Baffled by their emotional fluidity
Author's Note
Are any of these legitimate, convincing reasons for any of those involved to cry? Or is this just a prolonged exercise in ruthless character assassination? Probably no, and probably yes. Oh, we'll all wince! I winced while I wrote it!
But hell. These are my puppets and they'll dance on my strings for my purposes.
Dance puppets, dance!
Baffled by their emotional fluidity
There comes a time in all our lives when we must build a bookcase. Today, it’s William’s turn. So it goes.
There he stands, all the bits and pieces laid out neatly before him, tiny little Allen key in one hand and instructions in the other, mind bent towards the task ahead. He’d set aside a happy portion of his day off just for this.
You would be forgiven for thinking that getting a delivery across interdimensional lines would have been difficult or, at the least, expensive. Surprisingly though this was not the case at all, as William had discovered. Indeed, it actually cost less to get an order shipped to his new house here amongst the magical horses than it had to get one to his old house, which had just been down the road from an Ikea and in the same physical universe to boot.
Such was life, he supposed.
Putting the thing together would, of course, be trivial. The long-running, cliched joke of people losing their minds while attempting to construct flat-pack furniture had never been especially accurate - assuming you didn’t wipe your arse with the instructions before hurling them out the window (which would be thoughtless as well as shortsighted).
it was simply a case of following the steps. William could follow the steps.
The instructions (which had not been wiped anywhere) did make it clear that two people - two humans, going explicitly by the instructions - were required but, well, William didn’t see any other humans around and was fully prepared to go solo.
“Maverick rulebreaker that I am,” he said to himself with the savage grin of the true rebel.
And he was all prepared to get stuck in when there came a knock at the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Setting down his tool and his instructions William, with one last wistful look at the waiting bits and pieces, went to go and see who it was.
It was Twilight. She was crying.
Actually, just saying that she was crying would not be enough to convey the sheer scale and force of it. ‘Inelegant blubbering’ would probably be the most apt term. There was a lot of snot, a lot of emotion. It was not what William had expected to see at all.
“Oh my, are you okay?” He asked and Twilight took just long enough to emphatically shake her head before launching forward and wrapping around his leg so she could cry into it.
This left William standing in his doorway, a bawling pony attached to his trousers, wondering what to do next. He looked around. No-one provided him with any answers so he cooked up his own: closing the front door, limping over to the sofa, delicately peeling Twilight away so he could better cradle her (in what he hoped was a comforting fashion) and then shushing her (again, in what he hoped was a comforting fashion).
“Shh, hey, uh, it’s okay. It’s okay. Whatever it is. What is it?”
He dreaded to think what could provoke such a violent outpouring of feeling. And from Twilight of all people!
A little more gentle shushing and cuddling and rocking managed to eventually calm her to the point where the blubbering reduced a little, and words could start to be picked out from amidst the sniffs and sobs.
“I ruined my boooook!” She wailed.
William wasn’t sure what way to take that.
“Um. Okay,” he said.
Twilight continued, her explanation punctuated with more sniffing and sobbing (and snot):
“I was just so excited that it arrive and I was reading and maybe I forgot to sleep and I fell asleep and when I woke up I’d d-drooled on the page and some of the ink had ruuuuunnn!”
“Ah. Hate that,” William said, patting her on the back.
He really didn’t know what to make of this, or rather what to make of her reaction to this.
Everyone had their own soft spots for this sort of thing, he supposed. He would never burst into tears on account of mild damage to a book (or so he thought) but he was not Twilight. What got to her was not what got to him and so on. Variety was the spice of life and all that.
Therefore, as little sense as it might have made to him he contented himself knowing it made sense to her, which was the important part. And clearly it had upset her! The most important part.
“There there,” he said with greater empathy, moving on to giving her back a supportive rub. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, you’re probably just tired from the sound of things, I’m sure it’s fine. What’s the book?” He asked.
“A first edition copy of the Book of Predictions!” Twilight said.
William had no idea what that was or whether it should mean anything to him. Honestly he hadn’t expected any answer that would have made sense to him, it was mostly just to get her talking and calm her down.
“Nice. One of those old books you like?” He asked.
“It’s out of phase with time so t-technically it’s ageless!” Twilight said, as though this wasn’t worth of further investigation in any way, as if this was a normal feature of books.
William chewed on this.
“But you can still drool on it and make the ink run?” He asked.
“Yesssss!” She cried, holding the word for an uncomfortably long time before descending into incoherent blubbering once again, burying her face into him. Apparently that was as good as it was going to get.
“There there,” William said again.
Poor girl.
He was about to try and mix up the back-rubbing and back-patting with a little experimental mane-stroking - hoping against hope that it was, again, a comforting and acceptable thing to do - when someone else knocked on the door. William’s face went very flat and though there were a lot of things he felt like saying (mostly short words) he kept them all to himself.
“Twilight, I just need to go check who that - can you let go - no? No, okay, that’s fine.”
Twilight utterly refused to let go. Every time he attempted to prise her away the bawling intensified, so in the end he had to settle on her shifting her about himself so he could more easily cradle her and go answer the door.
And when he answered the door he found, tears in her eyes on his front step, Fluttershy.
Now there was a sight that’d drop most to their knees, and were it not for the knowledge that collapsing might have inadvertently caused him to crush Twilight, William likely would have done so. Through sheer force of will he stayed upright, even if his heart did hitch and his gut did twist.
“Whatever’s the matter?” He asked and she, sniffling (William felt there was going to be a lot of sniffling before today was done), said something far too quiet for him to actually hear a single word.
“Um, couldn’t run that past me again could you, Fluttershy?” He asked, tilting his head and bending as much as he could with Twilight still burrowed into him. Fluttershy’s lip wobbled and the sniffling intensified but she still repeated herself, like a trooper. Or a trouper.
Again, William got nothing.
Feeling that bold, assertive action was required he tightened his grip on Twilight and then, stooping, swept up Fluttershy with his free arm. She squeaked briefly but almost immediately melted into a cuddle, tears flowing freely. Poor girl!
“One more time for the hard of hearing, what’s brought this on?”
“Jeremy S-Squirrel had collecting all his n-nuts for winter and tucked them away safe but when it rained last water got in and ruined all his nuts and so he had no nuts.”
William strained to hear this but hear this he did, and once it had sunk in he blinked.
“...right,” said William.
Was it a squirrel named Jeremy, or was the squirrel named Jeremy Squirrel? His mind burned with curiosity but now wasn’t the time to get answers to these questions. Now was the time to try and provide comfort.
“There there. How’s Jeremy handling it?” He asked, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring level of squeezing. Fluttershy dabbed away some tears with a hoof and yet still they trickled.
“We all helped replace Jeremy Squirrel's nuts and find somewhere safer for them, s-somewhere dry,” she said.
William blinked again.
“...so he’s fine now?” He asked.
Fluttershy nodded.
“...well that’s good, I guess?” William ventured, utterly unsure what any of this might be about now if everything had worked out alright. Fluttershy’s lip trembled.
“It was just how sad he looked when he came to tell me, I can’t stop thinking about it. His little eyes! And his little n-nose!” She said before promptly bursting into tears again.
William was not going to pretend to understand any of this, but as with Twilight it wasn’t really necessary to fully grasp the breadth and width of someone else’s emotions to be able to empathise with them having it or to provide comfort. Or whatever. He just squeezed her a bit more.
“You did very well,” he said, clutching both of them close, bumping the door closed with his bottom and heading sofa-ward, feeling that sitting down would make all of this easier to handle.
He had not taken more than nine steps back towards his lounge when again there came a knocking from behind him. He paused, still cradling his gently weeping cargo of ponies. As it were.
“Once is a coincidence,” he said to himself, brow furrowed. “Twice is a pattern. What’s three times? Other than thrice, obviously. What does it mean, I mean?”
The universe provided no answers and both Twilight and Fluttershy were too deeply burrowed into both William and their own private types of despair to offer anything themselves. So around William turned and back to the front door he went, having to juggle the ponies in his arms to get it open this time.
Now it was Rainbow Dash, eyes red, sniffling (again with the sniffling) angrily up at him. At once a surprise and not a surprise. William didn’t really know what to think anymore.
“You too?” He asked.
“It’s just not fair!” Rainbow declared loudly, wretchedly, the weight of the world plainly getting her down. Her tears were off a different quality, a different timbre. Still an outpouring of emotion, yes, but more obviously frustrated here - angry tears!
Well it was variety at least.
“Many things aren’t, in my experience but, uh, what specifically isn’t fair this time?” William asked, shifting Twilight and Fluttershy about in his arms to keep them better supported. They weren’t bawling quite as loudly as they had been, which was good, but they were still doing something and it was hard to tell what. Sleeping? Mumbling to themselves? Crying but now only quietly? William had no idea.
Rainbow didn’t appear to notice them there at all, or at least didn’t comment on it, instead launching into just what was so unfair:
“They were meant to be releasing a one-time super-limited run of collectible Wonderbolt figurines! Diecast! The whole history of them from founding! Famous members! It was going to be awesome! And now the whole run is cancelled! Cancelled!”
“That sounds...unfortunate?”
William assumed this was unfortunate. He had no frame of reference for tiny collectible figurines. Who was even releasing them in the first place? She had neglected to say. Were these an official product? Had she been scammed? No idea.
Probably not terribly relevant, at least not right then.
“I had a spot set aside and everything! A tiered display podium just like they said! Now they cancelled the whole thing! It’s not fair! I was waiting for months! Months!”
“That is a long time,” William said by way of commiseration, grunting a second later as Rainbow launched herself through the air, collided with him and set about pummelling marshmallowy hooves about his midsection.
Everyone had their own way of dealing with disappointment.
“You get it out of your system,” he said.
And she did, right into his ribs. William winced, but he could take it for the good of another.
“They didn’t even say whhhyyy!” She cried, the pummelling tailing off into general clinging as the moment overwhelmed her, aggression spent and the vacuum replaced with the sucking mire that came with having something you’d been looking forward to yanked away from you without explanation.
Somehow - probably just by having heard the sound of upsetness - Twilight and Fluttershy had relapsed into open weeping too, meaning that William was now being clung to by three crying, inconsolable ponies. He looked down at them, gave each a jiggle just to see if they’d respond. None of them did. If anything they just cried more and clung hrader. William sighed.
“Today is not going the way I planned at all. I just wanted to make a bookcase.”
Further pony-juggling followed as he tried to free his arms enough to close the door, but when he tried he found his efforts halted by a white hoof, stopping him. Through the gap William could hear bawling.
“Maybe I should start crying too?” He asked himself, quietly.
He did give it some serious consideration, but ultimately decided against it and shook his head.
“No, that’d only make things worse.”
Flinging the door open once more he found this time Rarity, blubbering with a ferocity that had yet to be seen - even Twilight had been more restrained. Poor girl was a wreck.
“Dear oh dear, are you alright?” William asked.
“The Summer Collection is simply too beautiful!” Rarity howled, one leg flung across her face for effect as the tears streamed and the mascara ran.
William felt he was lacking crucial context here.
“...whose summer collection?” He asked.
“The Summer Collection!” She wailed, clarifying absolutely nothing whatsoever before launching forward and wrapping about his leg much as Twilight had done initially.
This time William couldn’t even attempt to get her loose, what with his arms and hands occupied, so could instead only weakly attempt to shake her loose, achieving nothing. He couldn’t even pat her consolingly on the head. He had nothing. Just a damp, makeup stained trouser leg.
“Um, there there, it’s okay, we’ll sort you-” he started.
Knock knock.
“Oh, really?! I haven’t even been able to close-”
He looked up. There sniffled an Applejack. William goggled.
“Even you?!”
Rainbow had been one thing. She was the emotional sort, whether she’d admit it or not, and emotions could take many routes to boil forth in tears. Applejack was made of sterner stuff! And if not sterner then at least sensible and measured enough not to let herself ever reach such a point! Surely! Or so William had thought, at least.
Apparently not. Apparently we all have our limits.
“Ah’m just so tired!” She bawled before colliding with William’s free leg and very nearly taking it out from under him. Only with supreme resilience - and the knowledge that if he fell over he’d probably flatten someone - did he manage to stay upright, teeth gritted.
“Dare I ask what happened?” He asked, looking down at Applejack. Or, rather, at the top of her hat.
What followed was difficult to decipher, what with half of it being incoherent sobbing and the other half being delivered directly into his leg, but from the few details William was able to make out he could piece together a vague picture of events.
It started perhaps a day or two ago with Applejack waking up and with the recognition that her bed was apparently a write-off, having been destroyed by some manner of obscure pest overnight (what a turn up!).
Dealing with this had gone onto her to-do list and she’d been meaning to get around to it in short order only to then be overwhelmed by a ceaseless succession of increasingly draining farm-based tasks, tasks that had seen her awake for a good number of hours by this point - a whole two days, in fact, from the sound of things! Forty-eight straight hours, if not more! Of constant, grinding toil!
All this capped off with her finally, exhaustedly managing to drag her shattered self up to her room for a well-deserved rest only to find that, in all the hard work, she’d quite forgotten that her bed was wormfood, and what she’d had in her head as a cozy and inviting place was rest was instead a pile of debris, worse than what she’d left in the first place and no good to anyone.
This had been the last straw, it seemed.
Tiredness played a key role here. Fatigue can soften even the most stoic, take the legs out from under you. Perfectly understandable. We have all been there, and those who say they haven’t are obviously lying to save face. Easy to scoff from the sidelines and throw solutions at the strung-out, but that’s just mean-spirited.
Still, William couldn’t quite understand why, if she was so tired, she didn’t just ask him if she could, say, crash on his sofa or something, seeing as how she’d gone to the trouble of coming here in the first place (for whatever reason). Seemed more sensible to him than just keeping on crying.
Or even use one of her sibling’s beds? Didn’t she have at least one sibling? He was sure they’d been mentioned at some point. Or just sleep on the mattress, which might still have been viable, even without the bedframe?
But then he supposed that these sorts of things weren’t strictly rational, and a lot of what we do when exhausted doesn’t seem especially sensical to the rested.
With any luck she’d fall asleep while stuck on his leg and he could then (somehow) tuck her in somewhere about the house. That at least seemed like a plan to William. He was sure she’d come up with a dozen things she should have done instead once she’d had a nice rest, and she could tell him all about them and he would listen and nod.
All in good time.
With great difficulty he got his door closed and staggered - laden and bedecked with morose ponies - back to his lounge, sitting down on his sofa with great care and managing to not squash anyone, to his great relief. They were all still crying though, more-or-less constantly, and none showed any signs of letting go of him.
He sat for a few moment enveloped in the ungodly sound of stereoscopic distress, so many parts of him now completely soaked through with tears.
“Can I get any of you lot some water or anything?” He asked.
He was afraid, with their relentless, uninterrupted crying, they might start to dessicate. How were they still going? If he’d been going at it the way they had he would have fainted by now.
They didn’t hear him either way, or if they did they didn’t answer. Just kept on weeping and wailing, possibly with some gnashing of teeth mixed in, William couldn’t be sure. He sighed.
“If you’re sure,” he said.
Another knock. William sighed some more. Figured. Of course another knock, why not? What else had he expected at this point? To be able to finish his bookcase in peace? He was beyond being annoyed with the knocks. He was beyond most feelings at this point. Just an empty vessel for fate and destiny to fill with piss.
Or something.
“By all means, why not?” He said, grunting a moment later as he heaved upright again to clump his way to see who it was this time.
This took him a while. His legs were weighed down, his arms full, his balance all over the place. Every step was an effort and once he got there the adjustments he had to make to keep them all in comfortable positions were fiendish. He hoped whoever it was who’d knocked was patient.
Eventually, at length, he finally got around to fiddling with his knob and opening himself up to the world.
To his utter, complete and total lack of surprise he found it was Pinkie waiting for him. She too was sniffling. The sight was moving - those big blue eyes! - but William was too numb to notice.
“It’s not cake related, is it?” He asked, tired.
“No,” Pinkie said, tears welling. “I just didn’t want to be left out!”
And with a sproing she launched herself right at William’s face much as a suggestively-designed alien might launch itself from a sinister egg and, much like such an alien, she-too latched onto William’s head with a firmness that made it clear pulling her off would do more harm than good, though thankfully with less alien wing-wong.
Just more crying. A lot of very loud, very wet crying. Within seconds William could have sworn Pinkie had somehow produced more moisture than her body could surely have ever contained to start with in great, arcing streams of tears.
Like fountains they were!
“Oh fu- fish fiddledeedee,” William hissed as he rocked back and struggled to maintain his balance. Luckily, having ponies stuck on both legs actually did much to help keep him grounded and his core (which was engaged) kept him from snapping in half like a sapling.
Still left him festooned with weeping ponies, obviously, but an engaged core and weighted legs can’t fix everything, despite what William’s upbringing might have told him.
With supreme effort and without having a clue what it was he was groping about with on account of having a faceful of pink belly, William got the front door closed again and managed to turn around and had just finished orienting himself to head back towards the lounge when, again, someone knocked.
William sighed.
“I really do think I might start crying at this rate,” he said, swinging right back round again and struggling for the handle.
Much like last time It took him a good while but he got it, and once more the door was opened. At this point he imagined it might just be easier to leave it open, or maybe remove it completely for all the good it was doing him.
Whoever it was remained silent which didn’t help William one bit, as he was still blinded by pink softness.
“Hello? Who - Pinkie could you please- who is it? I’m sorry, I can’t see and - Pinkie, really, must you - ugh, hang on.”
With a jerk of the neck he - somehow? - managed to swirl Pinkie around so she was now clinging to the back of his head. He was fairly sure he would only ever have been able to do this with Pinkie. Had any of the others been attached to his face he doubted it would have been possible. Physics would have intervened.
So lucky, really.
And with his face now cleared he could see who it was this time, and who it was time turned out to be everyone.
Everyone.
The whole population of Ponyville (and maybe one or two out of towners who had just-so happened to be passing through) was standing outside his house, lips wobbling, glistening eyes all fixed on him.
Things were very quiet indeed. Far too quiet. The sort of quiet that comes before a crushing force of noise. William was so stunned he couldn’t even swallow. He just gaped in horror for a second or so before gathering enough wits to speak.
“Mother of God,” he breathed.
And then they were upon him.