Humbling and Healing

Waking up with his strong forelegs wrapped around Rainbow Blitz’ lighter pegasus body, feeling the warm breath of the rainbow-maned femcolt tickling his own nostrils, Zecora felt his heart warming up a little from the initial cold anger he felt from the night before. They were all grown stallions, so to realize that Applejack was doubling down on his perceived pettiness got Zecora’s blood boiling before he was comforted by the sight of his sleeping blue femcolt. There was no time like the present, and Zecora prodded Rainbow Blitz awake as he saw the blue pegasus’ red eyes flutter open.

“Huh? Oh…morning,” Rainbow Blitz sighed, pressing his muzzle against Zecora’s firm chest as he inhaled the zebra’s natural hint of masculine scent with a deep inhale before looking up at him. “Um, I don’t have to go out there and-”

“Shhh,” Zecora smiled as he gently pressed his forehoof against Rainbow Blitz’ lips before kissing his forehead. “You and Butterscotch have dealt with more in a few weeks than most do in a lifetime, and that is simply a crime. Go and take a nice and long shower, and don’t feel the need to cower. I’d even suggest you enjoy your food this time, and I wouldn’t even say that needs another rhyme.”

“Huh, how ironic,” Rainbow Blitz giggled as Zecora removed his forehoof from the young blue stallion’s lips, replacing it with his own lips as they kissed for a few seconds. “Well, that sounds like a plan to me. I trust that you’ve gotten this taken care of…”

Watching as Rainbow Blitz slipped out of the bed, still wearing the mint green dress since he was too exhausted to take it off the night before, his holes were completely covered from Zecora’s viewing pleasure. Admittedly, due to the hard work and stress of the past few days, Zecora scarcely had a chance to play with his femcolts. The predicament left him worked up more than he would’ve expected, but shrugged it off as he watched Rainbow Blitz leave the room to shower. His physical needs could wait for a while, and so Zecora jumped off the bed and made a beeline for the kitchen. No food set out, but Zecora already knew that he was free to use the fridge for the week’s time they were staying. Getting an apple cider donut and preparing a big cup of coffee for the day, Zecora took a page from the blue pegasus’ book and wolfed it all down for his proper confrontation. Putting the cup in the sink, Zecora walked out of the barn and looked around him till he saw Applejack near the trees using the potions that the zebra stallion had given him. Bright orange apples that were the spicy ones, as well as dark brown apples that had the sweeter taste of chocolate, decorated several of the trees that Applejack must’ve grown only minutes ago. Knowing what an impact he had already made on the orange stallion, Zecora puffed his chest as he began his steady trot down the path and up the hill towards Applejack. The orange stallion, who was staring intently at the trees around him, flinched as he looked at Zecora approaching him.

“Ah hey, Zecora!” Applejack smiled widely as he took a step backwards from the zebra stallion’s blank expression. “Ain’t it, uh, mighty fine to see ya this morning! Have you tried the apples yet? Ah was just about to try-”

“Can we please cut the bullshit and get to the conversation we need to discuss?” Zecora huffed, not taking his eyes off Applejack as he continued. “I would personally like to get to the bottom of all this unnecessary fuss.”

“What fuss?” Applejack took his eyes off Zecora as he swung his hindlegs against the nearest tree, causing the spicy jalapeno apples to fall around them, the orange stallion picking one up and smiling at it like his life depended on it. “All ah see is some nice juicy apples the both of us need to try-”

“Rainbow Blitz told me you two almost got into a big fight, because their assumption that you’re ignoring Butterscotch turned out to be right,” Zecora explained, watching as Applejack’s eyes widened with each of the zebra stallion’s words. He dropped the orange apple as his shoulders slouched with a deep and more honest frown. Zecora then looked into his deep green eyes. “For somepony who believes in honesty and not telling a lie, you seem to have a tough time looking me in the eye.”

“Okay, okay,” Applejack groaned. “You’ve got me, ah haven’t been able to talk to Butterscotch at all. Felt too awful to even try, Solaris-dammit.”

“Well if you hate Butterscotch that much, why did you-”

“Hate him?” Applejack’s jaw dropped. “Is that what you think all my silent treatment is about? No, this isn’t about me being mad at him. At least…not just about me being a bit pissed off. But all this happening? How it affected your relationship, and the first time he turned into Butterbat…is because of me. Ah felt like a pile of pig slop even accepting your offer to help me in the first place!”

“What do you mean Butterbat existed in the first place because of you? Forgive me if I don’t know the extent of all that you went through,” Zecora shrugged.

“Well you see, he turned into Butterbat because ah had made him use the stare on bats to get them away from my trees,” Applejack explained. “And ah didn’t know the specifics of how Butterscotch turned into a bat pony again, but ah could put two and two together. You even told me to save my attitude for another day, and with Butterscotch being looked over by Artemis and Eris on top of his partners…it was obvious to me that your hoof was forced. None of y’all wanted to help me, ya just felt obligated to and all that crap. And watching him help while feeling like a kicked puppy? Why do ya think ah had Big Mae pull him aside several times? Ah didn’t even want to look him in the eye! It felt all kinds of fucked up, and ah’ve felt like such an asshole. So when Rainbow Blitz came at me, ah thought it was because of all the time he came at me before. Because he hated my guts…”

“He’s drastically changed more than either of us could’ve expected, now stop acting all wounded and rejected,” Zecora snapped, before staring at Applejack’s stricken expression for a few moments as he sighed. “You’ve clearly got this all mixed, so let me get this confusion fixed. Butterscotch turned into his bat pony self because he wanted more out of the relationship than he got, and so month after month it filled him with distraught. Eventually he had turned into Butterbat and his first instinct must’ve been to eat your food, and that was what has led to this whole feud. Me telling you to save your attitude was merely because you were yelling and nothing more, and I certainly didn’t expect that stray comment to start this whole emotional war.”

“Well ah wouldn’t say it was entirely because of that comment,” Applejack muttered as he looked down at the apples on the ground for a few moments, before his head snapped up as he stared at Zecora. “Wait a Solaris-darn second, you’re telling me that Butterscotch turned into Butterbat again because of your relationship with him?”

“Uh, ouch,” Zecora winced as he felt a pang in his heart, but still nodded all the same as he continued. “But I suppose that is somewhat true, even if finding out about this was quite out of the blue. Finding out that your supposedly happy femcolt turned into a bat at the same time as everypony else is quite the blow, and forced me into a position where I had no choice but to grow. And as you can see, so much of the blame I put on me. So I hope you understand that I know how you feel, and perhaps with that in common we can both heal.”

“Yeah, guess we could both learn by better accommodating his boundaries,” Applejack shrugged.

“And he can learn to better assert them, but of course that’s not an excuse for me acting dumb,” Zecora sighed. “But perhaps you’re aware now that speaking to Butterscotch would go a long way, so there’s much less on his heart to weigh.”

“Yes, and Rainbow Blitz too, where are they by chance?” Applejack looked around the hill, before settling his eyes on the barn. “Are they waiting for us to finish talking?”

“Rainbow Blitz is eating breakfast and Butterscotch is back at his old home, he had a lot of thoughts that caused him to roam. Not just you, but lying to us two. Hopefully his lack of honesty doesn’t give you ire, but rather gives you thought to inspire.”

“Yes, ah’d hardly have room to judge considering everything ah’ve been hiding mahself,” Applejack agreed as he picked up the dark orange apple that he dropped on the ground, holding it out to Zecora. “Now, ah wasn’t just mentioning the apples just to distract you. Ah actually do want the both of us to try them…”

“Alright, suppose I could take a bite,” Zecora nodded as he took the apple from Applejack’s forehoof and took a big bite from it. As expected, the explosion of spicy hot flared up in his mouth and nearly sent him into a coughing fit. The surge of spicy sensation on his tongue proceeded to shift into a tangy and sweet flavor that exceeded his expectations. He didn’t realize how good sweet and spicy could go together, especially with the apples as he watched Applejack, having taken his own bite of a spicy apple, galloping towards the lake. Laughing briefly before he broke into a coughing fit, Zecora looked over his shoulder and saw Rainbow Blitz flying towards and landing next to the tall strong zebra stallion.

“Didn’t go so well, did it, he ran off?” Rainbow Blitz frowned as he watched Applejack dunk his head into the lake. “What in the…”

“Oh he tried the spicy apple and needed to cool off, I only really needed to let out a bit of cough,” Zecora explained. “But the conversation went very well, even though that might’ve been hard to tell. Applejack thought that Butterscotch turned into a bat pony again because of him and not me, and knowing his elemental truth ended up setting him free. He actually was wanting to talk to you, definitely not fight again and perhaps enjoy the view?”

“You don’t seem entirely convinced,” Rainbow Blitz looked up at Zecora, his muzzle scrunched up from Zecora’s tone as well as the glaring sunlight. Though, he still rested one of his wings on Zecora’s back briefly as he smiled. “But yeah, I can talk to him.”

“And if you could, let him know that I’ll be spending the rest of the day with Butterscotch as I should,” Zecora continued. “Just because we brought him leftovers doesn’t mean I shouldn’t give him a proper date, he is after all my other mate…”

“You don’t need to further explain, I get it,” Rainbow Blitz was happy enough to have cuddle time and the date despite the unfortunate circumstances for Butterscotch leaving, and needed some time to think over the yellow femcolt’s hidden fangs. “Perhaps me and Applejack need time to bury the hatchet properly. I’ll see you around, Zecora~”

Flying up to Zecora’s eye level and pressing his lips against the zebra stallion’s lips for a couple of seconds, Rainbow Blitz flew off towards the lake as Zecora left Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack was laid out on the grass, panting and gasping as his tongue flopped out of his mouth, barely noticing as his longtime rival landed next to him.

“Hey, Applejack,” Rainbow Blitz looked down at the orange stallion, almost grateful that he was too winded to be tense. “So Zecora said you wanted to talk?”

“Y-Ya,” Applejack nodded, scrambling back up on all fours as he dunked his muzzle back into the lake. Taking several more gulps, Applejack pulled back and shook his face of the water droplets before looking at Rainbow Blitz. “Fuck, ah’m not half as eloquent as your stud is, but ah’m really sorry for taking off instead of trying to hear you both out. Guess if ah did, ah would’ve possibly realized that ah wasn’t the one to turn Butterscotch into a bat pony again. And, um, of course…ah’m sorry for nearly kicking your ass.”

“Dude, I think I would’ve kicked your ass,” Rainbow Blitz huffed, puffing his chest even though he knew damn well that Applejack’s body was far more muscular. Certainly no Zecora, but he was sure Applejack would’ve handed his rainbow-marked flanks to him if heated enough. Applejack snickered a little as he shook his head.

“Sorry, ah swore ah heard you actually think you were going to kick mah ass,” Applejack laughed. “Maybe you convinced Butterscotch that you could yesterday…”

“I totally can!” Rainbow Blitz pouted. “Hey, what if we have a contest to the barn? First one to get there-”

“Blitz, that’s a content of speed not strength,” Applejack groaned as he hoof-palmed his own forehead. “Plus, last time ah checked, ah’m not the one that is wearing painted stripes from a zebra dom right now.”

Rainbow Blitz blushed as Applejack broke into hysterical laughter, though he felt a lot more confident that the day would go smoother while Zecora smoothed everything out with Butterscotch back at his cottage…

With Eris nowhere in sight, the animals chittering at Zecora peacefully without throwing themselves at him or biting him, the zebra stallion assumed it to be safe to walk into the cottage. Walking up to the door and giving it a few knocks, he heard nothing from the other end. Sleeping perhaps, and Zecora wouldn’t have blamed the yellow femcolt. Pushing the door open and slowly closing it behind him, the creatures that were inside the home itself gave long glances at the stallion with their beady eyes before going about what they were doing. He walked quietly with his hooves barely making a sound as he approached Butterscotch’s old bedroom. How many nights Zecora imagined the femcolt spending alone in the bedroom, or even with Rainbow Blitz as he wondered if their bedroom adventures would ever take off with the rest of their relationship. Now with him not only in the middle of their relationship, but part of it, Zecora knew that it was important to fill the gaps of what Butterscotch needed. Whether it was being dominated by the zebra stud, letting the yellow pegasus release his own energy, or something else entirely…Zecora needed to be that for him. Pushing the door open and seeing Butterscotch’s long pink mane flowing over the blankets, his striped figure rising and falling with each breath, Zecora felt his heart skip a beat.

“Butterscotch?” Zecora walked towards the sleeping stallion, watching as the white rabbit that he was vaguely familiar with jumped up and glared at him. “Calm down you little fool, I need him to keep his cool.”

Angel rolled his eyes and crossed his forelegs as he watched Zecora prodded Butterscotch’s face with his forehoof. Butterscotch stirred for a few moments before his eyes flickered open and widened at the sight of Zecora.

“Oh, u-um,” Butterscotch blushed as he covered his face with the blankets. “Are you here to b-break it off?”

“What?” Zecora blurted out the word louder than he meant to, before rushing forward and removing the blanket from Butterscotch’s face. “For the love of the sun and moon, why would I wake up to tell you such a horrible confession especially before noon? And why even assume such in the first place? Was it because I didn’t give you chase?”

“I mean,” Butterscotch shrugged as he looked down at the animals. “I guess it didn’t help, if I’ll be honest. But I also wanted to be left with my thoughts, it's just that not all of them were helpful thoughts. Is Rainbow Blitz okay, where is he at?”

“He and Applejack are making up back at the hill, after I had gotten Applejack to open up and spill,” Zecora explained. “You needn’t worry about his anger anymore, especially since I learned information that I didn’t know before. Apparently he was the ‘reason’ that you turned into Butterbat the first time, and he assumed such for your second transformation and felt like slime. I had cleared up what he got wrong, and talking it through made both of our hearts strong. Everything will resolve itself when you return, even though all of us still have a lot to learn.”

“So we’re going back to Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Not quite, I still have to make this all right,” Zecora took a few steps back, beckoning Butterscotch to slip out of his old bed despite the excited chitters of his critters. Butterscotch stood in front of Zecora, the zebra stallion tall and bulkier than the yellow femcolt. Even though he was very much a grown stallion that was capable, Butterscotch felt a deep fire inside of him during the times he submitted to Zecora. The fact that there was more variety in their sex life only made his own submissiveness all the hotter, and Butterscotch felt his romantic heart as well as the rest of his body carry his hooves forward as he pressed his muzzle against the bigger stallion’s chest. Inhaling Zecora’s deeply masculine and earthy musk, with a hint stronger of a smell thanks to his morning in the heat of Sweet Apple Acres, Butterscotch felt all of him relaxing to the smell. There was a shattered sense to his old reality, first chipped away when he started being honest about his lacking sex life with Rainbow Blitz, and then nearly broken entirely with the second arrival of Butterbat. And now with being faced with the Element of Honesty himself, paired with the reveal of his hidden fangs, Butterscotch was realizing just how much everything needed to be in the open. Why fate had brought him to Sweet Apple Acres of all places. And now? Fate was going to carry him somewhere else, but-

“Where?” Butterscotch tilted his head, and Zecora smiled widely before walking out the door and flickering his tail for his femcolt lover to follow. Butterscotch trotted after him, feeling the soothing sensation of hearing his own animals around him. No matter what happened, they were always a source of comfort to him. And Zecora looked over his shoulder at Butterscotch, his normally firm face broken out into that smile. Only this time, his eyes were smiling with his lips in a way that Butterscotch hadn’t seen before. It was almost as if the zebra stallion was being more open with himself, freeing from the constraints of his mind. They left the cottage, the zebra stallion’s normal walk getting a bit faster as his tail flickered back and forth. Butterscotch skipped alongside him, feeling lighter than air as his heart thundered in his chest. He felt like a colt sneaking off with their first love into the night, even though it was still only morning. His heart carried him in that moment more than his hooves did. And even though various ponies of Ponyville walked around gawking at them, even if many of them did have their griffon and dragon lovers now, Butterscotch couldn’t be bothered. Zecora skipped for brief moments along with Butterscotch as he made a beeline for a small green building with a yellow coffee cup and the bold letters Ponera Bread on the building.

“Oh! I saw that this location opened up recently, but I hadn’t had the chance to go there yet,” Butterscotch’s eyes lit up as he pressed his pelt against Zecora’s, looking up at him. “How did you know I wanted to go here?”

“Only because you mentioned it every other day,” Zecora chuckled, inhaling the sweet scent of Butterscotch’s body. Even without perfume, the femcolt had a naturally alluring smell, and Zecora and Butterscotch walked inside the restaurant as they walked up to the pony at the counter, placing their orders before sitting at a big corner table that was open for them. The walls and their familiar green shade from the times Butterscotch had gone to Ponera Bread in other towns and cities, made Butterscotch feel at ease as he leaned against Zecora. The zebra stallion glanced down at his femcolt, the three words rising to the surface of his mind with a vengeance as he took in the pure unfiltered joy on the femcolt’s face watching the strangers conversing and walking around the restaurant. At first, Butterscotch’s complexies seemed like something that Zecora needed to crush into the dust, an intentional challenge into making the yellow femcolt his perfect lover. But uncovering Butterscotch’s true nature over the past several weeks, everything that made him tick and his desires in full bloom, somehow made him more desirable in Zecora’s eyes…

But a lump in his throat stopped him from saying the words, he couldn’t do it without Rainbow Blitz there anyways. But when was he going to do it, if ever? Butterscotch hummed a soft tune to himself, staring at the windows on the side of the building as he watched ponies pass by. Families, couples, groups of friends…all of them in Butterscotch’s eyes shared something in common that bonded them together. The feeling, either overpowering or sparing, was still enough for Butterscotch’s heart to stir in longing. Then, his stomach started growling aggressively as his nostrils twitched from the aroma of the plates one of the employees brought to their table. Tomato soup, two different salads, and small chunks of bread for the both of them. And best of all, one of Butterscotch’s favorites: a nice plump chocolate brownie with white powder to be drank with the fittingly pink lemonade he got with it. As they tucked into their salads, Zecora glanced at Butterscotch on and off before he broke the silence.

“I made sure to save you the soup from last night, this is just to further make everything right,” Zecora explained.

“Hey now,” Butterscotch snickered, chewing on his bite of salad before flickering his pink tail against Zecora’s firm toned ass. “So you’re telling me you’re not doing this to spend more time with a really cute femcolt that you’re dating~?”

“I guess I thought that sort of thing was implied, but I wanted to make sure you knew that I tried,” Zecora stopped eating to wrap his foreleg around Butterscotch’s shoulders, pulling him in closer as he looked down at the femcolt. “Truly such a tragedy that I could do all this, give you bliss. But for somepony as sweet and spicy as you, there’s never enough that’ll do.”

“Aww,” Butterscotch picked up the fork with the folded tip of his wing, leaning forward and taking bites out of Zecora’s salad a few times before returning to his own salad. “That’s very nice of you, Zecora. You don’t suppose Bubble Berry will be upset that I’m cheating on his desserts with another, do you?”

“With his Bubble sense, I have a feeling he would notice what you’re doing over a fence!” Zecora pointed out. “His abilities are stranger than mine even with all my potions put together, hence how he figured out we’re a zebra and pegasi of a feather~”

“I’ll have to take Artemis and Eris here too,” Butterscotch wolfed down his salad almost half as fast as Rainbow Blitz would, turning to his brownie. "What about you?"

"Hmm?"

"Have any friends you would like to take here?"

Zecora frowned as he watched Butterscotch scarf down his brownie, initially stumped for any options. Rainbow Blitz and Butterscotch had dozens of friends they could take out to eat, drink, or whatever the fuck they felt like doing. Zecora? He hadn't had any meaningful interaction since leaving Zebrica, until the two lovely pegasi came into his life. Then, an image as clear as day. Somepony to spend time with as a friend, somepony to turn to. A yearning for friendship beyond his throuple, and he had it right in front of him.

Tomorrow, he would go and visit his new friend…