For the love of Anon

When you arrived at the café, it was relatively empty. You weren't really surprised, because it was a Thursday, or it was quite late. It didn't really matter, but you were glad there weren't many ponies there.

You and Starlight walk over to a table located quite far out of the way. Outside, of course. You each take a seat on either side of it. You sit there in silence just looking at the menus which were on the table for about a minute before a waiter comes over.

"What can I get for you two this morning?"

At least he didn't have that stupid French accent like a lot of waiters did. It also brakes you two out of your reading. You motion to Starlight for her to go first.

"I'll have a daisy sandwich and a side of salad, please." You forgot that these ponies eat flowers. And hay, of course. Seriously, how they can substitute a proper burger and fries with hay is beyond you.

The waiter then nodded at you after writing the order down. With his mouth, because he's an earth pony.

"I'll just have 3 slices of cheese on toast." There wasn’t much on the menu that you either wanted or could eat, so you just chose the simplest thing.

"Of course. Your orders should be out in around five to ten minutes." He said, then turned around and walked inside the café to the kitchen. You put the menu down, then look at Starlight, who had already done the same and was staring at you with a distant look on her face. So of course, you did the only thing to be done.

'Boop'.

You hold your finger on her nose for a few seconds with her just staring at it, cross eyed. Just as you're about to pull it away, she pokes her tongue out and licks the tip. She then leans back with a blush on her face. You also pull your finger away, staring at it. Surprisingly it doesn’t disgust you as you would've expected it to.

"That’s what's gonna happen every time you do that now." Starlight says with a bit of a cheeky grin. You smile and shake your head a bit, wiping your finger on your trousers.

"Silly pony. And that happens every time you act adorable; I can't control my finger when it does. So I guess they're just two things neither of us can help doing."

The blush intensifies, but the smile widens to a more natural one. A bit of a silence ensues with just the two of you staring at eachother. You break the silence.

"We should go see Pinkie as soon as we finish here. We can only hope she hasn’t sent invitations out yet."

Starlight doesn’t stop looking at you. "Yea, we should. It shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes to convince her."

More silence. "So what do you want to do after, then? We should make the most of today, as it's the last one we got before Twilight and Spike come back, and we have that stupid party to go to tomorrow." She started mumbling something, but it was too quiet to hear. "I didn't quite catch that." She blushes more.

"N-never mind. We could, um… Go bowling?"

"Really, bowling? How do you guys even know what that is?"

"Yea, there's a bowling alley in town somewhere. I've seen it a few times but never been there. And what do you mean by 'how do we know what it is'?"

"Huh. I wonder why I never knew about that or even saw that. I enjoy bowling; used to be quite good at it. What I mean by that is in my world we had bowling as well. We pick the ball up with one hand, and throw it down a long lane towards ten pins. How the hell do you guys pick the ball up with hooves and bowl it down a lane? That is, assuming it's even relatively the same as the bowling back on my world."

"I… can't really explain that, but the concept sounds exactly the same. Pick up a ball and throw it down a lane at ten pins. Only we use hooves."

You decide not to continue thinking about how that works, and just accept it. Conveniently, at that moment your food arrives as well.

"Convenient. Thanks." You say as the waiter puts your plates down in front of the two of you. You glance down at your plate. Three very small slices of toast sit on it.

"Ugh… there's barely enough here to keep a sparrow alive." You groan. You still pick up the first slice though, and take a big bite out of it. Starlight looks at you in confusion as she picks up her sandwich with magic and takes a bite. "Figure of speech. Means that there isn't much food here and it wont keep me going for long." The look of confusion vanishes and is replaced by one of contentment as she eats her food.

It takes you about three minutes to finish your toast. It was nice, albeit very unsatisfying. Oh well, you'll just have to get a decent lunch. Maybe they have a café in the bowling alley that serves take-away like food like there was in your old local bowling alley. One can only hope.

"Is that good?" you ask Starlight as she finishes her sandwich. She nods her head, then starts on the bowl of salad. She magics the bowl over to you, and gives you a 'would you like some' look. You smile and pick up a piece of lettuce out of the bowl. "Thanks. I need my strength to deal with Pinkie soon.

Another five minutes and you're both finished, ready to leave. You paid the bill, despite Starlight's protests. You swiftly shut her up with another boop to the nose. Of course, this was in front of the waiter, so when she licked your finger this time, his face was a mixture of disgust, confusion and knowing. He didn't say anything though, and just took the money and left, along with the empty plates.

"Thanks again, Anon. you keep doing all this stuff for me, I just want to do something for you for a change."

"You are: convincing Pinkie not to invite the whole town to this stupid ass party tomorrow." You reply with a grin.

"that’s not really what I meant, but I guess."

"hey, it's the job of the guy to buy his girlfriend meals when we go out" you say ruffling her mane and pulling her into a bit of a hug as you walk towards Sugarcube Corner. You look down and see a big blush on her face, and she buries her muzzle into your waist as you walk. Most irritatingly, little Anon decides that now's a good time to make an appearance, making you have to walk a bit funny to hide it.

"What's the matter?" Asks Starlight as you let go of her, adjusting your trousers to better accommodate yourself.

"Nothing, don’t worry. Lets just get this over with." You tried to sound nonchalant but you think you sounded more annoyed than anything. It only took you about five minutes to walk to Sugarcube Corner, which you walked in relative silence after that. Of course, the instant you set foot in the bakery, you hear the usual shout.

"NONNY!" Followed by a pink blur heading towards you. This time the blur decided to attach itself to your chest. "Where were you this morning Nonny? You weren't anywhere to be found, I searched your entire house for you to ask if you were exited about the party I was gonna throw for you tomorrow but when I couldn’t find you I assumed you were just so excited that you went out early and ate breakfast out, so I just decided to write you a note and leave it on your bed." You finally put a finger over her mouth to stop the verbal faeces coming out of her mouth. Man, why do you even put up with this horse… at least you have Starlight, who is as normal as you compared to every other pony you’ve met.

"We're here to talk about that, actually." Her eyes light up. You pry her off your chest, and put her down.

"Pinkie, Anon doesn’t want to have a load of ponies at the party. He wants a maximum of ten, and ones that he knows and gets on with. So, we'd very much appreciate it if you could not invite everyone and just invite, say, Twilight and her friends. And spike, of course."

You look down at Starlight in quite a bit of surprise. You really didn't expect her to just come out with it, but man are you glad she did. You hate beating around the bush, especially with Pinkie Pie.

Another glance at Pinkie shows her mane has gone somewhat flat, and she has a sad expression on her face. She actually looks quite cute like that, and kinda makes you feel bad for Starlight just straight up telling her not to go crazy with the party. Then her mane went straight back out, she got a smile on her face, and just said "Okie dokie lokie! I'll make this the bestest, most fun party yet, even with only ten guests! Just you wait Nonny!" Then you instantly remembered why you were doing this, and any kind of sympathy evaporated instantly.

"Anything I can get you two? Maybe a box of cupcakes to share? Or our special lover's cupcake to share?" She asks as she gets behind the counter again, back with her massive grin and poofy mane.

Warning: spaghetti leak! Abort! Abort!

"Umm, uh, n-no thanks, we're, uh, fine. And we aren't, uh, lovers. Just two friends hanging out." You glance round at Starlight, and she just has a small smile and a huge blush on her face, and she has a distant gaze again. Looking at you. Fuck. No help from her. "We'll just, um, be going now. Got a busy day of friend stuff ahead! Bye!"

You turn around and just bend down to pick Starlight up, carrying her out at mach ten with her over your back like you would a cat, which in hindsight was probably not the best course of action. But it was certainly one way to get away from Pinkie. How the fuck did she already know you were now dating Starlight? In fact, did she actually know, or did she just guess? Shit, now she's gonna spread that about like the plague. You'd've been better off having the entire town at the party, then at least you could hide away in a corner and pretend your not there.

When you're a significant distance from the shop, you slow down to a more normal walking pace. You have no idea where you're heading to, but you going there. A voice interrupts your thoughts: "Hey, Anon, as much as I enjoy being carried like this, could you please put me down? Ponies are starting to stare." You gaze around and sure enough, there's quite a lot of ponies that now have their eyes on the both of you. Your face goes red, and you put her down on a nearby bench. "Thanks." You sit down on the bench next to her.

Damage control: lets see, you just got found out by Pinkie that your dating Starlight, or she just guessed. Either way, it's now gonna spread and soon everyone will know. A bunch of ponies just witnessed you hurriedly carrying Starlight out of Sugarcube Corner, and now probably think your even weirder than they already think you are, plus they probably suspect something going on between you two as well now. On the bright side, Pinkie agreed to only invite ponies that you know to the party. You still have to go to it though. Overall analysis: you're fucked.

"Are you ok? Your face seems a bit pale. Again." Starlight asks, as she puts a hoof on your right hand.

"Uh, yea. Just doing damage control. Well, I guess it's gonna get out a lot faster than we wanted. Us, I mean."

"Yea, seems that way. But it's alright, ponies were bound to find out eventually." She nuzzles a bit into your arm. Man, this pony is just too adorable for her own good. You move your left hand over to boop her. She takes likes she has the last two: by licking your finger. You put you right arm around her, and she leans into you more. At least a lot of the ponies have moved on, apart from a couple still looking at you with either a disgusted or an 'awww' expression. You pay them little mind now, though. All that matters is the pony sitting next to you.

You sit there like that for a few minutes before you break the silence. "So, where is this bowling alley then?"

"Over by the spa, I think. I know roughly where it is. I'll lead us there."

"Kay. If necessary I guess we can ask for directions." So you both get up off the bench and start making you general way towards the bowling alley. You can't help but think that a spa trip might be a good idea at some point, now that Starlight brings it up. Hell, you could've done that today. Although, that might lead places. Places you don’t really want to go yet. Actually, at the rate you two are going with making scenes in public (despite only being technically one, maybe two), you could even put the collar on Starlight and walk her around like a dog. She may even like it. And to hell with the ponies who judge you: there's not much more you can do anyway, especially in a day or two.