002 - Hardware Store

[preformthisneigh]

Who: Cheese Sandwich and You!
Broadcast: Fleetwide - video
Action: Bishop
When: Right now.

[Cheese has been here for three months now, and it's clear Atroma aren't about to get rid of him, so he has an important mission to carry out. He turns on the video feed at stares down at the camera, his face is serious. This is serious business. ]

Okay, everypony. I have a super duper absolutely utterly important question to ask all of you. I really, really need an answer from everypony. It's that important.

[He leans a little closer in, to show how REALLY IMPORTANT it is. ]

I need to you tell me when your birthdays are. I also accept dates of anniversaries or likewise important dates to you.

[He picks up a pencil from off camera, and sits poised, ready to write into a little notebook. His words are a little muffled when he speaks again on account of the pencil in his mouth. Earth pony problems.]

OKAY GO!

Comments

Video

[preformthisneigh]

Birthdays. You know, the day you were born? People make a big deal of it, there's cake?

Video

[kill_switch]

Never had that luxury. Still seems a little superfluous.

[Cake. Cake??]

Video

[preformthisneigh]

Everypony should have a little luxury sometimes, and what better day than your birthday? It's the day where you're allowed to be superfluous.

Video

[kill_switch]

It's a day no one remembers. [At least not in her world or from her experience. A better, bitter anniversary might be her abduction, or better yet her reunion with the Vuvilani, but birthday? Just felt odd.]

I've got enough luxury as it is, I don't need a special day for it. [Water when she wanted it? To drink, to bathe in? Food at the press of a button? She couldn't have even dreamed up these things.]

Video

[preformthisneigh]

[That legitimately makes him sad. This news is clearly of the soul crushing variety.]

That's awful. I promise that I'll always remember it, no matter what.

Of course you do! Everypony does.

Video

[kill_switch]

[She's about to make it worse, Cheese. Brace yourself.]

Maybe it's a day I don't want to remember. [Too many memories of the life she was taken from, of her Mother and the Green Place; things long past and gone.] Your energies are better spent on others.

Video

[preformthisneigh]

[THE SADNESS SURE AIN'T LEAVING. ]

But that just means my energies are absolutely positively needed here. Maybe you can have a different date to remember and celebrate? Everypony deserves a date to look forward to every year. Something to make them happy.

Video

[kill_switch]

I look forward to every day. A year is too much to ask. [She's starting to get irritated with his persistence and is second guessing her decision to start this conversation.]

Video

[preformthisneigh]

[He's going to make it worse. ]

Okay! We can have a teensy little celebration every day.

Video

[kill_switch]

No.

[Okay, this was definitely a mistake.] I don't do celebrations.

At all. [In case he needed the clarification.]

Video

[preformthisneigh]

None at all?

[Does not compute, please insert lettuce.]

Why?

Re: Video

[kill_switch]

[She's not about to go into her life's story for this... Pony thing... She's not going to explain how birthdays are reminders of the family she's lost, how celebrating her break from tyranny points out she was trapped to begin with. She'd much rather take each day as it came and be happy about it for its own merits. Let other people celebrate, she'd appreciate things in her own way.]

I just don't.

[preformthisneigh]

[He doesn't understand. Not really. It goes against the Party Pony credo. But unlike Pinkie, he knows when he's facing a battle he can't win, not without regrouping first, anyway/ ]

Well... if that's what you want.

[kill_switch]

It is.

[Okay, good, disasater averted. For now.] I'm sure there are others you can worry over.

[preformthisneigh]

[FOR NOW. ]

I want to make sure everypony here is happy. That's what I'm supposed to do.

[kill_switch]

I have food when I want it, water to drink and bathe in, and a place to sleep. That's all I need. It's more than I've ever had. Don't worry about me.

[There. She's got her party already. Hopefully that will satisfy him.]

[preformthisneigh]

[NOTHING SATISFIES PARTY HORSE BUT PARTIES ]

Those are are pretty basic things, are you sure?

[kill_switch]

Just try living without them. You'll see what a luxury they can be.

[preformthisneigh]

You haven't had them? Did you live in a desert or something?

[kill_switch]

It might have been a desert once. No, I lived in a wasteland. [Lived, not grew up in. She still remembers the Green Place before it turned into a poisoned death swamp.] The world I came from was poisoned.

[preformthisneigh]

Oh no, that's awful. Can't anypony fix it?

[Ponies are, after all, in complete control of their environment. This sort of thing simply Does Not Happen. ]

[kill_switch]

I think we were all too busy just trying to survive. [She's glad they're off the subject of celebrations but this new direction of the conversation isn't exactly sitting well with her either.]

[preformthisneigh]

No kidding. I mean, if you can't even find food... and I know you humans have a harder time of cultivating it than we ponies do.

[kill_switch]

Mm.

[Horses cultivating food. She just stares at the feed for a moment, letting the nonsensical nature of it sink in.]

There were ways, but they were restricted from the general population and jealously guarded. Those who ran the oases held the power, and they made sure you knew it.

[preformthisneigh]

...That's terrible. If there's food, everypony should be able to use it. I mean, we Earth ponies are the only race who can tend the land, but we'd never bogart the food from the others.

[Mostly because, historically, they were slaves before that whole EQUALITY thing happened. ]