//------------------------------// // Sugarcube Corner, pt. 1 // Story: There's More to Life than Books and Cleverness // by Quill Scratch //------------------------------// “Hey.” The greeting wasn’t harsh or angry, but Moondance still cringed at the sound of Lyra’s voice. After a moment, she collected herself, and looked up at her old friend, smiling in greeting herself. “You seem down today, Moony,” Lyra said, taking a seat opposite her. “I wouldn’t advise you did that here.” Moondancer frowned. “Why would my location have anything to do with whether or not I should seem down? It seems like that kind of thing would hardly be influenced by whether I was moping in your house, or moping in some baked-goods cafe.” Lyra chuckled, and nodded her head towards the counter. A mare that Moondancer could only describe as “pink” was standing on her hind legs behind it, calling out orders to the patrons and serving out food faster than she thought possible, with a wide grin and a wink. “You haven’t met Pinkie, have you?” Of course her name is Pinkie. What else could one possibly call her?” “No,” Moondancer said. “Is this important?” “That depends. How keen are you to be going to your own, last-minute welcome party toni—” “Gooood Moooooooooorniiiiiiiiiiiing!” The shrill voice was not something that Moondancer had been prepared for, not before she’d had her second coffee of the morning. She desperately wanted to clasp her hooves over her ears and just wait for the mare to go away, but she figured this would probably be poor manners in a cafe like this. So, instead, she turned to face the excitable pink mare, who was standing with her face hardly half a foot away from her own. “Uh,” she began, somewhat startled by the sudden proximity. “Good morning?” “Yes, it is a good morning, because you’re new in town! I’ve never seen you before, and if I’ve never seen you before that means you’re a new pony I’ve yet to make friends with, and that means that I get to throw you your very own “Welcome to Ponyville” party. I’m Pinkie Pie, by the way, and I’m Ponyville’s Permiere Party Pony—see? I have business cards. Go on, you can take a couple dozen, they’re really cool. I managed to get them made with a hologram, so you can see the balloons from aaaaall these different angles which is so cool I just want to scream! But I won’t because I’m right next to you and that would probably hurt. Anyway, what’s your name? Do you have any business cards? I’ve started collecting business cards, they make for a really good game…” “Pinkie Pie, this is Moondancer,” Lyra said, interrupting the torrent of words that seemed to be flowing out of Pinkie’s mouth like some kind of enchanted fountain with no need for a source (or, for that matter, breath. The mare hadn’t seemed to take one since before she started talking.) “Moondancer, this is Pinkie Pie. She’ll be throwing you a party tonight. You don’t get a choice in that.” Moondancer stared, wide-eyed at Lyra, who whispered “Sorry” under her breath while Pinkie Pie was distracted. Moondancer grimaced back, before mouthing “Don’t worry” back at her. “I don’t know where I’m going to hold it, though…” Pinkie said, grasping her chin with a hoof. “Sugarcube Corner is a no-go, it’s all booked out for the next week of evenings. And I’d usually try to use the town hall, but that’s still all damaged and destroyed from the last Big Bad Evil Thing that we totally managed to defeat with the power of Friendship Lasers. Or, I guess, we managed to defeat it by giving up our friendship lasers, which was a shame. I always thought that the best parts were when we could just zap anything that threatened Equestria with big, magical boomy friendship powers, and BAM! Big Bad Evil Thing no longer a problem! Life was so much easier back then…” Moondancer frowned as Pinkie Pie sighed, her eyes glazing over as she seemed to drift off into memory. But before she could turn to Lyra and ask what in tartarus was going on, Pinkie took a deep breath in and plastered a grin straight back onto her face. “OH! I know, we can ask Twilight if we could use the library! That’s where I threw her Welcome to Ponyville party, and it went down a treat. And it would be really narratively satisfying, because in a lot of ways you’re meant to be a foil to Twilight demonstrating how she could have turned out if she didn’t discover the awesome power of friendship lasers, and how this entire story is really meant to be a parallel of her journey to self-acceptance through your character. Well, it was meant to be that, but Quill decided to try to write the whole thing in just 24 hours, which is just the silliest idea I mean who does that?” And suddenly, Moondancer was less sure that she was wholly comfortable with this idea. But she stayed quiet, because she had gotten the overall impression that Pinkie Pie might actually be an unstoppable force of nature. But the position of “Literal Embodiment of the Force of Chaos” was already taken, and Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what that left Pinkie with. Maybe she was just some kind of magical construct created by Discord to dow madness wherever she went? Given his latest behaviour, Moondancer wouldn’t be at all surprised by that. There was, of course, the worrying feeling in the pit of Moondancer’s stomach that she was going to have to go to this party, regardless of the fact that she didn’t want parties and she most certainly didn’t want to make friends. Having to still be friendly with Lyra and Bon Bon was enough trouble for her—and without access to the library to keep her distracted through the day, especially with the lack of research that she could possibly do (Lyra and Bon Bon rather stubbornly had only the one book in their house, and Moondancer wasn’t entirely certain that she wanted to study the relative literary merit of Fifty Shades of Neigh.) She was bored. For the first time in her life, Moondancer had no research to distract herself with, no books she could be reading, no problems she could solve and no knowledge she could seek. Was this why other ponies made friends? To while away the hours when one had no way to learn new things? That couldn’t be right: other ponies seemed to avoid learning where they could, from what she had seen. Lyra and Bon Bon’s literary situation was merely further evidence of that. “I’m not sure Twilight is going to be happy to host a party, Pinkie Pie.” Lyra to the rescue—always knowing exactly what words to say, even to somepony as intimidating as Pinkie. “She’s been a bit down since yesterday evening.” “Oh no,” Pinkie said, and all of a sudden her voice became grave and serious, dark as the night and deep as… who was that stallion she had met at the station on the way in? The tall, red guy. Pointed her towards the town hall, didn’t say much. About as deep as his voice. “Dashie didn’t tell her about her crush, did she?” Lyra glanced around the cafe, as if to make sure that nopony was listening in, before nodding softly. Pinkie’s eyes widened, and some of the bounce in her mane seemed to fade, as if she herself was physically reflecting the emotions of the world around her. But that made no sense: Twilight had been down since last night, why should Pinkie’s mane only react now? It couldn’t be Pinkie Pie who was sad, Moondancer reasoned. The very idea of Pinkie Pie even being remotely sad seemed almost alien to her, and though she had known the mare for only a few minutes she had already gotten the impression that she would go to the moon and back if it would stop somepony being sad. “Okay, Moondancer—we’re delaying your party by a few days. This is important.” Pinkie’s eyes were narrowed in steely determination, and she nodded to Lyra. “Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship is go!” And with that, the pink menace simply ducked under the table, and vanished. For a moment, Moondancer sat in shock, before peering under the table to look for any trace of the fluffy pink mane and tail, that should by all rights be poking out of the table somewhere, but Pinkie Pie was literally nowhere to be seen. It was more than just impossible: it was unthinkable. “Where did she—?” “That’s just Pinkie Pie,” Lyra said with a shrug, leaning back in her chair. “She does that.” “She does that,” Moondancer repeated, not quite believing what she was hearing. “She does that. How is that a valid explanation for anything?” “Do you always need an explanation for everything you see?” Lyra countered. “Sure, explanations can be nice, but some things just don’t make sense, and almost all of them have something to do with Pinkie Pie. I suggest you just let her be who she is and don’t press it.” Her brow furrowed, and she let out a light chuckle. “What is it?” Moondancer asked. “What’s so funny?” “She was right,” Lyra said. “You really are just like Twilight when she first came here. She spent so long trying to figure out what made Pinkie Pie work, and it almost killed her—she was in a cast for a week, almost her whole body. Poor dear… but it’s true what they say: Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, and you can’t do anything about it.” Moondancer wanted to refute that, to say that surely everything could be explained if the right models and the right underlying equations could be found, and that with enough time and effort, and a strong team of diligent, dedicated researchers, the mystery of Pinkie Pie could be cracked in weeks, or maybe months. But she stopped herself, because she was sure that this was exactly what Twilight had thought, too, and that if Twilight had thought it Twilight had probably tried it. And if Twilight had gone on to accept that “Pinkie Pie just being Pinkie Pie” was a valid explanation for something, then it was probably right (as much as she hated to admit it.) Lyra leaned forwards, taking a quick chug of her milkshake before letting out a loud sigh of contentment. “You know, Moondancer? This is all I want from life. A nice, tall glass of something cold and sweet, and a marefriend back home who knows how to work a dishwasher.” “You still haven’t figured that one out?” Moondancer raised her eyebrows, surprised. It had been years since the last time she’d seen Lyra try to use a dishwasher, but the memory was still clear as day—dark, soap-sudded water overflowing and oozing out of all kinds of nooks and crannies in the machine, the wooden floor damaged beyond repair. Lemon Hearts had stood on a kitchen counter, crying out for help while Lyra and Minuette had taken the initiative to try to bail the water out of an open window. Twinkleshine, the only one of the four with any common sense, had simply pulled the power cord on the machine, and let the whole thing simply turn itself off. “Hey, give me a break,” Lyra said, smiling wryly. “That day gave me a morbid fear of technology and kitchens. Some mornings I struggle to turn on the kettle without worrying that it’s going to overflow and burn me.” Lyra winked at her as she said it, and Moondancer chuckled appropriately. “So what do you do when you don’t have the cold drink?” she asked, smirking. “Does your life suddenly feel less complete?” “Nah,” Lyra replied. “I just come straight to Sugarcube Corner and get myself a milkshake. It’s a good life like that.” The two mares looked at each other for a second, letting the image of Lyra just running at full gallop to Sugarcube Corner in the middle of her work day because she was all out of milkshake sink in. And then, in perfect synchronisation, they bust out laughing; Moondancer snorted on her own milkshake, and the resulting mess sent the two into another fit of giggles. Maybe this was the reason ponies had friends? Somepony to make you laugh, to share good times with. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this conversation had she and Lyra not been friends, of a sort, and she wouldn’t have had the shared memory of the Dishwasher Disaster to laugh at, either. Was that all friendship was? Just an opportunity to share in the good times with somepony else, and in doing so make those good times better? It was more than that, Moondancer knew, but she certainly felt as if she was on the right track. “So,” Lyra said, the ghost of a laugh still hiding in the shallowness of her breaths, and the corners of her lips. “I was wondering… You know how you said you didn’t think anypony would want to be with you? Like a special somepony, I mean.” Moondancer nodded. Brief images of Twilight’s embrace flashed through her mind, and it took all her self control not to hold herself tightly in a cheap imitation. “I’m not going to try to tell you that somepony would, because you know my stance on this and I don’t think I’ll be able to change your mind if I tried. But—” Lyra frowned and leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper “—have you ever had anypony you’ve wanted to be with?” Moondancer blushed, lightly, but still shot Lyra her best unimpressed face. “Lyra, we’re not children anymore. You don’t have to treat crushes like they’re some kind of all-important, secret conspiracy. They’re just passing infatuations, nothing more.” “But if you can’t treat crushes like some kind of top-secret information, what can you treat like that?” Lyra scoffed. “It’s not like anypony we know has anything that actually needs to be kept under that level of secrecy. That’s half the fun of pretending!” Moondancer nodded, and decided to embrace the childish silliness of her friend. What harm could it do? If anything, she could have a bit of fun with it. She leaned forward and whispered back: “Yes!” Part of her wanted to giggle at that, taking the moment to relish in their childish attitude and her own breach of decorum, but another part of her mind told Moondancer that this wasn’t the right time for giggling. This was actually, in some ways, rather serious—Twilight had just damaged one of her own friendships because of a crush, and that was one of the strongest friendships in all of Equestria, one that had saved the nation time and time again. No, the very idea of risking her own friendship with Twilight overt something as silly as a passing crush was nothing more than whimsical stupidity, and she wasn’t going to even consider it. Lyra, though, grinned wide, wider even than Pinkie Pie, and quickly shot glances to their left and right. “Who?” she whispered. “I don’t want to say,” Moondancer said. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.” Lyra frowned, just as Moondancer realised she’d probably said too much. Though given her life of isolation, and the very few number of ponies she interacted with, saying anything at all would probably give the game away—it couldn’t be too hard to deduce that she was crushing on Twilight, not when she hardly saw anypony else these days. She watched, biting her lip, as the penny dropped for Lyra. “Oh,” she said, simply, before adding, “Sorry.” “It’s okay,” Moondancer said, letting her voice drift back to normal volume. “It’s not like it’s your fault at all. I just have to live with it, that’s all.” “At this point I’d usually say, ‘Why not just ask her?’” Lyra chuckled awkwardly beneath her breath. “But I think you’ve got a pretty good reason not to, so I’ll leave you be on that one.” “Thanks.” Moondancer smiled at Lyra, taking another sip of milkshake. “I appreciate it.” “Still,” Lray said, stretching back and rolling her shoulders, “I’m glad you have somepony you like. Even if, y’know, she’s probably the one pony in Equestria right now who you couldn’t make a move on. It shows you’ve not given up hope.” “I don’t think so,” Moondancer said, quietly. “I think it just means that I’m yet another foolish pony who is ruled by the chemistry that controls her brain, but that’s just me.” Lyra smiled, and shook her head. “No, I think it’s more than that. I think you genuinely think that there’s a chance Twilight might like you the way you like her—and I think you’ve been thinking about this for a lot longer than this last week.” Don’t be silly. Just because I think she’s pretty, and because I want to curl up with her and read books all evening, doesn’t mean that I have always thought that way about her! When we were fillies— You always wanted to impress her. And you wanted to be her friend, even though you didn’t really understand what “being a friend” meant or how to go about it. And you were the one to pay attention to that stallion asking her to prom, because you were afraid that she might say yes… Oh, Celestia-dammit. “I… How has it taken me so long to realise?” Lyra frowned at her, inclining her head in a gesture for her to continue, so she did. “All my life I’ve felt this way about her: even when we were just fillies all I wanted was to impress her and for her to notice me and to say ‘Well done, Moondancer’, or ‘Thanks, Moondancer, you did a great job there.’ And I wanted to be her friend, I knew that, always, but I never even knew what being a friend was. “And she’s beautiful, Lyra! She’s smart and funny, and kind and caring, and she’s absolutely, a hundred percent gorgeous. She’s the most talented mare I’ve ever met and I’ve spent my whole life just wanting to have her by my side and it’s taken my till now to realise it!” Lyra was just smiling up at her, looking almost proud, as if she had been waiting for this moment for years. And, to her credit, she probably had been. “How obvious was I?” Moondancer asked, quietly. “Be honest: how long have you known?” “Moondancer, you were so obvious that I don’t think I’ve ever not known,” Lyra said, smiling softly at her friend. “Even when we were fillies, and none of us really knew anything about what relationships and love were all about, I remember coming home from the first week of school and telling Mom about the two friends I’d made, and how they were going to be married when they grew up.” Moondancer sat in her seat, simply blinking at Lyra. All this time… years of her life, never quite being able to realise what it truly was that made her act the way she did. “So… when Twilight didn’t show up to the party…?” “Did you not even realise then?” Lyra’s eyes were wide, and she seemed to be doing her best not to smirk. “Wow, Moondancer, I knew you were pretty naïve about it all, but I’d assumed that that, at least, would have clued you in. You were distraught because one friend couldn’t make your party—but the rest of us still came! Did you really think she was just another friend like the rest of us?” “Well, no,” Moondancer said. “I’d always seen her as a best friend, you know? While the four of you would go off gallivanting on your strange little Dishwasher-filled adventures, I would always find myself just curled up on the sidelines, sitting next to Twilight and reading a book. It was nice. I liked it. “And then, one day, she wasn’t there anymore. And it wasn’t just the party—no, well before that. She’d started to shut herself away in her room, or in libraries, and I’d never get to see her, Lyra, not once and I just wanted her to be there with me, there and not halfway across the bloody city cooped up in some wing of an ancient library that I couldn’t access and she wasn’t, Lyra, she wasn’t and it wasn’t fair!” Her voice had risen to a shout, now, and Moondancer could see in her peripheral vision all of the customers of the shop just staring at her, some even pausing mid-bite of ice cream to turn towards the commotion. But despite the lack of decorum, Moondancer felt good, like a release valve had finally been turned on a boiler that had been building up pressure for too long, and now everything was simply flooding out. “I loved her, Lyra!” she shouted. “I loved her and I had no idea, and now I’ve finally realised what the hell has been going on in my head for my entire bloody life I can’t do anything about it! “I can’t even tell her,” she added, her voice quieter now, but still too loud. “I’m in love with Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I can’t tell her or I’ll never see her again.” And, of course, that was precisely the moment that Pinkie Pie chose to drag Princess Twilight Sparkle into Sugarcube Corner for a pick-me-up sundae.