I swear to any God that’ll listen: that mare on the beach looked ready to collapse in her own crater. She rubbed her eyes, breathed through her mouth, and barely managed a single creaky step forward. The tiniest draft would have been enough to tip her over, but it would be awhile before the wind ever made it back to her after an explosion like that.
The horn between her ears crackled and sputtered like a dying yellow flare. A flock of seagulls cried overhead, and the mare opened her eyes. Her hind legs bent down slightly, but she shifted her hooves and stood up before her rump hit the sand. Her unsteady breathing gradually found rhythm as she synced herself up with the waves crashing in front of her. It became an exercise of sorts: five seconds in and five seconds out.
I shouldn’t really have been watching her, but I couldn’t help myself. Besides, she was the one who went and shook my whole tree house when she appeared from wherever-the-heck she blew in from and nearly blinded me, so I figured she had no right to privacy. It was my beach, anyways—even though I wasn’t much of a swimmer.
So I watched her from my windowsill (after I got over the scare she caused me). Who was gonna say no to little old me? Nobody, that was who.
Speaking of girls that could get away with whatever they wanted, she looked it. She was huge! I didn’t know ponies could grow that big. Her horn alone was the length of a regular pony’s neck. Matter of fact, my mum once told me of a pony that looked just like this one: a white princess that was loved to bits on one side of the world, while our side wondered if she even existed. Same pink and awfully sparkly hair and everything. Not to mention the sun on her flank.
Couldn’t have been her, though. This one had no crown, no golden shoes, no aides, and she sure as gull crap wasn’t anywhere near a castle. Plus, I could tell she had done something no princess ever did. Something so unspeakable and horrifying that nobody in royalty ever even considered it. I recognized it from her look. Rough breathing. Rickety moving. Hoof over the eyes.
That right there was the result of a long day’s work! Getting things done. Banging out results! She’d be alright. Maybe she was just taking a vacation from a long stretch of work on a farm or something.
Yeah, that was it.
Already looking better, she took a deep drink of the salty air that found its way to her. She craned her head towards the sky and I assumed she closed her eyes, because her nose was pointed directly at the early morning sun. “There you are,” she said, and I scoffed.
Now she was talking to a freaking star! This girl had had it. Her voice was a real beaut, though. It was smooth, silky, and even better than some songbirds I’d heard. The type of voice reserved for gentle, loving mothers and complete psychopaths that loved to trick their victims with kindness.
Look at me, already narrowing her down to two! It kind of shocked me, but I wanted to figure out all about her. I wanted to know why she was there, why she was so tired, all of it. You know, without actually going down there and introducing myself. That would have been a bad idea. She was huge, remember? She could have crushed me under her hooves if she wanted. Nuh-uh. I was staying up in my safe, cozy, temporary home, and that was that. Besides, I was high up, but I was at the edge of the forest, so I could see most of the beach. Whoever the yobbo was that decided to build an entire tree house and then ditch it deserved at least some credit, because they’d given me a great view.
Not that there was much to see! After all the fanfare from her entrance, the next thing she did was lie down, right there in the sand. I had to peer over the edge of the window to be sure of what I was seeing. She stretched her wings high and brought them in, before nestling into the sand and laying her neck across her forelegs like some kind of pure-as-snow wolfhound.
And then she didn’t move for an entire 10 hours. At least I figured as much; I didn’t just sit there and watch her for that long. I had a busy day to get to (promise). But from what I could tell, the sun completely passed her over on her first day at the beach, because when I got back, she was painted black by the trees’ shadows, not an inch from where I left her.
The sun stopped where it was for a half hour (it did that sometimes). I watched her for a bit but got bored and hit the hay. Just before I nodded off though, I heard her let out a reserved gasp and barely scold herself. Not long after, there was a flash outside the window and she was gone.
I saw her again a month later, much to my surprise. First off, after a month of nothing but seagulls, pelicans, and the occasional squirrel to keep me company, I was sure she’d left forever. Second off, I wasn’t even supposed to be there anymore.
Either way, it would be the last time. I had a long trip ahead of me, so I decided I’d watch her the whole day, just for kicks.
I was curious. That’s all.
Unlike last time, she was much quieter. I mean, the burst of magic was still loud, but it didn’t make me jump out of my skin this time. She must have gotten better at that spell she was using, because she didn’t make any new hole in the sand either.
The only thing different about her today was the pair of saddlebags over her back. She was still just as knackered as last time, so she started to breathe with that rhythm again. Eight minutes—in and out with the waves. After the exercise, she walked towards the trees – humming to herself the whole way – and floated the bags on the ground. From the first pouch she yanked out an absolute tome of a book and thudded it in the sand. From the second she pulled a sealed plastic bag of danishes—red and yellow and purple and covered with generous helpings of icing.
She retreated under the shade of the branches and I couldn’t see her anymore.
The rest of the day was relaxing for her, but bloody infuriating for me. The book must have been awfully good, because she giggled and gasped and carried on the entire time she read it—sometimes while her mouth was full of those freaking danishes (which, by the way, she finished all in one sitting). It was supposed to be my rest day, but I spent it wide awake, spending my precious, precious energy on wishing she’d shut up.
Her bags were sure interesting, though. The buckle that sat half-buried in the sand was decorated with a spiffy-looking sun emblem. The other buckle – folded over so I could only see the golden-plated back – was definitely the shape of a crescent moon. Weren’t those stories always saying something about the princess and her sister being in charge of the sun and the moon or something?
But it couldn’t be her, surely? It made no sense.
After several hours, she was about halfway done the book. She walked out towards the beach and closed a thin, wooden bookmark between the pages. She sighed with glee, snuck a look around her, and embraced the book tightly. She twisted left and right, like it was something that could love back.
She looked well silly.
***
The third month was when I knew it was her.
First off, her appearance was much more, I don’t know, regal this time. Maybe it was how high she held her chin, or how far her wings were stretched out when she arrived. She even held her hoof in the air as if ready to climb a stairway to the clouds. Plus, the spell had gotten so much more refined and so much more quiet. The first time she came, I realized, she was having a go at a pretty strong spell, which was the only reason she could have made such an explosion. She overestimated. That meant she blew in from proper far away. Like other-side-of-the-world far away. But after three tries, she was getting it.
I felt right clever that morning.
Oh, and her wearing her crown and golden shoes this time was also kind of a giveaway.
Then again, although the explosions were getting quieter, her accuracy was getting worse every month. She was so close to the water now that the waves managed to slide up under her hooves. She didn’t react from the cold water around her ankles, probably because she was too busy remembering how to breathe.
She took out that book again, and I could just swear she was at the exact same spot! She hadn’t read a page! Didn’t she have time back where she was from to finish a book? She read half of it in a day! Nobody’s that busy.
Either way, I dreaded it. It was not a good day for her to read. I had gone and done that thing where you sleep in so late that you end up wanting to nap for the rest of the day. “Is that the kind of day it is?” my body said. “Right-O, maybe we’ll do something worthwhile tomorrow. Nap day!” I was mad at first, but after a while I was kind of looking forward for an extra day to sleep. It was a good chance to not do anything but with a great excuse. But not anymore!
Not a good combination, me and her.
I tried to get to sleep anyways, though. I was two months overdue on leaving this place and heading back to my friends, so I needed the rest bad. I mean, I liked the temp home and all, but solitude wasn’t my thing. I also didn’t like how every day sounded the same. There were waves, birds, trees, and most importantly, a distinct lack of my friends calling out for me in the distance.
Note to self: Next time your friends tell you you can’t possibly fly over the ocean on your own, don’t go proving them wrong and getting yourself so bloody knackered you can’t make the trip back without recovering for three months (and counting). What’s the point in putting a stupid look on their faces if you’re so far away you can’t even see it?
“No… what?”
Suddenly I was waking up again. It was halfway through the arvo, and something had kept her mouth shut for me. I yawned as quietly as I could before taking my place on the windowsill for whatever entertainment she had planned for me.
Sunny was marching up and down the beach, holding the book in her magic, darting her eyes between every line. It was like a page every minute.
“No… no, no, no! You… You can’t!”
I chortled.
The pacing continued—her hooves drawing a really slender figure eight (or maybe it was just a line) in the sand. In a few minutes, the back cover fell on the last page, and she stopped walking. She flipped through the pages once more to the last and re-read the final few lines. The book shut with a loud thump. I held my breath.
“What…? That’s it?”
With a flap of her wings and a half-hearted toss of her magic, she plopped the beast of a book into the sand. She stared a terrifying stare at its cover and huffed; and for a moment, I thought that was the end of it.
“Oh, you… You…! What kind of ending was that!”
She dug in. Her back hooves stuck deep in the sand, and her magic took hold of the book. It spun a few inches off the ground and shot out towards the water, skipping once, twice, and three times before it stopped with a slap and began to sink. The pouty princess watched it go, and I ducked under the windowsill to whimper out a few laughs.
She vanished at the end of the day again (after a long, temper-reducing nap on the beach), and I felt a little twang in my chest.
That was it, I reckoned. Even if she came around again next month, I’d be long gone. My trip home was coming up in a matter of days. If I could fly one way, I could find my way back. It’d be easy. A real cinch.
The fourth time she visited the beach was the funniest by far. Warped herself right into the waves as they were pulling out from shore, she did. They dragged her hooves out from under her right quick – no slow and steady breaths this time – and planted her face in the muck. I laughed harder than I had in years, but credit to her: she picked herself up without much of a fuss.
“Clumsy me.” She chuckled and twisted the water out of her mane with a spell.
I stopped laughing. Not as funny when they’re doing it too. But at least she gave me the gift of her less-than-graceful fall, which I play over and over again in my mind when I’m feeling down, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
Anywho.
She was bagless this time, but she kept her jewellery on. The rising sun put a pretty wet sheen on them that nearly burned through my eyes. Those things sure got polished a lot.
She walked out of my sight, and I heard a piece of wood snap and rattle my tree. She meandered back out to the sand with a branch in her magic and sat down.
“Time to get to work,” she muttered.
She didn’t speak much, but when she did, she made my heart flutter. I don’t care if that’s embarrassing to say. Her voice was deep and aged like fine cider, and it managed to speak every word like it was rolling off her tongue.
She scratched three letters side-by-side in the sand. A ‘CG’ paired close together and an ‘H’ all on its own. She tapped the end of the stick against her chin a few times and finished by drawing a question mark to the right of the ‘H’. She drew two lines to separate the three groups and let out a huff like she was about to start a workout.
With a quick look over her shoulder, she took flight up towards a thick, far-hanging branch in the tree next to mine. She perched herself on top of the branch and slumped her stomach into the wood. The only parts of her I could see were her head laying on the branch and her left front leg, dangling in the air beneath her mane.
She was close. Too close. I didn’t really know what she’d do if she found me, but I’d be damned if I was going to find out on purpose. I decided to never make a noise until she buzzed off.
I reckoned there was an intense battle going between the letters in her head, because they started to gain points at her discretion. Every few minutes of silent sitting she would move the stick and scratch a vertical line in the sand (a diagonal one for every fifth) underneath the ‘H’, the ‘CG’, or the question mark.
Well, I say that, but the question mark didn’t score a lot of points. Not a one, actually.
Every so often the stick fell over for an hour or two. She was either catching up on sleep or making a tougher call. Either way, she hushed just enough for me to catch a few winks myself.
Now, I was never very good with numbers, but I could at least tell that – by the end of it – CG had a lot of lines, and H also definitely had a lot of lines. But, CG was definitely ahead by seven. We had a clear winner! Not that I knew what they had won (or what they were). The princess glided down to her scoreboard and tapped her chin a few more times. She hemmed and she hawed and she carried on, and finally she began giving more points. One for H, another for H, and five more for H, all in a row. When they were finally tied up again she shook her head gently and seemingly lost control of the stick, because it tore through the sand and splayed the lines all around her hooves. The only thing that was left behind was the question mark.
I was hoping she would say something. Heart flutters aside, she just looked like she was bottling something in, but then again, didn’t she always look like that?
Either way, she had no words for me, the sun, the sand, or herself. She sighed, she slept, she vanished, and I was alone again.
Business as usual.
For a while I thought I had been sticking around just to see her. I probably just wanted to know what she got up to, right? But a few moments after she left, I made this teeny tiny noise. It wasn’t a whole lot. Nobody probably heard it. But when I made it, I knew there was another reason I was staying.
She was a bit of a showoff, this one. I watched from the window for her to appear right on cue, and when she did, it was a ways out there. She warped in several yards in the air, spun around in a flourish of sparks and stars, and dove headfirst into the drink. When she emerged from the water she took a hefty breath of the salted air and grinned like a fool.
She started to swim back to shore for all of five seconds, but something stopped her. I was fully expecting her to bust out the letters and the stick again, but after she found the sand again and walked uphill until the water was at her stomach, she decided something different that morning.
She decided to just play in the water. For over an hour, she giggled, she splashed at nothing and she even swam out to the horizon and came back again. She had a very lovely time. Good on her. I was happy.
No, seriously. Totally thrilled.
Well, I suppose something bugged me just a little bit.
Level with me for a second. I mean, she was a princess, right? Ruler of an entire nation or whatever? Didn’t she have, I don’t know, important things to do? Even last time she was here, all that stuff with the letters—that at least seemed like it was work. I mean, she even said she had to ‘get to work’! Why was she even back here if all she wanted to do was waste time?
Time!
Now there’s a word she probably hadn’t a shred of respect for. I bet it wasn’t even in her vocabulary. The guards and attendants or whoever worked with her probably had to remind her of time, well, all the time!
See, there were these ponies that lived in a town near my home, and I’d heard them tell lengthy stories about this mare and others like her. They always had this common theme: It must be a wonderful life, being like her. What a privilege. But I knew there was a catch, because time meant nothing to this mare.
‘Living things die,’ my mum used to tell me. ‘It’s only natural.’
But not her. No, she gets to skip the whole process. She can put things off until she’s good and ready. There’d be no sense of wishing she’d done things earlier, because she can do things whenever she wants. There’s no slow and steady march to the finish line to take up all her precious time.
My mum also said that she wasn’t that different from me. She said she may not look it, but there’s more in common with her and us than we can see.
What an absolute load.
I barely watched her that day. I had other things to think about, like what kind of sickness gives you a cough that gets worse so slow you barely even notice it. Like what to do about having less and less energy to even get out of your own tree house. Like what was I even still doing on that dumb beach!
Like where everyone was!
Friends.
Family.
Bunch of lazy wombats. Bet they couldn’t wait to be rid of me.
I slept most of that day because I couldn’t shake the feeling that my hourglass was running out. She slept most of that day because hers was bloody broken.
I spent the next month gathering food. The island was full of it, actually. Berries, acorns, even some vegetables. Pretty soon I was stocked for months. I was ready, and I was set. I wasn’t gonna take this lousy illness lying down. I would do exactly what I needed to do to fight this thing, even if that meant lying down.
Illnesses are weird.
Sunny came back right on cue, a little closer to shore this time, and believe it or not, she actually got to work again. Maybe she could hear me whinging up in my tree and took some pity.
She started out with another stick that she gracefully ripped off my tree. The letters were back in the sand, and she would be up in her perch again in no time.
But something paused her. The stick came up to her chin again and tapped it twice, before she laid it on the ground and swiped away what she’d drawn.
She turned her attention to the forest and flared her horn. Several snaps of wood came from below (scaring the crap directly out of me), and at least three dozen more branches of all shapes and sizes floated towards her.
She smiled at her squad of sticks and sauntered out to the middle of the beach, where she got to work. Not like she’d ‘gotten to work’ a couple months ago. No, the tallies and the letters weren’t really work, I realized. It was like a child faking chores while a parent was passing by. But this? This was some hard labour I could get behind.
The sticks tore through the beach at a wicked pace. They didn’t have a pattern or rhythm or nothing, they just cut the dirt and the air like it was their bloody destiny.
What a madmare, I thought. She’d forgotten she could teleport and decided that the best way home was to dig her way there. Why, at her pace she’d be there in less than a week.
The idea made me laugh. The laugh made me cough. The cough became a blizzard of noise and chest pain, so I retired from the window to get some sleep.
Whatever she was doing, at least it wasn’t very loud.
***
I woke up to the sound of a river. Not a beach, but a river. Thinking I was dreaming, I crawled to the window, peeked over the edge, and took a gander at her little digging project.
The beach had been absolutely shredded. All of the dry sand had been piled up around a great big hole, uncovering the dark, damp sand underneath. In the hole were thin scratches and wide gashes, curving and jutting in wild and random ways.
Or maybe it wasn’t random? It actually looked like a drawing of some kind. Were those two boats? And the boats were on fire? I couldn’t tell—it was all just dirt from where I was.
There was one spot of dry sand left: a large circle sitting near the water that rose above the hole like a pedestal (and guess who was standing on said pedestal).
The ‘river’ I was hearing was in midair. Surrounded by her goldie, glowy magic, about half the ocean was floating above her, sloshing and running in a circle like it was pretending it had somewhere to be.
Okay, sorry, not half the ocean. It just looked that way at first. Maybe I was the crazy one.
“And…”
The magic opened up. The water flowed out of a tiny, growing drain and began filling up the beach’s wounds one at a time. She rotated on her little dirt mound and moved the drain to every little crevice, enlarging and shrinking it as she got to thinner and wider spots. The glow of the magic stuck with it, too. Even as it sat in the trenches it continued to shine, as if still following her magic’s orders. The lines started to stand out. Less than a minute later and the all the water she’d put above her was all used up, and not a drop more.
They were faces! A couple of stallions, I reckoned. On either side of the mound, sparkling, facing away from each other and looking down both sides of the beach.
The one on the left looked like a cocky little fellow. Every piece of him was made with these thin, jagged lines, right down to the cracking, toothy smile and the tongue sticking out from under his chompers. His mane was unkempt and curly, and there were a few golden lines on his chin resembling dirty scuffs. All in all, he looked like a self-absorbed galah.
The one on the right was cleaner, drawn with smoother lines, and looking upwards. He had a svelte collar around his neck and a long, blunt horn on his forehead. His eyes – protected by a pair of tiny glasses – were open and hopeful, and his smile was closed and gentle. In other words, he looked like a wuss.
The mound itself had a few swirly lines sticking out from its base, making it seem less like a mound of dirt, and more like – you guessed it – a sun. I reckoned that was the point, because when she was finished hovering above her work, she took her spot on the mound above the two stallions and curled up wolfhound-style.
It was quite the image. Truth is I was charmed by it, but only because the water hypnotized me with its slow swirling and its showy shine. And it’s a good thing I was around to see it get made, because it meant I was one of the few.
See, it was perfect except for one minor detail. It could have done with a few mounds of sand between it and the ocean.
The tide climbed up just before the hole and receded again. I noticed the big mare breathing in and out in her sleep with the same rhythm as the waves. They slid up closer to her as if every time she inhaled she was helping the wind bring them up the shore. Soon before long, a tiny bit of water spilled over the edge and took a peek at what was inside, and it got jealous of what it saw.
The wind got freakishly strong, pushing the water into the dirt and dragging it into the hole. The edge of the hole crumbled from the force and more of the ocean took claim of the trenches. The spiky stallion’s shiny mane bled into the rest of the water, and with two more waves, his smile was rinsed out. The calmer pony followed in his hoofsteps shortly after. Once the hole was just a pool of diluted gold, there was just her on her mound.
Poor girl. It was an hour before she even knew her stallions had ditched her.
“No!”
She awakened in a tizzy. With a beat of her wings, she rose up and surveyed the damage. And it didn't take long for the sleepy, old mare to realize what had gone wrong, hang her head low, grimace, and shake her head. For all of thirty seconds she wallowed in anguish, and the scene was so devastating it made me wish I’d been responsible for it.
So that I could apologize, I mean! Nothing’s going to make you feel better about nature blowing dirt in your eyes. That’s just heartbreaking. At least a prank can be forgiven.
She softly landed on the mound and let out a sigh. Her wings expanded and her horn lit up, and she poured the water from the pool back into the ocean. She then pushed the hills of sand back into the ruined canvas and smoothed it over with her sticks. Good as new.
The sticks all rose up in a glow, and they flew past her back into the forest. They made quite a racket smashing (and sometimes snapping) against the tree trunks. That is, all but one. She picked it up last and sent the tip on a journey through the sand. In curvy, loopy strokes it left a few words behind, just out of my sight. Then it was off to be with its friends.
And then she packed it in early. The sun was barely up, but she vanished anyways.
I had to stand up on the windowsill and push out my neck as far as it could go. I nearly fell just trying to get there, but come on, I wasn’t just about to not know what the words said.
It took a few minutes, but I worked it out. They said:
Nothing wouldn’t last forever if Nothing knew any better.
A wave crawled up the shore, gathered the words, and stole them back. It could keep them, I thought. They were a bit overdramatic if you asked me.
I’d heard there were ponies who loved thunderstorms. They have little clouds or lightning bolts on their flanks and they go chasing the things without a care for their own safety because they just want to see the light shows.
Those ponies were mental.
The next month there was a tropical storm of a size I’d never laid eyes or ears on. The rain blew in from the open window and soaked every wall and crack in the wood, not to mention myself as I lay on the floor, practically bolted there. The only thing shaking more than me was my tree every time the clouds yelled at everything below them like we were its noisy neighbours.
But there were a few times that I peered over the windowsill. I couldn’t help it. She was due.
She arrived just a hair before a thunderbolt flew through the sky and exploded the clouds above her. It was almost as if she brought the daylight herself with her for just a split second, but the storm didn’t take kindly to it and let her know she had no right. She was standing about where she was when the water made her trip that one time (that one glorious time) and she nearly fell again from the wind and the rain absolutely walloping her.
I probably would have found it funny if I wasn’t busy wondering if my tree was about to be Mother Nature’s kindling. I saw Sunny warp in ’cause I knew when it usually happened, but that crash sent me flying into the wall across the room. I shook, huddled my sick little body together, and breathed like a maniac, eyes pressed shut.
Home was where you belonged. Home was supposed to be safe and warm. Even a temporary one! What was the point of home if you didn’t feel safe there? Might as well buzz off.
But I couldn’t buzz off while I was caught in that thing. My mum taught me better than that. When winds get rough, there’s no leaving home, otherwise I’d get lost.
Unless there was another way out.
There was a shuffling of leaves down below me. It crept up towards the bottom of my rickety tree house. The tree shifted a touch, and strangely enough, it wasn’t the wind doing it. I was almost brave enough to peer out the window again to see what was going on, but I didn’t want to give the storm another chance to scare the rest of my skin bare.
The shuffles got closer.
It was her!
Was she coming to get me? Maybe she knew I was there all along and didn’t want me to suffer through this like the stranded, sickly creature that I was. Maybe she’d fly me back to my friends! Or even better, she could fly me to her home! In an attempt to feel a little better, I pictured what her castle looked like. A castle where a mare like her lived. It would be sunny and warm and there wouldn’t be a single grain of sand for miles and miles there.
Hey, it was possible.
But then I wondered if the storm was tricking me into coming out of my home. Maybe if I poked my body outside the window the storm would be there, ready to strike me down and laugh as I fell into the sand and croaked. Maybe she was in cahoots with it.
It was just as possible.
The boards behind me creaked and pushed gently against my back. A soothing voice exhaled from behind the wall. I bit my tongue and stifled a shriek.
“I can’t remember the last time I’ve been caught in a storm…”
Was she talking to me?
“I suppose there’s a lot… that I wouldn’t remember.”
She spoke real shakily. Honest, her voice sounded unsure of itself for the first time ever. She tried to start her breathing exercises again, but she couldn’t keep the speed down, and every rumble in the sky choked her breath out for a few moments entirely. She was just as terrified as me.
Useless old girl. She was supposed to save me! Not be relatable.
I thought of what my mum told me again. How she’s not so unlike me. I figured, if I were her, I wouldn’t be hanging around here. If I could blip in and out of places as easy as she could, then I sure wouldn’t be bullied by the freaking weather. Wouldn’t she go back to her castle if she had the ability? Her warm, clean, not-at-all-near-a-beach castle. A place where there just had to be room for one more?
“Maybe next time…”
A few golden wisps of magic started to appear in front of me and travel through the wood, and I panicked. The boards gradually went back to where they were, then went too far and bulged out the other way. A hum started from nothing and built in strength from outside. It grew higher and higher until it was buzzing so loud that I could barely hear the storm outside, which somehow just made it more terrifying.
I scuttled away from the wall. I coughed and choked out an attempt at something that sounded like ‘don’t leave me here,’ but I didn’t stop crawling back. I wasn’t about to be part of her crater.
A flash of light lit everything and then nothing, and the humming stopped. I turned to the window and gulped.
BANG!
“Ah!”
A single board in the wall cracked, but her spell didn’t care. It exploded just like it did on her first arrival and ripped into my home, taking several pieces of wood out of my wall. My ears popped, and I made a noise that I didn’t hear. I assumed it was all heroic and determined, though, and not at all sad and pathetic.
I opened one eye and looked at the damage on the other side of the room. All I could see were leaves—shiny, dark green, and not at all what I liked to see when I looked at my wall. I huddled below the windowsill and let the rain hit me.
And I hoped she was nice and warm in her stupid, dopey castle.
Whenever a bunch of awful stuff has happened to me, or I feel like I'm at a loss for what to do, I always find it best to not dwell on the past or worry about what's happened, and to instead just figure out a step one and move on from there. So that's what I did after Sunny's latest stunt left me feeling worse for wear. I sat, I pondered, and I decided that the best step one for me was to do a cheeky little review.
So where was I?
I was stranded on an island in the middle of Nowhere Ocean. I hadn’t seen my friends in over half a year. The only thing I had to keep me company was a princess who – if provoked – blew large-animal-sized holes in tree houses. I was so close to carking it that I barely had the strength to get out to the window. On top of that, I was getting scared to death of death. My mum told me not to worry; as long as it's natural, you’ve done something right, but that didn’t make it less scary. It was my first time, after all.
But that was all no big deal, right?
Yep!
See, once the storm had gone (plus a few days just to be sure) I gave my poor home a once-over. And by that I mean I dragged myself across the floor to the hole in the wall and poked my head outside to see the damage. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a patch job, but I didn’t want to not have a gander at her accomplishment.
I swiveled my head around, trying to locate the shredded pieces of wood. When I didn’t see them, I scoffed. She had sent them far. I sat up against the side of the hole and looked up, down, left, and right.
There was still no sign of the things. I laughed and I thought to myself, ‘It’s like they aren’t even on the island anymore.’
In fact, it was uncanny how much it was like that.
See, I always thought of Princess Sunny like a shooting star. She appeared out of nowhere, was never around long enough to get anything done, and was less impressive every time I saw her. But, when I couldn’t find the boards she’d blown out of my wall, I realized that connection was a little too distant for her. No, she was more like a tugboat. She had a schedule, she took ages to get places, and she carried a ton of baggage.
And the most important difference? Tugboats could be boarded.
So I cooked up a plan. A really sad, kinda pathetic plan. Not that it wasn’t going to work, but just that it involved me coughing and wailing like a whooping crane with pertussis the next time she was in earshot. Either she would feel sorry for me and whisk me away to her castle where I’d be nursed to death, or maybe she could cook up a spell that would patch me up and keep me going for a few more years.
All I had to do was survive long enough for her to pull in again.
Piece of cake, right?
Yep.
The boom on the beach came right on cue. I sat up tall, lifted my chin, and prepared to hack like there was no tomorrow (and that was starting to feel like a pretty fair assumption).
“So this… is where you go.”
“Yes. Peaceful, isn’t it?”
I darted to the window. I hadn’t heard that voice before. Sunny brought a mate! Another big one just like her, but not quite so big, and also sporting a crown and shiny shoes. She was a few shades of dark blue and had a mane that was so full of stars she must have stolen them from space, along with a few extra ones to go with the moon on her flank.
The new visitor cantered towards the water until her hooves were dipped. “Uh…,” she started.
“What is it?”
“We art… confused.”
Sunny laughed. “Art thou?”
“Do not jest, Sister. I must prac—We must practice the dialect expected of a royal princess. Thou spokest it thyself. Our subjects’ approval depends on how we present ourselves.”
“Oh, forsooth.”
The guest narrowed her gaze. “Thou art still… tomfoolering.”
Something wasn’t right with these two. I could have sworn I heard the younger one say ‘Sister’, but the way Sunny pulled her in under her wing made them seem more like mother and daughter.
“It takes more than words,” the more motherly pony soothed. “Please, can we not strain our voices today? We’re on vacation here.”
The blue mare pulled away and harrumphed. “Please respect our decision. Our duty is just as import—”
And she probably would have kept yapping if not for the sudden splash of water in her face. Well, I say splash, but the sound it made was more like a firm slap. The cold water froze her face for a few seconds, after which she twitched and spat a small stream back into the ocean. The elder sister put on a cheeky grin as the tip of her wing dripped wet.
“Did you just…?” the younger murmured.
With her hoof this time, the elder splashed again.
“Cease thine unbecoming shenanigans at once, Sister!”
“Maketh me!”
“Stooooop!”
The elder sister pranced into the ocean and kicked yet more water up, and the younger’s horn flared. A wisp of blue magic brought the water into the air and blasted it at the playful white mare, pushing her off her hooves and into the drink.
“Take that!”
A golden tendril rose out of the water beneath the blue mare and swept her legs out from under her, plopping her into the damp, muddy sand. She scrambled to her hooves and took flight towards her opponent, bringing a piece of the ocean with her.
“Prepare yourself!”
It was a battle for the ages. They swam out into the ocean and traded watery blows, using their hooves, horns and wings. That white mare may have been a professional homewrecker, but at least she knew how to put on a show. Plus, she’d done something I was pretty confident nobody would ever do. She got that snooty mare to shut her trap. Honestly, her voice was driving me insane. Unlike the experienced and warm tone that her sister used to roll every word off her tongue, her voice was like a childhood bully, pushing its words down a slide while they weren’t looking. She and I would never get along, I reckoned. Ponies who talked like that were ponies who took things way too seriously.
Including splash fights, it seemed. Down in the drink the two of them were going at it like there was no tomorrow (and I was pretty confident they both had a tomorrow). Sunny was having fun, taking a few hits but also dodging her fair share as well. Her sister, meanwhile, was out for blood. She growled and snarled every time she was hit, and even grew less and less satisfied with each of her own successful attacks.
As the fight went on, it got worse and worse until finally, right in the middle of a war, the younger sister just stopped. She stared straight ahead and scowled, while the water was slapped in her face over and over by a big sister who took a little too long to realize she was the only one still playing.
The blue mare bellowed, “ENOUGH!”
The white mare recoiled. “What’s wrong?”
Silent and seething, Sunny’s sister turned away and walked back up the shore, wrenching the water out of her mane with a spell. “You are making a fool of me,” she muttered.
“Sister… It was just for fun,” Sunny muttered back, gliding back to shore and casting her shadow over the brooding mare.
“Enough. We should go home. I have my night to attend to and you need your sleep. We haven’t the time to shirk our duties here.”
It was a simple enough statement – one that was begging for a reply – but Sunny had no answer. She’d heard the words just fine, but instead of answering them she just looked away and rubbed her foreleg.
Her sister was facing the forest, almost looking straight at me, and waiting for the simple reply. But when no answer came, her face changed from focus to confusion, then from confusion to betrayal. She turned around to share the look with her sister. “You usually spend the night here,” she concluded.
The guilty child look didn’t suit Sunny at all. I wanted it to stop. I was happy somebody had told her off for what I’d been complaining about for the last few months, but I hated the way this new mare had done it. Especially with that voice.
“It’s only once a month,” Sunny finally replied. “It helps me focus. Besides, this is my second last visit. It’s only until I’ve made a decision, after all.”
“A decision? You mean the council’s little game.”
Sunny’s eyes lit up a little, and she trotted to her sister’s side. “Which is why I brought you here!” she remembered. “I was hoping you could help me.”
“…How long did they give you?”
“A year.”
“And it’s been?”
“Eleven months.”
I will forever remember the look that Sunny’s sister had on her face after that. I call it the ‘Gaze.’ She just sort of loses all emotion and gives her sister a vacant look, and it’s always accompanied by everything going silent something awful. I quickly learned that she was hiding something whenever the Gaze came out. Or maybe “bottling” was a better word.
I hated the Gaze. I hated how my little mare in white was being treated. And most of all, I hated that these two were pretending to be sisters. Sisters were supposed to be mates! They weren’t supposed to glare, bicker, and treat games like they were war. That wasn’t sisters. That was enemies.
And if they had something to sort out, couldn’t they do it elsewhere?
“Fine,” Sunny’s sister answered eventually, breaking free from the Gaze. “Sit down.”
Sunny obliged. For a princess, she was good at following orders.
“Tell me about them.”
“Okay, well, first there’s Homestead. He’s a handsome farmer from out west, known for putting his family and his hometown before himself. The council has assured me, actually, that he would put our ponies first as well. He’s a remarkably confident stallion. He’s never put a word wrong around me.”
Sunny’s sister blew out a sigh. The corner of her mouth rose up her cheek. “Next,” she drawled.
Sunny swallowed and nodded. “Right, um, the second is Clemence Greatheart. He’s a well-travelled pony who has had a hoof in starting charities all over Equestria. You may have even heard his name…”
No reply.
“…Anyways. He’s incredibly sweet and has a gorgeous smile. I think you’d like him, Sister.”
“Any more?”
“Yes, there is… the… third one. He was pleasant, wasn’t he? Hmm…”
There it was again. The Gaze came back for round two, and the three of us were just choking in silence. It was torture, but honestly, it was better than what it was hiding. There was a fighter breaking out from underneath the younger sister. Thankfully, the special ingredient that every fight needs to get started wasn’t there, and it didn’t look like it was going to come into play.
Sunny smiled, powering through the Gaze. “Isn’t that funny? Sister, I’ve forgotten the name of my own suitor. I suppose I should have written it down…”
“Actually, it’s quite plausible.”
“Oh?”
“Sister, do you think their lives a game?”
Sunny’s smile weakened. She pivoted her head so slightly that I almost missed it. “Whose?”
“Househead and Greenchart, or whatever their names were. The council. Our subjects. You know, the current blips in our peripherals.”
Sunny’s mouth fell open and she rose up from the sand. Just like that, we had the missing ingredient. A second fighter. “What did you call them?” she questioned.
“Oh, don’t act like you have more respect for them than I do. You know full well they’re different from us.”
“I created the council precisely because we are different!” Sunny paused to breathe in and out before continuing. It was a waste of a breath. “Because we can’t be trusted to make all the decisions. You realized that.”
“And you did a commendable job pretending that meant anything. If you had any respect for the council, you would have refused this matchmaking farce of theirs and disbanded them for even suggesting it.”
“Love is a powerful force, Sister! It’s a good idea!”
Sunny’s sister pounded her front hooves in the sand. “Then why do you waste their lives?! Puttering away on this forsaken beach, pretending you’re getting any closer to picking either of them—!” She thrust her hooves again. “If Equestria only knew what little you did for them.”
Sunny took a step back. “Would you rather I did everything for them?”
“I would rather they didn’t look at you like you DID!”
The trees around me all rustled at once. A flock of seagulls swarmed in the air, but they didn’t dare make a peep.
Sunny’s mouth quivered open. “…What?”
Her sister pressed her ankle against the bridge of her nose and grimaced. “They don’t realize that the day is there to be attended to,” she ranted, “and it is the night that cares for them, restores them, and prepares them for the next time they can praise what a wonderful morning it is. They look at you, and they delight. They look at me… and they cringe, Sister. And they don’t look for long.”
Something went wrong with the little sister’s speech. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but the word ‘cringe’ had come out sounding downright metallic. I thought I had imagined it at first, until I saw Sunny narrow her eyes at it. The pause gave her sister a chance to let the anger fade away, and for the Gaze to come back in full force.
Sunny took a step towards her sister and looked deep into her eyes. “You’ve never wanted the spotlight,” she reminded her. “There’s something else behind this.”
Her sister cocked her head to the side and shut her eyes. The beginning of a tear started under the one facing me. “I made a promise,” she whimpered, before clearing her throat. “A promise that we would lead our ponies through example and guidance, but not through assistance. And by taking that too far, you are breaking my promise.”
Sunny lifted a hoof to rest on her sister’s shoulder. “Sister, I miss grandma as much as you do, but she didn’t wan—”
“You miss whom?”
Sunny blinked. “…Grandma,” she replied, through a crack in her voice.
The younger pony prodded her sister’s hoof away. “Remind me,” she seethed. “What was her name?” There was the metal again.
“You… you weren’t even there when she—”
“TELL ME HER NAME!”
“I’VE FORGOTTEN!”
The seagulls overhead scattered and blew away. I wished I could follow them. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to see Sunny rock back onto her flank and bow her head. The only comfort I took in it was that she was defeated. And defeat meant the fight could end.
The hum I’d heard over the storm last month started again. It was from the younger sister this time, pulling out from shore, giving the loser one last chance to see the Gaze, and hear her stinging words one more time.
“If only you’d written it down.”
“Luna, WAIT!”
She was gone in a flash, leaving me and Sunny with the beach all to ourselves.
Actually, I take that back. She was alone down there, and she didn’t like it.
She stood up and growled. “What is wrong with you?!” she screamed with that beautiful voice of hers, and suddenly, it was like we were back in that first month again—the month of her first visit. She was shaking, her breathing was unsteady, and her eyes were shut tight. She started her exercise to calm down, and though it took a little longer than the first time, she still succeeded. Then, she looked to the early morning sun for guidance, and I assumed, closed her eyes.
That was my chance, really. The chance to start the plan and have her come rescue me. The chance to board the little tugboat and live happily ever after. At least until I died. Then who knows where I’d be. But I just watched her for the five minutes she stayed behind before warping after her sister. She didn’t seem like she wanted to be bothered.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that the little tugboat was about to start taking on water.
Good news! I didn’t die. Which meant it was back to plan A! This was my last chance, and I didn’t muck around with last chances.
When I heard the familiar booming sound of Ol' Sunny warping in, I stood up nice and tall. I waited to hear the blue mare’s voice to come and ruin everything again, but when it didn’t, the show began.
I coughed. I hacked. I spit feathers. I didn’t even know I could do that. I made my whole tree shake just with my old, shambling lungs. After about two whole minutes of my best performance ever, I slumped down on the floor and waited for phase two of the plan: her phase. Pretty soon, she’d be up here searching for me. She’d be finding me. She’d be helping me.
That was, of course, assuming she had even noticed me. After two more whole minutes of waiting, I grumbled and peeked out the window to find her right where she warped in, not budged an inch.
I scowled. I huffed. I prepared for round two, and just as quickly as I readied my next cough, I just sort of let it go.
She was different today. She looked, well, dreadful. It looked like she hadn’t recovered from the little spat with her sister, and instead, just got worse. Her movements had gotten slower. Her head had gotten lower. And her eyes were welling up with tears that I could tell she would let go at any second.
When the tears came out, she raised her head and heaved out a breath, gazing at the exact spot she and her sister had sat last month. She wobbled out to it and sat down, half looking like she was returning to the scene of a crime, the other half looking like she was ready to bawl. She threw her foreleg over her eyes and wheezed. It was way more pitiful than whatever the heck I thought I was doing.
And my heart just absolutely collapsed watching her. Who did I think I was? Coughing and sputtering just for a speck of attention from the girl who clearly had other crap to deal with. She was crying, but I was the sook. I was dying just as normal as anyone else like me and I couldn’t take it. I had to have my problems sorted out for me.
I wanted to go out and see her. I didn’t know half of what was wrong, but things couldn’t be that bad. She just needed someone to remind her.
I raised a leg over the window and tried to pull myself up, but I couldn’t hack it. I grunted and hoisted myself again, but my old bones just melted against the windowsill. I planted my forehead against the wood and sighed.
Everything went quiet around me. There were no more waves crashing. The branches snapping behind me faded away. The seagulls, well, I think they shut up once and for all. There was just that barely crying mare, alone with her thoughts, alone with her life.
Wait, what was that about branches snapping?
I turned around and my heart stopped. Not actually, but it might as well have. Just outside the hole that Sunny so lovingly put in my wall, crouched along one of the branches, was an orange, furry little monster. It was frozen stiff, staring directly at me with red, glowing eyes. It looked like a ferocious statue, if statues were capable of licking their lips. I forced out a painful gulp as the monster skulked its way towards the hole.
That right there? That was my end. I had no strength to move. I had no armor against razor-sharp teeth. I was a delicious, free platter of meat. I had just accepted my death, sure, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that.
The monster placed a paw on my floor and hopped inside. And within a few moments, I was being eaten.
Oh, come on, not actually! How could I be saying this stuff? No, I was saved in the end. It was her, actually—not that she knew anything about it. All she had to do was utter a tiny little sentence between her staggered, pathetic inhales, and send me my signal.
“Oh… Why am I even here.”
The monster and I sneered. I gave it a cheeky wave, and it pounced.
Suddenly spry and fit, I vaulted the window and fell face first on the branch below. The monster smashed its filthy nose against the wood, and I made a little cheer in my head. I pulled myself along the branch, keeping upright by wrapping my legs around it. The bark scratched my body up something fierce, but the pain sort of went away when I felt the shaking of something much larger than me landing behind me.
The branch bowed as I got further out. I looked back and saw the monster salivating and keeping its balance infuriatingly well. It crept up on me, waiting for me to figure out I had nowhere to go. It was just a matter of time, after all, right?
Wrong!
I sat at the edge of the branch, snuck a glance down and saw the sobbing mess below me. My getaway tugboat. Her horn was glowing. Her spell was humming. And soon, she’d be gone. I looked back at the monster, gave it a wink, and fell backwards. It jumped after me, and I laughed in its face the whole way down.
I fell on her head, and I up and died on her face.
Seriously this time.
***
Feathermint shuffled down the castle’s largest hallway having finished her latest thankless job. Dragging her hooves across the dusty carpet, she sidestepped here and there to avoid the patches of moonlight streaming through the windows. Her eyes were focused on a tired, old scrap of paper in her hoof, flittering slightly against the hallway’s stagnant air.
The two armored guards on either side of the castle’s largest doorway heard her hoofsteps echo between the stone walls, but tried their best to ignore them. They glued their eyes to the wall opposite them and propped their chins high, as they were instructed to do at all times the day before, and as they were determined to do whenever anyone was watching them.
Feathermint stopped in front of the closed door and brought the paper closer in. She forced out a long, laborious sigh. The orange guard on her left made an effort to clear his throat, and Feathermint tilted her head without averting her stare.
“Hi,” she muttered. “How ya holdin’ up?”
The guardsponies looked at each other, then down both directions of the hall, then back at the mare.
“Maids usually address guards like that in this castle?” the orange guard asked, eyeing the maid up and down. He nodded to his green partner to see if he knew her, but only got a head-shake back.
“No, but… you’re not guards.” Feathermint replied, finally taking her eyes off the page. “You new here?”
“Yes and no,” the green stallion on the right said with a tired smile. “Can we help you, young lady? The Princess is sleeping presently.”
The orange stallion shook his head. “Clem, you and I both know she’s not in there.”
“Not one for illusions, are you, Steady?” Clem shot back.
“Not one for lies.”
“Hey,” Feathermint interjected, waving the paper between the guards. “Speaking of lies. I dooooon’t want you to read this thing I found in the room down the hall.”
She extended the paper to Clem and gave him a cheeky wink. He winced and took the page in his magic. Clearing his throat for no reason, he withdrew a pair of reading glasses from his armor and placed them gently over his nose, causing his partner to snort.
Feathermint gasped at the green pony in the glasses. “Hey, I know you two. The suitors, right?”
“Used to be,” Steady answered. “The Princess isn’t really in the mood right now, though. And with the council disbanding and half the royal guard walking out on this place over the course of the week, the castle needed some subs.”
“Tough luck, eh?” the maid agreed, dusting the ground with her hoof. “It’s been a… weird week.”
“It’s been a weird year,” Steady grumbled. “Why are you working so late?”
“Oh, I’m just the only pony around here willing to clear out the, um… newly vacant... room. Don’t really know why. Nopony’ll ever use it again.”
“Makes sense.”
“Wouldn’t be right, right?”
“Wait, so you found that note in…” Steady paused when Feathermint lifted her eyebrows and nodded her head. “Whoa, Clem, what does it say?”
“Uhh… I really don’t think we should be reading this.”
“Says the guy who’s already finished. Read it.”
“Alright, alright.”
Clem cleared his throat twice.
“Luna,
I am saddened that I was unable to say goodbye to you more personally, but I also understand your decision. Farewells are tough. You two probably know that better than me. Just know that I have cherished every moment with you and your sister, and that I am proud in advance for what you two will accomplish. I only have one piece of advice left that I selfishly hope you’ll carry with you forever.
Make sure your big sister doesn’t suck the fun out of everything when I’m gone.
Love always, Grandma Ph—”
A bomb went off in the bedchamber. Or if it didn't, something had done an awfully good impression. The door rattled against the frame and a cloud of dust puffed out from underneath.
The three ponies’ hearts jumped into their throats.
“What was that?!” Feathermint cried.
“Princess?!” the stallions shouted. They tackled either side of the door open and stumbled inside, where they discovered a confusing scene.
Princess Celestia was indeed in the room, perfectly intact, standing at the end of her untidy bed, and bathing in the moon’s stale glow. Her mouth and eyes were wide with shock as she stared fixed at the ceiling. A few hairs from her mane were stuck to her face just beneath her eyes. On her nose was a pile of gray ashes, and on the floor was a scattering of the rest. It was as if she had just avoided an assassination by incinerating her attacker where they stood.
But the strangest addition to the room of all was the orange fox under the bedside table, shaking like a cat pulled from an ice bath. When it saw the ponies looking at it in surprise, it darted underneath the bed and threw its paws over its head—its tail quivering underneath the hanging sheets.
“Are you… alright?” Clem managed to ask.
The Princess gradually turned her head to acknowledge the three ponies in the room, and the shock evaporated from her face. She let her head lower, and the remaining ash fell onto the floor. “I will be.”
She bent down to the floor, wiped the tears from her eyes and whispered, “Come out, little one. I know you’re in there.”
The three distressed ponies looked at their princess with breaking hearts. They weren't sure when or how it had started, but it was clear that their leader was showing signs of senility.
That was, until the ash answered.
It started with a spark. Then, it gathered itself together and glowed a faint orange and red. A flame ignited in the pile’s center and pushed the moonlight out of the room. Princess Celestia gestured for her ponies to come closer, but they shook their heads and stepped back instead.
Feathermint wrapped her foreleg around Steady’s. Clem stepped to the side and dragged the fox out from under the bed by its tail with his magic, not taking his eyes off the flame.
Steady gulped and raised a hoof to step forward, but didn’t. “Princess, st-ah… step away f-from—”
“It’s fine,” she assured. “Just watch.”
The fire swirled in place, gathering the rest of the ashes into its flame and rising into the air. Celestia shielded her eyes, and the other three ponies did the same. The fire spun faster and faster and hissed in excitement, before vanishing outward in a flash of light.
The three ponies gasped, and the fox – hovering in the air by its tail – yiped. The four of them kept their eyes shut tight until they heard their princess faintly gasp.
The heat had gone, but the fire was still there. Hovering in the center of the room was an exotic bird as colorful as the flame that birthed it. It spread its wings wide, cawed tremendously, and grew a satisfied grin. Its wings flapped with powerful force, sending sparks and fire downward, yet somehow setting nothing ablaze.
The three attendants and the fox gawked, and while no-one was watching, Celestia’s smile returned.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said. She could have been addressing anyone in the room, but the bird accepted it anyways, nodding its head in agreement.
Her movements slow, the princess crouched down and approached the red animal, making sure it was watching her the whole time. When she was close enough to touch it, she bowed her head and lifted her hoof.
“Princess!” Clem protested, but she didn’t respond.
The bird perched itself on her leg and cawed again. It stretched its wings out and awkwardly wrapped them around the princess’s head, nuzzling its cheek against hers.
“Aww...,” Feathermint cooed.
Celestia giggled and whispered something to her new friend. When it let go, she wiped what was left of the tears from her face and let out a final sniff. “Would you like to be outside?” she asked the bird. “It’s a beautiful night.” Her horn brightened, and the window next to the bed unlatched.
The cold December air filtered into the room, and the fox whimpered.
The bird’s eyes flashed. Without warning, it zoomed towards the attendants and stopped right in front of the animal, sending several sparks into its cringing face. It waited for the fox to open its eyes and then blew its tongue in its face. The fox yelped and wrenched itself out of Clem’s magic, landing harshly on the floor and sprinting into the hallway.
"Wait! Come back!" Clem called after, and exited in a hurry.
The bird cackled and spun into a double barrel roll, before shooting out the window like a firework with wings.
Celestia galloped after it. She turned back to the attendants and did a poor job of suppressing the grin spreading across her face. "Come see," she implored.
"I'm good here," Steady said flatly.
Celestia turned back to the window and opened it up enough to poke her head outside. A swift breeze swirled around the room and swept up a scrap of old paper off the floor. It danced behind Steady, between him and Feathermint, then finally floated in front of the castlemaid's face. She snatched out of the air, brought it in and examined it one last time, then let go of the stallion and trotted to her princess's side.
“...Princess Celestia?” she uttered.
“Yes, Feathermint?”
“Who’s… Philomena?”
The Princess's smile faded. She closed her eyes and her head dropped low. She breathed one long breath—five seconds in and five seconds out. “I’m not sure,” she responded, raising her head and reclaiming her smile. “We’ve only just met.”
And she laughed—not very hard, but longer than anyone in the room expected.
