When Cupcake opened the door, it revealed an older, unfamiliar unicorn stallion, hoof raised as if he was about the ring the bell again.
He blinked owlishly in the sudden cast of light coming from the entryway, letting his hoof fall back to the stoop and offering the mare a kind of watery smile. “Hello.” His voice was quiet and a bit unsteady, ringing with uncertainty, “Would you happen to be Cupcake, by any chance?”
The earth pony blinked, looking the stallion up and down again. He was pale green, with a greying mane and slightly familiar silvery-blue eyes partially hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses. Nothing but his tentative gaze struck a chord with her, however, and Cupcake was fairly certain she’d never encountered this particular unicorn before. “Yes…” She answered slowly, taking a step back and away, “I’m Cupcake. And who might you be?”
“My name is Limestone.” His tone remained low, leaving the mare to believe he was just a soft-spoken pony and that his volume had nothing to do with the subtle nervousness he was displaying. “I understand my daughter, Gusty, is staying with you?”
“Oh!” A smile crossed the mare’s face and she stepped back fully from the door, allowing the unicorn in. “Yes, of course. Please come in out of the cold.”
Limestone trotted in, pausing to wipe slush from his hooves on the doormat, still blinking against the brightness of the hall light. Outside, the world had become dark and cold; the sky a blackish-blue, illuminated only by the pale orange glow of the streetlamps and a sprinkling of stars. “Thank you…” He smiled faintly, looking to the side rather than at Cupcake, “Is Gusty here? I’d like to see her, if I may.”
“I…” Cupcake frowned a little, both at his unwillingness to look at her and her own uncertainty as to whether or not the unicorn in question was indeed home. “I’m not sure. I only recently woke from a nap and don’t know if she is in or not. If you’d wait here, I’ll go check.”
“Please do.” He nodded a little, polite and awkward, his tail swishing nervously. Cupcake had no way of knowing it, of course, but he hadn’t seen Gusty in over a year and he wasn’t sure if she would want to see him. She’d been distant towards both her parents the last few times they’d visited her, despite the fact that she’d always gotten along better with him than her mother. ”I don’t mind waiting.”
The earth pony offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile, turning towards the staircase leading to the upper floor. “It’ll only be a moment.”
-
After her encounter with Graham Cracker, Gusty had fled to the relative safety of the guest room, where she barricaded herself under a mountain of pillows and blankets on the bed.
She had screwed up big time and she knew it. No matter what she thought about Graham and his ignorant view of the world, it wasn’t her place to criticize him in his own home, especially not with words so harsh as those she had spoken. Her parents had raised her better and there was no excuse for her horrible rudeness. She wouldn’t be surprised if the stallion asked her to leave his house; what she’d said was unbearably offensive, no matter how true.
What would that do to Gingerbread, and her relationship with Cupcake and her family? It was bound to make things strained, if Gusty and Graham didn’t get along. It would be even worse if they outright hated one another.
But…Gusty didn’t particularly hate Graham himself, though. It was his ideas she hated; his ideas and their damaging implications.
And though she had been the one to start the argument, she had no desire to apologize to the stallion. He was just as wrong as she was and she wasn’t about to budge on the subject.
“Gusty?” There was a knock on the door, interrupting her from her thoughts, and Cupcake’s voice filtered through the fine wood of the door, “Are you in there?”
The white unicorn groaned, burying her face in a pillow. Of course Cupcake had come; Graham had probably already told her what Gusty had said and now the other mare was probably going to kick her out herself.
“Gusty?” The other mare’s voice came again, persistent and a little louder.
Gusty rolled over, crawling out of the tangle of blankets and stumbling over to the door, which she yanked open. It was always better to face things head on than to hide, right? “…Yeah?”
Cupcake frowned at the disheveled sight of the other mare. Gusty’s short mane was a wild tangle about her face, some strands lifting on the static charge created by being buried under a fleece blanket, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
She looked miserable.
“Gusty…” Cupcake bit her lip, not entirely certain how the news she bore would be received, “Will you come downstairs? Your father is here.”
The unicorn’s eyes shot wide open and she stumbled back, tripping over her own hooves and landing on her rump on the floor. “My…my dad is here?” She squeaked out, pushing a hoof through her hair in an ineffective attempt at tidying it. Then she rose, hurrying over to the mirror and fumbling for a brush to run through her mane. That taken care of, she started in on her tail, cursing under her breath when the bristles of the brush caught in a particularly nasty tangle. “I can’t believe this…It’s really my dad?”
“He said he was your dad…” The other mare cocked her head, peering curiously at the anxious unicorn in front of the vanity. Cupcake was incredibly confused; what was Gusty panicking over? Limestone seemed incredibly mild compared to the lively perfectionist Razzle Dazzle and, from what Cupcake knew, Gusty didn’t care overmuch about her appearance. “Green unicorn, glasses, greyish mane and tail?”
“Aw hay…It really is my dad.” Gusty gave herself one last cursory look in the mirror, deemed her appearance acceptable, and started for the door, “Did he say what he wanted?”
Cupcake stepped back, letting the other mare pass her, bewildered gaze still following the suddenly jittery unicorn’s every movement. “Just that he wanted to see you…”
Gusty nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay. I can handle this.” She said, more to herself than to Cupcake.
Then she began her descent down the steps.
-
Limestone was waiting anxiously, still in the entryway where Cupcake had left him.
There were a couple pieces of fine art decorating the hall, and though Limestone had great appreciation for such things, he couldn’t even keep up a pretense of studying them. His mind was racing; if Gusty was home, would she see him? Over the past few years, she had been discouraging them from visiting more and more. This was the first time she’d come to Canterlot since she’d left, and -according to Razzle Dazzle- she hadn’t even been planning on visiting them while she was in town.
The stallion wasn’t sure why; they had given Gusty the best life possible. She’d been encouraged, supported, and cherished, and still, something had apparently been lacking. And their daughter had run away, chased off by forces known only to Gusty herself.
They had done their best, Limestone thought, but it hadn’t been enough.
And it hurt, never really knowing what was going on in Gusty’s life. Though their niece sent long, gossipy letters from Ponyville on a somewhat regular basis –and Rarity was prone to drop in on them, when she was in town- her idea of important news was quite different from the things Limestone and Razzle Dazzle actually wanted to know about Gusty’s life.
Sometimes, Razzle Dazzle was able to read between the lines of Rarity’s letters and decipher the true meaning of the words. It was clear that the fashionista disapproved of her cousin’s more rough and tumble pursuits, including impromptu games of hoofball with Magnum, Sweetie Belle, and Sweetie Belle’s friends, her penchant for getting sweaty and filthy at work, and her occasional tromping through the Whitetail Woods. Rarity never came out and said things like that, though, and over the years, Razzle Dazzle had attempted to crack the Rarity code. Things like “Gusty looks dreadful” could have translated to something akin to “Gusty just left the park after work and is in desperate need of a shower, followed by a grooming to get the burrs and leaves out of her coat and mane, respectively.” Or it could mean that Gusty wasn’t eating properly and was nothing but skin and bones. Or it could simply mean exactly what it said: Their daughter looked dreadful.
There was never any way to be sure.
Rarity rarely said anything outright –just used her polite, sometimes catty euphemisms for the truth- and it drove Limestone crazy. His scientific mind was very cut and dry and he had an incredibly difficult time understanding his frivolous, wordy niece.
The older unicorn worried about his daughter –his brusque, self-depreciating, sad-eyed daughter- and just wanted to know she was all right.
Hence his spur-of –the-moment appearance at Cupcake and Graham Cracker’s house.
Limestone had had some vague idea of who Graham Cracker was prior to his wife’s business with Cupcake. The elder stallion was a geology professor at the Canterlot University of Magic and he was fairly certain the jeweler had been a student in one of his classes on gemology. That had been some time ago, of course, but he had a knack for names and faces, and a dusty memory of Graham had been filed away somewhere in the recesses of his mind.
If the jeweler was anything like Limestone remembered –‘opinionated’, ‘pompous’, and ‘self-assured’ were three words that came to mind- Gusty was probably in agony staying at the stallion’s house.
“…Dad?”
At the sound of his daughter’s unusually soft, uncertain voice behind him, Limestone turned, laying eyes on Gusty for the first time in one year, twenty-seven days, thirteen hours, forty-nine minutes, and fifteen seconds, since the last time he’d been in Ponyville.
They stared at one another, matched pairs of pale blue eyes meeting, neither of them speaking. Gusty seemed thinner than last time he’d seen her, and her coat looked a little dull, almost greyish. She was still chopping her hair fairly short and her mane hung limply around her face. She looked tired, with bags under her eyes, and her overall appearance suggested that she hadn’t been taking proper care of herself; that she was in danger of wasting away and vanishing right before his eyes.
“Gusty…” Limestone took a step forwards, never breaking gaze with the young mare that stood before him. He was a left-brained individual, scholarly and logical, and didn’t often wear his heart on his sleeve. But there, in the soft glow of the hallway lamplight, with Gusty standing, waiflike and worrying her lower lip between her teeth, he felt as if his heart wound rend in two; as if letting all of the thoughts and feelings he kept mostly to himself come tumbling out would help bring his daughter back to the land of the living.
He chose to close the distance between them instead, pulling her close in one fluid motion and holding her against him as he had done when she was small. “Oh Gusty…”
She tensed, her entire body going stiff at his touch, and turned her head away to stare at some imagined speck of dust on the hallway carpet.
It had been a very long time since her father had held her like that; probably since sometime back in her foalhood, when scraped knees and cruel words could simply be hugged away. In the years since she had grown up, she’d not let anypony but Gingerbread touch her in such a way; it was impossible to maintain protective walls when somepony hugged you so tenderly.
“Come into the sitting room.” She finally said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears, “And we can…talk. If you want.” She was assuming that was why he’d come; what else would her father be doing there?
Limestone released her, nodding quietly. “Yes,” he agreed, “I would like a chance to speak with you without interruption.”
Gusty eyed him for another moment, easily catching the silent ‘without your mother’ that lingered at the end of her father’s words. Though she didn’t pretend to understand her parents’ attraction to one another, she knew they were still as much in love as they’d always been. She also knew that they were very different types of ponies and her father’s quiet nature often left him overshadowed by his much more outspoken, gregarious wife. He would never say as much, but the implication was there all the same.
Her father followed her into the sitting room, watching the way she moved, so like her mother. Gusty had always been sturdier in her build than Razzle Dazzle, heavy-hoofed and rigid, but her movements were much like her mother’s; the swing of her hips and roll of her shoulders were an unconscious imitation of the older unicorn’s.
Gusty sank down onto the plush velour sofa, tucking her hind legs neatly up under herself and sitting Sphinx-like, forelegs crossed before her.
Limestone waited until she settled herself, choosing a seat a respectable distance away. He knew she wouldn’t want him to be too close; would have known it even without her reaction to his hug. From the time she was a young mare, Gusty had held herself apart from other ponies, withdrawing more and more as her magic failed to develop at a normal rate. It had been hard, watching her slowly shut down, going from the hopeful, loving filly she had been once upon a time to the hard, aloof mare she had become.
Silence stretched between them for a moment; Limestone had never been a big talker and Gusty had grown to be like him, filling the spaces between her mother’s chatter with her own silence.
“You look good, Dad.” Gusty finally spoke, shattering the stillness that had fallen over them, her words seeming simultaneously too loud and too quiet. And she found herself wondering in that moment how it had wound up this way, with her father feeling like a complete stranger rather than the pony who had cared for and taught her when she was small.
“You don’t.” Her father’s response was bluntly honest, as was almost everything he said. He was studying her again, gaze shrewd behind his glasses, a frown tugging the corners of his mouth downwards. Gusty had hit many low points throughout her adolescence, but this was the most fragile he had ever seen her look.
“I…” Her mouth opened and closed again; she turned her head away, unable to meet his gaze once more, words getting stuck in her throat. “It’s being here,” she finally managed, “It’s…Ponyville is different. Nopony cares what I can and can’t do there, even the other unicorns. But here…Here, Dad, I feel like…I feel…” Her voice cracked, eyes welling with tears that she tried to force back, and she trailed off, letting unspoken words hang heavy between them.
“It’s okay.” Limestone didn’t dare move closer, not yet. No matter how much he wanted to take his daughter in his forelegs again, no matter how much he wanted to take her and protect her from the world as he had done when she was small, he was determined to do things on her terms. She looked breakable, as if any sudden movement would send her fleeing, and he wanted her to stay and open up, so he could understand what happened in her life to leave her so damaged. “It’s okay to feel things, Gusty.”
No. She couldn’t get the word out, but it was there, in the sudden flash of her eyes, the downturn of her mouth. She lifted a hoof to scrub furiously at the unwanted tears pooling in her eyes, shaking her head all the while, and turned away, folding further in on herself.
This time, Limestone did edge closer, reaching to put a tentative hoof on her shoulder, offering the barest hint of comfort he would allow himself. When she didn’t flinch away, he reached up, stroking her hair gently.
What kind of examples had they been for her, when it came to emotions? Razzle Dazzle was an open book, her every feeling over the top and on display for the world. Yes, she could rein it in and hold herself professionally, but didn’t often chose to do so. She felt entirely too much and Limestone himself…Well, he had always been reserved with his sentiments, keeping them to himself and the privacy of his home, as if he felt barely anything at all.
And Gusty, with such poor examples of healthy emotional expression, had never learned.
The mare felt her father’s touch, gentle against her mane, and that was all it took for her to crumble, turning and burying herself against the older unicorn. She clung to him, face pressed into his chest as she sobbed, letting out all the pent up frustration and grief she had never before been able to share with either of her parents, for fear of disappointing them.
Her father enfolded her in the warm embrace of her childhood, stroking her back and letting Gusty cry until she was spent. And then she curled close, keeping her head tucked under his chin, eyes shut tight. “I’m not special.” Her voice was hoarse and she sounded tired, lost, “I’m not ever going to be special. So why…why do I feel like I should be special?”
For a moment, Limestone said nothing, simply because he wasn’t sure what to say. Gusty was not one to listen to hollow reassurances and besides that, he was not prone to offering them.
“Gusty,” he finally said, leaning in to push her hair from her face so he could look at her, “Do you remember the time I brought you that geode when I returned from the gem and mineral symposium in Neighagra Falls?”
“Yes?” She sniffled, wiping at her nose and lifting her head to look at the wise, solemn face of her father, “What about it?”
“You were so disappointed, because all I brought you was a ‘boring, ugly rock.’ Your mother told you that it was rude to reject a gift, even if it wasn’t what you were expecting, and you got angry and threw the geode at a wall.” A faint smile crossed Limestone’s face at the memory; even as a filly, Gusty had been impatient and short-tempered and not very willing to listen to things she didn’t want to hear.
Gusty too remembered that day; her father had gone away for work, and when he traveled, lecturing, researching, and teaching in other towns, he almost always brought her back a special present. The geode had failed to impress her; to a young filly with limited knowledge of geology, it simply looked like any old rock. “And it broke,” She said softly, “I remember that.”
“You cried until you realized breaking it made it better; that it was full of crystals.” Limestone nodded, smiling softly, “You were delighted that I brought you something so special. And you asked me how I knew that there would be something pretty inside, when the outside was so ugly.”
“You told me it was magic.”
“No, first I told you it was simple geology; that a slow feed of mineral constituents from groundwater or hydrothermal solutions allowed crystals to form inside the hollow chamber within the rock, but you didn’t understand that,” A small, amused smile played about the geologist’s lips, “so then I told you it was magic that made the geode sparkle, when really it was the hidden sparkle that made the geode seem magic.”
Limestone loosened his grip on Gusty, settling back a little on the couch to look her fully in the eye. “Over the years I’ve learned something that’s helped me understand why the world is the way it is. Ponies are much like rocks. Some ponies sparkle, while others are dull. Some are simple and some are multifaceted. Some enter the world already smooth; some need a lot of polish. All of us are a result of pressure and time, which shapes us into who we are, no matter what we’re made of.”
“You,” he paused, lifting a hoof to gently caress his daughter’s cheek, “are a geode, rough on the outside, sparkling on the inside. It takes a pony who knows what to look for to recognize a geode and, well, if there are those who don’t know how wonderful you are, it simply means they haven’t figured out that they need to look beyond your exterior to see the beauty within. The ponies who don’t understand what makes you special are the ones waiting to see the magic…The ones who don’t know about your hidden sparkle.”
Gusty leaned into the touch, letting her eyes fall shut again. Her muzzle was damp with tears and she didn’t have the energy to do much beyond lean against her father, but she felt infinitely better.
For a moment, she was quiet, letting herself just experience the warm solidity of her father’s presence. Then she looked up, meeting his gaze once more, some of the old light shining in her eyes once again.
And she smiled.
“Thanks, Dad.”