Haystacks

It's a warm summer night. Haystacks and I meander our way through the attractions, bearing from tent to tent like two lazy bees.

The village carnival only came once a year, he said. I was more than willing to see it myself. It'd been a while since I'd even bothered to think of having fun. It was Haystacks' idea to go together, though, and I was admittedly concerned at first. Hadn't I'd already imposed on my host enough?

A cider tasting tent was mentioned. Haystacks went on at length about the neighbour's incredible pumpkin pies and fritters and milkshakes and sandwiches and sautees. My stomach gets growling. Food and drink are two very serious incentives - ones that shut me up pretty quickly. There's something about the taste of fresh cider and home cooking that will never leave me. It's not a thing you can just find in Canterlot these days.

As we walk and talk, I can smell the faint aroma of pastry cooking. The clatter of cider mugs over the distant chant of music and foals squealing is a pleasant backdrop to a conversation about this year's wheat crop.

We're halfway to the Cider hall. Neither of us are connoisseurs, but we decide to try it anyway for something to do. I'm having a ball of a time – more fun than I've had in an age. It's not the drink talking (perhaps).

He spots her after I do. He's also the first one to go over to her. She couldn't have been older than nine, maybe ten, the little pegasus filly.  She's between the coconut shies and the merry-go-round, tears leaking from foggy blue eyes, looking for all the world like a pale blue statue seated on the cold grass.

“Hullo. Are you okay?” He asks the little filly. I watch on in quiet uncertainty.

I remember feeling annoyed with myself. I was walking along, minding my own business. I noticed the little filly sitting by herself, cotton candy on the ground next to her, and carried on. Well – I say 'noticed'. I noticed her like I noticed somepony else's foal who was upset in a big Canterlot supermarket, in that I didn't notice her at all. I'd taken about five or six extra steps towards the cider tent when I realised that I wasn't talking to anyone.

It's not until he speaks that she seems to notice to him for the first time properly, the big farmer. She hiccups once, her chin quivering. The trails of her tears carve damp paths of azure down her cheeks.

She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it once more. She hiccups faintly, and lets a tiny sob out. Fresh tears spill from her brimming eyes.

I then see a strange thing happen.

Haystacks removes his hat. Setting it to one side, he sits, and then lies down gently on the grass, so as to be eye level to the filly. His empty cider tankard, dangling from a woven cord around his neck, slips softly onto the ground.

“Hey, hey...” there is an assured, almost absurdly abnormal calm to his voice. “Don't cry. Are you lost?”

I canter over, feeling awkward. The filly glances up at me with teary eyes, and I quickly kneel down and  give my most sympathetic smile. Like I'm trying to offer my condolences to her, or something. I glance uneasily at Haystacks, maybe looking for some guidance. But he only has eyes for the little filly, and he smiles and speaks softly like it's the most natural thing on the world.

“Are you lost?” he asks again, after a brief pause. His voice is lowered to a gentle murmur, as though she were some sort of frightened rooster. “Where's your Mummy? Do you know where your Mummy is?”

The little filly's mane falls in blue and dark blue braids either side of her head, and they wobble from side to side as she shakes it. Then she lets out a great sniff, and looks back at the grass between the prone Haystacks and herself.

I feel a tiny peal of sadness tumble down through my heartstrings.

“My name's Haystacks,” Haystacks says. “What's your name?”

The filly's gaze follows one of Haystacks' giant hooves from the ground up until she is looking at him. She blinks once or twice, and he smiles patiently and kindly, warmly back.

“S-Sliver,” she says, her voice a fragile squeak against the clamour of the carnival behind us.  “Sliver Lining...” she trails off, gazing uncertainly at the very big pony.

“Sliver Lining, huh?” The crows feet at the side of Haystacks' eyes wrinkle as he smiles broadly. “That's a pretty name, Sliver. It's nice to meet you.”

It clicks with me that Haystacks is clearly attempting to sooth the filly with a gentle word or two, but it doesn't seem like it has the desired effect – or at least, not at first. The tiny blue pony looks over to me, still somewhat untrustworthy. I follow suit and introduce myself as Haystacks' friend, making sure to lower my voice like he does. I say that it's a very pretty name, indeed.

She hiccups again, and uses a hoof to wipe her cheeks. The tears cease, though the corners of her distant blue eyes are still red and damp.

“So you don't know where your Mummy is?” Haystacks cooes. “I think we can help you find her, can't we?” he looks over at me hopefully, still wearing that same warm smile.

I'm taken aback. I nod my agreement and make a show of it to the filly. That seems like the right thing to do, of course.

For whatever reason, Haystacks' eyes light up at my agreement. So do the little filly's, although they are quickly masked again under a tiny veil of sadness and mistrust.

“M-mom said I wasn't supposed to follow strangers,” she mumbles. “She said I was supposed to stay here while she went to find my brother.”

Haystacks' smile falls a touch at the thought. But like the clown ponies that we saw earlier, it falls only to spring up a little wider.

“Well, that's okay. Do you want us to sit here and wait for her to come back with your brother?”

I think that particular proposal catches the filly by as much surprise as it does me. I almost – almost – put my hoof in it by voicing some form of objection about the time, but neither the filly nor Haystacks notice me anyway.

“U-um,” she says, and I can hear the tension in her soft voice rising again. “I, um, I wandered off. I wanted to look at the rides, and I thought I wouldn't go far, and I d-don't know where she asked me to go, an-an-an-an–” she hiccups, and I can see the tears beginning anew.

“Well do you want us to try and find that then?” Haystacks asks, trying to interject before she sobs. “Would you like that?”

She bites her lip, and very quickly nods three times.

“Ok,” he says, humming thoughtfully. “Where might that be? Hmm...” He makes a show of tapping one grass-stained hoof against his chin.

“I-it's by the fairy floss stand,” she says. “But I don't k-know where that is.”

“Aha!” Haystacks says, padding his hooves flat to the earth, overtaken by a tiny, mock-playful moment of inspiration. His eyebrows arch, and he winks broadly at the filly. “Well I saw a sign that says fairy floss back there.” He gestures over his shoulder with his head, back down through the avenue of tents and stalls that we have traversed. “It's just down there, past the big top and next to the fortune teller.”

The little filly nods uncertainly.

“If you want, we can walk with you there, if you'd like,” Haystacks says. “But you go first, okay? That way, we can just make sure that you find your Mummy, and you don't have to follow strange ponies.”

The proposal, while strange, seems to sit well with her – or at least, well enough to mollify her. The tiniest smile creeps onto her face.

“Okay,” she chirps, this time without a hiccup. She makes to stand, and notices the sticky remains of her cotton candy, lying in the grass to one side.  Half-heartedly, she reaches a hoof towards it. “Oh...”

“What's wrong?” Haystacks says. “Was that yours?”

She nods, and retracts the hoof. She stands to all fours.

“Oh, never mind then, Sliver, never mind,” Haystacks cooes, lifting his neck a bit to meet her. He makes to stand, and I follow his lead, though at the last moment he stoops, snatching his hat between his teeth.

“Ere,” he mumbles, leaning gently towards the filly. “'Ew can wear 'ish instead.”

She shies instinctively, but Haystacks plops the warm Stesson onto her head. Several sizes too big, it droops down comically over her eyes, and after a moment of fumbling, she slips it back so that it sits flush against her outstretched ears.

Haystacks smiles. And even though he towers over the filly, she offers a shy smile in return.

        The farmpony ushers her between us, and just in front of us so that we walk three abreast with her in front.

“Here,” he says, pointing into the middle-distance with his hoof. “Do you know where to go? The big top is that way...”

We walk off into the bustle of the carnival, pacing ourselves so that the little filly leads all of the way. It's only a few minutes of slow trotting, with us gamely following. Haystacks peppers the filly with questions whenever she looks worried. They're simple things, happy things, like if she is enjoying the carnival and what her favourite food is, and whether she had had her braids tied at the stall by the hairdresser for two bits, and what her mother's name is, and what she looks like so that we can spot her. Confidence-building, I think – I wonder. Haystacks seems to regard every answer to her question with a happy disposition. At some stage, I even lose track of where the acting ends and he begins.

The fairy floss cart is bright and strapped with balloons, and absolutely swarmed by ponies of all ages. Nonetheless, it's easy to pick Sliver's mother at a distance - a deep blue mare with a long, sleek mane of chocolate . She paces with all the frenzy of a distraught lioness, drawing endless circles around the cart, her head turning this way and that.

“Mama!” Sliver shouts, and the haggard-looking unicorn jumps in alarm. She spins her head once, twice to find the source –

She claps eyes on us, and in particular, the little filly. With a shuddering gasp that seems to permeate the clang of carnival chimes, she all but gallops over to Sliver, skidding to a halt and scooping the little filly into a one-hoofed hug. Immediately, she bursts into an endless trail of worries.

“Sliver!” she reprimands, half-chiding, half-sobbing. “Oh my stars, you're okay! I thought you were abducted, or, or – or something, I don't know! –  you should have stayed still while I went to find your brother! But never mind, angel, I'm so happy you're safe... here, where did you get this?” Her attention turns to the hat.

The little filly points at us both. The mare follows her hoof to me, and then Haystacks (the obvious cowpony of us), her mouth crested into a tiny 'oh'.

“Did... did you find my little Sliver?” She says, regarding us both with the same uncertain eyes of her daughter.

Before we can even offer a response, she flings  both forehooves around both of our necks, and pulls us into a hug so unimaginably tight that stars begin to burst before my eyes.

“Oh how could I even begin to thank you!? You found my baby, thank you, thank you so so much! I'm so grateful, and – ”

This goes on for some time. At some point we are both released, and the mare continues to gush her thanks. It's not something I'm really used to, but I manage with a graceful smile. Haystacks, though, ever the solitary creature, turns a faint pink around the face and spends most of the time twisting his hoof into the grass, mumbling about how 'tweren't nothin' and other such bumpkin-isms. It's a rare moment of discomfort for him, I observe with some amusement.

As the mare speaks we are joined by a colt, who Sliver bounds over to, nuzzling him warmly. The way he stands by the mare paints her as Sliver's brother, but he seems strangely distant from goings-on, only taking the briefest notice of his sister.

“I'm hungry,” the colt mumbles, somewhat bizarrely, pawing at his mother's leg with one hoof.

His mother pauses, casting him a fond look. “Oh, I – oh. Yes. Just a second, sweetie,” she says, nuzzling him lightly. She turns back to us, a calmer tone falling into her voice.

“Really,” she says quietly, still slightly breathless. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Haystacks, still recuperating from his bone-shatteringly tight hug, still a little pink around the cheeks from all the praise, smiles in reply. He offers an afterthought rather absent-mindedly.

“Well, ah, if you're all hungry, you could head into the fresh produce tent. It's just behind the Ferris Wheel. There's freshly cooked Pumpkin pie and Apple juice for the little ones,” he says, looking at the filly and colt, who are chattering away happily. “And, um, maybe a cider for you, Miss,” he adds, smiling sheepishly back at the mare. “But just make sure ya' tell them Haystacks sent you. I'm sure it'll be on the house that way.”

The little filly and colt give a simultaneous gasp of delight at the mere notion of fresh pumpkin pie. The unicorn mare looks more than a little baffled, her hooves halfway to her purse.

“Don't you?...” she says, still gazing at him with some degree of confusion.

I realise she's trying to pay us as some kind of reward. Haystacks waves a hoof, shaking his head.

“Ah, no, no thank you, that's alright. I don't need it. You just go and have a drink and a slice of pie and relax, okay?”

The mare offers something close to a disbelieving glance. And in the short seconds between her foals tugging at her saddlebags and her turning to them, she passes us both a priceless look of unending thanks.

The little filly returns the hat, giving Haystacks a happy grin. And then, without any further fuss or bother, they are gone. The colt and filly gambol away into the crowd, and the mare turns gamely to follow. They are gone as quickly as they came, vanished into the technicolour blur of the stalls, stands and ponies.

I turn to Haystacks. Aside from a mote of embarrassment still fresh on his cheeks, he seems unperturbed by recent events.

We travel to the cider hall, and enjoy a few well-earned drinks.

Haystacks insists that it was nothing anypony wouldn't do around these parts, anyway.

Summer nights at the village carnival.