Sweetie's Manehattan Birthday

by Czar_Yoshi

Presents

The wheel of a passing carriage cut through a puddle, sending a spray of dark water across the empty sidewalk. A yellow light in a nearby window flickered on. Across the street, Sweetie Belle and Coco Pommel walked in relative silence.

A break for an alley between two complexes allowed a long ray of sunshine to touch the road, and the pair passed through it. The abrupt change in lighting made Sweetie Belle blink, shaking her head. She opened her mouth.

"Are we there yet?"

"Almost," Coco replied. "It's the building after this next one."

Sweetie sighed. "The ponies who built this place really liked bricks, huh?"

"Oh, this part of Manehattan was built back when the mafia still had a large presence in the city. Believe it or not, the cement industry in those days was mainly controlled by them. So using lots of bricks in construction was an easy way to get in good standing with them- and by that I mean be able to build anything at all. It's a very interesting story, if you ask me."

"Really?" Sweetie Belle raised both eyebrows.

"I don't know!" Coco laughed. "I'm not a history major. I never even got my diploma. It sounds nice, though, right?"

Sweetie stuck out her pink tongue.

Coco shook her head. "Well, I liked it." Then they continued on in silence again.

---

Scarcely a minute later, Coco Pommel stepped into a shadowed alcove in a building. It turned out to be a door, opened by an old-fashioned key, leading immediately to a flight of stairs. "I hope you're fine with a climb. I live on the fifth floor, and there's no elevator."

"I'm still hungryyy," Sweetie Belle responded. But she began lugging herself up the first flight nonetheless, trailing behind Coco Pommel. The cream-coated mare took the stairs as if they were nothing, not even pausing for breath. Finally, they reached a flat hallway, and soon enough Coco was unlocking another door. Sweetie Belle collapsed through it, panting.

"We're here!" Coco chimed. She hung her saddlebags on a rack by the door, took off her hat, and watched as Sweetie Belle looked around. Coco's apartment was a small affair, with two rooms- a foyer, with a couch and table and kitchenette, and a back room where Coco's bed and sewing supplies were presently kept.

Sweetie Belle looked over the place. "You really like the color purple, huh?" She pointed a hoof at the couch, drapes and carpet.

Coco looked away. "Well, it fits with the rest of the building... Anyway, let me see what I've got to eat." She padded over to her minifridge, rummaged around for a bit, and looked over her shoulder. "Would an apple be fine?"

Sweetie Belle wasn't there. Coco started and looked around, ears swiveling. "Sweetie?" She began walking back toward the door.

Munch, munch, munch.

Coco spun back around to see the filly crouching half-inside the fridge, in the process of devouring a large yam. Sweetie Belle gulped and looked up with large eyes. "I'm down here. This is really good, by the way!" She then plunged her face into the yam's deflating husk.

"Hey!" Coco yelped. "Sweetie, I... That's my..."

Munch, munch, munch.

Coco Pommel sighed and turned away. It's fine, she thought to herself. Rarity can pay me back later. And she was pretty hungry... She looked back at the slurping filly, and smirked. This isn't over...

---

Later, a thoroughly contented Sweetie Belle finished her slightly uninvited feast. Licking her lips, she stifled a belch, closed the fridge, and looked around for her tolerant host, who had disappeared. "Uh... hello?"

"In here," came a voice from the back room. Sweetie trotted over to investigate.

The moment she walked through the door, Coco plopped a hat over her head. "Happy birthday, Sweetie Belle!"

Sweetie stumbled backwards, righting herself and glancing over to a nearby mirror. The hat was fairly simple, a pale lavender fedora with no plume and a white band around the top. "You made this for me?"

"That is what I'm supposed to do, right?" Coco asked, looking slightly concerned.

"Make it yourself? Well, Rarity makes all her gifts herself, but lots of ponies just buy theirs. I know I do," Sweetie said, drawing a hoof across her brow.

"No, giving you the gift," Coco elaborated. "Where I come from, the tradition is that on your birthday, you give everyone else gifts. But apparently here it's backwards, and I sometimes get mixed up."

"Not getting presents on your birthday?" Sweetie frowned. "What kind of tradition is that?"

"It's meant to remind all your friends of what they appreciate about you. Friendship and love aren't really universal commodities," Coco explained, eyes lowered.

A look of confusion washed across Sweetie Belle's face, causing her hat to sag forward slightly.

Coco reached over and tipped it back up. "Here! Maybe I can show you!"

"What? But it's my birthday, not yours!"

"No!" Coco giggled. "I'll help you make a gift, and you can give it to someone else today, and see what it's like. How about for Rarity?"

"But all Rarity likes are dresses." Sweetie seated herself on the floor, staring at Coco.

"Hee! Good thing that's what my apartment is fitted to make!"

"You don't get it," Sweetie cried. "I try to help Rarity make dresses all the time, but I'm terrible at it!"

"How so?" Coco looked concerned.

"I get in the way and make messes, and that's only with fetching materials. I also... might have made a dress for a play once that had five legs." Sweetie blushed.

"Well, the last one's easy," Coco smiled, pointing a hoof at a bare ponyquin in the corner. "All you need is one of those! And I can do all the work myself, if you want. We're not in a hurry."

"Hmmm..." Sweetie Belle held a hoof to her chin, narrowing her eyes.

Coco smirked. "Of course, I can always tell Rarity how impressed I was with your table manners earlier..."

Sweetie beamed briefly, before her green eyes widened in shock. "Heh heh... Oops..."

"I don't know... You did just trash my fridge and devour my large yam." Coco spun her hooves while narrowing her eyes and looking to the side. "Maybe I should compose a long letter to her with all the grisly details. Oh, I'd spare no dropped scrap! Nor the crumb that's still clinging to your face! I'd tell her all about how you put your hooves-"

"Eh heh heh heh heh heh!" Sweetie Belle wiped her face with a hoof, pranced right up to Coco's face, and grinned up at her. "I'd really like to make a dress for Rarity now!"

Coco's smile instantly returned to normal. She giggled, straightened Sweetie's hat again, and trotted over to a rack of fabrics. "All right! So, what color should we start with?"

Sweetie peered up at the rack. "Cinnamon!"

Coco hoofed the swatch down, and dragged the ponyquin to the center of the room. As she began to unfurl a sheet, a final dubious look crossed Sweetie Belle's face. "Just don't blame me if we end up making a big mess. Because I did warn you..."

---

An hour later...

Sweetie Belle stood on Coco Pommel's desk, holding a sketchpad in her grasp, pacing proudly as the elder mare ran a folded piece of fabric through a sewing machine, constructing a frill. The main body of the dress was sitting on the ponyquin, a loose mockup held together by clips so as not to be permanent. Coco had agreed that once they had the shape and colors down, she would make it for real, and soon they would be getting to that point.

"So the train," Sweetie rambled, eyes closed and hoof in the air, "should be pretty long- maybe a foot trailing along the floor. And it should have two colors, one on either side! One side green, the other red."

Coco looked up from her frill. "Green and red? Hmm... what shades? That could look a little strange from behind, or anywhere you might see them together."

Sweetie opened her eyes and picked up two appropriately colored scraps, rubbing them together while mumbling.

"You could also put a stripe between them. Chocolate, maybe. Or save the green for the very bottom, and run it all the way around?"

"Hmm... Put the green on the cuffs. I want to see how that looks."

Coco set the frill aside and grabbed several more scraps, clipping them into place. "How's this?"

"Yep!" Sweetie grinned. "So, a stripe for the train? Or trim on the end... Hmm..."

"It doesn't have to be the very end," Coco broke in. "You can do the entire part that touches the floor, if you like."

Sweetie Belle thumped down from the desk and waddled around behind the ponyquin, where she yanked out several colored sheets and arranged them with her magic. "Like this?"

"It's your design. You tell me!" Coco laughed.

Sweetie squinted, frowned, and tilted her head sideways. She opened her mouth, blinked, and closed it again, then gave the dress a sniff. Eventually, she pulled the sheets back off, rearranging. "No, no... Maybe if we make the whole train green? And give it a darker green stripe?"

Coco paced over. "That sounds nice. Would you make the end red, still?"

"Yeah, probably," said Sweetie Belle, who was attempting to climb back onto the desk. "What else do we need to do?"

Coco rubbed her chin. "Well... it could probably use something around the back of the neck. Actually, the collar in general could use some work. And you'll have to decide if you want to leave an opening so Rarity's Cutie Mark is visible. But it's getting close!"

Sweetie Belle, having managed to scale the desk, peered out like a vulture. "The collar, huh? Hey, we could make it kind of pointy-foldy like a business suit! I bet Rarity would love that!"

"Yes, I can do that. It'll be hard to do on this loose version, though," Coco nodded. "Shall I just include that when I make it for real?"

Sweetie shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

"Is there anything else?"

"I... don't think so?"

"Well, then," Coco smiled, "I'd say we did it!" She reared up on two hooves to give Sweetie Belle a hoof-bump.

"Yeah!" Sweetie hopped around. "We did do it! Thanks, Miss Pommel."

Coco blushed. "You, uh... Just 'Coco' is fine, thanks."

"Okay, Coco!" Sweetie beamed. Her expression then softened, ears folding. "Hey, uh, Coco? This was actually really fun. I know the point is to give Rarity a gift, but I really... I learned I like doing something I thought I was bad at. Thanks to you. So, uh, thanks." She glanced up, eyes wide, smiling tentatively.

Coco patted her on the head. "I enjoyed it too, Sweetie Belle. Now..." she glanced at a clock. "We spent quite a while on that. I should get to sewing so it's done in time to meet Rarity. We still need to find that restaurant, by the way."

Sweetie glanced around. "I think maaaybe I'll stay out of the way this time. Just because it worked once doesn't mean I should push my luck." She tapped her forehooves together and flashed Coco an angelic smile, causing the older mare to grin a bit too.

"Sure. I've got some books in the other room if you want to read while I work. And my fridge is already trashed, so I guess it wouldn't hurt if you had another snack. Just don't ruin your appetite for dinner!"

"Yep yep yep!"

As Coco Pommel turned back to the ponyquin with Sweetie's dress prototype, Sweetie waddled over to the couch, hopped on and curled up, levitating a random book over with a sigh and a smile.