She wasn't sure how much later it was when the door pulled away from her, a bright light shone in her eyes, and she fell inward and landed sprawled on the tile floor. She wiped her eyes and saw Pony Joe looking down and blinking at her. He had some gray in his mane as well, but his eyes soon lit up as brightly as ever.
"Well! I ain't going crazy in my old age! It is Twilight Sparkle!" he boomed. "Ponygirl, just knock if you want a donut that badly."
"Thank you," she said quietly, taking the big hoof he held out to her and pulling herself to all fours. "Sorry to bother you. I was just leaning, on the door, you know. Catching my breath."
"Yeah, sure," Joe said, shutting the door behind her. He ran one hoof over his cap, straightening it. "Come on, catch your breath at this table here." He led her to the table she'd seen through the window, then disappeared behind the counter.
The shop's shelves were bare. The counter, the drying racks, the narrow, downward-sloping wire trays on the back wall that were lined with paper and filled with donuts during the day, were spotlessly clean, waiting for the day, full of purpose.
"Joe? It's okay. I don't need anything. Really, I should be going."
"Just stay right there," he called. "Won't be a minute." She heard him pulling trays out of racks, then shoving them back in with a huff of irritation before finally saying, "Hah! Gotcha!"
He trotted back out with a large paper bag in his mouth, and dropped it onto the table. "Just what you wanted! Day-old muffins! On the house."
Twilight opened the bag and drew out a muffin. She hefted it, felt its weight. This was a real thing, that real ponies wanted, and Joe had made it, here in his workshop of wheat and hay. "Cranberry," she whispered.
"Yeah, I save the left-over berry ones for Derpy. If I try throwing 'em out, I have to bag 'em real tight or she'll like as not smell them and dig them right out." Joe shook another muffin out of the bag and took a bite out of it.
Twilight's muffin crumbled too easily, disintegrating into a dry, tasteless powder that stuck behind her gums. "Derpy's in Canterlot?" she asked through a mouthful of crumbs.
"You didn't know? She was getting a little old to fly all over Ponyville. She's got a foot route now. Still wings it sometimes. Don't have to, though."
"I don't know how she does it," Twilight said. "Trace over the same route, day after day."
Joe stopped chewing and swallowed. "Guess that seems pretty dull to somepony like yourself, Miss Sparkle." He checked his cap again, then glanced around the shop with the air of a pony who unexpectedly found himself entertaining Canterlot nobility in his home and hadn't even had time to clean up. Which, Twilight realized with a start, was technically the case here.
"I musta baked about a million muffins here," he said. "And three million donuts." His foreleg fell to the table, hoof up. The remaining half of his muffin rolled out, flopped over, and lay upside down like a helpless turtle.
Twilight reached over and laid her hoof on his. "Joe." He looked up. "Your muffins are amazing."
"Yeah?" Joe took another bite and grimaced, as if noticing its dryness for the first time. "Hoo boy. You're being nice, Miss Sparkle. These are terrible."
Twilight laughed, spitting muffin fragments. A large brown crumb landed in the center of Pony Joe's white baker's cap and stuck there. "I wasn't going to say anything!"
"I made 'em this morning. You shoulda been here then." Joe shook the muffins to the bottom of the bag. The crumb on his cap rocked back and forth as he folded it closed again. "Let's save the rest for Derpy. She'd eat a muffin-shaped rock and like it." He noticed Twilight's eyes on his cap, and felt around until he found the crumb and flicked it off. "Sorry I tried to give you these lousy muffins, Miss Sparkle. But I haven't got anything else."
"Joe. I don't mean these particular muffins are amazing. I mean, you take bags of flour, sugar, all those things, and you mix and knead and roll and bake. And then...." Twilight remembered once watching Joe take muffins out of the oven. She remembered feeling the warm air wash over her, and that powerful odor, the kind only things that are or have been alive ever have. The rows of muffins swiftly but carefully extracted onto a drying rack, small round tops perfect as foals' hooves, all the same yet all different. "It's like giving birth."
Joe scratched the back of his head. "Uh, thanks." He bit down on the bag of old muffins, yanked it off the table, and scuttled back into the kitchen.
"I mean, in a masculine way!" Twilight called out over the abrupt scraping and banging of metal shelves. "It's, uh, Joe? I mean, it matters. Baking food, feeding ponies—it gives you a purpose."
Joe shuffled back over to the table with a brush, held in his mouth as if he were an earth pony, and began whisking the crumbs off the table carelessly, getting several on Twilight and on himself. He finished and spit out the brush. "My purpose is to make you donuts?"
"Oh, Joe, I didn't mean it like that." She took a step toward him and brushed off the crumbs still clinging to his apron, ignoring those on herself. "I mean, look at me. I manage the library budget, hire and train and sometimes fire, write flattering letters to donors. But my purpose, my reason for being, is to help ponies check out books. If I ... vanished, all that would happen is that a few ponies would wonder how they were going to get their next bad romance novel."
Joe stared at her. "I don't get it," he finally said.
"You don't?"
"Making donuts is just what I do. You're a smart pony. You should know that." He moved on to the other tables and brushed them each off in turn, bending down low to inspect each tabletop from a low angle.
"Huh," Twilight said. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Ask Derpy. She knows," Joe answered without pausing in his work.
Twilight walked across the room to look over Joe's shoulder. "Joe? Are you mad at me?"
Joe sighed and set down his brush. "No, Twilight, I ain't mad. Just tired."
"Sorry." She headed for the door.
"Wait."
She froze where she was.
Joe walked up from behind and stood next to her in front of the door, breathing heavily. The entranceway was a little small for two ponies. He smelled like yeast and flour. "I ain't that tired. Can we start again?"
Twilight turned her muzzle towards his. "Do I have to fall down on the floor again?"
"You don't have to," Joe said. "But it was kinda cute."