Simply Beautiful

by FinnPony

Act 3.1

Simply beautiful
by FinnPony

Act 3.1

“Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“Yes.”

Trenderhoof frowned, but then nodded. He turned away from Maud, facing the vendor of the ice cream stand. He examined the menu for a second before saying, “Just plain vanilla cone, thank you.”
The vendor nodded and started to make his order. Meanwhile Maud started to look for a free bench near the stand.

The small square near Trenderhoof’s apartment was surprisingly empty, considering that the day was so good. Sun was shining, birds were singing in the branches of the only tree in the middle of the square and small gold fishes splashed in the fountain that surrounded the lone oak mentioned earlier.

Maud didn’t keep admiring her surroundings for too long, and soon found a perfect bench, under the shadow of the oak. She sat down and waited for Trenderhoof to join her. She stared at him as he walked towards her with the vanilla cone in his magical grasp. His blow dried mane flowing in wind and his violet eyes looking towards her behind his glasses. Maud felt a shudder. It was still strange thinking about their relationship and she still felt like giggly teen around him, but luckily she could hide that. She had accepted those feelings in the past two days, and had learned to like them in a way.

She was snapped away from her thoughts when Trenderhoof sat besides her and said, “Quite lovely place.”

“Yep,” she said and looked around herself. The square was surrounded by typical Canterlot styled buildings, nothing too special, but she liked the cobblestone that covered the square. Fine cobblestone indeed. She noticed that it was actually the first time she had paid any attention to anything that had something to do with rocks in the whole time she had spent living in Trenderhoof’s apartment. Well she had spent almost three hours teaching Trenderhoof about rock cycle, but that didn’t count. She came to that conclusion that Trenderhoof had stolen all her attention, which was a hard thing to do. She really liked rocks.

“You want some?” Trenderhoof asked from her, snapping her back to reality for second time. He was levitating the ice cream in front of her nose. She leaned backwards and shook her head.

“I’m not much into sweets,” she said but Trenderhoof kept pushing the cone forward while pleading, “Just one lick. The taste is quite charming.”
Maud gave her an annoyed look, but then turned towards the ice cream and gave it a dainty lick. It tasted like vanilla, big surprise. She didn’t like it.

“Well?” Trenderhoof asked.

“I don’t like sweets.”

Trenderhoof frowned amusedly, and then gave the cone a lick himself. The they were quiet for a while, before he spoke again, “Can we hold hooves?”

“What?” Maud asked, pulling her hooves closer to herself. The question had surprised her completely. For the past two days she had liked spending time with Trenderhoof, but they hadn’t done anything physical yet. Not even held hooves.

“Come oon…” Trenderhoof dragged the end of the sentence. “We should look like a pair when we’re one.”
Maud didn’t answer

“I know you will like it.” he tried.

Maud rubbed her hooves together nervously, but she still had her poker face on. Trenderhoof opened his mouth to probably peg again, but he was interrupted by two very high pitched scream.

They both turned towards the ear aching scream and saw two teenager mares dashing towards them. Other one was a light green colored and the other one had very light brown coat. Maud immediately spotted some similarities between those two teenagers and Trenderhoof. They both had same kind of sweaters as he did, and the other one even had exactly identical glasses as he had. Clearly some big time fans of him.

“Ohmygoshohmygosh! Trenderhoof we love you..!” the other one shouted. Maud grabbed his hoof into her own and pulled him closer to herself, driven by some strange urge. The teens and Trenderhoof were equally surprised, and maybe Maud herself was too. The teens slowed down and looked at them with confused stare.

“Umm…,” the green mare started slowly. “Did we interrupt something?”

“Yeah…” Trenderhoof said while still staring at Maud with confused, but in the same time happy look on his face.

Everypony were silent for a moment. Only the rustling of leaves in the oak behind them was heard until the light brown mare said shyly, “C-could you sign this magazine?”
She presented a magazine to them, which Maud recognized as some famous travel magazine. The cover of it had a picture of smiling Trenderhoof in it.

“Oh… Of course!” Trenderhoof said and tried to extend his hoof towards the magazine, but Maud held it tightly. He gave her a strange look, and Maud grudgingly let go of him.

“What’s your name beauty?” he asked from the shyly smiling mare, making Maud almost fold her ears backwards. The mare giggled and said, “Latte.”

“Latte… I like your glasses by the way,” Trenderhoof said as he levitated a pencil from his pocket. The teen giggled and Trenderhoof started to write.

“From Trenderhoof to Latte… with love,” he spoke as he wrote, making the girls giggle even harder. Maud didn’t like that, and when he released the magazine Maud immediately wrapped her fore hooves around his right hoof again. Trenderhoof smiled stupidly and said, “It was nice seeing you girls, always a pleasure to meet fans.”
The girls blushed and curtseyed at him, before trotting away from them, giggling and fighting over the magazine.

They looked after the two young ponies for a moment, and then they disappeared behind the corner of nearby house.

“Lovely girls,” Trenderhoof said. Maud just let out a small ‘hmph’. Trenderhoof turned to look at him with teasing look in his eyes. He leaned closer to her and whispered, “Are you jealous?”

“No.” Maud answered quickly, looking the other way. She was jealous, and that wasn’t even the worst part.The worst part was that she didn’t even know why! It wasn’t like her to get jealous over a stallion.

Trenderhoof chuckled and continued his teasing, “I think you are!”

“No.” Maud denied again. Trenderhoof snickered and stared at her with a small smile and strange look in his eyes. Maud stared back with questioning look.

“Now we look like a pair,” he said with sly voice.

Maud realized that she was still holding his hoof in a tight grip. She looked up and saw him smiling warmly at her. That was the same smile that made her feel giddy a while back when they first met in Canterlot. It made her tighten her grip around his hoof.

They stared at each other for a second, before Maud said in her monotone voice, “I like this.”

“I knew you’d like it,” he said and took another lick from his ice cream.

It didn’t take long before Maud noticed someponies looking at them with interest. Maud started to feel uncomfortable when she noticed more eyes fixated towards them. She felt like shrinking under their gazes, letting go of Trenderhoof’s fore leg. He turned to look at her and saw her staring down at her own hoofs.

“What’s wrong,” he asked, reaching towards her. Maud just shook her head and muttered, “Everypony is looking.”
When Trenderhoof heard that he lifted his gaze to see if she was right, noticing how the ponies mentioned earlier turned to look elsewhere, trying to evade his gaze. A frown appeared onto his forehead, grunting annoyedly. It wasn’t first time everypony who knew about his magazine were interested in his private life, and by everypony who knew about his magazine, he meant everypony in whole Canterlot. A celebrity’s relationships were always a good source of gossip around the city.

“Don’t mind them,” Trenderhoof said and looked at Maud, who was staring at her hooves with deadpan look. She slowly lifted her head and looked at him while saying, “They are judging me.”
Trenderhoof snorted angrily. He grabbed Maud’s hoof into his own and held it tightly. He felt Maud tensing up and trying to pull her hoof free, which he didn’t allow. He waited until Maud was looking him in the eyes and started, “Well two can play that game.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Trenderhoof chuckled and nudged towards the pony closest to them. He was a dark grey stallion who was wearing a black vest. He was eating ice cream.

“Look at him. He can’t eat ice cream without making a great mess,” Trenderhoof whispered to her. He was right. Maud saw that the stallion was making his black vest covered in the melting white ice cream.

“And that one,” Trenderhoof said so the pony he was addressing. Maud recognized him as one of the ponies who had been whispering to the another stallion about them. Trenderhoof waited until he was sure that that stallion was looking at him.

“He keeps stealing sneak peeks at that mare’s backside!” he said loud enough for the mare in question to hear. She let out a loud gasp and turned towards the now sheepishly smiling stallion. There was a loud smack when the mare’s hoof connected to the face of that stallion. It made Maud feel a strange wave of satisfaction wash over her.

“And don’t even get me started on the rest of these!” Trenderhoof almost yelled with amused grin on his face. It made the other ponies in the square start squirming on their places. Starting to dismiss into different ways, giving Maud and Trenderhoof some well deserved privacy.

“See? They are just ponies like us!” Trenderhoof said as he pulled his hoof from Maud’s, lifting it over her shoulder. Maud tensed up. It felt like holding a statue for Trenderhoof. Soon Maud started to relax slowly though, resting her head onto his shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long moment. Trenderhoof finished his ice cream and kept holding Maud in his hooves. He looked down and saw her calm expression, thinking why she was like that around other ponies...

Then his mind raced back to the first time they met in Canterlot. He remembered the mares that giggled at her annoyingly, and how she had became incredibly tensed when he had asked why she hadn’t defended herself.

He stared at Maud in his thoughts. She noticed it and asked, “What?”
Trenderhoof snapped away from his trance with a wince. He gave her a stupid look before fixing his pose.

“I was just thinking…” he started slowly, Maud getting interested. He gulped before asking, “Why are you so… Or why didn’t you just go and tell them to...”
The words got stuck in his throat when he felt how she got tensed up in his hooves. He immediately felt stupid, and decided to drop the matter by saying, “Sorry. It’s not any of my business.”

Maud looked up at him for a moment, thinking about something before saying, “I haven’t never been the one to interact with others.”
Trenderhoof didn’t say anything, mainly because he didn’t know what to say. Maud tightened her grip around him and continued.

“I’m not like my sisters. They smile all the time and go out every night,” she told him. “I’m the oldest of our family’s siblings.”

“I don’t see why that is so terrible,” Trenderhoof said, earning a look from Maud that made him shut up.

“Pinkie, Marble and Limestone don’t know it, but our family was really broken when I was a filly,” Maud told to Trenderhoof, who gulped. This wasn’t going to be a good story he guessed.

“We were really poor. I went to sleep feeling hungry every night.” Maud told and felt how Trenderhoof placed his head to rest on top of hers.

“It was then when mom told that she was waiting for another foal. Pinkie Pie,” Maud continued, holding a small pause before continuing, “We had to work day and night to make enough bits so we could provide enough food for another mouth to feed. I never went to school and didn’t have any friends”

“It must have been hard,” Trenderhoof said.

“It was. I worked so hard that in the end I could tell the type of any rock by just looking at it,” Maud told him, explaining couple things for him.

“It is hard to smile when you don’t have any reason to do so,” Maud said and sighed. “We found the big iron vein after Pinkie was born. She doesn’t remember any of it.”

“So you managed after that?” Trenderhoof asked. Maud nodded but then said, “We did, but the hard times left some scars to me and dad. That’s why it was hard for my sisters too, until Pinkie got her cutie mark. Dad wasn’t the best father before that.”

“How does your sister's cutie mark have anything to do with this?” Trenderhoof asked confusedly.

“I’ll tell you someday,” Maud told him with a deadpan stare. “Anyway, dad became lot happier after she got it, like my sisters.”

“But you didn’t?” Trenderhoof asked a bit worriedly. Maud shook her head slowly. She squeezed him closer to herself and said, “No. I did. It’s just hard for me to show it after all those years. I'm happy but I just can't show it to anypony. Pinkie Pie is the only pony that can make me smile.”

“How about me?” Trenderhoof asked and gave her the smile she liked so much. She stared at him, trying to force out a smile, but it never came.

“No, sorry.”

Trenderhoof’s smile turned into a less broad one, but he kept smiling. Maud was starting to open up to him. It had to mean that she trusted him. Or at least that usually meant it. That mare was so hard to read. He chuckled and he said, “I promise that someday I will get a smile from you.”

“I hope so,” Maud said and pressed her head back to his shoulder, sighing sadly. Trenderhoof noticed that. He smiled to himself. He had knew it! Under Maud's simple appearance was indeed a feeling thing, a beautiful, authentic mare.

He nudged her a little to get her attention.

“Would you like to have some ice cream?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“What kind?”

“Chocolate.”

Comments

[gapaot]

“Would you like to have some ice cream?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“What kind?”
“Chocolate.”

aww ~