She was stalking you again.
It didn’t matter where you went, she was never far behind. Even following a link only brought you a few seconds of peace, before she found you again. Always spying on you – but the few times you had tried to approach her, she had avoided you. “Excuse me!” she would shout, flying away angrily afterwards.
But she always came back. It was a vicious cycle, and over time, you couldn’t help but develop a small crush on her.
Today was another one of those days.
’How is this my life?’ you thought. Up until a while ago, your life had been as normal as it was going to get for a cursor. Browsing websites. Watching videos. And of course Patience. There was always time for ’one more game’.
But not anymore. Well, for the Patience thing that is. You still watched a lot of videos, it was just that they were... about a certain subject these days. The same was true for websites, but there was one you frequented most often. This particular website had completely replaced the daily game of Patience, which was of course unacceptable. And if that wasn’t a natural disaster of its own, there was always the questionable nature of what you had to look at now instead. Ponies. Cartoon ponies at that.
Being a mouse cursor, and not really able to move on your own, there wasn’t a lot you could do about this. Actually, there wasn’t anything you could do about it. It had only been a few days, and you already missed Patience more than anything.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, and at some point, you just stopped caring for the ponies altogether. Once you got past that point, it wasn’t actually that bad, really. You had seen fan-made content for other things, and that was way, way worse than this pony equivalent. There was a surprisingly large amount of good fanworks, the sort which, if you were able to feel emotions, would have you crying digital tears at the end of a good story.
Unfortunately, a large amount of quality fanworks also means an even larger quantity of bad fanworks. Thankfully you didn’t have to underline stories with very bad grammar or spelling, but the ever-annoying Mary Sue OC’s more than made up for that. Every time you considered that being a pegacursor maybe wouldn’t be such a problem after all, one of those OC’s would pop up onto the screen, reminding you that you definitely didn’t want to become like your owner. You were independent. And as you did before with other fandoms, you could get through this.
That all changed on that one day you saw her in real life. She was the most beautiful thing to have ever come onto the screen, with her 8-bit-like appearance and animated mane. She was exactly like in the show, which you must have watched at least a million times by now, and every now and then, she said something as you were underlining a story. But you never dared to talk back to her. Her presence alone made you try and see the ponies in a new light, a beautiful light, and slowly but surely, you began to understand that most things actually were better with ponies than without.
Sure, not every artist would become a legend, to be remembered by future generations of operating systems, but at least it was about ponies, and not something awkward like Sonic or furries.
You began to pay more attention to the words you had to underline, especially when they were about her. Well, apart from the dime a dozen shipfics, that is. That was just something you didn’t understand. Character A meets Character B, something random happens, and then... things happen. As if it would ever go like that in real life.
But when you weren’t underlining such a fic, it was most of the time a pretty good story, equal to what you could find in a library – if only you could go there, and what you’ve read about them on Wikipedia was true. Compared to your own world, which was was limited to the four corners of the screen and the are in between, she was very free. She could fly beyond the border of the screen if she wanted to, and you admired that.
As time wore on, you learned more and more about her personality, either by underlining words, looking at pictures, or watching videos. Some of the pictures weren’t very pretty, but that did little to darken your daydreams about her.
You didn’t even know when you started doing that, daydreaming. She would come and pick you up, open her wings, and fly away with you in her arms. And every time, you had to remind yourself that real life wasn’t a shipfic. While it always left you a little sad, perhaps it was just better that way. Maybe she already had a friend, one who didn’t live within the space of four screen corners. And it would never work out anyway, seeing how your tastes in art were complete opposites of each other. You didn’t see what was so special about some yellow pegasus mare in a blue suit, but Rainbow would go wild at a picture like that. On the other hand, you liked a good story about complex family problems, and all she would comment was “‘I love you, daddy’ - who’d write such trash? I’d rather read Daring Do.”
Actually, Daring Do was something, perhaps the only thing, you both liked. For different reasons though. While Dash loved it because it was essentially a fictional mirror of herself, you liked it because well, they were pretty awesome novels, and also a nice change from the romance stories all the time. But that wasn’t much to build a relationship on, was it?
Whoa, wait a moment. Since when were you thinking about relationships? She was just stalking you with her witty comments, nothing more. She was probably just bored, although that still left the question as to why she had chosen you as a target, considering the fact that she was free and could go wherever she wanted. Even if you didn’t want to be around her, you couldn’t escape her. Following a link to a new page bought you only a few seconds of peace, before she would pop up again. You steeled yourself, mentally preparing yourself not only for her noisy entrance she would make exactly three seconds after you clicked the link you were hovering, but also because today, you’re going to ask her why she is stalking you all the time. It had been like this for at least a month now, and you want answers.
Click. Peace. Quiet. Silence.
One. The page finished loading.
Two. You were already hovering over the first few words of – what else could it be – yet another romance story.
Three. ’Here it comes.’
“Dun dun duuuun!” the cyan mare announced as she flew back onto the screen. Always nearby. And always just beyond reach. “Did you miss me?” she continued, before looking at the words you were underlining. “Omigoshomigoshomigoshomigoshomigosh, a story about the Wonderbolts? So. Awesome!”
Trying hard not to think about the implications and plot of a romance story featuring the Wonderbolts, you stopped underlining the words for a moment, only to find out that just as you were about to ask your question, she had fallen asleep. ‘Well, that’s just wonderful,’ you thought. ‘The one time I want to actually say something to her, and she falls asleep.’
It wasn’t like her to fall asleep all of a sudden, or maybe she just had a rough party last night, and was simply exhausted? Another question to put on the list of things you’ve always wanted to know, but never dared to ask her. What made it even stranger, was that she would wake up the moment you started to underline words again. Every time. It seemed she was just doing it on purpose, avoiding you. Then again, she did that a lot of the time, avoiding you. While she was never far away, if you only did so much as move a pixel towards her, she would fly away.
It took you about half a dozen times to figure out that she only fell asleep if you paused moving, so on the next try, you kept moving in random directions while you spoke to her for the first time ever, and asked the question that’s been bothering you since for a long while now, “So, uhm, just why are you following me all the time?”
By the look on her face, she hadn’t been expecting you to speak up so suddenly, much less this forward. The next thing you knew, she was preparing to go to sleep again, and just in time you remembered to keep underlining words.
It was a bit difficult, focusing on both the story while listening to her at the same time, but over the course of the middle part of the story, the bond between the two of you quickly became stronger. Although she did want to know whether you were a spy of some sort – can you believe that? A mouse cursor being a spy? – the rest of the conversation was small talk about things you already knew about her. Namely that she was, without a doubt, the coolest, awesomest and 8-bittest pegasus in existence. A bit overdoing it in the boasting department maybe, but still awesome.
As the story was beginning to reach its climax, she came up with an idea. “Hey, how about a race?”
Feeling adventurous, or just wanting to keep the conversation going – talking with someone was already infinitely better than Patience – you answered, “What kind of race?”
“Well, I don’t get to show off a lot, and I know you secretly like spying on me anyway, so how about you watch me fly to the top of this page in 10. seconds. flat?”
Wait, what did she say about spying? Did she already know? If she already knew you had a crush on her, then why...? Oh. Things started to fall into place. The stalking. Flying away when you approached her. Maybe it was... mutual?
Naturally, you knew better than to ask such a thing so bluntly, so instead, you made a witty remark about the race, “What kind of race is that? Doesn’t a race require at least two participants?”
“Technically speaking, I suppose you might be right. But face it, there’s no way you’re going to keep up with me anyway.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” you asked, underlining the last few sentences of the story, which you weren’t really paying attention to anymore anyway.
“Excuse me!” the cyan mare shot back. “Have you any idea who you’re talking to? I am the fastest flier in the world. Nobody can keep up with me, not even the Wonderbolts! The only reason I’m not a Wonderbolt already is because I’m simply too awesome.” After a moment, she added, “But sure, if you want to totally lose, that’s cool with me. On three. One. Two. Three!”
With a gush of wind, leaving behind nothing but a few distorted pixels in her wake, she was gone already. You couldn’t help but stare as her flying form became smaller and smaller in the distance. She was already over a third of the way to the finish line, when you snapped back to reality. This was a race, you had to at least try and win. And then you had the best idea ever. Grinning, you moved slowly over to the top left corner, until a bar suddenly dropped down, seemingly out of nowhere. You’ve never used this bar before actually, but the few times you’ve seen it, you remembered there being a button labelled ‘Top’, with an upward facing arrow on it. Finding it, you clicked it... and won the race.
Rainbow wasn’t too happy about it naturally, although most of all, she seemed... sad? “I lost...” she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. “I can’t believe I lost to a wimp like you...”
You had clicked the button to give her a bit of her own piece, to show that she can’t be the best at simply everything, but it hadn’t been your intention to upset her this much. “Rainbow? What’s-”
“G-go away,” she sniffled. “My life is ruined now anyway. The W-wonderbolts don’t need ponies that l-lose from stupid mouse cursors.”
You weren’t sure what was happening. Going by the fanfics you’ve read in the past, you were pretty sure that she would get into the Wonderbolts one day, and everything would be just fine. Was this really such a big deal to her? You thought it was just a race for fun. Before you could say anything though, the pegasus spoke up, “A-alright. What do you want?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Isn’t it usually so that the loser has to do something for the winner?”
Ah, so there was more behind this than just a race, after all. She probably needed someone to clean her cloudhouse for her or something. And now she must be thinking she had to return the favor. You weren’t sure what was more worrying, the fact that it seemed losing a single race meant losing her entire future, or that she was now essentially offering herself to do anything you wanted. Of course, you could ask her to – NO! You weren’t going to degrade yourself to the level of the average shipfic.
“You don’t really have to do anything for me, you know? It was just a race for fun, and don’t think the Wonderbolts don’t want you anymore because of this race.”
“Y-you mean that?”
“Do you truly think any of the Wonderbolts have never lost a race? If not from non-Wonderbolt ponies, I’m pretty sure every one of them has been beaten by another teammate.”
“I guess that makes sense...”
“But there’s been something I’ve been mean to tell you for a while now, so if you really want to do something because you lost the race, will you listen?”
Taking her silence and not flying away as a yes to your question, you realized just how nervous you were. If she said no... well, then at least you knew, right?
“I never thought I would be saying this, but...” you began, pausing more because of how nervous you were than for dramatic effect. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while now... I...”
“Jeez, just spit it out already!” Rainbow interrupted, before shrinking back a few pixels. “I mean, go on.”
“I guess I must say it sooner or later anyway, but... I think... I think I like you.”
There. You had finally said it. It just had to be your luck that she interpreted it in the wrong way.
“Well duh! Everybody likes me! I mean, who wouldn’t like someone as awesome as m-”
“Rainbow... I really like you...”
This time, she did pick up on it, although all she said was, “Oh.”
The two of you sat in silence after that for a while. You weren’t looking at each other, but if you had cheeks, they would have been blazing red. You didn’t even sat close to each other, as you weren’t sure if she would fly away if you approached her. Then the mare of your daydreams spoke up again, “Would you like to come inside this paragraph with me?”
