Lavender pools fit to drown in.
The Baker
High Canterlot. Literally, High Canterlot, for the city was built halfway up the side of a towering peak; a fittingly impressive location for the capital city of the monarch of the sun herself. Most of the city, though, was anything but high in society, for all that it was the center of Equestrian arts and culture. Rich ponies needed servants, the workshops of fine crafts needed workers, and, of course, everypony needed to eat.
As a result, the city also housed a substantial underclass. And most of those lived out their lives within the cramped, mazelike, smoke-stained streets of the old city, far from the bright, sunlit boulevards of the wealthy. The streets there had originally been laid out so by necessity, as the side of the mountain offered very little real estate. Over the centuries, the maze only got worse, the buildings only getting taller and closer together, squeezing every scrap of space they could from their neighbors. Sometimes, then even bridged the street, casting those below in permanent shadow, but this was generally frowned upon. Somewhere in this confusing tangle of narrow streets lived a young unicorn stallion named Pierogi.
Pierogi was a poor baker, from a family of poor bakers. Well, poor by Canterlot standards. And in his case, “poor” was a descriptor of skill as well as money. His Cutie Mark, in total contrast to his entire extended family, was a seemingly random collection of abstract stars; about as vague as a unicorn’s mark could possibly get. Nopony knew what it meant, not even he, and he was there when he’d got it.
The family’s bakery was a modest little thing squeezed between two brick-faced tenements in a lower quarter of the old city, cast in shadow most of the day by the tall buildings all along the street. It was a three-story building that extended back to the alleys behind. The first floor housed the bakery itself, the storage, and the shopfront. The second floor, the family’s living arrangements. And the third floor they commonly rented out, for a bit of extra cash, though at the moment it was being aired out after the last tenant had been evicted. The rooftop space was mostly turned over to a garden.
The bakery never pulled down much. It required the effort of the whole family, especially his dear Pa, just to break even. His Ma had her hooves full raising all her foals, Pierogi’s numerous younger siblings, and for a little extra money she washed clothes for the factory laborers who lived in the neighborhood on the side. Pierogi, without any particular talent or skill in baking, therefore ended up being the family shopkeeper as soon as he was old enough to manage it. Not that he had any special aptitude for that, either, but it wasn’t hard, and really all they needed was somepony to take orders and take money, and that was simple enough.
On that particular, fateful day, like any other day, Pierogi was daydreaming. He did that a lot. Business was slow, as it always was in the early afternoon, after the family took lunch but before the laborers’ wives came for their afternoon shopping, looking for cheap & delicious bread for their husband’s tables. He was imagining what it would be like to be a traveler, and see far-off places, the towering peaks of Griffonstone or the shifting sands of Zebrica. Yes, Zebrica.
He’d have on one of those strange head-scarves, and draped over his back would be large casks of water, for there was none in between oasis in that harsh & mysterious land. He had on the flowing robes of those charming desert folk, and by his side would be his trusty native guide, be-striped and be-dazzled with exotic golden jewlery. With a funny name, too. Something like, “Zanzibar”. And then, before him, like a mirage, would appear an exotic mare, lovely to behold…
With a start, Pierogi realized that was not just in his head. There was indeed a mare in the shop, peering curiously at the freshly-baked wares on the racks beside the counter. Immediately he straightened to attention, fiddling with his hooves a bit until he believed he projected the air of a cool and collected shopkeeper, confident in his wares.
“S-see anything you like, m…”
She turned to look at him, as if just noticing his presence, and the words died in his throat. Everything did. If there was ever such a thing as “drop-dead gorgeous” this mare had it. It was a struggle, a real struggle, to keep his mouth from hanging open in shock and surprise. As it was, a small corner of the brain that wasn’t currently frozen reminded him that he probably looked extremely gormless just then.
And who could blame him? On a closer inspection, and perhaps far too long of one for politeness’ sake, he could tell that the “exotic” part had been no daydream. Her almond-shaped eyes – not almond, but certainly more slanted and pointed at the corners than he was used to – batted slowly like portals to a deep violet-colored abyss. Eyes the like of which Pierogi had never seen before, eyes that could, all on their own, hold him captive within their unfathomed depths. But it wasn’t just her eyes that had struck him dumb.
Her fur was alabaster white, pure and unsullied by even the dust of the streets. Her hooves were likewise clear of all blemish. Whoever she was, she was definitely not a working pony. Her soft pink mane ran in thick waves down her slim and graceful neck, leading the gaze to her withers and then along her fashionably skinny body and tall, slim legs. Back to her face, it had a sharp, angular quality – just soft enough that it beautifully accentuated her exotic tilted eyes, rather than detracting from them. And she was a unicorn. Pierogi couldn’t believe he’d noticed that little detail last.
In short, she looked like a noblepony’s trophy wife. Pierogi decided instantly that he loved her, on a basis of those languidly blinking violet pools alone. Slanted violet eyes that blinked again, faster. Narrow brows – how had he not noticed the graceful brows, pencil-thin, that led the eye gently down that sharp face to her muzzle, centered the gaze in between the intense bottomless orbs? That drew together in a pensive frown.
“…Sir? Are you well?”
Ah, and that voice, sweeter than honey! A rich voice, a thing of ageless beauty, the perfect intersection between a filly’s youth and a nag’s experience! Neither old nor young, but full of conviction and experience. A voice to launch ships. Whatever she said, Pierogi would gladly do.
“Sir?”
She’d started to sound worried now. That snapped him out from under his spell. He started and shook his head, to clear it, looked at her again, muddied it again, shook his head and decided it would be best to not look directly at those exotic eyes again. Instead, he settled on staring at her perfect little ears, not that it was very much better.
“Ahem. Um. How can I help you, miss…?”
Stupid idiot, he thought to himself, you’re supposed to sell her bread, not fish for her name! You haven’t got a chance with a mare like this. Besides, as lovely as she is, she’s definitely spoken for. For some reason, he couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off his muzzle. Maybe he looked very creepy to her just then.
“Sunrise. Strawberry Sunrise,” she said, dipping her head in a very old-fashioned gesture of salutation between unicorns. Were they on equal hoofing, he would return the gesture so that their horns crossed. But they so obviously weren’t. His Pa being an old-fashioned sort of pony really paid off sometimes. “Is your bread here fresh?”
Pierogi blinked rapidly, thrown for a loop temporarily. Was this mare serious? Had she ever been to a bakery before? Still looking anywhere but her eyes – it was very rude of him, but there was no helping it – he dredged up the correct reply. “Of course – it’s baked fresh every morning.” He didn’t bother saying the second half, which asked if she was looking for the day-olds. She wasn’t here for day-olds.
The mare nodded to herself, and Pierogi had the feeling he had just passed a test. Or maybe the shop has passed a test, since there was no way in Tartarus his vacant head was passing anything at that moment. “Did you make these?” She gestured at the racks of bread and looked at him, and he flinched away from the eye contact. Extremely rude of him. “They smell simply wonderful.”
Pierogi’s heart soared at the secondhand praise. Though he himself had no hoof in the making, it felt good to hear his family’s labor spoken well of. “No, miss” he managed. “My father made them.” And then, he decided to push his luck. “He really is an exceptional baker. See anything you like?”
He waited with bated breath, and did not have to wait long.
“No,” the mare stated simply, a hoof to her chin in a thoughtful pose. Pierogi’s heart fell. For some reason, that simple two letters, one syllable, had cut him to the core, and he realized that her majestic voice had another side to it. Then her mouth quirked up in a little grin. “But I do smell something I like. How much for these?”
She pointed to a shelf of buns, golden-brown and interwoven with each other like a braid. In fact, they were made by placing balls of dough next to each other in the dish, for a very good-looking end result. Pierogi thought about the baking so that he could keep the sheer elation and finding out she had only been making a joke from showing in his face. He thought he succeeded, but then, the goofy grin still remained, so it was to limited effect.
“Uh, a bit for one or ten for a dozen. A baker’s dozen, that is.” Pierogi, he told himself, you have really got to stop trying to add on to these things. It’s only going to go badly for you.
“A baker’s dozen?” she questioned, levitating ten bits from a coin purse around her neck with a golden aura and dropping them on the counter before him. The question sounded like she knew the answer already, and just wanted to hear it said again by somepony else.
Pierogi looked blankly at the gold coins in front of him. Rather than immediately touch the holy coinage that had passed through the mare’s very own aura, he put it off slightly by answering her instead. “Sure, a baker’s dozen,” he said, tearing off some wrapping paper from the roll on the counter. “It’s when we bakers put in thirteen items instead of the round twelve.” He levitated the rolls from the shelf, nearly dropping them on the floor. His focus really had been affected quite badly. Placing the whole unit – his father baked them all together to be sold this way, with the 13th roll taking up the pointed end of the conglomerate – on the paper, he began to wrap it. He was slow and deliberate about it, partly so the mare would stay a little longer, and partly so he wouldn’t make any silly mistakes.
“How interesting…” the mare said, hoof to her chin again. Pierogi could detect no trace of irony of sarcasm in the statement. “So why is it thirteen, then?”
And there it was, the question he had been waiting for her to ask when he had brought it up. He didn’t know the answer, of course - no one did - but it was a favorite conversation piece of his, so he gave one of his favorite explanations, hoping to impress her with his knowledge.
“Well, you see, it all got started back in the day…”
“Yes?” she prompted, sounding interested. He could have grinned if he wasn’t already; she’d taken the hook. A part of his mind was telling him sternly that he was being very foolish, and he ought to stop this immediately.
“Yes, back in the day,” he continued. “In olden times, in the times of Old Canterlot. Too many bakers were selling customers only eleven items, or even ten, for the price of a dozen. Who could tell, when they were all bundled in the bag? Oh, and speaking of bags of bread, here is yours.”
“Thank you.”
She accepted the interruption to tuck the wrapped package of buns into one of her elegant white leather saddlebags. The bits remained on the counter where she’d dropped them.
“Anyway,” Pierogi picked back up, “Bakers and selling too little bread. The ponies of Canterlot got upset about this and petitioned the Princess to do something about it. And being the Princess, of course, she did.” He winked at her conspiratorially, meaning to do a kind of “as you and I both know” sort of thing. She put her ears back and looked away, and he decided that was a very, very bad idea. Pierogi, this is what you got for thinking you can be smooth. Now she hates you.
He shut up. For his own good. So that he didn’t mess it up more. He still held out a vain hope that perhaps she might come back some other day. Maybe those buns would be the best she ever tasted. Maybe she would want to get more. Maybe she would want to talk more with the charming shopkeeper. Maybe a lot of things, and none of it liable to happen.
“…Go on,” she said. She had returned her attention to him. He forgot that he had been avoiding eye contact, and accidentally fell into a sea of liquid amethyst. But she was waiting, so he made a valiant effort to save himself and proceed. Come on, he knew this story.
“W-well… the Princess… the baker’s dozen… ah, right, um. Because of all the bakers shorting their customers, Princess Celestia issued a decree. It said that if she caught a baker in the city giving their customers anything less than a round dozen, she’d have the guard cut off that baker’s hoof.”
The mare looked mildly horrified. It was a horrifying story, to be fair, and that was why he liked it, but… hmm. Maybe in retrospect it wasn’t the best thing to tell the gorgeous mare. He hastily finished the telling. “Well, ahem, anyway, and so, bakers who didn’t want their hooves cut off, which was all of them, started putting in an extra item in the bags, just to be sure they didn’t accidentally miscount. And… that’s why they call it the baker’s dozen.”
The mare had lost her horrified expression and replaced it with an annoyed frown. “That’s now how it happened,” she stated simply. She said it with such absolute conviction, and Pierogi hastily rushed to reassure her.
“Well, you know, it’s just a story – I’m sure nopony got hurt, the Princess would never – I mean, it’s just one of the ones I know-”
“It’s a horrible story,” she broke in bluntly. “Please don’t repeat it to anyone ever again.”
“Well, shoot, miss, er…” Pierogi began stammering, looking nervously around the shop and rubbing behind his head. It wasn’t a very good look, he knew. He put his hoof down. Something like resolve came to him, and he looked the gorgeous mare dead in the eye, heedless of the risk. “I won’t. You have my word.”
And he meant it completely.
The mare, for her part, nodded succinctly and favored him with a little smile. That little smile really made it all worth it, in the end. Pierogi could write poems about that smile. Maybe he would. “Good,” she said, as if that was the end of the matter, and it really was. “May you have a fine day, sir. Good-bye.”
“Have a good-” he began to reply, but then she was gone, and with her, a measure of the afternoon’s light. Pierogi stared after her, at the space she used to occupy, then, after a while, at the ten golden bits she had left on the counter. He picked one up in his magic and examined it. It was a bit like any other; golden but not quite gold, worn around the raised edges. Featureless. Normally, he was proud that his monarch, alone in the world, was so confident in the mint that she put nothing at all in the way of images or words upon her coins. But right now, he really wished these coins had something on them, anything to distinguish them as something special.
He sighed deeply to himself and put them all in the register. He had briefly considered keeping one of the bits as a memento, a reminder of the day he had met such beauty and spoken to her, but ultimately decided against it. The coins were just coins, after all, and there was no way in Tartarus he would ever forget that mare for as long as he lived. What was her name? Right, Strawberry Sunrise. He pinned the name to the face in his mind. Now he would never forget that, either.
He hoped that she would come back. He knew that she was never going to.
