Twister Darling

The next few weeks were filled with moments. Some were uncomfortable moments like when I found out just how difficult it was to use the bathroom with one leg in a cast up to my hip. Others were amusing moments like when Stormy tried to cook breakfast for himself, not wanting to ask me to do it and put me out. He managed to set off every fire alarm in the house before we were forced to open all the doors and windows to let out the smoke. There were even a few emotional moments like when I brought out the box of his old things I’d kept stored away in my closet. There were mother’s day cards he’d drawn for me when he was a young colt, just learning to read, and a letter he’d written to his father just after I’d told him why he was different from all the other colts and fillies when he’d asked why he didn’t have a daddy like any of his friends.

There were so many of these little moments that I couldn’t do justice to telling them all, the nuances and shades of meaning both good and bad for Stormy and me. So, I won’t even try to do the impossible, but there was one very special moment for me, and it came at the end of that first month when we’d finally really started to get settled in together and had begun to grow used to having each other around. We’d both been on tender hooves up to that point, trying to hide away our worst habits from each other. No farting at the dinner table, no toothpaste crusted on the bathroom sink, no stiff socks wrapped in the dirty linens, at least at first, but even those things were slowly beginning to slip back to normal. And yet neither of us had started calling the other out on our peculiarities. We’d both been rather solitary beings, living alone and with nobody to judge us for our bad habits for so long that we weren’t even sure which habits were really the bad ones anymore.

We’d been growing slowly more and more used to having each other around, but that morning Stormy had been gone by the time I woke up, and I’d honestly just forgotten to wonder where he was. It was raining. The sounds of pattering on the roof, as usual, reminding me of one of my life’s greatest loves and his loss. I both enjoyed and hated the sound of an early spring storm like that one, and I was lost in thoughts of old times, the caress of my love’s wings tight over my side as we walked so close that our legs might as well have been lashed together, and the way I’d been able to feel his heartbeat against me while we lay beneath the covers and I was supposed to be asleep but instead stayed awake, listening to his breath.

I was sitting in my chair on the porch thinking of these things and humming happily when a figure stepped out of the dark, shaking droplets from wings turned almost black by the rain. He was smiling and looking at me with that all too familiar crooked grin of his, the one he’d always give to those who lost to him in a race. Slightly condescending but still somehow good natured. Almost as if he were challenging them to a rematch with just a glance. He wore that old familiar bomber jacket, the one he’d loved so much back when we were dating that I’d barely ever seen him out of it. It was dark leather with big silver buttons and at least a dozen patches along the sleeves, across the back, and on the breast.

It was Storm Break…

His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him. My head was too full of the pounding of my heart. The fear and joy mingled together inside me for that moment as I wondered if he’d come to take me to heaven. I thought that I’d died there, with the rain pattering down around the house in a gentle cascade, on the new porch that Stormy had built for me. But no, I realized as I felt droplets shed from his wings running off my mane. Ghosts didn’t get wet. I couldn’t have died. And that wasn’t Storm Break’s dark mane and tail. Even as sodden as they were, they were still a creamy golden color, the same as mine.

“Are you okay mom?” Stormy asked, stepping up onto the fine sturdy porch he’d built to replace the collapsed one. He’d even managed to salvage almost half of the original materials and reuse them in the new construction, and he’d managed it all using nothing but the instructions from a couple of books he’d bought at the hardware store in Mustang.

I was up and out of the wheelchair without any real thought, dragging my cast as I limped the two steps to Stormy and threw my hooves around him, my eyes streaming with tears as I clutched him; a stand-in for the pony I’d loved and had never been able to let go of, even enough to let anyone else into my life. I knew how screwed up I was. So afraid of being abandoned or losing someone else that I couldn’t bring myself to let a new pony in. But he was a pony who’d been a part of me; and a part of the one I’d loved so much. And I realized at that moment that he’d found my heart once more. Through our son, I’d fallen in love with him all over again, or at least that part of Stormy that was so much like his father. I was in love with my son. It felt shameful and wonderful both at once. I tried to let go of his neck and retreat into the house, but my damned leg wouldn’t allow such an easy retreat as that, and I was forced to let him help me back into the wheelchair instead.

My face felt puffy and sore from the intensity of my emotions, but I managed to snuffle back my sobs enough to answer his question. “Yes… and no… It’s the jacket.” I tried to explain, dashing away tears with both hooves. “It was your father’s favorite. I… thought…” I sobbed again, my hooves stroking the old tooled leather that seemed just a bit stiffer after having been stored somewhere for the past twenty-five years or so. “I thought it was gone. They never found it after… after the storm.” I explained.

Stormy’s eyes glittered with regret and understanding as he took my hooves and began to explain, “There was a little workshop out on the edge of the farm near where the old barn was. It had some old furniture inside, an old wooden standing closet, a table with a broken leg, and a bunch of old woodworking tools. I found it while I was trying to decide if putting the new barn up where the old barn used to stand was really the best plan. The shed was almost completely overgrown, but I managed to get inside. The jacket was hanging in the standing closet along with a couple of pairs of coveralls and some dusty old canvas aprons,” he told me, starting to pull the jacket off to give it to me.

I shook my head and pushed it back towards him. It was like magic. Not only was this old jacket somehow suddenly here, but it also fit Stormy, a pony whose shoulders were broader and whose chest was deeper than his fathers had ever been, which meant that it hadn’t been just any jacket to Storm Break either. It had to have been passed down from his own father, who’d been built much more like my son. It had been Storm Break’s mother who’d passed on the sleek body and fast wings that had made him such a good storm flier. Which meant that the jacket was an heirloom that would now pass to its third generation.

“You should keep it,” I said, smiling. “It’s like it was meant for you Stormy. I’ve walked the hillside where that barn was what must be a thousand times. But it was you who saw that shed,” I told him, certainty in my voice. “It's not me that it was meant for, or at least not directly anyway.” I put my hooves around his neck and pulled him in for one more long hug. “Thank you, Stormy. Just thank you.” I told him, nuzzling his throat before finally letting him go again.

That was the night when everything changed for me. It was the night when I stopped looking at Stormy as my son and instead began to see him as… a stallion. He was so broken. I didn’t know exactly what it was that he’d been through after he’d graduated and pursued his ex-fillyfriend down to Los Pegasus. She’d ended up working, not as a weather pony, but as a show filly, basically little more than a flying stage prop for acts with far more talent than she had. But that’s as much as I knew. Yet I could see a look that I simply didn’t understand every time he looked at almost any female. It was something akin to fear but with a healthy bitterness and anger mixed in. So, I decided that I had to help him. And I started to plan.

Several more weeks passed and I grew more used to the cast and the wheelchair, finding it easier to get around and do most anything I could before, though with a little extra effort. I also spent those weeks growing frustrated as thoughts began surfacing more and more. With Stormy and I living so close together, just down the hall from each other, there was nobody there to keep my mind from going wherever it wanted to go. I had nothing to take my mind away from my inappropriate thoughts, and so I started trying to come up with alternatives. If I couldn’t make him happy the way my body suddenly wanted too, then I’d turn my mind to finding him someone that could.

I turned my thoughts to finding him a filly. But I didn’t know all that many of the local farm daughter’s, and soon decided that it was time to try to kill two birds with one stone when I realized that I knew of at least one mare who might be able to help me. Penny was due to go back to work, and I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything if I did too. It would certainly give me something to do to keep my mind away from… other matters and I’d be able to consult Penny on any matchmaking possibilities she might know of.

I told Stormy, since planting season would be coming up soon and I didn’t want to be left alone in the house all day long while he worked in the fields, that I wanted him to start dropping me off at the diner in the morning and coming to pick me up in the late evening, when he’d be nice and hungry from a day behind a plow. My plan, of course, was to hire any potential matches Penny might suggest and arrange for them to chat him up as often as could be arranged. But as it happened, there was no need at all to start the matchmaking or hire anyone new. Jelly Bean, was more than enthusiastic about the idea the moment she’d overheard me talking about it with Penny.

“You’re trying to find someone to match up with that pegasus that just left?” She’d asked, not shy in the least about going after what she wanted. I’d soon discover that she was that way with just about everything. Straightforward and honest. “I wouldn’t mind that at all. If you don’t object.”

And I didn’t. Jelly Bean had outperformed all expectations since coming to work at The Hayloft, and despite Penny’s hopes for her Jelly Bean had flatly refused any idea of taking the pill. She’d still wanted the job though, but so she could find the right colt to cuddle up to when her cycle came around the first time. She wanted to be a farmer’s wife. This was doubly surprising because Jelly Bean was the most gorgeous filly that I’d ever seen. She was the epitome of earth pony beauty and grace, her legs long and delicate looking but strong from years of working her father’s fields. She excelled at cooking. She could bake biscuits that were almost literally to die for. Our business on the days she worked mornings had increased, with the locals making any excuse to come in and converse with the pretty filly and buy a few of her fluffy hot treats smeared with butter and honey.

At first, Stormy’s reaction to the filly was typical; at least for him. Despite her beauty and her clear interest in him, he hesitated to do more than exchange a word or two with her or to pass more than a few minutes near her. But soon the determined filly realized that his growing interest in bringing the farm back into order was his weak point and she’d managed to break through his hesitance with her knowledge and willingness to share everything she knew about farming and ranching.

Soon, Jelly had taken to her efforts with a gusto that I found endearing. Stormy had been picking me up from the diner every night for a couple of weeks, and I thought that things were going very well. Jelly Bean was always there to greet him, sit down across from him, and chat about farming, which she turned out to be a fountain of useful information about. He had so many questions that I often just let them keep talking even long after I’d finished clearing the register and doing the days tally, updating the books, and even doing a quick wipe down in the kitchen. Since he always picked me up at the closing time; there were never any customers around, and the place was pretty much shuttered behind the drawn blinds while the pair waited for me to finish up whatever I was doing behind my closed office door.

Not only had their discussions improved his mood around Jelly Bean, but his interactions with her had become less stilted and more natural. They’d formed a very genuine liking for each other, but was it love? Maybe not; at least not yet, but it was interest beyond mere acquaintance. Yet things had a way of happening, and soon they began to move much too fast; biologically speaking. They’d only been talking and spending time together for two weeks, and only for the hour or so I’d been able to create in the evening.

Jelly and I had made a whole plan spanning the next several weeks at least. We intended for her to visit the farm for the weekend in only a few days with the pretense of wanting to show me some new recipes she wanted to add to the diner’s menu. This would give her the chance to cook for Stormy at home where he was the most comfortable and would be the hardest place to get him used to a new pony. To help him ease into having her there more often, she’d go out and help him look over the fields which would let them spend hours talking about farming if they wanted.

It was a good plan. It was just too bad that it didn’t end up going that way.

It was early morning when the call from Penny woke me up. She’d been keeping a close eye on Jelly Bean, knowing that this reprieve of her cycle couldn’t last forever. She’d called to tell me that she’d spotted the early warning signs and that Jelly was finally coming into season for the first time. The swelling, the scent, the sensitivity; all were there when they’d been getting ready for work. Penny had sent her to bathe and sprayed her liberally with cover scent, but knew that they couldn’t take her into town in her current condition, nor could they stay on the farm, since the block spray would help for no more than the next day, maybe two at the most, assuming the filly could remember to reapply it.

“What do you want to do, JB,” I asked kindly; when Penny passed her the phone. “We’re not without options. The farm is safe; even with Stormy there I can explain what’s going on and he’ll stay in the new barn for a couple of weeks until it's passed,” I offered. “Or have you picked out another potential partner already?”

“I’d still like to be with Stormy; if he’d have me,” JB admitted, the lines crackling with a bit of static and making her voice sound tinny and distant. “I’d hoped for more time, but maybe I can talk to him now before the scent block wears off; ask him if this is what he wants too,” She suggested. “If he wants to be with me but isn’t ready to breed yet; then we’ll do it your way. I’ll let my heat pass and keep seeing Stormy until he’s ready. But if he’s not interested-” she started, a little hint of worry in her voice.

“If he isn’t interested; we’ll do whatever you want. We can deliver you to any farmer’s son you’d like, even if we have to plug Stormy’s nose to do it,” I promised. “Or you can wait it out and try again in a month or two when you come into season again. Your heat will come regularly through the summer and stop around the time the leaves start to change, assuming that you don’t start using the pill,” I added, hopeful that she wouldn’t give up even if Stormy wasn’t ready to admit that he wanted to be with somepony yet.

“Stormy,” I called, hanging up the phone and rolling myself out onto the porch. “We’ve got a change of plans this morning,” I called out across the field towards the barn. He was just finishing up his morning chores before taking me into the diner where he’d normally get his breakfast, at least on the days when Jelly Bean was going to be working. This was supposed to have been one of those mornings, and so it was unlikely that anyone was going to be eating breakfast today. We weren’t even going to be able to open the diner on time until Penny could get away, which wouldn’t happen until Jelly was safe and secure. Penny wasn’t going to risk one of their brothers getting to Jelly the way one of them had with her.

Stormy waved a hoof in acknowledgment and tossed the last bale of hay from the truck into the receiving pen. I almost cursed, remembering what else was supposed to be happening today. I’d forgotten that this wasn’t a day with nothing much to do. We’d arranged for the delivery of a half dozen ewes, and they were supposed to arrive around noon, with the pair of rams due an hour or so later. We’d need to get there and back in time to meet the delivery truck. I wasn’t so much worried about the work interfering with anything between Stormy and JB, there would still be several days for the ever increasingly fertile Jelly Bean to get anything that Stormy might be willing to give, but the deliveries would restrict our ability to take the filly somewhere else if Stormy decided to tell her that he wasn’t interested.

Stormy clomped up the steps and gave me a smile that brightened my day even with all the thoughts spinning through my head. I reached out and took his hooves between mine and sighed, deciding that the only way to handle this was to be entirely honest. “Honey; we need to help out a friend,” I began. “You know little Jelly Bean; from the diner. Well, she’s a bit of a late bloomer and now she’s been caught in a delicate position with spring right around the corner. She’s coming into season, which means that she needs a place safely away from her brothers, or father, or the neighboring farmers, and their sons,” I explained. “I offered to let her stay here, and I know you’ll be put out since she’ll have to stay with me in the house and that means you staying in the new barn, which is why I wanted to make sure you’re okay with the idea. If you aren’t; then we’ll just pick her up and figure out something else.” I said, a bit lamely, knowing that I wouldn’t have a lot of time to come up with the new plan if things fell apart.

Stormy gave me a confused look and frowned as he asked, “If you don’t want her around any of those other stallions, then why would it be okay for me to be so close?” He asked, latching onto the major flaw in my suggestion.

“There are two reasons,” I answered. “The first is; being in season isn’t like a gas attack or some form of mind control. Your body isn’t taken over by some uncontrollable force, but it just makes a stallion want to breed. It makes her want to breed too. When you put those two things together, it makes things much simpler, and physical,” I told him, feeling my ears twitching madly and my face heating as I explained the finer points of pony breeding habits to him. I’d thought that academy I’d sent him to would have done a bit better at this part of his education than it apparently had. “The second is that Jelly Bean wouldn’t exactly mind if it were you,” I added, trying to be completely nonchalant about this statement.

It wasn’t a long step of logic from there for him to realize a good bit about what had been going on over the last few weeks. “You’ve been trying to set us up,” He realized, his eyes going wide as he thought about how often he’d been seeing her at the diner. It didn’t take much thinking back to realize that she wouldn’t have been working every single night, yet she’d always been there when he came to pick me up. He probably would have figured it out anyway, eventually, but this had clearly sped up the process.

I nodded, meeting his eyes defiantly, and refusing to apologize even with my gaze. After all, I only wanted to help him find someone who might make him happy. “If you’d hated her, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. She’d be hiding out in a neighboring farmer’s barn waiting for one of his sons to find her and make her his farm wife,” I pointed out. “That’s how it’s usually done out here in the country Stormy. So yes. I’ve meddled, a little. But only so you’d meet and get to know one another. Her coming into season like this wasn’t part of the plan, I promise,” I finished.

“So, there was an entire plan?” He asked, his eyes widening in amusement as the corner of his mouth quirked up, but despite his attempt to seem unconcerned, I could tell that he was filled with tension from head to tail, which was swishing nervously back and forth.

I nodded, then shook my head, then shrugged. “We had a schedule. A few visits to the farm, a few meetings so you could keep talking about farming and getting to know each other; hopefully growing closer. I can see that you like her. I saw it the first time you let her sit down across from you at the diner,” I said, doing my best not to let him know that I saw the tension rippling across the muscles of his back and wings, causing them to rustle very gently. “We really should go to pick her up, before it gets too late,” I added, “or we might not make it back in time to meet the truck delivering the livestock.” I pointed out, giving him a good reason to start moving rather than to freeze up with indecision.

“Mom,” he said, his voice no longer amused but almost frightened. “What if I can’t?” He asked, his throat clicking as he swallowed nervously.

I kept my face as neutral as I could, as I asked, “What do you mean sweetie?”

Stormy lowered his muzzle in a gesture that was almost despair. If the look in his eyes was any guide to the way he was feeling. “I’ve had… difficulties with having relationships.” He admitted. “I haven’t been able to approach anypony as anything more than friends for almost five years, ever since Rain Dancer… well, she finally did come back to me. But it… wasn’t the way I’d always dreamed,” He told me, his hooves clomping nervously against the boards of the porch as he shifted his weight back and forth from one hoof to another.

“You can tell me about it,” I told him very softly, trying not to scare him away from the topic that he was obviously in a sensitive place about, even five years later, if his timeline was right.

He gave me a frightened look. He wasn’t scared of me, but of whatever he’d repressed along with this story that I was asking him to talk about. But I also saw that he wanted to talk about it. Maybe for the first time ever. So, I followed what I’d discovered to be the best advice when dealing with Stormy and any decision; and waited. After a very long pause, he began to speak, moving behind my wheelchair and pushing me towards the steps that led down into the dooryard. “We might as well get moving while I tell you the story, or we just might not make it.” He said, his tone resigned and strained as he slowly pushed me towards where he’d left his truck parked beside the receiving pen.

“After graduation; I still wasn’t over Rain. I didn’t know how to let go of someone that I’d believed I’d shared a deep connection with for four years. So, I worked a few odd jobs, saved up a bit, and bought a bus ticket to Los Pegasus, following in her hoofsteps.” He began, maintaining a trudging pace. “She wasn’t pleased to see me. She’d been turned down for the job she’d originally wanted, which was to be a weather flier, but she’d decided that working as a stunt flier would do just as well, and to get started she’d taken a job as a backup flier in one of the big production stage shows called “Cirque du Solpony”, but those ponies had been trained almost from birth as trick ponies, and Rain was finding breaking into stunt flying a lot more challenging than she’d imagined.”

Stormy stopped speaking long enough to help me into the cab of the truck and lift the chair into the bed before jumping into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. As he drove us towards the road, he continued. “She… had me removed from the set once and filed a restraining order against me for stalking a couple of weeks later, but I was only watching her I swear. I wasn’t harassing or even trying to talk to her. I’d found a little work, but after the police picked me up and held me for forty-eight hours, I lost it, which meant that I ended up leaving Los Pegasus anyway.” He told me as we turned west, towards Mustang and the dozens of farms stretching southbound along route 66, which, coincidentally, led almost straight to Los Pegasus, though it was still a good distance away. “I wandered for about six months, working odd jobs here and there, not looking for anything that might tie me down, make me want to stay.”

“Until the restraining order expired,” I asked, and got a nod of agreement as he continued.

“I went back and found her again, though she wasn’t with any stunt show anymore. She was working as just another show filly, dressing in spangles, and little else, and flying over the crowds in the casinos while the real performers sang, or danced, or whatever it was that show pony was famous for.” He sighed and shook his head. “And she was somehow proud that she’d worked with famous people without even realizing how far she’d fallen. She didn’t take out anymore restraining orders, but she still didn’t want me to stay. She was friendly enough for a couple of weeks, but then things between us soured, and I’m not even sure why. She told me to get out or she’d have some guy she knew break my wings.” He grimaced. “As it happened, she probably could’ve. But I wouldn’t find that out until another six months had gone by.”

I couldn’t keep the concerned look from passing over my face, but I did my best to keep my eyes averted towards the window and the passing scenery of fields being prepared for the early, cold-weather planting that would start soon.

“I’d thought the relationship was really done. Finally getting it through my head that she just didn’t want me, or anything to do with me, and I hadn’t planned to go back, but a job I got just happened to take me through there again. This time I didn’t seek her out at all. It was her that somehow found me and showed up at the door to my hotel room.” He said, his face already beginning to twist into a mask of pain as he recalled the meeting. “I couldn’t help that I still had feelings for her; could I?” He asked, almost begged, and I had no answer. Not for this…

Or maybe I did… “I think that sometimes you don’t have a choice, at least not once you’ve given yourself to another pony fully, heart and mind, the way I did with you… your father…” I finished and gave him a supportive smile.

He breathed a long sigh and gave a nod, closing his eyes for just a moment to calm himself, which was fine since the road we were on went straight for miles in both directions with no vehicles in sight from either of them. He opened them again as he resumed. “She had two broken wings, set in splints, but busted up bad enough that flying was never going to be a career choice for her ever again. She’d learned, she promised me, that she’d been wrong to use me, to lead me on the way she had, and told me that she’d tried the same thing with a bad-ass loan shark she’d been stupid enough to date. She told me that he’d taught her better when she’d tried to break up with him and leave town. He’d had both her wings crushed, and then, in addition to the thousands of bits in hospital bills she owed, he insisted that she would have to pay back more thousands of bits for the dinners he’d bought her, the shows he’d taken her to, or he’d make sure that flying wasn’t the only thing she’d be unable to do ever again.”

I was disgusted at the very idea of somepony who’d do that to another, even one as evil as I was starting to believe that Rain Dancer had been. If Stormy hadn’t been able to see it back then, I could see it in every word that came out now. Yet these were evils of the past. Ghosts that I had no power over except to help to exorcise them, and to do that; I first had to listen. So, that’s what I did. I listened in silence as he poured out all the hurt like a treasure of jewels too sharp to touch.

“She told me that she wanted to be with me, to leave with me, that she’d been trying to come to find me when I never came back the last time, and that’s how she’d gotten involved with this bad pony who’d hurt her.” He sighed again, this one showing that he’d come to terms with the bad decision he’d made long ago, and which couldn’t be taken back. “I agreed, and we talked all night, making plans about how we’d work and pay off her debts, saving a little here and a little there…” he went on, but then stopped. “It went on for almost two years. I sent her almost everything I made, or at least everything that I didn’t have to spend on food. I took any job I could get, wandering from place to place, but never managing to find anywhere to settle down, probably because not settling down had become…” he paused and cocked his head in thought, “…my way; I guess is the best way to put it. It was familiar. Habit. So that’s how I went along.”

“She kept in touch. Sent me letters telling me about how we’d paid off the loan shark, and then how we’d paid off her debts at the hospital.” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s when I thought she’d leave me. When all her debts were paid. But I’d been prepared for that and had told myself for months that, if she did leave, at least I could feel good that I’d saved her, in my own pitiful way.” He said, his tears dripping now onto the steering wheel. “Which is why it was so much worse when she kept sending me those letters. They were filled with touching words, plans for the future.” He went on, his voice hard; like he was forcing himself to talk through a throat full of river stones. “I let myself fall in love with her all over again in those letters. I kept sending money, believing that one day the letter would come telling me that it was time to come home.” He hung his head again. “I was still such a fool.” He admitted.

“I went back to Los Pegasus… just one more time.” He told me. “To surprise her with a bonus I’d gotten; enough money to buy… well, a truck. Maybe only a used one, but one that I could get running well, which would allow us to hit the road together, for the first time. Together forever.” He laughed again, stopping the truck on the side of the road just at the end of the driveway that would lead up to the farm where Penny and Jelly Bean would be waiting, probably hidden in the bushes somewhere nearby.

“She’d married the loan shark. They had three foals. And they all lived on a big ranch outside the city.” He told me, his voice so broken, so wounded, that I almost begged him to stop, to spare himself this last pain, whatever it was. “One of them…. Well, she looked just like me,” He told me, his teeth gritting as the tears washed down his muzzle in uncontrollable streams.

I didn’t have to hear the rest, and wouldn’t have asked him to talk about it more for the moment in any case since we could see the forms of Penny and JB moving towards us from a bit up the road, ducking out of the brush and stopping only long enough to spray a heavy mist of scent blocker over every inch of the filly. I thought I’d known how bad it could be, but I hadn’t. I knew he’d tried to talk to Rain; to get her to tell him about his daughter, maybe even tried to meet her, but he’d been beaten by the loan shark’s goons. I knew that he’d gone back and had been beaten again. I wondered how many times he’d suffered under the hooves of other ponies trying to get back the life he’d thought he was going to have, the one he’d dreamed he’d get. I knew it all; because its what I’d have done for him.

But there was one more thing that he had to say, and he was determined to say it, even as he washed the tears from his face and put on a neutral look for the pair of ponies that were coming.

“When I wouldn’t stop coming. When I got a lawyer and demanded paternity tests. He had her… my daughter… killed. Run over by one of his men just outside her school.” He finally said, putting away all that pain, and all the horror at this admission, behind a mask of calm that I couldn’t even believe possible, not even five years later.

A few minutes later there were four of us crammed into the cab of the truck, with me against the door since my cast made it difficult to shift any further along the bench seat, then Jelly Bean, sandwiched between us, with Penny on her other side and pressed tight up against Stormy. The cover scent was working, though imperfectly, but at least when combined with keeping my window open it was enough to allow him to concentrate on the road and not anything coming off the filly. Its lack of one hundred percent effectiveness was evidenced by the uncomfortable shifting and adjusting that Stormy had to do several times while we all tried to keep our eyes from drifting down and to the left while our ears twitched; well mostly. Jelly Bean’s gaze didn’t always drift away quite as quickly.

I wanted to address the bombshell that Stormy had dropped, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that I could just start talking about with other people in the truck between us. I wasn’t even sure if it was something that I should talk about. I wanted to ask questions, like, “how did you know he’d had her killed,” but that would be ridiculous. It didn’t really matter if he had; because Stormy would always believe it. Not even rock-solid proof would ever be enough to convince him. My instinct was to ask how he’d let the monsters get away with such a thing, but I’d already worked out logically that it had never been within his power to do anything about it. The police had likely ruled her death accidental. Having no proof to the contrary, and with no paternity test even to prove a possible relation to the victim, he’d had no hooves to stand on. He might have stayed around long enough to be put in jail once or twice more after a second restraining order, but the rest was predictable.

He’d eventually had to leave. He’d spent five more years wandering, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened, and terrified that making any connection with any filly or mare might lead to another pain so vast that it had taken five years just to cross it and realize that he just wanted to go back home.

Now I could only hope to make that home the best one that he could dream of. The one with more love and support than he’d ever imagined from that evil creature he’d been enchanted by. My mind was set. I was determined.

“You should go in and have a shower. Reapply that cover scent, and then you and Stormy could have a talk; if you want to.” I said, turning a questioning look at Stormy.

“Can it wait until this afternoon?” He asked, glancing over to the enclosure that he’d been preparing for the delivery when I’d called out to him earlier.

Jelly Bean looked more than a little relieved at this suggestion, revealing just how nervous she’d been since pulling up to the farm. “I’d like that. We can talk over dinner. Maybe cooking will take my mind off things. Give me a little time to think,” She said, giving me a slightly apologetic look that I took to mean that she was maybe having second thoughts. Were they about Stormy, or about the breeding in general?

I nodded. “Penny; you can drive my truck back to The Hayloft,” I said, turning my wheelchair and shepherding them both ahead of me towards the house. This was mostly for Stormy’s benefit, though getting JB under the cover of a safe, or at least relatively safe house, wouldn’t do Penny any harm either, based on the overly protective aura she was trying to project over her little sister. For Stormy though, it was a more physical need, since he’d been stuck hiding behind the truck since we’d arrive, lest he revealed himself entirely to all three of us right there in the dooryard. The further away, and behind more doors, that Jelly Bean went, the better he’d be able to organize his thoughts. The less needful his body would become, and the easier concentrating would be.

I pointed to the keys for my truck, hanging on a hook beside the front door. “The one with the little wooden fob,” I told Penny, who took them down and nodded to me in thanks. My truck wasn’t much worse than the one that Stormy owned, and he’d done a bit of work on it in his spare time over the last few weeks, so it was running better than it had, pretty much since I’d bought it off the lot in Mustang. It was a light blue and a little smaller than a farm-all, with a narrow strip of silver edging, or maybe accent; I wasn’t sure what it was called, running down either side.

“Do you want me back here tonight?” Penny asked JB, tossing the keys from hoof to hoof with nervous energy. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to Jelly. If you ask; I’ll come back, and stand watch all night if I must,” she told the filly.

Jelly gave her a smile and took the hoof not holding the keys between both of her own as we all stopped on the back porch near where my truck sat parked beneath an awning. “I love you, sis.” She said, leaning in and giving Penny a peck on the cheek, rubbing her forehead against her sister’s so their forelocks brushed together. “This is what I want, big sister. I might be nervous; for now, but I’m sure someone who’s got a little more experience than the two of us put together will be able to help me through this.” She assured, and both fillies turned and gave me an appraising look; as if I was supposed to suddenly impart some miraculous wisdom, or glow, or maybe just ascend into the heavens without the aid of wings.

After a long, uncomfortable minute, I nodded and did my best to give them at least some sort of reassurance. “I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have. Even the embarrassing ones.” I promised Jelly Bean, turning to Penny. “And I promise I won’t let her get hurt. In any sense,” I swore. “Not if I can prevent it,” I added for her benefit.

Penny climbed into the truck and waved one last time before she backed up and finally drove off, heading to the end of the drive. I watched the taillights flicker and stutter for a moment as the truck pulled up to the road and turned west. Soon it disappeared behind the vegetation rising out of the western field just beyond the new barn and livestock pen and I was finally alone with Jelly. A situation that I was beginning to worry about after all those barely veiled hints that she wanted some sort of answers from me; though what those were remained to be seen.

“She’s a good sister,” Jelly Bean said, tossing her mane lightly as she shifted the weight on her back hooves from left to right. Fidgeting brought on by her current condition. It was like an itch in a place that she’d never be able to reach, and on the first day, it was as mild as it was going to get, I knew. “But I didn’t want to talk to her about this. She doesn’t like her life and her life is everything I’ve ever wanted. She tried to talk me out of what I decided every time that I asked for advice or guidance, so I eventually stopped asking.”

She pushed my chair back inside and we went to make ourselves comfortable in the kitchen, me with a pot of tea and some tea bags and with Jelly going through our ice box with interest, planning what she’d be making for dinner even as we started talking, her nerves settling a bit now that she had something to distract herself with.

“I’m still sure I want this life. That hasn’t changed. But that doesn’t have to mean getting pregnant right this second. I think Stormy and I have a real connection. He seems to love the earth and the soil as much as I always have. He’s a born farmer, even if he’s so green right now that he almost smells like freshly mowed grass,” She said, chuckling as she chopped vegetables and put a pot of water on the stove, preparing to make a stew by the looks. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, squash, okra, peas, and two types of beans were laid out on the counter ready to be prepped and added to the pot, set to cook all day on low heat.

“I think you’d make a good match for him; and if you care about him, all the better,” I said, smiling, waiting for the tea to steep. “So why were you so nervous before? When we first got here,” I asked, curiously. “It almost seemed like you were about to change your mind entirely.” I pointed out.

Jelly Bean’s ears twitched, and her fast accurate slicing paused for just a moment before resuming again. “I’m not sure…” she began, her ears laying back in her nervousness and embarrassment. “Is it going to hurt?” She finally asked, looking up with hopeful frightened eyes. “My friends all say something different. Magpie said she barely felt anything before it was already over, but Happyhoof told me she’d bled for almost a week after, she was torn up so bad.”

JB stopped chopping and put a hoof up to cover her mouth and her eyes went wide as she told me something she probably thought of as one of her friend’s biggest secrets. “Happy said that Clyde’s thing was really big and that he wasn’t as gentle that first time as he learned to be with her later,” She went on. “Stormfeather’s… thing… didn’t look small, but I haven’t seen many… um… firm ones before,” She finally finished, her eyes glancing away.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” I reassured the filly. Not if the Stallion is doing things right and not just letting himself go entirely feral. Stormy’s thing was a bit above average, at least in my experience. But there’s nothing wrong with average, or even a little bit on the small side. It’s more about how well the Stallion uses it and how much you want to feel good. That’s important. If you can’t let yourself feel good, there’s not much your Stallion will be able to do to make up for that.” I told her with a reassuring look that I hoped made me seem wise or at least as if I wasn’t just making this all up, which was almost entirely what I was doing. My six lovers didn’t exactly make me Equestria’s most experienced mare, after all.

“It sounds like Clyde was far more excited and enthusiastic than experienced and maybe went about things a bit too forcefully their first time together,” I suggested, trying to remain delicate about the topic. “That’s a lot more likely to happen when they’re young, inexperienced, and lacking in the self-control that maturity helps nurture.” I went on. “But that being said. It’s up to you to make sure that your lover knows what feels good to you and what doesn’t. You should never be afraid to tell him that something he’s doing hurts or even if it’s just something you don’t like. And on the other side of that coin; you have to listen to what he wants and doesn’t and maybe sometimes make compromises.” I explained, pouring out two cups of steaming dark jasmine tea infused with honeysuckle nectar.

The scent of the jasmine bloomed throughout the room as I slid one of the cups towards the filly, who picked it up and took a small delicate sip, her eyes opening a little wider in pleasure and surprise at the flavor.

“Were you scared your first time?” She asked, resuming her chopping of vegetables and doing her best to make the intensely personal conversation we were having seem normal.

I nodded. “Intensely.” I admitted. “Especially since my mother…” I paused and grimaced, “pardon, my stepmother, never bothered to explain what was going to happen to me.” I looked down into my teacup thoughtfully and then shook my head. “But then maybe she thought I’d already started my cycles by the time she met my father. He’d only been with her for a couple of years. My real mom… well, who knows. She just snuck off one night. Tired of my father’s constant wanderings.”

“That’s… terrible,” Jelly said, giving me a sad look.

I shook my head and waved a hoof dismissively. “That’s all long in the past and over. I fell in love with Storm Break and was lucky enough that we were living together by the first time I came into season. So, he was able to help me through it. Explain what was happening, though that didn’t help much since he only knew what he’d learned from his classes on pony health and wellness, which wasn’t all that much.” I admitted, grinning and sighing from the rather amusing memory that had been horrifyingly embarrassing at the time. “But he did it all with such kindness and love that by the time we actually got around to the breeding part…” I sighed again and shook my head. “Well… I suppose you’ll see. Just try to go slow. That’s my best advice for you.”

“But what if he doesn’t want me?” She asked, her voice more frightened even than it had been before. “I didn’t think it would matter, but… I like him. So much that I stopped trying to find any other ponies. So now it's just him, but it's so soon. And I don’t want him to take me the way some farm boy would. For the first time… I understand why I should want him to want me for more than just breeding,” She admitted, her hooves working at the vegetables as she let all her worries, fears, and thoughts, flood out.

“That’s why you want to cook for him tonight. You want him to see that you’re not just a warm place to plant his seed.” I said, smiling. “That’s a good thing Jelly. It's okay to be wanted as a mare and a pony both, to be needed in a way beyond the merely physical.”

“But the way I feel,” Jelly said, her back legs shifting again in discomfort. That growing itch that I remembered well from before the days I’d been able to get on the pill myself. Only Stormy had been nearby, and being too young for such concerns, had been unaffected by the aphrodisiac of hormones I’d been giving off.

I swallowed and paused, considering for a long moment before finally giving her a nod, “If you two decide to wait. I’ll help you. The same way mares have been helping each other get through their cycles for generations before the pills,” I said, my own ears twitching a bit now. “Though only if you want me to,” I added at the widening of the filly’s eyes as the understanding of my meaning got through her embarrassment.

After that, our conversation fell back onto a more normal track, and both of us were happy to be able to have the diversion of each other’s company as we talked and got to know each other, something that I was just beginning to realize that I’d neglected in favor of trying to put her together with Stormy. Maybe having a few days together, just the two of us, wouldn’t be a bad thing.