I'm standing in a barbershop, listening to the pitter-patter of water droplets falling on the roof and street. A glance out the window shows the little red and white pole attached to the side of the building. I turn my head away from the glass, taking a look around the dingy little place. Wood paneling, two chairs against the left wall, a desk in front of me, and the barber himself, busy with a customer. The barber's a blue unicorn, floating the scissors around the mop of a mane the pony in the barber chair has.
It's a small place, well on the outskirts of the city, but that's why I chose it. It lets me get a nice break from all the high society unicorns in the city. I walk up to the counter, hooves click-clacking across the tile floor, write my first name on a list sitting on top of the barber's desk, and go sit down in the one empty chair on the left wall. The other chair, directly to my left, is occupied by a dingy, green pegasus mare with an unkempt blonde mane. I look off to the right, silently wishing for the barber to hurry up so I can get my manecut and go back to the castle.
The mare says something, but I can't hear it. I turn my head to the left. The mare's facing me now, and I can see that her mouth's permanently open in a dull grin, exposing her rotting, yellow buck teeth to the whole world. Above this horrifying sight, there's two beady brown eyes that give off a small air of cheerfulness.
I clear my throat. I say, what?
"What's your name?" She drawls. Odd. I thought everypony in Canterlot knew who I was.
I tell her my name. My first name. I leave off the fancy title in front of it.
"That's a nice name..." She says, and stares at a wall directly in front of her. I nod, and look at a small picture hanging on the right wall. It's the barber, levitating a fish beside him in that one clichéd pose.
"My name's Lily."
I return my focus to the green mare, and nod. I look straight ahead, trying to calculate just how much longer I'll have to wait before the barber's done with the current customer. It doesn't look like he'll be done for a while.
"Where do you live?" I stare at Lily for a second. That constant grin of hers is starting to creep me out.
Hesitantly, I tell her I live in the city.
She repeats what I just said in her slightly slurred drawl.
"In the city?"
Yes. In the city.
"That's gotta be nice. I wish I was back in the city..." Lily trails off, looking at the wall in front of her again. I wait a second, before I look out the window to my right. The whole building's got a glass front, so it's easy to look outside. It's still pouring buckets outside, the water violently slamming into the ground.
"I used to live with my parents in the city," -Once again, I turn to face Lily's ever-grinning, dopey face- "that was a lot of fun. Then they sent me to this really big place out in the country."
A vague idea of just why Lily seems so strange is starting to form in my head. I nod, giving a small smile.
And how is it there, I ask.
Lily's eyes loose their cheerful air. Her dull grin stays, though.
"The ponies are nice there, but I don't like it. I have to stay inside all day, and I gotta have something called permission if I want to go out and plant some flowers, and if I want to go to the city I gotta have somepony go with me. And if I do something they don't like..." Lily looks at the floor for a second, her ears folding back.
You plant flowers?
"Yep!" -that cheerful air returns to Lily's eyes- "Sure do! I even gotta cutie mark for it. See?" Lilly points a hoof at her cutie mark. It's a pair of lupines, lying side by side. For a brief moment, I wonder why she doesn't have a pair of lilies instead. I nod, and say it's nice.
"I love the little garden I got back home. It's got roses, and daisies, and all kinds of flowers. But I don't get to go out and see it a lot. So sometimes, when I'm in my room, I think about being somewhere else. It's fun doing that."
What do you mean by 'somewhere else', I ask, cocking an eyebrow.
Lily looks like a foal on Heart's Warming when I ask her that. She says, "I close my eyes, and go on all sorts of adventures and stuff. Sometimes, I go fight evil robot ponies, and sometimes I climb a mountain. And sometimes, I go out to the beach, and just watch the water wash up on the sand..."
I smile as Lily gushes on and on about going to other places in her head. For a moment I forget that I'm sitting in a barbershop in Canterlot, and forget my social standing, as I laugh with her when she mentions a particularly goofy idea.
But it all rushes back to me when the other customer walks over to us. I look up, and see the barber cleaning the area around the chair, and placing a comb inside a bottle of blue liquid. The other customer, an orange pegasus, stops in front of us. Lily stops talking when she sees that the pegasus is staring at us. The pegasus looks at Lily, a pleasant smile appearing on her face.
"Well, who's your friend here, Lily?" She asks.
Lily tells the pegasus my first name. The pegasus frowns for a second, recognition flashing across her face. But she only frowns for a moment.
"Well, I'm sure you've had a nice chat with him, Lily, but it's time to go home, okay?" She asks Lily.
The cheerfulness disappears from Lily's eyes. Her ears fold back slightly.
"Can't I stay here a little longer?" Lily asks in her drawling voice.
"You know what the doctors said, Lily. Besides, the rainstorm's over. If we go now, I might be able to get you some time in the garden." The pegasus is more stern this time. She's still got that pleasant smile, but she sounds more like somepony chastising a filly.
Lily looks at the floor, and mutters something. She gets up, and slowly follows the pegasus to the door.
It was nice talking with you, Lily.
Lily turns around. She looks...happy. She's actually got a real smile on her face for a few seconds, instead of that perpetual grin she usually has. Before I can say anything else, she runs over and hugs me. Then, she says goodbye, and follows the pegasus out of the barbershop.
And I'm left standing alone in the waiting area, while the barber cleans the floor behind his desk.