"That's enough for today," a woman's voice calls out to the ponies working their shifts, "Why don't y'all hop on off and call it a day?"
Upon hearing those words does the worker ponies stop what they're doing and head on out the room, all tired from a hard day of work. One pony in particular, who's breathing a little more than the others, is a bright yellow pony with a messy, snow-colored mane and a scarf around his neck. Pausing to take a breather, he is the last to leave his station due to his fatigue; being on all four hooves all day isn't easy for the young colt as his job is to power the giant conveyor belt by treading on a giant wheel connected to the side.
After the yellow pony catches his breath, he proceeds to leave through the door like all the other workers when his boss, a red-maned pony with a beauty mark on her left cheek, clops in front of him.
"Going somewhere, Lemon Sour?" she asks the lemon-colored stallion with a raised eyebrow.
"Nowhere in particular," he cocks his head to the side, imitating a shrug as he darts his eyes to the right, "Why do you ask?"
The female pony doesn't say anything at first; she just stares at Lemon Sour with a stare so intense that would've pierced though his eyelids if he had been closing them. Determined to get an answer out of Lemon Sour, she puts him on the spot and continues to imtimidate him with her intense glare. However, after a couple of seconds of awkward silence, with neither Lemon Sour or his boss saying a word, the female pony eventually gives in and lets him go.
"No reason," she continues to stare at Lemon Sour as he trods away, "I was just curious."
Though she doesn't see Lemon Sour gulp his throat in anxiety after narrowly escaping her gaze, she already knows that he's hiding something; her intense staring wasn't just to get him to confess... whatever it is that he did... but to also watch for any cues that would give him away.
And the cue that gave him away was a single bead of sweat that slid down his face.
"Another Cherry Bomb," Lemon Sour says to the bartender of the Watering Trough Tavern as he slumps over the bar, pushing his empty glass to the side, "And keep them coming!"
As the bartender complies with his request, Lemon Sour couldn't help but pull out his ticket out of this town, literally: in his hooves is a single, one-way train ticket to Ponyville scheduled for today. As a matter of fact, the train is set to depart within a couple of hours, and Lemon Sour's bag is already packed and shoved right underneath his barstool; the only reason he's even at the bar at this moment is because he wants to kill time with a drink rather than waiting at the station.
"Another round," the bartender pony in the vest tuxedo calls out to Lemon Sour as he slides the next shot glass down the bar. Hearing his order, Lemon Sour puts up a hoof to catch the drink but is surprised to see another pair of hooves intercepting it right before it reaches him.
"Cherry Bombs eh?" a familiar voice exclaims loudly, "My favorite! How did you know?" No sooner does Lemon Sour turn his head does he recognize the female pony chugging his drink down her gullet.
"Ch-Cherry Jubilee!?" Lemon Sour panicks as he sees her face upon setting down the shot glass onto the bar, "Wh-What are you doing here?"
"What?" Cherry Jubilee shrugs her slender shoulders as she fixes up the pink scarf around her neck, "Can't a gal go get a drink after a hard day of work?"
"Sure, if the gal actually did some work," Lemon Sour couldn't help but snark with a smirk out of pure anxiety; he figures that, if she doesn't know, then perhaps he should try to play it cool and make it seem like he's hiding something.
"Oh, hardy har har," Cherry Jubilee responds back with a mock, "You're such a comedian... Or should I say 'magician,' seeing as how you tried to disappear within a blink of an eye."
"E-Excuse me?" Lemon Sour nervously answers with a bead of sweat as the bartender slides him another drink.
"Oh, don't play dumb with me, hon," Cherry Jubilee answers with an almost scolding tone as she pulls out a rolled up scroll, "I read your little 'resignation' letter a little earlier than you would've liked me to."
"Knew I should've put a 'do not open until tommorow' note on it..." Lemon Sour chuckles a bit out of nerves, though none to Cherry Jubilee's amusement; she even glares at him once more for the truth, this time actually succeeding in the process. "Okay, okay," Lemon Sour gives in, "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you I was leaving... Or rather, tell you myself in person that I was leaving."
"Honey, I'm not hurt because you're leaving" Cherry Jubilee puts a hoof on his shoulders as she slumps downward, "I'm just hurt that you would leave without so much as a goodbye; I had thought I meant something to you. Why are you leaving anyway? Do you not like it here? Do you not like the job? Do you not like me?"
"No no no, it's nothing like that," Lemon Sour responds assuringly to Cherry Jubilee's worries, "This city is great, the job is great, even you're great... It's just that... It's just that I have to leave; I can't tell you why, but I just do. I'm sorry, but I can't say anymore than that."
As Cherry Jubilee looks into Lemon Sour's eyes and sees fear welling within them, she tries her best to comfort him. However, without enough information to know what exactly is going on with Lemon Sour, and knowing that he wouldn't answer if she asked, she is at a lost for words that could comfort him. So, instead, she wraps one arm around his shoulder, puts up a hoof into the air, and calls out to the bartending pony for a couple more shots of Cherry Bombs.
"Well, if you're going to go away," Miss Jubilee tells him as he perks his head up, "Then we're going to need tohave a 'going away' party now, won't we?"
"Ugh... No more..." Lemon Sour starts to feel a bit queasy as he receives another shot glass from the bartender, "I'm starting to feel a little sick."
"Oh come on now," Cherry Jubilee eggs him on as she finishes her 7th drink with no problems (yet), "Have another drink; you can sleep it off in the train ride out of here!"
"Yeah, well, I need to be on the train if I want to sleep on it," Lemon Sour retorts as he pauses for a moment to hiccup, "And I can't do that if I'm passed out in a bar."
"Don't you worry about that," Cherry Jubilee dismisses the notion with a downward hoof motion, "If you pass out, I'll carry you to the train on my back."
"And how will you do that if you're knocked out as well?"
"Honey, you must not know me that well," she cocks her head to the side as she says this, "Trust me: I can handle my drinks. Besides, even if you miss the train ride out of here, you can always catch the next train out of here anyway!"
"I don't have enough money to afford another ticket," Lemon Sour explains as he passes his shot glass to Jubilee as he opts for a glass of water from the bartender.
"Then you just come on back and work for me again!" Cherry Jubilee exclaims loudly as she starts to feel the influence of the drink, "I could use another strong pony like you; who knows, maybe you'll even find your Cutie Mark working at my farm... Blank Flank."
"Don't call me that out loud!" Lemon Sour embarassingly exclaims as he looks left and right to see if anyone heard that, "You know I'm sensitive about that!"
"Aw shucks," Cherry Jubille chuckles, "I think it's cute that you don't have a Cutie Mark."
"Maybe it was cute when I was just a little colt," Lemon Sour reasons, "Not when I'm a fully grown stallion..."
"Fully grown?" Lemon could hear Jubilee snicker, "Oh please, you may not be a colt anymore, but you're certainly no stallion; you still got a lot of growing to do."
"Do I now?" Lemon Sour questions as he raises his glass of water for a swig, "Well, I wouldn't count me out just yet. Who knows? Maybe I'll surprise you..."
"Really now?" Cherry Jubilee flashes a smile, "Doesn't matter anyway; you'll never get the chance to prove it, seeing as how you're leaving and all..." "Shame, really," Jubilee stares at her glass with a melancholy look in her eyes, "To think that I was going to have you pop my cherries."
"Wha-!?" Lemon Sour couldn't resist doing a spit-take all over the innocent bartender, "What?"
"Well, you deserved it," Jubilee tell him, "You are my best worker on the line; it makes sense that I would've promoted you to pop the pits out of the cherries... You know, for my famous maraschino cherries..."
"Oh," Lemon Sour chuckles to himself, "That's what you meant..." At first, Lemon Sour just thought that he was being a pervert until he sees Cherry Jubilee taking much delight in him blushing redder than the Cherry Bombs; something tells him that she intentionally worded her sentence like that on purpose, much to his embarassment.
"Anyway," Cherry Jubilee gulps down yet another drink, "If you need work while you're in Ponyville, you may want to check out Sweet Apple Acres: a pony by the name of Applejack mentioned that her family owns a farm there when she was working for me. It may not be as easy as the work here, but it's a good start to your new life..."
"Sweet Apple Acres..." Lemon Sour repeats as the bartender gives him another glass of water to sip, "Got it."
"Good," Jubilee goes for her next drink, "Oh, and speaking of 'getting it,' doesn't your train leave in a couple of minutes?"
"Wha-!?" Lemon Sour sprays his water all over the bartender once more as he stares at the clock hoisted up on the back wall, "Ah! I gotta bolt!" As Lemon Sour gets up out of his seat, grabs his bag, and makes a beeline towards the door, he immediately stops at the threshold and takes a look back at Cherry Jubilee, who smiles back at him warmly.
"I guess this is goodbye," he says with a hoof scratching the back of his head.
"I guess it is," Cherry Jubilee replies softly, holding back tears as she speaks, "But at least you said goodbye to me in person."
"Yeah," Lemon Sour scoffs at his earlier actions, "It was stupid of me to try to leave a note."
"It sure was," she smiles as she raises a toast with her last drink of the night, "Goodbye, Lemon Sour, and good luck."
With a smile and a nod as the final part of his goodbye, Lemon Sour heads out the door and makes his way to the train station.
"Whew," Lemon Sour sits on the seat, wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with his hoof as he catches his breath, "Barely made it."
"Barely made it" is right: not a minute after he gets on does the train's wheels starts rolling down the tracks as the team of stallions pull it from the front. As the cityscape slowly creep away from one side of the window to the next, Lemon Sour couldn't help but take one last look at Dodge Junction as it passes him by.
"Better catch some sleep," he yawns as he pulls his bag up to the window to lay his head upon like a pillow. After finding the perfect place to put it, he snuggles up to his bag, expecting to feel comfort, but is surprised to feel something hard. "What the-?"
Taking his bag off the window to investigate, he opens up the pouch and starts rummaging through his things in order to see what's going on: he doesn't remember packing anything that could be hard, especially since he didn't have much to pack at all... Now that he mentions it, he doesn't recall his bag being this heavy before. Actually, he isn't even sure that this is his bag, since he probably didn't check if it was his, or notice the shift in weight, since he was in a a panic to catch his train on time.
After sticking his hoof into the deepest depths of the bag, he finds the object and pulls it out, revealing something that surprises him: a jar of cherries. But it wasn't just any old jar of cherries: it was a seal-tight glass jar full of Cherry Jubilee's sweet, succulent maraschino cherries that she crafted all by herself in a labor of love. Attached to the side was a tied up note that Lemon Sour unravels and reads to himself:
"Don't go eating these all at once now XOXO - Jubilee"
Though mindful of the other ponies aboard the train, especially since it's late in the evening and the ponies want some sleep, Lemon Sour couldn't help but laugh as he appreciates the gift that Cherry Jubilee leaves him. He may not have known when she implanted it into his bag, nor how did she seeing as how his eyes were on her the whole time, but one thing he does know is that he's glad to have something to remember her by as the train departs to Ponyville.
