“Why are you doing this?” Shining asked. “You can tell me anything, y’know. I just-- ponies are talking. You’re making a statement, but nopony knows what it is.”
I scratched at my chin. The fur there was long enough. Now, to slip over my hoof and offer some resistance. Perhaps not more than half an inch… but it felt like some much more than that. I was obsessed with the feeling.
Shining Armor grimaced as he watched me admire my own beard.
I scoffed. “Sunburst doesn’t trim his beard.”
“Sunburst isn’t a public figure,” Shining gently reminded me. “Or a girl.”
“Girls aren’t allowed to have beards, now?”
“You know what I mean.”
I growled softly to myself.
Shining Armor leaned back in his chair. His eyes scanned the room slowly, carefully. He had been here hundreds of times as a member of the royal guard, and yet he always seemed to regard the throne room with an indescribable wonder.
The royal throne room was not one of my favorite places.
It was mine, of course. I had been given it in a whole to-do. The ponies of Equestria didn’t think of it as ‘The Royal Throne Room’, they thought of it as ‘Twilight’s Throne Room’. The thought of those words on other ponies’ lips sort of made my skin crawl.
Because it wasn’t mine. I just worked here.
It was far too big and lofty. Even the lightest and most careful of hoofsteps would echo tremendously.
And it was too ornate! All crystals and scrolls and stained glass and carved columns… I was a simple pony. I felt at home in cozy little libraries with smoldering fires and the occasional breeze from an open window. Not this great, big, empty place.
I suppose, for the princesses before me, it felt full. But that was just a guess.
I had tried, over the past few years, to make it feel less like an altar to myself and more like a place of business. Some curtains here, some tables and chairs there. A few couches around a coffee table. This was a place for leaders to communicate, for minds to meet, for history to be made!
And yet… it still felt like a throne room. Just a throne room with a bunch of my junk in it.
I looked back at Shining Armor. "How come you aren't growing out your beard, hm?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard. He blinked a few times and had trouble meeting my eyes. "Well, 'cause-- just 'cause, I-- y'know, I never have before. Force of habit, right?" He chuckled, but it didn't sound the least bit natural to me.
I squinted at him carefully and stroked the short hairs on my chin. It was a satisfying feeling… I could see why Sunburst liked to twirl his beard around his hoof while he worked or read. A little flicker of giddy excitement kicked up within me at the thought of having a beard as long and silky as his.
"But you're a royal, now," I said. The hairs pricked and poked at my skin. "On two counts! Through me and through Cadance. Don't you want to have the royal beard?"
Shining Armor was picking at his own chin, now, though the action seemed beyond the reach of his active mind. "No? Not really."
"Well, why not?" I asked. "You're a stallion. It wouldn't stir up any weird controversy. And you wouldn't have to think about trimming it anymore."
Shining made a low, non-committal sound. He was looking at my chin, fooling with his own. Then, as if a switch were flicked, he snapped back to my eyes and dropped his hoof on the table. "Hey, quit pulling those mind tricks on me. Changing the subject, all sneaky…"
"It's not a trick!" I exclaimed. "I don't get what the big deal is! Beard, no beard-- a third of the population grows them, and most of them just cut it right off! So why do you?"
Shining Armor shifted. "I-- I tried. Growing a beard. I didn't like it."
I paused. My shoulders had been tensed up near my ears, and I tried to relax them. "You-- what?"
"Y'know, I think you should put some bookshelves in here," Shining said hastily. "It's not really you. I mean, it's more you than it used to be, but--"
"Now who's changing the subject?"
Shining Armor heaved a sigh at having been caught. "Cadance doesn't grow hers. She's a royal."
"I didn't ask Cadance," I said. "I asked you."
My brother was breathing deeply and steadily, his eyes focused on a point somewhere behind me. He leaned back into the chair.
My hoof cut through the beard hairs again. Silky, prickly, thick, and thin. A rich and varied texture. Tangible.
"Y'know, Cadance was never the 'damsel-in-distress' type," Shining said, a little smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "She looked the part. And a lot of ponies thought she was. But she wasn't… she was just kind and sweet and good, and other ponies thought that made her-- made her vulnerable or naive or something.
"Even after we got together, she would never let herself lean on me too hard. She didn't need to. Actually, for the first time in my life, I really felt like I could lean on somepony else; being an older brother, all that on the royal guard… I never had the chance to lean. I always had to stand by myself.
"My buddies from the royal guard teased me for it. Nothing too bad, just a little ribbing." Shining paused to chuckle. "It honestly made me laugh, the stuff they said. But I felt like I had to do something to prove to them I was still in charge. That I was still a stallion and stuff."
He stopped a moment, then leaned forward to rest his chin on the table between us.
I did the same, on top of my folded hooves.
"I started growing a beard. Caddy asked me why, and I didn't exactly have a good answer." He shifted his head slightly, casting a sideways glance down at the table. "And I think it was then that I realized how much I hated it. Not the beard, exactly, but the idea that being a stallion was my job or something. Like there were certain things I had to do just because I have a-- well, y'know."
I snickered.
"Shut up, Twi," Shining scolded through his own stifled laughter.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He did the same.
We giggled together for a moment. It was nice. It didn't echo the way it should have, though… it didn't rattle around in here the way it did when somepony shouted to me from the doorway. Princess this, and princess that… bouncing around inside this room for hours at a time.
"It's not," I said. "I wouldn't want to be a stallion. I don't even really want to be a mare, I guess. But… I dunno. I don't think anypony really wants either of those things, right? They're just made up."
Shining scoffed. "Yeah. Can't imagine anypony really wants that junk."
"Maybe Rarity," I said.
"Maybe Rarity," my brother agreed. He cast his glance back in my direction, and laughed. "So that's what it is, huh?"
I was silent. My beard rubbed against the back of my hoof, all tingly and satisfying and perfect. "I just wish ponies would call me 'Twilight' again."
"So… you started growing the royal beard to get out of being called a princess?" Shining surmised.
"Well, you're a prince!" I argued, lifting my head from the table. "And a captain. But ponies don't call you by title, they call you by name. Why don't I get the same choice?"
A look of confusion passed over Shining's face, and a little twitch at the corner of his mouth. "And the beard is helping that… how, exactly?"
I flushed a little bit. "Uh… it confuses them?"
Shining laughed a little. I laughed with him.
"You'd better hope they don't catch onto 'your highness'," Shining said with a sly grin.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, shut up."
With Shining, the throne room didn't feel quite so big. In fact, it almost felt like mine.
"Listen, I'd grow a beard if I could," Rainbow said, forcing another bite of her too-tall sandwich into her mouth. "Then I'd be, like, 'The Bearded Wonderbolt', y'know?"
I cocked my head. "What, like… you'd want to known for it?"
Rainbow nodded, then swallowed extravagantly. After a little contended sigh, she said, "'Course. Why, don't you want to be 'The Bearded Princess'?"
My magic glittered softly. I used the purple tendrils to twist and tug at the hairs of my beard, which were now long enough to show a twinge of color towards the ends; the same deep blue of my mane, of course. I wondered if any streaks of color would appear…
"Twi?"
"Hm?"
"You okay?" Rainbow wiped the back of her mouth with one hoof. "You're acting… I dunno. Weird, I guess."
"What if…" I sighed. "What if nopony were going to see it?"
Rainbow's eyebrows knit together. "How could nopony see a beard?"
"Well, what if you wore helmets? Like the Washouts?" I suggested. "Would you still grow one?"
Rainbow's gaze turned to the ceiling. "Uh… I dunno. I mean-- well, you have to trim it, right. I don't think I'd want to trim it. I hate mane care enough already." She laughed and popped a fry in her mouth.
I squinted at Rainbow. "That's it?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"That's it?" I repeated. "You'd grow a beard because… because then you wouldn't have to trim it?"
"Uh… yeah." Rainbow's expression was becoming more focused, now. "Wait, we are talking about beards, right? This isn't some weird metaphor for, like… politics or something, right? 'Cause, if it is--"
"It's not politics!" I complained. "It's just-- everypony keeps making a big deal out of it. It would be nice to know that other ponies… well, that other ponies would do it. I-if they could or… y'know."
Rainbow nodded her head slowly. "Right…"
We grew quiet a moment. I stirred my hot tea with my magic, but the swirling motion made my want to twist those little hairs on my chin once more.
The cafe was quiet and calm. The light of the setting sun filtered through the blinds, casting golden stripes across our table. It was soft and quiet and nice.
I was a cafe pony. I always had been, and I always would be. I'd always feel at home and at ease in these little, snuggly corners of Equestria. They were private and cozy and I didn't have to be a princess here… I was just a pony, ordering a cup of tea and reading a book.
Rainbow knew this, of course. That I was a cafe pony. But Rainbow was a bar pony; she liked meeting other ponies, she liked donning glowsticks and backwards caps and plur bracelets, she liked being seen and acknowledged and even fawned over.
I thought it would change when she was truly in the spotlight, but it didn't. In fact, I think she lives the attention even more.
"Y'know, Twi, I think ponies just called me a tomcolt so many times as a foal that it just… I dunno, it stopped meaning anything," Rainbow said. She chewed thoughtfully on another fry. "That stuff doesn't mean a lot to me. Ponies are gonna see me how they're gonna see me. I'm happy with how I am, so what's the point trying to change?"
I blinked. "Rainbow, you do know that we'd support you in anything you do, right?" I said softly. "If you wanted something different, we'd be there for you."
"I don't want anything different. I don't really want… anything." Rainbow stared down at her food, as if surprised by her own admission. "I just wanna be Rainbow Dash. I don't want any other labels taking credit for that, y'know?"
"Yeah…" I mumbled. "I mean-- well, no, I… don't."
Rainbow looked into my eyes. "Well… how do you feel?"
I looked up at her.
She cared so much what others thought that she didn't care at all. How could that be?
But, then, maybe that was what she wanted.
Nothing.
"I want something," I said. "I wanna be something. I want ponies to think something of me when they see me, or talk to me, or… or hear me."
"Yeah?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. I just… I don't know what it is."
"Oh, you know me, Twilight," Pinkie said with an almost wistful sigh. "I am what I am. And what I am is a lesbian."
I snorted. "That's not what I asked."
"Is too!" Pinkie beamed. "That's how I see myself: a lesbian."
I squinted at her over my book.
Pinkie just kept on smiling. Eventually, she returned to her own reading.
She was an enigma. That we could all agree on.
Memories of hooking my friend into a massive vitals-measuring device, desperately trying to understand why she did the things she did… why she was the way she was… if I was honest, I still had a desire to get in there and poke around at Pinkie's mind. Just to see what made her tick.
But I was better than that, now. I knew better than to treat friends like a science experiment.
When Pinkie had stuff she wanted to say, she'd say it. Or she'd act on it, and I'd just trust that she knew what she was doing.
In my musings, I had scanned over a whole paragraph and gotten exactly nothing from it. I backtracked carefully, and re-read:
The practice of wearing a "royal beard" (often referred to as ktesios in Old Ponish) was born out of class disparity in pre-industrialized Equestria. For poor, working-class ponies, wearing a beard permanently was often a bothersome hindrance during manual labor; long beards had a habit of being caught in machinery, and therefore had to be trimmed. For those not working with machinery, the tending of a beard was an expensive endeavor-- more expensive than merely doing away with the beard entirely.
I sighed and put my book down again. "Pinkie…"
"Mm-hm…" Pinkie turned the page of her own book.
"Really," I said. "What do you see yourself as?"
Pinkie looked up slowly. She gazed at me with grave concern, as if worried some of my brain had leaked out of my ear. Or perhaps grow out of my chin.
"A lesbian," she said.
I grit my teeth. "No, but… if you had to describe yourself, you would say…?"
"Um…" Pinkie tapped her chin thoughtfully with one hoof. "Gay?"
"No!" I smacked my face with one hoof. "You! Just you! How would you describe yourself?"
Pinkie's jaw went slack. She looked up at the ceiling, allowing her eyes to run over the many roots which hung over the cutie map.
"Gee…" Pinkie mumbled. She tugged her mane down on either side of her head. "Uh… I dunno."
For a moment, my heart swelled. Finally, another pony who got it, who understood, who--
"I'm stumped! What's the answer?"
I put my face in my hooves. "It's not a quiz, Pinkie!"
She scoffed. "It sure feels like a quiz…"
"It's not!" I insisted.
The little glimmer of hope was snuffed out, and I melted down onto the table. It was cold and hard as ever, but somehow it felt comforting in its discomfort. Like the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl after you toss your cookies.
Pinkie mimicked my motion, resting her own chin on the table and staring back at me. "Is this about your beard?"
I sighed. "Yeah… I mean, no! I mean…" I rolled my head to one side, allowing my cheek to rest on the crystal. "I dunno."
"Well, I like it," Pinkie said.
"Thanks…"
"Does that help?"
I moaned softly. "No…"
"Oh. Darn."
"It's okay," I said. "I think I'm just… having a hard time understanding what everypony else has. Because I feel like I don't have it. Y'know?"
"Mm…" Pinkie's eyes rolled back up towards the ceiling. "I guess so."
"But I feel like everypony I talk to is also confused," I said. "I mean, Shining Armor seems to feel a lot like me! And Rainbow… Now you…"
Pinkie was quiet. She seemed to be digesting the information, as little as there was.
"So… you wanna know if I'm a mare?" Pinkie asked.
I sat up. "Um… I guess."
She giggled. "Well, why didn't you ask me that, silly?"
"I did!"
"No, you didn't!"
"I did, too!"
"No!" Pinkie shook her head. "You asked how I see myself. How I see myself is a lesbian! You didn't ask if I was a mare."
I blinked.
It occurred to me, for what was probably the first time, that some ponies just… weren't concerned with the gender in the least.
"Well… are you?" I asked softly.
It still felt wrong to ask.
"Sometimes!" Pinkie responded brightly. "But only when I'm a lesbian."
My mind ground to a halt.
I felt like the words were becoming this great big mass of letters, without much meaning or direction. It all seemed to contradict itself, or… or something…
"But…" I paused. "Um. Aren't you always a lesbian?"
Pinkie considered the question. "Well, I'm never not a lesbian. Sometimes I'm more lesbian than other times, though."
Oh, sweet Celestia.
"Like… which times?" I asked.
Pinkie heaved a sigh. "When I like another mare, or when I'm on a date with another mare, or when I kiss another mare, or--"
"I got it," I said quickly. "So… you're only a mare when you like another mare?"
Pinkie squinched up her face. "No…"
"So you're a mare other times?"
"No, I… I don't think I'm ever a mare mare…" She paused, then made a face like she was in pain. "Ugh, I've never really thought about it before…"
I put my face back down on the table. "I'm sorry. I guess my anxiety's catching."
Pinkie didn't respond. She was squinting slightly, staring at the wall on the other side of the room.
This happened to her sometimes. Pinkie was the type of pony who did a lot without thinking. I don't mean that in a bad way, of course; impulsiveness was something I sorely needed in a friend. But Pinkie had a tendency to go with her gut on things, and rarely did she question that.
Which was only fair. Her gut tended to be right.
But, given the right push, she would think things through. And, to her credit, she was very good at detangling her own thoughts.
Pinkie gasped. "Ooh! I know!"
I cocked my head. "Uh… you do?"
"It's just like reading!" Pinkie said cheerfully, rapping her hooves on the table.
"It… is?"
Pinkie nodded. "When I read a book, sometimes I think about what it would be like to write my own book. Do you ever think about that?"
I shrugged. "Sometimes, I guess."
"I don't really think about writing a book any other time. It's not important to me," Pinkie continued. "And I probably never would write a book, even when I get all inspired from reading. But… reading is the closest I get to writing. And it's fun to imagine, even if I don't really want to write a book."
I blinked.
Pinkie blinked back.
Wow.
"Does that help?" Pinkie asked, flicking her tail happily.
"Yeah," I said softly. "It does."
Pinkie gasped, a huge and comical sound. "Do you feel that way too?!"
I giggled. "No. I don't think so."
"Aw," Pinkie relaxed a little. "Well, that's okay. How do you feel?"
