Chapter 10: Day 10
Day 10
This being the record of the events in Ponyville on my tenth day here, but recorded on the eleventh.
I rose early, but even so, missed Ditzy. She must have really been moving. As I watched the sun rise, I heard another door open and shut. I trotted around the corner of the house and found Lyra sitting in a rather awkward position, watching the sunrise as well. A steaming cup of coffee sat by her side.
“I didn’t take you for an early bird,” I said, sitting in a more typical posture next to her.
“Me? No, Bonbon’s just a sleepaholic, that’s all.”
We watched the sun in silence as it crept over the horizon. Minutes passed.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I felt it was probably best to start prefacing my conversations until I get a better idea of what’s... normal.
“Of course,” she answered nonchalantly, taking a sip of her coffee.
“How long have you and Bonbon been an item?”
“Hmm,” she said as she thought, tapping her chin. “Two years for sure, probably three, maybe four coming up.”
That was longer than I expected. “Four years with no bumps?”
Lyra seemed to find that amusing. “It has its ups and downs just like every other relationship.”
“Huh.” I looked back at the sunrise.
After a moment, she said, “There’s something else you want to know, isn’t there?”
“Um, maybe?”
“Don’t be shy. Ask!”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Spit it out already.”
“Fine,” I huffed. “When... when did you know you were into mares?”
She laughed. “I knew it. Anyway... um, not until I met Bonbon. Before her, well, I’d bedded a few colts.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Nothing serious or long-term, but yes.”
“So... not born a fillyfooler?”
“Nope. Myth.”
There was a pause, then, “How did we get on this subject?”
Lyra smiled. “You tell me, Doctor. Maybe I’m mentally ill cause of my bedroom preferences?”
“Nope. Myth.”
“Oh. Nice to know that the psychological community doesn’t see us as freaks.”
“Welllll, I wouldn’t say that, necessarily.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
After a moment, “I guess I just always attributed it to bad experiences with the opposite sex in the past.”
“I guess that might be the case for some ponies, but I chose Bonbon because of who she is. Not what she is. Heck, why am I telling you this? You know better than anypony that the personality is what makes or breaks a pony. And I’m guessing you know that from a professional and personal standpoint.”
“Yeah, hopefully.” Question is, what if your personality is broken?
By now the sun was well beyond the horizon. “I suppose, it’s time to start a new day.”
“Yes,” I agreed, standing up. “...and Lyra?”
She tilted her head.
“Thanks for sharing.”
She smiled back. “Just make use of what you learn. Catch you later.”
I made a quick stop by my house before continuing with my day. With today’s issue of Equestria Daily and a notebook in my saddlebags, I trotted toward a certain tree house. Learning all this emotional crap is great and all, but the Princess is still wanting her report.
When I knocked on the library’s door, a short little purple and green dragon answered. Spike, if my information from Celestia was to be trusted. I decided the best way to go was to play it cool and informal.
“Hi Spike,” I said, as though he was somebody I saw every day. I brushed past him. “I’ll be in the library if you need me.”
I left him standing by the open door, blinking.
Upon entering the library part of the... library, I found Twilight pouring herself into some star charts. I quietly found a cushion in the corner and unfolded my paper, keeping an eye on her.
It must have been a full fifteen minutes before she noticed me. Needless to say she was startled, and perhaps slightly irritated upon finding out that I had been there.
“W-whooves! What are you doing here?”
I looked down at my paper, and then back at her. “Is that some kind of trick question?”
“I mean, what are you doing here?” she repeated, with extra emphasis this time.
“Oh. Umm...” My mind raced as I realized that reading the paper is not something that has to be done in the library. “I was looking for a book on...” Just pick a topic. Any topic. Quick! “...dating.”
We both stared at each other for two full seconds.
“For a friend,” I added, plastering a smile on my face. It’s true if you think about it.
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m not sure how much you’re going to find on that subject in this type of library,” she said, “but anything we have would be over there.”
She was right. The particular shelf she pointed at had a lot of other unrelated stuff on it in addition to the few volumes there were on the scientific side of romance.
“Let me know if you want help finding anything else,” Twilight said, scooping up her astronomy-related work in a veil of magic and heading up the stairs.
Well, there went my chance at observation.
My attention returned to the shelf. I scanned over the seeming unrelated titles like Quality Time with Foals, The Egghead’s Guide to Not Looking Like an Egghead (which had a lot of bookmarks in it), The Mare’s Roadmap to finding... other mares?! (I almost picked this one up out of curiosity, but decided against it), before my eye caught on something which, though I hate to admit, seemed pretty relevant to me. The Operation Manual of Friendship: The Social Delinquent’s Edition.
I looked both ways before sneaking it behind my paper and starting it.
This took up most of the rest of the morning, so for the sake of completeness, I’ll include the opening paragraph or two.
Dear Reader,
If you are, in fact, reading this (which you are), then you’ve already made it past the first step; denial. If you are reading this to try and help a friend, continue reading this chapter, but if not, skip to Chapter 2.
*flip flip flip*
Chapter 2.
Here’s something you have to realize about other ponies. They have brains, just like you, and they think and form opinions, just like you. Here’s where it gets tricky. Those opinions are always different than yours. At this point, you need to accept that it’s okay for that to happen. Friendship doesn’t exist because of conformity of opinion; it exists in spite of it-
Okay, kinda cool but still abstract and dry. *flip flip flip*
-which resulted in multiple fractures to the core. The following instability produced an unconscious tension and gradual non-linear drifting in the relationship.
Whatever. You don’t want to hear about that though. Moving on.
I left for Sugarcube Corner to requisition some edibles. Mrs. Cake was at the counter, doing some accounting. I didn’t know bakeries did that. Good for the Cakes.
“No Pinkie today?” I asked.
“She left with a big load of cupcakes, saying something about a party a few minutes ago.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I’m sure you can help me...”
“Lunch?”
“Yeah. That is, if you have something besides cake and pie.”
“O’course. Don’t be silly, we’re a bakery. Particularly wide selection in the bread area.”
Minutes later, I was about to bite down on a fresh, delicious-looking daisy sandwich, when the door (and corresponding bell ring) opened.
“Mrs. Cake? You know where...” Rainbow let her question drift off as she noticed me. I stopped mid-bite as I noticed the orange filly standing next to her.
“You again.” stated Scootaloo flatly.
“Hi?” I said, with a raised pitch at the end, more characteristic of a question.
“Let’s find somewhere else,” she muttered to Rainbow and started to turn around. Rainbow hesitated, looking at me and blinking as if to say, Do something already.
“Hey Scootaloo, won’t you at least hear me out? Over lunch?”
She looked at me for a second. “Look, I’m the last one to get emotional and gooey and start singing and that junk, but I’m practically a fountain of feelings compared to you.”
“Odd... both of your friends saw reason and put it in the past already. And yet you’re the emotionally detached one, eh?”
Rainbow facehooved silently. I ignored her; in reality I suspected I was dealing with a less matured version of something that Rainbow Dash herself would be susceptible to. Just a hunch at this point though.
“But... that’s not, er... ugh!” stuttered Scootaloo. “They just... listened to your smooth talk, that’s all. Yeah, that’s it.”
“By smooth talk, you mean apology?”
“Wha-? Well, I don’t seem to remember any apology given to me.”
“That’s because the one I offered, you turned down.”
Scootaloo gaped for a moment, her argument falling to pieces before her. “I... I...”
“Look, Scoots, Equestria if full of ponies that don’t know you, and if they don’t know you exist they can’t very well care about your cutie mark, can they? It’s okay for people not to care. In fact, it’s okay for people to dislike something you like or like something you dislike.” I looked up at Rainbow. “You don’t have to impress anypony.”
She found a sudden interest in her own hooves. Scootaloo was looking close to tears. “B-but, what will everypony think of me?”
Alright, it was time to switch to positive encouragement.
“Ask yourself this: ‘why do I care what they think?’ And if you’re worried about your friends still liking you, remember that real friends don’t care if you let your mane down.” I took a breath. “Someday, you will get your cutie mark, and when you meet somepony, they’re going to make assumptions about you based on that. Don’t ever do this. I know somepony with an identical cutie mark as me, and neither of our talents are something you could guess.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah, really.”
We had lunch together. Scootaloo’s quite the little talker once she gets going. I got to hear 28 different ways not to get a cutie mark. Rainbow looked bored out of her skull. I eventually alleviated her pain by excusing myself, heading on my merry way.
Lunch took longer than I thought. I headed straight home; the party started at seven and I still had some reading I wanted to catch up on in some academic journals. The time ticked by agonizingly slowly. Finally, it was time to get ready; first I was going to stop by Lyra and Bonbon’s for some ‘real’ food (Pinkie tends to go a little heavy on the sugar side).
I retrieved my merchandise from Rarity’s, spending a good eleven minutes trying to tie it with my hooves. And that’s a fast time. I looked in the mirror. Hmm, the tie is nice and flashy, but it needs a little something to go with it...
“Aha!” I went and dug through some closets and boxes until I pulled out the ‘summer’ tote. Dusting off some shades, I returned to the mirror and added them to my outfit.
Oh yeah. I was cool. Maybe I should take a picture and send it to Princess Luna.
I trotted over to the next house and rapped on the door. The sound of steps preceded the door opening, which revealed Lyra. She stared for a moment, before collapsing on the floor in laughter.
“Problem?” I asked, walking past her.
She snickered. “I think my parents used to dress like that, back before I was born.”
I popped my shades up. “For real?”
“Where have you been? Under a rock?” She rolled her eyes. “The fashion of those decades is what defined them.”
“Yeah, well, these things come in cycles,” I said, sounding more confident than I was.
Lyra shrugged. “Maybe in back-alley Canterlot.”
I was about to protest the prospect of ‘back alley’ fashion and explain that the top-hat, high-society styles that ponies usually associate with Canterlot really only represent a small portion of the elite aristocrats, when Bonbon put her head in from the kitchen.
“What’s taking so- Oh... my.”
“Is it really that bad?” I asked, exasperated.
“Bad? No, just... I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t know the party was a costume party.”
Lyra smirked. I blinked.
“Well, whatever the case may be, I’ll find out tonight.” Something occurred to me. “Uh, you know it’s open house, right? You two could-”
“No, but thanks for the offer. We have... plans tonight.”
“Oh?” I said, sitting down at my usual place at the table. Seemed as good a casual conversation starter as any. “What’s going on?”
“Well...” Bonbon looked at Lyra.
Lyra picked up the conversation. “Bonbon couldn’t wait to try out some of our new equipment, so we set up a preview for Thursday.”
Bonbon blushed and facehooved at the same time. “Could you at least pretend to be mature and keep a civil tongue in your mouth at the dinner table?”
“As I recall, you prefer something like the opposite of ‘civil’ when we... operate the machinery.”
Bonbon buried her head under her hooves in embarrassment. “...I cannot believe you just said that...”
Well, well, well. Dinner and a show.
Neither of the two had eaten more than a bite during their little episode, so I scraped the last of my plate up and carried my dishes to the sink. Still time for them to have a romantic dinner, perhaps.
I bade them farewell and started out at a brisk pace for Ditzy’s.
*Thump thump thump*
I repeated my knock and shuffled my hooves, waiting. After a pause, a hurried, unsteady gate announced the arrival of a certain pegasus. The door whipped open, Ditzy staggering back. “I’m here! I’m ready. I didn’t fall asleep!”
“Uh, Ditzy...”
Her eyes were crossed worse than usual, her hair was matted, and there were dark spots under her eyes. “What have you been-”
Then it hit me. Ditzy had been so early this morning; she must have been working her flank off all day to finish work in time. And I had pretty much sat around on my haunches all day. I could have at least helped with the ground deliveries.
I wished to any stars that happened to be falling at the moment for just one day without being on the outs with somepony or making a foal of myself.
“Wow,” commented Ditzy, having managed to focus her eyes on me after the third try. “That’s... quite the tie.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Listen...” Better now than later. “I was kind of a jerk about the whole party thing; making you work overtime just to come to something that was my idea. I can see you’re dog-tired, so believe me when I say I think you should make the call. We can stay in, read a book or something if you’d rather-”
“Shush, my little stallion,” she said, putting a hoof over my muzzle. “Yes, maybe you should use your brain a little more when planning, but this was my decision. And I think I still have the energy for a dance or two.”
Dance. Huh. I had had formal lessons in the past, but only for ballroom stuff and the square waltz. Somehow I didn’t think that was the type of dancing that was going to be going on.
“So, um...” Ditzy muttered, looking at her mane.
“We’re not in a hurry,” I offered.
Ditzy retreated into her room and returned in a minute, mane in place, face washed with cold water... and also wearing striped socks.
She sat and smiled. “Well?”
“You...” I drew a blank on words, even though I knew exactly what I thought she was. “...Have a sock fetish,” I ended lamely.
“You... have a tie fetish.”
Well, as long as we both got the idea, right?
“I dunno, I think I may be coming over to your side,” I joked.
She giggled. Girly, maybe, but freakishly cute.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
With that, we exited the house and I led the way to Colgate’s.
I knew from the address that Colgate lived in an apartment, but in the strictest sense, the party was in her apartment. The entire square in front of the building had lights strung about it, speakers in the corners, and was filling rapidly with ponies, the occasional equine flexing a glow-ring and sliding it on a foreleg.
By that time the sun was sinking below the horizon, the dusk forcing me to pop my shades up again.
“That’s... a lot of ponies,” noted Ditzy.
“Yeah... I’m guessing the al fresco design was by necessity.”
“So, um...”
“Maybe we should mingle a bit?”
“Okay.”
“See you-” Gulp. “-on the dance floor.”
I split off into the crowd, not waiting for a reply. Don’t panic. I happened to drift by a folding table covered end to end with sweets, where I noticed Pinkie exercising her tongue. She saw me, too.
“Mphgilcra ghcre dndf!”
“What?”
She swallowed. “Hi Whooves! Why are you wearing a rainbow-colored tie?”
Well, at least she came out and said it. I chose to ignore it.
“Hi Pinkie.” I looked around. “Isn’t Sapphire Shores supposed to be here?”
“Oh she was.”
“‘Was’? as in ‘was but isn’t currently’?”
Pinkie bobbed her head. “Yeah, she left in a bad mood when Vinyl showed up.”
“Vinyl?”
“Yep, Vinyl Scratch. Y’know, the mare doing the music?”
I stopped. Is she talking about-
“Yo, Pinkie, where’d you put that extra cable? Tunes in five!”
DJ Pon3.
“Cable? I don’t have any extra, silly. We had a lot of extra string for the decorations though.”
“Wha-?” The pale unicorn stood up on a chair and looked at the ‘string.’ “Aw hay. Really, Pinkie?”
“Nope! It’s fake. Wait, what are we talking about?”
The unicorn rolled her eyes and gave the line a telekinetic yank. Suddenly there was about 50 less streamers in the air and 50 more tangled among the crowd of the ponies.
“...Oops.”
“Hey! It wasn’t time for confetti yet!”
I shook one of the paper strips out of my mane and helped the musical pony out of the wreckage, coiling up the cable. Resettling her shades on her forehead above her ruby eyes, she stood up.
“Hey, thanks bro- Wow, that’s...” She scratched her head. “...Quite the accessory. A real blast.”
From the past, the little pony in my head finished. That’s it. “You really like it?”
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
I loosened it as best I could, slipping it off and tossing it over her horn. “It’s yours.”
I turned and trotted back into the crowd. I had a pony to find.
I found Ditzy outnumbered three to one in a conversation with a few other mares. And if first guesses mean anything, they were a bit stuck-up by the looks of things.
“Excuse me,” I intervened, taking Ditzy by the hoof and guiding her away. The three mares mouths’ hung open slightly as they gaped after us. I looked at Ditzy, who was staring at the ground.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what?” I thought I knew, but it was better if she said it.
“For... coming along when you did.”
“Don’t mind them. Cheer up! You’re about to see something very hilarious.”
She looked up at me, questioningly. The large speakers about the square crackled to life. I chucked my useless glasses on a nearby table, glancing at the turntables, where Vinyl took her place in the spotlight, shades down (and horn absent of ties).
“Shall we?” I asked, offering my hooves in a traditional dance stance.
“Are you sure that’s-”
“Not in the slightest.”
She reluctantly matched the position. The music started, an edgy synthesizer fading in with a distinct pattern. Not ideal, but I think I can pull a square waltz out of that...
And then came the earthquake.
Actually, technically it was the vibrations from the bass in the track produced by what must have been a half-dozen subwoofers. But it might as well have been an earthquake. Additionally, all the ponies around us seemed to take that as their cue, starting what they call... dancing, I guess. I’m not sure why they classify it as that; it felt more like being in a blender.
I tried to focus on the ‘music.’ It has rhythm and beat, just count it.
“Um, follow my lead, okay? One, two... eh, let’s try that again. One, two, three. One-”
I smashed into the back of somepony, knocking me off my rear hooves. Luckily, Ditzy managed to keep hold of me and tried to counteract my fall with a beat from her wings. She overcompensated however, forcing us together, our muzzles inches away from the other’s. I blinked. She cocked her head for a moment, before comprehension came to her, causing her eyes to snap open. She stepped back, and after realizing her wings were still unfurled, closed them too.
“Maybe... we should get off the dance floor,” I managed to communicate over the throbbing techno beats.
Ditzy followed as I forced my way between ponies back to the dessert table (or one of them). I sat stiffly in a folding chair, watching the crowd and the sweets–and pretty much anything not in Ditzy’s direction, who had sat down next to me. I fiddled awkwardly with my hooves. What happened out there? Did she pull back because she didn’t want it? Or because she thought I didn’t want it? Sweet Celestia, I’m thinking like a mare now. Minutes passed.
I felt a touch on my shoulder. “Look, Ditzy...” I started, turning towards her only to find...
Oh.
She had fallen asleep, and was now leaning against me, breathing audibly.
“Let’s get you home.”
I nudged her awake and helped her to her hooves. At first, as we made our way back to her house, she tried to focus and keep steady. Soon however, the lights and sounds of the party fading behind us, she began to stumble and nod off. I found myself serving as a mobile support for most of the slow trip back.
“Easy, easy, woah, easy...” I said in hushed tones as I eased her onto her bed. I stepped back as she rolled in half-consciousness onto her back and tried to lift her head. This was getting just a little too awkward.
Ditzy managed to bend her head far enough to snag the tip of a sock with her teeth, whereupon she gave it a yank to the side, pulling it half off.
Oh, right.
I carefully caught the end of a rear sock and started pulling it off, when there was the squeak of a floorboard from the doorway. I froze and Ditzy rolled her head to the side.
“Hi Dinky!” she said cheerfully.
“Uh, Mom? Whooves? What are you doing?”
For answer, I backed up more, taking the sock with me as it slid off Ditzy’s hoof. Ditzy gave her foreleg another shake, the loose part of the sock flapping like a flag in a breeze.
Dinky laughed, something I wasn’t expecting–but was glad–to hear. “Oh, Mom.”
She took a leap into the bed and embraced her mother, settling in next to her in the middle of the bed after a moment. I stood still as a stone statue, watching.
Ditzy’s eyes closed very soon. She’d been in a daze for most of the night and desperately needed some well-deserved sleep. I started to move toward the door when Dinky’s voice stopped me at the threshold.
“Whooves, could you tell me a story?”
Truth be told, I don’t know any. But I knew I could think on my hooves relatively well. How hard could it be, really?
I moved over to the edge of the bed and sat. “Sure, as long as you don’t mind something original... and perhaps bland.”
“That’s the-” She yawned “-best kind.”
“Hmm, okay,” I mused. “Once upon a time...” Think think think think. Timber wolves? Too frightening. Humans? I’d have to explain what those are. Knight in shining armor? Too stereotypical...
I smiled. I was overthinking it.
“Once upon a time, there was a colt. This colt grew up in a city of cold stone until he was a stallion. One day, the Princess of the land came to this stallion and gave him a top secret mission. He traveled through rain, snow, dark of night, and many dangerous perils of the road. When he arrived at his destination, he was a hardened shell of his former self; he had locked away his love and empathy to keep it from being taken and not reciprocated-”
“What ‘reciprocated’?”
“Reciprocate means... to return a favor. Give an equivalent back.”
“Oh...”
I slid under a blanket and continued. “And there, he met a mare who had been through an equally harrowing life. But she continued to feel. She reminded him that there’s still ponies out there worth caring about...”
I looked at Ditzy.
“...She is a pony worth caring about.”
I gazed for another moment, before snapping my attention to Dinky, who had fallen asleep ten seconds ago.
See? Bland. But probably just as well nobody heard that.
I went to leave, but found that Dinky was sleeping on the other half of the blanket I was under.
If I move slowly, I could probably... naw. I fluffed a pillow and settled in for the night.
And for the first time since I trotted into Ponyville, I felt satisfied that I was adding something instead of breaking it.
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Ug, writer's block is nasty. Have some illustrations and 4k of story to make up for the long wait period.
Worth the wait. I really love the Dr Whooves/Ditzy stories. They're almost my OTP these days. Bood chapter
d'awww
Ah, worth the wait, as always.
good story, i look forward to more updates
Loving it so far.
Oh sweet Celestia, I love this story! Can't wait for the next chapter!
264530 by the time I saw the update and read this, a new chapter appeared...WHY U TAUNT ME?!?!
No comma.
D'awww at the end.
664678 Actually, there is meant to be a comma.
This is a really good story!