Chapter 19

“What?”, Ruby asked confused.

I was very clear on what I meant. I don’t think she knew exactly what I was talking about or even thought of it.

“I want you to come and live with me.”, I say to her in a serious tone. She was silent for a moment.

“Velvet, I can’t”, she said with a sad tone.

“Why?”, I asked her.

“I can’t just impose in your home. You probably won’t have room for me.”, She said doubting me.

“No no. I have plenty of room. You wouldn’t impose on anything.”, I reassured her.

She went silent again.

“I don’t know about this, It’s gonna be a new town for me to get used to”, she said in an anxious tone.

“You said yourself that you might end up in a new town anyway. It’s better to go to someone who happens to know the town than go into a random town blindly. I could show you everything there is to know about New Saddle.”, I reassured to Ruby.

Based on her silence she still had her doubts.

“Velvet, I want to know why you want to help me through this by giving me a place to stay. I could maybe try and sell my Fork to get money to buy a house as far away from this place as I can. Why do you want me to come live with you?”, She asked me.

I gave a small breath before responding.

“It’s because I want to know for sure that you’re safe.”, I said to Ruby in a serious tone.

“But I am safe. I am far away from the-”, She said before I interrupted her.

“You don’t understand…”, I said before sighing and continuing,” Ruby, that night when it happened…..I was scared for my life that you were hurt and that there was nothing I could do. I was scared you would be hurt by him even more when you logged out of the call. Like…….I don’t know how to describe it”.

“What are you trying to say?”, Ruby asked me.

“Look, I guess my point is that I really love you and I hate to imagine something terrible happening to you. I want to hold you in my hooves knowing that I got you right where I want you to be. I know it sounds kind of overprotective and everything, but it’s the truth. I don’t want the griffin I love to be hurt, and if she is hurt I could be there to comfort her when she is at her lowest.”, I said with a heartfelt tone.

There was a brief silence between us before Ruby spoke in an affectionate tone.

“Velvet, that’s the nicest thing I have ever heard you say. I really needed that after all the stuff I have been through. I can’t say no to you with all you have done for me these past few months”, She said.

I began to perk up hearing this.

“Does this mean..”, I asked before stopping.

“I can’t go tonight, but I’ll go tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know when I should arrive to…...actually, where would I go to meet you?”, Ruby asked me.

I thought about that for a little bit before remembering the station in Mounting City where Angel was going to be leaving at.

“There should be a train that heads to a station in Mounting City, Hoovesiana. I can meet you there and take you to my home.”, I said to her.

“I hope so too. I’ll try to let you know when the train should make it in the morning. I’m gonna go to sleep for tonight.”, Ruby said with a yawn.

“Alright, get some rest. You deserve some. Have a good night. I love you.”, I said to her. “You too, I love you my Velvet”, Ruby said before leaving the call.

That was the first ever time I could say,”I love you” to her without stuttering. All in all, I felt good about what I had promised to help out Ruby. I turned off my PC for the night and decided to head to bed, even though it was 6:15 PM.

Later that night, I had a dream of my parents again. However, their message to give me in this dream was very cryptic. It started like it has done it before, the hill with an oak tree where my father confessed his love for my mother. Only this time it was my father holding my mother on the blanket layed out on the hill. As I walked closer, it looked like my mother was asleep in my father’s hooves. There was something about this scene that made me smile, like they were truly happy in this very moment.

I approached quietly to not wake my mother. Almost in an instinct, my father quickly noticed me approaching, giving me a shushing motion.

“It’s nice to see you Velvet. How are you my son?”, he asked me in a quiet tone.

“I am great, especially seeing you two again.”, I said to him.

“Well that’s good. Come, sit next to us.”, He said to me leaving me space to sit.

“She was tired?”, I asked my father looking at my sleeping mother.

“Even in dreams we all experience a sort of weariness. She was feeling sleepy waiting for you so I decided to let her sleep while I talk to you. That’s okay right?” , He said caressing my mother’s mane.

“Yeah, that’s okay. It’s funny, this is the first time we have a father-son talk.”, I pointed out to him.

“Huh, you’re right. It’s always been the three of us talking.”, My father said nodding in agreement.

And just like most father-son conversations, it ended with awkward silence before he looked over to the horizon.

I figured I might as well get the subject that I was curious to know about: why they decided to show up now out of all time?

“So…...Why have you come?”, I asked my father who was broken out of his gaze into the horizon.

“Oh damn! I didn’t pay attention to the time I have. I don’t have much time to explain it thoroughly, but you will be faced with some problems going forward, problems that you will need to be strong going through.”, My father said pointing to the sun.

I looked over to see the sun was setting earlier than I thought it would.

“I know. It’s going to be a lot of pressure on me to be more open with Ruby moving in.”, I said to him.

He shook his head.

“That’s not what I am talking about….”, He said to me.

The sunset was now three quarters of the way done.

“Then tell me….quickly please tell me what I will be faced with!”, I exclaimed to him frantically.

My father put his hoof on my shoulder before uttering his final words in the dream,

”We love you, in life and in a dream”.

Then everything went black.

I was awoken by the soft sound of rain falling on my window next to my bed. Looking over at my clock I saw that I had woken up at 4:38 AM, almost a full hour before I usually wake up. I rubbed my eyes and groaned at the thought of me being awake this early. If ever I woke up at a random time earlier than I usually do, I was never able to fall back asleep. It has happened to me multiple times when there was a thunderstorm happening. The earliest I had been kept up at was 2:34 AM, all because of a random lighting strike that happened in the area. Not a drop of rain occured with it. I blamed that event for me falling asleep at work that day.

I rose up from my bed accepting the fact that I had an hour to kill. With an anxious feeling in my gut, I decided to check on Ruby to see if she had gotten a ticket to come to Hoovesiana. Signing in, I was disappointed to see that she wasn’t online yet. To pass the time, and partially take my mind off of this, I decided to draw something new. However, I kept thinking about Ruby and got a kind of crazy idea by my standards. I looked for the only picture of her I have saved from when she had gotten exposed.

Once I found it, I took a minute to study it before starting on a art project I never thought I would do: one with an actual subject. I took my time to trace along the paper with an basic outlined shape of her head and body from the side. As close as I could, I traced contours of her feathers and fur. Once the outlined was done. I began doing a technique that I liked to call,”particle stroking”. The best way to describe it is by simply placing the outline over a rough, rocky surface and fill in the outline, leaving in a colored outline with speckled details. It could be taken as a dust, ash, snow, or even mud particle depending on your choice of color.

I chose the color black because of my love for two tone paintings. The black was certainly perfect for the whiteness of the paper I was using. I felt a soothing feeling drawing the picture of Ruby combined with the darkness of my room being accompanied by the glow of my computer screen giving me the only source of light. With the darkness outside being combined with the soft rain, this particular time in the morning was definitely what ones would call,”The Dark Before the Dawn”.

I finished my drawing with the greatest feeling of satisfaction. Even greater than when I managed to recreate the famous Cobbler. Looking at my clock, I was surprised to find that it was faster than all my other times making a drawing. However, the only problem was there was still 25 minutes before the time I usually wake up. Which meant I still had no clue what to do until she messaged me about when Ruby would arrive in Hoovesiana.

After about 15 minutes of me sitting there bored out of my mind on what I wanted to do to pass the time, I got a single message in Kaos from Ruby.

Littlest Pip: I am messaging you with the only time I have left before I leave. Turns out the train to come to the station in Mounting City leaves today. In 20 minutes in fact. I looked over at the time when it will arrive, and it says that it should be this weekend in the evening. It’s gonna be a long ride for me, a couple of days from Manehatten to Mounting City. But it’s all gonna be worth it, I can move away from this place. I’ll see you there Velvet. I love you.

With that, I had my plan for the weekend. I was gonna see if I can take the weekend off to visit Angel at the station before he leaves, hang out until Ruby arrives, hopefully have a good chat with her going home, and of course get her settled in to the new home she was staying at. Only problem was that I had no clue what to do once we spent a night together, I figured that maybe I would introduce her to Peach. Thinking of this had even brought up another possible problem: me explaining that Ruby was a griffin. In all the time I knew her, she never showed any signs of speciesism; but given how some ponies are a bit unpredictable with what they feel of other species, I had to be sure.

I looked over to my clock and looked at all the time I had left and decided to go take a shower. As I got up from my chair, I took notice of the sun finally rising in the grey, rainy sky. It was gonna be a damp and humid day here in Hoovesiana.

“Hope it gets cooler when Ruby arrives. I would hate for the humidity to be her first impression of Hoovesiana.”, I said to myself walking into my bathroom.

Catching a gaze in my mirror, I saw that my mane was almost exactly like it was when I style it. It always did this, which made me certain that my mane was meant for this look. It was certainly better than the old, messy look I had before.

Starting the water in my shower, I looked to my small window above my shower. As expected, with the humidity coming from the sun rising, fog began to appear outside. Thankfully it wasn’t too thick where it would be impossible to walk through. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Stepping into the shower, I was refreshed to feel the warm water on my back and rump. I took a second to take in the wonderful feeling of the warm water before beginning my shower grabbing the shampoo and soap with my magic. As I showered, I began to have more and more shower thoughts. Well, not exactly a “shower thought”, more a series of thoughts in the shower……...so actually yeah. It is a shower thought.

I began to think more about what the possible outcomes when Ruby sees me for the first time outside of Kaos. As always, I come up with “what if” situations to think more and more about my decisions to make.

“What if she somehow is nothing like what she looks like? Impossible. Unless she was very good at acting. What if she sees the new mane style I have and think I’m different? Ah! Get yourself together Velvet, I really doubt she will care about the mane style being different.”, I said to myself in my head rinsing off the shampoo.

“Okay enough about when she meets me, let’s think about what happens next once she moves in. Maybe I could introduce her to Peach that morning and spend time with her. Yeah. That could work, however I really doubt she would want to spend all day at Peach’s house. Although, I wouldn’t mind.”, I thought to myself in my head as I dab myself with the soap.

Then came a thought that made me shake in my bones: taking Ruby to The Daffodil Club. I know earlier I said that I hoped to one day take her there, but there was a reason why I laughed it off. Not because I didn't have a chance, that a hundred percent was not true. The real issue was my fear of crowds. I never told Ruby about it mainly because I was embarrassed by it. There was no denying what I said earlier about the club being filled every night with couples. Unfortunately I couldn’t individually ask all of them to kindly not show up so I could manage to have a good weekend with Ruby. That would be selfish.

I decided that this weekend I would try my absolute best to face my fears head on: meeting Ruby, and being in a crowd without losing it. More the first one than the second one.

Once I collected my thoughts, I finished up my shower rinsing off all the soap from my body. I turned off the water and stepped out to grab my towel and dry off. Once I finished, I looked over at my mirror to fix my mane. I only took a couple of minutes before finally styling it with that combed back, raised style.

“That’ll do.”, I said to myself as I opened the door to my bathroom.

The sun was now in up for the day, sadly it was not giving the bright light it would always do. The fog was less dense when I first saw it through my window. That came as a relief because the fog is not something to joke around with here in New Saddle. There was one unfortunate pony who manage to get seriously hurt running into a carriage that couldn’t see him. Thank Celestia he wasn’t killed by it.

I looked over at the time to see that I could now leave for work and not show up stupid early. As eagerly as possible, I grabbed all of my things for work and headed out into the foggy wasteland of the New Saddle.

I managed to traverse through the fog in time to catch Peach in the back preparing things for today. It looked like she was cleaning up a few pans from making a fresh batch of Cobbler she put in the warmer.

“Good Morning Peach.”, I said to her as she jumped.

“Celestia Velvet! You always get me when I least expect it.”, Peach exclaimed recovering from her small scare.

“Sorry, guess that’s one way to wake you up in the morning. How are you this morning?”, I asked her.

“I’m okay. Feeling a little stuffy from the fog, but okay.”, She says letting out a cough,” How about you sugar?”

“I’m fine. I was hoping to catch you in time to talk to about something coming up.”, I said to her as she grabbed a tissue.

“Oh, what is it sugar?”, she asked me.

“I’m gonna need the weekend off. Kind of unexpected, but I need it.”, I said to Peach.

“Oh, what’s going on? Is it becoming too much work for you?”, She asked me.

“No no. It’s actually a couple of things. You will be excited for one of the things happening.”, I said to Peach.

“Oh, please explain.”, She said eagerly saving the dishes.

“Well, one of the reasons I will need to take off this weekend is because I am going to see my friend one last time at the station before he leaves for Ponyville to train with the Wonderbolts.”, I explained.

“Oh, is that the one you visited at the hospital?”, Peach asked me.

“Mhmm. So I am gonna be in Mounting City at the station to say goodbye to him before he goes off North.”, I said with a smile.

“Well, He may not know me but I wish him well on his training.”, Peach said.

“I’ll be sure to let him know”, I said with a chuckle,” But anyways, the other reason I’ll need the weekend off is one that you might be excited for.”

“Oooh, what is it sugar?”, She asked me sitting down on a stool.

“It’s gonna be the weekend you get what you want”, I said to her.

She gave me a confused look.

“You will finally get to meet her”, I explained.

Peach’s eyes lit up in a way I’ve never seen before.

“Are you being serious?”, she asked excitedly.

“Yep. She needed help with her problem, so I helped out by giving her a place to stay.”,I explained to Peach.

“That’s absolutely wonderful. I can’t wait to meet the special mare who’s been with you.”, She said smiling

I was deep in the thought of her not knowing that Ruby was a Griffin. So deep in fact, that Peach took notice.

“Or is she actually a he?”, She said jokingly.

“Actually, I have something to admit about her. She…...Is not a pony.”, I said nervously.

“What?”, Peach asks cocking her head.

“I don’t want you to freakout, when I tell you this because I don’t know how you’ll react to this.”, I warned her.

“What is she Velvet?”, she asked me.

I gave a nervous sigh before saying it out loud,” She’s a Griffin. A really pretty Griffin.”

“Oh, why’d you think I would freak out about that?”,Peach said to me by giving me a confused look as though I did something silly.

“Well, given where we live and how some of the population of New Saddle react to Griffins, I wasn’t sure that you would like me being with a Griffin.”, I said nervously scratching the back of my neck.

“Nonsense Sugar! I never would discriminate against any species. In the end, we are all living creatures.”, She said putting a hoof on my shoulder. It was funny how she had the exact same thoughts of me on speciesism.

“So, you’re okay with me going out with a Griffin?”, I said to Peach.

“Of course Velvet. Whatever makes you happy I support.”, She said with a smile.

I was relieved to know that I had nothing to worry about with her meeting her.

“So, would you like to meet her at your house? I could take her around to tour the town and stop by your place to visit.”, I said to Peach.

“Absolutely, as long as I get to meet Gem. That’s her name right?”, Peach asked me.

I chuckled before answering

” That’s her online name. Her real name is Ruby.”

“Ah. Me and my old mare memory getting things mixed up.”, She said slapping a hoof on her head.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at herself making a mistake.

“So it’s settled. You can have the weekend off. As long as you introduce me to her.”, Peach declared to me.

“Thank you Peach. Thank you so much.”, I said hugging her.

“See? If you just let me know ahead of time that you won’t be in for work, I’ll allow it.”, She said jokingly.

I couldn’t help but laugh at my mistakes.

“Well, I must dash now. I have a doctor's appointment that I cannot miss. It’s almost time to open up shop.”, She said looking at the clock.

“Of course. I’ll let you go now. Thanks again for the weekend Peach.”, I said expressing my gratitude.

“It’s nothing sugar. See you later Velvet.”, she says to me opening the door.

“You too”, I said to her as she left.

It was now coming together. I could rest assured that my weekend off was secure. Only problem now was finding a way to speed up time so I could rush to the weekend. Unfortunately, my magic can only levitate and grab things, and as far as I can tell there is no carriage that can travel through time by hitting 88 miles per hour. The only thing I could do now was working until the day finally comes.

Author's Note

Quite the problem with time :c