The Upside to your Backside
The Upside to Your Backside
Twilight Sparkle was reading up on the history of transformative curses when the door to the library opened. Seated at the table in the centre of the room, she didn’t bother looking up at first. Most of the regulars knew their way around the place, after all, and her fellow book lovers were used to letting her read in peace.
“Umm... Twilight?”
Looking up, she noted her visitor was a grey pegasus colt with a dark grey mane, about ten years old. He had pink eyes and wore a pair of saddlebags a little bit behind his wings.
“Hi, Rumble. What brings you here?”
The greeting went unanswered, save for a distracted sigh. He closed the door, then looked around furtively as he approached her. Rumble looked awfully nervous, upset, even. It occurred to Twilight he was wearing his saddlebags quite far on the flank, rather than the usual spot on a pony’s back.
Is he hiding something?
Rumble gulped when he was sure they were alone. He spoke in a hushed tone, which only added to his nervous appearance.
“I-I’m… do you have any books on cutie marks?”
“Sure.” With a nod and a twinkle of her horn, she gave him an encyclopaedia of cutie marks and their meanings. ”What do you need it for?”
He sat down at the table with Twilight, making the saddlebags slip a little. She caught a glimpse of something on his flank. Something pink.
“Oh, you got your cutie mark! Congratulations!” Twilight clapped her hooves.
If he looked upset before, Rumble looked positively terrified now. He covered up his flank with the saddlebag again and stared at her. His breath quickened, his whole body shook like a leaf, and he looked close to crying.
“Don’t tell anyone, please.”
Twilight shuffled a little closer to him. He calmed down, but he closed his eyes, grimacing in embarrassment.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like your special talent?”
Rumble looked away and sighed. “Not exactly. Turns out I didn’t get a very good one.”
Twilight sat right next to him now. She leaned in a little and put up the best comforting smile she could muster. “You can’t hide it forever, you know. Can I at least have a look?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“I promise I won’t laugh.”
With his eyes closed again, Rumble nodded. Twilight slowly lifted the saddlebag on one end to get a good look at what was causing him so much worry. Her eyes widened at the sight. She covered it up again and shook her head to try and get things straight. “Oh. Oh my. Is that what I think it is?”
Rumble groaned and nodded. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”
Twilight tried to picture it, but the mental scene refused to form. “And how did you get it? On your own?”
“With Scootaloo.”
“Oh. Right, I suppose you would. And did you make the first move or did she?”
“She did. She said she was feeling kinky, and she wanted me to help. She looked really bad, it was bothering her. I said I’d help, and next thing I know I’m bending over her.”
“She let you bend over her? Scootaloo?”
“Yes.”
“And you just went and did whatever felt natural?”
“Not at first. It felt kinda weird, and Scootaloo didn’t enjoy it that much. She wanted me to go harder and faster. I didn’t know if that was normal or not, but I went along with it.”
Twilight considered it for a moment, trying to picture what had transpired. “It is normal, by the way. Not for most girls, but for Scootaloo it would be. But how did you feel about it?”
Rumble bit his lip. “It felt good. It felt really good. I just got into it, I wasn’t even sure of what I was doing. Then Scootaloo started panting, and I must have something really right, because she moaned like she really enjoyed it. Then she went limp under me. She had this silly smile on her face, too. When she got back up, she noticed this thing on my flank. She didn’t laugh, but I’ve been trying to hide it for hours now.”
Twilight grimaced as the picture completed itself. “I’ll admit, it’s not something a boy your age is supposed to get used to so quickly. It could have been worse, though.”
The colt whipped his head around to her, his body shaking again. “How? My talent’s not just useless, it’s-it’s embarrassing!”
Twilight patted him on the back to soothe his nerves. “There, there, it’s not that bad. Lots of ponies would be jealous of your talent.”
“Easy for you to say. What am I supposed to do when I grow up, with this thing on me for everypony to see?” Rumble winced and showed his offending cutie mark again.
“What do you want me to do about it, then?”
“Miss Cheerilee said we could come to you if we ever had trouble, that you’re like our school counsellor. You always help Apple Bloom and her friends, and Snips and Snails listen to you, too. So… please help?”
Twilight shot a glance towards the door. “You’re right, I am supposed to help, and I’m flattered that you trust me with something like this. Tell you what, why don’t we take this upstairs, where no one can see us if they come in. I’ve got some books lying around that might help. I’ve been meaning to get into it myself, actually, but you need it more than I do right now.”
With a resigned nod, he followed her up and lay down on the rug in the middle of Twilight’s bedroom. She hovered the appropriate book over as she lay down next to him, tilting it up so they could see. “Now, why do you feel so ashamed? I know it doesn’t look that impressive at first, but it’s a pretty good talent to have, isn’t it? Why, there are lots of ponies who do it for a living, even right here in Ponyville. Did Scootaloo complain afterwards? Was she sorry she’d asked?”
That elicited a weak smile from the boy.
“Well, no. She was pretty happy about it. She said if she ever felt kinky again, I’d be the first pony she’d talk to.”
“That’s a pretty big deal, you know. Scootaloo doesn’t usually go for that sort of thing, you should feel honoured.”
“I know. It’s just that getting so close to her, bending over her like that… it feels right, but it feels wrong too. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“You’re supposed to find a balance between practising your talent and simple courtesy.”
Rumble sighed in resignation. “What kind of lame talent is 'groping ponies', anyway?”
Twilight suppressed a chuckle and rubbed her forehead with her hoof. She took a deep breath to steady herself, not wanting to slip up and say something inappropriate. “Okay, first of all, a massage is not the same thing as groping. Groping is a rude gesture, and it's not something you should try or tolerate. A massage is gentle, consensual. You only do it when someone asks or if they let you. It also takes skill to do properly, and you should be proud that you can do it at such a young age. Second: I know we say ‘having a kink in our joints’, but ‘having a kink’ and ‘feeling kinky’ are two very, very different things. You really don’t want to mix those two up, trust me.”
“Oh. So what does ‘feeling kinky’ mean, then?”
For the briefest moment, Twilight considered explaining the difference to him. Then she remembered she was talking to a ten-year-old whose parents knew where she lived. “Something a well-mannered boy like you shouldn’t have to worry about. My point is: massaging is a very respectable talent. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Rumble shook his head at the attempted comfort.
“Sure, for a girl, maybe. But I don’t want to make a living touching other ponies. I mean, just thinking about rubbing my hooves over some pony I don’t even know makes me feel… I dunno, dirty."
“Then don’t. Having a talent for massage doesn’t mean you have to make a living out of it. You could try acupuncture; it’s not the same as being a doctor, but it’s been known to work wonders for relaxing stressful ponies. You wouldn’t have to touch anyone. You could just use needles instead.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
Twilight smiled as she saw him cheer up just a little. “Besides, there’s lots of other things you can do besides massaging. You could still be an athlete; knowing how to work your joints and warming up properly can help you get ahead in training. And you could still use your talent to help a special somepony feel better. Doesn’t that sound like a good thing?”
Twilight pondered his situation as she tried to show Rumble the silver lining to his talent. All in all, she felt she should have seen this coming. Rumble had struck her as looking a little more feminine than most boys his age, especially compared to his older brother. She also recalled the boy being remarkably quiet during hurricane training, seemingly disappearing until his turn came to do a lap. As a matter of fact -- despite him both residing and going to school in Ponyville -- Twilight couldn’t remember ever just seeing him around Ponyville. He was around, presumably he played with the other foals, but she never noticed the kid. It made sense a quiet colt like that would have a talent that involved some degree of sensitivity.
Reluctantly, Rumble agreed with her advice. “I guess. And I guess I can avoid the touching thing. It’s just that… why did my cutie mark have to be pink?”
Twilight winced in sympathy. Indeed, if one were to see his cutie mark alone, it would immediately bring to mind a filly or a mare. A slender pink hoof with a polished shine, pressing into a line that could only represent some pony’s back, it didn’t leave much room for interpretation. It even looked like it was giving a backrub when he walked, too.
She flipped the pages of the encyclopaedia to the section on colours. She put her hoof on the relevant section. “Pink is a gentle colour. It represents kindness, even affection. It’s like passionate red, but less intrusive.”
“And girly,” Rumble remarked.
“You can work around that. Boys are allowed to be sensitive, you know.”
“Not by other boys, we’re not. And not by most of the girls, either.”
Twilight frowned at his insistence. “It can’t be that bad. Big Macintosh still has my doll, he cries when he gets emotional, and nopony thinks less of him for that.”
Rumble raised an eyebrow and looked her right in the eye. “Big Macintosh can pull a house out of its foundations and topple a tree with one leg. He could run around in a girdle and no one would say anything. Actually, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he has.” He narrowed his eyes as he tried to recall the occasion.
“So? You can still be a tough little guy with a pink cutie mark, can’t you?”
“How? What could possibly make me tough enough to make everyone not care about the pink thing?”
To that, Twilight floated two books over, the ones she had intended to show Rumble before she’d gotten side-tracked. She opened them both to a pair of pages showing anatomical charts. In both books, there was a pony’s body portrayed with an intricate network of threads and nodes, all carefully catalogued, mapped, and named.
“These charts show the nerve points of ponies. They’re the soft spots that your talent lets you feel out. Some of them are pretty big, but others are smaller than the head of a pin. I think if you study this, it might help develop that talent into something you can be really proud of.”
Rumble shook his head. “I still don’t get it. It’s the same chart, twice. How does that help make me look tougher?”
With a sigh, Twilight closed the books and revealed their covers.
As soon as it dawned on the colt, a confident smile appeared on his face and a ‘squee’ escaped his lips.
She tapped him on the shoulder to snap him out of the little reverie. “Don’t take it too lightly, now. I’m only showing you this because you’ll find out eventually, and because you need to learn about this. But keep in mind that you’ve got a big responsibility now. I don’t want to hear you’re abusing your new talent. Can I trust you with these books?”
Rumble turned his attention back to the books. He nodded solemnly. “All right. I can handle it, I promise.”
When he got to the playground near their school, his saddlebags back at the normal spot on his back, all his classmates gave Rumble a curious glance. His flank was no longer blank. It was now adorned with a picture of a pink hoof stroking a black line. Like clockwork, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon homed in on him for some verbal abuse, Diamond taking the lead. “Hey, Rumble. Nice cutie mark. Want to help me polish my hooves later?”
“Yeah, you should ask if they need help in the salon,” Silver Spoon goaded. ”Or at least put on a dress to go with your flanks.”
Scootaloo, surprisingly, was the first to speak up.
“Leave him alone! There’s nothing girly about giving backrubs. You’re just jealous ‘coz he’s actually got a talent that can make other ponies feel better, not just himself.” She leered as the other two Crusaders nodded in agreement.
Rumble, for his part, just flashed a confident grin as he set down the now laden saddlebags. He didn’t even mind the rest of his classmates crowding around to get a look at his cutie mark. “That’s okay, Scootaloo, I don’t mind. My talent’s actually massaging, which is kinda girly, but you know what? It doesn’t bother me. You see, I learned a very important lesson today. I learned that a talent can be useful for many different things. I learned that just because you get a cutie mark doing one thing, it doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing for the rest of your life.”
Twist smiled at that, thinking to herself about all the other things she’d learned to cook since getting her cutie mark in candy-making. Archer nodded, too, fondly remembering how her keen eye came in handy when helping her mom spot some pesky stains in their laundry. Diamond Tiara, though, was preparing a rebuttal. Rumble beat her to it just as she was opening her mouth. “I also learned another thing. About my talent, even. Wanna see?”
Without even waiting for the response, Rumble walked right up to Diamond Tiara and took her hoof in his, resting it over his wrist. She was taken aback by it, but she didn’t object or pull her hoof back.
“Feel that?” Rumble pressed his hoof into a little spot just above the inside of her elbow.
Diamond shook her head.
“No.”
“How about now?” The colt kept looking her in the eyes, one hoof held firm on her elbow, the other keeping her foreleg in the air.
Diamond looked right back in his eyes. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Not even my wing tickling you?”
Diamond Tiara broke the gaze. He’d curled his wing to start rubbing and tickling the bottom of her hoof. Yet Diamond didn’t find herself laughing, or even responding to the tickling. It just wasn’t registering. “Huh?”
“I’m pushing into a nerve point right now. Your whole arm will be numb for a little while, and if I really get rough on that point, it'll hurt. A lot.” He released the girl from his soft grip.
Her arm flopped a little, and she had to shake it to make sure it wasn't asleep. She couldn't get her hoof moving the way she wanted, though.
It was only now that the implications sank in.
“I can’t help how things turned out. I’m a colt and I have a touchy-feely talent. Part of that talent is knowing your soft spots, the ones that are sensitive. The ones that can hurt a lot. That’s a big responsibility, because that means I can be a real bully without even trying. Now, you said some mean things to me just because of my talent and just because I’m a boy. Are you going to keep being mean to me? Because I don’t wanna be a bully, but I can be if that’s what you want.”
He leaned in close for his final question. She could smell the soap he used to wash himself in the morning: ‘Hatchet for Colts’, the stuff he got from his older brother and made every stallion smell of musk. He didn't look threatening, he genuinely looked like he was just asking a friendly question. He even narrowed his eyes like he was scared of her response.
“Do you want me to be a bully now?”
Nursing her now numb arm, Diamond Tiara violently shook her head. Her expression was enough to dissuade anyone else from daring the boy. They’d all known him as a nice kid and no one had ever really thought to pick on him before. After that little demonstration and the reaction it got, no one was about to start.
Turning his back to the pair to face the Crusaders, Rumble smiled triumphantly. “So, what are we playing?”
The girls shrugged and tossed a ball towards him, leaving the two rich kids to ponder their attempted humiliation and its retaliation. Diamond’s arm just hung limply, the hoof barely strong enough to stand on for a few minutes. Silver Spoon poked it for a bit, yielding a few yelps. Everypony else just minded their own business.
He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten respect from his peers or if he'd just turned intimidating, but Rumble appreciated the peace and quiet that came with it.
“So your talent’s feeling out soft spots and massaging, huh?” Apple Bloom started as she bounced their ball his way.
He caught the ball, balanced it on his nose for a few seconds, then nudged it up towards Sweetie Belle. “Well, sort of, I guess. Twilight says I’ve got a lot of options.”
“That’s good, right? And it does look pretty nice on you,” Sweetie Belle added with just a hint of admiration. He noted the slight apprehension in talking to him, something he could only guess was due to minor envy. Still, he enjoyed their company, and Sweetie Belle kept staring at his newly adorned flank.
Sweetie Belle herself didn’t try to hide the fact that she was staring. As far as she was concerned, Rumble was just cute, and pink did match his colours quite nicely. It was rare to see a boy with good colour coordination.
Rumble stealthily turned so she could only look at him from the front, catching the ball on his nose again before passing it back.
“Thanks, but I’m still a little worried about how it looks, you know? I don’t know if I should keep it covered or not. I don’t want to look like a girl. No offense.”
Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin in thought. “Hmm… You know, you could probably get away with it if you just dress right.”
The three girls shared a look, and the ball they’d been passing to each other and Rumble fell to the ground, ignored. The colt felt the tension in the air. He’d seen this situation before. It could only mean one thing.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS FASHION EXPERTS! YAY!”
Everyone within earshot (a shot with a long range) turned to stare at the colt and fillies.
Rumble shook, his mind reeling with the probable outcome. He could see it happen now: they were going to drag him along, in public, and dress him up. Most likely he’d end up in Carrousel Boutique, on display. Everypony else knew it, too. The colts and fillies of his class bored into him with their gaze, anxiously awaiting his reaction.
Slowly, quietly, Rumble collected his saddlebags. The Crusaders, realising they might have just embarrassed him, stared awkwardly at the boy.
“Okay. My mom’s been wanting me to get some new clothes, might as well see what fits now. But you have to promise not to make me look stupid or girly. Promise?”
“We promise!” came the synched call, before the three surrounded him.
With his things and thoughts collected, Rumble took a moment to ponder the fact that he was walking off with three girls at his side. Some of the other foals raised their eyebrows at that, what with the reputation the girls had. The idea that any pony – let alone a colt -- would agree to let them and Rarity dress him up was enough to set all faces to ‘stunned’.
Rumble ignored the looks.
He just strutted off with all the dignity of Big Macintosh in a corset.
The End
Author's Note
One of my pet peeves is stories based on a picture or a gimmick, that then do nothing with said gimmick. They just announce the punchline of a joke, have no tension and no real depth. A couple of those popped up in the feature box a while before I wrote this, and I really regretted reading them. Two of them involved embarrassing cutie marks. So when the Author Support Prompt came around, I immediately thought I had to get a foal with an embarrassing cutie mark and make it into a story with depth just to see if it was possible. I had to get a blank flank character, and for contrast it made sense to have one who was seen as 'the cool kid'. Rumble was just perfect, and thanks to Season 3 he's even cooler with his brother being... you know.
So yeah, this story is gimmicky, but look at the comments. About half the comments say nothing about the social commentary and are just 'lolz!' at the sex joke. The other half ignore the sex joke and focus on how sweet it is that Rumble gets some character and actually learns to deal with an embarrassing situation. That was my goal: even if you don't like the joke and see the punchline coming a mile away, there's some depth for you to enjoy instead. It's supposed to take the gimmick and use it.
The picture lures people in, they come for the joke (innuendo!) but stay for the deep thought.
The commentary, btw, was intended to be that girls are allowed to act boyish now, while boys need to be über-manly to compensate for any girlish traits. The other one is: if you are über-manly and tough and capable of wrecking people, no one seems to care what you do in private. It's a social role and confidence thing. Think about it however you will.
20/12: Now rewritten to be more grammatically correct concerning spaces and dialogue, and a little more weight is added to the actual attainment of a cutie mark.
11/7: less speech attributions, spacings fixed, WRITE advice heeded. Sequel possible.
13/8: Spaced better, deleted a colon or semicolon.
11/5/14: reworded to use 'intimidation' better.
