“No sign of Pinny Lane anywhere. This is frustrating,” Pinkie Pie said as she sat down with a plop. She began to tap upon her chin with her hoof as she contemplated the whereabouts of the missing pony. “We’ve checked the bowling alley.”
“Twice, at your insistence,” Tarnish added.
“Well, where else would you find a pony with a bowling cutie mark?” Pinkie Pie asked. Still pondering, the pink pony prone to pronking peered at Tarnish’s sapphire amulet. It was glowing a soft, gentle shade of blue, and it was almost hypnotic to look at. “Maud, you feeling better?”
“Nope.” Maud turned to look at her sister. “Still angry.”
Sighing, Pinkie Pie shook her head. “Maud, you need to forgive—”
“Says who?” Maud retorted in deadpan, cutting her sister off.
“Nevermind… let’s just keep looking for Pinny.” Pinkie Pie looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tarnished Teapot’s mother. “The things I’ll go through to throw a party.”
“I wonder where she could be?” Tarnish looked at Pinkie Pie and then at Maud. Leaning over, he stretched out his neck and gave Maud a little peck on the cheek. A lock of Maud’s mane curled up, and Tarnish, seeing this, was pleased to have some sign of Maud’s inner happiness returning.
Pinkie Pie, thinking aloud, contemplated a nearby house that that was being constructed. “You know, I don’t understand why they are rebuilding with thatched roofs on the cottages… the thatch is so flammable. It’s like they want disaster to happen.”
“Let’s just keep moving.” Maud reached out and prodded her sister. “We have a lot of ground to cover and Tarnish is a slowpoke.”
“Hey… I get around pretty good on three legs.” Tarnish lifted his head high and let out a disconcerted sniff.
The Ponyville Clock Tower struck two as Maud, Tarnished Teapot, and Pinkie Pie approached. Pinkie Pie, seeing a familiar blue mane, picked up her pace while Maud and Tarnish continued to walk together, side by side, Maud’s single curl bobbing just behind her ear.
“We found… you.” Pinkie Pie’s last word came out as a sorrowful gasp. She took a deep breath, held it, and looked at Pinny Lane. The mare had been crying. This was not turning out to be a good day for anypony. Pinkie Pie’s held breath slipped out in a lip flapping raspberry as she deflated.
Pinny, seeing her son, wiped her nose with her foreleg, sniffled, wiped again, and then looked at Tarnish with teary eyes. “It was here… this place.”
“What happened here?” Tarnish asked his mother.
“This is where we talked. About you. About our agreement. About what I needed from him.” Pinny sniffled some more and then shook her head. “I was young and stupid I guess. I sometimes wonder what I was thinking. We came to an agreement here. I broke that agreement today. Jeff was angry. He felt that I had betrayed his trust.”
Pinkie Pie, feeling a sudden creeping manifestation of terror, turned to look at Maud, and worried that she might have to put her sister in timeout again, a feat that might take all of the Elements of Harmony and each of the four known princesses. There was that murderous look upon Maud’s face again. The glint of anger in her sister’s eyes. The fury. Pinkie’s growing fear made her throat feel dry, and her knee became pinchy.
“He actually told me that this was just further proof that mares can’t be trusted. I don’t know what I saw in him. At the time, he seemed so… wonderful. He was a stallion that bucked society and did what he wanted. Now, he just seems like…”
“A jerk!” Pinkie shouted. “He hurt Tarnish. He came into Sugarcube Corner and acted like a… like a… a real meanie-head.” Pinkie Pie cast a sidelong glance at her sister. She didn’t like the look on Maud’s face at the moment.
“I’m sorry… Tarnish, I’m so sorry. I brought it up and it caused a big fight between us. He played it cool but I could see that he was angry.” Pinny Lane sighed and then hung her head. “He says he’s leaving Ponyville… says it’s become a bad scene and has too many negative vibes now. He didn’t say where he was going. I hope I never see him again.”
“I’m sorry,” Tarnish said as he moved closer to his mother, not quite knowing what to do. He felt a growing sense of unease, of worry, and guilt, as if somehow, he was the cause of all of this.
“Baby, don’t be sorry.” Pinny Lane, her lower lip quivering, looked at her son. “I guess you can’t help who you fall in love with. At least you found a good mare. You stay with her Tarnish, she’ll be good to you. There’s something to be said for conservative family values.”
“That’s kinda why we came to find you.” Tarnish said.
“This was supposed to have a happy ending. This was supposed to end with everypony getting what they wanted.” Pinny Lane shook her head, lost within her thoughts, it was clear that she hadn’t heard Tarnish and what he had said. “Free love. No strings attached. A new way of doing things. A new era. A new age of enlightenment. Everypony was supposed to get what they wanted and we were all supposed to be happy… but it didn’t turn out that way.” Pinny Lane squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
Tarnish, not knowing what to say to make his mother feel better, glanced at Maud and Pinkie Pie, hoping beyond hope that one of them might know what to do or say to make this better.
Pinny’s eyes opened. “Letrotski wanted me. He loved me, or said he did, but it was a ‘far out and groovy love’ and not a ‘selfish I want to keep you to myself’ love. He made it sound so romantic. It took a lot of convincing on my end, but he gave me my dream. Sometimes I wonder if he loved me at all, or if he was just in love with being in love with me and all the others. I wanted more, but I settled, I was happy to have Tarnish. Those eleven months… I felt so empowered. I was bucking the system… Letrotski kept telling me that. I was the brave single mare that was going to fight the system by being a single mom and I was going to be this great feminist role model. I was going to change the world.” Bitter tears crept down Pinny’s cheeks as she poured her heart out and her voice cracked several times from emotion.
Hearing his mother’s words, Tarnish felt an ache in his heart and a heaviness in his body. He sat down and not long after sitting, he felt a solid foreleg wrap around his withers, pulling him closer. He thought about what his father had said, about having two mares for lunch, and then weighed those words against his mother’s. He felt sick. Glancing at Pinkie, Tarnish realised that the pink mare looked as though she was going to start crying at any moment.
“I don’t feel empowered. I feel bitter, I feel empty, and after today, I feel disappointed with myself.” Pinny turned and looked at her colt. “I’m sorry Tarnish. You’re the only thing I don’t regret in my life… but I still feel so awful over what I’ve done to you.”
“Pinny, we came looking for you so we could find you and tell you that Tarnished Teapot and I are getting married. At the town hall. Today.” Maud’s words were blunt and to the point, and Maud wasted no time making her feelings known.
“Really?” Pinny’s eyes went wide and she stared at both Maud and Tarnish.
Pinkie Pie, sniffling, nodded and gave Pinny Lane a watery smile. “Yeah. These crazy lovebirds… they’re gonna do it. And it’s going to be romantic and perfect and somehow this day will end and it will be just perfect and it had better be perfect, because let’s face it, this day has been full of nasty, no good, not niceness so far.”
“You know, when this idea was first sprung on me, I had some doubts… some worries… but after hearing my mother talk about my father… and having met my father… I dunno… those doubts are gone. Those worries are fading. I don’t want to make those same mistakes. I’ve made enough mistakes already… I’ve done some really, really stupid stuff. And whatever it is that my dad is, I want to become the opposite of that. I don’t want to be my father’s son.” Tarnish sucked in a deep breath, held it, his cheeks puffed out, and he let it out a little at a time from between puckered lips.
“Tarnish, life is all about the choices we make. I’m still debating planting Jeff Letrotski in the ground. He likes fertilising stuff. He would be useful for making flowers grow. We could plant him in a field of poison joke—”
“Maud, not funny.” Pinkie Pie looked at her sister.
“I’m not joking. I’m an earth pony. We plant stuff. It is in our nature. I want to return Jeff Letrotski to the earth.” Maud blinked, her ears pinned back, and then she pulled Tarnish closer. “Plus, the jerk hurt Tarnish. And Pinny. And Pinny is about to be my mother in law. I don’t like that pony… I hope I never see him ever again.” Maud leaned over, pressed her lips against Tarnish’s cheek, and planted a loud smacker of a kiss.
“Tarnish, it is very brave of you to do this. You’re showing remarkable maturity for a colt your age.” Pinny sniffled and smiled at her colt. “I’m proud of you. All of this has to have been so hard on you, and you’re just soldiering on somehow.”
Blushing, Tarnish was unable to reply. He thought about everything that had happened today, everything that had taken place, leading up to this point. He thought about what it meant to be a stallion. To do the right thing. To take responsibility. He thought about Dodge City Junction and his fling with the painted mare. He felt a moment of burning shame for what he had done, he thought about his father, he thought about being careless, shiftless, and bucking responsibility. He could have had his life in control up to this point. The answers had been available all along, but he had shown no motivation, no drive, no sense of doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. And he had suffered for his shiftlessness. For years, he had the perfect excuse, the little blue flower on his backside.
“Maud, will you marry me?”
“I thought we already had this planned.” Maud looked at Tarnish and then moved her head closer, coming snoot to snoot.
“I think I just grew up a little. I had some thoughts. I got some stuff sorted out in my head. I realised a few things about myself in the span of just a few seconds and I want to be the stallion that you deserve, not the little curious colt that follows you around because of love-crazed infatuation,” Tarnished Teapot said, just saying everything in his heart with no shame or embarrassment.
“Hmm. I see.” Maud paused, and her bored, sleepy expression intensified. “I guess I’ll need to think about it.”
“Maud… you… there’s that humour again… this is what I love about you.”
“It might help me make up my mind if I hear more about the things about me that you love.” Maud leaned in a little closer, now eye to eye with Tarnish.
Tarnish let out a little embarrassed whimper. “Not in front of my mother.”
“So… let me get this straight. You love my humour… and the other parts of me that you love, you can’t say in front of your mother—”
“Maud, no! That isn’t what I was saying at all… I… no… no… ugh…” Stammering, Tarnish looked at his mother and as he did so, he could hear soft feminine tittering. Both his mother and Pinkie Pie were laughing.
“Tarnished Teapot, I will be your wife if you will be my research assistant and companion.” Maud leaned forward, closing the distance, and bumped snoots with Tarnish.
“I love you so much… let’s go and do this before anything else happens,” Tarnish said.
“Come on Pinny, we can cry at the wedding together and then we can laugh about all of this later.” Pinkie Pie lept and wrapped her forelegs around Pinny Lane, drawing her in for a hug. “I still gotta wrangle a cake… no matter, I keep a few around for emergencies.”