Quill Scratchings On Nothing In Particular/ Love:0 Life:0
From since I was a little Pie bouncing in Ma Pie's favorite rocking chair and shooting the breeze with my sisters, I thought I knew everything about life.
Well, actually love. I thought I knew everything about love.
How could I know everything about life which can be anything from eating your first slice of cake to stuttering while on stage, the crowd cracking up at every silly word that comes from your flapping maw? Judging you until your knees rock, your body shakes and you kneel over as the ponies stomp in laughter!
Mmh, I knew about those things too.
Couldn't help with everyone I knew taking the fun out of discovering new things. It took a couple of years before I got anything new to touch and hold and own only for me. Years. Do you know what that does to a pony? Do you?
I was the runt of the family.
The filly that should've been a colt.
The foal that shouldn't have appeared so unexpectedly when a long storm rolled in over Rookwell and Mama had to give birth to me in the back of a carriage. In the middle of nowhere, Nowhere. Stranded with a wet and bloody baby who had trouble coughing and a heart that went a flutter as it stopped for ten whole seconds.
By all rights, I could've been sent to the next world by anything that was there. The folk Mama was riding with might've have not known how to deliver a baby. The woodwolves could've been bolder and attacked because of the smell of fresh blood. Mama might've not know how to resuscitate me and a whole lot of sad songs would have been for me. But I think it was love. Love is what kept me breathing, kept me squeezing and holding on until we made it to the hospital. Mama's love for me and my love for her.
You would think that there would more words for love. To show the slight differences... I mean, love is love is love. But the love I'm talking about takes so many difference shapes and ponies and dreams and hopes and good feelings and bad feelings and so much so, you can get it jumbled to the point your head could split open from all the confusion. I love my family and I loved my life in Rookwell but I didn't love or like what I got there.
As the runt, I was the one who got things falling apart at the stitches. Questions spoiled by everyone using their 'common sense'. “No, Pinkamena, you can't be filling the tub with milk and cereal because you don't like washing bowls. Tubs are for washing your behind, nothing else!” Most of the time, I wasn't entirely serious. Like um, forty percent not serious.
Lunch money snatched and weaseled by just about every foal bigger than me. It seems their 'common sense' told them that I was a changeling. But not those changelings with the black shells, fly wings and green magic. Err, changeling means something different around my neck of the dirt. It means that I'm a forever child and umm, I wouldn't live to see my next birthday. You know, mean stuff like that. They stopped it when my sisters started ruffing kids up and the teachers stepped in. And I loved my sisters for that but I didn't like how they talked down to me all the same.
Specially when I got old enough to know what “Pinkamena, can you count the plates and cups for me? Wait, you're done? Do it again.”, “Pinkamena, hold the dust pan for your sister. Try not to get in your eye.”, “Pinkamena, you can't be going out in the fields. Wait until you get a bit bigger. You can't be too much exerting.” really meant.
I guess it was their 'common sense' getting a hold of their lips. And I was the runt. Could never forget that. In nature, runts don't live very long. But I'm not a runt. My name isn't Changeling Diane Pie, 'Doomed to die before her such and so birthday'. It's Pinkamena and Pinkie for short and here's something to not forget, I'm also a pony.
And even though all that was true and I'm still kicking, 'common sense' still won. Even after I got my cutie mark. Even after I threw my first party. Even after I got my first work saddle and took to the fields like any old earth pony worth their salt.
Here are some simple idioms that you could hear for miles around Rookwell:
You can't out talk a unicorn.
You can't twist common sense.
You can't get into Canterlot if you ain't got a horn.
Those idioms are false. I made them false. If anyone thinks they're true, they just don't know about life. I mean, love. They don't know about love. But back about Rookwell and back about the farm and the fields and the farmhouse upon the hill. I was still the unexpected child more so that I was the runt, at least to when it came to the farmhouse. I got everything last, everything nobody wanted because it wasn't worth wanting.
Toys like the hole filled sock puppet, a sack of spoiled flour and a jam-jar vase. They weren't really toys but I played pretend really well... They were almost like friends. I had friends at school but they suffered from 'common sense' and you could only take so much at time. That's why you try to have more than one friend so none of the stuff they say gets too stuck in your head.
Fields like to the one to the south because the ground was too hard and tilted for anything to be planted. It rains in Rookwell and when it doesn't rain, it pours. You can't harvest anything but rocks but if you can't get littlest pebble in, there's nothing for you. The rain like rocks. Likes to pelt them, mold them and send them tumbling to a ravine when they're no good use to anybody. Specially the ravine that's at the back of the house. So many pebbles... So many tapping... Since rocks can't scream, they tap instead.
Rooms... Specially rooms. And here's when I talk about common sense again. Because common sense has layers like logic and the word 'supposedly'. I strongly dislike the word 'supposedly' because it was always implied when someone was talking about me. And let's not get into all the times when were talking at me, instead of to me.
Supposedly as the youngest child, I would eventually get the room entirely to me. Isn't that a stinky old fib? What if by the time I did get it, I didn't want any more? Did anyone think about that? Maybe I didn't want a room entirely too myself? Maybe I just wanted room? I wasn't even allowed to complain like Lime and Marble, shrieking in unison about wanting an attachment to the farmhouse. And as the runt, the baby, the youngest who inherits the world and wonder, I never got the room or room.
In the one and a half room that was ours, not mine or mine's, until Maud got old enough to be going through her puberty, I had to share. And by share, I had to tolerate what little space that I was allowed to have. See that word right there, 'space' but not 'room' or even 'elbow room'.
No, I couldn't move Lime's smelly paints and pints to cook in the attic.
They needed to breath on the first floor.
No, I couldn't move Marble's precious magazine collection to sit in the barn.
They could've yellowed in the outside air.
No, I couldn't move Maud's heavy books on rocktology to learn with the rocks.
The rocks might bury them.
If I didn't like it, I should've been born first. Talk about being unfair.
But if there was a thing I liked getting last and there was, they were stories. Everyone in the family loved telling stories. They'd pause, wind-up for real long retellings and even make funny voices to keep everyone in character. And they had too, we knew who they were talking about.
Papa loved to tell long tales about him setting up shop at the market and going to Yieldstone. Everyone around stopped when they were doing when Papa brought up Yieldstone. Who wouldn't? Yieldstone was the fanciest hamlet around. They weren't called a village or a town but a hamlet and when you looked on a official official map, the mapmakers thought Yieldstone was the only place worth visiting on how its name was printed in bold gold letters!
Even now when I talk about where I'm from, everybody thinks about Yieldstone, Yieldstone, Yieldstone. Even though Yieldstone is only a dispensary or whatever. They don't even have rock farms, being cradled in that valley where the thing they could do is build up and up. Folks called them, 'The City That Couldn't'. I wouldn't be that mean but yes, that is what they are. All the same, Yieldstone had real roads and electricity up to three times a week. That was better than us Rookwell ponies who had to candle, candle, candle, oil torch! And none of those little lights could compare to the sun burning and boiling every sin out of our dirt-dipped soles.
Mama would spin her yarns about her legendary haggling skills and how she got even the mean old constable to let our goods be sold directly on the bit. No cuts or disappearing change for us! He and Mama went way, way back but Mama would always change where they met. Sometimes it was in a stand-off in Fillydelphia and Mama was clearing the alleyways with her trusty pea-shooter, saving a little colt trapped in a barrel and howling about gold. Sometimes, it was in a office in Manehatten and Mama was working the corner for a crook she wanted to take to jail but she came across a dumb-looking fella hauling a trunk of fool's gold.
Whenever I asked Mama about why she was in Rookwell, her answer never changed. “Sometimes, a girl has to plant her legs somewhere.” She winked before making a heavy sigh. “I just didn't know it would be on the same dirt I left. You should really ask your father.” If I asked Papa, he'd only snicker and say nothing at all.
But my sisters loved telling love stories. You know the ones. Love stories about a gal called Rosemary and a colt called Tumbleweed running off, leaving their chores behind and making babies under a rock. And the rock would always be sedimentary, according to Maud. In Rookwell, there wasn't much to be talking about other than farm work but my sisters persisted. There was too much material to be ignoring around here.
June Till ran off with Windmill. Daily Daisy came back with a round belly and a ring until she got a letter in the mail and was off again. She left behind the ring, too. Coal Smith was knocking down Ricochet's door all hours of the night. Surely Ricochet's husband should have done something about that by now. Unless all three of them were up to something no good. Fern and Farm were too close to be just friends. And so on.
And they loved rubbing it in my face that I was too young to be practicing kissin' with Little Fondue. The silly, friendly colt from down the lane. And I wouldn't want to be kissin' Fondue anyways! He's been sniffing after Lime since I was old enough to walk. And anyways, even if I had a crush, asked him, asked him again and asked a third time unless he was unsure, I wouldn't be telling them that! And maybe he did turn me down three times like they suspected, the horrible heart-breaker.
They shouldn't be speculating. I'm not story material, you hear!
If they ever got bored speculating about Who's Who-ing Who, they were talking about Who's Do-ing Who which had all ears because there was always some grain of truth in their big, blabbing jaws. Someone slipped up and got caught, letting loose another rumor to fill the town's tireless rumor mill. Farming goes a lot faster if you something or specially someone to be talking about.
Gossiping is a big old sport in Rookwell. There was no point getting to juicy bits and eating the story whole. You have to let it simmer, steam and let it still. You don't even use proper names until the fourth month and the parties in question had enough time to make up their defense. You say, 'the farmer' or the 'the miller's daughter' or the 'the deputy's third brother was caught in-' and so forth. We talked in circles about just about everything before nailing the point on the head. It's like an accent.
And everybody wanted to know about Who's Do-ing Who. Specially with all those new faces showing up like they owned the place. And they would, they had in their swaying walk as if they were crossing on silk, their piles of bits and the signs they left everywhere with the word 'Development in Process' in large letters.
Back then, out-of-towners came down from the dream. That's what we called the rest of Equestria we could see if we stood on Moon-still Hill when the sky was as clear as a piece of spit-shined glass and Saskatoon let us borrow her fancy telescope. We didn't need the telescope to see the lights, jutting up like bonfires during the summer solstice, from Yieldstone and the towns further than we could ever walk to. But with her telescope, we could see the fireworks all the way to Canterlot, exploding in the air and the classy folk traveling by blimp and winged carriage. Those fireworks were specially pretty during the Galloping Gala, heaps of glittery clouds bleaching our skyline in vibrant dust and second-hoof glee.
What a party they must be throwing? What a dream they must be having? I didn't care if I had to work for the rest of my life as long as I could stand on Moon-still Hill and see it all. That why you have to have a dream. That's what dreams are for. To make life worth living. The Galloping Gala must've been the greatest party in existence because it was in the dream and in Canterlot where I thought I'd never see.
I often tried to stretch my head to hear it. To see it. The lights were pretty but they weren't a room full of ponies, food, music and balloons. I loved balloons. But as much as I leaned forward and fell down the hill, scuffing my knees more times that I can count, I couldn't see past the fields and woods running on and on for miles. If I had wings, I could have flew. If I had a horn, I'd be gone in flash. But since I was an earth pony, I could only take one day at a time. Everyday was a happy day when it felt like I was moving forward. And I always was.
So those new faces, those stallions... They were marrying any girl who wasn't tied down and buying up dead land real quick. Everyone in town was so happy that we were getting official attention. We hard-working earth ponies needed our day in the sun just like everybody else. They aren't now but I'm getting passed the point. Even if I was the youngest, my sisters were still too young to be getting hitched. Not that it didn't stop the stallions knocking on the door, wanting some long standing arrangement until we girls were old enough.
Papa wouldn't hear a word of it, he threw such a fit and demanded new laws.
And Mama, oh Mama, she made it real clear that their land was for their girls alone. Took one of the stallions by the ear. Threw him in a cart and bucked it straight down to the center of town where the poor fella went head first into the founding mother's hard as bricks bust. Nobody said a word. He and his particular crew of ponies left town the next night. Strongly encouraged to do less there be more serious injuries. Because it was getting a little annoying. Those stallions weren't respecting customs, you know. And why did they need the land so badly? Marriage and land aren't things to be gambled with on a whim, you know. But they weren't getting any prime land until somebody brought up the word, 'renting'. And that was history.
But that didn't stop us from talking about them or him, the One.
You know the One.
The stallion with his bulging broad shoulders that could bench boulders, his strong hooves that made cracks in the earth with every tap and a chin that could slice through bread. The bread slicing was especially important since the bread knife we had on the farm was the shiniest and most expensive piece of cutlery we had on hoof. Of course, I can buy an old knife from the store and polish up nicely but I'm getting from the point.
The point that was a metaphor.
The point being that there is the One and the ones that one can find anywhere.
Now this probably felt like it was way off point. That's what LOVE is supposed to be. A winding and twisting road with dead-ends, pit traps, could-be, wanna-be and all the never-be a pony could fit in a lifetime. Supposing you found Your One, you would become a Two. Sweethearts. Lovers. Partners for all of eternity as two parts made whole. Gooey, gushy lovers -insert kissing sounds here-.
But then again, I wasn't actually taking about love. Say, I've never really gotten dictionaries and all of their stringy, stingy rules on words. I can say love is love is love with no problem. But I can't say live is live is live. It sounds weird, doesn't it? Life might be better but it looks wrong like so, life is life is life. I mean, what does it mean? If I try to rhyme it, I get strife and might and knife and fight which isn't friendly sounding. But I guess now that I've gotten around talking about love, I should start talking about life.
My life.
Properly.