Wallflower Blush shifted lazily on the couch. She turned over to her other side, almost as if she was going to get up.
She thought that maybe going through the motion would make her want to get up. It did not. Without any actual reason to get up, she continued to lay on the couch.
The winter holidays were shaping up to be the most boring part of her year. She had spent her first week of vacation binging a few shows, browsing websites mindlessly, or just plain doing nothing.
She had nothing to do. She had no homework assigned. She had nobody to interact with. Her parents were out of town on business, at their other house halfway across the continent, and wouldn't return for months.
She couldn't even do any of her normal memory stone mischief, due to its destruction seven months prior.
All her plants were dead for the winter, and her parents hadn't responded to her query about setting up a grow light for some indoor plants.
What day is it? she wondered. Saturday? No, it's been about a week since school ended. Must be the twenty-third. Without a weekly schedule to synchronize herself, she had no reference point. Each day was indistinguishable from the previous.
Sometimes even the transitions between days blended together in the dim, cloudy weather. Wallflower didn't make any effort to maintain a normal circadian rhythm when school wasn't in session. One day she had slept for 20 hours, and then stayed up for the next 48 hours without sleeping at all, bingeing two seasons of some TV show she couldn't even remember now.
She didn't even know what time it was. Even though it was gloomy and cloudy out, it could have been noon.
Wallflower was just plain bored. It was a deep, existential boredom that made her feel hopeless about her future, garnished with an appetite for social interaction that had gone unfulfilled for too many months, and paired with a side of mental understimulation.
She needed something to do, preferably with someone else, even if it was just listening to them talking about themselves for an hour.
Of course, she had friends now. For the first time since elementary school, she had friends -- and seven of them! But they weren't real friends. They had all given generic supportive statements: "You can call us any time!", "Come sit with us at lunch today!", and "Let's join some clubs together!"
Those invitations hadn't lasted. They had stopped calling her. She had found herself sitting alone at lunch more and more often. And the gardening club, which Applejack and Sunset Shimmer had joined, was now disbanded for the winter.
Her seven friends were now barely acquaintances.
Maybe I should call one of them... but what would I even say? 'Could you please tell me about your experimental gyrocopter, Twilight? Could you send me an hour's worth of puppy pictures, Fluttershy? I just need someone to ramble on for an hour to distract me from life. Sunset Shimmer?'
Wallflower's stomach did a flip at the thought of Sunset Shimmer. Eventually she would work up the courage to walk down that path, but today was not that day. She needed to redo her introduction, first. Sunset had undoubtedly forgotten all about her after so many months.
She couldn't even remember Sunset's phone number. The reintroduction would have to wait until the next semester. But on the first day of school, certainly. That would be the day that she would make her reintroduction to Sunset, so that she could make her move later in the year.
Wallflower just needed to lay low for a little while. Spending the remaining weeks alone should have been no big deal, but she already felt like she was falling apart.
She rested her head back down on the couch. She tried to think of a way to spend her time, but nothing came.
Eventually, she dozed off.
After drifting in and out of consciousness for several hours, Wallflower suddenly became aware that she was very awake, and felt suddenly and inexplicably anxious to get up.
It was dark out now. It was snowing hard, but silently without wind. There was less than a meter of visibility.
She wiped the drool from her face onto her sleeve. Grasping blindly in the dark through the clutter on the coffee table, she found a dirty paper towel and used it to blot at the drool that had seeped into the couch cushions.
She got up, and felt her way along the wall to a light switch. She squinted as the bright lights turned on.
As her eyes adjusted, she looked around the living room. Lately, she had spent most of her time here, and it now occurred to her how messy it was. Pizza boxes and delivery bags filled the tables. On the couch were wrinkled blankets and an assortment of electronic screens -- tablets, her laptop, and her phone. In the kitchen, dishes were piled high.
She caught her own eye in the large mirror in the foyer. Her hair was a mess, and her casual clothes were wrinkled and disheveled. As expected, since she hadn't changed them in days.
The doorbell rang again. ...again? Wallflower remembered now that it had been the doorbell that woke her up.
Who could possibly be coming to her in a blizzard like this? In an instant, Wallflower's mind ran through a list of possible suspects, eliminating each one as fast as it was imagined.
Parents? Not a chance; they're long gone, and have their own keys anyway.
A salesman, or door-to-door evangelist? No way, not in this weather.
Sunset Shimmer? Or any of my other friends? No. Definitely not. Why would I even think that? Just wishful thinking on my part.
Wallflower briefly considered calling the police, but decided that the embarrassment of having to explain this probably innocent encounter outweighed the risk of danger.
She took a deep breath, and opened the door wide.
"Ah knew it! Wallflower Blush! Ah'm so happy to see a friend at a time like this."
Applejack was bundled up in a veritable survival outfit. She was wearing a puffed, sturdy coat, and not a bit of skin showed except on her face. Whatever she was up to, she had been prepared for tonight's weather.
Wallflower stared. Why on Earth would Applejack be here? Right now? "How did you know where I lived?"
"Student directory. It's got every student's address and phone number in it. Ah remembered y'all lived around here after we sent ya that holiday card."
Wallflower looked down at the pile of unread mail under the maildrop next to the front door. Amidst the rest of the stack, there was a corner of a photo postcard peeking out, presumably a photo of the Apple Family.
"Anyway, mah car slipped into the ditch. And mah phone's dead. Can Ah borrow yours?"
"...Yeah! Sure, here!" Wallflower nearly tripped over herself running back to the couch. She shook the blankets until her phone dropped out of one. She awkwardly shoved it towards Applejack, who was still standing outside.
"Uh, wait." She took it back. "I have to unlock it." She entered her password, and then returned it to Applejack.
"Ah tell you what, you've really helped me out of a bind. Ah appreciate it." Applejack dialed and placed the phone to her ear.
Wallflower realized she was just staring at Applejack in the doorway, and letting all the warm air out of the house. She couldn't just shut the door in Applejack's face, not until they were done with... whatever it was that this exchange would be called.
But she couldn't invite Applejack inside, either. That would make things weird. The last thing Wallflower wanted was to commit an embarrassing faux pas, and she didn't know the first thing about hosting a friend -- or an acquaintance, for that matter.
Besides that, she didn't have her parents' permission.
Wallflower looked over to the living room again, and considering the piles of trash, decided that that was far more embarrassing in any case. She scrambled to gather it all up, and brought it to the kitchen, next to the trash can.
She folded up the blankets on the couch, and arranged her laptop and electronics underneath the table. As she wiped off the food stains from the table, she overheard a bit of Applejack's conversation. She tried not to eavesdrop, but there was no helping it.
"... If six hours is the best they can do, then that's the best they can do... Y'all ain't gotta pester them... Well, Ah'm at least safe, and that's more than others can say. They probably need help more... Alright, love ya, Granny."
Six hours!? Wallflower discreetly stole a look at the clock. It was nearly 6pm. The tow truck, or whatever she'd called for, wouldn't be arriving until midnight. Applejack really is in a bind.
Applejack handed the phone back to Wallflower. "So, uh, it looks like Ah'm stuck for a little while. Most of the night, as a matter of fact."
"That sucks," Wallflower said, trying to think of something to say.
"Yeah. So, uhm..." Applejack scratched the back of her head. "Ah'm just gonna... go wait in the car, then." She turned to leave.
Please don't go, Wallflower thought. I'm so bored here by myself. Isn't there some way I could get her to stay?
Obviously the solution was to invite Applejack inside. Wallflower had thought of it just a second too late. Now she would look like a fool for not inviting Applejack in, and if she went back and invited her now, she'd look like even more of a fool for admitting having made that mistake.
She reflexively reached into her pocket for the memory stone. Of course, it wasn't there.
And she didn't know the first thing about hosting a guest. If she invited Applejack inside, she would probably commit twenty more embarrassing mistakes, and wouldn't be able to erase those memories either.
Wallflower shut the door to stew in her misery. What else could she do?
Would she even be allowed to have guests over? No parent wanted their kids to throw wild parties while the parents were gone. But what about having friends over? Or acquaintances? she thought.
She dialed her parents.
Ring...
Ring...
Ring...
"Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system--" Wallflower ended the call.
Allowed or not, foolish or not, Wallflower decided that she needed to help Applejack. Applejack would be even worse off than herself if she was stuck in that car in the ditch all night.
She slipped on her sneakers and went out into the snow. She walked through the yard, down the road, following the glare of headlights. The cold bit through her sweatpants and thin sweater, but she was nearly there.
She found Applejack trying to push the car out of the ditch, but to no success. Her feet just slipped in the snow. As she continued pushing, her geode suddenly flashed, and she sheared the rear bumper right off the car.
"Damn," said Applejack, holding the bumper. "Ah'm gonna have a hell of a time explainin' this one."
"Applejack," Wallflower yelled from a distance. "Do you want to wait inside the house while help arrives?"
"Ah thought you'd never ask!" Applejack tossed the bumper into the snow.
"Make yourself at home. Would you like anything to drink? We have... um, water. In the fridge." Wallflower reached into her pocket again. For the hundredth time, she mentally slapped herself. She closed the browser page on her phone, whose advice on social interaction seemed to be even worse than her own intuition.
Wallflower hadn't really expected to stay close to this friend group for so long. In fact, she would not have expected Applejack even to recognize her. In the past, she had never quite achieved a perfect introduction to anyone, and so would usually erase each new first impression to retry it repeatedly. For those that did remember her, she would erase many of the subsequent memories after to some trivial mistake, and so she would fade away to the back of their minds due to a lack of fresh memories.
But Applejack had been introduced -- most recently, anyway -- in the magical battle with Wallflower, when the memory stone was destroyed. It was not her proudest moment, and exactly the kind of memory she would erase given the chance. Unfortunately, she would never have that chance.
"So what'd'ya like to do for fun around here, Wallflower?" Applejack asked, walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. "Ah never see you much on the Mystable."
"I don't really post on Mystable. I prefer to lurk." Wallflower poured snow from her shoes onto the rug in the foyer.
"Mmm. That's ok, too." Applejack pulled out not only a bottle of water from the refrigerator, but also a block of cheese, a jar of olives, and other things that Wallflower couldn't see.
What the heck is she doing!? Is all this really implied by "Make yourself at home"? I thought it was just an expression..."
"D'ya ever have friends over? For studying and what not? Sunset said you've been real withdrawn lately, but Ah figure you've probably been hangin' out with Fluttershy, or that one quiet sister of Pinkie's." Applejack looked through a few cupboards until she found a plate. She took the plate, and began making what appeared to be an enormous sandwich.
"No... not really." I can't believe someone would do something so weird! The first minute you've ever been inside someone's house, and you just go making a sandwich with all their food?
"Oh! Ah s'pose Ah shoulda’ asked first..."
Yeah, you should've asked. Not that I would've said no.
"... you want one also? Ah'm just makin' a sandwich outta whatever."
The question caught her off guard. "I haven't eaten anything yet today."
"Even on winter break, you've been workin' so hard you forgot to eat? What've you been doin' all day?"
"Sleeping, mostly."
"No hobbies?" Applejack brought two plates into the living room, each with a thick sandwich heaped with toppings. She set them on the table, and sat down on the couch. "No games or anything?"
"I play puzzle games by myself sometimes. But they're kinda boring." She sure is asking a lot of questions. Why is she being so nosey?
"Well, if ya ever wanna try games with friends, Sunset Shimmer's the one to ask." Wallflower perked up upon hearing that name. "She plays all the latest stuff. Ah don't really know much about it."
Wallflower thought about how best to approach that topic, but nothing came to mind. Instead she took a bite of the sandwich. Cinnamon bread... But I was saving that! No... actually it expires today.
After a moment, Applejack broke the silence. "So, uh, any other hobbies?"
"Just gardening club."
"And can't do that much more, 'least not till spring. Ever thought about indoor grow lights?"
"I'd have to ask my parents. It's difficult to get permission from them."
"That strict, huh?"
"Oh, no, I just don't get to talk to them often. They're out of town right now."
"They ain't even comin' home for Hearth’s Warming Eve?"
"No. But we have a video call every holiday, so that's kinda like them being here."
Applejack frowned, and took a large bite of her sandwich.
Wallflower's hand went into her pocket again.
Applejack swallowed. "Y'all keep reachin' into your pocket, but then pull your hand out empty. Lookin’ for something?"
"it's the memory stone. I always kept it in that pocket."
"Hmm.” Applejack paused for a moment. “Wallflower, you don't have to be embarrassed about your parents not being here. That's their fault, not yours."
"I don't blame them, really. They make enough money this way that we live comfortably. Even if I do miss them."
"In the Apple family, we always try to spend as much family time together as possible, especially during the holidays. Tomorrow, we'll have... Ah dunno, probably at least a dozen? Probably a dozen guests or so. It’s always best to have a nice big Hearth’s Warming, with all the extended family.”
Wallflower felt suddenly envious, and looked away from Applejack. Her hand reached in and out of her pocket again.
Applejack cringed. "Of course, that's just my opinion! But still, nobody should have to be completely alone on Hearth’s Warming."
"I wish I had a choice."
"Well Wallflower, would you like to spend Hearth’s Warming Eve at the Apple family house?"
Wallflower was speechless for a moment. After staring for a few seconds, she responded, "Really? Of course! I'd love to come, but can you really just invite me without asking your family?"
"Sure thing! There's always plenty of food. What's one more place at the table, when we already have so many people there? Oh! And our mutual friend will be there."
Wallflower's heart skipped a beat. "Sunset Shimmer?"
"Nope, Pinkie Pie! Her family might be related to us, so they come over for holidays sometimes. Although the evidence is... questionable. But still, we take care of our own, whether related by blood or not. So, how about it?"
Well, at least that's something to do. And some people to interact with. "Ok. Thanks! Glad I won't have to have a TV dinner tomorrow."
Applejack cringed visibly. "Don't mention it. I more than owe ya after tonight." Applejack's gaze went toward the window. "Considerin' at this rate, the tow truck might even not come 'till morning."
The snow continued falling well into the night, and no assistance ever came to help with Applejack's car. Emboldened by her newly rekindled friendship, Wallflower had no objection to letting Applejack spend the night at her house.
Wallflower didn’t receive a call back from her parents that night.
