Insipid

by SleepIsforTheWeak

Chapter 2

I need a job.

Saturday I sit on the deck of my boat, staring at the distant Ponyville, and this is the only thing that occupies my usually blank mind. I had long since read all my books, but did not go back to the library for fear of a repeat of Friday’s… whatever it was.

Truth was, I was running out of what miniscule amount of money that I did have, and it was never a good thing when that happened. Naturally, I didn’t have to pay for rent or anything, but that still left things like food.

I was not a stranger to starvation. Back in the North, starvation was like a second friend to me—whether it was because we had no food, or if I just never searched for it, I did not know. Nevertheless, I was hungry enough to have perpetual shakes most of the time, and it’s only now—when I’ve been nurtured and fed and have seen another way of life—that I understand that being so hungry that one starts shaking is like, not a good thing.

Tipping my fold-out chair back onto its four legs, I stand up and stretch out the kinks in my terrible posture, and then yawn and smack my lips. Picking my way around the boat, careful to avoid the holes in the deck where the wood was so rotten that it fell apart, I make my way to the main storage areas in the cabin and then dig around until I feel what I am looking for.

I keep a loose personal finance sheet which is nothing more than a scroll where I write every expense that I have, and all the freaking money that I spend and don't make. The only thing that I really use money for is food, my bill to Dr. Basket Case, and of course, the tax. But even then, my expense per month comes out to something like three hundred bits.

That’s a lot of money, considering all I have left of my funds is just over a thousand bits. Like, that’s only a few months worth of money, and then I’m completely and totally broke.

So, I need a job. I need it fast, and I frankly don’t care what it is.

I glare at my cutie mark.

Lots of jobs in Equestria depend, at least just a marginal amount, on a pony’s special talent. Naturally, some ponies have jobs that may not have too much to do with their special talent, but it’s a rarity.

But like, my talent is tea.

Tea. Drinking tea and brewing tea and knowing how to make new types of tea.

I glare harder at my cutie mark.

The ponies of Ponyville seem like the cider-drinking types, frankly. Hell, I haven’t even seen anything resembling a coffee shop in town.

My thoughts start to stray, start to slip, just for a moment, to that possibility. But I quickly shake my head to clear it of that thought.

I used to have a tea shop of my own, back when I lived in Manehattan. My pride and joy, the reason I lived. But… well… things happened and now I don’t have that tea shop anymore, I guess.

I grit my teeth as the memories flash behind my eyelids.

No, no, I don’t have time to sulk over what was and what could have been. I need a job.

Getting a job has always been difficult for me—I’m not a sociable pony. Fact, I’m an incredibly socially awkward pony, hell, even an anti-social pony. Point is, jobs require one to be interviewed, and what the hell am I supposed to say when the manager of a fast-food restaurant asks me ‘why I want to work here’ when I don’t actually want to work there?

The first interview I ever went to, I told his bald ass that I needed a job. I was honest with him, and I thought that he would respect that.

Well, employers only want to hear a certain thing, I quickly found out, even if the pony they’re interviewing is lying out of their ass.

So, no job for me. That’s fine. Whatever. Hell, I was special and if he didn’t want to hire me, then it was his damn loss.

Except, it kept happening. And kept happening. And even when I started to flat-out lie and sweet-talk them, and pile on compliments onto their stinky, rundown establishments—hell I made some of them sound like five star restaurants—I never got the job. I never got any job.

But then… well… stuff happened and I met a certain pony and he helped me out a ton.

I seriously don’t have time for more daydreaming. I scowl at nothing and then jump out of the boat.

Ponyville is barely awake, and it’s eerily silent in town. The clock tower says its freaking ten in the morning, and nopony is even out of their houses yet. Gives a whole new definition to a 'sleepy town', I suppose.

Harrumph.

I stalk through the streets of the town, keeping my eyes peeled for anything that looks like it might serve any type of tea. I guess here they drink iced tea, since it seems to be influenced by the more rustic way of life. Indeed, there are several farms peppering the edge of the town. Farms that I got chased off of when I was trying to make my way into town. Apparently, there is a 'main road' that is used for travelers to go in and out of town, and there's also a train station—but I didn’t arrive on a damn train, and I came from the northeast, from Manehattan, in a straight line, picking my way through the bucking wilderness for two weeks, so ‘main road’s can go screw themselves.

Giving the town a sweep with my eyes and then an obligatory scowl, I follow the road out of the market place and end up wandering around identical streets for a while. For such a small town, it’s easy to get lost since every residential building looks the same. I guess it’s nice—the buildings are cottages, or at least the Equestrian definition of cottages since back in the North, where the earliest know ‘cottages’ were built, the word cottage is known to mean ‘a nice house’. It seems that in Equestria it’s associated with smaller, more modest buildings and a generally rustic way of life.

It’s a nice morning out. Birds are chirping and sun is shining and stuff—very pleasant day indeed. I sweep my eyes over what little of Ponyville I can see, and my mouth twitches into a tiny smile because it is a pretty decent place. Nice, even. Simple and slow with low crime rate and plenty of foals. It’s the type of place that is the complete opposite of a city and it’s the type of place that I always imagined myself settling in to raise a family of my own.

But my smile and happy imaginings and appreciation are short-lived, because there are more taxing matters on my brain right now. Much, much more taxing matters.

I wander aimlessly around Ponyville for an hour. Ponies finally start milling around at a quarter to eleven, and strangely enough it looks exactly like it does on a workday except there are more of them. But they still get in my way by having conversations while standing in the middle of the freaking road, and they still make me stop suddenly when groups of foals run right in front of me and then a few seconds later are chased by two frazzled parents, sometimes one, and sometimes pissed off teen siblings cursing under their breaths about spending their Saturday foalsitting.

Normal. Normal and annoying, but still normal. Bit more relaxed, maybe, but let’s face it; that’s annoying too.

By the time I quit lying to myself about what I’m really outside for (let’s face it, I’m not gonna get a job around here, at least not today—maybe if I really and truly try next time…) it’s half past noon and my stomach is turning in on itself with hunger. I look around for the first time in a while, and realize I’ve wandered back into the market area—heh, my brain must have started taking me home and away from these ponies instinctively or something.

The market is a confusing assault of sounds and colors and smells. There is fresh bread baking somewhere close and my stomach gives a pitiful little whine of longing which I ignore. Fresh bread sounds wonderful, but I’m on a poor pony’s budget. No fresh bread for me. Such luxuries are reserved for the rich and the brilliant and the brilliantly rich.

Instead, I casually stroll and take a nice thorough loop around the market. Everything one can possibly grow on a farm is sold in the various stalls. Tomatoes and celery and carrots—the damn list just goes on and on. I scowl at nothing mostly cause it’s instinctual, but a bit because these things are mostly vegetables and totally not what I’m looking for. One does not eat a celery stick for lunch, regardless of budget or any other excuse— and there is just not a justifiable excuse for that waste of space that dares call itself a vegetable. Humph.

I take one more glaring scope around the market and—

I’m a Celestia damned blind ass.

Apple cart. Oh, baby.

For as long as I can recall, granny smith apples have been on my list of ‘The Only Good Things in This Cruel and Dismal World’, wedged right between stringed cheese (mozzarella, because it’s the real stringed cheese, all them other stringed cheeses are just imitatin’) and fictional novels.

Ahem. Point is, I love ‘em. They are without a doubt the most superior apples, and sometimes I imagine that we are simply meant to be—their coat is green, just like mine, and they’re sour just like me… you’re free to take that any way you like.

I take a long moment to frown at the dismal state my life has gotten into that I’m apparently finding my soul mate in an apple, before shrugging and trotting happily to the stand. The pony working the cart is a mare, but I don’t really get a good look at her because she’s a pony and as opposed to apples, she’s kind of not as important. Or at least when I’m this hungry.

“Howdy,” she greets happily.

“Yeah, hi,” I mutter back, I think. Or at least I do in my head. My eyes search expertly, trying to look for green among all the yellow and red and orangeish-but-only-because-it’s-both-yellow-and-red. I pout unhappily and finally look up at her hopelessly when I don’t see them and then resist the urge to crawl into a hole and die because I realize that I’ve been staring at her apples like an apple obsessed manic for the past however-long.

“Lookin’ for something?” She chirps helpfully, not looking weirded out or anything. I nod miserably, or maybe I nod embarrassingly—I don’t know which, because I’m feeling both at once and it’s a strange combination of emotions and I’m pretty sure I look like a strangled duck right now. So maybe I nod like a strangled duck.

“What can I get’cha?” She asks with a grin that looks painfully genuine, and for the first time I look her over properly.

Green eyes. Beautiful and bright and sincere, framed by like a blond mane and she has like an orange coat or something, I don’t care because I’m not looking because they aren’t as interesting or nearly as beautiful as her damn eyes.

As I watch, those eyes frown at me and become clouded with confusion.

“You all right?” Green Eyes asks me hesitantly and I snap out my daze.

“I’m fine,” I say a little loudly, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m perfectly fine, I’m utterly under control.”

Buck me sideways.

Green Eyes drops her brow and just stares at me for a long while as if she doesn’t exactly know what to think of me or what to do with me.

“I uh,” I breathe out, and then clear my throat feeling like a little foal as I peep out, “Do you have any granny smith apples?”

Green Eyes snorts, but it sounds happy like a laugh instead of condescending and sarcastic like... something condescending and sarcastic. She digs around her apple cart, expertly pushing past all the other uninteresting apples to find best apple. She extracts it, and holds it up and in that moment, the light from the sun hits it just right, and like a flock of birds fly overhead in the background as triumphant music hits a glorious crescendo.

...I really need to eat.

I restrain myself from eating it right on the spot, off of her hoof, and instead politely pay the sum she asks for the apple. I then take it into my hoofs, and glance around to see if I can get away with stuffing my face without getting more strange looks, but alas, my loud rendition of I'm a Fine earned me the attention of the entire freaking town. Naturally.

I give them all a fake smile and then turn around to Green Eyes again. Having her eyes on me, I can handle. I bite into the apple, and, oh it's glorious. It's been a very long time since I've tasted such bliss and I moan out rather raunchily and probably earn myself a few more curious looks.

A few rapid bites follow in succession after the first before I run out of room in my mouth and have to chew and swallow.

“Apple lover, huh?” My face heats up when I open my eyes and see Green Eyes staring at me. I swallow what I have in my mouth and it’s a little painful going down since I didn’t chew nearly any of it properly.

“Uh,” I chuckle awkwardly but she merely smiles cheekily at me.

“No worries, you’re in like company. I’m all about my apples,” She strokes the ones in her cart. “Grow ‘em and buck ‘em and sell ‘em myself. Even planted some of the trees m’self, too.”

I shuffle awkwardly, not knowing what to really say like always. Should I nod politely? Should I lead her in a discussion about the merits of today’s apple market? I mean… I don’t know anything about the apple market but—

“Anyway, I’m Applejack. Applejack Apple.” She says and extends a hoof.

Applejack Apple. Who sells apples.

Buck me sideways. Again.

I liked Green Eyes better.

I shake her hoof politely, shuffling my apple around awkwardly in order to do so, and then glance down at my little meal. It’s not polite to eat in company, I know, but…

“Y’all can eat, I ain’t gonna keep ya from your meal with my chit-chat.” Applejack chuckles and I throw her a grateful look and slowly start nibbling on my apple as I desperately search for something to say.

But when I have a few more bites of apple in me I wonder why I’m looking to make conversation with this mare.

Well… she doesn’t seem half bad… like… not chatty like that one pink one whose name I’ve totally forgotten, and not nearly as socially awkward as the librarian. Hell, that mare was getting close to my level of socially awkward, and that’s just not a pretty thing on anypony except for me.

“So you live ‘round here? Ain’t never seen you before.” Applejack asks, smiling easily at me. I swallow and nod.

“Near the library,” I say, mutter more like, and see her eyes sparkle with something like recognition.

“Hold up, you’re not Green Tea, are you?”

I stiffen and immediately scowl at the name but nod anyway, if a little disjointedly. “That’s me,” I say quietly.

She grins a large grin, and I feel my smile quota overflowing for the day, even though it’s not as uncomfortable as it usually is. It’s still unpleasant though, and I take another bite of apple to conceal my frown, lest she think it’s directed at her. Even if it kind is.

“Well, small world after all. Heh. I’m friends with Twilight too!” Applejack chirps and I freeze.

Ew. F-word.

Who said anything about friends? And… Twilight. Twilight—Twilight Sparkle, was it? Was that the librarian?

…Why would one check out books for oneself when they live in the damn library?

No, no, there are more pressing matters right now. Friends?!

Yeah, yeah, she’s nice and all but not exactly the company I keep.

…Or at least the company I imagine myself keeping, since I don’t have friends and really don’t mind the fact that I don’t.

But… how could I put this without completely making everything super awkward for everypony involved? Applejack doesn’t seem to be a bad type—I could stand to have an acquaintance like her, sure, but not a… friend. No, no, friend is taking it way too far.

It’s not that I don’t want to.

It’s that I can’t.

“Uh, yyyyyeeeeaaahhh,” I drawl out, smiling at her fakely. “Yeah, uh, it’s a small world… after all.”

More like small town, probably, but that’s beside the point. Applejack grins that nearly perpetual grin and I fidget under it, feeling the urge to leave and go home for the first time since I started talking to her, which is strange because that feeling usually hits me within three minutes of starting a conversation.

I feel like I know what’s coming next—she’ll probably invite me to some get-together that she and Twilight and probably the pink one and whoever else is involved in their little circle are going to. And I will naturally decline and make myself look like an anti-social hermit.

But the point is, that’s what I am. And I’m decidedly happy with it.

I stare expectantly at Applejack, but she just simply stares back and smiles and doesn’t say a word. Eventually I realize that the expected invitation won’t come, and I breathe an internal sigh of relief. I shift on my hoofs and then manage a somewhat sincere smile because I do like Applejack—she seems very down-to-earth and centered, with a respect for privacy that I’m grateful for.

Celestia knows I don’t need to be in the limelight.

And Celestia knows I don’t need to bring anypony into it with me.

I nod to her and thank her for the apple and then slowly start my trot back to my boat.

Maybe I’ll try to get a job Monday…