//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 - Market Day // Story: We Deserve A Soft Epilogue, My Love // by Apple Bottoms //------------------------------// Argyle wasn’t sure why, but when Alphabittle explained market day, Argyle had been expecting something less depressing.  The market was maybe six tables, tops, with grayish-toned unicorns sitting behind each one offering various wares. If the bags under their eyes had been any deeper, they could have offered them to their customers to carry their purchases in. Everypony seemed quiet, downtrodden, pensive… except for Alphabittle.  Alphabittle treated the entire event as if it was some kind of speed challenge, and each table was all but interrogated as he approached, lifting each item in turn.  “These apples look bruised. They the same ones you brought last week? I’ll pay you half price, and not a coin more, because they’re not fit for much but baking.”  “Your onions are sprouting. Hmpf. That looks like a sprout to me. I’ll offer you one silver.” “I like this. The moth holes add character. Yes, that’s sarcasm. But I’ll give you three silver.”  “I think you terrorized them, Alphabittle,” Argyle whispered as they trotted away from the market, leaving a path of wide-eyed vendors in their wake.  “Good. Keeps them on their toes,” Alphabittle grunted, and came up sharply as a little unicorn stepped suddenly into their path.  “Good morning, Mishter Alphabittle!” chirped a filly with a set of teeth still a little too big for her mouth, but a smile that dazzled. “You mished my boot’!”  “No, I didn’t,” Alphabittle grunted, but as he turned away, Argyle went behind him, bending down to look at the half-sized booth. “What’re you-”  “Well, aren’t you cute, hello there! What are you selling today, young filly?”  “I’m shelling craftsh!” The little purple filly beamed, and quickly took her place behind the table, waving her hooves dramatically over each item as she described it. “Welcome to Ishy Mooooonbow’sh Glittertorium! We have necklaceshesh made from the finesht pashta! We have jeweled hoof trimmersh made from the finesht hoof trimmersh! We have -”  “Garbage, sparkly garbage, and garbage,” Alphabittle growled, and gave Argyle’s shoulder a sharp tap. “Let’s go.”  “Don’t say that!” Argyle snapped, turning to glare at Alphabittle as the little unicorn filly’s face fell. “She worked very hard! I would like one of your pasta necklaces, please. Where are your parents, so I can pay them?”  “Oh, my parentsh aren’t here today! Today ish my firsht day running my own table! I’m grown up now,” Izzy said briskly, and held up an empty jam jar. “Now, will you be tipping twenty pershent or fifty pershent?”  But Argyle suddenly staggered backwards; he looked sick. Without a word, he took off at a gallop.  “Sho… no tip?”  “Take these back to my house after the market. This should cover delivery,” Alphabittle snapped as he dropped his bags and a hoof-full of coins on her table, and paused just a moment as the filly blinked at him. He fished out another hoof-full of coins from his satchel and dropped them into her jar. “This should cover one of those necklaces, too.”  “Thank you very much for shopping with Ishy Mooooonbow’sh Glittertorium!” Izzy called after Alphabittle as he took off at a gallop after Argyle.  - “Argyle!” Alphabittle shouted as loudly as he dared, not wanting to alert anypony else. It was hard not to, given how dour, depressed and solemn the rest of the forest tended to be, but forests were a blessing in terms of blocked sight lines. He zigged and zagged, trying to avoid the highly-populated paths while keeping Argyle’s flapping cloak in his sight, but Argyle’s pace never faltered.  Eventually, they ran out of forest, and Alphabittle came to a panicked halt when he hit the meadow, scanning for the blue stallion. “Argyle!”  Argyle stood in the center of the meadow, his cloak streaked with mud and branches. “Argyle, you have to be careful, if somepony sees you without your hood - Gyle.” Alphabittle’s voice dropped to a whisper, realizing that his face was streaked with tears.  “She’s too young to be working at that booth all by herself, Alphabittle!”  “What? She’s old enough, and there’s unicorns all around her, she won’t -”  “She’s too little! How will she manage without her parents?”  “Her parents are in their house a few trees away, what are you talking about?”  “No! She’s too young to be working at the smoothie stand!”  The silence stretched between them, until a strangled cry escaped from Argyle’s throat.  “Argyle?”  “Something - something’s wrong! Something big, and I can’t - I can’t remember! Somepony needs me, and I can’t - I can’t make it come back!” Argyle dug his hooves into his mane as he slid down to his knees, but even his gritted teeth couldn’t hold the next sob back. “I could almost see her in that filly’s face, but I can’t - I need to go to her, but I don’t remember where.” Argyle tugged at his mane, trying to keep the tears at bay, but finally gave in to them when he felt Alphabittle’s forelegs wrap around him. It was too much to resist, with the warmth of his chest to hide in, broad enough to muffle even the loudest of his cries.  The pair sat there for what felt like a long time, but once Argyle’s sobs had quieted to sniffling, Alphabittle easily hefted him onto his back and carried him back to his cottage. They met nopony else on the path; a tribute to Alphabittle’s knowledge of hidden forest trails, no doubt.  Alphabittle helped him onto the sofa that had become his bed, then wordlessly retreated to the kitchen. Just when Argyle was beginning to fear he had been abandoned, Alphabittle silently returned with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate on a tray. It was his favorite, he remembered suddenly; his favorite comfort after a long day of … whatever it was he did.  “Thank you,” Argyle rasped, and took a deep, grateful sip. Marshmallows too! Alphabittle merely grunted, and sipped his hot cocoa from the other end of the sofa, fussing with the tray so that he didn’t have to look at him.  Argyle let the silence stretch out for a long time, until the bottom of his mug held only chocolate-powder mud. He swirled it, as if the silt might hold some answers. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you at the market today,” Argyle began tentatively.  Alphabittle grunted.  “I suppose I shouldn’t qualify it with ‘if’; I did embarrass you. I don’t know what came over me. It was this powerful sense of longing, and loss, and sudden, choking fear.” Argyle cleared his throat softly, feeling the tears trying to creep up again to illustrate. “I don’t know why the little filly made me feel like that. She was just … so small.”  Alphabittle grunted, and added a word. “S’alright.”  But the rest of Argyle’s planned apology faded away, and he turned away from where Alphabittle was already turned away from him, and tried to contain the fresh wave of guilt and sorrow that rose in him, unbidden. “Sorry,” Argyle choked out at last, and pushed his hoof against the edge of his mouth, as if he could stem the wave before it started. “Sorry.”  The room was quiet, too quiet; Argyle could hear every sniffle and choked breath as if it echoed, and his deep inhale of breath might as well have been a cannon going off. He tried to think of something else, anything else, but his memory kept coming back to the small, lisping filly. Still, he fought valiantly, and tried to keep from crying in front of the stranger a second time. He didn’t usually cry like this! He hoped!  Argyle was so wrapped up in his own misery and confusion that he didn’t notice Alphabittle moving until he sat down behind him, the sofa sagging with his added weight, which all but pulled Argyle back against his front. His hoof was light, tentative, and when it finally landed on Argyle’s mane, it was gentle. “It’ll be alright.”  “Are you crying?” Argyle could have said anything; why are you touching me? Why did you open your house to a stranger, and such a problematic one at that? Why are you so kind to me? Why are you doing this? But instead what came out sounded more like a demand, and a much sharper one than he had intended.  “No,” Alphabittle lied, but his voice cracked, and he glared at Argyle from under his thick, wild eyebrows for a beat before he continued. “It’s not my fault, you cried first.”  “But you’re - you don’t cry. You’re rough, and rude. You brutalized the ponies at the market, even the little filly - but not me. Why not me? I don’t -”  “Oh, shut up,” Alphabittle growled, his voice as rough with tears as Argyle’s was, and yanked him the few remaining inches to cradle against his broad chest once more. His grip was tight, bordering on painful, but his forelegs shook as he held him.  “I don’t understand,” Argyle whispered, his voice cracking, abandoning his attempt to stem the tears.  “You don’t have a monopoly on losing somepony, earth pony,” Alphabittle ground out, and lowered his chin to rest on top of Argyle’s mane, so that his nose could touch Argyle’s ear.  Argyle had felt something like that before; light, fluttering, gentle. Filled with longing that wasn’t supposed to exist between their kinds. No, Argyle hadn’t felt something like that touch before; he had felt that touch.  In the meadow, the same meadow, when the saplings had been little more than sprouts. A gray unicorn stallion, shaded by starlight, less broad but no less sorrowful. He had held him close in those same massive forelegs. Don’t forget me, a whisper in his ear, his voice craggy but split with sorrow. How could I forget my own heart? He had said that; how could he have forgotten? How could he have forgotten Bittle?  “Don’t cry,” Argyle was crying anew, but he was fighting Alphabittle now, lifting his forelegs to catch his face in his hooves, cradling him as he gazed up at his beloved, drinking him in as if for the first time. “Don’t cry, please, Bittle.”  “Gyle?” Alphabittle whispered, and his grumpy, craggy front crumbled.  “I’m sorry, Bittle. I’m so sorry. I’m here now.” Argyle pressed their foreheads together, and they fit together as if they had been created to match. “You have been so brave. You don’t have to be brave anymore. I’m here now.”