At the home of Matilda and Cranky
“What’s wrong Doodle?”
“Nothing”
“Now that’s not true. You’ve been thinking too much lately. You didn’t stand next to me at Mayor Mare’s song feast today. Big Mac really sang well, and Rarity added some nice melody.”
“I’m just pondering something”
“See, you’ve been thinking too much. Why not share it with me?”
“I don’t think you will want to hear it”
“Doodle, I love you, but you’ve got a rough side, and sometimes you say things that are short and tack less, but I know you are not trying to hurt me, so please tell me what are you thinking about”
“I’ve been thinking about us. I went down to city hall to find out about getting hitched”
“Oh, Doodle, yes, that would be wonderful”
“I found out something else, too, something that hurt me. When were you going to tell me?”
“I didn’t see the need, Doodle. It was so long ago. But I guess you deserve to know. After our time together in Canterlot, I was on my way back to the old homestead when I got abducted by Buffaloes. They intended to feed me as a sacrifice to their white bear god of the north. But a moose talked them out of it and bought me as a slave.”
“And then you married him?”
“It wasn’t like that, Doodle. I worked as cook and laundry servant in the Moose’s logging camp. One day, Moose (as I called him) went out to do some logging and well, he just didn’t come back. I took his name when I came here to Ponyville to sound a little bit more respectable. Those were very hard times for a single filly. Being a widow gave me an edge.”
“Well, thank you for sharing, Mrs. Matilda Moose”
“Doodle, I do love you, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to go through with…
“Of course, I still want to get hitched. I just wanted you to tell me about the skeletons in your closet”
“Oh, like you don’t have skeletons”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it”
“Don’t kid me. What were you, some type of secret agent or something? Working covertly for Princess Celestia?”
“Well, yes”
“WAH, WHAT!?”
“I was a member of the E&E. We were investigators who kept watch for potential threats to Equestria”
“So you meet with Princess Celestia?”
“Well, no, I work under the supervision of the 4 stars”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, it as a great way to travel around and look for you. The E&E were also looking for you, except they were not looking for a ‘Mrs. Moose’.”
“Was it dangerous work?”
“Sometimes, but mostly I spent a lot of time just watching for stuff”
“What kind of stuff?”
“That’s classified, but stuff like the return of the Crystal Empire”
“You were involved with the Crystal Empire?”
“No, I retired before ‘It’ returned”
“’It’?”
“That was our special name for it. There was an ancient spell cast long ago, by King Sombra that was slowly destroying the memory of any pony who mentioned the Crystal Empire.”
“Do you miss those days of excitement? Is that what you’re pondering? Or are you still upset about Moose?”
“No, I understand that, it’s just that with all we’ve been through, what has it all come down too. We are not young anymore. We will fade away from this world soon. I just wish we could have left something behind.”
“You mean like children?”
“Yes, children and grandchildren”