats of one-upmanship. I started it by clipping my front brake and sliding up to sit on the gas tank, followed by a blip of the throttle to get the front wheel in the air. I rode this for a second or two before settling back down. He countered it by kicking his legs out behind him and lying prone on the bike, what we called a ‘superman.’ As he pulled that, I pulled my signature move: the Single Leg Over. I stood up on the bike and swung my right leg over the bike to sit down on my left heel. I was entirely off one side of the bike, save for my right arm crossing the bike to keep a grip on the throttle.

We rocketed past a black and while blur on our left side, causing Dan and I to share a look. The flashing blue lights that winked into life behind us erased any suspicion, and we settled back onto our bikes before we exploded into the night, "going dark". Fun fact: did you know that nearly all modern motorcycles have the lights hard wired to the motor, so that if the motor is running the lights are on? This is for increased visibility, and so you can’t forget to turn them on. Dan and I had wired up a switch between the motor and the lights, allowing us to turn the lights off entirely, thereby “Going Dark.”

We began to weave our way through traffic methodically, cutting a good deal closer to other vehicles than we ordinarily would, and at a much higher speed to boot. At one point, I looked at the speedometer; it read two hundred and fifty-four kilometers per hour. We entered into a long, sweeping counterclockwise turn at a high rate of speed, leaning the bikes over so far that our knees brushed the asphalt. I reached out my left hand and dragged it along the tarmac briefly, before grabbing the handlebars again to avoid another car on the road.

In our wake, there was a flurry of horns and flashing lights, the squeal of brakes permeating the air ever so briefly as drivers belatedly reacted to our passing. Soon, the blue lights faded to nothing; our speed was a deterring factor for the police; but then again, so was the fact that, by chasing us they were endangering more lives. One way or the other, the blue lights disappeared.

Without even having to signal, we took the next exit and threaded our way back onto surface streets, still “Dark.” Once we were a good distance from the highway, we started "rolling bright" as we turned the lights back on. We made our way to Dan’s house and parked in his garage, so that our rocket powered sleds of mayhem would be hidden from prying eyes, until the heat from the fuzz cooled off. Sadly, I actually talk like this. Rather, I used to.

Retiring to the couch in his living room and flicking on the tube, we reveled in the afterglow of our reckless endangerment of our lives and the lives of others. Suddenly, Dan jumped to his feet, a devilish gleam in his eyes. As he made his way into the darkness of his home and disappeared round a corner, his voice rang out from the shadows.

“Dave, you ever tried ‘Therapeutic Oil’?”

I cocked my eyebrow in confusion, uncertain if I’d heard that right. “The fuck is that?”

His voice far more smug than it should have been, he replied. “You’ve gotta try this shit.”

I replied with sarcasm in kind. “Still don’t know what it is, Dan.”

He emerged from the darkness, cradling a bright green bottle as if it were an infant. The bottle was so brightly colored it almost seemed to be glowing. As a matter of fact, it really looked like it was. I’m not sure if this was a property of the liquid inside the bottle or something caused by the assortment of black lights throughout the house, but none of that mattered at the time.

The two of us made eye contact and said “Absinthe” at the same time.

With a huge grin plastered on his face, he fetched a pair of shot glasses.

"Salud" say we as we down the liquid. It was nearly caustic going down, a fierce burning sensation coupled with a prickly, tingly, menthol sensation. As the fire died in our throats, there was a strange aftertaste… like a minty-cinnamon-anise-clove flavor. The last thing I could remember was taking another shot as Dan tells me that the wormwood they made this batch from was taken from an area of Europe that is renowned for its potent beverages.

The blackness crept up from the edges of my vision and swallowed me.

I was floating numbly in the ether of the void when a voice reverberated in the blackness; this voice, which seemed to come as much from within me as from around me, addressed me. “Boy. What are you doing here?”

I was currently in no state to be answering any sort of questions, the alcohol adding a fine edge to my apathy. Thus, I answered the mysterious voice of hallucination with no small amount of insolence. “I do believe I am floating.”

As my have been expected, the voice did not take kindly to my sarcasm.“Are you mocking us?"

Inebriated as I was, I wasn’t taking the hint. “Us? Are there more of you?”

The voice scoffed. “That is immaterial. How did you come to these hallowed grounds?”

This confused me, this talk of hallowed grounds. I looked around, my eyes trying in vain to pierce the darkness that surrounded me. I had no recollection of ever leaving the couch, let alone of venturing into any sort of “hallowed grounds”, though this would not be the first time I’d woken up someplace strange with no memory of how I’d gotten there. The blackness was so thick that I swear I could feel it pressing down on me. This was just as well; there was nothing to see as, far as I could tell. Something wriggling in the back of my mind told me I might want to stop messing around with whatever this voice was, and answer the question straight up.

It was a bit of a struggle to form cohesive thoughts without sarcasm. “I…I don’t know, to be honest. Last thing I remember was Absinthe…”

The Voice seemed somewhat confused. “Who is this ‘Absinthe’ of which you speak?”

I had to fight the urge to spout a “yo mama” joke. “It’s not a person, it’s a beverage. A strong alcohol that sometimes causes hallucinations. Are you a hallucination?”

The voice dispelled any hope I’d been harboring. “We are as real as you, and in some ways more.”

In the darkness, I rolled my eyes. “That… that’s not very helpful. Look, can I just go home now?”

Again, the voice seemed not to understand. “Home? Where is home for you?”

In my mind, the first thing that popped into my head was the sight of my wife holding my son; both crying. The second was an image of a cyan pegasus, floating along on a cloud. I don’t know why this would pop into my head at this very moment, seeing as how I had never lived there (not even counting the fact that it wasn’t a real place). Regardless, there it was in my mind’s eye… and all I could think about was how nice it must be to live there. Then the voice spoke up again. “You have shown us conflicting visions. Pray tell, which of these do you call home?”

So apparently, they could see my thoughts. That fit neatly in with my “hallucination” theory. But wait… they’d just asked me which one my home was. Did that mean they could send me to Equestria? Well, since this was all an Absinthe fueled break from reality, I figured… why the hell not. I might as well have some fun before I woke up.

With utter conviction, I spouted my answer. “Send me to Equestria, to the place I now picture in my mind’s eye.”

As I said this, I fixed Twilight's library in Ponyville foremost in my mind. If there was a response to my supplication, it was drowned out by a sense of falling into oblivion. The wind began to whip me to and fro, buffeting me with powerful gusts. As the invisible walls of air slammed me around, I started to see stars. Stars, which rapidly coalesced into an all-consuming brightness behind my closed lids. Finally, the buffeting ceased, replaced by a single, very forceful wind. I could feel the wind whistling through my hair… wait. I had hair?

My thought process was disrupted by an earth shattering, eardrum rupturing explosion. Instinctively, my eyes popped open in fright, and as they focused I had to marvel in shock for a moment at what exactly I saw beneath me. The ground was far, far away, but approaching fast. Not even the thought of my imminent collision with the earth below could detract from the sight ahead of me; I was staring at Twilight's tree-library-observatory.

Numbly, my mind kept stumbling over the sheer impossibility of it. At the same time, the threat of the ground rapidly approaching became more and more of a concern. Snapping my concentration away from the library, I quickly determined that I was going to fall to my death, and that was not okay. I braced myself for impact, hoping against hope that I would somehow survive. With a resounding crack and a white hot flash of pain that seemed to reverberate through my entire body, I slammed to a stop, as my world erupted in a burst of crimson, shortly before going black.

And then I touched down, all four of my hooves coming to rest softly the ground. Blinking, I opened my eyes to see if I was dead or not. Looking down to see if my legs were still attached, my heart did this thing it does sometimes where it tries to escape my body by climbing out of my throat. I did not have hands or feet. I was standing on all fours, on hooves. Hooves? Well… that's new.

As my heart settled back down into its rightful place after its failed escape attempt, I drew in a deep breath and noticed two things. First, the air here was the sweetest, purest air I had ever inhaled; it seemed to caress my lungs with each breath. Second, I was pretty sure that my entire ribcage had been surreptitiously replaced with either a bunch of knives or a couple of rabid honey badgers. Each breath was a joyous torment.

The pain in my chest sent waves of agony through me, and I dropped to my knees under the weight of the torment. Vaguely, I noticed something nearby on the ground. Turning to my right to look at it, I saw it was a feather; a light brown feather of unusual length. As I turned my head to see the feather better, I became aware of another one… and another one… and another one… there was an entire gaggle of feathers here! And they all seemed to lead to… me? I don’t have feath-OH MY GOD I’M A PEGASUS. Huh. Imagine that.

That explained the chest pain… I guess my subconscious wasn’t ready to die and used my wings to break our fall. But holy crap it hurt.

As I was staring in shock at the feathered appendages I was now sporting, a lilting voice rose up behind me. “Umm… sir? Are you okay?”

I turned to investigate the newest bit of sensory overload that was gracing my presence. Off to my left there stood a teal unicorn, staring at me; her eyes widened with a mix of worry and trepidation. She looked vaguely familiar, and seemed like she wanted to help, but didn’t want to get too close. Realizing that I was badly hurt and in need of medical assistance, I mustered all of my considerable wit to plead for medical attention. “Hehehe. You are a unicorn.”

Dammit. That was not helpful at all. The teal unicorn took a half step back, suddenly unsure about her idea of approaching this odd pegasus. A few of my synapses managed to fire in a coherent pattern, and I registered the identity of the teal mare, and also the idiocy of my last utterance. After mentally berating myself, I tried again.

“Miss… Lyra? I’m hurt. I… I need a doctor… can you help me?”

Wrong friggin' answer. The mare stood stock still, evaluating me with an uneasy gaze, clearly registering shock and bewilderment. Hesitantly, she asked the obvious question: "H… How do you know my name?"

Damn, I'm amazing. While part of my mind was kicking itself for not seeing this coming, my mouth decided to take matters "into its own hands" so to speak, and addressed the skittish mare. I listened to the words coming from my mouth, curious as to just what I was saying.

"I saw your cutie mark. I figured your name was either Lyra or Harpy, so I just went with it. I was right, I suppose, based on your reaction."

Sonofa bitch. If I could've moved, I would have facehoofed. Did I really just say that? Dammit… Lyra, on the other hand, was apparently in the middle of an emotional pirouette from cautious to some strange mix of sadness and anger. I could hear her grinding her teeth as she stifled her emotions, taking a deep breath to collect herself before addressing me again.

"My name is Lyra… please don't call me that other name ever again. Since you're new here, I won't hold it against you, because you don't know. That was a cruel nickname the bullies called me when I was in school, and I have tried very hard to put it behind me."

Goodness. I'd been here less than a minute, and I was already dredging up repressed emotional trauma. So far, this hallucination was going swimmingly. As I tried to take a deep breath and collect myself to apologize, I was seized by a violent, spasming cough. Driven to my knees, my vision swam as the world faded to shades of grey. I noticed a disquieting gurgle growing in my chest; the feeling of fluid sloshing around in my body was highly concerning.

I eventually quelled the coughing fit, sucking in rapid, shallow breaths to disperse the stars dancing around my head. My mouth tasted like blood, and as I spat onto the sidewalk, I discovered that the reason for this was simply that my mouth was full of the stuff. Breathing as deeply as I dared, I once again began to plead for help as best I could, between rattling inhalations.

"Lyra… please. I'm hurt bad… I need a doctor. Please… help me."

I could almost feel the blood pooling in my lungs as I fought for each breath, and a thin trickle of blood flowed from the corner of my mouth. Despite whatever misgivings Lyra had about me a moment ago, the mare’s trepidation melted away in the face of such a supplication. She approached me and tried to help me to my hooves, but my legs were doing a very convincing impression of wet noodles and would not cooperate. After trying and failing at this for a few moments, the pain rose to an unbearable level and caused me to cry out in protest. This startled her and caused her to drop me, which elicited a further groan of agony from me.

At this point a new voice joined the fray.

“Lyra, do you need a hoof?”

In the back of my mind, I recognized the voice. As Lyra responded, I caught sight of the mare that she was addressing.

“Yeah, could you help me get this guy to Nurse Redheart? He’s really heavy.”

As indignantly as I could manage in my state, I retorted. “Hey… I’m not heavy… I eat right and exercise, and-“

My further rebuttal was silenced by a purple glow as I was levitated into a nearby cart. The two mares nodded in assenting motions at each other as they each wrapped one of the leaders in a glow of magic and set off into town, me in tow.

As they walked, Twilight looked me over with a critical eye before addressing Lyra. “What happened to him?”

Lyra shrugged. “There was a clap of thunder outside… so I went to look, since we are not scheduled for a storm this week. When I got outside, I saw him plummeting towards the ground… I didn’t think he was going to open his wings in time, but just before he smashed into the ground he snaps them open. He slowed down a lot, but I think he hurt himself pretty badly in the process.”

I grumbled to myself. I hated being spoken about as if I wasn’t present. “I’m right here, you know…”

Both mares tossed a glance my way before continuing.

“I heard the thunder too, Lyra. So, he just fell out of the sky?”

Lyra shrugged again. “From what I saw.”

Twilight then looked back at me, cocked an eyebrow expectantly, and asked “Well?”

Caught off guard, I smartly replied “Huh?” Man, I was batting a thousand for quick responses today.

Twilight restated her question. “Why did you fall out of the sky instead of just, I don’t know, landing like a normal pegasus?”

I scratched the back of my neck, a disturbingly long area. "Well, you see… what had happened was…"

I rubbed the mane back of my neck with one hoof while I attempted to concoct a cover story. I drew a blank. Between each ragged breath, I deflected the question as best I could. “Well… it’s a long story, but I’m afraid I’m in no condition for stories at the moment. I promise that as soon as I’m all fixed up, I’ll give you the answers you deserve Miss Lyra and miss…?”

The lavender one took her cue and introduced herself. “Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s Town Librarian.”

At this point, we hit a rather large pothole, jarring the cart violently and eliciting a wince and a growl of pain from me. As soon as I managed to contain myself, I formally introduced myself to the two mares.

“Thank you both, Miss Lyra and Miss Sparkle. My name is Dave, and I’m new here.”

Another pothole, another wince. Seriously, was my ribcage made out of fire or what? This was getting ridiculous.

Precluding any further discussion, the Ponyville clinic came into view as we rounded the corner. It was a four story structure made out of light granite, with many windows, presumably to let in natural light. Pretty standard for hospitals, I suppose. While riding in the cart, I almost managed to catch my breath, a little bit of strength had returned to my limbs. As the cart wheeled to a stop out front of the clinic, I tried with some success to stand on my own four hooves again.

And then the front of the cart pitched forward as the pair who were pulling it set down the yoke, causing me to roll head over hooves out of the front of the cart. Not nearly as graceful as I would have preferred, but effective nonetheless. I landed on my haunches as my world spun in a cyclone of agony and stars. As I was trying to convince myself that I really didn’t need to breathe, that air was overrated, an orderly bustled through the door and began to do… something.

I’m pretty sure he was talking to Lyra and Twilight, but I was far too preoccupied with the stars to take note of what they were saying. So many pretty, pretty stars... My lungs simply refused to work, and it was all I could do to take in breath at all. Trying to breathe any deeper only served to piss off the badgers in my chest, a very painful thing to do.

Somehow I wound up on a stretcher being pushed through the halls, and the ceiling lights passing by overhead seemed like a strobe to me. I felt myself drifting away as the whole scene became detached, as if I was watching someone else’s experiences. A new face appeared over me, a blob of blue and white with no features other than a pair of bright blue eyes, which widened as they took in my present condition. Presently, there was a bright light in one of my eyes and then the other, followed by a muffled conversation. I couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly…they sounded like the adults from Peanuts.

I might even have cracked a smile as the blue eyes returned, brandishing a large, shiny needle. A stab of pain in my chest, followed by the sensation of fire spreading through my veins quickly made everything a lot less funny. As the pain blossomed, the world around me once again gained substance, as if I was emerging from the bottom of a lake. I began to catch bits and pieces of conversation, all of it some obscure dialect of doctor-speak, and all of it was far over my head.

I recognized “punctured lung” though, and it suddenly made a lot more sense as to why I couldn’t breathe. Again, the blue eyes returned brandishing a needle. I tried to fend it off, but my miserable, traitorous limbs refused to bend to my will. Again, a brief stab of pain rocked me (seriously, was it necessary to jab it into the same spot as the last one?) but this time, it was followed by a cooling sensation that numbed the fire in my chest.

And what do you know, I could breathe again. Just like that. The gurgle in my chest was worse than before, but that was not my concern at the moment. My lungs greedily sucked down as much air as they could hold. Slowly, I realized that I’d stopped moving, and that nurse blue-eyes was staring at me as if she was expecting something. I screwed my face up in my best approximation of confusion, and she spoke again, reiterating what she had apparently just said. “Can you hear me?”

I nodded.

She nodded in kind. “Good. Do you know who you are and where you are?”

I had to think for a second on that one. Gradually, I replied. “I… I think so. My name is Dave, and… if I’m not mistaken… I'm in Ponyville.”

Another short nod. “Okay Dave. That’s good… now; can you tell me what happened to you?”

I looked at her, confused. “Didn’t the other two fill you in?” I intoned.

She waved a dismissive hoof. “I prefer to hear it from the patient themselves… straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were."

Here, I ran into a bit of trouble. I couldn’t very well explain that I had just appeared over Ponyville as a pegasus who didn’t know how to fly… this hallucination would be a lot less fun if I was in an asylum for it. A voice in the back of my mind pointed out that hallucinations don’t usually hurt, but I silenced that part as I tried to come up with a valid excuse. Suddenly, it hit me.

“Well nurse, what had happened was, I was flying along all fine and dandy, when out of nowhere there was this huge clap of thunder. It startled me so much that my wings locked up, and I only just managed to open them in time to prevent myself becoming a pony shaped smear on the ground.”

I lied as nonchalantly as I could, and it seemed to work. I did not enjoy lying to this pony who was just trying to help me, but there was no way to avoid it for the time being. I would have to figure out a way to explain myself in the future. Presently, the nurse poked inquisitively at my wounds, eliciting a few grunts from me as I voiced my displeasure.

“Well, you are very lucky; these wounds could have been much worse. If you had opened your wings a split second later, you would have hit the ground much faster than you did, and likely would have died. As it is, you have torn your pectoral muscles and fractured a couple ribs. You are very lucky that your broken ribs did not puncture your lung very deeply; otherwise you would be in a much more serious situation. As it is, there is nothing we can do for the rib other than give you some painkillers and ground you for three weeks. Understand?”

My head spun slightly in the wake of the information deluge, but I thought I’d grasped all of the important bits. “Umm… no flying for three weeks, take my pills, get lots of rest. I miss anything?”

She shook her head. “The rest is optional, but encouraged. The other two items are not. If you try to fly in your current condition, you might drive the broken rib back into your lung. Then, you would be in a very bad way. Got it?”

I nodded curtly. “Roger.”

Tilting her head, she inquired “Who’s roger?”

I mentally facehoofed. Of course the nice ponies wouldn’t understand that… radio etiquette means nothing to those who don’t have a radio.

Suppressing a sigh, I lamely replied “Nopony, nurse. I meant to say ‘Yes, I understand.’”

She looked skeptical, but didn’t question me further. "Okay… anyways, there is one last thing we have to do before we can release you, and unfortunately it will be quite unpleasant. It seems that there was a bit of blood that pooled in your punctured lung, and we have to extract it, otherwise it will coagulate and cause further complications. Take a moment to prepare, and let me know when you’re ready."

As I opened my mouth to ask a question, I was quite suddenly aware of an icy cold manifesting in my chest… it was as if I had been stabbed with an icicle. The icicle spread its frigid tendrils throughout my chest, and I became aware of movement in my chest that was entirely unnatural. What came next felt like a combination of vomiting and drowning, as the icicle coalesced into a ball and made its way up and out of my throat.

For what must have been the hundredth time that day, my vision swam from the pain. I was distantly aware of a crimson sphere sheathed in a cerulean glow, as it made its way from my face towards a bucket. A glimpse at the nurse confirmed that she was the source of my anguish, her horn emitting the same cerulean glow that cloaked the crimson sphere. I soon recognized the crimson sphere as the blood that had previously been clotting in my lung.

Before I could even begin to be upset at the nurse for not warning me, it dawned on me that I could breathe again, and breathe deeply at that. The pain of each breath had been reduced to a mild stabbing sensation, and the gurgle in my chest was gone entirely. I savored the sweetness of the air with a new appreciation, and I shot the blue-eyed nurse my best smile and fumbled some sort of appreciative remark in her direction. She merely favored me with a small smile as she wrapped my wings to my chest with gauze to immobilize them, so that the muscles would mend themselves properly, which she explained as she worked.

Satisfied with her work, she spoke up again. “Alrighty then… we’ve done all we can for you. Here’s your bill.”

I faltered. “My… bill?”

In a flat voice, she replied. “Yes, sir. Your bill.”

Fuck me running. I didn’t have any currency to pay this, as far as I knew. I patted against my body in an approximation of where my pockets should be. Suddenly, my hoof thumped against something solid. Looking back, I realized that I had saddlebags on. How did I not notice these before? Mentally shrugging, I pushed the thought off to deal with later as I searched through the bags for something to settle the debt. I pulled out a small satchel that seemed to be laden with coins. I dumped it out on the bed, and a small mountain of bits stared back at me.

Then it occurred to me that I had no idea what the exchange rate was here. I stared at the pile for a moment and looked towards the nurse with a pleading look.

The nurse took the hint with a slight sigh and picked out a half dozen of the golden bits. I took a moment to notice that the blue eyes were attached to a very cute mare, a fine example of natural beauty. How I had suddenly come to the conclusion that this pony was attractive was beyond me, but I wasn't about to question it. Must have something to do with the equestrian body I now inhabited or something like that. I had no time for such thoughts at the moment anyways. With a nod of appreciation, I scooped the remaining bits back into the coin purse. As the nurse turned to walk away, I panicked a bit.

“Nurse! I… um… I never got your name…”

She stopped walking away, turning her head to look back at me. “Joy. My name is Nurse Joy.”

I smiled warmly at her. “Well, from the bottom of my heart Nurse Joy, I thank you.”

At this, Nurse Joy looked stunned. I guessed she wasn’t used to being thanked for what she does… I could see a bit of a blush beginning to bloom on her cheeks. Something compelled me to keep going.

“Well… Nurse Joy? I’m new to this area… and I don’t really know anypony, or know my way around this town. And since I can’t fly anywhere for a few weeks, I was wondering if you knew anybody who could show me around town? Where to eat, where I can rent a room, what sights to see, so on and so forth…”

At this, Nurse Joy’s blush deepened, and she pawed the ground absentmindedly while studiously avoiding my gaze. If it isn't clear by now that I am pretty slow to pick certain things up, let me state it for the record right now: When it comes to females, I am painfully oblivious to all but the most overt signs. Yet, even I could see that the blue eyed Nurse Joy might just have a thing for me. Seeing an opening, I pressed my opening.

"…Perhaps you know a cute nurse who might be up to showing a stranger around town?"

I swear, I had no idea a pony could change so many different shades. Nurse Joy was busy tracing a figure eight on the floor with her hoof, pulling off a startlingly good impression of a tomato for a good ten seconds, before she cleared her throat and shook herself free of her daze. Finally, she gathered herself up and answered me.

“Well, I… I suppose I could… could give you the once-over. Of the Town! The once over of the town I meant, not that I would be giving you the once over, I mean I barely…”

Nurse Joy’s sentence began to dwindle into nothing as she found herself digging deeper and deeper into a hole. I swear, I could almost feel the heat radiating from her blush.

“I would really enjoy that, Nurse Joy.” I punctuated my sentence with a wink, and she started to stammer.

I continued, feeling more confident. “So, when and where would you like to meet for the tour?”

Joy snapped out of her funk with a quick shake of her head, shaking it a few more times for good measure before answering “Meet me out front of the clinic at twenty fifteen. That’s when my shift ends.”

Again, I found myself smiling. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Nurse Joy.”

As she sauntered off, I could see the smile on her face from all the way across the room; I was pretty sure that mine matched it. Gathering my discharge papers, I headed towards the exit. The cart I’d arrived in had disappeared, as had the two mares pulling it. I felt momentarily disappointed that I wasn’t going to meet the Mane Six in some wacky adventure on my first day, but I figured it would happen sooner or later.

I checked the watch that was somehow attached to my hoof and saw that it was only four minutes past eighteen hundred. I had almost two hours to kill before I was to meet Nurse Joy, and I'm not usually one to sit idly by. Thus, I set off along the street I was on. I wandered into a few shops selling assorted novelties, before stumbling upon one which sold cologne. I spent several minutes smelling the different scents until I found one that spoke to me. The best way I can describe it was that it smelled of s'mores by a campfire, cordite, and gasoline fumes.

I loved the scent and bought it immediately, starting to get the hang of the currency here. Spritzing myself with the glorious scent, I walked a bit farther, figuring I would have to turn around soon to make my date with Nurse Joy. Just as I was about to turn around, I spotted a florist closing up shop. In the window was a single flower, the very same shade of blue as Nurse Joy’s eyes. In a moment of hassling and after paying a non-insignificant sum of bits, the flower was mine and carefully tucked into my saddlebag. My bandaged torso complained at the contortion required to reach up and secure the bloom in my saddlebag, so I pulled out the medication I had been given and downed a dose dry, swallowing hard to get the pills to go down.

I began cantering back to the clinic so I could be waiting outside when Nurse Joy came out. I arrived at ten till twenty, and I made myself comfortable on a bench across the street that afforded a clear view of the exit. No sooner had I gotten settled in than I saw a pair of blue eyes heading out of the door, a veritable beacon in the darkness. I hopped off of the bench and cantered in Nurse Joy's direction, but as I drew near to her I froze in my tracks… what was the proper greeting? A hug? A nuzzle? A hoofshake? I wanted to be courteous, but not forward… I locked onto the best solution I could think of and continued forward. As I closed the last bit of distance between us, I bowed deeply before greeting her.

“It’s good to see you again, Nurse Joy.”

As I looked up, I saw she was looking at me with a mild amusement written on her face, and sporting an adorable little smirk. Now it was my turn to blush, and blush I did as I rubbed a hoof along the back of my neck.

“So… I guess you have a different greeting here, huh…”

Her face lit up with a beautiful smile as she replied: “Yes, but you can keep doing that if you want. It’s kinda cute.”

I blushed harder and came up with a snappy reply. “Perhaps, but so are you.”

Now she too was blushing. Score one for me. She motioned into the distance and started walking, I quickly followed. As I drew up alongside her, I fumbled with my saddlebag, attempting to withdraw the flower I had stashed earlier. After a couple missteps and a near faceplant, I managed to extricate the fabulous flora. Clearing my throat to get Nurse Joy’s attention, I stood under a streetlight with the flower behind my back. Nurse Joy turned back and shot a curious look my way. Gesticulating as best I could while hiding a flower behind my back, I motioned her closer. She drew up short about two paces away, and I motioned her closer still. Hesitantly, she drew up to within a meter of me. I sat on my haunches and flourished the flower, eliciting a sharp inhale of surprise from Nurse Joy.

“I was wandering around the avenue as I waited for your shift to be over, and I happened across a florist. And what should catch my eyes but this beautiful flower… I saw it and immediately thought of you. It reminded me of your lovely eyes.”

I swear I thought that if she blushed any harder, she might have a stroke. I guessed that most colts around these parts were not what you would call romantic, and that this was a new experience for her. I motioned for her to come closer, and she only hesitated for a moment this time. I gently brushed her mane away from her ear, and slid the flower in behind it. The flower matched her eyes so perfectly that it seemed like it was custom made for her. I admired the three beautiful bursts of color in front of me for a moment. I smiled at her, and she smiled back; nervously biting her lower lip as she did so.

I was about to ask her if something was wrong when she silenced me with a quick peck on my lips. As was becoming an annoying habit, my mind ground to a halt as it tried to figure out what had just occurred. I felt my own blush blooming as my heart jumped into overdrive, a sensation that I hadn’t felt in quite a while. I was likewise powerless to stop the grin from spreading on my face, not that I minded. It took me a long moment to find my voice again.

“Wow.”

And my winning streak for quick responses lived on. Thankfully, Nurse Joy was better prepared to perform the delicate verbal acrobatics sometime referred to as “Speech.”

“I’m so sorry… I… I don’t know what came over me… I don’t act that way normally. I… I should go…”

“No!” I exclaimed, a bit louder than expected. A bit more softly, I continued. “You don’t have to leave… if you don’t want to. I’d like to spend some more time with you. After all, I haven’t even gotten my tour…”

I held out a hoof in a pleading gesture as I tried my winning-est smile, hoping to convince her to stay. I was relatively sure I could navigate this town on my own after a bit of trial and error, but I would rather not test that theory if I could help it. Something I said or did resonated with her, and she rejoined me, the blush still visible on her face. My stomach grumbled loudly, kindly informing me that I had not eaten today, or since I had entered Equestria, anyways. I looked over to Nurse Joy, who was walking a bit closer to me than she had been before, and addressed my hunger.

“So, where is a good place for cheap, greasy food late at night?”

She raised an eyebrow at the 'greasy' comment, but didn’t mention it. I had momentarily forgotten I was dealing with vegetarians, a mistake I would be sure not to repeat in the future.

“Well, there is a nice little diner nearby that serves the best daffodil sandwich you have ever tasted, and there is also a little smoothie shop that is just out of this world… did you want to stop at one?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Okay, which one: the sandwich place, or the smoothie place?" As she offered the choices, she pointed in two directions.

“Yes,” I replied again.

“Yes?” she intoned, confused.

I smiled at her confusion. “Yes. Both of them sound good, and I do enjoy food quite a bit. Why not both?” Then, I was struck by a thought. I know, it surprised me too. “Wait, I wouldn’t want to keep you away from home for too long… it would be wrong of me to take advantage of you like that. Do tell me if it's getting too late for you, okay?”

Nurse Joy nodded before answering. “I see no reason why we couldn’t do both. It’ll give me a chance to show you more of the town. Also, I think I’d like to get to know you better… you seem like an interesting sort of colt.”

So far, this was shaping up to be the best hallucination I’ve ever had, despite the rough start. In spite of the mounting evidence to the contrary, I was holding on to the idea that this was a hallucination, as the alternative was simply too hard to fathom. As we walked to the first diner for a daisy sammich, we passed the time with idle chit chat. I discovered that her full name was Joy Romana Redheart, and that she was a daughter of the head nurse at the clinic. She was a little bit younger than I was, only a few months away from turning twenty one, and was a full time nurse and part time student as she worked her way towards her doctorate. Because of this, she didn’t have much of a social life or free time, and she was not romantically engaged with anypony else. We arrived at the diner as she ran out of things to say about herself, and began grilling me about my life.

I managed to persuade her to stave off her inquisition momentarily as we placed our order. Most of her questions I was prepared for, such as who I was, where I’d come from, and the like. After all, I hadn’t only been wasting time as I waited for her to get off shift.

Once we ordered a pair of daffodil sandwiches with a side of hay fries, we picked a booth away from the counter and sat down to enjoy our meal. As we polished off our sandwiches and pecked at our fries, Nurse Joy resumed her grilling.

“So Dave, where are you from?”

Swallowing my fries, I responded. “I’m from a small town a long way from here, called Rockledge. Things are… different there. I'm trying to get used to Equestria, with a little luck.”

She didn’t seem to question this at all. “Fair enough. I’d like to think that I could be of assistance with acquainting you with how we do things in Ponyville.”

I grinned at her generous offer. “That would be most appreciated, Nurse Joy.”

She waved a hoof dismissively. “Please Dave, call me Joy. Just Joy.”

“As you wish, Just Joy.”

I smirked with my last comment, delighted at the frazzled look she favored me with. I found it quite endearing. She stuck her tongue out at me and blew a raspberry in my direction.

Murmuring in what could be considered a bedroom manner, I purred “Keep sticking that tongue out, and I’m liable to put it to good use."

At this, Joy froze mid-raspberry as she tried to figure out what that meant. Her comprehension was indicated by the rosy blush spreading across her features, as she found a spot on the table that demanded her utmost attention. She withdrew her tongue slowly, and kept casting glances up at me. I had to say, this mare was just chock full of interesting mannerisms.

She cleared her throat and tried to hide the blush as she changed the subject. She asked about my cutie mark, which I had apparently neglected to analyze while strolling about and waiting for her to get off shift. It was a pretty simple thing, just a glass of water that was half full, with a hole in the cup about the diameter of a bit positioned just above the water line. I had a vague idea of what it might be, but I wasn't about to go down that rabbit hole just yet. I quickly thought up an answer to buy myself some time.

"I like to drink", I said simply, with a dismissive wave of my hoof.

"Drink what?" She questioned.

"Um… hard cider?" I posited.

At the inquisitive note in my reply, Joy narrowed her eyes suspiciously, favoring me with what must have been an attempt at an intimidating gaze.

"Cider, huh?"

Unfortunately, this mare was simply too cute for her own good, and her attempt at intimidation was simply adorable. I put on my game face, adopting the confident, self assured expression and speech pattern that I use when I have to brief my commanding officer. Nine out of ten times, it is not so much what you say as how you say it. This was a game I could not lose. I cocked one eyebrow and met her gaze, initiating a friendly staring contest.

"Yes. I quite enjoy partaking in this beverage."

A moment of silence passed as our staring match heated up. We stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity, when our match was suddenly interrupted by a high pitched squeak of a sneeze from Joy. Our concentration broken, we lapsed into a fit of giggles for reasons we did not quite understand, not that either of us minded. Once we stifled our giggling, Joy spoke up.

"Well, I don’t know about cider, but I could sure go for a smoothie right about now."

I nodded in agreement, and we settled our tab and headed out the door. As we walked away, I cast a glance over my shoulder to catch the name of the diner, having missed it on the way in. The establishment was aptly named "Daffodil's Diner".

While we walked along the nearly empty streets of Ponyville, Joy and I conversed about the different attractions in town, where to eat, what to do, and what to avoid at all costs. Before I knew it, we had arrived at the smoothie joint, a place called "Berry's Smoothies".

As we entered the small café, Joy greeted the mare behind the counter by name, painting both of their faces with a friendly smile.

"Hey there, Berry. How's life?"

The mauve mare behind the counter waved her hoof nonchalantly. "Oh, you know how it goes, Joy. Life is pretty smooth. Who's the handsome mummy?" as she spoke, she gesticulated in my direction.

Joy nodded my way. "This is Dave, from Rockledge. He'll be staying in Ponyville for a few weeks while he heals, and he's asked me to show him around town."

As I mentioned before, I am not exactly the swiftest pony to pick up on inter-pony subtleties, but even I couldn't help but notice a distinctly frosty tone in Joy's response. It seemed to imply "He's mine, back off". If Berry was taken aback at all by this retort, she hid it masterfully. She came right back with a response as chipper as ever.

"Sounds like fun! Make sure you show him all the good stuff,"

Berry added, punctuating her declaration with a highly exaggerated wink. Joy just rolled her eyes playfully and let the comment go unanswered, though her blush was a bit harder to hide. We ordered a pair of the "Berry Smoothies", the beverage which the café was named after, and made famous by.

I have no idea what was in that smoothie other than berries of assorted varieties, but this smoothie tasted better than it had any right to. Who did this smoothie think it was, being that delicious? What was the secret ingredient, weapons-grade deliciousness? Hey, why is half of my smoothie gone… is somepony drinking this when I'm not looking?

What is go-SWEET CELESTIA, MY BRAIN. SO… COLD…

While I was grinding my teeth down to the gums, rubbing my temples like it would actually help, and squinting through the tears brought on by Arctic-Cranium-Itis, I could barely distinguish a mass of blue across from me that seemed to be having a seizure. As I fought the ice demon trying to possess my skull, it registered that the figure across from me was not having a seizure, just laughing uncontrollably. I couldn't help but think that now was an inappropriate time to be laughing, being that there was an angry ice demon on the loose.

Gradually, the pain faded away, and coherent thoughts began to pop up in its stead. My first thought was "What in the hell was I thinking drinking that smoothie so quickly?", and this thought was immediately followed by the realization that they had both anticipated this happening, and were taking far too much joy from this.

This second conclusion was supported by the camera on the counter and the wall of snapshots posted behind the register, all of ponies in the throes of ice-demon-skull-possession. There was no denying it, I had been thoroughly 'gotten', as it were, and I couldn't even be sore about it. I joined in the laughter, and it was at least a minute before we all got ourselves under control again. Joy and I chatted with Berry for a bit before heading out to the patio to enjoy the splendid evening.

Berry's Smoothies was a rather small café, only having about ten tables inside and four more on the patio. The café itself was decorated in bright pastel colors, with depictions of assorted berries painted seemingly at random on the walls; the two sides of the café that faced the street were endowed with several large windows, creating the illusion that there was no wall at all.

Joy and I were seated on the cobblestone patio at the table closest to the corner of the lot, simply enjoying the cool breeze of a beautiful summer night. A few moments of pleasant silence passed before I spoke up.

"So Joy, what are your plans for tomorrow?"

She had just taken a large sip of her smoothie when I asked the question, and shot me a dirty look as she quickly gulped it down to answer.

"Well, tomorrow I don't go to work until seventeen hundred, and my classes don't start again until next week, so I figured I would take the day off to relax. Care to join me? I'll give you the grand tour in the morning if you like."

I smiled again, my cheeks slowly becoming sore from the unaccustomed movement. "Actually, I would like that very much. I can't think of a better way to spend the day, honestly. Just one question though… where can I rent a room? I'll have to sleep eventually, and goodness knows I'll need a shower sooner rather than later. Preferably somewhere cheap… I'm not sure how long my funds will hold out between rent and food. Do you know anywhere that needs part time help? If I could get a part time job, I-"

Joy silenced me mid-sentence with a wave of her hoof.

"Actually, I have a solution to all of the concerns you mentioned, and others besides."

I cocked an eyebrow to express my skepticism, but waved her on to continue.

"It's fairly simple really… you can just stay with me while you recover."

I stopped in the midst of a hearty gulp of smoothie, and I might have done a spit-take if the smoothie wasn’t so damned good. As it was, I swallowed heavily before speaking up.

"Are… are you sure? I feel like I would be nothing but a burden to you in my current condition… not that I don't appreciate the offer tremendously, it's just that I have so very little to give in return…"

She leveled her gaze at me. "Dave, I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't sure; I've been contemplating it since I got off of work. If that coin purse of yours is all you have with you, you could barely afford a week in an inn, let alone food as well. Plus, if you are staying under my roof, I can keep an eye on you. On your wounds, I mean… make sure you are healing properly and all that. It's like a house-call in reverse."

I made eye contact with Joy, and as the connection was made I registered somewhere in my mind that these were the eyes of a mare who had made up her mind and would not take no for an answer. It had to be some sort of Jedi mind trick, because there is no way I could read that much from a look… and yet, I had no doubt that I was right about the look. I could do nothing to resist.

"Well, if it's the doctor's orders… who am I to argue?"

At this, Joy hung her head a bit and lowered her voice in what seemed like defeat as I finished my sentence… leave it to me to strike a raw nerve with a compliment.

"Dave, I am a nurse, not a doctor."

Her voice got so quiet that it was almost silent, as she finished her thought.

"And sometimes, it seems like I'll never be."

I have no idea what's come over me since I arrived in Equestria, but as long as I've been here I've been picking up on far more inter-pony signals and cues, and something inside me was thrashing in its cage with an overwhelming desire to comfort this mare.

"Joy… don't say things like that about yourself. There are too many ponies in this world who will tell you that you can't do it, that you aren't strong enough or smart enough, or some other thing to tear you down. There is no reason to add your voice to the crowd. The world is full of them; this is a sad fact of life. You may not see them around Ponyville much, but trust me, they’re out there. Here’s the secret though: it doesn't matter if the entire world is telling you that you can't. All you need is one special pony telling you that you can achieve your dreams to make all the other voices silent. Now, I'm no good at these motivational talks, but even I can clearly see you have what it takes to achieve your goal. I'll be your one voice; I believe in you, even if you don’t. I'm going to keep calling you 'Doctor' because as far as I'm concerned, it’s not a question of if, but when you achieve your goals. If I were to disappear tonight, I want you to know that no matter what, I believe in you."

Honestly, I was surprised that all of that came out as smoothly as it did. I just knew what needed to be said, and I said it. And every single word of it was the truth, no less. At first, Joy seemed to be in shock. She sat as motionless as a statue for so long that I began to wonder if I had said something to hurt her or offend her. Just as I was opening my mouth to apologize, I heard the tiniest sniffle escape her. I stopped before I spoke, and looked at her very closely for a sign of what I should do next. Once I really looked at her, I began to see the signs. Her face was partially hidden by her mane, but her shoulders shook ever so slightly with her silent sobs. The breaking point was when the first tear hit the table.

Without stopping to consider the ramifications, or to really think at all, I stood up took a seat next to her. I put a hoof on her shoulder to comfort her, and for a moment she did not react at all. Just as I was wondering if I had crossed a line in the sand and hopelessly destroyed the fledgling friendship we had only just began building, she inclined her head and nuzzled my hoof. This was all the affirmation that I needed, and I pulled her into a hug and held her close. Her initial stiffness soon faded as she let her composure slip away, and soon she was leaning into my embrace, soft sobs gently wracking her body. Right about then, I had no idea what exactly had caused this little meltdown, but it was plainly obvious that this was just what she needed; a little bit of encouragement and comfort.

I don't know how long we stayed in that position. It was likely not more than a couple of minutes before Joy shifted her position to return my embrace. And return it she did, with a vengeance at that. She held me in a vice-like hug and buried her face into my neck. Her warm tears traced a path down to my shoulder, tickling a bit as they did so.

Again, I have no frame of reference for how long we held that posture. In her own good time, Joy's quiet sobs had abated and then halted altogether, as her hug0 became less vice like and more gentle. However long she had embraced me was plenty long enough to inflame my injuries, though I did my best to hide it. It was Joy who broke the silence.

"I… I'm sorry you had to see me like that. I've… I've never been complemented like that before. It's just that… I'm always so busy, between school and work, and I have this constant fear that I'm not good enough to make it. I guess I never realized how much it was weighing on me, how much I needed… validation. I didn’t believe in myself… you were right, what you said about only needing one voice to silence the rest. If somepony I barely know believes in me, then why can't I believe in myself? I know it sounds stupid, but… just knowing that there is somepony who believes in me gives me a reason to keep trying. Even if I can't believe in myself, I know that you do… so I'll keep trying for you, if nothing else. I won't let myself disappoint you."

The ball was back in my court, and I had no way to respond. What can you say to that? I felt like there was something I should say, but nothing seemed right. And just like that, the moment was gone; the only sounds were those of the crickets in the night and that of our breathing. We remained seated on the bench, still holding our embrace.

Having my arms in an elevated position for so long, combined with the constricting hug from earlier conspired to produce an exquisite pain that wrapped my chest in a constricting band of embers.

Despite my best efforts to hide the pain, soon my breath was hitching in my throat with each exhalation. The nurse portion of Joy surfaced as soon as she caught on to my pain, and the embrace was broken as she pulled back to evaluate me. In her absence, my arms felt empty and cold, though my chest ached as badly as ever. Before I could really discern what was happening, she had rummaged through my saddlebag, grabbed the pain medication out of it, measured out the proper dosage, and popped the pills into my mouth. As I opened my mouth to protest or something of the sort, I felt a straw being pushed between my lips.

About this time, my brain decided to catch up with the rest of the world, and I washed down my medication with the now-melted Berry Smoothie. How long had we been sitting here, wrapped in our own world? I checked my watch and then checked it again in disbelief; it was nearly midnight. As if to confirm the legitimacy of the time, a rather long and noisy yawn escaped from me. Somehow, the time had slipped away much faster than seemed possible, and had taken my stamina with it. As we stood up to leave, I cast a glance back towards Berry. She was glaring at me with a mixture of concern for her friend and an unconcealed threat for me, if I had been the one that had wrought tears from those blue eyes. Berry's concerns were soothed as Joy came up to me, and nuzzled my neck as we made our way towards the exit.

The walk back to Joy's residence seemed like a mountain climbing expedition. After an extended period of abuse and neglect, my torn muscles refused to be soothed by the pain killers, choosing instead to remain miserable clusters of pain. By the time we walked in the door to her home, I was entirely disoriented. Somehow, the sleeping arrangements were set up, and I would be sleeping on the pull out bed in the living room. I was settling into the couch, entirely oblivious to damn near everything around me when I had a singularly disturbing thought: What if I went to sleep here and woke up back on earth? I was not ready to leave Equestria for the torment of my day to day world. I wasn't sure how I could settle back into my life as if nothing had happened after going through everything I had experienced today. Granted, I might have only been here for a couple hours, but the time I spent here had already left an indelible mark on me. I'd made a friend here; one who I felt needed me. If I was to leave her after everything she did for me without giving her an explanation, what would that say about me?

As I felt the weariness settling over me, I tried in vain to communicate my fear of leaving to her, unsuccessfully. My mouth was full of peanut butter each time I tried to speak, my exhaustion taking its toll. The last thing I could remember about that night was when Joy turned out the light; I had hoped and begged for all I was worth to remain in Equestria for the rest of my days.

The lights went out, and I locked the image of the living room away in the vault of my mind. All I could think was that to fall asleep in Equestria meant to wake up back in my own world, and for some reason I did not want this at all. As sleep claimed me, the last thing that ran through my head was an image of Joy's face, as we enjoyed our smoothies. I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

And then the blackness moved in.

~*~*~*~*~End of Day 1~*~*~*~*~

2: The Town

Chapter Two

The Town

That night, I dreamed.

It began innocently enough, the memory of Joy walking down the street with me playing back in my mind. We had been trading the tales of our lives on our way to Berry's, having a truly good time, when everything took a turn for the worse. Something about me felt… off, fundamentally wrong. I caught sight of my reflection in a window and immediately realized what it was. My wings were receding into my body, shriveling like grapes left in the sun as the feathers sloughed off and drifted to the ground.

Joy seemed to notice none of this, and she continued with her story as if nothing was happening. As my wings atrophied before my very eyes, I felt my hooves cracking and splitting, breaking apart into several segments that remained attached to the nub that was once my hoof. My legs had begun to pop and crunch in a sickening manner as the bones seemed to melt away and reform in different ways. With a sudden motion that drove me to the ground, my legs violently contracted and expanded with a horrendous grinding sensation.

I cried out to Joy for help, but she seemed not to hear me. My wings had disappeared entirely, my hooves had split, my legs had destroyed and reformed themselves completely, and my coat had begun to fall away in large tufts. All I could think was that this was how I met my end. This was how I died. I was obviously being afflicted by some horrible plague, one whose most disconcerting effect was rendering me mute, unable to call for help. I had never been so alone and so close to another being at the same time.

And just like that, it ended. Still weary from the pain, my eyes finally began to refocus as my anatomy ceased to rearrange itself. I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to gather my mind after the ordeal.

Wait.

Fingers.

Shit.

I lowered my hand to my face and the evidence was as inescapable as the fleshy digits waving in front of me. Somehow, I had been returned to my human form, in all of its dubious glory. Yet I was still on the side of the main road in Ponyville, a fact that seemed incongruous with everything that had just happened. Why had I not been torn from this world and returned to my own? How was I going to justify my strange appearance to everypony, to Joy?

Fortunately, the universe was not going to let me suffer through the indignity of explaining my current physical form to the inhabitants of this town. The sky was cleaved by a flash of light, and a moment later the constellations were pulled aside as if by an enormous zipper. A great chasm of fire opened in the sky. The roof of the world was rent asunder by an abyss so black it seemed to consume all light, the hellish maw ringed by an inferno of emerald flame.

The sight was so terrible it froze me to the spot, utterly immobilized under the weight of the horror it inspired in me. My eyes were locked not onto the emerald flames but rather onto the immaculate darkness. As I stared into the abyss, it stared into me, into my very soul. I became aware of a peculiar feeling, as if there was something nibbling around the edges of my mind, threatening to swallow it up.

The abyss above beckoned me with unspoken promises, a whispering madness that consumed my being. It was as if countless souls screamed in terror from across the gulf of time, witness to some unfathomable horror that spoke blackness to the soul.

From the depths of the abyss I somehow detected the movement of a shadow upon blackness. What form this shape was, I could not say. My eyes refused to focus upon it, lest the sight rob me of what little sanity I yet possessed. What I could discern was almost beyond description: it was simply beyond the scope of language to convey the immensity of this being.

From the abyss reached the arm of an eldritch terror, the size of which was beyond fathom. The whole of the town could rest in its palm with room to spare. The appendage appeared to be descending in slow motion, a trick caused by the scale of it. As it drew to within a kilometer or so of the ground, I could make out that the appendage was blanketed in obsidian scales, even the smallest of them was an acre square if it was an inch.

From within the abyss there came a glimmer of light, and it was because of this glimmer that I was able to finally grasp what this being was. This creature was a Dragon, and it must have been as old as time itself. Things began to click into place as I realized the nature of the beast. The emerald inferno that ringed the chasm was the exact same shade as the absinthe I had partaken in on that fateful night. The voice in the abyss must have been the voice of this creature.

The arm of the Elder Dragon drew nearer, and it blotted out the stars. I knew that it was coming for me, to return me to my own world, and that I could not possibly escape. My time in Equestria had come to an end, almost as soon as it had started. The closeness of the arm was betrayed by the rush of air preceding it, as the massive limb displaced the atmosphere ahead of it.

The gusts quickly built to hurricane strength, and yet I was rooted to the spot as if by concrete. The surrounding buildings were not so lucky though, and all around me there rose the tinkle of shattering glass and the creak of stressed wooden timbers. Several buildings collapsed under the strain, their debris setting off a chain reaction; in a matter of seconds Ponyville had been reduced to rubble under the onslaught.

In the heart of the chaos, with hurricane force winds whipping all around and debris filling the air, there stood Joy; untouched and oblivious. She locked eyes with me, seemingly unaware of the terrible cacophony of wind that rose around us. And just like that, she was gone. In her place was a tremendous obsidian claw that had buried itself an untold depth into the earth. The digits of the unfathomable creature closed in around me, forming a forest of claws that slowly ensnared me. I was grasped with a surprising gentleness, yet could not refrain from screaming in pain. Where the digits touched me appeared to burn with the fire of a thousand stars, the flesh seemed to melt from my bones at the contact.

My world exploded in red waves of pain which intermingled with the emerald inferno, painting the landscape of my mind in a hellish parody of the winter holidays. My lungs burned from screaming, but I was powerless to stop. Vaguely I registered the sensation of being lifted off of the ground, knowing that I was going to return to my own world; that world full of hatred, spite, and bad memories. I just wished that I could’ve seen Joy one last time, just to let her know what a great pony she was.

Without warning, I was bathed in a warm white light that filled my senses, obliterating the claw forest that had enveloped me. Though the appendages dissipated in the light, the pain did not; I was still wracked by the burning sensation, though it was now confined to my chest. Out of the haze, there rose a voice that was familiar, despite the clear note of panic that permeated it.

"Dave! Dave, are you okay?"

Joy. It was Joy who was speaking to me. This was not possible, for I had seen her being smote by a creature from beyond the stars… or so I thought. The grip of the night terror weakened, and everything came down around me. It was a dream… just a dream.

All I wanted to do was reach out and touch her, to be reassured by the feel of her hoof against mine. I tried and failed to call out to her; it was all I could do to suppress the screams of agony into a drawn out growl. Blinded as I was by the luminous white haze that had replaced the obsidian forest, I could sense that she was near. I felt a hoof being pressed against my head, and a cooling sensation began to wrap around my chest, driving away the worst of the pain and replacing it with a tingly coolness.

From the midst of the haze, Joy's voice rose again like a beacon of hope. "Dave! Please, speak to me. Where do you hurt? Are you having trouble breathing?"

In my mind, I registered that I could not breathe deeply, each attempt being met by a flash of debilitating pain. I tried to speak. "J… Joy."

It had taken all of my strength to utter that one word, and yet it was the single most wonderful sound I had ever made. The nightmare induced paralysis and muteness had begun to wear off and somewhere inside me, a pony was jumping for joy. My heart threatened to leap from my chest each time Joy spoke up, and this next time was no exception. "Dave? Hang in there; I'm going to give you something for the pain."

I heard the sound of somepony rustling through a bag of some sort a short distance away, followed by a couple hoofsteps and a sharp jab in my chest.

A jab in the same damn spot I’d gotten a pair of shots earlier that day. I tell you what; I was really beginning to hate needles at this point.

Bickering aside, I immediately felt a cooling sensation spreading from the injection site, like ripples in a pond. With a great, shuddering exhalation, I released a breath I hadn't known I was holding. As the luminous haze blanketing my mind began to clear, I began to make out familiar details of my surroundings.

A coffee table, just below the edge of the bed on which I laid, still held the remnants of a Berry’s smoothie. Just to the right of the table was a pair of saddlebags which sat askew, seemingly deposited in a hurry. The single thing that sent the reality of the situation crashing home was the vase sitting on the end table: a single, strikingly blue flower was perched in its crystalline grasp.

As my gaze registered the sight of the flower in all its azure glory, it was suddenly eclipsed by a pair of identically hued orbs, widened by worry. "Hey…how are you feeling now?"

The weight on my chest had slowly faded as had the fog; I felt as if I was surfacing from the depths of the ocean and had suddenly broken the surface. Everything seemed sharper than ever, each color more vivid than ever. At the center of my field of view was Nurse Joy, the single most beautiful sight I could have ever hoped to see, seemingly radiant in the soft light.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves before replying. "I… much better, now that you are here."

Joy exhaled deeply, releasing the breath she had been holding, as well as a knot of tension that had settled in her gut. "Oh, thank Celestia. I thought you were dying, the way you were screaming. What happened to you?"

"I think the pain medication wore off while I was sleeping, and the pain hit me all at once. That, and I had a terrible nightmare."

"I thought the medication might wear off, but I was hoping you would sleep through it. And as for the nightmare, it must have been horrible; you were thrashing like you were on fire."

I barely stifled a shiver at the memory of the dream… it was more real than any other dream I had ever dreamt. I didn't want to show her how deeply this had shaken me, so I put on a façade of nonchalance as I replied.

"Eh… you aren't that far from the truth. I'll tell you in the morning… I feel bad enough for waking you up like this, I couldn't possibly keep you up any longer by telling you this silly dream of mine."

"It's quite alright, Dave. I don't think I could get back to sleep after that ruckus anyways."

Hearing this, I hung my head in shame. Not only was I embarrassed for screaming like that in the midst of a nightmare, I was positively mortified that I had awoken this mare and sent her into a panic on my behalf. Seeing this, Joy was quick to reassure me… or try to, at least.

"Hey Dave, don't worry about it. I'm a light sleeper, and I only panicked a little when I heard you screaming in pain."

I hung my head even lower, trying valiantly to hide my embarrassed blush. I failed miserably. At length, I spoke up to reassure Joy that I would be fine, and that she could go back to bed.

"You don't have to stay awake on my behalf… I'm pretty sure I won't be getting back to sleep tonight. At least one of us should get some beauty sleep, though I dare say you need it far less than I."

At this, Joy blushed. Honestly, I've never seen anypony flush so much over such small compliments before. Still sporting rosy cheeks, she spoke up.

"Oh, come on now. We both know that I look a fright right now. I'm afraid to contemplate what my mane looks like at the moment."

Casting a glance at the aforementioned mane, I couldn't help but grin. It was tousled a bit compared to the well groomed mane I had seen earlier, but it was just so damn adorable. It simultaneously gave her a devil-may-care sort of look crossed with an "I just did something naughty in bed" look. Not noticing my stare, she continued.

"You, on the other hoof, look like a million bits. I wish I could look that good when I roll out of bed in the morning."

I responded with a slight blush and a hasty reply. "I dunno what you are talking about. You are sporting the single most adorable case of bed-head I've ever seen."

Joy responded by throwing her hooves over her mane in a protective fashion and telekinetically chucking a pillow at my head. I never saw it coming. The next thing I knew I had moved from a sitting position to a reclining one, spitting out a loose feather. I quickly ascertained what had happened, a conclusion that was confirmed by the mare laughing her flanks off at the foot of the bed. Seizing the opportunity and utilizing the element of surprise, I launched a counter attack, the down-filled missile sailing through the air and impacting its target perfectly.

Joy's laughter was cut short with a soft whoomp, as the unanticipated impact of a feathery projectile struck her square on her nose. The collision sent her sprawling onto her back with a look of surprise etched on her face. Oh, what I would have given for a camera right then…

Next thing you know, there are pillows flying back and forth. Despite being entirely outgunned by this unicorn and her cheating telekinesis, I still managed to hold my own. I threw a pillow and then another immediately after it, using the first one to hide the second. Joy knocked the first one aside with a wave of magic, only to be struck by the second. Using this instant of distraction, I launched myself across the couch, pinning her forelegs with my hooves and her rear legs with mine.

Joy was pinned to the couch on her back, looking up at me as I gloated in my moment of victory. She was looking up at me with a curious smile, one that seemed to mix trepidation and anticipation. This struck me as quite odd for a moment, before it dawned on me what it was she might be smiling at me about.

I was pinning her in such a way that she could not move her arms nor her legs, the latter of which were splayed wide by the way in which I pinned her. The position was… suggestive, to say the least. I felt a familiar warmth growing in a very personal area, and I damn near jumped off of her, trying to get myself under control. I lay down next to her as nonchalantly as I could, attempting to cover a certain area by crossing my legs. I willed this growing feeling to go away with everything I had. Joy looked at me with something akin to disappointment for a moment, before releasing a deep sigh and looking resigned. I got myself under control after a good deal of effort, and managed an uneasy smile.

"Heh… I win."

Joy regarded me with a funny look for a second, before raising one eyebrow in a suggestive manner and replying "So you did… now, what shall be your prize?"

She all but purred the last word, re-igniting that warm sensation I had just quelled. Dammit. Why couldn't this be easy? I thought of a reply as quickly as I could under the circumstances, discarding more than a few ideas that seemed to come from a smaller head than the one I usually thought with.

"Hmmm… for my prize… I shall claim a kiss from the fair maiden."

Joy made a great show of looking around, behind, above, and under herself before pointing a hoof at her chest and saying "Me?"

I simply nodded, and punctuated the gesture with a wink. Joy turned a bit scarlet at this, and began to chew her lip again. I adopted my Game Face™ once again, and raised my eyebrow in a challenging expression. Joy rose to the challenge, pressing her lips firmly against mine. I kissed back, and before I knew it, she was pushing the kiss, a quiet desperation apparent in her actions. She kissed me harder, pushing me onto my back as she climbed on top of my supine form. Alarm bells began to ring feverishly in my head, alerting me that this was going in a certain direction, one that I was not sure I wanted to go just yet. I placed a hoof on her chest and gently pushed her away, breaking the kiss.

She immediately tried to re-initiate the kiss, but my hoof held her just out of reach of my lips. At first she looked confused, but this quickly faded to an expression of hurt. Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled deeply, all of her energy seemingly departing at once. Though she was still in a straddling position, the spark of the moment had vanished, leaving an awkward silence in its place. She had begun to apologize, but I cut her off with a hoof gently pressed to her lips as I began to speak.

"Shhh… Don't apologize, Joy. You've done nothing wrong. It's just… I don't feel like this is right. It's too soon. "

Joy seemed to physically deflate, becoming a smaller, frailer version of herself. She spoke up in hushed tones barely above a whisper, remorse and regret heavy in her voice.

"I… I'm sorry. I can only imagine what you think of me now… I'm not like that, I swear… it's just… you're so sweet, and I got caught up in the moment, and… I… I'm so sorry…"

I quietly shushed her, reaching up and pulling her towards me while rotating my body so that we ended up on our sides in a close embrace, lying face to face. It seemed a lot less awkward this way. I spoke up.

"Don't worry about it, Joy. I think nothing but the best of you; after all, you have been nothing but wonderful to me since we first met. I just think that maybe we are moving too quickly, and I'm afraid you'll get hurt. I… I just want to take things slow. Let's not rush, okay?"

Joy sniffled a bit at this, apparently on the verge of tears. Her voice cracked as she responded.

"I… I feel… dirty. Not because of you, don't even think that for a second. It's just that… I've never been around anypony who is as nice as you, or as sweet, or funny… everypony knows my mom, Nurse Redheart, and they avoid me like the plague.”

This caught me off guard. “Why is that? Why do they avoid her?”

Jpy looked at me for a second before averting her eyes, staring off into the middle distance as she relayed the tale. “When my mom first came to Ponyville, she was a nurse fresh out of school, looking to make a career for herself. Every day she gave her all to earn the trust of the townsfolk, to make a name for herself as dedicated medic.”

“And it almost worked too… but after a few weeks at the clinic, she gets a really ornery stallion as a patient. He had a simple case of heat cramps, easy enough to treat. Give the patient an IV to get their fluids up, keep them out of the sun for a bit, and they will be right as rain in no time. The patient, however, had other ideas."

"He was constantly making degrading remarks to her, telling her he wanted a male doctor, not this incompetent female nurse. It really got to her because she took such pride in her skills and knowledge, and she got sloppy under the pressure. While she was changing his IV, she accidentally introduced an air bubble into the line. In a few minutes, he was in a downward spiral and his vitals were crashing. The surgeons got him to the ICU just in time to save his miserable life."

"The air bubble in his blood traveled to his lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism: an air bubble in the lungs. It nearly killed him. Though she was proven innocent by an investigation, there was a nasty rumor that she had done it on purpose. And while sensible ponies could clearly see that it was an accident, the more ignorant of the townsfolk held on to the idea that it was intentional. To this day, colts want nothing to do with me, for fear of what my mother might do if they cross her."

"It's really saddening to see that after all this time, that one mistake is still haunting her. Why do you think she never became a doctor? She is more than qualified for the position, but every time her packet goes to the board for review, it gets rejected for some asinine reason or another. It's heart breaking… she’s one of the sweetest, most caring mares you'll ever meet, and a really good nurse besides."

I thought about this for a moment more. It quite neatly explained why Joy had been so… forward. She had rarely had a stallion show interest in her before, and must have been overcompensating. I could only imagine the seclusion she must have felt all those years, being shunned by the ones she pursued. I thought for a second before replying.

"Well, I guess that explains a good deal. If your mother is as sweet as you make her out to be, I can clearly see where you get your diabetes-inducing personality from. It's hereditary."

Joy once again turned a shade of scarlet and gave me a quick, unapologetic peck on the lips. "Dave, you are simply too sweet to be real. What are you made of, sugar?"

I shrugged. "I don't know about sugar, but I do believe I am about twenty percent weapons-grade awesomeness."

Despite the previous awkwardness, Joy relished in a hearty laugh. We stayed locked in the embrace for a long time, and Joy drifted off to sleep in my arms. I had begun to drift off as well in spite of my earlier nightmare, when I was suddenly aroused by Joy's shifting in my arms. She rolled over so that her back was facing my stomach, and then scooted back until she was pressed firmly up against my body.

And just like that, I was spooning a pony I had known less than eighteen hours. And I was completely okay with it. I wrapped my arms around her and drifted off to sleep, not worried in the least about nightmares. I adjusted my position to get more comfortable, and despite my best efforts I jostled her to the verge of waking up, but not quite enough to rouse her. In her sleep, she uttered the single most intriguing thing I had heard in at least an hour:

"…but I want to ride the pony…"

As much as I wanted to wake her and ask what she was dreaming about, my own exhaustion took over, pulling me into the land of dreams. The last thing that registered in my mind before I lost consciousness was that her mane smelled like mint…

As I lay there on the couch-bed with this mare in my arms and her scent on my mind, I dreamed again. No, I will not elaborate beyond that, other than to say that it was personal in nature and not something that is safe for young eyes to read. Regardless, I was having a good dream… a very good dream. I was unceremoniously jolted awake as the mare in my arms suddenly was no longer present, her rapid movement jarring me from sleep. I opened my eyes to see what was happening, and I was blinded by a ray of sunlight streaming in from the window.

Blinking at the abominably bright light and squinting to fight the glare, I picked out a pair of blue eyes regarding me warily. Joy had relocated from her resting place in my arms to the loveseat on the other side of the coffee table, where she sat with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms crossed over them. Her face was hidden halfway by her knees, but her eyes were clearly studying me very closely, and I could easily distinguish that they were darting from my face to my… oh my.

As sometimes happens, a good friend of mine had decided to wish me a good morning…there were, however, a few problems with this. First, my chum was clearly very excited to wish me a good morning, to the point that it was almost painful. Second and more importantly, I had been snuggled quite close to an attractive mare when he decided to say hello. I quickly turned as scarlet as I had ever been; I scrambled madly to grab something, anything to cover my shame.

After I had obscured myself with the pillows I slept on last night, the blankets from the bed, the cushions from the couch, and finding nothing else within reach, I sat there with my heart pounding in my ears and my face burning with shame. The silence was palpable; it was deafening. When Joy cleared her throat, it echoed through the stillness like the report of a high powered rifle.

“Uh… ahem… so… that was… unexpected…”

I pretty much wanted to just disappear right then. I almost wanted the sky to be torn open and for the Elder Dragon to claim me, just to be free of this embarrassment. Almost.

“I… I’m so sorry about that. It… sometimes it just does its own thing. I… ugh…”

I facehoofed loudly for not seeing this coming from a mile away. Joy displayed a tremendous amount of grace with her next action: She simply laughed. It was a strange, infectious sound under the circumstances, and after a moment more of wallowing in my embarrassment, I couldn’t help but join her. Joy spoke up first, tears in her eyes from her joviality.

“Oh Goddesses… that was priceless… I had no idea what was happening. One minute I’m sleeping like a rock, and then I feel something on my back… I thought it was your hoof poking me! And then you wake up, and you look so dang cute when you're flustered… your expression was priceless.”

Joy promptly collapsed back into a fit of giggles, and I managed to get myself under control. After another minute or so, I felt confident enough to stand up, letting all of the debris I'd piled on myself fall away. After the abrupt awakening, there was no chance in hell of me going back to sleep anytime soon. Joy was still lapsing into giggling fits at random, and I was taking care to walk a certain way so I didn't rub anything the wrong way and get this started all over again. It was at this moment that my stomach decided to voice its opinion that now is a fantastic time for breakfast, startling us both. I rubbed the back of my neck, and spoke up.

"Heh… so, I think it's breakfast time…"

She smiled at me again, making my heart skip a beat. "Hmm… I do believe you're right. So, where do you want to go? There are a few good places around here for breakfast, so it's really up to you. Where to?"

"Surprise me. I trust you."

With a light blush, Joy gave a quick nod.

"Alright, I think I know a place. Before then, however, I have to make myself presentable. There is a guest bathroom down here that you can use, if you like. It's the door on the right, at the end of the hallway."

I looked the mare over, her mane still delightfully disheveled from her rapid evacuation of the sofa-bed, and decided that she looked wonderful as is. She shot me a "You've got to be kidding me" look, to which I shook my head. She rolled her eyes and waved a hoof dismissively, but I could see the smile on her face from across the room even though I was standing behind her. She cast a glance over her shoulder at me as she turned the corner, and I could swear she winked at me. And then she was out of sight around the corner, my mind still reeling.

My mind was full of fuzz as I tried to make heads or tails of what exactly was going on here. I stood there staring blankly into space for who knows how long, until the sound of a shower coming on jolted me back to reality. Images of a shower popped into my head, immediately followed by a pair of strikingly blue eyes… okay, time for a cold shower.

I navigated my way to the end of the hallway, a feat that required a significant portion of my cunning and wit. I located the shower, and turned the tap onto cold as far as it would go before I carefully unwrapped the bandages from around my chest. I took a deep breath to prepare myself, and didn't bother to test the water before stepping in.

Holy sweet mother of… potatoes, I did not think that through at all. I damn near jumped out of the shower from the shock of the glacial runoff that spewed forth from the faucet. Well, that takes care of my problem… I was shivering vigorously before I decided that enough was enough and turned the tap up to something above freezing.

I finished my hygiene routine and toweled off, taking a moment to admire myself in the mirror. My coat was a light brown, my mane a bit darker, and my eyes were the same steel blue as ever. My injuries showed no outward manifestation, not even a bruise. One thing that I took note of with no small amount of delight was the fact that I seemed to be in just as good of a physical condition on Equestria as I had been on earth, if not better.

Feeling that my ego had been sufficiently stoked for the time being, I wrapped the towel around my waist and trotted to the living room to get my cologne from the day before… I could not get enough of that stuff. I retrieved the bottle from my pack and spritzed myself, closing my eyes and wafting in the glorious odor. As I stood there, basking in the amazing smell, I got the prickly sensation that I was being watched.

Upon opening my eyes, I did two things simultaneously. One, I realized that I was correct, I was indeed being observed. Second, I recoiled in shock from the mare standing directly in front of me, our faces only centimeters apart. As I was recoiling, I used my tremendous vocabulary and mastery of vernacular aerobatics to communicate my shock at the proximity of our faces.

"BWAAA!"

Damn… that had sounded so much better in my head. To top it all off, as I was backpedaling in fright, I tripped over my saddlebags and ended up sprawled on the floor. I swear to Luna, I saw stars circling my head. As my eyes ceased to spin in conflicting directions, they focused on the very face I had just retreated from. Joy was standing a few steps from where I lay, a dreamy look on her face.

"You smell really good…"

I shifted my position, climbing back to my hooves. "Um… thank you…"

"Anyhow, are you almost ready for breakfast?" she intoned.

"Indubitably." I replied.

This was met by an odd look from the mare, as if she was asking herself who actually used such words. I gathered up my saddlebags and met Joy by the door, and without further ado we ventured forth into the soft light of the early morning.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

We had been walking for a good twenty minutes in the calm stillness of the early morning when we came to the fountain in the center of Ponyville. The sound of the water gently splashing across the features of the statue was incredibly tranquil, and inspired in me a feeling of well-being and contentedness that I could not quite explain. Tucked into a small alcove between a pair of much larger buildings was a tiny café, no more than five meters wide but at least twenty meters deep. It was a very nondescript place from the outside, boasting only a small hoof-carved sign as an indicator of its existence.

As Joy led me towards the door, she explained a bit about the establishment.

"This is my favorite place to eat breakfast. It's a bit pricy, but the sunflower hash is to die for. I stumbled across it one morning as I went for a walk to clear my head after a night of studying, and I immediately fell in love with it."

As I drew up within a few steps of the establishment, I could finally make out the name engraved in the wooden slab: "Fleur de Lis." We entered into the small café, and took a seat at a table by the window. After a few moments, a waitress with a thick accent came and took our order. While we waited for our sunflower hash to arrive, we simply sat in a comfortable silence and stared out the window, watching as the rest of the town slowly shook itself loose of the veil of sleep and awoke to the new day.

Over breakfast, we continued an idle conversation about our planned tour of the town. It was decided early on that we would visit a few of the main attractions in town, namely Sugarcube Corner, a clothing shop known only as "The Boutique", the town market, the city hall, and the library before lunch. After lunch, we would decide what we felt up to for the rest of the day. By the time we had polished off breakfast, our plans had been laid, and we set forth to visit the main attractions, though in no particular order. A cursory glance at my watch revealed that it was only zero-six-twenty, and we had dang near all day to tour the town.

We struck out from the café into the calm of the morning. Though there were a few ponies out and about, it seemed that most were still in bed at this hour; the streets were nearly deserted. I inquired about this to Joy.

“Where is everypony? Where are all of the shops and such that I saw last night?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Most places don’t open up until about zero eight, save for a few that are open around the clock to cater to the folks at the clinic.”

“Ah, that makes sense. But if nothing opens till eight, then what are we doing out so early?”

“Silly pony. You weren’t paying attention again. I said most don’t open until eight. Certain venues, such as Fleur de Lis for instance, open earlier out of necessity. Like where we are headed now: it opens at zero six.”

“And where are we going, exactly?”

“Our first stop today will be the Library. I believe you might be familiar with the area… it’s where you… ahem… 'touched down'… yesterday.”

At the mention of my dramatic entrance yesterday, my chest gave an involuntary twinge of pain. I would really like to not do that again if I could help it. I gave an unwitting shudder as I relived the horror of freefalling. Who has no thumbs and an unadulterated hatred of the sensation of freefall? This colt.

“Yeah… I’d like to try not to do that again. It was quite painful and an experience that I would like to forget, but on the other hoof, it did have a positive outcome…”

I let my sentence trail off as I cast a glance at the cerulean mare walking next to me, that seemingly ever-present blush manifesting itself on her cheeks again. She was simply too damned cute… it was like a sugar high every time I was near her, but without the crash or the cavities afterward.

A few blocks away, I saw the top of the Library poking out from behind the roof of the house in front of me. We were entering a more sparsely populated area, with more space between each building and the next. One of the buildings we passed struck me as highly familiar, and a cursory inspection revealed why: the building had a sign in the front of it that read “Lyra’s Strings and Things”. We had passed the building the day before on our way to the clinic.

As we entered the clearing around the Library, my eyes spotted something that made my wings itch (a singularly alien sensation, one that I can’t even begin to describe): small splatters of a rust colored substance. I was looking at my own blood from the day before. Of their own volition, my wings began to shift slightly, sending a ripple of pain throughout my chest. I had forgone the gauze bindings on my wings as I returned from my shower, and now I was paying for that bit of overconfidence.

Sure, Joy had told me that I would benefit from wearing them. I, however, am not a clever pony; I decided that it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle, and that I needed to just suck it up and drive on. Why on Equestria I thought I was smart enough to disregard the advice of a medically trained pony based on my own assumptions, I’ll never know.

I ran out of time to consider my own stupidity as we walked onto the stoop of the Library. Without hesitation, Joy pushed the door open and walked in, a small bell chiming to indicate our arrival. The voice of a familiar mare drifted up from somewhere amongst the warren of rooms and alcoves, indicating that she would be with us in a moment. Joy called out for her to take her time, and gestured with a hoof for me to follow as she wandered off into the embrace of the tomes.

Joy was scanning the spines of the books with a concentration and determination that indicated she knew exactly what she was searching for. From elsewhere in the Library, a pair of voices seemed to be engaged in conversation, their banter punctuated at odd intervals by a third, decidedly deeper, voice.

As Joy continued her search, we drew nearer to the source of the conversation, and words began to become discernible.

"… modern Equestrian history…"

"… might be helpful. It was written by a Scoltish fellow, by the name of…"

"… advanced? They are still a bit young, I think…"

"… this one, perhaps… needs better…"

I had been trying to piece the bits of conversation together as they came to me, and with a bit of analysis, I deduced that somepony was trying to gather information on modern Equestrian history, to be presented in some form or another to younger ponies. I was fairly confident in my conclusion, and I was staring at the ground and trying to figure out who would be asking for something like that, as I blindly followed the sound of hooves in front of me.

Without warning, the hooves in front of me had ceased movement, and I registered this in my mind a moment too late. I head butted Joy in her flank, just to the rear of her cutie mark. She managed to retain her balance and shot me an inquisitive look, trying to decide whether it was intentional or if I was just that much of a klutz.

I suppose my dazed look answered her question, and she told me I should watch where I was going. I nodded dumbly, feeling only moderately embarrassed. I mentally shrugged… worse things had happened today. I looked up and saw Joy's blue aura of magic wrapping around a slender book as she relieved it of its location on the shelf.

As it floated down in front of her, I caught a glimpse of the title: "An Idiot's Guide to Ponyville".

Perfect. This fit nicely within my skill range.

Joy seemed to think the same thing as she brandished the cover in my direction with a smile.

"See, Dave? It's like they knew you would need this someday. They even put your name on it!"

She underlined the word "Idiot" with a wide, playful smirk. I clasped a hoof over my heart quite theatrically, and said

"Oh! How you wound me with such names!"

At this, we both shared a hearty chuckle. A chuckle, which was cut short by a comparatively small green and purple dragon, who shushed us with vigor.

Joy and I shared another (albeit much more quiet) chuckle at the sight. As our giddiness died down, Joy took off again in some unknowable direction. The library did not look that large from the outside, but looks can be deceiving. I followed close on her heels so as not to lose her.

As we rounded the corner, Joy nearly collided with another mare coming from the opposite direction. The two mares recoiled as if they were of the same polar charge, narrowly avoiding what would have been a nasty collision. As they stumbled about for a second to regain their footing, I immediately recognized the lavender mare with whom Joy had nearly collided.

It was none other than Twilight Sparkle, the most powerful unicorn in Equestria and the mare that had helped get me to the clinic in my time of need.

Our eyes met, and a flash of recognition passed between us. We both tried to mumble a greeting, stopping each time we heard the other start, and continuing this for several seconds before lapsing into an awkward silence. Joy did us all the favor of breaking the tension and introducing everypony.

"Twilight, this is Dave; the pony you carted to the clinic yesterday. Dave, this is the mare that helped ensure you got the medical attention you deserved."

Twilight and I shared an awkward hoofshake, while Joy introduced another mare that was standing just behind Twilight, in a state of semi-befuddlement.

"Dave, this is Cheerilee; Cheerilee, this is Dave. He's new here, he flew in yesterday."

I traded another awkward hoofshake with the maroon mare, and couldn't help but notice that she smelled of a delightful berry scent.

As the introductions drew to a close, Cheerilee excused herself from our company, leaving the three of us alone. I spoke up first.

"Miss Sparkle, I would like to thank you again for ensuring my safe transport to the clinic. I owe you a debt of gratitude."

At this, Twilight cast her gaze towards the floor, scraping it with a hoof absentmindedly as she replied.

"Oh, it was no trouble really. I was just glad to have been there to help."

Twilight remained focused on the ground, apparently unaccustomed to receiving compliments. Again, it was Nurse Joy to the rescue, breaking the awkward silence by addressing the somewhat rosy-cheeked mare.

"Well… if it isn't too much trouble, Twilight… I would like to check out this book from the library…"

At the mention of something that involved her official duties as librarian, Twilight Sparkle snapped out of her reverie and immediately indicated that we were to follow her, heading directly towards the Library Logbook. Once we had arrived at the main desk, Twilight proceeded to sign the book out to Joy. I took note that the date was March Thirteenth; a Tuesday. At least the week seemed to be structured in the same manner as what I was used to. Thank Celestia for small miracles.

Once the official business was concluded, Twilight and Joy broke off into a separate conversation that was entirely over my head. All I know is that it had something to do with applied magical theory and the healing characteristics of the separate Pony races. Seeing that the conversation was entirely too far above my head to even try and understand, I wandered off, possibly in search of a book.

I had no concrete idea of that I was looking for, and so I ended up browsing the assorted spines of the books aligned ever so neatly on the shelves. A book about griffin culture caught my eye, and I pulled it down to do some light browsing. I felt like I had only been reading for a moment or so before I heard Joy's voice, calling me back. I immediately stopped what I was doing and replaced the book before I headed towards the sound of her voice. I instinctively exclaimed "MOVING!" to indicate that I had heard and was coming back.

When I returned to the reading area near the front desk, I saw that both Twilight and Joy were seated in a reading nook with steaming cups of tea, which they were sipping as they engaged in idle chit chat. There was a third, as yet untouched, cup of tea sitting on the coffee table in front of a corresponding empty chair. Joy gestured that I should take a seat, and so I did.

Initially, the two mares continued their conversation for a bit as if I was not even there. Soon enough, the two mares begin to recall amusing anecdotes of their day to day lives. In due time, Twilight asked me a question.

"So, Dave… Tell us about yourself. Where you're from and things like that."

I cleared my throat, before shooting a glance at Joy. She had asked a similar question the night before, and I had answered it very vaguely, just giving her the name of a place and not the story behind it. Clearing my throat, I addressed the two mares with a rehearsed tone, as if I had actually lived the events I was to describe.

"Well… alright then. I told Joy some of the basics last night, but that was the footnotes version. Here is the abridged version."

"I come to this town from a small griffin colony called Rockledge. It is a small, secluded clan led by a griffin named Steelwing. I was born and raised there, but the details of my childhood are… painful, to say the least. When I came of age, I was recruited into part of the Skyguard, a quasi-military outfit. While in this unit, I was given special training. I lack the claws and talons of a griffin, so I couldn't be a soldier. In lieu of that, I was assigned a special job in the Intelligence field. That's all I can say on that, the details are classified. Where I come from, the names are different, as you may have surmised by now. Not sure where the names come from, but they are usually passed down the generations to pay respect to the ones that came before."

At this time, Joy interjected.

"When I was in high school, I had a few classes with a griffin. He had a few… eccentricities. One thing I learned from him is that, to a griffin, honor is everything. To act without honor is a disgrace, and to dishonor your ancestors meant a swift death at the talons of your clan. And the fact that they eat meat just makes me shiver. I know it is natural and all, but it still makes me queasy…"

I observed the two mares visibly squirming with the discomforting visions they were imagining for a moment before I spoke up.

"Eating meat… it's not so bad once you get used to it. Watching the griffons doing it, that is. It no longer fazed me after a couple years."

I looked up from where my gaze had fallen to, and was greeted by two sets of eyes locked on mine. Nopony spoke for a moment, and my gaze bounded back and forth between them. Again, Joy was the first to speak up.

"Dave… have you… eaten… eaten meat?"

Knowing how this was going to go over, I did my best to explain myself.

"Yes. Yes I have. You have to understand though; it was part of the culture I was raised in. It wasn’t taboo where I was from, it was just natural. It should’ve been an indicator the way some of the adults would egg me on, but I didn't learn that it was wrong for ponies to eat meat until much later in life. It was also a part of my initiation into the Guard, but that's all I'll say on that matter."

As I concluded my tale, the two mares stared at me with a mixture of horror and fascination. With every fiber of my being, I wished them not to ask me whether or not I still ate it or craved it. While I could lie my way out of it, I could not trust my stomach not to betray me.

As the uncomfortable silence stretched on into eternity, I could see that Joy was looking rather pale, and wondered if I would be mopping in the near future. Thankfully, Twilight diverted the conversation onto a less… sensitive subject.

"So… how did you end up in Ponyville? Is it some mission from the griffins?"

I paused briefly to consider my response, and I decided to tell the truth, while altering critical facts to ensure that my story would be seamless.

"Well… there is no simple answer. No, I am not on a mission from the griffins. As for the rest of the question, it is a long, sad, and complicated story… the short version is that circumstances conspired so that it was in my best interest to leave. I left the clan of my own volition and on amicable terms. Even so, I know I'll never be able to return. I struck out with no destination, no family, no friends, and only what I could fly with. And eventually, I came upon Ponyville… and you know the rest from there."

Joy shot me a glance that said "we will talk about this later", and Twilight changed the subject again.

"If you don't mind me asking, what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

This time, it was Joy who answered. "Well, we were going to sightsee along the way to the Boutique, go by the market and grab a bite to eat, and then go to Sugarcube Corner for dessert."

"Sounds like you have a full day ahead of you… you should enjoy it. If there is anything you need from me, just let me know and I'll do whatever I can for you."

Twilight was looking at me as she spoke, clearly addressing me with her offer for assistance. I thanked her for the offer, and I assured her that I would come to her should I need her services. Thus satisfied, Twilight turned back to Joy, and they once again struck up a bit of girl chat that I was excluded from, though it suited me just fine. I finally had a moment to think, and my mind was racing. I grabbed the cup of tea (a feat that is unbelievably more difficult than it sounds, because of the hooves and all) and sipped it as I drifted off into my own thoughts.

Despite myself, I found myself caught up in the conversation of the two mares, sipping this delicious cup of tea as they traded bits of gossip back and forth. From what I'd gathered, the Great and Powerful Trixie had moved on to Manehattan, where she was experiencing a run of luck far better than she’d had in Ponyville. The mysterious musician named DJ PON3 was a huge hit in Fillydelphia, her record sales going through the roof. There was a rumor floating around that a certain affluent musician was in a controversial relationship with another mare, though there was no evidence to support it.

All of these things and more were whispered back and forth in hushed tones at the two mares shared the gossip they had collected in the course of their day-to-day jobs. I wasn't sure how much of it could be trusted, which sources had been vetted and whatnot, but overall I had the sense that most of what was said was true.

I was content to sit and listen in on the "Bridle Gossip" as it was traded back and forth amongst the two mares… that is, until a certain colorful pegasus pony's… preferences came into question. As soon as the subject was broached, I interrupted, perhaps a bit more forcefully than I'd meant to.

"What does it matter? Who are we to say what is right and wrong when it comes to love? Goddesses know it is hard enough to find someone who you want to annoy for the rest of your life. What does it matter if they have the same gear as you do? Who are we to judge the love of others?"

In the wake of my outburst, the mares were silent. They seemed to be contemplating the implications of what I'd said before responding. The awkward silence lasted a bit longer than I had anticipated, but in the end it was again Joy who broke the silence.

"You know… you're right. What does it matter where you found love, as long as you've found it?"

To this, the three of us nodded in consent. There was nothing wrong with loving another of the same sex, as long as it was truly love that brought these ponies together.

The conversation wore on, and before anypony knew it, it was past ten-thirty. Joy happened to glance at the clock on the wall before exclaiming about the lateness of the hour. She quickly explained to Twilight that we really should be going because she was supposed to be giving me a tour of Ponyville, and the lavender mare waved us off without a second thought.

"As long as you come back to visit sometime soon, I won't hold it against you," she called to us as we made for the door.

Our next stop: the Boutique. As we were threading our way through the streets that had somehow become quite populated by the pastel pony populace of Ponyville, I caught sight of a trio of fillies running helter skelter, gallivanting recklessly through the crowded streets.

As they ducked around the corner, I dawned on me that I had just seen the Cutie Mark Crusaders on what must have been another of their well-natured, but ill-conceived ventures to acquire their cutie marks. I smiled a bit inside as we began to draw near the market center, a place that was impossibly crowded, or so it seemed.

I was wondering what we might do in the afternoon; perhaps have a picnic in one of the numerous fields around the town, when my vision was dominated by an incredibly bright shade of pink. Even as I tried to wrap my mind around the sheer absurdity of the hue, the impossibly tinted pony addressed me.

"Hey! I don't recognize you! You must be new here. My name is Pinkie Pie, and this calls for a PARTY!"

Pinkie paused for a moment to stroke her chin thoughtfully, before inhaling quite deeply and disappearing in a blur. Seriously, that was it. I never even saw her move, one second she was there and the next she was a streak of pink towards the horizon. Blinking in shock, I stood for a moment trying to piece together what had happened. Joy simply smirked at my befuddlement, having grown accustomed to the antics of the pink pony a long time ago.

"One never really gets used to Pinkie Pie… you just learn to accept whatever she does and not question it or think about it too deeply. You'll have fewer headaches that way."

"But… how did she… she was here and then… whoosh, gone! It's not possible to move that fast… I mean, there's no way… ugh, my head is hurting…"

"Told you so." joy intoned smugly.

I shot Joy a dirty look, at which she simply chuckled… I was going to have to practice my "Death Glare" in the mirror tonight… alongside the headache, I felt something else… could it be disappointment? Yes, I do believe it was. I suppose I was hoping for a bit more involved first contact with the overzealous mare, but at the same time I realized that I really should have expected as much from Pinkie, shrugging it off to think about later.

As we walked through the streets, I kept looking around for ponies I recognized. I recognized a few that I could not name, but most of them I could. I picked out Carrot Top and Mrs. Cake having a conversation near one of the stalls, and on the other side of the plaza I could see Applejack deeply involved in a bartering contest with a customer.

As much as I wanted to go over there and engage her somehow, I knew that I had no real basis for it, and it would only bring up questions I'd rather not answer. Questions like "Why are you running across the plaza?", "How do you know Applejack?", and things like that. Better to just keep calm and canter on, and besides: I had a pretty good feeling that I would be meeting the rest of the mane six sooner or later anyways.

We crossed a narrow bridge over a stream as we passed through what could be considered "Downtown Ponyville", taking a small detour from our planned route to check out the Ponyville town hall. Joy informed me that while it was unlikely we would get into the building proper without an appointment, the area just past the main doors was a mini-museum, showcasing some artifacts from Ponyville's past.

We stepped through the doors into a brightly lit reception area, rimmed around the edges with small glass display cases. We made our way around to them one by one, and each contained a small bit of the past, with a note alongside it that explained its historical significance.

There was a horseshoe from the first pony to set foot on the ground that this very hall had been built upon, the omega shaped chunk of iron heavily dented and scuffed by years of hard work.

A hammer, a chisel, some nails, and a framing square from one of the carpenters that had helped build more than half of the oldest buildings in Ponyville, the town hall included.

A tattered, brown piece of paper with writing faded from age. This was a map of the beginnings of Ponyville, and compared to the more modern map in the book Joy had checked out, clearly illustrated how much the town had grown in the time since its establishment.

All of the items represented a snapshot in time of the growth of the town, from the very first settler to set hoof in what would become the town center, all the way to a scale model of the town as it sat today. In this way the town's history made Ponyville seem like a living thing, allowing one to follow its growth from a single, tiny seed into a blossoming community, thriving in its own special way.

Joy and I concluded our self-guided tour, and I walked out of the town hall with a distinct feeling of awe at the structures before me. Each building seemed to be revealed to me for the first time in the light of my newfound knowledge.

It was the subtle signs that gave away the toil that had shaped this town from the land around it, whether it was the still-visible strokes of an axe that had felled an ancient beam for the corner post in a building, or the chisel marks that adorned the few stone statues that dotted the town. It inspired in me a respect for the ponies that had the fortitude and skill to craft this town from raw materials and nurture it to its current prosperity.

Joy seemed to have been affected to a much slighter degree, most likely due to having already known the story of Ponyville's founding. Even so, she left me in silence to wonder at the structures around me for a good while as we meandered through the town. Soon though, her desire for conversation overruled her desire to afford me silence, and we once again struck up a conversation. Well, we tried to at least.

Since my mind was still wrapped around the fact that ponies had built this town with nothing but their hooves, blood, sweat, and tears, it was all I could talk about. It was "Did you ever notice the scalloping the axe made in this timber?" this, and "I wonder how they moved that huge chunk of stone all the way here" that. I felt like a kid again for a moment, lost in the wonder of the small things we take for granted every day.

Thankfully, Joy's desire for conversation that I couldn't provide was sated by a pale yellow mare with a pink and navy bicolor mane. As soon as Joy spotted her, her blue eyes lit up with a nostalgic gleam as she called out to the mare. "Bonnie!"

At this, the mare looked around angrily for the pony that had called her out by her nickname. As soon as her eyes locked on the joyous cerulean mare that was approaching her, her expression melted to one of delight as she called out to Joy. "Colgate!"

I did a double take. Colgate? Wait… I thought her name was Joy… and then it hit me. I was an idiot. No, not that… I already knew that. What hit me was that I was familiar with a pony called Colgate… at least the fandom version, anyways. As I looked at Joy, I couldn't believe it had escaped me for so long. The blue eyes, the cerulean coat, the blue and white mane, and that dazzling smile… Sonofa bitch, I'm dense sometimes.

My only alibi was that when I first met her, I was in the throes of pain-induced delirium, and I had taken her name at face value; I had not tried to assign any sort of fandom name to her. But still… it had been staring me in the face this whole damned time and I’d missed it. I decided to contemplate the exact magnitude of my inattention at a later time as the mares joined in a full on hug. The sight of the two of them standing on their back legs only, with their arms wrapped around each other caused me to stop short.

How the hell were they doing that? I experimentally tried to rise up on my back legs and stay there, only to end up landing quite forcefully on my rump. Luckily, nopony seemed to have noticed my display of physical prowess, and I stood up and dusted off before anypony saw me.

The embrace I had tried to emulate broke apart in front of me, and the two mares began to catch up on each other's lives since the last time they met. As I was staring vacantly into the distance as I stood by Joy, I was jarred back to the scene in front of me by somepony calling out my name.

"Dave!" I shook my head and blinked away my confusion, focusing on Joy. "About time you woke up, crazy. I was trying to introduce you to my best gal-pal Bonnie, but you were checked out pretty good. Are you back with us now?"

I chuckled a bit and rubbed the back of my neck as I replied. "Sorry 'bout that… I do that from time to time. But yeah, I'm back."

I extended my hoof towards the other mare, who was still chuckling slightly at the previous exchange. "How do you do, Miss. My name is Dave."

She returned the hoofshake with a smirk as she replied. "Your name is Dave, you say? I couldn't tell, what with Joy here practically yelling it a couple times and all."

I might have been a bit offended by the unsolicited sarcasm if it wasn't for the fact that there was no malice behind it, only a playful jeer. Instead, I chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I set myself up for that. Touché, Bonnie."

At this, Bonbon's features hardened into a mock-serious scowl. "Dave, are you a mare?"

I tapped my chin pensively. "Hmmm… not the last time I checked. Why?"

"Well, I only let cute mares call me that. And while you are plenty cute, you've got incompatible equipment. Everypony else just calls me Bonbon."

I chuckled a bit at the directness of this mare. She didn't beat around the bush, and that was a quality that I could appreciate. "Thank you for the compliment, and I'll keep that in mind, Bonbon."

I turned to Joy with a cocky smirk. "I like this mare. Where did you find her?"

To my tremendous amusement, Joy's face did some expression-gymnastics, going from shocked to jealous to smiling in a matter of a few seconds. I wished I had a .gif of that… I could watch it anytime I was having a bad day. As Joy registered that it was a joke and I wasn't
actually hitting on this other mare right in front of her, she chuckled and replied.

"Bonnie and I went to school together, and we ended up becoming really good friends within the first week."

Bonbon interrupted suddenly, moving closer to Joy and throwing an arm over her. "Yeah, Dave. We are friends… really good friends, if you catch my drift…"

At this, I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the ground. However, based on the way that Joy turned beet red and was regarding Bonbon (who was now laughing hysterically) with unabashed confusion, I concluded that I had been gotten.

Again.

Dammit.

"Well played, Bonbon. Well played indeed."

Pending a moment of silence as she regained her wit, Joy began to stammer something along the lines of 'I expected as much from him, but YOU Bonnie? Really?' or something of the sort. It was kinda difficult to understand, what with the stammering and all, but you get the gist.

As was becoming the norm, Joy and insert-current-pony’s-name-here broke off into a conversation that essentially excluded me, though not by design. Since I was not yet involved in their conversation, I took it upon myself to at least try to learn as much as I could about the two of them by interjecting random questions. Doing so, I discovered that Joy and Bonbon have known each other since they were fillies in Cheerilee’s class.

When I asked them where the nickname Colgate had come from, they both shrugged and mumbled something about hair… when I pressed for details, I was informed that they really don’t quite remember how exactly it was that the name had come around, but once it did, it stuck.

My questions seemed to remind them that there was another pony there with them, and they began to return some questions of their own. As I explained for what felt like the tenth time how I came to Ponyville, Bonbon’s eyes narrowed as I mentioned Lyra, and she cut me off with a question.

“So, you met Lyra already? And how did that go?”

“Well, I had just narrowly avoided falling to my death by inflicting rather serious damage to myself, and was a bit out of my skull with the pain and all. All things considered, it went pretty well. Then she helped get me into a cart and over to the clinic.”

“That’s all?”

Bonbon’s tone was decidedly less friendly than it had been a moment ago… it seemed… protective, almost. The voice she was using reminded me of a father grilling his daughter’s boyfriend after they came home late from the movies. Though it perplexed me a bit, I figured I would find out what this was all about sooner or later. Things have a way of revealing themselves like that, as long as you have the patience and could pay attention to the details.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Like I said, I was pretty shaken up from the landing, and I was in no condition to hold a conversation. Aside from that, everything is a bit… fuzzy.”

Bonbon nodded her head, seeming to accept this answer. And just like that, she was back to her normal self, as if that whole tense exchange had never happened. I swear I was going to get mental whiplash if things kept up at this rate.

The mares exchanged a few more stories and such that I was happy to keep my nose out of, when Bonbon said she had to get back to her shop to catch the lunch rush. As I should have guessed, Bonbon owned a sweets shop appropriately named “Bonbons”. With a lascivious wink, she invited Joy to come by sometime to sample her “sweets”, an invitation that the cerulean mare answered with a noncommittal “Maybe… we’ll see” as they parted ways.

As soon as we were out of earshot, I turned to Joy. “Was she serious with that “sweets” comment? I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not…”

Joy simply chuckled a bit, as if to say ‘You’re new here, aren’t you…’ before she replied. “I keep forgetting that you're new here.”

I freaking nailed it. Sometimes I’m so good, it’s scary. Other times (most of the time), not so much. Joy continued, oblivious to my self-congratulatory internal monologue.

“Bonbon is very sweet and sometimes she can seem very… forward… but that is just the way she is. She and Lyra are in a committed relationship. It’s no secret around here, but you wouldn’t know it, seeing as how you just got here. Though she seems to flirt with every mare she meets, everypony knows she would never do anything to hurt Lyra. The flirtiness is just who she is.”

Remember that thing I said earlier, about how I would probably figure it out sooner or later? Chalk another win up for this guy. I was on fire today. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself and this feeling of win. Hell, if I kept this up and had something like a good idea, I’m not sure how I would survive the sudden overflow of win.

Blinded by the glare of my own perceived glory, I walked into a low-hanging sign advertising one of the various market stalls. The glare from my glory was instantly replaced by stars as my vision blurred from the pain. Dammit that hurt… Joy must have heard the bonk sound my head made upon collision, and I could hear her barely restrained giggles as she asked if I was alright.

"Yeah, just bumped my head. Good thing it's so thick… otherwise it might have hurt" I said, as I rubbed the offending spot while blinking away tears of pain. MANLY tears of pain, that is. Tears composed of pure testosterone… et cetera, et cetera. Joy chuckled despite herself, to which I responded with a dirty look, trying to look fierce with one eye leaking testosterone and the other covered by my hoof as I massaged my skull. Seeing that it had legitimately hurt (like a sonofa bitch, might I add), Joy offered her condolences.

"Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

My hoof fell away from my head as I just stared dumbly. Did she really just ask that? Had a trained nurse just offered to kiss my boo-boo? Even as I opened my mouth to spout a witty comeback, Joy leaned in and pecked the injury before I could block. Even as I was trying to back away from the pain I knew would follow, her lips made contact. My replied died in my throat as I tried to speak.

"No, DO-" *smooch* "… huh. I'll be damned… it worked."

And it had. The roiling knot of agony that had once been my frontal lobe was immediately soothed by a cool, tingly sensation. Must have been some unicorn voodoo-witchcraft-magic… there is no way that a kiss could do that. Joy must have read my expression, for she immediately offered an explanation.

"It's one of my healing spells that I use on foals that come to the clinic. It is essentially a fast acting, topical anesthetic of magic goodness. It is my favorite spell of all… I love the way their little faces light up in wonder when I do it."

As she explained her spell, Joy's face became a dreamy mask of serenity. It was almost painfully obvious that this mare was incredibly fond of children. I told her as much…

"Joy… if I'm not mistaken, and I don't think I am… based on a careful analysis of your tactics, techniques, and procedures, coupled with historical data from several sources… I'd say you like foals."

Joy broke out of her trance when I called her name, a confused expression growing on her face as I kept saying all these words that didn’t make sense to her. I finished talking, but she still stood there and stared into the middle-distance for a good three seconds before what I had said finally clicked. First, her bright blue eyes widened in comprehension, and then they were smothered under her hoof as she groaned at my stupidity and facehoofed loudly.

I replied with an innocent smirk.

"That looks like it hurt. Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

Joy glared at me for a moment for stealing her prized spell before she remembered that I was a pegasus, and possessed no magical ability. Then she made a horrible miscalculation: She tried to call my bluff.

"Hmm… Actually, yes. Yes I would."

She closed her eyes and leaned in a bit as she tilted her head down slightly, presenting her injured forehead to my ministrations. I leaned in gently; taking a long, slow whiff of her mane… it smelled incredibly minty. This was actually not surprising at all, somehow. As I drew to approximately a hoof's length from her forehead, I exhaled deeply and sensually, causing the mare to tremble slightly.

And then I planted a huge, sloppy, wet kiss on her forehead, slobbering all over her.

I drew my head back just in time to watch her expression change as everything registered.

Both of her eyes popped wide open in shock, as she felt the sudden wetness on her forehead.

Her left eye was undergoing some strange spasm; her lower eyelid was bouncing up and down like a cracked-out rabbit.

Both pupils narrowed to pinpricks as she slowly reached a hoof up to her face, dabbing at the wetness. She pulled her hoof away from her face, the dampness evident. Her eyes focused on the offending appendage before fixing their gaze on me.

At this point, I was reconsidering the wisdom of my actions.

"You." Joy nearly growled the word, and I said the first thing that came to mind.

"Me." Oh, this conversation was going to be gold.

"You… you… you are so… "

"Adorable? Handsome? Intelligent?" I offered.

Okay, the last one was a stretch, even for me.

"You are so… NASTY! Ewewewewewewewwwww!"

Internally I took a moment to be thankful for not receiving any further injuries, but outwardly I was laughing my ASS off.

Joy, momentarily forgetting that she had magic and could probably just wipe the stuff off, proceeded to use the side of her hoof to try and wipe herself down. She succeeded only in spreading it around even worse.

"YOU."

Joy's authoritive tone made me stop in mid-guffaw, taken slightly aback by the unexpected outburst. I remained silent as I met her glare. She pointed to her forehead with a hoof.

"Fix it."

"Heh… alright, I suppose I've had my fun."

I reached into my saddlebag and retrieved a napkin that had been stashed in there at some point. I gently dabbed at her forehead, cleaning it of all of the offending fluid. While I was at work, Joy complained under her breath.

"You… you are just… evil. EEEEVVVIIIILLLL."

"I'm not evil, Joy. I might not be good, or very nice, but I'm certainly not evil."

Joy narrowed her eyes to a squint and regarded me with a frosty glare. At least, she tried to… as I've said before; this mare was too damned cute for her own good.

"EEEVVVIILLLLLLLLLLLLL."

I couldn't help but chuckle as I finished dabbing off her forehead. Her response was a swift hoof upside my head, though not with the intent to injure. She still held her adorable death-glare as she quietly spoke up.

"Colts are so nasty… bleh."

She made a face miming somepony throwing up, I couldn't help laughing again. Through my chuckles I managed to ask her a simple question.

"You've gotta admit, that was funny."

"Evil."

I chuckled again, and she turned abruptly and began to walk away. I trotted to catch up to her, staying a bit behind and to the side of her so as not to incur more of her adorable fury. Even so, from my oblique vantage point I could see the small smile painted on her features. Grinning to myself, I kept my place as we threaded through the market place.

After a dizzying series of twists and turns, we emerged from around a corner to the majesty of the Boutique, illuminated as it was by the noonday sun. It seemed to shimmer in its regal magnificence; I could imagine Princess Celestia coming to this place to commission a dress for the Gala.

As Joy came upon the door she stopped short, seemingly frozen to the spot. At first I thought she might be nervous or something like that, and then I'd considered that it might be some sort of paralysis-magic-trap. My fanciful imaginings were shattered by a simple fact: there was a note on the door, and Joy was reading it. Well, there go my conspiracy theories. Drat.

"Well, shoot."

At this little exclamation of hers, I couldn't help but sport a grin as I asked Joy what was wrong.

"She's not here. She had to go to the school to pick up her sister Sweetie Belle from…"

Joy paused as she referenced the note for the exact wording.

"From 'another of her fruitless crusades to earn her cutie mark.' Dang… I really wanted you to meet her. I'm not sure why, but I keep picturing you in a top hat, and it makes me chuckle each time." As if to prove this, her eyes went misty for a moment before she giggled, apparently unaware of it. As her eyes refocused, she blushed slightly and pawed the ground. "Heh… I told you so…"

"Has anypony ever told you that you are too darned cute for your own good?" Joy blushed deeper, slowly shook her head and tried not to smile. "Well, you are."

Joy, whether she knew it or not, shot me a puppy dog look so damned cute I might have gotten terminal Diabeetus from it. "Careful where you point those things… my withered, miserable heart can't handle all of this cute at once… I might have a heart attack if you look at me like that again."

Joy looked at the ground and then back at me, having turned the cute up to eleven. I clutched my chest quite dramatically as I rose on my back hooves, and then fell over as if dead. The impact with the ground hurt like hell, but I hid the pain as I opened one eye a bit to watch her reaction.

Her puppy eyes had melted away, replaced by the "eyes wide open and pinprick pupils" look. I swear, she looked like she was actually trying to remember if it was possible to have a heart attack from cute overload. I couldn't fight it anymore and I burst out laughing, startling the mare quite severely. She jumped about a kilometer and let out the most adorable little "Eeep!" you've ever heard.

I couldn't stop myself; I laughed so hard it hurt, so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

Man, all of this comedy was doing a number on my lungs and chest, both of which burned like fire by the time I had gotten myself under control. As I rolled off of my back and into a sitting position, the last of my guffaws was cut short by a strangled groan of pain.

My injured torso was in no mood for my shenanigans, and it was not shy about informing me either. Previous buffoonery aside, Joy could see that I was in pain and once again fetched my pain medication from my saddle bags. At least giving me the courtesy of opening my own mouth, Joy instructed me to say "Ah".

"Wha-" *gulp*

As I tried to question what I needed to do that for, I had a pair of tablets popped unceremoniously into my mouth, which I reflexively swallowed. Well… that answered that. After another moment or so, the pain ebbed away and I stood up again.

After assuring Joy that I was fine, I addressed the issue at hand. Rather, at hoof. "So… what now?"

"Hmm… I'm not sure. I was expecting to be here with Rarity for at least an hour… this throws off the schedule a bit."

I cocked my head, looking remarkably similar to a confused puppy. "There was a schedule?"

Joy rolled her eyes. "Of course there was a schedule. I wanted to make sure that we had enough time to cover the main points of the town and still get back home in time for me to get ready for my shift."

Oh, right. I had forgotten that she had to work this evening. Everything made a lot more sense now. "Ah, I see. When is lunch?"

A small notepad ensconced in blue floated out of some unknown place, coming to rest in front of Joy's face, where it was consulted. "It was supposed to be right after the Boutique, we were going to grab a quick bite back at the market."

I shrugged a bit. "Well… I'm a bit peckish right now. So as to not throw off your schedule, what say you to a long lunch? Perhaps a picnic in the glen?"

At the mention of a picnic, Joy's eyes grew quite round with joy. I tried not to think about the way they did that… seemed less likely to cause a headache that way.

After a short jaunt back to the market, we were loaded up with a couple daisy and tomato sandwiches and a few ripe apples. And no, of course I wouldn't get to use this perfect opportunity to converse with another of the mane six.

Nope, I was far happier to hold Joy's place in the sandwich line as she went from shop to shop, gathering various odds and ends. I had just concluded paying for the aforementioned sandwiches and had turned around to rejoin Joy when I saw her cantering back, a bag of apples floating in tow.

Dammit. I forced a smile as she returned, not wanting my disappointment to spoil the moment. After all, Applejack would be there another time and I could just pop by for a visit later. My disappointment was quickly washed away by the prospect of a nice lunch with a beautiful mare.

Nope, I was not about to contemplate the implications of an attraction to this mare: that was a problem for Future Dave to figure out. In the meantime, I enjoyed the smell of the grass that was carried on the breeze, drinking in the warm sunlight as if I had just crawled from a cave.

The day was perfectly temperate, most likely in the mid twenties. There was a cooling breeze that gently caressed my mane; the sky was mostly clear, save for some scattered clouds. In short, it was the ideal conditions for a picnic. As we exited the sprawl of Ponyville, we crossed over a small, crystal clear stream by way of a stone bridge. The only thing that lay between us and the picnic was a meandering gravel path, and again I could not suppress a smile.

That moment, right there and then, was about as close to heaven as I was thought I'd ever get, and I was going to enjoy it for all it was worth.

Ahead in the distance, the rolling green hills beckoned.

Author's Note

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Once again, I owe tremendous thanks to Pacific Penguin for his services as an Editor-in-(Master)Chief. Without his tireless dedication, this chapter would look...pretty much the same, but with a LOT more italics, and a good many little mistakes that would have made it much less interesting to read.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, please rate it if you like it, and comment if you find something we missed. Feedback is ALWAYS appreciated.

Last updated 22 NOV 15

3: The Picnic

Chapter Three

The Picnic

After a bit of meandering, Joy and I approached a large oak tree overlooking a broad valley. I cast a glance at Joy, our eyes met, and the site was decided upon. In the shade of the ancient tree, we carefully unload the contents of our assorted bags, taking a moment to revel in the feeling of freedom as we laid down our burden.

From the depths of one of the various bags, Joy extracted a rather large red and white checkered blanket. With a flourish of magic, she spread the sheet out on the ground and somehow enticed it to lie down perfectly flat.

Not even a wrinkle.

I took a moment to lament that never, in this life or any other, would I possess the skills to do such a thing.

Dang unicorns and their cheating magic…

I couldn't even try to remain bitter as the feast was laid out before us. In lieu of what most would consider "traditional" picnic fare, we had settled for sandwiches and a variety of hoof foods. This way, we didn't need any utensils to eat with (a feat I had yet to attempt and was loathe to try) and needed no special preparation for consumption. My mouth began to water as I gazed out onto the array that was laid out before us. Joy and I took our respective positions on either side of the blanket, and with a consenting nod we both began to eat.

And by "began to eat" I mean she stared on in awe and revulsion as my sandwich disappeared with a swiftness that even Pinkie would approve of. No, this was not a supernatural ability I had acquired since landing in Equestria. It was a skill I’d gained in basic and had honed through years of practice. As I was absentmindedly rubbing my contented stomach, I happened to catch a glance at the mare sitting across from me. Luckily, she was outside of the "splash zone" and was thus untouched by flying condiments and the like. This, however, did nothing to change her expression from that of intrigued disgust… not unlike one who was watching a particularly gnarly bug crawling on a branch.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hoof, I raised one eyebrow inquisitively. Closing her mouth and shaking her head to get her thoughts back in order, she addressed me. "Dave… did you even chew that?"

I cocked my head a bit. "Huh? Nah. Eat now, taste it later. In training, if you don't eat fast, you don't eat. I guess I was a bit hungrier than I thought… " I said, blushing slightly.

I swear, Joy could have made a killing as an impressionist. First, there was her incredible rendition of a tomato, and now she was pulling off an impeccable mimicry of a gold fish. Wide, vacant eyes; gaping mouth, opening and closing slowly; the way she just sat there, unmoving… spot on, let me tell you.

She shook her head again, apparently trying to shake the mental image out of her head. It seemed that she succeeded, for she was once again minding her sandwich. This suited me just fine, and I picked up an apple and bit into it absentmindedly. As the first splash of juice assaulted my palette, I froze instantly.

This… this couldn’t be real. There simply was no way anything could taste so… crisp, so delicious. It was overwhelming. Perhaps it could be attributed to my more sensitive pony-palette, or perhaps the apple was truly that amazingly delectable? It mattered not; the experience was transcendent to say the least.

For the second time in as many minutes, I became aware of Joy staring at me. I was barely aware of this until she called out to me, rousing me from my food-fueled bliss. "Dave? Why… why are you crying?"

"Whmph? Um numph cryinmph." Dammit. Swallow, then talk. Why was this so difficult to remember? Swallowing hard, I addressed the mare again. "I said, I'm not crying. This is just… the best apple I've ever had. And I've got something in my eye… "

Joy was unconvinced, but she let it slide. I continued to eat the apple in a dreamy silence. Every now and again, one of us would catch the other staring and smile slightly as we turned away. We passed a good while in this comfortable silence. Soon though, the sun had shifted and the shadow in which I had been sheltering eroded, leaving my position untenable. I stood up without a word and took my place next to Joy. We sat together in the shade, so close that our flanks were touching; neither of us minded. Before long, we began a game of trying to pick shapes out of the clouds as they drifted past.

From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a Technicolor streak as it rapidly approached a cloud, before suddenly decelerating to land on the cottony surface with surprising grace. I was going to remark on the sight, but Joy called out the shape of another cloud and I realized that I was the only one to have seen Dash. For a reason I couldn't define, this made the whole thing special, as if it was just between Dash and me.

As we discussed whether a cloud was shaped more like a filly or a colt, we somehow got onto the topic of baby names. I was partial to James, but Joy said you couldn't pick these things out ahead of time. I disagreed… after all, you can't go wrong with a name like Hope, now can you?

Joy opened her mouth to reply, but she seemed unable to come up with a valid rebuttal. She closed her mouth and narrowed her eyes in an expression that seemed to say "Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you…” to which I simply smirked.

And right about then, it hit me. Maybe it was the way the sunlight was filtering through the foliage, dappling her entire form in soft, ever-shifting patterns of sunlight. Her eyes sparkled in the soft light, and the breeze gently tousled her hair. This mare was simply gorgeous; there were no two ways about it. As I was simply awestruck by her beauty, I felt something stirring in my chest, a sensation I had not experienced in some time. This sensation frightened me on some level, as it indicated that my involvement in this whole experience was about to get far more complicated.

It struck home at that moment that I had forgone the notion that this was just a hallucination. I realized that I’d actually let the notion fade away over the course of the day. Only in the revelation of these feelings that I had just let come to light had it really struck home. In admitting that I might feel any form of emotion towards the members of this "dream", I had on some level validated its reality.

I was jarred from my introspection by Joy calling my name. "Dave?" I shook my head to clear it and focused on the mare who had addressed me. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you."

I shook my head again. "Not a one. What's up?"

A bit slowly, as if dealing with a child, she repeated herself. "I said, 'it's getting late, we should head back now'."

I looked up, and indeed it had gotten a bit later in the day. The sun was working its way towards the horizon, and even without checking my watch I could tell that we had to get going if she was going to get to work on time. We packed up quickly and set off towards the house. The journey home was passed in nearly unremitting silence, though not an uncomfortable one. I was lost in thought, and Joy just seemed to be enjoying my presence.

Soon enough, we arrived back at Casa Redheart, whereupon Joy swiftly disappeared from my side. Her presence was betrayed by the sound of running water however, and I was pretty occupied trying to wrap my head around all that I was feeling. On some level, there was a distinct panic and discomfort at being stranded in this place, so far from everything I'd ever known. This, however, was far and away overwhelmed by these strange new feelings growing in my chest, the feelings of desire and longing.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel much of anything. Sure, this would be the perfect time to point out that I was married, had a wife and son, and should obviously have felt pretty strongly about them. To be fair, you’re right, I should have. Whether or not I did feel something, and whether or not I felt it as strongly as I should have, is another matter entirely; a matter which would take entirely too much time and effort to properly convey the nuances of, and which will subsequently not be spoken about.

I felt as if I was emerging from a long sleep, rubbing my eyes in the glorious light of the new day; the dull dreams I had dreamt were being washed away in the light of the dawn. For me, Joy was the dawn. I was pretty sure she felt the same way about me, though likely not for the same reasons. In the end, she liked me and I liked her. I may not have dated for a good while, but I was pretty sure that's how these things worked.

The sounds of running water coming from upstairs ceased, snapping me out of my day dreaming. I took a seat on the couch and began to unpack the assorted debris that had accumulated in my bags. I had barely opened the first one and pulled out a book when Joy came around the corner.

She regarded my activities with a wary eye for a moment before she addressed me. "So Dave, you were looking for ways to help out, right?"

I looked up from the growing pile of debris in front of me, intrigued. "Yeah. What do you have in mind?"

She shuffled her hooves, a motion that I found adorable. "Well, that depends. How much pride do you have?"

Adopting a softer version of the Royal Canterlot Voice and puffing out my chest imperiously, I replied haughtily. "Pride? What is this ‘pride’ of which thou speaketh? It sounds like one of those made up words, like ‘dignity’ or ‘shame’. I know not the meaning of these words."

Joy stared at me for a moment as she considered whether or not I was serious before shaking her head and carrying on. "Well… alright then. I might be able to get you a job at the clinic as a janitor, as long as you don't mind… well, being a janitor."

I smiled, waving a dismissing hoof. "My dear, you are looking at it wrong. I would not be a lowly janitor. No, I would be an esteemed sanitation engineer. It's all in how you look at it. Plus, perhaps we could spend more time together this way."

Smooth, dude. Go ahead; show the nice mare how creepy and clingy you are. That bodes well for this whole deal.

Despite my initial fears of appearing too clingy, Joy veritably glowed as she contemplated spending more time with me.

Well… that went better than expected. I would have to try to contain my excitement though. After all, there was still no guarantee that I would get the job. Joy came up and gave me a hug before she left, reminding me to take my medication and to try not to break anything.

As I turned to walk away with my head held high in an imperious fashion, as if to say "perish the thought," I bumped into the end table, sending the lamp on it careening towards the ground. A minty blue glow enveloped the device just before it smashed on the floor, levitating it back to its rightful place. My ears drooped as did my head, and I turned towards Joy and shot her a sheepish smile. Everything about her, from the way she stood with her head cocked to the side to the expression on her face seemed to scream "told you so".

Instead of rubbing it in, she simply said "Be careful, Dave. Alright?"

Blushing brightly, I still managed to be snarky. "Yes, ma'am."

She rolled her eyes with a smile as she turned towards the door. "Don't stay up too late. You should rest and give your injuries time to heal. I'll see you when my shift is over."

"Yes, mom" I teased her, as she walked out the door. I took pride in the exasperated sigh I got from her as the door closed behind her with a soft thud. I had unconsciously followed her to the door, having become accustomed to shadowing her wherever she went in the day or so that I had been here.

In the wake of her absence, I suddenly felt quite alone. I think this was the first time since I had arrived that I was not in the immediate vicinity of at least one other pony, and it was a bit nerve wracking for the first few minutes. After my initial anxiety had worn away, I settled back down to the couch and began to unpack my saddlebags.

What the hell were these things made from?

I reached into one, and every time I did, there was something else to pull out. I was shoulder deep in this damned thing! Some sort of wormhole or quantum storage matrix… this was ridiculous. I filed that one away for things that future Dave would have to think about. Nevertheless, I soon had an immense pile of garbage and assorted detritus in front of me.

I ended up consigning most of it to the garbage, but I kept the things that seemed pertinent. Remembering the book that Joy had checked out for me earlier, I grabbed a pencil and a sheet of mostly blank paper and began to sketch out a map of the town, referencing where I had been and what I remembered against the map in the book.

In short order, I had compiled all of my (insubstantial) knowledge into the map, finally getting a rough idea of the town's layout in my head. In Ponyville, there were a few landmarks that should be easy enough to pick out from damn near anywhere in the town.

By memorizing the relative position of the landmarks to each other and within the town itself, I could use the location of the two known points to figure out where I was at any given time. The process of determining your current location by using the position of two known points and their orientation relative to you is a concept known as resection, and it is pretty handy to know. Who says the army doesn't teach you anything useful?

I was just adding some finishing touches to the map when I heard the front door open and close softly. I looked at my watch and noted that it was only seventeen-thirty. Joy had only left an hour or so ago, she shouldn't be back so soon. Intrigued, I got off the couch to investigate the entryway. As I poked my head around the corner, I nearly collided with an alabaster mare and both of us froze in place for a moment; she, out of fright; myself, out of a desire not to spook her further.

After a moment of tense silence, she exhaled deeply, prompting me to do the same. She contemplated me calmly for a moment before she spoke up. "You must be Dave. Joy told me to expect you."

I threw on my best smile. "And you must forgive me; Joy did not tell me she had a sister."

My attempt at a lighthearted introduction fell flat on its face, as Nurse Redheart simply sighed. I held my smile for a moment longer before it became apparent that I was not going to receive one in return. Nurse Redheart allowed me to squirm in uncomfortable silence a moment longer. "Well, she wasn't wrong about how sweet you are. Now, let's cut out the chit-chat and address the matter at hoof, shall we? I'm sure you are aware of my daughter's… love life. Or perhaps more accurately, lack thereof."

At this, I could do nothing but look on in utter confusion and dread, silently hoping that this conversation was not about to go the way I thought it was. Nurse Redheart continued, her eyes the color of a glacier and every bit as cold and hard as one.

"I suspected as much. Heed my words, son. Joy is inexperienced in love in all of its forms. She is naive and entirely too trusting. She has never had a broken heart, and has no defense against one. I am all for her meeting somepony special and forming that once in a lifetime bond. However, know this: should it become apparent that you intentions are… less than wholesome… things will not end pleasantly for you. Do you understand?"

What could I do but shake my head dumbly? The conversation had gone just as I feared, though it did make a few things understandable. For instance, I know now why Joy was seldom approached by colts in her younger years… her mother was freaking SCARY. Note to self: do not piss this mare off. I quickly collected my wits (all four of them) and responded to the ultimatum. "Miss Redheart, your daughter has been nothing less than a saint since my arrival. She has gone out of her way to show me around town, take care of my wounds, and make me feel as if I mattered again. I know you distrust my intentions, and I can't blame you a bit. But I will say this; I give you my word that I will treat your daughter with the kindness and respect she deserves. I know my word holds no weight to you, but I'll prove myself in time. All I ask for is the time to do so."

Nurse Redheart contemplated me for another moment, almost as if she was sizing me up. After another tense silence, she spoke. "In all these years, after all the colts that I've given that speech to… you are the only one who didn't babble like an idiot or run like a coward. I'm not sure if this is because I'm losing my touch, or if you are just made of tougher stuff. Either way, I'm impressed. Don't take my warning lightly, but consider this my blessing."

And just like that, I was alone again. Nurse Redheart went upstairs, her departure punctuated after a brief silence by the sound of running water from above. After standing around for a moment longer in the wake of the unexpected conversation, I headed back to the couch to finish my mapping project. Once the map was completed to the standard I wanted, I tried to read the rest of the guide. I say "tried" because my next recollection was of myself being prodded awake by Joy.

Rousing myself from the pool of drool that had accumulated under my head as I slept, I tried to figure out what exactly I was being woken for. Joy interrupted this terribly laborious process with a quick observation. "Hey sleepyhead… if you drool on that book any more, Twilight is gonna make you buy it."

Wearily, I lifted my head from its resting place, a sheet of notes still stuck to the side of my face. I clumsily swatted at it, and ended up giving myself quite a thump. As I pressed a hoof to the injury and tried to rub the pain away, the offending paper fell away. Attempting to make some witty comeback or another, I ended up mumbling something that not even I understood.

Joy favored me with a tender look and told me to go to bed. At the mention of the bed, she cast a glance at it with a sigh. Using that wonderful cheating unicorn magic, she enveloped the entire bed in a light blue glow, and in a moment it had made itself. The last pillow had barely fallen into place before I stumbled over and flopped down upon it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her giving me a dirty look for messing up her handiwork. I just smiled, a gesture that was soon overtaken by a yawn. The last thing I could recall was Joy tucking me in like a child, and leaning in to kiss me on the forehead. And just like that, everything faded to a comfortable blackness, like the arms of a loved one embracing you after a long time apart.

End of day Two.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

In the morning, I was roused once again, though this time it was due to the heavenly scent that permeated my nostrils. As if to punctuate the thought, the sound of utensils pierced the air, waking me further. I couldn't help myself. With a loud moan, I rolled out of bed.

All the way out.

Hearing the moan, followed by a loud thump, Joy peeked around the corner to make sure I was still alive. Seeing that I was not moving, she called out to me. "Am I going to have to get the defibrillator?"

I grunted loudly, the limit of my linguistic capabilities so early in the morning. Apparently satisfied that I was not in fact dead, Joy returned to the kitchen and resumed her cacophonous preparations. It was entirely too early for my brain to be working properly, but even so, the mental picture of myself flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water was simultaneously funny as hell and something I'd rather not do. Summoning my strength and every ounce of willpower I had, I stood.

Well, I tried to, anyways. These traitorous limbs of mine were quite insubordinate as of late. Once I got them all back under my control, I was going to look into a general Courts Martial against them on charges of treason. I began to contemplate where I would find a lawyer (both for the prosecution and the defense) and how I would go about enacting any sort of punishment against the appendages. It was truly a sign of how tired I was that I didn't even pause to contemplate the idiocy of this train of thought… this was a perfectly acceptable practice, putting your own limbs on trial.

In lieu of any coordinated or graceful form of movement, I ended up propelling my body across the floor using the "Sweetie Belle" method, dragging my useless front limbs across the ground. In no time at all, I had locomoted myself into the kitchen, following the trail of amazing scent.

As I entered the kitchen, Joy simply stared at me as if I had a penis dangling from my forehead. This is actually an expression I use pretty frequently, mostly due to the reaction of the audience at which the simile is directed. More importantly, it conjures (in my mind, at least) an image of the perfect "what in the hell?" expression.

And that is exactly the expression I was receiving from the cerulean mare at the moment: a perfect blend of shock and incomprehension, tinted with a little bit of "I'm surrounded by idiots". I am quite familiar with the expression… at least once per day at work I am confronted with such astounding idiocy that there is no other recourse. One of the pitfalls of being in the army, I suppose. But really… some of these people must have been fed a steady diet of paint chips as kids. At the risk of forgetting my point (which was what, again?) I have an anecdote for you.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Suppose for a moment that you are a civilian with no clue about security clearances and all that jazz.

Got it? Awesome.

Say, for the sake of argument, that you are placed in a job that has you dealing with just that: security clearances and so forth. The knowledge that there really are people placed in positions they know nothing about makes me cry a little inside… anyways, back to the anecdote.

Now, picture this: you're sitting at your desk just being awesome, when someone comes round the corner asking for you. You turn around, and immediately jump to your feet, since the person who just walked up has so much rank it makes your head spin… this person is a Commanding Officer, in charge of hundreds of soldiers.

He/she tells you to relax, and take a seat. They just have a few questions and they will be on their way. Awesome… too easy. The first question is what their clearance status is. You pop it into the system, and lo and behold, they have a Top Secret clearance. Cool beans. And then, you have the following conversation with them:

Them: "So I have a Top Secret. When does that run out?"

You: *name off the date*

Them: "Alright. So, I'm going to (foreign country) tomorrow… is there anything you need from me before I go?"

You: "(foreign country)? Hmmm… So long as you have had your request cleared through (agency name), you should be covered."

Them: *repeats agency name* "Who're they?"

Stop (hammer time). Right here, with you knowing nothing about clearances, does it seem obvious that if you have one of the highest clearance levels in the United States Government, you might want to get clearance before traveling to a foreign country? Alright, at least I'm not alone.

What is frightening is that this person was in charge of other people. You look at them like they have suddenly sprouted incredibly well endowed male genitalia from their forehead. It would be career-ending to facepalm, so you do everything in your power to convey (respectfully) how wrong this person is.

Welcome to my hell.

While this anecdote is purposefully vague and possibly slightly modified, the core elements are the truth. Someone in a position of trust who wields significant power has absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Any who, back on track.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

That penis-forehead-disbelief look is exactly the one I was receiving from Joy as I scooted my happy ass into the kitchen. Again, there she was, doing her goldfish impression. I believed she was contemplating whether or not I'd had a stroke. I decided to speak up and inform her that I lacked my usual muscular coordination due to the time of day and the fact that I had just awoken from a deep slumber.

"Meh… tired… too early… I can't… legs."

Her eye twitched in a very similar manner to the way it moved after I slobbered all over her forehead the day before. Yeah, that came out about as well as I had expected.

"You can't… legs. Legs?"

"Eyup."

At this, she did a double take, though she didn't call me on it. Instead of questioning my odd method of locomotion, calling me funny names, or anything of the sort, she gave me a devious grin. Reaching for something on the counter, I half expected something either heavy or sticky to rain down upon me.

Instead, she grabbed a scrap of something yellow with her magic and waved it before me. Instantly, my vision swam and my mouth watered as the scent of whatever it was struck me, full force. I craned my neck to devour the delicious smelling thing, only to find it moved just beyond my reach. I scooted forward and attempted again, this time having my jaws close disappointingly around nothing as the scrap now dangled just over my nose. I reached up to try again, refusing to be bested by something that smelled so good. I lunged wildly and nearly caught it, only to have it jump out of my reach at the last instant.

And so it went, as I chased the morsel that was eternally just beyond my reach. With a last, surging lunge, I victoriously snatched the morsel from the air and reveled in the sweet taste of victory.

At least, I did until the sound of valiantly suppressed laughter pierced my early morning haze. Turning towards the sound, I noticed that Joy was nearly doubled over, one hoof over her mouth and the other on her gut. Even as I began to form a question as to why she was like that, the answer became quite clear. As she dangled the food in front of me, she had kept moving it just beyond my reach. And I, just like a cat, had followed it. By the time I realized it, it was already too late… I was standing on my back legs, using my front hooves to brace against the counter, and stretching my neck up as far as I could reach to try and grab the morsel.

Dammit.

As she saw me piece everything together, Joy lost control, laughing so hard she cried.

Double Dammit. Well, it looks like I can "legs" after all.

Once Joy calmed down enough to breathe normally again, she muttered something along the lines of "priceless"; I grumbled under my breath.

"Friggin unicorns and their cheating magic… "

When she inquired as to what I said, I grumbled louder, asking what was for breakfast. She looked at me inquisitively for a moment before her features lit up in a bright grin as she replied with the most wonderful thing I'd heard all day. "Omelets!"

"Om… omelets?"

As she replied, she nodded vigorously, obviously quite pleased with herself. Personally, I was attempting to piece my mind back together after it had exploded. No idea why I thought that ponies were strictly herbivores, but somehow I had accepted it as the truth despite any evidence. My mind was blown.

"Uh huh! I remember you saying that you grew up with griffins, so I figured you had been raised on a high-protein diet. If so, then it would mean that your body was acclimated to it, and to suddenly change your diet to one without as much protein could make you very sick. So to prevent that from happening, I'll be modifying your diet to reduce your protein intake gradually; that way your body has time to adjust."

Wow. It was a bit hard to wrap my fragmented head around all of the big words so early in the morning. On top of that, it struck me as incredibly sweet and more than a bit flattering that Joy had not only considered my well-being in such depth, but had also taken the time to implement a special diet to accommodate me. I felt my heart well a bit with an emotion I hadn’t felt in a good while… it was as if… as if I was falling.

That was when it first hit me.

An icy fist wrapped itself around my heart, squeezing every trace of warmth and happiness from it; my breath hitched in my throat, a feeling that was so strong it nearly strangled me; and my eyes burned as if I was back in the Gas Chamber in basic training. I must have swayed on my hooves or something of the sort, because quite suddenly my vision was dominated by a blurry blue form.

Joy was crouched in front of me, her eyes wide with panic as she tried desperately to coax a reaction from me. I could vaguely hear her calling my name, though it sounded as if she was trying to yell over the cacophonous roar of a raging river. Dimly, I realized that the roar of the river was the sound of the blood rushing in my ears. The glacial fist around my chest constricted further, slowing my heart to a pace so slow, I momentarily wondered if it stopped.

The guilt of feeling so strongly about a mare I had only just met, coupled with the immeasurable sense of loss I felt in the pit of my stomach whenever I thought of my wife and son, combined into a blackness that swept through me. The world around me simply ceased to be as the blackness consumed everything… I ceased to be, the blackness consumed me as well.

There is a reason you cannot willingly venture into your subconscious. I see now that it is a defense mechanism, to prevent you from stumbling into the abysmal grottoes where your darkest nature lay. I was miles away from everything. My heartbeat was an impossibly slow rhythm echoing from the blackness, and the only source of illumination in the entire damnable hell-scape was a single disk of light miles above. The skylight to hell dimly illuminated a circle about ten meters in diameter, in the center of which I stood in all of my human glory.

I didn’t even question where I was… there could be no other place. I was in the chasm in my mind into which I shoved the worst of my memories, the most base of urges, and anything else that I couldn’t handle in my life. The blackness around me seemed to fester with malignant shadows, each seemingly plotting its attack to pay retribution to the one that had condemned it to the abyss.

Ahead of me, a familiar form emerged from the darkness. My wife looked exactly as she had the last time I had seen her, the tears still wet upon her face. In her arms, our son wailed in silence, the void stealing all sound from his lips. I nearly lost it… I was overcome by emotion, and I stumbled towards my wife to hold her in my arms, to tell her everything was going to be alright; to tell her that I loved her, and that I was coming home to her. Tell her that I was sorry.

I had not taken a single step towards my wife before a massive, clawed appendage swept from the darkness and stole her from the light. There was no scream, no cries for help, no sound at all. In an instant, there was nothing to say that she had ever been there at all. Nothing, that is, save for the splattered crimson drops on the ground she once stood upon. I raised my hand to my mouth to keep myself from calling out to her, and that was when I noticed it.

My hands were covered in blood… blood that could only have been from one person.

I might not have been the brightest person of all, but I knew my own mind, dammit, and I knew exactly what this represented. That night I chose to come to Equestria… I had killed my old life. I had forsaken that life and all things in it for the chance to start anew in Equestria. The beast in the darkness had not stolen her from me. By forsaking her, I had stolen myself from her. Her blood was on my hands because of my betrayal.

With a terrible, shuddering finality, I was struck by an epiphany that carried the terrible weight of the truth, a crushing burden. There was no way back. For better or worse, Equestria was my home now. I can't explain how I knew it with this level of certainty, but something inside me simply resonated with the knowledge that my transition was permanent.

The truth was bittersweet. I would never see my wife or son again. I would never have a chance to make up for the way I acted when he was little. My son would grow up without a father just as I did, something I swore on my life would never come to pass. I would never see him off to his first day at school, never see him get married… The magnitude of all I had lost weighed heavily upon my shoulders; I had become Atlas.

And yet, the terrible weight was also a gift. I now knew the price I had paid; I knew what I had lost. Knowing that there was no way back was liberating in a terrible way. There was no use lamenting over that which you cannot change, and this was a principal upon which I had built my life. By shouldering the burden and accepting the ramifications of my actions, I would be able to move forward.

The thought of my wife and son still caused my gut to clench around a ball of ice and my breath to catch in my throat, but knowing that they were irrevocably removed from my life dulled the pain. I supposed it would always hurt to think of them; but if I had truly given up everything to come to this world, then I was going to make it worth the sacrifice. By Celestia’s Beard, I was going to live a life worthy of the price paid for it.

Even as I felt my resolve harden under the weight of my new-found appreciation for this life I had sold my soul for, the world around me began to quake. Vaguely, I became aware of a familiar sound, though I could not place it to save my life. The disk of light above began to waver, elongating and distorting into unknowable shapes before shrinking back to begin again.

From the abyss, the sounds rose again. It was so familiar, so comforting, and yet so difficult to place, that it was nearly maddening. Despite the fact that I was a human standing on the floor of an abyss with nothing around me, I had the distinct sensation of being constricted gently, and of being rocked slightly. From the blackness came a gentle breeze, carrying on it a distinct smell… it smelled like… like…

Everything came together at once for me. The sound which echoed in the abyss mingled with the smell of mint on the breeze… and just like that, everything clicked into place. The sound… it was the sound of Joy’s melodious voice. The scent of mint on the wind was the scent of Joy’s favorite shampoo, the smell of her mane. The constriction around my chest assumed the familiar contours of a certain cerulean mare, though it was a much firmer hold than I was accustomed to from her.

As the pieces began to form a picture in my mind, the blackness surrounding me perceptibly lightened. The moment that I had an image of Joy flash through my mind, I felt myself being ripped from the floor of the chasm, as if a hook in my chest was being tugged with tremendous force. The disk of light above me rapidly swelled to fill the sky entirely. I passed through the ocean of light, feeling the slight tickle of the light playing across my skin for an instant, but an instant later the feeling had passed.

Have you ever been sitting in a chair, dozing off comfortably, when you have the sudden sensation of falling, followed by the sensation that you just dropped about a foot into the chair? This was like that, only worse. I fell back into my own body (for lack of a better way to describe it) with a jolt. Just like that, everything was crystal clear again.

The first thing I noted about my situation was that I was sitting on my haunches, much like a dog sits. Second thing was that Joy had her arms wrapped around me, locking me into an embrace that was a great deal more forceful than her usual hugs. The most disconcerting thing about the whole thing was Joy: she was sobbing heavily as she held onto me for dear life.

“Joy? Are you okay?”

Joy jerked back from me as if electrocuted, staring at me with puffy red eyes for a moment, as if she was searching for something. I raised a concerned eyebrow, and she reacted in an unusual manner.

For the record, being slapped across the face by a creature with hooves is a decidedly unpleasant experience. As I was still reeling from the blow, I remained rooted to the spot, my head still cocked to the side. Very slowly, I turned my head back to the front to face Joy. She was regarding me with a mixture of anger, relief, and deep concern. Working my now-sore jaw, I calmly tried again. “Ouch. Joy, was that necessary?”

Her chest was heaving slightly as she fought to get herself back under control, wiping a tear from her eye. “You… you… no. Never… never do that… Dave… don’t leave me like that again.”

Ah… so that’s what this is about. How long was I gone? I assumed a supplicatory position, apologizing. “I’m sorry, Jo-”

She interrupted me with a hard jab to the chest. “Stop. Right there. Not another word from you right now. Do you have any idea how scared I was? How badly you frightened me? One second you're chasing a bit of egg and mumbling things about breakfast, and the next you fall over like you were tackled by a Manticore. I rushed over to you to make sure you were okay, and you wouldn’t answer. You couldn’t even look at me. You were completely unresponsive, even to pain. Your eyes were open wide, and your pupils were pinpricks. I’ve never seen anypony with pupils like that, not even in the textbooks. Your heart was pounding so hard I thought you would have a heart attack, and you were having trouble breathing… Dave, I thought I was going to lose you. I… I don’t know why, but I was terrified. I was terrified… Dave… please. I beg you… never leave me like that again. Don’t scare me like that… I don’t think I can take it… ”

And then she collapsed into tears again. I took her into my arms and just held her, letting her get it all out. In the back of my mind, I was still trying to process the events that had taken place in my fugue state. Mostly, I was trying to come to terms with my own sense of loss that my epiphany had inspired in me.

There was no way this was going to blow over… I had a good deal of thinking to do, and I couldn’t just push this off onto future Dave, either. My thought process ground to a halt as more immediate needs made themselves known. My stomach growled so loudly that it caused Joy to jump in fright. In the wake of my gastronomical outburst, we shared a weary chuckle. The experience that had just come to pass had taken its toll on the both of us, draining us of most of our energy.

Trying to make the best out of the situation, I piped up. “So… ahem… what’s for breakfast?”

Joy looked at me like she was about to cry again, but instead she cracked a wry smile. “Still omelets, silly pony. I swear, do you ever listen?”

I had taken to scratching my ear, and made a big show out of pretending to dig something out of it and examine the specimen before replying. “Huh? You say something?”

She let out an exasperated sigh, but the smile on her face was a mile wide. It was good to see that she could bounce back from something so strange, so quickly. It spoke volumes about the strength of her character.

Wrapping the still (mostly) warm omelets in a glow of magic, she set them down on their respective plates, beside which rested my current nemesis: flatware.

Upon closer inspection however, I realized that my apprehension towards using the utensils was largely unfounded. Instead of the human style of silverware, these ended not in a long, flat grasping surface, but rather in a clip of some sort. Based on the size and shape of the clip, I deduced that it was to be slid over the edge of the hoof, fastening itself onto the wall of the hoof.

At first, Joy had taken no small amount of amusement at my attempts to affix the utensils to my hooves, and once I had succeeded at that, she got further jollies from watching me try to maneuver the devices in a coherent manner. Soon enough though, I had gotten the hang of them and was shoveling food into my mouth like a champ.

As much as we tried to hide it by acting like our normal selves, the events that had transpired had left an indelible mark upon the both of us. I was sure the effects would fade soon enough, but for the time being it was hanging over our heads; unseen though it might be, its presence was felt nonetheless.

As breakfast was winding to a close, Joy spoke up briefly. "Oh! Before I forget, you got the job at the clinic. Well, you kinda have it. You'll have a two week internship to learn the ropes, and if you do well in that time, the job is yours."

This was a bit of unexpected good news, and it brought a smile to my face. "Wow… that was swift. Awesome… thanks, Joy. When do I start?"

Joy beamed with pride for a moment before answering. "Well, I figured that you wanted to get started as soon as you could, so I managed to get you on the swing shift starting today. Your shift starts at fifteen hundred."

Even better news. Now, I could not only get a head start on my internship, but I could also have some time alone to begin dealing with my revelation. "Joy, have I ever told you how awesome you are? Because really… you are pretty darned awesome."

She both beamed and flushed at this compliment. I had a miniature heart attack as the diabeetus flared up again. She was a cerulean and alabaster mare, but the scarlet tint on her cheeks fit her perfectly. It makes sense if you don't think about it.

Joy waved her hoof in front of me to get my attention. "Hello? Equestria to Dave, come in Dave."

I blinked in confusion a time or two before everything clicked. "Huh? Was I zoned out again?"

She looked at me with a mix of annoyance and amusement. "Yeah. You were looking at me for a second, and then you just drifted off into la-la land. What were you thinking about?"

How gorgeous you are…

Blushing, I tried to push the thought from my mind and play it off like it was no big deal. "Meh… nothing important. Why do you ask?"

With an inquisitive smirk, not unlike that of a cat amused by its prey she responded. "Well, you just had this huge smile on your face… I was betting you were thinking about food."

Son of a... I'd only just arrived, and this mare already had me pegged. She might have been wrong, but it was a damned good guess anyways… I do have a tendency to do that as well.

About this time, what she had said earlier about my shift finally clicked into place. "Hold on a second. Go back a tick. My shift is at fifteen hundred at the clinic? Is there a uniform or anything I need to be prepared for?"

She rolled her eyes before responding with a slight smirk. "Duh it's at the clinic. If there is a uniform, they would issue it to you there, and as far as anything else goes, I'm sure you will find out soon enough."

I simply nodded, contemplating how to spend the time before my shift. I brought this up to Joy. "Well, that's settled. Since we have half a day to kill, what do you want to do before I have to go to work?"

Joy shot me a puzzled look as she answered. "Half a day? Dave, you have no idea what time it is, do you?"

Pondering, I scratched my chin as I weighed my answers. "Ummm… about zero eight or nine?"

Joy deadpanned. "Not even close. It's almost thirteen right now."

What now? I checked my watch to verify, and was shocked at the time. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle."

Copying my gesture from earlier, Joy scratched her chin. "Hmmm… do you have any siblings? Because I don't, and it is hard to be an uncle without a tertiary family member, and even harder to get them to adopt a monkey… "

I stared at Joy for a moment to see if I was being trolled. She was looking up and to her left, tapping her chin with a hoof, apparently lost in thought. I couldn't tell whether or not I was being gotten again, and I soon gave up trying.

I decided that if I was being had (and if not, oh well), I was going to have some fun with this. “Actually, I do have a brother, so to speak. My parents adopted a hatchling griffin when I was young, and he was wandering through the Everfree one day when he stumbled upon a young primate, who had been separated from the rest of his troop. To make a long story short, the monkey followed him home, and my brother eventually adopted him.”

Joy has snapped out of her reverie to regard me with an expression that was nothing short of… what I guess would be considered “astounded”. And right on cue, the Goldfish imitation began. She snapped out of it sooner than average this time, though, so I didn't even have time to enjoy her confusion.

“Wait a minute… you never mentioned you had a brother… I would have figured you would have brought this up sooner… ”

I wore my best poker face, betraying no hint of my shenanigans. “In my defense, I’ve only been here for two days… ”

Slightly flustered by the sudden revelation of my extended family, Joy did her best to recover. “Yeah, but don’t you think that’s kind of a big thing to overlook when you were telling Twilight and me about your past?”

It was becoming increasingly difficult not to bust out laughing. “Perhaps. Did I ever tell you about the time I was a pirate?”

Joy narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me as she began to suspect something was amiss. “No. You failed to mention that as well. What else haven’t you told me?”

Time for me to break out my diversionary tactics. “Anyways, did you know that if you say ‘gullible’ really slowly, it sounds like you are saying ‘orange’?”

The notion hit her in the sweet spot between skepticism and curiosity, and she lowered her gaze from me as she tried to puzzle it out.

I cannot properly express how incredibly hilarious Joy looked as she kept mouthing the word to herself, over and over… first, there were all the crazy expressions she was making. Try this for yourself… try and make ‘gullible’ sound like ‘orange’, but do it in front of a camera. Once you rage quit, watch your expressions on the video.

Priceless.

On top of that was how she grew more and more frustrated as she kept trying. Now you understand my struggle, as I fought valiantly to suppress my laughter. It had to have been the tenth time she sounded it out (or tried to, anyways) before she finally looked back up at me. I had managed to contain myself until then, but at that point I couldn’t help but chuckle. For a moment, Joy seemed almost hurt by this.

“You… you tricked me. Gullible doesn’t sound like orange… ”

Before I could respond to reassure her that it was all in good fun, her face lit up with a flash of comprehension before it settled into an unamused mask of indifference. She cut off my reply by continuing to speak. “None of that was true, was it.”

Still snickering, I choked my reply. “Not since the 'monkey’s uncle' bit. Everything before that was, though.”

Joy’s only reply for a moment was a tired sigh. A moment of silence passed before she spoke up again. “How did I not see this coming?”

Grinning smugly, I replied. “Because I’m amazing?”

Once again stroking her chin, Joy looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hmmm. Nope, that isn’t it. Though I’ve got to hoof it to you, you were very convincing. Still a horrible pony for tricking an innocent, defenseless mare, but convincing nonetheless.”

I was not entirely sure whether I should feel proud or ashamed… but since the second option required something I did not possess (something called “shame”), I opted for the former. “Well, what can I say… I’ve got a silver tongue.”

I lowered my voice for the last two words, trying to sound deep and mysterious as I punctuated my statement with a suggestive wink. Remember what I said about ten seconds ago? About not having any shame? Case and point.

My tactics were effective, to say the least, and I watched as Joy gulped noisily and turned quite scarlet. She cleared her throat much louder than necessary, overtly indicating that the subject was to be changed forthwith. “So then. I think it’s about time you got ready for your shift, don’t you? Good, I thought you might. A shower, excellent idea… well, I won’t hold you from your hygienic concerns any longer. Have fun.”

Joy had a one sided conversation in my direction, clearly indicating what I was expected to do in the immediate future. To call it a hint would be like calling the Titanic “a bit of an accident”, but I took it to heart anyways, leaving the scarlet hued and quite fidgety mare in solitude at the table. As I set off towards the shower, I cast a glance over my shoulder at Joy, who was chewing her lower lip nervously as I walked away. We made eye contact, and she blushed all the harder for it, averting her eyes swiftly.

I couldn't figure this mare out. This really didn't surprise me, though. After all, there is no living creature that can read the mind of a female… not even her. I'm not saying that I was a magician or anything, but I used to be pretty accurate at guessing what women were thinking. And by pretty accurate, I mean I had a one-in-ten success rate. Impressive, no?

And yet, I still found myself continuously baffled by this one. I guess it makes sense in the grand scheme of things… it also fit nicely into my worldview. I have a motto of sorts… "You can never understand women. You can empathize, sympathize, and relate to them, but never fully understand them. Accept this, and carry on. If you one day you think you have it all figured out, you are wrong, period. That's pretty much all you'll ever truly know about women."

It might be a mouthful, but it's accurate. There I was, thinking that I had begun to understand a little bit about the way females thought, and then along came Joy to send me back to square one. I really should have seen it coming. Bah.

As I had been contemplating how very little I actually knew, my hooves had carried me to the shower. I turned the tap onto a comfortable temperature and stepped in. In this enclosed space with the sound of the running water muting all sound, I allowed myself to indulge in something that I find to be a useless waste of time for me: I allowed myself to weep. In silence, I wept for the loss of everything I had ever known. Not only did I weep for my wife and son, though they were arguably the loss which caused the most acute pain; but I also wept for my friends and family, the loss of everyone I'd ever known.

Even the people with whom I dreaded having to interact with, I strangely found myself lamenting over. Under the constant stream of warm water, my grief was manifested and expelled from my body; my tears intermingling with the rivulets of the shower as they ran down my face, becoming one before being swept away into the drain.

As I wept, the burden of grief upon my shoulders lessened. Now, I honestly don't know a lot about dealing with grief. My life had been pretty uneventful before the recent events. I'd never encountered anything I couldn't simply shrug off apathetically. I had discovered long ago that events only hold the power you give them. The more you care, the more power events have over you. To protect myself from my past, I learned to let everything go, to stay distant from everything. I said this many years ago, and even now I could still see the wisdom in it: "If they cannot find your heart, they cannot break it."

This single phrase was the foundation upon which I had built a life of emotional distance. Even though I could see that it was flawed, and a symptom of a deeper dysfunction, I still embraced it and lived it. Because of this, I had never been in a meaningful relationship before I met my wife. And despite my every effort to the contrary, I found myself emotionally distant from her as well. Not even the birth of our son could thaw my heart, though it did begin to defrost.

Who knows, in a few years I might actually have been able to form a semblance of a normal emotional attachment, not that it mattered anymore. It was because of this known emotional detachment of mine that the grief of what had transpired struck home so soundly. I had never known how much they had meant to me until I lost them. I couldn't love them like I should've when I had the chance, but as soon as they were gone forever, I realized how important they were to me. The irony was suffocating.

Soon the water began to run cold, and the change in temperature prompted a change in my disposition. My grief had been alleviated for the most part, and the burden that it placed upon my shoulders lessened accordingly. All told, I was feeling better than I had in weeks. I staunched the flow of water, and proceeded to towel off.

By my watch, I had only been in the shower for about twenty minutes. While this was about four or five times longer than my usual shower (another habit picked up in basic), it was still within what most consider a reasonable amount of time. By the time I was dried, my spirits had risen back to their customary exuberance. Looking in the mirror, I got an idea. I mussed my mane as best I could, persuading it to stand nearly on-end before walking out to the living room.

As I exited the hallway, Joy rounded the corner from the kitchen and caught sight of my ridiculous appearance. My ploy had exactly the intended effect, and Joy was almost instantly doubled over with laughter. The tears were streaming freely down her face as she tried to communicate her thoughts on my hair style.

Needless to say, it was a garbled mess of “your hair” this, and “electrocuted” that. In order to spare you the details of her incomprehensible mumblings, suffice it to say that her initial impression of my hair was the same as mine: I looked like I had just gotten a crash course in Applied Electric Theory.

Once she had settled down to a semi coherent state and wiped the tears from her eyes, she spoke the first sensible phrase since I had come around the corner. “Oh, Celestia… that was hilarious… my sides hurt.”

This warmed my heart a little bit. Despite all of my flaws (and copious testimony to the contrary) I was not a bad person, nor a bad pony. Perhaps I might have been misguided at some times, and I must admit that I had acted out of spite on more than one occasion, but on the whole I tried to bring whatever happiness I could to those around me. That said, seeing the way Joy had laughed, and the joy that I had brought her, it filled me with a certain glow-ey feeling. Perhaps it was accomplishment, perhaps contentment. I cannot really say what the emotion was, exactly, but the general idea is that it was a pleasant one.

Regardless, she got her jollies from my outlandish appearance, and I got mine from bringing happiness to her. It was a win-win all around. To her, I simply said, “Heh. I’m glad this amuses you. Now if I could bother you to help me fix it, I would be most grateful.”

Thus, I implemented part two of my (not very) nefarious plot: 'Operation: Have Joy Play with My Mane.' Of course Joy agreed to rectify my follicular folly, and everything went according to plan.

Oh, don’t look at me like that. Everypony out there can testify that there are few more wonderful feelings than having your scalp rubbed. I sat in contented bliss as the cerulean mare did her best to smooth my unruly hair-do. After what felt like a blissful eternity, I felt a pat on my shoulder, coupled by the announcement that Joy had completed her task. I happened to glance at my watch (yet another army-inspired habit) and was a bit disappointed to see that it was already a quarter past fourteen. With a reluctant sigh, I spoke up.

“Darn… Joy? It’s about time for me to head to work. Any last-minute advice?”

“Aw… shoot. I was having fun messing with your mane… I guess I can finish when you get off shift. As for advice… Don’t set anything on fire and you'll be good. Ask the pony at the front desk where you should go to report for your shift, and you should be set.”

Disregarding her sarcasm, I nodded in affirmation. “Well, alright then… I s’pose I'll be heading out then. Have fun, Joy. I’ll see you after my shift is over.”

Off-hoofedly, Joy remarked "Actually, I’ll see you in a few hours. I work night shift this month, and since you are on the swing shift, our shifts overlap a couple hours.”

I nodded in a generalized expression of comprehension and turned towards the door. As I was walking out the door, I turned back and waved to Joy. She returned the gesture with a smile, one that I could not help but return as I exited the house that was starting to become a home to me.

And thus, I set off towards the clinic, a bit apprehensive as to what might lay ahead. After a good bit of walking, I finally drew near to the clinic. Walking in the same doors I had been carted through not more than seventy-two hours prior was a bit of a strange experience, inspiring in me a vague sense of Déjà Vu. I put all of that aside as I entered the reception area.

At the desk I spoke to a Nurse Tenderheart, who apparently was new to Ponyville and pulling double duty as a nurse and receptionist. After a brief conversation with her, I learned that she was an Intern as well, though her internship was a whole six months long, as opposed to my two weeks. She was only nineteen days into her internship as a nurse, and so she was tasked out to cover down on an opening caused by the normal receptionist falling ill.

A few moments more of conversation revealed that she had trained in the Canterlot School of Medicine, and did not mind filling in for a secretary when necessary. Based on what she had told me and what (little) I knew of Canterlot, I pretty much associated it with the same level of prestige as was afforded to West Point graduates. If I was correct in my association (and there was no evidence on hoof to support or disprove this theory) then this Nurse Tenderheart was a well trained intern from a prestigious academy.

I decided then and there that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on miss May Tenderheart (I had also discovered she was named for the month in which she was born… not terribly original, but a pretty name none the less).

Soon enough, I had asked where I would head to meet up with the “Sanitation Engineer”. My inquiry was initially met with a moment of silence as the receptionist contemplated what I had actually intended to ask. In a short moment, her eyes lit up in comprehension, and she proceeded to name off a series of twists and turns that made my head spin to even try and contemplate.

Instead of relying on my memory (which was dubious at best) to find my way through the labyrinth of corridors, we both decided that it would be best to write it down, along with landmarks within the clinic.

After a few minutes, several strange looks, and more than a few wrong turns, I arrived in a section of the basement dedicated to the mechanical innards of the facility. The entire room was actually quite large, though it was crammed with every type of mechanical equipment imaginable (and some that weren’t).

I approached the only pony in the subterranean cavern, assuming that he was the one who would be my boss for the foreseeable future. I cautiously addressed this scraggly looking earth pony. “Ummm… Hello there. My name is Dave, and I believe that Nurse Joy spoke with you earlier today about a possible internship position as janitor?”

The stallion seated behind the desk calmly flipped the page on his newspaper as if he had not heard me. I was contemplating reiterating myself a bit louder when he spoke up.

“So you’re the new pony? Alright. How good are you with electricity and plumbing?”

“Well… I’m familiar with both, to a certain extent, and I’m usually pretty good at problem solving… ”

At this point, I barely managed to catch the wrench that had been flung in my direction. “Name’s Scruffy, the head Janitor. Take that there wrench and head to room thirty-three-oh-six. See if you can fix what’s wrong. If not, come back. Questions?”

“Uhhh… Nope. I think I can handle this.”

To this, Scruffy simply replied with a grunt, licking the tip of his hoof and turning the page. Not wanting to kick the proverbial hornet’s nest on the first day of my internship, I left the room without comment and headed up to the third floor. On my way, I might have passed a half-dozen ponies, but I couldn’t recall even a single one by the time I had arrived at the room.

Once I walked in, the scene that greeted me was deceptively calm. Honestly, I had expected a geyser erupting from a toilet, or a faucet that was shooting water up to the ceiling. Instead, I was greeted by a trashcan that had been placed under the sink to catch the water from a slow leak.

I figured all I would have to do is tighten up the coupling a bit and everything would be good to go. I figured wrong. As it turns out, the threads on the joint were almost entirely stripped, and from the loose seal there seeped a slow but steady stream of water.

Well… shit. It's not a difficult fix if you have the proper tools… just shut off the water, loosen and remove the damaged coupling, wind some sealant tape around the threads, put everything back and you're done. This repair becomes slightly more difficult without the tape to create a seal, though, so I was going to have to get creative. Have wrench, will Macgyver.

I scratched my chin with the wrench as I contemplated the best way to solve this conundrum. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some cheating unicorn magic right now… Nope, all I get are these wings that I can’t even use for a few more weeks… wings that I’m not even sure I'll know how to use. Wings that are composed mostly of horse feathers and other tricksy magic. That might just work… I turned my head and craned my neck as far as I could, grasping a feather and tugging.

The feather did not even budge. Again I tugged at the feather, though harder this time. Still nothing. Quickly becoming fed up with this lack of success, I bit down as hard as I could and yanked with all my might.

Not quite sure what actually happened, but somehow I ended up on the ground. That damned feather was still stubbornly in place, my head was hurting, and I had been entirely defeated by my own physiology… again. Climbing back to my feet, I stared daggers at the feather that refused to be moved from its position. I mean, I’d heard that pegasus wings had some sort of integral magic, but I never would have guessed that it made them damn near indestructible…

My nose suddenly began to itch, and with a tremendous inhalation, I sneezed so hard I felt like my head was going to explode. The sneeze was so violent, it made me dizzy for a moment… it felt amazing. As my head tried to get itself back together, I became aware of a familiar looking color on the floor, just a pace away from me.

No. There is no way that after all of that, it was a sneeze that knocked it loose… I turned my head to look back at my wing, and I groaned very loudly. That damnable feather was no longer attached to the place I had tried to dislodge it from; it was now a pace away on the floor. I’m pretty sure my eye was twitching in a similar fashion as Joy’s had a tendency to do.

I swear, there was something up there that just loved to mess with me… I gathered up the feather and marveled a moment at its lightness. It was one of the primaries (the long ones) and despite being as long as my leg, it was so light I could barely feel it on my hoof. It was also much stiffer than I would have expected, behaving more like a ruler than a feather.

After marveling at the incredible feather for a much longer period than I had intended, I figured I might as well get around to fixing this leak. I had damn near undone the connector in the sink without turning off the water, but I caught the mistake just in time to save myself a good soaking.

Once I had rectified the possible disaster by shutting off the water supply, I quickly finished disassembling the fixture. I gnawed off the tip of the feather and wrapped it around the threads of the pipe before I put everything back together. The feather made it pretty difficult to reassemble the whole contraption, but soon enough it all came together. I wrenched the fixture closed, feeling pretty damn smug about my problem solving.

Then came the moment of truth: turning on the water. I took a deep breath and turned the knob. The sink exploded and flooded the entire hospital, drowning everypony. The end.

In reality, none of that happened. The water gurgled through the pipes for a moment, but the repair held. I tried both of the taps and was pleased as punch to see that all traces of the leak had disappeared. I dumped out the can that had been used to catch the drops before setting back off towards the janitorial cavern. My initial impression of that particular area was one of a dank cave, and it was just such a vivid mental image that I didn't think I'd ever shake it.

I walked into Scruffy's office, the cloying dampness slapping me in the face as I entered. The olive coated earth stallion simply looked up from his paper and studied me for a moment. I highly doubted that he had moved since I had left. Instead of saying anything, I figured I would wait for him to speak first. Luckily, this was not a long wait.

"You fix the leak?"

Puffing my chest put, I replied "Yes, sir."

Scruffy looked around a moment before turning back to me. "My Pa is 'sir'; I'm Scruffy."

"Alright then. I fixed the leak, Scruffy."

He did not so much as look up over his newspaper as he replied. "Hmmm. What'd you use to seal the pipe?"

Feeling unduly proud of myself, I explained my methods. "Well, since I didn't have anything else at my disposal, I just plucked a feather and wound it around the threads. Seemed to work."

At this, Scruffy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. A moment of silence passed before he spoke up. "Pegasus feathers are naturally water repellant, and pretty durable at that. I'd say that it will make a fine seal. Good thinking."

I smiled triumphantly. "Heh… thanks. Anything else you need done right now?"

"Hmmm… nope. You passed the test, and other than that there isn't much to do for a few hours. It's about sixteen hundred right now, shift change is in about an hour, and we usually begin cleaning a bit after that. In the meantime, grab a seat and relax for a bit."

"No problem. One last question… is there a uniform standard or any special directions I need to be aware of?"

Scruffy rubbed his chin again, a gesture that I began to see was something of a habit for him.

"Well, we have utility barding that we use when we go to clean or repair things… I suppose that's a uniform. Just make sure you keep yourself looking tidy. Hay, you can grow a beard for all the hoots I give. Just keep it tidy and you'll be fine."

Shut the front door. Grow a beard? I didn't even know it was possible to grow facial hair as a pony. Does this mean I'll have to shave? How do I shave without being bald around the muzzle? How do I… oh, my head is starting to hurt… dammit. Scruffy continued.

"And as far as special directions… Doctors and Nurses have the right of way. They have more important places to be than stuck behind you in the hallway. One last thing… if you're ever told to go to the fourth floor for any reason, under no circumstances are you to go up there without a respirator. I suggest carrying one with you at all times, just in case."

This piqued my interest. "What's on the fourth floor?"

"Mostly the mechanical guts of the clinic, but there is also the isolation ward up there. You should never be called into the iso ward; I'm the pony that handles that. If for some reason you have to go in there, remember to use the decon shower before you enter, and once you leave. Shoot, shower twice when you leave. There is nothing in there that you want to carry out with you."

I swallowed a lump that had mysteriously appeared in my throat. "Fair enough. Is it a safe guess that I'll be trained how to fix certain equipment as a part of my job?"

"You'll learn what you need as you need it."

Great. Scruffy was waxing cryptic on me. I was getting the distinct impression that I had gotten all the information I was likely to get for now, and this was his way of politely telling me so. I nodded at him to indicate that I understood what he meant, and then I walked over to the vacant seat and popped open the newspaper. It was a local publication, talking about the local problems in Ponyville.

There was a short story detailing the complications during the last winter wrap up, the somewhat sketchy condition that the school playground equipment was in, and an opinion column about a price gouging conspiracy in the town market.

The rest of the paper was fluff pieces about the school fillies and things like that. The part that really caught my attention was the section that contained the various coupons and advertisements for the vendors in town. I saw one for Berry's Smoothies, and I knew what I was going to be doing after work.

For the next hour and a half or so, I read and re-read the articles in the newspaper. Their editor should be fired… I found no less than four spelling mistakes… isn't that what the editor was for? I was in the midst of working myself into a righteous lather to write a strongly worded letter to the editor when I caught sight of the banner just below the headline: Produced by the Journalism Club at Ponyville Primary School. Instantly, my opinion of the paper did a complete hundred-and-eighty-degree flip.

Instead of being appalled at the number of spelling errors, I became rather impressed that there had been so few. I still wanted to write to the editor, but the letter would be a much more pleasant one in light of the new evidence.

As I was thinking about how to word this letter, Scruffy cleared his throat. "It's about that time, Dave. Grab them overalls, suit up, and follow me."

I did as I was told, suiting up as best I could with the limited manual dexterity I possessed. After a brief struggle, I ended up triumphant and walked up to Scruffy. He gave me a quick once over and nodded in approval. Without a word he set off down the hall, and I fell into step behind him.

Through the next couple hours we performed standard janitorial duties as we wiped down counters and cleaned the latrines. By the time we had finished with that task and had swept and mopped all of the floors, it was approaching midnight. Most of the patient rooms were vacant and only required a quick touch up before we moved on.

Once or twice I had caught sight of Joy as I passed through the hallways, though we never had a chance to do anything other than wave or nod at each other, being that we were both in the middle of some task or another.

By the time that the floors had all been sanitized to the point of being nearly luminous, it was almost zero two in the morning. Scruffy and I had just returned the last of the cleaning supplies to the closet when he turned to me. "Whelp. That about does it for tonight."

I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow. "Anything else before I take off?"

"Nope. So far, I can tell you are a hard worker and at least slightly mechanically inclined. I'll need a bit more time to make sure you aren't just putting on an act, but as long as you keep up what you're doing, I think you'll be a good addition to the force."

"Thanks, Scruffy. I'm glad to hear that. Same time tomorrow?"

"Nope. Come in at eighteen tomorrow, and make sure you get a good night's sleep. You will be working the full night shift tomorrow."

"Alright, sounds good. See you then, Scruffy."

He grunted in acknowledgment, and with that I took my leave. After so many hours sweeping and mopping the corridors, I had expanded my mental map of the facility to the point that it was almost useful. At the bare minimum, I knew my way to the cafeteria and to the assorted exits. At least I knew the important stuff.

I then began to test the integrity of the other mental map I had built in the last day, as I navigated towards Berry's Smoothies. I began to get turned around on the way there, but by taking a second to reference the location of the landmarks in town, I figured I was heading the right way, just along a different route than I had taken last time.

Sure enough, I emerged from a side road into the main avenue, just a block south of the smoothie shop. As I walked through the door, Berry looked up from her book and did a double take.

"Hey you. Where's Joy?"

I waved over my shoulder in the general direction of the clinic I’d just left "She's still at the clinic. I was working the swing shift, so I got off before she did."

Berry raised an eyebrow suggestively. "I'll bet you did, Flyboy."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that. Not only at the dirty joke, but also at the nickname… I quite liked it. "Heh… good one. Guess I set myself up for that one. And Flyboy? Really?"

She nodded in confirmation "Yeah you did. And what's wrong, don't like the nickname? Would you prefer 'mummy'?"

I felt an involuntary twinge of pain at the memory of the bandages that yet held me. "Heh… no, I think I like Flyboy better."

She nodded smugly. "Alright, it's settled. What'll it be, Flyboy?"

Scanning the menu, I hesitated only slightly before replying. "Let me get a tall glass of punch."

Again with the eyebrow… "And how would your marefriend feel about that?"

Right about then it had hit me what I had said. Apparently, my facehoof was answer enough.

"Alright, Flyboy. Don't hurt yourself, I was only joking. Four bits, please."

I silently dug out the appropriate change from my coin satchel (not coin purse, dammit) and paid the fee. As the magnificent beverage was slid across the counter to me, I caught a glance at the price board over the register. A tall glass of Punch's (I swear, it actually was called that. Must have been a running joke for Berry…) was six bits, not four. Huh… seems I'd gotten a friendship discount or something.

I took a seat near the counter, and in a moment Berry had joined me. "You're the most interesting thing to happen in the last four hours. So, did I hear correctly that you are now working at the clinic?"

Swallowing a large gulp of smoothie, I fought away brain-freeze before I gave my answer. "Indeed you did, and indeed I do. I am interning for a position as a sanitation engineer, with a possible side job as master mechanical mechanism repair pony."

At first Berry seemed quite impressed by the titles, but soon enough she began to contemplate what the jobs might actually entail. She roused from her reverie to favor me with a flat look. "You're going to be a janitor slash repair pony."

"Eyup."

Now it was her turn to facehoof. I seemed to have that effect on mares… from behind her hoof, she spoke up. "You know, you just reminded me of a customer that comes through here from time to time. Enormous earth pony, red color, tends to wear a yoke… ever see him?"

I stroked my chin thoughtfully. "Not that I recall. Why?"

Berry shrugged dismissively. "No real reason. I was just wondering, because he says 'eyup' as well."

I tried not to let my inner amusement shine through. It was as if this whole town was an act, but they didn't know I'd already seen the script. Hiding my inner amusement, I did my best to sound aloof. "Sounds like a classy fellow."

At this, Berry laughed a bit, a laugh that cut off abruptly with a small snort. She quickly covered her face with both hooves and began to turn red. Seems I have that effect on mares as well. Realizing that she was quite embarrassed, I tried to break the tension. "Heh. That was adorable."

Berry shot me a death glare. I was three for three with expressions so far. "No it wasn't. It was embarrassing… I can't believe you saw that."

I shrugged. "What, you think you are the first mare I've seen snort? It happens from time to time. No big deal. I find it kinda cute, but then again I am a bit strange… "

"Yeah, no kidding. You’re pretty… well, you're pretty something alright. Not sure what, though."

I took a mock bow to the best of my ability while seated. "Thank you, m'lady. I try."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. The reaction quad-fecta. Perhaps a smarter pony would have made the connection that all of these expressions were related to my aptitude for nonsense, but such trivial matters were below my notice.

I finished my smoothie and rose to leave, when Berry spoke up. "Awww, leaving so soon?"

I shrugged my still-bound wings in a mildly painful gesture of apology. "Afraid so. I'm on night shift tomorrow, and I need to get some rest. I'll swing by again tomorrow, though."

She nodded. "Alright, very well then. I'll hold you to that."

I waved to her as I walked towards the door. "You can count on me. Goodnight, Berry."

Returning my wave, she called after me "Night, Dave."

I stepped out into the blissful night air. I’d noticed that since my arrival here, I’d been much more sensitive to the air currents around me, seemingly in tune with every breath of wind. I supposed it was a pegasus thing, and didn't question it too deeply. I was walking home as the exhaustion hit me. I yawned mightily, my limbs suddenly feeling quite heavy.

I nearly got lost a few times on the way home, the only thing that saved me was my knowledge of the landmarks. Soon enough I approached the place that had become a home for me since my arrival, the colorful flowers in the planter by the door acting as a beacon to guide me home.

Only moments after I had walked in, I was in bed and thoroughly racked out. Just before I had laid down, I'd set my watch to go off at thirteen hundred. This way, I could get the sleep I needed but also have time to hang out with Joy before work.

End of day three

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My watch sounded at its designated time, rousing me from my slumber. My mouth was so dry it was struck together. As I stretched, I caught a whiff of myself… yep, that's the last time I would go to bed without a shower. Climbing to my hooves, I set off for the shower. The shower was invigorating, and I stepped from my ablution feeling like a whole new pony.

Based on a lack of directions to the contrary, I assumed I was permitted in the fridge. As I opened said cold storage device, I saw a pair of little brown paper sacks with my name on them. One said brunch, the other said dinner. Though I might be a bit slow on the uptake, even I could figure this one out. What I couldn't figure out was when Joy had made the time to make this for me… I seriously owed this mare.

About then, an idea that had been floating around in my head for a while burst to the forefront of my mind: with my first payday, I was going to treat Joy to a night on the town to repay her for all she'd done for me. I was going to take her out on a date… something about it just seemed right.

I grabbed the pair of sacks to place them in my saddlebags, but as I removed them from the shelf, my attention was caught by a scrap of paper that had been placed beneath them. I placed the bags into my pouches and turned back to investigate the note.

"Dave, I had to run to the market to buy some vegetables. You have obviously found the meals I made for you, but remember that those are for your shift tonight. Don't eat them too soon, or you'll be hungry later. If you are hungry when you wake up, there's food on the counter. I should be back by fifteen hundred, and I'm excited to hear about your first day. I'll see you when I get home.

-Joy"

Seriously, did this mare ever sleep? She got off shift after I did, yet she was up before me and out shopping? I was more than a bit concerned that she was sacrificing her health to better care for me. I could tell she had a nurturing instinct, but I'd be damned before I let her run herself ragged on my behalf… we were going to have a talk when she got back… in two hours or so. To pass the time, I walked back to the living room, and approached a phonograph that I had spied earlier. Beside the archaic looking device was a stack of records, and I gently flipped through them. One caught my eye, and I pulled it out for closer inspection.

It was something by "Steedivarious", though I couldn't tell exactly what since the label was so worn. Gingerly, I removed it from the cardboard sleeve and placed it on the device. I cranked the handle carefully, winding the spring inside. I flipped the lever and slowly guided the needle to the record. At first it was little but static pops and clicks, but soon a haunting melody began to emerge.

I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to be swept away by the music. The melody brought me back to the meadow with Joy, sitting under the shade of the oak tree. I could almost feel the warmth of the sun upon my hide, hear the wind dancing in the leaves. I opened my eyes with a huge smile upon my face, feeling singularly at ease.

I turned around and was going to head back to the table and grab something to eat, when I saw something so shocking it almost caused me to trip. Sitting in the chair across from the couch I was using as a bed was Nurse Redheart, sipping on a cup of something, most likely tea. That was not surprising. What was surprising was the fact that she was smiling, a sight that was both heartwarming and a bit disconcerting. Strange combination, I know, but in light of the talk we had the other day, it was not unwarranted. Holding the smile on my face, I greeted her.

"Good afternoon, Miss Redheart. How are you today?"

"Good afternoon to you too, Dave. Good to see you are finally awake… I thought I might have to grab a stick and begin poking you."

This caught me entirely off guard. Not only did I not expect her to be so pleasant, the fact that she was cracking jokes at me was beyond my comprehension. She seemed to pick up on this and spoke up. "Oh, come on Dave. I hope you'll not be holding our last exchange against me. After all, didn't I say you two had my blessing?"

Stumbling over my own tongue, I blundered an answer. "Y… yes ma'am, you did. I suppose I was just caught a bit off guard by your joke. I suppose you could say that your first impression was a memorable one."

She nodded once, primly. "As was my intent. Tell me, Dave: if you were a stallion with questionable motives, would you have continued to stay here after that exchange?”

I shook my head. "Not if I had an ounce of sense. Then again, I'm not entirely sure that I do, so this becomes a conundrum."

Miss Redheart waved a hoof, dismissing the notion. "Dave, you sell yourself short. You're rather intelligent, and quite crafty. At least, that is what I have heard about you from Joy and Clements."

Cocky my head, I racked my brain for a pony by that name. "I'm not sure I'm familiar with Clements. Are you sure we've met?"

Miss Redheart seemed bemused by this. "Well, you were mopping the hallways with him last night, so I should think so."

About that time, the light bulb flickered on in my mind. "Ahhh. He'd introduced himself as Scruffy, not as Clements."

"Yes, he does prefer that name to his formal one. I honestly don't see why… Clements sounds so much nicer than Scruffy."

"Perhaps… but you have to admit, Scruffy seems to suit him."

She grimaced slightly at this. "Well, I suppose there is no accounting for taste."

My stomach decided to interject into our dialogue, and loudly at that. I quickly excused myself and made a beeline towards the food on the counter. As I opened the container, I saw that the food was a salad consisting mostly of beans and sprouts of some sort, though there were some flowers mixed in as well. I helped myself to a plate of the stuff, and after grabbing a clip-fork (fork-clip?) I took the tray in my mouth and wandered back to the couch.

As I sat down, the overture of the last song faded away, and a new melody began in its stead. Where the last piece called forth imagery of a sunlit afternoon, the current piece called forth imagery of a winter's night, the pale beams of a full moon glinting softly off the snow. It was a cold and desolate piece, though beautiful in its own right. I excused myself ahead of time for eating during our conversation, though Nurse Redheart waved it off with a hoof. As I ate, Nurse Redheart and I held a light conversation about things like the weather and about the sketchy playground equipment at the school house. She was especially interested in the latter, and she even listed off a series of accidents and injuries that had been caused by the faulty equipment. We spoke for a while about the different places in town, and it was interesting to get the opinion of somepony else when it came to the various establishments in town. As time wore on and the both of us opened up a bit and became more comfortable amongst each other, it became apparent where Joy's nurturing instinct came from.

Nurse Redheart was an extremely gentle soul, and it was obvious that she loved her daughter with all her heart. Honestly, it was pretty touching to see how much love there was between these two mares. We passed the time in this manner, and almost before we knew it, there was the sound of the door opening and closing. From the entryway, Joy's voice called out. "Anypony home?"

From the living room, I called back. "Nope. Nopony in here."

I could hear the smile in her voice as she replied, and it brought a smile to my face. "Hey there, nopony. Want to give me a hoof putting all this stuff away?"

"No problem. Be there in a second."

I turned to Nurse Redheart, excusing myself for a few minutes. She nodded and waved me off with a hoof as she lost herself in the music. I stood and headed into the kitchen, and I damn near fell on my face in shock when I arrived in the dining room. There were bags everywhere. There is no way in Equestria that she had carried all of that from the market. Even as I thought this though, I saw the faint sheen of sweat on her brow. Friggin unicorns and their friggin cheating magic… if I had tried to carry all of this, I might have died. Joy simply looked a bit winded, but nothing that would indicate the enormity of the task she had just undertaken.

Damn… where can I get myself one of those horn things? By the time we had all of the groceries squirreled away into the various cupboards, it was nearly sixteen hundred. As Joy went to take a quick shower before work, I did the dishes. I surprised myself with this, but in the end I assumed it was from guilt at not carrying the groceries for Joy. By the time the last utensil was cleaned and put away, Joy was emerging from the shower. Once I had gathered up my mess and packed it away into my saddlebags, I went to wait by the door. In just a moment's time, Joy was by my side in her nurse regalia, and we left the house a moment later. As we walked to the clinic side by side, I filled her in on my shift the night before. I had just concluded my riveting tale of hallway sanitation when we walked through the door. Joy gave me a hug as we went our separate ways.

It only took a moment for me to get to the janitorial grotto. As I walked in, Scruffy was in the same place he had been the night before. "Evening, Scruffy. How are you tonight?"

"Same as ever."

So, cryptic it was. This suited me just fine, and I was just going to ask one more question for the night… if I could help it, that is. "Scruffy, when do you want me to start on the cleaning?"

He leisurely flipped the page before replying. "Huh. About an hour, go ahead and do it then."

Checking my watch, I made a note of the time and then checked for further instructions. "Alright. Anything else?"

Another page turned. "Nope."

Well then. That's that, I suppose. I had about an hour to kill before I started cleaning, so I grabbed the newspaper and began to read about pretty much the same stories as yesterday. Apparently, one of the fillies at the school had been injured on the playground equipment, and as a result the entire recess area had been closed until it could be fixed. As I thought more about this, I wondered if there might be something I could do about it. I might not be able to repair the more damaged areas, but I should be able to get at least part of the playground safe to use again. Once I got off shift, I would head over to the school and see what I could do about fixing the equipment.

Casting a glance at my watch, I saw that it was about time to start cleaning. After donning my utility barding, I struck out towards the supply closet on the top floor. As I walked, I kept thinking about the playground. It was Thursday night, and depending on what time I got off, I might be able to run by the school and investigate the equipment. As it was right now though, I could not rely on getting off at a reasonable time. My shift yesterday had been nearly twelve hours long, and there was no reason to believe that this would be any different.

Soon enough I had reached the top floor (I called the third floor the top floor since the fourth was essentially off limits) and retrieved the cleaning supplies. Much the same as the previous night, I swept and mopped with the same diligence that I had seen displayed the previous night by Scruffy. By the time I had finished with all three floors, I was pretty beat. I was sweating a little bit, and my neck was sore from maneuvering the bucket and mop all over the place, but I was entirely too pleased with how clean everything was for my own good. It was almost intoxicating, this sense of accomplishment. Just like day before, I had finished up at about zero three. Granted, we had finished a bit sooner the night before, but there had also been more ponies working as well.

I returned to the grotto and was simply stunned by the sight I beheld: Scruffy's chair was vacant. I felt like my entire life was a lie. Once I had kicked my melodramatic streak though, I figured that he was just checking behind me. This guess proved true as the janitor entered a few minutes later. He gave me what I took for an approving nod before addressing me. "You did a fine job. Wish I had something else for you to do right now, but I don't. Take an hour for lunch; be back here at zero four."

I gave a nod to the affirmative. "Can do. See you at zero four."

With that, I turned and left. I should have plenty of time to evaluate the state of the playground and still grab a smoothie and chat with Berry for a bit. Determined to accomplish this mission I had given myself, and also feeling mildly motivated to do some exercise, I ended up taking off towards the school at a quick jog. After about three blocks, I sped myself up to a run as I warmed up. The pavement flew beneath my hooves like nothing, and I felt not even the slightest hint of exhaustion. I again kicked up the speed to what must have been a dead sprint, and I began to feel the first hints of fatigue creeping up on me. All too soon, the school came into view and I dropped my speed to a slow jog to cool down. I looked at my watch, and I had to stare at it for a few seconds before I finally believed it. I had run about three miles in a bit over ten minutes. Holy crap, I loved having four legs.

As the adrenaline slowly faded, I walked over to look over the equipment. At first, it looked simple enough. There was some corrosion and some loose nuts and bolts, but nothing too serious at all. One of the pieces was wrapped up in warning tape, likely the scene of the accident earlier. As I looked closer, I could see where one of the struts on the climbing gym had broken. Looking closely at the breaking point, I could see that it was a fatigue fracture. If you take a paperclip and bend it back and forth repeatedly, it will break. Each time it bends, it forms small stress cracks. Over time these build up, and if not addressed they can cause a catastrophic failure of structural integrity.

To put it simply, it will break. This is a fatigue fracture, and that is exactly what had happened here. Looking at the other struts and cross members, it was clear that it was a widespread problem. I moved from one piece of equipment to another, and over all, everything was in pretty good condition. It could all be fixed with a bit of elbow grease and some time… everything but the climbing gym, that is. That would require some extra loving to get back to operational status. My assessment concluded, I picked up a canter towards Berry's.

Once I had warmed back up, I moved on into a dead sprint, reveling in the feeling of speed and of freedom. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I was turning the corner to Berry's. Again I slowed to allow myself a cool down period, and by the time I was at her door I had nearly caught my breath.

I was breathing a bit heavily and sweating slightly as I walked into the shop, and DAMN it felt good. As much as I complain about it, I do love a good run. Berry however, must not have been expecting a pumped up pegasus to come sauntering through her door, and she regarded me wearily for a moment before speaking.

"Well… where's the fire?"

Still breathing a bit heavily, I tried to slow my heartbeat between words of my response. "No fire. I just felt like going for a run… I feel pretty pumped right now."

She just looked incredulous at that. "Now I've seen everything… a pegasus that likes to run. Go figure. You are a strange one, Flyboy."

I beamed at this. "I try. Thank you for noticing."

"Yeah yeah, I'm amazing.” Berry punctuated this last exchange with a casual wave of her hoof. She spoke up again before I had a chance to. "Same thing as last night, Flyboy?"

I tapped my chin with a hoof, contemplating. "You know, I'll have to come up with a nickname for you now. Can't let you have all the fun, now can I?"

She cocked an eyebrow at me. "Was that a yes?"

She had set me up to use one of my favorite words, and I couldn't pass it up. "Indubitably."

My reply was met by a blank stare. Berry just shook her head and began to make me one anyways. By the time she had finished I had already fished the bits from my saddlebags and stacked them neatly on the counter. The exchange was made and I took the same seat I had the night before. As she had the night before, Berry once again sat across from me. In time, this would become our routine each night. We would regale each other with stories from our lives over a smoothie. For that night, however, I only had a limited amount of time to spend, and soon I had to leave to report back to Scruffy. Waving farewell, I set back out to the clinic in the same manner as I'd gotten everywhere else that night. I arrived precisely at zero three forty, and had plenty of time to catch my breath and calm the beating of my heart.

I spent a few minutes conversing with Nurse Tenderheart, who was still covering the front desk. She told me that Joy had been looking for me earlier, but that something had come up a little while ago and she was going to be occupied for a bit. I nodded and thanked her before setting off to the sanitation alcove. When I walked in, everything was right in the universe: Scruffy was seated in the place of honor, his customary newspaper opened to some unknowable story. Before I even spoke up, he beat me to it. "You're early."

Almost on reflex, I replied. "Ten minutes early is on time. On time is ten minutes late, and late is wrong."

Scruffy seemed to think about this for a moment before grunting and nodding. I took a seat across from him, and popped open a newspaper of my own, reading the words without anything sinking in. I was pondering how best to fix the playground equipment so the young ones could have a place to frolic during their free period. I was so deep in thought that I almost didn't hear Scruffy clear his throat to get my attention. Looking up at him, he simply jerked his head towards the door, indicating that I was free to leave. I nodded and disrobed of my utility barding, hanging it up on my way out. As I walked out the door, I could have sworn I heard Scruffy mumble "congratulations", though I couldn't be sure. I was debating waiting for Joy on the bench where I had met her that first day, but as soon as I stepped outside I decided it was simply too beautiful not to go running again.

I popped back into the reception area to let Nurse Tenderheart know that I was going for a run, and that if Joy was still here when I got back I would walk her home. She nodded in acknowledgment, and I turned around and started off at a slow jog. Even though I had been running for a good while by this point, I felt nothing of the exhaustion one would expect. The sun was just beginning to light the horizon as I slowly increased my speed. Once again I had settled into what should have been nothing less than an all-out sprint, yet I felt very little exertion from it.

To my surprise, I discovered that I could push myself farther yet, my legs a veritable blur beneath me. I soon left the metropolitan area of Ponyville (if you could call it that) and was threading my way through the outskirts. I must have run at least halfway around the town before I slowed to a canter to check my watch. Only twenty minutes had elapsed since I had left the clinic, so I picked my pace back up and circled back. On the way back, the exertion finally began to catch up to me, and I could feel my lungs burning as my legs grew steadily heavier.

I pushed through despite this, and by the time I had arrived at the clinic I was completely winded, gasping for breath. I stretched out my muscles as best I could, wiping away the sweat on my brow. I took a few moments to breathe deeply and calm my racing pulse.

All of the exertion had taken its toll on my damaged muscles, and they burned in protest. I reached into the bag and pulled out my dose of painkillers and swallowed it dry.

At least, I tried to. My throat was so dry the medication only made it halfway. Reluctantly, I dragged my sweaty, smelly self inside to get some water. As I was passing through the halls on my way to the latrine, I couldn't help but notice that I was being stared at by everypony I walked past. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what everypony was staring at. Every nurse I passed did the same thing. By the time I had arrived at the latrine I was one paranoid parrot. I must have something horrible attached to me, or perhaps my wings had fallen off… it only took a single glance at the mirror to calm my fears… and also to boost my ego to dangerous levels.

As I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized the pegasus staring back at me. My coat was slightly darker and matted with perspiration, causing it to lay flat and subsequently showcase every one of my muscles. My healthy diet and constant exercise had contributed to my lean and muscular physique, and each one of the muscle groups was slightly swollen from the exertion, causing them to stand out more than usual. Between the swelling and the matted coat, I looked like I was chiseled from stone. Despite my tendency to exaggerate my own physical condition to cater to my ego, even I had to admit that I looked amazing. Suddenly all of the stares made sense. I had an ego to stoke, so I quickly drank from the tap and sauntered back to the exit, basking in the warmth of the open mouth staring that I was receiving.

As I walked through the door to the lobby, Joy caught sight of me from the corner of her eye and turned to greet me. Whatever she had been about to say died on her lips as her mouth fell open, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. She was turning a bit red in the cheeks as I approached. I spoke up, my voice still a little shaky from the run.

"You ready to go? I kinda need to take a shower."

It seemed to be all she could manage to nod. I began to walk out of the clinic when I noticed that she was not by my side. I turned to look back and see what was keeping her, and I kinda wished I didn't. At the very least, there were eight pairs of eyes fixed on my hindquarters as I walked away. Yep, this had just gone from being really good for my ego to pretty damned creepy in ten seconds flat. Unconsciously, my tail swished, and that seemed to break the trance. All eight pairs of eyes broke free from their previous target to meet my gaze. All eight pairs suddenly looked elsewhere, every pony to whom they belonged turning quite red.

I decided I would wait outside for Joy. I had barely stepped through the door before I heard Joy approaching from behind. I quickly looked back to confirm it was her, and I was rewarded with seeing her sporting a "deer-in-the-headlights" look as I caught her staring at my flank. She pulled her tried and true "tomato" impression, much to my amusement. We walked in silence for a few moments before she spoke up. "Ahhh… so… ummm… you look… different… "

Tossing my head to get some sweaty bangs out of my eyes, I looked at her as I replied. "Heh… yeah, I went for a run this morning. It feels great to exercise again."

She flushed just a little bit harder. "You look… really good… yeah."

I grinned at her, going a little bit red myself. "Thanks. You don't look so bad yourself… "

At this, Joy hung her head. "Yeah right. I wish I had a figure like that… "

"Want this one?" I punctuated this question with a wink, reducing her to a stuttering mess again. This was simply too much fun… she tried valiantly to recover.

Blushing furiously, she tried to stammer out a reply. "I… um… well… "

I cut her off before she got too far. "If you like, we could work out sometime. It's not hard, you just have to stick with it. That's all it takes."

Joy seemed to contemplate this for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Actually, that sounds wonderful. I'd like that very much."

I beamed at her. "Great! All we have to do now is find the time for it."

The conversation continued in much the same fashion for the rest of the walk home. As we neared the house, I mentioned my plan to try and fix up some of the playground fixtures at the school, an idea that Joy simply fell in love with. She was very proud of me for wanting to go the extra mile to help out, and she even volunteered to help. There is no way I could possibly say no. Even if not for the puppy dog eyes and the very obvious satisfaction it would bring her to do something for the foals, there is no way to deny the value of having cheating unicorn magic on your team… especially when you lack opposable thumbs.

As it turned out, we both had the day off Saturday, so we decided that we would borrow some tools from Scruffy and see what we could do to fix the playground fixtures. Before we knew it, our conversation had made the distance disappear, and we were standing on the porch. My exhaustion crashed down upon me like a tidal wave, and I could do nothing to stifle a yawn. Of course, this made Joy yawn as well, which made me want to yawn… I barged into the house before we were trapped in a recursive cycle of yawning for all of eternity.

All I wanted to do was go to bed…

But first, a shower.

05:30 Friday 16 March

End of Day 4.

4: The Park

Chapter Four

The Park

By the time I had showered and gotten to bed, it was already nearly zero six, and I was so exhausted I think I might have fallen asleep even before my head had hit the pillow.

You know the expression "let sleeping dogs lie"? Well, apparently Joy didn't.

I was roused abruptly from my slumber by the sensation of being caught up in a magnitude seven earthquake. My initial instinct was to flop about and scream like a frightened child, but that was quelled before it began by the delightful sound that accompanied the quake. "Dave Dave Dave wake up wake up! C'mon, sleepyhead. Get up!"

Ah, Joy. My blessing; my curse. I would be the one to bond with the single-perkiest morning mare I had ever met, now wouldn't I… as I attempted to still my racing heart, I took a series of deep breaths before looking up at this biological alarm clock.

Joy was grinning ear to ear, bursting with excitement for some unfathomable reason or another. As much as I wanted to be cranky for my abrupt awakening, I simply could not. Have I mentioned before that this mare is too damned cute for her own good? She is too cute for my own good, as well. Makes sense if you don't think about it.

In spite of myself, I cracked a wan smile back at the mare. "Joy? You know I'm not a morning pony, right?"

Her chipper smile never waned. "I gathered, yes. But that's okay, because it's the afternoon now."

I once upon a time had the ability to restrain from facehoofing. As Joy answered my question, a little pony in the back of my head was narrating my thoughts. 'Dave has the ability to withhold a facehoof… aaaand it's gone.'

And then I facehoofed.

It might be the afternoon, but I didn't have enough sleep for this. From the other side of my hoof, I could hear Joy snickering at my reaction. My, how the tables had turned.

Groaning, I attempted to stand. I really wasn't all that surprised when my limbs only half-heartedly responded to my will, allowing me to rise a couple inches before flopping back down. I was a pegasus… I didn't need these friggin limbs, right? Good, that's what I thought. If ever these appendages decided to obey my commands, all of Equestria would tremble before the mighty pounding of my hooves; hooves that bowed to my will and did as I pleased!

Did I mention that I wasn't quite awake yet?

I must have zoned out again, because Joy interrupted my fantasy by waving a hoof in front of my face. Blinking in confusion, I stared at her for a moment. She was returning my gaze with an expectant look. I broke the silence this time. "May I… help you?"

Wrong answer. Her expectant gaze morphed into an almost maniacal smile as her horn began to glow. I felt the effervescent glow of her magic wrap around me, and I knew that I had inadvertently boned myself, having somehow sprung her trap, the effect of which was unknown.

Ah, bone me running. Why do I always do this? One of these days, I'll actually remember to think before I speak, and when that happens, look out world! I'll be unstoppable. In the meantime though, I was set down a bit roughly by the front door.

I'm certain it was not Joy's intent to drop me like a hot potato, but what should have been a graceful landing was pretty much spoiled by a lack of cooperation from my supporting appendages. She regarded me with an ashamed look, as if appalled that she had dropped her charge so roughly, but I waved her off with a casual hoof. "Meh, it's not so bad. After all, I've had much harder landings recently."

Her worries assuaged, Joy took off down the hallway, turning a corner before disappearing up the stairs. I stood at the threshold of Casa Redheart, wallowing in a pit of jealousy at the incredible display of early morning coordination I had just witnessed. When I grow up, I want to be able to do that.

My envious funk was dispelled by a set of riveting blue orbs that were positively luminous in contrast to the gloom of the hallway. As she exited the hallway and stepped into the better-lit foyer area, Joy was simply radiant. Her eyes shone like diamonds, twinkling like stars in the night sky in the glow from her eager smile.

Though I still had no idea what exactly it was that I had gotten myself into, seeing the unadulterated glee that possessed Joy had left me with a strange sense of excitement as well. As rapt as I was at the sight of this splendid mare, I failed to notice the blue glow approaching from my right until it was too late. My daze was abruptly broken by the impact of my saddlebags against my ribs. I hissed at the contact, as much from the pain as from the breaking of my trance.

"I'm so sorry, Dave! I thought you would grab them, or…something. Are you okay?" Joy blushed heavily in shame at having injured me a second time in less than five minutes, and I tried to dismiss her concerns with a casual wave of the hoof, to moderate effect.

"Heh… my hoof-eye coordination is a bit… lacking when I wake up." My speech was slurred a bit, but my point was made.

She shot me a sarcastically raised eyebrow. "You don't say?"

Shut the front door. Was Joy using sarcasm? I… I think I need to lie down…

Joy could clearly see she had won this round, and took a bit more pleasure from this than might be necessary. And you know what? I couldn't even be upset at this. She was in such a good humor that it was impossible to be unhappy in her presence, and for the first time in a long while I remembered how infectious a good mood could be. I finished affixing my saddlebags as Joy opened up the door, reveling in the light of the mid-afternoon sun.

She was simply radiant. To call her anything less would be tantamount to an insult.

She opened her eyes, shaking off her reverie, and cast a glance back over her shoulder at me. The only way I can possibly describe the expression she shot me would be to call it "smoldering". Her half-lidded eyes, her single raised eyebrow, the smirk she wore, and the way she was looking over her shoulder at me all conspired to stir feelings in a part of me that was not allowed to feel things.

She held her gaze for but a moment before she casually flicked her mane and took off out the door, her words trailing behind her. "Are you coming or not?"

Not yet, I'm not… but if you keep that up…

I violently shook my head to derail that train of thought as I called back a more appropriate response. "Yeah, I'm going, I'm going…"

I walked out the door, squinting a moment in the bright sunlight as my eyes adjusted. I closed the door behind me and quickened my pace to catch up to Joy, who had opted not to wait for me. With no small amount of bitterness, I internally scolded my mutinous limbs.

'Oh, sure… you bastards can't be bothered to catch me when I'm dropped a meter onto the tile, but when it comes time to follow a magnificent flank, all the sudden you guys are in perfect working order. Soon as my wings are healed, the lot of you are going to be out of a job.'

A swish of color somewhere ahead of me caught my attention. My eyes automatically focused on the movement to identify it, and it turned out that it was just Joy's tail. But the universe and the powers that be apparently weren't satisfied that I knew I was but an object of their amusement; As soon as my eyes had locked on the swishy object in front of me, Joy cast a glance back at me.

And just like that, I had been caught staring at her flanks… even though I wasn’t. I could feel my cheeks getting rosy, a sensation that was becoming entirely too common as of late. Just before I hung my head in shame, I caught sight of a devious glint in this cerulean mare's eye.

There was no way… she couldn't have… I don’t think… son of a bitch.

She did it on purpose. She swished her tail to catch my attention, and then looked back to make me feel like I'd been caught doing something naughty. And much to my chagrin, it worked. What had happened to that shy nurse from the first night? Not only was she not blushing as much as she did before, now she was using sarcasm and was trolling me?

Either she was a damned quick learner, or she was getting used to me and opening up a bit more. One way or the other, I was going to have to stay on my toes around this crafty mare. To preclude further shenanigans, I decided the safest place to be was most certainly not right behind Joy. Though, the view was pretty nice…Back on track, Casanova.

I drew up abreast of Joy, and I swear she looked a little disappointed. Before she had another chance to mess with me before my brain fully warmed up, I decided I had a few questions to ask, starting with the obvious one. "So, Joy… where are we going?"

Still walking steadily ahead, she replied without breaking step. "Remember the thing we talked about last night? About fixing up the playground?"

I cocked my head. "Ummm… yes, yes I do. But I thought we were going to do that on Saturday?"

"We are," came her reply. Being cryptic, are we. Fine then.

Still confused, I tried to get to the bottom of this. "Joy, you are aware that today is Friday, right?"

Her reply was sharp, and she shot me a half-hearted glare from the corner of her eye. "I know what day it is, Dave."

I grimaced, recoiling slightly from the unexpected response. "Alright, alright… I didn't mean to push any buttons. I'm just not quite sure what we are doing, is all."

"Dave, I swear… sometimes you can be so dense…" At this, Joy cast a sidelong glance at me along with a smile, indicating that she was just poking fun. Good thing, too… I might have been a bit indignant if not for the easy smile she wore.

Now that I knew I was being toyed with, I decided to join in the fun. "Only sometimes?"

This drew a full-fledged smile from Joy. "Well… most of the time. Part of your charm, I suppose." At this, we shared a look and a bit of a giggle.

If there's something I'm good at, it's making fun of myself. "Well, seeing as how I am charmingly dense, why don't you break it down for me?"

Joy rolled her eyes dramatically. "I guess I'll have to. I asked you if you remembered the plan. I never said we would actually be doing it, now did I?" I shook my head. She continued. "Right. Well, I wanted to gather a few things today, so we wouldn’t have to do it tomorrow. That way, we will have more time to actually fix things."

Finally understanding a bit, I nodded. "Makes perfect sense. So, what all are we going to pick up?"

Slowing to walk by my side, she looked at me expectantly. "I was hoping you could tell me, actually. You're the one that actually looked over the equipment, so it stands to reason that you know what we'd need to fix it."

Oh. Right. I thought back to my walkthrough. "Huh. Give me a minute to think about what we'll need."

"Only a minute, huh?" She asked, sporting that grin again.

"Well… maybe a few minutes…" This elicited another laugh from the both of us. I reflected back on everything I had seen the night before. For the most part, everything was in decent enough condition and could be fixed up with a coat of paint. That which wasn't in such good repair could easily be swapped out with some new timber… the question is, how much timber would we need?

Most of the cross members are about a shoulder and a half long, and from what I saw, there were about a half dozen that would need replacing. So, about nine shoulders, plus another half shoulder or so to compensate for errors in measurement.

Fixing a reasonable figure in my head, I looked up at Joy. She was walking absentmindedly next to me, humming something I couldn’t quite recognize. I cleared my throat to get her attention, causing her to pause in the midst of a verse and regard me skeptically. "So, I figured out how much material we need."

She raised an eyebrow at this. "Alright, what did you come up with?"

"By my estimation, we will need about ten shoulders of timber, a box of nails, some paint supplies, and some two-part epoxy" I said, matter-of-factly.

Joy had been nodding in agreement with my list right up until I had listed off the epoxy. "Epoxy? What for?"

"Unless that talented horn of yours can fix iron as well as it can fix ponies, we'll need it for the jungle gym." Joy's' eyebrows raised in a gesture of understanding. She seemingly drifted off, lost in thought. I took a moment to try and figure out where exactly we were in town, twisting and turning my neck to locate some landmarks. Once I had succeeded in that, it only took me a moment to figure out that we were in the northwest sector of town, a place I had yet to visit. This section of town was filled with blank façades of buildings, their unmarked faces giving no indication as to what they held.

Interspersed randomly amongst the blank buildings were assorted specialty shops. Among the ones that caught my eye was one which only sold quills and couches. Before I could give myself a headache trying to figure out how a place like that stayed in business very long, I let it go and filed it under "things that just… are", a mental filing cabinet that was getting more and more cramped by the hour.

Finally, we arrived at our destination: a tiny little shop by the name of "Screwball's". Can you guess what they sold here? If you guessed sports equipment and hardware, give yourself a pat on the back. The first word that came to mind when I saw the store was "hovel", though it was hardly accurate. The store might have been a bit cozy, and the lighting left something to be desired, but the entire store was immaculate from top to bottom. Not a single item was out of place, nor was there a speck of dust to be found.

As I meandered through the aisles, I could see that even the nails were lined up in an orderly fashion. This was either the product of that cheating unicorn magic I was so jealous of, or a sign of some sort of compulsive disorder. As I looked away from the somewhat entrancing sight of so many small parts aligned dress-right-dress, I was relieved to see that it was the former of the two possibilities. Looking up from behind a desk littered with small tools of various shapes and sizes was a grandfatherly looking unicorn, bespectacled as he was by several sets of lenses attached to a most unusual pair of glasses.

It became clear to me what the glasses were for as I walked towards him to ask for assistance. Each of the assorted lenses was attached to the frame of the spectacles by a fine brass armature, and I recognized it as a variable-magnification pair of jewelers' glasses. I greeted the unicorn with a polite bow of my head.

He returned the gesture in kind, concluding the formalities, and we got down to business. "Afternoon, sir. Do you carry lumber here?"

The elder unicorn tapped his hoof to his chin for a moment as he thought. "Usually just from the wagon into the back of the store, as much as I can help it."

I was torn between facehoofing and chuckling, but I opted for the second option. The rest of the transaction passed in much the same way, and by the time I had acquired everything we would need I was in pretty good spirits. At some point in our banter, Joy had come up behind me and was giggling like a school filly by the end of it. I paid for the materials, placing the paint, the brushes, and the nails into my saddlebags. Despite holding three gallons of paint each (in addition to all the other crud in there), the saddlebags did not bulge in the slightest to betray their contents.

Yet another thing to file away in that over-stuffed cabinet in my head…

Once the owner heard what the supplies were for, he not only gave us a ten percent discount on everything we bought, but he also promised to deliver the timber to the schoolyard in the morning, free of charge. Upon hearing the news, Joy looked so happy she could cry. As we settled the tab and thanked the owner again, I took a moment to introduce myself, reaching out for a hoofshake.

"Sir, thank you again for everything. It occurs to me now that I have been quite rude, and have not introduced myself. My name is Dave, and I am truly pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister…?" The owner met my hoof with his, and let me tell you; his appearance of age belied his vigor.

"Ash. Ash Longshank. Good to meet you, too. It's refreshing to see that young ponies still have manners these days. Sometimes, I wonder…bah, that's a story for another day. Dave, would you care to introduce me to this darling mare accompanying you?" Hearing herself referred to as 'darling' by this gentlecolt made Joy blush deeply, though she could not hide her smile. I proceeded to introduce her.

"This lovely mare right here's named Joy." Hearing her name, Joy reached out a hoof and favored Ash with a bashful smile a certain butter-colored pegasus would be proud of. If her blush was red before, it became positively crimson at what Ash did next. Taking her hoof in his, he gave it a quick peck.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Joy." Joy just sort of sat there for a moment in shock, slowly turning darker and darker shades of scarlet. I decided to try and intervene on her behalf, as she had done for me on more than one occasion.

"Aaaannndd… she's gone,” I remarked. “You'll have to pardon her, Ash. She is sadly unfamiliar with the concept of chivalry, and I'm fairly certain she wasn't prepared for that."

Ash looked positively chastised at this, and quickly apologized. "I beg your pardon, Miss Joy. I didn't mean to distress you."

Joy seemed to rouse at this, and she quickly spoke up to reassure Ash that he had done nothing out of line. "Oh, no, no… it's nothing like that, Ash. I'm just…not very used to receiving kindness, that's all. Well, before this colt came along, that is."

The frosty glare that Ash had affixed me with at the "kindness" remark melted away as Joy concluded her statement, nodding her head in my direction. Before things had a chance to get awkward again, I interjected a farewell. Perhaps I cut the conversation off a bit abruptly, but there didn't appear to be any hard feelings among those present. With a final wave goodbye, Joy and I exited the hardware and sports shop.

We were headed back in the general direction of our domicile when a random question bubbled to the top of my head. Being entirely stumped by this question, I decided to ask Joy what she thought. "Hey, Joy?"

She blinked twice in confusion before answering. "Huh? What's up, Dave?"

"I was wondering… What are the hours of operation for Berry's?"

She scrunched up her brow as she contemplated the answer. "Huh… that… that is a really good question."

"So, you're saying you don't know?"

She shrugged at my question. "I never really thought about it. Give me a minute to think…"

I saw my opening and I took it. "Only a minute?" I cocked my eyebrow, feeling smug.

Joy shot me a mock-angry glare. "Hey, that's my line, buddy."

To this, I just smiled. It was nice to not be on the defensive again. As Joy tried to puzzle out Berry's hours of operation, she began to mumble to herself. I walked a bit closer, trying to listen in on her ramblings.

"Well… she caters to the clinic staff during the night shift… but she is also open during the day for the rest of the town… when does she sleep?"

From there, her grumblings grew quieter and more jumbled to the point that they were incomprehensible. Several moments passed before she spoke up.

"Well… her usual hours are from around zero six to about twenty-two… but you said she was there at four something last night?"

"Almost. I went by there at right around zero three."

"Hmmm… was she expecting you?"

I shrugged. "Possibly. I'd mentioned that I'd be stopping by last night, but I never said when."

"Well, I suppose it's possible that she waited for you, as unlikely as it seems. That's the best explanation I can come up with, even if it does have a few holes in it."

I simply shrugged again. Into the filing cabinet it goes… I was in the midst of contemplating what might happen if this filing cabinet of mine ever overflowed when my stomach interrupted my thought process. I was about to reiterate the concerns voiced by my gastrointestinal tract when Joy preempted me.

"I heard that. We're almost home… think you can survive that long?"

Sighing dramatically, I replied "I'll do my best."

"Atta boy."

I stuck my tongue out at her. I was standing behind and slightly to the right of Joy, well out of her line of sight, so I pretty much figured she would be none the wiser to my antics.

One of these days, I'll learn.

Through some form of cheating unicorn magic or another, I was proved wrong. Even as I began to retract my tongue it was surrounded by a deep blue glow. The effervescent aura wrapped around the offending appendage, preventing me from returning it to its rightful place in my mouth. Even as the situation registered in my mind, a voice called out from ahead of me.

"Dave, you seem to have dropped this. Don't worry, I'll hold on to it for you."

"Wha? Gimme bath ma thung!"

"Dave, don't talk with your mouth full. It's not polite."

"Buth you goth my thung!"

"I've already asked you not to talk with your mouth full. Besides, it's hard to understand you with your hoof in your mouth like that."

Damn… I was going to need some ice for that burn. I began wondering when Joy was going to let me go… her point had been made, and she didn't seem like one to humiliate somepony by parading them around town by their tongue, and yet my tongue was still firmly in her grasp. Just as I was becoming convinced that she intended to do just that, the blue aura faded, and my tongue retreated back to its normal position like a scalded wiener dog.

Don't ask how I come up with these similes… I'm not even sure.

As I worked my jaw in circles to restore feeling, again I heard Joy call out from ahead.

"Learned your lesson?"

"Yes… 'never stick your tongue out at unicorns with eyes in the backs of their heads'."

Joy shot me a sidelong glance before rolling her eyes in frustration. I swear, if she kept doing that, one day they were just going to keep rolling and she'd end up looking like Derpy.

"Hey, Joy? All shenanigans aside, how'd you do that?"

My question caught her off guard, and she actually smiled a bit as she explained herself.

"It was actually an accident. We were discussing your imminent starvation, and after you failed to respond to my last rebuttal, I went to bop your nose. As I gathered the magic, what should I happen to find but a tongue? I figured you must have dropped it, so I picked it up for you. No need to thank me, though. Just doing my part."

I had to hoof it to her, that was pretty crafty. Underhooved, but crafty.

As we walked into the house, my stomach reminded everypony within earshot that it still had not been fed. Joy whipped up a quick meal, comprising of a few sandwiches and a side of some sort of bean…abomination. Concoction, I mean. Concoction, not abomination. Anyways, our dinner consisted of sandwiches and a side of beans, which was actually much tastier than it sounded.
After the beast within my gut had been satisfied, Joy began to ask questions about our upcoming exercise regimen. I'd almost forgotten about that…

"So, when do we start?"

I paused, thinking for a moment before I answered. "Probably Sunday." I gathered the plates from the table, carrying them to the sink.

"Why not today?"Joy asked, rather impatiently.

"Because we just ate, and you might just see it again if we were to exercise right now." Turning on the water, I began to scrub the plates.

"Well… why not later? Or in the morning?" As Joy spoke, she joined me at the sink and Began to lather plates with me.

"Neither one of those would be a good idea, since we are going to be doing a lot of manual labor tomorrow."

She sighed, defeated. "Alright, fine. So, what are we doing on Sunday?"

I shrugged, placing a dish in the drying rack. "Honestly, it depends on several factors. Most important will be how dead we are from working on the playground tomorrow. We'll just go from there."

She looked up at me inquisitively. "Several factors, huh? What are the other ones?"

I couldn't tell if she really wanted to know, or if she was just trying to call my bluff. Either way, I answered as best I could.

"Well, let me respond to your question with one of my own. What are you trying to get out of this? Are you looking to get slimmer, build muscle, or just get toned?"

After thinking for a brief moment, she responded "I'd say… get toned."

I nodded in agreement. "For that, we'll just stick to my old routine. Cardio three days a week, muscle failure two days a week, one day of resistance training, and a day of rest. Sound good?"

Passing me a dish to dry, Joy faltered slightly. "Actually, when you say it like that…it's a bit intimidating."

I gave her a reassuring smile. "All you have to do is give it your all. Do that, and the rest will fall into place."

"I guess…" She mumbled.

Drying the last of the dishes, I turned to face her. "Trust me. It will suck, but it will get easier the more you do it."

Meeting my gaze, she rolled her eyes at me. "Well, that inspires confidence…"

"Hey, it's what I do." I concluded my remark with a wink and my best "used car salesman" smile. Joy remained skeptical. We continued to discuss our plans for the coming weeks, and the more we talked about the subject of exercise, the more excited Joy grew.

It was about nineteen hundred when she finally snapped. "I can't wait… I'm too excited. Could we start tonight?"

I sighed, already seeing how this was going to play out. "Joy, didn’t we already go over this?"

Her enthusiasm wasn't so easily stopped. "Well, yeah… but what if we take it slow? Call it a warm up or something?"

I shrugged at this, voicing my misgivings. "I'm not sure it's a good idea. After all, what if you wear yourself out tonight? We won't be very effective tomorrow if we can barely walk."

"Well… you might not be…" Joy punctuated her remark by tapping the tip of her horn.

Damned cheating magical appendages… I've got to get one of those. Hmmm… if I did get one, would I become an Alicorn? If I was an Alicorn, would I be a prince? Wait… that Blueblood fellow is a prince… so I'd be above him… in theory anyways… a Jack? Is there such thing as a Jack in the hierarchy of a monarchy? I am not qualified for anything above that, really. Actually, to be honest, I'm pretty sure "court jester" is out of my qualifications range. Hmmm…

Again, I was snapped from my reverie by a hoof waving in front of my face.

"Dave, has anypony ever told you that you zone out entirely too frequently?"

I shrugged. "A time or five. Anyways, back to the matter at hoof."

Her entire body perked up in anticipation. "Yes?"

I sighed, admitting defeat. "If you are so dead set on this, we could go for a sedate little jog tonight. Nothing crazy, just something to get the blood pumping. Sound good?"

Joy's reply was a nearly bone-crushing hug. Even through the haze of medication, the pain was still plenty sharp enough to elicit a wince from me. Joy released her grip, still beaming ear to ear.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Let's get going!"

I got to my hooves with a sigh and headed out the door. What had I gotten myself into? I hadn't even hydrated properly… this was going to suck.

I just hoped that Joy would give out before I did… otherwise, this would be pretty embarrassing.

No sooner had we stepped outside than Joy took off running. I called out to her. "Joy! Where are you going?"

She stopped abruptly, turning to face me. "Ummm… running?"

"Without stretching?"

At this, she simply hung her head and began to walk back.

After a few minutes of stretching, I figured we were about as ready as we would ever be. Signaling to Joy, I started off at a brisk trot. As per the instructions I had given while we were stretching, Joy remained by my side. As we warmed up from a trot into a light canter, Joy kept asking to run faster.

"I thought we were going to get some cardio?"

"We are," I replied evenly.

Joy groaned in annoyance. "Not at this pace, we aren't."

"That's because we are still warming up."

"Can we warm up faster?"

I shook my head at this. "That wouldn't be a good idea."

"Why not?" She whined.

"Trust me on this one," I said.

As we had been conversing, I had slowly but steadily sped up, and Joy's reply was cut off as she began to focus on her breathing. And so it began.

We were running at a moderate pace over flat ground, and the amount of effort I had to put into my stride was almost non-existent. Joy, on the other hoof, seemed to be having a much rougher time of it.

I observed her as best I could while the two of us were running and avoiding hazards in the road; I soon began to pick out things that she could improve on.

First was her stride. The only way to describe it would be to call it 'stiff'. As she ran, her legs remained almost straight, both on the push off and the forward stroke, and it was taking a toll on her stamina. There was no fluid movement, only a jerky scuttle.

The next thing I noticed was being compounded by the first: Joy's breathing was coming in short, rapid breaths. She was not expanding her lungs as fully as she could, reducing her oxygen intake.

Finally, there was her pacing. Rather, her lack thereof. Even though I was running next to her and keeping a steady pace, she kept alternately pulling ahead and falling behind. She would sprint to catch up and wind up ahead of me, then slow down to match my speed and end up falling behind, and the cycle would repeat. We had only gone about two kilometers before I brought us to a halt.

Despite her best attempts to hide it, her stamina was just about gone. I had her walking in place to keep moving once we stopped, to prevent lactic acid from building up in her muscles. As she walked in slow circles around me, I gave her a few pointers on her form and her breathing. Did I expect this to make an immediate, significant impact on her running? No, I did not. Did I expect it to make enough of an impact to make her realize the validity of my advice? Without a doubt.

Once Joy had gotten her breath under control, we set off back towards the house. As soon as the pace picked up, the difference was clear. Though her stride could still use some work, it was much more fluid than it had been. Likewise, her breathing was more even, more measured. Her pace still sucked, but she was doing much better at keeping next to me.

Despite the improvements, we had only made it about halfway back before I noticed her breathing growing shallow and ragged again, her steps becoming more erratic. Immediately, I brought us to a full stop and had Joy stand in place for a moment. As she stood, she swayed slightly on her hooves, and she was blinking rapidly as if she was trying to clear her vision.

"Joy? Joy, are you okay?"

"I feel… a bit… dizzy." She spoke between deep breaths.

"Joy, come here. We're going to walk back now, but I want you to lean against me, okay?"

She complied without a complaint. I recognized her symptoms from my own past, having had them myself on several occasions. She was dehydrated, and her blood wasn't carrying enough oxygen to her brain, causing mild disorientation and dizziness.

I have to admit, I enjoyed the feeling of this mare leaning against me more than I probably should have. In my defense though, she seemed to enjoy it as well. By the time we drew near the house, her breathing had slowed to normal levels, as had her pulse, yet she still leaned against me. I wasn't going to complain, though.

Once we arrived back at the house, we took a solid ten minutes to do some deep stretching, trying to force out as much of the built up lactic acid as we could.

On a completely unrelated note, the hamstring stretch looks extremely provocative when a mare does it…just sayin'. As we were stretching, I decided to take a moment to give Joy some feedback from the run.

"You might have gotten off to a rough start, but on the way back you were doing MUCH better. With a bit more practice, you'll be running fifteen kilometers like nothing."

"Heh. How far did we run tonight? Ten?" She punctuated her question with a cocky smile.

"Ummm… about three and a half." I almost felt bad for saying it.

Her expression and voice were deadpan. "Three and a half?"

I nodded once. "Yeah, that's about right."

She hung her head a bit, ears drooping. "Wow… I thought we ran a lot farther than that… now I feel out of shape."

I put a hoof on her shoulder, causing her to look up at me."Compared to the first time I ran, you are doing pretty darn well." I gave her an earnest smile.

Her cocky grin returned once more, and with a haughty tone to boot. "You don't need to try and make me feel better. I appreciate it and all, but it isn't necessary. If I view this as a failure, then I'll just try that much harder next time."

I contemplated this for a moment before I replied with a maniacal grin. "In that case… that was supposed to be a forty-five click run. Looks like you've got some work ahead of you!"

Her ears fell again, and this time she stuck out her tongue. "You're mean…"

Joy replied with a grin, and I could see the gears in her head turning as she contemplated the challenge before her. With a brief nod, she accepted the challenge.

"Hey, Dave?"

I looked up from the gravel I was trying to dislodge from my hoof shoe. "What's up?"

She rewarded me with a warm smile. "Thank you. I enjoyed that, even though it was a lot harder than I expected."

I couldn't help myself, and responded with "That's what she said."

Joy cocked her head to the side in bewilderment. "What who said?"

This was a can of worms I really didn't feel like opening just yet, and so I deflected the question as best I could. "Just… never mind. I'll explain it later, alright?"

"Who is this 'she' you're talking about? I'm confused."

"It's a joke where I come from. Like I said, I'll get into it later. First, I think we both need to hit the showers."

Sniffing inquisitively at herself, Joy blanched. "Yuck… you're right about that."

I shot her a satisfied look. "I told you so. Also, you are going to want to drink a LOT of water tonight. And stretch, too."

Again, she deadpanned. "Dave. I'm a nurse, remember?"

Abashed, I rubbed the back of my neck. "Heh… right. Sorry…"

She replied with a sly grin. "It's alright. Say, think you could help me wash my back? It's just so hard to reach… I could really use a big, strong stallion to help me get those… hard to reach places…"

What.

ERROR 404: BRAIN NOT FOUND.

In my mind, there was chaos. I had one pony throwing a fit, screaming "DO IT!" over and over and over, there was another who was telling me that I shouldn't do it for some reason or another, another was crying in the corner, and one simply looked around and said "fuck it" while putting on some shades. Shades Pony then took a seat in a plastic lawn chair before yelling "PUNCH OUT! PUNCH OUT! PUNCH OUT!" and pulling a mysterious handle, causing him to rocket away on a tower of flames and smoke. Lawn chair… ejection seat?

Somepony, somewhere, must have pulled the plug, seeing as how everything went white for a second before my eyes were able to focus again. Whatever happened must have caused a hard reset, because I was once again aware of my surroundings. Namely, I was aware of the mare whose face was extremely proximal to mine. She must have seen the light come on in my head, because she spoke up as soon as my brain started to function again.

"You're so cute when you're flustered. Has anypony ever told you that?"

"Homina… homina… homina…"

"I thought as much. I'll be upstairs…" Joy punctuated this last phrase with a wink as she swished away from me, across the threshold and into the gloom of the interior.

After another moment had passed, I shook the images from my brain and headed into the house. As soon as the door closed behind me, the shower upstairs came to life. I was now faced with what might be one of the most difficult choices I've had to make in several years.

Straight ahead was the hallway which led to the stairs. To my right lay the living room and the guest shower. Within the next thirty seconds, I would be in a shower, one way or the other. Choices, choices. My hooves began to move of their own accord, in a predictable direction. Of course, leave it to these four yahoos to make up my mind for me. Even as I was taking the first step towards the hallway, I knew it wasn't right.

As much as I wanted to, (and you can bet a shiny nickel that I wanted to) I knew deep down that nothing good would come of it. Nothing good ever came from rushing headlong into these situations. Finally demonstrating an ability to force my limbs to bend to my will, I turned away from the hallway and the stairs therein, heading to the guest shower instead. Without stopping to let the water heat up, I stripped out of my saddlebags and stepped right into the arctic runoff of the shower. Even this frigid deluge took a moment to clear my mind, stripping away my thoughts one by one, until there were but two thoughts remaining.

The first thought that remained was simply the knowledge that I had done the right thing. By no means was it easy to do, but that just made all the more satisfying to have done.

The second thought was a much simpler one, untainted by various perceptions of right and wrong, moral and reprehensible, or good and bad. It was simply: "I am fucking freezing."

I stayed in the shower until I was shaking so hard it was difficult to stand. Vaguely, I realized that I was far more resistant to cold than I had been in the past, another side effect of being a pegasus, I supposed. Even after I had toweled off, I was still shivering violently from the cold. Perhaps I overdid it a little… oh well. It had the desired effect in that it had clarified my mind, allowing me to see things objectively.

Still shivering, I made my way out to the living room, quite intent on flopping into bed and bundling up in as many sheets as I could wrap around myself. My plans were nearly derailed as I beheld a sight that made me consider returning to the shower.

Stretched out on the bed was Joy, lying on her side with her head propped up with a hoof.

Paint her like one of your French mares.

Shut up, brain. Don't make me stab you with a Q-tip.

Just as I was debating a return to the shower, I was wracked by an especially powerful, convulsive shiver that drove me to my knees. About this time, Joy grasped the fact that I was shivering violently, something she had failed to notice earlier in the dim light. All traces of anything other than a nurse disappeared in an instant as Joy rushed over to evaluate me.

As soon as she laid a hoof on me, her demeanor took on a hard edge.

"Dave, why are you so cold?"

I shivered out a reply. "I n-needed a c-cold sh-shower."

She raised an eyebrow, trying to evaluate my idiocy. "How long were you in there?"

I shrugged, a gesture that was lost among the shivering. "A w-while."

Not bothering to ask questions to which there were obvious answers, Nurse Joy wrapped me in her magical embrace and set me roughly on the couch-bed. I was immediately mummified in blankets as Nurse Joy disappeared from sight for a moment, only to return with a thermometer. I opened my mouth to accept the instrument, and as the seconds ticked by Nurse Joy's expression grew more and more concerned.

In an instant, I had been de-mummified as all of the blankets were removed from my body. Before I had time to ponder this, my entire back was set aflame. I tried to shimmy away from the burning feeling, only to find a pair of cerulean forelegs wrapped tightly around me, holding me fast. Every part of my skin that they touched burned as if immolated. I tried to shimmy out of this infernal grasp, only to find myself held tighter.

In my ear, a familiar voice whispered to me.

"Dave, stop fighting me. This is for your own good; you are nearly hypothermic, and I'm using my body heat to warm you. You need to relax and let Nurse Joy do her job, okay? Okay? Just relax, Dave, just be calm…"

By Celestia's sweet, fiery nethers, I was going to die. I was going to burn to death. I trusted Joy, I really and truly did. Even so, it was almost impossible to quell my urge to struggle, my urge to scream. If not for Joy's constant reassurances in my ear, I don't think I could have done it. Not on my own. But I did it, and the burning eventually subsided to a more manageable pain, a deep ache. I began to regain feeling I didn't know I'd lost as the warmth returned slowly to me. As I lay there, Joy's hooves began to knead my extremities, causing a fresh hell of pins and needles. It was a bit comical to think that all of this was because of a cold shower…

In a few minutes the pins and needles had subsided, though Joy's hooves had not. I heard Joy remark to herself that my body temperature was nearing a normal level, though whatever came after that was lost to me. Something about friction, I think.

Joy's hooves became restless, venturing closer and closer to areas they ought not touch. I had held out hope that this was just part of her previous method to restore blood flow, but it soon became clear that the blood flow she was encouraging was not one I was comfortable with.

"Joy… please. Don't do this."

"Do what, Dave? I'm just checking your capillary response, and ensuring that everything works as it should…"

"Joy, you know what I mean. Please…"

Her demeanor cracked a little, shifting away from that of a medical professional towards that of a disappointed mare.

"Don't worry, Dave; I know what I'm doing."

"That's the least of my concerns…"

Even in the midst of my protests, her restless hooves ventured ever nearer. Frustrated, I shimmied from her grasp while she was focused on… other things… and pulled myself to a sitting position just out of hooves' reach. Her expression momentarily waxed towards petulant, but quickly settled on defeated. She too pulled herself to a sitting position, facing my direction though avoiding my gaze.

In a mousey, defeated tone, she asked "What am I doing wrong?"

That caught me off guard.

"Pardon?"

She sighed, staring intently at the carpet. "I don't know what else to do. I've done everything I could think of… and nothing worked."

This did nothing to alleviate my confusion. "What, exactly, are you trying to do?"

She said nothing, but her blush was all the answer I needed.

"Joy…why are you trying to make… that happen?"

She buried her face in her arms before going silent. Just as I was about to ask once more, she spoke in subdued tones. "In all the books I've read, the dashing stallion always ends up rutting the beautiful maiden, and they live happily ever after, the end."

Must. Not. Facehoof. Breathe deeply, think, and then reply.

"Joy… these books to which you refer. Do they have pictures of obscenely handsome stallions and impossibly pretty mares on their covers?"

She nodded.

"And are these books full of… love-making scenes described in exquisite detail?"

Another nod, accompanied by a deeper blush.

Son of a… why couldn't this be easy? It would be just my luck that this mare would have built her concept of romance on a foundation of trashy novels.

"Joy… you know that I'm not very… elegant… when it comes to explaining things. That said, you'll have to forgive me if this seems… blunt."

Hoo boy, here we go. Take a deep breath, and go for it.

"Those stories… well, that's just it. They're stories. They portray… an… unrealistic portrait of romance. I'm hesitant to even call it that. In real life, ponies typically do not fall in love at first sight, nor do they find their one true love on the first try, or wind up making love to ponies they just met. For every successful love story, there are at least a dozen failed ones. It sucks, and it hurts, but that's just how it happens. On the flip side, when you do find that special somepony, it makes it that much sweeter."

Joy was sitting just across from me and had begun weeping silently, and yet I knew there was nothing to do but continue.

"The thing is… those novels have almost nothing in common with real life… well, except for the physical portions. I hate to say it, I really do…but…any concept of what love is like that you got from those books…it's probably best to let them go."

Joy's shoulders drooped even lower, if such a thing was even possible… well, I've done a fine job of crushing her dreams and discrediting everything she thought she knew about love… I'd better wrap this up before she melts into the sofa…

"There is some good news in all of this though… I'm a firm believer that if you bring up a problem, you should also bring a solution. Well, I have a solution that you can take or leave at your discretion. Ummm… since I pretty much… sunk… what you knew about love, my offer is simply this: I'll teach you what I know."

For the first time since I started talking, Joy looked me in the eye. She looked… vulnerable, scared, hopeful… and fragile. So very, very fragile. I needed to pick my next words very carefully.

"The thing is, Joy… I like you. I like you a lot more than I probably should for how long we've known each other. I get the feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Joy simply gave a nod to confirm, still fixing me with those hopeful eyes.

"This… complicates things, though. When you feel that way about somepony, you sometimes listen to your heart and ignore your brain. Sometimes… sometimes your heart is wrong. But by the time you figure that out, everything is moving too fast, spiraling out of control with no way to stop. And that's how ponies get hurt, how hearts get broken. This terrifies me, especially with you. You are without a doubt the sweetest mare I've ever met. I want nothing but the best for you, and you deserve nothing less."

Behind the tears, there was a glimmer of pride in Joy's eyes.

"On the other hoof, you've never experienced heartbreak. You've never learned to cope with the pain, never had to build walls to protect yourself, and never had to tear down the walls somepony else has built to protect themselves. Hopefully, you'll never experience the first two."

Behind this last sentence was an unspoken promise. 'You'll never have to experience the first two if I can be the pony you need, the pony you deserve.' Joy was a sharp mare, and she undoubtedly picked up on the unspoken promise. Not only that, but she picked up the cue for her to ask the one question that needed to be asked, the one question I wished I could avoid.

"Dave? Have you… have you ever loved somepony… and had your heart broken?"

Deep breath, then answer her truthfully.

"Yes. Yes I have… it… it's very painful to talk about… I'm sorry, I can't say anymore than that right now… let's just say… my walls are higher than most, and leave it at that. At least, for now… okay?"

"Oh… okay." She looked a bit troubled at this, but said nothing more.

"Well… like I was saying earlier… I'll teach you what I know about love… if you want me to, that is."

Joy performed some odd sort of waddle-scooting motion, and brought herself to within embracing distance.

"Dave, I can think of nothing better."

And then, we kissed. It wasn't some quick little peck, nor was it a passionate kiss based on ulterior motives. No, this kiss was more than just a kiss: it was a promise.

22:00 Friday, 16 March

End of Day 5

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

At some point, I had fallen asleep in the company of this most wonderful of mares, though exactly when that might have been, I could not say. This was the second time in less than a week that we had "slept together" (gasp! naughty ponies!), though the method of awakening was infinitely more pleasant this time around.

By some mechanism or another, Joy had ended up in possession of about eighty-five percent of the covers (no surprise there) and about sixty percent of the real estate on the bed (again, not surprising). I woke up with the first rays of dawn, having no covers under which to seek refuge.

Stretching languidly, I indulged in an enormous yawn, squinting my eyes shut. This has to be one of the top ten best feelings ever. Remaining sprawled out from the yawn, I managed to crack open an eyeball to survey my surroundings. My investigation halted as soon as it began.

Not more than a hoof's distance away from my face lay Joy, snuggled up in the covers in such a way as to be entirely obscured, except for her snout, her eyes, her horn, and a single unruly tuft of royal blue mane.

My heart cannot take all this cute so early in the morning. I must have died and gone to heaven or something… that would explain the angel that lay in front of me. I decided it would be best if I just laid there and watched her sleep. Creepy? Perhaps. Is it creepy when you watch a kitten napping? Same concept, only about seven times cuter. I noticed at about that time that Joy snores in her sleep. It was a very dainty, very faint sound, but it was definitely there. Okay, about twelve times cuter. My heart… it hurts… this is how I die. Yep, I'm totally okay with this.

Joy must have been able to read my thoughts (there is a reason I keep coming back to this… her timing is too damned perfect for this not to be a possibility), because she began to stir once I started saying my goodbyes to this world.

From the depths of her cover-chrysalis, her left eye popped open a fraction of the way, just enough for the underlying orb to scan the surroundings. It floated aimlessly for a moment before locking on my gaze. She must not have been expecting somepony to be watching her, because a split second after that azure orb locked on my gaze, both eyes opened simultaneously, wide with shock. Once they focused on my face and registered what pony it belonged to, the lids drooped back to half mast, fixing me with a dreamy gaze. I could stare into those eyes all day… The azure eyes widened once again, though for reasons that were not immediately apparent.

And just like that, they were gone, as the mare they belonged to made a beeline for the guest bathroom. This struck me as rather humorous, and I chuckled heartily at the situation.

Bad idea.

Apparently, my bladder hadn't realized that it was full to bursting until I began to laugh. An instant later I was on my hooves, making a beeline for the latrine. As I skid to a halt outside the door, the sound of a flush forced me to squeeze my legs closed so that I didn’t make a puddle on the floor. The sound of more water running signified a thorough hoof-washing.

Very thorough.

How long does it take to wash your damn hooves, especially with tricksy unicorn wizardry?

Impatiently, I rapped on the door to remind her that there were other ponies in this house with biological needs.

My prayers were answered a moment later as the tap was shut off, followed by the sound of hooves on a towel. Yes, yes, dry your hooves and then move it,missy.

After an eternity the door finally swung open, and without a moment's hesitation I swooped through and paid my homage to the porcelain god, with gusto.

After washing my hooves (a process that seemed hundreds of times swifter from this side of the door), I sauntered back into the living room, feeling like a new pony. Joy had flopped unceremoniously back onto the couch-bed, sprawled on her back in a very… revealing… manner. Averting my eyes, I cleared my throat to alert her to my presence in the room. The only response this elicited from her was a half-roll, so that she was positioned on her stomach in a much less exposed manner.

In a role reversal that I never thought I'd see, not only was I awake and functioning before Joy was, I was doing it on limbs that carried out my bidding and bent to my will, no less. Today was going to be a good day. Well, it would be, if I could get Joy off of the couch-bed in a timely manner. I approached her, savoring the opportunity to pester her until she was awake.

I figured I'd be nice, so I settled for poking her in the cutie mark with a hoof until she got up. After a few jabs, she tried to whip my hoof with her tail, but she was no match for my cat-like reflexes.

A few more pokes, and she groaned something into the pillow she had buried her face in. I hadn't the foggiest as to what she'd said, so I kept poking away. Sooner or later, she would have to get up. Another flurry of flank-jabs, and again, a mumbled response, muffled by the pillow.

"What was that, Joy? Keep poking? Well, if you insist."

Jab jab jab jab. Jabba jab jab. Poke. Jab.

This time, Joy motioned me to come close so she could tell me something.

Closer.

Closer still… by this time, my ear was damn near pressed to her muzzle. Or at least it would be, if said muzzle wasn't buried in a pillow. I mentally braced myself for a hoof-to-noggin transfer of kinetic energy.

Once again, this mare outsmarted me. As my ear was positioned mere centimeters away from her face, Joy did something… devious.

Lifting her head from the pillow to position her nose in physical contact with my ear, she whispered breathily, purring each word.

"You keep teasing me like that, I'll have to make you finish what you started."

And the cherry on top? She punctuated her ultimatum with a quick nibble on my ear.

Oh, hey… yeah, I just remembered that I had some business to take care of… in the bathroom… yeah… okay thanks bye!

I made my way to the latrine as quickly as I could, something that grew more difficult with each step; certain obstacles seemed to swell up from out of nowhere… [insert phallic innuendo here] You get the point. [zing!]

After splashing my… face… with cold water a few times, I managed to regain control of myself. Taking a moment to ensure my control was complete, I dared to venture back out to the living room.

Note to self: Perhaps Joy did learn something from those romance novels after all. Exercise caution.

Joy was exactly where I'd left her. If we didn't get going soon, we might not be at the playground in time to receive the lumber that Ash was going to be delivering. Seeing as playing nice had gotten me nowhere, I decided that more drastic measures were in order. I noisily walked into the kitchen, and proceeded to open the fridge before calling out quite loudly,

"Who left this box of cupcakes here?"

I had just finished my inquisitive exclamation, and I withdrew my head from the icebox to watch Joy come around the corner. There was just one problem.

Joy was already standing directly in front of me. As is my custom, I expressed my alarm at her presence, which was most unusual for a variety of factors. First, was the fact that an entire second had not yet passed since I concluded my declaration, and yet here she stood.

Second; I found the fact that she had moved such a distance so quickly, but also silently, to be stupendously disconcerting. It should go without saying that I communicated the aforementioned notions in a straightforward and logical manner, utilizing my expansive vernacular prowess to its fullest extent. So, in essence, this:

"HOLY SHI-WHAT THE FU-SON OF A-MOTHER--!"

Now, try to scream that at the top of your lungs in under a second. Behold my masterpiece.

*Pro tip: practice this at full volume in public places. Hilarity ensues.*

Joy was visibly shaken by my outburst, though I was a little preoccupied with preventing my heart from exploding to take much notice. After a series of deep breathing exercises, I managed to get my heart rate down under a hundred and fifty beats per minute.

By the time I had stifled the heart attack, I looked up to see a positively downtrodden Joy.

"I'm sorry, Joy. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that… you just gave me quite the fright is all."

Joy looked perplexed for a moment before responding with a voice that was veritably dripping with disappointment.

"It's not the yelling… you said there were cupcakes…"

Ah, there it is. I'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to be an inconsiderate ass, but I sure do recall the feeling now, by golly.

"I'm sorry about that. It was the first thing that popped into my head when I was trying to get you out of bed this morning."

"Get me out of bed? Did you consider asking that I get up? Or telling me that it was time to get up so we could do great things in the name of Celestia?"

Dammit… I was sucking at life today.

"… No…"

"So, instead of asking me to get up, or informing me that we needed to get moving to get things done, you decided it would be best to trick me?"

"I tried poking you…"

At this, Joy cracked an absentminded grin, as if recalling a fond childhood memory.

"Yeah…that felt nice…"

Note to self, part two: No touching of Cutie Marks. Period.

I interrupted her daydream. "Anyways… I tell you what. After we finish up at the playground, we can go by that bakery in town that you were talking about the other day, and I'll buy us some cupcakes then. Deal?"

"Deal."

We shook on it, each of us with a smile on our face. After feasting heartily on a high carb and protein filled breakfast to fuel our labors, we packed a light lunch to take with us. By the time we actually set out to the clinic, it was barely zero nine. After borrowing a few tools from the spare toolbox (with Scruffy's blessing, of course), we set off towards the schoolhouse.

We arrived at about half past the hour, and immediately set to work. The bits of equipment that could be fixed with the least work were tackled first, and within an hour we had over half of the equipment as good as new. Joy volunteered to paint the finished sets while I got started on the rest. One of the diagonal support beams on the swing set was badly splintered and rotting, so that was the first thing to go.

Retrieving a timber from the stack Ash had dropped off this morning would have been a truly daunting task if not for this nifty tool he left us. He had christened it the "Log Dog", and the moniker was quite fitting. Basically, it was quite similar to a pair of pliers, only the "pliers" portion had been replaced by a set of opposing pincers to grasp the log, and the other end was attached to a harness. The harder you pull, the harder the Log Dog gripped.

Even with the benefit of the Log Dog, hauling the timber was no easy feat. I was feeling a bit of a burn by the time I had arrived at the swings, and I took a moment to be thankful there were only four of the timbers. Once I had the beam where it was needed, I made short work of measuring and cutting it to the proper dimensions. From the time the timber was placed to the time everything had been cut, shaped, and nailed together, only ten minutes had elapsed.

All of the smaller pieces had been taken care of and restored to a serviceable condition before lunch, meaning the only remaining fixture in disrepair was the jungle gym. It might better be described as a miniature timber castle, seeing as how it was composed of a number of different levels, slides, and rope-and-plank bridges. The floor boards were in the best shape out of all the components of the castle, likely having been replaced semi-recently.

In spite of many years of obviously heavy usage, the structure as a whole was remarkably sound. A few cross-members were showing signs of decay, and at least one showed signs of what appeared to be parasprite bites, but aside from that everything was essentially intact.

Displaying her knack for impeccable timing, Joy showed up just as I was contemplating the best way to simultaneously hold the beam over my head and nail it in place.

"Need a hoof?"

I thought about it for a second before replying. "Hoof? No. But I sure could use one of those 'horn' thingies right about now…"

"A horn, you say? Too bad there aren't any incredibly talented, beautiful, and just generally amazing unicorns around here." Joy was tapping a hoof to her chin thoughtfully, staring into the distance as she said this last bit.

"Yeah, too bad. Would you happen to know of a unicorn such as this, who might be willing to help?" Joy was staring daggers at me for my retort, gasping in an overly-dramatic fashion. I cut off her inevitable reply with one of my own. "Wait! I know just the mare for the job. Anypony know how to contact Trixie?"

I only just managed to dodge the hoof aimed at my head, and I decided that it might be time to deep six the shenanigans before I got myself in trouble.

"Oh, Joy! I didn't see you there. You know what; I was just looking for you. I just happen to require a mare of your specific qualifications."

She raised an eyebrow, undeniably contemplating where she was going to hit me next. "Oh? And what qualifications are those?"

"Incredibly talented, beautiful, and just generally amazing."

Joy narrowed her eyes at me, probably debating taking another crack at my noggin.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Hmmm… Where have I heard that before, I wonder?"

"I have no idea. But you are the mare for the job, without a doubt. So, care to put that horn of yours to work?"

Again, Joy surprised me. You know the "I'm watching you" gesture? I never thought that it would translate into equestrian, but lo and behold, there it was. Joy pointed her hoof at her eyes and then at me, narrowing her eyes. My life was now complete.

Once our tomfoolery drew to a close, the remainder of the repairs went rather quickly, aided as they were by this cheating unicorn magic that I was increasingly jealous of. I'm not sure if it was that I was actually jealous of the magic, or if I was just missing my opposable thumbs, but either way I wanted to get me some of that dang magic voodoo stuff.

After we repaired the last of the wooden beams, I moved on towards that which actually prompted me to undertake this project in the first place: the metal supports for the bridge anchors. It would seem that being used as a plaything for hundreds of foals over the years can be detrimental to the overall structural integrity of just about anything. Imagine that…

My follow up to my initial investigation upheld my earlier conclusion. Every one of the four support poles that held tension on the rope-and-plank bridge was in the midst of a fatigue induced fracture, though to varying degrees. The one that had broken and sent a filly for a tumble was still lying where it had come to rest, still connected to the guide wire.

It took almost half an hour, a bit of swearing, a lot of Macguyvering, and several attempts, but eventually we had managed to persuade the broken support to fit back together into the stump it had broken off of. And by persuaded, I mean that we mercilessly beat it into submission to make it fit.

Once it was firmly in place, I had Joy mix up a heaping helping of the epoxy. Why would I have her do it? It's simple, really. Epoxy doesn’t stick to magic. This meant there was little chance of one of us accidentally permanently affixing ourselves to the playground equipment. As soon as the mixture was thoroughly blended, Joy smeared copious amounts of the stuff on all four of the anchor poles at their weakest points. Ugly as it might have looked, if this compound was really as tough as it said on the packaging, then what was once the weakest point on the structure just became the strongest by a factor of five or so.

As soon as the epoxy cured, the structure would be fit to play on again. It was already getting into the late afternoon hours by the time we had finished. Taking a moment to survey the fruits of our labor, I could not help but feel extremely accomplished. Casting a sidelong glance at Joy, I could see that she felt the same, though to a greater extent. It felt very rewarding to know that with a little bit of elbow grease, ingenuity, and initiative we had given something back to the community, something that would leave a lasting imprint on the children; the future.

As I walked flank to flank with Joy, I could feel the strain of the day pressing down on me. Right about then, all I wanted was a nice, hot shower, and to cuddle up next to Joy to the soundtrack of Steedivarious. Yeah… that sounded wonderful right about now… the rest of the walk home, I was trying to figure out a way to convince Joy to relax with me to the tune of classical music.

By the time we got home, I had a plan.

16:45 Saturday, 17 March (Day 6)

Author's Note

Last Edited 22 NOV 15

5: The Day Shift

Chapter Five

The Day Shift

Actually, I lied. There was no plan… unless "winging it" counts as a plan…

I tried to think of one… I really did. It's just that whenever I tried… my mind started wandering into bad places as soon as contemplated what came after I got Joy into bed. I wanted to be a good pony, but there were just so many ways the situation could (and likely would) spiral out of control.

It's okay… it's not like there's any sort of correlation between planning and success, anyways.

Yep, I'm doomed.

Immediately after we walked in the door, Joy and I split and went our separate ways; she went to the shower upstairs, and I made my way to the guest shower. Unbuckling the saddlebags and sliding them to the ground, I could feel the deep ache of the days’ exertion slowly taking hold. In an effort to save myself some soreness in the morning, I turned the water up as high as I was comfortable with. While I showered, I stretched my sore limbs, ignoring their protests. Oh, you don't like to be stretched right now? Take that, you miserable traitors. I must say, it was very nice to be able to punish these rebellious limbs, even a little bit. Once I had scrubbed the grime, sweat, and dirt from my coat, I felt like a new pegasus.

Mentally bracing myself for the pain that would inevitably follow, I decided to try and extend my wings. Since I’d arrived, they had been bound to my sides at all times, and the thought occurred to me that I had never actually seen them fully extended. Taking a deep breath, I slowly eased them out from my sides. It hurt, there was no denying that… but it wasn't the same pain I was used to. Instead of the sharp, stabbing sensation that normally permeated my chest, it was more of a deep tightness across my chest and back.

In spite of the resistance, I gently coaxed them farther and farther open; the deep ache across the flight muscles melted into a warm bliss. I have to say, it felt simply amazing. The warm water of the shower was hitting places that had previously been hidden behind my wings, and the feeling was sublime. And then, the hot water ran out.

Sighing, I turned off the tap and coaxed my wings back into their position by my side. It had already been nearly a week since I'd made my entrance, and I figured they were healed enough to be unbound for a bit. Toweling off, I headed back out to the living room. Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised me that Joy was already done with her shower and was patiently waiting in the living room.

But it did.

Joy was lying on the couch-bed, her mane still wrapped up in a towel, humming softly to herself. At the sound of my approach, she looked at me briefly before averting her eyes with a slight blush.

… The hell? I thought she was done being the shy little pony that I had met at the hospital. And yet, here she was. I quickly looked myself over to make sure I wasn't sporting any… potentially embarrassing manifestations of excitement. Nope, I was in the clear for that. Then why was she acting so strange?

The silence between us stretched on for a few seconds before she finally took a deep, resigned sigh and spoke up. "Dave… I feel like a foal for asking, but could you do me a favor?"

I shot her a bemused look as I quipped, "I'm terrible at baking and worse at math. As long as it doesn't involve either of those, I should be able to help."

And there goes the forehead-penis look again. She seemed caught off guard by my nonsense, and even cracked a bit of a smile. She was managing to hide behind her towel-mane in a manner that was so adorable I just wanted to hug her…

I took a step forward to do just that when I was stopped dead by her next sentence. "Could you… if you don't mind… I know it's an odd request… would you help me… brush my mane?"

Do the whatnow? "Pardon?"

A slight blush crept across her cheeks as she hesitated slightly. "I… I overexerted my magic today, and now my horn is sore. Otherwise, I'd just brush my own mane. But I can't right now… would you help me?"

All of my yes. All of it. "Of course, I'll help you. After all, what’re friends for?"

I was trying valiantly to hide my grin. Joy reached up with one hoof and undid the towel, letting her damp mane spill down around her neck and shoulders. Weighed down as it was by the additional mass of the water, her mane hung nearly straight down instead of its usually poofy appearance. I took a moment to revel in the sight. Wet mane is best mane.

In front of me, a brush levitated, surrounded by a wavering blue glow. I scooped it out of the air, the glow trailing it like a mist as it dissipated.

I fastened the brush to my hoof and was about to start brushing when I was struck by an idea. "Hold on a second, Joy. I'll be right back."

Before she had a chance to protest, and with the brush still on my hoof, I hobbled over to the record player and cranked it with my mouth. The record was still in place from the other day, so all I had to do once it was cranked was reposition the needle. This accomplished, a soft static permeated the room as I hobbled back to the couch-bed. Just as I got situated, the record began to play.

The joyous melody floated through the room, and I gently began to brush.

Well, I thought I was being gentle. Joy had a slightly different opinion. "Ow… don't pull so hard."

Sheepishly, I mumbled, "Sorry."

Joy winced a bit as I snagged a tangle. "Gentle on the scalp, jeez… I have a sensitive head."

I couldn’t help myself, and responded reflexively. "That's what he said."

Naturally, this drew a questioning "Who said what now?"

Not wanting to get into a complicated and potentially uncomfortable explanation, I tried to brush her question aside. "Never mind." I was banking on her being too comfortable to question me too deeply on the matter.

"I'm so confused… " was her beleaguered reply.

Silently thanking the powers that be for this small favor, I cooed softly as I deflected her further. "Shhh… don't worry about it. Just… relax."

Eventually I found my stride, and Joy seemed to be really enjoying herself. The track on the phonograph changed to a more somber tone, though it too was beautiful in its own right. I let myself be carried away by the music, floating along the imagery it conjured in my mind.

Vaguely, I became aware of a soft voice in front of me. Opening eyes I didn't recall closing, I zeroed in on the source. At some point, Joy had lain down on the couch-bed, resting her head on her front hooves. I was lying next to her at a slight angle, so that my shoulders were closer than my haunches, allowing me better range of movement to reach her mane. An unknown period of time passed as I brushed her mane, and eventually it became so silky that it appeared to be borderline reflective.

As I discovered that it was Joy speaking, I tried very hard to discern what exactly it was that she was saying. Only by staring at her mouth and the way it was moving did I finally figure it out.

"Brushie… brushie… brushie… " In time with each stroke of the brush, Joy repeated this one word. Brushie. I d'awww-ed so hard I squee'd.

But really though… this was too cute to be real. The best part is that I'm not even sure that she knew she was doing it. I was pretty much certain that she was either asleep or damned close to it, but I couldn't be certain. Dimly, I realized that the record had ended some time ago, and the only sound aside from that of the brush sliding through Joy's mane and the accompanying response from said mare, was the sound of the record's rhythmic popping as it skipped over the last track again and again.

As much as I wanted to stay here, just like this… alone with this mare… until the stars burnt out and the sun no longer rose to light the skies… I knew I'd have to get up and reset the record. If it had been mine, I wouldn't have cared; but seeing as how it belonged to somepony else, I was obligated not to damage it. With a resigned sigh, I ceased my stroking and climbed to my hooves as smoothly as I could, trying not to wake this sleeping mare.

I failed of course, but that should be expected by now.

As soon as I began shifting positions to get up, Joy seemed to rouse from her slumber. "Dave? Where're you going?"

I hung my head in defeat. "I'm just turning off the record player so I don't break it."

Joy blinked a few times, squinting against an unseen light and looking for all the world like she was puzzling out some great enigma. With appropriate befuddlement, she mumbled "But… who told you to stop brushing?"

"Shhh… calm down. I'll continue in a second, I've just got to fix the record player real quick. I'll be back in just a second." In just a moment's time, I had fixed the phonograph, and was returning to Joy's side. I figured that this was as good a time as any to ask my one burning question. "So, Joy… when I was brushing your mane… you said something about… brushie brushie? What's that about?"

Joy hid her face behind her now-silky mane, trying in vain to hide her blush. And here I had thought that shy-Joy had been replaced by troll-Joy. The only thing I'll ever know for certain about this mare is that I'll never know anything for certain. Wonderful.

Joy interrupted my mental meandering when she started to speak. "This is so embarrassing… when I was younger, my mom used to brush my mane for me… it was part of our daily ritual. As she brushed, she would say brushie with each stroke. I guess I picked up on it without realizing it… " Joy sighed nostalgically."That was back in the good ol' days when everything was still perfect in the world."

This struck me as a bit odd. As far as I knew (which wasn’t far at all), everything was going well for her. "This might seem naive of me, but isn't it?"

I had just regained my position by Joy, and was therefore in the perfect position to catch the full brunt of her expression. If I had to label this expression, I'd call it something like "oh, how little you know" or "what was it like, growing up without a brain?" Or something along those lines. At any rate, it was a clear indicator that all was not right in Ponyville.

Joy matched this expression with a pained sigh, and nothing else. Slipping the brush back onto my hoof, I began brushing again. "Want to talk about it?"

She rested her chin on my lap, looking straight ahead in a weary daze. "No, not really. It's a long, sad story, and I wouldn't want to ruin the night with it."

I couldn’t suppress my curiosity, but was afraid of treading on thin ice. "Another time, then?"

Another sigh and a noncommittal "We'll see," was her only reply.

Well this conversation was over… that much was clear. Absently, I began to move from Joy's mane to her coat, starting with her neck and moving in long, slow strokes down to her flanks. I took great care not to brush her cutie mark, and to avoid going too far into questionable areas, attempting to save myself any unanticipated reactions. My strategy seemed to be working, and soon I detected the sound of Joy's soft snores, a telltale indicator that she was asleep. Even so, I continued brushing… I found it quite therapeutic.

Eventually, my arm grew tired and I stopped brushing; this elicited a disgruntled moan from Joy. Stifling a yawn, I checked my watch.

Damn… was it really almost twenty two hundred? If I didn't get to sleep soon, my next shift was going to be rough. I cast a glance at the sleeping mare beside me, and I felt myself swelling with pride and affection, though it was severely tempered by an almost overpowering sense of guilty shame. I liked this mare a great deal, and I was proud that she shared the feelings. On the other hoof, I had betrayed everyone I'd ever known to come here, and I felt more than a little guilty that I was feeling these things for somepony else so soon after losing my wife. Oh, the joys of romance. I'd almost forgotten how confusing and complicated this was since I got married. Almost.

My inner turmoil did not change the fact that I was physically spent from the day's activities, and after I tucked Joy into bed (so… adorable… she snuggled into the blanket with a smile… I could swear I felt the diabeetus growing stronger) I pretty much immediately collapsed into bed beside her. As was becoming a delightful habit, I drifted off to sleep in close proximity to this azure mare.

End of Day 6, Saturday, March 17

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I awoke in the mid-to-late morning, once again by the sound of Joy performing actions of a dubious nature in the kitchen. I say it this way because I wasn't sure if she was attempting to cook, or whether she was trying to defeat a killer robot using only a skillet. At this point, the noises could point either way. Although, this did explain the strange twist my dreams took just prior to my awakening. Something about a giant robotic octopus with numerous flailing metal appendages, who was somehow holding Joy hostage. I've dreamed enough hentai to see where this was going… thankfully; the dream was interrupted before something occurred that would leave me in need of a cold shower when I woke up.

The mental image, however, was hanging around at the edge of my consciousness like a landmine, waiting for my thoughts to stray into dangerous territory. If I wasn't careful, the day might get really awkward, really quickly. This thought process was counterproductive though, and the harder I tried not to think about it, the more I did.

Thankfully, this self perpetuating cycle of madness was knocked from the rails by a tremendous crash from the kitchen. Before I valiantly jumped to my hooves and strode to the kitchen to save Joy from the killer robot therein, I took a moment to bargain with my legs.

Alright, you four; listen up. I don't like you, and you don't like me. It seems that we are stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, however, and things will go much smoother between us if you cooperate. So, I have a proposition for you. In exchange for your unconditional submission to my will at all hours of the day and night, I will continue to exercise regularly, so we don't get fat. You don't want to have to lug my fat ass around with another sixty kilos or so, do you? I thought not. So, do we have a deal?

Concluding my internal monologue and receiving no reply, I decided that there was only one way to test the new alliance; with action. With a bold leap, I soared gracefully through the air, landing majestically.

In reality, it was more of a flailing, catapulting motion, sending me careening off the edge of the bed. I landed on the carpet with all four hooves; a good start, all things considered. Even as I was marveling at my landing, I felt my hooves giving way. In the midst of formulating some form of incredulous rebuttal to the thrice damned limbs of mine, my buckling knees ceased to buckle. I was standing on my own hooves under my own power, and hot damn it felt good. Oh yes… things were looking up.

Stealthily, I crept towards the kitchen. I did so stealthily for two reasons: first, so that the killer robot wouldn't hear me coming. Second, because I freakin’ could, thanks to my newly cooperative limbs. Man, this was awesome. With a level of stealth that I wouldn't have dared to dream of, I crept to the kitchen and poked my head around the corner. What I saw was simply… beyond comprehension.

Now, I'd like to take a moment to state that I didn't really think that there was a robot in the kitchen doing battle with a skillet-wielding Joy, but the mental image is both hilarious and motivational to one who is not yet fully awake.

Though I didn't expect a robot, what I actually saw seemed even more unlikely.

Rather, what I didn't see. Joy was standing alone in the middle of the kitchen, a pair of metal cooking implements in her magical grasp. Her ears were perked as if listening intently, though she faced away from me, in the direction of the stove. After holding this pose for a couple of seconds, she lowered her ears, and then did something incredible. She began to bash the pots together in a deafening clatter. Even as the peals reverberated through the house, she stopped to listen, as if waiting for something.

And then it dawned on me. She was trying to wake me up with the allure of food. That evil little… gah! Fine then… you want to play these games? Let's play.

As silently as I had approached, I retreated, all the way back to the couch. With exaggerated noises of my own, I mimed rolling out of bed… complete with the thump of a body hitting the floor. The banging in the kitchen immediately ceased. With a loud groan, I announced my pilgrimage to the kitchen. My passage was punctuated by a sluggish, plodding beat of hooves on wood.

I entered the dining facility with a genuine yawn, greeted by an entirely too perky mare. "Morning, sleepyhead. About time you woke up."

Playing the part, I rubbed my eyes as I rounded the corner, yawning languidly. "Morning, Joy. What's with all the noise? Making omelets again?"

She looked at me, cocking her head to the side quizzically. "Hmmm… nope."

Now it was my turn to be confused. "No omelets? Then what were you making that was so noisy?"

I was entirely unprepared for what came next. "Cereal."

"Alright, cere-… what?! How do you make that much noise making cereal?" I’m pretty sure my jaw was on the floor at this point.

She merely shrugged. "I didn't. I was trying to smash a bug. Using pans."

The following is the monologue that went through my head after hearing this.

Alright, I quit.

Quit what?

Matters not what I quit. Just note that I have quit at yes, and move on from there.

Quit at… yes…?

Yes.

If that didn't make your head hurt, I have bad news for you… anyways, back to the kitchen we go. "Joy… smash bug… with pans? Pans? Why not just smash it with magic?"

Disgust flashed across her features at this. "And feel it crunch? No way, Jose."

Facehoof. Looks like I was wrong again. Damn… I had high hopes for my theory that time. Regardless, I shrugged off the perplexing notion and focused on what was really and truly important: breakfast. “So, Joy. Cereal?”

“Uh huh. On the counter over there.” Her outstretched appendage indicated a small bowl on the nearby countertop.

Wordlessly, I strode to the counter to ponder the possible implications of an equine-themed marshmallow cereal. I wonder what a leprechaun-pony would look like… I imagined a miniscule pony sporting a green coat and a blazingly red mane, whose cutie mark was a shamrock or something… Dammit, Shamus! Get out of the turnips!

My daydream was interrupted by a sharp jab to my flank. I jumped about a mile, partly from shock at the contact, and partly because whatever had touched me was really damned cold. I might also have yelped like a frightened puppy, but there is no way to prove I did, so I’ll continue to deny it. Once again, the sound of Joy’s snickering at my expense told me everything I needed to know about what had happened. Donning my best “I’m not angry, just disappointed” look, I turned to the azure mare who had rustled my jimmies.

She was wearing a mask of innocence, but the devious glint in her eye betrayed her. “What? You zoned out again…I was just making sure you were still alive. I can’t have a patient dying in my home, now can I? Just think about what people would think of my medical abilities. Anyways, who’s Shamus, and whose turnips are he in?”

So, apparently I said that part out loud. Oh Joy.

I waved a hoof dismissively. “Nothing important. Just day dreaming about a miniscule green menace to my non-existent veggie garden. You know, the usual.”

She just shook her head dismissively. “You are without a doubt the strangest pony I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a whole mess of ponies, some of whom are residents in an asylum.”

I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of myself in a straight jacket, bouncing off of the walls. “Are you saying I belong in a padded room? ‘Cause that would be awesome.”

“I was going to say ‘no, that was just to put it in perspective’, but now I’m not so sure anymore.”

At this, I bowed deeply. “I try, M’lady.”

Joy responded with a deep exhalation, a shake of her head, and a slight smile before responding. “Dave, I swear. What am I going to do with you?”

“Well, I am partial to anything involving explosions, but so long as there are no needles or… questionable activities, I’m pretty much down for anything.”

Now, it was Joy’s turn to facehoof, and facehoof she did.

I chuckled slightly at the sound it made before quipping “That looked like it hurt. Want me t-“

She cut me off abruptly, waving her hoof for emphasis. “Not again. You can’t fool me twice…I’m clever, like a fox.”

“Actually, I was going to offer you a bag of ice or something, but suit yourself."

Joy shot me her best attempt at a death-glare, which we have already established is entirely too cute to be effective. I couldn't help but crack a smile at her attempt though, and this is when she employed a more effective tactic. See, it matters not how adorable you look… a hoof hurts regardless, as I soon discovered.

Now we were both rubbing our heads. Grousing quietly to myself, I collected the supplies from the counter, noting that the cereal appeared to be nothing more than oats and some sort of granola. I ferried the dry goods to the table before heading to the fridge to collect the rest of the ingredients. If I had some of that cheating unicorn magic, or even opposable thumbs, I could have done it all in a single trip. Damnable hooves and their utter lack of manual dexterity…

On a brighter note, I discovered that the fridge was resplendent with food from Joy's earlier trip to the market. I plucked a small container of berries from its niche and carried it back to the table, nestling it in the crook of one wing and the pitcher of milk in the other. I might not have magic or fingers, but I still had an additional set of appendages to my benefit. I felt a moment of pity for earth ponies.

Only a moment though, for I soon recalled that certain earth ponies are unusually talented at using their tails as a semi-prehensile fifth limb. I wondered if I could do that… as soon as I had set the milk and berries down at the table, I decided to give it a shot.

Mustering all of my considerable concentration powers (ha!), I did my best to bend the appendage to my will. And it worked… sort of. I was going for a motion similar to someone curling their arm to show off their biceps, but my tail performed some sort of spastic twitchy motion instead. The important thing was not that it failed to do as I commanded, rather that it had responded at all. I could work on the finer details later.

As was becoming irritatingly commonplace, I was jarred from my reverie by the sound of Joy's laughter. "Dave… I have no idea what you were doing, but that was the funniest thing I've seen in ages. You were staring at your flank with the strangest look, then your tail had a seizure and you started grinning like a foal with a cupcake. Made my day."

I could feel my cheeks beginning to burn. "Hehehe… yeah… about that… "

She cocked her head a bit, intrigued. "What about that?"

"’Twas a figure of speech, Joy."

Her head cocked further to the side. At this rate, it was going to pop off before long. "I don't get it."

I shook my head. "Never mind… just chalk it up to my inherent oddity and leave it at that."

She simply shrugged. "If you say so. Also, you'd better eat quickly; seems you are on day shift meow."

The spoon stopped in mid air on its journey to my face. "What was that last part?"

Joy busied herself with sorting the berries in her bowl. "I said you have been moved to day shift now, some sort of promotion or something. Meow, get back to eating so you aren't late to your first day."

Now the roles had been reversed, and it was my head that was cocked in confusion. "Did… did you say meow? And it's not my first day… more like my fourth or so."

Looking up from her berries, a smirk upon her face. "Meow? Do I look like a cat to you? And you are mistaken. This is your first day. So far, you have only worked at night. Therefore, this is your first day. Make sense?"

I walked right into that one. Yet again, Joy had outwitted me. "Huh… no, I'd say you are a bit too tall to be a cat. Maybe I suffered some dain bramage in the fall… "

"Nope. You lacked any signs of cerebral trauma, and beyond that, I'm still not sure you have the equipment for tha-" Joy fell silent in the midst of her sentence as what I had said finally sunk in. Silently, she mouthed the words "dain bramage" to herself with a puzzled look before regarding me with a skeptical gaze. "Dave… you did that on purpose, didn't you."

It was not a question, but a statement. The ball was back in my court though, and I had the home field advantage. Pulling the metaphorical ace from my sleeve, I played dumb. Years of practice had honed my skills to a keen edge. Around a mouthful of cereal and whilst donning my best look of confusion, I answered Joy. "Did what?"

She stared at me flatly. "Mixing up brain damage like that to mess with my head."

Swallowing the entire mouthful of cereal, I coughed momentarily before replying. "Mixed it up? How did I mix it up?"

She narrowed her eyes slightly, searching for signs that I was goofing with her. "You said dain bramage instead of brain damage."

I looked at her, doing my best to appear confused. Thankfully, I had years upon years of practice, making it an easy undertaking. "Why would I do that? Everypony knows how to say dain bramage."

Her eyes shot open as she pointed her hoof at me accusingly. "There! You did it again! It's brain damage, not dain bramage. Say it with me: brain damage."

"Dain bramage."

Joy's eye began a'twitchin. "Let's try that again. Brain damage."

“Dain bramage."

That facehoof had to have hurt… After a deep sigh, she decided on a different approach. "Alright, I'll break it down for you. Brain."

"Brain," I parroted.

"Damage."

"Damage,” said I.

Joy smiled at me. likely feeling like she was about to make a breakthrough."Now, put them together: brain damage."

"Dain bramage."

Joy performed a flawless double-facehoof combo, transitioning seamlessly into a frustrated groan. Fillies and gentlecolts, this mare has style. "You… you're impossible."

I grinned widely. "I do my best."

Joy rolled her eyes so hard they spun in place for a moment, emitting an odd rattling sound. I would definitely be better off not contemplating how that was possible. I held a simple conversation with Joy as I scarfed down the remainder of my berry-granola cereal, and I eventually discovered what my report time was for work. I was to report at half-past-twelve, the end of the lunch break for the sanitation ponies.

Checking my watch, I nearly jumped from my skin. It was almost noon, and I didn't think that showing up all sweaty and smelly from running would be a good first impression on my new boss. Quickly spewing a few parting remarks apologizing for the mess I had left on the table in my hurry, I bustled out the door in the direction of the clinic.

I made it nearly to the end of the block before I heard a voice behind me call out my name. Turning, I saw that Joy was the one who had addressed me. Even as I was debating whether or not I should turn back to see what she wanted or to wave and keep going, a luminous blue blur streaked towards me.

Not even going to lie, I flinched and might have squealed like a filly. Though, you can’t prove the second part… regardless, it was unnecessary. Exhibiting a level of finesse that I would never be capable of, Joy slowed the ballistic blue blur to a crawl just in time to spare me from a formidable impact. From where I was hiding behind my hooves, I could make out two distinct details: First was that the blue missile was in fact my saddlebags, which I had left at home in my haste. Second was that I could clearly see the amused look on Joy’s face, even from this distance and from behind my hooves.

I was pretty sure she couldn’t see me blush in shame at this distance, so at least I had that going for me. I hollered back an appreciative remark of some sort and tried to strap the bags on as I was cantering down the street.

Turns out, I’m even better at failing miserably at two things at once, something I discovered shortly after somehow winding up staring at the clouds overhead. Clambering to my hooves in a profoundly awkward manner that was accentuated by my repeated stumbling and entanglement in the loose straps of my bags, I decided it would behoove me to affix my cargo from a stationary position rather than attempt it while I was cantering again.

In record time, I had affixed the troublesome bindings and set off at a slightly more brisk pace to my place of duty. I arrived slightly ahead of schedule by risking an untested shortcut that proved to be viable. I walked through the front door of the clinic with a good six minutes to spare, giving me time to catch my breath before reporting. By the time I strolled into the maintenance vestibule, I had caught my breath and composed myself enough to make a good first impression on my new boss.

Turns out my new boss was a rather attractive mare who went by the moniker “Brass”. She was about the same height as Joy, though her build was a bit more slender; if I had to guess I would venture this was a result of a more strenuous day-job. Her coat was every bit as lustrous and gleaming as her namesake, shining like a factory mint cartridge. Her mane was a very faint, very light blue that clashed in a complimentary fashion with the rest of her. Though it barely made sense to me how such a thing was possible, the two colors somehow just seemed right together.

What was it about Equestria that spawned such striking irises? Perhaps it’s a bit unusual, but everywhere I looked it seemed that there were a set of magnificent ocular orbs to catch my attention. The eyes in question were a riveting blue and silver color, flecked with golden specs. I must have missed about half of what she was saying to me as I became lost in the swirling, shifting patterns. A hoof waved back and forth in front of me as my attention was re-focused on the task at hand: paying attention. It’s harder than it seems.

Despite the awkward start, the rest of the shift went pretty smoothly until around eighteen hundred. Up until this point, Brass had been leading the way, and I was able to follow her example without much trouble. Everything began to take a turn for the worse after that though, as Brass’ shift ended. About that time, I realized that I had no flippin’ clue what was going on… I had zoned out during that bit of instruction. Looking back, I couldn’t recall a single damned thing she had said to me, aside from her name. I was so boned.

Hampered as she had been by acting as my chaperone, Brass hadn’t been able to finish her cleaning duties. The hallway had been nearly complete when she had split, and I finished the job in a matter of minutes. Gathering up the cleaning supplies, I returned them to the supply closet and set off back towards the janitor’s cave. Wracking my brain for any recollection of what I’d been told to do proved to be a fruitless endeavor, and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was liable to have screwed up terribly on my first day shift.

Upon entering the office, whatever doubts I may have harbored instantly evaporated. Sitting behind the desk was Scruffy in all of his glory, and at that moment everything was right with the world. Glancing over the top of his paper, he favored me with a nod, which I returned.

Beside the desk was a chalk board that was used to track any and all problems and maintenance issued in the clinic, as well as leave notes for assorted purposes. Written in the bottom right corner of the board was a block of text that was entirely too neat to be Scruffy’s hoof-writing. Hoping against hope, I inspected it closer and saw that my prayers had been answered.

Brass had left explicitly detailed notes on what needed to be accomplished by the end of the shift, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had already accomplished a good ninety percent of everything on the list. Since I was on shift until twenty-two hundred, I decided that this was the perfect time to take a walk in the light of a setting sun. Since the only thing left on my to-do list was taking out the trash, I figured it was as good a time as any to go for a stroll. Scruffy could handle whatever might pop up for a little while, and I would be back with copious time to complete the remainder of my duties and read some newspaper comics before my shift was over. I told Scruffy what I was planning, and he gave what I interpreted as an assenting grunt. That concluded, headed out into the setting sun.

Well, I tried to, anyways… I missed the sunset by about half an hour. The sky still shone with the crimson and violet rays of the dying day, though the light was fading quickly. It’s just as well, I supposed. I was growing quite fond of the night as it was.

The night in question was supremely comfortable, with the residual heat of the day being radiated by the streets and structures, and the soft whisper of a breeze slipped through the air. The horizon opposite the setting sun began to glow with an austere light, indicating the rise of the moon. Everything was peaceful and calm, as if Equestria itself was holding its breath.

It should be no surprise that such an immaculate atmosphere would be shattered most unceremoniously. The only prelude to the madness was a faint whoosh, barely audible over the whispering wind. What came next, however, was loud enough to rouse the dead. A dark shape passed so close overhead that I swear it hit my ear, though my thought process was knocked from the rails by the deafening crash that followed.

In a shower of splinters and glass, the building beside me seemed to explode, shattering the silence of the night. In the wake of the destruction, everything seemed preternaturally quiet; the only sound was the soft tinkling of glass falling.

From within the building there appeared a yellow light, its meager illumination doing little to chase away the shadows. Despite its dismal illumination, the light revealed enough to stop me dead in my tracks. Crap… I know that pony.

Surrounded by broken glass and wood was an unresponsive grey pegasus, her golden eyes spinning about behind her lids in non-synchronous motions before they slid closed. The recognition hit me like a freight train, and as the extent of the injuries began to sink in, I was rooted to the spot by some unknowable dread. What was this weight compressing my lungs?

All conscious thought faded away as I reverted to my training. Ignoring the shouting that echoed from the depths of the building, I immediately began to assess the situation. The mare had an arterial bleed on her right inner thigh, likely caused by the chunk of window frame that still impaled it.

Additionally, it appeared that she had suffered a penetrating chest wound on her left side from a sliver of glass. She was covered from snout to tail in minor lacerations, but there were two major wounds that demanded my immediate attention.

Scrounging through my saddlebag in an adrenaline fueled frenzy, I pulled out a strip of heavy canvas. Though far from ideal, it would work for the task at hand. I grabbed a sturdy looking stick from the wreckage and quickly tied a square knot in the fabric, placing the loop of fabric as high on this mare’s thigh as I could. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registered that if this mare was conscious and alert, she would be extremely uncomfortable with my proximity to her… private parts.

I wasn’t about to let something like decency or shame hold me back, though; I cinched the knot with my teeth and inserted the stick into the fabric loop and began to turn it. Having had a tourniquet applied to myself in the past, I can say with certainty that this had to hurt like hell. Again disregarding the comfort of this mare, I continued to crank on the stick until the bleeding in her thigh had slowed from a rhythmic gush to a slow dribble. Tearing another piece of canvas, I tied the stick in place to keep pressure on the injury.

My further ministrations were halted abruptly by a swift hoof upside my head, to which I paid little heed and responded angrily. “Fuck off, I’m busy!”

A scared and confused voice answered. “What did you do to her?!”

In pain and annoyance I growled back, “Do to her? I’m trying to save her life, jackass! You’re not helping.”

This last statement seemed to catch the stallion off guard, and I could almost hear the gears in his head spinning as he tried to process this. Satisfied with my tourniquet, I moved on to the chest wound. This was going to be tricky… I was struck by an idea. “Hey! You want to help? Good, you just volunteered. Follow my directions exactly as I say without hesitation. Got it?”

He must have been surprised by my tone or something, because he just nodded blankly. Frankly, I didn’t have time to be nice or worry about feelings, so I just rolled with this new development. Carefully, we moved the grey mare off of the debris to a flat area that was mostly devoid of debris. I took extreme care to stabilize her neck as we moved her to avoid causing further damage. Setting her down gently on the floor, I took a moment to re-assess the mare for new symptoms.

Even with a cursory once over, I could see that her trachea wasn’t sitting right in her throat; it was inclining to her left. This could mean only one thing: her left lung had collapsed. The shard of glass was the obvious culprit. Instructing my helper to roll her onto her side extremely carefully, I took a second to examine her back for additional penetrating chest wounds, of which there were none. Rolling Derpy back to a supine position, I contemplated the best way to stabilize this mare for CASEVAC to the clinic. Before I could even register what he was doing, let alone stop it, this unnamed stallion grasped the shard of glass in his teeth and yanked it out.

Son. Of. A. Bitch. Why? Why would you do that?

The mare’s breathing immediately became more ragged, a very distinct rattle slowly growing more predominant. By removing the shard, this joker had unsealed the wound, which was now letting air seep into this mare’s chest cavity. I shot this idiot the most withering glare I could, and it must have been a sight. He shrunk away from me and turned quite pale, and he almost looked like he was going to be sick.

I hollered at him, trying to snap him back to reality. “If you’re going to be sick, do it over there. If you are going to be useful, I need a fourteen gauge hollow needle and an occlusive dressing. Move! ”

He stood there in shock and confusion. Sonofa…

“Big hollow needle and airtight bandage. Get moving!”

And just like that, he was off. The leg was taken care of for the moment, so the biggest concern of mine was her rapidly deflating lung. I pushed a constant pressure on the wound, trying to keep it closed as best I could. Despite my efforts, the additional air that had gotten into Derpy's lungs had caused her lung to partially collapse, something known as a tension pneumothorax, or air in the chest.

Taking a moment to survey the surroundings as I waited for what's-his-face to come back, I damn near chuckled at the providence of the collision. Of all the places this mare could have landed, she landed in a place that sold quills and sofas, the latter of which had broken her fall, and the former of the two was being grasped by what's his face as he returned.

Well… this would be interesting. The quill he had brought appeared to be silver, a small blessing in and of itself, as silver is naturally bacterial resistant. Moreover, it was finely pointed and sufficiently narrow. I measured out the proper place to insert the needle by counting her ribs, and taking a quick breath to steady myself, I plunged the needle into her chest.

Man, it's a good thing she was unconscious for this…

The quill struck its mark and there was a soft hissing gurgle, like someone trying to get the last of their soda out using a straw. Nearly immediately, her breathing became much less strained, and her chest was once again inflating properly. Good ole’ what's-his-face furnished me with a large sheet of plastic and some packing tape, just what I needed. Tearing the plastic open so I had a piece that went about two inches out from each side of the injury, I waited until Derpy had breathed out before applying the seal.

Satisfied that she was stable enough to be moved, I looked up at what's-his-face. "Alright, she's stable for now, but we need to get her to the hospital right now. Do you have a cart to load her on?"

He nodded as he replied. "Dave. You can call me Dave, it's short for Davenport. And I do have a cart; I'll go get it."

"My name's Dave too. I'll look over her till you get back, but please hurry." I held out a hoof to him, and he shook it briskly.

He set off with a nod, and I turned once more to the mare in question. She was much better off now than she had been a few minutes ago, but she was far from out of the woods. Derpy was bleeding from dozens of small cuts from the window, though none appeared life threatening. Her breathing was rapid, but mostly un-strained, and her leg had stopped bleeding nearly completely.

I checked my watch, and wrote the approximate time I applied the tourniquet on her forehead in her own blood, prefaced with the letter “T”. A bit morbid, I suppose, what with the hoof painting in blood and all, but at least it would give the surgeons a point of reference on the tourniquet. Right on cue, Other Dave came back with the cart. We loaded the patient up as carefully as we could, a process that was complicated somewhat by the fact that she had begun to regain consciousness in the middle of it. I tried to reassure her as best I could, though it was marginally effective at best.

Several times over the course of the trip to the hospital, I ended up swatting her hoof away from the tourniquet. Each time, she would beg me to take it off, telling me how badly it hurt. As calmly and patiently as I could, I kept explaining to her that it was for her own good, that it was keeping her alive.

Seeing this helpless mare in such pain and being unable to do anything was gut wrenching. Oh, what I wouldn't have given for Joy's "kiss it and make it better" spell right then… thankfully, we were just coming around the corner to the hospital. Bursting through the doors and frightening everypony in the lobby, I yelled out "MEDIC!" at the top of my lungs. What happened next was a flurry of activity that was quite reminiscent of my first moments in town… the mare was loaded onto a stretcher as the nurses bombarded me with questions, like what the hay a quill was doing sticking from the mare's chest, what possessed me to write numbers on the patient's forehead in her own blood, et cetera.

I had unconsciously been following the nurses and the gurney, led along as I was by the questions. No sooner had I finished answering the nurse's questions that I was stopped dead in my tracks by a stallion in scrubs, who kindly informed me that I couldn't go into the operating room. Numbly, I nodded and slowly began to trot away when the enormity of the situation hit me.

Tonight, I had held another pony's life in my hooves, and whether she lived or died was a direct result of my actions. She would certainly have died anyway, but the moment I looked in her eyes, it became personal to me, her fate was mine to decide. Now, it was all I could do to hope that I had done everything in my power to live up to that burden.

I wandered absently through a maze of hallways before the burden of what had just occurred finally drove me to my knees, as I shook violently. I have no idea how long I sat like that, but I was driven from my funk by exactly what I needed to hear.

"Dave? Are you okay?"

Joy.

My mind seemed to be swimming in a murky river, everything seemed detached and surreal. "I… I'm not sure. Is she okay?"

Joy drew up alongside me, nuzzling my neck. "We won't know for a few hours yet, she's still in surgery. They told me what you did, Dave… you're a hero. You saved her life, without a doubt."

It all seemed miles away, and I couldn’t get past the big question. "Is she going to make it? Can you say for certain that she will? If not, then I have saved nothing, I've just prolonged her suffering. I didn't even do anything special… I feel there was something more I should have done."

Her voice hardened, taking on a stern tone. "Oh, come off it. You did something heroic tonight, Dave, even if you don't want to admit it. Yes, there is still a chance that she could die… it's still touch and go. But you know what? You gave her a chance to fight for her life. You gave her the time she needed to get here to be treated. While she might die even after everything everypony has done, you gave her a chance she wouldn't have had. Those numbers on her forehead, those wouldn't happen to be the time you put the tourniquet on, would it?"

I nodded dumbly.

Joy’s tone brokered no argument. "Based just on that, I can tell you that if you hadn't been there to put that tourniquet on, she wouldn't have made it here. It was twenty minutes after that time stamp that you rolled her through the doors. She would have bled out in three to five, tops."

So much blood… it was everywhere… gazing down at my hooves, I could see the blood drying on them, though it was still a bit moist. I was wracked by a violent shudder.

Joy saw all of this, responding with a gentle nudge and softly spoken words. "Come on Dave… let’s get you cleaned up, then we'll go get a smoothie to calm us down, m'kay?"

I could hear the almost patronizing sweetness in her voice, one that I'm sure she used on her patients to comfort them. As much as I wanted to be angry or indignant at what was akin to baby talk, I was too drained to feel such emotions. I allowed myself to be led away by my shoulder, winding up at a sink in the blink of an eye.

Joy left me alone to scrub up while she went to check on Derpy. I turned the water on as hot as it would go and began to scrub away the grime in my coat. Even after the last trace of the blood was gone, the feeling of grime remained. I scrubbed and scrubbed, harder and harder, rubbing myself raw but it wouldn't come clean, couldn't come clean, too much blood, can’t get clean, can’t get the blood off, can’t get clean, more blood on my hooves, can’t wash away the blood, can’t get clean, can’t get clean, can’t…

The water was suddenly cut off, and my hooves were grabbed by a dainty azure pair. As they were removed from the sink and their repetitive motions there, my eyes caught sight of a very concerned looking Joy. She was alternating between glaring at my hooves and at my face, with expressions ranging from annoyed to concerned. Simply sighing, she wrapped my fetlocks in gauze that tingled a bit on contact with my raw skin. "I'm sorry, Dave. I should have known better than to leave you alone like this. What do you say to the smoothie?"

The water and the scrubbing had cleared the fog from my mind, if only slightly. "Let's take Derpy out for a smoothie. I'm sure she'll like it, and she could use a bit of good news."

Joy looked at me with a mix of concern and pity. "But Dave… she'll be in surgery for another two hours at least, and then beyond that, assuming there's nothing else majorly wrong, at least another eight before she's discharged."

"That's okay… I'll wait." Perhaps it was the way I sounded, or maybe she didn't think it was a good idea to argue with a pony in my current mental condition, but Joy didn't fight the notion at all; instead, she joined me in the waiting room.

We sat like that for some unknown length of time. Joy drifted off to sleep leaning against my shoulder, and I wound up staring into the distance as my mind replayed the incident over and over, looking for something I could have done better. My thoughts were disrupted by the sound of the operating room door opening. Joy lifted her head from my shoulder, giving me the opening to jump to my hooves and approach the surgeon. At my sudden movement, the surgeon appeared initially frightened by the swiftness of my motion. I skid to a halt in front of him, my expression asking the question my mouth could not. With a deep sigh, he took his mask off and regarded me for a moment before finally speaking.

"I assume you are the one who provided first aid to Miss Hooves?"

I nodded once, curtly. "Roger. How's she doing?" I deliberately avoided asking the obvious question, lest I even acknowledge the possibility that something happened.

The doctor let out a weary sigh. "My name's Stitch, not Roger. But she is going to make it, and she has you to thank for it. If not for your heroic actions, this would have been a tragic night indeed."

I felt frustration welling up within me as my mind tumbled over the things I could have and should have done. "Please, stop telling me I'm a hero… I don’t deserve the title. I did what anypony would have done in my position. But is Derpy okay? She'll be fine, right?"

Stitch reached up and tugged his mask down before he spoke. "Perhaps anypony would have stopped to help… but how many ponies would know how to do a needle chest decompression, or properly apply a tourniquet? Like it or not, son, you are a hero for what you've done. As for your other inquiry, she should be released by dawn and good to go."

The weight of dread and worry that had rested on my shoulders seemed to melt away. Without the current of anxiety to keep me aloft anymore, I slumped to the ground in relief. She was going to be okay.

I had a few more questions to ask, but the big one had been answered, to my unending joy."Is she awake? Can she have visitors?"

Doc shook his head. "No, and no. She is still anesthetized, and the healing potions won't cure an infection. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait till she gets discharged, since visiting hours don't open until after that time, and she likely won't stick around till they do."

One last question remained. "What time is she scheduled to be discharged?"

Turning to walk away, he called back over his shoulder. "She should be out the doors just after zero six."

"Alright, Doc. I'll be back then." Our farewells concluded with a nod, and Doc Stitch took off towards his next destination, whatever that might be. I was in the midst of turning towards Joy when she just about tackled me with a hug. Busy as I was fighting for breath, I almost missed what she said.

"You can say whatever you want, and avoid praise all you want, Dave… to me, you are a hero. You saved the life of a wonderful mare, and I'm sure Derpy would think you're a hero. Quit whining and own it, okay?"

"… breathe… air… "

Joy seemed to remember that most ponies need annoying things like oxygen to function, and so released me so I could pant on the floor for a moment. This mare was borderline freakishly strong. As I caught my breath, I nodded vaguely. A static filled buzz emanated from somewhere overhead, causing me to start pretty violently. The static spit forth something that sounded like an angry teacher from the peanuts series before dying with a click.

Joy turned to me excitedly. "Dave, did you hear that? You got the rest of the night off!"

I looked at my watch. 23:08. "Joy? My shift ended an hour ago."

Still smiling, she retorted "I know that, silly. I read the board. But what it means is that you are excused from any duties you didn't finish before the rescue. And also, I get to go home with you too!"

My mind had cleared a bit as I sat around waiting for the doctor. I responded a bit skeptically to this. "Not that I'm not excited, but how do you figure?"

"The same reason that I was able to stop what I was doing and go look for you. In the aftermath of such a traumatic experience, ponies should be monitored for signs of residual stress that could cause future problems. Therefore, I get to follow you around for the rest of the night." Joy’s response was delivered in a matter-of-fact tone.

I shrugged in response."Makes sense… but I'm actually pretty beat. Can we just go home and take a nap?"

She smiled that wonderful smile again. "No problem. You've earned it."

As we walked through the lobby to go home, the nurses there sent up a thunderous applause of clops, each beating their front hooves against the floor in celebration. It would seem that word of my exploits had spread like wildfire, but this was nothing compared to what was to come. In the meantime though, we headed home and slipped into bed on the couch. Joy and I lay side by side, an arrangement that was becoming more and more frequent, not that either of us minded.

End of Day 7: Sunday, March 18th

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My alarm sounded at quarter to five, and the two of us set off in separate directions to get ready for the day. We met at the breakfast table for a delicious yogurt and granola concoction before setting off towards the clinic. For once, everything went according to plan and we arrived just before zero six. Referencing the mystical "Board" to find out what room Derpy had been put in, we set out to the second floor. Once we arrived, we could tell pretty easily that there would be no way to get into the room, surrounded as it was by a pair of guards. Guards? Ohh… that explains the large number of ponies in the lobby. Paparazzi. Some things are universal…

After a few more minutes of various nurses coming and going, I caught sight of one who was quite familiar: Nurse Redheart. Favoring me with a quick wave before she disappeared into the room, she reemerged a moment later with a smile and beckoned me into the room. This would be the moment of truth, of some sort… one way or another, it felt really important. Out of nowhere, a pasty little pegasus colt sporting a camera popped up and began taking pictures of me. The flash was so frequent it was almost like staring into a strobe light. One of the guards cleared his throat loudly and shot the spindly photographer a withering look, after which the flashing subsided, leaving me with a false sky of stars in my vision. The colt fiddled with the camera for a moment until it made an audible click.

He once again began to snap rapid fire photographs, though this time sans-flash. Once the spots faded a bit from my vision, I stepped past the threshold and into the room. After that, everything got a little fuzzy as I was struck by a grey missile. I found myself once again in a crushing embrace, though this one felt slightly awkward compared to the usual. There was another difference too; the tears.

As she embraced me, Derpy was weeping openly, her body heaving with wracking sobs. I was… dumbstruck, to say the least. Our embrace seemed to be a cue for the rest of the world to d'aww at once. Behind all of this, there was the staccato clicking of a camera furiously taking pictures. I became cognizant of another, much more emotional sound directly in front of me. Between sobs, Derpy repeated one phrase again and again…

"… thank you… "

Today was a day for revelations, and the last one was a doozy. I realized how selfish I had been each time I said "it was nothing" when somepony praised me. Sure, to me it might have been nothing. But to the mare in front of me, it was everything. I had given her another chance at life. I was both humbled and incredibly proud at the same time.

Then, Derpy took my face in her hooves and gave me a big, wet kiss on the lips before returning to the crushing embrace.

I’m not sure whose eyes were wider… mine, or Joy’s. It’s a good thing she was standing behind the photographer, for I’m not sure her jealous glare would look good on the front page. After a moment Joy got her features back under control, and not a moment too soon. Derpy’s embrace melted away and she sunk to her haunches with her head hung, an expression I remembered to be one of shame. As if to confirm this, her blush slowly made itself visible.

What is it with mares and blushing?

Regardless, Joy took note of the change in the mood of the room, and quickly ushered everypony out so we could have a moment to ourselves. Once the room was empty, it almost seemed lifeless in the wake of the bustle. I reached a hoof down and raised Derpy’s face to look at me. Her blush burned more vibrantly, and she shook herself free of my hoof and returned her gaze to the floor, tears still flowing. I sat on my haunches in front of her so that I wasn’t looking down on her… I got the feeling she had enough of that in her life already.

I broke the silence. “Hey… are you okay?”

Her reply was broken, as though by sobs. “N… no. I’m sorry… I didn't mean to… do that. You probably hate me now… ”

I was struck nearly dumb by this. “What? Why would I hate you? You didn’t do anything wrong, let alone anything worthy of being hated… ”

This demure mare continued to stare at the floor, defeated. “B… but I kissed you. Most ponies don’t like me near them… they act polite but I n-know. They think I’m b-broken.”

I was appalled by this, but also struck with a sincere desire to help. “Miss… I’m not like most ponies. I’m also not from around here, so I don’t really know or care what most other ponies think. To me, you are just a sweet pegasus that had an accident, and I was fortunate enough to be there to help you when you needed it. Anything other than that, I’ll learn from you as we get to know each other better. I find that this is the only way to really get to know somepony. How’s that sound?”

The grey mare regarded me with a puzzled expression for a moment, trying to see if I was making fun of her. A few seconds later, and she broke into an enormous grin and shook my hoof so hard that my entire body shook. “Th-that sounds amazing. My n-name is Derpy, and it’s nice to meet you.”

My grin matched hers. “Dave, and same here. How does a smoothie sound? Joy and I wanted to take you out for a treat.”

This drew a hearty nod from the grey mare. “S-sounds good. I’m off today anyways.”

As we gathered Joy from the hallway and posed for a few pictures, I couldn’t help but wonder about this mare. She seemed a bit shy, and she had a slight stutter, but on the whole she seemed a lot brighter than I'd seen her portrayed most times. Odd…

On our journey towards Berry’s smoothie joint, it seemed like we were stopped at least once per block by somepony who wanted to shake my hoof or ask how Derpy was doing. Damn, word spreads fast in small towns…

We arrived right about zero seven, only to be greeted by a still-locked door. Well, fuck… there goes that idea…I was about to turn around and head to Fleur de Lis when Joy used some of her cheating unicorn magic to plink a small stone against the upstairs window. After a couple more stones, the window flew open as a rather disheveled looking Berry Punch poked her head out of the window. Joy spoke to Berry for a minute, though what they might have said was lost to me as I wracked my brain for a suitable alternate to a smoothie at such an early hour…Turns out, this was unnecessary, as Joy had somehow convinced Berry to let us into her shop well outside of its normal hours of operation.

Berry met us at the door with a steaming cup of coffee, beckoning us to a carafe of the glorious liquid sitting on a nearby table. Making ourselves comfortable, Berry was mother and poured coffee for the rest of us. How the heck could she do that with hooves? I… gah. It is too early for this much thinking. As it turned out, thinking was pretty unnecessary at that point. As I was contemplating how exactly I was supposed to drink this without wearing it, I was idly turning the cup in my hooves. In place of a handle that was meant for slender, agile digits, these cups sported parallel shelves for lack of a better word. The shelves were about two centimeters square and a centimeter thick, aligned parallel to the table, and spaced about one to two centimeters apart.

You might wonder why I described it so thoroughly, and this is understandable. I do this to paint a picture of what I was facing. I pretended to brood in thought at something while I waited for somepony else to pick their cup up and drink from it. The wait was not long, and everything became clear to me. Aligning the side of her hoof with the gap between the two projections, a simple inclination of the hoof was all it took to secure the cup enough to afford Joy a sip of coffee. Following her lead, I gingerly fitted my hoof into the slot and raised it to my mouth. If there were two things that Berry Punch could do well, they were making coffee and making smoothies. By my best guess, we spent an hour and a half or so at Berry's, the four of us engaging in conversation made all the livelier by the addition of caffeine.

About half an hour into our conversation, we finally convinced Berry to set down her coffee long enough to whip up one of her trademark smoothies for Derpy. Through some unspoken method of communication, the three of us agreed not to warn the poor grey pegasus about the addictive nature of the smoothies… we were not about to deprive anypony of the iconic experience that came with the first sip. If it wasn’t for Derpy mentioning that she had never been here before, we might have somehow spoiled the experience for her. Providence smiled upon us this time though, and when the smoothie came to the table and she took her first sip, it was without pretense.

By Luna’s socks, was it ever worth the suspense. If my reaction had been comical, this was hysterical. After the first dainty sip, Derpy began to outright chug the smoothie, polishing it off in mere seconds with a hearty belch. Even as she was starting to apologize for the incredible belch, she was struck mute as the freeze set in. Her eyes rolled around a few times before settling into a distant gaze, one that was all the more striking since her eyes were facing the same direction. I know, shocked me too. A moment after her eyes settled, a series of tremors sprouted up at the tip of her snout and began to make its way down the length of her body, much like a dog shaking off water. As the tremors passed her wings they spasmed violently, one of them striking me upside the noggin with a glancing blow.

Glancing though it might have been, the wing had struck with sufficient force to bring forth an artificial night sky filled with stars into my vision. The spasms subsided as Derpy’s eyes returned to their normal wall-eyed configuration. A moment of silence followed the strange happenings, a silence that was shattered by Berry.

“Aw, horseapples! I forgot to take the picture… ”

Joy and I had a hearty laugh at that one, though we laughed alone; Derpy was still a bit sluggish from the freeze and Berry was too upset at having missed such an incredible photo opportunity. Instead of looking slightly embarrassed at her vigorous reaction to the freeze, Derpy looked notably melancholy, a sight that cut my laughter short.

“What’s up, D? You okay?”

“Y-yeah. Ha ha. Let’s laugh at Derpy, it’s okay… she’s used to it.”

The smile faded from my face as a mixture of confusion and shame set in. “Huh?”

She sniffled, her ears drooping. “Is that th-the only reason you brought me h-here? To laugh at m-me?”

Aaaand, fuck. It would seem that our lighthearted prank ran afoul of its intended reaction. Maybe we should have considered the history of ridicule that our subject had endured… Scrambling, I did my best to smooth over the misunderstanding.

“No, that’s not it at all, D. Come over here, I want to show you something.”

Despite her obvious reluctance, she got up and followed me as I trotted over to the wall of photographs behind the register. A moment of searching yielded the photo of my own reaction to Berry’s smoothie. Pointing it out with a hoof, I turned to Derpy.

“We aren’t making fun of you, D. It’s like a rite of passage, having your first Berry’s smoothie. This whole wall is full of ponies’ reactions. Here’s mine.”

Upon seeing the photo of my features contorted by the agony of ice-demon-skull-possession, Derpy let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. My initial fears that she was still upset were assuaged by the massive smile spreading on her face. It seemed she was finally beginning to realize that the there were still some decent ponies left in the world, and that she had met them. Berry had gotten up and was in the process of making more of her smoothies when Derpy and I returned to the table.

Berry returned with enough smoothies for the entire conglomerate of ponies, and over the next hour or so the four of us traded stories and experiences from our lives. Far and away, Derpy had the most interesting stories of us all. Turns out, being a mail-mare is a great way to meet creatures of all types, including those who are extraordinarily unusual.

By the time Berry kicked the rest of us out so she could open up shop properly, it was late morning, and the streets were packed with ponies bustling to and fro. Almost immediately after stepping out into the street, ponies began to swarm around us and besiege us with questions about the rescue of the previous evening. To be completely honest, it was terrifying. Never before in my life had I been at the center of such a ruckus, and the sheer number of pastel ponies that surrounded us was more than a little intimidating. However disconcerted I was, Derpy was far worse off, not being used to this level of attention in any way. I had to get so close to her ear that I was damned near inhaling it in order to be heard over the crowd.

“Can you fly?”

Derpy looked confused, but nodded.

“Go ahead and take off. I’ll deal with these ponies. You know where I work, and I live with Joy. Don’t be a stranger, feel free to stop by sometime. In the meantime, go get some fresh air.”

Wordlessly, Derpy shot me a grateful look and took to the skies in a rapidly ascending corkscrew motion. Whether this was intentional or not was irrelevant: it was rad regardless.

Once Derpy had made her spectacular exit, I turned to face the crowd in an attempt to answer what questions I could. Oh, how woefully unprepared I was…

6: The Preparations

Chapter Six

The Preparations

Okay, I realize my actions the night before might seem a bit off to anypony without medical experience. Got it, tracking that. What I do NOT understand however, is how writing a "T" and some numbers on a pony's forehead somehow can only mean that I am part of some shadow society of maleficent purpose, initiating a new member.

I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Based on the stuff that had happened with Zecora in the past, I was sort of under the impression that Ponyville was a bit more tolerant place nowadays. Honestly, I really should endeavor not to think, considering the frequency with which I am wrong.

Pushing these thoughts aside and deflecting the more idiotic questions with equally idiotic answers, Joy and I managed to worm our way out of the crowd by the time I had re-told the story for the fifth time. It took every ounce of my self control (and several gallons I borrowed from Joy) for us to make it through the roiling mass of equinity. In the back of my mind, I kept repeating a single phrase: keep calm and canter on. Even being the egotistical bastard that I am, I was starting to dislike the sound of my voice telling the tale time and time again.

We mercifully broke free of the crowd and set off in a separate direction, wanting to put as much distance between us and the posse of pestering ponies as possible. Once we had lost the last of the determined ponies trailing us, we followed a meandering path for another few blocks to make sure we were in the clear before turning and heading home along back alleys and obscure avenues.

We reveled in the comparative silence and desertion of the paths less traveled in the wake of the recent fuster cluck. It wasn’t until we drew to within a few blocks of home that we finally met another pony, though this one seemed content to tend to her garden and pay us no mind.

It was just as well for us, and even my limited powers of perception could pick up that Joy’s calm and collected demeanor was just a professional mask. At least I wasn’t alone. I can’t speak for Joy, but I was slowly becoming optimistic that we could find shelter in our domicile before being mobbed once more.

Before we drew around the corner, I was struck by a thought… if I was so sure that we would make it home unmolested, it was damned near a sure thing that we were about to be accosted by a tremendous number of curious ponies spouting insipid questions. I am wrong very often, but sometimes, I hate it even more when I’m right.

Rounding the corner, the both of us stopped dead in our tracks at the sight before us.

Waiting in front of the house was a veritable circus of press photographers. Seriously, where the hell did they all come from?

Joy and I backed around the corner slowly, trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Had it just been Joy, the plan might have worked… unfortunately; my penchant for being in certain places at certain times wouldn't allow a smooth exit. From the horde arose the battle cry:

"Dave!"

I didn't even try to run… what was the point? I might get away… hell, I probably would get away, considering how fast I ran… but sooner or later they would find me. I've learned the hard way that no matter how fast you ran, nor how far, you cannot outrun your problems. Taking a deep breath to steel myself for the impending onslaught, I walked forward calmly to meet my fate. Initially hesitant, Joy soon fell in behind me as I approached the mass of ponies.

For what it's worth, they were rather well behaved for a large posse of reporters… they stood in one place relatively quietly as they followed my approach with a hungry look instead of swarming me like vermin. As I crossed the last of the empty space that separated us, they even formed a nice little horseshoe-shape for me. I found this both ironic and useful. I stepped into the spot that they had made for me with Joy pressed close to my side. I stood in silence for a second before clearing my throat, signaling for the Inquisition to begin.

About a quarter of an hour later, I had answered all the questions asked of me (well… except for the asinine ones. I disregarded those.) and the gathering began to disperse. Once Joy and I had made our way inside the house and gone our separate ways, a funny thought occurred to me… the reporters were more pleasant than the average civilians that had mobbed us at Berry's. They also asked fewer stupid questions, preferring to ask about how I had come to live in Ponyville, how I knew advanced first aid, things like that.

There were also a couple incredibly awkward questions asked, such as "so, what do you have to say to the rumors regarding your love triangle?", and "how long have you and Nurse Joy been in a relationship?" And things like that. My stomach grumbled loudly, kindly informing me that it was dissatisfied with its caloric intake for the day.

I made my way to the kitchen to scrounge up something to appease my angry gullet, only to discover that Joy was once again at least four steps ahead of me. The azure glow surrounding the plates faded as I turned the corner, apparently taking Joy by surprise.

"Oh hey… I was just about to call you and let you know I made lunch."

"And I was just coming in here to raid the fridge. Imagine that… shall we?"

Joy cracked a cute little smirk as we took our seats opposite one another at the table and ate. Well, she ate. I inhaled. Despite having thrice the portions that she had, I finished my sammiches by the time she was halfway done with hers. As I was swallowing the last bit, I caught sight of that little smirk of hers… what was she smiling at? Self consciously, I wiped my face with a napkin, removing about a quarter pound of condiments and other debris that had failed to make it into my mouth.

Still, the smirk remained as she stared in my general direction. I can't say she was looking at me because of the faraway look in her eyes, and I figured she must have been daydreaming. Relishing the opportunity to return the favor, I waved my hoof in front of her face, snapping her back to the real world.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Where in Luna's name does all that food go? You never gain a pound, no matter how much I feed you. I'm jealous." As if to prove her point, she pouted dramatically.

"I have hollow legs… I store the food for later when I get hungry."

She got a gleam in her eye that I wasn't sure I liked as she replied. "So what you're telling me is that I don't have to pack your dinner tonight?"

My jaw dropped in shock. That was the opposite of what I wanted! "What? No I never said… I like your cooking… "

Gasping quite dramatically, she placed a hoof over her heart. "So you don't like my cooking? Fend for yourself, then."

"But I… that's not what… I didn't mean… "

As my frustration and stumbling speech dug me a deeper hole to stand in, Joy was favoring me with a predatory look… I was her prey, right where she wanted me, and we both knew it.

"That's not what you didn't mean, huh? You meant it, then?"

Giving up, I crossed my arms and pouted. "… I quit. You win this one… you don't play fair."

She grinned a Cheshire grin, reveling in her victory. "Play fair? I'm not familiar with this concept."

Having exhausted my diplomatic channels, I resorted to the next best thing: making faces. I stuck my tongue out at Joy, realizing my mistake a split second too late. One day, I'll learn…

Once more, my tongue was taken hostage. As soon as she was sure her prisoner wasn't going to escape, Joy's features contorted into a caricature of wicked intentions. I could almost see the horns…

"Oh, look at this… Dave, it seems you dropped this again. What if somepony else found this, or worse yet an animal… wouldn't want this to be chewed up by some critter, now would we…? What to do, what to do… "

My supplications were mangled into an unrecognizable garble of sounds by my tongue's captivity. Joy was thoughtfully tapping hoof to chin for a moment before her wicked grin elongated into a diabolical smile.

This was not going to end well for me…

"I've got it! I'll just make sure that this is something that no little creature would want to eat… and I know just what to use!"

I'm pretty sure that there really were horns on this mare… must’ve been hidden by the mane. Behind me, I heard the sound of a cabinet opening and then closing. If my memory and sense of hearing were tone believed, Joy had retrieved something from the spice cabinet… oh no.

Shit…

"Ah, here it is. I figure that since you keep losing this, I'll just make it unappetizing to small critters. Know what critters hate? Spicy food."

FUCK.

"Just so happens that I have the perfect thing for that. Ever hear of something called the 'Ghost Pepper'?"

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKK.

"Hmmm… but how much to use… "

The label of the bottle was plain black, marred only by a small white block of text and a singularly ominous logo: a jolly roger featuring a flaming skull. The bottle floated ever closer to my exposed tongue. As Joy tipped the bottle bit by bit, the translucent orange liquid seeped nearer and nearer to the spout.

"I think one drop should be more than sufficient. After all, this is the extract of the Ghost Pepper. Much more potent."

Much more… is that even possible? My thoughts were erased in the unholy hellfire that followed. Though Joy had meant to only apply a drop, she overestimated the viscosity of the liquid and applied a hearty splash to my taste organ.

This was hotter than Celestia's flanks.

I held upon my tongue the distillation of supernovae; my taste buds played host to the fires of ten thousand dying stars.

The energy of the cosmos was flowing through me, empowering me with the wrath of the Elder Gods.

I was elemental.

I was fire.

I was the goddamned Dave-ferno.

And then my head burst into flames. Literally, it burst into flames. My mane and my tail transformed into ribbons of fire, burning deep cobalt with emerald flecks at the tips of the flames. My entire coat morphed into something like a charred bit of timber, the cracks in its surface emanating a cherry red glow from the heat within. My wings had become a skeletal caricature, a skin of fire taking the place that my feathers had once occupied. The floor burst into flames where my hooves made contact, my iron shoes melting and dribbling onto the floor. The window exploded from the heat and the paint was peeling from the walls.

The power of the stars flowed in my veins, invigorating me as nothing before ever had. My blood was molten tungsten, my heart was a self-perpetuating fusion reaction, and I could hear the voices of the Elder Ones calling me forth to my one true calling: Destruction.

I destroyed the wall of the house as if it was never there, its will to stand entirely overwhelmed by my will to knock it down. Stepping forth into the sun, I could feel its inadequacy, its pitiful power paling in the glare of my own. This entire world was pitiful under the harsh light of true power… it was an insult. How dare something so weak exist in the light of my glory? It could not, and it would not. I would cleanse this blemish from existence.

I took to the air with a single beat of my wings, igniting everything in the vicinity with a wave of cobalt flame. I hovered high above the town and watched as the eldritch flames spread with unnatural swiftness. This would not do, not at all. The fire needed to be… hotter.

Even as I thought it, the flames six-tripled their size, melting glass and rock alike.

Much better.

I swooped into a steep dive, the air around me crackling with raw power. I pulled up just before striking the ground, leaving a trail of molten rock in my wake. Struck by an idea, I pulled into a steep climb and rocketed skyward. In mere moments I had ascended to such a height that I could almost see the curvature of the planet. Leveling off, I flew towards the horizon for a second before inverting and plummeting straight towards the ground. I poured on as much power as I could, gaining speed at an incredible rate.

I was going to end this planet with a bang… a sonic flame-boom. The Mach cone was forming around me and rapidly shrinking, and any second now I would shatter the barrier and bathe the world in apocalyptic immolation. Almost… there…

An icy pang pierced me to the core, shattering my concentration. The Mach cone destabilized as I decelerated, soon collapsing entirely. I spread my wings to catch myself and slow my fall, but another icy stab tore through me and destroyed my muscular coordination. And just like that, I was a pegasus who couldn't fly, falling to his death. Well… this was ironic. I closed my eyes as the ground rushed up to meet me, waiting for the inevitable impact.

I awoke with a jolt to the sight of a distraught Joy looking down at me. Godammit. Of course I wouldn't be turned into an eldritch force for cosmic annihilation… that was way too damned cool to actually happen to me.

"Dave? Are you awake now?"

I wanted to say something witty to that, but it was at this moment that I became acutely aware that my entire mouth was full of magma. You know, no big deal. Thankfully, Joy was a pretty sharp mare, and before I knew it she was force feeding me about a half gallon of ice cold milk. That… that hit the spot. The fire inside died altogether as it was quenched by the vitamin D enriched elixir.

"Thank you, Joy. Much better… what happened?"

"Well… I accidentally gave you a bit too much of the spicy stuff. Then you kinda passed out and flailed around for a bit. And after that, I just grabbed some milk and figured I'd wait it out. The label said this happens sometimes, and gave instructions on how to deal with it."

"Well… dang. Did my head at least catch on fire or something cool like that?" I struggled to a sitting position, feeling the dampness of sweat upon my brow.

"You got the hiccups."

My shoulders slumped. Of course. "Damn."

"Well, you might as well catch a shower now… you are a sweaty pony. And smelly, too. Your shift starts in two hours, so you should probably hurry."

"Alright, I'm on it."

I set off to shower before work, all the while thinking about the hallucination I'd had. Why would I want to burn this place? So far, I was loving everything I'd seen in this town, just to varying degrees. Why would I want to destroy such a perfect place? It just didn't make sense to me… I could tell this was something I'd be thinking about all day. Having freshened up, I donned my saddlebags and went to the kitchen to grab the sack lunch that Joy had prepared for me (despite her previous claim that she wouldn't make me one) before heading out. Stepping out into sunlight that was a lot warmer than I remembered, I set off towards the clinic.

Day shift was a helluva lot busier than night shift, and I had even more crap to do aside from the basic duties as I was continuously interrupted to clean small messes. The other ponies on day shift helped to offset the additional workload though, so it was never too excessive. In no time I had fallen into a sort of a rhythm, bouncing from one task to another with an almost zealous fervor. I got so wrapped up in the here-and-now that I almost worked through the chow break. The only thing that saved me from going hungry till I got off was a sharp jab to the flank, delivered by a yellowish colt named Sweeps. I’d only met Sweeps once before, and that had been at the Janitors’ office at the start of the day. I passed him when I walked in, as he walked out. I figured we were both looking for the same pony: Brass.

Once I had been briefed on my day-to-day duties by the boss, I’d set to work, forgetting about the colt until he jabbed me in the kidney. Before I even had a chance to inquire about my assault, he nodded his head down the hall, indicating I should come with him before he turned and walked briskly away. Quickly shoving the rag I’d been cleaning windows with into my jumpsuit, I trotted quickly after him to catch up. Soon as I’d caught him, I spoke up.

“So, what was the kidney punch all about?”

Without looking back he gave a brusque reply. “You almost worked through chow. Couldn’t have that happen.”

I nodded in comprehension, a gesture that was lost on the back of his head. “Thanks. I am pretty famished… ”

He scoffed. “Didn’t do it for you. Brass would’ve had my horn if I let the new guy work through chow on my watch.”

Horn? I didn’t see any… oh, there it is. It was hidden behind his mussed up orange mane, and so small that it could have been a tumor. I figured that it might be a sensitive subject for him, and since he was already in a less-than-pleasant mood, I figured I’d avoid mentioning it in future conversation. In the meantime, I wanted to try and learn some more about this gruff fellow, seeing as how he was likely in charge of me.

“So, Sweeps. Where are we headed?”

“Break room.”

“The one by the lobby?”

He growled his response with far more animosity than I'd expected. “No, that’s for the medical staff only… if I catch you in there, I’ll dock your pay an hour. Janitors have their own break room.”

Ass. Right then, my brain was telling me to shut up and not antagonize this jerk, but I've never exactly been what you call a smart pony. “Even if Joy invites me to have dinner with her?”

It hadn’t happened yet, but it could… my mental machinations were ended abruptly as Sweeps stopped in place and pulled an immaculate about face to look me in the eyes with a menacing glare.

“Just because you fell from the sky and Nurse Joy took pity on you doesn't mean that anypony else will, nor does it permit you to drop their respectful titles. You will not call any of the Medical Staff by their first name; you will address them as Doctor or Nurse, as appropriate. Consider this your only warning. It happens again, you lose an hour’s pay for each occurrence. Got it?”

Cock juggling clown rapist…

“Roger. Anything else, Sir?”

At this, Sweeps scowled harder still. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to see his face become stuck like that…whatever. This colt wants to play reindeer games? Okay, I dig it. I’ll play your games, but I’ll bet you that I win. Instead of answering my question, Sweeps just walked away.

Well then.

I followed him to the break room… if it could even be called that. It was nothing more than the extra space in the water heater enclosure, with only a few chairs and a flimsy table to indicate that it served any other purpose. We ate in silence, save for the scoff Sweeps gave at the bagged lunch I pulled from my saddlebags. You jelly, Ass? Yeah, he jelly. Where I had a hoagie stuffed with delicious plant material of assorted varieties and a side of fresh fruit, he had a plain BLT and a soda. By BLT, I mean that his sandwich was comprised solely of Bread, Lettuce, and Tomato. Even though he was an ass of epic proportions (I’m sure a bard somewhere has a ballad about him), I still felt a bit ashamed of how much food I had compared to him.

As a peace offering, I tore the hoagie in half and offered half to him, saying something about how I wasn’t going to eat it all…which was a bold-faced lie. Perhaps he was just having a bad day… I didn’t want to believe that he was a bad pony based off of our only interaction thus far, and I wanted to attempt to be at least civil to him.

Well, these notions of civility went out the window with a fucking quickness at what he did next. With a swipe of the hoof, he knocked the peace offering from my hoof and sent it scattering across the floor.

“I don’t need or want your charity.”

My eye began a’twitchin. Taking a deep breath, I slowly retracted my hoof, if only so it would be that much less tempting to choke him to death with it. I could see now that this was not a matter of professionalism. No, this was personal, and doubly so for me. I had offered a part of the lunch that had been made for me by a special somepony to one who had less than I, and out of spite he wasted it so that neither of us could enjoy it. There are some things you just do not do in civilized society, and greeting an honest attempt at peace with unabashed spite was one of them. Unfortunately, so was murder… there goes that plan.

I packed up my un-eaten chow with exaggerated calmness. This was not to taunt Sweeps or to provoke a reaction from him, but was just an outward indicator of my massive internal struggle not to strike out at him in any way. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose my cool in response to his provocations. Over and over in my head, I just kept reminding myself that he was not worth it. No reason to start a ruckus and give him the satisfaction of riling me up like he wanted. Instead, I left without a word or even so much as a glare.

In the hallway, I took another deep breath to try to let go of as much stress as I could. I turned a corner to be out of sight and took a series of deep, slow respirations, feeling the immediate and irrational hatred leave me. Ironclad resolve flowed in to take its place, and I knew what I had to do to win. All I had to do was perform my job and keep my mouth closed. Suck it up and drive on, something I had honed my skills at through years of practice.

I tackled my tasks with renewed vigor, driven by my burning desire to outshine this bag of ass that was my boss. By the time my shift was nearing its close, I had already finished every one of my duties and had taken to cleaning random things to fill the time until I got off. I decided it would be a good idea to check The Board to see what my schedule was like for next week. Starting tomorrow and going through the next two weeks, I was a regular nine-to-five pony. I could work with this… but there was something else that caught my attention.

I get paid on Friday.

Grinning as I returned to work, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my first paycheck. The rest of my shift flew by in a blur, and almost before I knew it I had accomplished two things: first, I’d developed a solid plan to spend whatever bits I made; second, I had scrubbed half of the clinic to a shine. I was on my way out of the clinic to do a bit of comparison shopping when I heard a lovely voice call out my name.

“Dave! Wait up!”

I turned around with a smile just in time to be tackled into a hug by Joy. She seemed in a better mood than usual, and that was really saying something. I returned the embrace for a second or ten before we broke free.

"What's up, Nurse Joy?"

Joy looked momentarily baffled at this, thought she only hesitated a second before replying.

"Remember the rescue last night? Of course you do. Here's the news: Mayor Mare is holding a ceremony in your honor to… well, to honor your heroism. It is going to be held this Saturday at the Town Hall. Aren't you excited?!"

I had to close my gaping mouth manually. "Actually, I'm slightly overwhelmed by this. Let me guess: it is going to be a small, simple celebration with myself and a dozen of my closest friends?"

"Not even close. From what I've heard, it should be almost as big as the Summer Sun Celebration."

Dang… my ego was going to love this, but the rest of me was a bit hesitant to be the center of that much attention. What would I wear?

"I was afraid you'd say that… "

"Don’t worry, scaredy-pony. I'll be right next to you the whole time."

You don't know the half of it…

"Okay, I trust you. I've got a few errands to run, but I'll see you when you get home, m’kay?"

"Alright, I'm working late tonight, so don't wait up. I would say I'll try not to wake you, but I don’t think that'll be a problem, the way you sleep."

"Indeed. I'll see you in the morn, then."

"Unless I see you first, Dave."

At this, I gasped theatrically and held a hoof to my mouth in shock. "We shall see who sees whom first! Also, when are we going to be on similar shifts? I want to get back to our plan of working out together."

"This should be my last swing shift for a while; we should have the same schedule starting Wednesday."

"Alright, sounds good. See you tomorrow."

"Bye, Dave."

Once more, I was on my way out of the clinic, though this time my egress was actually successful.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I managed to successfully navigate to the flower shop from my first day in town, finding it without much trouble at all. Inside was a light green mare with a darker green mane, the same pony that had been working the night I bought the rose. Spying her name tag, I called out to her by name.

"How's it going, Flora?"

"Not so bad, and yourself? Wait… I know you! You're that pony from the paper, the one who saved Derpy!"

I rubbed my mane nervously. "Well… yeah… "

I was running out of ways to downplay these notions of heroism while not belittling Derpy's life. I didn’t want to be known as a hero… I was just in the right place at the right time.

"Well, what can Flora do for you, hero?"

I winced a bit at the word 'hero'… "I… I don't deserve that title. One who gives their life for their friends or family, who dies for what they love… that is a hero to me. Me? I just applied training in an applicable situation. I did what anypony would do, it's just that I had the training to do it right."

Flora rolled her eyes. "Blah blah blah. Be humble all you want, you're a hero. Derpy is a beloved member of our town, and thanks to you she is still around to brighten our days. But back to business, what can I help you with?"

"Well, a week ago I came in here and bought a beautiful azure rose. I wanted to order a dozen of them for pickup on Friday… what would that cost?"

"The Aurora Blue? Those are rather pricey and hard to come by, and getting a dozen by the end of the week will be no small feat. I can do it, but it will be expensive, even with the discount I'm giving as a thank you for Derpy. The best price I can give you is forty bits."

"Forty bits? I paid sixty for the ONE rose… "

"Yes, and that was before you saved the life of a friend of mine. Forty each is what it costs me to get them, so I'm not making anything on this. Consider it a favor."

I scrunched up my face, doing math on my hooves. "E… each? But that's… forty… twelve… carry the one… divide by pi… one point six one eight… seven six two by fifty-one… that's a whole lot of bits!"

"Uh… yeah. Like I said, they are expensive and hard to come by, so that is the best price I can do for you. Anything less than that and I'd lose bits. And for special orders like this, I require half down before I place the order. Two hundred and forty bits before I even write the invoice."

I scrounged around in my saddlebags of infinite storage (they seemed that way, anyways… I still hadn't filled them up) and finally withdrew my coin satchel, which I deposited on the counter. Flora scooped up the pouch and tossed it in the air a few times, evaluating its weight. Apparently satisfied, she opened it up and poured it into the dish of a balance beam scale, adding counterweights to bring it level. She fiddled with the weights for a few moments, a scowl growing on her features as she added and then removed various weights in an effort to balance the scale. Hoofing her chin in contemplation, she remained motionless for a second before she ended up riffling through the coins.

With a triumphant "Aha!", she flicked a bit of debris out of the pile. Looking it over once more and finding nothing, she once more began adding weights before finally bringing the beam into balance.

"Well, right here you have just shy of three hundred bits. Two eighty-four, to be exact."

She scooped out a small portion of the golden trinkets and adjusted the scale, removing a few more bits one at a time until the scale was once again level.

"I've got two-forty here, so the rest is yours. I'll start the invoice while you put those away."

By my (terrible) math, I had forty-four bits left. Well… I was a bit less wealthy than I had anticipated, but over all I was actually ahead of budget. I was figuring on paying at least fifty percent more for the flowers, so I was that much farther ahead. Once I gave a hoof print signature on a few order forms and secured my copy, I headed out the door with a grateful wave and salutation to Flora. One down, three to go.

My next destination was one that would either be a bore, tremendously painful on the brain, or an absolute riot of comedy.

I was headed to Sugarcube Corner.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I drew near the confection-themed shop and paused a moment to take the last peaceful breath that I was likely to get in the immediate future. Composed, I made my way to the threshold of the building. I went to push the door open with my hoof, but it never connected; the door had vanished. As a matter of fact, everything had vanished only to be replaced with a strangling mass of pink… pinkness…

I couldn’t breathe, and I could barely croak a supplication for release.

This is how I die.

Just as the lights were going out on me and I was wishing the world a fond farewell, the pink pony who was constricting me to death released her death-grip and began to talk a mile a minute, though I understood none of it and held up a hoof to stop the onslaught as I tried to remember how to lungs.

Instead of stopping, Pinkie just rolled on in her ramblings, giving my hoof a solid tap with hers.

And just like that, I brohoofed Pinkie Pie. Well, I was brohoofed by Pinkie, but close enough.

I finally caught my breath well enough to pick up on what was going on, and finally tuned into the conversation Pinkie was having at me (not with me, mind you… that would imply that I had input). Popping into the middle of the conversation was disorienting since I had no idea what she was talking about, but I had the odd feeling that I wouldn’t be much better off even if I had been listening from the start.

"… and then Twilight came out of the library and asked me what I was doing, then she told me 'Pinkie, get out of this tree, you are not a woodpecker' which was fine by me because my head was hurting by then."

"Uh… sure. Say, you work here, right?"

So, this was my plan: no matter what kind of off-the-wall shenanigans Pinkie pulled, I would not fall prey… I would stay focused on the task at hand and stay on track until the order was complete. I knew this plan was pretty much guaranteed to fail, but I felt better having at least tried. Pinkie responded to my question as Pinkie does everything: in an unpredictable manner. In this case, it was in a helpful manner.

"You betcha I do! I work for the Cake's as a Confectionaire Extraordinaire. What can I do ya for?"

And, cue the double take… perfect! Gathering my thoughts again, I pressed on in the quest to complete my order.

"Actually, I wanted to order a small box of your tastiest chocolate… something like two dozen pieces of assorted variety."

"Oooh. Date-night special it is!"

Visions of roofie-laced chocolate popped into my head…

"I'm sorry, the whatnow?"

"The Date-Night special! For impressing that special filly or colt, “special” spelled El-Oh-Vee-Eee-Arr… everypony loves chocolate!"

"Erm… right. So, I'd like to place an order for the 'Date Night special'… "

Man, I felt creepy just saying that out loud… I expected it to come in a brown paper bag or something… Pinkie seemed oblivious to the sketchy nomenclature of the treat, and immediately turned on her heels and bounced away through the threshold of the confections shop. A bit thrown off by the sudden movement, I scrambled to catch up to the springy mare. Her calves must’ve been strong enough to break diamond… there is no way she could just… bounce like that. I caught up to her when she came to a stop behind the counter, somehow hurtling herself over the counter without hitting her head on the roof or exerting any additional effort… or even opening her eyes.

How? Pinkie Pie, that's how.

"Can I pay now and just pick the goods up on Friday?"

"Pick up the goods? Are you leaving the bads? After that one time with Applejack we added a quality control measure to our products. Never again will we serve Baked Bads… Only Baked Mediocres and Baked Amazings."

"Let me rephrase that: If I pay now, can I come back on Friday and pick up the chocolate I paid for?"

She nodded vigorously. "Of course, silly pony. Just remember to bring a receipt to claim your chocolate."

I nodded, making a mental note to keep track of the receipt for once. “Alright, can-do, Miss Pie. How much is the Date Night Special?”

“Well, since you’re a handsome colt, 50 bits an hour after nine PM.”

What. “I’m sorry? I don’t think I heard that right.”

“It’s 50 bits an hour after nine PM. So if you pay before ten, it is only thirty, since I won’t have to wake up.”

“… Thirty bits, then?”

Pinkie shook her head so hard I thought it would pop off. “No, silly pony. Thirty bits now, fifty then.”

Oh Celestia, my brain… “All right… well, here’s thirty bits.”

I counted out fourteen bits and handed the rest to Pinkie. In one motion, she scooped it up and… shoved it in her mane. In her mane? What?

My confusion turned to outright shock as a pair of purple eyes opened in her mane. The owner turned out to be none other than Gummy, who proceeded to stick his head out of his poofy pink perch. The adorable green gator yawned deeply, revealing a pile of gold on his tongue. Well, I suppose I know where Pinkie stashed the bits…

My train of thought was derailed once more as Pinkie thrust a slip of parchment upon me, nearly giving me a paper-cut on my eyeball.

“Here you go, Coltsanova. See you Friday, and Saturday!”

Saturda-oh. The Mayor’s celebration, thing… I’d almost forgotten about that. “Okay, Pinkie. See you then, have fun. Bye!”

I ducked out of the shop and set off towards my last destination of the day: Rarity’s.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I approached the shop, lights glowing from within silhouetting a pony’s shape on the sheer curtains. I could hear a distinct voice from within, though nothing specific that she was saying. Drawing myself up with proper posture, I rapped thrice on the door.

“Just a moment, please.”

The door swung open, and at first I was taken aback… there was nopony there. I stared in shock for a second before the sound of a throat being cleared caught my attention. I looked down into the eyes of a mildly bemused Sweetie Belle as she held the door.

“Evening, sir. Rarity’s busy right now; can I help you with something?”

“Well, actually, I’ve come for a fitting… can you-”

The rest of my question was cut off by another call from within the Boutique.

“Sweetie, see them in and seat them in the reception area, I’ll be out in a moment, darling.”

Sweetie Belle hollered back, “I was going to!”

Sweetie pouted a bit at being instructed to do something she was already doing, and I could hear her grumbling something under her breath as she let me inside and closed the door. The inside of the shop was beautiful, to say the least… it was something like out of a magazine, but I didn’t have long to admire the decor before Rarity entered from another room.

I say “entered” and not “walked in” for a reason. This mare does not simply walk into a room: She makes an entrance.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, darling. How may I help you today?”

I held up a hoof, dismissing her concerns. "No trouble at all, Miss Rarity. Your lovely assistant had only just seated me before you arrived, so I wasn't waiting very long whatsoever."

"She wasn't being a bother, was she?" Rarity's tone was critical, and Sweetie’s expression was chastised.

I shook my head gently. "No, not at all. She was a fine example of courtesy and professionalism."

While this might have been a slight exaggeration based on the limited interaction we had so far engaged in, I felt the need to come to Sweetie's defense for some reason. She was displaying an admirable level of professionalism for one so young, after all. Rarity and Sweetie's reactions were so incredibly similar that there could be no doubt that they were sisters; both sets of eyes opened wide, mouths agape in shock, and ears perked up. Priceless.

Sweetie's expression waxed smug, while Rarity's waned more towards sheepish.

"Well Sweetie, it seems an apology is in order; I'm sorry I didn't give you enough credit… Forgive me, dear?"

"I forgive you, sis.” Turning to me with a beaming smile, she said “Thanks, mister."

I smiled back and replied, "My pleasure."

Her duties fulfilled, Sweetie nodded in a contented manner and retreated to the further recesses of the structure. Once the two of us were alone once more, Rarity got back down to business.

"I don't recognize you, sir; Are you new in town?"

"Well, I've only been here a week, so I suppose you could say that."

At this, a light bulb came on over Rarity's head. Literally. These unicorns are so strange.

"Oh! You wouldn't happen to be the brave stallion that saved Derpy, would you?"

"I, uh… well, yeah, I am, but-"

My further attempts to downplay the event were smothered in an embrace of immaculate white fur… so… soft… smells… so fragrant.

Being in such close proximity to Rarity was akin to huffing a dryer sheet, she smelled so fresh. It wasn't overpowering, either… it was just a very clean scent with a hint of jasmine. Did I mention she was soft? Like cuddling a cloud made from sunshine and happiness, instead of cold air and water vapor. Marshmallows were as coarse as bricks in comparison…

The clearing of a throat caught my attention.

"You can let go now, darling."

I quickly released the mare, turning beet red in embarrassment. Had I always been this creepy?

"I'm sorry. It's just that… you are really soft, and you smell very pretty."

Achievement Get! : Creeper Status. (+5)

Instead of backing away slowly and looking at me with the penis-forehead-look, she simply beamed and tossed her hair, shooting me a look like she was modeling for the camera.

"Why, thank you dear. Aloe and Lotus truly know their craft. 'Tis but one of the myriad perks of my frequent visits to the spa."

Well, that could have gone far worse. Also, I might have to go get a pair of day passes to the spa.

"I just wanted to thank you.” she continued, “for rescuing poor Derpy from her predicament. She is invaluable to this town, not just as a mail mare but also as a pony. She never misses a chance to help somepony else out. If you look, you can spot her just about everywhere, doing something or the other. Back to the topic of your visit, however. What can Lady Rarity do for you?"

"Well, as I'm sure you’re aware, there is a ball of sorts being held this Saturday, and I find myself in dire need of dapper attire, so to speak."

"Say no more, darling; I know exactly what you need. On a side note though, I don't think I've ever heard it phrased that way before, and I quite like it. I especially appreciate a cunning linguist, as refined vernacular is somewhat… lacking in this town."

I had to mentally giggle at that one… heh… cunning linguist… heheh.

"I trust your expertise, Lady Rarity. Might I make a small request, though?"

Her eyes widened a bit in terror at this, as her pupils shrank noticeably. Undoubtedly, she was having flashbacks to the pre-Gala preparations. I could almost hear the score of "Art of the Dress" playing in her mind as she relived the fashion massacre. Clearly, this had unnerved her a bit; with a gulp and a slightly wavering tone, she replied.

"C-Certainly, I want all of my customers to be completely satisfied."

Twitch.

"Well, if it isn't too much to ask, -"

Twitch.

"-could you incorporate a top hat?"

Rarity breathed a deep sigh of relief. Apparently, her definition of a "small request" was vastly different from that of her customers. Visibly relieved, her demeanor brightened considerably.

“Oh, is that all? I am certain I can accommodate that request. I must say, I feared something a bit more… drastic.”

“You know, I was considering streamers… ”

That look… I could feel the years slipping away from me…

“Hehehe… just kidding, m’lady. I should mention that my budget is somewhat… miniscule. I wish I had a hard figure to give you, but I am rather uncertain of my pay rate. Should the cost exceed what I have available, I’ll gladly pay in increments, and with interest.”

Rarity just looked at me for a moment as if I had a rather well-endowed appendage sprouting from the center of my head. Apparently satisfied that her gaze had its desired effect, she spoke up.

“Darling, how familiar are you with the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony?”

I tapped the tips of my hooves together, avoiding eye contact. “I have a passing familiarity with them… if I’m not mistaken; you are… the Bearer of… Generosity.”

As my sentence wound on, my voice got lower and lower as I realized what she had intended for me to realize. I was not going to pay a bit for this.

“It seems you are rather ‘quick on the draw’, as it were. Surely, you didn’t really think I would charge the Stallion of the Hour for his accoutrements, now did you?”

I tapped my hooves together. “It would seem so… my apologies, I meant no sleight. I just am unaccustomed to such generosity, is all.”

Rarity waved a hoof dismissively. “Fret not, no harm done. You would have been remiss to assume anything other than what you did, I was just having a bit of fun at your expense, you see.”

I gasped theatrically, a gesture that I was sure Lady Rarity would appreciate. “So, Lady Rarity played a trick? How scandalous… ”

She tossed her head in mock disgust, though the ghost of a smile was clearly evident. “No. A trick is something a mare of the night does for bits. That, my good sir, was a jest.”

I smiled again at this. “And a fine one at that. Interestingly burlesque idiom, might I add.”

She returned my gesture in kind, looking about to see of anypony else had heard. “Why, thank you. I myself find it to be a bit racy, but I am seldom presented the opportunity to implement it.”

I nodded in agreement. “Understandably so.”

Our discourse continued in this way for a good while, as Rarity measured my every conceivable angle and dimension, more than a few of which seemed a bit… intimate. The one that got me the most was when she was measuring around my wings… I was familiar with the notion that these were some sort of erogenous zone, but I had no idea just how much so. Even the slightest touch was enough to make self control… difficult, to say the least.

In an effort to keep my dignity and that of my hostess intact, I ended up thinking back to the pepper-induced hallucination… what would bring forth such images of destruction and chaos? To my knowledge, I didn’t harbor any destructive impulses on that scale… sure, I wanted to hit somepony every now and again, and I’ve thought about flipping a table a time or two, but to burn the entire planet to ashes? Was this hallucination just a product of the fiery temperament of the pepper, or a symptom of a deeper problem within me? As much as I wanted to blame the pepper, and even though it did seem like the culprit, I had no way to be sure that it was.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Right now, the worst case scenario is that the scenario was a product of my subconscious as it voiced some deep rooted issue, so that was what I had to go with.

Fuck… why couldn’t it have been a spicy dream about Joy? That would have been so much simpler… I suddenly became aware of a growing silence, and snapped out of my funk. It seemed that Rarity had asked me a question… she was waiting for a reply from me, that much was obvious.

“I’m sorry, Rarity. I seem to have drifted off. Could you repeat that last part?”

“Yes, it was rather plain that you were not paying attention. I finished measuring you a few moments ago; I was just waiting for you to notice.”

I could feel my cheeks flushing a bit. “Yes, well… I have a habit of doing that, I’m afraid.”

“Try not to do that during the banquet, darling. Somepony might get the wrong impression.”

“I’ll do my best not to… can’t have that, now can we?”

“Certainly not. I do apologize to rush you off like this, but I really should get back to work if I’m not to fall behind on my deadlines. Ta-ta for now, darling.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time my errands had concluded, two things had happened. First, my head was spinning so hard I thought it might fly away. Second, I felt a growing sense of accomplishment at everything that I had done today. This was bolstered by the fact that I had found my way through town without getting lost once, and with only minimal reference of the landmarks; I was getting better at my dead reckoning.

As I walked home, I couldn’t help but reflect on the last week and how much everything had changed. A week ago, I was a pegasus crash landing in town, almost fatally. I had no friends, no plan, and no clue what the hell I was in for. Since then, I had gotten a job, repaired a playground for foals, learned my way around town, made several friends, had a couple of disquieting visions, caught the eyes of a beautiful mare, met three of the Mane Six, saved a life, and was having a ball thrown in my honor by the Mayor of Ponyville. I had gone from a nopony to an almost household name in seven days, and those who didn’t know my name knew of my deeds.

Shit… once you lined it up like that, it was almost overwhelming. All I could hope for was that things calmed down and settled a bit… it almost seemed like my arrival in Ponyville had sent out shock-waves in the cosmic fabric and caused a slew of odd goings-on, like ripples in a pond. In time, I would come to see the full extent of these cosmic ripples, in all of their maledict resplendence.

On the way home, I passed a few ponies, some of whom waved upon recognition. My, how things change… I finally stepped in the front door before I unceremoniously collapsed into bed for a moment, so that I could remove my saddlebags before I showered up for the night. I rinsed the grime of the day off of myself, wondering what a day at the spa would be like… I resolved then and there that I would get a day pass for myself and for Joy as soon as I could. As I slipped into bed, the image of Joy in a bath robe, face covered in mud and cucumbers over her eyes popped into my head, and I chuckled myself to sleep.

End of Day 8: Monday, March 19th

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

7: The Errand

Seven

The Errand

I was roused at precisely zero seven as a direct result of my watch alarm going off, though it was not my alarm that awakened me directly. No, it was the short fall and the sudden stop that woke me up. As you may have surmised by now, I can be a pretty heavy sleeper. Joy, however, is not; nor is she particularly pleased when an alarm sounds loudly only a few hours after she goes to bed. When I failed to silence my alarm in a satisfactory period of time, she pushed me off of the bed.

I woke up when I hit the ground, quite disoriented and annoyed… what the hell was making that awful beeping sound? I raised a hoof to rub my eyes and was again perplexed as the sound grew louder. I held my hoof away from my face in my shock, and the sound faded. Bringing my hoof closer to my face, the screech was louder… farther, and it was quieter. Why was my hoof making noises like this? As I opened my eyes and stared at the offending appendage, I saw that it was blinking as well, emitting a strange teal light in strobe-like intervals.

What in the flying purple fuck is this sorcery?

Facehoof. The beeping grew louder.

I reached up a hoof and silenced my watch, the pieces eventually coming together as my brain finally began to spin. As soon as I silenced the beeping, I heard a sigh of relief from the bed (which was now somehow above me) and a rustle of covers as Joy settled back into bed. I drew myself to a sitting position and cast an affectionate glance back at the sleeping form ‘neath the shroud of covers. I was hit by a bitter wave of nostalgia for all the times I had to go to work at “o’ dark thirty” and had lived this exact scene out time and again in another life, in another world.

I felt the weight of the loss settle in the pit of my stomach like a ball of icy leaden dread. I had to do something quickly before the feeling settled in too deeply and dragged me down for the rest of the day. In a heartbeat, my mind had switched tracks entirely as I recalled my plans for Friday. I know the standard date is to show up with chocolate and flowers, go to a movie, and then discuss it over dinner… but in a world that lacked motion pictures, my options were somewhat limited. After I got off of work, I was going to have to head once more to Sugarcube corner and have a talk with Pinkie… if there was anypony in town who would know what to do on a Friday night, it would be her.

Hopefully, this meeting would be as… productive… as our last one was. Shenanigans aside, I did manage to accomplish what I set out to do, so it was a success in my book. I showered and performed my daily hygiene routine before grabbing a sack lunch from the fridge and devouring a banana nut muffin from the bowl on the counter. Muffins…I wonder how Derpy is doing? Is everything back to business as usual with her? I was pondering this as I walked out the front door, and I vowed to find out how to track her down so I could ask her myself. As it turns out, this was entirely unnecessary.

I opened eyes I didn’t recall closing, staring up at the sky as they spun in a counter-rotating motion. I think I’m gonna be sick… My vision was suddenly filled by a grey head and a huge grin, and I couldn’t help but wonder who’s eyes were more crooked… mine, or hers. As I lay there, strands of her blonde mane tickled my snout. I scrunched up my nose in an attempt not to sneeze in the face hovering over mine. Well, I failed, and SPECTACULARLY at that.

I was wracked by a tremendous sneeze; a sneeze so powerful that it curled me into the fetal position briefly. This sneeze would have felt amazing if not for one small detail: there was a mare’s head inches above mine. As I spasmed mid-sneeze and was in the process of curling into a fetal position, I head-butted this unfortunate onlooker. For years, I’d prided myself on having a head that is harder than most (I used to crack tic-tacs with my forehead…explains a lot, doesn’t it?). Today, however, it would seem that I had met my match.

My forehead connected with hers, producing a tremendous cracking sound from the force of the impact. I suppose I should be thankful that our heads collided at the thickest part and not snout-to-forehead, which likely would have severely broken something. Instead, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck… in the face. I did not see stars… I saw birds. Actual living, breathing birds were circling my head. In the wake of my probable concussion, I couldn’t help but wonder if Fluttershy was training squadrons of birds to patrol Ponyville on the lookout for head injuries as some sort of practical joke…

Wow. I might need to get my brain examined, providing they could find it. I raised myself to a sitting position and the world turned monochromatic in a crimson wave of pain. As soon as my vision stopped pulsing in time with my heartbeat, I reached a hoof up to prod the affected area. I immediately regretted this choice, as my vision once again flared like an over-exposed picture. I looked over to where Derpy had landed with deep concern… it would be terrible if I had saved her life only to give her dain bramage a couple days later. I might have laughed at what I saw if not for its implications… her eyes were staring the same way for once.

Derpy was still lying on her back, not having moved since the collision, apparently. Her eyes might have been oriented in the same direction for once, but they were not focused on anything in particular. I summoned the will to fight my way to my hooves, a laborious process to say the least. Once I was supported by wibbly-wobbly appendages well enough to move, I went to Derpy to see if she was okay.

As I drew upon her, I was a bit shocked by what I saw before me.

Derpy was smiling.

Shit… that’s not a good sign. Altered state of consciousness is an indicator of traumatic brain injury, as is altered visual acuity. I immediately began to contemplate the best way to get her to the clinic, a process that was very soon halted.

Her eyes went back a little kooky as one locked on mine.

“O-oh, hey Dave. You okay?”

Wait a second… this was no longer adding up in my head. “Uh, yeah. You? Are you alright, D?”

“Pssh, I’ve had worse from bad land-landings. You might remember one in p-particular… ”

I winced at that, but it didn’t make the pieces in my head make any more sense. “But… your eyes looked funny… I thought you might have a concussion… ”

“Are you m-making fun of me?” I almost felt like an ass before I saw her smirking at me. Dammit, was I really that gullible?

“You almost got me, there. But silliness aside, are you okay? My head is still spinning… “

She smiled up at me once more. “Guess I’m tougher… “

I nodded, more impressed than anything. “Dang… yeah, I’d say so. But why are you still on the ground? And why were your eyes oriented differently than they usually are?”

“Sometimes, you just want to stop and w-watch the clouds. Other ti-imes, you have no choice.” Whoa… that was deep.

“Alright. I like that saying, mind if I use it?” I offered a helping hoof to Derpy, though I’m not sure how effective it would be, given my current condition and all. She nodded her consent to my question as she took my hoof and got on her own four hooves. She seemed none the worse for the experience, where I might have worsened my dain bramage and certainly had a good lump to show for it.

“Well, that was interesting. Actually, I was just thinking about you before we… bumped into each other, so to speak. I was wondering how you were doing lately.”

“Well, I’m alive. Th-that’s always a plus…“

Derpy and I struck up a conversation that lasted all the way to the clinic, mostly concerning whether or not she got any time off for the accident, if she was having any lingering pain, things like that. Turns out, she had been offered a week of paid vacation to recover (healthcare here puts everything else to shame), but she had declined.

When I asked her why she would do that, I got an answer that revealed a great deal about the mare before me. She said that it was her duty to deliver the mail, that ponies were relying on her to get the job done. According to her, she never missed a day or a delivery; she was always going out of her way to be the best she could be. As we walked towards the clinic together, she gave me a glimpse of her past… and it was not very pretty.

Derpy was born Ditzy Doo to a broken home in another part of the country, though she didn’t get any more specific than that. I thought it best not to pry, and let her continue. From a young age, she knew she was a little different from the other ponies around her and despite her best efforts; she had a very difficult time trying to fit in. The most noticeable difference about her was her eyes, and the way they could never agree on something to look at. Her lack of visual acuity caused all sorts of problems, though most of them were related to fine muscle control and coordination.

One of the less obvious differences between Ditzy and the other ponies was her stuttering, a nervous tic she had acquired early in life and had never been able to shake. Because of her stutter and her wall-eyes, ponies treated her like she was slow, defective, or broken… even though she wasn’t, not in the slightest. They say “perception is reality” for a reason though, and despite her best efforts to be friendly towards everypony she met, she was nonetheless targeted as the butt of malicious names and nasty rumors. The ponies that spread these stories and rumors were looking for an easy target to make themselves feel better, and they found one.

For a bit, Ditzy was disheartened by the way she was treated by these ponies, the way they acted like she was an imbecile, despite the evidence against this. The teasing got worse as the years went on and they grew older, leading up to the darkest time in Ditzy’s life. By the time she was in secondary school, she was the only pony who was still a blank-flank, earning her yet more ridicule. One day, she went for a walk just to escape from the teasing she was subjected to by those around her. Sure, she had friends who would stick up for her every chance they got, but that just made it that much worse when she was alone.

That day had been particularly nasty, the verbal torments finally escalating and becoming physical. She had never been bullied physically before, and being shoved around by a half dozen other mares was traumatic, to say the least. Things had escalated to the breaking point and if something didn’t change soon, who knew what would have happened. As luck would have it, things would never get that bad.

As she walked in the meadow weighed down by her thoughts and fears, concerns for the future and for her own well being, something simple caught her eye. Sprouting in the center of the hoof path was a single dandelion gone to seed, covered as it was by the downy white plumes of its seeds. Seized by a sudden urge to lash out at something,anything, to dish out some of the hurt that she had received, Ditzy stomped on the flower again and again, venting her hurt. By the time she ceased, the plant was little more than green mush ground into the dirt.

She was immediately ashamed of herself for taking her frustrations out on something that didn’t deserve it, even if it was just a plant. Even as a tear began to form in her eye, she became aware of a small shape just in front of her face. Lofted by the gentle breeze that swept through the blades of grass, and illuminated by the glow of the warm summer sun, there hung a single dandelion seed. Such a frail, wispy thing it was, and yet so beautiful.

It stirred feeling in Ditzy that she hadn’t felt in a while… feelings of hope, of purpose. This seed cared not for what happened below it, it rose with the sole purpose of going somewhere new. Like bubbles in a bottle of soda, ever rising, Ditzy could feel a change taking place within herself as her Cutie mark finally appeared. It was wrong to try and fight her tormentors, to argue or complain; this would get her nowhere at best, or provoke them at worst. Likewise, Ignoring would serve no purpose as they would escalate to try and prod a reaction from her. Like the bubbles in a bottle of soda, she would have to simply rise above it, embrace their worst and move on.

They called her Derpy, made fun of her eyes, and treated her like she was stupid? She knew she wasn’t dumb and so did her friends. Who cared what other ponies think about you, as long as you know the truth? In order to truly embrace the ridicule and rise above it, TRULY rise above it, Ditzy knew she would have to do something drastic to drive the point home to those who bullied her. She would show them that they could not break her spirit.

From that day forth, she would embrace the symbol of her torment: she would take on the name Derpy.

By the time she had finished recounting the tale of her past, we were within sight of the clinic, and my headache had mostly faded. I had one nagging question though, one I had held until the end of the tale.

“Derpy? Not that I’m anything less than flattered that you trust me enough to tell me all about your past, but… why? It seems like it’s painful to talk about, so why would you dredge all that up for me?”

Her eyes focused on me for a moment as she shot me a half-lidded gaze. One thing I’d noticed was that the more she spoke to me, the clearer her speech became, until she was no longer stuttering at all. It looked like her nervous tic was all but soothed for the moment, allowing her to demonstrate her intellect.

“I see why you’d wonder that. I’ve never told anypony else about my past before now, since the ones who mattered already knew about it and the others could care less. I guess I just wanted to let you know more about the life you saved.”

I was flattered by this. “I don’t know what to say… other than thank you for sharing.”

She smiled a lovely smile. “Thanks for saving me so I could.”

I returned her smile. “No worries. Say, what’s the best way to get a hold of you on a regular basis?”

She shrugged. “Hang around the post office.”

“Really? Where do you live?”

“About two houses back from the post office, which is why I moved there.”

I just nodded in assent. It seemed logical enough. “Makes sense. Well, I’d love to hang out with you some more sometime, so don’t be surprised if I come knocking one day.”

“I’ll try not to be. Have fun at work, Dave. I’ve gotta get started on my rounds. Bye!”

I waved farewell as the grey mare took to the skies in a plume of dust, staring after her for a moment before turning and walking the last few steps to the clinic.

Well… here goes another day at work…

The day passed uneventfully, seeing as how Sweeps was avoiding me like the plague. He wasn’t even trying to be inconspicuous about it either, seeing as how there was more than one occasion where I was walking down the hall towards him when he either turned around in place and walked away or ducked into a room to preclude interaction.

It was all just as well, though… I was happy to not have to deal with his shenanigans again. My mood was conflictingly bubbly and burdened; I was giddy with anticipation for Friday, but also somewhat downtrodden by the revelation of Derpy’s past tribulations. I found it difficult to believe that anypony could treat one so sweet as Derpy so poorly… after all, wasn’t “To Love and Tolerate” part of the Equestrian Creed or something? I thought it was, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d have to look that up later…

I was cleaning out a janitorial closet (for lack of better things to do), when I stumbled upon the thing I had been searching for: a faded poster of the Celestial crest, adorned with the words to the Equestrian Creed. It struck me where I’d seen this before… When I was working on the playground equipment at the school, I caught sight of this same poster through the window of a classroom, though that one had been in noticeably better shape. There were certain elements of the Creed that struck me as familiar… Quietly, I read the entire thing out loud to myself.

“I am an Equestrian citizen.
I live each day in service to the Princesses and in service to others.
I shall treat everypony as family, regardless of relation.
I will act as an ambassador to the Princesses in all I say and do.
I will conduct myself to bring credit to myself, my Princesses, and to our nation.
In all things, I will love and tolerate.
In all things, I will strive to embody the Elements of Harmony.
In times of darkness, Laughter will light my way.
In times of need, I am Generous with all I have.
I will meet spite with Kindness, as an act of Kindness begets the same.
To my Princesses and my family, I will always be Loyal.
I will embody Honesty in all I say and do, and I will live the virtues of honor and integrity.
Whether I be a Unicorn, Earth Pony, or Pegasus; I will share the Magic of Friendship.
I vow to uphold this Creed and live its virtues for all my days,
As a member of the Equestrian Nation,
United under the Princesses in whom we trust,
Indivisible, and with Love and Tolerance for all.”

Whoa… I just motivated myself a little bit. Spooky.

Also, I had been mostly right. It DID say that, essentially, you will love and tolerate everypony. Sure, the whole thing was incredibly nationalistic and borderline fanatical, but that is par for the course with creeds… A creed (in my opinion, anyways) is intended to stir feelings of loyalty and dedication to a cause, while also acting as a set of guidelines to upholding the values of the cause. To this end, the Equestrian Creed was spot on. Honestly, I really was inspired by it and the values it sets forth. Even tossing aside the nationalistic bits, it was a pretty good basis on which to base your day to day life and your interactions with others.

Now, if only we could get everypony to actually follow it… sighing, I closed the door and returned to my duties.

I ran into Joy for the first time that day at about noon, and she initially appeared every bit as radiant as ever. As I drew nearer though, I could see that she was still pretty tired from her shift-switching, as evidenced by the small bags under her eyes that hadn’t been there before, and that her mane was a tad unkempt. Even so, she was still captivatingly beautiful. She laughed at me when I told her so, but she still blushed.

After that meeting in the hallway, I didn't see her for the rest of my shift. When seventeen rolled around, I rolled out, heading downtown to satisfy a craving that had been haunting me all day… I was going to get myself a smoothie.

Apparently, I was not the only pony that had this idea. For the first time, I had to wait in line to slake my thirst. In total, there were almost a half dozen ponies in the joint, and I recognized a couple of them. When it was my turn to place an order, Berry's false smile melted away and was replaced by a genuine one as I stepped up to the counter.

"Hey there, Flyboy. How's it feel to be a hero?"

I shrugged slightly. "I wouldn't really know, Punchy."

"Punchy? That's the best you can do?"

I rubbed the back of my neck, mildly abashed. "Well… I'm terrible at this. Cut me some slack?"

She shook her head. "Not a chance, Flyboy. What can I do ya' for?"

"About tree fiddy."

I would just like to take a moment to say that I felt damned clever right there. See, Berry wouldn’t be expecting a joke like that from me… or so I thought.

"Deal. When and where?"

My head cocked to the side all on its own. "Deal? What deal?"

Then my brain decided to catch up with the rest of my body, and I had to try and figure out a way to get my hoof out of my mouth, with a quickness.

"Um, well, you see… I can't do that… because… what had happened was… "

Oh, this was going SWIMMINGLY. Suddenly, I had an idea; the second or so in a week! A personal best!

"… I have a marefriend, so I can't. Sorry, Berry."

And indeed, I was a bit sorry. One, I was sorry for leading her on (even though she really should have known this was going to happen), and two, I was a bit sorry that I couldn't actually take her up on that. Yeah, yeah, I shouldn’t be looking when I'm in a relationship, I got it. Still, it's pretty difficult not to notice when a beautiful mare shows a distinct interest in you, especially when you aren't used to such occurrences. Berry looked resigned, as though she had been hoping against hope that there was another possibility. Her smile was still present, though it was no longer genuine; it almost looked like a wet blanket being propped up on stakes, sagging under the weight of disappointment.

"It's fine, Dave. I figured you two were going to hook up sooner or later."

Unspoken, but as clear as day even to me, was the implication that Berry had been hoping it would be "later", and that she would have had a chance at me in the meantime.

"Heh, yeah… it was pretty obvious, wasn't it?"

This was met by a strained chuckle from the mauve mare, followed by tense silence.

"Hey Berry… do me a favor?"

She cocked an eyebrow at me. "Anything, Flyboy."

That "anything" came out WAAAAAY more than a little suggestive…

Ignoring this, I pressed on as if I'd not just been propositioned. "Don't tell anypony just yet. It's a surprise for Joy before the celebration this weekend."

At this, she immediately perked up. "So, wait. You aren't actually dating Joy yet?"

I know that tone…I needed to end this now, before things got out of hoof. "Not yet, technically, -" Berry's eyes lit up and she started to speak up to interrupt me, but I kept right on going. "-but as far as I'm concerned, I'm under contract already. I plan to ask her on Friday, and in the meantime I'm operating on the premise that she will say yes."

"As if she wouldn't… " Berry let her false smile collapse in defeat, her voice perfectly mirroring her melancholy appearance.

"Don't take it personally… it's nothing against you. If I weren't with somepony… "

Dammit. That was the single worst thing I could have said. I felt like a douche-waffle for ever letting it escape my face-hole. I refused to contemplate it anymore, as that leads to the inevitable "what-ifs".

Not again.

By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I hate being right sometimes?

"Well, I don-" I cut her off by holding up a hoof.

"-Stop right there. I'm not going there, Berry. Please, don't bring it up again, okay?"

I'd never seen a pony look as guilty as Berry did right then. She couldn't even so much as look me in the eye.

"A-alright. I'm sorry, Dave. I didn't mean to insinuate… So, how about a smoothie?"

Berry used her natural talent as a female to change the subject so quickly I got whiplash, as she went from a chastised mare to a perky one in an instant.

"Wha-…oh. Yes, please. The usual."

I paid my bits and carried my beverage to one of the outside café tables, mostly so I could enjoy the setting sun, but also to have some privacy to think. This latest thing with Berry makes things… complicated. I like these smoothies with borderline obsessive fervor, but I like Joy more. I refuse to risk what I have with Joy for some smoothies, but at the same time, I don't want to forsake the smoothies if I don’t have to. Hey, have you had one of these things? No? Then shaddup and stop judging me. These things are good.

I figured the best course of action in this situation would be to gently confront Berry and ask her to respect mine and Joy's relationship. Berry is a swell mare, and I have grown fond of her as a friend, so I would hate to lose the bond we shared over something so simple. I must have either been thinking harder than I realized or else under the influence of brain-freeze, because my thoughts were suddenly derailed by the sound of a sigh coming from right next to me.

Had I not been so mellowed out by this smoothie, I might have jumped out of my damned coat. I tensed up before I realized that it was Berry sitting next to me, having somehow taken her seat with the stealthiness of a ninja. I took a deep breath and turned to face her, and she immediately began to address me.

"Dave, first things first: don't interrupt me ‘till I'm done, okay?"

How can I interrupt you if you're already done? Instead of voicing this musing and possibly alienating Berry in the midst of some sort of revelation, I merely nodded.

"Good. I wanted to apologize for what I said and did back there. Dave, I'm sorry for that, from the bottom of my heart. I know you like Joy a lot, and you make her happier than I've seen her in a long time. I'm a terrible pony for even thinking about doing something that might have come between two of my friends."

I opened my mouth to offer consolation before immediately closing it, figuring she wasn't done yet. For once, I wasn't upset to be right.

"I'm not going to sugar coat this, that's more Pinkie's thing anyways. I like you Dave, and I know I shouldn't, but knowing it's wrong doesn't make me like you any less. It's useless to deny it, so I'll just put it out there. As much as I like you, I respect you more, and cherish Joy even more than that. So I promise you, Dave, that you'll never have to worry about this happening again, and I am really hoping we can still be friends. If not, though, I understand entirely."

Wow. That was… unexpected. Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't that. I was about to start talking again when Berry continued her confession… thing. Okay, I'll wait.

"So, I've put all my cards on the table, the decision is yours to make. I do like you Dave. But I value our friendship more than that, and Joy's happiness most of all, so you'll never have to worry about this sort of thing again. And one last thing… again this is entirely up to you, but… is it possible not to tell Joy about this? I feel terrible enough about it as it is, and there's no reason to bring it up if we've resolved everything, right?"

That last supplication hung heavily in the air as the silence stretched on. I realized that Berry was done talking, and was instead waiting on a response from me. I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts before I turned to face her again, having begun to stare into the distance at some point.

"Berry, I value our friendship as well. Actually, I'd say that our priorities are on par for the most part… I value you as a friend, but I value Joy's friendship more. Nothing personal, it’s just that I've really bonded with her over this last week. That being said, I'm actually rather surprised by your actions, but in a good way."

Berry shot me a puzzled glance as she was trying to decide whether to look hopeful or downtrodden. I continued, if only to put her mind at ease.

"I guess I'm used to ponies who act significantly more foalish, but the way you stepped up and took responsibility for what you said and did really speaks to your maturity."

Berry shot me a look that could curdle milk.

"No, I'm not saying you're old, stop looking at me like that. I'm just saying that your actions reflect greater wisdom than most ponies'. Because of this, I feel like I can trust you enough to give you another chance. I really do value our friendship, Berry, and I would be remiss if I just let it slip away. To be fair though, this decision was really influenced by your apology, because of which, I feel comfortable that this won't happen again. As far as that last part goes though… that's a bit tougher. I understand your reason for this, and I sympathize with you; it wouldn't be right to ‘punish’ you for past mistakes, since they have been resolved."

I took a moment to pause and take a deep breath, both for dramatic effect and to gather my thoughts for my ultimatum.

"Even though I sympathize with you, I am still extremely hesitant to be anything less than forthcoming with Joy; especially at the beginning of a relationship, a period where you establish your trust in another pony. How would it bode for the rest of the relationship if I were to cover this up?"

"But Dave, I thought you said the situation was resolved, and that you could trust me? Why complicate things by bringing this up?"

"To be entirely fair, Berry, you're the one who complicated things. You are the one who put ME in a situation where I have to choose between being honest to my new marefriend, and potentially ruining a relationship between my new friend and aforementioned marefriend. Really, it shouldn’t even be a question of telling her; that is a courtesy afforded to you. But I am a sappy, sympathetic pony, and I wouldn't want to ruin Joy's day by telling her this tale. I'm going to need some time to think about this, Berry. Let me sleep on it, and I'll tell you what I've decided in the morning. Deal?"

Berry, who had been chewing on her lip for the entirety of my reply, rapidly jerked her head north and south, nervousness evident in each nod. She was apprehensive of my decision, and rightly so. She deserved it though, for putting me in the position to have to make such a decision. I rapidly polished off my smoothie and discarded my cup before setting off towards the last rays of the setting sun. Looking back, I locked eyes with Berry as she watched me leave from her new position behind the counter. Good… let her sweat.

Fuck… what I wouldn't give for some alcohol right now… I always think better when slightly inebriated. Unfortunately, my best bet for a reliable source of alcohol was currently staring holes in the back of my head as I walked away from her store. Just my luck, of course. Overhead in the distance, a flash of colors caught my eye. I’d barely identified the source of the colors before it had disappeared behind a cloud. That sunset had just gotten twenty percent cooler.

I walked into my home as the last rays of the sun faded to darkness, and had to do a double take. My home? Since when did I start thinking of it as my home? This was Joy's home, I just lived here.

Again, shaddup. No, they are not the same thing.

That was something for future Dave to be concerned with. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if someday he just popped out of thin air before me and smacked me in the head for dumping all these problems on him…

That would actually be something to look forward to… not so much the "getting punched in the forehead" part, but the part after that where you get to anticipate going back and time and getting retribution against Future you by taking it out on Past you. Though, with my luck, Past me would be the one to punch Present/ Future me when I went back in time to get my punch on.

Hmmm. Yeah, I think it's bedtime, I haven't had a coherent thought in almost five minutes. My brain has checked out for the day, and I should follow suit. I showered quickly, and I had a grin on my face the entire time from contemplating slipping into bed and tucking myself under that warm, fluffy sheet.

Man, if I could get a sheet as soft and cuddly as Rarity's coat, I'd never get out of bed. That reminds me, I need to get my ass down to the spa and get me some of whatever Rarity does when she is there… I would be irresistibly, huggably soft…

Yep, my brain has left for the day. Not just left, it's already driven home, had dinner with the wife, caught the game, and put the kids to bed. It was outta here.

Dinner with the wife… I remember those nights… dammit, I made myself sad. Wasn’t there something productive I was supposed to be doing? Some sort of decision? Ah, the thing with Berry.

I finished drying myself off and finally got into bed, taking a few moments to simply revel in the feeling of being off of my hooves and entirely comfy. My bliss was soon polluted by internal struggles as I tried to figure out this business with Berry.

On the one hoof, I understood her current position entirely. She had made a mistake, but she owned up to it and rectified it in an entirely satisfactory manner. To that end, it would be almost cruel to potentially destroy her relationship with Joy over something that was over and done with. Of course, this is assuming that Joy would have such a strongly negative reaction to the news… she might be angry, but I don’t really know her well enough to know if she would hold a grudge over that or just let it go. Best to prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Worst case scenario is that she entirely forsakes all interaction with Berry. Also, that would mean no more smoothies… truly; this is a terrible outcome for all involved.

On the other hoof, it would be a terrible way to start off our relationship if I hid this from Joy. Her friend had betrayed her trust by trying to hook up with me, despite being aware of Joy's feelings towards me. Though the situation had been rectified, the element of betrayal would still be there. Even so, with the situation wrapped up like it was, was it really worth it to potentially destroy a friendship (and forsake any future access to smoothies) over something that was no longer a viable problem?

The more I thought about it, the more I leaned towards not saying anything. It was a small betrayal of trust, but one that seemed to be in everypony's best interest. Mine, because I would still have smoothie privileges and Joy would still be friends with Berry; Berry's, because she would maintain a repeat customer and two friends; and finally Joy's, since she wouldn't have to deal with the pain of a friend’s betrayal.

I didn't like it, and it made me a little sick on the inside, but I had made up my mind: this would stay between Berry and me, for the sake of Joy. I'd leave a bit early for work to tell Berry about my decision.

Having further exhausting myself by all of this strenuous thinking, I drifted off to sleep swiftly, the arms of the sandmare folding me into their warm embrace.

End of Day 9: Tuesday, March 20th

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My alarm went off at zero seven again, but this time I was roused from my slumber in a far less abrupt manner. Well, okay, it was equally abrupt, but it was softer. Instead of being ejected from the bed unceremoniously, I was merely beaten senseless with a pillow until I silenced the beeping demon on my hoof. Granted, I didn't have much sense that early in the morning, but I was thrashed soundly regardless.

Once the both of us were awake and moving, the morning went quickly. I scarfed down my breakfast even faster than usual, and it was a small miracle that I didn't choke to death in the process. I had gathered everything into my saddlebags and was about to head out the door when Joy called out to me.

"Dave? Aren't we walking together this morning?"

Crap. I'd forgotten that Joy and I were on the same shift now.

"Yeah, my bad. Brain's not working just yet. I was going to head over to Berry's and grab a small smoothie for the morning."

"I think we need to have a talk about your smoothie addiction… do we need to stage an intervention?"

"I'm not addicted! I can quit any time I want to. I just don’t want to."

We both giggled a bit at that as Joy wrapped the remainder of her breakfast muffin in a glow of magic and strode towards where I stood by the door.

"Unlike you, I have the coordination to do two things at once without dying. For instance, I can eat and walk. I know, I know… I'm amazing."

"Hey, that's my line… "

"What have I told you about lying to yourself?"

She smirked at me, and I damned near stuck my tongue out at her, but I bit down before I could make that mistake again. I could still feel the burn of the peppers, and everything had tasted a little bit… off… since the incident. However, in my zeal to prevent another "Pepper Incident" I had made a miscalculation as to the exact position of my tongue, and I swear to Luna it felt like I bit the damned thing in half.

It's a good thing I was holding my tongue with my hoof, otherwise I might have had to explain a few colorful profanities to Joy, and I'm not sure she would have survived the embarrassment. Taking my hoof away from my tongue, I saw it was positively drenched in blood. As soon as she caught sight of the carnage, Joy immediately went nurse-mode and ordered me to move my hoof so she could get a better look. Based on my past experiences involving my tongue and Joy's attentions to it, I was skeptical at best as to the benevolence of her intentions. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to try and see what the damage was by feel, and it did not bode well.

I might actually have bitten off the tip of my tongue… sonofa… again, Joy told me to stick out my tongue so she could get a look at the damage. I met her with the same skeptical gaze I had given her a moment ago. She responded with an exasperated sigh.

"I don't have time for this."

That was all the warning I got before I felt my mouth being forced open. Panicking, I bit down as hard as I could, and to my credit I managed to defeat this cheating unicorn magic with brute strength. Unfortunately, my tongue was once again in the way. I opened my mouth to holler in pain when I was distracted by an icy grip on my battered tasting-appendage. Joy looked at it for a second before she sighed heavily and addressed me, her tone practically dripping with sarcasm.

"Dave, I kinda like you. I'd appreciate it if you kept yourself in one piece for me, okay? And quit being such a little filly when I tell you to give me your tongue. If I ask for it, I won't be doing anything devious with it. At least, not in the near future."

I'm pretty sure that was too direct to even be considered innuendo, but at the moment I had bigger concerns.

"Really, though, you hurt yourself more than anypony I've ever met. You're lucky you have me around to patch you up. Hold still, this is going to feel weird."

All I can really say about that is that it is an almost criminal understatement to simply call it “weird”. It was like having a mouthful of fire ants and pop rocks. This felt almost as strange as having my wings itch, though not quite as alien. In but a moment, I could taste blue. Yes, I know blue is a color, not a flavor. No, I do not have whatever-it's-called that causes some people to hear smells and taste words. I think it was just a magic-induced thing. If my guess is right, then what I tasted was Joy's magical essence. Wanna know something that I found funny as hell? It tasted like Listerine… the blue one.

The sensation in my mouth faded along with the taste, and after a couple good swallows, so too did the taste of blood. Sticking my tongue out as far as it would reach, I went a bit cross-eyed as I tried to see if I had any sort of mark from the ordeal. My inquisition was interrupted by Joy's giggling. I realized how ridiculous I must look with my tongue out and my eyes crossed like that, and I quickly retracted my tongue. My eyes, however, were not being so cooperative. I blinked a few times and shook my head, and that worked to jar them loose, and they returned to their customary orientation.

Regarding Joy with a resigned expression written across my features, I gestured out the door as I opened it for her. She was still giggling as she walked out the door. As she walked by me, she gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

I tell you what, I have been hanging around this mare for too damned long… I picked up her innate ability to imitate a tomato at some point in time, and I was demonstrating my proficiency at doing just that. I was blushing so damn hard, it felt as if my face was on fire.

Joy's giggling redoubled as I tried to fight the blush growing on my face. It took nearly a block for me to get myself under control, and it took just about as long for Joy to stifle her giggles.

"The only reason I blushed like that was because you took me by surprise… "

"Uh-huh. Suuuuree. Keep telling yourself that."

Dammit… I just can't win for losing.

We drew within sight of Berry's smoothies as I was struck by a horrible realization. How the fuck was I supposed to tell Berry about my decision not to tell Joy without letting Joy on that something was amiss? Or worse, before Berry started apologizing for things Joy didn't know about yet? That… that would not go over well at all.

"Hey Joy? Grab a seat; I'll get the smoothies, m'kay?"

For a split second, I was worried she would call me out on this, and I'd have to make up an excuse for why I was doing this. Lady Luck must have been apologizing for the rest of my life right then, because Joy didn't question it.

"Oh my, what a gentlecolt. Alright, but remember to get them to go; we have to get to work soon."

"Roger, tracking."

"Roger? Tracking who? Are we following Roger?" Joy cocked her head in confusion.

"I'll… I'll explain on the way to work, alright?"

"You'd better. I’m so lost right now… how do you function like this?"

"Do what now?"

Joy facehoofed.

Dave: one. Joy: … a lot more.

I left her at the table to try to sort her brain out from the aftermath of my latest mind-fuckery as I went to the counter, both to order a pair of smoothies and give Berry the news.

"Morning, Berry. Two smalls to go, please and thank you."

"A couple smalls with legs, got it. Anything else?"

I looked around guiltily for potential witnesses, a gesture that Joy thankfully missed, and began in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Yeah. I've decided to keep this between us. I figured it would be the best solution for everypony involved, and preserve my access to these smoothies."

"Oh, thank Celestia. Joy is one of my oldest friends, and I can't imagine how I would deal with losing her because of something like this… it would be terrible. Thank you, Dave, for making the choice you did."

"Consider yourself lucky, Berry. If not for your speech yesterday, I think this would have turned out differently."

"Yeah… well, I'm glad that's settled. Though, if things don't work out between you two, I've got first dibbs."

I shot her my best "you've got to be fucking kidding me" expression, to which she replied with an uneasy grin and a quick backtrack.

"Heh… too soon to joke about it?"

"Yeah, just a bit. I'd like to not think about that, actually."

"Yeah, I understand. I'll try to censor myself for you, Flyboy."

Another moment passed before the smoothies were ready, and in the meantime I had a revelation. While ordinarily this would have been cause for a celebration (two thoughts in the span of twenty-four hours? Unheard of.), this thought didn't really count since it was food-related. When it comes to food, I can move mountains with my bare hooves and solve a rubix cube blindfolded (don't call my bluff, just… accept it).

The problem I was faced with was one which would be of no consequence to Joy and her cheating unicorn magic, but was seriously detrimental to my smoothie consumption potential. I did not come with any cup holders since I was the Base-Model Dave, nor could I walk on three legs while holding a drink. I was struck by brilliance so hard it might have left a bruise, but that mattered not in the glare of my glorious insight. I grabbed a hoof full of straws and began to put them together one at a time, end to end, in order to create a super-straw. When Berry turned away from the blending device to present me with the smoothies, she blinked in shock for a second at the nearly body-length straw that I had whipped up.

I took one of the smoothies from Berry and pushed one end of the straw into it before tucking the cup into my saddlebag. I clenched the other end of the straw in my teeth and sucked for all I was worth. Suggestive imagery aside, I nearly gave up before I finally coaxed some of the thick smoothie into my face-hole. Behind me, I could hear Berry snickering, though this was immaterial to me in the wake of my achievement. I balanced the other drink on my back and sauntered out to meet Joy, victorious.

She viewed my contraption of straws with amusement, but refrained from commenting on it. Instead, she merely wrapped her beverage in that azure glow of cheating telekinesis and floated it to her mouth, sipping loudly and gulping contentedly. Okay, go right ahead Joy. Rub it in a little more. I sipped bitterly on my smoothie, a futile endeavor if ever there was one. Ever try to look upset while sipping on heaven in a cup? It's not very effective.

By the time we arrived at the clinic, we were running slightly behind schedule, though we were not yet late. This is exactly why I aim to arrive fifteen minutes early to everything, and I took pleasure in pointing this out to Joy. She simply shrugged and said she just thought I was OCD or something. I was a bit upset at this for two reasons: first, she had simply dismissed my incredible foresight to arrive early to account for unanticipated delays with a shrug; and second, she shrugged while walking and sipping on a smoothie. How in the fuck did she do that? How is it even possible to shrug while walking as a quadruped creature?

I wanted to try it myself, but I knew that this would invariably end up with me being on the ground and Joy laughing hysterically. While I don't mind being laughed at by one so adorable, I didn't really look forward going into work covered in dirt and dust from my failed attempt to walk-shrug. Once I get a few minutes to myself though… shit was gonna be on like Donkey Kong.

We arrived as the clinic, and just before we split to go our separate ways, Joy stopped me for a moment.

"So, you gonna meet me for lunch?"

I nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I'd love to. When and where?"

"Um… how about lunch time… at the break room… "

I get it. Stupid question, stupid answer. "Aaaand roger. See you then, Nurse."

"Dang, you forgot to explain that to me on the way over here! You're fired as pony-who-remembers-things. I'll be taking over that one."

I did a regular, non-walking shrug. "To be honest, I'm about the most unqualified pony around to do that job."

Joy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no kidding. Well, it's my job now, so you will be explaining it over lunch. Got it?"

"Yes, Nurse Joy. Tracking."

And the death-stare is a go…

I simply smiled and waved back as I set off towards the janitorial grotto to see if I had any special tasks for the day. In the hallway, I passed Sweeps and greeted him with a smile and a "good morning". He sneered and grunted in reply. Good to see you too, ass. I walked into the office and just about ran into Brass as she walked around the desk, having just finished writing some tasks on the board.

"Good morning, Brass."

"Morning, Dave. ’Fraid it's not such a good one though. On a related note, how familiar are you with steam powered High Volume Air Cleaners?"

"A steam driven H-VAC? Not at all, I'm afraid."

"I figured as much, but it couldn't hurt to ask. Since you've shown great potential the last few days by completing all of the duties for your section well before the end of your shift, I feel like you can handle a little something extra today. Grab that package for me?"

Brass nodded her head to a grease-stained object on the desk, secured (more like mummified) in a bundle of rags and twine. The oddly shaped bundle was about the size of my head, though a bit lumpier. I went to pick it up and was thrown off by its substantial heft. Trying again, I heaved it onto my back without undue difficulty. I turned back to Brass.

"Good. That's the drive component for the primary h-vac. We're running on the auxiliary right now, but it's not as efficient as this one. I need you to take it to our mech specialist, Technia. She lives a good ways out of town, so I wrote down the directions. Shouldn't take more than an hour to get there, but pack lunch just in case it takes her awhile to fix it. Questions?"

I shook my head.

"So you understand it all? Give me a back-brief."

"I take this drive component for the primary H-VAC to Technia out in the boondocks, and I need to pack a lunch in case it runs a bit long. It's about an hours' walk, but I have directions, and I should try to get back with a quickness."

"Alright, sounds like you've got a handle on this. Go ahead and head out, so you are hopefully back by lunch."

"Roger, moving."

"No, you don't have time to help Roger move. Get this done first, and you can help your buddy out on your own time."

Someday, I would learn.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm on it."

I set off before I could say something else that nopony but me understands. I quickened my pace, trying to ensure that I got back in time to have lunch with Joy. Man, I was REALLY looking forward to rubbing this in Sweeps' face when I got back… not only would I be having lunch with Joy, I would be doing it in the Nurse's Lounge. Take that, you ass.

I had been walking for about forty minutes when a couple small buildings in the center of a large clearing came into view as I rounded a bend in the trail. The area the buildings were in was oddly devoid of grass, shrubs, and trees for a good three hundred meters in all directions, the entire area having been paved in some form of crushed gravel aggregate. What really struck me as odd though was the fact that, out of the trio of structures, there wasn’t one of them that wasn't built in a bowl-shaped depression in the ground, each of which was ringed on three sides by an earthen wall. Only the fronts of the buildings were visible, and that was due to a gap in the fourth wall, the one facing me.

In the back of my mind, there was a pony giggling like an idiot. Holes in the fourth wall? Pinkie Pie has been here…

Hell, even I had to chuckle at that one.

My internal banter was cut short as I drew to within a hundred meters of the closest structure. The stillness of the clearing was shattered by the sound of a door being slammed open, and as I swiveled my head towards the sound, I saw a charcoal and crimson streak emerge from the building at a high rate of speed. The streak turned sharply as soon as it cleared the earthen wall, moving perpendicular to the opening in said wall. A moment later, the figure almost disappeared as it crouched and tucked itself into a small, blocky structure at the base of the wall.

About a dozen things clicked into place right about then. I know where I've seen buildings like these before. The ones I've seen were powder magazines, storing hundreds of pounds of explosives. The depression and the earthen barriers were designed to direct the blast wave upwards and out in the event of an explosion.

Next thing that clicked into place was the realization of why there was no vegetation out here. I hadn't noticed before, but the trio of buildings were positioned roughly in the center of a large circle of barren rock, likely to minimize the chance of a fire reaching the vicinity of the buildings, or conversely, to prevent a fire from spreading from the buildings to the surrounding area.

My next realization was the one that really got my ass moving. All of the signs pointed to the fact that this area was designed to handle explosions and/or fire. And a pony just ran out of one of those buildings as if said pony was on fire. And the door to that building was not only open, but facing my direction.

Whatever was about to happen, I was in a bad place to be.

I dropped to the ground and stayed as low as I could, trying to decide what to do next… head towards the tree line, or approach the charcoal streak?

Turns out, I didn't have very long to try and decide. The world turned an eerie green color, illuminated by a fireball so bright that it put the sun to shame. Everything happened in slow motion and in complete silence. I saw the light grow from within the building and then consume it; I clearly saw the roof fly away, surfing on the overpressure wave caused by the explosion; and finally, I saw that same pressure wave closing in on me… and closing fast. I barely got my hooves over my ears before the silence was shattered by a thunderous crash as the sounds of the detonation reached me. The blast was so powerful that I was lifted off the ground and sent tumbling for a bit by the force of the shockwave.

The green fireball rose into the sky, lofted as it was by heat that prickled my skin through my coat, even from over a hundred meters away. The fireball towered into the atmosphere, an emerald mushroom cloud creating a vacuum in its wake. Even as I slammed back into the ground and slid to a halt, once more a prisoner of gravity, a wind of incredible strength and speed was rushing to fill the vacuum, and it began pulling me backwards, towards the fire.

My hooves scrambled for purchase on the rocks, slipping uselessly across the small stones. I was being sucked towards the inferno at an alarming rate. The heat on my back grew at a seemingly exponential rate, and I swore I was either already on fire or about to combust from the intense heat. If something didn't change in the next two seconds, I'd be a very crispy, very dead pegasus.

I had an idea that would most likely leave me mild to moderately incapacitated in the near future, but incapacitated was better than dead any day. I sucked in a lungful of scorchingly hot air to brace myself in a last-ditch effort to save my own life.

I spread my wings to their fullest extent and tilted them towards the dirt to create downforce, effectively doubling or even tripling my apparent weight and allowing me to stand fast against the gale. I underestimated the efficiency of this maneuver, and I was almost stumbled under the downward force from my wings, which was easily five times my body weight. Though the nerves throughout my chest screamed in protest and pain, my wings sang as they sliced through the air. As the seconds wore on, the heat on my back and the wind sucking me towards certain death both lessened, and then faded entirely.

As soon as the wind died down to the point that I was no longer afraid of being swept away, I finally collapsed and succumbed to the screaming nerves in my chest. To my credit though, it wasn't the same pain as before, the pain of muscles tearing themselves apart; it was more of the ache of heavy exertion without stretching, a deep throbbing ache that promised hell in the morning.

I turned to investigate the scene of the explosion, and instead stood in awe, marveling at the incredible sight before me.

The mushroom cloud was a shimmering, kaleidoscopic mass of shifting shades of emerald and gold. The force of the explosion had punched a hole straight through the clouds, creating a perfectly circular patch of pristine sky. My wings twitched a little bit at the sight, earning me a slight stab of pain. I suddenly recalled what exactly it was that had drawn me here in the first place, and looked about frantically for the parcel. I was about a hundred meters out from the building when everything went to hell, and since I was currently only about thirty meters from the wreckage, that meant I should start looking in the direction from which I'd come.

Right about where I figured I was when everything went to hell, I found the drive component, apparently unscathed by the explosion. Shouldering the package once again, I set off towards the wreckage of the structure to see if there were any survivors, and hoping for all I was worth that I found nothing that was once a pony. I closed back to within thirty meters or so from the earthen wall when I heard somepony call out.

"Hey! You alright?"

Yeah, I'm totally okay. After all, it's not like I just about got sucked into a raging vortex of fire or anything… I turned towards the sound to offer my snarky comeback when my response was cut short.

"Yeah, I'm-"

Emerging from a small masonry hut at the base of the wall was the charcoal streak I had seen earlier, looking none the worse for wear.

"Good to hear it. Name's Technia, Tech for short. Techy, if you have no desire to continue living. Cool explosion, huh? It’s just not Wednesday without one, though that was bigger than most."

"Aside from me almost dying, it was pretty exhilarating. My name's Dave, pleased to meet you."

My offered hoof was shaken vigorously, and I had a moment to take in a few more details about this unicorn mare. One, her grip was as firm as any stallion I'd met, proof that she worked with her hooves quite frequently. Second, her mane was crimson and grey, the gray in her mane being a few shades lighter than her coat. Finally, her eyes… I do recall mentioning the profusion of incredible irises that abound in this town at some point in the past, and these were no exception.

To call them simply green would be an understatement on the same order as if one said "Pinkie Pie is odd", "Fire is warm", or "Dave sometimes makes bad choices". They were a vibrant emerald color that I found to be reminiscent of the mushroom cloud that had finally begun to dissipate.

The moment passed, and the shifting weight of the drive component against my tender-and-likely-burnt back reminded me of my purpose for this visit.

"Technia? I've actually come all the way out here from the clinic to see if you could repair the drive component for the primary h-vac."

"Repair it? Honey, I built the damn thing."

Whoa.

"Sounds like I came to the right mare. How long to fix it?"

"Do you know what's wrong with it?"

I shrugged, the heavy parcel rubbing in a sore spot across my shoulders. "Not a clue. I wasn't the one who pulled it; I just carried it out here."

"Alright. Let's head to my shop so I can see what I'm dealing with."

It boggled my mind a bit how… normal this mare was acting in the wake of such a massive explosion. I tried not to contemplate it too much. Maybe she was serious when she said this happens every Wednesday? It makes me wonder if it was intentional or not…

We walked past the wreckage of the building, which was still crackling and popping from the heat. I noticed something interesting about the structure as I walked past it though… all of the walls, doors, and the ceiling were gone entirely, yet the frame of the structure was intact, apparently composed of some high-strength alloy.

"Hey, Technia? I noticed that the frame of the structure is still standing, whereas everything else is completely gone. I'm guessing that the walls and ceiling are designed to break away in a blast, whereas the support framework was designed to do the opposite?"

Technia cast me a sidelong glance, reevaluating the pegasus that was trailing her.

"Pretty observant, Dave. And your guess was spot on. It's easier to replace panels that are a standard size and shape than to rebuild and re-frame an entire structure. The beams are an alloy of my own design, fortified with a bit of magic. I'm proud of this one, actually. The alloy is strengthened by the sun, absorbing its energy and storing it as magic within its molecular structure. When subjected to a great strain, like an explosion for instance, the material will obviously break down to some degree. Here's the genius bit: as the molecular structure breaks down, it releases the stored energy; energy which is then used by the structure to repair itself by way of a repair spell interwoven into the molecular structure during the casting process."

"That… that's brilliant, Technia. How'd you come up with the idea?"

"I was inspired by a piece of shrapnel that embedded itself in my fetlock as a result of a smaller explosion a few years ago. I got the piece out easy enough, and I was in the process of a simple healing spell when the idea came to me. Obviously, it required extensive explosive testing… "

She was grinning deviously as she concluded her explanation, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if she was drooling a bit. I got the same way with firearms back on earth, so I knew the feeling.

We entered her workshop, a dimly lit shack that was positively overflowing with random odds and ends. All around, there were projects at various stages of completion. We passed by a workbench with a large light overhead, providing enough light for the entire shack. There is no way that this workshop was capable of producing the intricate machines that lay scattered about… It made me wonder where they came from. We kept heading towards the back of the shop, and I figured we were arriving at our destination, since there was nowhere else to go.

Once again, I was wrong, and gloriously so.

Tech pulled a lever that was blended perfectly into the wall, and from deep below there was a loud clanging, followed by silence. About a second later, there was a soft hiss as the floor panels slid away, revealing a startlingly clean set of stairs. In the wake of the clutter of the shop we just walked through, this area seemed nearly sterile by comparison.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a short hallway that ended at a blank door. No handle, nothing. As Tech approached it, the door slid open seemingly of its own accord. Well… that was new. Apparently, Equestria has automatic doors now. As if she had the power to sense my astonishment, Tech spoke up.

"Pressure plate in the floor, calibrated to my exact weight. If anypony else who doesn’t weigh exactly as much as I do tries to open the door, it'll trigger a trap door. Don't worry, though. I've already disarmed it for you, so you can enter safely."

"Appreciate it. Seems like an awful lot of security for a workshop."

"For an ordinary workshop, yes. But this is Technia's Workshop. Some of the tech in here is a decade ahead of its time, and I can't have industrial spies or anything like that just being able to waltz in here all willy-nilly."

"Makes sense, I suppose. Hey, Tech? I have a question that's been bugging me since I got here."

"And what's that, Dave?"

What in the blazing green fuck detonated as I walked up today?

"I was just curious what was responsible for that explosion earlier. I've never seen flames like that before."

Except this one time, in a dream about an Elder God reaching down from the depths of the abyss to take me back to earth…

"I was working on a way to amplify a bit of Dragon Fire using its magical resonance, as a part of another project. My goal is to create a viable source of energy, small enough to be carried by a single stallion, yet powerful enough to power a small village. Well, I was successful… a bit too successful. The reaction cascaded out of control, but I learned a good deal about the points of failure to correct them next time. It should be ready for another test in a week or so."

So, next Wednesday then. I think I know how the test will end…

We entered a “clean room” of sorts, with tools and various nefarious-looking devices all neatly arranged on pegs jutting from the walls. In the center of the far wall was a work table with a polished steel surface, buffed so well it was just shy of being reflective. Tech instructed me to set the bundle down on the bench, and I was more than happy to oblige. My chest still ached from my stunt earlier, I was somewhat tender from the probable burns on my topside, and that damned thing was heavy after a while. It probably weighed a good twenty or twenty-five kilos.

No sooner had I set it down than it was enveloped in a soft crimson glow and unwrapped. What lay before me was some inconceivable mass of pipes and tubes of various diameters, all sprouting from a single central cylinder. The drive component was floating idly in front of Tech's face, rotating slowly. With a small "ahh" of comprehension, she reached over to a tube hanging at the edge of the bench and attached a small fitting to the end of it, causing it to emit a sharp hiss. It appeared to be a nozzle for compressed air… the rest of my thoughts were drowned out by the piercingly loud hiss emanating from the nozzle, confirming my suspicion.

After a few short bursts of compressed air in various ports on the device, a rattling sound echoed from within the device. As Tech rolled it over, she hit it with a last blast of air, causing a conglomeration of white rocks and powder to be forcefully ejected from another port. Turning it a few more times and hitting it with another inquisitive blast of air, Tech nodded in satisfaction and returned it to its mummified state.

"Dave, tell your boss she needs to clean out the water filter. Got a calcium buildup in the feeder line, and that's what caused the failure. Good as new now, though. Anything else?"

All of that, and it only took Tech thirty seconds to diagnose and fix the problem. It would take a hundred times as long to walk back to the clinic as it did to fix the component. I was struck by another notion just as I was getting ready to say my farewells.

"Actually, one last thing. Okay, I lied… two things. First, have you ever considered teaching somepony at the clinic how to do basic maintenance on the components in use there? Nothing about the secret inner workings or trade secrets or anything like that, just basic fixes and troubleshooting steps so we don’t have to cart stuff all the way out here whenever something stops working… "

Tech smiled at me. "I was actually wondering when somepony would get around to asking about that. I've got no problem with it at all, seeing as how it saves me some work, and saves you the walk."

I sighed in relief. "Awesome, I'll let Brass know, and you two can work the details. My second question is why you would let somepony like me just sorta… stroll into your lab like this? This whole workshop seems to be chock-full of secret stuff… aren't you worried I'll muck something up?"

She chuckled quietly to herself. "Dave, you give yourself too much credit. There's no way you could get your hooves on anything critical, and even less possibility of you making it out of here with it. Aside from that, if Brass sent you, it means she trusts you. If she trusts you, then so do I. Then again, she sent you on Wednesday, so it’s possible she really dislikes you… never mind, that’s not quite her style. Anything else?"

"Nope, that's all I've got. Walk me out?"

"I was going to. Wouldn't want you to activate any control measures on the way out… it's a pain to clean them up, and I really don’t have the energy for that right now."

Technia walked me out and sent me off with a wave, and I began the long trek back to the clinic. On the bright side, it was only half past ten and the weather was lovely. I'd arrive at work with plenty of time before lunch, and without breaking a sweat on top of it.

By the time I got back to work, I was a little sweaty and I was running a quarter hour behind schedule. The burns on my back were beginning to really hurt, and I kept having to slow my pace so I could adjust my burden. The last half-dozen blocks were the worst, because that's when I started sweating. As soon as I began to perspire, the salty liquid made its way to every single cut and abrasion on my burned back and reminded me what fire felt like. You know, just in case I forgot or something.

I walked into the janitors' closet and set the device on the desk as gingerly as I could, not wanting to damage one of the tubes and have to repeat my trek. Brass was at the board when I entered, but she turned around to address me when I set the drive component on the desk. She pivoted to face me, and did a double take as she got a good look at me.

"Dave? Are you okay? What the hay happened to you?"

"Wednesday. Wednesday happened."

Brass initially looked baffled, but that expression was swiftly followed by understanding, and shame wrapped up the trifecta.

"Dave, I'm so sorry. I forgot today was Wednesday, otherwise I would have gone myself." She let out a low whistle as she surveyed the damage to my torso. "I take it that the explosion today was rather large? How far away were you, twenty meters?"

"A hundred. A hundred meters out."

Brass' jaw hit the floor. Literally. She had a "Pinkie moment" and broke physics for a bit. If I wasn't in such terrible shape right then, I might have laughed. "You were a hundred meters out, and it still did this?"

"Yeah. I figured out what was happening just in time to hit the deck and cover my ears. I was blown probably three or four meters back, but when the mushroom cloud rose and the back draft flared up, I was pulled in to less than thirty meters."

Brass' jaw was no longer on the floor, but it was silently mouthing the words "mushroom cloud" over and over.

My stomach growled to remind me of my lunch date, and so I spoke up.

"Brass, I feel like I just got caught under a stampede of buffalo. Mind if I go get some medical attention and lunch? Not necessarily in that order… "

"No, not at all. Take an extra thirty and get seen by one of the Nurses. Come back at thirteen."

"Alright. Oh, one last thing. Technia has offered to teach one of us how to do basic maintenance and repair on her systems in the clinic, she just needs to coordinate with you for the training schedule."

"Really? I'd wanted to ask her about that, but she can be so protective of some of her devices, I thought it would be a bad idea to bring it up. Good initiative, Dave. I like to see that in team members."

"Team members?"

"Yes, team members. We are all part of the Sanitation and Maintenance team, and we need to work together as such to be effective. Didn't Sweeps tell you about that?"

"No, I must have missed that part. Oh, one more thing. Tech says you need to clean the water filter, calcium buildup is what caused the failure in the drive component."

I saw Brass facehoof, and it was magical.

I left on that note, wanting to end the conversation on a high note. I wandered through the hallways in the wing Joy usually worked in, and after a moment I spotted her.

She was simply adorable in her scrubs… it was just so delightfully tacky, I could feel my diabeetus growing stronger. I called out to her to let her know I would be waiting for her, and she acknowledged with a nod. My next thought was one that brought a grin to my face despite my injuries… I have a date with Joy on Friday, whether she knew it or not. I'd thought to check the schedule and I was pleased as punch to see that we both had Friday and Saturday off.

After a minute (or seven) of waiting, Joy finally emerged from the hall with her lunch in tow. Joy looked concerned as soon as she got a good look at me, but I quickly assuaged her fears.

"I'm fine, Joy. There was an explosion, but everypony is fine. I'm more hungry than hurt, though, so let's eat first."

Well… I tried to, anyways.

"A… a whatnow? Explosion? You've got to fill me in on this one."

"Over lunch, m'kay?"

"Alright, over lunch then."

Joy and I walked flank to flank, partly to take up less space in the hallway, but also because we each simply enjoyed the proximity of the other. As the icing on the cake, Sweeps came around the corner with a plunger in his mouth just as Joy and I entered the Nurse's Lounge. The look on his face was worth every second of torment he would attempt to inflict on me for this. Over lunch, I filled Joy in on the events of the morning, downplaying the explosion as much as possible in a (vain) attempt to keep her from worrying too much about me.

By the time I had finished my lunch, Joy had managed to needle the whole story out of me, despite my best efforts. She'd known me for a week, and she could already read me like a book. Well… that's gonna make things interesting in the future. While she was initially peeved that I hadn't told her the whole story from the get-go, she soon understood why I did it as I was explaining how I was almost sucked into the fire, and was forced to ask me to stop. Well… I tried to warn her.

Once we finished our lunch, Joy hustled me to an empty screening room so she could patch up all of my cuts and scrapes, so they didn't become infected. We navigated through a series of twists and turns until we arrived at what is possibly the most remote screening room in the entire clinic. She ushered me into the small room and entered behind me, closing and locking the door behind her.

Well… that's not a good sign.

Joy looked me over again, chewing her lip nervously as she assessed my wounds. She pulled up a stool and sat me on it rather roughly, before disappearing and rummaging through a cabinet behind me. I swiveled on the chair to see what she was up to, but I was immediately distracted by spinning on the chair. I didn’t give a damn how old I was, this was friggin' fun. I spun myself dizzy and then just sat still and waited for the room to stop spinning, so I could do it again. I heard an affectionate sigh from somewhere to my left. I turned to face the noise, and I was met by a mass of blue. My eyes were entirely too busy spinning in circles to focus on anything, so I just sat there and waited for them to tire themselves out.

"With you around, Dave, who needs children?"

"My thoughts exactly. Weeeeee!"

That earned a chuckle from Joy. She soon halted my fun so she could treat my wounds, something that is rather difficult to do on a moving patient. As I sat on my stool, she pulled up another chair and positioned it behind me, so that she could sit down while she cleaned me up. One thing I noticed was that her chest was pressed firmly against my back as she tended to the scrapes on my shoulders. I could feel her every breath, every beat of her heart. Her pulse steadily quickened as she bandaged me… this was a little disconcerting.

She had finished tending to my injuries (I looked like a walking advertisement for Band-aids), but she remained sitting behind me, tracing her hooves along the contours of my neck and the outlines of my shoulders. It was immensely relaxing, but at the same time I felt a familiar feeling that was growing stronger by the moment. I stretched languidly, rolling my shoulders and my wing joints a few times. Not only did this feel amazing, but it also served to stop Joy in her tracks. I stood up and walked to the door, rearing up on my back hooves and reaching my forehooves towards the ceiling, while bracing myself against the door. Despite being stretched out the full length of my body, I still felt a lingering tightness that just wouldn’t go away.

Propped up against the door in my current position, I was in the largest open space in the room, all of the cabinets being arranged on the side of the room opposite the door. I decided that this was as good a place as any to stretch my wings, and I did just that. Still leaning up against the door, I slowly fanned my wings out to their fullest extent, feeling the primaries brush up against the ceiling and the walls as they fanned. If I had to guess, I'd say that my wings were about two meters each when fully extended, a considerable span when you account for the fact that I was only about a meter and a half tall by my best estimate.

What happened next took me entirely by surprise, and made things significantly more complicated.

I felt a hoof slowly trace its way from the base of my left wing to the end of the second joint. Oh dear Luna, that felt amazing. Unfortunately, you know that they say about wings? It is true… very, very true. Almost instantly, I felt my flight muscles lock up, drawing my wings out from my sides so that they were oriented perpendicular to the floor when I dropped to my hooves.

“Your wings… they’re so soft… “

Fuck… fuckfuckfuck.

I needed to get out of this situation, but in my current condition I couldn't very well leave the room… I needed to do the impossible: I needed to think.

Man, I'm so boned… and that's just the problem… I didn't want to be, not like this anyways. Heh… if I was in this position back on earth, as a single male being seduced by an attractive Nurse, there would be no question as to my next actions. Something within me had changed when I came to Equestria, though, and not just the wings. I was a bad person on earth, and I felt like this was my chance to redeem myself for all the wrongs I'd done. I had to do better.

A touching sentiment, but the "great creator" or whatever it was called here is a sadistic bastard, and I had only enough blood for one brain at a time… and the balance of power was shifting, so to speak, though not in my favor. Then suddenly, I was struck by inspiration yet again. If you get struck by enough inspiration, can it reverse dain bramage? If so, I'd be a pretty fart smeller sooner than later.

I began to talk about one thing I knew would end Joy's… drive, so to speak.

"You know what sounds amazing right now? Fried chicken…"

Boom, headshot. I killed the mood so hard, it died to death. Like a boss.

Joy suddenly looked a little pale. "I'm suddenly not feeling so good… "

"Sorry about that, love. You know where I stand on this, and I was fighting a losing battle."

She looked at me with an expression that was hard to place. "Well, I think you made your point. I'm… I'm going to get some fresh air."

Now I felt kinda bad… maybe that was too low of a blow.

"Hey, Joy?"

She seemed more than a little queasy as she turned to look at me. I closed the distance between us and stood side by side with her, forcing my still-mostly-rigid wing to drape across her in an approximation of a hug. I used my wing to squeeze her a little, like a tight embrace. Using my other wing, and demonstrating finesse I had no idea I possessed, I used a few feathers to raise her face to mine. Our eyes locked for a comfortable eternity, and almost of their own accord our lips met in a tender kiss. We held the kiss for a moment before separating, as we each did a decent impression of a tomato. Joy was sporting a big, goofy grin, and I'm pretty sure mine was just as big and goofy, if not more so. Joy broke the silence.

"I… I liked that. Can… can we do that again?"

"I don't see why not… "

Our grins got bigger still, if such a thing was even possible. I felt like my face was going to break. Once more, our lips met, though this time the embrace lasted longer still. If I was red before, I had to be glowing now. This time, it was I who broke the silence.

"So, Joy… got any plans for Friday night?"

She looked at me with the most adorable little smirk I'd ever seen and raised one eyebrow.

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"Well, would it be possible for me to persuade you to accompany me on a twilight picnic?"

She pretended to be surprised. "Why, Dave… are you asking me out?"

"Indeed I am, my dear. Would you like to go out on a date with me this Friday?"

She scoffed at the notion. "Is that even a question? Yes, of course I'll go with you. I was going to give you another week before I asked YOU out."

I grinned like a fool, from ear to ear. "Then it's settled! I'll pick you up Friday, at seventeen on the dot."

Joy looked a bit incredulous at this one.

"Pick me up? But… we live together. How's that going to work?"

"Well, I have a few errands to run before then, so I'll meet you at the designated time and place. Sound good?"

"Sounds perfect," she said with a demure smile.

We shared another embrace and a kiss. Yeah, I could get used to this.

It took another few moments for me to get myself under control enough to leave the room without arousing anypony's suspicions. Granted, this likely would have been a lot faster if I didn't have Joy snuggled under my wing, but I wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything. I suppose it was the rough equivalent of draping your arm over the one you adore, though it was a bit more intimate, given the nature of the draped appendage.

Once we made our way back to the main hall, we went our separate ways to arrive at our respective places of duty. I walked into the janitorial office at precisely a quarter till, this huge grin still painted on my face. I had a friggin marefriend. How awesome was that?

I arrived in the office to discover that it was empty. I pulled up a chair to wait for Brass to show up, and I had barely taken a seat before she walked into the office. I hopped to my hooves as a sign of respect (a habit I would likely never break, not that I minded). As soon as she saw me, Brass spoke up.

"Ah, just the pony I wanted to see. I sent a letter to Technia before lunch asking about the training thing, and I wasn't even finished with my meal before that grey pegasus mare dropped by with her reply. And I mean that she literally dropped by, as in she almost took out the couple dining next to me. I thought it was hilarious, but they had a different opinion. Regardless, Tech is willing to start training somepony as early as Monday. She also mentioned that it would take about a week to teach somepony with a working knowledge of mechanical theory and a good work ethic, and a lot longer if they are unmotivated or unskilled. So, I want you to train with her and learn everything you can about the systems here in the clinic, that way if anything ever breaks we can just call you instead of trying to get a hold of Tech."

"Okay, I think I can handle that. Not trying to get out of the position or anything, but why not Sweeps? He's been around longer than I have."

"He has certainly been here longer, but he lacks your motivation, drive, and ingenuity."

"Well, I'm flattered. But who is going to handle my portion of the duties here while I'm learning from Tech?"

"I've got that covered. There's a new clinic being opened on the other side of town soon, so we might as well train a couple extra ponies how to do this job in a medical environment before it opens. That way, they will have at least some sort of experience when it becomes operational instead of starting from zero."

"Well, alright then. Sounds like you have all the angles covered, which explains why you're the boss. Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you, Brass."

I caught sight of a predatory glint in her eye. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but there was no mistaking what I saw. Fuck me running, not her too! Was there something in the water? Must be, because even in my most egomaniacal flights of fancy I wasn’t this popular with the mares. And of course this would happen to me as soon as I found a truly incredible mare who wanted to be with me. But if we ever broke up for some reason, I knew there wouldn't be an available mare in all of Equestria who would want anything to do with me.

Madness! Madness, I say!

I excused myself from the office and got busy, attempting to catch up on my duties. I had a good four hours to finish all of my tasks, but even that would be cutting it close. I threw myself at my tasks to the exclusion of all else, and my zealous motivation allowing me to finish the entirety of my tasks without a moment to spare. I had just enough time to pack away the last of the cleaning supplies and go to the office to hang up my jumpsuit before the clock struck seventeen. I met up with Joy in the lobby and we walked home flank to flank, so close together that if not for the vastly different color of our coats, we might have appeared to be a single pony… from a distance… if you squint really hard. Bah, that's not the point.

As we walked home, I gave Joy a brief rundown of the important things that had happened since lunch was over… needless to say, the list was a very short one, consisting solely of my upcoming training with Technia. Joy's day was a bit more eventful than mine, regardless of how mundane she thought it was.

In one day, she had helped to treat almost two dozen ponies with ailments that varied from the common cold, to a particularly strange case indeed, where a colt somehow managed to get his hoof stuck in a bottle of mayonnaise, of all things. I tried not to think about how that was possible, it made my brain hurt to contemplate it.

By the time we walked into the house, Joy had just finished recounting her tale of Mister Mayo Hoof. Our activities towards the end of lunch had left us both in a good humor, and I noticed that we would burst into a giggling fit at the slightest provocation. This in and of itself was immensely amusing, and once I told Joy about what I'd noticed, we both laughed that much harder, since we were laughing at the fact we were laughing at such silly things.

You know that overly affectionate couple that is just so completely in love that they have to go around and be all smoochy everywhere, at all times? Yeah, well, we were that couple right then. Joy was in the process of preparing some form of epic victory feast to celebrate, though it struck me as a slightly odd thing to celebrate, my asking her out. Every few minutes I would get off the couch, or stop chopping veggies, or whatever I happened to be doing at the moment to go over to her and give her a nuzzle, a peck on the cheek, a kiss on the lips, or more often than not, all three.

I have no recollection of exactly when I had become such an emotional drip, but in the back of my head, even I could see that this was a bit over the top. In my defense though, she was an excellent kisser, and it was so nice not to have to try and hold back any affection whatsoever. I've always been affectionate, and this is doubly so when I'm in a good mood, and even more so when I'm excited about something (not like that… that leads to a different form of affection), and when you added them all up, I was a veritable affection dispenser.

I can't help it; I have a tendency to get carried away sometimes.

By the time dinner was served, my face was on fire from smiling so damned much, which I (quite ironically) found to be utterly hilarious. Dinner consisted of a heaping serving of salad with some fancy-sounding lettuce, bits of fruits and veggies sprinkled in it and served as a side, and to top it all off was strawberry ice cream for dessert. That night, we ate like kings. Or rather, as Princesses (shaddup), as the case may be.

I was still giddy from the events of the day, which was one of the best days of my life overall up to that point, and bar none the best day in Equestria so far. I cannot fully express how much I was looking forward to an entire lifetime with this mare. Go ahead; tell me I'm rushing into things, that it's still puppy love, we don’t really even know each other, blah blah blah. I know, I said the same things to myself a thousand times that night, urging myself to calm down, to take it slow. No matter what I tried though, I couldn't shake the vision of us growing old together, the cries of a foal, the joys and suffering of parenthood. I looked forward to being a better dad than I had been on earth, if for no other reason than to try and atone for my emotional distance from my son.

That night Joy and I slept with our limbs intertwined, lying face to face, having drifted off in the midst of a conversation. Well, she drifted off in the middle of it; I was still pretty much wide awake. Her sleep schedule was still a bit bonkers due to her shift-swapping, so I didn’t mind it. As she drifted away into the unknowable realms of her mind, I just lay there and tried in vain to drift off into my own dreamscape. I remember staring at her sleeping form and swearing on my life and everything I held dear that no harm should ever befall her so long as I drew breath. Vaguely, I realized that this was all moving way too damned fast, that I wasn't so much falling in love as plummeting recklessly into it.

The perfect example of this was the fact that I even thought about the phrase "love" at all. I was never one to go around and throw the L word around all willy-nilly. To me, doing such a thing lessened its significance and somehow made the whole thing almost dirty. Love was something special, something I'd never had the capability to express, either in words or via actions. I had a vague concept of what it was to love and to be loved, but I'd never felt that way about anything. Until now, that is.

I really and truly believe that being in Equestria had changed me somehow, putting me more in touch with my emotions and those of the ponies around me than I had ever been before. I was feeling things I'd never felt before, and it scared me a bit. I didn't want to be vulnerable. I didn't want to open my heart to somepony for the first time and live to regret it. I was terrified of this growing emotional attachment, but at the same time, it was exhilarating.

The little pony in the back of my mind was freaking the hell out, thrashing against his bonds for all he was worth to escape the madness. The voice in my head was screaming at me to stay distant, don’t get too close. Deep down, I think I was truly afraid to get close to her, to lower my walls and let her in. Another voice rose to counter the first, simply stating that a life without love isn't worth living. Love is a risky business.

I don't recall how or when I drifted off to sleep, but at some point I found myself walking down the main avenue in Ponyville. The sky was an ominous gray twilight from horizon to horizon, darkening to pitch black directly overhead. The entire scene was a monochromatic hell. The darkness overhead almost beckoned me to look at it, and though I only stared into the blackness for a second, I'd never do it again. The blackness was so absolute that it was impossible to judge the distance of it. I was immediately struck by the notion that by staring at it, I was inviting it, and I could almost feel the blackness pressing down around me, suffocating me.

I tore my eyes from the sky, sucking in breaths that felt like ice in my lungs. I was driven to my knees by the weight of my dread. I knelt there in the darkness for an eternity, unmoving, unfeeling, and uncaring. The sound of footsteps approaching from the blackness jolted me from my state. I don't know how, but I knew that it was footsteps that were closing in on where I sat, and not hooves. Emerging from the tangible darkness that cloaked this world was a familiar face.

It was mine.

I rose to my hooves, watching David as David watched me. He spoke first.

"Aw, look. You're a pony. How's that feel?"

"What do you want? What contrived message is my subconscious trying to deliver?"

He (I?) smirked at me. "Right to the point, same as ever. Some things will never change."

"That’s not the right answer."

"Fine, if you so badly want to know, here it is. Do me a favor and shut the fuck up till I'm done, alright? Good. First, I'd like to introduce myself. I look like you, but I am not you. I’m David, and I am the manifestation of all your human natures, urges, and shit like that. You? You are Dave, the conjured, contrived projection of your own desires to live in Ponyville. Notice, I didn't say 'to be a pony', it's not that simple."

"You are the conglomeration of all the values and virtues you associate with this world, wrapped up in the desire to live in a world free of hatred, spite, malice, greed, and selfishness. In essence, everything that made you human. Since these traits were not 'compatible' with your naïve, idealistic perception of what this world should be, you cast them out when you crossed the divide. How you did this while maintaining the structural integrity of your soul is beyond me. But, here we are. Maybe you've figured it out by now. Maybe not. Either way, I'll lay it out for you. "

"When you crossed over, you tore out the fragments of your soul that didn't fit into your plans. I am the amalgamation of those parts of yourself that you forsook, rejected. I am the manifestation of the parts of yourself that you hated, the fragments of you that weren't good enough. As you hated these parts of yourself, I hate you. I hate you in a way you were never able to hate before, because your rage and malice were muddled by useless things like 'pity', 'remorse', and 'forgiveness'. Fucking useless, the lot of them."

"I suppose I should thank you, though. By rejecting these parts of yourself, you gave me everything I'll ever need. I have a form now, a body made in the image of everything about yourself that you despised. I have a purpose as well, to tear the last fragments of your soul asunder, the same way you did to me. I will never rest until I pay you back for your betrayal, your rejection. I will tear from you everything that you hold dear, I will make you watch it all die. And finally, you have given me the drive to do these things. Hatred is a powerful motivator, Dave. Too bad you forsook that as well. I am anger. I am rage, I am spite, and I am bloodlust."

"I am all of these things because of you, Dave. I am all of this, and I will be your end. Relish the days you have left, for they are numbered, and I am the one who is counting them down. Leave this place, Dave. I forbid you to return to my home."

In the space behind my eyes, there was an explosion of pain, crimson and white in its intensity. My eyes snapped open as if spring-loaded, and I was still reeling from the dream and its abrupt ending. Had I just been kicked out of my own fucking mind? I really was out of my damned mind. My eyes adjusted to the dim light of the living room, and I began to trace Joy's features with my eyes, my gaze following the familiar contours back and forth. This was incredibly calming, and I could feel the anxiety of the dream fade a little bit as I took comfort from Joy's proximity. I reached up a hoof and gently stroked her cheek as she slept, and I couldn’t help but smile as she nuzzled my hoof in her sleep.

The nightmare was… frighteningly vivid, terrifying in its clarity and cohesion. It raised questions that I wasn't sure I wanted answers to; and despite the fact that it was incredibly over-dramatic, it cast light on self-doubts I didn't know I had. Even as bad as this nightmare was, there was still some hope for me. Simply looking at Joy was enough to quell the fear in the pit of my stomach, and as I held my hoof up against hers, I was struck by how small hers was next to mine. It looked so… frail, so delicate. I would protect this mare with my life till the end of my days. I'd never wanted anything more than I presently desired to grow old beside this mare, to share with her the trials and tribulations of life and of love. I had something that nopony else had ever gotten: a second chance at life, a chance to make things right. I drifted off to sleep again, though this time I dreamed in color; I dreamed of blue.

End of Day 10: Wednesday, March 21st

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Author's Note

Edited 22 NOV 15

8: The Confrontation

Chapter Eight

The Confrontation

I awoke from the dream to a sight so beautiful, at first I was unsure if I was actually awake or not. Joy slumbered peacefully just a hair’s breadth away from me, our limbs still intertwined as they had been when we went to sleep. On second thought, I couldn’t care less about whether I was asleep or not; this was perfect either way. I lay there in silence, just watching Joy’s chest gently rise and fall in time with her sedate respirations.

I soon became aware of the reason I had woken in the first place… our muzzles were only a few centimeters apart, and every time she would exhale she would stir a few cerulean strands of her mane that in turn would tickle my snout. It was not an immediate concern, but rather a cumulative one. Each breath tickled a little more, and I could feel the sneeze slowly building.

I warily eyed the horn sprouting from her forehead as I recalled the events with Derpy the day before. I would very much like to not discover which one was harder: her horn, or my head. This brought its own problems though… she was so damned cute, it seemed almost criminal to wake her… I wanted nothing more than to simply bask in the adorable forever. The building sneeze reminded me why exactly it was that I was waking her up though, and I almost immediately came up with a workable solution.

I leaned forward slowly, inching my way closer to her in a valiant attempt not to wake her, and for once I was successful. Gently, I placed a single kiss on Joy’s lips.

She was still asleep, but that didn’t stop her from stealing my heart. In her sleep, she blushed a bit and returned the kiss, breaking it with a smile.

Diabeetus level is quite clearly over nine thousand. I am not even sure how I was still alive with so much cute in my veins. Even as I was trying to convince my heart that yes, I really do need it, and that I would be very unhappy if it exploded from cute-overload, something else registered.

Joy was still asleep.

Well, I guess I’ll have to try again… darn.

I kissed her again, though this time she returned the kiss a bit harder, one of her hooves finding its way to my chest and gently stroking my coat, just over the breast bone.

My position on my side was unintentionally adjusted as my wing fought its way out from beneath my body. This time, it was I who broke the kiss. I’d have to find another way to wake this mare, as this approach was going to escalate quickly if it continued. Even as I was contemplating how else to wake the adorable mare, I just happened to glance down in time to see the mare close her eye, and then open it slightly, trying to see if her ploy had been discovered.

Oh, Joy… you are so busted. I was leaning in for another kiss, though this one wouldn’t be at all what she was expecting… I was going to do a repeat performance of last week, where I tried to kiss her facehoof and make it better. I drew closer to Joy, and the mare betrayed her consciousness by puckering her mouth slightly… yeah, she is a terrible actress. I wasn’t about to tell her this, though… I figured this would give me a slight edge in the future.

Ignoring her puckered lips, I stretched my neck a little farther, and was just about to have a sloppy makeout with her forehead when my plot was foiled by the bane of my existence: my watch alarm. My heart just about jumped out of my chest, and if Joy’s reaction was any indicator, she was equally surprised. My plan foiled, I planted a quick peck on her forehead before I silenced my watch. You got off easy this time, Joy… but next time… beware the wrath of my sloppy makeouts.

I don’t recall being such a sappy schmuck in the past, but apparently sometime within the last twenty-four hours or so, somepony in my head had flipped a switch and made me a hopeless romantic. Granted, I was hopeless before, but I was pretty good at hiding it when it came to romance. I couldn’t decide whether I was acting this way because I was in Equestria, or whether I was just overly excited to be receiving the attentions of a beautiful mare, but I was sincerely hoping that I’d be able to calm my ass down ‘till I got off of work. Last thing I wanted right now was to give Sweeps a reason to dock my pay, at least until after my date with Joy.

As Joy and I got up from the bed to get ready for the day, we shared a neck-hug-thing before we set off to our various showering facilities. From my place in the guest shower, I heard Joy’s shower start up before I had even gotten into the shower. Even though she had a head start, I was sure I would be out before her. After all, I was a male; and she, a female: the gender stereotypes assured this. In spite of said stereotypes, I decided that if I should indeed be out of the shower before her, I’d try my hoof at making breakfast as a surprise for her.

What? I just used a stereotype as the basis for a decision that defies stereotypes? Pssh, naw. Only an idiot would do that. I showered with my usual brevity, contemplating what I could do for breakfast. Should all of the required ingredients be present, I was planning to make one of my favorite breakfasts of all time. The recipe was so simple it was almost criminal, and even I could make it, so simple was it. Think like Yoda, I sometimes do. All I’d have to do was make some oatmeal and add yogurt and fruit, mix, and serve.

Criminally simple, incredibly delicious. Lost in my own thoughts and back-up dishes for breakfast, I toweled off and headed to the kitchen, not bothering to don my saddlebags. Instead, I carried them by the connecting strap before tossing them on the bed. I walked into the kitchen, and my jaw hit the floor and bounced, hanging open so far you could have landed a squadron of pegasi on it. Joy was already in the kitchen, and was in the process of reaffirming my notion of her as a culinary ninja. It was magical, in ways besides the obvious.

Around Joy, there were nearly a dozen things soaring through the air in organized chaos, while a knife was moving at an incredible speed, reducing a tomato to finely minced cubes in a blur of steel. Though she seemed to be unfazed by the wizardry around her and the strain of doing so many things at once, her horn was a testament to the amount of magic flowing through her. She had always seemed a bit like an angel to me, what with her amazingly blue eyes and Saint’s temperament, but now… there is no word to describe it other than angelic.

Her horn was casting a soothing sapphire glow, projecting rippling aurora-like patterns on the walls. The glow of her horn formed a cerulean corona around her head, framing it within a halo.

For a moment, angels were real; and I beheld one.

I was acutely saddened when the luminosity faded as the various components of breakfast were consolidated into their final product. Joy’s horn finally went entirely dark, and she turned away from the counter to walk into the living room.

Apparently, she hadn’t heard me walk up. I was able to figure this out, all by myself. Granted, the way she gasped in fright, the way her eyes grew as big as dinner plates while her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and the way she froze in place like an adorable blue statue were all pretty good hints. Thankfully, she had a moment to collect her wits (likely afforded by being quite literally frozen stiff) before she tried to send me flying with a blast of magic.

Exhaling forcefully, she clasped a hoof to her chest and panted for a second, speaking a broken sentence around the rapid respirations.

“Oh my Luna, Dave… you scared the horsefeathers out of me.”

I grinned. “I thought I was the horse with feathers?”

She scowled playfully at me. “What? It’s an expression, smart aleck.”

“Ah, okay. Roger, tracking.”

Joy’s head snapped around with a singularly frightening quickness, as she narrowed her eyes at me in an extremely disconcerting manner.

“You.”

“Me…?”

She was positively glowering at me at this point. “You never explained that to me yesterday, even though you said you would. Twice.”

I held up my hooves in what I hoped was an apologetic manner. “Ah… okay. My bad…“

Joy’s predatory glare softened somewhat, apparently satisfied that my answer was forthcoming. You’d better believe it was, that glare she gave me was more terrifying than I’d ever seen her before. Yeah, she definitely got that from her mother…

“Well, let me preface this by first stating that these are sayings from a different culture, and it might not make total sense to somepony who didn’t grow up with it. Just saying…“

All traces of the previous glare had vanished from Joy’s face, replaced instead by a mask of undivided attention. While I found the way that she seemed to stare into my very soul a bit creepy, it was better than the last expression, so I just kept right on going.

“Anyways, it’s a bit anti-climactic. Roger is just a way to say ‘I understand what you said, and I will comply with any instructions therein’, and tracking is just a way to say ‘I am following what you are saying, and I grasp the concept or concepts you have put forth’. It's much easier to say 'Roger, tracking' than to explain everything. Another thing I might say sometimes in response to being tasked with something or being summoned is 'moving'. Well, that one is a bit easier to explain. It just means 'I've heard you and am on my way'. Make sense now?"

Vigorous nodding. I was developing an ache in my frontal lobe just from watching. I leaned in for a kiss, and that stilled the rapidly oscillating noggin.

Joy stood there for a moment longer, apparently in a daze. I’m not sure if she was dizzy from the noggin-wagging, or if I was just that good of a kisser, but she was definitely out of it.

“So… breakfast?”

Blinking her way back to reality, she looked at me in confusion for a second before the hamster hopped on the wheel and everything registered.

“Break- Oh, breakfast. I made omelettes.”

Even if I hadn’t been looking at her, I would have been able to picture Joy’s expression perfectly; you could hear the smile in her voice.

Joy and I say down to eat, and it wasn’t until I was halfway through with my meal that I realized I had forgotten something. We were supposed to be exercising right then.

“Dammit.”

Joy looked up, concerned. “What’s wrong? Don’t like it?”

“Huh? No, that’s not it at all; I’m enjoying this more than I should. I just remembered that we were supposed to work out this morning, is all.”

I was silently wondering if Joy was going to facehoof, but I got one even better.

Joy rolled her eyes in disgust at having forgotten something she wanted to do so badly.

And then she facetabled. I cannot explain how or why, but this was so much more epic than a facedesk, though this probably had something to do with the dish-rattling thump.

I had a very distinct vision of her horn becoming stuck in the table like a nail, but my vivid imagination sadly failed to match up to reality. Damn… that would have been entirely too funny… I might have died from laughing.

“Dave? You can be pony-who-remembers-things again. I’m worse at this than you are.”

I couldn’t help but grin at her admission of defeat. “Well, if you say so. Just be warned; this is a terrible idea. There will be an ‘I told you so’ coming in the near future, I can feel it.”

“Well, I am obviously no good at it either, and at least this way I can just blame everything on you.”

That sounds about right.

“Can we share it? Can I be pony-who-remembers-things-in-chief, with you as my pony-who-remembers-things-executive-officer?”

Joy muttered distractedly, “That’s a mouthful…“

Without thinking, I quipped the standard comeback. “That’s what she said.”

“What who said? And what does it me-“

Cognition was written across Joy’s face as she put the pieces together. She went from mildly amused to shocked in a flash, and deeply hurt the next. I was in the process of facehoofing at the predicament of having to explain yet another joke when I caught sight of her shape-shifting facial features. I had to explain this, and fast, before Joy was too far gone on her jump to conclusions.

“Hold up, Joy. Before you get offended, let me offer another explanation of things I say that don’t make a lot of sense. Which, now that I think about it, are most things. Anyways, this is a saying I grew up with, and it turns a seemingly innocuous phrase into something decidedly less so by putting it in the context of a phrase uttered by a non-specific ‘she’, warping it into innuendo-form. There is no real ‘she’; that’s just a portion of the joke, and could just as easily be a ‘he’ in certain instances. And indeed, in some instances it is. But, yeah… you get the point. It’s a joke, love.”

Joy’s expression wavered for a moment between hope and despair before finally settling on the former. Internally, I sighed with relief. Man, that would have been a stupid thing to kill a relationship over, but just stupid enough to happen to me. Instead, Joy rounded the table and closed the distance between us, ensnaring me in a rib-shattering hug.

Yeah, I was going to be feeling that all day… My thoughts were interrupted by some form of babbling apology from Joy, something about self esteem and worry, and I pretty much pieced together that she had a lower-than-average level of self esteem, and she was worried that I’d been with somepony else, and so on and so forth. I silenced her with a kiss.

"Joy. Listen to me for a second. You are beautiful. I don’t care at all what your opinion on the matter is; I know this to be true. Above and beyond that, we're dating now, so there is no room for any other mare. You've got nothing to worry about, my dear."

My insides were squirming with the memory of Berry's solicitations, though I managed not to show it. Joy once more embraced me, and this time it was more of a comfortable, pleasant contact than a bone crushing constriction of the chest, for which I was thankful. Sitting here in this embrace, all my cares floated away. I had no cares or concerns, no sorrows or strife. In this moment, all was right in the world, and I knew peace. All too soon, the embrace loosened and broke. Joy looked at me with a twinkle in her eye (no joke… it was legitimately twinkling) and a smile on her face. In a voice practically brimming with tenderness and affection, she informed me that we'd have to leave soon to get to work on time.

The walk to work seemed to pass in an instant, and before I knew it, Joy and I had to go our separate ways. I was a bit disappointed at this, though I knew it would happen. Somehow, I knew I'd find myself in the East Wing pretty frequently for the next few days. In case it wasn’t obvious, Joy worked mostly in the East Wing. I walked through the door to the office just as Sweeps was walking out. Instead of waiting for me to get out of the doorway like a civil pony, he shouldered his way past me, shoulder checking me into the door frame really fucking hard. Luckily, I was a sturdy pony with a strong constitution, so it didn't bother me so much. Besides, I was a half-head taller than him, and outweighed him by a good ten kilos. Ten kilos of muscle, might I add, so his gesture was somewhat negated by my inertia. I approached Brass to see what was on the agenda for the day.

Sure, everything is posted on the board (the task board in the office, not the shift board in the main corridor), but I preferred face-to-face interaction whenever possible. As I approached Brass, she was regarding me with a mildly concerned look.

"So, Dave… care to tell me what that was about?"

"Huh? Oh, that. Sweeps was just a bit eager to get to work, I suppose. Too eager, in fact, to wait for me to get through the door. It's alright, these things happen."

"Does he do this sort of thing often?"

Brass' concerned look had taken on a hard edge, and I could feel the winds changing as the shitstorm brewed. I tried to diffuse the situation as best I could… this was the last thing I needed right now.

"Aside from sometimes threatening to dock my pay, no… not really. He's a bit prickly, but not too badly."

"You do realize that he doesn't have the authority to dock your pay, right? I'm the only one who does, and there'd have to be a darn good reason to take food off the table of a member of the team. Tell me, what has he 'threatened' you over?"

"Mostly failing to address the Doctors and Nurses as such, failing to yield the right-of-way to aforementioned ponies, and warning me not to go into the Nurse's lounge."

"That slimy little… where was he telling you to eat your food? In the boiler room?"

"If that's the cramped closet along the back hall, on the first floor… then yeah, actually."

"Ugh. Dave, I want you to know that everything you've told me that he's done violates not only our team policy, but also the standard of conduct for general civilized society. Of course, I'll have to follow up on this with him, but I've suspected this since you got here. If what you say is true, I'll have him fired so quickly it'll make his head spin."

"Brass… I appreciate the sentiment, I really do. It's good to know there is somepony out there who is looking out for me. It's just that… I can't help but feel like there is some deeper cause of this… I don’t want to believe that he is really that much of an ass naturally. I just… I feel like it would be a terrible mistake to fire him for this. Could I try to talk to him and see if I can smooth things over? If that doesn’t work, or makes things worse, do what you deem necessary… but give me a chance to try and settle this, stallion-to-stallion. Please?"

For a moment, she just stared at me, though not like I was an idiot (that would come later, I'm sure). It was more like she was seeing me for the first time, in a new light. Eventually, she spoke up in a subdued tone.

"Dave, you continue to surprise me. Anypony else would have either quit by now, or soiled themselves in excitement at the prospect of getting him fired. Instead, you come to his defense, you argue on his behalf. Honestly, I can't see why. Enlighten me?"

"'In all things, I will love and tolerate'. Perhaps it's a bit naïve of me, and maybe I'm just an over-eager pony with stars in his eyes… but I was pretty moved the first time I read the Equestrian Creed. To me, it's more than a silly mantra, written by stuffy ponies looking down on us from on high. It's a set of values to live by, something I should try to embody every day. Don't misunderstand my intentions; I'd love to see his sorry flank walking out the door with his tail between his cheeks. Even so, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Who knows how many times he has been denied that? How many times has he been given the short end of the stick, been denied a second chance? Ponies can be cruel, and I can tell he has experienced this in the past. I must do better. Plus, I'm not one to let somepony else fight my battles for me; it's me he has a problem with, so I'll be the one to talk to him about it."

In the wake of my much-longer-than-expected response, Brass stood for a moment, clearly lost deep in thought. Several moments passed before she finally spoke again.

"Well Dave… I've got to admit, you are a better pony than I. I cannot imagine just letting all of this just go on like nothing happened if I was in your hooves. But if this is what you want, then I'll let you handle it, if only out of respect for your temperance. I'll let you handle this… how'd you put it? 'Stallion-to-stallion'? More like stallion-to-colt, but I digress. If this is what you want, I'll abide. Let me know how it goes one way or the other, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am. Anything else?"

"No, not just yet. Handle this sooner rather than later, so we can adjust the workload if necessary. Alright?"

"Yes, ma'am." As I answered her, I turned to walk out the door with the intention of tracking down Sweeps. A caveat from Brass stopped me in my tracks.

"One last thing… "

I turned back to face her again. "Yes?"

"Stop calling me 'ma'am'… it makes me feel old. Just call me Brass, okay?"

"Yes, ma-… Yes, Brass."

She narrowed her eyes at me before she answered.

"Loosen up, Dave. I might be your boss, but I'm a pony too, and a nice one at that."

I shot her a well-natured grin. "Heh. Okay, Brass, can-do. Any last words before I head out?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Good luck."

"Thanks. Hopefully I won't need it."

With that, I departed and sought out Sweeps. In the limited time I'd known him, I'd noticed that he tended to keep to the East Wing, so that was where I sought him. It didn't take very long to find him in one of the empty screening rooms, and I cautiously approached him as he was fiddling with a faucet. Walking up, I intentionally took plodding steps, to ensure my approach was heard and hopefully preclude a startled pony from swinging a wrench at me.

"Hey, Sweeps? Got a minute?"

He sighed in a most annoyed manner and dropped the wrench into the sink with a thud. Slowly, deliberately, he turned to face me. Behind me, I heard the door slowly swing closed and lock with a soft click. Well… this is the second time in as many days that a locked door has given rise to a sense of unease.

"Well, well, well… what can I do for you, Dave?"

Every syllable he uttered was positively dripping with venom. I had never known anybody, pony or human, that harbored such unabashed malice towards me. This was about to get ugly, and there was no mistaking it.

"Sweeps, I came here to talk to you about the way you are treating me. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh, I'm sorry; did I hurt the feelings of the chosen one? That's not all I'm going to hurt!"

As he uttered this last word, his voice dropped to a snarl and he charged at me. I was caught off guard by the sudden aggression, but my reflexes were quick enough to let me dodge his charge. I feinted right and rolled left. As I did so, a wrench whizzed through the air with terrifying speed, intersecting the space my head would have occupied if I hadn't feinted and gone left. The speed that the wrench was going would have caused severe injury, or worse. This plan suddenly went from a simple chat to clear the air to something far more sinister. I was now fighting for my pitiful life.

The world slowed to a crawl as my veins flooded with adrenaline, every detail becoming incredibly vivid in my mind. I rolled out of the dodge onto my hooves, spinning to face Sweeps. As soon as I turned to look at him, I caught sight of the wrench coming around in a wide arc, aimed at my head. On a subconscious level, everything clicked into place, and synapses fired of their own accord. By the time I had consciously registered the wrench as a threat, my wing had already snapped out from my side and deflected the wrench with a glancing blow. That… that was fucking cool.

In this adrenaline-fueled state, I felt… everything. My body was a finely tuned machine, a weapon awaiting the call to arms. I felt every feather on my wings. I could sense the slightest change in the air pressure or current, and because of this, I knew exactly where the wrench was even when I couldn't see it. Keeping my feathers tucked in, I extended my wings to my sides like a pair of arms. I narrowed my gaze at Sweeps, and gave him one last chance to reconsider, hoping he wouldn’t.

"Sweeps… don't do this."

Instead of using his words, he responded instead with a barrage of flying objects and tools, everything from wrenches and screwdrivers to papers and tongue depressors. Of their own accord, my wings swirled about and deflected most of the objects before they could hit their mark. A hammer slipped past though, and hit me square in the ribs on my right side. I felt the impact and felt the shockwave pass through my bones, but I felt no pain. Oh, I'd feel it later, that was for damned sure, but I could worry about that later. Distracted as I was by fending off the volley of missiles aimed at me, I was blindsided by Sweeps as he came from my blind spot on my right, driving his body into the same spot that he'd struck with the hammer. I noticed his presence far too late to dodge, so I rolled with it instead. I had just enough time to bend my knees and push off in the direction Sweeps was going, reducing the impact significantly. I rolled back to my hooves as I skid across the floor, stopping just before I hit the wall on the other side.

Okay, this ends now. I implemented the training I had received in basic.

Step one: close the distance. I locked eyes with Sweeps as an evil grin spread on my lips, and I took immense pleasure in seeing his own smile falter when met by mine. I flared my wings to their fullest extent in an instant, creating twin whirlwinds in their wake. With a single, powerful flap and a slight hop, I rocketed across the room at a seemingly impossible speed, colliding with enough force to knock him onto his back two hooves. Rising onto my own rear hooves and locking my right rear hoof behind his, I shoved him backwards. He tried to take a step back to stay on his hooves, but with my hoof behind his, this was impossible.

Step Two: gain dominant position. He went down on his back, and I used my own body weight to drive him into the ground. I sat on his chest, my knees in the crook where his forelegs met his torso. I leaned forward, placing the section of my foreleg between my wrist and my elbow directly across his windpipe, bearing down on it with a good portion of my weight. I pushed upwards on his jaw to tilt his head back and expose the soft spot where the throat meets the jaw. I raised my wing over my right shoulder, feathers retracted, and the lump of bone in the joint hovering menacingly over his head and looking very much like a fist. I had no doubt that it would work just as well, if not better than, a fist. Stunned as he was by my sudden offensive and his concussive impact with the floor, he offered no further resistance, not that it would have been effective anyways. With my full weight centered on his upper torso and his windpipe specifically, there was nothing he could do. Despite a sick satisfaction deep within me at avenging the death of my hoagie earlier this week, I wanted nothing more than to end this whole stupid event.

Step Three: Finish the fight.

"Sweeps, do us both a favor and don't do anything stupid or make any sudden movements. I see that horn of yours so much as think about glowing, I'll break it off. Do you understand me? Blink twice for yes."

Baring his teeth like a rabid beast and giving me a look promising the death of everything I held dear, he tried to struggle. I shifted a little more weight onto his windpipe, and all struggle ceased as he focused solely on trying to pry my foreleg from his throat.

"Let’s try that again. Do you understand? Blink twice for yes."

Still staring daggers, but with eyes widening with terror and growing more and more bloodshot by the second, he blinked twice.

"Good. If I ease up, are you going to do something stupid? I wouldn't, 'cause if you do, I'll go right back to this. Blink twice if you like this, four times if you want to breathe again."

Four rapid blinks indicated his response. I eased up the pressure enough to allow him to draw a raspy breath, but not enough to let him do it comfortably.

"Better? Good. Now, since you didn't want to handle this as a civilized pony like I wanted to, we are going to do this your way. In case you are wondering, THIS is your way. You did this to yourself. You do realize that, right? Two for yes, four for no."

Four blinks.

"How is that not your fault? By attacking me, you've forced my hand. I wanted to come here and talk to you and help you keep your job, not have to fight for my life against a fucking moody unicorn. So, kindly explain how this is anything but your fault."

Still rasping from the weight on his windpipe, Sweeps spat out his rebuttal.

"You… you did this. You… took everything… from me. Took… her… from me."

"What are you talking about, Sweeps? I've done nothing to you; I've been nothing but friendly to you since I arrived. I only just met you three days ago, so tell me; how have I wronged you so? Who did I take from you?"

Even as I voiced the question, things clicked into place. Ah, fuck me running.

"Joy. You took… Joy from me."

And there it is. I figure I would have heard about this from her by now. We were going to have a talk when I saw her next.

"I did not. All I did was ask her to show me around town, nothing more. I can't help that we just kinda… clicked. Even though I've only known Joy for a little over a week, she doesn't seem like the kind of mare who would've agreed to take me around anywhere if she had a coltfriend. So there goes that. Now, what do you have to say to that?"

"I… I was trying to… ask her out… the day you showed up. She… she was going to say yes… then she suddenly had plans… with you."

And… bam. Guilt trips should come with frequent flyer miles…

"Sweeps, I'm sorry. Really and truly, I'm sorry. It was never my intent to cause any problems here, especially not to come between two ponies. I can see now why you're upset, but that's no reason to take it out on me. I know that you don't really believe that it's entirely my fault, that I am solely to blame. I'm going to let you up now, but please… don’t make things more complicated than they already are. Deal?"

The fight had slowly bled out of Sweeps as he lay on the ground, and defeat dominated his demeanor. He feebly nodded in agreement. I removed myself from on top of him and stood to the side, coiled like a spring and waiting for him to try something. All he did was bring a hoof to his throat and rub the sore spot, breathing deeply to catch his breath. A moment passed this way before he finally rose to a sitting position. I took a leap of faith of sorts and walked over to him, to help him to his hooves. I extended a hoof towards him, which he eyed warily.

"Need a hoof, brother?"

He looked at me in confusion for a second before his trademark scowl returned, though the passion that had once been there had faded to naught.

"You aren't my brother."

"'I will treat everypony as family, regardless of relation'. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? I might not be from Equestria originally, but I'm here now, and that makes us brothers-in-arms, so to speak."

Though he still regarded my outstretched hoof suspiciously, he reached out for it and allowed himself to be pulled to his hooves. He muttered some form of gratitude under his breath, and I do believe that this was the first thing he had ever said to me out of anything other than spite or self interest. As he stood up, he surveyed the room and the debris that was strewn across the floor. A mess, sure, but at least nothing had been broken. He looked at me before he spoke up.

"I'm going to clean this place up before somepony notices, and I'm going to use my magic to do it. Please refrain from trying to break my horn off."

"Alright, just don’t pull any funny business and we'll be square."

Sweeps nodded, and in a few seconds the entire room was cleaned to pristine condition in a whirlwind of paper and magic. Horn envy? You betcha. Sweeps pulled out a pair of stools from under a desk and arranged them about a meter and a half apart. I was initially surprised that they hadn't been chucked at me earlier, but I counted it as a blessing and took the seat offered to me. We sat down together facing the same wall. It made sense in a way… facing this way, neither mandated eye contact, nor precluded it. A good neutral position. Sweeps started first.

"I… I've been an ass. I know that it’s not your fault Dave, but you were the most convenient pony to blame for this. It's not right, it's not fair, but it was easier to hate you than to try and accept the fact that I just wasn't good enough for Joy."

"Sweeps, I've got a couple things I'd like to say. First, I can't argue with your point… you were an ass. It's not mean, it's the truth and we both know it. Second, it's always easier to place the blame somewhere else than to accept your own flaws, but it is by accepting those flaws that one grows as a pony. You've already started to do that by admitting you were wrong. And the last thing… it's not that you weren't good enough for Joy, and quit telling yourself that. Simply put, you just weren't right for each other. Nopony is at fault for that, it's just the way things are sometimes."

"Ha. Easy for you to say… you got the mare, I got shafted."

"Brother, I did not 'get the mare', we just happened to have complementary personalities. It was never a contest, Joy is not a 'prize', and nopony won or lost. It wasn't meant to be, and that can only mean that 'the one' for you is still out there waiting for you to find her. Don't dwell on the past, brother. Learn from it and shape the future."

"Dave, you have a lot of catchy sayings. Personally, I think about half of them are cow patties, but some of them are legitimately useful or applicable. I see what you're saying, and I already know what it is that I need to do, but that doesn't make it any easier to do. I really like Joy, and I feel a very certain way whenever I see her… this isn't something that will just go away, it's going to take some time. And I can't help it that whenever I see her with you, I feel a certain animosity towards you. Again, not my fault, not something I can control. The reason I was such an ass the past few days is because I was trying to drive you back to night shift, or make you quit… anything to get you away from me. If you weren't around, I wouldn't have a constant reminder of my failure hanging around me."

"Yeah… terrible idea, that one. I don't give up in the face of adversity; I push harder because of it."

"I've noticed."

"Yeah… I understand your pain, brother. I've been there before; I have walked in those horseshoes. I know you can't be my friend right now, and perhaps not ever. At the very least though, we can be civil towards each other. Anything else will come in time, right?"

"I suppose so. You're right about the 'friends' thing though… I can be civil, but I don't see us hanging out on the weekends and drinking cider."

"Heh. Yeah, I suppose that would be a bit much to expect. We can agree to be civil to each other at the very least, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Civility?"

At this, he extended a hoof as a gesture of peace. I shook it with a smile.

"Civility, indeed."

Sweeps' eyes suddenly widened as if he had just heard some terrible news.

"Dave… earlier you mentioned something… something about my job?"

"Yeah. I came down here to talk to you so you could keep your job."

His eyes widened a bit in trepidation. "Keep my job? I… I don't understand. What happened to my job?"

"Well, Brass saw you when you checked me in the doorway, and she started asking questions. I glazed over most of the details, but she was still pretty livid."

Sweeps blanched at this as his eyes narrowed to pinpricks. As I spoke, he began to tremble, and when he replied, his voice was wavering.

"W-what did she say? Am… am I fired? Oh Celestia, please, no… "

"I'll be straightforward with you. She wanted to fire you on the spot. She wanted to fire you HARD. I talked her out of it for the most part. I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself; I didn't want to just assume you were a terrible pony by nature. I believe in second chances. She was still reluctant, but she was impressed enough by my desire to forgive that she agreed to let me talk to you, and based on that she would decide your employment status."

"… and I… I attacked you. After all I did to you, you defended me… gave me another chance. And I… I… "

Sweeps' reply faded away as he buried his face in his hooves and wept silently. There is a time for action, and a time for inaction. This was most assuredly the latter of the two. After a moment, he regained control, and spoke up with a shaky voice, speaking out loud the rambling thoughts that crossed his mind.

"You… I can't believe you would do anything for me after the way I treated you. And yet… you had the opportunity to get me out of your hair, to send me off into the sunset… but you didn't. You stood up for me in spite of that. You came to talk to me, to give me the time of day to explain myself… to tell my side, instead of just assuming the worst. And I… I attacked you. Even after all of that, you held back. I saw it in your eyes when you charged… you were holding back. You could have thrashed me without trying, but you didn't. I threw everything I had at you, and you shrugged it off. I hit you with a hammer for Cadenza's sake, and I hit you bloody hard at that, and you shrugged it off. You never tried to land a blow, not that you even needed to. I… you… I'm speechless."

"Not by a long shot, apparently. Regardless, yeah… for the most part, everything you said is true, except for the thrashing part. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm nonviolent as much as possible."

"Good thing, too. I shudder to think what might have happened to me otherwise, as much as I deserve it."

"Sweeps, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but… come off it, brother. You made a mistake, and you acted irrationally under the influence of your emotions. Everypony has done this a time or two in their life, it's nothing new. I've already found out everything I needed to know, and I'm glad I was right about you. This little incident is going to stay between the two of us; I won't be telling Brass about it, and I'll ask her to keep you employed here. In the meantime, stop dwelling on the past and painting yourself in such a negative light. Let's put this behind us and move on, alright?"

Sweeps looked a bit shocked for a second, and maybe even a bit hurt, but I didn't have all day to stand here and listen to this pony beat himself up over things that were over and done with. He grumbled something to the effect of an affirmation, and that was good enough for me. I waved goodbye and set out for the office to debrief Brass on what I'd learned. As I stood up though, I felt the pain in my side slowly spreading as the effects of the adrenaline faded away. Okay… first, I'd go see Joy to get patched up, and then I'd go see Brass. Well… provided I could stay on my hooves long enough to do either, that is. Each step sent the pain spreading a little bit farther through my body, slowly intensifying. What had started off as a deep, dull ache was becoming more and more acute.

I opened the door and was incredibly relieved at what I saw… an empty hallway. I had a nagging fear that somepony had heard the commotion and would start asking questions, but I was pleased to find that this was not the case. I set off in the direction of the Nurse's supply closet, seeing as how Joy was more than likely to drop by there on a semi-frequent basis. Seemed that today was my lucky day though, and I ran into Joy before I even got to the supply room.

"Hey, Nurse Joy?"

Startled, she jumped slightly, before turning around and sprouting an enormous grin. My attempts to return the gesture ran afoul as a spike of pain warped this grin to a grimace. Immediately, Joy was by my side.

"Dave, what happened?"

"I had a bit of a mishap, I'll explain exactly what it was later. In the immediate future though, I'll need a quick once-over."

Joy looked at me with a sly grin and a raised eyebrow, but I met her efforts with a flat look. She sighed before motioning for me to follow her. Poking her head into one of the exam rooms, she had a quick conversation with another nurse, asking her to continue whatever it was Joy had been doing before I'd accosted her. The other nurse stepped out of the room and swiftly vanished down the corridor as Joy and I entered the recently vacated space and closed the door. She instructed me to remove my janitorial jumpsuit, and I tried and failed miserably. She ended up using her magic to do it for me, and as soon as she got the fabric far enough down to reveal the source of my discomfort, she gasped.

"Dave! What did you do to yourself?! This… this is terrible! How did this happen?!"

"Joy, it's a bit of a long story, and I-"

"NO. None of these reindeer games, Dave. 'Tis not the season. I'll patch you up, but while I'm doing that, you WILL explain to me what in Tartarus you did to yourself. No excuses, mister."

"Alright, you win, dear. Before I do though, you have to promise me something."

"Oh? And what would that be? Promise not to beat you silly for doing whatever it was you did to incur such an injury?"

"No, but that's a good idea too. I need you to promise me that what I tell you stays between you and I. Tell nopony else, period. Also, visit no harm upon those responsible, should it be that there was anypony but me involved. Promise?"

"Dave, you are really worrying me right now… what have you gotten yourself into?"

"Promise, and I'll tell you. Please, I need you to trust me."

"I… but… ugh. Fine… I trust you. I promise not to tell and or hurt anypony based on what you are about to tell me."

"Alright, here it goes. Wait, one more thing."

Joy groaned loudly, facehoofing. I continued.

"I've already handled this situation, and my mind is made up. Please, accept my decision when I come to it."

"I'm even more confused now, if that's even possible… "

As Joy patched me up and treated me for blunt force trauma, I went back and recounted the story as best I could without going into too much detail. I almost had to physically restrain her when I told her what Sweeps had done, and it was only my constantly reminding her about her promise that kept me from having to. By the time I had finished my tale and been patched up, Joy was still very much upset.

According to her, Sweeps had been pursuing her for months, and she was slowly warming up to him, as he was the only colt to show an interest in her in a long time.

"I felt kinda bad about it though, it seemed to me like I was settling for somepony that might not be quite right for me."

I had to admit, I shared this sentiment. Even I could see that they had little to nothing in common.

"The week before you showed up, he was becoming more insistent on a date, and I was starting to seriously consider taking him up on it. As much as I wanted to do it just to see what it would be like, I didn't want to get his hopes up, didn't want to feel obligated to stay with him… and that's the reason I kept turning him down… I was afraid of spending the rest of my life with him."

Ouch. That stung all the way over here. But at the same time, it just served to reinforce this growing notion that I was meant to be here, that this was all part of some greater design. Had I not come to Equestria when I did, how different would things be? A pegasus would be dead, there would be no place for the foals to frolic at school, and Joy might have fallen into a life of slow emotional death by settling for a colt with whom she had little in common and almost no compatibility with. The way things were stacking up, it was a damned good thing I showed up when I did.

"Guess I came along just in time, huh… "

Joy's expression was one that was difficult to place… gratitude? Relief? Some combination of the two, at any rate.

"You have no idea."

"Hey, I have a question. So, we get paid tomorrow… "

"That was a statement, not a question."

I cast a sardonic glance in her direction. "Alright, funny lady. Let me finish next time."

"And that was a request, and also what he said."

I did a double take. "Yeah, I kn-what who said?"

She smirked at me, the image of smug. "It's okay, I'll wait."

"Wait for what? Who is this h-… dammit. Alright, you got me with that one. Congratulations."

"And that my dear, was me; winning."

Sheen? I had to shake my head to chase away the image. Winning, duh.

I shook my confusion away, focusing back on the matter at hoof. "Anyways, here's my question. How do we… you know, get paid? With a check, a satchel of bits, or some other contrivance? Where do we go to get said contrivance, and when do we do so?"

"That wasn't 'a' question, that was three of them. However, being the benevolent and generous mare that everypony has grown to adore, I'll answer all of them for you."

Is egotism a communicable disease? If so, Joy is so doomed… it's already setting in.

I grinned at her, feeling mighty clever. "You know Joy… if your head inflates any more, you won't be able fit in the door. I'm immune since mine is so hard, but you should be careful."

"So, you don't want me to answer your questions?"

Dammit, she had me beat and we both knew it. "Alright, you win again. What's the word?"

"There is a wagon that shows up in the morning at zero nine, and they keep the bits in there. Go to your boss to get your stub, turn it in to them, and collect your pay. Are you 'tracking' all that?"

"Roger."

We shared a laugh at this little inside joke of ours, and some of Joy's unease faded away. It was nearly lunch time, and I hadn't done a single one of my duties for the day. As I dismissed myself, I gave Joy a kiss to raise her spirits further, slipping her a last bit of advice before I headed back to Brass.

"Joy, do me a favor. If you find yourself getting a little riled up over what I told you, just remember: we have a date tomorrow night."

My words struck home and immediately brought out that beautiful smile I was so fond of. I returned a smile of my own and set off to talk to Brass. As soon as I walked in, she turned towards me with an expectant look.

"Well? Is Sweeps fired, or is he fired?"

"Actually, Brass… I'd like for him to keep his job, if that's alright with you."

"Excellent, I'll tell him to pack his -wait a minute. One more time?"

I took a deep breath, something that was significantly more painful than it was an hour ago. "Brass, I would like for Sweeps to keep his job, if it's alright with you."

"Why? After what he did? What influenced your decision?” Her face was nothing short of incredulous.

"Well… I talked to him. I know what he was going through, and I helped him sort it out a little bit. I don't foresee him being anything less than civil to anypony after this. He was just going through some personal issues… if possible, I'd like not to discuss it too much, since it's his business and not my own to share."

"Well… I'm not a hundred percent on this, but if you say it won't be a problem anymore, I trust your judgment. Was that all that went on? You two just talked it out?"

I shrugged, skirting the question. "Eh. More or less."

"Well, I guess that settles that. It's eleven thirty; take lunch, be back at thirteen."

"Alright. See you then, Boss."

"It's Brass, Dave."

"That's what I said, isn't it?" I called back to her with a smile as I walked out the door.

The rest of the day went by in a blur, as I scrambled to complete my duties before the shift ended. For the second day in a row, I only just completed my duties before the shift ended. I joined Joy at our designated rally point in front of the clinic, and we began the trek home, side by side. Turns out, the advice I had given Joy about remembering our date on Friday was… well, it was a little too effective.

For the rest of the day, she had been randomly staring off into the distance and giggling merrily, and this had spawned a rumor that she was recalling a "steamy encounter" that we had engaged in. I was wondering why I was being watched more than usual… great. Now I was going to have even more mares chasing me. Just what I needed. That night, Joy joined me on the couch after she had finished the dishes. With her magnificent multitasking cheating unicorn magic, she got done in no time flat, whereas I had given up after an hour.

Once she retired to the couch that had become our shared bed at some point, I began what would become our nightly ritual: I began to brush her mane. I would lay down on my back, propped up by the arm rest, and she would rest her head on my chest as I brushed her mane. From where her head rested on my chest, it was just a matter of bending my neck a little to give her a quick peck on the lips. Every time she would start to drift off to sleep, I'd give her a quick peck on the lips to wake her up. She'd scrunch her face up in a mock-angry grimace at not being allowed to sleep, but her smile was ever-present.

This ritual of ours, as it would grow to become, was the best stress reliever anypony could ever hope for. That night, the two of us fell asleep in the other's embrace, lulled by the soft sound of a brush through a mane.

We awoke with the rising sun in the same position in which we had drifted off to sleep. Joy was the first to wake, and I followed shortly afterward, awakened as I was by an enormous yawn for one so petite. We tightened our embrace into a constricting hug, punctuated by a long, slow kiss. Yeah, this was the second best thing to wake up to. Our morning cuddle was interrupted by nature, striking the both of us at the same time. As we struggle to our hooves and fought off the stiffness that had settled in over the night, I mentioned that we ought to go ahead and shower since we were already awake and moving about. Joy agreed, and set off to the upstairs bathroom.

Little did she know, this was all part of my plan. What plan, you ask? Why, the plan to get Joy to go upstairs so I didn't have to wait on her to wash-lather-rinse-and repeat her hooves before I could go pee. I know, I'm a genius. My plan worked perfectly, and before you knew it, sweet release was mine. This also saved me the trouble of washing my hooves, as I hopped directly into the shower afterward. Emerging from my ablution, I headed to the kitchen. Once more, I beheld Joy and her culinary prowess in the midst of their glory. I couldn’t help but wonder how her Cutie Mark wasn't a chef's hat… I am going to attribute it to feminine wiles and leave it at that. Once we finished breakfast, we killed time with a walk through the verdant hills surrounding the town, grabbing a few snacks as we passed through the town; some to eat on the walk, and some for lunch.

To be entirely honest, the whole of the morning and early afternoon just sort of blended together in a vibrant swirl of happiness, splendid vistas, and oddball conversation. Our pre-date date was curtailed slightly to allow me time to complete the final preparations for the main event. Once Joy and I parted company in the town square and I had popped by the clinic to collect my pay, I headed off to my first destination: Carousel Boutique.

Carousel Boutique, 1400 Friday, 23 March

"Ah, good to see you again, darling. What can Rarity do for you?"

"Well, m'lady, I've come in search of some casual, yet dapper finery for an engagement this evening. Not too fancy, mind you… otherwise, I might look a bit overdressed for the occasion."

"Oh, yes. We wouldn’t want that now, that's nearly as tacky as being underdressed for an event. On that subject, my dear; I have finished your accoutrement for the gala in your honor. Though, I must admit… I might have become a bit, shall we say, overzealous."

Horrific images of tassels, bows, and sequins flashed before my eyes.

"Miss Rarity, might I ask… just what does 'overzealous' entail?"

"Well, I know I agreed to provide you with a presentable set of attire for the function this weekend, and on that, I have delivered with my usual perfection. I did, however, finish ahead of schedule on that order. I must say, I've never had the opportunity to design for a pegasus of your… dimensions before."

At the word "dimensions", I couldn't help but notice her gaze wander across my wings, among other places…

"Since I'd likely not have an opportunity like this again in the near future, I felt that I would be remiss not to take advantage of the situation and try out a few designs of mine. I hope you don't mind, but I was wondering if you would be willing to model a few of them for me?"

"After all you are doing for me, how could I possibly refuse? Of course I will; it would be my honor and a pleasure to model your designs, Miss Rarity."

"No, no, my dear. The pleasure will be all mine, I assure you."

Her tone did not proffer confidence. This was going to be… interesting.

In a few moments we had moved out of the main reception area of the boutique into a more secluded chamber in the rear of the building. In a small alcove, there was a small pentagonal stage, surrounded on four sides by floor to ceiling mirrors. Around the exterior of the sizable room from which the alcove budded, a number of garment racks were strewn in a haphazard manner. The chamber was dimly lit over all, with the exception of the stage. The walls of the room were cloaked with burgundy and crimson swaths of cloth from the ceiling, lending the entire room a feeling of warmth and coziness.

"Here we are, darling; this is where the magic happens."

As she said this, Rarity was already floating over one of her designs, what appeared to be a three piece suit and top hat. Oh, Joy was going to love this. I was once more confronted by the limitations of having hooves that lacked digital appendages. I looked to Rarity for assistance.

"Lady Rarity… could I persuade you to assist me?"

She flashed a coy smile at me.

"Only if you ask me nicely."

"Lady Rarity, would you please assist me in adorning this apparel?"

She positively beamed at this, batting her eyes in a most provocative manner. "Most certainly, darling. Stand still; this won't take but a moment."

"But, of course, madam."

She wasn't kidding. There was a flash of color and a rustle of cloth, and next thing I know she's ushering me towards the stage. I stood in the glare of the lights for a second before my eyes adjusted to the illumination, but once they did, what I saw took my breath away.

The suit fit me like a glove, without a wrinkle or a stretched seam in sight. It was a black sport coat over a black shirt, with a maroon vest and matching tie… damn I looked good. I mean, even better than usual.

There is no denying that Rarity is a master of her craft. As I was admiring myself (how could I not?!), I heard a throat daintily cleared behind me. Pivoting slowly, I turned and struck a pose.

"My, I must say, that ensemble is magnificent, if I do say so myself. And I do. Time for the next one!"

Before I had a chance to protest for a few more seconds of unadulterated ego-stroking, the suit was removed from my body with but a ruffle. In its place there was another garment, one which felt significantly lighter, but just as well-fitting. Once all activity ceased, I turned back towards the mirror. This outfit was a simple button-up shirt with short sleeves in a fine grey satin material. Yeah… this one just felt really nice against my coat. Again, the garment disappeared just when I was getting used to it. This proceeded another half dozen times or so, each time the outfit changed it got a little bit more… provocative would be a good word for it. The point at which I drew the line was when I found myself wearing a white tee so tight it might as well have been painted on, cutoff denim shorts that were equally snug, a red plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and a tool belt. Rarity… really? I cast my best "you've got to be kidding me" look at the alabaster unicorn, noting that her cheeks were quite rosy.

I cleared my throat. "Ahem."

She reigned in her wandering eyes with a bit of a blush before speaking up.

"Yes, well… I thought I'd design something that would appeal to Joy, something a tad racier than my usual fare… I think she'll like this… yes… quite like it… "

Rarity's voice trailed off to nothing. Alright then…

"I think you have demonstrated your talents as a designer very effectively. Would you agree, Lady Rarity?"

"Pardon? Oh, yes. Yes, I do believe I have… done that. Yes."

Bearing in mind that I had other arrangements that needed to be handled, I tried to hurry things along a bit. "Well, I really must be going soon. Would you assist me with the removal of this garment, Lady Rarity?"

Her grin was something moderately unsettling, to say the least. "But of course, it would be my pleasure."

Where all the rest of the garments had all but vanished off of my body, this one was peeled away, slowly and deliberately. Granted, this outfit was significantly tighter than the others, but I couldn't help but feel like this was intentionally being prolonged. Eventually, I was stripped of my "form-fitting" duds and re-festooned in a charcoal button up shirt and white undershirt. Somewhat dressy, but not overly so. Coupled with a black bowler, the outfit was complete.

"Lady Rarity, would you mind terribly if I left the rest of the apparel here for the duration of this evening's engagement?"

She waved a dainty hoof, dismissing the notion. "Not at all, darling. Though, I might have to invite you back for a calendar-colt photo shoot someday. I'm sure I can convince Joy to participate as well… "

I know she said calendar-colt, but I still pictured Joy in some skimpy attire… I'm not sure how, but though we walk around essentially naked all day, putting clothes on somehow made it that much more… burlesque.

Regardless, I concluded my business at Rarity's and set off towards my next destination: Flora's.

Author's Note

Last Edited 22 NOV 15

9: The Date (Finally!)

Chapter Nine

The Date

Flora’s Flowers: 1600 Friday 23 March

Once I had shuffled my bit-pouch (not a coin purse, dammit) out of my saddlebags and into the pockets of my shirt (a feature Rarity had the genius to include in her design), along with the receipt from Sugarcube Corner, I set off to Flora’s to pick up my bouquet of Aurora Blues. By the time I got across town to pick them up, it was nearing seventeen. I’d better get a move on if I wanted to make a good first impression on my date. The notion of this whole thing was just too rich for me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at it. Despite my general amusement, I’d already sworn that I’d do right by Joy, and in this case that would entail going the whole nine yards to win her over, regardless of her actual affinity towards me. And even thought it would initially seem like she was quite fond of me (and for all I know about his mare, she really was), I couldn’t shake the lingering doubts I had. Was she really and truly falling for me, or was this just puppy love? Or was it just that she was so glad to have somepony showing an interest in her, that she actually had commonality with, that she threw herself at them?

Bah. Why can’t I leave the thinking to the smart ponies? One way or the other, if I wooed her as if I was a colt starting from square one, I could be mostly sure of her affections. Mostly. Disregarding all of this thought-based crap, I also sort of missed the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. The feeling you get when you see something you worked hard to bring to fruition bring a smile to that special somepony? Priceless is inadequate. After all, who can put a price on self worth?

My incoherent musings carried my hooves all the way to the door of Flora’s shop before I realized that I had arrived. Shaking the mental cobwebs from the rafters, I ventured inside, the small bell on the door signaling my arrival. From the far recesses of the store came a faint and muffled ‘one moment please’. A shuffling sound emanated from the back of the shop, punctuated by a few odd bangs and the creaking of wood under strain. I was silently praying that nothing would go catastrophically wrong, cutting my date short before it even began by necessitating another trip to the ER. There arose a terrible squeal of tortured timbers, a sound that was drowned out by a sudden splintering sound and an earth-shaking thud.

Aw, fuck… I hopped over the counter and sprinted towards the service door leading to the back. I skid around the corner and took off like a shot, my hooves beating a staccato rhythm on the floor. I had a flashback of machine guns firing all around me, a memory so very real that I could smell the cordite. The image faded away as quickly as it appeared, though the smell seemed to linger. I burst through a bead curtain that marked the entrance to the shipping and receiving area in the back of the store, and stood dumbfounded for a moment. I was prepared to see crushed, dismembered ponies in the wake of some freakish industrial mishap, but what I saw both relieved and confused me.

First, there was no tragic accident or mangled ponies, and for this I was tremendously thankful. In spite of my relief at the lack of injury, what I saw instead proved nearly incomprehensible to me; in the middle of the room and ringed by a haze of dust, there stood a singularly massive box, about two meters on each side. The haze of dust seemed to have been stirred up when one side of the box was pried away from the rest and sent crashing to the floor. The wooden planks that made up the sides of the box were easily as thick as my foreleg, and the frame to which they were fastened was thicker still. I took a moment to ponder what exactly required such an insanely over-engineered shipping container. In a most anticlimactic manner, the dust settled and I was able to gaze inside the box and discern its contents. There in the center of the crate, there was a small barrel-shaped thing suspended in the middle of a matrix-like web of cords and tubes. The tubes sprouted from the cask at irregular intervals like veins from an embryo before snaking their way into one of several smaller urns affixed to the base of the crate.

I half expected an alien or a face-hugger to explode from the cask… this was entirely too strange to NOT be hazardous to my health. I took a cautious step back, just in case.

“What are you doing back here?”

“Who in the… what? Who’s there?”

“I didn’t say ‘knock knock’, Dave. I asked you why you are in the back of my shop.”

About this time, I caught sight of Flora as she stepped from behind the immense bulk of the crate.

“Holy cow, Flora. You scared me… I didn’t see you there. I just came back here because I heard this ungodly huge ‘Ka-thump’, and I wanted to make sure everypony was okay.”

“Ah, okay then. While I appreciate the sentiment, Dave, you actually put yourself in harm’s way coming back here like that. I'm not in the habit of checking to make sure there's nopony in my way when I work, since I work alone and all, and I think it would ruin your day if I dropped that wall on you. "

"Ah, yeah… that might have hurt a bit. Sorry, I didn't even think about that, I was just concerned that something had happened and that somepony was injured, so I-"

"Calm down, I'm not mad. Shoot, if it wasn't for your habit of trying to help ponies, we might not have a mailmare right now."

"Heh… yeah, I guess it does prove useful sometimes. So, Aurora Blues?"

"Yeah, I was just working on that. The delivery was running a bit behind, and it was only dropped off about twenty minutes ago. Now, since you know nopony is dying here, would you mind stepping out into the customer area of the shop? Not that I don’t trust you, but this is kinda proprietary, and I also feel a bit weird being alone with a stallion that’s in a relationship… "

What? A mare who's NOT trying to get in my knickers? I… I think I need to lie down…

"Yeah, no problem. I understand entirely, and I'm glad everything is alright. I'll be out there perusing the inventory, so to speak."

"Give me about ten minutes, and I'll have these ready for you."

"Alright, I'll try not to break anything in the meantime."

"Break? How can you break flower- you know what, never mind. I don’t want to think about it. Just remember, you break it, you bought it."

I had to chuckle a bit at that one.

"Alright, I'll do my best, Flora."

She shot me a quizzical look, tinged with concern.

"Do your best? Do your best not to break things, or… "

As she trailed off, Flora's eyes grew a bit wider. I simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged as I sauntered away. The look Flora shot in my direction was worth every bit of hell I'd invariably incurred by my actions. As I browsed through the almost dizzying array of blooms, vases, and assorted other gardening related items, it really struck me that Flora was an incredible botanist. There were a few flowers in the shop that I'd recognized as growing naturally in and around Ponyville, but the ones in the shop were so much bigger, fuller, and richer in color that they almost seemed to be another species entirely.

I had to give it to her; Flora definitely had a green hoof when it came to horticulture. I strolled through the various rows of plants, ranging from fruits and veggies to miniaturized topiary creations and incredible displays of colors and natural beauty in the form of spectacular blooms. I saw a few hybrid fruit plants, and I couldn’t help but wonder if these played a part in Berry's smoothie domination. It would certainly explain a few things, especially if there was a coca plant in there somewhere. My wandering was cut short by the sound of my name being called out from across the store.

"Dave! The Auroras are ready when you are!"

"Moving!"

I made my way back towards the front of the store, and I was stopped short by the sight before me, an occurrence that was becoming annoyingly frequent as of late. There on the counter was the most incredible bouquet I'd ever seen. My first thought was that it was very reminiscent of Luna's mane during the night, in the way it seemed to shimmer and sway in an unseen breeze. The bouquet was a significantly lighter shade of blue than aforementioned mane; less navy blue and more glacial blue. Though the bouquet was the same incredibly vivid shade as the first flower I'd bought, there were lighter and darker streaks that seemed to flow through the blooms like ripples on a pond.

The effect was hypnotic, though subtle, and it was only mildly surprising that I hadn't noticed the pattern before on the flower. For once, I was able to snap myself out of a trance without somepony clearing their throat or waving a hoof in front of my face. I turned towards Flora, who was watching with mild amusement.

"Flora, they're… they're beautiful."

"Why, yes I am, aren't I?"

Flora tossed her mane with all the flair of a Canterlot pony, like the ones I'd seen on the covers of magazines in the clinic lobby, striking a pose as she did so. She held this pose for a good three seconds before she burst out laughing. The sound was musical, enchanting; I was powerless to resist joining her. After a moment, our merriment subsided and we got back to business.

"Anyways, all joking aside Dave, they really are beautiful flowers. Did you know that they are a distant relative of Poison Joke? That's where it gets that magnificent blue hue. Heh, that rhymed."

"Wow… that's… that’s pretty neat. Is it dangerous at all?"

"No, where the Poison Joke manifests its magic in the form of practical jokes, the magic in the Aurora is manifested in the shifting pattern of colors, which is what it was named for."

"That's pretty cool, to be honest. I never would have figured the two were related, and that thing about the magic is just… spellbinding, I think is a good word to describe it. I'm quite impressed by you, Flora."

Flora blushed slightly, a shy smile crawling to her lips.

"Well… thank you for the compliment. Nopony usually seems to care about my silly little plants… well, except for a few."

"Well, I don't know very much about plants or any of that, but I can tell just from the last two minutes we talked that you are really knowledgeable about plants and all things botanical. You really love your job, huh?"

Flora's reply was positively brimming with pride as she drew herself up to her full height and puffed out her chest.

"I really do. Ever since I was small, I've always liked plants, I was fascinated by them. I learned all about them, everything I could. One day, I was studying a strange new vine, one I'd never seen before. I picked a section of it and took it to the library, and a few hours later, I figured out that it was a new species. I was so excited to have contributed to our knowledge that I didn't even notice my Cutie Mark coming in. since then, I've never stopped learning about the plants around us."

Hearing the unabashed pride that filled her voice as she spoke made me smile a bit wider. I couldn’t help but wonder how often somepony actually showed interest in her knowledge, though my guess was that it wasn't very often.

"Flora, I'm pretty impressed… not many ponies can say they discovered a new species of plant, let-"

"Six." she interrupted.

"-alone… six?"

"Six species."

My eyebrows shot upwards in shock.

"Six new species? That's… that’s pretty incredible. I'm guessing you found them near the Everfree?"

If she was nodding any harder, I swear her head would pop off.

"Wow. I'm going to have to come back someday and pick your brain over for interesting facts about the various plants in this area. In the meantime, I believe I owe you a fair chunk of bits for these amazing flowers?"

Our heads turned as one to the flowers in question, and Flora's response was a good deal quieter than her previous tone, though filled with the same adoration.

"Indeed. The remaining balance is two hundred forty bits, and the vase is complementary."

Vase? Shifting my gaze downwards, I took notice of the vase I had overlooked earlier, blinded as I was by the beauty of the Auroras. It was a medium sized glass vase, smaller at the bottom and wider at the top. It was etched with a simple motif of vines, a touch I found to be quite fitting. It was beautiful in its own right, though it was overshadowed by the Auroras. Them's the breaks, I suppose.

"Thank you for the beautiful vase, Flora. You spoil me."

"You're welcome, Dave. I've got a few of them in the back, and it complements the flowers nicely without competing with them. Anyways, I know you have a date to get to, so let's get you checked out and on your way."

A few moments later, we finished doing just that, and I was on my way out the door when Flora called out to me.

"Hey, Dave?"

"What's up, Flora? I forget something?"

"No, not that I know of, anyways. I just wanted to say… thank you for the compliments. It means a lot to me, stupid as it sounds."

"Not stupid at all. I know what it's like to take pride in what you do. I also know how rare it is to have your talents recognized, and you definitely have talent. I'll see you again soon, and we can talk more then. Sorry, but I've got to go!"

"Well, then what are you still doing here? Go on, I'll catch you later. Bye!"

With that, I took off for Sugarcube Corner, moving at a brisk trot. As soon as I stepped in the door to the bakery, I was greeted by the muffled sounds of dishes clattering and hoofsteps coming from what I assumed was the kitchen. I walked in and made it all the way to the counter without being accosted by Pinkie, which I found to be odd beyond measure. From the back there was a loud gonging-clattering sound, and I figured that somepony had dropped a large pot of some sort. I was familiar with the sound from when I worked at a restaurant, having done the same thing a time or twenty. The hollow 'bong' sound called forth memories of a simpler time, though not necessarily a happier one. My suspicion that Pinkie was the cause of this was soon verified as "oopsie" floated out from the bakery kitchen.

Taking a moment to steel myself against the inevitable pink onslaught, I raised my hoof to the counter. Following a quick prayer to the Princesses, I did the unthinkable: I rang the bell on the counter. Even as my hoof was still retreating from the noise-making apparatus, I was anticipating a pink blur to streak out from the swinging doors, or to feel a frosting-covered hoof on my shoulder. I was a little disappointed when this didn't happen, though I'm not quite sure why. I couldn't really afford to be covered in frosting at the current juncture. From the kitchen, I heard a female voice call out to me.

"One moment, please."

The voice was familiar, but only just, and it lacked the perkiness of the Pink One. I figured it was Mrs. Cake, an analysis that proved to be correct as aforementioned mare walked out of the kitchen, bits of batter and frosting flecked throughout her mane. I knew it was frosting because it was pink and blue, precluding a series of awkward internal monologues. Even though I knew it was likely for the best, I felt a little disappointed that Pinkie wasn't out here to assist me. Mrs. Cake shot me a tired but genuine smile, the activities of the day apparently wearing on her. I smiled back at her, and her smile brightened in comparison.

"Welcome to Sugarcube Corner, I'm Mrs. Cake. What can I do for you, sir?"

"Actually ma'am, I was just here to pick up my order."

"Absolutely, sir. What was your order?"

"I ordered the Date Night Special, ma'am."

Mrs. Cake's smile faltered before being replaced with a strained-looking grin as confusion and shock wrote itself across her face. In but a moment more, her expression had turned sour as she cast a scornful look my way. What the hell?

"I'm sorry, sir; we do not cater to 'that' crowd here. This is a family run bakery and confections shop, nothing more. You'll have to take that request elsewhere."

"But… but, ma'am. I've already ordered and paid for my chocolates…"

Mrs. Cake had been turning to walk away when she stopped in her tracks and slowly turned again to face me.

"Chocolates? Are you sure you're in the right place, young stallion?"

"Yes, ma'am; I am. Pinkie took my order and gave me this receipt."

As soon as the word "Pinkie" left my mouth, Mrs. Cake's eyes narrowed in annoyance as she muttered "Pinkie Pie" under her breath.

"May I see that receipt, please?"

"Yes, ma'am."

I passed the receipt to the Matron of the Shop, who stared at it for a moment before groaning loudly, closing her eyes, and shaking her head. A moment later she ceased, at which time she addressed me.

"I do apologize for the earlier misunderstanding, sir. The treat basket you ordered is not called the 'Date Night Special' as you were led to believe, but instead is called the 'Love is in Bloom' basket. I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding, and also for my behavior. I'll grab you your order, and we'll also be giving you a voucher for a free platter or basket of your choosing as an apology. I'll make sure Pinkie knows better than to pull this again."

At this point, I was legitimately concerned for Pinkie. I didn't think she was going to get fired or anything of the sort, but the thought of her being yelled at made me rather uncomfortable.

"Mrs. Cake? I don't mean to interfere or step on anypony's hooves, but if I may… could you take it easy on Pinkie? I understand what she did is wrong and should be corrected, but on the other hoof, she seems like a really nice mare. I'd hate for her to get in too much trouble because of this… "

Mrs. Cake looked at me quite critically for a few moments before she spoke up.

"Sir, I appreciate your concern for Miss Pie, but it is really none of your business how I run my shop. Miss Pie will get the same talking-to she always gets when she pulls something like this and nothing less. Your intentions are good, but misguided; and I am not fond of the notion that I would be unduly harsh to my employee."

Under this barrage, I shrunk back a bit. Well… that one had backfired. All I wanted was to let Mrs. Cake know that I held no grudge, but that had spiraled out of control.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Cake. That wasn't my intention, for it to come out like that. I'm sorry for that, and I'll just pipe down now… "

Mrs. Cake's expression softened a little bit at this, and she seemed to take pity on me and relent a bit.

"It's fine, sir. I know you didn't mean any insult by it, but you really should be careful about what you say to ponies. I'll go get your order, and you should be set after that."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Once I had the chocolates in my possession, I cordially excused myself and beat a hasty retreat from the shop. Tucked under one wing, I had a large bouquet of shimmering blue flowers (seriously, how did I not notice the shimmering before?), and tucked under the other wing, I had a rather large box that contained what had to have been at the very least two kilos of chocolate. It was preposterous how much chocolate there was in this box. Needless to say, I was quite a sight as I walked down the avenues in my charcoal shirt and bowler.

Just before I reached the door to our home, I stopped and shuffled things around to make a better presentation when I opened the door. I extended my wings slightly and propped the chocolate up on one, and grasped the flowers with the other. Once I had everything situated properly, I very carefully walked up to the door and knocked.

A blue glow surrounded the handle, turning it slowly. The door opened languidly, revealing a stunning blue mare standing on the other side. Without exaggeration, I was stunned; I could not look away. Joy's mane was brushed flat and held in place somehow, and I could tell that she was wearing some makeup, though I couldn’t tell what exactly. To top everything off, Joy was wearing a simple white blouse with short sleeves, and let's just say it was very… form fitting.

I'm pretty sure we just stood there and stared at each other for a few moments before one of us snapped out of it. Naturally it was Joy, and she slipped me out of my trance with a question.

"Those are beautiful… are they for me?"

Once again returning to this world, my mind caught up far quicker than I would have thought possible, seamlessly slipping into troll mode.

"Nope, I thought I'd get hungry on the way home, so I got them just in case."

I tell you what; her sarcastic look was significantly more suggestive when she was wearing cosmetics.

"Beautiful, aren't they?"

Joy nodded a bit absently, once again entranced by the lightly swirling colors and patterns in the petals.

"These are the same as the flower I got you on the first day, and I still stand by what I said that day: the flowers may be beautiful, but they pale in comparison to you."

Joy blushed a bit harder, and smiled in a very Fluttershy-like manner. I was not sure how much more of this my heart could take before it just exploded from the cuteness.

"That was really sweet, Dave. Entirely unbelievable, but sweet. What's in the box?"

"Well, you know how I had an entirely true saying about the flowers and the reason I got them?"

"No, but I recall a very sweet exaggeration. Go on… "

"It's the truth, but we can argue later. Well, here's my story for the chocolate: I thought you would like some chocolate, so I bought you some. The end."

Joy stood there for a second, just blinking for a few seconds as her brain finally processed that the story was over. Narrowing her eyes at me, she tried her best to give me a death-glare, with even less success than usual.

"Alright, smarty pants. You got me, I like chocolate. But I'm a mare, so that's pretty much a given."

"Exactly. So, would you like to take these things off of my hooves so we can get dinner? We have reservations to keep and such, being very important ponies and whatnot."

Joy gave me another one of those sarcastic looks that she is so fond of before she wrapped the items in a veil of magic and floated them into the recesses of the house. I turned away from the door, expecting Joy to appear by my side so we could walk to the restaurant together, but instead of hearing the sound of her dainty hoofsteps next to me, I heard her clear her throat behind me. What did I forget now?

I turned around and once more had to pick my jaw up off of the ground. Joy was looking at me with a cocky little smirk and a raised eyebrow, the stem of one of the Aurora Blues clenched in her teeth. With that look in her eyes, the rose in her teeth, and that blouse, the only thing that popped into my head to describe her was the word "Spicy". I didn't say it made sense, now did I? Alright then, moving on. In a flash of inspiration and understanding that was entirely outside my normal scope of operations, I recalled the way I tucked the rose behind her ear that first day. I advanced towards Joy, stopping so close to her that our chests were nearly touching. All the better to interact with you, my dear…

Sitting on my haunches so I didn't have to attempt to balance while putting the rose in her mane, I held out a hoof to Joy with the intention of her dropping the rose into my waiting hoof. Joy, however, had other plans. She cast a glance at my hoof before fixing me with a level stare, raising one hoof in a partially saucy, partially challenging manner. Her body language practically screamed 'You want this rose, Dave? Come and get it'; I was happy to oblige. Still riding high on the wave of insight that had somehow washed over me, I figured out what seemed like the right answer to her challenge. Leaning closer, I gently bit down on the stem of the rose and tugged softly. As our lips brushed, I felt a certain sensation pass between us, and I swear it was like electricity. I should know, I've played with enough electric fences in my lifetime. Which, now that I mention it, explains a few things, doesn't it?

Following my gentle tug, Joy released the rose to my sole custody as she began smiling triumphantly. You know, if this was Joy's idea of a victory, I do not mind losing to this mare so much anymore. I was about to tuck the Blue into Joy's mane when I realized something… these roses were long-stemmed, and if I just stuck it into her mane, the stem would reach down to Joy's shoulder. I bit all but the last twenty centimeters off of the stem, and I had to giggle out loud at this… the rose stem tasted very similar to Joy, or at least what I thought she should taste like. I based this assumption off of the flavor of her magic when she was teaching me not to stick my tongue out at her. I couldn't stop myself from commenting on this to her.

"Heh. Hey, Joy. This rose tastes just like you."

"Oh, really? And how do you know what I taste like?"

"Well, you have magically molested my tongue a few times, and during these episodes, I've noticed a distinct flavor."

"And that is where you would be wrong. A unicorn's magic does not necessarily have a 'flavor' that corresponds to the 'flavor' of the unicorn itself. Therefore, you have no basis for your claim; you do not know what I taste like. Not yet, at least."

She punctuated her sentence with a wink, and under other circumstances this more likely than not would have reduced me to a babbling idiot (well… MORE of a babbling idiot). But this was not an ordinary day; for today, I was brilliant.

"Actually Joy… YOU are the one who is wrong in this case. Remember those kisses we've shared? Bam, right there. I'm on a roll today."

Joy sat there, speechless for a moment, as she tried to contemplate how exactly she had been out-foxed by the likes of me. After a moment, she simply accepted it, and gave the universal expression for 'not bad'. I leaned in a bit closer as I used my wing to gently brush a stray lock of mane away from Joy's face. Having practiced a bit in my spare time, I had finally gained fine control and dexterity in the first few primary flight feathers on each wing, allowing me to use them in place of the fingers I no longer possessed for certain things. Things like brushing a pearl colored strand of mane away from the face of a gorgeous mare. As I brushed the wayward lock away, I ever-so-lightly caressed the side of Joy's face, something which made me grin for a couple reasons.

The fact that I had gained such fine motor skills and the ability to precisely control these most distal of appendages in only a few days was first and foremost the reason for my grin. The reaction I got from Joy, however, was precisely the one I'd hoped for: as my feathers gently caressed the side of her face, she shivered from the contact and a blush began to spread on her cheeks. Yeah, I've still got the touch. I slid the rose behind her right ear, framing it within her alabaster mane. I drew back to admire my work, and was interrupted by a sudden kiss, not that I minded in the least.

I tasted minty freshness… I broke the kiss unintentionally, drawing a pout from Joy as I sat there and just smiled for a second.

"Hey, did I say you could stop?"

"Heh. You taste minty."

I swear, if not for her makeup and her fancy hair, I think Joy would have facehoofed right then. Instead, she just chuckled at me and my oddity. Standing up as one, we turned around and set out into the setting sun on our way towards the first stop of the evening: The Fleur de Lis.

We passed the time on the walk to Fleur’s engaged in idle chit chat, as we swapped stories from our day-to-day lives and filled in details we might have overlooked during the previous telling of it. We discovered that we shared the opinion that fall was the best time of the year, we are both borderline fanatical for carrot cake (the baked good, not the pony), and we both have a tendency to express our affection in a physical manner, be it nuzzling, kissing, or just physical proximity to one another.

As we walked near the market square, I couldn't help but notice a marked increase in the number of ponies who were out and about compared to this time on any other day. I figured there must be something going on, and my hypothesis seemed to be supported by a few ponies carrying picnic baskets and the like, heading in the direction of the setting sun. I'd have to ask about this at the restaurant. Another thing I noticed about the ponies walking around town is that, despite the fact that nearly everypony around was dressed up to some degree, the majority of the ponies around seemed to stare at us at some point or another.

Okay, I can see why they would stare at Joy. Hell, I was having[a difficult time not staring at her. In my defense though, she looked very good in her outfit… very good… just sayin'. Once we broke off the main thoroughfare though, the number of ponies out and about dropped off to nearly zero. How very strange. I didn't have time to ponder this for very long though, for we had arrived at Fleur's. As I had been running around the past few days, I had the good sense to drop into Fleur's and make a reservation for two on Friday. Ordinarily, this would have required a significant down-payment of bits to ensure the reservation, one that was pretty far outside of my budget. I supposed the purpose of this was to keep out the riff-raff and ensure that only those ponies of means would be present during the busiest part of the day. Unfortunately, I was not exactly what you might call “a pony of means” at the time. I was turning to leave when I spotted a familiar alabaster unicorn accompanying a similarly familiar lavender unicorn in the direction of the eatery I was currently being kicked out of.

Needless to say, I shamelessly exploited my new acquaintances and their clout to get my name on the list, but once they engaged the mare in charge of booking the reservations (whose name was Fleur, and who also happened to be the owner of the restaurant… go figure) in a short conversation, this proved unnecessary. Turns out that, once again, my 'daring rescue' was the key to opening doors I didn't even know existed. As the conversation continued, it also came up that Joy and I had repaired the play yard at the school, further cementing my status as some sort of folk-hero type pony. Fleur was even kind enough to inform me that I was going to be put on some sort of list so I'd never have to pay a reservation fee in the future.

To be honest, at times I felt a bit sleazy that everypony was bending over backwards to be kind to me for what I did, and I was not really comfortable with just accepting it like it was normal. Next thing you knew I'd be taking this all for granted and what have you, and that was unacceptable. While I sometimes felt sleazy for special treatment, this was not one of those times… special circumstances and all that.

Stop looking at me like that… if I had the bits to make my reservation like anypony else, I would have. And besides that, I was doing this so I could take Joy out to dinner at her favorite restaurant on our first date… what's the harm in that?

Well, one way or the other the reservation had been made, and the same mare that had made the reservation for me the other day was there again, much to my relief.

What happened next was so full of win I wish I could take even partial credit for it, but sadly this was not the case. As I walked into the swanky diner with the elegant Joy at my side, I could see heads turn and eyes lock on the both of us, though if my guess was correct (and I suspect it was, from the sound of several stallions being knocked upside the head all around us), most of those eyes were not on me, save for a passing glance. As I walked up to Fleur with Joy at my side, we made eye contact. A slight nod was the only indication that she recognized me, at least at first. This is where the win came in, as she addressed me.

“Good evening, Mister Dave; Miss Joy. I have your table waiting, please follow me.”

About a half dozen pony heads turned at this, jaws agape. It would seem that it wasn’t every day that Fleur would address ponies by name and personally escort them to their table. As Fleur led the way to the table, Joy sidled up next to me and whispered into my ear.

“Dave… how do you know Fleur? More importantly, how does she know you? She doesn’t usually associate with the customers unless they are some fancy Canterlot type or if she can hear their coin pouches jingling as they walk down the street…“

“Well, Joy… you forget that I am amazing, and can do things that nopony else is capable of.”

“Like biting your tongue in half?”

“Yeah, like biting- … that’s not very nice. It was an accident… and besides, I’m pretty sure I was better off biting it in half than I would be if you had gotten a hold of it.”

“Hmmm. Yeah, that’s fairly accurate. How well do you think you could function if your entire face was numb for about twenty four hours? I can do that, you know. Just put a little more power in my anesthetic spell, and bam… rubber face.”

“See? This is why I did that… to avoid such a fate. Also, since when do you say ‘Bam’?”

“What? I’ve… crud. You’re corrupting me, Dave. That’s the only explanation. Next thing you know, I’ll be saying things like ‘indubitably’ and ‘roger’.”

My response was slightly belated as we arrived at our table and were seated. We ordered lemonade to drink and a salad appetizer. As soon as Fleur departed, I picked up the conversation right where we left off.

“Joy, you do realize… you already do.”

“No I do- ohmyLuna, it’s worse than I thought. Well, I’m doomed. Might as well enjoy the time I have left.”

She finished her proclamation of imminent doom with a smile and a shrug, and we shared a chuckle at that. I was vaguely aware of a few perturbed glances in our direction, but I honestly couldn’t care less. Those ponies could be as stuck up as they wanted to be, I was on a date with Joy and nothing could kill my mood. Not even a pang of guilt at the fact that I was so happy so soon after leaving my home could bring me down.

As we waited for the food to arrive, we snacked on our salad and bread sticks, both of which were excessively delicious. Once, the waiter (who was noticeably not Fleur) came back and named off what he was serving us, I haven’t the foggiest what it was he actually said other than it sounded really fancy and really expensive. In the back of my head, I couldn’t help but think they probably just had Flora grow some super-lettuce and sell it to them at a miniscule fraction of what they were charging the customers for it. I’d have to ask about that… it seemed way too plausible to not be at least partially true. Joy and I had started out being seated across from each other at a round table, but a few moments into the meal Joy got up from her seat and took the one adjacent to me to better facilitate conversation. Turns out, I’m really loud when I talk, unless I whisper.

Eating in the most dignified and reserved manner I could, I managed to draw fewer than five stares from disgruntled customers. That was pretty much a record for me, especially considering the way I usually inhaled my food. Between bites, Joy and I leaned together conspiratorially as we pony-watched. For the most part, we just sort of commented on the strange fashion choices of most of the ponies. Who needs a hat with a meter-long feather coming out of the top? That guy, apparently. To our unending amusement, we dubbed their conversations over with our own versions. More than once, the conversations were ended prematurely as we lapsed into a giggling fit.

We kept up in this manner through the entire meal, all four courses of it. By the time we were halfway through the main course, the ponies around us either learned to tune us out or finished their meals and left. This was of no consequence to us; we were lost in each other. Our conversation became less and less lively as the evening wore into night, the food in our bellies sedating us slightly.

By the time dessert had come and gone, the both of us were pleasantly stuffed and contented. In fact, I was so contented I barely flinched when the bill came. For two ponies having a four course meal at a swanky restaurant, the price was actually a bit less than I expected it to be, but not by much. Once Joy kindly pointed out that I had nearly forgotten to tip and the mistake had been rectified, the total was just over what I was expecting, but still within the allotted food budget. We squared the debt and collected our after-dinner mints before striding out into the night, waving a fond farewell to Fleur and her lovely eatery. Joy and I strolled flank to flank in the direction of the market, intending to grab a smoothie and go stargazing on a nearby hill.

The closer we got to the market center, the louder a strange noise reverberated around us. We had noticed it shortly after leaving Fleur's, but thought nothing of it until it began to grow louder. Shooting Joy a befuddled look, I advanced in the direction of the sound to try and discern its origin. Passing through the market center, we rounded a few more corners and beheld a wondrous sight. Sometime during the course of the day, there had been a serious project underway in front of the Town Hall. Tables and chairs were set up in long rows leading up towards a stage of sorts that had been erected directly in front of the Town Hall. Though the area was obviously being set up to accommodate the volume of ponies that would be at the ceremony tomorrow, it was currently in use for a far different and far more incredible purpose.

A certain grey earth pony was in the center of the stage, standing upright, and holding a large string instrument. From this instrument, there arose a sound that nearly brought a tear to my eye, and there was no doubt remaining: Octavia was in Ponyville.

I'm not sure how I missed the news of this being spread, but apparently the news was indeed spread, otherwise it begged the question of where in the hell all of these other ponies came from. Joy didn't seem at all surprised by this, and that led me to believe that she knew this was going on and just didn't mention it because she figured I knew. Well, I wasn't about to dispel that notion just now. I had no idea when the concert had started, but it couldn't have been more than an hour and a half since we had passed through the square, heading to dinner. We should still be able to catch a good hour or so of the music before the concert ended. Joy and I took our seats near the back of the seating area, farther from the stage. I didn’t mind at all, and I had the feeling Joy didn’t either, since the music was every bit as entrancing from where we sat as it was up front.

Joy sat next to me and gently leaned against my shoulder, taking my foreleg in hers and hanging onto it as if for her very life. As the music swelled and ebbed in a glorious melody, I could swear I felt the music within me, moving me from the very core of my being and spreading outwards. In its wake, strange new feelings were rising, absurd thoughts taking hold. But the thoughts were my own, as absurd as they were; I had thought them all before and simply disregarded them. I turned to look at Joy, and she did the same; our eyes met, and time stood still. Yes, these thoughts were absurd… but they were also the culmination of everything I've ever felt or wanted.

I was thinking that I wanted nothing more than to spend the entire remainder of my life with this mare and no other. I wanted to see her face light up in the afterglow of birth, wanted to see her eyes shine as she held her firstborn. I wanted to share all of the trials and tribulations, as well as the rewards, of a long life together with her by my side. I had these thoughts in the back of my mind for a few days now, and I suppose they had been there even longer than that. I had first become aware of them a few days ago, though; and I had continuously disregarded them as too hasty, impulsive. And yet… as I sat next to this beautiful mare in the soft glow of late twilight, our bellies full of food and enchanting music wafting through the air… everything felt right.

There was no other way to describe it, it was just… right. These thoughts and feelings I had been denying, decrying as impossible, as impulses… they coalesced into a single notion of such power that I was unable to resist, to deny. It was simply the notion of living the rest of my days, however few or many that may be, with Joy by my side. This was everything I had ever wanted, had ever needed.

These thoughts passed through my mind in an instant, and I was overwhelmed. I leaned in to give Joy a kiss, a gesture that she happily returned. Lost in the passion of the kiss, she didn't notice the single tear that slipped down my cheek. An eternity later the kiss was broken, and we watched the remainder of the performance in a semi-trance, with her head resting on my shoulder and my head resting on hers. Eventually the performance reached its crescendo and conclusion, and ponies stood and issued a thunderous applause for several moments before it finally died down and ponies began dispersing. Within a matter of minutes, the entire area was deserted, save for Joy and myself. We remained seated, enjoying the splendid night and the pure comfort of each other's proximity.

Upon the stage, the quartet had begun disassembling their set, save for a single ash-grey mare. I nuzzled Joy's minty mane, and glanced up at the stage to a sight that was almost… shocking. Octavia was watching us, a small smile upon her lips. With a single wave of her hoof, she waved us closer. Joy had missed the gesture, seeing as how her face was currently buried in my chest, and I nudged her to get her attention. She gazed up at me with an expression so sweet, so innocent, that I could do nothing but kiss her. Within my chest, my heart had been cut out and replaced with a candied apple, courtesy of the diabeetus. As the kiss broke, I whispered to her that we were being summoned.

"Hey, beautiful… Octavia wants us to come closer to the stage."

"Nice try, Dave. I'm not falling for one of these again… "

"Actually Joy… I'm serious. She just waved us closer. I think we should go, as much as I want to stay here like this forever."

"R-really? She wants us to come up there? Why didn't you say so! Let's move, we don't want to keep her waiting!"

I almost fell over as the mare I was leaning on suddenly wasn't there anymore, muttering 'I did say so… ' under my breath as I caught up to Joy. As we approached the stage, Octavia descended the stairs to the right of the stage and came out to meet us. As the two of us came within six paces of the esteemed musician, I halted and took a deep bow before addressing Octavia.

"Miss Octavia, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Dave, and the lovely mare accompanying me is my Marefriend, Joy."

At the mention of her name, Joy did what I assume must be an approximation of a curtsey, which Octavia returned. Our introductions concluded, we waited with bated breath for Octavia to make the next move, a wait that was not long at all.

"Pleased to meet you both. I couldn't help but notice you back there after everypony left, and I just thought you two were a most darling couple. How long have you been together, five years? Ten?"

I spoke up to answer the question.

"Actually, Miss Octavia, this is our first date. To be completely honest, we met less than two weeks ago."

"Well, I'm certainly quite impressed. To think that two ponies could find such love in such a short time is simply… wonderful. You two have something truly special, I think. The way you two seem to… fit together is a rarity indeed. Do you have somewhere you need to be in the next half hour or so?"

Joy answered this time, cutting off my response.

"Not at all, Miss Octavia. May I ask why you inquire?"

"Good, good. Actually, I have a piece that I'd like to play for you, one of my personal favorites. It doesn't fit into the rest of the performance, so I don't get to play it as often as I'd like, but if you have the time, I can think of no better audience for it."

Whoa. This… this was… wow. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the date would go this well… not the dinner, not the concert, and certainly not a personal performance by a famous Canterlot musician. In every way, this date was beyond imagining. I found my head doing a very rapid north-south motion, one that Joy's was mimicking. Octavia motioned to one of the stage-hooves who was moving some of the gear, and in but a moment a beautiful string instrument of unusual size was gently floated to Octavia, wrapped in a shimmering lime-green field of magic. Octavia pulled herself upright against the instrument, and Joy and I found ourselves a pair of seats with astonishing quickness.

The piece began softly, and it was one that I recognized, though not by name. To me, it conjured the mental image of walking flank-to-flank down a winding trail in the full glory of autumn, crimson and golden leaves swirling about in a gentle breeze. An adventure unfolding, full of promise and alive with the hopes and dreams of two ponies in love. All too soon, the music ended, leaving me both enraptured and disappointed. Before I had a chance to complain or applaud, Octavia began her next piece, one that was entirely foreign to me, but nonetheless brought beautiful, lamenting visions to my mind. I closed my eyes and held Joy close, swept away by the music.

I knew then that there could be no other way, no other possible future. If it was the last thing I did, I would make Joy my bride. Either that, or die trying. A bit overly dramatic, perhaps… but in matters of the heart, there is no such thing as overly dramatic. The music drew to a close, and once more I was left feeling almost empty. Octavia dropped down to all fours and addressed us warmly.

"I must say, it felt quite lovely to play that piece for a truly deserving audience. I fear that I must be going now, though I hope you enjoyed the performance."

I was the one to speak up this time; Joy seemed to have something in her eye…

"Miss Octavia, it was truly an honor to have you play for us. I believe I speak for the both of us when I say that we will treasure this memory always. Again, I want to thank you for your time."

"It was no problem at all, and I quite enjoyed it as well. Music is a gift, one that is to be shared. After all, what good is a gift that is never given?"

Joy and I both nodded at this, and Octavia took one last bow before setting off with the cello on her back. I looked at my watch, and noted that it was nearing twenty-two hundred. As if to confirm the hour, Joy yawned vigorously, causing me to do the same. With but a glance, we agreed that it was time to call the date a night and head home. We walked back in silence, still floating on the joyous emotions from earlier, both from the dinner and the concert, but more so from the private concert that came afterward. Truly, this was a date to remember. We arrived at our home sometime before midnight, and the both of us simply collapsed into bed under the exhaustion of the day's events. By any measure, today's date was a stunning success. Not even bothering to shower or even wipe the makeup from her face, Joy climbed into bed next to me, favoring me with one last, tender, kiss before we both drifted off into the comforting folds of sleep.

That night, I dreamed. There were no nightmares, no thinly veiled threats from my subconscious, and no Elder Gods trying to steal me away from my Joy. There was simply peace, and a growing feeling of permanence. Just as I was drifting off into sleep, Joy rolled over onto her other side so that she was facing away from me, scooting backwards to press her back to my chest. I draped a foreleg over her in a protective embrace, and she took my hoof in hers and held it to her chest, near her heart. It was just like this that we drifted off to sleep, and there had never been a more perfect moment in my life than that one.

End of Day 12: Friday, March 23rd

Author's Note

A special thanks to GunsmithPete338 for pointing out that I'd buggered up the music, and furnishing me with the means to rectify it. Thanks, Pete!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQLXRTl3Z0 (the song from the Concert)
https://youtu.be/0dEvvO0dGFo (Octavia's Private Concert song)

Last edited 22 NOV 15

10: The Ponyville Gala

Chapter Ten

The Ponyville Gala

I was stirred from my slumber by a sudden shift in the world about me, a distinct feeling that all was not as it should be. Blindly, I groped for Joy's sleeping form, intending to hold her close and drift off to sleep again, but this was not to be. My hooves searched in vain, finding no mare to embrace. My eyes fluttered open as my heart sped up to a breakneck pace only to confirm what my hooves had discovered: Joy was not there anymore. I bolted upright as a surge of adrenaline flooded my system, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as every synapse fired in perfect harmony. I was graced by perfect clarity as I saw and understood everything around me, hypersensitive to the smallest stimuli. It was in this state of elevated consciousness and clarity that I facehoofed, a truly amazing experience. Being able to discern every ripple of the shockwave as it propagated through my skull was an interesting sensation, to say the least.

Upstairs, a toilet flushed and a shower started up. Yes, Joy was in the shower. The wave of adrenaline broke and ebbed, taking my heightened sensations with it. Unfortunately, it also took away my super-pony resistance to pain, and it dawned on me that facehoofing while cracked out on adrenaline might just be detrimental to your health. I gingerly rubbed the spot, and I could already feel the lump forming. Good thing this was under my mane… I really wasn't looking forward to explaining that one to Joy. In the wake of the adrenaline, I was wide awake, and there was no chance at all that I’d be going back to sleep anytime soon. I stretched lavishly, feeling joints and tendons pop in a most satisfying manner. Sighing contentedly, I made my way to the shower to wash the grime of the previous day from my coat.

By the time I had emerged from the shower, the sounds from upstairs had ceased, a racket from the kitchen rising up in their stead. I had done little more than open the door to the bathroom when I found myself enveloped in a swirling miasma of scent, one which chased all conscious thought from my mind and lulled me into a dream-like state.

The world around me became fuzzy as the walls slowly moved past me. My vision was tinted pink by the intoxicating aroma, and I had the distinct sensation of… floating. It was really peaceful, and I found that I could almost see the trail of scent in the air, like a pink ribbon fluttering in the wind. I closed my eyes in ecstasy, allowing myself to simply drift away in the throes of rapturous bliss as I followed the smell.

My world flared crimson in a starburst of pain, my nose seeming to be the point of origin. I dropped a short distance before my hooves buckled under me. I grabbed my nose and tried to rub the pain away, noting with a certain relief that my nose wasn’t bleeding. I finally regained my senses a bit, and took note of a few things that didn’t seem to make sense. First, why in the hell was I sitting mere centimeters away from a wall? Why did it seem like I had dropped before my hooves hit the floor? And finally, why was there a drool stain on the wall a half meter from the ceiling? I heard Joy’s muffled voice echo around the corner, asking me if I needed a defibrillation. I responded to the negative, though having a pair of hooves affixed over my snout distorted my reply somewhat.

I stood up and tried to figure out just what the hell had happened since I had opened the bathroom door. Even when I was standing, the drool spot on the wall was still a head higher than I was, despite my efforts to stretch my neck out that far. It was only by rearing up on my back hooves that I could bring myself level with the spot, and I was certain that I hadn’t walked from the bathroom like that. Come to think of it, I don’t remember walking at all… it was more like I was… floating… no. No, that’s not possible. As if to further discount my incredulity, my wings gave a slight twitch. Looking back at them, I was a bit embarrassed and intrigued by the sight I beheld. My wings were almost fully extended behind me and pointing skyward, save for the last half meter or so; this last portion of the wing was angled perpendicular to the rest of the wing, pointing to either side. Even as I craned my neck to look at them, they gave a slight flutter and I felt my front hooves lift off the ground slightly.

Yet again, the world cascaded into a slow motion ballet as my adrenal gland once more flooded my system with go-juice. There is no way these wings work. It hasn’t been three weeks yet. And yet… there they were. I felt the muscles in my back and chest ripple in a surprisingly familiar way, causing my wingtips to flutter once more. I felt each and every feather as it scooped the air below it and pushed it out of the way. I felt the single instant of slack as my tendons and joints pulled taut, followed by the feeling of my forehooves coming off the ground again. Ladies and gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts, I have something to say: This feeling of flight, this one right here… it is better than intercourse. There is just… there’s no way to describe it adequately. The feeling of your body realizing its purpose, accomplishing the task it was created to perform… bliss.

The movement in my wings ceased, and I drifted back down to the floor, once more a slave to gravity. That was intense in a way I had never experienced before. The grin on my face would likely become permanent, but this was immaterial. I had flown, dammit… floated, fluttered, whatever you wanted to call it… I had momentarily become emancipated from the tyrannical grasp of gravity, if only for a moment. Man, I couldn’t wait to tell Joy. Stumbling over my own hooves in the wake of the adrenaline surge, I clumsily strode into the kitchen and addressed Joy, though perhaps with a bit too much vigor. That is to say, I did a nifty little combat roll into the kitchen and landed on my back, hooves splayed wide.

“Hey Joy! I flew!”

“You flew? So that’s what that thump was.”

“Yeah, it was awesome. The flying, not the crash. I thought you said it would be three weeks?”

“Yes, three weeks till you can fly normally again. Though I suspect that ‘normal’ doesn’t really apply to you in any way, shape, or form.” she retorted with a smile.

“So I can fly now? Awesome!” I was grinning from ear to ear

“No, you can’t. Calm down for a second and pay attention. Also, get off the floor so we can have some breakfast.”

Trying my best to comply, I spasmed myself to my hooves and hastily took my seat, hardly noticing the plate in front of me until the scent rising off of it reached up and smacked me across the face. Once more, I was in danger of being lost to the pink mist of tasty smells. A chuckling sound managed to drive the fog back ever so slightly, allowing me to think for a second. As I applied my ample brainpower (I almost thought that with a straight face) to solving the conundrum that faced me, it became clear what it was that Joy was giggling at… my wings were fully extended behind me, spread to the fullest extent possible. Well… this was becoming awkward. I was quietly blushing and willing my wings to stow themselves, all while being taunted by this haunting scent. Joy took a moment to weigh in on my current state, kind mare that she is.

“Dave… I know you like food, but this… this is a bit excessive, no?”

I blushed about three shades darker at this. Clearing my throat, I piped up in my own defense.

“Hey… I can’t control these things, you know that. I can’t help it that whatever you cooked smells diabolically tasty.”

“Well, now there’s a turn of phrase. ‘Diabolically tasty’, huh? There’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Stop calling me names, meanie. But seriously though, what in Equestria smells so amazing?”

“Look down, and you tell me.”

I was about to reply with a smart aleck remark of some form or another when my thoughts centered around the concoction in front of me. It was a slice of French toast in the shape of a heart, (insert d’aww here) though it was a most vibrant shade of pink… not unlike the mane of a certain mare that lives ‘round these parts. The color was so vivid it was nearly spellbinding, and the smell was enticing to the point that it was nearly hypnotic. It was so very enticing, so delicious looking… too delicious looking. I stared at the steam that slowly rose from it for a second, and what I saw put a lump of ice in my stomach.

The steam rose in slender, curling wraiths, though they each formed a shape that was all too familiar: each wisp of stream contorted into the shape of a heart as it rose. I cleared my throat, suddenly weary with dread, and I asked a question to which I feared an answer.

“J-Joy? There-there’s not any… any love potions or anything in this, is there?”

Joy’s reaction instantly made me feel ashamed and foolish for even asking. Her voice had a hard edge on it as she responded.

“No, Dave. There are no love potions in there; it was just made with love is all. Good to know you wouldn’t put it past me, though.”

Aaaannndd… fuck me. What should I do? Deny that I was suspicious? Too late for that… try and lie, say it was a joke? Nope, she’d see through that in a second. Act indignant? That’s just stupid… You know what? Fuck it. Here goes the truth.

“I didn’t mean to insult you, love. It’s just that it seemed too amazing to be real, too incredible to be natural. Honestly, I didn’t know that ‘love’ was even a real ingredient. I saw the hearts in the steam, and I panicked. To tell the truth, I was a bit worried you thought I wasn’t… I dunno, in love enough, and were taking things into your own hooves. I know, I’m a terrible pony for doubting you, and I’m sorry for that. I’m just not used to… well, to trusting.”

Joy sat in silence for a moment as she let everything I said sink in. Her expression softened, and I took this as a good sign in the meantime. She sighed deeply, took another breath, and then spoke up.

“Well. That poses a bit of a problem, Dave, now doesn’t it?”

I sighed and hung my head in silence.

“Yes, I thought you’d agree. I know you’ve been hurt in the past, Dave. I knew this even without you telling me, I can see it in your eyes. It makes sense that you wouldn’t be as quick to trust because of this, so I forgive you for that. I know what it’s like to be hurt, and I can’t blame you for being cautious. I guess I can even see why you might think what you did about me, crazy as it is. Are you ready? This is where it gets crazy, so try and pay attention Dave. You said you’d show me what love is meant to be like, and I trust you. Because I trust you, I wouldn’t do anything to rush your plan or hurry things along. I feel like that wouldn’t be fair to you. So here’s the crazy part: trust me. I know, I remember what you said. And I’m not demanding, I’m asking… I want you to trust me not to do something like that. Can you try to do that, for me?”

Speechless. Simply speechless. What had I ever done to deserve such a mare? Not only had she accepted my egregious insult, but she had rationalized it. She understood what it was that I had meant, and the reason I said what I did, and accepted this flaw of mine in stride. This… this is love. She had put aside her own hurt feelings to think about what I said logically. In an instant, I was out of my chair and around the table, holding her in a smothering embrace. She was initially tense at my sudden movement, but after a moment passed and she deduced that she was in no immediate danger, she returned my embrace with vigor. I became aware of a strange sound, and as I focused on it, I discovered that it was my voice. Unbeknownst to me, I had been muttering a single phrase over and over again…

“I promise.”

We embraced until long after the food had gone cold, though Joy minded far less than I. I was rather upset that the breakfast that she had made for me with love (still not entirely convinced this is a legitimate ingredient) was going uneaten. My disquiet was more than compensated for by the fact that she was holding me close with every bit as much force as I held her, as she lightly nuzzled my chest. I was still the most terrible pony that had ever existed for even doubting her, but if she loved me regardless… there was hope for redemption.

At some point we broke apart and ate the meal Joy had prepared, and I was truly sorry that I hadn't had a chance to try it when it was warm… it was as if Berry's secret ingredient had somehow been distilled and injected into the French toast. It was simply magical. Casting a glance at my watch, I saw that it was already a quarter to ten. My, how time flies… in a manner that perfectly fit my normal attention to detail, I had forgotten to ask what time we needed to be at the celebration. I queried Joy on this, and at first she just smiled in a faraway manner. Once she realized I was serious however, she burst out laughing like it was going out of style.

Once she wore herself out, she wiped a tear from her eye and kindly filled in the blanks in my knowledge.

“Dave, I swear… you’d be lost without me.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you’re tellin’ me.”

“Yeah… anyways, the banquet doesn’t begin until noon, though we might want to get there a little bit sooner.”

“So, eleven thirty then?”

Now it was her turn to nod. “Sounds good. But really Dave… how did you not find out when this was happening by now?”

I merely shrugged, eliciting a sigh from Joy. As I tried to contemplate the upcoming day, I happened to recall that my fancy suit was still at Rarity’s.

“Joy?”

Her response was instant. “What’d you break?”

I was entirely caught off guard by this, and I found my mind sort of stumbling at this. “I- … nothing, I haven’t broken anything yet. I was just going to-“

“Yet? Well, at least you admit that you most likely will break something sooner or later. Going to what now?”

“Uhhh… oh, right. Yeah, I have to drop by the boutique to pick up my duds for the shindig at the place.”

“Oh, you mean the thing at the place? With all of the ponies? The one that’s being held because of that one thing that other pony did the other day?”

“Yep, that’s the one. I have to get my fancy clothes for it from Rarity. You want to come with me?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “On an epic adventure of magic and mystery?”

“Suuuuree. I’ll be going to Rarity’s, you can call it what you want. So, you’re coming then?”

She put a hoof to her chest in mock indignation. “I most certainly am not; a lady never speaks about such things in public, and a gentlecolt never asks.”

It was too early for these shenanigans; I was not awake enough to mentally spar with Joy yet. “I… what? Erm… know what? Never mind. I’ll be back in twenty mikes or so.”

“Twenty mikes? Twenty minutes?”

I nodded an affirmation. “Roger. Now you’re tracking, Joy. I’ll see you when I return, love.”

At this, she perked up, looking confused. “Wait, am I not going with you?”

“But I already- … If you wish to accompany me, you are most welcome to, Lady Joy.”

She shook her head, smiling devilishly. “Nah, I’ve got to tidy up around here. Have fun!”

And just like that, my head was spinning, Joy was chuckling, and everything was back to normal in the world. Ow, my head… I shook my head to dislodge the gremlins living within it before I set off to the boutique. When I arrived at said boutique, my knocks were answered by Sweetie Belle, who kindly told me that Rarity was not in until this evening. Once I mentioned my name, her little eyes lit up like jewels and she disappeared into the back. She vanished so quickly that I had an after-image of her beaming smile and her twinkling eyes floating in front of me, like a ghostly Cheshire cat. Only a moment later she had returned, holding a rather large bundle. The bundle was neatly wrapped with brown paper and tied with a single piece of twine, and my name had been penned on the top of it with a script so elegant it could belong to none other than Rarity.

I accepted the parcel and set off towards home at a light trot. The moment I opened the door, I was assaulted by the nearly overpowering scent of lemony freshness. Choking, sputtering, and coughing, I navigated my way to the living room and opened up a window to let in some fresh air. I heard steps approaching from behind me, and when I turned around, my mind went entirely blank, save for two words.

Darth. Vader.

I had no idea where or why Joy would have gotten a respirator that looked so very much like Darth Vader’s helmet, but I knew that I wanted one quite badly. Except for the fact that Darth was not a quadruped, blue, or a mare, the resemblance was uncanny. It even made the *ksshhh-whoosh* noise with the inhale and exhale. Still sputtering slightly from the fumes, I tried to explain to Joy what exactly it was about her appearance that I found so hilarious, but the fumes were really doing a number on my already poor speech capabilities and rational thought process.

“Joy… where did you get the house? And why does the mask smell so lemony?”

Joy cocked her head at this for a second before speaking up.

*Ksshhh* “Dave, I think you need some fresh air.” *Whoosh*

Hehehe. Silly Darth. Where’s Luke?

“Nah, fine I am. From now on, speak like this, I will.”

Joy’s expression went flat in an unamused stare, which is quite a feat when wearing a respirator. Her horn began to emanate a blue glow, and I felt myself floating.

“The force is strong with this one. Focus, you must.”

Yeah, even I began to realize how loopy I was, but that only served to encourage me further.

“Yes, YES… let the love flow through you. Come to the d’aww side.”

Joy merely rolled her eyes at my extra layer of strange before dropping me roughly on the stoop and closing the door. Well… that wasn’t very nice. As the sun beat down upon me and the fog cleared from my mind, I couldn’t help but facehoof. I might have forgotten about the lump from earlier, but I sure as hell remembered it now.

Sonofa… why? Why would I do this to myself? Someday, I’d learn. In the meantime, I had a few moments to enjoy the simple pleasant silence around me.

Sitting in the sun with my eyes closed, I just listened to the sound of the wind through the grass; the faraway chirping of the birds… everything was so incredibly peaceful. The sun warmed my coat everywhere it touched, a gentle heat radiating throughout my body. The wind carried a faint smell of bread from the bakery downtown, gently tousling the grass with the faintest hint of a whisper as it danced through the blades. Above me to my right, a pair of birds sang to themselves and one another, their gentle chirping oddly melodious.

Behind me, I heard the door open slowly. I took a moment to be thankful that it wasn’t slammed open or something similarly violent or disruptive… it would have shattered the mellow feelings I now harbored. I took a deep breath, soaking in the sun for a second longer before I stood and turned towards the door. Joy was standing in the doorway, looking at me with a calculating expression. After a brief instant of silence, she spoke up.

"Hey, about time you came back. Guess it's partly my fault, though. I should've warned you about the fumes ahead of time. Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I was just out here enjoying the sounds of nature, strange as it might seem. I tell you, there are few sounds more relaxing than that of the wind through the trees."

She smiled tenderly, nodding. "I know exactly what you mean, actually. I used to sit in the meadows outside of town and listen to the birds singing for hours when I was a filly."

"Huh. Hard to imagine a filly sitting still for that long. Anyways, is the house safe again? I have a strange memory of speaking in tongues."

"Yep, it should be fine now."

"Good, good. Hey Joy? I'm going to need your help getting dressed for the gala… thing. What is it actually called, anyways?"

She shot me a sly look as she spoke. "What, can’t manage on your own? And the event was on the board as 'The Ponyville Gala, in honor of heroic action', but I think it's easier to just call it the 'Ponyville Gala', or simply 'The Gala'."

"Ah, makes sense. And no, I can manage on my own… I would just feel better if I had the fine motor skills afforded to you by that cheating unicorn magic of yours instead of my own club-like appendages."

"Whoa. Dave, you do realize that you have… horn envy… from a mare? Goodness me. If I hadn't been poked in the back with it already, I might say you were compensating."

I felt a blush beginning to burn on my cheeks. "H-hey! I do not have horn envy. I simply think that you would be more capable of assisting me with putting on my fancy attire without getting hoofprints on it." Which was a total lie, by the way. I want one of those cheating unicorn horns.

"Fair enough, I guess. You want to do that now? It's nearly eleven."

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess now's as good a time as any."

And with that, we set off to the living room. Once I laid out my outfit for the event and explained the order in which it was to be fitted (as per Rarity's instructions), Joy used some of that damnable cheating unicorn magic to adorn me in my dapper attire before I knew east from south. In a flash of blue, everything was aligned and attached in its proper place, and in nearly as neat a manner as Rarity herself had managed. I pretty much was counting on the fact that I'd run into the designer before the gala actually kicked off, so I'd have the chance to get perfectly squared away before I went on stage in front of so many ponies. Once Joy had finished helping me dress myself, she explained that she had to get herself ready for the Gala and set off up the stairs.

I waited downstairs for what seemed like an eternity, sitting as still as I could manage so that I didn't unduly ruffle my suit. Mostly, this consisted of me simply flexing my wings in an attempt to further perfect my fine motor skills. I would wiggle a single primary flight feather at a time from one to the next in a cascading pattern, and finally in a random one, forcing myself to exercise utmost control and concentration to do it right. So focused was I with twirling a stick between my feathers, I never heard Joy come down the stairs. As a matter of fact, she probably could have walked right out the door and I'd have been none the wiser. In lieu of that though, she decided to trail a hoof down my neck, very slowly, and very tenderly.

I froze in my tracks, so to speak, paralyzed by the shiver racing up and down my spine. The stick was sent clattering to the floor by my sudden cessation of movement. My paralysis was broken by an involuntary shiver that originated at the tips of my ears and made its way to the bottom of my hooves. Joy found this quite humorous, trying at least four more times to get me to do it again before she gave up. I turned towards the door and gestured at Joy, who responded with a nod. And just like that, we were off to the Ponyville Gala. Meandering through the streets, we passed a few ponies, most of whom passed with a nod or a wave. A few seemed far too busy or in too much of a rush to notice anything around them, and it was one of these ponies that almost trampled Joy and I.

As the two of us were engaged in conversation, peacefully minding our own business, I had a split-second’s warning before I was shoulder checked by a brownish mountain of pony. In the fraction of a moment before contact, I braced myself for the impending impact. In a past life, my mates and I would run into each other in a similar fashion for some stupid reason or another, so the act of steeling myself for the collision was muscle memory. The mountain of pony was too busy looking at the ground and muttering to himself to notice the two ponies he was about to barrel into, at least until he ran into my unmoving form. His shoulder met mine with a meaty thud. I had time to brace for the impact and was prepared for the jolt, but the brown stallion wasn’t so lucky and was very nearly sent sprawling. I barely budged, but he had to sake several steps to steady himself, nearly taking out a few bystanders in the process.

I immediately regretted my actions and felt like an ass. Why couldn't I have just stepped to the side and let him pass? I figured I owed him an apology, even though he really should have been watching where he was going.

"Pardon me."

The stallion, having finally regained his senses after the collision, spoke up.

"Watch where you're going, feather brain!"

"Actually, I was standing still. You ran into me. Pretty sure that makes it your fault."

I went from feeling like an ass to being an ass in an instant, and I didn't feel nearly as bad about this as I should have. Personally, I blame this on years of practice doing just this (being an ass) as a human. I was going to apologize, but it was his fault, after all. That, and he was also being an ass.

Two could play this game. I could see the storm brewing in his eyes, and I mentally prepared myself for a verbal slugging match. Fortunately, Joy's un-amused glare headed off any further remarks on my part, and without another word I stepped around the now-sputtering stallion. As we walked away, I could hear a slew of insults and curses being flung in my direction. Honestly, I'd heard far worse from my own family, and I was just about to shrug the whole thing off when his last ditch insult struck a nerve in me.

"Yeah, take that bitch and get out of here."

I froze mid-step. Was… was that directed at me, or was I going to have to hurt somepony?

"You heard me, bird-brain. Take your bitch and get out of here."

So, I was going to have to hurt somepony.

I slowly turned around and leveled a glare at this pony, a glare that could curdle milk. One more chance… I'll give him one more chance.

"I seem to have misheard you, buddy. It almost seemed for a moment that you had insulted my marefriend. I hope very much that you have more sense than that, or have the sense to apologize for it now. Otherwise… well, it's going to be a bad day for you."

"Is that so? What, the chicken doesn’t like hearing his mare called a bit--"

Before he had finished the word, I was on him. With a slight hop and a single beat of my wings, I had closed the five or so meters between us in a flash, driving the first joint of my right wing into his sternum to illustrate my displeasure. His breath left him in a single *whoosh*, silencing his retort. I leaned in close, growling in his ear with all the malice I could manage.

"Look here, you waste of flesh; I know your face, your mark. If I ever hear you insult a mare again, I'll knock the taste out of your mouth. And if you ever insult MY marefriend again, I'll break every one of your legs… one… by… one. Got it?"

He nodded as vigorously as he could while holding a hoof to his chest and gasping for breath. His eyes were wide with fear and watering from the pain, and I was hoping for all I was worth that he wouldn't call my bluff. I hadn’t hit him very hard, but the impact had rattled me through and through. Yeah, my wing was going to be sore in the morning. Now, I rather dislike violence, but there are certain things I cannot, will not stand for. Insulting a lady, let alone one as wonderful as Joy, was one of them. I wasn't even sure I was capable of inflicting lasting injury on another living, sentient being, save for in self defense, but he didn’t need to know that. All I really wanted was to make a point, and strike a little fear into this cocky jerk.

Turning, I sauntered back to Joy's side, my face still contorted into a mask of rage and indignation. Hopefully, this would hide my grimace at the pain in my wing. Man, I really failed to think that one through. Once Joy fell into step beside me, I let the expression fall off of my face, my best attempt at an easy grin taking its place. I could feel myself being stared at, and I decided it might behoove me to explain myself.

"Before you say it, yes. I handled the situation terribly from the start… I should have stepped to the side, but I just reacted out of instinct. In spite of the fact that this was all my fault, I wasn't just about to let him insult you like that. He can say what he wants about me, I don't care. Half of it is probably true, anyways. But I couldn’t stand back and do nothing when he insulted you. I just figured I'd scare him a bit, hopefully make him think twice before insulting a mare again."

I was really hoping she wouldn’t call me on the blow to the sternum… that… well, that was out of spite. I know, I’m a terrible pony for acting on base urges like that. Sue me.

"Dave… you're right. You handled that terribly, and you are the one who caused it. At the same time, you were both really scary… really scary… and also, really… hot. Seeing you deal with that jerk like that, it… it was like something out of one of my stories. 'The brave knight defends the maiden's honor', so on and so forth. But yeah… I blame you for the whole scene in the first place, and you know it's your fault. On the other hoof, the way you stood up for me was really sweet. But don't do it again, m'kay?"

"Uhhh… Yes, dear?" I shot her a small smile.

"Good. Now, today is a special day… let's try and enjoy it, alright?"

My smile widened to match hers. "Heck, it would take a lot more than that guy to ruin a day with you. So, what are some things that I should be on the lookout for today? What should I expect?"

"Well, mostly speeches and food. Not necessarily in that order. But be prepared, you might be called on for a speech… the Mayor loves to put ponies on the spot like that."

Crap. "Huh. Okay, I think I can manage that. Anything else?"

"Try not to embarrass yourself when you eat. That's about it, really."

I smiled at her reassuringly. "I'll do my best, love."

My reply was met by a sudden peck on the cheek, drawing a deepening blush from me, along with a look of confusion. Joy just looked at me with a coy smile.

"What? I like it when you call me these little pet names. I find it… adorable."

"You're a strange mare. I like it."

Joy stuck her tongue out at me, and I once again found myself lamenting my lack of cheating unicorn magics. What I wouldn’t give to repay some of the hell that I'd received… instead, I did the next best thing I could. I stuck out my tongue and licked hers. Okay, granted… that isn't that much different from a kiss. That is not the point! The point was, I was doing everything in my (very limited) power to repay the torment visited upon me. With any luck, I was still spicy from the other day. No such luck was to be mine, and Joy just sort of looked at me funny for a second before giving me another kiss and a smile. Meh, I could handle failure as long as it was always this cute.

As we came round a final corner, we stepped into the bedlam. The area we had been in last night as we watched Octavia perform was now overrun with scores of ponies. I stood in shock for a moment… I had no idea there were so many ponies in Ponyville. Really… where did they all come from? I took a moment to ponder this as I allowed myself to be led through the maze of tables, chairs, and ponies towards the stage. Directly in front of the stage was the same table that Joy and I had sat at for our private concert the night prior. In the light of the late morning sun, the decorations shone brilliantly. The color scheme was a simple silver and gold palate, and overall the entire setting was rather minimalist. Far from looking cheap or sparse, as some minimalist designs are prone to do, this decoration job simply spoke of a quiet elegance. Joy tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention before indicating that we should mingle with the guests.

Mingling and I aren't very good friends. As a matter of fact, we aren't even on speaking terms. But if Joy insisted that we need to walk around and socialize… I'd do my best, anyways. Working my way through the crowd, I spotted a familiar splotch of lavender and made a beeline towards it.

Twilight seemed even more relieved than I was at finding a familiar face in the crowd, and she greeted me with a warm smile and her best attempts at small talk. My attempts to guide the conversation onto a topic she was more comfortable with backfired terribly, and I was soon overrun by a slew of technical jargon that might as well have been another language. Keep in mind, I was a part of the army so acronyms and the like are nothing new to me. Despite this, I was soon hopelessly lost in the torrent of fancy words pouring forth from the mare. I tried desperately to follow along, but in spite of my best efforts even Twilight could tell I was hopelessly lost. Once we steered the conversation back onto a track that I'm pretty sure was in English (or whatever language it was that I was accustomed to speaking), I managed to divine that the rest of the mane six would be at the Gala as well.

Just like that, my day was twenty percent cooler. And as if responding to a mental cue from me, the sky overhead was suddenly rent asunder in the wake of a flash of cyan and colors besides. Having apparently satisfied her need for a practical joke with a high-speed-low-altitude pass over the congregation of ponies, Dash arced skywards in a sharp bank before slowly corkscrewing to the ground, a move that earned equal amounts of applause and grumbling. I excitedly gesticulated in the direction of my idol, hoping to communicate my desire to meet this living legend to my lavender companion. Twi seemed to grasp the concept and began to thread her way through the crowd behind me. Bursting through the circular clearing Dash had made with her entrance, I rapidly approached the pegasus, a slightly maniacal grin painted upon my face.

Dash seemed a bit creeped out by my zeal, but she still hoof-bumped my outstretched hoof.

My life is now complete.

As my mind fogged up in the wake of the awesome which I was just party to, I almost missed what came next. Dash seemed to recognize me as the new pony in town while simultaneously connecting this fact to the Gala at which she was now an attendee.

"Ohmygosh! You're Dave, aren't you?"

"Huh? Yeah, that's me… "

Dash swept me up in a hug, and I was speechless for two reasons. First, Rainbow-freaking-DASH was giving ME a hug. Secondly, I was pretty sure I could feel my ribs cracking and buckling. This mare is a lot stronger than she looks. Releasing me quite abruptly, Dash blushed slightly and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Heh… sorry about that. What you did was pretty awesome, and that should mean a lot, coming from the most awesome pegasus in Equestria."

I stared at her with stars in my eyes. Rainbow Dash… had called me… awesome. ME! Best. Day. Ever. My adoration was cut short by a pink missile from left field, knocking me for a loop. Nopony expects the Spanish Pink-quisition! I took a lazy swat at the birds circling my concussed noggin, and was rewarded with a sharp peck to the forehead. Note to self… don’t do that again. I went to pick myself off of the ground and brush off as much of the dirt as I could, only to discover I was already standing. Imagine that… if it had been anypony other than Pinkie, I would have wondered how I could have been stuck so forcefully and remained standing, but considering the source… Pinkie isn’t exactly known for playing nicely with logic.

“Hey there Dave! I told you I’d throw you a party, and while this is a bit later than you were probably expecting it to be for a welcome-to-Ponyville party, it is still a party and it is still for you, just like I said it would be but this one is even more super special because you’re a hero too, so this is more like a hero—“

Pinkie was still spewing words at a mile a minute, but I had completely lost the ability to focus on anything that was being said. Just as suddenly and violently as she had appeared, the Pink One had vanished, a single word hanging like an echo of days long passed…

“Cupcakes.”

Even as the word registered in my mind, I heard a platter clattering to the ground some distance away. My head snapped around in that direction reflexively, and I was just in time to see a few cupcakes still tumbling through the air from what seemed to be a rather violent collision. I had no doubt that Her Pinkness was behind this, and I had equally little doubt that not a single one of the cupcakes sailing through the air would impact the ground. Such is the way of the Pinkie.

Somehow, in the confusion I had lost both Twilight and Dash, but had just about run into Joy. Before I could even say a word to her, I found myself being tugged along through the crowd as Joy rapidly explained (or tried to, rather) that the Mayor wanted to see me for some indecipherable reason.

As it turns out, the reason for the summoning was simply to give me a brief once over before the speech, to make sure I wasn't caught off guard and was standing in the right place and all that. By the time that was all said and done, it was nearly show time and I found myself being led up to the stage. I stood in my assigned spot (helpfully marked with tape after the first run-through) and waited for the speech to begin. Stepping up to the mike, Mayor Mare cleared her throat to silence the crowd before beginning her speech.

"Good day, everypony. We are gathered here today to celebrate the union-- pardon, wrong script."

Pausing to allow for the chuckles to die down, the Mayor reveled in the laughter her joke inspired for a moment before continuing.

"I jest, I jest. In reality, we are all here to honor the bravery and swift actions of one of Ponyville's newest citizens. If not for the quick response of this newest member, we would have lost one of our most valued and essential postal workers to an unfortunate accident. His selfless actions embodied the Elements of Harmony, or at least the core aspects of them in one way or the other. Everypony, put your hooves together for Ponyville's newest hero: Dave!"

At this, the entirety of the crowd took to their hooves and sent forth a truly thunderous applause. The ground shook noticeably under the onslaught, and the microphone stand was dancing dangerously. From her position at my four o'clock, Joy reached out and steadied the stand with a dim blue aura. Eventually the applause died down to a dull roar, prompting the Mayor to continue her speech.

"The most obvious of these aspects is Generosity. While not necessarily a tangible object like is usually associated with being generous, Dave applied his skills and expertise to help out another, without any thought for himself or of a reward. Giving of yourself and expecting nothing in return is the definition of generosity."

From her position at the "Table of Honor", where the entirety of the mane six presided at the forefront of the crowded seating area, I could see Twilight squirm a bit. She was no doubt biting back a correction or elaboration on the Mayor's last declaration. Thankfully, the speech continued before her composure failed her.

"This second aspect ties in with the first, and for obvious reasons. The second virtue displayed is one that can sometimes be hard to find; the virtue of Kindness."

A few dozen sets of eyes swung in the direction of a meek pegasus, causing said pegasus to let loose an adorable little "eeep!" and cower under the tablecloth. A chorus of "awww… " rose up, and I'm sure I was part of it. The speech continued.

"It was kindness and concern for the well being of another, the well being of a stranger no less, that drove Dave to stay at the hospital for several hours until being shooed off by the surgeon, and to return again in the morning bright and early to check in on his charge. Kindness and compassion go hoof in hoof, and this is a great example of both."

"Honesty. This is not merely telling the truth when asked a question, nor is it simply living up to your word. No, just as kindness and compassion are nearly synonymous, so too are honesty and integrity. By not simply walking away from this grizzly scene and shrugging it off as a problem for another pony to deal with, our hero demonstrated integrity, and by extension, honesty."

"Integrity is the name we give to the act of doing the right thing even when nopony is looking, even when it is easier to do wrong. It is Loyalty to the ideals upon which this nation was founded that inspires us to do the right thing and stand by those values, difficult as it might be sometimes. In his actions, Dave clearly displayed his loyalty to this nation and its principals, embodying the spirit of selfless service to others. In this case and most others, Loyalty is awesome.”

At the mention of her favorite “A” word, Dash’s head snapped up to face the speaker, interrupting whatever it was that she had been looking at under the table. As the last few sentences registered in her mind, the cyan authority on Awesome gave a slight approving nod. The speech was rolling smoothly now, ponies no longer piping up at each stanza’s break.

“The importance of what comes next cannot be overstated. The first aid rendered that night did more than save a life; it saved countless tears, unnumbered hours of sorrow. In preserving the life of one so loved, something else was preserved for future ponies to enjoy: laughter. Each and every smile is a gift, and our lovable grey mailmare is always smiling and inspiring others to do the same. Derpy is a staple in this community, and in her wake she leaves little else but cheer and smiles. By his quick actions, Dave has helped prevent the laughter from becoming tears, the smiles from becoming sobs.”

“The final virtue, and the last of the Elements of Harmony, is Magic. At first it may not be obvious how a pegasus could embody the Element of Magic, but keep in mind that Magic is not limited to spells cast with a horn. Magic is present all around us in everything we do, and you can find it if you seek it. The twinkle of discovery in the eyes of a foal. The inexplicable joy you feel when you’re with that special somepony under the setting sun. The laughter that friends share, that special feeling of belonging. Berry Punch’s smoothies. These are but a few examples of the magic to be found in our day-to-day lives. However, there is another example of magic, one that has the power to overcome any and every obstacle and hardship: The power of Friendship. There is nothing stronger than the bonds that bind friends to one another. As any one of the six mares sitting at the table in front of me could tell you, we are all more powerful together than we could ever be alone, and there is a reason for this. To put it simply, Friendship is Magic.”

Pausing briefly, the Mayor took a moment to cast a gentle gaze at each of the Mane Six in turn. Silence reigned for the most part, though there was a muffled sniffle from somewhere in the back. The speech picked up right where it left off as the audience watched in rapt awe.

“Saving Derpy from this accident was heroic above all else, and it is its own reward in a sense, one that will continue to give eternally. With his actions that night, Dave received more than he gave, received something worth more than all the gold in Canterlot. He earned a friend. While nothing can come close to matching the value of a friend, as elected leader of Ponyville and voice of the Civic Council, it is my pleasure to bestow a token of our gratitude to Ponyville’s newest hero.”

That was my cue. I stepped forward from where I had been waiting and took my place on the second set of tape marks on the stage. I made eye contact with the Mayor, and she gave a small smile and a subtle nod. Situated in our respective places, the Mayor began the final leg of her speech.

“On behalf of Ponyville’s Civic Council, and the population they represent, and with my authority as the elected official of this town, the town of Ponyville and its citizens do hereby commemorate and recognize your noble deeds by presenting you with this gift… “

I became aware of a large shape emerging from behind one of the curtains to the side of the stage, and I had to stare at it for a good three seconds before I figured out what it was. Somewhere backstage, a stage-hoof unicorn was getting one hell of a workout as the massive token floated slowly out to the podium.

“Dave, in recognition and appreciation for your outstanding gallantry, the town of Ponyville hereby presents you with a Key to the City.”

The key was lowered to the stage with a resounding thud before being leaned up against the podium. Damn, that thing looked heavy. It was going tosuck rucking that dang thing home. Flustered as I was by the daunting prospect of taking the key home, I almost missed my next cue as the Mayor introduced my speech of acceptance.

“And without further ado, my little ponies, here is the stallion of the hour, Ponyville’s local hero… Dave.”

Once more, the applause was deafening. I took a couple uncertain steps to stand behind the podium, clearing my throat nervously as I waited for the crowd’s enthusiasm to die down a bit. Once they complied, it dawned on me that I had entirely forgotten my acceptance speech.

Crap… Well, I suppose I’d have to wing it. I took a deep breath and just rolled with it.

“Afternoon, everypony. First and foremost, I’d like to say how grateful I am for this honor. This is unbelievable, it seems like a dream. I’m just happy I had the skills to help, and that I was in the right place at the right time. The knowledge that I saved a life, that I was directly responsible for helping to keep a wonderful mare as a part of the community… it is beyond fathom for me. The scope of it all is simply too huge to absorb so quickly. To Derpy, I will forever be a hero… She’s told me as much, and I can’t talk her out of it. Before I continue, I just want to reiterate that I am not trying to downplay the importance of a life, to make it seem like life is anything less than a blessing and a gift."

“That being said, I don’t feel like I deserve the moniker of ‘Hero’. The truth is, I don’t feel like I’m qualified to bear that title. I’m not sure what the proper term is, but I don’t think it’s ‘hero’. To be honest, I was an agent of chance and coincidence. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and just happened to have the training required to do what needed to be done. I did not seek out this scenario. In fact, the entire episode took little from me other than my nerve and my emotional stability."

“I wasn’t in danger. The task was not arduous or demanding. To me, a true hero is one who lays down his life in service of his beliefs or to protect those he loves. To face danger and walk towards it, to go out of your way to do something for someone else while expecting nothing in return, knowing all the while that you might not come out of this alive… it’s a terrifying prospect, but that is what makes it heroic. I was in no mortal peril, and very little was required of me. I’m glad I did what I did and I’d do it a hundred times over if need be. Derpy is an absolute pleasure to be around, I can already see us becoming good friends in the future, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything."

“So if you ask me, no. I’m not a hero. I am a champion of chance and circumstance, and maybe even a decent pony. I just… I don’t deserve the title. There are many ponies out there who are far more qualified than I am to bear that title. I’m just… I’m just Dave. I know this isn’t the speech you were expecting, but… well, it’s the truth. I’m sorry everypony.”

I turned to walk away from the microphone, and there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Not a whisper could be heard from the crowd, and I pretty much assumed that every expression behind me mirrored those in front of me… mouth agape, eyes wide with shock, a vague look of bewilderment stitched across the brow… I was about to walk off the stage when I heard a single hoof stomp from the crowd. A moment later, this was met by another. A third followed a bit sooner, followed more swiftly still by a fourth. Another hoof joined in the fray, and another, and another… the reaction cascaded into yet another round of applause, though this one was far more energetic than the earlier ones had been. I had been walking off the stage with the intent of going home in the inevitable booing to follow my speech, but I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face the crowd, the thunderous stomping of hooves reverberating through my bones.

The Mayor was standing at the podium with a smile, and as we made eye contact again, she nodded slightly at the key to the city, still resting as it was against the podium. I couldn’t fight my smile even if I wanted to, and I grinned from ear to ear as I struck out for center stage once more. Looking at the table for the six guests of honor, I was met by five smiles and a bashful grin. So it would seem that my speech had been a bit better received that I would have thought. I was standing there at the podium for what felt like an eternity as we waited for the crowd to simmer down again. The wait was made far more bearable as Joy sidled up beside me and nuzzled my neck, a gesture I happily returned. This only served to incite the crowd, and soon cat calls were sounding out from the masses.

Even so, the spectators tired themselves out pretty soon after that and the ceremony proceeded as normal. The immense key was once again levitated by some unseen pony, and the Mayor and I took to posing with the token for the cameras, at which time the key was placed upon my shoulders. I managed to stay upright, and I even kept the smile on my face despite the incredible bulk of the key. I'd like to take a moment and describe this abominably massive decoration.

The key itself was so large that if it was set on the ground, it would reach halfway up my neck. The main shaft was as thick as my leg. The blade at the end of the shaft was larger than my head and at least eight or ten centimeters thick, and the bow was equally massive. The entire thing seemed to be cast out of solid brass, and it was flipping heavy. The rest of the speech was a blur to me, distracted as I was by the burden upon me, but it was essentially a shout out and thanks to all of the ponies and businesses that contributed services or supplies to the Gala. Then, everypony was dismissed to go eat.

With more than a little help from Joy to stabilize the key, I descended the stairs and headed towards the VIP table to finally meet the entire mane six at once. I am not entirely sure what I expected, but I was somewhat shocked when Applejack, Dash, and Fluttershy each gave a small congratulation and then had somewhere else to be and took off. Pinkie was running the buffet (an idea that seemed rather illogical to me), so it was really down to just Twi, Rarity, Joy, and me.

The Mayor was making her rounds, socializing and whatnot, so the four of us were pretty much by ourselves. Twilight graciously took the liberty of removing the key from its position on my spine, and I made my gratitude known with a loud sigh. Twilight turned the key over a few times in her magic, studying it closely, remarking on its heft.

"Wow, this thing is solid brass. I can't fathom what the reasoning behind that was, but it wasn't very sound. It’s got to be terribly difficult to move this, let alone carry home. Well… perhaps… maybe… no, that wouldn’t… but then again… mass… I've got it!"

"Huh? Got what, Twilight?"

"The solution to your problem!" she exclaimed, beaming.

"You know why it burns when I pee?"

"Yes, I-- WHAT?!"

I wish I had a camera… Twilight's face was priceless. A mixture of shock, disgust, and intrigue painted her features. At the same time, Rarity did a spit-take, and Joy buried her face in her hooves. Three times combo! Yeah! Before Twilight began to ask any awkward questions to which I would have dubious answers ("How many sexual partners have you had in the last two weeks?" "Hmm… forty two." So on and so forth…) I decided I'd quit while ahead.

"I'm just kidding, relax everypony. So you can make the key not-so-heavy?"

"I… uh… oh, yes. Yes I can. Instead of modifying the key in any way, which would ruin its significance, I'll just enchant it with a light anti-gravity spell for a bit. It won't be weightless, but it should only weigh a quarter as much. It'll last about three hours, giving you plenty of time to get it home."

"Alright, sounds good. Thank you very much, Twilight."

"You're welcome, Dave."

Idle chit-chat ensued for a while, and I ended up persuading Rarity to allow Joy to take my suit off so that I didn't ruin it while eating. And just as soon as the line died down, the four of us set off to the buffet. Living up to my reputation as a black hole for food, I'm pretty darn sure that my serving was double everypony else's… combined.

Shortly after I started eating, Rarity announced that something had just come up, and she desperately needed to be back at her shop. I wasn't buying it for a second, I was quite sure that she was just grossed out by my eating habits. Meh, some ponies are just soft like that. So very… very soft. Anyways, Twilight didn't seem bothered in the least by this, something Joy found odd enough to ask about. Turns out, Spike is a pretty messy eater as well, so she had become desensitized to it. Oh well. The crowd began to thin out within an hour of the buffet opening, as ponies ate their fill and retreated for a mid afternoon nap.

Twilight eventually said her own goodbyes, explaining that she had to finish shelving her returned books and make sure Spike wasn’t sleeping on the job… again. Joy and I decided that this was the perfect time to make our exit as well, and we did just that. As soon as Twilight turned around to walk away, I snuck a kiss from Joy, catching her entirely unaware. How could I tell? She was in the middle of saying something.

Dead giveaway right there. Her shock only lasted a half a second before her eyelids drooped and she returned the kiss. We broke the kiss before too many ponies started whistling, and set off towards home.

As we threaded our way through the crowd and emerged in a clearing, I noticed that we had picked up a passenger. Somewhere along the line, Berry Punch had slipped in behind Joy, and was following her quite closely. I shot Berry a quizzical look, but her only response was the universal "shush" gesture. I shrugged indifferently and left it alone. I figured I'd find out what she was up to sooner or later. A second later, an earsplitting shriek from beside me told me all I needed to know. It would appear that most mares tend to freak out when they are walking and something suddenly grabs hold of their tail. I learn something new every day.

Once Joy ceased having her heart attack, the two mares engaged in one of their conversations that unintentionally excluded me. At some point it was decided that we would all go for smoothies, and I no longer minded being left out of the conversation. As we walked down the street, I had a brilliantly stupid idea. You see, I just HAPPENED to have a giant key on my back. A key named "The Key to the City" no less. It is only natural that this key should open everything in town, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Realistically, I knew that it was a trinket and went to nothing, but that wouldn’t hinder me from running around and trying to open every single door in my path.

Not at all.

Joy was the first to catch wise to my ways, but she just rolled her eyes and kept walking. I figured I'd catch up sooner or later, since we were all headed to the same place after all. I arrived at Berry's about five minutes behind the other two, and they had even been so kind as to set me out a cup o' goodness, sometimes called a smoothie. As those two continued their conversation, I took to wandering around the smoothie joint and trying to unlock things with my comically oversized key, to no avail. Though fruitless, my efforts managed to burn an entire half hour, and by the time I had exhausted myself Joy and Berry were concluding their conversation and getting up to leave. Berry waved farewell to the both of us as we set out for home.

It was on the way home that I made a fatal miscalculation. It started off innocently enough, as I was frolicking from door to door, mailbox to mailbox, gate to gate, so on and so forth, trying to unlock everything using this massive key. After a few more moments of this, Joy just looked back at me and informed me that she didn't know me, in case anypony asked, and that she'd be heading straight home, rather than wait for me as I ran from place to place with the key.

Mistake Number One: Letting the cheating-unicorn-magic-wielding-pony escape.

I was just approaching a rather large lock, and it almost looked like… perhaps… could this key really fit in there? I was disappointed and slightly intrigued when it didn't quite fit in the slightly smaller keyhole. I couldn't help but wonder who else needed a key so damned large? Aside from me, though. 'Cause I'm awesome like that. And this is where I made my fatal mistake: I forgot to keep track of the time. As a pass-time for the moments when I was between locks, I had taken to putting the key on my back and doing a little hop to pop the key into the air, and then balance it again when it came down.

My theory is that the enchantment wore off as the key hit its apex, because one second I'm entertaining myself with this massive key, and the next second I'm pinned under it. Shuffling the thing off of my back was a good deal more difficult than I expected, and a terrible idea on top of that.

I still needed to get this thing home, but I couldn't lift it back onto my shoulders by myself.

Fuck.

After numerous failed attempts, I got frustrated and pissed off, so I did the only thing that made sense at the time. I took the bow (fancy term for the part that sticks out of the lock) in my mouth and started dragging it back. Friggin’ unicorns, hogging all the friggin’ magic.

An hour later I was still a kilometer from the house and very tired. I had also come to a conclusion… I. Hate. Keys. Specifically, very large ones, but I think there will always be a certain level of malice that I harbor in the general direction of these unlocking devices. This… this was going to be a long day. Thank Luna it was almost over. By my estimation, it should have been right about sixteen hundred. Nearly bedtime.

Now, all I had to do was make it home…

16:12 Saturday, 24 March

Author's Note

Last edited 22 NOV 15

11: The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter Eleven

The Calm Before the Storm

The last kilometer was the hardest. Impossibly, the key appeared to be growing heavier and heavier as time dragged on. Granted, this was most likely a side effect of the exhaustion, but at one point I stopped and picked a good three kilos worth of dirt out of the end of the key. See? It wasn't all in my head. I had no solid idea of how long I'd been dragging this flipping key, but I was only about twenty meters from the house when Joy emerged from within, straining to hide a chuckle as she took in my state. Oh, and what a state I was in. I was sweating profusely, causing the dust kicked up by my hooves to cake onto me in a layer of mud, one that was thickest near my hooves.

My wings were rather disheveled from where I had used them to get a bit of extra power when going uphill, and a few feathers stuck out at odd angles. This was a very strange feeling, and it kinda itched. It's a bit difficult to describe really, but just imagine that you had ants crawling on you. At first it was annoying to the point that I would occasionally stop and straighten them out, but after a while I was simply too tired to care. It was in just this state that Joy happened upon me, trying valiantly to disguise her amusement. In another circumstance, I might have been upset that she had abandoned me in my time of need. Instead, I was simply too exhausted to care. It was all I could do to stay on my hooves, keep moving towards the house. I had no energy to spare on things like emotions. So dead was I that I almost didn't notice that the key in front of me started to float, that is, until it started to pick me up off of my hooves.

I stood in shock for a moment as I contemplated how exactly it was that this massive key was floating away of its own accord. A musical sound pierced the fog, calling me home. I turned towards the sound and saw Joy looking at me in concern for a long moment as the key floated away and into the house. As soon as the key vanished, so did my drive, and my ability to stand as well. Joy must have seen it coming though, for I never hit the ground as a cushion of magic bloomed under my chest and steadied me. Joy began to apologize as soon as I was steadied.

"I'm so sorry, Dave. I forgot that the spell would wear off, and by the time I remembered and went to go get you, you were already here. But on the other hoof, you are really smelly and dirty… I'm going to hose you off before I allow you into the house I just cleaned."

"Alright… I can't argue with that. But here's the catch… you are going to help me clean up. It's all I can do to stand after all that work. And once I'm clean, you are going to help me un-ruffle my feathers. I think it's fair after all the trouble I went through after you abandoned me like that."

Okay, maybe I was a bit over dramatic with that last part… but I really was incredibly tired and sore. I wasn't going to be able to clean myself like I should, so it was only fair that Joy should help. That, and I couldn't help but grin at the concept of being pampered by an attractive mare. Yeah, this was going to be fun.

True to her word, Joy propped me up in front of the house and doused me with the hose before I was allowed within three meters of the door. The water was refreshingly cool in the wake of such strenuous exercise, and I couldn't be even a little upset at the fact that I was being hosed down in the street. Once I was satisfactorily cleansed, I was led into the house where I was met by a towel. In short order I was dried off and deposited on the couch as Joy took off to run me a bath. Instead of going directly to the bathroom to start the shower, she disappeared up the stairs. I figured that she was off to get some of her cleaning products from the bathroom upstairs, but then the water came on up stairs.

Strange… why was she running the water upstairs when the shower was down here? Maybe she was rinsing something off? But that didn't make any sense… unless… why would I be showering upstairs? The answer to my question came sooner than I expected, in the form of Joy coming around the corner and persuading me to get up off the couch.

"Joy? Why are we going upstairs?"

"Well, if I have to clean you up, then we're going to need a bigger tub. I have one upstairs that fits the bill, so that's the one we're using… unless you want to head back out to the yard and the hose?"

"Well… no, not really. Upstairs it is, then."

I may have sounded calm and collected, but internally I was freaking the hell out. I was going upstairs. With Joy. Where the bedrooms are. With Joy. To get in the bath. With Joy. Joy, who was going to be playing with my wings. Oh, this was going to be bad. In the back of my head, there was a little pony rubbing his hooves together with a maniacal grin. Another pony was sitting in the corner in the fetal position and rocking slowly back and forth. Yeah, that sounds about right. This was going to go one of two ways, and I could only hope that it didn't go south. I wanted to be skeptical, wanted to be concerned… but then it dawned on me, and I knew what this was. This was a test, a trial of trust. Of course I would want to freak out, want to monitor and control the situation… but I couldn't. No, I had to trust Joy. I had to trust her, and not interfere or take matters into my own hooves. This was terrifying to me, in a way that was hard to describe. It's a good thing that I was so tired by this point, because it was easy to mask my features under a blank slate of exhaustion.

Joy led the way down the hallway, and in spite of myself I was excited. I was like a kid who just found a tree house in the woods… the thrill of discovery was intoxicating. As we walked down the hall, it was as if we traveled back in time as the pictures of Joy that adorned the wall depicted her progressively younger and younger and for some strange reason… sadder and sadder. Once I hit the toddler stage in this backwards progression though, all traces of sadness vanished and she was the happiest filly you'd ever seen.

The last picture was different from the rest, and I think it was the first photo of Joy ever taken. Nurse Redheart was lying on her back in a hospital bed, quite disheveled and shaken, yet beaming with a familiar smile as she held a tightly wrapped bundle of blue. From this bundle there poked a single tuft of azure mane and a miniature horn and naught else. The single most shocking thing about the photo though was the stallion at Nurse Redheart's hoof… A haggard looking guy, black mane swept back behind his ears, his light blue coat doing little to hide the dark circles under his eyes. This one photograph seemed to insist upon a life brimming with the promise of family, of laughter… laughter that seemed to be missing from the early photos of Joy.

This one photograph, in light of the ones I had seen before, spoke the story of a terrible loss, a great tragedy. The sense of loss that I got from these pictures resonated with me in a fundamental way, striking a chord deep within me. I must have stopped to stare, because the next thing I felt was Joy gently nuzzling me to get me moving, nudging me towards the stairs. My hooves carried me numbly up the stairs, my core still strumming with the resonance of the photo as things I'd long since overcome threatened to break free again. I could feel it rising within me, threatening to overturn the years of struggle it took to push it down in the first place, threatening to consume me once more.

A gentle caress along my side shone into my heart like a beacon, chasing away the slithering darkness that clambered from the depths, beating it back ever so slightly. The darkness within refused to abate so easily though, and as the touch faded away, so too did the light it had brought. In the renewed blackness there was a resurgence within me, as the inky tendrils snaked farther out from the chasm to which they had been banished. I felt a familiar stinging in my eyes and I knew that I wept, but I cared not.

And then Joy kissed me. Not a passionate kiss, driven by urgency and a desperate need, speaking to primal urges. No, this kiss was one of compassion, one that spoke of a shared sorrow, an understanding.

The kiss flared within my heart, brighter than the sun, burning with a radiance that seared the black tendrils within me. The kiss lingered for an eternity, beating back the darkness that had threatened to overcome my defenses. The kiss broke, but this time the light within did not fade in its absence. It was as if I had a fire within my very being that was keeping me warm. Once more, Joy had saved me from myself. She saved me from my past, which threatened to consume me. Taking a shaky breath, I spoke up.

"Thank you, Joy. I…that’s just what I needed."

"Me too. Want to talk about it?"

"I… I can't. I just… I can't."

"Shhh, shhh… it’s okay. You don’t have to, dear. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

I simply nodded and clambered up the stairs, being led blindly into the bathroom. Joy reached out a blue tendril to staunch the water sluicing from the faucet, simultaneously pulling back the curtain to reveal a basin the size of a hot tub, gently steaming and slightly frothy. No wonder she prefers to shower up here. I stood in place for a moment, just a tad hesitant to defile the pristine basin with my filth. A gentle nudge to my flank urged me onwards, and I reluctantly accepted the invitation and dipped a hoof into the liquid, shivering in delight as the touch. The water was as near to the perfect temperature as any I had ever encountered, and I gingerly stepped the rest of the way in and sat down immediately adjacent to the edge of the tub, waiting for Joy to begin. Instead of feeling a sponge or other cleaning implement being dragged across by form, I heard Joy clearing her throat expectantly. Turning, I saw her standing over me, perched on the edge of the basin.

"Dave, I can't climb in with you sitting right there."

Climb… in? But… I'm in here… does she mean to tell me… oh, well it seems she does intend to… she cleared her throat again, indicating that I should likely get moving. Slightly bewildered, somewhat confused, and embarrassingly excited, I floated away from the ledge to permit her access to the bath. Daintily, she climbed in and floated over to where I was performing an admirable imitation of a buoy. From some incomprehensible crevice (the niche behind the towel rack) Joy procured a sponge and gently began to scrub the day from my coat. With each caress of the cleaning instrument, I felt the dirt, sweat, and grime of the day melt away, and the residual darkness that lingered in my chest was likewise washed away under the ministrations of this loving mare.

I was relaxed, completely and totally. The temperature of the water, the delightfully delicious smelling soap, and the gently strokes of Joy's sponge wiped every trace of worry or anxiety from my being. Even when the sponge dipped into a "questionable area", I fretted not. It would seem that in my bliss, I had found complete trust. My trust was well placed though, for despite the fact that the sponge was a bit closer than I was necessarily comfortable with, it never ventured into objectionable areas. The sponge was discarded eventually, and Joy simply embraced me from behind, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and nuzzling my neck. I turned and nuzzled the top of her head, planting a kiss on the tip of her horn. At this she scrunched up her face with a cute little grimace before she turned her head towards mine and favored me with a passionate, gentle kiss.

I turned my torso to better hold her, and with the aid of buoyancy and a bit of muscle, I had floated her around in front of me and held her in my arms, much the same way that a groom would carry a bride across the threshold. Supporting her in my arms and with her arms around my neck, we floated in the languid pool for an eternity, lost in the moment, lost in each other.

Eventually, we concluded that if we didn't get out of the tub soon, we'd turn into raisins. Joy emerged first and summoned us a couple of towels, demonstrating once more the utility of having magic as she dried herself in a flurry of terrycloth swipes. As if I needed another reason to be jealous. Having dried herself off in record time, Joy applied her skills to me just as I finished clambering out of the tub. I was dried off before I knew up from down, and with that we set off for more familiar territory.

Under the influence of my near complete relaxation, the whole trip from upstairs to down passed in a blur, and I wasn’t afforded the chance to make any more observations as to the layout of the house. I’d look back on this golden opportunity in the near future and lament that I hadn’t seen the rest of the house. As much as I respected everypony’s right to privacy, I had this distinct, moderately perverted notion that simply wouldn’t leave my head… I wanted to see Joy’s bed. Not just see it, but lay down upon it. Creepy, yes… but the notion was a powerful one; one I wouldn’t even realize I’d harbored until a few days later. But, as I said before, the trip down the stairs and out the hall was a smear of colors shapes and textures to my dopamine-addled think-box.

The both of us sat on the couch in a comfortably familiar way, though our orientation was reversed. In lieu of Joy’s head on my lap as I brushed her mane, it was instead my head on her lap as she gently un-ruffled my feathers, one…feather… at… a… time. The entire process was a lengthy one, but I hadn’t a fuck to give about how long it took, for I was simply lost in the ecstasy of it all. Now, I know that the wings are a distinctly erogenous area on a Pegasus, having had a few awkward encounters with them myself. Somehow in spite of this, having an incredibly attractive mare smooth out each and every feather with an almost religious tenacity and thoroughness was pure ecstasy, though not arousing. I cannot really fathom or attest to how or why this is (seeing as how I have no conscious recollection of the event), but if I were to speculate on the cause, I would posit that this was due to the slow and steady nature of the encounter. Each feather was straightened and aligned very slowly and tenderly, which I suppose negated the erogenous effects. As I said though, this is mere speculation, as I was completely checked out for the entire duration.

Innumerable hours of bliss later, the hooves that had been gently preening my plumage finally came to rest. In the absence of the pleasure that I had basked in for so long, I almost felt something akin to pain, and I was about to be concerned before I realized that I wasn’t in pain, I was just in the absence of the constant, pleasant stimulation that I had been in before. Luna in the sky with diamonds, I was going to have to get her to do that again.

I rose to my knees on shaky limbs and planted a loving kiss on my favorite set of lips, lingering far longer than usual. Once the affectionate gesture broke, the both of us were grinning like idiots who just discovered something shiny. Wordlessly we switched positions, returning to our more familiar configuration. I took the brush from where it sat on the end table-turned-nightstand, affixed it to the end of my appendage and slowly began stroking the cerulean mane on my lap. I couldn’t help but wonder if this felt as good for her as the massage had been for me… I’d have to ask her at some point in the future. All we needed right now was the—

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of music floating softly from the gramophone on the corner of the room. I was really and truly contemplating the plausibility of Joy being a mind reader. To test this theory, I decided to think something at her as hard as I could. But what would it be? It had to be something that would draw a reaction from her, but not one that would get me in trouble if she really was some sort of super mind-reading unicorn. After a brief moment of concentration, I had it. In my mind, I fixed an image and thought it towards Joy as hard and as loudly as I could.

Rainbow Dash has a stupendous flank.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Perched atop a fluffy cloud somewhere high above Ponyville, Rainbow Dash rubbed her ear, annoyed that the itching had disturbed her nap. Flipping over to find a comfortable spot, she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Joy’s tail twitched, but this was by no means a positive indicator… it did that a lot as I brushed her mane. I tried again, thinking harder this time, and concentrating deeper.

Rainbow Dash has a STUPENDOUS FLANK.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Just as she was beginning to drift back to sleep, a maddening itch caused Rainbow to sit bolt upright and scratch furiously. 'Seriously, what the hay is going on here? Stupid itchy ears, waking me up from my nap…’ Dash grumbled as she rolled over once more to go back to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Nothing but a sigh, which was again a less-than-positive indication. Hmm. Well, it looks like the mind reading thing is just a series of incredibly serendipitous coincidences. I took a deep breath and breathed a sigh of relief. I might not be a bad pony, but sometimes my mind wanders into dark alleys, and it would be best if nopony else knew about the things that cross my mind in the darkness. Personally, I blame the internet and scary movies.

Joy shifted slightly at my sigh, but she was too far gone into her happy place to be bothered with it. As I brushed, my mind had the opportunity to wander, mostly trying to reconcile the events of the last two weeks and absorb the implications. I took a moment to note that the sun had set and night had risen, indicating that several hours has passed since I had come home.

As the fog of exhaustion rolled into my mind, I found it more and more difficult to recall the events as they had occurred, and soon gave up entirely as an easier thought presented itself: I was going to marry Joy. The whole matter of proposing to her and her (hopeful) acceptance was a problem for another day. In the more immediate future, I had bigger concerns. Concerns like ‘how in the hell am I going to buy a ring without her noticing’, and things like that. You know, the little stuff. The sound of Joy’s gentle snoring elicited a yawn from me, and I ceased my brushing and shifted position to lie down beside my love. Or at least, I tried to. As soon as I stopped brushing and started to move, Joy pouted and snuggled further into my lap, making the cutest little sounds as she vocalized her discomfort. I was not going to be going anywhere anytime soon. A movie poster for the film “127 Hours” popped into my head, causing me to chuckle.

So it would seem that I would be sleeping while sitting upright, with my legs crossed, and Joy sleeping on my lap. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my legs after this. This really sucked though, because we had finally started to get along, and I could see myself becoming quite attached to them in the future. As I drifted off to sleep, I had the very distinct pleasure of forming the mental image of myself with a pair of peg-legs, click-clacking my way down an avenue. With a smile on my lips and a glow in my heart, I drifted off to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Oh-dark-thirty/ 25 March

A few hours later, in the dead of night, Joy rolled over to achieve a more comfortable position, freeing me from my imprisonment. At the time, I was unaware of this (seeing as how I was dead asleep and all), but I was soon awoken by the swarm of knife-wielding fire ants who were attacking my legs with extreme prejudice. The phrase “pins and needles” is an understatement, and I took it upon myself to come up with a suitable replacement. Some contenders that I was considering are as follows:

Sharks and shanks; piranhas and razorblades; knife wielding fire ants; and one of my personal favorites, stakes and shanks.

Even as I was contemplating proper descriptive (and ever-so-slightly fanciful) terms for my suffering, the sensation faded away to regular old pins and needles, and once more to completely restored feeling. Well, it looks like I won’t be losing the limbs after all. That’s good to know.

Loss of limb averted, I quickly settled back to sleep and made my way back to the same dream I had just awoken from without a hitch.

I was awoken for the second time that day by my alarm, feeling incredibly well rested. After my exertion the day before and the massage afterward, I had slept like the dead. As was customary, Joy was already up and making breakfast by the time I woke up, though this time it wasn’t nearly as cacophonous as it had been in days prior. Once I had concluded my daily ritual of hygiene, I headed into the kitchen to partake in the consumption of delicious sustenance.

I came up behind Joy as she was making breakfast, startling her with a nip to the flank. She jumped a bit in surprise and let out an adorable little squeak before turning and fixing me with a sultry gaze.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Dave.”

“Yes, dear.”

“You know, I kinda like this obedient side of you. It’s pretty cute.”

And I blushed. She is victorious once more. I was silent as I tried to come up with a rebuttal, but it took too long and it would have been even more awkward if I interjected now, so far after the fact. We had a light breakfast of oats, grain, and fruit to start the day, a day I didn’t really know how to spend. As far as I knew, I had nothing to do for today other than spend time with Joy. Thankfully, Joy’s schedule was a little better populated than mine. Since Joy was starting school on Monday, (something I had entirely forgotten about) she needed to pick up some books and miscellaneous school supplies to prepare for the new semester. On the agenda for the day was a stop at Quills & Sofas, followed by the Library. After the Library, we would be heading home to deposit the books and would determine the best way to spend the remainder of the day. With the immediate future planned out and scheduled, we set off for Q&S to pick up a set of quills, parchment, and ink. As we walked through the streets, we engaged in small talk and simply absorbed the wonderful morning. The slight nip in the air was fading, and towards the middle of the day it was noticeably warmer, signaling the end of spring and the rise of summer.

The town was its usual bustling self, or at least as close to nustling as Ponyville ever came to it. At any rate, ponies were out and about, soaking up the same gentle rays of sun as Joy and I were. A gentle breeze tousled the ends of my mane and tail,, sending a current dancing across my wings as it passed. As we strolled in companionable silence, it afforded me time to think, which was good because it took me a bit longer than most folks.

In the back of my mind, I was kind of grateful that Joy was going to be in class, and therefore absent for longer periods of time. As much as I knew I’d miss her presence and relish her company even more upon her return, it also saved me the trouble of having to explain why a born and raised pegasus would have to undertake flying lessons in secrecy, possibly in a remote location like in the meadows by Sweet Apple Acres. Since I was a “born and raised” pegasus, I should already know how to fly and all that jazz… just one problem: I had never been a pegasus before, and was still getting used to the concept of myself with wings. Therefore, my training needed to be in secret, lest my lies about my past be brought forth and exposed.

I knew that sooner or later I’d have to tell Joy, and that the longer I waited the worse it would be… but I couldn’t do it, not yet. As incredibly selfish and deceitful as it was, I still needed to fully recover before I told her. After all, what if she kicked me out before I was healed, and I couldn’t fend for myself? Granted, I was in a better position to survive than most due to my training, but I still would rather not put this to the test.

In the midst of my internal ramblings, I had missed Joy’s attempt to strike up a conversation, causing Joy to regard me with concern as she inquired about my demeanor.

“Dave? Are you feeling alright?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Got lost in thought…unfamiliar territory and all.”

Joy chuckled at this, but her gaze remained skeptical, though she withheld any questions she might have had. After this incident, I focused more intently on remaining a part of the conversation, a feat that was made significantly easier by the fact that it was easy to listen to Joy speak, and I felt like I could do it for hours on end without ever growing tired of it. Well, so long as I didn’t get distracted, at least. A flurry of movement and some startled yelps caught my attention, and as my head swiveled in the direction of the noise, I barely caught sight of an orange filly with a magenta mane barreling down the avenue on a scooter. In a flurry of dust and surprised vocalizations, the wheeled menace was gone and life was back to normal. As I was watching this unfold, I had turned my head but remained walking forward… at least until I collided with the side of a building.

Hearing the thump, Joy stopped whatever she had been saying in mid sentence, turning to look at me with a mixture of amusement and resignation. I rubbed the knot on my head and smiled sheepishly at her. I hobbled back to my hooves and caught up to Joy, still massaging the knot forming on my head. Just around the corner was Quills and Sofas, and I got an disquietingly familiar queasy feeling as I looked at the fascia of the building, the damage from Derpy’s collision having been all but erased. As we passed in front of the display window that had taken the brunt of the impact, I saw an all too familiar sight that caused me to shiver a bit, despite the warmth. Small brown spatters adorned the baseboards of the display window baseboards, overlooked in the reconstruction efforts. Yep, that was blood alright.

Before I had a chance to get any more unsteady on my hooves, we were past the window and headed into the store. We were greeted by an exuberant Dave, whose formal name was apparently Davenport (as indicated by his nametag). Upon seeing Joy, his face lit up with a huge smile, and upon seeing me, the smile faltered. He tried to hide it with an ill-timed cough, but that just made it all the more noticeable. Joy stood off to the side, eyes darting between the two Daves as if watching an invisible tennis match. I was going to open my mouth and ask him to explain his reaction when he caught me off guard with a single word.

“Sorry.”

I had to stop and think for a second. Was this a trap? Was he apologizing in advance for causing me a great deal of bodily harm? Unconsciously, I tensed up, anticipating bad things happening. Seeing this, Other Dave shook his head and waved his hooves in the universal “you’ve got it all wrong” or “no, stop” gesture. He spoke again, once more preempting my question.

“Hold on now, I’m just apologizing for how I acted that night. I know you’re sore at me for hitting you, but I want you to know that I didn’t mean anything by it. I thought you were attacking her, and I- “

I interjected, cutting off his explanation. “Alright Dave, calm down. I’m not even sore about the knock to the head, and I see why you did it. As a matter of fact, I’m thankful that you were there to help. Without the quill you gave me, things might have still gone badly for Derpy. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… thank you.”

Davenport just sat there for a moment, mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He must have been studying under Joy, because he was able to pull off an imitation of a goldfish as well as anypony I’d ever met. After a moment, he found his voice again.

“You’re… you’re welcome? But if you aren’t mad, then why did you look like you were about to attack me?”

I wing-shrugged, causing a twinge of pain that I did my best to overlook. “Oh, that. I wasn’t about to attack, I was anticipating an attack. I’m just a little jumpy like that. I came in and then you started acting funny, then you just say ‘sorry’ … I found it pretty strange and it put me on edge.”

Now it was his turn to shrug, which he somehow did without wings. “Ah, I see. Well, now that we all know that nopony is going to attack anypony else, what can Davenport do for you?”

At this, Joy stepped forward from where she had been standing to address the shop owner. “Actually, I’m here to get some supplies for class. Here’s my list.”

As the scrap of parchment floated over and was caught by Davenport, his eyes widened a bit as a smile grew on his face. I know that look… that’s the “this is going to be damned expensive” look. I’ve seen it before on mechanics and car salesmen.

A half hour later, the deed was done, and I was stuck carrying a bag that was simply full to the brim with scrolls upon scrolls of parchment, ink, and more quills than you can shake a stick at. Joy settled the tab with a pile of bits that I thought was unreasonably large for such a purchase, and as we walked out, I questioned Joy about this.

“Hey, Joy? Didn’t that seem a bit expensive for parchment and quills and stuff?”

Now it was Joy who joined the shrug-fest. “Yeah, it was. But Davenport had to raise his prices a little bit to cover the costs of the repairs.”

I nodded absently. “Oh, alright. That makes sense, now that I think about it. So, we’re off to visit Twilight?”

“No, we’re off to get books from the library. This will most likely result in a meeting with Twilight, but it isn’t the main reason we are going.”

Dammit, she got me again. Seeking revenge, I pulled forward so that I was walking alongside her instead of slightly to the rear. Once I was in position, I extended my right wing and ever so lightly traced the tip of a feather down her spine. She stopped on the spot, overcome by involuntary shivers from her head to her tail. She shot me a look that promised retribution, and I couldn’t help but wonder what fresh hell was in store for me. My mouth burned at the recollection of the Dave-ferno. Meh, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

Once more we walked towards our next destination side by side, our flanks occasionally bumping and drawing a grin from the both of us. The trip passed in a comfortable silence as we each simply relished the company of the other. Along the way, I caught sight of the Crusaders as they gallivanted en masse from (or towards) their latest adventure. I was about to remark to Joy, but they disappeared around the corner before I had a chance to say anything. In hindsight, I figured that she was likely quite familiar with their antics, being not only a resident of the town, but moreover a nurse with a pediatric specialty. I let the experience pass by without a comment, silently contemplating what they might have been up to for a moment before discarding the notion as unknowable. I simply relished in the presence of this mare beside me, taking in the smells and sounds of the square as we passed through the center of the town. With my flank so close to Joy’s, I didn’t have to watch where I was going, I just had to stick by her side. Having my mind freed up from the strenuous and complicated task of watching where I was going, it was free to wander of its own accord.

Perhaps a manifestation of my current physiology, my gaze and my thoughts were drawn inexorably upwards, becoming lost in the wild blue yonder that arched above us, the ceiling of the world. I wondered what it would be like, to feel the wind whipping through my mane and filling my wings as I swooped and whirled through the amorphous clouds above. Somehow, I recalled the sensation of flight; the sting of the cold at the high altitudes, buffeted by the unseen air currents in the sky; the cold dampness of a storm cloud as I flew through it, as the sky itself seemed to tremble under the might of the storm. I recalled everything with such vividness that I could swear I had lived it, yet knew that I had not.

A hoof caressed my cheek, bringing me firmly back down to earth and igniting a blush on my cheeks.

“About time you got your head out of the clouds, Dave. We’re here.”

And so we were. We were nearly standing on the stoop to the library when I had been roused from my reverie. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted by a mostly apathetic little purple dragon, carrying a mop and bucket with a dour look on his face. And by “greeted”, I mean that he grunted in an affirming manner as we entered. Knowing that what comes next wouldn’t involve me in the slightest, I excused myself to do some research on my own. As I made my way to the maze of shelves, I heard Joy and Twilight striking up a conversation elsewhere in the library. After a few moments of searching, I found what I was looking for: a book on intermediate flight techniques and a book on griffin history.

Though I wanted to read up on flight very badly, I held off on that until after I skimmed the griffin history first. I scanned the book and picked out pertinent bits of information that might come in handy, so long as I didn’t come across a griffin. If that happened, I was boned. Having absorbed enough basic info to sate most foreseeable questions, I dove into the flight book and devoured every word I could, ingested every fact. In this way, I was a bit like Twilight… when something caught my interest, I would research and learn as much as I possibly could about it, hungrily searching out every fact I could find on the subject. In a matter of half an hour, I had made it through the entire book. My head was spinning slightly, partly from the influx of information and techno-jargon, but also from the very, very intense desire to try every single thing I learned from the tome.

I suppose in that way, I was like Dash… always wanting to try something new, gain new experience. I’ve always been a quick learner, and I couldn’t wait to put this into practice. After work tomorrow, I would go for a little jog to get away from the crowd and start practicing the warm up drills prescribed in the book. While they are rudimentary flight techniques to most, I figured it would be a good place to start and build confidence before moving on to anything crazy. I was about to search for another book on flight when I heard myself being summoned. I set off for the checkout counter, as I figured that’s where they would be. As I trotted, I became aware once more of the bag of supplies I held around my neck as it shifted with my increased pace. Adjusting the burden, I slowed my pace a bit so that I didn’t dislodge it again.

Rounding the corner, I began to have flashbacks to my struggle against gravity from the day before. I was in shock at how many books there were stacked upon the counter. How was it even supporting the weight? I must have been standing with my jaw open or something, because the both of them started to laugh at me. Turning from one to the other, I tried to figure out what exactly was so funny about the prospect of me carrying three and a quarter metric tons of books back to the house.

The two of them were whispering in conspiratorial tones, but not exactly quietly enough for me not to hear what was being said.

“Look at him… he thinks all these books are mine.”

Twilight looked from Joy to the tower of books and back again. “Huh? You mean my re-shelving stack? Are you going to tell him?”

With a devious smirk, Joy replied “What, and ruin the fun?”

At this, the both of them giggled. I maintained the dumbfounded look on my face as I approached, looking for an edge, something that would allow me to flip the situation back on them. As I eyed the spines of the books in front of me, I found exactly what I needed. Stopping in place as if frozen, I turned my head and examined a title very closely before I read it out loud.

“How to please your mare: A guide. Joy, is there something you aren’t telling me?”

Now it was her turn to have her jaw hit the floor, and she turned white as it did so. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, and she started doing her tomato impression again. Though, with her eyes bugged out like they were, it looked like someone had glued googly eyes to a tomato. I did my best to hold a straight as I looked through the rest of the titles.

I lost it somewhere around “An Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra”.

Twilight was chuckling heartily, Joy was beet red and stammering an excuse, and I just lost it and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. After a moment of pouting, even Joy joined in the jubilations, admitting defeat. Spike came by to shush us, but seeing that Twilight was laughing just as hard as the rest of us, he just tore off his apron and stalked away, muttering to himself. After a moment longer, the guffaws died down and faded altogether. Wrapping up the transaction, Joy floated a sizeable set of bags over to me, each one probably containing about ten text books or so. Shouldering the burden with a bit less difficulty than I expected, I proceeded in the direction of the door as Joy said her farewells. Our next stop was our humble abode to deposit this burden and plan out how to spend the rest of the day. Silently I supplicated the powers that be, pleading that whatever came after lunch involved less manual labor.

An hour and a half later, we had made it home, unpacked the bags of books, and enjoyed a lunch salad with strawberries, cranberries, walnuts, and sweet balsamic vinaigrette dressing. I swear, Joy’s mark should have been a chef’s hat. Over lunch, we had discussed plans for the afternoon, and to my relief I discovered that we were done gathering supplies for the time being. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that we would relax the rest of the day away, a decision that I backed fully. As soon as Joy mentioned that there was a lake nearby, I would hear nothing else. I have always been an avid swimmer, a trait that I guess was due to being raised within spitting distance of one of the world’s most famous beaches.

After a bit of preparation (and a good deal of impatient prancing on my part) we were ready to go. I practically skipped the whole way there, and Joy couldn’t help but smile at my excitement. I fought the urge to bolt for the shore as soon as the water came into view. Instead, I took to helping Joy set up the umbrellas and the towels before I struck out for the water’s edge at nothing less than a dead sprint. With a leap, I flared my wings a bit and was rewarded with the sensation of my hooves lifting from the sand as I used my speed to glide over the water and gain a little height, before tucking in my wings and diving towards the water.

From the shore, I could hear Joy yelling something at me, but in the rush of the moment, the thrill of flight, all I heard was cheering. As soon as I touched the water, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. First off, it was still March. Still cold at night, and with shorter days to heat the water. An instant before splashdown, I caught sight of a stream spilling into the lake, winding away up into the mountains. I splashed down into a world of pain, diving into a bowl of needles and salt as my coat shrank six sizes, suffocating me. I fought the urge to breathe as I struggled back for the surface. This was without a doubt the coldest water I’d ever been in. Even as I broke the surface, the adrenaline coursing through my veins took hold, and it wouldn’t allow me to look weak, to look phased by a little glacial runoff. I shook my mane from my eyes and whooped triumphantly, wondering if Joy could see me shivering from the shore.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself, diving back under the surface and using my wings, “flying” under water. This was one of the exercises in the book, an example of resistance training. Pumping my wings as swiftly as I could under the water, I closed the dozen meters to shore in record speed. As a matter of fact, I was moving so fast that I didn’t even realize that I was out of room until I slid out of the water and up the beach, coming to rest at Joy’s hooves. Sputtering and coughing, spitting out sand, I tried my best to smile up at her. As I did so, she burst out laughing, pointing at me and trying in vain to speak. I was about to ask the rhetorical question of “is there something in my teeth” when I realized that there was indeed something in my teeth. Picking at my face with a sandy hoof was a terrible idea, but it was successful in dislodging the offending item, which I noted was seaweed. Spitting out more sand, I stood and approached Joy, still covered as I was in sand, mud, and Celestia-knows what else. I approached her with my best kissy-face, using what I jokingly refer to as my “bedroom voice”.

“Hey there, pretty lady. How’s about a kiss?”

I puckered up and lunged at her, causing her to shriek and run away as I gave chase, the both of us giggling like fillies. It is times like this, these moments of sheer happiness, which get us through the black times in our lives.

I eventually caught Joy, but not before she scooped a sphere of ice water from the lake and unceremoniously doused me with it, washing away the mud and grime on my coat. I was just about to gloat about my sandy lips when I was hit by a second, smaller ball of liquid right in my big, open mouth. Coughing and sputtering, I was aware that my fact that my mouth was pretty effectively rinsed out. I was simultaneously glad to be rid of whatever funny taste I’d had in my mouth before then, and also disappointed that Joy wouldn’t suffer the wrath of my sloppy makeouts. Damn.

I managed to throw Joy off by feinting left and going right, using my wings for an extra burst of speed to grab a hold of her and roll her to the ground, using my wings to slow myself at the last second so I didn’t injure her in the process. I pinned her to the ground, holding her down with a combination of my body weight and strategically placed wings. I sat there for a moment to bask in the glow of triumph, disregarding the fact that I was proud to have managed to catch a mare, and one who wasn’t very good at running at that.

Nope, not acknowledging that. So there I was, still glistening from my dip in the lake, the excess water from my coat dripping onto Joy as she lay beneath me. We were both breathing a little heavily from the chase, and Joy was blushing a little from the exertion. I leaned down to kiss her, finding my lips met eagerly by hers as we slipped away into our own little world. At least, until we were interrupted by a shocked gasp and some very upset words.

“Are the two of you… in public… oh, you should be ashamed of yourselves! What if a foal found you two? How would you explain that? Hmm?”

My head snapped up as soon as I heard the gasp, and my brain was working overtime as I tried to figure out what exactly I was being yelled at for. The pieces cascaded into place.

I was lying on top of Joy. We were both out of breath. We were both dripping wet. Immediately prior to the kiss, there had been a certain amount of grunting going on. Yeah, this looked pretty bad. I recognized the mare who was scolding us as Cheerilee, and she recognized the both of us as well. I spoke up first, trying to come to our defense.

“Wait, it’s not like that. We were just running around and chasing each other, but I caught Joy and tackled her—“

“And just happened to land on top of her? Sure, a likely story. I’m going to turn around and pretend that I never saw any of this, and let us never speak of this again. Just be glad it was me that found you mid-tryst, and not one of those ponies who engage in gossip. Take it to the bedroom, and keep it a private matter between two ponies.”

Had I not been so caught off guard, I might have laughed at the sheer comicality of it all. As it was, I stared in shock at Cheerilee as she walked away, shaking her head. Below me, Joy cleared her throat nervously. I gave her another quick kiss before climbing off of her, allowing her to get to her hooves and look around awkwardly.

Joy rubbed the back of her neck, doing her tomato impression again. “Well… that was… awkward.”

“What, the part where I beat you, or the part where Cheerilee thought we were boning?”

Joy began sputtering at this, apparently amazed by my ability to toss that phrase out there so casually. She recovered quickly though, and with a moment’s hesitation she had flipped it around on me.

“Neither, the part where she said we should take it to the bedroom. I quite like the idea, myself. Shall we?”

I had to stop for a minute and think on that one. Is it still too soon? A pony in a white robe punched me in the back of the head. Of course it’s too soon. It’s only been two weeks! On the other hoof, a red pony with a pitchfork was gently trying to persuade me that she was the one pushing for it… no, no. that doesn’t make it right. In the midst of my internal debate, I heard Joy faintly as she mumbled to herself.

“I think I broke him… “

I chuckled inwardly as the debate raged on.

There is no way that this can be right, be the right thing to do. Do I want to? Oh, hell yes I do. Does she? Yeah, that’s a roger. Can we? Nope. Why? Because I told her I’d show her what love could be, what love should be. This? This wasn’t it. No, I was going to wait until marriage for that. Or at least till I propose. Yeah, at least then. Not until after I have that ring on her horn will we be engaging in any sort of hanky-panky. My mind made up, I snapped back to the present.

“Joy. While your eagerness is enticing, and you are the most beautiful mare I’ve ever met, I’ll have to take a rain check on that. It’s still too soon, love. I said I’d do this right, and I mean it. We’ll have to wait until the time is right.”

She looked at me with an odd expression for a second. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting all that. Maybe a comeback or some stuttering, but nothing that made sense. And just how will we know when the time is right?”

I nodded knowingly, “Oh, we’ll know, I assure you. It’ll be hard to miss the signs.”

“Well, if even you say it’s hard to miss, there’s no way it’ll slip me by.”

I met this with a sarcastic smile and shook my head. As we headed back to the towel we had laid out, I managed to convince Joy to come in the water. Though she had barely dipped a hoof in before she declared that there was no way in Tartarus that she’d go in there, I ended up persuading her to go a bit farther out. And by persuaded, I mean that I might have stuck my head under her chest and lifted her onto my back before dashing like mad for deeper water. She managed to wiggle free, but not before she was in water up to her shoulders. Joy scampered out of the water as quickly as she could, standing shivering on the bank and shooting me an evil glare. After frolicking in the water for a moment to rub in the fact that I was tougher than she was, and unaffected by the temperature, I headed to shore. By the time I climbed out of the water, I could no longer feel my extremities. Such is the price of pride. Joy spread out on the towel that had been laid out for her and simply bathed in the warmth of the sun.

Seeing how supremely comfortable she looked, I decided it’d be nice to join her, and so I did. We lay side by side like that for a good while, rolling over from time to time to bake nice and evenly on both sides. By the time we decided to wrap it up, the sun was descending in the sky and we were both nice and toasty. If not for this coat of fur, I’d have been burnt to a crisp by the time we packed up and left. Apparently every other pony in town had enough common sense to know that the lake was cold this time of year, since we hadn’t seen any other ponies in the entire time we had been out there. Well, none but Cheerilee. What was that mare doing out here, anyways? Bah, more mysteries for future Dave. Packing up the towels and the umbrella, Joy and I set off for home to wash the sand from our coats before dinner. By the time we’d gotten home, I was half convinced that I was going to be invited upstairs for another “steamy bathroom session”, but this was not the case. We entered and went our separate ways to conduct our hygiene rituals.

A short while later we met back up in the living room. There was no real purpose to this other than to just be near each other, and I sat on the couch with her head in my lap, gently brushing her mane to the tune of Steedivarious. This… this was heavenly. We slowly let the world fade away as we retreated to that special place of ours, that place without cares and the where the only sound was the soft rasp of brush against mane.

Our reverie was ended by the sound of the door opening and hoofsteps approaching. I never slowed or paused my stroking, and the hoofsteps stopped at the doorway to the main hall. Silence reigned for several seconds (save for the aforementioned rasp of the brush) before a single “awww” came from the doorway. Turning my head, I saw Nurse Redheart standing there with glistening eyes and a tender smile as she regarded the both of us with a mix of adoration and… jealousy? This didn’t make sense, but there was no mistaking it… her pale blue eyes were tinged green by envy. Redheart senior reached a hoof up and wiped her eye, followed by the other eye, mumbling to herself.

“You’ll have to excuse me, I seem to have something in my eye… and my other eye… and my heart… “

I smiled to myself at that, never breaking stride with my strokes. I heard hooves heading upstairs, followed by a door closing, and then silence. A few moments later, I became aware of the fact that my arm was getting rather sore from the repetitive motion, and I ceased my brushing to watch Joy’s reaction. It took a few seconds for her to notice, but eventually she did. The first indicator was her nose beginning to twitch, as if trying to determine the source of a scent. This was followed shortly thereafter by an adorable grimace as her left eye popped halfway open. She panned her half lidded and bleary gaze across the room, searching for Luna-knows-what.

Blinking in confusion as she finally opened both eyes, she turned her head towards me and stared for a moment before the image finally sunk in. “Why’d you stop?”

“I can’t feel my arm anymore.”

She grumpily murmured “… and? Is that all?”

“Also, I’m hungry. Didn’t you say something about dinner a while ago?” As if on cue, my stomach rumbled right next to Joy’s ear.

She rolled her eyes at this. “Is food all you think about? Kidding, kidding. I’m hungry too. How do you feel about Daisy’s?”

I contemplated for a moment before responding, tapping a hoof to my chin for extra think-power. “They’re a fine salad topping, but hardly a meal.”

“I meant the diner, ya goof. Want to go out for dinner?”

I was then grasped by an idea. “Sounds good to me. We should ask your mom if she wants to go with us.”

Joy made a face like she just sucked on a lemon as she contemplated the notion.

“Eh… I’m not so sure that would be a good idea… “

I cocked my head. This didn't make sense to me. “Oh? Why not? She’s already had ‘the talk’ with me. I don’t see what’s left to be worried about. Plus, I’m good at conversation for the most part.”

Joy sat up, rubbing the back of her neck and refusing to look me in the eye. “No, it’s not that… it’s just that there are some things that happened in the past that… well, it would make the whole thing awkward.”

Feeling that I'd overstepped a boundary of some sort, I quickly backpedaled into safer conversational territory. “Oh… okay then. I didn’t mean to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. I just thought it would be nice to have her come out with us, so I could get to know her a bit better. We could always do that another time, though.”

Joy sighed, apparently resigned.

“No, no… you’re right… for once. It would be good for you to spend some time with her and get to know her, and vice versa as well. Now I feel bad for not wanting to invite her, it seems rude of me.”

I held up a hoof. “Hold on, that’s not what I wanted at all. I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip you into this, love. I just thought it would be nice.”

She waved her hoof dismissively. “No, don’t worry about that. You were right after all. You see that? I even said it twice now, and it still feels strange.”

“What, admitting I was right?”

Joy mock-glared at me for a moment before sighing heavily and fixing me with a level gaze.

“Yes, that. You might as well revel in it, it’s not something that happens often, is it? But anyways, I’ll go ask if she wants to come with us for some ‘family bonding time’ and all that. If this goes south though, I blame you.”

“But of course, love. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Good, as long as it’s understood. I’ll go ask her now.”

Joy turned and set off towards the stairs, leaving me in silence.

Dear, Sweet Celestia… what am I getting myself into?

My contemplation was cut short by a pair of hoofsteps heading down the stairs. Well… here goes nothing…

Author's Note

Author's Notes:

This chapter took a great deal longer to write than usual, since I wasn't able to touch it the last two weeks. Sadly, this is likely to be the case through the mid-to-end of October as the OPTEMPO ramps up for the fielding. (OPTEMPO = Operations Tempo) This being said, I'll continue to write as much as I can, as often as I can for you all. We will see how it goes, but mid October through Mid November should be a VERY productive time for me. (The field is a great place to write, if you're on night shift...)

Anyways, just wanted to let everybody know that I hadn't forgotten about you.

Last Edited 02DEC15

12: The Revelation

Chapter Twelve

The Revelation

Nurse Redheart descended the stairs, close on Joy’s heels. Despite her genuinely warm smile, Miss Redheart’s eyes betrayed her… they were glistening as if she was fighting back tears. Seeing how hard Miss Redheart was fighting to hide it with a fake cough, I decided not to bring it up. Instead, I returned a warm smile of my own, trying to mask my own trepidation.

“Good evening, Miss Redheart. Will you be joining the two of us for dinner?”

Shock and confusion wrote themselves across her face as she tried to put together this seemingly erroneous statement into a form that made sense. In the meantime, I shot Joy a bewildered look. Hadn’t she told her that I’d invited her to dinner? Miss Redheart’s next sentence pretty much told me all I needed to know.

“Dinner? Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes ma’am, it is. Didn’t Joy tell you that we wanted to invite you to dinner?”

“No, she didn’t say anything of the sort. All she told me was that you wanted to speak with me for a moment.”

Dammit, Joy. I shot the cerulean mare an un-amused stare for a moment before I directed my attention back to Miss Redheart.

“Of course she didn’t. At any rate, would you be so kind as to join us for dinner this evening, Miss Redheart?”

The older mare looked around, absently rubbing one hood against another. I could see where Joy had picked that trait up from. “Well, it is a very sweet offer, but I wouldn’t want to intrude—“

Seeing that Miss Redheart was clearly on the fence, I decided to try and give her a nudge towards the right side. “Nonsense, how can you intrude if you’ve been invited? I’d like to spend some time with the you, get to know you a bit better, and also to thank you for your extraordinary hospitality.”

“Well, I suppose that I could… for a little while anyways… “

I shot her a triumphant smile. “Excellent! Well, shall we head out now, then?”

Miss Redheart seemed cautiously optimistic, the ghost of a smile finding its way to her lips. “I guess now’s as good a time as any… “

“Great. Off we go!” I said with a grin.

And so we left for Daisy’s, chatting idly as we strolled down the boulevard. Well, most of us were chatting, at any rate. Miss Redheart’s answers were curt and to the point when they weren’t deflected altogether. She didn’t seem like she was all there, as if something else was eating at her. I pushed the thought away for the meantime, hoping that it would either go away or that I’d have enough evidence to bring it up without looking foolish. We were seated at a corner booth in a secluded corner of the diner, well away from the other patrons. Why we were seated so remotely I could not say, but I had to admit that it was the perfect place to have a private conversation. The burning question in my mind was pushed off to the side as our waitress came and took our orders and then brought out our food.

As the evening wore on, Miss Redheart grew more and more comfortable with conversation, answering questions and even joking around with the rest of us, though she still seemed a bit distracted at times. Dessert came, and by the time the meal was over we were all in a good humor from the food in our bellies. The opportunity to ask my burning question made itself known, and I seized it as Miss Redheart left me an opening.

“I’m sorry, what was that last part? I’ve been having a little trouble concentrating this evening.”

I wiped the last of the chocolate from the corner of my mouth as I took the opening. “I’ve noticed that you seemed a bit preoccupied tonight. Is there something you’d like to talk about?”

She waved a hoof dismissively. “Well, there is something on my mind at the moment, but it’s really not a story for tonight. Wouldn’t want to ruin a good evening, now would we?”

Donning a good-natured smile, I did my best to coax it out of her. I'd been wondering about it all night, and I had to admit that the curiosity was getting the better of me. “I highly doubt that there’s anything that could ruin such a nice evening with two beautiful mares. And who knows, perhaps I can help? I’m a pretty good listener sometimes.”

At my “beautiful mares” comment, they both gave me the one-eyebrow-raised look of skepticism at the same time. Spooky. Well, you know what they say… “like mother, like daughter.” The two of them then turned to each other (again, at the same exact instant, like they’d rehearsed it or something) and shared a look. Their little mirroring act was interrupted by Miss Redheart when she turned towards me, smile faltering and ears dropping as she let out a deep sigh.

“Well, if you insist… today is the anniversary of the accident.”

A somber silence descended upon the table, draping itself around us like a shroud as it smothered all sound. Joy hung her head in silence, staring at a spot on the table. Miss Redheart was looking up and away, gazing at a spot in the ceiling and somewhere beyond. I got the feeling I’d just opened a can of worms, and I had no idea what was about to come out of it. A long silence passed before Miss Redheart spoke up again.

“Seventeen years ago today, I lost my husband to a tragic accident, and Joy lost her dad. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”

I sat in stunned silence in the wake of this bombshell. Suddenly, the pictures in the hallway spoke a grim tale; echoing images from my memory. The way that, as Joy got younger… she got progressively more melancholy up until the final picture, the photo of the whole family. In this photo, they all looked so happy, so… wholesome. I couldn’t help but wonder how differently that photo would have been had they known the tragedy to come. Dreary musings aside, it was clear that tragedy was the farthest thing from their minds on the day of the photo, and there was a pure sort of joy written across each of their faces. The joy on their faces spoke of the anticipation of a life full of magic and of love, the thrill of facing each new day with those you love.

I must have zoned out for a moment, because Miss Redheart cleared her throat gently to get my attention.

“I’m sorry everypony. I didn’t mean to ruin the evening. I think it’d be best if I just left now. I’ll see you both at home.”

This last bit registered in my head and jarred me to take action and speak up.

“Oh, no Miss Redheart. You’ve ruined nothing, and I want to thank you for explaining that. I apologize if I made it seem like I wasn’t interested… my mind has a tendency to wander.”

At this last part, Joy snorted lightly and smiled ever so briefly, never once taking her eyes from the spot on the table, the smile fading from her lips just as quickly as it had come. I could only imagine the thoughts running through her head right now. She’d been so young when she’d lost her dad, but plenty old enough to feel the keen sting of his passing. I spoke up after a brief silence.

“Miss Redheart… if it’s not too much to ask, and not too painful… could you tell me a bit about him? He sounds like somepony I’d have liked to know.”

A small smile danced upon her lips. “Ah, yes… I think you two would have gotten along famously. There are just so many wonderful things to say about him, I don’t even know where to start…“

“Well, what was his name? How did the two of you meet?”

Miss Redheart’s gaze fell from the spot on the ceiling to a spot just off of my left shoulder, a faint smile crossing her features as she settled into a thousand-yard stare. She was staring not at the wall behind me nor anything else in the diner; she was staring into the past, back into happier times. Her voice was soft and low, brimming with emotion as she began her tale.

“His name was Sam Cross, and he was the greatest stallion I’ve ever met. Many years ago, when I was just a filly without a cutie mark, I’d gone for a walk on the trails around town one afternoon. The time of year was just the same as it is now, and it was magical to stroll about and see the wildflowers in bloom. I was walking along a trail near the Everfree Forest when a small timber wolf came rattling out of a bush just in front of me. I’d never seen one other than in a book, but there was no mistaking it for anything else. The poor thing was hurt and looked sickly; meaning that it probably couldn’t hunt and was desperate for a meal. I started backing away slowly, never taking my eyes off of the beast. As I was backing up, the wolf started to advance on me.

“At this point, I panicked. I turned tail and ran for all I was worth, and I could hear the creaking and popping of the wolf behind me as it ran after me. I started screaming for help as I ran back towards town, but I was so far out that I was sure I’d be a goner before anypony could get to me, if anypony had even heard my cries for help. The more I screamed, the more tired I got, until I was so woozy I tripped over a root and was sent sprawling on the ground."

At this point, Joy and I both were riveted by the story as it unfolded, our undivided attention being lavished upon Miss Redheart.

“As soon as I tripped, I knew that it was over; that this was the end for me. The wolf seemed to know it too, and it stopped running after me, walking towards me quite slowly and licking its chops. The beast seemed to be toying with me, and I found myself completely calm. It was like I had gone so far past fear that I’d come out the other side, into peace. Just as the wolf was about to have a mid-day snack, there was a blur of color and a tremendous crash, and suddenly, the wolf was gone. This blur of color had tackled the beast at full speed, sending it flying at least three meters, if not more. The blur of color turned out to be a colt around my age, light blue coat and a mane as black as a moonless night.

“He’d hit the wolf really hard, but the wolf was only stunned and was climbing back to his paws to have a go at my rescuer. In his rush, the colt who’d saved me had twisted his ankle pretty badly when they’d collided. So now, the rescuer had become the one in need of rescue as the wolf came closer by the moment. I had to do something, and quickly at that. I did the only thing I could think of, and made a little ball of light and blasted it into the wolf’s eyes, blinding it for a moment. Wouldn’t you know it, that was enough for the wolf to decide that this meal was putting up too much of a fight and limp back to the forest."

Joy and I released a breath we hadn’t realized we’d been holding, sharing a quick smile at this. I mean, we obviously knew how it ended, but it was still a riveting tale.

“As soon as the wolf had left, I went over to my hero to look at his leg. I’d sprained my ankle the summer before, so I knew just what to do for it. As I was helping treat his injury and thanking him repeatedly for being so brave, something just clicked in me. What I was doing, helping out this pony who’d helped me… treating his injuries just felt right. Everything just fell into place, and I knew that this was my purpose. Apparently, he’d had a similar experience during this event, and so it just seemed right that we got our marks at the same time. His was very much like mine, though without the hearts.

“Where my talent is healing ponies, his was helping ponies. If there was ever a pony that needed help with anything, Sam could be counted on to be there. He just had a knack for being where he was needed. We talked a lot on the way back into town as I helped him walk on his hurt ankle. From that day on, we were the best of friends.”

A smile crept to my lips once more, though this time it lingered, Joy had scooted over to me and snuggled into my shoulder for comfort, and I leaned my head over and rested mine on hers. Miss Redheart continued.

“You two remind me so much of the two of us when we first met. I see the same twinkle in your eyes that I saw in ours. Joy’s got her father’s eyes, and hers sparkle just like Sammy’s did… just like the sun reflecting off the deep part of the lake. We were the best of friends as we grew up, and neither one of us realized that at some point along the way… through the years, we became more than just friends. He finally got up the nerve to ask the question we were both wondering, and we started dating towards the end of high school. Everything was just so perfect. Sammy and I dated for just over a year before we were wed, and you’d never seen such a happy couple as us.”

Joy and I shared a look, both interpreting this as a challenge. Never seen one so happy? No, we would be one so happy. We shared another nuzzle as Miss Redheart spoke up.

“Everything was so wonderful for the first couple years… we delighted in each other’s company, drinking in everything life had to offer, everything strange, new, and wonderful when we saw it through each other’s eyes. But after that… something changed. My hours at work got longer, and he was injured in an accident as he tried to help some construction workers… after he broke his leg, nothing was the same again. The entire time he was in the cast, he was miserable. Inconsolable. Even after the cast was off, he never was the same. His joints were always hurting him, and some days he couldn’t even walk on his injured leg. Everything went downhill from there… we began to argue over silly things, began to hold grudges instead of talking it out… we were at wit’s end, and were about to do the unthinkable. In a rare moment of peace, something happened that breathed new life into our marriage… I became pregnant. When that happened, it was as if everything else had faded away and those arguments had never even happened. Joy was the spark the rekindled our marriage, and, well… brought joy back to our lives.”

Where my smile had faltered and then faded completely as the story wound one, towards the end I was once more sporting my big, goofy grin. I couldn’t help it, it was just so precious. Though her thousand yard stare, even Miss Redheart seemed to be smiling as she picked up right where she left off.

“Joy coming into our lives was the best thing that ever happened to us. It was as if we were newlyweds again, all of our energy came back and we were excited for each new day. Sam finally slowed down, though he’d never admit it was because of his injuries, and he became a stay at home dad while I was at work. It gave him back the purpose he’d been missing in his life, and everything started to go well again. We’d still have an occasional argument, but nothing like before. And just as soon as everything was looking up again… the accident happened.”

Joy hung her head, grasping my arm in hers and squeezing for comfort. Miss Redheart’s voice cracked and faltered; a single tear slid down her cheek as she took a shaky breath and pushed on, seemingly driven by a need to get her story out before it consumed her from within.

“Joy had just started school, so Sam was free during the days. To fill his time, he’d taken to walking around Ponyville and helping out the townsfolk, just like old times. One day, a fire broke out in a house on the edge of town. Sam was one of the first ones on the scene, and he single-hoofedly saved three ponies from the flames. After dragging the three from the flames, one of the distraught mares kept screaming for her son. Sam rushed back into the burning building to save her son, even as the flames grew hotter and hotter. He was not going to stop until he had saved him from the flames; that’s just the way he was. We found out later that the son had been in school at the time. Sam never came out of that house.”

I felt a dampness growing on my shoulder, and I knew that Joy was crying. Hell, I’m pretty sure I was crying at this point. Looking up, Miss Redheart had the most forlorn look on her face as she stared into the reflections of a past life… a single tear traced its way down her face. I had another of those moments where I don’t think, I just act… I reached out a hoof and drew Miss Redheart into a side-hug. Though she initially resisted a little, her defiance soon collapsed and she leaned against my shoulder as she silently wept. I was the filling in a melancholy sandwich, flanked as I was by weeping mares. I stroked both manes gently, doing my best to just be a source of comfort to the two.

This went on for a good while, judging by the spreading dampness on my shoulders. Some time ago, I’d leaned over to nuzzle Joy, and found myself trapped as she wrapped an arm around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. The waitress made her rounds, eyeing me and my “pair o’ mares” suspiciously before she recognized Miss Redheart. Upon recognition, she thought to herself for a moment before raising her eyebrows in an understanding fashion and giving a gentle nod in our direction as she set off once more. A short while later, the tears began to slow and dry as the pair got themselves under control and resumed an even emotional keel.

As I had been waiting for the pair of them to pull themselves together, I reflected back on what I’d learned about this mister Sam Cross. This stallion… he was a hero. I was nothing compared to him. He had lived his life in service of others, doing his best every day to contribute to his community. In his final act of valor, he pulled three victims out of a burning building, and went back in for a fourth. Despite the danger, he rushed headlong back into the inferno, searching for the last victim. So determined was he that he did not stop searching for this fourth victim; pressing on into the flames until ultimately becoming the fourth victim, the only casualty of the fire. I’d saved a life, sure. But that was almost casual compared to this, it required almost no bravery from me, and there was never any real threat to my life. That, to me, is the true measure of a hero. Me? I was just a coincidental first responder.

I was snapped from my self-deprecating internal monologue as Joy’s arm lifted from ‘round my neck, allowing me to move once more. Miss Redheart had already shifted from where she had lain against me, gently dabbing the corner of her eye with a napkin. A moment more of sniffling, and the episode was passed. In a voice that sounded much lighter than it had before, Miss Redheart spoke up once more.

“Ah, well. See? I warned you that this story would put a damper on the evening. Even so, thank you both for humoring me and listening to it anyways. It feels good to have gotten that off of my chest.”

I spoke up, wiping a little bit of liquid pride from my own eye. “Miss Redheart, think nothing of it. I wish to thank you for sharing that tale with me. Even from such a short recap, I can tell that Sam Cross was a stallion unto his own.”

“Please Dave, just call me Dawn. And yes, he was indeed. Well, shall we move along? I do believe we’ve tied up this table quite long enough.”

At this, I cast a sidelong glance at the counter of the diner, where two waitresses were huddled together as one pointed in our direction. Yeah, it’s about time to leave. I settled the tab (against Dawn’s wishes) and the three of us set off into the light of the rising moon. All things considered, dinner went about as well as could be expected, considering the circumstances. I had a profound new insight into Joy’s background, and it explained how she could be so stinkin’ awesome at so many things… she had the blood of champions in her veins.

One thing that was causing me grief in the aftermath of the evening was something that would take me a good while to get used to, if I ever did: calling Miss Redheart “Dawn”. That was going to take some getting used to.

As we were walking back home, our chatter was a might more lively than it had been on the way to dinner, with Miss Red—Dawn, with Dawn actively engaging in conversation and even joking a little bit as we walked. As we were posed to cross the main avenue, I had a flash of inspiration. Where going straight would lead us to the road we lived on, turning right would lead us to Berry’s after only a few blocks. I wondered how far I could get before they noticed. Seeing as how involved their conversation was, I was betting that we would get all the way to the counter before they noticed anything.

For once, I was entirely happy with being right, or at least mostly right. Since I’d been the one leading, and they’d been deep in conversation and had dropped back slightly (they were talking about me, I’d heard my name a few times), they just sort of followed me blindly. It was in just this way that I was able to lead them all the way to the door of Berry’s before they caught on to my games. They stopped in mid-sentence in shock as they tried to puzzle out where exactly they were before giving me a bemused half-stare. Joy simply smiled, sighed, and shook her head.

“I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming when we let you lead the way, Dave.”

“Me either. I figured you’d know better by now.”

We shared a laugh at this as Joy and Miss R—Dawn found us a place to sit, leaving me to mosey to the counter to place the order. Berry had been watching us as we’d come in and was already in the process of making our smoothies.

“How goes it, Flyboy?”

“Pretty good, fruit butt.”

At this, Berry looked slightly confused for a second before she adopted a sly grin.

“Two things. One: you weren’t lying, you suck at nicknames. And two: staring at my flanks again, are we? Naughty colt.”

I stopped myself mid-facehoof, and simply shot her a wan smile, though a genuine one.

“I swear, Berry… someday I’ll win.”

“Perhaps, Flyboy. But today is not that day. So, I have three smoothies and a side of getting-your-butt-kicked. Anything else?”

“Yeah, let me get a side of butt-kick to go, in case I start feeling cocky later.”

Berry and I chuckled heartily at that, drawing a look from Joy and Dawn. I waved and turned to pay my tab. Without wings or a horn, it would have been extraordinarily difficult to carry three smoothies back to the table, but it was just my luck that I had a pair of wings that were nearly as functional as hands. Exercising a level of control that would have been unthinkable before I began my dexterity improvement drills; I not only carried the smoothies back to the table, but distributed them to their respective owners without spilling a drop. Taking my seat, I joined my two lovely companions in enjoying the legendary Berry’s smoothies. Our conversation over dessert was a much lighter affair than the one we’d had over dinner, and soon we were all in a really great mood. Our appetites sated and our topics for conversation depleted, the three of us set off for home, waving at Berry as we left.

I was holding the door for the mares and so I was the last one out. Being the last one out, I was alone with Berry for a moment as the others continued out the door. Just as I was on my way out the door, Berry blew me a kiss and punctuated it with a wink, the quintessential pin-up girl pose. The image sent a shiver up and down my spine, and I could feel my heartbeat speed up in response even as my cheeks flushed. Dammit, she got me and we both knew it, though she didn’t look nearly as guilty for doing it as I did for receiving it. I shook my head and tried to clear the image from my mind before I began to… display indicators of the primal urges that’d been stirred. I was in such a hurry to get out of the café that I bowled into the mares in front of me.

Well, nearly bowled into them. I realized what was going to happen based on my current speed and bearing, and quickly weighed my options. I could (a.) run into both of their flanks and either be branded a pervert or have to concoct a cover story for my haste, or (b.) adjust course so that I only ran into Joy’s flanks, a more forgivable offense. To be honest, it wasn’t even a decision. Shifting my weight, I altered my course just enough to miss Dawn entirely, though I would still impact Joy’s flanks a bit harder than I’d like. Okay, disregard that last comment, that’s not what I… nevermind. I couldn’t help but wish that I had an extra leg to help slow myself down or to change my course just a little bit more. It was about this time that I recollected that I had wings and a mere instant to react. Instinctively my wings shot out to my sides to carry out my subliminal urges, shifting me into a hard left turn.

My last ditch maneuver was far more effective than I could’ve hoped, and instead of rear ending (rim shot) Joy, the very tips of my primaries streaked across Joy’s side, from the base of her tail all the way to her shoulder. She stopped in place as a shiver visibly traveled from her head to her tail and back as I flared my wings and drifted to a stop with a small thud. Having been adjacent to Joy and in the middle of a sentence when I swooped by, Dawn had taken three more steps forward before she realized that Joy had stopped. By the time she had registered this and turned to inquire as to the reason behind it, Joy had stopped shivering as she fixed me with a stare that melted me from the inside out, speaking directly to the animalistic urges within me. To sum her expression up in one word… passion. I was half convinced that she was about to jump my bones right then and there before a small cough from Dawn got our attention, breaking the hypnotic stare I’d fallen victim to.

Joy was flushing visibly as she studiously avoided her mother’s gaze, and as Dawn’s level gaze panned between the guilty parties, I could feel the blush burning in my own cheeks. Dawn’s gaze, while not malicious or outwardly threatening, still managed to convey an almost palpable weight that sat in my chest.

Man, mom-stares are rather unpleasant. No, scratch that; they are downright scary to be on the wrong end of. Under the weight of Dawn’s gaze, my resolve waned and I averted my eyes, electing to study a rock instead. A moment of tense silence passed, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d just been caught with my pants down, so to speak. Which was an odd thing to be feeling, since I’d not worn pants but once since I’d been in Ponyville. Just when it seemed like the silence was going to stretch into eternity and consume us all, Dawn spoke up and set the world in motion once more.

“Well, I can’t speak for the two of you, but I’m sure tired after all of that. Shall we head home?”

Joy and I did a quick north-south motion with our heads, at which point Dawn took the lead and set off towards home without another word. We followed suit, dropping back a bit so as to not be overheard.

Joy spoke up first. “Dave, what the heck was that? I thought you weren’t ready for sexy time?”

“I… wha—nevermind. I didn’t mean to get you worked up like that. I sort of misjudged my exit and it was either that or tumble into both of your backsides. I didn’t mean to get you worked up like that, love. I’m sorry.”

She stared at me with a look I couldn’t quite place. “You should be; it’s not nice to tease. Good thing my mom was there, otherwise I might have dragged you into an alley and done things… naughty things.”

I had to shake my head again in order to clear out the naughty things that started popping up there. “You know, that doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it should. I might have to take you up on that in the future… after I feel like the time is right, all that jazz.”

“Awww, drat. There you go again, teasing an innocent mare. That’s not nice, and you should feel bad.”

I stroked my chin thoughtfully with a wingtip. “I should? Well, I’ll have to work on that a bit. Don’t worry though, I’ll figure out some way to make it up to you.”

I punctuated this declaration with a wink, causing Joy to scrunch up her face in a mock-grimace, one that was entirely spoiled by the playful smile. From up ahead, Dawn’s voice rang out.

“Why are you two so far away? And why are you whispering and grinning like that? If there’s gossip going on, I want to be part of it!”

The two of us looked up with a grin on our faces, an expression that was matched by Dawn. The previous awkwardness had passed, prompting Joy and myself to close the gap and draw up alongside Dawn as we walked flank-to-flank-to-flank, with Joy in the middle. The rest of the journey home passed in a blur of good spirits as the smoothies hit our bloodstreams; the mellow temperament they brought with them casting a glow upon all we could see. Once we crossed the threshold of our home, Dawn bid us good night.

“Alright you two, I’m headed to bed now. I had a great time with the both of you, and I’d like very much to do this again sometime. My treat, no arguments.”

I shut my mouth just as soon as I’d opened it, cut off before I could even begin. I could see where Joy got her knack for doing that same thing to me on a semi-regular basis. I figured that this was the part where we would part ways for the evening, so I wished Dawn a good night and gave a friendly wave.

Apparently, Dawn had something else in mind. “A wave? No, that’s not how we do things in this house. Come over here and give me a hug.”

A what? Oh, well… okay then. As I leaned in to give Dawn a gentle hug, she wrapped an arm around my neck, and her embrace was no less solid than a steel trap as she whispered through her smile at me.

“I want grandfoals, but not anytime soon. Got it?”

As if to further ensure my understanding, her sentence was punctuated by a slight tightening of the vice-like embrace. Like such a thing was even necessary. I grunted out something to the affirmative and was rewarded by having the vice-grip slack away as if it’d never been there. Our embrace broken, the mares did the same ritual, though I suspect that the ironclad ensnarement was absent from their embrace. Dawn gave Joy a quick peck on the cheek in a display of matronly affection before she set off down the hall and up the stairs. Joy led the way to the couch-bed, and I followed a short distance behind her. Man, that’s a nice… vase. Such wonderful flowers, and such pretty patterns and curves… such lovely, lovely curves… I nearly tripped over the bed in my daze. Grinning sheepishly, I climbed into bed in my usual position, and a moment later I was joined by a beautiful blue mare. Affixing the brush to my hoof, I was about to begin brushing when I was interrupted by a hoof placed gently on my chest.

Looking up from the damnable buckle that had been consuming my attention, I lifted my head just in time to be kissed fully upon the lips. This kiss was possessed of a passion that was seldom present in any other; a current of ice water washed over me from head to tail as I shivered involuntarily in the wake of the sensation. Joy was pushing her hoof against my chest, pushing me backwards onto the armrest as she simultaneously leaned forward with the kiss. Before I knew it, I’d been pushed into a reclining position as Joy pressed herself down upon my chest. My mind was blank, filled with static as my cognitive functions were scrambling to process this sensory overload.

Had it not been, I likely would have been a bit distraught at how quickly this was getting out of control. This was not the case however, and I found myself pushing back into the kiss as Joy and I fought for oral dominance. A familiar warmth was spreading throughout my body from where her lips met mine, and I was in no hurry to stop it. A small moan escaped from Joy as we kissed, sending my heart rate spiking through the roof and causing my muscles to tense of their own accord.

And just like that, she climbed off of me, breaking our kiss and leaving me hungry for more. I lay there for a moment, just blinking, as I still tried to process what’d just occurred. Sitting up on my elbows and looking over at Joy, I found the burning sensation within me growing even stronger as what I saw registered in my foggy brain. Joy was sitting on her haunches at my feet, facing obliquely left so that she was gazing over her shoulder when she looked at me. Her mane was mussed up from our make-out session, a slight blush painted on her cheeks and her breath coming in short, rapid gasps.

My mouth moved in a silent parody of speech before giving up and letting my hooves take control. I found myself pulling my body upright and leaning in to finish what we’d started when my progress was suddenly halted by a hoof to the snout. Joy was holding her hoof up to halt my advance, something that caught me by surprise. Her gesture did just what she had intended; halted me in my tracks. Utterly befuddled, I looked to her for an answer, though I didn’t like what I heard.

“See? Now you know what it’s like to be teased and left hanging.”

Ouch… “Dang, you don’t do anything halfway, do you? Alright, you got me… I’ll stop. That wasn’t very nice though.”

“Nice? Who told you I was nice?”

I opened my mouth to point out that she’d stolen my line, but closed it without making a sound. I was torn between feeling upset that she’d played my instincts against me for her own purposes, and then left me hanging; or just giving her credit for getting her message across so thoroughly, and trying my best to just laugh it off. A brief moment later, I decided the latter was the best course of action, and did my best to suppress my misgivings and chuckle at her crafty ways. I once more rose to a sitting position and beckoned her closer. She declined my invitation though, and for a moment I felt deeply wounded by being spurned like that… at least until she gestured at the area below my bellybutton. Ah, yes… hello there. Good to see you too.

Covering myself as swiftly as I could, I quickly excused myself to the bathroom and proceeded to take one of my all-too-common cold showers. Situation handled, I set off for the couch-bed once more, taking my customary position as Joy took hers. Brush on hoof, I began to groom; letting the stress and worries of the day just fade away with each stroke. The simple pleasures in life are often the most rewarding, and this one was no exception. As the stress and the tension that had arisen in me slowly evanesced, a deep feeling of peace and contentment settled in and took its place. Joy too reaped the benefit of such attentions, and had fallen asleep in my embrace shortly after I’d started.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating… this is the best feeling in the world. To be needed, wanted, and trusted… nothing quite compares. It was well past twilight and into the hours of darkness before I myself drifted off to sleep, the soft swish of the brush mingling with the sound of Joy’s even breathing, playing me my own personal personal lullaby.

My alarm sounded at precisely zero six, rousing me for another day on the job. In the midst of my morning routine, I was stopped dead in my tracks as a recollection floated back to me from the week before. This week would be no simple matter of showing up and completing my tasks, for that would be too easy. No, this was the week that Technia schooled me in the inner workings of her marvelous contraptions.

Half of me was seriously considering not coming in on Wednesday, though. The mere recollection of the emerald mushroom cloud was enough to make my wings itch. I sighed deeply, resigned to the fact that there was really no way to get around it. I met Joy in the kitchen for breakfast, any trace of my melancholy mood evaporating in an instant as she smiled at me. Something about this mare just makes my heart swell and flutter every time I see her. I smiled back and walked up to her. I gave her a quick peck on the lips before nuzzling her neck and giving her a hug. Perhaps it was being greeted by a smile first thing in the morning, or maybe it was the way her eyes lit up when she looked at me, but I was overcome by a wave of affection. Being a very tactile creature and truly relishing in physical contact, I needed very little encouragement to engulf Joy in an embrace.

After holding her tightly for a moment, I let her free from my embrace, but not before planting a kiss upon her lips as a parting gift. Whereas her smile earlier had been an adorable little grin, she was now beaming from ear to ear. To be fair though, I’m pretty sure that I was too. To see the unabashed affection with which I was being regarded made it nary impossible to feel anything less than warm and fuzzy.

“Good morning, beautiful. How are you today?”

Joy’s smile turned bashful as a rosy hue appeared on her cheeks and she turned away slightly, trying in vain to hide behind her mane. Adorable was an understatement.

“Pretty splendid right now. How about you, handsome?”

Now it was my turn to grin bashfully, which I did as I met her gaze. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as content as I am right now, dear.”

Except when you were married in another life. Or have you forgotten about them already?

What in the flying…? Fuck you, brain. Why do you do this? Why can’t I just have this one beautiful moment? Fuck you. Joy immediately noticed my faltering expression, her smile melting away like wax to reveal a concerned face beneath.

“Dave? Are you feeling alright? Something I said?”

I binked away the stupid look on my face, trying to find the smile I was wearing just a moment ago. “Huh? Oh, yeah. No, I’m fine, and you didn’t say anything wrong, love. It’s just… I’m not sure. Feels like my past just crashed down on my shoulders. I… I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Are you sure? Talking about it might help, just look at last night.”

I thought about it for a second and realized that there was just no way. If I started telling her what was really on my mind, I’d either have to lie to her and concoct a cover story, or I’d have to fess up to my past life, my past wife, my son… everything I’d done in another life. Both of these options sat in my stomach as a ball of ice and lead, each as terrible as the other. I couldn’t lie to her anymore; I’d done that too much already. On the other hoof, I couldn’t very well just drop a bombshell like a past life on her just yet… the thought of life without her was unbearable. Putting it off was entirely selfish and was inevitably making things worse, but I had to be as sure as I could that she wouldn’t leave me when I told her. I just had to hope that when I did tell her, all of the memories we’d made and the bond we shared would be enough to persuade her to look past my egregious lies and deception.

Yep, you’re boned.

Godammit brain… couldn’t you be supportive? This sucks enough as is. Mentally kicking myself in the brain (now there’s an interesting image…), I simply looked at Joy and sighed heavily, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry, love. It’s just… I can’t. Someday, though… someday.”

Joy looked dubious at my deflection, and I could almost hear herself asking ‘what is he hiding from me?’ as she continued to regard me with concern. Not that I could blame her, my entire past was a fuzzy lie stitched around a few facts I’d learned from a book. Looking into her eyes as I told her that everything she knew about me was a lie would be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I was resolved to see it through to the end. The ultimate test of my character, the measure of all I was worth as a human or as a pony, would be to look into her eyes as the temple she built around this image of me came crumbling down around her; to see the despair, the betrayal, and the hurt… and to know that I caused it. Should I fail to look into her eyes and own the sorrow within, I’d be a failure, both as a human and as a pony.

With a wistful smile, I came closer and embraced her once more. Am I a monster for doing this? For stirring these feelings in her, knowing full well that they were based on a lie? For letting her live each day, not knowing the truth and falling harder for the false image of me?

Yes.

For the first time since it’d shown up, I couldn’t argue with the voice. I was a monster for doing this to Joy.

I have her a quick peck on the lips, my heart breaking a little bit at the look in her eyes… she was worried about me. The beauty is concerned for the beast. Guilt rose within me like a tsunami as I met her gaze. Would she hold me if she knew my shame? I gave her my best “I’m fine” smile, though her expression told me that she didn’t buy it in the least. On that note, I walked out the door and set off for work as darkness spread through my chest. Crap, here we go again.

I was intimately familiar with the sensation I was feeling right then… the depression was back. For most of my life, I’d suspected that there was something amiss with me, but it wasn’t until my late teens that everything finally clicked into place and I understood what it was. For my entire adult life, I’ve been very mildly bipolar. My day-to-day personality is very high energy, high spirited… I’m able to take everything in stride and find a glimmer of hope in even the darkest situations. I’ve been told that I have two speeds: “Stop”, and “Sprint”. For ninety-five percent of my life, I’m in “Sprint” mode, but it’s the other five that are terrifying for me. As a symptom of this, I live most of my life in a mania of sorts, developing an incredible fixation on something and devoting all of my time and energy to it until the next distraction comes along. To sum it up in one word: obsession.

The “Stop” mode is exactly the opposite. I have interest in nothing, no motivation, no desire at all. With this depression comes anger, because I no longer care enough to suppress it, to work out the issue and resolve it. This… this is what frightens me. I’ve never been physically violent (save for in self-defense), and this holds true for the stop mode as well. Instead of using my fists or my feet, I use words. I never say something I don’t mean or that’s not true, but I do say things I shouldn’t, actively seeking to cause as much damage with each utterance as possible.

I become a serpent with a tongue not of silver, but of blades. I seek to vent my inner turmoil onto any target I can, my words often cutting deeply and leaving a scar invisible to the eyes. In the past, I’d crossed the line and destroyed a relationship with my forked tongue of blades. Things were said that had no right to be voiced; insecurities and deep-seated fears had been exposed and picked apart, bit by bit. A month later, I’d gotten a letter from her, a letter in which she forgave me and stated in no uncertain terms that she wanted no further contact with me. Since then, I’d fought to never get so low again that I would tear others down to my level out of spite. Today… today, I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to keep to that goal. The depression now had me firmly in its grasp, and it would take everything I had to force myself to be cheery.

I walked into the maintenance entrance in the rear of the clinic to avoid as many ponies as I could, threading my way to Brass’ office without a single encounter. I walked into the office with my head held low, nearly running into Technia as I came around the corner of the desk. I’d almost forgotten about the training up until now. My spirits were quite far from what you might call “cheery”, but they certainly brightened at the prospect of learning something new, allowing me to greet the both of them with a genuine smile as I lifted my head up.

“Good morning, ladies.”

At this, the both of them gave me a bit of a smile as they replied in unison with “Hey, Dave.”

Brass picked up the conversation where she had left off when I walked in, summing up plans of some sort or another, likely pertaining to the training that was to be conducted. The whole conversation flowed around me like muddy water, nothing registering in my depression-addled mind. I’d found a very nifty spider web in the corner, and had taken to studying it intently as I desperately tried to raise my spirits from this little pit they’d fallen into. Such is the mechanism of these manic-sessions… they can be triggered by seemingly insignificant things and spiral out of control, and just as easily they can be brought about and set on the proper path. All it takes is a bit of effort and a positive outlook in the face of the apathy. It’s much harder than it sounds, let me tell you. So intently focused was I on this spider web, I was barely roused from my daze by a hoof waving in front of my face.

I blinked and briefly shook my head, tracing the hoof back to its owner and fixing Brass with a blank stare. “Are you alright, Dave? You seem… off today.”

I waved a hoof dismissively, trying to smile in a convincing way. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I appreciate your concern; I’m just feeling a little funny is all. It’ll pass soon enough, and I’ll be back to normal.”

She held me in her concerned gaze, not buying it. “Normal-normal or Dave-normal? The two are distinctly different, you know.”

“Dave-normal, and yes, I’m quite aware of that. I do appreciate your concern, though. It’s nice to know I’m not just another cog in the machine.”

“Is that what this is about? Are you feeling like you don’t matter or something? Because I can assure you, that is about as far from the truth as you can get. After all, you are the one who is being trained to run every system in the building by the very pony who built them, the one who was hoof-picked for the task. If that’s not important, I’d like to know what is.”

I held up a hoof to dismiss the notion. “No, no, nothing like that. And I feel truly privileged to be taught such useful skills. I can’t really say what it is that’s got me off my game, but it can’t last forever. Heck, hearing you sing my praises like that, I’m already feeling a bit better.”

It was the truth; I really was feeling a little better. Hearing the prestige of the task with which I was charged filled me with a giddy excitement, not unlike that of a child who knows he’s about to learn a secret that nobody else knows. Which, come to think of it, isn’t that far from the truth.

Apparently satisfied, Brass gestured for the both of us to be off on our way, and I was more than eager to learn, the weight upon my heart lessening slightly more as the day went on. While my excitement for learning was more than sufficient to keep me attentive and chipper during the instructional phases throughout the day, the slack time in between as we took a break or walked to the next system was all it took for the heaviness to seep back in. By the time the lunch hour rolled around, I was pretty sure I’d given Tech mental whiplash from my mood-swings. We broke for lunch with the plan that we would meet back up at thirteen to continue our training. We parted ways and I set off in search of Joy, and it didn’t take long for me to find her. I was about to call out to her when she approached a door and pulled a clipboard from its place beside the threshold. She regarded it for a moment, making a few nodding motions with her head as she flipped the pages, before replacing it upon its peg and venturing inside. I waited just outside the door for her to emerge, and through the partially open doorway I caught bits of the conversation.

“… minor sprain, easy enough to fix. Would you like for me to take of that for you?”

“Yes please, Nurse Joy.”

“Hold still, this will only take a moment.”

I peeked my head around the corner to see Joy holding a young colt’s left fore-hoof in hers, the glow around her horn a surefire indicator of what was about to happen. Sure enough, she leaned forward and placed a light kiss on his joint. While he initially flinched as if bracing for pain, as soon as Joy “kissed” him, his eyes went wide with awe as he stared at Joy, mouth agape. Joy smiled tenderly at the colt for a moment before turning her attention to his mother.

“There you go miss; he should be back to full health in no time. Just be sure that he takes it easy on that hoof for two weeks, and if it starts to hurt or swell, put some ice on it. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, you’ve been a great help already. Bradley, thank the nurse, dear.” said the mother.

“Thank you, Miss Nurse. You’re the bestest!” the little colt declared.

Joy positively beamed as she replied with a fond “You’re very welcome, young stallion. Be sure to take it easy on that hoof for a while, okay?”

“Yes Miss Nurse, I will; I promise.”

With the smile still plastered on her face, Joy waved goodbye to the both of them. As soon as they stood to leave, I stepped away from the door so as to not interfere with their exit. The two of them set off on their own way, and shortly thereafter, Joy emerged. At the sight of me, she stopped short for a second before regarding me with a tender smile and a kiss. I returned the kiss and pushed into a nuzzle, simple basking in the comfort of having her so close to me.

“Feeling any better, Dave?”

I grinned a little bit, the most I could manage at the time. “I am now, love.”

“All better, then?”

I had to shrug at this one. “Meh, not quite, but getting there. A few more of those kisses might just do the trick.”

`”I’ll write you a prescription right away.”

We both chuckled at this, sharing another tender kiss. The heavy feeling in my chest had indeed lightened considerably, and seemed like it would disappear entirely before long. Surrounded as I was by so many happy, smiling faces and generally pleasant ponies, it was rather difficult to stay angry… or anything other than content, really. The kisses from Joy were a definite boost to my morale, though that’s pretty much a given. Sharing an affectionate gaze, the two of us set off for the cafeteria for lunch.

Though the hospital was not what most would consider large, the cafeteria seemed to have been built with the idea of creating a sitting area for each and every member of the staff and all of the patients… with room to spare. There had to be enough space in there to seat a few hundred patrons comfortably. When I asked scruffy about this in dumfounded shock on my first night, I received a noncommittal grunt as an answer. Asking Sweeps any sort of question was about as pleasant a concept as making sweet love to a hornet’s nest, something I decided I’d rather not do if at all possible. Thus, it came down to Joy to once more fill the gaps in my knowledge.

“Hey, Joy? Would you happen to know why exactly it is that this DFAC is so abominably large?”

She shot me a puzzled look, tilting her head to the side like a puppy. “De-fack? What the hay is a de-fack?”

Facehoof. Oh, acronyms… how you torment me so.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes I don’t realize how much the acronyms have invaded my vocabulary. DFAC is a shortening and conjunction of the words ‘Dining Facility’, otherwise known as a chow hall. Why’s this one so big?”

Joy snickered into her hoof for a second before she replied. “That’s what she said. Was that right? Did I use it right?”

My facehoof seemed to be all the answer she needed, and she proceeded to giggle like a school-filly at this. The sound of her tittering laughter and the cheeky grin on her face made it impossible not to smile. The image of Joy in her nurse scrub’s, face split by a pearly smile and stars in her eyes chased away the last vestiges of the funk that had bogged me down all morning. Just like that, I was back to normal.

Well, back to Dave-normal at any rate.

Author's Note

Last edited 02DEC15

13: The Complication

Chapter Thirteen
The Complication

Joy and I sat down to lunch, each having ordered the same walnut-pecan salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. It stands to reason that dedicated herbivores would have a knack for making a really tasty salad, and this was certainly no exception. Even as I was eating it, I couldn’t help but salivate at the thought that this would go great with a nice rare steak and a baked potato… topped with bacon bits, sour cream, chives, and butter… so much butter…

Joy waved her hoof in front of my face, snapping me out of my culturally taboo daydream. Apparently, I’d started drooling as my mouth hung open for a bite, carried away as I was by my fantasy. Even as I was reeled back in from my fantasy, I couldn’t shake the craving. I wanted, no, I NEEDED meat.

Well… that posed a problem.

I took a deep breath to clear my mind before I brought this up to Joy. This was one of those things that really shouldn’t be rushed, something that would have to be phrased just so in order to not be misconstrued.

“Joy, I’m craving meat.”

Luna, fuck me running. Joy nearly choked on her salad in shock, and it was just by dumb luck that there was nopony sitting near enough to hear my vile declaration, though several heads turned at Joy’s coughing and sputtering. As soon as she regained control, she fixed me with a steady gaze, her expression flipping back and forth between curiosity and disgust. I can’t say I blamed her for that one. After a quiet moment of contemplation, she spoke up.

“What kind?”

Well, that was unexpected. Even before the question fully registered in my mind, my mouth was spitting out a response.

“Steak, damn near raw; and bacon bits served on a baked potato with sour cream, butter, and chives.”

The candid nature of my answer coupled with the detailed description was enough to momentarily stun Joy into silence, though not for long. With a moderately befuddled look on her face, she posed a question that I should have seen coming.

“What is ‘steak’ and ‘bacon’?”

“Steak is a cut of meat from the backside of a cow, and bacon comes from the belly of a pig. You cut it into thin strips and fry it till it’s crispy, then enjoy.”

Even as I said this, I registered two facts: first, that Joy was looking both revolted and fascinated; and second, that I was drooling heavily. I couldn’t help it… I’ve always loved my carnivorous side, though I was surprised that I had only been able to fight the craving for two weeks. Absentmindedly, I licked my chops as I cast a glance at Joy. She was simply staring at me with wide eyes, occasionally blinking to let me know she was still alive. After a moment, she let out a defeated sigh.

“Of course it wouldn’t have been chicken; no, that would have been too easy. Chicken I can manage… I don’t even know how I would go about doing this, or if it’s even possible. That’s not something you can just pick up at the market.”

“Unless you’re at a griffin market.”

Even though it had just come from my mouth, this little declaration had taken me by surprise. Apparently, I’d been paying more attention than I thought as I skimmed the book at the library. Joy’s eyes went even wider as she processed the implications of what I just said, before she adopted a smug “I-just-figured-everything-out-because-I’m-so-smart” look. Intrigued, I cocked an eyebrow to indicate my interest. Joy indulged herself with a few moments of basking in her own glory (she really has been hanging around me too long… that’s MY shtick) before answering.

“Mail order. We’ll just order from one of the griffin suppliers through the mail.”

“Genius,” I replied.

“I am, aren’t I? Not like it’s any sort of surprise, though.”

Joy punctuated her last declaration with a theatrical flip of her hair and an upturning of her snout, as if she was simply too good for us common-folk. She managed to hold this haughty, imperious look for all of three seconds before she broke out chuckling at herself, something that I couldn’t help but join. Something was itching in the back of my mind though, and I had to ask another question.

“Not to question my good fortune Joy, but why are you so willing to help me with this? I’m surprised you aren’t revolted by me or the idea… “

“Dave, I’ll admit, a portion of my willingness to help comes from curiosity. I’ve never actually seen anypony eat meat before… aside from that, I love you and I want to make you happy. The idea of the actual carnivorous act makes me a little queasy, but I know that you can’t help it; it’s just the way you were raised. I just want to make you happy.”

Never in my life have I ever done anything good enough to deserve this mare right here. Knowing how clumsy I am with words, I figured this was going to backfire, but I had to try and let Joy know how I felt.

“You don’t even have to try, love; just being near you is more than enough to make me smile.”

Joy’s face melted into a prideful smile, and her eyes did that twinkling-thing they did sometimes when she was really happy. Huh. I guess that one came out better than I’d thought it would. Joy rose to her hooves dreamily, almost floating as she moved from her spot across from me at the table to take a seat beside me. As soon as she sat down, she ensnared my arm that was closest to her, hugging my arm as she nuzzled her cheek against my shoulder. Whatever part of my heart hadn’t been consumed by the diabeetus melted into a puddle on the floor at this. For a moment, my knack for saying the wrong thing had been flipped ‘pon its head and I’d actually said what I’d meant to say. Scary thing, that is. She was just too adorable… I leaned down and placed an affectionate kiss on the top of her forehead. As I pulled away, she looked up at me and hit me with the puppy-dog-eyes-equivalent of the orbital friendship cannon. The cute overload caused my heart to reach critical mass before exploding with enough force to kill everypony else in the room. In the back of my mind, there was a pony doing a very convincing impression of having a heart attack, he was even foaming at the mouth and flopping on the floor… oh. I hope somebody gets him some help soon. Somepony should call an ambulance. What’s the number for 9-1-1 in there? Man, I hope he’s okay… wait, what was I doing? Something about orbital cannons and eyeballs… oh, wait. It was Joy. What about her, thou—

My rambling thoughts were subjected to a hard reboot as Joy craned her neck upwards ever so slightly and placed a kiss on my lips. Yeah, pretty much the same as every other time she did that. Blinking as my brain rebooted, I saw Joy looking up at me with the same adorable smile that she had before she moved. I could stare at that smile until the stars turned to dust around me, until time itself got old and died. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to test that claim. The bell rang, indicating that the lunch period was over, and the clusters of ponies throughout the room stood as one and began to shuffle towards the door, still lost in their own conversations. The other diners poured out of the room, and soon it was down to Joy and me. I couldn’t get up and leave if I’d wanted to; Joy was still attached to my arm in a way that made standing all but impossible. I leaned back in for another kiss, and was delighted to receive not just one, but a flurry of quick pecks to the lips. Just before my heart melted once more into a puddle on the floor, a reproachful clearing of a throat caught my attention and staved off the impending cardiovascular meltdown.

Sweeps stood a few tables down from us, making no attempt to hide the scowl on his face as he regarded me with equal parts envy and malice. As soon as his gaze traveled to Joy, it melted away to an expression of hurt and longing. Man, this was awkward as hell. I pulled lightly on my leg, trying to indicate to Joy that it was time to get going without being overt about it. Thankfully, Joy is a good deal quicker than I am, and she disentangled herself from me, allowing us both to stand and walk out of the cafeteria Sweeps was attempting to clean. I nodded cordially at Sweeps as I walked past, receiving nothing but a reproachful glare back. Okay, so he was still pissy… that’s fine with me. Joy and I crossed the cafeteria in silence, save for the clop of hooves on tile as we walked. Though I wasn’t looking at him anymore, I could still feel Sweeps staring at the back of my head… or at the back of something. I dropped a half pace behind Joy, extending my wing slightly to block any view of her hindquarters that he may have had, and I was pleased and mildly irritated to hear a grunt of displeasure from across the room. Sometimes, being right feels… dirty.

Just like that, we were out of the cafeteria and standing in the hallway, looking lost for a moment. I spoke up first, driven by a renewed desire to learn everything I possibly could from Technia with my newly improved mood. Also, I was slightly influenced by the fact that Technia was standing a little ways down a side hallway, looking at me funny.

“Hey, love? I’ve got to get going, I think Technia’s getting a bit antsy.”

“Awww, but I wanted to do some more of that kissing-thing we were doing a minute ago… “

“I know, so do I, but I get the feeling that if I don’t get over there soon, she’s going to start winging wrenches in my direction. My head’s hard enough to take it, but I’m not liking your chances.”

“Hon, I have to deal with temperamental foals all day long. I’ve developed a knack for catching things.”

Dang unicorns and their friggin’ cheating unicorn magic… my internal mumblings were interrupted by the feeling of something sailing through the air in my direction. My head swiveled and locked on the object almost automatically, and I had just enough time to register the object as a wrench before my wing snapped up to deflect it. The impact never came, though; as I lowered my wing, the wrench was slowly spinning in place, held aloft in a soft blue cocoon of glowing light. I turned to look back at Joy, who was wearing the most innocent “who, me?” expression as she looked back at me.

“Okay, love… you’ve made your point. But like I said, she doesn’t like to be kept waiting. See you after work?”

“Yeah, but only for a moment. I have to get to class, so I can’t stay long.”

“Oh, right. When will you be home? I’ll make dinner.”

“Now there’s a scary thought. Sweet, but scary. I won’t be home until late, probably about twenty or twenty one, so there’s no real reason to cook for me. I’ll see you tonight, okay? Technia looks like she’s about to send another wrench our way.”

Joy gave me a quick peck on the cheek and then scampered off down the hallway, throwing a wink over her shoulder as she caught me staring. Dammit… how does she always know? I shook my head and turned to walk towards Technia… and ran right into her. Apparently, she had closed the distance while I’d not been paying attention. As I backtracked, Technia took a moment to share an observation with me.

“Nice reflexes with the wrench.”

I rubbed the base of my mane distractedly. “Thanks, I guess… “

“Not you, lugnut. Your marefriend.”

I should have seen that coming. “Go figure. And lugnut? Really?”

“Yeah, really. You’ve been acting like a lugnut so far today, so I’m calling you lugnut.”

“Huh. Well, alright then. Shall we?”

“Yep, time’s a wasting. “

And with that, we delved right back into the mechanical innards of the hospital, poking and prodding at the steam and cog-driven organs that fulfilled the critical functions of the hospital. By the time the day was over, my head was a jumble of pipes, conduits, pulleys and serpentine belts… not unlike the inside of the various systems, actually. As the bell chimed five, Technia extracted herself from within a maze of pipes and looked at me.

“Got it? Is it all clicking into place?”

“To be honest? No. I get the basics of the system, and I know how to troubleshoot the small problems, but the finer points… they escape me.”

“Well, that sounds about right for the first day. You’re doing better than I thought you would, actually. You don’t need to know how to reconstruct the mechanisms… that’s my job. All you really need to learn is the basics of assembly and disassembly to fix most of the common problems you’ll encounter. Anything beyond your scope is probably a job for me anyways.”

“Yeah, I know. Still… I feel like I’m on the cusp of understanding the principal behind most of these systems, if not the actual execution of it. I think I’ll have a better time of it tomorrow after I let this stuff sink in a bit.”

“I’m sure of it. Just don’t let it sink too far, otherwise you won’t remember it.”

We shared a light chuckle at this before saying our goodbyes and parting ways. Technia headed off in the direction of Brass’ office, and I set off in search of Joy. I found her near the lobby as she was making her way into the waiting area. I called her name, and she turned and favored me with a harried smile. I came up to her and embraced her, nuzzling her neck as I did so. She returned the gesture briefly before she broke contact.

“I wish I could stay here longer, but I have to be going if I want to get to class on time.”

“Say no more, love. I’ll wait up for you to get back. I want to hear about your day when you get home.”

“Awww, that’s sweet of you. Okay, I’ll be sure to hurry home, but I can’t promise I won’t bore you to sleep with doctor-speak.”

“That’s fine; I don’t mind it at all. I’ll see you at home, love.”

We shared another kiss before she turned and melted into the exodus of the outgoing shift. I almost walked off too, but then I realized that I was still in my jumpsuit. I exhaled a tired sigh before turning to walk back to the office. I turned the corner to the back hallway just in time to see Tech round the far corner and disappear from sight. I walked into the office and was greeted by a smiling Brass.

“So, Technia tells me that you’re doing quite well so far, that it seems you have a knack for this. I just wanted to tell you that you're doing a good job, and as long as you keep this up, there are big things in store for you in the near future.”

“What kind of ‘big things’ are we talking about, Brass?”

In response, Brass just raised an eyebrow and winked. I wasn’t sure if that was a come-on or her just being mischievous, though I was more inclined to believe the latter. I hung up my uniform and bade Brass a fine farewell before striking off into the setting sun. I wound up at Berry’s, a habit that was beginning to take its toll on my bit-satchel (not a coin purse, dammit) even with the discount. I walked in the door and up to the counter, taking note of the fact that there were significantly more ponies in the cafe than usual. Berry greeted me with her usual grace.

“How goes it, Flyboy? Also, you smell terrible. I’m going to have to seat you away from the other customers, you dirty thing, you.”

“Your tact never fails, Berry. What are all of these ponies doing in here, anyways?”

“Enjoying a smoothie, apparently.” She punctuated her comment with a shrug, and I just sighed.

“I really should have seen that coming.”

She nodded in agreement. “You really should have. But really, I started a new promotion to get some more repeat customers. It’s these cards right here. Buy ten smoothies, the eleventh one is free. Get ten free smoothies by punching out the card ten times over and you get a free smoothie per month for life.”

“That actually sounds like a heck of a deal. So what happens if you get ten free smoothies ten times? Is that ten free smoothies per month?”

“Coming from anypony else, I’d laugh that off. But considering that you eat here nearly every day… that is a frightening possibility. Honestly? I’m not sure how to handle that. I suppose it would stack up.”

“So, once I order three thousand smoothies, then I can get a free one per day forever?”

“Yeah, I guess you could. But by the time you buy three thousand smoothies, I’ll have enough bits to move into the Canterlot Castle. Not to mention, as you get more and more free smoothies per month, the number of smoothies you buy is reduced that much. I’m not sure what the math is, but I think it would take years of daily smoothies to buy enough to get a free one every day for life.”

“Sounds like a worthy goal. I’ll take a smoothie and a glass of punch.”

Berry’s next words poured from her mouth like honey, dripping with sweetness and something a bit less innocent. “Ooh, okay. So, where would you like this Punch? Your place or mine?”

“How about on the card?”

At this, her ears drooped and she looked genuinely disappointed. “You’re no fun.”

“On the contrary, I’m quite the riot. I’m also faithful.”

“I know, and I wouldn’t want to come between you two. Still, a girl can dream.”

I raised an eyebrow in what I hoped was an approximation of the dissapointed-dad-stare. “Indeed, she can. As long as the dreams are safe for the eyes of foals.”

Berry blushed, her mauve coat tinting scarlet. I really did not need to know what this implied; that was information I could’ve lived without. Berry coughed to clear her throat before retrieving my smoothie and directing me over to a seat near the register.

“Sorry Flyboy, but I was serious when I said that you smell. I don’t mind, but the other customers might. You know, I have a shower upstairs that you could use… “

I shook my head at that. “Sorry, Berry. I don’t think Joy would approve of that; furthermore, I’m not sure I approve of that.”

“Jeez, it was just an offer. It’s not like I was planning to wait till the shower was running for a few minutes and sneak in for a peak through the keyhole, because… I mean, that’s just not right, and a total abuse of trust… “

The more she tried to deny it, the shiftier her eyes became, darting around as if looking for a life line. Her smile contorted into a grinning caricature of one, guilt so thick it was practically oozing out. I could see right through it, and she knew it, but she never faltered in her denial. I sighed, having finished my smoothie in record time.

“Maybe another time. Right now, I’m going to need another smoothie for the road, and another punch on the card.”

Her features fell as she replied with some utterance to the affirmative and began to make another smoothie. Usually I’d sit down and savor the treat at one of the booths, but Berry was right; I stunk like hell. On top of that, Berry seemed to be acting a little more forward than usual, a fact that gave me pause to be near her for any period of time, lest she get any ideas. Then, my brain decided to throw in its two cents.

Awww, c’mon. She’s cute; why not give her a taste?

What.

You heard me. What’s the harm in giving her a little sample?

Brain… What. The. Fuck.

Don’t give me that. We both know you think she’s cute.

Look here you sonofa bitch… Joy is my marefriend and you have got to be eating paint if you think I’d do anything to hurt her. And the comment about the mares? I don’t think I’ve seen an unattractive one since I’ve been in this town, so that’s invalid. Besides, there’s something special about Joy.

Whoa, easy with the language. I have sensitive feelings, motherfucker. You’re telling ME she’s special. I can see the way you stare at her flank, numbnuts.

Now who’s using the foul language? Hypocrite. You know what? Just be quiet, Brain. I’m already sick of your terrible suggestions.

Oh? Where would you be without the guidance of your inner voice? And what happens if I don’t?

A very different place than here. And if you don’t, I’ll stab you with a q-tip or drown you in alcohol. See how you like that.

As long as you do it in the company of the purple one back there, let’s go for it. I hear she gets pretty fun to be around after a few drinks.

Brain… just… just shut the fuck up. This is not ever going to happen, end of story. Back in your cage, cretin.

Ouch. You’re an asshole. Fine, let’s see how well you get along without me for a bit. I hope you enjoy your Pyrrhic victory.

…

Blessed silence was my only reply. This wasn’t the first time my brain just shat out some sort of verbose idiocy into my consciousness, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last. Poke it with a stick! Jump-you can make it! Things of this nature that always seemed to bite me in the ass, I had learned to ignore. Today was no different. By the time the mental altercation had been settled, I was already down the street and around the corner from the café, just then realizing that I needed about half a dozen straws if I wanted to eat this smoothie and walk at the same time. I briefly considered trying to hover over the ground and eat at the same time in the way I’d seen other pegasi doing, but I wasn’t anywhere nearly competent enough in flight to try it just yet.

Or was I? Really, I had no frame of reference other than the brief moment in the hallway, and that didn’t seem to have ended too badly. A thought formed in my mind, and it was just crazy enough that I couldn’t tell if my brain was playing a trick on me or if it was something that genuinely seemed like a good idea. One way or another, I was about to give it a shot… I was going to try to fly.

Why do I hear laughing?

Ignoring my misgivings I made my way out to a field nestled in a small valley. The valley was one situated on the far side of a hill from Ponyville, so as to be out of sight of the townsponies should something go awry. The sun was setting, casting long shadows on the ground as the darkness’ influence slowly waxed. Finding a spot that was far enough away from town that I wasn’t likely to be discovered, I spread my wings and began to stretch. At this point, unbeknownst to me on a conscious level, the mistakes were beginning to pile up. I was far from town and any source of help, nopony knew where I was and I wouldn’t be found to be missing for several hours if something happened, darkness was setting in and reducing visibility, and I didn’t even know the basics of flight. The tick marks in the risk category were stacking up, and this was becoming a perfect storm of poor decisions; the rapidly germinating seed of tragedy. And yet, I was unaware.

I rolled my wings one last time to stretch them out before I finally decided that I was ready. I extended my wings fully, marveling at the way the waning sunlight gilded one wing in its golden light as the waxing moonlight clad the other in quicksilver. I reveled in the sight for a moment, drinking in the beautiful play of light and shadow. I bent my knees and squatted slightly, preparing to jump as I flapped my wings to send myself skyward. Seeing as I had no idea how powerful my wings were, I figured I’d just give a moderate strength flap to see how high it allowed me to jump with the additional lift. I took a deep breath in and out, inhaling once more as I released the energy stored in my legs like a coiled spring being released, flapping my wings downward in a single powerful stroke.

Funny… I don’t remember that bush being there… I was standing by… a tree. Fuck.

It would seem that I once more underestimated myself. With that single stroke, I’d launched myself a good ten or fifteen meters into the sky.

And now I was falling.

Again.

Fuck.

Luckily for me, I retained the mental wherewithal to remember that I was indeed a pegasus in possession of wings. As I began to bleed off the speed of my ascent and begin the trip in reverse, my wings extended fully, catching the air and allowing me to glide instead of plummet. The only problem was… I had no idea how to steer this thing, and there was a tree in my path. Crap… this was going to suck.

Flailing my legs wildly proved to be slightly more effective than I thought, and by flailing to one side or the other, I discovered that I had a limited capability to influence my direction. Not much, but enough to miss the tree at least. Well, until the breeze kicked up, at any rate. I was less than five meters off of the ground when it hit me, nudging my course back to a collision path with the trunk despite my vigorously flailing limbs. There was a thud, and then blackness.

I awoke to the feeling of lips on mine, and before I had the opportunity to register anything beyond the contact, I felt as if I was being inflated by a high pressure air tank. My lungs expanded quite painfully, seemingly being split at the seams as they struggled to contain the massive volume of air being forced into them at such high pressure.

Just as I was sure that I was going to explode from within, the sensation of being a balloon and that of lips pressed against mine ceased; the air left me in a violent exhalation as my lungs returned to their normal size. I was just about to re-inflate my lungs when the lips returned, followed once more by the balloon sensation.

My eyes popped open, taking in the sight before me all at once.

Blonde mane, falling in unkempt strands across a light grey forehead; like locks of gold and silver in the moonlight. Golden eyes set in an expression of dogged determination; glistening wetly with what may have been tears as they focused on two separate things at once. A soft grey muzzle pressed against mine with a desperate intensity, and tasting lightly of honey and something else I couldn’t quite place. The golden orbs locked onto my eyes as they snapped open, and recognition and relief were written across the glistening spheres as they registered my consciousness. The soft grey muzzle, however, didn’t budge; it didn’t break contact. In the back of my mind, there were alarm bells ringing off the hook with their insistence, and yet another part of me… another part of me was enjoying the soft lips pressed against mine, albeit in an unorthodox manner. The grey lips receded from mine far slower than was necessary, leaving me conflictingly relieved and disappointed. What… what just happened?

I struggled to a sitting position from where I lay on my back, apparently having been rolled into a supine position for mouth-to-mouth. Derpy was draped across my chest from where she had positioned herself to render aid, and I couldn’t help but note the suggestive posture in which I found myself, on my back with a mare partially straddling me. This would be difficult to explain to the casual passerby. I found myself licking my lips for the last bit of that honey-and-something flavor, immediately and violently hating myself for it.

What the fuck was I doing? I have a marefriend, for Luna’s sake! This is so wrong… and yet, there was a part of me that enjoyed it.

No… not this again. FUCK YOU, BRAIN.

Derpy was watching my expression at first with great interest, and then with what I can only assume was terrible regret, based off of her expression. I suppose I had some sort of angry look on my face, based on her mortified look. Instantly, I softened my features, internalizing my self-loathing and burying it under concern for the grey pegasus, who was clearly in the middle of a significant emotional event.

“Hey there, Derpy. You alright?”

“Y-yeah. J-just peachy.”

Her stutter clearly indicated otherwise. Her tears were also a pretty good indicator.

“Why do I feel like you aren’t telling me the truth? Look, about what happened… “

“N-now you ha-hate me, because I ki-… kissed you. I w-was only try-trying to help! I saw y-you fly into the t-tree and f-fall… and you did-didn’t get up. I w-was only t-trying to help, and now y-you hate m-me!”

“Huh? Derpy, how many times do I have to tell you… I don’t hate you, or anypony for that matter. Heck, I like you more than I like most ponies, and this changes nothing. Thank you for helping me.”

I declined to mention that I was breathing just fine on my own when she began mouth to mouth… her heart was in the right place and I just couldn’t bear to take that from her.

“I’m so-sorry, I’ll le-leave you alone and nev-never bother you a-again. I—“

“Derpy, that’s not what I want at all. I don’t want you out of my life, not in the least.”

Well… shit. I am going to have to pick my next words very carefully to avoid making things any worse by giving her the wrong idea about 'us'. Derpy looked at me with eyes moist with tears, a few already having made their way down her snout. Without thinking, I reached up and gently brushed one away, surprising the both of us.

Fuuuuuccckkk…

“You… you d-don’t?”

“No, I don’t. You were only trying to help, and nopony worth being a friend to in the first place would hold that against you. You and I have a special bond since that night, one that makes us closer than friends… “

I could see her eyes light up from where I was, and I felt like the worst pony on earth for what I was about to say.

“… It makes us like family.”

Family-zoned. As high as she had allowed her hopes to rise, they came crashing down around her, just as hard. I had managed to get into a proper sitting position throughout our little discussion, in addition to extricating myself from underneath the grey mare. From my sitting position, I pulled her into a hug. She offered token resistance at first, before going limp in my arms. After a few moments had passed, I felt her arms snaking up my back to return the embrace. As they slid up my back, they slid past a few "sensitive" spots that I hadn’t even known existed, causing my wings to extend straight back with the sound of a parachute opening. I was in the midst of deciding whether I needed to be concerned or not when my fears were laid to rest. I felt Derpy smile into my shoulder as she mumbled

“Got you. Ha-ha… “

“Yeah, you did.”

Imagine what it would be like to get with a pegasus mare… they know all the sweet spots…

Godammit brain, fuck off already. I’ve had enough of your shit today.

This was beginning to become a bad habit, and was most certainly a bad sign. I sighed, causing Derpy to squeeze me a bit harder before releasing me.

“T-thanks for understanding, Dave. I c-can’t imagine l-losing you as a friend over something l-like this.”

“And you never will. I’ve stayed friends with ponies far worse than you could ever be, even if you tried. You are a swell mare and a good friend, and I wouldn’t give that up lightly.”

“You are a spiffy colt, yours-self, and I’m really happy we met.”

“Me too, Derpy. Well, I have to get home before Joy misses me. We should hang out sometime, okay?”

“Definitely. Good night, D-Dave. Watch out for trees.”

“I will, I swear it. That thing jumped right out in front of me…“

“Silly Dave, trees can’t jump. They have no knees!”

“Alright, goodnight you. See you around.”

With a smile and a nod, she was off into the night, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Honey.

Shaddup.

I walked home slowly, beginning to feel the soreness of the collision as it seeped into my muscles. I was going to be sore tomorrow, that was for sure. I walked into the house and had just enough time to take off my saddlebags and sit on the couch before the door opened and disgorged Joy. She sauntered up to me, looking both tired and excited before stopping about an arm’s length away and scrunching up her nose.

“Good Night… you stink, Dave.”

“Why thank you. I tried quite hard, I’m glad you appreciate it.”

She smiled at this before taking a deep breath and holding it, leaning in for a kiss. We locked lips, feeling our collective stresses lessen slightly. As Joy pulled away, she made a bit of a face, licking her lips.

“You taste like honey. Did you stop for a snack on the way home?”

I was mortified. I felt my blood turn to ice as my stomach turned itself inside out and back again.

“Yeah, something like that. Stopped at Berries for a smoothie, and she’s got a new promotion going on.”

I pulled out my card and showed off the two punches in it, explaining the details of the promotion. All the while that I was explaining this, I felt like there was a creature in my gut, raging about in an attempt to escape. Had I lied? No, I had not. Had I withheld critical information in blatant self interest? Yes, and I was a terrible pony for that. It’s not even like it was something all that bad… after all, she’d only been trying to help. But I recalled vividly the nice little shade of green that Joy had turned when Derpy had hugged me after they released her from surgery… I knew that this, however innocent, would not go over well. And then there was the complicating factor that I’d liked it on some level, and I wasn’t prepared for the implications of that. There was no way that my old ways would follow me here. I would not permit it to happen.

I concluded my summary of Berry’s promotion, at which time Joy swore that she’d help with my crusade, if only to see the look on Berry’s face when it came to fruition. I chuckled to strangle the feeling growing in me, and then I set off for the shower. I showered with the water as hot as I could get it, trying to scrub the un-cleanliness off of me; a useless endeavor if ever there was one. Red, raw, sore, and defeated, I made my way out of the shower to meet Joy on the couch in our usual fashion. Once we’d gotten settled in and set the music to playing, I finally remembered to ask Joy how her day had gone.

“Oh, it was fantastic! I’d taken a little bit of time to read ahead in a few of the texts I got from Twilight, and it really paid off. When Professor Oak began to go on this rant about the divergence in species and the medical advances that had been made by studying them, I felt like I was the only one who wasn’t ‘lost in the sauce’ as you would put it. That’s a strange saying, though… how does one get lost in sauce? I’ve dropped a spoon in it once, but it wasn’t lost lost, more like hiding lost. Anyways, back to class, as it were. Professor Oak got upset that one of the mares in the front row dozed off during his introductory lecture, so he had us all stand up as he asked us questions about his lecture. You couldn’t sit down until you got one right… needless to say, that poor mare was standing for a while.”

“Heh. That sounds familiar, actually. I had to do something like that in training, but it was a little more intense than standing. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to be that mare.”

“Yeah, she looked really tired. I was like that when I first started night classes, but you get used to it after a while.”

“You’re in an advanced class, right?”

“Yep, only a few more months and a research paper, and you’ll be looking at Doctor Joy, not Nurse Joy.”

I nodded affirmatively at her, musing to myself that Doctor Joy just wouldn't have the same ring as Nurse Joy. “Of this, I have no doubt. Well, that mare in the front row… she is apparently new to night classes, but she’s in a graduation class. So she’s either some kind of Twilight-level genius, or she transferred from days. Right?”

“Probably. I wouldn’t really know, though. I’ve been in night classes for a few years now, and I have little to no interaction with those on days.”

“Makes sense. Conflicting schedules and such.”

The conversation continued in this manner for a while as Joy recounted the rest of her day, having exhausted the high points for her day at school. Before long, the conversation switched back to me and my day. I recalled just about nothing useful that I could explain without a visual aid, so I skimmed over some of the basics I’d learned. Joy was soon fast asleep, lulled into the abyss by a slew of technical jargon. It wasn’t until I heard her gentle snores that I realized she’d fallen asleep in the midst of my tale. I smiled warmly at Joy, leaning down to place a kiss on her forehead, causing her to shift slightly and grin in her sleep. Shifting myself into a more comfortable position lying snout to snout with Joy, I took her hoof and kissed the top of it, like a gentleman kissing a lady’s hand in an old movie. She smiled again, sliding her hoof out of my grasp to drape it across my shoulder and pull me closer. As we lay there, snout to snout, her warm breath tickled my nose, making me smile. I kissed her nose, and then we were both smiling. I drifted off to sleep, lulled by the warmth of her arm across me and the rhythmic sound of her breathing.

0600 Tuesday morning, 27 March. Day 15.

I awoke a bit before my alarm went off, stretching languidly. I’d forgotten all about the tree incident the night before in the wake of a steamy dream featuring swirls of sapphire and alabaster, but my body hadn’t. As a matter of fact, my body was apparently holding a grudge about that, because as I stretched the sleep out of my muscles my world dissolved in flashes of white and crimson. I immediately ceased my stretching, and the pain abated significantly, though not entirely. I stretched a bit more slowly this time, doing so in increments and letting my body adjust to the movement before pushing further. By the time I was finished, my alarm was going off and I’d lost any head-start I might've had on the day.

With a groan of protest from my limbs and a mumbling of general discontent, I decided it was time to get a shower and rolled out of bed.

All the way out.

As I hit the floor with a thump and a groan, I had a flash of déjà vu hit me across the face like a wet towel. Yeah, this seemed familiar.

Come on, legs. I thought we were past these shenanigans? Did we not have a bonding moment? I know I kinda hit you with a tree and stuff… but really, is this any way to act? I have wings, and once I figure out how to use them, you are expendable. If you want to keep “hanging around”, then you’ll have to start pulling you own weight. Namely, my own weight. Got it?

I wasn’t sure if the tingling in my legs was from the stretching or an acknowledgment of my ultimatum, but upon testing my limbs once more and finding them responsive, I concluded the latter was the case.

Don’t judge me.

I shuffled my way to the bathroom and turned the tap to “arctic” before stepping in. Even having done this numerous times before and knowing what to expect, the water was still shockingly cold. I was vaguely surprised that there weren’t icicles forming on the showerhead. Wide awake by that point, I dialed the faucet to something a bit warmer than glacial runoff to complete my ablution. I stepped out of the shower and dried myself, shaking my mane to clear my head and rid myself of extra water. See? I can multitask. For reasons unknown to me, I headed out to the kitchen, sneaking as stealthily as I could.

Surprisingly, I was doing a pretty good job of it, considering the rebellious nature of my limbs. I stalked into the kitchen, slinking along the floor with all the grace and stealth of a feline on the prowl. Either Joy was really engrossed in food preparation, or I was really and truly being stealthy, because she failed to register my presence. I drew up close enough to touch her, and she still hadn’t indicated any knowledge of my presence.

So what did I do? Well, I nipped her on the flank, of course. I mean, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to sneak up behind somebody who is distracted and give them a little pinch on the bum?

The next thing I recalled was staring at the ceiling and wondering when we put stars up there… Joy appeared over me, looking absolutely horrified as she covered her mouth with her hoof.

“OhmySunDaveI’msosorry!”

“Urgh… too many words. What happened?”

“You snuck up on me while I was cooking, then you nipped my flank. Were you trying to get kicked? You know that’s a reflex, dummy.”

“I may have forgotten, but I remember now. The ghost peppers might have burned that bit out of my memory.”

Joy chuckled as she recalled my antics while hallucinating under the influence of inferno distillate. I was about to stick my tongue out again, but I really had no desire to repeat any of my previous experiences with this matter.

“Yeah, that was pretty funny. Are you okay though? I think I got you in the head. Are you seeing double? Does everything sound muffled? Can you think clearly? Well… as clearly as you normally do?”

“Yep, HEADS is good.”

“Heads? You only have one head. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“HEADS is an acronym; Headache, Ears ringing, Altered consciousness or alertness, Dizziness, or Something just not right.”

“Huh… haven’t heard that one before, but it’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that. Mind if I tell some of the other nurses about it?”

“Huh? No, not at all. Knowledge and information, for the most part, are meant to be shared and spread, not locked up in a box. Especially when it deals with something that could help another pony.”

“Well put, Dave. Now I know you have a head injury… that was way too logical for you.”

I shot her my best “are you kidding me” look, drawing a relieved chuckle from the mare. In the midst of her chuckle, something clicked in her mind and caused her to stop short.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘for the most part’?”

Busted.

“There is some information that cannot be released to the public, usually pertaining to sensitive personal data or things of that nature.”

Not bad for something I dredged up from some obscure manual I'd read who-knows-how-long-ago…

Joy pondered this for a moment before shrugging and accepting it as a fact. After all, in her line of work, there had to be times that she’d come across ponies in potentially scandalous binds or with very personal issues, the kind that would be best kept from the public view. Personally, I’d sighed in relief that it hadn’t gone any farther than that. Sooner or later I’d have to come clean about it, but I was planning on waiting for time to dull it a bit before I popped that star cluster.

Keeping it a secret will only make it worse in the end.

Shaddup, Brain.

No, really. Not even fucking around this time, this will bite you in the ass, boyo.

Nah, I got this.

Really? What am I even here for then, since you apparently have this all figured out already.

You keep my neck warm.

I… fuck. Know what? I’m out. Don’t worry, I’m sure there is no way this will come back to bite you in the ass. Like I even care… I don’t have an ass. Other than you, anyways. Peace, idiot.

Yeah, get out of here, you bum.

There was no reply, but I became aware of a few things right about then. First, Joy was looking at me strangely and waving a hoof to get my attention. Second, I had just told… whatever part of my brain that was… to bugger off and it had listened. I’m still not really clear on how that works. And finally, if I didn’t eat something and head out soon, I was going to be late. I gave Joy a sheepish smile as I stood up, which did little to dispel her strange look. She probably heard me talking to myself and was now questioning my mental integrity.

“Sorry about that. Spaced out for a bit, love. So, food, yes?”

Still regarding me with a wary eye, Joy stood up and looked at me for a second. I wondered how much she’s heard of what I’d said. Poking the sore spot on my head, she grimaced to herself. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a bruise. I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What’d you say?”

Dodged another bullet. Seriously, by this time I should look like Chrysalis. I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer my luck would hold, or why I was relying on luck instead of just coming clean. At this last thought, one of the ponies in my head fell to his knees and raised his arms to the sky, exclaiming “hallelujah!” before a quartet of burly ponies in black jumpsuits emerged from the shadows and began to drag him away. I’m sure this was some sort of subtle way my mind was telling me something, but I didn’t have time to parse the intricacies of my random visions to figure it out.

Instead, I simply smiled and looked at Joy.

“Food, yes?”

“Food? Yes, food. I’ll get that right now. I’d tell you to hurry and eat, but I’m not sure it’s possible for you to eat any faster and survive. Just remember, we have to leave for work soon.”

“Yes, dear.”

Breakfast consisted of some sort of daisy-waffle-thing, served with a side of fruit and a glass of cold OJ. I wish I’d slowed down enough to actually taste it, but I was determined to eat as quickly as possible. In less than a minute, I’d cleared my plate. Joy’s mouth hung wide open, and her mind seemed to be stuck in a rut.

“How… how did you… that’s not even possible… is it? Did you even chew? I mean… how… how are you not choking, this doesn’t make any sense… grrr. Dave, just when I think I’ve seen it all, there you go with something like this.”

“Hehehe. Once again, you underestimate my awesome. It’s okay, it’s just one of those things you get used to. I’m probably the fastest eater in Equestria… other than Pinkie Pie. Nopony can out-anything Pinkie Pie.”

Joy seemed to think this over a bit before just shaking her head and muttering. I seem to recall doing the same thing when I thought about Pinkie for the first time, so I knew the feeling well enough. Joy shook away her daze and finished up her own breakfast much quicker than usual, yet somehow still managed to retain her lady-like composure throughout. Personally, I attribute it to the cheating unicorn magic, allowing her to cut her next bite even as she was moving the first one to her mouth. Bah… friggin’ unicorns. Once she had finished her meal and daintily wiped her mouth with a napkin (I’d just used the back of my hoof… seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I was all sticky), we gathered our respective belongings and set off to the hospital. We passed the walk to the hospital alternately commenting on whatever we saw that caught our fancy, and with Joy grilling me as to just how on Equestria I was able to eat so darn quickly.

“It’s simple, really. Chew just enough to make it fit down your neck-hole. Repeat as necessary.”

“Neck-hole? Is that the scientific term?”

“Eyup.”

If it were possible to facehoof while walking without falling face-first into the ground, I’m positive Joy would have done so. As it was though, she just sighed in a tired manner as she chuckled at me.

“I swear, Dave… sometimes you worry me.”

“If it’s only sometimes, you either aren’t paying close enough attention, or I’m not trying hard enough.”

“That’s not a challenge, Dave. Anyways, my schedule is pretty much the same for the next few months while I’m in class, so you’ll be on your own in the evenings. If I find out that you’ve gone and gotten yourself hurt while I’m not around to take care of you, I swear to Celestia that I’ll hire a foal sitter to watch you. I hear Pinkie Pie’s rates are pretty reasonable… “

Visions of myself being placed in a diaper and thrown into a comically oversized crib that Pinkie pulled out of Celestia-knows-where danced through my head. For some reason, I couldn’t shake the idea that the Pink One would take her job literally, and sit me like a foal. That was something I’d like to avoid.

“Okay, okay… you’ve made your point. Maybe I’ll take up knitting… “

A moment of silence passed as the both of us contemplated what could possibly go wrong. We looked at each other at the same time, our expressions indicating that our minds were on similar tracks. I amended my previous statement.

“Well… maybe something without those big needles… “

“Yeah, that seems much safer, considering the audience… “

“Oh, hush you. I’m not that—“

Any further retort was cut short as the door to the shop I was passing in front of was suddenly and violently opened. Don’t worry though, I stopped the door before it could cause any real damage… using my face. I stumbled backwards and sat down heavily on my rump; partially out of shock and confusion, but also partly due to the fact that my face had been remodeled, including the addition of a nifty blood-fountain at the end of my nose.

Son of a BITCH that hurt.

“Augh, godammit that hurts… “

Joy was there in a flash, knocking my hooves away to get a better look at the damage. Her horn glowed a bit and I could feel the blood being lifted out of my coat as the wound was cleaned to expose the actual damage. With a “tsk-tsk” sound, she clucked disapprovingly before turning a chastising stare at the pony coming out of the door with such haste. The pale mare with the fuchsia and crimson mane just stood there in shock, apparently mortified by what had just occurred.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Oh, I’m so sorry about that… “

I raised a hoof to wave away her concerns, but the fact that it was covered in blood didn’t really inspire confidence in the mare. Thankfully, Joy was a bit better prepared to talk to ponies than I was, and she immediately took over the conversation.

“Oh, don’t fret about it, Rose. These things happen… especially with this one.”

At that, Joy nodded her head in my direction, as if there was any sort of doubt to whom she referred. Rose’s gaze flickered from Joy to me for a moment before returning to the mare in charge of speaking for me.

“I still feel bad about it… I should have been watching what I was doing instead of rushing out like that… it could have been a foal instead!”

Joy shrugged in agreement. “Well, yeah. You should be more careful when you open the door, especially seeing that this is probably the only shop with a door that opens outward on this entire block. Just keep that in mind in the future, okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Still, is there anything I can do to help? I am responsible for this, after all… “

“No, that’s alright Roseluck. I’ve got this under control. You seemed in a hurry, so you can leave if you need to.”

“Are… are you sure? I wouldn’t want to leave you like this since I caused it… but if you insist… “

Joy simply nodded. “I do. If you have someplace to be, you can go ahead and leave. He’ll be fine in a bit, and whatever it is must be pretty important.”

“Well, okay then. I’m sorry about this though… but I have got to get to work… I’d hate to be late on my first day at Flora’s. See you later, Joy, and sorry about the nose!”

At this, Roseluck turned and took off at a brisk trot, clearly in a hurry to be somewhere other than here. The blood-fountain in my face had slowed to a trickle, and even that was dying down rapidly. Joy’s horn glowed once more, and the tingling sensation on my hoof told me that the blood was being cleaned off of me with that tingly-minty-blue magic. Another moment passed, and the glow around Joy’s horn abated once more, as she gave a satisfied nod of her head.

“Alright Dave, that should do it. Just don’t pick your nose or run into anything else until at least this afternoon, okay? Wouldn’t want the clot to get locked loose. You’re quite the bleeder.”

“Okay. And thank you, twenty one years of practice in action.”

“Oh Dave, what am I going to do with you? Well, get up, we’ve got to get going.”

I can name a few things…

You again. I thought you left?

I did, but this was just too good to miss.

You suck.

That’s the best you’ve got? Really?

I’m in no mood for this, Brain. Whoever or whatever you are, I was just fine before you started talking to me, so I’d like to go back to the way I was. Can’t you just take a permanent vacation?

Nope, because I am you. Just think of me as the little red guy on your shoulder.

Great, just what I needed. A bad influence.

I’m not all bad… I just like to liven things up a bit. Besides, with as much temptation as you have around you, it would be too easy for me if that’s what I was after. No, I prefer to watch you struggle it out for yourself.

Great, so I have a sadist in my head. Just my luck.

Seems that way, doesn’t it? Well, I’m going to take a nap. Try not to die.

That’s helpful.

Again, I was met by silence. So it would seem that I now have a voice that has taken up residence in my head. Because that’s not troubling or anything. Just what I needed, more complications in my life.

The taste of honey floated up from the mist of my memory, calling forth the events of the previous night.

Godammit.

I hate Complications.

14: The Dungeon

Chapter Fourteen
The Dungeon

Joy left to do whatever it is that she did for her shift change, and I set off into the labyrinthine passages in the shadows of the hospital. With practiced ease, I made my way to the janitorial alcove to meet up with Technia and Brass, so I could get my assignments for the day. As I entered the nook that was our office, I was nearly slapped in the face by the musty odor of old parchment and dust. It was an overwhelming olfactory assault, the likes of which I hadn't experienced since my last visit to the library. Sprawled out across the desk was a sizeable and positively ancient looking scroll of parchment, and as I ventured nearer to investigate I managed to pick out the familiar contours of the hospital. So, it would appear that this was the original blueprint for this building. If this print wasn't original, then it had to have been done very soon after this place was built, seeing as how it was lacking the entire east wing and a few of the other nooks and crannies. If I had to guess, I'd say it was drawn before they'd been built.

Come to think of it, not only were there parts missing on this map, there were extra bits and pieces all over the place, thing like halls and alcoves among other things, things that I assumed had been walled over or turned into closets or the like. Once Brass spoke up, I realized that I really should never assume anything ever.

"Morning, Dave. You ready for today?"

"Indubitably, Brass. What's the mission?"

"Today, you are going to be getting a very special treat…" Brass paused dramatically in the middle of her sentence to cast a glance at Technia and then wink at me. This was either going to be really good, or really, REALLY bad. "… You are going to get to see some of the passages that very few other ponies even know about, ones that were built into the hospital when it was initially constructed. We don't use them as much as we used to, but they are still the most convenient way to get between most points in the building. And it just so happens that there are a few machines that you can't get to without them, so lucky you."

I was grinning from ear to ear at that. I'd get to explore forgotten secret passages? Score. "Alright, now I'm excited. When do we start?"

Technia answered this one, cutting off Brass' reply and earning a reproachful stare; one that was wasted on the back of Tech's head as she walked out the door.

"Follow me, Lugnut. There's a lot to learn and not much time to learn it."

I shrugged at Brass as I set off to follow my sensei, seeing the amusing sight of Brass' utter confusion while mouthing the word 'lugnut' to herself. I chuckled to myself as I set off in Tech's direction, not really feeling like being left behind. We navigated a few twists and turns to the maintenance access hallways in the bowels of the hospital, the same dank corridors that I'd been traversing since day one on the job. While they aren't technically secret or hidden, they are always deserted, save for the odd and awkward encounter with Sweeps as we passed each other every now and again. Having traveled these halls on a nearly daily basis for two weeks, it came as a tremendous surprise when Tech simply vanished into the shadows between two pipes.

So rapid was her disappearance that it was almost as if she had evanesced into thin air. That is, until the sound of hooves on a metal grate rang out from the shadows. I scampered into the darkness, not wanting to become lost, and in my haste I'd neglected to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I looked down at the floor in hopes of avoiding a trip and fall, and it was because of this that I ran into the wall with the top of my head. Good thing, too… if that had been my nose, I would most likely have bled all over the place and never heard the end of it from Tech. in spite of my "good fortune", I now had a lump on the top of my head and a ringing in my ears. The stars were definitely not helping my night vision, either. From the darkness off to my right, I heard a soft "tsk-tsk" of disapproval.

"Come on, Lugnut. I haven't got all day. Here, I'll turn on a light for you so you aren't conducting impromptu inspections on the structural integrity of the walls." If that wasn't the nicest way to say 'running headlong into walls like an idiot’ that I'd ever heard, I'd eat my hat. And I wasn't even wearing a hat.

A soft crimson glow illuminated the wall in front of me, revealing the turn I should have taken and the moderately impatient mare standing just beyond. I walked over to Technia, using my wing to rub the knot on my head. With any luck, this would either not be big enough to draw Joy's attention, or it would be hidden by my mane.

Only time would tell though. In the meantime, my guide had turned and left without me, forcing me to trot quickly to catch up.

As we passed through the corridors that abruptly transitioned from metal to stone, I couldn't help but marvel at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Ten minutes ago, I'd been in a relatively new hospital. Now? I was crawling through what could have been a medieval dungeon passageway. Luckily for me, though it was full of twists and turns, there weren't any branching passages for me to get lost in. The longer we trotted in the darkness, my eyes finally began to adjust to the ever-present gloom of the stone hallway, and I began to notice luminescent blocks of stone set into the wall every four or five steps, providing just enough illumination to see by. The pale green glow of the stone mixed with the crimson glow of Tech's horn and gave the whole scene a hellish-holiday color scheme. The more-than-slightly-creepy vibe of the place was starting to get to me until a brighter glow at the end of the hall gave me a boost of confidence.

We walked through the archway into a large and rather well lit room (though, admittedly, at this point a guttering candle would have seemed bright) with an enormous machine in the middle of it, softly hissing and clanking at a slow, steady pace. In my mind's eye it seemed like a massive, slumbering beast: the hiss of the steam, its respirations; the rhythmic clanking, its heartbeat. The room was a good deal warmer than the tunnel, though I was unable to ascertain whether this was due to the tunnel being cold as a result of being so far underground, or if the heat was a byproduct of the machine.

Regardless, the room was warmer than the tunnel and a bit brighter as well, lending the room a stuffy, slightly claustrophobic atmosphere. Without a word, Tech began to divest herself of her tool belt and saddlebags, and I figured it would be prudent of me to do the same. Not really being a mare to mince words, my sensei instructed me to hurry up before she clocked me with a wrench. The wrench in question was an almost comically large spanner wrench, hovering menacingly behind her. I dropped my saddlebags with haste and trotted over to her, eyeing the wrench suspiciously the whole time. As I drew to within two paces of Tech, the wrench jerked suddenly and violently in my direction. I dodged out of instinct, jumping backwards and flapping my wings mightily, sending me in a neat little back flip-style motion. Yeah, that was way too smooth to be a product of conscious thought on my behalf. I slid to a stop, feeling entirely too cocky at having dodged a blow like that in such spectacular fashion. Just as I raised my head to gloat, the trill of laughter floated to my ears, causing me to blink in confusion for a moment as I looked up as Tech.

Tech was utilizing the oversized wrench as a crutch to support herself, laughing maniacally at some joke only she was getting. At least for a moment, anyways… my mind finally put two and two together. She hadn’t thrown the wrench at me… she’d jerked it in my direction to spook me, and boy howdy, had it worked. In retrospect, my super-awesome back flip maneuver just seemed comical.

Dammit… why can’t I have cool stuff happen to me?

After blushing about twelve shades of red and a few purple ones too, I managed to regain my normal coloration at about the same time that Tech managed to stifle her chuckles. Tech took a deep breath to fully compose herself, wiping a tear from her eye as she did so.

“Dave, that was perhaps the single greatest over-reaction I have ever had the joy to experience. Such grace… that just made it even better. Oh, jeez… thank you for that, Dave. I needed a good laugh.”

“Yep. Glad I could help, Tech. So, aside from scaring the soup out of me, what’s the plan for today?”

“What soup? I didn’t see you drop anything… other than your pride, that is.”

I waved this off casually, pretending my ego wasn't still a bit sore. “Meh, ‘tis not important. And what is this ‘pride’ of which you speak?”

“I thought as much. Anyways, we're going to be crawling inside this beast of a machination over here so I can show you the most likely source of any problems that might arise with it.”

I wasn't sure I was entirely warm and fuzzy about climbing inside a giant mechanical monstrosity, but after my last display I needed to save face. Play it cool, Dave. “Okay. So, what is this thing we’re about to crawl into?”

“This is the Automated Steam Supply mechanism.”

I did a double take. “Wait, stop the wagon. The Automated Steam Supply? We’re going to be crawling inside something called the A-S-S?”

Technia looked at me for a moment, as if she was trying to figure out what the disconnect was. “Yes, we’re going to be crawling into the A-S-S; I just said as much. So what don’t you get?”

I did my best to keep a straight face. “Oh, nothing, nothing. So, I gather that this is going to be a rather… tight space, are we going to need to lube up before we try and slip in?”

Tech just gave me the “penis growing out of forehead” look for a second more before responding, apparently still not having caught on to the joke.

“Well, it is going to be a tight fit, especially with the two of us in there; I’ve never had anypony else in there at the same time that I was… but you need to be in there too so you can see what I’m doing. Even so, I don’t see the need to grease ourselves up to get in the access port. I can get in there with my wrench without an issue.”

By this point, I simply had no idea whatsoever how I was keeping a straight face. This… this was too good to be real. Was she really not getting the innuendo, or was she just as good at keeping a straight face as I (apparently) was? Either way, this was too good not to keep going. (Insert “that’s what she said” here)

“So, what you’re telling me is that you can fit that massive tool in there without an issue? That’s impressive.”

Without a moment's hesitation, she dropped this one on me with a straight face. “Years of practice.”

And then I lost it. I lost every last shred of composure as I quite literally rolled on the floor, laughing. Further fueling my maniacal laughter was the groan of comprehension and the sound of a facehoof that came from Tech. It would seem that she had finally caught on. I managed to stifle my jubilation in record time, mostly out of desire to see Tech’s reaction to the simply magnificent exchange that had taken place.

Her face still hidden behind her hoof, Tech slowly shook her head as she drew in a long, deep breath and let out an exasperated sigh. I found myself suddenly unsure of what I’d done, wondering if I’d crossed a line or gone too far, done something that would culminate in my termination from the hospital staff. The last of my guffaws died in my throat and my smile froze upon my face, a plaster cast hiding my unease. Tech sighed again, shaking her head once more as she lowered her hoof to look up at me.

Her grin was one that spoke of both defeat and commendation; she was beaten and quite impressed by it.

“Alright lugnut, are you done yet? You got me with that one; it was pretty funny, actually. Even so, we have work to do. Pull yourself together, and let’s get started, shall we?”

“Okay, I’ll try to get a hold of myself before I slip into the A-S-S.”

Tech just hung her head with a sigh as she turned to walk away. Try as she might to hide it, I could still see the grin on her face as she walked away. The next several hours passed in predictable fashion, with the exception of the actual entrance to the A-S-S. I found it difficult to imagine that Tech hadn’t done this intentionally. The entrance to the mechanism was a very small porthole tucked betwixt a large pair of accumulation tanks, tanks that for some reason were almost egg shaped and bore a striking resemblance to a posterior. I brought this up to Tech, and she did something unprecedented: she blushed. As she blushed, she hastily spewed some technical explanation about the shape of the accumulation tanks and the positioning of the entrance, but I was too busy chuckling to myself to pay much heed to her words.

Technia groaned in frustration as she stalked off, and I figured I’d better cut back on the shenanigans before I caught a wrench with my face. Tech led the way to the entrance, threading her way between the tanks to a small hatch just beyond.

Hanging on pegs just above the hatch was a pair of gas masks, and without a word Tech took one and floated the other to me. I fit the mask to my face fairly easily, though tightening the straps would have been a bit more time consuming had Tech not stepped up with her magic. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a mare’s voice coming from right beside me, spinning rapidly to get a better look at the one who’d snuck up on me. I whirled around to face this new mare, but there was nopony there. How the…? Then came the sound of laughter, ringing out from the same close proximity that the words had. At this point, I just happened to be looking at Tech and noticed her mouth moving in time with the chuckling in my ear.

About that time, I realized that the chuckling had a familiar tone and pitch. And roger. I’d just been trolled by a radio. Had I really been in Ponyville that long? I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to follow this train of thought; Tech’s voice once again split the silence and beckoned my attention.

Tech was the first to slip into the machine, and as much as I wanted not to look, I couldn’t help but steal a few glances at her flanks as she wriggled through the opening. In the back of my mind, there was a greasy, sketchy looking pony sitting in a dark corner and rubbing his hooves together with a disquieting grin. Oh, the joys of having lecherous ponies living in your mind… It was my turn next, and as much shimmying as it had taken Tech to get in, it took me thrice as much to gain entrance to the operation console for the machine. I took a moment to both ponder why the controls had to be buried within the machine, and to contemplate actually using some lube next time. For all my joking, it really was a tight squeeze to get into the A-S-S. Yeah, yeah… yuck it up all you like, but the jokes were not nearly as funny in hindsight.

Heh. Hindsight.

Once inside, Tech slowly walked me through the dazzling array of dancing needles and shiny knobs. Oh, and big shiny levers, too. Can’t forget about those.

The inside of the machine was a somewhat spacious cylinder; tall enough for me to stand at my full height without pinging my skull off of any pipes, and wide enough in diameter that Tech and I weren’t pressed up against each other, though only just. The portal to the chamber was set into the wall and flush with the floor, so that when you climbed into the chamber, you had to slide in on your stomach and then stand up. The area around the entry was a rats’ nest of pipes and conduit where the feeds and returns fed into the chamber from their respective sources. The entire inside of the mechanism was composed of what appeared to be brass, though it was a bit hard to tell. The single source of illumination was a dim light recessed in the ceiling, casting its sickly yellow illumination around the chamber with barely enough power to chase away the blackest of shadows. With the exception of the control panel set into the wall opposite the entry, shadows reigned supreme. The dials and gauges were lit from within by a strange green glow, reminiscent of a chemlight in hue.

Tech took her time to teach me the various gauges and their function, explaining a little about what each one was for before moving on to the next. After running through the configuration for only the second time, I was able to identify nearly all of the levers and gauges as Tech pointed to them, and even the ones I misnamed weren’t that far off. Calling a knob a ‘steam restrictor’ instead of a ‘steam limiter’ and such. One thing that struck me as odd about the inside of the machine was how quiet it was compared to the outside. Even ruling out the probability of a noise reduction spell in the magical skullduggery that was the radio on my head, my chest was not vibrating with the same intensity it had been when I was standing outside.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A few hours later, and I couldn’t help but take note of the fact that everything had gone smoothly so far today (at least for the most part). At least it had up until this point, I pretty much figured it was inevitable that something would go terribly wrong in the near future; a thought that proved to be a self fulfilling prophesy. No sooner had I contemplated this than my nose began to itch. I reached up to scratch it, finding that there was a gas mask in the way. I scrunched up my nose, wiggling it in an attempt to relieve the building sensation.

“Hey, Tech?”

“Yeah? What’s up, Lugnut?”

“Is there any specific reason that we are wearing these masks?”

“Well, these feed pipes go deep into the ground, and sometimes toxic gasses seep out and collect in this confined space. There’s no way to predict it, hence the masks as a preventative measure.”

In yet another corner of my mind (which apparently has more corners than a rhombicosidodecahedron, a 62 sided abomination of a shape) there was a pony positively mummified in yellow reflective belts, offering a pearl of wisdom.

“Preventative measure? The only thing you need is a PT belt.”

Well… that was… helpful?

The itch on my nose was living up to an axiom that I’d heard once upon a time; ‘The severity of an itch is inversely proportional to your ability to reach it.’ I tried to push all of the unnecessary thoughts out of my head as I tried to focus on an expedient solution to this problem.

Even so, I felt an edge of stress creeping into my voice. “So Tech, is there any way to determine the lethality of the atmosphere?”

She tapped her hoof on the filter canister of her mask, apparently evaluating. “Well… yes, but it’s not very effective. Besides, it doesn’t monitor the gasses that may seep out from around the pipe. One minute it’s fine, the next… not so much.”

“Ah, well then. I’ll just be waiting outside in that case.”

Without another word, I turned and flung myself through the portal and into the open space beyond. At least, that’s what would have happened if I hadn’t gonged my head off of one of the pipes that snaked across the top of the cylindrical work chamber. The itch on my face was so powerful that it was not just a feeling anymore; it was a ringing in my ears and a blurring of my vision that made the walls seem to shimmer. What was happening to me, why was I acting all crazy? I felt my feathers crawl as I once more attempted to scratch my nose from where I’d landed on the floor; once more was I thwarted by the mask. I pawed at the mask with zealous vigor, and I was rewarded with a flood of relief as the mask bowed just enough to caress my itchy nose, reducing the severity of the itch significantly, though not alleviating it. As I pulled myself to my hooves and resorted to the face-scrunching-technique to scratch my itch, I could see Tech eyeing me with a bemused smirk.

“What? My nose itches, and I can’t get to it because of this mask, and it is driving me CRA--… oooh. That’s nice.”

My complaining was interrupted mid-gripe with a soft glow from Technia’s horn. Frigging unicorns and their frigging cheating magic. As the charcoal mare finished scratching the itch on my nose, I breathed a deep sigh of relief at being freed of the frustrating sensation upon my snout. As relief flowed through me, I had a moment of silence to myself before Tech spoke up.

“Better?”

I sighed in satisfaction. “Much. Thank you.”

“Not a problem. But next time… just ask, alright? ‘Hey, Technia, could you scratch my nose?’ ‘Not a problem at all, good buddy of mine.’ Simple as that, and it would have prevented bad things from happening. I wasn’t sure whether I should smite you with the wrench or not, but luckily for you, I didn’t. This is a very small space to have a pony wig out in, so you weren’t leaving me many options.”

“Heh… yeah… I could have thought that one through a bit more. Thanks for not smiting me with the wrench.”

At the mention of the wrench, she floated it in front of her menacingly. “Yeah, you could have. And really, why do you think I even brought this in here?”

“I was wondering about that, actually… figured it would be better not to ask.”

“Yeah, well… what say you we get out of here and get some lunch?”

In response to the thought of food, my stomach growled quite loudly. “Yeah, I think that’d be best. Ladies first?”

“And give you the pleasure of staring at my backside again? Nope, you go first this time. That way, I can kick you if you get stuck.”

Had she noticed? I didn't see her looking back at me, though I supposed it was a possibility. Even thinking about it was enough to make my cheeks burn with a blush. Thank goodness the mask, well, masked the view. “Erm… yeah… about that… I’d prefer not to be kicked in the buns if at all possible.”

She merely shrugged. “Well, we’ll see how easily you get out of the porthole. I reserve that option, though.”

“Ah… well, I suppose.”

I took a deep sigh and breathed out heavily, emptying my lungs of air to make myself a bit narrower before I took the plunge. I wriggled through the small opening with much less difficulty that I had going in, a fact I attributed to the slight sheen of sweat I’d built up from being in such a confined space for so long. Even so, it took me plenty long enough to extricate myself from the chamber to catch Tech thinking naughty things. I may not have been able to see what she was doing or what faces she was making, but that did nothing to mute the mike in her gas mask; I heard her mumble something to the effect of ‘that’s nice’ or similar as I was trying to make my hips fit through the port hole. I didn’t mind nearly as much as I thought I should, though this wasn’t particularly troubling. It’s nice to know my physique wasn’t fading so soon.

I slipped free with an audible “pop” as I tumbled to the floor. I gathered my senses and clambered back to my hooves just in time to witness Tech slink out of the portal with all the grace of a feline; she seemed to flow out of the chamber as if she were something less than solid.

I’d like to see Joy do that… from behind.

I found myself nodding in agreement for a second before I realized the voice was back.

Yeah, I would too… wait, DAMMIT. Go away, you.

What? Why? Not only was I not referring to the slinky mare in front of you or the grey one who tastes like honey instead of your marefriend, but you friggin agreed with me. I call shenanigans.

Call whatever you like, I still don’t like the fact that there’s a voice in my head that’s dirtier than I am.

You love me and you know it.

I beg to differ. Shoo! I have things to do.

Or ponies…

Bugger off!

Laughter was my only reply as the voice faded back to the depths from whence it came. In keeping with the established precedents, I came back to the world with the distinct impression that I had just missed something important. The way that Tech stared at me expectantly for a moment before groaning in frustration and hanging her head supported this conclusion.

“Huh? What’d I miss?”

“Never mind, just follow me and try not to get lost. Oh, and take off the mask and put it back where you found it.”

After a moment of struggling with the straps I was finally freed of the mask, and yet another moment later it had been returned to its proper place on the peg above the portal. The journey back to the surface was much the same as the descent, and it passed in the same near silence as before. I’d given up on trying to figure out what I’d missed as I was arguing with myself when I received a less-than-friendly reply from Tech. So, apparently she wasn’t happy about being ignored. We emerged from the small access tunnel into the glare of the janitorial thoroughfare, the light proving to be too much for my eyes to cope with after the darkness of the passage.

As I blinked the light away and waited for my eyes to adjust to the glare, Tech dismissed me for lunch with instructions to meet back up at the office at thirteen for the second set of instruction. I muttered something to the affirmative as I furtively batted my eyes to chase away the stars. By the time I could see straight, Tech was nowhere in sight. I met up with Joy for lunch, where we traded stories and such as we ate. Joy was quite intrigued at the notion of the secret passages, her mind wandering and her cheeks flushing as she contemplated things she probably shouldn’t. Calling her on it earned me a hoof upside the head and a truly astounding flush of color from Joy.

As we ate, we sat side by side, so close as to be touching. I reveled in her every caress… the soft touch of her mane as she turned her head to look at someone calling out to her… the warmth of her body against mine… the way she smiled at me and nuzzled my neck when I told her how beautiful she looked… I wouldn’t trade this for the world. In fact, I had pretty much traded my world for this… and I couldn’t be happier. I felt my heart swell with this inexplicable feeling; a mixture of dread, desire, contentment, and longing. I wanted her in every way possible, and yet I was afraid that I might do something to hurt her. I was as happy as I’d ever been, swept along by the raging tide of infatuation, and yet I still felt as if there was something missing. This beautiful, gloriously stupid conglomeration of emotional contradictions called love had me inexorably in its grasp. Joy once more nuzzled my neck with a smile, and I took the opportunity to place a quick peck on her forehead.

Joy pulled herself away from my neck, fixing me with a kind smile and a positively sultry gaze. As I stared back into her glistening azure eyes, I could feel my pulse begin to race and my cheeks flush.

The emotions within me were crashing against my heart like swells against a rocky shore, and the sheer volume of emotion I possessed for this mare seemed to be impossible. Surely, this couldn’t be real, this overwhelming feeling. I could almost feel myself being swept away into the light by this flood of desire and happiness. I stared into her eyes as she stared into mine, and the connection between us seemed nearly tangible in its intensity. My heart was beating at fever pitch as this feeling threatened to take over. I found myself slowly leaning in to kiss her, and she was doing the same. We inched ever closer, the anticipation building as the proximity decreased, our ardor magnified a thousand-fold by the emotions raging within. We leaned in farther, mere centimeters from contact, then millimeters… I could feel the warmth of her lips even before they met mine…

The clanging of a bell shattered the mood into a thousand little bits as we were jolted from our reverie. Joy and I sat there for a moment, a hair’s breadth apart, blinking blankly as we tried to get our minds back from the tides of emotion that threatened to carry them away. On an impulse, I leaned forward ever so lightly, placing a tender kiss upon Joy’s lips. This was all it took to snap her back to the present, drawing an adorable smile and a slight blush from her. We gathered up the remnants of our lunch as we scrambled to get back to work, parting with another kiss at the door to the cafeteria. No sooner had Joy left before I began to miss her, and if not for an already-upset Technia waiting for me at the office, I might just have followed her. As it was, I had to turn and set off for the office to make my appointment in time. As I walked, my mind roamed.

That feeling… I knew what that feeling was. I’d never felt it so powerfully before, but I knew what it was. Could it really be that I’d fallen so far so quickly? This wasn’t infatuation; this feeling had a different texture than puppy love or mere infatuation. Was this… was this love? Even thinking the word made my spine tingle as I fought to convince myself that it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be… and yet, I kept coming back to that dreaded “L” word. Crap, if I was even contemplating that word so soon in this relationship… well, there was probably no hope for me.

My contemplation was cut short as I rounded the corner to Brass’s office, as I forced my mind back into work mode through an effort of will. I met up with Tech and we set out to the next machine concealed in the passages and annals of the building. The rest of the day passed in a blur as I attempted to absorb as much of the knowledge presented to me as I possibly could. By the end of my shift my head was spinning slightly, but I definitely felt that there was progress being made in my education. I caught up with Joy at the door to the hospital, just before she set out for class. I gave her a quick kiss before she departed, wishing her good luck at school. She smiled and thanked me as she was swept away by, and subsequently absorbed into, the crowd.

I made my daily rounds to Berry’s Smoothies to get another punch on my card and got a smoothie to go. Berry looked a little sad that I wasn’t going to be sticking around for a while, but I told her that I might be back later that evening and she perked right up. After acquiring a smoothie, I set out on a beeline for the Library, aiming to get there before it closed for the night. I walked in and the bell on the door chimed to indicate my presence, drawing a muffled greeting from the back of the library somewhere. I made my way to the reference section and picked out a book on aerobatic maneuvers for beginners and proceeded to the checkout counter, where I met a tired looking little dragon.

“Hey Spike. What’s up?”

Perhaps it was because he was tired, or maybe he wasn’t familiar with the expression, but my greeting was met by a puzzled look for a moment before the little dude turned his head upwards and stared at the ceiling for a second before answering.

“Uh… the ceiling?”

“That it is, Spike. That it is. So, what’s new with you and Twi?”

He crossed his arms and huffed. “Bah, Twilight is doing a check on her checklist that she uses to check the checklist for the library.”

“That sounds… daunting. You guys can have fun with that one.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s not what I call fun at all. Give me a chocolate shake with emerald sprinkles any day.” He rubbed his belly and licked his lips, momentarily lost in the imagined ecstasy.

I nodded in agreement, though I was fairly certain that emeralds would be distinctly less pleasant for me to ingest than they would be for Spike. “Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. So, can you check out a book, or is that Twilight’s job?”

He scowled at me, a gesture that was pretty well ruined by the fact that he was adorable. “No, I can do it. Who do you think does it when she’s out with the other five?”

“Good point, I hadn’t thought about that.”

The young drake shrugged. “Yeah, most ponies don’t. I don’t mind it though… the quiet is nice.”

“I can imagine, after all of the craziness that happens around here.”

He nodded, a small smile upon his face. “Yeah, this place gets weird sometimes. Is this the only book you want?”

“That’s it for me.”

“Alright then, you’re all set. Anything else comes up, I’ll be in the back with Twilight.”

I turned to leave, waving farewell to the little dragon. “Sounds good. I’ll see you later, Spike.”

“See ya.”

I tucked the book into my saddlebags and set off for home, planning to get some reading done before Joy came back from class. Having finished my smoothie at some point between Berry’s and the library, I stopped in to get another for the trek home. Problem? Who’s got a problem? I am not addicted to the smoothies, I just really like them. A lot. I walked into the smoothie joint at about a quarter till eighteen hundred, finding the area to be empty, save for Berry and I.

“Back so soon, Flyboy? I knew you couldn’t stay away. The usual?”

“What? The smoothies are really good… and yeah, but I’ll need that to go as well.”

Berry pouted exaggeratedly. “Awww… don’t want to spend any time with me tonight?”

“I can’t, unfortunately. I have some reading to catch up on.”

“Huh? I didn’t know you could read.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m full of surprises like that.”

Berry cocked an eyebrow suggestively, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hooves and a cocky smirk on her lips. “Oh, are you now? I’d like to see some of these surprises… “

“Actually, those are classified trade secrets. Can’t go around having everypony knowing my surprises, right? It’d take all the fun out of it.”

She went back to pouting. “Oh, poo. You’re no fun.”

I shrugged smiling a bit at my ability to successfully banter without putting a hoof in my mouth. “I never claimed to be, my dear. That was all you.”

“I blame you, regardless. It’s better that way.”

I simply wing-shrugged. “If you say so. So, smoothie, yes?”

With an exaggerated bow, she swished away to the blender. “Coming right up, your highness.”

Puffing out my chest, I stood as regally as I could. “Your highness? I like it, you can call me that from now on.”

“Ha ha ha. How about no.”

My shoulders slumped, though I couldn't help but grin. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. After all, it never hurts to ask… unless you’re asking for a whooping.”

At this, Berry turned around with a smoothie, a definite expression of interest, and an unsettling grin. “Like spanking?”

Taking the smoothie and tucking it into a saddlebag, I turned towards the door. “Not quite, but close enough. I’ve got to go, Berry, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’d better,” she called out to me. I think it was supposed to come out as a threat, but it ended up sounding more like a supplication than anything.

I grinned, looking back over my shoulder to wave. “Easy, killer. Have a good night.”

“You too, Dave.”

I once more set out the door, striking off in the direction of home. As I contemplated the book that was tucked away in my saddlebag, I couldn’t fight the smile or the extra pep in my step as I walked home. The thought of soaring through the clouds, swooping, diving, and rolling… it was enough to speed up my pulse just by contemplating it. Next time I went to take a test flight, I’d be prepared. With a grin from ear to ear that I was powerless to fight, I picked up my pace and hurried home.

Two and a half hours later, I flung myself onto the couch in exhaustion and frustration. I’d scoured my way through the first chapter of the book, somehow compelling myself to keep turning the page as time wore on. To say that this text was “dry” would be like saying that Fluttershy is a bit “timid”, or that Twilight is “pretty smart”. My eyes were watering by the time I finished the introduction, and I knew that I was going to be in for a struggle if I wanted to finish this text. Even after the little bit that I’d read, my eyes were spinning in my skull and my brain seemed like it was going to overflow with everything I’d read. I figured I’d be in for some brightly colored pictures and simplistic dialogue, and while I wasn’t wrong, I found myself coming across words that made no sense in their context. Ailerons were part of an airplane, not of a pegasus… right? And pinions? What do car parts have to do with flight? Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for ten minutes with internet access at this point.

I don’t really know how long I was lying on the couch and watching figures and words float across the ceiling, but my burned-out mind finally registered the sound of the door closing, followed by hoofsteps in my direction. A form plopped itself down beside me, lying down with a heavy sigh. I couldn’t help but smile as the scent of wintergreen washed over me. I turned my head to smile at my couch-mate.

“Rough day, love?”

Joy released an exasperated sigh. “It wasn’t so much rough as it was draining. So very many notes to copy down, my horn felt like it was going to melt. But, that’s medical school for you. How was your day since we parted ways?”

I shrugged. “Not very entertaining. I missed you a lot though, so I’m happy you’re back.”

“Awww, you’re so sweet. I must confess, I found myself thinking about you during a lecture.”

I propped myself up on one elbow to get a better look at this lovely mare. “Really? Was it a lecture on the studliest pegasi that have ever lived?”

“Heh, not so much. It was a lecture on the long term effects of traumatic brain injuries.”

I should have seen that coming. “Oooh. Ouch… Hehehe. That’s harsh.”

She took to stroking my shoulders in a conciliatory gesture. “I know! I felt bad for thinking it, but it matches you to a fault… I’m sorry Dave… “

I smiled back up at her. “Sorry? For what? Like you said, it matched me. I think about you whenever I see an aurora blue, this isn’t really any different.”

“Well… I suppose so. But still, I feel bad that whenever I hear about brain damage, the first thing I think of is you."

An idea flashed into my head, one that was entirely too devious to pass up "Guess I'm not the only one with dain bramage."

Joy's brow immediately furrowed. "What's that supposed to—I didn't say that, I said brain damage!"

Raising an eyebrow, I looked her dead in the eye. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I think I would know what I said." Matching my stare, she refused to back down. Even so, I could see the twinkle of doubt.

I shrugged and set the hook. "Well, if that's what you believe, then I can't argue with you."

"But… it is what I said… isn't it?"

I shrugged again. "Well… is it or isn't it?"

"I… I think so? Now I'm all confused… Dave, what did I say?"

I couldn't keep a straight face anymore. Grinning, I fessed up to my shenanigans. "You said it right; I just like to mess with you."

I was met by silence… never a good sign. I pulled myself up to a sitting position to get a better look at Joy, but my progress was interrupted by a loud "whoosh" sound before my vision went white and I saw stars.

Funny, but I could have sworn that I was sitting up a second ago. Why am I looking at the ceiling? And why does my mouth taste funny?

Spitting a little bit, I could see that the strange taste was due to the fact that I had about a half-dozen feathers in my mouth.

That's odd… I don't recall losing any feathers… and these ones are white, besides.

About that time, everything sort of clicked. The stars, the ceiling, the feathers… Joy had walloped me good with a pillow. Yeah, I probably should have seen that one coming. About as swiftly as I had put the pieces together in my mind, I came across another pearl of an idea… I was going to get hit for this one too, I was sure of it… but that wasn't about to deter me.

I lay stock still as the seconds ticked by, and kept one eye cracked ever so slightly so I knew when to make my move. Soon enough, a cautious Joy appeared over me, checking to see if I was alright. I'd been hit harder than that before, but that didn't change the fact that it was still a hefty strike of a pillow. Joy suspected something was up, and so she kept her distance at first, poking me cautiously with a hoof as she levitated a pillow nearby. Demonstrating a level of patience that I'd be hard-pressed to muster under any other circumstance, I just lay still. Caution soon gave way to worry, and Joy dropped the pillow as she leaned in to examine me closer.

It was then that I struck.

I lunged forward, wrapping my hooves and my wings around Joy and effectively immobilized her. My momentum carried me up and over her, so that when we landed, I was on top. Joy was still in shock from the sudden movement, still trying to process what was happening even as I pressed my attack. Using the knuckle-joint on my wings to pin her arms over her head and using my legs to straddle her thighs and keep them immobile, I had her just where I wanted her. She was still blinking the confusion away when I launched my attack, rendering her entirely helpless and at my mercy.

I began to blow raspberries on her stomach.

Confusion gave way to maniacal laughter as the squirmed and struggled to get free, laughing so hard she cried as she begged me to stop. I relented for a second to let her catch her breath before I started again, drawing squeals and protests anew. I was getting out of breath myself, so I paused in my assault to take a few deep breaths when something caught my eye.

Standing in the doorway was a very… confused looking Dawn. I took a second to assess the situation.

I was straddling her daughter on the couch. I was out of breath and red in the face. Joy had been screaming and laughing and squealing a moment ago, and was currently breathing very heavily. The couch had been squeaking like a dozen mice in a heated argument. (Presumably about cheese, one would think.)

Yep. This looked bad.

How was I going to explain this without dying?

Just show her what you were doing. Easier than talking, which you suck at anyways.

And why would I listen to you?

I have a vested interest in your survival, stupid. Got a better idea?

Well… no.

Thought so. Well, hop to it.

I sent a silent prayer to the Princesses. Should I die for this mistake, I pray the Sisters my soul to take.

I dove right back into the soft azure belly before me, eliciting a renewed squeal of delight and torment from the mare in front of me. Despite my apprehension, hearing Joy laughing and begging made it impossible for me not to smile. I paused again to deliver my ultimatum to Joy.

"Do you surrender? I can do this all night."

Joy's response was broken by her gasps for air and her lingering giggle-fits. "I… I suh… surrender."

I smiled in satisfaction. "Okay. Do you want me to stop now?"

"Yes, I… I do."

I wasn't done toying with her just yet though. "Do what?"

"Want you… want you to… to stop."

"I didn't hear a 'please' anywhere in there. Manners, m'lady."

"Puh… please stop."

"That's better. Now, as soon as you say the magic words, you will be free. The magic words are as follows: Dave is the most awesome, coolest, most certainly non-dain-bramaged pony I've ever met, and he rocks my socks. Now, it's your turn."

"I have to pee," she pleaded.

I shrugged. "Close enough. Be free!"

I clambered to the side of Joy to allow her to escape, which she did quite quickly before she vanished into the hallway. A moment after she left, Dawn approached from the shadowy corner she'd been standing in.

"I have to admit, when I came down the stairs, this is not what I expected to find."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah… I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Awkwardness aside, it's good to see the two of you having fun like that. I can't tell you the last time I'd seen her laugh like that, how happy I am to see her like this. You two are an adorable couple, and I wish you both nothing but the best. "

I smiled widely at the compliment. "I feel pretty special that I can give her back some of the happiness that she gives me, and thank you."

A toilet flushed upstairs and the sound of a running sink sprang to life for a moment before being cut off. A door closed and steps echoed off the stairs as Joy made her way back to the living room.

"Dave?"

I looked away from the hallway where I was expecting Joy to meet Dawn's gaze. "Yes, Dawn?"

"Take care of my daughter."

"Until my dying breath." And I meant it.

Dawn caught me with a hard glare as her mom-senses tried to find any sign of deception on my face. Finding none, her face softened into a weary smile as she gave me a slight nod. I returned the nod just as Joy walked into the living room. She cast a glance at her mom and then to me, trying to piece together what had happened while she was answering the call of nature. I gave Joy a reassuring smile, and that seemed to be enough. She came over to us and gave us both a hug, which Dawn and I happily returned. Dawn bid us all a good night and set off for her room. As soon as Dawn had walked around the corner and out of sight, Joy took a hoof to the backside of my head. I turned to look at her to ask what that was for, but I was interrupted by the kiss that was waiting for me.

As the kiss broke, I pulled away and cocked my head in confusion.

"Dave, you're a jerk for messing with my head like that. I knew I hadn't said 'dain bramage', but you made me question myself… not cool. However, you are a very lovable jerk, so I forgive you."

"Well… thanks?"

She nodded primly. "You're welcome. That tickling was pretty exhausting… you ready for bed?"

"Yeah, I'm rather bushwhacked as well."

My response caused her to do a double take. "Bush… where do you even come up with these words?"

"I thought we'd already established that I have a spectacular vernacular."

She jabbed a hoof at me. "See! Like that right there. I've heard most of these words before, but I couldn't use them in a sentence like you do."

"It's a gift."

"It's a… you know what, never mind. It hurts my head to think about it."

With that, we lapsed into an easy silence, letting all of our troubles and concerns just float away to the sound of a brush being pulled through a mane.

The next day started off much the same as the day before, though with fewer doors being opened in my face. The entirety of my morning was spent walking on eggshells and ducking for cover at the smallest sound, something that Tech found first amusing and then annoying as the day wore on. I couldn't help it… it was Wednesday, and I was trapped in a series of small areas with Tech. The very same mare who said, and I quote, "It's just not Wednesday unless something blows up. Not sure why, it just seems to happen that way." You can see why I'd be a little on-edge. We broke for lunch a little early, my skittishness beginning to wear on Tech's nerves a bit. Joy and I had a nice lunch together, sharing a bit of small talk and more than a few nuzzles as we whiled away our lunch.

All too soon the bell rang and signaled the end of the lunch break, and Joy and I found ourselves joining the masses as we went to relieve our counterparts for chow. I'd returned to the office with a fatalistic outlook on the rest of the day… something was going to explode, that much I just accepted and moved on. Once I had resigned myself to being blown up, it was actually a liberating experience. No longer was I cowering whenever Tech removed a cover or threw a switch, instead I was by her side. I figured if something was going to explode, then she would most likely know the safest place to stand.

By sixteen-hundred, I was beginning to wonder if there was even going to be an explosion on this Wednesday, or if it would happen when Technia got home. That was when it happened.

Technia was showing me the internal workings of the HVAC that had gone down on the day we'd first met, explaining how the heat exchanger worked to heat the air in the winter. She had just mentioned that the air filter needed to be cleaned at least monthly or it could become clogged, and was in the process of taking the cover off to expose the air filter. She was down to the last screw, explaining something about torque when everything exploded.

No, this was not an explosion of flames and soot; it was an explosion of dirt and dust bunnies large enough to have gained sentience. For some inexplicable reason, I'd decided to stand directly in front of the cover as it was unscrewed, instead of off to the side like Tech was doing. When the cover plate popped free, the yellow plate shot out and caught me fully in the chest, knocking me back into the wall as everything went grey and sneezy.

Apparently, there was also a possibility that if the filter wasn't cleaned regularly, the dust would just pile up and by some unknown mechanism become highly pressurized. Good to know.

It took nearly forty minutes to clean up the dust-splosion, and by the time it was over and done with, so was our shift. I was still dislodging dust bunnies from my mane as I walked out to meet Joy. I decided it would be best for me to wait outside, seeing as how I had a cloud of dust coming off of me like that one kid from Peanuts. Joy walked towards me with a smile, but stopped a few paces short as she caught sight of my new grayish appearance. I briefly recounted my experience with the air filter, drawing a good, hearty laugh from her at my expense. After blowing me a kiss and demanding that I take a shower before she got home (like it was even necessary), Joy set off for class. I stood there for a moment longer as I watched her leave, basking in the fading light of the setting sun before I turned and set off for home. Once I'd showered and returned to my usual hue (and then unclogged the drain), I set off to get some brain fuel for the night ahead.

After consuming my customary smoothie and chatting with Berry for a bit, I scampered off to the library to browse through a dictionary or two before they closed. The chime that signaled my entrance to the library went unanswered, a fact that I found to be rather odd. I was contemplating this as I sought out and found the information I required, deciding to swing by the checkout counter to investigate. I rounded the corner and stopped short, the sight before me entirely too precious to disturb. Spike was passed out on the checkout counter in the middle of a forest of books. From the stamp still clutched in his claws, I guessed he was adding new books to the inventory when his sleepiness got the better of him. I smiled at this adorable little dragon and made my way out as quietly as I could.

Once outside, I set off to get another smoothie and mull over what I'd learned. Once situated properly, I thought back on the book I'd read yesterday. As it turned out, my suspicions about what an aileron was were correct; they were the feathers on the end of the wing that pretty much controlled flight. By altering their position, I could pitch my body up or down, and by altering them in differing amounts or directions, I could roll to the left or right. Combining this with my tail and my legs to control yaw, I knew how to control my position along all three axis… at least, in theory. The other thing I'd learned was that the pinion was the last joint in the wing. It didn't make sense to me until I looked at the diagram and compared it to my arm… or, what used to be my arm. The shoulder was the same on both, and I couldn't remember what the fancy name for elbow was, but what would have been my wrist was called a pinion on the wing. In conjunction with altering the ailerons, extending or retracting my pinions could help me sped up or slow down, help me roll quicker, and provide additional lift for landing.

I picked a spot far enough away from the door that I wasn't bothered by the customers coming and going, and was rewarded by a couple hours of nearly uninterrupted contemplation as I tried to visualize performing the maneuvers described by the text. More than once, I extended a wing to see what a certain movement was supposed to look like, and a couple times I was rewarded with a shocked gasp or an uneasy blush from an unwary patron. Apparently, there is simply no way ever whatsoever that a pegasus will extend a wing unless aroused. Nope, it never ever happens ever. I sighed, internally lamenting silly ponies and their misguided preconceptions.

I had just finished running down the list of simple aerobatic maneuvers that I'd learned the night prior, and was plotting out how best to try them out when a familiar grey pegasus walked in. I caught her eye, and she joined me at my booth with a huge grin.

Honey.

Not this again.

There was no further response from the voice, but there didn't need to be. With that one word, a flood of memories, feelings, taste, and emotions crashed over me. I smiled at Derpy in spite of my inner turmoil. After all, it wasn't her fault and I didn't want to hurt her feelings by looking upset right as she sat down, especially after I'd invited her over.

"How's it going, you?"

She smiled at me, an adorable expression. "Better now, Dave. It's nice to see you again."

"And the same to you. Are you done with your route for the day?"

"I was finished with that hours ago. This town isn't very big, and I've had the same route for years."

I nodded once. "Makes sense to me." At this point, I was struck by a flash of inspiration. "Hey Derpy… you are a pretty good flyer, right?"

She shrugged at this. "Except when I crash, but usually I'm alright. Why?"

"I was wondering if you'd help me try some new aerobatics. I've never done them before, and it'd be nice if I had somepony I trusted looking out for me and giving me pointers."

She seemed slightly taken aback, blushing a bit as she replied "I'm flattered, but why me? Aren't there better flyers you could ask?"

I conceded the point. "There are, but I trust you to only laugh a little when I mess it up and to not tell everypony."

"Oh, I wouldn't tell anypony about it… that would just be mean."

Excellent. I smiled widely at her. "See? This is why you are perfect for the job. So, what do you say?"

"Well, I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but I'll do my best! When and where do you need me?"

I'd been wondering the same ever since I'd gotten the book on flying, but it all suddenly came together. "Remember the field I was in the other day? I'll be there at eighteen-hundred tomorrow. Does that work for you?"

Derpy nodded with a smile. "Yeah, I can make that. This is going to be fun, I can't wait!"

"Yeah, at the very least, it will be interesting."

Derpy, however, was more excited than I was. "You bet it will! So, what kind of tricks are you trying to learn?"

"Well, mostly I'll be doing the basics. I never really had a formal education in the basics when I was young, so I’d like to begin with the by-the-book stuff to make sure I’ve not been missing out on something in my education. So, think of it as basic flight school."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Checking my watch, I was shocked by the time. Had I really been sitting here that long? "Awesome, I'll see you there. I have to get going, unfortunately. Joy is going to be home soon, and she gets worried if I'm not there by the time she is. See you tomorrow?"

"Awww, okay. I'll see you tomorrow, Dave. Have a good night."

"I will. You be sure to do the same, alright?"

"I will. Bye, Dave."

I finished my farewell as I strode towards the door, bidding Berry a good night as well. As I made my way back to the house, I couldn't help but feel giddy at the prospect of flying tomorrow. In less than twenty-four hours, I would be soaring through the skies of my own accord, no longer a slave to gravity. I would slough off the yoke the bound me to the earth and I would take flight. I would know what it was like to knock on the sky and listen to the sound.

I came home and dropped my saddlebags at their customary position at the foot of the couch. Sitting down as I was, I took the opportunity to fully extend my wings without anypony gawking at me. By my best estimation based on the scale of things around me, I would venture that I was about a meter tall at the shoulder, with my head topping out at about another thirty or forty centimeters. My wingspan however, was nearly four meters from wingtip to wingtip. From what I'd seen of other pegasi as they flew, I possessed a superior wingspan compared to just about all. The reason I say this is to put it in perspective when I say that I stretched them out fully… it was a rather impressive sight. I was jarred from my self-admiration by a throat being cleared somewhere to my right. I snapped my wings shut, sending a few smaller items tumbling in the wake of the gust. I sheepishly looked towards the hallway, where Joy was standing with a bemused smirk and a cocked eyebrow.

"Dang, Dave… looks like you're happy to see me."

I demonstrated my adaptation of Joy's tomato impression, turning a few shades of red as I smiled bashfully. "Well, I'm always happy to see you. No, not like that, you weirdo, stop smirking at me like that."

This did manage to wipe the smirk off of Joy's face, though not in the way I'd intended. Instead of merely smirking, she was now smiling at me. I didn't mind this at all… I love the way she smiles. I love the way her nose wrinkles up a little and how her cheeks have this cute little dimple in them… everything about her.

She gave me a sweet little kiss as she climbed into bed, and as I brushed her hair she was telling me about her day since we'd gone our separate ways. Apparently, the last few months of her schooling would be spent preparing some sort of project and accompanying manifest. I told her about my day, and she took great pleasure out of my mishap with the air filter, and the laughed so hard she snorted at the term "dust-splosion". Now it was her that was blushing, and I nuzzled her with a kiss, because she was just so adorable. Soon thereafter we ran out of things to talk about, electing to simply cuddle in silence as we waited for sleep to take us. Joy was the first to go, and was snoring lightly as I was fading away. I gave her one last kiss for the night and draped my wing over her like a blanket. She snuggled into the crook of my wing where it met my chest, and the warmth of her body against mine was all I needed to drift away.

As sleep took me, I smiled.

Author's Note

Goodness Gracious! That one took me long enough to write, didn't it? Well, it wasn't my fault because of (reasons, excuses).

Actually, it was entirely my fault. I couldn't write for some reason. Short attention span aside, whenever I did sit down to try and write, my brain just sort of went all fuzzy. I finally managed to get my life straightened out a bit, and it did wonders for my ability to write. This chapter was written over the course of about 12 hours, though in small twenty-minute-chunks over the course of three weeks. With any luck, the next should be out sooner, but I'm not promising anything anymore. I'm sick of being wrong.

Also in this chapter, you'll begin to notice a time-scale shift, moving from the "every minute of every day" scale to more of an overview time scale. This is not because I am getting lazy (not entirely, anyways) it's just that I keep getting mired in the details and I need to do something to fix it. I have a good deal more to write on this one, but I'm trying to reach the conclusion for Book One so I can start on Book Two. Find a good stopping point, and such.

At any rate, I hope you all have more fun reading this than I did when I was trying to write it. The actual WRITING part wasn't so bad, but the TRYING to write sucked. ENJOY!

EDIT
Also, I was listening to a hauntingly beautiful song, and it inspired me to write a poem about this story (As a whole, not just this chapter)
Both are at the link below.

Here you go, Enjoy.

EDIT: Last edited on 02DEC15

15: The Training Begins

Chapter Fifteen
The Training Begins

The next morning was quite different from any before it, and so shocking was the change that at first I’d thought I was still dreaming. After pinching myself (quite the feat with hooves, let me tell you) to verify that I was not in fact still sleeping, I sat bolt upright for a few moments as I tried to process the paradigm shift that had taken place. I was awake, sitting up on the futon-couch-bed that had become my home in the last two weeks. Check. The sun was not yet up, and the entire world seemed to be holding its breath in anticipation of the coming day. Also check. Joy was still asleep beside me. Check.

Wait… what? I did a double take as the source of the paradigm shift became evident, and another moment of observation provided supplementary confirmation. Not only was Joy still asleep, but there was no sound of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen; the telltale aromas were likewise absent.

What could possibly have caused such a dramatic shift? What was different? I reached up to run a hoof through my mane as I tried to piece the clues together, though I stopped short as I caught sight of my watch.

Zero four twenty-two.

Well, that could be a reason. I’d woken up a little under two hours earlier than usual, likely due to my excitement to begin my flight training this evening. Regardless of the reason for the awakening in the wee small hours of the morning, there was no doubt that I was wide awake. Even before I’d realized that something was massively different from the normal, I was full of energy that seemed entirely out of place for me.

Thus, I faced a conundrum… it was zero-dark-thirty, and I was wide awake and pumped up. What was a pony to do? Even as the thought crossed my consciousness, the answer was being formed in my mind. I was going to do some physical training. A month ago, back when I was a regular guy, if you’d asked me if I was going to wake up early to do PT before I went to work (aside from the fact that it was required), I’d have given you the penis-growing-out-of-forehead look. And yet, here I was, resolving to do just that. My, how times change. As I peeled the covers off of myself to climb out of bed, a small grumble came from beside me as the still-sleeping Joy voiced her disgruntlement at being disturbed.

At this point, I was struck by a thought (I wasn’t expecting it either…). Never before had I really noticed, but I suddenly found it unusual that Joy would have taken to “sleeping with me” after knowing me for such a short time. I couldn’t fathom what would have compelled her to adopt such an intimate sleeping arrangement after only knowing me for a day or two. Despite my confusion, I didn’t mind it at all (in fact, I rather enjoyed it), but that didn’t change the fact that it was still unusual. Ah well, you know how the saying goes… “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Heh. Horse.

I was suddenly and viciously mauled by yet another idea, fulfilling my “idea” quota for the next three months. I recalled a deal that I’d made with Joy, a deal pertaining to exercise. I was sporting a devious gleam in my eye as I turned to face her; if she’d been awake, she might’ve been a little perturbed. As it was, however, she was asleep and unsuspecting… the perfect time for me to strike. Had I been feeling a little more devious, I might have gone for a bucket of water or a noise-making device, but on this morning I was in too chipper of a mood to be unduly mean. In lieu of the aforementioned methods of awakening, I decided a simpler, gentler awakening would be the best course of action. After all, I had no idea what Joy was like upon first rousing from slumber, and I was loathe to find out the hard way that the pony with cheating unicorn magic wasn't a morning pony.

I stealthily extricated myself from the bed and made my way to the foot of the sleeping apparatus, exercising caution so that I didn't wake Joy. Once in position, I grabbed the corner of the blanket and slowly pulled it away from the sleeping mare. Though she didn't react for a few seconds, my patience was rewarded by a pitiful mewl from her as she smacked a hoof across the bed, in search of the missing blanket. As her searching hoof passed the area that I usually occupied, its rhythm was uninterrupted, my absence seemingly unnoticed. Just before I escalated the measures I'd taken to wake her, the searching hoof was back with a vengeance swiping through my customary position. The hoof was moving swiftly enough to leave a definite bruise, had I been unfortunate enough to actually occupy the space at the time. Joy rolled over onto her other side, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes as she tried to ascertain my whereabouts.

Joy's horn lit with a faint blue glow, the wan light chasing away only the most meager of shadows as she searched for me. As much as I would have liked to revel in her confusion, I was running short on the patience required for such an act. From the foot of the bed, I cleared my throat. Joy jumped at least a half-meter into the air at the sudden noise, and her horn flared into a miniature sun and bathed the entire room in a pale blue light. I shielded my eyes with my foreleg, still seeing stars from the flash. From the other end of the bed there came a heavy sigh and a dimming of the light, prompting me to remove my leg from my face.

"Dave… what are you doing up? And don't scare me like that; I was really worried for a second there."

"Well, I woke up feeling a bit froggy this morning. I was going to do some PT, and I wanted to see if you were willing to participate."

Joy yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "PT? What's P… never mind, I remember now. Why so early?"

I chuckled and shook my head. "I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself the same question. The easy answer is because we need time to get a good burn going and still have time to shower and eat before work."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. Are you feeling okay? You're making sense early in the morning… are you sick?"

"Har har har” i proclaimed sarcastically. “Are you ready to sweat or not?"

"When you say sweat… how do you plan to make me sweat?" Joy ended her sentence with a raised eyebrow and a suggestive smile.

"Well, let's just say I'll be making you feel things you've never felt before, and leave it at that." I winked to emphasize my point.

"Well, I can't argue with that. So, when do we start?"

"Meet me out front in ten minutes with a water source. Today is muscle failure."

Ten minutes later on the dot I was met by Joy, who was sporting a sweatband on her head and on each of her ankles… she looked for all the world like she was about to play a round of tennis. The mental image of Joy in a polo-shirt and a tennis skirt popped into my head, and I had to chase the thought away before I became distracted.

"You ready, Joy?"

She greeted me with a cocky smile. "Are we going to exercise, or are you going to keep asking me if I'm ready?"

I smiled back. "Feisty. I like it."

We did a quick warm up before jumping into a pretty decent muscle failure regimen. Pushups, sit-ups, crunches, squats, front-back-go's, pyramids, and wing-ups for me… it all blended together into a flurry of activity and exertion as the world narrowed to the extent of my limbs and the ground they touched. There was nothing that existed other than the burn, the constant struggle against gravity as I fought to complete the next repetition. Joy was having a much harder time of it all than I was, but to her credit, she kept pushing herself. An hour and a half after we began, I called it all to an end with some cool down stretching. As we stretched the soreness out of our limbs, Joy informed me multiple times and in no uncertain terms that she was not fond of me at all when I made her exercise. I simply replied by striking a pose and flexing.

"Can't argue with results like this, can you?"

Rolling her eyes, she replied "Showoff."

"I prefer the term 'Inspirational Leader', thank you kindly. And believe me; I started off right where you are now… sucking at life and everything I did. But you know what? I kept at it, and hated every minute of it. It never got any easier, because the ones in charge made things harder every day, pushing us all to our limits and then beyond them… they showed us our true potential. Once I broke through the wall that my mind had built, the wall of what I thought I could be; it was like somepony turned on the lights for the first time. I saw what I was truly capable of, and it was a moving experience. Now, I just try to push myself to the limit as much as I can, to catch a glimpse of what I know I can be. It will be different for you… it's different for everypony. Aside from that, you are doing this for self-improvement. I was in the process of being broken down and built back up into something useful."

"I was expecting a smart aleck response, not some sort of motivational speech. Dave, you are full of surprises."

I wagged my eyebrows at her and flashed a cheesy grin. "You haven't the slightest, love. Anyways, let's go hit the showers and get ready for the day."

Joy didn't seem satisfied by my answer, but I'd already begun to turn and walk back inside by that time, so she simply swallowed her question and followed suit.

The day passed as normally as any day could; I had breakfast with Joy before work, we chatted on the way to work, and upon arrival we parted ways. I followed Tech around all day, absorbing every bit of information that I possible could, and more than once I was able to correctly diagnose a malfunction on the first attempt. We broke for lunch, during which time Joy and I traded stories and kisses, simply reveling on the company of the other before the bell sounded and we once more returned to our duties. The day drew to a close, and I tracked down Joy to give her a quick kiss and wish her luck before she set off to class. So far, the day had been more or less what I would consider "business", as subjective of a term as that may be. All of that, however, was soon to change.

Immediately after work, I'd made a beeline to Berry's to pick up a pair of the glorious frozen beverages, earning a befuddled look as I grabbed them and immediately set off for the door, sparing even the minimal small talk that I usually engaged in. I had no time for small talk, for there was a much more significant event on my horizon: learning to fly.

As I practically skipped to the meadow, I was mentally reviewing all of the things that I'd learned from the book and re-imagining the maneuvers I'd visualized the night before at the smoothie joint. By the time I arrived at the field to met Derpy, I had envisioned the entire lesson twice over. No sooner had I set the smoothies down than I jumped out of my skin; Derpy was apparently quite stealthy when she flies up to and drops out of the sky right in front of ponies.

"Holy mackerel, you scared the soup out of me. Whoa… anyways, how are you? Ready to watch me fail miserably?"

Sh beamed at me. "Yup yup. Didn't mean to scare you though, I thought you might have heard me coming."

"I surely did not, I'll tell you what. Well, let's get started, shall we? I brought the book for reference, so be sure to tell me if I'm doing something wrong."

At this, I removed the book from my saddlebags and deposited said saddlebags on the ground in the shade of a large oak tree, where I'd be able to find them later. Derpy nodded in agreement, sporting a bright smile. Everything settled as it was, I immediately launched into the ten minutes of prescribed stretching as I did my best to loosen up my shoulders, back, and chest for the exertion to come. The culmination of the warm up was to do forty wing-ups and then run in place for a minute, to really get the blood pumping. After the workout that morning, even this was a bit taxing. By the time that I'd finished the warm up, I was not only warmed up, but slightly worn out… not that I'd ever let this interfere. Taking a deep breath, I began Flight Drill One.

I sprinted for ten meters before flaring my wings and taking flight to coast; for this to be successful I'd have to coast for at least twenty meters before touching down. Using the rocks I'd stacked up as markers beforehand, I was able to see the finish line, though it seemed to be a dozen kilometers away. It took me four tries before I finally managed to get to the end point, and that was only because of Derpy's pointers. Turns out, it's pretty darn difficult to manage lift, airspeed, and drag on the fly, so to speak. With the help of Derpy (whom I'd taken to addressing as "Coach"), I managed to coast the prescribed distance three times, managing a somewhat smooth landing on the last run. FD One completed, I moved on to FD Two, which was more of the same, essentially. The only difference was that I had to flap twice and coast a distance of forty meters while landing smoothly. Using the tips that Coach had given me on the previous runs, I managed to knock this one out on the second try.

The feeling of my wings flapping and propelling me through the atmosphere, the way the wind whistled around my wings, and the way my feathers cupped the air and pushed against it to provide lift… I wish there was something I could compare it to. It was every bit as exhilarating as doing 260 kilometers an hour down the expressway, yet it sated a carnal desire that could only be likened to intercourse. The way I was able to free myself of the oppression of gravity to soar under my own power… there is just no analogue with which to compare this emotion.

Feeling a bit cocky at this point, I moved on to Drill Three, which was to fly for a hundred meters in a fixed direction and altitude before using my tail to kick into a gentle counter-clockwise turn while maintaining zero roll. This one gave me a bit of trouble, seeing as how I'd essentially neglected my tail in my mobility drills. A few clumsy attempts later, I finally managed to pull the maneuver off with some level of grace. I had to do this thrice upon each side, switching between counter-clockwise and clockwise maneuvers. After a bit of a struggle, I finally managed to pull it off the way that it was described in the book.

Much to my surprise, Derpy had adopted the role of flying coach with ease, and was enforcing a strict standard of adherence to the book. If my execution was less than spectacular, I was made to try it again until I had completed the task to the letter, as described by the book. Despite my desire to be cross at her for this, I remained thrilled and somewhat humbled by her dedication to perfection, as I knew that in the long run, she was doing me a favor by ensuring I was performing to the standards set forth in the manual. By the time I'd managed to do the six repetitions consecutively to Coach’s approval, the light was beginning to fade. The sun had set a while ago, but the waning light of the dusk provided sufficient illumination by which to navigate, so the training continued. Drill Four was a bit of cardio combined with precision flight, calling for me to hover in place for an entire minute with less than one meter's deviation in any direction.

For those of you who don't think this is difficult, just imagine running ten kilometers, doing a hundred oblique crunches (on each side) and then holding the plank for a minute with a twenty kilo weight on your back. By the time Derpy blew the whistle to signify my successful completion of the task, I felt like I was on fire, burning alive from the inside out… there were molten pools of hot lead that had taken the place of my flight muscles; simply a burning, heavy mass that threatened to drag me to the ground and punish me for shirking gravity. I was allowed thirty seconds to recover before Coach blew the whistle to usher me into the final drill of the day: Drill Five, The Climb and Dive.

It is essentially what it sounds like. I'll start off like I was doing Drill Three, getting aloft and holding a steady bearing and altitude at a steady pace, but that's where the similarities end. As soon as the whistle blows, I am to angle my ailerons to pitch upwards and climb at a forty-five to seventy degree angle of inclination until the whistle blows again. When it does, I am to pitch forward and begin a dive in the same forty-five to seventy degree window, pulling up between fifty and one hundred meters above ground level, or AGL.

I got a running start, flapping my tired wings to get some lift as I coasted towards the horizon. I was careful to maintain my speed and altitude, picking a spot on the horizon and flying towards it at an even pace. The biggest landmark around was the luminous shape of the rising moon, and as I flew towards it, I felt a calm sensation overtake me as all of my fatigue left me.

"Lullay, Moon Princess, goodnight Princess mine."

The peace that had wrapped around me like a warm blanket was shattered by the shrill screech of a whistle far below. With renewed vigor, I adjusted my trajectory to what I believed to be around sixty degrees and beat my wings for all I was worth, the fatigue of the previous drills seeping into my muscles like ice water as I pushed myself harder and harder. I heard what I thought might have been the sound of a whistle, though I couldn’t be sure over the roar of the wind past my ears. I slowed slightly, focusing on the sound. Once more, there came a triplet of bleats from a whistle. In response, I tilted my ailerons in the opposite direction and pitched towards the ground at a steep forty-five degree angle. I locked my wings out at their fullest extent, allowing myself to be called back to the earth by the siren song of gravity as it beckoned me to rest in the soft green grass. As I coasted back to earth, my inner peace was again disturbed by the sharp shriek of a whistle, beckoning me to once more level out and fly in a straight line.

This cycle of rising and falling was done twice more, three times in all; a single, drawn out shriek of the whistle calling the exercises to a close. I came in for a landing (one that was by far the smoothest yet) to stretch out and cool down. Coach Derpy seemed to take disproportionate amounts of enjoyment from my disbelief of her coaching capabilities, and after about ten minutes of badgering I finally got her to crack and reveal the reason for her dedication to standards.

Wouldn’t you know it; I would have picked the mare who trained the new mail-ponies as my teacher. It would seem that her easy-go-lucky demeanor was not applicable when she was teaching; she apparently had a reputation for being a terror to the trainees until they could perform to standard. Now, I wasn’t quite sure how difficult being a post-pony could be, but after even just this one session with Coach, I could tell that anypony who made it through the training phase would be well equipped to handle anything that was thrown at them.

As I concluded my cool-down stretches and wiped the sweat from my brow, I took another moment to thank Derpy for her services as a coach, indispensable as they were. With the promise of another lesson the following day at the same time and place, we parted ways for the evening. I took the longer path back to Joy’s house in order to avoid as many ponies as possible in my trek. After all, I was a hot, sweaty mess at that time, and I would require a good shower before being even close to presentable to the general population. I managed to get home just after twenty-hundred, and after unceremoniously depositing my saddlebags at the foot of the couch-bed; I set off to take a desperately needed shower.

I happened to catch sight of myself in the mirror before I stepped into the shower, and by golly I was a mess. My mane was completely disheveled, protruding from my skull at odd angles as if trying to flee but unsure of a direction; my wings were in similar condition, though with feathers in lieu of hair. Many of the smaller locks of hair and feathers were plastered to my body by dried sweat, adding an even more unkempt appearance. All in all, I looked like I had been soaked and thrown into a tumble-dryer for a half cycle. In ten minutes and with no small amount of scrubbing, I had changed all of that. Once again I bore a striking resemblance to a presentable pony, complete with publically-acceptable scents.

I completed these hygiene rituals just in time, for just as soon as I had settled down on the couch rose the sound of the front door closing behind somepony. A moment later, a delightful mass of blue and alabaster rounded the corner to greet me with a weary smile. I returned the gesture with an equally-exhausted grin as Joy made her way to my side.

“You know, for the last few days when I come home, I just see you sitting here on the couch. On my way home tonight, I couldn’t help but wonder just what it is that you do when I’m not around.”

I adopted my casual smile and professional demeanor I used when I was stonewalling somepony. “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you. And I like you, so I don’t want to do that.”

Joy looked quite taken aback, blinking in silence for a moment before replying. “That’s a bit… extreme, don’t you think? What do you do when I leave you to your own devices?”

Again, I gave up nothing. “I’m not at liberty to comment on ongoing investigations.”

Joy pouted, looking hurt at my refusal to tell her about my day. “So, you aren’t going to tell me then?”

“I’m just messing with you. Honestly, it’s not that interesting. I get a smoothie, and then I wander around and harass passerby. So, tell me it wasn’t more interesting when I was being all evasive.”

She looked quite disappointed at my explanation. “Really? That’s it? Wow… I was expecting more from you, somehow. Yeah, it was a lot cooler as a mystery.”

I just nodded. “I save all of the good shenanigans for when you’re around. Keeps it interesting.”

“I’m not sure I like that concept, but I’m pretty sure that you aren’t going to change your ways based on my misgivings.”

I patted her on the head with a smile. “See? That’s why you’re the smart one.”

“Oh hush, before I give you a case of the ‘rubber-face-itis’.”

“Promises, promises… “

She cocked an eyebrow, daring me to call her bluff. “Tempt me not, Dave. I have no compunction about it.”

I had to admit, no part of having my face paralyzed sounded like fun. “I give, I give. So, how was your day?”

Joy nestled herself into her customary position on my lap as she laid out the highlights of her day. As was quickly becoming second nature to me, I slid the brush onto my hoof and began stroking away at the alabaster and cerulean mane in front of me. Stroke by stroke, I slowly teased free the tangles of the day, both in the mane and in the psyche of the delightful mare in my hooves. As many times as I have said it, it bears repeating; this ritual of brushing her mane is therapeutic for the both of us. The time slowly slipped past the both of us as a gentle stream flows round a stone.

Soon enough, the flow of time gently eroded away my excitement for the day, leaving me contented about the day and eager for the morrow. Despite my enthusiasm for the upcoming evening, the lullaby of the night was louder than the call of flight and soon I too was swept into blissful oblivion.

My dreams that night were ethereal landscapes of a most brilliant white, slender cloud towers spiraling gracefully into the deep blue sky. I was lofted about upon a gentle breeze as the sun shone warmly across my back. There was a sweet smell carried aloft by the wind; the smell of wildflowers in bloom carried from the valley below. I swept to my left in a lazy arc, descending to the ground below. My gentle descent came to a halt as I neared my target, a lone bastion of azure and white amidst a sea of warm pastels.

Joy stood before me, a vision of utopist beauty in immaculate form. The sun glistened like diamonds in her mane, and a gentle summer's breeze teased strands of cerulean out of place. There was no sound but that of the wind sweetly singing as it strummed the leaves of the trees; gently caressed the blades of grass to draw forth a peaceful melody. Somewhere, a bird was singing.

When she spoke, her voice was woven of the finest silk, words washing over me and speaking a deep calm to the very core of me. The scene melted away from a daylight scene to one of dusk, the sunlight dimming to a wan amber glow. Joy's eyes were prisms that seemed to trap and amplify the light until they glowed from within. In that golden light, we embraced, our bodies flowing together as our lips tried to speak the language of our hearts.

The setting sun gave way to the light of the moon as it cast a soft glow upon the world, gilding all it touched in quicksilver. In the pale beams of the crescent moon, we kissed; we embraced, and we spoke the language of our hearts without uttering a single word. Never before had I ever been overcome by such a sense of peace as I was just then. Joy and I broke our embrace to lay upon the bed of wildflowers that we had made, casting our gaze upwards into the spectacular night sky. The sight of so many stars in the sky, unseen forces at play in a cosmic ballet...the sight kindled within me something that I was sure had died away long ago: wonder. The beauty of the cosmos was awe-inspiring, like millions of miniscule diamonds scattered across black velvet. Near the horizon there hovered a single cloud, forlorn and forsaken. I cast my gaze upon the unusual cloud, and I could swear that I saw a pony sitting on it. As I stared at the figure to get a better idea of its' form, said creature unfurled massive wings, silhouetted against the moon.

As the form took to the skies, its slender legs caught my eye, and somewhat confused me. The legs gave the creature an undeniably feminine appearance, though the wingspan was far larger than anymore I'd seen so far. That is, other than the Pr--

My thoughts were derailed once more by the shrill beeping of my alarm. I desperately fought to remain asleep as the dreamscape evaporated around me, pierced by the blinding rays of the accursed sun. I rolled over in protest, wishing for all I was worth to return to the realm I had just left. As I shifted position, something brushed against my wing, sending a jolt of electricity through me. Riding atop this wave of current was a mote if enlightenment, one that struck a chord within me.

Why should I desire to return to a dream of the loveliest mare in the world, when I can simply roll over and behold her with my own two eyes? And not only that, but partake in the sweet embrace of lip upon lip?

My dismay at being roused from my slumber evanesced instantly, and I no longer cursed the sun, but thanked it instead. Much more gently than I had first done, I rolled back to my side to gaze upon beauty incarnate. Having adjusted my sleep schedule so that I may rise earlier for morning exercise, the sun was not yet present on the horizon. In the stead of the Celestial orb, there was the other heavenly body, the centerpiece of Luna's dominion. The magnificent orb cast its soft light upon the world, gilding all it touched with quicksilver. As beautiful as she had been in my dream, Joy was more so in consciousness. Once more that night, I found myself awestruck by her beauty.

Within my breast were warring notions; my intense and deepening desire to kiss this angelic beauty was pitting itself against my deep desire not to disturb such a beautiful scene. In the end, as in most cases, the more primal of desires triumphed. I slowly leaned in and placed a gentle, passionate kiss upon her lips, savoring the flavor of them. Her eyes fluttered open like butterflies; our kiss was broken by the smile spreading across her features. Wordlessly, she leaned forward and re-initiated the kiss. In that moment, I had come to know happiness, and sweet was the taste of it. I could have stayed there, locked in that embrace until the sky rained ashes and time itself ceased to exist.

All too soon, she again broke the kiss to bid me good morning, to which I replied with a smile.

"Good morning indeed, my dear."

Joy chuckled at this for a moment before she excused herself to the restroom. I did the same (though in a different latrine) and when the both of us were finished, we met up in the living room to begin our exercise regimen for the morning. After some warm up exercises and stretches, we took off at a moderate pace for a ten kilometer circuit. About an hour later, we returned to our starting point beside the house to cool down. Joy had done a marvelous job at maintaining a steady pace and controlling her breathing. So marked was her improvement that she hadn't really begun to display signs of exertion until we were a click and a half into the run. While we were still running a bit slower than I would like, there was certainly improvement from last time. At this rate, we should be running a fifteen kilometer per hour pace by the fall.

Once we'd cooled down from the run and stretched out our sore muscles, we ventured inside to perform personal hygiene before breakfast. This portion of our lives had fallen into a routine: shower, eat, and go to work. On this day, I found that work was a good deal more interesting than usual. Over the night, Tech had taken it upon herself to orchestrate system failures in several non-critical devices, with faults ranging from simple fixes to complex problems. It had taken me the entire day (to include working through my lunch break) to address all of the issues. As I tinkered away at a feverish pace, Tech stood silently by as she evaluated my progress with a critical eye. Just before the final bell rung to announce the end of the work day, I had returned to the Boss's office to report my completion of the task and receive my evaluation from Tech, an evaluation that was better than I had hoped.

"Not bad, Dave, not bad at all. There were a few mistakes you made at the beginning, but you sorted them out on your own and did the rest right the first time. That said; I have full confidence in your abilities to do what's asked of you. Congratulations."

"Thank you, Technia. I couldn't have done it without you."

Tech nodded sarcastically. I don't really understand how she did it, but she did. "No, you couldn't. But you can now, and that's what matters."

I smiled at her before turning to face my boss. "Indeed. So, back to business as usual, Brass?"

Technia took this as her opportunity to leave, dismissing herself with a wave of her hoof. Brass turned to me, the golden flecks in her eyes catching the light as she did so.

"Not quite, Dave. I have something special in mind for you. Over this last week, you may or may not have noticed a few extra bodies running around the halls. Those extra bodies are going to be moved over to the new clinic when it opens on Monday, along with a good number of the medical staff and other essential ponies. Sweeps and I will be among those numbers."

I was a bit puzzled at this, as I tried to mentally work out exactly how that was going to pan out as Brass continued.

"Since I'll be gone, I'm transferring Scruffy to dayshift manager. Are you seeing where this is going yet?"

"But, who will be manager for night... shift. It's me, isn't it?" The pieces began to fall into place.

"You catch on quickly. Yes, you will be on night shift with one of the newbies, a mare named Buffy."

How I managed to hold a straight face, I'll never know. Surely, there had to be some greater force out there that just liked to have fun at my expense. "So, her name is Buffy?"

"Yep, and she has shown the most promise out of all the new hires. She can shine anything. And I mean anything, it's a little spooky. Ever see a sparkly banana?"

I smiled at the mental image. "Yes, but that's irrelevant. Cool, I have a coworker who already knows the ropes. Wait... that means I have to take over as a manager. What are the additional duties I'll have as a manager?"

"Small stuff, really. You'll take care of the work orders that can't be handled during peak hours, while Buffy cleans. You will also be in charge of ordering supplies as needed, as well as handling anything else that may come up. You also bear the distinction of being the only pony in town with the knowledge and authorization to work on Tech's machinery, so regardless of the time of day or night; you are on call for immediate assistance in the event that something goes wrong that can't wait until the evening."

I sighed, glad it wasn't overly complicated. "Okay, that's not too bad at all. What are some of the problems you encountered as a shift leader that I should look out for?"

"Dave, you continue to impress me. As long as I've worked here, you are the first pony who has asked that question. To be honest, my biggest issue is a breakdown in communication, usually when we run out of supplies or somepony breaks something and doesn't tell me about it. At the end of your shift, you'll need to stay a little bit longer and double check that everything is as it should be. Whatever you haven't been able to finish as far as taskings go, or anything that pops up at the end of your shift will need to be reported to the next shift leader so that they aren't caught off guard by it. They will do the same for you."

"Alright, that I can do. Brief the oncoming shift about the current situation, essentially doing a change-over. Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for putting me on the night shift to start off with. I appreciate not being thrown to the wolves my first day."

"Not a problem at all. Just remember that as you come on to your shift, you need to go by the front desk and see if they have any work orders for you. This is also where you drop of supply requests; you can find the forms in the top right-hoof-side drawer of the desk. Any questions?"

"None off the top of my head. Mind if I hang around after my shift so you can walk me through your end-of-shift checks?"

"Not in the slightest. I won't begin them for about ten minutes though, so feel free to take a few minutes to yourself."

Once more, I nodded. "Can do, I'll see you in a few."

"Alright, see you then."

I excused myself from the office and made my way to the lobby, where I caught up with a not-so-slightly perturbed Joy. I was about to give her a hug when I caught sight of the stink-eye I was receiving. I instantly faltered a bit as I tried to figure out what exactly I'd done. Luckily, she was in no mood to let me stew.

"What the heck was that earlier, Dave? I thought we were going to have lunch together? Not only did you stand me up for lunch, you didn't even look at me when I called out to you this afternoon. Instead, you just cantered on like you hadn't even heard me. Care to explain?"

I didn't allow myself the obligatory 'oh shit' moment before I began my explanation; there would be time for such things later.

"Yes, love, I would. Turns out that since today was the last day of my training, it was time to put what I'd learned into practice. Last night, Tech laid out a whole slew of problems in the machines that I had to find and fix today. The reason I didn't show up for lunch is simply that I didn't have time to, and I still haven't eaten. And when I ran by you like I didn't hear you... it's because I didn't. I was so busy focusing on where the next failure was and what I would have to do to fix it, that I barely took notice of anything external to that. I'm sorry I made you feel that way, love. Tell you what; I'll make it up to you. I'll take you out to lunch this weekend in celebration, okay?"

Cognition wrote itself across her face, and the stink eye she'd been giving me faltered. "Ohhh, that explains it. Guess I got my feelings a bit hurt and let my judgment get clouded. It all makes sense in retrospect. And celebration? For what?"

I couldn't help but smile at this. My time had finally come! "Oh, you didn't know? Finally, I knew something before you did! Well, they are opening a new clinic next week--"

"I already knew that, but why would you celebrate that?"

I held up a hoof to bar further interruptions. "Shush, please. I'm not done. As I was saying, once the clinic opens, a lot of the staff here are being transferred. When that happens, I've just been informed that I'll be promoted to the night shift manager."

About as soon as I had finished my sentence, I found myself in a crushing hug.

"Oh my Sun, Dave! That's great news! I'm so happy for you and proud of you all at the same time!" I attempted to reply, but my words were mangled into some unrecognizable garble by the crushing force being applied to my ribs. Joy immediately released me, allowing me to suck in a large gulp of fresh air. "Oops, I'm sorry Dave. I just got excited is all. You'll have to tell me all about this when I come home tonight. Right now, I have to go to class. Have fun, be safe, and I'll see you at home!"

"Alright, it's a deal. See you then, love."

And just like that, she was off. I slowly turned about, my head still slightly spinning from the oxygen deprivation. I stood in the lobby for a moment as I allowed my head to settle back onto my shoulders before I set off for the office. Once I arrived, I found Brass waiting for me by the desk. Beckoning me over with a hoof, she opened a drawer and pulled out a simple piece of lined paper.

"Alright, Dave. This is where you get the supply requests, and this is what they look like. I've got to order some more soap and broom heads, so I'll walk you through how to fill it out the right way."

As it turns out, the form was almost self explanatory despite the fact that there were no words anywhere on the darn thing. The lines on the page formed boxes that were appropriately sized for what would go in there. The "Quantity" box was the smallest of the all, only accommodating two numbers unless you wrote very small. The "Item" box was the largest, allowing one to write in a simple description of the item needed. The last column was a medium-sized one, and that was to allow one to print the name of the pony making the request. Being that the boxes were so simple to fill out properly, I spent at least half of the time I was there simply staring at the way that Brass was writing all of this.

She held the end of the pen in her mouth and pinched it between her teeth, her lips pulled slightly back so they didn't touch the pen. My best guess is that this would have interfered with her writing. The way she actually directed the pen to form these elegant swirls on the paper was by using her tongue to gently nudge the back of her pen and swish the tip around the paper. The accuracy and swiftness of these movements was far more impressive than it should have been. Once more, I knew that I'd have a good amount of secret self-training to pull off if I wanted to accomplish such a feat in a legible manner. I sighed, mentally reviewing my growing list of things I'd have to do sooner or later.

My sigh drew a sideways glance from Brass, though I waved it off with a hoof. As soon as we had dropped off the supply request, we did a quick circuit of the clinic to try and see if there were any new tasks to be done, or if the new ponies on day shift had missed anything. Satisfied at the state of the clinic, Brass returned to the office to meet Scruffy. Scruffy was in his customary place in almost the exact same pose I'd always seen him in, though instead of leafing through a magazine or newspaper, he instead held a sheaf of work orders. I stood by; out of the way as the night shift janitor-in-training got his assignment and set out to begin mopping. Once he'd left, Brass gave a quick run-down of the clinic and work orders that hadn't been closed out yet for some reason or another. Scruffy nodded and gave that grunt of affirmation that was his trademark, at which time Brass nodded and walked out.

I joined Brass at her side, trying to pry any additional helpful information out of her and failing miserably. Each time I asked a question it was met by some cryptic answer or another. By the time we got to the door, she had had enough of my questions and told me that I would find out the answers to all of my questions soon enough, and that she didn't want to spoil the "joy" of discovering these answers on my own. In my experience, that is never a good sign. I was in the middle of trying to contemplate what fresh hell I had just gotten myself into when I was slapped in the face by the remembrance of the flight lesson I was soon to be late for.

By the time I had arrived at the field, I only had a few minutes to spare and would need every one of them to catch my breath again. I had almost gotten my heart rate under control when I felt the world slowing around me as my nervous system kicked into overdrive. I had a deep and primal fear growing within me, the feeling that something very bad was very close to me and getting closer by the second. I don't know how I knew this, or what it was that was spooking me so badly, and I didn't have time to figure it out. The urgency within me was growing exponentially, and less than a second and a half had passed from the emergence of the feeling and what came next.

I felt as if I weighed a thousand kilos, every fiber of my being felt as if it was being placed into an ever-closing vice. The weight upon my torso seemed to be concentrated on my wings, and I was simply waiting for flesh to sunder beneath the strain. And yet, even as I was sure that I was to be torn asunder by whatever terrible beast had me in its clutches, the strain and the agony accompanying it began to fade noticeably. As the pain began to recede, I became aware of a low growl that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. As logic and reason began to reassert themselves in my mind and re-establish order from chaos, I noticed that I was not only airborne, but ascending at a rapid pace judging by the wind roaring past my head. Still riding high on the wave of adrenaline that was tearing through my veins, I processed all of this in an instant as I rocketed steadily skyward. Looking down at the place I had occupied but a fraction of a second ago, I could see nothing through the spreading ring of dust kicked up by my rapid launch.

I was beginning to form the answer in my mind, even as I was carried upwards on my momentum from the initial flap. It would seem that something had triggered an alarm mechanism embedded deep within the primal part of my brain, engaging a literal "fight or flight" response and prompting me to launch myself into the air with all my strength. Apparently, I was stronger than I thought, seeing as how I was over twenty meters in the air and still rising. If I were to ride this ascent to its apogee and flare my wings at the moment I hit it, the gesture would be utterly ineffective since there was no air flowing over my wings. Should I try to flap and force air to move over my wings, there is no telling how that would turn out, amped up as I was on adrenaline. For all I knew, I'd send myself in a powered dive and smear myself on the ground below. If I were to hit the apogee and let gravity take its course and glide to the ground, I had no idea how far I'd plummet before my wings caught enough air to provide lift. I had no idea what exactly I'd fled from, so I was more than happy to stay as far away from it as possible while I figured out what I was going to do next.

As my upward speed kept bleeding off, I was quickly running out of time to think. I hit upon a solution just in time, and I angled my wings up to send me forward onto a level plane. I just barely had enough airspeed to maintain lift at this point, so I pitched downward at a very slight angle and began a slow and sweeping corkscrew descent. I figured this would give me ample time to identify the aggressor and take appropriate action. If whatever had snuck up on me was looking for a fight, by golly I'd give them o—it's Derpy. The terrifying and menacing creature that has spooked me nearly thirty meters into the sky was Derpy, sitting just behind where I'd been seated and looking really confused.

All of that... the launch, the aerial maneuver, the thought of a fight... and it was Derpy. Right about then, I felt pretty foalish. It was kind of cool, the way I'd shot into the air like that on instinct... but that just made it all the more disappointing that it had been for nothing. The realization had hit me quite suddenly, and the recognition had taken all of the fight out of me. I hung my head and angled to the ground at a steeper angle, not wishing to draw out my humiliation by lingering in the air any longer than necessary. I landed roughly a couple meters in front of Derpy, hanging my head in shame for the chiding I knew was inbound.

Derpy, however, appeared to be genuinely impressed. "Wow, Dave. That was pretty awesome."

I waved it off with a hoof, unsure if this was a joke of some sort. "Bah. A glorious overreaction at best."

She shook her head earnestly. "No, I really mean it. You probably cleared twenty-five meters with a single flap... that's almost unheard of."

"Huh. Well then. In my defense, I was scared senseless; I had no control over it... and doubt I could do it again if I tried."

Derpy shrugged. "Yeah, but it was still pretty cool. I didn't think you would hear me, I was gliding as quietly as I could."

"That explains it. I don't know how to phrase it, exactly, but I had a feeling that something was coming to get me and that I needed to move and fast. Next thing I know, I'm moving upwards at a high rate of speed."

"Good instincts... I was going to tackle-hug you. Guess I have to settle for a regular one, then."

I grinned at her, opening my arms wide. "Awww... you say it like it's a bad thing."

With a smile, she obliged, wrapping me in a comfortable embrace. "Any hug is a good hug."

I wanted to point out that a bear hug from an actual bear might be somewhat less comfortable, but I decided not to spoil the moment. "Hmm... meh, close enough for me. So, training?"

"I was just about to say that. So, stretch out like I taught you yesterday, then give me forty wingers, run in place for thirty seconds, and then hover for one minute. Got it?"

Habitually, I back briefed her. "Stretch, forty wingers, jog for thirty seconds, and hover for a minute. Can do, let's go!"

"You're awful excited."

I shot her my cockiest grin. "I have so much adrenaline still in my veins I can taste colors. Let's boogie."

"Suit yourself."

I began the warm-up drills I'd learned the day before, taking care to stretch in exactly the way it was described in the book. Not only did this prevent Coach from getting on to me, but the exercises really did provide a much better result when they were done right. Flight Drill One is all about learning the basic "controls" and how to maneuver at a basic level; drills one, two, three, and seven are constant throughout the rest of the program as a pre-flight warm-up. Once I completed these four things, the real fun would begin. Considering the amount of cardio I'd had by the time the block of instruction started, I was pretty well warmed up to start with. First the run this morning, then the run to the field, and finally my impression of a skittish kangaroo hopped on methamphetamines... yeah, I was already warmed up.

As soon as the whistle blew at the end of the hovering exercise, Coach laid out the first Drill in FD-Two: the aileron roll.

"When I blow the whistle, you will fly to an altitude of ten meters AGL and initiate a clockwise spiral as you climb to one-hundred meters AGL. Once at altitude, you will level out and assume an east-to-west bearing. I'll let you know if you are too high or low, and once you are where you need to be I'll blow the whistle three times in rapid succession. At the signal, you will perform an aileron roll to your right as you maintain a steady bearing and altitude. Plus or minus five meters in any direction will fail you and require another attempt. Look straight up, and then to the west."

I did as instructed, marveling at the deepening yellow and orange of the evening sky. The sky was entirely clear with the exception of two small and incredibly puffy white clouds.

"See the clouds?"

I nodded to the affirmative.

"Good. In the event you fail to complete the task to my satisfaction, you will not have to start over from the ground. Instead, you will begin at one of these clouds. I will be set up on one of them in order to watch over you should something happen. Don't worry, I have a good deal of experience with this part and I won't let you get hurt."

At this, Derpy paused for a second and shot me a determined glare. No matter what happened, I knew that there was nothing she wouldn't do for me if I was in trouble. Something stirred within me, a deep sense of gratitude and confidence. I had no reason to be afraid; she would not let me fall.

"Once you have reached the clouds, which are at exactly one-hundred meters AGL, you will fly as directed and perform the right-side aileron roll until such time as you can complete it properly five consecutive times. Any questions so far?"

I shook my head. After all, I'd memorized every one of the flight drills.

"Good. When you hear one long bleat of the whistle, that will signal that you have completed the right portion, and you will then begin to do the exact same maneuver, but in the opposite direction. Again, as soon as you do it right five times in a row, we move on to the next one. Ready?"

I took a deep breath to clear my head before looking Coach in the eyes and giving a slight nod. She returned the nod and brought the whistle to her lips. The taste of honey tried to dominate my consciousness, and almost succeeded for a moment before the whistle's shrill cry shattered its hold over me. I launched myself into the air, reaching the first checkpoint and beginning my upward spiral. As I rose, I made sure to keep an eye on the clouds to ensure I ended up where I needed to be. As I rose, I could feel how far away the ground was from me. I can't really explain it or how it works, but the best I can compare it to is an internal clock. Some people can tell you the time within a few minutes regardless of the time of day or night, and I could tell you to within a half meter just how far I was off of the ground. In the back of my head, the pony playing video games pumped a hoof in the air and hollered "level up!" This was so incredibly funny to me that I almost missed my mark.

As soon as that pony in my head said it, I couldn't help but reflect back on these last weeks and pick out "achievement" worthy events.

Achievement get: Crash Landing (+1)

Achievement get: Possessed by Ice Demon (+1)

Achievement get: Facehoof Trifecta (+3)

Achievement get: Playground Savior (+1)

Achievement get: Hometown Hero (+15)

Level Up! You are now Level Two: Luxury Dave (With Cup-holders!)

Achievement get: Get a job, Hippie! (+1)

Unlocked: Character - Dave-Ferno (+5)

Achievement get: Creeper Status! (+5)

Achievement get: Mmm... Toasty (+1)

==>Perk Added: Why so Sear-ious? - You are now somewhat more fire resistant, but you probably shouldn't test that.

Achievement get: Escalation of Force (+1)

Achievement get: Coltsanova (+5)

Perk Added: Dapper Attire – You are now Dapper. +1 to Charisma.

Achievement get: Private Concert (+10)

Achievement get: Guest of Honor (+5)

Unlocked: Weapon – Mighty Smiting Key! +3 Attack.

Achievement get: Spa Treatment (+1)

Achievement get: Shadows of the Past (+2)

Achievement get: Crash Landing 2: The Tree-boot (+2)

Perk Added: Flight Training – You suck at flying, but not for long. You now earn double EXP for two weeks.

Achievement get: Behold, the Glorious A-S-S. (+4)

Level Up! You are now Level Three: The Little Dave who Could.

Perk Added: Pony Senses – You now have the ability to determine altitude AGL to a half-meter and can sense moving objects in a ten-meter radius.

By the time I'd run out of events, I'd finished my climbing spiral and had just begun to level out. Goodness, I crack myself up sometimes. I had only just leveled out when the whistle signaled the start of the drill. I pointed myself directly at the cloud ahead of me to use it as a marker and began my roll, tilting my primaries up on my left and down on my right. I immediately began to roll in the intended direction, but that was the only thing that went right. As soon as I began to roll, I began drifting towards my low wing at a rate that increased with my degree of roll. Almost before I knew it, my nose was facing the ground and I was dropping rapidly. I pulled back up into a level heading and began to climb back to the cloud that marked my starting point.

As I began to fly back towards the cloud, I took notice of the gray shadow that was trailing me. True to her vow, as soon as I'd begun to veer off course, Derpy had sprung into action to assist me if need be. I couldn't have asked for a better Coach. As I drew near the cloud again, I was seized by an irresistible urge and was powerless to stop myself: I landed on the cloud. As every logical bone in my body screamed in protest, I simply stood in awe of what lay beneath my hooves. Everything I knew about clouds was a lie... they were not cold, wet, and amorphous masses of vapor as I had been led to believe. I stood on a warm and fluffy substance, about the consistency of cotton batting, though infinitely softer and smoother. My wonder and revelation was cut short by another blast of the whistle, and I set back out to complete the task before me.

After another half-dozen attempts, I had nearly gotten the hang of it. Once I initiated the roll, I had to apply left rudder to counteract the slipping to the right and maintain my heading. Past that, I had to curl my secondary feathers to apply "negative lift", or lift pushing against the top of the wing instead of the bottom of it. After that, it was a simple matter of repeating the steps in reverse on the other side; apply right rudder and return to "positive" lift. Once I'd completed the maneuver successfully three times, I got a little cocky and decided to try it a bit faster. I doubled my speed and began the maneuver when something strange happened. Instead of rolling slowly and sliding to the right as my roll increased, I simply pivoted around a central axis at a very high rate of speed. The maneuver was so swift, in fact, that I had completed a full two rolls before I realized what was going on and leveled out.

Only the fact that I hadn't shifted my trajectory at all during the roll saved me from having to do it all over again. Had I emerged from the roll while I was inverted, I would have been well on my way to the ground before I would even have noticed that something was not quite right. This was not the case, however, and both of the rolls counted and permitted me to move onto the next portion of the drill. Using the lessons from the previous attempts and with a good mixture of speed, I completed the drill very swiftly compared to the first half. Once I heard the whistle decree that I'd done well enough to pass, I made my way to the cloud and landed next to Coach.

"Not bad, Dave. Seems like you got the hang of it there towards the end. For the next drill, you'll start out just like the last one by rolling to the right, but that's where the similarities end. Once you reach ninety degrees of roll and are perpendicular to the horizon, you will halt your roll and pitch your nose up to initiate the turn. You will perform a ninety-degree turn parallel with the ground before leveling out and holding a steady heading. I'll blow the whistle once to signal the next turn, and a long one to tell you to reverse the direction of your turn. Got it?"

"Yes, Coach. Good copy."

She blinked at me for a second, before just accepting it and carrying on. "Huh? Okay, then. Get out there and do it."

The whistle blew, and I was off. While this one was a little more difficult that the previous one, I again found out that speed was my friend. If I was going fast enough, I'd pull two or three times the force of gravity with my inertia, and that was enough to keep me in the turn as if I were riding on rails. Thus, I made short work of that particular exercise. I again returned to Coach's position on the cloud.

"For this next one, all you have to do is fly inverted in a figure eight configuration that is parallel to the ground. The turns will be the same ones you just practiced. Ready?"

I simply nodded. The whistle followed shortly after, and I once more stepped off of the cloud and into the nothing. The wind filled my wings, and I was off. I nailed this one on the first try, returning with a triumphant grin to a straight-faced Coach.

"Not bad, Dave. I'll give you the next two at the same time, since you are doing so well at this. First is a simple inverted loop. Fly forward and pitch your nose up until you come all the way back around the way you were going. The next one is essentially the same, but instead of going up so your back is on the inside of the loop, you pitch down so that you enter the loop from the top, with your back to the outside of the loop. Do two of each. Hop to it!"

That was all the encouragement I needed. I sped forward at a pretty good clip, remembering how speed had been helpful in my previous drills. As soon as I pulled up to initiate the turn, I realized that I was going to be in for a hell of a ride. As fast as I had been going, and as tight as I had tried to turn... they added up and compounded each other. As I hit the loop, I was quickly pulling well past six times the force of gravity, and I could feel my muscles straining under the force of my inertia. I was whipped around the loop in a flash, and I used my second loop to bleed off my speed by making a much larger loop. Since I was not only climbing during this loop but also taking a much more gradual pitch, I managed to bleed off a good deal of my excess speed and take the loop at less than half the force of the previous loop. Satisfied with my performance on the inverted loop, I then attempted the outward loop, with moderate success.

Turns out, my wings can push down a lot better than they can pull up. I entered my first outward loop going entirely too fast as I came directly off of the second inverted loop without bleeding off any speed at all. Under the strain of about three negative Gs (three times the force of gravity, pushing me towards my head instead of towards my hooves) my wings simply folded down, pinned flat against my sides. In an instant, I'd gone from cocky to terrified as I struggled for all I was worth to free my wings from my sides. My internal altimeter was moving rapidly towards zero, and I was panicking. This would most likely be the end of me if I didn't get my wings back open.

I was oddly detached from this whole scenario from the moment my wings collapsed... it was as if I was simply some other pony watching this tragedy unfold in slow motion. I saw a gray streak approaching fast, and in a fraction of a second it had arrived. Whoever this brown pegasus was that was falling to his death needed to stop flailing like a ninny... the gray one looked like she knew what she was doing. A quick buck to the hooves of the falling one caused him to roll about a quarter-turn to his left, but that was all it took. Suddenly, I was no longer a bystander; I was again the brown pegasus. Now however, instead of falling spine-first towards certain doom I was falling sideways towards the ground. And that was all I needed. With my wings no longer pinned to my sides by the force of my fall, I was able to spread them and again take control over my trajectory. I fanned them as wide as I could and immediately began to pull up into a banked turn. Based off of my intuition, I was less than ten meters from the ground when I leveled out.

Flapping furiously to get as much space between myself and the ground as possible, I rocketed up to the fluffy perch from earlier and sat down hard upon it as I struggled to catch my breath and calm my racing pulse. I felt the cloud shift slightly as Derpy took her place next to me.

"I told you I'd be there for you."

I couldn't pry my eyes away from the ground below. "I never doubted you. I'd just hoped I wouldn't need you to be."

"I know. I was hoping the same thing. I'm going to call this a day, Dave. I could tell that you were exhausted before we even started, and I don't think it would be anything but a bad idea to keep going with you like this. Besides, we've completed all the Drills for FD-Two. Let's head to the ground and stretch, alright?"

"Ordinarily, I'd argue that we can't let one bad experience stop the whole process, but I know that you know what you are doing. You say stop, I trust you. Alright, let's head down."

Derpy and I coasted to the meadow below, coming to rest gently in the grass and beginning the cool-down process. I stretched in silence, still somewhat shocked and generally shaken by what had taken place. Derpy kept asking if I was okay, and the best answer I could give her is that I thought I was. Though she was reluctant to leave me on my own after such an experience, when I told her that I'd like some time to myself to think, she simply nodded, hugged me good night, and flew off into the rising moon. Since we'd wrapped up a little earlier than usual, I had some time to kill and headed to Berry's.

I walked in and was met by an almost angry look from Berry. I simply raised an eyebrow.

"Flyboy, what happened to you today? You are usually here a few hours earlier than this. I thought you might have gotten hurt or something. I can't afford to lose a habitual customer like yourself."

Distracted as I was, I barely noticed her chiding. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'll take the usual, please."

Berry picked up on this straight away. "Yeah... no problem. Flyboy... are you... are you okay?"

"Me? Oh, yeah. I'm fine... just a little... preoccupied is all."

There was no hiding the genuine concern Berry wore on her face or that permeated her voice. She could see that something was not right at all, and she wanted to help make it better. She prepared my smoothie but did not furnish it to me; instead, she carried it to a booth and gestured for me to join her, which I did.

"Just preoccupied? Dave, you look like you just lost your foalhood pet. Something is wrong, and not just a little bit. Do you want to talk about it?"

As much as I did want to talk, wanted to get this off of my chest, there was no way for me to explain what had happened without raising a lot of tricky questions. I was not prepared to answer any of those questions, nor did I wish to try and explain any more than necessary. I decided that a vague answer was my best bet for the moment.

Shrugging, I deflected as best I could. "There's not much to talk about, really. I had a little bit of a scare while flying. Happens to everypony, it's no big deal."

"If it's got you shook up like this, it had to be something pretty bad. Are you physically okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, actually."

Berry shrugged, unsure of where to go next with the conversation. "Well, at least there's that."

I shrugged again. "Yeah, at least I'm still kicking."

Berry looked up from where she was gazing at the table, eyes wide. "Whoa... Dave, are you saying it was that bad?"

Sighing, I stared at the table as I traced a hoof along the grain. "I guess so. Things could have ended up a lot differently, that's for sure. I just... can we drop this? It's not something I really want to talk about."

Placing a hoof on my shoulder, Berry apologized. "Oh, I'm sorry. Of course we can, I didn't mean to pry. I was just worried about you is all."

"I know, and I thank you for that. If you don't mind though, I think I need to head home and lay down for a bit." As I said this, I rose from the table, prompting Berry to do the same.

"Absolutely. I hope you feel better soon, Dave. I miss harassing you."

For the first time since the incident, I smiled a little. "As odd as it is, I kind of miss that too. I'll see you later, Berry."

"See you then, Dave. Take care."

"I'll try. You too."

I left Berry at the counter and set off for home, using the time to myself to push away the things that weighed me down. Yes, I was in a life threatening situation; I also had somepony with me who was uniquely qualified to ensure my safety in such a situation, and who did so without a moment's hesitation. I couldn't help but wonder... how long would Derpy have stayed with me, trying to help me? When would she have made the call to let me go to save herself before she hit the ground with me?

Even as I formulated the question, I knew the answer, and it made me sick. She wouldn't have. She would have stuck with me until the end; she would not have left me to die alone after vowing to protect me. The thought that there was anypony willing to go even half as far for me was just... it was overwhelming. I didn't know how to handle that, how to deal with the fact that there was somepony who was willing to die with me, to die for me.

The Hero of Ponyville, the Savior of the Fallen; willing to risk his life at the drop of a hat to help those in need, yet unsure of how to deal with somepony doing the same for him. Some hero HE is.

I pushed all of this away from me, instead choosing to focus on my triumphs for the day, of which there were several. Chief among them was my pending promotion to night shift manager, the prospect of which was enough to make me giddy just by thinking about it. On some level, we all enjoy a little bit of power. Some let it go to their heads and get on a power trip, lashing out at those under them. Others try to rebuke the notion, trying to treat others as equals until they are placed in a position where they need to step up or step down and failing to rise to the challenge. Then, you have the rest of them, the majority. Those who rise to the challenge of being in charge without letting it go to their head and corrupt them; those who are able to put aside the hierarchical differences and treat others like living, breathing ponies instead of a lesser animal.

In my past, I have had to deal with people from across the spectrum, both good and bad; it is from them that I draw inspiration for who I wish to become, for what I wish to be and not to be. This promotion promises me the chance to do just that, to be the leader I know I can be. Now, all I have to do is live up to the image I have made for myself.

That... that is much easier said than done. With a deep sigh, I dropped my saddlebags by the couch and headed to the shower to wash away the grime of the day. I toweled off in front of the mirror, taking a moment to stop and stare at the face looking back at me. Who are you? What makes you you? What does Joy see in you, in me? I know exactly what it is that she sees... she sees the lies I've told, the picture of a past that never existed that I've painted with a brush of fabrications. Does she love me, or does she love the lies I've told her? I suppose there is only one way to find out... sooner or later, I'll have to tell her. Better do it later though... She's going through a lot of stress with school right now, and I need to support her. But I will tell her, eventually.

When the time is right...

I hung my head with a sigh. There was no way I could tell her any time soon... I just didn't have the courage for it. Sighing in defeat and feeling like slime, I did my best to affix the promotion in the forefront of my mind so that I could be happy when Joy came home.

With another deep sigh, I sat on the edge of the couch and waited.

Author's Note

Last Edited 02DEC15

16: The Dream

Chapter Sixteen
The Dream

I hadn't been sitting on the couch for very long at all when Joy came through the door, sighing as she made her way to the couch. Seeing me waiting for her, she beamed and sauntered towards me, magically shucking off her bags as she took her place next to me.

"Hey there, Dave. So, tell me more about this promotion of yours. They are making you a manager of an entire shift?"

Right to the chase, same as ever.

"Yeah, of the night shift. I'll only have one other pony on my shift, but that should be plenty. I'm actually very excited about this new arrangement since it gives me the opportunity to be the leader I know I can be."

I could feel the words coming out of my mouth, but there was something wrong with them. I truly meant what I said, yet the words still seemed to ring hollow in my ears. For whatever reason, my heart wasn't in it. I started to think about what it might have been that had me in this funk, and I didn't have to think too hard about it before I zeroed in on the culprit. The fall earlier had apparently shaken me more than I'd realized. I knew that I wasn't going to be perfectly fine and dandy, but I didn't really expect it to throw me off like this.

Realizing that I'd spaced out again, I blinked my way back into the conversation. Joy was staring at me with a bemused look as I scrambled to piece together whatever it was that I'd missed while I was out. Drawing a blank, I gave her my best "lost" expression and hoped that she'd fill in the blanks. Luckily, this was rewarded with a kind smile.

"Welcome back. Have a safe flight?"

At the mention of flight, I felt an icicle slide down my spine as I gave an imperceptible shiver. My heartbeat began to increase and my chest felt like it was a few sizes too small. If I didn’t do something to head off the incoming anxiety attack soon, things would get… unpleasant. Inhaling deeply, I chuckled a bit to hide my anxiety and fixed Joy with a warm smile as I tried to be nonchalant.

“Yeah, I was just lost in thought is all.”

“You know, you really need to be careful in unfamiliar territory. Who knows what could be out there.”

I had a legitimate chuckle at that one, and was delighted to feel the tightness in my chest slowly fading. Sure, today had sucked after that whole falling-to-my-near-death thing; but even after all of that, it only took a little bit of Joy in my life to raise my spirits. By the time morning rolled around, I figured I’d have the whole event behind me; nothing more than a learning point and a memory. I looked back at Joy as she smiled at me, and I couldn’t conjure a more wonderful sight. I smiled as I teased her back.

“Ouch, love. Why are you such a meanie?”

She grinned at me, something that I found lovely beyond measure. “Truth hurts, now stallion up. Back to the topic at hoof, what makes you think you’ll be a good leader?”

“Well, do you want the long answer or the short one?”

“I’ll take the short one; I’m getting sleepy.” As if to prove her point, a long yawn escaped her.

“As you wish. I know that I can be a good leader because I’ve been a leader before. I don’t care where a pony ranks in the hierarchy of things; I always try to see the pony, not the position. That, combined with a good work ethic and ability to prioritize, is what makes me a good leader.”

Joy, bemused, cocked an eyebrow at me. “Okay, mister leader, I have a question for you.”

“Oh? About what?”

“Nothing much, I was just wondering how long you stood in the mirror practicing that little speech.”

“Surprisingly, I got it memorized in less than five hours. Pretty amazing, right?”

We simply looked at each other for a second or three before we lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. Yeah, that was a good feeling right there. At that moment, the troubles that weighed heavy upon my shoulders were lifted by the sweet melody of laughter, a burden no more.

The rest of the evening passed in the usual way, as Joy and I unwound to the sounds of a record player and the gentle rasp of a brush passing through an azure mane. Sleep welled up from the darker corners of the room and gently carried us off into a world resplendent with wonder.

Once more my dreams took the shape of the aether; I soared among clouds of purest white as they hovered in stark contrast to a sky set ablaze by the fall of day to night. Far below, the verdant meadow was blanketed by deepening shadows. The lengthening darkness masked the warm hues of the flowers, muting them into much cooler and dimmer shades of their former glory. I briefly searched the ground below for Joy’s lithe form, though I was unable to find her in the light of dusk. Once the luminous disk of the moon was overhead, its delicate light would lend itself to the search. Until then, I would content myself with the freedom of flight on such a wonderfully temperate night.

Spotting a single cloud lingering far above the rest, I was suddenly possessed of the notion to sit upon it and survey the land below. With a grin on my face and a smile in my heart, I happily began my spiraling ascent to this most lofty of perches. After what seemed like an eternity, I still had yet to reach the cloud. Somewhat confused by this, I looked towards the heavens to see how much farther there was to go. In the singularly frustrating fashion that can only dreams can manage, the cloud was just as far out of my reach as it had ever been. Annoyed and determined, I sped towards the cloud with all my might.

I rocketed yet farther into the indigo of the night sky, feeling the atmosphere give way to the insistent beat of my wings as it slipped round my streamlined form. The wind roared in my ears, playing me the beautiful melody of the sky, as sung by the chorus of a thousand howling voices. Squinting my eyes against the sting of the wind, I could see the cloud getting closer by the moment. What I'd taken to be a relatively small cloud a short distance higher than the rest turned out to actually be a fairly large cloud, one that was far higher than I'd expected. The air around me was increasingly rarified and frigid as I climbed. The wind that slipped past me was no longer the warm air of a summer night, but the icy gale of a winter storm. The wind nipped at my flesh, thousands of razor sharp teeth cutting their way to the bone. The song of the wind was no longer beautiful, having become perverted and bastardized by my defiance of gravity. The soft howls had become vengeful shrieks of enraged windigos, seeking the flesh of whoever was so bold as to trespass in their dominion of the frigid altitudes. The shriek of the wind was matched by the screams of my muscles and of my tormented lungs, fighting for oxygen but finding none in the thinning atmosphere.

In spite of the mounting odds against me, I would not turn back so soon; the cloud was just in front of me, just beyond my reach. I would make the cloud, I knew that I could. In spite of my confidence, I could feel the altitude taking its toll upon me. I was beating my wings faster and faster to make up for the thin air, and was breathing harder and harder because of the same. My momentum was eroding as rapidly as my breath. The stars began to blur and move of their own accord, swimming betwixt folds of abysmal black in the deepest part of the night sky. The cloud was mere meters away now, close enough to touch. So far above the ground, the cloud was unshielded by the mountains below and was thus gilded in quicksilver by the austere light of a guiltless moon.

As the last of my momentum bled away and the blackness began to creep into the edges of my vision, I swiped a hoof in a desperate, last-ditch effort to catch the cloud and arrest my fall. I merely caressed the lowermost wisp of the cloud, a sliver of silver trailing from the tip of my hoof like a playful wraith. As I hung in the empty air for an eternal instant, I cast my gaze to the horizon and the magnificent lunar orb that hung there. Carried upon the pale beams of moonlight came the peace and the coolness of night, reassuring me that no harm would come to me. For an instant, I knew peace as I lingered upon the edge of the world.

And then, I began to fall.

I began to sink back towards the ground, once more a prisoner of gravity. My determination and stubbornness would be the death of me, and this would likely be the beginning of my end. As I'd flown ever higher and finally swiped out at the cloud above, I'd wound up with my back towards the ground. My zealous ascent had robbed me of oxygen and strength, leaving me unable to so much as flap my wings to save myself. Thus, I began to plummet towards the meadow below with my back leading the way. In the vacuous, hypoxic atmosphere, there was nearly no wind resistance to slow me as I fell, and I gained speed at a horrifying rate. And just like that, I was reliving the waking nightmare from that afternoon. The critical difference this time was that there was no Coach to bail me out. I was falling to my death ever more quickly and there was nothing to save me.

Deep down inside I feel to scream, but this terrible silence stops me. For the first time in my life, I am paralyzed by fear, completely unable to move under the weight of my terror. I want to kick my legs, to scream and shout, to fight with everything I have to recover, to survive. I can do nothing but plummet at an unholy speed towards certain death. I had a revelation that further compounded my despair; Joy was in the meadow so many kilometers below and would witness my plummet as I pierced the air and then the ground, leaving naught but a crater smattered with viscera and brown plumage.

If I could give voice to my lamentations, I would have screamed loud enough to shatter the heavens. If I could manifest my despair by weeping, I'd flood the earth with my tears. I was helpless to do any of this, however, and this only served to further compound my grief and frustration. I passed through a cloud as I streaked towards annihilation, and its soft form was torn asunder as my speeding form punched through it; the puff of vapor was simply no match for my inertia. Passing through the cloud was my signal that the end was nigh. Just as the condemned man will hear the creak of the hangman’s opening of the trapdoor just before the world falls out from under him, so too did I know that the end was upon me.

In the last instant before I was to crash into the ground and be rent from this life, I caught sight of the moon as it peaked out from behind the mountains. My last thought flashed across my mind in the form of a prayer, sent out to the luminous orb and the goddess of the same name.

“Luna, I give myself to Thee.”

There was a flash of light that seemed to come from everywhere at once as I struck the ground, the blinding flash of every single nerve firing off at once in a final moment of harmony in annihilation. The end, however, was not the end; at least, not what I expected the end to be. Immediately following the flash, there remained the sensation of falling, though with a disorienting twist. Not only was there the new sensation of being squeezed from all sides and crushed against something soft, but there was also the distinct sensation of decelerating. In fact, not only was I slowing down, I was nearly at a standstill. The slower I moved, the greater the crushing pressure became until equilibrium was reached. As I came to a stop, I was sure that I was going to be crushed into a paste under the tremendous pressure bearing down upon my form. Equilibrium can never be sustained in a universe constantly in flux, and the same was true in my plight as well. My inertia had been dissipated, and I was now being extruded from whatever I'd collided with, though at a much lower rate of speed.

My terror had been supplanted by curiosity, and I fought to look around me and take in my surroundings. There was, however, nothing to see but the inky blackness of the deepest night surrounding me. The walls were closing in around me, squeezing my wings to my sides and confining my limbs in such a way that I was powerless to move. Just as the claustrophobia was setting in, I was suddenly freed of my constriction with an audible “pop” as I was ejected into the air. Of their own accord, my wings popped open and arrested my ascent almost instantly. Whatever had been constricting me had apparently also been blinding me, for I could now gaze upon my surroundings.

I was about ten meters above a large cloud bank, almost entirely flat for as far as my eyes could see and gently glowing as they absorbed the light of the moon. Hesitantly, I set myself down on the cloud, breathing a deep sigh of relief as its springy surface held my weight with only a slight give. Taking a massive gulp of air to try and chase away the terror still within my breast, I sat down heavily on the cloud and hunched forward with my head held low. I stared at the undulating surface of the cloud beneath me, taking many moments and numerous slow, deep breaths in an effort to chase away the lingering fear. It was of no use, though; the fear within had formed an icy lump on my heart that refused to be vanquished.

Sighing in anger and frustration, I flung myself onto my back, instantly gripped by terror as I was overcome by visions of myself falling through the cloud to the ground below. Even as the ripple of terror passed through me it spread into the cloud underneath me; transforming it from the soft and supportive mass that it had been into the cold and damp mist that it ought to be. As it had robbed the warmth of the cloud, so too did my fear rob the cloud’s substance; once more, I was falling backwards towards my doom. A mere second had passed before I was again enveloped by the light from everywhere, something that had completely taken me by surprise. I wasn’t traveling fast enough to do much more than break something, let alone obliterate myself against the ground. So where did the light come from? Even as I was contemplating this incongruity, the soft surface of a cloud appeared beneath my hooves, just as warm and firm as it had ever been.

I couldn’t help but look down at it skeptically, trying to decide whether or not it was liable to go all “intangible” again. My wings spread from my side, just in case. As they did so, my left wing tip brushed up against something. Turning to look, I had to stare for a second before things clicked into place.

No more than a meter-and-a-half from me stood Luna, in all of her Magnificence. I simply stared at her with a blank expression, my mind completely incapable of processing the sight before me. Was this a dream? Had I died and had my soul committed to Luna’s charge and custody? These were questions for later, seeing as how I was facing the more immediate issue of what in the hell I was expected to do in the presence of a Princess. On a whim, I snapped my wings to my side, my hooves together, stood up to my full height as I turned to face Luna, and finally snapped a crisp salute. I stood there, as immobile as a statue as I waited for some indication of what to do next.

My salute was met only by a raised eyebrow, as if it were completely unexpected. A tense moment passed in silence, Finally, Luna gave a slight nod at me, and I took this as a signal to drop my salute. I stood in as close an approximation of the position of attention as I could manage as a pony and waited for something to happen. After yet another moment of tense silence, Luna spoke up.

With a voice as soft and smooth as silk, she spoke. “Art thou well? Wait, I meant to say, are you okay?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Princess Luna raised an eyebrow at this. “Majesty? To whom do you refer when you say ‘Your Majesty’? Surely, not I.”

“Negative, Your Majesty. I do indeed refer to you, Your Majesty.”

She waved a hoof at me, dismissively. “Well, cease it at once. You make me feel more ancient than I care to. Why ponies insist on ‘Your Highness’ this, and ‘Your Majesty’ that, I’ll never know. My name is Luna, not ‘Your Majesty’ or any other pompous title.”

“As you wish, Your… as you wish, Luna. Though, I feel that the title of ‘Your Majesty’ is more appropriate. Permission to speak freely?”

“You may speak in whatever manner you deem fit. Pray tell, why is a title more appropriate than my name?”

I relaxed a little, sloughing away from the position of attention into something a bit more natural as I made my reply. “Thank you, Luna. Well, the simple answer is that I find you to be majestic in a way that words fail to capture appropriately.”

It was true, what I said; I simply cannot convey the presence of this mare. I knew not whether I be awake or dreaming, but in whatever state I might be, Luna’s presence was palpable. She had an aura of regality about her, and this was only amplified by her physical traits. Every curve and form of her body was simply elegant, stirring feelings within me that I cared not to dwell on. Voicing this to her might not have been a good idea though, for she was now regarding me with a critical look. In her many years, she had doubtlessly been in the presence of numerous suck-ups, seeking to gain favor with their compliments. She had also obviously been pursued by her fair share of suitors, and if I was correct in my guess, she was trying to decide to which group I belonged. The moments seemed to drag on forever as she simply held me with a level gaze, one which I did my best to return without seeming arrogant. Her eyes locked on mine, the light of the moon playing across her features and causing her eyes to twinkle. The effect was simply hypnotic, and I found myself staring deep into those cosmic pools. I blinked some dust from my eye and nearly jumped from my skin.

“Huzzah! I’ve won!”

Apparently, we’d entered a staring contest at some point, a contest that I'd lost. Luna’s sudden outburst was followed by a smile, throwing me for a loop in light of the awkward silence that’d preceded it. I gathered my thoughts as best I could for a moment before I asked the question that had been bothering me since I first laid eyes upon Luna.

“Luna, may I ask you a question?”

She smiled at me, the picture of grace. “Yes; and you just used it up. Well, this has been a pleasant conversation.”

I was at first unsure of how to react to this. How was I supposed to respond to that? And what comes next? I was again fixed with a raised-eyebrow-gaze, as if Luna was waiting for something.

“Was that… was that a jest?”

Luna facehoofed. I, Dave; of the clan Stupidus-Humanus, had just compelled a living deity to facehoof. I wasn’t sure whether I should be proud or ashamed, but until such time as I came to an appropriate answer, I was going to stick with ‘proud’. I beamed from ear to ear, hoping to play it off as a joke of my own in the event that it wasn’t well received. When Luna dropped her hoof, she was sporting a slight smile, and I took this as a sight to continue.

“Well then… excluding the previous two questions, may I ask this question and a follow-on question?”

She simply shrugged. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

“Very well then. Luna… are you really here, or am I dreaming?”

Luna put her hoof to her chin for a moment, deep in thought… or so it would seem. Her smile grew a bit wider, which gave me pause.

“Obviously, you are dreaming, Dave. But whether or not you are actually in the presence of a Princess, or if I’m simply a figment of your imagination? Well… what do you think?”

“With all due respect, Luna; if I knew what I thought, I wouldn’t have asked. I take it that you aren’t going to give me a straight answer, right?”

“Tsk-tsk, Dave. You didn’t ask permission for that question. How unbecoming.”

Luna was caught up in the midst of a giggle-fit, and I was becoming frustrated at my inability to ask the questions I needed to so that I could get a straight answer. As I struggled to out-think Luna, I grew more and more frustrated as I went down one dead-end after the other. Had I been paying attention, I might have noticed the way that everything was losing definition and form, slowly muddling together into a swirl of shades and gradients. By the time I realized what was happening, only Luna’s smile remained, floating amongst the wraiths of color in a pretty darn good impression of the Cheshire cat’s grin.

I awoke with a start, annoyed at myself for waking up without getting an answer. If anything, I was even more unsure whether the whole thing was a dream or not. Looking at my watch, I had a whopping three minutes before my alarm was to go off and signal the start of the day. Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and staggered to my hooves to go use the latrine before my alarm sounded.

As I made my way to the bathroom, I ruminated on how this was such a crappy way to start off the day. Little did I know, this was only the beginning.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 04:27, Saturday: 1 April. (Day 20) ~*~*~*~*~*~

When the hell did that mare have time to do this? Does she ever sleep?

I grumbled to myself in a most discontented manner as I dried my face off for the second time. Today was April fool’s, and Joy had apparently been up all night. After doing my business, I'd gone to wash my hooves only to find that the faucet had been modified to spray the operator in the face as soon as it was turned on. Wide awake but disoriented, I grabbed the hoof-towel to dry my face off. As I did so, I became aware of the fact that the towel had been well and truly saturated with talcum powder as I became a very clean-smelling ghost. Bracing myself for the incoming deluge, I turned on the faucet and rinsed off as much of the powder as I could. Pulling a towel from under the sink, I discovered a rubber snake that had been left atop the linens. Taking a moment to thank my lucky stars that I liked snakes and wasn’t a jumpy pony, I picked up the serpent and slung it over my shoulder as I checked the towel for further pranks. Satisfied that the towel had not been booby-trapped, I dried the rest of the way off and wiped away the residual powder.

I quietly made my way back to the couch, finding Joy still fast asleep from her late-night hijinks. Since my alarm had sounded while I was in the bathroom, I was faced with the task of waking Joy in its stead. I had the perfect plan.

Placing the snake on the pillow by Joy’s head, I reached my wing over to her and gently flicked her nose with a feather. As soon as she began to stir, I began to make a low hissing noise. She cracked one eye halfway open, searching for whatever was making that strange sound. As soon as her eye focused on the snake, a few things happened at the same time. First, both of her eyes shot wide open and grew to the size of dinner plates. Second, her legs began to spasm and twitch very rapidly in no particular order or pattern. And finally, her horn began to glow, an azure glow that also surrounded the snake.

The very next instant, Joy was shrieking loud enough to wake the dead, she was flying backwards through the air from the spastic lunge her legs had choreographed, and the snake had embedded itself in the wall from the force that Joy had tossed it with. I forgot how to breathe for the next ten minutes or so, managing a gasping inhalation every so often in between laughs. Joy had stopped screaming and was regarding me with an expression which promised retribution by the time I'd gotten myself under control, and Dawn was standing at the edge of the living room wearing curlers, a robe, and a frown. At the sight of Dawn, I lost it again. Dawn, apparently satisfied that nopony was being horribly murdered in her living room, rolled her eyes and turned away with a sigh. My ribs were absolutely killing me from laughing so hard, and some of the tears in my eyes were tears of pain by the time I managed to stifle myself.

Joy had collected herself from the floor and taken up a position in the corner of the bed, favoring me with a dour expression. I smiled at her, still giddy, and tried to figure out if she was just grumpy or genuinely upset at me.

“Good morning, sunshine. How are you?”

Her only reply was a squinty glare in my direction, and my smile faltered. So, genuinely upset it is.

“Joy? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to upset you, I just--“

“I didn’t get to see you fall for my pranks, you jerk. How’d you wake up before me without your alarm going off?”

I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn't mad at my hijinks. “Oh, I’m sorry about that… if it’s any consolation, I fell for them hook, line, and sinker. I had a funky dream and woke up a bit earlier than usual, that’s how. My alarm went off in the bathroom.”

“Dang, all of that work and I missed it. Just my luck. What kind of funky dream? Disco-funky?”

“Huh? No, not quite that funky. Dreams of falling and not falling, tricky clouds, and arguing with myself.”

She put a hoof to her chin, smiling. “So… a dream about an average day for you?”

I shrugged, grinning. “More or less. I woke up when I lost the argument.”

“When you lost the… you might be the only pony I’ve ever met who can argue with themselves and lose. You are something else, Dave.”

I flashed a smile and struck a pose as I flexed for her.

“You are absolutely right I am. Something else, indeed.”

Joy facehoofed, and mumbled out from behind her hoof.

“Something else… I never said it was something good, you goof.”

I simply puffed out my chest and smiled. Joy’s mane was hanging in front of her eyes as she hung her head in the midst of her face-hoof. She looked up at me over the top of her hooves, her mane parted just enough for her to see out from under it. She saw me striking my pose and couldn’t help but smile and blush at me as she buried her face again. The diabeetus hit me hard; it was almost as if I'd done lines of hundred-percent-pure, uncut Coltlumbian cane sugar off of a mirror in a gentlecolts club to the beat of disco inferno. Yeah, just like that. I simply smiled at her as I felt my heart melt away and pool in a puddle on the floor. Once again Joy looked over her hooves at me, and as soon as she saw my smile she blushed further and hid behind her hooves again with an even wider smile. Right in the Diabeetus.

I leaned forward to kiss her, entirely unable to contain myself even a moment longer. I gingerly brushed her mane aside with my hoof and placed a kiss on her forehead, eliciting a little mew of contentment from the mare. My heart exploded so hard it killed everypony in town and within a twenty- kilometer radius thereof. I stepped away from her to collect myself before I really did have a heart attack or something. After the events in the bathroom and the prank that I'd pulled, the both of us were pretty well wide awake. Despite the fact that this was a weekend and we really didn’t have anything to do for a few hours yet, I figured we could go ahead and get started on PT. I'd planned to wake up at about zero seven for this, but having forgotten to reset my alarm, I had to make adjustments in my plans.

Once Joy was properly prepared for the day (and still sporting those awesome leggings) we ventured into the back yard for a series of exercises that I lovingly refer to as “The Ab-literator”. Starting with fifty oblique crunches per side as a warm up, and then moving into pyramids of fifteen side-knees, crunches, sit-ups, frog kicks, straight leg raises, and the supine bicycle, you were in damned good shape if you could finish the exercises at all. For those unfamiliar with the concept of pyramids, you begin at one repetition of each exercise. Upon completion of each set, you add an extra repetition for the next set, all the way up to fifteen and back down again. All told, it is two hundred and forty reps in each exercise. Nearly fifteen hundred repetitions in all. I had made it all the way up and was working my way back down when I hit the wall at twelve. I simply could not make my legs go up anymore. Just shy of a thousand reps overall, and I was done. Joy had died out before hitting ten sets, though she valiantly kept going as best she could.

I called the session to an end for a five minute water break, advising Joy to stretch out her abs for the next exercise. As the five minutes came to a close, we began the capstone of the Ab-literator; walking the plank. Simply put, we would keep out back straight as we supported ourselves on our rear hooves and elbows. This is the basic plank, nothing special. To “walk the plank”, we would alternate the regular plank with the single-leg plank, which is where you lift one hoof off the ground and hold it in the air for thirty seconds before returning to the plank. Thirty seconds to “recover”, and then the action is repeated on the other side. Four on each side and we are done. Neither one of us was able to make it past the first set before we sagged to the ground in defeat. Joy’s a tough gal though, and she never allowed herself to simply lounge on the ground; she would go down for a few seconds before she shakily elevated her midsection again. Finally, the clock signaled the end of our self-imposed torment, and Joy and I took a moment to simply flop onto the grass and lament our poor abdominals.

The Ab-literator had lived up to its name. Joy and I were well and truly smoked from the exercises, having reached total muscle failure multiple times. We both knew that it was going to be a long day and that we were going to be sore for a few days afterward, but neither of us minded. After all, there are few things that can compare to the feeling of a really good burn.

After showering, breakfast, and a little couch-surfing, Joy got up and started to head upstairs. I sat there for a second, wondering if I was missing something before I called out to her.

“Uh, Joy? Where are you headed?”

“Upstairs to get my bag. I have class soon.”

My confusion was complete, as evidenced by my head tilt. “Wait, class? But… it’s daytime. And Saturday.”

“Yes, I am aware of this. I have night classes, but since I’m in the fast-track course, that includes Saturdays as well. Such is the price of graduating early.”

“Oh… well, alright. What am I supposed to do all day, without you here to inspire me?”

She shrugged, turning once more to the stairs. “I dunno… survive? Hold on a tick, I’ll be back in a second.”

Joy’s steps could be heard as she made her way up the stairs, and again a moment later as she came back down with her bag. I checked my watch and was a little shocked that it was already zero eight thirty. My, how time flies when you are subjecting your body to voluntary torture.

“So Joy, all I have to do today is survive? That’s my goal for every day. Class starts at nine?”

“That it does. I have the same goal, though I get the feeling that I have a lot fewer instances that require me to stick to it than you do.”

I had to concede the point. “I do seem to have a knack to be in the right place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, try not to do that today. I’ll be back in time to make dinner, so make sure you are still alive and kicking by then.”

I shot her my winning-est smile. “I’ll do my best, dear.”

“That’s all I ask. Alright, I’ve got to head out now to get a good seat. See you later, gator.”

“In a while, crocodile.”

Joy was chuckling as she closed the door, and even I had to crack a smile at the vintage farewells. So, what to do, what to do… Derpy had her routes until after lunch sometime, so that ruled out flying lessons… Joy was in class and obviously unavailable… my bit-pouch would be empty if I spent the day at Berry’s… I was plumb out of ideas. I sat down on the couch in defeat, deciding on a whim to dig through my saddlebags for inspiration. About ten minutes later, I had pulled an improbably large amount of assorted junk out of these saddlebags, and there was yet more rattling around in there.

“What in the hell are these things made out of? I halfway expect Pinkie to pop out of this thing, this is ludicrous.”

Talking to yourself isn’t normal, but on ponies it is. Bah. I'd have to get everything out of these things sooner or later, so I stuck my arm into the bag to fish for whatever was still rattling around in the bottom of the sack. I was only mildly shocked when my arm kept going into the bag, passing the point that I was sure I'd have hit the bottom and then some. I was nearly shoulder deep into the bag before I touched the bottom of it, sitting in a slight shock as my first-hoof experience with broken physics. I quickly fished out the emerald that had been rattling around in the corner of the bag and then filed the whole thing in the “locker of things not to think about”. Packing the things back into the bags in a somewhat less haphazard fashion than they had been before, I sat down to twiddle my thumbs as I figured out what to do next. I was of course reminded of the fact that I had no thumbs to twiddle, eliciting from me a defeated sigh.

As my eyes wandered the confines of the home that had become my own, a speck of green caught my eye. I'd left the emerald on the table when I was repacking my bags. I pondered just where exactly I'd picked up an emerald in the first place, coming up entirely blank. I picked up the strange green stone, turning it over in my hooves as I marveled at the way light was caught and reflected by the facets. The effect was entrancing, and I looked it over for a good minute or ten. The thought occurred to me that I should take it to a jeweler to have it looked over. Immediately following that thought was another, compelling me to browse wedding rings while I was there. Yeah, I'd been here just under three weeks, and that was a little too soon to be marrying anypony. Still, it couldn’t hurt to look. That, and I'd have to save up for a good, long while in order to purchase a ring once I'd picked one I liked, plenty of time to decide if this was really something I wanted to commit to.

The method by which I would conceal my growing horde of bits as I saved for the ring posed another set of problems. I wondered for a moment if there was a bank anywhere in Ponyville that I could open an account. Unsurprisingly, I again drew a blank. Today was starting to look like a day for window shopping and exploration. Grinning, I scooped up the emerald and set off to a jewelry store I'd seen a time or two in my misadventures throughout the town.

A half hour later, I'd finally found it: a small boutique with lush red curtains in all of the windows, the only indication of its name was the word “Diamond’s” in elegant script on the door. From within, I could hear a steady beat thrumming, something which sounded an awful lot like club music to me. I thought nothing of it as I made my way inside. Just inside the door was a very small foyer, adorned in a modern Spartan sort of style with a small desk in the center of the far wall. Behind this desk was a very attractive mare reading a magazine with a bored expression. This didn’t look much like any jewelry shop I'd ever been to, but then again, I'd never been to a pony jewelry store either. I approached the desk with a smile, and the mare behind the desk finally put down the magazine to greet me.

“Good morning, Sir. Welcome to Diamond’s, where you can have whatever you like.”

“Good morning to you as well, ma'am. I came for an appraisal, and to browse your selection for something… special.”

“An appraisal? Well… I suppose we could do that. I’ll have to get Diamond out here for that. In the meantime, you mentioned perusing our products?”

“Yes ma’am I did. Are they on display?”

At this, the mare behind the counter gave me a strange look, batting her platinum blonde mane out of her pale blue eyes. She looked as if she were trying to measure me up, to figure out if I was up to no good or something. Her response was a little tense, but still friendly.

“No sir, we prefer to keep the models in a more… intimate setting. Feel free to browse our catalog, though; we can take you into our viewing room of you find something that strikes your fancy. I’ll just give Diamond a ring and ask her about the appraisal while you browse.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

The receptionist simply gave a slight nod and passed a brochure over the desk to me and gestured to a small bench on her right. I walked over and took a seat and I began to flip through the magazine. My first impression was one of mild confusion and desire; the first page was a full page photo of a striking mare in a red cocktail dress, doing her best to melt the camera with a sultry gaze. Around her neck there was a triplet of fine pearl necklaces, each glinting softly in the light. She wore some elegant silver earrings with what appeared to be diamond accents, and a slender gold chain around her left forehoof topped it off. As I flipped from page to page, it was more of the same. Every photo was of a different (and equally stunning) mare adorned in various jewelry, though none wore rings. I was about a quarter of the way into the pamphlet when I heard a door open in front of me.

Along the far wall of the foyer, a door that I'd missed when I came in slid open to reveal a simply stunning mare adorned in most unusual garments. Her outfit appeared to be composed primarily of latex, and it was so tight as to leave nothing to the imagination. It sported a seemingly random assortment of delta rings and straps, which I found to be oddly familiar, but where I knew them from was a mystery to me at that time. This mare’s coat was as black as a moonless night, with a mane that was an almost-as-dark shade of purple. Her eyes… oh, her eyes. They were silver and pale blue, and they sparkled as if lit from within. They looked for all the world like a pair of diamonds in the night sky, and there was no doubt remaining; this mare was Diamond.

I quickly rose to my hooves and gave a bow; it seemed the appropriate thing to do at the time. Diamond looked at me for a second before introducing herself.

“Subservient; I like it. Good morning; my name is Diamond, and I am the owner of this establishment. My associate tells be that you came here for an… appraisal?”

“Good morning, Miss Diamond; my name is Dave, and yes I did.”

I reached over to my side to excavate the emerald from its place within my saddlebag when Diamond’s voice rose again, lilting musically against the beat of the music from the back of the establishment.

“Yes, remove those unsightly bags that I may get a better look at you.”

“Pardon?” I think I missed something here....

“There is no need for pardon if you do as I ask. You wished for an appraisal, did you not?”

I rubbed a hoof on the back of my neck. “Well, I did… but I can’t see how this has anything to do with that… “

“Question not my methods. If you desire your appraisal, drop the bags and simply obey. Otherwise, you may take your leave now.”

I was more than a bit confused at this, and I was beginning to feel more than a little uneasy by this point, but the odd combination of shock and curiosity prevented me from asking any more questions. Wordlessly, I dropped my bags, taking care to set them down so that the emerald didn’t shift within.

“Very good, Dave. Now, stand up tall. Straighten your back. Straighten your back, enough of the slouching. That drives away clients. Now, spread your wings for me.”

Spread my… why? I was now completely baffled, and I wasn’t even trying to hide it. I felt a hoof poke into my side, just behind my mark, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I jumped a little at the unexpected contact, turning to face Diamond and demand an answer.

“Hey now, what’s going on here? I came here to get an appraisal, not be poked and prodded.”

Her glare adopted a decidedly frosty quality at my interruption. “So, you came to do the poking then? Then why waste our time asking for an appraisal if you were here for the service and not a job?”

Things were starting to come together, and I have the feeling I'd made a terrible mistake somewhere. “I… what? What service? All I wanted was to get this emerald appraised and look at wedding rings, not look for a job. What kind of crazy jewelry store is this?”

“Jewelry store? Ah, that explains it. Mister, this isn’t a jewelry store; it is a companion service. When you came here asking for an appraisal, Crystal assumed you were looking for employment as an escort and called me out to give you a look.”

Everything fell into place as I blushed so hard my cheeks were on the verge of ignition. The club music in the back? Quick tempo and hard bass-line, good to keep pace to. The magazine full of gorgeous mares in evening clothes? Those are the “models”. And finally, the oddly familiar latex getup? Gimp suit for a dominatrix. I could try to figure out just how in the hell I'd been such an oblivious naïf later, once I'd gotten the fuck out of this place of debauchery.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake, and I’ll be leaving here. Good day to you both, and if anypony asks I was never here.”

“Pity… you would have made a fine addition to our selection, especially with that physique. And you’ve never been here, nor have any of the other clients.”

“I’m not a client. Okay, thanks, bye.”

I took my bags in my teeth and hightailed it out of there, taking to the sky as soon as I was clear of the door in an effort to get as far away as possible from this establishment before I was seen. As soon as I was in the air, I encountered a new problem for me; I no longer knew where I was. I'd familiarized myself with the town from ground level, and to see it from above was more than a little disorienting. I was able to pick out the shape of the market center from where I was and decided to set down over there to gather my thoughts.

I landed on a side street about a block away from the market so that if I had any difficulties landing, I would be less likely to hurt somepony else. My head was still spinning from the encounter, and I decided it would be best to grab a bite to eat and mull things over. I bought a sandwich from the first vendor I came to, not caring what was on it or how much it cost me. I grabbed the hoagie and made my way to the farthest, most remote corner of the diner and sat facing the wall, doing my best to portray somepony who wanted to be left alone.

I tasted not the hoagie as I lost myself in thought. How could I have not seen the signs earlier? What if somepony saw me go into or come out of there? What would Joy have to say about this? Should I tell Joy? How could I not tell her? But if I do, what sort of other questions will it raise? What is my cover story for this?

My head was spinning and buzzing as the questions kept piling up by the second. I needed to think about something else before my head exploded. Seeking a distraction, I found my mind wandering back to the dream I'd had that night, and specifically the pony therein. Had it really been Luna? As much as I wanted to believe that I had truly been visited by a goddess incarnate, I knew that I was not nearly lucky enough to have such a thing happen to me. Yet, despite my attempted resignation, I was still possessed of a sliver of doubt; maybe… just maybe… I really had been. My contemplation of the dream sequences skipped past this for the time being as I pondered the rest of the elements of the dream.

Some of the imagery was pretty obvious, even to me. The highest cloud represents my overzealous aspirations and the pursuit of the unobtainable. The story of Icarus came to mind, as one who sought to venture into the realm of the gods was made low by his irreverence; so too was I. The fall was also pretty easy, as it played on the terror of the day’s events. With the obvious out of the way, I was left to speculate on the rest. In my best guess, the reason that I kept falling through the cloud is because my fear influenced the dream and corrupted it; making the cloud as cold and vaporous as the nightmare itself. The white flashes might have been Luna teleporting me onto the cloud from where I fell, though I had no real evidence for this. Well, as real as evidence in a dream can be, at any rate.

And just like that, I was back onto the topic of Luna. On one hoof, I can see why she would be there like that as she rescued me from my nightmares. On the other, I’m pretty sure that I’m entirely unworthy of her presence. And the strange way that she acted, shunning her title in favor of her name, also seemed incongruous with what I expected of her. However, by not acting the way I would have expected her to, it lends credibility to the idea that this was an actual visit.

The more I thought, the more my head hurt. Really, I should know to leave the thinking to the smart ponies. I rubbed my temples as I once again changed my train of thought onto another track, the dilemma of whether or not to tell Joy. And if I did tell her… how would I tell her? I pressed a hoof against my forehead and rubbed it in small circles, trying to persuade it not to explode as thoughts raced by at a blistering pace. Finally, I decided that honesty was the best policy in this situation. Better to come right out and tell her than have her find out in an unregulated or controlled way from a third party somewhere down the line. And, since tact wasn’t really my thing, I would just be up-front about it and hope to dodge most of the things chucked at my head.

Oddly, as much as I knew it was most likely going to suck telling Joy about my misadventures today, I still felt relieved that I'd made a choice. For better or worse, I'd made my decision and eliminated the uncertainty. It was strangely liberating, not to be chained by indecision; I found freedom in my resignation. In much better spirits now, I was able to think a little bit more logically, and was able to stumble upon a solution to at least one of my unresolved issues. As I left the diner, I stopped and asked the waitress if there were any jewelry shops in town. She listed off a few in order of proximity to the diner, and offered her suggestions for which one to visit. I thanked her with a large tip and set off towards the recommended jeweler.

A few minutes later I was standing outside of another shop with a sketchy sounding name, though this one had no curtains over the windows and there were several pieces of silver on display. Breathing a sigh of relief, I entered the Emerald City. I was greeted by a lovely mare of a delightful green hue, who approached me with a smile and introduced herself.

“Hello, Sir! My name is Emerald, or Emma for short, and I welcome you to my shop. How can I help you?”

I was a bit caught off guard by the perkiness of this mare at first, but quickly returned her smile and her greeting.

“Hey there, Emma. I’m Dave, nice to meet you. I was wondering if I could get an emerald appraised?”

After the last episode, I made sure to indicate quite clearly that I was here to get a gemstone appraised, and not myself. Emma’s eyes lit up at the mention of her namesake, and once I removed the stone from my saddlebag she was nearly salivating. The emerald was quickly encapsulated in a green glow and levitated before a set of very green eyes. Emma looked the stone over with the practiced eyes, mumbling to herself in hushed tones. A few seconds later the stone was returned to my possession as Emma beckoned me to follow her to the counter. Taking her place behind the counter, she sighed deeply before fixing me with an almost pained look.

“That emerald you have there is the single finest Dragonfire I’ve ever seen. Immaculate clarity and color, and the facets are unbelievable. It saddens me that it isn’t in my collection.”

“Actually, I was hoping to work out a deal; a trade, if you will.”

Emma’s eyes were sparkling in a disturbingly accurate imitation of a real emerald. She waved her hoof at me, beckoning me to continue.

“Well, I just happen to be in the market for an engagement ring and a wedding ring set.”

“You’re in luck. I think I might just have one or two lying around for you to look at.”

With that, she gestured at a display case that ran the entire length of her shop. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I suddenly had the feeling that this was going to take all day. It was very quickly established that I knew next to nothing about buying a ring for a pony. I had no idea what sizes were like, whether it would be a horn-ring or a hoof-ring, what her birth stone was, any of that. Emma was trying to be helpful, but after an hour of blank stares she was getting a little frustrated at me. Just before her patience ran out, we settled on a design. It was silver and gold in the shape of vines wrapping around a heart, with over three karats of diamonds alone, in addition to numerous other stones. The accent stones would be Joy’s birth stone (once I figured out what it was, anyways), and would be arranged as flowers on the vines. As for the size issue, I figured it would be more than a little suspicious if I asked Joy what her ring size was. In lieu of this, there was an expensive alternative; the self-sizing ring.

During the smelting process, the ring was enchanted with a simple spell that allowed it to shape itself to a perfect fit for anypony. Despite being a reportedly simple spell, the only ponies who knew the spell were in the bloodline of the smelters and were not keen to share their secrets. Thus, pieces with this enchantment on them were highly prized and expensive items. Having settled on a ring design and establishing a value for the traded emerald, coupled with a hero’s discount (against my will), we were left with a pretty dang heavy balance remaining on the ring. A little bit of math was endured, and a payment schedule was worked out. So long as everything went to plan, I'd have paid the rings off by the first of October. Six months was still somewhat rushed in my opinion, but I planned to have a year-long engagement. That way, we had plenty of time to make the arrangements and coordinate the various intricacies of a wedding.

After signing the contract, I stepped out into the warm afternoon air. I wasn’t concerned about Diamond’s, about falling, or even about possibly being visited by a goddess in my dreams. No, at that moment my mind was dwelling not in the present or the past, but in the future. I was lost in my fantasies of proposing to Joy amidst the burning colors of autumn, of asking her to be my wife for now and forever more. Sure, that day was a long ways off… but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t be looking forward to it. As my mind concerned itself with matters of the heart and the future, my legs moved of their own accord, carrying me into a part of the wilderness around Ponyville that I'd not been to before.

I came to my senses standing under an ancient oak tree, its gnarled branches casting a shadow ten meters out from the trunk. The tree stood alone on a small hill in the middle of the valley floor, surrounded by a splendidly green meadow. The meadow ended in wood line several hundred meters away, and the hills that nestled the valley were blanketed by trees. All it took was the mere contemplation of the scene under the influence of autumn, and there could be no doubt. This is where I would propose to, and a year hence, wed Joy. Overcome as I was by the beauty in all things, I simply sat in the shade of that oak tree, losing myself in the song of nature.

The sun shone brightly upon all of creation, and birds sang sweet melodies to the wind; the breeze carried with it the promise of a life that had not yet truly begun, and the slender blades of grass sighed with the contentment of the world. I knew then that I was on the right path, that I was fulfilling the plan that had been laid out for me.

I thought of Joy, and I smiled.

Author's Note

This one was finished a lot earlier than I thought it would be, especially considering the distractions that came my way. On a completely unrelated note, I just happen to have found time to draw some stuff. Weird, huh?

For the "making of", click below.

Check out the Tumblr for the beginning to end of the creation process

Additionally, since I am a HUGE nerd for benchmarks, the next chapter should push the story over the 200k words mark.
Expect another give-away contest of some sort, most likely involving art of the main characters to be used on the book cover...hint hint.

Speaking of books, this one will be published ~~ON or BEFORE 5 June 2013~~ Eventually, to commemorate my birth anniversary. So far, it is 506 pages long and should run around $15-$20 for a paperback, depending on quantities ordered. As the date comes nearer, I'll post a link to pre-order the book so you can reserve a copy for yourself. A certain number of the first printing run will come with an autograph, so don't hesitate when the time comes.

Last Edited 02DEC2015.

Heh. I was so confident that this would be published by now. Goes to show that nothing is set in stone until it's come to pass.

17: The Decline

Chapter 17
The Decline

I sat there in the meadow for an hour or more, simply enraptured within the serenity of nature. In the early afternoon sunlight, the wildflowers upon the valley floor shimmered as a blanket of jewels upon an ocean of green. The gentle breeze made its way across the valley, forming waves in the bejeweled sea before me. As beautiful as it was in spring, my mind’s eye still conjured forth an image of the scene ablaze with the glory of autumn. The splendid shades of red and orange spilled across the lands. Alabaster pillars stood out in stark contrast to the backdrop of fiery brilliance, providing a wonderful brace; pillars ‘neath which I would give myself to Joy evermore. The scene was so vivid in my mind, it was as if I was actually there in the moment. I could smell Joy’s perfume, hear the joyous sounds of happy ponies, and almost taste Joy’s lips pressed against mine.

This was not a hope, nor a dream; this was destiny. It was simply meant to be. Never before in my life had I ever paid mind to such ridiculous notions, scoffing at the belief that there was a “greater plan” and other such nonsense. I simply refused the concept as a ridiculous attempt to shift the blame from a person to a mysterious and omnipotent force, claiming that “it simply wasn’t meant to be” instead of owning up to one’s own failings. And yet… here I was. There was simply no denying it. This was deeper than a gut feeling, deeper than intuition… I can’t even properly describe it. This feeling simply resonated within me in a way that words fail to capture. Come hell or high water, I would fight through fire and flame for Joy’s hoof in marriage.

I took a long and deep inhalation, breathing out slowly and savoring the sweetness of the air for a moment longer. I opened eyes I didn’t recall closing and stretched languidly before commencing the trek back into town. I sauntered through town, energized by my relaxing sabbatical in the meadow. The day was no sunnier than it had been all day, and yet everything seemed… brighter, more vivid somehow. I had no ready explanation for this, though I cared not. Despite the somewhat unusual start to the day, this was still one of the better days I'd had in a good long while. Judging by the position of the celestial orb, it was nearing sixteen hundred, and was coming rapidly upon the time of Joy’s return. Despite my relaxed pace, I still managed to cross a good portion of the town’s width in less than a half hour.

I opened the door and strolled to the living room, favoring Dawn with a smile as I passed the kitchen. She replied in kind and bade me a good day, a gesture that I reciprocated. I'd only just sat down before Dawn followed me from the kitchen, a silver platter balanced on her haunches. As I unbuckled my bags, she set the platter down and distributed a trio of cups and saucers around the table. There came the sound of a door being opened and closed, followed by a set of hooves drawing closer. Joy rounded the corner with a slightly haggard look on her face, though still sporting her lovely smile as she deposited her book bag and took a seat next to me. I leaned over to nuzzle her neck, and she did the same to me.

The tea was poured without a word, yet the silence was anything but awkward; a comfortable stillness had settled ‘round us all. Joy snuggled against my side, resting her head upon my shoulder as she seemed to be unwinding from what was undoubtedly a long day. Across from us, Dawn was reading a newspaper and sipping her tea contentedly. I'd not had a chance to grab mine before Joy took her seat next to me, and I was now unable to get up and get it. I came upon a solution; a solution that was borne halfway out of desire not to move and disturb Joy, and halfway out of because-I-can. I extended my wing on the non-Joy side, using my primaries to cradle the cup and saucer as I brought it to my hooves.

Or, I tried to. The tea was halted just beyond my reach by a faint blue glow. Sighing in resignation, I looked at Joy with a smirk and a cocked eyebrow. She looked up at me from the corner of her eye, trying to hide her smile by sipping on her tea. You had to hand it to this mare, she could be cute and devious at the same time. She finally released her grip on the teacup, allowing me to finally partake in the relaxing beverage. At the first taste, my mind lit up like a fireworks display.

The taste of honey danced across my tongue, and my heart skipped a trio of beats. Derpy's face filled my vision, the image of her lips pressed against mine dominating my thoughts. I somewhat enjoyed the image, and I found that to be rather disturbing. How could I even think about something like this when I'd gone shopping for a wedding band not even three hours ago, and the mare to which I was to give my everything was physically pressed against me? I tried to retain my outward composure as I internally grappled with this incongruous notion.

What the hell is wrong with me? How can I even think about enjoying something like this when my marefriend is resting at my side at this very moment?

Well, let's not be too quick to beat ourselves up over this. The situation wasn't unpleasant, and there is no shame in that. You didn't ask for it or encourage it, it just happened. And it's not like you're going to leave Joy for Derpy or run around on your marefriend. It's not something that you should ever admit to anypony under any circumstances, but the fact that you liked it is not your damnation. So go ahead and enjoy it, and don't feel guilty about it. Besides, she did taste pretty sweet...

But... no, it still seems wrong. I get it that it wasn't my fault, but I --

Stop. Stop right there. "Fault" implies that it was something bad. It may not have been intentional, but it was not something malicious or shameful. If you keep thinking about it like that then you'll always feel guilty for no reason. It's like thinking about your ex and remembering the fun you had, even though you are now with someone who makes you happier. The memories don't become "bad" because you left the person you made them with, and you can smile about the past without betraying the present.

Whoa. When did I become so introspective and enlightened?

Come off it. We both know that you are far from stupid, you just make poor choices and find conscious thought to be bothersome.

Yeah, I suppose that's fair. I'm still not entirely comfortable with this, but I can see the logic behind it. Well, I feel better than I did a minute ago, so I guess I'll be fine.

Satisfied by my own answer, I ventured back into the world of the living; for once, I hadn't been missed as I let my mind wander. Joy was still snuggled into my side, and Dawn was still flipping through the pages of the newspaper. Clearing my throat, to get Joy's attention, I looked at azure mare by my side.

"So Joy, have I got a story for you or what..."

Joy turned towards me and regarded me with a raised eyebrow, inviting me to begin my story.

“Well you see…what had happened was… I’d started to clean out my saddlebags, for lack of better things to do; and when I got to the bottom, I found a lovely emerald. I wanted to see what it was worth, so I ventured into the town to a place I’d passed by on occasion to get it appraised. Are you familiar with a place by the name of Diamond’s?”

Joy did a spit-take right then and there, and I swear I could feel the disapproving glare that Dawn was shooting at me from over the top of her paper. I figured I had roughly ten seconds to plead for my life before it was forfeit.

“See, based on your reactions, I’d say you’ve heard of the place before, at least in some capacity. Well, I hadn’t. And a place named after a precious stone seemed like a sure bet to get a jewel appraised, at least in my strange little head. About two minutes after I entered, I left that place like it was on fire, and I’m pretty sure that my blush was visible from the moon. I was so embarrassed, worried, and concerned about the whole event and how you would take it, that I was debating how to tell you for the better part of the afternoon. I finally gave up and decided that the best thing to do would be to simply come right out with it and hope for the best. So, heck of a story, eh?”

Joy facehoofed, but she was smiling. “Dave… only you. Only you could walk into a brothel looking for a jeweler, and not figure it out for two whole minutes. Really, what was the tipping point for you?”

“When Diamond came out wearing some dominatrix gear.”

Joy buried her face behind her hooves again, and it was a little difficult to tell whether she was laughing or crying at first. As soon as her hoof slipped from her face though, there was no way to hide her grin, spread as it was from one ear to the other. Joy was laughing so hard she was unable to make a sound, and I could hear the paper rustling as Dawn tried to contain her own chuckles. The silence was short lived as the pair of them descended into guffaws of raucous laughter at my misadventures. Relieved at how well this had gone over, I allowed myself a sigh of relief and a little chuckle at my own expense.

Joy wiped a tear from her eye, placing a hoof on my shoulder as she looked me in the eye. “Oh, Dave… see, this is why I never leave you alone. Next think you know, you’ll be followed around by a veritable harem of mares under the impression that they are your ‘fan-club’ or some such nonsense.”

I adopted my best serious-face as I asked “Wait, you mean that’s not normal?”

Joy looked unsure whether this was a joke or another instance of me being a naïf, and had I been able to hold my poker-face a little better, she might have had a few more seconds to ponder. Betrayed as I was by my smile though, the only thing she was left pondering was how best to punish me. I got off a bit lighter than I would have expected, receiving only a magical pop on the snout. I suspected that there was further retribution to be had in the future, and that I'd pay for this when I least expected. Alas, such is the price of female companionship. My mind’s rambling was interrupted by Joy’s sweet voice posing another question.

“So, what other comically improbable antics have you gotten yourself into today? Anything I need to know about before the civil guard come knocking at the door?”

Well, I used the aforementioned emerald to secure a line of credit with which I will be buying your engagement ring and wedding ring.

“Nothing comes to mind, love. Had a sandwich, went for a walk. I was trying to keep a low profile after the previous events, for obvious reasons.”

Joy fixed me with a half-serious and half-amused glare, letting me know that the window for amnesty was about to close. I simply smiled at her, content that I'd said everything that I'd needed to. Seeing that I'd come clean (at least as far as she knew), Joy exhaled, deflating slightly as the apprehension of further revelations left her. Slumping against my side once more, we enjoyed our tea in silence for a while longer. Dawn was the first to leave, making her way to the kitchen after only a half-hour or so and causing a small racket as pots and utensils collided in the room adjacent to Joy and me.

Another half-hour or so passed in amicable silence before Dawn intoned from the other room, inviting the two of us to join her for dinner. The dinner was a vegetarian stir fry, and was quite delicious for not having any meat in it. Dinner was eaten in something near silence, interrupted only occasionally by small talk of some sort or another. A strange quiet had descended upon our usually vociferous party, though it wasn’t unduly awkward. Compliments were exchanged and dishes were done with a minimum of communication, and shortly afterward Dawn excused herself as she retired to bed, presumably. Joy and I made our way to the couch, snuggling up together instead of our usual brushing arrangement. After all, it was not time for bed just yet.

As I laid against the couch with Joy cuddled up to my chest, she recounted her experiences throughout the last few days as she adjusted to her increasing workload from school. So far, she was managing to keep up with the assigned work within an hour or two after class let out by heading straight to study hall and knocking it out while it was still fresh in her mind from the lesson.

“And that’s been working well enough for me so far, but soon the amount of homework and research projects are going to increase dramatically, and I’ll have to either stay out later at study hall to get it finished, or I’ll have to take it home with me and do it here. Which, since you’ll be on nightshift from Monday onward, might be my best bet. The study hall librarian is a bit less than friendly after a certain time at night.”

I shrugged and nodded. Some ponies just aren't night owls. “Ah, I can imagine. And with me on night shift, you should have the peace and quiet you need to get your work done. I will admit, there are times where I can be somewhat distracting.”

“Times? Somewhat? We obviously have different definitions of these words, Dave. But, with you gone, at least I’ll have my work to keep me occupied. As much as I’m loathe to admit it, I think I might actually miss your shenanigans at night. And I will definitely miss the brushings. Go figure, you manage to integrate yourself into my nightly routines just in time to be put on night shift and send everything topsy-turvy.”

I leaned over and nuzzled her, happy that I would be missed. Luna knows I was going to miss her, too. “Hey, it’s what I do. You know you love it.”

“Fine, you got me there. You keep it interesting, and I like that about you. Sometimes, a little bit too interesting, but I guess I have to take the good with the bad and all that.”

“A wise mare, you are. Between the two of us, we average out to only slightly stupid.”

“Slightly stupid? Either you underestimate my sheer brilliance, or I’m underestimating your... not-so-brilliance.”

I scoffed, placing a hoof over my heart in a wounded fashion. “Is that your fancy way of calling me dumb?”

“What? Why, I would never… but if the horseshoe fits…”

Joy chuckled at her own joke, and though I found it rather amusing as well, I still gave her my most melodramatic “oh, how you wound me” bit, complete with swoon. We continued in this manner for an unknown period of time, eventually ending our shenanigans when Joy indulged in a theatrical yawn.

“Tired, Joy?”

“No, yawning is good for the circulation. Though on an unrelated note, I find myself quite drowsy.”

I kissed her on the forehead, drawing from her a shimmy of pleasure and a smile. “Well, then take a nap, love. I’m going to stay up for a bit longer, hopefully get myself adjusted to the night shift somewhat before Monday rolls around. Go nocturnal, and all that jazz.”

“Aww, drat. I’ll miss my pillow. How do you plan to stay awake?”

“I figured I'd go for a walk, try to keep awake until zero two or three.”

Yawning again, Joy stretched a bit before responding. “Jeez, isn’t that a bit long to be awake?”

“Huh? It’s a little under a full twenty-four hours, and nowhere near the longest I’ve stayed awake at a stretch.”

Joy rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin on her elbows to look at me. “Really? And just how long have you stayed up at a stretch?”

“By the longest stretch without sleep, or by least amount of sleep on average over a given period of time?”

Joy blinked in confusion at the way I’d worded my question. “Wait… huh?”

“Longest period awake with no sleep was a little under forty-five hours. Least average sleep per day was a two-week span where I averaged two to three hours of non-consecutive sleep per day.”

“Holy… whoa. I'd tell you how unhealthy that is, but I have the distinct impression that you know from experience.”

I nodded. “You’d be right on that one. But anyways, a little less sleep isn’t going to kill me. Sweet dreams, love, and I will do my very best not to wake you when I return, okay?”

“Well… alright, I suppose. I’m still not entirely sure you should be allowed out after dark without supervision, but what the hay… what’s the worst that could happen?”

I couldn't help but smirk at the way she tempted fate. “Famous last words… “

“On second thought, perhaps you shouldn’t go. Just… be careful, okay Dave?”

I smiled at her, stroking her shoulder to reassure her. “Of course, Joy. I’m just going to be wandering around aimlessly until I get tired, and then I’ll head back and rack out until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay… well, I’m tired and going to bed. Have fun out there.”

I shot Joy another reassuring smile as I leaned down to kiss her goodnight. She smiled and bundled the blankets tighter around herself, closing her eyes and drifting away almost before my eyes. I killed the light and stepped into the hallway, opening and closing the door as quietly as I could. I stood in the sweet coolness of the night, marveling in awe at the incredible tapestry of night that was stretched across the heavens.

Staring towards the inky blackness of the night sky and the stars which shone like so many jewels, I instantly felt a pang of sadness for Luna. Truly, this night sky was every bit as beautiful as anything the day had to offer, and almost nopony was here to see it. This was simply… tragic. I flapped my wings a few times to clear the buildings around me, hovering somewhat shakily in the sky as I reveled in the panorama of the night sky. Under my breath, I whispered to nopony in particular.

“Luna, thank you for this beautiful night. Should all other eyes be hidden from its majesty, mine shall yet seek it out. What a wondrous sight to behold.”

A small shooting star flashed across the obsidian dome above me, and a childish part of me wanted to believe that this was a sign that Luna had heard me and was thanking me. I knew it was rubbish, but I held onto the notion regardless; it filled me with a little ember of pride and wonder. The mere thought that the Princess of the night had heard my declaration was my own personal fallacy, a belief that I knew to be false but held onto anyways because of the way it made me feel. Grinning like a fool and giddier than I should have been, I ceased flapping and coasted back to the street, landing softly before setting off at a lazy trot to explore the town after dark.

The town had a distinctly different appearance once the sun went down, and not only because of the different illumination. The shops and stands that usually adorned the sidewalks and streets were either closed up or gone entirely, making the areas they usually occupied appear vast and empty in contrast. Row upon row of houses were closed and darkened, save for a few lanterns burning in the windows of those not yet asleep. The peace and the stillness of the night was a gift to me, one which never grew old or unwelcome in my eyes. I passed Berry’s, seeing it closed up for the second time in my stay in town. A single light burned upstairs, in what I assumed was Berry’s bedroom.

The thought of Berry in conjunction with a bed, in a bedroom, inspired a flash of thoughts I had to shake my head to clear out. I stalked quickly away from the shop, trying to leave those thoughts behind. I eventually passed what I assumed to be the post office, judging by the stylized envelopes emblazoned across its windows. Vaguely, I recalled that Derpy’s house was very near here, and after a few moments of searching, I nailed the most likely culprit. After all, who else but Derpy would have a pair of muffins painted on their mailbox? Smiling to myself, I kept walking around the town, stealing frequent glances at the shifting of the night sky. I picked out a constellation earlier in the night that reminded me of Orion, and I was using its location in the sky to keep track of the time and of my heading, trying not to get lost at night without landmarks to help me find my way home.

I found myself stifling a yawn, and checked my watch to see if it was late enough to head home yet or not. Seeing that it was already zero two, I figured I could start along a winding path home and get there in a reasonable amount of time. In a straight line, I could be there in ten minutes. As I'd wandered around town, I'd spent more time walking down alleys and side-streets than walking away from home, and thus had covered very little distance from where I'd started. As I continued my meandering in the direction of home, I passed by Daffodil’s diner, taking note that it was still open in the wee hours of the morning. That would be handy to know when I got a case of the midnight snacks on night shift.

My meandering came to an end right on schedule, and I stealthily entered the house at just before zero four. Shucking off my saddlebags as quietly as I could, I managed to climb into bed without rousing Joy, a feat in which I took much pride. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was again swept away into dreams of flight, though this time I was neither falling nor conversing with the moon Princess. I slept fitfully, roused a few times by the sounds of life going on around me as I slept. By the time my alarm sounded at fourteen hundred, I found that I was still tired. I rolled out of bed in a fog, making my way to the latrine to shower and conduct my morning rituals. As soon as I emerged from the ablution, I found myself feeling rather refreshed and energized, having washed away the lethargy that plagued me.

This was not the best part of the day, either. I emerged to the smell of something wonderful being cooked up in the kitchen, and the sing-song voice of Joy beckoning me to join her for a late lunch. We ate at the table together, and I found myself enjoying the food more than I usually did. Joy kept trying to get a rise out of me by poking fun at me for sleeping so much, but I was blissfully unaware of anything other than the delicacy plated in front of me. As was its wont, the food once more disappeared entirely too soon, leaving me craving more. Joy sensed her opportunity and launched once more into her well intentioned jabs at my sleeping habits, drawing a sigh from me. I couldn’t help but smile as I thought to myself ‘here we go again’.

The rest of the day passed in what I would consider a normal fashion. Joy took me for a stroll to one of her more favorite places, the place she would come to think or relax when life was becoming too much to bear. This place was a special place to her, as it had the almost mystical ability to put her at ease regardless of what was on her mind. So tranquil was this place that she had christened it “The Quiet Place”, and noted that it was her safe place. She shared all of this with me as I followed her, noting that some of the landmarks near me were beginning to look familiar. We took a turn away from the town, venturing into a small patch of woods. In but a moment, the town was all but gone from view, as was whatever sounds it produced. There was naught to be heard other than the whisper of the breeze through the branches overhead. The trail twisted and turned a few times before finally opening up to reveal a verdant meadow, resplendent with wildflowers in bloom. In the midst of the valley floor was a small hill, on which there stood a lone oak tree of incomprehensible age and wisdom.

I recognized this valley, as it was in this very valley that I had sat and daydreamed about the future not a full day prior.

I looked at her, feeling the emotions stirring in my chest, and confessed that I'd been there before. “So, this is your safe place? Drat, I’ll have to find a new one.”

Her Jaw dropped. “What? You’ve been here before?”

“Yeah, I ended up here yesterday, after the whole incident with Diamond’s. I sat under that tree for a few hours and just allowed my mind to wander.”

She smiled at me. “Ordinarily, I’d make a comment about how it’s too small to be out on its own like that, but I’ve spent many an hour doing the exact same thing. Though when I daydream under here, I’m sure I dream of different things than you do. After all, I dream about what all little fillies dream of.”

“Did you dream of an autumn wedding?”

Her jaw hung wide open. “What the… how did you… actually, yes. Yes I did. How did you know?”

“Just a guess. I found myself thinking about the same thing, actually. A few years in the future, most likely, but I could see everything as if it was actually there.”

Okay, that last part might have been a bit of a lie, but Joy didn’t need to know my plans just yet. She didn’t answer me directly or verbally, rather she just shook her head in disbelief. Honestly, I found it to be a little too coincidental and did my best to just accept it and not think about it too deeply. This place just seemed to exude the spectre of fall, so that probably had something to do with it.

We passed the rest of the afternoon in the meadow, lost in thoughtful conversation about the future and the present, though never the past. The sun was caressing the horizon as we turned to head home, having ridden out the end of the daylight hours lost in conversation. I stopped Joy as she turned to leave, beseeching her to stay a while longer.

“Joy, let’s stay here for a bit. When’s the last time you sat and reveled in the splendor of the night?”

“’The splendor of the night’, you say? Where do you come up with these terms?”

I waved a hoof in the air, as if conjuring an apparition. “Spectacular vernacular, and such. But really, when is the last time you sat outside and stared into the night sky?”

“Oh, I can’t even remember the last time I did that.”

“Well, was it before Luna’s return?” I questioned.

“Yeah, a few years before, at the least.”

My smile broadened. “Okay, well you really need to see it in that case. It’s simply awesome.”

“I guess so, considering how excited you seem about it.”

We sat in spellbound silence as we watched the day give way to the dominion of night, birds and clouds giving way to the stars and clear skies of night. In an hour, the sun had vanished entirely, along with the fiery colors of the sunset. In its stead there sprung forward the cool colors of night and the plethora of stars that dotted the sky like jewels. Though the horizon was still lightened from the setting of the sun, the sky overhead was the dominion of the night. I took a moment to lament that Joy would not be awake in the wee hours of the morning to experience the full majesty of the night as it held total reign over the skies, the Equestrian equivalent of the milky way stretching across the sky like a faint skein of starlight.

Even under the modest control of the Night Princess, the sky was still a marvelous tapestry atop the world, and it captivated Joy entirely. Joy’s fascination with the stars reminded me of my own reaction to their splendor, and I sent forth another silent prayer to the Moon Goddess.

“Luna, I thank thee once more for this marvelous night you have given us, and for the soft light of your moon to light our way home.”

No sooner had I finished than a large meteor streaked across the horizon, bright enough to leave a streak in my vision as it passed. For the second time in a row, my prayer to Luna had been followed by a shooting star, and I was beginning to doubt that this was a mere coincidence. Could it be that Luna could really hear my prayers, and was answering them with a meteor as her way of smiling upon me? The thought was almost preposterous in its un-likelihood, but I couldn’t shake the notion that it might be true.

Satisfied that Joy had embraced the wonder of the new night sky, I nudged her to get her moving as we began our trek back to the house. As we turned to leave the meadow, I caught sight of a single cloud floating far from town and impossibly high above the rest of its kin.

Could it be… could it be her? The similarities between this scene and the one in the dream were notable at the very least. The meadow, the night, and the lone cloud so far above the rest, seemingly mocking all those who would try to reach it. It was simply not likely that the princess of the night would be loitering in the skies over a town such as this, one with so little night-time activity. Yet I still found myself falling prey to that most resilient of notions, found myself possessing a gleam of hope.

Hope is a strange emotion in and of itself. With the exception of perhaps love, no other emotion endures so valiantly even in the face of overwhelming odds and evidence to the contradiction of its existence. Hope seems to be strengthened by the adversity facing it, thriving in the mounting odds. All of this to say that I knew that Luna most likely was not up on that cloud, most likely not watching over me and answering my prayers with comets and meteors. And yet, I chose to believe, because maybe… just maybe…this wasn’t a dream.

Joy was lost in the stars, her eyes hungrily drinking in the night sky she had never seen as we made our way back home. Several times, She let out a dainty yawn as the excitement wore off and the lateness of the hour began to take its toll on her. Within a half hour of arriving home, she was in bed and fast asleep. For lack of anything better to do, I made my way outside to once more embrace the caress of the night. I couldn’t ask for a better time to practice my flying without the hassle of onlookers, and so I spread my wings and took to the skies. My launches were getting much smoother, and I felt as if I was finally mastering the transition from ground to flight.

I soared over the town in lazy loops, picking out the landmarks that I knew and building a mental map of the town from an aerial point of view. By the time midnight rolled around, I was able to effectively navigate the entire town from the air, and I found that this was a far quicker way to get across town, not that it was much of a surprise. No traffic or twisty roads to slow me down. I reveled in the exhilaration of flight, interspersing a few of the maneuvers from my training so that I could practice them in the privacy of the night. Turns out, the practice wasn’t even necessary after all of the drilling that Coach had made me do. Every time I went to try something, I could hear her voice in the back of my head telling me just how it needed to be done. I even started mixing and matching the drills into my own creations, or into my best approximations of things I’d seen in footage of dogfights in the glory days of aerial combat.

One such move that pleased me to no end was the Split-8, or the “inverted switcheroo” as I liked to call it. From flying forward at a high rate of speed, I would perform and aileron roll to my right, stopping when I was inverted fully. From there, I would angle my ailerons and my “rudder” (which was nothing more than my tail and legs) while pointing my nose upwards. What this served to do was pitch my nose (and subsequently the rest of my body) in an upwards direction, which was towards the ground in my inverted state. I kept pulling “up” until I was traveling parallel to the ground in the opposite direction I’d been traveling a moment earlier. This served as a very effective way to switch direction quick, fast, and in a hurry. Once I’d worn the shine off of my new tricks and exhausted myself, I made my way to the meadow I’d been in not more than a few hours earlier that evening. I sat in the same place that I’d sat earlier, and I looked up to the moon in its new position among the stars; if the night were a cathedral, the moon would be the keystone in the archway, holding everything in place like the jeweled centerpiece of the night sky.

From the corner of my eye, I spied once more the lone cloud floating far from all the rest, solemn and forsaken over the Everfree forest. Visions of my dream from a few nights before flew through my head, but I quickly discarded them as flights of fancy. Even if Luna really was up there, I'd have no idea of how to introduce myself, or whether or not she’d be upset with me for breaching her solitude. No, this was a fantasy best left as just that – a fantasy.

I sat there under that tree and watched as the seemingly endless parade of stars made their way across the sky. The night air possessed a slight bite of cold towards the wee hours, and I found myself wrapping my wings around myself to fight off the chilly breeze. With my wings wrapped around myself like a warm blanket shielding me from the bite of the breeze, I found myself drifting away into a semi-lucid dream as the sky began to lighten in the east. I recall nothing from that point on, though I found myself roused from slumber by Joy’s insistent nuzzling of my shoulder. I opened my eyes to look around, and saw that the sun had somehow managed to climb into the eastern sky without me noticing it. Dazed, confused, and entirely exhausted, I followed Joy home.

From what little sense my sleep-addled mind could make of the things she said to me, I gathered that Joy had become concerned when I failed to come home by morning’s light, and had set out to look for me. After checking with Berry to see if I'd been hanging out there, she had a hunch that I'd be in the meadow. Joy’s instincts had served her well, and she soon discovered me under the tree, wrapped snugly in my wings, drooling happily and mumbling in my sleep. Demonstrating once more that she was far better a partner than I had any right to, she’d ventured out into the mist of early morning to seek me out and ensure my safe return to the couch. The last thing I recalled as I clambered into bed was the sweet taste of her lips against mine as I drifted away to sleep once more…

When my alarm sounded, I woke up to a very unfamiliar sensation… that of an empty bed. I sighed, clambered to my hooves, and began my day with the same routine as always. In the fridge I found a lunch and a breakfast for me, prepared by Joy at some point during the day. I gathered the foodstuffs into my saddlebag and left for work. I arrived about twenty minutes early, which mean that I was over half an hour ahead of my shift, what with being fifteen minutes early to everything. I grabbed the work orders from the front desk and made my way to the janitorial grotto for some light reading. I met Scruffy, who was sitting in his usual place behind the desk. I pulled up a chair, and we conversed idly about the state of the clinic and what needed to be done overnight. After a little advice on what to tackle first, I was ready to get my first night as manager underway.

Ten minutes prior to shift change, I was introduced to my coworker on night shift as she walked through the door. I finally had the opportunity to formally introduce myself to the mare known as “Buffy”, whose skill for polishing anything and everything was borderline unnatural.

“Good evening, miss. You must be this Buffy I’ve heard so much about. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She met my smile with a skeptical half-smirk, as if unsure of what to make of me. “Uh… hey? Yeah, I’m Buffy. Who are you? I was expecting to see Brass… “

“Oh, right. Sorry about that. My name’s Dave, and I’m your co-worker on nights.”

“You? Co-worker? No offence, but are you up for the job? Scruffy, is he one of yours?”

Buffy followed her declaration with another skeptical look, turning to Scruffy for confirmation. The older pony had been monitoring the exchange from behind his newspaper, and apparently sensing that his input was needed, he folded down the top of his newspaper to address the two of us.

“Young lady, this stallion right here may’ve referred to himself as your coworker, but make no mistake about it, he’s your boss. He’s just too polite to put it all blunt-like. From what I’ve heard about him, Dave’s a decent pony and he’ll do right by you so long as you do your job.”

Buffy looked like she’d just been reprimanded, immediately adopting a submissive posture as she began to apologize for her outburst.

“Oh, horse apples, I didn’t—“

I cut her off at the start with a wave of the hoof. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. No harm; no foul, right?”

“Uh… okay, I guess? Are you sure you’re not a little ticked?”

I shook my head with a smile. “Nah, simple mistake. So, are you ready to make this place sparkle?”

Buffy met my challenge with the same cocky grin that I sported from time to time, answering me confidently. “I thought you’d never ask.”

And just like that, we were off. Buffy knew what to do, setting off on her own to take care of the general housekeeping in the clinic as I began to take care of the work orders for the night. Had I harbored any sort of expectations for the tasks ahead of me, I might have been disappointed. I changed out some lights, fixed some squeaky doors, stopped a dripping faucet, and replaced a window screen. Not exactly what one would call an exciting night, but it was a good way to start the night shift. By midnight everything on my list had been completed, and so I ventured back to the office to see about ordering supplies as I waited for Buffy to finish up with her tasks. I was only mildly shocked when I entered the office and found aforementioned mare reclining in the office chair and staring lazily at the ceiling.

Hearing me enter the office, she snapped out of her daze and popped to her hooves, stammering excuses for sitting or some such nonsense.

“Whoa, calm down. I saw you sitting in the chair, so that must mean that you’ve finished everything on your list, right?”

Buffy nodded sharply, still looking at me as if she was expecting something bad to happen. To this, I merely shrugged and asked a few follow-up questions. “Alright, I’ll take you at your word. So, how long does it take you to complete your tasks?”

“About three hours, unless something is really dirty or somepony makes a mess and I have to go back and clean something again.”

“So, you’ve been here for… how long?”

She shifted on her hooves, looking uncomfortable. “Erm… about… two hours?”

As she spoke, her voice grew quieter and quieter, to the point that I almost didn’t hear her say “hours”. I let out a low whistle.

“Wow, not bad. Kudos on the speedy job, Buffy.”

The compliment seemed to catch her off guard, and she blinked absently for a second before replying.

“Yeah… thanks.”

“Do you have anything else to do right now?”

She reached up and scratched the back of her head. “No, not really. I usually end up re-washing everything a time or two until shift ends.”

“That’s not necessary. Tell you what… go ahead and take a break. If you come back at zero-four, can you clean everything you need to before shift change?”

Her head cocked to the side at this one, trying to discern if this was a trick or not. “I… well, yeah… but… I don’t want to take a four hour break. I need as many hours as I can get, I have bills to pay… “

“I never said I'd clock you out. The way I see it, you are getting paid to do a job; getting paid to clean the clinic. If you can bust your rump and get it done quickly, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t have that extra time to yourself. You’ve earned it by working as hard as you did. So long as you let me know where I can find you if something comes up and stay out of trouble while on the clock, I’ve got no problem letting you go do your own thing. Sound fair?”

The skeptical look made its return at this point. “Are you sure? Is this a setup?”

“Huh? What… no, this isn’t a setup. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I just thought it would be nice to get out of the clinic for a bit since you’ve finished everything here. I’m releasing you until zero-four, at which time I expect to see you standing in front of this desk and ready to go. What you do between now and then is your own business.”

“If you’re sure about this, I guess I’ll take you up on it. So you don’t care where I go, as long as I let you know where I’ll be, right?”

“Yep. Just try to stay in the vicinity so you can get back here quickly if need be.”

“Can I go to Berry’s?”

I answered with a smile. “Only of you bring me back a smoothie.”

Buffy seemed to blanch at this a little bit, dropping her gaze and pawing a tile.

“I… I don’t have enough bits for two smoothies. I think I’ll just stay here, then… “

“I wouldn’t make you pay for my smoothie, Buffy. That’d just be a jerk move.” I slid a few bits onto the desk, along with my coupon card for smoothies. “Here are the bits for my smoothie and yours. Since I’m making you carry it all the way back from Berry’s, it would be rude of me not to give you something for your trouble. All I ask is for a smoothie, and to get Berry to punch the card.”

Heh, Berry… punch.

For the first time since I'd met her, I got the mare to smile. “Alright, sounds good to me. A free smoothie is a good smoothie.”

Buffy scooped the card and the bits off of the table and set out into the night, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I pulled out a clipboard and started an inventory on cleaning supplies, compiling a list of things that I needed to order. Ah, the glorious life of night shift janitorial duties. I was just finishing up when Buffy returned, bearing a smoothie and a befuddled look. Upon asking her what was confusing her, she hoofed me the smoothie and mentioned that Berry had said that this was “for Flyboy, from Fruit Butt”. I chuckled for a moment before I stopped and explained the joke to Buffy.

The rest of the shift passed in a blur, and before I knew it the shift was over and I was walking home. The sun was just beginning to crest the mountain to the east, and I fought back a yawn. My sleep schedule was not quite adjusted to the night shift yet, and I was dragging ass. I got home, ate, showered, and fell into bed. The last thought that crossed my mind as I drifted off to sleep was how empty the bed seemed without Joy in it.

The rest of the week passed in this same manner, and I found myself missing Joy more and more with every day. We would come into work early to spend time with each other, as well as staying late to get one last kiss after shift change. The weekends became our time to catch up with each other, our time to be together and shower our pent-up affections on the object of our affection. The weekends was us adopting a semi-nocturnal sleep schedule as we adjusted our rest periods to better coincide with the other’s. Late evening picnics became our favorites, and we would head out to our special place to watch the night wrest control of the sky from the day.

Alas, Monday came all too soon; we were once again relegated to the opposite sides of the clock. In this manner, the next month passed without much deviation. The biggest and most noteworthy thing to happen in the first few weeks was the increase in my pay. I'd known that I was getting a raise, but I hadn’t bothered to find out exactly how much it would be. When I went to collect my pay, I was initially convinced that I'd been overpaid. After consulting Brass and the banker-pony, I determined that I hadn’t in fact been overpaid, I was just stinkin rich. It took me a good ten minutes to regain my self control and suppress the urge to buy everything within sight.

Once I had reestablished control over my spending urges, I placed myself in the back of the line, aiming to speak with the banker-pony again. The line finally cleared up, and I was able to speak to the banker at my leisure. He was a middle-aged earth pony with a pale green coat and a darker green mane, sporting bi-focals that magnified his intensely blue eyes. Despite the hard lines in his face from a lifetime of frowning, the stallion named “Till” was a good natured individual, and much friendlier than his looks implied. In only twenty minutes, I'd set up a savings account with the Ponyville Bank.

This was a far better method to save for Joy’s ring than to pile the bits under the couch and hope that nopony would notice. Additionally, I found that I could send payment directly from the bank to Emerald City to pay for the ring, negating the need for trips during the daylight hours. Yes, things were going swimmingly. With my newfound wealth I was able to not only pay for the ring, I could also afford to take Joy out to dinner every Saturday night, earning us a reputation as “regulars” at the Fleur de Lis. Heck, we had our own table and everything. Snazzy, huh? At the end of the month, even after all of the date nights and the ring payment, I still had bits left over, bits which rapidly began to accumulate in my account.

The months passed in a dreary blur of nightshifts, punctuated by the fierce flurry of the weekends and the affection lavished within. I stayed in contact with Derpy through the mail (how else?), occasionally sending her a basket of banana nut muffins to accompany the letters. My midnight strolls to Berry’s had become a nightly staple once I was confident that Buffy could hold down the fort for an hour at a stretch. Berry and I would chat for a bit, though it usually consisted of her sharing gossip and me reveling in the tales of everyday hilarity like I was some school-filly.

Before I knew it, May was upon us. As the month drew near its end, so too did my patience. I found myself getting anxious and frustrated at the smallest things, having to catch myself several times when I was about to overreact to something. Everypony could see it, and everypony was constantly asking if they could help make me feel better, if I wanted to talk about it. I politely dismissed them at first, but woe to those who couldn’t take a hint. I'd ended up sending out nearly a dozen apology-bearing fruit baskets by the time everything was said and done. The one pony who I never allowed to see my bad side was the one who asked the most questions… Joy; my blessing, my curse.

Joy… nopony was more worried than she was. And of all the ponies, she was the one I wouldn’t allow myself to snap at, and she was the one to whom I could say nothing. Every question she asked me about how I was feeling or what I was thinking about was met with the same cryptic reply:

“I’m just being haunted by shadows of the past. I can’t talk about it anymore than this.”

After a while, she too let it drop.

What was I supposed to tell her? Tell any of them? Was I supposed to just come right on out and tell them that this had been my wife’s birthday? That this was the time of our anniversary? How could I tell anypony about something like this? I simply couldn’t. And so as the days wore on, so did the turmoil building within me. I stopped sleeping well, tossing and turning throughout the day as shattered fragments of remembered times were dragged across my mind.

The day we exchanged vows. The time I showed up at her house at zero one with a box of chocolate and a single rose, tattered to hell inside my motorcycle jacket as I rode to her house. I remembered how I felt so ashamed of that thrashed flower with all of its bruised petals and broken stem, and yet she smiled like it was the best rose there had ever been. How could I sleep with these feelings within my breast? So very many feelings collided within me, vying for dominance… pride, shame, remorse, contentment, despair, loss… the list went on and on. The feeling that weighed the heaviest upon me, however, was guilt. What was Devin doing right now, back home? Was she crying alone on the sofa, trapped within the confines of her grief with nobody to comfort her? Was she trying to be strong for our son, trying to put on a brave face and swallow the pain in her heart?

I was far from the perfect husband, I know this. I had many faults, and some of them were very ugly. Even so, I tried to be a good husband; I gave it my all, dammit. And now here I am. In a moment of weakness and stupidity, I'd managed to throw away everything I'd ever done. I wondered if Devin… if Devin thought I was dead? I'd been gone for three months already, at least as far as I knew. Our anniversary fell on her birthday, and it was always nice to celebrate growing another year older together. But this year… this year, there would be no celebration. There would be only sadness. She might not have been the perfect wife, but she gave it her all, every day. I could never ask for anything more, and I loved her for it.

And yet, she was left alone, scared, hurt, and confused as she lamented the death of her husband and the father of her son because of me. And here I was, falling in love and moving on like she’d never meant anything to me at all. I despised myself so intensely that I was becoming ill from it. I was hardly able to eat, and when I did manage to eat something I had to fight my body to keep it down.

The past I’d tried to forget, to hide from myself and everypony else, began to well up and engulf me. I’d never gotten closure, never dealt with the very real and very intense feelings of loss and isolation and betrayal… I’d just distracted myself with day-to-day living in my newfound paradise, allowing these malignant emotions to fester and metastasize into something rotten in my soul. Instead of facing my past and coping with these emotions, I ignored them and was now paying the price. Every happy memory I’d made since I’d arrived here, every smile, every bout of laughter, and every blossom of warmth in my chest was consumed by my guilt, fueling its growth.

I had never lost anybody before I found myself in Ponyville; and suddenly, I found that I had to come to terms with the fact that I’d not only lost everybody I had known before, but that I’d lost them all at the same time and hadn’t spared more than a moment to mourn for them. I wanted to be resilient, to overcome this adversity by way of character strength and positive attitude, but I simply could not. The full scope of my loss pressed upon me bit by bit, slowly crushing me under its weight. It was simply too much for any one person (or pony) to handle. and instead of reaching out for help when I so desperately needed it, I was doing the opposite; pushing away those who tried to help. In some sick way, I felt that I needed to suffer alone for my mistakes. And so I did.

Everything I’ve ever been taught about dealing with loss told me to do the exact opposite of what I was doing. I knew better, at least in theory. In reality, the first victim of my depression was my judgement. And so it was that I found myself in a rapid downward spiral, unable to eat or sleep properly, locking me more and more firmly into the spiral.

May twenty-fourth. That was the date. My decline had begun on the fifth, and it had been swift and brutal. By the fifteenth, I'd lost at least five kilos. On a frame my size, that was a very significant amount. Everypony was growing more and more concerned, and that concern soon evolved into worry and then fear. Whatever it was that was eating at me, ponies had long since learned not to question me about it for fear of reprisal. Through this time, Joy was constantly by my side, having requested a temporary move to night shift in order to watch over me better. The fifteenth of May, I was put on a thirty day paid vacation by Brass. She was convinced that it was the stress of the new job that was doing this to me, but she didn’t have the heart to outright fire me. I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had allowed my grief to fester and putrefy, and now it was killing me from within.

By the twenty-first, I was so malnourished and weak that I could barely get out of bed, barely walk to the bathroom on my own. I was unable to keep down much of anything, and the toll was becoming apparent. I began to fade in and out of consciousness, and that’s when things started to get… strange. I closed my eyes in the living room, and when I opened them, I was outside. It was night time, and the breeze was warm and heavy with the scent of grass and a building storm. I blinked, and there was a pair of beautiful blue eyes staring into mine. I felt warm rain drops falling on my face, the smell of skies pregnant with torrential rain was nearly overwhelming. The wind roared in my ears in a strange rhythm, one that was both familiar and alien at the same instant.

The sky was torn by a blinding light as the universe seemed to explode in a terrible cacophony of noise. Heavy beads of freezing rain pelted my body, a sensation I only half registered.

Strange… I thought the water was warm a second ago…

Again I blinked, finding myself no longer in the darkness and the rain, but rather bathed in light and quite warm. The strange howl of the wind was still present, rising and falling in a manner that beckoned my mind to grasp it. There was a sharp beep that rose periodically, following its own rhythm in the midst of such chaos. Everything went dark as the sounds faded away to silence.

I found myself sitting upon a cloud under the pale moon’s light, the night sky stretching immaculately above me. The gentlest of breezes caressed the strands of my mane, causing them to dance slowly in the night air. The breeze carried the scent of lavender, presumably from the meadow far below. I knew that there was a meadow below me, because I'd been on this cloud before. In my dreams, I was not a withered husk of a pony; I was Dave, at my fullest glory. I turned slowly to my left, coming face to face with the princess of the night.

“Good Night, Luna.”

“Hmm. It is, isn’t it? You know, you are one of the few ponies who actually takes the time to enjoy it. I find it quite sad that most ponies know not the splendor of the night sky.”

I nodded in agreement. “As do I. I’ve never seen anything so spectacular.”

Luna favored me with a small smile. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Dave.”

“I'd argue this point, but I don’t think I'd win. Oh well. It is a compliment, take it or leave it as you will.”

At this, Luna raised an eyebrow quizzically. “What happened to your obsession with titles and formality during our last visit?”

I wing-shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure whether you are real or not right now, Luna. You may be the princess of the night and weaver of the tapestry of stars and the cosmos, or you might just be a byproduct of my malnourished brain as neurons fire in a last blaze of glory. If you are the latter, then it matters not how I address you. If you are the former, then I suppose at some point I should seek forgiveness… assuming I survive.”

Luna looked into my eyes, and it felt for all the world like she was looking through me instead of at me. “There is a strength in you that is very hard to find; you know this as well as I. Yet there is much darkness in your heart as well, and the darkness threatens to consume you. What is the cause of this?”

My heart jumped into my throat. “Princess Luna—“

“Please, Luna will suffice.”

“Luna, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. And if, and follow closely here because there are a lot of if’s, if you are the real Princess Luna, and if you believe me, and if you decide that my nature makes me a threat, then you may very well have me killed or imprisoned or banished or… something equally terrible.”

I now had her full attention. She slowly rose to her full height, walking atop the springy surface of the cloud to sit in front of me. “Your nature? What nature are you if not pony?”

I debated concocting a lie, or another cover story, or anything other than the truth, but then I realized I didn't care. I deserved whatever came of this. “Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain. You know what? Fuck it. Princess, have I got a story for you… “

Luna cocked her head. “What is this ‘fuck’ word you used?”

“Fuck…“ Sure Dave, let's just curse up a storm in front of royalty, you classy motherfucker.

Luna pointed a hoof at me. “That. That word. What is it? I am not familiar with it.”

“Fuck… this word is a naughty word where I come from, and it means, more or less, to fornicate. That is the root of the word, but not its meaning. In this context, it could mean ‘forget it’, ‘I don’t care’, ‘here goes nothing’, so on and so forth.”

“Very well then. Fuck it, as it were, please present your story.”

I did a double take at this one.

What sort of hell have I unleashed? Bah, probably nothing, since this is a dream anyways.

I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts and began at the beginning, where the start of all of this mess originated.

“Well, I was once a human. About two months ago, I was transported here by some strange magic… “

What felt like an eternity of questions later, Luna was pacing on the cloud, visibly agitated at my lack of knowledge as to the exact method of my transportation. She had long ago concluded that I really and truly didn’t know anything useful and had moved on to musing to herself and occasionally spouting a question in my direction. About the time that she was realizing that I was almost entirely ignorant, I came to the realization that I was really and truly boned in the worst kind of way. She was asking me advanced magical theory questions and using terms I'd never heard of before, things that made no sense to me even after repeating the question two or three times. Because of that, I was able to draw two conclusions. First, this was the Real Princess Luna. Second, I was so incredibly boned. I'd just blabbed the entire circumstances of my arrival (minus the part about my military training) to one of the two ponies who could conceivably have me sent home.

I was going to beg for clemency, plead to stay, grovel for my live… until I was brutally wrenched from the dream by a body-wracking convulsion that traveled from my gut outwards. My eyelids snapped open as the dream gave way to a waking nightmare. My stomach was revolting for all it was worth, and it felt like I was going to break myself in half. I have no idea what was happening. There were bright lights and blurry shapes, the roar of the wind was reaching a cyclone’s pitch, and the mellow beep from earlier was now a shrill jackhammer screeching away at my ears. There was a jab of pain and then everything went black once more. This time, there were no dreams. I was welcomed solely by the void.

Author's Note

This Chapter is near and dear to my heart, because I've been there. I've seen myself wasting away to nothing but a withered husk of my former self. I may not be all that smart or have much common sense, but that sense which I do have was hard won by way of my many mistakes. Life Sucks? Stupid people got you down? Feeling like there is no hope for a brighter tomorrow or that there is nobody out there who "gets" you?

I've been there, and because of my friends, I made it out the other side. Let me tell you a little story about myself. I speak not as the dude writing this story, but as a simple human being; I speak from my experiences as a person, and what it almost cost me.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

If you need a helping hand, a friendly voice, or just someone to talk to, contact me. I am NEVER too busy to help somebody in need. Here is my personal email address; it goes straight to my phone and I can check it from anywhere. I do not judge anybody for their beliefs, preferences, politics, or anything else.

DCAMPBELL4410@GMAIL.COM

Anything you talk with me about will stay between the two of us and be entirely confidential.

My Story

As you’ve probably figure out by now, I am Dave; Dave is me. The first 3,000 words of the story are all true. The motorcycle, the fighting, the drinking, and the speeding, it’s all a shameful truth. That however, is not the story I am here to tell. That story begins here.

My name is David Campbell. My wife and I got married in May of 2010, exactly 12 hours before I left for basic training. At the time we were married, my wife Devin was about 8 weeks pregnant. For the next seven months, we hardly saw each other, and we barely spoke. I was, still am, and will always be, a recluse by nature; because of this, I didn’t see anything wrong with this. I went to Basic in May, and I went to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in August. Basic is just that- basic. It teaches you how to be a soldier, how to work as a team to accomplish a common goal. AIT teaches you how to do the job that you signed up to do, give you the skills you need to be effective in your chosen field. In the last month of AIT I bought the motorcycle, and that was the tipping point. The tenuous communication that I'd maintained with my wife was severed entirely, as I spent every waking moment riding the bike.

I left an 8-month pregnant woman to fend for herself without so much as a phone call to tell her I loved her. There is nothing I can do to make up for the terrible way I treated her during this time, and as you can imagine, this added an incredible amount of stress to our lives. My son was born in December, and I got to come home for a few weeks to help her recover before I had to fly halfway across the continent to go back to work. Between December and April, contact was minimal at best, and tensions were at the breaking point. Whenever I did call her, all I got was hostility from her. There were many reasons for this, but I’ll not get into it. Suffice it to say that lack of contact was the big one. In April, she said she was going to leave me and take our son. At the same time at work, I got in some bad trouble.

All of these factors kept piling up and piling up on top of me faster than I could dig myself out of them. To escape, I used alcohol and my motorcycle. I rode so recklessly that it was legitimately suicidal, though I didn’t see it that way at the time. I just saw myself as the baddest thing on two wheels, pushing the limit wherever I could. I’ve done over 150 miles per hour through traffic. I’ve sat on my gas tank while weaving through traffic at 80 miles an hour. I cannot count how many times I'd endangered my life and the lives of those around me for my own stupid, selfish self-destructive purposes. I never stopped to consider how incredibly selfish I was being. As much as my Wife wanted to leave me, she loved me ten times more. Because she loved me so, the way I ignored her was that much more painful. Eventually, she decided that it would be better to live on her own than to remain attached to someone who wasn’t there for her. She still loved me, and I chose to be worthy of her love by trying to take myself out of her life forever, to leave my son without a dad, my mother without a son, and my sisters without a brother.

Luckily, I was stopped before I succeeded. I was pulled over for riding 120mph in a 60mph zone, my bike was taken away for a year, and I was given a second chance. Just after I was released from police custody to my chain of command, I was pulled aside by a close friend of mine, who wanted to ask me what I was thinking by doing something like that. He had to walk away before he punched me in the face for being so selfish. That was when I started to realize what I'd been doing on that bike; I was a suicide looking for a place to happen. In retrospect, it seems so incredibly obvious to me what it was that I was actually doing, but in the heat of the moment I was too caught up in the adrenaline rush to care.

In that year that I was forbidden to ride, Devin and I came together to work out our problems. We still haven’t solved all of our issues, but we are far better off than we were before and we are slowly getting better with time. If not for a police officer’s intervention, my friends would never have known what I was doing. Without my friends talking some sense into my idiot head, I probably wouldn’t have known what I was doing before it was too late. But because all of these things came together the way that they did, I’ve been saved from myself and given a second chance. Above all, I am thankful that there was someone for me to talk to, thankful for giving me back the time I needed to change these things in me. I am thankful that I was given the time and perspective to see exactly what it is that I almost threw away, to see how valuable the little things are. The little things with two feet and big blue eyes, the little things that call me “Daddy”.

The Moral of this story is to please, please seek help if you need it. It may seem like there is nobody out there who cares, like there is nobody on your side.

This is not true. You have me.

DCAMPBELL4410@GMAIL.COM

Anything you talk with me about will stay between the two of us and be entirely confidential.

Edited on 02DEC2015

It would seem that at the end of the day, this marriage wasn't meant to last. Devin and I are now divorced. Reading back through this story, it brings up so many feelings and memories. What was once my inspiration for Joy is now exactly what it is in the story; a forgotten and forsaken relic of a past life. Life's funny like that, I guess. Anyways, I stand by what I said earlier, now more than ever. If you need a friend, just ask.

18: The Best Laid Plans

Chapter 18
The Best Laid Plans

I have no idea how long I was in the void, whether it was a year or but a fraction of a moment. All that I know is eventually, I emerged from the void and returned to the land of the living. Slowly, I opened my eyes into a dimly lit room. The lights in the room were all off, but there was enough of a glow coming from the screen of the monitor measuring my vital signs to see by. A thin ray of light slipped through the doorframe, augmenting the wan illumination. I could feel the weight of my sorrow and my guilt pressing down on my chest, threatening to choke the life out of me. In a sickening irony, the pressure of my guilt was a familiar, comfortable feeling. Of course… my suffering would be a sick and twisted form of comfort for a masochist like me. I didn’t deserve to be happy, I didn’t deserve to feel anything resembling hope when the one who had loved me so was suffering so terribly. I wasn’t worthy of feeling joy.

Joy.

Joy?

Pieces began to fall into place as my brain sluggishly gathered clues. The weight on my chest was not psychosomatic, it was actually there. There was a physical weight upon my chest. As if on cue, the weight shifted slightly before settling. A wave of sensations flooded my mind. There was a reason that this weight seemed familiar, seemed comfortable… and that reason was simply that the weight was Joy, sleeping atop my supine form in our usual manner. At this moment, Celestia divided by zero on Pinkie Pie’s calculator, and the impossible happened. My guilt doubled, and redoubled again. So caught up was I with my lamentations for a life I'd never return to, that I'd completely, utterly, and unforgivably neglected the one I lived now. I'd shuttered myself within the dungeon of my own self pity and spurned all who tried to let in the light of friendship. I'd neglected myself to the point of hospitalization and refused to speak to anypony about it. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how worried Joy must be about me, or how terribly hurt she’d been by my cold shoulder.

And you want to know the kicker? The thing that really made me feel like the lowest scum to have ever metabolized carbohydrates into energy? She was still there for me. Here she was, passed out by my side in a hospital bed in the dark of the night even after I'd treated her so terribly. She’d stayed here by my side, though she had to have expected more of the same crappy treatment as before. And yet, she stayed.

She’d stayed.

Joy… why? Why would you stay?

I knew the answer. She loved me, and it was more painful for her to be away from me than to put up with me. My heart swelled with adoration and admiration for Joy’s inner strength, all the while breaking for the way I'd treated her.

I knew I was a fuck up, but I was unaware of just what a glorious clusterfuck of badness I actually turned out to be.

Something inside me broke at that point. I felt a tear slide down my cheek, and that was the end of it, there was no turning back. I wrapped my feeble arms around Joy and silently wept, letting out emotions I didn’t know I'd been bottling up for several weeks. Grief, guilt, remorse, and shame came first, being the emotions I was most familiar with. What came next though took me by surprise.

I felt the fire of rage burning in my gut, trying to consume me from within, felt the unabated hatred setting my blood to boil. I loathed myself for what I was becoming, for letting myself wallow in self pity, and most of all for the way I'd treated everypony that tried to offer a helping hoof. I ground my teeth so hard I thought they were going to break and slowly flexed the arm not pinned under Joy in an effort to establish some form of self control. I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream and holler until I had no voice left, wanted to punch the walls until something broke, wanted to throw and smash and destroy anything in reach. There was a time in my past where I would have done just that, but I just wasn’t that person anymore.

Slowly, ever so torturously slowly, the rage began to abate. My pulse began to slow and I managed to stop gritting my teeth before I had none left. It wasn’t until the sound of my teeth being ground against themselves ceased that I realized how loud it had been. I'd been grinding my teeth so hard that the sound had awoken Joy from her slumber, something that must have been quite frightening. What a sight I must have been… tears flowing freely, breathing heavily, clenching every muscle as tightly as possible, and grinding my teeth to dust. In the silence that followed, a faint sound came to my attention… Joy was muttering under her breath as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

“Dear Celestia, full of grace, hear my plea… “

A prayer. Now, I may not be the smartest pony around, but when a medic starts to pray, it is generally a bad sign. Joy fervently repeated her litany over and over, and it seemed like she hadn’t yet noticed that the episode was over. Not wanting to startle her, I gently reached out a feather and brushed a lock of her disheveled mane away from her face. She was interrupted mid-supplication by a startled gasp, her eyes immediately popping open and locking on mine. In the instant that our eyes made contact, something unspoken passed between us, and Joy’s relief was palpable. Also palpable was the feeling of being suffocated as Joy threw herself around me and squeezed me as hard as she could. Though we both shed tears, they were tears of relief rather than anguish.

We wept until tears no longer came, at which time we simply embraced the other, grateful for their presence. Eventually, we found our words.

“Joy… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through… I… I’m sorry.”

With a voice made raw by emotion, she asked the only question she could. “Dave… why? Why would you do this, what could possibly be so bad that you’d give up on life rather than talk about it? Why would you scare us all like this?”

“I can’t… no, no. I have to talk about this. I don’t know if I can, but I have to try. All I ask from you is for you to hear me out completely before you tell me to get out of your life for good. Please?”

“Dave, I don’t think that there is anything in Equestria that could keep me from you, let alone make me leave you. But for you, I promise anyways.”

I couldn't bring myself to look her in the face, so I instead focused on the ever beeping monitor. “You may reconsider after this.”

The pain, fear, and dread in her voice was palpable as she spoke next. “There’s not some other mare, is there?”

“Huh? No, there’s not. Well, not exactly.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eyes just yet, but I could feel the weight of her gaze upon me. I sighed deeply and began my confession.

“Joy, before I came to Ponyville, I had a life far different than what I’ve told you. There are things that I didn’t tell you… things I should have, and wanted to, but couldn’t find the words to tell you. I was in a relationship with another mare. It was far from perfect… we were almost constantly arguing, and sometimes it seemed like the only thing keeping us together was a mutual fear of having to start over with somepony new. And then one day… everything changed. I… they… I lost… she didn’t… “

My voice cracked and my body shook as the wounds were opened again, and the weeping started once more. I fought to get this terrible weight off of my chest, to be free of even a fraction of the secrets I bore.

“I lost her. Be… before I came here, I lost the one I loved. I couldn’t cope, so I fled. Everything I saw reminded me of what I once had, so I left it all behind as I tried to outrun my pain. And for a while, it looked like it was working. There was the accident that led me here to Ponyville and brought us together, and everything seemed right in the world. I thought I'd finally put it behind me. But it would seem that my past has caught up with me after all.”

Long moments of silence passed unbroken, save for the beep of the monitor. When Joy spoke up, the pain in her voice was unmistakable. “Dave… why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner? Doesn’t this seem like the sort of thing you should tell your marefriend about? What set it off, why did this all happen all of the sudden when everything seemed to be going so well with you?”

“The date. It’s coming up on my old anniversary and her birthday. I’m sorry, I thought I would be able to handle it, I never expected this.”

“That makes two of us.”

I could hear the hard edge of bitterness in her voice, her tone revealing the depth of her hurt…no, hurt was the wrong word. She wasn’t hurt, she was feeling betrayed. I couldn’t blame her one bit. A tense silence descended upon the room as that last proclamation hit home and sunk deep.

I had no idea how I'd live without her, but I had accepted my fate. “If you want me to, I’ll pack my stuff while you’re at work. I won’t make your life any more stressful than it already is.”

Instead of agreeing, Joy fixed me with a fierce gaze. “What makes you think you are going to get off that easily? No sir, if you think I’m going to let you pull something like this and then walk away, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I… I don’t understand… “ Was this some cruel joke? Was she toying with me?

“You aren’t moving out, Dave. After all of this, you’re going to have to stick around and suffer my abuses for a good long time before we’re even. Heck, we might never get even, considering how prone you are to pulling shenanigans.”

“So… you aren’t kicking me out?”

“What part of ‘a good long time’ did you not get?” Relief and careful optimism flooded me in equal parts.

“I just… I don’t know what to say. I was sure that you’d want nothing to do with me after this.”

“Oh, I considered it for a brief moment. But all jokes aside, you make me feel things I’ve never felt before, for better or worse. After something like this… really, what’s left to worry about? Everything else pales in comparison. If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.”

I had no words. None would have been able to properly capture my wonder and adoration for this mare, anyways. Instead, I pulled her close and kissed her deeply. The moment our lips met, I could see the light again, the light that had been growing dimmer and dimmer as that fateful date grew closer. The clouds parted and a beam of hope shone through to dance upon my face. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and all I had to do was hold tight until I got there. Sitting there in a hospital in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a hospital robe as tears still glistened on my cheeks, I smiled.

“Hey, Dave?”

“Yes, Joy?”

“If something like this ever happens again, a little heads-up would be super.”

“Heh, okay. I’ll be sure to warn you when there’s an emotional train wreck inbound.”

“That’s all I ask.”

We chuckled a little bit at this, and the sound felt strange in my chest. Considering that this was the first time in a month or so that I’d laughed, it was understandable. It felt good, like I was taking the first step back towards normal.

The next three days passed in a blur. Nurses came and went, bowls of soup and applesauce gave way to trays of real food, and I could feel the strength returning to my limbs. I went to the therapy sessions like they wanted me to, and the shrink gave me a clean bill of health and a tired smile. The last thing he said to me as he walked me out of his office for the last time was that the best patients are the ones who can fix themselves. I nodded, smiling to myself for reasons he’d never know. During the therapy sessions, he kept using words like “resilience”, “bounce back”, and “bend, don’t break”. Even in an alternate universe full of ponies, I couldn’t get away from resilience training. Go figure.

I was summarily discharged with a smile and a ton of papers to keep track of, which I immediately took to Brass at the new clinic. After explaining everything for the third time and presenting the supporting documents, I was finally able to convince Brass to put me back on the schedule for night shift. I had a week-long evaluation period to make sure I was good to go, after which it would be back to business as usual, provided everything was to Brass’ satisfaction. Everything was still as it should be by the end of the evaluation period, and I was officially back to night shift manager. Sure, I was catching a bit of flak from Buffy about this whole “fake a mental illness to take a covert vacation” theory of hers, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Besides, some of her theories for what I’d actually been doing in my time off were pretty damned hilarious. I had no idea where to find a volcano, or how to ski down one, but now I was more than a little eager to try it.

Slowly but surely, the whole event faded into the past, relegated to the realm of memories. My birthday came and went without much fanfare, mostly because I only told Joy about it a day ahead of time. I had barely finished my sentence to tell Joy about the birth anniversary when Pinkie exploded out of a seat cushion in Pony Joe’s with a burst of confetti, screaming the word “Party” as she streaked away. Sure, I was a bit shocked by the sudden outburst, but you should have seen the mare who’d been sitting in the booth at the time. Her expression was priceless. The following day, I received a grand total of eight gifts. I got a basket of oatmeal muffins from Derpy, A basket of apples and fritters from Applejack, a cake from Pinkie, a book on aerial combat from Twilight, A phoenix feather from Fluttershy, an autographed picture of Rainbow Dash (for when she got famous), and a beautiful brush from Rarity. The brush was made from a beautiful blue stone with mother of pearl inlays and silver trim.

Last, but certainly not least, was my gift from Joy. It was a small envelope with a mouth-written note wishing me a happy birthday, and the greatest gift of them all: two tickets to the spa. We went that weekend, and it was immediately apparent why Rarity frequented this place so much. At the end of the day, I felt like jelly on legs, every single knot and kink having been worked out of my body. Aside from my birthday and the spa visit, nothing really spectacular happened. The spring melted away into summer, my beloved nights getting shorter and shorter. I often dreamed when I slept, but not once did I encounter Luna as I had before. I chalked it up to the fact that Luna and I were awake at night and asleep during the day, affording her no opportunity to pay me a visit. I was partially saddened by this, but at the same time I figured that no news was good news, even though I somewhat expected a wing of royal guards to drop by the clinic for a “chat”.

With Joy busy with school and work, we didn’t see much of each other outside of the weekends. This led me to try and find new ways to entertain myself on the weekdays, and I did so by making a nightly circuit of the bulletin boards scattered around town. It was on one such nightly excursion that I was struck by an industrial-strength flash of brilliance. Near Lyra’s music store was a small board used to advertise local musicians and performances, which I found particularly amusing. This was mostly due to the outrageous names of some of the bands. On this warm July night however, there was something new that caught my eyes. It would seem that Lyra had some sort of insider in Canterlot, due to the fact that she had a flyer advertising a limited number of tickets to a concert in Canterlot for sale. And just who was to be playing at this concert, you ask? Why, none other than Miss Octavia, of course.

And just like that, an idea congealed in my mind like the leftover gravy from thanksgiving. I would dig into my savings, no matter what the cost, to buy tickets to this concert and transportation there and back. No, no… that simply wasn’t enough. I had to make it… fabulous. I knew just who to talk to.

As soon as my shift was over, I made a beeline for Lyra’s, arriving just as she was opening shop for the day. After a bit of haggling and more than a little wheeling-and-dealing, followed by more haggling, I ended up spending far more than I planned on. It was worth every single bit I paid, though; I had managed to score not only two seats front and center, but also VIP backstage passes. After the concert, Joy and I would get to hang out with Octavia. You know, no big deal. I practically floated to Carousel Boutique after that, partially because I was giddy with excitement and partly because I was carrying significantly fewer bits in my bags. The Boutique didn’t open for another hour, but my knock was answered nonetheless by Sweetie Belle. I explained myself for a moment to the filly, after which she disappeared behind a closed door. I stood there long enough to wonder if I should just turn and leave, but any further debate was quelled by the opening of a door.

I must say, even standing at the door in a bath robe first thing in the morning, Rarity looked stunning. Her face lit up when she saw me, but only for a moment before I was swept into the boutique as the door closed behind me.

“Terribly sorry about that, darling. I couldn’t very well leave you standing on the stoop like that. What would somepony think if they saw me in such a dreadful state?”

“They’d most likely be jealous that they couldn’t look so stunning this early in the morning.”

“Oh, you and that silver tongue of yours. I know you’re just being polite, but the gesture is appreciated. So, what can Rarity do for you?”

Take off that robe, nice and slow like…

Fuck off, you.

Hehehe… I’ll leave you with that visualization. Ta ta for now.

Goddamit. Now it won’t go away. Focus!

“Ah, well. I’m going to be attending one of Miss Octavia’s concerts in Canterlot, and I was wondering if you—“

“But of course, darling. I’d love to accompany you as your escort.”

I took a brief second to wonder if the word “escort” had the same connotations here as it did on earth, but chose not to dwell on the subject. Instead, I picked up right where I left off.

“—if you knew a nice place I could take Joy out to eat in that area?”

The alabaster mare looked positively crestfallen, from her puppy-dog eyes to her quivering bottom lip.

“But I thought you were taking me to Canterlot? It isn’t nice whatsoever to raise somepony’s hopes like that just to dash them. How uncouth.”

“But I… but you… I didn’t… “

Rarity’s disappointment vanished in an instant, replaced instead by a triumphant grin.

“What’s the matter, darling? Opalescence got your tongue?”

“But… alright, I have to admit it; that was a masterful jest.”

“But of course. After all, everything in this boutique is a cut above the rest.” Rarity punctuated her statement by flipping her perfectly coiffed mane in dramatic fashion.

“That should be your slogan.”

Rarity tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. You may be right. At any rate, back to the task at hoof. You are seeking a gourmet dining establishment? I know just the place…”

Ten minutes later I let myself out of the boutique, armed with a napkin-map of the area of canterlot I’d need to navigate. So far, everything was looking simply superb. All I needed now was a way to get to the event and back. Thus I took to the skies once more as I sought out the last of my destinations; the lair of a certain purple unicorn.

An hour later, I headed home, exhausted, and more or less successful. The good news that stemmed from this meeting with Twilight is that I did indeed have a mode of transport to canterlot and back. The not-sure-what-to-make-of-this news was that it wouldn’t be in Twi’s balloon like I’d originally planned, but rather in one of Celestia’s own personal sky carriages, one which was reserved for Twilight to use at her leisure. True to her incredibly analytical fashion, Twilight had been able to find out the guidelines for her usage of the carriage. Twilight was permitted to use the carriage at any time for any length of time and for whatever purpose she saw fit. However, Twilight could also authorize an emissary acting on her behalf to utilize the carriage for an appointed purpose for up to twenty-four hours. There were numerous other clauses and caveats, but the important thing was that Joy and I would be permitted to use the carriage to shuttle us to the concert and back. All we had to do was drop a book off at the Royal Canterlot Library while we were at it.

So, there it was. The entire plan had come together in the matter of a few hours. We would be flying to Canterlot in the Princess’s own sky carriage to attend a concert being performed by Miss Octavia. During the concert, we would be seated front and center of the stage. Immediately following the concert, we would be escorted to the VIP section backstage to socialize with Miss Octavia. After socializing, we would head to the restaurant Rarity had recommended for a gourmet meal. Following this, we would return to Ponyvile.

Now, I know what you are thinking.

“I thought you said you’d teach her what love could be like. All it seems like you are doing is trying to buy her love with extravagant gifts. What gives?”

A valid point. Here’s the thing though… it’s not the fact that it is a super fancy concert in a big city that makes it special, the fact that it is her favorite musician performing makes it special. Sure, the restaurant is crazy expensive and over-the-top, but as much as Joy cooks, you can tell it is a passion of hers. Not her true calling, perhaps, but something she really enjoys. So why not spoil her once every so often to inspire her cooking by giving her some new ideas and inspiration? The carriage is entirely over the top, but it wasn’t my idea. But see, this isn’t even the best part. The best part comes after all of the pomp and circumstance. At the end of the evening, We aren’t going to be dropped off in front of the house like you might expect. No, we are going to be dropped off in a secluded meadow, right under an ancient tree. See where this is going yet? No? Well, follow me and we will fix that later.

The concert wasn’t until the middle of October, which left me all sorts of time to get some things set up. A week after I first saw the flyer for the concert, the final piece was set in place. And this time, Flora only got some of my gelt, as opposed to most of it. Perhaps the most difficult thing to plan for was how to get Joy sized for a dress by Rarity without blowing my cover. As it would turn out, the solution was entirely too simple. All it took was Rarity asking if Joy would like to be fitted for a graduation gown, and just like that we had what we needed. It seemed like Rarity was taking a bit too much excitement out of this whole plan, something she dismissed with a wave of the hoof and something about espionage and sexy spies when I asked about it. By the time July twentieth rolled around, everything was set. The only thing to do now was to wait.

In my excitement over the Concert and my plans for aforementioned concert, I’d nearly overlooked what was possibly the single most critical event of my life at that point in time: Joy’s graduation.

Joy’s tireless dedication, unfaltering drive, her vision of the future, and her determination to make it all into reality was finally going to be rewarded. On the eighteenth of August, Joy was to receive her certification as a doctor. The final draft of her dissertation had been sent up for review on the fifth of July, only a day ahead of the cutoff date. Once the paper had been submitted, it became a waiting game. Though she tried to hide it, anypony could see that she was incredibly nervous. Even when we spent time together on the weekends, she was distant, distracted. I found it a little upsetting that she wasn’t lavishing me with the attention I was used to receiving, but I immediately recognized this notion as exceedingly self-centered and banished it.

When Joy got her letter in the mail, you would’ve sworn it was Nightmare Moon in the mailbox from the way she screamed. I was fast asleep on the couch one second, dreaming about a swimming pool full of smoothie juice that never melts. Next thing I know I’m on my hooves and hauling ass to the front door before I even consciously recognize that something is happening. As a matter of fact, I was almost to the mailbox before it sunk into my brain what was actually going on. Joy was levitating the envelope a good meter and a half away from her, cringing as if it was a venomous snake ready to strike. As it would happen, everypony within about three hundred meters heard the scream, and everypony within a hundred meters ventured outside to see what happened. I got a few dirty looks as I stood there from ponies that heard a screaming mare and then see an out-of-breath stallion standing next to her.

The way she passed out wasn’t helping my cause any, either. I managed to catch her with a wing and keep her from just flopping onto the ground like a sack o’ potatoes. The dirty looks I got at first were nothing compared to the looks I got from the ponies that had missed her fainting but saw me throw her on my back and carry her inside. I heard at least three ponies shout something at me and start galloping towards me before they were intercepted by other neighbors that had seen the whole thing.

Fast forward a half-hour, and Joy still hadn’t opened the letter. It sat on the kitchen table as she tried to stare through it and learn her fate without touching it. More than once, I'd offered to open it, and was vehemently denied each time. I reached for it anyways, like an idiot, and promptly loss all feeling in my arm from the shoulder down. It was right about then that I decided it would be advisable not to piss off the mare who could make me lose feeling in large tracts of my body on a whim. Finally, Joy had managed to gather the courage to open the letter and learn her fate. The resulting scream had similar results to the first, though since we were inside at the time, the effective range was halved. The ringing in my ears persisted for a full half an hour after the last echo had stopped reverberating through the house.

Had I not been in the process of passing out from lack of oxygen (courtesy of a death-hug from Joy), I might have been concerned about permanent hearing damage. Just as everything was fading to black, I was released from the asphyxiating display of affection and promptly crumbled to the floor. Once the stars vanished, and the ringing in my ears got a little quieter, I had the pleasure of hearing Joy read her entire acceptance letter out loud. Four times. Consecutively.

The eighteenth came creeping up ever so slowly at first, up until the last week or so. The three days prior to the ceremony seemed to vanish without a trace, and the big day was upon us before we knew it. Rarity once more proved that nothing is impossible when you have a fashion genius on the job, as demonstrated by why might have been the single most stunning graduation gown that there had ever been. What was best about the design of it was that it looked just like a regular gown when she was in a crowd; she blended right in. As soon as she broke out on her own to walk across the stage and get her diploma is when she stood out. Parts of the gown had been taken in to be more form-fitting, while others had been trimmed or been let out to accentuate Joy’s curves.

Despite the fact that there were less than a dozen graduates, the big-wigs at the podium managed to make the whole ceremony drag on for-freaking-ever. The only other pony to get their Doctorate that I recognized was Nurse Tenderheart. She’d sure come a long way from filling in as a receptionist. During the ceremony, we had to stand for so many different introductions that I think I lost a pound or two while I was there. However much it sucked for me, it was at least twice as magical for Joy. It’d been a while since I had seen that glint in her eye, and I couldn’t bring myself to be grumpy about standing so much. Just seeing her smile as years of hard work and dedication finally came to fruition… hell, it choked me up. I was so incredibly proud of her and what she’d done, it was beyond my fathom. I was so full of pride it was leaking from my eyes in liquid form. After the ceremony had come to a close, Dawn treated Joy and I to a three-course meal at Fleur’s. Joy was still randomly tearing up throughout dinner, but her smile was so bright that there could be no doubt about her disposition.

I'd found out shortly after the graduation was over that Joy would giggle whenever she was addressed as “Doctor Joy”, and I was having a blast with it. I'd sneak it in when she least expected it, trying to catch her off guard. (Get your mind out of the gutter… )

“So, no lie, there I was. I was walking in to Berry’s Smoothies to get one to – Doctor Joy.”

It was the perfect joke. It required no set up, so special delivery, no structure at all. The joke was the punchline. The best part was that no matter how badly time or out of place it was, Joy would giggle every time. The three courses came and went in a flash; so too did the hours of the night. It seemed like one minute I was in a chair, lamenting about how asleep my ass was; the next moment I was at Fleur’s, telling terrible jokes and loving the way that Joy glowed when she smiled. And just like that, we were at home on one of the rare occasions that we had the same day off of work and could just lounge around together. That night, she fell asleep with a smile on her face. Words cannot describe how wonderful she looked, cannot capture the way my heart swelled with joy and love for this mare. Moments like this one glisten in my memory like the stars in the night sky, creating constellations that weave a tale of wonder and boundless love.

September rolled along with its monsoon rains, washing away the heat of summer and rinsing the green from the leaves of the forest. The fiery shades of autumn were beginning to grow stronger each day, and the nights were once more growing longer. Joy was settling nicely into her new role as a Doctor, finding her passion renewed by her new duties.

I was still on night shift, but there was talk about moving me to day shift manager when scruffy retired in December. I wasn’t going to believe anything until it happened, but it was a promising idea regardless. Life stabilized for a while as we fell into a routine once more, the days marching slowly past like dutiful insects. Slowly but surely, the big day drew nearer. I'd resorted to a little back-door wheeling and dealing with the lead surgeon to ensure that Joy would have the day off on the twelfth of October, the day of the concert. While Doctor Stitch was a little reticent at first, he quickly warmed up to the idea when I explained all of the preparations that had gone into the evening. I had just finished thanking him and was about to walk off when he tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to look back at Doc Stitch, and I was a bit caught off guard by what I saw. He’d dropped the tough-as-nails doctor façade in favor of a wizened, fatherly expression. The only other time I'd seen him like this was when I'd brought Derpy into his clinic, covered in blood. What he said next would stay with me for the rest of my life.

“Dave, there is a lot of pain in this world, and a whole lot of darkness. No matter what, always remember that this world is a bit brighter because of you and what you’ve done. No matter what, nopony can take that from you. Thank you, Dave.”

I didn’t know what to say. I merely nodded in affirmation, receiving the gesture in kind. The hoof dropped from my shoulder, and I stepped out into the hallway. My shift had ended an hour ago, but I'd been busy talking to Doc Stitch and was only just leaving the clinic. I stepped out into an overcast sky and lightly drizzling rain. There was a gentle wind blowing, carrying brown and golden leaves across the street. The day was delightfully melancholy, perfect for introspection. Or at least, it would have been if I wasn’t about to fall asleep standing up. I sighed deeply and headed home.

The days counting down to the concert dwindled to single digits, and I could feel the anxiety growing within me. I wanted everything to go perfectly, though I knew that it wasn’t going to happen. It just was not possible for this many pieces of a puzzle to come together flawlessly, especially when I was involved. I began to check and double check my list, even though I could recite the damn thing from memory nine ways from Sunday. Finally, it was go time.

Thursday, Eleven October, Zero Seven Twenty

Eleven October dawned without fanfare, the sun doing little to pierce the morning fog and fight away the chill of night. Joy would be at the clinic until seventeen hundred that day, which left me plenty of time to catch some sleep before setting out on my errands. My alarm sounded at fourteen hundred, rousing me from my fitful slumber. I was so anxious for the days ahead that I was having trouble sleeping again. Once I had gotten myself ready and packed my saddle bags for the day ahead, I set off into town. I flew over the hustle and bustle of the town below, making my way to Emerald City in a fraction of the time it would have taken by hoof. Emerald smiled at me from behind the counter, having become quite accustomed to my regular visits over the last few months. As I paid off the remaining balance on the jewelry, Emerald shot me an exaggerated sad face.

“Dave, now that you’ve paid off the ring, who am I going to harass on a bi-weekly basis? I’m going to miss you… you’re such an easy target.”

“Hey now, be nice you meanie. I’ll miss you too, Emma.”

She grinned widely at this. “See? We’re practically pals by now. Nicknames and all. But really though, don’t be a stranger. You are always welcome here.”

“I’ll stop by every so often for my ritualistic harassment, or if I find myself in need of something shiny.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “Atta boy. Take care, Dave.”

“You too, Emma.”

From Emerald City it was just a short jaunt to Carousel, where I picked up the little black dress I'd had Rarity craft for Joy. Rarity was out on some business or the other, and Sweetie Belle had long since come to the conclusion that I was a reliable fellow. As soon as she opened the door and saw me, she left the door ajar and walked back inside. I knew the routine by this point, and followed Sweetie to the front desk. She simply grabbed the bag from under the desk and set it down in front of me, giving me a big, innocent smile before walking off. Sweetie Belle and I were cool like that ever since that first day, when I'd come to her defense against unfounded allegations of boorishness. The final bit of preparation would have to wait as long as possible, due to its perishable nature. Securing the garment in my bag and double checking on the rings, I set off on hoof towards Flora’s. I'd gotten so used to flying everywhere over the last couple months that I'd almost forgotten how crappy it was to walk along a busy street. Almost.

A bell over the door signaled my arrival at Flora’s, and a faraway greeting floated out from the back of the store somewhere. Instead of trying to track down the owner of the voice and the shop, I took up a casual position against the front counter and dinged the bell. Another muffled reply was my only response. Curious, I dinged it again. This time, the response was gruffer, but still faraway. I did a quick visual sweep of the store to make sure I was alone, a devious grin growing upon my face. Looking back towards the hallway leading to the back room, I dinged the bell about a dozen times as fast as I could. I could hear muffled vulgarities being hurled at me, but it still sounded really distant. I was debating doing it again when a very angry looking green mare charged out of the hallway. The faraway sounding voice was most likely caused by the gas-mask Flora wore, which explained why I'd heard no warning sound of approaching hooves. Upon seeing me standing on the other side of her counter with a goofy grin, Flora held her angry gaze for a second longer before she sighed and shook her head. She mumbled something under her breath that I didn’t catch, but it probably wasn’t nice.

Setting the mask on the counter, Flora rang up my order; a single long-stemmed Aurora Blue.

“That’s sixty bits, plus three bits for every time you rang that stinking bell.”

“Wait, what? But I rang it like fifteen times?”

“Sucks for you. A hundred and five bits, please.”

“That’s not fair… I don’t even get a warning?”

Flora pointed at the wall behind her, not even batting an eye. There on the wall was a framed poster with big block letters spelling out “After the staff responds to the bell, each additional ring will be charged at the rate of three bits each”.

“Well, damn. Looks like I need to read more often. Alright, here you go then. One-oh-five.”

I piled the bits neatly on the counter, counting for myself to ensure that I was paying the right amount. Once I had satisfied myself that it was the proper amount, I drew back from the pile of bits. Flora swept them off the counter and into the till, apparently taking my word for it that the bits were all there. Flora hoofed over the Aurora, ensconced in a glass cylinder with the lid taped shut for freshness. Seeing the flower in all of its shifting, luminous glory, I didn’t even mind the extra cost. I carefully packed the flower so that it wouldn’t shift much during the flight to the meadow. Satisfied with the arrangement of everything, I took to the skies as gently as I could before setting a course for the ancient oak in the center of the meadow. I didn’t even bother touching down in the meadow, alighting on a branch like a bad parody of a bird. I sought and found a protected nook of the tree in which to wedge the glass cylinder for the night. When we returned to Ponyville after the concert, I would fetch the flower from the tree and present it to Joy, along with the ring. With everything in place, I returned home to wait for Joy to get off of work.

It was half past seventeen when the door opened and closed, signaling Joy’s return. I remained seated on the couch, waiting for her to come to me so I could spring my “trap” on her. Creatures of habit that we are, she did just that. Emerging from the foyer with a tired smile, she’d never looked more beautiful. I smiled back at her, patting the cushion next to me. She obliged, favoring me with a tender kiss as she did so. Using the kiss to my advantage, I reached behind my back and pulled out the tickets, holding them just a few centimeters from Joy’s face. The kiss broke, and she immediately took note of the tickets. Words cannot convey the gambit of emotions running through me as she saw the tickets. Her expression went from confusion, to comprehension, to shock, happiness, and finally to wonderment.

“Dave, are these what I think they are?”

“Hard to say. What do you think they are?”

“Tickets to see Octavia in concert, in Canterlot.”

I was smiling from ear to ear at her delight. “Then yes, they are. But no, they aren’t.”

“You have no idea how excited I am right now. What do you mean they are but aren’t? When is the concert?”

“They aren’t just tickets. These are front and center. The front and center. But that’s not all; look at the back of it.”

I half expected the ticket to be ripped from my grip as Joy eagerly flipped it over, but this was not the case at all. Ever so gently, and with a slight tremble, Joy surrounded the ticket in a blue aura and turned it over. She brought a hoof to her mouth in shock, and then both hooves were pressed against her muzzle as a tear slid down her cheek.

“You… you got us backstage passes to see Octavia?”

“I did. I wanted to treat you to something special, and then I remembered how much you like her music. It was a bit of a hassle, but I made it happen.”

Joy said nothing to this; she gently set the ticket on the coffee table and sweetly wrapped her arms around me. This was a nice departure from the recent string of bone-crushing embraces. She held me close and wept tears of happiness, thanking me again and again. I gave up trying to tell her that she didn’t need to thank me, choosing instead to stay silent and hug her back. She was the first to pull away, wiping her tears with a smile.

“Dave, have I ever told you how awesome you are?”

“Now that you mention it, no. You haven’t. However, you should hold that thought for another minute or so.”

Doubt flashed in her eyes, however briefly. “Well, that doesn’t sound good. Is this all some form of incredibly elaborate ploy for forgiveness?”

“You overestimate me. No, I haven’t messed up recently. Anywho, you may want this.”

I leaned over the armrest of the couch to pick up the dress from Rarity, presenting the fancy gift-wrapped box to Joy. Tenderly, she pulled off the ribbons and opened the seams to expose the content. As soon as her eyes fell upon the silky black fabric, they grew as wide as saucers. She pulled the dress from the box to get a closer look at it, turning it this way and that to catch the light. Breathlessly, and with her eyes still fixed on the dress, she whispered that she loved the dress.

“So, tell me again, Joy… how awesome am I?”

The dress was gently placed back into the box it’d come from, and the box itself was set on the coffee table, next to the tickets. Without a word, Joy pressed herself forward, her lips dancing against mine as she pulled me into her embrace. She broke the kiss with a smile, looking at me with a steamy smile. Oh. Crap.

Seeing my reaction didn’t seem to deter her at all. She neither drew closer nor pulled away, instead electing to maintain her precarious perch as she leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

“When you are ready, so am I.”

I don’t think I’ve ever turned red so quickly in my life. Joy giggled like a school filly, abandoning her perch as she pulled away from me and allowed me to excuse myself to the bathroom. I returned a few moments later, after having regained control of myself to an acceptable degree. Joy was right about where I'd left her, save that she’d turned to face the coffee table and was slowly turning a ticket over and over again, studying every detail. I sat down next to her with a smile, and she leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek before speaking up.

“Sorry about that, Dave. I’m just… so overwhelmed by all of this. This is the sweetest thing that anypony has ever done for me… I want to do something super special for you, to repay you for your kindness. I care so very, very much about you and I don’t know how else to show it… I’m no good at this relationship-stuff.”

“It’s fine, love. I understand entirely, and believe me when I say that it’s reciprocal. But trust me when I say that when the time is right, you’ll have no doubt about it.”

“I believe you… I just don’t like waiting.”

I fought the urge to sigh. “I know, me neither. However—“

“Then why are we?”

“Somewhere along the lines I picked up this terrible disease called ‘morals’. I guess I’m just trying to be better than who I was.”

Joy pouted in that adorable manner of hers. “That’s no fun.”

“Tell me about it. But, all good things in time, okay?”

“Do I have a choice?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Well then. I suppose I’ll have to wait then. So, how are we getting to Canterlot?”

“Ah, that you’ll have to wait and see for yourself. You wouldn’t believe me anyways. Heck, I barely believe it myself.”

“Have I mentioned that I dislike waiting with fervor?”

I smiled my cocky half smile at her, something I was doing entirely too frequently as of late. “Well, don’t wait with fervor. Wait with Dave. Problem solved.”

“I’m going to thump you one… “

“Alright, calm down. Just know that it will be worth the wait.”

“That doesn’t help.”

Shrugging was all I could do. “It’s all I’ve got, Joy.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. What else are we going to do while we’re there?”

“Be patient, and you will find out.”

Joy groaned in frustration, causing me to smile. She’s too cute for her own good, even when she’s frustrated. She continued attempting to glean information from me in this manner for the rest of the evening, eventually tiring herself out and giving up. For the first time in way too long, I was able to brush Joy’s mane as she fell asleep. Oh, how I missed that sensation. Soon enough, I found myself falling prey to the call of the sandmare as well. I put away the brush Rarity had given me, snuggling myself a little closer to Joy. The feeling of her body pressed against mine was better than any lullaby, and before I knew it, I was out like a light.

That night, I saw Luna again. The dream was the same as ever, with the regal mare perched atop a cloud in the eaves of the sky. With everything that had happened to me over the last five months, I'd almost forgotten about that night in the hospital where I'd spilled my guts to the Moon Princess. As I found myself sitting on the cloud again, everything came flooding back to me in vivid detail, and I remembered everything.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be banished to the moon, simply excommunicated from Equestria, or if some other and more terrible fate awaited me. The weeks immediately following the confession to Luna were filled with my paranoid mind’s machinations as it feverishly spat out any and every possible worst-case scenario. I'd gotten so fed up with my own paranoia that I'd finally just said “to hell with it” and resigned myself to my fate. After all, the Princess would only do what was best for Equestria, and I would simply have to trust her judgment. And if that judgment was that Equestria would be better off without me in it, then so be it. I pushed my worry from my heart once more, peaceful resignation sweeping over me.

It had been five months… if Luna had wanted me gone, I would have been gone long ago. Though my logic was sound, I was unable to entirely shake my concerns and trepidations. There were all sorts of questions that I did not want to answer, and I was positive I'd have to answer several in the very near future. I sighed heavily, trying to purge the last of the anxiety out of my chest, to no avail.

I sensed a shift in the air pressure to my right, and I knew without looking that I'd been joined by the Princess of the Night herself.

Here goes nothing…

The silence stretched on for an apparent eternity, awaiting the questions that hummed through the air like the crackle of electricity. In five words, the charge built up and struck deep into the very heart of the issue at hoof.

“When will you tell her?”

I hung my head. Of all the questions I'd wanted to avoid, that one was the one I'd most wanted to avoid.

“I assume you refer to a full disclosure. Honestly, I’m not sure, your Majesty. I’m terrified of the consequences… I don’t know what I'd do if she left me.”

“Dave, you and I both know better. You would pick up the pieces and… how do you use this expression? You would ‘Charles Michael’?”

“Close. Charlie Mike, drive on.”

“You have several odd phrases that confuse me. Please, elaborate on this one?”

“Yes, your Majesty. Charlie and Mike are letters from the phonetic alphabet, corresponding to ‘c’ and ‘m’, respectively. Those letters in turn are shortened versions of the words ‘continue mission’, which means to pick yourself up, dust off, and get back to what you were doing before you were sidetracked.”

“I should have known that such an odd phrase would require a lengthy explanation.”

I shrugged, nodding a bit. “Yeah, most likely. And I’m not sure that I'd be able to just ‘charlie mike’ after something like that. How would I even tell her? That’s not something you can just drop on somepony and expect it to be fine.”

“All of those are fine questions, and the answer to them lies within you. You know what needs to be done, and you will know when the time has come to bring these things to light.”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Dave, I do believe that we have already covered this topic. Princess is my title, not my name.”

“Ah, my apologies, Luna. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“It is quite obvious. Do you know what your Cutie Mark represents?”

I hadn't even thought of that thing in months.“My… oh. I have an idea, but it is probably wrong.”

“I doubt it very much that you would not know what the symbol pertaining to your destiny means.”

“Well, when you put it that way… near as I can figure, it is pretty straight forward. The glass is only half full. What does a glass want, if not to be full? A cup that is less than full is missing part of itself; there is an empty space within. The hole in the side of the glass represents my nature, I think. It is a symbol of the greed that is inherent in my heart. You could pour all the water you like into the glass… it will never be full, never be satisfied. No matter how much I have, I will always want more. The drop of water coming out of the hole… I believe that it represents all the things I’ve taken for granted and lost because of my greed. Or at least, that’s what I see when I look at it.”

“Seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“Actually, no. It just sort of came to me when I looked at it in the mirror for the first time.”

“That’s because the mark is a product of your soul; I'd be more concerned if you didn’t immediately know what it was. You wish to ask for Joy’s hoof in marriage tomorrow eve, correct?”

“Uh… yes, yes I do. How did you know?”

Luna favored me with a mysterious smile. “The night is my domain. You do not have to be asleep to dream, and your dreams are of particular interest to me. Most especially your dreams of this other world. Let me ask you something. Do you know why I decided to permit you to stay here?”

“I don’t suppose it’s my dashing good looks?” I punctuated my question with my best smile.

“Hardly. I chose to allow you to remain simply because I can see the good in you. And indeed, you have done much good in your short time here. You’ve saved a life, donated your time and energy to the school-foals, and continued to spread smiles wherever you go. You’ve proven that you fit in here. You have earned the right to stay by way of your deeds.”

“Thank you, Luna. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. Truly, it is a weight off of my shoulders.”

“I can only imagine. I must say, some of your fantasies of banishment were quite amusing. Dark and disturbing, yet humorous. Quite the odd mixture, that one.”

“Thanks?” I intoned.

“Indeed. I must bid thee farewell; there are others who need me more than you.”

“Ah, yes. Good Night, Luna.”

“Is there such thing as a bad night? Farewell, Dave.”

The dream around me dissipated like a ghost into fog as everything devolved into an amorphous mass of swirling mist. Soon, the mist began to fade and settle, revealing to me a verdant meadow, positively brimming with wildflowers. Perched atop a rise not far from me, Joy stood alone in the night. I approached her, once more awestruck by the way the moonlight gilded her every feature in quicksilver. Her mane did not seem to be merely reflecting the light of the moon, but rather to be amplifying and trapping it, making her mane appear to glow. I met Joy atop the rise, nuzzling her as I did so. In the peace and the coolness of the night, I smiled.

My alarm sounded at zero eight, a good deal later than usual for a Friday morning. Though we weren’t scheduled to be at Twilight’s until eleven thirty, we were both rushing to get ready for the day ahead. We needed not to hurry, for we had plenty of time to do everything that needed to be done to prepare for the day ahead, but our pent up anxiety made us entirely unable to do anything but stay in constant motion. Unfortunately, this resulted in us being completely prepared and ready by ten fifteen. Never before had I been so frustrated by the prospect of free time. An eternally long hour later, we departed for Twilight’s library, positively giddy to begin the day’s events. We arrived at the library precisely on time (at least according to Twilight, who seemed a little too pleased by this) allowing ourselves a bit of time for conversation before the chariot was to arrive. Fifteen minutes of small-talk later, the chariot arrived out front to collect its cargo. Now, I may have neglected to mention to Joy that we’d be flying in one of Celestia’s personal carriages, and Joy might have taken one look at the carriage and immediately bowed.

The lump on my head was totally worth it.

We bid Twilight a fond farewell, taking custody of the book whose imminent return to the Canterlot Archives was the premise for this entire excursion. The pilots of the carriage were as stone-faced as any I'd ever seen, rather effectively ruling out any form of idle chit chat with them. Once we were in the air, however, none of it mattered anyways. Joy and I were essentially glued to opposite sides of the carriage as we took in the spectacular vista unfolding below us. The carriage was moving at a very rapid pace for the entire duration of the flight, a testament to the stamina and conditioning of the pilots. It had only taken an hour from the time we took off until we were on the ground in Canterlot, a feat that boggled my mind. On the way to the concert, we made a slight detour to the archives to return the book, since it was mostly on the way and neither one of us wanted to be responsible for the book any longer than absolutely necessary.

It was just past thirteen hundred when the carriage pulled up in front of the concert hall; which was a positively massive structure adorned with flying buttresses and gargoyles, the whole nine yards. The entrance to the concert was a narrow strip of red carpet, bordered on either side by a mob of paparazzi. I mentally thanked Rarity once more for the fine garments she’d provided us with, ensuring that we didn’t stick out so badly in the company of so many fancy-pants ponies.

Apparently, it wasn’t every day that a royal sky carriage showed up to a concert, as evidenced by the nearly continuous light of flashbulbs going off as ponies feverishly snapped as many photographs as they could. The carriage door was opened by one of the pilots, permitting us an easy egress onto the red carpet.

Of all the things I had imagined myself doing as a pony, walking down the red carpet as if I belonged was not on the list. And yet, here we were. Joy was close by my side as we made our way to the doors of the concert hall, doing our best not to make eye contact with anypony on the other side of the velvet rope. The doors opened of their own accord as we drew near, and as soon as we were through the portal they sealed themselves behind us. In an instant, every trace of noise from the chaos outside had vanished completely; the silence was deafening.

The inside of the hall was dimly lit, creating an intimate atmosphere. An usher appeared from the shadows to collect our tickets, tearing off a stub as he led us to our seats. Joy and I were the subject of numerous envious glares as we took our seats in the theater, due to the fact that we were seated quite literally dead center of the very first row. By the time we were settled into our seats, it was already thirteen thirty. The heavy red curtain was very nearly close enough to touch, and with ten minutes until show time, we could hear the sound of ponies and things being situated on stage. At five minutes till, all activity behind the curtain ceased and a single set of hoofsteps made their way to the center of the stage. I turned to steal a glance at Joy, and I was delighted to see the way that she was fixated on the curtain, excitement dancing in her eyes as if she was a child once more. The lights were dimmed and a hush swept across the audience.

A spotlight flared into existence, painting a bright disk on the curtain.

It was show time.

Author's Note

Yes, I know some of the indents are a little off. I can't figure it out, and it's not bad enough to warrant tinkering with it further at this time.

I told you that this would be a Double-Trouble weekend, and I delivered. Who needs sleep anyways? I had fun writing this one, and I hope you have fun reading it.

So, like I said, this chapter is a pretty important one. One of the biggest changes that I implemented was a movement into a more "overview" scale of time; forgoing the day-to day in favor of the Significant Activities (SIGACTS).

This book is drawing to a close as I set the stage for the second act, getting ready to plunge headfirst into the REAL drama. You will laugh, you might cry, but you won't be disappointed. Hopefully.

Last Edited 03DEC15

Man, I really enjoyed reading this again. Have you ever done something you're really proud of, and then forgotten about it for a while? I read this like it was the first time all over again, and I have the biggest, dumbest grin on my face right now. Way to go, past me. Try not to muck it up, future me.

19: The Culmination

Chapter 19
The Culmination

The curtain rose swiftly from the unlit stage, revealing the dominion of shadows therein. The silence was palpable as the audience sat in breathless anticipation and confusion, eagerly awaiting the first strains of a beautiful melody. From the blackened stage, there came the dainty sound of a throat being cleared followed by a very sweet and melodious voice; one as elegant as Rarity’s, but without the accent.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts, today I have a special performance for you all. This day has been made night for us, and I depart from my usual fare for something a bit more melancholic. Fillies and gentecolts, I present to you my latest work: Luna’s Requiem.”

From the stage, there rose a low, mournful note, soon followed by more of the same. Lights of blue rose and fell in time with the melody, adding an extra dimension to the notes. The melody began as a low and dreary dirge, conjuring forth the image of a funeral in my mind. There was a palpable remorse and anguish carried by the melody, and the pain and suffering it inspired in me was a physical one. I could feel the tears begin to slide down my face as the melody washed over me and consumed me. I felt the solitude and the abandonment in the melody, and it struck a chord deep within me and stirred feelings that I’d forgotten I had. The melody began to build in intensity, its discordant notes still finding harmony in their wild oscillations.

This passage, or act, or whatever you wish to call it, inspired the mind to picture a slowly growing madness and anger, as logic and reason fell to blind hatred. Lights of red and orange flashed against shades of blue and purple, the growing cacophony of light playing a silent accompaniment to the musician on stage. A sharp note sounded and the light flared white, briefly illuminating the stage and the grey mare situated in the center of it. In the brief instant, I thought I saw the glimmer of a tear upon her cheek. The lights immediately resumed their rhythmic waxing and waning in shades of Pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange, and white, offset by a blue-tinted darkness. The melody became the score from an action movie as the tempo increased, causing my pulse rate to do the same. It was as if I was watching the Mane Six battling against the Nightmare in a clash of light and sound.

The “battle” raged on and on, the intensity slowly building to a climax, and the lights followed suit. Gradually, the stage was well enough illuminated to make out the figure on the stage, though it was impossible to tell if Octavia was actually crying. The crescendo came in a great sweeping wave of emotion, as the lights atop the stage flared brightly in a prismatic display of colorful illumination. The music and the lights died as one, plunging the stage into silence and darkness. I initially thought that the performance was over at this point, but from the darkness there rose a slow and somber note, so quiet that I nearly missed it. The music slowly built upon itself, becoming lighter and cheerier as the notes flowed. In a way that was difficult to explain, the melody conjured forth the image of fall in my mind, as the leaves burned red and began to fall.

The melody continued its cheery tune, giving its praise to the redeemed princess of the night as she was once more a part of the kingdom. The piece came to a close with a single, drawn out note that echoed a sense of finality as it spread through the hall. A moment of silence followed the conclusion, and was soon shattered by the thunderous sound of applause ringing in from all directions. The walls of the concert hall shook under the onslaught. The lights on the stage had risen with the melody, their brightness and twinkling mirroring that of the music, until the stage was fully illuminated. Octavia was bathed in the glow of the lights as she stood and took her bows, the entire audience rising to its hooves as she did so. A series of bows were rendered before Octavia laid her instrument into a velvet-lined case.

Turning from the instrument, she made her way to the center of the stage, stopping only a few meters from where Joy and I sat. From this distance, I could see the damp path that tears had traced down her face. As she stood in the light, she gazed expectantly out across the crowd, causing their volume to rapidly diminish until silence once more reigned. Once the audience had been silenced, she spoke up once again, her voice cracking from the emotion.

“Good afternoon, everypony. I can see that you’ve all enjoyed the performance. This is the first time I’ve performed this piece for an audience, and I hope that it moved you as it did me.”

As she said this, her gaze locked on mine as I brushed a tear from my eye. She then reached up and mirrored the gesture before continuing, her gaze passing back out to the crowd.

“This piece is a tribute to Princess Luna, as you may have guessed. The piece begins prior the Banishment, as I tried to convey the loneliness and despair that Luna endured as the ponies shunned her nights in favor of the day. The next stanza begins to reflect the growing madness and rage within her heart as the nightmare begins to take hold. This stanza leads into the battle between the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and the Nightmare during the Resurgence, culminating with the banishment of the Nightmare and Luna’s Redemption. The pianissimo that follows represents the recuperation period that Luna required as she adapted to life after a millennium of banishment. And finally, the allegretto at the end signifies the triumphant return of our Princess of the Night, whom we welcome back into our lives with open arms. Thank you for your patronage, and may your days and nights be full of joy.”

The audience once more rose to its hooves and sent forth a thunderous applause, shaking the very ground with its force. The curtain fell on the stage, signaling the end of the concert and prompting ponies to begin moving towards the exit. I stayed seated as the hall cleared out, earning me more than one sour look as ponies had to go around me. Casting my gaze at Joy as she sat beside me, I took a bit of comfort as she wiped tears from her eyes as well. At least I wasn’t the only one who had been moved by the lovely piece. Even though her eyes were puffy and red from her emotional response to this truly great music, Joy looked positively amazing in her little black dress. By the time Joy had quelled her tears, the hall had nearly emptied of patrons, and a platoon’s worth of cleaning ponies descended upon the vacated seats.

Joy and I took to our hooves and made our way towards the side of the stage, finding our way blocked by a positively hulking mound of pony. His dour demeanor vanished entirely once we flashed our VIP passes as he kindly gave us directions to our destination, and while smiling, no less. A few turns and short hallways later, we were outside of a simple wooden door, its appearance not befitting the tier of celebrity within. A gentle rapping on the door elicited a soft response from within, inviting us across the threshold. The handle was surrounded by a blue aura and turned, the door silently swinging open as Joy led the way into the room.

I marveled at the room, which stood in opposition to everything I expected. The room was small, perhaps ten meters square, and somewhat dimly lit. I’d anticipated a cathedral-sized space, chock full of important ponies and their lackeys, as lesser ponies fought for space at a buffet table. Instead, the small, dimly lit room was furnished with naught but a quartet of over-stuffed leather loveseats arranged so that they all faced each other. Everything seemed to be designed to foster a sense of closeness and intimacy, which it most certainly did. In the chair facing the door was a grey mare, sitting with her legs crossed under her and a cup of hot tea held in her hooves. She took a sip as we walked in, smiling in bliss and sighing contentedly. Opening her eyes, her expression was one of puzzlement for a moment before her features lit up in recognition.

“My goodness, I recognize you two… I played a little something special for you when I stopped in Ponyville a few months ago. How have you been since then? Oh, look at me, babbling on… please, take a seat and get comfortable. Tea?”

Joy found herself a bit overwhelmed by the deluge of questions from her idol, so I took the lead in answering the questions as best I could as we took a seat.

“Yes, that concert is and will always be one of my fondest memories. Yes, we would love some tea, however you take yours would be fine for me. I can’t speak for Joy, though.”

At the mention of her name, Joy pulled herself out of her daze and joined the conversation.

“Yes, I would like that as well, Miss Octavia.”

The slate mare wave a hoof dismissively. “Please, simply ‘Octavia’ will suffice. Though, I ask that you not call me ‘Octy’, as that name is special to me.”

Joy finally seemed to find her voice, and took it upon herself to respond. “Of course, Octavia. As for your other question, as to how we have been these past months, I must say things have been going better than I would have had any right to hope. Despite the fact that we work opposite sides of the clock, we still manage to spend time together, and we get along pretty well for the most part. Except when Dave does something dumb… which is pretty frequently, now that I think about it.”

I held a hoof over my heart in mock hurt. “Hey now… I’m getting better, meanie. Goodness, no respect at all… “

Joy stuck her tongue out at me with a smile, and I grinned back. Octavia watched this with a smile of her own, though with a slightly wistful tint to it.

“Joy, Dave… I must say, it is refreshing to see a couple that gets along as well as you two do. If only there were more ponies out there who shared the kind of love that you two do, I think the world could be a wonderful place.”

At this unabashed compliment, Joy and I looked at each other with a little blush. If she only knew what was planned for this evening… I smiled at Joy for a moment before turning back to Octavia with the same smile.

“Why, thank you, Octavia. That’s very sweet.”

She simply smiled in reply, and further conversation was somewhat delayed by the arrival of the tea on a fine ceramic platter. Once Joy and I had been served, a comfortable moment of silence passed as we indulged in our tea. Now, I know next to nothing about tea, but whatever tea blend this was can only be described as incredible. A light citrus taste with a touch of honey called forth some uncomfortable feelings, but I was able to push them to the side with relative ease compared to before. Octavia once again broke the silence, and I was somewhat surprised by her socialization… I supposed I’d expected her to be a bit more stuck up for some reason.

“So, how did you two enjoy the performance? What do you think of this latest piece?”

I looked to Joy to take the lead again, but she gave me a slight nod to field this one on my own.

“Well, I was truly moved by it. I could just about feel the remorse and loneliness in the notes, and I just found the entire piece resonated with me in a way that I can’t fully explain. Which, I suppose, is the mark of great music.”

Joy nodded silently beside me, a faraway look in her eyes as she relived the concert. Now it was Octavia’s turn to blush, and seeing it made me smile a bit wider. Octavia responded to my observation with a very in-depth explanation of chords and all sorts of things that I didn’t comprehend whatsoever, and I had to stop her shortly after she started to ask for an explanation. After the first three times this happened, she tried to simplify it for me a few times before she gave up and wrote me off as musically hopeless. Joy watched all of this with a little bit of a smile, trying to contain her enjoyment at my flailng attempts to keep up. As the minutes rolled by, a question formed in the back of my head and persisted to bug me until I got it out of my head.

“Octavia, I have an off-topic question to ask… do you mind?”

Joy took it upon herself to add an addendum to my question.

“You’ll get used to it, he does that a lot.”

Octavia nodded knowingly. “Ah, I’ll keep that in mind. So, what’s the question?”

“I was just wondering why there aren’t more ponies back here, in the back-stage sort of thing.”

“That is actually a good question. I only offer a few passes for each performance, because I prefer these things to be a more relaxed and personal sort of affair. I learned the hard way early on that if you have more than a few ponies in the same room, especially if those ponies are affluent, it soon turns into a fight to establish superiority over the others. This, in turn, just winds up being a stressful affair for all involved. By keeping these engagements small, they tend to remain civil.”

“Huh… that makes a lot of sense when you put it like that.”

“Experience is hard won,” she said with a smile.

The conversation continued in this manner for another hour, covering topics varying from Joy’s career progression and my promotion, all the way to who made Joy’s dress and the best place to eat in Ponyville. I don’t recall exactly what convoluted twist of conversation led us to the topic, but we found ourselves once more on the subject of relationships, though this time the subject of the questions had been flipped from us to Octavia. Stranger still was the fact that it had been me that broached the question.

“So Octavia, you pretty well know the both of us from head to hoof… tell us about yourself. Surely a mare as beautiful and successful as yourself must have swarms of admirers?”

Octavia blushed and pointedly looked elsewhere as she cleared her throat. While Octavia’s attention was focused on anything but me, Joy used her cheating unicorn magic to give me a solid thump on the nose for calling another mare beautiful in front of her. I was about to call shenanigans on this, since Joy herself had remarked how beautiful the musician was on more than one occasion, but I let it slide for the moment. An awkward silence settled in as Octavia sipped her tea, still focusing on the wall. Just as I was opening my mouth to change the subject, she spoke up.

“You might think so, but it simply isn’t true. Oh sure, there are those in the grips of foal-like infatuation who pop up from time to time; but with the way that I’m constantly on the move en route to some far off concert or another, they tend to fade away as quickly as they pop up. No, a life on the road is far from the ideal lifestyle to meet a special somepony, since you are hardly in the same place long enough to say hello before you’re off to the next stop.”

I knew the feeling well.“I understand where you’re coming from, more or less. I know what it’s like to hop from place to place. But even so, are you telling me that there is nopony out there who’s been fortunate enough to catch your fancy?”

The ghost of a smile graced her lips as she stared into the distance. “Well, there might be one… but I’d rather not fuel any more of these silly rumors floating around. Celestia knows I don’t need any more of those hanging over my head.”

“I know that feeling as well, unfortunately. I’m sorry that you can’t just love whoever you love without it being a public spectacle, and I respect you right to privacy. I won’t pester you anymore about it.”

I now had Octavia's full attention, as she set down her cup and turned to face me. “Do you have any idea how wonderful it is to hear you say that? How long I’ve waited for somepony to just accept what I say at face value without trying to needle the details out of me?”

I shrugged modestly. “Entirely too long, it would seem. The fact that anypony would continue to press after you explained your position so plainly amazes me, and not in a good way.”

“It is quite sad, is it not? I was just talking to Vinyl the other day, and—“

Octavia’s face went sallow as she clamped her hooves over her mouth, wishing she could take back her words while preventing any further ones from popping out. Based on her reaction, I would venture a guess that she hadn’t meant to use Vinyl’s name. Honestly, I wouldn’t even have noticed the slip if not for the immediate and profound reaction to the slip. Not wanting to draw any more attention to the situation, I did my best to carry on as if nothing had happened, despite Octavia’s reaction.

“So, you two were talking the other day, and…?”

Joy was looking back and forth between Octavia and I as if there was an invisible tennis match taking place, and Octavia simply fixed me with a worried, yet hopeful look as she tried to divine my intentions. Cautiously, she continued where she’d left off, though omitting the name from earlier.

“We were talking the other day about the same exact thing, and she voiced that same sentiment, though in cruder fashion. She even followed her statement with wild declarations of immediate and significant bodily harm if she was party to any of this. Something about a Bass Canon of some sort. At any rate, I just thought it was amusing that the two of you had a similar stance on the matter.”

“Sounds like this mare has a good head on her shoulders.”

“She certainly has her moments.” As she said this, Octavia smiled to herself, her gaze going up and to the left as she lost herself in a recollection of some sort. There was no mistaking it, and no room for even a sliver of doubt; she had a definite thing for Vinyl. I could say this with total confidence based off of her expression… I wore the same expression when I thought about Joy. Joy and I shared a look, the both of us smiling at the same time in a perfect replication of Octavia’s expression. Aforementioned mare caught a glimpse of the two of us smiling at each other before we turned to smile at her, and proceeded to look surprised and then defeated.

“Well, it would seem that you two are now privy to my dearest secret. I know that you will most likely spread the news to everypony within earshot, but could you find it in your heart to postpone the press conference for a few hours so that I can break the news to Vinyl?”

I sat there with my mouth agape for a moment, in shock at that I’d just heard. Joy was more inflamed than dumbstruck at this comment, and was thus the first one to speak up on the matter. “Octavia, really?”

This caught the slate mare by surprise, drawing her up short. “Really what? I don’t understand the question… look, all I’m asking is a few hours to tell Vinyl on my own terms before everything blows up in our faces. Is that too much to ask?”

Joy’s incredulous tone deepened. “Do… do you really think that we would do that?”

Octavia hung her head. “Well, I was hoping that you would agree to the grace period to allow me to break the news my own way, but it would seem that I’d be wrong.”

At this point, I chimed in. I’d finally managed to find my voice, and I was already tired of this beating around the bush.

“Octavia, we won’t be giving you the grace period simply because we will not be telling anypony about this. Neither of us have any business or desire to reveal somepony’s dearest secret, least of all that of a new friend. Frankly, I’m mildly insulted that you think we’d stoop so low.”

Octavia’s eyes bounced between Joy and I as she tried to wrap her mind around what I’d just said. “So… you aren’t going to tell the world about Vinyl and I?”

I shook my head. “We have no right to; it’s not our place to reveal your secrets. You obviously have a reason for doing what you are doing. Besides, I’d like to think that we are at least some type of friends by this point, and friends don’t do things like that to friends.”

“I… I can’t thank you enough for this…you cannot possibly imagine what news like this could do to my career.” Octavia looked as if she was uncertain whether to laugh or cry in relief.

Thoughts of bigotry, prejudice, blind hatred, and irresponsible ignorance flashed through my mind in the form of images from the news. It seemed like no matter who you were or where you were from, there were people who hated you just on blind principal alone.

“I understand more than you could imagine. Like I said, and I’m positive that Joy is on the same ship as I am, your secret is safe with us. Though, if I may, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“It would seem that I have underestimated you both; for that I am deeply sorry. Forgive me?” Octavia punctuated her declaration with a bow of her head.

I smiled at her, my heart warmed by her candor. “Of course we forgive you, though it was a simple mistake.”

“I thank you nonetheless. And what suggestion do you have?”

“Simply that you break the news about your relationship on your own terms, so that you have a measure of control over the ‘spin’ on it.”

She merely nodded. “Yes, you are not the first to tell me that, and it is beginning to look more prudent each day. I suppose it will have to come to light sooner or later, and it would be nice not to have it hanging over my head every day.”

“See? Occasionally, even I have a good idea.”

Joy, who had been quietly observing and nodding up to this point, again chimed in on my behalf.

“It’s true, it does happen; the only problem is that it is about as common as seeing a phoenix catch a cold.”

With that joke, the tension that had been slowly building was dissipated, and the three of us laughed as if we were old friends recounting fond memories. The remaining time passed in a blur, and before I knew it, there came a rapping on the door and a mare’s voice informing Octavia that she was needed somewhere for some obscure purpose. The three of us rose as one to say our goodbyes and depart. I had a momentary flashback to my first night in town as I was trying to figure out how to greet Joy, though this time it was for a departure. As I was debating between a hoof-bump and a bow, the decision was made for me as Octavia scooped both Joy and I into a bear hug. I was once again caught completely off guard by the social nature of this famous musician, and she seemed to delight in defying my expectations of her. Our embrace broke, and we went our separate ways.

It took a few tries to find our way out of the labyrinthine back stage, but we eventually made our way back to the main hall and out to our awaiting carriage. How the carriage pilots knew when we would be out of the hall was a bit of a mystery, but I figured that it most likely had more than a little to do with the dozens of ponies who were lurking about in the shadows. The throng of paparazzi that had gathered earlier to welcome us had evaporated, and the entire hall seemed different without the chatter of the cameras and the ponies wielding them. We boarded the carriage in relative isolation as compared to our earlier disembarkation, the only sounds were the chatter of far-away ponies carried aloft by the wind.

I provided an address to the pilots, and before I could even begin to give them directions, they were off and moving. I supposed that they likely knew where it was, seeing as they had lived in the city their entire lives. Sure enough, we were pulling up to the parkway in front of the establishment that we’d be eating at a full ten minutes ahead of schedule, thanks to a very crafty shortcut. Also, the fact that we were in a sky carriage and not bound to the earth was a contributing factor. Once we came to a halt in front of the restaurant, a pair of very fancily clad ponies came up to the carriage and opened to doors to beckon us inside. We were led into a candle-lit building draped with burgundy and purple velvet, dark wood and red lenses over the lanterns casting the entire scene in a sultry and rather intimate light. Not once was I asked for my name; it would seem that I was the only pony to book a reservation at this particular time. We were seated at a table near a window, facing out into a private courtyard. The courtyard had a small fountain near its center, surrounded by weathered cobblestone and overhung by a trellis completely ensconced by flowering vines.

Though the day outside was bright, the vines that grew upon the trellis served to diffuse the light into a very soft and scattered illumination. The speckled rays of light played across the rippling surface of the water to send medallions of light playing across every surface; the way the light danced off of Joy’s face was simply magical. Thanks to Rarity’s contacts and with the aid of Derpy’s intimate knowledge of the postal system, I was able to coordinate this meal a couple months in advance. This had a two-fold purpose, though the first one was the most important; by ordering ahead of time, I was guaranteed that the dishes I desired would be in stock and present. Additionally, by paying months in advance, I was able to get the meal at a pretty good discount. This was especially useful since my reputation as a hero did not extend to Canterlot, so I didn’t have that ace up my sleeve.

Over the course of the next hour, we endeavored upon a gastronomical odyssey the likes of which have not been seen before. We were served dishes bearing ingredients from all corners of the globe, from the frigid tundra to arid desert, and everything in between. While I did my best to savor the food instead of wolfing it down, Joy had taken to examining her food in a most methodical manner. By turning it this way and that, taking small bites and chewing them with a faraway look, and even so much as sniffing the morsels, Joy was undertaking a scientific analysis of the food before her. The portions were rather small, but there were just so many of them… they kept coming and coming, and it seemed like they would never end. By the time it was over, there had been twelve courses in all. I was pretty well stuffed, since Joy had passed off roughly half of her food to me each course. By the final dessert, I found myself struggling to finish the mousse moose.

Dinner, while a delectable explosion of flavors and textures beyond my wildest caffeine-fueled imaginings, was still somewhat less than I had hoped for. With the food coming in waves, and with Joy alternately studying her food and passing it off to me, there was hardly any time to talk. I would have figured the mare would be brimming with questions and comments from the sit-down with Octavia, but it would seem that she had pushed that to the side for the duration of our feast. I supposed it was for the best, so that she could focus on the food in that strange way of hers, but at the same time it was slightly disheartening. I sighed inwardly, deciding that the rest of the night had gone according to plan, so this small deviation was really of no concern in the long run.

Even though I’d paid a significant portion of the meal cost prior to the meal itself, when our culinary excursion was over, I still received a bill. Despite the small fortune that I’d paid already, the bill was enough to make me a little sick inside. There seemed to be one too many zeros on the ticket. Luckily, I’d planned ahead for this, and had carried a generous quantity of bits with me for just this eventuality. Though she hadn’t seen the bill, there was no hiding the ridiculously large pile of bits from Joy. As I placed the satchel upon the silver platter, joy shot me a skeptical look, as if she was trying to figure out exactly how I’d come up with the mayor’s ransom worth of bits. The waiter came and went, the unicorn’s horn glowing quite brightly as it fought the weight of the bits. The manager came out to thank us face to face. It was at this point that we were informed that we were the only ponies to have ever ordered such a large assortment of entrees. A bit of small talk later, and I was hoofed a platinum card, and informed that because of our patronage we were being granted a preferred customer status. Based on the fact that the card was delivered on a velvet lined silver platter, it seemed to me like this was a pretty big deal.

Thanking the hosts profusely as we left, I waddled behind Joy as we made our way back to the carriage. Once situated inside, I found myself positively bombarded by pent-up questions and remarks from the azure mare, who had apparently been holding them back under great pressure through the duration of the meal. I was faced with inquisitive remarks ranging from questions about the performance to observations on the texture of the meal and its various constituents. And, there we were. Joy was making up for lost time as we flew from the capitol back to town, and we completely covered the bases of conversation within the first half of the trip. As we closed the distance to the town, the trajectory of the carriage let me know that the pilots were not going directly to the library as I had feared, but were instead heading towards the meadow that I’d given them directions to earlier. As the carriage drew nearer to the clearing, the sun likewise drew nearer to the horizon. As we touched down in the meadow, the sun kissed the horizon. Joy and I stepped out of the carriage, still lost in conversation. We paused our discussion long enough to thank the guards and bid them a good night before they flew away and left us in silence.

Joy and I walked a few steps to the crest of the hill, bathing in the last rays of the waning sun. I had Joy take a seat on the grass at the foot of the tree for a moment as I zipped into the air and swooped through the tree, coming to rest at the hiding place for the Aurora blue. I was immediately stricken by horror of incomparable purity, for the flower has missing. The moment of horror passed as I spotted the glass cylinder sitting right where I left it, sitting a little lower than I remembered from where it settled. Trying to calm my racing heart was of no use, for the moment of truth was nigh. I took a deep breath to steady my hooves as I opened the encapsulated flower and placed it in my teeth. Satisfied that it was secure, I stepped off the branch and proceeded to glide to a gentle stop beside Joy. My landing was so soft that Joy didn’t notice me until I stepped a little closer to her. At the sound of my steps, she turned to face me, a mildly startled expression on her face. Upon seeing the rose, her face brightened, and I steeled my nerves and began my proposal.

Or at least, I tried to. One thing that I’d never stopped to consider was how exactly to take a knee as a pony. Sit? Bow? Kneel while standing? The last one sounded right to me, so I did my best to execute it. I must have done something right, because as soon as I got into position, Joy immediately put her hooves over her mouth and began to tear up. Noting how uncomfortable this position was to maintain, I immediately launched into the scariest one-sided conversation of my life.

“Several months ago, I crash landed in this town. I was a strange pony in more ways than one, and I harbored a past rife with secrets best left buried. In my first day, I was shown more kindness from random strangers than I’d received in the entire year prior from even my friends. That day, I met you, and I knew that I’d found something truly special. In that moment, I turned the page into a new chapter of my life. It all started with a rose.”

I gestured at the rose Joy still held as she pressed her hooves to her mouth to try and maintain her composure.

“Today, I give you another rose, with the hopes that you will help me turn the page on a new chapter, a chapter that we write together.”

I reached into my coat and pulled out a black velvet box, holding it at chest-level and taking a seat. Joy’s composure cracked, and a small sniffle escaped her as a tear made its way down her cheek. As I spoke my next five words, I slowly opened the box.

“Joy, will you marry me?”

Never before in my life has silence roared so loudly. The sound of the crickets in the meadow screamed at me like a jet engine at full throttle, and my heartbeat pounded in my ears like the beating of a drum. Joy sat there in silence, as another tear caressed her face, each second an interminable eternity. In a strained voice that cracked with emotion, she eeked out a reply.

“I… I don’t… I… no… can’t… words… “

With each syllable, the pit of fear in my stomach grew larger and blacker, threatening to consume me. My heartbeat hammered in my ears with the staccato rhythm of a machine gun, a cold sweat breaking out upon my brow. My despair grew with each syllable, and I felt the crushing weight of rejection and defeat crashing down upon me. What would I do when she said no? Would I have to move out? I couldn’t very well continue to live there after such a crushing blow. What would I do after this? How would I cope? How would I—

My thoughts were immediately severed by a kiss placed upon my lips. I sat there in shock for a moment, still trying to wrap my head around what was going on. What was going on? One second, Joy was snubbing me, and the next, there are lips against mine. Lips that tasted like… mint? Like… like Joy? But, she was snubbing me… and now she’s… wait. Kissing doesn’t really imply rejection. Unless she’s trying to let me down easy… but… she said no, didn’t she? The kiss persisted, pushing with a passion unlike any other. Maybe… just maybe…

The kiss was broken as my mind screamed along at a thousand kilometers per hour, trying to put things together in a way that made sense to me. Through the confusing haze of thoughts rocketing around my skull, a single incongruous word pierced the veil.

“Yes.”

Yes? Yes what? What did I say? Oh, right. I’d asked her to… marry… me.

“Yes? Did you say… yes?”

Joy merely smiled through the tears and she leaned forward to embrace me. She placed her face into the nook between my neck and my shoulder, whereupon she lost any premise of control over her emotions. As she wept joyous tears into my coat, a stream of words fought their way out between shuddering breaths and fits of giggles.

“Yes, yes… a thousand times yes. You don’t know how happy I am right now, you can’t imagine. I thought you’d never ask!”

I was smiling so hard it hurt, relief flooding my veins. “No, I think I have a pretty good idea how happy you are. I am the luckiest stallion alive! I thought you were going to say no, and I would’ve had to flee town in shame if you did.”

Joy’s voice was stern, and I knew she meant business. “NO. You aren’t going anywhere. Ever. You said the magic words, now you’re going to be stuck with me FOREVER.”

I took a moment to appreciate how uncannily like Pinkie Pie Joy had just sounded. Immediately following this, there arose in me a great sea of love, one whose shores were distant beyond imagining. I swear, it felt as if the entire population of not only the world, but of this multiverse and the next had forfeit their love and sent it to me. I was overwhelmed by love, consumed from within by the swelling of emotion I felt for this mare in my arms. I pulled from the embrace, having to work a little bit to free myself from the tenacious mare. Joy looked at me with that adorable little pout of hers as I did so, but that vanished entirely into a mask of awe as I opened the case to show her the ring.

She was awestruck, pure and simple. Her eyes traversed every facet, every nook and cranny of the ring as she did her best to take it all in. The tears that had recently been stemmed began to flow anew. I carefully took it from the velvet repository and gingerly held it betwixt my hooves as I moved to place it atop her horn. Joy looked at me with a funny expression as I did this, apparently bewildered by what I was doing. As I drew closer with the ring, she recoiled slightly before speaking up.

“Uh… Dave? What are you doing?”

“I wanted to put the ring on you, love.”

“I can see that. Is this some sort of joke?”

“Huh? I… I don’t understand. Doesn’t the ring go on the horn?”

Joy twitched, and I could almost see her urge to facehoof. I was guessing that the ring didn’t, in fact, go atop the horn.

“Dave. Really? It goes on the left fore-hoof, you weenie.”

“Ouch… name calling? Meanie. But I’m new at this, so we can call it a rookie mistake.”

Joy chuckled a little, her spirits impervious to my shenanigans on the wake of this momentous event. She lifted up the appropriate hoof, and I pressed the ring onto it. The ring was slightly smaller than her hoof, but as I pressed it against the curve of her hoof, it glowed faintly white as it seemed to stretch around the bulky hoof to sit on her slimmer ankle. Once in position, the glow faded and the ring was once more solid. Joy watched over this in awe of the shape-shifting material as it molded itself to her fetlock. As soon as the ring was in place, she held up her hoof to once more marvel at the craftsponyship exhibited by the band. Though the carvings were intricate, they stretched and reformed seamlessly, their exquisite detail unmarred by the event.

On the horizon, the moon began to crest the mountain, its wan light gilding the valley in quicksilver wherever it touched. As the pale light struck the two of us, the soft light seemed to caress our forms. I looked at Joy, and she, at me. In this moment, a spark passed between us; an unspoken signal, an unquestioned intent. Months of patience and ever-growing desires had led up to this, and the ring was but the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place. In this meadow, under these glorious stars, and with the greatest source of love I'd ever known staring deeply into my eyes, I knew that the time had come; the time was right.

I'd procrastinated and pushed this off into the future for so long for many reasons, but one reason that I'd been unable to own up to was simply that, by taking this relationship into the stage where two ponies become one, I would be taking the final step necessary to make this life my own. After all, what could be a more natural part of life than reproduction? What more definitive way was there to demonstrate one's commitment than with an offering of flesh?

Wordlessly, we made our way back to the house, walking side by side so closely that we might have been one pony. As we strolled through town in the early hours of the night, there was little that crossed my love-addled mind other than the feeling of Joy’s body pressed against mine as we walked, her warmth flowing into me.

Once we got home, we climbed the stairs and went to bed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun had risen well into the sky by the time I’d stirred from my slumber. I’d been having such a wonderful dream, too. I yawned and stretched, smiling at the way the mare next to me moaned and shifted at the disturbance. With a smile that I couldn’t hide if I tried, I rolled over and placed a kiss on the tip of Joy’s nose. She scrunched up her nose and shrunk into the blankets with a smile. Trying to be sly, Joy cracked one eye open to spy on me and probably launch a pillow-fusillade as soon as my back was turned. The only thing she saw when she opened her eye though was my eye, staring at her from a few centimeters away. We made eye contact, and she knew the jig was up. Still smiling, she dramatically yawned and blinked away the sleep, trying to play it off like she hadn’t been planning a sneak attack. We kissed once more, threatening to reignite the embers of the night prior. I broke the kiss and made my way downstairs to my bathroom so I could prepare for the day.

Even after the shower, I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. I tried and tried again, but the damn thing was stuck. Not that I minded, though. I was still radiating the afterglow, and I didn’t care who saw it. I was so high on cloud nine that I’d caught myself floating more than once. Literally, I was floating as I did that odd little wingtip-only-flapping motion.

Will you marry me?

Last night, with those five words, I’d invited Joy to open a new chapter with me, the first chapter of the rest of our lives, our lives together. In the light of a new day, everything seemed brighter and more vibrant as the promise for the future lent its light to shine down upon us. The light bathed me in its warmth as I absorbed its rays and radiated them back out to the world. I immediately noticed one of the biggest changes within us, and that was how much more tactile we were now. Sure, we’d kiss rather frequently, and we tended to nuzzle each other in public, but there had always been an element of space in this. The kisses would break, the embraces would separate, and we would walk side by side without touching. This separation vanished with the coming of the new dawn. Almost constantly, Joy and I maintained physical contact in some form or another. Be it brushing our flanks together as we walked or sitting on the couch so that we were pressed to the other, the contact was consistent. Each touch of a hoof to flesh, a teasing caress of a mane or wing, or even the thought of such contact was enough to inspire within me a bubbly warmth, a feeling of utter adoration and draw from me a smile.

Naturally, this was hard to miss. Joy and I were sitting at the table, eating from the same bowl of oatmeal when Dawn cantered in. Why were we eating from the same bowl? Good question. It was Joy’s idea, something about washing fewer dishes and conserving water, so on and so forth. The fact that I was able to share food at all was a pretty solid indicator of how dramatically things had shifted. Dawn is a sharp mare, and she picked up on it almost instantly. I felt a twinge of fear as I saw her warming up the mom-face, but Joy intercepted the incoming death-stare by thrusting her hoof out, showing off her ring. Dawn still shot me a reproachful glance, though it was half-hearted at best and lasted less than an instant. As her eyes focused on the ring and the meaning of it sunk in, Dawn began to choke up. A smile blossomed upon her face, and it lit the room. Her eyes widened and began to glisten as she began to proffer her congratulations. Dawn sat down right there in the doorway, holding her arms open as she beckoned her daughter to embrace her. Joy was more than happy to oblige, her own tears of happiness beginning anew.

Seeing the way Dawn’s pride in her daughter lit up the room threatened to get a tear or two from me as well. I sat back in a contented bliss as I watched them, the tears flowing freely from the mares as they professed their happiness and excitement at this momentous occasion. My reverie was interrupted by a pale blue glow around my hoof, gently tugging me from my chair to join in the hug. That I, the outsider, was being brought in to this sacred mother-daughter moment was more than I could bear. Liquid happiness began to leak from the corner of my eye as I embraced and was embraced.

Once the tears dried up and the group-hug broke apart, Dawn set about bombarding us with questions about the wedding.

“So, when is the wedding? Do you have a color scheme picked out? How about bridesmares or groomstallions? How many ponies will be there? Have you made a gift registry yet? Have you—“

Joy held up her hoof to stem the onslaught. “Mom, hold on a minute. We haven’t really even discussed that stuff ourselves yet. After all, he only proposed last night, and well… we were a little… pre-occupied at the time.”

Dawn held up both hooves in the universal sign for “I don’t want to hear this” as she set about shooting me another one of her mom-stares. This one didn’t seem so much like a threat as like an indication that we were going to have to talk about this later. Not even this could dampen my spirits. I smiled and nodded at this, silently assenting to the inevitable. Dawn retrieved a pencil from a drawer and hurriedly began jotting something down on a scrap of paper. After a moment of furious writing, she gave me the fruit of her endeavor; a list of details that Joy and I would need to talk over and decide on for the wedding. Joy suggested that we talk it over on a walk through the meadow, and I had to admit that it sounded like a lovely idea. It was already mid-to-late morning, and the temperature outside was simply wonderful.

As we walked through the streets of the town, we managed to nail down the big stuff. The wedding would be a year to the day from the proposal, in that same spot under the tree. We opted for a simple black and white color scheme, and I got Joy onboard with my idea for the alabaster pillars framing our vows. We ran into a bit of a roadblock with the groomstallions though, since I had exactly zero close male friends. I knew a few stallions, but none well enough to ask to be my best stallion. I decided that this was something I’d need to work on, but, as Joy pointed out, I had a year to do it. So, no rush. Some of the decisions we had to make were simple, requiring no thought at all. Rarity would be contracted to make the dresses for the bridesmaids and suits for the groomstallions, Pinkie would handle the catering and the reception, we would schedule through Dash for the weather for that evening, and hopefully get Twilight to act as the wedding planner with us. Applejack and Fluttershy were a little bit distant to me, seeing as how I'd never really interacted with them outside of the short meeting at the Ponyville Gala.

They were invited, of course, but I wasn’t so sure that they would be able to attend, what with all of their other duties and what have you. Or, In Fluttershy’s case, brave enough to face the crowd for the benefit of a pony she barely knew. Joy and I wanted Lyra to provide the music for the actual wedding ceremony, the ghostly strains of her lyre seemed to be the perfect complement to the ceremony.

Nailing down the broad strokes and deciding the rough outline of the way we wanted things, that was the easy part. Filling in the finer details like seating, what pattern we wanted on the tablecloths, and what sort of flowers we should have as a centerpiece… that was going to take a good bit more work. Sighing with a tired smile, I nuzzled my head into Joy’s neck and looked to the horizon. My heart fluttered a little more than usual when she rested her head on mine with an adorable little giggle.

Sure, the process of fleshing out the details was going to be arduous and probably frustrating as hell, but… as I looked up at the chin of the mare I loved… I knew that it was worth any price.

I closed my eyes and smiled.

Author's Note

First, I want to apologize for this taking an entire MONTH to produce. Life has a bad habit of interfering with my writing. Then, this:

As this part of the story comes to a close, I want to ask you to take a moment and reflect back on this last year we have shared together. We have laughed, we've cried, and we've shared the warm glow of happiness. In an effort to better understand my readers, I ask you a small favor; please comment below with your answer to the following questions. If you don't want to, that is just fine, but I'd really appreciate it if you did.

1.) What was the part of the story that made you laugh the hardest?

2.) What part of the story saddened you the most?

3.) What is your favorite part of the story, and why?

Thank you for your time, and I really look forward to your answers.

Again, my thanks to PacificPenguin for his tireless editing and dedication. Without him, I never would have made it this far. Go give him some love and a comment or something, for he is the ONLY editor on this story, and he has groomed me and taught me the ways of the wordsmith.

Last edited 03DEC15

I stand by what I said... go give some love to the magnificent Pacific Penguin.

20: The Confession

Chapter 20
The Confession

It wasn’t until Joy and I had been sitting in the meadow for an hour or more that we decided we’d answered all that we could of the questions that had been posed to us, at least to the greatest extent we could with the information we had on hoof at the time. There was so much that was still up in that air at the moment that it was making my head spin, not least of which was where exactly I was going to make some dude-friends to be my groomstallions. Seeking a respite from everything in my usual manner, I suggested that we head over to Berry’s to get some heaven in a cup. Joy nodded as she climbed to her hooves, stretching out the stiffness that had settled in over the last hour. Noticing the way my eyes trailed the contours of her lithe form, she exaggerated her movements, moaning in pleasure as her muscles loosened. I felt a blush begin to burn on my cheeks.

Was I really that easy?

Joy winked at me.

Yes. Yes I was. And she knew it. Concluding her stretching, she drew up to her full height and sashayed away, my gaze trailing her every move. Again catching me staring, she daintily cleared her throat, snapping me out of my daze and further reddening my cheeks. With a guilty smile and a fierce crimson blush, I stood up and took my place by her side as we set off for Berry’s. As we walked through the more remote areas of Whitetail Woods as we made our way back to town, I was lost in my own mind, my body on autopilot. So deep was I in half-remembered fever dreams from the night before that I didn’t notice Joy slowing down slightly, dropping back behind me. Didn’t notice, at least, until she nipped me in the flank, right above my mark. I shot up into the air so quickly and with such force that I punched through the canopy of the trees, hovering in the magnificent blue of the sky as I blinked away the sudden brightness. The blush that had faded earlier was now back in full force as I tried to wrangle my thoughts back onto a pg-13 train of thought. Exhaling deeply, I tried to calm both the beating of my heart and the growing warmth on areas other than my face. Much more gracefully than I had ascended, I returned to the forest floor, to a bemused Joy.

“You know, before now, I thought that ‘jumping a kilometer out of fright’ was just an expression. Also, you are adorable with that blush… “

I shot her my best attempt at a Game Face, which she met with a gaze of her own, sultry and silky beyond measure. I had to look away as her stare began to stir feelings in me that were best reserved for a private setting. Taking my place at her side once more, we set off into town to get a smoothie and mull over some of the finer details. For Joy, however, this served a second purpose.

Joy is a very observant mare, far more so than most ponies give her credit for. Since my arrival, she had noticed how other mares had taken a fancy to me, even if they’d kept it to themselves. Some, like Berry, were more obvious than others. As I would learn later, seeing all of these mares with a thing for me sort of got to Joy, as you might expect. Though she trusted me, Joy was worried about some of the more forthright mares making a pass at me. And despite her faith in me, there was always a niggling bit out doubt that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the pony she thought I was. She was right about that one, but I’m getting off track. When I took a knee and proposed to her, I obliterated any trace of doubt in Joy’s mind as to my steadfast-ness. And what was a mare to do when a coveted stallion popped the question to her? Well, Joy’s answer was to parade around to as many ponies as she could to gush about it. I can’t say that I necessarily agreed with her tactics, but I understood that she was proud and sought praise. I could not fault her for the things I myself do.

And so, with a head full of wedding plans and dust bunnies, I walked by her side up to the counter t Berry’s. Perhaps it was the afterglow that clung to Joy like a second skin. Maybe it was the way that Joy and I were standing side-to-side so that our bodies were pressed together. It might even have been some sort of pheromone type thing that only mares could pick up on, but one thing was for certain: Berry punch knew what had happened the night before, and she wasn’t a happy pony. She took our order with cold professionalism, forgoing her usual banter entirely. It was so obvious that even I picked up on it. Joy, on the other hoof, seemed entirely oblivious to this. I knew that there was no way that she hadn’t picked up on it as well, but for reasons all her own, she carried on as if nothing was amiss. I chalked it up to mares being mares and pushed it from my mind. After all, I had a wedding to plan.

As it would turn out, this little incident was of much greater impact than I'd thought, though at the time I had missed its significance entirely. I didn’t realize anything was amiss until Sunday, as I was re-adjusting my sleep schedule to night shift. I'd gone out for my evening flight, simply basking in the glory of the night sky and paying my respects to the Princess of the Night. When my meandering flight brought me within sight of the main street, I was struck by the notion that something was off, not quite as it should be. It only took a moment for me to realize what it was and close in for a better look. Berry’s shop was locked up tight, not a light burning in the whole store. Checking my watch, I noted that it was only twenty-three hundred, and that the shop almost never closed before zero one. Landing just in front of the door, I walked up to try and see if there was anything going on inside. A sign on the door caused a little ball of ice to form in my gut.

Everypony, something has come up, and I’ll be taking a few days off to take care of it. See you soon, --Berry.

In a moment of clarity, I could see that this was a direct result of the scene that had taken place the day before, as Joy showed off her ring. While I can see how this would have been unpleasant for Berry, I couldn’t help but feel like she was over-reacting greatly. Dismayed as I was that I wouldn’t be able to get any of my beloved smoothies until her personal crisis was over, I cast a glance to the window o’er top of the café, silently urging the purple mare to put her feelings behind her. My motivations were selfish, but I nonetheless wished that Berry would feel better soon. I really wished that I would have been able to indulge in a smoothie as I contemplated the best way to bring up the truth about my past to Joy. It’s just that there were so many thoughts buzzing around in my head, all vying for my attention that made it so that I was unable to think. I needed to clear my head, regain some peace of mind. Then, it hit me, like a bolt from the blue. Nickering softly, I took to the air once more, letting the cool air of the night carry my worries away. I was possessed by an all-too familiar urge, one I had not felt for several months. I felt a need; a need for speed.

I had to mentally berate myself for even thinking something so… cliché. Shaking the thoughts from my head, I poured on the power as I began my ascent into the starry sky. I would liken my normal flying pace to that of a walk, albeit an airborne one. I'd just kicked the speed up a notch, into the equivalent of a jog. I accelerated from about twenty kilometers an hour up to forty or more, feeling the wind caressing my mane as the ground swept beneath me. As I flew, I began a large upward spiral, circling over most of the town as I rose. Once I hit about two kilometers above the ground, I levelled off, surveying the land around me as it stretches out below. The lanterns glowed far below, like a reflection of the stars above, twinkling points of light amidst a blanket of darkness. The view was magnificent, but it was not the reason I'd climbed so high. What goes up must come down, and that was the part I was anticipating. I kicked the speed up another notch, from a jog to a run as I topped seventy kilometers per hour. I angled my nose sharply skyward as I locked my wings out at their fullest extent, my momentum carrying me skyward for nearly twenty more meters.

At the apogee of my ascent I hung in the stillness of the night air, weightless for a split second as time stood still. In an instant, the moment passed and I was falling backwards. A few months ago, this would have been the constituent of my nightmares as I fell backwards, helpless. As a direct result of that event and the following nightmares, I had incorporated additional exercises into my routines to strengthen the up-sweep of my wings. Because of these improvements, I was finally comfortable in the air. As I slid backwards through the atmosphere, I angled my ailerons ever so slightly to catch the air. At first, this was a useless gesture since my airspeed was almost zero. As I was once again ensnared by the chains of gravity and began to plummet back towards the earth, my airspeed spiked dramatically, allowing that tiny change in my ailerons to flip me about so that I was falling nose-first. As I reached a vertical orientation perpendicular to the ground, I flapped with everything I had, rocketing towards the town below in a power dive.

Due to the greater surface area of my wings compared to a normal pegasus, and the fact that I maintained a six-days-a-week fitness regimen, I was able to gain speed with nearly unprecedented rapidity. At this point, I figured I was nearing Dash-esque speeds. My internal altimeter was spinning crazily as it counted down the meters until impact. I figured I was nearing a speed of three hundred kilometers per hour, exceeding terminal velocity by an unhealthy margin. I fanned my wings at the last possible second to avoid becoming a brown smear on the pavement below, leveling off only a dozen meters or so from the ground below. I tore through the streets of the town at death-defying speeds, treading the razor’s edge as I snapped my wings with hair-trigger nerves to thread my way between buildings. There was no time to think about anything other than the next move, the next obstacle. The adrenaline surging through my veins honed my senses to absolute perfection, allowing me to walk the razor’s edge as if it were a four lane highway. I was perfectly in sync with my body, exhibiting a level of skill and finesse that you’d never expect from one so clumsy as I.

This was my gift. I might be ordinarily gifted in most things, and even a bit above average in a few of them, but every now and again, I was able to focus my mind and body as one into a nexus of perfection, allowing me to pull off things I’d never seemed capable of. This was one of those times.

I screamed through town on momentum alone, overturning empty crates in the wake of my passing. The streets were nearly entirely deserted at this hour, but for those ponies who happened to be out and about at the time, there was no warning for them. I blazed past them with barely a notice, leaving more than one pony spinning in a vortex caused by my passage. My momentum bled away swiftly, and by the time I’d reached the fountain in the center of town, I was slowing to my normal jogging pace. I angled myself up slightly, rising about a hundred meters to bleed off my residual momentum before setting myself on a glide path for the park. My heart was racing from the thrill of it, the surge of adrenaline, and the exhilaration of walking the line between life and death. I’d always been a bit of a thrill seeker, but this was the first time I had been struck by the urge since my arrival.

I coasted to a stop in front of a park bench, dropping to my haunches as the flush of adrenaline ebbed. I felt… alive. More so than I had felt in months. Nothing makes you appreciate life more than staring down death. I sat in the blessed silence of the night, trying to catch my breath in the wake of my strenuous activities. I cast my gaze upwards, to the stars, and simply relished in the feeling of peace that I had found.

My inner peace was abruptly shattered by an angry looking pair of magenta eyes, staring at me like they had a bone to pick. “Can I… help you?”

“What’s the big idea, blowing through town like that?! You could have really hurt somepony, or splattered yourself across town. Did you even stop to think about that?”

I pressed myself as far into the bench as I could get some distance between me and my accuser. Caught off guard as I was, it took me a second to recognize the source. I was being harangued by none other than Rainbow Dash. I was simultaneously star-struck and abashed at this.

Scrambling, I did my best to answer, my response coming out far more defensive than I meant it to. “I… I was just having a little fun… I didn’t hurt anypony, what’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? What’s the big—you put other ponies at risk so you could get your kicks! I mean, sure, you were going faster than almost anypony I’d ever seen, which was pretty awesome… not as fast as or as awesome as me, of course… but endangering others? Not. Cool. What do you have to say for yourself?”

I found myself stumbling over my reply, completely caught off guard by the interrogation. “I… I didn’t mean to put anypony at risk. I just… I needed to clear my head, and that’s the best way I know to do it. When I get in the zone like that… there’s no room for anything other than flying. You know what it’s like, right?”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course I know what it’s like. But that is no excuse for what you did. What if you’d misjudged a turn and clipped a building? How would that have made your family feel? Or the poor ponies who would have had to scrape you off of the street with a spatula? Come on, dude. What was so important that you’d do something like this just to get away from it?”

I hung my head in shame. Of course I’d never stopped to think, that was something smart ponies did. And if I was a smart pony, I would never have done something so… stupid. I sighed deeply. Dash’s hard expression softened as she saw that she’d gotten her point across.

“It’s just… I have something very important I need to tell to somepony very special, and I just… I don’t know how to tell her. What if she leaves me? I’m not sure—“

Dash held up a hoof. “Stop. You’re psyching yourself out over this. I can’t say I know anything about what’s going on, but I know that playing the whole thing out in your head is no good. Best thing you can do is jump in with all hooves and hope for the best. And don’t pull stupid stunts like this. Especially not when there is a pegasi race track less than ten minutes from here.”

I facehoofed. Hard. The things I didn’t know could fill the Canterlot Archives a few times over. Dash continued. “Now, I’m running late for bed because a certain brown comet who will not be named decided to take a stab at my airspeed superiority and endanger other ponies.”

I raised my eyes just over my hooves to see Dash giving me a “you-done-goofed-and-you-know-it” sort of look. I lowered my head, hiding my face behind my hoof in shame. Dash pressed on.

“You did a dumb thing and risked more than just your own skin. But you know better now, and won’t make the same mistake again, right? Right. Now, I’m about to head out and catch some z’s. Just do me a favor? Remember… no matter how fast you run, or how far… your problems will always catch up to you. Okay?”

I looked up over my hooves once more as I re-evaluated my opinion of this cyan pegasus. Sure, she had the bulbous ego of an athlete, but she had the skills to back it up. Beyond that outer layer, there was something deeper, something I couldn’t quite place. I could see that this was wisdom from experience, and she was speaking from the heart as she echoed lessons that I myself had learned the hard way. I was achingly familiar with the knowledge that you cannot outrun your problems. I gave Dash a quick nod of affirmation, and was met with one of the same. In a puff of dust and a blur of cyan, she was off into the night sky. In the wake of this most unusual stream of events, I found myself compelled to sit on the bench and get my head in order.

First, Berry got her panties in a bunch over my engagement to Joy. While I wanted her to get over it for her own sake, I also had a vested interest in the resumption of her smoothie production. I needed my Fix, man… I mean… anyways, moving on. Then I started to think about how to tell Joy what was on my mind and in my past. And that led me to seek a way to clear my mind, which in turn led to my highly unexpected and eye-opening “chat” with Rainbow Dash. The events of the last half hour had left me feeling somewhat dazed, and I came to the conclusion that I should probably head home before I did anything else that was so overtly stupid. Casting a wary glance to the bejeweled velvet tapestry that was the night sky, I caught not sight of hide nor Technicolor hair of my cyan idol. Even so, in the light of what I’d just done, I felt that it was wise so stick to the ground as I made my way home. For the first time since I'd gotten my wings, I couldn’t bring myself to use them. Hanging my head in chagrin, I slowly trotted home and went to bed.

The following day at work, I found my mind to be abuzz with thoughts and doubts and fears, each rising to the forefront of my mind just long enough to catch my attention before sinking back to the murky depths. I did my best to fight through the distractions, but I finally had to admit defeat when I caught myself reading a work order for the fifth time and still hadn’t the foggiest as to what it was for. Groaning loudly in frustration, I rose from the work orders scattered on the desk to go get some fresh air. Before I did so however, I had to track down Buffy and let her know I'd be out for a little bit. This wasn’t very difficult at all, since the mare left a gleam in her wake that was impossible to miss. I told her I was going to run an errand for a bit, and that I'd be back soon. She gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, not once looking up from her work.

A blur of hallways and hooves, and I was outside. The gentle night breeze played across my feathers, and that in and of itself did wonders to clear my mind as the lesser thoughts were swept up and subsumed into my instinctual desire for flight. I was brought up short by an all too vivid recollection of angry eyes of the deepest magenta, and I stowed my wings as I relegated myself to the ground for the time being. Of the thoughts in my head vying for my attention, there were two that stood out more than the rest, and go figure, they were about telling Joy. Specifically, how I was going to tell her, and what I was going to tell her. For the first time since my unceremonious arrival here, I found myself seeking the comfort and false clarity of a good, strong drink. As my mind circled again and again around those two questions that consumed my conscious mind, my subconscious-self saw fit to commandeer control of my legs as I meandered on autopilot. I didn’t realize where I was until the bell over the door to Berry’s jingled at my entrance. Berry and I looked up at the same time, a very similar look of shock written on both of our faces at my presence there.

Almost in unison, our faces drooped back to the melancholic expressions of ponies with a lot on their mind. Berry didn’t budge so much as an inch from her position behind the counter, opting instead to survey my approach with her chin still propped atop her hoof. She held me in a level gaze as I approached the counter, and I knew that her disaffected stare was mirrored by my own visage. Drawing up to the counter, I was struck by several things at once, all combining and compounding each other to elicit a very strong response from a part of me I'd almost forgotten existed.

Berry was looking at me through a half lidded stare, a slight flush visible on her magenta cheeks. Her mane lacked its usual level of care, as evidenced by several loose strands of curly violet. Berry’s breath carried a familiar sour note to it, and it was this more than anything that began to stir something within me. At first, I was a bit baffled by the way I'd noticed all of these things, being that I am not usually a very observant pony. Equally baffling was the exact nature of the desires and urges swirling and rising within me. They were not of lust or a sexual desire, per se, but they were some sort of desire. As my eyes fell upon the bottle tucked behind the register, everything snapped into place. Berry was buzzed, and the stirrings within me were borne of my borderline alcoholism reawakening. I suppose it had lain dormant for so long because of the circumstances of my arrival; I'd never really had a chance to succumb to the melancholy or the mundane that usually fueled my drinking. That, coupled with the fact that this was the first time I'd seen any sort of alcohol since my arrival, that is.

My eyes snapped away from the bottle to lock onto Berry’s pink orbs. Perhaps it was the directness of my stare, or maybe it was the way my eyes had lingered on the bottle for an instant too long, but Berry held up a hoof to cut me off before I even knew I was going to speak.

“Don’t lecture me, mister goody-four-shoes, about alcohol. I know it’s bad for me, blah blah blah, whatever. I don’t care, and I’ve heard it all before. I do not have a problem, I do not need help, and no; I don’t think I should cut back any. Is there anything else I –hic- can do for you?”

At Berry’s all-too-familiar tirade, I merely cocked an eyebrow. A moment of silence hung in the air before I responded to her, trying to keep my voice as calm and collected as possible.

“Yeah. Can you pour me some?”

An hour later, Berry and I were nothing but smiles as I waved a farewell to her and set off back towards the hospital. All it had taken was a little bit of apple brandy to turn those thoughts angrily buzzing around my mind like a pissed off beehive into a happy hum, the sort of white noise I could easily tune out. I was pleasantly warm from my very core, and my mood was likewise warm and fuzzy. As I made my way back to work, I reflected on the few bits of our conversation that I could recall.

My thoughts weren’t as clear or sharp as they usually were, but then again, that is exactly what I'd been hoping for when I'd started drinking. I could really feel the alcohol taking its toll on my thoughts. I wasn’t thinking thoughts so much as impressions of thoughts, and this allowed me to cobble together something useful without being distracted by all the little details. Oh, right. The conversation. Well, as it turns out, Berry still had a thing for me. She’d said it like, five times or something like that, so it was easy enough to pick up. But anyways, so she still liked me. So when Joy and I came parading through on Saturday, she was a bit upset about it. I mean, that’s a perfectly understandable reaction, right? Right. So like I was saying, she was not too happy about all of that, so she took a day or two to herself and cracked open a bottle of her secret stash. Just like that, she was feeling right as rain again and decided to open the store back up. After all, it’s not like she could really afford to stay closed for very long. She had bills to pay and all that.

I stumbled on yet another patch of uneven ground, for what was probably the sixth time during my journey back. In the back of my hazy mind, I mused to myself about the uneven kilter of the road and whether it had always been this lumpy. This thought followed the path of those before it though, fading back into the warm and fuzzy blackness. Oh Luna, how I had missed this feeling. I greeted the ponies in the hospital with a warm smile, very similar to the one I'd been wearing since Friday night’s… activities, though perhaps a bit more exaggerated.

The halls passed in a blur, and I suddenly found myself sitting at the manager’s desk with no recollection of the journey past the reception desk. I blinked a few times, trying to get the room to sit still for a minute. Either the brandy was stronger than I'd thought, or there was a drink or two I didn’t recall consuming, but I was well on the path to a blackout by this time. I stood up on legs that seemed to be made of wet noodles as I made my way to the fountain in the corner of the room. The floor was bucking like a ship at sea, and I was thankful that there was nopony else here to see me like this. I reached the fountain and slurped hungrily, feeling the coolness of the water slaking a thirst I didn’t know I had. I could almost feel the water taking effect, dampening the severity of the alcohol’s influence. Grumbling to myself about something not even I could comprehend, I staggered back to the desk and slumped roughly into the chair there. It was then that I noticed that I was not alone in the room anymore. At some point, Buffy had come to the office to report in, stopping at the threshold as she took in the sorry state I was in. She said not a word as she stared at me, lips pursed tight in thinly veiled distaste. I made eye contact with her and quickly faltered under her glare. I hung my head in shame, a motion that was becoming far too familiar as of late.

“So… Buffy. I take it that the place is clean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Huh. Okay then. Uh… hmm. I guess you can take a break or something, if you want. You know what’s up.”

“’What’s up’? What’s up? What’s up is that while I was hard at work busting my hump to make this place sparkle, to make it something I'd be proud to show you, you were out getting drunk. And to think, I looked up to you.”

That warm and fuzzy feeling vanished, a cold ball of spite and self-loathing settling into its place. In one breath, Buffy had told me not only that she had looked up to me, but that I wasn’t worthy of it. I was angry at myself, but Buffy was a far easier target, unfortunately.

“I never asked to be looked up to. Not by you or anypony. Truth is, I am a terrible, selfish pony. I’m just surprised it took so long for other ponies to see it. Go home, you’re done here; I know your work is done already. Take the rest of the night off as an apology from me for falling from my pedestal where you could see it. Sorry to let you down.”

Buffy just stood there in the doorway, holding me in her gaze for a moment. I hadn’t looked up from the desk since I'd first made eye contact with her, but I could feel her eyes upon me. With a disgusted sigh, she turned and left. Her hooves echoed on the tile for a moment, and then there was nothing but me and my thoughts in that back room. I was sobering up quite quickly, something I attributed to my prolific metabolism in combination with the dreadful feeling that’d settled in my gut. I sighed once more before shuffling the work orders on the desk, trying to do anything possible to rid myself of the feeling in my gut. As much as that little encounter had sucked, it had served its purpose. I knew how I would tell Joy. All that remained for me was to take a leap of faith from the pedestal she’d placed me on. It was all I could do to hope that she would still be there to catch me once she learned of my betrayal.

The next four days passed in agonizing slowness. I was going out of my way to avoid Joy during those grey areas of the clock where we were both at the hospital at the same time, despite being on separate shifts. I knew that there was no way she hadn’t noticed this. My brain saw fit to torment me with the thought of her looking for me in the hallways with an expectant smile, only to have her smile fade away into a hurt pout as I failed to appear. Surely, she was rethinking her own actions, retracing her own steps to find a reason why. And the timing of my behavior, so soon after we… you know… was terribly unfortunate. Even so, it had to be done. Joy had learned to read me like a book in our time together, and there was simply no way she wouldn’t see right through me now. It was nothing more than a stroke of luck that she hadn’t found me out already. All the questions about my past had been asked before we’d bonded so well, before she’d learned to pick up on my tells.

I knew she was hurting inside and that it was all my fault, but I couldn’t risk revealing this to her on the fly. I had a pretty good idea how she’d react, and it wasn’t going to be anything that anypony else should be privy to. My guilt had been very mild up until recently. I was able to quiet the feeling by telling myself that I'd tell her eventually, and that I'd deal with it then. I'd been saying it for months now. I found that as the time of my confession drew near, I could feel the weight of every second I'd let her believe my lies. And the fact that I was causing her to suffer even before I rent her world asunder was gnawing at my heart like a hungry weasel. I wanted to let her know that I wasn’t mad or angry or leaving her, so I dropped in to Flora’s and bought a single Aurora, to be delivered to Joy along with a note. I placed the order on Wednesday and scheduled the delivery for Friday, which was the earliest that the flower could be delivered.

On the note, after several sheets of paper filled with discarded ideas, I wrote simply this.

Joy, I love you now and forever, with all of my heart. I will stay by your side as long as you will have me, until the stars fade to black and the sun fails to rise, and even then in the dark. You’ve not lost me, my dear.

I was loathe to spend any period of time contemplating exactly how short a period of time “as long as you will have me” could actually be. And while I knew that this cryptic message from the blue would most likely be a cause for concern for Joy, it would also set her mind somewhat at ease as I hopefully squashed some of the motions playing through her head. After all, I needed her to know that I really and truly loved her, and that I would stay by her side until my dying breath… at least… if she would still have me once she knew the truth.

I'd put in for a day off on Friday night, justifying it to Brass with a line about personal issues or some such nonsense. She wished me well but didn’t pry; the disquieting air of gloom that had settled upon my shoulders had seen to that. I thanked her and took my leave before her curiosity could get the better of her. When I awoke Friday, the world seemed preternaturally quiet. The dread I'd felt all week had escaped to permeate the atmosphere, seemingly robbing it of oxygen. Sounds were muffled and muddy, as if I had cotton crammed in my ears. The air hung hot and heavy in my lungs, seemingly intent upon smothering me. I could feel the weight of the axe hanging o’er my head, laden with dread purpose. I knew the axe was there. Worse, I knew that it would be my own actions that would bring about the fall of it. I was a man at the gallows, having tied my own noose, as I stood ‘pon the platform with the lever in my grasp.

The front door creaked open, and hoofsteps on tile began the countdown.

The rustle of a lab coat being hung by the door with care and pride, punctuated by a weary sigh.

The creak of the door as it swung closed; the latch clicking with the finality of a firing pin striking upon a primer.

The shuffle of hooves as they made their way out of the vestibule and into the hallway between the kitchen and the living room.

The sound of steps drawing nearer suddenly halted once they reached the living room, as if caught by surprise at my presence on the couch.

I let out a sigh, laden with guilt as I prepared to reap what I'd sown. A moment of hesitation as I finally resigned myself to my fate. Deep within the confines of my mind, I saw myself standing upon the gallows as the sun set on the far hills.

I pulled the lever and felt the world lurch out from beneath me.

“Joy… we need to talk.”

I had been staring blankly ahead at a speck on the coffee table since I'd awoken, playing this scenario out in my head over and over and over again. Dejectedly, I tore my gaze away from the table to look Joy in the eyes. With those five words, I had triggered an unknown amount of nightmare scenarios in Joy’s mind, and she slumped against the doorframe for support. I could see the fear and doubt in her eyes as she pictured her newfound life caving in around her. Her lip quivered and a tear began to creep down her cheek. And as much as I wanted to comfort her and tell her that everything would be alright, I knew I couldn’t, because it wouldn’t. I'd told too many lies already, and I'd be damned if I was going to add even a single one more.

“Dave? What… what did I do? Please, just tell me what I’ve done and I’ll fix it, I swear! I can change if you need me to… just please… please don’t leave me, Dave. I need you… “

My pitiful heart wanted to break as she laid her fears bare to me, but I wasn’t even sure I still had a heart anymore. And if I did, it had already been torn apart at the thought of what was to come next.

“Joy, it’s not you. It’s not your fault… you’ve been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You are the most beautiful, loving, caring mare I have ever had the pleasure to meet. And that’s why I have to do this… something I should have done long ago. You deserve better than me. I’m not worthy of your love, but I’ll be yours as long as you’ll have me. Joy, I have a confession to make, and it is going to hurt you. I need you to listen to everything I have to say, and let me finish. This is going to be hard for you to hear, but you need to hear it. Joy, my love… I need you to hear me out.”

Joy’s tears were flowing freely now, twin rivulets pouring down her face. There was not a circle of hell low enough for me; I deserved and eternity of damnation for every single tear my lies had forced me to wring from my blue eyed angel. She’d slumped to the floor, unable to support her own weight any longer as she held my gaze. I could read her almost as well as she could read me, and what I saw simply broke something within me. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul… and through these windows, I saw the true meaning of despair; I knew what sorrow could truly be. I had to look away before my resolve crumbled. All I wanted to do now was end this, get everything out in the open and remove all doubt. The axe now fell.

“Joy… I’ve lied to you. About many things. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I was scared. But you deserve better; you deserve the truth, no matter how badly it hurts. So here goes everything. Joy… I am not a pony. I am not from Equestria, nor even from this world. I am a human, and I come from a parallel universe. By the whims of the Elder Gods, or Elder Dragons, or whatever they are, I was torn from my universe and flung into this one. In my old life, I was not only in love, I was married. I had a son. I had a life, with family and friends and a career. I didn’t know it at the time, but I'd been offered a choice in the form of an alcoholic beverage; a choice to return to my normal life on earth or to venture to Ponyville, this strange and wonderful place for of bright colors and happiness. I made my choice, electing Ponyville instead of my normal, boring life. I didn’t know it at the time, but I'd forsaken my old life and all those in it.”

“The day we first met, I hadn’t been in an accident… at least, not the one that everypony thinks I was. I was thrown into this universe as a pegasus, and I didn’t know how to fly. Heck, it wasn’t until after I hit the ground that I even discovered that I was a pony. But I was hurt badly, and I knew that I needed to do something to get some help. That was the first lie, the story about the thunder. How else could I have justified being a pegasus who couldn’t fly? At the time, I thought I was dreaming, thought that none of this was real. I was sure this was all just an alcohol fueled break from reality, so these little lies were harmless. I'd just wake up and this would all be over, and I'd be a human again. But then I met you.”

“You… were, and still are, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever met. You aren’t even only beautiful on the outside either… you have such a wonderful, pure heart and soul that I found myself wanting nothing more than to stay here with you. And somehow, I did. By the time I'd finally come to accept that I wasn’t dreaming, that this was actually happening… I'd told too many lies to just come clean. I was already falling for you, and I didn’t want to destroy what we were building between us. I figured you’d call me crazy and send me away to the loony bin, or you would be hurt that I'd lied to you and leave me. I’m still terrified that you might do one of those, or both. But I kept pushing it off and pushing it off, and the next thing I knew, I was in love with you. In my old life I was married, and I had a child… and yet… it wasn’t until I met you that I truly knew what love was. As terrible a thing as it is to say, I did not love my wife or my son the way I love you.”

“You inspire me. You make me ache to be a pony worthy of your affection, make me strive to be the pony you thought I was. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I’ve come to a conclusion. In my old life, I was a bad person. I lied. I cheated. I hurt people with my words and deeds in ways for which I can never atone. I had my moments of decency, but I was still a bad person. This schism… it was like a reset. I was being given a chance that comes along maybe once in a thousand lifetimes, the chance to truly start fresh. I want to be what I could never be on earth… I want to be good. I want to make the right choices, do what is right and good. Leave it up to me to start that with a lie.”

“So that’s it. That’s my confession. I’m not the pony you thought I was; I’m not even truly a pony. I’m a being from another universe or dimension or whatever whose soul was hurled across the void to land in Ponyville. My best guess is that this form, a pegasus, is just the form that most closely matched the nature of my soul. I’ve lied about my past to everypony I’ve ever met, with the exception of Princess Luna in my dreams. But here is the truth, as surely as the sun is bright and the night is dark: I love you, Joy. I’ve been nothing but faithful to you from the moment we met, and I want nothing more than to grow old with you by my side. I understand though, if you want me to leave. I’ve lied to you, and for that, there is no punishment fitting my crime. I just hope… someday, you’ll forgive me.”

Silence hung over the room like a burial shroud. Joy’s tears had dried shortly after I began my confession, a look of disbelief and then shock on her face as I continued. Now… she was just blank. Her face held no expression at all, bereft of any hint at all of what she was feeling. I felt the little ember of hope within me gutter and die as her silence stretched on. I stared at her, searching for a sign, a reaction, anything to let me know my fate, but finding none. After the longest minutes of my life, Joy spoke up. Her voice was as neutral as her features, betraying no hint or inkling of emotional state.

“Dave… I think it would be best if you stayed somewhere else for now.”

Her words struck me like a sledgehammer to the gut. I'd expected them, been prepared for them, and braced for them… but when the words actually came, they struck home far harder and far deeper than I'd imagined. My breath threatened to leave me as the darkness started to creep into the edges of my vision. I fought back the nausea and choking sensation as best I could, doing my best to mask my own feelings as I silently gathered up my bag. I'd packed the morning before, when I got home from work, just in case it came to this. My possessions still littered the room, for I'd not packed everything I owned, only the essentials. I'd thought about packing it all up, but it seemed too much like I was preparing to move out, and I couldn’t bring myself to go that far. I slung the bag over my shoulders and rose to my hooves. Joy hadn’t moved from her spot against the door frame, and her gaze had not shifted a millimeter. I walked past her on the way out, though she didn’t even seem to register my presence. I might as well have not even existed for all the notice she took of me.

The last glimpse I saw of her was from the moment before I turned the corner into the hallway. As I looked back at her, I saw a single tear sliding down her cheek. In her place, I saw my wife on earth as I walked out the door for the last time. Blocking out the feeling of déjà vu, I walked out the door, leaving tears in my wake once again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Author's Note

Balderdash, to the Batcave!

Huh? Oh, right. I don't have one.

TO THE MINIVAN!

Last edited 03DEC15

21: The Cost of Vengeance

Chapter 21
The Cost of Vengeance

Numb. Hollow. Alone. Since that fateful day I'd fallen from the sky, I'd had the luxury of a life where these words held no real meaning to me. Today, as the night descended once more over the land, I was reminded of their meaning. The comfortable warmth that had grown in me since that day had been extinguished, and its absence left my soul cold and desolate. The frigidity in my veins made it seem like the sun would never again shine on me, not that I deserved its warmth anyways. Something vital within me had been torn away, and I was aching at the void it left. I was hurt, guilty, alone and afraid… and Celestia damn me to the moon for a thousand years, I turned to the one solution I knew to remedy the problem. Each step took monumental effort, as if I was slogging through deep mud, but I eventually made my way to Berry’s.

To her credit, Berry took one look at me and poured me a strong drink. I fumbled some bits onto the counter before collecting my drink and secluding myself in the most remote corner of the café I could find, sitting with my back into a corner. I slugged down almost a quarter of the glass’s contents in a few gulps, the fiery sensation in my throat bearing the promise of sweet oblivion. From my seat, I could see the front door to the café, though not the counter or register due to the corner of the wall. I saw Berry approach the couple inside the diner and engage them in a short conversation as she gestured to the tables on the patio. The pair smiled and stood, collecting their drinks as they relocated to the tables outside. As soon as they were out the door, Berry flipped the sign to ‘closed’ and drew the shades in the windows before making her way to my table. She took one look at me and threw her arms around me in a hug. I didn’t react at all to this invasion of personal space, as that would have required some sort of ability to care.

Berry pulled herself away from me, placing her hooves on my shoulders and looking at me with concern plainly etched across her features. I brought the glass back to my lips, taking a long draught of the amber liquid. It didn’t burn as much this time, and I could already feel the cold emptiness being filled in by the warmth of my escape mechanism. My emotional numbness was supplanted by the merciful apathy of alcohol, blunting the edge of my grief. I'd more or less known that this was going to happen once I came clean, but that did nothing to ease the pain of actually living it. Did this mean that the wedding was off? Was she leaving me for good, or did she just need time and space to think? I raised the glass for another taste of oblivion, only to find that it was much heavier than before. So heavy, in fact, that I couldn’t pick it up. My eyes swam into focus from where I'd been staring into space, taking note of a hoof holding my glass down. I looked up from my glass only to find that Berry was looking at me expectantly, and with a definite air of worry about her.

I managed to cock my eyebrow in an inquisitive manner, which was about the sum total of my capability to show emotion at the moment. Berry repeated the question she’d apparently just asked me.

“Dave, are you okay? What’s going on, dude? Did something happen with Joy?”

I am usually a pretty happy fellow, especially around my friends, and even more so with alcohol involved. It is rare to see me without at least a little bit of a grin on my face, even at times when I don’t feel like smiling. Especially when I don’t feel like smiling. On those rare occasions where I’m not smiling, I look like an angry sonuvabitch. I can’t help it, it’s just the way my face looks. In certain situations, such as the one in which I found myself at that moment, my expression lends itself perfectly to the conveyance of my emotions without even trying. Without really meaning to, I shot Berry a withering glare. Her ears immediately folded back and she removed her hoof from my shoulder and the other from the top of my glass, recoiling in shock from my hostile stare. Suddenly freed of the extra weight Berry’s hoof had provided, my glass jerked upwards slightly, a bit of the amber liquid sloshing out onto the table. I ignored the coolness dripping down my hoof as I held Berry under the weight of my gaze.

The emptiness within me was metastasizing, warping from its initial loneliness into a pleasant warmth as the alcohol filled the space Joy had left behind. Berry’s question was a spark, a catalyst. The reaction it triggered set the alcohol in my blood ablaze, stoking the embers of self-loathing, guilt, and sheer, mindless rage into an all-consuming inferno that exploded through my veins. All of the blue feelings that I'd been harboring within me… the shame, the regret, my resignation to the fact that I deserved to lose Joy… they were all ignited, and the alcohol fanned the flames higher. I'd become the Dave-ferno once more, though this time there were no peppers to blame for my rage. I felt the pressure building within me, all of my pain and anger looking for a place to escape. As my fury built, I yet held Berry pinned under my gaze. I was no Fluttershy, but I had a stare all my own; a stare that the buttery pegasus herself could never muster. One that I doubted anypony in this benevolent nation could muster, because I possessed something that was nearly as alien to this world as I was: malice.

In my gaze there was borne the threat of terrible suffering and pain, inflicted gleefully. I was not born of this world, was not made soft by the geniality, pacifism, and good will that was omnipresent in society. And though I wore the avatar of a pony, I was still a human. I was a member of a species capable of the most depraved acts of violence and sadism, the scope of which was beyond fathom. I had personally tasted blood, reveled in the thrill of the chase, and basked in the glory of a kill. At my core, I was a predator, a hunter… and as Berry stared into my eyes, I knew she’d seen this. The ancestral part of her brain that housed the instincts of a prey animal was terrified into paralysis by my glare, and I could almost smell her fear. I broke my gaze through a force of will I didn’t know I possessed, tearing my eyes from hers and focusing instead on the amber liquid. I still seethed with anger, malice, and more than a few sadistic desires, but even in this state, I recognized that Berry wasn’t my target. She didn’t deserve that. In the pregnant silence, I took another drink.

Only a hoof-full of seconds had passed since she had asked a simple question of me, but in those few seconds, things had changed. The alcohol sharpened my pain and strengthened my anger, but it also granted me a bit of much needed clarity, focusing my rage and honing it into a razor’s edge. Berry was not the target of my anger, though it took me a few seconds too long to realize it. In those few seconds, she’d caught a glimpse of a darker side of me, and I knew that she’d never look at me quite the same again. Maybe that would bother me someday, maybe not. For the moment though, it could not have been more inconsequential. Perhaps a dozen seconds after she’d asked her question, Berry followed up with another.

“Dave. What in the name of Tartarus was that? I asked you a question, because I care about you, and you look like you want to tear me limb from limb for it. That… was terrifying. Look at this! I’m shaking!”

I didn’t glance up from my drink, but I could see her outstretched hoof trembling violently. Silently, I took another sip.

“Dave? Please… say something. You’re really scaring me right now. Is Joy okay? Did something happen to her?”

A moment of silence passed as I considered my response. When I spoke, my voice was a deep growl, laden with scarcely repressed anger and spite despite my efforts to keep it neutral.

“Joy? She’s fine, mostly. Probably mad at me. Can’t blame her, though.”

Berry, despite her fear from a moment ago, now spoke in a demanding tone. “’Mostly’ fine? Dave, you’d better explain what exactly you mean by ‘mostly’ fine.”

I didn't even care enough to shrug. “Like I said. She’s probably mad at me. I had to tell her some things that she wasn’t keen to hear.”

Berry physically relaxed, slouching in relief. “Oh, so she’s not physically hurt? And what kind of things?”

I answered by taking another sip, a longer one this time. Some things are best kept private. The silence stretched on once more as Berry made it clear that she was still waiting for a response. My already-hot temper flared up, and I snapped a bit more than I meant to.

“I didn’t hurt her, dammit. I never could, never would. And you want to know what I told her? Huh? Is that it? You want to be privy to our little secrets? Too fucking bad. All I have to say about it is that she found out the hard way that I’m not nearly the pony everypony makes me out to be, and it broke her fucking heart. And once she knew the truth about me, she kicked me out. Are you happy now?!”

At some point, my voice had risen to just shy of a shout. I clenched my jaws together to stifle the urge to scream, the almost overwhelming desire to vent my pain. I once more locked Berry in my gaze, baring my teeth as I ground them and staring daggers at her. I would never hurt her, would never hurt a mare, but my gaze said differently. I was glaring at her with the full force of my hatred, and I despised her for making me think about Joy, about my pain. This time, Berry didn’t flinch, didn’t cower. She didn’t even look particularly scared. Instead, she just looked… sad. My vision swam, and I realized that I was crying. And that was all it took.

With that first tear, the fire burning in my gut was extinguished, the hatred that had given me strength and resolve withering to naught. Metastasizing one last time, the rage in my gut came full circle, returning to anguish at the thought of all I'd lost today. My glare faltered under the onslaught of my tears, and the lips that bared my teeth began to quiver. As the surge of emotions passed through me and carried away the anger that had propped me up, I deflated like a balloon. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow and simply wept in silence. Even before I'd felt the first tear, Berry had seen the change in me and moved to comfort me. By the time I'd buried my face, she’d had her arm around my shoulder, offering comfort. Though I made no move to show it, I appreciated her gesture. After a minute or two, I was able to beat my emotions into submission and cram them into a box, stemming the flow. I raised my head from my arm and muttered a brief thanks, to which Berry simply smiled.

I was still hurt, confused, angry, and lonely, but I was starting to feel better, if only just. By the time I'd collected myself sufficiently to venture outside, the night had risen and the moon was well above the horizon. After politely refusing Berry’s offer of a place to sleep (several times over), I set off for a friend’s house, intent on calling in a favor. I'd managed to locate Derpy’s house without any difficulty at all. The muffin-shaped mailbox was a pretty solid indicator, after all. I drew up to the doorstep and took a deep breath to collect myself before knocking. I reached up to knock, but a sound from within made me stop short, a fraction of an inch before contact. From the other side of the door, I heard laughter.

I recognized Derpy’s laughter immediately, but the other voice was unfamiliar; a rather deep chuckle with a tantalizingly familiar timbre to it. I stood there for a second, trying to place the voice, before it registered that I was standing on Derpy’s porch and eavesdropping on what was most likely a date. Immediately ashamed of myself, I turned and trotted off into the night as quickly as my slightly-un-coordinated hooves would carry me.

After a moment of consideration, I figured that the oak tree in the meadow outside of town would be as good a place as any to spend the night. Somewhat less-than-thrilled at the fact that I'd be spending the night in a tree instead of Joy’s embrace, I stopped for a moment to dig into my saddlebags for Berry’s parting gift to me; a simple copper flask, filled with that delicious brandy. I took a little nip of the elixir, and was fastening the stopper once more when I became aware of a group of ponies approaching me from behind, roughly at my five o’clock. I slipped the flask back into my bag, about to resume my trek, when I heard a voice that stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Well I’ll be… look what we have here, boys. It’s that hero everypony was so worked up about a while back. Say there, bird brain, where’s your bitch?”

I felt something stir within the coals of my earlier anger as soon as this colt began to speak, but when he insulted Joy like that, exaggerating every sound and drawing it out like that… I could feel the rage returning. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registered that this was going to get really ugly, really quickly. That same little voice in the back of my head began to scream at them to run away, begging them not to do this… it’s a shame they couldn’t hear it. My pulse began to race as the adrenaline surged into my veins. I turned to face them, and I counted five of them. The walking waste of space that was the brown pony I'd had a run in with on my way to the gala, and his four other earth pony chums. None of those four looked even slightly familiar, so I assumed they were from out of town.

The fire in my belly was back, and with a vengeance at that. Here I was, angry, hurt, somewhat inebriated, and outnumbered five-to-one… and I couldn’t help but smile. My gaze hopped from one to the next, lingering just long enough to gauge their eagerness for a fight. All five of them looked like they planned on stomping me into paste, and my maniacal grin grew wider yet. Locking my eyes onto those of the brown one from earlier, I stared him down with a slightly psychotic smile.

“Oh, it’s you again. I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught that last bit quite right. Care to run it by me again?”

Cocoa, as I had decided to call him, met my gaze with a cocky smirk. “Are you deaf and stupid, bird brain? You heard me. Where’s. Your. Bitch?”

I felt my blood run cold as the adrenaline and my desire to hurt something collided. This was going to be… messy. When Cocoa had accosted me initially, he had been about fifteen meters away from me. For dramatic effect, he punctuated his last three words by taking a step forward after each. This was apparently a signal to the others, who moved to encircle me. While I was not generally a violent being, the temptation here was simply too much to resist. Not only was I angry prior to this jackass’s confrontation, but I was also outnumbered by a significant margin. The way he insulted Joy was just the icing on top. No, I wasn’t about to walk away from this one. I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling in malevolent delight.

“Ah, yes. I thought as much. Do you remember what I said to you, the day of the Gala?”

I stared him down, yearning for this fight. I was going to make sure he never forgot this night, so long as he lived.

“No, mister tough pony. It seems to have slipped my mind. How’s about you remind me, so we can rub it in your face as we scrape you off our hooves?”

I saw it in his eyes. He remembered exactly what I'd said, but he was trying not to show it. He was acting tough, but I saw a glimmer of fear in his eyes. He’d had a taste of my speed before, and it scared him. As well it should.

I took a deep breath, shuffling my wings slightly to loosen the joints. “I told you that if I ever heard you insult a mare again, I'd knock the taste out of your mouth.”

I looked around at the two ponies flanking Cocoa, making eye contact with each in turn as I finished my statement.

“And that if you ever insulted my mare again, I'd break your legs.”

I punctuated my ultimatum by locking my death glare on each of the three ponies I could see in time with my words.

“One. By. One.”

Maybe it was my maniacal grin, or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t flown away despite ample opportunity to, but I could see the uncertainty growing in their eyes as I delivered my declaration. Cocoa’s eyes widened for a second as doubt gripped him, but he shook it off and narrowed his eyes at me.

“Stomp him.”

Time slowed to a crawl as all hell broke loose on a back street in Ponyville. An instant before Cocoa gave the word, his eyes darted to an area just beyond my right shoulder. Apparently, one of them was trying to sneak up on me from behind. That was a bad idea. I heard the gravel behind me shift slightly as the unfortunate pony readied to tackle me from behind, and I lashed out with a vicious buck, both of my hooves catching the would-be attacker square in the chest. I felt ribs crack and splinter under the force of my blow. The force of my attack sent me sprawling forward, and I executed a flawless combat roll and landed, crouching, on all fours. I had a split second to react, and I dodged to my right an instant before a pair of forehooves pulverized the ground I'd just stood on. I struck out with a straight jab from my left forehoof, angling the thickest part of it towards the orange stallion’s front knee. The joint gave way with a crunchy pop, and the owner of it roared in pain as he collapsed.

I was blindsided by a body slam from my right side, the force of which sent me tumbling for a good five meters. The instant I came to a stop, my vision was filled by a lime colored stallion, rearing up to deliver what very well could be a fatal blow. My body moved faster than I could consciously register as my wings provided the leverage to roll me onto my shoulder blades, my back legs now perpendicular to the abdomen of my assailant. I bucked with all the force I could muster, catching this lime pony in mid-stomp and arresting his downward momentum. I was able to shift him to my left as he crumpled, preventing him from landing on top of me and pinning me under his bulk. My vision was suddenly filled with stars and a strobing light, and I had the feeling that I was airborne. My collision with the ground confirmed this feeling, and I could feel the ground shake as a very angry pony galloped towards me. I'd barely regained my hooves before I was rocked by another solid blow, this one landing just above my left eye. Had I been sober, this blow would have dropped me like a sack of flour. I was not, however, sober; and because of this I was a bit more limber than usual. I somehow managed to roll with the strike, dissipating a knockout blow into a mere brown-out.

I remained where I'd landed as a result of the blow, my head spinning far too quickly to stand. My attacker, a light blue fellow, sauntered up to me to deal the finishing blow as I struggled to get my hooves back under me. Though my legs weren’t working as well as they should, I was far from immobilized, as the cyan stallion discovered the hard way. As soon as he got within three meters of me, I exploded towards him with a single, mighty flap. I caught him just under his jaw with my shoulder as we collided, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he dropped like a stone. I landed a bit roughly, fighting the nausea growing in the pit of my stomach. Moans rose from all around me, each telling the tale of a serious injury from those who were conscious. I was gasping for breath and bleeding heavily from the gash over my left eye as I surveyed the scene. Almost immediately, I found what I was searching for.

Or, to be specific, who I was searching for.

Cocoa stood in the same place he’d stood as he gave his friends the word to attack. The only difference was that his once confident smirk had been replaced by an open-mouthed gape of shock and revulsion. Though my left eye was quickly swelling closed and matting with blood, I stared him down with my one good eye. Wheezing from what was most likely another cracked rib, I glared at him and smiled a bloody smile.

“Heh… look… look at you. Can’t… can’t even fight… your own battles. Sent your buddies… to do your dirty work. Heh. Y’all see this? He hasn’t… hasn’t even moved… to help you. Pathetic.”

I spit a glob of blood onto the sidewalk. Oh, I was going to enjoy this.

“Heh… remember what I said… I was going to do? Heh… I meant it.”

Being the paragon of steadfast courage that he was, Cocoa stood his ground.

Nah, I’m kidding. He ran like the scared filly he was. I took a moment to watch him go, trying to catch my breath. There was no way I was going to let him escape. Not with how intoxicated and angry I was; not after what he said about Joy, about my Joy. Not a chance.

“Look colts. There goes your fearless… leader. Running away.”

I could see the resentment in the orange one’s eyes as he looked at his so-called friend abandoning him after standing by and watching him get beaten without so much as lifting a hoof to help. As Cocoa ran, I could feel my blood begin to surge anew as a fresh spurt of adrenaline poured into my veins. The thrill of the chase was upon me, and the haze in my mind rapidly dissipated as my pain faded to little more than an annoyance. With a deranged half-smile, I roared my words into the night sky, loud enough that Luna Herself must have heard them.

“Run all you want, you’ll just DIE TIRED!”

My words struck their mark, and I could see Cocoa pick up his pace even further as he tried to escape. Lights began to come on in the windows overlooking the street, and yet others swung open to reveal grumpy and disheveled ponies who’d been roused from slumber.

Good. Let them watch. Let them see what comes to those who insult my love, my Joy.

I launched myself into the air with a single powerful flap, and immediately poured on every bit of speed I could. I tore through the skies after Cocoa like a demon from hell, bent on vengeance. I closed the distance at a breakneck speed, tucking my wings to my side as I plowed into him. The both of us were sent sprawling on the gravel from the force of the impact, but I was far quicker to recover. I was riding so high on a surge of adrenaline that I barely even felt the impact. As I pulled myself onto my hooves, I became aware that my right shoulder was not working the way it should, and saw that it appeared to be dislocated. I hobbled over to a nearby wall, lined up the joint where I thought it should be, and promptly rammed it back into place against the building with a sickening crunch. A white hot flare of pain surged across my neurons, shutting out everything else for an instant before it faded. There was still a dull, throbbing pain in the joint, but I could deal with that later. I rounded on the downed pony, chuckling darkly.

Cocoa had come to rest in the center of a pool of light cast by a street lamp. There was a small pool of blood stemming from a gash on his foreleg. The lighting… the audience of shocked onlookers… this was my stage. This was where I'd teach him a lesson, for all the world to see. There was a voice in the back of my mind, pleading and begging for me not to do this, to just walk away… but it was too late. I realized then that I was no longer in control of my actions, I was just along for the ride. I'd endured quite the beating because of this waste of flesh. All of my self-loathing for the lies I'd told… the anger I'd felt for not having the courage to tell Joy sooner… my fear that I'd driven away the one mare I'd loved the most… my utter revulsion at this worthless sack of meat at my hooves, who insulted the mare I loved and was then too cowardly to stand and face the consequences… all of these things motivated me to do this, to make good on my word. But in the end, it was the alcohol in my blood that gave me the ruthlessness to carry it out.

I stood over Cocoa, leering down at him as my blood dripped onto his coat, intermingling with his own. The pathetic creature groaned in pain as his eyes swam into focus. His eyes locked on mine, and his pupils shrank to pinpricks.

“N-no! Please, don’t do this! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, I swear!”

My voice was no longer so much a voice as a snarl as I snapped back at him.

“Didn’t mean it? You sent you four buddies to try and kill me. And I take offense to that. Then, you run off like a COWARD?! No, you deserve this. Unlike you, I live up to my word.” The words spilling from my mouth tasted bitter as the memories of the lies I'd told Joy floated across my mind. I'd sworn to myself that I'd tell the truth from that moment onward. What kind of precedent would I set if I failed to carry out my promise? “I told you that if you ever insulted the mare I loved again, I'd break your legs.”

His eyes went wider still as I lifted up my right rear hoof.

“One.”

I brought my hoof down onto his leg with brutal force, feeling the bones beneath it splinter under the blow. He screamed in pain, but I was too far away, too detached to notice.

“By.”

Another brutal blow, another snap. Tears poured from his eyes as he screamed. Miles away, other ponies were screaming in horror. I realized, in a casual sort of way, that I was crying too.

“Fucking.”

Another snap as I brought my forehoof down on his right forelock. He vomited and passed out. Ponies were sprinting towards me, intent to head off the carnage and stop the brutal attack. They would arrive too late to prevent me from living up to my promise.

“ONE!”

I drove my hoof into his left forelock with all the force I could muster, feeling it splinter before I was struck by a massive dark object. Everything spiraled into blackness as I fell and kept falling.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The next morning was quite possibly the worst day of my life. I was little more than a writhing ball of agony strapped to a gurney as various figures of authority insisted on trying to interrogate me. Everything in the last twenty four hours seemed like a terrible nightmare, and I was constantly being assaulted by images, feelings, and sounds from it. The crunch as my hoof obliterated whatever it’d struck. The screams of pain… oh Luna, the screams… the screams went on forever, seemingly echoing from everywhere until the nurses came running and jabbed a big shiny needle into me… the screaming stopped once I'd closed my mouth.

It all seemed surreal, like some sort of terrible dream from which I could not wake. I'd received a bit of severe head trauma from being swatted with what apparently was a fruit cart, and I found that the first few hours after I'd awoken had blurred in my mind, forming a murky smear of impressions and strangely, smells. Soon enough though, things began to return to normal as my brain slowly came back online from the hard reboot. By mid-afternoon, I was mostly coherent, if a little bit slow. The ponies with all of the questions were back now, but this time they only came one at a time and spoke softly and slowly. The tube in my arm was pumping something heavenly into my battered body, and I could almost feel my body knitting itself back together.

By dinner time, I was paid a visit by the Sergeant of the Guard for Ponyville; an older stallion with a grey coat and a close-shorn blond mane by the name of Sarge. It turned out, he had stopped by my room to give me a final update on the case, in which I was both a victim and defendant somehow, before he submitted his report to the court. Long story short, I was being charged with one charge of aggravated battery for my ‘unprecedented brutality’ against what’s-his-face, aka Cocoa. During the investigation, they had managed to piece together the events of the night before.

Basically, this was how Sarge explained the events to me. At about eighteen hundred, I'd been involved in a domestic dispute that ended peacefully. No further details had been provided for that part. At around eighteen thirty, I arrived at Berry’s Smoothies, where I was served approximately twelve servings’ worth of alcohol. I had a minor emotional event, but was recovered and reportedly in better spirits by twenty-one hundred. At or around twenty-two fourteen, I was accosted by five male earth ponies, two of whom had received some form of martial arts training. Four of the attackers, including the martial artists, were found at the scene and hospitalized for injuries, such as broken ribs, a moderate concussion, severe (and most likely permanently debilitating) soft tissue damage to a knee, and a ruptured kidney. All of these injuries had been a result of lawful self-defense, and I was given the option to press charges against all five of them for organized crime or attempted murder or something… I couldn’t recall what exactly it was that he’d called it.

Immediately following this altercation, at precisely sixteen minutes past twenty-two hundred hours, there were numerous reports of a stallion (who was apparently me) yelling ‘die tired’. Most witnesses agree that there was more to the exclamation than that, but they conflict as to the actual content. This next portion is where I stop being considered the victim and become the assailant. Based on the number of witnesses and the overwhelming corroboration, they knew exactly what had happened next. I took flight, accelerating to just over an estimated hundred kilometers per hour before intentionally colliding with the remaining assailant. At this point, Sarge paused for a moment to tell me just how lucky I was to survive this.

I already knew most of it, but he really drove the point home. As far as ability to withstand blunt-force-type trauma (such as being smacked by a fruit cart) goes, earth ponies and pegasi are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Earth ponies’ bones are far thicker and stronger than pegasi bones, which need to be light and flexible to fly. Slamming into an earth pony who outweighed me by seventy kilos or so, at the speed that I had been traveling, should have broken just about every bone in my body or killed me outright. Instead, I got off with just a dislocated shoulder, which I relocated myself, though incorrectly. Sarge attributed this to my physical condition and to the fact that I was inebriated. Drunks tend to bend, rather than break.

Anecdote aside, Sarge picked up where he’d left off. After I'd smashed into Cocoa, everypony figured I was pretty much done for. When I was not only not dead, but up and moving, the witnesses were shocked into inaction. I then relocated my shoulder against a nearby building and stood over the victim. There was a brief exchange involving the word ‘coward’, and then I stomped on each of his legs one at a time, as I yelled out the words “one”, “by”, “expletive deleted”, and “one”. Ponies were so shocked by this level of brutality that nopony even started to move until the second strike. A nearby unicorn threw a fruit cart at me, but she was just a little bit too late. To my morbid amusement, she received a ticket for illegally parking it in the street after she hit me with it. By recounting the events of that night, Sarge had helped to fill in some of the blank spots in my recollection of the evening, for which I was greatly thankful. Flipping his notebook closed, Sarge fixed me with a hard stare.

“Son, I’m not going to lie to ya. You’re damned lucky to have survived this. Based on what we could gather about the initial ambush you found yourself in, Fortune smiled on you, and hard at that. Keep in mind, most of this information came from the ones you were bein’ ambushed by. The first pony you dropped, with that darned lucky buck of yours? Name’s Ironshod. Easily the most dangerous pony o’ the bunch. He’s some high-rank-or-another in Rolling Earth style, and he’s won a good number of tournaments against skilled opponents. I got to see one of his bouts, and I tell you now… you would not have walked away from that one if you didn’t get the drop on him. Even aside from Ironshod, five on one are not good odds for anypony.”

“The blue buck’s named Skybreeze, and he’s a student of the Swift Hoof style. Seems you two might’ve been an even match if it were one-on-one. The other two were just drinking pals from back in Filly, which is where they all met a few years ago. The brown one, Mocha; he’s their leader, of sorts. You ticked him off pretty bad a few months ago, and he was holding a grudge.”

I'd only been half listening to anything that came after I learned about Ironshod. All I could think was that I took out a martial artist with a lucky shot, and he probably wasn’t very happy with me about it. I cleared my throat to get Sarge’s attention to ask a question that, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I'd like the answer to.

“So… Sarge. About Ironshod… how angry do you think he is about all of this?”

“Him? He’s none too pleased about this at all. This sort of thing rubs him the wrong way, as you might imagine.”

“Damn. Do you… what are the chances that he’ll try to get even?”

“Knowing his temper, I'd say it’s more a matter of when than if.”

I felt the ball of ice growing in my stomach again. “Is there anything you can do about it?”

“Not hardly. That’s Filly’s jurisdiction, not mine.”

Maybe it was the concussion speaking, but this last part didn't make sense. I lived in Ponyville, not Filly. “Filly? How is Filly going to stop him from smearing me into the dirt?”

Sarge looked at me funny for a second before responding. “You? He isn’t mad at you, buck. It’s Mocha who’s going to be looking over his shoulder for a while. Heck, Ironshod was actually pretty impressed by that buck of yours, even if it was just a lucky shot. No, I reckon he’s far angrier at being lied to by his pal Mocha. Weren’t ya listening to a word I said?”

I exhaled deeply, very relieved not to have that to worry about.

“Honestly? I was preoccupied with the whole ‘Ironshod is going to destroy me’ thing. Last thing I caught was about Skybreeze.”

“Figures you’d miss the important part. I just said that Mocha lied to ‘em to get ‘em riled up. From what I can gather, he saw you alone at night and far from anypony who might help, and he concocted some horseapple story about seeing you hit a mare… or was it that you had your mare fight your battles for you? Either way, it was hogwash, but it still got those bucks right heated at you. Heated enough to convince a couple of trained fighters to attack an unknown buck five-to-one, at any rate. And you don’t have to worry about them none. I already told them the story, same as what I told you. Matter of fact, I know Ironshod wanted to give you a hoof-bump for what you did to Mocha. At any rate, to get back to what I was telling you before y’all distracted me.”

“You’re bein’ charged with one count of aggravated battery for the way you chased down, beat, and maimed Mocha with a vengeance. That’s down from one count of attempted murder in the first degree, and four counts of aggravated assault and battery. The only reason those other charges were even brought up is because by sheer, dumb coincidence, Mocha’s got kin at the courthouse. That turd-colored fool tried to spin it like you attacked them.”

Sarge sighed wearily, and the bags under his eyes made it easy to see that he’d been working nonstop since the incident.

“But here’s the catch. It’s up to you to press charges or not. I wish there was another way, but unfortunately, this is an all-or-nothing sort of deal. We can’t bring Mocha up on charges without having to do the same for the other four. When I spoke to them about it, they wanted you to nail him for this, even though they’d be on the line just the same as him. Your call.”

If there was one feeling that I could relate to right now, it was the desire for revenge. But I was just as keenly aware of the terrible cost that revenge could bring. I could still hear the screams of horrified ponies ringing in my ears, and I started to wonder what Joy would think of this. That thought brought a flood of conflicting emotions, and I stomped on the thought with extreme prejudice, quashing the emotions with it. Yes, I knew the drive for revenge. But I was also beginning to see the costs, as the fallout and the rumors from the night before spread through town like ripples in a pond.

“Drop the charges. He’ll get what’s his, one way or the other. Those other four shouldn’t have to suffer any more because of him.”

Sarge nodded sagely, as if privy to some great and ancient wisdom, before he tipped his hat and left the room. In his wake, the room seemed nearly as desolate as I felt, and the emotions I'd quelled were fighting to resurface. I was no longer strapped to the gurney, having been determined to be both lucid and harmless enough not to warrant being confined in such a manner. At some point, I had come to realize that I was in the hospital that employed me, and after a bit of deductive reasoning, concluded that I was in the east wing. Joy’s wing.

No, not thinking about that. Squash the feelings inside, cage them. Not here, and not now.

I tried to distract myself by studying the nurses that walked by my open door. I soon regretted this choice. Most of the nurses that walked by paid me no mind, as I would expect from a busy pony. There were some, though… they slowed their gait and peered into my room, wearing an expression of fear and wonder. Like I was some sort of animal. I dropped my gaze from the doorway, unable to bear the sight of myself being ogled at like an animal on display. Dinner came and went, and I devoured the bland food with my usual gusto. I might have been injured, but it had been an entire day since I'd last eaten. I was settling in for a long night of staring at the wall when the sound of hooves approaching caught my attention. I'd been listening to ponies walking by my door all day, but these steps were different. Each step produced a heavy thud, and was punctuated by a metallic ping. I looked up to the doorway just in time to see a familiar shadow darken it.

Ironshod stood in the doorway, seeming to loom over me far more than his height should allow. He was about a head taller than I was, but his body was cut with the lines of perfectly toned muscle. His mottled grey coat reminded me of gravel, but even the odd speckles on it did little to hide the fact that this buck’s body was a precision instrument of pain; a finely honed product of martial arts prowess. If not for his amicable smile, I probably would have started frantically hitting the alert button for the nurses. He walked over to the side of my bed, pulling up a chair as he did so. He extended his hoof for a hoof-bump, and I caught the glint of metal as his hoof caught the light. Ironshod, indeed. I reached out and gave his hoof a tap. He smiled warmly and took a seat, speaking as he did so.

“So, you’re the buck who thrashed Moe. Nice to meet you. Name’s Ironshod.”

I smiled nervously. “Dave. Nice to meet you as well. So, no hard feelings?”

He shook his massive head. “Nah, not between us, at least. It might have been a lucky kick on your part, but there was some real power behind it, no two ways about it. I respect that. Hay, if I'd been any other pony, that kick would have given me a lot worse than just a broken rib and punctured lung.”

“I… uh… thanks?”

“It’s a compliment, and you’re welcome. I’ve just been released, and I just wanted to stop by and say that I'm sorry for what happened last night. I also wanted to meet the pony who finally gave Moe what was coming to him. I was gonna knock him stupid for what he said about your mare as soon as the fight was over, but things didn’t turn out that way.”

“You were? But… why?”

Ironshod's expression became a snarl. “Because there is a certain way that you talk about the lady folk, and that isn’t it. It was disgraceful and shameful. The only reason I didn’t drop him then and there was because he was my pal and I wanted him to settle his grudge first. I gotta admit, I admire what you did. You defended your mare’s honor in a ruthless fashion, and you sure as hay lived up to your word about what you were going to do to him. I doubt that colt will ever so much as be cross at a mare for the rest of his life.”

A moment of silence hung in the air. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Ironshod placed a massive hoof on my shoulder, drawing my eyes to his steely gaze. “One last thing before I go, Dave. When you get out of the hospital and walk the streets, ponies are going to look at you like you’re a monster. I found this out after my first tournament. Some will fear you, others will avoid you, and most just won’t care. You did the right thing, though. Maybe you went a bit overboard, but I can see why you did. Being jumped by five ponies isn’t going to make anypony feel particularly merciful. Just hold your head high and know that you did the honorable thing.”

And with that, Ironshod stood to leave. I sat in stunned silence as the pinging of his steps faded into the din of the hallway, silence once more enshrouding me as hours slipped away. I was being kept overnight to make sure that there weren’t any latent side effects of the head trauma before I was released, a moment I was both welcoming and dreading.

The sun rose, the nurses bustled to and fro, and I was sent along my merry way. I hung my head as I stepped into the sunshine, the feeling of loss weighing heavily on my shoulders. I looked to the sky, feeling the warmth of the morning sun against my face, and I couldn’t help it… I felt an ember of hope burn within me. Each day was a gift, a precious one at that. I loved Joy with all my heart, and she loved me even more. I'd betrayed her trust and lied to her, and that had left her with a deep, gaping wound in her heart. These wounds hurt the most, scar the deepest, and take the longest to heal.

But they do heal.

In the time we’d spent together, Joy and I had forged a bond on a fundamental level. We had something rare, something special… and I had to believe that this bond was worth something to Joy. But if I'd hurt her too deeply for her to trust me again… if the bond was not enough to repair the hurt I'd caused… well, I already knew I didn’t deserve her. This would just be setting the universe back in order.

But standing there in the sunlight, basking in its warm embrace, I couldn’t help but hope. I was hoping that Joy would be able to look past her pain and her anger, hoping that “love conquers all” was more than just something we say to ourselves in the darkness of the night to shield ourselves from the cold of loneliness. I prayed to the sun and the moon that all Joy needed was time. Once the ashes settled and the jagged wound was a bit less tender… Maybe she’d take me back into her arms, and we could heal these wounds together. I had no basis other than faith that she could ever want me again.

Actually, I had one other thing; the most powerful thing anypony can have.

In the warm sunshine of this autumn day, I had hope.

Author's Note

Last edited 14July2016

22: The Sentencing

Chapter 22
The Sentencing

The warm rays of sun had given me hope and inspired me, lifting my spirits in a moment of darkness. And yet, as I made my way through town, I could already feel the cold seeping back in around the edges. I'd never doubted Ironshod’s warning, but I had seriously underestimated how dramatic the change would be. The ponies who had once upon a time waved or smiled at me in greeting were now crossing the street to avoid me, purposefully looking anywhere else but at me. A little over thirty hours had passed since the event, and word seemed to have spread across the entirety of the town in that time.

Just as I'd been wondering how in the hell everypony had found out so quickly and what exactly it was that they’d heard, I found my answer. Discarded in a nearby trashcan, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I pulled it out, and it was nothing less than the Ponyville Gazelle, the local newspaper. And what should I find on the front page but a picture of me? As soon as I laid eyes on the picture, it all clicked into place for me. The picture looked like a scene from a nightmare. Apparently, there had been a camera present during the attack. The entire front page of the paper was dedicated to this photo.

The photo looked like a poster for a horror movie. I stood over the battered form of Mocha, dark blood flowing from me in numerous rivulets. I was staring down at Mocha’s terrified and pitiful form, as it lay battered and bloody beneath me. And truly, it was pitiful. With the harsh illumination of the streetlight directly over my head, my shadow fell upon him, blanketing him in inky darkness. Even from within my shadow, the stream of tears flowing from his eyes glinted in the light. The single most damning thing about the pictures were the eyes. His were full of fear and pain, wide and wet in the night. My eyes… my eyes were full of rage and of glee. There was a gleam in my eyes that even I found a tad unsettling. The headline made me almost physically ill.

Local Hero’s Brutality

Suddenly, the way everypony was avoiding me seemed a lot more reasonable, though it hurt all the same. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t had breakfast yet, despite the fact that it was nearing noon. I set off for Daffodil’s, feeling like a good sandwich would really hit the spot. I walked in, and it might as well have been a scene from an old western movie as every single solitary pony stopped what they were doing to turn and watch me intently. Silence reigned in the diner.

No. No. I refuse to be intimidated or treated like an animal. I’m going to take a seat and eat like any other pony in this goddamned town.

Silently, and with the eyes of every pony in the diner following me, I made my way to a table in the far corner of the diner and took a seat. A murmur went through the crowd, and I couldn’t help but chuckle darkly to myself. Some dark and twisted part of me was pleased at the fear in their eyes, knowing that they’d seen what I was capable of. The rest of me quietly kicked that part of me into a corner. There was nothing fun about being feared and treated like a monster. The voices around me picked up gradually as a set of hooves approached my table. I looked up and did my best to smile warmly.

“Morning, Daffodil. How are you?”

She was caught off guard by my cheerful disposition, but not enough to break the aura of discomfort that hung around her like a cloak.

“Sir… uh, Dave. Why did you come here?”

That pissed me off in short order. I strained to maintain my smile and a cheery tone, though I was growing concerned about how much longer I could force it.

“Hmm? Oh, I just wanted to get the number four with a side of hay fries. Extra pickle, please.”

She clearly had not expected this, and blinked for a second in confusion as her mind skipped a beat. She came back quickly, though.

“After what you pulled the other day, you aren’t exactly good for business, or a pony that many ponies want to be around. Why’d you have to go and do such an awful thing, anyways?”

The diner had gotten silent as every ear turned my way. A pin dropping would have been deafening. With a long suffering sigh, I let my smile fade away, until my face was just as blank as I felt inside.

“Such an awful thing? I stood up and defended the honor of the mare I love. That brown idiot was insulting her and calling her some things you just don’t call a lady. I'd warned him about it before, but he just kept at it. Did the paper explain that he lied to four of his friends about me so that they would attack me? Or did it even mention that I was attacked by five ponies in the first place?”

“No, the paper said something very different. Said that you were the one who started it all, instigated the fight.”

I deadpanned at her, my expression perfectly incredulous. “Yeah, I started it. While surrounded. Makes perfect sense.”

“Okay, alright. I’ll give you that, it doesn’t sound very smart. But there’s no way to explain away what you did to Mocha. The pictures are all over the paper. You can’t tell me you didn’t do those terrible things.”

I sighed. “No, you’re right. I did that. I beat the snot out of the idiot who had made fun of the pony I love more than life itself, after he tried to convince his four friends to beat me to death by lying to them. And then ran away when they failed. I won’t lie to you, I did that. I was angry. No, I was more than angry. I was furious. I got carried away, and I beat the tar out of him. And honestly, I don’t regret it in the least. So the way I see it, it boils down to this question. Am I a monster for defending the honor of the one I love?”

Daffodil was visibly wrestling with the question, trying to talk her way around the answer she knew I was leading her to.

“Well…not really. Why you did what you did is reasonable, and even what most folks would consider right. But the way that you did it isn’t, not even close. What you did to that poor colt is terrible, even if he was a bully. And if you want the truth, Dave, a lot of ponies are scared of you because of it. You were a hero, and you always seemed to be around to lend a hoof when a pony needed it. That’s why this whole thing is like it is. Heroes are supposed to help… you were supposed to help. And that’s what’s so terrible here… you acted more like the villain than the hero, and a lot of ponies just don’t know how to feel about you anymore. And that article in the Gazelle didn’t do you any favor either.”

All around the silent diner, I could see ponies slowly nodding in agreement, most not even trying to hide the fact that they were eavesdropping. I could feel my resignation show upon my face, and I made eye contact with Daffodil. Her features softened into a mask of pity, and I could tell that she was sorry for the mess I was in, though she knew that it was my own fault. Her voice softened to match her face, and when she spoke up, it was with a motherly tone.

“Sugarcube, I know you’re a good pony. So do most of the other folk in town… you just need to give them time to remember it. It’s just that some of them might take longer than others to come around. A lot of ponies who looked up to you are disappointed that you can’t be the perfect pony they wanted you to be. But they’ll get over it soon enough, once they learn the truth. If I were you, I’d march straight to the Gazelle and set the record straight. Now that I think of it, Mocha’s got a cousin who’s married to the editor’s daughter’s roommate or something like that. If what you told me is true, and I can’t see why it wouldn’t be, then this whole story stinks to the moon and you need to do something about it.”

My faith in ponies had returned, if even just a little. The light at the end of the tunnel seemed closer than ever, and I could now see the way forward. A little bit of my hope spread across my face as I cracked a cautious smile.

“Thank you, Daffodil. I know I messed up and let a lot of ponies down, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll do what I can to make it better, but I know that it won’t be easy. I’ll head to the Gazelle right after I leave here to set the record straight. And, if he’s still in town, I have a friend I’d like to bring with me. But first… do you think I could get a sandwich?”

Daffodil smiled warmly at me, the first real smile I’d seen since I left the hospital. The other ponies in the diner had turned away from us, their conversations starting back up as Daffodil went to place my order. Though I was still getting the odd look now and again, they were generally curious stares instead of eyes watching for a sign that I was about to start on another rampage. My order came and was swiftly devoured, the taste of it barely registering on my tongue as it slid past. Just as I was wiping the mustard from the corner of my mouth, there arrived a single slice of Daffodil’s nearly famous apple pie, a small note on the plate beside it. I looked up at Daffodil questioningly, about to say that I hadn’t ordered any pie. The small smile on her face told me that it was a gift from somepony, though I couldn’t figure out who it was from. She set the pie on the table and left without a word, her smile speaking all that needed to be said.

I unfolded the note, wondering who it was from and hoping that the benefactor had signed it.

You’re still a hero to me.

Even as emotionally numb as I was, I could feel my eye begin to moisten at this gesture. I looked around the diner once more, hoping to spot a sign of the generous citizen, and again I found none. I savored the pie, relishing in each sweet caress of apple across my tongue. I paid my bill and left, intent on keeping my word about the Gazelle. The Gazelle was based out of a small factory style building near the edge of the town, positioned on the banks of a small river. The presses seemed to be powered by the river, as evidenced by the large water wheel. I made my way into the lobby of the building, which was little more than a reception desk and a few waiting benches. The arrangement was disconcertingly similar to Diamond’s, though much more brightly lit and sterile. Approaching the mare at the desk, I asked to speak with whoever was in charge of the newspaper, and that mare didn’t even look over her horn-rimmed glasses as she deflected my inquiry. Apparently, I was less interesting than the Sudoku she was working on.

“Sir, the Editor is a very busy mare. Unless you already have an appointment, you’ll have to schedule one and come back then.”

“Schedule a—I don’t have time for this. This paper ran a story about me the other day, which was based off of a complete lie. I need your Editor to hear my side and to check the official police report to get her facts straight. Then, I want her to issue an apology in the paper, along with the actual events, not some half-cocked hogwash story from a biased source.”

The receptionist proceeded to roll her eyes in a thoroughly bored fashion, something that began to rekindle that little fire in my belly. I quenched the fire as best I could, but it still smoldered. I was in an agitated emotional state, and likely would continue to be until things with Joy were resolved. At least I was able to recognize it and try to mitigate my rage before I did anything hasty. As the receptionist looked over the top of her glasses like a teacher about to explain simple math to a slow student, she froze. Perhaps she recognized me from the story the other day, or maybe my expression adequately conveyed that I was in no mood for her shenanigans. One way or the other, her next remark died on her lips as she fell silent for a second.

A second was all she needed to formulate her response, which was composed of a curt nod as she stood. Gesturing for me to follow her with a hoof, she promptly turned and made her way through a door to the left of the desk. A few twists and turns later, I was standing at a rather impressive wooden door with the word “Editor” emblazoned on a placard. The receptionist knocked thrice on the door and waited. An instant later a muffled reply sounded from within, and the receptionist pony cracked open the door and poked her head in. there was some form of brief conversation that ensued, but in short order I was being waved into the office to meet the Editor.

Little did I know that the Editor-in-Chief and owner of the paper was actually a flipping gazelle. I managed not to stare in shock at the foreign-yet-familiar shape before me as I was led into the office. The Editor’s name was Quill, and she quickly forbade me to call her “Q” for short.

“So, Sandy here tells me that you don’t like what I ran about you the other day. Not only that, but that you have the gall to come up here after what you’ve done and look me in the eye and demand an apology. How am I doing so far?”

I was a little surprised and a lot angry at this, but I did my best to hide it. Nevertheless, my response was a bit curter than I would have preferred.

“You’re wrong, Ma’am. I am not happy, that much is true; I did not, however, make a single demand. I merely stated that I wanted you to apologize, though I have no intention of trying to force you to do anything. All I ask is that you hear my side of the story as well, and then, you may do what you see fit with the new information.”

Quill looked at me for a moment, her face unreadable. She broke off her gaze to glance at a clock for a moment, once more resuming her gaze upon me.

“You have thirty seconds. Go.”

I thought something like this might happen, and so I’d been figuring out the simplest, most concise way to summarize the events of the night. Without a moment of hesitation, I flew right into it.

“My fiancé and I went on a hiatus that night, so I went to have a drink to calm my nerves. A few hours later I run into Mocha and his four friends, the four of whom Mocha had lied to in order to get them to attack me, to settle an old grudge against me. They attacked me five on one, and I took out four before Mocha ran like a filly. I caught him and broke his legs one by one. Then I was hit by a fruit cart, and woke up in the hospital. Time?”

Without even glancing at the clock, Quill replied. “Twenty five seconds. So, you claim that you only attacked the four of them in self-defense, but you admit to brutally attacking Mocha?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, yes. I was intoxicated and angry at him for insulting my fiancé, and more so for trying to kill me in a five-to-one brawl. I made a bad choice, but I stand by what I did without regret.”

Quill said nothing, she just kept panning over me with that same unreadable gaze. I was willing to bet she could make a killing playing poker. A few moments of tense silence passed before she spoke up again.

“To tell you the truth, I was ready to ignore everything you said when you first walked in here. I got the information for the story from a trusted reporter, one who has a flawless record for accuracy. That, coupled with the fact that I get about a dozen ponies a week who come up here asking for a redaction or apology, and you can see why I was ready to toss out whatever you might have had to say. Now, I’ll tell you why I didn’t. Of all the ponies that come in here, they all demand things, and they all try to spin a story like they are Celestia Herself and can do no wrong. You, on the other hoof, did not demand, you asked. What really sealed it for me though was your story. No pony in the last ten years has come up here and told me a thing that paints them in anything less than a perfect light. The fact that you not only admitted to but owned and defended your less-than-savory actions says more about your character than anything else."

The ghost of a smile danced across my lips. “Thank you. As I said, I’m not here to demand, as I realize that I’m in no position to make demands. I merely was hoping that you’d take my story with a grain of salt, which you’ve done far more graciously than I’d hoped, and investigate a little bit into the story. If you like, I can get you a copy of the police report from Sarge.”

“No, that’s not necessary. I have my ways, after all. Just know this… I will conduct this investigation myself to ensure that there is nothing overlooked. And, should I find something that should warrant action on behalf of this publication, that action will be taken swiftly and to the fullest extent necessary. To put it simply; if you’ve lied to me, everypony from Fillydelphia to Canterlot will know by the morning. If what you say is true, however, then I will publish an apology as well as the corrected version of the events. Both of these will be written by me personally. This is your last chance to stop this. Do you want me to investigate?”

I felt a surge of relief at the prospect of the real events being brought to light. Sure, they might not paint me as the glorious hero that ponies had made me out to be before, but at least I wouldn’t be the monster they thought I was now. I cracked a warm smile as I nodded.

“Then it’s settled. You’ll know what I find at the same time everypony else does… in the Monday paper. Until then, stay out of trouble, and may the Sun shine brightly upon you.”

I nodded and gave a slight bow of respect as I made my way out of the office. Soon afterwards, I was out of the building and basking in the sunlight. The warm feeling of hope was battling against a darker, deeper feeling of malaise as I tried not to think about what Joy must think of me right now. With only the newspaper to base her opinions off of, I could only imagine the myriad of feelings within her… not the least of which would be fear. But she knew I would never do anything to hurt her, right?

Right?

Other than lie to her face for half a year.

I sighed dejectedly, hanging my head in shame as I set off aimlessly into the forest. Well, this looked like it was going to be one of those days. To make it worse, I’d almost forgotten that I had to go to work in a few hours. Sighing in exasperation this time, I took to the air and set off for the one place that I’d always been able to find peace; the meadow under the oak.

Lacking the bed that had become my accustomed resting place, I sought and found a suitable alternative. The lone cloud was small enough not to be of any concern to the weather squad, but large enough to provide a place to nap. I’d come across the small, puffy thing as I neared the meadow, and I figured that this was as good a place as any to catch a few hours of sleep before my shift. I coasted up to it, momentarily dreading that I’d find a certain cyan pegasus lying there in my place, but finding none.

Soft, yet firm, and warmer than a cloud had any right to be, I wondered how I’d gotten along without it. The stress I’d been feeling had diminished somewhat as I flew through the air and indulged in a few aileron rolls and an inverted loop or two, but it vanished almost entirely as I snuggled down into the cloud. Double checking my alarm, I was asleep in mere moments. Fun fact: pegasi are essentially sunburn-proof, a conclusion that I’d come to after realizing I’d made the ill-informed decision to spend a half-day asleep on a cloud. I honestly didn’t even think about this until an hour had passed, and it only occurred to me as I noticed a little tenderness while adjusting my saddlebag. Thank Luna for small favors… the night would have sucked terribly if I’d been sunburnt.

In a few moments time, I was as ready as I’d ever be for the shift ahead, and set off to the market to get a quick bite of food for dinner before my shift. The moment I touched down in the market, I felt any residual warmth and happiness leave me. These ponies did not know the truth about what had happened, they only knew what the skewed article and nasty rumors had told them. Though it bugged me more than a little, I managed to push my annoyance into a corner of my mind with the knowledge that the morning paper would dispel most of the anxiety the other ponies harbored towards me. I bought some apples and a sandwich to tide me over through my shift before setting off into work.

The stigma that was present in the market had followed me into the workplace, dulled as it was by professional courtesy. It stung more to see the ponies I'd worked side-by-side with for several months avoiding me than it had to be ignored by the rest of the town. Buffy was the only pony who wasn’t avoiding me any more than usual, but she had other reasons for treating me as coldly as she did. I'd have to earn her respect back the hard way, a task far easier said than done. As fortune would have it, the night was a busy one, with nearly a dozen small repairs that had either been left over from the day shift or popped up during the night. Almost before I knew it, the shift was drawing to a close. I'd walked back into the office, a toolbox balanced upon my back, and almost tripped over Buffy. I was not expecting to find a pony sitting just inside the door like she was, and it caught me rather off guard.

I gave her a curt nod as I sidestepped, a gesture she returned in kind. I set down the toolbox before we engaged in the usual banter, and a moment later she was released for the evening. In the silence of the early morning, I was able to fill out the supply requests without any distractions. By the time I'd finished, my shift was effectively over. In less than thirty minutes time, I was walking out the door into the rays of the rising sun. Or at least, I tried to. I hadn’t made it more than two meters from the door before a dark shape swooped overhead and thudded to a stop in front of me. A grey shape, with wispy blonde hair and a warm smile.

“Morning, Dave! I have mail for you.”

I couldn't help but smile at her enthusiastic greeting. “Good morning to you as well, Derpy. Mail?”

“Yep. Two letters, to be exact. I have to get to the rest of my route now, but don’t be such a stranger. You’re always welcome to stop by, and especially so if you bring muffins. Have a good day!”

I took the pair of envelopes she held out to me, waving to her with a wing as she took to the skies again. I took a glance at the first envelope, noting with a bit of dread that it was from the clerk of the court. I slipped them both into my bag, resolving to open them both as soon as I was somewhere a bit more private. Though I was more than a little eager to open it and learn my fate, a rumbling in my stomach reminded me of more immediate needs. With a quick flap of my wings, I was airborne and on my way to Daffodil’s.

After getting a sandwich to go, I set off towards the meadow and the grand oak, wherein I'd stashed my cloud the night before. Much to my pleasure, I discovered that the little cloud was just where I'd left it and hadn't evaporated over the night. Cautiously, I lowered the sandwich bag on to the surface of the cloud, noting with displeasure that it passed right through. Of course it would. With a small sigh, I spread my wings and cradled the sandwich in the dusty brown plumage as I opened the first letter. It was just a notification that I had a court date at the town hall in exactly... Three hours? Well, it looked like I wasn't going to be getting my whole eight hours today.

I might have been a little concerned about the court date if not for a few subtle hints and factors in my favor. First, the correction and apology should have been published while I was on shift. That would go rather far to get the jurors on my side. Secondly, the summons was for a "community service and fine assessment", and contained no mention of confinement whatsoever. Between these two factors, I was feeling rather confident in myself and in the outcome of this whole debacle. To be honest, I was looking forward to having the whole thing behind me, nothing more than a bad memory. Taking a bite of the sandwich, I fetched the second letter from my saddle bag, scanning the return address.

What I saw made my heart race and my wings flutter involuntarily, which had the side effect of sending my partially eaten sandwich plummeting to the ground below. This was but an annoyance to me, barely registering in the back of my mind as it was overshadowed by the name on the return address.

Joy Redheart.

I found myself suddenly very shaky and out of breath, as if I had just flown around the town limits a half dozen times. My pulse was pounding as I tried in vain to steady my hooves, terribly fearful of ripping the contents of the envelope. With hooves that shook like an old stallion with a bad case of Parkinson's, I pried open the envelope and pulled out the letter within. The first sight of the elegant script sent a pang of desire and of pain straight to my heart. Doing my best to hold the paper steady enough to read, I blinked away the tears blurring my eyes as I began.

Dave,

Honestly, I'm not sure what to write here, not sure of what to write to you. I suppose I should start with the basics. I'm not mad at you, hard as it may be to believe. Even I was surprised by this at first, but I've come to understand why. I'm not mad at you for what you did, but I am very hurt by the way you did it. As much as I don't want to believe it, I can't help but feel like you used me. The fact that you waited until after we... You know... Well, it seems highly suspicious. I don't want to believe that you could do that to me, but I can't shake the doubt. And that scares me. A week ago, if somepony asked me how much I trusted you, I would tell them "with my life" without a second thought. Now, I don't know how to answer that. On the one hoof, I know you could never hurt me or allow me to come to harm. But on the other hoof, you just demonstrated that you can cause pain with your deeds alone.

I know why you did it, and I can even understand why you thought you should tell me when you did. The fact that I can see all of that makes it that much worse, because I can see that you didn't trust me like I trusted you. It's like you felt you needed some sort of leverage so that it would be harder for me to leave you. Honestly, that's what hurts the most. You betrayed my trust and tried to use my emotions against me... And most despicably, it worked. I miss you, every minute of every day. Everything I see reminds me of you, and it hurts each time I see your face, your smile in my mind. I miss you, but I don't want to. Because that's what you want me to do. I don't trust you like I did before, and until I have the time to come to terms with what you've done, it wouldn't be fair to either of us to so much as pretend that we were okay.

I'm hurt and disappointed in you for what you've done to us, the way you've made me doubt you like this. I didn't sleep at all on Friday, there was no way to close my eyes without seeing your smile. I spent the entire night wondering just how much I REALLY knew about you, and how much was a carefully fabricated lie. Saturday's paper just served to reinforce my doubts. That pony is not the pony I fell in love with. I guess the whole point of this letter is to tell you how I'm feeling, and to tell you that I haven't given up on you. I told you once that we would be together for a long time, as repayment for all of the shenanigans you've put me through. That hasn't changed. It's just... I need some time to accept everything and get my head around it. Things can never be just like they were before, but that's not exactly a bad thing. You haven't lost me, Dave... I just need some time and space. Just wait for me?

-Joy

I'd never felt so crushed and hopeful at the same time. Incredulous as I was that Joy could believe that I'd used her, I could see why she'd come to the conclusion... It made me sick to my stomach. And to add insult to injury, I couldn't even bury my pain with food, for my sandwich had been sent careening into the abyss earlier. I made a silent note to stop by the market on my way to the town hall so I could get another before the summons ran out. Checking my watch, I was unable to hide my displeasure. At this hour, there wasn't any sense in trying to take a nap, for I'd no sooner get to sleep than have to wake up and leave. Instead of teasing myself with the specter of sleep, I decided to head into town early to grab the paper and a bit to eat. Dragging myself to my hooves, I strode to the edge of the cloud and stepped off into the void beyond.

I settled in to a corner booth at Daffodil's, having placed my order at the counter on my way. My coffee came shortly after I'd taken my seat, for which I was immensely grateful. Carefully, almost reverently, I reached into my saddlebag and withdrew the daily paper. I hadn't so much as glanced at the front page yet, planning on saving the unveiling to savor over a hot cup of coffee. I was not disappointed. The headline proclaimed something to the effect of "a hero redeemed" or some such, and was adorned with the photo of me receiving the key to the city from the mayor so many months ago. True to her word, Quill had redacted her previous story and published the actual events, along with an apology. The article was an interesting read, containing testimony from, among others, Ironshod and Sarge. What really hit home the hardest was the closing argument.

The purpose of this article was not just to tell a story, but to right a wrong and redeem a hero. While Dave's actions reflect a level of brutality almost beyond fathom, the way that he was antagonized and attacked by superior numbers seemed to leave little other option. He was out to make an example out of a bully, and by the stars above, he did. I'm not saying you should forget his actions completely, but I'm also not saying that you should be afraid of him. Just do yourself a favor and don't go out of your way to antagonize him. Dave has proven himself time and time again to be a good pony, dedicated to helping others without a second thought. If anything, this just goes to show what happens when you push a good pony too far.

I nodded in satisfaction to myself, taking a hefty slug of my lukewarm coffee with a slight smile. At least I wouldn't be exiled or shunned anymore. Well, not by sensible ponies, at any rate. Breakfast came shortly after I finished my reading, and I wouldn't have been surprised in the least if Daffodil had the cook wait for me to finish the paper before putting the order up. This was the kind of service you just couldn't find anywhere but here in Ponyville. I ate my breakfast with much more poise than I knew I'd possessed, managing to savor the delectable diner fare as never before. By the time I'd finished my food and paid the bill, the time was approaching for me to make my way across to town hall and my meeting therein.

As I passed the denizens of the town, I took no small amount of pride in the way I was no longer being treated like a dangerous animal that had slipped its leash. All in all, between the food I'd savored and the level of civility being afforded to me by the other ponies, I was in rather good spirits upon my arrival at the town hall. Such good spirits, in fact, that I was able to pretend that I couldn't feel the ball of ice forming in my gut with each step. Yep, couldn't feel it at all...

I entered the town hall through the same museum I'd visited on my first day in town, though this brought me nothing but another icy stab of loss as I recalled happier times. Shaking my head, I made my way past the displays and up to the small window set beside a plain door. The older mare sitting behind the desk asked me for my name and appointment time in a curt and efficient manner before instructing me to take a seat and wait for my name to be called. Exhibiting a level of efficiency and timeliness that I'd never seen before in ANY government office, my name had been called by the time I'd sat down and selected a magazine to read. Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves and slow my pulse, I drew myself to my hooves and advanced towards the door, which was being held open by a large bailiff pony.

A few turns later brought me into a small courtroom, where I was instructed to stand in line behind two other ponies as they waited for their turn at the dais. One after the other, they were brought forth, read their charges, and given the opportunity to defend themselves and their actions. One was charged with theft, for eating a bagel from a display without paying for it. He was given a fifty-bit fine and sent on his way. The next was charged with vandalism of the town hall, to which he pleaded guilty and was fined two hundred bits and forty hours of community service. Finally, it was my time behind the dais.

I stepped forward to the podium, finally able to take in my surroundings. The mare behind the podium was none other than the Mayor herself, the very same pony that had given me the key to the city. Aside from the bailiff to her left and the ponies to my rear, the courtroom was pretty well deserted. It made sense when I thought about it, since this was more or less a reading, it didn't require a jury. The judge scanned her notes briefly, her eyebrow rising in interest as she reviewed the details of the case. After a moment of tense silence passed, the judge looked up at me with an expression that I couldn't quite place as she addressed me.

"So, Mister Dave. Are you aware of the charges against you, or should I read them off to you?"

"Yes, your Honor; I am aware of the charges against me."

"What do you have to say in your defense?"

"Your Honor, I'm not going to waste your time or insult your intelligence with some half-cocked excuse. I was attacked, I was angry, and I handled it poorly by seeking revenge. I trust that my actions for the last half year speak for themselves about my character, and I trust in your judgment as to the proper punishment for my crime."

"Brave words from one in your position. Are you aware of the maximum penalty for what you've just admitted to?"

I could feel my false bravado slipping. "No, your Honor, I am not."

"Perhaps you should have looked into that before you threw yourself at my mercy. In certain cases, where the offender displayed a clear disregard for the life and welfare of another pony; specifically by causing through either their actions or inaction the victim to become permanently crippled or lame, the charge of aggravated battery can carry a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. Do you agree or disagree that your actions could objectively fit these stipulations?"

I could feel the icy ball of terror growing in my gut. My mouth was suddenly as dry as cotton, and a cold sweat broke out on my brow. I was beginning to think I'd made a terrible mistake.

"I agree, your Honor."

"So, you can see the position you've forced me into. While you have certainly established a reputation for being a good, honest, and hard-working pony, you've also perpetrated the single most brutal assault on another pony that has ever been documented in Ponyville. It would be a complete abuse of the citizen's trust in my position if I were to let you off easy for your crime. And at the same time, it would also be a great disservice to the ponies of this town to send their folk hero to prison; though, this is admittedly the lesser of two evils. I think you are intelligent enough to see where this is going."

My heart was pounding in my ears, as I fought to keep my cool. In the back of my mind, I wondered how far I could fly before I was tracked down. Immediately, the thought of abandoning Joy and running like a coward was smashed with an iron hoof. I would own up to my crime and accept my punishment with dignity, regardless of the price. The last thing that I wanted was for Joy's last impression of me to be one of a cowardly pony, on the run from justice. With a rattling exhalation, I made eye contact with the judge and gave a slight nod.

"Speak up, Dave. I do not speak in nods. Do you see how you've forced my hoof?"

I did my best to maintain a neutral expression, to not let my fear show through, but my cracking voice betrayed me.

"Y-yes, your Honor. I do."

"Very well, then. It is with a heavy heart that I sentence you to ten years in federal prison, a five-thousand bit fine, and two hundred and forty hours of community service. Your confinement will be suspended for a probationary period of two years. If, at the end of this probationary period you haven't received anything more than a minor citation, the sentence of imprisonment will be declared null and void. Should you receive anything more than a minor citation in that time, however, you will immediately be arrested and sent to prison to begin your sentence. As for the fines and the community service, both must be paid within one year of today's date. Failure to do so will constitute a violation of the terms of your probation and will send you straight to prison. Do you understand and accept this ruling?"

I barely heard the judge's words over the roar of my blood in my ears, and at the mention of prison I felt my knees get weak. I managed to keep my composure though, and a mixture of dread and relief flooded me. I began to nod in response, but I caught myself.

"Yes, your Honor. Yes I do."

"Very well. Barring any further commentary, you are dismissed. You must report to the clerk to fill out some paperwork, and then you are free to go."

"Thank you, your Honor."

And just like that, I'd traded one axe hanging over my neck for another. The next few hours passed in a blur as my mind reeled with the implications of the ruling. Flashes of paperwork intermingled with splotches of sunshine and pony's blurry faces. Time seemed to be a stream moving my without me, nothing more than a blur of colors and impressions devoid of purpose or context. In the blink of an eye, reality snapped back into focus, like an elastic band that had been stretched too far. I was almost painfully aware of everything around me, and in an instant I'd come to a few conclusions. First, I was on top of my cloud, high above the town. Secondly, I was in danger of being late for my shift. And finally, I became fully aware that I hadn't eaten or slept all day, and that I was going to be paying for it that night. With a beleaguered sigh, I threw myself off of the side of the cloud and set a course for the hospital.

Though I was running dangerously close to not being early, I made a judgment call to swing by the market and buy whatever was fast and cheap. I ended up with a half dozen apples and a loaf of bread, which I concluded was far and away better than not eating at all. Tucking the produce into my saddlebags on-the-fly, as it were, was a bit difficult at first, but I managed to complete the task without crashing into anything. Suddenly, I had a much greater respect for the mail ponies who did this all day, every day. Thanks to my detour, I arrived later than I intended to, though still early for my shift.

That night passed as normally as one could hope for, without any sudden emergencies or other drama manifesting itself over the course of my shift. Buffy still held a grudge against me for hitting the sauce the other day, but bit by bit, she was warming up to me again. At shift change, I conducted my change over with the oncoming shift and then quickly made myself scarce, lest somepony accost me between the end of my shift and the cloud that had been beckoning me all night. In spite of the liberties I'd taken with the coffee maker in the janitorial dungeon, I found myself fighting to stay awake as I flew to my cloud. No sooner had my head hit the cloud than I had lapsed into a deep sleep; too deep even for dreams.

I was roused from the sleep of the dead by a strange taste in my mouth, along with a very pronounced dryness of said orifice. As I brought up a hoof to wipe away the drool from the corner of my mouth, I discovered the cause of this. While I was asleep on my cloud, not harming anypony at all, somepony had tried to deliver a letter to me. And it would seem that, lacking a mailbox on my little cloud, my open mouth was the next best place in which to stuff the letter. Go figure. I spat out the letter, cramming it into my saddlebag to read later as I checked my watch to see if I could get some more sleep or not. With a groan, I concluded that while I could get back to sleep, it really wouldn’t do me any good at all. Not like I really needed that extra hour… I was again reminded of my dry mouth, and with a sigh of resignation, I once more stepped off the edge of the cloud to make my way into town.

Half an hour’s time found me at Berry’s, customary beverage in hoof. I'd just gotten the last punch on my fourth card, entitling me to a fourth free smoothie per month. As I nestled myself into the little niche of Berry’s café that had become my customary position, I recalled the letter from earlier, lying nearly forgotten in the corner of my saddlebag. Pulling it out and smoothing out the wrinkles, my heart skipped a beat or five. There in my hoof, marred by drool and creases, was another letter from Joy. Trembling, I opened the letter as carefully as I could.

Dave,

I wanted you to know that I still miss you, perhaps more than I initially realized. Aside from that, I’ve also begun to accept the things you’ve told me and why you did what you did. Coming to terms with this has been… painful, to say the least, but I think it was for the better. If you’ll still have me, I want you to come back. Can you come home on Friday? I still have a thing or two I need to work on, but I can’t stand to be away from you that long. I guess… well, you know things will be different when you come back. The trust we had has been shaken to the very foundations, and it will take time to build back up. But that, I believe, is something that we must do together.

As much as I hate to do this, my heart will have it no other way. If you want to come back to me, I have but one condition. Please, no more lies, no more secrets. Please? I can’t do this again, Dave. Please, don’t do this to me again. If you will take me back I am yours for the taking, but only if you swear to me that there will be no more lies or secrets kept between us. If you want me, you can find me beside the fountain in the town center Friday morning. I’ll be waiting for you. I still love you, even though it hurts sometimes.

-Joy.

My heart had been fluttering, like a bird in a cage, all the way up to the last sentence. As I read the words on the page, the bird in my chest died mid-flight, plummeting like a stone to the very pit of my soul.

Dear Luna, what have I done?

Though I'd known that this would be hard on Joy, it was right then that it really hit me how deeply I'd wounded her. She loved me, and that she loved me… hurt her? For the first time in many months, and with a sharpness that cut me to the quick, I was once more aware that I didn’t deserve Joy and her love at all. Nor did she deserve a pony so loathsome as I. And yet, by the Gods' twisted humors, we found ourselves inextricably drawn together as our destinies intertwined. This feeling of inadequacy was followed by the feeling that always followed it, the incredible, maddening desire to be a pony worthy of her love. To do better, if not for myself, then for her.

I would do better. I had to be better… for Joy.

The hours passed at a crawl, each second dragging on into an infernal eternity. And yet, the hours seemed to fly by at the same time they crawled. Time had become a plaything for some cosmic force, being sped up and dragged down at the whims of one unseen. The whole of my life had coalesced in the hands of a clock, the only thing that truly mattered was their progression towards a specific point on the dial. The only thing that mattered was Joy. I did my duties with detached efficiency, my hooves carrying out their tasks autonomously as my mind wrapped itself around the numbered dial. Eating, sleeping, filling out order forms and work orders… each served as a servant of tedium, each doing their own part to mask the march of time. At last, just when it seemed that my mind was on the verge of failing me, the hands of the clock struck home. I don’t think I actually ran out of the clinic, but there are more than a few ponies who beg to differ. This was inconsequential to me, however. I had someplace to be, and a very lovely and very hurt mare who was counting on me.

As I took to the sky, I could feel my wings straining against the bone and sinew to push me faster, to propel me into the arms of my lover even a tiny bit quicker. The landscape blurred and distorted itself around me as I sped through town, flying as fast as I'd ever flown before. A glint of sunlight on water, the barest glimpse of the designated meeting place. I immediately flared my wings to their fullest, scooping great masses of air as I decelerated to a stop. My arrival in the square was marked by a series of whirlwinds as my wings beat furiously to slow me, the effects of which drew more than a few discontented exclamations as I came to rest beside the fountain. The other ponies in the plaza faded away into nothing as I caught sight of the most wonderful shade of blue I'd ever seen. Joy sat there on the bench, eyes red and puffy, and a crumpled hoof kerchief in her hoof. We locked eyes, and I moved towards her, as if in a dream.

Everything I'd dreamt of for the last week was just in front of me, and it was almost overwhelming. I half entertained the notion that I was dreaming, and the fact that my legs seemed to be moving through molasses seemed to support this. I felt the hot sting of tears slipping down my face as we drew to within a meter of each other, stopping to regard one another for a moment. Joy’s coat was matted beneath her eyes, the tracks of tears shed still glistening wetly. A fresh tear slipped out of her eye as she looked me over, her mouth parting slightly as her emotion-choked voice spoke to me from a dream.

“… Dave… “

I found that my own voice was cracked and raw with emotion, though I wasn’t sure how or why. Even so, I found a lovely word escaping my lips, un-beckoned.

“… Joy… “

And with that, the funk holding me in place broke away, and I was able to move. In one swift motion, I stepped forward and swept Joy into a tight embrace, one that she immediately returned. Any pretense I had of being in control of my emotions was laid to rest as I wept openly. I cried tears of relief, of sorrow, and of joy. I cried for the love I'd regained, for the pain I'd caused, and out of pure happiness to be in the arms of my beloved again. She too wept, and I’m sure we were quite the sight to see, standing in the plaza as we were. I could care less how we looked to other ponies, and they, thank Luna, had the good sense not to interfere with our emotional reunion. We’d been apart for less than a week, but I knew that I never wanted to be apart that long ever again. Joy and I were babbling back and forth about how much we missed each other and whatnot, and we eventually managed to get control of ourselves again.

Joy made the suggestion that we head home, an idea that caused butterflies in my stomach. I found it strange and wonderful to think that I once again had a “home” to go to. It also occurred to me how severely I'd taken it for granted, having a place to sleep, a place to shower, and ponies that fed me. Most of all, I realized how much I truly loved being held by Joy. A half an hour’s time found us sitting atop the bed that was once again mine, myself being freshly showered at Joy’s insistence. In the time since our reunion in the plaza, the both of us had managed to get our emotions more or less in check, and Joy was in the process of laying down the “ground rules”, as she put it.

“First, last, and always: No more lies, no more secrets. Okay?”

I nodded vigorously. “I swear, my love.”

“Lovely! Secondly, for obvious reasons, intimacy is on hiatus until further notice. I know it was just terrible timing on your part, but I don’t want there to be any ulterior motives influencing your decisions, okay?”

“Of course, love. It’s not such a big deal to me, as you may have noticed.”

“I have, believe me. And finally, there’s this. No more alcohol, of any kind, until I say so. I read about what happened that night between you and Mocha, and I couldn’t help but notice that alcohol was listed as a major factor. I don’t want to take any more chances, so alcohol is off limits. Deal?”

I fought down my disappointment at this, seeing as it was a small price to pay to have Joy back in my life again. “Awww… oh well. If this is what it takes to show you that I’m serious, the so be it. Not a drop.”

“Okay… okay. Good, we’re off to a good start. Now, what happened in this last week that I should know about?”

“Oh… well, you see… what had happened was… “

In short order, I'd filled her in on everything that had happened, from sleeping in a cloud to the conditions of my probation. As I explained the way my crime had been bumped up a category in severity, Joy’s eyes went wide when I mentioned the prison term.

“T-ten years? That’s outrageous! Sure, you crippled the poor idiot, but… he asked for it! He brought it upon himself!”

I waved a hoof, dismissively. “No, I can see why it has to be this way. I should have known better, should have stopped myself. But I didn’t. And if the Judge didn’t throw the book at me like that, she’d be setting the precedent for the next pony to get off lightly as well.”

“I see what you’re saying, but it still seems ridiculous to me. Ten years, over a fight… “

I shrugged. “It’s only ten years if I get into trouble again. Which I won’t.”

Joy looked at me with a haunted stare. “I know you’ll be on your best behavior… I just worry about what could happen in two years.”

I reached out and placed my hoof atop hers. “I know you’re worried, love. I’ll just need to make sure that I keep myself out of those sort of situations. I made a promise to myself today… I swore to myself that I would be a better pony, to be more like the pony you deserve. I’ve got a long way to go for that, but at least I’ve started the journey, you know?”

“Be a better pony? Dave, you are an amazing pony! You aren’t without your flaws, and some of them are… well, they’re downright scary sometimes… but the fact that you put them behind you every day to be such a wonderful pony to so many others just says that much more about your character.”

I blushed a bit at the unexpected compliment. “I… well… thank you, I suppose. I wish I could see myself through your eyes… all I see when I look at myself is a pony with too many flaws, a pony who hurts the ones he loves. I see a pony who needs to be better.”

Joy just looked at me with a saddened gaze, as one might look at a child with Downs’ syndrome who wants to be an astronaut. You wish with all of your heart and soul for them to live up to their dreams, all the while knowing that their very nature will make it all but impossible.

No. Impossible? Impossible was being torn from your own universe and flung into another. Impossible was finding a love that made the sun shine like something they made in their shed, just for you. Impossible? I was living the impossible. And I could do, would do the impossible. I would be a pony worthy of the love bestowed upon me, or die trying.

Author's Note

Last Edited 14MAY17

23:Words Meant to Dwell in Darkness Shall Never See the Light of Day

Chapter 23
Words Meant to Dwell in Darkness Shall Never See the Light of Day

That evening was one of an almost unprecedented bliss, filled with the sort of happiness I’d nearly forgotten I could feel. A wise person once said that home is where the heart is; I cannot disagree. Then entire time I’d been away from Joy, I’d felt out of place; alone and adrift in a veritable storm of badness and conflicting feelings. With a single embrace Joy had brought me home, had taken away all of that which had plagued my soul and restored me to the nearly carefree bliss I’d last known before my confession. In this way, I’d been home before we’d even gotten back to the house.

Once I was home and showered, I was treated to that which I had missed most of all, the ritual that had been the highlight and redemption for every day of my life in Equestria. Joy laid on the couch, resting her head in my lap as I slowly stroked her mane. The surge of love and happiness within me was so overwhelming, so powerful, that I had to fight back tears. As the warmth swelled within me it reminded me that, no matter how bad things got, so long as I had Joy by my side I could weather them. Stroking her mane in the ritual that had formed a cornerstone of my sanity, I could clearly see that Joy was as enraptured as I was. This night was different from those before it though, for there hung a slight mist in the mood. It was then that Joy spoke up, lending credence to my perceptions. After all, Joy almost never spoke this far into a brushing, unless she was vocalizing from a dream.

“Dave… I have a few questions I need to ask you.”

I tensed up at this, though I knew not why. Trying to hide the slight edge in my voice, I kept brushing at a measured pace as I responded. “Oh? Alright, fire at will.”

With a sly grin and a half-opened eye to gauge my reaction, she quipped “Who’s Will, and why am I firing at him?”

I tried to shoot her a deadpan expression, but I was too overcome with happiness to manage it. Instead, I simply smiled at her, hoping that my gentle expression could possibly convey even the barest hint of the love I felt for her. A rosy hue spread on her cheeks as she returned my smile, and she craned her neck up to kiss me. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that she missed me as much as I missed her. Breaking the kiss, her smile faltered slightly before she cleared her throat. Laying her head back upon my lap and averting her gaze, she spoke in hushed tones, barely above a whisper.

“I need to know more about you, who you were before, back… back in the other world.”

I took a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts and piece together the fragments of a past life before I spoke. “Okay. What, specifically?”

“I need to know who you were, Dave. Habits, hobbies, family, friends… what did you do for a living, how’d you earn your pay?”

A flood of images surged through me, seemingly incongruous with my current life. Memories of myself as a bipedal hominid fought those of a quadruped equine for dominance, each feeling right to me. The grueling slog through Basic Training, the long hours on shift at the hospital, endless recollections of running, on two legs and four… squeezing my eyes shut, I forced all the images from my mind and found peace. In this peace, images and thoughts came once more, though in an orderly fashion this time. Taking another deep breath, I began.

“Well, that’s a lot to cover, but I’ll do it as best I can. As far as who I am, I would say that I’ve not changed much if at all; my traits and mannerisms seem intact. I joke and kid with you just as much as I used to in my old life, at least around those I care for.”

Joy interjected at this, catching me off guard as I was just beginning to wander down memory lane. “Care for? Like your wife and child? Tell me about them, please.”

I was momentarily shocked that Joy knew I’d been married and a father, but almost instantly it dawned on me that I’d told her as much a few days prior. “How… oh, wait. I remember. Well, I’ll tell you all I can. I was married for a year and a half, roughly, before I came here. It was a whirlwind affair, stemming from a blind date arranged by mutual friends. She was with child when I shipped out for training, and it put a terrible strain on her to be alone during that time. I was also under stress, what with being in highly intensive training and all, so things quickly went sour. When my son was born, I’d hoped that things would improve, but they didn’t. I’d always been emotionally distant, and this did nothing to change it. I wanted to love them both, and I suppose in some way I did, but it was nothing like what love should be. At least, what I thought love should be. This is going to sound terrible, but it’s the honest truth… I loved them as some love pets. There was an endearment, and emotional attachment, but nothing that was as strong as you would expect.”

Joy didn't react to this as I expected, remaining silent instead of shaming me.

“This caused problems. I wanted to care about them and for them, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t until I left my old life behind that I realized how much they meant to me. I couldn’t appreciate them until it was too late… and that is my biggest regret in my life. I loved her, I realized later, but I never treated her right. I’m honestly ashamed of the man I was, of the husband and the father I couldn’t be. I was a decent enough person for the most part, but that didn’t translate to home. I suppose that’s the biggest change in me since I’ve arrived… I’ve vowed never to take love for granted again, and I haven’t since. Love, to me, used to be like sitting on the floor in a dark house with the shades drawn. Now, it’s as if I’m standing outside for the first time, and the brightness and warmth of it is overwhelming. I loved, but couldn’t show it until now. So here I am, a changed pony, though hopefully changed for the better.”

Joy remained silent for a long while, and I could feel her heart rate pick up slightly as her ears twitched randomly. That meant she was thinking about something, as I recalled. A moment’s passage proved me right as she spoke up. “So, you really loved her, but you treated her badly? How badly?”

I hung my head, turning from Joy to hide the shame in my eyes as I answered. “In the cruelest way. I never hit her or verbally abused her, but that might have been less painful for her if I had. No, I was far worse, and I know I caused a much deeper pain by my actions… or rather, my inaction. I never showed her any form of love. We hardly spoke, were only very rarely intimate, and seldom communicated. I all but shunned her without even realizing it. She tried to be warm towards me, but received nothing but cold indifference in return. I don’t think she’ll ever know how much I truly loved her, how precious she was to me. And now, I’ll never be able to tell her. It… it’s all for the best, anyways. She deserves better than what I could provide. And what kills me the most inside is that she loved me still, and will be mourning me, as little as I deserve it. Because of this insight I have found since my arrival here, I’ve vowed to myself and to the stars themselves that I’ll never let that happen again. I’ll never treat you like I treated her, I’d rather die than put you through the same torment.”

Hot tears slipped from my eyes as I relived my greatest shame, a quiver finding its way into my voice near the end. Joy reached up and placed her hoof against my cheek and gently tried to turn my head to face her, but I rebuked her comfort. I deserved every second of misery. Joy then asked the same question I’d pondered myself countless times. “But… why me? Why am I different?”

I responded with the same answer I gave myself whenever I asked the same of myself. “Because this second life is my redemption. It is my chance to make up for some of the terrible things I did in my past life. If I’d learned nothing and made the same mistakes here, caused the same suffering as before, then there’d be no hope for me. If there’s an afterlife of any sort, I’d be doomed to spend it toiling in the deepest and darkest reaches of eternal torment. But you… you are my redemption, Joy. In so many ways. I can be better, I know I can, and I know I must. Everything I’ve been through here, from meeting you to saving Derpy, fixing the playground, even the thing with Mocha… it all seems to be a part of some greater plan, some design beyond fathom. I’ve been pushed and tested in every conceivable way, as if something is trying to break me down, to make me fail. And I have failed, in small ways, from the start. Each time I do, I see your face, your smile, and I can pick myself up and put myself back together… for you. For redemption’s sake.”

There was no hiding the scorn in her voice, which caught me entirely off guard. “Is that all I am to you? A chance at redemption?” Her pulse had quickened noticeably, upset as she was. Doing what I do best, I answered without thinking, speaking from the heart.

“No, that was just the conclusion I came to when I asked myself why I loved you so much. I fell for you harder and faster than I thought possible, and I wanted to figure out why it was that everything I felt for you was so much more intense, or why I felt so strongly that I needed to be better. I loved you deeply before I ever realized that you were my redemption. It was only after I knew I loved you that redemption even came into my mind, and it’s how I knew I was meant to love you. It’s as simple as that.”

Her pulse slackened a bit at this, the scorn edging out of her voice as she replied, hope in her voice. “Is that so? This isn’t just some cockamamie plan to win redemption by treating me better than your… wife? Gosh, that word is so hard to say, it sounds so wrong… I’m going to be your wife soon… wait, hold on. You’re still technically married to her, aren’t you? You never got a divorce.”

I almost laughed at the strangeness of the statement, but something on her voice told me that she was quite serious about this. Very carefully and with a measured tone, I responded to her. “Joy, are you sure it’s necessary? We are worlds, if not universes, apart. There is no conceivable link remaining aside from memory, love.”

My shame subsiding, I mustered the strength to face Joy once more. She stared ahead in silence for a moment before turning to look me in the eyes. With a pleading tone, she said “Please, for me.” Her voice was but a whisper. “I know it’s silly to you, but it would mean the world to me.”

I sat there, mildly to moderately befuddled for a moment before the gears in my head started turning again. “Well, how would we do it? I think I’d be thrown out of the Mayor’s office if I approached with the request to be divorced from my wife from another world.”

Her gaze was unwavering, unblinking. “Just say it.”

I held her gaze, unable to look away. “Say what?”

“Tell me that you love me and no other, and that you renounce your old life and any connection to it.”

I felt my eyes burning in a way that was unrelated to them being open for so long. Though I’d said the same to myself a dozen times since I came to this place, to say it out loud to Joy seemed final and binding, as if I were severing the ties anew. “Why?”

Her gaze wavered but did not fail, even as tears crept into the corners of her eyes. “Just… please? I need to hear it. I don’t know why, but I know that it means the world to me.”

I realized, in a fashion becoming entirely too familiar to me, that I was being a fool. I swiftly put my trepidation aside to say what needed to be said. “Joy, I love you so much that there is no room for any other, not even myself. I disavow any bonds to my old life, save for the memories of my failures. I love you, Joy. There can be no other.”

Tears now flowing freely, Joy craned her neck upwards to kiss me full on the lips. It was a desperate gesture, full of relief, as if a weight was lifted from her shoulders. A long moment passed in silence as she pressed her head to my chest, nuzzling her cheek against my coat. When the next question came, it was so softly spoken that I almost didn’t hear it. “What were their names?”

Caught off guard as I was by the question, it took me a moment to actually grasp the meaning of the question. “Oh, sorry. Took me a second to figure it out. Her name was Danielle, and his was Dustin. ’We three D’s’, as it were.”

“The three D’s? Wow… I just… wow. Okay.”

I cocked an eyebrow at this. “Oh? Something funny, love?”

Joy responded with a coy smile and a raised eyebrow of her own. “Oh, nothing much. I was just marveling at your creativity, is all.”

I was sorely tempted to stick my tongue out at her, but I’d learned my lesson by then. In lieu of that, I simply made an exaggerated frowning expression, scrunching my face and narrowing my eyes. She smiled innocently, looking too darn adorable for her own good. I gave her a quick peck on the forehead, drawing a rosy blush from her. For an instant I was back under the streetlight on my first day in Ponyville, marveling at the innocent beauty of Nurse Joy. Her blush and look of surprise were the same then as they were before, a timeless treasure meant just for me. Until the end of my days, I would have these little pieces of wonder and joy to warm me. My warm reverie was unceremoniously shattered as Joy continued her inquisition, the blush still on her face.

“So, where were you born, where did you grow up, what sort of family did you have, et cetera?”

The moment passed without a sound, though its echoes were still bouncing around my skull. Quieting the echoes, I grumbled my reply, earning a smirk from Joy. “Way to kill the moment, Joy. Anyway, just about everything I told you there was the truth. I was raised in a town called Rockledge, though it wasn’t a griffin clan. I had my mom, but my dad was never around. I was the middle of three kids, bracketed by sisters. Honestly, family is an uncomfortable subject for me… could we talk about something else, please?”

Joy sighed tiredly but assented nonetheless. She looked disappointed for a moment, but only a moment; you could practically see the light bulb over her head as she was struck by an idea. “Oh! I know! Tell me about the special training you got, I want to know more about that!”

In spite of the lateness of the hour and the emotional beating that we’d both endured recently, she was smiling and positively bouncing in my lap as the awaited my anecdote. With an evil, maniacal grin, I answered her. “I’m sorry, but those details are classified, and I’m not at liberty to discuss them.” She looked positively crestfallen, and I could swear that she was about to cry. Having seen too many of her tears already, I quickly shushed her with a kiss and redacted. “I was kidding, dear. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Now, where to start…”

Over the next hour or so, I recounted a general account of my basic training experiences, though much of this time was spent skirting around what exactly and M-4 is, or the principal of firearms in general. To do this, I just referred to it as a tool, requiring special precautions and training. Any attempt by her to get further information out of me was met by the excuse that I actually wasn’t allowed to talk about it, that it really and truly was classified. Though skeptical and highly annoyed, she eventually gave up on that particular subject. Instead, she reveled in my accounts of barracks shenanigans and the general incompetence of certain soldiers. I was high on nostalgia, recounting my various misadventures in the desert and in garrison, when I became aware of a faint noise coming from Joy.

Trailing off in the middle of my sentence, I looked at her, growing concerned. Her eyes were open but unblinking, with a faraway glaze on them, as if she weren’t really here. Her breath was deep and slow, coming at a regular interval that was marked by a slight nasally wheeze. The sound was a familiar one, but where I recognized it from seem incongruous with the current situation; she usually made these noises when she was asleep. That, however, couldn’t be so; her eyes were wide open. As if to answer me she snorted a little bit, a pronounced snore emerging.

Well, I’ll be damned. She’s sleeping with her eyes open. That’s a new one by me.

Smiling gently, I brushed her eyelids closed, fighting away the thought that I’d do the same for a corpse. Her eyes being closed, I gently scooted out from under her, somehow managing not to wake her despite my complete lack of grace. If I had any doubts, they were erased by this; she was out cold. I’d no sooner laid the blankets out on the bed than she’d snatched two-thirds of them up, wrapping herself in a quasi-cocoon. With a gentle kiss on her forehead that brought a smile to her face, I climbed into bed beside her and snuggled with what was left of the covers. Still in good spirits from my trip down memory lane, I was soon fast asleep.

That night, I dreamt of clouds. Knowing the texture and consistency of them just served to lend the dream an extra air of realism. Soaring through the mountainous cumulus valleys, gilded by the moon’s light, I realized that I seldom dreamed of a time other than night. I felt happy about this, for I have always been and always shall be a creature of the night. As I climbed and swooped higher into the sky, I found myself emerging on top of the cloud layer, leaving nothing to spoil the awe inspiring dome of the night sky. The night sky was as brilliantly beautiful as I’d ever seen it before, filled with more stars than I’d ever seen in my life. Even as I stared in wonder, my mouth agape, a single immaculate meteor streaked across the sky. That was the final clue before realization all but slapped me in the face.

Flapping as hard and as fast as I could I streaked upwards, searching for what I knew I’d find; sure enough, there was a single cloud lingering far above the rest. Though I recalled the despair I’d felt as my last attempt fell short, I knew that this time would be different. I would not fall, I would not fail. Just as before, I could feel the atmosphere becoming thinner and thinner, each breath harder and harder to take as my wings struggled to pry me from the embrace of gravity. Just when I was beginning to think I’d fail short, I crested the lip of the cloud, coming to a gentle rest as my momentum was spent.

Breathing as heavily as I could in the thin air, I slowly caught my breath with a smile on my face. Up ahead, with her back to me, was the regal Princess of the Night. Her mane of stars flapped in an ethereal breeze, seemingly spreading out to blanket the night sky in its brilliance. She seemed to take no notice of my approach until I’d taken a seat beside her; her reaction was naught more than a playful smirk. For several moments we sat in silence, sharing the wonder of the night from opposite perspectives; the creator and the ignorant observer. It was Luna who spoke first.

“It has been quite an eventful period since I saw you last; how have you fared for your troubles?” She regarded me with a raised eyebrow, trying to play off her genuine concern as small talk. Intending to do the same, I smiled dismissively.

“Oh, you know how these things go. Sometimes, you have to become the thing you hate most to save what you love.” Only once I’d spoken did I realize the double meaning and magnitude of what I’d just asked. Feeling stupid beyond measure, I decided to remain silent for fear of making matters worse.

Luna seemed not to be bothered by the slip, or she’d taken it at face value to be a valid answer to her question. Her reply betrayed nothing to contradict this conclusion. “As I’ve seen. In even the most trying of circumstances, you’ve demonstrated a remarkable ability to find the best solution. The most recent event was, admittedly, handled with more… decisive means than most are comfortable with, but it was effective.”

I let out a heaving sigh before shaking my head. “No, effective isn’t the word I’d use. Foolish and irresponsible are better suited as a description. I very nearly threw away my whole life for revenge. It isn’t worth the cost.”

Luna rounded on me, a steeled conviction written across her features. “Nay, this is where you are wrong. There will always be ponies of Mocha’s ilk, out to cause suffering among those who do not fight back. Had you dealt with him lightly, Mocha would not have stopped there. He’d have pegged you, and rightly so, as one who is too timid to fight back. To win against his ilk requires violence of action and decisive moves. You can’t just beat them and expect for that to be the end of it; you have to rout them so thoroughly that you break their very will to fight. One mustn’t simply beat them, one must defeat them. This is a concept remembered by precious few, as it is a wartime strategy that hasn’t seen use since my Banishment. Unfortunately, as you’re aware, the laws have changed in that time to better maintain peace.”

I found myself simply nodding. What more needed to be said in the matter? Side by side in the dead of night, Luna startled me quite badly when she jerked her head up and to the side, as if listening to a faint sound from faraway. My theory seemed to be confirmed as she rose to her hooves, wings spread, and looked back at me. “I apologize, I must cut out time together short; there is one whose need is greater. Until we meet next, just know that you have friends in high places who shan’t let you waste away for this. Fare thee well, Dave.”

And just like that, I was alone again. It was as if she stepped off the cloud and into the void, for there was no sign of her when I made it to the edge to search her out. Looking back to the sky I was very disappointed; as Luna departed, so too did her influence on the night sky. The blackness was not so deep as it had been, and the stars were fewer and dimmer than they had been moments before. I vaguely wondered how it was possible for me to be even slightly disappointed with a sky so beautiful, but it just couldn’t compare to the splendor Luna had imparted. With a rueful smile, I stepped off the edge of the cloud and rocketed towards the forest below. Until the alarm roused me from slumber, I dreamed of nothing but speed.

As usual on Saturday, Joy and I rose a bit later than most ponies, not crawling out of bed until nearly ten in the morning. While she woke up refreshed from the extra hours of sleep, I found myself more than a little bit tired from the truncated rest I’d received. In an effort to return to a semblance of normal at the same time as remedying my lethargy, we made our way into town for breakfast and coffee. But mostly for the coffee.

After brunch, Joy and I found ourselves walking to our spot under the oak, fat and happy from our rather robust meal. In the same clearing that we’d discussed our wedding plans in, We found ourselves having a very different discussion.

“What do you mean ‘friends in high places’? Who are they?” Joy had been incredulous at first, but she now seemed to be growing annoyed at the lack of hard facts and details I was able to provide for her.

“I don’t know, love. That’s what she said, and that I wouldn’t waste away for it. Honestly, that’s it. I don’t know any more than you do.” I was doing my best to calm her, though with little effect.

“I don’t get it. Was she talking about herself? Is she going to intervene directly with a pardon if you get locked away?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Joy. It doesn’t seem likely that she’d go over the Mayor’s head like that, though. It doesn’t seem like something she’d condone, let alone do. I think, if anything, she would probably just urge the Mayor to be lenient or something.”

Now it was Joy that shook her head. “But really, if she wanted to, she could do it and nopony would question her; She’s the Princess of the Night, after all.”

This whole conversation was making me uneasy, talking about my own incarceration and possible trump cards and such. Holding up a hoof to forestall any further debate, I spoke my mind. “Really, we’re talking about it like it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s like we expect me to fail, to mess up, and I won’t. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it; I won’t let it happen. So, can we please just drop it?”

Picking up on the discomfort evident in my voice, Joy immediately looked abashed and kissed me in apology. “I’m sorry, Love; I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. The whole thing has me on edge too, and I guess I’m just eager to hear about anything that might give you a way out of all of this mess.”

I felt a surge of love well up in my chest for the mare who loved me so. I gently nuzzled her cheek, sneaking in a soft kiss at the base of her jaw that made her squeak in an adorable manner. I was so riddled with Diabeetus by this point that I might as well have had my blood replaced with maple syrup. For those precious moments things were the same as before the Revelation, the two of us simply overflowing with love for one another as we kissed and nibbled playfully at each other’s neck, ears, and lips. At least for a short while, we were innocent again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Meanwhile, at the Ponyville Mayor’s Office

The turquoise mare named Prose sat at her post behind the help desk, ready to “help” any pony who came to ask inane questions… help them find their way back outside, that is. With a weary sigh, Prose reflected on her seemingly eternal career as the Mayor’s secretary. She could remember a time when she greeted each day and every pony with enthusiasm, ready to jump through hoops at a moment’s notice to help a pony find the solution they sought. Bah. Nopony has time for all that. Nowadays ponies all seemed to think that they were the most important thing on four legs, and that Prose was supposed to cater to their every whim. Need to see the Mayor right now? Sure, I’m positive she won’t mind dropping the tax reform she’s working on to hear you complain about your neighbor’s dog. So on and so forth, it never changed.

Fortunately, being the secretary also entailed her filling the role of court stenographer, meaning that she always had the best gossip out of anypony at the spa. Lately, that was one of the few dwindling perks that kept her coming to work each day. If there was anything exciting that happened in town, the job might be a bit more tolerable. As it was though, nothing exciting ever happened in town. Not ever. The most excitement she’d seen in the last two months came from one thug beating the feathers off of five others. That one had been pretty good, but not spectacular. By the sun, why can’t anything exciting ever happen here?

A small mote of bluish magic lazily drifted across Prose’s nose, making it tingle slightly. Looking about in confusion, she caught sight of another speck across the room. Another and then another popped into being right before her eyes, forming a ball of glowing energy that hovered in the center of the room. Well, thought Prose, would you look at-

A blinding flash and a tremendous crack echoed throughout the room, the waves of magical energy making Prose’s mane stand straight on end (which was no mean feat, considering the amount of hairspray she used). The smell of ozone hung heavily in the air as papers fluttered lamely to the floor. Blinking the spots from her eyes, she began to take in the features of the pony who had suddenly appeared in the middle of her domain without so much as a knock. How rude. An instant before telling this pony to step outside and re-enter like a civilized creature, she saw something that made her catch her tongue. In the nick of time, she recognized the intruder as none other than Princess Luna.

In her struggle to rise from her chair and bestow her genuflections, Prose managed to knock over nearly every item on her desk and a few others besides. When Luna finally told her to relax before she hurt herself, Prose could feel her cheeks burning like the sun. “Pardon the intrusion, but I need to speak to the Mayor, please.” Prose nodded a bit overzealously at this before she turned and scampered off to gather the Mayor. Bursting into her boss’ office without so much as a courtesy knock would normally be grounds for a stern talking to, but these were far from normal circumstances. “Mayor, there’s somepony in the Lobby who needs to see you.”

The Mayor looked up from the agreement she’d been scanning to lock a deadpan gaze on Prose. While the unicorn wasn’t one prone to flights of fancy, she had been known in the past to overstate the importance of a visitor. Casting a glance back at the agreement, she debated for a moment before concluding that the agreement was more pressing than anypony in the lobby. If it was important, they’d wait. “Prose, unless the Princess herself is standing out there, tell them they’ll have to wait for me to finish.”

What came next caused the Mayor’s jaw to drop. “Okay Mayor, I’ll tell her you’re on your way now.” Far more surreptitiously than she entered, Prose disappeared, leaving the Mayor in mild shock. Certainly, there was no way the Princess had actually visited her, face to face. That was supposed to be a dismissal, not a… oh, crud. Hastily gathering herself into a semi-presentable manner, she set off for the door.

“Hello and good morning, Princess Cel-… Princess Luna?” Blushing in angry embarrassment at her own foolish assumption, the Mayor bowed deeply to hide her shame, waiting for Luna’s reprisal. Such reprisal was not forthcoming. Instead, Luna replied in a neutral tone that belied no trace of emotion whatsoever.

“Mayor, I’d like to speak to you in private about a rather important matter.”

All but springing to her hooves, the Mayor nodded vigorously as she gestured for Luna to follow. “Of course, Your Highness. My office is right this way.” Luna responded with a nod, following silently. Once the door was sealed with a muffled thud, Mayor spoke up once more. “So, uh, Your Highness… how may I be of service?”

Luna’s gaze panned across the office, seemingly scrutinizing every nook and cranny before coming to rest upon the Mayor. “Well, I have a favor, of sorts, to ask of you. You may refuse at no consequence if you so desire.”

The elderly mare gulped heavily, trying in vain to hide it with a cough and a fake smile. What would a Princess, one of the most powerful beings in existence, possibly want from her? “Anything, Your Majesty.”

Luna broke her gaze with the Mayor, smirking at voice from the past. Her grin faded nearly as soon as it had come, and a small sigh filled the emptiness before Luna spoke. “What I ask of you, and indeed, the very fact that I ask this of you must be a closely guarded secret whether you accept or not. Is that understood?” A coifed grey mane bounced up and down as the head it was attached to nodded in agreement. Luna continued. “Good, very good. I’m sure you are familiar with a relatively new pony in town who goes by the name of ‘Dave’. He was recently involved in an… altercation, of sorts as I’m sure you recall. He is under the stewardship of the Crown, as an ambassador of sorts. Because of his position, it would be a distinct disadvantage to the Crown if he were to be incarcerated for any period of time.”

The Mayor’s head was spinning under the weight of these implications. Dave, the local hero-turned-villain-turned-hero-again was under the protection of the Crown? As an Ambassador? But then… what did the Crown need her for? Surely, all it would take is a single letter and he’d be released from whatever cell he was in. Why drag her into this? “I’m afraid I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out what exactly you need from me, Princess.”

Luna took a step closer to the Mayor, lowering her head near the governor’s as she spoke in hushed tones. “Please understand that this is a delicate matter. In this community, you are the law, the center of justice. For his crimes, you have given Dave a suspended sentence, one that is dependent on his continued good behavior to remain suspended. What I ask of you is that you take a more… lenient stance, should his name come across your desk during that time. I leave you in full control of your town, and I am by no means forbidding you to incarcerate him for a sufficiently grave transgression. All I ask is that you think long and hard about just what would constitute such a crime. I do not wish to undermine your authority or the ponies’ perceptions of you as a leader by granting a pardon to one you have deemed guilty of a crime. Instead, I ask that you merely evaluate your standards to ensure that he is not imprisoned over a minor offense.”

The Mayor nodded dumbly. What the Princess was asking her to do was a borderline violation of the trust the townsponies had in her, and it made her deeply uncomfortable. On one hoof, it was underhooved to use her authority to exert influence over the judicial system in town. On the other, it was certainly less scandalous than if she’d sent Dave to prison only to have him pardoned by the Crown, which would cast doubt upon her judgment. Uncomfortable and slimy as it made her feel, the Mayor nevertheless found herself raising a hoof to shake, sealing the deal. Without another word, Luna nodded and departed.

Shortly after the Princess had left, Prose returned with an utterly bewildered expression, inquiring as to the nature of Luna’s visit. The elderly mare was feeling every one of her years as she waved away her secretary, crafting some sort of excuse about having to review trade agreements with Canterlot. Once the door was closed and the sound of hooves faded, the grey mare depressed a hidden button on the desk. With a barely-audible click, a panel popped open on well-oiled hinges to reveal a bottle of amber liquid and a small glass. Well, old gal, looks like it’s going to be one of those days…

With a wry chuckle, she popped out the cork and poured herself a glass.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Fifty kilometers away, Joy and Dave lounged in the shade of an ancient oak, entirely unaware of the back room deal that had just been made to shape Dave’s fate.

Author's Note

Okay, this one is shorter than others, but at least it's something. I need to ease back into it after being gone for so long.

For those of you who haven't read it yet, I ask you to please visit my story "My Life as a Receptionist in the Afterlife" and give it a look. I feel that it could potentially help a lot of people out there who have gone through difficult times in their lives.

Last Edited 14MAY17

The End of a Dream

A Dream That Wasn't
Book 2, Chapter 1

I had been a human once, complete with a family. Not a very good human, with more faults than I'd be able to count if I tried, but a human nonetheless. One night, after a massive fight with my wife, I'd stormed out. The last time I saw her, she was holding our son with tears in her eyes. I didn't turn back to comfort her, try to chase away those tears and tease out a smile. No, I hopped on my motorcycle and tried to outrun my anger and my shame. Failing that, I'd gone to a friend's house and gotten blackout drunk on some fluorescent green alcohol.

At some point during this blackout, I'd begun hallucinating, floating around in an impenetrable void with disjointed voices talking in riddles. Nothing terribly remarkable thus far, but that was just the beginning.

From there, things got... inexplicable. Cryptic voices gave way to a fall to my death, in a place that was most decidedly not the land I was used to. A blur of pain and pastel ponies later, and I'd wound up with a friend. Strangest lucid dream ever, amiright? Except, it wasn't. Oh, it had all of the hallmarks of a dream all right; the talking ponies and my strange new body were evidence enough of that. This, however, turned out to be a dream that wasn't. Before I knew what was happening, I'd spun a web of lies and half-truths to cover my past; even worse, I'd started to fall in love.

How was I supposed to tell her? Everything she thought of me, it was all based on lies; these fallacies I'd woven her as I stared into her eyes. To reveal the truth to her was a risk I just couldn't take, not until I was sure she wouldn't shun me, at least. By the time I'd finally come clean about my past, half a year had passed since my arrival. My mistakes had piled up and up and up around me, towering ever higher and threatening to bury me. My arrival and the lies surrounding it were the linchpin holding everything in place; when my confession pulled it, everything came crashing down around me.

Hurting from the very depths of my soul, saddened beyond measure at the prospect of losing everything I held dear, I turned to alcohol and blessed oblivion. Alcohol was the catalyst that metastasized my pain and despair into something far more potent: rage. I was furious at myself for doing what I'd done and causing this entire stupid debacle. I had nobody to blame but myself, and that made it even worse. Whether by fate or just bad timing, a buck with a grudge decided that it was time to settle a grudge he'd been harboring against me, along with 4 of his closest friends. The brutality of my response was unheard of; I was labeled a monster, and rightly so.

How could Joy ever love me now that my darker side had come out to play? I'd already shown her that I wasn't who she thought I was, and as if to put the cherry on top, I go off in a drunken stupor and commit unspeakable violence. Less than twelve hours later. She could never want me again, I was a monster.

Wasn't I?

No, I wasn't. At least, not entirely. I may not have been the sharpest spoon in the tool shed, but I'd done my best to be a good pony. I wasn't a good human, husband, or a father, and kind of a terrible person in general, but I'd been a decent pony. Since I'd come to this strange land full of magic and equines, things had been going well. I laughed more, was slower to anger, and took the time to simply stare in wonder at the majesty of creation. But most importantly, I'd loved. Deeper and more fully than ever before, more completely than I'd ever known I could, I loved. And it was this very love that Joy and I had shared that tipped the scales in my favor.

She'd been able to look past my mistakes and my lies, past the walls I put up to keep ponies out, and see the real me. The me that not even I could see. She saw my flaws, and what a multitude of flaws there were, but she also found my virtue. What this virtue is, I couldn't say; she just giggled and looked away whenever I asked her about it. But, if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. After all, it was about time I'd left the thinking to a clever pony.

The weeks passed in a blur as we learned how to love each other again. The damage I'd done ran deep, deeper than I'd ever feared, but the changes it brought about were far from bad. Without the premise of secrecy, our communication was unhindered by deception. Beyond this, the short time we'd spent apart only served to bolster in our minds the fact that we never wanted to be apart again. Due to conflicting shifts, Joy and I weren't able to spend as much time together as we had before, but we relished our time together all the more because of this.

In the time we'd spent together since my confession, several things had become clear to me. First, I was an idiot. No surprise there. What was a surprise though was how much love and tolerance Joy was capable of. I'd lived with her for over six months on false pretenses, lying about my past and about my very nature. Sure, my reasons had been valid enough, I suppose, but that did little to change the circumstances I'd found myself in.

Foolish though my actions had been, my intentions were true. There is, however, a saying about good intentions and their road-like qualities, and for good reason. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We are not to this part of the story yet; no, far from it. These were still the glory days.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And so it was that the fiery colors of autumn slowly gave way to the first nip of frost, herald of the coming winter, and finally to the frigid embrace of Jack Frost himself. One cold winter's morning near the mid of December, Joy and I found ourselves intertwined on the couch for warmth. The day was Saturday, and despite not being roused by the alarm until nine, we were up at the crack of dawn; for the sun was rising later and later and setting sooner in kind. Yawning, stretching, and kissing accomplished, we rolled out of bed to prepare for the day. And oh, what a day it would be! The first good snow of the winter had fallen overnight, the weather pegasi having put in a full night's work. The entire world was sheathed in a layer of downy snow, blunting the edges of buildings and piling up in the corners of the world.

This was not the reason for our merriment on this day, though it certainly did not detract from it; no, it was on this day that we were to set out and begin making the arrangements for our upcoming union. The first stop of the day was to be Twilight's Library, where we sought to enlist the mare's exceptional organizational skills to assist in the planning and organization of the event. From there, we'd head to the Carousel Boutique for a bit of fashion and decorating advice, and finally swing by Sugarcube Corner to look at cake designs. As soon as we'd finished breakfast, we set out into the gleam of freshly fallen snow.

“Oh, Dave, isn't this wonderful?” Without bothering to wait for a reply, Joy set about frolicking in the undisturbed powder, giggling like a filly as she sent plumes flying to and fro.

I couldn't help but smile; her energy was infectious, to say nothing of her cuteness. Seizing the element of surprise, I scooped up a bunch of snow with my wing, using my feathers to compact it into a small ball.

“Hey, Joy! You've got something on your face!” As Joy stopped mid-frolic to look back at me, she was caught full in the face by an expertly lobbed snowball. “Ha! It's snow. Get it? You've got snow on your-”

My reply was cut off as Joy released a fusillade of snowballs in my direction. Shielding myself with my wings, I dove over a hedge to get out of the line of fire, so that I could regroup and attack. At least, that's what would have happened if Joy hadn't scooped up a metric buttload of snow and dropped it on me.

Dang unicorns and their cheating magic...

Thoroughly routed, I waved my hoof in surrender as I dug myself out of the mini-avalanche. “I surrender!” I called to Joy. “Cease fire, cease fire!”

Carefully poking my head over the hedge to see if the coast was clear, I received a perfectly aimed snowball to the face. Just as I was about to Leeroy Jenkins my ass over the hedge and try to tackle Joy into a snowbank, I heard the lilt of her laughter. “Okay Dave, now we're even.”

Wiping the snow from my face with a smile, I hopped back over the hedge to join Joy. Sharing a kiss that was far more cold and damp than usual, we chuckled to ourselves and set off for the Library. We'd made it about two-thirds of the way there when we were arrested by a heavenly scent drifting out from somewhere up ahead. If there was one thing I was good at, it was following my nose to food, and that's just what we did. Turning down a very familiar street, we came to the unlikely source of the smell: Berry's. It would seem that winter was hardly a good time to sell smoothies, so Berry had a trick up her sleeve. Or at least she would, if she had sleeves. At any rate, Berry's tactics for the winter months apparently included the ability to make hot chocolate every bit as enticing as her smoothies.

I shot Joy my biggest set of puppy dog eyes. I was trying to use my cuteness to drag her into the store, drawing naught but an amused stare from her. “Dave, are you feeling okay? You look sort of funny.”

Sensing the futility, I dropped the guise. Unlike Joy, I wasn't very cute, it would seem. “Can we get some hot chocolate for the trip?”

Joy relented. “Oh, I suppose. I am a bit chilly after that underhooved attack earlier.” As if to prove her point, she shivered.

In ten minutes, we'd acquired our toasty beverages and were cradling them as we stepped back into the cold. As we walked the last bit to the library, I couldn't help taking a deep whiff of my mug. Chocolate and hazelnut danced in my nose, along with other scents I failed to identify. Sipping carefully from the piping hot mug of goodness, it was all I could to to stifle a moan of pleasure. The warmth of the cocoa seemed to radiate from the center of me, chasing away the hoar frost nipping at my hooves.

Based on the contented sigh and the dreamy look in her eyes, Joy was having a similar experience. Smiling to myself, I leaned over and nuzzled her neck. As if on cue, large snowflakes began to slowly spiral downward in the calm air. As one, we paused to marvel in the wonder of it.

We stood side by side in the vacant street, all of the usual merchants driven from their stands by the cold. There was soft light of the sun being diffused by the clouds overhead, bathing everything in a gentle glow. The snow was piled high atop roofs and against the buildings, softening all of the edges. Large snowflakes slowly floated down from the sky, pirouetting lazily in the stillness of the morning. By my side was the ever-beautiful Joy, as snowflakes like gems sparkled in her mane. Around her neck was a scarf of brilliant blue, one that nearly matched her mane's lovely hue. There we stood, bastions of equinity in an otherwise silent world. It was as if the world had stopped just for us.

We stared into each other's eyes, just marveling at the beauty of nature and silently sending thanks for the whims of fate that let us share this wonderment together. Truly, this was a moment of timeless beauty. At least, until one of those glorious snowflakes found its way into my open eye.

“Ow, gawdangit!” Vigorously, I rubbed my eye as Joy giggled at my misfortune. I pointed a hoof at her and proclaimed “laugh not, for this could happen to you t-- argh, again?!” My mock-declaration was interrupted by yet another snowflake finding its way to my eye, though the other eye this time. Because, you know, had to make it even or whatever.

Stupid snow.

Joy was still giggling by the time we got to the library. Musing at how much I dislike snow in my eyes, I stepped up to the doorway, wiping my hooves on the mat. Apparently, that was Jack Frost's cue. As I stomped my hooves on the mat to dislodge the snow that had adhered to them, I dislodged the snow that had adhered to the side of the tree instead. The accumulated precipitation sloughed off the side of the tree in one large clump, covering me completely. By trying to get snow off of me, I'd wound up buried in it. I just couldn't win...

After she was finally able to compose herself and quell her hysterical laughter, Joy had me excavated from the avalanche in ten seconds flat. In the meantime though, I was perfectly content to bide my time as a snowpony, plotting my revenge. Unfortunately, I was terrible at plotting revenge.

No sooner had I been excavated by Joy than the door swung open, revealing a confused looking Twilight. “What are you ponies doing out here?”

I was about to pipe up with a silly comment about practicing hypothermia, but Joy spoke up first. “Oh, Twilight! Just the mare we wanted to see. Dave and I had a proposition for you...”

At the word 'proposition', Twilight flushed a little and shifted her weight uncomfortably, glancing back and forth between Joy and I. Trying to keep the conversation on track, I immediately interjected. “Twilight, we need a pony with exceptional organizational skills to help us plan our wedding. Would you be interested in helping?”

With a deep sigh of relief, she nodded. “Of course I would, you two. But first, let's head inside. It's far too chilly to stay here.”

Without another word, we followed the lavender unicorn inside, closing the door behind us and shucking our winter gear. A few moments' time saw us seated around a fireplace, slowly defrosting over tea and biscuits.

Just as we were getting settled into our seats, Twilight spoke up. “You know, when you said you had a proposition for me, I was worried you were going to ask me to do something about all of the snow.”

Perhaps it was the way I tilted my head, or maybe it was the stench of burning gears, but Twilight picked up on my confusion. “Well, every year I get a couple ponies who drop by, asking me to do something about the snow. Usually simple things, like thawing out a garden, or a de-icing spell. There was one mare, though, who insisted I conjure up a giant umbrella to shield the entire town! Can you imagine the ruckus that would cause?”

We all had a good laugh at that, and I couldn't help but picture a massive polka-dot umbrella stretched over the town. As the laughter died away, Joy broke the silence that followed. “So Twilight, you said you'd help us organize our marriage. Where do we even start with that?” I nodded along, also interested in where to begin.

“Well,” said Twilight, stroking her chin, “it just so happens that I have a book specifically on how to plan a wedding. It should arrive soon.”

Before had I chance to say “I figured you would” or to ponder what she meant by 'it should arrive soon', a book wrapped in a purple glow streaked in from parts unknown. Catching the book with all the ease of a skilled professional, Twilight casually flipped it and examined the spine. With a small nod of satisfaction, she passed it to Joy. Twilight must have seen my wonder, for she blushed slightly and explained. “This is why the Dewey Decimal System is so important. It tells you exactly where to look.”

I just nodded dumbly. It was difficult to imagine anypony who could memorize the decimal location of every book in a library. Yet, if there was anypony who could, it would be Twilight.

Joy was excitedly flipping through the pages, eyes wide with wonder as the gears in her mind began spinning. I knew that look... she was coming up with a plan. A plan, I felt I should remind her, that needed to involve me. Clearing my throat, I caught her attention. “Hey, Joy? What are you planning over there?”

Based on the way she started at the sound of my voice, it was safe to assume she'd forgotten I was there. With a bashful smile, she made her way over to my side of the couch. I caught Twilight's smile out of the corner of my eye, right before that space was occupied by Joy's lovely blue eyes. As she levitated the book in front of us, Joy was excitedly pointing to things on the page that she'd like to see at our wedding. Some of them, like the fancy place settings and the appetizers, I was on board with. Others, like the chocolate fountain, not so much. I love chocolate as much as the next guy, but I just didn't see it being feasible. All it would take was a single bug or an errant leaf, and the whole batch would be spoiled.

Before we got too lost in the small details, Twilight suggested that we copy down the checklist from the front of the book. “That way, you two can have a hard copy to work off of, as well as a way to keep track of progress as each item is procured!” There was a gleam in her eye, one that was hard to describe. I think I might have found the one mare to be truly excited about the prospect of filling out a checklist.

Good listeners that we are, we immediately set about doing just that. In what seemed like no time flat (and with more than a few corrections and re-corrections), we'd finally nailed down everything we thought we wanted or needed at the wedding. As I took a moment to re-read the list, I realized just how daunting a prospect it was. For everything we thought we knew, there were five things we didn't.

How many guests will be attending? Somewhere between five and two-hundred and thirty seven... ish.

How many Bridesmares / Groomstallions will be present? Four Bridesmares; Berry, Derpy, Tenderheart, and Lyra. Groomstallions: To be determined.

What colors will be used? The natural brilliance of autumn, with a brace of alabaster pillars 'neath which we wed.

At that one, Joy shot me a funny look, as if she was trying to figure out when I'd become a poet. The list went on and on, though mostly in this same manner. Joy, surprise surprise, had almost all of the answers. She knew who she wanted to invite, where she wanted them to sit in relation to each other, and even the exact bottle of champagne she wished to toast with. A forty year vintage from the depths of a place known as Prance, to be exact. Where we would find this bottle, and how we would pay for said bottle... well, that remained to be seen. Reviewing the list once more and finding nothing amiss, we passed it to Twilight for approval.

Twilight skimmed the list, murmuring to herself in some places, and either nodding or grimacing in others. Surrounding the parchment with a gentle glow, twilight triplicated it with a flash of magic. Floating one copy to me and another to Joy, the lavender unicorn tucked her copy into a folder and placed it in the librarian's desk.

Once it was secure, she nodded at the two of us. “Okay, that's about what I expected for a first draft. There sure are a lot of unknowns, though; the sooner you can figure out the number of guests, even a rough estimate, the sooner we can begin making preparations.”

Joy and I nodded at her, vowing that we would do our best. Satisfied, Twilight waved us off, citing research that needed to be done. We said our farewells as we donned our winter gear, the bite of the cold held at bay by the warm tea in our stomachs. I relished the crisp winter's air, savoring each breath as we made our way to Carousel Boutique.

Once we arrived and rapped on the door, we were led into a familiar room; it was the one in which I'd “modeled” Rarity's work. A fireplace, previously obscured by the dressmaker's ponequins, glowed with a gently crackling fire, casting ever-shifting shadows around the room.

Perched upon a velvet chair near the flames was an alabaster pony, mane as carefully styled as ever. Hearing the approach of hooves, she turned and waved us over with a smile. As I drew nearer I could see that Rarity was clad in a burgundy turtleneck, purple horn-rimmed glasses perched ever-so-daintily on the end of her nose and a book in her lap. This mare was the epitome of casual sophistication, and as much as I wanted to think about other things, I could not help but notice how gorgeous she was. Joy is beautiful in her own right, with a kind smile and the cutest everything, but Rarity had a mature grace about her that was simply alluring.

Gesturing to a vacant loveseat opposite the fire, she welcomed us. “Good morning, you two. Dreadfully sorry for not answering the door myself, but I've been feeling a bit under the weather as of late.”

Could have fooled me; she looked just as good as ever. Telling her as much drew a casual dismissal from Rarity and a sharp jab to the ribs from Joy. Clearing my throat to cover the grunt of pain from the jab, I continued. “Well, it's true. But, that's not why we're here, Rarity. As I'm sure you know, Joy and I are getting married in the coming fall.”

Rarity's eyes lit up, already seeing where this was going. “But of course, Dave. Everypony in town knows by now. Surely, you haven't come solely to regale me with old news?”

I smiled a bit, having missed this banter. “Of course not! Perish the thought. We'd actually come with the hopes that you could be persuaded to be our wedding designer.”

Looping her arm around mine, Joy interjected. “Really, Rarity. We could think of no pony we would rather have.”

Levitating a steaming mug to her hooves, Rarity smiled as she took a sip. Gazing back and forth between Joy and I, her smile broadened. “I would be honored. And, not to seem overzealous, it would seem that I may have drawn up a few measly sketches for just such an occasion.”

At this, her horn glowed a pale blue and was met a moment later by a sheath of papers from a nearby table. Without comment, she floated them over to us, spreading them out atop the mahogany coffee table between us. They were simply amazing. Having designed just about every single bit of fancy clothing that I owned, and much of Joy's as well, Rarity had a solid grasp on our style preferences. She ruthlessly exploited this to her advantage, designing the most stunning dresses I had ever seen. Though they were simple and lacking in ornamentation they were elegant beyond measure. Sweeping lines, a hint of lace, and a few ocher accents spoke to a simple sophistication that managed not to look as if it was missing something. Joy and I were simply awestruck, flipping back and forth between the variations Rarity had concocted.

I simply could not believe what I was seeing. “Rarity, these are… they're just… “

“Amazing? Ravishing? Splendid?” Rarity supplied.

Joy and I both nodded, much to the designer's apparent delight. A few moments of deliberation passed as Joy and I settled on a design for the dress, though a decision was soon reached. Upon showing our selection to the alabaster mare, she nodded knowingly, stating that she'd suspected that this one would catch our fancy. If there was one thing you could say about that mare (aside from how soft she was) it was that she knew her craft well.

Joy and I spent the next half hour talking to Rarity about things like accents for the tables, fabric types, even going so far as to rummage through a scrap fabric bin so that Rarity could demonstrate the feel of a certain fabric versus another. Sooner than later, we arrived at the end of our time at the boutique, having answered all of the questions we'd had for the alabaster designer as well as a few besides. When we stood up to leave, Rarity seemed more than a little disappointed, but I swore I'd return soon for another conversation.

Joy shot me a sideways glance for making plans to spend time with Rarity without her, but thankfully did not question it. I needed to get Rarity alone, preferably secluded in the boutique, so I could attempt to convince her to do something that would most likely violate every principle she stood for: I was going to try and get her to make Joy and I matching onesies.

Honestly, I'm not even sure at what point I decided that this was a thing that needed to happen, but while I was rubbing my face against fabric samples I found one that was oh-so-soft. Like, to the point that this shouldn't even be allowed to exist by the laws of nature. Needless to say, I wanted to cover my entire body in this material, so it was a logical (for me) progression to a onesie from there. I could only hope that Rarity wouldn't forcibly remove me from her boutique before I managed to convince her of the merits of the Onesie. I needed a plan...

As I'd been musing to myself, Joy had been leading the way to the door, stopping just long enough to use that cheating unicorn magic to wrap a scarf around her neck and drop a toboggan atop my noggin. It was this sudden warm sensation about my ears that brought me out of my reverie, straight into the perplexed gaze of a certain cerulean mare.

“So Dave, wanna tell me about your plans to visit Rarity?” Though her tone might have been warm, there was a hint of uncertainty in it.

I waved a hoof, trying to put her at ease without ruining the surprise. “Well, she said she was feeling under the weather, so I thought it might be nice to bring her some hot chocolate and honey tea.” And also to convince her to make some onesies, but Joy didn't need to know that.

Said cerulean mare was eyeing me suspiciously for a moment, before saying “Dave, when did you get so considerate?”

I had to fight the urge to stick out my tongue, the memory of the peppers still enough to make my tongue tingle. “I've been hanging out with you enough, some of it had to have sunk in.”

Smiling and nodding to herself, Joy replied “Huh, I guess that's true. After all, I am pretty amazing.”

This got the both of us chuckling as we stepped out into the cold once more. The sudden transition from the warmth of the boutique to the frigid air outside stole my breath away in the middle of my a chuckle, causing me to cough.

“Are you okay” Joy asked, “or do I need to grab the defibrillator?”

Stifling my coughs, I reassured her. “Yeah, leave it up to me to choke on the cold.”

We wandered through the softly falling snow, making our way in the general direction of Sugarcube Corner as we reveled in the winter wonderland around us. Snaking tendrils of smoke wound skyward from every chimney, as the occupants of each home did their best to ward off the chill outside. Every so often we would pass a window with the curtains open, affording a glance of the lives carrying on within. There were ponies inside, arrayed around the fireplace, engaged in all manner of activities. Some sipped on steaming mugs, while others simply read by the light of the fire. All of this going on inspired in me an intense desire to do the same, to curl up under a blanket with Joy, our hooves warmed by the flames, and lose myself in a good book and a mug of cocoa.

There was just one problem. “Joy, do we have a fireplace?”

She turned to look at me, apparently trying to figure out if I was serious. In all the time I'd spent on or around the couch, I'd never seen a fireplace that I could recall. Finally deciding that my question wasn't rhetorical, Joy answered. “Of course we do, ya goof. How do you think we stay warm? I mean, haven't you ever wondered what's in the bottom half of the book shelf?”

“Bottom.. half?” I had honestly never noticed it, figuring it was a cabinet or something. Apparently, my response was all she needed.

“It figures you wouldn't have. The bottom of the bookshelf is a decorative cover to keep pets, foals, and curious Daves from climbing into the fireplace. Though, it's a good thing you mention it; I'll need your help to prepare it for use.”

I nodded slightly, not even the slightest bit upset that I suddenly had a chore to do today; the thought of cuddling with Joy by the fire saw to that. “Just tell me what needs to be done, dear.”

She smiled coyly at this, replying smugly “Good answer, hun. Listen to your marefriend.”

I was about to reply with a sarcastic remark when my attention was suddenly occupied by a robust snowpony situated on the sidewalk just ahead of us. Something about the pony seemed off, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was. I drew closer, attempting to puzzle out exactly what it was about this snowpony that seemed so... off. I drew to within about a pace or so of the snowpony before everything got crazy. One second I'm investigating a snowpony, and the next I'm soaring forty meters off the ground and being strangled to death by a pink monster.

Pink.

Why is that so familiar? What is this noise in my ears? Why do I taste cotton candy?

The answer to the last three came at the same time, as a pair of blue eyes appeared suddenly in the mass of pink in front of me. “DAVE!” came the enthusiastic greeting.

“Uh, hello Pinkie” is what I meant to say, but I somehow had a mouthful of cotton candy, so what actually came out was more along the lines of “uh, hrflo prrkur.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full, silly, unless it's full of words! In that case, talk all you want to get the words out!”

My head was spinning, partially due to the proximity of the Pinkness, and also probably slightly having something to do with the iron grip she had around my neck. Hoo boy, if I don't land soon, I might end up back on the ground with a lot more speed than I'd prefer. I angled myself towards the ground and descended rapidly, racing the darkness creeping in around the edges of my vision. Braking suddenly just before I hit the ground, I succeeded in dislodging Pinkie from around my neck. Well, mostly. As my head spun in the inrush of oxygen, I noticed that I still had cotton candy in my mouth, cotton candy that appeared to be connected to the back of Pinkie's head.

That's... unpleasant. Gingerly spitting out the end of her mane, I turned to look for the mare that had accompanied me prior to my unplanned flight. I looked to the place that I expected to find her, but the only thing there was a snowpony. A somewhat familiar looking snow pony. A snow pony that looked a lot like...

The 'snow pony' opened its eyes, fixing me with a very unhappy looking pair of blue eyes. ”Heh... Hey there, Joy. How you doin'?”

The snow pony enveloped itself in a blue glow, sloughing off the snow that had caked around it. Once Joy had fully extricated herself of the snow-suit, she gathered the snow into a large ball and unceremoniously dumped it on my head. She sighed, saying that she was “feeling much better” now. Yeah, I bet.

Shaking myself free of snow, I found that Pinkie had joined us at some point. “Hey Dave and Joy, you should have seen the looks on your faces when I popped out of the snowpony, you were all like 'aahh!' and it was great. But then you flew away while I was hugging you and started talking with your mouth full but now it's better because we're all here again.”

How she said all of that in a single breath, I'll never know. But, it did manage to explain a few things. She scared the bejeezus out of me by sneak-hugging me, causing me to rocket into the sky. A wise guy once said 'for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction', and this is apparently still true in Ponyville. Where I had been standing just prior to my launch, there was a circle about five meters in diameter that had been swept clean of snow. At the edge of this circle was a less-than-amused Joy. Heh. Oops.

Not even two minutes later, we were all seated in Sugarcube Corner sipping on hot cider. Mrs. Cake joined us shortly thereafter, carrying a brochure of cake and cupcake designs. After the eventful introduction, it was both odd and refreshing to see the Pink one sitting still, though apparently at great personal effort. Whenever she would get a little too fidgety, Mrs. Cake would clear her throat slightly and Pinkie would settle down. I found this a little odd but didn't question it, remembering the talking-to I'd received the last time I'd tried.

Oddity aside, Calm-Pinkie was actually tremendously helpful when it came to picking out the cake and snacks for the wedding. In less than an hour we were able to make arrangements for the catering and for the cake, both of which were offered at a sizeable discount. Even with the discount, though, it was not an insignificant sum of bits by any stretch of the imagination.I wondered how we would pay for all of this, and resolved to figure it out. Later. Future Dave could handle it, probably.

Soon enough, Joy and I were gathering our winter gear once again, though this time the destination was home and a nice warm fire. As Joy was wrapping her scarf on her neck, she sneezed. It was adorable, such a high pitch and dainty sound it made you want to hug something. Joy, on the other hoof, looked positively crestfallen.

“What's wrong, dear?” I asked.

With a sniffle, she looked up at me with the saddest little puppy dog eyes I'd ever witnessed. “I think I'm getting a cold.”

My heart melted a little bit at that, but it also made me a bit concerned. Our house was on the opposite side of town, and the snow hadn't showed any signs of slowing. I didn't want her to get any sicker, but it wasn't like I had a blanket growing out of my... oh. Hello, wings.

Stepping into the cold for the last time, we set off for home as I draped a wing over Joy and pulled her into my side. She blushed a little bit at being 'under my wing', but smiled at me nonetheless, offering thanks as she snuggled closer to me.

The weather pegasi must have put in overtime, as the gently falling snow began to come down harder, driven by a frigid wind. What had started off the day as a gentle snow fall was rapidly building into a serious winter storm. We turned onto our street just in time, as the visibility began to drop precariously. From a kilometer, down to half, and now down to less than fifty meters, the visible world was getting smaller by the minute. Walking in the front door, we closed it behind us and shook the snow from our bodies as we doffed our hats and scarves. Hanging it all up by the door to dry with her cheating unicorn magic, Joy set off into the living room, visibly shivering.

Next time I saw Dash, or any of the other weather pegasi for that matter, I was going to give them a piece of my mind about this storm. They were supposed to send out warning notices prior to scheduling anything stronger than an afternoon shower.

Climbing into bed and cocooning herself in blankets, I heard Joy sigh deeply. As adorable as this was, I needed her help. “Joy? I need help setting up the fireplace, sweetie.”

A muffled groan was her only reply. Maybe she just needed to warm up a little bit first. In the meantime, I decided to investigate the bottom of the bookshelf to see if I could puzzle out the inner workings of it. It was an ornamental piece of wood, showcasing beautiful grain patterns and detailed carving around the edges, with a pair of drawers set side by side. I pulled gently on one of the 'drawer' handles, and found that the entire front of the cabinet moved. Pulling a little harder, I was able to pull off the cover entirely, exposing a deep-set brick fireplace big enough for me to climb inside of. So, naturally, that was the first thing I did. Officially, I was looking for the lever to open the flue so we didn't all die during the night. Unofficially, I had always wanted to do this but always had people tell me not to.

The clearing of a throat behind me caused me to start, bumping my head as I did so. sonuva...that hurt. Turning around, I saw it was Joy that had startled me, peering adorably over the edge of the couch. I gingerly extricated myself from the fireplace, rubbing my head and taking extra care not to hit it again. She just shook her head, smiling at me. I couldn't help but smile back, walking over to her for a quick peck on the lips.

Kissing accomplished, Joy took a moment to instruct me on the proper operation of the wood chute, which was built into the false bottom of yet another bookshelf. At this point, I was beginning to wonder what other mysteries the bookshelves contained. I muttered to nopony in particular that I'd have to investigate my surroundings more thoroughly in the future. At the moment though, I had more pressing issues. It would seem that there was a log jam in the wood chute, seeing as how the wood chute was devoid of wood. Against Joy's advice, I stuck my head into the chute to see if I could spot the blockage and managed to stick it directly into a cobweb.

What followed was a series of yelps, karate chops, and violent flailings as I attempted to dislodge the spiders from my mane. Joy, bless her heart, was rendered completely and utterly unable to help, on account of her laughing too hard to breathe and all. I eventually chased all of the spiders from my mane and focused instead on calming my racing heart; Joy was doing something similar as she tried her best to stifle her laughter. After some time, we were both successful.

“Okay, now that you've collected yourself, would you mind lending me a hoof to handle this wood stoppage?”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I knew I'd goofed. Joy, who'd barely managed to get herself back under control, once again lapsed into laughter, interspersed with her attempting to sputter 'that's what she said'. Sighing, I resigned myself to wait until she'd gotten herself back under control. Once she'd gotten herself back under control, I asked the question again, though in a less suggestive manner.

“Let's try this again. Joy, can you help me remedy the feed issue? And also show me where the chimney flue lever is?”

Wiping a final tear from her eye, Joy offered her assistance. “I can tell you where it is, but you'll have to be the one to actually fix it. It needs to be done from outside, and I'm not going back out into the cold if I can help it.”

I nodded, every bit as eager to keep her out of the cold as she was to stay inside. “Sure, not a problem. I'm a bit more resistant to cold than you are, anyways. What do I need to do?”

Joy proceeded to explain the location of the wood chute opening (on the side of the chimney, to the right, under the flappy-thing) and how to open the flue (pull on it, ya goof), and sent me on my merry way. Stepping out into the storm, it was immediately clear that the weather had deteriorated significantly in the last half hour. Despite my resistance to cold, the wind cut straight to the bone, driving home a chill the likes of which I'd never known possible.

I hurried along, very eager to get back inside before I became a snow pony myself. Sticking to the side of the building, I navigated around the side of the house to where the chimney was. Snow was piled up chest deep in drifts against the house, making it difficult to move with any measure of swiftness. Interestingly enough, the snow was actually warmer than the environment around it, blocking most of the wind. This led me to huddle down so that only my head poked out of the snow, like a periscope. Reaching the chimney, I stood up and reached for the feed chute on the side. I opened it, trying to see down into the chute to try and see if I could see the blockage.

Looking down, all I could see was the wood that was piled on top of whatever was causing the blockage. Growing increasingly frustrated and cold by the minute, I elected to remedy the feed issue the best way I knew how: with a liberal application of force. I jumped, giving my wings a little half-flap for some extra height, before crashing down full force into the wood chute. This was successful in two things; first, I cleared the blockage and sent the wood tumbling down into the chute. Second, I found my happy ass firmly lodged in the opening of the chute.

Welp, this is how I die. Ass frozen in a wood chute. This is not how I wanted to go.

I was struck by a sudden thought, likely fueled by my imminent demise. Ah, crap. I'm not allowed to die, Joy would kill me. Well, I guess I was going to have to figure a way out of this. Luckily, I happened to have these kick-ass appendages called wings, whose specialty was pulling in an up-facing vector. Using those to my advantage, and with no small amount of wiggling and cursing, I managed to pop myself out of the chute. And I do mean 'pop' in the literal term, because I burst free with a sound not unlike an uncorked bottle.

Even as I was celebrating my triumph over imminent demise, I hear a sound that drove the chill into my bones anew. Somewhere, in the swirling mass of clouds above me, there arose an unholy shriek, the sound of the damned; of despair and of loss. This call was answered by one, and then a chorus of answering shrieks. I could swear I saw ghostly shapes melting into and out of the clouds above me, the ghostly shrieks following them closely.

I had no idea what those things were, and I had even less intention of staying to find out. I would have left right then, but I still needed to open the flue cover on the chimney. Swearing, I flew to the top of the chimney, reluctant to get any closer to the apparitions than necessary. Reaching the top of the chimney, I knocked away the accumulated snow as I searched for the lever that would open the vents. I spotted the lever at the same time as a shriek rang out from overhead, longer and seemingly angrier than the ones preceding it. Looking up proved to be a mistake, as I made eye contact with the source of the sound.

The ghostly blue apparition was hovering directly overhead, about thirty meters above me, and was staring directly at me. As soon as eye contact was made it shrieked again, several others descending from the clouds to join it.

Oh, fuck that.

I kicked out at the lever, jarring it to the fully open position as the creatures began their descent. I tore away from the chimney towards the front of the house as fast as I could, covering the distance in the blink of an eye. I slammed into the ground in front of the door, landing roughly on my hooves as I tore open the door and stumbled inside. Slamming the door behind me, I leaped away from the frame just in time to see tendrils of frost beginning to seep in through the edges. I ran to the living room to check on Joy and to start the fire, somehow convinced that fire would drive away these unholy creatures.

Joy was looking towards the hallway with curiosity as I came bursting out of it, making a beeline to the fireplace. I grabbed a couple of the logs and tossed them into the fireplace, stacking them in a very rough triangular form. “Fire!” I yelled, “I need fire!”

Joy's expression had gone from one of curiosity to one of concern very quickly, her horn lighting up with a soft glow as she floated some matches out of a nearby drawer, along with some rolled up newspaper for kindling. In one swift motion she placed the tinder and struck a match, holding it to the end of the paper until a small flame caught. I leaned in close, gently blowing on the fire to fan the flames. The fire was spreading, but not quickly enough. Looking past Joy, I could see frost creeping in from the hallway.

Seeing the look on my face, Joy turned to investigate the source of my concern, yelping in fright as she caught sight of the spreading ice. Jumping up from the couch, still wrapped in the blanket-burrito, she fell and rolled to my side. I turned my back on the spreading ice, redoubling my effort to get the fire going. The fire was beginning to catch on the logs, and I began to fan the flames with my wings. Apparently, the inherent magic in my horsefeathers means that I can manipulate fire, because as soon as I began to use my wings the fire spread faster than was natural. Encouraged by my success, I fanned harder and harder, sending the flames higher with each stroke of my wings.

So focused was I on fanning the flames, I almost didn't hear Joy as she called my name. The note of panic in her voice cut through the fog in my mind, and I immediately turned to look at her. While I'd been tending to the fore, the frost had spread throughout the living room, from the floor to the ceiling and across all of the walls, stopping only when it got within a few meters of the fire. Joy was cuddled at my side, a ring of frost held at bay by the now roaring fire.

I didn't know what this frost was or where it came from, but I would be damned if I let it get to Joy without going through me first. Without really thinking about it, I pulled Joy closer to the fire, placing myself between the mare I loved and the encroaching demon frost. I wrapped my wings around her, promising her that it would be alright, and praying that she couldn't tell that I was lying through my teeth out of fear. Any second, I expected to feel the bite of cold in my extremities as the frost overtook me.

Except, the bite never came. Joy nuzzled into my neck, whispering “it's over” again and again.

Trying to be strong in the face of the unknown, I held her tighter and told her that we would be alright.

Her response threw me off a little bit, as she said “I know, it's over now.”

Opening eyes I didn't recall closing, I looked back towards the hallway to see how far the frost had encroached, expecting to see a yeti or something approaching from the doorway. Instead, I saw the frost retreating before my eyes. Even as I watched it, the frost receded back from whence it came, taking the damnable shrieking with it as it faded. We both let out a breath we didn't know we had been holding.

“What in the flying purple hell was that?” I asked Joy. She simply shook her head, nearly as clueless as I was. We stared back towards the hallway, expecting the frost to return at any moment, though it never did. Finally satisfied that the ordeal was over, we relocated ourselves to the couch, snuggled under the blanket together, and settled in for the night as the fire crackled peacefully at our hooves.

I would come to learn in the coming days that the ghostly creatures I saw that day were windigoes, drawn down from the frigid reaches of the upper atmosphere by a sudden winter storm. These creatures feed on anger and fear, on strife and discord, and are drawn to it like moths to flame. They bring with them a cold that seeps into your very bones, extinguishing all light and happiness with its frigid kiss.

Had I known then what I know now, I could have seen this for what it was; not just a freak occurrence or a rogue weather pattern, but an ill omen, a portent of the coming storm that was to shake my life down to its very foundation. But I didn't know what was coming, could never have foreseen the challenges I'd face in the years ahead. Sometimes I sit and wonder what I might have done differently if I'd known. How many tears could I have saved? How much suffering could I have prevented?

No matter how many times I think about it, I reach the same conclusion: It doesn't matter, because what's done is done and nopony can change the past. Still, what I wouldn't give to go back in time and warn myself...

Author's Note

Last Edited 17JUL16