August 6

Gusty was awake before either me or Aquamarine. She was either nervous about her play or eager or maybe both.

The three of us got out of bed and tried not to disturb Cayenne, who was flopped on her side next to Aquamarine. Her folding computer was still on the other bed, and so was the bottle of Jacapple, but there wasn't as much in it as when we'd gone to bed.

I was worried that she might sleep through Gusty's performance, and I couldn't imagine how sad that would make Gusty, and I kind of looked over at Aquamarine and I think she was thinking the same thing and we'd drag Cayenne to the theatre if we had to.

Gusty said that she had to go to her room and take a shower and groom and put on clothes and I said that the showers were big enough for all of us and it would relax her if we groomed her and she wasn't really sure that she wanted to and Aquamarine nuzzled her shoulder and nibbled on her mane a little bit and she untensed a little bit. She said that we could, but we'd have to go to her room 'cause her shampoo and brushes and clean clothes were all there.

When we opened the door there was a basket of coffee and muffins outside, and a little card that said good morning. Aquamarine took it inside so that nobody would trip over it and so when Cayenne woke up she'd have coffee, and then we went down the hall to Gusty's room.

I really liked the bathrooms that they had. There was a nice big bathtub that could have fit us all, and the shower was separate and had two showerheads.

Gusty was kinda embarrassed to get undressed in front of us, which made me kind of sad. It was like she'd lost some of what being a pony was, although I think I remember that she was from Canterlot and a lot of ponies there wear clothes all the time, I've heard. But it still didn't feel right to me.

Once me and Aquamarine started washing her, though, she started to relax a little bit, and then she started saying bits of her dialogue which was a little bit odd but maybe that's a thing that actors do. At first I thought she was talking to us, but she was looking off in the distance.

Neither of us got too clean, 'cause we were spending all our time working just on Gusty but that was okay.

When we turned off the water she shook herself off and then started drying herself with a hot-air blower. I'd tried using one once and didn't like it—it made my coat feel funny and my mane feel crunchy.

We got out her brushes and started brushing her coat, and once that was done Aquamarine sat down and combed her tail while I did her mane, and I kept having to stop while she looked in the mirror and put on makeup. I thought it was kind of heavy, but she said that was important for the theatre to really bring out her facial expressions, because they were hard to see from far away and so you wanted to overdo it.

Then she got dressed in underwear and loose pants and a loose shirt with buttons so she wouldn't mess up her mane when she took it off to put her costume on, and she nuzzled both of us and thanked us for getting her ready.

Just as we were getting ready to leave and get ready ourselves, there was a knock on the door and then it clicked open and Nicky came in. Her clothes were all wrinkled and she looked really tired but her face lit up as soon as she saw Gusty and the two of them hugged each other so tightly I thought that they might break some ribs or something.

We knew that they'd want time to themselves, so we wished Gusty luck again and each hugged Nicky and then we went back to our room.

Cayenne was still in bed when we got back to our room, so Aquamarine stood by the side of the bed and I pushed her off onto Aquamarine's back, and she carried Cayenne into the shower. I turned on the cold faucet, and Aquamarine walked under it and refused to move until Cayenne started yelling at her and I started swearing back, and it turned out I knew a lot more creative curses than she did.

Cayenne marched out of the shower, still dripping water, and picked up a cup of coffee in her field and drank it in a few gulps, then she opened up her bag and got out some aspirin, then she came back in the bathroom for a proper shower.

So the three of us got showered and groomed together, and Cayenne wanted to go down and see what was for breakfast. She got just eggs and Aquamarine and I shared a bowl of steel-cut oats.

Our helpers came down while we were eating and took the table next to us, and even though we had our own conversation and they had theirs it was nice to be next to them. Miss Parker asked if Nicky had arrived yet and I said that she had, and she was with Gusty. None of us knew when Gusty had to go get ready, but I knew that Aric had to be in place an hour before the show opened, and I thought that was probably the same for the actors, too. So I didn't think that we'd see her before the show.

We had plenty of time, though, so we took our time eating and then we all enjoyed a cup of coffee, and when we were finished we still had time to walk around a little bit before we went to the theatre.

It was about a kilometer from the hotel, and so after we went back to our room long enough for some last-minute grooming and turns in the bathroom, we met up in the hotel lobby and walked to the theatre.

It was a kind of strange looking building—it looked like a barn that had been added onto, but I'd seen a barn-theatre near Augusta, so I guess that was one way that humans built them.

The theatre wasn't as nice inside as the other ones I'd been in, either. It looked kinda unfinished. And the stage was strange; it was an island instead of being a normal stage, which I guess meant that you could see everyone from every side.

We'd gotten seats that were close to the front, and we decided that we'd sit with my helpers next to me and Aquamarine's helpers next to her and Cayenne in the middle.

I saw some people who were sitting across from us pointing in our direction, and there was also a pair of earth ponies in the crowd, but they didn't have as good seats as we did. Aquamarine waved at them, and they waved back at us.

And over to our left, I saw a man who looked really familiar, but I couldn't figure out where I'd seen him before. I think a lot of people knew him, 'cause a few people were waving at him and pointing to him and the grey-haired man sitting next to him.

I still hadn't figured it out by the time the lights dimmed down, and I turned my attention towards the theatre.

When the play started, the kind of shabby look to the building didn't matter at all, because all my attention was on the stage. It was a little different than when I'd seen it in Wisconsin: they'd changed their blocking (that's what it's called when actors move around) so that they could face every part of the audience, and I wondered how much work must have gone into that. I'd have to ask Gusty if it was harder to remember lines or harder to remember where you were supposed to go and when you were supposed to go there.

Gusty got a short round of applause when she first came out on stage, and I think it disoriented her a little bit, because she'd started to say her line and then she had to wait until the applause stopped. As soon as she started her first long speech, though, she was back in perfect form, and the whole crowd fell silent.

She was right in front of us when she put the flower on Lysander's eyes, and that was a little bit strange because at one moment she was looking at us but seeing something beyond us.

It was over too soon, and when she'd said her final line the theatre exploded in applause, and when the cast came out for their bow, everyone got on their feet and kept applauding loudly enough that I thought maybe the ceiling would come down. If there were people walking by outside that didn't know this was a theatre, they were probably really confused at all the noise.

All the actors went out the front, so that they could greet the audience in the lobby. And I guess being first out of the theatre would be one advantage to sitting in the very back, although you wouldn't have as good a view as we did.

But it gave us a chance to talk about the play, and I was especially happy that Mister Barrow and Miss Parker had gotten to see it. They both thought it was really really good, and even Mister Salvatore said that when he was in school, Shakespeare put him to sleep, but this had kept him on his toes for the whole thing.

Even though it was rude to eavesdrop, I couldn't help but overhear everyone else talking about how wonderful it was, and I thought so too.

When we finally got out of the theatre I made a point of greeting all the actors, because it would be really rude to just ignore them and run off to see Gusty, like a lot of people were. I couldn't actually even see her, but there was a big cluster of people around her.

We waited until the crowd had thinned out a little bit before we made our way over. The other two ponies we'd seen found us, and so we all introduced ourselves. They were Sterling Silver and Viola, both from Manehattan, and they said that they loved the theatre and had planned their vacation around seeing as many different performances as they could.

They said that Canada hadn't been their first choice, but there was a really long waiting list for New York and California, and they did a bit more research and found out that there were lots of good theatres and theatre festivals in Canada, so they were trying to visit as many as they could. They'd been in Montreal and Toronto and on Monday they were getting on the train and heading west.

Then Viola said that she didn't mean to be rude, but they wanted to greet Gusty before they left, and they had another performance to see at the Avon theatre, but they would love to treat us to breakfast at their hotel tomorrow if we could, and Sterling Silver told us their telephone number so that we could call them in the morning.

Well, we didn't really get much of a chance to talk to Gusty in the theatre, 'cause I could tell that she was getting kind of tired from all the well-wishers, and besides we had a lunch reservation soon, so we just nuzzled her and told her she'd done a great job and we were looking forward to lunch.

We took our time walking to the restaurant. Mister Salvatore had reserved a whole room, and he said that he didn't know how many people were going to be there, because Gusty was allowed to invite anyone she wanted to. Cayenne said that was kind of unfair, and I smacked her with a wing. I don't think she was being serious, but it did sound mean.

The restaurant was called The Prune, which was a really strange name, and it was kind of a strange building, too—it looked like a house, but it said 'restaurant' in big letters down the front.

So we went into the room that we'd had reserved for us at at first it was a little awkward because a woman with dark hair took one look at Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn, who went in first, and said that it was the feds. Then I said that they were my helpers, and they'd driven us here, and she kind of blushed and said she was sorry.

Mister Salvatore and Mister Barrow looked at each other and took out their wallets and showed them to her, and Miss Cherilyn told them to be nice to Ruby.

The bald man and his grey-haired friend were there, too. And there was also another beautiful woman with ebony skin and dark hair, and an older woman with big glasses.

Miss Parker and Miss Cherilyn were most impressed with the two young ladies, and Mister Barrow went right over and introduced himself to the two men, and I thought that maybe the older woman would feel left out, so the three of us went over to her.

She was a famous theatre director called Zelda, whose husband had started a famous theatre in Washington, D.C., and she was a very well-known play director. She was really nice, and she said that Gusty had done a marvelous job and it was the first time she'd seen a pony acting in a serious role.

Well, the ebony lady—whose name was Uzo—overheard that and said that Gusty had done a very good job on Orange is the New Black, and Zelda said that she didn't doubt it, because it was obvious that Gusty put all of herself into every character.

We'd finally all gotten comfortable with each other when Gusty and Nicky arrived, and Nicky took one look around at everyone who was in the room and for a second I thought she was going to turn and bolt but she went around and shook everyone's hand and then she sat down next to Gusty and took her hoof and Mister Salvatore frowned a little bit but the grey-haired man got a big smile on his face.

I'd kind of guessed that the two women were from Orange is the New Black, and I found out that the two men were really well-known Shakespearean actors, and that they had both been knighted because they were so good. And it was kind of a strange dinner, 'cause there were times I felt like we were really left out of the conversation, and maybe it would have been better if we hadn't been there. I don't think that was on purpose, but it would have been the same thing if I'd invited Gusty to a cloud convention—she wouldn't have known anything about it at all, and it would have been really hard for her to participate.

And I knew a few things about human theatre, because of Aric. Cayenne and Aquamarine must have really felt a bit left out.

But after some drinks, and a lot of praise for Gusty (which she deserved), people started talking about other stuff, and pretty soon there were a lot of conversations going on.

We spent most of the afternoon there, which was the longest lunch I've ever had in my life. I think Cayenne was the only one who was used to it, 'cause she'd been to some formal dinners in Canterlot.

Everyone had gotten tickets to see H.M.S. Pinafore, which was a musical play about sailors and love and I really liked it, because it kind of reminded me of home.

A bunch of Gusty's fellow actors had also watched it, and so we split up after the play was over. Cayenne said that she was going to try and crash an after party, and me and Aquamarine decided that we'd walk around town a little bit and then go back to our hotel room. Miss Cherilyn had made friends with Uzo and Ruby, and they went off to a bar together, and Miss Parker was talking to Zelda. I wasn't sure where Mister Salvatore and Mister Barrow had gone.

So we walked along the river and got caught up on what we'd done over the summer. I told Aquamarine more about flying in storms and how I was going to fly over Lake Michigan to Chicago next week, and she told me that her experiments were going really well, and said that she'd spent some more time with the horses, too, and the last time she'd been shod the farrier had done a really bad job of it and next time she was going to be smart and have a proper farrier work on her hooves.

When we got back to the hotel, both of us were ready to relax, so we got a bottle of white wine sent to our room and sat in the giant bathtub sipping our wine, and we made a bet on whether or not Cayenne would come back before we went to bed. I didn't think she would, but I was pretty confident that she'd be in bed by the morning, and we both agreed that next time we saw her, she'd smell like sex.

Fanart!

By Shachza