Lucky Clover, with a grassy green scarf around his neck, trotted through the cold, dead winter night. A nostalgic smile was glued to his grey mouth as his eyes glanced across the buildings of Ponyville's market. The years seemed like a lifetime, but the condition of the thatched houses said it had only been a day since his hoof last stepped into town. Nothing had changed about Ponyville; it had remained as sleepy as ever, contrasting with the insomnia of Canterlot and Manehattan. Flashbacks to his foalhood days in the village came as a cascade to Lucky, memories of himself and a young filly he had known agitating the townsponies with pranks and jokes. Oh, how he had grown from such a mischievous little colt, no longer spreading his father's industrial-strength glue on all of the park's benches.
The stallion stopped dead center in the deserted street, his nostrils drawing in a delicious scent. Even in the street, and through the blistering wind of the nipping winter night, the pungent smell of coffee reached out to the common passerby. Its bitterness shrugged off the sweet smell of the confectioner's house a few doors down; its warmth encouraged the victims of Jack Frost to shelter themselves within the cafe, as it did for Lucky Clover. He had never considered himself the "coffee-type;" now the beverage had become his friend, and it was calling to him. The stallion obliged, with a few bits in his bag and no place important to be, turned and fled into the comfort of the cafe.
The bell above the doorway gave a delighted ding as the wreath-bearing door swung open for Lucky. Immediately, the heat from the hearth met his ears and cheeks to fend off the frozen touch, and he looked over the cafe. Holly and other holiday decorations graced the walls and the furniture with their presence, with yards of green, red, gold, and silver tinsel wrapped around the legs of tables and over doorways — it was as if the North Pole had not only visited the coffee house, but annexed it. The traditional winter scents of peppermint, cinnamon, and nutmeg, along with the smell of coffee, poured forth from behind the counter. Voices of the patrons chattered among themselves, overpowering the noise of coffeemakers and the holiday songs playing in the background. Lucky flattened his ears away from the clatter.
"Hey! Hey, Lucky!"
The voice pierced through the vibrating air, and Lucky lifted up his ears as the familiar voice of a mare calling for him reached his ears. It was a voice he hadn't heard in years. He raised his head and scanned the room to see an Earth mare. Her hair was the burgundy and grandness of a bush of summertime roses, accented with a comely patch of pink carnations around her ears; it was a garden of beauty cropped to her pale yellow shoulders. She was seated alone at a table for two by a large window looking out onto the street, and a steaming cup sat before her on the table. When she saw that he had noticed her, she beckoned him to her table with her hoof and a smile, and Lucky obliged the waving hoof's demand.
The mare wordlessly stood up from her seat when Lucky approached, embracing him with both hooves thrown around his neck. Lucky chuckled to himself, and returned the gesture with a single hoof.
"It's good to see you, Rose," Lucky said.
"I'll say!" Roseluck replied, pulling herself from him to look the stallion sternly in the eyes. "It's been, what, three years since you last set hoof in Ponyville? Three years of me missing my oldest and closest friend?" She pulled Lucky back into another hug. "Oh, it's good to see you too, Lucky."
The two pulled apart from each other, and Lucky swore his eyes had caught something on Rose's cheeks. Roseluck returned to her seat and invited Lucky to take the other, waving over the waitress to take Lucky's order before he gave an answer. When the waitress approached, Lucky simply ordered a cup of coffee.
"Coffee?" Roseluck said with a laugh. "Since when do you drink coffee?"
"Since three years ago," Lucky merely replied. For a second, Rose's grin faltered slightly before it returned to its normal size.
"Well, at least it's better than drinking, I suppose," she remarked, "especially in your line of work. So, how have you been?"
Lucky sighed. "Pretty well, considering all that's happened. The pub in Manehattan has been successful, and I have a few friends up there."
"But nopony like me, right?" Roseluck questioned with a smirk corrupting her features.
"No, nopony quite as… special as you." Lucky laughed as Rose huffed off the remark, and the waitress returned with Lucky's coffee and the check. Lucky immediately took the drink into his hooves, the hard, bitter aroma wafting up with the steam, and took a large sip.
Roseluck raised a brow. "Aren't you going to put some sugar or cream in it?" she said, using a hoof to slide the little basket of sugar packs over to the stallion.
Her friend sat the cup down, sighing as the beverage slid down his throat. "Nope, I like it a lot better this way — don't ask me why, I just do." The stallion took another sip, this one much smaller, and placed it on the table. "How about you? How have you been?"
"Oh!" Roseluck exclaimed, drumming her hooves against the table as she tried to bring something to mind. "Um… not really much has changed, to be honest. I'm still working with Daisy and Lily, still living in Mom's old house."
"Well, what about around town?" Lucky asked. "Certainly something had to happen around here in the last three years. I mean, I know Berry Punch had a filly."
"Oh, yeah, little Berry Pinch," Roseluck giggled, "she's an adorable little thing." Rose raised her mug to her lips for a sip, but it stopped just below her lips when she furrowed her brow. "Say, how did you know Berry Punch had a foal anyway?"
"That's actually why I'm in Ponyville," Lucky explained, leaning against the table. "I sold my share of the pub in Manehattan to my partner over there, and I've been talking with Berry Punch about opening up a bar right here in Ponyville. She's going to throw in her savings in exchange for being the manager. The way we figured, ponies would probably appreciate some place other than a coffee shop or a fast food joint to go to in this town."
"Yeah, they would." Roseluck's ears perked up. "Does that mean you're moving back to Ponyville?"
With a large grin, Lucky nodded and said, "Yep, I'm back."
Roseluck gave a delighted shriek, catching the ears of a few patrons who glared at the mare. Her face flushed at the unexpected attention, and her ears wilted while she gave out hushed apologies to the others.
"You're moving back to Ponyville?" Roseluck said in a lower voice. "That's wonderful! When?"
"Whenever I find a permanent place. Until then, I'm going to just stay at the inn," Lucky said.
Roseluck shook her head, and declared, "No, you aren't. One of my closest friends is not staying at some inn while I have a perfectly good guest room at my house."
"No, no, no," Lucky replied, waving his hooves, "I couldn't do that. I can't do that."
"Why not? I don't live with anypony, I'm my own landlord, and I have plenty of space. Give me a good reason why not!"
"Because I haven't slept the way I should for three years, Rose."
Roseluck's eyes blinked. "What, because of Wild Fire?" Roseluck sighed and closed her eyes. "Lucky, you need to let her go and move on. You need to heal."
"I have tried, Rose — believe me, I've tried." Lucky's face straightened into the façade of a hell-bent stallion. "I’ve dated a few mares during my stay in Manehattan, but they never lasted."
"And why not?" Rose asked as she crossed her front hooves in front of her barrel.
Lucky's expression softened. "Because…"
"Because they weren't Wild Fire," Rose said, twisting the stallion's sentence into a truth shown in his eyes. Her expression fell slightly as she glanced at her cup of tea. "You have an unhealthy obsession over that mare, as if there was anything special about her."
"Oh, don't patronize me. You've never had somepony that you deeply love taken away from you."
"I had for a while," said Roseluck composedly.
The conversation died at that reply, and the only noise flowing between them came from neighboring customers. Roseluck gazed at the tea between her hooves and the little leaves at the bottom, and Lucky stared out the window. He watched the snowflakes dancing and swirling in the wind, landing wherever the hands of Fate laid them. But once it became a sore sight, Lucky's eyes refocused onto the reflections of the table and its occupants. He stared for a minute at the ghostly reflection of Roseluck, her eyes shimmering in the light and glazed over wispily with melancholy thoughts.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you like that," he said, breaking Rose's stare at her cup and bringing her eyes to the stallion. He turned to the real mare.
"It's fine," Rose replied. She picked up her cup of tea, finishing it in a swallow. The cup was set down, and Roseluck reached for a raspberry scarf lying beside the table.
"The offer still stands, you know, about staying with me," she said, wrapping the scarf around her neck and underneath her mane. Her leafy-green eyes met his, and they gleamed brightly like emeralds. "Just know that you will always have one friend in this world, and that is all you'll ever need. You came back to Ponyville, back home, which is an improvement—you are healing. Time makes a good bandage, but you need real friends to disinfect the wound." Her eyes swiftly glanced at the near-empty cup of coffee between Lucky's hooves. "And no amount of coffee you pour into it will do as good of a job." She offered him a nod and walked past without looking back.
Lucky took a single glance at his coffee before sighing quietly to himself and calling, "Wait up, Rose!" behind him. He took enough bits out of his bags to cover the coffee and a reasonable tip, and placed them on the table with the ticket. He then gave chase to the mare now waiting beside the door.
Roseluck cracked a smile. "Glad you came to your senses," she stated before heading out of the door with Lucky Clover chasing her tail.
Despite the winter weather and the hot words exchanged moments before, the conversation Roseluck and Lucky shared was rather warm and friendly. Lucky told a few anecdotes of his days at the pub in Manehattan, and Roseluck told stories of everything that had happened over the past years: Bon Bon's return from college with a Canterlot Unicorn named Lyra Heartstrings, the blessing (and mystery) of Dinky Hooves, and a couple of Cloudsdale Pegasi moving permanently into town. But, Roseluck had said, not everything was different. The Apples were still drawing in the dough, enough to cater a reunion every one hundred days with a family to which nearly everypony can probably trace their bloodline; Rarity was still a Canterlot snob with a small town background and the benefit of charity; and Pinkie Pie was, of course, still Pinkie Pie.
The conversation, in spite of its simplicity, lasted throughout the entire walk to Roseluck's house on the edge of town. It was small and quaint, only a single story tall, like a little mouse house outside those of bigger rats that were compacted into the town. The large plain of grass (if it was springtime) around the house more than made up for the small stature. Underneath a small window on the west side was a large, fenced-off garden of snow. And a greenhouse, only slightly smaller than the house itself, stood only a few yards behind the little gold-and-white-topped abode.
Roseluck produced a key from underneath a stone statue of a giant rosebud sitting on her porch, and unlocked the front door. Roseluck tossed the door open, and it creaked as loudly as a noise-maker. Silvery moonlight flooded the small foyer, but a hoof pressing the enchanted igniter of an oil lamp sitting on a table by the door caused an orange light to overpower the moonlight, casting long shadows along the walls. Rose closed the door behind Lucky, who was greeted with the vivid scent of pink and red roses coming from a million different directions at once, and the lukewarm air definitely felt better than the razor teeth of the winter wind.
"Want some cider?" Roseluck asked, hanging her scarf on the coat rack guarding the door like a sentry. "It's not as good as the Apples', but it still hits the spot."
Lucky nodded, following Roseluck's lead and hanging his scarf on the hook next to hers. Roseluck lit a candle on a candelabrum with the lantern's flame, and trotted down the hallway to the right and into the kitchen.
"Go ahead and make yourself at home," called Roseluck from the kitchen. Lucky took hold of the lantern with his teeth, and walked down the short hall to the left.
The house hadn't changed since the last time he had been there, but then it hadn't changed since he and Roseluck were two foals galloping through it. The white walls, the beige floorboards — it was as though the house was immune to the mutations of a growing world. As Lucky walked through the short hallway, he noticed a few decorative things, like a vase of red and yellow roses sitting on a table and framed pictures of friends and family on the walls. One of the photos made him stop; it was of himself and Rose, in an early foalhood memory that was long forgotten, with her hooves coiling around his neck, as they had always seem to find themselves, and broad smiles on their tiny faces. Even through the cold window of the snapshot, Lucky could see the telltale rush of blood in Rose's cheeks.
Lucky thought about how Roseluck could always catch the scent of a budding friendship from a mile away, and just like her little babies in the greenhouse and in the garden, she cared for them deeply. Hugs, smiles, and laughter seemed to revolve around the mare, pushing through the occasional case of overdramatic and panicky behavior. As Lucky glanced to the partially lit kitchen doorway, he noted how fortunate any suitor would be to have such a truly golden mare amongst a herd of pyrite ponies.
If only his own luck could smile upon him in such a way.
Lucky shook his head and continued down the hall, entering the living room. It and the dining room were one commodious room together, but the living room's portion was rather small. It was sparsely furnished, with a sofa and a coffee table positioned across from the fireplace, and it lacked the festive tastes of the winter season. Only little figurines of Clover the Clever, Smart Cookie, and Private Pansy upon the mantle stood as the house's holiday decorations.
Lucky took a moment to unstrap his saddlebags, letting them fall onto the sofa, before plopping down onto a small cushion set in front of the dead fireplace. Behind him, an uneven clopping of a mare's hooves against the floorboards foretold Roseluck's approach, and she entered on three hooves instead of four, with her right fore hoof gripping an unopened bottle of cider and her mouth around the neck of another. She ambled clumsily over to him, offering the bottle of cider in her hoof to him, and mumbled something incoherent around the neck of the bottle in her mouth. Lucky took the bottle into his hoof, and thanked the mare as she lowered her head to place the other on the floor.
"Sorry," she said, "I don't have anything to help carry stuff around."
"It's fine," Lucky said. He watched as Rose quickly started a small fire in the fireplace with dry kindling and a stick set aflame by the lantern. When it reached a reasonable size, Rose fed a log to the young, hungry blaze, and she fetched a throw pillow from the sofa, placing it close to Lucky in front of the fire.
"Whatever happened to your holiday spirit?" Lucky asked. When Roseluck gave him a confused look, he continued, "I don't see a whole lot of decorations in the house. I would've assumed you'd at least put up a tree."
"I don't decorate the house anymore after Mom died, and nopony really visits. No point in decorating when nopony but me is around to appreciate it." Using the edge of her hoof, she popped off the bottle cap and unceremoniously let it fall to the floor. "Besides, I usually spend Hearth's Warming Eve at Daisy and Lily's, so I help decorate theirs." Roseluck put the bottle up to her lips and took a swig.
Lucky followed suit, wedging his hoof into the cap and popping it off with success, letting the hiss into his ears and the scent of foreign apples into his nose. He took a drink and nearly choked from.
"Geez," he coughed into his pastern, "the apple taste sure is strong."
Roseluck pulled the partially empty bottle from her lips to reveal a grin. "Really? The big stallion who opened up a big city pub can't handle his cider?"
Lucky replied by narrowing his eyes and pushing down more of the cider. He guzzled down half of the bottle before putting it down with a satisfied smirk through the slight wince on his face. Rose just shook her head.
"So, how's everypony else doing?" asked Lucky when the recoiling expression lowered into an easy grin. "You only talked about Bonnie, Derpy's filly, and a few others."
The fire crackled and popped, illuminating Roseluck's profile as she pushed her mouth to the side.
"Well, Minuette isn't a big fan of me anymore. Might have something to do with me dating her brother…"
"What?"
Roseluck waved her hoof, and her face darkened as she turned her head. "It was nothing, really. Time Turner and I kinda went out for a few months before I broke up with him, and it apparently broke Minuette's heart more than it did his—I mean, what was I supposed to do? All the stallion wanted to talk about was time travel!" Rose sighed, "After we broke up, Minuette made it perfectly clear that I was dead and buried to her."
"Well, what about Turner?"
"He started dating Derpy less than a week afterwards. They married last June," Rose replied impassively, taking a drink of cider absentmindedly. Her head turned to the fire, her eyes musing over the brilliant orange flames dancing against their brick surroundings.
"How have Pokey and Caramel been?"
The glum façade that had haunted Roseluck's face melted into a warm smile when she turned her head. "Caramel's well, and he's well on his way to have dated every mare in Ponyville. Pokey's fine, too, and his restaurant is doing well."
"Are he and Pinkie Pie still a—" Rose shook her head.
"They broke up about a month after you left, mutually so," she answered. "Neither ever explained why, but they're still friends. And it's not even awkward."
Lucky nodded to himself, and took the last little gulp out of his bottle of cider. It was good cider, and he could feel his cheeks flush and warm, growing ever hotter from sitting only a yard away from the roaring fire feeding on wood.
"It was you, you know," Rose said suddenly. Lucky looked at her to see that she was once again staring into the fire.
"What?" he asked, blinking twice. Lucky's eyes drifted down to the bottle of cider in her hooves, and he saw that she had emptied it of every drop.
Rose slowly turned her head to him. He looked into her eyes, large and muddied with a twist of doleful emotions, and saw a reflection of himself in them.
"In the coffee house, you said I had never had someone I deeply loved taken away from me. I have, and he was you, Lucky Clover."
Words of surprise were written across the stallion's face. "Rose—"
Rose's eyes began to shine with a damp shimmer as they returned to the fire light. "I've been in love with you since we were foals, Lucky. I don't know how I knew, but I just did. Before Lily and Daisy moved to town, you were my only friend, and until Caramel and Pokey moved here, I was yours. I had always hoped that you would feel the same, or at least noticed. But you never did, and then you met Wild Fire.
"I was happy for you when you two married, I really was. It was like some love goddess had put some sort of a spell on you — it was sweet. You deserved to have somepony as nice as Wild Fire. And I sorta came to the conclusion that you and I were never going to be a thing.
Then Wild died in that fire, and you left without even saying good-bye to everypony."
Roseluck raised up a hoof to brush away the tears on her blushing cheeks, and Lucky's eyes stayed planted firmly at the mare. His ears were wilted slightly.
Rose continued, "Over the past three years, I've tried to get over the fact that you were gone, that I was never going to see my best friend in the whole world, the only pony I've ever come to really love, ever again. I went on dates, but none of them ever to seem to work because, just hypocritical it is to say, they weren't you." She failed to hold back a sob, a sound that cut deep into her companion's heart.
"Rose, I'm sorry. I—" and the words died in his mouth when Roseluck sniffed.
"It's fine. I become a crying fool whenever I drink even the slightest bit of alcohol." Rose turned her remotely puffy eyes to Lucky. "I guess you're not the only pony who needs to heal."
Lucky reached out with his hooves and grabbed the mare's cheeks gently, planting a small peck on her forehead. He pulled away upon feeling her hooves on his shoulder, and they held each other at a foreleg's length. In those red eyes, Lucky saw that a mask similar to his own had casted a false light of glee upon his friend, and just as had the mask, the reality underneath was the same, too, of a love lost long ago. Now, the masks of smiles had been casted off into the fire, and they were staring at each other, their true grotesque selves out in the open: Lucky Clover, a stallion who once held paradise by her hoof, had lost it a long time ago, and found a twinkle of it in a lifelong friend; Roseluck, a mare who in spite of believing in true love, had only discovered unrequited feelings — though the way this stallion was holding her told her that it may not be so one-sided after all. In the presence of one another, their real faces were made beautiful once more.
In what ponies like Berry Punch refer to as "a moment of clarity," Lucky came to realize that, if the cards had been dealt in such a hoof to where Rose had asked, he would've agreed to a date, or several, possibly ending up with a royal flush of hearts in lieu of the lowly, black junk he had now. Lucky felt an arrow pierce through his heart, and he decided to put back all five in his hoof, leaning forward to draw new cards.
Roseluck recoiled slightly until his lips touched hers, and she melted into the kiss — Lucky had the ace of hearts. With shut eyes and burning faces, they held each other tightly, their mouths giving off wet smacks that met with the crackles of the fire, and the stallion drew the ten of hearts. Lucky wrapped his hooves around Rose's barrel, and they fell, with Rose on her back and Lucky hovering over her — there was jack of hearts.
It had been so long since he had kissed — really kissed — a mare, and felt that proverbial fire in himself, once again roaring like the one in the hearth, after having been snuffed out three years earlier; the new flame gave him his king of hearts.
And then there was the queen, who was none other than the beauty beneath him, his friend — if Lucky could still call her that. A muffled moan, a wayward tongue, each proving that there was now something more.
Lucky's lips glided to the side and downward of Roseluck's mouth, stopping every inch to a plant a soft kiss on her cottony fur. He travelled across her left cheek and down to the crook of her neck, and Rose moaned as she placed her hooves on Lucky's barrel.
"Lucky," she said, giving a small push with her hooves, "Lucky, please stop."
Lucky paused with his lips on a path that led to her belly, and rose to look Roseluck in the eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I just want to take it slow, Lucky," Rose said. "I want to do this right for once, okay?" Lucky gave a small nod, and Rose lifted her head to give him a reassuring kiss on the lips.
She parted and said, "But soon, I promise."
An old grandfather clock rang in a new hour of the night from somewhere in the house. Lucky sat up, allowing Roseluck to do the same.
Lucky asked, "So what do you want to do?"
Roseluck turned back to the still lively fire, crackling and popping in it's own rhythm. Somehow, the energetic orange light, in addition to a couple other flames, had grown brighter, and it highlighted a small grin, no larger than hoof appeared on her face.
"I'd love to hear more stories about Manehattan, if you have any. I could go make some cocoa, and we could curl up in front of the fireplace."
The little smile spread to Lucky's face, and he nodded. "That sounds good to me. But first, I want to take my saddlebags to the guest room."
"I'll start the cocoa while you do that then," Roseluck said as she stood up on all fours. "The guest room's right where it's always been." Rose pressed her nose fondly against Lucky's, and trotted off to the kitchen. Lucky watched her go, her raspberry and bubblegum-pink tail swishing about tantalizingly as Rose vanished into the dark kitchen.
After grabbing the lamp from the floor and his saddlebags from the sofa, Lucky walked through the tiny dining room and into the second hallway, taking the first of only two doors on the right. Much like the rest of the house, the guest bedroom was furnished with mostly single-pony necessities: a full-sized bed, a tiny nightstand, and an empty table in the corner. The bedspreads were (surprise, surprise) floral print, and a piece of floral artwork hung on a wall. Lucky walked along the floor, over to the bed, and set the lamp on. He took off his saddlebags and let them drop to the floor beside the bed. His hooves dove into the left pouch, rummaging through miscellaneous personal items, until he came upon a framed photo. It was a picture of a lone pegasus mare, a large, approachable smile taking up most of the shot. Her tan coat and fiery cutie mark was vivid against the blue backdrop. Lucky fished it out, and glided a tender hoof on the glass. He smiled softly at the mare.
"I'm sorry, honey," he whispered, and Lucky kissed the mare's cheek. The framed photo was placed back into the bag, and Lucky took his leave with the lamp, leaving the picture alone in the dark.
