PART OF what it means to be shy—one small silver lining—is that you get to enjoy secret passions. There's something to be said for texting the whole world with what's floating your boat, but sometimes that just lets the excitement get away from you. When my job was dull, which was more often than not, I used to fixate on something exciting to pass the time. A big game coming up, for example, or a trip I was planning, even if it was just to Manhattan. When I was with Cindy of course, sometimes it would be her—a date we were planning, or our wedding, or (more likely) our honeymoon night. If I had nothing exciting in my life, I'd make something up. I've never had any deficit of imagination.
Now, in the week after meeting the unicorn in 412, I found my imagination didn't need any help at all. To my surprise, I was fixating on when we'd meet again. I was mulling over excuses for dropping by and dishes I could make and introductory lines I could use, and imagining what we'd do, Peach Spark and I, and it was halfway through a greenhouse shift that I realized I was thinking about her a lot like I used to think about prospective dates. That muddled me up, because I'd also been telling myself I wasn't thinking about her that way.
Really, it was an easy argument: I'm not attracted to ponies, I'm attracted to women. That should be the end of it, right? But some part of me kept fantasizing about spending time with Peach Spark, and eventually I realized something important: Even though it was all from a non-sexual place, it might as well have been sexual, because it involved that same thrill of exploration—that same sense of a gold mine right in front of me, waiting to be delved into. The bliss of the unknown. My first girlfriend had felt like that, and so had Cindy, and now so did Peach Spark, even if the nature of that mine was completely different. And really, why shouldn't it be different? Discovery was all about newness, wasn't it? You can't discover what you already know.
As it turned out, I didn't need to settle on an excuse. Three days after I'd introduced myself, she visited me. Somehow, I'd known it was her just from the way she rapped on the door. Luckily, I was fully dressed and not in the middle of anything.
“Hi!” I said, opening up. It felt strange to open my door and see an unnaturally colored quadruped smiling nervously at me. Like something had gone wrong with the apartment's utilities, and now my door opened into the TV set for whatever reason. But it was definitely a good kind of strange.
“Hi, Pepper!” She sat down, right in the hallway. “Is this an okay time? To visit, I mean?”
“Sure, yeah. What's up?”
There was a little flash of forlorn in her eyes before she went back to friendly. “Nothing's up, really. It's just you haven't come by, and I was wondering... you know.”
If I'd forgotten her? If I'd been fibbing about being friends, like those other people she'd met? Instantly, I realized I'd been foolish. I hadn't needed an excuse to visit—I just needed to go. She hadn't had an excuse, and here she was anyway, on the floor in the hall.
I also realized I was blocking the doorway. “Oh, come in, come in! Yeah, I'd been thinking about visiting—honest!” But was an understatement like that really honest?
She ambled into my pad and looked around. Her eye was caught by my wall of pennants, which delighted me. It was at that moment I had my first flash of insight into how the joy of discovery really works—it was as much about what she was discovering as what I would.
“What's all this?”
“Just a tour of the American East! These are mostly from college football.” I lifted a dangling Mountaineers pennant. “Do you know what football is?”
“It's a sport,” she offered.
“Too true. Ever seen a game?”
“Seen, nothing. I've played!”
That caught me off guard, but it wasn't long before I remembered the clues—that one time Fluttershy wore a football helmet; the kick-off between Rainbow Dash and Applejack; the fake football mark Twilight tried to give Apple Bloom. (Of course, they called it 'hoofball', but whatever.) It turned out, though, that the game they played in Equestria had somewhat different rules. Ironically, the fact that the players had four feet made it impossible for them to play proper football: they were unable to carry the ball while running. That meant their game's downs ended upon a successful pass or recovery, but it also meant a plethora of other different rules, such as 'charging' in addition to tackling, intercepting players being allowed to pass the ball, and rare situations in which players could make a second pass. Not to mention that their field goals, kick-offs and punts were normally made with both rear hooves at once. We had an amusing time imagining human players playing by Equestrian rules.
And there it was. Mission accomplished—ice broken. Touchdown. My guest lay sprawled over my sofa, front legs on a wooden chest, tail switching intermittently from one side to the other. It didn't look like she could possibly be comfortable like that, but she seemed to be. I was in a stuffed chair with a ginger ale, but I'd been joking around on the floor, helping Peach Spark show me how to charge the quarterback. I grinned at the wall of pennants—they'd finally come in handy for something.
“That one says 'Buffalo',” she noticed, pointing one out.
“Mm, yeah. Buffalo Bulls. University of Buffalo.”
She perked up, which made my heart even lighter. “You have a university for buffalo?”
“It's... no, sorry. You know we humans are the only folks over here.”
A little deflation, a little weight back on my heart. “Oh yeah, right. Then why's it called that?”
“It's in the city of Buffalo. New York.”
She turned to look at me. “You have a city called Buffalo, but no buffalo to live there?”
I sighed. “It's a cruel world, Peach.”
She pushed herself back onto the sofa and put her forelegs over the armrest, looking at me. “Is it?”
“I was joking, but... well, kind of.”
“Is that why—” She stopped short.
“Is that why what?”
“Never mind. So, do you play hoofball, or do you—”
“Is that why we make up worlds like yours? Is that what you were asking?”
She pulled herself in. “Yeah.”
“I think so. Yeah, I think it is. You... you've got fantasies in your world, right?”
“Of course. But do you mean in books?”
“Sure, books. I mean, there's Daring Do, right?” Except she'd turned out to be based on reality. Was there anything so fanciful in the world of Equestria that it couldn't ever be real?
She nodded. “We've got plenty of stories. Adventure stories like Yearling's stuff, sure. Historical fiction, romances, intrigue...”
“What about fantasy?”
She seemed to be getting increasingly cautious, while remaining friendly. “Like horror stories? We've got those.”
“Horror is different from fantasy. I mean...” But I didn't really know fantasy, myself. I gestured. “Wild stuff. Weird creatures that don't really exist. Kinds of magic that aren't real.”
“Yeah, that's more or less horror. Or maybe the really arcane historical stuff. Unless you're talking about foal's lit?”
“I... I guess I might be. What kind of stuff happens in foals' books?”
“Well...” Now it was her turn to gesture vaguely. “Like, you buy an egg at the market and it hatches, only instead of a chicken it's a tiny fox, and the fox sings and the song paints your walls... bizarre stuff like that.”
“Huh. And that sort of thing doesn't happen in grown-ups' books?”
“Not that I can think of. I'm not the biggest reader.”
“Better question. Is that possible in real life? Could an egg ever really hatch a tiny fox that paints the walls with its song?”
“Never heard of anything like that,” she answered seriously.
“But is it possible?”
Something seemed to be rising in her. “Who knows? Anything's possible. Enchant a fox so it lays eggs, stick some music in it...”
“There's magic that can do that?”
“How should I know?” she snapped. “Just because I'm a unicorn doesn't mean I know the ultimate boundaries of magic.”
I took a breath and sat back. “So... when you say 'Anything's possible', you really believe it.”
She stared. “You don't?”
I had to think about it. “I guess... I guess now I do.”
Her smile was self-satisfied.
“So... it sounds like you don't really have the concept of 'fantasy' that we do,” I pressed.
“We have personal fantasies. But no, I don't think it's a kind of fiction, if that's what you're getting at.”
“Then I guess the answer's yes. We make worlds like yours, because we need to.”
Peach Spark sat back, biting her own lip. Was she upset, or just digesting? I couldn't tell.
“You want anything to eat? Another ginger ale, maybe?”
She looked at me, still biting her lip. “I'm good.”
I tried to guess what she was thinking. My eyes strayed to the pennants and jerseys on my wall, and I blurted: “You know, I wonder why your rules are different from ours. For football, I mean.”
“I thought we covered that. Different body shapes.”
“Yeah, but—” There was something here, and I wanted to find it. “Look. That wouldn't have stopped the writers, if they'd actually ever shown a game. They could have had you guys running with the ball. I mean, I know ponies can sometimes run on two legs—we see Pinkie doing it...”
“That mare is mental.”
I snickered. “Well maybe, but... I mean, it's physiologically possible, right?”
“Sure. Just, really, really awkward. I mean...” She thought. “Would you have a sport where you walk on all fours? Or just on your hands?”
“That'd be a sight.”
“Can you even walk on your hands?”
“I can't. Some people can.”
“So there you go. Anything's possible, but some things are just dumb.”
“You could carry the ball in your mouth. Or just unicorns could carry it.”
“Hoofball's mainly an earth pony game. I mean, yeah, sure, we... we could've been written that way. But...” She licked the inside of her mouth. “I'm glad we weren't.”
The mindblowing aspect of our worlds' relationship was finally coming to light. I worked up some courage, and then asked: “So if the show's writers had made different choices... do you think you'd be here now?”
She looked sharply at me. Her eyes were brighter than you might expect, right between blue and green. I hadn't really noticed before. “Probably not me, no. Somepony a lot like me, sure.”
“Isn't that weird?”
She banged the arm of my sofa. “Isn't this whole thing weird?”
I couldn't argue with that. “Honestly. Do you think Lauren Faust and the staff of the show, do you think they shaped you?”
“It's a nonsense question. It's pig manure.”
“It's not nonsense! We were just talking about football—”
She interrupted loudly. “We have—the relationship we have. Okay?”
I was silent. I would have said I was sorry, if I thought it would mean something.
“Look.” The unicorn got off my couch and paced slowly, awkwardly around the room. “From my point of view. A big threat shows up, it's just rumors for most of us. A god-tremor that's gonna tear our world apart if our leaders don't do something. Not a thing most of us can do about it, especially not without facts. But the princesses deal with this kind of thing. Celestia opens a portal, and suddenly there are these new weird creatures coming through and sending gifts, okay, fine. Weird, but not much weirder than the Dragon Kingdom and their insane traditions, or the Crystal Empire popping up after a thousand years. It happens.” She paused to steal a swig from my ginger ale. “But then the crisis passes, and we learn these creatures aren't just otherworldly people.” She looked at me straight-on. “They're our creators. They conceived of us, as their figments, their fantasies. Suddenly I'm a fantasy. I'm someone's wish come true. Maybe yours, Ronald.”
“That's not fair--”
“Let me talk. Everything in our world, everything we thought was the way it was because of...” She stood upright and waved her front hooves. “What does it matter? Forget all the natural history books in the libraries, forget the ancient scrolls. We're the way we are because of you. Because of people we'd never heard of. Your culture, your history, your dreams. That's why. We are. The way we are.” Again, her bright eyes glared, and I appreciated their power. “What does it matter whether you found us or you made us? We have our history either way, just the same. And the history isn't wrong. It's just... it's irrelevant. This place is what matters. You wanted to know why I came here.”
“You... you said there was good-paying work here for a unicorn.”
“That's just what made it possible. That's why I came to Elizabeth—there was an offer. But I came to Earth because...” She looked behind herself and shook her head. “I don't understand why everypony doesn't. I know, it's rotten here. I know, it's full of crime and poverty and the crime and poverty in our world is just a shadow. I get that it's hard!” She stamped her hoof. “But this is the motherland, Pepper! I came here... I came here because it's the motherland. And I've got to understand.”
I really had not expected a speech like this from the relatively wary peach-colored pony I'd met last Sunday, or the perky mare I'd just pretended to play hoofball with. I felt incapable of answering, but I tried. “You've got to understand what makes you the way you are.”
“Yes.” Her face was close to mine now, and I can't say I wasn't a little afraid. “I've got to. All my life, I thought the teachers and the books and the laboratories had the answers. Failing them, the royal academy, or at least the princess must have the answers!” She swallowed, inches from me. “But now it turns out they were all wrong. Every one of them. The answers are all over here, instead.”
I looked down, closed my eyes, and breathed. It was too much. I understood what she was saying, but I didn't have any comfort. If comfort was even what she needed.
“I'm sorry.” I forced myself to meet her eyes again. She'd sat down on the little rug in the middle of the room. “Sorry I went off like that,” she said quietly. Then she paused. “Things can be peachy, but all it takes is a spark.”
My eyes fell to her cutie mark. Definitely a spark of blue, probably electricity. Definitely two metal rods with nodes on the ends. It didn't go with the color of her coat, but it matched her eyes, and her eyes went with her coat. Her eyes bridged the gap.
“I know how that is,” I murmured. “At least a little. I never had my world turned upside-down, but... I know how one little thing...”
She gave me a meaningful look.
“One little thing can bring it all crashing down,” I said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “And this? This isn't little.”
I scooted back in my chair. “No. I guess it's not,” I admitted.
I don't know how much silence followed. When I next looked up, Peach Spark was at the door, her tail low.
“See you around, Pepper.” She didn't sound angry. She sounded determined.
“Oh—uh, goodbye! Glad you could stop by!” I knew I sounded like an idiot, but I had to say something.
“Thanks for the ginger ale.” With that, she stepped out and her magic reached to shut the door behind her. I was alone.
My mind churned. I didn't understand everything, but somehow, I had to get that pony the answers she needed. I had to.
Would I have been happier if things been the other way around?
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