Compatī

To say that I expected to eventually meet Whistle after all these years wasn’t a lie.

Eventually being the key word there. I just never expected eventually to happen so suddenly. Life had a knack for fucking me sideways, though.

“So where’ve you been?” Whistle asked me from across the booth table. She sat hunched forward, hooves folded beneath her. Her eyes followed the seam of the wood paneling beside us.

We had ducked into a nearby corner café after the shock of our… reunion had passed. And by ducked, I meant Whistle dragged me in tooth and nail and sat me down like a prisoner ready for waterboarding.

It was an order-up-front style place, so nopony would bother us, I hoped. The redhead at the cash register busied herself with rolling up plastic utensils in napkins and stacking them in a wicker basket beside the register, and an older stallion was bussing tables across the way.

I idly ran my hoof along a nasty gouge some kid had carved into the table with a knife, feeling the compressed sawdust beneath the cheap laminate. “I’ve been a few places. Just… kinda coasting.”

Whistle huffed. She watched me trace the groove, shifting to prop her head up with a hoof. Her eyes came around to mine, and I could tell there was a certain level of discontent somewhere behind that indifferent stare.

She’d grown up quite a bit since I last saw her—pretty in a rough-around-the-edges, bad-girl sort of way, and that snowy white mane of hers would be to die for if she bothered taking a brush to those errant curls and split ends even just once. Her eyes had more of a ghostly blue intensity to them than I remembered, much like Dad’s in all his old research publication pictures. She still had that raggedy-ass purple slouchie of hers, though. It looked lived in, which was par for the course.

“That’s it? Just… around?” She made vague circular motions with her hooves. “That’s a load of bullshit if I’ve ever heard one.”

To be fair, that summed up my post-Canterlot existence pretty succinctly.

Bullshit this, bullshit that. Nothing but fucking bullshit. And my current deflections were just one more load on the steaming pile that was my life.

“How’s Lily?” I asked before the tears could start.

“She’s doing great, actually.” A smile slipped across Whistle’s face for a brief moment. “Wants to go for an art degree when she’s older. She actually made that painting over there.”

She nodded at the far wall over my left shoulder. A large painting a good three feet tall by five feet wide lorded over the booths situated there. It was an abstract piece of reds and dark purples done in large, blocky brush strokes overlapping one another, with a single vertical line of gold no wider than a pencil about one-third of the way from the left border.

I had no idea what it was supposed to mean, but it made me think of the times we spent coloring together on the living room floor. Of all the smiles I’d seen on Lily’s face, those were always the biggest.

“It’s pretty,” I said.

“Yeah.”

The café went about its happenings. Some loud pair of stallions stumbled in laughing about something or other. They looked drunk.

“Is she here?” I asked, letting at least that hope get the best of me.

“Here as in, in Canterlot? Yeah. We live up on Chambers, by the old marketplace.”

That sent a cold shiver through me. They weren’t living with Mom and Dad anymore?

“Oh…” I said. “You… you moved out?”

“After what Mom did to you?” she said, way more matter-of-factly than she had any right to. “Did you think we wouldn’t? We fucked off the moment I had enough money to rent a place for us.”

“Oh…” I said. I bunched up my hooves on the edge of the table.

Chambers. That was a relatively nice part of town. It was no Oleander or Fairbrooks, but it was a safe distance from Creekside or the bottoms. I couldn’t imagine where she found a job that let her scrounge up that kind of cash.

Actually, I could imagine, but I didn’t like the path my brain took or the stops along the way. There was no shortage of sick fuckheads out there, and Whistle was always a blunt, results-oriented pony. There wasn’t a damn thing in the world she wouldn’t do for Lily’s sake. The way she hunched over the table didn’t help my assumptions, either. She looked… tired.

“But what about Mom and Dad?” I asked. It took all my willpower to keep my voice steady.

“What about ’em?” she shot back with that indifferent tone of hers, but with just enough of a sharp edge to give away her true feelings. After all these years, she’d barely changed.

“I don’t know.” I left it at that. I didn’t know what else to say. She was set in her ways, and I didn’t have the heart to break down that wall. We’d only just reunited. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her again by challenging that mindset.

I worried about Lily. She loved Mom. It was next to impossible to think she’d move out willingly, even with how Mom was about gays.

Were they… were they thrown out, too? She said they left when she could afford it, but part of me doubted it hadn’t been the other way around. Whistle was prideful like that.

“I missed you so much,” I said, reaching my hoof across the table.

Surprisingly, she put her hoof on mine. Whether she genuinely wanted that contact or some deep-down instinct compelled her to appease me, I appreciated the simple gesture. That unsureness lingered about her when I pulled away, but she relaxed into the Whistle Wind I remembered: hard on the outside, soft on the inside.

Up at the cash register, the two drunks made a show of ordering the “Sundae Surprise,” laden with as much innuendo and leering as possible.

The mare behind the counter soldiered through it with trained retail employee restraint. Her clean-cut french braid screamed “innocent teenager,” but the look on her face had “fuck around and find out” written all over it. Those two dickwads must have been frequent fliers.

“I have to go talk to Dad,” I said.

“Why? So he can let Mom walk all over you again?”

I winced. “We need his help.”

She didn’t immediately reply. Something seemed to be turning over in her head, giving her brain the run-around.

“‘We’?” she said.

“It’s… complicated.”

“When isn’t it with you?”

I let out a breathless laugh. I had no real answer. Truer words and all that. I let myself cherish that little bit of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy conversation while she mulled over whatever had her chewing on the inside of her cheek.

There was a crash and clattering of lunch trays toward the back of the restaurant, and I looked up to see the two drunks dashing for the exit, laughing as if they had just pulled off the prank of the century. The cashier chick leaned halfway over the counter, shouting enough creative obscenities that I felt honored just witnessing them.

As the stallions ran past us, I flicked a bit of magic to trip one of them up and allow his momentum to acquaint his face with the doorframe. Whatever they did, he deserved it. Fuckin’ chodes.

He let out a muffled “fuck” and shot me a glare before ducking out the door. Just as quickly, all was quiet on the western front. The cashier shot me an appreciative smile before going back to her business. For all I could tell, the busser didn’t even notice, or at least didn’t care, still going at his job with the same glacial persistence.

“Friends of yours?” I asked Whistle, if only to relieve the tension for a moment.

She snorted. “They wouldn’t have dicks anymore if they pulled that kind of shit on me. And then why would I bother being friends with them?”

That got me laughing. Something about her casual audacity stoked an old fire in me. I used to ooze that kind of dry irreverence—and I wasn’t without my fair share of it when Sunset came by a few days ago—but hearing it from somepony else caught me off guard in a refreshing, almost nostalgic sense.

“So,” she said, followed by a thoughtful pause. “Did you finally get under her tail or what?”

That got my heart doing the squirmy, sponge-wringy thing. It wasn’t that her lack of tact or the sudden change in subject surprised me. She said those sorts of things all the time. I just… after that night with Sunset, it hit closer to home than either of us expected.

“Sorry,” she said, laying her ears back and staring at the table. “I know that was a tough thing for you, and… I’m sorry for what I said about you and her back then. And I’m especially sorry about what I said to you in front of Mom.”

“I know,” I said.

There were a lot of “sorrys” going around recently, most of them mine, but the ones sent my way were undeserved. Rather than wear that feeling on my sleeve, I figured it was better to move forward.

“I’m at Princess Twilight’s castle,” I said. “Down in Ponyville. You two should come by.”

She raised an eyebrow at me and let that damn grin of hers imply all sorts of things. “Princess Twilight? Damn, it really must be complicated, then.”

I laughed. What a notion, being in some sort of love triangle with a princess. I mean, Princess Twilight was cute in her own way. Really reminded me of Sunset back in school. Honestly, she was more like Sunset than Sunset was. But the princess title put her way out of any league Whistle or I could fancy myself blundering my way into.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually slapping curtains with the princess,” she said.

That got me grinning. A statement like that was too easy to follow up on, even in my current mood.

“Would you be jealous if I said yes?”

“Why would I be jealous you’re getting all that empty space between her legs?”

I snorted. “You’re such a cocksleeve.”

“Says the box licker.” Whistle laughed. “At this point, I wouldn’t believe you could take a dick if you tried.”

“‘Box licker’? That’s a new one. And what is there to taking dick? You just sit and spin.” I gyrated my hips to hammer the image home.

That got her practically howling. She doubled over the table, slapping it hard enough to jostle the silverware.

“And that’s how I know you’re still gay,” she said, wiping away a tear.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the facets of my orientation,” I said. Part of me wanted to be offended, but I knew better than to let something so basic get under my skin, especially after all the shit I’d given her in the past.

As if to outdo itself, my brain did an about-face on her sentiment and dragged the nastier, more shameful thoughts out from the dusty corners of my head.

“And what about Lily?” I asked. That nervous feeling crept back in and had me bunching up the tips of my hooves on the table. “Is she still…”

The smile on Whistle’s face bled away to alarm. The moment I recognized the look in her eye, I regretted where I steered the conversation. That was the same look she used to give Mom behind her back.

“Is she still what?” It came out as more of a statement than a question.

“Nothing,” I said quickly.

“No. You were about to ask if she was still gay, weren’t you? Like it’s a bad thing.”

“I wasn’t going to say it was bad.”

“Yeah, but you still wanted to know if she was gay, and all this bullshit tiptoeing you’re doing right now implies you think it’s bad, no matter how much you don’t want to. Lily is what Lily wants to be. That’s all that matters. Holy hell, Copper, Mom still has you fucking brainwashed. Get that bitch out of your head. There’s nothing wrong with you, or Lily.”

She cut her tirade short, and the silence of the restaurant settled back in. Which was good. I couldn’t focus on her and keeping the tears in at the same time.

The cashier chick made a show of cleaning the counter, trying her hardest to look like she couldn’t hear every word of our conversation.

“I can’t help the way I am,” I said. A lump set up shop in my throat. I tried swallowing, but it only made it worse. “I’m just… I’m me.”

“Yeah, which has nothing to do with the problem. You weren’t the problem.”

Except I was. She just… she didn’t get it.

“No, I… I shouldn’t have run away.” I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have needed to deal with the mess I made. Or anything else that came afterward.”

There was a long pause. “You’re happier because of it, though,” she said quietly. “Right?”

She wore a strikingly sober look, one I couldn’t ever recall her wearing. The hunched-over look from earlier, the tip-toe deflections and marginalizations of where she got her rent. How much had I put her through because of my stupidity? How much shit had she shoveled that she needed my happiness to justify it?

I smiled for the world, I smiled for her.

“Yeah. I’m happy.”

She stared at me with those icy-blue eyes that could pierce through Canterlot Mountain and keep on going. One, two, three painful seconds passed before she hunched over the table again, looking down at the knife marks, then over at the busser, who’d made his way to the corner booth.

“Good,” she said quietly. And that was that. So simply, blatantly, disgustingly that.

The seconds rolled by like hell on square wheels while I tried scrounging up a different topic. I may as well have tried being straight.

“So you’re really gonna go see him?” she said. There was a weariness to her voice—a sense of defeat, even—like a pony who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders who was asked to carry even more. “After all he didn’t do?”

I took a breath to steady myself. I had already gone off the deep end, but there was no reason to make it worse. Besides, I had to do this. Princess Twilight needed me.

“We need his help,” I said.

“Yeah, because he’s so good at that,” she said. She took to scratching at the knife grooves with the tip of her hoof. “Helping when you need him to.”

“Then let him actually try this time!” I hissed. “I know you hate what he did or didn’t do, but he can still help us. He’s still Dad. And Mom’s still—”

“Mom?” she said. “Yeah. I bet she fuckin’ is.”

I clenched my jaw. A whole slew of toxic phrases leapt to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them before I said something I’d regret. Or did something like last time.

In keeping those thoughts to myself, I didn’t have any others left worth saying, and it seemed neither did Whistle. She slapped a few bits on the table and got up. As much as I so desperately wanted her to look at me, she couldn’t find the courage.

“We’ll come by sometime,” she said. And she left.

The little bell over the door signaled the all-too-soon end of a reunion I never thought I’d live to see, and again, I was left with that bitter loneliness I’d gotten to know like an old friend.

My vision got blurry with the tears I couldn’t hold back anymore. I reached for the napkin dispenser, but it was empty, so I made do with the back of my hoof.

The cashier chick swung by, catching me in what I wouldn’t exactly consider my proudest moment. She slid a dessert glass onto the table. It was a strawberry milkshake, a pretty little thing all done up in sprinkles and chocolate syrup and the good will of a stranger. She put a gentle hoof on my shoulder.

“You look like you need it,” she said, ending on a tiny smile before going back to her napkins and utensils.

I stared into the frothy whipped cream topping, but no matter how much the cashier chick wanted to help, all it did was remind me of Whistle and Lily and everything I’d thrown away.

Hiding my face behind it so that I didn’t bother her further, I broke down and cried quietly into my hooves.

• • •

Fifteen minutes later, I was heading toward the castle like a giddy school filly enjoying the sunny weather. A quick apology to the cashier chick, a deep breath, and a smile for the world was all I needed to feel right as rain, or at least look the part.

Good thing I never wore makeup.

It was kind of surprising what a smile and a casual name-drop would get me. The guards practically lit up at Dad’s name and talked about him like they were best pals. One was even polite enough to escort me down to the research labs, which I was pretty sure went way against protocol.

I declined, though—for my own sake, and probably his too. It felt weird enough just coming here, let alone doing all the mental gymnastics I needed to prepare myself. I could only imagine the range of facial expressions I’d have going on and what he’d think of me.

I figured out the way there through the gardens, the same way Sunset took me back then. This place hadn’t changed in the slightest, and the déjà vu grabbed me by the withers and wouldn’t let go.

I tried focusing on Dad and what to say. I knew it’d follow the same script I did with Whistle: an awkward hello, a hug or two, words we couldn’t say before but have longed to say ever since. Life was repetitive that way.

But it didn’t change how I felt, how lost and afraid I was of the what-ifs. What if he got angry? What if he didn’t want to see me after the stunt I pulled? What if he and Mom realized life was so much better without their gay-ass daughter fucking everything up?

The rational half of my brain throttled me by the neck, exclaiming that was impossible, because that would mean their lives were better off without Whistle or Lily.

But… what if they were? What if what if what if?

I spun myself into a tizzy trying to keep my brain from going overboard. I almost bolted with my tail between my legs. Better to run now than be run out later.

But I… no, I couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It was Dad. I was his little filly. Daddy’s little girl.

Was, my brain insisted.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this, no matter how much Princess Twilight was relying on me, no matter how badly I wanted to see him again. I couldn’t, I just—

“Can I help you?” somepony said. I almost didn’t hear them.

A stallion stood beside a door just behind me. He had probably just come out while I was all up in my head. He was surprisingly young compared to the image I had in my head of lab ponies, probably a year or two older than me, with a mane longer than I was used to seeing on a stallion. He wore a pleasant enough smile, but he had an air of “you’re not allowed to be here” to him.

“Oh hi,” I said, and up went my smile. I cleared my throat. “I’m looking for my dad, String Theory. Is he around?”

That seemed to catch him by surprise. “Oh, String? Yeah, he’s… what’s up?”

“I just need to talk to him, if you don’t mind.” I hooked my mane behind my ear and tried looking bashful and embarrassingly lost—less for playing the damsel in distress card than for hoping he hadn’t seen me freaking out a second ago.

“Uh, sure, I guess. I think he’s doin’ thermics today. Come on over here.” He led me down the hallway to what looked like a small control room filled with masks, lab coats, and all the other “PPE” stuff I remembered Dad talking about as a filly.

“Wait right here.” He stepped through a door at the back of the room. A large window looked into the laboratory proper, and there I watched the long-maned stallion trot up to a large figure at a workbench surrounded by a bunch of other lab ponies.

The hairs stood up on my withers the moment I recognized him. The bushy beard. The cropped mane.

Dad…

The long-maned stallion jerked his head over his shoulder toward me.

Dad followed with his eyes, and when he saw me, I swore he thought he was staring at a ghost. He almost dropped the vial he was holding. He stormed toward the door, tearing off his mask and lab coat, and when the door opened, he stopped right there on the threshold.

We shared a moment of silence, just staring at each other in disbelief. After being gone seven years, it felt like a dream seeing him standing there.

“Dad, I—”

He already had me wrapped up in his massive hooves, and I didn’t have any more words. I guess I didn’t need them. I hugged him back, and that intense warmth I remembered so fondly came rushing back from the distant corners of my mind.

“You’ve grown,” he said, holding me at arm’s length. He had that far-off Dad Smile about him he used to get whenever I did those stupid modeling gigs Mom put me through as a filly.

“I, uh…” I didn’t know what to say. You too would have probably gotten a laugh way back when, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take it now. It’d been so long. “Yeah, I… I-I guess.”

I wanted to bury myself in his chest and feel his hooves around me for hours and hours, feel his warmth reach down and warm the part of me that had been so cold for so long. But I laid my ears back and retreated to the safety of my hooves bunched up in front of me as the urgency of Princess Twilight’s request hounded me from the back of my mind.

“Dad,” I said. “I need your help with something.”

“Name it.”

“I—” Wait. Did he say yes? Just like that?

He looked serious, like whatever I said next would be the most important thing in the world.

Parents love hearing from their kids, Twilight’s voice sounded in my head.

Some parents, that other voice clarified. And sure as shit not yours.

But that look in Dad’s eye couldn’t be lying. Was it really that simple? Was I overinflating the issue? Did they—or at least he—actually miss me?

“Copper?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I, I… Has… Has Princess Celestia told you anything about Princess Luna?” I asked.

He sat back and scratched his beard. “No, she hasn’t. Not really my business down here in the lab.”

“Well, we’re… I, uh. I really don’t know how to explain it. But it involves all this sciency stuff.” I waggled my hoof at the window where the other lab rats fussed over some blue liquid in the glass vial Dad had been holding. “And Princess Twilight asked for you by name.”

His eyes lit up at the name drop. “Princess Twilight? Now where in the wide world of Equestria have you been to be rubbing elbows with princesses?”

“I-it’s a long story.”

“Well, then give me one second,” he said. He headed back into the lab and chatted up the long-maned stallion, who seemed to be in the middle of corralling the others into some semblance of order. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but he nodded at Dad and turned back to whatever was in that vial.

A moment later, Dad was back on this side of the door, all smiles and hopeful energy. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Let’s go? Just like that?”

“Just like that. It helps being the big stallion around these parts.” He threw on a casual smile before leaning in for a conspiratorial whisper. “And between you and me, I really needed to get out of there. These new kids are driving me up the wall. Bunsen can handle ’em for a day or two.”

That got a laugh out of me. It felt good to laugh. I hadn’t done nearly enough of it in so long. A hopeful sensation welled up inside me, and I felt good, like the universe smiled down on me for the first time in my life.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s get going.”