Past Sharing, Future Planning
Berry Punch did not like market day. She did not like market day because she did not particularly like being around ponies. Maybe some of her fellow ponies might be surprised to hear that, because Berry frequented various drinking establishments with some regularity, but ponies generally did mind their own business in those places, and Berry herself was generally in a state where she cared a lot less.
She didn't have to put up a stall, of course, because she had regular customers for her own product and that of her more distant family. Despite that, she'd never seriously toyed with the idea of stopping altogether. More spare bits in the budget were worth the discomfort.
"Berry. You look like garbage."
She blinked and looked up from the counter to face Ditzy Doo. She'd recognize the distinct voice and slow way of talking anywhere. She also ran a hoof through her mane. Had she remembered to brush it at all? Probably not. Her thoughts were running a bit sluggish.
"I'm selling booze, not modeling dresses," she grunted, but without the irritation she'd have felt if anypony else had gotten on her case. They'd seen each other at their worst and most stressed, helping one another in raising their foals. They'd gotten used to a degree of frankness."Y'got mail for me?"
"No." There was a pause as the mailmare rechecked her bags. "No," she confirmed again. "Why ... why do you always look bad?" After a moment, she clarified. "On market days."
Berry pursed her lips. She and Ditzy had seen less of each other since the kids finally started school. Berry didn't go outside much during the day unless it was business related, and Ditzy worked too much. Not that Berry minded looking after Dinky, too. The two fillies were practically inseparable, anyway. "Running on three hours of sleep or so."
"Why?"
Well, that was a real fun question. On some level Berry probably pretended that tomorrow wouldn't come if she didn't go to sleep. She didn't like market day, after all. "I hate ponies less while my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool." That was true as well. "I dunno how you do it, dealin' with ponies for hours every day."
Ditzy shrugged. "I like it. Mail keeps ponies in touch." She grinned. "Is it worth it? We lost enough sleep. When the fillies were smaller." Shaking her head, she concluded, "wouldn't do it. Not on purpose."
Berry squinted. "Fair enough. Y'got some grass stuck in your teeth."
The pegasus blushed furiously and covered her mouth with her hooves, probably wondering how many ponies on her route had noticed and said nothing. "Didn't have time for breakfast," she claimed without looking at Berry.
Eating grass was practically useless. Barely kept you ahead of your hunger, especially if you had to be active all day as a mailmare. As food went, it was kind of like huffing solvent fumes. Readily available, but not much of a high, and kind of pitiful to be reduced to it. "And dinner last night?"
Ditzy said nothing for a long moment before answering. "Trying to save up bits."
Berry scoffed. "You're flying about all day, you can't skip meals. And you always used to tell me to be nicer to myself."
"Mentally," Ditzy clarified.
"Mhm, right."
While Ditzy laboriously went on a tangent about thinking of yourself as well as she thought of other ponies and how it was sad that some ponies were better friends to other ponies than to themselves, Berry ducked down behind her stall. She'd tuned out the mailmare, but had heard it often enough to remember most of it.
It wasn't nearly as easy as Ditzy made it sound, but Berry didn't mind the repetition. Their daughters were still pliable and might get some use out of the notion.
"Aha, here we go!" She'd successfully retrieved her lunch and opened it up, placing it on the stall's counter for her friend. Her sense of achievement was shortlived, as her sluggish brain caught up the situation and braced itself for the half-condescending, half-accusing question of 'Do you always eat cold beans from a can for lunch'? "Eat up and don't argue."
Ditzy just scooted into the space behind the stall and started digging in without a word, practically inhaling the offered meal. The lecture about having a positive inner voice momentarily forgotten.
"That's a lot more energy per bite than grass, anyway." Berry shook her head. "Dinky's getting her meals, right?"
Her friend looked genuinely hurt to even be questioned about it. "Of course."
Berry felt awful for even asking. Of course she should have trusted the other mare to always look to the health of the kids first. "Look, I'm sorry. But seriously, Ditzy. You know there's always gonna be a meal for you at my place. At least something to get your belly full."
"I don't ... I don't like c-costing you money." Ditzy didn't look up, talking into the can of beans.
Berry didn't get it. Ditzy seemed like a very well put together pony. Kind to others, but looking out for herself, too, so all that being nice stuff didn't end up grinding her down. But when it came to money, she had some pride, which Berry thought just got in the way. "Yeah, and I don't like you going hungry. I'll catch you and make you eat, ya hear? Swear on my mom's grave."
There was a breathy little gasp. "I didn't, I didn't know your m-mother passed away."
She glowered at Ditzy in confusion for a moment before she caught on. "What? Nah, that's just a little dream I keep close to my black heart."
Ditzy frowned at her in an unspoken scolding. "You don't mean that."
A bitter laugh was the immediate and easy response. "I'd do her in myself if I knew I'd get away with it. Maybe once Pinchy's grown up and moved out. It's good to have dreams."
Her friend just seemed to frown harder. Made sense, Ditzy's parents were good folks, as far as Berry could tell from their brief visits to see their grandfoal.
Berry shrugged. "When we had money problems, mom ate her fill and I got what she left, if anything. Sometimes her coltfriend would sneak me a few bits to buy food with. Was no stranger to going to bed hungry."
"That's ho-horrible." Ditzy didn't say more, probably barely knew what to do with the concept of neglectful parenting.
"Sure, but at least it gave me incentive not to skip school, so I could shake down the smaller kids for their lunch." Wouldn't work in Ponyville, anyway. Both the teacher and the parents would care enough to raise a stink. Berry had been a little disdainful of the schoolhouse being little more than a barn when she'd moved here, but the pony element had her own school experience beat easily.
"Berry!"
"Yeah, I was a mean little shit, I told you before." She sighed. "I'm always worried I'll start seein' more of myself in the kid."
"Told me before," Ditzy echoed. She drapped a wing over Berry's back. "We'll pay attention. Our fillies will be fine."
Despite herself, Berry smiled. From anypony else it would have been a lame platitude, but sometimes Berry could get swept up in her friend's optimistic view of the world. Maybe it was the lack of sleep hampering her judgement, but no other pony would say 'our fillies' in quite the same way. And if it had been any other pegasus, Berry would already be at work dislocating their wing for getting all up in her space.
But maybe Ruby Pinch really would grow up into somepony whose first thought wasn't doing bodily harm when a problem popped up. "I'm putting my hoof down here, Ditzy. I won't stand for you going hungry anymore than the kids. If you're that worried, I can give you bits, too."
Ditzy stepped away and took a while to respond. Needed time to line up the words, maybe. Ditzy didn't like to talk about money. Berry believed her when she said that she liked her job, but the pay wasn't much, and occasionally something had to come out of the mailmare's wage, although Berry did not think her friend was nearly so clumsy as some ponies claimed.
"Or I can send Pinchy to school with lunch for Dinky as well." Berry hesitated. "But there's always gonna be some little bastard who'll make fun of her for bein' poor." She scowled. "Lemme do something, Ditzy. You know I'd never hold it over your head."
There was a break in the conversation as Berry sold two bottles of her family's wine to a passing stallion. She always ended up wondering why a pony would come to her stall for a product Barnyard Bargains carried as well, available every business day. Maybe the guy just didn't like Filthy Rich. No skin off her back. Or maybe he didn't like any of the stuff Berry made locally.
Ponies were probably always looking for reasons to assume mares like Berry or Ditzy were bad at raising kids, so if Berry was going to do something to help her friend out, it would probably have to be subtle. She wasn't rich, but she felt stable. There was always money in alcohol. "So watcha looking to save for? Gifts?"
"No." Ditzy took a deep breath. "Just trying to ... to put aside bits, you know? S-someday sh-she'll move ... move out." She frowned and continued carefully. "Something to help her get started."
"Huh." Berry felt stumped. She was aware to some degree that she was absolutely awful at planning ahead, but knowing she had a blind spot and knowing what it covered up in detail were different animals altogether. "See, that's why I need you in good condition, Ditzy. Never even occurred to me to start savin' that far ahead. You got, uh, life skills."
Ditzy gave her a questioning look. She didn't really need to speak to convey that it seemed like an odd oversight to her, since Berry generally kept her budget quite orderly.
"Well, look," Berry drew nonsense patterns with her hoof on the stall's counter. "Ten years from now isn't even real. If you'd wandered into Las Pegasus juvenile detention ten years ago and asked me where I was gonna be today, I'd have wagered dead or doing real time. Woulda been the safest bet. That's just how most of these stories end. Everypony back there knows the kids from my neighborhood are all gonna be criminal scum of one flavor or another. Thieves, thugs, dealers, you name it, and most of them don't have the means to get far enough away to not have that hanging over them and find a job somewhere they count as a pony."
She shrugged. It was an uncomfortable topic and she intended to plow through while she could. "Hell, most of us don't know that we ought to want to do better, 'cause they got so ground down and hopeless they can't even imagine fitting in anywhere but the neighborhood gang. It's too scary." After a moment, she added, "It's still scaring me, and I've been out since Pinchy was born. That's why I hate market. Keep expecting somepony to somehow read 'violent goon' written on my forehead and I'll get run out of town or something. But if I'm too tired to think, I'm not worrying about stupid stuff like that."
Berry suspected that the branch of her family running the vineyard had only helped her get set up here to spite her mother, who'd been spoken of as the black sheep of the family in frustratingly vague ways. Berry wasn't fond of the old nag either, but that feeling of just being collateral damage in some family spat that predated her didn't endear the vineyard to her either. Ponyville was good and far away. Sure, she wasn't ungrateful, but she just hadn't been comfortable. She hadn't been able to force herself to believe that they actually just cared about her as a pony.
Ditzy had a mournful look on her face. "That sucks."
Berry barked a laugh. "Havin' a, what'cha call it, a concise day, huh?"
The pegasus stuck out her tongue and closed in for another hug. "I get it. I'll stop worrying you."
"Thanks." Berry wasn't close to a lot of ponies other than her own daughter, Ditzy and Dinky were the top and the majority of the list, really. The mailmare probably understood that. More importantly, she'd never once told Berry that all her problems were in her own head, like it was meant to be some deep insight. "Real glad we met. I don't say that enough."
"It's because Dinky's a unicorn," Ditzy stated seriously.
"Yeah? How's that?" Berry understood that her friend wasn't overly fond of Cloudsdale, because she had no love for the whole pegasus warrior culture thing, and a lot of Cloudsdale natives supposedly weren't real patient with pegasi who prefered a slower pace and didn't do weather work all that well either. Consequently, Ditzy hadn't been particularly upset to settle groundside with her filly.
"When I was old enough to leave," Ditzy explained slowly, "I wanted to see Equestria. Drifted for a while. Pegasus luxury, yes?" She smiled. "Plenty of places without ... without regular weather service. Earn a meal for some rain. Sleep on a cloud."
Berry nodded. Sure, on the large scale, Equestrian weather was under control everywhere, but probably not every back country farm had the pull to get a rain cloud on demand like what she'd seen the local weather team do for Ponyville farms. And anyway, a lone pegasus never had to set down roots if she didn't want to.
Ditzy smiled at the memory. "Crossed paths with my share of stallions, drifting like I was. No unicorns. Dinky was ... surprising in that way." She shrugged. "If she'd been a pegasus, I'd probably be living in one of the cloud villages on the east coast. Different culture from Cloudsdale. Not so many statues of the Princess. I like fish. Stormbreaking is ... not complicated work, when it comes up. They appreciate a flier ... a pegasus who can go all day, without needing to be ... wouldn't need to be fast. Or fancy." With a shake of her head, she added, "I haven't explained all that to Dinky. Don't want her to think ... she came out wrong. In a few years she'll be ... less likely to take it wrong."
"So you're not real sure who her sire is?" Berry had known Ditzy for a few years, but Berry hadn't been real eager to talk about her old coltfriend, so she hadn't started on the topic, and Ditzy had perhaps taken it as a matter of course that it was unimportant. Maybe that was a pegasus thing.
Ditzy chuckled. "Got it narrowed down ... more of less. Didn't get laid that often. Not often enough to be real uncertain. Anyway, I ended up here. Not too far from Cloudsdale and her grandparents. Not too far from Canterlot ... in case she wants to go to some fancy school, later."
Made sense. Both cities weren't a great chore to reach as a pegasus. Berry nodded along and found herself wanting to explain how she'd ended up here. Ditzy knew she worked for her family, but none of the details. It was an unfamiliar impulse to Berry. She avoided speaking of her past whenever possible, although she knew that there had been times where she'd had quite a bit to drink and gone off on a rant about some aspect of her youth she now resented. It was just hard to recall what Ditzy would already know.
"I offered Pinchy's sire the chance to come to Ponyville with me, after I had it all set up with my family," Berry explained quietly. "He was a damn fine cook, could have made something of himself here, but he was a real weasel, too. Always convinced he was about to pull that big scam that'd get him set for a few months. He didn't wanna leave his schemes behind, accused me of bein' disloyal to our neighborhood. I suspect he just didn't think he could make it anywhere else. Didn't love him anyway," she added, "I just wanted a foal, so when he took a pass at me, I went along with it. When you're not expecting a future, you go for things you want now rather than later. But it seemed fair to give him the chance to come along. Didn't hurt much to dump him when he decided not to."
Berry sighed. "Poor reason to put a foal into the world, really, but I was never real good at empathy. Young and stupid, too. I mostly went about my business, even once I knew I was going to have a foal. But ... I dunno, when I first felt her move, she slowly got to be real, you know? A real pony with a real future. I had to do right by her. And that meant getting out of the city. One night I went through my mother's stuff to find the proper address for the vineyard up by Vanhoover. Barely scratched together enough bits for the trip and supplies and went to beg for help from the family."
"Can't have been easy." Ditzy wasn't a typical pegasus, but even she had her pride, especially regarding money, as Berry had been reminded today.
"It was funny, my mother always turned up her nose at farm ponies, but she'd gone to the city to make something of herself, and whenever I looked at our life I'd think 'I gotta do better than this fucking shambles'. I promised myself I'd dig ditches for the rest of my life so long as it'd let me have the kid grow up somewhere she felt at home and loved and an honest working pony for a mom. I never thought I'd be too good for hard labor. Still, I'm happy with business as it is."
She took a deep breath and blew it out."Woof. Normally I need to be smashed to talk about this." She felt a little lighter, somehow.
Ditzy giggled. "You're a success story, Berry. This is a good home. Our fillies belong here."
Well, that was obviously true. The kids had never known any other place to call home. Berry really couldn't complain either. She had it good. She just had to stop being so afraid of somehow losing it. "Yeah, they do. Still, I ought to plan for the future, too." Part of her was glad that Ditzy didn't tire of pointing it out, even as she was annoyed that she kept needing to hear it from somepony else to feel anything like a success for a while.
She eyed her market stall, eyes drifting over the bottles of wine, present mainly for the sake of completeness. Ponies could just as well get those at Barnyard Bargains. She usually had some non-alcoholic fruit juice on offer, which she'd started making mostly for the sake of the kids. On market day, she mainly sold fermented drinks made from local produce. She recalled her grandma calling them country wines. "You get around to trying that beet wine?"
"Pretty weird. Not bad. But weird. Garlic wine was better."
"That's ... that's meant for cooking, Ditzy."
"Was curious."
"Heh, fair enough." She inspected the various clear liquors lined up on the other side of the stall before smacking her own forehead with a hoof. "Of course. I'm a bloody idiot."
"Why?" Ditzy frowned. She always looked displeased when Berry talked herself down, even as a joke. It had caused their first major argument, too, because Ditzy didn't want the kids to take that sort of talk as an example. If fillies learned to call themselves stupid for making mistakes, they might start believing it for real.
Since then, Berry tried to avoid giving those thoughts voice when their daughters were around to hear. The last thing she wanted was for Pinchy to grow up ready to think she wasn't clever enough for whatever she'd one day want to do. Or worse, learn to hold herself back because she thought her mother might resent smarter ponies.
"I ought to age my own liquors!" She shook her head as the idea took form. "I know there's a cooper over in, uh, Haybarrrow? Anyway, I can get barrels nearby. I got that basement full of junk the previous owners left behind, if I finally toss it all out I'll have plenty of extra room."
Her friend motioned for her to continue.
"That's an investment for the future, Ditzy!" Of course some of the stuff she created now had to sit for a few weeks or months to be any good, but she'd never considered to go through all the trouble of getting oak barrels and then maybe having something to sell years down the line. "I mean, I'll find ponies to buy it for sure. Well, maybe the Watering Trough won't be interested, but that's a dive anyway."
She rubbed her hooves together. "This is going to be so much fun to figure out. Once I got a clearer plan of action, we ought to make a day of it. Let the fillies pick out some barrels so they're having fun and feel like whatever goes in is theirs. Whatever money comes off it over the years, I'll put away for both of 'em equally."
"Well, I can't stop you from doing it," Ditzy allowed, poking Berry in the ribs with a hoof while her wings fluttered slightly at her sides.
"Too right you can't. You three are the most important ponies in my life." Berry grinned widely. "I'd offer you a drink if you weren't on the job. How about you two come over for dinner tonight and we can talk a bit more? I've been holding you up, and anyhow I gotta close up soon and deliver some medicinal type alcohol to Ponyville General before picking up the kids from school. And I got this dandelion wine you'll love."
Ditzy mock-saluted. At least she'd given up arguing that she got invited to dinner by Berry too often. And the kids really liked the shared meals, even Berry could tell that. "Aye Aye. See you later. Thanks for the meal." She nodded towards the empty can.
Berry Punch didn't invite Ditzy and her daughter for dinner so frequently because she was being charitable, or any such thing. It wasn't as though her friend was constantly hurting for money. Her finances were just a little less stable than Berry's. Besides, plenty of weekends she'd square away Pinchy at Ditzy's place for a sleepover so she could stay out late at the bar. Evened out in her head.
Fact was, even now she didn't really feel like she belonged in Ponyville. But at least when they shared a meal, talked and laughed, Berry felt at home, more than she ever had in her life. And although it didn't come naturally to her, she'd have to start forcing herself to consider that in another few years, that might still be the case. She'd probably never shut up that nagging voice in the back of her head, telling her that she'd screw up her life sooner or later, but she considered it a major victory of her time in Ponyville that she was able to trust Ditzy not to secretly look down on her.