//------------------------------// // Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 7.2 // Story: RoMS' Extravaganza // by RoMS //------------------------------// Luster kept her mouth closed, not that the story wasn’t jaw-dropping. “Always a drama-queen, my sister,” Sweetie said, echoing Luster’s thoughts. “I mean,” Cheerilee added instantly, “we all thought you were dead.” “True, true.” “It wasn’t my proudest moment either,” Pinkie mumbled. “Everything was breaking down in Ponyville. And I couldn’t even cheer my friend. Friends.” Mare leaned by her side and gave her a gentle shake. “Time has flowed under the bridge. Nothing good comes out from stirring the past too much.” Pinkie nodded and smiled, glancing over the central table where tea was cooling again at Luster. Her blue eyes crossed Luster’s for a second. Then drifted away. Luster saw shame, something that didn’t fit the party pony whose tales Teacher Twilight had told her so many. “It’s fine, Pinkie,” Luster surprised herself saying, “Like, Sweetie Belle’s here, right? Everything ended well.” Mare cleared her throat. “That’s relative.” Luster deadpanned. “Really, the town’s still standing and ponies live all around here.” “It didn’t spring back up in a day, young lady,” Mare retorted, a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “Rebuilding a town, and even more its morale and population isn’t done in an evening of study.” Luster hunched her head. “No, no. I get it. I was just trying to be helpful… or maybe reassuring. Ponies are hard to deal with. I’m sure you’ve got the memo a few hours ago.” Cheerilee chuckled. “Admitting it is the first step towards redemption.” Luster fought back, clapping her hooves together. “Eh, I’m not a villain yet!” Mare gave Luster a look over, then turned to Cheerilee, who crossed eyes with her wife. “I’m not betting on that.” Cheerilee grinned. “You always win.” “Are you betting on me turning bad!?” Luster shuffled on her cushions, pestering and grumbling, ready to drag herself out of comfy heaven to give her hosts a taste of her most villainous words. But a twinkle sounds rose, and a blue aura gently pushed her back down. “Don’t worry about these old loons,” Sweetie joked, a wide grin on her face as both Cheerilee and Mare gave her a stink eye. “They like gossiping more than Twilight likes to-dos.” Luster chortled. “That’d be hard to achieve. She’s sending herself to-dos by the mail.” Even Pinkie squinted. She shrugged when Sweetie Belle, Cheerilee and Mare looked at her. “Yeah, yeah. I should pay her a visit, I get it.” “She doesn’t have an assistant?” Sweetie Belle asked. “What about Spike?” “Oh, Spike outgrew the library. To some extent. And–” “Twilight doesn’t trust any other assistant,” Sweetie Belle finished. Luster nodded. She drew her hoof to her chin and motioned at Mare. “Speaking of letters, didn’t you receive letters that day in the city hall, Madame Mare?” As mare confirmed it, Luster continued, “What did they say?” “Oh, uhm, I don’t recall.” She audibly swallowed a knot in her throat. “Not something I love to recall really. But I’m sure saying that wouldn’t satiate your curiosity, hmm?” Luster offered a guilty shrug. “I’m sure I have them somewhere in the attic. Let me try and get them.” With a grunt, Mare extirpated herself from her sofa and walked off somewhere, Cheerilee with her. A few seconds later and past the sounds of a creaking staircase, the ceiling resonated with the clacks of horseshoes. Luster shared a look with Pinkie, who passed it onto Sweetie Belle. Silence reigned, even if for a moment.  “How does my sister do?” Sweetie asked. “Since we’re on that topic.” “You don’t talk to her?” “Yes, I do!” That came a bit too quickly. “I mean, yeah I do, but you know sisters right. We don’t always share everything in our lives.” “She’s a single child,” Pinkie said. “How do you know?” Luster sputtered. “My hunches!” Pinkie beamed, a hoof barely hiding her smirk. “Also you raised your eyebrows. Either you didn’t have a sister, or you really don’t socialize with anypony.” Luster pinched her lips. Pinkie was right, in any case, and Luster was still ready to fight that truth back. “Anyway,” she said, “I don’t see Rarity much — barely when she visits Teacher Twilight. She seems to be doing fine. Though whenever I see her, she always talks about banquets, state visits, fashion shows, and business, business, business.” Sweetie Belle chuckled in her hoof. “She does never change.” “I mean, beyond the grey hair.” Luster combed her mane with her two hooves. “You’d think she would dye them but no.” Pinkie Pie burst out laughing.  “She’d never stoop so low,” Sweetie Belle snickered, eyes closed. “She’s got pride, even in age.” Luster hummed. “I don’t have much really. On your sister I mean. She’s a socialite, I get it. But somehow, she keeps her private life private. She’s quite effective at that.” “She’s a business pony to the core,” Sweetie Belle offered. “She knows when to give, and when to withhold.” “Why do you ask?” Sweetie Belle rubbed her leg and sunk deeper in the sofa. “Rarity took it badly that I disappeared… in such a fashion. I guess grieving over, uhm, me affected her a lot. It changed how we related to each other in a sense.” She breathed in and held it for a long time, until she released a long-winded sigh. “I think she doesn’t want me around anymore.” “You know that’s a lie, Sweetie,” Pinkie offered, along with a hug. Sweetie Belle smiled and took Pinkie in. “I mean, not in the not liking me sense,” she said. “More like, she lost me once, getting close again and risking to lose me once again. That’s a risk. And Rarity hates risk.” “You mean she hates adventures?” Luster asked, recalling Teacher Twilight’s stories about her own adventures and the sempiternal Rarity pestering accompanying each excursion. “No, she does hate risk. In an economic sense. Risk ought to be understood, controlled, and minimized. That’s how she is. Though she likes to pretend it doesn’t affect her, she thinks like a business mare more than just in a negotiation room.” She gulped down and scratched at her horn. “If you can’t contain a risk, you avoid it. If you catch my drift. To her, I’m still a teen who can’t cook.” “You can’t cook still,” Pinkie said. “Lil’ Cheese told me about the carb’ cakes.” Sweetie Belle crooked over, her sides painful with laughter.  “Carbohydrates?” Luster said, eyebrows furrowed. “Carbonized.” Pinkie glanced down at Sweetie Belle and held her hoof in a motherly fashion. “Sweetie Belle is a terrible babysitter.” “At least, I’m not Fluttershy.” “What’s wrong with Fluttershy?” Luster interjected. “Her eyes,” Sweetie Belle explained. “Let’s segue a bit,” Luster offered to escape the likely cryptic explanation that would revolve around Teacher Twilight’s kindest friend. How come would she be the worst babysitter? Luster couldn’t guess. “How was it?” “How was what?” “Well, inside the Wall. We totally drifted off of that after Cheerilee’s tale. I’m sure you have so much to tell.” “Oh, that will come up later,” Sweetie Belle said, a playful smirk on her lips as Cheerilee and Mare’s chatter filled the hallway, then the living room. “Come on, you actually have a neat paranormal story to tell, compared to old mares’ outsider accounts.” Luster shut her mouth as Mare and Cheerilee entered the living room. “So, found the letters?” “I’m sorry, no,” Mare said, stopping when she laid eyes on Sweetie Belle. “You look like you’re about the cry, Sweetie. Are you okay?”  Sweetie Belle straightened herself. “Oh, I am. We were just talking about Rarity and I.” “I’m sorry.” Luster looked down. Being an adult sounded so worrisome. Having friends and family, anxiety-infused and regretful. “Oh, don’t be.” Sweetie Belle coughed in her hoof. “So, those letters?” Cheerilee and Mare took back their seat on the sofa, and Luster caught the small metal box under the former’s leg. It looked like a rectangle biscuit box, the kind that usually hid a sewing kit. But crinkled and sticking out of the lid was a laminated, yellow paper torn at its top. An envelop.  “As I said, Luster. I’m sorry I couldn’t find the specific letters I mentioned,” Mare said, before motioning at the box Cheerilee set on the table top for Luster to peer through. “But I found those.” Luster hunched forward and out of her cushions and slid the box to her side of the table, making sure not to tip over the few neighbouring tea cups and the team bottom resting inside each. As she snapped the lid opened, a faint plume of dust spat at her face and she sneezed. Pinkie laughed. The envelope stuck under the lid had hinted at a plethora of letters inside the box. Luster was disappointed. There were only four. And no wax seal to find in there. Somehow, Luster was sure the juicy stuff was kept hidden somewhere else and from her. She swept the petty thought away and took the four envelopes out. Before she opened the first one and retrieved the letter inside, Luster gave a quick glance towards Cheerilee and Mare. “I mean, first, thank you for helping me with Teacher Twilight’s… uhm–” “Chore,” offered Sweetie Belle. Yes. Luster waved her hoof at her to confirm, then kept on, “Thanks. But are you sure you want me to read those. I mean, it’s personal stuff.” Cheerilee turned to Mare. “Told you, you should have looked at them before bringing them down.” “Ah, flabbergasts,” Mare dismissed. “If I don’t remember them, I’m sure it’s fine. Also I left my reading glasses in the bedroom. And so did you.” “Fair. Fair.” Eyes turned to Luster, who suddenly felt small. “What?” “You gonna read them,” Sweetie Belle said, “aloud.” Luster wasn’t a good public speaker. And reading aloud wasn’t her forte either. She sighed, licked her lips, and took the first letter out of its casing.