The Long And Short Of It

A worrisome 24 hours later, and Nocturnal Pike was making her way downtown. Specifically, toward the Canterlot Canterer’s office. She’d told Jargon she’d be there, and Pike certainly didn’t want the newsmare making good on her threat of taking her bogus story to Celestia. So there she was, walking down the street with Anon and Cut to her right. Anon was standing in the middle of course; the stallion should be protected from as many sides as possible, after all.

“So Jargon basically blackmailed you into coming?” he asked.

Pike sighed, still annoyed that this even happened. “That’s the short version.”

Cut nervously tittered. “I’m really sorry... again.”

Pike shook her head. “It's not your fault you're related to a weirdo.”

The office soon came into sight, and it looked strangely... dark. All the windows were closed and the lights were off.

‘I don’t like this.’

Looking to Cut and Anon, it seemed they both noticed it too. Coming to a stop, Anon looked over the office and frowned. “Well that’s not right. Are we early?”

Cut briefly checked the sun’s position. For some reason, Jargon had told them to specifically come at one. “No. If anything, we're late. Oh Celestia WE’RE LATE!”

She broke into a gallop, intending to rush the building. But after a handful of steps, Anon grabbed the earth pony by the tail, stopping her in her tracks as her tail was pulled taut. A small blush broke out on her face, but Anon didn’t seem to notice. “Hold on, Cut, something’s up. We should go in at the same time.”

Cut coughed into her hoof, hoping to disguise the blush, as the other two ponies stepped up side by side with her. “R-right.”

With a wry grin, Anon looked down at Pike. “What do you think, is Jargon trying to assassinate us?”

The batpony sniggered. “Anon, don't be ridiculous.” Leaning in, she started to whisper in his ear. “My bet is...”

Cut N. Paste, along with Anon and Pike, were standing at the top of the stairs, at the door to the office floor. The other three floors were dark and empty, so whatever was going on was on the other side of that door. Steeling her nerves, Cut put a hoof on the bar and pushed the door open, allowing the three of them to walk inside. It was dark on this floor too; she couldn't see anything.

“Pike, you got night vision, what do you see?” asked Anon.

She just chuckled. “Called it.”

All at once, Cut found herself blinded as the lights came on, and deafened by a large group of ponies shouting, “SURPRISE!”

Cut’s heart jumped into her throat. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the office had been cleared and turned into the setting for a surprise party. A party whose attendance consisted of most of Cut’s family: her parents, their herd, a lot of her siblings, aunt Jargon, and even some of aunt Jargon’s herd. All of them were gathered to celebrate one thing, and they’d made a custom banner to proclaim it to the world.

‘Oh Celestia NO! THEY DIDN’T!’

‘Congratulations Cut on not being lesbo!’

Cut felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

‘I gotta get Anon and Pike out of here before my family makes a fool out of me!’

But it was much too late; before she could even shout a warning, her dad had her wrapped up in a tight hug. As he squeezed her, he gave the mare a big kiss on the cheek and... ‘are those tears in his eyes?’

“Oooooooh! Look at my little Cookie-cutter, all grown up!” he wept.

Desperately wriggling, Cut managed to pry herself out of his grip. “D-dad, I’ve had my cutie mark for years!”

Suddenly she was slapped on the back. “Yeah, but that doesn’t matter half as much as what we’re here to celebrate today!” came the gravelly voice of her mother.

The other gathered ponies cheered in agreement.

‘Oh Celestia, strike me dead…’

Her dad was full on bawling as he threw his forehooves around her again. “Oooo-hooo-hooo to think my little filly has finally found love after all this time!”

“D-dad please!” Cut desperately looked to Anon, praying he and Pike weren't laughing too hard.

Surprisingly... they weren’t. Sure, they both occasionally chuckled, but their grins were far from mocking. In fact, Anon’s smile almost looked sad.

‘Oh Celestia now mom’s looking at him too.’

“So you must be the lucky stud!”

Anon walked over to her, offering his hoof. “That I am.”

As he got closer to her, she seemed taken aback by how tall he was up close. Though, to be fair, Cut was too. Running her gaze from his head to his hooves, she met his hoofbump. “Well you’re quite the big fella, aren’t you?”

‘Oh no.’

Anon’s smile turned evil in a very familiar way. “It’s funny you say that, cuz that’s exactly what Cut said last night!”

A beat of silence passed through the whole room as the collected ponies processed what Anon had just said. Then, two ponies broke out into laughter: Anon and mom. Okay, Pike chuckled a little bit too, but she was rolling her eyes, so it doesn’t count.

“And he’s funny!” shouted Cut’s mom in between bouts of laughter. The other gathered ponies, including her dad, all let out several variations of “ehhhh” and pointedly chose not to look at the duo.

After that, the party entered full swing.

Ponies were mixing, mingling, catching up, and generally no longer focusing on Cut N. Paste, thank Celestia. After making all the necessary introductions, Pike of all ponies ended up chatting with Cut’s dad, leaving the earth pony and Anon with her mother, Suck N. Buck.

This, unfortunately, had emboldened her to change tack to even racier topics. “So, was your first teat smothering everything I told you it would be?”

Looking away from her, Cut hoped it hid her grimace—and her blush.

‘Come on, mom! Sure not everypony is listening, but you’re still in public!’

“It was certainly everything I could have ever wanted!” Anon boasted.

Her mom guffawed for the upteeth time. “You may pick ‘em late, foal, but when you do you really knock him out of the park!” As if that comment wasn’t bad enough, she leaned into Cut’s ear to continue. “You know he’s here for the long run too. When a stallion built like that lets you rest your teats on his face, you know he likes it.”

‘Oh please mom for the love of Celestia!’

“So I gotta know, did practicing on that pillow with the stallion on it help?”

Every silent second after Suck said it, Cut's face drifted further and further into abject horror.

‘AHHHHHH! She promised she’d never bring it up again!’

Anon turned to face her, with a distinctly inequine look on his face. It reminded Cut of a predator going in for the kill. “What’s this about a pillow with a stallion on it?”

Anonymous smelled blood in the water!

Well not really. Sure, it sounded bad. After all, the first thing he’d always think of when he heard ‘pillow with a stallion on it’ would be an anime body pillow, and Cut knew that. There was no way that’s what it actually was, though. No parent would ever just casually mention their child’s anime body pillow.

Cut’s mom, however, seemed keen on testing that theory. “So when Cut was younger she used to read these... oh Celestia what were they? Mangos?”

‘Oh my God.’

“M-manga, mom.”

“That’s it! Manga!”

‘OH MY GOD!’

“Cut,” Anon interrupted before Suck could continue, “did you have an anime body pillow?”

At the phrase ‘anime body pillow’ she turned as white as a sheet.

‘...’

‘HOLY SHIT SHE TOTALLY DID!’

Anon was trying not to laugh, he really was, but it was a battle he was rapidly losing.

“Oh you’ve heard of them? Ha! No wonder Cut went for you.”

The stallion was grinning ear to ear. Cut was the kind of mare that would own a dakimakura. And speaking of, she looked like she was about to die of embarrassment. Her face was as red as a tomato, and she was doing that cute thing where she hid her face in her hooves.

‘Awwwwwww.’

Alright, it was time to loosen the noose a little bit; he didn’t want her feeling insecure about this for the rest of the day. Giving her a little side elbow in the ribs, he gave her a smile that was more earnest.

“Sooooo, who’s your husbando?”

Cut blinked in apparent surprise, but then her mood seemed to lift instantly as she beamed a bright, if awkward smile. It appears that in the horror of being outed as owning a body pillow, she had forgotten an important fact—a fact she was reminded about by his proper use of ‘husbando’: The fact that Anon, deep down, was also a massive nerd who watched anime.

Cut was hesitant to answer, blushing a completely different way as she averted her eyes. Which he understood. It would be strangely intimate, and awkward, to share his anime waifu with a real life significant other. But eventually, she worked up the nerve to answer.

“Tatsu from Way of the Househusband.” Undoubtedly, his expression reflected how owlish he felt. Cut continued with a bit of a jab. “Although you probably know it as something stupid, knowing how your home treats media.”

Anon was quiet for a moment. “It's about a Yakuza boss that gives up his power to become a househusband, right?”

Cut was stunned. “Y-you’ve seen it? Do you... like it?”

Based on her reaction, it sounded like he really had seen it.

‘Why on earth is that something that’s remained constant!?’

Still, he couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, it’s funny.”

Cut practically exploded in joy. “It's so cool isn’t it!? Tatsu using his bad-flank skills! And he’s so handsome! I just want to scoop him up and tell him his troubles are over and he can be my house husband t—” Her gushing abruptly cut off, likely because she realized she was gushing about a manga character to her mom and coltfriend. “Ahem, yes. I like the series a lot.”

Suck, with an amused look on her face, chose then to speak up. “Hehe yeah she does! There’s an imports shop a few blocks from our place in Las Pegasus, Cut used to go there every first of the month to buy the new volume and anything related to it they had in stock. So many posters...”

‘Ah, that explains how she’s mainlined so much anime without the internet.’

“And one day I’m going there because I want to get a little something for her birthday, and what do I see? The colt she had so many posters of, on a pony sized pillow! I knew I had to get it the moment I saw it!”

It was at that moment something occurred to him. Did Suck not understand what kind of people own dakimakuras? What people think of people who own dakimakuras?

“Figured if she loved this colt so much, she’d appreciate being able to practice snuggling and smothering him, but noooooooooo! If she had had her way, the most this filly would have ever done to that pillow was sleep next to it ‘respectfully.’”

‘Haha what!?’

‘WHAT?’

Looking to Cut, Anon expected to see an embarrassed look that would confirm Suck’s statement, but instead she looked inflamed! “Because Tatsu is a PURE husbando who’s smile needs to be PROTECTED! You wanted me to shove my teats in his face like he was a common hussy!”

‘No FUCKIN WAY!’

‘She didn’t even fuck the pillow!?’

‘That’s-!’

...Actually, he wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

Suck just rolled her eyes; clearly this was a conversation they’d had before. “You needed the practice. Practice that paid off, eh?” she asked as she elbowed Cut in the ribs. An action that made Cut cross her hooves and start grumbling.

‘Wait, is she saying practicing on a pillow actually helped? How?’

While Cut continued to grumble, Suck leaned in and whispered to him. “I tell ya, the only way I got her to put her teats on that pillow’s face was by threatening to put my teats on it if she didn’t! She was not happy.”

But Suck didn’t whisper it quietly enough, because the fire was immediately put back in Cut’s eyes. “MOM!”

Her mother just cackled. “She still isn’t! Ehehehehe!”

Meanwhile, just a few feet over, by sheer chance, Nocturnal Pike found herself talking to Cut’s dad instead of her mom. Barely had left her a little star struck, honestly. The stallion was a movie star and he looked it. Despite being practically the same age as her dad, he didn’t look nearly that old! His emerald coat was luminescent and she couldn’t see a hint of grey in his seafoam green mane. His face was also free of the wrinkles that marred Suck’s visage.

It made her wonder how he ended up with a mare that looked like her.

And if what some mares say about certain unicorns was true, he’d still be looking like this for a while.

‘Oooooh, maybe Anon got that same gene and he’ll look 25 forever!’

Pike certainly wouldn’t complain. Hubba hubba.

“So Cut still can’t cook?” he asked, pulling her back out of her head.

“No way, not unless it's ramen.”

Barely shook his head, tutting all the while. “I told that filly that if she wanted to get a stallion she needed to learn how to take care of herself!” He sighed. “Oh well. At least it seems to be working out.”

Pike shrugged. “I can handle most of that stuff anyway.”

Her statement visibly surprised the stallion. “Really? I’d have thought a macho guard mare like yourself would have thought such things unmarely.”

They were.

Pike started rubbing the back of her neck nervously. ‘Why are you doing that?’

“It’s not a big deal, r-really.”

Barely didn’t start berating her though; he only smiled approvingly. “Good to hear. I’m happy to know my Cut is in the hooves of a good alpha.”

‘W-what?’

‘I just admitted to doing something decidedly unmarely. W-wouldn’t that make me a bad alpha?’

“You’re not disappointed Cut isn’t the alpha?”

Barely chuckled. “Even in her teen fantasies when she was gluing pictures of herself onto her comic posters, she was a beta. So I’m just happy she’s a beta to an alpha who cares.”

‘Aw, that’s sweet, and entirely fitting for Cut.’

‘The mare really was born to be a bet—’

‘Wait, what was that part in the middle?’

“Did you say, ‘gluing pictures of herself onto posters’?”

Barely struck her as being much too blasé about something like that. “Oh you know, just the normal stuff fillies who are into those comics from Neighpon do. That’s how she got her cutie mark, actually. If I hadn’t seen the poster before she edited it, I never would have realized she’d even done anything!”

‘Does Barely not understand how weird that sounds?’

No offense to Cut, but that was kind of bucking weird, and he did not sound like somepony who thought that was weird.

“Isn’t that a little... you know... odd?”

He looked like he’d never even considered the notion. “No? Isn’t that what most ponies do when they really like one of those books?”

‘Oh no, this poor stallion.’

“I’ll admit Suck and I never really... understood it, but she always looked so happy. And I’m sure she’s told you how rough school was on her, so…” He sighed. “We wanted to be supportive.”

It was little wonder Cut ended up so awkward. Her parents who wanted to support her just ended up enabling her. What a shame.

Barely turned a concerned eye to Pike. “It wasn’t that unusual, right?”

She kept her face neutral, but inside, she was screaming. Her options here were either lie, or shatter this stallion’s perception of how good of a parent he was.

‘Definitely think the former is the wiser option here.’

“No, no. I mean, I wasn’t into that stuff, but I’m sure it's fine.”

Barely heaved a sigh of relief. “Good, good. She always looked so nervous whenever we’d bring it up when she came to visit, so I was starting to worry.”

‘Oh Luna, am I going to Tartarus for such a bold faced lie?’

‘...No, that was totally the right call.’

Hoping to move on, Pike opened her mouth to start a new topic of conversation—but before she could start, she was interrupted by the sound of Cut’s voice.

“MOM!”

Followed by laughter, which she assumed was coming from Suck. Glancing over at the pair, it seemed they were having some sort of disagreement. A big one too, considering Cut was actually fired up.

After observing the scene, Barely “tut-tutted” once again. “Come on, let’s go save your coltfriend from ‘trough talk.’”

After Barely had butted in to, as he said ‘rescue’ him, Anonymous decided that it was as good a time as any to excuse himself to take advantage of the refreshments. And that’s where he found himself, looking over the table with a little paper plate floating in his magic.

‘Hmmm, let’s see…’

‘Will rot my teeth out, will rot my teeth out, will rot my teeth out, might rot my teeth out…’

‘Did these MF’s not bring anything savory? Like cheese?’

He began to think he might not get anything. But as he was about to turn away, he heard Pike’s voice echo in his head.

’Anon, you know that if you want to use that much magic, you’ll need more sugar in your diet.’

He frowned. He didn’t like it, but she was right!

‘Alright, looks like it’s a cupcake covered in a solid chocolate shell for me.’

As he took the treat, a familiar voice spoke up from behind him. “Well look at you, Anonymous!”

That was a mare he hadn’t heard in a long time. Turning to face the voice, he saw Tender Care, the social worker Celestia tasked with assisting him when he’d first come here. “Tendies! What are you doing here?”

She chuckled at his use of the nickname he’d given her. “Jargon invited me, wanted me to see your progress first hoof.”

‘Oh! Well how surprisingly thoughtful of Jargon.’

Celestia had asked him to keep the mare updated himself, but with everything that’d been happening he’d been sort of... not doing that.

“And might I say what progress you’ve made! You’ve really come a long way, Anon.”

‘I really have, haven’t I?’

He’d gone from a complete maladjust who spent his time either at home or drinking alone, to an actual, productive member of society! He beamed, just a little, as he gave himself a mental pat on the back.

“You even went and got yourself a herd with two exceptional mares! Ha, I remember way back when you told me you would never have a herd.”

Right... he did say that.

He’d always found the idea of dating more than one person absurd.

‘So how can you live with yourself?’

‘You’re practically leaving Pike in the dust you piece of shi—’

‘...I... I need to talk to Pike about that.’

After Anon had recently realized how much more time he’d be spending with Cut, due to them both working at the same place, his conscience hadn’t been kind to him. He’d tried to find some solution—teleportation, astral projection, cloning—but nothing seemed like it’d work long term.

And what would it mean if he spent so much more time with Cut?

‘Will Pike feel neglected?’

‘Will Cut feel stifled?’

‘Will they both lea—’

Crushing that train of thought before it could ruin this pleasant event, he looked over to the subjects of his anxiety: Pike and Cut. Despite how he thought they should feel about sharing a boyfriend, they both looked so... happy.

‘What would I do without them?’

“Yeah, the two of them are quite something, aren’t they?”

There must have been something about the way he said that, because Tender starts laughing. “I should think, considering they tamed such a wild spirit like you!”

He didn’t really see what was funny about that, but he laughed along. The mare had done, or at least tried to do, so much for him, that he could at least pretend she was funny. But the degree of forced laughter served as a great reminder of why he wasn’t dating just anypony. Mares could say some really weird shit sometimes.

‘‘Taming’ my ‘wild spirit’?’

He’d pass on any mare who said that to him.

Much later on, the party was starting to wind down. Now that the three of them had met and spoken with most of the attendees, Anon, Cut, and Nocturnal Pike were planning on heading out. However, the batpony still had a piece of unfinished business: she wasn’t leaving without talking to Jargon.

At least she wasn’t avoiding her, so finding the newsmare on the outskirts of the party was easy.

As Pike approached her, Jargon smiled, looking much too pleased with herself. “Well Sergeant, am I going to the dungeon?”

Pike frowned.

‘I don’t like this mare.’

“You’re looking much too happy for a pony who just committed a felony.”

Jargon’s smile faltered for a fraction of an instant, just long enough for Pike to catch it. “But was I right? Was this worth your time or what?”

It was, but Pike didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of actually saying it. “Blackmailing a guard is a serious crime, Jargon; don’t do it again.”

Turning away from the mare, expecting that to be the end of it, Pike found herself coming face to face with a furious Barely.

‘Guess he was eavesdropping.’

Stomping past her, he immediately started shouting at Jargon. “YOU DID WHAT!?”

Jargon's smile completely vanished off her face. “Oh, Barely! Well, I had to make sure she came to the party, so—”

“UNBELIEVABLE!” he shouted. “What is wrong with you!?” Spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, he was suddenly facing Pike again, with a completely different mood. “Pike honey, I am SO sorry. Please let me make this up to you later.”

She just dumbly nodded, stunned.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Jargon trying to sneak away—something Barely noticed too, despite the fact he was facing away from her. Whirling back around to face her, he immediately went back to being furious. “And WHERE do you think YOU’RE GOING?”

Jargon stopped in her tracks and shot Pike a pleading look.

A look she wholly ignored as she turned and walked away.