I remember so vividly the way my heart fluttered in my chest; part nervous hummingbird, part adrenaline-fueled terror, all of it amplified by the smallness of my filly-sized chest. I could hardly breathe, and yet I felt so alive.
The room smelled like fresh-squeezed orange juice and real roses-- not that fake grandma perfume. Princess Celestia's mane lit up the room in an otherworldly glow.
I walked across the tile, which seemed to stretch on into infinity, so far that I could see the curvature of the planet. Then, suddenly, I was in front of the platform which held the magic egg.
Only… it wasn't an egg. It was me. And I wasn't nestled in a straw nest, I was sitting on a red beanbag chair, my hooves folded over my chest in childish anger.
Wait, no. It was a guitar. Lyra's guitar, nestled in a pile of bile and vomity chunks.
No. Me again.
No, no. Just an egg.
A big, round, mysterious egg with some sort of pattern on it which I, embarrassingly, could no longer remember. But I did remember the subtle scent of straw from the bed it sat in. I remember thinking why straw? Why not a cushion? Won't straw just get everywhere if the egg hatches?
And I remember it because it was the first seed of doubt which had entered my mind as far as this examination went. As if the straw was daring me to mess up. As if it knew I could never hatch that stupid egg, and that no one would have to clean up that straw anyway. It would just sit on the platform forever.
Suddenly, the room was melting away, almost faster than I could see. Like the whole place had been carved out of ice, and the heat of the sun was bearing down upon it all. I saw myself, again, on the platform. My eyes slid down my cheeks and onto my shoulders. My snout drifted down below my chin. Just a blank, smooth globe of a skull with no features at all.
I blinked again, and it was all gone. I was in a black void-- just me and Princess Celestia.
Unfazed by this change in venue, I began to concentrate very hard on hatching the egg which no longer existed.
"What do you want, Twilight?"
I pushed harder, my eyes screwed shut with focus and determination.
"What do you want?"
It was coming from Princess Celestia, but it was Compass Rose's voice.
"What do you want?"
"I want to pass!" I yelled back.
A long pause.
I began to moan with effort, digging my hooves into the only uncertainty of the void and pushing everything I had through the top of my horn.
"What do you want?"
"I want to pass!" I repeated. "I just want to pass!"
"What do you want?"
And then I was on the cot in the back of the van, my flesh-and-blood heart pounding, beads of sweat rolling down my forehead.
I sat up far too quickly and put both hooves to my chest, as if it would calm the frantic beating of my heart. I was panting and sweating and so scared I would barf again that I must have fought it back. Thank fuck.
It took probably a good forty minutes to calm myself down enough to go back to sleep, I believe. Nearly four just staring at the wall and trying to remember where I was, who I was, what was happening.
When I finally got my mind put back together, I looked over at Vinyl.
She had stayed. She had slid down against the wall, her mane exploding on the wall behind her head. The book she had been reading was open across her chest. She looked to all the world like a pony who had taken a break from reading on the beach for a quick nap in the sun, not a pony who had passed out from exhaustion while watching over a sick friend.
She had stayed.
My heart fluttered once more. Then my stomach. Then I was able to lay down.
I stared up at the ceiling for so long that I could probably be considered a monk by some less-cultured city ponies.
I'd like to say that my head was empty, but that was one of those dreams that you thought about whether you liked it or not. The kind of dream that you'd actually consider paying somepony to unravel for you, silly as the whole “dream interpreter” business may be.
Lyra snorted violently in the passenger seat and kicked the plastic underside of the dashboard with her back hooves. Enough to jolt me out of the destructive thoughts, but not enough to shock me awake exactly.
For the rest of the night, I didn't dream.
When morning came, it came slowly and all at once. No, I don't know what I mean by that.
All I know is that the night took forever, and all I could do every time my eyes slipped open in sweaty, feverish delirium was pray that the night would end soon. It felt like some sort of cruel punishment for acting like such a dope.
Dearest Princess Celestia, I found myself muttering in the back of my mind, I learned a lot today about how to follow impulses responsibly. I learned so much about how to consider your friends and family when you make stupid choices. Please, please let the sun rise so that I can move on.
But the night dragged on. And then it didn't.
When the sun came up, I no longer wanted it to. Isn't that always how it goes? You can't sleep all night, but seconds before your alarm chirps you're out cold. Deepest, best sleep of your life.
It was May eighth. I had taken my exam on May fifth. Fuck, can things get out of hoof fast.
I felt better. The nausea and discomfort was gone at last. Although, to be honest, the fear that it would soon return loomed heavily over my mind as I rolled out of bed and began to knock about the van.
The back door of the vehicle slammed open with a cartoonishly loud bang! and I stumbled into the sun like a drunkard. Even the shadow of my hoof seemed to do little to protect me from the intensity of the morning light.
So distracted and disoriented was I that I nearly missed Lyra's little yellow post-it stuck to the side of the van:
Gone out for breakfast :)
I tore it down. Surely there was more than one place to get breakfast in all of Manehatten. Hell, there was probably more than one diner within walking distance-- even for me, who would surely pass out from hunger and dehydration quite soon.
Unless…
I crumpled up the sticky note and tossed it over my shoulder. Down at the other end of the street were two establishments I couldn't bear to be seen in: first, the cafe. Second, Applejack's bakery.
Of course they would go to her bakery for breakfast. Why shouldn’t they? They hadn’t made indescribable idiots of themselves. They had been perfectly stable, normal, respectable members of greater society.
Just as I was thinking that I should skip breakfast, skip every meal until we finally made it back to Canterlot, my stomach lurched and grumbled aloud.
I should go, right? Follow my heart-- I mean, my impulses?
No, no. Don't be stupid.
Well… you do owe her an apology.
She'll get by without one.
That's not very nice.
What if you puke again?
What if Applejack hates you forever because you didn't apologise?
My thoughts halted there, full-stop. Why would I care if she hated me? She lived in Manehatten, a place I would hopefully be leaving as soon as possible. She seemed to have an overall grumpy demeanor (although I suppose the circumstances of our first interaction were less than stellar). So what if she didn't like me?
My stomach lurched again.
It was compulsive. A compulsive, all-consuming need to be liked.
That's what I told myself, anyway. That’s how I rationalized it at the time.
This situation, I thought to myself, is the kind with a lot of moving parts. The kind with an unpredictable outcome. But, at the very least, I could feel good about my own ability to take responsibility for a bad situation. Even if apologizing made it worse, I did what everypony had been taught to do and owned up to my mistake.
Satisfied at last, I began the long walk to the end of the block.
I couldn’t wait to hear what Applejack would say to me when I opened the door. Probably something scathing and sarcastic that would just make me feel like laying down in the gutter for a good, long cry. Probably with a little sneer thrown in at the end, just for good measure.
Howdy-Doo, Miss Twilight! I could hear her saying.
I doubled back.
What in Celestia’s name made me think that Applejack would say that?
Must be the accent. I’m just a prejudiced little pony who thinks that anypony with a Southern accent is some kind of country bumpkin who says funny country-isms and is generally very hospitable, often verging on outright ignorance and being played up for a laugh.
“Well, well…” Monotone. Low. Heavily accented. “Look who’s come back.”
That was much more in-character, I thought.
There stood Applejack. The real Applejack.
She was leaning against a broom in front of her shop. Her blonde mane and tail were pulled up in restrictively tight buns, and further forced under hairnets. She was wearing a very traditional white apron with a red trim. The trim matched the ties in her mane, I noticed.
The smattering of perfectly brown freckles over her snout and across her cheeks were even more obvious in the morning sun. The combination of her mane-do and her grimace pulled all of the skin on her face taught.
“This is for next time,” Applejack said, gesturing to a brass urn beside the front steps of her establishment.
I could have sworn the sun actually glinted on its surface as I admired the large vessel.
“Next time?” I asked, which was probably the dumbest thing to say in that situation.
Applejack’s eyes narrowed further. “I have this feeling you’re going to keep coming around here. That true?”
“J-just the once,” I said. “For breakfast.”
“Mm.” Applejack spit onto the sidewalk. Not a mean spit. Just a spit. “I doubt that.”
I shook my head. “I swear! We’re not even from around here, my friends and I. We’re from Canterlot--”
Applejack scoffed. “That just figures. Y’all come blowin’ through here , thinkin’ you own this town ‘cause you’re from Canterlot, and break my damn toilet in the process.”
I felt my cheeks grow pink. “I broke your toilet?”
She sighed. A great, weary sigh which seemed to come from a deeper wound than that which I had caused her yesterday. "T'be fair, that old thing has been dangling off a cliff for a while now. You did give it a hearty shove yesterday evening, though."
"I'll fix it!"
What?
No.
You don't know how to fix stuff, Twilight.
Just offer to pay for the plumber or something.
Time slowed like a coin dropped into molasses as Applejack thought the offer over. Her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed in extreme detail. I could almost hear the gears of her mind spinning, if it hadn't been for the unholy grinding of my own mental mechanisms.
"Well. Guess there's no harm in letting you take a look. You certainly can't make it any worse."
Wanna bet?
I laughed. It was not a convincing sound. "Right!"
A flicker of doubt passed over Applejack's face, but she shrugged it off quite easily. "Your friends are eating breakfast. Why don't you eat before you get to work, Chunks?"
Chunks. Fun nickname.
I'm not even sure if I responded. I feel like my jaw might have just clamped shut from embarrassment at that stage. Somehow, against all odds, I was able to complete my conversation with Applejack and make it into the bakery, though I honestly couldn't tell you how either of those things actually occurred.
Even in such a state, I was able to get a better feel of the bakery today. It just hit me in a way that I couldn't ignore.
Everything in it was bright-- bright in color, brightly lit, even bright-smelling, if that makes any sense. Not the kind of bright that's tiring. The kind that feels like somepony just finished their spring cleaning in here. The kind that makes you wanna take a deep breath, let it out, and collapse to admire it all.
It was more than a bakery. There was significant seating to my right. I had missed this yesterday, unsurprisingly. It smelled like baked goods and sugar in here, but I could also smell eggs. And potatoes. And maple syrup.
"Hey, Twilight's up!" Lyra exclaimed.
She and Vinyl were seated at a chrome-edged table smack in the middle of the room, already chowing down on omelettes filled with fresh veggies.
I let a smile pull at the corners of my mouth. "Hey, guys. Sorry about--"
"Bup-bup-bup," Vinyl cut me off instantly. "There will be no apologizing for what happened yesterday. Just sit your ass down and eat, okay?"
I chuckled. "Deal."
The chairs were solid wood and screeched against the tile floor in a way that comforted me. As strange as it sounds, I could feel the memories that ponies must have here; it was like a lifetime of emotion and happiness and intimacy was crashing down on my head as I sat at that table with my friends. It all felt very… pink. That's the only way I can describe it.
Though there were only a few other ponies dining with us, it was like the forms of every other customer that had ever been here were whipping past me. It reminded me of those little animated flipbooks, only far too fast. All the conversations, too, flooded my mind: loud and happy and… and loud!
"Celestia, who's shouting?" I asked. "I didn't know ponies' voices could go so high…"
Lyra cocked her head quizzically. "Are you talking about the chefs in the back?"
Like water draining from the tub, all the additional sounds were sucked away from my consciousness. I was left pondering the unusually quiet bakery. Nothing loud or raucous or even energetic. Definitely none of the squealing ooh! ooh! I thought I'd heard.
"Must be it." I said, but I knew it wasn't.
"Shit, Twi, you look…" Vinyl reached across the table to brush my bangs out of my eyes. "I mean. You look-- well, your face is-- what I mean is--"
"Vinyl." Lyra nudged Vinyl in the ribs to break her out of her loop. "I think she's trying to ask if you slept enough?"
I snorted, which was meant to sound cool and dismissive but actually came out very forced and jarring. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."
Lyra and Vinyl shared a look. I didn't like it.
"You've been acting super weird lately, Twi," Lyra said, looking back at me. "Is something going on?"
Lyra's hooves were folded on the table in front of her like a junior psychiatrist. Vinyl did not know what to do with her body and sat oddly rigid, a look of concern and discomfort stuck to her face like a sticker.
I shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I just… I hope I made the right choice, y'know?"
"The right choice?" Lyra asked.
"About… leaving."
Vinyl scoffed and waved a hoof dismissively. "Are you kidding me? Totally. Even if you end up hating all this, you can just go back to school when you're done. Gap year, right?"
"You think?"
"Hells yeah!"
Lyra nodded along. "Totally, Twi!"
I let out a tentative sigh of relief. A little bit of weight lifted from my chest.
"What can I getcha, Chunks?"
I jumped so hard that the chair squeaked again.
Lyra put a hoof over her mouth to suppress a giggle.
"Any time now, Twi," Applejack said. She was holding a little pad of paper in one hoof, muttering around the pencil gripped in the corner of her mouth. "Got other customers."
"U-um, could I have a mushroom omelette?" I asked. "Please."
Applejack scribbled quickly, then said "one mushroom omelette, please, for Chunks."
I chuckled again, an awkward sound if I'd ever heard one. Didn't know what else to do.
Applejack tore the page out of her notebook and drifted off.
Lyra laughed aloud.
"What?!" I demanded.
"What is with you, Twilight?" Lyra asked. "I've never seen you like this before."
"I-I dunno…" I shuffled my hooves. "I feel bad, I guess."
"What for?" Vinyl asked, her mouth filled with egg. "I mean, sure, you did something kinda weird. But it's not a big deal or anything. It's definitely not as bad as some of the shit I've done. Did I ever tell you guys about the time--"
"Amazingly, Vinyl's right," Lyra plowed over what was sure to be an all-too-embarrassing story. "You've never really cared what ponies thought of you before, and we're leaving town today, anyway. What is it that has you so freaked out?"
I sighed and sunk low in my chair. "It's stupid."
"No stupid questions, only stupid answers!" Lyra said cheerfully.
Vinyl made a confused look, dimly aware that the saying applied in no way to the situation. This didn't bother Lyra in the least.
"I just…" I put my hooves over my eyes in fake exasperation. In reality, I was hiding. "I feel like I know her somehow. Like I have to impress her or-- or she'll go away. And I just can't even deal with that, for some reason! I can't deal with her not being my friend anymore."
Vinyl snorted. "Hate to break it to you, but she was never exactly your friend in the first place."
"I know that!" I insisted.
"Doesn't sound like you know that."
"I do!"
Vinyl sneered at me, brows raised, peering over her glasses.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
Lyra sighed. "We just wanna know what's stressing you out so bad. It's not like any of this is a big deal or anything."
But it was a big deal. It felt so huge to me, like an enormous pressure that was bearing down on my entire body. Like a blinding, white-hot light was searing every inch of my skin. Like my brain was boiling in my skull. Like a whole swarm of horseflies were burrowing into the walls of my stomach, desperately seeking sunlight and fresh air.
"I-I know," I said. "I know. No big deal. I know."
Neither of my friends were convinced.
Laughter pierced the cacophony of the bakery. Nothing like the shrieking, squealing laughter I had heard in my brain. This one was deep, genuine. A little silly and exaggerated. The kind that was likely to end in a snort. Undoubtedly Applejack's, though I had never heard her laugh.
I looked over my shoulder at her. She was leaning over the counter, listening as a customer rattled off all the flavors of bagels she wanted for breakfast. Applejack said something, then laughed again, and the customer laughed, too. There was something so beautiful about the sound that it made all the pain and torment and stress recede the tiniest bit, if only for a moment.
Then she stretched one hind leg out behind her and kicked the wall beside the bagel display case. Two bagels tumbled down from the top shelf and into a basket at the bottom. The silliest, simplest thing. Just something you do when you know your space; you reach around blind and beat up your furniture a bit.
But, for a second, it was like I was seeing a ghost; she had her mane down, under a Stetson, kicking a tree and-- gosh, the sun was so bright and warm. Must have been summer, but not a city summer. A rural summer. Small-town summer. Cicadas buzzing, wind in the leaves, no voices to be heard but hers.
I watched, awestruck, as Applejack scooped the bagels out of the basket and stuffed them into a brown paper bag for the waiting pony. All the while, she chatted and laughed with the ponies on the other side of the counter. Effortless.
"I know it's no big deal. And I know we're not friends, but I just… I feel like we have to be," I murmured.
Vinyl scoffed. "Yeah, okay drama queen."
I whipped back around, suddenly very aware of how long I had been staring. "You asked."
Vinyl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, I know. But… c'mon, Twi."
"What?" I whined. I just wanted my food. Just leave me alone, I don't know!
"It's obvious," Lyra said. "You've totally got a crush on her."
All the blood in my body rushed to my face-- cheeks and ears, specifically. "What?!"
Vinyl, uncharacteristically, said nothing more. She sipped her coffee silently and let nothing but the shadow of an emotion cross her face, here and gone too quickly to identify.
"Oh, please," Lyra scoffed and waved a hoof. "Like somepony as smart as you can't see that. You just stared at her for a full two minutes. Might as well have little hearts floating in your eyes, silly."
"She's gotcha there," Vinyl agreed.
"That's just because-- well, sometimes when I look at her, I--" The words wouldn't come. It did make sense, even I had to admit: maybe all this shit I was seeing was just hormonally-induced hallucinations. Visions of fantasies I didn't even know I had. "Sh-shut up!"
This caused Vinyl and Lyra to burst into laughter. Lyra banged one hoof on the table, nearly sending a fork flying clear across the room.
"Aw, shoot, I missed the joke."
The blood rushed harder. I felt as if my face might burst. Even the smell of hot, fresh food did nothing to calm me down.
Caught between hiding my face in my hooves and sitting up straight that a steel pole, I instead did something stupid with my legs that I really don't wanna think about. This caused another ripple of laughter to wash over my friends.
"Mushroom omelette for Chunks," Applejack announced, setting the heavy platter down in front of me.
"Sorry, sorry-- why chunks?" Vinyl asked, wiping a tear from her eye.
Applejack snorted. "Well 'cause she's gotta be the hardest chunk-blower I've ever seen. Oughta recognize that somehow, ammirite?"
She punched me playfully on the shoulder as she walked away. I would commemorate this, fondly, as the first time she touched me.
The touch caused my friends to silence themselves by force; hooves in mouths, breath held. Once Applejack was out of earshot, they melted down all over again.
"Twilight's in looove," Lyra mocked.
Vinyl sniggered along, pushing her glasses up over her eyes.
I lifted my fork. Even my magic was weak and unsteady, the one thing I could always count on.
"So, are you gonna ask her out, or what?" Vinyl asked. "Perfect one-night-stand opportunity right here."
"Ohmigosh yes!" Lyra clapped her hooves together giddily. "Let's get Twilight laid tonight! Perfect way to reduce stress, I swear."
I was starting to feel like my friends may not know me at all.
"I-I can't tonight," I blurted, not thinking.
Vinyl's brows furrowed. "Because…?"
Hm. Hadn't thought this far in advance. Curses.
"I'm… busy."
Lyra leaned forward. "We got that. Busy with what, exactly?"
"Just-- I have this thing to do and it could take a while and I just wanna make sure--"
"What thing?" Vinyl asked.
"I'm fixing her toilet, okay?!" I shouted.
A brief silence fell over the table.
Then, at precisely the same instant:
"Ohmigosh you broke her toilet?"
"That's a shit first date."
I took a bite of the omelette. It was the best omelette I had ever had.