Chapter Two: Black, Blue, and Just a Touch of Gray

Battered by the hopelessness of waking up a florist in the middle of a concrete jungle, Honest Heart sat back in his dusty bedroom and screamed into his pillow, though he reeled back in disgust as bits of stuffing and fuzz peppered his tongue as he did so. It was a week since his last encounter with the cream-colored regular, the only regular the shop had seen in quite some time, and quite literally his saving grace. Twice she had thanked him simply for doing his job (he was keeping count), but he had yet to thank her for keeping his place in the world secure for just a little while longer, though explaining exactly how much her continued patronage meant to him would be difficult without sounding like a madcolt. With a sigh of frustration, Heart tossed the object across the room, which admittedly wasn't too far considering the size of the place.

Heart had gotten his place for a steal, really—at one hundred-fifty bits a moon, he couldn't think of a better deal considering his pay was well below that of the average Manehattian.

Manehatter? Manehattaner?

A stray puff of dust escaped Heart's lips as he blew a raspberry into the air and rolled onto his side, taking in his meager stake in the slums of the midnight city. The room was probably about four pony lengths wide, and four pony lengths long. Heart could touch the ceiling from his position on the bed if he wanted—he probably wouldn't though, lest he disturb the many cobwebs that hung from the broken ceiling fan that he felt might crush him in his sleep any day now. There was another fan in the corner, though it was about as temperamental as his boss was and had decided today was one of those "not going to work" days. The carpet below, a faded orange berber, clashed heavily with the peeling green wallpaper that revealed likely decades-old wooden struts that looked to be infested with at least two generations of termites. Truth be told, Heart wouldn't be surprised if the entire apartment collapsed on him, burying him alive in mold, mites and old brimstone; on good days, this was an annoying possibility, but on bad days, it was a hopeful reality.

Two dressers flanked his bed, which was a few feet away from the front door. In the far corner there was some sort of kitchen nook that was crudely decorated with power pony stickers he figured were moving-in presents from the previous tenant, and though the fridge worked and the sink was relatively clean, the dishware piled flank-high on the single counter top beside the amenities was not a sign of his slovenly ways but in fact where he stored his dishes, for he had no cupboards of any kind.

Something at the foot of his bed grabbed his attention, and he remembered that he did, in fact, own a full-body mirror. Heart picked himself up off of the bed and grasped the corner of the mirror in his magic, propping it up against the bed in such a way that he could see himself in a good light. If that was even a thing… Shrugging away his derisive thoughts, he inspected himself in the mirror for a good minute. A subdued blue colt stared back at him, with a styled silver mane and a stubby horn that was barely good enough for anything other than arranging flowers or counting bits. A pair of emerald-green eyes blinked a few times amid the damp apartment's likely health-threatening mold spores. Satisfied, though still a bit depressed, Heart kicked the mirror aside, tendrils of sage magic wrapping around the object just before it had hit the ground—the last thing Heart wanted to do before work was pick shards of glass out of his hooves.

Honest Heart probably wasn't a bad looking stallion—he'd had more than a few dates back in his hometown, but that wasn't anything special. His town, a town which he loathed to remember, was the type where all its denizens either knew each other or were related to one-another and a lot of small-town dating drama went on almost everywhere one might look. Compared to that, the none-of-my-business attitude of a city like Manehattan was a lifesaver. His eyes wandered down to his cutie mark, and familiar pangs of self-loathing clawed at his underbelly. A thick black line traced a heart behind a solid, oval mirror on his flank. His parents had once told him that it meant he might be especially sensitive to other ponies' feelings, and his childhood friends had said that because there was no reflection in the mirror that he was a batpony; Heart himself wished he'd never gotten one at all.

Many a night he'd spend alone in his bedroom, racking his brain for some kind of explanation for the seemingly nonsensical cutie mark. He'd written entire chapters in an old notebook of his that barely clung to its remaining pages about what it could possibly mean and how it'd change his life forever, and for the better. Nothing had ever come of it though, and he'd moved away from all of that nonsense none the wiser.

Depressing, he thought. I've got my own place; that's more than my parents thought I'd ever be able to get. Why can't I just be grateful for what I have? Sighing a moderate sigh that wasn't quite his trademarked longest sigh, Heart moved away from the bed, and the mirror, and trotted over to his kitchenette. Turning the handle of the faucet, he splashed his face with water and shook his head. "Come on Heart, you've got this. Today is going to be an awesome day, and nothing's going to go wrong. At all. Satisfied with his pep talk, Heart rubbed his grumbling stomach and eyed the fridge with hunger, grasping the handle of the appliance between his hooves—and promptly yanking it clean off.

"..."

Heart received a noise complaint later that day, detailing "excessive yelling and breaking things at six o'clock in the morning", and his rent was raised by twenty bits.

C'est la Vin's front door chimed its usual chime, and Honest Heart strode in with all the gusto of a constipated bovine, preparing one of his usual sighs and offering his usual wave. "Morning boss. Anything new around here?"

Heart's usual halfhearted greeting was shrugged off in the usual manner by his stoic manager, Fertile Eyes, who hoofed him a crudely-written list of things that needed to be doing. Some days were like this—Fertile wouldn't say a word to him for whatever reason, opting simply to hand out a checklist of busywork and send him on his way while he did his own thing. At times, Heart felt as though he half-owned the shop: he managed shipment orders, kept up with seasonal products, cleaned the store from top-to-bottom almost every day, and a host of other things he felt he didn't get enough credit for. He'd never say that to Fertile though—just mentioning anything of the sort was enough to blow the older stallion's top and sour his mood for the remainder of the day.

"Another day, I guess." Heart rolled his eyes and straightened out the loose-leaf list of chores that needed doing. He squinted, trying his best to decipher the poor scrawl that had likely been scratched across the page not even a few minutes before Heart had arrived at the shop.

1. Clean

2. Arrange the newest shipment

3. Clean again

Heart furrowed his brow and did his best to resist the groan building in his throat. Judging by the nearby wall clock, it was about eight, and though he was no stranger to full time shifts since he had been upped to full time nearly a year ago, today felt like the start of a particularly long and mediocre eight hours of suffering the mundane.

No sooner did he start to polish the shop floor with a set of wax and a ragged cloth did the door chime ring again, though he was surprised to see her again, and so early at that.

The cream-colored mare with the two-toned mane clip-clopped into the shop, her tan saddlebag ready to receive its regular charge.

"Hey, welcome to the Vin-" Heart paused, scrutinizing the mare for a half-second before stepping over to the counter, taking his place behind the register.

Thick, purple welts were dotted up and down the length of her forelegs and flank, and a nasty looking scratch trailed down her cheek, clotted now with a spat of dried blood that suggest a bit of time had passed between then and now. Briefly, Heart wondered if maybe she'd gotten into a brawl with somepony, but his speculation was cut short as a bunch of roses wandered over to the counter, as well as a few bits. Heart quirked a brow and looked the mare over much more obviously now, clearing his throat before depositing the bits into the register. "You, uh… You get in a fight?"

As if awoken from a daydream, the mare's eyes shot open and she glanced down at herself, then back up at Heart. A solid three seconds passed before the mare's blank expression faded into a smile as she stifled a fit of giggles. "Who, me? Oh, I don't think I'd have it in me to throw a punch, let alone fight somepony. No, you see, I'm a bit of a clumsy mare and the other night when I got up to go to the bathroom I bumped into just about every piece of furniture in the house on the way there." She spun her hoof around beside her head and rolled her eyes, giggling again before taking the bunch of roses and sliding them into her saddlebag, wincing more than once. The brow Heart had raised failed to lower, but he nodded as though he agreed anyway, tossing the mare's receipt into the trash bin behind him.

"Riiiight, right, happens to the best of us..." Heart trailed off awkwardly, the painfully forced smile the mare had affixed him with ruining his resolve to question her further despite her questionable tale of struggling to overcome her apparent obstacle course of a house. He propped his head on a hoof and glanced at her saddlebags, doing his best to avoid running over the nasty-looking bruises that dotted the mare's legs. "So, you come in here all the time," he started, gesturing to the arrangement of roses that had been likely put out on display close to the counter specifically for the mare, "but I've been wondering: why do you need so many roses? Originally, I thought you were maybe giving them to a sick family member, but if that's still the case then I think you might need to get yourself looked at before I have to start bringing you roses."

The mare giggled, this time in earnest, tugging a single rose from the open flap and setting it down on the counter. "I guess it is kind of strange—I take it you don't get too many customers who come in and get the same thing over-and-over, right?" Fertile Eyes clicked his tongue from the far side of the counter but Heart was silent, opting to nod his approval. "Well, my sister loves roses, and I love my sister, so every week I bring her a bunch of roses and we have a little get-together where we tell each other about what's going on in our lives and all that good stuff." She smiled, but with a lump in his throat Heart couldn't help but notice the touch of sadness that graced the mare's features. "When I'm not working my tail off, I'm usually spending time with her."

Heart slowly nodded, watching as the mare idly rolled the single rose on the counter top around in circles with her hoof. "Yeah, I get that. I used to do something like that back where I'm from, with a few of my guy friends every weekend. We'd stay up late drinking cider, playing a few games of Ogres and-" Heart stopped himself, the curious look in the mare's eyes causing his cheeks to heat up before he continued. "Er. Well, we just played dumb games that guys play when they get together, and while we got into a lot more trouble than we probably should have, it was fun, and that's something I think I really miss the most being here now." The mare nodded her head attentively.

"I know what it's like to miss ponies close to you." The cream mare glanced broke away from his gaze, her hoof moving from the single rose atop the counter to the tile floor below. "I hope you can find something like that here in Manehattan." She nodded her thanks to Fertile, who didn't seem to notice, and she began her awkward trot out of the store. Heart started to tell her that she'd forgotten her rose, but before he could say anything she added, "Keep the rose, by the way. Think of it as a gift from my sister—I'm sure she'd want you to have it." Heart was silent, his eyes darting from the wayward rose that found itself in his grasp to the knots on the mare's legs that seemed to taunt him, mocking his indecision and apathy. Heart chewed his lip, a million thoughts racing through his head at once. The mare had just made it to the door, threatening to trot off into the morning streets of Manehattan before he spoke up.

"W-wait, I uh..." He thought for a moment. "I never asked for your name. You know mine, but… I don't know what to call you, and that's not fair, right?" Heart cracked a nervous smile that threatened to betray the self-loathing he felt at both his awkwardness and his ability to say what was really on his mind.

The mare stopped—half in, and half out—before turning her head, affixing Heart with the same sad smile he'd seen earlier.

"Coco Pommel. I hope you'll remember."

And with that, she was gone.