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=======Volume One: Not All Marks Are Cuties1 words
Dumb Fabric4,141 words
Un-sisters3,223 words
What's 'Uncouth'...?6,053 words
A Lady Doesn't Whine6,643 words
=======Volume Two: The Lilies of The Field1 words
Toast!9,989 words
Into Her Own Reflection She Stared8,710 words
The Horror5,179 words
Gal Pals8,695 words
=======Volume Three: corsi e ricorsi1 words
She Complains...! (pt .1)7,154 words
She Complains...! (pt. 2)9,648 words
She Complains...! (pt. 3)5,640 words
Silver Shoals6,275 words

She Complains...! (pt .1)

Winsome Weathervane, when asked why she—the charge housekeeper of the Palfrey Inn—so loved to recuse herself to maid’s tasks in the linen room on the third floor—spraying and folding towels, loading wheelies to the brim with fresh bedsheets, and so on—sometimes would answer fancifully, in her orange brogue, that the work took her back to younger days, when love was still a fresh blossom seen on an apple tree; or, in a more serious mood, she would reply that it made her think of her father, who had instilled in her, through the example of resigned persistence, that anything worth doing was worth doing, oneself.

In any case, the other ladies were always sent away on such occasions, to tend affairs “more becoming of their ambitions”; and no one could fault Ms. Winsome for the immaculate condition of the linen room, whose compartments and contents were as clean and orderly as the steps to heaven might be imagined.

These steps, in fact, were perfect for accessing a small vent which lay hidden behind a blockade of strategically lain laundry powder boxes, which led into the room behind the north wall—small enough for a cat, but situated to such advantage that, if a full-grown pony were to get on a knee from the counter, and press her ear against the aperture’s cold grate, that full-grown pony might have the privilege of waiting on the conversations of guests that ranged from local heavies to high Canterlot royalty.

The truth was that Ms. Winsome was not the least ignorant of this third advantage of the linen room; and, at present, even availed herself of it—in spite of the press of duty—that she might be privy to the business of Princess Twilight Sparkle, who had decamped at the Palfrey the prior evening.

Some of the younger staff had wondered at the Princess’s appearance at their quaint doorstep; and, questioning amongst themselves why she would choose to stay in above-modest accommodations, as opposed to her own castle, they were swiftly assembled and rebuked by the inn’s proprietor, Mrs. Winter Bottom, who insisted on Her Majesty’s right to privacy, as a condition of continued royal patronage. Twilight, however, and as always, had her Sufficient Reason—she needed sleep, which would be impossible for her if she were under pressure to receive guests in her official palace. She had too much affection for Ponyvillians—who had nurtured her during her tender, formative years—to turn them away; and so, she had made a precaution, not against her former neighbors, but against herself.

But Ms. Winsome, who was wiser than these, was more accustomed to consequential visits of this sort than she might sometimes have been able to admit; and she supposed that the Princess might have entertained an overly favorable comparison of herself with regard to her precursors, Celestia and Luna, owing to her well-known gregarious spirit.

The old maid was sure the evidence to confirm her suspicions was close at hoof; but for all the towels in Baytona Beach, she could not, on this night, make mane nor tail of the chatter which hummed the shaft of her cherished air vent. Twilight was speaking with an advisor who had followed the very same tracks that she had attempted to conceal, and had thus been discovered in private; so that now a small party was discussing with her, at a late hour, a very peculiar difficulty, which she indulged with reluctant patience.

“There have been no such attempts to ‘measure time’,” she could hear the Princess asserting to her interlocutors, “because time is a measurement. Likewise, no one has, or could, make any special instruments for doing so. That’s pure ‘pataphysics.”

“Not so fast!” came another voice. “You can’t tell me that measuring the measure of time is a silly measure! If time is about the movement of the sun and the moon, what do those moving things move in relation to?”

“A perfectly valid question, Pinkie,” Twilight replied, drawing out a pause, “but you’re not phrasing it correctly. You don’t even know what you’re trying to ask.”

Winsome thought she heard some grumbling, and then the reply, “Twilight, if we met at a wedding reception next to a towering cake, and I told you what I thought of how white it was, you’d tell me that we’d need to consult a wedding cake expert, even though the thing was right in front of us!—”

“I’m worried you haven’t been doing your breathing exercises.”

“Every day, three times a day, for fifteen minutes,” Pinkie repeated. “Yes, I have. Thank you, Mom. Geez!”

“Four times a day,” Twilight said, dolefully. “And I doubt you’ve been doing even as much as you say.”

Ms. Winsome’s ears perked at such parries of banter; and what before had seemed to her a Coptic ritual taking place in the next room now demanded a deeper investigation. She descended the counter and made a quick inspection of herself in a standing mirror—slim black tie and tuxedo vest, a white undershirt meticulously checked for wrinkles, rounded out by a red apron, cinched above the waist. It was the uniform she had worn for years—and the one worn by every other girl, old and young, who worked at the Palfrey.

She folded the last of a set of towels she had been working on and made a small stack to carry with her. At the Princess’s door, outside where the battle was taking place, she preened herself one more time with a freed hoof and halted the proceedings within by three quiet knocks.

“…Yes?” came Twilight’s voice.

Ms. Winsome cracked the door and poked her face inside.

“Um, Ma’am… I have some fresh towels here for you, by special order from downstairs. Clean as a dog’s whistle on a snowy morning, I promise.”

“Bring them in, Ms. Winsome, thank you,” Twilight said, waving her inside. “Tell the staff that two will do for me, I don’t need any orders for more.”

“They’re just concerned, Ma’am, that your towels are too cold, I suppose. No worries.”

Twilight and three others, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Roseluck, were seated at a draped circular table by the foot of the room’s unmade king bed. A chandelier hung from the center rafter which bisected the suite, but was unlit—only a few wax candles resting on dishes at the corner of the dresser gave light, and cast much of the room in shadow. Ms. Winsome could see that someone, probably the Princess, had ordered a charcuterie board brought up from the kitchen, and that the ladies had been enjoying cheese as they carried on the dispute.

“Glad to see you are making use of our amenities here at the Palfrey Inn,” Ms. Winsome said amicably, stealing a glance at the glowing faces of the guests as she passed over to the dresser. “Let us know if you need anything else, dear. Oh…! Look at this mess. Luna come up, this won’t do. Excuse me, Ma’am, don’t mind me, but I need to clean up a bit.”

She went about pulling all the linens from the large dresser, and sticking her head in one of its cabinets, lilting a few words against its vibrating panels; whereupon, the others put her out of mind, and felt at liberty to continue their conversation.

“Look, forget about what this has to do with me,” Pinkie Pie said. “I’m just surprised to hear you say that the nature of physics has no bearing whatsoever on the crime at hoof. You know that can’t be true, Twilight.”

The Princess, notwithstanding feeling she had an upper hoof to her opponent, was embarrassed to be levied with such an indictment. “Not in that way,” she replied. “Not as intuitively as you describe. Your idea is that there is a luminiferous nostalgia which permeates Equestria and that, since we correct for it in Ponyville, there is uncanny, permanent stability everywhere else.”

“Correct.”

“At the same time, your ‘luminiferous nostalgia’ strikes as an invented medium, one which, according to you, can only be detected thanks to a machine which causes systematic patterns of interference on birthdays and holidays. That’s simply not true, and not even provable. It is a tendentious argument.”

Pinkie Pie puzzled a moment. “Well, you can’t prove it’s not not true, either, now can you?”

“I can’t, and that’s not a good—”

“Can you prove that nostalgia doesn’t exist? That it’s an invented medium—as you say? I think it would seem like a very natural thing to most ponies, even if we haven’t come up with a fancy way to talk about it yet. That’s my point, Twilight. You’re not understanding the nature of scientific breakthroughs!” she finished, pounding the table with enough force to rattle the saucers around the charcuterie board.

“I didn’t deny the existence of ‘nostalgia’. Everyone has nostalgia, but the contents of nostalgia are relative to each creature. It’s the characteristic of nostalgia, as such—what is nostalgia to me might be forgettable to you. What is nostalgic to Princess Celestia might seem a daydream to a dragon king, or an old donkey. Don’t you think so, Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie went on stuffing herself with cheese, reminded of her appetite by the clatter the table had made, only keeping a locked gaze with the Princess to remind that she hadn’t gone soft in the argument; all the while, however, she found herself troubled by the contradiction Twilight had presented her. But she was so convinced of the explanatory power of the Interferometer that she crimsoned at the thought of giving it up to an intellectual rival; and might have concluded the interview with “Okay, but I’m watching you”, or some similar threat, had not the Fairie Queen of relaxation, Fluttershy, intervened to diffuse the situation.

“Um… I have a teeny-weeny objection to your description of nostalgia, Twilight. If I might… Yes? I can proceed? Well, it seems to me that, if it is true that our sense of time is so relative, there ought to be certain observables in our… ordinary experience? that are simply unaccounted for if we look for them around us in Equestria. To do this, perhaps, it might be easier to imagine that we have a pair of binoculars, which allows us to see from different points of view as well as our own.”

She put her hoof on Rose’s shoulder. “It might be that time flows for her much differently here than in a town like Dodge Junction. The pace is much more quick in Ponyville, as anyone will tell you. Why, I suppose that dear Rose might be as old or even older than some of the ponies back home, who just saw her off as a filly. If our relationship to time is relative, then to them she is a filly, just as she is a mare in the crisp autumn of her life, to us.”

Rose smoothed her tasseled white mane down the front of her forehead; Fluttershy caught her, and smiled as she brushed aside a lock of her recalcitrant mane. “It doesn’t matter, Rose. Because—well, I’m sure you’ve heard about the tempo of life in Manehattan. What do we see when we point our binoculars there? I’ll tell you what I see. You are so ancient there that you have achieved a proto-immortal status. Because they live many lifetimes, in your one.”

“…Oh,” replied Rose.

“Yes. Statues of your likeness would line the streets. Talking photographs of you would entertain children, and bring comfort to the sick and dying. And, no doubt, one of those would want to fight you, want you dead… Because you reflect the establishment, and the world would be bleak for some ponies. Do you dig it, man? They would use time travel to go back into the past and right what is wrong in the world… So that the future, to them, would be livable. They would be, like… serious consequentialists. But as you see,” she concluded, turning to face the whole company again, “Rose is alive and well with us, so there must be some... absolute attribute to time.”

Pinkie leaped up. “Yeah! And because of all that, my theory of the luminiferous nostalgia holds, pone erat demonstrandum.”

By this time, Ms. Winsome had had several opportunities to overhaul the sheets and blankets in the dresser, but still little to pass onto the girls in the way of gossip, for all her effort and ingenuity. She cursed bureaucracy as she looked for a way to maintain her presence in the room; and, noticing that Pinkie had now devoured all the cheese which had been laid out, decided to offer to refresh the charcuterie for the ladies.

“Thank you, Ms. Winsome,” Twilight said, not looking at her. “Clearly I’m off-base in my modest assessment of the situation,” she continued, engrossed in the talk at the table. “I will say, in my defense, that my concern for Ponyville runs deep, and especially deep for the ponies who live here. And you are right, that I don’t appreciate the seriousness of theories. You’ve heard it said, I imagine, that if an earthquake were to swallow a small village that no one would notice—but a story about the same village would keep even the most frigid misers awake at night. And so you’ve reversed the order of causality and gone looking for the geography of that village. As I maintain, ladies, that’s not how science works, and I fear it’s a distraction from the work we’ve been commissioned to do. What say you, Rose?” she asked, turning a friendly gaze on their reticent listener.

Roseluck stood up and made a short bow over the table. “W-well, f-first I’d like to thank you for meeting with us tonight, Your Highness, on s-such short notice.”

“It comes with the territory—trust me,” she answered casually. “‘Twilight’ is fine, by the way.”

“Oh, no no—I would prefer if we observed stricter formality—m-may I stand over here?” Rose asked, scraping her chair on the floor.

“Hmm… I suppose so. If you prefer it—”

“Please, My Lady,” she said, making another bow.

Ha! Another looney makes it past the gate. Ought to get interesting now, thought Ms. Winsome.

“But don’t you remember that we’ve already met?” Twilight said. “It was years ago, when I was living in the old library. I was hosting a dinner for some visiting friends from Saddle Arabia and you helped me with some wonderful bouquet arrangements—”

“Think nothing of it. I don’t want to lose my head in old memories and neglect to honor your high position, Your Reverence.”

Twilight’s face drooped a little as she carried out the orders she had been given. “Very well. What say you on the petition that these your fellow equines have brought forth for my review, loyal subject?”

It might be remembered that the florist’s malady—quite apart from concerns about burglars and magical menaces from mysterious woods—was an acute and unarticulated loneliness, a lot not uncommon for ponies who make personal sacrifices at the altar of entrepreneurial success. The intimate acquaintanceship of a princess, therefore, was too great a stimulus to be a useful remedy for Rose’s real trouble, as a feast might be too large for a monk at the moment of breaking fast; the unanticipated friendliness of royalty did, however, have the effect on her of eclipsing everything else in the room, besides.

“It’s all true, I’m sure,” Rose replied somewhat absently, in regard to the discussion to which she had just been spectator, “though, if you will allow it, I would like to take this opportunity to raise a very crucial grievance of my own, concerning the census.”

“The census?” asked Twilight, looking at Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy for an answer—but they were as surprised as she was by the petition. “Okay, let’s hear it, then.”

Rose shuffled herself into an erect posture, and spoke as though delivering to an audience that lined itself along the room for lack of seating. “It’s perfectly natural that we should want to count the heads of ponies for the purposes of political districting and determining demographic changes. However, as a tax-paying citizen, it has always escaped me why ducks and snakes and bunnies must be included in the same accession. In the first place, these groups do not enjoy any political rights under our system, as such—they are not even considered ‘nationals’. In the second place, the means by which the animals are corralled and counted, is to drive them out of hiding so cruelly as to send them into a violent collective panic. That is what happened at the last census, some six or seven years ago, that you will recall, Your Worship. And you may also recall the stampede which followed it, one which was very costly for ponies living on Mane Street, and that we would not like to see repeated next year.”

Twilight put on a look of concern. “I see. I wasn’t aware that ponies here still remember that day.”

“Certainly, My Liege. I got away easy, with a few nubbed herbs and minor bruises. But poor Bok Choy, the cabbage pony, well, that was his whole livelihood, and it was a cold winter for him and his family that year, a very cold one. And there are others—like Carrot Top, or Red Radish, who I think might testify to the destruction caused by the rampant intruders.”

“Goodness… I admit, it pains me to feel so out of touch with the troubles of Ponyville,” said Twilight, sauntering over to a window as she reflected on the report. “You have my apologies, Roseluck. All of you do.”

“Um, ‘scuse me, Ms. Winsome…” Pinkie broke in, giving the lady an unpleasant poke in the rib. “I don’t wanna be rude, but… You did promise us some more cheese, so, uh…”

Winsome snapped back to herself at the touch. She smiled and snatched up the charcuterie board from the round table.

“Oh, of course, Ma’am! Sorry, I didn’t know you were in such a hurry. I’ll get that up quick as a weed in the heat, I will—we wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable while you stay with us.”

But Pinkie had already stopped paying her attention, being fixed--like Fluttershy was, as well—on the drama that was unfolding in the Sunrise Suite. Ms. Winsome hustled downstairs and into the kitchen, where, stopping at the empty prep station in front of the swinging double doors, she let the board drop, and hollered into the room as down a dark and odoriferous mine shaft, “I need a cheese platter for Princess Twilight’s room! Stat!” Two white-jacketed stallions appeared from around a corner; the first one cautious, and only coming out by the head, like a birdhouse chickadee; and the second an older pony, stout and dusted, carrying a broom, and cussing—the Vedic twin, come to peck the grapes of Ms. Winsome’s wrath, as his more prudent companion watched.

She folded her legs and glared at the shambling cook—anxious that she might be pulled away before she could firmly retrench herself in the Princess’s room—as he pulled out boxes and inspected dates on cellophane-wrapped goods; when, glancing once more in the direction of the stairs, she discerned a familiar voice by the front desk. She looked and, though it defied all luck, found that her neighbor’s daughter, Sweetie Belle, had arrived with one of the old matrons of the town; the former’s hair was dressed, and she was trying unsuccessfully to bargain with the concierge, who as a matter of confidentiality imparted by Mrs. Winter Bottom, denied knowing anything about Twilight or the affairs of the Friendship Council.

Soon the pair appeared to doubt their intelligence on the matter, and were preparing to leave, before Ms. Winsome hurried out and caught them by the elbows. She spun around and addressed the pony at the desk with a playful air.

“Ah! Ah! Are you so eager to turn away guests that I have been charged with receiving, Lucky Charms? Aye, you enjoy seeing me in the dunce corner, I wager, just like the girls in the linen room.”

Lucky Charms made eyes with Sweetie Belle and Gray as he replied with a laugh. “Not you, Ms. Winsome. If you’re a dunce when it comes to this building then what hope is there for any of us? I do have to keep things formal, you know.” His gaze lingered as the smile faded from his neatly shaved black beard.

“Formal, pish!” said Ms. Winsome, brushing Sweetie Belle down by the shoulders. “A mare doesn’t put her hair up like this for no reason, Sir. Come, lass! I’ll show you where everyone’s waiting. You too, Mrs. Gables.”

The concierge stood aside and the ladies went in a train upstairs, with Gray lagging slightly behind as she worked the steep climb of the old building. Sweetie Belle turned back to her and slowed down to keep pace. “Thank god you spotted us, Ms. Winsome,” she said, out of Charms’ earshot. “We’re looking for my sister. Have you seen Rarity, by any chance?”

“Not since this morning, I’m afraid.”

“I was worried you might say that.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s a long story.” Sweetie Belle followed the embroidered notches in the red shag as it rolled over the stairs under Ms. Winsome’s hooves. The carpet felt warm and ubiquitous; Gray began to heave against it from behind. “I hope we’re not disturbing Twilight by waking her up,” Sweetie Belle said, trying to cover her friend’s muffled breathing in the stairwell.

“You won’t be disturbing her at all,” replied Ms. Winsome. “In fact there’s already a tribunal taking place under her watch. There are even two ponies from the Friendship Council present for it, besides her. There’s a pony—will you believe it, Miss Sweetie Belle?—who is in trouble for making future ponies miserable, or some such thing.”

Sweetie Belle stopped. “Wait. You mean, someone’s on trial for things that haven’t even happened yet?”

“By my father’s restful woods, it’s true. And it’s a good thing you’ll get to see it, otherwise who knows what kind of mischief you’d get into, a young thing like you, and wind up like that florist.”

“Who? What florist?” huffed Gray, propping herself on a wall.

“Why, Ms. Rose, who lives in the center of town.”

“But how will they even know what charges to press?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“We reap what we sow, Miss Sweetie Belle,” Ms. Winsome answered superciliously and impatiently. “That’s the whole business of flowers, isn’t it? We were told she was running around impersonating Old Princess Celestia, wearing clown make-up and colorful hair. She says she has had just about enough of such glamorous royalty and is on a mission to put down the establishment in Ponyville. And it makes sense, the detectives say, that someone from Dodge Junction would think such things, and have such spirit, because they have a different flow from us.”

She stopped at the top of the stairs. “Well, what is it, now? Come on. Don’t waste your chance to hear the verdict dallying out here.”

“We’ll be right there,” Sweetie Belle said, taking Gray’s side. “Give us a moment.”

“I’ve changed my mind, Sweetie,” the old mare whispered to her, without being prompted for the cause of her distress. Her eyes flitted about as though she had left something important back at her little house with Yona. “I can’t go up there. I can’t.” She lumbered down to the next descending step to show her resolve, but Sweetie Belle caught her gently by the sternum.

“Whoa, whoa. What’s going on? You’re leaving?”

“It’s what happens when you get old, Sweetie,” replied Gray. “I’m very tired. My energy is gone from me. I’m sorry.”

Sweetie Belle maintained her hold. Gray stopped resisting, softly panting and keeping her gaze turned away from her.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Sweetie Belle said.

“I need to sit.”

Sweetie Belle let go. Gray lowered herself down and remained quiet as she caught her breath. Then she said, “I know the pony under interrogation in that room. I don’t know if I have it in me to see her.”

“Is it an old enemy?”

Gray winced a little, and laughed. “Goodness, I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sweetie Belle took a seat next to her.

“She owns a store in town,” said Gray. “I’ve known her since she was a very little filly.”

“So you’re close.”

“We haven’t spoken in years.”

“Hmm… That does sound a little bit awkward. But, in my experience, when you have a friend that you’ve been out of contact with for a while, they are usually happy to see you again.”

“In your experience,” Gray answered quizzically.

Sweetie Belle traced her hoof along the shag of the red carpet. A mug. A mug for Apple Bloom, next time. ‘Better a redhead than a dead head’… Eh, needs work.

“Well… I don’t know,” she said.

“Can’t block the stairs, ladies,” Winsome called down. “We want to make you comfortable while you stay with us but it ain’t the Hotel Belle, for jiminy. Let’s hoof it, now.”

Sweetie Belle looked back over her shoulder to respond; but Gray said to her, “I think it will make her very unhappy to see me again. I knew her parents. She used to come to my shop and play and ask questions. I knew that she really loved me, the way a child loves. And I loved her, too, the way a grown-up in the world does that, without showing it. I wanted to be an example to her that someone can have a happy ending, because it’s such an uncertain thing for all of us.”

Sweetie Belle became thoughtful. “Well, aren’t you happy? I mean… you prayed for me. That was real. That came from somewhere. That wasn’t bullshit.”

“I’m just an old lady who goes to church,” sighed Gray.

Sweetie Belle stood up. “Listen. You go in that room and you say, ‘Remember me? Yeah, my old ass is lonely, so shut up and love me, will you?’ I promise you’ll reach her. A connection like the kind you described doesn’t just evaporate. Sometimes it just needs a little jolt.” She took the old mare by the armpit and helped her to her hooves.

Gray took a few steps in the direction of the Sunrise Suite. As she moved she felt the tight heat of the walls and the sturdy old wood of the stairs underneath her, unyielding to her weight. She breathed heavy again; the shadowed form of Ms. Winsome beckoned down from the third floor.

“Finished catching up then? Good. This way, last door on the right side.”

They could hear talking as they approached the threshold. Ms. Winsome, Sweetie Belle, and Mrs. Gables were greeted by the warmth of bodies of the room and a flicker of surprised glances as they entered; but as far as the Princess was concerned, they went completely ignored, either by the latter’s intention, or because she was so concentrated on rendering her judgment to Rose and the others, that she did not stop to notice the appearance of new auditors to her performance.

She gave the following decree:

“Pinkie Pie, if you are able to find time in your schedule tomorrow morning, I would like you to go and see Mayor Lulamoon. Please inform her that, by my Royal Pronouncement, the Ponyville town census is no longer to include data on bunnies, or butterflies, or anything else that might be deemed a threat to Ponyville or its citizenry, if said critter populations should appear there, of a sudden and en masse, as the result of the survey process.” (Pinkie Pie gave her a salute, and assured her that her schedule was always wide open). “As for you, Fluttershy, I will see to it that you are remunerated for the work that you would have done in the upcoming census, by the fulfillment of a different order. Namely, you are to travel to the mountains of Cartmandu to discover for yourself the inner, invisible source of Friendship and to distinguish it from the karmic consequences of administrative piety—in short, you are to go for a period of contemplation and reflection. And you are to remain until you feel sufficiently able to report on your findings, which, We are sure, will be a boon to all of us concerned with the pursuit of Friendship.” (Fluttershy replied that this was fine). “It is my hope that we can all learn from and give thanks to Rose, for living through such trials, and coming out not only stronger, in my opinion, but wiser, warmer, and more thoughtful of others.”

There was a brief silence in the wake of her commands; and, observing a certain confusion in the room, Twilight found where the three arrivals were waiting for her attention, foremost of them the solicitous head maid, who was eager to present Sweetie Belle as a badge of apology for the poorly-timed interruption of a server.

“Ms. Winsome, I would prefer if you’d honor the privacy of a royal audience which I am giving—as well, by implication, the ponies I am giving it to,” Twilight said with detectable irritation. “The grievance of Ms. Rose has been duly addressed—there is no need for her affairs to circulate amongst the staffers, or anyone else who is unacquainted with it. …Hello, Sweetie Belle.”

Winsome Weathervane closed the door behind her. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. Far be it from me, Ma’am… Oh! the things you must imagine, with your mind in a thousand places. It’s not a life I could manage, I assure you. I only thought that these two ladies with me were privy to your court, as one is the relation of an absent councilmember, you know, and looking quite dollish—and the other seems to be a harmless assistant of hers,” she said wryly.

“If Starswirl himself comes to advise me, please knock,” ordered Twilight, auguring Ms. Winsome’s understanding from a stiff bow. “Now… ladies, if you would kindly wait outside until our business here is concluded, I’d be happy to talk to you about anything—”

“Let them in,” Rose said.

Sweetie Belle, though no longer a filly, had to restrain herself from giddy excitement like she might have had at that precious age, at the anticipation of Gray reuniting with her long-lost admirer; she quietly tip-toed back to give them an arena in which to meet.

Gray Gables stepped forward. Her shoulders felt sunk down. All eyes in the room were upon her—what, now, had she to show for her meting out of life, her patient pining for Silver Shoals, other than a mold-blotted apartment on the modest east end of Ponyville? She searched herself, in the weight of friends and royalty and strangers and silence, for what it was that filled her heart, what it was that profused gratitude each morning she pushed her aching knees out of bed to face the new day. But the words seemed to dissipate in front of her, like a fog, and in their place she saw Roseluck, whose whole appearance tokened the browning gashes of middle age.

After a few false starts between them, Sweetie Belle seized initiative and cleared her throat to address the room. “You know, this reminds me of a joke. It’s about two grizzly bears—big, ferocious things that you can hear from half a mile away, if they get upset. Anyway, these grizzly bears are having a civil discussion. It’s an old bear and a young bear, and they’re talking about who should have dibs on the last garbage can at a scattered forester’s house. The old bear says, ‘I’ve roamed these woods for decades. My time is getting close. I need to eat this garbage to keep up my strength, otherwise I might perish.’ And the young bear, you know, he says, ‘Some other old bear made it possible for you to carry on in the spirit of a bear, when you were young. And I expect you to keep things going for me.’

“A very serious discussion, as you can imagine. They kept at it for hours and hours, until finally, a dog shows up, who had been listening to them. He was something of a public intellectual in those parts. He came over and said, ‘I think I have a solution that will take care of both your needs, old and young.’

“Then the bears turned to each other, and yelled out, ‘Oh my god, a talking dog!”

A hush followed. One by one faces around the room became lighted—first Twilight, who shook her head in disbelief; then, “Ooh…! Because bears don’t talk,” from Pinkie Pie, who whispered it again to Fluttershy; only Ms. Winsome was thoroughly confused, and began inquiring the punchline of the other ladies, to no use—a sight which only added to Sweetie Belle’s satisfaction.

Rose looked sour as stifled laughter circulated around her. She perceived that Sweetie Belle’s joke had been made at the circumstance’s expense, and turned an unhappy look on her; the jokester replied with a wide, foolish, apologetic grin. Watching them, Gray noticed the crow’s feet around Rose’s eyes. She wondered if her old friend had—or might still be suffering—the kind of loss she had endured in the intervening years since their last meeting. Sweetie, full of youth and color and sincerity, formed a contrast. Gray loved her, too, that is, her station in life—different from Rose, who was now embittered—and understood, along with it, what the young pony was yet to endure, as only a matter of time. They shared a common tragedy and joy—the three of them. Gray saw her life play before her eyes through the mares in front of her, and felt it in the weight of her old hind legs which slumped to the floor, looking for rest—for she knew what tired legs meant for an earth pony.

“This is my friend, Sweetie,” said Gray. Her voice stopped the room like a note on a violin.

“Heh, nice to meet you,” said Sweetie Belle. She and Rose shook hooves.

Gray went on, “It sounds like you’re quite busy these days.”

“There’s always something...”

“That’s how it is.”

Another silence.

“How are you, Rosey?” asked Gray.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked.”

“Too long. How are you?” Gray asked. She tried standing again, but had trouble.

“Off the street. I have my own shop on merchant’s row.”

“I heard, I heard. The Plumerium,” said Gray, smiling and eager as a young filly. “Oh, I’m so happy for you.”

Rose went to give a reply, but seemed to check herself. “Are you really?”

Gray didn’t answer.

“I haven’t seen you. You must be very happy. Much better with me not in your way, isn’t it? Heath Cropper, too, I bet.”

“Rose… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Oh, to hell with you!” Rose spat at her; she could sense eyes upon her. “To hell with you and your fucking retirement. I hope you have an island on Silver Shoals where nobody can reach you. It’d be a perfect life for you—just what you want.”

Gray went quiet. “I live on a stipend. I’m still in Ponyville. And I’ll remain here.”

“W-what do you mean? A stipend? What happened to Shoreham Accents? How much did you sell it for?”

“It doesn’t matter. That was years ago. I didn’t manage wisely. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that money.”

Rose looked at her, amazed. “That’s crazy. …I can’t believe it. I mean, how could you?”

“Rosey, Heath Cropper died. He’s gone.”

The eyes disappeared.

Gray said, “I got into business because I wanted to provide an opportunity for him. I wanted him to have a good life. I wanted him to travel and meet someone nice, then come back and live near me. That was the life I pictured. I wanted to give him that, you know, after his father died. I said to myself, if I can do that for him, then I’ll have done my part as a mother. It’s all I could do, I think. Then when I got the report from the boating accident—” Her whole body sunk down at the remembrance. Her bright, clean blouse clung to her like a thistle on a wool sock; it was the brightest object in the obscure room, with its candles and its curtains drawn for the Princess’s sleep.

She looked up at Rose with a gaze filled with childlike disgust. “I didn’t care anymore. The whole thing was meaningless and painful to me. I tried to keep up appearances, but… for what? I was ashamed of it all.

“I couldn’t see you. I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on you. And I wanted to stay away from the world you were going into. I had sensed for a long time that you wanted separation from me. And after everything that happened, I wished for you to have your dream. You would have a chance to be as happy as I was with my son and my little store. One morning, I woke up with a feeling in my chest, like I had gotten surgery. Something had been taken out—a sickness. I was open, and there was a breeze cooling the wound in my heart.”

“Why didn’t you reach out to me…” said Rose. It didn’t come out as a question. She was humiliated by the offer, but heard herself say, “I would have been there in a heartbeat.”

“I know, dear.”

Rose wasn’t sure if she had told the truth. She cried, exhausted by the night and all the faces in her life that she had tried to explain herself to.

“Rosey. Come here.” Gray wanted to get up, but her knees were too sore from the stairs. She kept her back legs on the ground and held open a front leg for Rose to find her. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Please, come here. Will you forgive me. Please.”

“Oh!” gasped Rose, falling back on her haunches. “Oh! Oh! Sweetie, anybody...!”

“Yeah.”

Sweetie Belle got up and took one side of Gray, and Rose the other. Mrs. Gables groaned as they propped her up; she stumbled a little onto her hooves. Rose embraced and stabilized her and kissed her twice on the neck and buried her face beside hers and didn’t speak. Gray patted Rose’s white hair. She smiled, and hummed something to herself, and a tear fell down her face and thudded on the dark oak floor.

There was not a pony in the Sunrise Suite who was unaffected by the reconciliation between Roseluck and Mrs. Gables. Roughed and red cheeks abounded, and sniffles prevailed under the dome of a respectful silence; even Princess Twilight dabbed her eyes gingerly at the corners, waving a tissue with her luminescent magic. Far from exception was humble Ms. Winsome—who, however, unfortunately found herself in a dispute with one of the serving girls at the crack of the door. She stamped her hooves and in a brash whisper insisted on the authority of her charge, derived from Twilight herself, which would admit ‘no special cases’; until, finally, she stepped back in to congratulate Rose and Gray on their reunion, and to let them know that they should contact her directly, should they need anything else that would help them enjoy themselves ‘while you stay with us’—and left the room.

For the time being, it seemed as though the emotional boundaries of the group had been dissolved by the scene which had played out between the long-lost companions. Sweetie Belle could hardly keep from thinking of her own family, and decided that the moment was ripe to bring out the issue with her sister and the Mirror Pool; though she was, thanks to Ms. Winsome’s confused report in the stairwell, completely ignorant of the discussion which had really been taking place between Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and the shopkeeper. Thus, she turned to the party, after an appropriate lapse in the gravitas of the moment, and gave the following account.

“So… I wanted to tell you. Yesterday I took Rarity down to the Mirror Pool and I… kind of made her drink the water. I wanted to win an argument with her. I remembered hearing somewhere that, if you drink it, you can remember what you had for breakfast every day for the last two weeks. …That’s important because she was asking me about dieting, and I reminded her that she probably gets donuts from Coco Pommel every other day. So I challenged her to drink the water, to settle our little debate.”

“Drink the water?” cried Pinkie. “Who would say something like that?”

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Maybe I read it in a book somewhere? I don’t know. Rarity was just as skeptical as you are, but I suppose I kind of… tricked her into doing it. It was a dare between sisters. I’m sure you know how that can be.”

Pinkie fleeced her mane as she tried to recall. “I guess…”

“The point being—and we’re not one-hundred percent on this, but—there may be a clone of my sister running around Ponyville. Maybe more than one. I wanted to inform you of that. And if that turns out to be the case, I want to volunteer myself to help catch it. It’s really my fault, after all.”

Twilight frowned as she turned it over. “I hardly see how it’s only your fault. But yes, that’s certainly something we need to address—"

“I blindfolded her,” Sweetie Belle blurted out.

“Blindfolded—uh, wow. I’m shocked. …We’re going to need to have a talk with Starlight about this. That’s so reckless.”

Sweetie Belle kicked the rug in front of her. “Aw, man! We will? I was hoping that she wouldn’t find out. What a bitch.”

“…Excuse me?”

“The situation, I mean. For me. Twilight… er, Ma’am.”

Her heart raced as Twilight held a leery gaze on her. She noticed that Gray had her face turned away; Roseluck looked baffled, and played with her hair. They were all interrupted by a snout poking through the cracked door. “Ma’am… Ma’am!” it whispered, drawing attention away from the conversation between Sweetie Belle and the Princess.

“What is it, Ms. Winsome?” replied that latter in vexation. “You can come into the room to tell me—everyone can hear you well enough.”

“I’m afraid that I cannot,” she replied, still whispering. “My business concerns a very discreet matter and I do not wish to impose on the present audience, royal orders.”

“It’s not about my towels, is it?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you unless all matters in the current session reach a conclusion, and everyone present leaves the room.”

“Why don’t I just come to you...”

Twilight excused herself from the party and stepped outside.

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