I found my target exactly where he’d told me he would be; in a bar near the Guard barracks. I opted for a nice cloak with a face-concealing hood to let me slip in without attracting too much attention. I didn’t want everypony making a fuss over me, especially when I was going to a place that probably wasn’t an appropriate destination for a princess.
After a quick look through the window confirmed that he was present, I stepped inside, only to find my path blocked by a rather burly unicorn stallion who glared down suspiciously at me. “Mind taking off that hood and showing me some ID?”
“Excuse me?” It had been a long time since anypony had used that tone with me. Princesses are treated with far more respect than that. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”
“I’m the bouncer here,” he grunted out. “Name’s Hard Case. Now show me some ID, or scram.”
Well, this had not gone according to plan at all. However, I wasn’t going to let my quest for love be deterred by a bar bouncer. Obviously revealing myself wasn’t an option, so I would need to find another way past him. Perhaps a distraction? The Want-it Need-it spell should do quite nicely if I found the right—
My train of thought abruptly derailed as somepony loudly cleared their throat behind the bouncer. Sergeant Plum stepped forward, his face carefully blank. “It’s alright, Hard. She’s with me.”
The bouncer’s scowl didn’t fade, but he did move out of my path. “Fine. You say she’s good, then she can come in. Still not getting anything to drink unless I see some ID, and you and all your buddies’ plots will hit the curb if you try sneaking anything past me. I’ll be watching.”
“Figured on that,” the sergeant grunted out. “Don’t worry, I’ll behave. Not ‘cause you scare me, tough guy, but ‘cause I really don’t want to find out what her aunt would do to me if I brought her niece home drunk.”
Hard Case shrugged, making a point of showing how little he cared about anything the sergeant said. Sergeant Plum responded by turning his back on the bouncer, meeting pointed indifference with pointed indifference. Once the pointless posturing was done, Plum led me to a relatively isolated corner of the bar, then dropped his voice to a careful whisper. “Princess, mind telling me why the fea—” He grimaced and shook his head. “Why exactly you’re here? Are you even old enough to be here?”
My pride still stinging from the encounter with the bouncer, I lifted my nose haughtily into the air. “I am a princess of Equestria. It is my duty to mingle with my subjects, that I might come to better know all of them. As Princess Celestia herself said, ‘no door in all Equestria should be barred to the royal family, else we would not be able to spread harmony across the land.’”
A faint smirk tugged at the old soldier’s lips. “Your Highness, that sounds like a very fancy way of saying ‘No, I’m not old enough.’” I did my best to glare intimidatingly at him, but it seemed that my displeasure had absolutely no effect. Once I gave up on that, he chuckled softly. “I’ll ask again, why are you here?”
I sighed and tried to put aside my wounded pride for the moment to return to the reason I’d come in the first place. “Right. I came here to talk to you. And your friends.”
“That so?” He looked me over, then smirked. “Word of advice for sneaking into places you don’t belong: you’ll do a lot better if you look and act like you belong there. Dressing up in a big, heavy, face-concealing robe just makes you stand out so much you might as well be shouting ‘I’m up to something suspicious!’”
“So noted,” I grumbled.
“So then,” the sergeant grunted out. “You’re here. You wanna talk to me. Why?”
“Well...” I struggled to figure out the best way to explain what I had in mind. “Well, you told me that you had a rather unfortunate experience in love. The incident with your wife. Ex-wife,” I quickly corrected. “And, well, I thought maybe I could help you feel better.”
He lifted a single eyebrow, staring at me skeptically. “Might wanna clarify what you have in mind. Lotta ways somepony could take that remark about making me feel better, some of which would go very, very badly for me.”
It took me a moment to figure out what exactly he was implying, but when I did my cheeks lit up. I quickly tossed up a privacy spell that would make everypony else think our conversation was incredibly dull and not worth listening in on before answering. The last thing I wanted was that annoying bouncer overhearing this. “I didn't mean anything like that! You’re old enough to be my grandfather!”
“I’m not that old,” the veteran grunted out, scowling at me. “Father, maybe. If I had you young. In any case, not like I was worried about that. Just don’t want anypony to overhear and get the wrong idea. Bad enough that you’re here at all, last thing I need is more trouble. If I wasn’t off-duty, I’d already be dragging you back to the palace by your tail.”
My eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare...”
“You really think your aunt would be more upset with me than she’d be with you?” He grimaced and shook his head. “Lucky for you, I’m not on the clock right now, so for the moment I’ll play along. I’m slightly less of a hardflank when the government isn’t paying me to be a hardflank. Slightly.” He shrugged. “So I’ll indulge you. For now.”
In other words, I was on thin ice. He was probably right that if he told Aunt Celestia he had caught me sneaking into a bar she wouldn’t make a big deal over him dragging me back to the palace. With that in mind, I didn’t waste any time getting straight to the point. “You mentioned how you and all your old friends get together every Hearts and Hooves Day to talk about how terrible your experiences with love have been. I understand you’ve have some very difficult experiences, but I was hoping that I could talk to you all about your problems and help you see the brighter side of things.”
The sergeant grunted and scratched his chin. “No.” After a moment he politely amended, “Thank you for the offer, Princess.”
I frowned, surprised and a bit offended by his answer. “What do you mean, no?”
He met my annoyed look stoically. “No, as in negative; the opposite of yes. If you prefer, I'm declining your offer.”
Confusion replaced my initial stung pride. “But why? I can tell you’re in pain. Don’t you want help fixing it?”
He snorted, waving my offer away again. “It's an old, well-healed wound I don't want reopened. I got out of all of that longer ago than you've been around, and for a good reason. Doesn’t bother me anymore, as long as nopony goes poking at it.”
I unleashed my best imitation of Aunt Celestia’s all-knowing look of insight. “I think if the wound was that healed, you wouldn't be bitter about it all these years later. Healed wounds don’t cause pain.”
“Wounds leave scars.” He scowled, then chugged down the rest of his cider, wiping his mouth with the back of his hoof once he was done. “Got me talking in metaphors now. Point is, it’s in the past, and I’m happy keeping it there. Ain’t like my life’s a pit of misery and loneliness on account of me not having a mare waiting at home for me, or some pretty girl to take out to the movies and spend too much money on.”
Our conversation briefly paused as a waiter dropped off a fresh drink for the sergeant, as well as pointedly leaving a glass of milk in front of me. I was a bit miffed that they were making such a big deal over my age when I clearly wasn’t trying to sneak alcohol; I just wanted to talk to somepony who happened to be in a bar. A bit of my annoyance reflected back on Sergeant Plum when I answered him. “I'm not saying you should go running into the hooves of the first willing mare or anything. I just want you to realize that just because you had one bad experience means you should give up on every form of love.”
He sighed, cutting me off with an upraised hoof. “Let me stop you right there. I know you seem to have gotten it into your head that just because you’re supposed to be the Princess of Love or something, it’s your job to go around making sure everypony in Equestria’s so lovey they shoot rainbows out of their plot. But you need to learn that you're not going to do much good if you try and poke your nose where ponies don't want it.”
“Oh.” My ears fell flat against my skull. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to bother you, I just wanted to help you.” A tiny little whimper escaped the back of my throat. “I just ... I’m supposed to be the Princess of Love, and today’s the holiday celebrating love. I thought I could really help ponies find love or feel better about love or ... or something. But everything I try goes wrong, and now it feels like I’m...”
A flicker of something that might have been guilt or concern flashed across the sergeant’s face, and he shot a nervous look around the room despite us being under a privacy spell. “Dammit, girl, don’t get all weepy on me. Last thing I need is a princess sobbing her eyes out. You gotta learn that you can't fix everything, and you'll go nuts if you try.” He swirled his drink, staring down into it. “Pick your battles. When you can win, engage; when you can't, don't. It'll save you a lot of stress. For example: me, Crank, and the rest are going to meet up in a bit to bitch about how romance is a crock of shi—hor—” He growled, drumming a hoof on the table in place of using an obscenity. “Look, we’re all a bunch of grouchy, bitter old guys who’re too crotchety and set in our ways to change. We’re grumpy old men, and we’re happy that way. Save yourself a losing battle and focus on the ponies who’d like your whole love and happiness talk.”
I took a deep breath and shook off my bout of self-pity. “No. I don't want to accept that some ponies can't be helped. Maybe you’re right, but I’m going to try anyway.”
The sergeant growled out something under his breath. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? Didn’t figure you for the type to dig in her hooves and keep going.”
“I prefer to think of myself as determined,” I answered with a grin. “I don’t give up on things that matter. And right now, I’ve decided that I want to make your Hearts and Hooves Day a happy one. Maybe it’s a silly thing to take a stand on, but I’m going to do it.”
“So what, you’re not gonna leave me alone until I dress up like cupid and run around telling everypony how wonderful love is?” He took a long pull of his cider, then shook his head. “Anypony who's ever said that it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all never walked in on their wife and the mailpony.”
I tried to think of something I could say to make that better, and realized there was nothing. “You’re right. I have no idea what that would feel like, and I'm very sorry that happened to you.” I took a deep breath and tried to get the conversation back to a more positive track. “But do you want that one event that happened a long time ago to define the rest of your life?”
Sergeant Plum let out an annoyed grunt. “You talk about it like I had a choice in the matter.”
“You didn't have a choice in what happened.” Technically one could play the ‘what if’ game and argue that he might have had some way to prevent his wife’s affair, but that didn’t change the fact that she had chosen to break her vows. “You do have a choice in how you deal with it. I’m sure you understand that sometimes bad things just happen. What would you tell a recruit who wanted to give up the first time they suffered a reversal?”
“To get up and get back at it instead of lying around whining and acting like a—” He cut himself off before he could use a word that probably wouldn’t have been appropriate. “Alright, point taken. You think I need to stop whining about the past and move on.”
“I wouldn’t have put it exactly that way...” I took a moment to order my thoughts. “I'm not telling you to try romance again. If you’re happy being single, then there’s nothing wrong with that. All I want is to help you move past the pain of things that happened a long time ago.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “Been living with it since before you were a twinkle in your father’s eyes, princess. If you think a couple minutes of talking to you is gonna make me less of a grouchy old bastard, you’re dreaming.” He drained the rest of his cider. “After all, me and the guys get together and go over all this stuff every year, and it hasn’t made any of us less grumpy. Which reminds me, they’ll probably be here soon. Might wanna make yourself scarce before they show up.”
My ears perked up a bit. “Actually, if you don't think they would mind, I would like to talk to them too. You’re not the only one I was hoping to cheer up.”
He snorted. “Ambitious, aren’t you?” He sighed and ran a hoof down his face. “The guys are gonna give me so much grief about dragging you into our annual tradition...”
I grinned and leaned forward. “I can’t help but notice that for all your complaining, you didn’t even think of not bringing me along. You did say that if you thought I was wasting your time you’d drag me back to Aunt Celestia. You’ve done plenty of grouching, grumping, and whining, but you’ve never taken any action to end the conversation. Why is that?”
Sergeant Plum scowled, but the anger didn’t reach his eyes. “Too smart for your own good sometimes, Princess. Fine, you’re right.” He tried to drink more cider, the growled when he realized his mug was empty. “You want the truth? I don’t mind having you around, talking to you about all this stuff that’s in the past. Kinda got used to the idea that nobody cared about all this stuff except the other guys in my grumpy old man club. Knowing a pretty pink pony princess is gonna take time out of her day—on a holiday—just to try and make me less of a grouchy jerk?” He thought it over, then shrugged. “Not saying I’m gonna be smiles and sunshine, but I’m not made of stone. Appreciate you going to all this trouble just to try and make one bitter old stallion have a better day. Guess maybe I think the other guys will too.”
I thought his answer over and slowly nodded to myself. He’d been right about one thing; I couldn’t magically fix painful memories, or wipe away a lifetime of grouchiness with a five-minute chat. But maybe I didn’t have to. Maybe it was enough to let them know that somepony cared.
“One word of advice before the guys show up, Princess,” Plum grunted out. “Keep the cloak on. It might be terrible for looking inconspicuous, but it’ll do a fine job of keeping you covered up. Last thing I need is one of my buddies turning into a dirty old man. Ruins the whole atmosphere of a bunch of grumpy old men getting together and bitching if they all get distracted by the pretty young mare sitting at the table with us. If I have to spend all night listening to them mutter about how nice your gams are whenever they think you won’t hear them...” He shook his head. “It would make things weird. And wrong.”
I glared at him, though it was mostly playful. “Shouldn’t you show more respect to a princess?”
To my surprise, the sergeant actually smiled. “Probably.”