//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three 
// Story: Piano Pony 
// by PurpleRibbon 
//------------------------------//

When I woke, Waldo was lying by my side in our small bed, snoring softly. I glared at him, envying how easy it was for him to sleep, and rolled to my side, gazing out of the curtain less window at the heavy fog that always follows after the falling leaves of autumn had already dried up on the ground and frost had begun to settle in, causing the less careful of ponies to slip in embarrassing manners. The small section between the end of autumn and the start of winter had always reminded me of Ponyville. At this point, Rarity would be making new cosy clothes for all the ponies, including herself, and probably admiring her new boots. A smile had slipped onto my face at the old memories, and I tried to stop thinking about them, but once they were set off, I couldn’t stop them. I remembered Scootaloo, riding skilfully on her skateboard and talking of her idol Rainbow Dash. I remembered Applebloom with Cutie Pox. I remembered trying to make Miss Cheerilee fall in love with Big Mac on Hearts and Hooves Day. But what I remember most is Winter Wrap Up. Oh, what an event that was. It was always my favourite event. I wasn’t old enough to actually help out, of course, but I knew that, when I was older, I would want to be part of the Animal Team to help Rarity design nests. I had already tried practising at home, making small nests out of twigs (when Rarity wasn’t around, of course; she would have hated the mess of them, and always had to scrub her twigs before using them). I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t bad, either. I had always meant to ask Applebloom about that. She seemed really talented at things like construction...Stuck into my memories, I didn’t notice Waldo stirring until he yawned loudly and turned towards me, eyes wide open.
“Hey, Sweetie Beeeelle! How were you last night? I was great! We all went out for a drink, me and my mates, and we all got completely wasted and we danced so much my hooves still hurt!”
I sighed, ignoring his incorrect use of ‘me’ in the sentence ‘me and my mates’. Usually, a little thing like that wouldn’t have annoyed me, but it did this morning. I have no idea why. Perhaps it was because I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I was always grumpier when I was hungry. I slowly got up out of bed, Waldo still chattering like an excited teenager, and made my way to the fridge. There wasn’t much in there: a half-frozen apple (I don’t even remember how that got there), an unopened bag of cabbage, a six pack of energy drinks (obviously Waldo’s, like he needed any more energy), a carton of apple juice and seven microwave meals, one for every day of the week (Waldo would often go out for his meals, so I didn’t have to worry about buying anything for him). I took the apple juice from the fridge and closed it, sighing. Opening a cupboard above it absentmindedly, I reached for a packet of Belvita Biscuits in there, took out two, and ate them slowly, leaning on the counter and continuing to listen to Waldo’s tale, even though he seems to tell me the same story every night; ponies get drunk, dance and sing, stumble back home and continue the same cycle.
About half an hour later, we were both leaving for the pub, having cleaned up from the night before, Waldo trotting happily beside me while I walked a bit slower than usual through the almost icy streets, not wanting to fall over and have Waldo laugh at me. Waldo burst through the door with the same cheerfulness and merriment as always, a grin on his face.
“Hey, ponies!”
Everypony turned towards the regular, lifting a glass, the sad silence broken, if only for a moment. But it wasn’t for a moment, as it should have been. Things were never the way they should be with Waldo around. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, I may never know. I sat down at the piano as Waldo had light conversation with the few ponies that ended up here so early on a Sunday morning. Soon, he was singing and I was playing, and the dark, dank depression of the pub was slowly dissolving. Starshine was cleaning the floor with a mop, a spring in her step when I played ‘Those were the days’ by Mare Hopkins, a favourite of hers. Many hours later, I made my way to the apartment and lay on my bed, not feeling up to singing as I had the night before. When I woke up, Waldo was lying next to me, snoring as usual. This cycle continued for days, for weeks and for months. Until, one day, neither Waldo nor I could take it anymore.
A few months after that particular Sunday, in the morning, I got up to go to the pub, as usual. However, it was slightly surprised when Waldo turned towards me. His smile was gone, and his eyes were large and staring, looking at me with both concern and seriousness.
“Sweetie Belle, can we be a few minutes late today? I think we need to talk.”
I rolled my eyes and turned away, expecting he was still a bit drunk from the night before.
“Waldo, I would love to talk to you right now, but we have bills to pay, remember? We’ve got to go to work.”
He sat up, boring his eyes into the back of my head.
“That’s just the thing. We’re either working, or I’m out getting drunk. We never have time to actually talk about things.”
“It’s not my fault you’d rather go out and get drunk than stay here.”
I couldn’t stop that silent thought coming out, but I couldn’t stand to turn around and apologise to Waldo, to see the pain in his face. So we just sat there, my back to him, engrossed in the silence, until Waldo spoke up for himself, rising from the bed.
“The only reason I go out is because I can’t stand to stay here with you. I love you, Sweetie Belle. I’ve been offered so many places at so many better pubs, but do you know why I stay in this filthy, drunken excuse for a town? For you. Because I want to be able to look at you with love in my eyes, as I always do, and see you looking back with the same expression, instead of just your typical emotionless face!”
At this point, he was yelling, and a stray tear fell from his eye and onto the floor, mixing in with the other, unfamiliar stains in the carpet.
“But that’s never going to happen, is it?”
I wanted to lie to him. I wanted to turn towards him, put on a fake smile and fill his head the sweet, sweet lies I knew that he would believe. But I couldn’t do that to him. I was scarred with the memories of my past. He wasn’t. He was friendly, optimistic, talented and so much more. He had his whole future in front of him. It wasn’t fair for me to take that away from him out of my own selfish loneliness. I turned towards him, looking right at his tear-filled eyes, his innocent and youthful expression.
“No.”
Pain seemed to bring every feature in his face to an extreme, tears falling from his eyes like little silver droplets from the legendary Fountain of Youth itself. He flung his face forwards, his eyes full of the fury only betrayal came bring as he assaulted me with his words.
“Fine! Like it matters to me! I know many a mare prettier than you, anyway! I’m going to make it as a rock star! Then you’ll see! Then you’ll regret this!”
With that, he sprinted out of the apartment. I listened to his hooves quickly make their way down the stairs. A few minutes after he left, I made my way to the bathroom to freshen up. Only when I looked in the mirror did I realise I was crying. I ignored the tears.
When I went to the pub, Waldo wasn’t there, as expected. Everypony looked up at me expectantly, waiting for Waldo to pop out of nowhere and greet them all happily. When he didn’t, they became confused. Starshine, however, was the only one to ask.
“Hey, kiddo. Where’s your honey?”
“He left.”
There were no other words for it. Everypony looked up at me in shock, including Starshine. I made my way to the piano and played without a singer for the first time since I can remember; even though I knew I had played without Waldo before I met him, it seemed strange. I suppose I had just gotten used to his company.
With Waldo gone, fewer ponies visited the pub, and nopony ever saw a pegasus or a unicorn there again. They probably had better places to be. Occasionally, I heard of Waldo, though. I seemed that he was pretty famous in the rock genre. In the outfits he wore, it covered his ‘whistling’ Cutie Mark. Only when I saw him in that outfit did I realise I had never asked him about it, and he had never brought it up. It didn’t really matter now, though. Nothing really mattered. One day, the manager of the pub died. We discovered his body on his desk, where he had always been in life. According to the doctors, he died of a heart attack, which didn’t really surprise anyone. Only Starshine and I went to the cheap funeral. He had no family, so Starshine took over as owner of the pub, but continued to work at the bar and as a waitress. It seemed as if she was never tired. Cancer took her in the end, and owner after owner bought out the old place then abandoned it for the next business pony who thought he could change the place and bring it into the present. Whoever the owner was, I always played at that pub. I always lived in the same apartment, and I always thought about Waldo and Ponyville.