“Arc?”
Glory.
“I’m here for you.”
I know, I thought, but I can’t let you see me like this.
I was sitting before the mirror on the wall, watching myself tremble in the wake of my panic attack. I couldn’t stop shivering. Eventually I couldn’t handle seeing my own teary eyes in the reflection any longer, so I took to pacing around the room.
What the hay happened to me? I wondered. How could I have fallen apart so easily? I thought I was okay...
“I’ll wait... I’ll wait all night if I have to!”
Ponyfeathers!
I stepped out onto the balcony, where I could hear the ghostly sounds emanating from the forest. They were distracting, even calming, to me.
How did I come to be so weak and sensitive?
“Archaic Smile... I’m going to take care of you!”
I let out a weighty sigh, watching as my breath condensed before my eyes and drifted and dissipated into the night sky.
Is this really how I want to live?
Growing cold, I reached for my scarf with the intention to wrap it more snugly around my neck, but I quickly realized it wasn’t there. Oh, I thought. She has it. I decided to go back inside and resumed my earlier position in front of the mirror.
I can’t allow myself to be so fragile, I thought. First, I need to stop crying.
I dried my face, closed my eyes, and focused on calming myself. It took some time, but I was able to stop trembling and sniffling; still, my headache persisted.
Glory hasn’t said anything in a while, I noticed. I opened the door, and there she was, sound asleep at my hooves. Oh, Glory, I’m so sorry you got dragged into all of this...
I nudged her shoulder. “Glory. Wake up.” She mumbled something I couldn’t make out, and I was luckily able to urge her onto her hooves. “Come here,” I said, leading her to my bed. She didn’t hesitate to slip under the blankets.
“Good night, Spring Glory,” I whispered. “Sweet dreams.”
“I love you,” she whispered. “Goodnight, Arc.”
She closed her eyes and went out like a candle, breathing steadily. Shaken, I stared at her in a dumbfounded stupor. After a minute, I rushed out onto the balcony and inhaled a long, deep breath of the cool, crisp night air.
She loves me?
I glanced at Spring Glory through the large window-wall between my room and the balcony. Seeing another pony in my bed—in my house, for that matter—was vaguely disconcerting. Her softly-uttered words were endlessly echoing in my mind.
Do I love her? I wondered.
I watched the slight rise and fall of her body under the blankets as she breathed. Quietly, I crept back in the room and sat before the bed.
Do I love you, Glory?
I didn’t dare to answer myself. I felt doomed, caught between a clash of fear and desire. I slipped back out onto the balcony, feeling a tumultuous cave-in occur within my heart.
Oh, Celestia, what am I going to do with myself...
I let my head droop and watched the glistening descent of a teardrop. It silently splashed onto a wooden panel beneath my hooves, and in only a few seconds it seeped into the wood, vanishing without a trace.
-*-
When Spring Glory woke up, the sun had just risen above the horizon, and I was still on the balcony. I had spent the few remaining hours of the night thinking about everything that had happened in the last week, solemnly sitting as if I had become one of my own sculptures.
I heard her shuffle out of my bed and yawn. She soon noticed me through the window-wall and hesitantly stepped out onto the balcony to sit beside me. She shivered a little in the cold, thin morning fog.
“Good morning,” she said lightly.
“I’m sorry for everything that happened last night,” I mumbled.
“No, Arc, it’s not your fault,” she replied.
“B-but it is.”
“I convinced you to go to the party,” she countered.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore,” I said, feeling bitter towards my insecure nature. “That’s why I went. I’m trying to be... n-normal.”
“You can make yourself to be whatever you want to be,” Spring Glory said firmly. “But I think you’re lovely just how you are.”
“I have too many p-problems.”
“We can overcome them.”
“I don’t think so,” I muttered.
“You don’t know until you give it a shot,” she urged.
I said nothing, and instead watched the sun slowly climb into the sky.
“Give yourself a chance, Arc,” she murmured. “Do it for me, at least. I don’t want to be alone, either.”
“Okay,” I said after a while. “I’ll do it for y-you, Glory.”
“You’d better,” she said, playfully nudging me.
“I know we’ve only kn-known each other a short while, but...”
“But?”
"I can't keep hiding... You’ve s-shown me that what life has to offer is invaluable. You showed me joy... and l-love. I can't go back to knowing only fear. I need your help, Glory... Help me to live."
“Okay,” she said, wrapping her foreleg around mine. “I will.”
We sat there a while longer, arm-in-arm, while the glaring fog burnt away beneath the sun. It was invigorating and terrifying to be with another in my own home, and as the sky grew brighter I found myself feeling bolder than ever before.
“You know,” I said, “this isn’t at all how I’d imagined myself bringing a mare home.”
She laughed a little at my remark and nodded. “Oh, I bet,” she said. “But I think it’s gone very well so far.”
“Why don’t we go inside?” I suggested. “I can show you around.”
“I’d like that.”
“Well, this is my bedroom, obviously,” I said, leading her back inside. “Bed, closet, desk, couch... Not much else to it.”
“It’s cozy,” she commented.
I took her downstairs into the foyer, which was mostly empty but for a small table by the front door. “Over there is the kitchen,” I said, pointing towards the room with a table and chairs and counter-space, “and over here is where I do most of my work.” I walked into the large, open, well-lit workroom. “It’s not much, but it’s a good enough home for only one pony.”
“I think it’s very... dainty,” she said. “It suits you.”
“I suppose it does,” I said. Suddenly, I remembered the letter Derpy Hooves had dropped a couple days earlier. “Oh, I’d nearly forgotten, I have something of yours.”
“What is it?”
I found my saddlebag on the table in the kitchen and pulled the letter out of it. “This letter is for you. The mail-pegasus dropped it by my mailbox the other day,” I said, giving it to her. “Lucky coincidence, I guess.”
“It’s from my parents,” she murmured. “How long have you had this?”
“Two days,” I answered. “I meant to give it to you while returning that Heart’s Desire.”
She read the letter very carefully, and a knot grew in my stomach as I watched the brightness fade from her eyes. She visibly tensed up, and was holding her breath as if she’d seen a ghost.
“W-what is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
“I need to go,” she said.
“What?” She trotted past me, towards the front door, and I followed. “Why?”
“I’m sorry, Arc, but this doesn’t involve you,” she answered.
“W-wait,” I said, hopping in between her and the front door. “Glory, I—”
“I’m leaving,” she said. She maneuvered around me and left me standing in the doorway. I watched her descend the hill, greatly taken aback, wondering what in Equestria could have provoked such an outburst in her.
Should I go after her? I wondered.
The answer was already apparent. “Glory!” I called. “Wait for me!” Steeling myself as best as I could, I took to the air in pursuit.