After carefully pouring the contents out onto the table, Jonagold picked up the first letter on top of the pile, which was signed by her ancestor. Only, she noticed that this letter was torn stained as some of the words were smudged somewhat, but she could still piece together what it was trying to say.
Dear Soarin,
I honestly don’t know how to start this. After what happened on Hearths Warming… Soar, I swear that I still have no idea what had happened exactly. All I can remember is that we were hitting pretty heavily on the cider, just havin’ a good time in between Celestia knows how many pints of cider. What happened after that, no matter how hard I try I still can’t figure out how we... or rather if we did anything when we got home.
Soar; please tell me that you’re not angry that we’ve woken up in my bed.
This sentence alone caught Jonagold completely off guard. She had to reread that same sentence to make sure that it was, indeed, real. ‘Holy Celestia,’ she thought, ‘Does that mean that he is…?’ her cheeks took on a pink shade before she shook her head. ‘Now hold on, let’s not try to jump to conclusions here. Maybe there’s more to this story then meets the eye. But then again, with these stains, why would he be upset?’ Now curious, she continues to read the letter.
I completely understand that’s probably the reason why I haven’t heard anything from ya. Not that I wouldn’t blame ya in your horseshoes, but the fact of the matter is, I really had no idea how or what we did in my bed. Though, I would be lying to say that it did scare me as to what all of this means. Part of me thinks that we just simply fell asleep; after all, we were drunk. But there’s another part of me wondering if we…
Soar, maybe I’m overthinking this but, do you think that this could explain why I haven’t had any interest with mares? I mean, when I woke up on that morning, all I can remember was that I think I was kissing you without realizing it. When that happened, I felt warm, safe even, like I could probably spend a good eternity on those lips. Perhaps it was the best kiss I ever had until I felt you push away until you fell off the bed.
Though, why did you just up and run? I hardly knew what was going on myself, and I tried to call you back so we could talk about it. But you were already gone before I could do anything about it. Soar, I really do hope you don’t hate me. Please, can you just write something, anything back to me? I’m really scared and I don’t have a clue what we did on that night. We’ve been friends for so long, I don’t want what we have to end because of this.
Soarin, whatever happened that night, and the… unexpected kiss I’ve given you, that we won’t end our friendship like this. So please Soarin, write to me. I don’t want to lose you over this.
Yours,
– Braeburn.
Jonagold sat there completely stunned. Of all the things she had heard about her ancestor, from being a founder of the town she lived into setting up relationships with the Buffalo tribe, this was not what she expected to find out about him. She looked down at the century-old letter, pondering over it.
‘Is this suggesting that because my great-great-grandfather had gone to bed with this guy that he might have been gay? If that were true, then why dose my parents and grandparents say that we’re directly related to him? Even if that weren’t the case, this is opening a whole new perspective on the guy that I didn’t know before.’
The pegasus gently lifted the letter to the next one, in hopes that this might be the reply.
Dear Braeburn,
Okay, before you say anything, I want to let you know that I’m not angry at ya. In fact, I hadn’t been writing to you this past couple of weeks wasn’t because I was mad. Rather… after reading your letter, I think that you deserve to know why I left. And please, read through the whole thing before you jump to conclusions.
Unlike you, I do have a pretty good idea what happened around the time you’ve blacked out. You see, we were pretty drunk by the time we stumbled out of the Salt Lick. We had to lean against each other as we tried to walk back to our place. You were giggling like a filly nearly the whole way before we even set hoof on your front porch.
After we’ve walked in, I set you on the couch so I could close the door behind us. You started talking about how lucky you had me and wished that I could live in Appaloosa with ya. Well, by then I just plopped right next to ya and I think we talked about if we ever got laid or something like that. Then, I remembered that you gave this smirk before you did something that really surprised me. Without warning, you grabbed my face and… well, kissed me.
Now, I was taken aback by this, but, I didn’t pull away. While it was clear that we were drunk, at the moment it just felt, well, right. It was as if it was supposed to happen. But when we pulled away, you fell over on my lap and started snoozing. At the time I thought it was because of the cider that you did that. But I on the other hoof came to realize something, I liked it. I liked kissing you.
However, since you just passed out, I had to carry ya into your bedroom. And don’t worry, we didn’t do anything else that night, although I was so tired that I just fell asleep right next to ya. I guess I didn’t take a second thought about what would happen the next morning.
That part when you woke up, I hate to break it to ya, but it’s not how I remembered it. That’s because when I woke up, you were still asleep. I don’t know how long I lay there, remembering how you smooched me last night; I thought about what it would be like if I was the one doing it. After all, you hadn’t woken up and I got curious as to what it be like now sober. And you can probably guess the rest when you suddenly woke up.
If there’s anypony that needs to be apologizing, it’s me. After reading your letter, I feel so stupid of just leaving you behind like that since I’ve been trying to figure things out myself. Like you, I don’t want to stop being best friends either, only, how can I even so much as write to you considering after what I did? Braeburn, I am so sorry for taking advantage of you, even if it was a kiss. I have been feeling so guilty not just doing it, but also leaving you behind without talking it out.
Brae, if it would be possible, could we find the time to start over? I do want to be your best friend, but at the same time, I’ve been having weird thoughts about ya lately which have been the main reason why I’ve been having trouble writing to you in the first place. Maybe we can start anew and go from there.
Your friend,
– Soarin
Dear Soarin,
With Hearts and Hooves day just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about your letter. On the one hoof, I’m relieved that you’re not upset. I’m rather glad that you still at least write to me, which lifts quite a burden off of my conscious. On the other hoof, I have been giving myself some self-reflection for the past several weeks. As I have labored in the sun to plant seeds, preen the waterspouts, bucking apples and keeping watch over the orchards on some nights, I have been thinking about us.
Since that earth-shattering revelation on Hearths Warming, I have been asking a big what if. In this case, what if there’s a reason for me not finding any attraction to mares? What if me being drunk and kissing ya was a wake-up call? But the biggest question that I think even you should ask, (and there’s no other way of saying this) is it possible that we might have feelings for each other?
On my side of the world, I guess I do care about you. After all, we have been best friends for over a decade. We’ve made so many memories together, countless hours of jokes to entertain ourselves and we’ve gone to school together from elementary to high school. When you’ve been around last, that lonely feeling that I had ever since I came here disappeared like a puff of steam. You do make me happy whenever we get the chance to hang.
But with all those years of friendship, do you think it could turn to… affection? Reading from your last letter, if you did kiss back, what’s to say that maybe, just maybe, the relationship we have could give us the one thing that we wanted – a sort of romance? Soarin, you know that I cannot do anything without you saying so, but I guess I have to ask, is it possible that such a relationship might work?
Personally, I have heard about gay relationships before, and the stereotypes that came with it. If we are to have such a relationship, I don’t want to be the kind where all we care about is fashion, interior decoration, talk about gossip like a pompous hen, or to be annoying. I guess, more than anything that if we do see each other again, can we still do the stuff that we’ve always done? Like playing buckball, cracking jokes, compare and complain about movies (which reminds me, rumor has it that a pony has promised to set up an outdoor theater for films), or in other words, can we just be us? I don’t want to pretend to be a stereotype, I want to be me. And knowing you, so do you.
If we do decide to become a couple, we’ll be headed into uncharted territory. But then again, we are pioneers, aren’t we? Nopony can know what lies in the unknown, the only way to truly find out, is for us to take the courage to take the first steps.
I’ll wait to hear from you.
Signed, your buddy in the desert,
– Braeburn.
“Wow,” Jonagold leaned back in her seat. At the moment, that’s all she could say about it. Never mind the fact that she was reading these out of an assignment, she was in on a forgotten secret of one of her famous ancestors. She had so many questions from these letters, but noticing the time, she knew that she didn’t have much at this rate.
The only course of action now was to take pictures of each and every page of those letters in order. Taking out from her saddlebag, Jonagold positioned her electronic camera over every letter, taking one picture after another. Since she cannot take the physical letters out of the library, she might as well bring some digital copies with her, as well as noting down the dates from each envelope.
Once she accomplished this and put the letters back into the dusty box, she returned it to the old librarian, “Thanks for this.”
The gray, bearded stallion took hold of the box, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I think so,” the young mare replied. “I think this will help me with my class – and finding out other things about my great-great-grandfather that I didn’t know about.”
“Maybe I should give these a read sometime,” he commented. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“Nah, I think I’m good,” with that, Jonagold left the library and started to head home.
_*_
After a quick dinner, the pegasus mare walked into her room and with her camera headed towards the small computer on her desk. It only took a few minutes for her to connect it to her camera to upload the pictures she took in the library. On the screen, rows of the century-old letters lined up in a row, and Jonagold grouped them by date as closely as she could.
“Okay, now where was I?” she flipped through the digital copies until she came to the familiar pages. “Here we go,” she said to herself, “now let’s see what happened next.”
Dear Braeburn,
Firstly, I’m just as relieved as you are that you’re not mad at me. The second thing is that I just want to tell you that no matter to what degree our relationship goes, as long as I can be with the same guy that has to help me survive high school, I’ll always be there for ya.
With Hearths and Hooves just a couple days away, I found myself that I have another opportunity to come down to see you again. After just leaving you on Hearths Warming, I do wanna make up to ya somehow. I don’t really care what it is, just so that we can have a fresh start.
I have been thinking about your question lately, the one if it might be possible that I might have feelings for you. Well, I would be lying to say that it hasn’t kept me awake at night sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the possibility that I might is a bad thing, like you, I’m not exactly sure myself. After hours of training or preparing for our shows, I tend to look straight up at the ceiling at night, thinking back on how big of an impact you had on me.
And there’s a lot to consider! I mean, you’ve helped me get through basic training from your letters. We’ve managed to keep each other sane back in both High and Jr High School. We trust each other about what we really think about our families, teachers, and our futures. We’ve been loyal to each other, even when our other friends fade away with time.
You’ve always been fun to talk to, and even listen to even when you ramble on (no offense). You’re the most dedicated, hardworking, goal driven pony that I know. Not to mention brave (I mean, what another kind of pony would leave everything behind to set up a town in the middle of nowhere?), have a great sense of humor, and bake the best apple pie on the planet. You’re a jack of all trades from being a really good athlete to playing the violin, and even know how to build stuff when I can’t hammer in a nail.
So… when you ask if it’s possible that I might have feelings for you, I guess that I do care about ya as well. If it's love, then I’m not exactly sure since it’s kinda too early to tell. Who knows by the time I get down there where things might go? Maybe we could become a kind of couple, or maybe we don’t. Like you, I don’t exactly know how the whole gay thing works, so perhaps we could make up the rules as we go. A little trial and error if you will. Perhaps it’s just me and the situation, but I guess I wouldn’t mind too much if we play buckball with a side of making out.
But in all seriousness, let’s plan on meeting up again on Hearths and Hooves day and let’s focus on just having a good time hanging out again. We can try to figure things out from there. After all, I on my part have a lot to make up for.
Your friend at three thousand feet,
-Soarin.
“Awe,” Jonagold said out loud, “well, whoever Soarin is, he’s such a sweetie.” She clicked onto the next letter and began reading.
Dear Soarin,
I want to first apologize that I haven’t been writing to you in a while. The Buffaloes have been acting up more than usual that finding the time to write to ya has been tricky. You know how sometimes we have to import new trees from elsewhere to replace the stomped crops that tribe left behind? Well as it turns out, they’re now targeting the trains that carry those trees! I’m still in disbelief that they would do something like that! We’ve been lucky to get by with what we have, but to have those buffaloes stealing away our replacement crops too! I’m practically convinced that they’re doing this for a reason, but nopony knows what exactly. Don’t they know that we need those trees so that we have a food source to eat from?
(Sorry about that rant, but Celestia does this really get to me!)
Anyway, I cannot thank you enough for the visit a couple of weeks back. I hadn’t had that much fun since I first moved to Appaloosa. Like that hoofball game between us and the kids, that apple catching contest, or how you danced like a chicken at that wild west dance (which, by-the-way, I am never gonna let that go). In all, it was really a breath of fresh air to have you around.
As much as I want to have you move down here so that we might do… well, let’s called it for what it was, go on a date again, the only communication we have been through these letters. Even though our little weekend lasted for a couple of days, I want to do it longer than that. But I have a town to rise and you have to perform your fancy tricks with those Wonderbolts. So it goes without saying that in between visits, these letters are the only way we can get to know each other better. Because after your last visit, I was hoping that we could become closer, even though we are miles apart.
I’ll let you know that I’m doing fine so far. There hasn’t been any newcomer in a while though, which is a bit disappointing if you ask me. While the train comes and goes with relatives of the town, nopony new has moved in. You know having new folks out here would help us in the long run.
In other news, remember that outdoor movie theater that I’ve mentioned about awhile back? Well, the good news is that it’s now open for business. It’s located on Tumbleweed Lane and it only cost ya a bit per show. Not a bad deal since it’s located not too far from my house, so whenever I get off duty of being the lookout for those buffaloes, I can trot my way down to see a movie. A couple nights ago, I saw that new comedy: “Duck Soup,” I can’t remember who was in it but I hadn’t had that good of a laugh since you were here last. If you ever get the chance to go see it, I recommend it that you do.
As much as I want to continue on, I need to get some shut-eye because tomorrow night is my turn to watch the fields and I’m gonna need all the sleep I could get. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting to hear something from ya, and tell me how things are going with those Wonderbolts.
Sighed your buddy underneath the stars,– Braeburn.
Dear Braeburn,
Celestia is Spitfire keeping everyone busy. As I’m writing this to you, I’m in Cloudsdale where tomorrow is the Best Young Flier's Competition and I’m having mixed feelings of going to it. Oh don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that we don’t have to perform, and that we’re the grand prize for whoever flies the best. In fact, we’re the ones that’re judging the whole thing… and that’s the only problem I have personally. Considering that some of the contestants are as young as teenagers… deep down I have a feeling that it’s only going to get rather cringe-worthy. However, I’m trying to stay optimistic and hope that we might see something new.
Besides that, tonight is our last show here in Las Pegasus. We’ve been doing a couple new moves thanks to Spitfire’s creativity. They’re so new that the captain has sworn us to secrecy as to how the stunts are done. So you can probably guess she’s making us work our flanks off just to get it perfect in time for the finale of the competition. Other than that, we had some breathing room to unwind like go see some of the shows or pig out at the never-ending buffets.
I know it hasn’t been long since we’ve last met, but already I’m starting to be really missing you. As fun as Las Pegasus is if you know where to go to, it does make me wish that you were there with me. Maybe, one day, which I might take you up here just to see this place – especially at night when all the lights are turned on. Besides from the fact that these hotels and casinos are enormous, just walking down the strip is something to see at least once in a lifetime. So many colors, distracting lights and all the crazy ponies that roam around are something to be seen to be believed.
You know, I hope you get that buffalo problem sorted out. Yes, I know how much rising up this town means to ya. I wish there was something I could do, but being a Wonderbolt, I have my calling that is needed elsewhere. To me, it’s not really fair that I can’t do anything about it to help you in some way. But I’ll tell you what, as soon as I’m able, I’ll come right down there and do whatever I can to make things easier for ya.
And maybe, do you think you want to go out with me again? I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to, if anything, it would give me a break from all the hustle and bustle of being a Wonderbolt for a while. Perhaps, (as incredibly corny this is going to sound as I write this) maybe we could go out for a picnic under the stars. I wouldn’t mind the quiet as long I have you to be there with that amazing apple pie of yours. (Note: I just realized how dirty that last sentence was; I meant the dessert you know.) Or maybe we could see a movie at that place you said just opened up.
Can I ask you something Brae, about the town? If we were able to become a couple, how do you think that the folks down in Appaloosa would react to it if they knew? Since I know that even in a place like Equestria, there is prejudice towards anypony that some would view as “different.” I’m asking this because I don’t want to see you get hurt when I’m not there. Hopefully, I might be wrong in my assumption, but since we’ve kinda figured that we like stallions, I just wanna make sure.
Yours from the City of Lights,
-Soarin.
Jonagold rubbed her eyes from the light of the screen. She took a moment to notice the time, “Huh, it’s almost eight already?” getting up from her seat, she walked out of her room and headed towards the kitchen, craving for a bowl of ice cream.
While she was taking out the white bowl from the cabinet, a spoon from the drawer and the ice cream from the freezer, she suddenly heard a voice calling out. “Hey Jo, are you in the kitchen?”
Sighing, the Pegasus replied, “Yeah dad. You need something?”
“No, just want to know who’s in the kitchen.”
After she set the ice cream on the counter, a thought came to Jonagold, “Hey dad, can I ask you something?”
“What about?”
“Have you heard of a pony named… uh, what’s was the name… Oh, I got it! Soarin Cloudline, ever heard of him? He was supposedly in the Wonderbolts a hundred years ago.”
As the young Pegasus started to scoop out her frosty dessert, she heard from the other room her father getting off the couch, followed by his hooves stepping into the kitchen. Jonagold looked over her shoulder to the deep sea green stallion with a blond mane and beard poking his head in.
“Soarin Cloudline?” he asked, his face scrunched up in confusion. “You know, the name sounds familiar to me, but for the life of me, I can’t remember exactly why. So why do you ask?”
“Remember that paper I’m doing in Psychology? Well, I just went to the library to get my resources to use, that they have to be primary like journals or letters and stuff. Anyway, I asked the librarian if he has anything on Braeburn Apple, and surprisingly enough, the only thing he has is a bunch of letters between him and somepony name Soarin. Do you know who this other guy might be by any chance?”
“Sorry Jo, I’m afraid that I haven’t even heard of him. Though I guess I could look him up on to see what comes up on my computer.” He was about to leave before he paused for a moment, “What did you find out anyway?”
“Well…” the young mare’s cheeks became warm. “Dad, I think that I might have a good reason to believe that the letters I’ve found from my great-great-grandfather, are in fact love letters to a guy name Soarin.”
Her father’s eyes went wide, “Wait, really?”
“My exact reaction,” she said as she put the lid back on the ice cream. “I had no idea that we had anyone in our family tree that was gay. Only, what I don’t know is why I haven’t heard of it. I tell ya, it’s almost like stumbling onto a family secret or something.”
“Now I’m curious too,” Jonagold’s father replied. “This is news to me as well. I don’t know anything about this either. So I’ll tell you what, as soon as I find out who this… what was the name again?”
“Soarin Cloudline.”
“Right,” he nodded, “as soon as I can find out who this guy was, I’ll come by your room to tell you about it.”
“Thanks, dad,” she said as she picked up the bowl in one of her hooves. “I’m gonna read some more of those letters to see if I can find another clue to all of this.”