See With Your Heart

Bella entered the restaurant called Pewter Platter's, already starting to regret her decision to meet Pickle Plum here. She was wearing a light brown sweater and jeans because she didn't really see any point in wearing anything fancy since he wouldn't be able to tell either way. Besides, she wasn't really looking to impress anyone anyway.

The maitre d' showed her to her table where Pickle Plum was already waiting for her. He was dressed in a green button down shirt that didn't quite match his mane. Clearly, he had chosen to dress in at least a slightly formal manner for the evening. "Hey. Glad you made it," he greeted her.

"Yeah. Hi," she replied without much enthusiasm. She set down her bag and started looking through her menu.

"Have you ever been here before?" Pickle asked her, not bothering to even pick up his menu.

"Only once."

"What do you think I should get?"

"I don't know. Why don't you decide for yourself?"

"Um, because I can't read my menu?"

Bella gave him a frustrated glance over her menu just as the waitress arrived: a young teenaged mare with a pearly white coat and a mane like an ocean wave. "Hi. I'm Pearly and I'll be taking care of you guys tonight," she said with a friendly smile. "Can I start you off with something to drink?"

Bella went first. "I'll have a scotch."

"Great." Pearly wrote it down. "And for you, sir?"

"Uh, root beer for me, please?" Pickle responded with a half question.

"You got it. I'll be right back." Pearly wrote down their orders and walked off.

"I totally just took a shot in the dark," Pickle said pleasantly surprised. "I didn't even know they had root beer."

"Yeah, how about that," Bella said with a sort of grumpy tone in her voice that caused Pickle to be taken aback a bit. She noticed this and tried to ease up a bit. "Look, I think I'm gonna get a mixed fruit and veggie salad. Does that sound good to you?"

"Oh yeah, sure," Pickle replied.

When the waitress came back with their drinks, they placed their orders for two salads. And then Pickle decided to try and engage Bella in the kind of conversation he had promised.

"So, Bella," he began. "What do you do for a living?"

Bella took a sip of her drink before she answered. "Well, I'm a secretary at Fancypants' Water Purification Co. I work in the main office building here in town."

"Oh yeah? What's that like?"

"Well, I work specifically for Fancypants himself."

"Really? That's impressive."

"I guess so. The pay's alright. Can't complain there. I just wish the office conditions were a lot more tolerable."

"What do you mean?"

Bella set down her drink and looked him straight in the eyes. She might as well lay it all on the line for him now.

"It's the same thing everywhere I go," she ranted. "Ponies just can't stop staring at me and it's all because of my massive boobs!"

"How do you know that?"

"Uh, how do I know?!" she repeated as if the answer was obvious. "Because just about every time I try to talk to someone, I always catch them looking at my chest. It's like they don't even know where my face is!"

"Wow. That does suck." Pickle figured he probably shouldn't ask this next question, but he was really curious. "So... how big are they?"

"What?!" Bella couldn't believe he would ask such a thing. "Ugh! I knew you wouldn't understand." Insulted she grabbed her bag and started to get up to leave.

"No wait!" Pickle stopped her, regretting his question. "I'm sorry. I do understand. It's hard to have ponies treat you differently all the time just because of something you can't help."

Bella sat back down. "What about you?" she asked. "Have you always been blind or were you in some kind of accident?"

"Chemical spill in science class when I was twelve. Good thing I was wearing goggles or I would've lost my eyeballs completely. My parents and I wanted to get them fixed, but the surgery was too expensive."

Bella listened to him with sympathy. "I'm sorry," she confessed. "That must've been tough for you, especially since you were just a kid."

"Yeah. Even after the pain stopped and the bandages came off, I had to get used to a lot of things like carrying this cane around all the time. My mom practically had panic attacks every time I went to school or whenever else she couldn't be around for me. School wasn't much better anyways. The way everyone treated me, it was like I was a whole different pony. Nopony treated me the same anymore and it was so frustrating."

There was a bit of silence before Bella spoke up again. "Well, you don't seem too upset now."

"Well, the more I learned to live with it, the easier it got. Of course, it helped that I had family and friends who helped me to feel like a normal pony again. Now I've even come to accept it as a part of who I am. Although, I do wish I could still make out what ponies' faces look like."

Bella was bent over the table resting on her elbows as she listened to Pickle Plum talk. When she lifted herself up, her back started aching and she could barely stand it.

"Well," she said, "at least you don't have to spend thirty bits a month on aspirin for chronic back pain."

"True," Pickle retorted, "but I do have to wave a stick around just to tell what's right in front of me."

"I can barely fit into a sweater." Bella challenged.

"Oh! How far away are you right now? I can't tell!"

"I have to get all my bras custom made!"

"I can't even read!"

The two ponies stared intensely at each other like they were about to start pounding on each other any minute now, but instead, they both burst out laughing.

"You really are blind as a bat." Bella joked.

"And you must be the most top heavy pony I've ever met." Pickle retorted.

As the waitress approached with their salads, their laughter settled down. They both grabbed their forks and started digging in.

"You know," Bella spoke after swallowing her first bite. "Every time I get in my car to drive, the horn won't stop beeping." She chuckled a bit at her own words.

"At least you can drive," Pickle said in response.

"Yeah, I guess so." It felt strange to Bella that she could suddenly talk about her problems and laugh about them. Maybe talking to this guy was having some kind of affect on her. Whatever it was, she felt better at that moment than she had felt in ages.

Pickle broke the silence again with another question.

"So what do you like to do when you're not working?" he inquired.

Bella thought for a second. "Well, I like to stay in shape, so I tend to work out a lot."

"At the gym?"

"No. Usually in my apartment. I tried working out at a gym once and it was... really not pleasant."

"Oh, I see.... kind of." They both chuckled slightly at that. He really did understand what she meant.

"You wanna know what I really love to do, though?" she said.

"What's that?"

She waved her fork around swiftly in the air before pointing it directly at Pickle's face with a smirk. "Sword fighting."

"What an amazing coincidence," he responded unfazed. He spun his own fork around through the air before crossing it with hers, making a 'cling' sound. "So do I," he said tauntingly.

Bella smirked back at him with intense eyes.

Challenge accepted.