There was silence between the Crusaders. It was nothing like the silence before. Whereas the first silence had lifted their spirits into the clouds, this one had hit them with the strength of an anvil, flattening them lower than they’d ever felt. Their mouths had dropped to the ground.
“M-maybe we’re not too late,” said Apple Bloom, “Maybe the party ain’t totally over yet.”
“But sadly, every party has to come to an end, and Sweetie’s Cuteceñera is no exception.” Unknown to her, Pinkie’s reply was instant and fatal. “So sad to say, it’s time to go home and get in your cozy little beds. Thank you all for coming, and I’ll see you at my next party!”
A bright smile and a wave of Sweetie’s hoof, coupled with a door slam courtesy of Pinkie, sent the kids and their parents on their way home. Some left empty-hooved, others with boxes of food and party treats. Some left east, others to the west. No matter what, they left with the same things in common: a full belly, tired hooves, and a bright smile.
Apple Bloom looked on in disbelief, disappointment, and anything else that began with a "dis". She found herself mentally asking her past self how this could have happened. It was like she was in a bad dream, the very notion of forgetting a party as important to a friend as this being unheard of.
Scootaloo mentally asked herself how as well, but not the same how as her friend. It was as if Sweetie didn’t have a care in the world when she bid those ponies goodbye.
Scootaloo’s body tightened with each second she stared at the house. Her frown deepened into a glare at the cheerful, carefree attitude her cutie-marked friend had carried. Hints of red drifted into her vision. Her heart-rate, already high from the run, continued to gradually climb.
“We missed it.”
“Huh?” Scootaloo snapped out of her tunnel vision. She turned to look to Apple Bloom instead.
“We missed it. Sweetie Belle’s Cuteceñera. She got one finally, an’ we weren’t there to celebrate it with her.” Apple Bloom kept her eyes affixed to the missed party while she spoke. Her lips quivered with each word.
Scootaloo glanced to the side with lowered eyes and a frown. “Doesn’t look like she minded too much,” she muttered.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Apple Bloom, turning to her friend. “We’re her friends, for cryin’ out loud. We should’ve been there, not wastin’ our time with a crusade-”
“That wasn’t a waste of time!” snapped Scootaloo. “It was just… finding out another talent we’re not meant for. We just gotta try harder, that’s all.” She idly kicked the ground with her foreleg.
“How much harder can we try? We’ve been doin’ nothing but crusades all week.” Apple Bloom glanced back towards the house. The door had closed, and Sweetie was nowhere to be seen. The banner had somehow disappeared from view as well. Whatever party had gone on was certainly over by now.
“Yeah, the wrong crusades, but we’ve been going through them faster than ever. Our cutie marks have gotta be just around the corner!”
“I don’t care about any o’ that right now!” said Apple Bloom, looking right into Scootaloo’s eyes. “We missed a party that we shouldn’t have missed an’ we have no excuse for it. Crusadin’s the last thing I wanna talk about.”
The block fell into an uncomfortable silence. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other, each struggling to come up with something to say to break the silence, but neither succeeding.
Finally, Apple Bloom sighed, turned around, and said the only thing that made sense to her.
“I’m going home.”
“What?” Scootaloo stood in shock. “You’re not even gonna go and talk to Sweetie tonight? Let her know that we at least tried to come to her little party?”
“An’ say what? ‘Hi Sweetie, sorry we missed the most important party you’ve ever had in your whole life because we were too busy getting cutie marks for ourselves?’ I just really wanna go home and pretend today didn’t happen.”
Scootaloo looked back and forth between her friend and what used to be a cuteceñera. Feeling the exhaustion in both her mind and body, she sighed. “Fine. Go get some sleep. We’ll regroup and try again tomorrow.”
Apple Bloom was already dragging her hooves away by the time Scootaloo finished. Her tail and bow hung low, almost trailing along the ground. Not even the roughest and most disappointing crusades had left her looking and feeling so down.
Scootaloo didn’t see Apple Bloom leave. Her gaze remained fixed upon the house that she knew she should have been at. Already, she could feel the anger in her bubbling up again.
A part of her wanted nothing more than to march up to that front door, bang on it, and give Sweetie Belle a piece of her mind. Or her hoof, if things really got out of control. Anything to give her a reason to vent whatever she’s feeling. Instead, Scootaloo listened to her exhausted body, scoffed, and turned around. A verbal lashing could wait a day or two. Her muscles needed the rest until then.
“Hope you enjoyed your party,” she muttered on her way home.
*************************
Where had all the time gone?
As Sweetie stood at her front door and looked at the ponies outside, she couldn’t help but ask this question in her head. It seemed like she had only just been here greeting the exact same guests a second ago. There was no way that she could have let them in, had chats with everypony, played games, opened her presents, and had so much fun in so little time.
“Are you sure there’s no more food to take home?”
There was also no way they had gone through all the party food so quickly, either.
“Sorry, Truffle. We ate almost everything there was to eat,” said Sweetie.
“That’s a bummer,” said Truffle with a frown. “I was hoping we all could’ve gotten a little more leftovers.”
“Truffle, you’re leaving with like three boxes worth of food. I don’t think you need to be asking for any more.” chimed in Rumble. It only took a quick look to see that he was right. Truffle’s saddlebags were full to the brim, while a container of even more party foods balanced on his back.
Truffle glanced at his takings and blushed. “Heh heh, maybe you’re right. Anyone want some of my stuff?”
“If I wasn’t on a training diet, I’d be taking those cupcakes off you.” Rumble eyeballed the forbidden sweets as he spoke before finding the willpower to look away.
“So did you have fun?” Dinky said towards Sweetie.
“Of course I did!” Sweetie beamed with a wide smile. “I can’t believe how fast my Cuteceñera went. It’s like it just started. I haven’t had this much fun since the contest.”
“Glad to hear it. Anything for a good friend and choir member.” Dinky’s eyes suddenly lit up. One could have almost seen the idea that had just hit her. “Oh, that reminds me! Don’t forget we have rehearsal tomorrow.”
“But I thought we didn’t have class tomorrow?” asked Sweetie.
Rumble frowned. “We don’t. Miss Cheerilee just wants us to be extra ready for the fall concert. At least it’s only for about an hour in the afternoon.”
“Aw, I thought we were getting better,” said Sweetie.
Rumble shrugged. “Not getting better fast enough, I guess.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Nope, I think that’s all,” said Dinky. “We had a really good time.”
“No kidding. I think Pinkie might have outdone herself with this party. I can’t wait to tell my brother all about it tomorrow.” Rumble beamed at the thought.
Dinky giggled at Rumble’s enthusiasm. He and his brother were made for each other. “Hee hee, nothing like a party to celebrate the best thing that’s ever happened to our new friend, right Sweetie?”
There it was: the “F” word again. The word that sent Sweetie’s insides aflutter. Her body grew warm all over like someone draped a cozy blanket onto her. She couldn’t and didn’t want to resist the genuine smile growing on her. She had to say something, anything, to show her appreciation for the choir… no, her new friends.
“Th-thank y-”
“Alrighty, fillies and gentlecolts, thank you all for coming to Sweetie Belle’s super-duper special party!”
Sweetie felt Pinkie’s presence for only a split second before the pink pony drowned out her voice. Between Pinkie’s excited chatter and the ponies applauding when prompted, Sweetie doubted if she could get another word in. She decided to be polite and wait for her turn to speak.
*************************
It turned out that Pinkie slammed the door before Sweetie got that turn.
“Sorry, Sweetie,” said Pinkie from behind her, “but we gotta get all this stuff down so you can get ready for bedtime. You can talk to all your friends at school. I bet they can’t wait to hear the story about how your Auntie Pinkie saved the Cuteceñera with her gender-specific party hats!”
With that, Pinkie bounced away from Sweetie and towards the party. She wasn’t kidding; there was quite a mess to clean up before bedtime, despite Pearl and Magnum’s cleaning efforts.
Sweetie Belle giggled to herself. She couldn’t wait to talk about the party with her friends tomorrow. Well, maybe not so much about Pinkie Pie saving the party, but all of the other fun stuff she did. No doubt everyone would like to hear about the fun party she had, even the ponies who were not there like Diamond Tiara, Rarity, and even…
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.
In an instant, Sweetie’s giddy insides plummeted straight to the ground. It had been the first time she had even thought of her Crusader friends since the party started. It was also the first time she had made the realization that she never thought would need to be made.
They hadn’t come. They hadn’t brought her presents. They hadn’t played games, eat, party, giggle, laugh, or talk with her. They didn’t even say why.
Sweetie felt something other than the heavy emptiness. She felt her limbs tightening in anger. How could they have missed this party of all parties? How could they have not even given her an excuse why? Did they forget she even exists?
Sweetie shook that thought out of her head. It couldn’t be that bad. Still, something had to be going on for the ponies she had spent most of her school life with to not even come to her party.
That settled it. If her friends weren’t going to tell her why, she was going to have to go to them and find out herself. Come tomorrow, she would march over to the clubhouse and get this sorted out. She was as sure of this as the fire burning in her heart.
*************************
Sweetie Belle shivered.
There were two causes for this. First, it was chilly. The sweltering heat of summer had been losing ground to the coolness of fall with each day. The scarf around Sweetie’s neck helped, but it could only do so much.
The second reason was more immediate and familiar to her. Before her stood the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse. It looked exactly the same as it had just a week ago. Then again, it looked the same as it did over a year ago. Still, Sweetie couldn’t help but feel that it had been just that long since she had been here last. How could so much happen in just one short week?
A part of Sweetie hoped that the crusaders weren’t here, that they were headed off to their next crusade or just relaxing on their day off like everyone else. Maybe then she would have more time to figure out what exactly she wanted to say to them.
Then she heard the sound of something crashing down inside the clubhouse.
“Huh?” Sweetie’s body instinctively jumped back a little bit from the sudden noise. Just what was going on up there?
“Ugh, I thought for sure that wasn’t the load-bearer.”
It was faint, but Sweetie could hear Scootaloo’s voice from within the clubhouse. Listening harder, she also made out the accented mumblings of Apple Bloom, though she couldn’t make out the words. Apple Bloom could sometimes be a little hard to understand at distances… or up close.
Regardless of the conversation, they did prove one thing to Sweetie: the Crusaders were home. She could no longer back down and go back home. She had come all this way, and there was no way she was leaving without at least them knowing that they had missed her party.
Taking one last breath to steady herself, Sweetie gained a determined look and climbed the steps on the ramp. Once she reached the door, she took one more breath and then pushed it open.
Sweetie didn’t know what she was expecting. The clubhouse looked the same inside as it did before. The pile of junk was still swallowing up half the floor. Sweetie’s music stand and Scootaloo’s toy piano had been moved to the side to make room for a pile of blueprints. Scootaloo stood up to her barrel digging through various relics of crusades past while Apple Bloom thumbed through the blueprints.
One thing Sweetie didn’t expect were how worn out the girls looked. Apple Bloom’s mane and tail were ragged, as if she had only used her hoof to brush it. Her eyes were lined with bags while she wore a lazy frown. Though Scootaloo’s back was turned to her, Sweetie could see a couple scratches and bandages on the orange filly’s body. Whatever they had been up to, it was taking their toll.
“What were we lookin’ for again?” asked Apple Bloom wearily. She kept her eyes on the blueprints before her.
“I don’t know,” said Scootaloo, “Something, anything that looks good. Maybe we should give some of these failed crusades a second shot, or even a third shot.”
“What makes ya think they’ll work this time?”
“Because it has to work! We’re already running out of crusade ideas again. We have to have done something wrong, otherwise we’d have our cutie marks by now.” Scootaloo fumbled through more junk, but nothing caught her eye.
“We’ve been gettin’ more stuff wrong than just the crusades,” muttered Apple Bloom.
Scootaloo turned around. “Like what?”
Scootaloo gasped. She had gotten her answer.
Sweetie Belle stood in the open doorway with a deep frown. Scootaloo had come to recognize this frown; it wasn’t the frown she had before she would burst into tears. Rather, it was the frown that came before the frown before the tears.
Hearing the gasp, Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo, then to where Scootaloo was looking. She too gasped at the sight of her cutie-marked friend.
“Sweetie Belle? What are ya doin’ here?” asked Apple Bloom.
“I came here to find you two. What are you doing here?” replied Sweetie.
Scootaloo clambered out of the pile of junk. “What’s it look like? We’re planning more crusades.”
“You two don’t look so good.” Sweetie stepped into the clubhouse.
“We don’t feel too well, neither,” mumbled Apple Bloom.
“If you’d been working as hard as we have, you wouldn’t be looking great either.” Scootaloo shook her head. She could already feel her body growing tenser. “Wait, why do you care?”
Sweetie looked confused. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen you two all week. I was getting worried about you girls.”
“You didn’t look so worried when we saw you,” Scootaloo said, taking another step forward.
“What? You saw me? When?”
Apple Bloom raised a hoof. “At the p-”
“Yeah, we’ve been watching you,” interrupted Scootaloo. “We’ve seen you hanging out with you new friends, all smiling and laughing like there’s nothing wrong. Like there’s no one else that matters.”
“But that was just for choir stuff,” said Sweetie.
“Sure didn’t look it.” Scootaloo huffed and turned around. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have crusades to plan, right Apple Bloom?”
For a moment, Sweetie Belle was reminded of the times she asked her parents where babies came from but never got a straight answer. She could feel the same frustration in her mind now.
Sweetie took a step forward and said, “What were you two doing last night?”
“We were–” said Apple Bloom.
“What’s it matter to you?” said Scootaloo, keeping her behind turned to Sweetie and Apple Bloom.
“Wha-what?” Sweetie shook her head in disbelief. “How can you say that? Do you even remember what you were supposed to do?”
“Sweetie, this is a clubhouse for planning crusades and other important stuff.” Scootaloo’s head turned sharp behind her, with the rest of her body quickly following. “We’re in the middle of a very important meeting right now. We don’t have time for this.”
“Time for what? Talking to a friend? All I want to know is just where you were. It takes like two seconds to answer a question like that.” Sweetie felt the muscles in her face growing tighter by the second.
“We were–”
“You know what else only takes two seconds? Saying hi to your friends and letting them know you still care.” Another huff escaped Scootaloo’s mouth. “But I guess you’re too good for that now.”
“Why can’t you just give me a straight answer to anything?” Sweetie couldn’t stop her voice from growing louder. “How am I too good for you? You know we’re best friends!”
“Could have fooled us. For all we knew, you were bestest friends with the choir now that nopony can take their eyes off your–”
“WE WERE CRUSADING!”
The clubhouse fell deathly quiet. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both jumped and slowly turned to the source of the outburst. Apple Bloom stood on all four hooves, her eyes shut and pointed in the gap between the crusaders.
“You… what?” muttered Sweetie.
Apple Bloom sighed and looked at Sweetie Belle. The bloodshot in her eyes became clear for all to see.
“We were crusading,” said Apple Bloom, “We didn’t go to your party or talk to you or anythin’ because we were too busy tryin’ to get our own cutie marks.”
The anger on Sweetie’s face was gone. She couldn’t muster up the strength to be mad if she tried. The emptiness in her stomach sapping away her strength saw to that.
“B-but why? You promised you’d be there for me,” asked Sweetie.
Apple Bloom couldn’t bear to look her friend in the eye as she said the truth.
“We forgot.”
“F-Fo…” The word hung tightly on Sweetie Belle’s lips. No amount of effort could pry it loose and send it into the open.
“It just slipped our minds. We went on so many crusades this week, it was all we could think of,” said Apple Bloom, each word taking more effort to speak than the last.
It took Sweetie a moment to process what she had just heard. “H-how?” she asked, “This was my Cuteceñera. My party to celebrate my cutie mark. How could you f… forget my Cuteceñera?”
“The same way you forgot about us,” spoke Scootaloo. “But I guess I’d forget my best friends too if a bunch of schoolkids suddenly started pretending they liked me.”
“SHUT UP!”
Sweetie Belle had gotten her fair share of odd looks in the past. There had been the “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” look. There were a couple “Did you really put mayo on mashed potatoes?” looks. There had even once been a “Whatever you do, don’t touch that fallen beehive!” look.
None of those looks could compare to the faces Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were giving her now. Sweetie could not have cared less.
“Just stop it! Stop saying bad things about my new friends! They’re nothing like that at all!” yelled Sweetie Belle.
“Sweetie…” spoke Apple Bloom.
“No! I don’t want to hear any more!” Sweetie stamped her hoof on the ground harder than she ever thought she could. “My choir friends have been nothing but nice to me ever since I joined! They’re always inviting me to fun stuff and sharing their lunch and talking to me like they’ve been my best friends for years!”
“But they haven’t,” said Scootaloo.
“I don’t care! They’ve made me feel so welcome and happy the first day I came to choir practice! They never ignored me to talk about crusades that I don’t have to worry about anymore or stopped talking to me after I got my cutie mark, and they definitely didn’t forget completely about my Cuteceñera just to chase after their own cutie marks like a couple of blank flanks!”
On that day, at that moment, some of the citizens in Ponyville could have sworn that time had stopped.
Nobody said anything in the clubhouse. Nobody made a sound. Nobody even blinked. The fillies all looked at each other with the widest eyes they could muster. The only noise that could be heard was the rustling of the tree branches outside. The same noise that followed after a deafening shot from a Pony War era musket rifle.
A drop of liquid finally broke the silence. It splattered on the ground in front of Sweetie’s hooves, and was followed by another. Despite the quivering jaw line, the tears rolled down her cheek along the same trail.
Sweetie said nothing. She couldn’t say anything. How could she ever say anything after saying… that? Instead, she did the only thing she could do, the only thing that made sense to her.
She turned and ran out the door.
She didn’t care where she ran to. All Sweetie Belle wanted was to run away from the clubhouse, away from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, away from the trail of tears, and away from the painful emptiness within her.
She couldn’t run far enough.
*************************
Neither Apple Bloom nor Scootaloo could move for what felt like hours, long after they couldn’t hear the sobs anymore. Without saying anything, they had mutually agreed that whatever was happening could only be a very bad dream.
It only took a few more seconds for them to realize that they were very much awake.
“So now what?”
Apple Bloom broke from her trance to look at Scootaloo. Her friend had already gotten up and moved to the pile of junk behind them. She resumed the scowl on her face from before they had been interrupted by their friend, if she could still be called that.
“What do you mean?” asked Apple Bloom.
“We decided to put chariot-racing off until tomorrow, right? So we need to figure out what we’re doing today before it gets too late,” said Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom’s ears were perked straight up, but she still couldn’t believe the words they had picked up. “How can ya even think about crusading right now?”
“Why wouldn’t I think about crusading? Cutie marks or bust, remember?”
“Sweetie Belle hates us!” Apple Bloom shouted as she stomped her hoof. “She thinks we’re the worst friends ever and it’s all your fault!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Scootaloo could see the hoof pointed at her. She scoffed and turned to face her accuser. “How is this all my fault? Sweetie’s the one who got mad and called us blank flanks. She didn’t even bother to listen to us tell her the whole truth.”
“We did tell her the truth! We were too busy crusadin’ and thinkin’ about ourselves instead of being at her party like we should have been.”
“And what about her? She left us for a bunch of ponies who never talked to her before her cutie mark.”
“At least she’s doin’ what she was born to do! She’s actually exploring her special talent. She doesn’t have to worry anymore about runnin’ herself ragged over a cutie mark that may never come.”
Scootaloo could feel her blood coming to a boil. “We only haven’t gotten our cutie marks because we aren’t trying hard enough.”
“Not trying hard enough?” asked a gobsmacked Apple Bloom. “We’re killin’ ourselves! My body’s sore all over, even in places I never knew I had! I always wanted to get my cutie mark doin’ something fun, but not like this!”
“So? We can’t all be lucky enough to have ours just appear out of nowhere. If this is what it takes to get our cutie marks, then so be it!”
Apple Bloom’s glare dropped into shock once more, but then just as quickly returned to anger. She steeled herself for what she about to say.
“Well, if gettin’ our cutie mark means losing our best friends and turnin’ into a complete meanie, then I don’t want to find my cutie mark anymore!”
At that exact moment, if one were to listen hard enough, one could hear the sounds of hearts shattering into pieces.
Scootaloo once more stared at Apple Bloom with her mouth agape. Apple Bloom didn’t blame her; she might as well have just shot her friend with a bow and arrow.
“You… you can’t mean that,” said Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom kept her angry expression. “I mean it with all my heart. I don’t want any more to do with crusaidin’ or cutie marks from now on.”
For just a split second, Apple Bloom could have sworn she saw Scootaloo’s eyes growing moist around the edges. Then Scootaloo blinked, and regained her furious look.
“Fine!” yelled Scootaloo. “I can get my cutie mark all by myself! You can stay a blank flank for the rest of your life as far as I care!”
There were no more words. Before any more could have been said, Scootaloo took after Sweetie and ran out of the clubhouse. She never looked back.
As Scootaloo’s trampling hooves faded away, Apple Bloom’s composure finally gave. It first came out in sniffles, then sobs at her throat became stopped from the weight of everything coming down on her. Before she knew it, she was on the floor, crying over the blueprints that had been in her saddlebags all week. They may as well have been oversized handkerchiefs to her.
The more Apple Bloom cried, the more she saw her former friends in her imagination. She saw them laughing, talking, giggling, and groaning over countless memories that she once held dear to her heart. Each memory now only served as a cold reminder of the one truth she never realized she didn’t want to find.
The crusades were over.