We are not your Mares

Their destination was a two story building made of a hard smooth paneling. A spire rose out of the center, towering over them. Rainbow Dash confidently knocked on the door, then looked up into the spire, and Scootaloo caught a large shape moving within. A pony keeping watch, she supposed, but when it made eye contact with Dash it vanished. Within seconds, a panel on the front door slid open, and two large blue eyes stared out at them.

"What's the password?" a voice intoned, squeaky and so high-pitched it sounded like a game.

Rainbow stared right back. "Come on, Pinkie. You know it's me. Knock it off and let me in."

There was a pause as the blue-eyed pony considered this. "Ding ding ding! That's the password!" she finally said, and she opened the door ajar. She was a completely pink mare, a light pink coat with a darker and poofy mane. Rainbow Dash groaned and pushed the door open the rest of the way. Scootaloo tried to follow, but was stopped by an unexpectedly strong pink hoof. "And who is this cutie patootie?" the pink pony asked.

Scootaloo was trying to figure out the best way to answer when Rainbow answered for her. "That's Scootaloo. You know, Boomie's mare I was telling you about. I thought she might benefit from a little eye-opener."

"Her eyes already look pretty open to me," she chirped, getting in close to Scootaloo's face and studying her. The young pegasus backed up, the invasion of her personal space making her feel self-conscious.

Rainbow huffed. "Scootaloo, meet Pinkie Pie. She bakes a mean cake and thinks she's funny." Pinkie extended a hoof and offered a grin wider than anything Scootaloo had even believed to be possible. Scootaloo forced a smile back and shook her hoof. When she saw Rainbow Dash moving deeper into the building, she used that as an excuse to break away and follow along.

She could hear chatter in the next room, and as they got closer she could make out bits and pieces of it.

"...window's on the second floor, southeast corner, any pegasus can get in easy..."

"...said that Cadance knows what she's doing. Of course they'd believe him over her..."

"...said she can get on her hooves on enough fluid for a starter, her stallion doesn't count how much is left at the end of the day, but transporting it is going to be tricky..."

And then Scootaloo entered the room, and the chatter stopped. Four mares sat in a circle on the carpet, and now they were all staring at her. Most of them she didn't recognize, but she did recognize the mare at the far end, with her slicked-back orange mane and signature aviator glasses. After all, Scootaloo had been looking at a picture of her less than an hour ago.

Spitfire stood up, cracked a toothy grin, and laughed. "Scootaloo, right? I had a feeling you'd show up here sooner or later."

Fireball's mom, the mare of the captain of the Wonderbolts, knew her name? Scootaloo didn't understand how that was even possible. "Thanks," she told Spitfire. "I'm not really sure where here is though."

Spitfire looked at Rainbow Dash, who shrugged. "She caught me sneaking out. I figured it was about time she knew anyway."

She focused on the mare who just spoke. "You knew my mom?"

Spitfire slapped Scootaloo on the back and pulled her in for a side hug. "We sure did, newbie. Come on, I want to introduce you to some amazing mares. Everyone, come meet the daughter of Free Spirit."

"My stars, she looks just like her mother," said one of the other mares, a cream colored earth mare with a two-toned blue and purple curly mane. The other mares leaned in to see her better.

"That's Bon Bon," whispered Spitfire. "She makes the best sweets this side of the Everfree."

Bon Bon extended a hoof, and Scootaloo eagerly shook it. "It's great to meet you, Bon Bon. Who do you belong to?"

Suddenly, Bon Bon's grip tightened and her eyes turned cold. She broke the handshake. "I belong to no one," she said.

Scootaloo winced, feeling like she did something wrong but not comprehending what it was. It was just an innocent question she'd been asked herself dozens of time. "That can't be true..." she began, but she noticed they'd caught the attention of one of the other mares. This mare was short and round, with an elegantly groomed pink beehive mane on top of a pale blue coat.

"Be patient with her, Bon. You know what she meant." The new mare inserted herself between Bon Bon and Scootaloo. "I'm Cup Cake. Bon, Pinkie and I all have the same stallion. His name is Carrot Cake, and I promise you he's harmless. Sweet as a truffle. He owns Sugar Cube Corner, and we keep it running."

Scootaloo looked out over the collected mares. She had never seen so many mares in one place without a stallion before. "Does he know about this?" she asked.

Rainbow Dash nodded. "He's one of the good ones, but he stays out of the way. You can probably tell, he wouldn't really fit in here. But he's still on our side."

"And what side is that?" asked Scootaloo. Right now these mares seemed so kind, even though Spitfire and Bon Bon were somewhat intimidating.

"Mares' liberation, of course," said Spitfire. "I thought that was obvious."

Scootaloo felt shamed and confused. She'd heard Raincloud and Blaze grumble enough times about 'those uppity mares who are too stubborn to let stallions protect them.' But this was the first time she'd met one face-to-face. "You're not going to, um, liberate me, are you? I like Boomie. He's really nice to me..."

Bon Bon frowned and stared into her. "Good for you," she said, but there was a clear disapproval in her tone. Scootaloo gulped. The older mare seemed to realize she wasn't getting anywhere with her, because she continued. "No seriously, good for you. But not every mare is you, Scootaloo. And in case you haven't noticed, this is kind of a stallion's world."

"But what about the princesses?" asked Scootaloo. "They belong to stallions too. They wouldn't do anything to hurt their fellow mares."

"They're not. Mares," spat Spitfire with an intensity that startled her. "If Cadance decided that she didn't want to be Shining Armor's mare anymore, if she wanted to leave, who would stop her? Between the two of them, she owns him, not the other way around. The princesses don't have to cede any control like we do. They're not mares. They're gods. And they are not one of us.

Scootaloo was never really one for blaspheming the princesses, so she tried to change the subject, and she was curious about these mares. "So, do you like, not have sex with your stallions?" she asked. She had never really thought about it much, and the concept seemed strange. Bon Bon rolled her eyes, and Pinkie began choking on her muffin as she failed to contain a series of guttural guffaws.

"And give up Carrot's carrot?" asked Pinkie as she held her heaving belly. "He's so much fun! Where's the fun in not having fun?"

"Then what's your problem?" asked Scootaloo. "Why are you all fighting back if you're happy with him?" She could understand if he was hurting them. But based on their descriptions so far, this Carrot Cake stallion seemed all right.

"It's about choice, sweetie," said Cup Cake. "Pinkie and I choose to be with my Dough Boy. Bonnie, on the other hoof..."

Bon Bon shrugged. "I not interested in stallions," she said. "Never really have, to be honest."

Scootaloo remembered something like this from school. "But low libido's a symptom of lack of proper care, right?" she asked. "Aren't there trainers who can fix that?"
Bon Bon's voice took on an even sharper edge than had been there before. "My first stallion assignment was to a trainer," she said. "I may have been able to fool my family, but no one can fool Cadance, and she knew about my... transgressions from the moment she first met me. And so after I got my cutie mark, she assigned me to a Ministry-appointed trainer who specialized in 'fixing' ponies like me. You've never been to a trainer, have you, Scootaloo?"

"Um, n-no..." said Scootaloo apprehensively. "But I was kind of thinking about it. I'm worried that there's something wrong with me, with how I feel about Boomie. I thought that, you know, maybe a trainer could..."

"Don't," said Bon Bon, spitting venom. "Trainers are a fucking nightmare. Their job is to turn you into something you're not, and anything is better than that. Embrace your feelings, run away, hide who you are, but don't go asking someone to fix something that doesn't need to be fixed. Eventually I learned to play along so that he could mark me as 'fixed' and throw me back into the system, but all he'd done was taught me to hate myself. It wasn't until I met Lyra and she became my wife that I realized that anyone could love me."

"Wife?" It was a word that Scootaloo had never heard before.

"It's an old word. Nopony uses it anymore," explained Bon Bon. "It means... well, it's like she's my mare. But I'm also her mare. Not according to the Ministry of Love, but according to us. She... should be here by now, to be honest. You'd like her."

As the night went on, Scootaloo found herself drifting more and more toward Spirfire, the mare who had been in pictures with her mother. She found it easy to talk to her, like somehow the things she said would get back to her mother, wherever she was right now. Spitfire dodged questions about the mare she had called Free Spirit, but was more than willing to let Scootaloo say her piece.

"Do you know how many mares lose their virginity before their first assignment?" she asked at one point. "I know Rainbow Dash wasn't, because she lost it to her father. Zipporwhill told me how she lost it to a couple of the colts from school. Out of the three of us, Zipporwhill and Fireball and me, I mean, I was the only one who hadn't done anything. I didn't even know how it all worked. And I thought that was normal, but now I'm not sure. It was embarrassing. I didn't want to be the only one. Zipporwhill and Fireball had already done it by the time we got assigned, and they said they really liked it."

"Hold up there, newbie," said Spitfire. "Fireball's my daughter, so I like to think I know her. She was just as much of a greenhorn as you were, trust me."

That couldn't be right. "She said she'd had lots of sex with lots of stallions before we got put with Boomie. She wouldn't lie about that, would she?"

"You said yourself you didn't want to admit to Zipporwhill you were a virgin. Would you have lied about it, if you thought it would make you look cooler?"

"I don't know. I don't think I'd be smart enough to come up with something like that." Scootaloo tried to imagine what might have happened if she had lied to Boomie about being a virgin. Would she still have ended up as his favorite? And she tried to imagine what Fireball had been thinking, trying to convince everyone else she was some kind of sex expert.

She felt Spitfire put a hoof on her shoulder. "Look, newbie. There's nothing wrong with being anxious about sex, or not wanting to have it. I know you can go outside and see ponies fucking in the street, but I promise you, half of them are only doing it because they're think they're supposed to. The other half really like it. And you know what? Good for them. But take it from a mare who performs for a living, performing means you bottle up your own feelings and put on a show to make everypony else happy, and the pressure of that can be overwhelming sometimes. But even if you decide to just roll with it, being able to recognize that it's happening... it opens your eyes, Scootaloo. You're not the only one who feels this way, I promise."

Scootaloo's face flushed with embarrassment. She'd never been able to talk with anyone about this stuff. She'd always assumed Fireball and Zipporwhill would dismiss her as being a downer, and Boomer... Boomer would never understand. Scootaloo looked up at Spitfire and was about to thank her when a sudden commotion distracted them.

"Bonnie!" She looked up to see a mint green unicorn mare standing in the aperture.

Bon Bon looked ecstatic. "Lyra!" She was on her hooves in an instant, and the two met in the middle of room, Lyra burying her face into Bon Bon's mane. Bon Bon cradled Lyra, stroking her back with her hoof. "Are you alright? He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, as Bon Bon held her face in her hands. "He tried to hold me up, but nothing's going to keep me from you!"

Bon Bon giggled and pulled Lyra into a corner. "Oh, come here, you. I missed you so much!"

Scootaloo looked at Spitfire. "They really love each other, don't they?" she asked. "I've never seen two ponies act like that before." She paused, and frowned. "Princess Cadance senses love, right? She knows the best stallion for every mare. Why couldn't Princess Cadance tell that Lyra and Bon Bon would be happiest together and made sure they ended up with the same stallion?"

Spitfire looked down at the young mare in her lap. "You're pretty perceptive, you know that? Just like your mom.There's an easy answer to that question, and it's the most important lesson you'll ever learn. Cadance can't find your soulmate for you because soulmates don't exist. Love, and I mean real, true love like you're looking at right now, isn't something that you sense, or find. It's something you make. Together. And not even the Alicorn Princess of Love can shortcut that."

And here Scootaloo's thoughts drifted toward Boomie, and the way she'd run away from him, and how she was going to deal with that once she went home. "Do you think Boomie could be my soulmate?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Spitfire. "He may not be a kid anymore, but he still has a lot of growing up to do. He's young, and a lot of this world's ideas about stallions and mares may not have done him in yet. He could turn out like Carrot Cake, an ally and a friend. This is a battle for your freedom. It's a battle for your kid's future. But it's also a battle for his soul. Both of you are going to inherit this world when the ponies my generation pass on. And then it'll be your kids' turn. Might as well make this world the best it can be."

"You really think we do that?" she asked. "Change the world?"

Spitfire sighed. "Honestly? This is a battle we're probably not going to win in our lifetimes. But that does not," and as she said 'not' she pounded her hoof onto the floor, "mean that we will not fight it."