//------------------------------// // The Youngest // Story: Legend of the Shotgun // by SleepIsforTheWeak //------------------------------// Beauty. He’s often wondered what ponies mean when they speak of beauty. What is this wonder often spoken of as if it were the essence of everything holy? The dictionary defines beauty as a pleasing quality associated with harmony of form or color, excellence of craftsmanship, truthfulness, originality, or another, often unspecifiable, property. Even the dictionary is unsure what the term encompasses. True, it states many categories that the word may apply to in speech, but in all these complicated, condescending descriptions, does it truly state what beauty is? Someone may look at a young mare or stallion with fairly pleasing features and a somewhat welcoming air about them and pronounce the subject beautiful, but is this really beauty? He’s often thought of beauty as something more than a nice face and agreeable manners. Something more than a simple smile or a well-proportioned body. Indeed, to him, the ideal presentation that so many of them believe to represent beauty, he finds repulsive. He grew up around the word beauty. As soon as he could remember, he himself had been described as beautiful. One would think that his understanding of the word would be less muddled, but instead the fact that he is supposedly ‘beautiful’ only makes him more confused. He had hoped that when he started school things might have been different. They were not. They were worse. Oh, the emphasis his generation puts on aesthetic perfection. And the whispers! The prying eyes! The sly glances that speak of carnal thoughts about him. It made him struggle to get out of bed every morning. He wonders, sometimes, for the most fleeting of moments in his most brooding of days, if, perhaps, he could be homeschooled instead. But alas, idle, fleeting wonderings is all they are. His mothers both worked, of course. Mother had her clients, and Ma had her fields. He couldn’t possibly. They were the best of parents, and his asking such a thing would deem him an ungrateful whelp. They already gave him and his sisters everything. “Are you gonna be a sourpuss, sour patch?” Stormee moans next to him, and he glances at her. Dramatic as always, with her head on the table, her two-toned grey mane splaying out as much as it can given its shortness. Stormee is beautiful. Celestia in the Great Beyond he’s dead if Opal hears him say that, but it’s true. It’s different for him, he supposes, since he’s known her basically his entire life. Saying Stormee is beautiful is like saying that Opal is beautiful, or Topaz, or Lightning, or… well any of the Dashes really. It was a simple observation, and hid absolutely no carnal… craving or whatever it was that Stormee often blabbered on about. Sex appeal? He tilts his head at her. He seriously can’t see it, but the looks in the hallways do not lie. Physically, Stormee is attractive—in ways that makes her aesthetics more persuasive of the ‘boyish’ side of beauty than the soft perfection of the more feminine side of it that Opal possesses. He guesses, maybe, that ‘handsome’ would be a better word for what Stormee is. Other than her looks, he supposes its Stormee’s attitude that gives off that appeal that the mares and stallions fall for. The rebel-without-a-cause, devil-may-care approach to life that she possesses, the cool exterior hiding her absolutely passionate and intense real nature. He wonders if they can see it like he can see it—the fire in her eyes. He’s sure that they can. It’s probably what attracts them in the first place. Not to mention that Stormee was kind of a flirt. Like, a natural one, and a deliberate one. Her special talent was charm—nopony truly stood a chance. Stormee could work a room full of ponies like none other he had seen previously—and he had Fancy Pants as a godfather. “Opal!” Stormee calls across the crowded cafeteria, breaking his thoughts about her. Storm’s voice carries resolutely and within half a minute, Opal joins them at their table and sits beside her paramour. “Thank Celestia you’re here,” Stormee wails softly, throwing herself at the unicorn with all the flair and dramatics of a pony who's drowning and then pointing a hoof at him. “Jasper was being broody again.” Opal tsks, playing along. “Now, Jas, we’ve talked about this brooding business.” He rolls his eyes, playfully so, but his mood is not one for games and Opal clearly sees this. She gives him a look. A worried look that only mothers and elder siblings can give you. “I’m fine,” he replies smoothly and then looks around the cafeteria. “Where are Sky and D?” His leg twitches and he scowls around the cafeteria. Didn’t they say they were going to come? He thought he heard Sky talk about finishing a test or something, but that doesn’t— “Relax, Jas,” Storm says in a very relaxed way and he glances at her, seeing her cuddled into Opal as much as she can possibly be without crawling inside the other mare. “They’ll be here.” He barely hears her, his anxiety growing. His tail twitches and then curls and he fights back the foalish habit of clutching onto it. He seriously needs Sky and D if he has any chance of— “So is today the day?” Storm asks. “Is that why you’re being so jittery, jitter bug?” He scowls. “Why must you insist on calling me such things?” he sighs, rubbing the area between his eyes where the first sparks of a headache sting. Storm shrugs and doesn’t respond, and he huffs. “Yes, yes, today is the day.” “Great,” Stormee replies, overly accentuated and almost a drawl. “I’m so tired of her.” “She’s alright,” he replies noncommittally and the look both Opal and Stormee shoot him makes him shrink several sizes. “She most certainly is not ‘alright’.” Opal sniffs, her gaze snapping over to her left. “She deserves a chance,” he mutters, fidgeting. “C’mon, Jas, you know they’ll never approve of her. And you don’t even like her all that much,” Stormee says. “And how do you know that?” he retorts. “Were you confident that they would like you when you met them?” Storm stares at him like he’s stupid and then flips her mane. “Well, duh. I’m me.” He grunts, and goes back to sulking. They tell him that he’s putting himself down in dating her, but he doesn’t understand why they say that. She’s a very beautiful mare, with looks that nearly match up to his own. Why should it suddenly matter what her personality is like, when nopony truly cares about it? He's overheard countless confessions of the deepest, most heartfelt love in the dusty corners of the library, but not once, in all those magnificent renditions did he hear love on account of something besides beauty. It was what everypony focused on, and they still do, trying to find their ideal of beauty in this unaccountably dismal world. They look good together, that's the point—the epitome of a beautiful couple, kind of like Stormee and Opal. Except he’s a fool to compare himself to Stormee and Opal. Stormee and Opal are in love—the big, mature, scary kind of love. The kind on which marriages and homes and kids are built on. He's utterly sure that their love isn't that focused on looks, even though neither is missing in that department, and even though there is plenty of desire there. Hmm. Opal and Stormee bickered like an old married couple, knew each other like best friends, and wanted each other like the teenagers that they were. He wants that kind of love, that kind of bond, that if broken, would break him. Was it right of him to be jealous? He thinks so one minute, but feels shame as soon as he starts to. “Hey, there they are,” Opal breaks through his inner thoughts. She waves a foreleg and he turns around in his seat, scanning the area wildly. A grin lights up his face and he feels his entire body relax when he catches sight of his two best friends. Diane and Skylar Dash—twin elder brother and sister of Stormee’s, born one week, four days, two hours and fourteen minutes after him, he’s literally and truly known the two his whole entire life. Lightning likes to joke that he is the Porthos to their Athos and Aramis, and he thinks that Stormee thinks that the three of them are engaged in some sort of… ménage á trois or even polyamory. Although, if they were in that kind of relationship, which they’re not, but if they were, it would be love triangle. A, a split-object love triangle, since Sky and D don’t do incest. But that’s absurd, since he has a marefriend and the three of them are indeed just friends. Best friends who are really close, yes, but just friends. The two weave their way through the crowd of ponies in the lunchroom and then make their way to the table, sitting on both sides of Jasper like they always do. “Sorry ‘bout the wait,” Diane mutters, but it sounds like she doesn't mean it. Such was her speech, usually, if anything at all. Diane was a quiet one. He supposes that growing up around such dominating personalities such as Lightning and Stormee and even her own mothers was to blame. Celestia knew that when Stormee or Lightning walked into a room, all eyes were on them, mostly because their entrances involved much flair and volume. “It’s alright,” Jasper breathes out, feeling all the anxiety flowing out of him as if carried off by an invisible breeze. “How was your test, Sky?” “Easy, naturally,” Skylar gloats smugly. “Yes, ‘easy’, because it’s not like it’s calculus or something,” Jasper snorts. “Well of course not,” Sky agrees with a small smile and a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” Storm snaps impatiently and slams her hoof on the table, the effect ruined by her close, affectionate cuddle with Opal. “I think there are more pressing matters than how fantastically brilliant Skylar is.” “Pressing matters?” Sky asks, completely ignoring his little sister’s jibe. “What kind of pressing matters?” “Her.” Stormee seethes. “Ah yes,” Sky retorts dryly, rolling his eyes so hard Jasper wonders how they don’t pop out of their sockets. “The elusive ‘her’.” “Jasper’s marefriend, idiot,” Storm shouts. “Anger management: you should look into it,” Skylar quips. “Would you two shut up, please?” Diane drones, stabbing her siblings with her eyes. “What about Jasper’s marefriend, Storm?” “He’s breaking up with her today!” Stormee snaps back, probably going for elated, but coming up short and landing on irritated as she glares at Skylar, who only smirks back icily. “He is not breaking up with her,” Opal patiently explains, jabbing her marefriend in the side so hard that Stormee yelps. “He’s simply asking her to dinner with our family.” “Wait, you’re serious, Jas?” Sky balks, breaking his condescending stare-down. “Like the entire nine yards of introducing her and all the courses and your Ma’s apple pie?” “Yes?” Nopony truly had a glare like Skylar Dash, Jasper muses. Clinical and condescending and colder than ice, making the subject feel like a complete idiot who’s being bitch slapped by an iceberg. “There is only a fifteen percent chance of this evening ending even remotely nice,” Skylar sniffs, “And the percentage is only that high because your Mother has the patience she does.” “Truly a saint,” Diane mutters admiringly. “The few, the proud— the ones who are able to put up with Stormee’s shit.” “Hey!” “It’ll be fine,” Jasper growls, the power of so much negative scrutiny unnerving him and weakening his resolve. His lungs tighten in anxiety, taking his breath away. “And if it’s not?” Skylar challenges. “Then it’ll be my damn problem, I guess, Skylar,” he chokes out, and then swallows tears. It wasn't fair; Sky and Diane were supposed to be his rock, and Opal was supposed to support him or at least protect him. Hell even Stormee—she, she was his friend, right? They were very similar, he thought, surely she understood… “Jasper really,” Opal huffs. “This is getting ridiculous! You’re nothing more than an accessory in that relationship. She’ll just dump you when the next best thing comes along, and you know it.” He gapes at his sister for a long moment, feeling his heart bottom out and then strain weakly as thoughts fly around his head like cartoon birds. His resolve breaks then, with one dry and strangled sob and he rises from his seating briskly. The bathroom door slams open and then ricochets off the wall behind it, slamming closed faster than it usually would—the pneumatic shock absorbers on the door hissing in alarm as they catch it and slow it down. He growls and then leans onto the door, powering through the absorbers both in an attempt to get away from the outside and because he’s in the mood to hear things slam. He’s like his Mother in that regard, his Ma always tells him, wanting to be closed off and smashing stuff when hurt or upset. He wonders briefly if that’s a good thing—surely it’s not the most productive way to take out one’s frustration and anger. Maybe he needs anger management. Maybe Stormee and him could go together. He almost smiles, but then remembers that he's upset and doesn't want to smile, so he scowls instead. He stalks to the full length mirror that’s hanging on the wall next to the sinks. It’s absolutely filthy and cleaned only half-heartedly with cheap glass cleaner that seemed to only serve the purpose of spreading the filthiness around instead of actually cleaning the glass. Through the glass, he meets his own pale green eyes. The truth is, Opal was right. Rosevale treated him like an accessory—flaunting him around in front of the whole school, and then leaving him when her eye caught the next best trend—i.e, any other stallion in the school. His stupid beauty eluded him! What did it get him, anyway?! Nothing but ponies who used him. He truly was an accessory. Maybe even to his own family; his favorite cousin Junior oftentimes called him ‘gorgeous cousin’. Naturally, it was a joke, but what if it wasn’t? His whole life, he’d been complimented on being good-looking. What if that was truly what ponies saw about him, the only thing they saw about him? His own mothers; would they have dumped him in an orphanage if he had been birthed unpleasing to the eye? His hoof connects passionately with the cheap, thin glass of the mirror and he registers pain and a distant crash as the glass cracks apart and spiderwebs around his reflection so that it cannot be seen anymore. He hates mirrors, he decides then. He hates them and their stupid reflective properties. He was cheap. Nothing more than a vase, or a purse, or one of his Mother’s dresses—meant to be worn and torn and thrown away. Meant to be looked at and appreciated, but then stored in the attic to gather dust once the owners repainted the living room. His chest is killing him—a heavy rock sitting on his lungs without a care in the world. He gasps once, twice, and his vision swims and blurs from lack of oxygen and tears. He stumbles on his hooves, trying to breathe but not being—not, not being able to. His brain recoils in alarm at the lack of oxygen and he twitches and breaks out in cold sweat. Panic attack, he realizes through the haze as the corners of the bathroom blacken into tunnel vision. He’s suffered them before—Ma had an accident a couple of summers back and had to be rushed to the hospital. One look at her had sent him spiraling and hyperventilating and heaving in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before Mother found him and calmed him down. This one is not as strong, but it feels just as bad. His stomach turns and forces a dry heave out of him, but he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast—actually, his breakfast only consisted of tea—so the only thing his stomach manages to do is give a strong lurch and force up some stomach acid half-heartedly. He closes his eyes and tries desperately to remember the breathing exercise his Mother had him do in the hospital bathroom all those summers back. What was it she said? He can’t think clearly anymore, the blood rushes away from his brain defensively and he flounders, except he can’t feel his body so he doesn't know if it gets him anywhere. Something settles on his withers, a warm pressure of—Celestia what is that?—and he gasps out and tries to recoil but can’t move and can’t speak. “Jasper,” a low, intimate voice murmurs soothingly in his ear and he flicks that same ear. “Jasper you have to calm down. I need you to breathe with me, okay?” Opal says, and he just barely manages a nod and then hears her inhale loudly and dramatically right beside his ear. He does it too, deeply and gradually like she does, and then exhales when she does—again, gradually and slowly, ever so slowly. “You’re doing great, darlin’, just keep going. Count to five on the inhale, then hold it for two seconds, and count to five on the exhale, okay? Slow and deep now.” He nods, and does it. Five-two-five, over and over again until he can breathe regularly and the bolder on his chest rolls off, destined for places unknown. He slumps on the ground, closing his eyes as his heart slows down little by little. The porcelain tiles are cold under him and feel wonderful, and he notices for the first time that the air carries a strong hint of lemon-smelling bathroom cleaner. At least it doesn’t smell like urine, he thinks gruffly, like it usually does. And then he freezes and glances at his sister patiently sitting beside him and looking at him. “This is the stallion’s bathroom, Opal,” he mutters, heat coming to his face. Opal gapes at him, incredulous and offended, looking like she’s about to smack him, and his face flushes deeper. “S-sorry! I don’t know why I said that! Sorry.” Opal sighs sharply, shaking her head and glaring at him. “The doctor told ya to lay off the tea, Jas. Caffeine—makes your anxiety—worse,” she snaps, and punctuates the point by biting his ear hard enough to genuinely hurt. “Ow! Jeez, what was that for?!” he hisses and then fondles the ear. It’s sore when he touches it. “You just had a panic attack!” Opal screeches incredulously in explanation. “What if I hadn’t followed ya in here, huh?” “I would have calmed down eventually,” he mutters, brushing his hoof over his ear once more, feeling thoroughly scolded like that one time Ma chewed him out for swimming in the lake without supervision. He was only about nine, then, and she had used scary words like ‘foalnapping’ and ‘drowning’, along with a really, really loud voice. And then when they got home she grounded him from seeing Skylar and Diane or doing anything besides eating, sleeping, school work and farm work for about three weeks. Thoroughly scolded, indeed. This is very similar to that. He slumps and hangs his throbbing head, fiddling with his crimson tail like a little foal. Briefly he entertains the idea of spilling everything that was going through his head; briefly he entertains the idea of asking if Opal would love him as a brother if he didn’t look like he did, and then walking back into the cafeteria and asking the same of Skylar and Diane and Stormee, and then, when he went home after school, posing the question to his mothers and to Topaz. But he doesn’t. Mostly because he’s afraid of their answers. Opal sighs again, still exasperated, still mad, but not as much anymore. “When we get home, I’m informing Mother about this,” she decides, her speech shifting from slight country to its usual refined sniff. He opens his mouth for half a second to argue but then closes it again. “Tonight is the dinner with Rosevale,” he mumbles weakly. “Oh boo-hoo, Jasper,” Opal snaps. “Stop being stubborn and break up with her. That mare is not good for you.” His tail has split ends, he notes. It was probably time for a trim. He wonders if his mane has split ends too. Perhaps when he visited Barber Cut, he should also look into changing his coiffure. He was getting thoroughly tired of this one and the time he put in every morning to make it—maybe he should just go the easy route and simply start slicking it back. Would that lose him fabulousity points? Does he care? “Jasper are you listening to me?” “Sure, sis,” he replies breezily. No, no. He decides that he doesn’t care. “The pasta salad was wonderful, ma’am,” Opal comments to Mother politely, breaking the stifling silence of the dining room. She shoots him a surprisingly good equivalent of one of Skylar’s glares. “Don’t you agree, Jas?” He sighs. Those glares are getting really old, really fast. “Ahaha, yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, stretching his lips in a too wide, too fake smile. “Excellent as always.” He glares at his tall glass of boring water, wondering if there was a spell that could turn it to a glass of iced tea, or maybe even a mug of hot tea, and wondering if he can charm Auntie Twilight into making a spell like that, and then teaching it to him. “Very good,” Topaz agrees on a mutter, joining in. Mother lets out a polite, tinkling laugh that is almost as thin and fake as his smile. “Thank you, my loves,” she says gratefully, and he’s sure that she’s actually thanking them for breaking the silence instead of complimenting her pasta salad—which is actually not half bad tonight. Usually it’s pretty bland. But of course, they complement it anyway. One did not simply not complement Mother’s cooking. The entire evening had been terrible, frankly. But not one of those outwardly terrible evenings; no, no, those were easier to deal with. No, this evening was one of the stifling and uncomfortable kinds that Jasper only thought could be found among the ballrooms and garden parties of the rich nobles of Canterlot. This was the kind of terrible that was just on the tipping edge of being full blown horrible—that tipping edge was, in this situation, a fifty-fifty chance of being something that either his Ma or ‘Paz said. He could never truly recall a time where dinnertime in their house was this… electrified with so much negative energy. Sure, there was other electricity in the air during some of their dinners—usually when Stormee ate over, and she and Opal would throw smoldering glances at each other all evening, like they couldn’t wait one lousy dinner to jump each other’s bones. Ahem. But dinner time in their house was fun and loud and warm and comfortable. It had always been that way; full of laughing and teasing and the unpretentiousness of a warm family. Their family. The Apple family. The only time that dinners in their family had been this cold was when— He squirms uncomfortably in his seat and his coat brushes against Rosevales’s, who’s sitting ridiculously close to him, as if trying again to play the part of dotting marefriend. They all saw clear through the act. It was evident from Mother’s strained smiles to Ma’s furrowed brow to Topaz’s dark glare at mare by his side. Opal seemingly couldn't decide between glaring at him or her, so she did both. They did not approve. Not one bit. Rosevale hadn’t done anything to earn their approval, really. She cut him off when he went to speak about their relationship; she made cooing baby talk at him, and brushed his mane with her hoof—always finding a way to touch him, always just… too close. He was sure that he wasn’t supposed to find that unpleasant, and yet every instinct in him told him to bolt. Run, run, get out of there! Ma clears her throat awkwardly, “So, pie?” she offers. “That would be lovely, dear,” Mother murmurs with a small diplomatic smile. “Sounds great,” Topaz exhales. Ma nods again and disappears into the kitchen, maybe a tad faster than usual. The awkward silence scrambles back into its place of hanging over their heads until Ma comes back, juggling the hot pie in her hoofs. She sets it onto the table, and then takes her seat once more. “Guests first,” Ma announces naturally, but doesn’t even glance at Rosevale. “Um,” he does glance at Rosevale, and finds his so-called marefriend looking at the apple pie in a manner that expresses both deep loathing and disgust. “I… don’t really like apple pie.” The tension in the room turns up significantly. Ma’s eye twitches almost comically, and Topaz furrows her brow, looking deeply contemplative, as if she doesn’t understand how the words ‘don’t like’ and ‘apple pie’ can fit together in the same sentence. “Well, that’s perfectly alright, dear,” Mother says, but it’s as cold as ice. “More for us, right, ‘Paz, Applejack?” “Um, yes, ma’am,” Topaz says, snapping out of her state and then proceeding to serve herself a precut slice. Jasper thinks he hears her mutter the words ‘don’t like apple pie’ in wonder. Opal takes the pan next, and clumsily fishes out a piece. Next to him, just because she’s so close that he can see her out of corner of his eye, Jasper sees Rosevale scowl in something like disgust. “Can I ask a rather… forward question?” she asks, and he bites his lip because he thinks he knows where this is going. Mother hesitates, glancing at Ma and then smiling a fake smile. “Yes?” “I’ve noticed through dinner, pardon my blatancy, that none of you use your magic to serve yourselves,” she says, and then, not glancing at either Topaz or Ma, adds, “at least, the ones of you who are capable of it.” He stiffens, just like Ma, Mother, Topaz and Opal do. Mother smiles again, but it’s more a sneer than a smile, now. “I was just wondering why, is all?” Rosevale finishes, not noticing the malice in the air. “The dinner table,” Mother begins pointedly, shooting Topaz a warning look when she opens her mouth, “is a place of equality within our family, as it should be in every. And since we can’t very well give magic to those who are not born with it, then we have to take our own away. In order to be equal.” “But shouldn’t a close family embrace differences?” “And we do,” Mother says smoothly, “but not at the dinner table, and not out in the fields either. But… that is more a matter of tradition than anything else.” “But, wouldn’t that be… forced equality?” Rosevale argues. Mother fully gapes, now, looking horrified and scandalized. Her cheeks redden and puff out, in a look that was incredibly familiar. He coughs out a laugh, loudly and pointedly. “Best to save those types of words for a rally, Rosevale,” he mutters meeting his soon-to-be-ex-marefriend’s eyes. Then he looks at Opal, “pass the pie, sis?” His door slams with a satisfactory loud bang, unlike the bathroom door at school. His hoofs are muffled by the thick carpet of his room as he stalks across and to the set of drawers beside his bed. He didn’t own many clothes, but what he did own was probably more than any other stallion in Ponyville, and probably most of the mares, too. Storm and several others, both friends and strangers, often made passes about his sexuality whenever he wore clothes to school, so he stopped wearing clothes to school. Therefore, most of his clothes went unused unless for a surprise trip to Canterlot, or the chill of the colder months. He digs around the top drawer for a moment and then pulls out what he’s looking for. It’s an old thing—as old as him. Faded blue in color, but nearly unrecognizable because of its stains, his baby blanket was a gift specifically from his Auntie Rainbow and even had her cutie mark sown into it as to remind him exactly who gave it to him. A bit pretentious of her, naturally, but he had carried this thing until he was nearly six. He wonders what some of the ponies who often made passes at his sexuality would think or say if they knew he still sometimes dig out his freakin’ baby blanket to comfort himself, but then he decides that those ponies could go do unmentionable sexual things to themselves, because sometimes a stallion just needed the comfort that only a baby blanket could provide. Humph. He pulls it to his nose instinctively, breathing in. It doesn’t smell like anything, really, having suffered one too many washes to really retain any sort of telling scent. He pretends that it smells of his foalhood, regardless. He then walks to the bed and curls himself around the dilapidated thing, sighing. “That bad, huh?” He doesn’t jump at the sound of the voice, as he had expected somepony to come sooner or later. He had slammed his door closed pretty loudly. He opens his clenched eyes and drags his head to see Topaz leaning against the doorframe. He jerks his body in something like a shrug, and ‘Paz sighs deeply and comes all the way into the room, closing the door softly behind her. She crosses the distance and sits on his bed. He sits up awkwardly, instincts telling him to wrap himself in her like he used to all the time when he was a foal—back when she was his knight in shining armor, and he would always run to her, even before he ran to either of his mothers. He smiles a bit as memories flash through his mind—Celestia, he used to think she was the neatest thing in existence. His eldest sister; so old and mature and strong and brave. Topaz shifts on the bed beside him, and then chuckles, but it’s a sad and almost bitter sound. “Been one helluva evenin’,” she comments. “Gotta tell ya, it threw me for a loop that my baby brother is old enough to date.” He stays silent, but Topaz doesn’t say more. “Bet you didn’t expect his marefriend to be such a bitch,” he mutters finally. Topaz gives a more sincere chuckle this time. “Ah, she wasn’t that bad.” “Liar.” “No, really,” ‘Paz insists, and then frowns contemplatively. “I couldn’t really tell if she was a racist scoundrel, or a passionate equalist, though, what with that one argument. But I can tell that she was at least educated,” she smiled a bit, “sounded like Mother and Opal, though. Didn’t think I’d find anypony else that sounded like them ‘round these parts.” “She was from Canterlot originally,” he grumbles, and the conversation goes dead again. Topaz gives another sigh, and then roughly pulls him to cling to her. And he does, because he wants to, and because ‘Paz doesn’t give him a choice. “So, how did the walk go?” she asks him after a while of sitting like that. “Quiet,” he responds. After dessert he had, naturally, walked Rosevale home like a proper gentlecolt. The evening had been subpar, but manners and doctrine would be observed, or he wasn’t his mother’s son. The evening had been chilly for springtime, and prickled delightfully in his chest when he took a deep breath. Ponyville was dark and shadowy in the light of the glorious moon, but the air was full of the melody of crickets and even a few hidden frogs. She had walked close to him, and even pushed closer when a particularly cold breeze blew. Her house was deep in the heart of the town, and he led her through the darkened, identical streets easily until they stood at her literal white-picket-fence-framed house. This house had belonged to Rain Gatherer, the last of the old Gatherer clan that he vaguely remembered from his Granny’s tales. She had turned around at the fence, and they looked at each other for a long moment. She truly was beautiful, he had thought. She didn’t go to kiss him, and he was glad for it. “I guess this is it, huh?” She had asked, and he read the double meaning of the words. He had nodded. “I’m sorry.” She had shaken her head with a fond chuckle. “You’re an incredibly decent stallion, Jasper,” she whispered, and her eyes shone with the reflection of the stars. Then, she laid one hoof on his chest for a long moment, before turning and unlatching the gate with her magic and walking the short distance to her front door before disappearing inside. She didn’t look back. He had stood in front of the white fence for a while, not sure how to feel, before picking his way back home. It had been a miserable relationship, frankly, and he was glad to see it come to an end, but a part of him, the one that could never be satisfied, wondered if it was necessarily a good sign that the break up involved no… second thoughts on his ex-marefriend’s part. There was no ‘are you sure’s or any other arguments. She simply accepted it, maybe because she expected it, or maybe because he just wasn’t appealing enough to bring forth any of those reactions. The thought formed an invisible chain and bolder and attached itself to him, sinking him rapidly into the ocean of familiar sulking. And the cruel trick of nature was, he hated ponies like himself; the ‘oy vey, my life is miserable!’ types, who brought others down with their endless moping and whining. But, he guessed old habits died hard. He brought himself back into the present with a jerk, frowning slightly. Maybe old habits died hard, but was there really a reason for this to control his life? “Ya alright, Jas?” Topaz mutters near his ear. “Zoned out on me.” “I’m fine,” he whispers, and suddenly feels a stirring in his chest. He pulls away from Topaz rapidly, looking her dead in the eyes. Words flash in his brain, things he longs to know about how other see him, about the nature of beauty, about every single thing that has been weighing him down for the longest time. He opens his mouth and inhales, ready to speak. But then he closes his mouth again, and exhales. The words and his release in them, both escape him rapidly, never to return again. Old habits died hard.