"Have a good day, sir! I hope you enjoy that super-duper-yummerific treat!" The shrill, peppy voice of a particular pink party pony exclaims across the sales floor of the quaint bakery in the small hamlet town known as Ponyville. Her statement seems to be directed at a rather dull pink earth pony stallion with overly curly hair not too dissimilar from the very mare speaking to him. He was clutching a small paper sack in his mouth, so he was not able to directly reply to her remark, but he offers her a happy grin in response to hopefully ease her rambunctious nature before she hunted him down in an effort to make sure she always had a smile from everypony that came through those doors. With that handled, he turns on his hooves and starts trotting out of the wooden door separating him from the open air.
Now outside, this stallion begins making his way down the main street of the town with his package of goodies, flashing tooth-filled grins towards ponies as he walks by them, oftentimes getting one in return, while occasionally receiving a few words of recognition from other ponies who shared his work route each morning. It was a curious concept, he often remarked to himself, how everypony that lived in this town had always been so warm and inviting to anypony that happened to move in, no matter who they were. Even more so now that the prior prejudices of the past xenophobia that had run rampant in all of Equestria was more or less stamped out. The return of the changelings after their new transformation into their new forms, while still just as strange as the previous ones, helped to ease the transition from scary predators into welcome friends. Not everypony was on board with the new status quo, but it seemed like the majority had taken a liking to these new neighbours.
The walk was largely uneventful, save for one of the stallion's coworkers who worked with him at the local watering hole, a chain of tropical smoothie restaurants that had begun to spring up even in a backwater town such as this. "Hey, just now heading home? I thought you had the morning shift all this week, right?" The mare asks, putting on the same friendly smile she wore when serving customers their fruity beverages.
"Oh, uh... just getting some dinner on the way there. Decided to take a walk around the Everfree today to, well... I guess the fresh air does everypony some good now and then, right?" He says, giving an awkward shrug of his shoulders after having set down the bundle of baked goods. Her smile shifts into one more resembling a smirk when she spies the parcel.
"Dinner, huh? Then why were you dining at Sugar Cube Corner instead of the smoothie shop? You never spend any time there anymore. Are you embarrassed to be a drink jockie?" She teases, sticking her tongue out at him.
He gives her a bright smile, rolling his eyes around the back of his head. "Me, get embarrassed? Come on now, you know I'm not the type of stallion to care about appearances for the sake of looking good." He says, letting a low rumble reverberate through his throat, easily distinguishable as a masculine chuckle. The mare brightens up at this, shutting her eyes to put her pearly whites on display before she responds to him.
"Well, if you say so, mister tall dark and totally-not-embarrassable! I've gotta catch up with the girls over in the park before the little one gets home, be sure not to eat too many sweets all at once!" With that being said, the peppy pegasus bounds off along the path, sometimes skipping with her hooves as she hums a four-tone beat with her throat. He turns back to his package, lifting it back off the ground with his mouth and continuing on down the road for a ways until the bright and colorful houses begin to get smaller and more rigid in structure, resembling oversized boxes moreso than actual residencies. It is one of these more practically designed homes that the stallion ends up approaching, pushing his hoof against the stained oak finish of the wooden door leading inside, that being his very destination.
Once inside, he lets out a breath of air from his lungs, a practice that had become more of a ritual each time he entered these very walls at the end of each day. With the sun just beginning to touch the edges of the mountains, it would only be a matter of time before the Princesses finished their transition from the harsh rays of the day to the cool and quiet nighttime stillness. Within his home, however, was a sparsely furnished bedroom with a very simple kitchen quartered off to one section of the building, not even a divider marking the difference between there and the rest of the floorspace. It sported a single mattress flung haphazardly against the far wall of the one-room house, as well as a single bedside table set to the left side of his chosen sleeping lay. Setting the bag of sugary goods down on the kitchen counter, the earth pony drags his hooves over to the side of the mattress, letting them catch against the side of it before practically belly-flopping onto it with a slight groan, the day's pressure of standing having finally been giving a reprieve.
He only remains on his stomach for a small amount of time, finding the position uncomfortable for what he was rather used to by this point in his life, instead opting to switch over onto his back, letting his legs lay spread out mostly in the air above him, the fore-hooves curled up against his broad chest and the hinds fully extended. It is here that he finally lets his face fall into an expression of utter neutrality, needing to not bother with the social requirements of a caring, love-thy-neighbour society. That mare... I don't remember her name. I wish she would just let me be without trying to engage me every time we meet. True enough, she often ran into him on his way to and from work, his attempts at avoiding her only having spurred her on even more. There was a possibility that all of her teasing and egging on had been attempts to get to know him, perhaps even more so than just as another friend. Sadly, she was simply barking up the wrong tree, as this particular oak had long since grown out of reach of any other ponies.
Not like she would want to continue her borderline-stalking anyway. It's not worth the trouble in the end. His mind can do little to prevent the flood of memories to the forefront of his thoughts, remembering the heat of tears on his cheek and a ringing in his ears that night...
He sighed in complacency, having experienced this lapse in judgement every night for the past six months, always coming home only to let his thoughts invade the sanctity of his very consciousness, plaguing him with feelings he desperately wanted to dissipate once and for all. Every night he would lie awake, deciphering the many ways he had blundered his way through such a happy time in his life only to squander it all away in the wake of a single act. He'd always been just fine on his own, so why should he have ever let anyone in? All he had to do was tell her-
He turns over onto his side now, letting all four of his large limbs take up what little space there is on the relatively small mattress. It would have been okay if I had just listened to my doubts. He thinks to himself, likely for the hundreth time now. He drifts back down memory lane once more, going back to a time when his smiles were more than just a mask worn to shove all the worries of those around him away from himself. He would laugh, cut up with friends, tell them jokes and smile such a warm, wonderful smile when she couldn't help but fall into a fit of giggles after particular clever ones. She would even throw some back at him, tossing in the occasional pun just to remind him how much of a geek she was. The way the corners of her mouth would curl up as the she looked at him enough to send him-
Again, he shifts his posture on the bed, turning over onto the opposite side in preparation. Sure enough, small droplets of moisture coil their way down the fur lining his cheek, eventually falling onto irregular circular stains on the top of the mattress just below his head, evidence of the many times he'd fallen into the same trap night after night. Memories simply beget more memories, this times ones filled with singing, a show of words layered and sung in an order that seemed to echo within his mind as he listened to them with her, a constant droning that was like icing on the sweetest of cupcakes, forming the perfect treat to any and every afternoon. He had never been into the play scene that many of ponies seemed to enjoy so immensely, and he surely wasn't a very big fan of the musicals on top of that. There was just something about this one that seemed to call to him... perhaps it was the satire of their words or the clearness of most of the singing cast. Perhaps it was the intensity they gave off when delivering their performance, or even the way she seemed to just fall into a trance when watching them, eyes sparkling like blue spheres of the purest water from the very centre of the world's most beautiful ocean.
Just like all good things, the swarm of warmth that had been tickling at the back of his chest began to sink, spiral and decay into something much colder. The feeling was next to nothingness, such an emptiness that one could hardly notice it was there, and yet be consumed by it all the same. To be alone was to be safe, and safety was loneliness. That was what he had to tell himself every night, a desperate plea to keep back the tide of anger, sadness and dejection that springs forth every time that green mane flashes across his vision, the awkward bumblings of a dork setting his heart ablaze with raw anguish so concentrated he could practically taste its pure bitterness. It was as if someone has set all of his nerve endings on fire at the same time, just as they anesthetised him until all was a blur of an unbridled void. It pushed and pressed and kneaded against his chest, making the act of breathing laboured, near impossible with the amount of pressure being exerted on his very being. His breathing quickens until it begins to come out in soft wheezes, the sounds cutting out shortly after only to be replaced by gutteral hacking and coughing until they finally mellow out in true, utter silence.
Of course he wished all this had happened. Of course he wished he could express even half of what he felt on the inside, to put it into a palpable form and show it off even if it weren't to anypony at all. It would help him to vent all this pent of frustration and sorrow that continued to bubble away inside of himself until he felt like a thermometer caught in a fire, inching closer and closer to the melting point until eventually it simply bursts in a shower of hail. No, he couldn't do anything of the sort. He wasn't capable. It simply wasn't something he could even comprehend doing. Just like every night since she finally confirmed his doubts... it's been nothing. Cold. Dark. Alone.
The burnt ray of sunlight peeking its way through his partially drawn curtains is what stirs him from his stupor. The signs of first light that mark the beginning of another day... and another night yet to come. The stallion pushes himself up into a sitting position on his haunches, the bed having formed a divet on the left side where he had performed such an action every morning since moving here. He rubs the now dried and matted fur on his cheeks and just under his eyes, sighing as he makes his way into the kitchen to retrieve a hairbrush from the sink, wetting it under the faucet before running the tool through his fur to even it out. He hardly remembers how much he slept during the night, and even less of it that he was actually awake for. It was always the same when he woke up in the mornings, needing only to do as much simply on his most base instincts of survival. Once his mane and pelt were groomed and ready to be presentable for customers, he opens up the top of the bag to his goodies from the previous day, now stale from the time spent sitting unattended, and pulls out a single vanilla cupcake with white icing on it, chowing down on it in the span of a few seconds. Following this, he double checks that he hasn't forgotten anything on his rather short to-do list, then heads out of the front door of his house, beginning his morning walk back into the heart of Ponyville, ponies still only just starting to fill the streets for another day.
I think I'll go with the tired but friendly mask today. He thinks to himself, letting his jowls spread into a wide smile as he begins to approach the main street, the expression never quite managing to spread all the way to his eyes.
