Welcome to Gaia! ::

Taquita took Ender to the gazebo that her Uncle Honey built. It was getting dark, and the fireflies were just starting to come out. The night was perfect for an outdoor sleepover. Her dad was performing a concert for some visiting diplomats' extravagant son, so he wouldn't notice she wasn't home. And Ender was an orphan. There was no one to miss her. Taquita envied her friend for that. Sure being an orphan was a horrible, lonely existence, but it was better than Taquita's family. Or at least in her over-dramatic eyes it was.

Once under the roof, Taquita took to lighting all the candles. She had once heard that reading in poor lighting ruined one's eyes, but reading by lightbulb just wasn't thematically appropriate for her. The candles ranged in style from short and wide to tall and thin, but all of them were one of two colors: creamy white or midnight black. She was going for a classic look.

Then Taquita took out her quill and paper set, and set them out on floor and laid down on her belly, kicking her hind legs up and down slowly behind her. "So, what do you think?" she asked in a hushed voice, "This can be our secret clubhouse."

Taquita smiled at the assortment of books her friend brought with. She wondered if it was appropriate to tell ghost stories by candlelight with a phony that was a ghost, or if that was kind of racist. But considering that all the books Ender brought with were about other monsters, Taquita thought she'd stick to non-ghost stories. She could ask about it at a later date.

"I don't think I've ever had a secret either... well, now other than this, I guess." Taquita hadn't really lived long enough of a life yet to amass any secrets. Eventually she'd have some though. Maybe she could have a secret identity and write under a pen name. Or maybe she could have secret rendezvous with a sorted lover. Or even, if she were lucky enough, she would find out that she was secretly adopted and wasn't related to any of her family. For now though, she was happy to just have a secret clubhouse with her friend.

"I'm really glad that you like it here! I really am," she said as she continued to absentmindedly kick her legs. It was important to Taquita that Ender was happy. A silly notion, but it made her happy when her friend was happy.

Well, she couldn't deny her life was exciting. She didn't like it, but it wasn't boring. Between her parents fighting and the noise her brothers made, Taquita never really had time to slow down and think about it. She mostly just distracted herself by both reading and writing angsty poems.

But the one thing she had to admit was that she didn't have any friends either... Taquita's pink cheeks turned deep red and she looked up from the floor at Ender. She considered her a friend because they had the same interests and got along, but she had never thought to mention this to her before. Although really, they were more than friends.. "You're... you're my best friend, End of an Era. You're the only phony that understands me, and that's better than just a regular friend."

"Well...." Taquita started, "I've seen my brothers spit on their hooves before shaking them." She thought about it more, and it seemed pretty unmarelike, "that's a gross way to make an oath though."

There weren't a lot of options Taquita could think of that didn't end in at least one of the two best friends dying. Good literature really liked to be more dramatic than practical sometimes.

Maybe if their oath was especially elaborate, it would work better. "What if each start out holding a candle. I'll hold a black one, and you hold the white one.... or swap that, you can have black, I'll take white. Does that work? Or we can just have the same color, but the color should symbolize something. Then we should circle around the clubhouse 12 times, and on the 13th time around we should sing a song. Not just any song, but a really really good song laden with meaning. After that, we should burn letters we're pre-written.. so I guess that would be step one... and see which way the soot blows. Then we run off in the direction of the soot until we're out of breathe and tumble to the ground. That's we're we'll bury our candles so we'll know we have a hidden spot that proves our friendship."

Taquita had been talking faster and faster, and when she spit that out, she took a big gasp of air. "How does that sound?"

"Those are great ideas! I think that's why we are a good team; we collaborate on ideas well." Taquita smugly added to herself, 'it also doesn't hurt that we're just simply the most intellectually gifted foals...'

Taquita grabbed a pencil and piece of paper for both of them. She scribed down on her's, 'Dear Universe, I hope End of an Era is my best friend forever. Warm Regards, Taquita.' She kept it simple. If it was too complicated, the magic might misunderstand her. "Ender, you'll have to hold both of ours over the flames with your unicorn magic, because it would be hard for me to do it with my hands full," Taquita said. Sometimes, being an Earth Phony was kind of a hindrance.

Then when her friend had finished also, she removed two candles out of their holders and passed the white one and the black one to Ender before grabbing her own matching set. "Reciting poems is much more dignified than neck biting anyway, and I don't think Phonyland has any moors."

Hot wax dripped off the tip of the candle and onto her hoof. Taquita drew in a sharp breath of air and winced, but quickly recovered as she didn't want to look like a sissy in front of her friend. "You take the first verse, and I'll take the second. Does that sound fair?" she asked while exiting the gazebo.

Taquita nodded. "Yes, we'll be off," she said and began to circle the gazebo.

The first couple loops around, she was more nervous than anything. She wondered what Ender had written on the paper. And more importantly, she wondered if this was going to work. In retrospect, it seemed like she had come up with a really silly idea of how to show that they would have a secret bond between them. It was certainly fun though.

At about lap nine of their thirteen rotations around the gazebo, Taquita felt like there was a strange brew of magic in the air. This was going far better than planned! It was if their honesty about their friendship was stirring the mists around them. She looked over at Ender with a big grin on her face. It was slightly out of character of her to be this excited, but she hadn't been entirely sure that this would work as splendidly as it was.

It could have been her imagination, but in the twelfth time around, it felt like a heavy pressure pushed down around her as if it were waiting for their cue to break and release all of their pent-up thoughts and feelings. Taquita nodded to her friend to start the poem for the thirteenth lap.

When Ender got closer to Taquita, she wasn't sure what to do. The space between them suddenly felt too far apart, even though it was small. But Taquita wasn't really accustomed to these situations. She wanted to close the gap, but had no idea how.

Like a bad flashback, Taquita pictured all the times she saw her father interact with mares. It wasn't pretty. None of it was helpful either. TACO didn't actually care about anyone he was with. Taquita really liked Ender. A lot.

She stared into Ender's eyes, and saw the excitement there. It seemed her friend was enjoying this as much as she was. She was extremely worried about this next part though. "How dreary to be somebody!" Taquita continued, "How public, like a frog. To tell your name the livelong day..."

She paused, never breaking eye contact. The moment stretched on, and on, and on. It felt almost endless. In her heart, she wanted to tell Ender how she really felt. That she was more than a best friend; that Ender was all she needed for life to continue. But she couldn't think of a way to make it rhyme with the poem.

Closing her eyes, Taquita held out the candles in her hooves, and said the last part, "To an admiring bog!"

And as quickly as the moment came, it went as Ender's attention shifted back to the ceremony. Taquita let her letter be engulfed in the flames, and watched in wonder as it sizzled away. Her eyes followed along with the letter remnants, and she nodded wordlessly.

Taking off at full run, Taquita darted after the swirl of smoke. The wind seemed strangely strong again. That was a great sign! There really was magic here. Strong magic. The kind of magic that make your sacred oaths become bound forever.

She ran, and ran, and ran. Her little legs pumped and pushed until they burned like fire. Then she saw a circle of trees around a small clearing. Taquita knew she had to keep going until she reached there. She had to make it. She just had to!

Starlight shined down on the grass as if to light the way, and Taquita came to a sudden stop. Well, "sudden stop" would have made it sound more graceful and intentional than it was. Really Taquita more or less collapsed as if she were jelly. She was exhausted as she stared up into the sky.