"Nopony likes you, Zephyr," Fluttershy, a waif of a pony with a full and lustrous tail, sneered at her brother. "And mom and pop are cutting you off."
"Sis! I'm their special pegasus!"
"You're-not-special!" Fluttershy punctuated the words, hissing and raising her wings. "You're a lazy, good-for-nothing freeloader who barely passed mane therapy and who's going to be back to begging again. But this time you're going to fall and nopony's ever going to love you again!"
Zephyr Breeze recoiled, and brushed his maybe-glamorous topknot with a distracted hoof. "You're usually so sweet and dissembling... And I usually get what I want. This isn't like you, Flutts,"
"Don't call me that!" Fluttershy stomped a front hoof and ground it into the dirt--cloud dirt? "It rhymes with butts and you've totally ruined that for me--"
"But I always call you Flutts-"
"Not any more!" Fluttershy grabbed a stack of magazines from beneath Zephyr's bed and tore into them with surprisingly sharp teeth.
"Girl's got fangs," Zephyr totes couldn't resist expressing the popular saying, noting through narrowed eyes, however, that his sister did indeed have much sharper canines than usual--predatory fighting teeth. Then his face fell as he watched his porny tush magazines be chomped to bits, not the monetary kind of bits and not the dental kind of tush.
He wept. And stuffed his face with...
Kumquats?1
He woke to fondling and caressing. His wing moved and--
"Moooomm!" He awoke and immediately knew he wasn't receiving the kind of ministrations he had been hoping for.
"Hush baby, you were having a bad dream." His mother ran a fetlock along his neck. "Would you like some pound cake for breakfast? That always gets you up. Maybe an eclair?"
Yes... but no. He was salivating for the round things he was sucking in his dream but those were--"Kumquats?" he asked.
"Oh?" His mother recoiled. "Health food trend?"
"...Yeah," he swaggered, and licked his lower lip. "Gotta get buff, get my life in order."
"Sorry," his mother frowned. "I truly did not mean to suggest--"
"Nah, it's okay." He got up and shrugged.
"My little baby." She hugged him tight.
"Moooom!" He moaned, and sighed, and carped.
She regaled him with his accomplishments: "--a mane therapist's license and a home of your own!" And she wept.
"If you feel so bad, you don't have to cut off my rent payments after this first one--" he offered.
His father trotted by the door. "We do. Sorry. Signed an agreement with Fluttershy."
"That vamp," Zephyr hissed, reflecting on his earlier dream.
"Sorry?"
"What kind of agreement?" Zephyr pressed. "I knew you were cutting me off, but how does Flutts figure into this?"
"She didn't think we would carry through with the cutoff, so she... strongly encouraged us to tie it to something special. Then she apologized."
"She's not going to foreclose on your cloud collection," Zephyr scoffed, guessing the lever Fluttershy had employed. "Dad, she's just posturing. Winging-up."
Dad shrugged. "She might not seize the clouds, but that pink madmare she's friends with just might."
Pinkie Pie. A bundle of gaseous energy and glares and intimidation who had backed up his sister on several occasions. An earth pony who rose to the sky whenever she willed by use of hot air balloon. A mare not to be underestimated. Or gambled against. He owed her fifteen bits, a manestyling, and a cheese slicer.
"Don't worry. You will do fine. We're all confident in your abilities!"
"Sure Dad," Zephyr frowned. "I'm great at everything...."
"Don't worry," his father forced a big smile. "If it doesn't completely work out, somepony's going to recognize your specialness once you're out and applying yourself. You could be a great househusband! Next thing we know, our son's gonna find himself a sirocco of a stallion." His father laughed.
Zephyr rolled his eyes.
"Or a darling mare like that vibrant va-va-vroom of a Rainbow Dash you've been obsessing over for years," his mother added. "She has a good government job."
"With the Wonderbolts performance team--and as one of Princess Twilight's special operatives--"
His mother nodded. "A very good government job."
Zephyr had played the entire field for years: mares, stallions, anything beyond and in-between. And struck out like a lowly buckball b-lister far far more often than he scored. And he spoke without thinking. "I'm over her bony butt--I'm into massive mares now." Thus the mags under his bed.... it hadn't been entirely correct that he'd played the entire field. He'd merely played the entire usually-sleekthin pegasus field. There weren't many hefty heifers so to say, and speaking of heifers, he had completely forgotten to consider COWS! They were a bit more simplistic in their thoughts and tended toward herdthink--maybe he could have a harem! Still, they were compatible with ponies... probably. He'd have to look into that. There had to be magazines demonstrating the procedure--the one class he had been good in before beauty academy had been anatomy. Mags featured donkeys--"Gigantic Asses" magazine had been a revelation--so "Horny Heifers" probably existed somewhere.
His mother covered her mouth and her eyes grew wide.
"Sorry mom."
"No, no, it's fine."
Zephyr sighed. "About those kumquats?"
"I plucked a few from my garden," his mother added. She was a fruit fanatic herself but traditionally the only way she'd gotten her son to eat any had been by baking them into pies and stuffing them into cakes.
Zephyr's parents left and he licked his lips. He'd sucked in so much tasty citrus from the kumquats. All of them. Then he devoured the grapefruit until there was nothing left. He wanted more fruit, but fruit was expensive--his family had made extra cash by selling from their cloud garden.
While he wouldn't ever starve, the government didn't subsidize fruit. There'd always be gratis grass and a subsidy of vegetables to ensure even the most indigent little ponies had a balanced diet. So he needed to work hard to earn the excessive money required for citrus--yes.
He worked harder than he'd ever done in his life.
He focused as much as he could. The farther the date moved from the full moon, the better he styled. He was asked for by name. There was talk of him winning an award, putting in for a challenge. (At least one pleased nonagenarian stallion had said so, with a wink). But he'd have to work on the diversity of his projects first. Not just pegasi but other types of ponies. He was open to that. It'd give him even more chances to play a larger field!
He salivated over his customers and the day was a blur and he cashed his check and spent it all on wine, kumquats, and heifer magazines. He'd bought one from a specialist stand that, among vending magazines featuring all sorts of creatures, also specially catered to Cloudsdale's extremely rare cattle tour group. During their one-time visit each year to see the Wonderbolts perform in the clouds, the cattle always sought out a diversionary magazine for downtime. And because they were a herd--they all bought copies. The performance being soon due, stock was full.
Cows didn't do it for Zephyr, he concluded. And discarded the magazine beneath his bed in case he needed future reference or... a reminder. And he sat back, exhausted, on his bed of a cloud. And it was bugging him...the lack of citrus. He wished he'd spent his extra bits on more fruit instead.
He woke up in a pool of blood red. An earth pony farmer was shouting at him and he took off in flight, brushing past orange trees and despoiling their fruits to the ground. A waste. He easily fled.
Blood oranges. They satiated him best.
The moon's phases waned and so too did his passions. A detective stopped by his house. He denied ever being in the village where the crime had been committed--he didn't even know its name. He'd found the oranges by scent and while asleep so his story was quite believable. His style however was quite notable. Big blond topknot. But the remainder of the description given to the detective had been so fanciful that Zephyr had gotten off--in the sense he hadn't been picked out of the lineup. Zephyr Breeze certainly didn't have BLACK leathery wings lacking feathers. No pegasus did. Black wings were things of legend and myth--appendages for bat ponies. Smutty magazines didn't even feature bat ponies--ergo, they didn't exist.
A murderous pink ball of energy faced Zephyr down. And down. And down. She jumped up and down on his belly. One one thousand. One one thousand and one. One one thousand and two. She jumped off. "Whew,"
Zephyr heaved. It had only been three jumps--for some insane reason, the mare--Pinkie Pie--had started counting at one thousand. But those few wallops took all the breath out of him.
"I always wanted to know what it'd feel like to trampoline on a helium-filled pegasus."
Zephyr squeaked. "So we're even on the cheese grater?"
"Yuppers," Pinkie nodded.
"So," his eyes gestured to his cloud pillow. "Ever done it on a cloud?"
"Trampolined?" Pinkie Pie cocked her head. "Mos' definitely yes!"
Still, they trampolined on the cloud bed, one more enthusiastically and energetically than the wheezing other.
"I mean done I-T on a cloud," Zephyr tried again.
"Industrial Technology--sure, I dabbled."
"I mean--" Zephyr wheezed.
"Sooo... I didn't just come all the way here to collect on a debt--" Pinkie Pie offered, jumping off the bed and turning around. Zephyr bobbed to a slow stop as the elastic movement of the clouds receded. "I came because I read the news."
"And?"
"I saw this--" she held up a copy of "The Equestrian Enquirer" a gossip rag that Zephyr was reasonably familiar with due to its sometimes salacious photographs, commentary and fine literature that he claimed to be reading rather than looking at its accompanying exploitative artistic images.
Zephyr knitted his brows together and saw himself. But not himself. A pony with a blond topknot. And black wings, leathery and furry. Featherless.
"Is this a cousin?"
"I've never seen somepony with wings like that before--"
Pinkie Pie cocked her head, then nodded. "Fluttershy said that too." She paused. "You got a hankering for citrus?"
"...Yes."
Pinkie Pie nodded again. "That checks out. Fluttershy does too. But when she turned into Flutterbat, her wings didn't change color."
"Flutter what?"
"Flutterbat. Yeah. She probably didn't share. Um. Got to go."
Zephyr almost had thoughts at that point, but he wasn't sure what to do with them. Instead, frustrated by Ms. Pie and inspired by the glimpse of a presenting mare he'd seen as Pinkie'd turned a page, he got out his own special literature from beneath his bed.
What was Fluttershy's secret?
Zephyr was more lucid in his dreams. Sis was a hero of Equestria. Zephyr was nothing. Sis had super powers--she'd faced down a dragon and more villains than Zephyr could count in his head--he'd need an abacus or scratch tallies to keep track. She could speak with beasts. And Zephyr... Zephyr could cut hair sort of well. Well enough in commissions to mostly afford his fruit habit.
He'd missed rent. When the new moon came, he splurged everything on fruit--none of which lasted enough to decay.
In his dream that night, he was a bat--a tiny fanged, flying bat.
In the morning, he was arrested. The farmer, an Orange Delicious, had set a net trap and found him in the morning, covered in bloody waste of oranges--the fruit, not the family, though he snarled at the farmer who guffawed as guards clamped Zephyr in irons.
Before long, Zephyr was carted in a wagon to Canterlot to a fate unknown.
"It's just fruit!" He shouted from the bars. "Fruit! Fruit! Fruit!"
Passing ponies, perceiving the cadence of his chant, broke out into spontaneous song: "Fruit of the moon! Fruit of the loom! Fruit to put on and bloom! Fruit! Fruit! Wonderful fruit! Eat it, wear it, stow it, share it."
"Aaaaarrrggghh!" He groaned and buried his head between the carriage's restraining bars.
He was guided to a cell and provided acidic lemons in a bowl. He sucked them dry and bit chips into opposite sides of the bowl.
The guards who took away the bowl exchanged frightened glances.
"Sorry," he shrugged. And belched.
In the evening, Princess Luna came for him.
"ZEPHYR BREEZE!" She projected with the power of her Canterlot Voice. "YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED!"
"I didn't even get to present a defense--"
"REVEAL THYSELF!" Luna's mane glistened and flowed and sparkled as she stood before him, an empty cell door between them.
Zephyr scrunched his face up. "This is a dream, right?" He looked down to his bedding. "Okay then." He reached to his crotch and...
Luna stomped a hoof and he stopped immediately. "FOOL! WE MEAN YOU TO REVEAL YOUR TRUE NATURE!" Then in a normal voice. "You're safe here. See, We hath brought citrus." He glimpsed a plate full of a cornucopia of fruits: pomelo, grapefruit, lime, kumquats.
He lost his mind and pounced upon them. And grew wings. Or rather, grew black leathery appendages that covered his feathery wings.
Luna brightened. "Ah, Zephyr Breeze. We were correct in our assumptions. We welcome you to the--" she reached to extend a hoof in greeting. The hoof approached the plate of citrus and he snapped at her. She rapidly retracted. "Ah, a fugue. We know how to address this complication." She performed a brief spell and Zephyr's mind returned. The fruit had been eaten. He shook his head and squinted. "Princess?"
"Indeed, Zephyr Breeze. We are glad to see you are your true self."
Zephyr looked down and genuflected. "I'm really sorry. I don't know wha--this is a dream, right? And you're visiting me?"
"Not at all, Zephyr Breeze." Luna shook her head. "This is most gravely real."
Zephyr looked at his leathery black wings. "You've got to be bucking me."
Luna frowned. "WE MOST ASSUREDLY ARE NOT BUCKING. THOU ART TOO PRESUMPTIVE AND FORGET THYSELF!"
Zephyr cowered, placing hooves over his face, shivering. "I'm ah--why the bug up your bu--t-that's not what I meant. Sh--It's an expression."
Luna paused. "Thou art under significant stress, We understand. But speak not such filth in Our presence again."
"You got it, Princess." Zephyr tentatively peeked up.
"Thou may question why batlike appendages are supplanting thy feathers."
Zephyr nodded.
"That is a long and sordid tale. But, after feedback from Our subjects concerning the vital necessity for word limits, brevity, and economy of phrasing, We hath prepared a briefer summary that may be expanded and expounded as necessary."
"Sure,"
Luna told her tale:
"The spirit of Nightmare Moon invaded my soul, twisting it evil, vain, and petty. I was overcome with hate, and I turned many ponies to my side. Ponies of the night almost to a one supported my designs--out of loyalty, out of preference, out of hatred themselves. Long had they been marginalized and forgotten and with my ascendancy to the Diarchy, ruling the Night while my sister ruled the Day, they had received greater favors than ever before. Not all supported me openly and some did stand with the Day against the Moon's insane plan to do away with sunlight, but too many followed my hoofsteps and proclamations.
"When Nightmare Moon was thrust down, amid the bloodbath, there were bat ponies who survived. And they were persecuted, Celestia tells me. Many fled to the fringes. Some went feral and were hunted to death as they feasted on the citrus of the day ponies. Others remained in the cities, the towns, the villages, and were scorned and denied. Traitors all were branded, regardless of where they had stood.
"Lunatics they called Our beloved bat ponies, and other slurs which We will not repeat here."
"An honest and loyal, but horribly harried advisor of Celestia begged her for a solution. And together they researched a grim solution. But one they believed was necessary. After great efforts and many epic journeys, they had supplies they needed and gathered all bat ponies from across the Queendom and cast the spell.... Neigh, even then they almost did not cast same but when a mob appeared and threatened to burn the gathered ponies to a crisp--they had to act. So they bound their creation with a memory spell and Celestia locked away or destroyed all books on bat ponies. Neighbors would no longer remember who they had hated. No pony would, for many years.
"After that, there were no bat ponies on the exterior. They'd had their hunger for citrus removed and were defanged. Their leathery wings appeared feathery. And they lived as pegasi."
"You mean--" Zephyr asked.
Luna nodded. "Thou art a descendant of the bat ponies."
"So I'm special?"
"Indeed, very special to Us."
"But why am I... presenting as a bat only now?"
"Because," Luna sighed. "When We returned, and Nightmare Moon's curse was removed, so too did the the spell suppressing bat ponyship decline. Faster in some and slower in others, depending on percentage of bat pony blood, and divers other factors."
"Wait," Zephyr narrowed his brow. "If I'm a bat pony--then Flutts--"
"Dost thou mean 'Fluttershy'?"
"Yeah,"
Luna inclined her head slightly. "Indeed, she was the first to present."
Zephyr rolled his eyes. "Of course she would. She's more special than I ever will be. And I bet my parents also are bat ponies?"
"No. At least not yet." Luna shook her head. "Only ponies of your generation have presented. Perhaps the elders will present some day. Perhaps never. The youths' genetics are easier to mold and interact with background magical radiation."
A smile perked up at the corners of Zephyr's mouth. "At least I've got that."
"Indeed thou hast."
"What now?" He asked.
"Now," Luna nodded. "Now that thy urges have been controlled to a point and my spell hath ensured thou wilt no longer grow feral in the presence of overwhelming need, We will place thyself in a support group with others who are adapting. And We will ensure thou hath access to citrus regardless of the season. Thou wilt receive THE ROYAL ALLOTMENT."
Zephyr licked his lips. "That sounds tasty."
"Indeed it is," Luna nodded. "No pony will suffer the cursed Hunger under Our care."
They spoke for a while thereafter of many things: Kumquats and Queens. And why the day is burning hot--and why bat ponies have leathery wings.2
In the support group, he met other recently presenting bat ponies. And embarrassed himself with poor attempts to woo them. But he gained beaucoup kudos for his mane-styling work, provided to group members at a discount. His special skills were well respected.
On evenings when they met, they dined on tasty government handouts, delectable and designed to prevent blood citrus rage, which had a thousand years ago turned so many day ponies against their ancestors.
Then the support group widened its doors. Reformed changelings, bug ponies, made their way to Cloudsdale and needed cultural adjustment. Somepony suggested they, the changelings that is, join the bat ponies, who, unlike birds, only hungered for citrus--not bugs. Integration would widen the circle--that great symbolic orange circle of acceptance and understanding. They, the changelings and the bat ponies that is, had similar struggles. Amarephagy for full changelings--love eating, and amarephagy mixed with bibliophagy for part changelings recalled the bat ponies' citrus-lust.3
Studies had been conducted to determine just why bibliophagy applied. As best as the scholarly Sunburst could determine, it had something to do with the amount of love or lust imbued in certain words. As for why the predilection applied to part-ponies rather than full changelings, the best explanation was it was an intermediary step towards full amarephagy. At least those details explained why some ponies really, really, really loved reading romances.
Zephyr Breeze had never met a changeling in a close personal sense. And, he was surprised to learn that some ponies had changeling blood. With sundering of the Changeling Queen's hold on changeling purity and her subsequent entombment in stone, there had even developed one Earth Pony who presented colorful wings, though not the changeling power to change anything beyond them. The earth pony had had an involved experience making it up to Cloudsdale--required several tied-together balloons, but she could buzz horizontally.
She was big. And big-hearted. Big all around. Just like Zephyr liked it- uh, huh. Juicy.
They hit it off.
Zephyr styled her mane. Took her out to dinner at a citrus cafe while she devoured its romance periodicals. And stood by her after she was kicked out for devouring said periodicals--"you should have expected this! We DID ask if you had any juicy pieces!" Zephyr had asserted. The ban remained.
Of course, their relationship was mostly based on physical attraction--Zephyr didn't have too much room in his head for much else.
But.
They understood each other. At least their cravings, if nothing else. And Zephyr was ready to settle down. And his paramour liked the 'fly' life, that is, flying--a fast-paced lifestyle her ground-based suitors couldn't keep up with. And Zephyr wasn't against having children. And she was going to have a lot. And then Zephyr realized there were government subsidies per child....
"Whoa Nelly," he sighed, relaxing in his recently enlarged triple-wide cloud bed, affordable due to the bat pony subsidies and generous commissions received as word of his manestyling works spread near and far. "Whoa," he looked over at his large dear.
She'd always known she was special, but unlike Zephyr had suffered for it through little fault of her own. There was a point, he learned, at which wholesome largeness became a bit too much even for earth ponies who valued heft over sleekness--when it made the ponies too different from the herd. Extremely large ponies ironically attracted the same questions as extremely thin ponies. Annoying questions. "Why do you eat--", "What if you...", "How about...", "Is something wrong?" Zephyr never interrogated his beloved like that--a beneficial side effect of being pretty solipsistically wrapped up in himself.
Woah Nelly had easily vaulted across the standard deviation of weight and hadn't gone back. And now she knew why. She was a very special earth pony/changeling hybrid--a potential queen capable of incubating hundreds of progeny. One day, she could command an empire. And, she chose to live away from the drama--the suitors on the earth, and of the earth, who suddenly developed an interest. Zephyr had never commented on her being too big, just big enough. And, for now at least, for her--that was all right.
"My wonderful bed bug!" Zephyr snuggled his special mare.
He was speaking with his sister, showing off his grand ebony wings while she displayed her coat-coordinated ones.
"I heard you're the darling of manestyling," Fluttershy commented.
"Sure," Zephyr's eyes sparkled.
"It's... nice to see you motivated. And accomplished."
He harrumphed.
"I'm sorry for being hard on you... Before..."
He waved a hoof. "Was nothing."
"Um," Fluttershy lowered her head. "I'm sorry. It's difficult sometimes to be kind when we have so much history... and in knowing when being kind is being tough. I may be the element of kindness, but I'm still working things through. I'm not perfect...."
Zephyr bit his lower lip, then nodded. "I know I did the punch bowl thing...."
"Mmm-hmm," Fluttershy nodded.
"The pants incident... and the docking...." He hung his head.
Fluttershy's eyes grew wide. "You truly mean that!" A smile passed across her face. Pained, but thankful. "You're so much more mature--"
Zephyr worked his eyebrows up and down suggestively.
Fluttershy didn't notice. "Body and sport things always really bother me. Like flying..."
"You fly great, Sis!" He laughed. "Even better now with those bat wings!" He grabbed her close, around the neck, burying her face in his chest.... as he'd done many, many times before.
"MMM!" She protested.
"Flutts, you were right. A jerk about it, but right all the same."
"Mumm-wufff."
"Yep." He gave her a noogie. Then, released her. "I know you hate that.... Maybe last time for that?"
"Mugh, fine," Fluttershy sighed and shifted away. "And, pffff--" she spat out some hair caught in her mouth. "You're adjusting so well to our bat pony situation."
"'Course I am. I'm Zephyr Breeze Allmother-Celestia-Darn-It, Flutts!"
She smiled and as she scooted to leave the bed, her hooves struck something beneath it. "Oops, I knocked something over. I'll straighten it."
Wait. Zephyr Breeze realized what she must have struck. He hadn't looked at his collection since his steady relationship started, but he'd moved it under the renovated bed since nopony had occasion to look there.
And Zephyr remembered his dream, from the day he'd first batted up. He shouted-- "No, Flutts!" and reached for her.
He'd overcome some things that troubled his nights. He'd made something of himself and had really moved forward in his relationship with Fluttershy. But he couldn't risk this--
She bent down to perceive the magazines...
And it was all a dream.4
- Spoiler. It wasn't a dream. The previous scene happened. Zephyr disposed of his magazines... After finishing the next segment (the last segment of this tale), you likely can figure out how.
He woke up in a triple-wide bed snugly packed beside his darling Whoa Nelly, feeling her membranous wings tickling him awake.
"So amorous last night," she caressed his leathery appendages.
"I guess I was pretty wound-up."
"I suppose you were out of sorts--thank you so much for that meal."
"Sure," his brow creased.
"I know the support group said I should ration my intake if I didn't want to start popping out eggs but you were so insistent," she giggled.
He draped a leg off the edge of his bed. He didn't immediately feel his stack of mags. He slunk backwards, deeper down. Nothing.
"Celebrating new ventures," he forced a smile, while reflecting on just how the magazines must have disappeared.
"I hope your sister's attitude will come around... she looked out of sorts when she left yesterday."
"Doesn't matter," Zephyr sighed. Sis almost certainly would forgive him--she'd just been shocked. Sure. "We've got all we need to make a good life, between the two of us." He enveloped Woah Nelly with a hug and side-eyed his citrus allotment on a side table.
He stuffed his face.
"I really, really like you, Zephyr Breeze."
Author's Note
The author considered using the Australian spelling--"cumquats"--but that seemed a bit risky when it is not the popularly-applied terminology. Apologies to Aussies for instead employing the wider-used spelling.
The Walrus and the Carpenter: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43914/the-walrus-and-the-carpenter-56d222cbc80a9
"...bibliophage...meaning “thing that devours” ... the word bibliophage has been used to refer to a bug that literally eats the pages of books." Scroll down to "where does bibliophage come from" at this hyperlink for a more extensive explanation.
Spoiler. It wasn't a dream. The previous scene happened. Zephyr disposed of his magazines... After finishing the last segment, you likely can figure out how.
*. A Luna fic worth checking out:
TPrincess Luna’s Unconvincing Disguise
A hurting princess needs a friend. Can Luna make her own friends, without the Elements’ or Map’s help?
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**. A Zephyr Breeze piece of note:
EZephyr Breeze Saved Equestria
Pipp Tells Tales. Their veracity remains in question.
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