If a Pony Catch a Pony

I must have eventually fallen asleep listening to that record, because the next thing I knew I was waking up to sunlight coming in through the window of my hotel room. I was completely starving, even though I had eaten so much the night before with Minuette and Twilight. When I looked out the window, I saw that it was that kind of weather where the sky is completely blanketed in clouds, but they're so white that they actually amplify the sunlight coming through from behind them. The snow that was falling in Canterlot the night before was also starting to catch up to me. So far it was just a light, sparkling dust in the air, but I knew it could get worse at any time.

Since Canterlot is so close to Cloudsdale, the weather there is almost completely controlled by the pegasi. Manehatten, though, had always been more of an Earth pony city, and the ponies living there had always kind of prided themselves on not accepting assistance unless it was a matter of life and death. Without a big force of pegasi to clear the clouds, a light dusting of snow like the one that had started overnight could develop into a full-blown blizzard within hours. I decided to do what I needed to do early in the day, just in case things did get worse.

After I wrapped up in my scarf again, I headed downstairs. The hotel lobby looked even worse during the day than it had at night, but I didn't stick around long. I checked to see whether Symphony or Star Gazer had responded to the messages I had sent them. There was nothing from Symphony yet, but Star had already gotten back to me, saying we should meet for lunch and a movie that afternoon. I was a little surprised by how happy I was to hear from him, but I chalked it up to how desperate I was just to see a friendly, familiar face again.

After that, I went out to try to find some breakfast. I've never liked eating near train stations. On one hoof, you have the ponies who are about to set out on a long trip, who look about as excited as you'd expect for having to be cooped up on a train for hours. On the other, you have the ones who just arrived and are tired and surly. It's about as much fun as eating at a wake. So instead of going to one of the places near the Brandenburger, I took a taxi to the neighborhood with the record store where Symphony and I used to spend all our money. I remembered there being a little diner nearby, and hoped it would still be open.

Fortunately, it was. I got a seat at the counter and ordered some buckwheat pancakes and coffee. I had been in Canterlot so long that I was a little surprised by how curt the waitress was with me, but it also helped remind me of the fact that I was back home. In Canterlot, ponies in the service industry treat you like royalty even if you're a bum. In Manehatten, they treat you like a bum even if you're royalty. If you grew up here, you appreciate how refreshing that is.

While I was eating, my thoughts started getting a little out of control. I kept thinking about what a mess I'd made of things with Cheerilee the night before, but I felt more embarrassed than sorry, which worried me a little. I tried to force myself to work out what I wanted to tell Symphony when I finally saw her, about how bad things were going at Canterlot, and why I thought they were going that way. The problem was, I didn't have any idea how to answer that question. I was thinking back to talking with First Order the day before, how he said that I was smart enough to do well in any class and all that. At the time, I hadn't really thought that he was wrong about that. I've never felt like I wasn't smart, and whether it was right or not, I definitely took some PRIDE in being smarter than a lot of ponies. But even a lot of the ponies I knew I was smarter than did way better in school than me. It's all a means to an end for them. I've always loved learning, pretty much for its own sake, it's just the stupid social hierarchy of school that I can't stand.

By the time I finished breakfast, I was so confused and frustrated that I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood before I went back to the hotel to get ready to meet Star. Since most of the local elementary schools and high schools had already started their breaks, I expected to see a lot of ponies around, but really it was almost deserted. The dusting of snow from earlier was starting to turn into bigger flakes, and the sky was getting darker. All at once, I got so lonely I could barely stand it, and started to imagine the snow getting heavier and heavier until everything was swallowed up in white and I was the only one left. That scared me enough that I decided I needed to get back inside, and so I headed for the only place I could think of, my old record store.

Fortunately the store was still there, and at least on the outside still looked exactly the same. The rickety old wooden door hadn't been replaced; it still squeaked the same as always when I opened it, and still rang the same pointless little bell that the oblivious stallion behind the counter ignored because he was too busy reading. The walls were still lined with the same worn old shelves that looked like they had been passed down from business to business, that you couldn't imagine ever having been new. Some things had changed, of course. There were more pop records on the shelves than there had been the last time I came, and the stallion at the counter was different, younger, even though he was just as unconcerned with acknowledging customers as the one I remembered from before. The room was drafty, but the low light, the cramped space, and the soft music playing all made it feel warm and inviting.

There was only one other pony in the store besides the clerk, an older stallion who was digging through the jazz section and looked completely lost to the world. I went right to the classical racks and started flipping through records, not really paying attention to any of them. More than anything, I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, and not completely alone. After a couple of minutes of browsing without actually looking at anything, I had started to calm down, and decided I should buy something for Symphony, for when I finally saw her again. School had kept me from finding time to discover a whole lot of new music, and it took me a little while to even get an idea of where to start looking. Finally, I remembered this band that some of the students in the music department had really gotten into, called National Hunt. I wasn't too sure about them, personally. They were definitely virtuoso players, but the way they combined Equestrian folk music with classical composition had struck me as a little contrived when I first heard them. Still, I was interested in getting Symphony's reaction to them, because like I've already said a hundred times, I always trust her taste. If she saw something in them, I'd probably get it if I just thought about it a little more. And at any rate, they were based in Canterlot, so if nothing else I could pass off the record as an attempt at sharing some of the local flavor with her.

It took a little digging—the shop had never been very organized—but I finally found what appeared to be the only National Hunt record that they had. I looked around a little bit more, hoping the nostalgia would put me in a little better mood, but after ten minutes or so, I realized that it had done all the good it was going to do, so I took the record up to the counter to pay. The stallion there laid his book down, and shook his shaggy mane out of his eyes, then looked down at what I was buying.

“National Hunt,” he said. He had one of those very bored voices where you can never tell if a pony is just making an observation or judging you. “Not a lot of ponies around here know about them.”

“Oh, I just got back from school in Canterlot,” I said. “They're really popular there, at least with music students.”

He laughed at that, or more accurately, snorted. Like most hipsters, he sounded like laughing really put him out. “I wish we had their second album here. They've already gotten a lot more adventurous since they released this one.”

“I'll have to listen to it,” I said. I really didn't want to get into a conversation with him about it, since I could tell he knew more about them than I did. “I'm mostly buying this one for a friend.”

“She should like it,” he said, approvingly. “That'll be twelve bits.”

I paid, and got out of the store as fast as I could. The snow had let up a little, but the sky was even darker than it had been before, and everything was that sludgy kind of wet that happens when it starts snowing really quickly, before the ground is cold enough for it to stick properly. It was getting close to noon by then, so I headed back to the hotel to get ready for my date with Star Gazer. I was still looking forward to it, even if the day hadn't gotten off to the best start. As I was walking, though, something happened that really cheered me up. As I got closer to the train station, I was walking behind this unicorn filly and what I assumed was her older sister. The filly was lagging behind a little, kind of hopping on and off the sidewalk as she went, and the sister wasn't really paying any attention. As she went back and forth between the sidewalk and the street, not paying any attention to the fact that she was causing ponies to practically fall on their faces trying to keep her from running into them, she kept singing that song “If a pony catch a pony coming through the rye.” She was in her own little world, and her sister couldn't care less if she caused somepony to fall and break all their legs, and somehow it was such a perfect little scene that I couldn't help but feel better watching it.

Eventually I made it back to the hotel, even though the train was getting pretty packed since it was Saturday afternoon and everypony was going somewhere. Even though I had taken a long bath the night before, I hadn't really done anything but lay in the hot water, so I got in the tub again and actually washed up this time. I had just enough time to get my mane and tail dry before I had to head back out to meet Star. He wanted to go to this little hole-in-the-wall place that all his friends at school were head over hooves about, that mostly served simple stuff like sandwiches and hay fries, but did it in a very frou-frou gourmet kind of way. Just the kind of thing he would be into, but I didn't mind too much, since I had drank enough the night before that even after a big breakfast, something greasy and unhealthy sounded like just what I needed.

When I got there, Star hadn't shown up yet, so I just kind of hung around outside waiting for him. The place was small and completely packed with tables, so there wasn't any good place to wait inside. Fortunately, he was along pretty quickly. I was glad to see that, at least outwardly, he hadn't changed much. He had started wearing his mane slicked back into kind of a pompadour, which was new, but other than that, he was the same old Star Gazer, tall and kind of round-faced, but still attractive in a boyish way.

“Octavia!” he said when he saw me, and I could tell from the sound of his voice he was genuinely happy to see me. That was the odd thing about Star. If he didn't like you, he could be quite the snob, but when he did, he was really nice. “Sorry to keep you waiting. My parents wanted me to help put up Hearth's Warming decorations this morning, and you know how my mother is. Nothing can ever be perfect enough.”

There's never been a greater understatement. Star Gazer's mother is one of those rich old mares who never worked a day in her life, and instead put all her energy into nitpicking everything her children do. It was a wonder Star wasn't a total basket case, growing up under her hoof the way he did. I couldn't even start to imagine how miserable she would make it on everypony else in the family, decorating the house for Hearth's Warming. She certainly wouldn't have been getting involved in any way other than issuing orders.

“I told mom and dad that you were in town,” he said. “They'd love for you to come over and help with the rest of the decorating, if you're free today.” His parents—or at least his father—had always liked me pretty well. I think they were more upset than Star was when we broke up. It didn't sound terrible seeing them all again, to be honest, but I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to deal with his mother for too long, so I made up an excuse.

“I'm not sure yet. I sent a message to Symphony last night, but haven't heard back from her yet. I think maybe we're getting together tonight.” I shouldn't have lied, but I didn't want to start the afternoon off by alienating the first friend I'd seen since I got back to town.

We went on into the restaurant and only had to wait a few minutes for a table. We spent some time just gossiping about ponies that we went to high school with, and as usual Star made me feel comfortable enough that I just spilled everything to him, about my bad grades, what happened with Amethyst and Vinyl, even my stupid talk with First Order. I would've even told him about Cheerilee, if he hadn't kind of tried to steer the conversation to a happier place after I made it obvious that things weren't going well. Poor Star, he never did have a clue how to deal with me when I get all morose. It's a big part of why we split up, if you want to know the truth.

After lunch, we headed over to the theater. Now I'm not much of a fan of movies under the best of circumstances. It's not that I'm one of those technophobic ponies who hates every new thing that relies on electricity in some way. Really, it's less the movies that I dislike than the actors in them. But I do think that actors are even worse in movies than they are on stage. At least on stage, an actor has a good reason to ham it up. She has to make sure the entire audience can hear her and knows what the hell she's doing. In movies, that's not necessary, but the actors everypony thinks are the best still do it anyway. Everypony says those actors are so great at provoking emotion and all that, which is crazy if you ask me. If you have to see some actor getting all worked up to feel emotions, you don't need to be going to the movies—you need to be going to a psychitrist.

Star, being Star, was a huge movie fan. He saw it as very cutting edge to be a movie buff since a lot of really academic art critics still thought of movies as very commercial and unintelligent. I had suggested he get the tickets since I had no idea what was worth watching; or, more accurately, what he wouldn't spend the entire time picking apart for not being cool enough. He had picked the new movie by a director called Western Sun that apparently all the movie fans were losing their minds over. Star had to tell me all about him on the way to the theater. He was an Earth pony from Appleoosa who had only made one movie before the one we were seeing, which had made this actress named Sky Rocket into a huge star overnight or something. His new movie had Sky Rocket in it again, and this time she had written it with him. None of that really filled me with hope, but I could tell Star was all worked up about it, so I tried not to bring him down.

When we got to the theater it was completely packed, and if Star hadn't already bought tickets, I would have suggested that we just skip it and do something else instead. I can hardly stand going to movies in the first place, but going when the theater is packed and everypony is shuffling around or eating too loudly or asking their friends to explain what the hell just happened is nearly unbearable. I stuck it out though, and tried to just keep looking happy about everything. I think Star knew better, but as usual he was too polite to say anything.

The movie was so bad you wouldn't believe it. It starred Sky Rocket as this very quirky, confused high school student, even though she was obviously old enough to be out of college. This very smart, quirky older stallion came to teach at her high school, and of course she fell head over hooves in love with him because she was so quirky and precocious, but so mature that the other ponies her age were just too dumb and boring for her. Of course the stallion immediately fell for this rich older mare who he met at an art gallery or something—to be honest, I was only half paying attention. Anyway, Sky Rocket's character and the older mare kind of fight over the quirky teacher in very contrived, quirky ways until it looks like Sky's wrecked everything for all of them. But of course everything all works out in the end with the teacher and old mare getting together, and Sky finding a nice, quirky boy her own age who I guess was so unbelievably quirky that even she hadn't noticed him. Everything about it was contrived and unrealistic, but the worst part was the jokes. As nearly as I could tell, all the humor was just based on the characters making references to books or ponies you'd need a college education to know about. But there weren't really jokes—they would just mention a name or a book or whatever, and everypony in the audience would laugh. It was the phoniest thing you've ever seen in your life.

When the movie was finally over, I wanted to get away from the theater as fast as possible, so of course Star had to run into a mare he knew from school, named Pretty Vision. He introduced us quickly, and Star told me she was studying fashion design, which given the way she was dressed didn't surprise me at all. They immediately launched into a conversation about the movie that was so pretentious that I almost just walked away from them. Pretty Vision said that “of course” the movie wasn't as good as Western Sun's first, but that Sky Rocket was “angelic.” Angelic, for Celestia's sake. They went back and forth like that for about a ten hours, always getting louder every time one of them would make what they thought was some brilliant critical observation about the movie. The whole time, I stood there not saying anything (I couldn't have gotten a word in even if I'd felt like it), and trying to look interested. Really, I was embarrassed for all three of us.

Finally, Star and Pretty's symposium came to an end, long after everypony else had gotten on with their lives. Star said he didn't have anything else to do before dinner, and asked if I wanted to stop off at this little bar he'd heard about and have a drink.

“Are you sure you don't want to catch up to Pretty Vision and invite her, too?” I asked.

“Oh, come on, Octavia,” he said, and I could immediately tell I'd offended him. “Haven't you gotten over that yet?”

“Gotten over what?” I knew damn well what he meant, but I wanted to get him back a little for making me listen to their stupid improvisational film criticism.

“Everypony is guilty until proven innocent with you. Pretty Vision is perfectly nice, if you'd bother to get to know her before condemning her.”

He was right, in a way. Not about Pretty Vision, necessarily—she might be perfectly nice, but she came off as a pretentious idiot. But ponies in general. I really do make it quite hard for anypony to get on my good side, but that's because even when they do, they end up dating my next door neighbor who I have a crush on or something.

“Come on, let's just forget about it and go get that drink,” I said. All of a sudden, I didn't feel like having even a playful argument with him. The bar was a little bit out of our way, so we took a taxi, and on the way I started doing something I almost never do, namely putting on a little bit of a coquette act. In fact, it was something I've only ever done around Star, though I don't think he knew that. Even though he knows me too well to think that that's what I'm really like (underneath my harsh exterior and all), he always kind of went for it. It made me mad that he liked it, if you want to know the truth, but I always played it up anyway. Maybe I was just lonely enough that I didn't care, or maybe there was part of me that secretly liked playing that role. Regardless, Star wasn't responding to it. I'm sure he was still upset that I had burst his Serious Film Critic balloon before. At least by the time we got to the bar he was starting to cheer up a little.

“Twilight Sky told me about this place,” Star said as we were getting out of the taxi. “He read about it in the Neighborhood Nicker, but he hasn't actually been here yet.” That explained it—Star didn't really care as much about getting a drink as he did about being able to tell everypony he discovered some trendy new hangout before they were all going there. By that time I didn't care, though. I was over being mad at all the pompous asses at the movies and just wanted to relax and talk to an old friend over a couple of drinks. Of course that didn't stop me from buying a pint of beer to offset the martini Star ordered.

“So you were saying earlier that you didn't plan on going back to Canterlot in the Spring,” Star said when we were sitting down. “Are you just planning on moving back here?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I guess so. I mean, I like it so much more here, and I need to stay in college if I want to have a hope in hell of ever playing music professionally. But I'm just so tired of the whole stupid academic lifestyle. I'm sick of vapid roommates and math teachers with stupid messed up hair who make a huge scene when you knock on their doors, and never being able to find a place to yourself where you can just listen to a record and relax for a little while. I want the education, I just don't want to jump through all the meaningless, petty social hoops to get it.”

“I just wish you could realize that you bring a lot of this on yourself, Octavia,” he said, with this sage as hell look on his face. It would have made me furious if he weren't right about what he said next. “It's like I was saying about Pretty Vision earlier. The minute you see somepony for the first time, you've already decided how you're going to feel about them for the rest of your life. At best, they get to say one sentence before you either fall madly in love with them them or condemn them. All you've really wanted to talk about today is how much you hate your roommate or your math teacher or the ponies at the movie theater. You're one of the smartest ponies I know, but you're so focused on music and the one or two ponies you actually do like that the best anything or anypony else can hope for from you is just polite tolerance of their existence. I seriously wonder sometimes if you've ever just enjoyed anything in your life, without making it one of the cornerstones of your existence for Celestia's sake.”

I should have been angry, but he was right. He really was. I had gulped down most of my beer pretty quickly, and even though I wasn't drunk, I was feeling weirdly energetic all of a sudden. “Look, I know you're right. I know it. Everything would be better for me if I could just deal with all the stupidity I have to deal with every day, instead of letting it eat at me the way I do. I know that. And by the way, you're wrong about there only being one or two ponies I like. I like Vinyl. I like Symphony. There was this unicorn at Canterlot named Minuette who was great to hang out with. And I like you. That's at least four, and—“

“You could've fooled me,” Star cut in.

“What?”

“You could've fooled me. About liking me, I mean. Every time we're together, you bounce back and forth between picking fights with me and getting all meek and doe-eyed.” That killed me. He had never had a problem with me being “meek and doe-eyed” before. “Half the reason I've never gotten completely fed up with it is that I'm still trying to understand why in hell you want to be around me.”

“Because you're practically the smartest pony I know, and hanging around with you has always been easy,” I said. I wasn't in the mood for any more games at that point. “And to be honest, you're the only stallion I've ever thought was really good looking. That doesn't hurt.”

“But you don't act like you think I'm smart. You never have. Don't get me wrong, I'm not desperate for your approval or anything, but it would be nice every now and then, given our history together, to feel like you don't think I'm a complete idiot.” I had no idea where he was getting that from. Honestly, I think he was still just upset that I didn't fawn over his ability to speak glowingly about bad, unrealistic movies with horribly contrived plots.

“I don't know how else to show it except spending time around you. Trust me, I don't go out of my way to hang around with ponies I think are idiots. If I did, I'd never have another free night for the rest of my life.”

He was quiet for a while after that, sipping his martini and looking around at the art on the walls, which I have to say wasn't that bad. It was better than anything you saw on the walls of trendy bars in Canterlot, that's for sure. I wasn't done yet, though.

“What I really want to do is just get away from everything for a while. Before I go back and finish school somewhere, I mean. Somewhere quiet, away from big cities and trendiness and pretentious phonies and everything. I just want to go live in a cabin somewhere for maybe a year or so, and play my cello and listen to records and read books and do all the things I never have time to do because I'm too busy having to do all the stupid things I have to do to make sure I don't get kicked out of a school I never really wanted to go to in the first place!”

“Octavia, take a breath.”

I stopped just long enough to swallow the last of my beer, and set the glass down a little too hard. “Don't you think that sounds good, though? Just run away for a little while, take some time to appreciate things before we have the spend the rest of our lives working and only getting to have fun when there's not something more important to do?”

“Wait, are you trying to drag me into this now?”

“Sure, why not? We could leave right after all the Hearth's Warming celebrations—just get on a train and go somewhere like Hollow Shades, or even Ponyville. We could probably afford that for a year, between the two of us.”

Star laughed, and the sound was the first genuine thing I'd heard from him all day. “Not after my parents cut me off,” he said. “Which they would do in a second if I did anything that crazy.”

“But it's not crazy at all!” I was getting really worked up all of a sudden, I had to admit. “There's nothing crazy about going after something you want.”

“What you're talking about isn't going after something you want. It's the exact opposite. You're running away from doing the things that you have to do to get what you want. You said as much yourself. The longer it takes you to finish school, the longer it will be before you can actually play in an orchestra.”

For some reason, that completely knocked the last of the enthusiasm out of me. It wasn't so much that I really wanted Star to go with me or anything. When I was saying it, it sounded pretty good, but the whole idea had come out of nowhere, and I had sort of included him in it without even realizing that I was. But once he shut it down so completely, I realized how horrible it would have been if he had come with me.

“I should've known you wouldn't understand,” I said, standing up before I even realized what I was doing. “You're way too good at all the meaningless crap to ever want to give it up.”

Star was saying something as I stormed out, but I don't even know what it was. I actually wanted to stick around to argue with him, but I mostly wanted to be out of the bar before he saw how hard I was crying.