A slow knocking preceded the door to Willow's house opening, Maple not bothering to wait for someone to let her in. "Hello?" She tilted her head around the entry, not setting hoof into the room.
"Hey, Maple!" Amber waved enthusiastically from the table, where she sat chatting with Gerardo. Willow was nearby, looking slightly tired, if much less so than the previous day. "Come on in!"
Maple obliged, followed shortly by Starlight. She beelined straight for the table, seating herself between Amber and Willow. Folding her hooves, she smiled, leaving Starlight standing bewildered by the door. "Uhhh..." The filly pointed a hoof. "Didn't you say you were going to make dinner?"
"Oh!" Maple stood straight up, ears folded in embarrassment. "Sorry! I completely zoned out, didn't I? Heh heh..." Apologetically, she rushed to the counter, depositing two large pineapples, hurriedly doing nothing as she oriented herself and prepared to begin working.
Willow's nose twitched. "Starlight?" she asked, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "The kids are upstairs, if you'd like to go play with them. I'm certain they'd enjoy it."
"I... guess?" Starlight looked apprehensively at Maple. The mare was acting distracted... Did Willow see it too, and wanted her gone to ask about something in private? Maple had, after all, just left her to address a crowd of street ponies on her own. Nodding, she agreed. "Yeah, I'll go."
"Have fun!" Amber waved as she slowly headed for the stairs.
As soon as Starlight left, Amber offered, "We messed with Hemlock for a while at Arambai's. Didn't really hear anything useful, or where he found that information out. I mean, who even knew? All of us, plus Starlight, Faron and Willow's kids."
"It isn't impossible the children let something slip." Gerardo raised a talon. "Still, as Arambai pointed out, Riverfall is ill-equipped with a system for punishing rulebreakers short of public dishonor, and I'm not sure that Hemlock is the type of stallion to possess honor in the community to remove so much as a minimal level of tolerance. Ultimately, we let him go... but who knows what will happen next?"
Amber nodded from where she sat. "He'll probably try and dig up dirt on another one of us in some dumb revenge scheme. As if he didn't start the whole thing!"
"They might've," Willow said, mostly paying attention to Maple. The dust-colored mare was sharpening a long knife in preparation to slice the pineapples. "I asked Faron to tell them not to, but who knows? Either way, it's an open secret now. I don't think there's anything we can do..."
"How is Starlight taking it?" Gerardo asked. "She didn't appear very upset either of the times I've seen her."
It took a second for Maple to respond. "Huh? Oh, she's good. I think. Everyone was looking at her on the way here. She stopped and talked to them. It might be a thing she could get used to."
Willow's hoof came to rest on her shoulder. "Maple," the silvery mare pressed, "you're distracted. No matter how Starlight takes it, it's going to be hard on you as well, I'm sure. Are you doing all right?"
"I'm fine," Maple murmured back, turning on the oven as she chopped the scaly skin from the pineapples. "Just a lot to think about. I guess I still need time to process things and make up my mind..."
"Are you making grilled pineapples?" Willow asked, leaving Amber and Gerardo to watch from the background. "I'm sure you remember the last time you made them. What's going on?"
Amber's face scrunched. "Huh? What happened last time?"
"Yes," Maple sighed, "I do remember. And I'm okay. Like I said, I've just got a lot to think about."
"River filly!"
Starlight was greeted by a pair of enthusiastic voices as Fir and Alder scampered up to her on the staircase landing. The foals bounced slightly, Alder's orange horn letting off a few errant bursts of light. She blinked back at them. "Uhh... hi?"
"Amber said everyone found out that you're from over the mountains," Fir said, smirking slyly. Her ears perked. "Does that mean we can ask you about what it was like, now!?"
"We've just been dying to know!" Alder added, nodding furiously. "Is it true that trees can talk down there?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight took a step back from the force of their inquiries. "I don't think they do?"
"Aww!" Alder swung a hoof, head hanging with a dejected pout. "There goes my number one theory..."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "You two didn't tell Hemlock just so you wouldn't get in trouble for asking me, did you?"
Fir's eyes widened, and she held a hoof to her chest. "Of course we didn't! That would be dirty!"
"Yeah!" Alder added. "We wouldn't dare do a thing like that! We're not bad guys..."
Starlight sniffed. She wasn't sure whether they were exceptionally bad at lying, or too innocent to know that that was even a consideration. Did she want them to be the ones who leaked her secret? Not really. She already felt like she was putting up with something every time she was around Willow's children, and having an actual reason to dislike them wouldn't help. Not when she should be treating them the same way as any other ponies. Being young and cluelessly happy wasn't a crime. It wouldn't be fair to be anything less than eager and nice back. ...Well, maybe not that eager.
She folded her ears. Did that mean she should lead them on about what Equestria was like? Arambai had told her that it was better if the ponies of Riverfall didn't have any unnecessary reasons to romanticize the outside world. But she had also just promised a large group of ponies in the middle of the road that she would tell them stories. If she couldn't talk to a pair of bouncy children, how would she ever give a speech to that many adults?
With a sigh, Starlight asked, "Alright, fine. What do you want to know?"
Fir smartly raised a hoof. "Are there other kinds of ponies besides earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi? And have you seen them? Actually, have you even seen a pegasus? What did they look like?"
Sighing internally, Starlight began as long and pointless of a monologue as she could muster, hoping to bore the ponies with Equestrian mundanities just as Gerardo had done when he had arrived.
"What happened last time you made this?" Amber repeated, face tilted. Gerardo mimicked her motions, headcrest flopping comically.
Willow closed her eyes. "It was the night I told you two I was pregnant with Alder; that we weren't going to Ironridge. She wanted to make something special to cheer me up. If she's made it since then, I wasn't there. Even the smell is... making me remember..." A single tear leaked out of the corner of her eye, the pineapple slices sizzling pleasantly in their juices and giving off a strong aroma.
"Wow." Amber blinked. "I mean, maybe I remember that? I guess? It's kinda not the first thing that sticks out in my mind about that night."
Gerardo nodded beside her. "Amber filled me in on that episode. A truly tragic event, indeed. Dreams and aspirations were not made to be crushed."
"It's almost ready," Maple announced as the others talked. "Someone will have to go get Starlight. Willow, can you do me a favor?"
Willow reached again for her shoulder. "Anything, Maple."
"Could you find something else for Alder and Fir to do during dinner? I'd... like to be able to talk about things they probably shouldn't hear, if that's all right with you?"
"Of course it is." Nodding, Willow retreated for the staircase, hooves tapping against metal as she climbed.
Starlight, Maple, Willow, Amber and Gerardo sat around the ground-floor table, eagerly eyeing a plate of pineapple still steaming in the middle. Acting as accessories to the meal were carrots with peanut sauce, a leafy salad, a loaf of bread with spreadable cheese, and several ornamental glasses filled with soft cider. Despite the extravagance, all eyes were on Maple.
The mare cleared her throat. "Everypony?" she asked without standing up. "I have an announcement to make."
Nothing moved, so she continued. "Arambai has a boat to Ironridge. He keeps it running. He said it goes every night." She swallowed, coat bristling as if the temperature in the room had dropped.
"Uhhh... Maple?" Amber shifted toward her, muttering out of the corner of her mouth. "Weren't we, like, specifically told not to mention that to Willow?"
Willow, for her part, looked torn between being surprised, suspicious and annoyed. "He does?"
"He does." Maple nodded. "But that's not what I wanted to say. He told Starlight about the boat." She paused for effect, even though all but one of the room's occupants already knew. "She told me she's not leaving, even though she knows it's there. But..." She hung her head. "She also said it's only because of me. That if I weren't here to miss her, she would go. Because Riverfall knows where she's from, now, and it isn't what she's looking for..."
"No!" Starlight protested, putting both forehooves on the table. "I told you, don't think of it like you're getting in my way! I don't want to be a burden!"
"And you're not," Maple said, pointedly looking at her. "Because Arambai also said he wouldn't let her go if she wanted to. It makes sense, doesn't it? If Ironridge wasn't a place where the three of us could go and be safe ten years ago, even when Willow was an adult, it certainly isn't now, for a lone filly. So it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter at all..."
"...Maple?" Willow asked, a touch of concern in her voice. "What are you getting at?"
"Well..." Maple blinked. Her eyes were dry, almost awkwardly so. She grinned, though it contained so much anxiety it was halfway to a grimace. "He also said, when I asked him..."
The others watched as she trailed off. A minute passed in silence.
It was Starlight who broke it, narrowing her eyes. "Maple, what are you talking about?"
"Arambai said... that it would be all right, and you could go... if I went with you."