As the owner of the florist’s in Ponyville, Daisy was the one who held up the clipboard and flipped over to the next page. She bit a pencil and, with it clenched between her teeth, waggled the tip until a few boxes were ticked.
“Violet crocuses,” she tried to say around the nub.
“Here!” Lily rushed past, dumped something on the till, and rushed away again. Something clattered in the backroom.
Daisy scrutinized the list again. Her full name was Daisy Flower Wishes, but she only went by the “Daisy” part because even for a flower pony, “Flower Wishes” sounded too sappy. Sappy didn’t sell flowers anymore.
“Citrus sorbet daffodils,” she read aloud.
“In a minute!” shouted Roseluck from an echoey part of said backroom.
“Citrus sorbet daffodils!”
“In a minute, I said!”
Daisy put down both clipboard and pencil, the better to massage her face.
Living in Ponyville was no picnic. It wasn’t even a quiet tea with friends anymore. So many immigrants and tourists and distant relatives gathered here that her best and most detailed stationery kit, calendar, and organizer’s diary struggled to keep up with the rising demand. That was before counting her own memory, which was like a… like a… like one of those things you drained rice with… Filter? Was that it?
Reluctantly, Daisy returned to her checklist. “Citrus…”
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
“…sorbet…” She dragged out the words.
The back door burst open. Roseluck too rushed past, dumped something on the till, and in her case stopped to give Daisy the evil eye.
“…daffodils,” finished Daisy, picking up the pencil to tick it off.
Roseluck’s evil eye became downright diabolical. Poor Daisy could only say sorry with a grin.
“And I got the Everlasting Mix Tulip!” Lily thundered in and made to dump a tray of violently coloured bell-like flowers on the till, except that she’d run out of room. “Before you have a go at me again,” she added bitterly.
Daisy groaned into a hoof. The other two stood there, in Lily’s case balancing a wobbly tray between two hooves until space was cleared.
“I’m ‘od dwy-in’ do hab a go ad –” Then Daisy noticed the pencil in her mouth and removed it irritably. “I’m not trying to have a go at you. Either of you. I swear. But timing is everything. Do you have any idea how ridiculous this is getting?”
Flipping the paper again, she spun the clipboard round. “Today, alone: drop off delivery for Princess Twilight Sparkle. Pick up seeds from Junebug. Drop off delivery for Fluttershy – who need I remind you is all the way out of town? Assist Pinkie Pie at Sugar Cube Corner with floral cake decorations. Pick up compost from Sweet Apple Acres – again, out of town! Drop off cuttings and exchange various samples at Zecora’s home – again again, out of town and in the Everfree Forest so we are not stopping for tea! Help Mayor Mare with decorations for Town Hall. Help the Cakes with catering, floral diet section. Show up at Cheerilee’s school for flower arrangement class. Drop off at Berry Punch! Drop off at Bon Bon! Drop off at Caramel! Drop off at Rarity, drop off at Filthy Rich, drop off at Strawberry Sunrise, Octavia, Thunderlane… Goldengrape… Noteworthy, Derpy –”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Settle down, girl!” Roseluck’s voice burst in through the nightmares.
Daisy’s marathon left her gasping and heaving her lungs to near-bursting point. Just one more gasp, one slightly overdone breath, one wrong thing, and…
She ran a hoof over her face, trying to wipe off the worry. “Wh-When did Ponyville get so big?”
Lily snorted. “Where have you been, girl? Nightmare Moon, Discord, Princess Twilight, Tirek? Big dashing heroic quests and famous local pony saves Equestria? Any of this ringing a bell?”
“Very funny, Lily.”
“You been shut in a box for the past year or so?”
“No, but I sure wish I was. And are you going to do something with those tulips, or are you training to be a part of the shop display?”
Lily rolled her eyes and put the tray down carefully on the floor.
“Don’t put it there!” blurted out a fresh wave of Daisy panic. “Someone might trip! That’d ruin the flowers!”
“And hurt someone,” said Roseluck.
“And… that too… yeah…”
All three of them shivered. Pain was to them what changelings were to post-wedding Canterlot: definitely not something to put on the guest list.
“And hurt someone, right.” Daisy dropped her things and scurried around the till to shift a few pots and trays aside for room. It was quite a task. There was barely enough room for the crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths, bluebells, and snakes head fritillaries already piled up there. Reshuffling a rainbow would be less difficult.
Once more, Daisy cast her gaze over the shop. Her florist’s.
Their florist’s, strictly speaking. Yet technically, her name alone was on the deed to the place. Besides, when all was said and done, she slept on her own over the shop whilst the other two regularly got to escape this little box of a multicoloured prison, at least once off-duty.
More than once, she wondered if it was getting to her. She patted her curls, which were already becoming frazzled and undone, like a gangrenous haystack slowly rotting in a hot silo.
And every time she stepped out, the air somehow seemed less crowded, less lively, less blazing with flowery perfumes and heady scents. It was the same with her eyes too. So many colours burned her eyes in the shop that the world beyond looked strangely washed-out and grey, despite the fact that ponies came in all sorts of colours themselves.
It all seemed… muted. Unfamiliar. And yet too much at the same time, like hearing the same one note over and over and over and maddeningly, endlessly over again, far too loud, far too… far too much to keep up with…
Catching Daisy by surprise, Lily patted her kindly on the forelimb. “Do you want to go back and do your mane again? Might help you calm down if you treat yourself a bit.”
“NO! No. I’m in charge of the shop. Come… come rain or shine, we’ll get this done.”
“Yeah.” Roseluck nodded. “This flower festival’s a great business opportunity!”
“And I could do with a roof that doesn’t leak,” said Daisy. Yeah, she thought grimly: over my bed.
That was just an excuse. The leak was annoying, yes. She’d like to make a bit more money, yes. But somehow the idea of selling more flowers to more ponies seemed… less appealing to her. Like expanding her list of friends to ponies she didn’t really know or trust. The gabble of princess-hunting tourists alone frazzled her something fierce. Would she trust them with a delicate bluebell?
Whereas this place was more than her home. The flowers, the wooden build, the constant swarming of buzzing, stinging, dizzying smells settled on her poor nose like the friendly bees of a loving beekeeper…
This was her haven. It had been their haven, for so long. And while Ponyville changed around it into something too big and too demanding and too ready to ambush her, suddenly a haven was extremely welcome –
“Daisy!” snapped Lily.
Daisy shook herself back into the present. “I’m sorry, Lily. I was miles away.”
No, I wasn’t, she thought treacherously. I was right here. Just like the background.
“I said,” repeated Lily, scowling, “shouldn’t we load this stuff onto the cart already?”
“But –”
“You’ve checked it all off, right?”
Daisy consulted her clipboard. “Er… that just leaves the –”
“Winter aconite!” sang Roseluck, emerging from the backroom. “Full marks to me!”
Daisy blinked out her shock. She hadn’t even noticed Roseluck slipping out.
“Er… good work, Rose.” She watched the pair of them start piling up the flowers on their backs, ready for transportation.
Not for the first time, Daisy felt as though grit lined her stomach. Harsh grit, biting its way from the inside out whilst she squirmed and wished it would all soon be over.
Look at the two of them, she thought. Not even out the door, and already they’re talking about the Floralia celebrations like it’s just another day.
Roseluck chatted on and on about some plan Rarity had of expanding her dressmaking business into Canterlot, because apparently you weren’t a serious business if you didn’t have a hoofhold in Canterlot.
Lily laughed and said some cutting remark about how it wouldn’t be long before some next crisis showed up on their doorstep. What next? A return from the evil Nightmare Moon? Some criminal outlaw coming to town? Maybe Princess Twilight Sparkle’s new crystal castle would draw out the diamond dogs, and what about all this talk of the yaks preparing to smash the country? That’s what she’d like to know…
And then, both of them left out the front door, to where the cart would be waiting.
Daisy clung to the till.
Unlike the other two, she spent a lot of time in here anyway. She wanted to.
Roseluck chased after whatever fad was doing the rounds, and Lily enrolled in self-defence classes, survivalist classes – which she founded, organized, headed, treasuried, secretaried, and attended all by herself, on the grounds that everyone else thought she was nuts.
Well, the point was that they had a life outside of flowers. They could weather a few winds and storms and downpours and frosts, even if they trembled doing so.
Daisy couldn’t. At least, she didn’t think she could, which was clear proof that she couldn’t. After all, if you weren’t sure, wasn’t that a bad sign in itself?
She stared out the window. From here, it was just possible to see, over the rooftops of her neighbouring cottages, the distant spire of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s new castle.
So much was changing. Her little town was growing up. Her friendships got more and more complicated. Roseluck and Lily adapted to it all like they’d known it was coming – and with Roseluck’s interest in science and technology and the march of progress, whatever that was, and Lily’s interest in seeing danger coming a mile off, maybe the two of them had indeed known all along.
And Daisy? Daisy just had her little flower shop which, for all she knew, could go out of business tomorrow. What would she have if she lost it?
And if she expanded it, made it bigger and stranger, what would she lose if she saved it?
To a pony living on the edge of her nerves, her only comfort was clinging to the hope that there was no need for change at all.
Eventually, the trundling hoofsteps came back.
“Daisy?” said Roseluck tenderly. “Is something wrong?”
“You’re not ill again, are you?” said Lily, chewing her own cheek nervously.
“I could call Nurse Redheart, if you want?”
Daisy shrugged. “You go on ahead. I’ll get the next batch of deliveries ready.”
“Something,” said Roseluck, more firmly this time, “is wrong.”
“Come on,” said Lily. “You can tell us.”
Helplessly, Daisy waved them off. “Later, OK?”
“OK…” said Roseluck, turning away despite her gaze anchored to the till. “But it better be later. You know this isn’t healthy. You can trust us, right?”
“I promise. Later. Let’s just… not fall behind on a schedule the size of Mount Everhoof, shall we?”
Daisy wanted to chuckle. It came out about as naturally as a clump of soil stuck in her throat.
Two scrunched-up faces left the shop. The till was empty again.
Guilt nibbled at Daisy’s happiness – such as it was – like a swarm of caterpillars on a leaf. Every time she had a problem, she kept shutting them out. And of course it would never happen, but one day, she feared she’d open the door again to find no one there.
Grimly, Daisy clutched her head to push the headache down. Do the job. Get the money. Then relax.
Yet there always seemed to be more jobs, not enough money, and no time to relax. She was missing nights now trying to keep up.
She needed someone else to help her.
Thank goodness he’d made an order. Any excuse on-duty…
Daisy made one delivery alone. Personally. It was different from the others. The others were just business. This one was personal. Delicate. Blush-worthy.
It meant leaving her shop, but pf’shaw! She could survive for a while away from it! A bit of the shop was carried with her: the warmth, the comfort, the homeliness. Visiting certain ponies would help the feeling bloom more healthily.
As she approached the house she’d visited a hundred times before, she could hear a stallion’s voice through the open window.
“OK, try this one: Why didn’t the mail pony accept the horseshoe?” A slight, anticipatory chuckle, then a proud boom: “Because it hadn’t been stamped!”
His silhouette stood tall and proud against the net curtains in the window. Daisy rolled her eyes and knocked on the door. As the hooves thundered and the silhouette swept out of view, she heard him belt out another “joke”.
“Now for two: I went to my doctor feeling like a barn door. Won’t be going back to him again: he said my condition was stable!”
Bolts clicked. Locks clacked. Daisy patted her curls down – she’d made some effort with a dandy brush this time – and tried to look stern and business-like, which always struck her as looking mildly peeved. Oddly suitable, in the current situation.
The door burst open. Goldengrape winked at her.
“Hey, I knew a pony who wanted to ride on Zecora’s saddle!” he blurted out. “Why didn’t he go through with it?”
Daisy slumped where she stood, the stern business look failing her. Dully, she said, “I don’t know. Why didn’t he go through with –?”
“Because he didn’t want to stirrup trouble! Ha!” He looked at her as though expecting a round of rapturous applause for his daring wit. “And with Zecora the Potion Master as the setup, that’s a twofer!”
“Can I come in now?” she pleaded.
“Oh all right. You’ve been such a good sport. If I had an audience, I’d say give it up for our guest star, ladies and gents!”
Daisy slipped in past him – knocking knees between the narrow hall walls – and, once he’d shut the door with a grin and a flourish, she turned side-on so he could see the delivery on her back.
“Here,” she said. “I got those special Squirting Daisies you wanted.”
Only in Equestria. Daisy’s professional pride winced at this. Such orders were usually reserved for clowns and pranksters, so of course they held a certain appeal to a mind like Goldengrape’s.
He plucked them off her back and sniffed so hard he almost snorted one up a nostril. “Ah, Daisy, you’ve done it again! Is there anything she cannot do?”
“Suffer your jokes in silence?” She spoke in one long sigh.
“I’ll land a great gig yet, my tender bloom, see that I don’t.”
“Yes, I can see that you don’t.”
“Oh ye of little faith…” He winked at her. “By the way, did you notice anything about those three punchlines I came up with?”
So Goldengrape had seen her coming from the window. Daisy, eyes already heavy with burdens and missed sleep, shook her head at his idea of romantic foreplay.
“They all made me want to faint?” she mumbled.
“Nope. They all began with the letters ‘s’ ‘t’. Stamped, stable, stirrup. ‘S’ ‘t’ as in ‘saint’. For who did I see coming to bless my house? None other than Saint Daisy of Garlands and Bouquets…”
“Goldengrape,” she groaned as he drew in close enough to kiss. “Don’t. I’ve got work to get back to.”
“And I’ve got to go back and get some work.” More kindly, he whispered, “Just a few minutes? Want some tea and cakes? It’ll be the best few minutes of my day.”
“Because you like tea and cakes,” supplied Daisy, trying to beat him to the punchline before he socked it to her.
Goldengrape gave her the pained look of a golden retriever whose master refuses to throw him a stick. “Tea and cakes would just be the cherry on top. Please? Besides, you look like you’ll drop dead at any moment, though I’ll politely not mention your hastily brushed mane because a gentlecolt never mentions that.”
Whilst she struggled to work this one out, Goldengrape took her hoof in his – shocking her out of her muggy mind for a second – guided her eagerly to the living room and its warm, cosy sofa, and then checked she was lounging along it to her satisfaction (“The chaise longue, the life so short!”) before disappearing into the kitchen.
For the first time that day, Daisy stopped worrying. That was the magic of Goldengrape, in a sense. His comedy alone was so reliably awful that it swung right back to being a reassuring presence.
Ah, his comedy. When she’d been young and had possessed a very naïve sense of humour, his had seemed like a life bursting with laughter and smugness and a complete addictive confidence in his own charm – and in hers.
Nowadays, her sense of humour was a lot less naïve and a lot more world-weary with sad, awkward, painful experience, but at least Goldengrape remained as constant as… well, gold. It didn’t shine as much as she remembered, but it was honest gold all the same, and she didn’t feel the richer until she’d checked it was still there.
That said, the problem was that he seemed permanently on the threshold of making it big with his routine. He always thought the next gig would be the one, no matter how many gigs he’d already failed at. Herself, she wasn’t sure “comedian” was a real job, anyway, though she’d rather bury herself in the backyard than dare say as much to him. It would be like kicking a puppy that had tried so hard not to wet the carpet.
Looking around his unremarkable cottage, she’d wondered where he got any money from. Gigs couldn’t pay well, could they? So… family allowance? Unemployment benefit?
On top of that, when it came to what a pony did with themselves, it seemed like his real job was to turn up to all kinds of parties and events around Ponyville. Already, she could see a few bottles and gifts on the coffee table, ready to hand out at whatever Floralia fests he’d marked on his calendar.
Goldengrape returned, balancing a tea tray on his back. A few things rattled. Some old nervousness trickled back into Daisy’s heart.
“Your royal teatime, Your Highness.” Goldengrape went down on his knees before her.
“Er… I’ll just take it off you and put it on the coffee table, like anyone else, shall I? Erm… if I can find room.”
Too soon, Goldengrape jumped up, almost knocking the tray out of her grip. “Anything else, my princess?”
“Goldengrape! Stop acting like a fool for ten minutes! I almost dropped the tray!”
“Ah, with a commanding presence like yours? No chance. Besides, I’d gladly be the fool who entertains his princess.”
“Don’t call me that.” Daisy felt like a boiling kettle, and she hadn’t even sipped the tea yet.
“Hm, I thought every girl wanted to be a princess when she grew up?”
Daisy said nothing. She in her class had been the weird girl who’d known she’d be a florist when she grew up.
Not that she wouldn’t mind being a princess when she grew up. She’d been a bit of a depressed kid. She had long since regretted whispering one too many secrets to Goldengrape. Though she didn’t regret all that much. If she was honest with herself.
“Besides,” he said cheerfully, “you’re as special as a princess to me. Fairy cake?”
Cheap cakes, Daisy noticed. Aloud, she said, “I’ll just have the tea and leave.”
“Ha! That was almost a punchline! See, I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Yay. Am I rubbing off on you yet?”
“Dunno.” He sat down next to her, and for a spark of a second, Daisy was back in her teenage years, awkward and clumsy and utterly turning red with heat at her skin being so close to a member of the opposite sex. “Why don’t we find out?”
They leaned against each other. That spark had long since been buried under a pile of workaday kindling, but for a moment out of her wooden life, Daisy could feel through every stick of worry, every twig of anxiety poking at her over and over, and sense the warmth promising to get through all that and gently, softly, easily melt her, until she could slip through the cracks and coddle it, feed it, merge with its ethereal heart and become a roaring, triumphant passion, a completely new spirit. Fire, again.
She sipped her tea, dreaming of that warmth from her mouth outwards.
“How’s things back at the palace?” said Goldengrape.
Daisy’s daydreams popped. “Sorry?” she said.
“The florist’s. Lily and Roseluck. How’s business in general?”
“Oh. Fine.”
Through her sensitive skin, she felt him tense up.
“No,” he said flatly, “don’t stop now, you were just getting to the good part.”
She shrugged, and then she enjoyed the tingle of rubbing along his torso with her simple shrug. “It’s… fine.”
“Come on. How is it really? The public must know.”
“It’s…”
A slog. A really, really big slog.
For the first time in a long time, Daisy unwound and leaned over – he shuffled up to give her more room – settled her head over his lap as though oozing into bed. Just her and her fool. Perfect.
Despite his concerned head hanging over her, she avoided looking at him.
The fungus of doubt gnawed at her, diseased and poisonous. The busy schedule. She wouldn’t have this space to herself for long.
Daisy grimaced and tried to enjoy her moment, but that was the problem with this rhizome-like network of commitments and new plans and deliveries and oh my gosh all this other stuff she had to keep on top of! It even invaded her alone time, infecting her happiness. How much longer could she last?
For a few precious moments, though, she tried to pretend she was all alone. Untainted. And free.
His voice echoed through her cushion of curls and the back of her skull: “It’s just one time of the year. You’ll be back to normal after Floralia.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Why don’t you just trust the others?”
She finally looked up, and his chin looked huge from down here. “Hm?”
“Lily and Roseluck. I bet they could help you out if you just trusted them more.”
Daisy shuffled uncomfortably. “I’ll… think about it.”
“No. You’ll do it. You’ve been skipping nights, haven’t you?”
She looked away again: Goldengrape could get so intense at times. “A little.”
“A little means a lot, huh?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“And a manner of speaking means yes it does?”
“When you put it that way…”
“Daisy, even a supreme ruler drops her work onto other government officials sooner or later.”
“That is a point of view –”
“Daisy!”
She shut her eyes. Only the tenderest tap told her his hoof had come anywhere near the tip of her muzzle.
No, she scrunched up her eyes. Harder.
“But it’s my florist’s,” she said. “I’m the one responsible for –”
“For sitting on a throne looking pretty. Daisy, if you don’t spread the load a little more, I’m going on a hunger strike.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“It’s just common sense, which you apparently don’t have.”
That was too much even for Daisy’s weak will. “Well, neither do you.”
“Yeah! And you know what they say about fools! It takes one to know one!”
It was a long time before she opened her eyes. Thankfully, his grin which she knew he’d borne had worn off by then.
“Come on, sit up,” he said. “My leg’s going to sleep, and so are you.”
True, she could feel the oils of slumber oozing into her thoughts. Daisy laboriously forced herself to sit upright again. Her head being the way it was, it was like swinging a dumbbell upright.
Goldengrape slid a forelimb around her shoulders. She stiffened: sometimes, he seemed to forget they weren’t in school anymore. Gruffly, she batted his hoof to shock him off, then immediately felt guilty about that and sat there wilting.
Then she heard him draw in a breath. Speech time. Oh Celestia, speech time.
“I know, I know!” she spluttered before he’d even gotten the first word out. “It’s my fault I’m doing this to myself. I know! I’ll… I’ll think about it, OK? Ask Roseluck to handle the money – she’s always been better at math than me – and ask Lily to take care of the stock – she’s always been super-careful, and anyway, it’ll take her mind off things. It’s not weakness to ask them for help. It’s really, really not. I know, Goldengrape, I know. I really do know.”
After a while, he drew in another breath. “Actually, I was gonna tell you your tea’s going cold.”
“Oh.” Daisy wilted further, curling in on herself.
“But that, that’s good too. That’s good too.”
Daisy cleared her throat, not looking anywhere but at the tea tray.
“Why?” he said. “Did you think I was gonna give a big speech to –?”
“A little,” she confessed.
“What?”
Mildly annoyed, she glared at him, and found only innocent puzzlement back. “Well, you always do when I go off like this.”
“Do what?”
“Make these big speeches about how much I push myself and make myself miserable.”
“Do I?”
“Don’t be funny. You always did at school.”
“I did?”
“And it’s very annoying, actually.”
“It is?”
“Because I always know what you’re gonna say, anyway.”
“You do?”
“Yes! And stop doing that other annoying thing too!”
“What, this?”
“Goldengrape!”
“Who, me?”
She thumped him on the shoulder, but not hard. As if she’d knocked it loose, his grin jumped out of his face again. Then he grabbed her – again, not hard – and held her so close to him she didn’t dare breathe out, not least because she’d blow right into his lips.
“Aahh, come here, you!” he said delightedly – right in her ear, too!
“Goldengraaaape…” she pleaded, but with no fight left whatsoever. He always did this, and she always fell for it, and she always told herself that she’d never fall for it again, despite her inner romantic always, always secretly wishing he’d never stop.
They sat entwined, holding onto the moment as though terrified it would be wrenched from them by something strong and heartless, something set against them. Like two lovers caught between too many warring factions, safe in their sheltered burrow whilst the world beyond burst with blasting spells, battle cries, and billowing smoke.
She wondered if he still felt it too, like he’d confessed to doing all those years ago. Looking out across the bridge to the water, to the green fields and wild forests beyond Ponyville, and wondering what would happen if he just crossed it, kept walking, and disappeared, never to be seen again.
She clung on tighter. If he was sick, then she would be sick with him. She wished she could squeeze it out of him, make it all better. If only she knew how to heal herself…
On the coffee table, she watched the tea in her cup gloop silently.
Then she noticed something else on the tray.
“What’s that?” She pointed.
“Ah!” Too soon, Goldengrape leaped off the sofa – she gave a spasm, almost fell over – and then he swept it up and kneeled between her legs and the coffee table. “I’ve got another punchline just for you!”
“Oh,” said Daisy. The warmth backed off, forewarned.
“Why did the daisy sparkle?” he said.
It’s his way, thought Daisy grimly. Just humour him.
“I don’t know. Why did the daisy sparkle?” she droned.
He opened it.
Two diamond earrings caught her breath.
“Because her eyes were filled with twilight stars,” he cooed. Cheerful again, he added, “Pretty good, eh?”
The diamonds twinkled. They were the stuff of wishes.
Daisy found her breath again. “Actually,” she gasped, then breathed properly and tried again, still left breathless for all that. “I think that’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard…”
“Terrible, isn’t it?” he said, voice fit for laughter.
Carefully, Daisy scooped out the earrings and held them closer to her eyes, the better to see the simple daisy shapes of the crystals. Exactly like her cutie mark too.
“Yeah,” she said, voice far away. “Absolutely… awful.”
Whatever star Daisy’s mind had ascended to, she found herself plummeting back to earth with one thought.
“How did you afford –?”
Then she took in his stomach, his limbs. She’d thought he’d lost a bit of weight.
“Oh, Goldengrape, no…” she moaned.
“Bit of this, bit of that,” he said, already anticipating her question. “I only cut back on non-essentials.”
Unconfirmed worst fears pushed Daisy to her hooves, into the kitchen, opening a few cupboards. She thought so.
She marched back in, now armed with worst fears fully confirmed. “Goldengrape!”
“I couldn’t help myself! It’s Floralia! It’d be the perfect gift for a flower pony like you, and Amethyst didn’t even charge extra to have them customized.”
“Don’t ever let me catch you doing that again! You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Actually, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve skipped meals in order to save up. I’m used to it. No big deal.”
He cowered under the melting fury of that glare.
“Look, it was only a temporary thing,” he cried out quickly. “I did promise. Not a week. But a few days every week, now, that adds up in the long run to…”
Daisy threw herself back onto the sofa, limbs splayed. She’d completely given up even straightening herself up.
“Why can’t you be more practical?” she pleaded. “You utter numbskull.”
“What would love be if it was practical?”
“It’d be a lot less ridiculous to some ponies.”
“And a lot more ridiculous to others.”
Daisy groaned into her hooves. Not the headache again. She’d avoided having one for so long…
“No, no, no, it’s OK!” Goldengrape waved her worries aside before they could land and suck her blood. “I’m not doing it anymore. This was all just a one-time thing. I’ll be back to my good old self in two shakes of a ponytail.”
Muffled under her hooves, Daisy mumbled, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Daisy, my sweet, my princess, my wishing star, my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, my what-would-I-be-without-you –”
Daisy’s hooves flopped to her sides. “If I was a princess, I’d throw you in the dungeons for being so stupid.”
“My, my, wouldn’t it be crowded in there?”
It was his wretched wink. She couldn’t hate that wink. If a loyal guard dog learned how to wink, it’d wink like that. Goldengrape might roll in the mud despite her sternest voice, but he’d always bark happily just to hear her speak to him. Besides, a bit of dirt was not too unacceptable. And she’d clean him up later anyway. so no harm done, right?
She pressed her curls up against his neck. He gently leaned down until muzzle rested, almost pushing, against muzzle. They could so easily push, but neither would. Not hard. Just press into each other tenderly. Locking together. Fitting together.
In all that, Daisy knew the tea would go cold. For once, she didn’t worry… well, much… about such silly practical things.
For as long as they were this close, she was special.
Out there, she’d be just another face in the crowd, or the overworked owner of a shop hardly anyone noticed, or even someone who tried so very hard to not be noticed, despite her own panic making her yell out, “The horror! The horror!” when things got the better of her.
In here, she was Goldengrape’s world.
It was a world that needed less awful punning and more careful thinking about how to manage money, maybe, but then her world needed a bit more jokiness and less heart-stopping stuff to worry about, so it balanced out.
Besides, a life like Daisy’s was one spent afraid of losing things. Losing her shop to the harsh realities of the market, losing her friends to another world-threatening monster, losing her mind for a moment when she saw a broken stem.
Goldengrape’s hadn’t been much different.
Still wasn’t, to an extent. He loved life so much that it could sometimes swing right round to being painful, especially should some monster threaten to take his loves away from him.
And for all his little idiocies, he wasn’t actually thoughtless. Sometimes, when she’d been dating him, he’d broken off from guffawing at his own wordplay long enough to look… thoughtful. Deeply so, to the point she’d had to wave a hoof at him and say his name to help him surface again. If he partied hard on the edge of the cliff, then it was because he’d looked down and glimpsed what was waiting for him at the bottom. So if he made the wrong step…
They both feared the future. They’d entwined a past between them. That was enough to let this shared present last an eternity, even one they could only visit for an infinitesimal speck of time.
They broke off. Daisy placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. Despite his expression, he gamely forced himself to smile.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, OK?” she whispered. “Find a funny joke, my fool.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, my princess,” he whispered back.
She didn’t look back when she strode out the door. Business, orders, and financial worries wouldn’t allow her to rush back and stay, and that’s exactly what she’d do if she caved in.
Leaving her beloved fantasy behind, she plunged right back into the real world, shocked into gasping by its sheer cold, and hoped to heaven her heavy soul could stay afloat long enough to see him again.