//------------------------------//
// Episode 4: The Mare Who Knew Too Much 
// Story: Freeze Frame 
// by ToixStory 
//------------------------------//

The next morning, there was an airship sitting on Marshmallow’s back lawn and waiting for me.

Wait, no, let me start over. The next morning, I woke up to my first surprise of the day. The sound of grinding gears had been playing in my ears for a few minutes, but I’d thought them part of a dream until I opened my eyes. Hovering above my bed and flapping her wings was a smiling Starshine.

“Hey, you’re waking up,” she said brightly.

I blinked. “Yeah, I am. And what are you doing here?”

“Well, Marshmallow called me this morning and mentioned that you might be interested in some flying lessons today, but I came over here just to make sure you wouldn’t decide to skip out or anything.”

I smiled like that hadn’t been exactly my plan. “Well, um, good that you’re here. It’s been a while.”

“I’ll say! You never seemed to want to answer my calls.”

“Well, I, uh, just wasn’t ever in when you called.” I said nonchalantly. The truth was, though, I hadn’t really been very good at figuring out the phones. According to Joya, they were fairly common and it was only unusual that she had recently gotten one, but to me they were almost terrifying. The first time I tried to pick one up, it let out a screeching noise at me and I threw it back on the hook before my ears burst. I’d avoided them ever since.

“Well, it’s really good to see you anyway,” Starshine said. She dropped to the floor and tugged the bedding off of me, much to my dismay. “Now come on, we’re wasting time here on the, ew, ground, when we could be in the air!”

I slid off the bed. “Alright, alright, just let me grab my stuff first,” I said. Starshine rolled her eyes and blew some air out the corner of her mouth. I ignored her and looked around.

Sunlight streamed through windows on the far wall of the room, informing me that it was sometime in the middle of the morning. What I noticed most, though, was that my camera bag was gone. I was almost sure I had at least put it by the bed when I lay down the night before, if not having slept with it on. However, the closet door was slightly ajar, so I walked past Starshine and checked in there.

Sure enough, my camera bag was sitting on the floor, directly under the white lacy dress. I felt like I had seen the dress before, and it bothered me. Even more, when I leaned down to get my back, my eyes passed over a note newly attached to the dress. “Ask Grapevine,” it said.

Not very likely. I tossed the note away. I’d already had my share of Grapevine, and still had more that I needed to get out, so adding something to it would have been crazy. So I dragged my camera bag out and set it on the bed before pulling the strap around my midsection and letting it fall to my flank.

“Ugh, are you ready yet?” Starshine said.

“That was like two minutes at the most.”

Starshine huffed. “Minty, you’re a Pegasus. Two minutes is always too long!”

I shook my head. “Whatever, let’s just go.”

Starshine led me out of the room and back down the hall to Marshmallow’s living room. Across the floor, our mutual friend had just finished making us some breakfast. Or, at least, what I assumed to be breakfast. Really, they mostly just looked like brown piles of mush.

“Just finished!” Marshmallow said. “Feel free to dig in, you two.”

Starshine licked her lips and hurried over to the kitchen table while I stood in my spot. “What exactly is that?” I said.

Marshmallow bit her lip. “It’s probably better if I don’t say . . .”

“I had her make it,” Starshine told me. “It’s a special meal that’s designed to give a Pegasus everything he or she needs to fly harder, better, faster, and stronger.”

“What happened to just eggs and toast?” I said.

Starshine pantomimed a midair vomiting session before going back to her brown goop. I sighed and accepted Marshmallow’s offered plate before sitting down at the table across from Starshine. The meal didn’t look any more inviting from up close, but I took a deep breath and slurped some down.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not what I got. Because the food--if I could call it that--didn’t actually have a taste. Instead, I very literally felt the goop. I felt the texture and even the color, but didn’t taste a thing. My eyes watered after it went down. Even worse, when I looked at my plate, I saw that most of the substance was still there, and even seemed to have somehow grown larger.

Starshine, on the other hoof, had already finished her plate and was eyeing mine hungrily. Grateful, I slid my plate to her waiting maw and she devoured that with as much gusto as the first.

“You done?” I said when she had licked the plate cleaner than soap could get it.

She put the plate down and nodded. “We need to get going,” she said.

We both hopped up from the table and thanked Marshmallow profusely. She simply smiled a little and nodded to us. Starshine trotted out the back door and I followed her, though I stopped for a second to listen to Marshmallow.

“Remember what I said,” she told me. “And what you said.”

I told her I would and hurried out the back door.


*        *        *

That was when I got to the airship. I trotted out onto Marshmallow’s backyard--nothing more than a sad little field of struggling grass--and was set on asking Starshine what exactly she had in mind to flight training when my ears were filled with the drone of airship engines and the words died on my lips.

Sitting on the grass was, well, an airship, if I haven’t made that point clear. It wasn’t very large--even smaller than the Halcyon. The gasbag was a deep shade of blue, almost royal, and under it was a somewhat-small metal gondola. The thing was tethered to the ground by simple ropes. Even though it looked large just sitting there, it was actually quite small by most standards.

“Wh- What is that?” I stammered.

Starshine flapped over to me and landed at my side. “That’s called an airship, Minty,” she said. “Or, rather, a blimp since the airbag doesn’t have an internal structure unlike the larger zeppelins that-”

“I know it’s a blimp,” I said. “But . . . whose . . . blimp, exactly?”

“Oh, the Weather Corps’,” Starshine said.

“Aren’t you still kicked out of there?”

Starshine shrugged. “Technically, but they always forget to take away the keys . . .” She happily trotted over to the open door on the gondola, underneath a name painted onto the ship. October Sky. I followed her into the gondola, just squeezing through the door.

The interior was little more than a cockpit and a couple seats put in as an afterthought. Most of the gondola was taken up by a myriad of instrument panels, which Starshine explained to be weather-measuring devices. There were so many dials and gizmos that I was afraid to touch anything, and instead set my rump on the rear co-pilot’s chair and tried not to move.

Starshine shut the door, pulled a few levers, spun a few knobs, and the blimp lifted off with a thump. My stomach sank from the sensation of rising and I had to remind myself that I could literally jump out the window and keep flying if I wanted to. Funny thing being raised as an Earth pony who just happens to have wings.

“So where are we going?” I yelled over the engine noise.

The ground began to fall away beneath us as we soared higher and higher into the air. “We’re heading out into the mountains,” Starshine yelled back.

“What for?”

“Figured you could go for a little high-altitude training!”

I gulped and looked out the window, where The Burb now looked like a model set. “What happened to playing it safe?” I said.

“That’s what the blimp is for!”

I sat back in my seat further and gripped the sides harder. The airship continued on past The Burb, and headed straight over the Menage a Trois towers to the foothills of the great mountain range that rose behind Fillydelphia. The peaks were capped with snow and the sides draped in a carpet of greenery. Unfortunately, the majestic view was quickly obscured after we flew into a cloud bank that reduced visibility to nothing.

The reduced visibility, however, seemed to have an almost calming effect on Starshine. She leaned back in her pilot’s chair and loosened her grip on the controls a bit. “Marshmallow told me to drop you off at Grapevine’s house in The Burb,” she said after a few minutes. “Something I should know about that?”

“Not particularly,” I said.

“Oh, alright. You were just doing that thing where you act all quiet because you don’t want to talk about what’s really going on.”

No I wasn’t! How could she even think that? Just because I didn’t want to talk about Grapevine didn’t mean- . . . oh. “How do you know I haven’t changed?” I said. “We haven’t talked in quite a while.”

Grape- er, Starshine said, “Three weeks isn’t forever, Minty.” She laughed. “Plus, Joya can be a bit of a gossip over the phone when you get her talking. Which is by mentioning anything at all.”

“Whatever.” I couldn’t see her face, but I knew Starshine was smirking. Because she was right, of course. How could I not think of the night before? Worse, I had that feeling that always comes the morning after something big, where I began to wonder if what I had said had made any sort of sense and why I had even bothered to open up in the first place. And if either the conversation with Grapevine or Marshmallow had been worse.

The October Sky broke through the cloud bank over a valley that cut through the mountain range. Far below, a sparkling blue river snaked through the pass. Though I couldn’t see it, I also knew a train line ran down by the riverside.  A train line that had seemed so unfamiliar and scary just a few weeks ago.

Starshine pulled another set of levers and the airship took to hovering in the air, not moving one bit forward. “Alright, we’re here,” she said. A button opened the gondola’s outer door with a hiss and rush of cold air.

As I felt the wind from outside rushing over me, and knowing that I would be in that wind soon enough, I began to grow scared. “Isn’t this all happening very fast?” I said. “I mean, it just seems so . . . sudden.”

“Well of course it is,” Starshine said, reaching beneath the cockpit console and producing a length of rope. “But that’s what flying is all about. You can’t think: you have to just do.”

“Yeah, well, that strategy hasn’t worked very well for me lately,” I said. “I think my instincts are wrong.”

Starshine snorted. “Of course they are. Everypony’s natural instincts are no good for anything. It’s training those into acquired instincts. Learn how to react without talking, and react the right way.”

“And how does pushing me out of an airship keep me from thinking before I hit the ground?”

“Well, there isn’t much oxygen this high up . . . makes it hard to think.”

“What if my instincts lock up?”

Starshine tossed the length of rope to me. “That’s what this is for. That’s a specially-made rope; it came with the airship. You can do all you want to it and it’ll never break.”

Against my better judgement, I slipped the rope around my waist--exchanging it for my camera bag--and pulled it tight. “Now what?”

Starshine indicated to the deck in front of her. “Now you come stand in front of the door and wait for my signal.”

I did as told, and tried to keep from looking down so much. “Alright, and what’s the signal?”

“This!”

There was a powerful shove and then I was outside the airship and falling . . . falling . . .


*        *        *

. . . falling!

The mountainside rose up at me like massive teeth, reaching to catch me. There was no time to think, only act. And somewhere in my mind, I did note that the thin air was keeping me from thinking of anything but saving myself from a very untimely demise.

My wings opened--almost on their own--and caught some air, sending me out of my dive into a steady climb skywards. With the danger passed for the moment, I realized that I was giddy. Probably because of the adrenaline, but still. 

I let out a whoop and circled around below the airship before going back down. This time, I really just let myself go: just let the little flier in my brain take over and try to forget everything else. Just me, the sky above, and the mountains below.

The rope around my waist held me taut as I glided softly over the snowy mountaintops. My jetstream even sent some of the snow flying up in swirls around me, like I was some sort of Hearth’s Warming fairy. The peaks suddenly ended, though, and I was over a valley.

A different one from before; not tampered with by the hooves of ponies. The trees were unbroken except for a lake that pooled in the middle. The water was crystal clear, and I could see the white sand at the bottom of it. It was breathtaking and wondrous at the same time; it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen something like it in Equestria before--being the beautiful country it was--but it was so, just, unexpected to see something like that after having been in Fillydelphia for so long. It felt nice to be in a place where I felt like I belonged.

And just like that my brain snapped back to the subject of Grapevine like it had never left. Coincidentally, the rope holding me to the airship, already strained by me trying to get a better look at the valley, snapped as well. I plummeted once again, though this time without the aid of my instincts.

I snapped my wings open, but they closed just as quickly from the resistance. Panic found it’s way into my brain and I started to yell. It was only with dumb luck that I chose to try and open my wings only a little bit to catch the air. But it was that luck that save me, as my wings stayed open and let me regain some balance I had lost and right myself shortly before I impaled myself on a pine tree.

Even then, the bottoms of my hooves scraped across the tops of some trees as I flapped a bit to gain more altitude. I started to slow down, however, as I cleared the trees and headed toward the lake. My muscles had begun to burn and my eyes had blurred over so I tried to spot somewhere to land. A beach with sand the same as the bottom of the lake ringed around the water, so I headed toward that.

With the last of my strength, I glided in to the beach and landed softly on the sand, for once not crashing into my destination. With a sigh, I flopped down and tried to slow my breathing.


*        *        *

I laid on my back on the beach and watched Starshine circle the airship around, slowly coming down into the valley. Even in its small size, the blimp was too large to land anywhere on the beach, so Starshine set it down just over the grove of pine trees nearest the shore and tied the blimp to it, where it bobbed in the wind like a big, well, balloon.

Starshine herself flew over to me on her creaking metal wings and landed hard in the sand with a big whump sound and a scattering of dust in every direction. She shook herself off like a dog and trotted over to where I lay.

“Seems like somepony decided to take a break,” she said, standing over me and blocking the sun.

“Too tired; wings hurt,” I muttered.

“Yeah, I figured.” Starshine sighed and plopped down on the sand next to me while I sat up. She looked at me. “Are you alright?”

I stretched my wings a little, then tucked them back against my spine. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just sore is all.”

Starshine paused. “You lost it back there.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Mind telling me why?”

I scratched the back of my head. “I guess, for once, the problem was me thinking too much.”

“Oh yeah?” Starshine said. “What about? Overthinking your flying?”

“No, it wasn’t that.” I said quietly.

Starshine’s eyes narrowed. “Grapevine.”

I looked away. “Is it really that obvious?” I said.

“You look like this.” Starshine scrunched up her face into something that resembled a cross between a face used in the bathroom, and one used in the bedroom. At once. Gross.

Still, I felt my face flush and I giggled a little. The mood even lightened, ever so slightly. “Okay, you’re right,” I said.

“Of course I am,” she said. “So what was it that got you so riled up that you dropped out of the sky?”

“All of this,” I said, sweeping my hooves to take in the whole vista in front of us. “Being away from the city . . . it reminds me of home.”

“Grapevine reminds you of home?”

“No, no,” I said. “I mean, ugh, I mean I guess I just feel like things are natural around Grapevine. Like, I really bel-”

A hoof to my mouth kept me from speaking. At the end of the hoof was Starshine with a convinced look on her face. “You’re telling that to the wrong pony,” she said. “Marshmallow told me what happened last night.”

Her hoof fell away and I spat out a few stray hairs. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” I said. “We’ll talk about something else if you want. Just . . . give me some time before we go back, okay?”

Starshine shrugged. “No problem.” She stood up and walked to the waterfront. Bending down, she used one wing like a dragon’s claws and picked up a stone. I was going to ask what she was doing when she scrunched up her face and threw the stone out into the water. Except, instead of sinking into the water, it skipped across the surface.

I got up and stood at her side on the edge of the lake. “How did you do that?”

She looked at me funny. “A farmfilly who doesn’t know how to skip rocks? That’s a first.”

“Well, Derbyshire didn’t really have much in the way of a lake,” I said. “And the only rivers around were too far away for us to make a habit of going to when there was work to be done on the farm.”

“Ah, well, that’s too bad,” Starshine said. “I’d show you how, but . . .”

“But what?”

She grinned. “I’m not exactly the best teacher.”

“Ah, well, don’t say that . . .”

Starshine flicked a hoof in the air. “No, no, it’s fine: I can admit it. I mean, after all, I don’t think you haven’t had a brush with death since I started to teach you how to fly.”

I rubbed the back of my head. “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

She threw another rock, but this one didn’t skip across the water at all, instead choosing to sink almost immediately. Starshine cursed under her breath. “Look, it’s alright. Really! I’ve always been better at learning than teaching, and I know it.”

“Then why were you appointed to be one of the Weather Corps’ flight trainers?” I said.

Starshine grinned sardonically and puffed out her chest. “You’re looking at the mare that not only cheated her way onto the trainer team, but messed up on her very first trainee.”

“Cheated?”

“Rainbow Remedy got me appointed there. He’s friends with the commander, Lightning Sprint.” Her face fell. “Or, well, was friends with.”

“How did you know him?” I said gently.

“He was the attending physician when my wings were . . . removed. This was back when he worked at Fillydelphia General.” She smiled. “He made sure my wings were patched up just right, and didn’t leave my side. And when the hospital refused to pay for prosthetics, he directed me to Sterling for better ones.”

Her statement gave me pause. Hearing about things he’d done that I didn’t even know about made me realize how little I had really known him. Because, really, he’d only been a friend for a few days. I guess he was just one of those rare ponies who impacted lives so much that a few days with him was like a lifetime with anypony else.

“Do you still think about him?” I asked.

“Not as much as I should,” she said. She threw another rock out over the water. It skipped four times. “What about you?”

I sighed. “The same. You tell yourself that you’ll think of him everyday and never forget, but . . . life gets in the way.”

She laughed and looked out over the water. “I think he would have wanted it that way.”

“Yeah, he probably would have told us to think about him even less,” I said. Starshine voiced her agreement, then went back to looking out over the lake. It was approaching midday, and the sun was almost directly overhead.

After a little while, she flapped her wings and rose into the air, dusting herself off. “Well, I think we’ve had our share of ‘deep’ discussions today,” she said. “I mean, we could talk about our parents or why you spend more time with Grapevine than your coltfriend, but it’s probably best that we head back.”

I quickly agreed, especially after the crack about Sterling. I flew up beside her. “My wings feel okay for now,” I said.

“Good, then let’s go.”

We flew up to the October Sky, which still bobbed in the wind that rushed over the treetops. Once my hooves were all safely inside, I scrambled into the co-pilot seat and sat down as securely as I could. Starshine shook her head and took her place in the captain’s seat, shutting the door behind her.

The airship shuddered away from the valley and back over the mountains. Soon, we were soaring through cloud banks. The ride was a little rough, though, so Starshine took us even higher, above the clouds. 

October Sky broke into open air far above, well, anything below. The view took my breath away: the sky above was dark blue, almost black. Fillydelphia, no, Equestria spread out below us, though a good bit of it was obscured by white fluffy clouds. Still, I could easily see where the ocean met the coast, and where farmland met the city. There was a sort of beauty in the the points where they smashed together. Plains, mountains, and forests were all arrayed in every direction in the strange, natural patchwork of our world.

“Whoa,” I said.

“I knew you’d like it,” Starshine said. She reached back and handed me a massive coat lined with fur and feathers. “Here, you’re going to need this.”

I gratefully took the coat. The temperature had dropped sharply up so high, and even with my padded fur and insulating feathers, I was cold. I put it on and shivered in delight as I felt warmth return to my extremities.

Since I could now think straight, I was able to take in the view once again. What was so amazing about the view, also, was the quiet. Just a slight whistling sound and the thum of the engines. Everything else had a serene silence to it, that in some ways was wonderful.

“Pretty great, huh?” Starshine said. “This ship was retrofitted for high-altitude flights by the Corps so it could monitor storms above the clouds. Thought you might want to take a little look.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

Starshine shrugged. “I figured you liked the view of the lake, but that you might like this too. Joya and Marshmallow both mentioned that you haven’t had much time to really rest lately.” She chuckled. “Your friends are good at knowing that kind of stuff.”

I sighed. “Yeah, they are . . . and they’re right . . . everytime I try to do anything like this, it seems like, somepony dies or something happens.”

“Well you’re a busy pony,” she said. “Most of us are; I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it at one point or another.”

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally.

Starshine turned back to the controls and started steering the airship back down. Ahead of us, a plume of black smoke began to make its way higher into the sky.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Smoke, and not the good kind,” Starshine replied. She pulled some levers and twisted more knobs and the October Sky began to rapidly descend. “Hang on, we’re going in for a closer look.” And just like that, we were back inside the clouds.


*        *        *

We emerged from the cloudbanks over The Burb’s business district. Almost immediately, the front windows were filled with black smoke that obscured our vision. Starshine banked the October Sky hard right to avoid running into the taller buildings in the district while I held on to my seat and tried not to scream like a little filly.

 “Can you see where it’s coming from?” Starshine yelled back at me as she juked the ship to the left to barely avoid scraping against a radio antenna.

I looked out my side window toward the source of the smoke. A large part of the business area was covered in the smoke, so it was difficult to find the origin. It wasn’t until we rounded the back of the district--and out of the wind--that I got a clear view. I groaned.

“It’s the Initech building,” I shouted. “It’s on fire!”

“Weren’t you there yesterday?” she said.

“Yeah, about that . . .”

Starshine shook her head. “No time for that now. I’m going to land; see if you can’t find me a good spot.”

“What, why?” I said.

“We need to find out what’s going on down there,” she said. “Especially if you and Grapevine were just there. The police can be very testy about those sorts of things.”

“Fine,” I said. Starshine took us in closer and I tried to look out the window for a place to land, but the smoke was too thick. The smell of burning paper filled my nose and mouth and made me cough.

“I can’t see anything from in here!” I said.

Starshine reached town and tossed me the rope that she’d used to moor the airship to a tree back in the valley. “I know we just went over this, but . . .” she said.

I looked at the rope and briefly considered refusing it, but something inside me told me to go ahead with it. “Okay,” I said, fastening a rope again around my waist. This time I double checked the knot and pulled on the length a few times to make sure it would hold.

Starshine pressed a button and the door on the airship opened, leaving the interior of the gondola at the mercy of the howling wind. “Go!” she shouted.

So I did.

I jumped out of the gondola like I was a stunt performer and caught the air with my wings. The raging inferno that had overtaken the Initech building provided large pockets of warm air, so it was an ease to simply coast along. Of course, I couldn’t coat forever, and was soon diving down toward the ground and trying to find a good place to land.

Most of the area was filled with buildings or crowded parking lots, and I was acutely aware of the dangers of trying to come down on one of those. Ponies below me had begun to notice the large airship barreling down toward them, and looked up in fright. Luckily, some with clearer heads than the rest began to point in one direction: my right. I swung over there and found a large grassy clearing. It had probably been put there as an attempt to pass the illusion that these companies were all about the environment, but it would do for a landing zone.

I pressed on toward the field and felt Starshine steer the ship right on my tail. My wings snapped open and I skidded to a stop on the grass. Quickly, I yanked the rope off my waist and jumped away to avoid being squished by the oncoming airship. Still, though, Starshine guided her with poise and the October Sky settled down on the field just fine.

Almost as soon as Starshine stepped out shakily from the ship, we were surrounded by important-looking ponies. “What’s going on here?” they demanded.

Starshine held up one hoof. “Official Weather Corps business,” she said. “We came here to see if you needed any assistance with this fire.” She looked around. “So . . . do you?”

One of the ponies dressed in a dark suit and tie shook his head. “The fire teams have already arrived and have the situation well under control.” Most of the gathered ponies seemed relieved that we had arrived in an official capacity rather than a random airship.

“Yes, well, we are glad to see that,” Starshine said. “But my associate will still need to examine the area for our reports.”

“Go ahead.”

Starshine nodded to me and I set off to get closer to the perimeter set up around the Initech building, and the ponies gathered there. When I got closer, I saw they were all gazing up numbly as the fire consumed their building. Like the building had always seemed so permanent to them that to see it all going away before their eyes had put them into a great shock. At least, that’s what I took away from it.

Walking around to the far side of the perimeter where the crowd wasn’t as thick, I spotted a familiar colt with a light purple coat and bright pink mane.

“Hey, Sparkle!” I cried, raising a hoof in greeting.

He turned toward me and looked surprised, but still hesitantly raised a hoof in return. When I got closer, I saw that none other than Crimson was standing next to him. Both of them looked to be in a daze.

“Is this the mare you were telling me about?” Crimson asked Sparkle.

Sparkle nodded. “Yeah, one of the fake consultants.”

Crimson nodded. “That’s not the only thing she’s faked lately.”

I tried to smile and managed to pull of a somewhat-believable facsimile. “Uh, hey again,” I said. “Good to see you two again . . . ?”

Sparkle looked up at the burning building. “A good time as any. After you and your friends’ little fiasco, the managers threw a hissy fit and started punishing all the workers in every way they could. It seems like somepony didn’t respond well to that.”

Crimson smirked. “They were so mad about that, they didn’t even notice all the time I took off--or me using the company’s guest penthouse over at Menage a Trois.”

I blushed at the memory while Sparkle laughed. “Yeah, ol’ Crimson told me about that one. Said it was only the second most awkward walk-in he’s ever had.” Crimson glared at him.

“So what’s going to happen now?” I said.

Sparkle shrugged. “Initech was on it’s last legs anyway, so I guess the company’ll probably fold pretty soon. Which leaves us out of a job.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Nah, don’t be. I’ve got a cousin who works downtown for the new city council. He’ll probably be able to find me something to do,” Sparkle said. He elbowed Crimson. “Same for this guy too. Maybe even something outside for the both of us; city zoning and all that.”

Crimson smiled. “Yeah, I could use a job outside.”

I started to step away. “Well, glad to hear it,” I said. “But I’ve got more to investigate, so . . .”

“Always on a case, huh?” Crimson said. He laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you to it.” Sparkle nodded in agreement and they walked away, still talking about getting new jobs.

I pressed on through the crowd and worked my way around the building until I reached a part that didn’t have any ponies around. Mostly because it was facing away from the fire; if not for the smoke, it wasn’t easy to tell that there even was a fire. I was there because I thought I had seen a bright flash coming from the area earlier, and was working on a hunch.

Sure enough, as I got closer, two more familiar ponies sat on a bench just outside the Initech building’s rear plaza. On the bench sat a very dazed Mr. Smykowski and a Grapevine who looked very smug with herself. Both were covered in black soot.

“I figured I’d find you here,” I said as I walked up.

Grapevine looked surprised to see me while Mr. Smykowski just looked on. “Oh yeah?” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah.” I looked back up at the building. The fire was starting to smolder from the efforts of the fire fighting teams, so most of the smoke that drifted away was white instead of black from the water. “You didn’t have anything to do with this . . . did you?”

She shook her head. “Nah, the fire had already started when I got here. I was going around the building and trying to see what was going on, and I saw Mr. Smykowski trapped inside the rear lobby. The doors were locked and he couldn’t get out. So I used a little bit of my magic, got in, and got him back out.”

“Then why are you covered in soot too?”

Grapevine looked embarrassed. “I may have, uh, passed out after teleporting . . . both times.”

I looked at Mr. Smykowski, who was still silent and looking intently at the grass. “So if you didn’t have anything to do with the fire,” I said to Grapevine, “then who did?”

Mr. Smykowski looked at both of us. “Can you two keep a secret?”


*        *        *

The fire hadn’t actually harmed anypony, since it was started before anyone had gotten to work. The fire crews and police decided to rule it as an accident, and Grapevine and I agreed not to say anything since the only damage had been done to a company whose existence would not be missed. We bade our goodbyes to Crimson and Sparkle, then took Mr. Smykowski with us on the October Sky.

Space was a luxury on the little airship. Mr. Smykowski was on the heavy side, so he took the second passenger seat. Grapevine looked at me briefly and I thought she would squeeze in with me, but she instead opted to share the pilot’s chair with Starshine.

We flew out over The Burb once again, this time angling toward Carter Ranch. Starshine informed us that she’d be dropping Grapevine and I off first, then take Mr. Smykowski to his house. We agreed.

Starshine found Grapevine’s house easily enough, but again had the problem of actually landing. The yards in Carter Ranch weren’t nearly large enough to accommodate even the little airship.

“Do you want to try and find a place to land again?” Starshine asked.

I stood up as best I could in the small gondola. “Nah, I’ll fly us down,” I said. I walked over to the door and Starshine opened it.

Grapevine looked curiously at me. Rather than explaining, I wrapped my hooves around her and jumped out of the gondola backwards, keeping my face toward hers. She looked around awkwardly and fought a blush. A part of me knew I probably shouldn’t be pushing that point, but the rest of me noted that I looked really friggin’ cool flying down backwards. The airship hadn’t even been hovering very high, so we were on the ground in no time. Soon after, the October Sky rumbled away.

Grapevine watched it go, then turned to me. “So . . . here we are,” she said cautiously.

I kicked a spot on her grass front lawn. “Yeah, we’re here,” I replied.

She paused for a second. “Do you want to . . . come inside? Maybe?” I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw her almost wince. 

I nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. You need to get cleaned up, after all.”

We walked inside her house once again, though this time not together. She made sure to keep well out of my reach, and it hurt every time she did. I knew why she was acting this way, of course--I wasn’t dumb--but it still stung. I’d seen dominant Grapevine and eager-to-please Grapevine, but submissive Grapevine? It just felt wrong.

She led the way back through her house into the master bedroom and it’s massive bed. We didn’t talk; I wasn’t sure which of us was more afraid to. To break the silence and have everything come crashing down, as it were. Then she opened the closet.

It was only for a minute and just for the express purpose of getting out a white cotton towel, but it was enough. Because, right then, everything suddenly clicked. The suburban house built in a neighborhood that only allowed couples, the multitude of dresses in different sizes but the same style and color, and finally the white frilly dress back at Marshmallow’s with the note on it, just in Grapevine’s size. I wanted to hit myself for not putting the pieces together sooner.

Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Grapevine, why did you move to The Burb?”

The question caught her in mid-stride, and she stopped. I could tell that she already sensed what I meant, but she didn’t say anything to the confirmation. Instead, she said, “Wh- What do you mean?”

“Surely there’s a reason you would buy an expensive house in a neighborhood filled with ponies you probably hate,” I said.

“I just like being away from the city is all . . .”

I walked up next to her. “Grapevine, I found the dress. The one at Marshmallow’s house.”

“Oh.” Grapevine just sort of stared into nothing and slumped down against the side of the bed until she was sitting upright on the carpet. “So . . . you figured it out.”

“It took me a little, but yeah.”

She sighed, and her voice cracked when she spoke. “This, um, this house . . . it was a promise. From the both of us to each. A promise of what, I don’t know, I guess what lay ahead.” She looked away. “It was stupid, but we did it anyway.”

“You and Spotlight,” I said. “You were getting married, right?”

Grapevine nodded. “Had the day picked out and everything. Just had to go on one last assignment, just the two of us, but then-” She left off, but I could fill in the blanks. A whistling sound that Orange Piece--Pullmare’s old crony--had made in that bar on the first day came to mind.

There were tears pooling in Grapevine’s eyes now, but they hadn’t started to run down her face. “And, well, what was I supposed to do? We had already bought the house, and some part of me wanted to keep that . . . promise. Even if he couldn’t.”

I tried to to speak, to comfort her, but she cut me off. “And I’m sorry, Minty.” Her head bobbed down. “I’m so sorry . . .”

Every instinct in my body told me that it was that moment that I should go. Flee. The pieces were too sharp and scattered too far to be picked up. But, for once, I stayed. Because, as I was starting to learn, instincts could be very wrong sometimes. Because sometimes it was ignoring that little voice in our heads that makes us worthy to be more than just the sum of our parts.

I sat on the floor next to Grapevine. She didn’t move away this time, though I think that was more out of self-pity than anything else. “Grapevine,” I said, “there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“But there is,” she insisted in a hoarse voice. “Ever since you came to the city, all I’ve done is force you around. I tried to make you be how I wanted you to be . . . to be more like Spotlight.” The tears had finally started to roll down her face. “Because I haven’t seen you as a friend, Minty. All I’ve seen you as is a replacement for the stallion I lost.”

She looked up at me, and I could see her eyes were red and bloodshot. “And, when you started to drift away, to make your own way . . . I tried to force you to stay closer to me. Why do you think I was so gung-ho about this case? I don’t want anypony to die, but if it meant that you had to follow me around again, well . . . it was a good thing.” She slumped back down. “I’m a horrible friend, Minty. Please, just . . . just go. It’s alright, I’ll find you another pony to teach you writing.”

I looked down at the pony who had once been Grapevine. Her shoulders hung limply as low as they could go, and her head rested lazily on top of them while her eyes focused on everything and nothing at the same time. She was defeated, and it scared me. So, I did the first thing that came to mind. I hugged her.

Her body jerked under me, but she didn’t pull away and neither did I. “You’re not a bad friend for wanting to be closer,” I said. “And if it’s for the wrong reasons, well . . . then that just makes you normal. We’ve all got those flaws, Grapevine.”

I broke the hug but kept her close so she had to look me in the eye. “Heck, look at me. As soon as I think that I can have the job I wanted in the first place, I’m ready to abandon my friends for it.” I smiled. “And for what? I have all the time in the world to get there, and the only thing waiting for me outside is growing older under a job that keeps me away from family and friends so much of the time. But I was ready to forget about everypony--Marshmallow, Starshine, Joya, Ivory, Sterling . . . and you---just to gain that privilege. That doesn’t make me a good friend either, last time I checked.”

Grapevine shook her head. “Then what does it matter? That just makes both of us bad friends.”

I laughed, which seemed to surprise her. “Yeah, I guess it does. But you know what? That’s okay. Because I’ll never be the stallion you want me to be, and as long as I’m with you, I’ll never have the job I want to have. And the two of us trying to turn that into friendship by ourselves, well . . . you saw what happened.” I grinned. “But that’s the point of friendship: you can’t just do it alone. So maybe, if we both try together . . . we can make this work.”

She stared at me. “And you really think that can work? Even after all the stuff I’ve put you through?”

“If friends can’t be there when we fail as well as when we succeed, then what’s the point to friendship?”

Grapevine wiped at her eyes and then it was her who pulled me into a hug. We didn’t say anything for the longest time, but I don’t think words could have added to the situation. 

We got Grapevine washed up and a smile--a genuine smile--returned to her face. And that was the day that she first taught me how to write. We wrote about all sorts of silly things for hours while the radio blared it’s soft swing well into the night. We still hadn't said everything that needed to be said, and there were still cases that needed to be reported and stories to be told, but for just a day, things were alright.


*        O        *


End: Episode 4: A View To A Kill


Next: Episode 5: Gangs of Fillydelphia