Chapter 20

It was a bit of a long couple of days before the weekend of major events with my friend leaving and my lover coming in. Where to start?

After work the day I asked for the weekend off, I decided to go and have dinner with Caramel and Autumn, who were eager for me to go and spend an evening with them since they had their parents take care of Sunflower. Where we ate was a bit of a surprise for me. It was a really nice establishment that had some of the nicest scenery inside. It was a really classy restaurant. Definitely one that would not see the likes of me in it.

Thankfully, if it weren’t for Caramel getting me a coat to borrow, I wouldn’t have been allowed in the restaurant. The evening was a fun evening, considering I was eating the most juiciest steak I had ever eaten. There was one thing that came as a surprise in the evening, that was the reason I was invited to join them both.

Near the end of the dinner, Autumn and Caramel kept looking over and over at each other holding each other’s hoof. I took notice and had suspicion of what they had planned. When I questioned them about it, Autumn lit up, announcing that they were having another baby. This time it was gonna be a colt. I was very surprised by this news, but what came next took me off guard. Caramel was the one to propose that I should be their colt’s godfather. I had no clue what that meant, but upon explanation, I understood that they were asking me to name their child. It was a rushed idea of a name, but they both seemed to like the name “Sherbert”. Kinda strange, but they love it.

As well as becoming a godfather, I began to visit Amethyst and Storm more often after work. I liked to call my afternoons with Amethyst “Tea Time”. It seemed fitting since all we’d ever drink was tea. We’d have talks about many things regarding her moving to Hoovesiana. Turns out, she had originally been from Vanhoover and then moved to Manehatten for a little while before moving down south. One thing I did discover about her was how she didn’t want to talk about her time in Manehatten. It seemed like she really did not like Manehatten, or more so her experience in Manehatten. Nonetheless, her story of where she came from was interesting.

When I told Amethyst about my weekend, she was absolutely happy for me. She had even given me a tip about some things to do while in The Daffodil Club. She had even told me about some secret drink to try called “The Purple Elixir”. Amethyst would say how much she loved it when she would go to the club. She did give me a warning though about it being more tart than I would expect, but to my Griffin friend it would be just fine. I couldn’t help but notice how every time she would talk about Ruby, she never knew her name and called her “special friend”. I wanted to correct her about her name, but she seemed pleased with calling her that.

As well as talking to Amethyst, I got to see more of Storm’s drawings. I cannot express this enough, Storm was a damn good artist despite being seven years old. His only real problem was his shading and coloring. To help him out, I took a couple of his drawings and showed him some real good tips on shading. He managed to pick up on them very quickly. For the first time, I felt like I was a mentor to someone. And as a mentor, I was proud of the work he had done.

On the morning of the big day, I spent the first part of my day visiting Amethyst for some “Morning tea time”. I didn’t have to leave for Mounting City until 2:00 in the afternoon, so I decided to spend one last time with Amethyst before I dedicated my weekend to Ruby. Maybe even catch one last drawing from Storm to motivate me. We were talking for a little bit about how great it was that today was finally the day. Then I just froze up thinking more and more about it.

“You okay Velvet?”, Amethyst asked me as I was deep in a thought.

All I could really think about that day was that it was really happening; I was going to meet Ruby for the first time and that I was going to take care of her. Because of this, I had a lot of anxiety going into it.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just enjoying the tea.”, I said clearly lying.

“You sure about that? You barely sipped your tea.”, Amethyst said pointing at my full cup of tea.

I couldn’t help but confess.

“Well, it’s just all happening so fast. A month ago we were just talking online and enjoying ourselves. Now here we are at the first time I'm going to meet her and end up living with her. I’m starting to feel like I’m going too far too fast.”, I said to Amethyst.

“You need to relax a little. It’s going to be fine, I know it will. If you just be yourself and she like yourself, then you will be okay. All you need to do is relax.”, Amethyst said to me.

I gave a short sigh.

“It’s so strange, my only way of relaxing is me thinking of her. It usually happens when I listen to music of some kind.”, I explained.

Amethyst put down her cup before standing.

“Well you might be in luck. I managed to save a couple of CD’s I would listen to back in the day You’d probably not like it but it’s music to listen to.”, She said reaching for a box on the shelf.

I glanced over to see what she had, to my surprise I found a CD with the logo for the band Smashing Melons.

“No Way! You listened to Melons?”, I explained to her with a surprised tone.

“Of course I did! I would listen to them for hours and hours when I was your age.”, Amethyst explained putting in the CD.

Right away, the CD opened up with the band’s signature lyrics,”The world is a vampire”. I’m not one to judge others, but I never would’ve thought someone as scholarly as Amethyst would be jamming out to Smashing Melons. No joke, she was actually bobbing her head along with the song.

“Such a good song by them.”, I declared to Amethyst.

“I would say it defined a generation. That song was played everywhere on teen radio stations back when it was first released. Did you know that it was original a song about the angst of that time period twenty years ago?”, Amethyst stated.

Now that was the Amethyst I was familiar with.

“Do you, like music like this?’, I asked her with curiosity.

“I would say so. Although I do like all kinds of music. I wish I had all of my music from back in the day.”, Amethyst explained.

“What happened to them?”, I asked her.

She took a while to respond. Like she came back to reality once I asked her about that.

With a blank emotion, Amethyst responded,”They got left behind back in Manehatten, along with one other thing”.

She gave a small glimpse of sadness in her eyes mentioning the city. I felt it would be really awkward to keep talking about her music left behind, So I quickly turned the conversation over to what I am going to do after visiting with her.

“On another subject, I can’t believe that my friend is going off to Ponyville for the Wonderbolts.”, I said to Amethyst who was eager to move on from that awkward exchange earlier.

“That’s good. I have a little cousin who lives there. Well, not exactly, but very close. Griffonstone I believe.”, Amethyst recalled.

“Is it nice there? I know you probably haven’t been there, but I assume your cousin has told you about it.”, I asked Amethyst.

“Oh she has written to me a number of times about how much she loves it there. But she loves Ponyville the most. All the ponies are really kind there. Especially her three friends, although they are a bit strange.”, Amethyst said with a grin.

“How so?”, I asked.

“Her friends are a part of some group that helps out a community. They have a strange name, but sadly I don’t remember. Something like the Crusade of Marks.”, Amethyst says putting a claw on her beak thinking.

It was a strange name for a group. I couldn’t help but chuckle hearing Amethyst recall the name. At least now it reassured me that the town Angel was moving to was nice. Only thing I doubted she would know was if Wonderbolts training camp was run by some psycho drill sergeant who will change your name to “Private Snowball” and make you choke yourself. Only thing that would really make me really question whether it was a good idea to be a Wonderbolt was if they asked to see a “war face”. Whatever that is.

“How well did you know your friend?”, Amethyst asked me.

“Me and him were pretty close. I was friends with him since I was 12. Of course it was strictly online because of distance, much like my other friend coming over, but it was able to work.”, I explained to Amethyst.

“Well that’s good. Especially since you are going to see him one last time before going away”, Amethyst said to me.

As she said that, I looked over at the clock which now read 12:36 PM. “Oh Celestia the time has gone by too quickly. I need to get going if I’m going to see my friend for a couple more hours before he leaves.”, I said to Amethyst standing up.

“Is it time already? I was really deep in the discussions we were having. Sorry about that.”, Amethyst said apologetically.

“No no, it’s nothing to be sorry for. I just found that the time had really gone by quick. Guess it’s time to accept that it’s really happening.”, I say to Amethyst rubbing a hoof on the back of my neck.

“Well, I’ll hopefully see you later. I don’t want to interrupt your fun weekend with your special friend.”, She said suggestively.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”, I said with a pout.

“Nothing Velvet. Just teasing. Seriously, I do hope you have a good time introducing your friend around New Saddle. Maybe if you get the chance you could take her around to the library where I can give her a lesson or two about New Saddle.”, Amethyst said.

“Maybe I will.”, I said sincerely,”It could be a change of pace for the weekend. I’ll see you later”.

After I left Amethyst's home, I walked as quick as I could go back to my house to grab some last minute things for the day I was about to embark on. As well as that, I cleaned up a little bit to make sure the place didn’t look like a complete mess when Ruby would come in my home. More importantly, I made sure that the guest room would look like it was properly taken care of. The room was covered in a lot of dust mainly because there was no pony to ever use it since no pony would ever come by.

One amazing thing about the perk of having a horn as a unicorn is that I could use most of my magic to do most of the work. Sure, I could use my hooves to move a dust towel over stuff that needs dusting, but that would take up more time. And considering I was on a tight time schedule before Angel leaves, it was the only thing I could really do.

With all the small work at the house done, I was ready to go. As I was leaving, I checked my mane one last time to make sure it was looking presentable. It surprised me how natural the mane was in this style. If it were the old one, I would’ve had to fix it in a specific way to make it right. I know it’s weird considering the old mane was a hot mess.

I left the house in a fast trot to the station to try and get to Caramel as fast as possible so I could get to Mounting City in time. On my way there, I couldn’t help but notice how nice the day looked. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and the temperature was perfect. Sadly, this is the one chance in a while the weather would be like this. Considering how unpredictable Hoovesiana weather is, this could have been the only chance when all the planets align with the sun to produce a perfect day.

With what felt like a walk that took forever, I finally made it to the station where Caramel was patiently waiting for me. I had told him two days prior that I would need him to take me to Mounting City one last time. I even told him that I would be bringing back one more rider for the ride back. Upon him hearing that, he thought that I was bringing home somepony I never would bring back home for certain tasks. I can let you figure that one out.

“Well, I was wondering when you’d show up. How are you doing this afternoon Velvet?”, Caramel said holding out his hoof for me to shake.

“Great actually, sorry for almost showing up late.”,I said to him shaking his prosthetic hoof.

“You’re fine. You made it just in time actually. You ready to go?”, Caramel asked me.

I gave a sigh before looking back up. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”, I say with a determined nod.

On my way to Mounting City, I began to think more and more about what would come next. I knew that Angel would be going away, but instead I was worried about what would happen if he were to come back. Would he remember me? Would he remember the town he had come from? Those were questions that looking back at now were irrational, but at the time seemed to bother me.

“Hey Caramel. Do you mind if I ask you a hypothetical question?”, I ask him.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?”, Caramel asked me from outside the carriage.

“Say hypothetically you were to go away for a long time. Like, a really long time. Like for example you had to do some huge job across all of Equestria taking somepony all over. By the end of it, would you still remember me?”, I asked him anxiously.

“Kind of a very specific question don’t you think?”, Caramel analized to me.

“Yeah, I know”, I say with a slightly embarrassed tone.

“To answer your question, yes I would. Why’d you think I would completely forget about you after hypothetically going away for a while?”, Caramel asked me confused.

“Well it’s just that with my friend leaving for Ponyville for a long time, I was worried that he might forget about me and move on.”, I explained to him.

“Is he not a good friend to you”, Caramel asked me.

“No, he is. He has been for the past couple of years. It’s just that I am worried that he would forget about me or something.”, I said to him.

“Well, if you want my personal opinion on it, If he is as good as a friend as you describe, then you have nothing to worry about. I know for a fact if I were good friends with a pony that I was close with I would never forget them, no matter how long I might be away.”, Caramel said to me.

“I guess so.”, I say to him before looking out the window of the carriage thinking more and more about the afternoon and evening. As I thought more and more about tonight, time had passed by quicker than I thought. In one moment, I took a moment to rest my eyes, the next time I opened them I was already in the familiar city seeing the city lights beginning to light up. “It’s time. No going back now Velvet.”, I say to myself in my head.

Within five minutes of riding around in the carriage, we finally made it to the train station. I knew right away that I was there based on how loud the place was with trains moving along and overlapping ponies walking and saying goodbye to each other.

I took one glance out the window to make sure it wasn’t a thick crowd. Thankfully, while there were a lot of ponies there, it was not enough to make a huge crowd. I had given myself a sigh of relief. I did not have to face my fear head on yet, all I could do now was hope that it wouldn’t be bad at The Daffodil Club.

“This is it Velvet. You ready?”, Caramel asked me from outside the carriage.

“No, but I might as well get this over with.”, I said to him climbing out of the carriage.

“It’s going to be fine. I know for sure he will remember you while he is gone.”, He said trying to comfort me,” Will I need to stick around long?”

“If you don’t mind. I think she will arrive here shortly after my friend leaves.”, I said to Caramel.

“Alright, if you need me for emotional support I’ll be here by the carriage if you need a shoulder to cry on.”, Caramel said to me jokingly.

I let out a small chuckle at the joke.

“Yeah, I’ll be around. Hey, thanks again for doing this for me. I really appreciate the help to bring me here and back home. I definitely owe you one later.”, I said to Caramel sincerely.

“Don’t mention it, you know I always help out a friend. If you want to owe me one, maybe you could help support me and Autumn financially now that Sherbert is on the way.”, He said jokingly winking.

I knew right away he was trying to loosen me up for what would come next. I always liked that about him, always so thoughtful for others.

“Heh, maybe one day my friend.”, I said quietly to myself before walking in. I caught a glimpse of the time; 1:34 PM. I had made it in time.

Ever since that day, I’ve realized that the train station is a really mixed bag in the environment. In other words, there are many different emotions to be seen in a train station. One of which, is happiness. The sight of happiness at a train station is really heartwarming to see. For example, when I was walking over to the board to see which gate I needed to be at for Angel, I saw this small colt running over to his father who had come home from a train that had arrived. The happiness in his face wrapping his small hooves around his father was enough to lift up anypony who is having a dark day.

And then, there is the opposite of the emotions given at a train station: Sadness. I was faced with a brief glimpse into what it would be like to see sompony go away. I saw a couple who were holding each other tightly before the stallion had pulled away to leave on the train that was just about to leave. The sadness in the mare’s eyes spoke volumes of grief, even louder than an audible sob. I was tempted to go over and try to comfort her, but I had a tight schedule of my own.

The gate I needed to go to was not far from the board, about a minute walk. Upon walking to the gate, I saw a glimpse of Angel and both of his parents hugging him tightly. Ms. Moonlight had the same look of grief as the mare earlier, but at the same time she had a glint in her eyes that everything was going to be okay. As with the magic of the train station, both of them were a mixed array of emotions from the distance. After me glancing at them for about a minute, both of Angel’s parents had gotten up and walked away for the last time. Al that was left there was Angel and a couple of trunks sitting on the bench.

Seeing that he was alone, I walked over to spend a couple more moments with him before he leaves. Based on the look in his eyes looking down, he was thinking that it was it; it was going to be his last time in Mounting City for a while. I must’ve made a sound when I was walking up because his ears perked up as he turned around to see me walking up next to him.

“Oh Celestia! Velvet! You actually came!”, Angel said in surprise as he came up to hug me unexpectedly.

“Heh, Least I could do before you leave for Ponyville.”, I said nervously hugging him.

He must’ve been really happy to see me. He held onto this hug for quite some time before letting go.

“I thought you had forgotten all about it and got worried that you wouldn’t show up.”, Angel said to me.

“I can’t do that to you man. You’ve done so much for me over these past couple of years. I might as well get one more moment to spend with you before you leave.”, I say to him looking at his trunks.

“Thank you so much. You have no idea how much that means to me. Come! Sit down for a bit so we can talk.”, Angel said taking my hoof to the bench to sit down.

Angel moved his trunk to the side leaving me enough room to sit next to him. I sat down as he slumped down next to me. He reached over to his trunk to pull out a small bottle of whiskey. This surprised me because he never once mentioned that he drank.

Angel took a swig of the bottle before offering a swig to me.

“No thanks. I don’t drink.”, I explained to Angel.

“Suit yourself.”, Angel said taking another swig of the whiskey.

I never drank alcohol because I couldn’t stand the taste of it. I know most ponies don’t drink it for the taste, but for me I cannot for the life of me get past the taste of it. It tasted so gross to me.

“Celestia, It’s actually happening.”, Angel said putting the bottle back in his trunk.

“What’s happening?”, I asked.

“All of this. My dream of getting out of Hoovesiana. My dream of going on my own. And of course my dream of going to try and be a Wonderbolt. It’s like Celestia herself heard me wish for those and granted them to me out of sympathy.”, Angel says looking into the horizon.

“Is that good?”, I asked him.

“Why of course it is old sport! I’ve wanted this for a long time. It’s just that it’s all happening so fast, you know. I never got the chance to really take in my time here. Even with me saying goodbye to my parents I feel that that never made up to what I had done to them in the past. Time is truly the most powerful creature in all of Equestria.”, Angel explained putting his hooves behind his neck.

“I was wondering, why did they leave so early? Don’t they want to spend more time with you?”, I asked him.

“They do, but it was my mother’s choice to leave. She said that she wouldn’t let me go if she stayed any longer.”, Angel said to me glancing over at me.

“Oh.”, I say before awkwardly looking away to the horizon.

The sun was in that moment where it is still in the sky, but was starting to go down and turn orange for the beginning of sunset. For the more northern tone of Mounting City, the mix of orange and sunlight really fit the city. Of course, I would imagine that it would be more natural for the city to be dark with it’s bright lights.

“Hey, you remember the time when you and I were playing SF2 together and you and I found our first ever exploit together?”, Angel asked me all of a sudden.

I remembered exactly what he was talking about. About two years ago when we were taking a day off from finding the golden fork, we decided to mess around in the community ran servers that ran some of the maps in the game. Me and Angel were both messing around as the Healer class when we found that we could clip through the walls and make it to the enemy team. For some reason, the healer has the highest RMD rate out of all the classes when you use the melee weapon. So for about 25 minutes, me and Angel hid in there spawn and just killed them one after another. It sounds like me and him were dicks for doing that, but that was all in the past. If you want to see if we got what we deserved for the exploit, we were banned only five minutes later when an admin had joined. We have been banned from those servers ever since.

“Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday. You made some foal so pissed off that he started screaming so loud that his mom had come in to tell him to quiet down.”, I said to him laughing remembering the pure volume of the scream.

“Heh, you managed to even make one player quit the game because he couldn’t get you.”, Angel said to me punching my shoulder laughing.

“I was crying from laughter when that happened.”, I said chuckling some more.

We both kept talking about the years we spent together on Koas and in SF2 for a while. It was at this moment I knew I had nothing to worry about with him forgetting me. The pure joy in his eyes recalling those events reassured me that he was gonna hold onto those moments for as long as he could. That, or he was going to remember the time he kissed me unexpectedly. Either way, he wasn’t going to forget me anytime soon.

While we were talking, we heard the train coming by the gate. The reality of Angel finally going away kicked in with full force. The happy tone of our reminiscing was silenced with the sad realization of what comes next.

“Looks like it’s time for me to go soon.”, Angel said looking over at his trunk.

There was silence between us as we watched the train come to a halt at the gate. It’s screeching brakes spoke volumes of it announcing its presence in Mounting City. It was there, and it was leaving with somepony.

“This…...is it.”, Angel said grabbing his trunks standing up.

“I…….guess it is. It was nice seeing you one last time before you go.”, I said to Angel standing next to him.

He gave one look at the train before looking back at me

“Hey, I know that you are gonna miss me so I figured I would get you something to remember me by.”, Angel explained reaching into his trunk one last time.

He pulled out a small pocket watch that looked old enough to come from a time machine.

I took the small token from Angel and opened it up. Sadly, it was so old that the glass was shattered on the watch and the time hands swung loosely when you moved the watch around. It was that oddity about it that made me like it.

“I know it’s kind of a piece of shit watch considering it is broken, but it was something I thought you would like to remember me with.”, Angel says closing his trunk.

“It’s perfect. Thank you so much for this Angel.”, I said smiling.

“I’m glad you like it.”, He said before looking at the doors of the train that had just opened,”I best be going now. Time to go face my dream head on”.

He held out a hoof for me to shake.

“So long, old friend. I’ll be back one day. I promise.”, He said to me.

“You better, or that would make you a terrible friend.”, I say jokingly taking his hoof into a shake.

With that, he gave a nod and began to walk away. I got a sudden urge to say one last thing before he got on the train, like in those old movies where the hero says one last thing to his friend before they go off on a journey.

“Angel!”, I yelled out to him grabbing his attention.

He was right at the step of the train as he looked at me for one last time.

“I don’t like ponies, they’re mostly all rotten! But your worth the entire group of ‘em! The whole damn group!”, I yelled out to him confidently. It felt right, almost like it came from a famous novel or something like that.

Angel gave one last grin and waved goodbye to me one last time before walking inside the train.

I stood by that train until it began to chug off. It slowly moved on before gradually gaining speed taking off. I could’ve sworn I saw Angel waving one last time through the window. I walked near the edge of the gate to see one last glimpse of the train chugging off into the horizon. I stood there up until I could see it no more. “Till I see you again.”, I said softly seeing the train disappear into the ground.

After a couple of minutes standing there at the edge of the gate, I turned around and walked back to the direction of the board of which gate to go to. The sun was now half way down, and seemed to be in it’s full, sunset orange color. Making it to the board, I looked for the gate that showed the arrival of passengers from Manehatten. When I looked at the gate, I noticed the time of arrival collum now said,”Arriving Shortly”.

“Just in time.”, I said to myself reacting to the convenience of Ruby’s arrival.

I quickly made my way over to Gate 6, the gate that the train from Manehatten was arriving on. I was lucky to make it right before the train made its way from the horizon announcing its arrival. I was getting nervous sweats from the sight of the train coming to a halt. I quickly began nerve checking my mane to make sure I wasn’t looking nervous. Don’t ask my why that was something to check, it was something that calmed me down.

When the train had stopped, my mind was now anxious to see the Griffin that it had been waiting for all along. The doors creaked open with a flurry of ponies walking out of it. There were ponies in suits, ponies with families, even a small team of Hoofball players, but not Ruby. I was almost questioning whether I was at the right gate. As I was about to contemplate going back to check the board, the near empty train car had one last figure moving from the back outside with a large trunk by its side. My eyes began to widen as I focused more on the moving figure. The figure stopped to notice my stare upon it. At that moment, it became clear exactly what that figure was; it was a griffin with red feathers and one detectable grey eyes. It was Ruby Heart.

Author's Note

A new challenger approaches :0