She wasn't far away. In fact, she was all but standing right next to him. Yet the close distance did nothing to calm Comet's nerves. Try as he might to avert his gaze, he found himself drawn to Misty in a way he couldn't really explain. Everything about her fascinated him to no end: Her sweet and gentle eyes, her bushy mane and tail, her cutie mark, and of course that cute, innocent voice. As far as he could tell, he'd never felt this way about anypony before: Not Violet Frost whom he'd worked alongside for many years, not Sunny Starscout who had helped him and his fellow auroracorns to realize that being happy made them strong, not even Izzy Moonbow whom he'd had so much fun with back in Starlight Ridge.
So Comet just stood there, staring at Misty in a way that was sure to draw attention to himself. He didn't know what to say, what to do. It was as if he was frozen right to the spot, as if he were Allura's mindless servant once again with no free will of his own. Why did he feel this way? Why was he rendered so utterly speechless and powerless like this? Why couldn't he do anything about it?
Misty, for her part, was completely unaware of what Comet was feeling or thinking. All she knew was that he was staring at her with the most unusual look upon his face. Despite still being somewhat new to friendship, she knew enough to know that such behavior wasn't natural. She had only known Comet for a few months at this point, yet she had never seen him act like this before. So she trotted over to him, hoping to snap him out of whatever trance he might be in. "Hey, Comet?" She waved a hoof across his face. "Everything okay in there?"
Comet blinked rapidly and stepped back a bit, nearly losing his balance in the process. "W-what? O-oh, I... I guess everything's okay, more or less." He tried to sound confident and assertive, but his tone of voice only became soft and whispery, betraying his intentions.
"You sure?" Misty questioned the glasses wearing stallion. "You know you can tell me if something's wrong, right? I've learned that it's not always good to keep things bottled up inside. Is there something you wanna tell me?"
Comet swallowed hard, adjusting his glasses as a nervous sweat started to work its way down his body. "I... I..." He froze, unable to bring himself to say anything else even though his mind was screaming at him.
Misty pressed further, suspecting something was seriously wrong with her newest friend and fellow unicorn. Not only was his sweating becoming noticeable, but his face was turning a very obvious shade of reddish-pink. "Yes, Comet?"
The glasses wearing unicorn backed up as he loudly exclaimed! "I have to go!" And he ran away as fast as his hooves would let him! In a matter of seconds he was completely out of sight.
Misty, for her part, just sighed and looked down at the ground. "Sunny and Izzy make it look so easy," She said to herself in a disappointed tone of voice. "Where did I go wrong?" She continued to think about that as she trotted away, hoping that Comet was alright.
In another part of the Brighthouse, Comet was panting heavily as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hoof. Nothing in his life had ever been so stressful. Given the choice he would've rather been facing down Allura all by himself.
In the back of his mind, the stallion was cursing himself. That had been the perfect opportunity to work up the nerve and tell Misty outright how he felt about her. "You would've felt so much better if you'd just told her! But you had to be stupid and run away!" He angrily thought. "Now it's going to be ten times harder for you the next time you see her! Way to go, Comet! Can't you do anything right?!"
With those angry thoughts welling up inside him, the glasses wearing unicorn angrily stomped a hoof down on the ground. All it did was make his hoof hurt, and did nothing to calm him down. He hated feeling this way. But he didn't know what he could do about it. If only there were some way he could overcome those complicated feelings inside of him, some way to push past them.
"Hey, Comet," Sunny suddenly and chipperly greeted, suspecting nothing. "What are you doing here all alone? Misty told me you just ran off on her all of a sudden. That's not like you."
Comet turned around very slowly. At least with Sunny he could talk normally (about as normally as he could, anyway). "It's... stupid," He remarked as he let out a long, drawn out sigh. "You'd probably make fun of me if you knew."
Sunny sincerely smiled. "Why would I ever do that, Comet? Friends don't make fun of each other when they're having a problem."
The glasses wearing stallion sighed once again. "Honestly, I don't even know what it is. There's just something about Misty that makes me act so... so... nervous, and shy. I know I didn't have this problem originally. But the more I started spending time here in Maretime Bay, and the more I started being around Misty, the more I started realizing I had these... feelings about her."
"Well, why don't you come and talk to the rest of our friends about it?" Sunny suggested as she took Comet by the hoof. "I think they might just be able to help you."
Sure enough, Sunny brought Comet down to the ground floor of the Brighthouse and into the kitchen. With the exception of Misty, all of their friends were already seated around the kitchen table, having just finished a board game together.
Zipp was the first one to spot Sunny and Comet as they approached. "Well, look who decided to join the fun," She remarked as she got out of her seat and flew over. "We were just about to start another game. Care to join us?"
"Thanks, Zipp, but I think we'll have to take a rain check on that," Sunny replied to her pegasus friend. "Right now, Comet could really use our help. Apparently, he has these... feelings for Misty."
Upon hearing those words, Pipp's ears perked up as she fluttered over. "Oh really?" She put her hooves together and smiled. "Isn't that great, Comet? You're in love with Misty! And I thought Rocky and Jazz would be the only couple I'd see."
Izzy bounced over, putting her hooves to her face! "Wait, Comet's got a crush on Misty?! Ooh, that is so adorable! We should do something to celebrate it!"
But Sunny protested. "Not so fast, everypony. Comet hasn't even told Misty about how he feels yet. In fact, that's kind of what he could use our help with."
Hitch trotted over with Sparky in tow. "How? We're not exactly love experts ourselves. And this is uncharted territory, having to help one friend work out their feelings for another friend."
"If it's anything like Jazz and Rocky, it shouldn't be too difficult," Pipp proposed as she looked at Comet. "What is it you need help with? What's stopping you from confessing to Misty? Trust me, you'll feel a lot better once you do."
Comet pushed his glasses into place as he swallowed hard once again. "I don't know, really. I was going to tell her earlier, but something stopped me. Whenever I think about it, something just causes me to freeze and get all nervous and tense all of a sudden. Even facing down Allura never made me feel that way."
"What? Is it some sort of spell or curse?" Zipp speculated. "Maybe we need to find some kind of cure or counterspell?"
Hitch shook his head from side to side. "It doesn't sound like it's anything outside of Comet's control. It seems like it's something entirely in his head," He eyed his fellow stallion. "Isn't that right, Comet?"
The glasses wearing unicorn slowly nodded. "I... guess it is. So how do I overcome it? How do I work past it?"
Izzy flashed a toothy grin as she took hold of Comet. "Well, you just gotta push it aside, rip off that bandage! If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't go through life always being scared and afraid! If something's in the way that's trying to hold you back, you just gotta face it head on so it doesn't control you! So push all those complicated feelings aside and tell Misty straight how you're feeling!"
Comet gulped and stepped back a bit. "But... what if she says no? What if she doesn't feel the same way about me that I do about her?"
Izzy waved a hoof and said in reply. "At least you'll know for sure one way or the other. That's a lot better than having that uncertainty hanging around if you ask me."
Sunny then sought to reassure Comet. "I think the best thing to do is to just be yourself, Comet. Just go to Misty and confess. Even if she doesn't love you back, at least you'll still be friends. And you'll always have us for support."
The glasses wearing stallion was silent for a moment, before something new took hold of him. He knew at once what he had to do and where he needed to be! "Thank you, all of you," He said to his friends. "I think I'm ready now. Ready or not, Misty, here I come!" And with his mind made up he trotted off to go look for his fellow unicorn.
"Well, that went better than expected," Zipp commented to the others. "So, what should we do now?"
Pipp just smiled. "I think it's best if we let Comet and Misty work things out between each other without our help. It seems like that always works for the better instead of us always trying to intervene."
After a great deal of searching throughout the entire Brighthouse, Comet was able to track down Misty in the one place he knew he could always count on to find her in: That secret room within the Brighthouse that she had discovered all by herself.
Misty was more than a little bit surprised to see Comet again so soon. She seemed to suspect nothing. "Oh, hey Comet," She greeted with an innocent, unaware smile. "Feeling better now?"
Comet nodded quite slowly. "Yeah." It looked like he wanted to say more, but no words came out of his mouth.
"So... is there something you wanna talk about?" Misty asked her fellow unicorn. "Anything at all?"
This was it, the moment of truth. The glasses wearing stallion pushed all those conflicting thoughts and feelings to the back of his mind. There was no turning back now! He opened his mouth and blurted out quite abruptly! "Misty, I love you!" Only after he'd said those words did he hastily clamp a hoof across his mouth, trying to recover. "Er... what I meant to say was..."
But to Comet's surprise, Misty didn't react with shock or disgust like he might have expected her to. Instead, she sweetly smiled and trotted towards him, using her magic to remove his hoof from his mouth. "-It's okay, I heard you quite clearly. And I just want to say: What took you so long?"
Comet let out a gasp as his blush returned with a vengeance! "W-wait, you... knew?!"
Misty nodded and playfully giggled a bit. "Wasn't too hard to figure out from the way you kept looking at me. I was starting to think I might have to do something drastic in order to make you tell me," She then added. "And... I think I feel the same way."
"Oh, you do?" Comet blinked in surprise.
Misty slowly blinked back. "Yeah. There's just so much to love about you. If you think about it, we have a lot in common: We both spent a lot of years being controlled by someone else, someone who was evil. And we're both kind of new to friendship because of that. Plus, we still have our... anxieties."
The glasses wearing stallion couldn't keep himself from giggling and snorting a bit. "Y-yeah, we do. I never really thought about any of that. But it's nice to know you feel the same way about me that I do about you," He then saw fit to ask. "So, what happens now? What should we do?"
Misty shrugged her hooves. "We'll just go with the flow and see where this relationship takes us. Maybe it'll change over time, or maybe we'll be together for years and years to come. Either way, we'll make the most of it. Doesn't that sound good to you?"
Comet nodded back, gazing longingly into Misty's eyes. "It certainly does, Misty." Then he and Misty exchanged their first kiss as an official couple.
Author's Note
Lots of people have been shipping Comet with Izzy, and I feel like no one's considering what he and Misty would have in common. It feels like Comet and Misty would relate to each other and connect to each other a lot more than Comet and Izzy would.
Hey, if G5 isn't going to do anything with Comet, I will.
