‘I had no idea you were from Canterlot!’
Hull was smiling, as though pleased he’d managed to keep this a secret. ‘It’s the accent, isn’t it?’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Ponies always say I sound northern now.’
‘Yeah!’ said Ale, pleasantly energised and smiling without having to try very hard at all. It had been some surprise. ‘I thought you were from here and all. I actually live with a Canterlot pony, and you can hear it in his voice. How long have you stayed in Tunk?’
‘My dad moved us up here when I was just starting out at school. It’s been about twelve years now.’
‘Nice, nice. Where was it you went to school since you’ve been up here?’
Hull grinned and nodded. ‘OHS at Deacon, of course.’
‘Ayyy,’ jeered Ale. ‘So you must have been in first or second year when I was leaving.’
‘Probably. I don’t think I ever saw you there though, but I didn’t really see a lot of ponies, to be honest. I was quite quiet.’
‘How was it compared to school in Canterlot? Mind you, you can’t have spent long there.’
‘No, not even a full year. It’s hard to remember. I remember it was very Celestian. They’re pretty old-fashioned in Canterlot about a lot of things.’
‘Oh nice,’ said Ale. ‘Is your family Celestian?’ he asked somewhat tentatively.
‘No, we’re pretty dull, to be honest. My dad was an Alicon, but he fell out of it. That’s partly why we moved.’
‘Fair enough.’ Ale had actually voted for the Alicons before, but he wasn’t about to tell Hull. Though they had hit it off in a way Ale could not have expected, he was not about to spill anything personally compromising any time soon, however pleasant their conversations had been that day. He didn’t know Hull’s politics. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have said anything. He knew how divisive the topic was. He had strong views of his own, but they were restricted to calls with his mother. Hull, however, seemed an open book. Certainly a pony who wore his heart on his sleeve, which Ale somewhat admired. But he knew he could never work like that.
‘He’s a progressive now,’ Hull was saying, unfortunately still on the subject. ‘He tries to get me to vote.’
The subsequent pause, the first of its like between them that day, reminded Ale why he avoided small talk. All the energy he’d gained was falling out of him fast. Then again, there didn’t seem to be any expectations from him on Hull’s part. Even now the silence wasn’t nearly as awkward as he’d feared it would be. It was bad, but it wasn’t so bad. Hull seemed comfortable, but not in a discomfiting way. Ale, for once, did not try to break it. But Hull didn’t say anything, so he had to. Though he wanted to change the subject, he couldn’t think how to under the pressure, so he dawdled verbally.
‘It doesn’t really matter which sides you take, I guess,’ he said diplomatically. ‘There’s always more than one answer to a tough question.’ He liked the sound of that. Hull seemed taken with it as well.
‘Yeah!’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘I try to tell that to my dad sometimes. He’s really one of those far-gone types. He means well, always, but it’s when it gets to the stage that you think ponies who disagree with you are evil and that sort of thing. Not that he does. It’s just... sometimes things get heated.’
Now Hull seemed uncomfortable, and it was a discomfort Ale recognised at once, one where you were afraid you’d said too much too quickly to someone you weren’t yet sure you could trust. Ale had toed the line of that feeling all day. But unlike Hull, he’d left it uncrossed. Just. Ale had no intention of telling anyone about anything they’d discussed. He didn’t feel like a trustworthy pony, but he supposed, in a way, he was. He didn’t like gossiping. He didn’t like talking to ponies about anything much. Hull didn’t know. Perhaps he thought Ale was a sociable sort based on all the talking they’d done. It was strange, but Ale believed that a lot of one’s character and behaviour with a certain pony was shaped by the first encounter. He and Hull had established a dynamic he certainly didn’t hold with many others. Knowing himself, he wondered how long it would last. He truly hoped Hull wasn’t the type to seek closeness. It was doomed to fail if he was.
‘Anyway,’ said Hull, right before the word had formed on Ale’s lips. ‘Back to it, I guess?’
‘Back to it,’ said Ale in agreement, and then he remembered about his call with Gat. ‘I’m going to recycling to check something first.’
‘Oh?’
‘I want to see if this pothole’s been fixed.’ Hull followed him as he strode off, curious.
‘I saw one earlier at the trolley hut,’ he said, and Ale nodded.
‘Yeah. Gat’s getting it fixed at some point.’
They reached recycling and Ale scanned the ground, frowning. It did seem that it had been fixed. But Gat had said he knew nothing about it.
‘There it is,’ said Hull, pointing.
Ale span around. ‘What do you –?’
But there was no mistaking it. The same concrete-like material, and it was next to where Hull was standing, metres, Ale could have sworn, from where he’d found it.
‘That’s moved,’ he said flatly, though he knew the idea was ridiculous. ‘I don’t care what Gat says. That pothole has moved from where I first saw it.’
Hull was smiling weakly, as though unsure whether Ale was making a joke. But Ale, though he couldn’t wrap his head round it, knew that it had, without doubt, shifted from where it had been. That, or he had suffered a catastrophic case of mismemory.
‘What do we do?’ asked Hull.
‘We’ll need that cone again.’