Sweet Dreams for Sweet Revenge

Knock, knock.

She opened the door and was greeted by a man with a coat whose color clashed severely with his hair color. He wore an inviting smile and had a glass balanced upon an upturned hoof. The other had a strap around it attached to a fancy looking bottle with no label on it.

“May I help you?”

“You may. More importantly, I think I may help you. You’ve undoubtedly had a shitty last five years. Or three, however many it was.”

“Three.”

“Alright. What I want is for you to feel welcome. I know being with only one other person can be infuriating.” He did not speak from personal experience.

“I know hospitality, and your policeman friend beats you by a long shot, Missuer. Your dragon has more people experience than you do. Your little beetle is more tactful than you are. It’s not that i do not appreciate the effort, but I have been smothered enough in the last five days. Merci.”

“I know I can be a pocketful, miss. I just want you to taste this. A gift from a very special friend.”

Her eyes shifted to the champagne glass then the flask. He did not think about the oddness, nor the fact he’d catch flack.
More minutes passed before the told him to talk to her less stable friend.

Deflated, he left this here sexy hot zebra alone to her solitary room. His plan had failed. As he thought it would, and might. He had all the subtlety of dynamite. He liked to make a good friend as much as the next guy, even more, because he never actively went looking before. More, he had less, so it was more special. Yet as one who was driven by pragmatism, he had another purpose, give this “gift” to one more deserving than himself.

A short walk the next corridor over, and another girl had a poor mood from being forcibly uprooted, and her mood was less workable then the first. Audrey.

He raised a forelimb and struck the door once, and the door immediately opened, revealing an equine like head with longer ears than his own. A very hot mare if he said anything about it.

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“Here to offer me some phony remedies, are you? A nightmare for a nightmare? Ruddy philanthropists like you fuck things up for the lot of us.”

He swore otherwise:”I come only to offer a little peace of mind. A good drink, if you go that way.”

She cracked a smile. “Did some lady in a cerulean dress and silver shoes put you up to this? Or try to feed you something you want to pawn off to some unsuspecting bystander?”

He immediately responded thus:”No. I just want to be a better man. And you two are my chance. Making a good impression is key, and I have a better chance with you than a few ponies accustomed to me.”

Only immediately after he said this did he think about the fact he used the “P” word. Lyle’s vocabulary has been rubbing off on him, and he resented it. He loved Lyle, but his inordinate vocab drove him nuts.

“You should probably go. You’ll be haunted by a literal nightmare. A nocturnal female horse trying to fuck you silly. I don’t mean to be standoffish and bold, but you got to shield your thoughts, and beware your subconscious. I don’t know if you believe in ghosts, but dreams are very real, and serve some purpose. Goodbye.”

He thought about it, and for the last few years, his dreams were never the same as the years before the AE years, in AD. He found the content no different thematically, but his waking recollections after the fact were more crystal clear than ever before. And the last couple of nights, he saw a figure not unlike what she described, and he recalled how he actually met someone who looked like that. One he detested.

He stepped out of the house and into the cold. It was cool enough for him to feel the chill through his coat. Usually that kept him warm enough on chilly days, but now it kept him just comfortable. He imagined what would happen if his skin was bare and there was nothing between his epidermis and the frosty climate about him.

He came back into the house he resided in, and found his two mates drinking a good bottle full of wine. Val would intermittently take a bit of rum. Vinnie would enviously look at him when he did, like she wanted some, but dare not try.

Facepalming, massaging her temple while looking out the side at him she said,”Must you drink in front of me?”

“What do you mean? We’ve been doing it since we knew each other.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. The heavy stuff. I cannot drink that like I used to, and you know what would happen if I tried. The last time I did, our good friend Alex lost half of his coat.”

“You’re a tough girl, mum. You can handle it.”

He then raised an arm that wasn’t too dissimilar to a cheese grate and grasped the bottle in front of him in a playful manner.

Will looked upon this scene and thought deeply. He wished he could will himself hands at will. Alas, he could not, and it only reinforced the pragmatic relationship he had with these two.

In he stepped, and they glanced over to him, then went back to sipping their cares away. At least she could have wine, hard liquor be damned.
“Angela stepped in earlier.” Vinnie spoke. “She thought you could use some Christmas cheer.”

“Do you honestly think an Aspie with a high IQ is prone to superstition or religion? I’d say I appreciate the gesture, but I have never been one to like holidays; only to please my family and neighbors.”

“She’s in the back,” Val spoke up. “You’ll find her ready to surprise ye, man.”

He wasted no time in going out the rear door and sipping a sip on his girlfriend’s behalf as he caught eyes on a tent pitched in the backyard. He never liked backyards. But anything to please Vinnie and Val was enough to please him. And right now it made way for potential annoyance.

He approached the tent braced to be jump scared. He was pleasantly surprised when he entered. Handmade (nothoof made) figures sculpted out of clay and baked of near perfect Jesus, Mary and Joseph figures were strewn in perfect positions before him, and Angie was at the rear of the tent. She was just sitting there staring ahead, eyes fixed on him the moment he came in as if she was just waiting here and doing nothing else.

“Good evening, William. I know there’s no way for a jackass to get you down. You are far more resilient than that.”

“What the hell are you talking about, ya loon?”

“Don’t act like you would not know: You want to make more friends in spite of being an antisocial shut in, and you do actually desire what most ponies want.”

There she went with this horse stuff again. She caught on quickly and just rolled with it. What she said next caught him by surprise.

“Happy birthday, Father Christmas.”

He had to double take. What?

“It’s not my birthday, and don’t call me that.”

“I’m so sorry. Alex put me up to this, even though I wanted to do this anyway. And you needed cheering up. Besides, I wanted to show off my sculptures.”

Did she make them, or did Sherman make them?

He left without another word. ‘She’s not getting it, that’s for sure. It would be unjust cruelty to subject any more pon-- people to that than needed.’

He liked the half baked nativity scene, though, even if it wasn’t December 25th, or anything near it.

His sensitive ears caught onto something he didn’t expect: sobbing.

Rushing in, he found Vinnie patting Val’s back and consoling him in some way.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Multi faceted eyes stared into his, and tears were running down them. “I want larvae. I haven’t seen a single one since we came into this prison of a world. I see no future for us, and think a few good larvae would give us something to work with, something to live for and/or take care of. Some sense of purpose. Your love is always good, but is it enough?”

Willie cared not for expansion, but his heart sank at this. His empathy wasn’t as nonexistent as he let on. Feel though he would, his face wouldn’t betray what was in his mind.

A few larvae would not be the worst thing or idea ever, but there wasn’t a means to them. And there would not be any around here anytime soon.
He was glad his friend knew what he felt even when he could not express them.

When the evening fell even deeper, he went to bed with a somewhat troubled mind. Pawning off Lu’s gift was on the backburner of his mind, and he thought he might need to keep the stuff if he ultimately decided on revenge anyway. His main concern was what would happen if the world remained sparsely populated. Moreover, what would happen to his best friend’s psyche if he didn’t find those larvae he was so concerned about plagued his mind more than he ever thought it would. Even as he was having sex with Vinnie he thought about his needs over theirs and how he might accomplish this. Finding more people would be key, but how would he be more help than he is now if he had no horns upon his head? No extra senses to detect lifeforms to increase the odds?

He fell asleep with these troubled thoughts, and dreamt of a prince of all things. How or why he could not say. But he was being shot through the heart without harm, but lots of pain. Plus, the guy looked like him. How strange. In spite of this, he slept soundly, and even fantasised about successfully killing the cerulean mare off. Never did a dream give him such satisfaction. Maybe his dreams would become reality someday.