A Cold Wind Blows

Chapter 5
Love Buzz

“Do you really think that that is a good choice, Glacier?” Ice Stream questioned with a cocky smirk. She poked at the page with a hoof next. “I mean, are you really going to have Sterling propose to Amethyst? Like, they have only been going out for how long now? Two…three months?”

Glacier halted, face-hoofing with an arduous sigh. He then looked back to the mare with a look of displeasure plastered all over his features. His brow twitched slightly as he noticed the mare smiling at him, beaming practically, as if to taunt him. Who knows? She could have been. But in a totally friendly manner, however. “Have you ever been in love, Ice?” Glacier questioned back, momentarily ignoring the slew of questions Ice had thrown at him.

This caused the mare to stop for but a moment, the smile on her face fading a little. But it returned just as promptly as it had wavered. “Oh, absolutely.” She giggled. “Just like anypony else really; I had fallen in love with a mare. Except that mare didn’t love me back.” She poked the stallion in the side, eliciting an agitated groan from him as he looked back to his paper and began typing out the preparations for Sterling’s proposal. “But you move on, Glacier. You know?”

“I do. Trust me Ice, I do.” The stallion sneered to himself, though he knew that his friend was more than right. He had to move on—which he did. He really did. He never let anything well on the inside, manifesting into an unadulterated hate for anyone in his life. Never.

“You okay Glacier?” Ice asked, placing a hoof on her friend’s withers. “I’m sorry if that was a little too far.”

Ice splayed her ears back against her head as Glacier stopped again and looked back to her with an ease in his eyes. And it only softened further as he noticed the look of sorrow and regret continue to build up stronger on Ice’s face. “I’m okay. Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” She continued to hold her hoof on his withers, massaging him slightly. “I’m sorry.”

Glacier threw his ears back as well, and a sheepish smile graced him next. “Don’t be sorry. I’m over analysing things again. Don’t be sorry for something that isn’t your fault.” The stallion turned, facing his friend properly next, before placing his own hoof upon her shoulder. He held it there and looked her in the eyes with a compassion that only a true friend could give. He patted her shoulder next, giggling to himself like a giddy, little colt.

“Perhaps I’ve been overthinking a lot of things recently,” Glacier stated. Finally pulling his hoof from his friend’s shoulder, Glacier turned back away and removed his sheet of parchment from the typewriter. And, without even looking at it, he crumpled it up in his hooves and tossed it into his wastebasket; the wad smacking against and slightly circling the rim before falling in.

“W-why did you do that?” Ice gasped out, confusedly.

“Ice… There are a lot of things in this world that have been rather cruel to me. But there are two ponies—well three now—that haven’t been. One, being my own mother. Two, being you. And three being Style.” The stallion huffed out a sigh. It was a painfully obvious sigh, but Ice refused to even touch it. “And I’m neither going to rush things with him, nor will I with my story. I’m going to take your advice—for the one-millionth time. I’m going to take things slow and see where things lead me, both with him and with my story. There is no point in rushing something that feels right already. I’ll just end up wrecking it in the end if I do.”

Glacier turned and jumped off of his chair, a few pages of his manuscript fluttering slightly upon the desk in the miniscule breeze. Ice went to speak again but stopped immediately when Glacier turned one-eighty and looked her dead in the eyes, conviction and determination burning in his own. She “eeped” slightly.

“Now,” Glacier began with an exaggerated tone of voice, “I have a rather handsome stallion waiting on me.”

2…

Glacier considered getting dressed up for the first meeting with Turn-Style but decided against it on the grounds that it would be too forward and might turn the stallion off. He truthfully didn’t know if this stallion was indeed into him. All he knew was that this certain pony was really kind, caring, and was trying to be a friendly sort.

So, throwing his collared purple dress shirt into a wrinkly pile on the floor, Glacier made his way down to the common-room. Ice Stream was still standing in the middle of the room, looking Glacier over with a critical eye. She smirked and walked over to him at the foot of the stairs. She then proceeded to lick the bottom of her hoof and rub it against his cheek. “There!” she exclaimed, chuckling to herself. “All handsome and ready to impress.”

“Yeah,” Glacier huffed, rolling his eyes in slight annoyance, “totally ready now that I have your spittle all in my fur.” He used a hoof to wipe his cheek down in an attempt to rub out the spit that Ice had thoroughly soaked into his fur.

“Oh, you stop your fussing, Mister,” Ice chastised with a waggle of her brow. “Your mommy isn’t here to help make sure you’re ready and presentable for your stallion friend, so I’ll just have to do that one for you then.” Glacier smiled and Ice smiled in return. She then wacked the stallion on the rear, causing him to yelp out like a little filly. “Go get him, tiger.”

Glacier pouted back to her, waddling to the door as he massaged his soon to be bruised flank. He stuck out his tongue as he pulled the door open and stepped outside. “I’ll make sure to go get him.” He smirk as he slammed the door closed with a wing, and made his way down the dirt path to Ponyville with a slight chuckle to himself.

Ice Stream, now surrounded with the quiet of Glacier’s empty home, walked over to his bookshelf and surveyed the few books that resided there. She picked up a rather short looking novel, convinced that her friend wouldn’t be out too long, and would be back home before late, ready to hang out with her and tell he all about how his date went. The mare then settled in on the couch and flicked the book open in her magic, sighed in content, and snuggled in for the foreseeable evening.

3…

Glacier got to the Fresh Brew Café in a timely manner. He would have checked the time to make sure that he wasn’t late, but he lacked a watch. Something that most ponies take for granted until it’s gone and they have almost no way to tell what time it was. However, Glacier was certain that he had not taken too long of a time getting ready and walking here, so he opted to ignore the time and, instead, just go into the café and wait for Turn-Style to arrive.

He took the first step upon the stoop of the establishment before a suave, low voice caught the stallion off-guard. He smirked, realizing just whom it was. Turning about face the door, Glacier looked upon the stallion that he had agree to come see. He looked just as radiant as ever, a glimmer in his hazel brown eyes, and the way his black and white mane was styled made him all the more handsome. This stallion was certainly a looker—at least, in Glacier’s eyes he was. Everypony perceives the ponies they find attractive differently than the rest of Equestria.

Shaking his head clean of the thoughts he was having of the stallion before they turned impure, Glacier greeted him and the stallion returned the greeting in kind. Glacier then extended a wing and pushed the door to the café open, motioning for the other stallion to enter before him. A slight blush could be seen to appear on Turn-Style’s face as he passed Glacier on the stoop and entered the establishment. Glacier followed him closely thereafter.

As the two made it into the café together, Glacier pointed out the table that he and Ice Stream usually found themselves sitting at and promptly offered for him to join him there. The stallion agreed, following glacier to the table and seating himself across from his friend.

Turn-Style watched as Glacier sat down across from him and a smile spread across his muzzle. The slightly clumsy way Glacier went about moving himself in the world he lived in kind of fascinated the unicorn stallion. It had ever since the first time they had met, and it was most certainly showing itself now—the way he giggled slightly was nothing short of obvious when Glacier almost fell out of the seat he had just sat in either.

“Heh, sorry,” Glacier all but snorted out as he readjusted himself in his seat. He threw Turn-Style a wry smile and a slight blush began to grow on his cheeks. Turn-Style took notice. However, he did nothing of the sort in telling the stallion.

“It’s okay. Happens all the time to me, too.” Turn-Style chuckled again, this time more to himself than in a hearty group-laugh. “This horn here…” He gestured up to and tapped the pointed horn protruding very prominently from his head. “This thing is a tad bit weird to move around with, if I do say so myself. And for most adolescence it is as well; being as the horn grows most during the teen years and it gets a tad bit weirder when maneuvering.”

“I didn’t know that,” Glacier stated in an almost bewildered tone.

“What?” Style giggled. “That unicorns are really clumsy during adolescence?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know that. I always figured you guys kind of…”

“…Used magic to help with that later on?”

“Yeah…” Glacier looked away, slightly defeated from assuming the obvious. His ears splayed back across his head, and his friend sighed and chuckled in a rather reassuring way. Glacier looked up and seen that Style was looking him down rather empathetically.

“Hey,” Turn-Style said, extending a hoof and placing it down on the table betwixt them with a slight tap. “There is nothing wrong assuming that. Most unicorns are incredibly lazy, due to our frequent use and abuse of magic, so it’s not wrong for you to have come to that conclusion.”

Glacier looked back into Turn-Style’s eyes, though his ears stayed stationed firmly against the side of his head. “You shouldn’t say stuff like that. Unicorns can do many great things with their magic, and just because you use it a lot does not mean you guys are abusing it…” Glacier looked away from Style once move, setting himself to pawing a hoof at the surface of the table slightly.

“What’s the matter Glacier?” Turn-Style asked.

Glacier remained quiet for but a moment, half-looking at Style, half-looking out the window and the ponies directly behind him. He then spoke, his voice almost a whisper. “I’ve always kind of wished that I was a unicorn,” he said. “It’s so cool being able to do all the things you guys do with your magic, and it most certainly is not something that makes you lazy. It makes you all unique.” Style was about to say something, but Glacier cut him off as he spoke softly again. “Just like my wings,” he continued, extending them a little at his sides. “My wings allow me to fly and to get to places a lot quicker—even faster than unicorns who can’t do advanced teleportation spells—but that doesn’t make me lazy. Nor does it make you lazy. It makes us both unique. Heck, earth ponies are unique with how they use their own magic to essentially speak to the earth beneath our hooves and bring about a plentiful amount of food for all of pony kind. We are all very special and unique in our own ways, and neither of the things that makes us unique makes us lazy. We just do things differently, that’s all.”

“Huh?”

“What’s the matter?” Glacier asked, quirking his brow slightly.

“Nothing,” Style defended, placing his hooves up. He shook them slightly as if to wave off any air he might have created about them. “It’s just…that is some incredibly insightful stuff. I have never looked at it that way before. Though, I like to just call myself and other unicorns lazy.” The stallion chuckled cheekily, before tapping his hoof on the table rather hard. “It’s kinda fun to do.”

Glacier giggled at what Style had said. Sure it wasn’t nice to hear the stallion talk down about him and other unicorns like that, but it was nice that he did it as a sort of joke to both himself and all other unicorns as well. It was also done playfully, and not done aggressively. That made it a lot better to hear as well.

“Well that is certainly a different way to look at that,” Glacier said with a small smile. “I’m glad that you can make jokes about yourself though; that’s a very important thing to be able to do.” The stallion placed his hoof next to Style’s upon the surface of the table. Style returned the gesture by bumping the side of his hoof into Glacier’s own. This got a little chuckle from the frosty-blue stallion. “I can make fun of myself too, just my friend, Ice, doesn’t really like when I do. She tries to regulate me when it comes to that. Because, even if you know that it is a joke, the joke soon becomes real, and your mind begins to believe it as fact about yourself. And then you are stuck thinking negatively about yourself in the end…”

“Well your friend is very kind to do that for you.” Style smiled and chuckled a little.

“Yeah, she really is a good friend.” Glacier grabbed at the back of his mane and chuckled nervously before looking down to the table again. He shuffled his hoof on the surface of the table, thinking deeply to himself.

“So…” Style placed his hoof on Glacier’s own, attempting to pull the stallion from his internal thoughts. “How was the Neighvana album?” he asked.

The stallion snapped upright, looking to Style with wide eyes. He didn’t react to the hoof on his own; he was practically unaware that it was even there. All he could do was stare into the other stallion’s radiant brown eyes. That was, until Style asked Glacier the question again.

“Huh?” Glacier said, blushing deeply.

“The Neighvana album you bought the other day, silly.” Style giggled rather teasingly.

“Oh, right…” Glacier glanced away from the stallion, noticing the waitress from the other day approaching. Sweet Tea, he believed her name to be. The mare sauntered over rather quickly, a slight sway in her hips as she moved about like a dancer around a few tables in the middle of the café floor. She continued to bob and weave around a few more tables before making it to Glacier and Style proper.

“H-Hello again!” the mare chirped at Glacier. “Nice to see you back so soon.” Glacier smiled a sort of stressed smile, however the mare did not notice. She then turned her attention to Style, smiling warmly at to him next. “And how are you today, sir?”

Style smiled back a rather natural smile, almost looking to be beaming as he looked over the energetic mare. His smile looked drop-dead handsome. He always looked really handsome whenever he smiled. Glacier was sure that the stallion knew this, because he tended to smile around him a lot. Either that, or Glacier was just reading into it far too much. He could have been interested in the beautiful mare who was about to serve them. Then again, that would have been reading way too much into it too, so best to ignore it.

He glanced at Glacier with a crook of his brow before responding to the mare’s inquiry. His smile never faltered. “I’m doing well today. How about yourself, Miss…?” The stallion looked for a nametag and, sweet Celestia, he found one. On her chest, right-hand side, sat a nametag. “Sweet Tea?”

“Oh, yes sir,” Sweet Tea practically beamed. “I am doing just fine today.” The mare looked Glacier back over rather quickly. Noticing an annoyed look becoming present all over his muzzle, the mare decided that it, perhaps, would be wise to proceed with taking their orders. Sweet Tea materialized her note pad as if out of thin air and held it there, pen to the pad, ready to take the two stallions’ orders. Glacier went first.

“I’ll have a coffee, three cream and three sugar.”

The mare looked to Style.

“I’ll have the same,” he said, beaming across the table to Glacier.

The waitress scribbled the order down quickly on her notepad, saluted in thin air, and made her way off towards the barista in the kitchen area to complete their order promptly. Glacier nor Style even noticed the mare leave. They were too distracted looking at one another. That is, until Style took to breaking that with a slight chuckle and cough.

“Well,” the stallion started with a strained cough, “how was the album, Glacier?”

“Oh, it was fantastic,” Glacier said with a clear smile. It stretched ear-to-ear and looked rather adorable. “It was just the right length too; helped me get lots of writing done. I especially loved the song ‘Fluoride the Barber’. That one was really great.”

“Oh!” Style exclaimed, leaning forward over the table some. “I love that one too. ‘About a Mare’ is a really good one too.”

Glacier giggled and Style followed suit, giggling himself. Then Glacier locked eyes with the stallion. He found himself getting lost in the eyes of the colt before him again. There was something in the luminescence of his eyes, the soul that lie beneath. He was a genuine stallion, Glacier could tell. He was a kind-hearted, sweet, and innocent—

“‘Love Buzz’ is a really good one too,” Style said, snapping Glacier out of the slight reverie that he was having. It knocked the stallion back enough to notice that their beverages had finally arrived—the mare already gone. More likely than not a result of his clear infatuation with Style. So much so that he never even realized that the mare had returned with their drinks in tow.

Still though, Glacier picked up his large coffee cup and proceeded to take a drink before speaking. “That one was really good too.” Glacier smacked his lips as he took in the flavour of his beverage of choice with a smile. Style smiled back, taking a sip of his own coffee as well.

“So what did you think of the album as a whole?” asked Style with a slight quirk of his brow. What did it say to you? Was there anything on the album that really spoke to you on a more intimate level?”

Glacier sat there in thought for a moment. He looked to the ceiling as he attempted to think of just one song that might have spoken to him rather deeply during his listening sessions. And it wasn’t until he started to reminisce of how the song sounded in his head, that the stallion actually could place it. “Now this one is probably going to sound really weird to you once I say it…”

“Ah, no. It couldn’t be that bad. Tell me.”

“I really liked the song ‘Negative Creep’. That one was really good.”

Style sat there for a moment, blinked at Glacier in a rather precarious way, and then quirked the out edge of his lip in such a way that it caused Glacier for brief alarm. He steeled himself for a chastising retort from his new stallion friend, though the response he got was all but that. It was a kind titter, a chortle, a giggle. It was the light-hearted laugh of a friend.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed about liking a song with a funky-sounding name. There are a lot of songs like that. In fact, there is this one song by the band Oingo Boingo called ‘Little Fillies’. It’s a satire song, though most Canterlot Nobles didn’t see it like that when the band first released the song. They thought the band had some interests that were…questionable.”

“Heh, I can only imagine,” Glacier chuckled out nervously. It was a rather anxious laugh.

“Ever heard of Oingo Boingo before?” Style asked.

“Actually…” Glacier trailed off, taking another sip of his coffee, “I haven’t heard of them before.”

Style’s eyes lit up and grew to a comical size. He inhaled sharply and exhaled before stating, “I like them. I mean, they are pretty good.” The stallion looked to be jittering up and down in place now, clearly excited by the fact Glacier had never ever heard of this group. But he seemed to realize that he was overreacting, given the growing smirk on Glacier’s muzzle, and toned in back a bit.

Sitting back in his seat, Style fixed his positioning and leaned a hoof over the table lazily, clearly trying to act as cool as a cucumber. However it just came off as cute, causing Glacier to giggle again, the smirk just turning even brighter.

“W-what?” Style asked, almost embarrassedly.

“Nothing,” Glacier said, looking away from Style to try and avoid blushing too hard but it did little to nothing in the way of actually hiding it. In fact it only made Style try harder to see just why Glacier was making slight attempts to shelter his face.

“No—that must be something,” Style protested, prodding his hoof at the table nervously. He enveloped his coffee in his magical aura and took a sip, trying to calm his nerves, but it was doing little-to-nothing to actually help the situation on his part. “I’m sorry if I got a little too overzealous about the group. I think that they have a few really interesting and original songs.”

“Like what?” Glacier said, giggling a little to himself as he watched Style kind of stutter over his words in the rather cute way he usually did. At least, how he does around Glacier anyhow. Perhaps the stallion was just looking too much into that one too. I mean, Style may just be a really energetic and happy pony, eager to help all of his friends—old and new.

Style paused for a moment and mulled over the possibilities he could mention. He sat there for what felt to himself as hours but was in fact only mere moments. “Well, ‘Little Fillies’ is just one of those few songs. They have another song, ‘Weird Science’, that is really good as well. The song is super catchy and has to do with magical incantations and arcane magic.”

“Hmm,” Glacier hummed out, looking at the large and rather cute smile on Style’s muzzle. He loved the little quirk it made at the corners; it was more than cute—it was damn adorable. There had been a few stallions in Glacier’s life that had made him feel the way Style was making him feel now, but none of them had done it as effortlessly as Style manages to do it. It only caused butterflies to form in the pit of Glacier’s stomach as he continued to fall deeper and deeper into conversation with the other stallion. “That seems really cool though,” the stallion finished.

“That it is,” Style giggled. “I love when groups do neat and innovative things with their work.”

“That I do too,” Glacier retorted, chuckling a little from Style’s rather feminine giggle. “There are plenty of bands that have done innovative things with their music that I just love.” The stallion leaned back in his seat and looked Style dead in his beautiful, hazel brown eyes. He cocked a smile, the grin stretching from ear-to-ear. “Now that only leaves one question now,” Glacier concluded.

“And that is?”

“Which group is your absolute favourite?”

4…

“Oh my goddesses!” Glacier semi-shouted as he and Style exited the Fresh Brew Café. “I’d have to say that your taste in music is rather refined.” Glacier giggled thereafter.

“I like to keep my tastes open to different sounds and perspectives on music. Music is only as good as the ponies who listen to it.”
The two walked on for a little while longer, laughing and chatting with one another all the while. Style stayed relatively close to Glacier, their coats practically touching as they trotted along the dirt roads of Ponyville. The two didn’t really take notice of their closeness however, as they were lost enjoying the company the other provided.

Sooner than not, both of the stallions bumped into one another, their extreme closeness now becoming ever more prevalent than before. They stopped for a moment near the outskirts of Ponyville; they were little over ten metres from the road that lead to Glacier’s home. They turned their heads with a slight cock, looking into the eyes of the other. Style was the first to smile. A smile from Glacier followed suit.
They continued to stare at one another. But there was something Glacier was starting to notice about the stallion’s beautiful, brown eyes. They just so happened to appear as though they were getting closer to him. And as the stallion was about to take a step back to take in just what was going on, Style tipped his head to the side and leaned down and kissed Glacier on the lips. Their muzzles met rather softly, Style trying to not scare Glacier away with the forwardness of the kiss, but there was a heat there that Glacier could sense all the same. It was a heat that reminded of passion. A heat that reminded him of love. A heat that warmed his heart and lighted and brightened his spirits. It was the heat of another stallion; the touch all so familiar to him, but all so alien at the same time. It had been so long, after all. Years. Glacier was shell-shocked, but he accepted the kiss in kind, pushing back into it with the same softness Style had shown him.

Both stallions stood like this for what felt like a millennia.

Breaking away from the kiss, Glacier looked up to Style, the size difference becoming a lot more noticeable now than ever. He blushed heavily, Style giggling as he noticed the look on the stallion’s face. He giggled even more as Glacier tried to hide his face like a scared, little colt.

“What’s the matter, Glacier?” Style reached out for the stallion, trying to console him on what had just happened.

“N-Nothing,” Glacier protested. “I-It’s just that I haven’t really kissed another stallion in a long time. Kinda weird that it’s happening again.”

“Hehe, that’s okay,” Style countered. “Nothing wrong with being a little out of practice with the whole thing. In all honesty, I was expecting you to take the kiss a little differently than this.”

“How come?” Glacier asked, sitting on his flanks across from Style.
Style then sat on his flanks as well. “Because of what that mare said the other day. She definitely wasn’t the nicest of ponies, but I thought because of the way you reacted, you might have been upset because you were not interested in stallions and were offended. But there was the other part of my brain fighting back, thinking that you might like stallions because of how you reacted to what she said to you.”

“Well, to be honest… I’m definitely interested in stallions.” Glacier hung his head low, a sigh escaping him. “I’m sorry…”

“What are you sorry for?” Style rose to his hooves and walked over next to Glacier before seating himself down next to the stallion yet again. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

With a flick of his ear, Glacier looked up to Style. The taller stallion was just so handsome, so kind, and caring. It was incredibly hard for Glacier to not tell the stallion the truth. And if he tried, he figured that Style would be able to tell that he was not telling the truth anyhow, and would have questioned it. So, sucking it up, puffing up his chest, and taking a series of deep breaths, Glacier decided he would tell Style a story so few had ever heard. It was a rather simplistic story, a story that most stallions in Glacier and Style’s horseshoes would have experienced. A story of fearing to be yourself. A story of fearing for letting your family see the real you. A story of what one particular pony had done when you told them about your dirty, little secret.

“I had no idea…” Style said, leaning his head on the top of Glacier’s own. “I had a somewhat rocky experience myself, but nothing like that.” Style took a deep breath, brushing up closely to Glacier once more. He wrapped his left foreleg around the stallion, attempting to keep him calm and collected. “It’s all okay though.”

Glacier continued to look at the dirt road, his eyes welling over with the sheen of fresh tears. He hadn’t cried tears like these since the first time he had ever brought a colt-friend over to meet his family. And a trickling of tears soon met the dirt, the stallion reliving the pain of the memory in full. “I don’t—“

“Please, Style, it is all alright.” Glacier looked up to the stallion, who pulled off of his head so that he may look up into his eyes. The tears were beginning to stream down Glacier’s cheeks and matted his fur just like Ice had this morning. His eyes were red, and he looked like he was going to breakdown and wail now.

To stop what he feared, Style leaned down and kissed the stallion once more. Glacier melted into the kiss, letting Style take complete control over the situation. It was nice to meet such a kind and caring colt that wanted to spend time with him for who he is on the inside, not what he is. It was nice to have a stallion there that cared about his feelings and didn’t just pretend to care about them.

Style pulled away this time.

“That was—thank you,” Glacier said.

“Think nothing of it. There is no need to thank me for something that should have been done. You’re far too adorable to cry like that.” Style used his magic to wipe Glacier’s eyes dry.

“Sorry…” Glacier smiled before looking back down to his hooves.

Raising his head back up in his magic, Style looked Glacier in the eyes, a smile spreading on his face. “Now, why don’t I walk my cute, little date home, hmm?”

Giggling like a little filly, Glacier nodded his head emphatically. He then rose to his hooves and so did Style. The two then leaned against one another and made off towards and down the pathway that lead to Glacier’s little home.