Gritty
The door opened and the bell jangled and Theo, who had been dozing off behind the counter, jerked awake and snapped upright.
“Hello! Hail and greetings and welcome to - I say, Quinten! Fancy seeing you here! I thought you would have returned home!” Theo said, delighted on seeing his old minion friend.
Quinten for his part had frozen in the doorway. There was something incongruous about seeing something as large and as belligerent in bearing as a (former) Storm Guard wearing an apron, but one of the many benefits of being a habitual mask-wearer was that when you were shocked it was slightly less obvious. Quinten rolled with it.
“Not yet,” he said in belated answer to what Theo had said, entering the bakery proper and letting the door swing shut behind him, bell jangling again.
Repatriation of those Storm Guard who wanted to go home was ongoing, the route South not exactly being the easiest. What airships remained had been put to the task but it was still a rather laborious process - there was a lot of back-and-forth, made slower still by persistent storms. Such was the season.
Quinten, not especially eager to go home and explain what had happened to his relatives, was mostly procrastinating and hanging around. They had an old-fashioned (that is to say, dim) view of minions who outlived their overlord. In the old days everyone was expected to go down together, as tradition dictated. His surviving would be tough to swallow.
Tougher still that this survival involved having his bottom lit on fire by a dragon being wielded like a flamethrower. Quinten would never get over that. He’d halfway convinced himself it simply hadn’t happened. Hence why he was still up North at all.
Did not explain why he was in Ponyville, however.
“And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? You’re the first proper mask I’ve seen in weeks now! Months, even!” Theo said, moving about from behind the counter to administer a hale and hearty handshake, which Quinten returned.
“I’d heard a rumour circulating that one of our former comrades had settled down amongst the locals and started baking, something I myself found as hard to believe as everyone else repeating the story. But then I remembered you mentioning the family business,” Quinten said.
“I’m blushing behind the mask,” said Theo, releasing the shake and stepping back.
“We can’t blush.”
Although, with the masks, how could anyone be expected to tell?
“Speak for yourself, Quinten! This mask conceals the rosy glow of embarrassment, mingled with the lesser glow of being slightly touched you even remembered my idle talk,” Theo said.
“Quite.”
Something of a conversational stumbling block. After a pause Theo cleared his throat and plunged onward:
“So you came to check up on me, then? See how I was doing?” He asked.
Quinten did not answer immediately. Rather, he looked around the interior of the bakery. He took in the bread, the prices written up on the chalkboard, the wood. There really was a lot of wood. Even the floors were made of it. Would have been unthinkable back home. Could have made at least half of an airship if you hadn’t squandered it on making a building out of the stuff, Quinten reckoned. Seemed a waste.
“Something like that,” he said, at length. “Mostly it was out of curiosity. I know a handful of our comrades have chosen to stay - as is their right, I suppose - but they’ve largely elected to stay in or near the capital and attempt to leverage their experience by petitioning to join the guard. And yet here you are. In the arse-end of nowhere. Baking.”
“Is that recrimination I hear in your tone, Quinten?” Theo asked, tutting.
“It is confusion.”
“Confusion?” Theo asked, confused.
Quinten sighed.
“Why are you here, Theo.”
Only the most serious questions are phrased as statements. Maybe.
For his part Theo just shrugged, raised his arms to indicate the bakery and, presumably, the general area outside and beyond it.
“The rustic aesthetics appealed to me, and still do. There is a sense of peace here, I find. A majority of the time at least. I will admit to occasions when this peace is disrupted, but that’s rather the same all over, isn’t it? World is a dangerous place, after all. I played my part in that being the case!”
He lowered his arms, shrugged again.
“This place suits me. You know, I don’t think I was ever really as cut out for being a minion as some of the other lads,” he said.
“You may be right about that,” said Quinten.
“You can’t see it but I’m narrowing my eyes at you. I know you mean to wound me with your subtle words, Quinten, but I am quite content to accept my limitations.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“Hah. Quite. So that’s what you brings you here? Seeking clarity for my motivations? Well, I’ve supplied that now. Was there anything else you were here for? Other than attempting to undermine my confidence, of course,” said Theo, folding his arms and sending up a little cloud of flour from his apron in the process.
“Of course. And that was it, in the main. Though, me being here, now, politeness does rather compel me to ask how you are doing.”
“Politeness, eh? That old yoke. So is that you asking?” Theo asked. Quinten nodded.
“Ah well, things are fair enough I’d say. The locals are pleasant, the environment is pleasant, the work is - hmm, well...I am doing the best I can with the material I have. Rather difficult obtaining the usual ingredients this far North. I make do!” Theo said.
“What do you mean you make do? Bread is bread, isn’t it? Flour is flour?”
Theo shook his head sympathetically. Poor Quinten, so misinformed.
“Oh, Quinten. Dear, dear Quinten how little of the world beyond minioning you know! I could exposit at great, uninterrupted length about baking, its rich history, the vast and nuanced array of techniques and end-products, but I shan’t. Suffice to say, no, flour is not just flour, Quinten.”
“Wish I hadn’t said anything now.”
“Well you did, and now you have to deal with the consequences. Observe,” Theo said, ambling over to the counter and picking one loaf from those before him, turning and holding it out so that Quinten could see. “This is bread modelled on that most commonly encountered back home. You recognise it, no doubt?”
“I do.”
“Of course you do, Quinten, of course you do. Now, while it may appear familiar it will not taste familiar. Here, try some.”
He proffered the loaf.
“I’m quite alright, thank you,” Quinten demurred.
Theo proffered the loaf more aggressively.
“I am attempting to make a point here. Would you be so kind as to try some for me? For the sake of argument?”
Quinten did like arguments.
“...fine,” he said, taking the loaf and taking a nibble.
The exact mechanics of how he nibbled while still wearing his mask are not worth getting into.
“I see what you mean,” Quinten said, handing the loaf back, sans nibbled chunk. “The difference is subtle, but noticeable.”
Less coarse, gritty and hard than it should have been. Still a bit coarse, gritty and hard but nowhere near what Quinten had been expecting. Made it rather disappointing, in all honesty. He’d quite been looking forward to a little taste of home.
“That is owing to the vast differences between the flour available here and that which I would be baking with were I down South. Different ingredients, different end result. Flour matters. Do you see?” Theo said, waving the loaf around as a converational prop. He even had a nibble himself.
“I suppose. Has this affected business?” Quinten asked.
“Ah, hmm. That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“I take that as a yes.”
“That rather presupposes I had business that could be affected! Very presumptuous of you, Quinten, assuming that I was managing to sell bread from my bakery,” Theo said full of pomp, capping it off with a sigh and a slump of the shoulders.
“Not doing well, then?” Quinten asked.
Theo nibbled some more bread before answering.
“I have a sneaking suspicion that what you and I like in our bread is not what ponies like in their bread,” Theo said.
“They have some issue with grit?”
“That is the impression I’m getting yes,” Theo said, nodding. Quinten tried to put himself in a frame of mind where this aversion might make sense, but he simply couldn’t manage it. The position made no sense.
“How perverse,” he said.
Theo was marginally more empathic than his friend on this, but he still had difficulty understanding it as well. The grit was how you knew the bread was good!
“There is also the distinct possibility that the locals find me in some way intimidating,” Theo added.
“You, Theo? Intimidating? You?”
“Hah. Spoken as only someone who is not a third my size and an eigth my weight could say,” Theo said, pointing to the window where, outside, a pair of ponies were passing by quite happily. On noticing the two Storm Guard inside - and in particular the one pointing - the pair jumped and hustled off at double-pace.
“Well, when you put it like that…” Quinten said.
The bell chose this moment to jangle again but by the time the two of them turned to see who it was the door was already closing and there wasn’t anyone there. This was understandably confusing for both of them.
“Must have been the wind,” said Theo.
“The wind does not do that,” said Quinten.
“It’s possible the wind could do that,” Theo said. Quinten growled.
“It is possible, yes, that wind could do that, but it would require wind. And there is no wind. The day is still and hot. Someone opened that door,” he said.
“But there’s only us here,” Theo pointed out.
As much as this undermined his point, Quinten couldn’t deny this.
“Yes. It is a mystery,” He grumbled.
“It is indeed most mysterious,” said a pink pony standing next to Theo’s leg, stroking her chin with a hoof. Theo nodded. She was quite right. He then double-took.
“Oh! That got me but good!” Theo said, staggering to the side out of shock, one hand clutched to his chest. “Good morning to you, Miss Pie. You really must stop doing that.”
“Hello Theo!” Pinkie said, beaming and waving despite standing barely a foot away from him. Theo waved too and Pinkie promptly burst out into a fit of giggles - for whatever reason - which triggered a minor bout of chuckling from Theo, who would have to admit to having developed something of a soft spot for the pony during his time in town.
Quinten watched all of this with alarm.
“Wait, what, who - isn’t that - isn’t that one of the ones who -”
The end of this sentence would have been ‘was instrumental in our defeat’ but Quinten found the words slipping away from him on realizing that, yes, it was one of the ones who was instrumental in their defeat. The pink one, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“Yes, yes, but that’s all water under the bridge. I assure you, Miss Pie is a wonderful individual. Certainly, she’s been nothing but lovely to me,” Theo said, giving Pinkie a pat on the head, Pinkie squeaked happily at this, but then pouted on realising what he’d said.
“Theo, I keep telling you, call me Pinkie!” She said with all the firmness she could manage. Such fierce blue eyes! Theo wilted.
“Ack, sorry, force of habit I’m afraid. Formality, deference, all that. Quinten would know all about that, wouldn’t you, hmm? But yes! Introductions. This is Miss Pi - ah, pardon me! This is Pinkie. Quinten, Pinkie; Pinkie, Quinten.”
“Charmed,” Pinkie said - or drawled, rather - extending a hoof to Quinten who had no idea what to do with it. Experimentally he just kind of nudged a fist against it, which seemed to work or at least to satisfy Pinkie, who squeaked again.
“Yes, hello, you-” he started saying, but then he stopped because he’d just noticed something.
Quinten and Theo had been conversing in their own concise (though eloquent) tongue, that which sounded to those who weren’t fluent in it to just be grunting. Pinkie, naturally, had been speaking in inexplicably-comprehensible-to-everyone Mareain. It had all been happening so fluidly that it had taken Quinten a second to twig it. Once he did though, it stopped him dead.
“Where did she learn our language?” He asked, beyond baffled. Some level of familiarity might have been expected from having hung around with Theo, but not to this level!
Pinkie popped up from behind Theo’s shoulder, though how she was staying there and what she was standing on - given she appeared to be behind his shoulder rather than holding onto it - was unclear.
“I didn’t,” she said brightly. Theo pointed back to her.
“She didn’t,” he said.
This answered nothing. If anything it just made it worse.
“But-” Quinten started but, for his own good, Theo cut him off, moving in beside him and putting an arm around his shoulders.
“I wouldn’t think about it too much if I were you, Quinten. I tried. It didn’t end well for me.”
“I...I see…” Quinten said, rattled. These ponies were unnatural and unsettling. Plainly it had been a mistake to ever leave the South, where the bread was proper and things made sense.
Theo did not pick up on his associate’s discomfort.
“Miss Pie works in a cafe in town! Involved in the production of a great many cakes - and pies, appropriately. She’s very very good,” he said.
“Oh stop!” Pinkie said, blushing, flapping a hoof. She was standing next to Theo again. Neither Storm Guard had seen her move. To be fair, it was more the world moving around her than her moving through the world anyway. Or so ran the prevailing theory.
“Don’t be modest!” Theo said.
Quinten was a little confused again. Not by Theo’s conduct with a local - though that was also very confusing - but more by his palling around with someone who made cakes for a living.
“Wouldn’t that make you business rivals?” He asked, scratching his head.
“Pffbt, hardly. Miss Pie is involved in cakes - I am involved in bread! Quite different.”
“Quite different. Hardly. Involved,” Pinkie said, nodding with a very serious look on her face.
“Miss Pie has been acting as an advisor of sorts, helping me to bring my particular products better in line with local expectations. Results thus far have been mixed. Would you care to sample some of today’s batch?”
“Ooh! Yes please! And it’s Pinkie!”
“Whoops. Terribly sorry, Pinkie,” Theo said.
Tearing off part of the un-nibbled end of the loaf he was still holding Theo passed her a piece which she obligingly snatched from his hand and started chewing on thoughtfully.
“Hmm,” said Pinkie, still chewing, face a mask of concentration. “Hmm. Hmm? Hmm…”
She then swallowed.
“Verdict?” Theo asked.
“Still too gritty,” said Pinkie, smacking her lips and doing her best not to grimace. Theo’s shoulders slumped. He probably could have guessed that, given his track record, but it still hurt to hear.
“At this rate I think you’ll only be happy when there’s no grit at all!” He said, dejected. Pinkie rubbed a leg, sheepish, unable to meet his eye. Or his eye-holes, at least.
“Well, I didn’t want to say…”
Theo gasped and clutched the loaf - or what was left of it at this point - to his bosom protectively.
“The grit is how you know it’s good!” He said.
Pinkie, pulling an abrupt one-eighty in mood, stomped a decisive hoof and declared:
“Know your market, man! The ponies, they don’t like the grit!”
“You’re a pony,” Theo pointed out. Pinkie stomped again, even more decisively this time.
“That’s how I know!”
She might have had a point.
“...fair play. Maybe it’s time I bow to market pressure. Sell out. Give up on my integrity and swallow the bitter pill that is realising that what might have worked in the bakery in which I grew up does not work here, in this land far from my home. About time I admit to myself that I have to give the people what they want. ” said Theo, sighing, forlornly regarding the loaf. A single tear ran down from one of his eye-holes.
“The ponies,” Pinkie corrected, proffering a handkerchief with which Theo dabbed the tear away.
“As you say,” he said, handing it back to her and nodding thanks.
“I’m walking home,” said Quinten, cutting into the conversation and making both Theo and Pinkie jump - they’d quite forgotten he was there, quiet chap that he was.
“Home? Home, Quinten? Did I hear that right?” Theo asked.
“You did.”
Theo waited for a punchline. Then he remembered that this was Quinten, and his punchline’s were as rare as hen’s teeth. He was being entirely serious.
“Isn’t that rather far?” Theo asked.
“It’s why I feel it best I leave now,” said Quinten, moving to the door. Yet again the bell jangled.
“Quinten wait!” Theo called out and Quinten, on the threshold, turned. Theo took a few steps to the side so that his products were better displayed and then held his arms up to the stock.
“Would you like to buy some bread for the trip?” He asked.
There were several things that Quinten imagined himself saying, few of them kind, all of them unhelpful. He bit them back. As conunding as he might have found what he, well, had found he couldn’t deny that Theo had at least - at last - found what appeared to be his niche in life.
As grossly offensive to Storm Guard sensibilities as it might have been. To each their own.
“I think I will, Theo,” he said.
A genuine surprise for Theo, who had been joking.
“You will?” He asked. Quinten nodded, letting the door close behind him.
A minor delay wouldn’t hurt.
“I will. As you say, it is rather far. I’m liable to get peckish.”