The carriage with tinted windows pulled up to the front door of the restaurant.
“Your Highnesses, we have arrived.”
This was normal.
Zipp was here to eat. That’s what a restaurant was for. If there’s one thing she hated, it was those ponies who just went to a five-star restaurant to socialize and not even give the food a passing thought. Food was the heart and soul of the restaurant. The food was what mattered.
(Maybe the company at your table mattered as well, but Zipp wouldn’t know.)
This was normal.
Plenty of ponies didn’t have a special somepony for Hearts and Hooves Day. This really wasn’t a big deal at all. Last Hearts and Hooves Day was the one right after magic had returned to Equestria, and Zipp went to a slumber party in Pipp’s bedroom with Izzy, Hitch, and Sunny.
But the Hearts and Hooves Day before that, Zipp was alone. And the year before that, she was alone. And four years ago, Pipp ate lunch with her for 45 minutes, then Pipp had to leave to get ready for her Hearts and Hooves’ marathon stream.
Right from the age of 15, Zipp never had a single romantic date in her whole life.
This was normal.
“I was quite surprised to get your invitation, Zipp,” Queen Haven said, sitting in the plush carriage seat next to Zipp. “I always thought you felt above this sort of thing.”
“Well, it was this or cleaning my microscopes. Which I don’t want to do.”
“When was the last instance we spent time together, Zipp?”
“Do you count the time when you barged into my lab yesterday without knocking and you messed up four hours of hard work?”
“Now, Zipp, if you’re going to have one of your ‘blaming’ days, I’m leaving now.” Her hoof reached for the driver call button in the carriage.
Zipp pulled back her mom’s outstretched hoof. “No. I don’t want us to argue anymore. Tonight, I just wanna get dinner. And I wanted someone to go with. No arguing. No fighting. Okay?”
“Only if you will promise to do the same.”
“I will.”
“Right.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“So are we gonna go eat or not? It’s 8 o’clock and I’m starving.”
“Of course.” Queen Haven reached for the door handle, and as if by magic, the night sky became alit with white flashes. Paparazzi, both airborne and on the ground, flashed their cameras at the two royals. The lighted brick path from the driveway to the restaurant’s entrance was like a red carpet. This was nothing new to Zipp. Look forward, smile, and keep walking.
Tomorrow, there would be juicy headlines printed with dollops of cheap aftermarket printer ink. Rambling comments about how disorderly Zipp’s mane looked, how radiant the Queen looked, and an itemized list of accessories the Queen wore to this “casual night out on the town with her eldest daughter, heir apparent Zephyrina Storm.” More ink, more papers, more sales, more internet traffic.
That was how the royals gave back to Zephyr Heights’ economy.
Tonight, Zipp thought that she’d be annoyed by the cameras flashing incessantly in her and her mom’s faces. But once they had been escorted into their private dining room in the back of the restaurant, and the door was closed, silencing the clamoring paparazzi outside…Zipp was once again forced to be alone with her thoughts.
The candles flickered silently. The flower stems did not make a noise as they greedily slurped up the water from the bottom of the cut crystal vase.
“This’ll only take like 30 minutes,” the princess said as she sat down and immediately opened the menu. “I eat pretty fast.”
“There’s no rush, dear,” the Queen said as she popped open her compact to fix her makeup. “I have nothing more planned for this evening. And even if I do, I’m the Queen. They’ll have to wait for me, especially when I’m spending time with my daughter.”
Of course, Zipp knew that already.
The room was quiet. There was no distraction. She had to face it. Eating with her mom on Hearts and Hooves Day.
This was normal.
The waiter poured them both a glass of the house wine.
“That’s enough, thanks,” Zipp said.
Zipp was now plenty old enough to have a drink with her mother. But she could still freshly remember the days she came to this restaurant and they gave her a coloring book, filled with cute animals and ponies in dresses. She would tear the pages, fold a paper airplane, and melt the wax crayons with the table candle to make a nose weight.
“Well, dear. What are we toasting to?”
“Whatever you want, Mom.”
“How about ‘to us’?”
“No, not that.” And she just drank a large sip of the wine. After a few seconds of hesitation, Queen Haven did the same.
Zipp never really liked the taste of wine, but with alcohol being 7 calories per gram it would satiate her hunger somewhat before the food arrived.
“How has the Weather Squadron been?”
Since magic returned to Equestria, Zipp’s new job as princess was commander of the newly formed Pegasus Weather Control Squadron, a division of the Zephyr Heights military.
“It’s been going…well,” was all Zipp said. She avoided eye contact, watching her own hoof trace circles on the clean white tablecloth.
“Did you meet anypony new?”
“Well, there’s a lot to do, so there isn’t much time to chat. I spent the last few days practicing how to move clouds. It’s like pushing really heavy jelly. I think I tore something in my wing yesterday afternoon—I shouldn’t have pushed that cumulus by myself.”
“I’m telling you, Zipp, your efforts are better spent managing your team. Leave it to your recruits to do the heavy lifting. That’s not your job as commander.”
“But that’s what needs to get done. Am I not setting a positive example by working along with them as their equal? What better way to lead than by doing? Besides, I’m totally strong enough to push a cloud. And I had fun doing it. It’s a good workout.”
“It’s just that your time isn’t spent very efficiently just pushing clouds. You have to learn how to think like a royal. I had to learn this as well. Your time is precious, Zipp. An intellectual like you should understand that.”
“Mom, I take care of myself okay!? Why are you assuming that I’m some foolhardy idiot—sorry.” She closed her mouth.
“No, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Right.”
“Right.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They ate in silence for at least thirty minutes. During which there was an assortment of seven canapes, fresh baked baguette, creamy squash soup, mushroom tagliatelle, and a microgreen salad with pomegranate arils and orange vinaigrette. Queen Haven normally did not eat so quickly, but this evening she felt the desire to eat as fast as her daughter, for whatever reason.
Suddenly Zipp spoke, as she poked around her salad.
“Is it my mane?”
Queen Haven looked up from her plate.
“Is that why nopony wants me? ‘Cause of my mane?”
The guy was supposed to ask the girl out. And although Zipp never cared much about tradition, she kind of liked the idea of somepony else making the decision for her. She wanted somepony else to decide, for once in her life. She had to decide to cut her mane short. She had to decide to do sports, to learn flight physics. Nopony ever taught a Princess such things by default. She had to put her hoof down and stand up for herself by saying, “This is what I want and I don’t care what you think.”
Standing up was so exhausting.
Zipp felt convinced that being “different” and a “rebel” were both just another word for being lonely.
“Zipp, trust me, you will find love one day.”
“No Mom! I’ll never find anyone I like!” Zipp blurted. “And I know the only reason you’re encouraging me is because you want to continue the royal bloodline.”
“For somepony as scientifically inclined as yourself, you’re quick to jump to conclusions. You’re only 25 years old. How are you so sure you won’t find a partner? I didn’t meet your father until I was 33. And I loved him all those twelve years before he passed on.”
“Well, I’m different from you, Mom. Because, well…you know…because of my…secret.” Her voice faded to barely louder than a whisper.
Queen Haven stared intently at her little girl.
If she looked at Zipp through the distortion in her wine glass, she almost looked 11 years old. And just as teary as she was that day.
Don’t tell anypony, Mommy. Don’t tell Pipp. Please, PLEASE don’t tell anypony, Mommy.
I’m scared, Mommy.
Hug me tighter.
I’m so, so scared.
“Dear, I’m sure there are ponies who will understand…you…like I do. And just because you don’t find someone you love…doesn’t mean you can’t find friends. What about your three new friends from Maretime Bay and Bridlewood?”
In Zipp’s mind, they didn’t count, because they didn’t know her secret. Only her mom did. “Friends are nice…but it’s not the same. I wanna feel…I wanna feel…I wanna—you know, whatever. Forget it. It’s not important.”
“Stop acting like it doesn’t matter to you, Zephyrina—”
“MOM!” Zipp snapped, a sharp crack in her voice as she screamed.
Zipp’s mom looked into her daughter’s eyes. The fork in her hoof just tickling the salad leaves. She wasn’t eating. Zipp wasn’t eating either. They were at the restaurant, and they weren’t even eating or caring about the food one bit.
What a hypocrite she was.
Zipp counted the number of times she’d yelled at her mom for calling her “Zephyrina,” and she realized that she could count many, many times. As much of a loner and a rebel she claimed to be, Zipp had spent a lot of time with her mom. Time spent arguing was still time.
And time always brought two ponies closer together. Like it or not.
“You can call me Zipp,” she said. “Or Zeph’s fine, I guess. But, please, please, please not ‘Zephyrina.’”
Queen Haven nodded. “I’m sorry, dear. Well, in any case, your secret is safe with me.”
“So what if it’s a secret? Secrets don’t help anypony. All you do with them is you lock them up in your brains, and try to forget about them while you go about your business. They just sit there. They don’t do anything.”
Zipp hated secrets. If she could dispose of all her secrets, and not have to worry about the ramifications, she would do it. Just cut the lock, and yank the chain off.
But she had way, way too much to lose with this secret of hers.
Other secrets, like the fake flight…Zipp didn’t have very much to lose personally. Which is why Zipp disposed of that secret easily, without hesitation. But it was at the expense of leaving her kid sister hanging. While Zipp ran off, unscathed.
Zipp was innately selfish.
A pony like her did not deserve love.
“Everypony wants someone to grow old with, Zipp,” her mom said right as she had that thought.
“Does that include you, Mom?”
Silence. Zipp stared blankly at her mom’s wedding band, still sparkling like brand new. Gold and diamonds were chemically inert. They would last thousands of years of geologic time. Long after both their bodies decayed into organic carbon.
“You never fell in love after Daddy?” Zipp asked. “After 15 years, never ever?”
Zipp still called him Daddy. The Prince died when Zipp was ten years old, just before she hit puberty and her voice dropped to the unusually deep pitch it was today.
“Well, I…perhaps in a weak moment after a few glasses of wine, I had a fleeting infatuation with the night guard…” Queen Haven shook it off with a poorly-practiced laugh, losing her air about halfway. “But no, I could never ever find a replacement for your father.”
“‘Could never’, or ‘choose not to’?”
Silence again.
Dessert arrived. Mom ordered a mousse cake with a thin layer of orange jelly on top. It was Daddy’s favorite.
“Daddy would want you to be happy, Mom.”
“H…h…h…I…I…”
Queen Haven looked at the cake she ordered with absolute terror. As if it was some terrible mistake she made. She inhaled as if she was about to shrilly scream—
“He’d want you to be happy, Mom,” Zipp repeated.
The Queen consciously blinked a few times, in silence. She then lowered her fork and ate the sweet, decadent cake without hesitation.
“He would want you to be happy too, Zipp,” Queen Haven repeated, gently tapping her daughter’s chest with her hoof.
Once they had finished their dessert, the waiter came to clear their plates, and he offered them a tray with a selection of heart-shaped chocolates and petit-fours. Well, only some of them were heart-shaped. But Zipp’s eyes seemed to only focus on the heart-shaped ones.
She took a chocolate heart with a red dot on the top, expecting to get a raspberry jam filling that she liked. She bit in and ended up getting up getting a salted caramel.
“This Hearts and Hooves Day sucked.”
“Cheer up, Zipp. Dinner was delicious, wasn’t it? And anyway, the day’s almost over now.”
Zipp looked up at her mother. “But what about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is the 15th.”
Zipp chuckled. “I can toast to that.”
And so finally they clinked their glasses, and they drank up the last thin puddle of wine remaining at the bottom.
Author's Note
Dedicated to all the lonely hearts out there looking for love.
What's your secret?
