//------------------------------// // What's 'Uncouth'...? // Story: Everybody Dupes // by Heavy Mole //------------------------------// The girls went to Bayard’s Café and settled on a three-stack of blueberry pancakes as an adequate preparation to carry out their plan de sortie. “It’s my favorite,” Rarity explained to the waitress. “We’ll have that ready for you, Ma’am.” “I just go into town and I’m diabetic, you see.” The waitress smiled. “Oh? Is that so?” “Yes. Type one.” “I can get you some toast and jam, if you like—” “No, no, that’s quite all right. The pancakes will do. I have to exercise some moderation, after all.” The waitress made her a nod and jotted something on her writing pad. “We are what we eat. Right?” She turned to Sweetie Belle. “And for you, Miss?” “I’ll have nothing, thanks,” she said. The waitress laughed. “Oh, you don’t mean that!” she said with a playful tap on the table. “What’s your pleasure, dear?” “No, really. Not too long from now I’m going to be performing on a stage. Today, the theater is my repast. It’s like you said—we are what we eat.” The waitress placed a hoof on her hip. “So… That means you’re not ordering?” “She’s fine,” Rarity interceded. “I’ll just have all the gooey pancakes by myself. Big fat gooey Rarity!” The waitress frowned and went off to deliver the order to the kitchen. “’The theater is my repast’... Please! You could have at least gotten a cup of coffee,” whispered Rarity. “This is so embarrassing!” “Embarrassing? You embarrass yourself! Since when do you have diabetes?” “She thinks she’s doing a good thing, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Sweetie Belle groaned. “I’m just trying to keep myself psyched. This stuff demands a lot of energy, apart from having to make calculations about your ‘movements’. Now I have to tell myself—it will happen, it will happen, it will happen…” Blushing, Rarity replied, “Well, what would you do if you were onstage, hmm? Would you worry about what you were going to be doing after the show was over?” “Of course not,” Sweetie Belle said. “But what do you mean?” Reclaiming a more dignified air, Rarity explained, “I mean that you should think of this as though you had two performances today. And all this stress is the tell of a beginning actress. The audience is not there to see you. It is a bitter medicine, Sweetie Belle, but a good one to swallow, because it will allow you to immerse yourself in the task at hoof. And that’s your responsibility to the ponies who come to the theater, is it not?” Sweetie Belle fetched a sigh, but made no reply. “No sweat!” Rarity went on. “Here come the pancakes now. Have a bite, will you, for me? Yes, Miss, we will be sharing, thank you.” She took a bite. “Okay, Sweetie Belle. We will have your troupe onstage in no time!” From the café they went directly to Sweet Apple Acres. As they crossed the property line they began to hear distant talking from across the lawn, and were able to guess that most or all of the guests were already in attendance at the picnic. There was an upswelling of ribald laughter, from which Rarity was able to discern a gruff and unfamiliar voice; she presently turned to her sister and asked with some agitation if there was an invitee she had neglected to mention during their talk in the bower. When she received an answer in the negative, Rarity proceeded, “I’m not trying to be pushy, but I wonder if it’s one of Rainbow Dash’s Wonderbolt friends. Oh, dear! I’m starting to worry what I’ve gotten myself into.” Whereupon Sweetie Belle asked whether one of Rainbow’s Wonderbolt cohorts was not at least as ‘fine and sensible at critical junctures’ as Twilight or Cadance were supposed to be in the context her own performance. “That’s totally different!” Rarity snapped. “You are justly concerned about the christening voyage of your artistic career. Your only trouble is your confidence in your ability to execute, which is nothing but self-guessing. I, on the other hand, have known Rainbow for many years, and though she and I are dear friends, our ‘predicament’ is the last thing I would want her to know about. Everything is a laughingstock with her. That is the real crime, Sweetie Belle, that nobody will learn anything from any of this. And I worry that the presence of one of her bunkmates might infect her with a mischievous spirit.” They arrived at the spot during a lull in the conversation of the guests. Everyone was gulling about a red checkered blanket, upon which was laid out Sweetie Belle’s true repast: bean burgers and red lentil salad, topped with walnuts and a creamy pumpkin sauce. To these were added a few other selections. There was a white bean soup, which shone like a pearl under the noon sun, next to a light green watercress. Down-blanket was macaroni and cheese, vegetable pilaf, and roasted onions with singed tips that crackled in the breezes. A mound of salted almonds in a beveled dish, barely touched, marked the appetizers, which included sautéed mushrooms and potato and squash wedges with spiced eggplant dip; the spread was rounded off by a batch of honey-drizzled apricots, which promised a sweet and sticky conclusion to the gathering of friends. Sweetie Belle blushed furiously at the presence of the feast, and felt her throat tighten as the guests turned to salute her as she and her sister approached the blanket. On one side was Princess Twilight, Princess Cadance, and Apple Bloom, waving at her with a toothy smile; across from them were Rarity’s bête noire Rainbow Dash and her guest, Master Sergeant Spitfire, the owner of the voice which she had heard from down the yard. Applejack, the cook and curator, greeted them from the head of the blanket; the end opposite her was left open for the guest of honor. “Ah, the star of the hour has arrived!” Cadance announced upon the sisters’ arrival. “Perhaps you would care for something to eat?” Rarity marched past her sister and plopped herself firmly in the corner spot by the Master Sergeant. “Sweetie Belle, sit! It is your rightful place at the head of the blanket. Hello, ladies! Look at you all, lovely lot.” “Sit down!” said Apple Bloom, beaming at her. “Gosh, I missed you!” Sweetie Belle hesitated for several moments, thinking of the harsh feelings she had harbored toward her sister not long before in the bower—then took her place. Between quick breaths she thanked Applejack for her effort, which she said was wasted on her, and hoped that the group would not have too much fun noticing her faults. “The only thing getting roasted today are these here onions,” replied Applejack, “and that’s over and done with. Eat up, darlin’! To your heart’s content.” Cadance winked at her. “The pumpkin dressing is delicious.” Rainbow Dash peered with unconcealed amusement at Rarity, who had already made a plate for herself with two bean burgers and a pile of macaroni. “Geez, Rare,” she said, “you know we’re supposed to be congratulating your sister, right?” Rarity made sure to finish chewing before replying. “One thing I have learned in my travels, Rainbow Dash, is that if someone makes you an offering of food, one should almost always accept it. It’s not just about one’s own pleasure, you know.” “Well, I’m plenty comfortable, thanks to you.” “Now, now, there’s enough for everyone,” said Applejack. “And I say—a good appetite is the mark of a good mare. Poor Rarity’s been running around all morning, I wager, coming from the city and all, and she deserves a good meal.” “I’ve been up since quite early indeed,” Rarity replied within bites, “and you would not believe what my sister has gotten herself into—do you mind, dear?” She passed her plate across the blanket to Cadance, who passed it to Twilight, who slopped a helping of vegetable pilaf onto it before it was sent back. “Thank you, darling,” Rarity said. “Let me tell you, this is no small-time stuff. It’s something involving… monkeys, or rather, a lack thereof, and I have never seen so many restless teenagers in the same place. They are all arranging church pews and brooding under a shadowy headmistress. It is almost beyond comprehension.” Twilight nodded and took a small sip of salted lemonade. “Tell us about your theater group again, Sweetie Belle? I’m afraid I didn’t understand it from the description in your letter. I recall something in Pony French.” She muffled a belch, and said, “Épater la bourgeoisie?” “It’s Black Box Theater, dear,” Rarity said, making little jabs in the air with her fork. “Black. Box. Like something you can’t see into.” Apple Bloom grabbed an apricot and scratched the back of her head. “Is that like… You know when someone is doing an impression, and you don’t know who it is, but you can tell it’s someone, and it makes the impression funnier?” “You know it’s something before you know it’s something…” mused Cadance. “I like that.” “Some hayseed, or some ex-mayor, or someone,” Apple Bloom continued, mouth full. “That’s what you’re talking about, right Sweetie Belle? Like, the audience is supposed to guess?” “No, no,” said Twilight, over the din of plastic cutlery. “It’s not about guessing. It’s about different levels of meaning. Mathematical symbols are structured the same way. A vector gives you an explicit instruction, while a cipher indicates something implicit. A line can mean anything, but it’s its function as a line which makes it important for a wide array of problems. You can extrapolate and perform new operations with it, without having its numeracy in front of you. Black Box Theater, I would presume, strives toward a sophisticated degree of order.” “Metanarrative… type… parody,” Rarity said, munching an onion. “That’s where you and Apple Bloom meet in the middle. Indubitability is the word I would use. Yes, I think we really nailed it, eh Sweetie Belle?” The sound of summer cicadas drifted in over the meadow and filled out the cessation of talking as the company dropped the enquiry and went on eating. Sweetie Belle remained silent, and poked at a few squash wedges which she had gathered on her plate. “You on a diet, kid?” asked Spitfire. Sweetie Belle laughed a little, and said, “Heh, not really. It’s a lifestyle thing. Helps not to overeat before a show, you know?” “Ah, true! …Straight A student?” “Heck no,” Sweetie Belle replied. “What makes you say that?’ Spitfire shrugged. “You write letters in Pony French? I couldn’t do that when I was your age.” “It’s just a phrase,” said Sweetie Belle. “My mom says I’ll grow out of it.” They blinked at one another. Then the Master Sergeant, realizing she had been outmaneuvered, gave out the same kind of big belly laugh which had first startled Rarity when she entered the property. “That’s pretty bright!” “Her parents thought she was doing poorly in school, so they sent her to Rolling Oats,” said Rainbow Dash. “And now you see the result. Not that I’m complaining.” “I like you, kid,” said Spitfire. “Rolling Oats, eh? Not what my folks would have done with me, I’ll tell you that much.” “It has a good art scene,” said Cadance. “Does it, now?” “That’s what they say,” Rarity interdicted, pumpkin sauce dribbling from her chin. She took a napkin. “Mmm! Excuse me, this is tasty. Anyhow, if you want to know my opinion on it, I’ll give it to you. I think there is too much emphasis placed on a certain sort of subject art in places like Rolling Oats. Everywhere you look there is someone playing a trumpet, someone riding a street car. There is no sense of thematic grandeur. It’s either woohoo! or it’s not—a big comic book shop. Not that I doubt interesting things can happen there.” Cadance frowned a little. “I don’t know, Rarity. What you describe is precisely why I enjoy visiting places like Rolling Oats, and I’ve never been on a streetcar.” “It’s a novelty, sure.” “Let me give you an example,” she continued. “Shining Armor and I live in the Crystal Empire, which has a long imperial history. The architecture there is… ‘opulent’, even more so than what you might find in Canterlot, in my opinion. It’s meant to impose on you. It makes me feel like the ground is made out of marble, and that we ordinary ponies are a new thing. Shining and I have gotten into many disputes about architecture. He gets so mad!” “Doesn’t surprise me,” said Twilight. “He’s very passionate about certain things. And he’s always had a proclivity for bold linework, and he loves decoration, much more than I do, I would say.” Cadance rolled her eyes. “That he does! The atmosphere in that city would be stifling to me if I weren’t so used to it. But in Rolling Oats the energy is totally different. Rather than feeling like you’re standing on something hard and carved in stone, you’re a creative participant. I can totally see why Sweetie Belle would love it there. You’re part of the clay. You know you’re at the source when you’re walking the street.” “I agree with you about the Crystal Empire, dear, one-hundred percent,” Rarity said, raising to her lips a glistening piece of watermelon. She bit down to the rind, and, masticating with precipitous slobber, proceeded, “I do love Shining, but I’d be excited to get out of the house too, if I were in your place. On the other hoof, I just don’t find anything eclectic or intellectually satisfying about Rolling Oats, though it may give off the appearance of those things. It’s just color for the sake of color,” she said, throwing out a watery red hoof. “Now, personally, I think Canterlot trumps them both, as I’m sure the present company will agree.” The ladies began to giggle and whisper to one another. Rarity tossed her sullied napkin down and folded her legs, at which gesture Sweetie Belle was at last impelled to pick up the gauntlet of conversation. “You’re part of the clay down there, all right. It’s the dead matter we’re sitting on, and that we’ll go back to. Everywhere in Rolling Oats you see fortunes tellers and voodoo shops and shadows covering the old walled complexes. Some of those neighborhoods haven’t changed much in the last few hundred years, and neither have the residents. There was a plague there once. Ponies danced and dined in masks. Dead were piled in the streets. Even today, the entryway to the city is flanked by a cemetery. The place is a big drumhead beating the pulse of life and death.” The guests had finished eating, and all had gone quiet, save the summer cicadas. At length, and with a long breath, Rarity made a reply. “How charming… My love, couldn’t you have just joined the Wash-outs or something?” “I was hoping this would help you understand Black Box Theater,” Sweetie Belle said, “which apparently you’re desperate to do. That’s how I interpret it. Rolling Oats is known as a party city. But the underworld element can’t be separated from the parades and the music. They’re two parts of the same thing, just like we are.” Sweetie Belle’s ekphratic on living and dead matter, curious though it was for the picnickers, did no favors with regard to the effect Rarity’s own digestive processes were beginning to have on her. “Well, for my part, I need clarity in art,” she said, fidgeting a little. “That’s what raises civilization up, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t go that far. Without clarity life is just big pile of everything that calls itself ‘unity’. Canterlot is the more fetching city in that regard. Her wending spires raise the spirit, rather than drag it down to the sticky traffic of the underworld.” “That’s right,” Sweetie Belle replied with warmth, “the ponies of Rolling Oats have an ecstatic hoof in hell. How about that! And I wager that their lives are not less full, less creative, but more so, because of it, and certainly more than your Canterlotians.” “Well, forgive me!” Rarity answered with equal fire. “And what is your definition of ‘hell’, little sister?” “Oh my gosh, can we please move on to a different subject?” Rainbow Dash cried out. “Something everyone can participate in and enjoy? I’m pretty sure Spitfire would like a word in now and then. Right, Ma’am?” “By all means and absolutely,” said Rarity, relieved to forfeit the argument with Sweetie Belle. She turned obsequiously to the Master Sergeant, and said, “How wonderful it is that you have made time to join us for Sweetie Belle’s performance tonight! I think it is only polite that we allow Miss Spitfire the choose the topic of conversation, don’t you all? We would be much obliged.” Heads nodded around the blanket. But before Spitfire could speak, Rarity made a second announcement. “Now, I know we set ourselves on making this an ‘outdoors’ affair, but I’m afraid I need to use the little filly’s room. And I may need a reminder where it is, it’s been so long since I’ve been in the farm house.” “Too long, if you ask me,” said Applejack. “But unfortunately the toilet in the house ain’t working right now. Someone’s coming out to look at the septic. We’ve all been making do with the outhouse.” A look of terror crossed Rarity’s food-stained features. “Oh, no! You don’t mean that little box in the backyard, do you?” “I don’t see any other ones, darlin’,” Applejack replied with some indignation. Her color darkened as a giggle circulated around the picnic blanket. “Don’t you mind it, now. I know it ain’t nothing fancy, but it’s clean, I promise you, and ain’t nothing fancy about that kind of business, anyhow.” “Oh, look at that!” Rarity said, holding up something on her wrist. “The button to one of my cuffs has come undone—heavens, I can never get these fastened back together by myself. Sweetie Belle, would you come help me with this for a moment? …Please excuse us, ladies.” She stood up and strolled twenty feet down the grass to a spot where she could still be seen by the party; and, noticing that Sweetie Belle lagged behind her in protest at the blanket, stamped her hoof and called her in a shrill whisper so as not to be misinterpreted in her intentions. Sweetie Belle ignored her at first, but, receiving another high-pitched command, gave into her sister’s temper, and started up to meet her on the other side of the lawn with a voluble huff. The picknickers, meanwhile, might have been more observant of the tension on display between them, were they not so distracted by Princess Twilight, who, curiously, had been brought to contagious laughter by the same scene. “Ha! Well, that is a conundrum!” she said, rubbing away a tear. “A loose cuff! Well, well… This is why I never wear suits.” Once the sisters had properly sequestered themselves from earshot, Rarity was the first to speak. “There is no way I am digging through a cesspit from one-hundred and fifty years ago, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “That is certainly well beyond what I signed up for!” “What?! You can’t back out now! You promised me a key!” “I couldn’t reach it even if I wanted to! …Which I don’t!” Sweetie Belle was quiet a moment. “…You don’t know that.” “I don’t know and I’m not even going to start going down that road with you.” “Well what, then.” “If we leave now, I’m sure we’ll make it back to Carousel Boutique with time to spare.” “Maybe we can find a bush…” “A bush!?” “I don’t think there’s any shame in that,” said Sweetie Belle. “I don’t know what household you grew up in but leaving traces in your friend’s yard is the very definition of shame!” Sighing, Sweetie Belle said, “Look, by the time we have our long goodbye, we get back to town, you take time to ‘freshen up’—” “That’s another thing—I’m going to need water for this. That’s only fair, isn’t it?” Sweetie Belle nodded. “Carousel it is. Just leave it to me, will you?” Rarity ended the conversation the way she had started it, trotting a prideful course back to the picnic blanket as her sister waited behind. This time, however, Sweetie Belle had an idea, and was soon in tow without further prompting. As they returned and seated themselves, Cadance remarked that Rarity’s cuff was still unbuttoned. “Well, you know, it’s not an emergency or anything like that,” Rarity replied. “And, by the way, Applejack—I have decided that I would prefer to use my own facilities. One must have the right conditions to perform one’s best. I will wait!” Applejack smiled. “Eh… okay.” Rarity looked up at the sky, and shading her eyes, began, “Well! Look at how low the sun is starting to get. This really has been a fantastic event, AJ, and we are extremely grateful for all your efforts. I suppose it is about time—” “I want to know more about the outhouse,” Sweetie Belle broke in. “For memories. I remember it from when Apple Bloom and I were fillies. How long would you say it’s been there, exactly? It must be really interesting.” “It is a hole deep enough to last decades,” said Rarity, leering at her. “What’s there to know? Who cares when it was built?” “You never know about a place, and I’d like to hear from an expert.” Applejack, who had been observing them while they argued in the grass, answered sullenly, “Why are ya’ll so worried ‘bout the outhouse, now?” Sweetie Belle sensed that the eyes of the whole group were now upon her. She felt the terror of performance seize her ribs, and recalled the acting advice her sister had given her on their arrival at the farm—now was her first performance. She became transported from the light of a lazy sun to the exhilarating heat of the spotlight that singed her cheeks as she moved before the blackened audience. “You see, Applejack,” she started in a voice which projected over the property, “a poop pit is a sneaky time keeping device. Like an hourglass. Here we are, all of us, the sand at the top—and below, beneath the throttle of that small wooden seat under the oak, is the record of what we leave behind us, metastasizing and fermenting. It’s something we can say we’ve all shared in, this marking of life’s tempo with our bodies—and, in a certain way, it connects us. For it is through this edifice, and not the empyrean buildings of civilization, that we truly see we are subjects of the Lord of Time.” She took a bow, and said, “Thank you.” There was a short pause. “Well, er… That’s very poetic, Sweetie Belle,” said Cadance. “I never thought of it that way.” Apple Bloom sighed. “Good gravy.” “Stop being a miscreant, you miscreant!” Sweetie Belle scoffed. “Do you feel that, Applejack? I think there’s a breeze blowin’ through one of the willow trees. One of those tall beanpole ones. A whole lotta rustlin’ but nothing to concern yourself about. What pretty, helpless things they are, only good for sleepin’ all day and writing sad poetry.” Applejack stood up. “All right. Any y’all still hungry? I know I’m full.” She began to go around collecting plates as Apple Bloom laughed loud and slapped her thigh. She lingered on Sweetie Belle a moment with dark eyes, sweet like country tea. “You’re not going to go away like that on me again, are you?” Sweetie Belle balked. Then she mumbled, “I don’t know. We’ll see.” “Sooner than you think, dear,” said Rarity. “Are you satisfied now, Sweetie Belle? Applejack is picking up. Shall we be on our way?” “You finished?” came Applejack’s voice from behind. “Huh? Well, it is interesting, don’t you think?” said Sweetie Belle, swinging around and meeting her gaze. “And I was serious, anyway. I’m always curious how these old, practical things work—” Applejack stopped her. “With your dish, sugar cube.” “Oh. Yeah.” “Did you enjoy it?” “Yeah,” Sweetie Belle replied meekly. “Yes Ma’am.” The cicadas were getting loud again in the afternoon air. “Good. Well, thank you for bringing your show to Ponyville.” She took a few more things from the blanket and disappeared back in the house. Sweetie Belle and Rarity were about to be on their way, when Spitfire, who had been thrown into a deep recollection by the import of Sweetie Belle’s speech, broke her silence and addressed the group. “You know, that reminds me of something. All this talk about cities and shitholes… And that monologue you gave, kid. Heh. I can’t tell you about outhouses. But I can tell you that I visited one of the great Outhouses of the world.” She raised a glass of lemonade. “If you’ll indulge me.” “Of course we will!” said Rainbow Dash. “We were just trying to get you to pick something you wanted to talk about. And whatever it is, I’m sure it’s more interesting than hearing about the backyard baño here at Sweet Apple Acres.” “I admit,” said Twilight, “that I’ve got the bug to hear one of your stories, too! Won’t you both stay with us?” “Oh, stay for a bit longer!” said Cadance against Rarity’s feeble protestations. “It’s good for an aspiring actress to listen to well-told stories, and I hear Miss Spitfire is a natural.” Spitfire smirked. “Hear that, Dash? You can consider it my contribution to the conversation. Now, I wouldn’t relate all this to just anyone, but I like you, kid, and we’re in good company here…” Rarity, hamstrung by the importunes of the princesses, and by the consequence of her own suggestion to hear out Master Sergeant Spitfire in her choice of topic, was forced to take a seat; and Sweetie Belle, who supposed her sister would have no choice in the mode of recovering the church key, anyhow, followed her; and thus Spitfire began to relate: “It was one of my last deployments to Saddle Arabia. There was this guy, Sandstone Grizzle. I had heard about him through talk amongst the privates, but always by way of indiscretion—something tossed out by a newbie over drinks, for example. Sandstone had a reputation as a fixer for certain varieties of alcohol, which is suppressed in that region. Nothing terribly unusual. But he was also a high priest of some kind. The accounts I got of him were so different that, at first, I thought the rookies had confused him with someone they had seen in a religious painting, the likely effect of some post-duty wheedling. “Well, one night, one of the privates stumbled into the local grog shop, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. He had been to see the Sandman—Sandstone, that is—and claimed with absolute authority that all of Saddle Arabia was a space craft which had happened to land in Equestria on our arrival. Ha! How are you supposed to convince a guy otherwise?” “Drive him to the ocean,” said Sweetie Belle, sitting back. “Or the mountains.” Spitfire shrugged. “Geography won’t save you. That kid was convinced he had seen how the world really works. And it concerned me that the incredulity of the other cadets would morph into enticement. I knew they would want to seek Sandstone out as entertainment or as an escape from duty or maybe life. I wanted to track this guy down. So I extracted his whereabouts from the dazzled private and went to see him on my next day off. “I turn up at a doorstep which looks as tiny as an antique and which leads down into a small basement flat of sorts. A crimson hoof waves to me from behind a curtain. When I step past that curtain, I’m in a room filled with earthenware and elaborate iconography, and the smell makes me feel like the world behind has been flattened in a book like a dried out primrose. The stallion in front of me is as red as a sailor and is making a quick arrangement of colored bowls. Sharp features, a promontory chin, and these ridiculous, enormous arched eyebrows that waggle whenever talks about anything in earnest, which is all the time. He looks up without interrupting his work and nods at me, and I feel a bit overdressed being in uniform, like I brought something invasive. We exchange a few words. Then he asks me to lay down in a clearing he made on the floor.” “Hard no,” said Cadance. “Hard, hard no!” “And then you ran away and never came back,” said Rarity, “and filled out a report stating that one private’s newfound solipsism is better left their own business. Good one!” “No, no,” Spitfire continued. “I’ve got my switchblade. And I’m curious as hell to see where all this is going. So I’m laying there in a valley of pink and green and amber bowls, thinking about this guy’s eyebrows, and he asks me to speak up if I feel sick. It’s silent for a moment. Then, in a voice which is as loud as the sun shines, he begins chanting in a rhythm which makes me forget everything. I just want to sit there and listen to this little room vibrate. No more Wonderbolts. No more royal duties. I even start to think—heck, maybe this is just a spaceship.” Sweetie Belle’s eyes went wide. “Wow. That sounds amazing, actually. Did you forget yourself, like the rookie?” “He never offered me a drink,” Spitfire replied in jest. “It must have gone differently for the boy. But I was beginning to have visions—as if on cue, the chanting softened, and music began to emanate from the floor beneath me.” She we the outside edge of one of the glasses on the picnic blanket, and ran her hoof in circles around the top of it, until it began to ring. “It was the bowls,” Twilight observed. “He was playing them for you. That must have been very relaxing.” “I was relaxed, all right,” Spitfire went on. “I felt it through my whole body. My thoughts lit up like a glass particle flying in a chromatic gamut. I saw entire cities, suspended in air, dissolve into marbles and amoeba that washed through the canyon of a thousand deserts. And just as rapidly something would reconstitute again on a blue-red horizon. I don’t know how long it lasted for.” Sweetie Belle listened with such rapt attention that everything around her seemed to disappear; but for Rarity, the imagery of flowing marbles and amoeba once again made her body all-too-present, and she felt a lurch in her bowels that made her yelp, “Oh, dear me!” “You okay there, Rare?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Why, I was so absorbed in Miss Spitfire’s story that I just now realized I have overlooked the time. That’s all.” The Master Sergeant, overhearing her, held up a hoof. “Okay, okay. I’ll get on with it. But there’s a reason I’m bringing all of this up. “After it’s over, I sit up. I’m grateful to see daylight coming through the curtain, because I feel like I’ve been out for a month. He and I talk a little bit more—we didn’t need to say much—one thing leads to another, and the next thing I know I’ve arranged to go see some remote location in Mesoponetamia where the Royal State of Saddle Arabia is conducting an ongoing archaeological investigation. I surmise from our brief talk that the diggers don’t apprehend the site’s true significance, which is somehow connected with Sandstone’s holy order. He wants to take me. Well, how can you turn down an offer like that? “We trek out on my next day off. It was a long, loud ride through the Saddle Arabian desert in an old jalopy, which made me feel more at ease, being that Sandstone and the other guy—a beefy stallion in a matching habit—must have at least put faith in mechanics. “The desert became steppe land as we went north, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether Sandstone’s conclave was hiding out somewhere in the recesses along the far-off ridges which we were passing through. At last, a mound appears on the horizon. At first I took it to be a natural formation, maybe some low-lying rocks. But as we approached, I noticed that it had a rising, quasi-conical shape, with some irregular patterns in the slope. These ‘terraces’ became more and more evident as we approached.” Spitfire’s sweeping descriptions made Rarity rue the pancakes she had eaten earlier at her sister’s suggestion, and she compressed her legs against her body with sweaty determination to see to the end of the story without incident. She pictured herself situated comfortably at Carousel Boutique, and decided that it would be more profitable to her undertaking to gauge the hour until she was there, then to pay too-close attention to the conversation her illustrious friends were having. “Oh, what a wonderful adventure!” she cried out. Spitfire continued, “The thing was an elevated, ancient city—a little square on a massive tell. It rose four-hundred feet in the air and covered a little over ten acres, by my reckoning. It was astonishing for its density. One could make out a vast stratigraphy. On the lowest horizon there were bones, sediments, and stone walls. Then you begin to encounter idols, pottery, weaponry, and so on, and toward the top you could see the remnants of monuments to ancient times. There’s your outhouse, kid! All that stuff is the refuse of civilization, which passes through the lifecycle of pony kind like a great, magnificent dump. The color of it reminded me of a line from that old poem they taught us at the academy—'rose-red as if the blush of dawn, which first beheld it were not yet withdrawn’.” Oh, why me? thought Rarity, squirming in her seat, unable to resist the yarn. What have I done to deserve this punishment? “That guy,” Spitfire said, with a smile peculiar to fond recollection, “Sandstone Grizzle, I mean, was like a mad artificer who had found a way to make all these different pieces work—legal, spiritual, technological. He was not dismayed by the ‘shit’ of the world—no, instead he saw it as a kind of bridge between our needs as muddy land-walkers and the high visions which breathe from the spirit.” She took a sip from her drink. “Well, anyway, that’s the impression I took.” The cicadas rang loud, and the sun was high enough that it lent a bright luster to the leaves of the oak above the little hut. “I think he was just trying to have fun with you, Ma’am,” said Rainbow Dash. “Bah! Well, I might be a little bit drowsy after eating so much,” the Master Sergeant replied, rubbing her round full belly. “My compliments to the cook! …Where did she run off to, by the way?” Sweetie Belle recalled herself, and looked about to see if there was a sign of Applejack returning from the manor; but before she could make a thorough enough inspection, Rarity jumped up and began tugging on her. “You are right, you are right,” Rarity said. “It makes me so nostalgic to think about outhouses and the like, which is why it was so terrific when my sister decided to keep the conversation going up to this point—but all good things, you know? The time has come for us to vamoose!” “Vamoose?” said Sweetie Belle. “Hey, wait—Rarity, come back!” “Pass my compliments along to Applejack!” she hollered from up the yard. Sweetie Belle groaned and turned a glance back at her flummoxed audience. “I’ll be… late for my rehearsal,” she explained. “She’s just trying to keep me on track. Heh, that’s showbiz for you, folks!” And without further ceremony, they sped off down the driveway of Sweet Apple Acres, the younger trailing the older, leaving the picnickers to wonder at just how busy Sweetie Belle must have been, to depart so abruptly and intently from a gathering of luminaries which had been arranged on her behalf.