“GET HIM!!”

The fillies’ howls were like the hellish screams of a creature right out of Tartarus come to claim my soul and consume whatever I had left behind. My world turned to a hellish landscape scented by the heady musk of sex and my own impending demise as Diamond was the first to make take chase. Naturally, I did the only thing that any sane person would do in such a situation.

I ran.

I fucking ran for my life. Usain Bolt wouldn’t have had a chance against me, not when I’ve got the Hounds of Baskervilles on my tail.

The bushes shook and rocked around me as I hurriedly scuttled through them. l shoved the leaves out of my way as I clamoured for the precious glimpse of sunlight. All the way, I could hear the sounds of angry hoofsteps scuttling just behind me. They were practically nipping on my tail; the occasional grunt and shout reached my ear from not-too far. “Come back here you litt—“

They were cut off as I got out into the open and equally broke into a sprint. Little attention was paid to the flowers and hedges as I dashed over and through them back into the park proper, my safe haven away from the jaws of those chasing beasts.

Luckily, nopony seemed to have noticed a lumbering ape trundle out of the bushes with sticks and twigs messing up his hair and looking white as a ghost—and why should they? I certainly did not look like that. No—n-n-no. No I did not.

My haphazard stumble turned into a steadier walk. I was finally able to loosen the grip on my camera when I heard the hoofsteps fall away behind me, and I breathed a much-needed sigh of relief. My heart was racing and my face felt flush with exertion, but at least I wasn’t dead yet.

I didn’t dare look back to see where they were and risk giving them a better clue at my identity. I’d gotten out alive, and that was enough. I was little scuffed, covered in leaves and twigs, and looking like a crazed person who’d just been mauled in the middle of the apocalypse, but at least I was alive!

My breathing eased and I slowed to a more leisurely walk, taking a slight detour around the play area towards the open fields. I’d seen the teachers there earlier, so there was no way they were going to follow me out here, which meant I was safe.

I reduced my gait to an even slower stroll, glancing to the ground and then the trees around me. The sounds of the foals playing in the distance were about the only constant. They were the jolly giggles and cries of innocence as they repeatedly mounted and rode the swings and jungle gyms behind me.

I heard the rustling of the trees and other ponies’ shouts come into clarity of the beating of my heart and I was finally able to catch my breath, and take stock of my inventory. I turned the Polaroid over in my hands, searching it for any damages.

This thing was a gift from my grandfather, an antique and delicate. It was one of the only things Celestia had allowed me to keep in Equestria—the rest was burned in a ‘totally not revenge for destroying our playground’ bonfire, outside the school—and by Celestia’s swollen flanks, I couldn’t bear living with myself if anything were t—

Wait.

I stopped in my tracks, my blood running cold. I double-checked, then tripled checked. I looked under my shoulder. There weren’t any bags there, but I had to look anyway. I checked my pockets and I patted down my trousers, too. “Wh-Where is the lens cap?”

“Yooohooo...” A faint called crept over the wind, causing a chill to run up my spine. My muscles tensed and my jaw clenched, already recognising the voice as I turned around.

It couldn’t be—I assured myself—There was no way. M-Maybe it was something else, another foal, maybe, or one of the caretakers, a mare, calling to one of her family. Anything but that.

The dread solidified into mortification—and a growing pit in my stomach that sapped all my energy as I laid my eyes on the source of the call.

There they were: Diamond and that stupid ‘Spoon filly. They were just standing right there; just behind the edge of the trees. They were shaded in their cover but I could make out thei9r forms and the glint of their smiles against the darkness. They weren’t so far out that anypony could see what they were doing but you could bet to Celestia that they were making sure I could see them.

But more than anything, my eyes were drawn to what Diamond was holding: She was leaning against one of the trees, the smirk growing into an evil, malevolent grin as she watched the expression of horror that must have been covering my face by now.

She licked her lips and threw her mane back behind her head, giving the lens cap in her hoof a twirl on the end of her hoof—My heart skipped a beat when it looked like she was about to break it, but she didn’t. She gave it a lick, lapping off a little of fluid coating its surface and then went back to teasing me.

She was doing just enough to get under my skin before switching hooves and giving a slight nod to her side.

I frowned. My gaze was drawn next to her almost on autopilot, my mouth dropping slightly, as Spoon whipped her tail over her back to smack her lips open for me to see. She was dripping wet and visibly red, as if she’d been masturbating.

Masturbating with... I remembered Diamond’s actions, and how wet the cap looked, and looking back to Diamond—her nod confirmed my suspicions.

She turned around, still pressing her body to the tree, smacking her lips as she blew my a kiss, and gently rubbed the cap between her folds, slicking it further with my own fluids as they both jeered and chortled their own victory.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the day was spent in fear. I say that sounding all melodramatic, but it was true. There wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t looking over my shoulder. The fillies were far out of earshot, but I still felt like I could hear them in the distance, like they were peering over my shoulder, plotting, biding their time.

I had to get the lens cap back but, of course, but there was no way I was about to go find for those little monsters now. Knowing them, they were probably counting on that. They couldn’t come out and attack me in the open, not with so many other ponies about, so their best choice of action would be to wait for me to come to them.

But still...

I shifted slightly where I was kneeling in the dirt. The ground had grown hard throughout the day. The sun was getting hot and my ankles were beginning to ache. My clothes were sticky from the sweat, despite the light cotton these ponies had provided for me, and I was starting to build up a sweat, due to the hot sun—from the hot sun, I told myself.

I lined the visor up with the clutch of flowers in front of me and snapped another picture.

The familiar, mechanical ker-click of the old mechanism put a smile to my face, and the whirring of the film caused the old Polaroid to tremble between my fingers as I lowered it from my face, looking past the lens to the bundle of flowers. A jasmine-like plant, and several big purple, almost spotty plants had taken up residence in one of the farthest corners of the park.

I couldn’t really understand why nopony came down here, but as soon as I’d spotted them I simply had to get a photo whilst the time was right. I’m sure Fluttershy would love this, even more so than the rosebuds, I thought.

As I was standing, my first instinct was to return the lens cover, but that only put me back into a sour mood as I thought back to earlier and how I’d lost it. It put my nerves back on edge and I couldn’t help but check over my shoulder again, listening for any signs of ponies sneaking up on me.

Of course, there was nothing, just like every other time I’d checked. Just the subtle breeze ran through the trees whilst the distant yells of ponies playing on the swings echoed not far away from here.

All things accepting, this was actually quite peaceful.

The tension left my neck and I allowed myself to relax for a moment. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, letting the cool air blow past me and carry with it all of my worries.
I inhaled.

And exhaled.

“Aaahhh...” A gust wind and the fluttering of the breeze passed above me as the gusts changed. I could hear a pony yelling, but I ignored it for a minute. They sounded far away, not something I had to worry ab—

“Get down!” I was tackled sideways as an orange blur whipped past my head, almost bowling me over into the bushes as it fle4w past. I let out a yelp as I landed, clutching my chest as a mare galloped through the flowers, crushing them beneath hoof.

“Sooorryy, mister!” I heard the faintest squeak pass me as the blur made a second return, this time slow enough for me to make out the she of some limbs and a head. Naturally, I was almost scared right of my skin, and jumped back, falling almost fully into the patch of purple flowers.

“Get down!” I heard the other mare repeat, before pulling me to the ground next to her. We both hunkered close to the ground, me doubled over uncomfortably as I was forced to train my eyes to the sky—scanning for whatever it was that had just buzzed me.

The wind was still gusting all over the place, and the sun caught in my eyes as I tried to trace its path across the sky. Flopping and tumbling chaotically all over the place with the direction of the wind.

“Sorry, man,” she said. A hoof patted my scared form, and I glanced; now properly for the first time, at the mare that had accosted me. She was a blue pegasus, kind of familiar, with a prismatic mane done up into a bun. She was smiling at me, though obviously hiding the hints of a laugh. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, just you’re—

She turned away from me, gesticulating wildly as she screamed into the heavens. “You’re doing great!”—she practically burst my eardrums. “Keep it up!” Her expression turned into some weird mixture of surprise, horror, and frustration as she spread her wings, yelling: “No, no-Keep your back straight! Flap your wings, glide. Now flap your wings! For the love of Celestia, don’t cover your eyes! Look where you—okay, good, now read the air currents!”

“Sorry about that.” She turned back to me.

I took one glance into the sky, and my stomach lurches watching as—I guess it’s a pony?—the pony tumbled backwards through the sky. She dropped several feet before her instructor shouted in my ear again:

“Use your primaries! Angle them west!”—the pony changed shapes and started dropping faster—“West! West!” My ear was ringing at this point, then she said: “Left! Your other left!”

Orange blur suddenly stopped losing altitude. I had to squint, and even then, I couldn’t even see what she was doing differently, but no soon as she had done that did she start picking up altitude again.

It also helped that the wind changed direction.

“Wh-What’s going on?” I finally said.

“I’m teaching her to fly,” she whispered back moments before she pulled us both closer to the ground to avoid another collision with the orange tornado. The blur whipped around us, and then circled back into the sky, narrowly missing some trees on the way. “The wind is good for ponies who need some extra lift, so I dropped her from a few hundred hooves up.”

The filly was trying to catch herself, but was losing altitude fast. I felt myself flinch as she just barely missed the tree line and made a beeline back towards the clearing where we were both standing. I leaned my head close to the pony next to me, everything else forgotten as I asked in a whispering, shaky voice. “A-Are you sure this is safe?”

She gave me this incredulous look, like I’d said something incredibly stupid, and she frowned. “Uuuh... yes? Isn’t that the point?”

“... you just... drop your kids ‘to teach them to fly’?”

She huffed and crossed her hooves, stuck up her nose. “Stop looking at me like it’s a bad thing,” she said.

I stammered, flabbergasted. “B-But—” I gestured to the sky, then to the filly just as she did a back-flip and into another nose dive through a flock of geese. “You... Dropped. Your. Kid.”

She huffed again, and this time I sure she meant it. “First,” she practically spat the word, “She’s not my kid “—

“That makes it even worse!”

— “and second,” she continued, giving me the death stare. “How do you expect her to learn if you don’t take any risks?” She leaned closer, spreading her wings as she raised herself above me—I was sitting, not in the best position to be in an argument with a pony, most definitely not one that might have steel shoes. “Or are you one of those ‘colt coddlers’ who believes in wind tanks?” she hissed.

I fell back onto my haunches then my ass as I retreated away from her slightly, through the—now destroyed—flowers. “I—I don’t even know what that is!” I yelped.

“Good,” she said.

She leered over me a second longer, her gaze unwavering to make sure I was properly intimidated, and then she glanced up to the sky—I followed her gaze, but couldn’t make anything out beside the blue of the sky. Was this going to be the last thing I ever see!? My life flashed before my eyes as she lifted her hooves over me, a smile spreading on her face as she did so.

I flinched when she spoke. “Watch this,” she said, and she was gone in a flash of wind, replaced by a cyan and rainbow-coloured smear as she shot into the sky above me.

Then, moments later, she as the orange blur from earlier collided mid-air and they both came floating back down.

“Wooohooo!” The filly’s screams were the first things I could hear of them approaching. I almost had to roll out of the way as they both landed almost on top of me—the orange filly squirming and hollering in her mentor’s arms. Her wings buzzed and I could tell her fur was caked with sweat as she cheered. “Did you see me, Rainbow Dash!” She was evidently not very perturbed by being in mortal danger. “I was actually flying! I did it!”

“You sure did!” Rainbow chuckled heartily. She gave the filly a little squeeze and a nuzzle as they both hovered back to the ground beside me, just passing eye level long enough for me to properly get a good look at the filly in her arms.

My mouth went dry and a sudden cold feeling came running up my back as I felt goose bumps. “Uuh—“ I heard someone moan before realising it was myself. I backed away, stumbling back to my feet, trembling as I locked eyes with the foal—the orange filly with a scruffy purple mane.

She was missing her helmet—The scooter was probably somewhere nearby. I’d never properly learned her name, but there was no mistaking that raspy course voice—the kind I’d only heard muttering little squeaks and moans as she gently played with herself in the—

I bit my lip.

Keep calm

Author's Note

Rip pacing