Five Score And One For The Road
Chapter 29: 29. Multiplied By More
Previous Chapter Next ChapterThat night things came to a quiet close and we all ended up piling into the barn stall we were sharing. It didn’t take long for everyone to eventually find a comfortable spot, sometimes on top of someone else, and then in the dim light of the barn surrounded by friends we fell asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night my dark, warm, fuzzy sleep was interrupted. Someone slipped out near my hind legs and I saw a dim blue light behind my eyelids. I opened them, wearily, and saw the light was Comet Tail going through a bag before slowly sliding the stall door open and leaving.
At first, I tried going back to sleep. Comet Tail was probably just going to the bathroom. I figured maybe he grabbed his phone, he still had his. As I laid there though my brain was telling me something was wrong with what I saw. Eventually I realized what it was: Comet had gone through my bag, not his.
Now that I was potentially involved, I felt the need to get up too. I was a lot less adept at getting up though and had nothing but the dim light of the barn to get out of the stall.
“Berry?” I heard Carrot’s groggy voice behind me. She whispered quieter when I turned around. “Where are you going?”
I froze and wondered if it was going to sound silly to say I was checking on Comet Tail. He was a smart stallion, he didn’t need me to check on him.
“I have to pee,” I lied. After several seconds of silence I wondered if Carrot fell back asleep.
“...okay,” Carrot finally said. With that, I slid out of the stall as well. There were some ponies sleeping out there as well with blankets and makeshift pillows. Some stirred as I passed, others didn’t. None of them were Comet Tail though. I stepped out the open barn door and the smell hit me: someone’s smoking.
My cigarettes?
I followed the smell around the corner to the side of the barn facing away from the house. I spotted the orange ember glow first then could make out Comet Tail’s silhouette as I approached and stared longer. He was looking out at the stars before he turned to look at me.
“Berry?” he asked.
“Me,” I admitted. “Stealing my cigarettes?” I teased the caught stallion.
“Sorry. Couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s fine,” I said. Then, after some hesitation I went on. “...can I have one?”
“Of course: they’re yours,” he said, gently pulling one out of the pack with his blue telekinesis and delicately placing it in my mouth.
“Yeah, but you bought them,” I said around the cigarette. He snapped my lighter on at the tip and I dragged the flame back.
Sweet nicotine.
“I bought’em for you. Then I gave’em to you so I wouldn’t smoke’em all.”
I did something like a shrug and realized he might not be able to see that in the dark. “It’s fine. Getting addicted, huh?”
“Yeah. I should quit.”
“I should quit too,” I agreed.
A short, comfortable silence fell back around us for a few minutes as Comet Tail went back to looking at the stars. I nursed off my cigarette standing next to my friend. This was comfortable, familiar. This was how this all started.
I stepped closer to him and, careful not to jab him with my lit tip, I hugged him.
“I’m happy we're still together,” I told him. I nuzzled him with the side of my face without the cigarette. He brushed a hoof down my back as a safer alternative to a hug.
“I’m happy too. I'm glad we're all okay.” After a pause and our separation he asked. “You are okay, right? ...are you in any pain?” Oh, my 'stars'. I rubbed my neck slightly.
“Neck’s a little stiff,” I admitted. “Kind of just… sore all over still but nah, I’m good. I think I’m just tired.”
“Good,” he said simply.
After a silence I asked him. “Are you okay?” He did sneak out at night to smoke.
“Yeah, just… couldn’t sleep,” he repeated his explanation. I sat down next to him. If I asked, I think he would tell me.
“What’s on your mind, professor?” I asked.
He looked at me, looked away and then held a long drag before letting it go.
“Family, I guess,” he explained thoughtfully.
I think I knew what he meant, but just in case I was being self-centered I guessed differently.
“Your family?” He nodded.
“Our family,” he gently corrected.
“Ruby told me about… her father.”
“Oh. Yeah. Did she tell you what I remember?”
“...that it was a happy occasion? Meteor shower and alcohol?”
“Yeah. I think I was having a little watch party for a meteor shower. You were going to bring a barrel of wine. And… one by one everyone cancelled on me or just didn’t show up. Except you. You showed up.”
Alcohol and night skies alone. That sounded like us. I guess some things just didn’t change… and sometimes little things did, like your gender or your species.
“And then we had a whole barrel of wine and a meteor shower all to ourselves,” I tried concluding for him.
“Yup.”
“You remember all of that?”
“Not exactly. It took me a while to figure this out. I was piecing together the thoughts I had before the curse. When Minuette got Ruby away, holding you and smelling the wine you were soaked in… I thought about holding you and that meteor shower… and Ruby. It was a happy last memory. We were just really drunk and you were a good friend and I think I wanted to… help.”
“I was in heat and asking for it,” I reworded.
“I don’t think there was much coaxing. You’re a good friend and you were asking for my help, even if it was for something weird. Intoxicated, I probably just saw it as doing you a favor. There don’t seem to be a ton of stallions on the show.”
“‘What are friends for’, right?” I teased him. He chuckled.
“Something like that,” he agreed in good-humor.
Briefly, in passing, I started to wonder, with me in heat again and Comet still my friend, if he would do it again if I asked. I quickly conceded though, that no, he wouldn’t and I wouldn’t put him into that position. It was a drunken mistake he looked back on in good spirits.
I didn’t want it that badly.
“...that must have been one really pretty meteor shower,” I ended up saying instead.
“Almost as pretty as Ruby,” he told me. I thought about that and began to wonder.
Eventually I started talking before I knew what I wanted to say.
“So, you wouldn’t want to…” I said before slowly stopping. I hoped he hadn’t heard me.
“Hm?”
“No. Nothing. Sorry,” I tried to explain but I had said too much.
“Sorry about what?”
So, I tried to explain myself.
“I was going to ask about something I already knew. Ruby already explained to me that you’re just her biological father but you don’t consider yourself her dad-dad,” I spilled. I was worried he would be slightly embarrassed at the topic but after thinking about it for a moment he agreed.
“I’m not, no. I consider myself one of her best friends though.”
“She thinks of you the same way, I think,” I told him. I wondered what the difference was. I didn’t know for sure. “...you’d be a good one though, you know?” I didn’t know that truthfully. There was a blind spot in my knowledge. I wondered if Ruby felt like she was missing one. I didn’t like the pressure I felt my words put on him so I quickly started trying to retract them. “Sorry, that’s stupid.”
“It’s not. Your feelings and thoughts aren’t stupid,” Comet assured me. “...but I don’t feel like I can be that. Dads are supposed to be available to their kids. Be obsessed with them, read them bedtime stories, kiss them goodnight… I couldn’t do that.” I wondered if that was true. I wondered, if something were to have happened to me, if Comet Tail would have taken care of her. Or maybe Minuette or Carrot Top was Ruby's godmother and one of them would have.
Comet Tail gently stepped his cigarette out, put the dead butt back in the pack and then lit another. I was going to complain that'll make the rest of them taste worse but maybe that's for the best.
“...is it because it’d be like you were with me?” I asked the question I thought was at the heart of the matter. Maybe that’s what was keeping him out here.
“No. That’s not it,” he assured. He put a foreleg around my back and I nuzzled into him, just not too affectionately. “It ain’t about you. I just love her, but not like that... I love her the way I love all of my friends and you but…” He trailed off, unable to answer. “I don’t think I can love her the way she should be.”
“Right. Sorry,” I told him. “‘It takes a village’ anyway, right?”
“Sure does,” he agreed before nuzzling the top of my mane a bit and taking his foreleg back. I let the silence come back. My cigarette burnt down to the filter. I needed another cigarette but wasn’t ready to ask for one. I thought about the conversation and wanted to take a step back away from us.
“So... is that what you meant by 'our family'?"
“No. I meant all of us: You, me, the other mares, Ruby,” he explained. Oh. That family. Our ‘herd’.
“Is that what’s keeping you up? What’s on your mind?” I asked him and he finally spilled.
“Last night, I stayed up, waiting all night on Carrot’s porch... I didn’t know who was gonna show up first. One of you, or one of them,” he explained. I understood ‘them’ was the ponynappers.
“Yeah?” I asked as neutrally as I could for him to go on. I had to spit the filter out now. I saw Comet Tail pick it up in his magic, gently twist it into the dirt and deposit it back into the pack. He pulled one more out for me and we did our little ritual again until I had a new lit cigarette.
“I was scared,” he finally elaborated.
“That would have been scary,” I empathized.
“Yeah but not just for myself. For us. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to all of us. If they came… we thought they captured you. Then just Carrot. What if I scared them off and I never saw her again? Would I have to hold them for questioning? Take them hostage? What if they took me? I didn’t know what to do or how to help us. We were so focused on finding those ponies and now I had nothing else to think about but us and I didn’t know how to make us safe,” Comet explained. I heard his voice choke slightly. He wasn’t one to get worked up. I hugged him again and he reciprocated.
“Hey, we’re safe now,” I told him.
“We’re not though,” he explained warily. I looked at him in the dark, concerned. I could see the way the light glistened on the surface of his eyes. “Whether we stay here too long… or we find our way to Equestria and face Discord… we’re not safe yet. And I’m worried just playing it by ear again ain’t gonna work out as nicely. It’s a miracle we’re here.”
I agreed. It was a miracle, but a rainbow-gilded miracle. One crafted by alicorns and countless ponies smarter, faster, stronger and more in the know than us. It was a pony-made miracle.
On the spot, at like 3 o’clock in the morning though, I was a lot less eloquent than even that.
“We’ll just have to make another miracle then,” I told him.
“...like Ruby?” he guessed. I smiled at him and saw him smiling too. I didn’t mean it like that but I agreed with him.
“Like all of us and us being together.”
We hugged and fell back into that silence, just listening to nature and the cosmos beyond that. I started to really look at the stars again then remembered.
“Oh yeah! Did Princess Luna show what the stars in Equestria look like?"
“She did,” Comet said with a bit more neutrality back in his tone. “I was comparing.”
I turned back to admire the stars again.
“You should get your telescope out tomorrow and have a little viewing party! Educate us so we can appreciate it when it changes,” I suggested.
“I could, but… ” he started.
“But?”
I heard the soft stepping and scrap of hooves a way from us.
“When the humans ransacked the homestead, they took it,” the new person said. It was Carrot Top.
“Hey, Carrot,” Comet greeted her. Carrot waved and approached us.
“Oh... Comet, I’m sorry... ” I apologized to Comet.
He shrugged it off.
“They’ll be more telescopes,” Comet said, more disappointed than bitter.
“So, I overheard,” Carrot told Comet. Comet nodded, accepting.
“...how much?” he asked.
“About Ruby. About you worrying about all of us,” she explained.
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared too, but we have to help,” Carrot rejected. She rubbed the front of her bare neck with the side of her hoof. “I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts too. We can’t wait around for someone else to fix things. Discord divided us because he knows we’re stronger together. Even the mane six are stronger with all of us behind them; we are Equestria. Without us backing them up, they can’t get into place and do their thing.”
There was a long pause until Comet spoke up again.
“...could you live without us?”
“What?” Carrot asked.
“If we all died in the battle for Equestria: Berry, Minuette, Ruby, all of us, and you survived. Could you go on without us? If some of us died, could you live with yourself?” Comet asked. From his tone it was clear he wasn’t trying to guilt her, he was struggling with the hypothetical situation himself. I pressed myself against him, trying to console him.
I saw Carrot raise her head and try to stand tall.
“Yes. I could,” Carrot stated confidently. “As long as all of us are where we need to be, where we want to be, I won’t regret us doing what we have to do. I’ve lost a lot of people, but I still feel them. I still think about them. Dead or alive: the people I love made me who I am and keep me going.” Carrot gestured to me as an example. “When I was in the woods, I didn’t know if Berry was going to be alive when I found Ruby. But she asked me to find her and keep her safe and I was going to do it no matter what. It's not about living or dying, it's about trying.”
Comet nodded, looking like he had more to think about now after seeing how some of his friends felt.
“...Princess Luna feels similar, I think,” I tried rejoining the conversation. “We need all of us there. We’re stronger together: the mane six and us and all of ponykind. She... compared it to stars shining for each other. We have to be there to warm the ‘cold dark world’ for all the other stars that dare shine... or something...”
Honestly I was too sleepy to know where I was going with this.
“It’s always stars with you two, isn’t it?” Carrot asked me and Comet, amused. “I like it.”
“That’s what she told me to call these too,” I admitted feeling the ‘stars’ across my heart, the ones that represented what guided me: my friends. Carrot stepped closer to me. I thought to get a better look but instead she hugged me.
Comet pulled out the cigarette pack and offered one to Carrot Top. She waved the floating cigarette away.
“I don’t smoke. I don’t mind if you do in front of me… the smell reminds me of Papa,” Carrot Top admitted. As Comet started putting the one he offered to her back into the pack there was a swoop and flapping noise above us. Then, we all jumped when something landed next to us. It was a pegasus.
“Hey Dasher, I’ll take a smoke,” she said, revealing she was Cloud Kicker.
“Uh… it’s Comet Tail,” he corrected but floated it over to her anyway.
“Sorry. I knew it was something cute like that,” Cloud said around her cigarette.
“How long have you been eavesdropping?” Carrot Top asked the intruding pegasus.
“About as long as you were,” Cloud said. I could hear the smirk in her voice. “I was curious what three ponies sneaking off at night were doing.” She took her first drag off the cigarette and thanked the stallion.
“...this is nice. I normally don’t smoke but it’s nice sometimes in the afterglow, you know?”
‘Afterglow’? Did Cloud and Blossomforth sneak off when we fell asleep? I didn’t even notice in the pile.
“I figured that’s what you were doing. That’s gross,” Carrot Top stated matter-of-factly.
“What? That I admit I take care of my partners?” Cloud protested. Carrot apparently took a moment to re-evaluate what she said before she answered.
“No... I guess I just don’t know you well enough yet. Everything out of you is a sex joke. It doesn't make me uncomfortable but... I guess when it’s coming from somepony I don’t know well, it's just too much information.”
“Oh. Well we should get to know each other then!” Cloud suggested cheerfully. “My name is Cloud Kicker. In Equestria I was joining the Guard. As a human, I was in the reserves. My friend is Blossomforth. She’s asleep but she’d love to get to know you all better too. From what I hear, your farm was really nice, Miss Top. I’m sorry I missed it.”
"...are you making fun of me?"
"I wouldn't do that. I genuinely heard nice things about your farm and I saw all the stuff you brought."
“Oh. Well... thank you ...Miss Kicker. It was alright. It was hardly a farm. It was nothing like this place. It was just a few buildings,” Carrot dismissed.
Comet consoled her with a foreleg around her. I moved my hoof next to hers.
“It was home though, right? Minuette said it was a little off-the-grid sanctuary,” Cloud professed. I could tell Carrot Top didn't hate the compliment but she still seemed wishy-washy.
“Yes and no,” Carrot agreed. “That’s all true, but calling it ‘home’ isn’t right. I didn’t see it as home. I was there to get it ready to sell. I couldn’t live there alone. I would have gone crazy from the memories. From being cut off.”
“My bad. I kind of get it,” Cloud said. “I was kind of well off but Blossomforth was a foster kid. She didn’t really have a family she wanted to go home to on the holidays. I was sort of all she had... after my dad shipped us off to that lab, I started to understand home is a lot more than just family and family is a lot more than just those that are related to you.”
“...that’s right,” Carrot whispered as she smiled at the pegasus opening up. She looked around at all of us. “...I guess most of my home is here now.” She made eye contact with Cloud. “Including some people I didn’t realize should have been there the whole time.”
Comet and I leaned into our orange-haired pony a little more, agreeing with the statement. Cloud Kicker laughed good-naturedly.
“That is so gay,” Cloud said, still smiling. She stepped toward us and wrapped her wings around us. We embraced her. “I’m happy to be included.”
We finished our last cigarettes and all went back in together. Cloud apparently went and nudged Blossomforth awake from wherever they had snuck off to, because shortly afterwards they both came back into the stall with us. I felt a wing over my back and wasn't worried about whose it was. We slept for a few more hours until morning.
Morning being whenever Carrot Top got up, since she was always the first up. Out of curiosity we all eventually got up and started helping her make hot water cornbread and butter beans over a campfire. We decided it didn’t seem right to go inside the house and bother the ponies about breakfast when there were so many ponies here on the farm now. Especially when Carrot Top was always so eager and skillful at cooking. She also had no small amount of ingredients amassed in and around the barn.
She told other groups of ponies to take some of the food as well. By mid-afternoon I had seen ponies start leaving some things there for others to take as well. Combined with the stockpile coming from the farmhouse’s basement, food was well taken care of for now. The colder, blue morning shared with all of my closest friends, my family, gradually became a warmer, orange day with more.
A constant pour of new ponies arrived all day. Ponies were setting up tents and building temporary shelters. Ponies were coming and going across the fields and between the buildings. Ponies were cooking, filling the air with as many smells as there were sounds of foals and adults laughing and playing games. All over, people were making new friends and finding old ones. And before I knew it, it was a beautiful, bustling afternoon on the pony farm.
I wasn’t bustling though. I wasn't going anywhere. For me it was a lazy afternoon in the shade of the farmhouse. Comet Tail and two new friends, Spring Breeze and Feather Shine, were talking near me. I had been talking too, but Nathan was also sitting with us here and, one mane scritch leading to another, I found myself nodding in and out of consciousness with my head resting on his lap. There is a special kind of relaxing where the world is alive around you and you’re drifting in and out of consciousness without a worry about anything going on around you. Mostly they talked about all the ponies on the farm.
Early that morning a giant cloud made a low-pass over the farm and pegasi poured out, including Spring Breeze and her sisters. It continued making trips back over the farm all day, each time looking slightly different. At one point there were dozens of entrances pocked all around it, Greek-style pillars carved into the cloud like marble and slides hanging off the edge. It looked like a marvel of pegasus magic but according to Spring it wasn’t that complicated, it was kind of slow and had already been rebuilt after the storm a few nights ago tore it apart with them inside.
Earlier on in our conversation, when I had been more lucid, we had been talking about how Feather Shine and I looked weirdly similar, to the point even our cutie marks were identical at a glance. The biggest difference between the two of us was that she was a pegasus instead of an earth pony. Weirdly, she even had her own little Feather Pinch. We were wondering if we were related, and how, but ended up just throwing our hooves up and deciding we were probably "family".
Ruby and Feather were participating in a near free-for-all soccer game that had broken out on this side of the farmhouse. The rest of us had sat down in the shade and not long after I started getting scritches and nodding off. The barely regulated game was mostly foals and a few adult ponies keeping the sides even. There were some human kids too. The ones I could point out were Cloud Chaser’s little sister, Silvia, and Yoko who was Chris’s daughter. Or so I thought. I met them through Ruby, who had been making a lot of friends here on the farm, even more than me. Whether it was becoming a child again, or just being a child in general, all the foals quickly found camaraderie among themselves. There were jokes on the farm about "roaming packs of foals'' indoctrinating more fillies and colts into their gangs. I guess that would make this soccer game a "turf war" then.
The laughter and cheers from the playing was what kept me from completely falling asleep. One of the times I came to, I heard Comet Tail explaining to our new friends about a spell he remembered that was like a fast 'dash'. I was piqued the first time I heard it. Him and Ruby talked for hours that morning. There was lots of theory and it was cute to see them bonding. Now though, Nathan was petting me again. So I went back to being stuck between awake and asleep surrounded by friends and family new and old and I expected to stay in that sleepy limbo until dinner.
I heard a particularly loud squeal and scream coming from the field and then Shining Armor’s voice. He had been watching the game, I think he was refereeing or something. His call didn’t make any sense though.
“You! Get out of here! Get away from her!” came the stallion’s voice. His tone sounded almost… threatening. I felt Nathan shift under me and I opened my eyes.
“I saw what you were doing!” Shining berated a little girl not much taller than him. It was Yoko and when Shining finished yelling she immediately bolted, apparently terrified of the unicorn. My daughter was standing there looking between Yoko running away and Shining Armor, confused.
I saw my little Pinchy looking intimidated up at the white stallion, clearly in a mix of shock and fear at his sudden outburst. By the time I could sit up, Comet Tail was already up and walking over to Shining Armor to ask about whatever this was about.
“What happened?” I asked around our little shaded group.
“I guess Ruby and Yoko were horseplaying,” Feather offered. I saw Comet talking to Shining about it and Shining seemed to wave the whole thing off.
“Ruby, why don’t you go take a break for a bit?” Shining told my daughter while gesturing back over to me, past Comet Tail. Shining looked around and spotted the pony with the soccer ball. He made a spinning motion with one hoof. “Okay! Everything’s fine! Everyone else just keep playing!” Shining announced before walking back to his observation spot.
Comet walked back over to us with Ruby in tow. She looked about as confused as I did and I had missed the entire thing. I saw her scan the way Yoko had run then give up, apparently not finding her.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Ruby shook her head.
“We were just talking,” Ruby insisted. “Like, she was asking me about favorites and stuff. And then she asked if I was ticklish and when she saw the look on my face and threatened to tickle me I ran. I didn’t mean to scream that loud. We were just being silly.”
“We could tell. You were just having fun,” Comet Tail reassured her. He turned and eyed Shining Armor now across the field. Shining seemed to be dividing his attention between watching the game now and subtly looking in the direction Yoko ran off. “I wonder if it’s something about Yoko.”
“She’s Chris’s kid, right?” I asked, yawning.
“Yoko’s an exchange student living with them,” Ruby explained.
“Huh,” I responded dumbly. They didn’t look alike, but I figured ‘adoption’ or something.
“Does Shining not like humans?” Spring speculated.
Comet looked at Nathan and at me and frowned.
“Maybe?” Comet offered. He turned to my daughter. “Do you know why Chris is here? Who’s the pony in his family?”
Pinchy scrunched her little face in thought before answering. “...Trixie?” She didn’t sound too sure of her theory.
“Are Chris and Trixie together?”
Ruby was quick to shake her head. “No, Chris’s girlfriend is Liz.”
“Maybe Trixie’s the kids’ aunt then?”
It was an odd situation to us, why Shining was picking on a little girl. Humans that had pony family here were hardly the most unusual creatures around. There was a griffin and at least one dragon around somewhere according to rumors.
While we continued speculating on the situation, we saw Carrot Top and Minuette approach us. Minuette had offered to help Carrot cook and we volunteered to clean up afterwards. Them both coming over probably meant we were at the tasty halfway point now.
“Hey, Pinchy! Why the long face?” Minuette asked.
“Nothing,” Ruby dismissed. “I’ll ask Yoko about it later.” Minuette, Comet and I exchanged glances and decided to let it be.
“Well, the borsch is ready,” Carrot offered. “You work up an appetite?”
“I could eat,” Ruby agreed. I could too.
“Spring? Feather?” Carrot looked at the two ponies sitting with us. “Sweet and sour beet stew? With carrot and potato?”
“Oh. I need to go check on my sisters actually,” Spring admitted as she stood up and made a quick check on her feathers. “Thank you though.”
“Pinch and I just ate a little while ago and I don’t think she’s done playing yet,” Feather Shine reassured us.
“Well, come by later! Carrot’s going to show me how to make kettle corn!” Minuette insisted.
“Oh, tonight?” Carrot asked, slightly confused by the eager blue unicorn. Minuette nodded at her, with pleading, puppy dog eyes. “Oh okay. Sure! I guess I am then!” Carrot Top agreed with a shrug. She pointed at Spring Breeze and Feather Shine. “Come by tonight! Bring bowls!”
After saying our goodbyes, we all got up and Carrot Top and Minuette led us back to where we had set up.
I could smell the stew from a dozen yards away. It seemed like some ponies nearby had as well. There was a mismatched set of two cast iron Dutch oven pots sitting near a low-burning fire, right up against the ashes. That’s where the delicious smell was coming from.
Near the fire there was a canopy tent with an old fire retardant blanket spread out underneath. Underneath the canopy, nearest to the fire, some boards had been stacked up into a makeshift counter with tools and cooking equipment laying along it. Stacks of jars, spices and bowls lined the floor near the counter. We started helping each other ladle out the borsch into bowls but eventually put Nathan on ladle duty. Nathan and some of the unicorns took spoons and the rest of us just slurped at it as it cooled off.
It was sweet, earthy, a tad sour and of course, delicious.
“Hey Berry, what’re you guys eating? It smells awesome,” a nearby wandering Vinyl Scratch asked. I looked over at her and immediately noticed she had swapped out her glasses. Gone were the toy purple-framed glasses. Now she was wearing a pair that looked almost identical from the picture I had been shown of her from the show: oversized, black-framed and filled with purple, mirror-like lenses.
“Uh…” I stumbled at the cool shades then remembered what she asked. “‘Borsch’.”
“Oooh. What’s that?” Vinyl asked, intrigued. I turned back to Carrot Top for answers which she was happy to provide.
“It's probably closer to 'barszcz' but that doesn't help. It's sweet and sour beet stew with carrot, tomato, potato, onion- the usual suspects. You’re probably mostly smelling the herbs and spices: we got a little festive with them,” Carrot Top explained.
“I got carawayed,” Minuette added with a grin.
“Wow, sounds fun,” Vinyl said.
“Would you like some? We have plenty,” Carrot Top offered to the unicorn.
“That’d... be great actually. Thank you,” Vinyl accepted. “Mind if I invite a friend, though? Tavi and I were both looking for dinner.” Vinyl Scratch gestured behind her. I searched the crowd in that direction and spotted her gray friend.
“Not at all. She’s welcome too,” Carrot assured her.
“Sweet!” Vinyl replied and turned around to wave her friend over to come on. Satisfied Octavia spotted her, she plopped down near us and let out a long sigh. Presumably waiting for her friend to get over here before dishing out any food for herself.
“So… you got your glasses!” Nathan gushed. Vinyl grinned up at him.
“Yeah! Aren’t they awesome??” Vinyl said as she took them off to examine them herself. Her magenta eyes mirrored the lenses perfectly. “Applejack gave them to me.”
“Oh yeah, you’re her favorite pony,” I recalled, remembering Jack’s plushie.
“...yeah,” Vinyl said, her voice dropping slightly as she said so. “She didn’t have these until yesterday though. I guess some pony named Soarin gave them to her? He flew in wearing them. He used to be a pegasister apparently- and with good taste! His favorite pony wasn’t me too though, it was Applejack. I guess they got talking about favorite ponies and… these are mine now… to ‘complete the look’.”
“They look perfect!” Minuette agreed.
“Oh! Are those those limited edition Oakleys? I heard about those," Blossomforth asked Vinyl.
"Oh! I remember those! Those were expensive,” Nathan added. Vinyl Scratch admired the glasses one more time before putting them back on. I noted the glasses were good for partially concealing her expression.
“Yup! These things are name brand!” Vinyl Scratch agreed. “...I kind of felt weird taking them but I couldn’t say no either, you know? ‘Gotta have the shades: can’t let the fans down.'”
“Oh! This is where that wonderful aroma is coming from!” Octavia flattered our dinner host as she came up to our little encampment and made a show of taking in the smell coming from the pots.
“Please, help yourself! Bowls are next to the ladle,” Carrot Top gestured for them both.
“Don’t have to tell me again!” Vinyl said as she got up. Vinyl and Octavia filled up some bowls with stew. Then we all ate and chatted with our two musical dinner guests.
As the afternoon gave into dusk, activity slowed on the farm. The number of firepits dug out in the fields increased. The flames for each grew taller as they became less for cooking and more for light and warmth. It became clear as that night fell that it was going to be livelier than the last few intimate ones. Ponies were playing musical instruments, singing songs and telling stories. Ponies naturally flocked to the nearest, liveliest or friendliest bonfire but also intermingled freely between the friendly gatherings.
Meals were mostly all finished, but leftovers and snacks spread freely like the ponies. Spiced cider flowed and marshmallows burned. Roasted carrots and chilled fruits were coming from somewhere. Carrot Top for her part showed Minuette how to make kettle corn and before we knew it, we were on our third cauldron-sized batch of kettle corn and ponies were bringing buckets and bowls to help us get ‘rid’ of it.
At some point, Cherry Berry handed me back a mug and refilled it with hot, spiked cider. I didn’t tell anyone but I nursed it while Octavia played her cello for us in the campfire light. At Vinyl’s behest, she took a particular request from her, but compromised and played just the prelude. I could tell Vinyl didn’t mind this. I watched her as much as I watched Octavia as she played it. If the grin on her face was any indication, Vinyl’s eyes shined behind her sunglasses while she watched her ‘friend’ play as strongly as the dancing fire reflected in her shades.
I didn’t just stare at the two obvious lovebirds though. I also reflected and looked around our campfire. More ponies had showed up than just the ones that had for dinner. Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth found us and curled up together. Feather Shine and Feather Pinch helped us eat our kettle corn. Piña Colada, a small pastel pink earth filly with teal eyes was here now. Apparently I did win the Sisterhooves Social with her and not my daughter; Piña was very real. When Cherry Berry found me, Piña Colada was close behind, apparently the two knowing each other.
Lyra, maybe beckoned over here by Octavia’s playing, was welcomed with cheers and greeting around our fire. Her lyre came out and, apparently in slightly better spirits now, she played something after Octavia.
My pony family was extending.
The talk around the campfire grew more hushed at one point, not because of Lyra’s relaxing but contemplative playing, but because we were eavesdropping on Daring Do’s storytelling prowess a ways away at a nearby bonfire. She was telling the story we all told, our time changing back and getting here. I spotted Chris and his family around that fire, intently listening as well. I knew Pinchy could have seen them, but she didn’t get up from her spot on Nathan’s lap. Understandably, she was waiting to ask Yoko about what happened later: tonight was a happy occasion.
I wasn’t sure if it was just their talent as musicians or pony magic, but the musicians at our campfire had a spontaneous synergy between them. They didn’t want to play too fast or loud to overpower the storytelling, but they played together and you could swear they had practiced. I only recognized one of the duets. Vinyl occasionally borrowed Octavia’s cello and played it pizzicato, plucking it with her magic like a bass guitar.
As they played I saw Vinyl and Octavia give each other looks. Eventually, I managed to figure out the silent glances: the two were looking at the mint green pony playing with them, but she wasn’t looking at them at all. Instead she kept looking in one particular direction in the crowd. It wasn’t quite at Daring Do, circling the fire and talking about getting shot at, but off in a different direction, likely at somepony who was sitting over there and listening.
At some point our musician friends stopped and we all just listened to Daring Do, or I thought we did. The gold pegasus who had been slowly hovering around the bonfire narrating, building tension, made a dramatic flying swoop as the plane she was in, in her story, was blown out of the sky. It was clear why everyone was listening: she said she discovered her special talent was finding lost things but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was telling stories.
I quietly glanced back around our little group to see if they were as impressed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Octavia whispering and smiling at Lyra. Vinyl could apparently hear and was nodding approvingly as she kept glancing past them in the direction Lyra had been staring. After a few more minutes of this, Lyra and Octavia stood up and excused themselves.
“Pardon us: mare business,” Octavia whispered to me and the rest who turned to see them get up. Everyone else went right back to listening to Daring Do’s story but I watched the two of them walk away into the dark and then continue talking away from the campfires.
I was so lost in trying to figure out what they could be talking about I was surprised when everyone started clopping their hooves and stomping the ground. Looking back at Daring Do’s audience, I realized she finished her story and I missed the ending. It was definitely finished because after the applause some ponies left and Chris stood up and darted away quickly, like he had been holding it in until the story was over.
As the story circle broke down into chatting among themselves and asking Daring more questions, I saw Octavia and Lyra took this opportunity and approached the circle. Octavia walked right up to a cream-colored pony with half-blue and half-pink hair and began talking with her. The pony reacted cheerfully and seemed like a friend of Octavia. Lyra stood back a few feet, as if waiting to join the conversation.
“Anypony want to go next?” Daring Do asked the crowd.
“Oh! Oh! Me!” cheered a small unicorn near her. I recognized her immediately. I think most of us did. “My name is Little Horn! Before I came here, Discord made me really sick with poison joke! And when I was changing back, I got sick again and was put in the hospital. And...”
I had heard the story before, a few times now actually. Instead I helped clean off the last pots and pans with Minuette. It was probably time to wind down, just not all of us had decided to yet. Cloud and Blossom snuggled into each other under the nearby blanket. Octavia and Lyra were still talking to the other pony. Cherry Berry and Piña Colada went off to bed. Feather Pinch was yawning but Shine was letting her stay up to hear “one more story”. Even if Nathan wasn’t ‘trapped’ under the sleeping filly on his lap, he was listening intently to Little Horn’s story like he was to all of the ones before. Vinyl Scratch absent-mindedly watched Carrot Top and Comet Tail separate the embers in the fire from the less burned twigs.
“...we need to throw a concert,” Vinyl Scratch declared after several minutes of silent contemplation. My friends and I turned to look at her.
“A concert?” I asked, remembering her talking about how this place looked like a music festival the other day.
“Yeah. A big one,” Vinyl went on. “We got all this talent around us and all these ponies having a good time tonight. We need to celebrate. Like, organized. This is something magical that’s happened, you know? All these ponies together again, after a death and a rebirth. This might be the largest gathering of ponies in twenty-five years.”
“Feather?” Comet Tail asked, both Pinch and Shine looked up but only Shine kept looking at him, Feather Pinch going back to Little Horn’s story. “How big is the group out in Montana?” Comet Tail asked her. Shine took a second to think.
“Hard to say. Lightning Dust’s farm is bigger but I think there’s more ponies here,” my pegasus twin speculated.
“Well that’s that then: we gotta do it!” Vinyl decided.
“Do what?” Octavia asked as she came back over to us.
“A concert! These ponies need a celebration! Without festivities this place looks like a refugee camp,” Vinyl complained. I glanced past the two to see what had happened to Lyra. She was talking with the cream-colored pony all on her own now.
“...you know, this essentially is a refugee camp, right?” Octavia asked her with a perked brow.
“Exactly! And it shouldn’t be!” Vinyl insisted. “Ponies came a long way to find this place and have gone through some amazing stuff. Tonight’s shown me they want to cut loose. What a better way to do that than to organize something!” I watched Octavia’s skepticism melt from the enthusiasm.
“I suppose asking for permission wouldn’t hurt,” she admitted, smiling back at her excited unicorn. “I’d love to help.” Vinyl stood up and hugged her.
“Thanks, babe! We’ll ask around and see what kind of equipment and talent we can get our hooves on,” Vinyl explained as she started to get visibly giddy. “This is going to be so awesome!”
“You still need to get permission first,” Octavia reminded.
“Oh I will! But I know Applejack will say yes; she wanted to meet DJ pon3, I’m going to show her I’m right here by organizing a music fest on her farm!”
Minuette started giggling.
“Jack and the Ponestock!” she said as she let us in on the joke. From the storyteller circle I could hear Little Horn’s story breaking down into telling us about each of her friends. Apparently losing the crowd, I heard somepony say something a little louder so more ponies would hear her.
“Hey, you know who’s story I want to hear?! Derpy’s!” she exclaimed. There were murmurs of approval and ponies started looking around for the gray pegasus, including our group perking up and looking around.
“Derpy’s here??” Nathan asked a little louder than he meant to as he looked around. I saw Pinchy sit up and rub one of her eyes, slightly confused. “Oh sh- sorry!” Nathan cooed as he went back to petting her. It was for the best anyway, she needed to get up soon.
“Derpy? Has anyone seen Derpy?” someone in the crowd called out.
“Hey, wasn’t she watching the foals with you all day?” someone else asked someone in the crowd.
“Huh. I was going to say… ” Cloud Kicker suddenly said from our side. We all turned to see her walk out from under the canopy with our folded blanket tucked under her wing. She looked towards us and Blossom. “I could have sworn a pony named Derpy was helping me set up cots in the barn after lunch.”
“Grey pegasus, blonde with special eyes?” Blossom clarified. Cloud nodded.
“That’s the one. We were going at it for like six hours,” she agreed. Blossom rolled her eyes at the innuendo.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah. Bubble butt, right? I couldn’t forget her,” Cloud asked. Blossom cringed but reluctantly nodded at that description.
“Well then…” Blossomforth looked back to the crowd and took a few steps forward, presumably to put their two bits in on Derpy. Then someone else spoke up.
“She wasn’t foalsitting! She was collecting firewood. She was with that friend of hers: the one with the bowtie.”
“Derpy was with me. I think I know who Derpy is,” the first pony shot back.
“Then you would know she doesn’t like that nickname! Her real name is Ditsy!”
“Bowtie friend…who? Oh! The doctor pony?” said someone else.
“Oh, is that you?” someone asked a woman who had been sitting quietly with a yellow pony with a leg in a cast. The woman raised her hands defensively.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about... and I’m not a pony doctor; I’m an equine veterinarian,” she clarified. The crowd’s conversation started breaking down as more ponies spoke up about Derpy’s whereabouts. Most of which had to be speculation because there were more ponies reporting sightings.
Blossom looked at the ponies in our little group, equally confused as the rest of us.
“Ditsy??” one of the ponies called out. There was no apparent response among the disbanding crowd.
“Muffins?” a pegasus called out, rising over the crowd for a better view.
“...Fractal?” a dark blue pony with a plushie tried another name.
“...Bright Eyes?” someone else said. There was no response to that name as well. Wherever Derpy had been, she apparently wasn’t here now.
“Alright, crowd control time,” Vinyl muttered as she was already approaching the larger bonfire most of the ponies were crowded around. “Hey! Octy and I got a story we can tell! Don’t we, babe?” Vinyl said before glancing back over at her ‘babe’.
Octavia, with her cello case hefted onto her back, followed after her. From behind, all I could make out was the fish-eating grin on Vinyl’s face reacting to whatever face Octavia was making. There were gasps and cheers from the crowd.
“It’s Vinyl Scratch!” somepony shouted. There were ponies murmuring as everypony else seemed to settle back down from the rabbling crowd.
“It’s time for bed, Pinchy,” Feather told her little filly. She stood up and prodded her to stand.
“But I’m not tired,” she whined even as she stood up to leave. “I want to hear Vinyl and Octavia’s story! I didn’t even know they had a story!”
“We can ask them about it tomorrow. Velvet is probably sick with worry,” Shine said with finality as she slipped her little one onto her back.
“Alright, fillies and colts!” Vinyl Scratch said after gathering her thoughts for a moment. “It was 106 miles to St Louis, we had a full tank of gas, half a bag of chips, it was dark out, and I was wearing toy glasses...”