//------------------------------//
// This Won't End Well 
// Story: The Mask of Despair and the Face of Hope 
// by Wings of Black Glass 
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“I’m not saying you have to go out of your way, but if you see him go and say hello.”  It was a few days later, and I was walking through town alongside Applejack and Pinkie Pie, with Rainbow Dash flying above.  “Just remember to be polite.”
“When am I not polite?”  This was from Pinkie Pie.
“To be fair, you can come on pretty strong sometimes.”  Applejack understood at least.  “Just tone it down a bit around him, alright?”  She looks over at me.   “From what you’ve told us he sounds a bit on the fragile side.”
“Touchy, more like.  Couldn’t even take me getting his name wrong without exploding.”  Dash gestured enthusiastically as she talked, miming said explosion.  “It was just a mistake.”
“At least he didn’t actually zap you.  The first thing he did to me was to try and shoot me out the door, literally.”
“If he’s this awful, why are we trying to be all nice with him again?”
“Don’t be like that, we’ve befriended worse.  Changelings, Starlight Glimmer, Discord even.  Discord!”  I paused to let that sink in.  “They were all actively trying to do horrible things to us.  We can handle one grumpy Unicorn with a chip on his shoulder.”
“Even you admit he’s grumpy!”  Rainbow Dash pointed accusingly with a hoof.
“Maybe grumpy was a poor choice of word.  I’ve had a couple conversations with him, I think he’s just…”  I searched for the right word.  “lonely.”
“That’s still no excuse for poor behavior, and you know it.”  Applejack was right, of course.
“Maybe he wouldn’t be lonely if he didn’t attack everyone who bumped into him.”  It was hard to imagine Pinkie Pie offended, but there she was.
“The way I remember it he attacked us because we were intruding into his home without permission.”
“You seem pretty defensive about this guy, what gives?”  Dash shoot me with a demanding glare.
“I’m just trying to give him a chance.  Doesn’t everypony deserve a second chance?”  At this, each of the other three ponies looked mildly ashamed at themselves.  “If you give him a chance and he still throws it in your face I won’t ask you to put it aside again.”
“We get it already.”  Rainbow Dash huffs.  “Fine, we can start over.  But if he calls me Crash I’m dashing out.”
“I suppose it’s not really fair to judge him without even talking to him.  OK, he can have the benefit of the doubt.”
“See?  That's all I’m really asking.”  Now I looked over at Pinkie and spotted a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“OK, but I get to throw a party for him.  That's how it works.”
“Pinkie, this time I’m not sure that a surprise party is a good idea.”  Pinkie turned on me with an exaggerated display of slack-jawed betrayal.  I recognized that she didn’t really mean it.
“Seriously?!  How could he possibly be against a party!  Everyone loves parties!”
“I’m not against a party, we just really don’t want to intrude on him again.  If you want to throw him a party just make sure he knows about it ahead of time.”
“I can work with that.”  Pinkie trotted away, I could already see her plotting.  “I’ll let you know!”  She giggled as she called over her shoulder to us.
“Pinkie, wait up!”  Rainbow Dash darted after her.  Something sank in my gut, and Applejack gave voice to my concern.
“Why do I get the strange feeling we’ve created a monster?”
“You’re probably right.”  I sighed.  “I should go warn Sable before something ugly happens, in case she forgets.”
“I may as well come with you, if only to be the last one of us to actually meet this guy.”  Together we set off, the subject of conversation switching to mundane things.  Our route took us through the shopping center, and then around the park, before we paused nearby town hall.  I looked around, watching the various ponies out on daily chores, Sable was not among them.  “So Twilight, I can’t help but notice we aren’t going in a straight line.  Where are we headed again?”
“Well, this is embarrassing.”  I gave her a half-cringe smile.  “It only occurs to me now, I don’t know where he works.”
“And you thought we might find him by just wandering about town?”  It was only pure chance that Pinkie had run into him when they first met.  “That's not your cleverest moment.  Do you think he might be at his home?”
“We can hope, it’s the best place to check anyways.  We can leave a note if he’s not there, at least.  He lives out by Everfree Forest, so it’s a bit of a walk.”
“Never stopped us before, lead on.”  So now we headed in the direction of Sable’s little hovel.  Along the way, I continued to watch for Sable, in case we met him on the road, and we almost reached his home before I remembered to check the air above as well.  The sky was devoid of black winged Unicorns and otherwise completely clear, aside from some high clouds.  It was not long after that the lonely mailbox comes into view.  “I don’t see a house.”  Applejack was just as confused as I was when I first saw it.
“His house is behind the tree there.”  I nodded towards the willow.  We followed the dirt trail around the willow’s hanging leaves and up to the little hovel’s door.
“He must really enjoy his privacy, this far outside town.”
“That might be an understatement.”  I knocked on the door.  “Sable?  Are you home?”  There was no response from inside, but at least the door didn’t open on its own.  Sable must have fixed the latch.  We waited for a moment, Applejack was inspecting the structure, frowning slightly.  I was about to consider turning away again when Applejack drew my attention to something above us.
“What in blazes is that?”  I looked up at what she was pointing at, finding a glowing neon blue image forming above us.  It twisted into an arrow, pointing to the hovel’s side, then it extended and followed the contours of the building, until it stopped and pointed down to the ground, now behind the hovel.  I shrugged and gestured for Applejack to come along.  We followed the arrow, now repeating its previous actions, until we rounded the building.  The Unicorn in the long black coat stood in front of the pond with his back to us, and beside him a square section of dirt threatening to be overrun by weeds.  A trowel hovered beside his right shoulder, spinning slowly, and an open book I recognized as the gardening manual from the other day hung to his left in the air.  He appeared to be enthralled in the pages.
“Sable, there you are.”  The arrow popped out of existence as Sable looked back at us.  “Good afternoon.”  He did not speak as he closed the book and set it down before turning to face us directly.  His eyes went from me to the pony next at my side.  “Applejack, this is Sable Stardust.”  Sable nodded to the orange pony, not quite as deeply as the dignified bow he gave me before, which seems to be his preferred greeting.
“Good to meet you.”  Applejack extended a hoof in greeting, Sable glanced down at it but did not return the gesture.  Applejack seemed mildly annoyed but let it slide, choosing to use her proffered hoof to tip her hat instead.  Then I saw recognition in Sable’s face.
“I thought your name sounded familiar.  Hello again, Applejack.”
“Pardon?”
“You two have met?”  I glanced between the two.
“Not that I remember.”  Applejack sounded uncertain.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.  The summer before Twilight Sparkle arrived here for the first time Sweet Apple Acres had an unusually heavy harvest.”
“Ah right, I remember now.  We hired on some extra help for a while to get everything done on time.  I do seem to recall a Unicorn helping now.”
“Wait, you’ve been here since I before I even moved in?”  Sable looked my way, his expression somewhere between confusion and annoyance.
“Public library.”  He said it, as a matter of fact, I drew a blank for an instant before realizing what he meant.  He had said the other day that he remembered when the building I moved into when I arrived was the public library.  I laughed once at myself when Applejack looked to me for an answer with a bemused face.  “Now that we are all acquainted again…”  He left the end open, letting us figure it out.
“Well, I had planned to introduce you to Applejack.”  I dipped my head a little, acknowledging they have already met.  “And to let you know I’ve convinced Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to give you a chance to start over with them.”  Sable raised his head slightly, I hadn’t realized how low he held himself most of the time.  When he stands at full height he’s as tall as me.
“Let me guess.”  There was more than a little distaste in his voice.  “The pink one is planning to throw me a party.”
“How did you figure that so fast?”  Applejack seemed surprised, some significant part of my mind was not.
“You can’t live in Ponyville for as long as we have without noticing patterns in the behaviors of certain individuals.”  Applejack blinked, Sable rolled his eyes.  “Every time somepony new shows up there is a raucous event hosted by none other than Pinkie Pie.”  He gestured towards me.  “Start over, she said.”  He sighed and rubbed at his temple, the trowel hovering in the air twitched back and forth.  “Just tell her to keep that blasted cannon out of it.”
“Her party cannon?”
“Last time I wandered too close to one of her parties I took a stray confetti streamer to the eye.”  I almost laughed out loud, Applejack did.  “Then she pulled out an eye patch from behind a flowerpot and insisted I wear it, no matter how filthy it was.”
“You just have the worst luck with her, how often does this kind of thing happen?”
“After the third time, it’s hard to not take it personally.  After the sixth you just sort of accept it as a fact of life.”  I couldn’t resist anymore and burst out laughing at the absurdity.  Sable tried to not look insulted, I could still see disapproval in his eyes.  The trowel in the air suddenly planted itself into the ground beside him, point first.  Between laughs, I sputtered an apology and Sable’s expression softened back to normal.  “Any warning on when she’s plotting this?”  Applejack cleared her throat to chase out the giggles.
“Pinkie has a farmer’s dozen plans for parties all ready to go at a moment’s notice.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she were getting it ready right now.”
“She did say she would let us know when it was ready, and I made her promise to ask you first.”  At this Sable nodded again, clearly grateful.  “I think tomorrow at the earliest is more likely.”
“That would surprise me.  It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”  I hadn’t checked the weather schedule for a few days, so I had to think for a minute to conclude he was right.  "Well, thank you anyways for the heads up.”  Sable lifted the trowel from where it was embedded and made to turn back to his little garden in progress.
“So, Stardust, I can’t help but notice your house is a little…”  Applejack didn’t want to let the conversation end just yet it seemed.  “Interesting.”  She chose a neutral word at least, for which I was grateful.  I didn’t want another repeat of the incident with Rainbow Dash.
“Like it?”  Sarcasm as Sable looked towards his home.  “I made it myself.”  There was no pride there, only flat acknowledgment and a little disappointment directed towards the construction.  “And you don’t have to be polite about it.  It’s a hovel.”
“I think I can help a bit.”  Applejack stepped up next to the wall and pointed to where it meets the ground, and then the pond.  “The problem you’ve got is the house is too close to the pond.”
“Oh?”  Sable dropped the trowel and brought his attention entirely to Applejack.
“See, the water makes the ground soft.”
“I put in a stone foundation.”  That’s what I would have done as well.  Although I probably would have read up on engineering first.
“That doesn’t really help here; unfortunately, the heavy stone just sinks in unevenly over time.  That's why your walls are leaning.  I bet your foundation is starting to fall apart too.”
“You would be correct.”
“Tell me you didn’t put in a basement?”
“I was not that ambitious.”
“Well, that’s good.  The water from the pond would seep in through the walls and flood it fairly quickly.”  Applejack swept her gaze around, judging the terrain.  “I think the right thing to do here would have been to set the structure on some piles.”
“I assume you mean the wooden rods pounded into the ground vertically?”
“Yeah, that's right.  They compress the ground and help squeeze out the water, while also not sinking the same way stone would.  That way the house stays level for longer.”
“I hadn’t considered that.”  It sounded like the idea surprised him.
“The other good options would have been to put the house on top of, or part way up, the hill there.”  Applejack pointed to the hillside nearby.  “Or on the other side of the big tree.  That should be far enough away for the ground to hold better.”
“I’ve even seen some ponies who used trees themselves as part of the structure.”  Here I finally found a way to enter the conversation.  “Before you ask, I don’t mean building up in the branches.”  I cut off the retort I could tell was coming.  “What I mean is using the trunk as one corner of the building itself.”  Sable looks over the roof to the willow beyond, frowning slightly.
“Curious engineering.  Although I don’t think this tree is a good choice for that.”  He shook his head.  “No, I think…”  He paused on the verge of saying something.  I let him think, Applejack did the same.  “I thank you for your analysis.”  He nodded towards Applejack.  “However at this time I have no plans to rebuild just yet.”
“Well, if you change your mind you can come and ask us for help.  I’ve had to rebuild the barn a few times.  As long as it’s not harvest-season, we should be able to find the time to help you out.”  I was genuinely surprised that Applejack would offer this so quickly, Sable seemed utterly dumbstruck by it.  I watched him carefully, he couldn’t seem to find the right words to respond with.
“Just something to think about.”  I came to his rescue.  “We should let you get back to your garden.”  I gestured to the weed-ridden patch of dirt.
“That’s a garden?”  Applejack clearly doubted it.
“Not yet.”  Sable and I answered simultaneously.  Sable met my eyes, and laughed, raising his head high.  Not the humphs from before or even a chuckle, but an honest deep laugh.  It wasn’t even that funny, but he laughed anyway.  A moment later and he settled down to a faint smile, nodding deeply to the both of us before retrieving his trowel once again.
“Good luck then, We’ll see you at the party then.”  Applejack turned to leave.
“I’ll be along in a moment.”  I waved her on and hung back for a moment, then I waited until Applejack was around the corner.  “You know, I think that's the first time I’ve heard you really laugh.”  I looked over at Sable, he looked back with a curiously raised eyebrow.  “You should do that more often, it’s a good sound.”  Then I waved goodbye and trotted off after Applejack.





“That was the day before my party… I still need to apologize to him.”
“I’m really thankful you didn’t invite anypony else.  It was rough enough with just us.”
“The party didn’t go well?”
“That would be a serious understatement.”
“Calling it an utter disaster wouldn’t be doing it justice.”