She followed after Blueblood, easily keeping pace with his easy movements. He kept glancing at her over his shoulder each time she took to the air. "Tell me, what do you see in him?"

Angel frowned a little at that. "Inside pony?" She didn't imagine there was much inside any pony she wanted to really interact with. "Nothing."

"There must be something. You came to him and declared him a mate." His tail whipped as if striking a fly, his face still quite forward. "What made you do that?"

The frown was replaced with an easy smile as understanding of a sorts arrived. "He give good shiny. He let live here. We live together, groom, den mates."

"D-den..." He turned suddenly. "That won't do. Ponies do not have 'dens' in the manner you speak of. Are you two simply mates because of shared habitation or... are you... doing things?" He hiked a brow at her, examining her intently.

Angel met his gaze, but hers was with far less conviction. Hers was the look of cluelessness as she muddled through his words. "Sleep together, groom, makes mate."

A soft chuckle escaped him as he turned around. "Very well then. I should have known that false stallion had found no real wife. You are just a ladyfriend he's sharing space with. How charming... But I should imagine you'd want a real stallion for... other needs."

She landed in front of him, cutting off his progress. He thumped right into her chest, clearly not expecting her sudden appearance. "What real stallion? What other needs?" she demanded, reaching for him.

He shied away, but she was faster, taking hold of his shoulders and hefting him up, dangling in the air in her soft but strong paws, his snout an inch from hers. He cleared his throat loudly, glancing about. "This is not polite conversation! Not for a public hallway at least."

She met the gaze of a passing aristocrat that was gaping at her and her captured pony. She smiled at him, which just made him scoot right along. "Where good place?" She casually put Blueblood on her back and started walking in the direction they had been going, ambling along with a new rider.

"We could visit your friend, Trash?" he proposed from atop her, leaning to the side to see around her head as his hooves held tightly to her, lest he fall from her. "You are a strong one, aren't you?" He could feel her powerful body flex and move beneath him in an intricate dance that carried her forward, not to mention having plucked him up so easily.

"What friend?"

Blueblood quirked an ear at that. "You don't know what a friend is?"

"Like mate?" She looked up over her shoulder at her captive stallion.

"Something of the sort... They don't need to live together. They don't need to groom one another. Simply enjoying being together, and making that a point, generally suffices."

"Oh..." She landed after a short hop, looking thoughtful a moment. "We friend." It wasn't a question, more of a blunt statement of an obvious fact. "Good friend."

"We are?" He raised a hoof to tap at a chin. "I had... thought you had become irritated with me, truth told... However, I will not look a gift... tsuki in the mouth. Very well, we are friends." Blueblood pointed to some stairs angling upwards. "That way if you want to find Trash."

"Good friend," she cheerfully called, wriggling carefully into the stairwell and starting to ascend with her precious cargo atop her. "Trash friend." She stopped just in front of a door Blueblood had been pointing towards. "Trash friend?" She twisted her head to look back at him. "Blueblood friend Trash?"

Blueblood softly clucked his tongue against his teeth. "It's... complicated. We are peers, of a sort, but we don't often see eye to eye."

"Angel will help." She nosed open the door, one hand grabbing the handle as she did so. "Put face to face, then friends." Surely it would be best if those she liked also liked the other people she liked. "Still not say what true stallion is."

His cheeks mildly darkened Blueblood coughed into a hoof. "I'll tell you later. For now, you need to go that way." He pointed down a hallway that he was quite soon bouncing downwards atop the tsuki. "You are very confident, hopping like this indoors. Are you not worried you may run into something?"

Angel landed lightly, though she slid on the smooth carpet a few inches. "Angel is good jumper. Not hit what not want hit. Blueblood is safe." She reached up a hand to gently stroke the side of the pony atop of her, assuming he was scared. "Safe," she repeated gently like a mother trying to calm a worried child.

"You needn't foal me so." He reached to pat the top of her bejeweled head. "You're the one out of place here, Miss Angel. I should be comforting you if anyone is to be comforted at all."

"Safe? Good." Despite her words, she walked awkwardly instead of jumping, like little microjumps that never took her far from the ground. "Where Trash?"

"There." He pointed to a simple single door where one guard stood. "They may not allow us past, however."

"Why?" Angel stepped right up to the guard, sniffing at him gently. A mare, both from the front and the back. "Trash?" She pointed past the guard mare into the room.

The guard stepped to the side, blocking Angel's progress. "Golden Brow is studying and not to be disturbed."

"I did warn... Auntie has been quite insistent on certain... activities and has been working us ragged to keep apace with a schedule she's devised for us to follow." Blueblood flopped atop Angel. "Simply dreadful, really. As if I don't have other things to do. Fortunately for me, today is my day off, so I don't have a tutor chasing me around insisting I read another few chapters for her wicked pleasure."

"Read?" She coiled on herself, allowing herself to look up at Blueblood more easily. "Tutor?" So many new words! "Look sad... Angel help?"

He sat up on her back. "I'm uncertain what you could do, but I appreciate the sentiment. Aunt Celly simply gets things in her pretty little head and we nephews are helpless before it."

Angel thought back to the biggest pony that was Celestia. "Boss pony?"

"Oh, yes, she is that." Blueblood nodded firmly, tapping at his chin. "In charge of everything she sees."

Angel inclined her head faintly to the left, just to slowly alternate to the right. "Angel see happen before." Celestia had wanted her to go to boring classes and do things her way. She truly was the boss pony, vast and terrible. "Trash stopped her, save Angel."

Blueblood's ears pricked. "He stood up to Auntie? Perhaps he has a spot more bravery than I would first have--"

The guard, still there, coughed into one of her hooves. "My loyalty comes to the throne first," she casually reminded, eyes on the two.

Angel wriggles her nose, sniffing at the guard. "Loyal to boss pony," she translated outloud. "Can tell Trash Angel came?"

"I will inform them," she assured with a salute.

Apparently satisfied, Angel turned away and launched down the hallway, carrying Blueblood away with her. "Now tell about true stallion and what Angel needs."

"We are still... not in a good place for that." He coughed into a hoof much like the guard had done. "Proper places and times and all that."

"Talk about boss pony?" She landed and looked around conspiratorially. "Angry at boss pony?"

"Angry is a strong word." He gently pressed into the center of her neck, rubbing the taught muscles there in what he hoped was a calming way. "She just aggravates me at times. I love Auntie, of course I do. She does a decent-enough job at things."

She reached for one of her big ears and gently pulled a ring free before curling on herself. In the motion, Blueblood was flung free, only to be caught by one of her powerful hands and drawn into the curl. Still stunned, he could only blink as she worked the ring onto his left ear. Thankfully she had never started using studded clips. "Friend."

He reached up a hoof to feel over where the ring was clamped onto his ear, holding itself in place but not piercing his precious flesh. "Um... thank you."

She sat up, leaving him there on his haunches. "Blueblood is stallion." This was a fact she was sure of. He looked like one and smelled like one and talked like one. No confusing bits there to be had! "True stallion."

He inclined his head faintly. "You seem to have put that together without my help. Yes, I am a true stallion." He sat up, looking quite proud of himself. "Trash is... not."

She puzzled through that, working her hands together softly. "Is stallion," she decided after a moment.

"He says that, and we go along with it..." He rolled a hoof. "But given the choice of how to make a foal, it seems clear which part of that play he'd be able to perform, and it wouldn't be the stallion's."

Angel reached for Blueblood, poking him on the nose. "Still stallion. Now what Angel need?"

"What... you... require is not readily known to me." He stood up, nose wrinkled. "You were proclaiming yourself to be his 'mate', which I had thought to meant a far more amorous--" He paused, seeing her confused look. "I thought you were making foals with him, or trying."

Her eyes widened and she sat up so quickly she bumped into a desk beside herself. The vase on it wobbled dangerously before it glowed with his magic, calming back down. "Angel not have foals yet," she got out, grasping where the conversation was going it seemed. "Want to."

"Of c..." He trailed off, blinking. "You want to?"

"Want to." She nodded firmly. "Safe burrow, food, shiny." She reached for her chest, brushing all the strands of jewelry that hung from her. "Yes, ready. Have foals, safe, raise good. Have friends." She pointed at Blueblood. "Help with foal, yes?"

"I..." Was he being propositioned? He could help her with having a foal, but that seemed...

Suddenly her face was nudging his forelegs right out of the way as if they weren't there, and her breath was felt right over a tightness back behind his hind ones. She was sniffing at him nakedly even as he tried, in vain, to control his more masculine urges. Her whiskers were tickling and teasing his increasingly exposed flesh and he looked around in a panic. Surely they would be seen at any moment!

"Why scared?" she asked as she took a microstep forward, nuzzling right into him, rubbing the side of her cheek against the proof that he was a true stallion without a shred of reservation or shame.

"I-is this the kind of assistance you wanted?" he asked with a squeak, his horn glowing and trying to push her back and away. At first nothing happened as she was far too strong, but she seemed to notice it and pull back on her own.

"What wrong?" she asked as she sat up. "Is alright. Boy thing. Boy do that." She pointed down at the 'problem'. "See before."

"W-where have you seen this before?" He clapped his legs shut to prevent further viewing of what should be private.

"Brothers." She lifted her shoulders. "No good for foals, but see things. Learn. Happen, boy thing. Girl not do that."

Uncomfortable questions rattled in his mind as he turned away. "I... see... Let us... be clear, are you asking me to..." He rolled a hoof, looking unable to finish the question.

"Help with foal, because friend, yes?" She smiled brightly, buck teeth displayed. "Angel help Blueblood, because friend. Friends do that, yes? We help."

Author's Note

Blueblood, Trash may be very cross with you later.

Angel is at once both innocent and clearly not. Which way will this go? Which way would you want it to go?

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