Music.

It’s never been a big part of my life, but ever since he dropped in, it’s grown on me. And wherever I go with him, it always seems to follow. Or at least, I’ve grown more conscious of it. Maybe I’d been this much of a listener from the get-go, but needed somepony else to wake me up to what I already knew and never would’ve realised on my own.

Whatever the case, I’m certainly not complaining: it’s something I’ve come to enjoy, and it’s something we can bond over. Of course, putting it so plainly makes it sound far less personable than it actually is, but the fact remains that I wouldn’t be teaching him how to play the ukulele if only one of us liked it. And as it turns out, hooves don’t translate so well to hands, so I’m having to teach myself as well as him.

“My fingers hurt,” Philip states.

“So do my feathers,” I reply in a similarly straightforward manner, flexing the outermost primaries and feeling the strain in them. They’re the closest thing to fingers as I can manage, but I’ve never used them like this before, and the strain on the quills is starting to wear on me. It’s like pulling on your hair, I guess: nothing horrible at first, but do it long and hard enough, and something’s bound to tear. Painfully. “If this is all for my birthday gift, at least you can say you’ve made me work for it.”

“I suppose, yeah,” he says with a snort, then looks behind him towards the entrance of the apartment as he nibbles a thumb. “Should really turn up the thermostat, though. Didn’t know it would get this cold today.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yeah, and you’re wearing shorts and a shirt.”

“Because those are the parts of you that stay warm naturally.” He forms a fist and blows into it, returning to me. “My fingers, on the other hand…”

I stare at him for a long moment, then roll my eyes and tilt my head back with the same motion and emit a low, throaty groan.

He blinks confusedly, then gasps and widens his eyes in realisation, beaming an open-mouthed grin. “Oh my god, I swear, I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I don’t care, Philip,” I grumble. “It happened. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah, well, you have to hand it to me…”

“Merciful Sisters, shut up and change the thermostat already!”

“Okay, okay.” He chuckles and gives a small wave of dismissal as he sets down his ukulele on the living room carpet and gets to his feet.

I sigh heavily and let my head sag forward. Puns are the death of legitimate comedy, honestly, and I think he’s getting more and more brazen with them every passing day. If I don’t draw a line in the sand sometime soon, I fear I’ll have to terminate these lessons prematurely, leaving us both rather unsatisfied — me more than him, because the special day is less than a week away. And all this blood, sweat and tears for a stupid little song.

But there’s hope for us yet, if the past few weeks are any indication; he may be a slow learner when it comes to relationships, but he’s a freaking natural when it comes to this. By the end of the first session alone, he could pluck the strings from top to bottom to top again without a pause or the need to look. By the end of the first week, he could do a simple rendition of a lullaby from his Earth — Twinkle, Twinkle, or something like that, which I hope isn’t related to Twilight in any way.

Now, we’re mainly just going through the motions to help him memorise them. It’s been a heck of a ride, but we’re in the home stretch. Just a little further, and we’ll be back to our regular routine of an unhealthy amount of popcorn and inactivity, interrupted every now and then by the occasional outing.

I continue flexing my wings and feathers as I remain seated on the carpet, working out the ache. Push-ups might do them some good, and I’m sure with some persuasion I could be convinced to try and beat my record with him cheering me on, but now isn’t the time for that: I came here to teach, not to show off. Even though I could very well show off another way — a way that would be far more topical, and possibly more constructive.

I adjust the grip I have on the ukulele in my hooves, breathing in and out as I take my time while thinking of what to play. Nothing with lyrics, I know that much — just not in the mood for it. So, I chew on my cheek as my wingtips take their rightful places on the neck and body, and begin to softly strum, exploring new tunes, expanding old ones, and somehow never finding something that satisfies me.

“Trying out some freestyle?” he queries as he returns, his bare feet barely making a sound on the varnished floor, much less over the sound of my music. If you can even call it that. I certainly wouldn’t.

I merely shrug, gently frowning at my efforts.

“Hmm.” He sits cross-legged and retrieves his own instrument, the lacquered surface catching one of the overhead lights as he settles it into position. “It’s never as easy as you think, is it?”

I look up at him and cock an eyebrow without moving my head. “And what makes you an expert on the matter, young grasshopper?”

“Not so much a matter of experience as it is a matter of… well, wisdom in general, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“And what does that make you? A sage?”

“Oh-ho, let’s not kid ourselves, Fleet,” he says with a chuckle and a waggle of his finger. “If I were truly omniscient, I wouldn’t need your help to sing you a serenade.”

I smirk, shifting focus back to my frankly pitiful attempt to find a memorable tune that hasn’t already been taken. “Well then, I’m happy to be of service.”

“Of course you are — you’re getting a song written about you.”

“Oh, what, and I wouldn’t help you if that wasn’t the end result?” I question, laying my feathers flat over the strings and looking at him properly. I’m trying to sound upbeat, but it’s hard not to add a deliberately challenging tone to my voice. “Don’t joke about that, Philip. I mean, yeah, it’s nice and all, but… really, it’s the least I can do.”

“Technically, the least you can do is literally nothing.”

My eyelids lower to half-mast.

“However,” he soothes as he lifts his hands in his defence, “I see what you’re saying, and I appreciate what you’re doing. And I promise I won’t try poking fun at it. Deliberately.”

Not the best or most heartfelt or most heart-warming assurance I’ve ever heard, but it’ll have to do for now. I nod once, then turn my attention to the ukulele again. “Now, where was I…?”

“Freestyling.”

I roll my eyes to myself and brush my feathers over the stings on the body in a slow, smooth motion, hoping the individual notes might inspire something. But all it does is leave me feeling somewhat empty and inadequate. “You’re welcome to try it out yourself,” I mumble, then pucker my lips and frown all the harder. “I don’t think I’ll be getting anywhere anytime soon at this rate.”

“No, thanks.” He rests an elbow on his knee and props his chin up with an open hand. “I’d like to watch, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It isn’t.” I pluck at the top and bottom strings in an alternating fashion, but that yields no results. I think I might’ve heard it in a traditional Yakyakistani music ensemble, actually, where they were all throat singing. “I’m just making a fool out of myself.”

“Not really.” He shrugs and shakes his head. “It’s a work in progress. And besides, look at you: not three weeks ago, you were only using your hooves. Now it’s your wings as well.”

I stop, frowning at them in thought. Was that really so special? I mean, yeah, I guess how well I’ve been able to adapt is pretty impressive, but to disregard how objectively trash I am at devising an original composition? It’s not like one outweighs or cancels out the other. Nothing to get all that excited about, really.

“Go on, play around, let me have a breather. It’ll be a while yet before I’m ready again, anyway, so you may as well make the most of it.”

I arch my eyebrow at him again, but soon sigh and mentally wave away whatever it is I’m taking issue with and begin to improvise once more. I try slow, I try mellow, I try humming, plucking and tuning, and every combination in between. No results. Nothing sings to me. And I think it’s starting to weigh on me — the fact I might not really have all that much of a creative bone in my body when it comes to this. I can steal melodies, mix and match them, replace their lyrics with something more pertinent to my current situation, but none of it is ever truly mine. Or dare I say ours, since he’s here to witness it.

Spontaneous musical numbers aren’t unheard of, and I’ve seen a fair few, but I’ve never felt a song rise up from within like I hear it’s supposed to happen. Nopony knows exactly why they occur, but they’re not nearly as prevalent as outside rumours may lead a traveller to believe — gossip and stereotypes always favour the outliers. The leading theories say that it has something to do with the relatively high concentration of ambient thauma in Equestria; and since how ponies control magic is at least partially through their emotions, like rainbooms, that thauma is attracted to areas where emotions are running high. This somehow expresses itself through a collective song and dance.

I call bullshit. Whoever wrote that down clearly had their head up their own arse, probably because they’d found their special somepony through such an occurrence. Fucking romantics. If any of it held water, then I have one simple question: where the heck has all of this been for the past two years? My life holds no more or less value than anypony else’s, disregarding the increasingly bogus notion of destiny, so why wouldn’t it happen to me? And why would it start now?

I sigh again, closing my eyes as I gently shake my head and let the wing on the strings fall limp. This is pointless. Better to just stick with what I know and what I’m good at: stealing things and making them my own. After all, that’s how I wound up with a boyfriend.

…Stars, I really can’t help myself, can I?

“Why’d you stop?”

I peer up at him dispassionately. “Come on, you can’t have thought I was really all that good.”

He blinks, then glances away and shakes his head, looking as if he’d been caught out on something. “Well, I, uh…” He shifts his weight and clears his throat. “I wasn’t focussing so much on the music as I was… well…”

I pause, then furrow my brows, cock my head and angle my ears inquisitively.

His own brows are furrowed too, staring at the neck of my ukulele with a sense of hesitant intent, like he wants to ask something, but is afraid to ask it. Maybe he thinks I’d be offended, or he’d simply come off as pathetic, which honestly wouldn’t be that bad — I’ve seen worse. Experienced worse. His lips are parted and his tongue brushes along the back of his lower teeth, but what that’s a sign of, I can’t be sure. If it’s a sign of anything.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, more confused than impatient.

He blinks again and returns to me. “Wings,” he says quickly, as if a teacher had caught him sleeping in class and he could only answer with the first thing that came to mind.

I glance at them, both the one on the neck and the one hanging limp. “What about them?”

And just like a schoolboy waking up from an unwelcome nap, he struggles with what to do now his bluff has been called. Except, this isn’t so much a bluff as it is an insufficient explanation. “They…” he begins, and soon drops off, his attention shifting to the one on the neck yet again. But then he shuts his mouth and takes a deep breath in, steeling his nerves and focussing himself before he meets my gaze with a newfound sense of awkward conviction. “Actually, could I ask you something?”

My frown deepens, even more confused. “Sure. I mean… I don’t see why not.”

“May I hold your wing?”

I blink with widening eyes, my brows rising high, the free wing that’s hanging limp suddenly pulling itself in to rest at my side. The request sends a soft chill down my neck and a fuzzy tingle in my chest, and the fur there bristles a little as I process what he’d just asked of me and how exactly I plan to respond. “My wing?”

“Yeah.”

I blink a second time. “You mean… you want to preen it?”

“No. Hold it.”

A third time. “I don’t follow.”

“You know, hold it.” He gently frowns in thought as it grows clear to him that I, in fact, don’t know what he’s talking about, and he puckers his lips as he sets his ukulele in his lap, looking down to watch his hands lock together. Fingers weave between fingers in what looks like a weirdly… for lack of a better word, intimate gesture. “Like this,” he mumbles, anxiously glancing up at me for a fleeting moment.

My eyes remain wide, and the fuzzy feeling in my chest grows… warmer, I guess. I’ve used my wings for a lot of things, from flying to carrying stuff to smacking ponies whenever they deserve it, as well as some activities that shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company, but never have I ever done something like that. Not because it’s taboo, or informal, or whatever, but because, there isn’t a custom dictating how personal the act of holding wings is. Or at least, as far as I’m aware. It just… simply isn’t done — has never, not once, ever crossed my mind.

And the thing is, I’m feeling more confused than I have any right to be: it’s such a simple deed, and in every respect, I really shouldn’t have a problem with it in the slightest. And yet, I hesitate; how come I’ve never thought about it before? It’s so… inoffensive. Harmless. Obvious. I should be putting on a smile and indulging him, seeing as there aren’t any factors holding me back, physical or otherwise.

But for whatever reason, I’m struck dumb, paralysed in some kind of emotional limbo. “Is this something humans do?” I quietly ask, sharing a shy look with him.

“Well, yeah, of course, but… with hands, obviously.” He shrugs and glances about uneasily, clearly not entirely comfortable with himself. “I mean, not that holding your hooves isn’t nice enough, but I think it would be… well, nice. Because, like… a wing isn’t the same as a hand, but… it’s the closest thing you have to one. And I think I’d like to know what it feels like.”

I continue to stare.

Again, there’s quite literally nothing holding me back right now, and it’s such a simple, benign request that neither I nor anypony else who’d get this far with him should ever have a problem with it. But the very fact he’s drawn attention to it means that it’s something important to him, and the way he’s being so bashful and openly vulnerable about it… Stars, my chest is starting to simmer, and I feel the faintest hint of warmth in my cheeks.

“Do you think we could?” he wonders aloud, scarcely above a whisper’s pitch. “Please.”

“Oh,” I vacantly utter, and almost smack myself for doing so, then blink myself out of whatever trance I’m in and force myself to speak properly, or as close to it as I can somehow manage. “Uh… sure.”

He gives me a strange look, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting me to say yes, but soon settles down as well as he’s able lowers his gaze to his hands, which unravel and flex before him. He lays the ukulele beside him, then slowly, cautiously scoots himself forward, like I’m a songbird that he’s afraid he’ll scare off if he moves too quickly.

A small part of me thinks I should be offended, but the rest… doesn’t; it tells me to stay perfectly still, to watch closely and take in every detail, because this isn’t something you do with just anypony. I could ask whether holding hands is considered all that special on his Earth, but that would ruin the moment. It shouldn’t matter anyway — I… we’ve never done this before, and I think that’s what’s getting to me, rather than the action itself. It’s just so… foreign.

I think I like foreign.

He comes to a halt within arm’s reach and holds out his palm, fingers relaxed and slightly curled. It’s an oddly inviting sight, like it’s silently pleading for something to fill the empty space. A ridiculous thought, to be sure, but even if he hadn’t told me what he wanted, I’d know what this gesture means, and I’d be sorely tempted to grant his wish.

So, I do. I set aside my ukulele on the carpet — both of which are a deep, velvety auburn, though one is naturally shaggier and less reflective than the other — and sit on my haunches with my forehooves on the floor. And, unsure of myself like it’s my first crush all over again, I tentatively extend my left wing and rest its tip within his grasp.

He stares at it with a muted look of surprise, as if he can hardly believe his luck, but he doesn’t react too openly. Not right away. “See?” he queries, peering up at me for a moment, a certain diffidence in his voice. “Not so bad, is it?”

I gently shake my head.

“You good?”

I nod, looking at him properly and with a small, reticent smirk. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason. You just… look a little flush.”

“I…” I begin, then quickly cut myself off as I bring a hoof up to feel my cheek. And yes, indeed, it’s really quite warm. How I didn’t notice before now, I don’t and will likely never know. The heat is even tickling my ears. “Oh, gosh.”

“If I knew this would have that effect on you, I’d have asked sooner.”

I’m still feeling my cheek, and I think it’s starting to grow warmer the longer I pay attention to it, in the same way a fire grows fiercer the more air you feed it. “Okay, this… Wow…”

“Lost for words, huh?”

I nod absently.

There’s a pause.

“May I continue?”

Another absent nod.

He huffs a quiet laugh returns his attention to the wingtip. The feathers are large in his hand, and I wonder for a moment how exactly any of them are supposed to fit in between his fingers, even with their flexibility, when it strikes me that he’s lifting his other hand to lay it over them. This is something he’s done with my hoof, and I with his, but again, never with my wing.

And it’s… tantalising; this simple, basic, yet plainly profound action is giving me as much satisfaction as kissing him has ever done. And the thing is, I can barely feel his skin — what has me so tickled is the sight of it. And I’m acutely aware of just how heavy the pulse in my chest is becoming, and how warm I’m growing beneath my own fur. It’s like I could break into a sweat at any moment.

Oh yeah, I like foreign.

“You know… I don’t think I ever told you just how soft you are,” he muses aloud, almost dreamily, which he soon seems to realise and meets my gaze with a bashful expression. “I mean… your coat, your mane, your… feathers. They’re like that… that thin sheet of air on an air hockey table. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

I let out a breathless chuckle. “Yeah, I know. Not the most romantic as far as metaphors go.”

“Similes, girl,” he corrects and emphasises the point with a bow of his head, then returns to the wingtip and lifts it, slowly twisting it and his hand until both my feathers and his fingers are pointing up. “I get you’re a little excited, but that’s no reason to lose our mental faculties.”

“I’m not…” Best not finish that if I know I’m lying to myself. I close my mouth and crease my brows, and I realise my teeth and chattering behind my lips. “It’s just… different, is all.”

“You’re telling me.” He nods as well, seemingly as distracted as I’d been. “I’m… kind of liking it.”

“Me too.”

His eyes meet mine.

The sudden urge to freeze creeps in like winter frost through the clouds, but I shove it down as far as it’ll go. Yes, that response was far too natural — though at this point, fooling anypony is… well, foolish — and it made me sound much too vulnerable for my own liking, but I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true. I am liking it. In fact, I’m wishing we’d done this sooner. Much sooner. It should’ve been how we met — him mistaking me from a crowd of strangers for somepony he knew, and we’d somehow get to talking, and…

Jeez, am I fantasising an ideal romance over something as simple as holding a wing?

…Am I really trying to question it?

I like it.

I like him.

I…

I need…

His gaze lowers to the left, my right, his expression unchanging from his look of enchantment.

I linger on him, but soon follow his eyes and discover that my free wing has unfurled and started sneaking its way toward him. Of course, now that I’m paying attention to it, it’s come to a standstill and doesn’t want to move on its own anymore, like a misbehaving foal with their hoof in the cookie jar. But the very fact that it’s gone to about halfway tells me all I need to know — confirms what I’d been thinking of doing, and I return to him with a silent question.

He looks to me, and I know he understands — the slight, near unnoticeable widening of his small, brown eyes. Unnatural eyes, but… as expressive as anypony else’s. As sweet and savoury as the finest chocolate. But although he isn’t giving me explicit permission, he isn’t telling me not to either, and I can only hope that, in some way, is a go-ahead in and of itself — too stunned to say yes, rather than no.

My breath is heavy as I will my wing into action again, gradually, delicately gliding out and up, past his torso, past his collar, past his throat and neck, all the way to his temple where the endmost primaries make contact. And then they slowly travel downward, tenderly tracing the outline of his face. Down to his cheek, jawline… holding him.

His eyes followed my actions at first, but the second my feathers touched his skin, he closed his eyes for a long moment and exhaled a silent breath. Now he opens them again, and he’s… lost; leaning in, allowing me to cradle him, bringing his left hand up to hold my wing there. To feel it. To feel me. To have me closer and know I’m there. To know I’d never leave him.

I wouldn’t. Never again.

The warm air from his mouth seeps through my plumage and sends a shiver down the limb that buries itself in my withers, bleeding up my neck and down my back in a soft, warm ripple. It begs me to do something — to do more. There always has to be more than this. Always. We could close the distance and hug and… and…

I ease off my haunches and slide a hoof closer.

He takes notice, but doesn’t say no. Even when his eyes return to mine, and then my barely parted lips, he doesn’t openly react.

A little closer. My wing and his hand slide free of each other. The ones on his cheek remain where they are.

Still, no response, but the look in his eye is full of…

Yearning.

He wants something.

I want it too.

And all it takes is a little…

Kiss.

I originally wanted to test the waters with a simple peck, but he presses in before I can pull away, eyes closed as he lets a short, small hum escape him, and I’m in no position to argue. I close my eyes as well and lean into him in kind, nose pressed against his, the wing on his cheek easing around to the back of his neck so I can pull him in.

His hand, in turn, reaches out and does the same, and the other finds itself resting on my left shoulder. And he isn’t shy about using his lips — about turning this into more than just a kiss.

And I indulge him. I, too, like where this is going. And our kiss becomes a smooch, then two, then three — a practical snog — and my free wing lays itself upon his shoulder just as he had done with me, telling him that this is something I enjoy as well. And I don’t want it to stop.

He hums again, sounding needier, more eager, and the hand on my shoulder slides to the point halfway between there and my neck, rubbing, kneading at my fur in a surprising, but not unwelcome massage. And it’s a pleasant attempt — a sign of affection. Of caring. A sign that he doesn’t just want a kiss, or a make out session: he wants… something more tangible. Something to hold close. Something I have.

…It’s me, isn’t it?

He wants me.

And I want him.

I need him.

I shuffle my hindlegs closer and sit on my haunches, allowing me a more comfortable base of operations as my forehooves find their way into his lap, my feathers tensing up and pressing into his skin and shirt. I’m not making the first move so much as I’m… getting everything into position. Setting up the board, so to speak, but what exactly this game I’m about to play is, I don’t rightly know just yet, and I don’t care to. I just sink into the moment and continue kissing him, and letting him kiss me.

He hums again — moans, in fact — and before I know it, the hand on my cheek has slipped away and placed itself on my back, just behind my right wing, dragging me closer.

An instinctual squeak of surprise escapes me and my eyes fling open, a strange haze dispelling as if waking from a dream. Everything suddenly comes into view, not just of him and how he carries on kissing even when I’ve stopped, but the benign and mundane, like the sofa and coffee table on the left, and the TV and entertainment system on the right. And how warm I am compared to the air, and the heat in my ears and cheeks and… my whole body, really. Even the parts I’m not sure I should allow myself to think about.

But I don’t stop him, and he takes no obvious notice, kissing my cheek now and massaging the point on my back that’s dangerously close to the zone he knows he shouldn’t touch. But it’s close enough that a warm, comfortably pleasant wave rolls over me, and my eyelids lower to half-mast as I moan through a closed mouth.

Why on Earth would I want this to stop?

He leans forward, and I’m brought to my rump, my croup, and then finally my back, the massage never ceasing, the kisses never-ending. And now he’s above me, practically lying on top if it weren’t for the negligible space between our bodies. He’s focussing on my neck, gradually travelling down, blazing a trail of heated breath and saliva, growing needier and more passionate.

Merciful Sisters, why on Earth would I ever want this to stop?

But then the hand behind my wing leaves it and slides lower. First, it settles on my croup, adding a welcome pressure to my occasionally swishing tail. Then it follows the shape of my flank beneath the skirt, tracing my leg, stopping just shy of the hem — quite evocative, but not terribly concerning; a pleasant experience regardless.

Then it slips inside and gropes my rear.

My eyes shoot open, and in an instant, my fore and hindlegs pull in and shove him off with a startled gasp.

“Whoa!” he exclaims, flopping back onto his rump and flailing his arms to maintain balance, before coming to rest and casting me a confused, somewhat accusatory look. “Hey! What was that for?”

I straighten out the skirt and prop myself up on my elbows, meeting his indignant gaze with an anxious, flustered, reluctantly scolding frown. I shake my head, my breathing ragged. “No.”

“No?” He squints as his brows furrow even further, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his own breathing just as uneven. “No what?”

I shake my head again, rubbing at the wet spots on my cheek and neck. “I don’t want that.”

He cocks his head and slightly sneers. “You don’t want… what?”

I blink, brows rising a tad, genuinely stunned for a moment that it seems I’d have to nudge him to where I’m almost certain his mind was wandering — it’s the only place it could’ve been going, doing what he did. And of course, the irony wouldn’t be lost on me, considering what he said not five minutes ago about mental faculties. “What were you doing?” I ask directly, the same way Spitfire does to a new recruit who’s done something wrong and she wants them to learn from their mistakes, using their own words for their benefit.

He glances away for a moment, confounded. “I was… grabbing your butt.”

Stars above, he can be dense sometimes. “And?”

“And… kissing you. And massaging you and… other stuff.”

“But what was it all for?” I angle my head toward him and roll a hoof, encouraging him to slow down and actually think. “Where might it have been… leading to, if you catch my drift?”

He continues watching me with the same clueless and fairly miffed expression — more annoyed at being interrogated than the fact I’d interrupted him, I hope — but then it finally dawns on him. And it happens, like so many epiphanies, slowly, his brows softening, his lips relaxing, his eyes widening and growing unfocussed, peering through me and into an invisible horizon full of realisation: he was about to make a massive leap, and he didn’t even know that he was making it. “Oh.”

I nod sternly, and only once. “So, we’re on the same page, then?”

Philip nods in kind, but more subdued and humbled. “I think so.”

“Alright.” I blow a long sigh, and a lot of the tension I’ve been feeling seems to go with it, even as I lift myself up and drag my hindlegs in, sitting on my haunches. The sensation of his fingers digging in remains, and I rub my rump with a hoof as my wings shift in place, trying to make the feeling go away faster and straighten out my feathers. “Sorry, I just don’t know if I’m ready for that. I mean, I… I love you, Philip, but…”

He doesn’t reply, looking away and folding his arms to his stomach, troubled. The way he’s acting makes me think that he isn’t happy with being rejected so suddenly, but I know him better than that: he’s been given time to reflect on his actions, and he isn’t all too happy with himself. But whether he’s more disconcerted by what his ultimate goal was, or how quickly he went about it, I can’t rightly say. It’s not my place to put answer in his stead.

I sigh again. This isn’t something I imagined I’d have to bring up during one of these lessons, but we need to talk about it. Besides, it’s hardly something you can sweep under the rug and pretend it never happened, hypocrisy notwithstanding. “Look…” I murmur, lowering my eyes and frowning a troubled frown on my own. “If there comes a time when we both decide to go that route… I don’t want it to be a spur of the moment thing. I want to… to know for certain that this is what I want. And I don’t want to put words in your mouth or thoughts in your head, but… I think you want the same thing. Right?”

He returns to me and holds my gaze, no less uneasy than before. But after a pause, he lowers his eyes, puckers his lips and nods gently. “No regrets,” he mumbles, as much to himself as to me.

“Yeah.” My gaze falls to the floor as well, shrugging. “And if you do things without thinking them through, then… well… that morning happens. And I’d like to stay away from that as much as possible.”

“Don’t worry,” he mutters, lifting a hand for a moment. “I get you.”

At least he understands — it’s not that I don’t find him attractive, at least in his own way, it’s just that… when passions run high, making a sound decision isn’t always easy; it’s harder to tell where things will take you, and whether you’ll end up feeling sorry for yourself later on. Even worse if somepony else gets hurt in the process. We know how it goes all too well.

“So… what now?” He shrugs, returning to me with an anxious, uneasy look. “Back to the ukuleles?”

I don’t answer, still caught up in my own thoughts. I can’t and would never deny that the longer we’ve been around one another, the more comfortable we’ve grown with each other’s differences, and that has suited us just fine. But were we really so ready to cross that threshold — that point of no return?

As much as I hate continually admitting it, despite all the promises I made to myself, we have done it before… but now it’s starting to scare me. Not paralyised with fear or shivering like a Saddle Arabian standing hock-deep in the snow, but more a sense of general unrest, like I can’t sit right; I need to know something, to ask him something, but I’m not entirely sure how to phrase it.

“Fleet?” he beckons, leaning a little closer. “You okay?”

I suppose being blunt is better than letting it fester, though my tail clenches at the thought of speaking up, and the rotten feeling at my core whispers disturbing things to my innards. I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, it says, and part of me wants to believe it. “Do you think we could?” I ask uncertainty, meeting his gaze. “Go that far, I mean.”

He blinks with widening eyes, then narrows them and angles his head slightly. “You’re not pulling a one-eighty on me, are you?”

“No, I mean, I’m asking you, Philip, as a general question. Do you think, at some point in the future… we’ll want to…”

I don’t need to finish for him to get what I’m saying, and when he does, his expression softens and his attention glides down to his hands, where one holds the other’s thumb. And he stays like that, thinking, for at least a full minute, or maybe two. “I don’t know,” he finally says, shrugging dispassionately. “Maybe. Probably, if we’re being realistic. But I don’t want to make it sound like I’m after that, you know? Like it’s my sole reason for wanting someone. Heck, even talking about it makes me feel awkward. I mean, you’re…”

I wince, drawing my head back a touch as my ears point rearward.

He notices and grasps for straws. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that — I mean…”

Of course I know he didn’t mean to be… well, mean… but that doesn’t take away from the fact: we’re two different species, and for the majority of his life, he’s only ever loved other members of his tribe. History isn’t easily forgotten, no matter how hard you try. Even if it’s for the sake of sompony you care deeply about. Communication is key, as I’ve been told, and a lot, a lot of patience.

He rubs the back of his neck in long, thorough strokes, conflicted and searching for a way to say what he means without being too discourteous. “It’s hard, you know? Trying to make this work for me. And now I’m starting to think that, if it isn’t a spur of the moment thing, reality might come crashing down and I’ll…”

The rotten feeling’s whispers threaten to grow into a murmur.

“I know it’s not fair on you, Fleet.” He meets my eyes with an imploring, genuinely sympathetic look, his voice quavering a little as he gently shakes his head and clasps a loose fist to the centre of his chest. “Believe me, I know. If you want that kind of relationship, then… that’s what I want too, because I love you. More than you could possibly imagine. And I want to love you like you love me. I’m just worried that…”

“You won’t love all of me,” I finish, nodding in turn, small and subdued, then lower my gaze to the carpet and blow yet another sigh.

“Yeah,” he says, also nodding, but stiffer and more restless. Then he turns away and shifts his weight. “And, who knows? Maybe you… wouldn’t like what you see either.”

An ear twitches, my eyes snap back to him, and one of my brows quirks just a tad. I honestly hadn’t thought about it like that before, and although he didn’t mean to — like so many things in the past few weeks — I feel somewhat taken aback; for as long as I’ve had this crush and known that he’s the one for me… I’ve never actually considered how different he is. Physically. From a stallion. On a deeply intimate level.

We’re compatible in that way, certainly, as most sapient creatures tend to be — I’m female and he’s male, after all, ignoring any lurid implications for the time being. But as for what he looks like… down below? That’s something I haven’t spared a thought towards. I mean, was there any reason to? All this time, we’ve been completely happy simply enjoying one another’s company. It’s not like we wanted anything more than that.

But there he was, lying on top of me. And there I was, letting him do as he wished.

And I was liking it.

And if I’d let it go on any longer…

“Well then, why don’t we, uh…” I begin before I can stop myself, and now that it’s out and up in the air, I shut my mouth and hastily look away, my cheeks and ears burning with a ferocity I didn’t think they were capable of; it was supposed to be a thought, not something to blurt out! And now he’s going to ask me what I was trying to say, and then…

And then…

“Why don’t we… what?”

There it is.

The question I was dreading.

And yet…

My chest is heavy. So is my breath. And exceptionally warm too, like they’re inches away from a hot stove, so close that my body is begging for some kind of reaction — a way out of danger and into safety. But the only way I can think of doing that is by taking a leap of faith.

Oh stars, this is so awkward.

And yet, so…

...I really shouldn’t finish that thought.

My weight shifts, sliding back a little way onto my rump.

“Fleet?”

My forehooves charily glide across the carpet toward me, bristles tickling their undersides. I still refuse to look at him, so anxious and embarrassed with myself as they find the hem of my skirt and carefully, ever so cautiously, begin to pull it up.

“What… what’re you…” There’s a motion in my peripheral vision, like he’s reaching out to stop me, but the blur that would be his arm doesn’t go very far, and it soon slows to a halt.

This is it. My heart pounds against my barrel, echoing through every limb, every feather like the rush of adrenaline before a show. My teeth chatter behind my lips, and I’m sure that if I weren’t so lost in my own actions, running on impulse rather than conscious thought — I’d started this, and I was seeing it through — my whole body would be shivering too. But I continue rolling up the skirt, and hold the hem to my stomach, and the cooler air of his apartment seeps through the thin veil of fur on the underside of my belly.

Silence.

Ever since that morning, covering up was one of my top priorities when meeting him. I’d always been afraid that seeing too much of… me would spark some bad memories, send us spiraling down an all too familiar and ill-advised path of self-destruction. It’s not every day that I’d be so conscious of myself, and I’d forgo any undergarments for a simple jacket or singlet, or even something as cumbersome as that red parka, but there always had to be something. I couldn’t let him see me as just me, because it was just me that left him so… broken.

Today, I’m wearing a raspberry red shirt and a plain khaki skirt, and some underwear for added concealment, because you can never be too careful.

“Is, uh…” he croaks weakly. “Are… are those...”

“Mm-hmm.” I tensely nod, the whole world spinning for a few seconds as the sweltering haze in my head swirls about like molten lead. I think there’s a bit of sweat starting to build as well.

“Oh,” he quietly exclains in a low, husky breath, almost as if he’d meant to laugh, but the very sight had choked him. “Oh, wow…”

And if I thought it couldn’t get more steamy upstairs, I’m immediately proven wrong by a nervous, flustered grin tugging at my lips. My wings and legs also freeze up, ice building in their joints. Stars, this is way beyond anything I’m used to, and all I’m really doing is what any curious foal on the cusp of adulthood would do. “I’ll show you mine if you… you show me yours,” I mumble with an awkward, raspy giggle, peering at him from the corner of my eye, ears rising hopefully.

Another breathless laugh, and he meets my gaze with an impish one, an open-mouthed smirk playing across his features. “You’re not serious, are you?”

And just like that, my smile disappears, and the warmth within me suddenly cools by a few dozen degrees, pinning my ears back, raking chilling feathers down my spine all the way to my croup. My wings slacken at my sides while my forehooves lower the skirt, ready to let go completely in case I’d misread the entire situation.

“No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that, Fleet,” he quickly soothes, scooting a little closer with a hand aimed for my shoulder, but he doesn’t come close enough that he can actually touch me. His attention is fixed squarely on me, but I can tell by the agitation in his eyes that part of him is torn between me and another point of interest. “I meant… what you said there… that’s like something a pubescent twelve-year old would say. I was just poking fun.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He nods, his breathing warm and heavy enough to tickle the fur on my neck and poking through the collar of my shirt. “You’re fine, Fleet. There’s literally nothing you could do right now that would make me love you less.”

My brows rise, and my ears rise with them. But it’s only for a moment; they lower with my head as I peer up at him with uncertainty, gulping. “So…?”

And then the reassuring look falters, replaced by understanding, and muted disbelief soon after. It’s almost as if he’d forgotten about the offer, and was discovering it for the first time all over again. “A-a-are you sure?”

I pause, thinking. “No,” I admit with a soft shake of the head, somehow summoning enough conviction to keep myself from stuttering, and to keep my tone both earnest and calm. “But if it’s going to happen eventually… I want to know what I’m dealing with. No surprises, right?”

He pauses too, then nods. “Right.”

“…So,” I bow my head a little lower, chin almost to my neck, cheeks warming up once more, “would you like to?”

He lingers on me, then his wide, enraptured eyes follow my body down, past my barrel, my stomach, and further still, all the way to where the skirt remains lifted, and my lower reaches exposed. “I…”

“You can touch if you want.”

His attention snaps back to me, his lips already parted, his eyes now wider than I’ve ever seen them before, and I see a silent, almost reverent giddiness in them. His breathing slows, the world grows still for a long moment… and then he leans in for a kiss.

I’m in no mood to resist, and simply close my eyes and let him take me. No hands just yet, but in a single, smooth, downright primal motion, he pushes me far enough that I roll onto my back, and the kiss never breaks.

But eventually, it does, and as our eyes meet again, he peers into me adoringly, his brows upturned and a smile on his face. I’ve always loved that damn smile, and even now, it makes my heart flutter. “How did I ever end up with you?”

I giggle once more. “Less talking, more exploring.”

He bows his head as if he were wearing a hat. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, then crawls back a little way and traces his hands along the sides of my body as he goes, his actions soft and tender, and sending pleasant shivers as they reach the leading edge of my thighs.

I watch him closely, panting, feeling almost weightless as my wings and tail begin to stiffen, the entire region he’s hovering over so very exposed and vulnerable. But I don’t dare lock my hindlegs together and keep him away, because I want this and he wants it too, and this might very well be long overdue.

His hands continue along just a little further, up and into the crevice between the inner thigh and groin, laying each palm to rest within it, and on the string keeping my underwear in place. So close, but not there yet. “You say I can touch?”

“Yeah.” I nod heatedly. “Go for it. Just… not too deep, okay?”

“Sure thing,” he affirms vacantly, and then, as slow and as sensual as ever, slides his palms from the crevice to…

My hindlegs stiffen. My tail tucks in, as do my wings, and my ears stand to full attention as my brows harden and the calm, comfortable ocean I’m floating on suddenly grows a little colder. “Wait.”

He stops and looks up at me, but his hands don’t move from where they are.

“Philip…”

“Yeah?”

“...What’re you doing?”

He blinks at me, then glances down, the returns to me. “You said I could touch, didn’t you?”

I blink too. “Well, yeah, but I kind of meant…”

To his credit, it only takes him a few seconds to realise what I’m talking about. “Oh.” His brows rise for a moment, then lower again in a questioning frown. “Wait, so… you don’t want me to touch… these?”

My brows crease even further, one of them cocking like a crossbow. “My teats, you mean?”

“Uh…” He shuts his mouth, and uneasy air washing over him as he looks down once more. “Sure.”

I pause again, thinking. “Well, I mean, you can if you want, but… why?”

“Because they’re breasts,” he answers as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, sharing with me a moderately confused expression like I’d finally accepted Justice as my all-time favourite human music group. “Boobs, tits, knockers, melons, the big guns — whatever you want to call them. And these are, like, the perfect size.” He gives both of them a gentle squeeze, teasing around the base of one’s tip with a thumb. “You’re seriously telling me this does nothing for you?”

I stare at him, absolutely dumbfounded. Yes, I’ve heard of some ponies, mares and stallions alike, having a certain affinity for those small mounds of flesh, but as far as I’ve ever been concerned, that’s all they were: stories full of faceless individuals. To my understanding, from what little I’ve cared to understand, it’s not taboo so much as it is… an oddity — such a rare inclination that you could scarcely call it a fetish. But here I am, lying on my back in my boyfriend’s living room, having my teats groped and fondled like this was an ordinary hoof massage.

And… it’s not unpleasant.

Not jaw-droppingly, mouth-wateringly, pull-my-tail-to-the-side-and-rut-me-silly brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but nice. A welcome pressure, if I’m to put a label on it — the kind that sends small, warm ripples through me, which, again, isn’t all too different from an ordinary hoof massage. But of course, this has undertones that can’t be ignored, and I find myself slowly falling back into the swing of things the longer I’m allowed to assess how I feel.

“I think it does, actually,” I muse aloud, almost absentmindedly as I rest my head on the carpet and stare at the ceiling. “But, uh… don’t take my word for it. I think it’s better after you’ve had a foal, and they’re bigger, and your brain decides to make them sensitive, or whatever.”

“Heh.” He continues kneading, but less rigorous and more sensual, focussing on the mounds rather than the tops. “Not unlike women, then, or so I hear.”

I snort. “Yeah, I don’t need to know what it’s like for females on the other side.”

“Jealous?”

I shake my head gently. “I just don’t want to risk ruining the mood.”

“Fair,” he hums. “By the way, remember what I said about perfect size?”

“Yeah?”

“They feel pretty nice too.”

“Oh.” I quirk an eyebrow and look at him. “You think?”

“Absolutely.” He presses down on them and slowly rubs back and forth, which somehow elicits a short, sharp, surprised grunt from me that soon ebbs away into the lapping of pleasurable waves. “Firm, with just the right amount of give — not too hot, not too cold. You’ve struck a balance, Fleetybee. You shouldn’t squander such a gift.”

“Squander?” I scoff, then giggle as I bring the back of a hoof up to my forehead. “Oh my stars, Philip, you sure have a way with words, don’t you? And just who am I supposed to share this ‘gift’ with, anyway?”

“Someone who’d appreciate it, naturally.” He stops his ministrations and leans over with a knowing smirk. “En otras palabras, yo, mi amor.”

“Don’t speak foreign,” I playfully scold, swatting him away by lightly tapping him on the head. “You know I don’t understand a word of it.”

“You don’t need to understand to know what it means.”

I narrow my eyes at him and smile. “No,” I hum. “I suppose I don’t.”

He does the same and holds my gaze tenderly.

But I haven’t forgotten what we’re supposed to be doing. As much as I enjoy talking with him, we’ve never come this far before — intentionally, I must unfortunately remind myself — and this is one gift I definitely don’t want to squander. “Do you plan on going any further, or…?”

That snaps him out of it. “Right, right,” he says, nodding, shifting his attention to his hands, which he then promptly slides back into the crevices of my thighs and rubs up and down, generating more warmth as my teats return to their original shape.

I think I’m already regretting telling him to get on with it, what with the air cooling off warm flesh.

“Well, so far, so good. I’m liking what I’m seeing.” His gaze drifts a tad lower, and I see his smile fall somewhat. “Now, it’s the moment of truth.”

“Do it.”

He stops and looks at me again, surprised. “What?”

“Yeah, do it,” I say with a casual tone and a limp, nonchalant wave of my hoof; my wings aren’t entirely stiff just yet, but they certainly can’t bend that far anymore. “What can I say? You’ve put me in a good mood. Go on, rip that sucker off. No time like the present, right?”

He lingers on me, still stunned, then shares his expression with my covered nether regions. “No time like the present,” he echoes to himself, then huffs a laugh as he carefully loops his fingers around the elastic straps on either thigh. “Ain’t that a way of saying it?”

I choose not to comment, preferring instead to relish the feeling of his trimmed nails raking soft trails through my fur, and the muted relief of my own panties coming loose. And I do my best not to think too deeply on what exactly is happening, and just accept it as we go; he’s going to see me, all of me, and he’ll make a judgement — I can’t control that, only my reaction.

I am in control.

“Ooh,” he quietly exclaims, halting and glancing up at me. “You, uh… got a little excited, I see.”

I snort and peer at him from the corner of a narrowed eye, smirking. “Are you saying I’m wet?”

He pauses, trying to mask his small sense of hesitation behind that old stoic mask. “Yeah.”

I snort again and gently roll my eyes as I twirl a limp hoof in the air. “Whoop-dee-doo, Philip. That’s what happens with ten minutes of foreplay. It’s not that big a deal, really — same as every other mare, and I bet more than a few of your women too.”

He blinks. “Well, yeah, but…” he drifts off, his gaze growing distant, then sighs and shakes his head, resuming his efforts, though his eyes stay locked with mine. “Never mind. But what was that you said about not wanting to ruin the moment with tales from the other side?”

“Hey.” I point a hoof at him. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Oh, wow, quality leadership material, Fleet — ten out of ten.” He chuckles, threading the left loop around the respective rear hoof, where it then comes free and dangles from the other, my hindlegs finally able to relax and spread. He continues smiling for a short while, but the second he sees what lies between them, beneath my tail — or in this case, above — it gradually shrinks, his lips creeping apart, his eyes widening like Soarin’s in a bakery.

The reticent part of me wants me to hide. The romantic part of me says I should be blushing like crazy, and my heart should be racing faster than a charging locomotive, or an intense workout routine with a livid Spitfire at the helm… or when he says he loves me — that this should be a special, memorable occasion. But this new Fleetfoot that’s taken over isn’t having any of it. She hears their advice, she smiles and nods, and quietly disposes of all their suggestions in the nearby shredder, and she tells me to put on more of a display and see what reaction that gets out of him.

So, I do exactly that, lifting my legs and wiggling my rear end from side to side as my tail swishes back and forth — small, subtle motions, because sometimes in show business, less is more. “Like what you see, big guy?” I hoarsely enquire, smirking and quirking an eyebrow for emphasis.

A throaty, barely conscious groan is his only response, and he seems to shudder with it.

Weird thing about me: even when I was in the dating game before I joined the reserves, I was never much of a tease, so where this side of me came from, I have no freaking idea. But I’m loving it, so I’m not questioning it, and I can’t deny how satisfying it is to see him get so weak in the knees at something so simple as the mere sight of me. It makes me feel… strangely excited, and I force myself to stifle a giddy squeak.

“Whoa!”

I snap my focus to him, ears at full-mast, shedding the tension from my hinquarters as I prop myself up on an elbow, hoping to see him without obstruction. “What?” I ask with a sense of urgency, the back of my neck tingling with a sudden chill, telling me to be ready for anything.

He looks at me, somewhat shocked, but not exactly horrified. “Did you just…?”

My brows crease and I glance to the right, the tingle lessening, but still there. “Did I just what, Philip?” I query calmly. Surely he doesn’t expect me to know everything that’s going through his head.

He peers down again, searching for whatever ghost had spooked him — which, in immediate retrospect, makes me sound far older than I actually am. But then his eyes widen once more and he moves to point at it, though his hand doesn’t make it all the way. “There!” he exclaims, but it lacks any real alarm behind it. “It… Your thing, it… it just popped out for, like, less than a second.”

I blink, my brows rising, then the realisation dawns on me. “Oh, you mean clitoral winking?”

He blinks as well. Several times. Erratically. And he can’t decide whether to look at me or my nethers, which I can now feel is definitely flexing and relaxing every few seconds. I can’t normally control it unless I consciously think about holding it closed, but considering the look he’s giving both me and it, I’m not sure I want to.

“Winking?” he echoes vacantly, settling on me for the time being.

“Yeah.” I prop myself up even further by adding a second elbow, looking down at myself and the very subtle bend and release of the small region at the very end of my groin. It’s easy to ignore if your mind is on something else, but every pulse comes with a soft, pleasant itch, like somepony is tickling the very tips of their feathers up and into my core. And I’ll admit… seeing myself like this is kind of amusing. And erotic. Funny how arousal tends to feed off itself. “That’s how you know when a mare’s turned on. Or when she’s recently taken a piss. No biggie.”

“No biggie?” he repeats absentmindedly, then meets my eyes once more with a look of disbelief. “No biggie?”

I quirk an eyebrow, and my hindlegs and tail pull in a touch. “Is that bad?”

His mouth hangs open, seemingly lost for words, but it slowly closes as his attention drifts down my body to my nethers once again, almost with a sense of veneration. His eyes remain wide as ever, but clearly hesitant, as if what he wants to say can’t get past a lump in his throat. But, resting on his knees and heels, he bows forward a little way and reaches out, laying palm on the inner cheek of my rump, his fingers limply resting on the inner thigh.

My lower half begins to relax, and I splay my hindlegs a little more, just in case that’s what he’s after. My entrance twitches, and I suddenly become distinctly aware of how warm it is compared to the air, and how even the faintest draft from his quiet, humid breathing sends a cool shiver up and into my withers.

The other hand glides forward and finds its place on the other cheek, but more towards the croup, as if he’s trying to lift me up, or at least support the weight of my rear. The first, however, slides lower, closer, and its thumb gently pushes into the thin covering of fuzz just beside my cooch, and carefully teases it open.

A heat rises in my cheeks as I pucker my lips and do my best to muffle a short, sharp, thrilled grunt. My wings and tail strain to hike themselves higher into the carpet beneath us.

He holds it open, then lets it slide into its original position, then repeats the process a number of times over, always huffing a low, heated breath whenever it winks at him. But then his hand wanders even closer, and his thumb places itself at the very bottom, and then slowly drags itself upward in a firm yet tender motion, digging into the flesh a little way, taking some moisture with it.

I close my eyes and let my head lull back as a long, ragged moan escapes me, a pleasant shudder rumbling up from between my legs to my core, and then to my every extremity, even to my wingtips. Of course I’d anticipated I’d get some satisfaction out of this, but I didn’t think it would feel this raw. Hooves, feathers and the occasional inanimate object have done the job before, but there’s something inherently special about having him do the honours, and it’s getting me exceptionally hot under the collar.

It continues on its way, rubbing along the passage, and then in circles around and lightly pushing into my winking bean, which only makes my hindlegs fidget and tail swish all the harder, and I find it more difficult to keep my moaning to myself. But after a few long, blissful seconds, he takes his hand away, leaving me to ride out the bubbling waves of ecstasy. “Oh my god…” he murmurs in awe.

“Mm,” I hum, peering at him through narrowed eyes and a flustered smirk, my cheeks, ears and even the base of my wings burning with a passion I’ve not felt in years — almost two decades. “You can say that again.”

He watches his hand closely and with a sense of bewilderment, trying and largely succeeding to keep it from shivering uncontrollably. He dabs his thumb against rigid fingers, and seems taken even further aback when a string of fluids forms. “Oh my fucking god…”

I chuckle. “That’s the spirit.”

He looks up to me, apparently somewhat surprised to be reminded that I exist, but then swallows his shock and clears his throat, shaking his head. “No, no, you don’t understand, Fleet,” he says almost pleadingly, his chest practically heaving with every breath. “This shouldn’t be happening.”

“And what’s that?” I query evocatively, my unflappable charade faltering as I briefly glance down at myself, the thought of picking up where he left off crossing my mind for a fleeting moment.

His brows harden, not in offence or disgust or anything like that, but in an expression that says he thinks the answer should be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell. “Fleet…” he starts, lingering on me, then casting his gaze southward, the hand still on my rump finding a stronger grip, “I want to bury my face in you.”

I shut my mouth and draw my head back, my own brows rising and my wings and tail desperate to stand ramrod straight, and still finding the floor in their way. It’s almost painful, actually, and so is the blush raging in my cheeks and ears — any sweat seeping through my fur might well evaporate before it can dampen.

“I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t had a chance like this in years, or because I legitimately like what I see, but…” He vacantly shakes his head again, then switches focus to me, eyes awash a lustful hunger. “I’m sorry if I’m being blunt, Fleet, but I have to say it: you look absolutely delicious right now.”

A heated breath of my own escapes me, and I swear, if you put an icepack anywhere on my body, it would melt within seconds. I think I’ll need an extra cold shower after this.

Once more, he shakes his head. “I really don’t know how to deal with this.”

Through the haze of hot-blooded emotion, a thought makes itself known, and before I can think it through properly, a smirk playfully snakes across my lips. “Well, there’s one way…”

He snaps to me and shakes his head with even more vigor, huffing another throaty groan. “Oh, no, don’t you dare do that to me, Fleet. I am this close to motorboating you on a whim, and I can make exactly zero guarantees on stopping there.”

And, oh, how tempted I am to encourage him. But I’m still conscious enough that I remember why he’s restraining himself, and why I’d given him that order to begin with; no regrets, and as fun as an impromptu romp may be, neither of us can be sure.

Stars, I’m openly thinking about it now.

I’d better nip this weed before it sprouts too far.

“Well then, I guess that means my turn is over.”

The excitement in him fades, replaced by blinking confusion. “Your turn?”

“Yeah, my turn.” I roll over onto my side and reach down, threading my left hindleg through the loop of my underwear and pulling them up. That makes me cringe and scrunch my muzzle, knowing they’re at least partially moist, but what else am I supposed to do? Where else am I supposed to store them?

With that embarrassing task finished, and my now meagre sense of pride besmirched, I heave myself up onto my haunches and scoot back a little, facing him. I straighten my skirt, and try to recompose myself, though my wings and tail ache with how they’re finally able to go as high as they like.

“You still need to show me yours.”

He blinks again. “Oh, right.” Sparing a glance at his hand, still sporting the wetness, he rubs his fingers and thumb together rigorously to dry them out, then wipes his palm on the leg of his denim shorts and gets into a more comfortable position. And he sits there, staring at the floor, quietly drumming his digits as he slowly glances left to right. “So, uh… how do you want me to do this?”

I shrug; my tail swishes. “How do you want to do this?”

He pauses, gazing down at himself. “I guess I could start with the shirt…”

“Ooh.” I bring the edge of my hoof up to my mouth and angle my head, batting my eyelashes at him in a look that I hope is at least in some way evocative — I’m not that good at flirting, honestly. “Playing coy, are we?”

“Not coy, just…” He sighs, deflating, holding his thumb as he frowns and shrugs, unsure of himself. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just not used to being the centre of attention, or something. I mean, I’m not the one who’s beautiful, or has the most to lose, so…”

At first, I consider rebuking him for dealing out such a cheap compliment — surely he can do better than putting himself down so he can prop me up on a pedestal. But then the other half of that sentence registers, and I arch an eyebrow as my hoof returns to the shaggy carpet. “The most to lose?”

“Yeah.” He nods pensively. “Like, I know sex is fun for everyone, but… it’s risky too, especially for the girl. So, I figure it’s better if she knows how special she is, and that I’d never do anything she doesn’t ask for, and… you know. I don’t like making things about me, in this context — about how strong and manly I am, and how I’m going to—”

“Philip…” I interrupt, lifting the same hoof and lowering my gaze, smiling a small, empathetic smile, as much to myself as to him, “that’s sweet of you, really. But you’re overthinking it.”

He watches me carefully, and questions disbelievingly, “Am I?”

“You are.” I share that smile with him directly, brows upturned. “First of all, we literally can’t have kids together, so if that’s what you’re scared of, you shouldn’t be. I mean, I don’t like thinking about it either, but that’s a fact. Secondly… I think it’s safe to say we know each other well enough that we’d never do something either of us aren’t comfortable with. We’ve made mistakes, and we’ve learned from them. Or so I’d like to think. And thirdly…”

He waits patiently. Anxiously. Perhaps a little eagerly.

I carefully shuffle toward him, hunched over as I don’t quite leave my sitting posture, coming to a rest on my haunches just before his knees, laying a hoof on his left. At our current heights, I’m taller than he is by at least half a head, and I take a long moment to fully appreciate the fact that I don’t have to look up to him for the time being. That is, until I stop watching myself trace tiny circles in his thigh with the flat of my hoof, and meet his gaze yearningly. “I need this,” I say plainly, “because when we eventually take it that far… I don’t want anything holding us back. And… who knows? Maybe I’ll like what I see too.”

His face, already flush with everything we’ve been doing, everything we’ve been saying for the past twenty minutes, seems to grow even more crimson.

A sense of pride hits me, but I don’t let my smile go too much wider — that might make him even more self-conscious than he is already. What I do instead is lean in and press my lips to his, eyes narrowing in the way they do when something heartwarming happens, and hold his gaze for as long as I hold the kiss. And even when I pull back and slide my hoof up to the hem of his polo, I never blink or look away, not even for an instant. And I never stop smiling. “Do you need some help with this?”

“I love you,” he murmurs, mesmerised, softly shaking his head. “So, so much.”

…Okay, that draws a smirk out of me, and threatens to send my heart aflutter. “I’ll take that as a yes,” I softly say, hooking the edge of my hoof underneath and lifting it so that some bare skin shows.

Without changing his expression or breaking eye contact, he seems to take the hint, reaching and pulling the collar up, around and over his head, quickly followed by the rest, which he lets fall by his side.

And what I see is…

Foreign.

That’s the best way I can describe it, really; it doesn’t immediately strike me as something I should be drooling over, but it isn’t something I can tear myself away from either.

I’ve never seen bare skin before. Not to this degree. A few pathetic wisps of hair in the centre of his chest — so sparse that I could probably count them if I had the patience for it — and a darker patch toward the waistline, leading away from a noticeably more distinct navel than mine, but that’s about it. The barrel isn’t something you pay too much attention to in a pony, stallion or mare, so I’m not exactly sure what to look for, if anything, but it’s clear that he isn’t nearly as muscular as he could be. Not to say that he’s fat or flabby — perfectly fit, I’m quite certain — but if the vast majority of minotaurs are anything to go by…

It’s fine, though. He takes care of himself, just not to the same level an athlete would.

There are, however, two very obvious features I hadn’t expected to find. “Oh,” I remark quite ineffectually, blinking and drawing my head back just a touch. “You have… teats of your own?”

“Huh?” He blinks in turn with a similarly stunned look, then casts his gaze downward. “Uh… yeah, I guess. I mean, not the whole shebang, but they’re there.”

I frown at him, confused.

He meets my eyes and rolls his own. “All humans start off as female, and as they develop, they become… less so. But some things don’t go away by the time a boy is born. Nipples are the most obvious.”

“Do they work?”

“No. You get stories here and there about men ‘producing’ under high stress situations, but I’ve thankfully never been one of them. Not that I mean to shame anyone who has — it just requires, like, a very specific set of circumstances.” He shrugs and looks away, gripping his thumb tightly. “Sorry.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “What for?”

“Lecturing. Rambling. Making everything weirder than it needs to be.”

“Weirder?” I cock and shake my head, smirking as I narrow my eyes and huff a short, quiet laugh. “Philip, this whole thing is strange, sure, but… all you’re doing is telling me about yourself. Not just you but everypony like you. That’s not weird.”

“There’s a difference between opening up and too much information.”

“And I decide where to draw the line.” I put a hoof on his chest, and through all the flesh and bone in the way, I feel how hard his heart is beating; he’s more anxious than he’s letting on. “I’m a big girl, okay? I’m here for you. And I want to know everything about you, because you’re the one I’ve fallen for. Hopelessly. And nothing you could do or say right now is going to change that.”

He peers at me from the corner of his eye, turning his head toward me somewhat. He’s uncertain, to be sure, but the thankful glint of appreciation shines through.

“This isn’t bad.” I tap out the words for emphasis. “I’m not ashamed to like this. You shouldn’t be ashamed to be yourself either. And I’m not afraid to…”

He arches an eyebrow, as hopeful as he is anxious.

I linger on him, searching for the words to broker a diplomatic solution, but find myself coming up short. “Screw it,” I mutter with a sigh, curving my attention to the lone button and zipper of his pants, which I reach for and fumble with using my hooves; wings would be ideal, but seeing as they’re still stiff enough that they can’t bend much lower than a flat angle, my options are limited, and I’m not about to rip into his shorts with my teeth like some lust-driven beast. I have standards, and too much respect for clothes.

He reacts quickly, jabbering something incoherent that sounds partway between a shocked gasp and a panicked hiss, pushing my hooves off and pinning them to the floor. He stares at me with yet another pair of wide eyes — I’ve lost count of how many I’ve seen by now — and an expression I can only guess at.

Naturally, I begin worrying that I presumed too much and crossed an actual line — pushed him to a limit he isn’t yet comfortable with, and might never be.

But then, slowly, the look he wears softens, and the tense air between us dissipates, replaced by something far more welcome: understanding. We’d been treading the same relative ground for who knows how long by this point, and I’d decided to push things along, because what’s the use of stating the obvious again and again?

He looks at himself and pulls his hands away, undoing the button, unzipping the zipper, edging his shorts down at the hips so that I can see his briefs more clearly, and so he has more room to work with. And then, after hooking his thumbs under the elastic waistband and taking a few long, calming breaths, he finally reveals what he’s been hiding this whole time.

Of course, it doesn’t pop out exactly as planned and he has to fiddle with the undercarriage a little to make sure it all hangs comfortably in the open, but at long last… there it is.

A penis.

The unfamiliar, but at the same time patently recognisable silhouette of an erect phallus.

…I genuinely don’t know if I expected anything different.

The dark hair from above descends and congregates around its base, longer and more wiry, and honestly, extremely unkempt; I’m no expert, but if what I’m seeing is all natural, then the southern situation has been left to its own devices for a very long time, if he’s ever groomed himself down there before. In fact, I think it’s drawing my focus more than the ‘goods’ themselves.

I shouldn’t be off-put. I shouldn’t be repulsed.

Part of me can’t help wanting to cringe.

I desperately try to resist it.

All dicks are weird, when you really get down to it: they’re relatively narrow, floppy sacks of meat and blood, and when you jiggle them around too much, something you seriously don’t want getting in your eye comes out. Some are short, some are long, some are bland and some are mottled, and this one isn’t any different. It’s just… shaggier.

And covered in thin veins of blue and red.

And it bends a little to the left.

But I can’t just say all that to his face. There has to be something else — something we can both relate to, in a sense. So, I clear my throat and glance up at him with an expression that I hope is neutral. “Well, uh… you’re missing a sheath.”

“A what?”

“A sheath,” I repeat, then make a vague gesture with my hooves to demonstrate. “You know, the… skin pouch it stays in when you’re not… at attention.”

“Oh.” He blinks, puzzled for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, I don’t have one. When it isn’t up like this, it just… dangles. Which I guess is another reason why clothing is more of a necessity for us — being a biped without a whole heap of fuzz, these things are pretty obvious. But I do have my foreskin.”

“Your what?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but then puckers his lips and sighs through his nose, cautiously reaching a hand for the slight, tapering bulge at the tip and pulling it towards him. However, instead of the whole length coming with, only the short, fleshy extrusion at the very end rolls back, and unfurls like a blooming rose.

My eyes widen. Whether in revulsion, morbid curiosity or, stars forbid, actual fascination, I really wish I could tell. But then again, perhaps it’s better that I can’t.

It continues expanding, revealing more and more of a darker, redder, quite literally more alien interior, until I realise there’s something glistening in the light.

Fluid.

A bulbous, wobbling mass that soon starts threatening to spill over, but Philip notices just in time and quickly yanks everything back up and holds it as straight as possible, pinching the tip to seal it all shut. Some of it has escaped, though, and slickened his finger. “Shit! I’m… I’m so sorry, Fleet!” he hurriedly apologises, less of a shout and more of a startled cry, sharing a horrified look with me. “I didn’t know I… I mean…”

I continue staring — gawking, in fact, wings and tail suddenly feeling a whole lot harder to keep under control, despite how consciously conflicted I am. It appears my body thinks it knows better.

But regardless of what instincts say and how dumb they are, I do my best to recompose myself once more; he’s counting on me for support, and no matter what, I can’t abandon him in his time of need. Not again. Even for something as… questionable as this.

“You shouldn’t have had to see—”

“Philip,” I interrupt, stern but calm, “it’s okay. I got turned on by you, you got turned on by me. It’s… normal. You know, for what counts as normal anymore.”

He looks at me hesitantly, part of him clearly not wanting to believe me, but eventually nods, if a little rigidly. “Right, right,” he mumbles, returning his attention to himself. “Right, right, right…”

If I weren’t so concerned for his wellbeing and general sanity, I might find his reaction adorable in its own way — I wasn’t nearly so rattled as he was when showing myself off, after all. But can’t afford to make it seem like I don’t think his worries aren’t justified, or that I’m belittling him. Surprisingly, our roles have reversed, and I need to be the supportive one.

Can’t crack a joke, though — that’s too obnoxious. Better, I suppose, to divert this conversation onto a more manageable topic.

I clear my throat again. “So, that’s what a foreskin is?” I query, trying to sound as plain and straightforward as I’m able. “Like, a mini sheath for the tip?”

He switches focus to me for a moment, but by the time it once more drifts lower, I spy a glint of relief in his eyes. “The glans,” he corrects, his tone slightly more stable. “And yeah, I guess. I take it stallions don’t have the same structure, huh?”

“No.” I shake my head, relievedly sighing to myself that I appear to have made the right call. “Stallions are bigger, if you don’t mind me saying. And longer.”

Philip snorts and smirks unevenly. “Figures.”

I cock an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

He shrugs. “Bulkier bodies, bulkier… equipment.”

I snort as well, which morphs into an awkward chuckle — more because of the situation than any actual embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess. They also have flares at the end, which are like your glans, but wider, and flatter. And shaped more like a disk.”

His brows crease, and his nose and upper lip wrinkle a little, partway between confusion and what seems to be an unwanted sense of distaste; he wants to be as tolerant as I’ve been. Or at least had the mind to keep any gripes to myself. “Not sure I follow.”

Thing is, I’m not the one at risk of being offended. He really does think too much, sometimes. “Look it up in a book, if you’re brave enough,” I suggest with a casual shrug. “Or ask Phalanx or Ironside — I’m sure they’d be happy to educate you.”

His stomach contracts and his whole chest heaves with the force of a loud, heartfelt, probably somewhat nervous laugh. A uniquely intriguing sight, since most ponies’ fur keeps their muscles hidden. “Okay, they’re close,” he says, holding his free hand up to me, “but they’re not that close.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

And now he almost doubles over, shaking his head. “You wish, Fleetybee. You wish. Three big, strong, handsome males just for you, is that right?”

“Well, I don’t know about handsome…”

He smiles, lowering his gaze and letting his giggles eventually fade.

I wait for them to fade away too, staring at the wrinkled, moist piece of flesh cinched between his thumb and finger, but hopefully not in a way that makes me appear judgemental, because that’s not what I’m going for. I’m merely curious. “So…”

He returns to me, then angles his head and raises an eyebrow. “So…?”

I don’t answer for a long moment, wondering if I’m being too analytical for our own good. But with a mental shrug, I meet his gaze. “Does it serve any purpose, or is it just… there, like your, uh…” I gesture to the two small, slightly darker protrusions of skin on his chest. “Them.”

Philip blinks, furrowing his brows, then looks down at himself again. “Not really,” he says, not sounding entirely confident with his response. “I mean, the most it does is just keep the glans from getting desensitised, but a lot of guys go just fine without it.”

My own brows furrow, and I cock my head. “How do you mean?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it, then looks off to the right and grits his teeth behind puckered lips, shifting his weight uncomfortably and sitting a little straighter. “Well, they… have it cut off.”

This time, I blink, and my jaw drops as I almost entirely yank myself away from him to all four hooves, wings now standing tall and tense out of shock more than anything. “They what?”

“Yep.” His eyes snap to mine and he bows his head toward me in a single, awkward nod. “Some parents, when they’ve had a baby boy… decide to have him clipped.”

“Why?”

He pauses. And then he shrugs. “Nowadays? Tradition, and a marginal decrease to the likelihood of infection. As for how it started? Simple: the misguided belief that cutting it off would keep little boys from playing with their no-no bits.”

Absolute bewilderment doesn’t even begin to describe my state of mind at this very moment, but it’s as close to anything in our bizarrely shared language as I think I’ll get. In all my years of learning about other nations, their cultures, their histories, as well as that of all the disparate provinces and peculiar vistas within Equestria itself, I’ve never, ever heard of anything quite like this. Body modification and scarring isn’t uncommon in some of the more isolated and trabalistic regions in the world, and heck, plastic surgery is becoming more mainstream among the aging elite of the big cities, but…

I’ve been taught and reminded every day abroad to always be respectful of other civilisations and their customs and beliefs, lest I beget an international crisis, but this just seems downright wrong to me. And what confounds me even more is that I’m getting offended on his behalf, and he’s made it clear enough that he doesn’t consider it that big of a deal. Why, then, am I taking it so personally?

…It’s because I’m his girlfriend, isn’t it?

Maybe it isn’t, but it’s a good a reason as any, and I can’t bring myself to think too much on it.

I sigh heavily and lightly shake my head. “Philip, I swear… I really don’t think I’ll ever understand some of the stuff you humans do.”

“Yeah. We’re a stubborn lot, aren’t we?”

Stubborn is definitely one word for it, though if life has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t easily judge a creature by what they are, only who. And I need a way to take my mind off what we’d just been discussing. But of course, that’s next to impossible now that I’ve made it my current goal. So, I decide to ask something that’s related to it, but would hopefully lead to a less disturbing subject — an unsavoury topic is always better than an unpleasant one. “And it’s all to stop you… pleasuring yourself?”

“Originally.”

“…So then, have you?”

His brows crease, uncertain. “Have I… what?”

I bob my head from side to side glancing down at him meaningfully. “You know…”

His eyes widen, and all the blood that seemed to be slowly draining from his cheeks suddenly returns with a vengeance. “Oh, wow,” he croakily exclaims. “You seriously want to know?”

I shrug. Anything’s better than whatever came before, and he already knows I’m not impartial to a little time for myself. I’m sure I know the answer — he’s a lost, lonely soul searching for love, after all — but we may as well air out all our dirty laundry. No secrets, no surprises, all that bollocks.

He lingers on me, his expression becoming less shocked and flushed and more hesitant, turning away again in search of something that isn’t me. Until, of course, he settles on the ukulele just out of reach behind me, where he lets a long, heavy breath go, and appears to grow more at peace with himself. “Honestly? No, not once. I mean, I’ve thought about it, yeah, but… all this time, I’ve been staying at places that weren’t mine, or I wasn’t really in the mood to… do that kind of thing.”

…Okay, that makes sense, but was also not what I’d expected. And what makes a new warmth rise within my cheeks, ears and stiffening wings is another new revelation. “So, you’re telling me that…”

“Aside from the one time that absolutely nothing happened — wink-wink, nudge-nudge, kick my shin under the table — yeah, I’ve… been clean for about two years now.”

I stare at him, flabbergasted. I don’t mean to boast, especially over something so petty, but I don’t think it would be unfair to say I have a fairly high constitution when it comes to self-control. But even then… that’s hard to imagine, and he’d literally have no reason to make a claim like that unless he actively wanted me to feel extremely awkward. And I do.

But I also don’t.

And surprisingly, the rotten feeling isn’t there anymore.

I know it should be there — this is the perfect time for it to wrap its creeping, festering tendrils around my stomach and heart and all the other things I feel with and make them putrid. But it doesn’t come. And I don’t know what that means, and whether it’s a good thing, or a bad thing, or anything.

I’m the only release he’s had for the past two years, and even while we’ve been dating, he stuck it out. And I don’t want to like it — there shouldn’t be anything I should be proud of regarding that.

But the heat in my body tells a very different story.

“I… don’t know what to say, Philip.”

“Then don’t,” he implores. “Say something else, like… what you think. Of me. Of… this.”

What can I do but continue staring, lost for words and struggling to find the wherewithal for even a single breath?

“Well?”

I blink, then look down.

It’s definitely softened a considerable amount since he started squeezing the head — now it looks like a small, limp sausage in his hand, which only serves to emphasise the hairiness around its base, and of the fleshy sack below it. He’d never be able to hold a candle up to an actual stallion in either department — a few unfortunate encounters in the Academy showers have made sure I know that well enough — and I’m sure quite a few older colts would put him to shame too. Frankly speaking.

The facts are rarely so pretty as we imagine them.

But kneeling before me is the one I love, and what he’s holding is also a part of him. Love takes compromise, and I’m sure, in time, I’ll come to appreciate him in his entirety — head, shoulders, knees and toes, and every point in between.

I give him a heartening smile, brows knitting together in an expression of deepest caring.

“I think—”

And then there’s a knock on the door.

Everything stiffens, freezing with a sudden chill as icicles stab into me from all sides — the back of my neck, between my wings, under my ribs and into my barrel, straight down my spine. My tail and ears clamp down tighter and faster than I’ve ever known them capable, and all the colour must surely be draining from my face as I now look at Philip in abject horror.

He holds my gaze with a similarly mortified expression, and then crams his junk inside his briefs and buttons his pants in a silent, blindingly fast panic and scrambles to get his shirt back on as he stumbles to his feet. “Who is it?!” he cries, voice cracking.

“A friend,” comes Ironside’s somewhat muffled reply. “I return bearing a successful day’s hunt, as requested — spoils of war from the grocery store. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Along with the chill comes another sense of fear, and I snap to Philip with a pleading look, only to quickly realise that he’d have no reason to refuse that wouldn’t sound suspicious. Instead, I frantically scan the room for something, anything with which I could hide the two very obvious feathery protrusions that simply refuse to lower any further than a few conservative inches.

“Uh… no, no you’re not,” Philip answers, trying and successfully keeping the uncertainty from his tone. Mostly. “I-I’ll be there in just a sec.”

The bathroom, perhaps? Do I have time? I could force myself to go for a piss, maybe, but I can’t guarantee they’ll have slacked by the time I finish, and a shower might be a little suspicious; why on Earth bathe at a time like this, when there’s nothing that could’ve possibly spilled on me, and saying that I was sweaty would imply that I’d been exercising. And considering Philip and I had been alone together in here for quite some time… that would only beg the question of what kind of exercise I’d been doing, exactly. That we’d been doing.

Merciful Sisters, the implications…

Philip, playing his part as convincingly as he can, strides for the door and waits by it, watching me closely and silently urging me to hurry as he pretends to fiddle with the chain and latch.

I can’t fly away either, not with wings like these. The best I can do is a pretty solid impression of a rock.

As risky as it is, and as dreadful as it makes me feel, I think the only realistic option is to just stay here and act like nothing is out of the ordinary. It isn’t unheard of, wings flaring against their owner’s will, and I’m certain that Ironside, being a pegasus himself, would at least be somewhat sympathetic — surely he’s been in that kind of situation before.

Getting my tail under control is easy enough — the time for it to hike has long since passed — and I hurriedly search for something to do, to pass the time, while all of this is going down. I can’t play the ukulele with my mind swimming like this, so my attention falls on the next best thing, and I dart over to the DVD cabinet beneath the flatscreen and pull open one of the drawers; it’s a simple idea, and it would give me something else I can focus on, hopefully so that my wings will lose their tension all the faster.

I give Philip a chary nod.

He nods in turn, then opens the door and steps aside. “Hey, Big Iron. You got everything, right?”

“You doubt me, Philip?” Ironside queries as he strolls in, the canvas saddlebags over his armour packed with items that I remember Philip had ordered, but can’t list off the top of my head.

“Oh, no, of course not.” He shakes his head and puts his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “But we can’t be too careful, can we?”

Ironside snorts. “You’re learning.” He enters the combined space that is the lounge, dining room and kitchen, steering a course around the other side of the sofa. The sound of hooves on the varnished floorboards and the rustle of his armour fill the air, and make me realise how quiet the place would be without him — how much his presence sticks out.

I’ve never had an inspector of an important ongoing investigation knock on my door and ask to look around, but I imagine this wouldn’t be too far off from how it would feel: exposed and vulnerable, everything on display and susceptible to questioning.

And being a guard, it doesn’t take him long to notice me, craning his head from over the back of the couch and arching an eyebrow. Not that anypony with any semblance of intelligence couldn’t have picked my wings out from a mile away. “What’s up with you?” he questions impassively, almost like nothing was, indeed, out of the ordinary.

“Browsing,” I answer, perhaps a little too quickly, and perhaps a little too rigidly. Mum had learned to know when I was lying, and now I’m worried my familiarity with him and the other guards might just be my downfall. I turn away and start rummaging through the assortment of DVD cases for something, anything of interest. “We finished practice for the day, so now I’m searching for something to watch instead.”

“And your wings?”

“Oh.” I peer back at them and strain for them to bend, but they don’t make it very far. Further than what they did before, but not far enough. And it stings, forcing them to work against themselves. “Just… one of those days.”

“Ah, I see.” He nods, seemingly convinced, resuming course for the island counter in the kitchen, where heaps the saddlebags on the polished surface and unzips the flaps with his wingtips — flexibility I’m sorely missing right about now, quite literally. “Well, hopefully the snacks I’ve brought you both will help you take your mind off things.”

“Snacks?”

“Rainbow truffles,” he announces, retrieving a box and holding it up for me to see. “Imported from the famed chocolatiers of Caribousk. I hear they’re a favourite of yours.”

My eyes widen at him. He heard right, and the fact he’d go out of his way to pick up something extra just for me — for us…

“Aw, thanks, bud,” Philip gushes, calmly, casually approaching him and the shopping supplies.

“Think nothing of it,” Ironside replies, holding a hoof up as he sets the box face-down on the counter. “I take my duties seriously, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pamper you from time to time.”

“Pamper,” Philip scoffs, chuckling as he turns one of the bags to face him and organises the groceries one by one. “Buying a little something on the side is hardly what I’d call pampering, Iron, but thanks anyway. And thanks for getting the stuff for the milkshakes.”

“So long as you share.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Good.” Ironside nods with a short hum of satisfaction. But then his ears perk up and his brows rise as a thought stikes him, and he shares his looks between the two of us. “Oh, and by the way, I have some news from Canterlot.”

I quirk an eyebrow.

Philip, on the other hoof, slows his efforts to a crawl and frowns warily. “What kind of news?”

“Not the kind you’re thinking of,” Ironside soothes, his face returning to the normally quite unflappable mask he wears — not unlike the stoic one Philip sometimes uses. “Do you remember Able?”

“Yeah?”

“Turns out, when he arrived at the station, he had some company.”

Philip blinks, surprised.

So do I. “Company?”

“Yes, indeed.” Ironside leans in a little way, as if he were whispering a secret, and though his expression never changes, it’s clear to both of us that there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Of the supposedly romantic variety.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. No one caught the name, as far as I can tell, but two things are for certain: she was a she, and she was a kirin.”

“A kirin?” I turn and face him more directly. “A different species?”

“Mm-hmm. Perhaps you two rubbed off on him.” The tiniest hint of a smirk tugs at his lips. “And come to think of it, I haven’t seen that waitress at the Lunar Bean for quite a while, so I think I’ll go asking around there next.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Philip says with a light chuckle, hands on his hips. “What an absolute mad lad.”

“I can’t say what’s become of them, and I don’t plan to speculate, but that’s my bit of gossip for the day.” Ironside pats the end of the counter and hops down, strolling around it and back for the door. “Anyway, I shouldn’t keep you two any longer. I’m sure you have more immediate concerns.”

“Alright, then.” Philip watches him as he goes, then waves a farewell once he reaches the entry. “You take care, Big Iron. And thanks again for the shopping.”

“No thanks required, sir, but you’re welcome all the same.” He bows his head to Philip, then looks to me. “And you have a good day too, ma’am.”

“Yeah,” I give him a quick, informal salute, “same.”

He snorts, pulling open the door again to exit, but stops and stares at the carpeted hallway outside absentmindedly. And I see, much to my confusion, a new, cheekier, far more obvious smirk sneaking its way across his muzzle, and the hint of a devious look in his eyes. “Oh, and Philip…” he beckons, slowly turning to face him.

Philip aches an eyebrow.

I feel a chill seep through my fur, like a cold, wet mist rolling up my back.

Ironside holds his gaze for a moment, then lowers his focus just a tad. “Your fly’s undone.”

A pit opens up inside of me, dreadful and horrifying like the gaping maw of a tatzelwurm.

“And you might want to open up a window — it’s getting a little musky in here.”

My tail tucks in, and so do my wings, suddenly lax enough that they can bend to just under a quarter of the way to their right and proper places at sides.

“Just be thankful I’m not Brave, because she would’ve had a field day with you. And I won’t be telling her about this either, just so you know, but… yeah. In the future, if you’d like some alone time, all you need to do is ask.” He bows again, to both of us, his smirk shirking into a small, almost kindly smile — almost, because he’s clearly still taking at least some pleasure in torturing us. “I wish the best for you, truly. Ta-ta.”

And then he disappears, the sound of the door closing and the rattle of its chain making his passage.

And we’re left alone — left to wallow in the fact that we’d been caught out, and now he’s thinking Celestia knows what about us.

I turn to Philip.

He turns to me.

Silence descends.

My wings can move again.

“I should probably go,” I murmur.

He doesn’t reply. I’ll take that as agreement.

I push the drawer closed and stand on all fours, walking over and retrieving my ukulele, cradling it in a foreleg, then going to my saddlebags on the peninsula of the L-shaped sofa. I slide it in, buckle up the flap, then sling the bags over the small of my back and tighten the strap around my waist. Ready as I’ll ever be, I finally pick up my purple shades and pop them on, then head for the sliding door to the balcony.

It started off good, turned into something better, but now our time together has run its course. And every damned time, there’s always something getting in the way. He’s said it before, and I know how right he is, that we could and should never expect the perfect romance. But no matter how hard I try to heed his words — advice I know to be true — I can’t help it.

I want a perfect little moment. A world where we can stay in it forever and ever.

A world of our own, and nopony else’s.

“Fleetfoot, wait.”

I slow to a halt, standing with a slump in my posture, turning to him a little way and looking at him from the corner of my eye.

He pauses for a beat, quietly looking me up and down, then blows a soft sigh through his nose and strolls toward me, lowering himself to a knee once he’s within reach.

Listlessly, I turn to face him.

He continues watching me closely for a few long moments, his expression ostensibly unreadable, but the air between us feels… empathetic. Caring. Sweet as maple syrup, though its taste has dulled with my admittedly sour mood. But then he smiles a small, tender smile, and reaches up and sets my shades in my mane, peering into my eyes.

The hole in my core doesn’t feel so massive anymore.

A hand cups my cheek, guiding my snout to meet his, our noses touching.

My chest is warming up. So are my cheeks.

His eyes glide shut, he leans in, and his lips press to mine.

I hum contentedly and lean in too, and the weight inside me and the world around us all seems to melt, washed away like sand on the beach, or dust in the wind.

A moment like this, blissful and harmonious. Perfection given form, wrapping me in silken sheets and making me feel lighter than the clouds themselves.

He pulls away, gentle, the faint sound of lips parting filling my ears.

I open my eyes again and peer into his.

His smile widens.

So does mine.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For everything.” His voice is slow, and soft, and as tender as his touch. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed this.”

No, I don’t, and I don’t think I’ll ever know…

…And he’ll never know how much I need him.

He lets a quiet breath go, then nods to himself and stands, unlatching the door and sliding it open.

The cool air of an autumn breeze wafts through, and my feathers and fur bristle at its presence. It’s time for me to leave, and such sweet sorrow it is; a day of revelations come to a close, and for better or worse, we’ve crossed another threshold. And once I step outside, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.

The world will be as it was, unchanging and unfeeling.

But I’ll know. And I’ll savour what memories I can keep for myself.

I pass through the gateway, hooves transferring to wooden floorboards bleached by sun and rain, and as I take my place close to the railing, I look back — one last goodbye.

He leans against the frame with folded arms, watching me closely, even now, beaming with a smile that fills me with warmth, makes me wish for another hug. Another kiss. Another land where it’s just me and him, and if we have a minute for every hour wasted, we’d still be rich in time.

…Stars, I’m going to be a total, quivering mess when he sings for me.

I can’t wait.

With a brave smile of my own, I pull my shades back down and salute him, then vault over the railing and spread my wings, riding on the wind around the apartment complex and in the direction of home: west. There’s a rumbling in my core as loud as the rushing air, bubbling up and very nearly overwhelming me, my heart hammering, already begging for me to return. But the sun is setting on a golden sky, and I promised Spitfire I’d show up for work tomorrow. She can only go without a third in command for so long. I need my sleep.

But I won’t get any in the state that I am.

Only one thing for it.

I dip a little as I miss a rhythmic flap, a shuddered breath escaping me.

Bathtime is going to be fun tonight.

Next Chapter: 32 | One More Love Song Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours