“If you wanna stop the bleeding, you gotta hold your head back.”
Rarity nodded. Magic pressed a nasty rag to her little nose, with twisted and soaked nubs where she had plugged the nosebleed before.
“Forgive me,” she rasped as she heeded my advice. Our table in the big diner was out in the open, where traffic was heavy. Her mane, which hung over the seat back, brushed the flanks of passerby squeezing through, all to her immense distaste. “This could not have been a worse meeting!” she cried quite nasally to me.
For Fern’s part — that's me — I continued to devour my tulip panini. See, you'd think we were acquaintances. You wouldn't know that she had just introduced herself not even a couple minutes before I began this story.
The crazy broad found me like a heat seeking missile. I saw her rubbernecking the moment she set hoof in the diner. Bloody rag to her face and looking like she was combating a head cold, I had thought she'd left her wallet the day before and death marched through illness to get it.
Lo, she saw me. She sat with me.
I'm Rarity.
Good day, miss. You know, you should lean back with that nosebleed.
Now she looked like a yuppie mare who'd just been clocked, frozen in time.
I glanced at the table. Nothing on her side yet. The waitress, strangely or perhaps not, skipped over Rarity on a couple rounds, but she gave me a refill.
I pushed it over to the broad. The clatter of ice caught her attention.
“Drink up,” I said.
She immediately shook her head. “I couldn't. My backwash is a biohazard right now.”
“You take it then. You're the one bleeding here.”
She huffed. “I thought lemon-squeezed ice water was your favorite?”
I pointed at the distinct lime wedge that the waitress refused to fix. “While that wild guess was on the money, you fail to see what limes before you.”
Rarity snatched the glass hastily and chugged. She seemed impervious to brain freeze with how fast it went, and I even checked if the ice was dry.
“Thank you, Fern.”
Then I found my mouth was dry instead.
I looked up, eyes wide. “Excuse me? I haven't introduced myself yet.”
She ignored that. Rarity hefted the saddlebags she had been carrying on the table, clumsy so that a bunch of papers spilled out. One sketch — all of these were magnificent drawings — got caught in the puddle my drink had left.
A stallion in a suit. Milky tan and brown pinstripes, almost the shade of the page. The fellow had a messy, uncut mane and handsome wrinkles. In a way, he looked a lot like me.
No, it was exactly me. That suit? You remember me telling you how I dreamed about it, a dream that’ll never be written down. That was the suit of my dreams, down to the wrinkle.
Rarity cautiously pulled the rag away and found the bleeding had subsided. When she saw the drawing I was in awe at, she giggled quite mischievously.
“You look rather dreamy,” she said.
I looked at her. Then back at the page. Then her.
“Are… are you some cocaine fairy?”
“My my, Fern. You haven’t called me that in awhile. Though I do suppose now is a better time as any for that name,” she said before snorting down some more blood, albeit none too eager.
The waitress orbited near our table again. I leaned over the chair back with hoof out, as if to hail her taxi ass. “Look, I’m just gonna get my check and scram. You’re too many shades of weird for me!” I called to her.
The waitress glanced at me. Before I could say my piece, she sneered and stomped away.
I blinked.
Rarity snorted. When I turned back around, I caught her mouthing something. Pitch? Bisque? You know what it was.
“What's her problemo? Serious shade here,” I said.
Magic tugged all the loose sketches into a pile with corners askew and careless. “That filly was not made for the service industry. Let alone any that require interaction.”
That waitress came back with the check. Specifically, she chucked it on the table hard enough that it slid all the way off on the other side. Me and Rarity stared her down, and she didn't back off. With a scowl, she glared at me.
“Still can't remember, old guy?” she bit.
“Can't say that I have.”
Truthfully, this was the first time I've been here. I didn't need to explain myself to rude rats like her.
“Have an awful day, then. A day just full of awe. Yeah.”
With that, she stomped off.
I knew I couldn't wipe my bewilderment off my face after that one. Rarity just shook her head. “Don't even ask, Fern. It's a very inane but fascinating story.”
“Now that makes me wanna know even more, you know?”
I placed a couple bits on the table, pondering why they charged for water here. Seriously, you shouldn't go to the Big Grin. Bad service, my friend.
Rarity stood up first and moved to my side, but I got up and away from the crazy mare and made a half-hearted shuffle to the exit. The younger mare bounded ahead of me and got the door.
I sighed. “Okay, first of all? I'm only fifty. Second, I'm trying to get away from you. I'm old, so don't follow me everywhere, would ya?”
“You're not old, but you're old? I fear I must accompany you further, Mr. Confusion!” she said with more than a little cheer.
So be it, I told myself. Besides, with her leading the way, I had more than my hooves to stare at.
Disheveled as she was, Rarity certainly had an aura about her. Confidence that I couldn't just see as misplaced, but a heaping helping of humility to always appear at a disadvantage.
I guess you'll see why.
I hadn't told Rarity where I was going next, but it was clear that she knew somehow. In the distance, you could see the beehive that was the Pegasus Postage System. I had my weekly due there. The first to break in my new home of Ponyville all the way in. Exciting.
On the way there, you'd find a coffee shop that the pegasi loved. It looked pretty Eastern in presentation, what with the stools outside a tiny little kitchen building. Chained under an awning, it truly hearkened to my hometown of Manhattan.
No wonder I saw Golden Mane waiting for me there last week.
Rarity, for once, seemed none the wiser. She looked mighty concerned when my face darkened, though.
She bit her lip. “Um, Valley Fern. How come— h-how come you drink something so plain? Water and a lemon squeeze. Hardly any flavor.”
That’s what they all said. I sniffed. “Look, I got plenty of flavor in my life already. My ears are as picky as a princess fresh outta diapers, but my tongue would settle for cardboard. That’s just me.”
“Miss Shores said your ears were a national treasure to me once.”
Ah. There it is. Rarity kept looking ahead, as if she knew I wouldn’t have an entertaining reaction to that.
Sapph liked to talk about Fern. Valley Fern, the stallion to know, the one who sent her straight to number one. She had the charisma and energy, where Fern was just a tired old guy. An old guy who knew how to get the kids outta their seats, that’s what!
My weekly dues? Airplay, baby. Not like I every worked a day in my life after I got my first bit for playing guitar, but now I really wouldn’t have to work a day in my life again.
I chuckled, almost as raspy as the cocaine fairy after that gush earlier. “Well, wouldn’t you know it. One of my stalkers found me. You itchin’ for some of my bits now? Pity you look like you crawled out from under a greasy piece of cardboard, then. I wouldn’t let you near my c—”
“I don’t want bits.”
Her voice was low. Almost a growl, actually. I looked up to Rarity. Disbelief ruled me yet. A growl? It didn’t sound sultry. And she glared at me something fierce. Even the passerby spared a glance at this red-eyed she-beast.
I bowed my head. “Right. Sorry for that crudeness. It comes out easy when ponies try to get yours, you know?”
Rarity sighed. “You shouldn’t apologize. I knew it’d look suspicious on my part once I’d say that. Not many ponies know your real name, do they?”
“A lotta ponies know Granite Coast. A hoofful know Valley Fern. Wonders what being in the background do for your freedom. You can stand in at award shows one night, play a coffee shop that don’t appreciate you at all the next morning.”
“I find that hard to accept. But easy to believe. Ponies are always so caught up in their race to smell the flowers. Ferns, in your case.”
We were almost there. It felt high time to start shedding light on all this.
“Look, you knew my name. My profession. Th-that suit. Just who are you, Rarity?”
Rarity. I never read the papers, frankly. I wear the same thirty year old faux leather jacket every day, so I’m about as stylish as a corpse. No surprise I hadn’t a clue what the magnitude of the mare I had met was.
“I'm a friendly neighbor,” she simply said. “I wouldn't want you to go to bed feeling like a stranger. I lived in Manhattan for a few months. That's the one thing that ruined it for me.”
“You look like the sort who'd have business there.”
“You could say that.”
We arrived as if on cue. I hovered close to the crowded entrance and waited for Rarity to make move.
The mare nearly walked in without me before she turned around. “What's wrong?”
I raised a brow. “You're too old to be a filly scout as it is. I don't need no escort into the damned post office.”
A few times, Rarity got to her tippy hooves to look around while I ranted. I found it strange, but that was on a long list of things. She smiled nervously at me. “Why, I also have business in there. What's so strange about that?” The mare seemed to fast talk when she got like that.
“So we just happened to walk each other here?”
“Indeed. Nothing strange. Nothing at all.”
“Ack. I guess I can't argue there.”
Maybe I was being too cautious. It was one of them things where it sounds like gospel in your head but absurd when you actually say it. How she new Sapph and my real name could have been explained easily. Maybe she was a kindred spirit. I'd never met her, but I likely could have forgot. Maybe I was the rude one here.
Then I recalled my dream suit.
I shook my head to clear it. I moved past Rarity when she was on another stake-out. She yelped and hurried ahead of me. “F-Fern! Forgive me. Let me get that door.”
I huffed and let her have at it. “I'm starting to question your credentials as a tour guide, you silly broad.”
She gasped in offense as she held the door for me. “Celestia! How rude of you! For shame! Why do you say such things to a lady?”
“You been sightseeing more than the guy who just moved in, that's why!”
At that, Rarity bit her lip, pensive. “I-I'm expecting someone in town today. Pins and needles, so they say. I'd rather do my business with them sooner than later.”
So then I got in line. There were three pencil pushing pegasi serving the horde. I figured it'd be quick if nothing strange came up, so I put the interrogation on hold.
Small talk! Easy. I cleared my throat while Rarity danced in place. “Bit nippy for a May afternoon, huh?”
“Quite.” She left me hanging at that.
I pouted. “You must know this town real good. A fresh face would have their head spinning if they thought they could pick out someone in a big ass crowd like that.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t easy to learn. I was made to mingle with a party popper to my head. There was no escape.”
“You make it sound like there’s some crooked clowns around town.”
“Crooked as they come, Fern. If you try to cut them, they bleed pure cake frosting. They’re that sinister.”
We got waved up by a grey mare with cross eyes. The placard on her desk read ‘Ditzy’, and she went from bubbles and smiles to weary the moment she saw me. I glanced between her and Rarity. Twins in the brow right about now. Nonetheless, Ditzy gave me a soft, sweet smile.
And can I just say? Honestly, she’s pretty cute, man. You should ask her out one of these days.
“Hello mister, welcome to the Ponyville Pegasus Postal Service Office,” she mumbled.
Mister? Kinda childish, but endearing. “Quite the mouthful,” I quipped. “Anyways, I’m here to pick up something. I believe it’s my first package in town, too.”
The pegasus to her right side-eyed me real hard but kept on working. Ditzy nodded wide to keep my attention. “Right, right. I d-don’t think I’ve seen you stop by yet! What’s the name on it?”
“Valley Fern.”
I watched her flip through a bunch of papers. Sapph has a secretary, to this day I believe, that I got to know real well. She’d always pretend to be working when her boss wasn’t looking. And here, Ditzy almost pulled a fast one, but I saw the names on the pages she flipped. All R’s and T’s.
“Aha! Lemme go get it for you!” she exclaimed before disappearing to the back.
While that went on, Rarity stood close to the window by the desks, doing her mane in the vague reflection. The noseblood forced the mouth-breathing, so I could excuse that and call her a genuine beauty. All well and good, but it was also silly for her to assume I’d hold her spot in line while she buggered off for that silliness.
While I contemplated that, Ditzy came back with a familiar little box. The thing made not a sound as she trotted up. I always asked my banker to bag ‘em tight, in case some postal postpony find out there was easy money to be had. No way anyone would know what was inside.
No way.
“Here’s your bits, Mister Fern,” Ditzy said, immediately throwing a hoof over her mouth.
I could feel the eyes crawling on my back at that. Couldn’t say if it was because of Ditzy’s and Rarity’s equally overt reactions or the thing that shall not be named.
What I could say was that I took my package and immediately stormed off.
Now you might be wondering. How did either of ‘em know? You know Rarity was in on it. I’m not stupid, so of course I immediately ran for it. Better to let the authorities handle it than cause a scene where I can do nothing.
It all felt so wrong. Maybe that mare really was a cocaine fairy, looking for some bits. Maybe cross-eyes was just as messed up. I was angry. Livid.
That is, until I got home.
I had woken up that morning and, as is my wont, immediately got dressed and went for a walk. It was too dark to see much of anything at my waking hour. When I stepped in my door, I saw the same old messy abode, papers covered in reject lyrics laying around. My guitar, Joy, on the wall where I left her.
I saw a photo between her strings. One I hadn’t put the night before.
I snatched it up and set it in the light.
It was Rarity and I. It was in a place I'd never been to, with racks and racks of lovely outfits. And Rarity? She had a face of surprise, redeye in the midst of turning around. I was the one with a shit-eating grin, foreleg out of the shot as of I were the one who hit the button.
I never took this photo.
But in the photo, I was obviously the one taking it. With Rarity. The one trying to swindle me.
Quickly, I ran to my calendar. The box of bits I had brought in caught my eye. Slowly, I crept up to it.
It had to have been posted ‘11 May’. Usually a couple days before I get it. Funny, I always took what the boxes said for granted up till now. I had a little trouble finding the numbers.
And when I did, it read ‘19 September.’.
I gulped. Checking the calendar, it hung on May. It was dusty. I knew I neglected calendars pretty bad, but I only hung it last week.
There was a knock on my door.
I meandered to the window and peeked to see her.
Rarity, all worry on that pretty face.
I answered her after another round of knocks.
She looked as shocked as I did when I first met her. I must have looked a sight. Then, she became frantic when it became clear I wouldn't slam the door on her.
“Fern, look. I was hoping today would be different. I already knew it'd be a train wreck when— when— I knew it would be. I made too many mistakes. Please, just—”
I put a hoof to her mouth.
“Listen? Yeah, I’ll do that. I’m gonna hope what I hear is answers from you, or I’ll close this door and move on with my life.”
Like an a capella bella, Rarity took a tiny breath. Her legs wobbled, but her face was dead set. And with all that determination, Rarity…
She began to hum.
The tune rose and fell. Minor key, but not that somber. Spacious, but never sparing a moment. Only after the fact did I learn the words.
Pale pony.
Cold as death.
Tragic as words unsaid,
Her journey takes her through a street.
A soul.
Limp and lifeless,
Carried upon her back,
Another guest in her domain.
Together, they creep through,
Thousand eyes unseeing,
In this echoing, dead village.
Her legs begin to tire.
Her heavy eyes drift shut.
The lone breath in the cold soon fades.
She can go on no more.
The soul slips from her back.
Time breaks around them, like stones in a river.
But the soul, he stands up.
Deathly sleep shaken off,
He picks up his companion and moves on.
I was captivated. The melody made my hackles rise. Few songs not of my making could do that.
In the back of my mind, I had a feeling this was another act I never performed, yet one I was responsible for. Rarity’s eyes were puffy, but nothing more.
“We wrote that a couple weeks ago. You had gotten sick. Every morning, you were frightened from it. I visited all those days, and one day you wanted to write a song. The day I told you everything.”
Sick? All those days?
“But I only got here a week ago,” I mumbled. If this were a prank, it was certainly twisted. I wanted to run to every house on the block, the next and the next and ask what today was. Then I worried they'd be in on it. Maybe something terrible lay at the end of the rabbit hole.
But looking at Rarity, feelings written all over her face, I couldn't believe that. No, I just couldn't believe she would be the villain here.
But she could have been acting.
But maybe she was just as much a victim.
But maybe she wanted me to think that.
I hated to even entertain the idea. There was but one thing to do.
My book. I always write in that book. A diary, you could say. It's something I hardly ever reread unless I needed some perspective.
I went to it. Rarity stood at the door. The ball of nerves did her best to keep an eye on me without setting a hoof into this place.
Milling through the writing desk of the living room, I couldn't help but roll my eyes hard enough that my head moved with it. “Have a seat, you crazy broad!” I called. “Standing at the door like that is just weird. Only kids who hit a ball through my window do that kinda thing!”
My shout made her hop, but she brushed it off and came inside cautiously. “I suppose you're right, Fern. I didn't realize how ridiculous I was looking.”
“What, with that first impression you made today, I'd have thought ‘ridiculous’ wasn't in your dictionary.”
On my couch did she fall on, swooning like some soap opera chick. “Why, you blasted old coot! You were the one who insinuated I did drugs then. Act even a little ashamed, would you?”
I found the book. I didn't bother keeping up the banter. My heart raced.
From the first page, it was as I remembered. The dates were almost random upon the pages. A vague timeline mixed with my stream of consciousness. I flipped and flipped. Old memories, starting from six years ago, came up. It wasn't often something moved me enough to have itself committed. I'd only got halfway through this journal as of last week.
Whatever that meant.
And when I fanned the pages on what I thought was the last page, I saw ink.
Lots. At least thirty pages. Frantic, I skipped to them.
Lyrics. Stories. All things I didn't remember.
Rarity. Rarity. Rarity.
I peered over my shoulder. She looked at the floor like a criminal in chains would. Guilty. Tongue tied.
Bank statements made for bookmarks. The exorbitant numbers absolved her from any real crime.
It had to be true. My journal? Only I knew about it, besides you. You wouldn't write in it, not lightly.
My breaths grew shuddery. An old house off the coast, shuddery but stalwart.
“You've known me for a long time,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
Her head hung.
“I told you about that dream suit.”
“Yes.”
I looked through the journal again. All the prior days, they started the same. I always kept one specific record: how I slept that night.
Bad. Bad. Bad. Terrible. Sleepless. All I saw. That is, until I started talking about Rarity like a friend.
Great. Fantastic. Like a baby.
They all described my morning up until I met Rarity.
My ears rang. Denial seemed tempting. I could just send this mare away and go about my day. But the more I read, the surprising difficulty of that task became clear. Countless songs, songs harkening back to my teenaged years with their manner, filled the pages. Confused, meandering words. Words that weren’t good enough as soon as I spelled them out. Frustrated that my intentions died the second they left my heart, no doubt.
I read a little around the entries.
One day, Rarity brought me a jar of honey. She whipped up some delicious, soothing tea and then we talked about the ‘principles of orchestration’. Knowing me, that was either true or a euphemism. But seeing Rarity biting her hooves while I read, maybe it was just that innocent.
Another time, she helped me restring my guitar. Half the page was all grievances and protests. No strange was allowed to touch my Joy, damn it. Where it stopped, I saw curvy and flowing writing, an apology from Rarity for finishing the task after I had fainted from illness.
Two days after that, Golden Mane had visited. I drew an ‘X’ on the corner of a page if she’d been around. I was beyond sparing words for her.
So I thought. I talked about sister Golden Mane here. How Rarity and her butted heads.
‘You should just walk away.’ It said I couldn’t stand at this point. Rarity stood up for me.
‘Step aside, you little rat. I’m sick of you getting in the way.’
‘Oh, petty insults? Perhaps I’m winning this war of attrition. You won’t get to his bits, no matter how you try.’
‘You know you can’t keep this up forever. Look at him. He probably shouldn’t be outside a Luna-damned hospital. He don’t got a use for the bits piling up in his lap. What, did he wake up today, bent on grocery shopping? Such ambition. I’m a locksmitch, kid. I don’t even get to see my family most days a month. Imagine! I could’ve retired if I had my way with my worthless brother all this time.’
‘But I’m here. Until we find a way, he’ll not wake up another day feeling down. He won’t wake up, robbed blind by a vulture by you.’
‘Kid, you tell me. Sate my curiosity here. Does he even appreciate you?’
Guilt twisted my gut. The me who wrote this probably couldn’t stand to write anymore.
It couldn’t anything but true at that point. Absurd, unlikely, fantastical. Rarity’s kindness surpassed the situation the more I dwelled.
But it felt so distant. The Rarity on my couch was defeated. Scared of speaking to me. She kept me company today, sure, but I wound up not trusting her for whatever reason. She worked through fatigue and a complete lack of gratitude on my part to be here today.
That, in itself, made me feel gratitude.
I snapped the book shut and stood. Rarity made herself spare in the plush couch, hoping it’d swallow her up and relieve the burden of reality in this room.
However, I held my hoof out. “Thank you. I can’t even be sure what’s going on anymore, but you kept me company today. I have to thank you for it.”
Eyes on my hoof, Rarity shook her head slowly. “There is absolutely nothing to thank me for. I’m but a stranger who happened to worry about you.”
“No you’re not. I read enough. Seen enough. Maybe I don’t really understand, but your story moved me.”
“Really.” She looked away. “My friend Pinkie Pie is much better at this sort of thing. Making friends is all well and good. Maybe that’s above and beyond for the average pony, but I know I could have done better today.”
I grunted. The mare didn’t know how to take a compliment or a ‘thank you’. “How about we make it a bargain. We’ll call today a rousing success if you hold up your end.”
Her ears perked. “Y-you don’t think I’m a thief? Or that I’m some malicious stranger?”
“I know you’re one strange cat, but I’m too old to practice ‘stranger danger’. What can you do to me, anyways? Crochet me to death?”
“Har har. Very well, let’s hear it. What do you demand of me?”
I didn’t answer right away. I moved to pick up Joy on the other side of the room. Rarity watched, respectful. She must have known how I rolled pretty good.
You remember how it was with Sapph, right, my friend? Unspoken cues. Like a glove. Even if I didn’t know Rarity, the way she knew me felt oddly nice.
Holding Joy and the photo, I sat next to her on the couch. She eyed the photo longingly, so I set it on her lap.
While, she got lost in thought, I played. I played for awhile. Whatever came to mind. Things I knew, things I didn’t.
At last, I spat it out. “I’ll make a guess. I have some memory problem. I thought we were mid-May, but it’s really September. The leaves were off color. You, you probably have some bad allergies. And all these things I wrote, about Goldie pestering me. The photo I never took.”
She nodded, a nod so small that I only noticed when she spoke. “You won’t remember anything from today. Every day, you wake up as if it were that Thursday in May. Something happened to you. You never seem interested to know most days. The days I did have to explain, you slept even more poorly. Nightmares. Anxiety.”
“I slept great last night,” breathed.
“I know I can’t do much for you. They’re still looking for a cure. They have a pony, an official, to keep an eye on you, but I didn’t want you to be alone. Even if you wouldn’t remember being alone, and even if it did nothing for you, I wanted to keep you company. On days that I can, I try to be here.”
I had a cuckoo clock. It was far from the hour, so the soft tick played its solo. I brushed some mane from my face, slicked it back and let it fall back into place. “Is it guilt? Did you do this to me? I mean, do you feel responsible?”
“No. I wasn’t there when it happened. But you’d given me a beautiful gift the afternoon of that day. I wanted to repay it.” She smiled, a peaceful thing, almost lifeless yet fetching like a doll’s.
I leaned back. “What was it?”
“It doesn’t matter. What it was doesn’t matter. It’s the act that meant so much to me. I like to see gratitude as a way to admire the ponies around you. I’ll never be as magnificent as my friends, I tell myself. I live to make them all feel happy. To feel beautiful. And when I happen to succeed? That’s what life to me is.”
“But how often does my crotchety ass thank you?” I almost pleaded that.
Rarity looked me in the eye. “‘Thank’?
“ Dear, do look so arrogant as to expect gratitude for my existence?
“This is simply what I am.”
Thus spoke Rarity.
We simply spent time together after that talk. I’d have to sleep soon, so that I wouldn’t have a panic attack the next morning. It’s almost time to go to sleep right now, actually.
Rarity left an hour ago. I wrote all this down for you. Maybe you two will have a fantastic day, next time you see her. We only have one day. Will it be suspicion? Joy? Togetherness, or conflict? Conflict with Goldie? Another? I’ll never know.
But I have something you need to tell her for me.
Tell her thank you. Whoever reads this, please tell her my thanks. Every time she sees me, she sees an ungrateful prick that’s full of himself. Truly a fate worse than death for that mare.
Oh!
And check page thirty three. That’s where that song we wrote is tucked into. You might like it.
Farewell, my friend.