The clock had recently hit five PM and the woman who had promised to show up to go to the fair with you had not yet shown up. You had known this woman for most of your life, she was a childhood friend of yours and the two of you had gone to Canterlot High School together and graduated in the same year. From that point forward however, you and her had drifted apart a bit. You chose your own career path while she had gone into the Police Force like her older brother did. It had been months since you last had contact with her, which is why it was such a surprise that she called you three days ago to see if you wanted to go to the Canterlot Fair with her. Naturally you agreed and she told you that she would pick you up at five on the day of the fair.
You decide to call her phone to see if she was ready, but a knock at your door stops you from even pulling your phone out of your pocket. You answer the door to see your friend standing there wearing her casual attire. She was never one for dressing fancy, a pair of jeans, some tennis shoes and a dark blue button up shirt was good enough for her. She had always wore darker colors because of her dark gray skin. She was wearing her medium length jet black hair in a ponytail as she was expected to and she looks at you with her purple eyes, "I apologize for being late, my friend," she says apologetically.
You smile and nod, understanding that your friend was a little late. She leads you out to her car and the two of you climb in. On the way there, you chat with your old friend, Blazing Shield. The two of you reconnect with each other, sharing what you both have been doing over the past few months and she smiles at a few of your jokes.
The two of you get to the fair without any issues or hassles. Your friend parks her car near a tree and she smiles as she turns to you, "I've always enjoyed parking my car in the shade, it helps keep the interior cool," she explains to you.
You both walk into the fair and notice many different rides and booths, but your friend grabs your hand and drags you to a baseball tossing booth. She had always been better than you at this game, but this time it wasn't about competition. She was here to win a prize. "Step right up to Flam's baseball toss! For only one dollar, you can throw three baseballs at the bottle!" the owner of the booth excitedly calls out.
Blazing Shield looks at you and smiles, she places a dollar on the table and she is given three baseballs. You watch as your friend tosses one of the balls up into the air to get an idea of if it's a proper baseball or not and when she catches it she shakes her head slightly. You worry about her, but she takes a deep breath and cocks her arm back to throw with the force and precision of a major league pitcher. You had heard that she was on the softball team for the police force as one of the pitchers, but you never expected to see her ever throw a fastball like this one. The ball flies from her hand almost too fast for either you or the booth owner to see and hits her target perfectly. The top three bottles fall over without any issue, but something catches your attention. The bottom three didn't budge, despite the force that the ball had hit with.
"I'm sorry, miss. But you failed to knock all of the bottles off the table," Flam says as he looks towards your friend.
Your friend however is visibly annoyed at this. "Show me the bottles," she says to him.
Flam starts to look visibly nervous, something was up with him and you couldn't place your finger on why, but it looked like Blazing Shield did. "I'm on the softball team for the police department. I'm not good at batting, but I've got a hell of an arm according to the coach. The force and accuracy in which I had hit that stack of bottles should've sent the entire pyramid tumbling down, but the bottles on the bottom didn't budge an inch. How many times have we busted you and your brother for scamming people, Flam? Fifteen? Sixteen? If I wasn't off duty, I'd put you in cuffs right now. I want you to show me the trick, right now," she says to the mustached man.
Flam visibly gulps at this and sighs, "Fine," he says, defeated.
He walks over to the table that the bottles are on and shows that the metal bottles were bolted into the table so that they wouldn't budge, no matter how much force was applied, "If I give you a prize, will you let me go?" he asked pleadingly.
The dark gray woman was having none of it. She clears her throat and wags her finger, "I'm going to report you for scamming customers like that. It's barely allowed for you to have weights in the bottom of your bottles as there's still a chance that your patrons can win. Also it's a crime to bribe a police officer," she says disapprovingly.
The two of you walk away from the booth, but before you can say anything, she smiles at you, "Don't worry old friend, the night is still young and I can still win you a prize," she says to you reassuringly.
She leads you to a stand where they sell snacks and she buys you both some cotton candy. She opens up her bag and starts to eat the sugary snack in front of you which prompts you to open up your bag and the two of you discuss how having cotton candy reminds you both of when your parents would bring the two of you to the fair and they'd always buy sweets for both of you. It was a pleasant experience for both of you and you smile at your friend as she chuckles a little. "You're welcome for that trip down memory lane, I'm sorry that I've not been able to keep in touch with you. I work night shift, so normally I sleep during the day. It's surprisingly hard work sometimes too," she says to you.
You nod understandingly, she had always been honest with you for all the years you have known her, and she has no reason to lie to you now. The two of you walk over to a strength tester. It is nothing more than button that you slam a sledgehammer onto and it makes lights light up until it reaches a bell that rings if you're strong enough. Though Blazing Shield was good at throwing objects, this was more your thing. You pull a dollar out of your wallet and hand it to the carnival barker. You are handed a sledgehammer and you breathe in gently. You widen your stance as you present your side to the column of lights in front of you. You grip the sledgehammer, your dominant hand close to the head of it as your off hand is near the bottom of the handle. You bring it over your shoulder in one swift movement as you move your hand down the handle to give it that extra bit of reach. The head of the sledgehammer slams down onto the pad, triggering the sensor underneath and the lights immediately start shooting up the column in front of you.
A ringing sound tells you that you have won a prize and you pick a stuffed bear out from the prizes to give to your friend. She smiles warmly, "You didn't have to get me a prize, you know," she says to you.
You however thought it would be a nice gift for your friend as she was always winning you things from the games around the fair. She grabbed your hand and led you to another game that she was always good at. All you had to do was be the first person to pop a balloon with a water gun and you'd win a prize. She smiled and sat down as you watched her compete with five other people. The bell rang, startling you a bit, but Blazing Shield was concentrating. Her stream of water never wavered from the target. She expertly kept control of the water gun and the balloon started to swell up swiftly.
Soon enough her balloon popped and she picked a stuffed pony toy out of the lineup to give to you, knowing that you were a fan of a cartoon that had ponies as its main characters. The two of you shared a laugh as she playfully called you a Brony, but you knew it was true and so did she. That's what you liked about her the most, she didn't treat you like a total stranger because you liked a cartoon, she was quick to accept that you had things that you like that she didn't like.
A Ferris Wheel catches the off duty officer's attention and she quickly grabs your hand to drag you over to it. The person at the booth smiles at you to as you walk up to him, "I see that you two love birds are wanting to get onto the Ferris wheel. I tell you that there's nothing more romantic than two lovers seeing the sunset high in the sky," he says to you two.
The two of you are caught off guard, you've never had romantic feelings for each other. Especially since Blazing Shield was more like a sister to you than anything else. She looks equally uncomfortable about this, "Look, can't two lifelong friends just share a ferris wheel car together?" she asks to the operator.
"Nothing wrong with that. It'll be two dollars each," he says to you both.
The two of you pull two dollars out of your pockets and hand them to the operator. You walk ahead of the dark gray woman and open the door of the car to let her in first. She smiles at you, "Thank you very much," she says as she climbs into the car.
You climb in after she does and the operator closes the door, making sure to lock it so that neither of you can accidentally open the door while the ride is in motion. The two of you sit in silence with the prizes you won each other as the ride starts to move to allow more passengers on it. Soon the two of you are at the top and you both stand up, to see the sunset. The two of you remember the time that you had to stay in separate cars because only four people were allowed in one car at a time and neither of your parents wanted to leave you in the care of the other's parents.
Blazing Shield smiles gently, "You know. We've known each other all of our lives pretty much and we owe it to our parents. Sure the time we spent here isn't much, but it'll live on in my memory forever. Though I did say you didn't have to win me the prize, you little dork, it was nice. I'm glad you agreed to come and the two of us could walk down memory lane together a little bit before I had to report in for work. I wish I had more time to spend with you, but you know, being a night shift police officer doesn't give me a lot of options. But know that you'll always be my friend," she says to you as the ride continues moving down.
You feel the same way and express this to her, she smiles in response and the two of you fist bump each other as you have always done. The ride soon reaches the bottom and your carriage is unlocked and the door opened. The operator smiles at you and the two of you walk out. Your friend guides you back to her car and the two of you climb in and start to talk about plans for meeting up in the future to hang out and watch some television or play some games like the good old days before you both were adults.
She pulls up to your house and you climb out of the car. You walk up to your front door, but her voice causes you to turn around. "Hey, remember that you can always call me if you want. Leave a voice mail or even text me, I'll respond to you when I can. Take care!" she says with her head out her window. She places her head back in her car and the two of you smile as you give her a thumbs up. She nods and pulls out of your driveway to walk back into your house. It was good to see your friend and as you sit down on the couch and turn on the television, you can't help but wonder about what kind of movies Blazing Shield likes. You shrug and then continue about your day as normal, with a spring in your step now, excited that you'll be able to see her again next time she is off, instead of months from now.
