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Slice of Life

The One that Changed Everything

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Lord Legion

_ _

_ _

"Axel, are you ready?"

The red pony turned from one side to the other before the mirror, studying his reflection and wondering if his mane always stuck up in such an unruly fashion. Being a mechanic pony, one always hard at work either out in the elements or in the comparative comfort of the shop, he had never really had to consider his appearance all that much. At least not before he'd started seeing Sheriff Pinto, that was, or Serenity as he called her. Most in the town of Appleloosa knew her as Sheriff Pinto though, so that was the name he used in public.

He glanced back at his companions, the ones who were supposed to stop him bolting in a panic on the day that mattered more than any other: Big Mac and Mr Davenport from Ponyville. Although he'd refused to call the owner of Quills & Sofas anything other than Ace from back when they played card games. It had been a silly nickname back then, but the name had stuck and so Ace he had become. He was still a dab hoof with card tricks, however, and played dirty for the thrill of it. Axel was sure that he'd still have a trick or two up his figurative sleeve if they got together to play cards ever again, though he'd heard that Big Mac had moved onto tabletop RPG games, which he didn't quite understand himself, but to each their own.

"I'm..."

It wasn't much of a start and he floundered, sweeping his hoof back over his white mane, brushed very close to a silver sheen. It was strange to have it so clean and clear of dust from work, his entire body just a little bit too pristine for his liking.

"I'm okay," he said slowly. "Big day. Big change. Big things."

Big Mac nodded sagely.

"Eyup."

"Axel, I do want to ask you one thing," Ace said, his brown coat covered by a smart suit, which still wasn't as nice as the one that had been picked out for Axel. "Are you quite sure that this is the mare that you want to marry? The one to spend the rest of your days with? The one to wake up with every morning and go to sleep with every night? Is she still..."

He paused, seemingly for dramatic effect, though a smile quirked at the corner of his lips, barely restrained.

"...the_one_?"

Axel groaned and flung his hoof back across his eyes, so dramatic that even Rarity would have been proud of him.

"Seriously, y'all? You gonna play it like that?"

"Not really, no, but it was fun for a moment."

Ace laughed softly and stood back, a hoof under his chin as he took Axel's attire in with a critical eye.

"You're missing something."

The pony set up in his best clothes - newly purchased - to get married winced noticeably and took a step back.

"Please, no more clothes. This itches enough as it is."

He lifted a hind leg, trying to shake off the imaginary tails of a coat that was not present, the suit coming back to his flank and no further. He'd drawn the line when Rarity had tried to sell him what she called 'trousers' - something that would cover his hindquarters completely and come down to his back fetlocks. They seemed horribly restrictive, although he had seen some of the high-class ponies from Canterlot and those more fashion forward - or, at least, he assumed they were more fashion-forward as he had no clue whatsoever what contraptions they were wearing half the time - wearing the things from time to time. He couldn't say he really understood them, though neither did he understand the necessity of him wearing the suit that Rarity had managed to get him into.

Oh, wait...

_ _

That was right. He did actually know just why he was doing what he was doing and that someone, the reason to do everything in his life these days, would be waiting for him in a white dress at the end of the aisle.

Axel's face took on a dreamy cast. He wasn't one for too many clothes, though he did like what Serenity wore for her work as Appleloosa sheriff, a tan tunic with a belt and just the hint of a feminine ruffle across the hindquarter. He didn't know that the ruffle was supposed to be feminine, only that it drew his eye to her tail and back end, feelings stirring in the pit of his stomach that were not appropriate for public. The look was topped off by the red slip of a bandana around her neck, clasped at the front with a sheriff's badge: her badge.

The pony's lips smiled of their own accord and Mr Davenport lifted his foreleg, studying his watch with a pointed look and cough that Axel completely and utterly ignored.

"Oh, he's thinking about her again."

Big Mac sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Eyup."

"He'll be out for a while," Ace grumbled. "Damn pony... Is there a glass of water around?"

"Hey!" Axel protested, snapping back to reality at the threat of water. "You're the ones that told me that I had to keep myself looking nice for Sheriff Pinto!"

"That's true, but when you're staring off into the distance like that, it does make us wonder, just a little, if you've taken entire leave of your senses."

"But, more seriously, Axel, are you sure? Are you happy?"

Ace tipped forward from the shoulders almost as if he expected Axel to suddenly come up with some new glimmer of information that had not before been revealed.

"Of course, I am," Axel said quickly, the words coming easily to lips that had practised the sounds of them over and over when working on his vehicles. "I am happy, but I'm going to be much happier once this whole day and fuss is over. It seems like a lot to go through just to get married and things are already wonderful between us. We just want to make it official, even if it is a strangely traditional thing to do... Not really me..."

He trailed off, eyes overcast as he swam into his thoughts. It was a maze in there and it took a friend to bring him back, a red foreleg waving in front of his muzzle. When he had the groom's attention, Big Mac frowned and held up a hoof, bidding him to be quiet, if but for a moment. Since the stallion chose his words so carefully, it always seemed like a grand event for him to impart any conversation or words of wisdom.

"Sheriff Pinto?"

There was scepticism in those two words from the usually quiet stallion and Axel sighed, shaking his head.

"I know you two didn't get along straight away, you did get on well with Silver Star whenever you visited Appleloosa, but she's not going anywhere, Big Mac. And I know that you know she's a good pony really."

Big Mac pressed his lips together and raised an eyebrow, but there was a flicker of mischief in his eyes that had not been there before, belying the joke beneath. It took Ace but a moment to cotton on, the stallion grinning like a fool as he pointed a hoof at Axel's chest, stumbling over himself in his rush to get his words out.

"A good pony, you say? Would you say that she's a very good pony?"

Axel blinked.

"Uh..."

Mr Davenport didn't give him a chance to finish, rushing in with the story tumbling from his lips.

"Are you forgetting that this is the mare that once pushed you in the pond, because she thought that, you, Axel, were hopelessly inebriated?"

"Oh, for Celestia's sake, Ace! Are you ever going to let that one go?"

Sitting back on his haunches, Axel groaned dramatically while the other two snickered, exchanging knowing looks.

"Thought we'd forgotten about that one, did you?"

Axel flinched.

"Maybe. And I was not drunk!"

"Just a little unsteady on your legs then, shall we say?"

"Eyup. Quite."

"But she got you home from the 'ol' watering hole', as you call it, and she did right by you in the end, didn't she?"

Axel rolled his eyes.

"That's what I told you before, but did y'all listen?"

"Nope!"

Ace grinned and bumped his friend's shoulder with his own.

"All in the name of fun, though perhaps I've been living a little too close to Pinkie Pie if I'm coming out with things like that!"

He sat back gently and rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully, eyes sliding out the window of the otherwise plain dressing room - well, it had been repurposed into a dressing room - as he mused over something only he was privy too.

"That said, Axel... I don't believe you ever told us how the two of you met. Or did you tell me and I've forgotten? That does happen, you know."

"No, I don't think I have said." Axel's lips stretched into a grin all on their own, his friends unable to help matching his smile with their own, so infectious was its nature. "It was when she came to town to replace Silver Star. You know he stepped down when his back started causing him difficulties?"

"Yes... That was a most unfortunate way to have to leave a position. He did such good work here."

Even Ace had to look a little sad at that, although he did not know the previous Sheriff of Appleloosa very well at all and only through the times he'd met him along with Axel in the town. Big Mac twisted his lips and shook his head as if he was imagining just how easily an injury could put him out of work in the apple orchard, something that everyone on the farm was aware of on a daily basis. It would not be a way to go and everyone on the farm, even Granny Smith, had to do something to keep the orchard running smoothly. He just had never known any other job besides manual labour and would find himself at a loss without the yoke around his neck to remind him of where he was and what he was to be doing with his day.

"Well... I was helping him pack up, boosting his spirits a bit and all," Axel continued, gesturing with his hooves as if he was painting the scene before him for all of them to see. "He was feeling a bit blue, which is...well... It wasn't a good day. But then she came along."

Axel paused, collecting his thoughts as a blush rose to his cheeks, tinting the insides of his ears a darker shade.

"Sheriff Pinto. She looked like a pony from an entirely different place back then and I never thought she was going to fit in here. She didn't even have that tunic she wears now, but came in one of the wagons, enough suitcases piled in the back to clothe an entire bar, or that's what I thought then. Now I know that it was all her mementoes and treasures from back home that she brought along with her, just to make her new life here feel a little more like her home, her real home."

Ace nudged Big Mac in the ribs.

"I bet you'd take apples with you if you had to move from Ponyville."

"Nope," Big Mac said quickly, his head shaking before the word had even left his lips in its entirety. "Applebloom. I'd take Applebloom."

"Aaaaand what if Applebloom didn't want to come along with you to a new place?" Ace asked sceptically, rubbing his jaw. "She's your little sister, a pony in her own right."

Big Mac blinked slowly at his friend, lips twitching in a smile on just the one side - the side that Mr Davenport could not see.

"She's small - pick her up."

Axel laughed and held up his paw as Ace joined him in his mirth, throwing his head back. Good heavens, the pony did enjoy a good laugh so much more after Pinkie Pie's influence!

"Hang on now, y'all, this is my story and my big day! Don't you have to at least give me the floor today of all days."

"Technically, Sheriff Pinto's day," Big Mac said thoughtfully, but conceded. "Go on."

"Yes, well..." Axel sought for the last thought that had crossed his mind, back from the day he'd met Serenity. "Yes, Serenity. She was trying to drag her suitcases off the wagon and the ponies hitched up to it were getting annoyed as she was taking so long. If I'm truthful with y'all, she was moving pretty darn quick, but you know what those ponies are like, always in a rush. So, I offered to give her a hoof with her bags."

Axel chuckled softly and shook his head.

"She looked at me like I'd grown a second head and said that she didn't need any help, but I was in a rush too and wanted to get on along my way, so I took some of her bags out anywhere and stacked them real neat like by the door. She seemed to appreciate the help though and was nice about it. 'Mighty kind of you, sir,' she said. 'I'll see you about the town.' But our first meeting was brief and uneventful... Probably not the most interesting story I could tell about her."

Mr Davenport raised an eyebrow.

"Then what are the more interesting stories about your mare and wife to be? We have time before the ceremony." He winced. "I fear we may have dressed you up in your finery a little too early."

"That's fine," Axel chuckled. "I've got nowhere else to be today but right here, waiting for her."

"So, how did you get the nerve to ask her out then?" Ace pressed. "I mean, I'd never heard of you dating anyone before her, so you'll forgive me if it turned out to be rather a revelation!"

Axel winced and ran his hoof back through his mane.

"I dunno, no one really caught my eye," he admitted. "It always felt like so much trouble but... I just blurted it out one day when she was working! It was not the nicest way to ask a mare out, but she seemed to get the gist of what my blundering around with words meant."

He paused, collecting his thoughts.

"I saw her before then though. We became friends at a Hearth's Warming Eve get together and I was dressed as Good Whinny, with the whole get-up of the red costume trimmed with white fur - you know the look. I'd gotten roped in to passing out gifts to little fillies and colts and, what do you know, I found myself actually enjoying it!"

Big Mac snickered.

"Eyup."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you've done it too, we've both got the right colour coat for it, shade different though. But I was through most of the sack when I looked up and there she was, staring right at me. At first, I was mighty worried that I'd done something wrong and then I wondered if there was someone behind me, so I looked around to see if there was anyone else there."

Axel blushed and circled the toe of a hoof on the bare floorboards.

"Um, yeah, she found that quite funny. I think. I mean, she laughed and wandered off then, but she found me later after the event and called to 'Good Whinny'! Why, I turned to face her and stuttered, but the only thing I could think to do was to stay in character. So, I belted out this cheesy 'ho, ho, ho' and she just smiled so big that it was impossible to not want to talk to her more."

"She was trying to maintain a charade for the little fillies and colts?" Mr Davenport said, rubbing his foreleg. "Seems a side cheesy, maybe she liked you even then."

"No, no, we were just kidding around and, well, it was more me that stayed in character as she tried to call me by my proper name then and I, well, I don't know why I did it!"

Holding his hooves up, Axel groaned and blushed crimson - a mean feat indeed with the red hue to his coat already present and shining to a polished gleam in the less than flattering lighting they had available.

"She flat out said that she knew I was Axel as if there was no doubt about it! I was only playing around and, good Celestia, did she shut me down!"

The others laughed at his embarrassment, leaving the stallion wondering just why he'd told that story in the first place. But once he'd begun, the show had to go on and it wasn't as if his bachelor party had been anything more than a quiet affair. A private pony, he rarely talked so much about himself and it was almost a relief to talk and let the words flow from his lips without being interrupted, the simple feeling of being listened to divine in itself.

"After more cheese - no, I'm not going into that! - I did admit who I was, as if there was any doubt about it and, well... We just talked. And talked. She seemed so easy to talk to that we both got a cup of eggnog together to talk some more. Well," he clarified. "She had eggnog. I didn't like it so I had some hot chocolate instead."

"Because_that's_ relevant to the story..."

"Hey!" He pointed a hoof at Ace's chest and raised both eyebrows. "Whose big day is it?"

"Sheriff Pinto's big day," both Ace and Big Mac chorused, perfectly in sync with one another as if they'd rehearsed beforehand.

Groaning, Axel pressed a hoof to his forehead.

"As I was saying, that's just when we started being friends. She seemed interested in the vehicles, the trucks and things, as she'd only ever had wagons and carriages in her hometown. I daresay she'd still have a shock travelling to Canterlot or Manehattan with how things have changed on the streets there, but there's a need for them, you have to say."

Big Mac merely shrugged, but Ace looked a little more convinced, or at the very least open to persuasion.

"Being a pony, I'm still rather in favour of pony-power, but I do see the liking for methods of transport that one pony can use to get about," Mr Davenport mused. "It does often a certain freedom that may only otherwise be claimed by the pegasus ponies and even they get tired flying long distances."

"Long distance is right," Axel said, shaking his head. "It's a long ol' hike to get to her family and, well, I knew I had to meet them before I...you know..."

"Oh no, dear Axel, I cannot possibly imagine what you mean!"

Mr Davenport widened his eyes, a cheeky smile pulling at his lips as he feigned complete and utter ignorance...and fooled absolutely no one. Blinking rapidly at him, Axel rolled his eyes.

"Have you been hanging out with Rarity again? Sounds like it's come right from her lips there it does."

"And you're picking up on more of the Appleloosan twang, or maybe it's just Serenity rubbing off on you," Ace teased. "But you met her parents, didn't you? It's a long way to Trail's End. That's where you said she was from before, wasn't it?"

"Good memory."

Axel nodded.

"She is from Trail's End, the last stop before the mountainous slopes are too steep to be habitable, although there are still the packer pony trails winding through them, the old trade routes. They farmed the harsh soils there for rare medicinal herbs. They're still very useful even as magic advances, but that's more the forte of unicorns and not us Earth ponies."

"That said," Axel continued. "The families up there are all tightly knit and it's traditional to ask the father of the mare if a stallion can have her hoof in marriage before asking the question to, well, the mare... Not as if he could give her away or anything in anything more than tradition, but I thought it'd be the right thing to do."

Axel chuckled.

"He... He was a bit surprised. I waited until Serenity was out with her mother, Silver Birch, before talking to Rockfall, Rockfall Valley. He's a tough sort of a stallion and doesn't say much. Kind of like you, Big Mac."

True to form, Big Mac said nothing by way of reply, only nodding once, if a bit curtly for him.

"Rockfall did, of course, say that I could ask Serenity to marry me, though he questioned whether I was going to keep her in Appleloosa or let her come home to her family, to take up the business on the farm."

"That must have been difficult," Mr Davenport sympathised, putting a hoof on his shoulder. "That kind of confrontation is never pleasant."

"It was awkward, but maybe not for the reason you think. I would move to Trail's End in a heartbeat if she wanted me to, as out of the way as it is, but Sheriff Pinto wants to stay and, well...be a sheriff."

Sighing, Axel shook his head.

"Her parents are wonderful and supportive, but I think they always thought that she was going to go home one day and 'hang up her hat', as they said. But she loves her work and she loves her job. She's not going to give that up to work somewhere so isolated again. You've seen how happy she is when she's talking away to all the other ponies from all kinds of places. She still wants to see the entirety of Equestria!"

Mr Davenport nodded sagely.

"Yes, it's hard for one to leave their families, but they must know that they can visit and she can visit. They will only want the best for their daughter, but sometimes that doesn't come out in the right way."

Axel gave him a strange look.

"For a stallion without a family - as yet - that was oddly worldly and mature of you."

"Don't worry; I'll make up for it at the bar after the ceremony is over." Smirking, the stallion tapped the side of his nose. "It is an open bar, right?"

Axel groaned.

"Yes, but now I'm regretting it. I'm taking out the salt licks, you don't need those in addition to downing as much cider as your body can handle and more."

"The salt's the best part," Big Mac interjected with a frown. "Applejack's coming and she loves her a good salt lick."

Axel swallowed hard, chest vibrating with barely withheld laughter. Big Mac was an innocent sort and sometimes a little too innocent to the ways of the world. He certainly would not have made a crude joke about his sister, not even one that was only halfway to innuendo as what he'd just said was. But, even as he tried to keep it together, the stallion beside him erupted into chuckles that grew and grew into a full-belly laugh echoing off the walls. That did it for Axel who too laughed and half-turned away, covering his muzzle with his foreleg to try to quiet himself to little avail.

"Salt lick!" Ace bellowed, falling back in peals of laughter that shook him like a rag doll. "Applejack... Big Mac! Salt lick!"

The stallion blinked several times, but when realisation dawned on his face as to what he'd, admittedly by accident, implied, his expression swiftly darkened to raw frustration. Throwing his hooves up, he groaned and shook his head vehemently as if that would be enough to convince him that, no, he definitely didn't mean to say that and that _definitely_wasn't the way his sister swung either!

"Oh, you colts!"

Snorting, Big Mac crossed his front legs and sat sullenly back on his haunches, a hot flush creeping down his neck.

"Oh, come on, Big Mac," Ace chuckled, poking him in the ribs. "You know we don't mean anything by it - it was just the way you said it! Such conviction! We'll have to keep the salt licks now!"

"Yes, anyway," Axel said hastily, moving the conversation on as the red stallion's expression soured again (he was known for being perhaps a little over-protective of his sister). "Meeting her father. He gave me his blessing and Silver Birch was a delight. She makes _amazing_cakes."

Mr Davenport snickered, wiping the last remaining tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes.

"Oh yes, that would go down well with you now, wouldn't it?"

Axel grinned, completely and utterly unashamed.

"What can I say? I like my food. So do you."

"Eyup."

"Yes. About her amazing cakes - there are some at the wedding too, so I'll hope you'll enjoy them after watching the grand event."

"If I'm honest, Axel," Mr Davenport began, holding up his hoof as if he was about to say something profoundly important. "I'm surprised you're so calm about everything. You don't usually like to get up on stage or in front of anypony. And all eyes will be on the two of you."

"I think you're wrong. There's only one pony up there worth watching and that's Serenity."

"Oh, Celestia..." Mr Davenport groaned as Big Mac chimed with a grumble. "You aren't going to go all sappy and googly-eyed on us now, are you? Big Mac already had that well-enough covered with the whole love potion debacle!"

Axel laughed out loud, eyes closing for a brief moment as he gave himself over to mirth.

"I can't believe I missed that! It must have been hysterical! Big Mac talking and making gaga sounds at the teacher! Classic!"

"Erm," Big Mac flushed heavily and frowned, though there was something secretive in his eyes. "Maybe you could tell us another story about your lady-mare, Axel."

Rolling his eyes, Axel took back the spotlight. As if he needed any encouragement to talk about Sheriff Pinto! The stories about her flowed so easily from his lips that the conversation proved as simple as taking a sip of water only that she was a sip of a much stronger beverage, thick and flavourful, that he wanted to savour over and over again.

"Her parents told me stories about when she was a foal," he said, mulling over the various tales that he could tell. "Those are quite interesting."

"Yeah, yeah - cut to the juicy stuff! We all have foal stories that we're embarrassed off and, between you and me, they're not going to be any fun at all to tell without Sheriff Pinto here squirming!"

Ace winked as if he was sharing a great secret with Axel, but the stallion soon to be married pulled back in affront.

"I would never share something to embarrass her! What kind of stallion would do that?"

Mr Davenport and Big Mac grinned, albeit sheepishly, their ears splayed out to the sides and tails tucked down close to their rumps.

"Uh, yeah, of course, no we wouldn't do that..."

Axel rolled his eyes. Although both of them had mare friends, he wouldn't doubt that they'd tell silly and humiliating stories about their sisters and families, if only to get back at them for some kind of perceived fault. It seemed a silly way to be for him, as he dearly loved his parents, even if they would have said that he had a funny way of showing it, moving all the way out to Appleloosa and 'messing around' with trucks all day. They didn't quite yet understand that it was a job for him and one that paid pretty well at that, being a specialist occupation in the pony world.

"How about," Big Mac started slowly, proposing a topic. "The first time."

Axel blinked and lifted a hoof, shrugging.

"First time for what? What's that supposed to even mean?"

"You know," Ace hissed through his teeth, holding up his hoof to cup his mouth as if he was sharing something delightfully wicked with his long-time friend. "First time. With her. Sheriff Pinto. Serenity."

"What?" His cheeks burned. "I can't talk about something like that! It's not nice to Sheriff Pinto!"

"Oh, using her full name now, are you?" Ace teased. "Is that what she makes you call her in bed? Just to be..."

"No! I'm not listening! La-la-la-la-la!"

Axel put his hooves over his years as the sly stallion laughed and held up his hooves in mock defeat. But the onslaught continued as soon as he uncovered his ears, the single stallion seemingly relentless in his search for information.

"I'm sure she's as sweet as you say," he pressed, lips stretched into a Cheshire cat grin that strained at his cheeks. "You know what they say about mares, don't you? A lady in the streets and a freak in the -"

"Ace!" He snapped, slamming his hoof down. "I'm not going to talk about her like that and I'd appreciate if you didn't speak about her like that to me either! Or at all!"

Sheepishly, Ace brushed his mane off the back of his neck, muttering and stumbling over an apology as his cheeks turned a particularly strong shade of crimson.

"Um...well... That's really not what I... Oh, pony feathers..."

Big Mac cleared his throat.

"Eyup."

"See?" Axel cast the stallion a glance, however exasperated it was. "You get it. Jokes happen, but I'm not like that. Have you ever heard me make a joke like that?"

Sighing, Ace shook his head as Big Mac chimed in his quiet agreement, an odd look of self-satisfaction plastered across his face as if he'd known that he was right all along. Despite the stallion not saying very much at the best of times, to have him chime in with mockery of any kind would have been the day Discord returned - or something just as ludicrously unexpected.

"I suppose the mares I've been hanging out with lately are of a cruder kind," Mr Davenport admitted. "I'm sorry, Axel. You're very right as in it's no way to talk about a lady. Even if you should hear the way they talk about us..."

Axel shook his head and stood, working out the kinks from muscles locked up from sitting for too long in one position.

"I don't care."

His friends started. It was unusually blunt for him, but, once Axel had begun, he had to finish. He'd always been like that.

"I don't want to be a prude or anything and I _do_know the ways that stallions, and mares too, talk about each other... But that doesn't mean I want to do that myself."

Staring at him, Mr Davenport nodded slowly, though there was a distinct lack of conviction in his eyes. The stallion leaned across to Big Mac and obviously stage-whispered, words carrying to the ears of the pony that he was supposedly trying to keep them from.

"She's really set him on the straight and narrow, hasn't she?"

"Um..." Big Mac rubbed the back of his head, looking anywhere but at Axel. "Nope?"

"Ace!"

The stallion blinked innocently and held up his hooves, although he was far from the picture of innocence.

"What?"

Axel sighed and ran his hoof back through his mane, though he could not help but twitch his lips in the barest semblance of a smile.

"You're impossible."

"As Pinkie Pie would say," Mr Davenport grinned, "nothing is impossible. Probably before she used that freaky mane of hers to pick something up. That really is a weird trick, probably should be a little more concerned by that than I am..."

Axel could almost see the gears turning in his friend's head as he tried to work through the facts about the hyperactive, pink pony that the rest of them had really known for a good long while anyway. But sometimes ponies didn't see what was in front of their faces, the same of which could be said for him when he realised, at long last, that something very special was growing between him and Serenity.

"Something on your mind?" Big Mac asked, his tone low and gravelly as if expecting something darker to come from Axel's lips.

"Just... Well..." The pony sighed. "No, it's too much like mare talk. I can't."

"Frankly, Axel, I think we've talked about anything and everything together over the years, so nothing that you say is going to sound like 'mare talk', whatever that is, anymore," Ace declared, stomping a hoof. "And what are friends for if you can't talk to them?"

Big Mac nodded sagely, but the gesture spoke volumes for him.

"Well..." Axel still hesitated. "Have either of you been in love?"

The red and brown ponies looked at one another, surprise flashing across their expressions. But Big Mac's shock was swiftly replaced by a blush, the stallion chuckling softly to himself and bobbing his muzzle just the once. It was enough.

Ace, on the other hoof, tipped forward, eyes wide and worried, despite the tease in the words that followed. The stallion, as ever, had a flair for the dramatic that only seemed to have increased in recent years.

"We would have expected you to be in love with the mare by this point, Axel, and if you're not then we really have more serious problems to think about. Like how we're going to get you out of the window and down the drainpipe before the deed is done!"

"What? No!"

Even Axel had to laugh, the tension leaving his body as his friends did what they did best for him even when stress was fighting to claim the furthest reaches of his mind.

"No... I love her, don't think I don't love her."

It was strange to say it out loud, but Axel ploughed on regardless, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. Had it always been so hot in the room? Why was talking about anything concerning mares with stallions just such a massive pain in the hindquarters? Why couldn't it be easy? And yet, though he knew that he didn't have to keep talking, his mind rambled on, committed to the path that it had already begun trotting mindlessly down.

Darn it...

_ _

"I love her, but when did you know that you loved a mare?" He said, words coming out in a blurred rush as if each was fighting to get out before the one that preceded it. "Did it happen quickly? Is it bad if it happens quickly?"

"Love is what it is," Big Mac said wisely, though even he could not maintain eye contact with Axel as the stallion leaned forward, desperately trying to cling to any scraps of information he could dig out of the elusive pony.

"Yes?" He pressed. "But what is it? How do we know this is a thing that is real?"

Big Mac opened and closed his mouth, shaking his head as his lips pressed into a firm line.

"Some things can't be explained."

Axel stomped petulantly and sighed.

"Yeah, I thought you'd say that."

"But, Axel," Ace chimed in, more gently. "You know that you love her, because you feel it inside you. You will want to wake up with her and you'll never be able to imagine a life without her. Or him, if it was a stallion that you were taken by, but it is a mare, in this case, so forgive me if I am only looking at one side of the coin."

"I understand that," Axel said, struggling to find the words to bring understanding to what he truly meant. "But, the thing is, that we have no evidence of this thing called 'love'. We're expected to believe in it anyway and spend our lives searching for our soul mate, as they say."

Axel paused, grinding the edges of his hard hooves together as he wove through his thoughts.

"I can see the things I'm working on when I'm re-building trucks for people, making it easier for working ponies to get around and do the jobs that make them happy, that make them the bits needed to keep on with life. But love... That's something entirely different. If it's really there, it's bigger - and I can't even see it!"

He shook his head, lifting a hoof and then placing it immediately back down as if he didn't really know what to do with himself or what he even wanted to say.

"I can see the mechanics of a machine - what we've created! But how do I know that this is real? I know the pony is real, but more than that? Is it true? Does it exist?"

He slumped, head hanging as doubt clawed at his mind, a gryphon snarling in the back of his mind. For what could he say of what was real or false, as much as his heart leapt each and every time Serenity walked into the same room as him? He couldn't tell - couldn't see clearly!

Sidling up, Ace laid a comforting hoof across his withers as Axel slumped, chest fluttering softly as his breath came more swiftly than it should have done. The stallion's ears dropped back to his skull, every muscle in his body hard with tension.

"Like magic, this cannot be measured by scientific or physical measures - not usually anyway," he clarified. "But you will know inside you when it is true. It is a sense of belonging that you will not get anywhere else."

"Have you ever been in love, Ace?"

The question came out of the blue and Mr Davenport sighed quietly, nose dropping into line with Axel's.

"Yes. Yes, Axel, I have."

"Then why are you not with them now?"

He licked his lips, eyes sliding sadly away out the window. The weather ponies had done a wonderful job of ensuring that the sun was shining and the rays warmed the small dressing room as the bustle of ponies arriving for the wedding clustered into the building below them. Soon all would proceed and Axel would have to find something in himself to regain his sense of calm and reasoning.

Sometimes, however, it was better to let them come to that through the experiences of others. Axel, after all, was not one to be told what to do at the best of times. The story he had to tell was not of the most pleasant kind, but what friend was to know what they were prying into if they had never been afforded even the skeleton plan of the plot beforehand? Mr Davenport shuddered and Axel looked on, perplexed.

"What? What is it?"

"I'm..." Ace struggled for words himself, looking down at his hooves. "Axel, I'm sorry to say, but I lost my beloved. She was very unwell and, well...some things ponies can't recover from, not even with magic. They never did find an answer as to what ailed her, not that it would have given me and her family much closure."

Axel stared, blinking rapidly as the stallion shook his head slowly, a sadness in his eyes that neither of his friends had seen before. Even Big Mac looked as if a cloud was suddenly hanging over him as he nickered his sympathy, empathy itself emanating from him.

Perhaps Axel's departure from Ponyville had left him out of the loop when it came to real matters of importance in friendship.

"Ace," he said quietly. "I had no idea. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for intruding."

"Oh, Axel, don't worry - you were hardly intruding. I should have perhaps introduced you long ago to her, but things had taken a downward turn before I thought it even appropriate for my friends to meet her. It was...a swift decline, one could say. But I still loved her." His eyes glistened. "Oh, I loved her so very dearly. And that is why I know that you also love your mare. I've felt it too."

Big Mac nodded and exhaled heavily, tail flicking against the bare floorboards. His story, however, would have to remain untold for another day as they supported their friend on either side.

"She was very crude though," he said with a soft chuckle, eyes alight with remembrance. "Perhaps that's where I get it from now. A part of me wants to keep her memory alive and talking like her is one way I can do that."

He smiled, though it was fleeting and desperately faint.

"She was supposed to run the store with me, but she was taken from me too soon."

"Do you think you'll ever love again?" Axel said gently, leaning his shoulder into his friend's, the best show of solidarity that the otherwise practical and quiet pony could demonstrate. "You never talked about her before. She seems so special to you. What... What was her name? Is that okay to ask?"

"It's fine." Ace took a deep breath, lungs expanding slowly with air. "She was... Stormy Day. And there's not a day or night that passes in which I do not wish she was still with me."

Ace straightened and shook off his friends, fighting to return to his usual jokey demeanour.

"But, my friends - I digress from the point! She was as special to me, yes, as Serenity is to you. And you will always know in your heart if you are in love, you only have to have faith in yourself and your beloved."

Swallowing, Axel fidgeted, still unsettled by the story of woe and heartbreak. He didn't remember a Stormy Day, but he must have come across her at some point during his life in Ponyville, unless the pony, who had to be a Pegasus with such a name, had come from Cloudsdale after his departure. Maybe he shouldn't have left at all, but, if he had stayed there, he would never have met Sheriff Pinto.

Axel sat back and stared up at the ceiling, a fan spinning around and around, hypnotising in its regularity.

"Sometimes things that are real cannot be seen," he said slowly, mulling over the point as if traipsing through a pit of molasses. "You are right. You had what you had with your...with Stormy Day. And things are the same with me and Serenity. No, they're not the same, they're different but, darn it..."

The stallion pressed his hoof to his forehead and groaned.

"I'm not good with words. But you know what I mean. At least, I hope you know what I mean because even I'm not too sure what I'm talking about sometimes."

Ace chuckled.

"Please, don't worry, Axel. You weren't to know and I'm glad to have told you now. It felt like something I was keeping quiet for too long, though those close to the situation in Ponyville know what happened. I haven't been one to talk to ponies about it thought."

Sitting up straight, the stallion clopped his hooves together with a sharp rap, startling the rest of them.

"Come now! No more gloom! Though if we're talking of love..."

Ace nudged his friend in the ribs with a little more of his characteristic cheeky grin and light in his eyes.

"If we're exploring love, when did you think you loved her? It's quite clear in how we've seen you looking at her, you know!"

Big Mac snorted.

"Undressing her. Hmmph!"

"What?" Axel gaped. "I've not been undressing her!"

"Then why the heaven not?" Ace laughed. "But what he meant is that you see what lies beneath the skin, you look at her like she's the only thing in your world. That and you want to take her clothes off."

"Ace!"

"Sorry, sorry. But it's true, the meaning _behind_what I said, anyway."

"It's..." Axel groaned. "You're terrible. But I'm not sure just when I knew I loved her. It kind of happened, just like with a lot of things. You know how long it took me to find the nerve to ask her out and even then I just bumbled my way through it - I didn't know what I was doing. So, how was I supposed to know when our dating had become something...more?"

They allowed him time to breathe, to think through his words. It was his day, after all, along with Serenity's. And heaven knew how well those preparations were going! She would soon meet him at the end of the aisle, resplendent in a white dress that only enhanced her natural beauty. She would have been divine even without it, but the tradition of it would serve to seal the deal between them, allowing them to become partners in the truest sense of the word.

Axel smiled.

"Yes... I knew. We'd only had a few dates but I wanted to see her more and more. That was a big thing for me."

"You were such a recluse," Ace agreed. "You hid in the garage tinkering away. We really didn't know what you were doing half the time."

"Hey! I did a lot of work in that Ponyville garage!"

"You were still a recluse though," Mr Davenport teased.

"Eyup."

"Like you can talk, Big Mac," Axel shot back, finding his second wind. "You're never in Ponyville unless you're on apple farm business and even then you'd rather send Applebloom or Applejack instead of you."

Proud rather than throw, the red stallion nodded happily.

"Eyup!"

"Of course," Axel sighed. "Do you want to hear my story or not?"

"Oh, come on!" Ace exclaimed, not for the first time that day. "Do go on! We've got to make sure you don't get nervous now and talking is the best remedy for that."

Although he wasn't so sure that anything would take away from the churning, squirming pit of worms in his stomach that he'd been trying to ignore, Axel went on, words flowing from his lips like water. It was so easy to talk about her. He had to remember that. He had to remember why he was stepping out in front of everyone, going through the ceremony so that she may have the traditional, sweet wedding that she'd always wanted.

"I think we were at dinner. I'd taken her into the next town, Dart Route, the tourist spot. She had eyes on stalks, looking at everything, had hardly been out since moving to Appleloosa. It was nice to take her somewhere else and she was so innocent goggling at everything, the multi-horse carts and the tourist attractions. We stayed there all day, her deputy holding the fort down while she was away, and we found a hole in a wall eatery that she pretty much dragged me into."

He chuckled and shook his head.

"I didn't know why she was hauling me in or why she was suddenly so insistent on getting food, but it didn't matter. All I could see was her mane bouncing from one side of her withers to the other, tail flicking like she was trying to show me the most brilliant thing possible. She made me laugh so and then chided me for laughing, which only made me laugh more. She's... She's made me laugh more than anyone else."

"And aren't you bad after a beer or two..."

"Hey!" Axel grinned. "We've already told that story, it was a misunderstanding, you know that."

"Still funny that she pushed you in the pond," Big Mac chuckled. "Applejack would do the same to any stallion she was courting."

"Big words," Axel teased back, ears twitching back and forth. "But there was hardly any liquor involved."

Although the ponies smirked, waggled eyebrows and otherwise threw each other 'knowing' glances, they did really know that, as funny as the story of Axle 'having a few too many' in the bar was, it wasn't really true. It was just an overreaction on both their parts. Still, it had made Big Mac bellow with laughter on the floor the first time he'd heard it, a mean feat indeed to get the stoic stallion to burst into such peals of thundering laughter.

"Back to what I was saying," Axel recalled their attention, holding up a hoof. "I knew there was something then. She'd found that friends from her hometown were working in that eatery, by the way - that's why she was so keen to go in. But we had more dates after that and I kept asking her more and more to go out. It was weird to be so forward. Even in Appleloosa, I just hung out with the same group when I met up with friends. Serenity was... Serenity was very different."

Big Mac smiled kindly as if he knew exactly what Axel meant even if the pony to be married didn't yet quite understand.

"She makes me want to be better," he confessed. "I just want to be the pony she deserves, though, for some reason, she seems to have chosen me. I'm glad she chose me."

He could have gone on, could have elaborated. Oh, there was so much more he could have said, like how it had felt to kiss her for the first time. His heart had leapt into his throat and stayed there, tightening and seeming to close up his windpipe as he held his breath, although he was perfectly capable of breathing still. He'd just wanted to keep the moment going for as long as possible, leaning into her as her lips parted against his.

"How was that, darling?" She'd breathed as they'd parted, eyes alight with the reflections of the stars above.

And he'd been so struck dumb by his first, proper kiss - had anything that had gone before mattered the moment Serenity had walked into his life? - that all Axel had been able to do was nod mutely, eyes half-lidded in dopey happiness.

He could have also talked about the time that she cuddled up with him on the sofa and fell asleep before the film they'd been watching had even finished. She'd been so cute, though he would not have dared say that to her face if she'd been awake. The mare's sides had risen and fallen so gently while slumbering that he had not had the heart to wake her and had let her sleep against him into the morning.

Waking slowly, the mare had blinked and yawned, stretching out each of her legs in turn while she'd tried to gather her bearings.

"What..." She shook herself. "What's happened? Where am I?"

And he'd had to tell her, with a perfectly straight face, just what had happened and that she'd woken up in his home. Of course, Sheriff Pinto had been embarrassed and fled to work as if a runaway stagecoach was hot on her fetlocks, but she'd come around quickly enough. It was hard to be embarrassed for too long when the situation concerned a pony that one was growing closer and closer to by the day.

What about the time when they'd gone skinny-dipping (well, the pony version of such as most still went devoid of clothes either way) in the moonlight? She'd been the one to instigate it, of course, teasing him lightly until he'd slipped off the pier into the water with her, their clothes left in a pile to be later rediscovered, their coats sopping wet and dripping.

It had been so sweet to swim with her, their flanks brushing as he doggy-paddled with just his head showing above the water. Serenity had led him out further and further until they reached the island in the middle of the lake. He'd needed a rest by that point and sprawled lethargically on the sand, chest heaving, as Serenity collapsed on top of him. A well-timed hoof in his stomach had him gasping, laughter mingling with the urge for breath as the sheriff of the town wriggled on top of him.

"Ow! Hey!"

"Oh, sorry, honey, mighty sorry!"

They hadn't truly been annoyed at each other, but they giggled anyway. In all honesty, their relationship was remarkably devoid of arguments, which he'd found strange at first, simply because she was the sort that had to get involved in disputes, her job taking a toll on her when the days grew longer. Axel was one that didn't really want to get involved in arguments at all, so a relationship where that 'presumed' element was absent was something refreshingly soothing that he had not expected to find when the mare of his heart had indeed agreed to be his mare-friend.

Serenity had nuzzled into his neck on the beach, letting the gentle lapping of fresh water on the sand soothe them into relaxation. Every muscle unknotted as Axel worked softly over her back, hooves kneading and massaging as the mare groaned beneath him.

"Oh, baby," she said, catching on to a term of endearment that he was more apt to use than her. "Oh, Axel, that feels so good..."

He would have joked with her and said that it was meant to feel good, but all he could see was the spill of mane down the arch of her neck. It gleamed, freed of the plaits she used to keep it out of the way during her normal course of work, and he could not help but tease it out with his hooves as it dried completely, lifting away from her neck in the light, cooling breeze.

"Is there anyone more beautiful than you?"

She'd batted her eyelashes at him and his heart had skipped a beat, though that seemed to be a normal occurrence whenever he was around Serenity. In hindsight, he could not have said who leant in for the kiss first, but their lips came together nonetheless, tongues darting playfully between their muzzles as they moaned against each other, a tangle of legs and tail.

Axel closed his eyes and sighed happily. No, that was one more memory just for him, but not one that he could linger on, regardless of the type of company he had around him. Big Mac and Ace would have joshed him for more detail, but he had to keep some things for himself.

Okay, maybe rather a lot of things. But Serenity still ran through his dreams each and every night so he knew that there was likely at least one pony of the night that had seen his inner desires. He only hoped that Princess Luna would be discreet if she had come across any particular details of what Serenity and he had between them.

They'd made love there, two bodies coming together in divinity as she whispered sweetness into his neck and they had to take another dip in the water just to cool off. It had been just as delightful the second time, although the swim back to the pier and wriggling into their clothes with soaked flanks less pleasant.

But, no. Those moments were for him and Serenity alone, the touch of their lips that first time a fleeting heartbeat of a moment and precious in its exclusivity.

Instead, the memory of her meeting his friends in the bar, the local joint where everyone seemed to come together in companionship and solidarity with one another, popped into his mind. And that was one he _could_pursue.

"I think the turning point was when she met my friends in Appleloosa," he said out loud, having been quiet for just a little bit too long. "It was a big thing to have everyone together."

"What, and not us?" Mr Davenport raised a hoof, false affront crossing his face. "Why weren't we the turning point?"

"Because this is my story and not yours." Axel rolled his eyes. "Are you going to let me talk?"

"Well, well, well... You'll have to nuke just a little bit of that attitude if you want a happy wife, you know, Axel."

Mr Davenport chuckled and flicked his tail, Big Mac sitting up just a little taller.

"Happy wife, happy life," the red stallion proclaimed loudly, bobbing his muzzle as if he had said something particularly profound. "Eyup!"

"So you say," Axel grumbled. "Why do I have to keep reeling you two back to the point?"

"Hunger, old chap, hunger," Mr Davenport flung his hoof out dramatically. "And it's only going to get worse as I sit through the dreary ceremony! It is an open bar tonight, isn't it?"

Axel rolled his eyes.

"I'm cutting you off if you get too bad, by Celestia's name..."

"I know, I know, I jets!" Ace grinned. "Honestly, stallion, you're too sensitive about the time you had a stronger drink than..."

"Alright, alright!" Axel cut in hurriedly. "She met my friends. At the bar."

"Which isn't doing your side of the story any favours..."

"Nope!"

"Cut it out. But she met my friends here, you see, and, well... I was worried that she wouldn't like them or they wouldn't like her."

Big Mac frowned.

"Why wouldn't they like her?"

"Why wouldn't anyone like her?" Ace chimed in, eyebrows raised. "She's not actually a bar dancer or something, is she?"

The warning look that Axel gave him was enough to quell the stallion who, admittedly, was only a few years older than him. Sometimes you couldn't grant wisdom with age, Axel supposed, not that he himself was very wise at the end of the day. Big Mac probably was though. Not that they would ever know.

"They..." He hesitated. "Well, the sheriff is always well liked here, no matter who they are, but there's always an air of authority about them. Sheriff Pinto has that in bucket loads."

To their credit, the other two remained silent with only a twitch of their lips betraying their mirth.

"Everyone is aware of who she is and what she does, keeping law and order in Appleloosa, so they can't help but feel a little intimidated when she is around. It makes sense, doesn't it?"

They nodded in the affirmative, curiosity rising once more.

"So, when she sat down at the bar with us, no one wanted to do anything, well, fun anymore," Axel said, chuckling lightly under his breath. "It was so surreal to see those guys all sitting up straight and talking about such mundane things like their families all in the most prim and proper way. Dust even lost his accent for a bit!"

"Wow," Mr Davenport whistled lowly. "Something you more expect the mare-friend to do when you take her home to see your parents, not that way around."

"Exactly! But she got everyone to loosen up though and showed that she is an absolute demon at cards and card tricks!" He laughed. "Let me tell you, that mare plays dirty!"

"Really?" Ace groaned. "Are you really not expecting me to say something there?"

"Well, it's no fun if I can't make it difficult for you," Axel said with a smirk. "Incidentally, she had them all laughing very quickly with the number of tricks she knew and I would say that the respect she gained from them made a massive difference to her as a pony. They respected her as a pony and not a sheriff, not just a mare who was new in town - for everyone seems to stay in Appleloosa forever if they're born there."

"Same with Ponyville," Big Mac offered. "Apples too."

"Yes, and, of course, there were so many Apples here too that it's only to be expected that the families stick together. It's real nice, in a way, but it can get a bit lonesome for an outsider too who's trying to fit in."

"I wouldn't mind a game of cards... Blackjack is too basic now, but I could go for Rummy with a nice cup of apple cider," Axel sighed, eyes far off as he clearly imagined just how sweet the cider would taste. "Do you think she'd have time after the reception?"

Chuckling, Axel shook his head slowly.

"We're heading straight off on the honeymoon, but I'll be sure to bring her down to Ponyville as soon as she can spare the time from her sheriff duties here. My work is a bit more flexible at the moment."

Satisfied, Ace nodded and sat back, the promise of a game all that mattered for that one, little moment. But something else was preying on his mind, thoughts weaving between one another as they tried to all bubble to the surface at once.

One. He clung to one. The easiest one to continue pushing the conversation forward, but still a useful one all the same.

"It's not strange to think that we never met this mare before, but strange that we don't know her better now that she is going to be marrying you," Ace mused, scratching his chin. "Maybe we should do a holiday up here at some point? I'm sure we can find something to make ourselves useful as, forgive me, but this is hardly a tourist spot except when the rodeo is in town. But it would help to get to know her better as she really does seem like a delightful mare indeed!"

"I knew her."

Axel and Ace blinked, heads swivelling as one to look at Big Mac. The stallion pressed his forelegs together, uncomfortably sweating under their joint scrutiny.

"How the hay did you know this pony that came from all the way out in the sticks?" Ace demanded, stomping one hoof. "Spill! And why haven't you said anything before?"

Big Mac shrugged, mostly nonplussed, though his tail clamped down over his hindquarters a little more vigorously.

"She..." He hesitated. "I went to her town to deliver apples."

Axel raised both eyebrows.

"Funny she didn't mention this before..." He muttered. "I thought we had no secrets. Why would she keep this from me?"

"No, no," Big Mac hastened to add. "No, she didn't see me; I just did my deliveries and was off again. Didn't stop to talk. But I saw her."

"That's not really knowing her though, Big Mac," Ace said speculatively. "Though I do believe you may have just given Axel here a minor heart attack thinking that there were secrets there. Maybe he even thought that there was a very big secret about to see the light of day."

Axel laughed, though the sound was weaker than it should have been.

"Yeah... Kinda..." He shook himself and pawed the boards. "We must be getting close to time now. How long do I have?"

"Hold up!"

Ace raised a hoof, stalling Axel the best he could, eyes fixed on Big Mac.

"There's something more to this story before we send you down to your lady-mare," he murmured. "So you said you knew her, did you, Big Mac?"

The stallion shuffled, uncomfortable with all the attention on him.

"Yes... She was with foals from her town."

"Foals?" That had Axel's attention. "Was she doing something with the Filly Guides? She doesn't have any siblings."

Big Mac shook his head.

"No, not Filly Guides like Applebloom and her friends. She seemed to be teaching them."

"Ah! Of course! I remember!"

Axel smiled as if he'd won a prize.

"She did say she used to teach some after-school clubs down there, but she'd never spoken about them before either. Maybe just one thing we didn't get to yet."

Axel grinned and leaned forward eagerly at the prospect of learning something new. It wasn't just him who had stories to tell, after all - or so it seemed!

"What was she doing? Teaching numbers? Reading to them?"

Big Mac shook his head.

"Football," he said slowly. "She was showing them how to play football."

The stallion blinked and pulled his head back, studying his friend's face carefully.

"Are you having me on here? She's never played any sports for as long as I've known her! She's always too tired after work to even go out hiking and I know she loves that!"

"Nope," Big Mac said. "Little makeshift football, running back and forth showing them how to tackle."

He paused, conflicting emotions battling for precedence on his muzzle. But what did he really want to say?

"It was adorable," he finally said, though it wasn't as satisfying a revelation as the others were hoping for. "They were small little things, not really able to hold the small football she had for them, but they tried anyway."

"Just football?" Ace probed. "Is that everything?

Big Mac raised an eyebrow.

"Cricket," he added. "There were cricket posts up too. She was better at that. She seemed good with the foals. Very good with them. Like Applejack with Applebloom."

He chuckled and shook his head.

"Maybe a little overprotective when they tripped or bumped themselves. Applejack does that too."

His voice rang through with affection for his sister, purely of the wholesome kind one family member had for another, but it was a similar bond and relationship to the friendship one had to have in a marriage. The closeness needed to be present, more than just love and skin-deep adoration for a pony in one's heart to really work together as mare and stallion. Or stallion and stallion or mare and mare - it didn't matter. If there was nothing deeper, a relationship would fail.

Those thoughts, however, Big Mac knew that his friend already knew. And where would the point be in repeating what was already known?

Smiling, Big Mac addressed Axel, though his word limit for the day was swiftly becoming depleted. Everyone knew the stallion was not one to talk, giving away far more through his posture and facial expressions than he had ever done through the little conversation one could glean from his lips alone.

"She'll be a wonderful mother one day."

Axel froze, blood draining from his muzzle. The world around him seemed to slow, the other stallion's lips moving in slow-motion as he continued talking, but all Axel heard was a dull roar in his ears. His heart pounded: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. He licked his lips, but there was no saliva left in his mouth to even moisten his dry, cracked lips.

Heavens, was this what getting married felt like? His nerves clawed and twisted through his stomach. What was he doing? Was he doing the right thing? His mind darted down all the paths it thought it should, even if he knew in his heart that everyone was well and he was doing just what he wanted to be doing: waiting for Serenity at the end of the aisle, next to the altar they'd had brought in for the ceremony to be conducted by Silver Star. He knew all the plans down to the fine details as the mare in question had hardly been alone in her planning of the event.

But where did that leave him - them? Did it matter that they hadn't discussed...it?

"Axel?"

Ace's voice penetrated the white noise as if it was coming from a great distance away. The stallion's ears twitched, but he otherwise gave no indication that he'd heard his friend.

"Axel, can you hear me?"

Blinking rapidly, the stallion tried to shake some sense back into himself, rooting himself into the moment. Big Mac and Mr Davenport stared expectantly at him, one as curious as the other.

"I... Well... Uh..." Axel rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Um... It's kind of complicated when you say it like that..."

And yet it shouldn't have been complicated. Not to anyone but the couple involved. Yet foals and the art of foal-making seemed to be something that everyone had to involve themselves in, regardless of who was concerned or where the conversation took place.

"What?" Ace tipped his head to the side. "Hasn't that conversation come up already?"

"Yeeeesssss..." Axel said, though he dragged the word out desperately as if striving to buy time. "But it was one that we left as an open-ended question." He smiled. "Sheriff Pinto phrased it like that. We'll get back to it...one day. One day, we will."

Mr Davenport's eyes grew shockingly wide, the stallion's tail twitching madly.

"What do you..." He struggled to find the right words. "Are you trying to say that you haven't had the talk about foals yet? You're going into a marriage without considering this?"

Axel rolled his eyes.

"No, of course not. We have discussed it, but...neither of us knows what we want yet."

"You mean whether you want a filly or a colt, don't you?" Ace pressed the issue. "Not whether or not you want any or lots...right?"

"It's..." Axel sighed. "I thought stallions didn't care about this crud?"

Big Mac's lips turned down in the tiniest of frowns. He wasn't much one for swearing or even words that may require one to clamp their hooves over the ears of any foals in the near vicinity.

"We're just concerned about you, Axel," Mr Davenport said, lips twisting. "But it is usually something where the stallion isn't sure and the mare wants as many as possible. Or, at least, it used to be like that. Now, there's so many options for foals to be looked after during the day, it doesn't mean that one or the other ever has to give up their jobs for any reason related to family."

"I don't think Sheriff Pinto would give up her job for a foal," he said plainly. "And I have no interest at the moment. That was why we decided to leave it open-ended. We don't know what the future may bring."

"So..." Big Mac pressed, though that was all he was willing to say.

"Yes, so," Axel repeated, gathering his thoughts. "We don't know what will happen in the future. If we had to give an answer right now, it would be a 'no' from both of us on that side. But we don't know if we'll change our minds."

Ace held up a hoof and waved it in the air. The resemblance between him and a foal asking permission to speak was uncanny.

"What if only one of you changes their mind? It can happen, you know."

"I think that's something that we can deal with when we come to it. I'm not worried though, it's really not as if we argue anyway. Any problems we have had have been resolved pretty easily."

Big Mac could not have rolled his eyes any more loudly.

"Kind of bragging there, don't you think?" Ace said, though Axel would have chanced that there was a note of relief in his voice too. "I mean, no arguments? What are you, like, the perfect couple?"

"Ergh," Axel said with a shudder. "You sound like a teenage filly."

"Not still a filly..." Ace chimed in with a singsong voice.

"...Not yet a mare!"

Devolving into laughter, the trio collapsed on the floor. The howls of laughter that erupted from them seemed entirely out of context with the joke made, but they could not help themselves, sides heaving for breath that simply would not come.

"Thank you, guys, I think I needed that laugh," Axel chuckled, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "And the rest of it. Very much the rest of it too. Thanks, y'all."

Big Mac chuckled and Ace shook his head, lifting and lowering a hoof in a false start to a sentence.

"Saying 'y'all' like that really makes you sound like you're becoming a true Appleloosan," Mr Davenport murmured. "But I hope you'll never forget your roots in Ponyville and your friends back there."

"And I hope you will still visit between me coming back to Ponyville," he returned with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. "Because I'm sure as Celestia going to have to show her all the sights back in my hometown! She'll love the wilderness of the Everfree Forest, and sightseeing at Princess Twilight's Castle, and cakes at Sugarcube Corner..."

"Sounds like you have it all planned out," Ace laughed softly. "But I think we first have a wedding to get you through before walking out hoof in hoof with the mare you're here for."

Bobbing his muzzle, Axel sniffed and rubbed his muzzle, trying to stifle the emotion that threatened to bubble over even as he pulled the other two into a hug, one wrapped in each foreleg.

"Thanks, guys. Really. Thank you."

Big Mac shuffled uncomfortably, but relaxed into the hug as much as he could, being the stoic stallion he tried to embody, for that was what everypony believed him to be. Axel, on the other hoof, held them tighter even as Ace squealed for breath, cheeks puffing out as he turned crimson.

"Alright, alright..." He huffed and puffed for breath, pushing Axel off him. "Enough of that now, or else we'll all be tearing up here before the ceremony even begins."

Ace's eyes lit up as if he had only just remembered why they were there, although perhaps he was merely clinging on to it as a welcome distraction.

"Yes, that's right! Very right! The ceremony will begin soon - the hour is near!" Mr Davenport proclaimed, getting back to his hooves and dusting off his suit, which was much smarter than his normal everyday business attire. "We have to make sure you're ready and then Silver Star will get you down to your place on time, as we all agreed."

It had been a good day for telling stories, for reminiscing and dreaming, though not every tale had been told despite the words exchanged. Axel smiled as they fussed around him like a couple of mares, tugging his suit into place and making sure his mane was lying as flat as possible, although that was a tall order in itself. Sometimes one had to make do with the cards they were given and a stray hair out of place wasn't going to harm anyone. Sheriff Pinto had taught him that.

One story, however, was not for his friends to know. That one he kept to himself, staring into the mirror, without really seeing his reflection, in the dressing room while they left him to take their seats as if his own reflection would have some insight for him, some words of wisdom that would harry him on to his destiny.

"What do you think?" He asked the better-dressed stallion in the mirror, tipping his head to the side. "Have you anything you want to tell me before I go through with this?"

The pony blinked back at him, but otherwise had nothing to say. Axel sighed.

"Figures."

But it didn't matter that his heart fluttered like a caged bird against his ribs, mouth dry and head spinning. Because he'd felt all that before and one mare above everyone else had been there for him each and every time he'd struggled before.

Especially that time. Against himself, heat rose to his cheeks and he thought back, the soft sheath tucked up close to his belly and hind legs plumping out a little as his mind turned to matters for stallions and mares and not youngsters. Grimacing, he lifted a hind leg and made a face at the tip of his member trying to show itself, willing it to return to the place from where it had come.

Oh. Maybe that was why some ponies wore trousers. Bit of a bummer to figure out in hindsight. But he would be fine. Sheriff Pinto always made everything fine and his body would be back in line by the time the ceremony began. Serenity would always be there for him.

The mare had introduced him to so much in life, even his very first time. Axel licked his lips, mouth too dry, as he remembered the mare's surprise when she found out that he was, surprisingly, still a virgin when they'd started dating. And, of course, he had not dated any other mares while they'd been together so, by the time that she was initiating intimacy and implying, quite clearly, that she wanted to take their relationship to the next level.

It had been hard to come clean to her and he'd avoided her advances to the point of insult before admitting the truth. And the mare of his heart had been so very sweet about it, letting him come to the want in his own time - but what stallion wouldn't have wanted to share a bed with such a fine mare, her kind nature the icing on top of the delicious cake for a pony who needed a bit more of a guiding hoof than most, at least in one regard.

"Come on now, honey, ain't gonna let nothing bad happen to y'all..."

He hadn't thought anything bad would happen in bed with her, except maybe embarrassing himself beyond all hope of recovery. But that wouldn't injure anything more than his pride and he quivered quietly as she blew the lantern out in her bedroom, something she'd lit for ambience but then perhaps thought that he may like the soft allure of sensual darkness instead.

They weren't words that she would have said, that much was true, but he couldn't take his eyes off her as she slipped out of her tunic, letting the red bandana ease from around her neck, the badge going up onto her dressing table. It glimmered there in a shaft of moonlight as his eyes adjusted to his dimmer surroundings, able to see more than enough to get his skin tingling anxiously, needing her even if he did not quite yet know what to do.

Oh, that was a lie - he had known what to do, but it was difficult to act when one was so paralyzed, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, none of which that seemed to deliver anywhere near enough oxygen into his lungs. And then Sheriff Pinto had been there, even as his need for her grew, leaning into the mare who had dabbed a sweetly scented perfume behind her ears for their date that evening.

"It's okay," she murmured, "I got you, don't you worry about that."

Wrapping her hooves around him, she led him to the bed, but his shaft was already filling out with blood, pushing smoothly from his sheath as if she had called it forth herself. Giggling softly, the mare kissed him on the cheek, the hint of a blush tingling on her own muzzle.

"I like a stallion that's eager. You're a natural, honey."

He stuttered and mumbled something, brushing his mane off his neck as he fussed with it, but Serenity led him gently onto her large bed, the one thing that she'd insisted on outfitting her Sheriff's quarters with from her previous home. He appreciated it very much more when he was on it, the Earth pony boldly rolling him onto his back so that she could fully admire and appreciate his body.

"My..."

It was more of a moan than a word and Axel trembled as she ran a hoof down his front, a low nicker rising from the back of her throat as even Serenity's need threatened to get the best of her.

"I've waited so long for you..."

She nuzzled into his neck and, in a sudden fit of boldness, he turned his head to hers and captured her lips with his own. Now, kissing, he knew how to do, although Serenity had, again, been his best and most pleasurable teacher in the fine art of expressing oneself through the kiss. Her lips parted willingly against his as he drew her shakily against his body, her stomach pressing gently over his shaft as she wriggled her way on top of him.

Tensing, Axel arched his back, pushing his stomach up into her and, subsequently, his length, even that small amount of purely accidental stimulation enough to make his needy shaft ache and trickle pre-cum. She giggled, though there was no malice or mockery in the sound, and kissed his neck sweetly as if she could draw the heat of blush and embarrassment from his neck and cheeks. Whimpering softly, he squirmed against her and Serenity caught his lips softly again, letting her tongue flicker teasingly across his lips as his heart leapt into his throat and stayed there, pounding and threatening to close off his windpipe.

His stallion-hood juddered lightly as if shivering, but the pre-cum that glistened wantonly at the tip told a different, far more carnal tale. Clicking her tongue softly against the roof of her mouth, Sheriff Pinto nuzzled down his belly.

"Oh, sugar, you are a sensitive one... Let me take care of you."

He'd never had a mare take his length into her mouth before - hell, that much was a given! - but she made it better than he could have ever imagined in his wildest dreams. Axel couldn't even think about how nervous he was while she prepared him for further delights to come, tail flicking and lifting as if, she too, was eager. He didn't know it then, but just being close to him made the mare needy, though she protested later, with spots of colour in her cheeks, that it was merely the long wait for him that had made it so difficult for her to hold herself back around him.

It all came together right in the end, but he would always treasure their first time together above all that followed, even as he grew more confident and explored both her body and the limits of what their bodies could do together. For there was nothing that could compare to the sweetness of pushing inside her for the very first time (well, it was more like Serenity guiding him onto her back and rolling her own hindquarters onto his shaft, after several false starts and much embarrassed giggling) and there was nothing that since made stars erupt beneath his lowered eyelids in quite the same fashion. There could have been all the stars in Luna's night sky glittering away, constellations bright and clear, but they would not have held a candle to the light in Axel's heart and the love he felt, burning so very brightly, for the mare of his heart and soul.

He knew then that Serenity was the one as their bodies came together in sweet, carnal bliss, the mare raising her hindquarters for him as he drove into her, finding his strength and courage - all from her. He doubted that he would have ever had the nerve to mate with such a beautiful mare, or any mare at all, if not for her sweet and guiding hoof, but every flicker and grind and clutch of embarrassment had been worth it to see her lips part in a moan, climax overtaking her as she shuddered and ground back onto him.

If he could give his sweetheart that much pleasure, he wanted to do it over and over again, just for her, but his body could only take so much. His nerves held him back from his own release, at least for a little while, but there was only so much that a virgin - well, not anymore - stallion body could take and he whinnied loudly, too loudly, as he spent himself, Serenity twisting around to thump him in the side.

"Axel! Half the town will hear ya!"

But she was laughing, giddy with the high of climax as she slumped to the blankets in the sweet afterglow, a smile on her lips even as her eyes closed. Axel was not far behind her; who knew that mating could be so tiring? Even so, he would have done it again and again and again if only to hear her sweet moans of pleasure and the stallion drew her in close and warm to his chest, spooning up behind her. In but a few moments, their flanks rose and fell lightly, the duo slumbering sweetly as bliss claimed them.

They would come together in love many, many times after that night, but it was the first time that would forever stand out for Axel, a memory that he treasured and kept close to his heart. Not only because it was his deflowering - wow, how feminine did that sound? They should come up with a different term for stallion - but because it was with his sweetheart, who was everything he had ever wanted and so very much more.

And he could only sing of her praises, her sweetness and her devout kindness. Axel ran a hoof shyly back through his mane, messing up what his friends seemingly had only just wrestled into place. She could have made fun of him several times over. Hell, he'd seen just how sharp she could be in her line of work, sending miscreants packing into a cell or the younger, less volatile sorts away with their heads hanging and tails tucked between their legs. Her persona differed between the mare she was as Sheriff and the mare she was off-duty with him, curled up in the crook of his legs as he sketched her.

He flushed in memory of that moment. He hadn't expected her to ever see the sketch, but he'd wanted to capture the moment anyway. It had seemed too fragile and tentative to allow to pass and his sketchbook had been within reach, tucked away on the shelf beneath the little table he kept next to his sofa at home. If he had not been able to reach it, however, he would only have striven to recapture the moment once she had left his humble abode, but it may not have been so sweetly depicted if he had not had the luxury of his slumbering sweetheart while his pencil was in hoof.

Holding the pencil in the crook of his hoof and fetlock, he lamented the fact that he couldn't wriggle off the sofa without disturbing Sheriff Pinto, having to make do with a pencil that really could have done with sharpening. It didn't matter in the long run, however, as he had time to clean it up later and his pencil flew across the page in smooth, confident strokes, his brow furrowing as he concentrated on his work, depicting her to the very best of his ability. Raw talent honed into skill rose from the pages of his sketchbook, but it was a skill that he was still yet to show anyone, at least at that point in time. He'd always thought his friends would find it strange that he sketched and sometimes, when the mood struck him, illustrated too, painting a watercolour pad with so many colours that it sometimes took his eye several minutes, on completion, to pick out each and every one of them. They wouldn't have said anything untoward, he was sure, but something in Axel had always wanted to keep the book for him and him alone, even if the pictures he drew were nothing that would have raised eyebrows for their content. Except for the one of Serenity, that was, but that was not the rule. He may have drawn her a few more times, however, but he had never thought anyone would actually see his sketches of her, stolen in covert moments and through frenzied pencil strokes that could not be restrained once unleashed from the realm of inspiration.

And then she'd found the sketchbook.

He should have been more carefully, really, in hindsight, but had left it out on the table after drawing a new bird that he hadn't seen about Appleloosa before. He'd wanted to capture it on paper so he could at least as Fluttershy about it next time he visited Ponyville, for it was an unusual species with a crest of striking red feathers atop his head - certainly nothing he'd ever had the privilege to bear witness to before.

"What's this?"

She'd had the book open before he could stop her, flinging a hoof out as his heart leapt into his mouth.

"Serenity! Oh, it's nothing, nothing interesting at all..."

But his babbles could not dissuade her as the mare flipped through the book, wondering and giving a soft, breathy gasp of delight at a sketch of a magpie, poised on the edge of a nest with a cluster of worms dangling from its beak.

"Axel!" She exclaimed, eyes darting from the sketchbook to him. "Are these yours? I didn't know y'all were such an artist!"

"I'm n-not," he half stammered. "Really, it's nothing, nothing at all, just a few, ah, doodles."

The page loomed before them, Serenity curled up in his hooves with her eyes closed. Her mane spilled loosely across her neck in a tumble of curls and her bandana had fallen loose around her neck, the ends open as if she was in the process of disrobing herself of it.

"Serenity, please," he mumbled, trying to get the sketchbook out of her reach, hoof waving. "It's something stupid, I shouldn't have sketched you then, invasion of privacy. I promise you it won't happen again."

"Ah-ah," she chided him, planting her body between the stallion and the book. "Darling, I think there's something more to this book than first meets the eye, as lovely as that is."

She flipped the pages, finding sketch after sketch of her about town and even one of her sitting out on the hilltop above the apple orchard. She'd inhaled sharply at that, eyeing him side-on as if expecting something a little darker to come of the interaction than the revelation of the sketches alone.

"I don't remember ever taking y'all to that spot, Axel. Are you a sketch stalker?"

"What? No!" He floundered for words, stumbling over himself in his haste to correct her assumption. "No, I wasn't following you or anything, but I was working out on the truck one day and I saw you out there and...well..."

He groaned and covered his eyes with his hoof.

"Pony-feathers, I'm getting myself into a right pickle here!"

"Sugar, I'm kidding ya."

And then her forelegs were around him, drawing him to the warmth of her chest as she laid her head on top of his and whispered to him.

"I love it," she murmured, sincerity ringing through her tone. "I really do love it."

Exhaling, Axel leaned into her, doubt slipping from his mind. Sure, it meant that he had had to show her his sketches from that point on, but it was sweetened for being their little secret.

They had a few secrets for them and them alone, each and every one more devout than the one preceding it. And they would forever remain theirs if either of them had anything to say about it.

Three raps on the door startled him from his reverie with his maleness, thankfully, calm and restful before the commencement of the ceremony. He chuckled weakly to himself as he opened the door, hoping whoever was on the other side would put the heat in his muzzle down to nerves, or something else along those lines. It didn't matter all that much what they thought it was, as long as they weren't privy to his private, most intimate of thoughts.

He wouldn't have wanted anyone to think he was a soft touch, after all.

But it was only Silver Star, dressed in his sheriff get-up again, if only devoid of the badge that had denoted him as the sheriff of Appleloosa. He grunted as Axel gave him a one-legged hug, back bowing.

"Darn it, young 'un! You can't be doing that no more!"

"Sorry, Sheriff."

"You'd best be savin' talk like that for your lady friend now," he said, but there was an appreciative nod for Axel nonetheless. "But it is time. I'm mighty sorry to be so late, but there was some business that came up."

Grinning widely with his moustache quivering, the stallion slapped Axel on the back, shoving him forward a step from the sheer blunt force of the brotherly tap alone.

"Git along now! Let's get you hitched to that fine mare down there!"

And Axel was so very ready to see her and spend the rest of his days with the sweetness that made his heart sing. He shook his head at himself, though kept his chuckle sealed away behind the barrier of his lips. He really was getting soft to think about her like that, but there was no other way to put it even as his knees went weak, the town hall corridors seeming to close in around him, tipping from one side to the other.

As he swayed, Silver Star darted in to prop up his shoulder, reaching for the hip flask he'd taken to wearing that was, unfortunately, no longer there at the moment he could really have needed it. The stallion cursed. It wasn't just for decoration, darn it! And Axel couldn't faint on him - not when he had to stand up front for the ceremony!

"Don't y'all faint on me now, we're almost there. Head up now, young 'un."

Supporting him on one side, Silver Star helped the shaky stallion to the main hall where their friends and family were gathered, all looking to him expectantly. He smiled at each and every one of them as he passed by, but the smile was nothing of a pleasantry and all for the joy in his heart. Axel would not have said that he was particularly stable on his hooves, but he did well enough to stand where he was supposed to and take a deep breath, waiting on the one he'd been waiting for all this time.

She was the reason he had waited so long.

Sheriff Pinto did not make him wait much longer.

The doors to the hall opened and everyone rushed to take their seats as Axel licked his lips, even though his mouth was still too dry for any real moisture. His beauty in a stunning white gown - it must have been one of Rarity's creations - that clung to her finger while leaving a pretty trail behind walked down the centre aisle, preceded by her flower ponies and her bridesmaids. Big Mac took his place beside Axel as the stallion of honour while the mare of honour, a close friend of Serenity's from her hometown, smiled warmly at them, eyes alight with joy for her friend.

"Doesn't she look wonderful?"

And she did, but it was the beauty beneath the finery and veil that he longed to push back from her delicate muzzle that he loved and thought was wonderful. Sheriff Pinto could have looked amazing wearing absolutely anything and a dress did not make one beautiful. It was her as she was, loving and caring and devoted to the safety of Appleloosa that made her who she was, the daring, strong, brave mare that he'd fallen completely and utterly head over heels for.

"Are you ready?"

It was probably the most complete sentence Big Mac had said in months, but Axel couldn't bring himself to answer as Sheriff Pinto stepped up before him, cheeks dimpling in the prettiest smile he'd ever seen.

Taking a deep breath, he drew himself up as tall and proud as he possibly could.

Yes, he was ready. Ready to spend the rest of his life with the one he loved more than anything else.

As he stepped up to the altar, Silver Star officiating for them in lieu of Sheriff Pinto, who would have otherwise been best placed to stand over a marriage ceremony in the town she stood watch over, Axel smiled. His bride and, very soon, pony-wife, beamed back at him, casting the veil back over her mane and the back of her neck so that her beauty beneath was not obscured.

He wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"Are y'all ready?" She breathed, lips parted only a little as if she wanted to just keep the words between the two of them. "I've been waiting such a long while for you, sugar. And I told you back on our first date that you weren't to keep a lady waiting."

"Serenity, I've been waiting for you my whole life and I'm really not willing to wait a single moment longer."

Turning as one to the altar, hearts pounding on the precipice of something great, they stood so close that their shoulders brushed. Silver Star beamed at them, moustache quivering in quiet testimony to his joy.

"Fillies and gentlecolts, we are gathered here today..."

And, from that point on, the words didn't matter. All that mattered was that Axel and Serenity were together. Just the two of them.

For the rest of their loving days.