“He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he won’t work. He just stands there holdin’ that stupid… I mean, holdin’ that doll. Sorry, Twi.”
Twilight shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. And how long has he been like this?”
“Well, he’s been down all month. I thought it was just the unseasonable heat we’ve been havin’, but when Caramel left for Las Pegasus on Friday, he just shut down. I took him to Doctor Horse, and he just said Mac was depressed. And I could’a told you that.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “You said he got like this when Caramel left.”
“Yup. For Las Pegasus. To get married.” Applejack nodded, as though that proved anything.
Twilight tapped her chin with one hoof. “And correlation isn’t causation, but…”
Applejack looked confused. “What isn’t what now?”
“I don’t mean to be indelicate, Applejack, but do Big Macintosh and Caramel have a, um, ‘special relationship’?”
“Reckon you gotta talk to him about that.” Applejack grimaced. “Good luck with that.”
We were in a private room in Twilight’s castle. I’d only ever been in the big throne room before. It looked like that took up almost the whole castle, but there were all sorts of corridors branching off from there, and lots of doors, I guess to more rooms like this one. The castle looked like Twilight and her friends had made some effort to make it homey, but it was way too big a place for just one mare and a little dragon. It echoed like crazy, too — I could make out the voices of two young mares having some kind of conversation about animals and the weather, elsewhere in the castle.
In this room, there were some big bright windows, a big chair, a long couch, and some bookshelves and tapestries. Not really my kind of place. I hugged Smarty Pants closer to my chest.
“Applejack, would you mind if I talked to your brother in private?”
“Whatever you need to do, Twi.” Applejack stepped up and wrapped her forelegs around me. “I love ya buddy,” she whispered. I sniffled. Damn allergies this time of year. Then she tapped quietly across the room, and let herself out into the hallway.
I dropped Smarty Pants on the floor, and pushed her towards Twilight with my hoof. “She’s yours, ain’t she?”
Twilight pulled a notebook, a quill, and an ink pot off one of the shelves with her magic, and wriggled backwards into the chair. “I think you need her more than I do, right now. Now, what I want to do is called psychotherapy. It’s supposed to be great for resolving friendship problems. I’ve been reading about it for a while, and I wanted to give it a try, to judge its clinical effectiveness. Why don’t you have a seat?”
I scooped Smarty Pants back up, and stayed right where I was.
“Or just anywhere is fine. So,” she said, opening up her notebook to the first page, “what’s bothering you?”
I stared at her.
She smiled at me, and wrote something in her notebook. Then she looked back up. I continued to stare at her.
“You’re supposed to tell me why you’re unhappy, now," said Twilight, cheerfully. “Then I can tell you why you should feel better.”
I frowned, and continued to stare. My eyes were getting dry. I thought about blinking, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. She looked up at me, then looked down at her notebook, her quill working furiously. What was she even writing about? I wasn’t saying anything.
“Psychotherapy is colloquially referred to as ‘the talking cure’. That means you’re supposed to talk. I can’t read your mind, you know.” She grinned at me, then looked thoughtful. “Well, technically I can read your mind, but Celestia says that’s an ‘invasion of privacy’ and ‘an egregious abuse of my powers not befitting my position as a princess’ and that I should ‘never, ever do it again’.” But I’m like, whatever. Would you like me to read your mind? Would that be easier?”
“Nope.”
Twilight scowled. “Well, are you going to talk to me?”
“Nope.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Well, that’s a problem, because I promised Applejack I’d help you, and ‘always keep promises to your friends’ was friendship lesson number 273! Or was it 189?” She levitated another notebook over to herself, and began leafing through it.
This was stupid. I wasn’t sticking around for this. She couldn’t keep me here. I stood up, tossed Smarty Pants onto my back, and stalked towards the door. I had my hoof up to push it open when I was surrounded by a dim purple light and dragged backwards across the floor. I guess she could keep me here.
“Would it help if I told you that anything said in this room stays between us? And that I can never tell it to anyone, ever? I mean, unless you’re planning to hurt somepony. But I don’t think that that’s what this is about.”
I sighed. Talkin’ never helps matters. But since I was stuck here ’til I did talk, I figured I might as well try some of that honesty AJ is always on about. “I’m sad ‘cause Caramel is getting married.”
“Well, life is full of changes. And things will be different, between you, but…”
I rounded on Twilight. “Don’t you talk to me like that. I ain’t a foal. There’s more to it than that. You know I’ve been seeing Cheerilee since Apple Bloom and her friends set us up on Hearts and Hooves day a couple of years ago. I really care about her, and we ain’t been together, but that’s only ‘cause she don’t believe in sex before marriage. And we’re gonna get married, and I want to. But I also been toppin’ Caramel since he started workin’ with us five years ago. I ain’t no coltcuddler, but we’re friends, you know? And I gotta nut, sometimes, and he don’t mind takin’ one for the team. In fact he really loves it.”
Twilight looked confused. “You’re having sex with Caramel, but you think you’re not homosexual?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, wait, I get it. You’re working with the classical Equestrian standard, where only the passive partner in same sex relations is considered homosexual! It’s fascinating to find out that these antiquated mores are still at work in rural Equestria!” She began scribbling furiously in her notebook. "Nowadays we just call that being 'bisexual'."
I glared at her.
“Listen, I know you were raised to think it was unbefitting a stallion to engage in certain sexual acts. But these days… well, at least in Canterlot, you can do whatever you want, and as long as it’s safe and consensual, nopony thinks any less of you for it.” Twilight grinned, and blushed. “Mares, stallions, maybe even, I don’t know, something crazy like having wild, incredible sex with your brother.”
My eyes bugged right out of my head.
“N-not that I’d ever do that,” said Twilight, backpedaling frantically. “But you know, just as a purely hypothetical example of something that I would never do and that definitely never, ever happened.”
I shook my head. I was hardly one to judge.
“Did I mention that confidentiality thing I talked about goes both ways?” A drop of sweat rolled down Twilight’s forehead.
“Eyup.”
“Okay, anyway, you were saying?
“So, I knew Cheerilee’d be powerful sore at me if she found out I’d been doin’ Caramel the whole time we’d been seeing each other. But what I didn’t know is that if… if…” my voice started to crack, and my eyes began to water “…that if Caramel found someponyelse, I’d feel so alone. Here I been makin’ a fool of the mare I love, and I've apparently been treatin’ my best friend such that he thinks he needs someone else to love him all his life. And I’ve been makin’ such a fuss about it that that I figure Cheerilee must’ve put two and two together by now, and… and…”
There was a flutter of wings, and the sound of a notebook and a bottle of ink hitting the floor, and Twilight’s arms were around me. “Oh, don’t cry! That’s a horrible situation to be in!”
“I ain’t cryin’. It’s liquid shame.”
“Just let it all out,” said Twilight, patting me awkwardly on the back. “Let all the shame out.”
I slumped to the floor, and pressed Smarty Pants against my face. “And now there ain’t nothing I can do.”
Twilight fluttered to the floor, and settled down on her haunches. “Have you tried being honest with everyone involved?”
I glared at Twilight. “Nope.”
“Because I think that’s the only way to move forward from here. It’s pretty much tell the truth, or go through the rest of your life lonely and bitter.”
“You sound like my sister.”
“Well, she is the bearer of the Element of Honesty. It’s kind of her thing.”
"If I tell everypony the truth, it's gonna make a whole huge mess of everything."
Twilight nodded, and stroked her chin. "I hadn't considered that. But honesty is supposed to be good, right?"
“I thought you were supposed to tell me why I should feel better.”
Twilight shrugged. “That doesn’t seem to be how this actually works. I’ll have to do more research.”
———
We talked a while longer — about my foalhood and what happened to my parents, mostly. When we were done, Twilight brought me some water to wash my face with, and sent me on my way. I was glad that was over. I slouched down the hallway, head hung low, Smarty Pants hanging out of my mouth by her leg and dragging on the floor.
I got as far as the end of the hall, and then froze. I was pretty sure I’d heard a soft rustling like feathers rubbing together. “I can hear you," I rumbled.
A small blue pegasus grinned at me from behind a large decorative planter. “You got me.”
I snorted. “Both ‘a you.” A yellow nose and blue-green eye peeked around the other side of the planter and then darted back behind it. Well, if it wasn’t my two least favorite of AJ’s friends.
AJ's friends are okay, overall. I can’t say anything bad about Twilight. She's everypony's hero, even if she causes a little bit of trouble every now and then. Pinkie Pie’s a hoot. I don’t really get Rarity, since I only wear clothes if there’s a coronation or a death or something, but she’s real pretty and nice, so she’s all right. But Fluttershy’s creepy. She lives by herself in a cabin at the edge of the woods that’s full of weird animals — she’s a crazy cat lady with a taste for variety. And she doesn’t ever talk, so who knows what she’s thinking?
And Rainbow Dash? She’s just mean. Mean and conceited.
Rainbow put out her wings and forelegs and stretched sensually, wiggling her tight little plot in the air. “So we couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Twilight.”
I literally saw red. I reared up, Smarty Pants clutched in my jaws, snorted, and raised my hooves.
“Set your jets, pal. It’s not like we could help it. The acoustics in this place are insane.” She waved at me dismissively. “Anyway, your secret’s safe with us. I’ve done way worse stuff, and Fluttershy here isn’t exactly prone to gossip.”
Fluttershy poked her head out from around the planter again, trembling, eyes wide. “I promise I won’t tell anypony. Please don’t hurt me.”
I slumped again. “So why are you botherin’ me?”
“So is it really true you're bisexual?” asked Rainbow Dash.
I didn't like the implications of that word, but I wasn't in the mood to argue. “Eyup.”
Rainbow Dash grinned salaciously. “Then we have a little proposal for you. But we gotta go someplace a little more secure to discuss it.”
Fluttershy scooted over next to Rainbow Dash, and ducked against her side. “Rainbow, I don’t know if this is the best idea.…” But Rainbow just wrapped a foreleg around her neck, and tousled her friend’s mane with her hoof.
“Don’t chicken out on me now, Flutterslut. This is gonna be epic.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
Rainbow hopped up into the air and headed for an open window. “You know where Fluttershy’s cabin is?”
“Eyup.” Since before it was her that lived there.
“Then meet us there in an hour. I promise we’ll make it worth your while.”
Fluttershy ducked her head and scuffed a hoof on the palace floor. “That is, if you want to. And you think you won’t get in any more trouble.” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she squeaked, and fluttered out the window after Rainbow.
Well, if that don't beat all.