//------------------------------// // 6: The Ride // Story: Under Her Wing // by Memz //------------------------------// Fresh Hope must have thought it was a good idea to play a game of bullride in the hallway, or she was trying to pull off a wild dance with me on top, but she quickly relented when I hadn’t budged, smug grin plastered on my face the whole time. “For a severely amnesiac mare, you’re impossible. I hope you realize that.” “That I do.” I moved my long neck around to see her face, only to find it in a pout, and completely red with blush, before sweeping my eyes once more over the hallway. “Shouldn’t there be guards at the door or something?” I noticed. The blush and pout visibly reduced from her face, as she brought her attention back to the world around us. “There usually is, during day court.” She answered, before continuing the pace towards the door. “Something must have happened.” I thought it over, and the only thing that came to mind was the rainbow thing that brought me to that grey-space place. “Do you think it could have had something to do with the rainbow thing?” “Maybe, I wouldn’t know. All we can do is find out, I guess.” Fresh sounded a little uncertain, yet I couldn’t help but agree with her deduction. If Fresh’s magical push was any indication, the door to the throne room was still unlocked. The throne room itself was empty as the hallway before it. The theme was of white and gold, white Romanian columns lining each side, and a small staircase that lead up to two thrones, presumably for the unnamed king and queen of this place. A male voice piped up behind the two of us, causing us both to jump in sync.“If you’re looking for the princess, Miss Shimmer, she’s over at the school’s preliminary exam room. Something happened that she had to take care of personally.” “R-right” I stuttered, recovering from the light scare, as Fresh turned around to face the stallion, “Could you escort us there, please?” “Of course, Miss Shimmer, just follow me and I’ll make sure you get there in no time.” The stallion, now revealed to have a pearl white coat, and electric blue mane and tail hanging out of a full set of golden yellow armor, turned and led us through a door to the side of the throne room, behind one of the columns. “Who’s your friend, anyway? Not every day that I see two mares walking around in that position.” Fresh Bandage huffed, while I snorted, before replying. “She’s part of the hospital staff. She was escorting me here, and I dozed off at some point. She decided to carry me like this until I woke up, but I got lazy. What, are you into mares riding mares or something?” Fresh developed yet another full face blush, while the stallion seemed unfazed. “I already have my sights set, mind you.” Jeez, I was just joking. “No, it’s none of your business.” I wasn’t even about to ask… Before I even got the chance to ask anyway, my ears picked up a voice from further down the hall. “Twilight Velvet, Night Light, you have my word, your daughter will be safe under my care.”I recognized the voice to be Princess Celestia, but didn’t say anything, as we were already well on our way towards her. “As long as it’s what Twilight wants.” sighed a male voice, “But remember this. Any harm that comes upon her, I don’t care who you are. There will be consequences.” “Believe me, I will do my best to protect her. If I fail in that task, I will not hesitate to tell you, nor will I hesitate to provide punishment to myself. You have my word.” “Just make sure she learns a lot of magic.” Another, female voice butted in. “She gets really desperate if you don’t let her have her regular fix of spellbooks. It got so bad once that I even found her on top of our bookshelf demanding that we get more books for her. I still can’t figure out how she got up there.” “Well then, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give her full access to the royal library when she isn’t receiving personal lessons from me.” We were almost right up on the trio of voices now, and the other two had no doubt noticed by now. We went around a T-intersection, and found ourselves in front of the princess, with a lavender purple unicorn filly on her back, the unmistakable parents of said filly standing in front of her. Behind them was a room with a crushed cart with what appeared to be eggshells on it, and a hole in the roof that leaked an absurd amount of light. But before I could start taking in the finer details, our escort interrupted the seemingly peaceful moment. “T-Twilight? What happened here? Is she hurt? Mom?” “Lieutenant Shining Armour, calm down.” Princess Celestia interrupted, calling upon the training he had recieved, “You can hear the story from your parents as you return home to begin a week’s leave. Is that clear?” “Y-Yes, your highness. We shall get to that right away.” He turned to leave, the two ponies whom were presumably the parents of both the purple filly and the guard in tow. When they were back around the corner, Princess Celestia’s eyes turned to me. “Sunset, your timing couldn’t be better! It’s great to see you out of the hospital… why are you riding on a nurse?” “I got lazy, and she was already escorting me.” I half-truthed. “You shouldn’t take advantage like that.” Celestia put on a disappointed face. “Is she at least willing?” “I picked her up when she fell asleep on the way, I didn’t expect her to stay.” Fresh answered, “But… I guess I don’t mind.” Those words were enough for me to give her another neck hug, inciting more blushing and another yelp out of her. “Will you please stop that? We have to tell her and I can’t focus with you hugging me from back there.” Princess Celestia perked up in interest, “What are you telling me? Don’t tell me, are the two of you an item or something?” Now that was enough to get ME to blush. Imagine that. “NO!” we both said, in sync. When we both realized it, though, our faces got even redder, and I ended up sliding off sideways somehow through the tension. I managed to recover first, quickly dusting my coat off with a hoof, before answering. “No, we are not an item. What we were going to tell you, is… I have amnesia.” All positivity seemed to drain from the room, and I looked over as Fresh went straight from flushed and…aroused? She went from that to shivering in fear. I took a quick sniff, to confirm what I thought I saw. Weird. “How bad?” the Princess looked absolutely devastated. “Tell me, how bad is it?” I looked up at her, torn up inside over the matter. “I… I couldn’t even… remember the feeling of magic, until I… I finally managed to levitate a fork. I’ve been going off of context ever since I woke up. I even had to figure out my own name.” I didn’t think she could look any worse, until a pair of color matching wings drooped to her sides, out from under the unconscious filly. “I… I can work with this.” She magicked the purple filly over to Fresh Bandage, who promptly hugged said filly like a teddy bear, before approaching me. “I hope it’s not too late.” She said, before kneeling to my level and igniting her horn in the increasingly familiar golden aura. “What are you doing?” I questioned, before she touched her horn to my head. For the second time today, my world completely changed. At least this time I didn’t blink.