Author's Note

This thing really did not want to stop writing itself, so here's another chapter. Enjoy!

Fearing Coming Changes

Soarin sighed. Another day of Wonderbolt practice had left him exhausted, and all he wanted to do was go home and take a nap. This season of his life had been particularly taxing on him. Wonderbolt practice, alongside getting ready to leave home meant he didn’t have much time on his hooves. The imminence of the change so close on the horizon was exhaustive and secretly a bit frightening. Certainly he wanted to have his own home, but it would be his first time truly being on his own. He’d always been able to take comfort in the knowledge that were he in a tight spot or needed help with something his mother had always been there, ready to lend a helping hoof. He knew she would always be there if he needed her, but not having her immediately accessible were he to need her knowledge about something was unsettling. He likened the feeling to the way he’d felt at his first Wonderbolt practice, when he’d begun flying and realized suddenly that there were no nets there to catch him were he to crash as there had been when he’d been in the Academy. The lack of a safety net left him feeling exposed, in that situation and this one.

Now, flying toward the front door of his home, he felt the sense of change in the air, so thick he could cut it with a knife. He wasn’t all too sure of how he felt about it. He was excited, of course. The idea of having a place to call entirely his own, to make his own rules, to do whatever he wanted was intoxicating and alluring to the independent streak in him. But the flip side of all of that was a deep-seeded fear of failure, and some of being alone because it meant that were he to mess up in some way, he would have to fix it entirely himself. The one part of all this that he hadn’t acknowledged until this past week was a sense of guilt. He felt badly about leaving his mother on her own. His father had passed away a few years ago in an accident in the weather factory involving some jars of lightning and it had been just the two of them ever since. The thought of her walking and flying around an empty house made him feel more than a little guilty. He’d tried to squelch that feeling with a promise to himself to spend more time with her, but practice and spending time with his friends had inadvertently broken that. With so much to do, and so much weighing on his shoulders, it had fallen by the wayside somewhat.

As he entered his home, he’d called out to his mother that he was getting in the shower and then going to take a nap, and then headed off to do both. Normally he’d have showered at Wonderbolt headquarters, but with the move coming up, he’d wanted to spend more time in the house, and soak up every detail of it, so that were he homesick while he was in his new home, he could remember this one and derive some comfort from the memories. Walking into the bathroom, he stripped himself of his work uniform, and started the shower. When it was hot enough, he made his way inside and tried to let the warm water wash away his anxieties. The scent of body wash and some shampoo and conditioner helped further calm him, and when he came out and toweled off, he felt much better than he had before. Though now, the issue was his exhaustion. He trotted off to his bedroom only to see a hamper of his clothes on the bed. Vowing to deal with it later, he set the hamper in a corner, and peeled back the covers, climbing into his bed.

The stress of having to move had done something interesting for Soarin. It had brought up a new habit for him- or rather, resurrected an old one. One morning a few weeks ago after a particularly bad nightmare, he’d woken up to find his hoof in his mouth. His mind had paused, and told him to stop, but his body had urged him to go on. And he had. He’d suckled and nursed on it until it was time to start his day and his mother had called for breakfast, and he’d been forced to stop to preserve his dignity. It wasn’t until he had gone to bed that evening that he could admit to himself how good it felt, but he had to be careful about doing it, because he could not let his mother know about it. A nineteen year old stallion sucking his hoof? That wouldn’t do at all. So, he had confined it to right before bed, to relax himself.

The motion had brought back some memories that he likely shouldn’t have been able to remember. They were dim and faded, but they were there. He recalled doing it as he’d been cuddled on the couch by his mother at three, and held by his father after a particularly nasty fall had broken a bone in his leg as he waited in a hospital room. The only bad memories he’d associated with it was remembering how he’d been teased for it when he’d reached an age where it was no longer considered socially acceptable. He’d asked his mother to help him stop, and she had. But he could recall, in perfect clarity for once, how he’d cried himself to sleep those nights after he’d tried to stop. Though it had worked, he could distinctly remember the intense loss he’d felt at the comfort and self-soothing technique being taken away, even if it was by his own request. Truthfully, it had always been comforting to him before that point, and he’d only stopped because of the peer pressure against him. He hadn’t been ready to give it up. So it was perhaps by chance that he had rediscovered this odd coping skill just when his world was about to be shaken in a way that would create so much change.

Now, nestling into his bed, he felt no shame as he put his hoof in his mouth. He was alone, with no pony to judge him, and his door was closed. In the privacy of his own walls, he could indulge in the comfort. As he began to suck, he felt his eyelids grow heavy, and eventually flutter shut as he drifted off to sleep, his fear and guilt temporarily abated at last.