“Cloudy!” Rosewater laughed as she pranced through the crowd towards the other mare, Petal not far behind her and Dazzle closer behind still. “Stars, mare, it’s been too long.”

“Two weeks, Rosewater?” Cloudy said with a laugh, prancing towards her ahead of Collar. “That’s too long?”

“Oh, you sweet mare. I was lost without you!” Rosewater kissed her lightly on either cheek as Cloudy did the same, a tension in the other mare fading away and visible only for its absence. “Who else can I ask about Collar’s little quirks?”

Collar coughed as he caught up. “Gee. I wonder, Rosewater. Who could you ask about Collar’s little quirks?”

“I do ask you,” Rosewater said with a theatrical sigh. “But you seem just as surprised about your little quirks as I am.”

“Maybe they’re not quirks,” Collar muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe not,” Rosewater said more genially, smiling and meeting him briefly for a light kiss on the lips. “But I want to go into our relationship with both eyes open, and Cloudy has been more than happy to help me understand you.”

Collar chuckled and nuzzled along her cheek. “And I wish I had the same,” he said, drawing her eyes to Dazzle standing just behind and to her side. “What do you say, Dazzle? Do you think you can give me some insights?”

Tensions built along her shoulders for only a moment before Dazzle laughed, and she turned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Collar. “Of course, my lord. I’m happy that she’s happy, and only sad that I’m not able to be with her.”

“Ah.” Collar’s voice dropped an octave, and Rosewater’s heart ached as he added, “I wish politics weren’t quite so stringent, Dazzle. For she can’t be with me so freely as I would wish, and neither can I be with her that easily… and yet…”

“And yet your heart pulls you towards her,” Dazzle said gently. “I understand, Lord Collar—”

“Just Collar, Dazzle. We both love the same mare. I’d rather not have our relations tainted by lordship as well.” Collar held out a hoof. “What say you? Friends?”

Dazzle looked shocked, and glanced to the side where Petal stood, beaming. “Friends, my—Collar. I can do that.” He tapped his hoof against Collar’s, then held it there. “You didn’t take her from me, Collar. I hope you know that. She chose you.”

“Politics forced her choice, Dazzle,” Collar said somberly and shifted his hoof to grasp the other stallion’s ankle with his own. “I wish she were free to choose us both.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. It’s not that she has a voracious appetite. Stars alone know—”

“Collar!” Rosewater yelped with a laugh. “Please, not so frank around so many tender ears. They will have a skewed view of our relationship.”

“She doesn’t have a voracious appetite,” Dazzle continued, grinning and tugging Collar’s foreleg towards him. “But the appetite she has is very refined.”

Petal laughed. “That’s a pretty way of saying she enjoys—”

“Oh my stars, please, save the sex tips for later. Please,” Rosewater said with almost a giggle on her lips. “I enjoy mares and stallions, for the record, and it’s more the pony attached to the genitals than the genitals themselves that I enjoy. Though…” She sidestepped her hindquarters into Collar’s. “I am looking forward to when we reach that point in our courtship.”

Collar’s cheeks and neck heated, turning his bronze coat into a more alluring shade of forging bronze almost to his shoulders. “So. Perhaps we can have lunch or supper at the palace some day, Dazzle? Or out in town? I would very much appreciate your insights into Rosewater’s ‘quirks.’”

“I’m very quirky,” Rosewater agreed. “But stars, it’s good to see you two together and…” She wanted to say more. She wanted to say she’d heard their entire conversation again, to just get it out there that Collar had visited her already. She wanted to be open about her love and just how far along they were. She wanted her friends to be able to celebrate with her. “And just have you be friendly. I know it’s hard for both of you, and I truly do appreciate how much you’re both shifting your attitudes for me.”

“For us,” Dazzle said. “All of us, Rosewater.”

“I know, but… this is personal, Dazzle.” Rosewater clicked her teeth shut over the rest. It was personal, and not for the public. Not yet. “And I want to have this conversation with all of you soon. But today… Collar, I want to be on a date with you and Cloudy together.”

“I need to go find Seed and make sure he’s got our booth set up,” Petal said with a roll of one shoulder and a backwards step towards the streaming crowd of ponies making a bubble around them as the rest of the event sprouted all over. “You’ll visit us, won’t you?”

“We certainly will be,” Collar said with a wink. “I need to decide what I want to serve Rosewater tonight over dinner.”

“Excuse me, what?” Rosewater blurted, only barely able to keep the laugh from bubbling up. “Tonight? I thought—”

“Dazzle will be joining us for dinner later, but since we surprised my parents with our courtship, I thought it would be best if we started with, well, having a family dinner with the mare I’m courting.” Collar winked at her and flicked his tail against Cloudy’s flank. “It’s traditional.”

“At least you don’t need remedial lessons in court manners,” Cloudy grumped. “I heard from the gossip trough that the Gala went better than expected?”

“Roseate left early, and in a huff, so…” Rosewater flicked her ears sideways and grinned to show her teeth. “Yes. I’d say so. I was truly missing your presence, Cloudy. You being there would have smoothed over the transition, I think.”

“Or made it a hundred times worse,” Cloudy shot back. “I’ve learned the ways of Damme, Rosewater, and they’d have jumped to precisely the wrong conclusions and convinced themselves they were right before the night was even out, and then they’d have accused us of something else entirely. Just to pretend they didn’t think what was actually happening, happened.”

“I think you’re over-exaggerating,” Collar temporized quietly, glancing around to see who was staying still to listen in.

Rosewater followed suit, doing so more frankly and noting the ears tracking their conversation, some standing still and staring blankly into either empty stalls or past merchants trying to engage with them. Not many, thankfully, but there were a few backs of heads and rumps she thought she’d recognized from earlier.

In this mingling maelstrom of color, scent, and sound, it was harder to tell which were the Dammers and which the Merriers listening in. Though, there were a few tells just by looks. Centuries of interbreeding with the main lines of the Rose families had given descendants… a look that characterized them almost as much as their attitudes did. Pink locks, coat, or eyes were dominant.

A mixed crowd of listeners? She was almost certain at least a few of them were her mother’s bought and paid spies.

“Maybe,” Cloudy muttered, catching on and glancing around quietly and briefly. “But that’s not why we’re here, y’know. We’re here because you two need to kiss more where other ponies can see you.”

“That’s not the only reason,” Rosewater grumbled. “I need to find more of those strawberry candies you got for me, Coll. I swear, they disappeared almost overnight.”

Collar tipped his head to the side, his eyes exaggeratedly running over her flank. “Mmm. Something tells me it wasn’t your mouth they all disappeared into.”

“You know very well it was not. I need more, Collar. Roselyn liked them almost as much as I did, and she wants to know how they got the strawberry taste without the smell.”

“That name rings a bell,” Collar murmured. “Roselyn?”

“She left early this morning to get a scope of the land,” Rosewater said. “I think she was trying to get a look at you before I came to distract you.”

“Ah.” Collar’s cheeks heated again.

“We did meet her,” Cloudy told Rosewater. “She convinced me to tell Collar to buy—”

“Convinced you?” Collar laughed and backed up a step, waving a hoof back the way they’d come. “Let’s go talk to her and see if she can remember just how much convincing she had to do.”

“Mmm. Well. I would like to see how she’s doing,” Rosewater said, glancing back at Dazzle. “Are you going to be okay wandering around?”

“Oh yeah.” Dazzle’s expression hid a pain that she could see only because she had seen it bared naked before her. Only now he was seeing the rapport Rosewater had with Collar. “I’ll be fiiine. I heard Keg Tapper was going to be here. Been a while since he showed up to one of these, and I do miss a fine micro-brewed dammerale.”

“Is that a thing?” Rosewater murmured in an aside to Collar. “You can’t really, er… micro-whatever wine, so…”

“Actually, you can,” Petal said, nipping Dazzle’s neck lightly. “Come on, I’ll show you some small vendors that hire us for storage. They do all the brewing, but the temperature controls…”

“Alright. That sounds like fun. You like a little bit of toast to your wines, right Rosewater?”

Rosewater laughed and nodded. “I do like a good brandy, Dazz. Especially one with a fruity, fragrant presentation. See if you can find one you can surprise Collar and his parents with. Lace also enjoys a good brandy.”

That casual mention got a few ears twitching, and she smiled sweetly at Collar’s confused look before he got it.

It is a day to shatter expectations.

Vine hesitated at the outskirts of the crowd, biting her lip as she surveyed the streams of ponies coming in and out of the ring of tents, benches, and tables. She could make out where Rosewater was by dint of the fact that she was taller than almost everypony else and that she shone like a beacon in the early morning sun, her white coat gleaming in the sun.

From seeing her, it wasn’t hard to find Collar, an equally tall and striking stallion with a coat that seemed like a sunrise in the light.

It made her wish she’d seen them together at the gala, made her wish she could see how she meshed with Collar to allay the whispering worry that everything would fall apart right away.

You have your own goal today.

And it looked like Petal was still with Rosewater, though how long that would remain true, she didn’t know. She had to find Seed and talk to him alone, else she might lose her nerve over what she needed to ask.

You’re hoping to see Dazzle, too, aren’t you? She’d not seen him at all when she’d delivered the dress, hardly surprising to her mind at the time, but after hearing from Silk how the night had gone… she wanted to see him and see how he was taking the change.

She made herself stop dawdling at the edge of the crowd and forded into the stream of ponies, resisting the urge to cover herself with a veil. She was here to seek a favor from Seed, not advertise her presence as one of Roseate’s daughters. Still, it felt like everypony could see it on her, despite her not wearing anything identifiable, not wearing any of her clothes, and even worse, it felt like every eye on her said, ‘I know what you’re hiding.’

Ever since Roseate had told her that everyone would know what she’d done, that she had been the one to make the first move, she’d been the one who kissed Silk in a fit of desperate confidence, seeking some comfort in a connection to someone who loved her after her own…

They don’t know. They can’t know. They were ponies who only knew that she looked like a Rosethorn, and that was it. They couldn’t know what she’d done. Silk was still at her side, still loved her, but for all she said she didn’t blame Vine for starting them down the path they had taken…

She bumped into a pony when she was trying to avoid the gaze of another pony who was staring at her. Too many ponies for her to keep track of!

“Whoa, hey there,” a warm masculine voice said as she stumbled and bobbed to the side, caught off guard. “Oh, hey, I know you.”

Vine squeaked and backpedaled, only to jump ahead again when another pony snorted at her and her tail brushed against another’s shoulder.

“Easy, easy,” the stallion said, reaching up to touch her on the breast with a light hoof. “Not exactly the best place to be jumpy.”

“M-my—” Vine’s words froze on her tongue as it stuck to the roof of her mouth. It was Dazzle. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Well,” Dazzle said, nodding off to the side and drawing her out of the way of the main stream of traffic with a smile and a wink. “I was playing escort to your lovely sister as her guard, and now I’ve escorted her and left her with her paramour, so I’m free to explore.”

Was that a tone of bitterness in his voice?

Looking into his eyes for a moment, she thought it might have been, but then it was gone, evaporated in an instant. “Are you… is she… well?”

He seemed to understand what she was asking for real, or perhaps she was wearing her feelings out on her ears again.

“I’m well, Vine. I don’t know what you heard about us, but, um.” Dazzle looked around at the ponies surreptitiously listening to their conversation as they passed by, and tipped his head to the side. “Come on. I’ve been meaning to thank you for delivering her dress and—” His voice dropped to a low whisper against her ear. “—defending my heart.”

Vine’s heart skipped a beat, but she followed instead of fleeing. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, Petal got called away to help her husband at the stall. It sounded more than the usual ‘help, I’m being lazy and I can’t get up.’” He chuckled and tipped his head towards a stall selling buttered pastries. “I know it’s not quite what you’re used to, but Damme cuisine has its own culinary delights.”

“I, um, but I have a…” Then what he’d said caught up to her. “Oh. I wanted to talk to Seed about, um, sharing one of his greenhouses for the winter. I can’t use mine anymore for, well, it’s complicated, but I need to move some of my work elsewhere, and I was hoping Seed would…”

Dazzle glanced at her when she faltered in her prepared stream of lies, and he snorted. “Come on. He’ll still be lazy after Petal digs him out of whatever mess he’s gotten into. In the meantime, I’ve heard a lot about the gala firsthand, and I’d love to hear about it secondhand.”

An easy reply came to her lips, a smile at his goofishness. “Now that just sounds l-like—” Just like that the confidence was gone again.

“Like I’m making up excuses to talk to a pretty mare?” Dazzle continued for her, winking. “Well, you would be right.” He gave her what she imagined he thought of as a dazzling smile and stopped at the vendor he’d indicated.

“Good morning, gentlestallion and gentlemare. It’s nice to see a young couple up so early and so festive.” The mare at the counter and the stallion behind tending to a small brick oven loaded into the back of a cart were obviously married. “We have a fine selection of our finest, and we can always make something to order, but it may take some time.”

“Buttered Croissant with apple filling, please,” Dazzle said before Vine had even had a chance to look over the menu. “I’d recommend the same. They’re sneaky with the fragrance.”

“A-alright,” Vine murmured, tipping her head towards Dazzle. “What he ordered, please.”

“So,” Dazzle said a few minutes later as they wandered away from the vendors and towards the bridge railing, an exclusion zone for traffic to let ponies watch the river and talk. “What’s really going on, Vine?”

She didn’t answer immediately, savoring the taste and the faint fragrance that came to her nose with each bite. He was right, they were sneaky with it. Little pockets of almost liquid cinnamon sugar mixed with cream cheese and apple chunks. It was almost enough to distract from the nerves creeping up in her thoughts.

“I know you’re not…” Dazzle trailed off as ponies drifted by behind them. “I know this isn’t the best place to talk, but even Note would have problems listening in over the din.”

Espionage, then. “I need to talk to Seed, and my business is with him.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Dazzle gave her a smile and bumped shoulders with her. “I meant, you’re not the first pony I’d have thought of to defend a relationship between Rosewater and I.”

“Oh.” Vine winced and took another bite from her croissant to hide her sudden explosion of uncertainty.

“I love her, but I also accept that I’m the latecomer to her circle,” Dazzle said quietly, staring at the end of his pastry before taking a bite and chewing thoughtfully. “At first, it was to make your mother look at me, not Collar, for where her interest lay, and I agreed to it, stars, I wanted to help put one over on Roseate, y’know.”

“Oh.” Vine winced and forced herself to say more, “I didn’t see it in her.” Not that I saw her much, stars.

“She’s a good actress, most of the time. But she’s been getting progressively worse at acting. I think it’s because she’s been acting for most of her life, honestly, but now that she’s found a reason to be genuine, ponies she can be genuine with again…”

“Good.” Vine said softly.

“She told me I could trust you and your sister,” Dazzle added after a moment. “I got the feeling that she wished she could be more open with the two of you.”

Vine chewed slowly on another bite of pastry before deciding how to answer, feeling, for once, like she didn’t need to justify wanting to talk to a pony. He’d approached her, after a fashion. She glanced around to see who might be watching her and let herself relax when it was clear nopony was even paying attention to them. Just a mare and a stallion having a moment by the bridge amid a small battalion of ponies going about their own excitable businesses.

It was an effort, but she made herself calm down. It wasn’t like Roseate would show up. It was doubtful even Lace would show up. These sorts of events were for the common pony to enjoy and organized by the merchant guilds and coalitions and some of the craftsponies and their professional organizations.

“I do wish it.”

“So, I have a question for you,” Dazzle said just as quietly. “Why? Why did you want Rosewater and I together?”

“Why?” Why did I? “Because…” Vine shook her head minutely, lips pursed. “I suppose it was a lie, but she seemed happy whenever I heard about you about town. Not her usual self.”

“Happy, you mean?” Dazzle asked her. He sat at the railing and crossed his forelegs over it, looking down. He seemed pensive more than upset at her observation, as she’d been afraid of. “I admit I didn’t know her, only of her, and when I saw how she changed when she was around her friends and family who loved her, well.”

Dazzle finished off his pastry and laid his chin on his forelegs.

“Well?”

“Well, what? I thought it was obvious. I saw who she was and fell in love a little bit.”

“That’s it?”

“Does it have to be more complicated than that?”

Vine shoved the rest of her croissant into her mouth before she could fit even more of her hoof in along with it.

Dazzle laughed, but it didn’t feel like it was at her. Rather, it was the situation. “I know, it’s… silly. She knew me for… a month when I told her I wanted to try and pursue something more serious with her than our one or two nights playing Petals.”

“Oh. But you’re friends, isn’t that long enough to know you’re compatible?”

“Sexually and emotionally? Sure. But romantically? And secrets?” Dazzle shook his head slowly. “That was the first time I knew she was seriously pursuing Collar, and meant to follow the ways of Damme.” For a moment, he hesitated, his eyes focused in the distance, his jaw moving.

Vine swallowed and surrounded them with a minor aural shield, something similar to what Crown used to protect without being obvious.

He glanced at her as the pitch of the crowd shifted and offered her a weak smile. “You understand it’s still hard to say, knowing who your loyalties ultimately lay.”

“I can guess. And you don’t know my loyalties, Mr. Primrazzle.”

“Enlighten me, Ms. Rosethorn,” Dazzle said in the same stiffer tone. He didn’t exactly lose his friendly demeanor, but he did turn cooler. “Rosewater says I can trust you, but Rosewater’s heart has grown quickly, and I’m not sure she’s completely in her right mind when it comes to family.”

Vine chewed on her lip, then nodded. “She’s not. But to be direct, I’m devoted to my sister, Mr… Dazzle.” She bit her lip again, then shook her head. “To Silk. We should have been twins like Powder and Well. Stars above know we’re as close.”

“Ah.” Dazzle’s shoulders relaxed minutely, his coat seeming to soften as he did. “Family is just as important to you as it is to us.”

She almost corrected him, told him or hinted, she wasn’t sure what was going to pop out of her mouth, but she bit down on it before she could find out. She wanted somepony else to know, so they could hear the story, help her and Silk, and they could get out of the bind they were in.

For a long moment, it seemed like she was going to give up something precious for nothing… until he shook his head and sighed. “She said I could trust you. Alright. She was already dating Collar, then. Not getting to know each other. They’ve already spent the night, two nights, together in bed. She didn’t want to share until I told her it would be okay, and it hurt, but hearing her talk about the connection did help. Collar isn’t just a convenience, politically.”

So far so soon? “But… they just had their first date…” Vine strengthened the sound damping. “Stars, she’s been dating him already?”

“Yep. Before she even moved to the Garden.” He hesitated again, but this time for shorter before he chuckled. “But I’m sure you already figured that out.”

“I, well, Silk did, that’s for sure. She hasn’t told Roseate that I know of,” Vine murmured, giving him a surreptitious look. “And I haven’t heard that Roseate suspects any of what you told me.”

That earned her a longer stare, his mouth dropped open before he chuckled. “You’re not what I expected, Ms. Rosethorn,” he said, using her formal name as a tease instead of a way to distance himself from her. “Nor what I expected after hearing about what your sister got up to at the Gala.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Mmm. Good. Now. I know Seed isn’t the only one with spare space in their greenhouses this winter, and many are closer allies than the Garden ever would be to the Rosethorn line.” Dazzle didn’t change posture, but something in him radiated tension. The quiver of his ears, maybe, and the way he didn’t meet her eyes when he asked the question…

It would be a gamble to tell him even a little of what she was doing, but only if she did it wrong. Which meant she had to do it right.

Alright, brain, this is your idea… It would, in a way, be easier than talking to Seed.

Screwing up her courage, Vine settled in beside Dazzle and said, “I’m trying to escape my past.”

Author's Note

Ah. It feels like forever. I apologize for taking so long. I had this written for a long time, but I kept trying to push it to minimum 6k words before posting it because... reasons.

Vacation's almost over, but I got a lot of the things I'd been putting off because of stress and work done, so that's good. I got a lot of reading done, which is what recharges my writing batteries. I also got some gaming done, also something I've put off for a while. Almost done with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, almost done with Divinity: Original Sin 2 and had a surprise WLW romance with Sebille.

Ruined my sleep schedule for a while and confused the heck out of my kitty, who isn't used to me being home as much as I was. (Thanks Omicron.) Had fun with the family for the holidays, played some games... until my family was exposed to the new variant and stayed isolated for safety. Whee.

Anywho. New chapter, more expanded Vine/Silk stuff is coming, and I finally managed to complete the outline for the rest of the story.