Tangled Up in Blues

Written by The Descendant

Chapter 3: "The Appleoosa Blues"

Moody stopped playing, lowering his sax, and I wrapped up the song by myself. I know that when he did this he had some bit of wisdom he meant to impart to me.

I had come back to Manehattan, but stayed in youth stables, not wanting to bother my parents with my current problems.

Instead, I spent an inordinate amount of time with Moody. He was patient…let me tell him about Seafoam and Cake in my own time.

He stopped, set down the new sax, the one with his initials beneath the neck screw, and turned to me.

"Colt, 'yah know what a stallion is 'fer…what we're made tah' do?'

I blushed brightly.

"Head out o' dah' gutter, colt! Out o' dah' gutter! I don't mean it dat' way!"

He shakes his head. He stops, looks to the horizon, then back at his sax. He looks older, even older and more tired than the last time I had seen him.

"Tho' I will impart dat' a stallion who can't satisfy his mare ain't much of a stallion at all…and dat's all I'm gonna say 'bout dat…"

I nodded.

"No colt, Blues, what I'm sayin' ain't 'bout da' body. I'm talking about in da' heart…"

He wasn't speaking of the physical aspect, but instead he was trying to tell me something about what it took to be a successful stallion in a mental sense. I put down my sax, his old one, and listened as he gave me the benefit of his wisdom.

"All ponies made up o' three parts, like a movement of ah' song. The body, da' heart, da' spirit…and in da' heart a stallion he is like a sponge," said Moody, letting the accumulated spit flow from the sax and out into the street.

"He can gather up da' pain of his mare, his foals…even his friends. Dat' what's a stallion's for, Blues…tah' be strong in da' heart, a place where others can git' gathered on up and put back in place, find ah' safe harbor…"

I didn't know why he had chosen to give me that piece of information at that moment, but I took it to heart. Perhaps he had remembered some mare from his life recently? Perhaps he had seen some mistake I'd made in my relations with with Seafoam? Maybe it was just some random utterance.

I pondered what he had said earlier and asked, "So, what about the third part? The spiritual part?"

He looked off into the distance, towards where Celestia's ward was dipping beneath the horizon. Without looking back to me he intoned, "Somepony smarter dan' old Moody Blues will tell ya' dat someday, Blues."

With that he rubbed my mane, went up the steps, and turned on the porch light, leaving me alone in the street once more. The next day I left Manehattan.

"Sorry kid," said the ticket agent with a sigh, "Ya' just don't have enough bits for a ticket."

Typical.

I had made for the railhead at Omareha, and despite a driving rain I had found my way there within a few weeks. I'm not the outdoors type, so I had to spend money on flophouses and restaurants, and all of the bits I had saved under my springless couch in Ponyville seemed to have only gotten me so far.

I walked out onto the platform of the station and got my first look at a train. It was at once amazing and confusing. It was a passenger train, and before it stood four huge stallions, each one larger than me, panting for breath, drinking gallons of water by the bucket.

Behind them was a…thing. I asked them what it was, and they called it a "locomotive". I asked them if it pulled the train, guessing at its purpose. Instead of answering they looked at each other in confusion.

Whatever, I didn't have the time to ponder such oddities. I flipped open my sax case just as the ponies begin stepping off the train. I saw the stationmaster looking at me as I lifted my sax to my lips…

"Is, is that alright?" I asked.

He nodded, and I started to play. As the notes drifted around the ponies they met family and friends, they laughed and they breathed easier. I realized that only those traveling alone stopped to hear my music…only those with bleary eyes and sore hooves.

Soon the platform cleared, and it was only the ticket agent, the stationmaster, and I. They were older stallions, ponies who I sensed had seen much in their lives. They stared at the platform and sighed as my music ended and I gathered up the few coins I'd been thrown.

I approached them with the entirety of my coinage in hoof. I could already tell that it was not enough and my head dropped again, staring at Moody's hoofwritten label on the inside of the case.

Oh, Moody…

Painted blue.

The two railroad ponies stared at each other as the passenger train left, and then the ticket agent spoke. "Kid," he said, looking over his withers into the station, scanning it for ponies, "there's a freight train waiting up in the siding for the passenger train to clear. They're gonna come on down and get some water and take a break, and if, say, you happen to accidentally hop into a freight car while they're doin' that…well, won't nopony say nothin'."

Two hours later I was seated among boxes marked "Hamdingers" in an open boxcar as we flew across the Southwestern Reaches. I took out my sax and played as the sun set on a dusty horizon.

Trains and the blues seem to go well together. "I'm leaving, leaving on train, not going anywhere," sings my song to the desert beyond the boxcar door, "not caring as long as it can outpace my memories."

The train stopped in a siding early the next morning. I slid off and tried to hide until it left. Unfortunately I slid off right into the big cistern the crews used to water themselves.

Painted blue.

I walked up to the station in the distance, hoping that there's a sign that can tell me exactly where in Celestia's name I am.

"Appleoosa" it read, and I crossed through the waiting room into the village. I've not seen anything like it. It didn't look like any other place in Equestria I've ever traveled through. It is dusty, dirty, and ramshackle. Even at that early hour the sun was beating down, causing a palpable humid haze to hang over the place.

I ducked back into the station. There was a "Lost and Found" bin by the door. I reached in and grabbed out a big hat, then headed out into the village.

My first priority is to find a job and place to live.

"You'd think we coulda' found ah' bell keeper by now," sighs a mustached pony to my left.

"'Specially with the free room that goes with it," added a vest-wearing pony next to him in a sad tone.

Easy enough.

I listened as the clock chimed the early morning hour, and they are impressed when I'm able to get it to sound the correct notes for the first time since it was installed.

"Whattcha say yer' name was, colt?" asked the mustached one, Sheriff Silverstar.

"Blues."

"Nice ta meet ya' Blues!" added Braeburn, the vest wearing one.

"Well, thank ya', thank ya' kindly," I added. They both stared at me until the sheriff spoke again.

"Yer' accent is ridiculous…" he said with a smirk.

"Just speak as ya' usually would 'till it comes natural," laughs Braeburn as I shrink in embarrassment.

My room was small, and located as it was just below the bell tower meant that I had to become accustomed to the tick-tock of the mechanism. For the first few days I lurched around in sudden shock and surprise whenever the hours and quarters chimed. The bed was jammed beneath an overhang and my first night is spent walloping my head against it in alarm on an hourly basis.

I attempted to move the bed, but as the clock chimed again I lurched out of my dreams and nearly fell through one of the unusually shaped windows.

Painted blue.

I couldn't be at home at the height of the day. There was no cross-breeze, even with the odd windows open. I ended up planning my day around sources of public water, and I sought these out as I tried to meet ponies in the village.

I soon realized that making money off my music wasn't going to work. There's a social scene, they have wild (and mild) dances, but the music isn't what I'm used to playing, and the blues doesn't seem to go over well.

I stared sadly at my sax as I left it alone as I evacuated the bell tower for the day and went looking for work. Apart from the free room my pay as a bell keeper is largely symbolic, and my room doesn't even have a stove.

Not that I needed one. I could cook pretty much anything by just leaving it on a rock outside.

I needed to find a better job.

"What we need," said a pony to my right as what appeared to be his employee nodded, "is a colt who's looking for work."

Convenient.

Express ran a carriage company. He explained to me that he isn't getting much business, and he wants to just show off his nice new carriage, let ponies see that he's open and ready for business.

"So," I asked, "basically, what yer' saying is my job will be tah' ride around in the carriage while Apple Slices pulls, and then we switch?"

"Yup," he says, then frowns, "Yer' accent is ridiculous by da' way, stick with yer' Ponyvillish…Ponyvillian, Ponyvillandarian…"

"Yes," I said, intentionally interrupting, "Yes, I believe that will work…the job. Thank you."

And so it went. I pulled the carriage one way, Apple Slices pulled it back, he pulled up one street, I pulled it down the other, all the while showing off Pony Express Carriage Company's "awesome ride".

Sometimes it's unbearable to be pulling it, when we're out in the mid-day sun, and sometimes it was so hot in the carriage that you wish you were pulling. Still, at times there's a breeze through the carriage and I can take a quick nap.

Every once in a while we actually got a customer, someone wanting to get down to the station in time to meet a train, or some lovers looking for a "in-town" getaway. We both pulled then, quickly for the former, slowly for the latter. Apple Slices is a great guy. It's not back-breaking work, but it is tedious, and tiring…always tiring.

I get off work about three, and one day before dinnertime I wandered down into the one valley where the apple trees that all of these ponies depend upon for life itself grow. There, in the grove, I felt the leaves absorbing the heat, a breeze blowing through, and for the first time since I arrived in Appleoosa I could breathe easily.

A river ran through it, and before I knew what I was doing I found myself sliding down the bank into the cool waters.

Only once I've let out a long sigh of contentment did I realize that I'm not alone. The most beautiful mare I'd ever seen is staring at me with wide eyes, her face just above the waterline. "Umm," I said, my own surprise evident, "Nice day fer' ah' swim, ain't it?"

She slowly raises herself up to look at me, the water streaming out of her yellow mane.

"Your accent is ridiculous," she says, paddling a little.

"Sorry," I said, returning to my usual tone, "I'm still kinda new. The accent is just kind of coming along."

"Where ya' from originally?" she asks, gracefully drifting along on the surface.

"Ponyville, well…most recently."

She stops in mid-stroke, darting back to upright and walking through the water towards me. The effect is spectacular, the water falling off of her, sparkling in the beating sun.

"No foolin'?" she stated. We talked for a great long while. Her name was Cherry, a classic Equestrian name. I find that she herself had lived in Ponyville. In fact she had a little grove of her namesake fruit, and a cart to sell them in the city.

"Why did ya' leave?" I asked, leaning back into the cool shady bits beneath the trees. She followed.

"Parasprites…ate, ate everything," she said, her shoulders coming up, her head going down, "Were you there when they came, the parasprites?"

"Yes, yes I was," I answered, remembering, "I lost my apartment."

"You rebuilt?" she asks, looking up to me.

"Yes, the whole city, actually…it came back together. Not just me, of course, but all of us…together."

She said nothing. As I watched her think I suddenly get an unfamiliar twinge of remembrance…and I realized that I'm homesick. I shook that nonsense off as quickly as possible.

Cherry stood again and started making her way up the bank.

"Do you have any plans for dinner?" she asked.

That night I had the first decent home-cooked meal I'd had since I'd arrived in Appleoosa.

Her place was small, but cozy…okay, mostly just small, but it had a porch. After dinner we sit out there and watched the sun descend on the horizon.

"You worked where?" I asked, startling a little bit at the news. She had worked in the salt mines there in Appleoosa. Even as she says it I can't imagine a beautiful mare like Cherry working in such a place, buried alive down there.

"Thar' were plenty of accidents," she says, "but at least it was cool down there. I couldn't take them long hours though…I'd go in before dawn and come out after nightfall. I quit. Told 'em tah call me back if they ever put in windows!"

We laughed at her joke, and she tells me about living here. She's a very…very hard filly. Her life has been hard. She's worked and struggled for all she has. How unlike Seafoam, who breezed back and forth…

No, I wasn't going to think like that. I wasn't "going there".

It does get cold on the edge of the desert, where we were. She brought out blankets and we lay on the porch watching the stars wheel about, seeing an occasional meteor dart through the sky.

As I started to fall asleep I felt something amazing, something I hadn't felt for weeks. Cherry had slid beside me, her side to mine, and I could feel her breathing, feel the beating of her heart.

These comfort me as I drift off into the realm of dreams.

I awoke shivering, the cold biting into me. I looked around and Cherry was not there. The door to her little cabin was closed…and locked.

I walked through the cold morning streets to my bell tower abode, all around me silent in the pre-dawn darkness.

Painted blue.

For months, this is how my life went. I wound the clock, checked to see if it was still in tune. I'd report to work and go and get all sweaty and tired…then a swim with Cherry, some small talk, and dinner. Go home.

Repeat, redo, recycle.

On my days off I spend time with Cherry, usually down in the apple grove where she works. She doesn't get "a day off"…she depends on these apples to live. I sense that she's very happy that I help her, as I remembered all that I had learned from the Apple family and help her gather them, bucking the trees and making them fall.

But I can only sense it. She doesn't tell me. She doesn't tell me anything. She's keeping me at a distance, and I can only guess why.

One day, as I returned from this activity, I saw one of them.

A bison, one of the buffalo tribesmen who occupy the world beyond Equestria's southwest border.

He made his way through the grove, looking over the trees with a judging expression on his face. I slipped behind the trees, not knowing what to do or say. I had seen non-Equestrians before, donkeys were commonly met in many of the places I'd lived, and I had met perytons as well…

But this dude was huge.

As I watched he started up the hill towards the village. From out of nowhere two more joined him, and I realized that they had been right here in the grove with me…probably watching me.

The next day I heard that the meeting between the big bison, who was apparently the chief of his people, and Sheriff Silverstar hadn't gone well. The trees, it seemed, were a problem, but how?

I don't understand, and like everyone else I wander around in a daze, wondering what would come of it.

A few days later I was riding in the carriage, napping when possible, when we came to a resolute and sudden stop.

"Okay, you pull now," said Apple Slices, waking me from my deserved slumber.

"Aw, we just switched!" I answered, giving him a cold stare.

"Yer' accent is still terrible!" he answered.

As I prepared to defend my linguistics I heard Braeburn speaking in the distance. I looked up and down the street and there, beside the inexplicable ponies who sit around and draw us every day, were four ponies speaking with Braeburn.

I looked at them, and in an instant I dived back inside the carriage.

"Hey now Blues," spoke Slices, hurt apparent in his voice.

"In Celestia's name, Apple, give me another block!"

After an uncertain moment he started again, and I'm left pondering why four of the most beautiful mares that had ever entered my life, and had brought it such pain, had come to Appleoosa.

I owed Apple for his understanding, so I took a longer turn. As I did we weren't exactly the most picturesque sight. I was distracted, my mind wandering…I wandered up and down the same street…I ran over various inanimate objects, I got the carriage hung up on the railroad tracks.

If they were here…

Painted blue.

I talked to Cherry as we went for our swim. I told her about how I had seen more Ponyville ponies arriving. By the end of the next day Pinkie Pie…and Dash…had showed up too. She had heard rumors that one of Braeburn's cousins was bringing him a special tree to celebrate the success of Appleoosa.

It was only then that I realized that Braeburn was related to Big Mac and his sister Applejack. I wish somepony would tell me these things in advance.

"So, these mares," she says, bobbing along in the blessedly cool water, "Were you…romantic at all wit' any of 'em?"

"What? Oh, no, in Luna's name, no," I protest, but then I stop quickly, thinking on it, "But…but I can't say I didn't know them…in fact Pinkie Pie was very kind to me…gave me Cake."

"So, did you date much…in Ponyville?" she asked, taking the conversation in a direction I hadn't expected.

"No, just this one mare, Seafoam," I said, speaking aloud that name for the first time in months, "a unicorn. How 'bout you? Ya' have a special colt back on up in Ponyville?"

"Yer' accent's still ridiculous," she said pithily, slowly sinking down into the water until her grey eyes, yellow mane, and nose alone stuck up above the waterline. She regarded me balefully, and I turned from her gaze.

Her life, I gathered, must have been very hard…must have already have been very difficult when she arrived in Ponyville, let alone when she came here.

I was becoming more like her, more like all of them. I couldn't even remember the last time I picked up my sax. I was changing, becoming harder.

Maybe someday, I thought, if I kept at it, I'd be hard enough for her to break against…to let her just smash herself open and all of her pain drain away. Could I be like that?

Moody, is that what you meant…

We came out of the water and walked up to the village.

There, to my amazement was the assembled population of all of Appleoosa, and in their midst stood at least a dozen of the bison.

As we stood in the crowd I saw Sheriff Silverstar and their leader, Thunderhooves, talking. I tried to eavesdrop on them, but before I could make sense of it Pinkie Pie burst out onto the stage and started dancing and singing.

"Why's she dressed as a harlot?" asked Cherry as Pinkie launched into her song, Twilight's pet dragon playing along on the piano.

"That's not fair," I said as the music played, "she's dressed as a burlesque mare".

"What's the difference?" she asked.

"'Burlesque' has three more letters," I answered with a smirk.

Cherry rolled her eyes, and we listened as the song ended. Pinkie had put her all into it, and I saw her happy face beaming out into the crowd as it came to an end, but soon it shrinks away…there is no clapping.

I am hard, that place has taken something from me. Usually I would have applauded anything Pinkie did…but at that moment I had no heart for it, and I'm not sorry to say that I'm ashamed of it now.

Soon there are words…soon there are threats, and escalations…and soon we the enemies of the buffalo.

Soon we are organizing, preparing to defend our ramshackle little village, preparing to hold on to the few things we have.

That night there is no swimming. That night I go from place where I am needed to place where I can help, and Cherry does the same. I look up every once in a while, and more than once she is looking at me. I couldn't quite tell the expression on her face. Was it fear, worry, concern? None of these? All of them?

As the sun goes down I wander the street looking for some way to help build the defenses, but soon all that we can usefully do in one day comes to an end.

I feel a hoof on my foreleg. "Let's go on down un' get us some dinner," she says, and we trot off to her cabin.

She's a better cook than me, but I did what I could to help make dinner, as I had each night she'd invited me in. As we eat we talk, then head out to the porch.

"Do you hate the buffalo?" she asks, her Ponyville dialect at the fore.

"No, no…I don't hate anypony or anything," I answer, "I don't think I ever have."

"Me 'neither," she answers in her Appleoosa accent, "It ain't fair though, makin' us move the trees…"

"Ah reckon they got their reasons fer' wantin' 'em gone...just wished they'd explain 'em," I said with a sigh.

"Yer' accent is still ridiculous," she said with a laughing snort.

There was a long pause as the setting sun painted the sky purple and orange. I caught myself wondering if Princess Celestia "felt" each setting sun, if she was aware of it going back over to nature, as she spun the world back to gravity and whatever forces it were that yanked it around the other side of the planet.

Did it feel uncomfortable? Did it hurt her? Did it give her the blues?

"Blues," said Cherry, snapping me back from my philosophical ponderings, "You'll be careful tomorrah', right?"

I looked back to Cherry, saw her looking right at me. As soon as our eyes met she dropped hers, looked to the space beyond the porch, and then up to the sky.

"Yes," I answered, "You will too, won't ya?"

She didn't answer in words. The wall, the one she'd built to protect herself…it was still there. Instead, she lifted the blankets and laid one across me. She wrapped herself in the other and laid against me, laying her head against mine, the sweet scent of a mare filling my nostrils as sleep embraced me.

That night was warm, and we were both very tired, and worried. The next morning I awoke with her still slumbering against me for the first time since we'd been spending the evenings on the porch.

I let her rest there as long as I physically could, feeling her breathe, until the sun was full in the sky…until my muscles ached and I was in desperate, desperate need of the little colt's room.

I nuzzled her and she awoke with a startle. She looked to me in surprise. Silently and wordlessly she stood and entered her cabin.

I headed into the village. It was already eight-thirty, and ponies were at work preparing barricades.

I was put to work closing down the shutters of public buildings. I heard the hurried voices of the Appleoosans all around me, but also the pontificating voices of the Ponyville ponies.

Cherry is working with me as none other that Her Royal Majesty's Designate Twilight Sparkle approached us. Twilight began speaking, pleading with us about this or that. I realized that she didn't recognize me…or Cherry. As she continued I looked to Cherry. Her expression became hard, and mine with her.

We jumped, to no pony's amazement more than my own, through an open window of the cider press, and quickly ran down the aisles closing the windows.

As the time draws near I am positioned by Braeburn and the sheriff atop my clock tower along with some others, and given my ammunition.

Pies, apple pies. There was a part of me that simply wanted to eat all my ammo and lay on the roof soaking in the sun as the whole village burned. Pies. I couldn't believe it. Oh well, stick with what you know, I guess.

"Are buffalo allergic to pie?" I asked nopony in particular. I looked for Cherry, and I saw her down against a haystack barricade. Suddenly my thought of eating my ammunition was gone. I stretched my throwing leg.

I was powerfully worried about her…I wanted her up on the clock, safe. I began to make my way down to force her switch with me…but as I do noon began to chime. I realized in the confusion that it had been days since I last wound the mechanism. I wondered if the bison would wait for me to wind it up if it stopped after the third chime or so…I wondered if I could stop this whole thing if I never did.

I chuckled at my idea…no time to ponder that then and, I thought, there'd be time to wind it later.

The bison roared into the village, and I was just as guilty as any for throwing pies at them. I must have thrown a dozen…Celestia alone knows if it did any good or ill.

I panned back and forth, trying to see what I should do, where I should throw. As I do I see Cherry, her face wide in alarm. As I watch a buffalo demolishes the hay bale barricade. I watch her go sprawling, see her stand and run off.

I looked up and down the street, searching for her. Instead I saw a big bison running straight towards the tower. He is bellowing in pain and shock as, I assume, the cinnamon got into his eye.

The poor fellow runs straight into the damn clock tower.

The whole building shook, it wobbled terribly. With a resounding crack the masonry split.

I watched in fascinated horror as my place of employment and living space went crashing down into the main street of Appleoosa.

Painted blue.

I watched as everything that I owned went sprawling out into the street, and a sudden revulsion of knowing that I'd been sleeping in a building that couldn't have survived such an impact made shivers run up my back.

As I looked down into the remains of my personal belongings and the devastated mechanism I see their leader, Chief Thunderhooves, stamp defiantly across my stuff. He missed my sax case by inches. He snorted and spotted Sheriff Silverstar…

In my mind I saw Moody's sax smashed flat, his beautiful hoofwritten label ripped to pieces. Suddenly, I was very angry.

As he charged at the sheriff I reached back, pie in hoof, and concentrated. All of my pain, suffering, and disappointment flowed from me into the pie. I locked him down with my eyes, and with a bellowing scream I let the pie fly through the air.

I missed him by about eight feet to the left. Somepony else got him though, and down he went.

I am already down into the street as the ponies and buffalo begin sobbing together. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. If all it had taken to end this nonsense had been for the two leaders to have gotten some pie on their faces I'd have done the service myself. I'd have rubbed it right into Silverstar's face too, and I liked him! Let him throw me in jail…it was cooler in there than in the bell tower!

I didn't think about any of this at the time of course. Instead as events played out around me I looked for Cherry.

I found her down a side street. "Are you okay?" I asked, "I saw yah' get thrown back there…ya' didn't break anything didja'?"

"Naw…just, just shaken up a tad," she said. I instantly became worried. She hadn't make fun of my accent.

"But are you okay?" I asked again as I lowered my head to hers, laid it against hers. She bolted, then relaxed, laying hers deeper into mine, resting against me…

…for all of about four seconds.

With that she stood, and walked back out to where Chief Thunderhooves, now recovered, was talking. She didn't even stand near me.

I'm not hard enough. Not hard enough to break down that wall, not hard enough for her to crash against and split open, letting the pain run out.

Moody's words rang true. What else is a stallion for, but to do that?

I help remove the trees, like a good citizen of beloved Appleoosa. "Dinner?" she says after we watch the buffalo run off, pies atop their heads. In the village they held a potluck and party for the Ponyville ponies. We didn't go. Instead we sat around silently, eating, watching the sunset, and falling asleep on the porch.

I bolt awake at about four in the morning (not that I can tell with the clock gone). It is freezing. I am alone. The door of the cabin is closed…locked.

Painted blue.

I fold the blanket and leave it in front of the door. I go hopping and bucking down the street in an effort to fight the cold as I make my way downtown.

There, among the remains of the party the night before and the forlorn waste of the clock tower sits my saxophone case, untouched either in the battle or the revelries that followed.

It is the only thing of mine, apart from the hat I had been wearing since I arrived, that I take with me.

Inside, miraculously, are my earnings. I walked to the station, and sat there as the village came awake. I watched as the Appleoosans began their day, as they greeted each other and made small talk. I saw Braeburn and Sheriff Silverstar looking over the damage, I saw Apple Slices trotting up to the restaurant for his breakfast before reporting to work. Express canters by as well, not noticing me.

I wondered if they'd even notice that I'm gone…if they'd even care. Any of them.

That's not fair. They aren't bad ponies…they are each and every one of them industrious, tenacious, and very rooted in the earth magic as any good earth pony should be. But, they are hard…so very stoic, and I can't be that.

I'm dozing as the stationmaster arrives. As he does, so does somepony else.

"Yer' leavin'?" she asks.

I had been nodding off, the sun finally beginning to warm me, making me doze.

I looked at Cherry as I awoke, the first rays of sun from behind me casting down over her. Her colors were so unusual. Yellow mane, grey eyes, pink coat…it shouldn't work, but it did. It did on her. The only thing that didn't work was the sadness in her eyes.

Mah' baby's got the blues.

I stood and walked over to her. I looked past her to the remains of the clock tower. She knew intrinsically what I was looking at. I looked down into those eyes, lifted her hat to see her face fully. She tried to look to the ground, but I lifted her head back up to face mine.

"Do I have a reason to stay, Cherry?" I asked.

She looked back at the ground, then back up to me, her eyes watering.

"Cherry," I repeated, "Is there a reason for me to stay…any reason, Cherry, give me a reason, any reason…"

Give me the reason Cherry, tell me there's hope that I can be that stallion. Let me be that stallion and I'll burn here in the sun with you for everyday of the rest of my life…every day Celestia gives me will be my gift to you, to use as you will…

Open your pasture gates, Cherry, let me run through the green fields that are the world you're hiding in your heart…

Let me rest in the cool shade of the trees, Cherry, that are the embraces you're afraid to give…let me lay there for as long as you'll have me…let the cool breeze of the kisses you keep hidden float over me…

Let me dive into the waters that are the emotions you hide, Cherry, let them flow over me and I will pull the pain you feel out of them, and give you back all the love that I can…that I know how…

"Cherry," I repeated for the third time, "Is there a reason…for me to stay."

She said nothing. I was not that stallion.

I kissed her on the cheek and turned to walk back to the station. I heard the delicate hoof falls behind me. They started out as a walk, then a trot…finally a gallop that receded into the distance.

Goodbye, Cherry.

Painted blue.

Looking up I realized that the stationmaster had witnessed the whole thing. He had stood there, key in his hoof, inserted into the door of the station, his jaw quivering at the scene that had played out before him.

"I'll give ya' three-quarter's off a coach ticket, if'n ya'd be willin' tah' ride in a caboose on a freight…" he said, looking over his glasses at me, clearing his throat.

"Much obliged."

As I waited there a passenger train arrived at about nine in the morning. I went inside the station to watch them. A few families and some business ponies went by, but it was a lone passenger, obviously an immigrant, that caught my attention. I watched him help a little old pony off the train, see her to her family, and then lift all of his belongings with one massive bellow. He had huge worn leather saddlebags, what appeared to be a set of forge tools, a case of books, and…to my pleasure, a fiddle case.

I looked him in the eyes. He was a huge stallion, at least two hands bigger than me. I looked him square in his big tired eyes, and there was something in them. Something like an inner strength, and a caring look, but a tempered one.

I looked back to his mark. It was one of those massively descriptive ones…like the one I had wanted all of those decades ago. It was an anvil. An anvil! From the hammer that rested upon it came sparks of hearts and fireworks.

I looked him in the eyes again. He now looked back at me with an expression that denoted that he couldn't decide whether to ask me about deep philosophies, read me classic poetry, or stuff me into the nearest garbage can.

"You'll need a hat," I said, taking the one from my own head and placing it on his. "Powerful hot and dry out there…"

Fortunately it fit, somehow. He now looked at me as though he didn't know how to thank me, wanted to fall bawling into my forelegs at the act of random kindness which renewed his faith in ponykind, or stuff me into the nearest garbage can.

"Thank…thank you, thank you kindly," he said with a tired smile, much to my relief.

"Yer' welcome," I said, heading out to the trackside platform to wait for the freight.

At once I stopped. "Hey, friend," I called back to him as he lifted his fiddle case.

"Yessir?" he answered.

"There's a beautiful swimmin' spot just down the riverbank from the orchard. Yer' gonna wanna go ahead and take a nice swim there at about 3:30 or so…it's powerful nice down there…"

"Thank…thank you, I'll do that, thanks again," he said, smiling at me, tipping my old hat.

Two hours later I'm already far to the north.

"Mah' baby is a hard, hard mare, and she don't want mah' love," went my song, my saxophone ringing out across the prairie as the conductor and brakepony listened, as the caboose swayed on the tracks.

Trains and blues go well together, I thought…both are about carrying on, and soon I'd be arriving at a destination I could not have imagined.