Paddlewave, a seapony, was napping against the tree on the hill just outside Ponyville. He was 12, still being taught by Cheerilee. He was gray, with dark blue and light blue striped in his mane, which was swept over half his face. His fins, when closed, looked just about wings, with no feathers and slightly more round.
“Paddlewave, Paddlewave!” An energetic, happy voice called out.
Paddlewave tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but failed. “Whattaya want, Honey Mane!” He called out, irritated that his friend was interrupting his afternoon nap.
Soon, a bright yellow earth pony with many different shades of yellow in her mane came into his view. “I’m bored, Wave!” She groaned in the tone reserved for despair.
He considered this, but didn’t really care if she was bored or not. “Go bug Fire and Alex.” He said, referencing to their two Pegasus friends, Fire Charge and Alexxandria Colt.
She immediately answered in a sad voice, dragging out the words. “I can’t, they’re both playing up there.” She pointed at the sky, where two shapes could be seen floating.
‘I wonder what they’re doing.’ He thought. He knew Fire Charge was a bit of a jerk, and Alex was very submissive and uncaring. He could only imagine them talking about The Wonderbolts, or something else all Pegasi knew about and every other race could only guess why.
Fire Charge and Alexxandria were just sitting in the sky, but they weren’t really talking. Alex was watching The Wonderbolts practice like she always did, but Fire was annoying her. He was just standing there, laughing, and hitting her in the face. She was totally uncaring, and focused on The Wonderbolts.
But then he did it at a key point in their routine, and she was angry. She grabbed him and started wrestling him down. Soon they were at a deadlock, and only one wing was working on each of them. She started watching the practice session again, sighing.
After ten minutes, Fire Charge got his hoof free, and started doing it again. She groaned in utter and complete annoyance, and she chucked him straight downwards. He was so surprised he never even got his other wing open.
She started watching again. Soon, she heard “Look out down below!” from Fire. She looked down, and saw a tree, two ponies, and a pony heading towards the tree. She started laughing. The loud crashing sound soon after caused her to laugh even harder, gripping her body, and doubling over. She was glad she had finally got him back.
Paddlewave looked back at Honey and said, “Why don’t you go play in the forest?”
“Well, I would, but the nuns at the orphanage said to stop going in there.” She said, with a rueful tone. She looked dreamily at the forest, imagining the adventures she could have. Her life’s dream was to be like Daring Do, her favorite book character.
“Hello, Celestia to Honey Mane. Come in, Honey Mane!” Paddlewave said, making static sounds.
Honey Mane snapped out of it, looking around until she saw Paddlewave. “Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about the last time I went in there, and I met those timber-wolves, and that zebra lady came and saved me by whacking them with her stick,”
“Bow chicka bow wow.” Paddlewave muttered. Honey Mane was still talking, and hadn’t taken a single breath.
“She was like ‘Swish, Swish, Stab. Get way back’ and she was in this robe, and then she put me on her back, and rode me out of the forest, and she said ‘You shouldn’t come in here. It’s really…’ and she stopped talking, and looked really stupid and just left.”
She took a really big breath after that, and Paddlewave prayed to Luna that she would be done and just shut up. She stopped, and he started talking. “So, whattaya wanna do, Honey Mane?”
She thought really hard, and she responded with, “I’ve got an idea, how about you teach me how to play “Left Hoof, Right Hoof, Eyelash”.” He brohoofed Celestia in his mind, and said, trying to hide his excitement, “Sure thing, Honey.”
Next she said, “Oh, but don’t you have to get paper and make charts and stuff…” Her voice getting sadder as she realized she’d have to sit there while he did it.
“No, of course I don’t!” He put his hoof in the hollow of the tree, and pulled out a piece of paper. “I’ve got these stocked all around the town, in case of a LH RH EL emergency.”
She nodded, saying in a completely understanding tone, “I have sweets stocked everywhere, in case of a sugar shortage.” She licked her lips, thinking of all the things she could eat right now, her eyes getting wider as she realized she was all out of Laffy Taffy.
She looked at the paper Wave had pulled out, and saw a triangle made of arrows. On each of the corners, she saw different thing she couldn’t exactly put her hoof on. Paddlewave pointed at the one on the bottom right, and said, “This is the right hoof. When you use it, put your right hoof out like this.” He simply stuck out his hoof. “This smacks left hoof, and is beaten by the eyelash."
He then pointed at what she thought must be the left hoof. “This is obviously the left hoof. You stick out your left hoof to use it. It punches eyelash and is smacked by right hoof.” He then pulled out a whiteboard with three charts on it.
He pointed at eyelash. “This is eyelash, as I’m sure you probably know. You use it by pointing at your eye.” He demonstrated. “It blinks at right hoof, and is punched by left hoof.” He went on to explain each of the symbols in length, using the charts to show how he was right, and other champions in the game were wrong.
Honey Mane wasn’t really paying attention, as she knew the basics now. But soon, she had a question about eyelash. “Paddlewave, how does eyelash blinking at right hoof make it win?”
To answer Paddlewave pointed at the charts. “Haven’t you been listening? Eyelash blinking is really bad luck for the right hoof, and makes bad things happen to it. I hope you listened to everything else, because this is really important to the core game, Honey.” He said all this in the voice of a teacher lecturing his student.
She decided that she would just agree to everything he said. In the middle of the lecture, they heard a loud yell. “Look out below!” They both recognized the voice as Fire Charge, and looked up. Sure enough, he was crashing into the tree. He hit it with a loud Crack! Paddlewave and Honey were both shocked to find Fire Charge halfway through the tree, extending the hollow below him.
Honey Mane recovered first, cracking up as much as Alex was above her. Paddlewave started laughing soon after, barely able to speak. “What’d you do to her this time” He said, pausing between words to laugh even harder than the last time. Fire Charge pouted in the tree for a while, thinking about what he should say.
“I was poking her in the face and laughing, and then she missed a stunt in The Wonderbolts’ routine.” He said at last, still pouting about being in a tree. “Can you help me out?” He asked innocently.
Paddlewave responded with, “Of course,” and went behind him. Paddlewave turned around. “Hey what are you doing back there?!” Fire Charger said nervously. Paddlewave balanced on his forelegs, brought his back hooves in, and snapped them back out in a powerful buck.
Fire Charge snapped out of the tree, and was flying through the air for a while before he started flapping his wings. “I’ll get ya back later, Wave.” He flew back up to Alex, staying a little away from her.
They all started cracking up, even Fire Charge, and the two Pegasi flew down to talk to them. "Honey Mane, I think we're done! We can play now, or wait until we're done talking, if you want."
Honey Mane hugged Paddlewave, who blushed as he hugged her back. "Thanks, Paddlewave. I can't wait to play tomorrow." Paddlewave and Honey Mane were both thinking how happy they were the other couldn't see their blushes.
