Wittgenstein's Seamstress

by Blank_Slate

Day 8

The path from Sweet Apple Acres to Ponyville has become overgrown, but there are the ruts that my cart’s wheels have run over etched in the grass still.

The road demarcates into two directions that I normally travel to.

The first goes to the center of town.

The second goes to the dam, which is on the outskirts of Ponyville.

Although I am completely forgetting the third path.

That third path leads to the house I have been dismantling.

Perhaps I have not mentioned I am dismantling somepony’s house.

Of course, it is difficult.

I have chipped nails and scratched myself numerous times.

Nonetheless it is a necessary thing.

I do not make it a major project, though.

Instead, whenever I am in Ponyville I destroy a little more of it.

If I am in no mood for it, then I just take out something light, like a curtain or a single floorboard.

However, when I am in the mood I go a little wild, spending hours and hours tearing, snapping, and otherwise destroying the place.

Of course, I do not burn it down, though I easily could. That would defeat the purpose.

The house belonged to Bon Bon, I think.

Though there are a lot of pictures of Lyra placed on the mantle and in the bedroom.

Nonetheless I feel confident calling it Bon Bon’s house.

I sometimes use the wood I pull from the floors or the patio as kindling for my fire at Sweet Apple Acres.

That fire being different from the ones I lit elsewhere, obviously.

I mean that this fire I only use for cooking, and extinguish it after I finish a meal.

And by fire I mean many different fires, instead of one continuous fire, like that fire in the Crystal Empire I kept burning all the time.

Well, sometimes it would go out if I slept too long.

But I generally could control it.

Actually, there was an enormous pile of firewood at the farm that somepony had chopped, which I still haven’t exhausted yet.

Although one time I burned Bon Bon’s armoire, which I regretted.

After all, one likes to be giving, and I have taken so much these past moons.

I have not removed Bon Bon’s doors, at least.

In fact, whenever I go to that house I make sure to shut them as I leave.

In Manehattan, back at the beginning, I now remember that I used to pour bottled water into the toilet’s tank so that it would still flush.

I have just written toilet, even though I said that I would use euphemisms like little filly's room.

I suppose old habits tend to stick. For some period I continued to make dresses for the orders I had, dropping them off at the deserted post office at the same time every day.

Or at least I think it was the same time.

Of course, nopony came to collect them, and after a while I stopped sending the dresses.

And sometimes I would toss furniture from the windows of skyscrapers.

In the Ponyville post office I think there are still many bundles of clothing, which I have not bothered to take back.

At times I bend the definition of destruction, and tidy up around Bon Bon’s house instead.

Once I stumbled around in a dark room until I found what I was looking for.

That there was a broom, so I picked it up and swept a while.

Eventually I took that broom and brought it back here.

After all, the broom that the Apples have is in serious need of a rebristling.

Or was, rather, the broom they had. It was one of the first things I burned.

Another thing I burned was a timberwolf marionette that Applejack had.

I remember that she had wanted to keep it after we had used it to try and trick Spike once.

That was when he believed he owed Applejack a life debt.

Or perhaps he really did owe Applejack a life debt, and later when he saved her he really did settle the score.

After all, I have no idea what a dragon code entails, and he was so adamant that he was correct.

I also have no idea whether Spike’s dragon code was based on existing dragon codes he had managed to find, or whether he had made it up.

Which isn’t to say that I considered Spike’s dragon code to be illegitimate, or without merit.

In fact, I felt nothing but joy when Spike continued to act according to that code.

Before, I knew that he struggled with being the only dragon for quite some distance.

I remember after we fitted him in his page’s costume for a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant that he tugged at it and for a second I thought his cute little eyes had become sad.

That uniform, of course, had been custom-made.

All the other page uniforms in Equestria being made for ponies, I mean.

Come to think of it, Spike was the first dragon ever to take part in a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.

And probably the first dragon to celebrate the holiday.

To be honest I think it is really Lyra’s house I am dismantling.

I said it was Bon Bon’s house before because I had looked through the closet and had found a dress I remember making for her.

But she was good friends with Lyra, and they were the same size, too, so it is not so far-fetched to think that they shared clothes.

At least, I think they were the same size when I had measured them together.

But of course ponies tend to gain and lose weight, especially around cider season and the holidays.

I Pinkie swear that one season Applejack’s pies caused me to grow a bloated belly that I hadn’t exercised away until several moons later.

This was at a winter wrap up afterparty, I think.

Or it could have been at an Apple family reunion, considering that I distinctly remember Applejack’s uncle and some cousins being there.

Apple Strudle, I think the uncle was named.

I do not remember the names of the cousins, but I am sure I could recognize their faces if I saw them.

I have just looked through some of Granny Smith’s photo albums.

The cousins’ names had been Babs Seed, Apple Rose, and Apple Cobbler.

At least, those are the ones I remember.

There had been more.

I had talked to those three while nibbling at pie in as ladylike a manner as I could in that cutlery-less place.

Still, I managed to eat a great amount.

Apple Strudel was a strange stallion.

He wore the costume that some of the ponies up north wear at festivals all the time.

I think I have said that poorly.

Meaning that he wore that costume all the time, not that the ponies up north wear them all the time.

Once again I am reminded of the inexact nature of our language.

Come to think of it, Photo Finish was originally from the same place.

Though she never wore those traditional outfits, at least not where there were other ponies around.

To be honest, I have forgotten the exact place of the city that she is from. Was it north of Trottingham, or south?

Later I might read through the Atlas of Equestria that the Apple family had.

Pony accents are so varied, even though Equestria is actually not that large a country.

In Manehattan once I was startled to see my fabric in a high-end fashion store.

All the clothes there had been designed by Suri Polomare, and it had not been my fabric but instead inspired by my fabric.

In a manner of speaking.

Of course, on closer inspection I could see that she had bungled the fabric-making process, leaving it shimmery, but very clingy and quite showy.

For a while I used her dresses as rags, but I realized that I was being quite petty, and much of the thrill was lost after that.

I remember liking Suri’s scarf despite all the animosity between us.

The mare had some talent, I think.

Perhaps that’s the real reason I stopped using her dresses as rags.

I couldn’t bear destroying such things, even though they were perhaps not as good as my own work.

Probably she considered my work inferior to hers.

In any case, I preferred Coco Pommel’s necktie and collar number.

I liked how simple her designs were, and how she often wore flowers in her hair or lapels.

In the beginning, I broke into Ponyville’s own Malt and Sweet Shoppe.

This was before the shakes all went bad, along with most of the candy.

Incidentally, Sweetie Belle had often gone to that same store with her friends.

In fact, she had been such a frequent visitor that she had a rewards card which was stamped many times.

I believe that card, along with many of Sweetie Belle’s possessions, had burned when Carousel Boutique burned down.

Maybe in the beginning I was just looking for Sweetie Belle, checking all her regular haunts.

I have never enjoyed shakes, to tell the truth.

On the other hoof, occasionally I have enjoyed hayburgers.

Though not as much as Twilight Sparkle, who wolfs burgers down in a most uncouth manner.

In fact, I remember one time, not long after Twilight had become an alicorn princess, I chided her in the newly-opened Ponyville fast food restaurant.

Surely you could eat in a manner that better befits your new position, I told her.

And less like Rainbow Dash.

When I say I occasionally enjoyed hayburgers, I really do mean only very occasionally.

Generally I preferred to eat something lighter, and more delicate.

Daffodil sandwiches were a particular favorite.

Nowadays daffodil patches grow all over Ponyville.

And come to think about it, I cannot remember the last time I ate one.

Comments

[Blank_Slate]

5250716
Done. Changed it to 'disturbed.'
Thanks for the help.