Wild weather, when compared to that which was often scheduled moons in advance, still retained something in common: they both usually wound up being cooperative by sheer coincidence. In this case, the couple had been scheduled to set out for the train station well before Sun was raised, and the slightly less vindictive sheet of paper posted near the bathroom mirror said that the overnight arrangements were going to have more than a touch of chill. It meant getting Fluttershy into a dress was mostly a matter of mentioning the need for a little extra insulation, followed by going into the trot-in closet with her and picking out a look.
The hat was a little harder, especially since there was no real need to shade one's eyes from Moon. But if you knew Rarity, you tended to wind up with a few accessories, all of which went with the dresses. And Fleur had taught her love a few additional things about clothing -- including the fact that to see somepony who was covering some part of their form was often to wonder what the reveal would look like. A pony who was systematically adding layers of concealment in view of spectators (while kicking in some carefully-timed hip wiggles) had the potential to create swooning spells, and that was why the profession of erotic dresser existed.
Fleur had taught Fluttershy a few things about both sexuality and enticement: enough for some part of the pegasus to likely conclude that the unicorn mostly wanted to see her in the outfit for the purpose of eventually getting her out of it. And given where they were going...
Of course, it would have looked somewhat unnatural if Fleur had been asking her mate to consider the temperature while not doing so on her own behalf, especially since pegasus fur seemed to be slightly more insulative than the standard: the unicorn blamed high-altitude conditions. So she sorted through a few things and picked out something with a good drape over the hips.
(It wasn't fear: it was indulging a friend. Ponies did that for each other.)
Then they waited for Snowflake.
He was right on time. (It still took five extra minutes to pry Fluttershy away from the early feedings.)
Fleur packed up the pieces which had been designated for return, then counted them three times because the numbers had to be exact and it was best to be fully certain about the quantity before leaving the cottage. A small, much-loathed book was recovered from its near-burial in a drawer near the bed and unceremoniously shoved deep into a saddlebag.
They turned over the cottage to the ministrations of its temporary supervisor. And then the couple set out under Moon's silvery light because it was a mutual appointment, and they always had to go together. Trotting in close proximity. Sharing time, guarding each other.
Heading towards another reminder of Fleur's failures.
Her loathing of the fertility doctor's waiting room had initially required something of a learning process and for this category of study, the full diploma had been earned after a mere three moons.
For starters, pushing the door open meant you were trotting -- or, from the fourth visit on, dragging hooves -- into a half-truth. You were certainly going to be waiting and to Fleur, who had once been nearly obsessed with time, the sheer duration associated with their visits had quickly become offensive. She worked with her love in the examination room and surgery, understood that any appointment written into the cottage's schedule book was mostly there as a rough suggestion for when the temporal distortions would begin. Animals didn't perceive time in the same way as sapients and even with the most innocent of visits...
Fluttershy could usually talk a canine into not wriggling. Making it truly understand that it had to stop because the grooming should have started ten minutes ago was effectively impossible. And when it came to the doctor's office, schedule overruns were inevitable -- for the physician. The mares had to be in the office at a given hour or risk being marked absent, and then they had to sit while their appointed hour passed. Rather frequently, the hour would become bored with the prospect of passing all by itself and invite along some company. Visit the fertility doctor and sapience mostly became good for letting the mind provide itself with creative personal falsehoods, because Fleur was becoming convinced the dingy clock had it in for her.
You would certainly be waiting. But you wouldn't be doing so within any real amount of room. As far as Fleur could determine, the place where time went to die had been carved out of a repurposed hallway. It was too short from end to end, far too narrow for any real degree of comfort, and also had an odd inwards bowing at one section. She had no idea what was producing the restrictive curve, but moons of seeing how it wasn't getting any worse did suggest that at the very least, the main office wasn't pregnant.
And then you had the decor or rather, you didn't. There were six colors associated with newborn foals because when it came to hanging announcement buntings outside the homes of new parents, the combinations available from races and genders allowed gift stores to carry a wider selection. The waiting room used none of those hues. The space was brown. It was overwhelmingly, oppressively brown. The walls were a deep brown, the furniture only shaded towards black from the weight of pony shadows and if Fleur stayed in the area too long, she started to feel as if her fur was darkening.
There were no real personal touches in the office. Rectangles of slightly-altered hues suggested there might have once been a few paintings hung on the walls, but Fleur suspected they'd either been taken down or had the weight of expectations press them under the surface of the dull wood. A number of magazines were strewn across a table and because the wood stain had apparently been something less than perfect, most of the covers were browning. Bench cushioning was fully inadequate, while the benches themselves were arranged in pairs and managed to be both too close together and too far apart at the same time: Fleur had no idea how that worked, but the proof was right there.
One section of wall hosted a sliding window. Most of the world's colors were isolated on the other side, along with a receptionist who was always both fully understanding and sympathetic regarding how long they'd been waiting, how long they had yet to wait, was always sorry that she couldn't tell them how much longer that other factor was going to continue, and could do absolutely nothing about any of it. She was mostly good for writing down future appointments, because Fleur's ongoing failure meant there was going to be another appointment.
(The window's edges, and the frame which hosted it, weren't quite square. Fleur's suspicion was that the wall in that section had once been fully intact. And then somepony had wound up waiting just a little too long.)
Fleur always tried to get the first booking of the day and because the office hated her (not the physician: just the office), she usually failed. If she was alone in the waiting area with Fluttershy and her own failure, then the space was already far too crowded. Turning up at an hour which found couples sharing the durance turned it into an overfilled prison cell where everypony being held had committed the same crime.
She could make a rough guess at how long each couple had been coming to the office. The newest entered with eyes bright, believing that there would be but one visit and it would be followed by the rest of their lives. Some of the longest-serving prisoners could just barely make themselves shuffle across the threshold, moving as if every joint was being locked down by the air pressure at the instant of crossing. Worry increased with every visit. For some, it had turned into resignation. They came because they had been coming for moons and if they stopped, then... that was it.
You could trot out of the cell at any time. You never had to come back. The sentence was entirely voluntarily, and that was why they all kept returning to their once-per-moon incarceration. To continue the wait, until the day when another arrived to free them.
Fleur could always identify those who were about to trot out for the last time, because they would be wriggling on their benches. Hooves kept reaching out to touch their partner's bodies: nearly any part they could reach, because there would be a newborn caution about going near the abdomen.
Those couples were waiting to see the doctor. To report and verify. And it could be said that when they left, they did so with company. It would just take up to eleven and a half moons before a name was officially written on the guest list.
The purpose of the waiting room was to make sure no one who entered would desire to be there for any longer than was strictly necessary. You had to want to go. Sometimes, those who had escaped would make the decision to come back, because they'd succeeded once and if life was so much better with extra company, then it was time to imagine how that company would feel about a sibling.
But most of the couples within the space were still trying for that first moment of triumph. And after every moon of failures, both mares would have to return. Report, renew, and arrange for the next meeting. The one which would surely have them reporting that it had all worked out.
Or not.
She had entered the room for the first time because of hope. Hope and love.
And when Fleur kept finding herself there... when nothing she tried seemed to be working and it had to be her, it had to be, just about every other couple succeeded eventually and they'd been trying for moons, so it had to be her...
...the office was a prison.
The office was Tartarus.
And hope had become torment.
Dr. Mester tended to regard things by looking at them over the top of her spectacles. It had taken a rather irritated Fleur a mere three moons to wonder why the lenses were even there at all. Deciding that it was in the name of a Look had required about two additional seconds. Some physicians felt they just had to appear somewhat scholarly, and this particular style of glasses also had a way of artificially aging the features behind them. With a doctor who was already in the final years of her career, it provided the appearance of a mare who had gained a first-name basis with Celestia through having been the one to write it into the Herdbook Registry.
She peered over the frames far more than she ever looked through them, and she was using that misdirected scrutiny to regard the multiple fabric-wrapped packets which had spread across the office's table. The corona flare created by Fleur's frustration had led to a significant degree of scatter.
Dr. Mester was looking at the packets, with special attention being paid to the fully-sealed specimens. Fleur was glaring at them. Fluttershy, who tended to be quiet during their appointments -- even more so than usual -- had picked out a defensible position near the back wall. After more than a year spent in Fleur's company, it was more social reticence than the pegasus typically displayed in public, but... it was the office.
"I have the records with me," Fleur tightly stated. "It's the right count. Exactly right."
Each of the packets would be unwrapped before the mares would be allowed to leave the office: a simple part of the basic procedure, and Fleur still felt she'd made the right decision in concluding that she needed to be taking it personally. The exposed contents would appear as small squares of doubly-mirrored glass, each about a hoofwidth across. With the unused ones, any reflection caught on the surface would tend to shimmer slightly, and often wound up overlapping with whatever image had been captured on the other side.
They had twisting spirals of silver wire serving as frames, and a small eyelet indicated the top edge. The squares were meant to be hung from the ceiling. They had been intended to dangle over the cloud nest, and each would have only done so once.
The unicorn was glaring at the packets because none of the rewrapped ones had worked. The doctor's expression was somewhat different.
"So many," she quietly said. "Why so many?"
Because Fleur had just turned over custody of multiple unused miracles.
Officially, the working was known as Mytilene's Truest Love -- but just about everypony who had ever dreamed of using it simply called it the Most Special Spell, and perhaps its creator would not have minded. Fleur had seen three paintings of Mytilene, and the long-dead unicorn always looked as if happiness was her default state. It was something which only increased in the very last portrait, because that was the oil rendering which featured a quartet.
Mytilene had been a thaumatologist, the finest spell researcher of her generation. And she'd had a dream: simple enough in concept, but almost impossible in execution. Mytilene had longed to bear a child, to bring the offspring of her union into the world. A foal born of their blood.
She had also loved a mare.
And she had found a way.
It had taken several years for the resulting protests to fully vanish.
In the modern day, the Most Special Spell was part of the background. Something accepted, and often falsely seen as rather simple. Fleur had no idea how difficult the actual casting was, but had quickly decided that the regulations involved had overcomplicated everything.
The Spell's purpose was easy enough to describe. Any two mares under its influence would be capable of having their own foal: always a filly, and one who would truly be of their blood.
Sex was required for the conception, because Mytilene had preferred it that way. But there were no anatomical changes involved. The spell also didn't guarantee pregnancy: a mare subject to its influence (and when cast from a single-use device, the slightly-glossier side of the glass indicated the potential carrier) had the same chance to become gravid as she usually would at that point in her cycle. It also only lasted for one night. And any pregnancy which did result was fully normal -- which included the possibility of multiple births and, agonizingly, the chance of miscarriage.
It was one of the very few castings which could only be learned through government classes, because the first years of the Spell had gone through some problems. There had been protestors, because there would always be ponies for whom any change represented the end of the world -- but for the most part, the Spell had caught on early. Multiple hidden mare-mare couples had stepped out under Sun for the first time, believing that the ability to bear their own children would fully legitimize them in a world where such unions had merely been legal and protected -- and, in terms of societal acceptance, had found that with so many of those who'd previously harbored doubts and prejudices, they were right.
Hundreds of mares had tried to gain access to the Spell, in an era where only one understood how to reliably cast it. There had been a gap, and it wound up being filled in by con artists. The majority charged thousands of bits for a single casting, created glow, and left. Others stuck around long enough to watch the conception attempt.
It had taken moons to train those few casters who could learn the working. Mytilene had added a device-maker to what was suddenly a government-funded team, and it had still taken years of fresh research to find a way of making the Spell cast itself through the inanimate. And even after that, there had been liars and thieves, because there were always desperate mares and the waiting list was going to take some time to clear...
But in the modern day, there was an official procedure. For starters, the Spell was only available through the government. The palace trained the casters, operated the device enchantment facility, and issued the resulting supply to licensed physicians.
Every couple who wished to use the Spell had to pass a health screening: not just checking for fertility, but searching for those faults of the blood which were more likely to turn up in females, or those scant few diseases which were exclusive to mares. The foal would always be a filly, and if two adults with the same condition attempted to mix their blood...
The devices were counted. Expended and unused. They were issued by the moon, with the prescription renewed the same way. Mares always had to come to the appointment, and everything was tracked because there was still something of a black market surrounding the spell. Some couples didn't want to risk the screening. A few apparently possessed phobias regarding paperwork. Others were young, hadn't fully committed to each other yet, and had allowed their mutual stupidity to decide that having a foal would be fun.
There was also a persistent rumor that having sex while under the Spell was better than doing so without. It wasn't. But when it came to sex, rumors were effectively immortal.
Being cleared for the Spell came with multiple responsibilities. Fleur had to track their sexual activity in a journal. Every one of the single-use devices had to be accounted for. And if one or more wasn't utilized during a given moon, then it was brought back into the office.
There was usually a simple reason for returning the excess. When the Spell worked... when you were lucky...
Maybe it's me.
...the resulting pregnancy was fully normal. And if you wanted to become pregnant again, you had to wait until after the birth.
But Fleur wasn't gravid.
Still.
"We haven't been having as much sex lately," announced a number of syllables which had been edged with excessively polite razorwire. "So we didn't use the normal supply. The total count is right. It's all in the journal --"
Dr. Mester peered over the top of her glasses at Fleur. Switched regard to Fluttershy.
"You two," inquired the tones of disbelief, "haven't been having sex?"
Fluttershy's defensible position threatened to take on the red highlights of a fast-rising blush.
"There's been a lot of things happening," Fleur stated.
"Such as?" the physician rather unwisely asked. Focused on Fleur, and awaited the answer.
The unicorn weighed multiple options.
"Her brother's in town." And felt her partner cringe.
Dr. Mester simply nodded.
"Family can disrupt a schedule," she acknowledged. "I can issue less for this moon, if you feel things won't be getting back to normal immediately." The supplies were based on normal activity. Fleur and Fluttershy were typically -- well, cottage-created exhaustion was its own hazard, but 'active' was still fair.
"No," Fleur softly offered. "Standard amount. Please. I don't think he's staying long."
"You'll have to track them --"
I know --
She stopped the words before they reached her tongue. Turned them over in the speeding tumbler of her mind, and waited until the movement pretended to sand the edges off.
"I know," Fleur quietly said. "The standard amount. Please."
And after eighteen eternal seconds, the physician nodded.
That should have been the end of it. Fleur wasn't pregnant. They were still trying. The issuing of a fresh supply would have been followed by a rapid departure. They wouldn't have spent much time in Canterlot after temporarily escaping the office. Back to the train, because the cottage was always waiting.
"So let's review your activity for the month," the doctor said. "What there was of it. Which positions have you been trying? Because there is a higher chance of pregnancy with some than others. And while the Spell is in effect, as opposed to sex for pure recreation, you have to consider every move you make." Neutrally, "Take out the journal. We'll start with the night after your previous appointment."
Fluttershy's blush threatened to reflect from the office walls. The former escort's jaw merely tightened.
Returning to Ponyville had several benefits, and having escaped the office for a whole moon was not the least of them. There was also a certain detriment, and it came from listening to children play.
It shouldn't have bothered Fleur. She kept telling herself that it didn't. But the children were having a merry, tumbling, raucous time with no squawks (or neighing yips) of true pain involved. It was mostly giggles. She was listening to them play, and... she'd just come away from her most recent failure. A negative verified, with the renewal issued so that she might fail again.
It wasn't a good time to be listening to children at play. But it was the price she paid for getting to speak with Pinkie.
Fleur had asked Fluttershy if they could stop at the bakery before returning to the cottage, and her love had readily agreed. The pegasus had an ongoing business deal with the Cakes, because there were chicken coops on the grounds and a bakery always needed eggs. Stopping at Sugarcube Corner offered a chance to review the books, quietly speak with the bakers, and check in with Pinkie after. It was always good to have a chance at seeing a friend.
Except that Fleur had told Fluttershy that she needed to speak with Pinkie first. And her love had simply nodded, without inquiring as to the why. Because they trusted each other.
There were still times when Fleur wondered if the pegasus was making a mistake --
-- they were behind the bakery, because they'd arrived at a time when it was possible for one pony to leave without disrupting production. The earth pony was resting quietly, belly and barrel resting against the ground while her flanks were tickled by new grass. Fleur had matched her, only while facing the other way. (Rarity's creations tended to be somewhat stain-resistant, but the dress would still need cleaning.) Looking at each other under Sun's light, with about half a body length between them.
And, just a short distance away, the twins were playing. Or at least, it could be described as playing. Whoever was creating that description was advised to squint during the visual inspection. It helped somewhat more to let your eyes go out of focus, looking at something else entirely created a further improvement, and flattening ears against the skull would have gone a long way towards blocking out the yelling.
Pumpkin and Pound were fraternal twins. They liked to play together. And the form of play they liked best was fighting.
When Pinkie was supervising, this generally got confined to the back of the bakery. If the family was going around town, then the twins were generally spotted as a doubled rolling ground tumble: the dust cloud was optional, with radius based on how recently the streets had been cleaned. Each constantly took the other on: verbally, socially, and it took very little for the perpetual battle to reach into the physical. The twins could always find something to fight about, because it was something they did together. Testing each other, right up until another child of the same age would make the mistake of trying to interrupt. And then they teamed up.
It was a low-altitude traveling brawl, and it was expected to remain so for several years. Fleur had heard the stories: both twins had been at the center of multiple, powerful Surges: newborn magic channeled through infants who didn't understand how to control it. Pound had been getting storm clouds together as a foal, with Pumpkin demonstrating the potential for phase-shifting and all the wall-penetrating chaos which came with it --
-- but Surges faded out. The last one was always well before the second birthday, and the twins would soon be four. They had language, mobility, and a shared talent for getting in each other's way -- but the settled zone would be safe from their magic until puberty unleashed it again. The worst-case scenario had them both starting into it at the same time.
Former menaces, who might one day return to that status while bearing a little less innocence regarding the results. But for today, they were simply children. And they tumbled across the grass behind the bakery, laughing and shouting as they constantly tested each other, because that was what siblings did -- but all it took for the perpetual battle to go into truce was a few soft words from their supervisor.
The twins listened to their big sister. The other option was for bedtime stories to be considerably less fun.
There was a huge age gap between the siblings, because that was how it could happen when the first arrival was adopted. Newcomers to the settled zone sometimes thought Pinkie was their mother...
The tumble was getting a little rough. Pinkie said something soft, and the battle immediately took a break.
She'll be a good mother.
Fleur didn't know if she could say the same about herself.
The Cakes hadn't minded letting Pinkie go outside for a while, because the twins needed supervised playtime and it was best to keep the little war away from the display cases. And they never minded having Fleur around when the children were playing. Because the whole of what had happened on the night before the monsters came wasn't known, but Ponyville had been told enough. Everypony in the settled zone trusted Fleur with their children. Implicitly.
She... tried to be worthy of it.
(There were occasional tours at the cottage now. Youths being introduced to those animals who didn't mind an inexpert nuzzle. Fleur's central job during such group visits was to keep Angel away from all of it.)
"Gilda," Pinkie quietly said, and it was so rare to hear notes of regret lurking within the merry voice. "I can talk about Gilda, Fleur. About what happened, for as much as I know about what happened. Everything which happened when I was there. It's... not a problem."
She usually speaks so quickly...
The baker's head tilted slightly to the right. Blue eyes quietly roamed over Fleur's features. Evaluating.
"What are you thinking about?" Pinkie asked.
Fleur's lips quirked. "That it's rare," she offered. "To ask a Bearer about something which happened before I came here, and get a whole story." Or at least one complete side for same. "Most of the answers about anything from the seven of you default to 'it's classified'."
Which made Pinkie smile. "Yeah. But it isn't something I'm not allowed to talk about, Fleur. It's..."
Her head dipped. Several curls seemed to sag under their own weight, and the shadows cast by the bakery darkened her mane.
"...something I don't like to think about. Because I think I made some mistakes. Maybe a lot of them. And when the mistakes were over..." A fast-flattening tail slowly swayed across the grass. "...Rainbow didn't have a friend any more."
Pinkie and Fleur weren't friends. There were bonds between them: both had been adopted, they had Fluttershy in common, there had been a pair of shared missions -- but they weren't friends. Reaching across the little gap towards the baker -- Fleur didn't know how Pinkie would take that. The earth pony was comfortable with physical contact, could often be found near the center of any Bearer ponypile -- but she and Fleur weren't friends...
"And I don't know how much of that is my fault," Pinkie quietly said. "Maybe that's why Gilda came back. To try and be friends again. And if that's why she's here -- then maybe I need to stay out of it this time. Maybe I should have stayed out of it from the start..."
She was quiet for a few seconds. One twin told the other a fart joke, and both laughed. They were going on four. There was nothing funnier.
"You know a little about the Elements now," the baker finally said. "That Harmony is -- about us. All of us, together. And I can't talk about that first night very much, even now. But I can say this, Fleur. We were all friends with Twilight --" and paused. "-- no. That's not fair. We all liked her. Friendship, real friendship... that can take a while. You have to understand somepony a little better, to be their friend. With Twilight, we all liked her enough that we wanted to help her, and... that's why it worked. But we didn't understand her yet. That took time. We all liked Twilight..."
Her eyes briefly closed, opened again. The blue deepened.
"...but we didn't all like each other. Applejack and Rainbow had arguments going back years. I'd known Fluttershy for a while, but -- I was too loud the first time I went to the cottage. I startled her. Rarity and Rainbow or Applejack, or... just about anypony, really, on a bad day..." She sighed. "We all have reasons to argue. To fight. I think you've seen some of that now."
Fleur quietly nodded.
Close up.
It would have been major news for the gossip circuits.
I could have turned 'some of this is classified, but' into a three-moon tour.
"With Rainbow... I was out of town with the Cakes when she moved here. So I missed seeing her come in, and I wasn't as good at setting up parties then. Hers was a little late. And mostly under her house. What was left of it --" which was when she spotted Fleur's expression. "She sort of tried to make her own fire safety system. Because she was almost out of bits and couldn't pay for one, to make her house clear inspection because food and furniture and ponies can burn. Clouds just evaporate. And she needed all the money she had left until her first pay voucher for food. Maybe if I'd been home, she wouldn't have been so hungry. But she didn't really like the party. I was still getting better at parties, and she didn't want to be under her house, not when so much of her living room floor had been turned into water and that was what ponies were thinking about. So we didn't have a good start. And after that, she... mostly just saw me as annoying."
It was an exceptionally quiet giggle.
"She sort of had a point," Pinkie admitted. "Sometimes I'm too loud. Or talk too fast, or the words in my head make sense to me, but they get all mixed up when I try to send them out of my mouth. But we all liked Twilight. And I thought... we were all going to be spending more time together. Being around Twilight, or... maybe the palace would ask us to do something. That didn't take long to happen. But before that, we would see each other just from being near Twilight. So I felt like it was important, that we should all be friends. So we didn't fight around her, or at all." The smile briefly brightened. "We never quite figured out that last part. And we all have things in common, Fleur. We're all a little like each other, sometimes in the silliest ways."
Something Fluttershy had mentioned.
Partial mirrors. Distorted reflections.
"And with Rainbow... it was about the way Twilight and I are the same."
The unicorn tried to picture it. Then she tried to think of anything which might apply, and all it did was add to the failure count for the day.
Reluctantly, "I don't see it."
The curly tail swayed a little more. "We both live in our heads. We have trouble getting out. We see the world as we think it should be, not always as it is. I was still learning when to... tone it down, here and there. I didn't always see when I was annoying ponies. I'd be laughing at a joke which was in my head, and Twilight would just nose over to the next page in her book. And I annoyed Rainbow a lot. I didn't always see that either. But I wanted her to be my friend. I thought she would be really fun as a friend, and... I knew she pranked ponies. I'd seen some of them go off. So I thought of a prank she could be a part of. And then..."
It was also a very quick laugh.
"She kept flying away from me. Because I was being annoying. It took a while before I realized that. Longer before I started figuring out how not to annoy her. Sometimes. But I followed her, and -- she didn't take it well. Especially not when I surprised her by catching up." Pinkie sighed. "Following ponies can be exhausting.. Especially Rainbow. Just trying to keep up, even with all the shortcuts... I was really really tired after. And she didn't really want to talk to me. Not as much as she thought that if she just let me have what I wanted, it would stop. I... didn't figure that out for a while, either."
Another, deeper sigh.
And then Pinkie truly smiled.
"But what I wanted was help with the prank. And then we started to have fun. Because you know Rainbow, Fleur. You know she can be really creative. It goes into her pranks, too." The expression brightened. "She doesn't always think about consequences, though. Ask her about Rarity and the water balloons! If you can get a good head start. But that was way after. On that day, we were being creative together. It was more fun with two! And we even pranked each other a little, and nopony got hurt. It was... something we had in common. And it felt like we had a chance to be friends. I... didn't always have a lot of friends..."
The earth pony turned. Checked on the twins, watched them for a while. Looked back towards Fleur.
"I had a day off right after that. I went straight to her house! Well, under it. I called out to her. And Gilda looked down from the forward edge."
It was a special sort of snicker. The laughter which came when the joke had been on the mare.
"I didn't even know what a griffon was! Because I didn't get to be in a real school for a long time. I barely knew other ponies existed! And when I did get to be in classes, International Studies was mostly finished, so I didn't know what I'd missed either! It was sort of embarrassing, when I finally realized what I was missing. And then we had a minotaur visit Ponyville and half the town didn't remember what he was, when they'd all taken the classes. That should have been more embarrassing for them. So most of mine went away, and I've been playing catch-up since. But she was my first griffon. And... I don't know if you can understand what it's like, when it's a first time as an adult. Not when you grew up with them."
Fleur shook her head.
"I never knew anything else," the unicorn admitted. "They were always there. It was natural."
Their bodies matched their hearts.
They were so lucky...
"It was... weird, seeing her eyes staring down at me," Pinkie said. "I could see that she was thinking. But it's not like a bird, where just about all they can do is stare. It was... that she didn't have to stare, and she still wanted to."
Fleur nodded. Sizing you up. Trying to figure out what your place was in the local chain. Instinctive evaluation.
"I wanted to play around with Rainbow some more," the baker continued. "Because we finally had something in common. Maybe we could be friends. But Gilda was there. And..." Her volume dropped. "...I didn't always know when I was being annoying. Or getting in the way. But Gilda had come a long way to visit Rainbow. I didn't know how far she'd come. Not then. But I should have thought about it. A species I'd never seen or heard of had to be from a long way off, right? And I still kept trying to get involved. They were playing with each other. Races, mostly. And I..."
The swaying tail was starting to slow down.
"I interrupted. A lot. Which was hard, because they were in the air most of the time. So I had to get up there. The trampoline helped a little. Balloons were better. Lots of little ones. And I've got a pedal screw. I don't know if you've seen it."
Fleur shook her head. She was familiar with the design: a rotating blade powered by gears and hoof power, capable of getting in the air and moving under the owner's control -- very slowly. Some Protoceran ponies favored them, because it allowed just about anyone to fly for a little while. But they were slower than a zeppelin, and almost infinitely more exhausting to use. Even earth pony endurance wouldn't have permitted staying aloft for very long.
'Pedal screw' was also the name of a rather complicated sexual position, but she was completely sure Pinkie knew that. Dr. Mester probably didn't.
"I got it from a stable sale," Pinkie admitted. "Because pedal screws are the sort of thing ponies like to own for about a week. Which is two days longer than it takes for their legs to stop hurting."
"I'd like to see you using it sometime."
"Maybe some day," the baker offered. "I don't take it out very much. It needs a lot of maintenance, and I can't do most of it on my own. Ratchette looks after it now. But we didn't have anypony in town who could go over it for a long time." Another giggle. "But I tried out for the Wonderbolts with it. Spitfire said I might have found a niche' act! Or something."
She tried out for...
...of course she did.
"But Gilda didn't want me to be there," the earth pony quietly continued. "She flew higher than I could bounce. Then she popped some of my balloons. Just enough that I would sort of sink. I know that's all she did with them, because I've always understood balloons. But I didn't know when I was being annoying, so I got the pedal screw out. And with that..."
Stopped. Looked down, stared at her forehooves.
"I didn't know how to take 'get lost' for an answer," Pinkie said. "I thought... Rainbow liked to prank, and Gilda said she liked a good prank... I thought -- there was enough room for me. But Gilda went after the rotor. The balloons was just sending me down. The pedal screw crashed. I didn't get hurt, because -- when you watch Rainbow for a while, you learn about how to crash. And I'm an earth pony, so I'm a little tougher anyway. But I had to get it fixed from pieces."
A smart griffon, looking at the balloons as they're popped, watching for that first moment of sinking... that's dismissal.
Going after a rotor is dangerous.
And Pinkie crashed.
"She was doing anything to get rid of me," the baker went on. "Anything. And Twilight..." Another, faster giggle. "That was not a good time for going to Twilight, not if you wanted friendship advice! Not when she was only a few scrolls in! But Twilight sort of said it might have been me, and... I didn't want Gilda to be mean, because she was Rainbow's friend. I wanted everypony's friends to be friends. If Gilda was Rainbow's friend, then there had to be something about her which was worth being friends with. I wanted to find it. But she stayed away from me. She kept Rainbow away from me."
Because Rainbow was hers.
The signs had started out as bad. They were now rapidly becoming worse.
"I was making excuses for Gilda in my head," Pinkie quietly admitted, and then checked on the twins again. "I didn't want Rainbow to be friends with someone who was mean, because maybe then my pranks were mean. So I just watched Gilda for a while. Trying to see what was so special about her. And she was away from Rainbow for a few minutes, near the town market. Rainbow had to do some weather coordinator stuff. Gilda had time to herself, and -- she pranked Granny Smith. With her tail, making it move like something scary. Then she stole fruit. She ate that."
She what?
"But I was still making excuses," the earth pony continued. "Maybe the prank was funny. Maybe she would give the fruit back --"
"-- give it back?"
With a slightly lesser level of distraction, She ate it. In public view?
Maybe she decided that with no griffons around, it was safe. No being labeled as prey.
"Some birds regurgitate food for other birds," Pinkie calmly said. "I read that once."
Don't facehoof.
It didn't matter. The statute of limitations was very much up on the shoplifting. Fleur had a few more doubts regarding the pedal screw sabotage, but Pinkie hadn't exactly filed charges.
Possible dominance displays. Kicking Pinkie onto a lower link is one thing, but this was keeping her out of the chain entirely. Shoplifting is more basic. But going after the elderly...
"And maybe she was just hungry," the baker added. "I mean, you know Rainbow. Good luck getting anything to eat at her house. At least, anything that isn't moving. And she's a griffon, but hunting old vegetables probably isn't as much fun -- see?" She spread her forehooves away from each other. "Still making excuses! Or least remembering what they were, which might be a little better. I wanted her to be better. And then --"
She stopped. Looked up, directly at Fleur.
"You're about to be mad," Pinkie predicted. "Really mad. You're not good at being mad. It goes to some strange places. I need you to be mad right here."
The twins were laughing. Children were playing, and Sun had gone cold.
"Fluttershy." It wasn't a guess. "Gilda did something to Fluttershy."
"She'd... found a duck. And ducklings. Little ones. Lost. Sort of." Pinkie failed to shrug. "I think sometimes ducks just go wherever they want. And ducklings follow. But Fluttershy thought they might get hurt by all the hooves, so she was guiding them out of the market. Trotting backwards. She bumped into Gilda, and -- Gilda yelled at her. Then she roared. Fluttershy got scared. Really scared. She ran out of the market. Then she flew away..."
You're right. I'm mad.
I am going to be mad right here.
For now.
"You did really well," Pinkie told her. "You almost stayed in the grass."
Fleur carefully lay back down.
"What happened after that?"
"Everypony who saw it was getting angry. Because you don't go after Fluttershy, the same way Rainbow and I didn't prank her. She was... more afraid, years ago. She had more trouble just being in town. Ponies were starting to hate Gilda. I..." Her eyes squeezed shut, stayed that way for a few seconds. "...I was almost there with them. But I thought about how far she was from home, because I'd at least looked at that in the library. For a few seconds, since I was there. That she might not understand what she'd done. She sure didn't know who she'd done it to."
The curly tail had stopped moving entirely.
"Why didn't you just talk to Rainbow?" It felt like a reasonable question. Many things felt reasonable when Fleur was furious.
"There wasn't any chance! Gilda was always there! And... I didn't want Rainbow to feel bad about her friend. But ponies were getting angry. It was going to be harder for Gilda, the whole time she stayed. The story would get around. I thought... maybe if they had a chance to meet her, under controlled conditions... they might like her. Maybe if I had a better chance, I could see what Rainbow liked about her. If she felt welcome, she wouldn't be so angry. And maybe if..."
Another stop, and a very small smile.
"I'm still growing up," Pinkie said. "It's like school. Behind, except for all the ways I'm even or ahead. I had to grow up a lot to think about this part, where my brain was willing to admit the words were there. That if Gilda had more friends in Ponyville, Rainbow would have time for me. So I arranged a party for Gilda. Not a surprise party, because a startled griffon in a room which used to be dark felt like a really bad idea. She knew about it. And she came, because... I guess because it was a party. And maybe because she was hungry. Staying at Rainbow's house probably does that. I thought she might be less grumpy if she ate more."
The next question, even when viewed from the heart of rage, felt exceptionally awkward.
'How did the party go?"
The answer was even more so.
"It was what made her leave. And... that wasn't what I wanted."
Fleur waited. The twins tumbled. Pinkie sighed.
"I was in my own head. Not in the world. I invited Fluttershy."
"You --"
"So she could see Gilda when it wasn't scary. Controlled conditions, with us there for support. And I still don't know why she showed up," Pinkie admitted. "I tried to tell her I knew better than she did. I don't think she believed me. And then she spent the whole party directing a bird chorus. She didn't go near Gilda once. Why a bird chorus? I had a gramophone."
"Oh, that's easy," said a year-plus of advanced live-in Fluttershy studies.
"...really?"
"It gives her something to do the whole time where she doesn't have to speak with anypony. And if Gilda started coming up behind her, she was right next to a personal alarm system."
"Oh," Pinkie quietly said. "Um. Anyway, the party got going. And Gilda was... having fun at first, I think. Even after I pranked her when she came in. Hoof buzzer. Or talon, when it's against her." With open shame, "Maybe that was a little personal."
And she would have seen it as a counter. You trying to stop her. Standing against her link.
"And I made vanilla-lemon drops. Because I don't like vanilla very much. But she did. She went right for them. She was starting to look happy. Or just hungry. Except..."
Fleur waited for it.
"...the drops were rigged. Pepper extract."
The unicorn blinked.
"Two pranks?" The griffon sense of smell was, with a few narrow exceptions, rubbish. But the tongue...
"Not me," Pinkie sadly said. "Rainbow."
"Rainbow --" was as far as Fleur's stun got.
"I thought it might have been her," Pinkie confessed. "But I didn't want to say anything, because I wasn't sure. I also didn't want to start a fight. And Gilda made a lot of ponies mad, so it could have been anypony at the party. That would have been a big fight. But things kept happening, Fleur. Dribble glasses. Relighting candles. Gilda said she had her eye on me."
And that was a threat. You just didn't know it at the time. She was that angry. Because unless she's exceptionally strong, her magic requires eye contact. But she couldn't use it in front of the crowd, not with Rainbow there to spot it.
"She kept getting madder," the earth pony continued. "With the candles on the cake -- you have to stay here, Fleur -- she shoved Spike out of the way to reach them. I know he can take a shove, but -- Fleur, lie down -- !"
The unicorn slowly, carefully forced her legs to refold.
Dominating adults is one thing. Your own age group. Fluttershy was an easy target. And there's probably a few who would consider dominating even a small dragon to be impressive.
It doesn't matter.
She. Hit. A. Child.
"The candles made her really angry."
"Did you catch her staring at you?"
"A few times. I thought she was trying to spot me planting pranks."
Thinking about going for it.
"What finally made her leave?"
"Pin The Tail On The Pony -- oh. You're all confused. I guess they don't play that in Protocera. There's a poster of a pony with no tail. And fake tails with pins in them. You have to put the second on the first, in the right place. It's just a game."
Fleur tried to picture it.
"What's the challenge? Everyone was drunk by then?"
"I didn't want to chance that. Especially when I didn't know what a drunk griffon was like. So there wasn't any alcohol at the party. I just blindfolded her --"
oh no
"-- Pinkie."
"-- and then you get spun around --"
"Pinkie."
"-- because once you're dizzy --"
"Pinkie!"
The baker stopped.
"In my head," she quietly told Fleur. "Still. Sometimes. Fleur, what did I do?"
"Griffon magic," the Protoceran slowly said, "is focused through the eyes. Did you tell her that it was going to be a blindfold, before you put it on? Did you ask?"
"...no."
"Then it's like slamming a horn restraint on somepony's head," Fleur told her. "Or binding wings. Give her the option, make it into a challenge of courage, or just let her close her eyes and trust that she'll play fair... that's one thing. You made her feel helpless. Against her will."
Pinkie's eyes had closed. It took a moment before the first tears squeezed past the lids.
The twins had stopped playing.
"I didn't know..."
"No," Fleur heavily agreed. "You didn't."
Talons and claws.
The worst possible move. By accident.
"She slipped on some cake," Pinkie half-whispered. "It... went really bad after that. She lost it. And she said I'd done everything, all of the pranks. That's when Rainbow said it had been her. She'd planted everything, and it was just bad dumb luck that they all hit Gilda. They had a fight, a big one, the last one. But she still tried to -- take Rainbow. Said they were both leaving. And Rainbow... stayed. Gilda left. And she never came back."
The children were slowly coming closer.
"Rainbow told me... she didn't know how rude Gilda was..."
...really?
Rainbow never saw Gilda build a chain? Never push or test to find her place, especially if they got together at any point when they were both adolescents? Unless that wasn't her usual tactic...
Or it's Rainbow. She could have lied.
"Rainbow apologized."
...and now I know something is off.
If Gilda never pushed in Rainbow's presence... then who was in charge?
"She said it wasn't my fault. But I feel like some of it was. Because I was in my head, not the world. Then they weren't friends any more, and... I wanted Rainbow to be my friend, but not if she had to lose hers. And I've met griffons since then. I know they're not all that mean and grumpy." The false lift only manifested in the next words: she didn't quite look up. "I'm not sure you count. And even for the parts which weren't me, I gave it a place to happen. That's part of why I just have parties for the ones who are going to live here now. Maybe it's why I didn't know Gilda was back. And I hope they can be friends again. But I don't know if that's just because I don't want to feel bad about it any more. And... I'm afraid that she's just here to be mean to Rainbow. Or to the whole town. And if that's because of me..."
Two small forms pressed against her: one on her right flank, the other against the left.
Pinkie stopped. Sighed softly, and the twins snuggled closer. They would always find a reason to fight, because it was fun. But there was one thing which was guaranteed to make them stop.
Fleur simply watched. Held her tongue and position alike, because it was their moment: something which had nothing to do with her.
She understood a little more about what happened now. But there was at least one more account to gather. Ideally, up to three -- although she now understood that Fluttershy would have very little to contribute.
And once she had it all...
Where do I go from there?
She didn't know.