Tiger & Demon, Part I: Tiger Without Stripes
Oh this innocence has turned and lost its way,
Retrace the footprints off the path from which I came,
I'm the beast in you, the beast in me
~Passenger, "Wicked Man's Rest"
Memories.
Memories I tried to drown with alcohol, all swimming through it. Swimming desperately. Thrashing about like rats in a sewer flood, fighting for their lives. Some of ’em get lost in all the drunkenness, and I don't mind. I won't miss ’em. But then I start hearin' 'em again. I start seein' 'em again. I start feelin' 'em again. The memories.
"Don't do it!"
Two bodies… at the bottom of a hole…
"Don't do it!"
A silent gunshot… ringing in my ears…
"She's the only good thing I have left!"
A wire… A wire and a throat.
The memories all swirl in their mad struggle, distorting into some kinda mutant nightmare hybrid of tragic events. I find myself swimming away from it in terror as all the horrible things I’ve done come after me. I struggle and scream as I feel them crash into me with the force of an avalanche, crushing my skull, squeezing my lungs, crumpling my stomach and stomping my heart. All at once, I cry out—for somepony. Anypony.
Suddenly, somepony answers.
A long, slender pink foreleg pierces the memories like a bullet through a department store window, hooking itself around my hoof. With a strength befitting a god, that foreleg pulls me up and out. I try to look up at the face of my savior, but my eyes can’t focus. All I see is an impressionist painting of pinks and blues and purples and gold.
A soft, motherly voice calls me by name, and commands me to wake up.
I open my eyes and see a ceiling light, gently filling the room with a ghostly blue. I take a deep breath, inhaling mildew. My ears twitch at the sound of a low hum. I try to stretch my legs, but feel numb—almost paralyzed by a hangover. The taste in my mouth is sour, as if I'd thrown up recently. I ache all over the place, every inch, but my head is hit the hardest, pounding like some big gorilla is usin' it for a jungle drum.
I try getting off the bed I'm on, but wobble. I been drunk last night. That much I recall. More drunk than I'd ever been in my life. Tryin'na forget something. Tryin'na get the alcohol to help me forget. There was lights and cars and sirens... the usual sights and sounds of Manehatten at night. Nuthin' else comes to mind.
I look around. Jail cell.
Shit.
I stagger to the bars, my legs creaking and bitchin' at every step. I open my mouth to say something, but close it again as I feel my throat clench, and a piping hot liquid jumps into my mouth. Reluctantly, I swallow. Just like I swallow every bitter drop of shit Manehatten forces in my mouth.
I stumble, hit the bars with my face. I grumble, not really payin' attention to the words fallin' outta my mouth, burping up what might’a been cussin'. I'm not sure. My eyesight blurs from the impact, everything swirling. Dancing. My ears pick up laughter.
Manehatten's laughter. Bitch havin' herself a good laugh. All the pestilence in this city, eating her away like a fuckin' cancer, and she has a laugh like everything's okay, everything's a joke.
It takes a while for the laughter to stop, for my little legs to feel like standin' again. I force myself back up. That bitter liquid back in my stomach, I call out for a guard, my voice sounding like somethin’ drowning. After a minute, one comes.
"Yo. Got a light?" I ask. He has this expression on his face, the same expression I'm given when anypony hears me talk for the first time. HIs face—that ugly little mass of subtle muscle movement—contorts in order to ask a silent question: "Wait, how does a guy this tiny got a voice that deep?"
I been likened to a kitten sounding like a tiger before, and I kinda like that analogy. I smile at the guard's surprise. The kitten smiles.
His face dissolves from surprise into a smirk. The guard's horn glows, floats over a pack from his table and draws one out, floats it to me. When it's my mouth, he uses his unicorn magic to light it. Would'a lit it myself, but usin’ magic more complicated than levitating objects ain't something a unicorn like me should do while they got a hangover. "Thanks," I tell him. And I mean it. Celestia, I needed that cigarette.
The guard just nods and walks back to his post. He picks up a phone on the wall and dials. I watch him, the cigarette smoke fillin' my lungs, then escaping through my nose, taking my tension and sickness with it. Feelin' 'em both get burned away, burned right outta my body. I use my own telekinesis to pull out the cig and exhale. Watchin’ the smoke dance before my eyes, takin' my tension and sickness outta my body and beating the shit out of it for bein' inside me in the first place. They say smoking’s bad for you—and maybe it is—but nuthin' chases away bullshit better'n Joe Camel.
"He's awake," says the guard into the telephone. I raise an eyebrow. What did I do last night? Obviously, it didn't matter what it was—I was in prison, likely wanted for my involvement in several murders. Yeah, did I mention I work for the mob? Might as well admit it now.
Crime is a disease, like I said. Manehatten's a sick, sagging old bitch—sick but never dying. Just eternally suffering. I'm a part of that disease. I'm a part of the plague. The gang leaders, growin' fat off exploitin' Manehattenites like fuckin' parasites. I’m workin’ for Filthy Rich, and whether I like it or not, I'm workin' for free. My old stallion owed a lot of money to Filthy's shriveled ass, and after he committed suicide, I'm the one left holdin' the bag.
Sometimes at night I just close my eyes and listen to all my sins. The sounds of Manehatten outside, snoring with traffic and crimes bein' committed on rooftops, all distort and become memories. All the muffled screaming from underneath throw pillows. All the gunshots. All the gasps as knives get put in "personal places." Every crime, every sin. I remember them, but I don't... feel them. Almost like watchin’ a movie, watchin’ somepony else's life. As if that couldn'ta been me with the pillow, the gun, the knife.
But at the end of every night, I realize that I did do those horrible things. I did suffocate that stallion with the pillow, I did shoot that mare at point blank range, I did put that knife in her. And every night, at the end of every night when Celestia thinks it's a good time to raise the sun, I hold onto my pillow, or a hooker I'd bought, or whatever I happen to be sleeping on or with that night.
I hold onto it with all my might, like it’s the only thing keepin’ me aloft in a crashing ocean that threatens to swallow me whole. I hold onto it, and wonder if any of my sins are worth havin' on my shoulders. To pay off a debt that ain't even mine? Sometimes I wonder why I don't just end it all. It isn't as if I have any siblings or children the debt would be forced on. Or maybe I do have children, and just don't know it. Plenty’a prostitutes out there I been with, fuckin' away my pain. A son, a daughter...
Honestly? It makes me afraid. I could die. By accident, or on purpose. But then there's the chance somepony else would have to take my place. Somepony would have to start their life'a crime even younger'n I did. Even if I'm the one with the throw pillow, the gun, or the knife, I can't risk forcing this awful life on anypony else. It's the reason I fight so hard not to die. (Well, one of many, but you get the idea, right?)
Of course, it don't matter anymore. I'm in here. In prison. Wanted for murder. Well, murders. Not sure if Filthy Rich knows I broke his Golden Rule. If he knows, well, I'm pretty sure my goose is cooked. If the courts don't get me the chair, he'll probably send one'a the other Choir Boys after me. Either way, I'm pretty much fucked.
I close my eyes. There's no Filthy Rich, no Choir Boys. There's no throw pillow, no gun or knife. There's a wire. The wire. The wire and a throat.
Don't do it! Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left!
I shake my head, and inhale from my cig, a little harder, a little longer. Sucking Joe Camel's cock, his seed shooting into my lungs, killin' the pain, fuckin' the pain, fuckin' it away. I blow it all out slowly, lettin' the smoke take my mind with it, beat it senseless for leadin' me back down that stupid train of thought. I take deep breaths, my eyes closed, thinking. Thinking. No wire. Just thinking.
The sudden sound of rattling keys breaks me from my thoughts. I look up, and there's a few cops. Both big, brawny guys I'd probably see as bouncers if they wasn't already wearin' the blue uniforms.
I greet 'em with a sneer. Never had much respect for the law. You could say that I think this way because I'm a crook. Well, you're half-right. Yeah, they get in the way, but that makes the job more interesting. They're an obstacle, a hound that chases the fox, and you can't have it any other way when you're in with this kind of crowd.
But I hate Manehatten law for one reason.
It don't really exist.
No, I'm serious. It doesn't exist here. If the law really mattered, Manehatten wouldn't be as sick as she is. She wouldn't be this bloated corpse that don't understand she's already dead, mob dons and gang leaders circlin' her overhead like vultures. The law's just as rotten as the crooks. Many'a these cops done worse things than me—and that's sayin’ a lot. I look at the two big, burly Earth pony guards and wonder how many little guys like me they trampled with those hooves, and how many prostitutes they beaten up, and how many foals they left father- or motherless. How badly they inflicted pain on those they were sworn to protect.
I'm a crook. I'm a monster. I’m a coward. I don't like being any of those, but that's what I am. At least I don't have the gall to wear a badge and pretend I'm a hero.
The looks on their faces could be described as disgustingly pleased, but that's too generous. I seen those smiles on ponies about to rape another pony. How their eyes seem to burn through the object of their dominance, how their nostrils flare in excitement over the thought of getting to rough you up, sink themselves into every orifice.
They look at each other. Then to me.
Oh. Oh shit.
"Hey there," growls the first one as he steps into the cell. That voice, if it weren't comin' from a pony, might’a come from a giant snake instead. His size seems to dwarf the cell itself, his gray coat and silver-white mane makin’ the cell seem even more like a grave. One of his eyes is dull, like he got blinded some time ago. The second guy, just as big as the first but with even less friendly colors, walks in behind him. The jailer looks on in curiosity. He's probably new to the job if he don't understand what's about to happen.
The one thing I've come to understand about this life, this underworld, this diseased little town is that in order to survive, ya gotta know the language. It's a language where the words are intimidation, the sentences are blows, and everything's written in blood. When somepony's trying to intimidate you, you intimidate 'em right back before sentences are formed.
So when these two big fellas come into my cell, grinning like foals on Hearths-Warming Morning about to open up presents, I don't back down. I look 'em straight in the eye. I know their game. And apparently, they know mine. The first guy and I don't break eye contact for a while.
Without looking away, the first guy says to the second, "Whattaya think, Gay Blade? He your type?" He grins.
His buddy, Gay Blade, nods. "He's totally my type, Mookie! Older than he looks, adorably tiny, fetching orange and black mane, sparkly blue eyes..." His voice and body language are both hilariously fey. If he wasn't such a big dude with such a creepy grin, he'd probably be looked at like he's some kind of offensive caricature of homosexuals from the 1970's.
Mookie takes a step forward. My heart begins to beat faster, but I don't dare look away. I'm smaller'n they are—much much smaller. Been tiny my whole life, often mistaken for a foal in his teens. Used that to my advantage sometimes, although it's hard to get in bars unless I grow some stubble. I'm a unicorn, they're Earth ponies; my tiny body is fragile, while just one of these guys could stomp me to mush. I’m a kitten in a nest of vipers.
Gay Blade walks behind me, admiring my form from different angles, sizin' me up like a meal. "You know what I heard, Mookie? I heard he's a murderer. A gangster. He's killed ponies. He's got blood on his hooves."
"Yeah, yeah he does, and that pisses me off."
Gay Blade decides he's gonna lean on me, his chin resting on the top of my head. My heart slams against my chest so hard and so fast it hurts. I feel his throat vibrate as he sighs dreamily. "He pissin' you off, Mookie? You wanna punish him?" He nibbles my ear. "I know how."
Faster than either can react, my cigarette finds its way to Gay Blade's nose and gets shoved in, ash side first. He screams like a bitch as Mookie darts forward. He's big, but I'm small—I slide underneath him and shoot for the open cell door. The guard who'd been watchin' looks at me, impressed. I'm expecting him to just close the door and let these two have their way with me.
But for some reason, he doesn't. I jump through the open cell door, and just as Mookie turns to chase me, the guard slams the cell door and locks it. I look at him in surprise. Mookie and Gay Blade are just as surprised as I am, shoutin' and cussin' at the guard as he walks right by me and places his keys on the wall.
"The fuck you doin', Lockdown?!" Mookie shouts. "We had a deal!"
Lockdown smirks at him. "I was given a better deal. The Commissioner already knows all about your little 'punishment sessions'." At this, the color went outta their faces. I'm not sure how that even works since we all have pelts, but they go pale like a pair of brothers who just realized Mom caught ’em red-hoofed.
Lockdown looks at me, a big smile on his face. He looks like I just won a contest or something. Congratulations, Baritone, you just survived a round of Rape Escape! How's it feel? What’cha plan on doin' next?
He pats my shoulder in congratulations. Then he shackles my forelegs, so quickly they're on before I can think. "Look," he says, "these shackles are just for show. I gotta take you to the Commish. She got somethin' she wants to say to you."
Then he places another shackle, this time on my horn. It's a restrainer that severely limits magic usage. Usually it takes a real fuck of an effort to lift a penny while you're wearin' it. Perfect for unicorn prisoners. I wonder why I hadn't been shackled with it before.
…The cigarette.
If I'd had that restrainer on before, Gay Blade would probably be four inches deeper in me by now. But because I was able to use the cig with ease, I was able to escape. This whole thing was a setup. I chuckle.
"What's so funny, faggot?!" Mookie shouts at me. Gay Blade nudges him with a murderous look on his face.
I shake my head, my chuckle exploding into a whooping cackle. The entire cell block reverberates with the sound of my laugh, distorting it. It sounds almost like a roar. Mookie and Gay Blade shrink down, away from the cell door as they hear my laughter.
The tiger roars.