I’d gone to the Marris wheel for a little bit of peace and quiet. Relatively speaking, anyway. This was a carnival, you couldn’t really get away from the sound, but it was quieter at the top of the wheel. It’s something of a tradition of mine; ride the wheel at least once when the carnival came around late summer, even if that was the only thing I did. Don’t ask me why. But the wheel was a good way to take a brief break from the carnival.

Twenty minutes, however, was more than enough peace and quiet, and I was ready to get back to the bustle and noise.

The wheel’d broken when I was near the top. Lucky I had the view, at least, but I was bored. I kept flopping around in the… “car”, I guess, I don’t know the term. It was one of those ones where the seats are arranged in a circle around a central point, not a single straight bench. I wasn’t in any danger from falling out. Anyway, I was bored, and I kept trying to find a way to lie down and rest until they could get the wheel fixed. I was alone, so I didn’t even have anypony to talk to. At first.

“Hey.”

You don’t really expect to hear anypony while you’re at the top of a Marris wheel alone, so it took me a while to pinpoint the source. In the next car over, a little higher up than me, a unicorn stallion was hanging his forelegs over the sides, looking at me with vague interest. Gray coat. Plain, but he made it work well enough. Looked like he was alone, too.

He grinned. “You look about as bored as I feel.” His voice wasn’t exactly deep, but it was kind of getting there. Almost, but not really.

“Is your boredom level ‘very, very, very’?” I asked as I propped myself up. Kind of silly, just talking to him like that, but, hey, I was bored, too. I was just glad to have something else to do.

“Might want to add in another ‘very’, but yeah.”

“Then you’re about as bored as I feel.”

He grinned again. “Guessed as much.” He suddenly twitched, lowered his ears, and looked away from me. “Um, s-sorry if I butted in-” His voice had gotten a lot quieter, and I had to strain a little to hear him. “-b-but, it’s, I was just bored of sitting here, a-and you looked bored, and-”

I waved a hoof at him. “Nah, you’re fine. If I wanted to ignore you, I would.”

His ears went back up and he smiled. “Oh. Cool. Thanks.” He leaned over the car’s wall a little more, making it rock back and forth slightly, and peered down at the base of the wheel. Lots of ponies were milling around there. “How long do you think it’ll take them to fix it?”

“It shouldn’t be too long,” I said with a shrug. “The rides here are usually pretty reliable.”

He looked back up at me and cocked his head. “Been here before?”

“The carnival comes here yearly,” I said, “and I always try to go at least once. This is my thirteenth year, and the first time I’ve heard of a breakdown.”

“Huh. Yeah, that’s a pretty good record.” He looked down at his car, then at mine. “Bet I could make that jump,” he said.

I quickly scooted to the far wall of the car. “Whoa, hey, no, that’s a bad idea,” I said. “Very bad. Superbad.”

“I wasn’t going to actually do it!” he laughed. “I’m not that stupid. Just saying, I could make that jump if I really wanted to.”

“And why would you want to?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Wheel stuck like this forever and we need to climb out?”

“They’d just send up pegasi to carry us down,” I pointed out.

He flattened his ears and pouted. “You’re no fun.”

“Buuuuuut… if every single pegasus came down with the feather flu…” I looked at the next car over and grinned. “I suppose that would be pretty fun. If I didn’t fall and break every bone in my body.”

“You’ve got it easier,” he said. “It’s math. The car on your other side’s the same absolute distance away, but it’s got a greater vertical distance and a shorter horizontal distance.” As he spoke, his horn glowed, and shining lines appeared in the air, illustrating his words on a floating diagram of a circle. Which was good, because I probably wouldn’t’ve been able to follow it otherwise. I never liked math. “Long story short, you don’t need to jump as far to get to the next car as I do.”

This was kind of a silly line of conversation, but I kept it up. Not much else to do. “And what about when we get to the part where the cars are over each other vertically?”

“That’s… dunno. Hmm.” He tapped his chin and looked vaguely around. His gaze fell on the frame and his eyes lit up. “We’ll be at the point in the wheel where the spokes’re horizontal. Crawl along them to the center, drop to a diagonal one, and slide that one down to the ground.”

I grinned. “So now, whenever a Marris wheel stops, we’ll be ready. We shall never fear the Marris wheel apocalypse!”

It didn’t click with him. He frowned at me and cocked his head, making an “eh” sort of sound.

“It’s where all Marris wheels stop dead,” I explained lamely, “and not much else. It’s a stupendously boring apocalypse.” Hindsight kicked in and I wanted to slap myself. By Celestia and Luna and Cadance and Twilight and every single other Princess there ever has been and ever will be, that was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Probably one of the stupidest things I’d ever said, and if you know me, you know that’s saying a looooooot.

He paused, then shrugged. “Eh. I’ve hear-”

The wheel lurched and started spinning again. He fell completely back into his car, while I just jumped a little. “Hey!” he called down to me over the grinding machinery. “Wanna meet at the bottom?”

“Alright! First one there waits!”

We both got off in about a minute, him before me. Once the ride operators had finished prolifically apologizing to the ponies who’d gotten stuck, we started heading… off, I guess. Not anywhere in particular. Just away.

Anyway. The stallion. He looked alright. Bigger than me, but most ponies are. Kinda-but-not-really brawny, like he’d once been a bit more muscular but had stopped trying to keep it up a month or so ago. Ten bits said he used to be royal guard. Especially since his mane was growing a little in that way that means it used to be a lot shorter but isn’t anymore.

He groaned and stretched his legs out as we walked through the carnival. “So glad that’s done,” he muttered. “Those carts are just so small. Barely any room to walk.”

“You’re not supposed to be able to walk in them,” I said. “Besides, I feel fine. Wuss.” I mentally punched myself once I’d finished talking. I’d meant that last word to be a joke, but the way it came out, he probably wouldn’t see it that way.

I got lucky, and either he saw it for what it was, he let it slide, or he just didn’t notice. “Yeah,” he muttered, “but…” He coughed. “Anyway. Names. Welded Aegis.” He bowed a little. Name like that? Yeah, almost definitely a (possibly former) royal guard.

“I’m Bluebell,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here. So, uh, if you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing up there alone?” He gestured back towards the Marris wheel.

My first thought: kind of a personal question, don’t you think? Second thought: he did say “if you don’t mind me asking”. Third thought: it’s actually not that personal, and the answer’s pretty harmless. Still… “I’ll tell you what I was doing up there if you tell me what you were doing up there.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

“I came here alone and wanted to ride the Marris wheel.”

Aegis waited for me to continue. “Aaaaand…” he prompted.

“And that’s it,” I said with a shrug. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Oh, come on, that’s my reason!” he said, faux-scandalized. “You can’t steal my reason!”

“Tough. You told me to go first, so I got to use the reason first. Nyeh-nyeh.”

“Heh. Well, I guess I can tell you why I’m alone. Passing through on the train, saw the carnival, decided to take a break and take another train out when I’m done.” Aegis shrugged. “That’s it.”

“Hmm.”

I wasn’t sure why I was still talking to him. He wasn’t a creep or anything — at least, not as far as I could tell — but, well, he was still a random stranger that I happened to meet on a Marris wheel. At the same time, though, he seemed nice enough, and besides, it was still somepony to talk to. I’d come here alone, and being alone with your thoughts is fine, but there are times when I just want to talk with somebody else. Aegis seemed to be scratching that itch.

His voice jarred me from my thoughts. “Um, h-hey, I, I was wondering,” he said. He pawed slightly at the ground. “Are you, um, with anyone here?”

I was pretty sure I knew where this was going, but I asked him anyway. “No. Why?”

“Well, it’s just, I was thinking…” He coughed. “You’re alone. I’m alone. So what if we just, you know, spent the rest of the day together here?” He looked away, rubbing his neck. “I mean, I mean, if, if you don’t want to, that’s, that’s fine, but I was, just, you know, thinking that maybe we could, you know, yeah.” He swallowed, turned back to me, and grinned awkwardly. “Just for today.”

Maybe I’m crazy, but creeps don’t stammer like that. They’d try to be a lot smoother. Still, I figured I’d try one last thing. Just in case. “Sorry,” I said, “but I don’t feel comfortable talking with a stranger like this.”

“Oh.” He looked slightly crestfallen. But only slightly. He was probably figuring this would happen. “Well, then, um, sorry.” His voice still sounded strong.

“Don’t apologize, you couldn’t know,” I said, trying not to sound condescending. “It’s just, you understand, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aegis said with a nod. “Totally.” He sounded pretty honest, but I’m not sure I trust myself with that sort of thing. “Anyway, nice to meet you, Bluebell.”

“You too, Aegis.”

“See you.” He bowed a little and turned away into the crowd.

I watched him as he walked away. It didn’t look like he was looking back. Which meant he wasn’t one of those entitled or pushy types that never stopped going, Come on, it’ll be fun! and just wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. He was just testing the waters and found them not to his liking. Or, to be more precise, found that they didn’t like him. And he accepted that.

That clinched it. “Hey!” I yelled. I ducked around a family passing between us and started trotting towards him. “Aegis!”

He stopped walking and looked over his shoulder with a hopeful look on his face. His ears were very perky.

“Actually,” I said as I came up next to him, “I wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay. Okay, cool. What made you change your mind?”

That was a bit of a toss-up. Lie, say “second thoughts”, and keep a good rapport between us? Or tell the truth, say “I was testing you”, and risk bad blood with the implication that I didn’t trust him? I went with the best policy. It’d keep it from getting brought up somewhere down the line. “I just wanted to see how you’d react,” I said. “You know, some guys, they think because they’re nice, so they deserve you, and they just keep pushing.” Please don’t take this the wrong way.

“I get that, yeah.” Aegis looked up at the sky and hmmed. “So… I let you have your space when you said you wanted to have your space, so you’re letting me share your space, but if I wanted to share your space when you said you wanted your space, you wouldn’t want to share your space?”

“More or less, yeah. It’s kinda screwed up, but-”

“No, it’s, I think it makes perfect sense. It’s psychology. You’re assessing my mental state by seeing how I react.”

“Aren’t you the smart one. First math, now psychology?”

Aegis shrugged. “I read a lot in school.”

Fair enough. Besides, I knew what he was getting at. I just wouldn’t’ve used the word “psychology” to explain it. “So what were you thinking of doing together?”

“I don’t know,” said Aegis, waving a hoof vaguely. “Make trails, make hoofprints, make memories, make connections… maybe even make a little love.”

I raised an eyebrow at that.

I saw the exact moment he realized what he’d said: his ears and tail twitched and his eyes widened by several inches. His next words came out very fast. “By which I totally mean maybe just some light romance and most definitely not anything to do with the horizontal tango, nope.”

“Stop trying to sound poetic,” I chuckled. “You’ll just screw it up.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, “I guess I just don’t… Wait, did you do that on purpose?”

“Do what?” I asked. You’ll just- I slapped a hoof to my face in realization. “No. I didn’t. And I don’t even have an excuse.”

“Heh. Nope.” Aegis paused. “You, um, still okay with this?”

“Hey, if movie couples can have true love at first sight, I’m fine with a little light romance over a few hours.” And I was. I doubted it’d come to romance, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Guys who talked like that wouldn’t take advantage of you. “Speaking of which, do you need to leave for the train at some time?”

“Yeah, the last train out’s departing at, um…” He frowned and scratched his head. “…10:07.”

“Wow. Late.”

“I knew that when I got off here. You win some, you lose some.” He wiggled his hoof. “So we got until then.”

“Alright. So, here, I’m game for almost anything. What do you want to do?”

“I dunno, what do you want to do?”

“I dunno.”

Sometimes, the hardest part of a day off is just finding what to do on your day off.