From since I was a little Pie bouncing on Ma Pie's favorite rocking chair and shooting the breeze with my sisters, I thought I knew just about everything I needed to know about love. I was the runt of the family. The one who got things falling apart at the stitches. Mysteries spoiled. Food snatched. And babied to a trained level from everyone in the house when I was old enough to learn when I was being talked down to.
I got everything last, too.
Toys. Work saddles. Fields. Rooms.
Especially rooms.
Supposedly as the youngest child, I would eventually get the room entirely to me. Isn't that a stinky old fib? I wasn't even allowed to complain like Lime and Marble, shrieking in unison about getting an attachment to the farmhouse. And as the runt, I can say without a lie, I never got the room. In the one and a half room that was ours until Maud got old enough to be going through her puberty, I had to share. And by share, I had to tolerate what little space that I was allowed to have.
No, I could not move Lime's smelly paints and pints to cook in the attic.
They needed to breath.
No, I could not move Marble's precious magazines to the barn.
They could've yellowed in the outside air.
No, I couldn't move Maud's books on rocktology to learn with the rocks.
The rocks might bury them.
If I didn't like it, I should have been born first. Talk about unfair.
But the last thing I got was stories. Everyone in the family loved to tell stories. Papa liked to tell long tales about him setting up shop at the market and going on his trips to Yieldstone. That was the fanciest hamlet around. They had electricity three times a week. That was better than us Rookwell folks who had to candle, candle, candle, oil torch! And none of those little lights could compare to the sun, beaming and burning every sin out of our dirt-dipped soles.
When I started working the fields, I thought it was great that we worked by the sun. If I played around long enough while setting up, I'd have less work to do. Now that I'm older, I know that work can carry over. And I'd be paying back those hours one way or another. Papa was real mean in letting me fool around, though. The sun's our real teacher, he said. She taught me well, I guess. But the sun is a thing. Not a pony, right? I didn't have to take a test or anything like Twilight...
Ma would spin her yarns about her legendary haggling skills and how she got even the mean old constable to let our goods be sold directly on the bit. No cuts or disappearing change for us! He and Ma went way, way back but Ma would always change where they met. Sometimes, it was in a stand-off in Fillydelphia and Ma was running through the alleys with her trusty pea-shooter, saving a little colt lying in a barrel and howling about gold. Sometimes, it was in a office in Manehatten and Ma was working a corner for a crook she wanted to take to jail and she came across a dumb-looking fella passing fliers next to a trunk full of fool's gold.
But my sisters loved telling love stories. You know the ones. Love stories about a gal called Rosemary and a colt called Tumbleweed running off, leaving their chores behind and making babies under a rock. And the rock was always sedimentary, according to Maud. In Rookwell, there wasn't much to be talking about other than farmwork but my sisters persisted. If they got bored of talking about Who's Who, they move on to talking about Who's Doing Who which had all ears because there was always some grain of truth in their big, blabbing mouths.
And they loved rubbing it in my face that I was too young to be practicing kissin' with Little Fondue. The silly, friendly colt from down the lane. And I wouldn't want to be kissing Little Fondue, anyways! He's been sniffing after my second oldest sister since I was old enough to walk. And anyways, even if I had a crush, asked him, asked him again and asked him a third time unless he was unsure, I wouldn't tell them that. And maybe he did turn me down three times.
They shouldn't be speculating! I'm not story material, you hear?!
Gossiping was a big old sport in Rookwell. We talked in circles about just about everything before nailing the point on the head. It's like an accent. You carried it everywhere. And everyone wanted to know about Who's Doing Who. Especially with all those new faces showing up in town like they owned the place. And they would if they could have the last word about it.
Back then, out-of-towners came down from the dream. That's what we called the rest of Equestria we could see if we stood on Moonstill Hill when the sky was as clear as a mirror and Saskatoon let us borrow her fancy telescope. We didn't need her telescope to see the lights, shining up like bonfires lighting the way to school during the long winters, from the nearby towns and cities. But with her telescope we could see the fireworks all the way from Canterlot, shooting in the air and the classy ponies traveling by blimp and carriage. The fireworks was specially pretty during the Galloping Gala, glittery clouds bleaching our skyline in vibrant dust and glee.
What a party they must be throwing? What a dream they must be living?
I often tried to stretch my head to hear it. To see it. But I couldn't see past the fields running on and on for miles before they hit the dark woods. If I had wings, I would have flew. If I had a horn, I'd been gone in a flash. But since I was an earth pony, I could only take one day at a time. And everyday was a happy day forward.
So those new faces, those stallions... They were marrying any girl who wasn't tied down and buying up dead land real quick. Everyone in town was so happy that we were getting official attention. We hard-working earth ponies needed our day in the sun just like everybody else. They aren't now but I'm getting passed the point. Even if I was the youngest, my sisters were still too young to be getting hitched. Not that it didn't stop the stallions knocking on the door, wanting some long standing arrangement until we girls were old enough.
Ma wouldn't hear a word of it, she threw such a fit and demanded new laws.
And Papa, oh Papa, he made it real clear that his land was for his girls alone. Took one of the stallions by the ear. Threw him in a cart and bucked it straight down to the center of town where the poor fella went head first into the founding mother's hard as bricks bust. Nobody said a word. And he and his particular crew of ponies left town the next night. Strongly encouraged to do less there be more serious injuries. Because it was getting a little annoying. Those stallions weren't respecting customs, you know. And why did they need the land so badly? Marriage and land aren't things to be gambled with on a whim, you know. But they weren't getting any prime land until somebody brought up the word, 'renting'. And that was history.
But that didn't stop us from talking about them or him, the One.
You know the One.
The stallion with his bulging broad shoulders that could bench boulders, his strong hooves that made cracks in the earth with every tap and a chin that could slice through bread. The bread slicing was especially important since the bread knife we had on the farm was the shiniest and most expensive piece of cutlery we had on hoof. Of course, I can buy an old knife from the store and polish up nicely but I'm getting from the point.
The point that was a metaphor.
The point being that there is the One and the ones that one can find anywhere.
Now this probably felt like it was way off point. That's what LOVE is supposed to be. A winding and twisting road with dead-ends, pit traps, could-be, wanna-be and all the never-be a pony could fit in a lifetime. Supposing you found Your One, you would become a Two. Sweethearts. Lovers. Partners for all of eternity as two parts made whole. Gooey, gushy lovers -insert kissing sounds here-.
Therefore using all of my experience and great knowledge on love matters, I can't understand how Twilight and Applejack and Rainbow Dash are in a relationship. A relationship according to Twilight's stuffy dictionaries, a threesome. A activity that requires three people. Obviously, I'm going to take notes and work my way around this question.
Possibly acquire a tape recorder because what kind of activity needed all those grunting sounds anyway?
In a library?