"What?" was all Velvet could think to reply, her eyes going wide.
Dawn's voice hitched as she continued, "I've tried s-so hard! But you keep trying to push me away, and—and I don't understand why!" Her chin trembled and she dropped her gaze. "What's wrong with me? What am I not doing it right? What do you want from me?"
"Wait." Velvet raised a hoof and reached it out toward Dawn, but hesitated before touching her shoulder. "What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong with you! I thought—"
"I-If there's nothing wrong with me," Dawn mumbled, that strange, unfamiliar bitterness returning to her voice, "then what's wrong with you? Why don't you love me? Why can't you just settle down with me so we can be happy together?"
Velvet recoiled as if burned, drawing her hoof in to tuck against her chest. "I don't—Because! Dawn! We talked about this!"
Dawn glanced up at her with a light frown. "That... That was months ago, though! Why are you still with me if you don't care about me?"
"Don't care? I do care about you!" Velvet's ears drooped. "I've been trying to find you a special somepony so you can be happy!"
"But I don't want a special somepony! I want you!" Dawn shook her head in a quick, jerky motion. "Why can't you just be with me?"
A pain shot through Velvet's chest and clenched her heart. "Dawn, I..." She bit her tongue to stave off tears. No, Dawn was the one who was hurting. She had no right to cry. Not when she was the one responsible for putting that sad look in Dawn's eyes. "I'm sorry. I—We agreed that we weren't special someponies. I thought you—"
"Then what am I to you?" Dawn sniffled. "What are we?!"
"Friends!" Velvet's brow furrowed. "We're just friends. I honestly thought you knew that!"
Dawn blinked a few times and took a step back, almost as if she had been struck. "F-Friends? But..." As she exhaled suddenly, a soft whine escaped. "How can we just be friends? How?! Friends don't do the... the things we do together!"
Velvet tried not to groan as confusion started to muddle with frustration. "Okay! Fine, we're, I don't know, special friends. But not special someponies. I don't want that! You knew that from the beginning!"
There was a moment of quiet as Dawn's expression shifted between pained, confused, and... angry. "Then why would you lead me on? Why would you just keep making me fall for you? All the things you've said and done, I thought it was because you liked me!"
"I didn't lead you on! At least, I didn't mean to!" Then, something snapped in her. The fiery look in Dawn's eyes and the accusation in her tone set something off inside Velvet and she yelled, "Why would you fall for somepony who told you they didn't want to be with you?!"
The pain coursing through her became real when Dawn raised a hoof and slapped her. Velvet stumbled back more in surprise than from the force behind the blow, eyes wide, and she put a hoof to her cheek. It stung. Dawn had actually slapped her!
"I-I don't know why anypony would fall for you," Dawn practically snarled, tears falling down her cheeks. "I don't know why I did!" With one final glare, Dawn pivoted on her hindhoof and took off in a gallop.
Velvet just stood there, still clutching her cheek, still staring at where Dawn had been. The past few moments replayed in her mind, slowly at first, then quickly the second time, and the tears she had fought back came unbidden.
What had she done wrong? Hadn't she been honest with Dawn? Was this her fault, or Dawn's? All she had wanted to do was make sure Dawn was happy and taken care of... How did that make her the bad pony?
Quickly lifting the hoof on her cheek to wipe her eyes, Velvet glared at her surroundings. A few bystanders were lingering, staring, whispering. Gossiping about her. The swirling emotions in her chest bubbled up and she yelled, "What?! What are you all looking at?!"
With upturned noses and judgmental eyes, they made as if to carry on with their days, but she knew they were still talking about her. Judging her. But she wasn't at fault! Dawn was!
She growled under her breath and started toward home, but her hooves were heavy. Her chest was heavy. Too much was weighing down on her: uncertainty, doubt, anger, regret... Why couldn't she have just loved Dawn? Or at least pretended to? Sweet, innocent Dawn. Dawn just wanted to be loved. Everypony wanted to love and be loved. Everypony but Velvet.
"If there's nothing wrong with me, then what's wrong with you?"
Her hooves stopped and she lowered her head to stare at the ground. What was wrong with her?
---
"Do you want to invite any of your other friends?"
Crystal had asked such a simple question, but Velvet couldn't think through the haze in her mind. Friends. Did she have those? She thought Dawn was a friend, but she had been wrong about that. Maybe Thunder Tumble would end up the same way. Was she leading him on, too?
Finally, Velvet shook her head. "Nah. I'm sure Azurite will be there, right? I mean, she is a guard. Kind of."
A guard. Thunder Tumble was a guard. He was one of Silent Knight's guards. He had just as much reason to keep his mouth shut, right? Would he confront her at the wedding like Dawn had today?
Her heart racing, she tried to ask in an even tone, "Are all the guards going to be there?"
"I'm not sure," Crystal replied absently. "I haven't yet had a chance to talk to Silent about it." She glanced up from the guest list-in-progress. "Do you want me to write down Azurite's name just in case?"
"Yeah..." Velvet slowly nodded. "Yeah, if you don't mind? She's a lot of fun. Plus, I think she'd be really upset if she weren't invited." She blinked. "Oh, wait, if we invite her, then we have to invite her partners."
Crystal's ears shot straight up. "Partners?" she repeated in a squeaky voice. "What happened to Sunny?"
Oh, crabapples. Right. She hadn't told Crystal about the whole 'two partners' thing. That didn't fit within her happy little rose-colored world of romance, so Velvet had just avoided it.
Well, she wasn't really in the mood to fight about it, so she said in the most casual tone she could muster, "Huh? They all got back together, you knew that." She started to pace, giving a small wiggle of her ears in hopes of brushing past the topic. "Anyway, Silent and Sunny work together, so I can't imagine he wouldn't invite her."
Crystal raised a hoof. "Slow down just a second! Work together?" After a brief pause to mull it over, her eyes went wide with realization. "Her Sunny is the Lieutenant Sunny?"
Velvet swallowed. Keep calm. "Yeah, her." Act normal. "Soarin, though." Move on. "Soarin, yeah, we'll need to add him."
Shock, disbelief, and a bit of awe showed in Crystal's slack-jawed gawk. "The vice commander from the Wonderbolts?"
There was no avoiding it, was there? She bit the inside of her cheek and said, "Yeah. Sunny and Soarin. Add their names to the list."
Crystal didn't move at first, instead just staring back at Velvet. She was trying to grapple the idea, wasn't she? A pony loving two ponies. Well, not every pony wanted the same thing! Ponies were different. Crystal's way wasn't the only way. Right?
"Are we talking about the same Azurite?"
Velvet burst into laughter. "Yes! Little Azurite wrangled herself two pretty important ponies, it's crazy, I know!"
"She—two—three—" Crystal clenched her eyes shut, then snapped them back open wider than before. She dropped her gaze as if that would help, then looked back up. "Does she—well, are they—" She shook her head and cleared her throat. "I-I suppose it's not entirely unheard of, three ponies in a relationship together, I just, well, I've never actually known a pony who was!"
The reaction was funny, but that humor only lasted so long before Velvet's sour mood resurfaced. Crystal sure was struggling with it, wasn't she? Her ears started to fold back as a bitterness bubbled up in her chest. "You don't have a problem with it, do you?"
"A problem with it?" Crystal waved a dismissive hoof. "No! If they all love each other and they're happy together, then of course I don't! I just can't fathom being in a relationship like that myself."
Love.
Of course.
Love was all that mattered to Crystal.
Velvet tried to breathe in, but her throat had closed up. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach and all she wanted to do was cry, but she shoved those feelings down. Crystal could never understand.
"Great!" she chimed, smiling. "So add them to the list. Or—" An idea struck her, pulling her out of the depths and back into amusement. "Actually, you know what? Send it Azurite plus two. It'll be funnier that way."
Crystal gasped softly. "You want me to invite the lieutenant of Princess Celestia's House Guard and the vice commander of the Wonderbolts as pluses? Won't that be insulting?"
Yes! And that's what made it such a great idea! Velvet grinned wider. "No way, they have a sense of humor! It'll be funny!"
"I'm not so sure," Crystal mumbled, her ears folding back. She sighed and put a smile back on. "Do you have any extended family you want to invite?"
Velvet's head tilted to one side, her ears flopping independently of each other. "You mean, my parents' parents and siblings?" She tried not to snicker. "Yeah! We haven't all gotten together in, like... in years!"
Of course, that was mainly because it was a dangerous combination. When her grandmothers were in the same room, mischief typically ensued. Grammy and Nanny were fairly harmless by themselves, but their powers combined was a force to be reckoned with. And Velvet loved it.
"Write them down while I get started on dinner," Crystal said as she started toward the kitchen.
Velvet blinked. When had she stood up? Probably between the thought of Grammy and Nanny swapping ponies' water with wine and swindling extra slices of cake.
"Your mom's parents are the ones that make the banana nut bread every year for Hearth's Warming gifts, right?"
"What?" Velvet scoffed at the thought. "No, those are my dad's parents, d'uh." She stared at the quill and frowned. She hated writing with quills; they couldn't be held in the mouth, and they were so flimsy held between hooves. "My mom's parents are the ones that made that inedible fruit cake that we threw off the side of Canterlot after you got drunk on eggnog."
"Oh, right, yes. The ones who can't cook."
Velvet just snorted. She had to focus on writing out names, one agonizing stroke at a time. D... o... s...e... y... Stupid quill. "Don't be like that. Nanny could crochet your mom's tail into anything you wanted when she wasn't looking. It wouldn't be hard to convince her!"
"Are you just another face in a long line of rapscallions?" Crystal asked, laughing softly.
There! Velvet looked down at her writing, pleased with herself.
Dosey & Bitter + w/e
Berry & Whcollar + w/e
That was good enough, right? Of course it was! "Yup! It's in my blood!"
Crystal looked up from her dinner preparations, grinning. "Is it just the mares, or do I need to worry for Red's future?"
"That's a good question." Velvet tilted her head and furrowed her brow. Nanny Berry was a troublemaker, but Pappy Collar... "Pappy is pretty laid back, so I guess it's just the mares."
Crystal giggled. "Good. I prefer him cute and innocent. I—"
The sound of the lock clicking and the front door opening drew their attention over to Silent Knight. Great. Just when she was feeling normal, Mr. Stealing Her Friend had to show up. Mr. True Love. Mr. Love Is Better Than Friendship.
"I'm home," he said, pausing when his gaze met Velvet's. He blinked a few times and added, "Hi, Velvet."
Yeah. Hi, Velvet, indeed! She was here. She was here for Crystal when he wasn't. Was love really that much better than friendship?
"Well, well, well!" She stood up and flicked her tail. "Look who is on time for dinner!"
Silent's brow raised, but his expression remained neutral. "I could say the same to you. Are you staying to join us tonight? You don't have somewhere else to be?"
The hairs of her coat around her shoulders and neck started to stand on end as she huffed. He was part of the problem. He was just another romantic interest in the Equestria-wide delusion that love was all that mattered! Why couldn't he just go away? Wasn't Crystal happy before he came along?
"What, are you trying to kick me out?" Her tail flicked again. If she could just have things back to the way they were...
"Not at all." His tone stayed even as his head shook. "I just don't see you much lately. I would be happy if you had dinner with us."
She felt her nostrils flare, so she wiggled her ears to keep her appearance friendly. What did he have that she couldn't provide? She could treasure Crystal. She could make her laugh. What was so special about love?
"Sure you would," she teased, then waved a hoof to shoo him. "I think you should go back to work. You're totally cutting into my time with Crystal!" Her eyes narrowed just slightly. "She was mine first, you know!"
Silent laughed. Oblivious colt. "Mm, I will first thing in the morning." He winked, then started to remove his armor. "I'll be leaving for Haven for a while, so she'll be all yours again. I just want to spend some time with her before then."
He was always leaving. Leaving for work, leaving for Haven, leaving for secrets. She wanted to punch that stupid face of his that was stealing her friend away.
"You might want to watch your jealousy, though," he said. "Green isn't a good color for you."
Velvet sucked in a breath. Was it that obvious, or was he just teasing? Heat burned the back of her neck and she narrowed her eyes. "Oh yeah? Wanna fight about it?" Slowly, she started to back away and onto the couch. She needed the higher ground. He was a big brute that had a huge height advantage over her, after all.
Silent's brow raised as he looked her over. He didn't think she was serious. Oh, she was super serious! If she could just get one good hit in, maybe she'd feel better. Maybe the feelings in her chest would calm if she could just hurt him, just a little. If somepony else in the room could be hurting like she was.
Finally, he chuckled and started walking toward the kitchen, exposing his back. "Bring it, tiny dancer!"
Sizing up the distance between them, Velvet steadied herself. One good pounce. If she could catch him off-guard and topple him over...
She put all of her strength into kicking off the couch and springing into the air so she could hit him with the entirety of her weight. The wind was momentarily knocked out of her lungs when her chest collided with his strong back, but she braced herself for impact with the floor.
No impact came, however. She blinked her eyes open and looked down to see him completely unmoved. "What? You were supposed to fall over."
Silent resumed walking. "Sorry," he said while she tugged on his neck to no avail, "but you don't weigh nearly enough."
Velvet leaned to the right, grabbing onto his mane with her teeth for extra tugging power. She then jerked all of her weight to the right. He just kept walking. She spat out his mane and slumped against his neck. "Seriously, what in Equestria are you made of?!"
"Steel and vinegar."
Steel was accurate for sure. Sweet Celestia! Tumble was built like a stud, but Silent? Okay, so maybe she saw what Crystal liked about him. Or felt, rather. He was like a rock beneath her.
Silent carried on, placing a kiss on Crystal's cheek and asking about her day. Slowly, Velvet's ears folded back. Crystal looked so genuinely happy. The way her eyes lit up when Silent talked to her. The way her cheeks flushed lightly from the lame little peck of a kiss.
The way Velvet could have not been there and Crystal wouldn't have even noticed...
---
Velvet paced outside a door, muttering incoherently to herself under her breath until she stopped dead in her tracks and just stared at the floor. Finally, with a trembling breath, she turned to face the door and knocked on it. Her heart pounded as she waited and, when the door opened to reveal Painted's face, Velvet nearly shouted before the mare could greet her, "I need your help, if you're not busy!"
Wide eyes blinked owlishly at her for a moment that was otherwise filled with silence. Painted Wave then pushed her glasses into place and offered a light smile. "Come on in! Verd's gone out for groceries, so it's just me and the cats right now. You want some coffee? Tea?" She turned away, giving a light flick of her head to gesture Velvet inside.
Velvet swallowed and watched her hooves as they led her inside, as though she were subservient to their direction. "Um, tea." She walked over to the couch, but instead of sitting, she just stared at it.
This was a mistake. Why was she here? Because Painted could help. Maybe. Possibly. Back when Crystal had been terrified after the changeling invasion, Painted had helped her.
"Are you a real therapist?" Velvet finally asked in a trembling voice. "Or did you just help Crystal out as a friend?" Her ears pinned back and her gaze flickered from the couch to Painted, who was in the kitchen. "I mean, are you... If I told you stuff, would it be confidential, or whatever?"
Painted's head turned to peer at Velvet, a mild look of surprise on her face that quickly gave way to a soft, understanding smile. "As somepony that considers herself your friend as well as a therapist, I can assure you that if you need to talk about something that's bothering you, you can talk about it safely and securely here."
Velvet took a deep breath in and held it. Painted wouldn't judge her for the truth. Right? Slowly, she lowered herself onto the couch and just sat there in silence, waiting. Stalling.
After a while, Painted came back into the main area with a tray of teacups and a steaming kettle engulfed in her pearlescent magic. She poured a cup and floated it over to Velvet before taking a seat beside her. "You have my word as both friend and healer that what is said here today will not be repeated by me. Or the cats." A grin spread across her lips, though it still had a gentleness about it. "So, what's the dig, twinklehooves?"
"Twinkle—" Velvet sputtered into laughter that calmed her for a moment, but her muscles still visibly twitched with nervous agitation. "Okay. All right. And thanks."
Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her hooves around the teacup and held it closer so the steam hit her face. It smelled great. All the earthy tones filled her nostrils like a warm, scented embrace. Her gaze darted away from Painted's while she stalled for more time by sipping the tea as slowly as she could.
The weight of the unfilled time took its toll on her, however, and she sighed heavily. "How do you know if you're the unreasonable one, or if somepony else is?" A frown tugged at her lips. "I mean, if you make an agreement, and they agree to that agreement, then isn't it agreed? Ugh, no, what I mean is..."
A slight tilt angled Painted's chin, both ears fixed firmly forward to give Velvet her full and undivided attention.
Velvet groaned and set down the teacup to free her hooves so that she could bury her face in them. In a tentative voice, she continued, "Can't ponies just have sex and be friends? Why does there have to be more to it than that? Why do they have to make it... so stupid and complicated?"
With a light grin, Painted nodded. "Ponies can absolutely just have sex. Not all relationships that involve sex have to lead to something 'deeper' or more emotionally involved. The complication comes with the one thing in all the world that is consistent—and that is that nothing is consistent. Change happens, whether we want it to or not.
"While something like 'just sex' may start out that way, and everypony involved agree that that's what it is intended for, the desire to be emotionally close can develop when you're spending a lot of time with somepony. Feelings that may not have existed in the beginning can creep in."
Painted breathed in, then relaxed back into the couch. "When it comes to sex and feelings, there is no one right answer or way to look at things. Because what is right, and what feels right, is unique to the individual."
Velvet kept her head tilted forward to hide her face, but the tell-tale trembling of her shoulders gave away the poorly hidden secret. Everything she had been shoving down was bubbling up all at once. A few, hot tears slid down her cheeks and pattered against the now tightly wrung hooves in her lap.
"Then why does it feel like I'm wrong," she muttered, the words carved out with a bitter tinge. "I don't want to get married. Horsey got married, and now that Crystal's engaged, it's like all eyes are on me like it's supposed to be my turn or something. Even Dawn—" She swallowed, her breath hitching at just saying the name.
Dawn's face flashed through her mind and twisted her stomach into knots. Those hurt eyes. Those angry eyes. All her fault.
"Even Dawn. That's what she said, that we should 'settle down'. But I don't want that!" She pulled her hindlegs up onto the couch and curled her tail around herself. "Everything was just fine. Dawn and Tumble and me. It was just fine. Then Dawn had to go and try to change things. Now I feel like I'm the bad pony because I don't want to be with anypony in that way! I like things the way they are, so why does everypony want me to change?"
With an angry, frustrated sigh, she dropped her head down. "Why can't I just be me and that be okay?"
Painted allowed the air to settle before she spoke up in that soothingly calm voice of hers. "It feels like you're wrong because you're having other ponies' expectations pressed upon you. That just because Horsey got married and Crystal got engaged, and because mares throughout history have seemed to always do the same, surely that must be what every mare could ever want and hope for in life. But, and this is important..."
The tingle of magic tickled the underside of Velvet's chin and guided her head upward to force her to meet Painted's gentle but serious gaze.
"You are not wrong. Not even in the slightest. What is right for somepony else does not at all mean that it is also right for another. You know what you want out of a relationship, and if you were to try and conform to what somepony else thought you should want, you would be miserable.
"You are not a bad pony. You are not wrong. You are you, and that is more than okay. If somepony tries to make you feel like that's not okay because it doesn't fit their personal description of okay... you show them the door."
Velvet's eyes, glossed over with tears, clenched shut and she made a clear effort to force a smile onto her lips, but they refused to lift. Instead, her lower lip quivered and she rubbed at her cheeks with the back of one foreleg. "Would it have been so hard for you to have been my friend years ago?" A short burst of laughter escaped her before it was overtaken by a sniffle. "Hearing this would have saved me a lot of sleepless nights."
The playful grin she was more accustomed to found its place back on her face. "Or, well, just sleepless nights from being confused 'bout all this stuff, anyway. I'm fine with the others as they w—" Glancing over at Painted, she froze.
An openly surprised look had overtaken Painted's expression. Her eyes widened briefly before they skirted off to the side and then down to the teacup that she had set on the table. The cup was given a long, thorough examination before her mouth opened, only to close again in thought.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to Velvet and allowed a small sigh to fall. "Would it have been hard for me to have been your friend years ago? The answer is yes—but not because of anything having to do with you. I was a very different pony years ago, and would have made a dreadful friend. To anypony."
"Oh, um." Velvet twiddled her hooves, chewing on her lower lip. "Sorry if I made you remember something uncomfortable? I was just teasing, I didn't know, well, yeah."
A short laugh bubbled up from Painted's throat. "Of course you didn't know. I'm not angry or upset, so don' worry about feelin' awkward. Nopony can read minds. At least I think so, anyway." Her tone was gentle, and honest, and her words were supported in their sincerity by the look that settled onto her face. "Point is, we're all different ponies. And just because somepony is different than what other ponies have seen around them their whole lives, doesn't mean they're wrong. Just different. It'd suck big if we were all the same, I think."
"Yeah..." Velvet nodded. "I think so, too." She laughed weakly and rubbed at her eyes. "Wow, I kind of went full cryfilly there on you, didn't I? Sorry."
With a grin, Painted finally met Velvet's gaze again. "Tears are nature's way of shedding some of the bad off of us so we can move on with a little less weight resting on our shoulders. Tears are okay." Turning her head, her shimmering magic rippled to life and retrieved a tissue box from around the corner.
Velvet grabbed a haphazard hoofful of the tissues to smother her face in their soft, absorbent embrace. When she resurfaced from drying her tears, she smiled. "Everything you're saying makes sense. I just, well. I've just always felt weird for being different from Horsey and Crystal. But I should have known that was silly, 'cause I mean, Tumbler isn't asking me to change. I guess I just..." She sighed heavily, lifting and dropping her shoulders in an almost resigned shrug. "I guess I just need to have a talk with Dawn."
Setting the crumpled mess of tissues down, she replaced them by picking up her cup of tea. "Thanks for hearing me out. I thought I was going to lose my mind for a while there. I... kind of think I actually did lose it a few times."
Taking a sip form her own tea, Painted gave a nod and rubbed at the back of her neck with a hoof. "It can be really tough when everypony around you is convinced that every mare is a round peg meant to go in a round hole. Because that's what mares have done before, surely it must be what they should do now. But not all mares are round pegs. Some are square and like to dance ballet and not have to worry about emotional attachment. Some are triangular and prefer wearing armor to dresses."
Painted set her teacup down, rested her cheek against a hoof, and leaned on it. "Something I do want to mention, though, as a caution. While you're justified in feeling the way you do, I'd urge you to be gentle when you talk to Dawn about it. It takes courage to speak up when you start having feelings that may not be reciprocated, or even wanted. Not that I'm a gamblin' mare, but I'd wager you care enough about her to not want to hurt her intentionally."
"Well." Velvet's ears fell flat to the sides and an odd look crossed her face, a mix between a small grin and a confused scrunch of her nose. "Funny you mention that. Yeah, of course I care about her. That's part of what we fought about, in a way..." She cleared her throat, then recalled in a higher-pitched voice, "What do you mean, you don't want to be my special somepony? Don't you like me?"
With a small snort, her tone dropped back to normal. "I told her I cared about her, but more like a friend, you know? That was totally the wrong answer, because then she went off about how friends don't sleep together, that I've been leading her on."
A hoof raised to sternly accentuate her point with a small shake as she continued, "I made it clear from the very beginning that we weren't a couple, and if she wanted more, she'd have to find somepony else! I've been upfront since the start about that and I swear to that on my lucky slippers!"
Velvet sighed, leaning back into the couch and folding her forelegs over her chest. "Everypony deserves happiness, and if for her that's in a relationship, then fine! I'm happy for her! I just don't know why she thinks it has to be me." She huffed lightly.
"If you've been upfront and clear from the get-go about what you were looking for in this arrangement," Painted said slowly and carefully, "I'd bet her accusation of you leading her on is just anger talking. Sooo, yeah. She's gonna have to look elsewhere if she's wantin' something more candlelight dinner and long walks on the beach-y."
Painted gave a light shrug and chuckled. "Look, twinklehooves. Setting aside the therapist hat and just talking as a friend, I think what's best is to let her cool off for a bit, then have a talk. Just be gentle about it. She'll have to figure things out for herself from there."
"Yeah..." Velvet stared down at the floor. "I'll talk to Dawn." All right, she could do that much. But what was she going to say to make everything better?
Slowly, her ears started to droop. Perhaps that was the point. She couldn't always just fix things or keep them the way she wanted. Perhaps… it was time to face that fact and accept it.