Honor the Past

The dim hum of the music broke up the quiet atmosphere of his tea room. Alphabittle enjoyed the calmness of it all even if it did cause old memories to bubble in the back of his mind. He ignored those memories and did his best to not stare at the picture that was under his counter as he cleaned off a tea cup and looked around his establishment. As more or less the de facto leader of Bridlewood, he found that his time was either spent dealing with problems in the community or running his store. Neither of which allowed him a lot of free time to himself so any chance he got to let himself relax he did.

He took a look at the clock and nodded to himself before calling out “Alright go on and turn it on.” Dapple, one of the regular players here at the room nodded his head and moved to turn on an old gramaphone. Soon the room started to fill with the sound of an old time jazz tune as the patrons settled in with their tea. To Alphabittle’s eyes, it looked like everypony here just aged twenty years right in front of him and a small chuckle escaped from his lips.

It only lasted for a minute or so before the ringing bell of the front door alerted him to another guest. To his mild surprise, the pony entering was the resident arts and crafts designer herself who likes to live on the outskirts of the town. Smiling a bit, he lifted up an empty tea cup and said “Welcome Izzy. Care for a spot of black tea to go with your new look.”

Izzy was wearing an attire that was quite different to her usual bubbly self. She was wearing some sort of black dress that covered her entire body. Only her legs and head were exposed as she made her way towards the counter. Her mane wasn’t the normal messy poof that he had come to know but actually more maintained and done up in a ponytail that still had some poofness going for it.

Once she reached the counter, she propped herself up and leaned on it before saying “I’ll take a cup of the house special tonight.” Her normally cherry voice was subdued tonight and that made Alphabittle think that she must have something on her mind. As his father told him the first thing on being a bartender was knowing your customer so he quickly poured a glass of black tea with a hint of lemon and a dash of sugar before placing the cup in front of Izzy.

Izzy smiled as she lifted the cup with her hooves and took a small sip. The warm black liquid ran down her throat and caused a warm sensation to flow from her chest. Letting out a relaxing sigh, she reaches into her dress and pulls out a few small crystals; the medium that Bridlewood uses for goods and services. The three small blue crystals landed on the counter with a small ping sound that was overshadowed by the music. Looking back up at Alphabittle as she listened to the music; she asked: “So you're playing this because of the date?”

He nodded his head and started to wipe down his counter “Aye. It's VC Day after all. A very special day for us Unicorns as we used our” He paused for a moment and looked around the room to see if anyone was listening to them “ ‘that’ to defeat the Changelings and restore peace to Equestria.”

Izzy, knowing full well what word Alphabittle wasn’t saying because of the stigma around it, nodded her head and replied: “Didn’t your great great grandfather fought in the war?”

Alphabittle nodded in response “That he did. He was one of the officers serving underneath a very talented but…odd unicorn.”

Izzy took a sip of her tea “Odd like me?” She giggled and spoke in a teasing tone.

He shook his head “Different odd. If I remember the stories that my father told me that he heard from his father and so on; this unicorn tended to wear clothes made of a strange material, would walk on their hind hooves from time to time and would constantly be writing in a journal.” He let out a soft hum before adding “But her…’skill’ was considered legendary and my great grandfather gossiped with his co-workers that she might have been a Princess.”

Izzy chuckled a bit before saying “A Princess really? You know those don’t really exist do you.” He let out a soft chuckle in response and Izzy found herself staring back at her half empty cup of tea as she said “Still it would be nice to talk to some pony outside of Bridlewood.”

Alphabittle watched as the unicorn reached into a hidden pocket in her dress and pulled out a folded up piece of paper. Unfolding it, he looked down to see a crude drawing of an Earth pony, a Pegasus and a Unicorn. The paper itself was a bit worn most likely due to age but the words were still readable as it said “You have friends in Maretime Bay.”
Looking back at Izzy he asked: “You actually believe in this?”

Izzy took a sip and said “I want to with all my heart. I found it not too long after my parents passed away. I was feeling really alone during that time. This little letter made me believe that there are others out there just like me and I guess on this day I was feeling a bit of longing.”

“Do you actually believe that those other races want to be your friends? After all they still have their you know what when we lost ours. Who is to say that Earth ponies won’t make you work on their farms or the Pegasus would throw you into a colosseum.”

“I don’t know for sure.” Izzy replied as she rubbed her hoof along the paper and seeing the smiling faces on the drawings.”However there is one thing that I have come to realize today.” She takes a small breath and sips on her tea again. Seeing that her cup was love, Alphabittle went and poured her some more which she gave a small thanks before continuing “I don’t think the Great War was won by only Unicorns. I’ve went to just about every pony in Bridlewood to hear their stories including yours and they all share the same theme. A Unicorn or a group of Unicorns coming together and using ‘that’ to say destroy the entire Changeling Air Force out of the sky or drain several rivers so they could flank the enemy.” She chuckled, “Shoot one of them said that it was a unicorn who summoned a giant dragon from the sky to breath fire on the capital of the Changelings.”

Alphabittle gave a hard look at the young unicorn and said “You are lucky I like you Izzy. A fair number of unicorns I know would be offended and insulted that you would be implying our race wasn’t the reason we won that war.”

“That is the thing though.” She replied back “We were a reason we won the war. Just not the only reason. I found some old books that talked about how Unicorns would use our ‘M word’ to assist the rest of the army. The books made it sound like the war brought Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasus all together to fight a common threat.”

The larger unicorn chuckled, “I can’t see myself fighting side by side with an Earth Pony or a Pegasus.”

“It was a different time. A time of great sacrifices and heroes.” Izzy finished up her tea and leaned against the counter as the music started to fade from the gramophone. One of the unicorns quickly flipped the disk and a new track started to play as Izzy glanced at the ceiling. “Those stories and that message I got when I was a filly convinced me that nothing will change unless somepony makes the first move.”

He looked at her with a hard gaze.” You aren’t thinking of leaving are you.”

“I am but not right now. I’m not ready to make a journey without knowing more about what is out there.” She pushes the tea cup back to the stallion who took it and moved to place it in the sink to start washing it. “I plan on spending a few years studying as much as I can about the forest and plotting out my journey before I set out. Either I’ll make friends or not.”
Alphabittle could hear the conviction that came from her words as his eyes glanced over at the old photo of his daughter. He could remember how curious she was when she started to become aware of the world around her. Always asking questions and wanting to know the reason why things were. He looked up at Izzy and for a moment he didn’t see a unicorn with a purple coat and blue curly mane but a blue unicorn with a messy green mane. It made his heart almost stop for a bit though the moment he blinked the unicorn in front of him was back to their usual colors.

Chuckling a bit, a small part of him felt her confidence and belief in her ideals. Reaching over, he ruffled her mane a bit and said “Well if you do happen to make some friends; make sure to invite them over. I would be interested in seeing how well they can play Prance Prance Revolution.”

Izzy giggled a bit before she hopped off the stool and said “Happy VC Day.” He watched as she made her way out of the tea room just as the last song started to play.