Chapter Three
Rarity could find no protest adequate to capture her shock. Twice her jaw worked open and immediately clenched. Eventually, she managed to vocalize a strangled “buh” in lieu of an articulate objection.
“Come again, Kiddo?” Her father asked.
“Bu- but this is wrong!” Rarity finally blurted out, tears flowing anew. Her face was becoming a sodden mess. The small comfort she could take in not having been able to apply mascara on the jouncing ship was outweighed by the humiliation of bawling like a little filly in the middle of the passenger terminal. She was furious that Silver Belle had the audacity to die early and deny her a chance at absolution. She was horrified at the prospect of becoming the family pariah.
A few curious travelers were slowing to gawk when Applejack spoke up. “If nopony minds the suggestion, maybe we can find someplace to sit a spell before we think about movin’ on.”
“Sure. Good thinking,” Rarity’s father said, nodding. “I saw a little pasty place on the way in, over by the taxi drop-off. Should be open by now, and it’s close enough we won’t freeze getting there. Let’s get these bags in order and go. Can you walk, Kiddo?”
Rarity nodded. With her mother on her left and Applejack to her right, she gathered herself enough to move. She could not actually see her father after he hitched himself to a flat cart piled high with her various luggage and Applejack’s sturdy wooden traveling case, but presumably it was he whom she followed. Magic would have been easier than a borrowed cart of course, but telekinesis was not permitted inside the terminal due to the proliferation of steamer trunks and injury lawyers.
Cart in tow, they trundled across the open terminal, through the vestibule, and out into the Whinnyapolis winter. At half past nine the sun had finally begun traversing its shallow winter ecliptic, and was obliquely casting its rays against a patchy blanket of low, gray clouds. It was not snowing, but everything had already been thoroughly smothered.
“Oh, I think it’s warming up!” Cookie declared with genuine-sounding brightness and a puff of condensation.
Applejack glanced sidelong and Rarity answered with a roll of the eyes and the best smile she could muster.
It was two and a half years since Rarity had last visited, but how long since she had been here in the winter? Seven years? More? The first breath of freezing air had brought on a momentary shock and a flood of memories: skating figure eights on Lake Whinnytonka, careering down the frozen hills on her mother’s battered foalhood sled, the unabashed silliness of attempting to play hoofball with her father and his old friends in snow that came up to her withers. It all ended after she withdrew inward to focus entirely on fashion, investing everything, staking everything on her incipient career, cutting old threads and leaving others to fray. She was still discovering all that those isolated years had cost her. Closeness with family. Friendships. Applejack if not for the intervention of fortune. She pushed the thought away and concentrated on taking shallow breaths through her nostrils.
“I know it looks bad, but they’ve got the main roads all panked down good and firm,” Rarity’s father said. There were only a few buildings near the terminal and little else to see in the open flatlands several leagues from the city. Three enormous half-cylinders that were airship hangars dominated the landscape, while a smattering of small buildings housing enterprises that catered to travelers crowded together across the road from the terminal: restaurants, bric-a-brac purveyors, a travel agency, a carriage rental establishment, and a staging area for the taxi services, which at this time of the year deployed enclosed sleighs in place of carriages. “Hey, there’s the place. Watch your hooves on the ice, kids. Little help with this, Honey?”
There was no prohibition on magic outside the terminal, and Rarity’s parents worked in concert to levitate the entire collection of luggage free and hold it aloft over the icy pavement. A uniformed mare apparently on station for just that purpose rushed over to retrieve the cart, then hastened back inside the terminal. Gingerly, and all mindful of the cloud of heavy bags suspended above them, the four ponies crossed the road. They soon arrived at a small free-standing restaurant set beneath an oversized icicle-draped billboard advertising “Whinnyapolis’ Famous Pasty Palace.” A gray plume of smoke ascended promisingly from a brick chimney atop the building.
Inside, the space was dominated by a long varnished hardwood countertop set in front of a red brick wall featuring two huge brick ovens. A fire blazed deep back inside one, and additional flames could be seen flickering through the grate of a pot-bellied iron furnace set against the wall in the dining area. Black metal tubes piped hot air from the furnace up to the ceiling and poured warmth over the room below. A thickset Earth Pony stallion with barn red coat and copper mane placed a long-handled tray in the front part of the oven, then turned to face the newcomers.
“I’m only making the classic this morning, no specials,” the stallion grunted. “And the coffee's mostly good for stripping paint.”
“We'll take it," Rarity's father said. The luggage cloud plopped down onto worn-out hardwood and the four ponies slid into a booth close to the furnace.
“I’m ashamed of letting you see me like this,” Rarity said after they were situated. She meant to address the table, though she could not help looking into the green eyes of the mare seated by her side as she spoke.
“There’s absolutely nothin’ to be ashamed of,” Applejack said. “You’re holdin’ up as well as anypony would under the circumstances.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t feel I am holding up at all.” Rarity turned to her mother. “I can’t wrap my mind around it. I can't believe Aunt Silver is gone already, and I cannot fathom what she's done. Why should I be the sole heir? Why not you, Pepper and Glory? For that matter, why leave out Sweetie Belle and the other cousins?”
“I don’t know, Dear Heart,” Cookie said, shaking her head. “None of us has any idea. If you really didn’t see this coming, probably nopony will ever know.”
Rarity gasped. “Of course I didn’t see it coming!” she shouted, reddened eyes blazing. “How could you even suggest that I might have known?”
Cookie did not answer right away, and was afforded a longer pause by the arrival of the proprietor with a ceramic jug of hot coffee and four cups. Paper plates followed, each with a fat steaming half-moon of flaky pastry, crimped along the curved edge to keep in the filling. He did not offer cream or sugar.
As a visibly flustered Cookie took a moment to compose herself, Applejack poked experimentally at her food, looked up at Rarity’s father, and asked, “So what is a pasty, exactly?”
Rarity’s father blinked. “What’s a pasty?” He levitated his and took a bite. “It’s stuffed. It’s good.”
“Yeah,” Applejack said, eyeing her pasty suspiciously. “I mean, I can see it. But what’s in it? Smells like turnips.”
Cookie wore an almost sheepish look when she finally spoke. “Glory found out that you and Aunt Silver were writing letters. She has it in her head that you must have convinced—”
“For the love of the sun and moon, Mom!” Rarity yelled, failing to keep her cultivated tone intact. “How can any of you think that I would hatch some kind of conspiracy to cheat my own family?” She continued over her mother's protestations. “And for what? A creaky old house an hour outside of Whinnyapolis? A music box collection? What else could there even be? I promise I don’t want any of it. Not one thing! I’ll prove it. I’ll fix this mess straightaway. The house will be sold to you three siblings for a bit, or two bits, or whatever it takes to make it an honest transaction. You can dispose of it and everything in it however you like. There. Done.”
“It’s not only the house,” Cookie said, now visibly abashed. “There’s some money, too. More than we could have guessed. She never told any of us. She never had anything flashy.”
It was Rarity’s turn to pause.
“I never have given much thought to what’s in a pasty, to be honest,” Rarity’s father said to Applejack, looking critically at what little remained of his. “But I don’t think it’s turnips.”
“I certainly didn’t know about any money,” Rarity said, more quietly now. “Dear Celestia.”
“Anyway, I’m sure Aunt Silver’s lawyer will want to meet with you as soon as he can,” Cookie said. “He seems to know much more than any of the rest of us do.”
"Another pleasant prospect I can look forward to," Rarity said.
“We’ll straighten everything out, Rare,” Applejack said, abandoning her enquiry. “I’ll be right there by your side.”
Rarity sighed. “Thank you, Darling. The filling is potato, onion, and rutabaga by the way. I know that’s a sort of turnip, but I think you might enjoy it anyway. And Mother, I want you to know that it doesn’t matter how much money there is. I have no need of it. It will go where it ought to have gone in the first place. The family will be appeased.”
Cookie looked down at the table. “You shouldn’t have this ugly mess thrust on you at Hearth’s Warming.”
"If only someone would have made that case to Aunt Silver," Rarity said. "I suppose that someone should have been me, as her apparently infamous correspondent."
“You know, I wasn’t just joking when I said we wouldn’t blame you if you flew home to Ponyville,” Rarity’s father mumbled, staring off into the distance. “You could take care of the money stuff after the fuss has died down. Let us deal with Glory now, and accept her apology later, after she’s got the bitmarks out of her eyes and come to her senses.”
Rarity pondered the possibility for a moment. If she left, she would avoid a row that would likely haunt family gatherings for the rest of her life. She would be able to divest herself of the inheritance from the sanctity of her own home and wash her hooves of the whole ugly situation. On a different hoof, she would miss the chance to reconcile. She would miss the funeral, and the opportunity to see the old house again. And what would Applejack think after being dragged halfway across Equestria, for her to turn tail and flee in the face of a little acrimony? That was the most relevant question.
“What do you think we should do, Applejack?” she asked. “No, let me rephrase that before you respond. What do you want to do?”
Applejack dabbed remnant crumbs of pasty from around her mouth before speaking. “I think I know you pretty well, Rare. I know you’re not one as like to shy away from confrontation, and I know this is a crabapple-sized kerfuffle compared to some of the tight spots we’ve been in. If you’re ponderin' leaving, I reckon it must be on account of me bein’ here. And I think you know me pretty well, and you already know what I want. This thing’s durn tasty, by the way.”
“I would never have asked you along if I had known any of this would happen,” Rarity said, mustering a smile. “I’m sure it’s not too late to make our escape to the beach.”
“Nothin’ doin’,” Applejack declared. “I’m here for you come Tartarus or tidal wave. That’s why I agreed to fly on one of them jankety airships and why I drank enough to knock out Big Mac to get through it. I’d be by your side if your family lived all the way up in a griffin’s roost another hundred leagues north and we had to scale a mountain to get there. Besides, I’ve survived enough Apple family get-togethers to develop an immunity to family drama. I know when to look away and make small talk about the food. So, if you want to leave because you honestly think it would be the best thing for you and your family, then we’ll be gone with the north wind as soon as we can get a flight. Just don’t be frettin’ about me when you make that call.”
“Fretting is in my nature as surely as tending orchards is in yours,” Rarity replied. “But I think I’m more afraid of so many what-ifs gnawing me to the bone if we leave. If you really are up for it, we shall stay and see this business through.”
Applejack wrapped a forelimb around Rarity’s shoulder and pulled her close. “There’s the girl who throws down with beasties and threatens to tear dragons limb from limb.”
“I suppose it’s settled then,” Rarity said to her parents, attempting to look self-assured while she snuggled against Applejack’s flannel jacket. “There is no reason to leave wounds to fester when I can try to put some balm on them now.”
"Of course you’re right,” Cookie said. “I thank my stars you turned out so strong and sensible.” There was an unplaceable wistfulness in the way she said it.
"Hardly sensible most of the time," Rarity said.
"You did bring Applejack along, didn't you?" Cookie rejoined. "That's sensible."
“If we're going, we should get going,” Rarity’s father said. “There isn’t much of a day to work with this time of year. You’d think with all the Princesses we've got now somepony could finally figure out how to fix the dayiight hours up here. Even them out across the year.”
“I shall be sure to ask Twilight to take up the matter when next I have the opportunity,” Rarity said, flicking her eyes over to catch a grinning Applejack.
“Good,” her father said. He procured seven five-bit coins from somewhere in his coat and set them on the table. “The taxi station is close by.”
In fact there was scarcely time for Cookie to remark on how it was continuing to warm up before they reached the enclosed taxi stand. An oversized thermometer hanging outside the stand read eleven degrees below zero, proving her technically correct. The dispatch clerk efficiently took stock of their number and belongings, asked for their destination, and had their sleigh pulled around in two minutes.
The taxi drivers were enormous Earth Pony stallions wearing studded horseshoes for traction and thick blankets featuring their company’s checkered livery draped across their broad backs. It happened that the pair were delighted to have been assigned the run to Maple Cove, as they both lived close by and had been granted the rest of the day off on account of all the flight cancellations. The luggage was loaded, the ponies piled in, the doors were closed, and the drivers and sleigh tore off across the packed snow covering the road.
“The trip shouldn’t take more than an hour or so. That’s what it took on the way out,” Cookie said.
“I suspect I’ll be a mite peckish by the time we arrive,” Applejack said, patting her stomach. “Think there’ll be more of those pasties, Rare?”
“Aunt Glory takes pride in setting a bounteous table,” Rarity said. “Though perhaps you should be prepared to suffer privation as the closest associate of her ostensible betrayer.”
“My sister will pull herself together,” Cookie said. “Everypony will come to their senses. Unhappy news or not, it’s almost Hearth’s Warming and we’re still family.”
“Here you go,” Rarity’s father said, levitating a pasty wrapped in parchment paper into Applejack’s waiting hooves. “I bought two extras on the way out and stuffed them in my coat pocket. They’re still warm!”
“Thank you kindly, Sir!” Applejack exclaimed, obviously ignoring Rarity’s appalled expression. “A welcome surprise makes for a nice change of pace.”
“I am going to stare out the window for a while,” Rarity said. “I choose not to witness anypony eating pocket food.”
The heavy sleigh skated on, swaying and bouncing as the homebound drivers pushed the pace. Rarity kept her eyes on the scenery even after the pasties were gone in an attempt to stave off carriagesickness. First, small farms appeared to break up the monochrome landscape. Then, naked maples, birches, and oaks appeared in increasing profusions until the road entered a proper wood that closed in tight on both sides. Maple Cove was southwest of the city of Whinnyapolis, a tight-knit little community clustered along the shore of Lake Whinnytonka. Rarity tried to remember the way, but any landmarks she might have once known now were lost in the haze of the past.
The frozen lake eventually came into view as an empty snow-covered expanse demarcated from the forest only by the absence of trees. Rarity’s father had first failed to teach her to fish on that water, a long time ago. She thought of the strange photograph again and briefly wondered if it might have been taken here, but she was certain it was not of any lake. The shores of Lake Whinnytonka had grass and rocks but never white sand and water that stretched beyond the horizon. Where, then?
“Did we ever visit the seaside when I was young, not yet Sweetie Belle’s age? A sandy beach somewhere?” Rarity suddenly asked, shattering the silence that had fallen inside the covered sleigh. She turned to see her parents sharing a look, and Applejack wearing a confused expression.
“No, Dear Heart,” Rarity’s mother finally replied. “We never did. Just the lake here, and the river back home of course. What brought that question on? Still wishing you were in Gallopoli?”
“Just idle curiosity,” Rarity replied. “I’ve been reminiscing about the early years with Aunt Silver, but foalhood memories are often little more than a blur, you know.” She hoped she disguised her shock better than her parents did, because there had been something close to panic writ large on their faces when she had asked the question. She moved to steady herself against Applejack, and was still clinging to her when the sleigh skidded to a stop and Sweetie Belle galloped out to meet them.
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Damn, there's a lot to like here. The plot is actually starting to crank! (I like "bitmarks" and "Tartarus or tidal waves" as pony phrase substitutions, too.)
Them thar's some evocative writings. I can feel the misery and confusion and loss in the chill Whinnyapolis air, and I'm living through a particularly hot Australian summer. Great stuff, can't wait for more.
So, not even Rarity has any idea why her aunt made her the sole heir, hopefully this lawyer can explain. Things are gonna be awkward with the family.
Hmm.
Her parents are hiding something...
As someone who has endured many a grey Midwest winter, I can certainly relate to the details here, and they add an authenticity to the story that augments the mood wonderfully. The hassles of travel that leave one off-balance in the best of times, as well as the certain nostalgia of returning to a family homestead that is no longer your own are captured well here also. It all makes for a really rich setting, promising a certain isolation for all of the family drama... Which is shaping up to really be something!
I'd say "Poor Rarity", but really it's more a case of "poor aunt Glory" if she's going to tangle with the likes of our fiercely protective favorite unicorn! Looking forward to getting some answers from the lawyer... But we all know better than to trust something straightforward from the likes of them. ;-)
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She's done three illustrations from this story so far (including the cover image above) and I suspect she's far from done!
I do feel sorry for anyone not following RariJack Daily though... it's truly astounding what she is able to produce on a daily basis.
The plot thickens. I have an idea. But I'm going to play it close to the vest.
Nice to see Rarity being so generous with the prospective inheritance, especially if she really didn't visit her aunt as often as the relatives who cared for her in her dotage. On the other hand, if it turns out that Rarity inherited her fashion sense from Silver a little more... directly than she realized, that could change things.
Luckily Applehorse is there, inheritance squabbles must come up like 10 times per reunion.
Pasties! Ah, good stuff. Thank you, Cornish miners, for choosing to settle the upper Midwest!
Love that little side discussion about the pasties, it added just the right amount of humor.
Good on Rarity for staying to face the family drama.
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And central Mexico!
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Huh. Ya learn somethin' new every day, I guess.
Loving all the ponified names for Minnesotan landmarks, although Maple Cove is a strange name for a landlocked city. I'm curious where the plot is going, maybe Rarity will find the picture in Silver Bell's home...
Well, Glory sounds like she is going to be a barrel of fun. Then again, getting cut out of a will with no explanation does little for one's disposition.
Took me a while to get back to this story. Not only had to re-read the first chapter, but I didn't realize this had prequels.
This chapter made me very hungry for a pasty, I'll have you know.
On top of aunt Silver giving everything to Rarity, this mystery beach is now piquing my interest. (The timing is funny, too, because I've recently been re-watching season 1 of Marvel's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D., a big intrigue of which of the mysterious Tahiti.)
Thank you for preserving the alliteration of "Hell or high water" when almost any other author would have just substituted "Tartarus" for "Hell" and called it a day without thinking of the phrase as a whole.
And I think I'm going to drag myself out of bed now and go downtown for a couple pasties. (Are they really a thing in the Midwest? I only know them from the British pub here.)