Luster brought her cold tea to her lips. “That was bleak.”
“It was,” Mare said, departing a warm hug with Pinkie. Hidden scars remained, despite all the time that had passed.
“So… uhm, the town started packing up and leaving after the Wall showed up?”
“Yes,” Cheerilee said. “Parents sent their kids to other towns and cities, they usually followed soon after. Ponyville, back then, was depopulating faster than you could say ‘parasprite’.”
“Not a day passed between new departures, news of bankruptcy, or just… discovering empty houses,” Mare added, working her jaw before continuing, “Friendships took a dive following the events. And the whole town fractured.”
Luster mulled that over. Friendship was important, that’s what Teacher Twilight taught her. The lifeblood of Ponykind. But she also knew that a town ought to have inhabitants to be called a proper town, and hearing Mare mention the town’s coffer, it wasn’t a long stretch to imagine that beyond the social fabric ripping apart, the town’s financial wellbeing also plunged.
“You mentioned being alone in bed,” Luster pointed out, nodding at Cheerilee. “You broke up back then?”
Cheerilee chuckled. Somberly. “Yes, we’d broken up, then. But it’s the past.”
“She fired you?” Luster asked, prodding.
Mare coughed in her hoof. “No, I didn’t.”
“You kinda did,” Cheerilee countered, an eyebrow raised while Pinkie made herself small in between the two arguing spouses. The teacher glanced at Luster. “Clever filly.”
Luster clenched her teeth tight so she wouldn’t grin from ear to ear. She loved being right. Very much so.
Mare took a deep breath, and held it. It came out a long sigh.
“Alright, yes. Yes.” She shook her head and crooked over, like her spine had deflated. She lifted her chin and readjusted her glasses. She looked over the rims at Luster. “A lot of stuff went wrong and a lot of stuff, well, we couldn’t afford. With no money to cover the school, and since there were no kids left in town, I cut it.” She turned to Cheerilee and extended a hoof, which was received with kindness. Cheerilee held it in between both of hers. “I still hate myself for doing that.”
“I’m glad it’s behind us now,” Cheerilee confessed. “Water under the bridge, right?”
“Yes.”
“If I recall correctly,” Pinkie started, trying to dig herself out from between the two spouses, “not all the kids had left when Cheerilee left.”
“Pinkie,” Mare hushed under her breath as Cheerilee retracted her hoof, crossing her legs. “Come on, don’t–”
“No, it’s true,” Pinkie chirped, her tail wagging from left to right between her back and the sofa. “It’s when Diamond Ti–”
Cheerilee pressed her hoof against Pinkie’s muzzle. “I don’t want… We don’t want to talk about it, Pinkie,” she said with acid in her voice.
“Well, you know. It’s going to be hard, not gonna lie,” Pinkie giggled, locking her tail under her flank. “After all, she’s here.”
“Who, Diamond?” Mare sputtered.
“No, one of the gang!”
“Who’s Diamond?” Luster asked, raising a hoof as if she was back in school.
That’s when the doorbell rang.
“I’m not so rusty after all,” Pinkie said, a celebrating smile stretching upon her cheek. She sprung from her cushion and trotted off to the hall, shrilling, “I’m coming!”
Luster leaned forward to her aged hosts and asked in a hushed tone, “You were expecting somepony?”
Cheerilee and Mare shared a look. Their response came together.
“No?”
Laughter and cheers filled the hallway, followed by two sets of hooves, one imparting Pinkie’s happy staccato and another, measured and strong — a stride with heft. Luster wasn’t ready for who came through the door.
A lavender mane with pink streaks. A silver necklace with a single pearl in a plain locket. An immaculate cream coat that shone even in the subdued light of the living room. And the subtle fragrance of roses.
Luster knew that mare. A singer. An artist. A Canterlot socialite. Very much like her sister.
Sweetie Belle.
“Hi, everypony!” the young mare greeted, waving a hoof. “I was just passing by to say hello. Pinkie Pie had to drag me in.”
“Drag you in? You walked in this trap on your own,” Pinkie cackled with a wide grin. “Come on, you know you can’t escape from tea and biscuits with a bunch of old mares.”
Luster caught Mare raising her hoof at that.
“Old mares?” Sweetie Belle feigned surprise, a hoof on her lips to hold in a gasp. “I only see a group of fine ladies here.”
Then her eyes met Luster’s and her eyebrows knitted. “Isn’t it Twilight’s prized pupil, Luster Dawn?” She ran to shake her hoof. “What are you doing here so far from your ivory tower, Luster? I thought you were pretty much like Twilight in her teens. A recluse!”
Luster pinched her lips. Well, yes, but no. She wasn’t a recluse. Like, no! Maybe? She pinched her lips again; bit on them. She took a sharp breath, ready to pounce. But…
She sighed in defeat. Yes, she kinda was. She wouldn’t be doing internal monologues and pestering constantly about being in Ponyville otherwise. But still! Ponyville was boring, and that story was boring too. Couldn’t Sweetie Belle read that on her face. Apparently it was that easy to read her.
“I think Twilight punished Luster by sending her here,” Mare said with a chuckle.
Luster couldn’t agree more.
“Punished?” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. Her smile faded when she met Luster’s eyes, and her shrug. She looked up at her former teacher. “Come on, what is she having you ramble about?”
“The Wall,” Cheerilee replied.
A shadow fell on Sweetie Belle’s face.
“Oh.”
“Twilight asked me to come here to get some… eh.” She didn’t know what to make of Twilight’s request, “witness accounts? Testimonies? I don’t really know.”
“We were just about to talk about the incident,” Pinkie mentioned, and the shadow darkened on Sweetie Belle’s face.
“Can I have a seat at the table?”
“Sure,” Cheerilee said. She pushed both Pinkie and Mare to leave some space in the middle of the sofa.
Mare, Pinkie, Sweetie Belle, and Cheerilee settled along, their jaws worked into a thin line, gritted teeth hidden behind closed lips and somber faces. Slowly but surely, everypony locked eyes on Sweetie Belle. Her sharp olive eyes hung low.
Where Luster expected what could be called the antithesis of levity, Sweetie Belle started snickering instead. A hearty laughter that made the three other mares cork eyebrows. It definitely wasn’t a happy laugh; Luster caught Pinkie cringing at it.
“I have nothing actually,” Sweetie said with a shrug. She laughed again. “I never really dwelled on what happened in Ponyville during the incident! You,” she said, pointing at her close neighbors, “were still here.”
“And you weren’t?” Luster asked, teetering forwardas her mind raced to get the implication. What did she mean? Given the three mares’ reactions, she had assumed she’d been in Ponyville at the time. She certainly had done something. It clicked. “Wait… You went inside that thi– the Wall?”
Sweetie Belle turned to Cheerilee. “Can the teacher cover for her student one last time.”
Cheerilee’s eyes glistened and her deep breath echoed in the otherwise suddenly silent living room. She nodded.
“Okay.”