Thirty Minute Pony Stories

There is a snow-furred unicorn in the bed next to me, dozing gently. She is breathtakingly gorgeous. Her coat shines with a silken sheen and her flawless violet mane is kept with catlike fastidiousness. As we lay down tonight she told me she loves me, as she’d done every night. Like I do every night, I answered her with as much non-answer as I could.

I love you. “I know.”

I love you. “Thank you.”

I love you. “I care about you too.”

I love you. “You’re so beautiful.”

She never understands when I tell her these things.

I don’t love Rarity. Maybe she knows the truth and won’t admit it to herself. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking; it wouldn’t be the first time she thought she could change someone through sheer generosity.

Generosity. It’s her Element, and that makes me feel even worse for what I’m dragging her through.  She pampers me. Since we met I haven’t paid for a single meal. Thanks to her I have a closet full of hats, dresses, and more accessories than I can count. Every piece was a gift from Rarity, this wonderful pony to whom I dissemble, prevaricate, and lie each night.

She loves me without reservation. We have our moments, of course. She loves her work too, and her dressmaking area is sacred space to her. Even I get the brush-off if I linger too long when she’s working. She hates it when I hover over her or hang over her shoulder when she’s sewing or designing. Still, she forgives me. I don’t have a great concept of personal space, and I’m very clingy by nature, so it tests her to find creative new ways to send me away when she’s feeling smothered. She always relents, because she loves me.

I don’t love her. I only wanted a friend, a shoulder, a companion. What I get from her is blind devotion. I could burn her shop to the ground, shred her Gala collection, and make her friends bleed and still she’d fawn over me. It’s almost obscene. I don’t give her anything, do I? She cleans up my mess, cooks for me, clothes me, shelters me, adores me, and all I give her platitudes and pain.

I wish I could tell her that I’m not her soulmate. I wish I could tell her that I’m not in love with her, that I love her as a friend, the way she loves her own friends. I would love nothing more – the irony, I suppose – than to explain to her what our relationship really is, what it should be, and I can’t.

I can only purr and wish she hadn’t named me Opalesence. What was she thinking? Generosity, my whiskers! Maybe she doesn’t really mean it after all.

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BSB Comments:

Hehe! That was a great twist ending! I applaud you. You had me going the whole time, trying to figure out who the other pony was only to have it be Opal, and it made perfect sense at the end. This was really fun. Well done!