It was the day of my wedding and things were rather different from how I had imagined it as a kid.
Yet I found little I wanted to change.
The evening before us was picture perfect, fresh and lively in its great importance. Every part of my life had converged to a single point, the full extent of all I had done greeting me at different tables.
At no point during the day did the urge to cry go away. I couldn’t contain it. There was so much good before me.
More important than anything else, I was satisfied.
“Hey—” From the side came Thunder, his demeanor goofy and carefree. We had long stopped using our real names. It never stopped being ridiculous but that was half fun. “How’re you holding up?”
“Think it’d be better if I was the one asking that question—"
“Tad bit drunk, just a tad bit, but honestly—” He shuffled in place, dancing before me with determination. “That only makes me more charming.”
I let my laughter get loud, alcohol making me all too aware of the sheer absurdity before me. Behind Thunder was a dancefloor full of friendly faces, ponies with so much to offer. Whenever my eyes passed somebody, I could remember every moment we had shared together, each guest chronicling adventure after adventure.
Long ago I had stopped caring which ones were real and which ones were made up. It didn’t matter. You couldn’t tell.
Right in the center was Velvet, a force of joy to be reckoned with. She caught my gaze and grinned, tilting her head in the middle of her dance move.
“Listen…” Thunder drew close, leaning in through a wobble. “All this… wedding stuff… It has me thinking…”
“Oh boy—”
“No, no... The good kind of thinking. You see… it’s kinda, sorta… it's...”
I peered at him, the zeros and ones hard at work in his brain.
“I think I want to marry Melody.”
The table had been flipped, and now it was me who was stuck buffering.
Melody was his bandmate. The lead singer. They had been dating for a while, their music an extension of their relationship and their success a product of love.
“It’s just we’re so casual that the idea never came to mind, and we’re already living together so it’s like we’re already married anyway and all that, but then I look around here and I look around at you and it’s like, wow, this is awesome, I’m in love and I want to share that with somebody and… it’s like… what if I’m not sharing that enough and what if—”
“Hey.”
The pony once known as Derek froze in place and stared back at me.
“You don’t think I was feeling the exact same thing? We feel what we feel Thunder." I stopped, turning to face the crowd. "When I look around here, I genuinely can’t believe it. But then I remember that it was scary, and that none of this happened immediately. That goes for Velvet, for you, for everyone. And I’m sure that they feel the same thing too. I’m sure Melody is right there with you, having this same conversation in her head over and over. But even beyond that… I don’t think we’re in a spot where we have to be afraid to tell each other that we care anymore. It’s our world, isn't it? We're free to make it so.”
The pony once known as Derek was still frozen in place, and he was still staring back at me.
“Not to bring up everything… before all this, but I think I felt the same way right before I came here. Sure, I rushed into it. I can beat myself up endlessly about that. Except now I can’t even imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t. And I think I'm completely fine with that.”
Derek broke from his trance, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Y’know… maybe it’s the cider… but I think I just realized that I might be a real big idiot.”
I tried not to laugh, shocked that this was his takeaway.
“If it wasn’t your wedding, I think I’d run up to her and propose right now.”
“Whatcha talking about?” From the side came Velvet, her dress following from behind as she stepped onto the grass.
“Oh… Thunder needed a little encouragement, that’s all.”
Both of us peered at him with a knowing smirk. Velvet began to circle around him, quick to understand. “Now is that so? Interesting… Very interesting…”
Thunder was blushing, a wonder I had never seen before.
“I was just hearing something similar from this other guest… What was her name now? She was wondering where a certain stallion had gone.”
I began to pace as well, joining Velvet in her act. “Ah, now that is quite interesting… Very interesting…”
Thunder began to collapse in on himself, unable to escape feelings so undeniable. “…Why don’t we go dance a little?” he said, ready to fall over.
“Hey, that ain't too bad of an idea!”
With that, Velvet led the way back to the heart of the party, the music lively, our hearts alight.
Somewhere down the line Melody joined us, and that’s when the perfection of this spectacle began to hit me all at once, the feelings undeniable and profound.
I had been worried for far too long.
I had stayed up at too many nights wondering if this was all a lie, a delusion I chose to participate in. Sometimes I even doubted if Velvet was anything more than a program of Celestia’s creation, a pacifier to stop me from asking questions.
But then I thought about what I had said to Thunder. Then I realized that all this doubt was another way of bringing me closure, so that I’d be further satisfied, that I would be more okay with the incomprehensible idea of peace.
Right next to me was Derek. Right next to him were people I never knew I would love. Past the intricacies of it all, the complications and the ethics and what any of this actually meant, that was the simplicity to be found. I had kept a friend I had cared about. I had found so many more. That was what mattered to me and I no longer wanted to ruin that with what if’s, or what could be. I loved them, and that was true, and that was all it had to be.
In a whirlwind of energy came Thunder, even drunker than before. He swung a hoof around me, and I teetered with him, laughing once again.
It was then that I saw the tears in his eyes.
“Are you alright?!” I asked, raising my voice past the wave of warm noise.
“Yeah… I’m just…” Before he could finish, his grip turned into a hug. “I’m just so happy— You really are my best friend.”
I could no longer contain my tears. I returned the hug and I saw that Velvet was crying too, my heart unable to take it.
Then we danced some more and it was all okay.