It's impressive how easily ponies can clean up after dragons blew up the perimeter of Ponyville. By afternoon, the town had completely stopped conversation of the problem and moved to something slightly unexpected. Princess Cadence, the princess of love, stood at the top of some pink covered stage. Hundreds of ponies, pegasi, earth and unicorn, gathered in town square, waiting for Cadence's apparent speech.

She took her time, setting up a flash card to read off and clearing her throat to silence the bustling crowd. "Hello everypony! I am pleased to hear nopony was hurt in recent events that have occurred, which Twilight Sparkls informed me of in a letter. I decided to come over to lift a few spirits."

She looked down at the card, now reading off it. "We gather here today to celebrate the day of love, sharing each other's hearts and expressing such love in a brilliant party tonight!"

"WOHOO!!!" Pinkie hollered.

"Yes, very wohoo'y! Now let's begin today's fun!" She shot multiple hearts from her horn, each erupting in a waves of reds and purples.

All the ponies cheered and departed, pulling heart-shaped cards and candies out of bags and passing them around. Pinkie and Rarity had made the majority of gifts, the former giving them out at the speed of pink. Applebloom decided to stay next to me, following me to Sugarcube Corner.

"When is our date?" She asked.

"Right now, before everyone steals the tables." I summoned my scooter and pulled her on.

She wrapped her forearms around my torso and held herself close to me, making me blush. Two days ago, that might have been uncomftorable, but finally I started to get it down. Applebloom liked hearts, so she just wanted to be near one. I was cool with it, I loved the warmth.

We sped off toward the vacant restaraunt, kicking in the second Mr. Cake flipped the sign to "OPEN". Grabbing two seats and a table, I sat her down and side flipped to my chair. Granted, i didn't have to, but something felt good in me that day. We didn't have to deal with anything bad for a full week, my dream was for a day far enough away for me not to care; like, March or something.

"Two Apple pies please!" Applebloom called into the kitchen. "Put it on Applejack's tab!"

I was not aware there could be a tab on things like pie. A few minutes later, two steaming pastries appeared on our table. Just in time too, a plethora of ponies began lining up for food following our order.

Rayden popped in for a bit to grab a few apples, and he waved when he saw us. Asking him about the Crusaders recruitment would have to wait, but it was clear as day now that he was a blank flank. I waved back and returned to eating up the food.

Once again, Sweet Apple Acres and Sugarcube Corner made a wonderful display of tastes for me, which i made sure to spend time indulging in it. Applebloom seemed to show little interest in it, and looked at the ponies surrounding us, also on small dates.

It was then that i fully recalled what we did this for. "Hey, I know Sweetiebelle has already done this before, but why didn't she even show to see Cadence?"

"Maybe she's planning things elsewhere."

"Without us? That's not much like her."

I figured she didn't want to disrupt us, so she spent the day with Rarity. And by i figured I mean Ship told me. "So, this is how a date goes?"

"I think so." Applebloom nibbled the pie slowly. She looked good today. Her mane seperated into two bows that made a heart with the loops, her fur coat was shiny and a little longer thanks to the winter almost over, but that was slightly hidden in a small red scarf. She also decided to wear abit of perfume. It wasn't very like her, but the smell of cheeries she gave off was both intoxicating and confusing since she was an Apple.

We finished the pies relatively quickly, and Mr. Cake introduced us to milk and pink oatmeal cookies. They weren't as yummy as the previous treat, but they gave us something to eat while we talked.

"What's the next place you and them humans are off to?"

Since I couldn't recall if i covered more detail on the place than what the Map showed, i emphasized with Ship's help. "It's a human world with some attri- attributes? It's got some things in common with both of our worlds. Apparently it's a battle camp, and im supposed to be beaten up by a guy with a mace..."

With that happily answered, we moved off the subject. I was happy for that since the past two days have been "SCHOOL'S GONE! GO TO EARTH! FIGHT COPS, FIGHT ALIENS, GET HOME, FIGHT ALIENS, CHASE DRAGONS, READ THE MAP!!!" It was abit too much that two nights can't sleep off.

First we talked about what we could do to help cherrily. After that thing that happened she became a little down. We decided the best thing to do would be to let her use out Crusader's Headquarters as a schoolhouse until hers could be fixed.

"It's the best we can do, I'm sure she'll like it." I said

"Hopefully more than that last hearts and hooves incident." We laughed and ate more cookies. It was a nice day, with the snow outside now on the ground instead of our faces, we could enjoy the day with a happy face; which was good.

Many dates were going on outside of ours. Roseluck was here with some red stallion, Derpy found a mare with blue hair and tan skin, though i lacked her name as well. Big Mac wasn't doing anything special, but he still gave a hello to occasional ponies.

"Hey, what gender does Big Mac go for?" It was a random question but we lost the school topic quickly.

"Hm, never asked him before. Does your crystal know?"

Ship responded, "He's straight. The only reason there's so many females who are into same sex relationships is because the population is mainly females.

"Yeah, Sweetiebelle told us that. So that would mean your straight right?"

"What makes you think i was raised in Ponyville?"

He brought a good point on that, but it just felt as though he lives here. Probably because he knew so much about it. "Dunno, kinda sounds like you know the place."

"that's just the information the crystal gives me." He sounded like he was defending himself, which wasn't good.

I decided to drop it. "So Gabriel is straight or the Bi thing? He never really answered that."

"Ship says pansexual," Gabe's voice came up. "I don't care about gender. Next subject, and can you guys mute us from the chat until after the dates are done?"

The silence meant yes. Applebloom gave a small giggle, apparently talking to myself looks amusing. "So after these cookies, where do you want to go?"

I made a mental list of things in a casual date, which wasn't much. Lunch, check, now to some activity. I knew the perfect one for her, since we both haven't done much so the childlike hyperness was still in us. Not that I'm a child though. "Let's go outside, I wanna try something."

"Can it get us our cutie marks?"

"Doesn't hurt to try, c'mon." I hopped to my hooves and pulled her with me. "Cookies got cold anyway."

Together we trotted out the door and made our way to the dead apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres. Though the black and brown branches created a ominous and slightly depressing scene, it was also a fun place to run through. There was also familiar territory not far away.

"We going to tha Hangout," she asked.

I nodded and raced off in front of her. She got the idea and caught up to me.

We slid to a hault on the icy pathway, taking a moment to breathe. The cold wind against our faces sucked the air out both of us. Before Applebloom could finish catching her breath, i had hidden behind a tree.

"Scoots?" She called for me a few times.

SPLAT! Her calls were greeted by a snowball against her side. Her shock was ended after two more balls hitting her.

I gave her a minute to hide behind another tree not to far away. She's throw a snowball and graze my tail, I'd catch some of her shoulder, and it went on like that. When i ran out of good snow, i rolled to another tree, getting a face full of Applebloom's barrage. She moved too, so I hit her with a larger snowball.

Again it hit on her side, and she rolled off laughing excitedly. A fun idea came to me. I hopped into my tree and bounced from branch to branch until I was above her. She noticed quickly and got a few good hits on my chest and belly. Then I jumped up and down on her tree, shaking it's snowy contents off.

I slid down and smiles to Applebloom, who had only a hoof that wasn't hidden in the snow. "I win!"

She pushed her way out of the snow and giggled. "Yah cheated!"

"If I wanted to cheat, I could have melted the snow under you." Just to prove that, i concentrated the crystal's magic heating system around her. She was suddenly surrounded by water instead of snow.

The suprised filly got up and tackled me into the snow behind us. "Ah know silly, thanks for getting me wet now."

I could feel her body tremble from the cold, which made me feel guilty. "Let's go warm up in the hangout!"

I melted a path to the stairway so not to freeze her legs off, and we trotted along to the treehouse.

Settled up inside, we rested in a corner. We lacked any dating or snowball cutie marks, but i lacked the ability to care at the time. It wasn't as warm as the fireplace last night, but there was a better feeling to it. There wasn't anypony else around, not for almost a mile. I could be all alone with Applebloom.

She seemed to notice that too. Once we sat down, she wrapped her foreleg around my shoulder, pulling me close to her head. "Mind using your magic to warm me up?"

I did so quickly. She was so close that we could share the supernatural heat. She sighed in relief of the cold, though her clothes were still drenched in melted snow. I helped her get those off, and together we laid in the safety of the room.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

"Don't fall asleep just yet, it's barely three in the afternoon."

"But it's so comfy here~" she laid her head on my chest and smiled, the light from the crystal making a funny shadow on her face. "Your heartbeat is fast."

I hadn't noticed that, but now that she was so close I noticed my belly felt funny, and my heart had increased its pumping. It was as if i were scared of something, yet also comforted by the fear.

After a bit of considering what I was afraid of, Applebloom cleared it up to me. "Scootaloo? I have something to say."

What Zaanne would want me to say: "Didn't you just say something?" What i really said was, "What's on your mind?" We've been writing this for almost three years now, I've gotten to know Zaanne better.

Her voice became quick and shaky, trying to pick the right words out. "W-we've known each other for a good while now, so I might as well come clean with it..." I let her pick out her words, though with anypony else I'd be way to impatient for this. "Over our time of looking for our cutie marks, y-you've been pretty n-nice to meh, nicer than most ponies.

"Mhm?"

"W-well, ah tried to tell you by those little projects ah did for you, but I'm not sure if Ya noticed or not." I recalled the clock, all the chickens, and the small heart on every one of her gifts. "S-so I just wanted to tell you, face to face, that, uhm..."

Before she finished, she decided to move up to my face and kiss my cheek. Well now I certainly knew what was up with her. She wanted to say it before Hearts and Hooves day ended, but lacked courage with so many ponies around.

"I like you Scoots. Like, like-like, not just a like."

We didn't need magic heat anymore. My body felt like it was on real Fire, and her blood red face showed she had an equal feeling.

I kept her close, not minding the heat, or the wetness on her body. I just hugged her. Being alone with her was pretty cool.

Something else that was cool, I figured out what she was talking about, and trying to tell me for about two years. The feeling I got around her, why I looked at her differently than everypony else, why she's always helping me be awesomer each day, and why I think she's awesome all the time.

I told ship to leave a message for Gabriel, "always return something nice, because kindness is something to be shared." She like-likes me, and, thinking through it, I like-like her too.

Author's Notes:

Not making many chapters, got a lot of things on and off my mind.