//------------------------------// // 5. Reproach // Story: Compersion // by Etolia //------------------------------// Buffy sat alone on a bench overlooking the Baltimare Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were still and quiet, and a pony could just sit and relax as she absorbed in the sights and sounds all around her. But whatever they were, Buffy did none of that. Not so long ago, she had excitedly brought Viola and Azura here to show them around. It was a good time. She didn't know why she found herself somewhere that smelled so strongly of her partners and held such fond romantic memories. Maybe, deep down, she just wanted to punish herself for hurting somepony she loved. As she sat staring into the distance through her tired, glistening eyes, she couldn't help but feel like it was something she deserved. How could she have let this happen? She had never seen Viola like that: so angry, so volatile, so . . . hurt. She was hurt, and Buffy was the one who hurt her. But why? What did she do to convince Viola that she was no longer loved or important or wanted, or even that she was being replaced? What was it she did or didn't do that made it seem like she didn't care? And what happened to Viola so long ago that was happening again because . . . because of her? It was just all so confusing. She didn't know so much, and it hurt that she didn't know so much and didn't know what it meant. Because Viola was hurt by it anyways. Tears welled in her eyes until they overflowed, streaking down her face and dripping onto the bricks below. She could hear noises all around her and feel the setting sun on her back and the breeze in her fur, but everything she sensed meant nothing. Her heart and mind were consumed by her own grief and the hitching in her chest and the damp streaks on her face. By the time any noise grew loud enough for Buffy to care about investigating it, its source was only a few feet away from her. She heard a voice, and she moved head towards the familiar voice slowly. As if she barely had the energy or willpower to move. "Buffy! I'm so glad I ran into you, I just got the best idea for this new short film and I wanted to run by—Buffy? Buffy!" Her sight, formerly obscured by tears, was then occluded by a haze of lime green. She felt hooves embrace her as Viridian hugged her. "Buffy, what's wrong? What happened?" she asked. Buffy could only find the means to hug back. It took her a long time before she found the means to speak. "I messed up, Viridian," Buffy croaked, her simultaneous sniffles making her words almost unintelligible. "Viola hates me. Sh-she thinks I want to leave her to be with Azura, and she thinks I like Azura more than her." Buffy sniffled a few more times and resisted the urge to start bawling. "I don't want to lose her; I don't want to lose anypony!" She lost the battle almost instantly and started crying loudly anyways, her torrents of tears watering the plants in the Garden. "Oh, I'm so sorry Buffy," Viridian said, patting her on the back. "I wish I knew what to say. I don't know what you're going through, but I guess it's really hard." She paused. "I guess I did watch this movie recently, where—wait, no. That was a love triangle." She stopped patting. "There was this other one though, and—no, that was a love triangle too. Hold on." Buffy's tears had not subsided in the least. "You know, I can't think of, well, any movie that features polyamory, actually." Viridian started patting and rubbing Buffy's back again. "Sorry, that doesn't help at all, does it?" It took Buffy several minutes to calm down enough to say anything at all in response. "No, it's okay," Buffy finally said. "I don't know if anypony can help me. Nopony knows how to do polyamory right. And if Viola was so hurt, maybe not even me." Buffy blew her nose into Viridian's chest. At least the snot would blend in. "Maybe I'm never going to be with somepony without hurting them or being left by them. Maybe nopony can be happy with a polyamorous mare." Buffy's voice got more and more despondent with every passing word. "Maybe I was just made wrong." "What? Buffy, you're being ridiculous!" Viridian shook her charge a little. Buffy looked up at Viridian, ears pinned back against her head. Viridian grimaced. "What I mean is, you're one of the nicest ponies I've ever met! You're sweet, and you love everypony! You want to make everypony happy! There's nothing wrong with that!" "But . . . but what if no one can ever love me the way I am?" Her breathing hitched again; she could feel the tears coming back. "Viola . . . Sh-she said that polyamory just means that you have more ponies competing for your time, that you're at the top, that you're the only one in the relationship who gets to be happy and get enough attention!" "Is that true?" Viridian asked. "No, of course not!" Buffy squealed, shaking her head vehemently, moving more than she had for hours. "That's not it at all! I don't want to just take love and attention; I'm polyamorous because I want to give love and attention to as many ponies as I can! There's just so many amazing and wonderful ponies out there who deserved to be loved, and if I only dated one of them, I wouldn't get to know so many others, and they'd all be left out! I want to be able to make everypony I date feel happy and special and wonderful, but just because I want to do that for more than one pony doesn't mean I want anypony to be any less happy or feel any less special!" Viridian blinked a few times, head blown back and ears pinned down by the volume of Buffy's sudden outburst. Buffy thought about the words that just came pouring out of her mouth so easily and yet so emotionally. It was a protest, a plea against a mass of ponies who not only disagreed with her ideas, but disagreed with Buffy the pony. A familiar voice echoed in her ears. "So that's what it means to be a polyamorous relationship? Me constantly needing to compete for your love against somepony else you call a 'partner'? Isn't that a good arrangement for you, being at the top of the food chain." But along with hers came so many others, some from times long gone, others from times recent. They were the voices she hated to hear, but they were the ones that followed her wherever she went, as long as she was who she was. Buffy shook her head incessantly as those other ethereal voices joined Viola's in a mob of hate. "That's disgusting! Why don't you learn to respect yourself?" "If that's how you feel, you must have never actually loved anypony." "Is that the new word for skank or something?" Her breathing quickened. Was this how Viola really felt? Did she ever really accept her for who she was? The mob that taunted her wore many different faces. She hoped to Dear Celestia that Viola wasn't among them. "NO!" she screamed, eyes glassy with tears and terrible visions, though whether they were real or fictional, she couldn't tell anymore. "Buffy!" Viridian cried as she redoubled her hug. "Nopony hurts you; nopony hates you!" she said frantically. Buffy stared into the distance while Viridian hugged her. The anger she saw in Viola's eyes was unmistakable, and in those eyes, she saw herself. What did Viola see her as? "No . . ." she began in a shaky voice, one that threatened to break at any moment. "Viola wouldn't hate me for being the way that I was made. She wouldn't. She couldn't." More tears fell from Buffy's glassy eyes as she saw her reflection and struggled to identify it. "But then, why would she say those things about me? Why is she so mad at me? Why does she think I don't care about her, and that I just want to be with Azura all the time?" Viridian started to say something, but she didn't hear it. "It's not like I don't spend time with Viola or anything. I mean, I guess I've been spending more time with Azura lately, but that's only because I just want to get to know her better. It's just exciting getting to know another pony when you're just starting to date them, and wouldn't Viola know that? Wouldn't she remember how excited I was to get to know her? I spent all the time in the world just trying to get her to smile." Oh, how she missed that smile so much. It seemed a thousand miles away, now. "I mean, sure I wasn't dating anypony else when I started dating Viola, so I guess that part's a little bit different. And I guess this is the first time I've actually met somepony so interesting like Azura that I want to spend all the time in the world to get to know them, too." More of Viola's words echoed in Buffy's ears, as if she were saying them right next to her. Well, tell me why I can't even enjoy time with you anymore for fear that Azura will take all of that away. Why I've spent evenings alone in your home with nothing but my violin to keep me company while you were off gallivanting without a care. "But I do love spending time with both of you!" Buffy responded to the voice. "I love having all of us spend time together because I love being around you two so much. Being around both of you at once is even better!" "So that's who it's all about, Azura here, Azura there. "Every single time you talk about her, you have to go on and on and on about just how much fun you have with her, and how much you like her. That's all you have to say now!" "Is... is that really all that's wrong? That Viola felt like I wasn't spending enough time with her or paying enough attention to her? Why wouldn't she say so?" For the first time in a long while, Buffy turned to Viridian for an answer. She had her mouth gaped open. "Of course you're right, Viridian," Buffy responded. "Viola just doesn't talk very much. She doesn't come right out and say what she wants, or even what she needs." Buffy no longer heard Viola's words in her head. Instead, it was filled with the sounds of music. That sad, angry dirge she was playing the first time they met. She never said a word, and yet Buffy mostly knew what she was saying. A way of communicating that she should have learned better by now. "Man, you hear that sick tune? Didn't know the Magnolia played such crazy violin music!" "I know, it sounds so cool and fierce and angry!" Buffy tried bobbing her head to the music but couldn't keep up with the frenetic pace. "I didn't even know you could make that many sounds from a violin! Doesn't sound like it's coming from the Magnolia, though." She pointed generally away from the restaurant in the opposite direction. In fact, it seemed like she was pointing straight at her— "I dunno either, but if I can find whoever's playing it, that is definitely someone I'd want to showcase in my radio show. Actually, lemme tell you a little more about it . . ." Viola's angry eyes stayed clear in her eyes, and she saw her reflection. And what she saw was a mare who had been talked to, pleaded to for a long time. But she didn't listen. "I need to talk to her. I need to let her know that I care. If she just wants more time with me, I can do that! I-I want to spend time with her and make her feel special because she's that special to me! I need to fix it . . ." All of a sudden, Buffy sat up stock-straight. "What if she's gone? What if she already went back to Canterlot? I need to get back home; I need to talk to her!" She wiped the remaining tears from her eyes with a foreleg before throwing both forelegs around Viridian and nuzzling her damp face into her friend's mane. "Thank you so much, Viridian! You helped so much, and I don't know how I'll ever repay you! I have to find her, but we'll talk soon, okay?" And without another second to wait, Buffy was off, bolting towards her apartment as fast as her legs could take her. Viridian looked at the dust raised from the path as a pony galloped down it as fast as she could. She had a confused look on her face and an even more confused head. It took her a long time to come to her senses and say something to Buffy. Well, her hoofprints, at least. "B-but I didn't do anything!" Buffy trotted up the stairs to her apartment door, sweat dripping down her face, mingling with her tear stains to create an altogether less than attractive appearance. How she looked didn't matter, though; all that mattered to her was Viola. She threw the door open and rushed inside. Immediately, her heart sank. Viola wasn't there. Naturally, she could only see the living room and the kitchen from the door, but she knew. She checked the other rooms, though, out of a desperate hope that she was wrong and Viola was hiding in a cookie jar or something. Nothing. Viola had left. Maybe forever. Buffy dropped herself into a chair, folding over and burying her face in her lap. She didn't know what to do now. Viola probably went back to Canterlot, but she couldn't look all over the city for her. And that was on the assumption that she'd want to see her at all. She shifted so that she was laying with her hindlegs over one armrest, facing the chair where Viola had been sitting earlier that day. Her teacup was still there, almost full, a few inches away from the saucer. Viola's favorite pillow was there too, pressed against the back of the chair. Even her violin was there, propped up against the side of the chair, completing a scene so quintessentially Viola. All that was missing was the mare herself. Seeing the incomplete scene brought tears to her eyes all over again. "Wait . . ." Buffy abruptly sat up, hindlegs still hanging over the armrest, staring at Viola's violin. Her most prized possession. Something she would never just leave somewhere unless she had to leave in a hurry. Something she had to come back for. Viola was going to come back. Buffy smiled again. She knew her marefriend would come back. She just had to wait. Waiting, however, did not come naturally to Buffy. If that was what she had to do, she figured it would be best to find something to do while she waited. Perhaps she could do something nice for Viola, like make her a present? Oh, a present sounded like a great idea! Everypony likes presents, and it would show Viola how much Buffy cared about her for sure! But, what could she make?