Infatuation At First...What WAS That?
Pinkie Pie sat on top of a large statue's pedestal outside Canterlot High, as Flash entreated her.
"For the last time," Pinkie Pie insisted, "I don't want to go out with you."
"But...you have something really special. Something I can only aspire to."
Pinkie shook her head. Then she shook her torso. "Do you mean big boobs? You can't build a healthy relationship on that one thing, Flash. Or two things? Whatever."
"I don't care about your chest!" Flash said. "Haven't you ever even listened to what I've told you?"
"Once you start trying to sound romantic, I listen as little as possible! I'm sure you're a very sweet boy, Flash, but you need to find--"
"I know about the portal in your hair!"
Pinkie blinked. "What?"
"I know you have...something in your hair, where you can hide really big things somehow. I've seen you duck behind a bush in one place, and a second later pop out from someplace else a football field away. I guess lots of people say women are mysterious, and us guys can never understand them. But with you, Pinkie...you make me feel you really ARE a mystery, and in a GOOD way." Flash held out one hand. "There's something magical about you, Pinkie. Maybe I'll never comprehend you, but you make me feel miracles can be real. Not just can be, ARE real."
Pinkie smiled. "Awww! That's sweet!"
"Won't you be my miracle, Pinkie?"
Pinkie pursed her lips. "Would you like to know what would be an even BIGGER miracle?"
Flash's smile vanished. "Are you about to say, if I would go away and stop talking to you like this?"
"No!" Pinkie shook her head. "Well, kind of, but I don't mean it like that. What I mean is, I think I'm a lesbian. Or...anyway, you're not my type, Flash, and there's nothing you can do about that. Even if I tried to explain it to you...I don't want you to waste your time and mess yourself up trying to be someone you're not."
Flash sighed. "So there's no hope for me?"
"I have a LOT of hope for you. But with me, as a boyfriend-girlfriend thing? No. Aren't there other girls who really like you? I think there must be."
"But they're not like YOU, Pinkie."
"If you're looking for magic...what about Trixie?"
Flash laughed. "She isn't real magic, not like you. You have more magic in your little finger than she has in her whole body, and in her hat, and all of her silly props."
Somewhere far away, someone screeched, 'Trrrixie HEARD THAT! And you're a buffoon, Flash Sentry! It's no wonder you can't get a date, if you can't recognize magic when you see it every day!"
Pinkie glanced in the direction the complaint had come from, and giggled. Flash smiled, for a moment.
"But seriously," Pinkie said, "You have to find another girl, Flash. Or accept being alone for a little while. I don't mean ALL alone, because I know you have friends. But I'm not the right girl for you, and you're not the right boy for me."
Flash sniffled, and walked away.
***
About an hour later, the statue's pedestal lit up with an eerie glow. A teenage girl seemed to fly out from nowhere, through solid concrete, and tumbled onto the grass, rolling across the lawn.
Looking out the window while Mister Cranky droned on to the class, Flash Sentry said, "Whoa!"
Cranky asked, "Flash? Is there something you'd like to share with us?"'
"Sorry!" Flash replied. "It's nothing. I mean...I'm sure she just tripped. Please tell us more about how to solve that equation! It's really interesting!"
Out the corner of his eye, Flash tried to watch the strange events on the school's front lawn. The girl was moving very oddly, like someone who was just now learning how to walk normal human style. And was she having a conversation with a dog? Lots of people talk to their dogs, but not many dogs move their lips like they're talking back.
Could it be? Flash wondered. A girl who's really, truly, magic...and maybe, just maybe, might be interested in him?
He had to find out!
As soon as the bell rang for the end of class, Flash gathered up his things and ran out the door into the hall. He ran to his locker, from which he pulled his guides to Fortean phenomena, other unexplained mysteries, and how to tune his sports car's crappy fuel injection (which sometimes seemed like the biggest, hardest to solve mystery of all, but wasn't relevant right now, so he threw it back in his locker.)
Meanwhile, somewhere behind Flash, the weird new girl staggered and tottered across the floor on her two long, spindly human legs. As other students rushed and pushed past her, the brat Diamond Tiara shoved the new girl over onto her back. The girl crawled through the crowd, trying to dodge the rushing creatures' scary alien feet. She rolled out of the crowd and fetched up against a locker next to Flash, who heard the metallic 'bonk.'
He looked down. "Whoa! You ok?" It was HER, the girl who had suddenly, miraculously appeared on the front lawn a few minutes ago! Did she need help getting up? He smiled and extended a hand.
She smiled back, and tentatively touched his palm with her fist.
No boring, regular human being would ever do that! Flash thought. She must be someone very special! In a good way, he hoped.
The girl's fist touched his hand again, and slowly unclenched, her palm cold and gritty against his. She smiled, and blushed. Flash grasped her hand in his, and pulled gently, to help her stand up.
She nodded silently. But she didn't say anything! Maybe, Flash thought, wherever she came from, dogs were the ones who talked, and the humans were silent. Like Planet of the Apes, but with dogs.
No way could he date a girl who was just a dog's pet! That would be weird, and not in the 'hot space alien girl with two navels' kind of way.
He should walk away now. Flash turned away coldly and left.
He knew his own 'type,' and he knew his own weaknesses. He just hoped he hadn't started falling in love with her already.
Author's Note
Inspired by part of a blog post by Aragon, a post which has an emotionally sensitive core hidden by his crude language and "your mom" jokes. (link)
Also, another take on this vitally important question of our world today is Chengar Qordath's "Why Do I Like Horse Women?" (link)
Flashback (But Not Flash Sentry's)
Twilight tumbled out of the portal and across the grass. She felt very strange. Sure, she had weird long hind legs, and weird long forelegs, and weird starfish things instead of hooves. But that wasn't what felt most bizarre...maybe even creepy.
She felt...she didn't know how to say it.
She fell back on her scientific vocabulary. "Spike!?" she said. "I think I've turned into one of those species that are in estrus all the time."
"What?" Spike asked. He was distracted by a ladybug.
"Spike, I think I have weird alien species teenage hormones. Either the timing of my arrival here is very, very unlucky, or I've turned into one of those species that are horny twenty-four seven!"
"Wow," Spike said. "I'm a dog."
Twilight sighed. There were some things Spike wasn't really old enough to understand.
***
Lying on the floor of the building's hallway, Twilight looked up at the natives walking past her. She tried to shield her hands with her head for a moment, and dodged a strange round bouncing thing the size of her head.
When she escaped by crawling out of the crowd, she rolled up against an individual of the local species.
"Whoa!" he said. "Are you ok?"
My hero, Twilight's hormonally overcharged self said silently. Of all these locals, this is the first one who's made a noticeable effort not to step on me. And I think he's making some kind of welcoming gesture. Or is he trying to help me stand up?
Also, my newly alien biology is telling me he's very, very attractive by this body's standards!
Twilight tried to hoofbump him, forming her starfish into a hooflike shape and touching his starfish with hers.
Her starfish gave her a funny tingle, feeling his nothoof. By some instinct, Twilight's nothoof unfolded, the sensitive underside of her starfish directly touching his.
Twilight didn't fully understand it, but she was experiencing the utter sensuousness of hand-holding for the first time. A kind of pleasure for which her own world had no direct equivalent.
She was struck speechless by the way it made her feel.
Should she say something? But "I like touching your starfish! It gives me tingles!" might be misunderstood. She wondered if, with this very intimate form of touch, she had already by local custom agreed to mate with him?
At a loss for words, she nodded. Was nodding a good idea? she asked herself. I hope he just thinks it means I'm ok, and not an answer to some other, more PERSONAL question.
Twilight put her nothooves behind her back, holding them away from the local male. She didn't want him to think she was...TOO much like THAT.
The young local male turned and walked away.
Should I be relieved, Twilight wondered, that our interaction didn't go any farther? Or did I just miss out on the interdimensional sexual opportunity of a lifetime?
Author's Note
I don't remember who I first saw using the word 'starfish,' but I'm very sure I like it.
