It wasn’t a terribly long walk from my Manehattan Boutique to our apartment, yet after I’d closed up and thanked my exhausted employees for their hard work, it might as well have been all the way across the city for how far it felt.
I drifted between the streetlamps, watching my shadows shorten and lengthen before another replaced them. Most of the harsh neon signs of the district had been flicked off, leaving my coat washed out in urban gold, a color that made me hasten my hoofsteps towards home.
I could smell home before I’d even opened the door. A wave of warming spices welcomed me in the long dingy hallway, ginger and curry and fennel. My magic hesitated at the doorknob for a moment, taking in the moment of everyday anticipation before I twisted it open and stepped into the glow of tasteful lamps and green eyes.
“Welcome home, Rares,” Applejack said, hastily turning to untie her apron as she trotted out of the kitchen. “Ah hope today went well for ya. Didja get that design sorted out?”
“Not hardly,” I laughed, flicking the dust of the Manehattan streets off my tail before kicking the door shut behind me. “My sister provided a rather unscheduled interruption, and I lost the idea I’d been formulating.”
“Aw, well, Ah’m sorry to hear that.” Applejack tossed the flour-dusted apron over a chair before she wrapped her hoof around my shoulders, careful to not muss my mane as she nuzzled against my neck. “Ah know this one’s important to ya, them finally recognizing ya means ya wanna get it perfect, right?”
“Indeed.” I pressed a feather-light kiss to her forehead and sighed against the bandana she’d wrapped around her mane to keep it out of the food she’d been cooking. “I mean, it’s as important as any other magazine, but this is my debut in this one. It must be spectacular if I am to get consistent recognition, and this one’s quite popular in Las Pegasus, so we’d expand our reputation quite a bit!”
Applejack hummed contentedly, muzzle half-buried in my still-perfect curls. “Ah see,” she said softly, and I could hear the unspoken words behind it, just as she knew I could. She didn’t fully understand, but she cared anyway since it mattered to me, genuine and loving. “If it helps, supper should be almost finished in the oven, if ya care t-”
“Dinner,” I said softly, letting a bit of exhaustion creep into my voice as I pulled away to head to the shower. “Would be wonderful, dearest. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you!”
“Dinner, yeah,” My wife repeated, rolling the word around in her mouth as she watched me go. “Dinner will be ready in a few. Ah’ll set the table, okay? Once yer done, Ah-”
Her words were drowned out by the shower as I turned on the water and waited for it to heat, watching it run down the drain. Slowly, I let my smile drop, feeling the ache in my cheeks as it fell. It wasn’t Applejack’s fault, of course, as she was one of the few ponies that still made me beam without any true effort on my part, but my entire face ached after a day of faking it.
The pinpricks of hot water pulled a groan from my lips as I sagged against the cheaply-tiled wall. The idea I’d had earlier, it still bothered me. What if it’d been the one that would’ve stuck with ponies? Even if all of it wasn’t perfect, what if it would’ve led me in a new direction? I rested my damp cheek against the shower wall, letting the water rinse out the smog and sweat from the day from my coat. It wasn’t fair that a simple interruption had made that afternoon’s progress vanish like smoke from my mind.
She was probably worried because she thought I’d lost myself in chasing a dream, but what she didn’t understand, what nopony but Applejack understood, was that this was the dream.
This was the proverbial it.
This was the everyday reward for my success, the strings of mane clinging to my face and wrapping around my neck, product and dust alike washing in rivulets down my legs. My legs and neck ached as I bent down to snag the scrubbing brush and lifted a bar of soap to my fur.
It wasn’t glorious, and it wasn’t dazzling, but it was the chance to try again every day, the opportunity to keep reaching, to forever reach, because staying at the top required constant effort, lest the achiever discover how short the public’s attention span truly was.
I shook my mane and raised a stiff hoof to massage the suds into my scalp. With the bustle of the boutique during peak hours, any remnants of that idea, something about scales or something, had faded to a nagging frustration that just wouldn’t wash away. Ugh! Sweetie just didn’t understand, nopony understood, except for maybe-
“Hey, darlin’, dinner’s on the table,” Applejack’s voice rose over the shower’s noise. “Are ya almost done? Don’t want it gettin’ cold.”
“Oh! Yes, I am, I promise!” I called out, having to force a smile from creeping up my sore cheeks. “I’ll be right out, dearest!”
If my wife replied, then I couldn’t hear her over the sounds of rushing water against my skull as I rinsed out my mane and tail. It wouldn’t do to leave her waiting, so I turned off the shower and let myself drip in the rapidly-chilling air before I stepped out into the frigidity of the room-temperature air. Quickly toweling myself off, I trotted my damp self over to the dinner table where Applejack waited patiently next to my chair.
“Terribly sorry for the delay. I hope I haven’t kept you for too long,” I said, managing a tired smile as I looked down at the golden crust of baked something on my plate. “This smells simply divine!”
Applejack grinned as she pushed in my chair, all but glowing with pride. “Ah hope it tastes as good as it smells! It’s a curry-filled bread, based on a recipe from Saddle Arabia, which Ah heard is growin’ in popularity around the other ponyfolk here, an’ I know ya like bein’ on the cutting edge of trends, and Ah’ve heard curry’s very adaptable ta a lot of flavors, so…” She sat down opposite me and raised her glass with an expectant nod. “Dig in, an’ let me know how Ah did!”
She didn’t need to tell me twice! I lifted the steaming pastry with my magic and took a dainty bite, felt the flavors bloom onto my tongue and warm my throat and stomach, and disregarded my usual poise in favor of getting as much of the bread into my mouth as I realistically could.
My wife chuckled and took a bite of her own, nodding with satisfaction at it. “Ah’ll take that as a high compliment, then, if yer so busy eatin’ ya can’t stop ta answer! There’s really so much ya can do with it, too! Ya can add coffee ta round out the flavor and add a bit of bitterness, or honey ta sweeten it up, or, uh.” Her expression remained the same, but her voice dimmed ever so slightly. “Or apples, too. Lots of options, there.”
I set down the remaining crust of my food and met her gaze, studying it for a moment. “Oh? It sounds like a new dinner favorite. I look forward to trying the many variations.” I light my horn to brush a strand of her mane away from her face and nod knowingly. “And I do mean all the variations, darling.”
“Yeah, alright.” Applejack let out a slow breath before lifting her curry bread back up to her muzzle, tilting it so the curry wouldn’t spill out too much as she studied it. “Y’know, ya mentioned that Sweetie Belle came ta visit ya? Ah got a call from Apple Bloom this afternoon. She’s in the area, they’re both here to see Scootaloo in some show, Ah suspect, an’ she wanted to stop by tomorrow mornin’.”
“Of course,” I said graciously, before letting out a teasing huff. “If only Sweetie thought to call ahead before she visited. She really should take a lesson from her- hm, are they still calling it friendship, Applejack? Has your sister said anything on the matter?”
“Ah dunno,” My wife took a few gulps from her water before standing up, grabbing her plate and then coming around the table to clear my place as well. “She hasn’t said one way or the other if it’s anythin’ more than that. Suspect she wouldn’t be the first ta say, so if you haven’t heard any rumors or nothing, Ah couldn’t tell ya.”
I slumped forward at my place, letting my eyes drift shut, my chest warmed still from supper, distracting me somewhat from my fatigue. “I haven’t heard a thing. Honestly, she didn’t even mention the others from our Terrible Trio were visiting at all! She just stumbled over saying that I’ve changed, that I’m not the same, and never got around to saying why that was a problem.”
Silence greeted me from across the kitchenette, and I gave it a few seconds before I opened my eyes to watch Applejack carefully not look back at me, focusing on preparing the dishes to soak.
Her muzzle tightened, and I knew she could feel me watching her, and I knew from her stance that she didn’t know what to say, what she was supposed to say or even how she felt.
A wise pony, my mother, once told me that the secret to a good marriage is communication. A questionably wiser pony, my father, had then chimed in that the secret to a great marriage is an occasional lack thereof. My mother had thrown a pillow at him for that, but I wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong. Some subjects, no matter the couple, were better left undiscussed.
“Dearest,” I began, but Applejack held up a hoof.
“Ah’m not gonna say that yer a problem, don’ worry, because Ah don’t think ya are. What Sweetie Belle thinks ain’t what matters, in the end. On the day when, uh.” Applejack peered into the bubbles, seeking answers in their iridescent surfaces as though a thousand soap-bound crystal balls could somehow give her the right words for it. “When she was probably referrin’ to. That first incident, that accident of yours and all that came after it, before ya left Ponyville. Do ya regret it?”
I didn't have to think about my answer. There was only one I could give. “I do not. Not one bit. Do you?”
“Naw,” My wife replied, expression hardening a tiny bit. “Never, not fer one second. Ah think we made the right decisions, Ah really do, and Ah, mm, Ah really don’t think they’d understand at all even if we did try to explain it better. Ya know Ah’m by your side no matter what, Ah know you know that, so what they think don’t really matter here. What matters is you an’ me.”
“You and me,” I repeated, and stepped around her to wrap her in a sideways hug, nuzzling my face and unkempt half-dry mane against her own tied-back one. Some topics didn't merit discussion, but other words bore repeating as often as the listener could stand to hear them. “You know I love you more than anything, right?”
My wife blushed, still, after years of hearing me say it, and that warmed me inside more than her cooking. “Ah know. Ah love ya back, an every day Ah try ta show it, and-”
“But you don’t understand, dearest! I do see it!” I hugged her tighter before gently turning her face to face me, wanting her to see my genuine earnestness. “Everything you do for me, everything you’ve given me and everything you’ve given up for me! I know nopony else understands that, just like they don’t understand why I work so hard to become who I am, to get where I am now, but I appreciate it more than words can say.”
“Mmh, Ah know,” She said, and tried to turn back toward the dishes, but I could see the slight internal conflict tugging at her expression and I knew what she was desperate to hear.
“I need you, Applejack.” I whisper, and kiss her on the nose tenderly. “More than anything, more than breath, I rely on you, and I always will. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, dearest, and I want to see you happy more than anything.”
She let out a shaky breath before mustering up a tiny genuine smile, one just for me. “Ah need ya too, Rares, an’ I won’t let anythin’ stand in the way of yer happiness, ya hear?” Her hoof tucked a strand of unkempt mane out of my eyes.
“Consider it heard!” I giggled and snatched up a hoof towel from the oven’s handle and posed dramatically next to the sink, holding the towel aloft like a trophy. “You wash and I’ll dry, alright?”
Applejack laughed at that, and turned back to the dishes, and for the moment, all frustrations from the day disappeared, save for an unspoken race between my wife’s expert washing speed vs my exhausted attempts at keeping up with the dish-drying.
In the end, as with most things, we matched each other perfectly.