“Those things are so bad for you.”
Dapples shrugged as the cigarette floated down towards the bar, having been lit by one of the floating lamps. “This is the last of this pack,” he murmured as the cigarette glided into his mouth. He took a long inhale, and then blew the smoke out the side of his mouth, directly onto the light blue Earth pony sitting next to him.
Prose always coughed around smoke, whether he needed to or not, but his friend’s puff sent him into a hacking fit that left Dapples feeling like a jerk. With a frown, he focused his magic, and the cigarette ground itself out in the ashtray. “Sorry about that,” he said to his friend, who was slowly regaining his ability to breathe. He motioned for the bartender to refill his glass. The last time he had been to the Canopy, he’d had a Coco Loco, but he hadn’t been in the mood for that degree of sweetness in a while. Tonight it was cider, and it was harder than hard.
As the barcolt topped off the unicorn, he glanced over at Prose’s empty glass and looked to Dapples for confirmation. Dapples shook his head and flashed the barcolt an expression which caused him to instinctively reach for a weaker bottle of spirits. He wasn’t ready for the big guns yet. Not even after the hell of the last month.
It was only when a hoof waved in front of his face that the grey unicorn realized he had been staring into space. “Equestria to Dapples? Come in, Dapples...”
Dapples gave his head a shake and tried to put on a happy expression, but Prose still saw that same expression they’d both been fighting off and on. “Still thinking about it, huh?”
He nodded. “I just don’t like how things ended. That’s all.” He took a sip from his drink, in hopes that the burn would force those emotions back down. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn’t.
Prose put his hoof on his friend’s withers. “I’m still glad that you accepted my invitation. Its nice to have someone to talk to. Especially right about now.” The librarian turned to his drink and managed an impressive gulp of the cider, which was still hardly a drink for foals. Instead of a cough, he responded with only a small hiccup, which caused both stallions to chuckle.
The laugh was especially welcome after the events of the month. The last time Dapples had been in Winnywood, he had stayed a week after some particularly nasty events in Canterlot. The emotions that drove him to those depths were generally ones that he kept tempered, but they’d reemerged very recently at his Ponyville apartment. A hastily typed letter, with more spelling errors than he would have normally ever let pass, arrived at the library courtesy of a determined mailmare. The reply was prompt, and he was once again offered sanctuary.
He hadn’t thought anything of the emptiness of the library at first. After all, it was empty when Dapples first met Prose. But there was something else in the air, and a quick glance at Prose’s expression confirmed it. The month had been an ordeal for both of them. They nodded to each other knowingly, without another word passing between them that night, and the Earth pony retreated to his bedroom, while the unicorn curled up on the couch in the fiction room.
For the next few days, they swapped jobs back and forth. After a crash course in managing a library (something he’d already picked up somewhat from Twilight), Dapples was able to helm the front desk while Prose worked on new material in peace. Later they traded off, and Dapples got to bring out his typewriter. The nights were usually spent catching up, but on this particular night they had both been suffering from cabin fever. Among other things.
So the night found them at the Canopy, grabbing what passed for fresh air, and attempting to enjoy each other’s company without the artifice of a made up story. But right now their greatest bond was their loneliness, and the drink only dulled its edges. Once their laughter died down, silence took its place, and they turned back to their drinks. Dapples was about to call the night off when his ears pricked up all of a sudden. Prose gave him a quizzical look, but soon the sound caught his attention as well.
It wouldn’t have been possible to hear over the din that would take over the bar as the night progressed, but in these early hours, both ponies could hear the cyclical sound of metal grinding on metal. The sound steadily increased in volume, and was soon joined by the distinctive whirr of some kind of engine. Prose looked around the bar. Though the sound was unmistakeably getting closer, nopony else seemed particularly concerned. The patrons sat talking with each other over their drinks, even when the source of the sound seemed to stop directly outside the bar. The noise ceased, and aside from the voice of one angry pony outside yelling “you can’t park that thing here”, things were as before.
“After you!”
“No, after you!”
“I insist!”
“Very well, brother of mine!”
And with this short exchange of voices, in came two cream-colored stallions. They were almost certainly related, both unicorns with red and white manes, the noticeable difference being that the second of the brothers had a red handlebar mustache. In fact, the facial hair was the only characteristic plainly differentiating the two, as they were both wearing the same blue and white vest over a white shirt, and both sported straw boaters. They looked and sounded like something from a history book.
“Evening, fillies! Gentlecolts! Please don’t trouble yourselves with us! We’re just here to speak to the proprietor!” announced the clean-shaven stallion. If either of them noticed that no one reacted to his introduction, they made no sign of it before approaching the bar. He called out to the bartender, who was busy cleaning a glass. “How do you do, sir?”
The bartender sighed. “What do you want, Flim?”
“What do I want?” Flim asked, seeming to be taken aback. “Its not about what I want, good sir! Its about what you want! I can see you’ve got a discerning eye and can recognize quality when you see it!”
“That he does, good brother! That he does!” agreed the mustachio-ed stallion. “And he’s certainly too smart to let this once-in-a-lifetime offer slip through his hooves!”
“I reckon you’re right, Flam! What do you say, chum? You ready to hear my proposal?”
The bartender leaned over the bar with a grumble, rubbing his forehead with his hooves. “No,” he mumbled.
“You know, friend, it looks like you’re having a real doozy of a headache! Well, we just happen to have the cure for whatever ails you!”
“It can take care of anything! Head pains, horn pains, ear pains, neck pains!
“Chest pains, stomach pains, hoof pains, leg pains!”
“Shut up!”
The brothers jumped back at the outburst from the exasperated barkeep. Flam shot Flim a nervous glance, but before they could retort, the bartender raised his head.
“I already know what you’re selling. I already know your speech. I already know both of you. And the answer is no. We are full up on cider from the last time.”
“But...” stammered Flim. “...it’s a guaranteed seller.”
“Is it?” The bartender bucked the door behind the counter, opening up a view to the back, where four barrels sat, gathering dust. “It doesn’t sell here! Those two are the first customers to ask for cider all week!” He pointed at Prose and Dapples, who returned sheepish grins to the brothers.
Flam turned back towards the bar, a sorrowful expression on his face. “All week?” he squeaked.
The bartender had lowered his voice, but his expression was no less stern. “All week. I’m sorry, boys. I’m not interested. If you want, you can stay and have a drink, so long as you don’t bother my customers with your Super Squeezy Lemon Peezy.”
“Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000,” mumbled Flim, shuffling his hooves.
“Whatever.”
“But...we don’t have any money,” said Flam.
The bartender sighed and reached behind the counter. Out came the same bottle from which he had poured Prose’s drink, still half full. Along with the bottle, he slid two glasses over to the brothers. “Go ahead and finish this bottle off. It’s yours, anyway.” With that he turned his back on them to help a customer at the other end of the bar.
Prose was the first to break the silence. “I’m really sorry... Flim, was it?”
The clean shaven stallion nodded solemnly as his magic slowly poured some cider into his tumbler.
“What is it that you two do?”
The two brothers took simultaneous sips of their drinks, then unenthusiastically said “Travelling salesponies nonpareil.” They held the last syllable for a couple of seconds. Prose looked at Dapples, who shrugged in equal confusion.
Both of the ponies tried to engage the brothers for the duration of their drinks, but while they remained polite, neither Flim nor Flam seemed particularly enthusiastic about anything. Apparently the trip to Winnywood was an attempt to scrounge up a bit of cash after a sales pitch at Sweet Apple Acres had left them fiscally and emotionally exhausted. “It just goes to show you that things rarely go as planned,” said Flim, finishing his drink. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Prose nodded. “I guess all you can do is keep on going, right? They say Celestia is with those who persevere.”
“Unfortunately, Mister...”
“Prose.”
“Unfortunately, Mister Prose, Celestia doesn’t buy our cider.”
“Nor does she provide bits for a place to stay the night,” chimed in Flam, getting up from the bar.
Dapples spoke up. “You guys don’t have anywhere to stay?”
“No, sir. But it won’t be the first night that we have roughed it. A little hardship is good for the constitution, so by the time we get back on our hooves, we should be stronger than ever.” As Flam walked out the exit, Flim looked over his shoulder at the two friends. “And thanks for drinking our cider. It’s nice to know that someponies appreciate quality.” He didn’t stay to wait for a reaction.
Dapples immediately turned his head to Prose and spoke with hushed tones. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I have an idea, but you’d better tell me first. If I’m wrong, you’ll think I’m a creep.”
“Those two are looking for a place to stay. We’re both wallowing in self-pity.”
Prose couldn’t help but grin. “Plotting a way to spice up our evening?”
Dapples shrugged. “I’m just saying its a possibility. You can’t honestly tell me you don’t have some frustrations to work out right now.”
“I don’t know, Da-”
“Hey, we need this.”
Prose thought for a second. “On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“I want Flim.”
“What’s wrong with Flam?”
“Nothing!” he said, a little too loudly. Prose lowered his voice and kept talking. “He just seems more...my type, I guess.”
Dapples chuckled. “You’re lucky I think the mustache is cute.” The two of them quickly settled their tabs, leaving a decent tip for the barkeep, before hustling out of the front door in an attempt to catch the brothers.
They found Flim and Flam sitting on a couch mounted on the front of a large machine. It was similar to a train, but significantly smaller, not even the size of an engine. But it was clearly some sort of vehicle, and likely the one that they had ridden in on.
The two had been arguing about whether to camp on the outskirts of town or to attempt to press onto the next city, but they stopped when they saw Dapples and Prose. Dapples waited for Prose to make the offer, but the librarian was clearly lost in all the gadgetry that adorned the strange contraption. He snapped out of it when Dapples nudged him in the ribs.
“Oh! Um...hello again!”
Flim crooked his head. “Hello again, Prose. Dapples. Is there anything we can help you with?”
“Well, we were just talking, and you had mentioned that you didn’t have a place to stay tonight, and so we were just talking, and we...” Dapples clapped his hoof over Prose’s mouth.
“Do you want to come stay with us at the library?” the unicorn finished.
The brothers looked at each other before bringing their heads together, so that they could whisper without being overheard. After a short discussion, punctuated by repeated glances at the pair, they sat back up with smiles on their faces.
“Why, my brother and I would be delighted to take you up on your offer!”
Prose grinned from ear to ear.
“But...” Flam said, raising his hoof.
Prose’s face fell. “But what?”
“I’m afraid we need to figure out what to do with the Super Speedy Cider Squeazy 6000 here. I’m not sure we should be leaving it outside the bar, especially one which I hear gets rather rowdy as the evening wears on.”
“Well,” said Prose. “It’s honestly not that far of a walk, but if you want to move it a little closer to the library, I can give you directions.”
“Nonsense!” said Flim, bounding down from the makeshift stage at the front of the vehicle. “If you are walking back to the library, then by gum, I’ll walk too! It would be rude of me not to get know my humble host better before I accept his generosity!” He gave Prose a warm smile that forced him to turn his head, his cheeks flushed.
Dapples started to laugh at his friend’s discomfort, but halted mid-chuckle as he felt Flam’s weight leaning against him. The salespony had thrown a leg over his withers and was shooing his brother away. “You two go on ahead. You know how to get to the library, after all, right?” he asked, turning to Dapples.
“Y-yeah...” he stammered.
“See? No problem at all! We’ll be right behind you!” As Prose and Flim walked off in the direction of the Winnywood library, their conversation fading with the distance, Flam climbed back up onto the Squeazy 6000. “This lovely machine is powered by magic, you know?”
Dapples took in the machine’s size and intricacy. “I imagine it takes some pretty powerful spells to keep it going.”
“Oh, its absolutely no problem for one pony to steer, but it requires two unicorns to keep it moving. I’ve moved it by myself before, but I wore myself out pretty quick.”
“So, does Flim expect you to move it there by yourself this time?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you what Flim expects tonight.” He shot Dapples a grin. “But I’m not moving it alone.”
“Me? But I... “
“No need to fear, Dapples. I told you, steering’s a breeze, and that’ll be my responsibility. You just help me keep fuel in the engine.” He leaned back on the couch before patting the cushion of the seat next to him. Without more than a moment’s consideration, Dapples hopped up and plopped his rump on the soft red sofa.
“So, to the library?” asked Dapples.
“Maybe,” said Flam, looking out of the corner of his eye. “Do you really want to go straight home?”
Dapples swallowed the lump in his throat. “No.”
“Not really,” said Prose. “I’ve only gone out drinking a hoofful of times, and almost all of them have been with Dapples.”
Flim nodded as the two ponies leisurely made their way to the library. “So, how long have the two of you been together?”
Prose’s eyes went wide. “What?” He felt the color rising in his cheeks again, and shook his head in protest. “Ohnonono. It’s really not like that. We’re just friends.”
“And your roommate.”
“It’s not like we sleep in the same bed or anything. Its a big library. Can we change subjects?”
“Absolutely,” said Flim with a grin.
“How long have you known Flam?”
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, Prose facehoofed. Flim just laughed. “You’re really something, kid. Really something.”
When they got to the front door of the library, Prose was still struggling to come up with something really powerful to say. Something that would sweep Flim off of his hooves and into his own. “I like your hat,” he said, letting the unicorn enter the darkened library.
“Thank you, Prose!”
“I like your vest,” he said as he set just a few of the lamps burning low. The proper atmosphere for a seduction, right?
“Again, thank you very much.”
He galloped over to the phonograph and put on a record of soft classical music. Once he had the volume adjusted, he slowly approached the salespony. “I really like your...bow tie.”
Flim raised an eyebrow. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”
Prose’s face fell with a sigh. “What am I doing wrong?”
“It sounds to me like your biggest mistake was getting too cocky. You placed the stakes too high, so when it came time to deliver, you panicked. You thought you were going to lose, and so you sacrificed quality for quantity. And quality’s important, especially in a small town like Ponyville.”
“I’m rather disappointed in my behavior as well,” agreed Flam. “It was my idea to turn off the quality control. At the time, I didn’t see a better solution.”
The Super Speedy Cider Squeazy 6000 rattled and rolled through the countryside, powered by the unicorns’ magic. It amazed Dapples that Flam could steer it effortlessly while still maintaining the conversation. “I’m sure you were under tremendous pressure at the time.”
Flam tilted his hat back. “My brother’s a wonderful stallion, but once he gets his mind set on something, he’s pretty hard to shake out of it. Sure, his mouth is great for getting us out of trouble, but it seems to have an almost equal knack for getting us from the frying pan and into the fire.”
Dapples nodded. “I used to work with my brother a while back. Its bad enough dealing with ponies who try to be your enemies. But when the people closest to you think they know what’s best, it can make life pretty complicated.”
“Even more complicated when it turns out they’re usually right.” Dapples couldn’t help but smile.
Suddenly, the vehicle stopped with a start. Momentarily confused, the grey pony looked over at Flam, and noticing that his horn was no longer glowing, ceased his own attempt to keep the machine powered. “Why did we stop?” he asked his driver.
Flam looked out. “Flim and I are alike in a lot of ways, but there are certain things he doesn’t appreciate the way I do. This is one of them.”
Dapples looked off in the direction Flam was staring. At first, he just saw rolling hills and sparse trees. Pretty, but nothing he hadn’t seen before. “What exactly am I-” The salespony lifted Dapples chin with his hoof, and the unicorn saw it. A sky full of stars, twinkling against the inky darkness. “Oh my Celestia.”
Flam smiled before raising a foreleg and resting it over his companion’s withers. Dapples allowed himself to slip a little on the sofa and rested the back of his head against Flam’s barrel.
“It’s beautiful.”
Prose was blushing again, but this time he wasn’t concerned with hiding it. “Its not...that good.” He closed his poetry journal and pushed it away from himself, but it quickly slid across the reading table and into Flim’s waiting hooves.
“Nonsense! If there’s one thing I don’t believe in, it’s false modesty! If you’re good at something, you scream it from the rooftops!”
“Well, that’s just not really me...though I do like the compliment.” Prose felt his smile getting wider and wider.
“But it is you! You’ve got talent, kid! Talent with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Prose!” His horn glowed as he flipped through the journal, stopping at random pages to mumble approvingly.
“Are you a fan of poetry?” Prose asked.
“Yes and no,” said Flim as he looked off into space, seemingly lost in thought. “I wouldn’t say I’m much into the old classical stuff, but I do think I turn a phrase a little better than most ponies. It helps when you have a natural sense of rhythm.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sit back and let me show you!” Flim cleared his throat with a dramatic “ahem” and proceeded to sing.
“Petals dance, dance
Behind my eyes,
Deep in dream did I realize
Your tumbling allegories
Rocking in the wind.
When you were plucked
It came in a frosty fall,
When sweet nature's breath did buck,
Into a gust
Of air you all flew
And the distance between grew.
If I knew, dear petals,
I would catch each of you,
The five floating before me,
And thousands more
Now shifting above me
To wind currents
I can no longer understand,
For it's me, you see,
Who is now the allegory.”
The tune was melodic, yet slightly melancholy. A part of Prose knew that Flim had to have already known that melody before putting his words to it, but they matched so perfectly. Prose’s words didn’t really lend themselves to rhyme, but hearing them pour out of Flim’s mouth with a fluidity as natural as water...it struck him speechless.
“Well,” Flim said, quietly closing the journal and setting it down. “What did you think?”
Prose felt the first of many pants start to well up in his lungs. He let out a massive breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed up the stairs with his hoof. “My bedroom. Now.”
And Flim leaned in.
Dapples accepted the kiss readily as Flam leaned down to kiss the pony, who now lay across the couch with his head in his lap. Their lips met, and they both tasted cider amidst the warmth. Dapples found the mustache slightly ticklish, but hardly bothersome enough to want to stop.
Flam cradled the unicorn’s head in his hooves as he broke the kiss and placed smaller kisses down his neck and between his collarbones. Dapples let out a contented sigh that brought Flam’s head back up to meet his for a warm nuzzle. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing pretty good,” he said, looking up at the red-maned unicorn with half-closed eyes. “I was worried tonight would be one of those nights.”
“What kind of nights are those?”
“The ones that seem to drag on forever.”
“And you don’t want tonight to go on forever?” asked Flam, a twinkle in his eye.
“I do now,” said Dapples, and he brought the pony’s head down for another kiss.
As Celestia raised the sun in the morning, the early morning sunlight was cast onto a large machine, the front of which had a large red sofa. Laying on the sofa, wrapped in each other’s hooves, were a pair of ponies. A speckled gray unicorn lay burrowed into the chest of another unicorn, whose vest was open, and whose tie was on the floor.
A unicorn who looked almost exactly the same walked up, missing only the reclining pony’s mustache and hat. “Rise and shine, you two!”
A couple of stretches, a series of yawns, and some readjustments of clothing later, and the two brothers were dropping Dapples back off at the library. They had heard promising things about the orchards in Appleoosa, and they knew their cider would be an even bigger draw where water was scarce. The goodbye was short and businesslike, in short, the exact sort of goodbye you would expect from experienced salesponies. But Dapples still caught the warmth in Flam’s smile before they drove away.
He sighed again before walking into the library. Once inside, he was struck with how different it sounded. During the past week, the silence was more than just typical library quiet. It was an oppressive silence that threatened to choke life. But someone was singing.
The voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until Dapples climbed the stairs and saw a blue pony practicing a little softshoe in front of a mirror that he could believe it. “What are you doing?”
Prose turned with a start. “Oh, Dapples! I didn’t realize you were back!” Though he blushed with embarrassment, his big grin stayed put.
Dapples looked at what sat on top of Prose’s fluffy brown mane. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah!” he said, taking off the straw boater. “Flim let me have it!”
“He let you have it, huh?” Dapples asked with a leer.
Prose rolled his eyes. “You are such a pervert.” He smiled bigger. “But yeah, he did.”
“Congratulations. I had fun, too.”
He put the hat back on. “Do you think you could go ahead and open the library? I kind of want to work on some more poetry today.”
Dapples smiled. “You got it,” he said, as he closed the door to Prose’s bedroom. Sometimes he wasn’t a fan of running the library, but today he didn’t mind. As long as he got the night off to look at the stars.
the end
