Pipp’s cheeks felt like falling off, the scorching cold was sure to freeze her eyelashes off, but she kept on flying. She was pretty close to the ground, knowing it was stupid to go any higher while she was so tired. She’d been flying for what felt like hours, she felt like she was about to pass out. No matter how magical or freeing it felt, it was still demanding, flying so fast and for so long. The cold, thin air seemed to burn her lungs, and that’s when se saw the lighthouse standing proudly on the horizon.
She gave it her very last strength to get to Maretime Bay. When the familiar arrange of houses and buildings by the seaside welcomed her, she finally landed. Her wings felt sore when she finally tucked them on her sides. Even by the sea, the breeze was still chilling. It must’ve been around three in the morning, every house was silent, almost every light was out. A shiver traveled through her spine, and she took out her phone.
Scrolling through the unending list of contacts, she made it to the H and then filtered through the list of names until she found the one she was looking for: Hitch Trailblazer.
Pipp doubted for a second. Maybe Hitch would get upset if she called him so late at night. But then she thought of why she was there in the first place. The hurtful words still repeating themselves in the back of her head. She wiped off a tear and clicked on the contact, her phone going on dial. Her wings fluttered nervously as she brought the phone near her ear. The phone rung a few times, before she went into voicemail. She hung up and tried again. This time, after the second ring, Hitch picked up.
“Hello?” he said, half asleep.
Pipp took a deep breath, trying to control the storm of feelings tempting to escape her chest.
“Hi, it’s Pipp” she managed to say. Her voice cracked under the pressure of tears threatening to flood her eyes any moment. “Where do you live?”
She could hear the confusion on his voice.
“Uh, it’s an array of buildings by downtown. Mine is a one-story brick building, house number three.” He explained. As he said that, Pipp started walking, trying to find something matching the description. “Why?”
“I, uh” she tried to explain. “I’m here.”
She heard shuffling on the other side of the line, probably Hitch getting out of bed.
“Here where?” he asked, “In Maretime Bay? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” she said, but she clearly didn’t sound fine.
“Where exactly are you?”
Pipp looked around. A familiar sign stood out to her. It was a picture of a cyborg-looking pony with billboard style letters around it.
“In front of the movie theater, I think”
She heard the familiar clip-clop of Hitch’s hooves over hardwood floor, then a set of keys jingling and finally, a door creaking open.
“Stay where you are” Hitch said through the phone, “I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”
Then, Pipp hung up.
She felt a pang on her chest as she realized she’d been crying for a while now. She didn’t recall when it started, but it couldn’t stop. She was so sad, she felt so alone, everything around her seemed to be mocking her. The full moon, the sparkly stars, the magnificent sea in the distance, the cheerful town. It was, by all means, a lovely night, yet she felt so miserable.
As promised, Hitch was there in less than three minutes. He was walking towards her, holding a neatly folded blanket. He looked awfully worried, and, as soon as she saw him, she ran towards him and almost tackled him with a soul-wrenching hug. He reciprocated almost immediately, holding her as if her life depended on it, and, in a way, it almost did. She cried a bit more until she was able to calm down. Slowly, she let go of him and dried her tears.
He looked at her. She was wearing none of her usual makeup, nor her tiara, and her hair was messy and dirty, her overall appearance seemed to reflect how much of a mess she was on the inside. He felt terrible, and, as she tried her best to calm down, he unfolded the blanket and covered her back with it.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said soothingly, walking her to his house.
As hard as Pipp tried, she continued to weep. Hitch was starting to worry she might wake other ponies up, but at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Pipp was clearly feeling distressed, if what she needed was to cry and scream, then so be it, Maretime Bay should have to bear with it.
They finally made it to his house. It was just as Hitch had described it, an arrange of one-story houses, all the same, with brick walls and shed roofs. The third house, counting from left to right, was his. He put his key in the hole and let her in. It was just as modest on the outside as on the inside. Pale yellow walls, light brown hard-wood floor. A small couch and an even smaller sofa arranged around a ridiculously tiny coffee table made up the living room. Behind it was a bare wood table and four chairs which made up the dining section. To the left of the main room were two doors, one open door at the back, and another door at the right. The open door led to a small kitchenette.
“Welcome to my house,” he said, hanging the set of keys on a tiny frame nailed next to the door. The walls had some pictures of him, Sprout and Sunny, and, besides the beige curtains covering the windows, there were no other decorations. “Make yourself at home, I’ll go make some tea,”
“Thanks,” Pipp said, once she felt calm enough to talk again.
She walked shyly towards the sofa and left herself plummet down. She had forgotten how exhausted she was until her body hit the soft surface. Had it not been for the cold, she could’ve fallen asleep right there.
Her eyes were beginning to close when Hitch came back holding a tray with two cups of tea in it. He put the tray down on the minuscule table and sat down on the couch, hoofing her a cup. She took it and placed it under her nose. The scent of chamomile soothed her.
“Do you want to talk?”
Did she? She felt like an emotional wreck, and was starting to fall asleep, but she knew she owed him at least a little bit of an explanation as to why she had decided to fly all the way from Zephyr Heights in the middle of the night. Pipp took a sip of her tea and prepared herself. All she could do was hope her crying wouldn’t prevent her from being clear.
“I had a fight with Zipp and mom,” she begun, as expected, tears started forming in the corners of her eyes, “I’d rather not go into any details, but, well, I couldn’t stand to be near them. And, well, they’re the queen and crown princess of Zephyr Heights, I had to get out of there.”
Hitch nodded, trying to be as empathetic as he could.
“Why me?” he asked, then shook his head, “I mean, why not go with Izzy? Bridlewood is closer to Zephyr Heights. Or Sunny?”
Pipp downed half the tea.
“Izzy can be… a bit overwhelming sometimes. I’m already very overwhelmed as is.” She explained, “And Sunny… She would’ve called Zipp as soon as she found out. I can’t let Zipp know I’m here, or they’re going to send the entire royal guard to come and take me back to the palace.”
“But won’t they be worried?” Hitch asked, placing a hoof on the armrest of Pipp’s couch, “I’m not going to call anypony if you don’t want, but I do believe you should at least let them know you’re safe.”
Pipp’s lower lip trembled. She slowly placed her hoof over his. His warmth felt heavenly. Although she was wrapped in a soft wool blanket and drinking warm chamomile tea, she could still feel the freezing wind inside her bones.
“I know,” she sighed, “I’m not ready to talk to any of them yet. I promise I’ll call them in the morning.”
He squeezed her hoof reassuringly before getting up.
“I’m going to prepare the guest room.” He spoke.
With that, he walked into one of the two doors Pipp saw when she first came in. Leaving the door open, Pipp saw that the preparations consisted of fluffing the pillows, adding an extra blanket to the bed, taking out a set of slippers and a nightrobe from a drawer and shutting the curtains closed. By the looks of it, that room seemed to be empty almost always.
She got up from the couch, almost regretting it as her rear end got cold instantly. After getting adjusted, she walked inside the room.
“Need any help?” she asked, eyeing Hitch as he looked around trying to find something else to make Pipp feel more at home.
“I think it’s all set, actually” he said, before looking at her with a worried frown, “Do you need anything else?”
Pipp shook her head, drinking the last bit of tea in her cup.
“If you do, my room is right next to this one. The bathroom is next to the kitchen,” he said, walking towards the door. He took the empty cup from Pipp’s hoof and gave her a quick side hug, “Please, whatever you may need, wake me up and ask.”
It felt so good being taken care of. It wasn’t as if no one took care of her back home. Quite on the contrary, she was a princess, there was an army of maids and guards and personal assistants taking care of her every need, but the way Hitch looked at her, so concerned and tender, it made her feel vulnerable yet safe. The sadness in her heart was still aching, but was now accompanied by a feeling of belonging, of being loved. This is what true friendship must’ve been about.
Hitch walked out of the room and inside his own, leaving both doors half open. After a few seconds of staring around, Pipp put on the nightrobe and slid inside the covers of the bed.
It wasn’t nearly as soft or fluffy as her own bed back in the castle, but after such an exhausting night, it was just as good.
Despite all that had happened, Pipp found herself shifting incessantly. No matter how she arranged the pillows, or in what position she laid, she couldn’t fall asleep. It was no longer a matter of tiredness, truth be told. What prevented her from finally succumbing to the sweet embrace of sleep was the cold, cruel feeling of loneliness that crushed her heart like a soda can.
Whenever she closed her eyes, the fight with Zipp and Queen Haven repeated itself like a video on loop inside her head.
“Well maybe if you tried more, maybe if you tried to be like your sister,”
“She doesn’t care, mom, all she cares about is looking pretty and having a ton of followers on those stupid social media of hers”
She couldn’t help it. It hurt so much, but she kept thinking of it over and over. Zipp’s poison words shooting like daggers on her chest.
“Pipp, I adore you, but you need to be more attentive of your surroundings”
She cried. Her mom, her own mother didn’t know who she was. Pipp was attentive all right. She could notice her mom’s crown getting stolen even if she was hanging from wires, in the spotlight, surrounded by hundreds of ponies. She could notice Izzy using her horn to bring down a tree even if everypony else was busy fighting. She noticed patterns in other ponies’ behaviors quite easily. It wasn’t about being attentive. It was that her mom and Zipp couldn’t see beyond. They didn’t know her at all.
“Will you ever grow up?” Zipp kept on talking, “Look away from that phone and to the world that surrounds you!”
She gritted her teeth. After everything they’d been through together, Zipp still thought of her as that immature phone-addicted pony everyone thought she was. And for what? Why were they even fighting?
“Dad…” Pipp whispered in between muted sobs.
All she’d done was post a picture of her father during the anniversary of his passing away. Was it so bad to miss him? To want to write a few words of how much she wished he was there? Everypony griefs in their own way. Zipp shuts herself from everyone around her. Haven ignores the whole situation until it’s over. Pipp was the only one willing to ever bring it up.
“King Skye” she whispered again. “Dad.”
It was almost as if those words were forbidden back in the palace. Too painful, too taboo, too soon. Pipp was almost scared that, if nopony ever mentioned King Skye again, his name would disappear into thin air.
She couldn’t stay in Zephyr Heights and witness the entire kingdom ignore the existence of their late king. It had been only ten years, but to the common folk, the king could’ve been dead for centuries. If the queen never mentioned it, why would they.
Pipp tried to close her eyes once again. This time, instead of seeing flashbacks from earlier that night, what came to her head was somehow even more painful. Her father. Just an array of memories, from her earlier years, when he sung her to sleep, or played with puppets with her, or when he told her and Zipp stories of when all pegasi could fly. She wished she could fall asleep only to continue dreaming of him. But the memories kept coming, until she relived the illness, the anxiety and sadness that flooded the castle, and the last time she saw her dad.
“Never doubt yourselves, my little ponies” was the last thing she heard him say.
She shifted under the covers once again, trying to find comfort in the pillows and blankets Hitch had so carefully arranged for her. Then she thought of it.
“Hitch!” she whispered to herself.
Just because she felt lonely, it didn’t mean she had to be alone. She wasn’t Zipp, who preferred isolation. She wasn’t Haven, who preferred distraction. She was Pipp, and she needed comfort.
She got off bed and put on the slippers Hitch had set out for her. Then, she walked towards the room he had told her about. She doubted a few seconds before going in, but ultimately decided to do it.
As expected, Hitch was soundly asleep, his mouth slightly open against the pillow. He looked so peaceful, Pipp almost felt bad for waking him up the second time that same night, but she did. She softly nudged his side with her hoof, whispering his name.
“Pipp?” he asked.
For a moment she thought she had awakened him and started explaining herself.
“Wait, not here,” he mumbled, “Hehe, your wings tickle”
Oh. He was sleep-talking. And dreaming of her. He was sleep-talking as he dreamed of her. She felt her cheeks warm up but shook that feeling away. She nudged him again, this time more firmly, and repeated his name.
“Hitch”
He actually opened his eyes this time, only to find the pink princess who was starring in his dreams.
“Pipp, are you okay?” he asked once he was awake enough to understand what was going on.
She nodded, “I’m just pretty lonely.”
Zipp’s bluntness and honesty was starting to rub on her, she noticed. Except she didn’t want to think of Zipp.
He rose his eyebrows. He looked around trying to figure out if this was also a dream. Almost convinced it was, he slid to one side of the bed and opened the covers to let Pipp in. Without thinking much about it, she got in and laid beside him.
He yawned and surrounded her fluffy body with his arms, and finally, she managed to fall asleep against his chest, his heartbeat serving as white noise to prevent her from having those awful memories. In the morning, she was going to call her family and return to the castle, but for now, there was no reason to feel lonely.