Remedy and Rosetta stood out in the yard of Remedy's old home for several minutes. Remedy wanted to better pull herself together and Rosetta was giving her the time she needed.
Strapped onto Rosetta and Remedy's backs were some old backpacks that contained a few personal belongings of Remedy's that her dad had insisted that she take the time to gather up in case she ended up wanting them. There were some old family photos, her laptop computer, a few books, her high school diploma, birth certificates and social security cards for her and her mother, an old stuffed dragon she had kept from foalhood, an old personal Bible, her mother's old Bible, and a few spices from the kitchen. All of this was what she had to connect her to her human life. She didn't know if she should feel sad about that or not.
Remedy gave the house behind her a final glance. It was officially not home anymore. She didn't really care about that part though; she cared that in some shape or form she would maintain a relationship with her dad, even if there would be some time before she got to do so.
"Thank you for coming with me for this, and thank you for keeping me focused on what's important," Remedy finally said to her marefriend.
"You would've done the same for me. Don't feel guilty about the little slip that I caught you on. We don't always think the best when our emotions are running high, and I am happy you listened to me," Rosetta replied.
"It definitely wasn't the conversation I was expecting to have with him. I came in expecting a fight. I let my fears of that get the best of me for a moment. ," Remedy said with a twitch of her ear.
"Didn't I just tell you not to feel bad about that?" Rosetta said with a sigh.
"I know, it is just..thank you for being there for me, and thank you for speaking up before I sabotaged myself. It really made a difference," Remedy said in a tender voice.
"Anything for you. You are the best thing that has happened to me. It was good seeing you get emotional too. Getting a little more of that shell off. Thank you for appreciating me," Rosetta said back just as tenderly.
"Don't thank me for that. You make it sound like I am doing some favor to you by thanking me for that. I appreciate you because you deserve to be appreciated, not as some token prize for doing good; if that makes any sense," Remedy said, feeling she wasn't explaining herself well.
Rosetta just stared at her for a moment. She seemed like she wanted to say something and her wings were twitching. She looked down and did a shuffle of her hooves. Remedy was about to ask her what was wrong, as something clearly was bothering her. Had something hurtful been said by accident?
"We need to hurry back to the church if you expect your mom or Tonya to still be awake to hear about what progress was made on that food drive," Rosetta finally said as she spread her wings.
"Did I say something that upset you?" Remedy asked with concern.
"No..the opposite actually. I'm just trying to work something out for myself. Can we not talk about it just yet? I'm really want to figure this out on my own," Rosetta said with more twitching of her wings.
"If that is what you want. Just tell me you are okay," Remedy said doubtfully.
"I'm okay, I'm good, everything's great. I just want to make sure everything stays that way. John was not entirely wrong, I do say or do some really stupid things sometimes, and I am just trying to make sure I have had time to really consider something to make sure it isn't something stupid. I promise you that it isn't bad, or at least I hope it isn't. I just need time to think about it. Can we please just go for now and we will talk about this when I have had a good think?" Rosetta pleaded.
Rosetta was clearly flustered about something and Remedy was definitely worried about what it might be. Thoughts ran through her mind about what it could possibly be. Was Rosetta considering dumping her? Was Rosetta thinking she was actually pregnant? Did Rosetta want to go back to being human even though everypony pretty much agreed that there was no going back after getting a cutie mark? Was she not giving Rosetta enough space? Had she not taken enough effort to learn more about Rosetta's interests? Was she taking too long to get sexually active with her?
"Okay..if you say so," Remedy said. She smiled but she hadn't been able to keep the worry from her voice.
She spread her wings as well and with a few quick beats was into the air, quickly joined by Rosetta. They immediately turned and headed over the houses across the street and the treeline behind them, and were almost immediately back over the church grounds.
The grounds were like they were most evenings around this time, largely winding down to where ponies would soon be sleeping. There were a number of ponies eating, Tonya among those, and Remedy took note that the amount of hay had rapidly declined in the last two days. It wasn't in any immediate danger of running out, but it definitely showed that they would need new shipments if this carried on too long.
It took Remedy a moment to pick put where her mom was but eventually did. Her mother was sitting in the middle of a large circle of ponies of various types and seemed to be reading to them. It wasn't hard to guess what her mom had in front of her for reading material. It was kind of surprising seeing the audience as her mom read aloud, but not completely. As far as she knew there was no pastor or priest on site, and her mother was filling a type of need to ponies that valued their faith. It was a time of big changes for everypony, and her mother wasn't the only one who turned to God for answers.
One concerning thing was that there were at least two human guards standing not far from the Bible reading, watching it intently. They could be just listening in for their own sakes, but evidence from before suggested they were doing this just to keep watch on her mom for any growing influence on other ponies. This probably wasn't helping soothe those fears, despite the fact it was completely harmless.
Deciding that they shouldn't interrupt her mom, and should concern themselves with food anyway, they flew down to where Tonya was at.
"Hi Remedy, hi Rosetta," Tonya said cheerfully through a full mouth of hay. She chewed for a second more and swallowed. Then began gesturing to her companions who were eating. "Have you met Amber, Joy, and Match Stick?"
The surrounding ponies all turned and greeted them, and Remedy looked each over.
Amber was a pony Remedy had met while Amber was partially transformed, the pony was now a pegasus who had fur and mane that clearly matched her name. She lacked a cutie mark as of yet. Remedy recalled from her short meeting before Amber being very serious seeming, but she seemed to be much more cheerful seeming now.
Joy was a pegasus mare who had dark purple fur and a mane and tail in straight black, very night pony like, despite her feathered wings. Joy didn't look like a particularly joyful pony though and wore a scowl. There was no cutie mark yet on her flank either. Every few seconds she would turn her eyes to the humans and her scowl would seem to deepen.
Match Stick was a blue unicorn stallion with red mane. He did have a cutie mark, unlike all his companions but Tonya, a lit match. Remedy picked a faint smell of tobacco off him, making her wonder if there really were ponies that still had that habit. Her nose told her that was a yes. It was probably a good idea if Rosetta didn't spend too much time with him if that were so.
"How has the whole food drive thing been?" Rosetta asked Tonya.
"It's been great so far," Amber chirped in happily before Tonya got a chance to answer. "All the shelters have lots and lots of ponies that want to help out."
"We started taking inventory of the food that we have at all the locations. We're trying to figure out how to best dispense it," Tonya added in with her own happy smile.
"It is a fucking waste of time though," Joy added in with a somehow deeper scowl.
"Aww, don't be like that, Joy," Amber chided the other pegasus.
"It is," Joy said again harshly. "We shouldn't be wasting out time dealing with these stinking humans. If they aren't going to let us do what we need to do here we should just find somewhere else to go. That's what we should be organizing to do."
"We don't know where we can go yet," Match Stick spoke up.
"We'd figure it out," Joy replied with a snarl.
"Okay..anyway," Tonya said uncertainty as she turned back to the two night ponies. "Things should get going on that real soon. Don't mind Joy too much, there are a lot of ponies grumpy about the government right now."
"Grumpy isn't the word for it," Joy mumbled.
"What's it like being night ponies? I heard a lot of night ponies go and gather up in Charleston every night. What's it like doing that?" Amber asked them, ignoring her companion's sour comment.
Remedy and Rosetta looked at one another with confusion.
"We weren't aware of any gathering of night ponies in Charleston until you just mentioned it," Remedy said.
"Oh, you should go then! Ponies need plenty of friends, and I can only imagine it must get really lonely for you two," Amber said excitedly.
"Yeah, you should," Joy added in to their surprise. "All the night ponies are organizing to do their own thing, like the rest of us should be. You shouldn't miss out."
"We'll look into it," Rosetta said as she and Remedy shared another glance between them.
"Tell us about it after you do. Maybe we can convince Sunset Blessing to take more seriously getting us doing something other than feeding humans. I am happy she is getting us organized, don't get me wrong, but I want us taking care of ourselves," Joy said with less scowl than before.
"The feeding humans thing can't last that long, Joy," Match Stick said. "We only have so much food to give out after all. After that maybe you can get her to start thinking about getting us all moved away from here."
"Hopefully," Joy muttered.
Remedy and Rosetta got started on eating as the others continued talking with one another. Remedy couldn't help but take notice that they were talking about her mom like they were expecting her mom to give them leadership in getting the community moved. Actually this was the first real talk she had heard of talk about what ponies wanted to happen soon. The fact her mom was who Joy was talking about convincing gave credence to what Agent Simmons had said. Once ponies started listening to a pony they tended to keep looking to that pony for direction.
The others soon retreated from the hay stack. The pegasi all claimed exhaustion from flying all over three counties all day long, which surprised the two night ponies. How big was this food drive thing going to be? Also, have many ponies were going to be looking to Remedy's mother for direction after this?