"...What are we going to do?"
"I'm not sure," Maple murmured, holding Starlight's recently-dried coat against her own. "I'm glad she stepped out, though. It gives us a little time to think. I'm just so..." She shivered. "Rattled."
"Because of what you said that night?" Starlight looked up, lavender eyes glistening. "When you and Amber and Willow were all up in your house? About how you had a husband, and were going to have a filly called Aspen?"
"Yes," Maple whispered. "Partly. She looks like Willow, which doesn't help. But she's... I think she's like what could have happened to any of us if we didn't have each other. Maybe I'm making assumptions, and I'm sure she's her own pony with plenty of unique things I don't know, but it's all I can see. I want to do something. I can't... If I don't, how long do you think it will haunt me for? Every time I see Faron? Every time I see Willow? She sounds like she has so many regrets..."
"So what do we do?" Starlight repeated.
"I don't know..." Maple sighed, slumping. "We can't bring him back, of course. Arambai would never let him leave, and she was right. If he was sad enough to leave then, do you really think he would break off his life again to come back here?"
Starlight frowned. "Maybe he regrets leaving, though! He asked you to come here, didn't he?"
"He did..." Maple rocked back and forth. "But still. He can't leave... and even if he did, what about Willow? What about their family? We'd be fixing one hole and creating another... and we can't try to bring White Chocolate to Riverfall for that same reason."
"...Willow might understand, though," Starlight offered.
"She was there every step of the way for me," Maple said, leaning against the side of White Chocolate's giant raised bed. "I couldn't put her through the same..."
"That doesn't give us anything we can do."
Maple cringed. "I know..."
As they sat, Maple's ears awoke to the sound of White Chocolate's heavy hoofsteps returning through the passage. Soon, their silver host moved into sight, head slightly lowered.
"Welcome back," Maple said, putting Starlight down and sitting straighter.
"Thank you." White Chocolate made a beeline for her rocking chair, but rather than climbing in stopped to inspect the untouched tea set. "Was this too hot?"
"Oh!" Maple started, folding her ears. "Umm..."
White Chocolate took a step closer, smiling her same, wistful smile. "It's okay. You were busy thinking about how to help me, weren't you?"
"Yes," Starlight said.
"Hmmm..." Humming, White Chocolate motioned them nearer, retreating to her rocking chair and heaving herself in. "I'm an easy mare to pity. It's one of the nice things about losing so much, I suppose. Any pony I talk to wants to help... when I talk to anyone."
"Well... we weren't really sure what to do," Maple admitted.
"To help?" White Chocolate smiled. "Just stay a while and talk to me, about anything. Since Faron left, I've been all alone... and with all the kids, I can never go out and talk to other ponies in the city. Hayseed and Snowshoe do the errands. Every once in a while, I try to pay the neighbors to come and watch them so I can leave for a bit, but they don't like doing that much. So, please, say something."
"I..." Maple blinked, looking around for a conversation topic. "How many foals do you have, anyway?"
"This will be my twelfth," White Chocolate said, laying on her side and touching her womb. "There are three sets of twins, and all but this one were fathered by Faron."
"Where would you go if you could go out?" Starlight asked, trying to help.
White Chocolate sighed and closed her eyes. "I don't even know, really. There are some ponies down in Copsewood who meet up every once in a while for... this kind of thing. I'm hardly the only mare who was married to a Sosan who left. I met with them once or twice, but it was mostly ponies telling each other what they wanted to hear and didn't actually believe themselves, and I stopped after a while. Really, I'm scared that... if I leave and go too far from the house, I'll have an epiphany about how much better my life could be, just like Faron, and simply leave without even going back for my children. The more I feel that way, the less I want to risk going outside..."
Silently, Maple took three steps forward, placing herself as the first thing White Chocolate would see when she looked up. "Is there something you want to talk about? Because it doesn't sound like this is making you happy."
"That's the other thing." White Chocolate smiled bitterly. "It never does. And I don't learn, either. How much happiness and fulfillment do you think I got from the nights that gave me this?" She looked down at her growing foal. "But I keep trying, again and again, because I don't know what else to do... even if all I ever feel is dull inside."
Maple twitched.
"You can comfort me or hug me, if you want," White Chocolate offered. "If it makes you feel better. It's one of the things I am good for. Just pretend you're doing me a favor, if you need to feel like you did something good..."
Maple opened her mouth to speak... when Starlight pushed her aside, frowning. "There's something not right about you."
"You think?" White Chocolate's voice nearly cracked from surprise. "My husband abandoned me with all of our kids! Of course there's something wrong with me!"
"Starlight..." Maple hissed.
"Wait," Starlight said to Maple, before looking back up at the mare on the rocking chair. "That's not what I mean. Every time you say something, it's the best possible thing you could say if you wanted us to pity you. And it's not just what you say, it's what you are. I hate giving up, and Maple doesn't like Sosans who leave their wives or ponies who beat themselves up all the time. I don't know if you're lucky and figured out we can't ignore you and just want us to feel bad for you or what, but it's making me feel weird and isn't how to actually help yourself go somewhere with your life."
Maple's jaw dropped. "That is weird..."
White Chocolate cringed. "What am I supposed to do? I am pitiful! I'm not the kind of pony others want to be like! Who wants to be a single mother of a growing family who's afraid to leave her house? I just want to feel..."
"Come on," Starlight huffed, walking until she was within hoof's reach of the chair. "You said earlier that ponies feeling sorry for you doesn't help, so why do you keep trying?"
"Because it feels like it should help!" White Chocolate panted. "And it never does, just like having so many foals feels like it should make me less lonely but doesn't. But it still feels that way... What do you want me to do? Please. If you can help..."
"Tell us something good about yourself," Maple added from the side.
White Chocolate trembled. "Can I say something bad, instead?"
"No!" Starlight stomped. "That's doing it again! Trying to make us feel sorry for you! And stop acting like what we think is so much more important than what you think, too! This is your house, isn't it? Why are you asking us if it's okay to do everything, letting us do whatever we want, and all that stuff? Just... do something! Normal ponies don't trust complete strangers with things that are really sensitive!"
"But I'm not a normal pony..." White Chocolate mumbled, hiding her face with her robe.
"Oh yeah?" Starlight stood as tall as she could, trying to look at the mare levelly despite the height difference from the chair. "Didn't you just say a bunch of other mares in some other town were in exactly the same situation as you?"
"Not that..." White Chocolate sniffed, looking up with her one visible eye. "It's... also..."
"We're listening," Maple whispered, waiting patiently.
Heavily, White Chocolate sat up, lifted a hoof to her face, and began to brush aside the thick lock of mane hair that obscured half her features.