The room he lived in now seemed just a little bit smaller with Hennessy in it and Flicker stood near the training dummy while staring at his earth pony roommate. Spud was under the bed, hissing at the stranger invading his space, and as for Hennessy himself, he stood in the middle of the room looking around, trying to get a feel for the place.
“They use the word ‘mister’ round here a lot,” Hennessy remarked as he glanced at Flicker for a moment.
Flicker remembered his own time of adjustment here and his lingering anger towards Hennessy cooled off to a dull resentment. “Mister Chandler, whom you will be meeting soon, he’s not too bad about enforcing the rules, but for a lot of the guild members, if you fail to address them properly, you’ll be punished. Harshly. We deal with a lot of high society types in Canterlot, so etiquette and decorum is very important.”
“What’s… eti—eti—that word you just said?”
Beneath the bed, Spud let out an exasperated meow of disgust, then hissed again.
“Etiquette,” Flicker said, his body adopting better posture as he spoke the word, “is the currency of civility, according to Doctor Sterling. It is part of a fair exchange. One says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at all of the right moments. One offers his cloak to a mare or a filly when it is raining. A mare or filly is allowed through a door first. All of these polite acts are like spending bits, which gets you politeness and respect in return for your investment.”
“Ah, I know what it is now, down south, where I live, we call it being genteel. Most ponies don’t bother with it, I know my Daddy don’t. Ain’t expected of him, so he don’t bother.” Hennessy’s eyebrows bounced up and down a few times, and then he took a step away from the bed when there was another hiss. “I try to act genteel when I can, but my brothers say I’m putting on airs and then they beat the stuffing out of me.”
“That’s… awful…” Shocked, Flicker just stood there, not knowing what to say.
“Oh, I do lots of things that make my brothers angry. I learned how to read, I got smart, and there is the way I am… they don’t like it. It’s part of the reason I was sent to live in Canterlot, to be around other ponies like me.”
“Polite ponies, with etiquette?” Flicker asked, feeling as though he was missing something.
“Yeah…” Hennessy’s lone syllable was stretched out like taffy. “Polite ponies. With etiquette. That’s a good way of putting it. Daddy seems to think that Canterlot is full of nothing but… polite ponies.”
The feeling that he was missing something persisted, but Flicker said nothing for fear of being thought stupid. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do or say next, as he didn’t have a list of orders or instructions to follow, just the command to show Hennessy around the place and make him feel welcome.
After turning the problem over in his mind for a time, Flicker realised that while he didn’t quite know what to say, he knew that there was a way to show Hennessy what he was in for. Flicker’s ears stood up, then drooped, and then stood up again as he tried to discern if he was having a good idea, a worthy idea, if his idea had merit.
“Come with me, Hennessy, and I’ll show you why we fight…”
Mouth dry, Flicker stopped at the door to the laboratory, turned around, and looked Hennessy in the eye. “We can’t talk about this out in the public… nopony must ever know. If you blab about this, I’m pretty sure that you’ll get a beating and it’ll be a bad one. Beatings don’t happen often, but when they do, they’re deserved. I’ve never had one.”
“I get it, guild secret.” Hennessy nodded and shuffled on his hooves. “This laboratory… ain’t that a fancy word for the shitter?”
Flicker stood there, blinking, not sure how to respond to that. He hated feeling stupid, and he didn’t want to make Hennessy feel stupid. It took him several seconds for his brain to form a worthwhile response. “This is a laboratory. You’re thinking of a lavatory. Don’t worry, common mistake.”
Turning, Flicker went to open the door and he heard Hennessy say, “Thank you, for not making me feel ‘tarded. Country don’t mean dumb. I tried real hard to educate myself and you is real nice for not making me feel stupid.”
His magic lingering upon the lever to the door, Flicker nodded.
“You had a chance to talk down to me there and you didn’t. That makes you a good pony, at least, I think so. I done been talked down to all my life. I don’t want to be an ig’nant know nothing hick, which is why I came here.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Flicker nodded, then opened his eyes back up as he stared at the brass door lever. “I grew up on a farm and I went to the Ponyville schoolhouse. I wasn’t bright enough to go to Princess Twilight’s school. When I had a chance to come here, my mother was real happy. If you work hard, you’ll be treated as an equal here. We’re all brothers and sisters united by a common cause. Come inside, I’ll show you.”
Tugging down on the lever, Flicker pushed open the door.
The laboratory, down below ground, was dark and had no windows. Flicker hit the light switch and the overhead lights let out a crackle, began to hum, and one by one, they sparked to life, dim at first but growing brighter with each passing second. The colt was somewhat surprised that the lab was empty.
“The light,” a voice hissed.
Pausing near the door, Hennessy shivered, shuddered, and let out a fearful whimper.
Looking back, Flicker recalled that had been his reaction too. He took a deep breath and began fortifying his mind so that he wouldn’t lose his temper. Having dealt with what was kept in this room, he knew all of its tricks, he knew how horrible it was, but then Flicker realised that Hennessy didn’t.
“He reads minds,” Flicker whispered to Hennessy. “He’ll know about you. Your secrets. He’ll say things to get to you. Don’t let him—”
“One day, I will chew the face off of your sister.” The voice spoke with a demonic hiss. “I will raise my brood in a burrow made from her rotting, festering carcass.”
“Don’t let him get to you,” Flicker finished as he crept forwards.
The two colts approached the corner where a cage was, one looked fearless, bold, the other was hesitant, fearful, and cautious. Sparks trailed from Flicker’s horn and his eyes had a fierce inner-glow. A few feet away from the cage, Flicker stopped with an abrupt suddenness that caused Hennessy to bump into him.
“We call him the Rat Bastard,” Flicker whispered to the colt beside him. “He’s big and smart. He talks. Mister Chandler found him in the caverns below the castle and he was reading the minds of the ponies in the castle. He commands other rats, tells them what to do, and they obey.”
The two colts and the giant rat regarded each other. The rat peered out of the fine, unchewable mesh that made up the front of his prison, squinting in the bright light at the two colts. Hennessy, visibly terrified, pressed up against Flicker and shivered with fear. Flicker didn’t notice Hennessy though, as all of his attention was focused upon the Rat Bastard.
“I will feast upon the eyes of your mother,” the Rat Bastard promised.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Let’s see you get out of this cage, first.” Flicker’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the switch that would deliver a painful electrical shock to the prisoner and he felt tempted, so tempted.
“My time is coming… my Master comes soon.” The rat’s whiskers twitched and his beady eyes focused upon Flicker. “You and yours will pay for your crimes against my kind—”
“Your master, whomever he is, is just using you. You mean nothing to him.” Flicker’s words were cold, calm, and collected.
“My Master has given us the cure… the plague no longer kills us. Soon, we punish you.”
“I’ve heard this all before.” Flicker gave a nod to the rat. “I’ll be waiting. I’m more than capable of killing your kind by the score.”
“Always killing, always burning, always pain, you make war against us! You are the aggressors! Murderers! Killers! Cruel, horrid pony-spawn!”
Angered, the corner of his eye twitching, Flicker responded with anger, “You attack foals in their cribs! You kill our livestock! Everywhere you go, you bring contagion and disease! Killing you is the only option we have to keep ourselves and what we hold dear safe!”
Hennessy, trembling, gave Flicker a nudge. “I wanna be going now, I don’t like this. Can we please go? Please?”
Lifting his hoof, Flicker pointed at the Rat Bastard. “One day, we’re going to be done studying you, and I’m going to enjoy throttling you… I’m gonna do it real slow and I promise, your death will be a long one!”
“Flicker, please, I don’t wanna be here no more! I’m scared! I’m ‘bout to piss myself!”
Hennessy’s words took several seconds before they reached Flicker’s brain. The colt began to back away from the cage, never taking his eyes off of the prisoner, and Hennessy moved with him, almost glued to his side.
“One day, Rat Bastard… one day…” Flicker grimaced at the rat in the cage. “And I’m leaving the light on. I’ll take my punishment just to know that you’ll suffer!”
Hennessy looked shaken and Flicker didn’t know how to make him feel better. The earth pony colt was shivering and was clearly terrified. Flicker too, was shaking, not from fear, but from rage. Flicker looked over at his companion and felt pity, but he didn’t know what to say to make him feel better.
The last of the sunshine of the day poured through the narrow window. The scent of afternoon tea was heavy in the air, letting Flicker know that the evening approached. Smelling it gave Flicker an idea of how to make his new companion feel better, so he tried thinking about what to say.
The words came slow, but with some time, a rough idea of what to say formed in the back of his mind as he thought about everything that Hennessy must be enduring at the moment. He had left his home, his family, traveled to Canterlot, and seen a giant talking rat, all in the same day. That had to be a little trying.
“We’re working stiffs,” Flicker said in a low voice to Hennessy. “We have high tea at about five or six o’clock. I’ve been the only apprentice around here for a while, so I usually eat alone, but sometimes Wicked or Doctor Sterling eat with me. It’ll be served to us and the food here is usually pretty good. We have staff and servants who feel privileged to work here, so they do what they can to keep us happy.”
Hennessy’s amber eyes focused upon Flicker, and his ears, trembling, stood up a bit. “That thing… down in the basement… down in the lavatory—”
Flicker did nothing to correct Hennessy, as he didn’t want to make the earth pony colt feel stupid after his trying ordeal. Corrections would come in time and Hennessy seemed smart enough. Flicker was certain that Doctor Sterling or Wicked would set Hennessy straight.
“—are there more of them?”
Flicker shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s the only one we’ve found, and Princess Luna gave orders to study him. Wicked says that the rats are growing smarter, but he doesn’t know why. Wicked thinks that it might have to do with the alchemical waste that ponies dump down their toilets—”
“I ain’t never even seen a toilet,” Hennessy remarked.
“Oh.” Flicker paused for a moment before he continued, “The idea that alchemical waste is causing this doesn’t seem likely, and Doctor Sterling says so himself. It seems to be happening in all of the cities, and the alchemical waste is inconsistent. Doctor Sterling thinks it has something to do with the Master mentioned by the Rat Bastard, but he and Wicked won’t talk to me about who or what the Master is. I think Night Light knows too.”
“Ain’t you scared?” Hennessy asked.
Taken off guard, Flicker thought long and hard about Hennessy’s words. After several seconds, he replied, “No. My purpose is to kill them, not be afraid of them. I’ve spent the past year learning to fight them. Fear would hold me back from my intended purpose, the calling of my cutie mark.”
“A pony is more than their cutie mark,” Hennessy said to Flicker.
Shrugging, Flicker didn’t know how to reply, but he notice that Hennessy seemed a lot calmer now. It occurred to him that Hennessy’s cutie mark was for sniffing out disease, not fighting rats. This presented a problem of sorts, as Hennessy did not have the sort of cutie mark that made him bold against the rats. Just as he was starting to settle in for a deep think on the subject, a bell rang, and Flicker knew that it was time for high tea.
“Come on, it’s time to eat,” he told Hennessy, “let’s go.”