Chapter 34: Polarity
"Oh, that's good!"
"Am I great at this or what?"
"Yeah! So great! More, more!"
"Okay! Fillies and colts, don't try this at home! I'm a got-the-skills-to-make-the-thrills professional!"
Poised perfect.
Precision unerring.
Dialed in down to the millimeter.
Hulahoof placed the bowl of chips onto his back using only one wing, setting it down between his shoulder blades without spilling so much as a greasy flake.
"Ta-da! Awesome-tight wing-eye coordination, right?"
"Yes! Hahaha!" James couldn't cease his lung-crushing, hand-clapping laughter. Nothing about the silly pony's antics was anything less than eye-wateringly amusing!
Especially so since the chip bowl had brought the total up to six. Six full bowls of snacks were placidly balanced upon Hulahoof's calm body: three down his back and three on his outstretched right wing.
"And now," he said, "the coup de finale!"
His free wing grabbed the last remaining bowl from the table. He made a show of carrying it, humming epic music while purposefully loosening his grip to heighten the drama. For the climax he hoisted the bowl high, tossing up some salted pretzels with the thrust but catching every last one of them, and then he placed the bowl on the very top of his head, nestling it safely into his puffy mane.
Seven bowls.
James again erupted into claps and cheers.
"Flawless victory! Yes! Glorious! The champion!"
"Thank you! Thank you!" Hulahoof's free wing bowed for him, to avoid the obvious mistake.
But even in the middle of all the adulations from the man, the blue pony bounced his eyes away to get a fast read on Pinkie Pie.
She was watching, and there wasn't any indication she had missed a moment of it, but all her interest seemed cold, or maybe just unwarmed. And every few moments, for a split fraction of a second, her eyes twitched over to peek at James.
Hulahoof mentally sighed and scratched another item off his checklist.
"Now the other wing! Go for eight!" James excitedly requested.
Hulahoof's free wing flexed into a question mark's curl, and he somewhat-halfheartedly, somewhat-bemusingly replied, "Uh, my wing doesn't bend that way...? Also, we're out of bowls."
The man, not really thinking too hard about it, offered giddily, "Okay, okay! I'll put something on you then!"
What truly made his statement alarming was all the subsequent problems he had simply trying to stand up. One leg knocked against the party cannon's barrel to the sound of a painful iron thunk. His other leg didn't stabilize him well and he nearly tripped to the floor. He was saved only by some whirling of his arms and some hopping on one foot. And he laughed the whole ordeal off brightly, of course.
Around the table were plenty of justified doubts that he'd be able to balance so much as a bottom-heavy egg.
Hulahoof kept his seven bowls safe with a deft dodge (still expertly spilling not a crumb) when the man came stumbling up next to him, and then James drunkenly leaned over the table. His hands shot out to search for another bowl to use, wandering here and there as if his vision couldn't reach beyond elbow length.
"Ugh," Rainbow Dash groaned, but it came out amid stifled laughter, "there are no more bowls left! What are you doing?"
The blind search continued, and in childish mockery the man copied her, "What are you doing?"
Rainbow Dash snorted. This strange new man was ridiculous beyond even her awesome powers to describe, and the whole time she had been unable to determine if it was concerning or hilarious. If only her laughter could have stopped for five seconds and then maybe she would have had the clarity to decipher him.
Her only stable source of sobriety had been her occasional glances at Pinkie Pie.
If these shenanigans had all been part of the man's big plan to "try something" then it didn't look like he had landed within a hundred miles of success. And, moron that he was, he hadn't noticed.
"You know," Rainbow Dash said, though she immediately halted to suppress another bout of laughter. She restarted, serious, "You know, you're being weird."
James plucked a salted pretzel from Hulahoof's head-bowl (again the pony prevented any spills with some lithe maneuvering) and flicked it at Rainbow Dash. It bounced once off the table before bopping against the wing she shielded herself with.
"Hey!" she shouted, but again a giggle interfered. "You trying to start something?"
A light bulb went on.
"Ye-heehee-ah!" the man tossed up an indiscriminate pointer finger. "This gives me an idea! Think you can compete in an epic game?"
The throw down – the challenge – twisted up Rainbow Dash's insides in all the right ways. Especially so because, between her and the man, it had always been up to her to toss the gauntlet to the floor.
Suddenly it was almost like she couldn't risk another glance at Pinkie Pie lest her competitive spirit take a handicap.
"Now you have my attention," she dared James.
"Then it's time for us to test our constitutions in a game as revered as it is fabled," the man proclaimed as if reading from the very scriptures of legend, holding his arms heavenwards to capture the glory. "A rite passed down from generation upon generation of frat house imbecile! It is the true determinator that separates the boys from the still-really-also-boys-but-now-I-guess-also-ponies! Beer-!"
Dude. Dude! I know you're going to have a hard time hearing this right now, but think about it:
Alcohol.
Pinkie Pie.
No, man. Just... no.
(Now, Rainbow Dash and alcohol? That would be hilarious.)
"Beeee-, belblbublb-, befrfrfff-..."
He threw in as much slobber as he could to garble the message of his runaway tongue.
"I don't think I've ever played Beebelubfrf before!" Hulahoof smiled eagerly. "How's it work?"
"It's- It's- It's... basically... ball tossing, and cups, and you drink, and stuff."
"Oooooooh, Fruit Punch Pong," the blue pegasus fast recognized the game, and only with the tiniest disappoint that it wasn't something new. "Mega-classic."
"Yes. That." James lied not-at-all nonchalantly.
"Wait, so how does this game work?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Hulahoof, setting down all his bowls one at a time (still no spills!), explained, "Cups filled with fruit punch are racked up and then you take turns tossing ping pong balls into them! Every shot made means somepony has to drink that cup. It's number twenty-four on The Definitive List of Equestria's One Hundred Best Party Games For Party-type Occasions and Other Frivolous Affairs, Vol. IV!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah; how do you win?" the other pegasus cut straight to her point.
"That depends on the exact ruleset you want to play by. Would you prefer Saddle Arabian Traditional, Feedport Competitive, or Ironpony Extreme?"
"Hm. Ironpony sounds pretty good-"
"Last pony taken to the hospital for a ruptured bladder wins."
Rainbow Dash's throat dried up.
"... Is there a hospital on the island?" she finally asked.
"Nope!" Hulahoof answered cheerfully. "Personally I recommend Feedport rules with some house adjustments."
"... Does anypony have to go to the hospital in those rules?"
"Nope!"
"Then let's do that."
"Okay!" announced Hulahoof. "Two teams, then! First team to make the other team drink all their cups wins! We'll need a whole bunch of cups, some fruit punch, and a ping pong ball! We can grab most of that from the snack table but I'll have to run inside to grab the ball."
James, who by that point had tottered back to his cannon-seat and was bumbling about trying to sit upon it, pointed across the table at the pink pony.
"Pinkie's got a ping pong ball," he said.
By the way Pinkie Pie shot up stiff, the man's finger might have been a weapon. She bit her lip, her eyes began a panicked search for escape, and bead after bead of sweat made frightened dashes for her neck.
"I do?" she squeaked.
"Yeah! Of course you do! You're Pinkie Pie!"
Pinkie Pie shrunk as the enormous pressure of everypony's attention squeezed her down, most especially from the man so terrifying and jolly. But yet very quietly and slowly she turned her head sideways, leaned over the table, and knocked her hoof lightly against the side of her skull.
On the third hit, a ping pong ball popped out of her mane and clacked its way across the table, landing in the pretzel bowl.
James tumbled off his cannon, clutching his stomach and laughing uproariously.
"I knew it! I knew it! You totally had one!"
Though the others had plenty of delightful praise for the pink pony's extremely prescient preparation, she could only hear and feel the man's endless, belly-deep laughter. It poured over her like a sweltering summer heat. She melted, nearly slipping under the table.
But then, from on the floor and still choking on his laughs, James said, "You have everything for no reason! That's so ridiculously awesome!"
Pinkie Pie poked up from beneath the table edge, a few less streams of nervous sweat rolling down her snout.
"It-... It is?"
Though Twilight had repeatedly insisted their stay on the island was only a vacation, she had somehow made herself quite at home.
In minutes she had cleared every last party favor from one of the tables and covered it instead with a library of paperwork. Records, accounts, histories, summaries, bibliographies; they blanketed the table in stacks, ordered indecipherably except through whatever system existed only in her head. Gallowayo's performance continued on the stage, but another whole show was taking place below: papers danced back and forth, slid over and under, twirled to and fro, and came center stage to take bows before the studious pony's scrutinies. Her quill scribbled notes feverishly, filling pages before filing them away faster than a ravenous paper shredder.
The study session had been spurred by her close conversation with James. She had tried to avoid withdrawing from the party and had been drifting between her friends, but they had seemed to be enjoying themselves plenty. Without any guilt to hold her back she had jumped straight into scratching her itch, and sweet Celestia had she ever been scratching the callouses clean off her hooves.
None of the chatter and cheer of the party had found a way into her tuned-out ears. The most she had ever felt of the outside world was the physical pumping of the music, though only as a distorted blare lost somewhere behind her intense focus. Sometimes when that distant noise had stopped for the interval between songs she had actually found enough awareness to clap her hooves, but never enough to have taken her eyes away from her scrawling.
So when the music stopped she idly clapped as always, but didn't notice how it quite unusually failed to start up again. The extended cheers of the audience passed her by, the grateful remarks from the stage speakers were no different than the background rumble of the surf, and the dimming of the stage lights might as well have been the sun setting on the other side of the world.
Naturally she didn't acknowledge anything at all until the very moment that Gallowayo was besides her.
"Twilight! Hey! What did you think?"
Papers flocked away like startled pigeons as Twilight bounced in surprise, and her magic fumbled to catch and shuffle them back into order.
Gallowayo was still coated in sweat from his hard performance despite all the soggy towels he had left behind backstage; constantly he had to swing his head to get tangles of soaked mane out of his eyes. He was coming down from the high of the limelight, noticeable in how the exhaustion was fading from his breaths and how his voice remained louder than normal. However, his smile hadn't quit the show at all; it was more eager and energetic than ever! Based on just his smile, the whole performance on stage could have been a warm up leading into this very exchange with Twilight.
The purple pony got the last of her disturbed pages back in order before turning to face the enormous smile.
She blinked, "... I'm sorry, what?"
"The show," Gallowayo didn't dim. "My music. What did you think? How did it make you feel?"
"Oh!"
Her magic abruptly dropped her pen and it struck an ugly blot onto the paper it had been hovering over.
"I-, uh... I-..."
Mouth ran one way; eyes dodged another.
"I really... really... absolutely listened to every word and... uh... I... enjoyed it...?"
Sometimes it took the biggest smiles to hide the biggest lies.
Gallowayo's own earnest smile dribbled away more enthusiasm with each of his slowing pants.
"But," he asked, "did any of the songs reach out to you? Was there anything that really struck you? What did it make you think about?"
Absent any answer, Twilight giggled in awkward courtesy.
For a brief moment Gallowayo didn't have any answer either. His mouth hung half-open, a voiceless hollow dry and frozen for a winter's worth of months. Eventually it wobbled, spilling out slow, hurt confusion.
"I've-... I've been working so hard to translate all these new feelings into-... into something that other ponies can absorb; can understand. I've needed somepony who could-, could-... could listen... Somepony who could really see and try to parse it. You-... you were supposed to be-... W-Wasn't there anything you heard which made you-... you-..."
At last a remorseful Twilight took off her pathetic disguise.
"I'm sorry, Gallowayo. I-... I wasn't paying attention to the show."
He was crushed.
No. He was flattened.
No! He fell from the glorious heights of the spotlight, off the stage, down through the boardwalk, and into the sand where he was buried.
He mumbled, "I've been-... been waiting for somepony who-... who-... who could-..."
"I know, I'm sorry," Twilight said again. "You even asked me to listen to your music and I didn't. It just wasn't on my mind. I'm so sorry, Gallowayo."
"But your essay," he sputtered on almost as if he wasn't talking to her but instead arguing with his own despair, "your essay was all about ponies, and their feelings, and-, and-, and coming together, and-... I-... You-... I have been trying so hard to explore the same thing but on a deeper level! And you were supposed to-... You and I-... We-..."
Twilight didn't know if she could possibly make herself any more sorry. She clapped her hooves, bowed her head, and apologized again, "I really meant to pay attention. I'm sorry that I didn't. It's just that... this mystery with the island and its history has really absorbed me."
He choked on whatever it was he wanted to say. Instead of words, the sound he made was a laugh, a scream, and a cry; all in little bits and sort of mushed together.
Plainly Twilight's open shame and many apologies weren't doing anything to glue the shattered pony back together.
Gently she offered to him, "How about we arrange another time for you to sing, even if it's just for me? I mean, I imagine your voice is a little too sore to sing any more right now, but I want to spend some time with you to make it up to you. In fact, if you're not busy right now, I'd really enjoy it if you could sit here with me—"
She floated a few of her many papers up to show him.
"—and help me study more of this history."
"‘History?!’"
Hurricanes of his magic blasted the floating papers away. The skin of his face stretched like somepony had seized the top of his mane and pulled back with all their might. A web of red veins filled his enlarged eyes.
"Who cares about the past?!" he yelled. "Who cares when there's such an incredible future that this island is creating for all ponies! And we have to understand it, Twilight! We have to!"
Even if his outburst was flavored more by an upset mania than by any burning anger, the wave of aggression that came flowing with it shocked Twilight. She leaned back as he leaned forwards.
He looked wild, a fevered appearance which seared right through the tangles of wet mane fallen before his face, and he shouted desperately at her, "How can you not understand?! You're the one that needs to!"
"Gallowayo, please calm down! I don't know why you think this island is so important to the future, but that only makes its past more important. We can understand the future better by understanding the past."
"No! No, Equestria has seen nothing like this before! Equestrians have... felt nothing as amazing as this before!"
Suddenly he was uncomfortably close, throwing the smell of his gasping body over her.
"I need you to understand it with me. I'm-... I'm supposed to show you the secret-..."
"Um... excuse me?" the littlest voice came from behind him.
He turned, and the fast movement swirled all the blood that had been swimming in his head. When the dizziness passed, there was Fluttershy before him. Her face was very warm and withdrawn, and she was meekly rubbing one of her legs.
"I didn't want to interrupt," she said, "but I was hoping I could – I mean, if it's okay – I could ask you some questions about your beautiful songs?"
The abrupt shift in tone from boiling exasperation to Fluttershy's softness left Gallowayo struggling to recognize where he even was. All he could do was use magic to pull the twisted strands of mane from his eyes and blink at her.
"Um... Please say, ‘yes.’" Fluttershy requested, growing more embarrassed with each passing second of silence.
"I-... Uh..."
"Well!" the profoundly disturbed yet relieved Twilight said, at least too loudly but certainly far too forced. "It looks like you found a partner to talk about your music with so, ah, far be it from me to disturb you! I'm going to take my things and go over"—she pointed randomly without direction—"there, where it's... far, far, far away from right here! Have fun, you two! Uh... Bye!"
Quickly magic shot out of her horn and enveloped her research materials, table and all! She turned and dashed, running not remotely close to the direction she had pointed out, and the whole airborne table stampeded after her. Latent lassos of magic snatched the trail of spilling paperwork and carried it along.
Gallowayo called after her, "Twilight, wait! I-... I didn't mean-!"
She wasn't coming back though. She vanished around the corner of the stage, and the flying table after her.
His extended hoof, raised to chase, went limp. He hung his head in shame.
"I'm sorry if I interrupted you," Fluttershy said, and she was dampened by shame worse than he was. "I really didn't mean to be so rude, and forceful, and arrogant, and pushy. That was very terrible of me. But I just couldn't help myself. I really, really was hoping that I could ask you about-..."
Her voice trailed into fleeting whispers, the folds of her wings moved forward to cover her disgrace, and she began to turn away.
"Never mind. I'll go."
"W-Wait."
She peeked back to see Gallowayo standing with a nervous twitter in his legs, oddly intimidated.
The uncertain singer asked, "You-... You want to talk about my music?"
"Oh yes please!"
Like a puppy woken up by the familiar sound of pouring kibble; like a bird on the first of spring bursting into their long-waiting song; like a young gazelle discovering their power to leap for the very first time. Bright-eyed, breathless, overjoyed; Fluttershy zoomed back to Gallowayo.
The singer hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the looming Passion's Embrace. Something about it was projecting fright onto him. The tremors in his legs worsened.
But it took only a long and slow breath as he turned away to make him much more stable. He returned to the happy, eager pegasus.
"Alright, I guess," he said. The furtherest corner of his eye took one last uncertain peek at the building, and a little bit of defiance rose up in him. "I really would like to talk with somepony about it. So... what did you want to ask?"
He opened the door a crack. It was Fluttershy who ripped it off its hinges.
"Wherever did you come up with such amazing songs? Are they based on your experiences? Does-... Does it actually feel like that to be in love? Have you ever really been kissed like you said, where it-, it-... it makes it so you can't breathe but it's-... it's wonderful somehow? Or when you sang about your chest breaking open, and your love becoming a waterfall, and there was so much it filled all the valleys between the mountains, oh I was moved to tears thinking about how a pony can have all that love inside but nopony special to swim in it! It's kind of sad, isn't it? But... do you really feel like that sometimes? I mean... do you think-... do you ever wonder if other ponies feel that same way? W-W-What would you... s-suggest those ponies do? Have-, have-.... have you ever fallen in love before? I mean, for real? How-... How did you know it was love? (Um, actually... don't-... don't answer that, please. I'm sorry! That was very rude of me to ask!)"
On and on it went, a train of back-to-back questions and remarks which refused to stop at a single station.
Gallowayo couldn't get a thought in edgewise, let alone a word.
Hulahoof's remarkable accuracy was apparently channeled into him by some kind of spell which worked through closing one eye and poking out his tongue sideways. Time after time he aced his shots, and his latest turn was no different. The ball bounced once off the table and made a perfect cup.
"Aha! Drink up!" he told the other team.
Rainbow Dash glowered, but only a little. The whole game was all in good fun of course, but she still hated to lose, and things were looking rather dicey for Team Rainbow Pie.
She nudged her inattentive teammate.
"Pinkie, it's your turn to drink."
"Huh?"
Pinkie had been present for the entire time, yet also absent because of her puzzled gazing at the strangely behaved man. Many times he had in fact caught her staring, and each time there had been a icy fright which had gripped the pony's back. But always he had simply, casually, and effortlessly smiled at her with a brainless smile.
"Oh. Right," the pink pony spoke blandly as reality came back and patted her on the nose.
Slowly she took the made cup and, without any real thought or consideration, chugged it down sluggishly.
"Uh... Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash tried to warn her friend.
Halfway through, the sound of Pinkie Pie's gulps changed substantially. They went from smooth thunks to the gurgle of a clogged drain.
But she finished and set the cup down. Unconcerned, nothing amiss, and without batting an eye, her cheeks bulged to several soundless heaves before one of them finally squealed like a squeaky toy, and out of her mouth popped the ping pong ball.
A single tak and a plop later, it was in one of the other team's cups, made without so much as caressing one of the sides.
"Woah! Nice shot!" Hulahoof remarked.
James, after a perfect beat, cracked up (again). His words couldn't fight successfully for space with his chortles, but of what he was able to squeeze out it was clear that he was trying to give her some sort of lively praise. The wide, toothy smile and the skewed thumbs up helped to sell his feelings as well.
A little tingle hit Pinkie Pie's hoof. It ran through her leg, across her chest, up her neck, and into her cheeks. The tiny tugs of electricity pulled her mouth into a small, light, short giggle. It was like the lift of air which picks up a collapsing tent, giving a hint of its proper shape. She felt better able to breath.
Still, she couldn't figure out what exactly it was about his laugh which she didn't like.
While Hulahoof drank the made cup, Rainbow Dash shook off her brief astonishment and congratulated her teammate, "Alright, Pinkie! Keep landing shots like that and we're sure to catch up!"
James scooped the ping pong ball into his hand.
"Catch this!"
He tossed, it bounced, and he made his shot, though with quite a bit more nail-biting suspense than Pinkie Pie's smooth attempt. The ball hopped around the lip of the cup before it decided on a whim to fall in.
"Yes! Chug it down, Rainbow Rash!"
The pegasus took a fast fall from competitive optimism to sore bitterness, and she gave him a sour roll of her eyes. She couldn't tell what was more frustrating: the threat of her first loss to him while he was in such a stupid state, or the extreme staleness that had come into his nicknames.
She took the ball out of the cup and drank her medicine.
But in the middle of it, the man teased her, "Hey, tastes like defeat, yeah?"
There was a gurgling snarl followed by furious, faster gulps.
"I mean, I can barely stand and I'm sinking shots!" he gloated. Then, "What's your excuse, Rash?"
The plastic cup crinkled as Rainbow Dash mashed it down.
"You know, I don't get it," she narrowed her eyes at him. "We play like a million rounds of wall ball and every time you play the whole thing like you're in warm up, and you lose every time acting like you're going to get a medal for it! But this is the one game where you act like-... like-... like-...!"
James slapped his hands onto the table hard enough to bounce all the cups, and across the divide he pushed a smile at her which was too vacuous to be vicious and too pleased to be polite.
"Like you?" he pointed out.
"What!?"
An insulted wing folded over her chest and guarded her heart; the universal pegasi for ‘How dare you!’
"I do not act like such a flankface!"
The man howled with laughter.
"Maybe I am secretly a pony," he said, "and my special talent is turning into you when I'm sauced!"
"You-! Just... sh-shut up!" Rainbow Dash seethed. And she angrily defended herself, "I'm the most admired pony in Ponyville! And reason number three for it – out of a ten point list maintained by the Official Rainbow Dash Fan Club; you know, cause I have one of those! – is that I'm crazy humble in victory and super gracious in defeat even though I never lose!"
"You're also a flankface," James stuck out his tongue.
"I am not!"
"Totally are!"
"Am not!"
"One hundred percent flanks right in the face!"
"Pinkie," she sought backup, "tell him! I'm not a flankface, right?"
"No," the pink pony affirmed.
But the man quickly clarified, "How about when it comes to sports?"
"Oh! Then yeah, you kind of are," Pinkie Pie giggled.
"What!? You're taking his—!!"
Her shout was struck dead the moment she laid full eyes on her friend.
Looking at Pinkie Pie was like looking at a pony in soft focus. There were sad glints in the corners of her eyes, but hopes lifting her brow. There was a nervous wrinkle in her nose, but warmth filling her cheeks. There were only weak tugs from her dimples, but a smile underneath bright with the beginnings of laughter.
When Pinkie Pie noticed her friend's pondering stare, she brought out an injured but recovering levity and asked, "What're you looking at, silly filly?"
A realization broke through to Rainbow Dash, brining with it a slow change in her snarling mouth. Fresh confidence pulled up her grin on one side; absolute cockiness on the other.
James teased Rainbow Dash, "So... are you going to miss your shot now or what?"
The pegasus, sure-hooved as a devil on a bed of hot coals, asked her teammate quietly, "You ready to win this?"
"Like a piggy on chocolate!" Pinkie Pie declared.
The game saw a lightning fast turn around.
And the rematch after that was very one-sided.
And the re-rematch also.
And the re-re-rematch too.
Then again, those results were to be expected when one team had literally never missed another shot the entire time.
Together Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had trounced the bullseye-accurate Hulahoof, hampered as he was by a man whose successful shots had more to do with luck than anything else. When all had been said and done, there were still cups standing on Team Rainbow Pie's side, and on other side was nothing but two losers with thighs squeezed shut.
After an incredibly long bathroom break which could not have come soon enough, James was the last to arrive back at the table. As usual he approached his cannon-seat in a stilted shamble, and he nearly tripped over the heavy thing when he tried to sit down.
Rainbow Dash puffed her chest and flaunted her superiority, "So, Micro Muzzle, what do you have to say now? Beat you at your own game!"
But the flat-muzzled man was still all smiles.
"Ya sure did, flankface!"
"Gr!"
"D'aw, don't make that face! No wait! I got a better one! I'll... flank you very much not to make that face!"
"You're just using the same lame put down over and over again!"
"Don't mess with a winning formula!"
"You didn't win! You're not cool!"
Pinkie Pie didn't even try to stifle her laughter at their back and forth. Her happy giggling and unrestrainable snorts caught Rainbow Dash's attention, and the pegasus really did her best to swallow her anger.
It was a spicy pill though, and she couldn't resist a final proud barb, "Whatever. Whenever you're... normal again, I'll make sure to remind you that the one time you grew a pair of wings and challenged me for real, you lost."
The pink pony's laughter winded down awkwardly quick. She slowly released the amusement in her heart and took in the whole scene with serious consideration.
‘Whenever you're normal again...’
"Alrighty-o! What now?" Hulahoof said, clapping his hooves like a camp councilor looking to build enthusiasm for the next activity.
"I'm actually a little hungry...," James moaned.
His stomach backed him up with a sound that did not indicate hunger. He looked more poisoned than hungry, with his paleness standing out strongly against his cheeks still flushed from all the recent activity. One hand was on his tummy and the other helped his forehead to rest. The change into such a state had come incredibly swift.
"How can you be hungry after all that stuff you ate? And all the fruit punch?" complained Rainbow Dash.
The man scrunched his eyes and waved his hand to shoo her away, murmuring under his breath, "No, you're a-... a-... flank-..."
Hulahoof's hoof came down on the man's shoulder and James looked the wrong way at first before he managed to lock his skewed eyes with the pony's.
"Woah-ho, friend," Hulahoof caringly consoled him, "I've seen this before. Looks like you got a real case of Party Hardy Syndrome. It's okay! It's not fatal! But it'd be good for you to take five or ten, and then later if you feel a-million-bits-of-golden-grits better, you can join us again."
James waved him off too, mumbling, "Just-... just a little food. God, my stomach."
Suddenly he looked to Pinkie Pie.
"Can you pull any food out of your mane again?"
The pink pony twisted her head.
"Again? What?"
"No, I didn't mean... literally this time... but-..."
"I have an extra cupcake?" she offered, producing it from her mane but positively uncertain if she was fulfilling his request.
"No," he said again, and he started to wave her away too. But still he rambled lowly, "I mean... dinner, like before. This one time, back at Ponytown-placeville I mean, I was hungry and you were there and... hay and zucchini..."
She had no idea what he was going on about.
But she did chuckle softly, "Hehe. ‘Zucchini’ is a funny word."
Seeking clarity, the man rubbed his palms deep into his face, covering the whole thing. But then in an unexpected moment a single laugh burst out from between his hands.
"Heh. Yeah. It is."
He slouched down on his cannon-seat and kept rubbing away.
Hulahoof, perhaps more crafty with his insight than one would expect, conjured an empty bucket from under the table and wedged it into the ill man's lap, afterwards giving one more friendly pat to the shoulder.
A thumbs up was returned.
"Well now," Hulahoof turned to the others, happy and cheerful as if nothing were wrong, "is there anything you ponies wanna do?"
Rainbow Dash was still a little too miffed to have any answer; she sat with folded legs and twitching wings, grumping quietly to herself. Pinkie Pie didn't react either. Her gaze was on James but looking through him, and her mind was somewhere else completely.
"So...?" Hulahoof vainly asked the empty air.
In the stillness of the moment there was a sudden unexpected flash of change which overtook Pinkie Pie. Between moments she had become somepony new and different, but at once still the same as her old self. The famous smile was there, just not quite as wide and large. The eyes were bright and blue, but not cloudless. The realization she had found was of something which remade the world in all the same colors as it had been before, but just a little more muted.
And there was peace.
Unhappy peace.
But peace nonetheless.
She turned to the island pegasus.
"I'm sorry, Hulahoof. I haven't been a very good friend to you at all. And especially not about your great party," she said, plainly sincere but, more than that, straightforward. "You put so much into it and I've been too distracted to notice."
"Oh! Oh, that's alright!"
Even if he hadn't noticed the new change in her, some sensitive part of himself must have detected something; he shined in a new way in return. It was as if all of the effervescent joy he had shown thus far had just been an act and now the real sunny pony was breaking through.
Lit up, bending his knees endlessly up and down in excitement, he said, "I never give less than one-thousand-and-one percent to every party I throw anyway, cause I love to do it whether other ponies notice it or not!"
"That's a really great party-throwing attitude," Pinkie Pie replied, again truthful though speaking rather plainly, "but still, you worked so hard to make me feel welcome here, and to throw this party for all of us. I should have told you the truth about my problems right away instead of letting you try and try and try and try, again and again and again and again, to be a good host to me even though I was being such a party pooper guest. I know how much being ignored can hurt a pony, and I shouldn't have pretended I could get along fine when I was really so distracted. I'm sorry..."
He looked at her, not very sure at all if he understood the specifics of what she was apologizing for. But he got the message, and a thankful smile came out; one of a pony who felt ignored no longer.
"It's really mondo-alright! I just want you to have a good time here, and maybe get to know you a little better!"
He looked around, surprisingly nervous for a pony of his outgoing nature, and then he extended a hoof across the table towards her.
"Would you like a tour of the party and how I set everything up?"
Pinkie Pie swallowed all the air on the island with her gasp.
She screeched, "Would I ever! That'd be great! No wait, I mean, that'd be ultra-great! We can compare party notes!"
"Yeah! I'd love to hear any advice you have for my future parties!"
"Ahhhhhhh this is going to be the best party tour ever!"
Rainbow Dash had to cover her ears to keep her eardrums from shattering. James dropped his head into his bucket.
Hulahoof stood up and, like a young colt proudly picking up their very first date, bowed to the pink pony and invited her to follow.
And she did, skipping along after him in her usual bouncy way.
Smashing the high-pitched ringing out of her brain, Rainbow Dash took stock of her situation and realized she had a choice to make: be an intrusive third wing on Pinkie Pie's party tour (a path no doubt ending in her inevitable death when her brain would melt from all the mind-blasting squealing), or she could stick around with James.
"Hey, Pinkie! Wait up!"
The pink pony lagged a few bounces back, not that the speedy pegasus had any trouble catching up. When Hulahoof saw that an extra pony would be tagging along, he was nothing but delighted.
"The more the merrier!"
There was a unified look from the group back at the man slumped on a cannon with his head in a bucket.
"Well... maybe not him," Hulahoof said a little awkwardly.
"Pff, yeah," Rainbow Dash told Pinkie Pie, keeping alongside the pink pony a few paces back from Hulahoof so that he wouldn't overhear. "What a dumb game of his, am I right?"
"Aw, come on, Rainbow! It was a lot of fun!"
"‘Fun?’ You have got to be-!"
At last the pegasus caught on to the recent change inside of Pinkie Pie.
"So," Rainbow Dash cleverly intoned, "you had fun, huh? And he was right there the whole time! See? I told you it would work out!"
"Hmmm," the pink pony hummed thoughtfully from the very base of her chest.
Her next bounce shrank in size compared to the one before. And the same for the next bounce. And the next. And soon she was just walking along like any ordinary pony; from soaring high to normal walking in a transition as smooth as a wide grin slowly shrinking into a gentle smile.
The voice she next used had no qualities positive or negative. It was simple; direct; clear; docile; honest.
"I finally figured it out," she said. "You were right, Rainbow Dash."
"I was? I mean, of course I was! But... I was?"
"Yeah."
The pink pony sighed.
"I can't Pinkie Pie my way into a friendship with him. Heh. Oh well. Can't be friends with everypony, right?"
"I-... Wait wait wait, no," Rainbow Dash suddenly and desperately objected. "I know I said... something like that, but come on! This was progress, right? I mean, you were having fun! And if you're having fun, then you can be his friend!"
The same sad, sad, peaceful smile stayed on Pinkie Pie's face.
"I did have fun," she answered, "but this is what it took," and she looked and nodded back at the strange, unusual, almost unrecognizable man; the ill-looking fellow who face was in a bucket and whose behaviors had been uncharacteristically silly; the guy whom her good friend Rainbow Dash certainly didn't seem to like, or get along with, or consider a friend at all.
Awash with tranquil fatigue, she reemphasized to her pegasus friend, "Pinkie Pie wanted to be friends with James."
James dry heaved again. The smell it pumped into the bucket was unfavorably bilious, but thank goodness nothing wet had come out. He picked up his face to let some fresh air into his tiny metal prison, but as soon as he did his stomach only started to rumble and threaten him again. The quakes changed into more foul heaves as they rose, recurring regularly enough that he could use them to count the passing minutes.
Finally things seemed to settle. He carefully lifted his head up a few inches, half-expecting to suddenly spray a hose of vomit across the beach, but there was nothing. He was fine, if quite weary and woozy.
He turned to the empty table position next to him.
"I think I'm alright. So anyway, are-? Oh."
He set the bucket aside on the table, sat a moment, then thought the better of it and put the bucket back into his lap.
Maybe his plan hadn't been the best plan. And maybe his plan hadn't gone according to plan either. Really, he didn't much know, or remember, or maybe even care.
At the moment what he cared about was whether whatever he had done had really been worth the current state of his head and stomach. He hadn't gulped down that much booze, he thought. But then again he didn't really know what was in pony-made alcohol, so maybe he had in fact overdone it. Truthfully though, when he sat still and quiet for several long moments to check himself out, he didn't seem too drunk, or not anymore buzzed than he had usually gotten amongst friends back on Earth. Maybe he had just gotten into the act and hammed it up? Sort of like giving an inexperienced teenager alcohol-free beer without telling them, and they start to go wild anyway?
Drinking all that punch after the booze had still been a stupid idea though.
He kept himself steady, holding his bucket in place while focusing intently on getting more of the fizzy nausea and uncomfortable weight in his stomach to pass.
Only one time was his sickly concentration broken, and that was when he remembered about Prism. He looked, and the colorful, bracelet-rich pony still hadn't returned.
In time the man felt confident enough to abandon the bucket, leaving it under the table. His buzz was falling too, bringing a bit of a crash to his head but nothing he couldn't walk away from (yet). It helped that the party seemed to be dying down: no music on stage, less light because the show was over and also a few of the torches had burned out, and less noise from the much fewer ponies about in general.
Actually, the only pony still sitting at a table was Rarity! Spike was seated with her. That dark stallion whom the island had assigned to her wasn't seated though; he was standing nearby slightly off from the table.
James didn't think much of it, except at that very moment he heard Rarity call for something.
Like a royal servant, the dark stallion attended to her, treating the seamstress like some kind of princess. Spike clearly was not happy with the stallion's behavior but it only took the dragon a moment to assert his superiority by adding several items to the fetch list which Rarity was already dictating.
The stallion's mannerisms struck James, though it wasn't the first time that the man had caught sight of how rehearsed the pony was around Rarity. Sometimes showy, powerful, and domineering, like some kind of conceited noble certain they had the right to mold the whole world around themselves, but other times almost comically sycophantic with a reserve so shy that every parent on the island should have been rushing to protect him. The dial between the two modes was screwed on so loose that it seemed to spin freely (and obviously it had been sabotaged to be exactly that way). All those strategic behaviors were perfectly encapsulated in one single action the man saw him take: he boldly approached the sitting seamstress and seized her hoof without invitation, but then suddenly he became unworthy garbage and needed her explicit permission twice just to kiss the top of her hoof.
Regardless of how insulting the man felt the performance was, Rarity obviously enjoyed such biformed worship.
After he marked Rarity with his kiss, Sweet Nothing left to perform his duties. There was a stop at the food hut first for another small plate of desserts, he added to the plate afterwards during a trip to the snack table, and he grabbed two cups of punch while he was there. Once he had the scrumptious load safely on his back, he made his way again towards Rarity's table.
"Hey buddy. Got a sec?"
Sweet Nothing stopped mid-stride. It seemed like the man was speaking directly to him though he couldn't imagine why.
"Yeah, come here," James definitely was summoning the dark stallion.
The pony hid how annoyed he was beneath only the thinnest veneer of formality: a polite scowl, a breath out his nose not quite hot enough to see, and eyes that quickly and efficiently massaged his own brow. He made the calmly frustrated detour to the man's table.
Before he even arrived he addressed James with a bored, stringed-together facade of respect, "Sir, if you need something then you should request it from your assigned-"
"No, I just wanna talk to you for a moment."
Again Sweet Nothing released an invisible burst of steam from his nostrils, but he swallowed his displeased growl.
"Yes sir, how can I help you?"
"Hey, it's great that you're making Rarity happy and everything," some of James' syllables were still drunkenly slipping into the wrong sounds. "Like, that's awesome. She's just gives and gives and asks for nothing, so she deserves the queen treatment. So thank you for giving her that."
He leaned closer and started to whisper in friendly caution.
"But... you're laying it on kind of thick, don't you think?"
Sweet Nothing stared. His polite scowl did not improve.
The man continued, "Like, I get it. We're at this tropical paradise; you're hired specifically to do this ‘handsome slave-slash-prince charming’ performance; it's just for show; yadda yadda. I'm not criticizing your job or how you do it. I just think you're getting a little too into it, is all. I mean, remember, we're only here on vacation. You're not trying to romance her. So could you do me a favor and ease it up a bit?"
At the mention of a "performance" Sweet Nothing's expression took a slightly hostile turn. But then he glanced away briefly.
He glanced at Rarity, and the iron collar of a dragon he had so far found no good wedge to pry at with. He glanced away and his hostile expression changed in entirely the opposite direction.
He put on a smile.
A pleased smile.
A sickeningly sweet, self-satisfied, surreptitiously sensual smile.
"Oh I am so sorry, sir," he spoke to James in a bold and grand apology, even bowing his head to the floor. None of the sandpaper sentiments he had been coating himself with were there anymore. "I see now just how right you are: I've let myself get a little too swept up in my duties. How unprofessional! I promise you that from now on, for my part, I will keep a more respectful distance from Rarity."
"Alright. Great," James said, a little like he was tenderly inspecting a new bruise. There was just enough alcohol left in him to make the oddness of the pony's fast flipflop seem normal-ish.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?" Sweet Nothing played the part of a perfect professional.
"Uh... No, I think. And hey, thanks."
"Oh-ho! My pleasure! Thank you!"
The dark stallion took his plate and cups, and he made a dignified retreat towards Rarity's table.
When he arrived, he did nothing more than any extra server at a diner would do. The plate and cups were set down in spots where they would be obviously and immediately noticed, and not a word he spoke doing it. Nor one fawning glance for beautiful Rarity; nor one forward promotion of his impressive body. He made his delivery in silence and then he immediately turned and began to leave.
The silence and withdrawal couldn't have pleased Spike more, but it was an alarming break in pattern for the detail-oriented dressmaker.
"Mr. Nothing!" a worried Rarity called to him. "Is something the matter?"
Sweet Nothing stopped and collected himself. He put on a brave face; the bravest face; the face of somepony stout under a heartbreaking duty, with a well of tears just waiting patiently at the corners of their eyes for the first sign of weakness.
"Not at all!" he smiled for Rarity only in mere courtesy, and his voice had the kind subtle shiver most dramatic actors could only dream of achieving.
And like that, he reeled her in an inch closer.
Her sympathy reached out to him, and he responded in kind. He let just a little bit of water flavor his eyes; a few leaks in the dam. He let a colorful amount of fright paint his attentive stance; a weakness in his professional poise. He brought his phony shield a few steps lower; a silent cry for help.
In regrettable, shameful, sorrowful whispers he told her quickly, "Your tall friend pulled me aside a moment ago and gave me some stern words about my behavior towards you. He demanded that I stop."
Rarity snapped up and looked over towards James. The man was at his own table, still awkwardly seated on a small cannon, but that uncomfortable arrangement made it all the more obvious that he was stealthily trying to monitor the interaction between her and Sweet Nothing without being noticed.
"Oh he did, did he?"
A suspicion squeezed her eyes; a vice which had been on top of the toolbox for a long time, almost too ready to finally find use.
"I am so sorry, Madam Rarity," Sweet Nothing continued his nervous confession. "I never imagined I was being so rude and disrespectful towards you, as he said. I was just so overwhelmed by your breathtaking-! No. No no, he'll get angry again. Please accept my apologies and... I will not bother you anymore. Goodbye."
And he left, moping straight towards the front door of the Passion's Embrace.
"But Mr. Sweet Nothing, wait-!"
Rarity actually began to trot after him, but he made sure to outpace her. Yet right before he slipped inside and shut the door, he did glance back at how far out she had come from her table and Spike.
"Good riddance," the dragon said to himself.
But Rarity didn't immediately return to her table. She stood still for a time exactly where she had stopped when the front door had clunked closed, watching it in one sense but looking elsewhere entirely in another sense. Her gaze pierced right through the back of her skull and contemplated over the man at his table.
The curls in her tail suddenly stiffened. Her nose lifted like an affronted lady taking charge.
"Hmph!"
Compulsively Twilight reordered her paperwork over and over, usually not even watching but rather keeping her eyes behind her. Eventually some sanity evicted her restless anxiety and she started to recognize what a mess she had made of all her research. She grumbled to herself as she got the pages back in order and laid them correctly across the stolen table, only occasionally lending nervous peeks to the shadowy corners she had escaped around.
The unicorn had fled somewhere into the work-area maze behind the stage. The table looked awfully out of place tightly nestled in the middle of the small tool sheds, stray scaffolding, unused equipment, and piles of trash. The area was pretty dark too, with only one guttering lamp straining to counter the night. It wasn't any light to be reading by, that was for sure.
Swiftly she tired of squinted and she brightened her horn, better illuminating her research but also incidentally revealing amongst some nearby stacks of stools a shadowed pony.
Once more papers flew in surprise. All her organization, ruined again!
"Ahhh!" Twilight jumped.
The other pony didn't flinch. Or so it seemed anyway; it was hard to tell with so much darkness still cast over them.
"Uh, sorry," Twilight apologized, scrambling to collect herself and her papers. "I didn't see you there at first. I mean, I didn't intend to suddenly come charging in on anypony. I hope I didn't interrupt your... um... work?"
Again the other pony didn't give any readable response, but perhaps in this case no answer was a good answer?
"A-Alright then," said Twilight.
The air went still.
Twilight coughed.
The other pony did lift and turn their head an inch, so they were at least alive.
Shrugging, Twilight spent the next few moments slowly and uncomfortably resorting her many pages of research. Every now and again she took a breath and glanced at the shadowed pony, but there was nothing new to see.
Whoever they were, they were familiar though. She was sure of it. Yet after her hysterical escape and careless barging into what was technically a non-guest space, it felt too rude to shine her horn brighter just to verify.
As she finished getting her work in order, Twilight mindfully asked, "Is it alright if I... you know... stay here for a little bit and do some reading?"
Nothing from the other pony.
"... Should I go?" Twilight further asked.
This time the other pony shook themselves as a kind of answer. It wasn't quite any yes or no with their head, but more of a gut response with their whole body.
Twilight couldn't discern what emotion exactly had powered the reflex. But she hadn't been shooed, she reasoned.
"If it's not too much trouble," the purple pony requested as politely as she possibly could, hoping to solve a simple dilemma before leaving well enough alone, "is there anything here I can use to sit on? It's just that the mix of sand and dirt back here is really itchy on my, um, posterior."
Another short shake hit the other pony; again immediate, and sort of hard and fast.
But then the other pony's horn lit up and grabbed one of the dozen excess stools stacked near her. She floated it over to Twilight.
In the momentary wash of light, Twilight thought she saw reflected in the other pony's polished steel eyes a look that she could have been mistaking for the sharp stab of a glare.
The purple pony's flicker of quizzical surprise made her almost miss catching the stool when it abruptly dropped. Her magic snagged it just before it broke one of its stumpy legs against the ground.
"Uh. Thank you?" Twilight said.
The other pony said something in return, though low and to herself. Then she immediately got up to leave. Abandoning her collection of stools but staying in the shadows, she went further into the darkness between the sheds and heaps of rubbish, away from the stage and front boardwalk.
Distinctly Twilight heard accompanying her clops the light jingle of jewelry.
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Wrote this chapter at a pretty good pace, and it felt good; felt right. Now that Pride Goeth is finished, let's see if I can't get this story train a-rolling again.
What is going on at this fucking resort?!
Yeah, if Rarity doesn't give Sweet Nothing a swift buck in the family jewels by the end of this I will be very disappointed.
It IS kinda funny if Twi did remember that she did 'kinda' listen to the dudes song
When she asked about how love and sex feel like he did sing those bits out
Huh so is Gallowayo gonna do something to Flutters now?
I mean she is doing what Twi was suppose to ask him so...
hmm
Great chapter man
8246823
Dreams my friend, on Fantasy Island all your dreams come true.
Things worked out for EQUESTRIA, not taking into account other places or peoples.
Something else also struck me: if Cutie Mark focus keeps so many Ponies from forming romantic attachments which result in marriage and foals, that would be yet another way for the natural magic to control their population. The level of subtle manipulation and the directions and reasons for it are turning darker and darker, much like the scenes in this chapter.
Well, things just got dark