Why the Gift is Given

by Impossible Numbers

Two Different Families

The next morning, Ruby woke up groaning on her own bed. Alone. She realized she hadn’t had a slumber party for months.

Everything was blank. Within her mind, she barely seemed to be there. A bedroom, the quilt and blankets on the floor, with just… stuff lying around. She barely registered the posters. She barely registered the light, though the sunbeams cut through her eyes.

For some reason, the words Tit for tat floated unconcerned in her head. Groggily, she rolled herself off the mattress and onto the pile of kicked-off blankets which cushioned her thump.

Stumble as she did down the stairs, her sides bounced off the wall and banisters so that she zigzagged her way down. Passing the lounge, she noticed Piña curled up on the floor, a book open before her and a plate of toast under her chin. Her eyes were wide, and she chewed without looking away from the pages.

Berryshine sat in the kitchen. Her head hung so low she was going to drown herself in her own mug.

“Mornin’,” mumbled Ruby. Thus exhausted, she went over to the sideboard.

“Mmmmmummmmmurrrrrrrrrrrummmmmunnnnnnurrrrrrr,” mumbled Berryshine. She threw back her drink and gulped before banging the mug back onto the table.

Berryshine had made toast for her too. Ruby levitated her slice from the sideboard, flattening the lumpier parts of the butter spread. “Want anythin’ f’r H’rth’s Warmin’?”

“NNNNNoooooo.”

“Feel better?” Ruby crunched her toast. It was burnt again. She ignored the charcoal peppering her tongue.

“Bit. P’rty l’st n’ght.”

“Party last night?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m wondering what to get you for Hearth’s Warming.” Ruby had to make sure the message was getting through. Irritably, Berryshine was rarely strong enough on the first try in the mornings.

Berryshine threw back another gulp and banged the mug. “Like parties.”

“And berries,” said Ruby. “I like pear cider.”

“Pfft.” A fleck of spit leaped for freedom. “Foul muck.”

“Apple cider?”

Berryshine pouted. Another gulp. Another bang. “Di-vine.”

“You had a good time at the party last night?”

“Lots of cider there.”

I’ll take that as a yes, thought Ruby. She still didn’t feel anything. This was all going through the motions. It’d hit her later, she knew, and she knew this in the detached, floaty way of someone drifting through the underwater world of alien creatures, not yet desperate for breath.

Shoving the last of the toast into her mouth – and wincing at the crunch of charcoal – Ruby swallowed and made to walk out the door. Whether this was the prompt or not, Berryshine jerked up. She was about to stand, forelegs braced against the table.

Ruby noted this, and a flicker rose in her chest.

“You like parties, don’t you?” said Berryshine, slightly more awake but still on the threshold of some living reverie.

“Me.” It was supposed to be a question, but Ruby’s voice struggled with the tone.

“None of that material stuff that costs the earth. Just all of us together at Hearth’s Warming. Family too. Friends too. Me and you and Piña. We could have a good time. Together. Good times sound good to you?”

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, but at least holding her Auntie Berry’s gaze for a moment, Ruby at last ventured her first small smile of the day. She gave a little nod.

“Sure,” she said. “That sounds… good. I guess.”

To her confusion, Berryshine didn’t move. If anything, her stare widened slightly, became a bit more intense, as if she were looking for something in Ruby’s face.

The spark in Ruby’s chest flickered and grew. Charcoal flavour clung to her tongue.

She walked out.

Behind her, Berryshine sucked and slurped at her mug like a leech. As if her life depended on getting every last drop she could.

Ruby shuddered. She peeked into the lounge. Other than that her cousin now turned a page, nothing had changed.

Now the world’s details poured into her head, and the little spark grew. Tit for tat. Tit for tat. What a horrible idea, tit for tat! Amethyst was being stupid on purpose. I bet anything.

Ruby strode up to the front door, fiddled with the keys that were still in there, growled, shook them, fiddled with them again, and finally unlocked the wretched thing and threw herself onto the grass and snow.

The marketplace wasn’t on the way to school, but she went anyway. Most of the stalls were being set up. One or two remained abandoned.

Bet she forgot, thought Ruby. She stomped over to one particular stall, its rear full of barrels marked with all kinds of icons. Apples, cherries, grapes, elderflower, cranberry, even bananas.

It was stupid, this time of year. Half the stock would spoil within days. The only good side was that it wasn’t summer, when it would spoil even faster.

And… yes, the cash box was still under the till. Ruby unlocked it. Hardly anything rattled around inside.

She’d passed through anger and out the other side, into a strange calm that meant she held the box carefully and walked slowly and coolly back through the maze of canvas and wooden posts.

Her inner spark went out. Cold winds blew over. She shivered against the snow all of a sudden.

How was she supposed to get anything? She was just a foal. She didn’t have a job. She didn’t have money of her own. It was grown-up stuff. Why did she care?

She couldn’t help but notice how well cared-for the other stalls were. Berryshine’s had been rickety and full of splinters. She didn’t even have any canvas.

Ruby’s path returned her home, where she entered the warmth and the dim, non-blinding hall. The box rattled as she bore the lot towards the kitchen.

Not remotely surprising: Berryshine hadn’t moved.

“You forgot this.” Ruby dumped it onto the table.

Berryshine – a little more awake now – glanced up and then sighed with relief. “Phew. I thought I’d left it behind again.”

“You did leave it behind again.”

A pause, then… “Oh.”

Ruby curled her lip. She wanted nothing more to do with this room, or this house, or this life. She spun and went for the door. At least being at school would be like washing herself clean of this day.

“Ruby, wait!”

Moodily, she skidded to a halt right on the threshold. Berryshine’s clumsy thuds followed her. Wanting nothing to do with her own actions, she turned to face her Auntie Berry’s legs. Not her face.

“You going to school?” said Berryshine.

“Yes,” said Ruby, jutting her jaw.

“Um… doing well?”

“Yes,” lied Ruby. Her grades stunk.

“Well… well… uh… It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you see. So long as you took part. You see? See?”

Ruby filed this away for never. Adults said the dumbest things. “Bye, Auntie Berry.”

She got a quick peck on the cheek which did absolutely nothing for her, and then marched away without a backwards glance.

The worst part was that she knew she should turn all gooey and lovey-dovey at something like that, but the rest of her treated it like a disease. It didn’t matter. Every day was the same, and suddenly she was sick of it. She almost tasted the vomit.

Something told her that the less she had to do with her Auntie Berry, the better. And the rest of her pointed out that this would never happen. She didn’t know which side she hated more.

Not that any of that stuff mattered. She’d have to get a present, one way or another. Even if she had fewer coins than legs, or was sure that any warm glow her gift gave to Berryshine wouldn’t last longer than a few days, her mind – her very bones – insisted she get something. Always had. Always would.

Only as she neared the school, when she saw Piña swinging in the playground, did she realize she’d forgotten to double-check on her cousin.

---

“You’re not leaving me out this time,” Piña said, several hours later.

“I know,” said Ruby to the floor.

“I had to look after Big Sis yesterday. You know I hate doing that.”

Ruby squirmed. “Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” After a while, she added, “How was school?”

“You were there!”

“I meant for you!”

“Oh.” Piña grinned apologetically. “It was good. Cheerilee’s the best.”

They spread themselves out on the rug again, before the snapping and crackling of the fireplace, and surrounded by little Power Ponies action figures. Dinky’s, of course: they didn’t have their own.

Once more, Amethyst sat up to the main table, only this time with abacus and two heavy-looking books laid out like coffins before her. Oddly, she wasn’t using them yet; instead, her horn was aglow, she had an elbow on the table, and her dull eyes were staring into the dull sheen of the gemstone hovering magically before her, rotating gently.

Dinky burst into the room. “I got snacks! Oh, this is gonna be great. Tonight! For your viewing pleasure, fillies and gentlecolts, I’ll be the Masked Matter-Horn, Piña will be Mistress Mare-velous –”

“I wanna be Radiance,” said Piña sulkily.

“Or she can be Radiance.” Dinky didn’t miss a beat. “And you, Ruby, can be… um…”

In time to see the bags of sweets land on the floor, Ruby looked up. To her surprise, Dinky was still. And she was staring at Amethyst.

The gemstone rotated in midair. Amethyst’s dull eyes matched its dull sheen. Otherwise, she seemed pale, even devoid of life.

Ruby felt the flickering spark return. “And I’ll be?” she insisted.

Without any apparent thought, Dinky walked as though hypnotized towards and around the main table. Apart from the flat nothing of the dull sheen, that side of the room was twilight, especially compared with the bright sunset of the rug and the walls before the hearth.

“Dinky?” said Ruby. The spark dimmed.

Dinky stopped. She looked at her sister as though trying to fathom some strange species of bird that had perched on the fence of her life. Still, Amethyst didn’t respond.

“Er…” said Ruby.

Even when Dinky pounced and threw herself into a hug, clinging awkwardly to Amethyst’s elbow and neck, the older sister still didn’t respond.

Ruby felt the blush rushing to her cheeks.

But then she did. The elbow slid away and the forelimb wrapped around Dinky’s shoulders. The tight squeeze was brief and businesslike, yet it was there.

Surprising herself, Ruby held her breath. Irritatingly, Piña hadn’t noticed or didn’t care; she was already picking up action figures and mumbling a made-up story to herself.

Dinky released the grip, but darted forwards, planted a quick peck on Amethyst’s cheek, and then scurried back and round to jump and thump onto the rug. As though nothing had happened, she levitated the leftover figures into a kind of battle formation.

“And you, Ruby,” said Dinky cheerfully, “can be Zapp, because you make the best lightning noises, and no two ways about it. Ruby, are you listening to me?”

Amethyst stirred. Eventually, the click of the abacus started up, as did the scratch of ballpoint on paper. One of the ledger books flipped open, and more scratching ensued. The gemstone landed with a light tap.

“Hm?” Ruby shook her head and looked down at Dinky. “Yeah, yeah. Zapp. I got it.”

Ruby picked up the figure, but so weakly that at any moment she felt she might drop it. Now that Piña was here, there was going to be no one home tonight except Berryshine.

And she hadn’t given the gift any thought all day. Not even during the arts and crafts lesson, when they’d made paper decorations and Hearth’s Warming origami figures. Cheerilee had even talked about the students giving them to their loved ones as a little present, or to add to their homes.

When all’s said and done, who else was going to be home tonight?

But she buried this, and tried to focus on making Zapp use her lightning all the time until Dinky said, “Hey come on, let the rest of us have a turn.”

“Zapp always works alone,” said Ruby, trying to get into character and deepening her voice. “Don’t you know that?”

Dinky rolled her eyes, making Piña giggle. “Come on, Zapp. It’s not about hogging the glory and getting results. It’s about us all taking part. You silly devil.”

“I’m sure the Masked Matter-Horn doesn’t say ‘you silly devil’,” said Amethyst without looking up.

Dinky twisted herself on the rug to pin her down with a glare. “My Masked Matter-Horn does. My Masked Matter-Horn can fly, and she can turn invisible.”

“Also, since when is crime-fighting not about getting results? We’d be in trouble if it wasn’t.”

“Exactly,” snapped Ruby. “Can we get on with this?”

Amethyst glanced up at her. One eyebrow rose, but in a genteel, cautious manner, as a valet might rise upon noticing their employer make a faux pas.

Ruby squirmed where she sat. That glare. That glare could mean anything.

Pursing her lips, Amethyst made her keen eyebrow sit back down, and she returned to her ledger.

“But the Power Ponies all take part, even Humdrum,” said Dinky, picking up her Masked Matter-Horn figure again. “They fight crime better when they care about how they do it.”

“Ah,” said Amethyst without looking up, “a means to an end.”

“No, Ammy. Because it’s good to try together. Carrot Top said that you can’t control your results, but you can control your efforts. So there.”

Amethyst’s abacus clicked. A few more pen-scratchings added figures to the page.

“A wise prophet, our Golden Harvest,” she said. It was maddeningly hard to tell if she was being earnest or being ironic.

“Yes, Ammy. She is,” said Dinky, who didn’t even know what “ironic” meant.

“And what about you two – Piña, Ruby?” said Amethyst, raising her voice as though they were against the opposite wall. “What do you think? Do you control your efforts or your results?”

“Um…” said Ruby, trying to make eye contact with someone too busy on financial calculations to notice.

“I try things all the time,” said Piña proudly. “I made a ‘gami figure today.”

“Did you?” said Amethyst.

“Yeah,” said Dinky. “She made all the Founders of Equestria. All six of them.”

“My word.”

“Without help!” said Piña.

“So both efforts and results.” Amethyst nodded but still didn’t look up. “Very good.”

Piña looked helplessly at Dinky, the go-to Amethyst translator.

“She’s really very impressed,” said Dinky as if it were obvious.

“THANK YOU!” Piña called over to the table. This merely earned her a grunt in reply. “So what next?”

“Yeah,” said Ruby, trying to ignore everything that had happened and throwing herself back into the play. “So what do we do next, Masked Matter-Horn? Your move.”

---

What do I do now? thought Ruby.

Briefly, she wished real life was more like the comics. Problems would be easier to solve if all you had to do was find the nearest baddie and beat them to a pulp.

Not all this everyday stuff. Not having to drop the action figures and go home and go straight to bed. She hadn’t even cared if Berryshine was up at all. She hadn’t checked, in spite of Piña’s complaining.

Ruby stayed up for what felt like hours. Thinking. Mulling things over. The house was unnaturally silent.

What do I do now?

---

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

I can think of no better reason to be Zapp.