After the brothers helped Ms. Cadance and Mr. Light clean up the schoolhouse and the post office, First Base spent the whole day at school with the town’s children, writing their thank you letters for them during the morning recess and lunch break. True to his word, half of his fee went towards postage.
To Cadance’s delight, the children were all eager to learn. Even after learning how to write their names, they clamored for Cadance to teach them more skills, such as reading and writing other words and counting past ten. Granted, the process did hit a few bumps. Particularly, the children refused to mingle with those outside of their clan, which made teaching just a bit awkward for Cadance.
That afternoon, Night Light mounted Groat with a bag full of letters while Flash let them towards the mountain path.
“So, now what?” Night Light asked.
“Now, I think we just tell Groat where to take you,” Flash replied.
“And he’s able to understand what you’re saying?”
“He understood me fine when I told him to take me home yesterday,” Flash said with a shrug. He turned towards the reindeer and said, “Okay, Groat, take Mr. Light to Pinkie.”
As soon as those words left Flash’s mouth, the reindeer took off up the mountain path with the postman clinging to him for dear life. Night Light screamed as Groat practically flew up the mountain path leaping over loose stones and plowing past stray branches. After the longest five minutes of Night Light’s life, the reindeer skidded to a halt in front of the Pies’ cabin.
Night Light shakily dismounted Groat and began to walk towards the cabin’s front door. He had barely taken two steps towards the cabin when a pink blur burst out of a nearby snowman, surprising him.
“Hiya!” Pinkie Pie greeted the postman exuberantly.
“Ahhh!” Night Light screamed, jumping back a little.
“Yes! Ooooh! I told Limestone we were getting a new visitor today, and I was right,” Pinkie chattered excitedly. “By the way, my name’s Pinkie Pie. What’s yours?”
“Uh, Night Light,” he replied once he got over the shock and found his voice.
Pinkie gasped taking note of Night Light’s uniform, “Ooooh! You’re the postman, aren’t you? Oh my gosh! I can’t believe you finally came up here to visit. Wait right here. I’m going to get the rest of my family.” She took off, screaming, “PA! MA! LIMESTONE! MAUD! MARBLE! THE POSTMAN’S HERE!”
Pinkie Pie returned as quickly as she left somehow bringing the rest of her family with her. She was also inexplicably wearing several musical instruments on her person. Before Night Light could ask what the instruments were for, Pinkie Pie began to play them and sing the welcome song she had sung to Flash when he had first arrived ending the number with a blast of confetti.
“What are you doing up here, postman?” Limestone demanded in a particularly irritated tone.
“I’m actually here to deliver some mail,” Night Light replied cordially.
“We don’t know anyone who would send us mail.”
“Well, the children Miss Pinkie has been sending toys to wanted to say thank you and wrote her some letters.”
“What children?!” Limestone cried, her eyes bulging out of her head in a panicked expression that Night Light never thought he would ever see on her. Her father was much quieter, but his face was just as panicked as hers.
“Really?” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly before her sister could recover. “Let me see!”
As Night Light rummaged through his mailbag to pull out the letters, Limestone strode over to him and placed herself between him and Pinkie.
“Hold it right there, postman!” Limestone shouted. “You are not giving my sister anything until you tell me what’s going on!”
“Oh, I’ve just been mailing toys out from behind yours and Ma and Pa’s backs to the kids in town to try to make them smile because you wouldn’t let me go into town to throw a party,” Pinkie answered with a surprising amount of nonchalance. “No big deal.”
“And the children really loved those toys too,” Night Light replied, handing the letters to Pinkie Pie and trying not to laugh at the furiously stunned expression Limestone was making.
“Oooh, I can’t want to read these,” Pinkie cheered, hugging the letters to her chest. “Wait, right there. I have stuff I need to send out.” Pinkie once again rushed away before returning as quickly as she had left with four packages and a rather thick bundle of envelopes. “Okay, I’ve got the toy deliveries for today, and I had all these letters ready just in case the kids ever wrote to me.”
“Wait, you knew those kids would write to you?” Mr. Light asked in confusion before taking the packages and envelopes from her and putting them in his mailbag. “Also, don’t you usually send out only two? How did you know that I’d have time to deliver more packages today?”
“Well, it wasn’t so much that I knew,” Pinkie explained, giving the postman a pink coin purse that held the payment for postage. “It was more like I had a feeling it would happen, and my feeling was right.”
“HOLD IT!” Limestone shrieked after she finally stopped sputtering. She shoved her sister behind her and put her face uncomfortably close to the postman’s, glaring at him darkly. “Listen here, postman. You want to keep bringing Pinkie or any of my other sisters mail, it’s got to go through me first.”
Night Light wavered a bit under Limestone’s obvious fury, but he composed himself and calmly replied, “I wish it was that simple, Miss Limestone, but I’m not allowed to give the mail to anyone other than it’s intended recipient.”
“Ha!” Pinkie gloated before blowing a raspberry at her older sister. “You know, this has been a riveting discussion, but I’ve got letters to read, so gotta bounce.” With that, she curled herself up into a ball and bounced away, uh, somehow.
“You know what I hate the most about all this?” Twilight ranted to Timber as he watered the saplings at his family’s nursery. “I hate the fact that those two strangers have treated my family better in the last three weeks than I have treated them in the last five years! It’s infuriating!”
When Twilight finished her rant, Timber blinked at her as he tried to process everything that she had just unloaded on him.
“So, let me get this straight,” Timber began. “Flash and First Base found a way for your father and sister-in-law to do their jobs, and because of that, you’re worried that your family might not want to leave anymore. If they don’t want to leave, you can’t convince them to take me with you guys, and we’re both going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”
Twilight blinked back. She had ranted about so much more than what Timber summarized, but admittedly, not even she understood what she had been so upset about. She and Timber had been hoping to leave Griepsburg behind together, and she was upset about how that plan may no longer be able to come into fruition, but Twilight knew there was more to her anger and resentment than that. She just couldn’t quite explain it.
“Yes,” Twilight agreed hesitantly, “that’s pretty much what happened.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Tell me about it,” Twilight cried. “I mean, what are we supposed to do now? Stay here and be content living in this town full of crazy people?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s just do that,” Timber replied sarcastically before continuing in a serious tone, “or we do have one other option.”
“And what’s that?”
“We run away.”
“Okay, did you recently hit yourself in the head?” Twilight retorted. “I mean, I guess we could do that, but how are we supposed to survive out there without any money.”
“Weren’t you and your family saving up to move away for the last five years?”
Twilight caught on to Timber’s suggestion, and her face went completely pale as she stared at Timber in shock.
“What? No! I can’t do that,” Twilight exclaimed. “That wouldn’t be right.”
“So, what if it isn’t? They wronged you first by dragging you here to this piece of Tartarus. I’d say taking their money should even out the score.”
“So, you just want me to steal from my family and abandon them under the cover of darkness while you abandon yours?”
“Yes, I do, and they’d deserve it. Ha! Family, why do people even have them? All they’re good for is giving you obligations you don’t even want and keeping you from doing what you do want,” Timber scoffed bitterly as he dumped out the last of the water in the watering can on the last sapling.
Twilight knew deep in her heart that everything Timber just said was wrong, but she can’t help but want him to be right. If Timber was right, she can go wherever she wanted to go and stay wherever she wanted to stay without ever having to answer to anyone. An image of her family’s heartbroken, disappointed faces flashed before her eyes, but she pushed it to the back of her mind.
“When do you want to leave?” she asked Timber.
“Ha! I’ve been sleeping with a backpack full of clothes under my bed since I was twelve,” Timber replied with a dark laugh. “I’m ready to go whenever you are. We can even go tonight if you want to.”
That night before dinner, Flash set a sack of coins on the dinner table and pushed it towards Night Light.
“What’s this?” Mr. Light asked.
“It’s the money I made selling the firewood,” Flash replied.
“We made a lot more than we normally did,” Shining Armor noted, setting his own sack of coins on the table before his father, “which is saying something considering that the Battle Bell rang today. Do you think it might be because the children were at school instead of in town with their parents?”
“I was wondering why the kids kept looking out the window,” Cadance noted. “They must have heard the bell but decided to stay and listen to me teach instead.”
“Why not?” First Base praised. “You’re the best teacher ever, and that’s saying something coming from me because I don’t even like school very much.”
Everyone but Twilight and Flash laughed at Base’s proclamation. Instead, Flash affectionately rolled his eyes. Twilight just watched everything happening in front of her, wrestling with her resentment and anger against everyone in the room and her guilt over what she was planning on doing.
Night Light pushed Flash’s money sack back to the teenager before dumping out Shining’s sack and counting the money. Flash looked from the sack to the postman in confusion.
“Uh, sir, aren’t you going to count what I just earned you?” Flash asked hesitantly.
“However much you made, it’s yours to keep,” Night Light replied, still counting his son’s earnings.
“All of it?!” Flash exclaimed in shock.
Night Light merely smiled and replied, “The worker deserves his wages.”
“Whoa! How much do we have now, Flash?” First Base asked, eagerly.
Flash dumped out the coins in his sack and counted.
“Okay, this along with what we’ve already saved, makes, uh,” Flash muttered as he struggled to add the numbers together, pushing his rudimentary arithmetic skills to their limit.
“Four silvers and forty-five coppers,” Base finished for his brother. “That means we almost have enough to cover the ferry for one of us.”
“That’s correct,” Cadance cheered. “Very good, Base.”
“He had a good teacher,” Flash replied, ruffling his brother’s hair with pride. Base laughed as he good-naturedly pushed Flash’s hand off his head.
Flash put the coins back in the sack and put the sack in his jacket pocket as Ms. Velvet and Ms. Cadance began to put the food on the table. After the rest of the family sat down and everyone said grace, the two ladies of the house began to serve everyone the food.
“Hey, Flash?” First Base asked after accepting his plate from Ms. Velvet and thanking her for it. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?” his older brother replied before taking a bite of potato.
“We’re pretty close to getting enough money for one of us to go to the city, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe instead of working until we get enough money for both of us to go, one of us can go to the city and get word about our friends, and the other can stay here,” Base suggested.
Flash stopped chewing and turned to stare at his brother incredulously. Everyone else also suddenly became quiet, noticing the stunned expression on Flash’s face.
Flash swallowed and opened his mouth to speak. At first, he couldn’t say anything, but eventually, he found his voice.
“Are you saying that the two of us should split up?” Flash asked with just a hint of worry creeping into his voice.
“I don’t like the idea of it either,” Base admitted, “but it’ll probably take us a few more months before we earn enough money for both of us to go to Paardenstad, and by then, everyone will think we died in the wreck, and anyone else who did survive could have found other work and gone who knows where, and we wouldn’t be able to find them.”
“But we’ve never been apart since, well, you know,” Flash countered, “and if we split up, we won’t know how long it’ll take for us to get back together. Furthermore, you’re too young to be traveling on your own, so I’m going to have to go. Who is going to take care of you while I’m gone?”
“We can,” Velvet cut in.
“You?”
“Of course. It’s not like you two have anywhere else you could go.”
“Oh, we couldn’t possibly trouble you—”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Night Light cut in. “Besides, I know you’ve only been here for a few weeks, but we’re starting to think of you boys as family.”
“But I don’t know how long I’ll need to be away or when I’ll be coming back.”
“Oh, you take however long you need. Just make sure you write often so that we don’t worry, alright?” Velvet added.
Flash didn’t know what to say. Any kindness he had experienced in the past had usually been small and fleeting. Except for maybe Pinkie Pie, no one had ever been this kind and generous towards him and his brother before. In the end, Flash simply nodded and thanked the postman and his wife.
Later that night, once Twilight was sure everyone was asleep, she opened the door of her bedroom and crept towards the attic. Unlike Flash, Twilight knew exactly where her family hid their money; she just needed to get the shovel out of the attic without waking up the two brothers first.
She felt the guilt eating away at her as she replayed her conversation with Timber and the scene from dinner in her mind, but she buried it under all the resentment she had built up against her family over the years along with the resentment she felt towards the boys for ruining their plans. However, was getting in the way of her family’s original plans really what she found most upsetting about Flash and First Base? Of course, it was. What else could she possibly be upset about?
Twilight climbed up to the attic as quietly as possible. She could feel her nerves rattle at the sound of even the slightest creak, fearing that she would be discovered. She carefully opened the attic door and slipped inside. She glanced over to where Flash and First Base were sleeping and seeing no movement from either of them, began to silently search for the shovel.
Unbeknownst to her, the sound of her footsteps climbing up the ladder had actually woken First Base up. Base had woken up Flash and told him that someone was trying to get into the attic, so Flash had told him to pretend to be asleep. As the two of them not slept, they carefully watched the intruder move about the attic. He or she seemed to be looking for something. Worried that a thief had broken into his host family’s home, Flash quickly yet stealthily lit a lantern, suddenly throwing the whole room in light.
“Twilight?” Flash gasped, seeing who the intruder was. “What are you doing up here?”
“Uh,” Twilight sputtered, internally cursing her fate, “I was just looking for a shovel.”
“What would you need a shovel for at this hour of the night?” Base asked, just as surprised at the discovery as his brother was.
“For digging, of course,” Twilight retorted, hoping that the brothers actually were as dumb as she often thought they were. Yeah, they weren’t.
“Wait. You wouldn’t happen to need that shovel because you’re going to use it to steal something valuable from your family and run away, would you?” Flash inferred.
Twilight groaned angrily, “How did you even figure that out?”
“I know I’m not as smart as you are and that I can barely read and write, but I’m not an idiot, you know,” Flash retorted in offense.
“Yeah,” Base agreed. “Now that I think about it, you’re the only one out of your whole family who seems upset by what we did. Why?”
“Why?” Twilight snapped. “Because you just gave my family reasons to put down roots in this horrible place. Why wouldn’t I be upset?”
“So, you’re just going to steal from the people who loved and raised you your whole life and leave them without even so much as a goodbye?” Flash noted.
“You think this is how I wanted things to turn out?” Twilight fumed. “I, ugh! I just want our lives to go back the way they were before we came here!”
For a while no one said anything, Flash and Base just sat there letting everything Twilight had said sink in while she just continued to seethe.
“What was your life like before you and your family came here?” Flash finally asked. “And why did your family even come here in the first place?”
“We actually lived in Paardenstad, and life couldn’t have been better,” Twilight replied nostalgically. “We had everything we could have ever wanted, a comfortable home, access to bookstores and libraries, a school that never once had to be used as a fish market. Then, Father and Cadance decided to take a chance and drag us out here simply because this God-forsaken town needed a postman and a schoolteacher, and they were optimistic and naïve enough to volunteer. I was completely against the idea, but Father promised that life out here can be just as good as the one we left behind. It wasn’t.”
“And you’ve resented your family for bringing you here ever since then,” Flash finished for her.
“Well, at least, you still have a comfortable home,” Base noted.
Twilight turned to the younger boy and gave him the driest, most deadpan stare humanly possible.
“I mean, I know it’s not much compared to what you probably had back in the city, but it’s got a fireplace, furniture, and your own bedroom with your own bed. I’d say that’s pretty comfortable, especially compared to what the two of us have had to make do with.”
“It’s not even the scarcity of amenities that makes living here unbearable,” Twilight admitted. “It’s the town full of crazy people fighting over nothing. I just don’t want anything to do with them.”
Flash frowned slightly, thinking deeply about what Twilight had just told him. His brother looked at him, noting what seemed to be pity in his eyes. First Base couldn’t help but dread the expression on his older brother’s face; he wasn’t sure what that expression meant, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like it. The sorrowful, apologetic look Flash gave him shortly after only added to his apprehension.
“Listen, after hearing what you just said,” Flash said to Twilight, “I’m willing to make a deal with you.”
“What kind of deal?” Twilight replied skeptically.
“One that will let you go to Paardenstad,” Flash answered. “How about I give you everything I’ve earned so far and everything that I will earn until you have enough to go to the city?”
“What?!” Base cried in objection.
Twilight, however, thought the offer sounded too good to be true. “What’s the catch?”
“Three conditions,” Flash continued.
“Of course, there’s conditions,” Twilight thought to herself cynically.
“Condition one, you don’t steal from your family ever again,” Flash listed. “Condition two, when you get to Paardenstad, you find out what happened to our friends and crewmates and write back to us. Condition three, you tell your family everything that happened tonight and that you want to go back to the city on your own.”
“Are you crazy?” Twilight cried. “I have no problem complying with the first two conditions, but there’s no way I’m telling my family all that. They’d never let me go.”
“You won’t know if you don’t tell them, would you? Besides, what were you planning on doing if I hadn’t given you that third one? Were you just going to take my money and leave without telling your family?”
“That’s exactly what I would have done. Gosh! What is it with you and families anyway? All they’re good for is giving you obligations you don’t want and keeping you from doing what you do want.”
At first, Flash just stared back at her in stunned silence. Then, his expression changed into a stern glare as his anger simmered under his calm exterior.
“I don’t know who put that idea into your head,” Flash replied, keeping his tone steady, “but he or she is wrong.”
“Oh, is he though?” Twilight retorted. “My family is the only reason why I’m even here. Pinkie Pie’s family is the only reason why she can’t throw parties to her heart’s content, and you,” she laughed cheerlessly and continued, “you’re stuck taking care of a needy kid who jumps into things without thinking them through. If you didn’t have him, you could just take off for Paardenstad and never even have to think about coming back.”
Flash’s glare intensified at Twilight’s last sentence. He sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth to keep his anger from reaching a boiling point. He slowly breathed out and took a few more deep breaths.
Once he felt calm enough to talk, he said to her, “You’re right. I am stuck taking care of a kid who jumps into things without thinking them through, and you know what? I wouldn’t trade him away for anything, not even if someone offered me the world.”
Twilight stared at him as if she had been struck dumb by his words. The tone in his voice and the fire in his eyes sent shivers down her spine. Twilight could feel her guilt bubbling up inside her again under his gaze, and she tried to bury it under her discontent and resentment like she did before, but the emotions Flash was stirring up weren’t allowing her to.
“But,” Twilight asked, forcing herself to speak, “why?”
“Because he’s my brother, my family, and I love him,” Flash replied emphatically. “When you love someone, really, truly love someone, you learn to be okay with not always having things your way especially if it means that the other person gets what he or she needs. I know you’re having a hard time believing this, but your family loves you the way I love my brother, and I can’t just sit by and watch you hurt them as if they don’t matter to you at all.”
Twilight could only continue to stare as Flash’s words pierced through the cold iron wall that she had built around her heart. The weight of what she had been about to do began to set in, pushing her guilt ever closer to the surface.
“Why would you think that your family didn’t love you?” First Base asked, frowning in confusion. “Didn’t Ms. Cadance say that the only reason why they gave up trying to stay here is because they were worried that being here was turning you into a bad person?”
Twilight looked away and bit her lip as her guilt began to boil over.
“Look, it’s late, so I’m going to turn off the light, and Base and I are going to go to sleep,” Flash declared as he tried to suppress a yawn. “Hopefully, we’ll see you in the morning.”
Twilight nodded and began climbing down the ladder as Flash snuffed out the light. After Twilight returned to her bedroom and lay down on her bed, the full weight of what she almost done came crashing down on her, and she cried herself to sleep.