Chapter 17: The Millennium
IT WAS the middle of the night. I was on the phone. “Ron?” asked my brother.
“Hi, Noam,” I murmured.
“You all right?”
The question made me feel warm. “I’m perfect. Thanks for asking.”
“You sound weird.”
“I just laid my pony friend. Things worked out. It’s all good between us.”
His voice was choked. “Well… congrats, man, but you know that’s sick, right? You know how sick that is?”
“It’s sick awesome,” I countered.
“You don’t lay a horse.”
“She’s not a goddamn horse, Noam, she’s a unicorn. A uni-fucking-corn. And she was amazing.”
“You sound like you’re on something, Ron. Are you high?”
“I’m under the spell of love. Nothing else.”
He breathed quietly for a while. “Okay. Ron, when you say the spell of love, do you mean, an actual, literal spell? I just want to be sure.”
My heartbeat picked up. I thought back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“This isn’t hard, Ron. I’m just asking if you’ve had a spell cast on you. You know, bad juju.”
I took a calming breath. “No,” I answered. “No, the only juju around here is good.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
The more I considered it, the more I grinned. I even chuckled.
“Ron?”
“Like I said, I’m perfect. Never better.”
“You sound like something’s up.”
“Yeah. I’m up late. I should get to bed. Goodnight, Noam.”
“Ron?”
Nice talking with you,” I said, and hung up the phone.
This is where things start to blend together. Up to this point in my story, I’ve made sure each time I spent with Peach was exactly one chapter, even if that meant making some chapters a lot longer than others. That means that the number of times I’d seen her was always the same as the chapter number… so, for example, when I took her to dinner at Laurie and Jack’s, it was our eleventh time together.
But that ends here. I couldn’t tell you how many times Peach and I saw each other over the course of that week. It all essentially blended into one big… life. She went off to her 9 to 5, and I worked shifts at the garden store that were a lot less regular. But whenever we were both home, we were together. Sometimes I’d go down to my place to pack stuff and carry it up, but it still felt like we were together even then.
I invited Barrett over on Wednesday to help us move the big stuff. Barrett’s a big guy—mostly muscle with a bit of fat. Shaved head and a Giants cap. He seemed impressed and a little confused at how thoroughly Peach and I had fallen for each other. He was polite to Peach (and to Seaswell, when he showed up), but didn’t show any interest in getting to know them—he was just there to move the furniture.
At one point, we were alone in my old apartment and he opened a dialogue. “Ron, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Sure. Why not? You mean moving in with Peach?”
“Yeah.”
His discomfort made me uncomfortable. “It’s just what I was looking for,” I assured him. “I needed to share rent with someone, and it doesn’t even feel crowded when I’m there with her.”
“Maybe not now,” he said thoughtfully. “But what about in six months? You’ll probably be sick of her by then, and it’s a studio, Ron.”
I knew he was just concerned as a friend, but it was hitting harder than he probably intended. “I am not getting sick of her, Barrett. I love her.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he mumbled, looking away for a moment. “All right, fine. It’s just—I’ve been in love like it looks like you are, more than once, and… I just hope the good times don’t run out sooner than you think.”
“I don’t know why you’re worrying,” I told him, shrugging. “But if they do, we’ll get by.”
“You sure?”
“Well, look. It’s this, or I move away. And I don’t want to move away.”
He eyed me as if he was trying to see through me, but he nodded a little and it grew into a normal nod. We went back upstairs with another load.
As for Seaswell, he was just excited about the whole thing. Not over-the-top excited—just a constant background happiness like you’d want a friend to have during a big change like this.
When we were done, the apartment was crammed full of furniture and strewn everywhere with hastily packed boxes, baskets and pillowcases. Barrett looked around thoughtfully, trying to find ways to stack things more efficiently. Peach, on the other hand, looked like she couldn’t be happier.
“It’s a little crowded in here,” observed Seaswell.
“That’s fine,” said Peach. “That just means we get to start thinking about what to get rid of!”
“Maybe you should have decided before we brought everything up,” said Barrett.
“But we don’t know what we want to keep until it’s all up here,” answered Peach. “We have to see what fits with the stuff I’ve already got and what feels like it’s in the way.”
Barrett shrugged. “All right. So what’re we doing now? Do ponies like pizza?”
“We love pizza!” exclaimed Seaswell as he carefully flapped over a chest of drawers on top of a table.
“Then let’s get pizza!” declared Peach. She hesitated and looked at me. “If my money manager says it’s okay, that is.”
I smiled. “Of course. Getting pizza is what you do after you move.”
“It is?”
“Pretty much, yep.”
Peach grinned the biggest grin. “That’s the coolest tradition!”
I turned to Barrett and Seaswell. “We’ll order from Tommy’s. You guys came over to help—you get to decide what goes on it.”
“I like green peppers,” volunteered Seaswell.
Peach tapped me on the side. “So if you eat pizza after you move, what do you eat at other times? Like, what if you’re a kid, like I was when I sang my first song, and you’ve just been to school for the first time ever? What do you eat then?”
At first her question seemed frivolous, but then I reflected. “Ice cream. Your parents take you out for ice cream.”
“Really? That’s so cool!”
“Ask me another one,” I said.
Thursday morning, I let the super know my plans. By Friday, I was totally settled in unit 412. Peach Spark wasn’t the pony who lived upstairs anymore. Now she was the pony who lived with me. I kept dwelling on how weird it was that this had happened. If I hadn’t spontaneously decided way back in May to bake my new neighbor that pineapple upside-down cake, my life would be totally different.
It was heady, being surrounded by so much stuff. I’d pull out a book and have a tray of washers and gaskets almost fall on me, or discover a picture of Peach’s sister while pawing through a drawer for socks. We’d decided to take our time thinning it out. Half of the things around me belonged to Peach, and looking through them was like looking at another part of her that I couldn’t normally see. I also liked getting to go through my own things and reminisce, especially if it gave me a chance to share them with her.
I called my mom and let her know I’d found someone to move in and share expenses with. I didn’t tell her it was a pony, and I kept better control of myself than that crazy night when I’d called Noam. But when she asked if it was a girl, I let my defenses down and said “Maaaybe...”
I think she was happy.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I said from the kitchenette. The counters there were piled with boxes, the cupboards temporarily overstuffed with things that didn’t belong. I was making porridge for breakfast, loosely based on an Equestrian recipe Peach had gotten from one of her friends at the Turtlewood.
“I wish I actually made money from my blog so I could just blog full time,” said Peach from her swivel chair, staring at the computer screen. “I wonder if that’s a thing you can do. Oh hey, someone’s asking if we’ve had any arguments. We haven’t had any big ones, have we?”
I scoured my memory. “I think we might’ve yelled at each other once or twice. Don’t remember when.”
“Was it about the loan?”
“Um…” I strained to think back. “I think it was something at the VIP mixer with Cadance. I remember yelling.”
“That went haywire! Everyone was yelling.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Maybe not, then! When do you think we’ll have our first big fight?”
“I dunno. I kind of want to say ‘let’s just not’, but I guess everyone has a fight eventually, right?”
I grinned and tested the porridge’s consistency. “We could decide what we want it to be about.”
“Hey, good idea! What do you want to it to be about?”
“It should be something really dumb. Like, I dunno. Raisins.”
She laughed. “How are we supposed to fight about raisins?”
I turned off the heat. “Well, I put some in the porridge even though they weren’t in the recipe. You could yell at me for that. It’s done, by the way.”
“That actually sounds good. We’ll have to find something else raisin-related to fight about.” She was still sitting at the computer. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Someone’s asking me how I feel about ‘low grade mind control’. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No clue. Is there any context?”
“Not much. It just seems like…” She trailed off and scrolled down. “Oops, I was afraid of that. There’s commenters comparing our relationship to bestiality.”
“Oh god. Can we just ignore them?”
“It’s not bad stuff. I mean, they’re not saying we’re disgusting for being together, they’re just asking questions. Like, how do you get over the fact that I’m basically a horse?”
I felt emotions stirring—anger? “You’re not really much like a horse, you know. Not in the ways that matter.”
“Yeah, but they’re saying it’s not about horses in particular. It’s just… I guess it’s that I’m supposed to be ‘The Other’ to you, whatever that means, and you’re not supposed to love ‘The Other’.”
“Screw ‘em. We can love whoever we want.”
I actually felt a twinge of doubt, but she was bolstered by my confidence. “Yeah! I’m gonna poke holes in their logic. In terms of inspiration, I’m half horse, half human, so I’m not really an Other at all. Just half-Other.” Her hoof moved the mouse while her magic pounded the keyboard.
I filled a bowl with porridge and brought it to her. “I wish I was working today too. It’d be better than waiting for you here.”
“You’ve got cleaning to do!” She blew on the porridge to cool it down. “When I get back, I want this place to feel different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t care. I just want you to put your stamp on it.” She took a bite. “Organize some stuff, say this spot is for this and that spot is for that, whatever. Just make it feel like a cool new place for me to come back to. And bit by bit, we’ll get it cleaned up.”
I kissed her on the neck. “I love you.”
“You’d better. I’m taking you out tonight!”
The Millennium wasn’t exactly one of those secret in-the-know clubs with a nondescript door tucked into some warehouse or office complex. It was visible and thoroughly audible from a distance. We’d made our way some distance from the bus station across broad, busy streets lined with a textured mix of commercial establishments and anonymous buildings, built high and low. Then we saw it, right on the street, boasting a blue and purple neon sign whose horizontal lines vaguely suggested a timeline. The music booming out was canned but powerful—it was hard rock but I didn’t recognize the artist. A black street easel featured a big chalk drawing of a pony’s face in sunglasses, and underneath, the words, “PONY NIGHT. =No Cover for Ponies!=” Beneath that was a list of the acts: MC Ice, Perfect Pet, Torchsong, Rhododoomdron. None of which I’d heard of.
In front of the club was a man with his hands wrapped up in cloth strips to the point his fingers weren’t even visible. He was doing tricks--picking up beanbags and juggling them a little, screwing a screw into a board with a screwdriver held between his swaddled fists, building towers of big foam blocks. It was a circus-style act of a man doing things as if he had pony hooves. He even had a curly blue pony wig on.
“Wow. That man is weird,” said Peach.
“I think his hands are done up like hooves,” I observed. Other people, some ponies included, were pausing on the street to watch the performer.
“So he’s making fun of ponies?” asked Peach, incensed.
“I think he’s showing off. By doing things without using his fingers.”
“Huh.” Peach watched for a while, a conflicted look on her face.
“Can you do stuff without using your magic?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh, sure. Everyone gets taught that kind of thing in school. Not all unicorns can levitate, and sometimes you’re just out of magic, you know? So yeah, everypony learns.”
“It’s pretty amazing to us, you know. That anyone can be that dexterous without fingers.” They’d shown that pony legs, and especially the part called the “cannon”, which corresponded to the human hand, were much more flexible than in Terran horses, so that ponies could bend the ends of their front legs around to grasp things, albeit loosely. Scientists believed it had evolved naturally, but were still piecing together the story of how. And then there was the amazing Equestrian sense of balance. And their even more amazing aim. How they could lay out an ‘armload’ of objects and have them land just right, or kick a tree and have its apples land perfectly in baskets set around it.
“Eh. A lot of things are amazing. Life itself is pretty amazing,” said Peach.
“And you say ‘eh’ about that? ‘Eh’ is what you have to say?”
She batted at me. “I’m just saying, I’ve had my whole life to get used to amazing stuff. It’s the stuff that’s more normal that amazes me these days.”
I thought about that. Then I put a dollar in the man’s bucket, paid my cover charge and walked inside.
The club wasn’t crowded yet, but it was already obvious it was pony night. They outnumbered us humans about two to one, with the margin getting bigger. I was no expert on nightclubs, but to me it felt like a pretty typical arrangement. We were in a big main area with plenty of danceable space. In the back right corner was a DJ station set kittycorner to the room’s walls. There was a stage along the rest of the back wall. On the left wall was a bar, already glowing fluorescent even though a few streams of daylight were still coming in through the little windows high on the walls. There was a second level made of numerous balconies, and under them were sofas and chairs.
Since the outing was Peach’s idea, I let her lead the way. Instead of retreating to a sofa or one of the balconies like I would have done, though, she struck out immediately onto the dance floor and started introducing herself to everyone, especially the other ponies. I was learning just how big an extrovert Peach was capable of being when she wasn’t shy. I followed along and let her introduce me, putting in a word here and there where I could. Even though the night’s acts hadn’t begun yet, the recorded music was still way too loud for me, and I had a little trouble keeping up with topics of conversation.
Then came the sound of a microphone. It was held by a man in a black and gray suit who stood confidently at center stage. “Fillies and gentlecolts, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Pony Night at the Millennium!” The growing crowd surged and clomped the floor heavily enough I felt off-balance. “Just a few things before I start us off—we have wheatgrass juice and smoothies at the bar, and a wide selection of juices, as well as Merry’s Magic Punch, on top of our normal selection of spirits, beers and wines. If you’re into techno, come back tomorrow for Brash Man, laying it down from eight o’clock on, and Sunday night we’ve got DJ Waxbar spinning Kicker and Steel Hand Crew all night, with half-price on all tequila and Jäger shots. All right! With no further ado, I give you good folks your Master of Ceremonies for the evening… Mr. MC Ice!”
He flung an arm toward the DJ station, and a pair of big white wings slowly rose from behind it as if the equipment were ascending to heaven. Suddenly a sizable stallion coursed straight up, bursting from behind the station along with an explosion of delicious rainbow colors that reached the far walls. The crowd roared; he landed and grinned. Two or three electronic instruments, including a snappy drum line, started up and the MC began to rap.
Ponies in the club \ Ponies in the club \ Better listen up \ There’s a better way \ Gonna show you how it’s done
Ponies in the club \ Ponies in the club \ Put your ears up! \ There’s a better way \ Gonna show you how it’s done
MC Ice walked through the dance crowd, followed by various ponies stepping to the beat.
“I got friends, yo!” His huge white wings rose and loomed, and I realized they were decorated with dozens of tiny gems that sparkled when the revolving light caught them. “Wall-to-wall packed, slammin’ dudes and chicks full of grace and tact, my friendship’s juice which is why I’m jacked, if friends were curves, my caboose’d be stacked, got no better use for my opening act than to call ‘em out, quick and loose, now check this fact!”
He pointed dramatically to an earth pony with a huge satchel loaded with who-knew-what, accessories sticking out—a blue stallion with an explosion of frizzy pink for a mane.
Big Bobby in the crowd with his big mane, Bobby Pins, gonna do you up somethin’ insane. Makeover, takeover, up another octane, big pink hair for a big pink brain frame! Flouncin’ pretty on the floor, what’s that huge flare? Giving you a scare—just another flume of fly hair! Courtesy of Mr. Pins, sculptor in his element, pumpin’ out the pigment, something new to celebrate. Pins, tiny shims, brushin’ up against your skin, ticklin’ down around the rims of your glasses, special unexpected things. Better watch yourself, straight-hair, don’t be out there poutin’, or he’ll take whatever you’re floutin’ and he’ll make it a flowing fountain or a huge and mighty mountain! You’ll go home with whole ecologies thrivin’ in your tresses! Now that’s an outing, an’ there’s no doubting: Mr. Bobby Pins impresses!
Bobby Pins gawked for the crowd and held up a hoof full of pins in a way the man outside with bound hands never could have managed. MC Ice then flapped his wings to slide over the floor as if he were skating and pointed up at a brown and purple middle-aged mare with a feather hat. His next verse started out quick and tight but eventually broke the beat, slipping into freestyle.
Take a peek, on the balcony, standin’ full of dignity, daycare leader Claramelt! Watch it or she’ll get her belt. Always with a fine touch, not too little, not too much, be a crippled filly’s crutch, fillin’ lives with love an’ such. Never gonna meet a better youth role model, gonna take away your phantoms, gonna wean you off the bottle. Turnin’ colts into stallions and fillies into mares, ‘cause she does what she dares ‘cause she genuinely cares! Integrity and chastity, this mare would be a blast to be, and it don’t take no math to see her life’s a buckin’ tapestry! And yeah, she’s got a vast beauty. And you may a master be, a pony dastardly at seduction fast and free, but if you come at her no matter your patter, no matter how dapper you might be, dressed no matter how snappily, you’ll still come off sappily, ‘cause Miss Claramelt sees what’s happening and the mare’s married happily!
There was a big messy cheer as Claramelt doffed her gigantic hat. But Ice wasn’t done with her:
No one better at letting the go-getters down easy, though, think she’s gonna make you queasy? No! You may be a sleazy bro but when she turns you down it’ll be like you’re king of the town, like her sympathetic smile’s a crown—imagine how it feels to the lucky fool she keeps around!
The mare’s husband, with a tall grin, waved to the crowd. And it went on like that, verse after verse of the MC calling out ponies he knew, overflowing with complimentary descriptions and emphatic respect. The crowd loved it. Peach was into it and I had to admit I was, too. I’d never been much of a fan of rap, but this stuff was refreshing.
Ponies in the club \ Ponies in the club \ Newark listen up \ There’s a better way \ Gonna show you how it’s done
Ponies in the club \ Ponies in your club \ Put your ears up! \ There’s a better way \ Gonna show you how it’s done
At the end of the song, MC Ice lowered himself from the ceiling slowly (and only a little bit jerkily) with huge flaps of his wings. “I got bits, I got bling, I got cred, I got verse, but if you think I got attitude you best disperse, ‘cause any of y’all could make just as much purse, you got so much personality you’re fit to burst, and that’s the way it should be, ‘cause the truth is nice guys finish first. Power of ponies, yo.” As he started hitting switches, the music flared out and a slow electric noise rose along with dazzling blue-white lights, and the tone became the background to the next song.
The crowd’s applause rolled like waves, and the music became the backdrop to a dreamlike room full of strange faces. The weirdness of ponies, of the very idea that these made-up creatures actually had turned out to be real, flowed suddenly and sharply back into me. I turned and staggered in a mixture of wonder and fear while the electronica simmered.
Peach tapped me on the shoulder. She tapped with nothing—just two bursts of her magic. Why did it feel like fingertips? “You all right?”
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” I admitted.
“You want to go up?” She nodded to the nearest balcony. “We can try to get out of the way.”
I shook my head. “You’re having fun down here, right? We should stay—the show just started.”
“I want you to be comfortable,” she said.
I gave in. We walked up the metal frame stairs—for me it felt more like a trudge—and I found a couch to slump on. There were some people around—mostly ponies in clothes that looked outlandish just then—but they didn’t seem too interested in me. Our little upstairs corner was poorly lit, though there were some magenta and green circles glowing here and there on the ceiling.
Peach sat next to me. “Are you gonna be all right?”
“Yeah, probably. Sorry. I’m not a nightclub guy. I thought having it be ponies would make it easier, but I think it’s actually worse this way.”
She frowned—I could feel her disapproval. “You don’t like being around so many ponies at once?”
“I just feel really out of place.” Even though I liked the music, I could feel a headache brewing.
Peach kissed me. On the cheek. I closed my eyes and felt the headache starting to melt away. “You want a drink? I can go and get you something.”
I considered. “Yeah. Better do that. Why don’t you make it one of those fun cocktails? Just make sure it’s leaded.”
“Leaded?”
“You know. That there’s actually something alcoholic in it.”
“Oh. Okay.” She slipped away.
It didn’t feel bad, just lying there alone, letting Peach be my errand girl. There were some people across from me, three ponies and a stocky black guy, fiddling with each others’ accessories and chatting quietly but not-so-quietly in that way that hints at gossip or scandal. I just lay there, not trying too hard to make out their words.
Eventually two of them left for the stairs. A banana yellow stallion and the black guy were left, looking at me. The unicorn stallion was wearing purple shades and velour to match. The black guy had a design shaved into his short hair and a dark green jacket with highlights of silver. There was one strawberry pink drink on the table in front of them. Two straws.
“She your girl?” asked the man.
I was disoriented for a moment before I realized he was asking about Peach. “Huh? Yeah. She’s my girl.”
“You been together long?”
I blinked. “No. Not too long. Less than a week. Maybe longer, depending how you count.”
The stallion grinned—he had gold caps, I was horrified to note. “She’s getting you a drink? That’s good. You should keep her.”
A little of the quease in me sifted away. “She gets a lot better than that.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said the man. “You doin’ all right?”
I tried to shake the pendulous sense I was in the wrong place. “I think I just need to take it easy,” I said.
“You on anything?”
I had to remind myself it was a reasonable question, make an effort not to get offended. “No. Just never been to a pony night before. I hardly ever go to clubs anyway.”
The stallion leaned forward and drank from the pink cocktail through one of the straws. “You’ll feel better once you go out and dance,” he advised.
“Naw, leave him alone,” objected the man. “He’s pooped. You pooped?” he asked me.
I was amused by the fact I didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t think so. It just feels weird here. Bit of a headache.”
“Sorry, man. You want us to leave you alone?”
“He just needs to talk,” diagnosed the stallion.
The man baffed him playfully with the back of a hand. “He needs his rest!”
The pony champed at him, apparently also in play. “No one here needs to rest!”
I rubbed my face. “Yeah, actually, he’s right,” I told the black guy. “I think I just need to talk a little. Get used to being here.”
“See?” said the yellow stallion.
The guy rubbed his companion’s mane. “Yeah, all right.” He looked at me. “We’ll be glad to talk. Wanna make you feel better. What you wanna talk about?””
I wanted to ask if they were a couple, actually. But that was not going to be my conversation opener. “You guys come to Pony Nights a lot?”
“Every one,” said the stallion. “It’s a taste of home.”
I asked him why he was here in Newark instead of back at home, which turned out to be Manehattan. He was doing commercials, he told me. He had an agent booking him as the ‘cool pony’ in ads for everything from credit cards to shampoo. It cost too much to go back and forth through the portal, or to live in the Big Apple, so here he was in Brick City. While we were chatting, Peach showed up with my drink.
“I got you something called Sex on the Beach. I hope it doesn’t—oh hey, you made some friends!”
“Hey Peach. This is Dango, and Maza.” Pony and human, respectively.
“Hi! I’m Peach Spark.” She peered at them. “…Are you gay or something?”
Wow. Under other circumstances, I might have laughed, albeit nervously. At the time, I was too cowed by my environment to muster a reaction. The two of them were scowling, though.
“As a matter of fact,” said Dango, while Maza stayed silent.
“Oh neat!” said Peach. This seemed to alleviate the tension. “I hardly ever met anyone gay before, and I also never met another pony-human couple!” She swished her tail.
“Well,” said Maza. After a hesitation, he extended his hand, and Peach shook it. “Guess you’re in luck.”
“There’s a few in the scene,” said Dango.
“Other mixed couples? Really?” asked Peach. “Any here tonight?”
“Don’t think so,” said Maza. “But come on, let’s get you with our friends.” He stood up to lead us away, and we followed.
By ‘get you with’, he meant ‘introduce you to’, thankfully. It turned out these guys had actually come in a group of seven. There were a human couple and three other ponies with no clear relationship status, but who clearly had a lot of complex relationships. We all milled around the railing, watching the goings-on below and chatting about random stuff.
Peach seemed better at jumping into their world than I was. I heard her ask a lot of questions without context. “No wait, this guy, does he work at the loading dock? Or is he with the shipping company?” “Are you saying she got her ears pierced just to come here?” “What? Is that even normal on Earth or are we talking some really weird nonsense?”
I kept most of my attention on the crowd and the music. Mostly the crowd. About half the ponies were wearing nothing at all, but I saw a lot of facepaints and even body paints—ponies with wavy stripes, concentric circles, even pictures like griffons on their flanks. How did they make those, I wondered—some kind of dye paintbrush? There were necklaces too, and anklets, and various other bangles. Then there were the ponies in tank tops, shifts, croptops, oversized shirts, blazers… even a few in what looked like classic evening wear. On the extreme end, I saw one pony couple dressed up as Princess Platinum and Commander Hurricane.
Suddenly, my whole view was shrouded in bright, dazzling light. MC Ice was standing on top of his table, wings outstretched to the limit, with beams of light shining through the feathers and picking up colors from the gems embedded in his wings. A noise of admiration rose from the crowd. Things really got trippy when strobe entered the mix, along with a pounding deep bass that was like a color in itself.
Maza laughed aloud. I watched in wonder and drank my Sex on the Beach through a straw. I’d never had one before—in other settings, I’d be afraid of getting made fun of with such a girly cocktail. Here, somehow, that didn’t seem like a danger.
Ice finished doing his thing and the music flared to a close. The lights came up again—not bright, but hospitable. “Friends, I like your spirit tonight,” he said through a microphone. “What do you say we give our human fans a chance to tell us what they think of us? Fair?” There was a lot of floor clomping. “All right, fair!” he declared. Gesturing to the stage area not far from his own table, he announced: “Bringing to life the animal in you… it’s Perfect Pet!!”
The six human beings who took the stage were wearing costumes—well, partial costumes. The guy in front had a huge pair of bunny ears. There was a guy with a big turtle shell strapped on, another with an alligator snout…
“We are Perfect Pet!” shouted the bunny guy. “We are the perfect pet for you. Take us home! Care for us! Feed us! Give us love!”
“Give us love!” echoed the others, a couple girls among them.
The crowd clomped enthusiastically. “You won’t be sorry you did!” concluded the bunny dude, whereupon they broke into a loud distinct alternative rock song probably called “A Pet of My Own.” The dancing had stopped—now everyone milled around or listened.
“Hey.” Peach nudged me.
I smiled. “Yeah?”
“Is this song about sex?”
I listened to the lyrics. “It’s about the joys of having a pet,” I told her beatifically.
“Well, yeah, but. Isn’t it about sex too?”
I played innocent. “How should I know?”
“You’re a human! You know how humans write songs.”
I grinned and fuzzled her mane. “Yeah, it’s about sex too. Good catch.”
She beamed, but quickly got serious as she went back to listening.
Near the end of the first song, I realized what Perfect Pet’s deal was. They were dressed as the pets of the Mane Six. And during their next patter segment, we learned that they liked playing around with it. The girl with doggy ears spoke with a fake country accent. The guy with big owl spectacles and a feather headband pretended to be all wise when he wasn’t doing a “Hoo?” schtick. And the prematurely balding guy playing Gummy… well, he didn’t say much, but when he did, it was really cool.
They played mostly their own material, but they also covered Hey Ocean’s “Big Blue Wave” and Glaze’s “Cutting Out”, based on the Kij Johnson story I’d finally gotten around to reading that spring. Then came a more electronic song (with Tank on synth and Angel on vocals) that got Peach’s attention. The lyrics were about being lost on a foreign shore, following a path toward the light but being attacked by the darkness. (I later learned it was by some artist called FraGmenTd.) Peach seemed absorbed by it.
“This song could be about me,” she said.
“I think it’s about Trixie,” I said.
“Human songs can be about two things,” she countered, leaning over the railing.
“Glad you’ve figured that out,” I allowed her.
All the while, I kept scanning the crowd for interesting costumes and behavior, but what I spotted made my stomach lurch. Just for a moment—then I was fine. “Look,” I said, pointing.
Peach looked. “It’s George!”
“I almost didn’t recognize him in the pink striped shirt.”
“He was in paisley when he brought me. Four big unbuttoned cuffs. I think he blends right in this way.”
“Heh.” We watched him stroll about, occasionally striking up a conversation. It was way too long before I asked: “Should we go down and say hi?”
Peach looked at me in surprise. She seemed to be fighting her own brain—not too surprising in a place like this. “Yeah, I guess we should!” she finally decided.
We excused ourselves from our new acquaintances and headed down. It was a mess down there, a joyful, crowded mess. Just getting from one point to another was a challenge, with new weird-looking ponies (and humans) looming up every few seconds. George wasn’t where we’d remembered seeing him. Then Peach tapped my shoulder and pointed at the round tables under one of the balconies. He was enjoying a drink there, chatting with a dark purple earth mare in sparkly blue spandex.
We made our way over. “George!” exclaimed Peach, stepping forward.
He spun on his stool, taken aback. “Peach! And the sergeant.” I could tell from his eyes that he didn’t know how to react. “Didn’t think I’d run across you here.”
“Why not? You brought me here last time, remember?”
His eyes flitted to his companion and back. “Suppose I figured we were done with, Peach. You never replied to my e-mail, or the comment I left you, or even the note I dropped in your box.”
Peach was mortified. “George, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even realize you’d left a note or an e-mail. I haven’t been checking my mail. I’ve been so busy!”
He took a deep breath. “Peach, Pepper, this is Spaceburst. Space, you won’t mind if I go aside with these two for a minute, will you?”
The mare’s grinning white teeth were disconcerting against the darkness of her coat. “Nah, go for it!”
We moved deeper under the stairs until I had to duck my head. I pulled over a chair.
“Peach,” said George, “it hurt that you didn’t get in touch. It was a blow. I always knew it might work out this way,” and he nodded my way, “but I figured you’d be decent enough to tell me how the stones had fallen.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Peach. “I’m sorry, George.”
“You know, our time at the Met felt fairly special. I thought so, anyhow. Perhaps I was mistaken. But I certainly didn’t think it’d be the last time we spent together.”
I saw her head jerking, like it wanted to start spinning. “It was a really good time! I thought so too!” Only then did I realize I’d never asked Peach about her museum date with George.
“And yet, half a week later, with no noise from you in the meantime, I pull up the blog and find an entry on this chap that’d make a princess jealous.” Again he indicated me. “Leaving no doubt whatsoever where your heart lies.”
Peach was struggling, so I jumped in. “It was kind of sudden,” I acknowledged.
“So I gather. What’d you do, Pepper? Buy her a diamond ring?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. “No… I guess we just clicked.”
George stared skeptically. Then he turned back to Peach. “Peach, we had a kiss. A good one. Are you telling me we didn’t click?”
“I don’t know, George. I’m—I was really fond of you, I mean I still am, but…” She looked helplessly at me, but I was at just as much of a loss.
“I don’t mean to be sour on it all,” said George. “I’ve lost in love before, and it’s your life to lead. But I don’t think I ever had a girl leave me without taking the time to break up. Especially not after a kiss like that.”
I was trying to remember the timetable of my romance with Peach: whether it really had played out like George said. But my head was foggy and I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think of anything to tell him.
Peach flung her forelegs over George’s shoulders and held him sadly. “I did see your comment on the blog but I forgot to answer it. I meant to say sorry. I just couldn’t think how to answer at the time, and then it slipped my mind.” She nodded toward me. “Pepper just moved in. It’s been hectic.”
He looked sharply at me. “You’re sharing quarters with her already?”
I nodded. “It was the sensible thing to do,” I said quietly.
George shook his head and gently pushed Peach off. “Something doesn’t stack up. That’s all I have to say. I’ve seen mysteries in my time, and this ranks with them.”
Neither Peach nor I could answer that. We moved back and stood together, looking at George. “I’m sorry,” Peach repeated.
He was silent a moment. “Think nothin’ of it,” he eventually said, but his tone was still hurt. “Just tell me—did you enjoy meeting the Princess of Love?”
Peach nodded. “We had a good time.”
“Yeah,” I added.
He looked between us for a few moments, then nodded. “All right, then. I guess that’s that. Be seeing you sometime, I suppose.”
“Be seeing you, George,” said Peach.
He looked suddenly back at me. “Sergeant. I don’t suppose you’ve worked out what your cutie mark would be, have you?” I tried to change mental gears and come up with an answer, but he cut me off. “No, I didn’t think so. Fine, then. Carry on.” He waved us off.
We stood together on the edge of the dance floor, surrounded by bodies and motion. “It is kind of weird how you didn’t think to write him,” I remarked.
She put a leg around my waist, clinging to me. “I didn’t wanna.”
I stooped to return the hug. “Why not?”
She shrugged. “Too sad.”
We slow-danced through a couple songs meant for anything but slow dancing. Perfect Pet finished with a metal remix of “May the Best Pet Win” and left stage to great acclaim. MC Ice said a few final words about them, blew a kiss to the plus-sized girl in cat ears, then introduced a cream-colored earth mare with huge hair and a wide-brimmed ladies’ hat for a cutie mark.
“Got a special treat for you, clubbers! I wish I could bring you Rarity and Fluttershy to hang with you, but they’re bigshots with big lives to lead! So I’m proud to introduce the next best thing—their musical colleague and a brilliant musical mind in her own right… Torch Soooong of the Pony Toooones!”
“Nice to see you, Newark!” greeted the mare with a huge wave. “It’s always a thrill to cross the portal and live on the other side a while.” Pause for mild applause. “I know, you may be wondering—how is an a capella singer like Torch Song gonna bring down the house?” A few whoops amid uncertainty. In demonstration, she pressed a hoof pedal and we heard her again exclaiming: “Nice to see you, Newark!” Another press, and the sing-songy greeting was on loop. Torch Song added a counterpoint: “I hope you’re doing fine!” And we were off.
Torch Song’s act was a lot gentler than what had come before, and Peach and I actually found it more danceable. Ice backed her up with drum lines for some songs, and for a few she sang along to prerecorded tracks. Given that about half her numbers were just her belting out a tune, she held the room surprisingly well.
I was particularly impressed by her covers of “The Twilight Will Rise” by Turquoise Splash and “Grazing in the Grass,” a jazzy song from the 60’s that seemed especially apt coming from a dancing pony’s mouth. My favorite original was a song about Ponyville life that was a lot snarkier and funnier than Twilight Sparkle’s “Morning in Ponyville”.
By the time Torch Song finished her set with the inevitable “Find the Music in You”, we were back on the balcony with our new ‘friends’, listening to them go off on everything under the sun. Dango wandered over and asked how things had gone downstairs with the guy we’d recognized.
We exchanged a nervous glance. “Kind of awkward,” said Peach.
“He kind of had a point,” I added.
“Was he after one of you?” asked the gold-capped pony.
“Uh…”
“Yeah, me,” said Peach. “I mean, we were going out for a while.”
“Yeah?” asked Maza, listening in. “How serious was it?”
Peach looked uncomfortably at me. “Well, we were starting to talk about where he was traveling next. And whether I’d go with him.”
This was news. “That seems pretty serious,” I said.
She cringed. “We even talked about how I was going to break it to you.”
“Harsh!” said Dango. “But somehow you ended up with this guy anyway?”
Peach blushed. “Yep!”
“How’d that go down?” asked Maza.
“You know how it went down,” Dango interjected, looking back at him with a wink. “It’s that human magnetism. Gets you every time.” Back to Peach. “Am I right?”
“I guess so!” said Peach. But she didn’t sound too sure.
Below, Torch Song waved and bowed and MC Ice bid her a fond farewell. “Say hi to Rarity for me—we go way back,” he told her.
“Suuure you do.”
“Way back.”
“Eyyyup.”
“Say hi to Big Mac too. All right, friends, here to take us home is one of the real powerhouses of pony rock. Straight from Beantown, Equestria—it’s RHODODOOMDRON!!”
“All right! I been looking ahead to this,” said Maza.
I could see why. Rhododoomdron was a five-piece hard rock band made up of ponies that were mostly pink or purple. Those whose manes didn’t match the color scheme were wearing lavish wigs. They got right to pounding the house, and MC Ice wasted no time throwing up mirror wheels that sent scintillating colors all over the place. Where the lighting during his own set had been dark, now it was like a bright, freewheeling day.
We had a great time. The group we were with finally went down and joined the action, which was more like gentle moshing than dancing. Being taller than all the ponies (except a handful of big ones when they reared up), I felt kind of like a gentle giant.
A pegasus member of the band flew overhead and tossed a bunch of fake feather boas into the crowd. Thanks to my long arms and a bit of luck, I got one. I gave it to Peach, which won me a kiss. Maza pledged to get a boa for Dango if it would get him a kiss, too. I think he managed it eventually.
A few songs later, the frontstallion turned to the bassist and asked, “Hey Grassy?”
“Yeah, Blossom?”
“I noticed your bass work was a little unusual on that song!”
“Well, Blossom, that’s what we call a ‘walking bass line’. It’s where you move from one bass chord to the next with an intermediate step, instead of jumping straight there.” He demonstrated the line from the song.
“That’s fascinating, Grassy! I’ll have to listen for it next time.”
“You should, Blossom!”
This was the third time they’d paused between songs to explain a musical term. A little drunk by now, I suddenly realized they were doing something quintessentially Equestrian: giving us vocab lessons!
“Am I missing something about this schtick?” I asked Peach. “Or are they actually taking time out just to teach us new words?”
“Of course! Everypony does that.”
“Everypony? Not just bands?”
“Sure! How is anyone supposed to learn how to talk if you don’t teach each other the words you know?”
Friendship is Magic’s educational/informational standards came to mind. “Well, you learn the hard words in school, I guess.”
“Are you kidding? You have to go to school around here just to learn to talk?”
“Well… or pick them up from reading, I guess? But… you don’t share words with me.”
Peach whacked me harmlessly with her tail. “Sure I do! Remember how I taught you what a silkscreen is the other day?”
“Oh yeah! So you were just performing a civil service?”
“Sure! Grown-ups don’t do it as much with each other ’cause there aren’t as many words we don’t know anymore. But you’ve got to keep learning from each other!”
“You know, I agree!”
After grooving for a while, we decided to take a break at the bar. Peach finally indulged and drank half a hard lemonade. I took a chance and tried out the specialty Pony Night drink, Merry’s Magic Punch. (According to legend, it was invented eighty thousand years ago by the original ancestral alicorn, Merry Sue.) It tasted bold and fruity. Supposedly it was supposed to make you feel more magical, but I had trouble telling if it managed that task any better than booze in general.
Maza and Dango joined us and we all chilled for a while. We learned that ‘Maza’ is short for ‘Mazerati’, and ‘Dango’ for ‘Fandango Fire’. They dished about how they’d met at another local nightclub. Dango had been humiliated too many times, so instead of approaching anyone, he just started putting out signals that he was available, gay, and looking for interspecies love. I wanted to ask how in the world one manages to do that, but I was too shy. Maza had been sharp enough to pick up on it all, anyhow, and their first night had been an eye-opener for both.
Then Peach asked about the Newark scene, and Maza started to talk about some of the craziest parties he’d been to.
“That’s nothing,” said Dango, catching my eye. “I’ve partied with Berry Punch.”
Maza leaned back. “He’s gonna do this now.”
“Seriously?” asked Peach. “Berry Punch? When?”
“Icecracking festival, Bullion Town, Year 3. I went in the ice gazebo and noticed her. You can’t not notice her. You’ve heard ‘life of the party’? Well, she’s the blood of the party. She’s the juice. She gives it flavor.”
“She can’t be better than Pinkie Pie,” said Peach.
“Pinkie Pie?” Dango took a swig of his ginger ale highball. “She’s for kids. Might be the best partier in the world, overall. But the best partier for adults? Berry Punch, hooves down.”
“What does she do?” I asked.
He peered at me. “If I could tell you, she wouldn’t be the best. Unpredictability. That’s what makes a good party great. After that ice gazebo, I followed her all night. She came up with this game where we’d… tip our drinks into the ice sculptures, just enough to make a little saddle of liquid. Sounds like the dumbest thing in the world when I say it, but she made it amazing. My drink, mingling with yours in the cold…” He shivered, and Maza leaned forward to pat him heavily. “Every place she went, she took control, and didn’t even make it look like she was trying.”
“What if she was here?” Peach asked with a smile.
Dango gestured to the dance floor. “She’d probably be everywhere. Surfing the crowd, flirting with all the stallions without really flirting. Shouting ‘Free Bird’ after every song, chatting it up with the DJ, lying on his table. Shouting ‘Heads up!’ and leaping from the balcony. Betting people she can too drink the whole thing.”
“Drink the whole what?”
“Don’t matter. Anything. Someday I’m gonna party with her again.”
“And this time, you’ll be ready,” said Maza.
“Damn straight.”
Peach looked a little troubled. “You talking about going back to Equestria?”
He gave her a serious look. “You think I could stay here year-round?” He waved his leg expansively. “Slushy-ass winters, hooligans everywhere? I’m aiming to spend half the year back in Manehattan and half doing television on this side.” He gave Maza a quick squeeze. “Got this chump to keep me company for that part.”
Peach looked at Maza. “But aren’t you going to miss him when he’s gone?”
Maza smiled wanly. “We’ve got our arrangement.”
“Are you getting homesick?” I asked Peach. If I hadn’t been tipsy, I wouldn’t have dared.
She looked at me seriously and swallowed. “I’m always homesick. But I’ve got work to do here. And besides, you can’t come with me.”
“Wish I could go to ponyland,” said Maza. “That civilization you guys got, that shit is tight.”
“I know, right?” said Dango. “But I’m glad to get out for awhile, just the same. Sometimes you got to loosen up.”
I felt my heart beating. I pulled Peach back onto the dance floor, and she laughed.
It was the middle of one of Rhododoomdron’s long songs. “All right!” yelled the frontman. Frontstallion. Whatever. “You still got your boas? I want those in the air! Unicorns, if you can levitate at all, put those boas in the air and keep ‘em there!”
Within moments, the middle altitude of the Millennium was filled with colorful boas and even more colorful auras of magic. High-pitched squeals rose from the audience. Peach and Dango both concentrated on maintaining the floating sea of fluff. Peach crouched a little, Dango arched up tall.
“Beautiful! Okay! Next, I want to hear the beat… flowing out of Grassy’s bass and coming back to us. Can you do that? Every pegasus in the house—I want to hear your wings flapping on the downbeat! I want to feel your wings on the downbeat!”
We felt it—it was like a hurricane was coming. A musically talented hurricane.
“Earth ponies! Clomp the floor on the upbeats! Like this!”
Now the hurricane was fighting against an encroaching earthquake.
“Beautiful! Okay, put your wings down, put the boas down, it don’t matter your race, we’re all one! But I want to hear just the mares now. Just the mares, clomping on the beat!”
The boas fell back into the crowd. This time I just watched them.
“Now just the stallions!” Kboom, kboom, kboom, kboom. Somehow, though it didn’t sound either louder or softer, it sounded different.
“Just the humans now! Stomping on the beat!”
I bent my knees and obeyed. It was a feeble sound in comparison.
The frontstallion put his hoof up to his ear, as if straining to hear. “Well they’ve only got two legs, and that’s not really fair. Let’s throw in some clapping! All our human friends, clapping on the ups, stomping on the downs!”
I grinned, swaying as I did it. This was fun. I caught the eyes of other humans in the room, our upper bodies emerging from the masses.
“Now put it all together! Boas in the air, wings on the downbeat, earth ponies on the upbeat, humans keep doin’ what you’re doin’, gimme the magic!”
We did it all, and we cheered besides.
The rhythm broke down happily as the song ended. I could feel a draft from all the air stirred up by pegasus wings. MC Ice was standing on his table again, keeping the beat with his own gem-studded wings to the last.
“That was Rhododoomdron, people! Make some noise! Yeah! How’re you feeling?”
We answered in a dozen different ways, all happy.
“In that case, I’ve got just one more thing to say!” declared MC Ice. “Do you know what I’ve got to say?”
While the crowd made noise, Peach tugged my shirt. “I know what he’s going to say! George told me Pony Night always ends with the same song.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
But she didn’t have to answer, because that’s when Ice mashed a button and a familiar intro began to play. He leapt over his table with a pump of his wings and swaggered onto the dance floor, singing:
It might seem crazy what I’m ‘bout to say
Sometimes I just want to fly away
You could take my wings, leave me treading ground
You know I’d still walk in leaps and bounds!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like the world is in your hoof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like ponies should raise the roof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like you are a pony too!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like that’s what you want to do!
Here come bad creatures with their nasty plans
Think they can conquer all the pony lands
Well, bring on the evil and the villainy!
Won’t stop me reaching for my destiny
Here’s why:
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like the world is in your hoof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like ponies should raise the roof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like you are a pony too!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like that’s what you want to do!
By now the crowd was clomping and singing along. Even some of the humans were singing. I had too much human pride, I guess, since I settled for swaying to the beat. Ice pumped his broad wings with every other beat now, rising slowly toward the ceiling and sinking in between. He even started bobbing left and right with alternate wingbeats, singing all the while:
Bring me down! Can’t no one… bring me down! Because I can fly!
Bring me down! Can’t no one… bring me down! I can literally fly, yo!
Bring me down! Can’t no one… bring me down! Because I can fly!
Bring me down! Can’t no one… bring me down!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like the world is in your hoof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like ponydom is the proof!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like you are a pony too!
(‘Cause I’m a pony!) Clomp along if you feel like that’s what you want to do!
(‘Cause I’m a pony…)
We got home well after midnight. (The idea of ‘getting home’ collectively with Peach was still enough to make me laugh and whoop on the inside.) I still had songs flying through my head.
The piles of stacked furniture brimming with objects were still there to greet us. I plonked myself dramatically down into the one open seat on the sofa. Mimicking me, Peach leapt onto the ottoman and sprawled with a similarly dramatic sigh.
I got up with sudden energy and swung one of her dangling hooves like a pendulum. It kept swinging after it should have stopped. Then all her hooves started swinging. I laughed and raced around her, trying to stop them to no avail.
“Can’t stop (can’t stop) can’t stop the beat,” said Peach, her chin against the cushioned fabric. “You ca-ca-ca-can’t control my feet.”
“Maybe not, but I can try.”
She looked back at me lovingly. Then, with a fresh breath, she hopped up and went for her computer. “I should probably check my e-mail before I forget. I feel bad for missing George’s letters.”
“He didn’t take it so well, did he?”
“Ah, he was right. I should’ve told him. It just didn’t occur to me.” She hopped onto her swivel chair and spun once around, just like she always did before working on her computer. As if I needed another reminder why I loved her.
“Okay, yep, here’s the one from George,” she said. “I kind of don’t even want to read it. I mean, I know what it’s gonna say.”
“You can read it later,” I suggested.
“Yeah, probably. Um.” She leaned forward, staring at the screen.
“What is it?”
“I got e-mails from Princess Cadance!”
I felt a chill. “What, really from her, or just with her name on them?”
She clicked the mouse. “Looks like they’re just from her assistant. At least this one is. I guess it was sent last Sunday?”
“Is it just thanking us for coming to the mixer or something?”
She read it aloud. “‘Dear Ms. Peach Spark. My name is Opli Dexia; I am the personal assistant to Princess Cadance. The princess is currently addressing the United Nations; however, she has asked me to express her apologies with regard to a spell she used upon you and your companion at the VIP Mixer associated with her speech yesterday at the Radio City Music Hall. Princess Cadance regrets that she targeted you without your consent and is concerned that, due to the tense nature of the diplomatic incident that ended the mixer, she may have used more power than is typical for such treatments. She urges you to write back if the spell has caused any inconvenience. Despite her busy schedule, she promises to make time to fix any problems she may have caused.’”
“Well, this is baffling,” I said.
“Yeah! What spell is she talking about?”
“I don’t remember getting any spells cast on us.”
“Well, there was that big squabble. Maybe we got hit by something in the confusion?”
I thought back. The whole thing was a blur. “Well, if we did, I guess it didn’t hurt us. Nice of Cadance to check up… weird that she even remembered your name, really.”
“I think it’s nice. Maybe the other e-mail explains.”
“Yeah, check it.”
She did. “‘Dear Peach Spark, I feel terrible about using my magic on you and your companion without permission. I was frustrated by the behavior of the other attendees, but that’s no excuse for what I did. Please write back and confirm that you’re all right, or if you’re not all right, please let me know and I can help. Aunt Celestia helped me to see that forcing people to love each other is wrong, even if they seem perfect for each other. I haven’t done anything like this in years, and I’m losing sleep.
“‘Sincerely, Princess Cadance.’”
“Wow,” I said.
Peach sat in stunned silence.
“So this one really was from Cadance,” I said.
“Forcing people to love each other,” Peach repeated. She didn’t meet my eyes.
“Who do you think she was talking about?” I asked.
“Beats me. This doesn’t make any sense. What does forcing people to love each other have to do with this spell or whatever we got hit with?”
I realized I was shivering. “I don’t know. Maybe the e-mail was a mistake?”
Peach seemed to relax. “Yeah, probably. I’m gonna write back.”
I stood there and didn’t quite watch as she wrote her response. My mind was flitting back to the mixer. The pegasus from Las Pegasus… the minotaur ambassador… the fight… people leaving the room…
What had happened next? I couldn’t remember. I just remembered leaving the building with Peach. I remembered holding her. Hugging her. Kissing her.
“Dear Princess Cadance,” she was saying aloud as she typed. “I appreciate your e-mail, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. My boyfriend and I weren’t hit by spells that we can recall. Frankly, we’re having trouble making sense out of your e-letters. I’m guessing these were sent to me in error. Just the same, your concern is touching! Please don’t lose sleep on my behalf. Sincerely, Peach Spark. Follow my adventures at PeachOnEarth.com.”
“I don’t think you need that last bit,” I suggested. “And it’s not e-letters, it’s just letters.”
“Okay! Fixed, and fixed,” said Peach. “And sent.” She shoved her chair away from the computer, sending herself whirling. “I think that’s enough e-mail for now.”
I smiled—the shivers were gone. “Good call. What were we talking about?”
“No idea!” she said. “What say we sort some more of our stuff? That’s always fun.”
And of course she was right—it totally was.
After the last chapter, some readers were happy with the way Ron and Peach had 'reacted' to getting hit with a love spell, deciding to contentedly accept the fact that it had brought them together. Others were disappointed with this reaction, seeing it as an almost literal deus ex machina for their romantic problems. What you may not have noticed in Chapter 16 is that at no point do Ron or Peach ever refer to the spell, or to Princess Cadance making them fall in love. Now the reason for that comes clear: They don't remember it happening.
A while after Chapter 16 went up, I invited readers to ask Peach questions as if they were posting on her blog. (The comment thread is a post on my own user blog.) At the beginning of this chapter, the questions Peach is reading through on her computer are those very questions. Thanks for informing the story, folks!
In case you're unfamiliar with it, the final song at the club is to the tune of Pharrell Williams' 2013 hit "Happy". And the little snatch Peach sings later at home is a tweaked lyric from "Move Your Feet" by Junior Senior. The FraGmenTd song referenced is called "Lost". The songs named in this chapter are real, except for "Cutting Out", which we can imagine was written sometime between the present and summer of 2018. Kij Johnson is a gifted fantasy author who wrote a grimdark story called "Ponies" in 2010 that became well known in the fandom. 
The throwaway line in this chapter about "the ancestral alicorn, Merry Sue" is an idea I'd been sitting on for years. I never got an idea for a story about her, but I'd love to see one! 
What song or band would you love to see a pony musical artist cover?
I still don't know how this story ends. But I think it's going to end soon.
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I suppose I'm surprised that you don't know how this story is going to end. Not knowing the destination of your journey is a bit of a problem. Wandering around and extending the journey as you reach it is one thing, but I suggest you think about how this finally winds up. But honestly, I can only see it ending one of two ways:
OR
1. Peach and Pepper realize what happened (or don't) and decide to stay together anyway,
2. They don't. The end of the relationship is the end of this story.
It's your call as the author, but somehow this story has gotten to me, despite the fact that it's not normally the story I read. I guess it reminds me of a girl I lost because I just wasn't brave enough to pursue it. I'm hoping that these two end up together, probably just 'cuz I'm a sucker for a happy ending.
Anyway, this was fun as usual. The "Merry Sue" alicorn joke is a metahumor wisecrack after my own heart.
If the relationship ends tragically and Peach just goes running to Georgie-boy, I will be extremely disappointed here.
While their is definitely an argument to be made this constitutes a deus ex machina for the romance, ending it with another spell just turns this into a tragedy which is not what anyone signed up for from your tags. And stretching it out beyond that with 'and then they get together in spite of the lack of the spell' just makes it feel contrived in the same way.
They have their happy ending, even if its partly magic induced.
Let them keep it.
And as an aside: I gotta say, as heart broken as Ron would likely be if she left him like that, as genuine as his feelings are in spite of her own, that would be enough to drive a man to violence. So I hope George is smart enough not to be around Ron, if the worst does happen.
Was my argument-question in this? The one I wrote in Ask Peach?
I'm a hopeless romantic so I hope they stay together.
I suppose I always interpreted Cadance's magic as highlighting or reminding people of emotions that were already there, rather than creating those emotions. And, even though I sensed something was... a little odd from shortly after they officially got together, I held fast to the hope that the feelings they had were indeed real. Now that seems to be in question, and there's an uneasiness about the whole thing. I'll admit, it'd be a huge bummer if this story ends on a sad note, but hope springs eternal.
Very happy to see this updated.
Now then...what to make of these new developments.
It seems that when Cadence cast that overpowered love-spell, we may have witnessed the magical equivalent of an angry toddler forcing the wrong-shaped block through the wrong-shaped hole. As much as we may be rooting for Ron, from what George described, both he and Peach had something very intimate forming between them, especially when they shared that first kiss.
If her feelings for George were really that strong, then there was absolutely no reason for her to just do a 180 and fall head-over-hooves for Ron and completely forget about George.
Given the fact that Cadence's interference may have compromised the natural flow of their relationship, I think Peach and Ron will be faced with a painfully difficult decision. Either they take the blue pill and continue on with their relationship as it is, or they take the red pill and acknowledge that Cadence's love spell may have been the only reason they got together in the first place.
Should Cadence's interference be acknowledged and they decide to go the red pill route , I foresee one of those "if you love someone let them go and if they come back then it truly was meant to be," sort of endings. Both Peach and Ron decide to take some time off from each other and do a little soul searching and it's more or less left open as to whether or not they get back together, again.
Either way I've really been enjoying these past few chapters. I'm anxious to see where it all leads.
this chapter is super good .
but Cadance just what did you do? I am getting a bade feeling about this.
I am hoping this is not going to turn in to a brake up story?
Harts Fire
What a freaking mess. The situation is ugly. For everyone involved.
Poor George especially. I really liked him and he had his heart stomped on because a princess got flustered.
I really like what you're doing with this story. It's emotionally tough to read at times, just like it should be. Horse drama, culture shock, good intentions, heartbreak, and in the end we don't know if everything is gonna be alright for any one. Good job.
I found the way Peach and Pepper didn't even seem to think about the love spell in the previous chapter kind of creepy, but seeing them literally forget it every time it's brought up here is just horrific.
The fact that Peach seemed to have pretty much decided on George before the spell makes it even worse. And he's still a remarkably good guy even after being treated pretty shabbily!
At least that email should throw up some serious red flags for Cadance to catch.
Seaswell and Kellydell feels pretty disturbing now as well though.
Ok, that stuff is kind of overshadowing the rest of the chapter, but this was a really good one. I really liked the idea of Merry Sue, the first alicorn.
Haha, oh my, I didn't expect to get a shout-out. Thanks, Ringcaat!
I liked that subtle undertone of "everyone finds their relationship vaguely creepy but them" you've been sprinkling in, by the way. Everything just seems to sort of be crumbling around the edges a little. Nothing much actually happened in that sense, but you can already see tell something is about to go bad in a big way.
Rhododoomdron is the worst pun ever.
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What I'm thinking is going on would be viewed as low-level mind control by most humans. The spell can supposedly only work with what's already there, but like a garden, it must still "tend" to it to make it grow. Especially in a case like this where their relationship was purposely being allowed to languish in spite of whatever feelings the two had. I figure it's focusing their attention on their relationship and marginalizing ("weeding out") anything that would hinder their relationship's start. That would definitely include anything to do with George, and I could see why the spell might include itself within that framework.
That's where it really gets questionable. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and ending up with positive results is... well... both uplifting and distressingly unsettling.
At least Cadance's heart is in the right place. We'll have to see whether humans (and us readers) can follow the "pony way" to forgive and let bygones be bygones if the originator is truly repentant.
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As I am sure she was the last three or four times she fucked up like that. One of the downsides of forgiving too easily: people tend to get a little bit used to it. And by a little, I mean a lot.
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Difference between pony world and human world...
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Worth pointing out: the email explicitly says "I don't use my magic like that anymore" - as in, this is not the first time she fucked up like this. Doing a stupid thing once is a mistake. Doing a stupid thing more than once, though, that's a habit.
Oh god Nooo. Your gonna have it end terrible.
So the last three chapter got really creepy. Almost dark. Brr.
I hope that doesn’t lead to Peach resenting Pepper for it—after all, it’s not his fault. And while I'd logically say Peach should’ve joined up with George—she seemed to click better with him on a relationship level—Pepper’s problem hits a bit too close to home for me to (emotionally) root for that; it seems if Peach left him now, that might just break him.
So, yeah, again, very captivating story, if less feel-good than I expected! Can’t wait for the next chapter.
"What are you on?" And other niblets of its ilk are wonderful in this chapter. It felt to me that their relationship is a castle made of sand, and the tide is slowly coming in.
fluorescent, from fluorine.
Am I the only one who finds glamour completely freaking adorable?
"You are enchanted! You have been mind controlled to love one another! You don't actually love each other, but it is only arcane enyrgyys making you do so!"
"So, you're saying we love each other very much?"
images.wikia.com/mlp/images/e/e1/FANMADE_Luna_I_see_what_you_did_there.jpg
I noticed that and started this comment before reading on to the end, and saw you mention more about it. Nice pun there.
hmm this lyrics looks familiar
yep this is so happy bye parry Williams love that song I sing it when in happy