Shame

The town was exactly as Ruiz had left it. Dusty wooden buildings whose paint had either faded or chipped, clay and brick buildings whose façades were crumbling away, and businesses held captive by Ravens. There were some places allowed to operate autonomously, but they likely had to pay a share of their profits.

He tried to take stock of the emotions of the town, to gauge how those who saw the two of them reacted, but most of the ponies just looked away. They seemed to be indifferent. The gryphons, on the other hoof, met them with mixed results. Some of them actually did fear Ruiz as Maria had suggested, others that had considered both of them as nothing more than a good time made catcalls, and others simply didn't care.

Maria knew where everything was, so Ruiz was content to let her lead. He shuddered as they passed by the saloon, remembering the first place he went on arrival. It was currently the only building in the entire town that he had been inside of.

"Señor gave you the money to make our purchases, right?" he whispered, not wanting every Raven in the vicinity to know exactly where they kept their purse.

"I have it, yes. Don't worry, he's not going to make you pay for all of this stuff."

Ruiz furrowed his brow. He was pretty sure Jed would add some of this to the money he owed, as that was their arrangement, but he said nothing. He couldn't pay for any of this, anyway. They all knew he didn't have any money.

They stopped in front of the general store and unhitched themselves from the cart. It may have been a bad idea to leave it unguarded, but given the circumstances, it was better that Ruiz stayed by Maria's side. Besides, they couldn't very well take the cart inside.

Thankfully, the store was practically empty. A blue unicorn was reading the back of a tobacco box, and briefly looked up as the door opened, only to return his attention to the box seconds later. A green pegasus mare was filling up an empty shelf, and looked up with a small smirk. "Who's your new friend, Maria?"

"This is Ruiz, our new farmhoof. Ruiz, this is Meteor Sweep, the general store owner's daughter."

"Pleasure ta meet ya!" she beamed, extending her hoof.

"Gracias, señorita," nodded Ruiz, unsure of how to feel about her. He shook her hoof, regardless, not wanting to seem rude. There was nopony else in the store that he could see, leading him to believe that it was safe enough for the time being.

"He's cute," Meteor chuckled. "Is that what brings you here today? Showing off the new boy toy?"

Ruiz suddenly came down with a coughing fit, turning away from the mares and hacking into his elbow. His face felt very hot all of a sudden.

"Don't make fun of him like that," sneered Maria. "If it weren't for him, I'd probably be in lockup right now, being railed by gryphons, with my parents begging the sheriff to do something about it. Can you give him some respect?"

Ruiz felt a hoof on his shoulder. "Sorry about that. I'm only teasing, honest."

Ruiz nodded and composed himself. "I'm fine, señorita. Just some dust from the road, that's all."

Meteor turned back to Maria. "So, what really brings you in today?"

"We have some things that we need to pick up," nodded Maria, pulling out the list. "All the normal stuff, but with a few extras."

Meteor looked over the list. "Looks like stuff's been breaking down out there."

"I'll give you three guesses why."

Meteor rolled her eyes. "Let me go grab you a box to put all this in."

As she left the room, Maria turned to Ruiz. "You alright? That cough sounded bad."

Ruiz shook his head. "I know a bad cough, señorita. This was just a bit of dust. Don't worry, I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Positive." He was, for the most part, actually telling the truth. It wasn't the whole truth, but it really was partially caused by dust. He'd gasped at the assertion that the two of them were an item, and the dirt from the road had done the rest. "So, how do you know the owner's daughter?"

"Like I said, the whole place used to be different. Used to be, I could come into town just to spend the day with her about once a week, and then her mom would take me back home. Not so much anymore, as we both have to work, but we still find some time to spend together, even if it's not as much fun as it used to be."

Meteor came back a moment later. "Found you a some boxes for your stuff. Some of it's in the back, so I'll load that up for you, but you can handle the front, right?"

Maria and Ruiz nodded and started loading up their boxes according to Maria's memory. A lot of it was small stuff that they could just chuck in there, such as boxes of ground dried herbs, a large bag of coffee beans, or a five litre bottle of cooking oil. Other things, like a large coil of rope, Ruiz carried on his back. It didn't take more than ten minutes to gather everything up into boxes. After that, everything was counted up, totaling seventy-eight bits.

With a bit of help from Meteor, they loaded the boxes into the back of the wagon and hitched Ruiz up. "Do you need these boxes back, señorita?" he asked, turning to Meteor. "I'm not exactly familiar with your practises."

"They'll come back into her hooves," nodded Maria, hugging Meteor before joining him. "We'll put the corn in them, take that to the miller, he'll turn it into corn meal and corn flour, then send them in the same boxes to her. It's all very cyclical. Less waste, too."

"It was lovely meeting you, Ruiz," waved Meteor. "Stop by and see me again, sometime."

"I very well may do just that, señorita," he smiled. "Adios, y gracias."

"So charming," she chuckled. "I wasn't kidding about him being cute, Maria. If you don't lay claim to him, I'm going to."

Before he could have another coughing fit, the two of them started back towards the farm.