I ran.
And ran.
And ran. Downhill. Somehow, I missed getting run over by increasing afternoon traffic.
A taxi driver pierced my haze. I stopped nose to nose with the sweaty earth pony stallion as his cabriolet screeched to a halt, sparks flying from the metal-rimmed wheels. Two aristos, one in a black top hat and a mare in a blue taffeta dress, thumped forward in their seats. From inside the yellow-painted cab, they yelled.
Funny how superior ponies got as enraged as common ones, and as red in the face.
I clattered back onto the sidewalk, glaring. Not my most effective try at intimidation since my eyes felt puffy and red. I sniffed wetly, keeping snot from dripping from my nose. Tears dried on my face as the breeze cooled my cheeks. I glared anyway.
The cabby told me where my mother came from. I whirled and bucked though he'd rolled onward.
Ponies on all four corners stared at me. I lowered my head and felt my ears flatten forward as I slinked away. After a while, I looked to get my bearings. I saw the hulking castle a half dozen blocks behind me. I was northeast of it and since much of the city was built on a slope, downhill.
I'd stopped crying. I hadn't stopped hurting. I kept walking.
The whole situation felt stupid. I knew that friendship was stupid and that cutie marks ruined everything. I had let myself get sucked into thinking I could rekindle what was lost and return to a happier time.
Right. As if.
Wouldn't have changed anything had Sunburst still attended Celestia's School. Proper Step was my guardian. He'd never allow me to attend a magic school. Having friends there might even make it less likely.
I had more important matters to attend to.
Today's revelation begged the big question: "Sunburst, why did you leave me?"
I had said that out loud.
A purple unicorn mare gave me a weird look as she edged away from me. I passed her on the sidewalk.
I inhaled deeply, shaking my head. I knew what had happened. Sunburst had attended the school for a few years before a visiting Saddle Arabian chieftain learned that my missing friend had a talent to magically manipulate a hundred things independently. Imagine it! If those things were a hundred spears? He could single-hornedly protect a whole caravan!
That had to be it.
Starlight née Aurora Midnight was a nopony in comparison to a stallion's ambition. He probably had his choice of mares. And new found wealth. All half a world away.
Minutes later, I stopped feeling bad about myself and noticed the buildings had changed and that the city had leveled out.
Everything looked plain and worn. I saw broken bricks and peeling white paint. The shops still followed the white and purple theme of the city, but looked blocky instead of round. I saw a square turret that was an obvious remuddle upon a repair. Signs were wood. Plain white over black paint lettered store windows, or the owners resorted to poster board taped on the inside of the glass. I smelled an overflowing rubbish bin in an alley before I saw it. Dirt drifted in the spaces between the cobblestones. Dandelions and grass struggled to grow in the cracks. A newspaper fluttered against a lamppost, a red and blue matchbox crushed under my hoof, and candy wrappers skittered along the curb.
Yeah. The poorer side of town. The neighborhood where the working class lived. A place where my giddy-up was dressing up instead of down.
I looked back.
Dozens of ponies trotted this way and that. The majority wore no clothes. Those who wore anything wore a clerk's business collared shirt, a food service uniform, or something protective like a hard hat or a heavy work apron. One in five were earth ponies and I hadn't noticed a pegasus since seeing Princess Celestia's royal guard. Nopony looked at me other than to avoid walking into me.
I stopped near a store. I saw wicker bins of tomatoes and kale, and shelves stocked with quarter-bales of various varieties of hay ranging from green, golden yellow, to caramelized brown labeled with brands like Morning Toast, Sunshine Finest, and Whinnies. I liked my Whinnies for breakfast. I spotted five common varieties of apple in straw baskets—edible packaging.
I glanced up the street for a half minute, but if any pony followed, they weren't being obvious. Nopony looked more out of place than I.
"We have purple and yellow carrots today," a grey grandpop grocer said.
I smiled and trotted on. "Not today."
"You come back now, hear?" he said and winked as he returned to rolling a cart of Brussels sprouts with his hooves over the push bar. I wasn't the first unicorn that hadn't mastered the simple transform of Levitate called Motivate.
Was he just being nice or did I look rich? Proper Step had worked on the acts rich part for almost eight years now, a power move for sure, and had likely succeeded at a subliminal level that was beyond my consciousness.
I sighed. The "nice" clothes didn't help. I'd been trained to wear clothes well. Worse, I couldn't strip in the middle of the street. It was a mare-thing pounded into me though it made no logical sense. Stripping would expose my blank flank, too, which made me more identifiable by color and shape.
I groaned. I was a tool, well on the way to becoming Celestia's.
"No," I stated out loud.
The inner me replied that the next thing I would know I'd be sent out to save Equestria from some invasion facing certain death while being happy I could serve.
I stomped a hoof and flicked my tail. Stupid imagination!
I started noticing foals of various ages and teenagers older than I. Judging by the sun, school had let out. I took a moment to brush out the stiff fur on my cheeks showing I had recently cried. I fixed errant strands of green in my tail.
The students didn't wear uniforms as I had when I attended school. I noticed a few straw hats and a daisy-print blouse. At first I mistook as maids a pair of high-schoolers with folded clothes balanced on their backs, then I read the name on the store they stopped met in front of.
Share and Wear*.
The blue unicorn and lemon yellow earth pony trotted in. Through the window, I saw all manner of sundries but mostly clothing. Old clothing. Used clothing. A sign stated, "We buy and sell!"
"This could solve problems," I muttered.
Every rack held lower class or working class clothing. A sign emphasized the word vintage. I stopped before flannel shirts in plaid reds, purples, and greys. They looked worn and I could see a fray here and there, but when I rubbed one against my cheek, it felt incredibly soft. And warm. It was still spring and I planned to be traveling between cities on the east coast.
The two mares finished haggling with the pink unicorn mare with square-frame glasses at the register. As they trotted into the racks, I asked, "Can I sell some clothes?"
She had rheumy magenta eyes and pale blue hair combed back to hide that it was thinning, but she smiled indulgently. "Like what?"
I waved a hoof from my hat to my shirt to my not-britches. She glanced at each and pointed wordlessly at the corner of the overstuffed shop, at a closet with pink drapes.
That mare changing-in-public psychopathy again. I grinned and trotted over. No choice but to expose my blank flank, but there were fewer eyes to see.
I placed the entire ensemble on the counter and she adjusted her glasses. After looking inside and out, she quoted prices. She paused a long time on the culottes.
I asked, "Are these special?"
She glanced at the bun I'd tied my mane in, the colt-style bun I'd tied my tail into, and lingered a moment on my blank flank. Maybe it was the way I stood, but she explained, "These are a silk blend knitted together with a synthetic fiber derived from wood. It's durable and has body like cotton, but is especially breathable and fairly light. I don't see technical fabric often." She inhaled deeply. "Frankly, you aren't going to want to sell this for what I am going to offer."
The coppers I'd been offered for the other items and the silver for the hat were the sum total about what I knew about the price of clothes. I hadn't even thought to check the price of the flannel shirt! She said, "A silver and eleven."
"You're right," I said, pretending.
"Okay, a silver, fifteen?"
I shook my head.
She hoofed over a slip with my other sales noted. "10% off if you buy here and I don't have to make change. Still no bargain?"
I shook my head.
As I grabbed the grey flannel, I butted my flank against the tall blue unicorn filly's flank. We both said, "Oops!" I giggled when she did.
Her lemon yellow earth pony friend said, "Oh, I can see why you dressed as a colt!"
The blue unicorn shouldered her friend. She wobbled into a rack, causing the hangers to squeak on the rod. "Seeking Lily! Remember who just got their cutie mark last Hearth's Warming."
I glanced at my still, thankfully, lavender blank flank.
The blue unicorn pony had brown eyes and Seeking Lily looked down, hiding her blue ones, "You didn't have to say that, Pins and Needles**."
"We've been there," the blue pony said, turning back to the rack she nosed through. "My lace and tule, sorry! I was listening in," she added. "I recommend the Clotheshorse or Marvelous Missus uptown to exchange rayon-silk blends."
"Where are they?" I said, flipping between the red and the purple flannel shirts.
Seeking Lilly said, "On General Firefly across from the park. Marvelous Missus has more stuff like uniforms for school academies and work, but nice shoes. It's next to Donut Joe's on Ponyville Way, four or five blocks from the Ponyville Incline.
"Thanks a bunch!"
"No prob!" she said and grinned. A spring lily graced Seeking Lilly's flank, of course. If it had a meaning, I couldn't fathom it, unless it made her a bit of an airhead. Pins and Needles' one sported three crossed push pins as sharp as her very long horn, each with a purple head. Not the sewing needles I expected. I scratched my head.
Since I didn't want my blank flank seen by anypony else, I decided to wear the culottes out of the shop.
However, if I had a cutie mark...
In the sundries aisle, I found stuff in branded packages, some wrapped in taped translucent paper: used protractors, lunch boxes, and school binders. I spotted a wax-paper stencil pack and colored pencils. I glanced around and found makeup pots and compacts, some with rouges that looked brushed once and rejected. Inspired, I looked further and found hairspray. I picked out one without lacquer because if I faked a cutie mark, I would also have to remove it when I washed and a half a fake cutie mark was worse than none!
The stencil set contained a skinny diamond shape. Perfect. Simple. Even my lack of art skills could not mess that up. My hoof-maid had applied my makeup before I attended dinner parties; I was a rank amateur at this.
I made my purchases and left wearing the culottes and the grey flannel. I knew better than to enter a dark alley, but I did so the first chance I got. I didn't encounter sketchy characters, other than a bristly brown rat that fled and smelly water seeping from a closed metal ash can.
Considerably later with a brand new cutie mark, I trotted into the late afternoon sun. Oddly, I felt really good about it and held my tail high as I trotted toward the castle district without a stitch of clothing. I found it ironic that it felt good, but I smiled, swished my tail, and ignored it.
At Marvelous Missus, I sold the culottes and the khakis for considerably more than the blue mare offered. At The Clotheshorse, I purchased school-uniform dark-brown britches and a belt, and sold the brass shoes. I felt flush enough to enter bustling Donut Joe's to buy a chocolate curler to munch heading back toward the train station. I'd remember the luscious sugar and oil smell of the dive restaurant the rest of my life. An orange and red-hued twilight lit the sky as the absent Princess set the sun from somewhere between Canterlot and Mount Aris. I trotted down Alicorn way, the morsel of the curler I was savoring held in my magic.
Eyes up, I caught movement above the depot as I approached.
A familiar pegasus.
*My late mother worked at a store with that name.
**Read Pins and Needles for when she chooses the name Sassy Saddles.