“I pick... that one,” Matilda said, after a moment’s thought.

Cranky’s gaze followed her pointing hoof, and he gave the new door a once-over. Unlike many of the others they’d gone through in the last hour of exploration, this one was large, official-looking, and had a steely blue frame, like some sort of mixture between sapphire and silver. This door looked a lot more regal, a lot more important. Until now they’d peeked into large closets, a cooking quarter, a miniature atrium, and more cozy but lovely places. Still, Matilda had never seemed satisfied. Some of her spell on him had worn off, and he was beginning to find this trek a bit tiresome, but she was still too enrapturing for him to call it off. On they’d gone, until she had finally stopped here. Cranky felt a squeeze of anxiety flex in his chest.

“Uh, are you sure?”

She smiled at him, and gave a confident nod.

“Absolutely! A door this interesting has got to have interesting things inside as well!”

“But what if it’s a Princess’ bedroom or something,” he said, worry now apparent in his voice. “Maybe we shouldn’t intrude.”

At this, she gave him an exaggerated pout, and nudged him with her shoulder slightly, like she had done back at the gala.

“Oh come now, don’t get cold hooves just yet. I’d bet my neckerchief that this will be the most exciting place yet. Besides,” she added with a smug wink, “you picked the last door, so it’s my turn. You agreed on that at the start, right?”

He hadn’t exactly agreed, but it wasn’t worth an argument to say that.

“Right,” Cranky said hesitantly. “I suppose I did.”

“Then fair’s fair, let’s give it a try, alright? I’ll go first if it helps.”

Cranky was about to say that ‘ladies first’ probably shouldn’t apply to this particular scenario, when she stepped forward and gave the double doors a hard push. With a soft groan of size and weight, the doors swung inwards a little, and Matilda slipped inside.

“Hey, wait a second!” Cranky hissed to her, but she was already out of sight.

He strode quickly forward, but was instantly stopped by an unexpected sound. There was a sudden muted gasp and cry from inside, then silence. Something went cold in his throat, and his limbs froze in place. Something was wrong, something had happened! It was everything he’d feared, every worry that had passed through his head, come true! The fear was quickly replaced with a different sort of urgency, as he realized that Matilda might be in trouble. Somehow, he knew this was all his fault, and that he had to do something to save her! What kind of knight in shining armor was he otherwise?

Without any further hesitation, Cranky shoved open the door with both hooves and burst inside. He looked about, eyes adjusting to the mostly dark room, and tried to find the shape of his companion.

“Matilda!” he half-shouted, half-whispered. “Matilda I’m here, where are you?!”

“Will you keep your voice down?”

At last his eyes fully adjusted, and he found her simply standing there, calm as can be. As Cranky’s breathing returned to normal, and the adrenaline stopped racing through his pounding heart, he registered that she was not in danger, not in trouble at all! He felt a strange sensation of both relief and anger rushing into his limbs, bringing fatigue with it.

“What happened?” he hissed, much quieter this time. “I thought I heard you yelp or something!”

She cocked her head at him quizzically, then let out a quiet burst of tinkling laughter.

“Oh that! No, no need to worry, I was just stunned by how beautiful this room is. See?”

With one hoof, she gestured in a wide arc over his shoulder, and Cranky was compelled to turn and stare. Despite himself, what he saw made him give a short gasp as well.

They were in a chamber with a high, domed ceiling, and gigantically tall windows looking out at the night’s sky. Cranky didn’t remember going up many flights of stairs, but now knew they must have, because all of Equestria stretched out before them, far below. The archways of each window glistened like crystalline sapphire, and the top of each one was joined by a sculpted crescent moon in a larger circle. Pillars rose from the floor, looking like winding, thorny vines, with each spike gleaming as if it was blown glass. The floor was a deep, black marble, with glinting patches of quartz running through it, so that you couldn’t tell if it was reflecting sky, or if it held stars of its own.

The whole room felt like night itself, like a someone had taken the starry sky and the earth slumbering beneath, and turned it all into a looming, but somehow cozy hall. He felt awed, and he watched the way the starlight flickered as wispy clouds floated across in front of them. The moonlight outlined the windows on the floor in glowing spires, reaching out towards where the both of them stood. It was beautiful, intimidating, and completely enveloping all at once.

After a moment of silence, he gave a low appreciative whistle. The sound of it echoed through the room like the call of a distant owl.

“Well,” he said with an accepting shrug, “I can see why it is you made that noise. This place is… it’s just…”

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “It’s like stepping onto the edge of a comet so you can look at the rest of the stars closer up.”

Her voice sounded far away and hollow, like she wasn’t even aware she was speaking. Cranky turned to her and watched as the glint from the stars and the moon twinkled in her eyes when they moved from the floor, to the moon etchings, to the winding pillars and statues, still nestled in darkness around the edges. She looked like a child seeing the world for the first time, and the forgotten smile hanging on her lips did nothing to shake his feelings of wanting to embrace her. Still, it didn’t seem quite right, so he contented himself with standing there, watching. At last, she seemed to break herself free, and her gaze returned to him. She blushed, like she’d just remembered herself, and glanced away from his face.

“See?” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair over one long ear. “I told you this room would be the most interesting one so far.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Cranky admitted. “But you gave me quite a scare there.”

“It wasn’t my intent, I’m sorry about that. But the room warranted a little shock and awe, and I just couldn’t help myself. Next time, you can go in first.”

Cranky let out a sharp weary laugh at this, and Matilda studied him curiously.

“So eager to move onto the next room already, are you?” he asked, immediately regretting how exhausted he sounded.

She hesitated then, glancing about, obviously thinking over what he’d said. After a moment, she slowly shook her head.

“No, come to think of it, I believe I might like to stay here a bit,” she said lightly. “It looks like one stunning view out there, maybe the best in the castle. We’d best take advantage of it while we have the chance.”

He too considered this, realizing that, for him, this was good advice for more than just the view.

“I’m game for that, I could use a break anyway,” he said with a short sigh. “Didn’t expect to do so much walking tonight.”

“What, at a party?” she said with another ring of her musical laughter. “You do know that a party involves hours of being on your feet, no matter how you play it, right?”

“Heh, I don’t go to many parties,” he said. “I probably don’t know much about them at all, to be honest.”

He followed her across the polished marble floor to one of the massive windows, looking out over the land for miles. She stopped as she reached it, and turned a pensive little frown his way.

“That’s a real shame,” she said. “You’re quite the charmer you know, you’d probably do well if you came to more of them.”

He shrugged once more.

“Like I said, I’m not much for crowds and stuff. I prefer to be left alone for the most part.”

Cranky could feel tiny bits of his true nature beginning to infiltrate his voice and his thoughts. He was feeling uneasy, put off by all this. He was still enjoying her company, but his instincts told him it was about time to leave, stop this interaction, before it went wrong somehow. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t break away, and part of him didn’t even want to.

“Another shame,” she said. “I like your company well enough, and think, if you’d never come, I’d have been stuck with that pushy stallion out there all evening! Mister Snooty Shorts, or whatever he called himself. We couldn’t have that, could we?”

She let out a tinkling giggle and nudged him gently.

“I suppose,” he said once more. “I’m glad of that at least. Still, I wish I’d met you anywhere else than here.”

Her frown deepened somewhat.

“You don’t particularly like all the excitement, do you?” she said thoughtfully.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Well, I got that you didn’t like the crowds, you’ve said as much, still I can’t help but wonder how far that extends,” she went on, studying his face all the while. “You mentioned you could be adventurous at times. Do you like to travel? Go try new things? I mean… what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?”

It was such an awkward, pointed question, and Cranky felt a twinge of annoyance at this beautiful creature, that she would get so intrusive so fast. He liked his privacy, and he liked to have his own feelings and thoughts without scrutiny. They’d only known each other for a few hours, what right did she have to question him so?

“I do… lots of things,” he muttered.

“Oh, and what are those ‘lots of things’ if I may ask?”

He grumbled to himself a moment before answering.

“If you must know, I enjoy collecting travel brochures, doing crosswords, photography… and I like making scrap books on occasion, though I haven’t done that in a while. It’s very time consuming, you know.”

Matilda’s face creased in an obviously repressed smile, and a growl of laughter sputtered in her throat. Cranky glared at her.

“Okay, so it’s not the most masculine thing in the world,” he snapped. “But you asked, and you have your answer, happy now?”

She held a hoof to her nose, trying to hide the smile there, but Cranky could easily see it budding and blooming. He would have been more angry if that smile wasn’t so darned enchanting.

“A little,” she said as her voice cracked around the edges with amusement. “And quite the temper you have there! Is that why they call you Cranky?”

“They call me that because it’s my name.”

“Of course! But why not Dandy, or Doodle!” she exclaimed. “You look much more like a Doodle to me.”

“I’m inclined to think that’s an insult.”

“Oh it’s not meant to be,” she said, finally letting herself laugh. Cranky noticed the way her nose crinkled across the top as she did so. “I just don’t think you’re as grumpy as you let on.”

“And what if I am?”

“I say it’s a front,” she said with a curt, authoritative nod. “I say you’re sweet and sensitive and you just don’t like people knowing that, so you put on this air of bitterness and crankiness. Well, I see right through you, mister. A cranky donkey wouldn’t have played along to rescue me from an pestersome stallion.”

Cranky wanted to protest, wanted to tell her that she was wrong. But the way she was looking at him right then, the way she was smiling so smugly, it was hard to be mad with her. Heck, it was hard to say anything at all.

“W-well…”

“Besides,” she said, reaching up to pat the side of his face lightly. “I don’t know any cranky donkeys that would do scrap booking. That seems like a very Doodle thing to do.”

He grumbled and glanced away from her big blue eyes, feeling the heat spread to his cheeks and nose at her touch.

“Okay… well… fine then,” he said at last, as he felt her remove her hoof. “I suppose maybe I have a soft side sometimes. But don’t you go around calling me Doodle.”

“I’ll do as I please!” she exclaimed. “But, I’ll tell you what, I’ll only call you that when you’re being a real sweetheart, that way you can keep up your disguise around others. Fair?”

“Not particularly.”

She laughed again, and he felt the vibration of it ring out in his gut and chest.

“You’ll just have to deal with it then… Doodle.”

“And it begins.”

Cranky wanted to be grumpy about all this, be he found he was smiling in spite of himself. When she said that name, it felt intimate somehow, like it was okay for her to do it. It made him feel warm, and made her feel closer to him, more tangible. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself not to smile about that. The pair beamed at each other for a moment, then Matilda's face soured into another half frown.

“Oh what is it now?” Cranky groaned.

“Nothing too big,” she said with a wave of her hoof. “You just got me curious about something.”

“And what's it about time? Wondering why I only wore a tie to this event? I might point out that you only wore a kerchief, so you're not all that different from me here, toots.”

The name was an uncomfortable one, but it served her right for calling him Doodle. She gave him a good-natured glare.

“Don’t you ‘toots’ me, and I was just thinking about what you said regarding travel brochures.”

“What about them?”

“Well,” she said haltingly, “it’s not a very usual thing to collect. Do you get them from places you’ve been to, places you plan to go to?”

“You’re very nosy, you know.”

“Only because I find you interesting,” she said with a wink.

It was enough to make him blush again. She was relentlessly charming, even when she was being infuriating. She was nothing like anything he’d ever dealt with before, and it put him at a loss on how to react, more often than not.

“I just pick out ones I think look neat,” he said tersely. “If it’s a place with nice pictures, someplace with interesting attractions I can read about. It’s nice to have that all right in front of you, in-hoof for you to peruse.”

She was silent a moment, and he got the sense that he’d said something wrong.

“You mean,” she said softly. “You don’t plan on ever going to any of the places you read about? You don’t want to travel?”

“Why should I?” he said with a scoff. “I can read all about them, explore the places through pictures, all without ever leaving my home. Why would I need to go to any of them, it just seems like a lot of hassle. Yep,” he said with a contented sigh and a nod, “I’m happy with just doing things this way.”

The silence persisted even longer this time, and Cranky could clearly feel the weight of it around them. At last, Matilda spoke, her voice firm, almost chiding.

“Why, I don’t believe that for a second.”

It was not at all the response he had expected. Cranky straightened up slightly, looking her over indignantly.

“It’s the truth.” How dare she imply otherwise!

“I don’t buy it,” she said with a shake of her head and a growing smile. “Maybe you’re nervous to go, or you make excuses, but I’d bet everything I own that you’d love to go about adventuring in this great wide world of ours.”

“How would you know?”

She smiled gently at him, affectionately, and again patted him on one shoulder with her hoof. He wanted to draw away from her touch, deny it, but he suddenly got the feeling he wasn’t so much mad at her anymore. Maybe he never had been in the first place.

“I know,” she said gently, “Because you’re up for adventure when it comes along or when it imposes itself on you. You came to this party, even when your friend didn’t show. You talked with a stranger for hours about everything and nothing at all. And when that ever-so-pretty stranger pulled you away from the party to explore a castle, you followed right along. And you did it with a smile on your face, even when you tried to hide it. Don’t think I didn’t see.”

Cranky tried to glare, but it was hard to do so with the pressure of her hoof on his shoulder like that.

“And,” she said, “I say that means you have an adventurous heart, just a reluctant body. All you need is a push, and that wanderlust heart will carry you the rest of the way.”

“Says you.”

“Says I. Come here.”

Once more, Cranky felt himself being pulled by the crook of one arm, and again he let himself be directed. Matilda steered them both towards one of the great yawning windows, then stopped and gestured out over the horizon. Clouds floated lazily across the sky, slithering around mountaintops like they were afraid to make contact. Glistening lights flickered in distant towns and cities, where ponies were still awake this late at night. The rest was all one blanket of deep indigo, so dark that it was hard to tell where the land ended and where the sky began.

“Look,” Matilda said. “Look at those cities out there, those distant mountains, and tell me you don’t see stories about them in your head. Tell me you don’t wonder about who lives out there, what their lives are like. Tell me your mouth doesn’t guess about the flavors of local grasses, your nose doesn’t twitch at the idea of blooming flowers you’ve never smelled before. Tell me you don’t want to climb up to the top of those peaks if only to see what it looks like down on the other side.”

As she spoke, with each suggestion, he felt her words and ideas. He did smell jasmine, lilacs, roses in colors he could only guess at. He did feel the spreading flavor of unfamiliar blades of grass against the roof of his mouth. In his head, he found stories about lives of others he had not yet met, all in vivid detail.

“Now,” he heard her murmur from his side, “tell me you’re not smiling.”

With a barely-conscious hoof, Cranky reached up to his face, and found it creased with a grin. He glanced down at her, and she was smiling up at him as well.

“You’re a clever one, you are,” he said scornfully, but he couldn’t bring himself to try to deny it.

“And proud of it,” she said, amusement in her tone. “So I say again, you’d love to travel, wouldn’t you?”

He hesitated, most parts of him still resisting the idea, then gave an acquiescing shrug.

“I suppose. A little. But I’m still happy to stay at home.”

“Nonsense, you simply have to try it and you’ll love it.”

“Oh, and you travel all the time I suppose?”

“Of course!” Matilda said brightly. “All the time! I’m just here for a short while, until the next adventure sweeps me off to parts unknown.”

She made a gesture out to the countryside again, her voice sounding lilting, like she could break into song at any moment.

“Sounds exciting,” he grumbled.

“It is, and you’d simply adore it,” she said teasingly. “You just have to take that first step. Heck, you could go with me this time, if you’d like! I promise I wouldn’t take you far away, and I’d have you back at a reasonable time.”

Cranky blinked at this suggestion, a strange muddle of emotions overflowing inside him. Was she saying that she wanted to go traveling with him? That she wanted him to stick around, by her side? He tried to pick apart all the different aspects of her expression, figure out what was hiding behind it. But there didn’t seem to be anything hiding, anything masked. She was honest, her large blue eyes shimmering, her smile genuine and natural. The shadow of night made her face bordered with sharp lines, making her whole form so picturesque, like someone had painted her there. It felt like a dream. He felt like she couldn’t possibly be real.

“That’s… quite an offer,” he said, flushing at the thought. “And it’s pretty sudden, don’t you think?”

“It might be, but that doesn’t make it a bad idea.”

“You barely know me,” he said, with a disbelieving bitter laugh. “I might be a terrible traveling companion.”

She gave a carefree toss of her head and grinned at him.

“Maybe so,” her voice was nearly sing-song again, “but I know you’re the kind of nice, sweet fellow who could use a little push, and I’m happy to do that if you’re up for it too. It might be good for you, and I still owe you one.”

“...I don’t know.”

“Oh come now!” she said, playfully, “Take a risk for once! Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do, but were too afraid to try?”

There were so many things that came to mind. So many missed opportunities, so many missed chances. But he’d gotten over those, he told himself. Hadn’t he? He’d come to accept that failure was an inevitability when you really, truly wanted something. Risks lead to downfall, pain, hurt. Why bother?

And yet, when he looked at her, he knew somehow that some risks were worth it. The hurt was worth it. And that maybe, just maybe, failure wasn’t the only possible outcome.

“Well,” he said with a quick glance away, “I don’t know about traveling, something that grand, but I know there are a few things I wish I could do.”

“Oh?”

“...Yes.”

“Well, then I challenge you, mister Cranky Doodle Donkey,” she said with a feigned commanding tone, “take one big risk, and I’ll stop trying to get under your skin about being more adventurous. You don’t have to go with me when I travel, you don’t even have to keep exploring this castle with me. You just have to promise to take one real risk for something you want. I bet you won’t regret it. Can you do that for me?”

Could he do that? Dare he? Every molecule in him wanted to hesitate, stop him, and the voice once more ordered him to stand still, that trying wasn’t worth the let down. But her voice was just a little bit louder, her words just a little bit sweeter. He just needed that gentle push.

“I think I can do that,” he said softly.

Then, before she could say anything further, and before he could talk himself out of it, Cranky stepped forward, pulled Matilda to him, and kissed her.

Author's Note

Fun fact, If you would prefer NOT to read a sex scene, you can skip the next section and only read the final one. Your loss.