Chapter 3
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Berries and Brushes

Chapter 3

A few weeks had passed for Berry Punch, and not much had changed in that time. To her pleasure, her workload didn't change in any way at all, and with each week, she found herself less and less tired at the end of most work days. Things were looking up so much, that Golden Harvest offered to take Berry on a trip to Manehattan for the weekend, just to get them out of town and out to enjoy themselves for a little while.

As things were, it was already Saturday morning, and the two of them were on the train ride to the city, sitting together on the left side of a fuchsia passenger car and staring out the window at the passing scenery. A thick forest was passing them by, and far beyond it lay a rather large mountain, decorated neatly by a layer of snow near the very top. The ponies intended to return home the following night, spending just enough time in Manehattan to see and appreciate the sights, enjoy themselves how they wanted, and return home with enough time to rest before the work week started again.

"You really didn't have to do this, Gi," Berry spoke up, breaking roughly twelve minutes of peaceful silence, save for the sound of the rails beneath their wheels. "It's just one day and night in the city; I can afford to pay my own way!"

"Oh, Berry," Golden sighed, with something of a smile on her face. "I'm doing you a favour, and I'm also quite happy to have somepony to take a trip to the city with, so you cut that out. You don't have the money to take leisure trips like this, but I could pay the way for thirty ponies and my purse wouldn't know the difference."

"... You don't have to remind me in quite that way," the other mare frowned, knowing full well the truth already.

"I do when you're talking about money like you can afford to throw it away so freely." Turning to look toward her friend, Golden stared directly into Berry's eyes. "You worked very hard, Berry, and I had to watch you go through all those troubles. As your friend, I won't let you do something to jeopardize your efforts and make it all for nothing. I won't tolerate it one bit, and that's final."

"... Alright," Berry submitted, recognizing defeat from quite afar. "I can never really win with you when it gets to this, huh? Heh heh..."

"From one stubborn mare to another: no," Golden replied, winking. "Sorry, girl."

Resting her chin in her hooves, Berry peered outside again toward the passing landscape. Since last she looked, the forest had disappeared, and beside the tall mountain lay several more of its kind. A range of shorter mountains had seemingly sprung up in the distance, and would remain in sight for quite some time. "Besides," Berry thought aloud, staring near the base of one of the mountains. "I know well enough that I'd regret it later, even without you telling me... I'm honestly really happy with my situation right now, and I don't think anything's going to spoil that. But sometimes, I just wish I could be a little more outgoing like everypony else, instead of having to barely scrape by."

A couple minutes of silence passed, save once again for the sound of wheels against rails. Golden Harvest wasn't sure if her friend was going to speak up about it again, but just as she opened her mouth to say something, she was inadvertently cut off.

"What's it like, Gi?" Berry asked, finally moving away from the window and finding somewhere comfortable to sit and rest in the train car. "Is it nice to know you're financially secure, without having to be afraid of what might happen tomorrow or next week? I was never really concerned about it as a foal, so of course I never thought about it... but I really wish now that I could live like the rest of you do."

"It's..." was the extent of Golden's initial response, as she realized she wasn't sure how to exactly answer the proposed question. "It's nice," she decided to say, when nothing else came to mind. "Feeling secure is a great comfort, especially when you know that you're responsible for building your own security blanket. It's very self-fulfilling, to say the least."

"Ehn," the other girl mumbled, wrinkling her nose in annoyance. "There are some ponies out there who don't deserve that kind of feeling at all. Ponies who haven't put in the slightest amount of effort and just live free and carelessly. It kind of annoys me... A lot, really."

"... You don't resent me for my success, do you?" Golden asked, mostly sure she knew the answer to the question already.

"Of course I don't, don't even be so silly. But... maybe some of the others." Berry turned to look at the orange-haired girl, making sure she hadn't said something hurtful, but only finding that her friend had walked over to her, moving to sit just next to Berry and showing that she intended to keep listening.

"It isn't a big deal in Ponyville," Berry continued, moving over a few inches to give the other mare some space. "At home, we have hard workers like Applejack, and the Cakes, you... everypony does what they do. But then you go somewhere like Canterlot, or the city, and there are dozens of ponies around who you just know didn't graze a single hoof to be where they are. And that really bothers me."

"Try not to be too upset," Golden frowned, gently running one hoof through her friend's mane. "I understand, you know I do, but I don't want to see you become jealous or tempered. And I know you, Berry. You've... certainly lost your temper before, more than once these past couple of years."

"I know, I know." Berry poked her muzzle against the other girl's mane, expressing her appreciation without the need for words. "And hey, nopony hated me for it, right?" Pausing and thinking back to one particular incident, the plum-coloured pony giggled quietly to herself. "Applejack really has the patience of a saint, at times."

"She's stuck with you almost as long as I have, girl," Golden chuckled, remembering the incident she was sure her friend had in mind. "I don't think you have to worry about her too much, in that regard."

As the two sat quietly together for a moment, the train crossed a very brief hump. It was enough to shake Golden Harvest's saddlebag off its place of rest and onto the floor, and as leather hit wood, a pamphlet innocently tumbled out. Across the top of the folded paper, the words "Your guide to Manehattan" could be seen in bold yellow letters. Underneath them was a stock photo of the city at night, with a popular landmark showing proudly in the center.

"I almost forgot we were supposed to be relaxing," Berry said aloud, as she eyed the pamphlet on the floor. "I think I've brooded enough. Why don't we figure out all the places you're going to take me?"

Narrowly avoiding a loving hoof to the back of her head, Berry grinned and watched as her friend hopped to the floor, tidying up her fallen belongings. Placing her bag back where it belonged, Golden kept the guide with her, unfolding it and peering down to read its contents.

"It would be nice if we could actually look forward to our trip, yes," she finally said, in response to her friend's comment. "There's a lot to choose from, and we certainly won't be able to cover the whole city in one visit." Having her nose buried beneath the paper she was holding, Golden's eyes scanned the contents, stopping near the bottom of the middle fold. "Say, do you happen to want to see a performance?"

Feeling interest in the subject, Berry climbed down from her place of rest, peering down and taking a look into the pamphlet. Offering one side of it for her friend to hold, Golden pointed her free hoof to the place she was looking, and the two of them quickly became lost in discussion of what they might do that weekend.

~~~

No less than eleven hours later, two very tired mares flopped atop their beds, with little care for finesse or grace as they buried their faces into their respective pillows. The soft and unquestioning embrace of the bedsheets was exactly what the two girls needed -- and truly wanted -- after a very, very long day in the city.

"I think..." Berry breathed, spreading all four limbs as comfortably across the bed as she could manage. "That my legs have become jelly." Gently shaking her left hind leg, she winced as a returning feeling of fatigue overtook it. "Pure jelly."

"I'm sorry," Golden Harvest chuckled, maintaining much the same position as her friend on her own set of sheets and covers, her orange mane now very frazzled and draped lazily over her front hooves. "I really didn't think we'd be out that late, and then the walk back here was much further than I'd realized..."

After the two ponies had arrived at Manehatten Station, they found the motel they were now at and immediately checked in, leaving most of their personal belongings in the room and setting back out to explore the city. Before the sun had even hinted at setting that evening, Berry and Golden had already visited monuments of every notable pony in the city's history, walked through two of the city's largest parks, had lunch at a somewhat middle-high class restaurant, and spent more time than they'd intended watching a unicorn on the street perform... interesting feats with a baton and several small critters that probably did not belong in the city in the first place.

"That guy," Berry said, recalling the same unicorn in her mind and trying not to giggle at certain mental images of a long-beaked toucan. "He was not in the pamphlet at all, Gigi."

"No, no he wasn't," the other mare grinned, the memories still fresh in her thoughts as well, as she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "We can just consider that a bonus, right?"

"A bonus? We were out so late that we can't even afford to sleep in very long tomorrow," Berry whined half-heartedly, wearing something of a pained grin as she thought ahead to yet another day of sore hooves. "You owe me for all the sweat and pain, Gi."

"I owe you nothing!" Golden exclaimed, turning her head and tossing a pillow across the room, eliciting a surprised "ack" from the other pony. "I paid your way here; you will sweat and hurt every step I do, girl."

"Blah!" Berry exclaimed in return, sticking her tongue out at her friend. Looking around the motel room, she noted a small table between the two beds. Atop it was a simple bedroom lamp, a television remote, no less than four drink coasters, and a pamphlet for Manehattan that looked very similar to the one Golden Harvest had, but was a year older.

Questioning the date of the pamphlet to herself, Berry opted for the remote control, casually picking it up and pointing it at the television set against the wall. She pressed the rather sizeable red button at the top with her other hoof, and at once a soft crackle could be heard, as the television sparked into life and an image of a taupe stallion wearing a simple grocer's hat faded into existence.

"--ome on down to Super Frank's Supermarket," the stallion spoke proudly, as a brand logo flashed itself beside him. "With over four hundred fresh items for you to enjoy -- including our special home-grown super hay -- you'll be sure to find all you need and more! Just come on down to the corner of Sixth and Mane, and look for the great big tomato. You'll be sure..."

"What do you say, Berry?" Golden asked, cutting off Super Frank and turning to face her friend once more. "Want to go grocery shopping somewhere a little more modern? I bet you they'll have juice blends there you've never even dreamed of before."

"Hah," the berry-maned girl scoffed, mostly in jest, though also completely sincerely. "I doubt that anything they have in there can stand up to the Apple family's home blends. There are no farms here; everything is probably made in some dingy factory."

As the two of them turned back to the television, Super Frank continued to express all the reasons why one should shop at his market. He began to go over individual products in detail, and Berry found herself unable to pull her gaze aside when a bottle of tomato and carrot juice was shown on the screen, as the juice poured slowly and deliberately out of the bottle and into an ordinary drinking glass. As it splashed against the side of the glass, it seemed to sparkle, and if one were to look, the same sparkle could then be seen in the depths of Berry's undying stare.

"W-Whoa," she murmured, watching as the juice swished around perfectly. "On second thought..."

"That didn't take much," Golden giggled, reaching a hoof around and catching an itch behind her left ear. "We'll stop by the market before we have to catch the train. It can be the last thing we do, so we don't have to lug the groceries around all afternoon."

"Sure."

Pointing the remote again and turning the television set back off, Berry yawned fiercely. It was definitely sleep time, and she knew she didn't have to consult her friend for this to be understood. "Wake me if you're up first, but do it gently, okay?"

"Sure thing," the pale pony replied, nodding in agreement with the idea of sleep and rolling around to find a comfortable spot atop her blankets. "Good night, Berry."

"Night, Gi."

~~~

Sunday morning had run its course smoothly for the two ponies visiting the city. Berry and Golden had started nice and early, taking a stroll through one of the parks from the previous day, before catching a show just past noon, put on by an amateur group of actors. The show had been about the history and founding of Manehattan, and although the group had only just started out performing for their first time, the show had been exceptional, to say the least.

"I think I'll come back to see them next year," Golden Harvest thought aloud, looking at her surroundings and spotting the street signs for Sixth and Mane. "That performance was amazing. I definitely think they'll go far as long as their shows keep filling up."

"I have to admit it," Berry said, peering upward and finding the giant tomato they'd been looking for. "They were really great, Gi. I'm not really a history girl, but if you came back for them, I'd come with you."

The two mares located the entrance door to Super Frank's and entered the market in front of them, half-expecting Frank himself to jump out and try to sell them something. Instead, they were greeted with a sight they weren't used to; what was easily hundreds of ponies of all kinds were spread across the long stretch that was the interior of the supermarket; around shelves, behind countertops, peeking over tables, and everywhere else you could think to see a pony in a store.

Stunned from the sight, Berry instinctively leaned toward her friend, looking around at wherever her attention span took her. The massive size of the market proved to be rather intimidating, and was easily larger than Ponyville's outdoor plaza by several sizes. Everywhere there were ponies browsing, talking, some pushing and some yelling, and Berry nearly jumped out of her coat when a nearby stallion shouted suddenly about a vegetable platter, levitating a small white tray above the crowd with his horn.

"W-wow..." Berry whispered, not immediately realizing she'd attached herself to Golden's front leg. "Somepony could get lost in here... or trampled."

"It's certainly not Ponyville," the other mare chuckled, pulling her friend close to her. "Stick close to me and you won't get lost. It'll be okay."

Nodding, Berry bravely took the first step forward, and together the two girls challenged the massive supermarket. To Berry's surprise -- much less Golden's -- they seemed to survive the adventure intact after the first fifteen minutes, and in that time the plum-coloured mare already felt like she'd never be able to view her home plaza in the same light again.

"It's just so... big," Berry mumbled, for at least the third time. "I don't even know where to start, Gi. Everypony else seems to know what they're doing."

The two had managed to detach themselves from each other, but still remained close as they turned a corner into one of the aisles near the entrance. This aisle had rows of fruits and vegetables in large baskets, and Golden Harvest took the time to poke her hoof into a pile of green apples. From nearby, another stallion could be heard yelling, although Berry wasn't able to make out any distinct words.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" she asked, noting how much more relaxed Golden seemed in general.

"Of course I have," the orange-maned pony replied with a smile, not looking up from the pile of apples as she spoke. "Think you're brave enough to explore on your own? I might be here a while, and I assume you're not interested in any apples that don't come from Sweet Apple Acres."

"I can handle myself," Berry huffed, realizing she was being teased in more ways than one. After a moment of having no particular retort to this, Berry caught her friend grinning at her, and decided at once to turn around and trot nonchalantly out of the aisle, not giving Golden the satisfaction of further teasing. She barely caught the sound of a light giggle as she turned the corner and made her way back out into the crowd.

Several minutes passed for Berry in personal silence, as she chose to keep her thoughts to herself. It didn't take her too long to realize that the atmosphere wasn't as overwhelming as it first seemed, even as she had to dodge around other ponies several times. At one point, a unicorn mare had zoomed by her, and had Berry not stepped aside at the last moment, a flying basket full of kitchenware would have knocked her silly. It was after this that she decided to retreat to the safety of another aisle, and as she stepped between a new row of shelves, she sighed to herself in delayed relief.

"Frank didn't mention anything about crazy mares and stallions..." Berry muttered, running a hoof through her mane and finding it wasn't too disturbed from the close encounter. "Now, where am I?"

Looking at her surroundings, Berry found she was the only pony in the entire aisle, which was something of both a comfort and a surprise. Peering above, a rectangular wooden sign was hanging from the ceiling, with a large "8" painted in yellow. Beside the number was a short list of several products one could find in this row, and at once one particular entry caught Berry's eye.

Beverages.

Trotting a little deeper into the aisle, the purple pony realized she was completely surrounded by glass bottles of all shapes and sizes. A huge grin crept onto her face, and she dashed further into the corridor. Her eyes twinkled as her head rapidly turned left and right toward all the different types of refreshment the shelves had to offer, every bell and whistle going off in her head.

"Eeeeeeeee," she screamed in delight, all form of self-awareness lost as she found herself in her own personal paradise. All around her, different fruits and vegetables could be seen on the labels of all the bottles. Apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, celery, tomatoes... and so many others that the pony had never had a chance to sample in her life.

Looking around as if she were committing some crime, Berry quickly started collecting bottles of interest, and it wasn't long before she had twelve unique bottles of juice in her possession. As she started to put them in her saddlebags, she realized at once that not only did she not have nearly enough space to carry it all, but that if Golden Harvest saw her, there would be no end to the teasing.

"Darn it," she muttered, looking down at her bounty in disdain. "If this is how things are going to be, I'm going to have to come back to the city again sometime. And I won't let Gigi pay for it!"

Placing no less than half the bottles back on the shelves, the earth pony spent a few minutes contemplating the decision between white grape juice -- which she had never tried before -- and an apple-blackberry blend, which she just knew couldn't compare to the one from the Apples' orchards no matter how delicious it looked and how much she felt like drooling at that moment.

... Which she nearly was, she realized, sheepishly wiping her mouth dry with one leg. Perhaps she was getting out of hand just a little. Looking at her options and quickly choosing to side with the grape juice, Berry tucked away all the bottles she wanted, squeaking to herself in glee and bidding a very pained farewell to that wonderful aisle in the supermarket.

Turning the corner and looking around, Berry didn't see her friend anywhere. In that case, she figured, she may as well check some other aisles while her bags still had some room to spare. Taking a left turn into the very next aisle with a giant yellow "9" shown up top, Berry quickly realized that she was in the health and personal care lane. There wasn't anything too outlandish to be found; it was mostly soaps, shampoos, a few awkward hoofcare products...

"This much doesn't seem too different from Ponyville," the berry mare said to herself, stepping lightly to the side as an elderly mare walked by. "The same brands and everything; it sort of feels like I'm already home."

Not really intending to use her precious bag space on items she could buy at home, Berry turned to find another aisle to browse... but... wait a moment...

"Huh?" she said aloud, taking a more direct look at a shelf she'd barely glanced at. On it, there were many boxes of toothpaste, of varying brands and flavours. But the one that caught her eye had a picture of a unicorn's face on it, smiling and showing off her shining white teeth -- presumably, of course, to imply that the toothpaste in the box was responsible for her radiant smile.

"I know you," Berry Punch whispered to the box of "Coltgate" toothpaste. The pony with the shining teeth had a blue and white mane, coinciding rather nicely with the toothpaste that looked almost identical in nature. Staring for a few more seconds, Berry realized that the unicorn on the box was a Ponyville resident. A mailmare or something. Somepony who everypony saw once in a while, she knew for fact.

"Yeah, I've seen you before!" she exclaimed, feeling unnecessarily perplexed at the sight she was seeing. "That's definitely the same girl. The one who runs deliveries around town. I saw her just this week, I'm sure!"

"Berry?" came a familiar voice. Golden Harvest walked toward her friend from the end of the aisle. "Who in Equestria are you talking to?"

"Do you know this pony?" Berry asked, using an almost demanding tone as she pointed one hoof toward the box of Coltgate. "From Ponyville, right?"

"That's... Minuette?" Golden replied, rather certain she was correct, but having no idea why such a thing could be true. Reaching with one hoof and taking the Coltgate off the shelf, she examined it further. "That's definitely her," the yellow mare concluded. "What is she doing on a box of toothpaste? ... And Coltgate is usually a colt-driven brand anyways; I would have expected her on a box of Fillymint or Dentamare, if nothing else."

"So it is her," Berry nodded, ignoring the rest of her friend's tangent for the moment and returning her gaze to the shelf, where a hundred more boxes with the same girl's face could still be seen. "That's just weird. I haven't seen this brand in Ponyville at all."

"We don't get Coltgate in Ponyville," Golden said, placing the toothpaste back on the shelf. "Minuette probably wouldn't want people back home to realize she'd found a place in product advertising like this anyways. She's an awfully humble girl. It would be embarrassing to her if suddenly everypony in town recognized her as a product face."

"Ehhhn," was the sound Berry Punch made in response to this, taking the same box her friend had been looking at into her left hoof, staring down at it as the gears in her head visibly turned. "I think I'll take this home with me," she said, sliding the box neatly between her bottles of juice, with a light clanging noise as glass shifted against glass.

"Whoa there, girl," Golden chuckled, at once knowing what those sounds had meant. "You know there's still juice back home, right? Ponyville isn't running dry, you know."

"S-shush," Berry hushed her friend, blushing a little and looking away. "We don't get white grapes at home, and I really want to try some of these. And if I like what I taste, we're coming back to Manehattan so that I can try more of them, and this time I'm paying the train fare."

"Anything for you, Berry," the other girl shook her head, smiling. "It looks like you found everything you wanted, in any case." Looking down at her saddlebags, Golden made sure the flaps were clasped down properly, as the bags bulged with the mare's own loot. "You're right, though; we really must come shopping here again. Shall we get going?"

Berry nodded, and the two ponies walked out of the aisle toward the front of the store, looking around for the payment counter and quickly spotting three long lines of stationary ponies. While Berry didn't immediately realize what this meant, it quickly dawned upon her when Golden trotted to the back of one of the lines, standing idly behind no less than about eighteen other ponies, and looking back toward her friend.

"... Oi," was all Berry Punch had to say.

~~~

The train ride home was somewhat more quiet than the trip to the city had been. The passenger car that the two ponies were resting in was populated by beds rather than comfort chairs, and neither mare could think to complain about this. As the friends lay atop a bed together on the left side of the car, their legs thanked them, being quite tired from the long day on the streets.

"It's funny," Berry said quietly, not bothering to open her eyes as she lay in peace with her head against the bed surface. "Ten hours on the farm is nothing to me now, but being in the city and seeing the sights takes so much more out of you. Maybe we should wait a few months before doing this again, Gi."

"Poor girl," the pale mare chuckled, sitting in a more upright position and looking around the train car. Like before, they seemingly were the only two in their particular car, and Golden idly wondered if they'd picked an unpopular time of the year to visit the city. Surely there were ponies who commuted on a regular basis?

"Hmm," she thought aloud, dragging Berry's saddlebags across the bed. "I know what'll liven you up, Berry. Why don't we open one of your drinks and try it out? If there's one thing that I know gets your juices flowing again -- no pun intended -- it's... ... um."

Having lifted one bottle up into the sunlight shining from the window, Golden had stopped her own sentence upon reading the label on the bottle to herself. "100% pure eggplant and carrot, with added cinnamon, peppermint, and... garlic?" she repeated aloud, rather unsure if she could find the appeal in such a thing. "Let's find something a little more... fit for pony consumption."

"Hey now," the other pony said, rolling over and opening her eyes to watch her friend. "You never know until you try it! That's my motto."

"I'll pass, I'm afraid." Retrieving another bottle from the bag, Golden was relieved when it featured something much more normal and familiar to her tastes on the label. "Orange and banana with carrot. Does everything in here have carrot in it?"

"Have a craving for something, Carrot Top?" Berry joked, quickly receiving a light shove on the head from her friend. The offending name had started back during their days as schoolfillies, as an unfortunate result of bullying. However, it eventually evolved into a nickname of endearment among friends as the ponies had grown older, and remained as such.

"You can have the first taste, Gi," the purple mare continued, returning to the name she had chosen for her friend personally, and sitting up from her laying position on the bed. "Just make sure you save some for me if you end up liking it~"

Nodding, Golden Harvest opened the bottle after fumbling with it for a few moments. The bottles from Frank's were factory sealed with a strange sort of cap, rather than the corks used in Ponyville, but the carrot-topped girl figured it out quickly enough. Tipping her head back, she carefully sampled the beverage, hoping that the train wouldn't hit some kind of random bump as she did. No such bump occurred, and a few seconds later she removed the bottle from her mouth, letting out something of a contented sigh.

"Delicious," Golden smiled, offering the bottle to her now upright friend. "I do love carrots, of course, but I think it's the orange that really does it for me here. I think you'll like this one."

Tipping her head in much the same way as the other girl, Berry Punch took a somewhat less conserving swig of the drink, in a way that resembled any colt or filly spending a late night at a bar. Golden observed this and held herself back from giggling at the sight. The bars in Trottingham or Fillydelphia would be hard-pressed to find a mare more willing to guzzle drink from a bottle, with or without the questionable allure of alcohol.

"You're right," Berry said at last, peering down at the bottle which now contained approximately a third of the liquid it started with. "The orange totally does it. The carrot is really an afterthought, I'd wager." Taking another quick sip, she licked her mouth and finally put the bottle down. "Delicious. You can have the rest, if you'd like."

"It's yours, girl," the other mare replied, holding a hoof up. "I've got plenty of my own stuff from the market. You should keep your drinks for yourself."

Pulling her saddlebag back from Golden's side of the bed and returning the bottle to where it belonged, Berry reached in to grab another one at random. Instead, though, she managed to touch her hoof down to the box of toothpaste she had purchased. Pulling it out curiously, she looked down at the picture of the smiling mare again, as if trying to figure out whether the sparkling white teeth had changed in any way since she last saw them.

"Do you know this Colgate girl very well, Gi?" she asked, as the conversation in the grocery store surfaced to the front of her thoughts again. "I see her around town a lot, but I really don't know her."

"'Minuette,'" Golden corrected her friend automatically, not putting much conscious thought into doing so. "Yes, she and I see each other a fair amount, so we're pretty good friends. I'm surprised with you though, Berry. You aren't the type to really forget things."

"Forget things?" the purple pony echoed the words. "Should I know her better?"

"She was part of our group during the last Winter Wrap Up. Although we didn't need to talk much, the three of us and Cherry were all sectioned off into our own group, and we all saw each other before really getting down to work."

"Oh," was all Berry had to say, already knowing why this wasn't ringing many bells. "I was sick last Wrap Up, remember? I just wanted to be in and out of the job as quickly as possible, and then get back to my bed. It wasn't a very good time."

"That's true, isn't it," Golden said, her ears folding down as she recalled the memory. "You were working really hard out there, and then you ended up making yourself even sicker..." Trailing off, Golden looked down in the direction of her front hooves with a somber expression, the image of Berry sick in bed bringing back another particularly painful memory.

"I had to do what I could, Gi," Berry said after a moment, not noticing her friend's falling demeanor. "It's the only way to keep up on all four hooves."

Or to miss the ground beneath them entirely, Golden sighed to herself, the other mare's comments doing little to keep the newly invading thoughts at bay before she had a chance to dismiss them. Wrap Up wasn't the only time you worked yourself nearly to death...

~~~

There had been a time where the two earth ponies had been set to do some very early morning work on a particularly cold and gloomy autumn day. The night before, Berry had gotten a letter from her then-landlord that if she couldn't keep up rent by Thursday that week, that he would have to ask her to leave and find somewhere else to be. It wasn't a matter of a bad relationship between the two, but outside circumstances had forced the landlord's hand, and Berry was the pony that had to take the hit for it.

As things had been, Berry and Golden hadn't gotten much sleep the night of the letter. Berry was up crying because her part-time job wasn't nearly enough to cover the rent, and the other pony had stayed at her apartment until the late hours consoling her and doing her best to make good of the situation. In the end, Golden offered her friend a job on the farm for one day, at the unconsented expense of one of her other workers, and the two agreed to start early and work late in order to make up enough to pay Berry's rent. It was only a few hours before sunrise when Golden finally left the apartment to return home and get a few hours' rest, and the two were set to meet again just after the sun rose to start the day.

Things took a turn for the even worse, however, when the pale-coated mare returned to her friend's home later that morning. Before she even reached the front door, Golden heard a sob from deep within the other side, and after knocking for over a minute and having nothing happen, her worry quickly escalated into panic. Deciding it was the best course of action, Golden raised both front hooves and promptly broke down the double-locked door, stepping in and nearly choking when she realized why her friend had not opened it for her.

At the bottom of the stairs leading to her bedroom lay Berry Punch huddled against the wall, shivering and crying her eyes out while holding her front leg out as far away from her body as possible. There were small trickles of blood both across the bottom steps and surrounding Berry's hoof, and as Golden rushed over to see her friend, she realized the hoof in question was bent very much in the wrong direction. Without a moment's hesitation, Golden Harvest threw her satchels to the floor, several personal belongings flying across the room. Picking the other mare up off the ground and doing her absolute best to make no contact with the broken leg, Golden encouraged Berry to hold on tight with her good leg, and rushed out of the apartment as fast as her hooves would take her.

Several hours after Berry had been admitted to the hospital and put to rest, Golden had already been around Ponyville roughly three times, doing everything from setting someone else in charge of the farm for the day, to personally tidying up Berry's hallway, and then to meeting up with the landlord to discuss Berry's rent. Golden knew how much her friend hated free help, but this situation was far too important to consider the girl's stubborn pride, and she knew she had the power to make it better... or so she thought.

"What do you mean, you won't accept it?!" Golden demanded, not to Berry Punch, but to the pony that she was now conversing with.

"I'm sorry, miss," the landlord said, his gaze wavering between sincere concern and something of an unwilling coldness. "I can't keep her as a tenant. The conditions I set for her were really something more of a soft four days' notice. She isn't capable of keeping up rent on her own, and I have other ponies to feed and a very important investment I need to consider."

"But I have the money!" Golden nearly shouted, putting a hoof to her face and rubbing it a little in her attempts to relax herself. "I mean, look, what difference does it make if I pay for a couple of months? You get your bits and you can continue to feed your ponies and your investment or whatever. What's the problem?"

"I'm sorry," the other pony repeated, the look in his eyes remaining the same. "But it has to be like this. If it makes things any easier, the apartment doesn't need to be cleared out until Sunday, and I'd appreciate it if you could tell her this when you see her again, as I'm sure you will."

The stallion subtly motioned toward the door to his room, and as Golden opened her mouth to protest further, she realized that this wasn't a fight she could win, least of all in her angered and desperate state. Clenching her teeth and fighting back the urge to break into tears, the mare lowered her head, turning and leaving the landlord's home without saying another word.

Berry, she said her friend's name inwardly to herself, as she reached the front step to the house. I'm sorry.

Stepping out onto the streets and not regarding the thunderclap above, Golden Harvest kept her head hung down as the forecasted rain began to fall onto Ponyville. Her mane soon became dark and soaking wet in the downpour, and Golden walked back to the hospital at her own slow pace, her heart crushed and her mind having no idea how she was going to break the worst of the worst news to her friend.

~~~

"Gi?"

At once Golden's thoughts halted, and not unlike the end of a slideshow movie, all the lights of real life turned back on in the room around her, as she realized she was still on a train headed home.

"Oh," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with one hoof and looking toward her friend. "Sorry, Berry. Did I zone out there?"

"Kinda," Berry said, with a questioning look. "You got really quiet on me all of a sudden. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's okay," the orange-maned girl replied, giving herself a light slap on the face. "I got lost in thought, it seems. Don't mind me." There's no sense letting the past get to me, she thought for a moment. Berry's finally on her hooves for good, and I'm sure she wouldn't want me letting all those years trouble me now. Get your head on straight, Carrot Top.

With a pause and a few moments passing with no given response, stray thoughts swirled around Golden's mind and she remembered what the two of them had been talking about only minutes before. "Say," she started, sitting up straight. "Why are you so interested in Minuette, Berry? What's on your mind?"

"Ehh?" replied Berry, realizing at that point that she hadn't been especially trying about hiding her focus on the presented subject. "There's just... stuff on my mind too, I guess. Don't get the wrong idea."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like, if Colgate -- uh, Minuette -- if she's a public face now, couldn't any simple pony girl be one too?" Peering outside in consideration, Berry continued speaking before her friend could really respond. "I'm really not the biggest fan of camera crews or the big stage or anything, but I could make a lot of money and not have to worry anymore if I had some sort of contract or position, even if it was just short-term."

"Ahhh," Golden said, finally understanding where everything was going. "I can tell why one might have been struck when seeing Minuette; her mane truly looks like that toothpaste. I never really noticed it since knowing her. But, you know that they won't just take anyone who comes up and asks for a contract like that, or else every filly would get a chance to be a star. It doesn't normally work that way."

"I know, Gi..."

Turning and laying on the bed again, the berry mare bit down on herself gently, one of her personal tells that meant she was deep in thought, and probably nervous about what was on her mind. "I figure, if I could get a good word in from Colgate, maybe I'd have my chance too, you know? But I don't really want to make friends with her just for her fame, in that way. I'm not one of those foals who just wants to be with somepony because she's got social status."

"You certainly won't make friends by calling her 'Coltgate' all the time," the other pony frowned, knowing better than to give her friend too much trouble about it, but laying it on the table anyways. "Minuette is a sweet mare, though. I think you should be friends with her regardless, Berry."

"Ehh, it's kind of a dumb pursuit anyway." Leaving the toothpaste box on her bed, Berry pulled out the mostly-consumed bottle of juice again, looking down at the written contents. "Besides," she muttered, moving to remove the cap. "My face isn't nearly as good on the label, I bet. My mane just looks like fruity goop. Maybe they can use me for baby food, haha."

"Sorry, Berry," Golden chuckled, not knowing how else to respond to that idea. "Still, I think you should get to know her, sometime. We'll probably see her during Wrap Up again next year, too, and in the end I do think you're onto something. Having that kind of work could be a big step up for you. It can't hurt to ask, just, make sure you're not pushy about it."

"Maybe I'll ask Applejack for some ideas," Berry responded, somewhat dismissively. This topic was quickly coming to a close for her. "She's really good at meeting and greeting new ponies, and all that. I still think it might be better for me to just lose the idea, though..."

"Mmm," the yellow mare hummed, taking note of her friend's shrinking demeanor. "Why don't we talk about something else? We just had a long day, and you look tired. Let's think about some other things until tomorrow, at least."

A moment passed, and before Golden could consider a direction to lead the conversation, one was presented to her. "... That toucan, Gi," Berry Punch grinned, remembering the spectacle they'd seen in the city and happily seizing the chance to change the subject. "I just couldn't wrap my head around it at all. I still can't!"

Both ponies giggled, and before long they became lost in discussion of all the things they'd witnessed that weekend, laughing happily at all the good memories and quickly forgetting their troubles as the train continued its journey back home.