The young mare didn’t have too much of a taste for sweet things, either, and Cup Cake had, rather considerately, only provided us a few of her pecan twirls. Though I thought the mare had found them unexpectedly to her liking.
“So, you’d think I’d take the first train in the morning back to Ponyville, if not catch the last one out that evening, hm?” I said. She hastily set her teacup down and picked up her pencil once more. I daresay the wood of a pencil might taste especially bitter after a pecan twirl.
“Relax,” I continued, reaching for my own cup. “I’ll give you ample warning, but for now, I’ve gotten a tad parched. I don’t normally find my voice taxed so.”
Quickly, she flashed me an apologetic smile, but I waved it off.
“No, no, it really is my pleasure,” I said. “I don’t mind talking to you at all, and by my troth, I’ve enjoyed reliving those days. I don’t know that I’ve even told my daughters in this much detail before. Perhaps I should take it as a blessing that you’ve decided to record it. They might find it an illuminating perspective on their mother.”
My tea had cooled by then, so I took a generous swallow. “Provided they will have the opportunity to read it, of course. That is entirely up to you.”
She’d laid her pencil down and raised her fresh cup, mimicking me in breathing in a deep draught of its rich steam, but here she paused to nod vigorously.
“I thank thee—you,” I said, and then chuckled at my own foolishness. “I still get caught between worlds at times.”
For a moment, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. The young mare would have a chance to savor her tea at a more sedate pace, and I could bask in the banging pots, clinking dishes, and bantering voices lilting in from the kitchen. “You know,” I said, my eyes still shut, “it’s amazing how certain instances in time absolutely crystallize in your memory. I may not remember what else happened that day or even that week, but one infinitesimal point will simply sparkle, and you can see it in your mind as if were happening right now.” Like that day I’d baked part of Buttercup’s surprise cake for her. I recalled every nuance, as if in a photograph; I could see it frozen in space, linger on the details, maneuver through the scene: the wooden spoon churning through the mix, the recipe card propped up on the counter, a puff of flour floating beside my face, and a huge smile at managing a creation on my own.
I’d taken part in enough of that cooking mayhem long ago, when everything felt fresh and frightening and thrilling all at once, reading my first romance novel in the bedroom upstairs, learning to speak so customers could understand me, then much later, peeking back at the kitchen door, cracked open, to see if Cup Cake would nod her approval at whatever stallion had asked me on a date that day.
Not many cleared the bar with her, and she never steered me wrong, though they never led to a second date, either. Intimidated by the competition? I never noticed at the time. More likely put off by me sitting there silently at dinner, wondering why coloring my face and wearing my hair loose appealed to them so much, and them finding me boring. No wonder I’d had success as a model—nopony expected me to go beyond appearances. And that dating nonsense had all stopped once I’d started seeing Mayor Mare anyway.
I took a deep breath and sat up. By the time I’d opened my eyes, the young mare already had her pencil at the ready.
“Instead of heading back to Ponyville immediately, I spent another day in Manehattan with Ms. Harshwhinny. We cooked lunch together one last time and went for a stroll through the park. ‘Easing me back into a slower-paced life,’ she called it, but really, I think she needed a friend, just a little bit longer. It was a luxury she’d never quite had before, and I happily indulged her. But she’d shown me how to withdraw money from the bank, and I’d gotten enough to purchase a ticket on the evening train.”
I tilted my cup back—both it and the pot had run dry. All things must end. “She accompanied me to the train station to see me off, but we had walked over that way early so that we could get a drink at her favorite bar again. Knowing us, I would have expected a very quiet evening. But fate had different plans.”
“Virgin cider,” I said to the waitress. Our usual table was occupied when we arrived, but after only ten minutes at the bar, it emptied, so we’d taken it again.
“House red wine,” Ms. Harshwhinny said.
“Alright, I’ll have those out for you in just a minute!”
My saddlebags, all packed, rested against my chair. I kept glancing down at them and tapping my hoof against the buckle, seemingly a clock ticking away the seconds we had remaining together, and after the fourth or fifth time, Ms. Harshwhinny spoke up.
“Why don’t you seem happy?”
Didn’t I? The dead ends and indecision looming around my head like a great swarm of gnats for the last several weeks had finally dispersed.
But I hadn’t earned it.
“I didn’t follow through. I didn’t stick with anything. How can I say I tried even a single thing if I didn’t see it through to its conclusion? Have I wasted my time all along?” Months of it. I propped my cheek on a hoof and stared hard at the tabletop. If I kept my focus on something mundane, maybe I could keep from crying. Any thought would do, except my stupid attempt to kiss just about everypony—
How could I find something when I didn’t know what it was? Wandering blindly in, starting down an unknown path without looking ahead. At least I had my answer: I didn’t belong out here, displaced from everything that made sense to me.
The tears started anyway, stupid tears, cowardly.
Ms. Harshwhinny glanced around at the other patrons, her eyes gleaming like a watchdog’s, then sidled her chair nearer to me and held my hoof. “But that’s not the point. Your ‘new things’—I see the value, to make sure you really want the familiar before you commit to it. But…” She shook her head and dabbed at my cheeks with a cocktail napkin. “Say you cooked a new recipe and didn’t like it. Why would you torture yourself by eating it all when you knew from the first bite that it didn’t suit you? You gave it a fair shot, and that’s all anypony can ask of you.”
“But I let so many ponies down! I broke promises to Cup Cake, Mayor Mare, a-and Prim! She must have had to replan her show without me, the whole crew, the other models, they’re all put out because of me!” How could I have allowed myself to get so selfish? Prim probably had a tab with the railroad as well, and I was too dumb to think of it, too bound up in my own sob story to do what I should have. I could have made it only a few hours late, walked the runway, repaid Prim for the ticket, or—
With what money? “If I hadn’t been so dreadfully dumb, I could have taken money from the bank to get to Canterlot and fulfill my agreement, but I hadn’t made anything from the modeling yet and—”
“She never paid you?” Ms. Harshwhinny growled.
I flopped forward onto the table and covered my face. I didn’t deserve to be paid. “No way could I take money from Prim, not then, not after what I did to her,” I forced out between sniffles. “She must hate me.”
“Don’t you dare take the blame for that!” I jerked my head up at the metallic sharpness in her voice. “You were bullied and misled, and it’s a shoddy organization that lets that go on!”
I didn’t want anypony angry! Not at me, not at each other, and I couldn’t take the shouting! I laid my head down and held my hooves over my ears, and my elbow bumped my glass of cider, and when had the waitress even set it there? But it jolted off the table and shattered on the floor, splashed on my saddlebags, and all I could think about was Buttercup’s cake lying crumbled on the tile of Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen and a glut of icing on my hoof and a piping bag I should have known better than to entrust to my own incompetence.
My body went limp, and I sobbed into the table as quietly as I could.
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Harshwhinny said softly, next to my ear. “I thought I was helping.”
“It’s okay,” I whimpered. “Even if it’s not my fault, it still happened because of me. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“Alright. Just calm down. Everything’s fine.” The waitress had brought a couple of wet towels, and Ms. Harshwhinny knelt to wipe off my saddlebags and my dangling legs. And behind me, the sound of a broom and tinkling glass shards.
Then Ms. Harshwhinny scooted her chair against mine and put an arm around me. “You haven’t caused trouble, and you haven’t wasted anypony’s time. You found out a lot about who you are, and that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
It must have raised some eyebrows to see Ms. Harshwhinny on the floor, cleaning up after me. Just more embarrassment I’d perpetrated. She rubbed a hoof up and down my back, and only then did I hear several gasps. They just now noticed the staid mare shamelessly comforting her young friend in public?
But… Ms. Harshwhinny gasped as well. “You!” she shouted. She sounded like she might murder somepony, so I lethargically raised my head, and—
Prim Hemline stood in the doorway, she’d already spotted me, and she made a beeline over, and oh no, no, no, no, no! She’d yell and scream at me, demand her investment back, and glare at me with such hate, I just knew it, but I couldn’t run away! I trembled and shook so hard that I fell out of my chair, my bun came undone, and my glasses hit the floor, and a renewed rush of tears ran down my face.
Ms. Harshwhinny immediately interposed herself between us and tried to help me stand. “Are you alright?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” I choked out as I gritted my teeth, stared up with wide eyes, and waited for Prim to enumerate all my offenses and failures and pass sentence on me.
But Prim had a hoof to her chest, and she gazed at me as if at an injured child. “Oh, thank goodness I found you!”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming here to browbeat her some more!” Ms. Harshwhinny said.
Prim scrunched up her nose and peered at her like she had a toad perched on top of her head. “Browbeat!?”
“I think you should leave.”
“I just came here to—”
“After all you put her through? She’s been scared to death of you for weeks now!”
Prim blanched as if Nightmare Moon herself stood in front of her. “Is this true?” she asked me.
“Don’t talk to her!” Ms. Harshwhinny continued. “You drag her off somewhere she doesn’t have the first clue how to survive, you leave her to fend for herself—”
“If you could just—”
“You didn’t even pay her!” Ms. Harshwhinny yanked me up and into my chair, and I just covered my head again, squeezed my eyes shut, and why wouldn’t all the shouting stop!? “I suppose you think that’s fair in some twisted way?”
“I pay my staff every other week, and she hadn’t been with us that long—”
“She’d starved herself near to the point of passing out because you thought she was fat!”
“I never said—”
“If not you, then somepony in your employ, and it is your job to know that, you insufferable harridan! You”—I could practically hear her jabbing a hoof at Prim’s chest—“are responsible!”
“For the love of Celestia!” Prim roared. “Could you please tone down the self-righteousness and shut up for five minutes!?”
Only my soft whimpering sounded throughout the room. Something warm up against me—Ms. Harshwhinny, her arm around me. Slowly, I raised my head up, and on the table, my hair tie. Ms. Harshwhinny must have set it there. My glasses dangled by their chain, and I reached down to put them back on, but…
One of the lenses had cracked.
Another spasm wracked my throat, and I held it in, but not without sniffling. And I still couldn’t stop shaking.
“You had me so worried,” Prim said softly. She must have taken the seat across from me. I blinked and finally met her gaze—not a trace of fire in her eyes. She wore a gentle smile. “I came back that evening, as soon as I noticed you hadn’t made it to Canterlot. I asked at the train station and the hotel, and they remembered seeing you, but they had no idea where you might have gone. I assumed you had decided you didn’t like modeling anymore, but I couldn’t abide leaving you on your own in a big city, either. I spent two days looking, and then I had to go supervise the fashion show, but every chance I got, I returned, asked around, followed up on rumors.”
Her smile grew, and Ms. Harshwhinny’s death grip on my shoulder relaxed. “You’re a very unique mare, and it wasn’t hard to catch word of sightings, but you turned up all over town. If you’ve been accompanying Ms. Harshwhinny, that makes sense. Still, I could never predict where you’d be, until I got a tip that you came here at the same time every evening.”
She reached a hoof toward me, but it only got halfway before she pulled it back. “Pixie Cut will be so relieved to hear you’re alright. She was worried sick. You said something to her that made her think you might…” Leaning over the table, she crossed her forelegs against her chest and pursed her lips. “Well, she thought you might harm yourself. At least the few hints I got of your continued appearances around the city helped dispel that notion, if not eliminate it entirely.”
“Harm… myself?” Why would a pony do such a thing? I’d never heard of the like before.
Again, Ms. Harshwhinny’s hoof grasped my shoulder, and my heart thudded with the rising grumble in her throat. “That’s all well and good, but Cloudy was mistreated. Nothing you’ve said changes that.”
But Prim held up a hoof, and Ms. Harshwhinny actually stayed quiet. “You’re right. I’m the one in charge, it’s my fault, and I’ll do what I can to fix it,” she said, staring pointedly at Ms. Harshwhinny, who’d bared her teeth in preparation for a renewed argument, but she deflated. And she gave a gentle nod, then Prim turned to me. “Who did this to you? Was it High Heels?”
I just shook my head and followed the swirling wood grain on the table in front of me.
“No? Then Sunny Shore?”
I didn’t respond. “Go on,” Ms. Harshwhinny finally said, poking me in the side. “Tell her who. Then they’ll get what they deserve.”
Didn’t they understand? I pressed my hooves to my temples. “I don’t want to make trouble! Not for you, not for them…”
“But they did something wrong!” Prim said. “They need to face the consequences of that!”
I took a deep breath and let it out as a long, tremulous sigh. “I hope they will on their own. But I can’t fault them for being what they are.” I sat up, retied my hair in a bun, and perched my glasses on my nose. This close, the crack didn’t really sit in my field of vision. “Just like I need to be what I am.”
“She’s better than this city deserves,” Ms. Harshwhinny muttered.
Igneous Rock had never tried to make me into anything other than me. So many others had, and yes, that wasn’t fair to ponies like Cup Cake who only wanted to help. But long before all this, back to my foalhood, Igneous Rock represented the one constant. Waiting for me in the mornings to walk to school together, helping each other with homework… For Celestia’s sake, I’d only felt comfortable letting my hair down in front of him, even though I eventually got used to it around Mayor Mare.
I’d forgotten. That one spring day last year, and I’d gotten into a strange, melancholy mood, and we sat there on a huge slab of rock overlooking the river. We watched the sunset together, holding hooves as the chilled breeze tingled like frost on my coat and the warmth radiated up from the sun-baked granite. He hadn’t noticed me watching him, but he felt as steady as the rock under us. So faithful. What had Ms. Harshwhinny said? Somepony I could envision raising a family with. And that day, with the water cascading past us and the trees creaking in the wind, I’d thought to myself what a steadfast father he’d make.
“I’ve decided to go back.”
Prim folded her hooves in her lap and looked down. “I can’t say that surprises me. When I’d talked to Pixie Cut, trying to figure out where you might have gone, she told me about the conversations you had while she did your hair. I didn’t know all of that, where you came from, why you were in Ponyville. I should have, and—”
She shook her head and sighed sharply. “I don’t know if it would have changed things. I still would have found you an exquisite and alluring model, and I still would have wanted you on staff. But perhaps I would have taken more personal care in making sure you adapted well, or…” Huffing out another breath, she looked away and propped her chin on a hoof. “I shouldn’t have tried to get you to adapt at all. Then you’d lose what makes you true to yourself and special to all the rest of us.”
It… it was nice to hear she felt that way. My heart finally slowed, and I took in a steady breath. “Not just to Ponyville. I’ve decided to go back home.” A light warmth spread throughout my body, and I didn’t sense that huge city looming over me anymore. Back home, to the farm and Mother and Father and Igneous Rock. I did love him, and I’d tested that, and it came up true, though only now did I realize: What had transpired on his roam-springa? Would I return to find nothing waiting for me? Either way, I had to try.
Prim kept her face diverted, but she did roll her eyes back toward me as she pursed her lips. “I hope you believe that I didn’t intend for anything bad to happen to you.” I began to nod, but she continued even before getting my response. “I’m disappointed for myself, but not for you. Though if you ever decide you’d like to do some modeling work—no big production, just some small-scale freelance shoots: you, me, a photographer, Pixie Cut, somepony from wardrobe, a makeup artist other than Glitter Glow—”
“She should be fired,” Ms. Harshwhinny spat.
“She’s good at what she does, and it’s hard to find somepony of that caliber—”
“It doesn’t matter. She overtly—”
“You don’t know that. Cloudy never said she—”
“Then why are you already presuming to exclude her?”
“Please,” I said, not covering my head this time. “Just let it be. I’ve done enough damage.”
“But you haven’t—” Prim started.
I grimaced and sniffled, and I just didn’t want to talk about this anymore! “Please,” I said, my voice trembling.
Prim’s ears drooped, and her shoulders sagged. “Alright. I’m still going to give the whole staff a good talking to. But if you would ever be willing to do some modeling, just you, nopony else, then the offer is open. Write me anytime.” She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a slip of paper. “And Ms. Harshwhinny is right about something else, too: you never got paid. Payroll gave me this when they couldn’t locate you. I’ve carried it with me ever since. Sorry I left the name blank, but ‘Crystal Essence’ was all I could think of at the time, and they didn’t have your real name on record yet. You can fill it in.”
The paper whispered as it slid across the tabletop, whispered about my aborted attempt to have an impact on the greater world, whispered that this token might seal our agreement to consider it an ill-conceived venture and never speak of it again, and it came to rest against my foreleg. My eyes shot wide open. “Eight thousand bits!?” No, no, I shouldn’t have shouted! That would sound like bragging and—I quickly covered it with a hoof to keep it from prying eyes. “Eight thousand bits!?” I hissed.
She looked like she’d just gotten caught ridiculing Celestia by one of her personal guard. “That’s… standard. Nine working days at five hundred bits each, three days of five-hundred-bit bonuses for the front row, and a bonus of two thousand for your magazine cover. Were you expecting more?”
“No, I—” My nose wrinkled up, and I started crying again, but for the first time in weeks, the good kind. “I don’t know what I’d ever do with this much money!” I keened. In the months I’d helped out at Sugarcube Corner, I’d only saved a little over two thousand, after I’d insisted on contributing to the household expenses and bought quilting materials. The tips had kept piling up, but still, to multiply the amount of money to my name that much in one instant?
“I can’t accept this.”
Prim frowned, though her eyes sparkled. “You can and you will. This is no charity case; you earned it. Your magazine cover sold like hotcakes, and somepony is going to make money off it. Might as well be you.”
She had that set to her jaw that Father always got when nothing I could say would move him. Good ponies accepted credit, good or bad. “O-okay,” I said.
“And I’ll pay for your train ticket home,” Prim continued. Her frown had softened, and she finally did reach across to pat my hoof. “Though it sounds like you want to stop in Ponyville first. Anyway, I brought you here, and it’s my responsibility to see you back again. I insist on bearing the cost.”
“Just Ponyville. I’d prefer to walk the remaining distance.”
“Done.” A full smile now, and even Ms. Harshwhinny wore a grin. “May I see you off at the train station?”
I couldn’t stop staring at the slip of paper—I guessed it was one of those “checks” Ms. Harshwhinny mentioned when she took me to the bank. But Prim gently pulled it away from me and slid it into my saddlebag. “Yes,” I finally replied. “We were just on our way there.”
I strode back from the ticket counter and eased onto the bench between Ms. Harshwhinny and Prim Hemline. As it turned out, Prim did have a tab with the railway. I could have made it to Canterlot long ago, yet it seemed like things had ended up exactly as they should.
“When does your train leave?” Prim asked.
“Twenty minutes. They’ll start boarding in ten.”
Ms. Harshwhinny scooted against me and gave me a one-armed hug, a hidden warmth radiating from her, one most ponies would never suspect she had. “Now you look happy,” she said with a grin.
And I was. I felt about twenty pounds lighter, though a little too late for it to make a difference in my modeling career. But I smiled, and I could just as well have been rolling out of bed an hour before sunrise, waiting for Cup Cake to finish her bath, mixing up all the standard muffin and bread doughs, worrying a little about wearing makeup that day, and eventually sneezing. Twice. Just knowing I’d found a spot in the world I could really belong. After a long day in the fields, going home to Mother’s cooking and Father’s fiddle playing. Home.
“And I apologize for my outburst,” Ms. Harshwhinny continued, leaning forward to look across me at Prim. “I had no right to insult you.”
“You were looking out for Cloudy,” Prim answered, and she patted my withers. “I can’t blame you for that. I would have done the same. And I rather like—” she wore a strange little grin “—when somepony stands up passionately for something she believes in. I find myself surrounded by quite enough yes-mares.”
Why did everypony like me so much? I hadn’t earned that any more than I’d earned my decision to go back home. I’d cut off everything in the middle, or had it cut off for me. Everything!
Ms. Harshwhinny must not have seen Prim’s hoof there, around my back—she reached up as well, bumped it, and flashed Prim an apologetic grin. “You’re a very courageous pony,” Ms. Harshwhinny said to me.
No. No, I was so scared all the time. Only being this oblivious saved me from worse. “My fear is my courage,” I replied.
But Ms. Harshwhinny only gaped. “No, I hope you don’t feel that way! You completely turned your life upside down, left behind every trace of what you knew. Not many ponies can do that. And you brought a little sunshine everywhere you went. Look how many ponies retained the best part of you because they had the good fortune to encounter you on your travels. I wish I could say I produced that same effect, here or abroad. And even when I am here, who would put up with that kind of schedule?”
Before Ms. Harshwhinny had stopped speaking, Prim had already started nodding. “Yes, if I’m lucky, I might spend six months out of the year at home,” Prim said, “in fractured weekends, bits and pieces of workdays, scattered remnants of evenings passing through to somewhere else. It’s a wonderful career, but not very conducive to companionship.”
With a quiet chuckle, Ms. Harshwhinny said, “Every night I actually find myself in town, I go to that same bar for a glass of red wine before dinner. If you check when you happen to wander through, you just might find somepony willing to engage in another public screaming match with you.”
Prim barely held in a laugh, and a small snort did escape her.
But almost immediately afterward, a sharp whistle sounded. “All aboard for Ponyville!” the conductor shouted.
With a sigh, I stood and brushed the dust off my saddlebags. Just minutes ago, it had felt so serene to visualize returning to Ponyville. Not that I didn’t still look forward to seeing Father again and telling him of my decision—he’d crack such a big smile and have Mother roast the prized rock in the field for a banquet, invite the neighbors, maybe play his fiddle in front of them, if he didn’t feel too self-conscious. But now that it came time to say good-bye…
I gave Ms. Harshwhinny a long hug. “Thank you so much. This city would have bested me if not for you. I never told you this, but I wondered if there was a Cup Cake in every town, somepony that fate would direct unprepared travelers to. I think there is, and I found it here in you.”
She sniffled a bit, so I gave her a kiss on the cheek as well, adding, “That’s meant as a friend only. I learned my lesson.”
Then I stepped over to embrace Prim. “I wish I’d gotten to know you better, but I do admire you. At heart, you’re a kind pony, and you treated me so gently. I won’t forget you.”
I wiped away a few of my own tears, but I eventually had to climb the steep stairs up to the train car. “Good-bye, Cloudy,” they both called, waving.
“I’ll write to you. I promise,” I answered before ducking inside. Unfortunately, all the seats on that side were taken, so I had to move to the far side. Rather stuffy in here—I opened the window and stuck my head out for a breath of fresh air just as the train on the adjacent track began pulling away.
And inside it—Cranky! He caught sight of me and dashed to the end of his car, leaning out the open door. “I did it!” he shouted, jabbing a hoof behind him, to the west, as he receded into the distance. “I asked for a traveling position, and I’m going to San Franciscolt, then on to Las Pegasus! I’ll look for her wherever I go!”
I had to laugh. In the midst of failing to find any romance of my own, I’d managed to find it for quite a few others. Cup Cake, Buttercup, Cranky Doodle. The train lurched forward, and I fell into my seat, but I quickly raised halfway back up to peer through the opposite windows and wave to Prim and Ms. Harshwhinny. I thought they saw me. But they did smile and watch the train leave as they stood there. Together. I had to laugh again.
One loose thread, though: Mayor Mare. I swallowed down the lump in my throat as the buildings flashed by outside, soon enough giving way to trees and countryside.
Market day, but what day wasn’t market day in Ponyville? This time, I made up part of the crowd disembarking from the steaming hulk of iron, and the few dozen ponies with stiff necks from sleeping overnight on hard benches may well have looked like a thousand to some poor inexperienced mare emerging from the woods. I hadn’t even awakened with the sun, hadn’t sneezed. Could nothing go back to the way it was?
By this hour, the line at Sugarcube Corner easily stretched out the front door. I… What should I do? Wait my turn? Beg everypony’s pardon, squeeze past, put on an apron, and start helping customers as if I’d never left?
No, none of that. Good ponies didn’t presume anything. I merely sat down against the wall and listened to all the voices spilling out, the bell tinkling with each new customer who edged through the door. The scent of pecan twirls wafted out, and my stomach growled. I just closed my eyes and let the late autumn breeze tickle my coat.
After who knows how long, the bell rang one final time, and the door clicked shut. The lunch rush over, and business wouldn’t pick up again for another two or three hours. Then one more jingle, hoofsteps, the harsh rustle of a trash bag, and… a loud gasp. I looked up.
“Cloudy!” Cup Cake shouted, the corners of her mouth inching upward as the forgotten trash bag fell to the ground. “You’re back, you’re back!” she chanted, and she easily picked me up—she was an earth pony, after all—twirling me around and around until I thanked the stars above I hadn’t eaten breakfast.
But her face fell at the first teardrops landing on her arms, and she put me back down. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did something happen in Manehattan?”
“I’m sorry!” I gushed, and I nearly tackled her with a hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was so awful to you and Mayor Mare, and I never wrote you, and please, please don’t hate me!” Once I went back home, I might never see either of them again, so why did it even matter?
It… it mattered because they were my friends. Because I loved them like family, and I couldn’t imagine never seeing them again. I didn’t live that far away, and I could visit, if they’d have me, if they still liked me, and—
Anything else I tried to say only got lost and choked off. “Sh-sh-sh,” Cup Cake said, holding me close and rubbing my back, the same way she had when I’d so stupidly kissed her. “It’s okay. Ponies get busy, and you must have had a whirlwind of a time. But I only asked you to tell me about it when you could, and here you are! No harm done.”
I desperately wiped at my running nose, and Cup Cake eyed a couple of barely used napkins that had spilled out of the trash bag, but with a well-hidden grimace, she took off her apron and held it to my muzzle.
“Blow,” she said. So I did, and then she dried my eyes with the other corner. “C’mon. Let’s go inside, and you can tell me everything.” She stood, and it took a few rounds of her beckoning me along, but I gave in and followed her.
So many good ponies I’d found on my roam-springa! I didn’t deserve them, but I’d gladly accept their friendship. Good ponies associated with good ponies.
Cup Cake guided me to one of the cushy benches near the counter and sat down next to me. But before I could start talking, Carrot Cake strode out of the kitchen with two large cake boxes balanced on his back.
She’d… replaced me? Already?
Quickly, I rubbed the tingle out of my nose. Of course she had! A business needed to run, after all, and she couldn’t wait for me indefinitely. Otherwise, she would have gone without help for well over a month now.
As soon as Carrot caught sight of me, he let the empty boxes fall to the floor, rushed over, and shook my hoof vigorously. “Good to see you again, Cloudy! Chiffon told me you’d left to pursue a modeling career.” He cocked his head and squinted.
“That didn’t go so well.” On the bench beside Cup Cake, he reached a hoof around her, and she absentmindedly gave him a peck on the cheek.
When she saw me staring back, she blushed a little, like some ruby jack ore, the light glinting off it at just the right angle to pick up a red tint. “We-we’re dating now. And Carrot left his job at the delivery service to work for me.” My ears drooped. “No, don’t worry! We still have a place for you here! In fact, the more, the better. I have a business loan due soon, and things are getting tight, so any more product we can make and sell will only help.”
A sweet gesture, but really, I didn’t need it. And they didn’t need me. “I’ve decided to go back home,” I said.
A pained jolt shot across her face, but just as rapidly, it faded into a soft smile. “Is that what you want?” To Carrot’s credit, he quietly slipped back into the kitchen.
“Yes. Yes, it is. I belong there, and—” I let out a soft giggle. I hadn’t said it before, not out loud, but it felt right. “I love Igneous Rock.”
She sighed, nodded, and patted my hoof. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I would have to say it for her: “And I need to tell Mayor Mare that.”
Another nod, but still she wouldn’t speak.
“Is she mad?” I said.
Cup Cake took in a breath and braced as if to speak; instead, she held it and finally looked up. “She’s…” The breath came out again in a rush, a zephyr shifting the air deep within the mines. “She’s hurt.”
“I-I was so exhausted, I kept forgetting to write, and when I finally had time, I got so scared that I couldn’t—” A tremor ran through my legs, and I averted my gaze downward. “It’s a poor excuse, and I’m a poor friend.” And while I could still command my voice, I told her everything. Even about my foolhardy attempt at another romance.
Cup Cake sighed again, rough, like loose shale scrabbling down a slope. “Go talk to her.”
If I’d stopped shaking at any point, it now returned with a fervor, but I clenched my jaw and knotted up all my muscles. I had to do this. And Cup Cake, she’d—she’d seen. She gave me an almost pitying smile, but she stood anyway. Over to the counter she walked, and she packed up a small paper bag of pecan twirls. “Here,” she said, holding them out to me, “a peace offering might help.”
My heart lurched. “Peace? You m-mean she does hate me?”
Before I could grab her apron off the table again, she’d already dashed back over, waving a hoof. “No, no! It’s just an expression. But… like I said, she’s hurt. Just go talk to her.”
Good ponies didn’t run away from their responsibilities.
So I tightened my jaw more, took the bag of pecan twirls, and started for city hall. Nopony paid me any attention on my way there, but the receptionist gasped a bit: “Cloudy!” I only afforded her a short nod, and a few of the other civil servants did a double-take or dropped papers as I wove through the hallways.
After the normal lunch hour, when I used to come by here, so naturally, Mayor Mare had her door swung shut and her “out to lunch” sign displayed. I walked in anyway, without knocking. She didn’t look up from the paperwork splayed across her desk. Had she even heard me?
Nothing had changed in here. Her chair, big enough—my lip quivered, but I held it in. I wouldn’t cry, not for myself, not here! Big enough for two. The end table where she’d kept the old pair of glasses she gave me, the comfortable sofa, one that still needed a quilt I’d promised myself I’d make her.
I sat on the sofa. The bag of pecan twirls, the paper, it—it crinkled a bit when I set it on the table, and she finally looked up, I could—I could see, out the corner of my eye, but I just took my place there on the sofa where I had many times before, when the summer had still lingered, when the autumn brought its nip. And I began to sew.
The quilt, almost finished now, only a few blocks and the binding left to do, and I sewed, silently, alone. I muffled my crying as much as I could.
Was she glaring at me? Or just watching? My eyes had blurred too much to tell, and I should have known better than to try sewing what I couldn’t see, but what else could I do? When I blinked, it looked like her chair had turned, blocking less of the sunlight. She must have left.
I sniffled hard, covered my eyes with a foreleg, and whimpered. I’d only make things worse, and I should return home before I hurt her any more. But the sofa jostled, barely, and the springs creaked. “Why did you go?” she said. She sounded so small.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but someone wanted me to model, and it was the newest of new things I’d ever encountered!” I forced through my tears.
“I know. Cup Cake told me, that it came up suddenly, that you needed to try. It’s not why you left Ponyville. It’s why you left us. Didn’t I mean anything to you?”
“I meant to write, I really did! But I was exhausted all the time, and then I’d put it off so long I just knew you’d think I’d forgotten you, and I didn’t know how to explain it—” Those old gray dresses, still good for something. I tugged one out and clumsily swiped that wad of cloth across my eyes. “I did still love you, I thought I did—I do still love you. Ms. Harshwhinny told me—”
“Harshwhinny?” She wrinkled her brow at me. “How did you meet her?”
I shook my head, and if only I could bury it in the cushion and wish all this away! “I-I’ll tell you later, but for now, just listen, okay?” If she gave an answer, I didn’t hear it.
“She explained it to me, that I’d so desperately wanted to test my love for Igneous Rock that I’d beaten every friendship I’d made into the shape of a romance, and she’s right! I wanted to love you, so much, that I invented it all—” That sounded awful. How could I say that?
I whipped around toward her, clutched at her shoulders, peered wildly into her eyes. “I love you, I do, not that way, but just as much! Just as much, and I don’t want to lose your friendship any more than I want to lose Igneous Rock! I was terribly unfair to you, I know, and I can only beg you’ll forgive me! You and Cup Cake are the best friends I’ve made, and I don’t know what I’d do if I broke that so badly it couldn’t be fixed.”
Still no reply. At least she hadn’t asked me to leave. “I love you, and I expressed it in a way I didn’t mean, in a way I didn’t even know I didn’t mean, because I was stupid and naive.” I stared at her, and she recoiled a bit—I didn’t intend to do it that intensely! “If you can’t be friends with me anymore, I’ll understand—” a sob leaked out between the words “—but please, please don’t hate me!”
Mayor Mare pursed her lips, and her eyes shifted back and forth between me and her desk. “You should get that lens replaced,” she murmured, pointing at my glasses. “It’s gotten a crack in it.”
“No, no, it’s from you, and it’s not in the way, and I’d never dream of changing it!”
Little by little, a weak smile formed on her face, but as she sat there with her gaze fixed on the upholstery, it faded again. “It did hurt.”
“I know. I know, and I’d do anything I could to make that up to you.”
One last sigh, softer now, like the moss on the boulders near Igneous Rock’s house. “Alright,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “Friends?”
I couldn’t answer. I only flung my arms around her, and the tears wouldn’t stop, but now I didn’t want them to. I might have even heard a quiet giggle.
“You know, we really ought to finish that quilt,” she said.
“Definitely!” I replied, and still sniffling, I unpacked the quilt and draped it across our laps. Needle and thread, only two blocks left—I gave them to her, then found another needle and started on the binding, at the opposite corner from her.
Nice and warm, and I dared to scoot up against her! She’d lost nothing, doing a very good job of stitching the blocks together, and she looked so peaceful at it. Eyes half-lidded, gentle smile, and she hummed along softly. I still hadn’t stopped crying, but each time I wiped my eyes, she looked up and returned my grin.
“I missed you,” I finally said. “I told everypony about how wonderful you are, and how you liked—oh!” I’d forgotten! I grabbed the paper bag and set it on my leg. “Pecan twirls! Please have some.” She needed no more prompting than that, and she jammed a whole one in her mouth! I collapsed forward, laughing, and luckily I didn’t spill any of the twirls, but Mayor Mare did rescue one from falling out of the bag and somehow fit it in there as well.
It took her a good minute to finish chewing, and she’d gotten the first block added. Only one left to go, then she could help me on the binding, and lastly, I’d embroider our names on the back, down in the corner. Both—no, all three of us! Ms. Harshwhinny had helped, too!
“I think Cup Cake will love this,” she said. “The color matches her decor, but then you knew that when you started, right?”
“Mmhmm.” I paused from my stitching and put my hoof on hers. “Thou shouldst give her the quilt with me. I want her to know how much thou hast done on it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”
I could only shrug. “It comes and goes.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing Cup Cake again. It’s been a couple of weeks, and whoever’s listening at the door had better get back to work!”
I counted at least three sets of hooffalls galloping down the hall. They hadn’t exactly maintained a high level of stealth back there if I’d noticed them.
But now without an audience, I leaned down and removed her book from my saddlebag, from where it had lain safely ensconced among the scraps of fabric and threadbare dresses. “Rocky with promise, overgrown with heart,” I said. A quick glance at her cutie mark—hidden more now, only the bottoms of a few words exposed, but not enough to decipher them if I hadn’t already known. Did I do that to her? Did I take her book and her passion and her inspiration away?
“I read that one. I’m not much for poetry, but I read that one, and I loved it. It’s you, right? You wrote it.”
After a short pause, she returned a tight-lipped nod.
“Thank you,” I said, “for trusting me with that. It’s the most meaningful gift anypony’s ever given me.” I leaned into her shoulder and nuzzled her. Then with only the clock’s ticking permeating the room, we kept sewing.
On a hunch, I tried something at the bank. I… I couldn’t let Mayor Mare witness this, so I asked her to wait outside. The sun would feel good, I told her, and I’d only be inside for a minute. Then we could continue on to Sugarcube Corner to give Cup Cake the finished quilt.
As it turned out, the bank took great pains to verify who withdrew money. Not so much with who deposited it. Was this illegal? Would I have to forge Cup Cake—er, Chiffon Swirl’s name? The teller had instructed me to write “for deposit only” on the check in lieu of a signature, so would she get in trouble, too?
Either way, I took the pen in my mouth. After using one of the sterile wipes they always kept next to it, of course. That many ponies, all day long, using the same pen? I tried not to think about it too much. But I filled in Chiffon’s name as the payee, wrote what the teller said, gave her my eight-thousand-bit check, and clamped down on the urge to shout out a confession of my crime to every client in the place. At least I didn’t have to sign her name—I could have put whatever money I wanted in her account.
I stayed silent. I also took the check I’d gotten from the teller at the far end of the counter—would this one notice I’d gone through the line twice? Had she already made some manner of silent signal to the guard standing over by the vault?
One more check, for two thousand bits. All the contents of the account where I’d stashed my tip money, minus the odd one hundred twenty-six leftover bits I had in my saddlebag, in raw coins. Far more than I’d left home with, and an outlandish sum to bring back to Igneous Rock. If he was still waiting for me.
Cup Cake would find herself far closer to paying off her mortgage, and if anypony tried to accuse her of wrongdoing, I’d step forward. “This one, too,” I said as I pushed the second check at the teller.
It would have been much easier to simply give Cup Cake the money in cash, but she’d never accept it. This way, she couldn’t know for sure.
“Alright!” the teller replied with a smile. She stamped the deposit slip and let it slide through the space under the little metal bars in front of her. It stopped just short of the counter’s edge—she was good at this! “Will there be anything more?”
For years to come, yes. I’d have to stash that deposit slip away, somewhere under the floorboards at home, in case I ever had to prove Cup Cake had no complicity. But if Igneous Rock found it, what shame, what ignominy I’d have to endure!
But such is the value of friendship.
“No,” I answered, avoiding her eyes. I strolled outside, collected Mayor Mare, and set off toward Sugarcube Corner once again.
I felt so… detached from everything for the rest of the afternoon. Cup Cake squealing at the gift, but not near as much as she’d squealed at seeing me and Mayor Mare side by side. Not in that way—she understood—but knowing our friendship had survived. Except she’d always known it would. My voice sounded distant while I told my story again. As if hearing it for the first time, Cup Cake leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. And Mayor Mare ate up every word, like she would another pecan twirl.
All I did hear clearly was my own thoughts, dredging up what Ms. Harshwhinny had called my final day with her: easing me back into a slower-paced life.
“Do you mind,” I said as the evening waned and wound to a close, “if I stayed a little while, just a day or two?”
Cup Cake positively beamed at me. “Of course! Your old spot’s still here, in the room upstairs, in the kitchen, at the cash register. It’ll be like old times!”
“Just a day or two,” I said, and both of them nodded weakly.
We’d stayed up well past midnight. And “just a day or two” turned into a week. But eventually, I had to leave.
I didn’t live that far away, though, and I promised to visit often. This time, I’d keep my promise. I’d keep my friends. For a lifetime.
Half a day’s walk had brought me almost home again, and just over that rise in the distance, the plains of Father’s rock farm would spread out before me. Would Father be waiting by the mailbox? Or would I have to look for him, fixing the siding at the back of the house or tilling the soil for rocks? He’d smile so big, no matter what.
And what of Igneous Rock Pie? Father might tell me he had elected to stay in the outside world, and I needed to consult the Pairing Stone again. Surely, they would not make me endure another roam-springa, though… how else would I put my love to the test? My love.
The stone couldn’t choose anypony else. I knew him best. I already loved him, and none other, ever.
No, Father would tell me Igneous Rock had only recently arrived home himself, and I should go right over and see him. Reunited. I’d tell him all that had happened to me, and that I’d realized he’d held a special place in my heart as far back as I could remember. I’d tell him that the Pairing Stone was very wise.
Then I crested the low hill, and by the mailbox, a figure: Father.
No. No, it was—”Igneous Rock!” I called as I rushed to him. He gazed at me as if he hadn’t seen me in years!
I risked a hug, even if Father might be watching me from the front window, but honestly, it didn’t matter anymore. In time, all would come out. I’d tell Igneous Rock the whole tale, but at the moment, only one thing need be said: the words that would complete our betrothal.
I took his hooves in mine. “Igneous Rock Pie, I am Cloudy Quartz. The Pairing Stone hath chosen me for thee.”
He wore a broad smile. “Cloudy Quartz, I am Igneous Rock Pie. The Pairing Stone hath—” a few tresses of mane escaped from my hair tie, and his eyes crinkled, his grin softening around the edges “—hath chosen me for thee.”
Cloudy Quartz Pie. I liked the sound of that.
So I kissed him, in full view of anypony who might see. He even kissed me back.