• Published 30th Apr 2014
  • 4,604 Views, 123 Comments

The Faith of Carrot Top - Dawn Stripes



Humans are being shipped with ponies once again. But this time, something's gone wrong. Our mammalian hero doesn't want to go along! Poor, broken-hearted Carrot Top! She just can't understand it. Who wouldn't want to be shipped w

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Chapter 6: Of Hearts and Hooves

And Other Even Beats

Day knew something was different the moment he stepped outside that Thursday morning. Crayonberry Lane was so intimately familiar to him that he could feel the difference even before consciously placing what it was.

Had Celestia finally done something to the sun, as he always feared? Nope; it was still at its usual 7:30 perch on the roof of the Cake’s house, covering Ponyville in just the cheery spring warmth that had been scheduled for today. Were the birds gone? No, that wasn’t it either; as soon as he had the thought he could hear their songs, bright, whimsical, and steadily improving. The local wildlife expert was preparing them for a performance at the upcoming Grand Galloping Gala.

Had another catastrophe followed the Elements of Harmony home to Ponyville? It didn’t seem to be so; the morning crowd of ponies wasn’t screaming or fleeing from anything today.

Wait. It was the pink. It must be breeding. Against all mathematical possibility, there was even more of it than before.

The shutters were decked in pink ribbons, the awnings in pink banners. The cart stalled across the street had pink paper hearts nailed onto it, and some cheeky pegasus, Day discovered as he looked up, had even thrown pink streamers over the roof of his own house.

He mentally checked off the date as he began, hesitantly, walking towards the train station. Today wasn’t any holiday that he knew of—but then he stopped himself. This wasn’t Earth. He only knew of a few Equestrian holidays, the famous Hearth’s-Warming Eve and Summer Sun Celebration he heard mentioned all time.

So he stopped at the wagon and tapped the withers of a muscular red draft pony who had a green apple for a cutie mark. “Excuse me. Is there something special about today?”

The pony gave him a simple, weathered look and chewed a stalk of grass. Day got the distinct feeling that the pony was wondering if he was daft.

“Eeyup,” the stallion declared tacitly.

Important?” shrieked a voice. “Ah!”

Day pinwheeled for balance as yet another splash of pink, this one animated, accosted him from behind. He looked up, down, and then turned his head upside-down and found a walking Hearts and Hooves Day decoration balanced on the edge of the wagon with her snout in his face.

“It’s hearts and hooves day—Day!” Pinkie Pie giggled uproariously. “The most romantickest, pinkest, chocolatiest holiday of the whole year!”

And then she was gone. A couple seconds later a girlish shriek erupted from Walnut Row on the next block over, accompanied by a crash of crockery and a bout of exploding party poppers.

“Romantic holiday?” Day murmured after the retreating mirage of the resident party animal. He turned to the draft pony, who was still beside him, solid like a rock. “This isn’t anything like Valentine’s Day on Earth, is it?”

The stallion merely shrugged, pulling his shoulders against the squeaky traces attached to them.

Day narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Is it a celebration of love?”

“Eeyup.”

“Lovers expected to give romantic gifts to each other?”

“Eeyup.”

“I’d better get my special someone some flowers so it doesn’t look like I forgot entirely?”

“Eeeeeeyup.”

Day slumped tremendously. He ran back inside to set his briefcase on the counter, and took off for the market in the hopes that Morning Dew was somehow not sold out of bouquets. The odds didn’t seem good, considering how many ponies favored flowers as gifts, but the florist, like most ponies, had a peculiar intensity for his profession and had never let Day down before.

Most of his frustration had nothing to do with the fear of failing to find a gift, or even the fear that he would be late for work by virtue of having to catch the next train. The bare-skinned facts were worse than all of those things put together: It was Valentine’s Day in Ponyville.

Day couldn’t stand Valentine’s Day. He couldn’t even remember a time when he hadn’t felt a cloudy depression at the mere thought of the holiday. And now he discovered, without any warning, that it had followed him to another world? For the love of ponies! He couldn’t even escape Valentine’s Day by moving to another dimension? Then what hope was there?

There were plenty of flowers left. Morning Dew had wisely stocked up extra for his biggest business day of the year. In fact, Day was able to snag a dozen gorgeous roses on the cheap; it was a lucky break for him that ponies didn’t have the same romantic infatuation with a single flower that humans did. He could get roses for no more than a third of what they would have cost on Earth. And, ever since Carrot had showed him the value of small favors, Day took frequent advantage of that fact. Morning Dew and he were on first name terms.

The stallion smiled as he prepared the bouquet for Day, carefully slicing off every thorn with a pocketknife and misting them with a little water from an atomizer. “So, what do you and Alexandra have planned for today?”

“Oh, nothing special.” Day shuffled anxiously, laying his bits on the counter and grabbing the flowers. “No time. I’m already late for work.”

He didn’t take time to think properly about the look of supreme confusion the golden stallion gave him.

So long as the clocktower wasn’t lying, the train Day was meant to be on pulled out of the station just as he made it back to his own front doorstep. Throwing it open, he raced into the living room with a shout. “Allie!”

As Alexandra appeared in the kitchen doorway with a toaster waffle hanging from her mouth, Day dropped to one knee and thrust the flowers towards her. She jumped, clasping her cheeks in delight; tossing aside the food a moment later, she tackled Day and threw her arms around him.

“You remembered!” she squealed, rolling him around the carpet. “Yes, oh, yes!”

Day laughed and freed himself from underneath her so the flowers wouldn’t get squished. “You could have told me, you know. I only learned about this holiday twenty minutes ago.”

“But I was so hoping you’d remember without being reminded, and you did!” She tried to smother him in kisses, but Day pulled away again, much to her frustration.

“Sorry, honey. You knew I was going in today. I’d better call and let someone know what happened.”

He stepped into the kitchen to use the phone. Equestria lacked cell phone towers and most of Earth’s networks, but so long as Day didn’t mind sticking his finger in a wheel to spin out numbers, he could call a limited roster of offices, the project headquarters among them.

Day cleared his throat and gave his name to the colt who picked up the phone. He briefly explained his situation. “I know buying flowers might not be a very good excuse,” he concluded, “but I’m hoping the team will at least understand. There’s a second train for Flankstaff at nine, and so I won’t be more than an hour, maybe two late.”

“Wait.” The voice at the other end sounded confused. “You’re coming here?”

“Well—of course.” Day frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s only Valentine’s—err, Hoof and Mouth—err, Heart’s Day. I don’t need to use up a vacation day for that. We have precious few enough as it is, and we really need to finish the interface project before August–”

The pony at the other end was flipping pages somewhere. Day waited over the static. “Mister,” the cold said eventually, “our record here says that you’re engaged. They’re not expecting you.”

“Are you sure?” Day didn’t want to jeopardize his chances of being part of the breakthrough the team felt was just around the corner. Even Vedalkan engineers had commented once or twice on Day’s blueprints, and so the company found great promise in his ability; if he pushed for another month or two, he could earn a place on an even bigger project after this one was complete. “It’s really not a problem. And I think that Shel’quannath and Shiny Springs wanted me to be there when they tested the next prototype…”

“Shiny Springs? But she’s married!”

“What does that have to do anything?” Day belted into the phone. “Just what are you trying to imply?”

“N-nothing, sir! Just—why would she come here on Hearts and Hooves Day?” The colt’s voice sounded of mild, innocent surprise. Day was genuinely confusing the poor pony.

He held the phone away from his face to stare at it. “Perhaps I should speak to someone in charge. Are you sure she isn’t coming?”

“No, sir, we wouldn’t dream of it. Every herd has the day off on Hearts and Hooves Day.” At this point, the pony on the line sounded downright uncomfortable with Day’s insistence upon working. He made a couple more cursory inquiries to make sure that he really wasn’t expected at headquarters, and then hung up.

Day juggled the phone a couple times. Then he shrugged. Then he went into his bedroom, opened the weekend drawer and changed into a pair of jeans and a bright green T-shirt. He made a quick jog across town to confirm that Allie wasn’t expected at work either. Then, dashing home, he let her finish that kiss she’d started. And after that they stood outside and watched the day pass by. Suddenly, it was thrown wide open to both of them.

It would have been tempting to spend the entire day curled up on the couch with a book, but Day didn’t have any leisure reading at the moment. In fact, his fiction intake had dropped off since moving to Equestria. Accessing the stories of another species was surprisingly hard. In pony novels, he could almost never find a love triangle that wasn’t soon resolved by inviting everypony involved into the all-encompassing love of a herd.

Besides, thanks to the local weather team’s trademark artistry—not to mention that of Princess Celestia—the weather was not merely bright, dry and sunny. It was of the particular variety of sunny weather that was lazy without being languid, relaxed without being slow, and warm without being oppressive. Even in Day’s staunchest computer-obsessed years, he never could have resisted the temptation to go outside on a day like this. At least he hoped not.

During most of Ponyville’s holidays, there were fairs in the town square, with games for the foals and food for everypony else. That made it the perfect time to wander around Ponyville. Allie and Day didn’t even have to go that far to find a special Hearts and Hooves Day attraction. When they took a moment to read the pink sign nailed to the wagon across the street, they discovered that the draft pony’s name was Big Macintosh, and that he was offering hay rides to the meadows on the other side of town.

Day leaned over the reins to ask Big Mac how many bits it would be customary to pay for the ride, since no price had been listed on the sign. The pony simply tossed his mane and replied with a bizarrely uninformative, “Nope.”

Day scratched his head. “No, as in you won’t tell me what the price is? Or you’re not giving rides at this time?”

“Nope.”

“What? You can’t mean that the price is no bits?”

“Eeyup.”

“Doing it just for the heck of it?”

“Eeyup.”

One pleasant surprise seemed to follow another. Saving two bits didn’t matter in a town where Day had a more technically demanding job than ninety percent of the population. But there was something charming and full of good will about the thought of the towering pony pulling others around for the sheer enjoyment of it. As soon as the wagon was reasonably full, Big Mac’s hooves began to drum against the cobbles.

While Allie relaxed under his outstretched arm, Day kept a sharp lookout for moping singles in the windows and alleyways they passed. As a holiday for the celebration of romance, this ‘Hearts and Hooves Day’ was shaping up to be a pretty good parallel to Valentine’s Day so far. That didn’t please Day any, but the explorer buried deep inside him needed to know the whole story. If everything else matched up this far, there ought to be a population of lonely hearts and jaded ex-lovers lurking about somewhere. Did ponies have anything equivalent to Singles Awareness Day? Day could buy a T-shirt for it.

Oddly enough, he didn’t see a single mopey pony during the hay ride, nor among the meadows and glens once they reached the wide uncultivated spaces that served as Ponyville’s park. The ponies on the ride were occupied nuzzling each other all over or staring into each other’s eyes for disgustingly long periods of time. Nor was there was any shortage of honeymoon feelings wherever else in town Day cared to look. Some of the affection got pretty heated before Big Mac could reach the meadows and let them down to gallop off together, so Day managed to get pretty uncomfortable during the last few minutes of the ride. The taboos against public displays of affection weren’t quite as strong in Equestria as in the present-day United States—nor quite as strong as Day would have liked.

He decided it didn’t mean much that he couldn’t see any unhappy ponies on one short ride. Most singles probably weren’t out and about on the town today, anyway. They were probably indoors, especially if they were in a particularly grey mood—Day couldn’t imagine himself willing to face the sight of dozens of ponies making out in the grass, not if he hadn’t had Allie at his side. Besides, he knew that he had seen ponies in aprons walking about Sugarcube Corner, and caught the fleeting silhouettes of weather pegasi overhead. So some ponies were working today, alleged holiday or no. Perhaps those were the lonely hearts.

But the park was full of contented togetherness, to such a degree that Day could feel it like a wave. A fleet of checkered picnic blankets spread out from here to the horizon. The majority of those blankets had couples on them; as Carrot Top had once mentioned, the ‘modern’ sentiments so strong in Canterlot were creeping into Ponyville, and large herds were on the fall here. But from a hillock Day could see plenty of clusters where as many as six ponies sat together, looking just as happy as any of the other groups.

Maybe this meant he would be able to escape Carrot Top today. She was single, and so maybe she wouldn’t come to the meadows. A fear of her had appeared like a crack in the morning’s all-too-perfect harmony, and it had been growing steadily with each paper heart he passed. Of all days, how could the earth mare not have planned some madness to inflict on him today? The more Day thought about it, the more he thought it must be so. This might even be the long-dreaded day that Carrot Top tried to seduce him by appearing in one of the decadent lingerie items he’d once glimpsed in the back of Carousel Boutique. Carrot Top very rarely wore any clothes and had never hinted that such a thing might happen, but Day had long been afraid of it all the same. It was a recurring nightmare with him. In fact–oddly enough–he’d been dreaming about it more and more lately.

Today, he just wanted to spend some time with Allie—and Allie alone. After two hours in the glow of this holiday, he already wanted that. And dearly. He could feel the contentment radiating off of his girlfriend, and it reminded him of bygone days on Earth when he would feel guilty about the amount of time he spent with wires and surprise her with long trips to the lake whenever he booked time off. His surprise dates used to shock her so much that she would break down and cry with joy. He hadn’t done that for a while, and as he counted off the weeks since they’d seen that lake, it saddened him more than he cared to realize. This went a long way towards making up for that. If Allie wanted to go along with everything ponies did on this holiday, it was more than worthwhile to follow along as well, no matter how ridiculous, for something as valuable as her smile.

Allie looped an arm about his waist. “Those picnic blankets are so pretty!”

Day chuckled. “They are picturesque. Maybe we should have brought some food.”

“Don’t worry,” said a slurred voice behind them. “I got sh’you covered, you shneaky little monkey, you!”

“Berry Punch!” Day spun and proffered a hoof bump to the purple earth pony. He was fond of Berry, inasmuch as he would have openly called himself fond of any mare. Berry Punch was easy to get along with. She was one of those ponies that intuitively grasped Day’s need for personal space and never took it as an affront. The slurring cadence of her speech defect led to an endless parade of good-natured jokes about her ‘punch’ consumption, but the truth was that cases of real alcoholism were rare among ponykind.

And Day had never seen Berry pull a cart before, but today she was hitched up to a sweet little rose number on two wheels, loaded with stacks of woven picnic baskets. Each one had a red and white checkered blanket neatly folded on top.

“Just two bit for your own!”

“That’s all?” Day noted Allie’s longing look at the nearest basket. “Well, if you say so, Berry. I’d be more than happy to take you up on that.”

Berry Punch picked up the handle in her mouth, but switched to holding it between her forehooves so that Day could take it without any risk of getting his fingers between her teeth. “Have a good time, you two.” She winked, and was gone towards another crowd of park-goers coming in on the next hay wagon from town.

It was easy to find a spot, despite the apparent presence of half the population of Ponyville out here. Allie picked out a knoll under an ash tree, near the banks of the brook; they spread out their blanket and unpacked the goodies inside the picnic basket one by one.

It couldn’t possibly have been worth only two bits. Day had expected apples, and maybe a few carrots or celery stalks. Even that would have been generous. Instead there were strawberries from Flankstaff, and rolls of almond-studded cheese from the dairy that usually shipped all its products straight to the high-paying markets of Baltimare. Berry Punch had somehow switched out the hay balls that other ponies were eating for a double set of rolls, under which were a pair of chocolates fresh from Bon-Bon’s confectionary. Allie made Day let her bite them out of his fingers.

In response, Day re-doubled his watch against Carrot Top. She could appear at any time. She was an earth pony, after all, and knew her way around a wood or field with a mysterious kind of intimacy he couldn’t match. Perhaps no human could. The presence of other happy lovers wasn’t going to stop her if she had something in store for him, and it probably wouldn’t be hard for her to guess that Day and Allie would be out here eventually.

But the only thing that startled them while they ate was a rainbow being hung on the other side of the river. It was a novelty for them, so they stopped to watch. Once the rainbow was securely set in place, with each of its colored bands fused into the grass, a prismatic pegasus stayed behind and paced the bottom, ears swiveling like radar dishes as if attempting to guard it from something.

The food disappeared in minutes. Day put his hand into the basket to put the chocolate wrappers back, and found that he’d missed something hard wrapped in linen at the bottom. Out came a small glass bottle, cork-topped, filled with dark mauve liquid and labeled by a small pictogram of a strawberry and a bunch of grapes.

Allie latched onto Day’s shoulder and gasped. “She didn’t!”

“I think she did,” Day muttered, half-amused and half-concerned about how Berry Punch could afford to give away so much of her stock if a bottle like this was in every one of those picnic baskets.

“What does it say for the year?” Allie turned the bottle in Day’s hand and whistled low.

Day pried at the cork. “Should I be concerned that I drink at least three times what I used to since moving to this world? I used to hardly ever touch a beer.”

“You didn’t have the good stuff back on Earth.”

They took turns taking sips, and then turns giving each other fruit-tasting pecks on the lips. At the end of their picnic they lay back and watched flocks of puffy clouds cross Ponyville, sculpted as they looked on by zipping weather pegasi. No effort was being spared to make the scenery as beautiful as possible. When Cloudchaser and Flitter got a nice thick cumulous bank to work with, the end result was a breathtaking landscape of sky that framed the sun through a tunnel of glowing, ethereal plains.

The holiday was so mind-bogglingly simple, and yet Day found himself savoring it more and more the simpler it got. Of course, the fact that when he woke up this morning he’d been looking forward to nine hours of tremendous mental stress and eyesore computer screens might have had something to do with it.

They nearly fell asleep right there in the meadow. Allie began to snooze, but Day would sit up sharply every time he was on the verge of falling asleep and make a scan of the daffodils for approaching earth ponies. She might try to ambush him when he least expected it. He didn’t want the mood to be wrecked by any debate or tension he might embroil himself in if she appeared. The other possibility was even worse—while he was in this mood, just barely tipsy from the small but surprisingly powerful bottle of punch, who knew what Carrot Top might be able to get away with?

Eventually he shook his girlfriend awake, and they wandered aimlessly, following their ears to find the wildlife tamer giving an impromptu preview of her songbirds’ Gala performance. Allie loved it, especially the sing-along, when ponies spontaneously filled in lyrics to the birds’ expert harmonization of a familiar folk tune. It was perfectly cheesy, of course, and Day knew before the first note that it was going to be, but when he saw the pegasus performing, he was struck by just how much she put into it. Normally, Day knew, she could barely stand to be in front of a crowd. But something must have been powering her just now. Though her eyes were closed, she was swaying in time with the music and throwing herself into her conducting. She bought the cheesiness through and through, Day realized. And if that was the case…perhaps he didn’t have the right to call it cheesy at all.

He would have said that there was a certain point during the day when he gave in. He surrendered to Hearts and Hooves Day, and retracted his claims of bitterness towards the holiday of love. He and Allie walked through the woods holding hands. They skipped through the meadows—Day skipped. He wasn’t sure he had ever skipped before in his life. They even had a few brief bars of genuine musical between them, swept up in the romance of a moment when butterflies erupted all around them. Just the two of them, without assistance from any ponies; the magic of Equestria had seeped that deeply into their bones by now, and Day let it move him that freely.

They abandoned the forest patches for town later in the afternoon. The picnic basket had been more of a pleasantry than a full meal, and also the only thing Day had eaten since the coffee and toast he took each morning before dashing to the train station.

“Should we head back home and put something together?” Day tapped his girlfriend’s nose; his own was inches away and both hung over fool’s grins. “I can cook if you want. I make a pretty mean linguini.”

Allie bit her cheeks. He knew she enjoyed his gallantry, but they both remembered his last linguini, which had certainly been mean in one sense of the word. “That’s sweet,” she said with a tickle to his chin, “but how about we splurge and go out?”

“Anything you want.” Day looked around the street which they were walking arm in arm, bathed in the sideways grins of the ponies to either side. “How about the Daisy Café? It’s right down the road and Tom keeps recommending it to me.”

They didn’t see Tom very much, despite the fact that he claimed to be Ponyville’s longest resident human, and was their closest neighbor besides the Cake and Berry families across the way. The few times Day had encountered the bronze, broad-shouldered human, he had been in the company of many ponies, and always quiet when Day conversed with him to keep his English sharp. But he seemed nice enough. And what with the ingredient restrictions they had to observe in Equestria—namely hay and alfalfa, although Allie had once made a bad run-in with thistle and clover—another human’s recommendation for a dining establishment was the safest one to go on.

The Daisy Café was furnished in simple, tasteful Equestrian style, with most of its seating at outdoor tables lacking any chairs. In honor of Hearts and Hooves Day, the normal blue-striped umbrellas had been replaced with pink heart-print ordeals; Day calmly waved off the hostess’ repeated offers to find them stools in favor of sitting inside where they wouldn’t inconvenience anypony.

The Café was filled with herds out on their evening date. The busy kitchen was overflowing with smells that had the humans’ stomachs growling almost predatorily in minutes, and they smiled abashed at the other patrons who glanced their way in amusement. Day and Allie hungrily absorbed the smells, commenting whenever a dish looked good, but mostly just holding hands across the table and staring into each other’s eyes. This content state lasted for some length of time, until they were politely interrupted by a pony dropping two menus onto the edge of the table.

“I’ll just come and take your order when you two are ready, okay?”

Day looked up sharply in response to the voice. “I—I didn’t know that you worked here!”

Carrot Top was wearing an apron and carrying a tray with glasses of tomato juice on her back. “Och, yes. Part time. I’m pulling the double shift since it’s Hearts and Hooves Day and I’m single. All the herds are off, don’t you know.”

Day grimaced inwardly as his cynicism flooded in again with a black, dull vengeance. Just fantastic. Here in Equestria, there was yet another reason for singles to be miserable on this stupid holiday. More work so that the already-fortunate ponies could have their fun. And they’d even moved the holiday of love to a warm day of the year, when nopony with magical blood in their veins would want to be inside all day. Confound these diabolical ponies. Did their cruelty know no bounds?

But at the same time, he didn’t want to give up the day he had been sharing with Allie. He stared down into his menu without really looking at it. “Could you get us a couple glasses of water?” he asked quickly, and Carrot Top trotted back into the kitchen. Gone, for another minute at least.

Allie moved her hand up Day’s arm, trying to look into his downcast eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look nervous all of a sudden.”

Day squeezed her hand to reassure her, but didn’t speak. He was too focused on trying to find a way out of this situation. They couldn’t just make up an excuse to get up and leave without ever ordering their food, and they couldn’t ask for a different waiter. Carrot Top would have unfiltered access to them throughout the whole meal, and whatever she did, there was very little chance Day had any way of stopping her.

And he’d just been starting to enjoy this day for the first time in his life. Well, that was what he got for it. Day sighed and flipped open the menu; suddenly lacking an appetite, he memorized the name of the first item he saw as Carrot Top was returning with two glasses of water.

“So?” the pony said in a perky uptone. “You decided what you’d like yet?”

“What do you recommend?” asked Allie, holding up her menu. “I’ve never been here before.”

Carrot wiggled an ear. “Normally, I’d say the Bouquet Salad with extra daisy petals, but I think you might like the Daisy-Chestnut Soup. Or maybe the Beet and Cheese Cassarole with Daisy-and-Breadcrumb Toppings. We just got fresh breadcrumbs in yesterday.”

Allie giggled and folded her menu, passing it in. “Like daisies much, Carrot?”

“It’s the Daisy Café, hun. Every dish has daisies. It’s our thing.”

“I’ll have the casserole then.”

Carrot used her mouth to slip the menu into a thin saddle-pocket on the sides of her apron. “And for you, Day?”

Day brought his head up as his tense arms braced against the table. “Look,” he exclaimed, “Just for today, could you leave us alone?”

Carrot Top backed off, head tilted. Day realized how loud he’d just been and slumped into his bench, covering his face.

“Sorry,” he said through his fingers. “It’s just that I really wanted to enjoy today with Allie—and only her…”

Carrot Top processed these words for a second. Then she drew herself up, looking down on both of the seated humans. Day removed his fingers from his eyes when they began to burn under the force of her glare.

“Because you haven’t been here for Hearts and Hooves before,” she said sternly, “I’m going to forgive you for that comment. But don’t ever treat me like a cheap mare again.”

Day began to shrink, cold nervousness erupting at the sight of her unshielded ire. “What did I do?”

Carrot stamped on the ground, creating a sharp clack on the tile. “How can accuse me of pestering you on Hearts and Hooves Day! Honestly!” When Day continued to do nothing but stare in blank confusion, she switched to a warm smile and used the side of her fetlock to rustle Allie’s hair.

“This special day is for you two,” she said, “and I’m not dating you—not yet. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything to make it stressful. What kind of a pony do you take me for?”

Day struggled for a moment after he realized that she was expecting an actual answer to that question. He raised his open palms hopelessly. “A…confusing one?”

“Hmm.” Carrot tapped her muzzle. “Confusing. Alright. That’s a bit like ‘mysterious’. I can work with that.”

Day flipped through his menu quickly now, just beginning to relax with the hope that Carrot would stick to this sudden promise of leaving him be. “You’re not bothered by working extra and being alone?”

Carrot tilted her head even more. “Why, how silly would that be? Everypony celebrates Hearts and Hooves Day. If you don’t have a special somepony, you come together to make the day special for those who do.” She pointed in the direction of the town square. “The foals have an especially grand time with it. Which reminds me, don’t forget to pick up your hoofmade cards in the evening. It means a lot to them. They’re putting stickers in them this year. It was chocolate last year, but somepony’s dog scarfed one and got dreadful sick.”

Allie clasped her hands. “How totally cute! So you get to plan out the decorations and play matchmaker?”

Carrot Top chuckled and thumped the menu in her apron. “Or keep town running for the day. Which I’m happy to do. Next week, all the herdmates put in extra time and we get a day off to make up for it.”

Day followed with more than a trace of suspicion. “Drop the charade, Carrot Top. You can’t mean to tell me there’s nopony sitting at home moping today.”

She snorted, furrowing her brows. She didn’t seem to understand the question. “On a day this nice, who would be?”

Day stared in silence. The menu hung forgotten in his hands, and his hands lay forgotten in Allie’s. Carrot Top looked back and forth between them, as if still trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Aww!” said Allie.

Day would have put it a little differently. Though he didn’t dare admit it out loud, Carrot Top’s honest bewilderment was acting as a crystal lens to him. It felt like years of being told that there was something wrong with him if he couldn’t find a partner were melting away. And he felt more than a little foalish for having assumed ponies would give into the same follies.

This, he thought, must be how Valentine’s Day was meant to be celebrated.

He still wasn’t moving, so Carrot Top poked him, and giggled when he startled and rapped out the name of a grilled sandwich near the top of the first page.

“I still have my designs on you,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you about two days to enjoy the afterglow. But after that, the truce is over.” She turned, nearly plucking the menu out of his hands. “Enjoy the daisies.” With a wink, and a flick of her tail that was ever-so-slightly too high for a public place, she swayed off through the restaurant.

Day did indeed enjoy the rest of the night with Allie. But his glee was just a little bit more solemn for the rest of that night. He felt something stirring in him, but it wasn’t the same as the feelings he usually experienced when Carrot Top was around. These feelings were cooler, but brighter, like the feeling he experienced when staring at the insides of a circuit board and wondering how such perfect intricacy could exist in such a tiny space.

In the town square, tail-wagging foals lined up with rows of cards made from construction paper and crayon. Day and Allie each picked one out and exchanged them with ritual sincerity. And all throughout, into the evening as soft violin music filled the darkening town, Day was thoughtful. The conclusion he arrived at was that Carrot Top’s words might have done more to crack his carefully constructed walls than any swish of her flanks ever had.