“Anything there?” snapped Ruby for what felt like the millionth time.
“I don’t know.” Piña stumbled in her wake.
“You didn’t look!”
“I did! I still don’t know!”
“All right! Never mind! Maybe… Maybe there’s something over here.”
No matter how many stalls she flashed by, or marched towards, or stopped to run a quick eye over, Ruby never saw anything that sparked her interest. It didn’t even look remotely believable: mugs and lampshades and goblets and kitchen utensils hanging off racks. What little hope she’d had in this wild goose chase was crumbling away.
In truth, the worst part was that she felt so empty about the whole thing. Nothing stood out, but she had that vague, suggestive feeling – like being on the cusp of pain and yet never actually being painful – that no matter what she looked at, it wouldn’t be up to snuff. Canterlot could open a wonder emporium right in front of her, and she’d still wrinkle her muzzle at it.
“Ruuuuuuuuby,” moaned Piña behind her. “I’m tiiiiiiiiiiired. I hate all this waaaaaallllllllking and I wanna go hoooooooooome.”
Amid the thinning crowd and under a sun now falling towards the horizon, Ruby heard her fall onto the mud. There was a squelch and a little sigh.
Frustrated, disappointed, worried, hopeless, and now disgusted, Ruby placed a hoof on her face and held it there, trying to restrain so many emotions at once. Her own feet were aching, biting at her consciousness whether she lifted them up or stood heavily on them. She was aware of how much fleshy weight clung to her, even though she knew she wasn’t fat for a filly. She seemed too aware, as though everything was now suddenly brighter and louder.
“OK,” she said. “Yeah. I’m done. We’re done. Let’s go home.”
Piña squelched in the mud again. “But what about Big Sis’s present?”
“What about it?” Ruby turned around. “And get out of the mud. You look like a baby.”
Piña slopped her way onto all fours. “Don’t call me a baby.”
“All right. I won’t call you a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I just said – Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to get angry. It’s just…” Ruby ran the hoof through her own mane, bumping her horn. “Look, let’s just go home, OK?”
Piña chewed her lip, and then spat because she’d accidentally scraped in some mud. “But –”
“We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“HEY!” called Dinky’s voice. Hoofsteps slapped the wet earth and grew louder.
Thankful for the interruption, Ruby turned away from her cousin. However, the instant she did so, she spotted the thick, bulbous, noticeably straining-at-the-seams look of Dinky’s saddlebags. Dinky herself skidded to a halt before them, leaving tracks through the mud patch.
“I think… I’ve made… a breakthrough!” Dinky was almost breathless.
But Ruby had her eye on the saddlebags. The voice barrelled on regardless.
“About… the gift… giving… thing. I was… talking… to Ammy… and she… she said… when I go… and buy a gift… to pay attention to… how I felt… when I did it. Well… I’ve done it lots… ‘cause Ammy said… to make sure… to do it lots and lots and lots of times… and get… a general feel for it, she said. So I did…” Dinky belted out a chuckle and did a little jig on the spot. “Ruby! Piña! It’s the BEST! The GREATEST! The most AMAZINGEST THING EVER!”
“What?” said Piña.
Those bags look gigantic. Lots of gifts, she said. But where did she get the money for all that? Dinky doesn’t have an “Auntie”.
“I figured it out!” continued Dinky. “We give gifts because it’s super-mega-awesome-wonder-tastic GREAT!”
Who are they for, anyway? I know she plays with a lot of foals at school, but she can’t really have gotten them all gifts. Anyway, her family’s not that big.
“Oh,” said Ruby. “OK.”
She noticed Dinky staring at her as though she were a madmare. “‘OK’? Is that all you’ve got to say? I’ve just solved the mystery.”
She’s making it up. Buying gifts feels great: yeah, sure it does. Throwing money away sounds like a great thing, doesn’t it?
“No, you haven’t,” she muttered. “What about other ponies? Maybe they don’t think it’s great.”
Dinky’s smile, already melting around the edges, sagged under her dimming eyes and drooping brow. “Well… we can’t all be that different, can we?”
A nasty little thought crawled into her mind. I won’t know. I haven’t bought anything, so…
No. She’d be darned if she’d give Dinky an inch in this mood.
“Maybe we can,” she said, without apparent rancour. “Maybe some of us don’t want to get gifts. And then ponies like you go on about how great it is, so maybe everyone else pretends they feel the same way. What if that’s true?”
“Who’d do something as silly as that?” said Dinky, trying to laugh it off. “They must be pretty sad to not enjoy Hearth’s Warming.”
To her own surprise, Ruby felt her face twitch. A surge hit her limbs as though urging her forwards.
Calmly, she said, “Pretty sad?”
And then the surge washed away, leaving nothing behind. Even her smile was empty.
“Yeah,” Ruby said, not to Dinky but to the space to the left of Dinky’s ear. “Pretty sad.”
“I like it,” said Piña.
“But what else can they do?” said Ruby. “They can’t help it.”
Dinky shrugged. “I dunno. I wasn’t really thinking about them before now.”
Without warning, a fresh surge rushed through Ruby’s legs. Her mind caught up. She jutted her jaw and about-turned and marched through the marketplace, between the stalls, not even noticing the shouts behind her and the bumps of ponies around her.
What made the whole mess horrible – and knotted her stomach tight at the mere thought – was that she knew she’d be back tomorrow. Something was supposed to be there, in her heart, to give the final push and wave goodbye to all this silly business. She knew it was supposed to be there. It was as obvious as a missing tooth she kept probing with her tongue. But it wasn’t there. And she’d be back tomorrow, doing this whole stupid shopping thing all over again.
“Ruby!” called out Piña.
Well, for what? She was sick and her hooves ached and her mind was in shock because, for a moment, Dinky’s idiotic talk had made her feel like a cornered animal. And for what? Because she “had to” get some Hearth’s Warming junk? For what? For grown-ups who didn’t have a clue or who played smug little games with her or who kept kicking what little spirit she managed to coax out of herself? No. No! NO!
“What’s wrong?” Dinky, of course, managed to keep pace with her. She even ran sideways the better to talk to her.
“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” said Ruby.
And the surge became so powerful that she stopped speaking to grit her teeth hard; at least until said surge washed away again.
“I’m a good filly,” she said, layering on the sarcasm because Dinky would probably laugh it off if she didn’t. “I’m a good little pet to be moulded. Here’s a cookie. No allowance for you. Have a treat. Go to your room. Good girl. Bad girl. Well, who cares what they say anyway? I don’t have to waste my money to get another ‘good girl’ out of them.”
“Out of who?” said Dinky, stumbling. “Grown-ups?”
“Ruby!” shouted Piña far behind.
“Who do you think?” snapped Ruby, rounding on Dinky and marching all the harder because she was so done with her right now! “Do you even think at all? It’s always la-di-da this and hug that and oh I’m so happy perfect. Are you for real?”
Dinky gaped at her. She creased so much around the eyes that all that was missing were the tears.
“I do think,” she murmured. Then redness flared on her cheeks, the starting flag for war. “Anyway, what about you?”
“WHAT!?”
Ruby skidded to a halt. Dinky skidded to a halt. They both glared at each other. Even the air shimmered between their gazes through sheer radiation.
“What about me?” said Ruby.
“You…” But Dinky froze. Anger was probably foreign to her nature, or something. Ruby curled her lip.
“Yeah?” she said. “I dare you to say it.”
Unexpectedly, Dinky’s face smoothed down. She stood up straight.
“I don’t want to,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“Ammy said if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Ruby growled and marched on. She ignored Dinky’s scampering behind her. She knew she was acting like a “little snot”. She’d had it pointed out to her too often before not to know it when it happened. And she wanted to be in the right, but she felt like she was in the wrong, which made it sting in her chest.
Clear of the crowds now, on a mere grassy street, she stumbled and panted for breath and braced her limbs. To her surprise, Dinky didn’t immediately catch up to her. When the filly came, in fact, she was treading cautiously, like an antelope approaching a wounded lion.
“Piña’s still calling you,” murmured Dinky. “And I am for real.”
Ruby grunted. Whatever had powered her this far seemed quite happy to leave her with the aches and choking lungs and knocks to show for it.
“I’m not la-di-da,” murmured Dinky. “And I do think.”
Whatev – Ruby chocked off the thought. It was dawning on her that Dinky rarely spoke this quietly. She was one of nature’s bellowers.
“She’ll catch us up,” said Ruby.
“I do think.”
“She’s not a baby. She just acts like one to get attention.”
“I do think. I’m not la-di-da. I do think.”
Mixed among the burning aches and things, the chill of winter crept around and about. She shivered. Everything seemed dimmer now.
“Like…” murmured Dinky. “Like… Ammy also said some ponies buy gifts to show off how much money they have.”
“Had,” said Ruby at once. “How much they had.”
“That’s what she said.”
She refused to look at Dinky, but instead focused on the darkening sky. The sun was setting. Behind it, the sun left the sky to blaze its last death-knell, only created by colours rather than screams. Yellows, greens, pinks, and oranges wailed and yelled across the dying sky.
“That’s pretty sad,” she said.
“I thought it was mean,” murmured Dinky. “What about ponies who don’t have that much money?”
“They’re not that dumb,” said Ruby flatly. “They can’t afford to throw stupid money away.”
She didn’t actually know, but it made sense to her. Who would, after all, when they couldn’t?
“I meant the rich ponies could give the poor ponies some money,” said Dinky.
“Why would they?” said Ruby, who in some respects was jaded, albeit cutting as a diamond.
And now she wasn’t marching or yelling around a maelstrom of urges and surges, she sensed the same rumbling quake again. There, clear as a tremor through her legs. The slight sense that she was on shifting ground. Rumbling. Almost waiting. Like a predator.
Blood rushed through her, not just because of the recent excursion. A tremble ran through her body. Then she slumped, her head lowering. Her lips screwed up as though determined not to let anything in.
“Look!” said Dinky with her old vim and vigour. She patted Ruby on the shoulder so hard she almost spun her around. “Here they come!”
“They?”
It was Berryshine. After Piña charged from her to tackle Dinky and laugh, the grown-up, the embarrassment, her Auntie Berry, whatever – she ambled over to the foals.
“Um,” said Berryshine, eyes darting about Ruby as though looking for some clue.
“Hello,” said Ruby, far more politely than she wanted to.
“Time to go home?” said Berryshine. “Couldn’t find anything, huh?”
“Er…” Ruby glanced across. Piña tried to tackle Dinky, but Dinky was as stiff and unmoveable as an ice sculpture.
Then, Piña scurried over to her big sister’s side, obedient little schoolfilly that she was.
“Y-yeah, yeah,” said Berryshine. “Uh… I’ve got nothing to do, so…”
“Another bad day again?” said Piña, cocking her head.
“What?” Berryshine looked down as though seeing her for the first time. “Uh huh. Yeah. Um. Time to go home, then?”
“And then you’re going out?” said Ruby.
This time, Berryshine’s sharp look went right through Ruby’s eyes and came out of the back of her head. “What?”
“For the birthday bash? Or is that not today?”
“What birthday bash?”
The rumble was right under Ruby’s mind. Her lips parted.
Then Berryshine grinned at her. “Oh, that one. That’s right. Yes. Not tonight. Pinkie’s scheduled it for later this month. Ah well. That’s that.” She winked. “Thanks for reminding me. Well, back to the depot, Friendship Train?”
Ruby felt the cold seeping through her and creeping over her. Suddenly, her heart beat so hard the rest of her body throbbed with it.
She took a step back. Berryshine’s grin faltered.
“I thought I’d…” Ruby glanced across; Dinky was still not moving. “Go see Dinky and Amethyst again.”
Without knowing why, she wanted very, very much to be a long way away from Berryshine. Piña shook her head frantically, but no sympathy rose up within Ruby’s chest. She backed away.
“Oh,” said Berryshine. “No, you’re sure –?”
“Sure I’m sure. See you later.” Ruby spun around at once. After a while, she heard Dinky traipsing after her, but she didn’t dare look back to check.
Because Ruby was afraid, and she knew it. She just didn’t know why.
Worst, worst, worst of all, she couldn’t really enjoy Dinky’s house anymore. Not that evening. No matter how much she tried.
However warm and bright the lounge – or whatever they called the room – was and had been and would be, the dark cloud hovered over everything. Sooner or later, she’d have to leave. And this time, the mere thought made her freeze.
Guiltily, her thoughts drifted back to Piña. Yes, sometimes she acted like a baby, but she also just didn’t get things. Ruby was supposed to be there to take some of the knocks of life for her.
Of course, Piña could have asked to come to Dinky’s too. Nothing was stopping her. Berryshine could handle herself, really. Except something was stopping her. Big Sis was Big Sis. Shirk her duty once or twice though she might, Piña would not follow Ruby everywhere. In some ways, she really was like a puppy.
And Berryshine…
Why couldn’t she be more like the other ponies? Like Applejack, who – OK, got into shouting matches with her little sister sometimes, but – who was far more likely to play games with her or do chores with her. At least, that’s what Apple Bloom said one Family Appreciation Day.
Or like Rarity, who if anything made shouting matches with her little sister into an official competitive sport. But then they bounced back and Sweetie Belle was gushing and singing her praises later as the “bestest best sis” ever.
Or like Dinky? In fact, did Ruby have to become a little sister, or something? No, Berryshine never exactly treated Piña the way, say, Amethyst treated Dinky…
Wait. Dinky?
Squirming at how long it had taken her, Ruby finally glanced up from the rug.
Dinky sat on the sofa. She had no toys, no books, no distracting snacks, not even a mug of hot cocoa to nurse. Eerily, she sat there, staring at the opposite wall. Occasionally, Ruby just made out the tiniest sway, as though Dinky was trying to rock herself without rocking herself at all.
Now outright shaking, Ruby glanced up at the table.
Amethyst was placed where she usually was. While there was a hardback open before her, she wasn’t even pretending to read it. Instead, her gaze was on Dinky. Hawklike. Calculating. Patient.
The grown mare’s gaze seized Ruby’s own and held it. No one had a gaze like that. Diamonds would crumble before a gaze like that.
Ruby swallowed. She was sure Dinky hadn’t said anything about what Ruby had said to her. There’d been no opportunity from entrance to kitchen to hearth, not with Ruby beside her the whole way. And Dinky hadn’t said anything anyway.
Amethyst’s gaze switched back to Dinky, akin to a dragon losing interest.
“Find anything out at the market today?” she said.
Dinky hummed, so softly that Ruby wasn’t sure she’d heard it.
“I noticed your bags were quite full. Had a lot of practice, huh?”
A pause. Then Dinky hummed again.
“Not quite what you were expecting, I take it?”
Hum.
Suspicious, the gaze darted back to Ruby, who immediately wanted to crawl backwards and scurry away. There wasn’t any apparent anger. Instead, the gaze had the sharp edge of an emotion much less prone to wasting time and energy. Not so much hawklike as crocodilian. Or even with the same sleek, predatory patience of Death itself.
Once more, the gaze lost interest and returned to Dinky. “How’s your gift-giving inquiry coming along?”
Hum.
“Not good,” said Ruby. This time, the gaze ignored her utterly. “I – We just don’t get it.”
“Uh huh.” Amethyst waited for the next move.
Had that been a test? “I don’t know why anyone would get gifts. I don’t know how we’d even find out.”
“Sadly, so it goes.”
Amethyst unfolded and stood up – Ruby tensed – and walked quite calmly around the table to the sofa. Not once did Dinky look up, not even when her big sister sat down next to her, almost leg to leg.
“But we really tried,” said Ruby, still braced. “We wanted to know.”
“So you put some effort into it.” The gaze softened slightly. That still left a stare like baked earth and as calculating as a fox’s, but there was a suggestion of a softer option around the edges of the eyes.
“And got nothing.” Ruby started to fidget.
“You don’t think you could put some more effort into it?”
“What’s the point?” murmured Dinky.
Surprised, Amethyst blinked and looked at her. “Well, you wanted to find out, didn’t you? I thought you’d find a clue at the marketplace.”
Dinky hummed again; her hardening jaw suggested this was all a lot less amusing now.
“I see,” said Amethyst quietly.
Ruby turned away. Whatever Amethyst was building up to, it was probably going to be sappy. Or not. It was hard to tell with Amethyst, but then Ruby herself couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Dinky like this, if she’d ever been like this at all.
“We tried so hard,” murmured Dinky. “We put in so much effort.”
Did we? Ruby first thought. The rest of her shushed it.
“Not always enough, I’m afraid,” said Amethyst. “Let me put it this way: however many ways there are of doing something right, there are far more ways of doing it wrong.”
To Ruby’s utter shock, Dinky sniffed. Her blood froze and stilled. Ruby kept staring fiercely into the flames, her skin burning with sympathy. When Dinky next spoke, the voice she mustered up was quavering.
“I’m –” Dinky sniffed again. “I’m not la-di-da… am I?”
And if Ruby had been shocked before, it was nothing to her horror now. Amethyst spoke, and her voice actually had emotion bubbling through.
“Dinky. What’s this all of a sudden?”
A sniff. A choked breath. Then the whine of an opening, half-stifled sob rose to the ceiling.
Ruby’s ears curled with embarrassment. She heard the muffled squeaks as though Dinky had buried her face into her sister’s chest, the gentle shushing, the slight pat of a hoof on shoulders, the creak and groan of the sofa as the weights shifted.
“‘M not… ‘m not la-di-da.”
“Of course not. Whoever said that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
“I think.”
“I know you do.”
“And I think right, not wrong.”
No reply was forthcoming.
Ruby didn’t dare look around until the sniffling died away. When she did, she saw Dinky fumbling away from her sister, and the filly's eyes shone against the flaring lights of the hearth.
Amethyst tilted her sister’s chin up, and then slipped off and ambled over to the table. “Come over here. I wanna show you something.”
Eyes still shining, Dinky watched her sister and then glanced at Ruby for inspiration. Ruby shrugged. She didn’t know what else to do.
Both foals eased themselves onto their hooves – Dinky hopped down onto the carpet – and they shuffled over to the table after Amethyst, who now sat down.
As quietly as she dared, Ruby whispered, “Sorry.”
Dinky ignored her.
Amethyst winked at them and lit her horn. From up behind the table, the gemstone rose. It drifted forwards, over the table.
“Lights off,” she said.
The fire went whumph and died away. Whatever decorations shone, they were now extinguished. Yet alone in the darkness, Amethyst’s horn shimmered, itself overshadowed by the dull sheen of the hovering gemstone, perfectly cut, rotating gently.
Through the darkness, there was barely a suggestion of eyes and nose. Otherwise, Amethyst basically didn’t exist. The room didn’t. There was nothing around them.
Dinky sniffed, but it was a leftover sniff that cut itself off.
“Don’t forget this,” said Amethyst. “However many ways there are of doing something right, there are far more ways of doing it wrong. You understand?”
“Huh?” murmured Dinky.
Ruby looked to her for inspiration, but the darkness was nigh absolute; Dinky was just a shine in two unseen eyes.
“We’re in the dark,” said Amethyst, and a thread of delight weaved through her voice. “Always have been, always will be. Well, maybe always will be. You think you’re the first pony to ask ‘why’ this or ‘why’ that or ‘why’ anything?”
“I asked why we give presents on Hearth’s Warming,” murmured Dinky, but it was rising, and thus nearing her own voice again.
“Exactly. When you did that, you looked out onto a darkness that ponies from every time, from every place have looked out on. This is that darkness.”
“About Hearth’s Warming?” said Dinky. Ruby heard her own doubts in the voice.
“Obviously not all of it. This is just the start. You’re that much closer to asking bigger questions. Darker questions.”
Dinky hummed, though with interest or doubt it was hard to say.
“Maybe you’ll get your answer, and maybe you won’t. Smarter, duller ponies than you have tried and gotten nothing. You know why?”
Lips squeaked as they twisted in contemplation. “Because,” said Dinky, insight brightening her voice, “they didn’t have something I have? Something bright and precious and simple…”
Amethyst laughed. “No. Not a chance. They would have bested you five times over.”
“Oh.” Dinky’s voice dropped again.
“They got nothing,” added Amethyst, “because the universe is a stingy good-for-nothing tease that doesn’t give two bits for what they want.”
“What?” said Ruby. “But that’s –”
“And so it’s no shame,” said Amethyst warningly, and then she continued, “if you don’t always shed some light on it. You’re up against the dark, Dinky. This –” the tip of a hoof tapped the dull gemstone and then vanished again “– this is where you are.”
“Ooooooooh.” Dinky’s voice rose once more. She leaned forwards, and now the outline of her face was a bright line.
“This is still about Hearth’s Warming, right?” said Ruby, suspicious.
“This is about ponies,” said Amethyst sternly. “And what they do, and why they do it, and the world they live in. And why it’s the weird way it is. You’re asking why we give gifts now. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll ask why we give at all. The day after, maybe why we have anything to do with each other. And then, why any of us are here. And finally, what 'here' is.”
“So you know the…” What was the word? “The ultimate reason for why we give gifts, then?”
“Me? No. Probably no one does.”
“Oh.” Ruby sagged in her seat. For some reason, Dinky if anything leaned closer to the light.
“So this light.” Dinky reached up and tapped it. “It’s so small.”
“Compared with the universe, yes,” said Amethyst. “Sorry, I couldn’t find a smaller gemstone on such short notice.”
“Whoa.” Dinky tittered. “All that darkness to shine on.”
“Tell me: does that sound la-di-da to you?”
Dinky paused. “Um…”
“Or like the work of ponies who don’t think?”
“N… No?”
“No.” Then, in a blink, the dull sheen went out.
No one said anything for a while. Ruby wondered if they’d finished, but she couldn’t move. Hearth’s Warming can’t lead to all that, surely? Is she playing mind games with us again? Or is she really sappy under all that?
Yet captivated despite herself, she stayed where she was. Holding her breath. Waiting.
The gemstone flared. Red, blue, green, yellow, pink, orange, purple, white: each facet burst with colour and beamed across the room. Dinky laughed and fell back onto her chair, surprised. Kaleidoscopic colours wiped across Amethyst’s serene smile as her horn vibrated and the aura pulsed and the gemstone’s colours shifted and swirled and beat back the shadows of the room.
“So,” said Amethyst as though summing up a dry lecture, “the next time anyone tells you you’re a la-di-da no-thinker who gets it wrong, Dinky…”
Dinky’s eyes were wide. She scrunched up her entire body, legs tucked in, through sheer giggly delight.
“…you just remember who’s shedding that light in the dark. Who’s making it brighter. Got it?”
Ruby opened her mouth – almost defensively, she felt – to point out what mushy nonsense this was, but Dinky squealed and leaped up as though to grab a yellow light beam, shifting to red, right out of the air. At this transformation, Ruby hushed up at once.
When she glanced across the table, she saw Amethyst give her a smug grin. A grandmaster who’d just declared checkmate.
And Ruby was, in her heart, very, very alone.
She didn’t want to leave. This was all clearly a stunt to make Dinky feel better – After I made her feel worse in the first place – and she squirmed. This felt wrong. She shouldn’t be here. Yet she didn’t want to leave.
Instead, she silently watched the colours, and saw the last of the shadows fade away. The darkness was never completely gone, she noticed. Even ignoring that which was hiding behind the crevices, the room had more contrast between light and dark than actual illumination.
It was just that the darkness was now less intense, and she felt less abandoned than she’d felt in the pure black, where she was a spark that could’ve been in the middle of anywhere, wishing that and dreading whether the lights would turn on.
Anywhere at all. She'd imagined places. Some of them had not been nice places, either. Not there, in the primeval darkness.
But Dinky was laughing and leaping, and Amethyst was smiling. She wanted that. She just didn’t feel it.
For a moment in the darkness, the cloud hovering over her had loomed and threatened.
She didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to leave.
It didn’t last. Sooner or later, she had to leave. To go back to her own home.