Seriously, Though. Poetry.
“You’re…going to read me…poetry.”
It was a bad, bad day for Caramel Apple. It had been an okay day when he’d awoke. His mane was a mess, yes, but that was an easy fix. It was cold when he threw off the blankets. He made for the bathroom.
Once out, he had looked for something to serve as breakfast. He had been looking for something good, but settled for his somehow ever-full box of Celestio’s. (No, Celestio’s® were not associated with the Princess of almost the same name. Well, according to Celestia.) When he was replacing the box to the pantry, he found what he had been looking for; his banana sandwich from yesterday’s lunch. Sadly, he couldn’t let his already prepared food go to waste.
Well, it was sort of a negative day now. He rose from the table and snatched a napkin from it, scraping it over his face, then left his kitchen. Caramel heard no noise coming from upstairs, which probably meant that he could get out of the house before his older sister, Cinnamon Apple, woke up. He did so and found the temperature to be quite nice, though humid.
So what had led him to hearing poetry? Well, later, he had gone to that shop beside Sugarcube Corner to get the news. The shop always smelled of old books, but that was probably the newspapers. Caramel threw in a few bits for the paper, then trotted outside. Finding a wooden bench that was slightly damp from yesterday’s slight rain, he struggled to get into a comfortable position. He skimmed over the headline—CAMOFLAUGED SOLDIER MISSING IN ACTION—laughed, and flipped to the Letters page. He was just about to hear all about the controversy of the day when the bench found a new weight on its opposite side.
Sitting beside him was Lyra Heartstrings, with her hood up over her emerald horn. She was sitting in what looked like a really painful position, practically upright, rear hooves on the ground, flank on the bench.
“How in Equestria is that comfortable?” Caramel asked after minutes of silence.
“Oh, you get used to it.” She leaned against the back of the bench.
Caramel tried it, but his legs were always either screaming in pain or mildly throbbing. “You goof,” Lyra said, “Just do it naturally.”
“Yeah. Naturally. Right.” Caramel tried to focus on what other ponies were talking about (“Did you hear about that Royal Guard that stayed in the palace for Hearth’s Warming Eve? Oh, don’t tell anyone, it’s supposed to be secret…”) to try and get a sense that this conversation was normal. Which it wasn’t. Ponies didn’t go around sitting like they were bipedal, and it definitely wasn’t the subject of casual conversation.
“Yeah. Um. I seriously don’t understand, so I’m just going to sit here like a normal pony.” Caramel put emphasis on the word normal.
There was a moment of awkward silence which seemed to stretch on for more than a minute. Caramel glanced over at his benchmate and saw the look on her face. He guessed by it that his remark hurt a little more than he had meant it to.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “That didn’t come out like I meant to.”
“No, it’s fine. I really should be more used to it by now.” Caramel saw, after Lyra’s reply, that it obviously still hurt a little bit. He decided that the best way to make her forget about it was a good laugh.
He needed a joke. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of one off the top of his head. Caramel Apple wasn’t the kind of pony that just oozes clever wit. He was more of the kind of pony that just said what he thought. So, he settled for second best—let her talk about herself.
Lyra was shifting her position, drawing her head closer in line with her knees, like she was about to shield from something, when he spoke: “So, how’s everyday life treating you?”
Lyra laughed. What, when I try to make a joke, it’s not funny, and when I don’t try, it is? I see how it is, universe.
The mare beside him continued to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said when she was able to talk. “It’s just that I haven’t been getting much of an ordinary life lately.”
“Busy week?”
Lyra looked like she was going to disagree, then nodded, saying, “Let’s leave it at that, yeah.”
Turning around to stretch his neck, he caught a glimpse of something that was a very strong blue, kind of tall, like an oversized recycling bin. There was writing on the top, something about the police. He turned back around and thought no more of it.
“Um…weather’s nice, right?” Caramel was running out of conversation material, but for some reason he really didn’t want to abandon his conversation with her.
“No, not really,” Lyra giggled. “Why else would I have my hood up?”
“Oh, I thought you just had some aversion to sunlight…or something,” Caramel said, feeling slightly dumb.
“No, silly. I’m pretty sure it’s going to rain.”
“Oh, well…you shouldn’t—we shouldn’t just be sitting here; we should get inside!”
“You think so? Personally, I like watching the rain. And talking. I think it’s the solitude that gets me.”
“That would be a really profound statement if it weren’t so contradictory,” Caramel said, trying not to laugh.
“I never thought of that,” Lyra said.
“Well, if you’re not going to go inside,” Caramel said, getting off the bench, “I’ll be right back. Do you know a place that sells poles cheap?”
“Poles?” Lyra said quizzically. “What do you want poles for?”
“I’ll show you,” Caramel said tiredly.
He managed to find some poles Celestia knows where, or why they were lying out there, but he brought them back to the bench. In a rectangular fashion he arranged them, and splayed his newspaper from all four corners, making a not-very-fashionable tent. There, the two ponies sat and watched the rain.
The weather ponies had it quite cleared up in less than an hour, and Caramel’s complaining flank combined with it being lunchtime made him get to thinking that he’d better get to making himself some food.
That was how he ended up hearing poetry. He’d been stopped on the way home by a young foal, Pipsqueak. Pipsqueak explained jubilantly that it was the poetry unit in Miss Cherilee’s class. When asked by Caramel just what that had to do with him, Pipsqueak happily told him he had written love poetry after seeing him and Lyra. Lyra better get out of the country.
Ten lines of ‘quivering lips’, ‘neat and sloppy kisses’, and ‘passionate moments’ later, Caramel was having a thoroughly bad day.
