//------------------------------// // Lying in It (Prompt #125) // Story: Thirty-ish Minute Pony Stories // by Abecedarian //------------------------------// TMP Prompt #125 - “Shape of My Heart” Prompt: - Lying in It The first thing everypony noticed about Truffle Shuffle was his weight. You really couldn’t avoid it. His talent, a healthy appetite and deep appreciation for food, in addition to the fact that his baby fat seemed to be hanging around for entirely too long, made the roly-poly colt stand out among his peers. But the things ponies remembered best about Truffle were his constant smile, his laughter, his eagerness to please and to boost other ponies’ spirits when they were low. He wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t a genius (though not at all stupid), nor athletic, nor wealthy. In fact, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon always joked that he ate any profit from his family’s restaurant. He wasn’t any of that, no, but he was a good colt. Tootsie Flute turned the H and H card over and over in her hooves. He was a good colt, and she…she was stupid. *** Last week, the class had been abuzz with excitement, just as before every holiday, but Hearts and Hooves Day was special. By now they’d reached the age when certain things about growing up and forming relationships were becoming a little clearer, and it was reflected in a slight…apprehension that seemed to be building between the students. Truffle, had, of course, apparently been totally oblivious to it all, and was cheerfully helping everypony else finish up their cards. It was when he was holding Tootsie’s card, so she could glue hearts and glitter on it (back then, she hadn’t had anypony in particular in mind) that she asked whether or not he’d finished his. “Oops!” They’d laughed and gone to work, and when they’d finished, he’d… … Right there in the middle of class, he’d given it to her. She’d thought it was a joke. It wasn’t. He'd liked her for a while now, and…and… Everypony was staring at them, snickering and whispering and pointing, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were smiling like tigers before fresh prey and she’d been trying to get in their good graces for months now and how could he, how could he here now in front of everyone and she and she… She found herself saying awful things, things she never thought she’d say, ever, things that made him go pale, made the smile on his face freeze and break, things that made Miss Cheerilee rise up from her desk and give her detention right on the spot. From her desk after school, she watched Truffle walk away, head hung low, watched as Twist caught up to him. At the dinner table, while her parents went and on about how they’d raised her better than that, she stared at her reflection in the table and hated what she saw. *** She’d been working on it for a week, a new card to replace her old one, the one that felt…tainted somehow, by the events of that day. She didn’t know how he might react, but she needed to make him see that she was sorry, needed to show him that she hadn’t meant any of it, that’d she’d just been shocked and startled, that he was the sweetest boy she knew and to heck with anypony who laughed at them, especially those two. She was ready, she was willing, she was fired up and she— She was too late.