//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: The Prince of Dust 
// by redsquirrel456 
//------------------------------//

Rarity stood at the front of town hall, stricken with a sharp feeling of deja vu. She had been here just a week prior, and Sheriff Silverstar sat over there, just like he did last time, Braeburn stood there, also just like he did last time, and she fanned herself just the way she was doing now. Goodness, it seemed even most of the townsfolk sat just where they were before. But the one thing that had changed was how it all made her feel. She no longer felt a chill down her spine or beads of sweat on her brow. She stood tall and matched them stare for stare. Each and every one was answered. She was confident. She was ready.

Not even the sight of Bona Fide scowling in the back could shake her confidence. 

“Rarity,” whispered Apple Tart as she snuck up next to her. “Are ya sure you don’t need anything else?”

“I will be fine,” said Rarity. “Coldcock and the others did as I asked, yes?”

“Eeyup. Your guests are waitin’ out back, an’ the rest of the town is none the wiser.” Apple Tart pursed her lips. “But I gotta say, of all the ideas I’ve heard from you, Rarity, this one definitely takes the cake. Are ya sure you wanna do this?”

“You ask me this now?” Rarity raised her eyebrow. “Right here when everyone is all assembled and we’re mere seconds from going through with it?”

Apple Tart scuffed her hoof, toying with the new braid in her mane Rarity made for her that morning. “Heh, I guess I’m more nervous than you, Rarity. Sorta hopin’ you would back out so I wouldn’t have ta’ admit it.”

Rarity put a hoof on her shoulder. “Come now.” She raised Apple Tart’s chin with a bit of magic. “Liberate yourself with the knowledge that no matter what happens, we did everything we could. When you do that, what happens afterward is all that ever could have happened, and you have nothing to feel guilty for.” Apple Tart managed a little smile as Rarity pushed her back towards the crowd. “Now go on and take your seat. Just seeing you out there will help me do what I have to do.”

Rarity stood back and sighed, centering herself. All that was left was to fix everything that had gone wrong. No pressure at all. She took her place on the dais at the front of the hall and cleared her throat for attention, despite the fact that most of the town had been staring at her expectantly since she walked in.

“Gentleponies,” she said, holding her head high, “let me begin by thanking you all for being here. Not just here at this meeting, but here. In Appleloosa, in Equestria, in each other’s lives. I know that times have been trying recently. Celestia knows you’ve all seen me rushing back and forth, trying to fix what I probably should have left well alone. But I brought you all here because I want to propose something that will put to rest every worry, every fear, every concern you may have. But it will require a little something from you, too: your trust, and your humility. For too long we have all focused on our own vanity; myself included. What we could do, what we could seize control of, and how our names above all others might be put down as the ones who solved the problem for everypony else. Others among us tried to be aloof, to wash their hooves of the entire debate, and hope to come out of it clean. But they too forgot that as ponies, we do nothing alone, or we perish. Our friendships, our bonds, are intrinsic to our being. There is no choice more desultory than to choose nothing. A spirited few have tried to compromise, to keep everyone happy, but that is no true solution. What does mere compromise do but take something from everyone?

“So I come to everypony to say: give. Give of your hearts and minds. Give of your own traditions, the things that you hold so close to your chests. Give of yourselves. Does Harmony count only for ponies? Does friendship extend only to those of unicorn, earth, and pegasus? How could we delineate further, drawing lines and borders between ourselves, saying: ‘Here, you will not cross’?”

Rarity paused for a moment, gauging the crowd’s reaction. Some of them looked disinterested. Even bored. Those were mostly in Bona Fide’s camp, of course. Others watched with rapt attention.

“When I first came here, I thought that magic and wonder could be found only in the places I’d known: Ponyville, Canterlot, those places near to Equestria’s heart. But then I learned, as you should from every new experience. I learned that magic could be found anywhere, even in the wilderness, even in the most desolate places on earth. Because we bring it there!”

She banged her hoof on the podium and amplified the sound with her magic. Everypony jumped.

“We, the magical, friendly ponies of Equestria, can bring magic and see magic all around us! Is it not intrinsic to our very natures? If only we’d just open our eyes! If only we’d just be friends. I ask you to be generous with your hearts! Generous enough to spread it to the whole land! Generous enough that it doesn’t matter how much is taken, because more is always ready to be given! I ask you to be generous as I have tried to be generous with all of you. You don’t have to answer, but ask yourselves this: how much are you willing to give, and to trust that you will be given to in return, not because you expect a reward, but because that is simply the way the world is?”

Some ponies looked down at their hooves and shuffled in their seats. Others glared obstinately. A bead of sweat tickled Rarity’s cheek. Sheriff Silverstar was inscrutable, but seemed pleased with himself all the same. In the back, Bonny sat stoic and tall. Rusty Hinges sat next to her, tugging at a bandana around his neck.

“I have brought representatives,” Rarity tried to say, but it came out rough and quiet and not at all inspiring.

She tried again, “I have brought representatives to discuss a new alignment in our thinking. Some you know. Others… not so much.” She tapped her hoof on the floor. “Apple Tart, Coldcock, if you’d be dears.”

The side door swung open, and the two ponies walked in with Ruff and two of his Dust Dogs in tow, and behind them, Little Strongheart.

There was an uproar, immediate and sustained, that Rarity hadn’t quite expected. Many Appleloosans jumped from their seats, hooves flailing and jaws flapping, Sheriff Silverstar banged his table furiously for order, Ruff started grumbling about how ponies were hard on the ears, and Strongheart covered her face with a hoof.

“Gentleponies,” said Rarity, to no avail.

“Gentleponies!” she said again, to even lesser effect.

She then rolled her eyes and stomped her hoof. A brilliant light and a blast of noise erupted from her horn, drowning out the ruckus. Startled ponies glanced around the room before their gazes settled on Rarity, and one by one they sat back down. 

“Really, must you act like children every time you think you find a rotten apple?” she snapped with more anger than she intended, but she was at the limits of her patience. “Look around you! Your town is tearing apart at the seams! You are stricken with disunity and chaos, and if it takes a shock like this to make you see it, then so be it! I have made my share of mistakes, it’s true. I took this town’s problems as my own without really understanding it. Without really knowing,” she said with a sidelong glance at Braeburn, who tugged at the rim of his hat, “what it expected of me at all. I came here on a whim. I was the invader. But I have also done what so precious few of you have tried to do.”

She touched Apple Tart’s hoof, and then Coldcock’s, and smiled. “Make friends.”

“She ain’t a bad sort,” Coldcock rumbled. “Ya’ll know me. I don’t cotton to most ponies easy, but this here Rarity… she’s somethin’ else. She’s here to help. Not coerce us or bribe us or chase us off. She messed up a few times, sure. But her heart’s in the right place. That’s what matters t’me.”

“And me!” Apple Tart piped up. She stood tall and puffed out her chest, opening her mouth to say more, and then she faltered, erupted in a blush and hid behind her hat. “Uh. Well, that is, what Coldcock said, yeah. He kinda… said everythin’ I was gonna, so… so Rarity’s my friend an’ that’s that!”

“You’re one of them ponies who’s enamored with all the glitz those city ponies brought with ‘em!” shouted an irate voice from the crowd. “One of those folk who’d just skip town if the goin’ got tough!”

Rarity blustered and stepped up. “Now look here, whoever you are—”

“Well ya know what?!” Apple Tart’s voice rolled right over Rarity’s. “I think you’re right!” The mare stepped in front of Rarity again, planting her hooves firmly on the dais, eyes narrowed and cheeks puffed out something awful. Rarity took a step back when she realized that, for the first time, she was seeing Apple Tart well and truly mad. “I think I really would skip town if this is how it’s gonna be all the time, all of us fussin’ an’ snortin’ at each other about this and that. It’s all a bunch of cherry-pickin’ nonsense what we’re doin’ to ourselves!” She pointed a hoof at Rarity. “We can’t expect the solution to just fall outta the sky, ponies! You’re all actin’ like a bunch a’ rattlesnakes stuck in a barrel, hissin’ an’ spittin’ at whoever comes by to tip your barrel an’ getcha out. All you can think about is how uncomfortable it makes you. Well guess what: change is uncomfortable! Don’t you remember what it was like to tame this place? Beatin’ down sand storms an’ huddlin’ against the cold; why it seemed we were buildin’ Appleloosa all over again every other week!

“Well I’m sick of it, you hear me? I’m sick of us not learnin’ our lesson! Appleloosa is our home. It’s my home too. But we’re gonna lose it if we keep up this pointless squabblin’! Can’t ya’ll for once, just once, think beyond those hills on the horizon? Remember that we’re ponies of Equestria! Remember what we stand to lose if we cling so hard to what we wanna keep!”

She fell back into uncomfortable silence. She retreated into Coldcock’s hooves, hiding her face.

Rarity looked back over the crowd. They were subdued now, thoughtful, not quite as sullen. Bona Fide looked as unmoved as a rock.

“I think,” said Rarity, “that if you simply let the other side talk… there may yet be an understanding. I have gone to the Dust Dogs and negotiated with them a deal that I think will benefit this town greatly. But let their leader tell it for himself.”

Ruff stepped up to the podium, tugging on his threadbare jacket like it had the lapels of a fancy tuxedo.

“Pony speaks right,” he said, trying to keep his growly, scratchy voice at a consistent volume. “Pony came to us to talk. Dogs thought that she was there to hurt us, like your ponies hurt us! Is true! Ponies came and wrecked our tools, destroyed our wagons. We struck back, and all was nearly ruin and madness. We were very angry.”

“Those are very serious charges,” Silverstar said. “You sure you can prove it was our ponies that committed this act of vandalism? Some solid evidence?”

“No other ponies in desert, yes?” Ruff growled. “Think some will own up to it, and proudly, yes! But… no. We… have none of this ‘evidence.’”

“Don’t that just beat all?” said Bonny, along with some assenting noises from the crowd. All of them got glares from the other ponies.

“If the commentary is done,” Silverstar said, with the first sign of agitation Rarity had ever seen from him, “then let’s move on with the proceedings. You still got the floor, mister, uh, Ruff.”

Ruff cleared his throat. “We were very angry,” he said again. “But then this pony,” and here he pointed at Rarity, “came back. She told us of your troubles, and we told her of ours. There is water in the hills, ponies. Water that you may have… because we are in need as well.  We came here because we were chased by other ponies, in golden armor and long spears, when we were Diamond Dogs who lived too close to pony lands. So we are Dust Dogs here, and dust is all we have! We have no farms. We have no knowledge of living off the land. We scrape algae off rocks and hunt little birds in the rocks and little bugs in the caves. We do not grow. We do not become strong. But you ponies are masters of rock and earth and plants! You have food. Much food. More water will grow more food, yes? And for food and peace, we give water… and gems.”

He held up a paw and rubbed thumb against forefinger. “Gems we have too. Gems beyond count! Normally, we… do not give away gems. No. But Miss Rarity spoke with us through the night and into the morning. She told us that giving some gems gives us more in return. And if giving what we have makes ponies give back… then that is what we will do. Not friends!” He abruptly sliced a paw downwards, and then wilted when he saw Rarity glaring at him. “But, um… good start, yes? Yes.”

Sheriff Silverstar twirled his moustache. “Heartland ponies will eat up gemstones about as much as they do our apples. It’s not a bad idea by any means. Extra things to sell means more income, means more… control. We may yet find a way to keep this ol’ dustbucket viable, eh?”

“Don’t go lecturin’ us on economics, Sheriff,” Bonny growled from the back. “This ain’t a done deal until the town’s voted on it.”

“I ain’t comin’ down on one side or another,” Silverstar said, patting the air with his hoof as if to tamp down Bonny’s temper. “But it’s important t’ be cognizant of every potential pitfall an’ boon that may come our way, don’tcha think, Bonny?”

Bonny huffed and crossed her forelegs. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.”

“Speakin’ of votes,” said the Sheriff, “I think it’s high time the town made up its own mind about all this. I motion for—”

“I abstain!” shouted Bonny, standing up so quickly she knocked her chair over. “This is ridiculous! Ya’ll’er lettin’ this city pony waltz in an’ twist our words around, our—”

“No!” Rarity said, jumping up. “You were about to say ‘our way of life,’ weren’t you? Weren’t you?”

Bonny stood still, her hoof still pointing. She seemed too surprised to speak, her cheeks puffed out with barely-restrained fury.

“What kind of a way of life is this?!” Rarity said, throwing her mane back. “Disputing every attempt to reach out, pushing away every lifeline thrown to you? What do you gain from it, any of you? What can you possibly be trying to preserve when your homes threaten to come to ruin and all that will be left is the dust on which you sit?”

“It’s our choice,” Bonny seethed. “We built this town by our own hooves! By our own sweat an’ tears! An’ I ain’t gonna let some pesky Manehattan socialite come an’ drive their stinkin’ tendrils into my life again! I ain’t, y’hear me?!”

“Fillydelphia!” Rarity snapped back. “I told you, it’s Fillydelphia my family hails from, and in case you didn’t notice, Bona Fide, you are speaking entirely for yourself at the moment.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” Bonny raged, spinning around to the Appleloosans around her. Rarity raised an eyebrow, noting that her southern drawl had slipped once more. Bonny wasn’t even making a pretense of having one now. “None of you do! Are you going to stand here and take this? Are you going to just drop all the support you gave me before?”

She ran up to an orange mare. “Clementine, you joined me right from the start! I helped you with your first crop! Are you really going to let that mare barge in and control your destiny?”

Clementine shook her head, more desperate for a way out of the spotlight than to talk to the hysterical Bonny. “W-Well, I—Bonny, ya gotta understand, times’re lookin’ to be so thin… I mean, she’s makin’ some sense, seein’ as we’re at the bottom of the barrel an’ all—”

“But that’s what she does! That’s what they always do!” Bonny said, stamping her hoof. “They drive you to nothing and they take everything you have, and get you to blame yourselves!” She spun around and grabbed a tan stallion by the shoulders, shaking him.

“Picket! I helped put up the walls of your house! Twice, after it got blown down! You were there when the Dogs attacked us, do you want that happening again?”

“What happened to your voice?” the stallion muttered. “You’re talkin’ weird, Bonny. Yeah, you helped build my house, an’ I’m grateful for it every day. You’re a boon to this town. But what’s the point of livin’ in that house if the town’s all empty? We gotta do somethin’. Pickin’ a hill to die on ain’t gonna give my kids a future here.”

“I’m not talking weird!” Bonny said, backing away and staring at all the confused, vaguely frightened faces surrounding her. “That mare! That Rarity! She was trouble ever since she got here! She forced this on us!”

“I am trying to open your eyes,” said Rarity. “To reveal the possibilities in this town. What apple tree doesn’t extend its branches as far as it can? I have stumbled. I have disturbed many tradition-loving ponies, yes. But we all know that to release the fruit, to spread the seeds and give that tree a future, one must give it a good kick. Perhaps all that’s happened is the kick you needed.”

Bonny whirled around, teeth bared. Her eyes were wild. “Don’t you talk like you know anything about this place.”

“I’m learning,” Rarity replied mildly. “That’s the difference between you and me.”

“For a pony who helped build this place,” Coldcock rumbled, “you’re sure not talkin’ like one of us anymore, Bonny.”

Bonny turned back to the townsponies, and swept her hoof over them all. “You’re ungrateful! That’s all you are! I can point out every single one of you who went with me to those stupid stinking Dust Dog tunnels with stars in your eyes! You! And you! And you, Clementine! We all did it for the future of this town, right? That’s what I’m fighting for, all I ever fought for, more than Rarity’s ever done!”

All the pointed out ponies shrunk down in their chairs. Their neighbors looked more depressed than shocked.

“Ruff knew it!” Ruff said, pumping his fist. “Rude pony broke Ruff’s favorite pickaxe! I expect ten apple pies as payment!”

“Shut up, you snaggle-toothed pest!” Bonny snapped before rounding back on her fellow townsfolk. “I helped build this place. I made it my own, just like you did. I gave it my all, just like you did. And I fought for it tooth and nail, just like you all did! How? How can you just turn your backs on me now?!”

There was an uncomfortable silence until Picket spoke up, clearing his throat. “Well, Bonny… it’s like you said. We thought we were doin’ the town good. We all thought it was for the best. But the best ain’t stickin’ our heads in the sand no more. Standin’ with you now… may just mean goin’ against Appleloosa. I can’t do that.”

“Neither can I,” said Clementine, sounding broken and tired.

“Neither can I,” echoed many more ponies in the room.

“Wha- I- I don’t believe this!” Bonny whimpered, spinning in a circle, looking for someone, anyone, who would look her in the eyes besides Rarity, who maintained a steady stare.

She settled on Braeburn, who had been trying to shrink into his chair as far as possible.

“Braeburn!” she snapped, making him jump to attention. “You an’ me. We helped make this town what it was, remember? I know we didn’t talk much, but we didn’t need to! Because we both knew what we wanted. We want what’s best for this town, right? And that doesn’t lie with her!”

She jabbed a hoof at Rarity. Braeburn didn’t look up.

“You can’t tell me you’ll actually listen to her. Not after what those Dogs did to Bloomberg. Not after all she’s wrecked!”

The silence dragged on. Rarity heard her own heartbeat thunder in her ears as her gaze slowly, painfully drifted over to Braeburn as well. He sat there like a gold-sand island, still and calm in all the turbulent pastel sea of his fellows.

Slowly, he stood up and pulled his hat off his head, folded it over his heart.

“S’true,” he said. “I always tried to do what I thought was right by Appleloosa. That’s why I brought Rarity here. That’s why I tried to smile for everyone, an’ be forthright an’ honest an’ all those good things. But this has dragged on so long. So many bad feelin’s became so entrenched. It got to be where my smile became a happy little lie I told myself. If I just kept bein’ me, maybe the world would follow suit.”

He raised his wonderful face to meet Rarity’s gaze. Her eyes widened as he did.

“I told Rarity not too long ago that honesty was the best policy. Just be yourself. But that smile, that optimism, that belief that yes, everythin’ I was doin’ was for Appleloosa’s welfare… it weren’t me a’tall. I was broken up inside somethin’ awful. I hated what was goin’ on, but I didn’t wanna call nopony out, look like I was takin’ sides, hurt anypony’s feelings. It became so easy to lie, to smile an’ act like I was above it all.”

He sniffled, rubbed his snout. “I pinned my hopes on a mare I barely knew, ‘cept for her smile an’ the way her mane sparkled in the moonlight,” he said. Rarity’s heart leapt, and she couldn’t keep the silly, utterly inappropriate grin off her face as Braeburn blushed and shrugged his shoulders.

“I-I mean, well… it weren’t right. She was a new voice, a fresh perspective. I thought, maybe she can pull off what I couldn’t. I could hand it all over to her, Rarity, Element of Generosity, an’ she’d fix it all an’ I wouldn’t have to lift a hoof. I was selfish. Utterly, cowardly selfish. An’ I’m sorry, an’ I hope she can forgive me. But most of all I hope you all can too, because she was the most honest of us all. Now, maybe she didn’t always do the right thing. But at least she did somethin’, an’ she always did what she felt was right. I think that counts for a lot.”

He turned to Bonny, his gaze sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Bonny, truly I am. But I can’t stand by you on this one. We’re at the end of the rope. Back when it looked like goin’ it alone would get us somewhere, some ponies stuck with you. But now we’re all just goin’ in circles, round an’ round again. I’m sick of it. I think we all are. I think it’s time we swallowed that big pill of humility starin’ us in the face. I think it’s time to be generous.”

Bonny looked like a pony had just driven a knife into her back. She shivered on the spot and then slowly staggered backward towards the door, her eyes unfocused and harried. A few ponies reached out, but she brushed them off. Rarity took a step toward her, off the dais.

“Bonny?” she asked.

Bonny had a hoof on the door. She turned back to Rarity, looked at her all the way down the center aisle with eyes as big as dinner plates, glassy and moist.

“You,” she hissed, voice quivering. “You’re wrong. All of you are wrong. You’ll see. All of you will see. I won’t let you take away everything I made here. I didn’t come crawling halfway across the continent just to be kicked out again by the very ponies I wanted to be away from.”

She slammed the door shut on the way out.

There was utter silence until Silverstar coughed into his hoof.

“Well,” he said. “Then I guess we best make this official. On the matter of integrating Dust Dog gemstones into our local economy, and agreeing to a trade of food and goods for water, as well as the establishment of a new irrigation system supplied by Dust Dog aquifers… all in favor?”

Rarity’s heart hammered as everypony looked at each other, seeking permission to be the first to vote. Then, with a grunt, Coldcock raised his hoof, with Apple Tart close behind. Like a rippling wave, hooves shot straight into the air. It was well over two-thirds, without a doubt, and the few ponies who did not raise their hooves looked dejectedly at the ground. Rarity didn’t blame them. They’d had the rug pulled out from under them, their ring leader gone hysterical, the change coming whether they liked it or not. But in the end they were ponies, and their friends would be there to help them.

Or at least, that’s what Rarity wished for.

“All opposed?”

Rarity counted six hooves, all from ponies who seemed determinedly spiteful, or otherwise adhered to some strange sense of consistency. The rest couldn’t even gather the energy to vote.

“Then by the power invested in me by the Appleloosa county, as Sheriff, lawmaker, and arbitrator of the law, I hereby declare this new measure passed, and this entire ugly matter…”

He thumped a hoof triumphantly on the table.

“Closed!”

———

Rarity didn’t see Bonny for the rest of that day. Strangely enough, the town was back to normal within a few hours. Rarity seemed to be the only one who was too tired to do anything but sit and relax. The dealings between Ruff and Sheriff Silverstar about how much of what goods would go where did not keep her attention, and she left before they started in earnest. She half-heartedly joined a party set up by Apple Tart and Coldcock at the Salt Lick, but that quickly lost its luster.

Rarity realized the problem as she stumbled out of the tavern, chugging water to erase the salty tang on her tongue.

She did not feel like she had won.

She did not feel like anything at the moment.

The entire ordeal had just been too draining. Two weeks. Was it really only that long? It felt like months. Two weeks of learning, of travel, of emotional highs and lows and everything in between. And now it was simply… over. The climax had come and gone so quickly it almost felt like she’d missed it.

She traveled down the old main road, which now that she realized she’d be leaving soon, felt so familiar and well-worn she almost wanted to walk it more than once. To leave her hoofprint on the town in more ways than one. She was too buzzed with salt and astonishment that she had pulled victory out by a hoof’s width to think on how silly that was. She hadn’t really done anything here. She’d been a witness. A cat on the outside of a fishbowl. Appleloosa had been forced to its knees, and in its desperation had turned to the one thing left that could save it.

Was she really that important, in the grand scheme of things?

She was surprised to find Braeburn sitting on the porch of the house she’d been staying at.

He wore a melancholy look, peering into the starlit street, and swung his gaze lazily to Rarity when she drew near.

She stared up at him, tilting her head.

“It’s rather cold out,” she said. There were no other ponies on the street. Nopony would see them together, or where they’d go, and she didn’t mind that at all.

Braeburn wordlessly stood and held the door open for her. It wasn’t much warmer inside, but it was dark and quiet, and she didn’t have to deal with the infuriating dust that kept sweeping into her mane with every errant breeze.

She looked over her shoulder at Braeburn, his big green eyes bright in the darkness, and wandered towards the stairs. She moved slowly, slinking like a cat, making hardly a sound with her hooves. It let her hear Braeburn follow her, with his heavy, plodding gait.

She put a dainty hoof on the bottom stair, and stopped.

“What did you want to say?” she asked gently.

“I should have been there with you from the start,” he said immediately. “I should have done a lot of things. I shouldn’t have been so darned afraid. I should’ve told you everythin’ from the get-go. I should’ve walked with ya, talked with ya. I shouldn’t have let all this fall on your shoulders. I meant what I said back there in the town hall. But I was afraid, Rarity. I was so scared I would say the wrong thing. Not because I can’t speak my mind… but because this is home. It’s one thing to watch it fall apart an’ tell yourself you can’t do nothin’ for it. It’s another entirely to say the wrong word an’ knock it all down. Like a house of cards you’re afraid to breathe on.”

Rarity waited. She stared down at the wooden grain of the stairs. It was so rough. But it wasn’t uncomfortable to walk on. It was a supple wood that creaked almost pleasantly underhoof.

“An’ I shouldn’t be such a dang fool to think that apologizin’ after the fact is gonna help nothin’,” Braeburn continued. “You’ve done the impossible Rarity. Because you didn’t give up when everyone else would. You talked the talk an’ walked the walk when you haven’t lived here half as long as me. I put so much into this town. So much time an’ sweat an’ even a little blood. I was terrified of losing it all. I figured, if I didn’t do anything, nopony could accuse me of failing. Y’know?”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know that far too well.”

He scraped his hoof on the floor. Rarity let her gaze slide over just enough to see his ears fold back as he pulled off his hat and rested it against his chest.

“But then you came along. You, with your gorgeous mane an’ big ideas. You were so fresh. So sure of yourself. You had a shine to you. Even way back when we met again at the reunion. It was like nothin’ could touch you. So I let it fall to you. I willingly gave up the burden of caring for my town. All I did was smile like a goof until my face done broke. That weren’t right, no sir. My ol’ Papa, rest his soul, would clobber me for not steppin’ up when my friends were doin’ all the hard work. I didn’t do right by my town. An’ I didn’t do right by you. I can’t decide which is worse.”

“Do you really think,” Rarity whispered, “that all that’s happened is because of me?”

“One way or another,” said Braeburn. “But Rarity, this town can only go up from here. For the first time in a long time we got somethin’ to look forward to. We got a plan. It almost feels like hope.”

He took a tentative step forward. “We got you to thank for that. Whatever you or anypony else thinks.”

He took another step. She felt the electric tingle of a warm body closing in. “I got you to thank for that. For everything. I wanna make it up to ya. I wanna be there for you like I shoulda been.  All the time we lost. The talks we coulda had. Like in our letters. You remember those?”

“I do,” said Rarity. “They were… they are… a highlight of my day.”

She turned to look him in the eyes. Their snouts were a bare few inches apart. She felt the ticklish breeze of his breath.

“Come upstairs,” she said.

“Okay,” was all he could say in return.

She didn’t feel any nervous, triumphant thrill leading him up the stairs to her bedroom. Her intentions were hardly anything scandalous, though just a few years ago when she was a blushing schoolfilly they may have been just that. She felt calm more than anything else. She felt centered and grounded, like her being with him was something perfectly normal. Like home.

She pushed open the door to her room and gently draped herself upon the bed, curling up her hooves underneath herself as she stared out the window into the starry desert landscape. Braeburn stopped and stared at her. She craned her neck to look back at him. The expression on his face was many things - awkward, uncertain, warm, and kind. He was following her lead entirely.

“Well, come on,” she said quietly. “Haven’t got all night. Silly thing, do you think I’m trying to seduce you?”

“I think anypony else might,” he said with a hint of a chuckle.

Would you mind if I did? Rarity wanted to ask—she wanted to ask that so very much—with a coy flick of her tail. Instead, she realized she was too tired for such theatrics tonight, and her tail stayed still.

“Well, that’s why I invited nopony up here but you,” she said instead.

Braeburn tilted his head and smiled, as if it were not the answer he expected, but one he was pleased with nonetheless. He joined her without any further bidding, slipping his hat and vest off and shaking his mane out as he settled in beside her. It was close enough for their bodies to press gently together. Rarity liked that he didn't shiver. They needed to be all right with this, to be so close to each other without fear.

“Please tell me the conditioner you use to get that lovely sheen in your mane,” said Rarity.

“All natural,” Braeburn replied.

Rarity let a beat of silence pass.

“I agree with what you said,” she whispered, staring back out the window. “You shouldn’t have put me in such a difficult position. You should have been there many times over if you really wanted to help. I was disappointed when I came here, Braeburn, by you and just about everypony else.”

“Coldcock n’ Apple Tart treated you the real Appleloosan way,” said Braeburn. “They’ll get their appellations too, don’t you worry.”

“Is that a pun?”

“Only sorta.”

Rarity laughed, light and breezy. She rested her head on her front hooves, peeking up at Braeburn. She rather liked how it made him look so much taller. He didn’t just sit. He loomed. It was endearing.

“So,” she said. “What shall we do now?”

“Wait for tomorrow to come,” said Braeburn. “S’what we’ve been doin’ for months now. Only way to know what happens next is to see what does.”

“That’s so lazy,” said Rarity with a little yawn. “And yet it seems wise in its own way.”

“Does this mean you forgive me?” asked Braeburn, looking down at her. “Are we… y’know… square?”

Rarity stared at him through one half-lidded eye. Then she sat up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Give me that pillow,” she whispered, “and don’t go anywhere.”

Braeburn smiled and tucked the downy pillow under her head. “I’m gonna have to take that as a yes.”

“Good,” said Rarity as she curled up tightly next to him and closed her eyes. “Because it is.”