Compersion

by Etolia

7. Restitution

Viola stood in the doorway, mouth agape, staring at the once modest but tidy kitchen. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes that formed a precarious tower and flooded out onto the countertops. Every flat surface seemed to have a light dusting of flour, including the floor. A variety of scents hit Viola's nose at once, only a few of which were pleasant. As Viola took in the scene, she squinted at the ceiling where there appeared to be some splatters of icing.

Underneath the splatter stood Buffy, her back to Viola, running a mixer without a top and thereby letting batter spray across the counter. So as to avoid getting splattered with goop herself, she stayed in the doorway until Buffy turned off the mixer. And once she did . . .

"Ahem."

Buffy turned around and froze, staring at Viola for a moment, flour in her fur and drops of batter splattered across her face, withers, and even her hindquarters. On her part, Viola had an inscrutable look on her face, observing ground zero without even hinting a grin or a frown.

"Viola!" Buffy exclaimed.

"I came to retrieve my violin," Viola said simply, though she didn't look at said instrument's case propped against a chair (which was also decorated with batter polka dots). She kept her eyes trained on Buffy and the kitchen instead. Still, she did not react, nor did she move.

"I know," Buffy responded. "I mean, I knew you'd want to come get it, but now that you're here . . ." Buffy paused, an unsure and nervous look on her face. "I-I made something for you! Well, a few somethings, really. Hold on." Buffy threw open the refrigerator door and started pulling out various items.

I wanted to make you a cake, to show you how sorry I am, and how important you are to me and how much I really do love you, but then I wasn't sure what kind you'd like best so I made a bunch of them."

Buffy shoved dishes out of the way to make way for her cakes, starting with a carrot cake, a haphazardly scribbled and poorly-spelled "Im sory" written in icing on the top. Following that was a strawberry cake, though a "strawberry-colored mound of sponge with icing" might have been a more apt descriptor. Then came a tray of cupcakes topped with berries, each one a different shape and size. Then finally came a layered chocolate cake, this one so poorly constructed that it had already fallen over sideways and leaked brown frosting everywhere.

Viola's face only remained stoic for a moment. As Buffy kept on retrieving more and more and more things which could only nominally be called "pastries," her eyes widened and her jaw dropped ever so slightly. By the time Buffy was finished, Viola's face was one of agape disbelief.

It took her several moments to come to her senses and say something, but even then, she managed only one word.

"What."

"I love you Viola! I made these for you to show you that I love you, and also kinda to distract myself from worrying about whether I'd ever see you again, but mostly to show you that I love y—no!"

Buffy scrambled to the side of the chocolate cake as it crumbled apart, finally broken by the jostling that occurred when it was taken out of the fridge. Bits of cake fell to the floor, but most of it was caught in Buffy's outstretched forelegs, covering her entire front with thick brown chocolate frosting. She stared down at the mess of cake with a look of horror as tears began welling in her eyes.

Viola's eyes flicked between the destroyed chocolate cake, the rest of the pathetic piles, and the pile of pony in front of her. Finally, she reacted. She slowly closed her mouth and shook her head. She closed her eyes and said, "Buffy."

"Y-yes?"

"I have no idea what you've been doing or what is going on right now, but I will say nothing more to you until you—wait." Viola paused and sniffed the air. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open wide, and she dashed to the oven, taking care not to slip on the batter and frosting marking the floor. She threw open the oven, and from it issued billowing clouds of black smoke. Viola opened her wings and fanned the remnant of what was probably another cake.

Once it (whatever "it" was) stopped smoking, she turned off the oven and turned around, her face now marred with a bit more annoyance than before. "As I was saying, I will say nothing more to you until you clean yourself up while I take care of this enormous mess you've made of your kitchen."

Buffy's breath hitched in her chest as tears rolled down her face. Her wide eyes moved back and forth between Viola and the burnt cake.

"Oh, no you don't," Viola started, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Don't you dare start crying now. I am not about to sit on the floor with you surrounded by flour and frosting and smoke, getting chocolate cake and batter on myself while we talk. You can cry and talk and give me that sad and pleading look with your big adorable eyes later. We're cleaning this up now."

Buffy blinked a few times, then nodded and slowly picked herself up.

---

On both pony and countertop, batter proved to be a particularly stubborn stain, as it took hours for Viola and Buffy to clean up. But once they were done, they sat at the same table they did when they had their argument, Buffy's creations sitting between them.

"They're pretty bad, aren't they?" Buffy started, breaking the silence. "I thought that if I just kept trying, one would turn out okay. But you were right Viola; I can't cook at all, and I can't bake either."

Viola breathed in and exhaled slowly. She said nothing regarding Buffy's culinary ability; the plate with a slice of her cake on it with no more than a single bite out of it told the story well enough. She sighed again.

"Buffy, I . . . appreciate what you attempted to do, but I believe both of us know that the purpose of this reunion was not to discuss your inability to cook." Her eyes flicked to her violin, propped against her chair, and back again. "I have a violin to retrieve, so be direct. What is it?"

Buffy took a deep, shaky breath, and then another, and then another, before finally speaking. "I thought a lot about what you said, and I think I understand why you were so upset. You felt ignored, like I wasn't spending enough time with you, or giving you enough of my attention. You tried to tell me, but I didn't hear you. I wasn't listening, and I should have been." Buffy's eyes were flitting around the room, but they settled on Viola as she paused.

Tears started gathering in her eyes again as she continued. "I don't want to lose you, Viola. You are so, so important to me. You're just so fascinating and brilliant and sweet. Nopony could ever replace you!"

She sniffled once, and tears started to roll down her cheeks. "If . . . the way that I am, the fact that I'm polyamorous, means you don't want to be with me, I'll underst-stand—" her last word came out in a half-sob "—but I'll never replace you, not in a million years, because there's nopony in all of Equestria I could possibly replace you with!"

As Viola listened, she turned away and covered her face with a hoof. Even as she finished and Viola responded, she kept her face covered. "Buffy . . . When you did that to me, I tried to shut you out. I tried to take you out of my life and tell myself I didn't love you anymore. But . . ." Without another word, Viola opened her saddlebags with a wing and dug into them. She retrieved a pair of clip-on earrings: one a bass clef, the other, treble.

"I couldn't."

She deposited the earrings on the table but didn't uncover her face. "Everything I saw just told me I still loved you. Even after you stopped paying attention to me, stopped looking at me, even seemed to s-stop loving me . . . I couldn't take you out of my heart."

Viola lowered her head further. "You don't know how much it hurts, Buffy. To trust somepony unconditionally, to love them with all your heart, and to know that they love you back in the same way, yet they still hurt you. It's happened before to me." Viola's words grew shaky and intonated, much unlike the steady and neutral cadence she normally spoke with. "When somepony loves you but hurts you without meaning to, it just means they can hurt you again, again without meaning to, and you just can't trust them anymore."

Finally, Viola uncovered her face and looked straight at Buffy. Her eyes were full of misery both current and past, and evidence of that misery traced rivers of tears down her face. And her eyes boiled with threatening tears, some escaping through tear tracks established, others making their own. Her countenance was weak, but her words were fierce:

"You don't know how much it hurts."

Buffy shrank back from Viola's words, ears pinned against her head. It took her a minute to respond, as she sat in silence with her eyes cast down at the pitiful attempt at a cake between them. She took a deep breath and began, her words coming out slowly.

"Why? Why are you so . . . so . . . confusing!"

Buffy's eyes shot up. Her eyes displayed a spread of conflicted emotions, but foremost among them was a frustration and desperation.

"You make this big deal of showing that you still love me, and you pull out the earrings I gave you and everything, and then you talk like I'm some sort of monster that could snap at any moment, then you get all cryptic and say I don't know what it's like to have my trust broken like it's never happened to me."

Buffy's words grew louder the longer she spoke. "It's like you're always talking in riddles, and you get mad when I can't solve them! I only knew what you were saying during my date with Azura because you got mad. I can't keep guessing! Just for once, I wish you'd plainly say what's on your mind! If you need more from me, then just tell me what you need, and I'll do it!"

Viola averted her eyes again, looking down and to the side, though she didn't cover her face, letting her tears continue to fall. A long silence passed before she said a word.

She sighed. "You may be right. Perhaps this entire argument could have been avoided if I had just told you outright that I felt you were neglecting me the moment it happened. Maybe we could have simply communicated more, and all this could be avoided." Viola turned her head a bit and looked sidelong but straight on to Buffy. "I know that is my failing. I'm sorry, Buffy."

Viola turned her eyes down once again. "I'm just trying to say that it's not that easy. It sounds so simple that talking to one another more often will make everything okay, but . . ." She paused. Then, Viola wiped her face clean of tears with a hoof and looked straight to Buffy. "Let me make this as clear as I can. You hurt me, Buffy, and it still hurts now. And no easy solution is going to make it hurt less."

"I know, I know, but..." Buffy blinked back tears of her own. "You hurt me, too. All that stuff you said about polyamory . . . I know you were angry, and I don't want to believe you really meant it that way. But you really sounded like you hated me for being polyamorous, like because I'm this way, I can only be cruel and hurtful."

Buffy sniffled, rubbing her nose. "I may not know what it's like to go through . . . whatever it was that you went through when you were little. But you don't know what it's like to have somepony attack you because of a part of yourself you have no control over."

Buffy looked down, sinking into her chair like she was deflating. "I've met a lot of other ponies who would agree with what you said that day. Who think that I'm only selfish, and that I want to take advantage of others. That I can't love, because if I could, I would choose just one."

Buffy looked back up. "I can't . . . I just can't think that way! If you were to start dating somepony else, and they made you feel really happy and special and loved like I do, I would be so happy! I would be glad to see you even happier because somepony else came into your life. It's okay if ponies don't think the same way I do, but I hate that ponies keep breaking up with me and blame it on a part of who I am. Like I just chose to be polyamorous because I wanted to hurt them, like I should just keep being punished for not being made like they were!"

Buffy clenched her eyes shut, and her tears started to fall again. "I know that I hurt you. I was stupid, and I didn't pay attention to you when I should have. And I'm really, really sorry." She opened her eyes and tried to lift her gaze before dropping it back down. "If you don't think I can give you the attention you deserve, or if you think that being with me will just be too hard, I'll understand. Having you leave me because of that would hurt a lot less than having you leave because you think I'm some s-sick, selfish monster."

Viola clenched her eyes shut, forcing a few more tears from her eyes, and launched herself at Buffy to capture her in a hug. The first hug they had since she returned. "Oh, Buffy, you terrible fool! I never hated for a moment who you were, how you were made, or what you believed in. And I do not hate you for it. How could I possibly hate the fool who made cakes in apology for what she did? Or tried to, at least.

"It's that mistake you made that I hated, that made me feel worthless." Her next words were considerably weaker and preceded by a long pause. "Although, you say and I know that I played my own part in that mistake." Viola dug her muzzle into Buffy's shoulder, muffling her words. "You just have to forgive this broken mare for having trouble forgiving you."

Buffy removed her face from Viola's fur just long enough to respond. "Of course I forgive you! I could never stay mad at you, Vi. If I have trouble forgiving anypony, it'll be me for making you feel so terrible. I never want to make you feel that way again, never ever ever!"

Viola didn't bother lifting her head. "I love you, Buffy. And I know you're trying very hard. I want things to work between us tw-three." She paused. "I promise I will tell you the moment I start feeling jealous, or sad, or nervous, or hurt."

"I love you too, Viola. I want to know the second that you feel anything but happy with me, and I promise I'm going to listen better and not get carried away anymore."

Viola moved slowly, only turning her head a little to deliver a kiss to Buffy's cheek. "Don't make promises you can't keep. For both of our sakes," she whispered.

The two mares remained in each other's embrace for hours, doing nothing but whispering apologies and promises and meaningless words to each other. All the while, Buffy's cakes remained uneaten, and Viola's violin remained unretrieved.

As it would remain for a long time.