My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 103

“Ha ha! Sorry 'bout that. I was just practicing some of my tricks!”
They were on a road just outside of Ponyville. A deep and earnest rain that morning had made the roads muddy, so when Rainbow Dash had come crashing down out of the sky and tumbling into some poor mare, a cascade of mud had whipped up. Rainbow dash – still quick and agile even after a crash – narrowly avoided the mud, which only meant that it would splatter all over the innocent crash victim. This cute, young mare, now drenched in mud, whose name was...
Rainbow Dash saw the mare now, as if for the first time. Even with mud dripping down one side of her face, she was beautiful. Her coat was an unusual teal color, with an even more unusual pattern of white lines spiraling up her legs. Her mane was made of waves of glossy white fading into a deep, dark violet. Her eyes... her violet eyes were staring right at Rainbow Dash, who began to blush.
And then Rainbow Dash gasped because she realized she had just crashed into and laughed at a pony she didn't even know.
“Uh uh uh, uh I'm so sorry! Here, um, here I'll help you,” she muttered, stumbling over her own words as she recalled the last time she had tried to help a muddy friend of hers. Dash flew into the sky and was back in an instant, bringing with her a dark cloud. She set it beside the nameless mare, and trotted around in a circle above the cloud, careful not to stomp to hard. Rain fell, not too light of a drizzle nor too strong a downpour. The mare smiled as she took her cue, stepping into the rain and letting the mud wash off her body. When Dash asked if she was ready she nodded, and Dash put away the cloud.
Dash looked at her hoofs, slightly embarrassed, as she said, “Hey, look, uuuuuum... I think I can dry you off, but I've never done this before so it could mess up. So, can I...” Dash looked up and saw the mare giving her the strangest look – and it never occurred to Dash that she had no idea what drying her off would entail. Regardless, Dash heard her make no note of dissent, so Dash began a winged gallop, circling the wet mare. Within moments Dash had created a gentle tornado, a cyclone of wind calmed to the point of enveloping the mare with warm, dry air.
Rainbow Dash looked over the result, anxious as ever. “Your mane is a bit ruffled, but...”
“You are a marvelous pony, you know that Rainbow Dash?”
Rainbow Dash almost jumped, so startled she was at the mare's first words to her – and then her blush deepened to a conspicuous red on her coat of blue.

–

The mare's name was Patchwork. Patchwork had grown up in Ponyville with her single mother and her older brother, but then her family moved to Fillydelphia to be with her grandparents. Rainbow Dash hadn't recognized her all grown up. Back when they knew each other, they hadn't even acquired cutie marks yet. Patchwork's mark was a brown square that looked like it was stitched to her side.
“I got my cutie mark after watching a really scary play in the Fillydelphia theater,” Patchwork said, as she walked alongside Dash back to Ponyville, “Because when I slept that night I had night terrors, night terrors so bad that I somehow tore up the quilt I slept with. This quilt was my mother's before she gave it to me, and it was her mother's before she gave it to her, and so on and so on for countless generations. It's incredibly important to our family. It's a beautiful thing, truly, a melding of many different patterns that swirl together and... well, you'd have to see it. When I woke up-”
“What happens when there's more than one daughter?”
“What?”
“I mean, if you had two daughters. Who would get the quilt?”
“Oh. Our family never has multiple daughters, there's only ever one. I think one time there was a woman who only had sons, so she held on to the quilt, but then out of all the grandchildren she had only one was a girl, and so the tradition held.
“Anyway, when I woke up the next morning I was horrified to find the quilt torn, and even more horrified later when my mom told me that I had been the one to tear it. She had held me during the night, trying to calm me. When I started to cry just then, she held me again, and she explained that there was nothing to be upset about. She explained it was about time for me to make my own addition to the quilt anyway. That day she helped me sew a piece of patterned cloth of my choosing onto the quilt. When we finished, I was overwhelmed with this sense of – this sense that I'm a part of this big, wonderful family, and that my ancestors will always be with me, not only through the quilt but also watching over me, and I was so happy that I got my cutie mark.” She smiled brightly at Dash. “It also turns out that I love to sew, and to weave. Any sort of weaving, actually, even basket-weaving, which I plan to do here in Ponyville because I heard you gals are lacking a basket weaver. But if you gals didn't already have somebody to sew and patch clothes, I would want to do that.”
Patchwork is a beautiful name. This was the thought that filled Rainbow Dash's mind at that moment. She would have never before thought that something as mundane as “patchwork” could be such a beautiful name, but now she realized it was.
However, Dash knew that Patchwork hadn't always been her name.
“So that's when you stopped being called Sweetie Pie, Sweetie Pie!” Dash teased, chuckling.
This time it was Patchwork's turn to blush. “I always hated that name, and I always knew that the day I got my cutie mark would be the day that I change my name, and so I did. My mom still calls me that though, and it's actually sort of sweet.”
They trotted along for a moment. “So, Rainbow Dash... what's your cutie mark story?” the teal mare asked, with a sly grin spreading over her face.
Rainbow Dash exploded with excitement, her own grin fierce, as she sprung into the well-versed tale of the Sonic Rainboom.
Rainbow Dash never noticed that Patchwork was leading her through the longest route possible to her home in Poneyville, hoping to extend their evening of conversation. Dash would have been pleased, had she known.

–

After saying goodbye for the third time, Patchwork closed the door behind her. She sighed the content sigh of a pony who is ready to relax at home after a long day. She trotted upstairs to her bedroom, adjacent to the bedroom where her mother was most likely already asleep. These were the same rooms they had lived in years ago, the same home, the same creaking floorboards and circular windows and hallways she could navigate even in pitch black darkness. A cousin had taken care of the house while they were gone, leasing it to the occasional other pony who needed a place to stay. It was strange, living here again, just her and her mother – her brother absent because he had decided to stay in Fillydelphia to study at the college there. It was strange, being surrounded by this thin film of memory. It was sad, longing to see her grandmother again though knowing that such a thing was now impossible.
As the laid in her bed, clutching her quilt, she thought about many things. She planned out what the first floor of the house would look like when she converted it into a shop for her baskets. She wondered about what kind of welcome party Pinkie Pie would throw for her tomorrow – a surprise party that Rainbow Dash had let slip. She remembered how disconcerted Rainbow Dash was about having let Pinkie Pie's secret slip until Patchwork had promised to act surprised. She thought about how Rainbow Dash was the first pony in a long time to call her Sweetie Pie, outside her family. She dreamt of making new friends, finding old friends, and flirting with one friend in particular.

–

“Oh yeah, my practice is going great. I've got one trick I'm working on I think I'll call the Extraordinary Extra-ordinary!”
“Uh huh,” the pony replied, completely uninterested and walking off to another corner of the party.
Rainbow Dash sipped her punch, trying to act as cool and collected as possible. She saw Patchwork out of the corner of her eye, but looked away, then looked down, and concentrated on her punch. Rainbow Dash had spent all last night thinking about Patchwork, with a nervous excitement building in her gut, as if she had a performance the next day. Sleep was long in coming, and the next morning left her bruised from an unusually clumsy bout of practice, as she seemed to crash with every stray thought about her once-ago childhood friend, now returned to Ponyville.
“Hey there Rainbow Dash!”
“How are you doing?”
“You didn't tell anybody about the secret party before the secret party did you?”
The poor blue pony jumped in response to Pinkie Pie's inquiry, dropping her punch in the process and spilling it all over.
“Um, yes. I mean, yes I'm good. No I didn't keep the secret. I mean no I did not tell anybody! Pinkie Piiiie,” she entreated, “you can trust me, gosh!”
Pinkie Pie nodded, as if not really concerned anyway.
“You seem nervous Rainbow Dash. You haven't talked to Patchwork at all. Why don't you go talk to her huh?”
“I talked to her. I'm not nervous. I'm fine!”
“Uh huh. Weeeeeeell... o-kay!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, before hopping off.
As Rainbow Dash resumed sipping her punch (was it ever really spilled?), she couldn't shake the impression that Pinkie Pie knew something more than she was letting on.
Then she thought about it more and decided that Pinkie Pie is just crazy.
The party partied along for the next few hours, every pony there socializing, every pony having some fun. Patchwork was delighted to make new friends and find old ones, and Pinkie Pie was overjoyed to have given Patchwork that opportunity. Rainbow Dash sallied along the entire time, trying to act cool as she sipped her punch. There was one time when Patchwork came up to her, a bright smile on her face, and Rainbow Dash steeled her stomach, hoping to make a good second impression on the teal pony. However, she soon found that her stomach had other ideas, because as soon as Patchwork walked up Rainbow Dash realized she really needed to pee.
So much for second impressions.

After a few weeks, Patchwork was comfortably settled. Her home was fully furnished, and she was making respectable business with her basket selling. Moreover, she had once again become one of Ponyville's own. Her neighbours became her best friends, and her second best friends were Rainbow Dash's friends, the famous troupe of adventurers led by Celestia's own apprentice Twilight Shadow. Or at least, that's how they were known as in Fillydelphia, but really they were just a group of friends with a knack for getting into trouble, and Patchwork was happy to help them get out of trouble every now and then.
Rainbow Dash was a big part of Patchwork's new life. Once Dash finally overcame her initial shyness, she made a habit to go visit Patchwork during her shop hours. When there were no customers about, the two of them would talk while Patchwork busied herself, either making more baskets or working on her tapestry (a project she had wanted to do for a long time but could never find the time for in Fillydelphia; the tapestry would portray depictions of the lives of her grandparents and great-grandparents, and also her father, she had eventually decided). Dash's almost childlike enthusiasm about life made the time pass wonderfully, and Patchwork would be lying if she said she didn't appreciate the attention - and the occasional gift.
One typical afternoon:
"Hey Patchy!" Dash exclaimed. Or would have exclaimed, had her voice not been muffled by the bouquet of flowers she held in her mouth, flowers that smiled bright with every color of the rainbow, but with teal and blue especially.
"Hi Dash! I'll be there in just one moment," Patchwork called from upstairs, knowing Rainbow Dash's voice even when muffled.
Dash laid down the bouquet, and then carefully laid down the basket of flowers she had been balancing on her back.
"I got you something," the winged pony said, just as Patchwork appeared.
"You got me flowers," giggled Patchwork, her eyes sparkling, "for Valenkind's day?"
"What? No! No these aren't for you. I mean yes they are. I mean they're for your baskets, not for you, they're to make your shop prettier, because your baskets should be holding something! Today's Valenkind's day?"
"Of course it's Valenkind's day, you egghead," she said, still giggling with amusement.
Rainbow Dash kneaded the ground for a moment, and then said, "That explains why the flowers were on sale."
"Well," Patchwork began, but then Dash was telling her, "I didn't buy them though, I spent all day yesterday picking these flowers. You should have seen me! I was flying around, looking for the best spots to swoop down and gather a ton of flowers at a time. It was fun. But I had to go to Rarity to get some of them wrapped up."
"I see."
"I had to have them wrapped up so they would look all nice and, you know, cooler."
"I see."
"Do you... like them?"
Patchwork answered by kissing Rainbow Dash on the cheek.
"They're beautiful. I think I'll put these," Patchwork picked up the bouquet, "on the window, right... here."
Patchwork looked thoughtfully at her companion. "And I think I'll put you... right over here."
Rainbow Dash, flushed to a deep scarlet and standing there as if dazed, hadn't noticed that she was blocking the doorway and barring Ditsy Doo from entrance. She chuckled a bit as Patchwork pushed her to the side, which started Patchwork chuckling, which left Ditsy unable to keep herself from laughing as well.
Rainbow Dash had always regarded Valenkind's Day with an assiduous disrespect, which combined with the fact that she rarely kept track of the date meant that it was possible for her to not even notice this day's passing. Her respect for Valenkind's may not have grown this one afternoon, but she'd be lying if she said she hadn't enjoyed it.
After Ditsy had gone on he way, Patchwork mentioned her surprise that Dash could find so many flowers, the season still being in the last dredges of winter.
"I flew all over Ponyville, and I went around the edge of the Everfree Forrest too, because I suspected that they might have strange flowers in less woody areas, and I was right! Finding the right color flowers for the, uh, wrap up thing was hard too, but that's why I spent the entire day flying."
While Rainbow Dash spoke, Patchwork's imagination was lamenting the impossible. "I wish I could fly."
"Oh, that's easy! Twilight Shadow can fix you up some magic wings in No Time!"
"No no no, I wouldn't want that. Magic would be bad."
"You don't like magic?" Dash asked, seeing the appalled look on the other pony's face.
"No, I like magic just fine. It's just, I believe that any magic that changes what a pony is is evil, like for example," Patchwork looked Dash in the eye, "love potions. Altering somebody's mind so drastically that they would love another would be terrible."
"Twilight would never do that! This is just adding wings. Nothing wrong with wings, right?" Rainbow Dash gave a friendly flap of her own wings.
"Of course not. It's just that, my family has always believed that changing a pony in any way, even if it's just physical, is wrong."
"Oh, okay. Well, have you ever ridden in a pegasus chariot?"
"Once. It's not the same as flying though. Or at least, not the same as what I imagine it would be."