No Equality in Desire

It was a grand day in Our Town. Party Favor and Night Glider were conversing under a square of cottage shade, safeguarded from the searing sun. Double Diamond lay out in the open stretch of the thoroughfare, his white hide appearing bleached. His tail flicked the dust while he played with a blade of yucca leaf, sliding it over little hills and furrows in the sand.

A breeze blew in the crisp scent of prickly pear buds, ruffling the fine hairs of Starlight’s blunt-cut fringe. Seated at the long wooden table outside the bake shop, she squinted into the distance, attempting to wring some charm from the flat gray rocks jutting up on the horizon.

“Here you are! Fresh from the oven!”

A plate came down in front of her. Atop it sat a single muffin, curling with a wisp of steam.

The pale blue magic of Sugar Belle’s aura lifted. She wore a rictus grin and a tatty white apron. Her smooth mane was tied in a conservative bun, a culinary mare’s protection against stray hairs dropping into the batter.

Starlight perked up. “Wonderful! Thank you, Sugar Belle.”

“You’re welcome!” She smiled, a vacant show of teeth. “I hope you like it.”

Starlight closed her eyes, primly levitating the muffin and peeling back the wrapping. She bit down—and an ashy bitterness caught her tongue. Her mouth flooded with saliva. Starlight’s lips pulled back as she chewed, the combatting textures of sticky dough and burnt ends snapping between her teeth. But she swallowed it down.

“Oh. You made a face. Did it not turn out how you expected?”

Starlight opened her eyes to the sight of Sugar Belle’s concerned frown. “Not at all!” she insisted. “In fact, it’s exactly what I expected. You should feel very relieved, Sugar Belle. I can say with certainty that you’ll never have to fret about being better than anypony at baking ever again.”

“Well, that’s good news.” Sugar Belle scratched at the dirt.

“It is! In fact…” Starlight set down the muffin. It was wet and gray where she’d bitten, sweltering under the heat. She craned her neck, selecting at random. “Party Favor! Could you join us for a moment?”

In the distance, his ears lifted. He excused himself from Night Glider and trotted over. “Yes, Starlight?”

“I have an exciting job for you!” She gestured at the door of the bake shop, shining with a fresh coat of lacquer that had been applied not but a few days prior. “I’d like you to bake Sugar Belle and I a batch of muffins, please.”

Party Favor blinked, pinning her with that sweet, unaffected look he always wore. His pale blue eyes were a shade off from ones she knew well.

“Sure, Starlight. But…” He scratched his foreleg. “I’m not really a baker.”

She grasped him around the withers and he stumbled into her. “Of course you are! In Our Town, all of us are capable of carrying out the same duties with equal talent. Sugar Belle could use some support in understanding that her muffins are just as delicious as any of ours.” Starlight prodded at the nape of his neck. “So, go on!”

Party Favor skittered through the door. An abrupt metal clatter followed.

“I hope he knows where the aprons are. And to wash his hooves before starting. And that the batter…” Sugar Belle’s words slurred. Her ears pinned as the equal signs on her flanks let off a sheen of gray.

A sourness gripped Starlight’s gut. The muffin was beneath her snout, the faint wind carrying its tart stink to her nose.

“Here, come sit with me while he works.” She patted the unoccupied space beside her on the bench.

Sugar Belle sat. Her hocks pressed up into the craggy wood, her unsteady forehooves on the tabletop. But she met Starlight’s eyes as though her singular attention was a reward.

A memory cut in like a harsh sunflare. Starlight could hear the trickle of the town square fountain in Sire’s Hollow, smell the mist of chlorine. Beneath its basin, the curly-maned filly had turned her eyes away when they sat together, wilting under some callow embarrassment. When Starlight grasped the tickly hairs of her fetlock, shy and tender, the filly squeaked out a laugh and cantered away like they were playing a game, and the moment carried no special meaning.

It was special only the next day, when that curly-maned filly’s hoof was raised by a colt. The two of them under the fountain, her giggles high and acquiescent. She called him strong, but Starlight saw him quivering.

There was nopony for her to run to. No warm coat to bury her snout in and lament the unfairness of it all, no consoling smile to tell her everything would be all right, because they could still play Dragon Pit together and all those tedious rules that made up the romantic world were dumb anyway. Who needs her. We have each other. Friendship is all that matters.

And yet, the fillies she grew up beside were enraptured with being noticed. They learned early on the little rituals of capturing attention, the things that were promised to draw a colt’s eye. They dabbed on smears of lipstick and teased their manes into ostentatious styles, shaping themselves into somepony lovable.

But Starlight spent that time becoming herself.

“Are you happy here, Sugar Belle?”

“Of course.” She tilted her head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just checking in!” Starlight leaned her chin on her hoof, the plate clattering with a bump from her elbow. “I mean, you have your bakery now. And here, nopony could possibly grow resentful of your skill.”

Behind the bakery door, another clatter ricocheted. Party Favor yelped.

“You're surely right about that,” Sugar Belle giggled. Her face became awash with sentiment. “You know, while working today, I started thinking. Did I ever tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark?”

Starlight’s neck prickled. In the distance, the white heap of Double Diamond stirred, his ears standing at attention. Night Glider’s eyes bore through the shadow, drawn by the notion of that milestone. A taboo, not to be spoken of in Our Town.

“No. You never did,” Starlight said.

“It was a strange day.” Sugar Belle’s horn lit. She slid her apron over her head, folding it on the bench. A puff of flour rose from the touch of her magic. “My grandma was the one who taught me how to bake. My mom never really liked it all that much, so Nana shared it with her grandfoals. My cousin and I spent so much time at her house trying new recipes. It was so much fun! And it was really special, when it was just Nana and I.”

A hoof pressed to her chin, Sugar Belle closed her eyes. “I still remember the taste of her cookies, how she talked. She would always say, ‘You’ve got to fooold in the flour’ in this funny voice—I can’t do it justice.”

Starlight shook her head. “No, I… I can imagine it.”

Sugar Belle sighed. “Anyway, when I was around ten, she started to get sick. She was older when she had my mom, and so… you can guess how this story ends.”

A bead of moisture clung to her lower lashes. Her eyes were angled to the sun and it sparkled, her lips parting with a trembling intake of breath.

“There was this silly baking competition where we lived, just for foals. Nana encouraged me to go, of course, even though she didn’t feel well enough to come see me. So I went, selfishly. And I took first place!” Her lips pulled back with a rough laugh. “You know, it’s so hard to remember that day, aside from the facts. I don’t remember feeling happy. I don’t even really remember the moment my cutie mark appeared. I just remember the look on my mom’s face when I came home and she told me the news. That while I was gone, Nana had…”

Sugar Belle’s hoof pressed to her snout, a little wrinkle appearing between her brows. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It was just one of those weird coincidences of life, you know?” She looked sidelong, blinking hard. “Does it even mean anything?”

“Yes!” Starlight gasped. “Yes, it does. Your cutie mark took your grandma from you. Just imagine how different things could have been if…”

Sugar Belle was sniffing, gulping back barely suppressed sobs.

The woodgrain of the bench caught on Starlight’s coat as she hurriedly pulled herself close. Her forelegs wrapped around Sugar Belle’s belly—and she held her. The contact was different, more complete, than the faint brush with her velvety coat when she swept her mane into her grasp or held her hoof on the edge of town. Starlight touched the rhythm of Sugar Belle's breath, the quick expansion and contraction under her ribs.

“I'm sorry,” Starlight whispered.

“Thank you.” Sugar Belle shuddered.

A sharp tap on the table—Starlight’s head shot up. She straightened, her hooves slipping away. There was a steaming tray of muffins before her and Party Favor stood above them with an anxious smile. An apron was sloppily slung across his chest.

“Here you are, Starlight!” he said, levitating one of his newly-crafted baked goods to her plate. It nudged up against the wilting muffin already occupying it, sloughing crumbs.

Starlight’s heart was pounding, a throbbing woosh of blood in her ears. “Thank you, Party Favor! Looks like you found everything you needed.”

Her mouth cottony, her teeth sunk into the fresh muffin. It was bland, like unspiced oats—but it wasn’t wretched. It was a simple, serviceable fact of a muffin, something anypony could make. It was not the brutal subversion of a mare whose talent for rendering flour and sugar into first-prize winning delicacies inspired envy in the hearts of her friends. As Starlight gnawed, she imagined what it would be like for her teeth to pierce the flaky skin of one of Sugar Belle’s beloved pastries, for tart jelly filling to wet her chin with red.

“So, is it good?”

Starlight swallowed, the muffin dragging down her throat like sand. “Even better! It’s equal.” She beamed up at Party Favor. “Neither of you is better or worse at baking than the other. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Party Favor sighed, dabbing at his brow. Sugar Belle’s lips ghosted with a smile. And behind her, Sunburst leaned in to sniff the new tray of muffins, the curls of steam undisturbed by his questing snout.

“His sure smell a lot better.”

Starlight planted her forehooves on the table. “See, Sugar Belle? You had nothing to worry about!” And with that, her hind legs kicked free from the bench and she was trotting at a fast clip toward her home.

She didn’t make it inside before the bolt of nausea hit her. Scrambling out of sight behind the bricked edifice, Starlight vomited into the scraggly brush lining the base of her cottage.

“Oh no! Maybe the batter was too raw! Or… or…” Beside her, Sunburst blurted out half-formed explanations, his little hoof raised and quivering.

Starlight allowed herself a single wet cough. Sucking her tongue, she spat onto the dry ground.

“Starlight?”

A hard pulse throbbed in her neck. She wiped her mouth and turned, facing Double Diamond.

There was a dumb frown on his face. “Just wanted to check on you,” he explained. “I was worried about Sugar Belle. It seemed like she wasn’t being a good friend, talking about her cutie mark story like that.”

Starlight’s lips rolled back from her gums. “She’s still getting settled! You remember what it was like, don’t you? Sometimes we need to reminisce about the old world in order to leave it behind.”

Two pairs of blue eyes bore into her. Sunburst was squinting in the way he always did when something was just a little too far away.

“Want me to talk to her?” Double Diamond was still talking. “I can help her understand what we—”

“Just leave her alone! All right?”

Double Diamond flinched as though lashed.

Starlight went inside to clean her teeth.