---- A Winter Stroll ----
Sometimes we find love in the oddest of ponies. It isn’t our place to wonder about the why, but rather it is our responsibility to enjoy the experience with who we are destined to be crossed with.
“It’s pretty cold out here.” Pipsqueak shivered with the cold air that blew around them and through the empty street that the two ponies were trotting down. “Why again did you want me to come out here, Dinky?” He looked over to the blonde-maned mare who smiled back in return.
“Oh, just to walk around for a bit.” Pipsqueak shook his head in bemusement as the unicorn started to hum a tune and trot ahead of him. “Come on, Pip!” Dinky stuck her tongue out at him as she broke into a gallop, pulling far ahead of him.
“Dinky! Wait! It’s too cold to run out here!” Even though the words were true, Pipsqueak hated how whiney he sounded. He slowly plodded over to Dinky, who was waiting for him with a confused expression on her face. “Can’t we just go back to our houses?” Of course, his pleading served no cause other than to provoke more childish excitement in the unicorn in front of him.
“Nope! You gotta come catch me first!” Mischievousness rekindled, Dinky began to jump around in earnest as she made her way steadily away from him. “Besides, if you run around you’ll warm up a bit!” She called the playful words over her shoulder before plowing headfirst into a snowbank.
“Dinky? Are you okay?” He galloped to where he had last seen his friend, slowing down enough so that he didn’t meet the same fate she did. “Dinky?” His head swiveled around as he searched for any sign of the grey mare, concern pulling at his gut as his search proved fruitless. “Dinky?” His voice was laden with worry as he called her name for the third time. “Dinky, where are you?” Pipsqueak soon found his vision obscured by white and his face coated with cold as something painfully collided with it.
“Over here, you silly filly!” Wiping away the snow with a hoof, Pipsqueak followed the voice to see his friend tossing another snowball up into the air and catching it. “You should have seen your face.” After sticking her tongue out at him once more, Dinky turned and wiggled her tail at him before dashing off again. “Can’t get me!”
Something warm bubbled up within Pipsqueak as he balled up some snow in his hooves and set off after his mischievous friend. “Oh yes I can!” His strong hooves allowed him to easily catch up with the mare ahead of him. At least, they would have, if he wasn’t so clumsy all of the time. After he pushed himself up from the snow and brushed away the small bits of it that clung to his face, Pipsqueak threw his ball of cold at his target, smiling to himself as it exploded on impact against her grey side. “Told you I can get y—“ His words were cut short by another of the missiles connecting with his face for the second time tonight.
“Bwaha, got you again!” Dinky started to roll around on the ground in laughter as she celebrated her victory. Her celebration lasted for only a few moments, however, as Pipsqueak soon recovered from the blow and scooped up a copious amount of snow, which he then proceeded to dump onto the still-giggling mare with no ceremony.
“That’ll teach you to take your eyes off of your opponent.” Sticking his tongue out at the trembling pile of snow, Pipsqueak turned and began to walk away. The ground soon vanished underneath his hooves as something tackled him from behind. “Woah!” His breath was soon gone as his back impacted against the hard pathway that was hidden underneath the snow. As he blinked away the water that rose to his eyes from the pain that wracked his body, the smiling face of Dinky soon pulled into focus.
“’Guess that’ll teach you to take your eyes off of your opponent.’” Dinky mimicked him in a singsong voice as she bent down to kiss him lightly on the nose, bringing a crimson blush to Pipsqueak’s cheeks that was thankfully hidden by the darkness. “I win!”
“All right, all right! You win, Dinky. Now,” he shifted a little to be slightly more comfortable, “do you think you could get off of me so I can breathe again?” He winced as Dinky’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Are you calling me fat?”
“No no, of course not Dinky! I just need to breathe right now and a pony sitting on top of me isn’t helping.” Pipsqueak let out a nervous laugh as Dinky’s eyes narrowed even further. “Please?”
The grey mare’s expression brightened instantly when he added in that one word. “Okay, but only since you said please!” After sliding off of his chest, Dinky sprawled out on the ground next to him and sighed contentedly as they looked up into the sky, which was no longer obscured by the no-longer-falling snow. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Pipsqueak turned his head to look at his closest friend. Yeah, she sure is. Shaking his head and directing his gaze skyward again, he spoke aloud. “Uh, what’s beautiful, Dinky?”
“Well, the sky, silly!” The unicorn nudged him and lifted a hoof to point at the stars.
“Oh, yeah, it is.”
“You know… my mom always told me that my dad was up there somewhere. Up there in the stars where he could gallop around with nothing to stop him or get in his way.”
“Did you believe it?”
“Well, yeah. Of course I did. It was my mom.” Dinky’s voice had the characteristic ‘duh’ sound to it, as most mares her age used liberally. “I remember the day Miss Cheerilee started teaching us about the stars and the moon and stuff. I raised my hoof and said ‘Oh, aren’t the stars just the ponies that we love?’” A tinge of bemusement entered Dinky’s voice as she recalled her younger self’s silly notions. “Of course, the entire class laughed at me then. Just like they always do when I say stuff like that.” A bitter tone leaked into the words as the childhood pain caught up to her present.
“Well, do you still believe that he’s up there? Along with the other ponies you love?”
“No, not anymore.”
Pipsqueak turned back to look at his friend, who had tears building up in her eyes. “Is that how you really feel?”
Dinky’s voice grew soft as she replied. “No… it isn’t.”
“That’s the spirit, Dinky.” Pipsqeak reached over with a hoof and touched her on the shoulder. “Just like my dad always says to me, ‘You can’t let other ponies think for you. You can only think for yourself.’ I swear to Celestia, he’s going to drive me crazy with all of his sayings one of these days.” A small smile grew on Dinky’s face as she reached up to wipe away the tears that had started to crawl down her face. Pipsqueak smiled himself as he thought of his eccentric father. “Yeah, but even if he says it all the time, he’s right. You really have to believe in what you want to believe.”
“Yeah… he is right.” Another gust of wind cut along their bodies as it blew over the city. “Oh, it’s cold out.” Dinky sat up a little and looked around. “And dark, we shou—“
“Dark?!” Pipsqueak jolted up in fear at the word, fear jolting through him as his eyes took in the blackness around him. “Oh no!” He moaned the word as he covered his head with his hooves. “Not the dark!” All around him he could feel the tendrils of midnight reaching to him, calling his name with their hissing voices. The cold became colder and his breath became shorter as he felt his life being sapped away from him as they got closer and closer. “Please… Please no!”
A light flickered into existence next to him, banishing the deathly cold fear that had gripped him. A hoof was wrapped around him in the next instant, and another brushed softly through his mane. “It’s okay, Pipsqueak.” A few moments passed before he finally regained enough consciousness to realize exactly where he was. The next instant he pulled away from Dinky, who was still looking at him with concern. “Are you okay? You scared me.” Her voice trembled with fear as she took a step closer to him, which he met with a step back.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Don’t worry, Dinky.” Pipsqueak took a few steadying breaths as he regained the rest of his bearings. “I’m sorry… it’s just that I’m—“
“Afraid of the dark?” Dinky finished for him.
“Yeah, that.” A flash of heat made its way up to his cheeks for the second time that night as Dinky slowly trotted over to him and pulled him into one of the biggest hugs he had ever gotten in his life. That being said, he was soon begging for mercy. “Dinky… a little… air please?”
“Oops, my bad.” The mare lessened her hold on him, but didn’t let go entirely. “Hey, don’t feel bad about being scared of the dark.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a little bit scared of it too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Pipsqueak pulled away fully from the mare who was hugging him and flashed her a warm smile, which was soon returned in full. “Thanks, Dinky.” After a moment of awkward silence, he spoke again. “So… do you want to stay out here a bit longer or do you wann—“
“I’d like to stay out here a bit longer, thanks.” Dinky plopped herself back down onto the ground and cast her gaze into the sky again.
“That’s good, cuz I did too.” Pipsqueak sat down next to her and smiled at the sky. “You know, I didn’t expect to have this much fun and fear rolled into a walk in the snow.”
Dinky giggled. “Yeah, I didn’t either.” Another silence pressed down upon them, but it wasn’t like the one before. It was a more fulfilling silence, one of enjoying each other’s presence, and broken only by the gusting of the wind. Pipsqueak felt something press up against him and he looked down to see Dinky lying against him, shivering. Unsure of what to do, he reached around her with his hoof and pulled the mare closer to him. Dinky snuggled closer against him and sighed gratefully. “Thanks, it was cold.”
“No problem, Dinky.” They sat like that for what seemed to be an age before Dinky spoke again.
“Hey, Pip?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Do you like me?”
Pipsqueak looked down at the unicorn at his side, who was staring up at him. “Of course I like you, Dinky, otherwise I wouldn’t have come out here to freeze my flank off with you.” He chuckled at his own joke, quickly silencing himself as he realized that Dinky wasn’t doing the same. “Dinky?”
“You didn’t understand what I meant.” Dinky’s eyes smoldered like golden fire as she leaned closer to him. “Do you like me, Pip?”
“I-I don’t know what you mean…” Pipsqueak’s mind began to race alongside his heart as his friend drew closer and closer to him.
“I mean, do you like me, Pipsqueak?” She was much too close to him now, but he couldn’t do anything but exist as Dinky’s lips touched his. Time seemed to slow as his mind simply let go of all rational thought and threw him into a sea of bliss. Somewhere in his mind, Pipsqueak realized that he was kissing his best friend and that it was something he had dreamed of as a colt, but it didn’t matter now. All that mattered was the feel of her soft lips upon his.
As she pulled away from him, everything started to speed up again. “Wow… that… that was…” He panted out the words between breaths as he searched for a word good enough to describe what he had just felt.
“Indescribable?”
“Yeah, that.” Those were the only two words that he was able to speak before he found his lips too busy to form anymore of them. Time didn’t seem to slow as much as it had before though, and he found the kiss being broken all too soon.
Wordlessly, he pulled the mare back into another embrace and smiled to the wall of black that was being held at bay by her magic. It didn’t feel any different, but it was. Seconds blended into minutes that became hours, but Pipsqueak couldn’t care less.
“Hey, Pip?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we can go out for a walk in the snow again tomorrow night?”
“Of course we can, Dinky.”
“Good. Now, can we get back home before my mom grounds me forever? It’s pretty late.”
Pipsqueak glanced up to the town’s clock tower, whose lantern-illuminated face showed the time, which was much later than he had thought. “Oh man, it is! Dad’s gonna kill me!”
“Well, let’s get home then!” Dinky stood up and smiled down at him. “Bet you can’t catch me!” With that, she began to trot quickly down the snowy street.
“Oh yeah? You’re on!” Bringing his own hooves to a gallop, Pipsqueak bolted after his friend who had become, in the course of a night, something more.
