“– and that’s how I freed the town from the Thunderbee’s terrifying wrath!” Rockhoof twirled his shovel, planted it firmly, and beamed at his audience.
– Who was currently nose-deep in a stack of parchment almost as tall as himself, quill blazing across the page as swiftly as the Thunderbee’s lightning zaps. “... Stygian?”
“Hm? Just a sec.”
The quill scribbled a last sentence, and the grey unicorn finally looked up and belatedly clapped. “That was a great tale! Very dramatic, it’s sure to be a hit. Now, I just had a few questions – when you said that you used your shovel to throw mud on the drones, would you say that you were digging straight down? Or more, skimming across the top of the riverbank?” Stygian asked, punctuating his questions with the corresponding gestures.
“Oh, uh.” Rockhoof scratched at his head. “I don’t quite –” He shifted his stance, shovel at the ready, and tried to remember where he’d been in the story. “Ahem. ‘And then I realized, if I was having trouble with the mud –’ ” Down – in – out – “Kinda halfway in between? I think?”
Stygian scribbled some more. “Perfect.”
Rockhoof scratched his head again. “You’re really sure anypony would be interested in reading a book about me?”
Stygian leaned forward, pinning him with that look that always used to mean he’d asked a particularly boneheaded question. Rockhoof remembered before – well, before everything – sometimes he’d ask questions he already knew the answer to, just to get that look.
Stygian always did love explaining things, and Rockhoof had always enjoyed listening to his explanations more than, well. More than he ought, he was sure of that much.
“Did you not hear me say ‘very nice deal’?” Stygian said, in that tone that meant that the words meant something different from what they should. “I had to talk the publisher down from offering a five-book contract sight unseen. Between the obvious cross-marketing opportunity with my series and how popular your in-person storytelling sessions are, they’d have been fools not to jump at the offer.”
“So I’ll be ruining your reputation and theirs if this book flops?” And Rockhoof had thought that trying to figure out what to do with himself in this modern time in the first place was intimidating.
“It won’t flop,” Stygian said. “And if there are any problems, they’re far more likely to be my fault than yours. Trying to translate the vibrancy of your movements to the page is more difficult than I expected.” He looked away suddenly, busying himself with straightening the stacks of paper. “Anyway. Shall we stop here for today? And pick things up … I assume you’ll be busy tomorrow, so perhaps the evening after?”
“Tomorrow?” Rockhoof squinted upward. Had he agreed to do something that he’d forgotten? It’d be just like Stygian to remember when he himself didn’t.
“Hearts and Hooves Day,” Stygian said.
“Oh, right, that.” So many newfangled holidays these days; it was hard to keep track of them all. “That’s the one for spending with your sweetheart, right? We can cancel for sure, if you’ve got a mare in mind to woo.” He leaned over and clapped Stygian gently on the shoulder. “Let me know if you’d like to impress her with a private performance from your friend, Equestria’s official Keeper of Tales.”
It was the least he could do for a friend, right?
Stygian blinked. Opened and closed his mouth, face starting to flush. “What are you – I don’t – there isn’t a – I assumed you’d have a date!”
Rockhoof sat back on his haunches, wincing as he saw Stygian’s precarious stack wobble. “What gave you that idea? Who’d want to date a big ol’ lunk like me?”
“Approximately half the mares and a quarter of the stallions who’ve seen you speak, and a hoofful of other creatures besides, if rumors are to be believed,” Stygian said dryly. He peered at Rockhoof, nonplussed. “You didn’t know?”
Rockhoof scratched his head again. “Is giving flowers supposed to be a date thing now? I figured it was, like,” he gestured, “tossing coins to the local traveling storyteller at the inn the way we used to, you know? ’Cept folks are better off now, and flowers are prettier?”
Stygian buried his face in his hooves. It’d been years – Rockhoof supposed ‘centuries’ would be more accurate now – since he’d seen that happen. “I cannot believe – wait.” He looked up. “You thought I had a date?”
Rockhoof did his best impression of Stygian’s stare. He suspected it wasn’t very good. “You’re a famous author, and you’re one of the cleverest ponies I know,” he said. “Any mare’d be lucky to have you.”
“Have you looked at me?” Stygian asked exasperatedly. He flexed, gesturing pointedly with his other forehoof at the complete lack of raised muscle.
Rockhoof laid a hoof on his shoulder again. “Look, Stygian, I was scrawny once too. I know nopony used to look twice at stallions like us. You. But the ponies in this time have learned that strength isn’t everything.” It was one of the things he liked best about the change.
“Mares, maybe. But stallions?” Stygian suddenly looked away, like he’d said too much.
Oh.
Why did he also feel the sudden need to look away? “Stallions, too,” Rockhoof said. Too emphatically. “Any stallion would be lucky to have you as –” what was that phrase? “– ‘their special somepony’.”
Stygian looked up, and there was – something – in his eyes that sent a shiver down Rockhoof’s spine. “‘Any stallion’?” he asked quietly. Reached up to touch the hoof that Rockhoof still had on his shoulder. “Even one who I have wronged worse than all but five others in the world?”
Rockhoof swallowed. Meeting Stygian’s gaze – not looking away – was harder than any three Thunderbee fights, but he did it anyway. “Even a giant lunk of a stallion who spent years kicking himself for believing that Starswirl was right about your envy without even asking. When I – when we – should have known better than anyone else that you had a plan. You always had a plan.”
Stygian smiled bitterly. “Not always. And I – I should also have asked first.”
He reached up with his other hoof, taking Rockhoof’s in his own and gently removing it from his shoulder. Rockhoof didn’t resist.
“Rockhoof –” Stygian said. Shook his head, and chuckled wryly. “I didn’t have a plan for this, either. But at least I can ask.” He cleared his throat. “Rockhoof, would you be my very special somepony for Hearts and Hooves Day? … And after that too. If you want.”
“It would be my honor,” Rockhoof said.
