Ocellus stared at him for a moment. Tears welled up in her eyes, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t stop herself.

It was too much. Her composure broke, and she started crying, then bawling.

Scutum backed away and looked around, scanning the vicinity like any good drone would. “W-what’s going on?”

“I didn’t get you anything,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and went to hug her. She didn’t hug him back, too embarrassed to move or even think at this point. Didn’t seem to make a difference to him. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to cry over that. Now tell me what’s wrong, there’s gotta more to it than that. Did someone get under your skin? Do you wanna go get some tea, or sit by the duck pond?”

Ocellus clenched her eyes shut. He always knew what would cheer her up.

“No. I overslept this morning, and then I realised I’d missed a few days. I wanted to get you something. I was going to get you something, but I lost track of time and I couldn’t catch up. I’ve running across Ponyville all day, and I still couldn’t come up with anything.”

He gently pressed her head against his chest so she could hear him breathe, calm and slow. “That’s okay. I’ve still got you, don’t I?”

“That’s true.”

“And you really tired yourself out that much that you’re crying over it?” Scutum wiped at her eyes to dry them off.

“Not just that.” Ocellus sighed. “I just… none of my friends knew what to do. Missus Cake wasn’t any help, Professor Rarity gave me some advice, but it didn’t fix the problem.” Finally, she managed to wrap her arms around the boy. “And then Discord showed up. He put me through this game show.”

Scutum chuckled to himself. “So that’s what the bruises are from.”

“Yeah. It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt, not really. I think he was trying to tell me something, or teach me something, but I couldn’t guess what.”

“So spell it out for me, maybe? You know I’m good with that kind of stuff.”

“I know the first two: you’re a lot freer when you break the chains of habit, and sometimes the thing you’re most scared of is what you want most. But the third round, he had me fighting myself, or my shadow.”

“You fought yourself? Wow. Who won?” he joked.

She forced out a smile at the dad-tier joke. “It was a shapeshifting duel. My opponent went for something bitey, I turned into an electric eel.”

“Oh.” Scutum looked up at the sky. “And that wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t let yourself get bitten. It’s easy, then: sometimes a small failure is what you need for a big win. Local minimums and maximums and all that, we saw that in-”

“Math class in Fillydelphia, right. I forgot. I almost had it, too, my wish, I mean. Discord had the perfect gift ready, the perfect day. But he hid it behind three doors. He said any one of the doors was fine, but I still couldn’t decide which one. I ran out of time.”

“You worried too much about what I’d think, so you didn’t pick anything.” He kissed her on the forehead.

It took all her mental fortitude not to turn into a puddle right then and there. “I guess that’s the small failure, then. But where’s the big success?”

He gently put a hoof under her chin to tilt her head up. “Ocellus, look at me. I’m not upset, I’m not sad, I’m not angry at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I know you study hard and I know sometimes you overdo it. If I ever thought it was going too far, I’d tell you. I’m not smart enough to be subtle with that kind of thing.”

She chuckled. “That doesn’t make it okay.”

“It does to me. Just because today’s the holiday, doesn’t mean you have to get a present on the day, does it?”

“But that’s how it’s supposed to go.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, sorry, then. My gift won’t be here for a week or two.”

She blinked in confusion. “You… wait, you didn’t get me anything, either?”

“Not right away. I didn’t know what day it was, either, but, you know, I improvised. I had to think a little, and then I commissioned someone.”

“W-what did you commission?”

He took his locket from under his wingshields and opened it. “We’ll always have Geneighva. Mister Sage from the print shop used some magic on the picture to make it bigger, portrait-sized.”

“You commissioned a portrait-sized picture?”

“No, that’d be silly. I… I wanted to get you something you’d like. Portraits don’t really fit in the Hive, since our walls aren’t that flat, and with your little brother and sister running around, I didn’t want you to worry. Then I thought maybe you’d like a book, but you’re surrounded by books all the time, you’d stress yourself out over that. Then I figured maybe some workout equipment, since you’re sitting still so much, but I didn’t want to risk you overdoing it.”

“And I probably would.”

“Exactly. I couldn’t think of anything better than a portrait, so I went back to it and workshopped it a little. I talked to Mister Sage, and he told me he has a friend up North who’s an artist. They don’t just do paintings, but they print on fabric, too. So I put in an order.”

She chuckled. “That is kind of funny. ‘I went to Geneighva and all I got was a T-shirt,’ that’s a classic.”

“It’s not a T-shirt; it’s a pillow.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

He blushed and looked away. “Since… I know how much you like soft things. Pillows don’t break that easily, they can be fixed, the print can be restored. And I know you need a place to rest your head more than anything else. But it won’t be delivered until two weeks from now. I hope you’ll like it.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “I think… I’ll love it.”

He nuzzled her cheek. “You feel tired, Ocellus. More than usual. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“I am now.”

Her mind raced. Her breath started to slow, and her head felt heavy. “I just need to rest a little. Can I rest with you?”

“Always.” He gave her another peck on the head, and led her to a nearby tree so they could sit in the shade. “And when that pillow gets here, you’ll get to rest with me even when I’m not there.”

She lay her head down on his lap. Even with everything feeling so heavy, her mind still tried to find an answer, come up with a solution. She couldn’t let the moment pass without giving him something.

“I love you,” she blurted out.

Tense silence fell for a moment. “I love you, too, Ocellus. Now go to sleep.”

“One hour. When the bells ring, you need to wake me up. And then… I don’t know. We should do something.”

“I’ll think of something in the meantime.”

“And you promise you’ll wake me up?”

“I promise. I’m not leaving your side.”

With that, she let go, and fell into a light sleep, a little catnap to catch up with the changeling boy she loved.

Ponies went by, coming and going. She vaguely heard him comment on some pony moving away, and one of the boys in town getting into some crosshairs or other. Change was in the air in Ponyville, though she couldn’t say if it would be for the better.

It was white noise to her, the sort that helped her sleep, and he knew exactly when to lower his voice or when to switch topics.

Part of her idly wondered just how much Ponyville had changed since she’d first arrived, or even before that.

With so many foreign students now pouring in, and other visitors, it felt odd to call ‘Pony’-ville now, at least from her perspective. Scutum certainly sounded like he agreed with that.

She couldn’t live here after graduation, she decided.

Another sigh, and she forced herself to stop thinking about the future, if only for a moment.

The future didn’t matter, not now.

Today would be perfect, and she’d be together with the boy she loved.

And no matter what, there would be more days to come, together.

And she could overthink and worry about all that tomorrow.

The End.

Author's Note

So, there it is. It's not perfect, but it's as good a place to end it as I could manage.

Some predator beetles, or spiders, I forget which, have this tactic of killing ants and swinging the body around their comrades so more ants come to try and rescue them. Given that, I thought it was a nice little touch to have Scutum's first response to Ocellus crying being 'this might be a trap.'

Beyond that, I didn't want to spell it out in the story, but the author's intent was to show that where Ocellus is book smart, Scutum is people smart. He understands habits, social rules, riddles and subtexts. Given that he had to hide his handicap for most of his life, it made sense to give him that sort of a background, and it pairs and contrasts well with Ocellus.

Everything else? I don't know. I hadn't planned on making this story, it was going to be a Bastion/Apple Bloom timeskip with my flagship OC's initially. But you can probably tell from how this thing turned out that I simply can't do stories of that scope any more.

I'm okay with ending it like this. It's positive, but cautious. The negatives are on the outside, and there's a young couple who can rely on each other to deal with both their own problems and the problems around them. They're good kids, shaking on the cusp of adulthood, and as the author I get to decree they have a happy ending. No compromise on that.

Hope you enjoyed, dear reader.

Take care.

Cracker out.