//------------------------------// // 5. Anniversary // Story: My Farrier Lady, Sunspot // by Georg //------------------------------// My Farrier Lady, Sunspot Anniversary “Weddings always make me cry.” Sunspot leaned a little closer to Golden Hammer in the warm sunshine, causing her frilly sun dress to rustle against his flank. She was a different pony in the daylight, although the broad hat helped shade her face, and her preference for shaded spots in the wedding ‘yard’ kept that difference in check. Hammer had really not expected to be able to escort Spot to the wedding since he had been invited to be Nails’ best stallion, but ‘things’ had gone differently than either of them expected. ‘Things’ was a nicer word than ‘The Bride’s Family’ in any case. Hammer could at least think that, but dared not speak the words anywhere Nails would hear. Lady Iolite’s family had a genealogy tree that forked like a spastic kudzu vine, with interlocking links to other important unicorn families until the groom’s side of the wedding was more like a half-dozen chairs pushed to the far end of the table. The Duke of SomethingOrOther’s fourth son had taken Hammer’s spot, while the Earl of SomeOddPlaceHalfACountryAway was in the next spot over, and the third son of the Viscount of AnotherHardToPronounceCountry, and so on down the line of all ten places in the wedding party. Hammer was seriously thinking Nails’ own parents might not have gotten an invitation if they had not been some third link down a family tree that had some Important Titles hanging from the branches. Spot was performing her role well as the ‘Plus One’ to Golden Hammer’s position, and he was seriously thinking they were the only two earth ponies at the wedding other than the catering staff. Which reminded him. “Excuse me, ma’am.” Hammer held out a large hoof in front of a young mare in a server’s outfit, which made her come to an almost immediate halt. “Lord… something or other involving a forest, I think. The bloke over there with the plum-colored hat. He wanted me to chastise the chef for the seaweed puffs since he thought I was one of the staff. Personally, I think they’re delicious, and he’s just being a—” Hammer took a quick look around and swallowed his annoyance. “Anyway, tell the chef I said how good they were.” “Thank you, sir,” said the cute earth pony mare with a bob of her head and a smile. “And tell the chef,” added Hammer out of some reflexive sense of vengeance aimed at the overstuffed unicorn noble, “that if he brings a tray of them by the Hammer and Nails farrier shop, I’ll do a free fitting and adjustment for his entire catering crew. Standing on your hooves all day is enough of a pain without bad shoes. Oh, and look disappointed, because Lord Grumpy is looking in our direction.” “Thank you, sir,” said the young mare, looking down at the floor. When the server trotted off to the kitchens with more of a strut to her step than before, Hammer barely noticed because he was getting a kerchief out of his suit pocket and passing it over to Spot. “Thank you,” she snuffled, and gave a short blow. “Allergies.” “Allergic to weddings?” “Weddings, funerals, bat-mitzvahs for the nocturnal pegasi, and all the like. They all want the Big Lady there, and have no idea how much that twists the attention away from the whole reason for the event. I spend so much time discouraging ponies from requesting her time that I swear if they just stopped begging, she’d be done with all of her tasks by sundown and could have a little fun every evening. It makes my eyes water.” Spot blew her nose again. “Maybe I just don’t like to see things change.” “Well,” started Hammer, “we’ve seen Nails get married, enjoyed the reception, eaten two slices of cake, chatted with the friendly family.” He spared a smile for a pair of unicorns who trotted by without acknowledging their existence in the slightest. “How about we pass along our good wishes to the groom and go Away?” * * * Several hours later, just after sunset, Spot slipped into the bar and eased into their usual booth. They had both changed out of their wedding outfits, which was a relief in the warmth of the bar. Hammer had been there for a few minutes already, since he had needed to check in with the farrier shop, and Sunspot had needed to drop by the palace ‘just for a minute to see if anything is on fire.’ “I don’t smell smoke,” said Hammer with a sniff. “All clear,” said Spot, hefting the beer. “The big lady is in her room tonight, reading. Enough of the crusty crusts are over at Lady Iolite’s party that she can have a few minutes alone, and she deserves it.” “That’s a relief.” Hammer winced. “Oh, fudge. Did you bring the wedding gift?” Spot winced too. “No. I thought you had it.” “He can pick it up at work later,” said Hammer. “Nothing we should worry about while we’re Away.” They touched the tankards together and leaned back in their respective benches. It was quiet and peaceful, but Hammer found his gaze drawn irresistibly to Spot’s violet eyes, and a hidden bit of pain she was concealing under her smile. And worse, he was fairly convinced his own pain was showing in much the same way. “Do you want a kabob?” he asked, just to make conversation. “I… better not,” said Spot. “I ate too many avocado puffs, or whatever those green things were at the reception. Stout wouldn’t appreciate it if I spewed all over his floor.” “Me neither,” admitted Hammer, and as long as he was on a roll, “I miss Nails already.” “I do too.” Spot put her tankard back on the table and drew the back of her fetlock across her mouth to wipe off the foam. “The flirtatious flit.” “Mister Shot-Down-In-Flames they used to call him in school. He made a pass at our sixth-grade teacher once.” Spot covered her mouth with one hoof to avoid spraying the contents across the table. “He didn’t.” “He most certainly did.” Hammer stifled a chuckle. “You never saw such an embarrassed old mare. She was at least three times his age, after all. His father made him apologize the next day, and Nails brought flowers, thinking that would help.” By that point, Spot had a hoof stuffed into her mouth nearly to the ankle to keep from laughing. “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” continued Hammer through his own chuckles. “Miss Petunia took it far better than expected. She even had Nails as the ring bearer for her own wedding a few years later.” Hammer put on his most serious face. “He kissed all of the bridlemares.” Spot was just the most adorable pony when she was laughing. It was like all the pleasure and joy she suppressed during the day finally had a chance to escape. It felt good for himself, too. Hours spent over the hot forge did not leave much time for talking or laughing. “I may not have had a real brother,” added Hammer once he could breathe, “but Nails has been so good to me. Do you have a sister, Spot?” The laughter vanished, leaving a terrible, gruesome silence. Spot could not have looked more in agony if Hammer had kicked her in the belly. She stood up with a jerk, knocking her tankard over and spilling the remaining contents onto the floor. “I… have to go.” “I’m sorry,” blurted out Hammer. Their words spilled out at the same moment, but Hammer was only a heartbeat slower in standing up, and caught the panicking mare before she could get away. When Spot had begun making her visits to Away regular, she had laid down rules, ironclad and inviolate. No asking about any current diplomatic activity in the palace. No stories about Prince Blueblood, no matter how tempting. And no questions about her family. “I’m sorry,” he insisted again. “I forgot.” “I can’t forget,” said Spot, who had come to a halt with her face against his chest and a trickle of moisture running down his coat. “I can’t do this.” She did not move, so Hammer remained still also, feeling the warmth of her breath against the long hairs of his chest, the rapid thumping of her heart from where he had slipped a foreleg across her back without thinking about it, and the faint trembling that slowed the longer he stayed still. “I can’t stay here,” she mumbled after a time. “I’ll walk you home,” said Hammer immediately. He walked exceedingly carefully by her side until they were out in the dark streets, then proceeded in short, slow steps down the street. They did not say anything more for several blocks, or at least until the smaller mare gave Hammer a nudge. The gesture seemed friendly enough, so Hammer nudged back while walking. Spot nudged back even harder. “I mean turn here, you big lug,” she muttered. “But the palace is that… Oh.” Hammer turned as directed and walked for a time alongside the silent mare. The shadows around the street only grew stronger and more menacing with every step as if the stars and moon above were sliding behind dark clouds, just as dark as the cloud that had swept over the normally perky and cheerful Spot. If he were a pegasus, he could stomp all the rain out of the miserable mood and bring some sunshine back to her face, but this was an unstompable problem, the kind of fragility of the soul that a farrier was ill-equipped to fix. “Have,” said Spot so quietly that Hammer nearly missed it. They walked a ways further, around a corner and past a garden that left the scent of tulips wafting through the cool night air, before Hammer could bear to respond. “Huh?” Their path continued along the cobblestone streets, turning here and there until Hammer was hopelessly lost. The city beyond the portion that held his home and business had never made much sense to him in the daytime, and he always needed a map when visiting any of his clients. The moving shadows of trees writhed along the dark buildings and fences like waves in a moonlit sea, in which the two of them were slowly drowning. It was almost a relief to stroll slowly into one of the myriad of parks that were scattered throughout the city. He almost did not recognize the place in the dark since the fountain had been turned off for the evening, and the ornate stone sculpture looked so dismal and dead without the water rushing through it. The quiet drip, drip of the water in front of them was the only sound, other than the slow breathing of the small mare. “It’s been a long time.” Sunspot sat down on the ragged patch of grass in front of the fountain and looked up at the various stone figures that normally would be spouting or sprinkling during the day. “I’ve never told anypony, because once I start, I don’t think I can stop.” Hammer made to say something as thoughtful as he could, only to have Spot hold her hoof over his mouth. “No. Let me finish. Yes, I have a sister. We… fought. We each said terrible things.” This time, Hammer kept his mouth shut and just sat there. It took a long while, feeling the evening breeze scatter the occasional droplet of fountain water against his coat, the cold light of the stars shining down, the silent presence of Spot still as a marble statue beside him. Without thinking, he moved a little closer to provide the small mare some body warmth. Spot felt as hot as a tiny furnace, although the low tremor running down her hide slowed with his presence. “I sent her away.” Each whispered word was like a hammer-blow, swung with extraordinary force against the porcelain vase of a fragile soul. The confession should have shaken the world with its impact and left the trembling mare against his side broken into fragments. However, mere words did not have the physical impact of the hammers he used for his work. The shards of a broken family did not show on the surface of a pony, after all. They lurked beneath flesh and bone in a way that never truly faded with time. The echoes of her whispered words filled the park with a shattered silence, and when he put one heavy foreleg around Spot’s trembling body, he held her for his own sake as much as hers. It was impossible to say how long they sat there in the gloom. It seemed like days, even though it could only have been an hour at most. Eventually, he gained the courage to speak ever so quietly to the huddled mess of damp pink pressed against his chest. “Even if I argued with Nails and sent him away, he would come back. I know it. He’s always going to be there for me, no matter how much our lives change. It might take him a while, since he’s pretty stubborn, but he’d eventually come back. We’d yell some more. Call each other names. But everything would be all right in the end. We’re closer than brothers. It would be different, but still… us.” “I know.” Spot snuffled into his chest hair. “Don’t tell Nails, but my sister… she’s coming back too. Soon. I know it too. I just… I’m afraid. We’ll fight, and tear things up, and one of us will win in the end. We’re like that.” Hammer nodded. “I can believe it. Oof!” Tear-streaked violet eyes looked up at him with a fierce frown beneath them, much like an angered mouse. A cute angry mouse. “You’re supposed to take my side, you big lug.” “Oh, I know better than to take sides when you’re involved.” Hammer nuzzled away a tear. “If she’s anything like you, I don’t want to be caught in the middle. Oof!” The second elbow in the ribs was just as strong, and Spot giggled in a very liquid way. “Oh, bother. I’m crying again.” “Got it.” Hammer held his fetlock over Spot’s nose, there was a short, snuffling honk, and he moved to wipe the snot onto the grass to the sound of even more giggling. “I know, I know. A gentlecolt carries a kerchief, even when he’s not in a suit.” “I know too many gentlecolts already.” Spot leaned into him with renewed pressure, almost pushing Hammer off to one side. “Don’t ever change.” “Can I start carrying a kerchief all the time anyway?” Hammer stopped trying to wipe off his snotty fetlock and dried it on his side instead so he could put the hoof back on the ground and be braced better. “Maybe. I mean it, though. Never change.” Spot rubbed up against his side, and he let her snuggle underneath his foreleg regardless of the wet trail she was leaving. “I’ve got so many things in flux right now. Twilight Sparkle. Cadence. Plans that can’t possibly work. Sometimes I think the whole world is spinning right out of control and I’m going with it. I need you. Like an anchor.” “I think… I need an anchor too. A small anchor.” Hammer nuzzled into the top of Spot’s mane. It smelled… Spot-like. And nice. “It just… everything is off.” Spot stuck her nose out from under Hammer’s foreleg. “Just when I get used to something, it changes. Ribbing Nails at the bar. Watching you work. Having Twilight Sparkle around the palace. The dynamic has shifted.” “When good things change, they don’t always become bad things,” said Hammer. “And sometimes they do.” Spot let out her breath and bit Hammer’s foreleg, not hard enough to cause pain, but just enough to get her teeth fixed into his coat. “Am I just getting myself set up to be hurt even more?” she asked through a mouthful of hair. “Is this a bad thing?” “I’m sitting in a park with a beautiful mare,” said Hammer. “How could this be a bad thing?” “I’m sitting in the darkness with a stallion I want in the most serious way,” mumbled Spot into his foreleg. “I want to drag you off somewhere and do things with you I haven’t done in ages, but I know that would change our relationship. I can’t handle that. You’re the only thing in my life right now that I can hold onto, but the harder I hold, the more I can feel you slipping away.” “I…” Hammer leaned back into Spot. “No matter how much we want things to stay the same, they’re going to change. We can’t stop it. What if I had stopped changing before I met you?” Spot nipped a little higher on his foreleg, but did not say anything for a time. “I like this change,” admitted Hammer. “I have no intention of slipping away.” Spot bit him, which he considered to be agreement, because she did not bite very hard. “You know,” he began slowly, nuzzling ever so gently into the top of her mane, “this is the third year anniversary since we met. Nails and I normally don’t go out on the night after the Summer Sun Celebration, because we’re exhausted from staying up late and partying. Three years ago, you almost punched me. And now you’re biting me,” he added at the expected nip. “It’s progress. Change. You know—” The kiss came out of nowhere. Spot just twisted in his loose grasp, lunged upward, and locked her cold lips to his. There was none of her previous timidity or gentleness, only the ravenous hunger of a mare seeking something she could not have, and dared not take. It lasted for far too brief a time before Spot fairly tore herself out of his grasp and curled up on the damp grass. “No,” she whispered. He should not have picked her up. He should not have held her. He should not have done many things in his life. He did not regret this one for a moment. They sat there together for far too long in the evening chill, keeping warm by their mutual presence. There were no more kisses, no more words, nothing but the two of them pressed against each other in such a cautious embrace that they barely touched, and yet so close their hearts beat as one. And later, as they walked through the darkness side-by-side back to the palace, in slow, careful steps, he could not tell if this was the last time he would ever see her again, or the first time he had really seen her. All he knew was that he had done what she needed. Their relationship had changed, as all things did. No longer just friends, and yet not more. Just different. The next week, when Sunspot arrived back at the bar to welcome Lord Silver Nails and bring his wedding present, nopony there would have been able to tell the difference between the mare that was and the mare that she had become. And Golden Hammer suspected much the same about himself. The changes they had endured came from within, after all. And they were good.