The Long And Short Of It

‘Tonight’s the night!’

It was Anonymous the unicorn’s first house party in... well, years, really. That had him pretty psyched! Neither Pike nor Cut knew this, but back in the day, Anon’s parties used to draw quite the crowds. Back when all that was needed for fun was a good old-fashioned Halo 3 LAN party.

Ah Fat Kid Escape, those were the days.

Unfortunately, finding things for tonight’s guests required a bit more effort. There wasn’t really a unifying thread between the planned guests, but that didn’t mean the tried and true pastimes shouldn’t work! With some food, plenty of drinks, and Pike and Cut’s combined party game selection, they should have more than enough to keep everyone entertained!

And the food is what Anonymous found himself preparing. Pike had seemed a little on edge, so the stallion took it upon himself to prepare the foodstuff for tonight. He hadn’t meant for it to be anything crazy: just some classic party snack things. Honestly, he had hoped to just buy most of it ready-made from the store, only to realize he’d forgotten just how much ponies prefer to cook things themselves.

They’d invented the TV but not the dang TV dinner, apparently!

If someone wanted ‘pretzel bites and beer cheese,’ they either had to clean out a bakery or buy the dough and cook the bites themselves!

At least a new Kirin shop was selling beer cheese by the block — one of which was presently melting in a pot that the green unicorn had on a back burner while the pretzels baked in the oven. He also had some veggies from Pike’s garden that the stallion planned to make salsa out of on the counter. Annnnd the ingredients for buffalo dip waiting in the refrigerator (which he should really have already started by now).

Maybe he’d overdone it, just a tad.

‘Oh shit and I totally forgot about that block of nacho cheese! Fuuuuck, I meant to put that on at the same time as the beer cheese! Damn it!’

Yanking open a cabinet, he sent a mystic hand in to find a suitable pot.

‘Hmm, not that one, too small... that one feels like a skillet…’

“OoooooOOOOOOooooOOOoooo~!”

Anon stubbornly kept his attention focused on the stove, despite the voice from the couch’s best efforts to pull him away.

“I cast a spell of... uh, Anon coming over to the cooo~ooouch!”

Anon tried his damndest to hold in the laughter. The mares hadn’t quite gotten to him yet, but they were getting close.

“Didn’t your Mom ever tell you? Never distract a stallion when he’s in the kitchen!”

Now that got him. Anon barked out a laugh before abandoning his quest for a pot and turned toward the couch. The two mares had draped themselves over the back of the couch to watch him while he worked.

Cut was still wearing the outfit he’d gotten for her from Silken’s, apparently.

The moment Anon and Cut had walked in, Silken was off like a lightning bolt, claiming she knew exactly why they were there and that she had the perfect thing for it. It turns out that thing was a lovely, dark blue sorceress robe, complete with gold trim. A gold trim that if one looked at hard enough, they’d notice it primarily consisted of dicks cumming magic sparkles and swirls.

Anon gave the girls a wry look, particularly towards Pike. “Did your Mom actually tell you that?”

‘Hold on, if I’ve been facing away from them, does that mean they’ve just been watching my flanks and sack this whole time?’

“Well, yeah,” Pike replies, oblivious to Anon’s train of thought. “Yours did too, right, Cut?”

“Once or twice,” Cut says from beneath the robe’s hood. “Dad always made a big stink when she did, though.” The moment for whatever she had planned had clearly passed, and she followed up by pulling the hood off her head. It must've been enchanted because while that hood was up, all Anon could see of her face was her golden mane spilling out the front, which she left down to compliment her sorceress look. It looks good on her, especially when he can actually see her whole head. It was longer than he’d thought; it came down nearly midway down her shoulders. She must really pack it into that bun!

“Surely your Mom said it once too, Anon.”

Like a true nerd, Cut adjusted her glasses before correcting Pike. “No, it would have been your... Dad, right?”

The idea made the stallion snicker. He could tell by the little pause that Cut was struggling to even picture it. The best part is, she probably would’ve been right — if Anon had been born a few decades earlier, that is!

“I can honestly say neither of my parents ever said that.”

Having discussed his parents with them before, neither of them looked particularly surprised. Hell, Pike easily looked ten times more shocked at Cut’s answer than his.

“I guess it was just Mom being weird,” Pike mutters under her breath.

‘Hm, I’ve heard Pike defend stranger things when they’ve come from her Mom. Odd that she’d give up so easily for this one. I wonder, what’s changed?’

Before Anon can dwell on it any longer though, a pop from the stove pulls him back to it.

‘I need to keep stirring the cheese, dang it!’

Seeing him retreat back to the kitchen makes both Cut and Pike sigh. “Come on, Anon,” Cut whines, “come hang out with us!”

Deciding to use his eyes this time, Anon peeked into the cabinet he’d left open to try and find that pot.

‘Oh it was right there in the front, imagine that.’

“No dice! I said I would have everything ready and I’m doin' it!” With that, he pulled the cheese out of the fridge and put it on a cutting board. It’d melt faster if he chopped it up, after all.

“Besides, waiting for people to show is always the worst part.”

He gave the beer cheese a couple of hard stirs to keep it from bubbling again.

“You’re just sitting there, waiting. Then you start wondering, what if no one shows up? Does anyone actually want to come?"

Grabbing a second spoon, he started doing the same to the nacho cheese.

"Did everyone just lie about coming so you wouldn't feel bad? And once you hit that point, it's just downhill ‘til somebody shows.”

By chance, he caught a glimpse of Pike and Cut through the reflection on the pot. It's pretty distorted, obviously; so distorted that they look comically concerned!

“Anon…” Pike speaks hesitantly, “Is there something you want to talk about?"

There was a sudden, pronounced ding-dong, and Anon let out a breath he hadn't realized was bated at the sound of the doorbell.

‘Looks like the first guest has arrived!’

Nocturnal Pike was surrounded by ponies important to her.

And also Silken.

Anon’s little get-together had truly begun, and so far, things were going decently well. Silken was the first to show, and right on time, too. Pike was surprised she’d beaten Night, but then again, Night wasn’t far behind at all.

Unfortunately, the two of them showing up so fast only served to highlight the present issue:

It'd been nearly forty-five minutes, and still no Astral.

‘Dang nab it!’

Pike was tempted to cross her hooves and grumble. This whole event is happening at her behest, and Astral can’t even be bothered to show up on time!? Sure, she’s never been the most punctual, but this is ridiculous!

Thankfully the lack of the de facto guest of honor didn’t seem like it was bothering Anonymous too much. Which is extra surprising, considering how anxious he was earlier. In stark contrast, he seemed completely content, with only the occasional glance back toward the stove to show there was anything on his mind.

It helped that Cut (who thankfully ditched her robe in a hurry) and Pike were on either side of him to pin him down if need be. In the meantime, he was yammering away about something to Silken, who’d set a cushion on the other side of the coffee table.

Night was next to her, and her bewildered expression reminded Pike of just how little time she'd spent around Anonymous. In sharp contrast to how Pike knew Astral would act, the violet Thestral hadn’t quite shaken off the chain of command business. Even as she listened to Pike’s coltfriend yammer on about his nonsense, she was keeping her posture perfect and her attention focused. Which was why Pike and Astral were frequently very insistent that she come out more: while her serious demeanor was her greatest asset, it’s also a bit of a weakness.

“You guys don’t know how good you have it. I mean, all you need is a cushion on the ground. Back home, we’d be shoving a chair into every nook just so everyone had a place to sit!”

Pike loved Anon, she really did, and she was happy that he was so much more comfortable talking about his home, but sometimes he forgot that a lot of what he said sounded like complete nonsense to the average pony.

Like Night Sky, for instance.

Silken may not know that his people actually sat upright, but she’s at least seen the nastiest of his culture shock. Nothing he said could probably surprise her at this point. Night Sky, however, looked like she was slowly losing her mind trying to follow what he’s saying. Pike could have given her some fake context, like ‘Oh, there were a lot of Diamond Dogs in A-mare-ica and they need to sit upright,’ but it was much funnier to leave her in the dark.

“Oh, that reminds me! There was this one party back in college…”

Pike hopped off the couch and onto the carpet, wordlessly excusing herself. She could tell where this story was going; it's the one where Anon’s friend managed to drunkenly stumble through and break ten consecutive chairs in one fall. It's a funny story, but she didn’t really need to hear it again.

Tramping across the soft carpet, Pike made for the window in what was, admittedly, a probably futile effort. She could tell from the couch there wasn’t a cloud in the night sky, so if Astral was nearby, she might be able to see the mare from the window.

She probably wasn’t, but hey, no harm in trying

After a peppy trot over toward the window, Pike gazed out over Canterlot’s nighttime skyline. Most of the buildings were still lit up, and their silhouettes created quite a picturesque contrast against the sky.

...and the pony flying towards her window?

Sure enough, even after a second look, that off-color splotch standing out against the skyline was very much a pony. A pony whose flight vector seemed like it was headed directly for Pike’s window.

Pouring all of her natural magic into her eyes, Nocturnal Pike focused on the approaching shape.

‘And iiiiiiiits... just Astral.’

She supposed that should have been obvious.

‘Why on Hearth isn't she just coming in the door?’

Unlatching the window, Pike took a step back so Astral would have a place to land.

A step that clued Pike in to just how much she’d been tensing her back legs.

‘It seems my subconscious was prepping me for the old point-blank take-off and intercept; good on it!’

That would have been just the thing to do if it really was some crazy pony careening right toward her window. Instead of letting them plow through the window and into everypony, Pike could have easily knocked them off course and saved the day!

‘Ooh, I kinda wish that would happen now…’

Well, honestly it could still happen, if the reason Astral was heading for the window was she’s already drunk.

She’d done it before.

Last time, she didn’t even give Pike a chance to open it; she just blew straight through. Pike’s landlady reinforced the glass after that one. And charged her for it. With that thought in mind, Pike decided not to take any chance of that happening again, and just preemptively popped the window open. The brief cold was worth not having to pay for a new window, — or even worse, dealing with Astral just bouncing off and tumbling to the streets below.

Even with the heat on blast Pike still had to suppress a shiver as a chill rushed in. Of course Celestia would move the capital to the top of a mountain as soon as the REAL Princess was out of the picture. She knew how well the Thestrals did with cold; she was trying to keep Pike’s tribe out!

"Hey, honey," Anon called from the couch, "why'd you open the window? You'll let all the heat out."

‘Tsk, of course, the first pony to complain would be the only one with natural cold resistance.’

‘Stallions.’

Before Pike had a chance to explain though, Astral was already zipping through the open window, whipping right past her. Astral hit the floor hard; Pike could feel it from where she was standing. Astral immediately transitioned into one of the shortstop rolls the unit had practiced countless times. It barely let her shed enough momentum to avoid slamming into the coffee table, but she managed to stop just short of it.

She must have sped up when she saw Pike open the window; she closed that distance fast. Considering how close her head came to that table, a little too fast, Pike reckoned.

Not unexpectedly, the ponies still gathered around the table were left rather speechless as the mare stumbled to her hooves. Well, except Night, who just rolled her eyes.

“Astral,” she asked, “What the buck was that?”

If her barely stumbling to her hooves hadn’t already clued Pike in, Astral’s slurring would have:

She was already drunk.

‘Guess it's a testament to my training regimen that she was able to pull a move like that while barely in control of herself enough to stand.’

“Oof, s-sorry but if I had to fly in th-hic-those winds for another minute I think my dang TEATS would have fallen off!”

Anon, who was watching the whole display from the couch, leaned forward a bit and asked, “So why didn’t you just walk?”

Silken shifted her eyes between him and Astral before laughing. “You know, if you really wanted to impress him I don’t think that’s the way to do it,” she said.

“It's not THAT,” Astral shouted back. “I had to lose my tail!”

They all looked between each other around Astral, various forms of confusion on each of their faces.

“Well uh, mission failed,” Anon snarked, “it’s still on your butt.”

“No that kind of tail!” she slurred back, “somepony was following me!”

That seemed... highly unlikely to Pike. But drunk or not, Astral probably wouldn’t imagine something like that.

Night ended up being the one to ask first. ”Why would somepony be following you?”

The sound of knocking on the door brought everything to a sudden halt.

Pike and everypony else held their breath as their heads all slowly turned toward the door.

*Knock*

*Knock*

Anonymous the unicorn just didn’t know what went wrong.

He and Cut were busy cowering behind the kitchen table. Well, cowering symbolically, at least.

The mystery of Astral’s tail would, sadly, in all likelihood never be solved. Because to figure out who it was, he would’ve had to ask every one of the dozen or so ponies who had been standing outside that door. And were now milling about the house, drinking and laughing.

It went from a casual get-together to a real party so fast he was hardly able to react. Thankfully, he was pretty sure none of these ponies were total strangers. Pike recognized more than half of them from her squad, and named most of them as they walked in. Some of them Anon recognized, like Blueblood’s fillyfriend Rook and Cut’s sister Cloak. Others, he didn’t, like Mulberry Pie. Astral even called out to one of them too — some pegasus he believed was from the Dayguard.

‘Wait, are those some mares from the office by the window?’

‘What the fuck!?’

‘How did any of these ponies get here? Did they all just stalk Astral?’

‘No, that doesn’t make sense...’

Of course, poor, socially anxious Cut was handling all this the best she could. She was putting on a brave face, but Anon could tell on the inside she was freaking out.

Hence why she was back here with him.

Thankfully, whoever told these weirdos to come also told them it was BYOB, so now his kitchen table had more booze on it than he’d ever need. Knowing Cut, and knowing parties, Anon reached out a hand and plucked a bottle off the table.

He was betting she was a cider mare.

Using a telekinetic thumb, he flipped the cap right off as he gently glided it over to her.

‘Ha! Couldn’t have done that if they were still meat hands.’

Catching sight of the drink, she looked at him, wide-eyed like a puppy.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Anon said, pressing the cider into her chest. “Just go with the flow and let the conversations take you.”

She wordlessly nodded her head before grabbing the cider with a hoof and taking a shaky swig. Anon wished he could do that himself, but as the host, it was his job to stay (mostly) sober and make sure everyone had a good time.

And make sure these fucks don’t steal anything.