The Tailor and the Patissier
Sassy Saddles wasn’t being selfish—that’s what she told herself in order to sleep at night.
She tried, at least. She tried to avoid thinking about the argument she and Sugar Belle had had a few hours ago, and she tried to avoid thinking about how it was the fifth time they had had that exact same argument. Sassy would ask Sugar Belle to leave Town with her, and Sugar Belle would say no. Sassy would press the issue, and Sugar Belle would dig her heels into the dirt. Sassy ruminated on it as she drifted off into a twitchy, fitful sleep.
Either she had a nightmare, or she never actually managed to fully get that sleep she was trying to. When she awoke, her legs were sore and her neck refused to turn more than an inch to the left. Every tiny bump or squeak in the night made her twitch with the fear that her transgressions had been discovered. She even skittered and jumped at the sounds of her own hoofsteps in the hallway as she made her way towards her kitchen.
Breakfast wasn’t very good. She had a few unfortunate muffins—courtesy of her marefriend—and washed them down with a glass of dusty water. Sugar Belle would swear that she used to make the most vibrant, flavorful foods imaginable, but that was back when she had her cutie mark. It was long before Sassy ever met her. The world outside the Town, life outside the Town, and a time outside the Town were all getting harder to imagine anyways. Sassy used to imagine it. She still did sometimes. In her mind, she saw a blue silk dress embroidered white with the pattern of frost. Did she really make that, or was it all in her imagination?
She knew what she made now, though. She had personally stitched all the drab burlap cloaks in the shop at the front of her house. No matter how hard she tried, she completely failed to make anything more complex; all the attempts came out even worse than what she was currently looking at. With a sigh, she flipped the sign in her window to display “open”.
Within one minute, Double Diamond entered the store.
“Sassy!” he said. “I’m glad I got to see you today!”
Sassy forced a smile to match his. “Hello.”
“Well, how are you doing? You’re enjoying yourself here, I hope.”
“Of course,” Sassy lied. “I love it here!”
“Perfect,” Double Diamond said. “If there’s anything we can do for you, let me know. We’d hate for you to find your time here dissatisfying.”
“Why wouldn’t I be satisfied?” Sassy said with feigned ignorance.
“That’s wonderful to hear! Still, Starlight and I are going to be dropping by tomorrow to inspect your house, so let us know if you think of anything by that time.”
Sassy felt her heart plummet. “What?”
“Just in case we missed anything in it before you arrived. We’d hate to have accidentally given you a suboptimal residence, so we won’t be willing to do anything less than inspect every inch.”
Did she have something that would make it obvious she was planning to escape? No, probably not. But Starlight wasn’t above planting something and blaming Sassy for it.
“Thank you,” Sassy said.
“I’ll see you then,” Double Diamond said.
The moment he was out of sight of the windows, Sassy bolted out of her house and galloped to the bakery.
***
Sugar Belle’s bakery was empty, as Sassy had come to expect. Even so, Sassy quickly looked around for spies before frantically ringing the bell on the front counter.
“Coming!” Sugar Belle shouted from the back. After an agonizing two seconds, she emerged, and Sassy already had her hoof on her wrist.
“We’re leaving now.” Sassy tugged at Sugar Belle’s wrist. “We’re leaving today, and we aren’t looking back.”
Sugar Belle wrenched herself free and looked at Sassy Saddles with shimmering eyes. “I thought you’d respect that I can make decisions for yourself.”
“Obviously I want you to make your own choices, but really. It’s now or never.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“Please, Sugar.”
“I said I’d—”
“I am begging you.”
Sugar Belle took a step back. “Where should I meet you?”
Oh, thank the sisters. “We’ll meet by the cutie mark vault tonight,” Sassy said. “I think I can get them out for us.”
***
Sugar Belle was late. The sun was already down, and Sassy still sat just inside the entrance of the cave. Her second camouflage cloak lay forgotten to her side, covered in hoofprints from a few rounds of Sassy’s mindless pacing. She kept her small cutting implement at the ready, just waiting for the moment that Sugar Belle would appear. Any moment now, Sugar Belle would appear.
Worry compounded upon itself every moment Sassy watched her delicate tool. Fashioned out of rocks, needles, sticks, and thread, it constantly threatened to spontaneously fall apart. But it should do its job as a glass cutter; that’s all the wall was. Sassy luckily remembered the basics of gem and glass cutting from one of her basic fashion classes in school.
But where was Sugar Belle? Everything else was ready. Once she got some sort of signal— A signal like that voice she just heard.
Yes, it was definitely a mare’s voice. Sassy sprang to her feet and grabbed the second cloak. She fixed her cutter in front of her, and then she heard the stallion’s voice.
Double Diamond.
Sugar Belle either wasn’t coming, or she was coming too late. Sassy lunged at the glass and frantically stuck her little orchestra of points and edges just over her cutie mark. A few twists and a discordant symphony later, she popped the erratic circle of glass out and reached out to touch her five-pinned cutie mark.
Her cutie mark was pins, and she was a pincushion. She nearly fell from pain as she felt her destiny bind itself to her again, but the indistinct yelling from behind her threw her legs into action. The next thing she knew, she was outside in the cold wind, and she remembered her plan to go to Canterlot and do whatever she could. She ran across the desert, she ran to the station, and she stowed away when she wasn’t permitted to run aboard. She was gone.
***
After a few years, Sassy found herself working as a fairly successful boutique manager in Canterlot. Her employer, Rarity, was very kind, and while she almost botched her employment at first, the two eventually grew close. Rarity would even tell Sassy about her friends and about their families. Today was such a day.
The friend in question was Applejack, but more accurately, it was about her brother, Big Macintosh. He had gotten married, and Sassy had earnestly given her congratulations. The wedding was almost thrown out by a few misunderstandings, apparently, but luckily love pulled through.
“Oh, and the wedding dress was simply adorable!” Rarity said. “Sugar Belle wore it so well.”
Sassy Saddles didn’t remember anything of the rest of the story. That night, she went home, burnt some muffins, and ate them in the dark.
