Braeburn doffed his cowboy hat and waved it for one last enthusiastic time at the older mare standing on the front stoop of the narrow two-story gray house, before rejoining his friend Cheese Sandwich, who was rolling his eyes. They fell into a side-by-side trot, hooves ringing on the pavement, Braeburn in a broad, shoulder-squaring gait that wasn’t all that noticeable in the desert, but was noticeable in Bayroan, where the streets were a lot narrower, and where, in fact, there were streets.

Bayroan was very unlike Appleloosa. Its buildings were set so closely together that a young colt could actually stand on two neighboring porches at the same time. The air contained puffs of whatever smell happened to be floating inland from the neighboring island of Manehattan; sometimes smoke, sometimes fish, and sometimes things you really didn’t want to know about. Still, Braeburn seemed much more at home in Bayroan than Cheese Sandwich did, which was odd, considering Cheese had been born there.

“Well, wasn’t she nice!” Braeburn said, with a wide smile, waving at passers-by who were staring at the Western vest and cowpony hat. “Your mama seems like real good folks.”

“Um, well,” Cheese hedged.

“And so interested in your career.”

“No, Ma, it’s not a set of ledgers, it’s an accordion, yes, I’m pretty sure,” Cheese muttered in a monotone.

“And how you spend your time!”

“No, Ma, I can’t just do this on the weekends, it doesn’t work like that,” Cheese muttered again.

“And your personal life,” continued Braeburn.

“Balcony Flowerbox, known her since I was a colt, we hate each other.”

“Well, I could certainly use a mama who would set me up. I wouldn’t have had to put an ad in the Western Hay, Grain and Feed,” Braeburn said, trailing after him as he slowly shook his head. “Dunno where I planted my first wrong hoof, but it coulda been there. Where’s your Pa, if you don’t mind me asking? And what happened to your serape?”

“He’s at the office, or hiding,” Cheese explained. “It’s pretty much the same thing. And the serape doesn’t feel right in Bayroan.” Nothing really felt right in Bayroan, Cheese thought, and he avoided it as much as he could, but Braeburn seemed thrilled to be here. He was glad somepony was thrilled to be here.

~~
Braeburn’s ad in the Western Hay, Grain and Feed, inspired by the severe shortage of eligible mares in Appleloosa, had led to a whirlwind romance by mail and an impulsive proposal. He’d been so confident that he’d sent for Cheese to throw the biggest wedding in Appleloosa history, without the formality of having met his fiancé first. It had been a total disaster, and had ended with Cherry Jubilee taking the train back to Dodge Junction, the wedding definitively called off, and the two stallions holed up in the local saloon on an all-night bender.

Braeburn had awakened from their night at the Salt Block with an enormous salt hangover. Once he’d drunk enough water and his tongue was operating again, he began using it to express how extravagantly sorry for himself he felt. He had a lot of other thoughts, too, like the way no true gentlecolt would have led a fine lady like Miss Cherry Jubilee to expect marriage and then backed out; worrying whether he’d shown off Appleloosa in the best possible light, considering; anything except regretting that he’d dragged Cheese into the mess in the first place. When his jaw muscles finally gave out, he went on long, aimless walks, eyes wide with pain he couldn’t express, because his throat was sore. Cheese delayed his departure for several days, reluctant to abandon Braeburn in a crisis, but it was more than time for him to go. And in a moment of generosity that he’d probably regret for years, he’d said, “Well, I guess you can always come along with me for a while.”

Traveling with Braeburn was a mixed bag. He was much better at finding food and cooking it than Cheese was, and stew was a pleasant change from leftover cake and cheese dip that was beginning to turn. He was also an appreciative audience, and it was nice to play for somepony when he wasn’t in full throttle party mode. On the other hoof, it meant he couldn’t play everything he really wanted to. There were a lot of things he wanted to say that he could only say with his accordion, and he couldn’t say them at all with somepony else around—it made him feel self-conscious.

After he’d puffed out his thick brown tail last thing at night and curled up on it, trying to get some sleep, he’d hear “psst! Cheese! Cheese! Psst! You awake, buddy? Pssst! You awake?” It defeated the purpose to say “no,” so he’d developed a defensive snore and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get rid of it. He’d been camping once with Pinkie Pie, and he could listen to her voice forever. High-pitched and jingling, like a set of little bells, you could fall asleep to that. It could run all night long and you’d wake up in the morning, feeling refreshed, and enlightened, too. Braeburn’s baritone “pssst!” was not cutting it.

Braeburn was good-humored and friendly at parties, almost too friendly. If he could murder a joke by trying to tell it, that wasn’t really his fault. But he wasn’t good at knowing when to move on. The time to leave a party was when everypony was having the most fun, and Cheese always knew it. There was a last run of the accordion on his flank, a slackening of tension, and the Cheesy Sense let him go. His work was done, and he could rest assured he’d done his bit and leave without looking back. In fact, he’d only even paused once, and that was to give away a rubber chicken he’d been hanging onto for years. It had been such a small thing, and probably one of the most important things he’d ever done. He’d been reliving that moment for months: placing his only childhood friend in a nice box, getting the pink mare’s attention and her wide blue eyes focused on him, or at least on the box, sliding it over, and then an internal click, as something inside him snapped shut. Braeburn wanted to shut the party down, and help clean up, and put away the leftovers, and then promise to write to everypony who was still awake.

That was another thing: Braeburn’s “kin.” No matter where they were, Braeburn wanted to visit with his kin, and he had kin every few miles. This drove Cheese crazy, and when he tried to explain, Braeburn mutinied and said he’d go it alone if he had to.

“Look—if Cheesy Sense goes, I have got to go, right then. I can’t wait around. I have to make other ponies laugh. I have to make them happy.”

Braeburn pulled off his hat and threw it on the ground. “Over kinfolk? Just for a party? That don’t make sense, Cheese. Nothing’s more important than kinfolk.”

“Just for a party?” Funny was serious business, but nopony understood that anyway, except for Pinkie Pie, of course. Then Braeburn was unhappy, so Cheese was forced to juggle and dance on balls until he cheered up, which took ages. Luckily, the problem hadn’t come up yet, and the parties were better than ever: birthaversary levels of epic every time. He could feel pure happiness exploding under his hooves, more powerful than twenty party bombs; he was so full of transferrable joy that he lit up the night sky like fireworks. Something had fired him up so much that he probably wouldn’t have to go back to Ponyville to reconnect with Pinkie for months, maybe years. He really ought to be happier about that.

Maybe it was a good thing that he’d had to come back to Manehattan to throw a few parties and felt obliged to go to his parents’ house for lunch, because his mother could suck the fun out of anything in no time. And it was also a good thing Braeburn was along, because nothing could dent his sunny attitude. Braeburn loved Manehattan. His saddlebags were jammed with “I Heart Neigh York” souvenirs, and he’d insisted on going to tourist traps no native would ever dream of going to. The Great Park was one of his favorite places; he liked chatting to the carriage horses and the horses in the carriages, telling everypony who would listen about the horsedrawn carriages in Appleloosa and how tickled they’d be to learn about the latest fashions in harnesses.

“Right at the corner, Braeburn; the terminal’s down that way.” He was already turning, his gait speeding up to match everypony else’s.

“Right you are, compad—ugh!” Braeburn replied, gagging. “Why don’t you warn a pony when there’s stuff on the sidewalk? I can’t see it ‘till I’m right up on it.”

“Hmm?” Cheese’s hooves just naturally avoided garbage, spills, old newspapers, and places pigeons had been. It was great training for dancing. He looked up just in time to see Braeburn drifting out into the middle of the street, again. He gripped his teeth on his leather vest and pulled him back onto the sidewalk as a line of heavy eight-wheeler carts rolled by. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he expostulated, his voice leaping up nearly an octave. “Because if that’s the idea, I can relax and quit saving you from yourself. Just tell me where I should mail the hide after you’re scraped up.”

The apple rancher locked his leg around Cheese’s neck and scrubbed his curly mane affectionately with one hoof. “Aw, you’re such a kidder, buddy. You always make me bust out laughing. I was fine. I knew what I was doing.”

Cheese doubted that, but didn’t want to argue with him. He’d done such a great job distracting his mother and telling her stories about real-life cowponies that she’d forgotten to ask Cheese a lot of questions, and there were some he particularly didn’t want to discuss right now. Besides, they were now at the ferry terminal.

Braeburn looked up at the ferryboat and whistled. “She’s big. Bigger than I was expecting. And a beauty, too.”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Cheese enthused, as they trotted onboard. “You can see the whole island from there. It’s still free, too, if you can believe that. I used to ride it all day when I was a colt: drag my accordion on somehow and play. The passengers were great about it, and I even picked up some money. Drove my mother crazy.”

“Dragged? Why’d you have to drag your accordion on?”

“Well,” Cheese explained, “back then I had to carry it on, and it was heavy. That was before—“

—before I ran away from home because I couldn’t stand it anymore, he almost said. “Before I got my cutie mark,” he finished, instead. “Now,” he said, winking, “I’ve got other methods.” He picked out a good spot, dropped one of his hats on the deck, and then the accordion was just there, between his hooves. He played a few experimental scales and made sure its bellows was functioning. Hmm. What was he going to play this time? He really didn’t have to ask himself that, because there was a perfect song, by the most perfect of party ponies. She’d even left her name in it. He always played it everywhere he could, and it never failed to make everypony smile, including him.

He wound up with a whole boatload of happy ponies and a hat full of bits. He put the accordion away and joined Braeburn, who was sitting on the port side, watching the island of Manehattan get closer.

“I always like that one,” said Braeburn. “Uh, Cheese? I kinda have a favor to ask you.”

“Sure, what?” Cheese replied, not really paying attention.

“I got some kin.”

Here it was, Cheese thought, the good mood washing off him. He could feel it drain off all the other ponies, too, and that made him irritated. “What, more? I thought you already visited the Oranges.”

“Well, I did, but these are up in the Broncs.”

“The Broncs? I don’t want to go to the Broncs, Braeburn. That’s a long way from here.”

“We don’t have to go today,” Braeburn said anxiously. “Tomorrow’s just as good, but I gotta, Cheese. It’s important.” He had removed his hat and was twisting it around in his hooves. “See, Miss Cherry Jubilee—she’s got kin up in the Broncs, too. I oughta look ‘em up. It’s only right.”

“Do you even know who they are?”

“Just that there’s a little filly, Cherry Blossom, and she’s got a white coat, and a curly red, pink and white mane and tail.”

“How were you expecting to find her, exactly?”

“I dunno—maybe knock on some doors? Ask the neighbors? I’ve gotta do it, Cheese. It’s only right.” Braeburn was looking at him with big, sad green eyes, as though he’d been kicked. Now was not the time to point out to him that this was a bad idea, and besides, he sort of understood how Braeburn probably felt.

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow, ok? We’ll figure something out. Dinner. Something with cheese on it. Pizza? There’s a place I know in Little Neightaly. I used to go there all the time.”

“Sure thing,” said Braeburn, as he trotted off after Cheese.

“You’ll like this place,” said Cheese, as they trotted past carts selling alternative magazines and neon signs in windows. He slid easily between the crowds of other ponies. There were some times when a narrow set of shoulders was an advantage. This was where he remembered it, but instead of a plain storefront and a glass window with a picture of a pizza slice on it, there was tastefully exposed brickwork and tastefully placed stones and a line going out the door, with a tasteful moon-shaped sign reading “Slice of Life.” He recognized the symptoms.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,” he muttered, as he felt his temper rising. “I cannot believe this! They’ve ruined this place! Absolutely ruined it!”

“Why? What’s happened to it?” asked Braeburn in bewilderment.

He turned sharply to Braeburn and snarled, “What’s happened? What’s happened? It’s been Trenderized!”

Author's Notes:

The map of Manehattan I've been using can be found here. I've always thought it was weird that in Pony terms, New York = Manhattan, because that irritates New Yorkers so much. The Oranges are Upper East Side; Babs Seed is so obviously from the Bronx; and while I briefly considered the possibility that Cheese could be from Staten Island, he clearly could not be from anywhere else but New Jersey. I've moved the Staten Island Ferry for my own purposes.

Next chapter: how to ruin a Manehattan pizza place and wind up in Gallop and Prance at the same time.