Two Background Ponies Quickie: "Road to Friendship" Aftermath · 2:47pm Sep 2nd, 2018
A green stallion frowned as he shook his head, hooves crossed and deep in thought with his latest litany. "I mean, another glowpaz festival? Is that all they got in Southern Equestria besides sand? Do the princesses know Somnambula is pretty much a minor deity down there? Heck, does Somnambula know she's pretty much a minor deity down there?"
"Wh...what?!" His blue friend stammered into a banana he was holding to the side of his head, for once not really paying attention to his friend's tirade. "What do you mean the delivery ponies just up and quit?! They can do that?" A pause. "Why in the world is my life ruined by delivery companies? Huh? No, no...I was just being rhetorical... You're going to get somepony else to make the delivery though, right?" Another pause and his eyes went wide. "They just dumped the packages into the Dread Fire Swamp?! That package was worth 1200 bits!" Another pause, and he winced. "Well, no...I didn't really have the extra money to spend on insuring it..." Another pause. "Ugh!"
He slammed the banana back on the table and let out a moan before he reached over, snatched up a cookie, and crammed it in his face unhappily.
"...Problems?"
"The damn soda jerker we ordered was missing the right taps. They said they were back-ordered and couldn't deliver a replacement set for eight weeks and we open in one. I ended up having to make a rush order on a bulk set to replace them, and the delivery ponies just up and dumped the stuff along with the rest of the packages into a flaming geyser before they quit their jobs and became whitewater rafters!"
The green stallion frowned. "That's what we get for having no real labor laws in this country, Sam. Everything's caveat emptor."
"What am I going to do now, Carl? I can't place another order. I don't have the money. And in a week, we're not going to have any soda. That was one of our selling points."
Carl thought for a moment about that, before giving a shrug. "Well, there's always one option, Sam."
He looked up, and his friend half-smiled.
"We could hop into the Hevvy for another road trip."
"Ugh..."
The sound of the massive groan caused both stallions to look up and over nearby. Moments later, Carl gave a yelp and fell out of his seat. For once, the light-purple unicorn who was the cause of it didn't wait for him to recover but tiredly took his spot instead, slumped her head down on the table, and then used her horn to levitate a cookie into her mouth and start aggressively chewing.
As soon as she was done, she let out another groan. "Please don't mention the words 'road trip'..."
Carl got back to his feet a moment later, frowning a bit at Starlight Glimmer having taken his spot, before he started going about stealing bits of hay from her pile and Sam's to make himself a third seat. "I didn't know you were back. Bad news...the 'counselor' demand dried up again. Kind of funny how it just kind of formed for while you were heading out of town... I mean, there were more lined up for you that one day than the past school year..."
"Fine by me. After my 'vacation', I could use a day off."
Sam winced a little, ignoring the fact she was helping herself to the cookies he paid for. "Uh, things go bad?"
"You might say that..." she sighed.
"...So while Trixie and I eventually made up, I am never going on another road trip with her again."
By this point, Carl had formed another seat and was sitting next to the two, but he dismissed the entire story with a snort as he grumpily ate another cookie. "You call that a bad road trip?" he muttered. "Call me when you have a mobster try to feed your head to a shark and then we'll talk about bad road trips... I wish the worst thing that had happened to me on that trip to Manehattan was Sam trading my Hevvy for a wagon worth twice as much..."
"I can't believe you got charged that much for falafel," Sam threw in. "I mean, one falafel broke your budget?"
"Oh, believe it, Sam. Tourist hot spots in foreign lands like that? They'll charge resort prices for water. They probably pay the guys who make it 1 bit a day..."
"It's just utterly shocking to me how one road trip can bring friends closer together and nearly tear them apart at the same time..." Starlight sighed.
"...Well, it's utterly shocking to me that you two didn't just unload the unnecessary stuff and store it at the castle until you got back," Carl shrugged. "Or that you went to all the trouble of planning out the route but didn't think to use the bits you were going to spend on lodging for food. Or that you didn't maintain separate budgets for personal use. Or that after it's come back to bite you several times you still think that making decisions for other ponies without their consent is somehow a good-"
Sam cut him off with a sideways glare.
"...Right, need to curb that."
"What I believe Carl is trying to say is that you can be friends with someone but still desire your personal space and apart time, and that shoving them into a situation in which they try to live together can be disastrous."
"Right. I mean, I'm friends with Sam, but it doesn't mean I'd want to live with him. He'd drive me up the wall."
Sam actually turned to Carl in open-mouthed surprise. After a moment, he coughed. "Uh...yeah, um...Carl, are you sure you don't have that backward? I think we'd both agree I put up with a lot from you."
"Oh yeah? Which one of us tried to blow the other one's head off?"
The blue stallion grimaced and quickly went silent.
Starlight looked up with a touch of a frown, but it eased fairly quickly. "Well, even after how much you say road trips are bad, you two sounded ready to go on another one readily enough."
"Well, technically I never said yes to Carl's off-"
"Let's just say after the Manehattan affair, we kind of learned to set up some ground rules," Carl cut in. "Keep your own money for your own food, for one. Make sure you're comfortable sleeping in the wagon before you go. He who pulls the wagon gets control of the radio."
"Yeah," Sam chimed in, "and general stuff like don't bring up personal matters when something goes wrong like missing an exit or not being able to find the place. And none of that passive-aggressive stuff, either. That just boils over when you're cramped in the same wagon."
"Don't trash your side of the wagon. Clean up after yourself."
"Plan but compromise. What one pony gets to decide one day, the other gets to decide the next."
"Oh yeah, and the most important one," Carl smirked and snickered, "both ponies have to work together to hide the body."
Sam snickered at the joke. "Oh yeah, that one's important."
Starlight leaned off of the table, suddenly looked surprised. "Really? It is? Oh, then I messed up on that one... I need to go talk to Trixie." Levitating out a spare bit to pay for her part of the cookies, the unicorn got up and quickly turned to rush off. "Thanks boys!"
As she dashed off in the direction of the Castle of Friendship, both Sam and Carl froze in mid-chuckle and stared blankly at her as she ran.
"...What'd she just say?"
Oh Starlight!
(Laugh track)
Not like there are many episodes left. If we never see that Saddle Arabian again...