Punchdrunk Promenade

by Chapter 17

Direct Description Demonstration

“Mmm,” the blonde maned, cream colored pegasus mare hummed after she swallowed another bite of delicious hay burger. “This is so good. Thank you again for lunch Shoreline!” she said to her good friend sitting across the table from her in Ponyville’s most popular fast food establishment. She was another pegasus mare, her coat a similar shade while her mane and tail were both a much differing blue color. Her mane was done up in a distinct mohawk cut the likes of which one didn’t often see around town, making her easy to spot in a crowd. Curiously, her hooves and feathers were both a darker brown shade, making them stand out starkly against her coat.

“No problem, ‘bout time we hung out. I haven’t even seen you around town for a good two weeks,” her friend replied.

“So what have you been up to?” Poppy asked before grabbing a couple horseshoe fries.

“Eh, the usual napping and getting paid for it,” Shoreline answered with a smirk before they both indulged in a small chuckle. “You?”

“Oh, well commissions have been a bit slow this month, but I’ve been managing okay. They’re opening up a new wing of Ponyville General soon. They’ll probably want some artwork for that, so I’m not too worried,” she assured her with a confident nod.

“Huh, so you don’t have much to do... but I don’t see you out and about around town. That doesn’t sound like you, especially with how often you used to go out on the town just last year,” Shoreline pondered.

“Yeah, I know. I've been spending time with my boy toy, and recently he’s been occupied with his new book, so I’ve been staying home helping him out with things while he works,” she explained before taking a much needed sip of soda to counter the salt all over her fries.

"Yeah... I figured it was something like that,” she said with a disdainful roll of the eyes.

“What’s that tone about?” Poppy asked, her head tilting.

“Eh, don’t worry. So you’re bored out of your mind huh?”

“Uh… yeah, kinda… there are only so many books to read at home and all,” she admitted with a wistful sigh.

“Well then I have some good news. I hear the annual Pony Prom is going down this weekend, with DJ-PON3 handling the music to boot! Bit of a stuffy gig for her but I can’t imagine she’s going to let them cramp her style too much. Should be fun, you ought to go!” Shoreline suggested before taking a bite of her own burger.

“Ooh, I don’t think I’ve been to that yet! I’ve always heard from ponies who've gone, and they always said they had a good time though!” she said with sudden enthusiasm. But then the glow in her face faded a bit as worry intruded on her mind.

“Except that… ?”

“Except that Chappy’s still really busy… and he’s not much for social events. I don’t think he’d want to cut into his schedule and go to something that would stress him out like that,” Poppy explained looking a bit crestfallen.

"So go with another stallion that isn’t so lame,” Shoreline casually suggested just prior to taking another bite of food.

“What? I couldn’t go with somepony else, Chappy would be crushed! I can’t do that to him,” Poppy countered with just ever so slightly insufficient conviction to put her friend off of pursuing the subject. As such, the mohawked mare spent a silent few moments chewing, and then swallowed before resuming the conversation with an air of cool confidence.

“Poppy, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you, so I think you’re well within your rights to do something to him. You’re only going to live so long, and I care about you a lot, so I think it’s my duty to remind you that you need to look out for number one a little more than you are right now,” she explained quite plainly.

"That is so not how relationships work Shore,” Poppy disagreed with a shake of her head.

"Sure it is. Stallions and mares do it to each other all the time, so you doing it to Chappy to correct his behavior is fair game. You need to remind him that you aren’t there just for his benefit, and that he should step it up because there’s still plenty of far, far superior stallions out there that would be perfectly willing to take you on the time of your life if he won’t.”

"It’s not that he won’t Shoreline, it’s that he’s just kind of busy right now… and… most of the time." Her determination floundered further as she found herself examining the floor tiling off to their left.

“Oh you're right that's completely different from what I said was happening," Shoreline snarked with a smirk.

“Fine, but so what if he’s kind of boring? He’s still a wonderful boyfriend,” Poppy asked, coming back on the defensive.

“A boyfriend who needed to ask your best friend about something he should’ve known about you already. Remember that little note game you played with him a while back?”

“Yes, and he told me about that. The way I wrote that note could’ve meant any number of things-”

“Aw horseapples," Shoreline interrupted. "A stallion should know a mare well enough to know what she means when she says something. You need to get a stallion that isn’t all words and no pony,” she added before taking another sip of soda.

“Shoreline… can we just talk about something else please?” Poppy pleaded, her voice a mix of frustration and defeat.

“Fine by me, I said my part. So what’s your newest project anyway?”

———

Poppy sat on the couch in their living room, flipping to the last page on the latest book she’d finished. The house was completely quiet save for the scratch of quill on paper in the other room and the gentle hum of the small magic aura that kept it in motion as the author penned another rough draft. She fidgeted in place a bit, every bit as bored as her less tactful friend had suggested she was that afternoon. At that point she had two options, either she could pick up the next book of the series and leave the problem unresolved, or risk a bit of tension and interrupt her boyfriend’s work.

…

She set the book down and then trotted into the other room, waiting a moment so as not to startle the grey unicorn into leaving an accidental blot of ink all over the page with the crack of a broken quill tip. “Um… Chappy?”

“Hrm?” His quill stopped in midair and waited as he looked over his shoulder at her from his spot seated at his writing table.

“The Pony Prom is this weekend, and I want to go,” she stated right off the bat.

The quill being held in the air lost its aura and dropped to the table with a soft clink as her boyfriend’s eyes widened slightly. “…Oh.”

“It’s just a more fancy version of a dance. You’ve been to proms before.”

…

“You’ve been to proms before right?” she inquired when he didn’t answer.

“Uh… does spending prom night playing Ogres & Oubliettes with the other colts who couldn’t find a date count as going to a prom?” he answered tentatively.

She frowned. “Obviously not.”

“Oh. Well then, I have never been to a prom... or a dance... or any social event of consequence... ever. You’ll recall my friends consisted of a bunch of other unpopular gaming nerds at the time,” he reminded her.

"What? How could you go through school without going to a single prom?!” she asked in disbelief.

“Uh… you just go through school... and not go to them?” he pointed out unhelpfully.

She continued to frown at him.

"Hey, you asked."

“Then that just means I have even more reason to take you to one, this is making up for opportunities you missed!” she stated with determination.

“But I’d just end up as a wallflower all night, and-”

“Chappy please,” she interrupted, stopping his doubts with a sincere plea before they could snowball as they often tended. “I have been cooped up for weeks now, and I really just want a night for the two of us. Something special we can remember… we don’t have enough of those.” She stood there hoping he would get over himself and agree. She wanted so badly to prove Shoreline wrong, and not have to resort to looking for another-

“Okay,” the unicorn relented after a long silent moment.

“Really?” she gasped with joy.

“Really," he nodded. "If it's been that bad for you... we’ll go to the prom. Even if I don’t know how good of a prom date I’ll-”

His usual bout of self negativity was blindsided by the force of a happy pegasus tackling him with a hug, the suddenly embracing pair bumping the table briefly. “Oh thank you so much, I love you! I’ll get Elusive to start making a dress and tux for-” she started before they were both alerted to the sound of an inkwell tipping over and spilling ink all over the top two pages Chappy had been writing.

…

“Sorrysorrysorry!” she started stammering.

“At least it’s just the first draft,” he said sullenly as he put the inkwell back upright and looked down upon his now black pages.

“Do you want some anti panic tea?!” she offered, already halfway to the kitchen.

“That’d be nice.”

“Okay, don’t panic!”

“No promises.”