(A/N: This is a multiple POV story which alternates between Wind Sprint’s and Quibble Pants’s POV. Hopefully it’s clear enough who is who.)
Wind Sprint: “Tryouts”
Mom and I live in a house on the ground in Canterlot. Mom’s a unicorn so she can’t walk on clouds like me. Dad used to take me to Cloudsdale a lot. But now he’s dead so I don’t go there anymore. I don’t want to go to Cloudsdale anymore.
Our house in Canterlot is smaller than our neigh-bors’ houses, but it’s way cooler. I have a buckball machine in my room. Nopony has a buckball machine in their room. That’s a machine that launches buckballs in all different directions and speeds, so I can practice my catching.
One day during the weekend Quibble Pants came over to Mom’s house, and he stayed for the whole day. And I didn’t want to come out of my room, so I was able to stay in my room for basically the whole day, practicing my catching. I got really good at it.
I wanted to go try out for the junior buckball team, but Mom couldn’t take me to Wednesday tryouts because she was going away with Quibble Pants on a “super-romantic” vacation to the Crystal Empire. I wasn’t invited. Not like I care. Super-romantic also means super-gross. Mom said she was even more gross with Dad before I was born, when they first started dating. I don’t believe it. Mom and Quibble Pants look really gross together.
Mom sent Quibble Pants’ friend’s friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle, to take care of me while she was gone. Mom thinks we look eerily alike, but we are so not alike. Twilight Sparkle is a total egghead. She just read books and graded papers most of the time. And she’s such a slowpoke. I raced her from home to the Tasty Treat, which isn’t far at all, and I beat her by a long, long shot. She’s really weak. She’s an alicorn, and that’s cool I guess, but she’s a really weak alicorn.
They had buckball team tryouts again on Saturday. Mom was back from her vacation on Saturday, so I still managed to make it. I got chosen as a catcher in the Canterlot Junior Club Buckball Team.
But that’s not the point.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Mom said before she left with Quibble Pants. “They have tryouts again on Saturday. And I’ll be back by then so I can take you there. I promise. Bye honey. Thanks again for babysitting, Princess Twilight.”
“Oh, you can just call me Twilight, Clear Sky. And it’s no problem at all. You two have fun! Say hi to Princess Cadence for me!”
“We will! Bye Wind Sprint!” Quibble Pants and Mom said.
“Bye Mom!” I said.
Quibble Pants: “I Can’t Help”
The first time I had to babysit Wind Sprint was after school one weekday. Clear Sky had gone off to the castle for a business meeting, and she wouldn’t be back until evening.
I remember picking her up from school, and she said, “I won’t race you to the house because I know you can’t keep up.” That was after the whole fiasco at the buckball tournament happened. Screw Rainbow Dash. She’s a good friend, but sometimes she lets her ego get the better of her.
Sometimes I even wonder why Rainbow Dash is my friend. Other than Daring Do, we really don’t have much in common. We disagree about so many things. We even disagreed on which side of the train to sit on during the ride to the Daring Do convention. I guess you can’t find somepony who has everything in common with you to be your friend. Sometimes you’ve got to settle with somepony totally different to be your friend. Not just your friend. Your best friend. Or…a stepdaughter, for that matter.
When Wind Sprint and I reached the house, I opened the door and she flew inside. She rushed straight to her room. She didn’t even take off her saddlebag from school. I went into the kitchen alone. Clear Sky had told me to prep Wind Sprint’s favorite after-school snack. Graham crackers with peanut butter and apple slices.
The graham crackers were on a very high shelf, which as an earth pony, I could definitely not reach. I guess high shelves aren’t that big of an issue for a home occupied by a unicorn and a pegasus. Wind Sprint came out of her room a while later. She saw me standing precariously on the top of the back of a living room armchair, trying to get to the graham crackers. She groaned to herself, rolled her eyes, and said, “Sheesh, I’ll get it.” She used her wings to fly up to the high shelf, and effortlessly grabbed the box of graham crackers herself.
She didn’t make the snack herself, though. The other ingredients were on low shelves that I could reach. She just gave me the box of graham crackers, went over the breakfast table, and sat with her back to me. And she waited.
“Erm…how was your school, Wind Sprint?” I asked her as I made the graham cracker snacks.
“It was okay,” she said, in a deadpan voice. Then it was quiet again.
“How’s your homework?”
“Ponish homework is hard. We have this grammar exercise to do that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh, I hated those back in school,” I said, trying to make conversation. “I was never really good at Ponish class. I was always really good at math.”
“I’m good at math too,” she said. “It’s Ponish I need help with.”
I took a look at her homework. It was about something called “anaphoric and cataphoric” words. I didn’t even know such words even existed. “I…I’m sorry, I never learned about that in school. I don’t think I can help you, Wind Sprint.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t say anything after that. She just sat there, while I made the snack for her. I could hear myself breathing. It was silent. I dunno. I just remember how quiet it was that afternoon.
Wind Sprint: “Square Footage”
We used to live in a 1,412 square foot home, but now it’s gone down to 1,394. Minus 18 square feet because that’s the side of bed where Dad used to sleep. Now, he doesn’t sleep there anymore. So it’s no longer part of our home.
Now Quibble Pants sleeps there a lot. He used to just come during the day, but now he’s stays overnight a lot. There are good and bad things. The good thing is that when Quibble comes to stay over, Mom doesn’t come to check at night if I’ve done by homework. So then I can just practice my buckball catching in my room and I won’t get in trouble. I don’t like homework. Homework is so stupid. And boring.
The bad thing is that I can’t go to Mom and Dad’s bed before I go to bed to hear a story. We do that every night usually. Mom and Dad’s bed is really soft. I like it a lot. When Mom and Dad were still sleeping in the same bed, I used to fly over to their bed and snuggle in with the both of them. Dad would tell me bedtime stories. Every night he had a different story. He was in the Wonderbolts before he died. There wasn’t a single pegasus he couldn’t beat in a race. He was really really fast. And really strong.
Quibble Pants tells stupid stories. He reads this book called Daring Do which is really boring. It’s stupid because sometimes, Daring Do starts jumping, even though she has wings, just because she’s “too weak to fly.” Just to make the story “more exciting.” It doesn’t make it more exciting. Daring Do’s definitely not as strong as Dad.
I still like Mom and Dad’s bed a lot. It’s just as soft and snuggly as before. But now Dad’s gone, it’s only Mom’s bed. So it’s still minus 18 square feet.
Quibble Pants: “Hot Sauce”
Clear Sky was right about Wind Sprint. That foal sure loves her hot sauce. I didn’t believe her, you know, until the first time I saw her eating dinner. She drenches everything in hot sauce. Hayburgers, pasta, even ice cream. The Tasty Treat is her favorite place to eat in Canterlot. She and her mother go there every two weeks or so to eat. It’s almost a regular thing. I remember the first time I went along with the two of them.
I met them at the restaurant. “Hey honey! Hey Wind Sprint!” I said.
“Hi,” Wind Sprint said meekly.
Clear Sky explained to me. “She’s just a little shy today because you’re tagging along with us for the first time.”
“I am not, Mom!” Wind Sprint said, vehemently denying what her mom said.
“Of course not dear, you’re one tough little cookie, aren’t you? Toughie toughie toughie!” Clear Sky tousled her daughter’s mane affectionately.
“Stop it, Mom! That tickles!” Wind Sprint started giggling.
We were seated at a booth. I sat on one side. Clear Sky and Wind Sprint sat on the other side. I sat there in silence for a while, my eyes darting between different spots in the room. “Erm…shall I get everypony some drinks?”
“Erm, sure honey, that’d be great,” Clear Sky said, looking away from Wind Sprint. She was talking with her daughter. They must have been talking really quietly, considering I was sitting right across the table from them and I could barely hear them. Whatever it was, it made the two of them smile. And giggle a lot. Wind Sprint giggles sometimes. Pretty much always with her mother. Pretty much never when she’s with me.
So that’s what I did that evening. I ordered the drinks. A soda for me, a glass of juice for Clear Sky. And an ice water without lemon for Wind Sprint. Wind Sprint doesn’t drink soda. She says it has too many simple carbohydrates and reduces stamina.
“Good evening.” The waitress came by our table. “May I take your order?”
Wind Sprint spoke first. “Can I have the Tantabus-Pepper Curry with a bowl of white rice, please?”
The waitress chuckled. “Are you sure, little filly? That’s the spiciest dish we have on the menu!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve had it before. I love spicy food. And hot sauce.” Wind Sprint claims she inherited it from her father. She said it right in my face, real proud and loud, as she gobbled up the whole bowl of curry like it was chilled carrot soup. She talked a lot about her father that evening. About how her Dad was one of the greatest pegasus fliers in all of Equestria. How her Dad flew and won so many races during his career.
Wind Sprint asked me to try a small spoonful of her curry. Clear Sky told her daughter that I don’t like spicy food. But Wind Sprint was insistent. “It’s delicious.” Clear Sky gave me this look that was something like, “Be a team player, won’t you?”
So Clear Sky tried a spoonful, and I tried a spoonful too. It was so spicy, I think I almost passed out from the pain. Clear Sky took the spice way better than I did. One glass of ice water later, and she was fine. All I remember during my spice-induced delirium was Clear Sky telling her daughter, “It was so sweet of you to share, honey.”
Two glasses of soda, three glasses of ice water, and two visits to the bathroom later, my face was still writhing from the spicy curry.
“Mom, why is he all red still?” Wind Sprint asked during dessert.
“Well, I think he’s still recovering from the curry you shared with him,” Clear Sky said, chuckling. “Not everypony can take spicy food like you can, honey.”
“Oh. He should order a mango lassi. That helps with the spice.”
“Oh. Wind Sprint says you should try ordering a mango lassi.”
It did help soothe the spice. Very much so. Even if she needed Clear Sky to be her “interpreter”…I appreciated that little act of kindness.
Wind Sprint: “See You Later, Quibble Pants”
I train in the morning on weekends, when I don’t have school. By myself. I have practice with my buckball team three times a week, but it’s not nearly enough if I want to get really good. Mom doesn’t train with me. Mom sleeps in really late on weekends. She sleeps in even later when Quibble Pants comes to stay over.
Waking up too late isn’t good for your health. You can get a lot more training done if you just wake up earlier. That’s what I do. That’s how I’ve gotten so good at flying and catching.
After I wake up, I practice buckball catching in my room. Then I go out to the field behind our house to do flying practice. I fly laps sometimes, but I mostly do agility training. It’s much more relevant for playing buckball. There’s many pegasi my age in the neighborhood, but I don’t like to fly with them. They’re all jerks that like to boast that they’re good, and then when they realize they’re way slower than I am, they still try to insist to me that they’re good.
So I train by myself. You know, you have to be really tough to train all by yourself. That’s why I’m tough. When you’re really tough, you don’t have to have to friends. You can still have friends if you want, but you don’t have to have them.
One morning when I finished my training, I saw Quibble Pants was already awake.
“Morning, Wind Sprint,” he said.
“Morning,” I said. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s still sleeping,” he said “Geez, it’s already 10 o’clock. She’s a bit of lazy bum sometimes, isn’t she?” That is so true. It was kind of funny. I laughed.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I train by myself in the morning,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. Quibble Pants asked me how my training went. I told him that I caught fifty buckballs in a row with the buckball machine. He asked me if that was considered good. Which was really funny because he can’t even catch one buckball! He also thought it was funny so we both laughed.
“You seem to like training by yourself a lot,” he said. “And you’re so diligent about it too.”
“That’s because I’m a tough filly,” I said. “Mom said so.”
“Yes you are,” he said. He smiled.
“I’m going to go wash up,” I said.
“Okay then.”
“See you later…Quibble Pants,” I said to him.
Quibble Pants: “Go Away”
I suggested to Wind Sprint one morning that we go take a walk in the park to get some fresh air. She insisted on wearing on her neck her buckball tournament medal, which she won at the game the night before. During that game, she set a junior league record for most number of successful buckball catches in her career.
As a sportspony, she was obviously bored to death by a quiet little “walk,” so when she saw some foals her age playing, she flew off to where they were, on the other side of the park. I, of course, couldn’t keep up with her. By the time I had reached the field, it was too late.
Apparently she was being teased by some of schoolmates about the medal. I could see they were taunting her. I couldn’t hear anything, and by the time I trotted as I fast as I could to stop the fight, it was really too late. I saw her prized buckball medal bring snatched away from her. I saw one of the foals take the medal and throw into a pond. Splash! I heard.
Wind Sprint blamed me at first. She yelled at me. “It was your idea to come here! If I hadn’t come here to do your stupid walk, I wouldn’t have lost my buckball-catching-record medal! It’s all your fault!”
At first I tried to be diplomatic about it, telling her it would be okay, and it’s just a medal, and that it didn’t define her self-worth, but after arguing a while…I snapped.
“Look, Wind Sprint! You’re angry because you lost your medal! I know you feel sad about it, but you have NO RIGHT to vent out your frustrations at me! IS THAT CLEAR!?”
Wind Sprint became silent. Her eyes started to tear up. That was the first time I’d ever yelled at Wind Sprint. I’d never heard Clear Sky shout at Wind Sprint before. I wondered if she would have done the same given the situation.
Wind Sprint started sobbing uncontrollably. I’d never seen her sob so much. Or at all, actually. It was so…unlike her. I tried to tell her sorry. Over and over again. She covered her eyes with her hooves and muttered, “Go away.” Over and over again.
I couldn’t bear to see her cry anymore. So I did go away. After I swallowed a lump, I dove into the lake to find her medal. I never thought I could swim—I don’t think I was actually swimming. Actually, the water was barely flank deep. Whatever. But it was just as hard as swimming. However hard…swimming is supposed to be.
I managed to retrieve the medal. Wind Sprint stared at me, wide-eyed and mouth agape. The medal was a little muddy, but Wind Sprint was very happy. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!”
“Your Mom has the cleaning solution at home,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’m just glad you got it back!” She hugged me. She actually hugged me. I tousled her mane with my hoof, trying to copy what Clear Sky did. She giggled. Hesitantly. But she did giggle.
I wasn’t done yet. I didn’t feel like it, at least. Anypony could have saved Wind Sprint’s medal from the lake. But there was something only I could do.
I found those foals who had bullied Wind Sprint. Their parents were also there. “Your foals stole my Wind Sprint’s buckball medal,” I told the parents. “She loves buckball. That medal meant a lot to her, and I’m shocked at how insensitive and disrespectful your children were to her.”
“You heard that stallion,” one of the parents said to their son. “Apologize to Wind Sprint.”
“I’m sorry, Wind Sprint,” I heard the foals say to her. “I’m sorry, Wind Sprint’s dad,” they said, looking at me. Wind Sprint was also a little shocked. It didn’t seem exactly an appropriate time to correct them…so they went home, thinking that I was her father and she my daughter.
Wind Sprint: “What I Don’t Like About Dad”
Quibble saved my medal. My buckball-catching-record medal. I’ve caught the most buckballs of anypony under age 13, and I’m only 10. The pony I beat had 135 catches, and he played buckball for 3 years. I’ve only played buckball for 1 year, and I beat his record.
Quibble actually went into the really dirty lake in the park to save my medal. It was really funny because he pretended to swim even though he didn’t have to swim. The water was only up to his flank. I was crying before, but when I saw Quibble like that I laughed, and so I didn’t cry as much.
Dad would never have saved my medal from a dirty lake. He would’ve told me to just be tough, move on with my life, and that there’s always going to be bad guys that don’t like you. Or some bull like that. And then we’d go home and after I washed up he’d tell me one of his totally unrelated bedtime stories. That’s what happened that time my first place Equestria Junior Pegasus Race trophy got stolen, anyways.
That’s one thing that I don’t like about Dad. There are things that I don’t like about him, even though he’s dead and I’m not supposed to speak bad about the dead.
Quibble Pants: “A ‘Dad’ Moment”
Wind Sprint didn’t say anything after they left. She and I just took a quiet walk along the cobblestone park trail. This time round, she didn’t seem to mind. We sat down on a park bench in the shade of a tree. She rubbed the dirt off her medal with her hoof. She smiled at her reflection in the medal. She looked up.
That was when she said to me, “Thanks, Dad.” Eye contact and everything.
I was taken aback by that one word. “Dad.” I guess that was a sort of “Dad” moment for me. But was I her Dad? Did I deserve that title? Or perhaps, was it even up to me to decide the answer to that question? Thinking about all that, I must’ve frozen up into a shocked expression. Which is totally the wrong way to look when your stepdaughter calls you “Dad” for the very first time.
Trying to be modest, I quickly replied, “You don’t have to call me Dad if you don’t want to, Wind Sprint. I mean, I don’t want you to feel obligated or something. You can just call me Quibble.”
“I want to call you Dad,” she said, placing her medal aside.
“You do?” I asked her. Eye contact and everything.
“Just for today,” she said. “And maybe tomorrow. And maybe the day after that.” She smiled at me.
“Just for today’s enough for me,” I said, tousling her mane again with my hoof.
Author's Note
END. 
As always, thanks for reading! Your feedback is appreciated! Until next time...
