Lovey followed Magnate down the stairs, her brow furrowing when they continued on past his floor. "Magny?"
"Change of plans," he said simply and nothing else. He kept walking down the stairs until there were no more, and Lovey kept following.
Magnate led her away from the apartment complex, down a few blocks, and across the street into a city park. Once they crossed the threshold from the sidewalk to the green space, he stopped and let out a sigh.
"This is better." He turned his head to look at her. "This is safer than my apartment."
Lovey couldn't help the small flutter of her wings as she felt the grass beneath her hooves. It reminded her of Ponyville, the place she used to call home. "Safer?" She blinked up at him. "Why isn't your apartment safe?"
Magnate gave a vague gesture with one hoof. "In public, I feel compelled to maintain my composure. It will prevent me from getting worked up and saying something I would rather not."
"Oh." Lovey's ears drooped and she dropped her gaze back to the ground. "But if you want to say it, then shouldn't you? Isn't that what Derri wants us to do?"
"If I understand her correctly, then she wants us to be upfront and honest. I will be that. I will also not lash out unnecessarily." He sighed and levitated his glasses off his snout, raising them up to rest atop his head and behind his horn. "Lovey, this isn't easy for me. I have been on my own ever since I graduated and moved out of my parents' estate. I was raised to never express myself."
Lovey giggled, though it was a half-hearted and weak sound. "Mom and Dad raised me to express myself all the time. They said it's bad to bottle up your feelings. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Since they were bottling up theirs!"
Magnate rolled his shoulders in a light shrug as he started walking forward. The park was alive with foals running about, birds flitting to and fro, one couple having a picnic, and another sitting on a bench to share an ice cream cone. In the middle of it all was Lovey and Magnate: two ponies who were together even though they had no obvious right to be.
"What was it like?" Magnate finally asked. "Having parents who divorced, I mean."
"It was—" Lovey hesitated. Honesty. "It was—It wasn't easy?" She sighed and her wings drooped low. "It was easy at home. Everything was fine at home! Mom and Dad were happy, and so were Dad and Mom. We were happy. But the ponies in my neighborhood teased me. They said I wasn't normal, and that it was my fault my parents' got a divorce. And—And maybe they were right, I don't know." Her lower lip trembled. "I'm not normal. I've never been normal."
Without saying anything, Magnate merely glanced over at her with a somber expression on his face. She had no choice but to continue if she wanted to smother the silence that buzzed with her darkening thoughts.
"I was so scared when I first saw the love lines," she muttered. "I thought they were pretty, but when nopony else could see them, I was scared. My parents took me to a doctor, who said my eyes seemed fine and that I shouldn't be seeing anything. But the more I thought about them, the more I saw them! I had to drop out of school because I couldn't focus in class, and Mom and Dad and Dad and Mom had to homeschool me."
Magnate stopped to look across the small pond that sat at the center of the park. A few ducks glided across the water's sun-glittered surface that rippled from their gentle movement and the caress of a light breeze. It was a perfectly perfect day, idyllic and picturesque even down to the little flowers that dotted the bright green grass.
So why did Lovey's heart feel so heavy?
Her gaze fell to her hooves, hooves she barely recognized as her own. They were so pale, so foreign. How long had they looked this way? What color were they before?
"I can empathize," Magnate finally said, still looking away from her. His expression was distant and thoughtful as his gaze sought something Lovey couldn't see. "To a small degree, that is. I understand the sentiment of being treated differently, but not quite to the same level. I was teased for being the poorest rich pony in my class."
Lovey snorted, then clamped a hoof over her mouth and stared up at him with wide eyes.
Magnate shook his head. "I'm aware of how privileged that sounds. As a colt, it made me feel outcasted, as nopony wanted to associate with the 'poor pony'. The only option for me was to impress my father, and I chose to do the opposite. I moved out and joined another company. I've been content by myself, but—"
He turned his head to look at her, his eyes tired but his lips lifted in the faintest of smiles. "You've ruined that. I've felt the comfort of having somepony in my life. I don't know how to live with you, but I do know that at this point, I can't live without you."
It happened too fast. Lovey's head started spinning as her vision blurred with tears, and she had to drop down onto her haunches to keep from stumbling as she reeled from the pain in her chest. "That—" Her voice hitched. "Then why do you keep pushing me away? Why can't we be together?"
There was a long silence before Magnate sighed and sat down beside her. He returned his gaze to the lake, where two ducks had broken off from the others to swim together. "Because I'm afraid that you'll be unhappy with me. I'm afraid that I'll lose you if I reach for you because I might get annoyed with you again, so it's easier to lose you now than before I'm too attached to you. You're so different from me that I can't imagine how you could possibly be happy with a stallion like me."
Lovey sat there for a while, simply gazing up at him. Her heart started to pound in her chest until she blurted out, "We're not that different, actually."
"What?" Magnate met her gaze with a furrowed brow. "Of course we are. I can't imagine how we could be any more different, actually."
Lovey raised her hooves to wipe at her puffy, sore eyes and heaved a sigh. "Juniper is the only real friend I've ever had, and even she gets tired of me." Her wings drooped. "Ponies either like me in short bursts, or not at all, because I'm me. But it's hard to not be me, not when I've had to be me for so long. It's easier to be me than to be me!"
Magnate hesitated before putting his hoof on hers. "I don't understand?"
The sound of her heartbeat reached all the way to her ears and she looked up, her chest clenching tight as it all came into view: pink and red lines going in all directions, some tangled, some strong, some nearly to the point of breaking. All over the city—all over Equestria, even—were ponies in love, about to be in love, about to miss love. Love was everywhere...
... except around her. She was surrounded by dead, empty air that she struggled to breathe. She'd never had a love line. She never would. Love wasn't for her.
Why not? Why did she have to spend her life helping others fall in love, but not herself? Was that the sacrifice? Was that the cost of her special talent? If so, did that make it a gift, or a curse?
"Lovey?" Magnate gently touched her cheek and turned her head to look at him. "Are you all right?"
Everything dissipated when she looked into his eyes. Her heart calmed down, her breathing returned to normal, and the buzzing ceased. The tears that were falling down her cheeks felt hot, but she didn't mind them.
"No," she said in a soft voice. "How can I be? When I was a filly, everypony stayed away from me. They still do. I've only met, like, three ponies who understand what I see!" She covered her eyes with both hooves to block out the lines drifting through the air. "I see love, everywhere, all the time, but there's none for me. All of the love lines avoid me."
The tears fell faster and her lower lip started to tremble. "I've always been alone and I always will, and the only way I can cope with that is by being the happy me nopony likes! Don't you get it? I have to be happy, because if I'm not, then I don't have anything! No love, no happiness! What kind of pony would that make me?"
Magnate listened silently until her whole body started to tremble. That was when he took action; he pushed her hooves out of the way, cupped her cheeks in his hooves, and leaned in to brush his lips against hers. The gesture startled her into a momentary state of calm, if only because her mind was briefly unable to focus on anything.
"Magnate?" she breathed, her heart fluttering again. Unlike before, it was a pleasant flutter, like the first time he had kissed her: a giddy, happy little feeling that she wanted to hold onto forever.
He sighed, setting his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. "As afraid as I am of hurting you or losing you, the only thing I want to do is hold you tight. I'm sorry, Lovey. I don't understand you. I don't understand me. I don't understand love lines, or love, or even like. But I can't just go back to the way things were before I met you." He opened his eyes so she could gaze into the blue depths that seemed to pull her in.
Lovey ducked her head to tuck it under his muzzle. "Then what do we do?"
Magnate put a hoof on the back of her neck and held her close. "I cannot make any promises except that I'll try. I'm not a perfect stallion, but if you want to make this work, then I'll try harder this time."
"Even though I'm annoying?" Lovey sniffled.
"The same could be—and has been—said about me." Magnate chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest. "Yes? No? How should I know? I miss you when you're gone. I know that much. Isn't that enough for now?"
Lovey sighed and closed her eyes. She could hear his heartbeat. It was a steady, soothing, comforting sound that cleared the fog in her mind. Warmth spread throughout her chest and reached all the way to her hooves. "So we just try again?"
"Yes, but slower this time. I'll do my best to be patient with you if you can do your best to do the same for me." Magnate stroked her mane with one hoof. "That means no moving in unexpectedly or anything of that nature."
The longer she listened to his heart, the more her own calmed, as if falling in sync with his. "Slower sounds perfect."
Magnate's hoof paused in its ministrations before he cleared his throat. "There is one condition, however."
"What? What is it?" She resisted the urge to pull away, as that would mean she'd lose the sound of his heartbeat, but she did tremble with reignited uncertainty. "I can do it! Or I'll try!"
"I would like to meet your parents again." He resumed stroking her mane, but there was a distinct nervousness in his voice as he continued, "I'm not certain we left off with a very positive impression of one another, and I would like to fix that."
Lovey couldn't help it. Excitement overpowered her senses and sent her wings into a fluttering frenzy. "Oh, no! They liked you! It was me they were upset with. But I can absolutely write to them and have them come back to Manehattan!" She pulled back from him and beamed. "Should I have them come to your place? Or maybe to mine? I'm sure Derelict wouldn't mind! Maybe—"
Magnate pressed a hoof over her mouth. "Shh. Slower, remember?" He shook his head, but a soft smile was on his lips. "How about dinner with them next week? And, perhaps, dinner for the two of us tonight?"
Smiling around his hoof and with her wings still fluttering behind her, she just nodded happily.