On the Horizon

by mushroompone

Rating: teen
Tags: Applejack, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Romance, Comedy, Profanity, Sex, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 54658

In a world without that first fateful Rainboom, Twilight Sparkle is a blankflank with no future. But will her destiny catch up with her despite it all?

In a world without that first fateful Rainboom, Twilight Sparkle is still a blankflank. She spends her youth in a "dumping ground" public school for other ponies deemed unimportant, uninteresting, and without futures by general society.

A chance encounter with the guidance counselor, however, leads Twilight to follow her instincts and travel to Manehattan, where a mysteriously familiar pony now owns a bakery...

Big changes are on the horizon for the both of them.

Like this fic? Here's some jams you may also enjoy (aka, my writing playlist for this fic)

Published 2020-01-16 06:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-06-20 14:21:05 UTC

Chapter One: Really Bad Advice

What is the perfect score on an exit exam to prove your parents wrong?

And I don’t mean that in the conventional sense. Not proving my parents that I have potential, or moxie, or spunk, or some other nonsensical measure of academic worth, and thereby personal worth. No, they knew I had that.

A D would be really scraping by, probably. Cutting it much too close for comfort. D is graduation by the skin of your hoof. It’s luck, really. Grounds to repeat.

Too risky.

I let my gaze wander to the window. A picture perfect day in Canterlot, of course. Clear skies and fresh, clean air-- so then why did I feel like I was choking on it?

I turned my head back to my exam.

How about a B-? That’s pretty nice. It says that I actually put in a little effort. Still not an A, though, in spite of that effort.

But... I knew plenty of talentless blankflanks who were going to finishing schools on straight-B report cards.

No, then.

Split it down the middle at a C, maybe?

I tapped my pencil without thought or rhythm on the edge of the desk. My own blank flank tensed and relaxed as fast as it could, bouncing my right hind leg at nigh impossible speed.

An A would be easy. These questions were easy. This whole thing was easy, so mind-numbingly easy.

What was I doing here, anyway? This was the dumping ground for unicorns who didn’t get into Celestia’s school, for blankflanks of advancing age, for ponies with talents that were broadly useless or incapable of earning income. That wasn’t me. I had talent. I had buckets of talent!

But nopony knew that, of course. Because I had failed an examination at barely eight years old. How could any decent pony put all that pressure on such a tiny filly?

Focus, Twilight.

Just a few questions left. Choose your destiny.

You wanna do high school again? You wanna be stuck with another round of societal failures?

Or do you wanna go to finishing school like a good pony?

Or…

I should answer another one properly. Everypony knows the quadratic formula, right? It would be kinda stupid not to fill that one out.

To be fair, even I don’t know what I want. It’s definitely not finishing school, that's for sure. But, beyond that...

That’s why I was choking on the fresh air, I guess. Because the “right” grade on this test is only half the battle. Not even that-- it’s like one grain of said on this gigantic beach I had to cross to get to something that would make me happy. What happened when this grain of sand got lost in the shuffle? What happened when I moved onto another cause it was prettier, or bigger, or the other grains of sand just seemed to like it better? What about--

“Five minutes remaining.”

Oh, jeez.

Focus. Focus, Twilight.

The Noble Gases. You know the Noble Gases. Just write them down. Don’t you wanna be honest?

I wrote down the first few elements of the periodic table in order. According to my quick arithmetic, that landed me at a B-. How many more would I have to get wrong to get a C?

“Wrap it up, Twilight.”

“That was five minutes already?!” I exclaimed. My pencil started to tap again.

The teacher sighed. I didn’t know her well, couldn’t even recall her name if I was honest. “You’re the only one left, Twilight. And, yes, you’re technically within your accommodated time, but… Well, I’ve seen the way you’ve been staring out the window. Distracted?”

“I’m just… thinking.”

“Mm.” She crossed her hooves one over the other on the desk and returned to her novel.

I could do that. I could proctor exams. I could teach, I bet. I’m pretty smart. Was it all that hard to just… make other ponies be smart, too?

Nah, scratch that. Definitely not.

What a line to walk. Too much of a srew-up under-acheiver for finishing school, but not such a mess that I needed to do this unbearable year over again.

I wanted--no, no, I needed--a grade that said “Stop worrying! I can handle myself. I’m just an average pony living her average life. I’ll cutie my cutie mark one day and, y’know, maybe you’ll like it and maybe you won’t, but either way I’ll have it and you won’t have to think about me anymore. Can you just stop thinking about me already?”

Could one letter say all that?

Well. C would, as much as any one letter ever could.

So I wrote the wrong planets. I mixed up my homonyms and jumbled up my grammar. I conveniently forgot how to write a few simple words in Griffish.

I put my pencil down and turned my paper over.

The teacher turned her page as well, not yet looking up.

I sat back in my chair and laid my hooves over my stomach. Still nothing.

Tried clearing my throat, just a little. The teacher sniffled.

“Um… ma’am?” I murmured.

The teacher peered up at me over her half-moon spectacles. “Finished?”

I nodded.

She stood up and stretched. The sun glimmered on her jewelry and blinded me for an instant.

I gave my packet a little push in her direction as she walked towards me. Her hoofsteps made these awful, empty sounds on the linoleum. Somehow, though, she retained a sense of authority. Even lounging as she had been, with her mane pulled back in a bun so messy it barely qualified-- she was comfortable with herself.

And, by comparison, it made me hate myself a little more.

She picked it up. “Well?”

I blinked. “W-well, what?”

“How do you think you did?” She asked, holding the exam between the two of us like a screen.

“Oh, you know…” I chuckled nervously, swallowed the extra saliva rolling around in my mouth. “Average. Ish. Give or take.”

The teacher snorted in response. “Average-ish, hm?”

She perused the packet carefully, closely. I had never seen a test scrutinized so intensely, not even by a teacher who was actually grading one. She read every word, turned pages with a practiced deliberation, all while standing right over my desk.

As she neared the end, I opened my mouth to say something, but immediately snapped it shit again when the teacher dropped the paper screen and stared down at me. There was a strange look in her eyes. Familiar, sort of. Like she was in on some secret about me that I couldn’t quite remember.

“Erm,” was all I could say.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said. She folded the thick packet of questions in half and tucked it into her blazer.

I hopped out of my chair, which produced a loud and echoing squeal in the otherwise empty room, and fell in step behind the teacher.

She led me out of the testing room in silence. She was… weirdly tall. Like, taller than I’d thought. Tall enough that I had to sort of trot to keep up with her walk.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Oh, I think there’s somepony here you’d better speak with before you go,” she said. “It’s not a test. Promise.”

A little bit of the tightness in my chest released. Sometimes my anxious tendencies amazed even me.

The teacher took a sudden right, nearly cutting me off, and jostled doorknob of some kind of office. I glanced upwards and noticed the neat golden lettering across the opaque glass: ‘Compass Rose, Guidance.’

I sighed and hung my head. “You’re a guidance counselor?” I asked.

Compass Rose feigned surprise with a theatrical gasp. “Is that what that says? Imagine that. Well, since we’re here…” She pushed on the door. “In need of some Guidance, Twilight?”

Beyond the door was exactly what you think when you hear the words ‘Guidance Counselor’s Office.’ Pictures of foals on a corkboard, motivational posters anywhere there wasn’t a corkboard. Piles of yarn half-knitted into scarves. A bookshelf filled with pamphlets and flyers and booklets--not any real books, you know?--on uncomfortable subjects. A desk littered with friendly trinkets, featuring yet more pictures of her foals.

And, of course, beanbag chairs.

I flopped down into the blue one (it had fewer stains) and sank into its beany depths. “Couldn’t really get out of it if I tried, could I?”

Compass Rose laughed, honestly truly laughed. “So I was right! You are smart.”

I rolled my eyes, but didn’t respond.

“You did a great job getting a perfect C on this exam,” Compass Rose said, pulling the packet out from her blazer. “Seriously. It’s harder to do what you did here than it is to just answer the questions how you’re meant to.”

I crossed my arms, still staying silent, but wondering somewhere how exactly she had caught me.

It smelled like fresh air and sunshine in here. A little bit like orange juice, or maybe that was orange popsicles. Some kind of perfume, too. Like lillies.

A bird whistled outside the window. Wish I was a bird.

“I’ll bet you’re wondering how I caught you, hm?” Compass Rose flipped to the back of the exam. “Well, the exam was sixty questions. You answered the last fifteen of those incorrectly, earning a seventy-five percent. Perfect, middle-of-the-road C. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a student only get the last questions wrong on an exam.”

I squirmed in the beanbag chair. “Oh.”

Compass Rose nodded. “Not only that, but you actually managed to give thoughtful answers, anyway. Instead of the chemical formula for water you… well, you wrote the equation for photosynthesis. That’s much more difficult to remember. Even I don’t know that off the top of my head.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s still wrong.” I ran a hoof across my face to clear away the stringy fringes of my forelock. “They can’t mark a wrong answer right just because it’s better or something.”

“So you admit to answering wrong on purpose?” She asked.

I groaned and rolled my head back to rest on the beanbag chair.

“Now, I can’t be sure of the details, here, but I’m guessing you’re trying to get out of something?” She leaned forward, over the exam. “Maybe… finishing school?”

I turned my head away from her the tiniest bit.

“Right. I’m guessing that’s because you have something you’d rather be doing?”

I didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She sat back again, and began shuffling things around on her desk. “Normally, I’d give you a career aptitude test. But you seem to be pretty good at getting the result you want from an exam.”

A little smirk teased at my lips.

“So, I’ll just ask: What is it that you want, Twilight?”

I froze. I sat up, the beanbag chair eeking out some weird sound that nearly made me bust out laughing from sheer embarrassment and awkwardness.

Nopony had ever bothered to ask that before, especially not so… bluntly. I had been asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had been asked what I wanted to study in finishing school. I had been asked what I thought my cutie mark would be, and what my parents thought I would do, and if I wanted to join the royal guard with my big brother, and if--

The wind shifted, and the scent of disturbed dirt and fresh-cut grass wafted towards me. I breathed deeply, but couldn’t seem to let the breath out.

Was that pot I was smelling in there? Somepony was getting stoned, feeling all chilled out because they just finished high school, and I was in here?

“Twilight?”

“Um--” I choked on my words, had to clear my throat to continue. “I… I don’t know.”

Compass Rose blinked once, very slowly. “I think you may have misunderstood. What do you want right now? This second. Where do you want to be? What do you want to do? WHo do you want to do it with?”

“Well, my parents arranged this party thing--”

“I didn’t ask about your parents,” Compass Rose said. “I asked about you. If you could do anything right now, what would it be?”

I held Compass Rose’s gaze a moment longer, then slid my eyes past her and back to the window.

It’s amazing how much looking out a window can affect a pony. Especially on such a beautiful day, you know? It was something primal. Sometimes, on those days with particularly fluffy clouds and blue skies and warm sunlight, I could almost feel the itching of phantom wings fluttering against my shoulder blades. I mean, who even knows where I got that from. My family tree is unicorns all the way back. But, I swear, those wings are there.

Maybe I’m more sensitive to nice days than most.

“I wanna play music,” I blurted. I hadn’t even meant for it to come out, really hadn’t even thought it.

“Oh,” Compass Rose said. She seemed almost as shocked as I was at my sudden outburst. “You play an instrument?”

I nodded. “Piano.”

“How long have you played piano?”

I shrugged. “It’s not… I mean, it really isn’t playing playing. It’s more like I listened to music and just figured out which buttons to hit, y’know?”

Compass Rose furrowed her brows almost imperceptibly. “That sounds like playing to me.”

“Well, you should hear Lyra and Vinyl, then. They’re the real musicians,” I said. “I’m just a… music fan.”

“Are Lyra and Vinyl friends of yours?” Compass Rose asked.

“I play with them sometimes.”

“So you’re a band?”

I scoffed. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far--”

“So, I’m hearing that you’d really like to just go play with your band.” Compass Rose was sifting through her rolodex now. She did it with such purpose that I didn’t know whether to be afraid or excited. My heart was pounding either way.

“I… guess.”

“Ah, here we are,” Compass Rose said, settling her rolodex on one entry. She then looked back up at me. “Would you be interested in playing a show?”

“Uh…” I scratched the back of my head with one hoof. My cheeks were already flushed, I could tell. “You mean… like for an audience?”

“Sure. At a cafe. In Manehatten?”

“M-Manehatten?” I repeated. “Manehatten. Like… Manehatten Manehatten?”

Compass Rose giggled, an angelic sound. “Do you know more than one?”

I swallowed. Then sighed. Then swallowed again. Was this hyperventilation? No, right?

“One of my old friends from home owns a cafe in Manehatten. It’s a little place, not much traffic, but it’s a start. Interested?” She looked at me expectantly.

Part of me thought that she was trying to catch me in a bluff. Convince me that what I really wanted was nice, stable finishing school. Trick me into saying that I knew music wouldn’t earn me my cutie mark. But she was just so sincere! Her face was soft and welcoming and generous.

“You don’t think I should just give in and go to finishing school?” I asked timidly.

Compass Rose shrugged. “Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t. Playing a show--one show--with your band and attending finishing school are not mutually exclusive, you know.” She paused, sighed, and smiled sadly. “Sometimes you have to be impulsive. You’d be surprised what kinds of things you miss out on because somepony didn’t follow their impulses.”

“That… sounds like really bad advice,” I said. “Like, really bad.”

“What I mean is… think of all the wonderful things we wouldn’t have if everypony was preoccupied with doing what their parents wanted.”

I thought that over, then nodded, if hesitatingly. “Hm.”

“Should I call?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Two: Over-Acheiving Dropout

For the record, I do totally get what Compass Rose was saying about following impulses. It’s like a less fairy-tale way of saying ‘follow your heart,’ y’know? I mean, thinking about all the art, the food, the innovations that wouldn’t exist without a little impulsivity and a little support… well, it’s enough to make anypony wanna drop out of school and start tinkering in their garage, myself included.

What Compass Rose didn’t properly convey about this particular problem-solving method, however, is just how quickly that impulse can spread.

You would think that the impulsivity would really only pose a risk to the epicenter of impulsiveness, yes?

But that’s exactly what it is. It’s an epicenter of disaster that ripples outward and uproots everypony else. I can think of literally seven ponies off the top of my head who got sucked into this ‘playing a show in Manehatten’ nonsense.

...You want a list, don’t you?

Well, let’s see. First off, there’s Compass Rose. I put her through the humility of calling an ‘old friend’ (which we all know is code for ‘awkward acquaintance I’d much rather forget’) for a bizarre favor which could seriously impact his revenue, at least for the day. I’m going to be generous to myself here and call that two ponies, since I have no way of knowing how many dependents this cafe owner had to provide for.

Next up, Lyra and Vinyl. I had said yes without even thinking of asking them. I mean, for all I knew, they could have been completely unavailable. Could have been going on vacation, or interviewing for a job, or demoing a track. But, who cares? Just say yes to random shit, everypony else gets to clear their schedules for you.

After that--and, honestly, I should have moved this up a slot or two--comes my parents. My parents, who were already losing their minds over the C I had earned quite deliberately, had to be informed that I was quitting school to play with my band. Don’t worry, mom and dad, it’s only temporary! Unless I really like it. Then it’s definitely not temporary, and you can be disappointed in me for years to come.

Lastly was my brother. He had always faced heat from my parents, as far back as I could remember it, but after being branded a ‘bad influence’ things got a lot worse. Of course, this was largely my fault. Failing Celestia’s entrance exam took quite a toll on me. Shining Armor would have said literally anything to get me to stop crying. I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday…

I had been lying on my bed, legs splayed out like a starfish, staring at my whirling ceiling fan with the depth and desperation of a middle-aged drug addict.

He had pushed open the door to my bedroom, his eyes wide and apologetic. It was kind of like the way your mom opened the door after you got dumped, or the way your dad opened the door before giving you the talk. It seemed that talking a foal down from academic failures was the charge of an older sibling.

“Twily?” he asked, voice soft. “Can we talk?”

I, stubborn little turd that I was, crossed my forelegs over my chest and rolled away from him.

He walked over and leaned against my mattress. “Y’know, Relative Motion dropped out of school.”

“That’s a myth…” I retorted. Not quite depressed enough to stop being an insufferable smartass, it would appear.

Shining sighed. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying.”

I curled myself into a little ball.

Shining reached over and put a hoof on my shoulder. “I know how it feels to let yourself down. Believe me. But let’s try to think about the upsides, here.”

I sniffled, turning my head back ever so slightly towards Shining. “You mean like… a pro/con list?”

Shining chuckled. “More like a pro list, Twi.”

“Well…” I hauled myself up into a sitting position and scooted to the edge of the bed with my brother. “It doesn’t sound very scientific. But I guess we can try?”

Oh, how simple it was to turn me around back then.

“I was hoping you’d say so!” Shining said, giving me an encouraging rub on the back. “Do you wanna start, or should I?”

I was silent for a moment. “You.”

“Okay,” Shining agreed. He looked up at the ceiling, stroking his chin and pretending to consider the pros he had very clearly already come up with. “Well, let’s see… which school do you think would be less stressful? Celestia’s school, or public school?”

“I guess… public school?” I guessed, looking up at my brother for approval.

“I think you guessed right! How about…” He trailed off, stroked his chin again. “Where do you think you’ll be the smartest pony in the school? Celestia’s school, or public school”

“Mm… both!”

Shining laughed again. “You betcha! Where do you think you’d learn more kinds of things… the magic school, or the public school?”

“Oh!” I cocked my head. “I never thought of it that way. The public school!”

“Your turn, now.”

“Hm…” It was my turn to stroke my chin, as silly as it probably looked. “Well, I don’t know any of the fillies at Celestia’s school… but I bet some of the ponies I know from the park are going to public school!”

“Hey, that’s a good one!” Shining said.

“And I bet I’ll have lots more time to keep studying on my own if I go to public school… maybe I can even take some extracurriculars!” I looked up at Shining. “Do you think public school has reading club? Or library club? Or study club?”

Shining laughed again. The amount of time he spent laughing confused me at the time; I now realize that I was just too damn cute. “See, Twily? There’s lots of good reasons to go to public school.”

“I guess…” I agreed, though still somewhat disappointed.

“Look, you can still be angry about it for now. Just promise me you’ll give the public school a real try?” Shining nudged me with his elbow.

I sighed. “Okay. I guess I can give it a try. For science?”

Shining chuckled, and nodded. “For science.”

Anyway, to make a long story short, Shining had egged on my public school journey from day one. And it’s not his fault that I’m so blah about everything now-- he was just trying to put a band-aid on my filly boo-boo and get me acting like myself again. How could he have seen the myriad of ways it would go wrong? The sheer number of ponies I would drag down into my madness, my impulsivity? Did I mention there were at least seven?

“Whew…” I muttered. I pressed a hoof into my chest, hoping to calm the burn.

“Hey,” Vinyl elbowed me. “You’re not having a heart attack, are you? I read this article about how mares don’t do that whole falling-over thing when they have a heart attack. They just get all sweaty and nauseous and their… legs hurt, or something.”

“Legs?” Lyra questioned. She repositioned her guitar onto her back and began to examine her forelegs as if they were heretofore-unknown appendages. “Why would your legs hurt?”

Vinyl rolled her eyes. “It’s science, Lyra. Mare science. Don’t you know anything about medicine?” Vinyl turned back to me. “For reals: you having a heart attack?”

I shook my head. “No, no. Not a heart attack. I’m just-- just nervous, I guess.”

Vinyl nodded sagely. “So, a panic attack, then?”

“When did you become a doctor, Vinyl?” Lyra teased.

“Last night when I couldn’t sleep. I just started reading encyclopedia articles. It totally didn’t help, I actually got really scared reading about endometriosis.” Vinyl paused to remove her sunglasses from her mane and place them over her eyes. “Medicine is fucked up, yo.”

“Lyra, have you tuned?” I asked, now twirling the pink lock of my mane around one hoof.

“Oh, shoot!” Lyra whipped her guitar back around to the front. “Twi, be a lamb and gimme an E?”

I pressed the E on my keyboard.

The cafe quieted completely in under three seconds, and all eyes were on us.

Vinyl looked at me. Lyra looked at me, then at Vinyl, then at me.

“Oh! S-sorry,” I said. “Just tuning up! Won’t be a second.”

It took a moment, but conversation resumed as normal.

Vinyl took her position behind her complex equipment. “Dude, this sucks!” she hissed. “Stupid cafe doesn’t even have a backstage!”

“Don’t disparage the venue, Vinyl!” Lyra scolded, all on an E. She shifted up to a B and sung “Twilight, could you give me a B?”

I obliged, pressing the B on my keyboard.

“Thank you!” She sung, this time sustaining as she tuned.

You ever get the feeling that you’re going to fail an exam while you’re studying? That sort of sinking feeling, where you know you should have started studying earlier, or should have asked a friend for help, or maybe just given up and cheated?

Well, my stomach was in my hooves. No, below my hooves. Seeping through the floor and into the basement. This was one test we were most certainly going to fail.

I pressed the B key over and over, holding it down as long as the tone would sustain, then releasing and hitting it again. Every time I pressed it was like an ice pick chipping away at the little piece of me that wasn’t actively experiencing a panic attack.

“G please!”

G. G. G.

Not a panic attack. You don’t have a panic disorder, Twilight. You’re stressed. You put a lot of pressure on yourself, y’know? You’re an overachiever. That’s just your nature. An anxious overachiever.

“Now D!” She was reaching the end of her range, still several notes to go.

D.

How many strings were on a guitar again?

D.

Come on, you know this.

D.

Don’t look back, Twilight. If you look back, everypony in this cafe will know you’re counting the strings on that guitar. Then what are you gonna do?

D.

You wanna be a musician, and you don’t even know how many strings are on a guitar?

D.

Have to be a musician.

D.

Now you have to be a musician, Twi. No other options.

“A!”

A.

Oh, that letter always makes me think of tests.

A.

It’s a shame it’s such a common letter. Not as common as… what’s the most common letter, again? Is it T? Seems like T.

A.

No, it can’t be T. Maybe it’s M? I feel like I use M a lot.

A.

“Last one! E!”

E! That’s it, E was the most common letter.

E.

At least you remembered something. That’s good.

E.

Your mind may be thoroughly swiss-cheesed, but at least you know the most common letter.

E.

That’ll come in handy, hm?

E.

Super often, too.

E.

“Twilight?”

Did I waste my time in public school?

E.

“Yo, Twilight!”

Did I even learn any spells while I was there?

E.

I feel like the only thing--

E.

--I actually learned--

E.

--is that I hate--

E.

--public school!

“Twilight!” Lyra pulled me out of my thoughts while a hoof on my shoulder.

“Yah!” I cried out. “Oh… sorry. I guess I might have zoned out for a second there.” I forced an awkward giggle.

Vinyl pushed her glasses up onto her forehead. “Dude… you panicking? You can tell me. I learned all the breathing exercises and junk for when Octavia was auditioning for the Canterlot Orchestra.”

Without bothering to probe further, Vinyl placed one hoof on my shoulder and stared at me with such intensity that she may have been trying to set me on fire.

“Mm?” was all I could manage as I leaned away from her, my own eyes wide and unblinking.

“Dude.” Vinyl reeled me back in. “Breathe with me. In…”

“Vinyl, not now!” I hissed. My eyes flickered to the audience and back, and I realized that not one of them was looking up anymore. For some reason, that made me feel even worse.

“Twi, pay attention.” Vinyl was surprisingly firm when she wanted to be. “In?”

I recoiled more.

“Don’t make faces. In.”

As much as I didn’t want to give in, I was running out of air, so I took a raspy breath in.

“That sucked, but okay.” Vinyl’s mouth twitched, then she chuckled. “Get it? Sucked, ‘cause you-- ‘cause you sucked in-- that’s nothing.”

“Out?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, out.”

I let it out.

“Okay, do it again,” Vinyl said. "In…" All the while, her eyes were locked with mine. Those ruby-red eyes…

They were kinda beautiful, actually. Real round and… and red… why did she ever cover them up? She should have been famous for those eyes, should have been known for those eyes. Such a nice red. Autumn leaf red. Ballgown red.

"Out."

Her breath rushed against my throat. Celestia, my throat…

"Vinyl?" I murmured.

"You doin' alright, champ?" Vinyl asked.

"Oh…" My chest heaved.

"Oh, fuck, Vinyl, she's gonna--"

And I was off. Couldn't vomit in the venue, after all. It was amazing how outrageously, inconveniently considerate I could be, even on the verge of puking.

I exploded through the front doors, but it wasn't far enough. If I barfed in the street, the whole cafe would still see it! What a way to ruin a meal, right?

Seconds to spare. My throat was burning, my jaw clenched shut in an effort to make it somewhere safe.

No alleys, no corners-- I mean, fuck! Did they want me to just let loose in the gutter? Who designed this street, anyway?

That was when I spotted it, my version blurring, pitching and yawing, rocking and rolling… bile climbing the back of my throat. Knees knocking.

I wish I'd been in a better state of mind. I wish that I could remember it more perfectly, and under better circumstances. I wish I had had the time to memorize the tears in the striped awning, and the arrangement of fresh breads and pies in the front window. I wish I had been able to close my eyes and take a deep breath as I stood in the doorway, taking in the smoky scent of the wood-burning oven and the tart notes of apples and lemon dancing above it. I wish I had noticed who was in there at the time--ponies that would undoubtedly come to play an enormous role in the next few years of my life--maybe even say hello, buy something.

But that didn't happen, because I was going to vomit. I was going to vomit harder than any pony had ever vomited before. I was going to blow chunks at a velocity heretofore unheard of. I was--

Oh, stop thinking about it, you idiot.

I flew through the door of the building across the street, fast enough to ruffle the awning over the front window. I didn’t stop to notice what kind of establishment this was, and I barely registered the tinkle of the bell over my head. The smell of warm pastries never reached my nose because I couldn’t even breathe because if I breathed I would vomit.

“Hey!” the mare behind the counter yelled. “Hey, miss!”

I didn’t stop to look. I was moving on pure instinct now. I’m convinced that I found the bathroom by some sort of sixth-sense, in all honesty.

I made it moments before disaster. I didn’t even think to close the door.

The volume and… well, wetness of my retching, combined with what was probably a fast-travelling smell, thinned the bakery’s line considerably. And, of course, by “thinned considerably” I mean “eliminated.”

The first thing she ever said to me, dripping with southern charm, was “You’d better be dyin’ of somethin’ horrible, ‘cause otherwise I’ll have to kick your ass.”

Well. I guess the first first thing she said was “hey,” but that’s not nearly as fun to tell ponies.

I was resting my cheek on the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl, my arm wrapped around it with a sort of fierce desperation. I was done vomiting, sure, but this toilet had seen me through it. Through it all. What a great toilet.

With a disgusting belch, I managed to turn my head to the side and look up at the bakery’s owner.

She was really tall. Though, to be fair, that may be due in part to my position on the floor.

Her coat was this really nice orange-- not the orange you usually think of when you hear “orange.” Not an orange-y orange. Kind of a sunset-y orange. A soft-around-the-edges orange. The kind of orange that makes you think of fall, not the 70s. To top it all off, there was a fine dusting of freckles across her snout and under her eyes. So light it could have been flour, or powdered sugar, or whatever they use in bakeries.

Her mane was a striking natural blonde, pulled into a no-nonsense bun at the back of her head, fastened in place with a surplus of bobby pins, imprisoned further by a hairnet. Her tail was done up just the same way.

Her eyes were super green. I legitimately cannot think of a prettier way to say that. They were just real green.

“Yep,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. Her freckles scrunched up a bit. “‘Yep’ what?”

“Yep, I’m dying.”

“Twilight!” Screeched a more familiar voice.

Lyra and Vinyl came skidding into my view, which was growing clearer by the second. They both looked like they’d seen me get hit by a carriage in the middle of the street.

Vinyl put a hoof over her mouth and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, that’s so gross…”

“Twilight, are you okay?” Lyra asked. “What happened back there?”

The mare who worked the counter scoffed. “What happened is your friend here chased every last customer outta my bakery! Y’all better be hungry, ‘cause you’re buyin’ every last thing in that case!” She pointed emphatically to the array of baked goods on display under her counter.

Vinyl looked positively green.

Lyra looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

The mare whipped the hairnet off of her head and threw it down on the floor in anger. “I’m Applejack, consarn it! This is Applejack’s Bakery--my bakery--and your friend killed my profits for the day!”

“Chill out, AJ!” Vinyl cut in. “It’s not like she meant to! Can’t you cut her a break? She looks dead!”

I rolled my head back down and closed my eyes. My friends would fight this for me. I just wanted the cold, cold porcelain.

“Don’t call me AJ!” Applejack responded. “Get your friend outta my bakery!”

“Should we come back for all the stuff in the case?” Lyra asked timidly.

“Out!” Applejack bellowed.

I can hardly remember being carried out of there. I’m not entirely certain I was carried, to be honest-- My brain may have been so shot at that point that I walked myself back to our van with no trouble at all, talking all the while.

Then again, I did come around with a considerable number of bumps, bruises, and scrapes I did not remember getting. So I think I was probably carried very poorly.

Strangely, the only thought I’m certain was in my mind was one of Applejack. She felt so familiar to me, like I had met her at some part-time job in high school, or maybe she was in an opposing team’s marching band or something. Perhaps I lived near her for some time before her family moved away. The answer felt so close, and yet it kept flitting just out of my grasp.

When I woke up from my cold-sweat nap, Vinyl was sitting beside me. She was reading something, I think-- some horror novel.

“Where’s her hat?” I mumbled.

Vinyl’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

I closed my eyes and moaned softly. “Ooh, Celestia. I feel like I got hit by a freight train.”

Vinyl nodded. “Lyra and I aren’t feeling too good, either. We think it was food poisoning, probably from that stupid gas station food. Nopony got it bad as you, though,” she said with a sympathetic chuckle. “Sorry, Twi.”

I sat up. “Food poisoning?” I repeated. “Really, you think so?”

“Don’t sit up so fast!” Vinyl scolded. She pushed me back down onto my pillow. “And, yeah. If you’re asking because you don’t think you have a panic disorder, lemme just--”

“I don’t have a panic disorder!”

“For fuck’s sake, Twi.” Vinyl shook her head. “You need to start taking this seriously! You’ve always been a worry wart, but it’s gotten way worse lately. I don’t need to be worried for the both of us, okay? I don’t have the emotional capacity for that shit.”

I tucked my snout down. “Sorry.”

Vinyl shrugged. “I-It’s cool. You don’t have to be sorry or anything.”

I sighed. Vinyl had that look in her eyes that told me further arguing would get me nowhere. She was stubborn like that. It was admirable, in a way. Just not when you wanted to get her to budge.

“I’ll go apologize tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe buy something.”

Vinyl nodded. “Sure thing, champ. As long as you’re up for it.”

“Yeah…” I murmured.

I rolled over to face the wall. Vinyl pulled my blanket up over my shoulder, gave my back a little bit of a rub, and picked up her book once more.

Sleep was near once again. Memories of Applejack were swirling through my mind faster and faster-- though few of them seemed to be based in reality. All quick flashes of her looking… different. Some older, some younger. Her mane in different styles. Even just in different places, places I couldn’t recognize in the least.

“Holy shit!” I shot up in bed.

Vinyl dropped her book. “What?!”

“Our gig!” I yelled. “We missed our gig!”

Vinyl chuckled. “Sure did, champ.”

Chapter Three: Fix-It

I remember so vividly the way my heart fluttered in my chest; part nervous hummingbird, part adrenaline-fueled terror, all of it amplified by the smallness of my filly-sized chest. I could hardly breathe, and yet I felt so alive.

The room smelled like fresh-squeezed orange juice and real roses-- not that fake grandma perfume. Princess Celestia's mane lit up the room in an otherworldly glow.

I walked across the tile, which seemed to stretch on into infinity, so far that I could see the curvature of the planet. Then, suddenly, I was in front of the platform which held the magic egg.

Only… it wasn't an egg. It was me. And I wasn't nestled in a straw nest, I was sitting on a red beanbag chair, my hooves folded over my chest in childish anger.

Wait, no. It was a guitar. Lyra's guitar, nestled in a pile of bile and vomity chunks.

No. Me again.

No, no. Just an egg.

A big, round, mysterious egg with some sort of pattern on it which I, embarrassingly, could no longer remember. But I did remember the subtle scent of straw from the bed it sat in. I remember thinking why straw? Why not a cushion? Won't straw just get everywhere if the egg hatches?

And I remember it because it was the first seed of doubt which had entered my mind as far as this examination went. As if the straw was daring me to mess up. As if it knew I could never hatch that stupid egg, and that no one would have to clean up that straw anyway. It would just sit on the platform forever.

Suddenly, the room was melting away, almost faster than I could see. Like the whole place had been carved out of ice, and the heat of the sun was bearing down upon it all. I saw myself, again, on the platform. My eyes slid down my cheeks and onto my shoulders. My snout drifted down below my chin. Just a blank, smooth globe of a skull with no features at all.

I blinked again, and it was all gone. I was in a black void-- just me and Princess Celestia.

Unfazed by this change in venue, I began to concentrate very hard on hatching the egg which no longer existed.

"What do you want, Twilight?"

I pushed harder, my eyes screwed shut with focus and determination.

"What do you want?"

It was coming from Princess Celestia, but it was Compass Rose's voice.

"What do you want?"

"I want to pass!" I yelled back.

A long pause.

I began to moan with effort, digging my hooves into the only uncertainty of the void and pushing everything I had through the top of my horn.

"What do you want?"

"I want to pass!" I repeated. "I just want to pass!"

"What do you want?"

And then I was on the cot in the back of the van, my flesh-and-blood heart pounding, beads of sweat rolling down my forehead.

I sat up far too quickly and put both hooves to my chest, as if it would calm the frantic beating of my heart. I was panting and sweating and so scared I would barf again that I must have fought it back. Thank fuck.

It took probably a good forty minutes to calm myself down enough to go back to sleep, I believe. Nearly four just staring at the wall and trying to remember where I was, who I was, what was happening.

When I finally got my mind put back together, I looked over at Vinyl.

She had stayed. She had slid down against the wall, her mane exploding on the wall behind her head. The book she had been reading was open across her chest. She looked to all the world like a pony who had taken a break from reading on the beach for a quick nap in the sun, not a pony who had passed out from exhaustion while watching over a sick friend.

She had stayed.

My heart fluttered once more. Then my stomach. Then I was able to lay down.

I stared up at the ceiling for so long that I could probably be considered a monk by some less-cultured city ponies.

I'd like to say that my head was empty, but that was one of those dreams that you thought about whether you liked it or not. The kind of dream that you'd actually consider paying somepony to unravel for you, silly as the whole “dream interpreter” business may be.

Lyra snorted violently in the passenger seat and kicked the plastic underside of the dashboard with her back hooves. Enough to jolt me out of the destructive thoughts, but not enough to shock me awake exactly.

For the rest of the night, I didn't dream.

When morning came, it came slowly and all at once. No, I don't know what I mean by that.

All I know is that the night took forever, and all I could do every time my eyes slipped open in sweaty, feverish delirium was pray that the night would end soon. It felt like some sort of cruel punishment for acting like such a dope.

Dearest Princess Celestia, I foundmyself muttering in the back of my mind, I learned a lot today about how to follow impulses responsibly. I learned so much about how to consider your friends and family when you make stupid choices. Please, please let the sun rise so that I can move on.

But the night dragged on. And then it didn't.

When the sun came up, I no longer wanted it to. Isn't that always how it goes? You can't sleep all night, but seconds before your alarm chirps you're out cold. Deepest, best sleep of your life.

It was May eighth. I had taken my exam on May fifth. Fuck, can things get out of hoof fast.

I felt better. The nausea and discomfort was gone at last. Although, to be honest, the fear that it would soon return loomed heavily over my mind as I rolled out of bed and began to knock about the van.

The back door of the vehicle slammed open with a cartoonishly loud bang! and I stumbled into the sun like a drunkard. Even the shadow of my hoof seemed to do little to protect me from the intensity of the morning light.

So distracted and disoriented was I that I nearly missed Lyra's little yellow post-it stuck to the side of the van:

Gone out for breakfast :)

I tore it down. Surely there was more than one place to get breakfast in all of Manehatten. Hell, there was probably more than one diner within walking distance-- even for me, who would surely pass out from hunger and dehydration quite soon.

Unless…

I crumpled up the sticky note and tossed it over my shoulder. Down at the other end of the street were two establishments I couldn't bear to be seen in: first, the cafe. Second, Applejack's bakery.

Of course they would go to her bakery for breakfast. Why shouldn’t they? They hadn’t made indescribable idiots of themselves. They had been perfectly stable, normal, respectable members of greater society.

Just as I was thinking that I should skip breakfast, skip every meal until we finally made it back to Canterlot, my stomach lurched and grumbled aloud.

I should go, right? Follow my heart-- I mean, my impulses?

No, no. Don't be stupid.

Well… you do owe her an apology.

She'll get by without one.

That's not very nice.

What if you puke again?

What if Applejack hates you forever because you didn't apologise?

My thoughts halted there, full-stop. Why would I care if she hated me? She lived in Manehatten, a place I would hopefully be leaving as soon as possible. She seemed to have an overall grumpy demeanor (although I suppose the circumstances of our first interaction were less than stellar). So what if she didn't like me?

My stomach lurched again.

It was compulsive. A compulsive, all-consuming need to be liked.

That's what I told myself, anyway. That’s how I rationalized it at the time.

This situation, I thought to myself, is the kind with a lot of moving parts. The kind with an unpredictable outcome. But, at the very least, I could feel good about my own ability to take responsibility for a bad situation. Even if apologizing made it worse, I did what everypony had been taught to do and owned up to my mistake.

Satisfied at last, I began the long walk to the end of the block.

I couldn’t wait to hear what Applejack would say to me when I opened the door. Probably something scathing and sarcastic that would just make me feel like laying down in the gutter for a good, long cry. Probably with a little sneer thrown in at the end, just for good measure.

Howdy-Doo, Miss Twilight! I could hear her saying.

I doubled back.

What in Celestia’s name made me think that Applejack would say that?

Must be the accent. I’m just a prejudiced little pony who thinks that anypony with a Southern accent is some kind of country bumpkin who says funny country-isms and is generally very hospitable, often verging on outright ignorance and being played up for a laugh.

“Well, well…” Monotone. Low. Heavily accented. “Look who’s come back.”

That was much more in-character, I thought.

There stood Applejack. The real Applejack.

She was leaning against a broom in front of her shop. Her blonde mane and tail were pulled up in restrictively tight buns, and further forced under hairnets. She was wearing a very traditional white apron with a red trim. The trim matched the ties in her mane, I noticed.

The smattering of perfectly brown freckles over her snout and across her cheeks were even more obvious in the morning sun. The combination of her mane-do and her grimace pulled all of the skin on her face taught.

“This is for next time,” Applejack said, gesturing to a brass urn beside the front steps of her establishment.

I could have sworn the sun actually glinted on its surface as I admired the large vessel.

“Next time?” I asked, which was probably the dumbest thing to say in that situation.

Applejack’s eyes narrowed further. “I have this feeling you’re going to keep coming around here. That true?”

“J-just the once,” I said. “For breakfast.”

“Mm.” Applejack spit onto the sidewalk. Not a mean spit. Just a spit. “I doubt that.”

I shook my head. “I swear! We’re not even from around here, my friends and I. We’re from Canterlot--”

Applejack scoffed. “That just figures. Y’all come blowin’ through here , thinkin’ you own this town ‘cause you’re from Canterlot, and break my damn toilet in the process.”

I felt my cheeks grow pink. “I broke your toilet?”

She sighed. A great, weary sigh which seemed to come from a deeper wound than that which I had caused her yesterday. "T'be fair, that old thing has been dangling off a cliff for a while now. You did give it a hearty shove yesterday evening, though."

"I'll fix it!"

What?

No.

You don't know how to fix stuff, Twilight.

Just offer to pay for the plumber or something.

Time slowed like a coin dropped into molasses as Applejack thought the offer over. Her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed in extreme detail. I could almost hear the gears of her mind spinning, if it hadn't been for the unholy grinding of my own mental mechanisms.

"Well. Guess there's no harm in letting you take a look. You certainly can't make it any worse."

Wanna bet?

I laughed. It was not a convincing sound. "Right!"

A flicker of doubt passed over Applejack's face, but she shrugged it off quite easily. "Your friends are eating breakfast. Why don't you eat before you get to work, Chunks?"

Chunks. Fun nickname.

I'm not even sure if I responded. I feel like my jaw might have just clamped shut from embarrassment at that stage. Somehow, against all odds, I was able to complete my conversation with Applejack and make it into the bakery, though I honestly couldn't tell you how either of those things actually occurred.

Even in such a state, I was able to get a better feel of the bakery today. It just hit me in a way that I couldn't ignore.

Everything in it was bright-- bright in color, brightly lit, even bright-smelling, if that makes any sense. Not the kind of bright that's tiring. The kind that feels like somepony just finished their spring cleaning in here. The kind that makes you wanna take a deep breath, let it out, and collapse to admire it all.

It was more than a bakery. There was significant seating to my right. I had missed this yesterday, unsurprisingly. It smelled like baked goods and sugar in here, but I could also smell eggs. And potatoes. And maple syrup.

"Hey, Twilight's up!" Lyra exclaimed.

She and Vinyl were seated at a chrome-edged table smack in the middle of the room, already chowing down on omelettes filled with fresh veggies.

I let a smile pull at the corners of my mouth. "Hey, guys. Sorry about--"

"Bup-bup-bup," Vinyl cut me off instantly. "There will be no apologizing for what happened yesterday. Just sit your ass down and eat, okay?"

I chuckled. "Deal."

The chairs were solid wood and screeched against the tile floor in a way that comforted me. As strange as it sounds, I could feel the memories that ponies must have here; it was like a lifetime of emotion and happiness and intimacy was crashing down on my head as I sat at that table with my friends. It all felt very… pink. That's the only way I can describe it.

Though there were only a few other ponies dining with us, it was like the forms of every other customer that had ever been here were whipping past me. It reminded me of those little animated flipbooks, only far too fast. All the conversations, too, flooded my mind: loud and happy and… and loud!

"Celestia, who's shouting?" I asked. "I didn't know ponies' voices could go so high…"

Lyra cocked her head quizzically. "Are you talking about the chefs in the back?"

Like water draining from the tub, all the additional sounds were sucked away from my consciousness. I was left pondering the unusually quiet bakery. Nothing loud or raucous or even energetic. Definitely none of the squealing ooh! ooh! I thought I'd heard.

"Must be it." I said, but I knew it wasn't.

"Shit, Twi, you look…" Vinyl reached across the table to brush my bangs out of my eyes. "I mean. You look-- well, your face is-- what I mean is--"

"Vinyl." Lyra nudged Vinyl in the ribs to break her out of her loop. "I think she's trying to ask if you slept enough?"

I snorted, which was meant to sound cool and dismissive but actually came out very forced and jarring. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."

Lyra and Vinyl shared a look. I didn't like it.

"You've been acting super weird lately, Twi," Lyra said, looking back at me. "Is something going on?"

Lyra's hooves were folded on the table in front of her like a junior psychiatrist. Vinyl did not know what to do with her body and sat oddly rigid, a look of concern and discomfort stuck to her face like a sticker.

I shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I just… I hope I made the right choice, y'know?"

"The right choice?" Lyra asked.

"About… leaving."

Vinyl scoffed and waved a hoof dismissively. "Are you kidding me? Totally. Even if you end up hating all this, you can just go back to school when you're done. Gap year, right?"

"You think?"

"Hells yeah!"

Lyra nodded along. "Totally, Twi!"

I let out a tentative sigh of relief. A little bit of weight lifted from my chest.

"What can I getcha, Chunks?"

I jumped so hard that the chair squeaked again.

Lyra put a hoof over her mouth to suppress a giggle.

"Any time now, Twi," Applejack said. She was holding a little pad of paper in one hoof, muttering around the pencil gripped in the corner of her mouth. "Got other customers."

"U-um, could I have a mushroom omelette?" I asked. "Please."

Applejack scribbled quickly, then said "one mushroom omelette, please, for Chunks."

I chuckled again, an awkward sound if I'd ever heard one. Didn't know what else to do.

Applejack tore the page out of her notebook and drifted off.

Lyra laughed aloud.

"What?!" I demanded.

"What is with you, Twilight?" Lyra asked. "I've never seen you like this before."

"I-I dunno…" I shuffled my hooves. "I feel bad, I guess."

"What for?" Vinyl asked, her mouth filled with egg. "I mean, sure, you did something kinda weird. But it's not a big deal or anything. It's definitely not as bad as some of the shit I've done. Did I ever tell you guys about the time--"

"Amazingly, Vinyl's right," Lyra plowed over what was sure to be an all-too-embarrassing story. "You've never really cared what ponies thought of you before, and we're leaving town today, anyway. What is it that has you so freaked out?"

I sighed and sunk low in my chair. "It's stupid."

"No stupid questions, only stupid answers!" Lyra said cheerfully.

Vinyl made a confused look, dimly aware that the saying applied in no way to the situation. This didn't bother Lyra in the least.

"I just…" I put my hooves over my eyes in fake exasperation. In reality, I was hiding. "I feel like I know her somehow. Like I have to impress her or-- or she'll go away. And I just can't even deal with that, for some reason! I can't deal with her not being my friend anymore."

Vinyl snorted. "Hate to break it to you, but she was never exactly your friend in the first place."

"I know that!" I insisted.

"Doesn't sound like you know that."

"I do!"

Vinyl sneered at me, brows raised, peering over her glasses.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

Lyra sighed. "We just wanna know what's stressing you out so bad. It's not like any of this is a big deal or anything."

But it was a big deal. It felt so huge to me, like an enormous pressure that was bearing down on my entire body. Like a blinding, white-hot light was searing every inch of my skin. Like my brain was boiling in my skull. Like a whole swarm of horseflies were burrowing into the walls of my stomach, desperately seeking sunlight and fresh air.

"I-I know," I said. "I know. No big deal. I know."

Neither of my friends were convinced.

Laughter pierced the cacophony of the bakery. Nothing like the shrieking, squealing laughter I had heard in my brain. This one was deep, genuine. A little silly and exaggerated. The kind that was likely to end in a snort. Undoubtedly Applejack's, though I had never heard her laugh.

I looked over my shoulder at her. She was leaning over the counter, listening as a customer rattled off all the flavors of bagels she wanted for breakfast. Applejack said something, then laughed again, and the customer laughed, too. There was something so beautiful about the sound that it made all the pain and torment and stress recede the tiniest bit, if only for a moment.

Then she stretched one hind leg out behind her and kicked the wall beside the bagel display case. Two bagels tumbled down from the top shelf and into a basket at the bottom. The silliest, simplest thing. Just something you do when you know your space; you reach around blind and beat up your furniture a bit.

But, for a second, it was like I was seeing a ghost; she had her mane down, under a Stetson, kicking a tree and-- gosh, the sun was so bright and warm. Must have been summer, but not a city summer. A rural summer. Small-town summer. Cicadas buzzing, wind in the leaves, no voices to be heard but hers.

I watched, awestruck, as Applejack scooped the bagels out of the basket and stuffed them into a brown paper bag for the waiting pony. All the while, she chatted and laughed with the ponies on the other side of the counter. Effortless.

"I know it's no big deal. And I know we're not friends, but I just… I feel like we have to be," I murmured.

Vinyl scoffed. "Yeah, okay drama queen."

I whipped back around, suddenly very aware of how long I had been staring. "You asked."

Vinyl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, I know. But… c'mon, Twi."

"What?" I whined. I just wanted my food. Just leave me alone, I don't know!

"It's obvious," Lyra said. "You've totally got a crush on her."

All the blood in my body rushed to my face-- cheeks and ears, specifically. "What?!"

Vinyl, uncharacteristically, said nothing more. She sipped her coffee silently and let nothing but the shadow of an emotion cross her face, here and gone too quickly to identify.

"Oh, please," Lyra scoffed and waved a hoof. "Like somepony as smart as you can't see that. You just stared at her for a full two minutes. Might as well have little hearts floating in your eyes, silly."

"She's gotcha there," Vinyl agreed.

"That's just because-- well, sometimes when I look at her, I--" The words wouldn't come. It did make sense, even I had to admit: maybe all this shit I was seeing was just hormonally-induced hallucinations. Visions of fantasies I didn't even know I had. "Sh-shut up!"

This caused Vinyl and Lyra to burst into laughter. Lyra banged one hoof on the table, nearly sending a fork flying clear across the room.

"Aw, shoot, I missed the joke."

The blood rushed harder. I felt as if my face might burst. Even the smell of hot, fresh food did nothing to calm me down.

Caught between hiding my face in my hooves and sitting up straight that a steel pole, I instead did something stupid with my legs that I really don't wanna think about. This caused another ripple of laughter to wash over my friends.

"Mushroom omelette for Chunks," Applejack announced, setting the heavy platter down in front of me.

"Sorry, sorry-- why chunks?" Vinyl asked, wiping a tear from her eye.

Applejack snorted. "Well 'cause she's gotta be the hardest chunk-blower I've ever seen. Oughta recognize that somehow, ammirite?"

She punched me playfully on the shoulder as she walked away. I would commemorate this, fondly, as the first time she touched me.

The touch caused my friends to silence themselves by force; hooves in mouths, breath held. Once Applejack was out of earshot, they melted down all over again.

"Twilight's in looove," Lyra mocked.

Vinyl sniggered along, pushing her glasses up over her eyes.

I lifted my fork. Even my magic was weak and unsteady, the one thing I could always count on.

"So, are you gonna ask her out, or what?" Vinyl asked. "Perfect one-night-stand opportunity right here."

"Ohmigosh yes!" Lyra clapped her hooves together giddily. "Let's get Twilight laid tonight! Perfect way to reduce stress, I swear."

I was starting to feel like my friends may not know me at all.

"I-I can't tonight," I blurted, not thinking.

Vinyl's brows furrowed. "Because…?"

Hm. Hadn't thought this far in advance. Curses.

"I'm… busy."

Lyra leaned forward. "We got that. Busy with what, exactly?"

"Just-- I have this thing to do and it could take a while and I just wanna make sure--"

"What thing?" Vinyl asked.

"I'm fixing her toilet, okay?!" I shouted.

A brief silence fell over the table.

Then, at precisely the same instant:

"Ohmigosh you broke her toilet?"

"That's a shit first date."

I took a bite of the omelette. It was the best omelette I had ever had.

Chapter Four: Visions of Farmer's Duds Danced in Her Head

Now that the idea was in my head, I couldn't shake it. Everytime I looked at Applejack I saw her doing… something. In the fields, or maybe the woods. Something athletic. Something sweaty.

And I didn't even really like it! Or at least I didn't think I did. I had never been that into things like that before.

But I guess I kinda did like it?

I liked looking at her, I mean.

But it wasn't because she made my heart race. In fact, Every time I saw those visions of her, I felt measurably calmer. My breathing became deeper and slower. My mind lulled. For a moment, however brief, the all-consuming blanket of dread was torn from my shoulders, its weight replaced with warmth and comfort.

The presence of Applejack in the bathroom as I tinkered with her toilet kept me in a perilously unpredictable middle zone. Too stressed to speak properly, yet too calm to just quit while I was ahead and get the fuck out.

Even the way she sat--in the bathtub, her mane loose and sticking to the damp tile ever so slightly--made me want to just stare at her endlessly. Her back hooves hung over the edge of the tub, kicking ever so slightly, threatening to brush my side with every twitch. Each time I glanced at her, the pink tiles lining the shower walls seemed to shudder, threatening to transform into tree bark.

"Whaddya think the issue is?" Applejack asked. For some reason, I thought she had a piece of wheat wagging from the corner of her mouth. Her expression was unreadable. Statuesque.

"Er…" I set down the wrench I had been using to scratch the back of my head. "Maybe if I just check…"

I lit my horn and used my magic to feel along the interior of the pipes. It wasn't an exact science-- something more akin to seismological tools than actual touch. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not an expert. But, then, anypony could tell you I’m not the best with magic.

No reason Applejack needed to know that, of course. No reason she had to know a single thing about magic in the first place. No reason she should.

A surging tide of confidence lapped at the corners of my mind.

"Mm…" I rolled my head around a little bit, jerked it once as if I was tugging on something. "Seems like a… a broken… er…"

I allowed the sentence to fade away into nothingness as I continued feigning my desperate search for the issue. I even shook the pipes around a bit, eliciting a sound not unlike the deep rumble of a fire hydrant about to spew water.

Applejack's expression remained impassable. She waited a nearly respectful amount of time before asking "Do you think you can fix it?" Her tone was so even. And low. And angry.

She hated me.

She really and truly hated me.

She had only pretended to be nice in the diner earlier. For the good of the customers.

The wave of confidence receded faster than I could even comprehend, and my magic faltered. "W-well, that's a-- see, if it is what I think it is, then, uh--" I shook the pipes around a bit more, hoping some disaster would overtake me and I wouldn't have to answer. No such luck, only more far-away metallic groaning. "If it's something else… well then I guess-- I mean, maybe I can-- But if it's what I think it is--"

"And what exactly do you think it is?" It was sharp, barked, almost Applejack folded her front hooves over her chest.

My magic was popping and fizzling now. Shit, I could almost hear Celestia's voice murmuring from the back row… failing again, just like always! Can't handle the pressure, Twilight? Can't handle the crowd? Can't take being observed like every other little pony?

I swallowed hard. "It's a stripped, uh… stripped bolt in the…" I rattled the pipe even harder, this time to cover for my shaking voice. A distant rumbling sound filled the room. "Oh, gosh, that's, uh--"

I kept shaking the pipes, hoping that Applejack couldn't tell I was stalling.

I think maybe her lower eyelids tensed, but I can't be sure. Boy, that pony won't break for anything.

But… no. I stole another glance at her, shaking and shaking all the while. This wasn't anger or frustration. It was a far-away distractedness, not unlike that which overcame me when I looked at her. It was careful. Thoughtful. Occuring in some other reality, far away from Manehatten, perhaps far from Equestria at all.

I decided to switch tactics. Applejack had supplied me with a whole toolbox-- a nice red one, metal, showing its age. I lifted the inset and pulled out what I could only pray was a drain snake.

Applejack made no move to stop me from jamming the thing down into her toilet, so I assumed I was correct.

"I never asked." Applejack said suddenly. Her tone was just the same as always-- low and angry.

I paused, but did not look at her. "N-never asked what?" It came out much quieter than I had intended.

"Why you booted in the first place."

I lost my magical grip on the drain snake and went scrambling for it in the toilet bowl.

Applejack cracked a smile, but did not move. Didn’t make a sound.

"W-well, thats-- I mean, if you don't mind, thats-- it's very--" I, at last, got a hold of the drain snake. The echoes of my splashing quieted. I cleared my throat. "That is personal, thank you."

"More personal than being fetlock-deep in my toilet?" Applejack tilted her head downward, allowing her bangs to fall down near her brow. "Why would I ask about that kinda thing if I wasn't ready for somethin' personal?"

I was silent for a moment. Still, I would not look at Applejack. "I don't exactly feel like sharing something personal just now." I said.

That was a lie. I wanted nothing more than to talk to her about my woes. About anything. About everything. An altogether stupid feeling, but one that I could barely talk myself out of.

Applejack nodded. "Alright. Understood."

I went back to mindlessly plunging the drain snake into the depths of Applejack's toilet. The sounds of disturbed water and muffled metal-on-metal scraping filled the room once again. Something told me I was supposed to be doing something differently, but Applejack wasn't correcting me, so I figured it must be close enough. She seemed like the type of mare who would correct other ponies. Whether they liked it or not.

She kept staring at me. I wondered, idly, what version of me she was seeing. Was I a farmer, too? Did I have my mane done in pigtails? Was I wearing a neckerchief? Was I harvesting berries? Oranges?

I cleared my throat.

Applejack looked away. She seemed embarrassed, but maybe that was just a projection of my own strange thoughts. Her face still did not seem to change.

As if prompted by Applejack’s apparent embarrassment, other visions of myself flooded my mind. Considerably more racy ones. I pushed them out as quickly as I could.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Applejack was a telepath, and she was the one zapping these pictures directly into my brain.

That would explain how she could sit so quietly just staring at me. My brain never shut up.

Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to talk.

"W-what're you doing for the Summer Sun Celebration?" I asked.

Applejack scoffed. "Ain't that a bit personal?"

I shrugged. "Well, I dunno. Is it?"

Applejack looked up and her eyes refocused on mine. I thought I registered the slightest hint of shock. Maybe pride.

She buried the feeling well, though. "Drinking. It's the one day a year I have an excuse to drink while the sun's still up." She smirked to herself and crossed one back hoof over the other. Her right hoof brushed my barrel ever so slightly, so gently that she may not have noticed it herself.

"Mm." The sound escaped me involuntarily.

"What about you, Chunks? Something tells me you're not the drinking type."

Applejack had gotten a lot more comedic mileage out of this whole vomit incident than I had anticipated.

I scoffed. "I-I drink. I drink plenty."

"Never said not drinking was a bad thing," Applejack said. "You're underage, aren't you?"

I nodded. "I'm eighteen. Are you not underage?"

Applejack shrugged. "I'm twenty. My, uh… well. I have some cider connections."

"Oh."

"How old did you think I was?"

I blinked. "I dunno. I thought-- I dunno. I guess I just figured we were the same age."

Applejack waved one hoof dismissively. "Close enough."

"Yeah. Close enough."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What are you doing for the celebration?"

Brilliant. Another question I didn't want to answer.

I continued to wiggle the drain snake around, though very slowly and without much thought.

"Well, I'm from Canterlot," I said. "That's where the big… y'know, all the carnival stuff and ceremonies are."

Applejack nodded. "So you're going back to the city, then?"

"That's not--" I shook my head. "I dunno just yet. I might stay here."

"What's there to do here?" Applejack asked. "Don't you wanna go home for the celebration? See the princess and everything?"

No… no, I really didn't want either of those things.

"Yeah, maybe." I nodded. "Wouldn't you wanna be with your family, too?"

Applejack grew very quiet. "Yeah. Yeah, I would."

I guess I had made a wrong move, but the way that Applejack stared at the inner surface of the tub told me I wouldn’t find out why any time soon.

There wasn't much left to say. I went back to tinkering with the toilet, this time as quietly as possible.

Of course I didn't want to go home. What was there at home? A celebration of the one pony I hated more than anything, surrounded by a bunch of other ponies with happier, more successful lives.

I'd have to see my brother, a high-ranking member of the royal guard. Love him to bits, but it just hurt to see him be adored while I was left in the dust.

I'd have to see my parents, of course. We had left things in a less-than-good place.

I'd probably have to see all those Gifted-Foal clique mares. The ones who'd made it into the program, and who would not hesitate to remind you.

And, of course, at the end of it all, I'd have to stand in a crowd and watch the mastermind of my rejection be applauded uproariously by every pony in Canterlot. Princess Celestia-- the pony who had once held my fate in her hooves, and who really couldn't have cared less about it. Who had failed me, a tiny filly, for being incapable of completing a massive magical task.

I jammed the drain snake down far enough that my hooves splashed in the water. I hadn't realized how much more violent my thrusting had become.

Applejack glanced at me, but decided not to comment.

That somehow made me even angrier. Applejack commented on everything. Did she feel sorry for me? Was this a pity silence?

Whoa, girl.

You don't know a thing about this mare. Where are these assumptions coming from?

I stabbed with the drain snake again. The toilet responded with an absolutely unholy sucking sound, so abrupt and extreme that I yelped aloud.

Applejack's eyes narrowed.

I made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a cough. "Th-that's good! It's the… the clog is clearing."

"Mm…"

"Grrrrrrrargh" the toilet added.

Applejack, with great effort, managed to push herself into a more upright position.

"If you can't fix this, it's alright. I've got a plumber."

"No, no!" I blurted. Stupid. You had an out, stupid. "It's okay. I've got this."

"Huh," Applejack said.

Our eyes stayed locked for a moment; hers glaring at me with the hoping of drawing out an admission, mine desperately trying not to blink or flicker about. I know that wasn't exactly the name of the game, here, but it seemed like the thing to do.

Applejack broke eye contact with me to look into the toilet bowl. I returned to snaking, very slowly. It sounded a bit like a distant saw… sht-sht.

"So, you like the Summer Sun Celebration stuff they do in Canterlot?" Applejack asked.

Sht-sht. “What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just making conversation, Chunks."

Sht-sht. "It's… not really my thing. Maybe when I was little. Not so much anymore."

"Tsk." Applejack blew her frizzy bangs out of her face. "Shoulda guessed you were one of those."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

Applejack unfolded her front legs and tucked them behind her head. She closed her eyes as she did, and I got another flash of her sitting just like that, just so, under a tree. The sunlight gathered in golden pools along her chest and stomach. The breeze ruffling her mane. In fact, even in this tiny bathroom, her bangs seemed to float on an impossible breath of wind. There and gone in the blink of an eye.

"I mean that city mares like you go one of two ways: you either love all the hokey tourist junk, or you think you're above it." The ghostly piece of straw waved at me from the corner of her mouth. "With that mane cut of yours… well, I bet you think of yourself as quite the rebel, don't you?"

My cheeks burned.

She was wrong, in a way. But also very right, in a way.

I didn't like the Summer Sun festivities because I didn't like looking at Celestia. Didn't like the glimpse I got of a better life, one where I worked directly under Celestia like that Moondancer unicorn, being coddled and cared for, living in the royal library and probably seeing my own brother a lot more often than I did.

But I was kinda proud of the fact that I hated it.

"Isn't doing things your own way a good thing?" I asked. Quietly.

"Well, sure," Applejack added. "But real rebels do things. City rebels just don’t do things."

My eyes narrowed.

"Never mind," Applejack said, waving away my confusion with one hoof. "Forget I said anything."

I growled to myself and shook one of the pipes around again, this time hoping it would burst. "What are you, then? Staying inside and drinking all day. Is that a real rebel or a city rebel?"

Applejack shrugged. "Never said it was a rebellion."

“Neither did I.”

“Manecut says otherwise.”

Long before I could form a response, the toilet made another hideous and indescribable sound; this one loud and terrifying enough that Applejack was scrambling against the inside of the tub, struggling to look down into the toilet at the problem.

The two of us started down into the porcelain bowl as every drop of water drained out of it, leaving behind a marbled surface that was less white and more gray-yellow. The further the water receded the louder the sound grew-- until it was suddenly silenced.

We were frozen for a moment or two, wondering idly what might happen next. Was this what a fixed toilet looked like? After all, it was clear that neither of us knew what we were doing.

But we didn't wonder long. The sound returned, like the roar of a lion, and every single drop of water came rocketing back up through the pipes.

Applejack hit the deck as fast as she could, hiding behind the edge of the tub as I was drenched with public toilet water.

I didn't know whether to scream, cry, or puke.

The water stopped. Applejack peered over the edge of the tub.

I wiped my mouth with a dry patch of fur on the back of my foreleg. "I don't think it's fixed," I muttered.

"You can say that again."

"I'm sorry, I know I said--"

"Do you wanna use my shower?"

I blinked. A few drops of toilet water flew from my eyelashes.

Applejack made a sound that seemed to be a suppressed chuckle, though it could have been a cough.

“If--” more water flew from my upper lip “--if it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”

Applejack shook her head. “Nope. No trouble.”

She leapt, gracefully, from the tub and squeezed behind me.

“I can pay for--”

“Just take a damn shower, Chunks!” Applejack shouted, kicking the bathroom door shut with her back hoof.

I sat still for just a moment more. Something about being drenched like this made me feel… strange. Sort of blue, I guess. Not a sad blue-- a bright, shocking blue. Electrically blue.

Oops, I guess I overdid it. Um-- uh-- how about this? My very own, patented Rain-Blow Dry! No, no. Don't thank me. You're quite welcome.

I shook my head to clear away the abrasive voice. Toilet water splattered across every visible surface.

My heart stopped.

I jumped in the tub.

Chapter Five: Hair!

Ever notice how every shower curtain sounds the same?

It's weirdly comforting. The shower controls might be foreign, and the water pressure might be… unexpected. But, when the water turns off and you slide the curtain aside, it always sounds the same. The same deep crinkling of the plastic, the same metal-on-metal shing! of the rings. Silly as it sounds, it settled me a bit.

The air outside the shower was colder than I anticipated. I shivered and yanked the dark brown towel off the bar beside me. The towel was old and had lost most of its fluff, but it smelled like fresh laundry and dryer sheets, so it was lovely all the same. Just a scrubby-er lovely than I had anticipated.

I used my magic to lay the towel on the tile floor and stepped out of the tub, wiping each hoof dry as I went.

There was a mirror over the sink, all fogged up with steam from the hot water. I used the back of my foreleg to wipe away a patch of fog. There, in the mirror, I saw her: tired, embarrassed, with a frizzy and poorly-styled mane. Her lavender coat looked dulled than usual, her eyes lacking that signature Twilight sparkle.

I blinked. Another me: her mane perfectly smooth and shiny, with nice straight bangs and an academically-minded look in her eye. A spring in her step. A mission.

I blinked again. Back to me and my cowardly faux-hawk. Bags under the eyes. Stupidly bad posture. Did I always stand this way?

I shifted my hooves, standing up taller and straighter. Now, the majority of my horn was obscured by fog. I leaned over the sink and widened my little viewing window. There. Much better.

My mane, flopped over my right ear and looking pathetic, would look much better as bangs, wouldn’t it?

Frantically, using hooves and magic, I combed my man down my forehead, creating some terrible makeshift goody-goody mane style.

I froze, stepped back, and examined my work.

I looked… I dunno.

Whatever it was, it made my stomach do flip-flops. And it made my forehead start to sweat, too-- though I guess that could have been from my wet mane. I almost felt like I was about to puke again, truth be told. Felt like the walls were closing in, like the steamy air was suffocating me, bearing down on me, applying unbearable pressure on every square inch of my skin, like my chest with burning with the effort it took to breathe, like--

I scrubbed through my mane with one hoof. It returned to its usual style with unbelievable ease, like a ball rolling down a hill and settling in a valley.

I stared at myself. Stared right in the eye.

What was I doing?

Following whims was getting me nowhere fast. Stupid Compass Rose, sending me out to follow my stupid heart and do stupid stuff. The whole thing was so stupid!

I mean, what next? Would I embark on some mission of reinvention, all sparked by the unkind words of some random Manehattanite? Would I wander blindly into some fancy, expensive salon and just tell the owner to do their worst?

Oh, my stars, darling! What happened to your coiffure?!

For the love of--

I stomped my hoof on the tile to clear the unfamiliar, accented voice from my mind. Was it some kind of developing disorder? Were the events of these past few days so horrible as to cause my mind to splinter?

I turned away from the mirror and picked up the towel. Perhaps rejoining society would kick this weirdness.

The air from beyond the bathroom was like an arctic blast against my warm hide. I shuddered and resisted the urge to wrap my towel around my shoulders. I noted the addition of an "Out of Order" sign to the bathroom door.

It struck me, for the first time, that having a shower in a public-use bathroom actually didn't make much sense. I looked back over my shoulder into the room, I guess hoping that some bit of flashy neon I had previously missed would announce the answer to me. Shockingly, there was no unnoticed signage in the rinky-dink bathroom.

"Well, you sure smell better."

I jumped. As usual, Applejack had managed to sneak up on me. She was back in her chef's garb and looking surly.

"Uh… thank you?"

"Towel." Applejack held out a hoof for my dirty laundry.

I considered asking Applejack exactly what kind of stick she had stuffed up her ass, but decided that it would be better to just fork over the towel and be done with it.

She took it like a teacher would a bag of weed.

"Thanks," I said.

"For?" Applejack was already on the move, headed upstairs.

I followed close behind. "F-for letting me use your shower."

Applejack stopped on the stairs. I jolted and nearly slipped down onto the landing.

"Applejack?"

"I only let you do what I owed you. Now, get back to your friends so I can call a real plumber."

My mouth hung open, half-formed thoughts all tumbling over one another trying to reach it. While I did that, Applejack climbed the stairs and turned the corner into her little loft apartment.

I slipped back one stair and the light of the evening sun caught the side of my eye.

It was past five. The work day was over. I had frittered away a whole day splashing about in a stranger’s toilet, and for what? Friendship? Closure? Reconciliation?

I wanted to scream, or maybe run away. I couldn’t bear to think that this was it. Could that really have been that last time I’d see her?

No… something told me I would again.

But how soon?

What would I have to do?

What if I left Manehattan when I was really supposed to stay?

What if I followed her somewhere just to see her again and everything else went to hell?

While my mind puttered along, munched on any little crumb of doubt and anxiety it could get its paws on, I began pacing.

I had always had a habit of pacing. I typically didn’t have the space to do it, though. Desks kept me restrained, and so I kicked. My room was too small to walk in a ring, and so I would lay in my bed listening to music as loud as it would go. I suppose it wasn’t so much a need to walk as it was a need to get energy out in any way possible. But not physical energy. Emotional energy.

I wandered into the front room. The glass display cases were devoid of baked goods, only blank trays lined with wax paper filling their rows, already prepped for the next day's muffins and cupcakes.

Just like me. An empty shell, waiting to be filled with the personality of the day.

More intense orange light filtered in through the old-fashioned wooden blinds, tinged redder by the cotton curtains drawn back in neat bunches.

I always liked this time of day. Three guesses why.

Of course I would let something as insignificant as my name dictate crap like that. What if I had been born a night owl, and I’d never give it a second thought because I always just liked dawn and dusk because that was my stupid name?

I considered leaving. The burning of bile in my throat was transforming into a burning of tears in my eyes.

As I approached the door, my thoughts slowed, like an arrow shot into a cube of gelatin.

Didn't this place need to be locked up?

I pushed gently on the front door. It opened with ease.

I yanked my hoof back as if from a hot stove. The bell jingled. The door slammed shut.

Now what?

It’s not like I had a key.

Applejack was going to realize eventually, right? She'd realize and come marching down the stairs with a big ring of old keys and--

Big ring of old keys? Damn, Twi, been reading too many detective novels lately?

--and she'd either see me here, waiting and guarding her bakery/cafe/diner very diligently, or she'd see the storefront empty… and she'd be seized with the need to check everything, make sure all was accounted for. After all, what if somepony had taken advantage of the unlocked front door?

It could take her hours, depending upon what she had in the back.

Maybe I should check.

If I found something valuable, then I should stay. If not…

Before I could even follow my winding thoughts to the end of their trail, my hooves were walking me to the kitchen.

I guess… I guess if there wasn't anything expensive-looking that I could easily reach… well, then I could leave! Right? Unless she had something hidden, something I couldn’t find.

I pushed past the huge, metal door, all the while thinking of submarines, and how funny it is that restaurants and submarines share so much. First, these weird round windows. Second, the word "submarine" (though I preferred to call them hoagies). I can't think of anything else right now, but I'm sure it's there. The presence of food, probably.

Part of me expected the kitchen to still be bright, bustling with life-- as if the massive doors created some kind hermetic seal, and breaking it would unleash a barrage of light and sound.

Not so. The kitchen was still and dead. It smelled a bit like uncooked flour and grease, and a lot like buttercream frosting.

My hooves echoed on the tile floor. Everything was really clean. I'm not sure why I found that so surprising. I guess I always thought these sorts of kitchens were chaotic, messy places. Now that I thought about it, though, I don’t know why I expected professional chefs to not only have so little control over their stirring ability, but also leave their workspace a sty for the next morning.

Suddenly, cooking in a professional kitchen seemed a lot less glamorous.

The fridge was towards the back of the room. On my walk, I didn't see anything that looked like a safe. Or… like a hidden safe.

There go those detective novels again, Twi. What exactly does a hidden safe look like? A painting with the eyes cut out? A funny-looking panel in the wall?

As if. A painting with the eyes cut out is for surveillance. And a weird panel could never conceal an entire safe.

… Focus, Twi.

I opened the fridge with my magic.

Definitely not what I expected.

Inside the fridge was six-pack after six-pack of glass bottles, all of them filled with a sparkling bronze-colored liquid.

I pulled one out, ever so gently, and examined the label.

Sweet Apple Acres Heirloom Hard Cider

I furrowed my brows, unsure about the use of "heirloom" in such a context. Just one of those words that city folk seem to think means "down-home" or "family recipe" or something.

Also on the label was a picture of an incredibly burly, tough-looking stallion wearing a yoke. He was flexing one foreleg for the camera--or, I suppose, the artist. Two pieces of silky golden ribbon proclaimed "BIG MAC APPROVED" in bold, important-looking letters. The ribbons were suspended in the air above and below Big Mac's portrait, gently brushing against his red fur, and bringing out the yellow of his freckles.

I thought I had never seen such a horrible caricature in my life, and gently pushed the six-pack back in its place.

My trip to the kitchen had afforded me no additional helpful information. Applejack did have exposed goods (in the form of copious amounts of alcohol), but would anypony really expect to find that stuff here? Enough to break in? Well… okay, walk in.

I flopped back down in a wooden chair, which squeaked loud enough to scare me. I made a mental note to complain to Applejack about this terrible feature next time I saw her.

Because there would be a next time, wouldn't there? She would come down the stairs to lock the door, and I would have to talk to her again.

I folded my hooves on the table and rested my head on them. I sighed with the depth and emotion of a dog who had done absolutely nothing all day, and yet found strife in his less-than-comfortable bedding.

What do I want?

What Compass Rose hadn't told me is that, if you follow your gut once, you have to follow your gut a bunch more times. You have to keep asking yourself what you want every minute of every day, just to make sure the whim hasn't worn off and left you high and dry. You’re committing to a life--or, at least, a summer-- of whims.

And I'm really, really good at ignoring my feelings.

But here, in the blank atmosphere this empty cafe afforded me, I was finally able to hear my own voice bubbling up from deep inside me.

"We have to get ready for the Summer Sun Celebration!" I could hear myself saying.

I smacked my forehead on the table. Really? The deepest, most primal part of me, wanted to start preparing for a celebration that was more than a month away?

That couldn't be right.

What did I want? Really, truly. What did I want?

Did I really wanna play with my band? Or was that all some elaborate scheme my brain cooked up to get the hell out of Dodge? To spend time with my best friends? To explore something which may or may not turn out to be the one true talent that would get me out of this?

I rolled my head to the side. This table was hard. Another complaint for Applejack, I thought. Softer tables. That was reasonable, right?

It's not like the band had ever been a priority of mine or anything. Sure, I knew how to plunk out of a few songs on the keyboard, but that was nothing compared to Lyra and Vinyl. They were real, actual musicians. Their cutie marks said so. What made me think I could call the shots on their stuff? On their careers?

No, no. You're panicking again, Twi. You already talked to them about this, and they're happy and proud. They like doing this with you. No reason to get all twisted up.

There must be something you want.

Something you and only you want to do.

What is it?

Think, Twilight!

I smacked my head on the table a few more times. It didn't help.

Is this what it felt like to be a failure? Maybe I was one of those "Before Their Time" ponies you always read about. The ones born with a special talent that didn't exist yet-- like roller-coaster engineers born in the stone ages, or video game masters stuck before vacuum tubes were invented.

Maybe I was supposed to be really great at time travel or something, and I was just born too early. Or maybe I really did have some musical talent, and the instrument I was born to play just didn't exist yet.

That means it's not my fault, right?

"You're still here?"

I made a loud, startled sound and shot straight up in my chair.

Applejack was standing on the threshold to the hall, her face the usual unreadable stone tablet.

"I was just--"

Applejack heaved a great sigh and started towards the front door. She did not look at me, only her destination. "Can't you take a hint?"

"Well, I thought--"

"You thought wrong."

I cringed into myself as Applejack opened the door and held it wide open. Her eyes slowly turned from the road to me.

We just sat that way for the better part of a minute, silently, each hoping the other would speak first. Although I suppose it was possible that Applejack didn’t want to speak at all, just wanted me to leave.

"I--"

"I don't like you, Twilight."

It was like a shot through the heart. My chest hurt suddenly and powerfully, like all the blood had been sucked out of it in the flick of a tail.

"You don't?"

Applejack shook her head. "It's nothing personal. We have nothing in common."

I swallowed.

"I know you like to think of yourself as some misfit or something because you're a blankflank who went to a crappy school," Applejack said, with no qualms about calling me a blankflank right to my face. "The truth is, you were still raised in a comfortable home with a loving family and you have absolutely no idea how to fend for yourself. I thought it was sweet, at first, but it's honestly just been a reminder of…"

Here, she drifted off. I tried to fill in the pieces in my own mind but was coming up just the tiniest bit short.

Applejack sighed again, this time much huffier and lighter. "You and all your city-folk friends will never be like me. And that's okay. But you can't keep pretending like we're at all on the same playing field."

I looked down at the floor.

"I fought for everything I have. And, if my guess is right, you're here because you threw everything away. That is not now and will never be the same."

I looked up and met Applejack's eyes. I expected them to be shimmering with tears, but they seemed unaffected.

"Sure, Applejack."

Applejack nodded in response. "Now, get on home. I'm sure your friends are wondering where you are.”

I didn't protest. I didn't protest, and I'm proud of myself for that. There were a lot of things I could have said, but in the moment I just felt so… so defeated. So sad and sunken and irreparably broken.

I squeezed past Applejack in the doorway, our flanks sliding past one another in a way that was far too intimate for the conversation we had just finished. Well, scolding session. Although, I guess even eye contact would have been too intimate at that stage.

As I walked back to the van, I thought about what Applejack had said. About me being a rebel. And about me throwing things away instead of fighting for them.

Honestly, I think she just really had it out for big-city folks like me and my friends.

But, even more honestly, I knew that couldn't be it. Applejack wasn't a liar, and she wasn't one to come at an issue from the side, either. If she hated me just because I was from Canterlot, I would have heard her say as much.

I'm not entirely sure why I thought that. But I knew it to be true. It was a gut thing. A gut feeling. One that I was listening to.

I was a little impressed. I almost smiled.

Maybe I needed to start fighting for things.

Now I just needed to pick a thing to fight for, I guess.

Which took me right back to square one!

Well.

If one good thing had come of the day, it was the knowledge that plumbing was not my special talent.

I stopped.

I had tried it, failed at it, and basically hated it. Now I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

Process of elimination!

The idea was coming together, but it wasn’t quite words yet-- just vague ideas and concepts. Despite that, a good feeling was rising in my chest.

Up ahead I could see the van, and I broke into a gallop. Lyra and Vinyl would help me figure things out, just like they always did!

“Hey, is that Twilight?” Vinyl asked, muffled from the van’s interior.

“Ohmigosh, Twilight!”

The light of Lyra’s magic seeped through the crack between the van’s back doors. One swung open, and there stood Lyra-- grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey! How was the date, Casanova?” Lyra asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Process of elimination!” I shouted.

I leapt into the van, right past Lyra, and landed with a metallic bang.

“Whoa! Easy on the suspension, Twi,” Vinyl warned.

I chuckled. “Sorry.”

“What was that about…” Lyra cocked her head. “About process of elimination?”

I smiled. I was breathing hard from the burst of speed, and I’m sure my mane looked a fright.

“I’m sorry, are you wet?” Vinyl asked. “In my van?”

I ignored her. “It’s my new philosophy! Process of elimination!”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed. “Like… for life?”

I nodded. “Exactly, yes! I’m going to just-- to just keep trying as many different crazy things as I can, and eventually I’ve got to find my special talent… right?”

Lyra and Vinyl stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I guess that’s as good an idea as any,” Lyra said.

“Twilight, please tell me that brown smudge on your flank isn’t what I think it is,” Vinyl said with great desperation.

I whipped my head around. There was, indeed, a red-and-brown smudge on my flank where a cutie mark should have been.

I turned back to the group, waving one hoof dismissively. “Oh, no. I took a shower.”

“You showered there?” Lyra’s jaw dropped. “After doing what?”

“How much is this ‘trying crazy things’ plan gonna set you back, exactly?” Vinyl asked.

“Did you end up fixing her toilet?” Lyra asked, barely allowing Vinyl the chance to finish her thought.

“Did you still wanna play the show at the cafe?” Vinyl said. “‘Cause I talked to the guy, and--”

“Do you think she likes you back?”

Their voices built and built upon one another, creating a tornado of words that felt just as oppressive as the bathroom steam.

“Stop!” I blurted.

My friends froze.

“I--” I sighed, though it sounded more like a stifled sob than anything. “I want something to fight for. You guys have your cutie marks, and I-- I just feel like… I don’t have anything.”

Vinyl pushed her shades up to cover her eyes. Lyra chewed on her lip.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want help, you guys. I need to figure out who I am-- who I’m supposed to be.”

Lyra nodded. “I get it. I remember how it felt to be-- well. You know.” She reached over and put a hoof on my shoulder. The warmth of her touched relaxed me almost instantly.

“Yeah,” Vinyl said. She slung her own hoof around me. “We’re with you, Twi.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, what do we do?” Lyra asked. “Are we, like, a task force? Or, ooh! Some kind of secret society?”

Vinyl chuckled. “I could get used to being a secret society member.”

“Come on, guys.” I gave Vinyl a playful punch in the chest. “It’s not all that.”

“It is too!” Lyra said. “And a secret society needs a name!”

“Ah, nice! I’ve got a whole book of band names!” Vinyl got up from her seat against the wall of the van and began to poke around a pile of garbage in the corner. “Okay, okay: Hep Alien?”

“What?” Lyra got up, too, crowding beside Vinyl. The van groaned with the change in weight distribution. “No, no-- it can’t be just any name! It’s gotta have something to do with the group. Like, something to do with special talents, or cutie marks, or--”

“The Cutie Mark Three?” Vinyl suggested..

Lyra rolled her eyes. “No, not like that. Something like… The Cute-tastically Fantastics!” She struck a funny pose that rocked the whole vehicle side to side.

I laughed. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

Lyra and Vinyl whipped around to look at me.

My smile melted. “What?”

“It’s perfect,” Vinyl said.

“It’s so great!” Lyra agreed.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, CMC for short!” Vinyl laughed.

I shook my head. “Guys, please, I wasn’t--”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Yeah!” Lyra held up her hoof for a high one.

Vinyl, still laughing, smacked Lyra’s hoof with her own.

“Oh, Celestia, what have I started…” I hung my head, partially out of embarrassment and partially to hide my smile.

“Don’t leave us hanging, Twi,” Vinyl said.

I looked up. The girls still had their hooves in the air, waiting patiently for me to complete their little ritual. As I looked at them, I tried to take a little mental snapshot. Something about the formation of this group just felt very right-- necessary, even. Like a little piece of the world had fallen into place, albeit haphazardly.

I gently and silently added my hoof to their cluster.

Their shouting was renewed, more incoherent than last time but even more filled with joy and camaraderie.

Tomorrow would begin my Crusade.

Chapter Six: The Gig

I knew where the dark smear came from.

It came to me in a sudden memory, fired into my mind like a bullet as I slept.

The last thing my flank had touched, after all, was Applejack's.

The moment played over and over in my dream-addled mind. My skin, my fur, sliding against hers as I left her little eatery in a hot cloud of emotion. The way my flesh had caught on hers, had tugged against the interior of the doorframe-- the whole thing seemed so etched into my mind that I could practically feel it again just laying still in the back of the van.

So, I guess the question was… what was Applejack hiding?

It wasn't unheard of. Ponies who have unmarketable special skills (like, perhaps, the born video game players I may have mentioned earlier) had been known to fake a more useful cutie mark. Many had their originals bleached out and over-dyed.

Unless Applejack had had some monstrous baking mishap I had merely failed to notice, her cutie mark was a lie.

I honestly couldn't remember what it was. Probably some apple-related baked good, like a pie. That would have red and brown, right?

I reached down and wiped my flank, then held it up to my face. Even by the faint, blue light of the moon, I could tell that the colors were wrong for a pastry. Maybe some other treat?

Chocolate-dipped apple.

Did that exist?

I dropped my hoof back to my side.

There was something palpably strange about nights in the van, and I don't just mean the smell. The world beyond this little box was muffled and tinny… and yet, the traffic rolling last us was forceful enough to rattle it. It was at once a feeling of utter vulnerability and total protection.

I rolled my head to the side. Lyra was out like a light on the floor beside me. Tonight was Vinyl's night for the driver's seat, which could be rocked back into a very nearly comfortable bed.

Quite suddenly, it felt like I was back at one of those filly sleepovers again. Like there was a sort of electricity within this little metal box that passed through all of us, an excitement not easily explained.

Before I could stop it, I found that childhood excitement bubbling over.

"Hey," I whispered. "Psst. Anypony awake?"

Vinyl snored in response.

The pony beside me, however, mumbled something and shifted against the van's floor.

"Twi?" Lyra murmured, her voice thick with sleep. "You're still up?"

I sighed. "Can't sleep."

Lyra was still for a moment, then rolled into her stomach and stretched her forelegs out in front of her. "Why's that?" she asked, casting a golden gaze back at my relaxed form.

I grumbled something under my breath.

"Ah." Lyra nodded solemnly. "Applejack stuff."

"Maybe."

"What even happened in there?" Lyra asked. Her voice was brighter, now, as she slowly awoke. "You were gone so long."

"Well, I-- I guess--" I stopped and shrugged. "I don't know how to fix a toilet."

Lyra snorted. "You’re not serious."

I put my hooves over my eyes and moaned dramatically.

"Twilight!" Lyra scolded gleefully. She was holding back laughter, it sounded like.

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” I laughed a bit, too. "I dunno why I even offered."

Lyra laughed a while longer. I laughed with her. Vinyl snored.

Finally, Lyra’s laughter waned, and she made a little contented sound. "There's no one quite like you, Twi."

I considered the comment."Is that good?"

Lyra was quiet for a moment, likewise considering her own observation. "I mean. It can mean whatever you want it to mean."

I scoffed. "No, you meant something specific. Go on, spill it. What's wrong with me?"

"Well, for starters, you definitely overthink things," Lyra said with a giggle. She cast me a sly glance. "Seriously, though. Do you think being different is a good thing?"

"Well, there's a good different and a bad--"

"But is being different inherently a good thing or a bad thing?"

I was quiet. "I dunno."

"Right. If you like being different, then it's good. If you hate it, then it's bad." Lyra shifted position, her limbs clattering against the metal floor of the van. "If you don't know, then I guess you need to figure out if you like being different or you wanna be the same as everypony else."

"Hm."

"Personally, I like being different. Most other ponies are far too cynical for my tastes, and that includes Vinyl."

I laughed. "Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah!" Lyra agreed. "I am gonna live my life, I am gonna do my jigsaw puzzles, I am gonna play the pop songs I wanna play, and I'm gonna keep reading eyewitness accounts of alien abductions." She enunciated each quirk on the list by snacking her front hooves together. "Vinyl be damned."

"Oh, come on. She loves that stuff."

Lyra scoffed. "She doesn't love that stuff when I'm too scared to sleep at 3 am because I think the Shorn Ape is standing at my window, I'll tell ya that much."

"Ah. Roommate stuff."

"Yeah, roommate stuff."

Silence fell between us.

My eyes blinked lazily, battling the urge to sleep. I scrunched up my face, in an effort to reset my sleepiness, and fixed my gaze on the little patch of night sky that I could see through the back window.

The moon was too high to enjoy properly, but I could just barely make out the faint curve of the mare in the moon's lower jaw. The sprinkling of stars below her profile made me think of dandruff.

"Hey, Lyra?"

"Yeah?"

"Ever think about how weird it is that Celestia controls the sun and the moon?"

Lyra hesitated. "I think ya lost me, Twi."

"Well, you know. Her cutie mark is just a sun. Why does she do both things?"

Lyra laughed, this time loud enough that I feared it would wake Vinyl. Of course, as I was quickly learning, no force on earth could wake Vinyl.

"What's so funny?" I asked. "That was a serious question!"

Lyra calmed her laughter. "I'm just thinking about-- about the day Celestia was born."

I tried to look over at Lyra. I could almost make out the shape of her head. "Oh?"

"I'm just picturing that lil glowing pony sliding out into the doctor's hooves--looking like a mini ray of sunshine--and her parents arguing about what to name her--"

"Okay, I get it…"

"--because she'll have to move the moon, too, dammit!"

I rolled my eyes. "Hilarious."

“So they split the difference and went with Celestia. Anything up there-- that’s her business,” Lyra said, barely keeping her laughter under control. “She can move the stars, too, she just doesn’t feel like it.”

“Shut up,” I muttered, smiling to myself.

"Who do you think even birthed Celestia?" Lyra asked, off on a new subject entirely. "You think she looked like that, like, right when she was born? Just in mini?"

I smirked. "I feel like she may have just shown up, fully formed one day."

"Oh, yeah, like she just appeared with an instruction manual and she had to, like, name herself and stuff?"

I giggled. "Step one: raise sun. Step two: lower moon. Step three: break the hearts of foals. Repeat as needed."

"Note: if you mess up, just call it a holiday,” Lyra added in the same faux-newscaster voice as me. “Everypony will play along, and probably throw you a party."

The two of us laughed in unison again, at our jokes which were likely not very funny at all. But, by virtue of telling them late at night, they were the height of comedy. The need to muffle our laughter for the sake of Vinyl’s rest only made it harder to control.

Practically drunk on our own humor, Lyra and I reached out for one another in the dark. Lyra was shushing me repeatedly, trying to put her hoof over my mouth. I was batting her hooves away, a struggle which only made the two of us laugh harder.

As the last of our laughter tore through our aching chests, Lyra and I found ourselves laying with our heads pressed together.

I looked into her eyes. Here was a pony who knew herself, unabashedly. A pony who had things under control. A pony who knew her destiny.

And yet… she was still sleeping in the back of a van with me, wasn’t she?

"Lyra?"

"Mm?"

"Why is everypony making such a big deal out of the Summer Sun Celebration?" I asked. "Just 'cause-- well, it's still, like, a month away, right? I'm already so sick of hearing about it."

Lyra snorted. "You're not serious, are you?"

I blinked and turned my head over in Lyra's direction. "What? You know something I don't?"

"Twi, it's the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration," Lyra explained. "It's… kind of a big deal?"

I scoffed. "Wow. No shit, really?"

Lyra nodded, and the skin of her temple slid against my own. "You really didn't know?"

I sighed wistfully. "For my own sanity, I try to stay ignorant of Celestia's many wheelings and dealings. Every time I hear about her, I just think about that examination…"

Lyra considered this. "No offense, Twi, but… shouldn't you kinda be over that by now?"

"Gee. Thanks."

"No, I just mean--" Lyra sighed. "Well, you have a good life, right? You see how all of Celestia's students act… all stuffy and snotty and elitist. You wouldn't really wanna be one of them, would you?"

I looked at Lyra.

The words she had spoken had little to do with the meaning behind them. In Lyra's eyes, the true question was clear:

If you were Celestia's student, Vinyl and I wouldn't have been your friends. Would you really trade us in for a shot at that life?

Lyra smiled nervously. "I mean, who knows-- maybe you'd be the same, but--"

"No," I said simply. "I wouldn't be the same."

Lyra closed her mouth.

I stared back out at the moon, which almost seemed to glimmer in the sky. "There's no way to know for sure how things would have been, but they wouldn't have been the same. I sure wouldn't have you guys."

Lyra smiled. "Yeah."

Another quiet settled over us, this one tinged with sadness. I felt as if, perhaps, we had stumbled into a territory that Lyra wasn't ready to explore.

I grimaced. "Ugh. I'd probably be friends with all of those antisocial unicorns… I'd rather have no friends at all, I think."

Lyra giggled. "I'm sure they're nice enough, Twi."

I scoffed. "Yeah, right! Nice enough to-- to--" I struggled to think of a real zinger, but seemed to be coming up empty.

Thankfully, Lyra could sense my trouble. "Nice enough to say 'please' when they ask you to stop talking in class?"

I laughed. "Exactly!"

Lyra giggled along with me.

I wanted to talk more. Thinking about other worlds--about other versions of myself--was something that shook me to my core. It made my heart thump against my chest, and my skin crawl.

But I was probably just overthinking it.

Lyra and I stayed awake a while, watching the night sky sparkle.

Maybe the stars weren’t the mare in the moon’s dandruff, after all. Maybe they were other versions of her, glimmering through the veil between alternate universes, whispering little nonsense things in her ear when she least expected it.

Maybe the mare in the moon had a complicated relationship with her destiny, too.

She didn’t have a cutie mark, after all.

"Rise and shine, ladies!"

The rapid, harsh, and rhythmic pounding on the van's back doors was my first memory of the morning. I shot upward and snapped open my eyes, which very nearly knocked me back down to the floor.

"We got shit to do!" Vinyl shouted. "My drum pad ain’t gonna play itself!"

Lyra moaned, tugging at her bottom lids with both hooves. "We shouldn't have stayed up late talking…"

I sighed. "Hindsight's twenty-twenty."

I rolled onto my stomach and stood. My joints were stiff after a night on the floor, and crackled in appropriate protest.

I popped open the back door of the van. If the sunlight through the windows was bad, the light through the door was like being slapped across the face.

"Ah, look at that!" Vinyl commented, watching with voyeuristic glee as I stumbled back into the darkness of the van. "The princesses arise. You guys ready to go? We've got another shot at that cafe today."

I moaned softly. "The cafe? The same one?"

Vinyl did not respond. I opened my eyes to look at her, hoping to see some sort of sympathy. Or perhaps just see that she wasn't paying attention.

Quite the contrary, Vinyl was staring down at me with a look that I could only describe as poorly-hidden amusement. The sun shone through her long, side-swept mane, throwing little shadows over my body like dappled sunlight. She definitely had a little bit of bedhead, the hint of dark circles under her eyes… but it almost suited her. It was somehow a look she could pull off.

She smirked at me. "You're not worried about horking again, are you? I got the feeling that was a one-time deal."

"Yeah, Twi," Lyra said, reaching up to put a comforting hoof on my shoulder. "It was food poisoning, remember? Probably from all that rest-stop junk food. You'll totally be fine!"

I looked at Lyra. She was smiling a pitiful smile, though I somehow found it comforting.

“I… I guess it’ll be okay,” I said, if hesitatingly.

“Hells yeah, it will,” Vinyl agreed. “Now let’s grab our shit and get over there early, okay?”

I must have looked nervous, because Lyra wrapped her hoof all the way around both shoulders, pulling me into a reassuring side-hug.

“It’ll help!” she said. “We’ll get some food and get comfortable, okay?”

Vinyl was smiling, but she seemed uncertain. Lyra was giving me much the same look: a mix of pity and hope, or concern and love.

Deep down in my own gut was another confusing cocktail of feelings; some nervousness (what if I puked again? What if we sounded bad?), some guilt (I can’t believe I drug them out here like this, just to give up), some despair (who was I kidding, I was doomed to fail at this, too). But, somewhere in the center of that swirling cloud of anxieties was something else.

I couldn’t quite name it. It wasn’t exactly hope, because hope implies that you’re not sure how things will go. I could hardly call it confidence, either. It was more like a deep certainty.

A call. Like this is what I was supposed to do.

Maybe not forever. But today.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. Let’s do this.”

Vinyl beamed. “Alright! Grab your keyboard, Twi!”

The three of us packed up our instruments from the back of the van and began to lug them towards the cafe. The closer we got, the more my feelings intensified-- the good, the bad, and the ugly. All I could do was pray that Applejack wouldn’t be standing outside.

I did my best not to look as we passed Applejack’s diner. But I just couldn’t help it.

I was almost disappointed when I didn’t see her.

“Hey, Cheese!” Vinyl greeted the owner jovially, breaking me out of my cloud. “Sorry about the short notice, my guy.”

Standing in the doorway was a tall, slim stallion in a grey turtleneck. His dark mane was pulled back into a tight little bun at the back of his head. He sort of… I dunno, scowled at us. I wanna say I remember him, but I was in a bit of a haze the first time I’d met him. If I’d met him.

From the way he looked at me, I guessed we’d never met.

“It’s no problem,” Cheese said. His gaze rolled over our whole group quite lazily. “My slam poet pulled out at the last second, anyway.”

Vinyl’s face fell. “Aw, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Cheese shrugged. “Meh. You’re early, y'know.”

“We were hoping we could get some breakfast before we play,” Lyra explained, smiling brightly. “Would that be alright?”

Cheese took his sweet time turning his head over to Lyra. “Well, are you gonna pay for it?”

“Uh…” Lyra seemed confused by the question. “Yeah?”

Cheese sighed. “Shouldn’t you be playing on an empty stomach?” he asked, pointing to me.

I pointed to myself. “What, me?”

“Yeah,” Cheese said. “You’re not gonna yak again, are you?”

I blushed fiercely. “N-no…”

Cheese nodded. “Well, if you do, just don’t do it in my cafe. Deal?”

I swallowed. “Uh, d-deal.”

He sort of stared me down for a second. Not menacingly. “Not inspiring a lot of confidence.”

Vinyl chuckled awkwardly. “That’s just how Twilight is! Sh-she’s good, Mr. Sandwich, I swear.”

Cheese looked over at Vinyl. “We’re the same age.”

Vinyl’s eyes went wide. “Really?!”

“How about some breakfast?” Lyra broke in, faking cheerfulness in the form of volume. “Boy, I sure could go for some coffee and a scone right now!”

Lyra began pushing me into the cafe, right past its owner. I would have protested, would have pushed back against Lyra’s shoves, but my knees buckled as soon as we crossed the threshold. It may as well have smelled like vomit in here, for the memories it brought back.

Vinyl trotted in step behind Lyra, and the three of us immediately piled into a table by the door.

This is good, I thought as Lyra forced me down into the iron-framed chair. I’m near the door, I can look out the window. No way I’ll feel sick sitting here.

Even as I thought it, I only found myself staring across the street into Applejack’s bakery.

“Yo, Twi,” Vinyl said, waving a hoof in front of my face. “Focus up. Let’s order some food, huh?”

I blinked rapidly. “Oh! Right, right…”

It took everything I had to refocus on the little menu in front of me.

The inside of this cafe was like the opposite of Applejack’s diner. Not in a bad way, of course! It was just… well, in Applejack’s diner, it was like every sound was worth hearing. Like the everyday cacophony was music in itself, reverberating through the whole space. Ponies were laughing and chatting and meeting and reuniting… it was like its own little community.

This place was decidedly not that. It was designed to muffle, it seems; leaving little but the low murmur of conversation and the occasional clinking of spoons against mugs. It was a place where lots of ponies could go to be alone at the same time.

Again. That wasn’t a bad thing. I don’t mean to make it sound bad.

It was just… different.

And, at the time, I kind of wanted to disappear into the cacophony of Applejack’s diner.

Or… would I just fade into the murmur here?

I can’t even keep track of my own musings.

I looked up at the counter. Clearly nothing on this menu was actually going to make it into my brain, and so I might as well just survey the case until I saw something that looked good.

Cheese Sandwich, the place’s proprietor was standing behind the counter. He looked awfully gloomy. His sweater was abnormally large, I noticed-- draping all the way over his rump and hanging loosely about his barrel.

Only sad stallions wear sweaters that big.

He was chattering softly on the phone, his brows furrowed. Whoever he was talking to, they sure were making him anxious. He was looking all around the cafe as he spoke like a nervous bird. I tried to follow his gaze, but couldn’t figure out what he was looking at.

“What’s up with that guy?” I asked softly.

Vinyl looked up from her menu. “Who? Cheese?”

Lyra looked over her shoulder, taking in the image of the stallion moping against the front counter. She then turned back to look at us. “Yeah… he seems really sad, don’t you think?”

Vinyl glanced back at him. “I dunno. I thought he was just… poet-y.”

“I… guess,” I agreed hesitantly.

I looked around the room. It wasn't just the sound that was muted, now that I noticed-- it was everything. The colors, the smells, and I'd bet even the tastes we're all just… dull. Like the life and joy had been sucked out of them. Or, perhaps, that life and joy had not yet been gifted.

The front windows had these big wood shutters on them that were filtering out the brightest rays of sunlight, and the kitchen was totally closed off by a heavy wood door. I supposed that this place had once been a home, and had been converted to a cafe. Much like Applejack's diner.

"Doesn't it feel really dark in here?" I asked. "Or is that just me?"

"Twi:" Vinyl leaned over to put a hoof on me. "Focus up, champ. What do you want for breakfast?"

I barely managed to tear my gaze away from the shuttered windows. "Uh…"

"How about a muffin?" Lyra suggested. "Chocolate chip?"

"Um…" I tried to read the menu again, but the letters all swirled together into a mish-mash of nonsensical shapes. "S-sure. Sounds good."

"Great." Vinyl did not think it was great. She closed her menu and set it down in front of her, turning her attention to Cheese.

He was still talking on the phone in hushed, but urgent tones. As if trying to disguise his conversation from his patrons.

“Six hundred bits?” he asked incredulously. “Can I do installments?”

I swiveled my ear towards him curiously.

The voice on the other end of the phone murmured something.

“No, Philip, I need this now,” Cheese insisted. “I’ve got a health inspector coming, and my usual guy-- uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

Health inspector?

I looked around the room again. I don’t know much about the restaurant business, but it sure seemed like this place was in danger of receiving a subpar rating. Who knew what he was hiding in the back?

My eyes wandered up to the ceiling. It looked as if nearly half the bulbs were out, and… was that water damage?

I shifted in my chair, trying to get a better look at the dark stain on the ceiling, and my chair rocked over to one side significantly.

Yikes. Now that I was… well. Lucid. This place was kind of a dump.

“Alright. Thanks, Phil.” Cheese hung up, looking defeated. He surveyed the room and quickly spotted our closed menus, then trotted over in our direction.

Vinyl began to rattle off orders for the group of us, and I watched Cheese’s face. He had that specific sort of stress that only sleep deprivation and hopelessness can give you.

I scooted my chair to one side, and it teetered over again.

"Sorry about the chair," Cheese said, having noticed my teetering. "Let me swap it out for you, okay?"

"Oh, no!" I insisted. I'm not sure why; I would've liked a better chair. "It's alright. I don't mind."

Cheese sighed wistfully. "Nopony tells you how hard it is to run a cafe. Just being able to cook isn't good enough, y'know."

He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, so I chuckled awkwardly.

Cheese didn't seem satisfied, though he gave up trying to get something out of me. "I'll be back with your breakfast."

He trotted away.

"Damn," Vinyl commented. "That guy is not good with customers."

"Vinyl!" Lyra scolded.

"What?" Vinyl shrugged. "It's true. He's just so awkward and… gloomy."

I rocked my chair back and forth a little more. "Y'know, this isn't that hard to fix. I bet if you taped a cork to the bottom of the leg it'd be fine. He must really not have the time…"

Lyra looked at me, a sparkle in her eyes. "Oh, my gosh. Twilight, you should totally offer to help him fix things up in here!"

Vinyl scoffed. "Something tells me he won't take that as a compliment."

"Oh, pft." Lyra waved her hoof dismissively. "It sounds like he really needs the support, don't you think?"

The question was directed at me, but I was slow on the uptake. "I mean… I think he was just on the phone with a handypony. I’m sure he’d rather pay a professional."

“You were listening to his phone call?” Vinyl asked, smiling almost with pride. “Damn. Sneaky.”

"Don't you think he'd like the support of a unicorn, who is absolutely desperate for some odd jobs?" Lyra said, nudging me with her elbow. "Huh? Crusaders, right?"

I grumbled a little and sunk down lower in my chair.

Vinyl cleared her throat. "I kinda thought the whole 'Crusaders' thing was gonna be done, like… via classifieds. Not just randomly doing shit that we think ponies might like."

I pointed at Vinyl in support.

"But how are we supposed to be impulsive if we're not following whims?" Lyra argued. “Right?”

I leaned over the table. “Yeah but how am I supposed to offer my help without sounding like a total dick?”

Vinyl laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“We could just talk really loud about Twilight’s handypony skills,” Lyra suggested. “See if Cheese asks.”

“Right,” I said with a laugh. “‘Cause I totally have those.”

“Isn’t that the point of the Crusaders?” Lyra asked. “To find your skills by trying stuff out? Maybe you do have handypony skills, and you’ve just never had the opportunity to--”

"Breakfast," Cheese announced, having appeared behind me holding a large black platter.

What was it with waitstaff and sneaking up behind me?

We all clammed up instantly, which I’m sure wasn’t suspicious at all.

Cheese set a muffin down in front of me, an egg sandwich in front of Vinyl, and a yogurt parfait for Lyra. As the last dish hit the table, the lightbulb just above our table fizzled out.

"Oh, you can't be serious…" Cheese muttered, looking up at the now-dead bulb. "I don't even have a step-stool."

Lyra looked at me.

I tried to shake my head, very slowly, but this apparently meant nothing to my friend.

Vinyl was just staring up at the ceiling with Cheese.

"Twilight can help!" Lyra blurted suddenly.

Cheese slowly turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised, silently asking for clarification.

My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

"She's a unicorn," Vinyl explained hastily. "She can replace all the bulbs and shit without a step-stool."

"And she can help with other stuff, too!" Lyra added brightly.

Cheese cocked his head. "Oh?"

"I-I…" I stuttered. "I, uh… s-sure, I can change the bulbs."

"And fix the chair!" Lyra prompted. "Right, Twi?"

Cheese stared at me silently. For such a lanky, awkward dude, he had a very unnerving gaze. The guy could've made a decent cop, I thought. Or… I dunno, maybe an actor. I'm not really sure what that's good for, honestly.

"You really think you can fix it up in here?" Cheese asked.

I hesitated, then shrugged. "If you need an extra hoof around for a day or two… I don't mind."

I thought for a moment that Cheese would crack a smile, but the stallion was unbreakable. "I'm not much of a decorator. It'd be nice to have the help."

I sat up a little straight. "Really?"

"Sure," Cheese agreed with a little shrug. "I can't pay you, though."

"That's okay!" I smiled in relief. "Just… happy to make friends and help out."

Cheese nodded. As he did, he looked over the three of us. There was an odd look in his eyes, as if he was looking for somepony that was inexplicably missing from our group. He stared at the empty chair for a while, blinking slowly.

At long last, he came out of his consideration. "Eat up. You guys are on in a few minutes."

He trotted into the back, closing the door behind him.

"Lyra!" Vinyl scolded.

"What?" Lyra asked innocently, already giggling lightly. "She wasn't gonna do it herself."

Vinyl laughed, too. "Yeah, 'cause she's not fuckin' stupid."

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Well, it all worked out, didn't it?"

"I've never changed a lightbulb before," I admitted, then quickly clapped a hoof over my mouth.

Vinyl peered at me over her shades, and Lyra appeared to be holding back laughter.

"Seriously, Twi: where the hell did you grow up?" Vinyl asked. "Canterlot Palace?"

"Oh, what, and you've fixed a toilet before?" I asked.

Vinyl snorted. "No, but I've changed a lightbulb, dweeb."

Lyra giggled along.

I looked down at my hooves. "Shut up, guys…"

"Aw, we love you, Twi," Lyra said, rubbing my shoulder with one hoof. "Always full of surprises."

Vinyl smiled, but had nothing to add.

I took a bite of my muffin, praying to myself that Cheese’s kitchen was up to code.

Back up on the little stage, things felt different.

I don't just mean that the cafe felt different than when we'd been eating, even though it did.

It was different than it was on our first attempt. I couldn't quite put into words what was different… but things felt more familiar now. Like I was playing for friends and family instead of strangers.

It also felt like maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world if I fucked up, because I had a plan B. If I failed at music, I could still be a handypony, right? And if I failed at that, I could be something else.

Never underestimate the power of a plan B.

Lyra was striking chords on her guitar, just for the heck of it, while Vinyl and I set up. She started to sing. Softly, but with great emotion.

I quickly turned to face my keyboard and began to play along with her. It was not a song I'd heard before, and yet it sounded so sweet and comforting. Uplifting, I suppose you'd say.

Keeping up with the changing chords was hard, though. Like an improvisation where only Lyra was in on the punchline. Vinyl joined, too; clumsily at first, but gaining confidence.

Oh my. Um, stop please, everyone, um-- Excuse me? I mean no offense, but your rhythm is just a teeny-tiny bit off.

I stopped playing and looked around for the voice… so soft it was hardly there.

Nopony had spoken.

Strange as it may seem, I was getting used to these voices in my head.

Vinyl started to sing. She hardly ever sang.

While we were playing, I remember thinking it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard. Later, I would find that this wasn't even remotely true. But, I guess that's just what happens when you improvise.

Chapter Seven: Helping Hooves (or, Fix-It: Part II)

As far as lightbulbs go, there has got to be a better way.

I get that not everypony has a magical solution. I get that lightbulbs are better than candles. I get it. I really do.

But the teeth-grating, spine-itching, neck-collapsing power of the sound they make when you unscrew them… I could just cringe into myself forever, turn into a little purple speck and melt into the ground.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to those sorts of things than most.

As I stood in the middle of Cheese Sandwich's cafe, the only thought in my mind was of squealing light bulbs. I held each one perfectly vertical, trying to put just the right amount of pressure on it so as to alleviate the metal-on-metal contact, draw it out slowly… slowly… carefully…

"Everything alright?" Cheese asked.

I made a sound of surprise and yanked the lightbulb out of its socket.

Cheese was not at all perturbed by my behavior, and only cocked his head slightly to one side. He offered no further comments.

"Uh… going great!" I added what was likely a very fake-looking grin for good measure.

Cheese nodded slowly and made no move to leave me alone, or offer additional tasks. He, instead, stared through me as if I were a ghost.

I tried really hard not to be bothered by that, but my eyes kept flicking over to Cheese, hoping he would snap out of it. Replacing bulbs was hard enough without his weird, distant gaze resting just beneath my eyes the whole time.

Was he writing poetry about my inability to do simple household tasks? Musing about the merits of poor, but free, labor versus most expensive, yet competent, labor? Just plain zoning out?

Whatever it was, it was freaking me the fuck out.

I cleared my throat once, lightly.

Cheese did not notice.

I tried again, this time much more pointed and violent.

Cheese seemed to snap back to reality, though only barely. His eyes were focused, now, but still had a sort of distance to them… if that makes any sense.

"Y'know, you seem really familiar. Have we met?" Cheese asked.

I tightened my lightbulb the last quarter-turn, and it flickered to life. "Um… not that I know of."

"Hm…" Cheese studied me again. "Where are you from?"

"Canterlot."

Cheese laughed a little. "Well, I've sure never been to Canterlot."

I smiled awkwardly at him. There was this strange, almost strangled cadence to his voice when he let himself speak with emotion. It was like hearing a smile, somehow.

"You never visited Manehattan before?" Cheese asked.

I looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to recall my past adventures to far-away cities. In reality, I had had none, so the recall was pretty easy. "Not that I know of."

"Huh. That's weird," Cheese commented, blissfully unaware of the irony. "I'm sorry, I must be thinking of somepony else."

I shrugged. "That's alright."

I stood still, holding the dead bulbs in my magic and looking at Cheese hopefully.

Cheese stared back at me. He seemed not to notice the dip in the conversation, and instead locked eyes with me and nodded slightly to a beat I couldn't hear, as if I were telling him a moderately-interesting story.

"Did you, uh…" I shuffled my hooves. "Did you have anything else you wanted me to take a look at?"

I had expected him to snap out of it or something, but Cheese just stared deeper into my face. That hostility from earlier was back with a vengeance, it seemed.

Cheese blinked. “Like what?” His eyes were narrowed, studying me closely and carefully.

I swallowed. The light bulbs were fixed, sure, but there was still no natural sunlight. There were still water stains on the ceiling. There was still a dirty countertop and a restaurant filled with unsteady chairs. But the way he stared at me… like he saw it, but thought he could convince me otherwise.

“Uh…” I looked back at Cheese. “W-well, like--”

“Like the chairs?” Cheese finished. His voice was sort of… flat and exhausted.

“Yes!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, exactly. The chairs.”

Cheese shrugged. “Sure. What do you need to fix ‘em?”

I shrugged. “Just whatever you have lying around, I guess. Cork would be best.”

Cheese nodded and turned to leave. He disappeared into the kitchen silently.

I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face a bit. It was proving difficult to follow Cheese’s bizarre mood swings. While he never seemed outright hostile towards me, he certainly was… I dunno. Pre-hostile, I guess. Protective, maybe.

It made sense. In a big city like this, you had to protect what little hamlet you could carve out for yourself. Applejack behaved in much the same way, after all. Must be a city thing.

Then again, Applejack was nice to her staff, at least.

Cheese was just…

Wait.

I looked around the place with fresh eyes. Not only was this place dirty and falling apart, it was empty. And not customer-empty, either.

“I found some tennis balls, will these work?” Cheese was beside me again, holding up a package of three pristine tennis balls.

I really needed to work on my distractibility. It was getting far too easy for ponies to sneak up on me.

“Why do you have--” I clamped my mouth shut. Best not to question Cheese’s lack of cork, a common kitchen material, and apparent abundance of tennis balls. “Yeah. They’re great.”

He passed them over to me and I began shredding the packaging with my magic.

Cheese watched me quietly. I felt like a tiger at the zoo.

“So… how do you know Compass Rose?" I asked over the sound of squealing plastic.

Cheese squinted. "I don't know her all that well, actually. I guess she used to live here. She came here a few times."

"Just a few?" I asked. The plastic popped open and tore down the side, sending two tennis balls bouncing across the floor.

I dove after the first one with a sound that was probably overkill.

Cheese made no effort to grab the runaway sports equipment. "Yeah. But she knew it was just me in here. She was always a little hung up on it, I think. Probably thought I could use a little clientele boost," he said with a laugh.

I skidded across the floor after the last tennis ball, snatching it up with my magic. "I noticed that," I commented, as casually as possible. "How come you don't hire anypony else?"

Cheese made a non-committal sound. "I tried. I used to staff this place pretty well, but… I dunno. I never found a good fit, I guess."

"Oh."

Yikes.

I knew what that meant.

'Not a good fit' was retail code for 'I'm an unbearable pony to work with'.

I mean, I could see it, I guess. Cheese seemed like the sort of pony who tended to wallow in his problems, rather than trying to fix them. His clientele was bad because his restaurant was a dump. His restaurant was a dump because he had no employees who could fix it. He had no employees who could fix it because none of them were 'good fits'.

Round and round it went, never his fault, always something to complain about.

Maybe not complain, really. More like… blame. He wasn't thriving, and he needed a scapegoat for that.

That describes pretty much every pony at that stupid, blankflank-ridden shack they called a school. I was familiar with the signs of disaster.

I pierced one tennis ball on my horn in a swift motion.

"Uh… would you like a knife?" Cheese asked. "Or some scissors?"

"Nah," I said.

I trotted over to my chair from earlier and, with some resistance, managed to pop the tennis ball over the bottom of the shortest leg. When the chair fell back to the floor, its wobble was gone-- or, at the very least, significantly reduced.

I cast a glance back at Cheese, shaking the now-steady chair to demonstrate. "Ta-da!"

Cheese looked at me. Then he looked at the chair. Then he looked at the tennis ball.

For a long time.

"Cheese?"

"It's a little… bright, don't you think?" Cheese commented.

I blinked. "Well… yeah. It's a tennis ball. I can cut it down for you if you want."

Cheese made a little high-pitched moan, long and drawn-out, as he considered the color. I had the sinking feeling I was about to see some scapegoating in action.

"I dunno. The color is just so bright…" Cheese tapped his chin with his hoof. "I think I'd rather have the chairs rock than have the color."

I grimaced. "Really? I mean, I can just cut the furry stuff off. The rubber is grey."

Cheese looked inquisitively at me.

I yanked the tennis ball off the chair leg and held it up for him to examine. "See?"

Cheese heaved a sigh. "Yeah, but if you cut all the fur off then you'll see the ragged edge of the cut rubber."

I grit my teeth. "I can get you some cork, and come back to fix the chairs tomorrow."

"No, no," Cheese said, shaking his head. "I can't have you here two days in a row and not pay you, and I don't have the money for that, y'know?"

"You don't say…" I muttered under my breath.

"What's that?"

I sighed. "I think these chairs need fixing. They're uncomfortable like this, Cheese."

Cheese's expression flipped from awkward and embarrassed to defensive in a moment.

I said nothing, just stared at him as he stared at me.

"Let's leave it alone," he said, finally.

Whatever. I wasn't looking for a fight. "Alright."

"So, are you all done, then?" Cheese asked.

It was brighter in here with the new bulbs, but still not nearly bright enough. If Cheese had placed a menu in front of me at this moment, I would have had to find a strategic location in the establishment to read it, as if reading a newspaper by streetlight.

The windows were covered with those gigantic wooden shutters that look really fun to run your hooves all over, but literally always give you a splinter. If those were gone, then maybe…

"Did you pick those shutters?" I asked carefully.

Cheese looked at them thoughtfully. He squinted and cocked his head. "They were here when I got the place."

I chuckled. "So you're not attached to them?"

"I can't afford new ones, if that's what you're suggesting," Cheese said. "You have no idea how expensive that sort of thing is."

"No, no-- they're, uh…" I looked at them a little more closely. They were pretty beat-up, actually… with a few mysterious stains and chips. "They're f-fine. But it's super dark in here. Maybe we could take them down to let in some more light?"

Cheese put a hoof on his chin and gazed thoughtfully at the shutters. "I dunno… I kinda like it darker, especially in the summer."

I blinked. "There's dark, and there's dark," I said. "Besides, it doesn't really matter what you think. It matters what your customers think… right?"

Cheese gave me a funny look. "Well…" I could tell he was stalling, trying to come up with an excuse. "Sometimes, in retail, the customers don't really know what they want, y'know? This is in their best interest. Don't want it to get too bright in here, after all."

I sighed. "Listen, Cheese: coming from a customer, this place needs more light." Seeing that well of defensiveness bubbling up again, I chuckled a little. "I couldn't tell if you'd put cream in my coffee when you brought it to the table this morning."

Cheese thought that over for a moment, and a shadow of amusement passed over his face. Then something else… somewhere between confusion and happiness. Perhaps 'hope' was the right word. Or 'realizations.'

"Hey," Cheese commented softly. "That's pretty funny."

That straggled quality came back to his voice. Kind of like an over-the-top foal's entertainer or something, but barely there. Almost invisible.

I arched a brow at him. "It's not a joke, it's what happened."

"Still funny, though," Cheese insisted brightly.

I scoffed and hid a smirk. Cheese seemed happy with that responset, though in a way I couldn't quite pin down. "We'll have to work together to get the shutters down, okay? Will you help me?"

Cheese hesitated, then nodded.

We moved together to the front of the cafe. Cheese put his hooves on one end of the shutters, then suddenly drew them back and winced.

I cocked my head.

"Splinter," Cheese explained sheepishly.

I gave him a sympathetic look and hoisted the other end of the shutters with my magic. To my surprise, I met some sort of resistance.

"Oh," I murmured, shaking my end a bit. "I think it's locked in place. Hang on, lemme just…"

Cheese slowly released his side. I began to fiddle around with whatever latch system was in place on the shutters. Whatever it was, it was ironically too dark to see.

While I poked about the hidden mechanism, Cheese had nothing to do but stand and stare.

The feeling of being watched very quickly overwhelmed me. I was suddenly terrified that I would botch this very simple task just like I'd botched the toilet.

"Um… so how long have you had the cafe?" I asked.

Cheese blinked. "Oh. Um… a few years, I guess," he said. "I've lived here since I was just a foal, though."

I nodded slowly, but it made my magic even less reliable. "That's cool."

"It's something," Cheese said. He heaved a great sigh. "I thought I'd have my-- er, that I'd be doing better by now. Customer-wise."

"Hm."

"Yeah." Cheese looked down at the front of his sweater and brushed off some microscopic piece of lint, or perhaps a crumb. He opened his mouth, but very quickly closed it again.

Cheese was an interesting pony. Getting him to talk, it seemed, was much like getting these stupid shutters to unlatch. He had some invisible mechanism holding him together; asking exactly the right question could get him to crumble completely, and yet he remained stoic in the face of an obvious need to spill his guts to me.

I cleared my throat. "I, uh… I hope you don't mind me saying, but…"

Cheese looked at me expectantly.

"Well, I can't help but think things might be easier with employees," I blurted. "M-maybe you should give it another go?"

Cheese sighed wistfully. "It's just that I'm… well, I dunno." Cheese looked down at his hooves. "This cafe's all I have, and it's not much. I don't think other ponies get why I care about it. Or… maybe how much I care."

My chest made this weird hitch.

"I just don't want to mess anything up because-- well, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have this place," he said quickly. "I can be a little… overprotective, I guess."

Something in the shutter was really close to coming loose. I tried forcing the whole thing upwards as sharply as I could.

"That doesn't have to be a bad thinv," was all I could think to say.

Cheese shrugged.

I heard something click within the mechanism. I tried a new tactic of vibrating the whole thing backwards and forwards, feeling for a groove or a catch.

"I'm sure other ponies get that you care about it," I said. "They'd be crazy not to."

Cheese smiled a little.

There was another click from inside the shutter.

"Do you think maybe… other ponies want to make changes?" I suggested. "Like I did. Maybe they don't feel comfortable telling you what things should change. Y'know, because you're so… passionate. About this place."

"You think?" Cheese cocked his head to one side.

I looked over at him and shrugged. "It's possible. It's not like I met them or anything."

Cheese nodded slowly, his gaze drifting off to one side as he considered this thought.

As he did, I gave one last tug at the blinds. They snapped free (with minimal shattering), and I stumbled backwards in an effort to catch them. "Shit!"

Cheese made a sound of surprise and rushed forward to grab the other end.

In the hub-bub, I guess he forgot about his sweater.

The long, chunky, black affair hiked up as Cheese reached for the shutter, revealing what he had been trying so hard to hide: a blank flank, no cutie mark in sight. Suddenly, his behavior made a lot of sense.

After all, any blankflank with their own business would do anything to protect it. To have a little control. Or to just feel like they had a little control.

Just like Applejack.

And me.

"Whew!" Cheese exclaimed, lowering the blinds to the floor. "Thanks, Twilight. I never could have done that on my own."

I had no idea what to say. My words were caught in my throat, and none of them made a lick of sense, anyway. I wanted so badly to acknowledge it, to tell him it was okay, that I understood, that things would be better-- but, honestly, I was in no position for that sort of advice.

So I pretended I hadn't seen it. "Exactly. That's why you gotta find some good ponies to work this place with you!"

Cheese sighed. He looked around the place, which was now flooded with light.

"It is… brighter in here," he said. "I guess you're not looking for a job right now, are you?"

I made a sound between a laugh and a scoff. "Pft… what, me?" I shook my head. "Oh, you don't want me working here. I-I'm a pain. I puke a lot."

"Don't be silly," Cheese said. He smiled at me. "From what I've seen, you were born for customer service. Heck, I told myself I'd never let you back in here after that fiasco, and you changed my mind you've got some sort of… I dunno, interpersonal gift."

I raised my eyebrows. "Come again?"

"You're good with ponies. Really good," Cheese said.

"No, I meant--" I chuckled dryly. "Well, you've gotta be the only pony who's ever said that to me."

Cheese laughed lightly. "Seriously, Twilight. Will you work for me?"

I thought a moment. "I… can't," I said finally. "I'm not staying in town forever, so I'm trying to stick to odd jobs. Just until my band can find another place to play."

"It doesn't have to be forever!" Cheese begged. "As long as you want! You can leave when you're ready."

I sighed. "Yeah, but you deserve better than that. This place deserves better." I nudged Cheese with one elbow. "I'm sure, if you look around, you can find somepony who will care as much about this place as you do. Even if they disagree."

Cheese whistled. "Yeah, that'll take some getting used to."

I laughed.

"You sure we've never met?" Cheese asked. "I just feel like I know you somehow."

I shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe we bumped into each other somewhere."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Cheese smiled to himself. He looked around the cafe, quietly admiring the dust motes floating in the shafts of sunlight.

"Y'know, I can't help you with the band stuff, exactly… " Cheese said. "But I do know somepony else who could use a helping hoof. How are you with a needle and thread?"

Chapter Eight: Stitch by Stitch (or, Fix-It: Part III)

"What exactly am I getting out of this, again?" Vinyl asked.

"Uh…" I scratched my temple. "My eternal love and gratitude?"

Vinyl chuckled dryly. "Pretty sure I had that already." She tossed me a cheesy grin and an even cheesier half-lidded gaze.

"Watch the road!" I blurted, pulling the van back on track as it wavered over the double yellow.

"Aw, relax, Twi," Vinyl said, waving me off.

I was not relaxed.

Vinyl had this way of driving that was so… blasé and understated that it made me unbelievably stressed, even sitting in the passenger seat. While I gripped the armrests with a frightening strength, she had her seat leaned back to an outrageous angle and her elbow stuck out the window. Her shades rode low on her snout. She liked to drive one-hoofed, occasionally letting her magic take control so she could scratch an itch or just gesture to me.

"Since you avoided the question, I'm gonna ask you again: what exactly am I getting out of this?" Vinyl said. This time, for my sake, she kept her eyes levelled straight ahead.

I sighed. "I'll buy you lunch."

Vinyl gave me that one-sided smirk again. "Sweet. Food truck?"

I nodded. "Food truck."

The van's engine coughed very suddenly, and a hoof flew to my chest.

This time, Vinyl laughed outright.

I huffed. "This isn't the smoothest ride, y'know."

"What are you talking about?" Vinyl said, massaging the interior of her driver's-side door. "She's the fuckin' smoothest."

The van puttered around a corner with enormous effort. An almost pony-like groaning was forced from the engine as it accelerated out of the turn. Despite what Vinyl tended to believe, the van was generally considered to be a piece of shit.

I did my best not to let my voice waver. "If you say so…"

Vinyl rolled her eyes. "So she's not smooth. Big whoop. Y'know, audiophiles dig the pops and scratches on records-- that's all she's got. A few pops and scratches."

"A few?!"

"Yeah, you heard me!" Vinyl tucked her snout down and began to murmur into the wheel. "Don't listen to her, baby. She's just jealous."

I folded my hooves over my chest. "Hilarious."

The van coughed again.

"Ah, c'mon." Vinyl rocked back into her seat. "Let she who is without a few pops and scratches throw the first brick, ammirite?"

I furrowed my brows. "Oh, you so didn't just quote Celestia at me." I paused and thought a minute. "Er… sort of."

Vinyl chuckled mischievously. "Speaking of the Great White Sunbutt, have you decided what you're doing for--"

"I swear, if you ask me what I'm doing for the Summer Sun Celebration, I am going to--"

"Hey," Vinyl cut me off. "It's a valid question."

I tucked my hooves down tighter.

The van slowed to a clankety stop behind a pick-up truck. The truck was hacking up its own fair share of noxious fumes. Suddenly, I felt very sick to my stomach, and I was wondering just how much I could peg on the clouds of exhaust.

“You can't escape it, y'know,” Vinyl said, her voice softer and lower than usual. “It's the one-thousandth one, everypony is losing their shit over it. It's not like staying in Manehatten is gonna be that much different.”

I sighed and slid lower in my seat. "I know that,” I spat.

Vinyl waited to see if I might continue that thought.

I didn't.

"Uh. Okay,” Vinyl commented. “As long as… you know? I guess?”

I put my hooves over my face and moaned in emotional agony, long and loud.

"Damn.” Vinyl cast me a glance that was more amused than sympathetic.

"I'm just sick of everypony talking about it all the time," I said. "It's such a pointless holiday, anyway. Stupid."

The truck in front of us roared back up to speed. A slow-motion roar, though.

Vinyl reached down to throw the van into gear. "Can't argue with that."

I was gnashing my teeth now, almost against my own will. "I mean, who cares? She moves the sun every day. Every single day. And, what, now we have to throw her a party over it?" I slid down even lower. "Isn't she the one who makes the call on parties, anyway? Why did she make it law to throw a party for herself? How egotistical do you have to be?"

Vinyl's gaze rolled up briefly to the ceiling of the van as her face grimaced in thought. "I feel like I read something about why we celebrate a few years back."

I sighed. "Did you?"

"Yeah…" Vinyl nodded slowly, lost in thought. "I can't remember what the reason was. Something to do with, like… I dunno, an old princess. I just remember reading it and being all 'oh, huh… why didn't I know that earlier?' Y'know?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "Weird."

Vinyl took the van around another curve, and I slid into the seat belt a little bit. The thick fabric cut into my throat. I had to push off the door with one leg to relieve the pressure.

"What are you doing for the Festival of Terrible Weather?" I asked snidely.

Vinyl did me a solid and laughed politely. "Oh, I'm thinking I'll go back to Canterlot. Couldn't miss out on all that, myself. Cheesy and stupid though it may be."

I snorted.

"I just wanna get back to the city, y'know? See my family," Vinyl said. She tapped the wheel idly and looked out her own window, expertly avoiding eye contact with me. "I'm having fun and all, but I can't live in this van forever."

I nodded. "Yeah. I hear you."

Silence fell between us.

This was largely how Vinyl and I communicated-- quick bursts of meaningful conversation, bookended by long silences. So much was unspoken, or implied, or danced around. That's not to say I didn't know or understand her, of course… I believe that I did, deeper than most, maybe. It was just different than it was with Lyra.

With Lyra, it was all talking and laughing and shushing one another to stay quiet. With Vinyl, we never had trouble staying quiet.

Sometimes I wondered if Vinyl actually liked me at all.

I mean, she liked me, I guess. She hung around me and ferried me around town in her van. She played music with me.

But sometimes I felt like just one of those helpless, lovestruck foals, desperately clinging onto a crush so far out of my league that they hardly knew I was there. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between apathetic about the world, and apathetic about me.

Vinyl's ear twitched.

I was drawn out of my thoughts to stare at her. Her eyes fluttered shut and she sniffed deeply, like a hound dog, letting her lungs fill with the city air and all of its--

"Keep your fucking eyes open!" I shouted, taking home of the wheel in my own hooves.

"Do you smell that, though?" Vinyl asked, her voice in a dreamlike haze. She was very nearly salivating. "What is that?"

I sniffed tentatively.

Sadly, she was right. The air had taken on a new richness and tang that spurned the two of us forward.

"Oh, shit!" Vinyl's ears pricked up, and she leaned forward over the steering wheel. "It's a fried tofu cart! That's the one, I've decided."

I leaned forward, too, attempting to catch a glimpse of whatever Vinyl had spotted.

There was a tiny, little food cart jammed onto the sidewalk near the subway station's underground entrance. This was the kind of cart that sold one thing and one thing only, with minimal condiment choices. It was also the kind of cart which was run by a large and hairy stallion who was sweating profusely, both from the summer heat and the heat of his own food.

I wrinkled my snout. "I said truck, not cart."

Vinyl looked over at me. "Oh, please. Like a truck is so much cleaner."

I blushed. “Th-that’s not why!” I insisted.

Vinyl arched one eyebrow and clucked her tongue. “Twi. C’mon. I know you.”

I growled softly and looked out the window, hiding a smile.

“Hey, you’re keeping an eye out for this place, right?”

I sighed. A clever misdirection. "Cheese said it was right on a corner, and it had a weird shape. I don't think we could miss it."

Vinyl smirked. "Cool, cool. Just figured, what with all the complaining, you might not--"

"I'm looking! I'm looking!" I insisted.

Vinyl chuckled to herself and knocked the van up a gear, to its significant protestations.

A right, a left, another left… there must have been some secret to city driving that I was just not privy to. There was no way that this was the best route to our destination. And yet Vinyl seemed quite confident, as always.

Then, right there on the next corner: a squatty building with a… well. A weirdly-shaped roof. Cheese had been right about that. The best way I can describe it is rather like a lop-sided barn. Or maybe a melting shed.

"Ooh!" I pointed. "That's it! That's it!"

Vinyl slammed on the brakes. A cab behind us just barely avoided a collision with our back bumper.

I tucked my head down as the furious carriage driver shouted at Vinyl.

"Okay," said Vinyl, undeterred, "I guess just hop out and I'll, uh…"

I blinked.

"Hm." Vinyl tapped the steering wheel rhythmically, her head swiveling to survey the immediate area. "Y'know what? I'll find a place to park and chill on… that bench!"

She pointed at a little iron bench, painted a sickly green, which was only a few yards from the front door of the liquifying warehouse. I tried not to think about how many birds had treated that bench as their own personal bathroom in the past twenty-four hours.

I nodded. "Cool. Cool."

I did not make any move to get out of the van.

My body was suddenly seized with a sort of terror that I couldn't describe if I tried.

That makes it sound worse than it was. It was fine, I was fine-- just freaked. Like scary-story freaked.

Vinyl watched me carefully. She started tapping on the wheel again, this time more like a ticking clock than a beat.

Eventually, Vinyl chuckled. "You good? Should I put the hazards on or somethin'?"

"I'm good!" I said, hoping I would believe it.

Vinyl leaned out the window, determined she was close enough to the curb, and took the key out of the ignition. The van sighed as its engine relaxed.

"Tell me again who you're meeting?" Vinyl asked.

I took in a deep breath. "Suri Polomare."

"And what is it she needs help with?"

"Mending," I said. "Or… finishing. I dunno, she does fashion or something and she needs somepony to do some hoof-sewing."

"You know how to do that," Vinyl said encouragingly.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I did it in scouts."

"And she's the only one who works in there?" Vinyl asked, pointing at the melting barn.

I nodded.

"So, what are you gonna say?" Vinyl asked. "Practice on me."

I was thrown for a second. Was it that obvious I was nervous? How embarrassing…

The momentary freeze ended, and I scoffed. "I don't need to practice, I'm all good!"

"Practicing on me should be no problem, then," Vinyl said, flashing me a toothy smile. She leaned forward and folded her front legs over the steering wheel. "Go ahead, you social genius, you."

I grit my teeth and glared at Vinyl.

She just kept on with that stupid stoner smile.

"Okay," I said. "I'll go in and I'll-- I'll say hello and ask what she needs."

"Nah, nah," Vinyl shook her head. "She works all alone in this… frankly fucked-up little building."

I looked up at the workshop.

That was probably a fair assessment.

"She's probably not great with ponies, if you know what I mean. You're gonna introduce yourself, find something to compliment in her store, and small-talk for a while," Vinyl instructed. "Then she'll let you know what she needs when she's ready."

I put my face in my hooves. "Ugh, I hate this. So awkward."

"Yeah, but a few more of these and you'll be a real expert," Vinyl said, clapping me on the shoulder. "No sweat, right?"

I moaned softly.

"Right?"

"Right…"

"There ya go." Vinyl rubbed my shoulder a bit, then gave me two firm pats. "You got this, Twi."

I sighed and lifted my head. "I got this."

Vinyl smiled at me.

In that moment, she was very real to me. Maybe that sounds strange-- in fact, I'm sure it does. But sometimes you can just feel those moments you'll always remember with perfect clarity… even if they don't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

The way she looked at me, with a mix of pride and protectiveness, was something I hadn't ever seen before. I couldn't quite suss out the meaning of her half-smirk, her crinkled eyes, her softened brow and pinched ears. But it was good. And it was selfless.

It faded away the longer I looked. That feeling of disconnectedness returned.

"So…" Vinyl nodded towards the building. "You were getting out of the van?"

I giggled. "Oh. Right. Sorry, right."

Getting out of the van was a terrifying experience-- far too close to the aggressive and speedy traffic for my taste. I managed to slither around to the sidewalk while only looking halfway dorky.

I looked back at Vinyl. She jammed the key back in the ignition and gave me a casual wave as she started the van. "I'll see you in a bit, 'kay?"

"Okay…" I agreed.

The van sped away.

I turned, slowly, and faced the squatty workshop.

It was hard to tell if the roof shape was purposeful, or rather due to a series of disasters that were dealt with quite poorly. My gut said the latter was closer to the truth.

In fact, now that I was getting a closer look, the same could be said for the whole building; the big front windows were slightly different sizes and heights, the paint shifted hue and tint across the wider swaths of empty exterior wall, the door hung at an odd angle on its mis-matched hinges… it was as if the whole building was looking at me suspiciously, head cocked to one side, squinting and smirking.

I squinted and smirked back.

The building didn't have a name on it, I noticed. Nothing cutesy or punny. Nothing to suggest that this building was anything other than an old, saggy eyesore.

Interesting.

I pushed on the door. It didn't budge, just groaned at me.

I pushed harder. An odd little hissing sound eeked out of the frame, and the door popped free, swinging inside with troubling speed.

The bell over the door tinkled in alarm as I stumbled into the space.

There was very little space to stumble, however. I nearly careened headfirst into a stack of fabric bolts.

For a moment, I stood in the postage-stamp space, unsure what to do next. It smelled like mothballs and mildew and some kind of room freshener that clearly wasn't working. The mountains of craft supplies surrounding me quite literally scraped the water-stained ceiling. I couldn't see any sign of life, beyond the likely infestations.

"Hi!" A distant voice, deep yet musical, hanging onto the single syllable and milking it for all it was worth. "I'm in the back!"

I took one tiny step forward and craned my neck, searching for the source of the voice.

I mean, it was a literal maze.

Right in front of me: fabric. To my left: fabric. To my right: mannequins. I guess just to shake things up.

"Uh… where?" I called back.

She laughed, I hope not at me. "Take a left!"

I shuffled forward, brushing against a teetering pile of fabrics, and took an approximate left.

"Then a right at the thread cabinet!"

More shuffling, ducking under a leaning hat rack, and a right at the disorganized chest of drawers filled with spools of thread.

"Just keep walking, I'm back here--" she broke for a little haughty chuckle "--okay?"

I chuckled nervously in response. "Okay…"

The narrow pathway leaned in further and further, until it eventually met in an arc above my head. I had to hold my head low to avoid scraping the material menagerie with my horn.

At last, I reached a doorway, and saw the bright light of the sun beyond it.

The back room wasn't much better than the rest in terms of clutter, but it did have a large, round window and a workspace flooded with yellow sunlight.

"Oh, hi!" The mare looked up from her work and smiled.

She was-- well, quite frankly, the words 'tacky' and 'eugh' came to mind. She had that lite-brite customer-service smile and nothing in her eyes, a polyester kerchief tied around her neck that I was certain she'd describe as 'darling', and an equally stupid… thing in a her mane to hold back her very clearly artificial curls.

"Welcome! I'm Suri Polomare--" another break for stuck-up laughter "--okay?"

I chuckled back in confusion. "Hello… I'm Twilight Sparkle. I love your--"

Ah, shit.

I forgot to think of something to like.

To my credit, there was very little to like. The whole place felt like it was some kind of experiment in hoarding. I didn't know nearly enough about fashion to compliment the half-finished products in front of me, either. Though they looked just as tacky as the mare.

"Uh… store?" I guessed.

"Oh, thank you!" Suri blushed and put a pink hoof to her lips. "It's a bit of a work-in-progress, but it's coming along. I like the whole 'rustic' feel."

I was quite certain the Suri had no idea what 'rustic' meant. "Yeah… sure…"

There must have been a radio hidden somewhere in the mess, because in the ensuing silence I could make out some fuzzy notes of overplayed pop music. It really completed this whole picture of hackneyed urban 'art'.

"So, you're from Canterlot, right?" Suri asked. "Gosh, that city is just so glamorous. I visit every year for the Summer Sun Celebration at least. It's practically my second home."

Eugh.

She was working over her face and mane with her hooves, trying to put herself into a more presentable image. She didn't have to, though. She was just as plastic as a doll. Her mane hardly moved, her fur was as uniform as a die-cast toy.

"Ah, well… it's my, uh… first home," I managed.

Suri blinked, then let loose with another bout of laughter which was somehow both under-enthusiastic and over-enthusiastic. "Oh, that must be that famous Canterlot humor!"

There was no such thing as 'Canterlot humor'.

I forced a laugh out of politeness.

"Alright, well, let's just get right down to it," Suri said, turning back to her workspace and digging around for something in the drawers. "I'm between assistants right now, and I just need somepony to help me out with a little hoof-stitiching on this new line of saddlebags…"

She pulled a needle and a spool of purple thread out of her desk.

"Think you can handle that, sweetheart?"

I pinned my ears against my head and glared at Suri. "Yes, I think so."

"Oh, good!" She pushed the needle and thread at me, and I took them with some hesitation. "Let me just show you where the bags are, okay?"

She didn't wait for a response, just pushed past me with an uncomfortable amount of contact. She smelled like cheap perfume and cheaper coffee.

I followed her back through the maze of fabrics, over to a different room which appeared to be more professional in nature.

It must have been for photography or something. There wasn't much in here beyond some mannequins, some fake plants and flowers to use as props, and…

And an absolute mountain of saddlebags.

"Whoa!" I commented, almost involuntarily.

Suri chuckled. "I know, right? Gosh, it took hours."

I picked up a saddlebag in my magic and examined it carefully. As far as I could tell, it was totally finished. Definitely not my style, what with all the floral patterns and quilting, but finished.

"Okay, so--" Suri took the bag out of my grasp "--the bags are made with this fabric I special-ordered from Saddle Arabia. The problem is it has this really ugly maker's mark stamped all over it. Totally ruins the aesthetic of the bag."

She held the bag up to me, showing me a very small stamp on the inside of the bag. I didn't recognize the shape myself--it must have been in a language I didn't read--but it was very clearly a mark of ownership over the design. It blended nicely with the pattern of the fabric itself.

Again. I don't know anything about fashion. For all I know, I'm totally colorblind. Anything's possible.

"So, instead of that, I just want you to stitch these little tags I made over the stamp!" Suri reached over and showed me some more incredibly tacky fabric tags. These had her own little artist's mark stamped on them: three buttons, mimicking her own cutie mark. "See? So much cuter."

I squinted at the tags, then at the stamp in the bag. "But… should you really be covering the maker's mark? I thought that was… I dunno, like a signature."

Suri's mind seemed to hiccup for a second, then she started laughing again. I was really starting to hate that sound. "Oh, sure! I can see where you would think that, being from Canterlot and all. Such an artsy little town." She waved her hoof dismissively. "This is totally different. See, I paid for this fabric, which means I can do whatever I like with it. I wouldn't cover up the mark if it wasn't so ugly, okay?"

I looked back down at the mark.

I thought it was pretty.

I really didn't think it should be covered up.

"So, how does a hundred bits sound?" Suri offered.

I looked at the pile of saddlebags. It was starting to seem like a lot more work than a hundred bits could pay for. "Uh…"

"Great!" Suri clapped me on the shoulder with a firm and unexpected force. "Sorry, dear, I have to get back to work. Thanks a bunch, okay?"

Just like that, she scuttled off, leaving me with the pile of saddlebags.

There wasn't any music playing in this room, and so the strange artificial-ness overtook me quite quickly. Mannequins holding perfectly still, sunlight made more yellow by tinted windows, a total lack of any sort of scent… and, of course, only the distant whir of the air conditioning to be heard.

I ran my hoof over the maker's mark. It really was an elegant and not-at-all distracting thing; just a few scrolling marks in a dark ink, mimicking the form of a plant. I liked it better than the fabric, if I'm honest.

In most circumstances, I try to abide by the mind-your-fucking-business attitude, simply because it's much easier than trying to suss out the moral implications of every little thing. Sometimes, you just have to trust that somepony knows what they're talking about, and fretting over it will just make you lose your mind that much faster.

I was really tempted to just go for it and get the hundred bits. A hundred bits buys you a lot of food, after all, and I mean… these bags weren't that great. Who was gonna buy them? Who among them would care about something like this?

Actually…

I held the bag up a little closer. The mark didn't seem to be part of the fabric at all. It went over the quilted stitching.

Okay, wait, actually…

I picked up another bag.

The mark was in the exact same spot as the first bag. The inside, towards the top. Right where, say, you'd put a tag if you were making a bag yourself.

I grabbed another. The same.

And another.

And another.

I went through nearly the whole pile, tossing saddlebags over my shoulder and creating quite a mess in the process.

Every single one had the mark in the same place, and nowhere else.

I mean. I may not know much about fashion, but…

Wow.

Only my second cutie mark mission and I was already being used to make knockoff saddlebags.

There's a statement about society in there somewhere.

Damn. Suri must think Canterlot ponies are really dumb.

I couldn't help but take a little bit of offense, there.

Did Cheese know about this?

No. No way. His dedication to originality and legitimacy is exactly what got his business in so much trouble. He'd never send me here to help if he knew about this.

Y'know, the thing that sucks the most about this is now it is my business.

I totally didn't ask for it to be my business.

And, yet, here I was; the decision-maker on an issue I wasn't even responsible for.

I sat down hard on the polished wood floor.

What was with all the weird moral dilemmas lately? Something in the water?

Or was that just how things were?

Okay, Twilight.

Looks like you have a choice to make.

You can just mind your business and do what Suri is paying you to do. That's shitty, though. Like, by the most basic standards, that sucks. I try not to do anything that a foal would tell me off for, generally.

Except for maybe the occasional joint.

Focus, Twi.

You can sneak out and leave her alone in her weird labyrinth of craft supplies. That's probably the best option for you, personally, but… she's just gonna keep poking around until she finds some sucker to do it. Or break down and do it herself.

Or

Maybe there was a secret third option here. Something to stick it to the scammer, y'know? Somepony that willing to to pass another's work off as their own won't stop just because they start feeling guilty. That kind of asshole-ery tends to be serial. Who knows how many knockoffs she'd already sold?

Well. Okay, judging by her workspace, probably not many.

I examined the tags. They were made of a cheap, stretchy, off-white cotton, kind of like a t-shirt. The bags, by contrast, were made of… well, I don't know what exactly, but it was much higher quality. Even for a knockoff saddlebag. In short, the tags were going to stick out like a sore hoof to anypony who so much as opened the bag.

I guess anypony willing to pick up a tacky bag like this wouldn't take much notice. They were kinda visually assaultive. An ugly little tag might not be an obvious addition.

Maybe I could make it even more obvious?

As I stared down at the pile of ugly bags, an obscure piece of fashion trivia bubbled to the surface of my mind.

I had never bought a suit before, but my brother had. I remembered, quite clearly, the way my father had scolded him for not removing the tack stitching that held certain parts of the coat together. A little stitch here at the tail, a little stitch on each pocket. I didn't really get the point (and I still don't), but it was stitching you were meant to remove.

Maybe doing an extraordinarily shitty job of stitching this together would make buyers rip it out.

Weirdly, the idea made me a little bit giddy. A strange sort of excitement at the prospect of doing some measure of good so chaotically.

I set the tag against the stamp on the first bag. Then, after a moment's thought, I reversed it.

A little whip-stitching around the edge (conveniently the only stitch I knew) and ta-da! It was like a little hidden panel. I held the bag up to the light to admire my shoddy work.

Nice.

Way to stick it to the asshole.

The sewing went remarkably fast, mostly because I was taking maybe seven or eight huge stitches around the outside of each tag. Part of me worried that Suri would notice, but… she didn't seem to notice much. And she sure didn't seem to think highly of me, so I doubt she'd be surprised.

Fighting past my magical mediocrity was an added level of difficulty, but it didn't take me all that long to fall into a comfortable rhythm. In fact, as I worked, I found myself humming a bit. The song was almost familiar in its jauntiness. I must have heard it on the radio once.

A little voice wormed into my mind with the tune. A dim memory of the singer belting it out, I'm sure.

"Hm-hm-hmmm… stitching it together," I mumbled tunelessly.

I'd have to ask Lyra about the song later. Seemed like her kinda thing, a little show-tune-y.

I reached for the last bag and plopped it down in front of me. Just to be safe, I decided to stitch this one per Suri's request.

Excellent work, Twilight. Boy, you're a great swindler, aren't you?

All in all, it took maybe an hour. Definitely worth the hundred bits.

Plus, I was getting that extra do-gooder emotional boost. That was always nice.

I set the good bag over my own back and wound my way back through the terrifying gauntlet of a workshop.

"Suri?" I murmured, rapping lightly on the doorframe. "I've finished the sewing."

She wasn't looking up, utterly focused on something I couldn't quite glimpse over her shoulder. "Huh? Oh, good."

"Would you like to see?" I asked, offering up the good bag on one hoof.

"Hm? Oh, I'm sure it's fine," she said. "Your bits are on the counter, okay?"

I stepped backwards. "Where?"

She pointed, still not looking at me. "Over there."

A little sack of bits was on a shelf right beside my head.

Desperately trying to hide my pride, I set the saddlebag down in the doorway and took the sack in my magic. It sure felt like a hundred bits to me.

"Cool. Thanks."

"Uh-huh," Suri muttered. "Close the door on your way out, okay?"

I backed out of the room with as much care as I could manage, but that I-just-got-away-with-something energy was starting to bubble over. Once out of Suri's immediate vicinity, I scrambled through the maze and burst out the poorly-hung front door. This time, the thinking of the bell felt congratulatory.

Vinyl, who was sitting on a bench just a few steps to my left, jolted upright at the sudden motion. "Whoa!" She laughed, and the shock melted off her face. "You have some good news?"

I must have been giggling a bit, myself. "Vinyl, you'd be so proud!"

"Oh, yeah?" She glanced down at my flank, and seemed a little disappointed on my behalf. "No cutie mark, though, huh?"

She didn't mean it.

But, bam. Just like that, my good feelings began to deflate.

I looked back at my own still-blank flank. "Oh," I said. "Oh, I guess not."

Vinyl's face fell. She stood up quite suddenly. "Oh, hey, I-- shit, Twi, I'm sorry. I was just--"

"It's okay!" I insisted. "I mean… c'mon, did we really think I'd get it on the second go?" I forced a little laugh, but it even felt fake to me.

Vinyl forced one back. "Y-yeah, sure. We're in it for the long haul, right?"

The long haul.

Boy, did that sound depressing.

I smiled. "Right."

Vinyl held my gaze a little longer. The subtleties she managed to hold in her eyes alone were always amazing to me; a little bit of guilt and sympathy, a touch of hope, a glimmer of belief, a twinge of doubt. Or maybe I was projecting.

That feeling of distance was still there. Like she was looking at me from behind a pane of glass, from another life entirely. I couldn't help but feel that my own little journey was nothing more than a fairytale to her.

"Hey, I do have some good news," Vinyl said. Her horn sparkled, and a piece of paper was levitated before me. "Somepony's looking for a one-time foalsitter. Sound like something you could handle?"

I took the paper from her and read it over.

The thought of foalsitting at my age was moderately humiliating, but let's be honest. I was not above it.

"Sure," I said. "Sounds great."

"Well, damn, don't get too excited," Vinyl said, snatching the paper back from me. "Let's get some fried tofu into you, huh?"

I sighed lightly.

"Don't worry," Vinyl said, hooking her leg around my shoulders, "street food can cure anything."

Chapter Nine: Blank, to be Frank (or, Fix-It: Part IV)

Sunflower lived in a modest Manehattan apartment with a potted plant out front. She probably hadn't been the one to plant it there, of course, since this was the kind of place to provide you with a pothos or two. And that was pretty nice.

I'm not the kind of pony to know things about architecture, but it was the sort of building you saw in paintings of Manehattan. Like it was the quintessential location for life in the city.

It was nice, I guess. Brick, with a set of concrete stairs leading up to the door. I don’t have a good way to measure that stuff. Everything in Canterlot is old and expensive, but it occurred to me that there may be old and cheap places in Manehattan.

I trotted up the steps and examined the buttons to the right of the door. This particular building seemed to hold three apartments, one to a floor.

On the first was somepony who went by B. LEDE. The name had been typed onto the little slip of paper, with only slight smudging.

The second floor was the home of one coco, written in a humble curling script and tucked to the far left of the paper.

Up on the third floor--the penthouse, I guess--was Sunflower. She had added a rudimentary doodle of a flower beside her name. Otherwise, the label was unremarkable.

I pressed the button. It made a horrible little 'tzat' sound.

There was a pause.

"Yeah, c'mon up," said a voice from the other end. The intercoms filtered it to a fuzzy and distant sound, but I could still hear the heavy Brontz accent in Sunflower's brief greeting.

The large front door clicked as the lock unlatched, and I pulled it open.

Apartment complex lobbies are rarely something to write home about, and this one was no exception. It had the same smell as a freshly-shampooed rug; clean, in an inoffensive and character-eliminating way. There weren't really any patterns to speak of on the rugs or walls, mostly just solid colors with perhaps a gentle heathering. All of said colors were deep earth tones, effectively fading into one's peripheral vision while also disguising stains.

The elevator was on my right. I used my elbow to whack the button marked with an up arrow.

The doors slid open right away, and I was greeted by a new smell (what I will carefully describe, contrastingly, as 'offensive cleaner') and not a single color one might call ‘vibrant’ or ‘pleasing’. It was like the mathematical average of every elevator in Equestria.

It slid up to the penthouse with a distant squeal and let me off with only the slightest shaking.

Sunflower was standing at the door.

I got a… let's call it a feeling off of her.

She had a very pink coat, and everything else about her attitude and appearance seemed to be fighting against that natural blunder. She had an incredibly rich blonde mane, in color and texture, which had been painstakingly… well, I dunno what you did to a mane to make it roll down your shoulders in perfect, luscious waves (clearly), but it was doing that. There was also a flower in her mane, which was definitely a daisy and not the obvious sunflower. Points for originality, I guess?

Sunflower generally looked bored, tired, and frustrated. She leaned against the doorframe much in the manner of a school bully leaning against a locker, and glared at me with utter contempt. Or maybe judgement.

Me. The pony who was trying to be helpful.

"Twilight?" she asked.

"Um…" I stood frozen as the elevator doors closed behind me. "Yep!"

She nodded slowly, looking me up and down. Suddenly I was very self-conscious about my… everything.

I curled my tail against my flank and sort of shied away from her, as much as I tried to appear nonchalant about it.

"'Kay," Sunflower said. "Come meet Babs."

She turned and headed into her apartment, neglecting to leave the door open for me. I had to gallop forward and catch it in my magic just before it closed.

Sunflower's apartment was modest and simple, not unlike the lobby. Basic furniture, basic colors, basic patterns. Few obvious pieces of decor. I got the feeling that this had little to do with Sunflower’s stylistic choices, and more to do with the relative impermanence of these living conditions.

“Babs!” Sunflower shouted. “C’mon, y’sitter’s here!”

I tried not to show the animalistic fear I felt at Sunflower’s volume. Thankfully, she wasn’t looking at me, and so didn’t see me flinch.

There was a distant clattering sound as Babs presumably made her way out to see us.

Sunflower looked back at me. At last, an emotion other than frustration registered in her eyes. “Listen, she’s kinda shy, okay?” Her voice was very low, a whisper but not. “She probably won’t wanna hang out with you or nothin’. Don’t worry about it, just make sure she doesn’t kill herself before I get home.”

I struggled to find my voice for a moment. “O-oh! Okay, that’s… I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“It will be. She’s a good kid,” Sunflower said. “I’m just not cool leaving her alone yet. She’s still pretty young.”

“Right…” I muttered.

“Babs!” Sunflower bellowed. This time, I flinched very visibly.

“I’m comin’!” Babs responded. Her voice wasn’t unlike her sister’s in the accent and tone, just pitched up a tad.

Some more clattering sound, and Babs tumbled out of her room.

A little filly for her age, I thought. Her face was so round and youthful, made more so by the incongruously short and harsh mane cut and the sprinkling of very light freckles. She had a real runt-of-the-litter look to her in general, actually.

But the way she walked--the shuffling steps, head tucked down, tail curled over her flank--struck me right in the chest.

“Say hi, Babs,” Sunflower instructed, not exactly gentle.

“Hiya,” Babs murmured to the floor.

“This here’s Twilight,” Sunflower explained, as if I were a fish in a tank rather than a pony standing in the room. “She’s not gonna bug you, she’s only here if somethin’ bad happens.”

Babs looked up. She had the widest, roundest eyes I thought I’d ever seen. “Like what?”

Sunflower rolled her eyes. “Like you start puking up a lung? I dunno.” She gave Babs an almost-affectionate noogie. “Try not to, ‘kay?”

Babs grumbled and swatted Sunflower’s hoof away.

I didn’t really know these two enough to ask about the situation, but it was… interesting. Sunflower had to be no older than myself, and yet she seemed to be taking care of Babs all by herself. Where were their parents? What had happened to split the family up like this?

Sunflower was trying to comb Babs’ mane into a presentable shape, babbling instructions and warnings and well-wishes. Even though Babs put on a show of being annoyed, and Sunflower put on a show of being strict, the two seemed apprehensive about parting ways for the night.

“I’ll be back before you know it, okay?” Sunflower said, a hoof on Babs’ tiny shoulder. “It’s just a little interview. Only an hour or two.”

“I know…” Babs said. “I’ll be fine, Sunny.”

“I know, I know.”

Babs’ gaze flicked over to me. I tried to cast my own eyes down to the floor, but I don’t think I did it quite fast enough.

Sunflower sighed and straightened up. “Okay. Emergency numbers on the fridge,” she informed me, back to her matter-of-fact detachment in the blink of an eye. “Babs already ate, so you don’t need to worry about dinner. I’ll be back around eight, no later than nine.”

I cleared my throat. “Okay. Sounds good!”

“Hm.” Sunflower looked me up and down one last time. “I’ll pay when I get back.”

I nodded hesitantly, chewing on my lip.

Sunflower returned my nod, hers much more curt and professional, and was out the door in a flash.

Babs and I stood together in the empty apartment.

Only now, trapped alone with an unfamiliar child, was I starting to realize just how small the place was.

I looked over at Babs. “Uh… promise you’ll try not to puke?”

Babs stared at me. Now the sisterly resemblance was more than obvious; they had just the same glare. It was somehow even more piercing with those gigantic eyes, set into that round and foalish face.

Not a glare, I guess… something else. Judgy. Or suspicious, maybe.

“Or… y’know what? It’s cool.” I shook my head. “No worries. I can h-handle anything.”

Babs held my gaze a minute longer. She took in a sharp breath, puckered her lips, and blew her bangs out of her eyes, all without breaking eye contact.

I clucked my tongue. “Wanna listen to the radio?”

“No.”

I swallowed. “Do you mind if… I listen to the radio?”

“Whatever…” she said in a harsh, low whisper.

Babs pushed past me (which didn’t feel like much, I’ll be honest) and trotted right back into her room. I heard the springs of her mattress creak as she leapt up into her bed.

Okay.

Now just me. In somepony else’s apartment.

That was… weird.

Maybe good weird?

The apartment was what I guess you’d call ‘open concept’, though I’m honestly taking a shot in the dark as far as what that might mean. There wasn’t any sort of division between the entry, the living area, and the kitchen-- it was just one big space. General use.

It had all the basics--couch, coffee table, fridge, counter, dinner table--but it felt weirdly minimal. Lacking in the goods, supplied with the bare minimum.

There was a big, if cheap-looking and dusty, radio on a table near the couch.

Damn, when was the last time I actually sat on a couch?

Weeks?

I was suddenly very eager to sit down on the couch. Even from the back it looked pretty soft. Softer than the floor of the van, at least.

I trotted towards the couch, putting on a little burst of speed at the last second and launching over the back of the couch. My landing was as bouncy as it was cushy, and I coughed at the release of dust and perfume scents that clouded around me.

Lots of dust in here.

Did that mean they’d been around a while? Or the opposite?

I pushed the thought out of my mind. You’re not here to snoop, Twi. Just make sure Babs doesn’t choke on a twist-tie and you’re home free.

The radio was up above my head from this position. I reached up and turned it on, very soft, and listened carefully to the fuzzy sounds of an unknown local station. They were on commercial break. Something about a cleaning product… maybe dish detergent? Hard to tell.

I closed my eyes.

Almost like home.

The detergent commercial ended in a zippy little jingle, and the DJ did her best to transition back into her segment.

“Gosh, I love that Liqui-Brite stuff,” she said, almost wistfully, as if she were recalling a long-lost lover. “My kids always manage to get everything grass-stained during Summer Sun, Liqui-Brite always takes it right out.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And speaking of the Summer Sun Celebration!”

Okay, fine. Points for recovery.

“We’re only a week away, and everypony here at WROC is counting down,” she continued. “But, no matter what you’re looking forward to--the food, the family, the parties--we know that it’s all better with a little music. Let’s continue our summer-hits marathon here with a personal favorite of mine: ‘Bubblegum Bop’.”

Ah.

And a least favorite of mine.

Maybe it was our experience in writing and performing music, maybe it was just that we were all sort of snooty about pop; either way, Vinyl, Lyra, and myself really couldn’t stand the tooth-aching sweetness of some of the more recent hits.

For me, I think, it was the ear-worminess of it all. No matter how little interest I displayed in the music, how hard I tried to think of something else, one little line would manage to burrow deep into my subconscious. That line would quickly become a tool of homebrewed psychological torture during panic attacks, skipping like a broken record over the myriad of other spiraling thoughts in my mind.

I tuned the radio to the next station.

This one took me into the middle of a much more tolerable song.

It had a tense, taut beat more felt than heard. Over it was a… I don’t wanna say ‘sloppy’, but that’s kind of what it was; a loosely strummed melody on guitar, melting from measure to measure, note to note. The vocals were in a mythical land between speech and tune. Had I actually sung the notes the vocalist was merely suggesting, it would have sounded like a completely different song.

Strangely, I still could hardly make out the words. Something about running… or hiding, maybe. The tempo would hit instances of such rapid increase that it felt as if the song was tumbling down a hill. And then, suddenly, it would drop back to its lazy self.

I hummed experimentally along with a few bars. The melody was easy enough, very repetitive over an ever-changing backdrop of musical texture.

Then Babs turned up her own stereo.

The radio was drowned out in an instant by loud, aggressive… dare I say amatuer heavy metal. The kind of thing mini-punks can convince their parents to purchase for them because, despite how it may look, there is no dreaded ‘parental advisory’ sticker on the front.

The sticker was a point of pride, especially at Babs’ age. But I guess her sister knew better than to believe the not-at-all clever lies foals tended to cook up.

I turned the radio up a bit and leaned in closer.

Babs, who must have chemically sensed the volume change, retaliated.

One of the downstairs neighbors was already pounding on their ceiling with a broom.

I clicked off my radio.

Babs turned her stereo down to a volume which was barely acceptable.

Whatever. Kids gotta kid. I’m sure a foal her age being parented by an older sister was going to stir up all sorts of shit. I could only imagine what it would have been like to grow up with only Shining Armor to look out for me… not that he wouldn’t have done a good job. That’s just a fucked-up situation, y’know? No older sibling should have that kinda responsibility.

But it wasn’t my job to go in there and pep-talk a foal I didn’t know.

It was my job to call an ambulance if she broke something.

She’d be fine.

I rolled onto my side, resolving to close my eyes and try to enjoy the music along with Babs, but the motion made my stomach lurch.

Suddenly, I was overcome by a dark pit in my chest.

I sat up, The couch cushions rustled under me.

It actually took me a second to identify the source of the pit. My first thought was that I’d forgotten something important (the cause perhaps nine out of ten times). My second was that I was having one of those motherhood adrenaline rushes simply because I had been placed in a caregiver role. That was probably a more terrifying thought than the initial fear.

Eventually, though, it came to me:

Here I was, cutie-mark crusading, and I wasn’t even going to attempt talking to Babs? I was just gonna sit here, passively collecting a couple of bits and gaining absolutely no experience that could count towards a special talent.

What a waste of time!

I mean. It wasn’t really my business.

But wasn’t it, though?

The way she walked. The way she talked. The way she blasted her bad, angry-filly music to drown out the world. She was like a tiny me in almost every way.

And all I remember about being that age was that it sucked balls. Big, sweaty ones.

I sighed, deeply and filled with prospective regret, and got to my hooves. The walk down the unfamiliar hall to Babs’ door felt a little like the walk to the electric chair.

Babs had left her door wide open. If that’s not a sign she wanted to talk, I don’t know what is. Slamming your door before a sulk is one of the best parts.

She was curled up in a ball on her bed, facing away from the door. Her bedroom was a noticably sterile place; not much of anything personal to be seen, just some cardboard boxes and a shelf filled with some very uninteresting-looking books.

Everything in there was just so generic. Most foals I know want everything to be themed, y’know? Superhero themed, pirate themed, animal themed… like, there’s no such thing as ‘just a lamp’. It’s a flamingo lamp, or an anchor lamp, or a cactus lamp. Something stupid and kitchsy.

Babs’ lamp was just a lamp, though.

I cleared my throat. “Hey, Babs?” I asked.

She didn’t seem to notice.

“Everything okay?” I tried, raising my voice a bit more. “Your, uh… your music’s awful loud.”

Babs sighed. “Go away.”

Okay, so… not crying. That was good, I guess.

I shuffled my hooves. “Bad day at school?” I called to her, from all the way down in my chest.

“It’s Saturday.”

I chuckled in embarrassment. “Good point…”

Babs didn’t seem eager to rub that one in.

The more abstract gloom associated with being a kid was tough to get at sometimes. Mostly because the kid themselves had no idea they were going through some shit; they just picked the nearest thing and assigned a meltdown to it.

I guess today it was… me?

Maybe being thought of as irresponsible? I guess at that age I would have liked to be trusted alone for an hour or two. Whether or not that was wise was out of my perspective at the time.

“Cool music,” I said.

It just sort of fell out.

Babs sort of stiffened. “Huh?”

I cleared my throat again, and raised my voice over the screaming vocalists. “I said, ‘cool music’!” I repeated. “Is this Canner?”

The foal sort of shifted, as if she wanted to roll over, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. “Um… Steel Gelding.”

I nodded. “Very cool. I listened to them when I was younger.”

Babs didn’t respond.

My awkward meter was really pushing its upper limits, and I was half-tempted to just quit while I was ahead. Like, hey! I talked to her, and I didn’t make things measurably worse. Total win for me.

But, standing here, looking at her… I couldn’t help but see myself.

Actually, now that I really thought about it, this whole foalsitting thing wasn’t entirely foreign to me, either. When I was that age, I had had a regular foalsitter who felt more like a sister than anything. I remembered having some pretty great days with Cadance… not days like this at all.

I took a breath, channeled Cadance’s great-with-foals attitude, and smiled. “Hey, I know your sister won’t be gone for too long, but would you mind coming to hang out with me?” I asked. “It’s kinda lonely out there.”

Yes, if there was one thing foals loved, it was getting to be the adult.

At least, that’s what I always wanted when I was a foal.

Babs hesitated. “But you’re a grown-up.”

Oops.

“Well…” I scratched my temple with one hoof. “Not really? I only just graduated high school.”

“Why would my sister leave me with somepony who’s not even a grown-up?”

I clucked my tongue. “I’m grown-up. I’m just not a grown-up,”

At last, Babs rolled over to look at me. “That’s stupid,” she said, which totally eliminated any positive feelings I had about seeing her face.

“It is not!” I replied, stomping my hoof. “It’s-- it’s-- nevermind. Do you wanna come out or not?”

Babs looked at me.

She had a weird look in her eyes. Honestly, it was a look I was getting used to; a sort of distant recognition, perhaps tinged with indigestion. I was starting to think it was just a thing ponies in Manehattan tended to do, and that it might not have anything to do with me.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

But she was still staring.

I took a wary step back.

“Hey…” Babs pushed herself all the way into a sitting position. “You don’t have your cutie mark. What’s wrong with you?”

I looked down at my own blank flank.

I think for a second I was just stunned. The second after that, I spluttered something that was hardly Ponish. I guess there were a lot of things I wanted to say, but I finally settled on, “Nothing?”

Not the best response. Not the worst, but not the best.

Babs reached over and turned off her stereo. The resulting silence left my ears pulsing.

“But you’re a grown-up,” she reminded me.

I rolled my eyes. “Just because I’m older than you doesn’t make me a grown-up.”

“Well, you’re more grown-up than me!” Babs exclaimed. “And ponies already make funna me for bein’ a blank flank… it must be loads worse for you…”

Ah, shit.

A little too much like me, she was.

I sighed. “Honestly, ponies don’t say that stuff anymore,” I said, crossing one hoof over the other. “At least… not to my face.”

“How come you don’t get a fake?” Babs asked. She pulled her haunches up to her chest and hugged them tightly. “Sunny told me some ponies get fakes.”

Huh.

Why don’t I get a fake?

“Uh…” I brushed my mane out of my face. “I guess I don’t really care?”

It was like her little brain fractured right in half.

Poor kid.

She sat there, frozen, for a while. Trying to figure out how that worked, I guess. Her eyes flicked all over my face, brows twitching almost imperceptibly, looking for the sign of a lie. She wouldn’t find it, though.

I cleared my throat.

Babs sort of startled, then looked down at her mattress. I was starting to think that her misery was rooted entirely in being a blank flank.

That made me feel like the biggest dick in the universe. Marching in here, telling her I didn’t care… real nice, Twi.

“You can turn your music back on,” I said softly, then turned to go.

“Wait!” Babs called after me.

I looked back over my shoulder and listened as Babs tumbled off her bed, and stumbled out of her room to stand next to me.

She stared up at me, waiting patiently for me to do or say something more.

“What?” I asked.

“You don’t care?” Her eyes were like dinner plates. She blew her bangs out of her face.

I sort of half-laughed, and continued back to the living space. “I guess not. I never really thought about it before, to be honest.”

“B-but…” Babs galloped through the hall to catch up with me. “What do you do?”

I cocked my head and looked down at her. “What do I do?”

“For… like, money and stuff,” Babs mumbled. “How do you work without a cutie mark?”

I laughed lightly. “I just do stuff like this, mostly.”

This only seemed to confuse Babs further.

I made my way to the couch and sat down on one end, instead of taking up the entire length like I had last time.

Babs predictably hopped up on the other end. “Like foalsittin’?”

I nodded. “Foalsitting, repairs… y’know, temp stuff,” I explained. After seeing the blank look in her eyes, I rephrased: “Odd jobs. One-time things.”

“Oh.” Babs nodded.

“I’m still trying to get my cutie mark, y’know,” I added. “I haven’t given up on it or anything. I’ll get it someday. Just haven’t found the right thing. I don’t think that’s something to be embarrassed of.”

“Yeah…” Babs breathed, looking down.

I chuckled. “Doesn’t sound like you agree.”

She sighed and slid down against the couch. “All the other ponies get to go to camp and on vacations and stuff. One of my friends got her cutie mark in scuba divin’!”

I furrowed my brows. “Uh-huh…”

“My sis can’t afford to take me scuba divin’!” Babs explained, exasperated. She covered her eyes with her hooves. “It costs more than livin’ here for two whole months, she said. What if my special talent is scuba divin’, and I’ll never get do it ‘cause it costs too much?”

Eugh.

Okay, so… young kid, bullied for being a blank flank and for being poor, raised by her older sister…

I kinda didn’t wanna touch this with a ten-foot pole, to be honest.

But that feeling stirred up in me again. The same feeling I’d had when I broke the toilet, or when bulbs needed changing, or when knock-off bags needed warning tags. It was this deep, unshakable need to.. To make it better, I guess. Like I knew things needed fixing and I just wanted to reach in and just fix it already!

“Mm-hm,” I said.

Babs sighed. “I know we’re poor. But I don’t want money to stop me from being what I’m supposed to be.”

Yikes, kiddo.

She looked up at me. “Don’t tell my sis I told you that, okay? She doesn’t like other ponies to know we’re not doin’ so good.”

Uh…

Fuck.

“Y’know, I don’t have a lot of money right now, either,” I said. “I’m kinda living in a van with my friends.”

Babs looked at me funny. I guess I thought she would laugh--what with living in a van being the butt of oh-so-many jokes--so the look of moderate concern and confusion really threw me off.

“But we still do cool stuff,” I continued, somewhat defensively. “And, y’know, I haven’t gotten my cutie mark yet, but they’re helping me find my special talent. We call ourselves the… Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

More like the Cutie Mark Crybabies!

My heart sort of skipped a beat.

It sounded just like Babs.

Exactly like her.

But she hadn’t opened her mouth. She was just staring up expectantly, waiting for me to finish my story. I’d been watching the whole time.

“Um.” I cleared my throat. The auditory hallucinations really had a way of throwing me off my game, I had to say. “I dunno. I’m still having a good time without my mark, I guess.”

I tried not to look at Babs with suspicion.

“You are?” Babs pressed. She seemed just as suspicious of me as I was of her.

I looked her in the eye and tried to muster Cadance’s soothing, familiar tone. “Yeah. It’s almost like I’m… lucky, I guess.” Was I? What the hell was I saying? “I get to try all these different things. Plus I’m spending a lot of time with my friends. I think the finding part is just as good as the getting part.”

Babs looked down at her hooves.

“If your finding part lasts a little longer,” I continued, “because of money, or… or anything else, that’s okay.”

Babs was very quiet.

“What if I never get it?” she asked softly.

“Then, I guess…” I thought about that a moment. “Maybe your purpose was to look for it.”

She was silent.

“Or!” I blurted. “Maybe you already have it, and it’s invisible. Have you tried turning invisible lately?”

She looked up at me. I think she was aiming for a blase, teenage scowl, but… foals that age, it’s just all over their faces. “I’m an earth pony,” she pointed out, trying not to smile.

I snickered. “Yeah, well. Still. Maybe you’ll invent the invisibility cloak.”

She cracked a smile, and tried desperately to hide it by looking down again. “No, I won’t.”

“Invisible airship?”

A chuckle snuck out.

“Maybe you’ll be a doctor,” I said, totally on a roll now, “and your cutie mark is a life-size germ. Have you looked really closely?”

At last, Babs let loose with a laugh. “That’s the stupidest cutie mark I ever heard of!”

I laughed, too.

And I looked at Babs, and I saw myself. Trying desperately not to care, and yet caring. Chopping off her mane to look like a little rebel. Covering her blank flank with her ratty tail. A kid trying to be a grown-up.

I wish I’d had somepony like me when I was that age. Maybe I wouldn’t be quite so miserable.

Not that I thought I could fix Babs in two hours. I’m not stupid.

Just a nice thought.

“You should talk to Sunny about this stuff,” I said. “She’s your big sister. She’d hate to know you’re going through all this alone.”

Babs put her face in her hooves. “But she does so much stuff already! I don’t wanna bug ’er.”

“This is the one thing I think she’d like to be bugged about,” I said with a chuckle. “Believe me. When I was your age, I leaned on my brother pretty hard. He was always there for me, even when things were tough for him. That’s what brothers and sisters are for.”

Babs looked up at me. “Y’think?” she asked, sadly, as if the answer would disappoint her.

I hesitated, then shrugged. “You won’t know ‘til you try, right?”

Babs didn’t answer, just stared at her hooves. I think she may have nodded, although it was so slight I may have imagined it. Or perhaps she was only nodding to herself.

But the feeling was settling. It felt… fixed. Or at least on its way.

I turned on the radio.

It was in the middle of one of those audio dramas, and Babs and I listened to an episode of a science-fiction epic that neither of us understood. All the characters were unfamiliar, and yet familiar, too. We chattered a bit back and forth about the plot and the characters, trying lazily to untangle it, but eventually gave up.

When the story ended, I helped Babs make some hot cocoa. We listened to some of her music (which she was very excited to tell me about). We had a nice two hours.

We didn’t talk any more about cutie marks.

Just as the sky was getting dark, we heard the key in the lock, and Sunflower fell into the room. I guess she’d stopped for groceries on the way back from her interview, because a paper bag tumbled onto the floor, oranges rolling off in separate directions.

She looked a little worse for wear, if I’m honest. Her beautifully done mane was looking flatter and looser, hardly curls at all. Her flower had been discarded. Her eyes had bags.

“Sunny!” Babs jumped up and ran to her sister.

I turned off the radio.

“Hey, Sunny, how’d the interview go?” Babs asked, bouncing up and down by her sister’s side.

Sunflower forced a weak smile. “Oh, y’know. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

“You want some cocoa?” Babs asked. “Me and Twi made some earlier.”

“That’s alright,” she said, waving a hoof dismissively.

Sunflower hoisted the paper bag off the floor and walked it to the kitchen counter. Babs went running after one of the escaped oranges, and brought it over to her sister. Sunflower smiled in a pained and tired way, and took the fruit from Babs.

They shared a look. Sunflower reached over and gave her little sister a sudden, but gentle, hug around the shoulders. “Were you good for the sitter?”

Babs chuckled. “I was, I was. Honest.”

Sunflower cast a look my way.

I smiled subtly and gave her a small nod.

“Alright, well, I’d better pay the mare and send her on home,” Sunflower said, releasing her sister from the hug. “Why don’t you say goodbye?”

Babs hesitated, but quickly scuttled over to me on the couch and held out a hoof. “Bye, Twilight. It was cool hanging out with you today. You should come over again some time!”

I bumped Babs’ hoof with my own. “If you ever need a sitter again, I’ll come by. Deal?”

“Deal!”

Sunflower sighed. “Let me just grab my bag and--”

“Oh, no worries!” I blurted.

Sunflower paused and looked at me. It was the kind of look that was equal parts grateful and embarrassed, and yet trying not to let onto either of those emotions.

“What’s two hours?” I said with a shrug. “Babs hung out with me the whole time. It was really fun.”

Babs beamed.

Sunflower’s eyes narrowed. She stared at me for a while, perhaps hoping I’d break, then shook her head. “Don’t be stupid, I’m payin’ you.”

“Uh… how about this?” I said, shooting to my hooves. “I’m gonna need another place to work. Do you know about any odd jobs in Manehattan?”

“You want me to pay you in another job?” Sunflower asked, deadpan.

I smiled warily. “Yes?”

The mare ran a few calculations in her head. I could really see the family resemblance in the way her brows twitched, and her eyes scanned the air. A thought dawned on her, and she seemed to do an internal double-take… then she looked back at me.

This look was legendary. It somehow held a heretofore unheard of amount of contempt, and yet her brows seemed to hold not the slightest tension.

“Alright, look: my cousin needs some help with her restaurant,” she said with a deep vitriol. “She lost some employees in the spring and she needs somepony to wait tables for a while. She won’t take me, ‘cause she don’t like my attitude. Her loss.”

I chuckled awkwardly.

“I can give you the address,” she said, plunging her hoof into her bag and rooting around for pen and paper. “Tell her I sent you, she’ll give you an interview.”

“Wow,” I said, a bit in shock that my bargaining method had worked. “Thank you, SUnflower, I--”

“No, no. DOn’t thank me.” Sunflower shook her head. “I get what it’s like to be hard up and need somethin’ quick. My cousin can be kind of a--”

She paused and looked at Babs.

“Okay, she’s a massive S-O-B,” she snapped. I very much doubt the meaning was lost on Babs. “Still, it’s work and she pays good. Should get you to your next gig.”

She set a pen between her teeth and wrote down an address in impressively neat letters. When she finished writing, she spat the pen back into her bag and passed me the paper with a brazen force.

I took it gingerly from her.

“And I’m payin’ you,” she said. Her hoof went back into the bag, and she peered into it as if it were a foreign object. “No less than half.”

“H-half works,” I stuttered.

She poured a few bits into my outstretched hoof. “Say hi to my cuz for me, huh?”

“Uh… sure,” I agreed.

“Great!” Sunflower flashed me a fake smile. “Now, get outta here.”

Chapter Ten: Cuz

Okay.

You can say it.

You can all say it.

I’m a massive fucking moron, and I just won myself an interview at Applejack’s.

The truly sad thing is that I had actually been looking forward to it. I had imagined being a waitress--the kind that tucks a pen behind her ear--and speaking in antiquated, diner-style descriptors. It was going to be fun.

I genuinely didn’t realize until I was standing in front of it. To my own credit, neither did Vinyl or Lyra, both of whom were standing beside me and staring up at the place with the same dumb-founded, open-mouthed gaze.

Lyra sighed. “I feel like… Maybe I don’t know places as well as I think I do.”

“Huh?” Vinyl leaned around me to look at Lyra. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Like addresses!” Lyra replied, exasperated. She waved a hoof at the iron numbers bolted to the door frame. “I thought I knew where we were! I thought I’d recognize the address if I saw it!”

I whistled one long, descending tone. “Me too.”

“Like, actively?” Vinyl peered around me to look at Lyra. “You actually thought to yourself ‘I bet I know the street address of Applejack’s diner’? Why?”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Not actually. I just…” She scratched the back of her head with one hoof. “Twi, back me up, here.”

Vinyl raised an eyebrow in my direction.

I wanted to lie, to tease Lyra right along with Vinyl. Mostly because that was what we did (and not always to Lyra), but partly because it felt silly to admit out loud how monumentally important Applejack felt. I barely knew her, beyond her hatred of me, and yet I felt so drawn to her. And not even in the normal, crush-y kind of way.

It was a necessary kind of way. Like the world itself would crumble apart if I wasn’t near her.

Which was stpuid, of course. But, at the same time, all-consuming.

“Y-yeah,” I agreed, hesitantly. I held up the paper with the scribbled address, reading it over. “I dunno, I would’ve thought I’d recognize the address.”

Vinyl scoffed.

“Hey, wait!” I looked down at Vinyl with a nasty glare. “You looked at it, too! How come you didn’t recognize it, huh?”

“Hey, yeah!” Lyra agreed, stomping her hoof on the pavement.

“I never said I would!” Vinyl held up a defensive hoof. “All I said was that I dunno why you two thought you’d recognize it-- I wouldn’t recognize your guys’ Canterlot addresses if my life depended on it!”

Lyra frowned. “You wouldn’t?”

“Lyra,” Vinyl said condescendingly, “what’s my home address?”

“Pft, that’s easy, it’s--” She stopped herself, then started tapping her mouth with one hoof. “Um… two--”

Vinyl feigned a buzzer sound, like in trivia. “Nope!”

“Guys!” I stuck a leg out to separate the two of them. “Focus!”

Lyra settled back with a little whine. Vinyl looked up at me with her trademark gaze of half-lidded boredom.

I groaned, crumpled up the paper, and chucked it over my shoulder. “What am I gonna do?”

Vinyl laughed once. “Uh, how is that even a question? Go in there and talk to her.”

“No way!” Lyra argued. “Applejack has no idea her cousin sent you over. Let’s just leave it and go back to the wanted ads.”

“That could take weeks!” Vinyl argued.

“We’ve been doing good so far!”

“We’ve been lucky!”

I looked down at the pavement.

Vinyl and Lyra continued to bicker, as they often did. I always saw it as a sort of love, y’know? Like they wanted to make sure I was safe and okay, and they’d argue ‘til the cows came home about the right choice. It was sweet, at its heart.

It was sweet, too, that they thought of us as a ‘we’. Warmed my heart a little, y’know?

I smiled a little.

Suddenly, feeling quite strong and bold, I looked back up at the building which loomed before us.

My smile faded in an instant.

I didn’t want to talk to her again. She didn’t like me, and I didn’t really like her.

And yet…

It was kind of like skydiving. Although, I’ve never been skydiving, so I guess I wouldn’t know.

I do watch scary movies though. And I feel like the choice to jump out of the airship is a lot like the choice to open your eyes during the scary bits; you know it’s gonna be terrifying, and you even have a hunch it’ll hurt, and you know you’ll probably hate it with everything you’ve got.

But you wanna do it anyway.

It was even more complicated than that, of course. The almost magnetic pull of Applejack herself, the hurried bickering of my best friends, the terror in my stomach, the emptiness of my head… a million factors, swirling into a great mass of confusion and angst.

Sometimes you just have to open your eyes.

I don’t really know why I watch horror movies. I don’t know why I like to be scared. I don’t know why ponies jump out of airships, either.

And I don’t know why I opened the door to Applejack’s diner.

I could sense Vinyl and Lyra hot on my heels, yet didn’t slow down a bit.

Applejack was there behind the counter, as usual. The bell tinkled above my head, as usual. She was wiping down the glass with a rag, clearly happy to have a moment without somepony at the register pointing at things in the display case.

She looked frigid. Focused. Almost angry, I guess.

‘Almost’ tipped right over into ‘very’ when she looked up and saw me.

“For fuck’s sake!” She threw down her rag loud enough to make a sound. “What’s a pony have to do to get rid of you, huh?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Nice to see you too, Applejack…”

She pointed at me with a palpable aggression. “If you ain’t outta here in ten seconds, I’ll--”

“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted back at her.

Applejack seemed taken aback. In fact, I think it was the first time I’d seen genuine shock like that in her eyes. She actually put her hoof to her chest, like an old, Southern granny upon hearing something she found absolutely scandalous.

She did not make a move to say a thing.

“I-I seriously didn’t!” I continued. I had to fill the silence, I guess. “I… I threw up, but you can’t blame me for that!”

Applejack closed her eyes a moment, and opened them to an entirely new expression; something I’ll call sarcastic agreement. The visual version of ‘oh, really?’

I sucked in a small breath. “Okay, fine, I broke your toilet,” I muttered. “A-and I can pay for that now… by the way.”

She did it again; a slow blink, a new question. ‘Can you, now?’

“I’ve been doing odd jobs,” I said to the linoleum floors. “To make some bits. To pay you for the damages.”

Her eyebrows tightened the tiniest bit. ‘Odd jobs?’

I let out a massive breath. “I did some work around Cheese’s place, and I helped this-- this fashion designer sew some tags on some purses, and I even… foalsat.”

A chuckle snuck out. ‘You? Foalsitting?’

“Hey!” I clucked my tongue. “I’m actually really good with foals, thank you very much.”

Applejack blinked again. Long and slow. She had this way of looking at you that so totally embodied frustration--or suspicion, maybe. Quite possibly both--that talking only would’ve cheapened the experience. Whatever she had to say, however scathing (and it would have been scathing), nothing could feel more like daggers than the way she stared.

I could only hold with that look for so long. After a long moment, I broke, and looked back down at the floor.

Applejack let the silence hold a little longer. Just to torment me.

“Toilet was forty bits,” she said, lifting her rag from the floor. “You can leave it on the counter.”

Oh.

That’s… it?

I wasn’t actually planning on paying for the toilet. It was one of those things you’re supposed to offer, but the other party was supposed to turn down, y’know?

At least… I thought that’s how that worked.

Maybe not when you actively break something.

Maybe not with Applejack.

I cleared my throat. “Y’know, I think you’d know the pony I foalsat for.”

“Would I?” Applejack seemed more interested in wiping down her counters than talking to me.

“Mm-hm.” I nodded. “Babs Seed. A-and her older sister, Sunflower, hired me.”

Applejack shrugged. “Sure. They’re my cousins.”

That was the most flabbergasting thing she’d said so far.

I mean, if Sunflower’s tales were to be believed, these two had bad blood. Terrible, rancid blood. And the family kind; that doesn’t just go away. And I’d talked to her. This money--the hypothetical toilet money--was technically Sunflower’s money.

Blood money.

Is that what that means?

I would’ve lied.

“Uh… yeah,” I said. “Sunflower recommended I come here for work. Isn’t that… funny?”

Applejack actually threw her head back and laughed, loud and short. “Ha! Yeah, sure. That is funny: Sunflower recommending me. That mare hates my guts.” She paused, then looked me up and down. “Actually…”

She went silent. Just looking at me, a smirk slowly growing on her cheek.

My brows furrowed. I wanted to cover myself, but I couldn’t figure what was distracting Applejack.

I cleared my throat pointedly. “Actually?!”

Applejack chuckled heartily. “I mean, she met you, right?” She shook her head. “Sunflower knows how much I hate rich, big-city ponies like you. I’d bet my week’s profits she sent you here specifically to get me back.”

“I am not rich!” I exclaimed, stamping one hoof on the floor. “I’m foalsitting for spare bits!”

“You were rich, though,” Applejack said. Her face was suddenly stony. “You were comfortable, and you gave it up for some-- I dunno, adventure or somethin’. Stupid. Reckless.”

“I--”

Applejack held up a hoof. “Don’t matter.”

I was amazed how well that move worked. And basically every time. You’d think I’d be able to resist it.

“Look, point is my cousin’s a shrewd filly, and she was playin’ a joke on me,” Applejack said, as if she hadn’t just torn me down to studs. “She got lucky.”

I pricked an ear. “Lucky?”

“Bet she didn’t think it’d be this good of a joke.”

I ground my teeth.

Applejack flashed me the fakest smile I have ever seen. Ever. “You can git along, now.”

‘Git along now’?

“Your friends’re waiting for you,” Applejack said, nodding out front. “Go on, now.”

To her credit, Applejack had done an excellent job making me feel like the youngest, dumbest, and least-important pony in the world. A pawn in her disparate family drama. A sad excuse for a rebel. A loser, basically.

Whether she did it on purpose or not, I applaud her. Good show, AJ.

But I didn’t budge.

Applejack whipped the rag over her shoulder like a bartender and looked at me. She seemed surprised I was still there.

I straightened up, holding my head high.

“Am I not speakin’ Ponish?” Applejack asked. “Our little transaction here is terminated. Get outta here.”

I shook my head.

Applejack set her jaw. “Pardon?”

I smiled brightly. “You need help,” I said.

“I need--”

“You heard me,” I interjected. Damn, it did make you feel powerful. “You need help. Sunflower told me.”

“Sunflower’s a dirty liar.”

“Not this time!” I said, raising a hoof to punctuate my point. “I’ve been standing here for-- what, three minutes?”

Applejack crossed one foreleg over the other. “Feels about three years longer.”

“It’s the lunch rush,” I continued. “I haven’t seen one customer, chef, or waitress the whole time I’ve been here.”

Ah. that got her.

Applejack swallowed, but didn’t say anything. “Th-there’s, uh… staff in the back.”

Was her brow sweating already?

I frowned. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Applejack made a sound akin to a growl. “It’s a slow day,” she said, firm and low. “Quit stickin’ your snout where it don’t belong.”

“Slow day?” I repeated. “Or slow week?”

Risky. Risky, but more than worth it.

If I was right, of course.

Applejack stared at me. The strength of her gaze was only made harsher by the squareness of her jaw, and the heavy lines of her eyebrows drawing together. I could practically hear the spaghetti Western theme playing over the diner’s speakers.

She was a tough opponent, I’ll admit. But she was nothing compared to me-- when I know I’m right, that is.

“I would rather scrape by through a slow year than hire you,” Applejack said, unblinking.

“Oh?” I cocked my head. “You really want to risk it?”

“Yep.”

Huh.

Okay, maybe Applejack’s stubbornness was a match for mine.

I blinked. “Y-you do?”

“Yep.” Applejack nodded.

Hm.

She was a game-player, alright.

Gonna let me think I’m unwanted, wait for me to beg, then scoop me up like I’m some charity case.

But she needed me.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug.

Applejack’s expression changed in an instant.

“Your loss, I guess.” I turned towards the door, swishing my tail in what I hoped was a casual and sassy arc. It may have just been stupid. “I’ll get out of your mane.”

Applejack watched me go, even taking a step towards me as I made my way towards the door. I made it all the way to the door, hoof on the handle, and paused minutely.

Just as I thought she was going to let me leave, she made a small sound.

Those trashy courtroom dramas were starting to pay off.

“Uh-- out of curiosity,” Applejack asked, her voice uncharacteristically uncertain, “what exactly would I be missing out on?”

I kept my smirk down and turned to face Applejack. “Well… I won’t ask for much. Just some food.”

“You want me to hire you ‘cause you’re cheap?” Applejack asked, utterly unamused.

“N-not just that!” I took a moment, swallowed the frantic-ness. “I’m a hard worker, but I won’t be mad when you fire me for somepony better.”

“Uh-huh.” Applejack sucked on her teeth. “And?”

I blinked. “And?”

Applejack’s eyebrows crept up a little higher.

“Uh, and!” It was hard not to feel frantic. What was this, a game show? “Um…”

Think, Twilight, think!

My gaze careened across the room, searching for hints to more specific tasks I might be able to manage. Cooking was a no. Cleaning a given. Manning the register?

Then, like a miracle, I saw it through the window.

“Van!” I blurted.

Applejack smacked her lips. “Care to elaborate?”

I pointed out the window, trying to frame a thought. “I-I have a van!”

Well. Valiant effort.

“Yeah, and?” Applejack prompted me. She was sounding more impatient by the second.

"A-and it drives and everything!" I spat back.

Applejack's eyebrow rose in a graceful curve.

I snorted forcefully. "I can make runs for you, get you coffee--"

"We got coffee."

"Whatever you don't have, then!" I flicked my tail in annoyance. "And deliveries! I can make deliveries!"

Applejack scoffed. "We don't deliver."

"Well, maybe you could fucking try!"

Oops.

I winced in anticipation of being chucked out on my ass. After a moment or two, with Applejack having made no move to kick me to the curb, I opened one eye barely a sliver to peek at her.

It was weird.

The way she looked at me.

Pride?

No, no. It couldn't be. No way.

And yet…

Well, you had to admit it was strange. Here I was, fighting to work with a pony who seemed to hate me and everything I stood for. And there she was, desperately trying to keep me hanging around in her storefront for as long as she could muster.

It was the sort of situation that made you really wonder about… well, I don't even know, honestly. Life?

Or maybe fate?

Yeah. That was it.

The red string of fate, tying us together.

Two ponies with no destiny but each other.

Could Applejack see it, too?

I cleared my throat. "Well. If you let me work for you, I promise not to do that in front of your customers," I mumbled.

Applejack smirked. "Low bar, doncha think?"

I chuckled. "Maybe."

"Those two gonna be hanging around here, too?" Applejack asked, pointing at Lyra and Vinyl. "If I hire you?"

Lyra hit the deck. Vinyl adjusted her shades.

I forced a smile. "Probably."

"Good," Applejack said. "I like 'em better'n you, anyway."

I furrowed my brows. "Hey!"

Applejack smiled. A blink-and-you-miss-it little flash of joy. "They ain't getting any free food, though."

I nodded.

Applejack sighed deeply. She looked up at the ceiling, as if praying for forgiveness from an unseen spirit, then looked back at me.

I peeked up.

"A week," she said.

"A week?!" I echoed. Even I couldn’t tell if that was more or less than I’d expected.

She held up a hoof. "You're gonna get two meals a day-- breakfast is on you. After a week, I'll reevaluate this whole…" She paused and looked me up and down. "This whole set-up. If you've been doin' good work, I'll consider keeping you on longer."

My eyes went wide. "Really?"

Applejack rolled her eyes. "It's not that I need your help so bad, okay?" She did not look directly at me. "I just feel like I could teach you a thing or two about strikin' out on your own. You clearly need it."

I grimaced. "Thanks. A lot."

"I just wanna be clear: this is one hundred percent, pure pity," she said.

"I got it!"

Applejack chuckled. It was a warm and golden sound, like honey.

I hazarded a smile. "Um… when do I start?"

"Now," Applejack said, back in business mode without a hitch.

“Now?”

"Go and get yourself a mane-net and an apron from the back." She whipped the cloth off her shoulder and went back to wiping the countertop.

The countertop was clean. She didn’t have to keep wiping it.

Maybe I was reading into things too much, but the way her eyes went blank as she moved her foreleg in slow, repeating circles… it seemed like the very definition of ‘busying yourself’. I naively decided this had more to do with the restaurant than anything else.

Because Applejack was strong, right?

I was dangling off a cliff, and she had reached out with both hooves to keep me from falling.

Or… well, somepony was dangling off a cliff.

Maybe we both were?

“Twilight.”

I stiffened. “Yep! Apron! Got it!”

I trotted into the back.

Chapter Eleven: Waiting Tables

"You ain't so good at magic, are you?"

I growled softly and dug in a little deeper. The plastic tray shuddered as I moved, and the plates on it clattered against each other. The sound was alarmingly similar to that of my own mind's grinding gears.

Applejack chuckled softly. "Sorry, sorry."

"You are not!" I spat back. The tray wavered violently, right side dipping towards the tile floor.

"Whoa, there!" Applejack rushed forward, one hoof cupped under the tray. "Careful, Chunks."

I released my grip on the tray, purely out of spite. It was sort of funny to watch Applejack bobble the tray before it careened onto the floor.

As promised, the hefty, diner-quality plates did not shatter, merely shot off in a thousand different directions across the waxed floors.

Applejack slowly pulled her eyes up from the floor to meet mine. She didn't say anything; just glared at me with all the power she could muster.

I shrugged. "You did say they wouldn't break," I reminded her.

"Well, I sure as hell didn't tell you to throw 'em on the floor for fun," Applejack muttered. "C'mon, now. Help me pick these up."

She began stacking the plates on the tray once more. I joined her without hesitation or argument, and the room was filled with the sound of ceramic plates gently settling into one another.

Being inside of a diner after hours is its own unique emotion. There's something about the way sound bounces off the walls, the way the empty chairs squeak along the tiled floor, the way the lights hum quietly under it all. It's not the sort of thing that's likeable, exactly, but it had taken on a comforting familiarity after only a few days. The space was starting to become a little bit mine.

I'm sure Applejack would have a thing or two to say about that, but I don't care.

"I am sorry," Applejack said. It was stronger than I'd expected-- not that I'd have expected her to apologise at all. "Just so we're clear."

I sighed lightly. More of a huff, really. "I know."

"Sure you've noticed by now that I can be a might abrasive," she continued. She dropped another few plates onto the tray with a light sound, the ceramic equivalent of shuffling cards. "My auntie always did say I could stand to be a little less honest. Harder than it sounds, though."

I reached one foreleg under a table to retrieve a plate. "I guess it just…"

I trailed off, straining with the effort of reaching the distant plate. At last, I managed to grab hold, and let out a sigh.

"It sometimes seems like you're enjoying it," I said, as casually as I could.

"Oh, I am." Applejack laughed. "If some good-natured teasin's wrong, I don't wanna be right."

I must have made a face.

"Just… not everypony sees it that way, I s'pose."

"Hm."

"Some do!" Applejack was quick to correct. Then her face sort of crumpled. "Most don't… like you."

I blinked. For some reason, I held the plate in my hoof against my chest. "Oh, I-- I don't mind it." I gave the plate a slight twist, feeling the dense fur over my heart slip over it. "It's kind of nice to be known well enough to be teased. If that makes sense."

Applejack nodded. "Sure do," she agreed, the shadow of a smile crossing her face.

"It's just--" I dropped the plate onto a low stack and made a small sound of frustration. "Well, the magic stuff. I’m just a little more… sensitive to it than other things.”

“Fair enough." Applejack sniffled. Not a sad sniffle, more of a… country sniffle. "I have my sore spots, too.”

I waited a moment. I'm not sure why, but I was a little bit hurt that Applejack didn't ask why. Didn't she want to know? Didn't she care?

Then again, I likely would have been pissed off if she had asked. Privacy and all that. The endless conflict of wanting to be known, yet terrified of being vulnerable.

“Can I ask what they are?” I asked.

I'm not sure why I thought Applejack would be willing to be vulnerable when even I couldn't manage it.

Applejack cocked her head. "Hm?"

Too late to put the words back, now-- even as my cheeks burned with regret. "Your sore spots." I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "I was just wondering what they were."

Applejack said nothing, but the corners of her eyes crinkled ever so slightly. A nearly imperceptible sign of anger.

Then she loudly dropped a pile of plates onto the tray. A much, much more obvious sign of anger. In case I'd missed the first.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. “T-to avoid them!" I blurted. "Avoid!”

This, for some reason, did nothing to diminish Applejack's anger. “My family," she said, holding her powerful steely gaze.

"O-oh…" I must have looked like a trout. What are you supposed to say to that? "Does that include Sunflower and Babs?"

Applejack clucked her tongue. "For you, yes."

My cheeks burned brighter.

“I don’t like talkin’ about ‘em," Applejack said, throwing in another country sniffle to prove her apathy. "That’s all you need t’know. Got it?”

I nodded urgently. “G-got it.”

She was silent for a moment.

Curious as I was, I suddenly realized how ill-equipped I was to handle a conversation like the one which may result. What do I know about family problems? Or Applejack, for that matter?

I opened my mouth to speak, then snapped it shut before a word could even form.

"Let's get back to it," Applejack said, gesturing to the tray on the floor.

I looked down at the tray.

Stupid thing. Stupid empty plates-- like I'm not even good enough to practice with glasses of water. Or dry toast.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I wasn't.

This whole set-up was giving me some serious chest pains. I couldn't help but flash back to those early days of studying magic. Oh, the headaches…

“I was supposed to go to Celestia’s School.” It just sort of rolled out as if the words had been hanging on the back of my tongue, waiting for me to tilt my head forward and send them spilling out.

Applejack's brows furrowed, though only slightly. “Didn’t ask.”

“I know." I traced one hoof along the edge of the tray. "I know. I just… I dunno. I want to talk about it. I want you to know.”

Applejack hesitated, then sat down on the tile floor. “Why?”

I blinked. “I dunno," I said. "I feel like it’s an important part of who I am. I feel like you should know."

“I don’t need to know who you are, I just need to know whether or not you can carry a tray from the kitchen to the dining area.” Applejack laughed her easy-going, molasses laugh.

And, for a moment, it was like I'd know her for years.

Or… no. Not like that. I still hardly knew her. It was like there was something between us, though. Some spark. Something almost magical.

I could see the dappled sunlight on her shoulders as she ripped back her stetson and smirked. I could see a pony, instead of just an obstacle.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the sunlight vanished.

Back in the diner.

I blinked once--hard--and, when I opened my eyes, Applejack was staring back at me.

Her face was so much softer than I'd ever seen it. All the tension and the suspicion and the walls had melted away, leaving her all freckles and wide-eyed wonder.

What did she see when she looked at me?

I cleared my throat, and Applejack face hardened again.

She swallowed, and her eyes drifted back down to the tray. “If you gotta talk, then talk," she said, but her voice had lost its edge. "Don’t expect me to have an opinion on it.”

I nodded. "Okay.”

“Much less advice.”

“I’m not asking for advice.”

“Somehow I feel like you’re gonna find a way to ask for advice.” Applejack looked up at me, and there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.

I pursed my lips, waiting for Applejack to let something else slip. She, of course, was stony as ever.

“I was supposed to go to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns," I said. I paused here, waiting for some kind of gifted-foal lecture, but Applejack made no attempt to ridicule me.

Nothing special, though. She was just listening to my polite request.

"My parents thought I’d do well there because-- well, I’d been sorta… magic-obsessed, I guess you could say," I continued, trailing off to near silence. I coughed once. "All I did all day was study magic. They wanted me to be in an 'encouraging environment'.”

“Sounds like they wanted their hyper foal to be in any environment that weren't theirs.” Applejack raised one eyebrow in my direction.

I glared back at her.

So much for listening.

“Sorry, sorry." Applejack shook her head, poorly disguising a smile. "Go on.”

I huffed lightly and tossed my mane. “Well, I had to pass an entrance exam to get in," I said. "And I… didn’t.”

I stopped.

The diner was so still and so empty. All the plates stacked on their tray. All the chairs with their legs to the air.

Had I admitted something like that in a diner filled with ponies, perhaps the resulting silence wouldn't have felt so silent. I could have closed my eyes and focused on the distant shouts from the kitchen, or the full conversation from the next table over.

But it was just me and Applejack.

And the silence was heavy.

“That’s it?” Applejack asked.

"What?" I whipped my head up. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?"

Applejack looked genuinely taken aback. She said nothing, just looked back at me with real, actual shock.

I spluttered a moment, trying to figure out what to say. "I-it totally messed me up as a foal!" I stomped one hoof on the floor, weaker than I would have liked. "I had to go to Canterlot Public and be told for the rest of my life how shitty I was at magic, and how I’d better find something else to do with my life.”

“The rest of your life?” Applejack whispered.

I couldn't quite tell if it was a question, or a statement, or just an echo, but it sounded so… sad.

“Well… yeah," I said. "Until a few weeks ago. Yeah."

“Hm.”

I wished I could understand the emotion which curled her lips and tightened her eyes, but there was no hope. Good old inscrutable Applejack

Honesty, my ass.

I sighed. “It’s just… not being able to do magic has been held against me for so many years." I reached up to scratch at my head, just because I wanted something to do. "When I was younger, I kept trying to learn, but as I got older I just said… well, fuck it.”

Applejack snorted. “Fuck it?" She repeated. "Fuck what, exactly?”

“Fuck trying to be good at something I clearly wasn’t meant to be good at.," I said. "Fuck trying to meet their standards of excellence. Fuck being left behind.”

Applejack's brows furrowed. “Left behind?”

For fuck's sake, did this pony have anything of her own to say?

I sniffed. “Yeah."

Applejack sort of cocked her head. She didn't exactly ask for more, but I could see that she was struggling to understand.

"I mean, before I failed that test, all I ever heard was what a great little student I was," I said with a little snarl. "How smart I was. How being studious and obedient and malleable was so wonderful."

Applejack said nothing, though I could see her ears beginning to droop.

"Then, when I didn’t get my cutie mark for magic, it was like… everypony was worried about my ‘development’." I scoffed, and my voice dropped to nothing but a murmur. "Like they were somehow confused that I turned out to be such a mess.”

The air conditioning kicked on in the kitchen. Or… I dunno, whatever cools the fridge or something. Some big, whirring thing that made the preceding silence seem all the quieter.

“When it was so clearly their fault I got left behind in the first place!" I shouted, now unafraid of volume. "They were the ones who encouraged me to put all my eggs in one basket on magic.”

Applejack didn't say anything. She didn't move. She didn't even breathe.

I clenched and unclenched my teeth a few times, gnashing the crooked ones against one another. “By that time, I still didn’t have any friends or social skills or a cutie mark," I said. "All of a sudden, I was this totally lost cause. I'd missed all the years when I should have learned that shit.”

“Huh," Applejack remarked. I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that. Then again, I'm not sure she did, either.

I cleared my throat. “So… I just said fuck it." I chuckled. "Y'know? I’m not doing that. Whatever you want me to do, I’m not doing it.”

Applejack, at long last, smiled. It was a rather mischievous sort of grin, with a lopsided curl and a devious squint.

She chuckled, too. Just lightly. More of a scoff, if I'm honest. “Just like a real city rebel.”

Real rebels do things. City rebels just don’t do things.

I nodded. “You bet.”

Applejack let out one big laugh. “Ha! Fuck it all, huh?” She was shaking her head, as if it were crazy, but her smile seemed so genuine and involuntary.

“A-absolutely!" I agreed, loud enough to mask my hesitation. "Fuck it all!"

Applejack kept laughing. It wasn't a humorous laugh or even a mocking laugh-- it was purely filled with joy, perhaps even a strange tinge of rebellion.

It was a sound as warm and golden as the sun itself. Something you just wanted to soak in, y'know? Like a cat napping in the window.

I think that's the first time I understood the Summer Sun Celebration.

I can see why you'd want as much sun as you could get.

Applejack's laughter tapered off long before I had a chance to join in (though I'm sure I was smiling like a great big dope). She sighed in deep satisfaction, and I got the sense it had been a while she'd laughed like that.

She looked at me, and seemed to register my stunned silence at last. "What?" she asked, almost defensively.

I shook my head, painting on the most innocent expression I could manage. "Nothing!"

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “I ain’t telling you about my baggage," she told me, pointing an accusing hoof in my direction. "That was your choice. To share.”

“No, no. It’s not that."

"Well, then, what is it?" she asked.

I opened my mouth, closed it. Opened it again, closed it again. Like a fish out of water.

"Spit it out," Applejack said. Not like an order, though. More of an encouragement flavored like an order. "C'mon, now."

"Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked at last.

It was Applejack's turn to be surprised.

"Just… I kinda thought you hated me."

"I don't," Applejack said. Sort of quickly, actually. “And I ain’t. B-bein' nice, that is. I’m bein’ your boss.”

Right.

The boss who hires you, even though you have no skills.

The boss who listens to your problems, even though she professes not to care.

The boss who stays after hours to train you in an outrageously simple task, even though she seems to have no patience at all.

The boss who hates you.

And yet does not.

Applejack looked down at the floor. “We should stop," she said, tugging the tray towards her a bit. "It’s alright, I’ve got other ponies who can--”

“No," I said.

Applejack blinked. “No?”

I took a tiny breath. “I can learn this." I got to my hooves, digging into that wide stance once again. "I want to."

Applejack smiled. She nodded, just once, as if she were the sage of waiting tables. “Well, alright, Chunks," she said in admiration.

I saw my chance. “It’s Twilight," I corrected.

She knew this, of course. But she had been waiting for me to remind her.

The admiration deepened. “Well." She smirked. "Alright, Twilight.”

Author's Note

Just two more chapters until the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration...

Chapter Thirteen: Delivering Takeout

Tell me again why exactly these two are along?" Applejack tossed a sharp nod toward the back of the van.

I peered over the driver’s seat at my friends.

Lyra was plopped down on a pillow, leaning against the side of the van and holding a stack of takeout boxes in her magic. She seemed just shy of thrilled to be doing so. Vinyl, on the other hoof, was uncharacteristically high-strung; her forehooves were on either side of my head, and she was leaning forward at a dramatic angle to observe my driving.

I swallowed hard. "Well… they live here?" I suggested.

Vinyl nodded. "We're a package deal, AJ."

"That's true!” Lyra giggled, a sound which bubbled up easily. “We kinda are."

Applejack slid down a little in the passenger seat. I couldn’t help but notice how huge she was compared to the rest of us-- she dwarfed the interior without even trying. “Course. Shoulda figured.”

“This is also very much my van,” Vinyl pointed out, more to me than to Applejack. “And, as much as I love Twilight, I do not trust her to drive without my supervision.”

“Hm?” Applejack shot me a look. “I thought you said you could drive.”

“I can!”

“She can,” Vinyl agreed. “Kinda. She can drive, like, a working vehicle.”

“I thought you said this thing was good to go!” Applejack spat, her voice rising in volume as it dropped into her chest.

I spluttered, hooves pawing uselessly at the steering wheel. “I-it is! It is!”

“She’s good to go!” Vinyl chuckled nervously, pushing her glasses up on her snout. “She’s just a little… persnickety. Nothin’ Twi can’t handle. I just…”

Applejack’s gaze hardened as her gaze turned to Vinyl. “You just what?”

“I just wanna be here in case something goes weird,” Vinyl said, as casually as she could muster. She threw in an uncertain sort of shrug, which only served to make her look more nervous and uncoordinated.

Lyra craned her neck forward slightly, trying to join the group. “Say, Applejack?” she murmured.

“Oh, what now?” Applejack rolled her eyes. “We ain’t even left yet, for pony’s sake.”

“I was just wondering: is your cutie mark an apple wearing pants?” Lyra asked, beaming genuinely.

Applejack clucked her tongue so forcefully I could see the drops of spittle flying from her mouth. “That’s it!” She reached down and started prodding at the belt release. “This was a stupid idea. Just plumb stupid!”

I watched for a moment as Applejack continued to struggle against the seatbelt, her massive hooves not quite dextrous enough to release the mechanism. Though she tried to maintain an air of dangerous anger, she looked kind of helpless. I almost wanted to laugh, but I knew better than that.

“Twilight, would you--!” Applejack managed to get out, still wrestling with the thing.

“No way!” Vinyl reached out to smack my hoof away as I reached towards Applejack. “We promised you delivery, and you’re gonna get delivery. Right, Twi?”

“Uh…” I looked over at the steering wheel, practically a foreign object. “R-right. Sure!”

Applejack gave me her trademark suspicious glare. She had this very particular way of looking at you which made you feel like you had to defend yourself as quickly and pathetically as possible, even when you hadn’t done anything wrong.

Of course, being caught in a lie was very much something wrong, and so it had an even greater power over me.

“I promise!” I said, lifting one hoof in a gesture of goodwill.

“Fuch yeah, y’do,” Vinyl agreed, giving me a reassuring (and overpowered) smack on the shoulder. “Punch it, Twi.”

“Do not punch it, or I swear to--”

I punched it.

The van made a horrific coughing sound--a little too equine in nature, if you ask me--and lurched forward, belching out a cloud of black smoke that I could see in the rearview mirror.

After recovering from the initial shock, Applejack reached out the passenger-side window to adjust her own mirror.

“Is it meant to be doin’ that?” she demanded, whipping around to look at Vinyl.

Vinyl shrugged. “It’s, uh… well, you know how you have to piss right after you wake up?”

Lyra gave her a light smack.

Applejack made a low grumbling sound and hastily clicked her seatbelt back in.

Though the van certainly didn’t offer the smoothest ride, it also didn’t go very fast. I think most ponies could have outpaced it at a brisk canter. It was something of a relief to be all but crawling along the pavement-- I’m not sure I would have handled a full-speed vehicle with any amount of grace.

That said, I wasn’t exactly chill about this situation. I kept myself hunched forward, eyes flicking desperately from mirror to road to dash, hoping to be the first to catch any sign of trouble.

“What’s our first stop?” Lyra chirped, cheerful as ever.

Applejack unfurled a crumpled list which she had tucked under the band of her mane net. “Uh… 223 4th street.”

“Aw, what a fun address!” Lyra commented.

Applejack gave me a funny look, and I had to try not to snort. “Sure… they’re gettin’ a dozen bagels, mixed.”

“Perfect!”

Applejack gave me another look, though this one merely asked ‘why?’

Vinyl scoffed. “Why is that perfect?”

“It was on top.”

“Y’know, it occurs t’me that this would be a mite easier with only one pony in the van,” Applejack announced, loud and important, as she tucked the list away once more. “Y’all are pretty good at distraction’ one another. Dunno how you get anything done as a band.”

“Well, see, in the music biz they call that ‘songwriting’,” Vinyl replied, equally authoritative.

“Do they, now?” Applejack grumbled.

"They actually call it 'noodling'," Lyra corrected. "But we usually get a song out of it eventually."

Applejack did something of a double-take, and twisted to look into the back. "Wait… y'all actually write songs?"

I couldn't see Vinyl, but I could picture her tipping her shades up onto her forehead. "Yeah, dude. What'd you think we were doing, exactly?"

"Uh… I dunno," Applejack admitted. "Guess I thought you were playin' other folks' music."

"Nope! They're all originals!" Lyra proudly told Applejack. "Well. Except for wonderwell. That one's just a classic."

"Debatable," Vinyl said.

"Nuh-uh!" Lyra gave Vinyl another smack.

"Uh, girls? Let's watch the food, there--"

"What does that song even mean?" Vinyl asked. "I don't understand a single lyric. Go ahead, explain it to me."

Without thinking about it, I began to tap my hooves on the steering wheel in time to the beat of the song. It wasn't long before a little bit of humming followed along with it. Just sort of sneaking out.

It was a catchy little song. Impossible not to sing along with if you knew the words.

"Not everything needs an explanation," Lyra argued back. "You're such an elitist sometimes."

The van rolled down a slight hill, and I jammed my hoof on the breaks as we came up to a stop sign.

I leaned forward, peering down the road to the left. "And ev'ry role we have to play is endless," I mumbled as I did, right on the edge of timelessness. "And ev'ry box they the put us in is senseless."

Lyra perked up at the sound of it--though I have no idea how she managed to hear it over the popping and squealing from under the van's hood--and began to sing along: "There are many things that I--"

"Oh, c'mon, don't make this a--"

"Would take the time to do!" I added.

"If I knew how!" Lyra and I belted together.

Lyra swung the note up a few steps, the a few more, and a beautiful harmony filled the van.

"For the love of…" Vinyl muttered. Then, with great gusto, she sang: "But baby!"

"The world could never venerate me!" the three of us sang together, Vinyl and Lyra splitting off for their own unique harmonies.

And then, most surprising of all:

"Until I fell!" Applejack crooned, her accent more pronounced than ever. She held one hoof over her chest, eyes closed, face in the fresh air from the open window.

I was so starstruck that I couldn't even finish the chorus.

"Into this wonderwell!" the rest of the van sang, their notes twisting and bending around one another.

Save for Applejack, who held steady.

They seemed to disagree on the end of the note, and all faded out when the feeling struck them. Applejack hung on the longest, a little smile curling over her lips.

Soon, it was the gentle and steady clicking of the van's turn signal that filled the cockpit.

Applejack opened her eyes and looked over at me. I instantly felt stupid for staring, and shifted my gaze back to the steering wheel. Applejack's facce went beet red, too, though she held her ground.

"What? I agree!" she argued, though nopony had questioned her reason for singing along. "Don't have to mean anything to sound good."

"Ha! Applejack agrees," Lyra taunted.

Vinyl clucked her tongue. "Whatever."

There was a long silence. Without looking, I presumed that Vinyl and Lyra were making faces at one another in the back.

Applejack folded her hooves over her chest and threw herself back into her seat. Her cheeks still burned in embarrassment, but I snuck a glance at the private smile which caused her lips to waver ever so slightly.

It made me smile, too, and I similarly did my best to hide it.

"Uh… Twi?" Lyra whispered.

I stiffened. "Yeah?"

"Were you ever going to make the left?" she asked. "Or… are you seeing something I'm not seeing?"

"Oh!"

I punched it again--this time a little less voluntary--and the vehicle hiccuped its way into the intersection. It fought me the whole way, but I managed to guide it through an exceptionally wide turn.

Applejack braced herself against the door as I did so. She sure wasn't shy about expressing her distrust in my driving ability. I tried not to take that to heart.

Without warning, Lyra flung herself forward and into the back of Applejack's seat. "Hey, AJ!"

Applejack yelped, and a hoof flew to her chest in terror. "Holy horseapples, what?"

Lyra giggled a bit. "Sorry. I was just wondering if you knew about any good places to celebrate Summer Sun!" she said with a smile. "Y'know, in the city."

"Uh… gee, I dunno. I don't tend to go out for Summer Sun myself," she explained, scratching at her temple with one hoof. "It's all a little-- Twilight, right!"

I squeaked and whipped the wheel in the direction Applejack was pointing. The tires squealed against the pavement as everypony was thrown to the left.

"That's too bad!" Lyra said, undeterred. "Do you do anything? Have anypony over?"

Applejack cleared her throat. "No. It's… just me," she said carefully. "And, uh… I invited Twi, too. Seein' as she doesn't know anypony around here."

I cast a glance in Applejack's direction, searching for a hint of excitement in her eyes. Unfortunately, I only turned about a moderate anxiety.

"Why?" Applejack managed to ask.

I furrowed my brows. "Hey, yeah. I thought you two were going back to Canterlot for all the… y'know, the stuff."

"Yeah, we were going to…" Vinyl said. "But it is sort of a long drive. Plus, we figured there was probably cool stuff happening in the city, right?"

Applejack chuckled. "If there is, I sure don't know about it."

"Aw, boo." Lyra flopped back into her seat.

"You're still holdin' onto the food, aincha?" Applejack asked, doing her best to twist around and peer into the back. "'Cause some a'those dishes really weren't built to be all jostled and--"

"I got 'em," Vinyl said.

Lyra chuckled sheepishly. "Oops."

Applejack heaved a sigh and settled in once more. "Look, I'm sure there's all sorts of things going on around town that might be fun to do," she said. "We ain't got Celestia, I guess, but we got food 'n' games 'n' such."

"Yeah…" Lyra sighed wistfully, slumping forward onto the seat and tucking her face up beside Applejack's. "But it would be way more fun if we, like, knew the ponies we were hanging out with."

Applejack grimaced in Lyra's general direction, tossed me a look of confusion, and shimmied to the far side of the passenger seat. "Uh-huh. Sure."

"Lyra, you are not subtle," Vinyl muttered.

"Why don't you just go home?" I asked. "Everypony you know is there… right?"

Lyra fell back from the seat and onto the floor of the van, now splayed out like a starfish. "Ugh, but it's so far!" she whined. "Don't you guys have any friends here we can hang out with?"

Vinyl made a small sound, something weary and amused, and buried her face in her hooves.

"Not unless you count my kitchen staff," Applejack said.

"You don't know anypony doing anything fun?" Lyra pressed.

"Nope."

"Or… not fun?"

"Not really."

"Or boring, even?"

Applejack tossed her a look. "Now, why would you wanna go and do something boring on a holiday?"

"This is getting too cringey, Lyra," Vinyl commented, doing her best to hold back embarrassed laughter. "Let it go."

I whipped my own head around to look at them. "Guys, come on--"

"Can we come to your place, too, AJ?" Lyra blurted out.

The van hit a rather deep pothole, and everypony was thrown in the air for a second. The axle squealed its disapproval.

Once she regained her seating, Applejack twisted around to glare at Lyra. "What? Are you even listenin'?" she barked. "I only invited Twilight because she-- she's got nowhere else to go! It ain't a free-for-all party!"

Lyra threw back her head and groaned. "But now we don't have anywhere to go!"

"You do, too!" Applejack spat back. "Drive home to Canterlot!"

"See?" Vinyl said, reaching out to nudge Lyra with one hoof. "I told you that--"

"You were in on this?!" Applejack interrupted. "Is this why you two insisted on coming?!"

There was a long silence.

I snuck a peek at Applejack. Her cheeks were so red-hot they were practically glowing, and her whole face was scrunched in such a way that made her look… I dunno. Sort of baby-faced, actually. Her mouth was a tiny, puckered thing, her eyes squinty and dark.

Like a foal before a tantrum, really.

I decided to keep that little nugget to myself, and turned back to the road.

"No!" Lyra protested.

Another long silence.

Somehow, Applejack managed to scrunch even harder.

"Uh… yeah," Lyra admitted meekly.

Applejack turned her head, slowly and minutely, to stare down Vinyl.

"Hey, not me," she said casually. "I'm here in case the van catches fire."

Applejack continued to glare.

I did my best to navigate the city streets, but I was feeling less and less confident about where exactly I was. I mean, who decided to make all the streets numbers, anyway? How is that memorable?

Damn it was quiet.

Except for all the sick sounds the van was making, of course.

The van rolled up to another stop sign, and I did my best to bring us to a slow stop. Unfortunately, the brakes were… not exactly shot, but also not responsive? I held onto my gentle approach as long as I could before finally jamming my hoof down with enough power to rattle my bones.

Everypony lurched forward at the sudden stop.

I had to lift my butt off the seat in order to even catch a glimpse of the street signs, but nothing seemed familiar.

Resigned to my fate, I dropped back down into the driver's seat and looked over at Applejack for help with directions-- but I couldn't quite get the words out once I got a look at her face.

Her glare had softened.

It wasn't… not a glare. It certainly retained some strong, glare-like qualities.

It was more suspicious than angry. No, not suspicious… analytic? I don't know what the word is, but she seemed to be trying to read Lyra and Vinyl. As if, given she looked deep enough, she might uncover something unsavory. Perhaps a selfish ulterior motive? Who knows.

But it was softening. The longer I looked, the more it turned to confusion.

As if she couldn't understand why somepony would want to spend time with her.

That couldn't be right… right?

"Uh… Applejack?" I murmured.

Applejack seemed to snap out of her thoughts as she looked over at me, and her trademark stony face returned. "What?"

"Can you…?" I gestured to the road.

"Oh, for the love of-- right," she instructed.

The van didn't really want to go right, but I wrestled it into agreement.

Applejack flopped back in her seat, forehooves folded over chest. She did that thing where she tucked her hooves into her pits, which made the whole thing seem less domineering and more vulnerable.

"Fine," she barked.

There was a light scrambling sound in the back.

"What's that?" Lyra asked.

Applejack rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. "I guess y'all can come."

Lyra drew in a deep gasp, and once again threw herself into the back of the passenger seat. It only caused Applejack a moderate level of distress this time.

"Really?!" Lyra asked, all but rattling the seat.

Applejack rolled her eyes, being sure to catch mine on the way down. "Yeah, really."

"Oh, yay!" Lyra thundered her hooves on the back of Applejack's seat, and she weathered the blows valiantly.

I looked over at her. "You really don't have to do this," I said gently.

Applejack sighed. "Nah. I already invited you. Your friends should get to come along, too," she said. There was a quality of joy to her voice that I couldn't quite define-- not the average happiness, but rather a begrudging thing. "Y'all are a package deal, after all."

"Heck yeah, we are!" Lyra cheered.

Applejack, at long last, smiled. "Plus, no offense or nothin' but this van is…" she trailed off, trying in vain to find the right words to describe the experience. "Y-you deserve some time indoors. With walls. And air conditioning. And… less smells."

"Hey," Vinyl piped up. "Offense."

"Oh, shush," Lyra said, giving her friend yet another friendly whack on the shoulder. "She's right, y'know."

"Is not!" Vinyl argued. "I mean. Maybe she is, but she doesn't have the right to say it. Only I do."

Lyra and Vinyl continued to bicker back and forth about the state of the van, though their now private conversation was lost under its squeaks and groans.

I looked over at Applejack.

"Hey," I hissed.

Applejack looked sidelong back at me and arched a single brow.

I quickly flicked my eyes back to the road. "Thanks."

She shrugged. "It's a holiday, ain't it?"

The words were nonchalant, but the tone strangely… wasn't. There was a warmth of sincerity in her voice that I didn't quite grasp.

I mean, maybe it was pity. Maybe she felt bad that I was such a mess, that I only seemed to have two friends in the world, and that they seemed to like each other more than they liked me.

Not that any of that was accurate. But I'm sure all of this painted a very vivid picture in Applejack's brain.

"I told you to clean this place out months ago," Lyra continued. "You didn't do a thing."

Vinyl snorted. "In my defense, you say a lot of things a lot of the time, and I forget stuff. A lot."

Applejack turned to look back at them. They didn't seem to notice her, and just kept on squabbling.

The seat squeaked against her as she turned to face forward once more. "I'm gonna regret this, huh?"

I nodded. "Yep."

Author's Note

The longest day of the year is on its way... Keep an eye out for a very special update on June 20th :raritywink:

Chapter Fourteen: Summer Sun I

It was five thirty in the morning.

The sky was dark and filled with stars. If not for the clock, we wouldn’t have had any way of knowing what time it was.

Across from me, Vinyl Scratch was leaning back in her chair, eyes closed, a cider held to her chest in sparkling magenta magic. She was sleepy--had been for some time now--but trying to pretend she wasn't. Without shades to hide behind, her long blinks were obvious to all of us.

On my right, Lyra Heartstrings was similarly slumped back in her own chair, only she had her rear hooves propped up on the table. She was also strumming her guitar (an electric that wasn't plugged in, and had a tinny toy-ish sound) and mumbling the lyrics to wonderwell (which had been stuck in her head for about three days now).

On my left, an empty chair.

But that's only because Applejack was bustling around like a chicken without a head trying to provide us with food.

Every now and then, she poked her head out of the kitchen and said something like "hey, you girls like scones?"

And we’d all shout at her to come sit down already, to eat something herself, to listen to this story-- she’s missing it, and it’s really good! But she would shake her head and wave her hoof and keep on stuffing us full of food that stuck to our ribs like cement.

And that's how it had been all night long.

But now it was five-thirty in the morning.

The sun was coming up at six, and a new year would start with it.

That sting of anticipation hung in the air, a mix of utter elation at the idea of finally going to sleep and disappointment that the evening would have to end so soon. Both too long and too short.

There came a sharp sound from the back. Something being… dropped? Broken? Smacked? It was hard to tell.

I sat forward in my chair and tried to peer through the pickup window into the kitchen. Applejack’s silhouette seemed to be bending down to pick something up off the floor. I pricked an ear and tried to listen out for her voice, but could only make out some directionless muttering.

"AJ, for real, we're stuffed!" Vinyl shouted back into the kitchen, a slight slur hugging the ends of her words. "You're gonna miss the sunrise, and then what the hell are we gonna do?"

"I know, I know!" Applejack replied, bellowed over a magnificent clattering of metal trays in the back. "Oh, consarnit… I just want y'all to try a few more things!"

Lyra quickly muted the strings of her guitar with one hoof and looked over to me. "Sounds like she needs a extra hoof in there."

I blinked.

Lyra nodded into the back. A few more things seemed to fall to the floor, and Applejack began to swear under her breath.

I shook my head, pinning my ears against my head.

Lyra arched her eyebrows and mouthed "go help her!"

I shook my head again and mouthed back "no!"

"Twi's coming to help, alright?" Vinyl called into the back.

I put my face in my hooves.

Vinyl took a casual sip of her cider. As she rolled the liquid about on her tongue, she put the bottle down on the table with slightly too much force, and the sound drew my gaze for a moment.

That weird stallion on the label still tugged at the corners of my mind. Almost familiar.

Another clatter from the back distracted me once more.

"I-I'm alright!" Applejack replied, though she sounded uncertain.

I gave the girls one last, weary look, and pushed away from the table. The chair squealed uncomfortably along the floor as I dismounted and stretched out my stiff joints. I ran a hoof through my mane, sweeping my tickly bangs away from my face, and headed towards the door to the kitchen.

The doors made that soft whoosh sound as their rubber edges rushed past one another. When they parted, they revealed the mess Applejack had managed to make.

To the untrained eye, it seemed as if she had merely thrown several trays worth of baked goods in every direction. To my slightly-more-trained eye, it was clear that she had carelessly pulled a tray out of the case in a carelessly quick arc, and the force of it had pulled a good two dozen croissants off the low end of the metal dish and all across the tile floor.

Applejack herself was crouched at the center of it, putting the croissants back onto the tray one at a time with her forehoof.

“I hope you’re not planning on feeding those to us,” I said.

Applejack’s shoulders leapt up to her ears, and she whirled to look at me. “Twilight! For the love of--” She took a steadying breath, and returned to her task. “If y’know a better way to get ‘em to the trash, I’m all ears.”

I sighed lightly and lit my horn. A little cloud of magenta magic poured out of it, drifted lazily down towards the croissants, and settled atop a group of five of them which had skittered over to the door.

Applejack watched carefully as I clenched my magic around the croissants and lifted them shakily towards the industrial trash can beside me.

It took more concentration than I would have liked to admit. A little strained squeak may or may not have escaped me as I worked.

“Not bad,” Applejack said with a smile. “You’ve been practicin’ that, huh?”

“No!” I protested.

Applejack arched a brow.

“I mean… yes,” I admitted. “A little. I guess. Ugh, how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know. Get the truth out of me so easy.”

“You ain’t a very good liar,” Applejack said simply.

“Gee. Thanks.”

“That’s a good thing, stupid,” Applejack said, all serious. “Good liars never helped anypony but themselves.”

I scoffed. “What about spies?”

“You know what I mean.”

“What about… actors?”

“You gonna help me or not?”

I coughed and dropped to the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”

After the little show I’d put on earlier, I elected to use my hooves to pick up the scattered baked goods. It was slow going, but I could already feel the headache building after the strain of picking up five lighter-than-air puffs of dough, and I wasn’t eager to push it with a few dozen more.

Embarrassing.

Stupid.

I looked up at AJ.

A few days ago, if she’d dumped a whole tray of food on the ground, she would have been thrown into an internal emotional breakdown. But she seemed oddly… content. Or at the very least not furious, which was something of a miracle.

“Are you okay?” I asked carefully.

Applejack’s ear twitched. “Am I okay?”

“Yeah. I dunno. You seem…” I thought about how best to phrase it. “Different.”

“And that’s a problem, is it?”

“You seem not yourself,” I corrected. “Is something going on?”

Applejack sighed. “Well, first of all, you don’t know me well enough to say what’s like me and what ain’t like me,” she said, scooping a few more croissants onto the tray.

I waited patiently for her to finish the thought.

“And… second?” I prompted at last.

“Second… I dunno,” she mumbled, avoiding my gaze. “I want y’all fed. And taken care of. That a crime?”

“No.”

“Well, then, leave it be,” Applejack requested softly.

“Okay,” I agreed.

A single croissant was left on the floor between the two of us.

We both reached for it.

Our hooves predictably brushed against one another, lingering a moment as we each waited for the other to back off. When a moment passed and neither of us had moved, we both looked up.

Our eyes met.

And something happened.

It was like a lightning strike. But not really. It was sudden, and it was bright, but it wasn’t painful. It wasn’t loud. In fact, it seemed to have the gentle warmth of sunshine on a summer day, and it sounded like the rush of wind in the leaves, and it smelled like dirt and… and baked goods.

And apples.

“Soup’s on, everypony!” Applejack shouted, a hoof cupped around her mouth, a jovial smile playing across her freckled face.

Before I could get my bearings, a veritable herd--a crowd, a stampede--of ponies came rushing up from behind me. They all but picked me up off the ground and carried me along with them as they galloped in from across the farm. I found myself bumped and bustled and jostled over to a table in a small clearing.

I held a hoof to my head, eyes closed, trying to regain balance and focus.

Again, before I could, Applejack appeared beside me.

She was different, even though I recognized her. Her mane was long and shiny, like corn silk, and tied loosely together with a thin red ribbon. She wore a stetson kicked back on her head, leaving her face in full view as she beamed at me.

“Why don’t I introduce y’all to the Apple family?” she said, gesturing broadly to the newly-gathered crowd of ponies before her.

I blinked.

There were dozens of them. All of them looking at me, holding treats and snacks of all shapes and sizes-- yet all of them distinctly apple-scented.

A bird twittered in the distance. The sun shone more brightly on me. I squinted against it, but its power only seemed to grow, and I had to close my eyes entirely against it.

I fell back on my butt.

On the tile floor.

In the diner.

In the dark.

“What…?” I murmured, looking down at my forehooves in confusion and apprehension. “Where did…? How did…?”

“Twilight?”

I looked up at Applejack, chest heaving in shock.

She looked back at me, eyes wider than dinner plates. It was the first time I had truly caught it there: the recognition. She knew me. The same way I knew her. From somewhere else, or some other time or some… something. A dream, maybe.

“Did you see it, too?” I asked breathlessly.

Applejack’s brows furrowed. She said nothing.

“You gals okay back there?” Lyra called from the dining area.

That seemed to snap Applejack out of it, even as I remained stunned on the floor.

“We’re fine!” she yelled back, getting to her hooves. “Be out in a minute!”

I tried to say something, but my mouth only flapped open and shut without a sound.

“Throw those away,” Applejack ordered gruffly, pointing to the tray of croissants. “I’ve got another in the back.”

“But--”

“Go on, now,” Applejack encouraged. “Sun’s comin’ up soon. Don’t wanna miss it.”

I watched as she turned her back on me and trotted off, hunting for more baked goods, of all things.

My snout scrunched up as I held a hoof to the now throbbing base of my horn. I tried to slip my rear legs out from under me, but they seemed partly stunned by the way I’d fallen backwards. In fact, now that I thought about it, my whole back half--legs, plot, and all--seemed to be partly out of commission.

I managed to struggle to my hooves, rubbing my sore plot with one hoof and waiting for Applejack to return.

She had such a big family.

How was that possible?

She had spent so long insisting that she had nopony to spend the holiday with, when she had this enormous family out there somewhere.

Could they have--?

No. No way. They couldn’t have died, that didn’t make any sense! Maybe parents, maybe siblings, but not an entire extended family like that. Not unless there was a really big disaster. Something truly and magnificently awful.

But… I would have heard about something like that, right?

Why else wouldn’t she have anypony to spend the holiday with?

Unless--

“I told you to throw those out!” Applejack scolded, now balancing a new tray on one hoof. “Boy howdy am I lookin’ forward to some new help around here. No offense or nothin’.”

I managed to force a scoff. “Offense taken,” I muttered.

Applejack furrowed her brows and stuck her tongue out at me. “You do what I ask the first time I ask it, then you can take offense all you like.”

I sighed lightly. “Deal.”

It took a bit of finagling, but I managed to get the tray up off the floor and tip it into the trash.

Applejack spun herself about and backed out the kitchen doors, the new tray bringing up the rear. She had a funny way of bowing her head as she squeezed past the doors, as if anticipating that they might rush past and clip her ears. With the extraordinary broadness of her shoulders, that would be totally impossible, but the impulse was almost sweet.

“Alright, girls! I’ve got chocolate-filled croissants,” she announced. “Soup’s on, as they say.”

“For the twelfth time tonight,” Vinyl chirped.

“Hey, now,” Applejack replied. “You wanna go watch the sun rise in the street?”

Vinyl chuckled. “That wasn’t even close to being a complaint. I would hope you’d know that by now, AJ.”

I shook my head clear of my private musings and pushed out into the dining area once more.

The sky was still dark, but it was anticipatory darkness, now.

I guess that’s what it’s all about. That’s what this weird feeling is-- the one you get when you stay up all night in a diner with a few friends. It’s anticipation. It’s waiting for the big thing to happen.

Only I got the feeling I didn’t know what the big thing really was.

“Will you sit down now?” Lyra pleaded.

Applejack sniffed. “A’course I will. I ain’t missin’ the sunrise.” She pointed to the croissants again. “I need you to try one, though. New dough recipe.”

I wandered over to the table and slipped back down into my seat.

Vinyl snatched a croissant off the tray and took an animalistic bite off the end. “Hey, AJ-- I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said around a mouthful of chocolate and puff pastry. “Where’d you get the booze?”

Applejack arched her brows. “Pardon?”

“The cider.” Vinyl paused to swallow her bite of croissant. “Mm, good stuff.”

“The croissant?”

“No-- I mean, yeah. But the cider,” Vinyl corrected. “I wanna pick some up for my personal stash once I get settled. Where’d you get it?”

Applejack blinked. “Uh… Lyra, did you try the croissant?”

Vinyl made a face, and glanced over to me a moment before continuing. “Is the brewery around here?”

“No,” Applejack replied.

“Well, where is it?”

“It’s-- I’ve got a connection,” Applejack mumbled. “I ain’t s’posed to say more’n that.”

It was Vinyl’s turn to furrow her brows. “Uh. Okay. Should I be worried about drinking it?”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Land sakes, no.”

“But you said--”

“Shush.” Applejack pointed to the window. “We’re gonna miss it. Any second now.”

In unison, we all turned to look out the front window.

There it was. The anticipation.

There wasn't a true difference in the sky's color, but there was in the atmosphere which hung in the street-- as the clock ticked down, and we neared that fateful moment, it was as if the whole city held its breath. The resulting silence and stillness seemed to radiate through the building, and only the sounds of nature could be heard anymore. Being in the city, there weren't many to be had, but you could still make out the humming of insects and the rush of wind through the alleyways.

I had to twist myself around at the waist to see. After a few moments of waiting, I started to feel uncomfortable, and spun my chair around to face the window.

Silly as it might sound, I tried to force the other ponies in the diner out of my mind.

This was my chance! A new year, a fresh start… just me and the sun.

Just me and Celestia.

I waited.

We waited.

And… nothing happened.

Lyra sort of leaned around me, searching for a wall clock to double check her timing. Whatever it said, it seemed to confuse her, and she settled back into her seat.

Vinyl, having been poised for a cheers when those first rays peeked over the horizon, gave in and had a drink.

Applejack tapped her hoof impatiently on the tabletop.

I waited.

The city couldn't hold its breath anymore, and sucked in another quick one. Unnoticeable.

"Um…" Lyra cocked her head. "The clock says it's two minutes after. Do you think--"

"It ain't fast, if that's what you're thinkin'," Applejack said, her tone dark. "Did y'all get the time wrong?"

"No way," Vinyl replied. "And I resent the implication that we're the primary mistake-makers here."

Applejack made some sort of weary and huffy sound, and turned back to the window.

We waited.

The anticipation was dissolving, now. Falling apart like crepe paper in water. It was the feeling of a roller coaster car chugging up that first hill, pausing… and then gently clicking back down to home base. Worse than anticlimactic, it was undoing the climax itself.

We waited.

"Do you think something's wrong?" Lyra asked softly.

Vinyl scratched her temple. "I mean… what could even go wrong?"

"That's not a question I like askin'," Applejack grumbled.

She stood, kicking her chair out from under her and lumbering towards the counter. With one hoof, she reached around the countertop and pulled out a small radio-- the sort with a very long antenna and a set of dials with faded labels.

This didn't seem to slow Applejack down in the least. She used her teeth to tug the antenna out to its full length, and began to manipulate the dials with ease.

The radio hissed to life. Little snippets of songs and shock jocks buzzed through the static, somehow both softened and sharpened by it. Applejack twisted the dial slowly, ears twitching as she listened out for her goal station.

And then--

"--word that somepony has staged a takeover of the festivities in Ponyville," announced a slightly frazzled mare. "The intention is currently unclear. We are waiting on reports from our field reporters covering the event, but have yet to receive anything conclusive. Please stay with us."

"Did she say Ponyville?" I asked.

Where had I heard that name before?

Applejack seemed almost entirely unresponsive. She stared into the radio with a frightening intensity.

"Event coordinator Fluttershy, the mare responsible for organizing Ponyville's Summer Sun Celebration, has not yet been located for comment," the mare continued. "There appears to be a-- a media blackout of sorts in the small town. The responsible party has still yet to have been identified. We are asking our listeners to contact us with any information regarding the events in Ponyville."

"Ponyville…" I repeated.

It was right there, right on the tip of my tongue.

Lyra sat forward. "I don't understand-- what's going on?"

"Shush," Applejack hissed.

"For those of you just joining us, Princess Celestia appears to have lost control of the sun," the reporter said matter-of-factly.

Lyra drew in a sharp gasp.

Vinyl seemed to go rigid.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the news, trying to make sense of it and coming up empty.

Applejack didn't move.

"The sun was scheduled to rise on this, the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, mere minutes ago-- however, it seems that something has prevented Princess Celestia from participating in this historic event."

Without thinking about it, I got out of my chair and wandered towards the radio, coming to stand beside Applejack as she grimaced at its speaker.

"In keeping with tradition, Princess Celestia randomly selected the town of Ponyville to host her for the festivities. For security reasons, this fact was revealed to very few ponies. The royal guard is currently moving in to detain said ponies for further questioning."

"The royal guard?" I repeated. "Oh, my gosh-- that's where Shining Armor is stationed!"

"They're arresting ponies?!" Vinyl exclaimed, leaping out of her seat to join us.

"Quiet!" Applejack barked.

She upped the volume.

"For our listeners in Ponyville and the surrounding area, we recommend staying in place. The nature and purpose of this upset is not yet clear, and you could be placing yourself at serious risk by attempting to enter or vacate the area on your own."

Lyra seemed to be glued to her chair. Her gaze was fixed on the street, watching as ponies left their buildings to stare up at the sky in a state of shock and horror.

The mare on the radio took a long pause. "Okay…" she mumbled. "Okay, we've received audio from within the Ponyville event. I… I'm not sure how to describe what I'm hearing. Can we roll it?"

The sound cut out.

We crowded closer around the radio.

Applejack twisted the knob even louder.

The sound suddenly broke back in with a clamor. Somepony shrieked in surprise and fear.

There was also a dark, sparkling, twinkling sound-- the sound of unicorn magic from deep in a well, or inside of a cave. Unmistakably menacing.

Then the disrupter spoke:

"Oh, my beloved subjects!"

I cocked my head in confusion. It didn't sound the least bit like Celestia's voice. At least not as far as I could remember it.

Applejack scowled at the radio.

"It's been so long since I've seen your precious little sun-loving faces," the voice spat, quite clearly seething with a ferocity that made me shiver.

"What did you do with our Princess?" somepony demanded.

The voice began to chuckle, a deep and throaty sound that somehow rang clear and true through the tiny radio. "Why, am I not royal enough for you?" she teased. "Don't you know who I am?"

There was a long quiet. I thought I could make out some mumbling as the crowd tried to unravel the mystery.

"Does my crown no longer count, now that I've been imprisoned for one thousand years?" she continued, frustration building. "Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?"

"We did!" replied a feminine, if slightly nasally, voice. "We know who you are! You're the mare in the moon: Nightmare Moon!"

Applejack put a hoof to her mouth.

I could hardly find it in me to react. As the realization bubbled through the crowd on the radio, I tried to breathe, and practically choked on my throat.

“No way…” Vinyl breathed.

"Well, well, well," the voice mused. "It seems some ponies still remember me. Then you also know why I'm here!"

"You're here to…"

I looked at Applejack, though she could not draw herself away.

Vinyl wrapped a leg around the back of my neck and pulled me in close for a comforting squeeze. As soon as Lyra spotted us, she skittered over to join the embrace, as well.

"To…"

The voice laughed again, a hint of urgency and power sneaking into it now. "Remember this day, little ponies" she said, villainous lightness lifting the ends of her words. "For it was your last."

Lyra squeaked softly beside me.

"From this moment forth, the night shall last forever!" the voice bellowed.

She then began to cackle.

Somepony shouted "seize her!" before the audio dropped out for good.

For a moment, only dead air rang through the diner.

We couldn't hear to move or even breathe.

I closed my eyes and, for once in my life, I prayed that Celestia would dazzle the world by raising the sun.

No such luck.

"Again, W.E.N.R. warns our listeners to avoid Ponyville and its surrounding areas at all costs." The reporter's voice was much more even, now. A faux sense of calm which only barely masked the terrified trembling of her words. "Those inside of Ponyville, please do everything in your power to comply with the orders of the royal guard. Residents are being evacuated as we speak. Stay with us for more details."

Applejack turned off the radio.

The three of us looked up at her, waiting for her to react. She only stared at the radio. Emotionless.

"Applejack?" I whispered softly.

She sniffed. "I gotta go."

"What?!" Vinyl pulled away from our hug and stared, dumbfounded, at Applejack. "Go where?"

"Ponyville," she answered simply.

With that, she turned on her heel, circled the counter, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Those of us remaining looked at one another, then wordlessly scrambled after her. I ran headfirst into the kitchen doors and skidded to a halt on the tile.

"Are you crazy?!" I shouted. "You heard the mare on the radio: nopony in, nopony out!"

Applejack stalked to the back of the room. There was a short row of coat hooks by the back door, upon which hung an apron and a small knapsack. For the first time I'd seen, Applejack removed her mane net and hung it beside the apron.

Her mane was just like corn silk, fine and shiny as it spilled down her shoulders.

She looked back at me. "Sure is a good thing I know one of the guards, then."

I squinted at her as she took down the knapsack and walked it over to the fridge, which she popped open with a precise kick to the side.

"You… do?" Lyra cocked her head.

Applejack dropped a few bottles of water into her knapsack, shut the fridge, and looked at me.

I looked blankly back at her.

She raised an eyebrow.

I raised mine back.

The fridge hummed quietly, like a lone cicada.

Oh.

Oh.

"Wait-- you want me to get my brother to--" I cut myself off, shaking my head. "Mm-mm. No way."

"Yes, Twilight," Applejack said as she calmly swung her bag over her back. "I'm not askin' for anything illegal, just--"

"It sure sounds illegal!" I shot back.

Applejack clenched her teeth. I watched her temple pulse with the motion. "You remember the talk we had about bein' rebellious?" she asked softly.

I paused.

Her face was… I don't know. Uncharacteristically calm, but in a way that seemed almost entirely forced. As if she were holding back whatever threatened to break through the surface.

I swallowed. "What do you mean?"

"I told you that being rebellious is about doing," Applejack said.

I scoffed. "You also said that you weren’t trying to be a rebel,” I argued.

Applejack rolled her eyes and pushed past me. She added in a rude little shove as she went.

“Hey!” I shoved her back. “You also told me that rebels are supposed to rebel for something!”

“I don’t recall that bit at all,” Applejack muttered.

“Do you disagree?”

Applejack hesitated. “Now, hold on just a--”

“Do you disagree?” I pressed.

She set her jaw and looked down at me.

I looked back up at her, puffing out my chest to try to make up the size difference.

Because she was enormous. A wall of freckled, peachy fur, unshorn fetlocks, and cornsilk hair. Green eyes flashing as she glared at me, dared me to push more. Betting I wouldn’t have the guts.

“No,” she said simply.

“Then why the hay do you wanna get into Ponyville so bad?” I demanded. “What’s so important?”

Applejack looked up at the ceiling. She took a long, steadying breath that shivered as she released it. “My family.”

I took a small step back. "But… your family's here in Manehattan."

"My cousins are here in Manehattan," Applejack corrected. "My family is in Ponyville."

I blinked. “But-- but I thought--”

“Whatever you thought, you were wrong,” Applejack muttered. “It’s complicated.”

“If it’s so complicated, then why--”

“Because they’re my family, Twilight,” Applejack said. “Okay? They’re my family.”

I set my jaw. “My family’s in Ponyville, too,” I said sternly. “You don’t see me rushing off to throw myself into danger.”

“You know darn well the royal guard can’t do a thing to fix this!” Applejack argued. “Buncha meat-headed--”

“Watch it,” I spat.

“You know what I mean.” Applejack drew in a deep breath. “I ain’t gonna sit here in my cushy apartment waiting to hear about how Ponyville was wiped off the gotdang map. If somethin’ goes wrong, then… at least I know I tried to stop it.”

As the sky slipped back into its midnight darkness, and the starlight began to once again fill the diner, I caught the ghost of a tear glimmering at the corner of Applejack’s eye. She didn’t bother to wipe it away, likely because that only would have served to draw more attention to it.

I searched for any sign of doubt in her face. But, if there was one thing I knew for certain about Applejack, it was this:

She is an abysmal liar.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Fine. I… I get it,” I admitted.

“Twilight, you can’t be serious,” Lyra chirped in my ear.

I gave her a look, but said nothing.

Applejack nodded sternly. “Alright. Y’all can stay here if you want,” she said, withdrawing a key from her knapsack. “Just keep the doors locked and the lights low.”

She tossed the ring of keys to Vinyl, who caught them in her magic. “You kidding?” She shook her head. “Just how were you planning on getting to Ponyville from here?”

I looked up at Applejack, and she looked back down at me.

“Train?” we suggested in unison.

“Yeah, right.” Vinyl threw the keys back at Applejack. “Don’t be stupid. I’ve got a van.”

Applejack shook her head. “No. Twilight’s enough, I ain’t draggin’ you two into--”

Vinyl held up a hoof. “Hey, it’s like we said: we’re a package deal.” She nudged Lyra. “Right?”

“Uh…” Lyra threw Vinyl a look of concern, then cleared her throat. “R-right. Totally. All for one, yeah?”

“And one for all,” Vinyl finished.

For a moment, Applejack seemed to consider the consequences of saying yes. A brief slideshow of possible endings to this little excursion flashed in her eyes as she stared down Vinyl and Lyra, waiting for either of them to back down.

Neither of them were swayed.

“Oh, for the love of--” Applejack put a hoof to her cheek and pulled it down towards her jawline. “Fine! But only because I ain’t wastin’ any more time arguing about it.”

“Deal,” Vinyl said quickly before taking off like a shot from the kitchen.

Lyra was hot on her heels, losing traction as she galloped over the tile floor.

Applejack and I lingered in the kitchen a moment, listening as the bell above the door tinkled softly and the van began to struggle to life outside.

“We’ll get ‘em,” Applejack said softly.

I coughed lightly. “Uh… yeah. I-I know.”

“C’mon, now.” Applejack walked to the door and held it open with her hoof. “After you.”

Chapter Twelve: Cooking Breakfast

I'm guessing it's probably not great news when you have one customer for breakfast.

It's probably slightly worse news when your one customer appears (very obviously) to be an undercover reporter keeping an eye on the place across the street. He was wearing an actual trench coat and holding up a newspaper to obscure his face, only occasionally peeking over the top and never turning the page.

I suppose it's possible he was just a slow reader, but something about the way he squinted and twitched his bristly mustache made me think otherwise.

"Go on, now." Applejack gave me a condescending pat on the head as she whispered into my ear.

I rolled my eyes. "I am not taking that guy's order. He hasn't even touched the coffee!"

"Hate to break it to ya, Twi: but yes, you are," Applejack said softly. She smirked at me. "It is--quite literally--your job."

"Yeah." I scoffed. "Which I'm not being paid for."

"Yeah, and--" Applejack took me by the shoulders and steered me to the order window. "--I ain't gettin' paid, either, if you don't get his order. Coffee's on the house."

We stared out the order window at the stallion for a moment. As we watched, he curled his newspaper downward, bushy eyebrows nearly obscuring his glare.

A pair of binoculars and that dude would be set.

"Ugh. Fine."

"There's my little employee," Applejack said, beaming with fake pride. "Doin' the bare minimum with only moderate micromanaging."

I didn't grace that with a reply.

The stallion at the table didn't bother to put down his newspaper as I approached. He didn't even try to hide the fact that he was sloppily snooping on who-knows-what.

I cleared my throat.

He didn't even blink.

"Uh… sir?" I leaned forward over the table, painting on my best and brightest customer-service smile. "What can I get you today?"

The stallion turned his gaze to me. It was less intimidating than he was likely imagining. "Nothing. Coffee's plenty."

I looked back over my shoulder towards the kitchen.

Applejack was looking back at me, eyebrows raised, doing a much better job of snooping and intimidating.

I sighed. "Sir?"

"Hm?"

"You have to buy something," I said. "I-if you wanna sit."

His caterpillar brows drew closer together. "Really?"

I nodded. "Really."

He held his gaze with me a moment longer, then rustled his newspaper and hid behind it once again. "Bagel and eggs. Toasted and over-easy, respectfully."

Though I wanted to smack him for what had to be the most pompous diner order ever, I just took a deep breath and widened my grin. "Sure thing. Coming right up!"

He didn't say a thing.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed for reasons beyond my understanding, I tucked my head and trotted back to the kitchen.

Applejack was already rooting through the fridge. "Well, look at you!" She laughed, spun, and kicked the fridge closed with a back hoof. "You sure waitressing ain't your special talent?"

"Oh, shut it."

All Applejack did was chuckle good-naturedly as she deposited a carton of eggs beside the griddle.

I came to stand beside her, ready-but-not-really for today's fry cook training session. There was a strange air of apprenticeship to the whole thing; In fact, I liked to imagine, while I sweat and chopped and toiled over the griddle, that I was actually learning… I dunno. Smithing? That's the thing with the anvil and the hammers, right?

Applejack nodded to the egg carton. "Crack two for me. And keep the yolks intact."

I nodded, lifting an egg and beginning to tap it delicately on the edge of the counter.

Though she had moved beyond verbal corrections, I could sense Applejack's displeasure with my egg-cracking technique. I did my best to ignore her.

"So." Applejack made a show of whipping the spatula from her collection of kitchen utensils. It made a bright, metallic sound, not unlike a sword. "Have you decided what you're doing for Summer Sun yet?"

The delicacy of my egg-cracking operation was ruined with one brutal smash, and the yolk dropped onto the floor.

Applejack must have worked hard not to comment on that.

"Uh. N-no," I replied. I grabbed a rag as Applejack waited patiently for me to clean up my mess. "I mean, I don't exactly care, y'know?"

Applejack scoffed. "You? Not caring?" She whistled. "That'll be the day."

I looked up at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Would you clean that up, already?" Applejack said, nodding to the egg.

"You didn't answer my question."

Applejack heaved a great sigh and turned her gaze to the ceiling. "Twilight, you care about damn near everything." She chuckled. She was doing that more as time went on. "I know you got opinions."

Of course I had opinions.

I had nothing but opinions. When it came to Summer Sun, I was very nearly incapable of seeing things objectively.

"Nope," I lied, chucking the egg-soaked rag into the sink. "No opinion."

"Right, right." Applejack visibly suppressed her laughter. "Sure."

That was something I was starting to learn about Applejack. I guess, when I'd first met her and talked to her, I'd gotten the feeling that she was frequently laughing at me.

I mean, she laughed. She laughed pretty often, in all honesty. But I'd assumed she was laughing at me as some sort of private joke; like she thought of me as some sort of pitiable charity case, and therefore figured I'd never understand that she was laughing at me at me.

Applejack laughed a lot, but it was never ingenuine. It was never secretive. It never had another, hidden, derogatory layer. She just laughed when she thought things were funny.

I don't think I've ever met somepony--before or since--who laughed like that.

"Look here, Twi." Applejack held up an egg, then smacked it against the counter in one swift motion.

I watched quietly as she dropped it onto the griddle.

"See?" She tossed the shells into a trash can. "Just one crack. Right on the flat bit."

I furrowed my brows. "I… don't think that's right."

Applejack stuck out her bottom lip and gave me a steely glare. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You really wanna correct the cook?"

I pinned my ears back. "No."

"Thought not." Applejack gave an amused snort. That meant things were alright. "Give it a try."

In my magic, I lifted another egg and mimicked Applejack's motion against the counter. To my disappointment, it smashed completely, and another yolk was demolished.

Applejack threw her head back and laughed. "Maybe a little gentler next time, huh?"

I snuck in a nervous little giggle. "Maybe I should practice on oranges."

"Ha!" Applejack punched me lightly on the shoulder. Of course, she was a good head taller than me, so I teetered like a nudged bowling pin. "Oranges. Good one, Twilight."

It wasn't all that funny, but I snickered anyway. It felt good to get honest laughter out of Applejack.

She sighed in satisfaction. "You know we only got a few more days."

I blinked. "Until?"

"Summer Sun."

"Ugh." I hung my head. "I know."

Applejack cast a glance my way. "Don't seem like it to me."

At this point, I was starting to hate any mention of the festival out of principle. Why did so many ponies give even one shit about it?

But, even though I may have thought the whole thing to be a stupid waste of time, I had to admit it had hurt a little when I got the letter.

I guess, up until the letter, I had options. But, now, those options were shrinking.

As much as I didn't want to talk about it, I did sort of feel like I owed Applejack the truth on this. Why I felt that way, I'll probably never know.

"Well…" I paused, then sighed deeply. "My brother sent me a letter."

Applejack was visibly confused. She pulled a knife out of the knife block and laid it on the counter. "Okay."

"I mean, I-- I like my brother," I said, even as Applejack wandered across the kitchen and towards the back of the bagel case.

She laughed once, a dry and husky sound. "Okay?"

"I just mean… well, I was happy to get his letter. Y'know?"

"Get to the point, Twi," Applejack muttered.

She swung open the bagel case and selected a plain one from the bottom shelf. She had a funny way of swishing her tail as she did.

I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn't see."I guess he was hoping I'd come back to Canterlot for the festival."

"Mm-hm." Applejack closed the case. And began to wander back in my direction.

"But apparently he's stationed in some little town out west?" I scratched my temple with one hoof. "He's bringing our parents. Apparently they really do it up there."

Applejack began to saw away at the bagel with her bread knife. "What town?"

"Uh…" I tapped my chin with one hoof. "Ponyville, I think?"

She paused.

It was minute-- hardly noticeable, really. Almost as if she'd struck a surprise raisin in the bagel, and needed a bit extra force to get through it.

Before I could ask whether she knew it, she was back to sawing. "Whaddya mean 'stationed'?"

"Oh--" I shook my head a bit. "He's in the royal guard."

"Why would the royal guard be stationed someplace like Ponyville?" She was almost angry. She finished cutting through the bagel with a final, violent swipe.

I flinched a little. "I-I dunno."

"Does your brother know?" Applejack tossed the bagel slices face-down on the griddle.

I stuttered a bit. "P-probably not. He's not exactly high-ranking, I mean--"

"Well, don't you think that's kinda weird?" Applejack put her knife down on the counter, maybe with slightly more force than she should have.

I blinked.

I was having a very hard time keeping up with this conversation.

"Uh… I guess?" I cleared my throat. "I dunno."

Applejack didn't say anything. She looked… well, not angry, exactly. More just a focused kind of stress. She wasn't looking at me anymore, just staring down at the bagels as they sizzled.

I watched for a moment, too. I clearly didn't see what Applejack saw in them.

"Princess Celestia pulls this sort of garbage with the royal guard constantly," I said, as if I were trying to apologise. "Always sending them out for weird missions, training them for utter bullshit they should never need."

At last, Applejack looked at me. "And that's not weird?"

I shrugged. "Guess I'm just used to it."

A smirk curled on her lips once more. "Not a fan of the princess, huh?"

It was my turn to laugh dryly at that. "Not exactly."

To her credit, Applejack still wasn't asking follow-up questions. I think she knew she stood a solid fifty-fifty of getting an emotional do or a total shutdown, and she pretty much wanted neither.

To my credit, I had stopped waiting for her to ask.

"I mean, she was the one who…" Who what? Who ruined you? Your future? Your chances of fulfilling your destiny? "It was her school I didn't get into."

Applejack nodded. "I see."

"And for such a stupid reason, too!" I continued. It was amazing how quickly I could get myself fired up, to be honest. "I could have aced an exam on magical theory, but I just-- I can't do this insane magical task and so I'm doomed to--"

"You best flip those eggs," Applejack said, coolly passing me a spatula.

I looked back at the griddle. There may or may not have been smoke rising. "Oh, shit!"

I snatched the spatula away from Applejack and managed to pry up the eggs. They looked… well, they looked how eggs usually look when I make them. Which was probably fine.

Not great. But fine.

Applejack didn't comment at all as I struggled to turn them over without breaking the yolks-- a step I never cared to follow for my own sake. I figured that meant I was doing alright.

I sighed as the second egg hit the griddle with a sizzle. "Anyway. It's just a dumb grudge."

"No, no." Applejack shook her head. "That sounds-- I mean. I'd hate her, too."

I looked over at her. "You would?"

She made a face I couldn't quite identify. It reminded me of asking an unqualified uncle for advice. "Yeah, well. I ain't exactly immune to grudges myself." She scoffed. "Particularly the dumb kind."

"Really?" I shot Applejack my most sarcastic glare. "I never would have guessed."

She chuckled. "Yeah, yeah…"

I watched the eggs. Applejack would say something when they were done, right?

Applejack flipped the bagel slices off the griddle and onto a plate.

"I mean… grudges are fun," I admitted.

Applejack laughed. "You got that right."

I laughed, too. "I love being petty."

"Shoot, who don't?"

We laughed. Applejack's laugh was deep and rich and honey-gold. Mine was sort of like a nervous squirrel.

The laughter faded. A comfortable silence was left in its wake.

I got the feeling the eggs were done. Applejack didn't say anything as I forced the spatula under them and gently tugged them off the griddle, so I figured I was doing something right.

It gave me a surge of bravery.

"Why do you care what I'm doing for Summer Sun?" I asked. It came out perhaps a little more timid than I had intended.

Applejack carefully considered my question, only watching the path of my spatula. "What gave you that impression?"

"C'mon, Applejack," I said with a scoff. "You ask about my plans practically every day."

She shrugged. "Just makin' conversation, Twi," she said, and it almost sounded casual. "Current events and such."

"Don't you have even one other topic of conversation?"

"Nope." No hesitation.

"Like music?"

Applejack scoffed. "I don't care what kinda music you listen to, faux-hawk."

"Oh, perfect." I rolled my eyes. "Another nickname."

She laughed at that. It felt good, y'know? Making her laugh.

I slid each fried egg onto one half of the bagel. The yolks jiggled ever so slightly, and I felt almost proud of my creation.

Applejack may not have been proud, but she sure didn't seem disappointed.

"Alright. Be right back," she said, scooping the plate off the counter and whisking it out the double doors.

I watched from the order window as she slid the plate onto the table. She did it with such grace.

Must be an earth pony thing.

"Bagel and eggs," she announced.

"Mm," the stallion replied.

Applejack didn't bother asking if he needed anything else (though she had told, in no uncertain terms, that I am required to do so), and instead trotted back to the kitchen. The double doors made a soft woosh as they settled behind her.

I leaned against the counter. "Seriously."

Applejack gave me a strange look as she breezed past me. "Seriously, what?"

"Why do you keep asking?" I asked.

At first, Applejack said nothing.

She set about putting on a pot of coffee. Without anything on the griddle, the light sound of the grounds landing in the filter was the only sound in the kitchen.

Finally, Applejack sighed. A heavy, mulling-it-over sigh, with puffed cheeks and upward-turned eyes. "Well, like I said, I'm pretty good at holding grudges."

I let a smile sneak over my face. "Uh-huh."

"And… well, it sure seems like you and I have a grudge in common," she continued. She sure was taking her time with the water.

"Summer Sun?" I guessed.

Applejack nodded. "Summer Sun."

"Okay…"

"And, seein' as we're working together," she continued, a very distinct I'm-wasting-time tone saturating ever word, "and seein' as you're not exactly as unbearable as I may have originally thought--"

"Gee, thanks."

"--I figured that you and I could maybe… enjoy our grudge together." She clicked the basket into the coffee maker. "Over alcohol."

I didn't make a s kind, just lifted my hoof to my face in a gesture of shock.

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Don't make a big deal out of--"

"You're inviting me to your super-sad, isolated Summer Sun Celebration?" I gasped theatrically. "In your empty diner?"

Applejack growled a bit. "I wouldn't say inviting, so much as--"

"I get to drink with you?"

"Maybe you get to drink. You are underage, and I--"

"Are we gonna stare out the window silently and contemplate city life?"

"Oh, forget it!" Applejack made a show of her anger, though anypony with a brain could have seen through it in a second.

I snickered to myself.

Applejack shook her head. "Shouldn'ta said anything," she muttered. "Shoulda let you figure all this out for yourself."

"Mm-mm." I beamed at her. "No way, AJ-- can't get rid of me now."

"Yeah…" Applejack chuckled incredulously. "Yeah, I'm startin' to sense that."

The kitchen was quiet. Only the gentle rumble of future coffee, and the low him of the refrigerator.

Applejack liked her quiet moments. That was something I was noticing, too. In those moments, when she needed to softly soak up the lingering energy in the room, I could still she the other her.

It was all in my head, of course. Just a silly association I'd managed to invent. But it did seem right, in a way; napping in the dappled sunlight, a stetson tilted down over her eyes, the wind in her long, blonde mane.

Let go, she seemed to murmur. I promise you'll be safe.

And I did feel safe.

"I guess this means we're both real rebels, now," I said.

Applejack raised her eyebrows. "Say again?"

"What you said. How real rebels do things, and city rebels don't," I reminded her. "Looks like we're both doing, aren't we?"

Applejack chuckled lightly. "I told you, Twi: I ain't tryin' t'be a rebel. I'm just livin' my life the way I see fit."

"Hm." I nodded. "Maybe that's the most genuine rebellion of them all."

Applejack looked at me. As she did, her brows slowly knit together.

I stared back at her, attempting to remain impassive.

"That's the stupidest thing you've said so far."

I spluttered something incoherent. "What?! That's--"

"Who do you think you are, exactly?" Applejack shot back, her face breaking into a massive grin. "You writin' the next great Equestrian novel in the back of that van?"

I clucked my tongue. "Oh, what do you know? Maybe that's my special talent."

The Legend

Once upon a time, in the ancient land of Equestria, there were two wise sisters who worked together to understand and to harness the magic upon which the land was built. The eldest sister, a powerful unicorn, learned all there was to know about magic that was good and pure; the younger, less practiced though just as mighty, sought to understand all of the dark and poisonous magic which infected the kingdom. Thus, the two sisters were able to shut out the dark magic and usher in an age of light for all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies of Equestria gleefully followed in the hoofsteps of the eldest sister, learning all they could about good magic, while the younger sister's contributions to magical development were shunned.

One fateful day, the younger unicorn decided to teach a lesson to the subjects who ignored the evil potential of Equestria's magic. She unleashed a powerful dark storm upon the land, corrupting all it touched with evil intent. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.

She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister turned to the only resource which could help her seal away the darkness: her sister's own research. Using the magical inscriptions within this mighty tome, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for magic both good and evil, educating all young unicorns in the ways of magic, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.