Glorified

Ponyville was a very, very large city. If you were to put a dome around it, the highest height would be close to the same level a sky city normally sits at, and you wouldn’t be able to see the edge of the dome until you were close to the outer rings. A massive, horizon bending place that seems to go on forever. However, the Princess had a decent amount of foresight when it came to building it, so each ring has a road that goes all the way around its outer edge. This far out the speed limit sits at the maximum of eighty five miles per hour, and it will still take you a couple hours to circumnavigate the whole thing by car.

To the west, you could see the grasslands and woods give way to the deserts further out. Train tracks extended beneath the highway on and out further, old systems and newer high speed lines with roads following along them. Rural empty space, nothing to worry about but snakes and scorpions. It was a nice view and one I never got tired of. Ponyville is a big place. It’s easy to forget the much larger world outside of it.

As the day drooped and evening overtook the sky, we made it to the eastern side of the loop, speeding along with the few cars around us. Here, you could see The Dragonspine Range and even the vague shape of Canterlot Castle. The mountain capital had become almost like a vertical version of Ponyville with big buildings shooting up like spikes on the mountain side all around the castle. Nothing was to ever be taller than the castle, however, so that has remained at the peak to this day. Even the buildings in Ponyville revere the Castle’s status.

It was heavily forested this way: White Tail to the north, Everfree to the east, and Froggy Bottom bog to the south-east. These were places I was told not to go to as a child. Magic ran wild in the Everfree, the bog is dark and can suck you in. It’s become a problem recently since the outer districts have taken up space that once was the forest and the bog. Ponies don’t like moving out into them because it’s ‘creepy’ out there. Princess Twilight threw a fit at the last family gathering about how the unnatural magic of the two places was throwing her city building out of whack. If nopony really wanted the prices she was practically taking at a loss to get them out there, she’d have to build further west, taking her castle out of the exact center of the city. It was a reminder that even ponies like her have their quirks.

The wedding next week will be the first time I’ve seen her since then too. I guess this will be like one of those big family gatherings, just with even more ponies. The families of all my friends, all of my family, the families of all the ponies who’d been in my life from birth to now. The apples alone ought to be a third of the audience. Given the timing of everything, I should probably ask Spitfire for Monday off. Between what Cheesette and I are gonna do and any more rainbow wine than I had the other day, I’m gonna be miserable when I get up in the morning, provided I get up early enough for that in the first place.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how little I actually know about my own wedding. “Babe.”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s gonna be my best man?”

She tapped on the wheel to the rhythm of the music we’d been playing. “Well, your groomsmen are Ace, Cheese, Fallacy, and your brother, so any of them I guess. Who do you want it to be?”

It’d have to be my best friend. “Fal would be my first pick.”

“I’m honored!” he said, appearing in the back seat of the car. My half-pony friend gave me a hug. “Though I can’t say I know what I’ll be expected to do. You guys are younger than I am, already getting married. I figured Mister Cheese would’ve killed you before you made it this far.”

Cheesette looked back at him with a stink eye, but quickly returned her attention to the road. “I really should have expected this.”

He scoffed. “Oh, don’t do that, then I’ll have to get more creative the next time I’m mentioned. These pop-ins take a lot of work, you know?”

She let out a breath. “Right. Well, basically, you should arrange a party for him the night before, and by you, I mean you should ask Mom to do that because I’m sure she already has. You and the guys will go out and have a good time before the wedding in the afternoon. We’ll have the after party after that, and then I’ll be pregnant the next morning.”

Fallacy’s eyes popped out of his skull for a minute. “Oh, geez, you’re not being shy about that anymore.”

“Nope. I’ve been waiting two years for this night to come and when it comes, I’m gonna have it.” She slapped her pillowy thighs. “Right there.”

The feelings from earlier began to burn again.

Fallacy picked up the packets in the cupholder. “Goodness me, did I interrupt something here?”

I grabbed the condoms and threw them back. “No, Miss Rarity gave us these.”

“I wasn’t gonna use them either way anyways,” Cheesette announced.

Fallacy shrank down and sat on the console between us. “Right, I forget that you’re also known as ‘Hoodrat’ on the internet. Are you still playing that Snake-eyes deck, or have you moved on to another game?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I’ll stick with KOG for a while. Gonna have a tournament on Thursday, you should join.”

A deck of KOG cards appeared above Fallacy and began floating up and around him in a circle. “Oh, perhaps. Haze has yet to convince me that Snake-eyes can be beaten. I was told his duels with you this morning were less than successful. The game doesn’t seem like it’s in a very healthy state when half the same cards appear in every deck.”

“It probably isn’t, but I still enjoy it. It’s over fast and I can play with a lot of my viewers in a short time.”

I felt like I’d become the third wheel. “Okay, cool, but like, the wedding?”

“Oh, right.” Cheesette took the car out of gear and began slowing down to get on the off-ramp back into Ponyville. “So there’s your bachelor party with you and the other bachelors, and Mom is gonna give Fallacy my pendant so that he has it to give to you when they tell us to present them to each other.”

I’ve actually tried to propose about three times and I got her a different pendant each time. She accepted them all; it’s her dad who’s been in the way all this time. “Which one are you using?”

She smiled and pursed her lips at me. “It’s a secret. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to help out, so they made new ones for us using gems from the rock farm. I’m more excited to see what you think of yours.”

Her grandparents? “I don’t think I’ve ever met your grandparents.”

She clicked her tongue. “Nah, they don’t get many chances to leave the farm and my aunt is really particular about the ponies people bring to the farm. I’m sure you’ll get invited to come after this, but uh… ya know, my family is full of weirdos.”

I smiled and put my hoof on her cheek. “You’re my favorite weirdo.”

Blushing, she took the hoof. “Thanks, Sweetie Pie.”

Fallacy snapped his cards away. “This is clearly a date and I should go. Prism, please text me about what you’d like to do or… I suppose if you have free time after work, I can come to Cloudsdale or something. “

Cheesette put both her hooves back on the wheel. “Oh, you also need to make a toast to the groom during dinner. Think about that, and please write something heartfelt and not too embarrassing. Make it fun, but not too insulting.”

He snapped his phone to his miniature hooves and used magic white gloves to write down a note. “Fun but not too insulting, got it.”

The phone and the gloves disappeared in pink clouds and Fallacy grew enough to grab both of our hooves. “Well then, if I don’t see you again before the 5th, I wish you both a happily ever after.” He tied a magical red knot between our hooves, then let it fade away. “And Cheesette?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t break him. He has to go back to work at some point.”

She took her hoof back. “No promises.”

Fallacy licked his lips. “Welp. Good luck, Prism. I’m very happy for you both.”

“Thanks, man.”

Fallacy took a bow, and went back to whence he came, wherever that might have been.

Cheesette eyed me. “Did you know he was gonna do that?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s like part of their natures. Him and his dad, I mean. If you say, or even think about their names, they’ll know. It was really nice when I wanted to watch a new anime or something back in middle school because I’d just have to ask the air and he’d be there. I’ve known him a lot longer than I’ve known you, ya know.”

She frowned, bemused. “What, really? Haven’t we been around each other since we were born though?”

“We might’ve been, but we weren’t, like, friends until high school. Uncle Discord is one of Dad’s friends, and Aunt Shy has been Mom’s friend since they were kids. Mom taught Amity how to fly. I was over there a lot as a kid, and there’s that huge Ponyville park by my house. Back when we were really young, Fallacy would sometimes literally stick himself to me so Uncle Discord would have to come separate us to make him go home. We’ve been through a lot together.”

“Didn’t your mom teach Cotton how to fly too?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but it’s not like your parents could’ve done it, and besides, Haze is the one who’s friends with him. I don’t think I even talked to Cheese much before we were in high school.”

“Hmm.” She pulled her mouth to the side, tilting her head. “I’m almost kinda jealous. I don’t really have a friendship like that.”

I put my hoof on her shoulder. “You have me, don’t you?”

She shrugged it off. “I do, but like, I don’t have friends like you and my parents do. Up until high school, I don’t think I spent much time with anypony other than my family. Cheese and I were always a pair wherever we went. Ponies had to be friends with both of us to be our friends when we were little and… well, we’re a lot more like Dad than we are Mom, and you know how Dad is.”

I had a vague idea of who her father was, but not a very good one. Dad knows Mister Cheese a lot better than I do. “Other than him not so subtly threatening to trade your virginity for my life, I really don’t know what he’s like. He’s funny and friendly I guess, but he’s never, like, personal with anypony.”

She pulled to a stop at an intersection. “And that’s a pretty good summary of it. Dad is perfectly happy to make jokes and talk about things that don’t matter too much, but rarely does he ever talk about his own feelings with anypony. Including us.”

Cheesette is really open with me, but does she express herself much when we’re in groups? Hoodrat isn’t exactly shy about anything. Sometimes even when she should be. “Are you saying that you guys are like that too?”

The light turned green. “Yeah, kinda. I blow things off and I’m not all that serious about anything other than you.”

“What about your pies? Aren’t you serious about baking?” It was her cutiemark after all.

She threw a hoof out. “Pies. Sure, it’s my talent and all that, I’ve never seen a pie I couldn’t bake, but like… I don’t want to devote my life to making pies, ya know? I like streaming, I like being with you, I think I’d like taking care of kids during the day, but the pies would just be… something to feed everypony with. And I’m sure I wouldn’t just make pies. It almost feels like my talent is, like, a non-factor in my life.”

I leaned back in the chair. “I mean, I’d know how that feels more than anypony, right? We aren’t finally getting married because I got a job working in architecture for some big-name construction company.”

She let her head fall to the side. “Yeah, but you’re still at least passionate about building things. It’s not just buildings either. It’s the model kits and blocks and toothpicks. Anything you can put your hooves on you have enough creativity to make something out of. You like to do it, you’re passionate about your work, it brings you joy and seeing you happy makes me happy. I guess I just… I wish I had that same kind of love for a hobby or something. You attract ponies and I really don’t.”

I leaned over and put my wing around her. “Babe, what’s this about? You attracted me didn’t you? You don’t have anything to get down on yourself for.”

She leaned over and kissed my cheek, then sat up to focus on driving. We were getting close to home. “Sometimes I wonder how I managed that.” She felt her stomach and pulled at it. “I’m not exactly a skinny fit mare or anything. And you’re… like a statue somepony carved out.”

“So what? Do I have to like someone because they’re, like, genetically ‘right’ for me? Are we supposed to color-coordinate our coats and manes? Can I not be with you because we aren’t the same race? Come on, you know better than that.”

Rather than turn into my neighborhood, Cheesette pulled into the park parking lot. She stopped the car and turned her full attention to me. “Be honest with me, alright?”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and scooted over, closing in on her. I couldn’t stop her from feeling whatever it was, but I could at least surround her to keep her from feeling anything else. “I’m always honest with you. What’s up?”

Cheesette blushed, looking ashamed at her lap, playing with my hoof. “If you could… if you could build somepony to be your perfect mare, what would she be like? And don’t give me any cheap bullshit either. I want the real deal.”

She’s really feeling self-conscious, huh? I slid further into the driver’s seat, scooting her into my lap and totally covering her with my wings. “So, when you say ‘real deal,’ what are we talking about exactly? Is this, like, fetish stuff? The mares I find the most attractive that turn on my lower brain? Or is this about a mare I’d actually want to spend my life with? Because the intersection of those two things is very narrow.”

She fell against my chest, still playing with my hoof. “All three. The body, the mind and the soul. What does she look like?”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “This is kinda awkward to say out loud. Are you sure you want this?”

Cheesette turned a sour face at me. “Yes! This is literally what I’m asking for!”

I patted her mane down. “Alright, alright.” I rubbed at my chin, feeling my clown beard stubble mixed with my coat. “I like mares with weight.”

“Weight?”

“Hefty mares, mares on the heavy side! Like, there’s a line to be drawn of course, but you know like… big butts, soft skin, fat teats. The kinda mare with enough for me to bury my face into, ya know? She’s gotta have a pretty face too, though it doesn’t really do it for me if she’s got the shape and not the smile.”

She held her chin. “I don’t know if I should be happy or offended. Like who? Is there a real pony you know like this or is it just, like, porn?”

I looked her directly in the eyes. “If I say names, will you promise to behave?”

Cheesette turned away. “So it’s somepony I know…”

“I’m not gonna say if you don’t promise.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine! I promise to behave.”

“So, when I was about eleven, I went on a trip to a beach in Applewood.”

“That’s not a name, babe.”

“And on that trip, we had bathing suits.”

“You keep tip-toeing there, buddy.”

“The pony who happened to give us those bathing suits was also there, in one of those bathing suits.”

She covered her eyes, shaking her head. “Bro.”

“It was the first time I’d ever popped a boner.”

“With the way you’re poking me, I’d bet another you would’ve accepted her offer earlier.”

“I—” I put a hoof over my heart, “—am a stallion with particular tastes. If I didn’t know her or anyone related to her, I probably would.”

“I can’t believe you’re into fat chicks!”

“She’s not fat!”

Cheesette scoffed. “Yeah, and I’m a supermodel.”

I pressed my cheek to hers. “You’re my supermodel!”

She groaned, then giggled. “I said no bullshit, remember? You’re not allowed to make me laugh.”

I wrapped my forelegs around her. “Too bad. Making you laugh is on the top of my priority list.”

She pressed her lips to mine and we kissed for a long moment. “Yeah, right behind getting me fat and heavy, huh?”

“No, I want you happy first. That’s a close second though. Next week, it can be on top.”

She smiled deviously. “I absolutely will be.” She turned toward the window, watching the sun set over Ponyville park. The light was golden at this hour, making all the bright green of the leaves and the grass feel warm and inviting. “So Miss Rarity gets you all hot and bothered, but she’s not somepony you’d want to be with?”

I gagged. “Ugh, dude, have you met Pearl? I could only stand her so much when we were kids, and I think I get more joy out of embarrassing her than I do hanging out with her. She’s prissy, high maintenance, hardly ever honest, least of all when it’s important, and she’s such a… normie. Sure, Pearl’s mom has got it goin’ on, but that’s a ‘nut and go,’ not a ‘protect and care.’”

Cheesette smirked and smothered a laugh. “Sounds like—no, no, I can’t!”

My smile died. “Sounds like…?”

She couldn’t contain it. “Your mom!”

Right in the heart. True pain, the worst pain I could ever feel. Pearl acts like Mom. “Why would you say that?”

Full on cackling, she managed to say, “You asked!”

I massaged the throbbing in my head. What an unpleasant revelation. “I really shouldn’t have.”

“Yep! Ah, what a… conflicting answer.” She shook her mane, trying to put all the pieces together. “Is it… is it because I’m ‘not fat,’ as you put it, that you asked me out in the first place?”

“What? Come on. I’ll accept that Miss Rarity is above a healthy weight, but you are absolutely not!”

She grabbed my hoof and made me rub her belly. “Oh, yeah, ‘right on the line’ is a healthy—” Then she looked down. “Goddess, dude.”

I looked away. “Did we not just discuss what that does for me?”

She licked her lips. “Nope, you’re right. I, uh… I just didn’t expect such an immediate response.”

“And now you know.”

“And now I know.” She coughed into her hoof. “So, what about somepony you’d want to be with? What is she like?”

This was actually a lot harder of a question to answer. If I wasn’t already with a mare I want to spend my life with, who would I be looking for? It would be easier to say what I wouldn’t want. “Since you don’t want me to just tell you what I like about you, I’ll say what I wouldn’t want in somepony. Is that fair?”

Chuckling, she said, “Starting by crossing your mother and Pearl off the list, huh?”

“Absolutely! Mom at least has her moments, but Pearl is just everything I don’t like about mares. A girly-girl obsessed with trends and fashion and gossip, totally stuck in the moment and only ever real when she’s forced to be. She’s ankle deep, ya know?”

Cheesette held a hoof up. “Alright, alright, I can accept the other stuff, but shallow is a step too far. She’s… dishonest with everypony. Including herself. But not shallow. She really cares a lot more than she lets on, and she would do anything for us.”

I’m not sure I believe that, but Cheesette is definitely closer to Pearl than I am. “Okay, I recant.”

She frowned at me. “Recant? Are the Wonderbolts teaching you Equestrian now?”

“Oh, no, it’s in the play Haze gonna be in later, Mom explained it to me the other day.”

“Right.”

I started over. “So, like, the bad mare traits, like being high strung and demanding, I find really grating, and Pearl has a lot of them, and Miss Rarity and Mom also have a lot of them. The good mare traits, like taking care of ponies and being sweet and friendly are things I really like in mares.”

She blew air out her muzzle. “Well, that sounds like just any nice fat mare would do it for you.”

I put on a serious face. “You’re not fat, really. Don’t put yourself down, I mean it.”

“Alright, alright.” She dropped the smirk and pressed herself to my chest. “It bothers me though. I’ve… never liked that about myself. Being overweight like this.”

“And you don’t have to! If you want to lose weight, then I’ll help you do it. I love more of you than just how you look.”

“Aww, baby.”

I leaned in and whispered. “Besides, I can make it so you’re temporarily fat every couple years.”

She drew a circle on my chest, a bashful face on. “You’re sending mixed messages, Sugarpie. You like a large sweet tea, and you’re telling me a medium is fine?”

In my opinion, she is a medium. “Size is just one thing, and if life were just sweet, everything would be boring. I like it spicy. She has to be able to fight back and play with me, ya know?”

“Oh? Does Pearl not fight with you?”

“Not in a fun way like we do. It’s play fighting, not real fighting. Like chemistry, a reaction between elements. Pearl is just a cocktail waiting to explode, but we have a good mix, and it’s never, like, real anger.” I scratched at my temple. This is hard to explain. “Like the way my parents are with each other. I want that for me. There for each other all the time, somepony always waiting for somepony else when they get home, taking care of things for each other, smiling and laughing when they’re together. Sweet tea isn’t as exciting as a carbonated soda.”

“Hmm. Caffeinated and bubbly with a little kick? I can get behind that.”

“Good, because you are that.”

She sat up to look me in the eyes. “But that can’t be all, can it? She’s a lot thinner than I am, but Liberty ticks most of those boxes, doesn’t she?”

What is a not terrible way to phrase this? “Liberty… is my friend. Maybe there’s a world where she ended up with me instead of Ace, but I would’ve had to have gotten to her a lot sooner than Ace did, and they got their cutie marks together. Those two were made for each other and I can’t really imagine them being apart. The real problem, though, is that while Liberty is cool, she’s not really into the same stuff as I am.”

“Like what?” Cheesette asked.

“Like, everything really. She’s not super into games, it’s hard to get her to watch anime with us, and I don’t think she cares that Ace is a pegasus at all, and flying is what I’m being paid to do now. I’m sure I could find things to do with her if I tried, but it’s a lot easier when somepony is at least somewhat invested in the things I like because what else would we do together? What do we talk about, how do we become friends if we don’t have any interests in common? I don’t want to be somepony who just meets people to get laid and move on. I want a real relationship that lasts forever and there needs to be some hobbies in common for that to happen.”

I grabbed her hooves. “Do you remember what you were doing the first time I came to talk to you?”

She looked down. “I was alone in the cafeteria. Cheese had gotten sick in one of the rare times we both didn’t get sick. I was reading—”

“Bizarre Adventures Part 4!”

“Y-yeah.”

“That’s my favorite part of the series. I hardly saw anypony touch the manga section of the school’s library, let alone anypony reading Bizarre Adventures. It was always just me and Fal because nopony else would give the ‘weird foreign comics’ a chance. You reading that told me you were somepony special, somepony I could be friends with. And I was right! We had even more in common than I thought. Before I even knew what I wanted in a mare, you were already in front of me.”

She swallowed. “But… couldn’t anypony who—”

“No.” I put my hoof to her heart. “It was you. You were there. You’re the one I chose.”

She stared deep into me as her cheeks reddened and tears welled up. “Prism!” Holding me tight, she cried into my neck. “I-I’d been so worried that, with you being away and working with those mares that you… that you might leave me for somepony prettier, like that Trade Wind mare.”

“I won’t deny it, she’s attractive… but she’s not you. And I’ve already made my choice.”

“And you’ll still love me even if I lose weight, or you make friends with other mares?”

“What did you say earlier? X-rated, unprotected, everywhere, all the time? I couldn’t imagine anypony else with the confidence to say that to Mom’s face.”

Laughing and hiccuping, she pulled herself off of me. “Yeah, I was a little…” She ran a hoof down my thigh. My ears shot up straight. “Excited.”

I swallowed. “Uh, didn’t you say we’d wait?”

“Oh, we’ll wait.” And then she slid off my lap and down into the floor. “But I have to mark my territory. Nopony else can have it if I licked it first.”