“Thanks for picking me up, Fin,” I said as I pulled open the door to his red pickup truck. Ever since that portal to the human world was opened and Twilight started introducing their technology to our scientists, the world received a significant upgrade to our technological capabilities. From radios, to televisions, to computers. From trains, to cars, to planes. From unicorn magic, to cellular devices. I was a teenager when I first met Twilight, and I always imagined she could go on to do great things. Advancing the world from an industrial age to an information age in ten years, however, wasn’t one of them.
The lime green stallion nodded. “Not a problem, Rares. It’s probably better that it’s me instead of her anyways. She’s still pissed off at ya.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course she is. Not that that’s anything new.”
Fin snorted. “Sounds about right. How old was this one?”
I made an irritated noise and turned toward the window. “Ugh. Please, Fin, that’s hardly a question you should be asking.”
He narrowed his eyes at me for a second, then started the truck. “Can I make an… educated guess?”
“No.”
“Early twenties, looked like Whiskey or my brother in law about two decades ago?”
I felt bile build up in the back of my throat. “I said no, damn it!” ‘Looked like Whiskey.’ Ugh. I was there when he was born almost seventeen years ago. Not that… Fin is wrong, because he never is, but that just makes all of this so much worse. I gagged.
“Oh, so he was a handsome young stallion, eh? Are you what the kids would call, a ‘milf?’”
Every inch of my being twisted in revulsion. “Okay, okay, I did a bad thing, are you happy now!? Ugh, goddess. How disgusting.” I crossed my forelegs and tried to console my appalled shaking just from hearing that word.
He chuckled and his smile was just as easy as it always was. “A little bit.”
I wanted to hit him. Now my memories of last night were transposing Whiskey over Red and every fiber of my being rejected that image. He used to be a little colt! I held him when he was just a foal! It’s all so wrong. And I know that she had him do this on purpose! I puffed air out of my snout and glared at the smiley, orange-eyed stallion. “She put you up to this, didn’t she?”
He held a hoof out and shifted into gear. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid. Ya know she-”
“Yes, yes, I know exactly what she hates about me. Forgive me sister, for I have sinned. Let’s just get this over with. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she likes the sound of her own voice.”
Fin nodded and pulled out of the airport parking lot. “You and me both, Rares.”
Ponyville has changed quite a bit in the last two decades. When I first arrived in this small town looking for a cheap place to live and a little building that I could start a business in, there was one railway and a hamlet’s worth of houses. The population couldn’t have been more than a few hundred, and Filthy Rich was the wealthiest stallion for miles.
Now, Ponyville is one of the biggest cities in the state and nearly as big as Canterlot. A princess’s castle and home to one of the four monarchy, alongside one of the first towns to build a cellular tower. In twenty-five years, it went from nothing to a state capital. A record for the history books, one of the many things to put on the shelf of Princess Twilight’s accomplishments.
Given a decade, Ponyville could possibly be the largest city in Equestria. Though, I suspect that this level of growth is unsustainable. Fin is employed because, as the more ponies there are, the higher chance of running into somepony crazy there is. One percent out of a hundred is just that, one. One percent of a million is ten thousand. The crime rate here is remarkably low for the size of this city, but it’s not zero percent. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from Fin, and I’m no stranger to the dark side of Manehattan. Sometimes, the world can be a scary place.
“So…” Fin began.
“So…?” I asked.
“I’ve got a bet with my boy going on, and I have to ask…”
I frowned. “Have to ask what?”
“What do ya think is going on with Pearl? I… know about some awful things that happen at middle schools and high schools with fillies her age and… it concerns me. Ya know, she loved her mane.”
“Of course I know that! That’s why I just… can’t understand this. She would always ask me to style it every time I had a free moment. She loved the way I had my mane curled back when I was younger, but her mane is so thick that I could only ever match Sweetie’s mane from ages ago. It was… never exactly my best work, but she always loved to see it finished… hug me and tell me I’m the best…”
I let my head fall back on the seat and my eyes drift toward the window. “What happened to my little girl, Fin? This is my fault, isn’t it? “
Fin scratched at his short blond-white beard. “Oh, geez Rares, that’s uh… that’s more my wife’s territory.”
“Yes, the mare who raised two families from age eight has all the answers for this particular subject. But I know what she’ll tell me because I’ve heard it a thousand times. ‘Stop being on the move all the time, take some time off to spend with Pearl, try to find somepony my age who wants to be her father.’ I can’t do that. I have chain stores in three major cities, I am the creative force behind it, and I’m the only one who knows all the ponies who buy and promote what I sell! Nopony else can do my job, and I love doing my job! Is that a bad thing?”
Fin let out a breath. “You’re really gonna make me do it, aren’t’cha?”
I raised a brow and laid a lazy eye on him. “Come now Fin, you’ve known me for almost eighteen years now.”
“Fine. Three things: One, you blame yourself for things that, considering who her father is, are only partially your fault. Kids need two parents and a family unit. What happened to you is far from uncommon with those types of stallions, and while ya shouldn’t have done it in the first place, you were taken advantage of all the same.
“Two, Jackie is always right. Even when she’s wrong. If ya really care about Pearl, ya should do pretty much all of that. Ya love your job, which is great, but she is also your job, and you'd do well to remember that. You know this, and I know you’ve tried and failed several times, but that doesn’t mean ya should stop trying. You talk about ‘needing your own Spike’ all the time, maybe you should look into hiring an assistant so that you can at least be home for more of the week than ya aren’t. I never pegged ya for the marriage type, I’m sure you didn’t either, but it may be something to consider, at least while she’s at such a tender age.
“Three, we still haven’t heard it from the horse’s mouth. She won’t talk to any of us, so we don’t actually know what’s goin’ on with Pearl. It could be your fault, it could be related to some external factor that we don’t know about. I think it is. Jackie thinks it’s more than that.
“Jackie is right, even when she’s not, so one way or another, you’re gonna have to sort this out. And if doing so requires that you make sacrifices for your daughter, then you need to be ready to do that. It’s not her fault she was born, it’s yours, so you get to take care of her.”
I put my elbow on the center console and rested my cheek on my hoof. “I should’ve just waited for Applejack. Her rebukes are laden with spite and far easier to disregard.”
“I try to be nice when I can. I’ve seen enough of the gross side of ponies. This whole ordeal has the stench of a case on it, and I’d like to prevent that if possible. Pearl’s a good filly with a life ahead of her. She just needs a little help getting along right now from the one pony she trusts more than anypony else.”
Another sigh and I leaned myself against the truck’s window. I suppose if there’s a day to stop being a bad mother, it might as well be today. Thirteen years is enough time, isn’t it?
Nerves started to settle in my withers. Here I am, in my best friend’s house, trying to console my daughter, who’s holed herself up in the place she feels the safest. Not in my house, not in our house, but in a loud house filled with friends and family that care. And who could blame her? Nopony is ever at our house but her.
This is my fault, isn’t it? She doesn’t want to see me because I’m the source of her problems. I should… I should just-
Without warning, Applejack kicked me forward. “Will y’all get over there and say somethin’ already, damn it? Quit pussyfootin’ around and take care of her!”
“Excuse you! I am trying to think here! I don’t even know where to begin with this! I’m sorry I didn’t spend all my life raising families to be perfect at this like you are!”
A vein bubbled to the surface of Applejack’s forehead, and just before she took a step toward me, Fin interjected.
“Now hold on a minute there, Jackie. Don’t say something ya don’t mean, don’t do something you’ll regret, alright?”
She looked the stallion dead in the eyes as he tried desperately to maintain the composure that had been beaten into him after years of gruesome work, and eventually, it won out.
Applejack took a breath. “It’s not as if Ah asked fer the life Ah was given. Ah am not perfect. Ah do not have all the right answers. My family is only the way it is because we all make an effort ta keep it like this, not just me. The kids behave, the husband provides, and the mother ‘lords over the domain,’ ta put it in Celestia’s terms. My family works because it is my family, and it works because we all work in it.
“She is yer family. Ah only get as frustrated as Ah do at the both of ya,” she raised her voice to make sure that one went through the door, “Because Ah see these problems, and Ah think y’all could fix ‘em if ya’d just spend some time with each other. Ya’d think that after all the years we spent together solvin’ friendship problems in our teens it would’ve taught ya somethin’, but we wouldn’t be ponies if anythin’ we ever learned stuck, now would we?”
She let out that breath and turned away. “Ah’m gonna go outside and do some extra work ta let off some steam.” She made it to the end of the bedroom hall, then glared a single, piercing green eye at me. “This had better be resolved by the time Ah get back.” And with that, she left the building with a hearty slam of the door on her way out.
Fin let out a breath, and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Goddess, Rarity. You’d best be glad she loves ya the way she does. This could’ve turned into a crime scene real quick.”
I shivered. “You’re telling me. I’ve never seen her that angry with me.”
“Eighteen years and I’ve never seen her that angry in general.” Fin leaned against the door to ‘Pearl’s room’ and knocked on it. “Pearl? Sugarcube? If you value your mother’s life, please open this door.”
Slowly, shakily, we heard hooves clack against the wood floors of the farmhouse. The door clicked unlocked, then those hooves bolted away and hopped onto something soft.
“That’s a mare that puts the fear of the Goddess in ya, I tell ya what.” Fin shivered. “I’m gonna go keep her company so that you live to see tomorrow. Shoot me a text when you’ve got this figured out.” He put a hoof on my shoulder, winked, then made his way after the demon he calls ‘wife.’
Well, there’s little else that could scare me like that, so I might as well go in. I opened the door to a dark room with daylight trying very hard to pierce through dark curtains and not doing a very good job of it. A huddled mass quaked underneath bed sheets, not even a horn poking out to signify who was under here. Oh, Darling. What could’ve frightened you so?
An instinct told me that going right after the issue wasn’t the correct way to approach this, so instead, I sat next to the shaking lump and gently stroked it while I hummed a lullaby. It was one mother taught me shortly after her fury died down while I was pregnant. I remembered hearing it when I was little, but I could never figure out how it went. Without fail, it always managed to calm me down, and it never failed to put Pearl to sleep when she was just a foal. A little magic trick that only mothers seem to know.
After a while, the shaking stopped. Eventually, a snout poked out from under the sheet. “Mom?”
“Yes, Pearl darling, I’m here.”
“Who is… my father?”
Well, there goes the wind out of my sails. This is most certainly my fault. Again, the instinct made me want to get more information before I gave anything out. “What makes you ask?”
The sheet moved a little further, and a horn and eyes followed the snout out. A bright white coat, pale blue eyes, the high cheeks and horn pattern of aristocracy. Her face resembles her father. Get too close to her and you might just see him in her. Easy to do when you’re a celebrity.
“Well… There’s somepony at school who… who really doesn’t like me.”
I don’t like where this is going… “And… why is that, darling?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’d never said two words to her before yesterday…” she sniffed. “She… she came to me after school. I… I tried to be polite like you always said to, but she grabbed my hoof and she wouldn’t let go. S-she dragged me to the bathroom and threw me at a wall.” The little filly wiped at her eyes and sniffed and swallowed.
I caught a glimpse of what had become of her mane and nearly lost my composure. It had been cut down all the way to her coat. Only little strands of light blue were dotting the top of her head. Another piece of her father, but I never minded that one! Her mane was always so gorgeous and thick! I got my father’s mane, and just like him, I’m likely to go bald by the time I’m sixty.
“S-she said, ‘It’s your fault that my parents don’t like each other anymore! You’re the bastard that made my mom hate my dad, aren’t you!?’ I didn’t know why she was yelling or why she was being mean to me. I asked her why, but she just said, ‘Your mom is Rarity Belle, right? You’re Pearl Belle, aren’t you?’ I… I didn’t wanna lie because Auntie Applejack always says that’s bad, so I said yes, but… but then she…”
The tears started to flow and Pearl covered her eyes. “S-she pinned me down and she cut my mane off! I couldn’t fight back, she was bigger than me, and I-I, and she kept yelling about how I shouldn’t exist and that I ruined her life! S-so now she was gonna ruin mine! Why would she do this to me!? I don’t even know her! Mommy!”
Pearl leapt from under her sheets and into my hooves and cried her heart out into my chest. I stroked what little remained of her mane and surveyed the damage while I let her cry. It would be months before her mane would even be at a respectable length again, and this girl is… unlikely to stop terrorizing my poor little Pearl.
Well, congratulations, Applejack. This is partially my fault, and It’s partially her father’s fault. I knew he got divorced recently after so many years with Fleur, but was it over Pearl? Did I destroy another family? No, we did. I didn’t even realize he was married at the time, I was just trying to finance my dream. So desperate to finally have that prime location in Manehattan, so desperate to spread my influence and rise in the world of fashion, I… traded something precious for the power and the money. I got what I wanted and now, they suffer for it.
A deep, bone-aching sigh exited my body and I nuzzled my baby. “It’s alright Pearl, everything will be okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault. This is… this is my fault.”