Strawberry rose before the sun and sat in a chair by the window.
A bonus.
A date.
A letter.
A confession.
A raise.
Maybe that was the limit. Maybe it had to be something tangible for the wish to work. Not necessarily something you could hold, but something you could prove—something certain and grounded and real.
That could be it.
Strawberry settled a carton of fruit in her lap as she gazed out her front window. She wondered what real and tangible thing she might be able to wish for that would get her what she actually wanted.
But that was hard when she couldn’t put what she wanted into words.
She wanted things to be different. She knew that for sure. She wasn’t happy—anyone could see that. And if she wasn’t happy she must be able to make a change, right? There must be something that could make things better. Something she could ask for. Money or suitors or power or victory. Something undeniably good.
“I wish I was the best gardener in all of Equestria,” Strawberry whispered to her first fruit before biting into it.
But the second the juice spread over her tongue she knew that wasn’t right.
“I wish…” She chewed, swallowed. “I wish I was the best gardener in all of Ponyville.”
Another bite.
Another churn of her stomach.
She didn’t want that. Didn’t deserve it. It wouldn’t help her, anyway. Or maybe she already had it. Whatever the issue, it wasn’t right.
She snatched another strawberry out of the carton. “I wish I had a million bits.”
The sun was coming over the horizon now.
An unripe berry. Sour, lip-puckering.
Wrong.
“I wish I had more customers.”
Wrong.
“I wish I had a bigger farm.”
Wrong.
“I wish I liked more than just strawberries.”
Wrong.
“I wish I hadn’t said those things to Lightning Dust.”
“I wish I hadn’t said those things to Redheart.”
“I wish I’d keep my mouth shut.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Strawberry Sunrise looked down into the carton. Only two strawberries left.
She lifted the first.
“I wish the wishes worked,” she said.
She ate the berry in one bite.
Still wrong.
And she lifted the final strawberry. She held it up, really looked at it. Watched the way the sunrise reflected off its tight, shiny skin. The way it sent a perfectly soft red glow onto her pallid yellow hoof, turning her a fantastic peachy orange.
She didn’t wish on it. Not in so many words.
She just ate it, tension swirling and pulsing in her chest.
It tasted better than the rest, though maybe that was just because she hadn’t placed such unreachable expectations on it. It was simply the last unremarkable strawberry in this particular unremarkable carton.
She swallowed.
The sun came up, stretching across the sky and turning it the same peachy orange that the strawberry had turned her coat.
Just as the excitement was beginning to wear off, and Strawberry was considering going back to bed, there was a soft knock on the door.
At first, Strawberry had thought she’d imagined it. She watched the door carefully, waiting for more, but heard none. Perhaps it had been a squirrel leaping up onto the roof, or some other woodland creature pattering about.
Strawberry stood.
And there again came the knock.
Strawberry sighed. She looked towards the dark and comforting cave of her bedroom, then back at the front door. Against everything she thought herself to be, Strawberry chose the front door.
She didn’t bother peering through the peephole. She just pulled gently on the handle and allowed the door to swing inwards just a few degrees, opening up a tiny crevice through which to glimpse her guest.
She was standing a few strides back from the door, as if she’d come up to knock and quickly taken two large steps back. Her eyes were wide and wild, her mane an unkempt mess. She didn’t look the least bit like herself—at least not the self that Strawberry was accustomed to.
Strawberry squinted at the mare on her doorstep. “Lightning Dust?”
She seemed surprised to be hearing her own name. “H-hey! Uh…” She looked down at the ground and clicked her tongue as she tried to speak. “Do you have a sec?”
Strawberry pushed the door open a little more and stuck her head out into the morning sun. “What for?”
“I think I…” She trailed off, cleared her throat, and started again. “I think I need your help.”
Lightning Dust squirmed awkwardly as she tried to make herself comfortable at Strawberry’s dining room table. There was something odd about her demeanor that Strawberry couldn’t quite put her hoof on—she was acting a bit like a foal trying her best to behave herself, despite the desperate urge to misbehave. She seemed like she was fighting it near constantly.
Strawberry did her best to ignore it. This meant she only stared a little as Lightning Dust did her best not to boil over with rage due to a minor discomfort.
“Would you rather sit on the couch?”
“No,” Lightning spat back. “I’m fine.”
Strawberry made a face.
Lightning made a face back, but withheld any verbal response.
“You said you needed my help?” Strawberry asked, snout in the air.
Lightning scoffed. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like we’ve got beef,” Lightning said. “Or like you’ve got a stick up your butt. I dunno, what’s with the snooty act?”
“I’m not acting snooty,” Strawberry insisted, her snout still raised a degree above the horizontal. “Now, what’s the problem? And how will you be compensating me?”
Lightning’s face melted into a grimace. “It’s not like that. I just want to talk about the wishes.”
“Ugh. You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke about that?” Lightning asked, bored already. “Why would I drag myself over here at the butt-crack of dawn to make this joke?”
Strawberry thought about that.
She shrugged.
“Look. I know I didn’t tell you about the first wish but I, uh… I think I may have screwed up,” Lightning said, quick and quiet. “I was wondering if you knew how to, like… undo wishes.”
Strawberry raised an eyebrow. “Undo wishes?”
Lightning nodded.
“Seriously?” Strawberry scoffed. “That’s stupid. Can’t you just wish it back the other way?”
“I tried,” Lightning said. “It didn’t work.”
Strawberry sighed thinly. “That’s probably because my strawberries don’t grant wishes. You’re trying to undo realities,” she explained, condescension dripping from every word. “Hope that helps! I'll see you next week, I suppose.”
She stood up.
Lightning remained seated.
She wasn’t visibly upset, really. She wasn’t scowling or flushed or teary-eyed. The look in her eyes was more similar to the look someone might have when they walk all the way to their favorite restaurant for takeout only to find they’re closed, even though it’s a Tuesday and all restaurants should be open for lunch on a Tuesday. It’s called business hours.
In other words, it was disappointment. But, more than that, inconvenience. And a little frustration with herself for not bothering to check the store’s hours before leaving the house.
“Do you remember what you said to me at the market?” Lightning asked.
Strawberry sighed. “Could you be more specific?”
“You told me I should wish for something,” Lightning prompted. “Do you remember that?”
“Maybe you should have wished for a second chance on my mediocre strawberries. That or an attitude adjustment.”
“Um…” Strawberry feigned ignorance, even though the words were practically burned into the backs of her eyelids. “Nope, can’t say that I do! Remind me?”
Lightning leaned back a little in her seat and leveled a glare at Strawberry. “An attitude adjustment,” she said. “You told me I should have wished either for a second chance with the Wonderbolts, or an attitude adjustment.”
“Ohhh…” Strawberry nodded. “Right.”
Lightning rolled her eyes.
“I… sorta remember that.”
“Whatever,” Lightning grumbled. “Anyway. I did that.”
“Did what?”
“I wished for a sunnier disposition, okay?” Lightning said, smacking her hoof on the table.
The salt and pepper cellars rattled against one another like windchimes. Strawberry took a tiny step away from Lighting and looked up at the ceiling, as if this might somehow protect her from whatever would come next.
She held back the obvious quip at Lightning’s expense.
“I wished for an attitude adjustment. And it came true or whatever,” she muttered. “But it wasn’t… how I wanted it.”
She looked down at her hooves.
Strawberry chewed her lip. For a moment, a shadow of seriousness seemed to hang in the kitchen. She very nearly gave into it.
“That’s the weirdest wish I’ve ever heard,” Strawberry said.
Lightning looked up, a fire in her eyes.
“Who wishes for that?” Strawberry asked. “I swear, everyone in Ponyville is wasting these stupid wishes. Wish for something good!”
The fire smoldered, but Lightning did not spit it back at her aggressor. She, instead, politely swallowed it. “Not the point,” she said. Slowly. “The point is it didn’t work.”
“Well, all due respect, how do you know that?” Strawberry said. “I’m the gardener, after all. I grew them.”
Lightning took a long, steadying breath, but Strawberry could still see the embers of fury glowing in her chest. “Sit.”
Strawberry arched a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Sit down,” Lightning repeated, as much a suggestion as an order could be. “Please.”
The mare was barely hanging on. To what thread, exactly, Strawberry couldn’t tell, but Lightning Dust gave off the distinct impression of a member of the royal guard sweating bullets underneath his armor as he stood at a rigid attention. Or like a princess holding in a sneeze. Something bizarre and primal, in a way; teetering on the brink of a full-blown breakdown.
Strawberry sat down.
“Here’s the thing,” Lightning said, her voice shockingly even for the madness in her eyes. “I am so angry. All the time.”
Strawberry cleared her throat. “Sure.”
“And I do stupid things. And I make stupid choices.” Lightning Dust paused, nodded, then continued. “And I guess that’s what I wished for. To be less impulsive and less stupid. But now it’s like… I dunno. I can’t get anything out at all. It’s like it’s stuck.”
“Oh,” Strawberry said. “So that’s what it is.”
Lightning looked up at her. “You noticed?”
Strawberry shrugged.
“I can’t live like this. I feel like I’ve got something caught in my throat and I can’t cough it out,” Lightning said. “But I tried to undo it and nothing changed.”
Privately, Strawberry thought that maybe having something caught in your throat was better than hacking up a lung all over everyone you meet. Or however that metaphor worked out.
All she said was, “Oh.”
“I dunno. I figured you and Redheart had probably figured out the steps by now,” she said. “You weren’t at the market last week so I thought maybe you’d… ugh. I dunno.”
Strawberry very nearly reminded Lightning for the umpteenth time that the wishes, however real they might have seemed were not actually real.
Instead, she asked, “Why did you, um… wish for a better attitude?”
Lightning sighed. “Because my attitude sucks. And I’m sick of it.” She sank down in her chair. “I know I’ve done some bad stuff, but I’m over that now. I really am. It’s just… no one will believe me if I keep acting like a jerk.”
“No, no. I get that,” Strawberry said. “I mean, like, why make a wish? You could have just… worked on it?”
Lightning shot her a weird look. “Because,” she said. “I dunno. It’s easier to wish for it than work on it, right?”
“Is it?”
Lightning scowled. “Are you stupid?”
Strawberry cleared her throat demurely and looked down at the table. She did not respond.
“But this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t me being less angry—I’m exactly the same amount of angry,” she explained, her voice coming out breathy but otherwise unaffected. “I just can’t get it out. And I can’t get other things out, either. Even good stuff. I can’t give Fiddle even close to what she deserves.”
“Ew.”
“Not like that, Strawberry,” Lightning said, dejected.
Strawberry wanted to believe that, but the image was now in her head, and she was afraid she wouldn’t have any luck at all erasing it.
She imagined the reason she had trouble with it was because Fiddlesticks was so… sweet. She was kind and quiet and only seemed to lash out when others truly deserved it. Lightning Dust, on the other hoof, was loud and impulsive and, frankly, too much. Everywhere. All the time.
Strawberry remembered that from way back in flight camp. Lightning was always too much. Strawberry wanted less attention, to be left alone, to skate by unnoticed, collect her passing grade, and fade into obscurity.
Lightning was now and always had been too much.
She needed to be… less.
The thought twisted Strawberry’s stomach before she really even understood why.
“Just—nevermind,” Lightning said. “This was a dumb idea. I’m gonna go.”
She tried to stand up.
Strawberry reached out a hoof to stop her. “Wait.”
Lightning paused, growled softly in her throat, and looked down at Strawberry.
She was less. That was for sure. She wasn’t yelling or teasing or being her rude, brash self. And, in a way, Strawberry liked that. She thought that was best. She thought Lightning deserved a little self-control.
But maybe that was the problem.
“I know I said I don’t believe in the wishes,” Strawberry said, screwing her eyes shut. “And I still don’t. I want that on the record.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But, um… If they did,” she went on, dragging out each pause, “is it possible that they’d be related to me?”
Lightning blinked. “Well, duh. They’re your strawberries.”
“No, no. I mean…” Her stomach twisted harder. “Is it possible, maybe, that my opinion about the wishes… has an effect?”
Lightning stiffened. “Where are you going with this?”
Strawberry sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that what I meant when I said ‘attitude adjustment’ was less about being a better pony and more about, um…” She sucked more air over her teeth. “Just getting you to shut up?”
Lightning Dust raised her eyebrows an almost imperceptible amount.
“You were saying some really mean things!”
“So were you!” Lightning shot back.
“Well!”
That was the end of the thought. Nothing else came to mind—no argument, no retort.
“Look, it’s not like I was trying to do anything weird,” Strawberry mumbled. “I didn’t know that… or, I guess I didn’t believe that—”
“Who cares if you don’t believe in the wishes?! That doesn’t even—” Lightning cut herself off. Strawberry could briefly glimpse the wheels of her mind turning, meshing, grinding as they slotted together each piece of the puzzle. “It’s—it is you, isn’t it?”
Strawberry balked. “Me how?”
“It’s you!” Lightning pointed an accusatory hoof at Strawberry. “You’re the one pulling the strings! The wishes only come true when—what, when you think we’ve earned it?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Strawberry corrected.
“You wouldn’t?”
“You’re always ‘laying the groundwork’. Just ask her out already! You deserve it!”
“Why don’t you just wish for a raise?You deserve it by now.”
“Fiddlesticks and Lightning Dust kind of deserve each other, honestly.”
Strawberry kept the little flickers of memories to herself. She had thrown that word around quite a bit lately—more than she had realized. In fact, for nearly every wish granted, Strawberry could recall either saying aloud or thinking to herself how much each recipient deserved their spoils.
She bit her lip. “Or… well, maybe—”
“No, not ‘maybe’!” Lightning pounded a hoof on the table. “Definitely! The bonus—”
“Everyone knows Dust Devil deserves a bonus, she practically kills herself once a week for the stupid job.”
“—and the letter—”
“Fiddlesticks told me that sad story about her sister going no-contact!” Strawberry argued. “Of course she deserved a letter!”
“—and Redheart’s date—”
“Which anyone in Ponyville could tell you she’s earned!” Strawberry said, waving a hoof in the air. “She’s the one taking care of the aftermath of Twilight and company’s nonsense every time. Ask anyone.”
“But she didn’t earn a million bits, huh?” Lightning Dust prompted. “And what about Fiddle’s first wish? What about mine?”
Strawberry grabbed at her face and let out an agonized groan. “I don’t even know what those were!”
“Okay, wait. Let me get this straight: you think I don’t deserve to express my emotions?” Lightning asked. “That’s why I’m stuck like this?”
Strawberry hesitated.
Lightning’s eye twitched.
“W-well, I didn’t want you coming to the market and calling me names!” Strawberry argued. “What, that’s a crime now? To not want to be made fun of in public?”
“Whatever,” Lightning grumbled. “Like you’re so much better.”
“I’m not!” Strawberry laughed breathlessly. “I-I know I’m not! I’m the worst!”
“Then work on it!”
Strawberry made a sound of stunned disbelief. Disgust, even.
“Yeah, it’s not as easy as you make it sound, is it?” Lightning accused. “Why don’t you just wish for it, huh? Make it all go away. Make yourself shut up for once. They’re your stupid strawberries—you don’t even have to pay the obnoxious 12-bit price tag!”
“I did!”
Lightning Dust froze.
For a moment, all they did was breathe—heavily, as if they’d been running.
Strawberry’s sudden shout had set the vase on the dining room table ringing. It was a soft sound, almost unnoticeable, but distinctly there. In a way, it made the whole room feel quieter than it had before—the ringing sucked all other sound up and left behind a vacuum of noiselessness. It prickled the back of Strawberry’s neck. Or, rather, something did. She would prefer to pin it on the vase.
After a morning of avoiding eye-contact, Lightning Dust stared right back into Strawberry’s face. The flame of frustration cooled to a gentle flicker, then a glow, then to nothing at all as it was replaced by something else.
“Oh,” said Lightning Dust.
Strawberry sighed. “Yeah.”
“For what?”
“To be—to have—” Still, the words didn’t come. “To be more… Strawberry Sunrise-y.”
Quiet again.
Lightning looked her up and down. The sweet aroma of strawberries hung in the kitchen. The soft warmth of the sunrise bathed the both of them in orange light.
Sweet.
Soft.
Warm.
Light.
Lightning looked down at her hooves. “And… what?”
“And it didn’t work,” Strawberry said quickly. “Because none of them work. They’re just flipping produce, they don’t grant wishes.”
A shadow of something crossed Lightning’s face. It wasn’t anger, Strawberry was certain. It was a gradual thing, a realization.
“Strawberry…” Lightning murmured. “Y-you don’t think you deserve—”
“Ugh.” Strawberry rolled her eyes. “Don’t say my name all pitiful like that. I’m not an idiot. I never expected them to—”
She cut herself off before she told a lie.
“It doesn’t matter,” Strawberry grumbled. “Strawberry season is almost over, anyway. Soon enough, no one will be making wishes anymore, and we can all just go back to the mercy of the universe like usual.”
Lightning sighed. “Great.”
“Great.”
Strawberry was tempted to hit back harder, but she held it back.
And Lightning was right: it didn’t feel better. It felt the same, only now she had to keep it to herself.
Despite it all, the coil of energy in her chest slowly unfurled. Lightning, too, seemed to relax a bit and melt further into her chair. The heavy huffing and puffing of their over-wound breaths calmed. The room slowly settled into silence.
“It’s just frustrating, y’know?” Lightning said. A little fleck of spit flew from her lip.
Strawberry looked up. “What?”
Lightning shrugged. “I’m working really hard on myself, and I think I’m doing a pretty okay job,” she said. “But no matter what I do, it feels like my mistakes are following me around. No one ever really forgave me.”
“I feel like Fiddle did,” Strawberry said. The softness of her own voice surprised her.
Lightning shrugged. “Maybe. I guess,” she said. “Doesn’t always feel like it. More like she… like she ignores it or something. Or maybe I just don’t think she should forgive me.”
“Oh.” Strawberry swallowed hard. “Well… Redheart definitely forgives you.”
“She doesn’t know me,” Lightning replied.
“She kinda knows you,” Strawberry said. “And she’s defended you lots of times.”
“Probably just trying to get you to shut up,” Lightning muttered.
Strawberry tried not to take offense to that. She let out a tense sigh and looked down at the floor. She felt woefully unprepared for the situation at hoof, though she doubted there was any greater level of preparedness than the one in which she currently resided.
“Do you, um…” Lightning squirmed in her chair again. “Do you think I deserve it?”
“Deserve… what?”
Lightning ground her teeth. “Forgiveness,” she said. “For the Wonderbolts thing. And the rocket thing. And the other stuff.”
“Other stuff?”
“Like… who I was,” Lightning said. “Back when we first met.”
Strawberry thought about that.
Some things. Maybe.
The general brashness and the—for lack of a better word—attitude. The winner-takes-all approach to life and all that made it up. The bravado and the ego. Even those minor casualties in her quest for greatness. All forgivable. Technically.
But other things… maybe not.
It was such a broad thing, forgiveness. A clean slate. Did anyone really deserve that? A top-to-bottom do-over?
“I don’t know,” Strawberry said, surprised at her own honesty.
Lightning’s puffed-up wings drooped at her sides. “Oh.”
“But that shouldn’t matter,” Strawberry corrected. “Just because I don’t totally forgive you doesn’t mean other ponies won’t. It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Apparently it does,” Lightning said.
“Would it make you feel better if I said ‘yes’?” Strawberry asked. “That I do think you’ve earned forgiveness?”
“No,” Lightning said. “Because I know you’re lying. And, if you give me twenty-four hours, I can prove it.”
She pointed to the empty carton on the table.
That was fair.
Strawberry didn’t even bother arguing with the wish implication.
“What exactly did you wish for?” Lightning asked.
Strawberry sighed. “I don’t know. I had a hard time putting it into words,” she admitted. “I just want things to be different.”
“Different how?”
“Just… different,” Strawberry murmured.
It was an answer.
Technically.
But, for the first time in all of her attempts, Strawberry felt like the words were beginning to form. Because she did want something specific: she wanted things to stop.
Something was always going on. She was always at the center of some hometown chaos that blew around her like a storm. She was always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong pony. She was always stuck wondering if anyone wanted what she was offering—as much her produce as herself.
“Honestly?” Strawberry said softly. “I think I just want ponies to like me.”
Lightning sighed. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think that’s what everyone wants, to be fair.”
“Ew.” Strawberry wrinkled her nose at the implication that she was not, as she often believed, unlike other ponies “Really?”
Lightning scoffed. “Yeah, dummy,” she said. “It’s definitely what I want. It’s definitely what Fiddle wants.”
Strawberry furrowed her brows. “Ponies don’t like Fiddle? But she’s so…” She waved her hoof in a vague motion. “ Y’know.”
“She wants to be a famous musician,” Lightning said. “Always has. But she won’t push herself. I guess because she’s afraid of what happens if ponies don’t like her. You know she hasn’t shown up to a single scheduled performance for this stupid festival? They have to keep calling in the stand-in. Whatever they call that.”
“Understudy.”
Lightning grunted her agreement. “I think that’s what she wished for. To be famous. The first time, that is,” she said. “I dunno. I don’t think she followed all the rules.”
Strawberry licked her lips. “Redheart’s the same way,” she said. “She’s always going on and on about some crush, but she never has the guts to ask them out.”
Lightning gave Strawberry a sideways glance.
“But… she deserves it,” Strawberry said.
Lightning laughed.
“I know,” Strawberry said with a roll of her eyes. “I heard it.”
“She does deserve it. She’s cool,” Lightning agreed.
Strawberry nodded. “Yeah.”
Lightning let the silence stretch for a moment before tapping gently on the table with one hoof. “You know ponies do like you?”
Strawberry shot Lightning a disbelieving look. “Yeah. Right.”
“Yeah, it actually is right, stupid,” Lightning added. “Fiddle went every week just to talk to you about your strawberries and junk, even when you basically refused to respond to her. That weird weather mare with the goggles is always hanging around you too, whatever her name is. She obviously likes you. And Redheart—I mean, doesn’t she wake up early after a night shift just to sit at your booth with you?”
Strawberry wrinkled her snout. “Yeah, but—”
“Why would anyone do that, week after week, if they didn’t like you?” Lightning asked.
Strawberry didn’t have an answer for that.
She looked down at her hooves. “Well… why would Fiddle be wishing to go on a date with you if she didn’t forgive you?”
Lightning, too, was struck silent by the simple question. She didn’t say a word as she leaned back in her chair and turned her gaze to the window.
The sun was well above the horizon by now. The last twinges of gold and peach and magenta were quickly vanishing from the sky, leaving behind that perfect aquamarine of the height of summer. In just under an hour, the farmer’s market would be opening.
Strawberry decided right then and there that this week, for the first time in a long time, she would not be attending.
And, with that, strawberry season finally came to a close.