//------------------------------// // Chapter 32 // Story: The Mask Makes the Pony // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// As Flicker searched the night, it began to dawn upon him that there was a conspiracy against him and that he had just been ambushed. He wasn’t angry about it, far from it, he was happy that there were those who loved him enough to worry about him and look after his needs. Flogging his brain, Flicker demanded to know where a good spot to watch the moon rise might be, a place away from trees and other tall things. His brain gave him an answer. The diving rock down the river a ways. It was a massive boulder that jutted up out of the river bank at an angle. It was easy to clamber up one side, get to the top, and then have a good ten foot or so drop to the water below. He had fond memories of his mother teaching him how to cannonball from the rock, learning how to swim, and that one fateful summer where he had belly flopped from the top of the diving rock. That had been the summer that he had discovered what it meant to be a colt—that parts of him were tender and had to be protected at all costs. It hadn’t been long after that his mother had become pregnant, and his entire life had changed. As it always happened when he felt troubled, his thoughts turned to his sister. She was very precious, very dear to him, he loved her a great deal. The deep part of his mind, the part of him that was smart, so very smart, the part of him that was full of cunning and brilliant ideas, it suggested that if he could feel the same way about Hennessy, or even other ponies, such as Piper, for example, certain problems might fix themselves. Flicker’s entire demeanour had changed when he had become his sister’s knight and she had become his princess. It had awoken some important fundamental aspect of his very being and given him a sense of wholeness. Now, his brain suggested, if he could do the same with others, if for perhaps different reasons, purpose could be found. Flicker’s existence demanded purpose, he needed a cause to serve, to give himself over to. He was, at his heart, a pony in search of a princess. Some ponies aspired to become princesses, or princes, as the case may be, while a few special-minded ponies sought to serve said princesses (or princes) with single-minded authoritative zealousness. In another time, in an another era, Flicker might’ve become a knight, or worse, an inquisitor, and he would have served his chosen liege with unwavering, unflinching, unending fanatical devotion, burning down the countryside and the peasantry with reckless glee and abandon if his chosen liege so demanded it. Born outside of the time where he might have been most useful, where he might have held the most promise, a time when he would have been the cream that rose to the top, Flicker had given himself to an ideal, but that was a poor excuse for a princess and some deep, buried part of his mind knew it. Slipping through the darkness, Flicker moved off in search of a princess, and he was going to have the prettiest, most brushable, most combable princess ever, somepony to give over all of his fanatical devotion to. A princess with a distinctive, reddish-golden-brown coat that was pleasing to the eye. Far, far away, in the Crystal Empire… Something was wrong. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza could sense that something was wrong, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Oh, there were a lot of things that could be wrong, it could be gas, which was possible, those deep fried pickles dipped in chocolate sauce and spicy yellow mustard hadn’t quite agreed with her delicate, princessly body. It could be hormones, which had laid siege upon her as of late, her second pregnancy was a bit rough and she had trouble keeping her mood in check because of all of the blemishes on her pregnant, pudgy, plush, princessly, pimpled posteriour. It might have been those curious leftovers she had found in the back of the fridge; Shining had warned her of the dangers of eating curry with an unknown age and pedigree. Cuddling with her daughter, Flurry, she felt it again, the permeating sense of wrongness, and as the army of goose-stepping geese marched in lock-stepped profile down her spine, she got goosebumps. It was quite alarming, and what Cadance didn’t know was that she was feeling a type of love unfamiliar to her; crazy, reckless love fueled by mania and a mild but persistent form of insanity. Disturbed, she hiccuped and felt a peculiar sense of drunkenness even as her sense of alarm grew with each passing second. Yep, there was something wrong and she needed to get down to the bottom of it, as this was something that couldn’t be ignored. This wasn’t the curry with an unknown age and pedigree, she was certain of it, no matter what her curry-purist husband might say if he knew. Besides, what did he know, anyhow? She poo-pooed her husband’s curry-supremacist ways even as she clutched her stomach with her hoof. Sighing, Cadance began to worry, as this new sensation of love was very much like curry; dangerous, fiery, potentially painful, and at the end of it all, there was bound to be a very sore, abused and battered backside. Rolling over, she slipped out of her bed, and she felt the need to contact her Auntie right away. Meanwhile, back in Ponyville… Atop the diving rock, Flicker could make out Hennessy’s silhouette in the moonlight. The river was filled with a thousand glittering diamonds and hundreds of tiny moons reflected in the swirls and eddies of the flowing water. Ears perking, he could hear the sounds of Hennessy praying, but he couldn’t make out the words. Not knowing what to do, what the appropriate etiquette for approaching somepony while they were praying was, Flicker waited in the shadows. A dilemma presented itself. Flicker, being a stealthy sort, might be down here all night, or at least until Hennessy was finished. The colt atop the rock had no way of knowing that he was being watched, or that there was a sneaky, somewhat illusive predatory creature in training lurking in the shadows. Flicker thought long and hard about his father’s words, about Hennessy having rats in his soul. The rats got into everything, everything, and Flicker hated them all the more. Rᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, Fʟɪᴄᴋᴇʀ, ʟɪғᴇ ɪs ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ. Dᴏɴ'ᴛ ʙᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Lɪᴠᴇ, ᴅᴀᴍɴ ʏᴏᴜ, ʟɪᴠᴇ. A terrible creeping cold came over Flicker and his ears perked at the sound that he wasn’t sure if he was actually hearing. He was almost certain that he had heard something, but he wasn’t quite certain of what it was. He thought about the old, strange expression that ponies sometimes said, about somepony walking over their grave, and Flicker now understood what that felt like. If there had been a sound, Flicker decided that he didn’t want to hear it and it was better to pretend that it didn’t exist. One thing was for certain, Flicker didn’t want to be alone, not with spooky weird sounds in the dark that almost, but not quite, sounded like a voice. Moving in silence, his coat allowing him to blend in with the darkened night, he crept over to the diving rock, placed his hoof upon the stone, and began to climb up. His frogs were sweaty and everything felt all weird. The confidence he had felt earlier was gone, and was now replaced by outright terror. “I done reckon that you had a talk,” Hennessy said to Flicker as he sat down beside him. The last word uttered sounded more like ‘tawk’. The colt with the extraordinary pelt looked at his companion for a time, and then resumed looking up at the moon. “I was just sitting up here on this here rock, having a talk with Princess Luna.” Flicker found the words ‘rawk’ and ‘tawk’ somewhat endearing, but he didn’t know it at the moment. While Hennessy looked up at the moon, Flicker looked down at the water. The flowing river and the water it contained sometimes confounded him. Flicker was fire aligned by nature and disposition, so much so that it was even part of his cutie mark. “Your father was easy to talk to, and it felt good to talk about it with somepony that didn’t judge me. I was powerful relieved to finally get a few things off my barrel, and your father even hugged me, which was just about the nicest thing ever. I ain’t used to that, and it scared me a bit, and he held me while I cried.” Flicker remained in stony silence. “I ain’t used to no comforting or kindness, or being held, so that scared me too.” Lifting his head, looking up at the moon, Flicker thought of his father, and he thought well of his father. His father was the embodiment of a good pony, even if he wasn’t well learned or worldly. He wanted to do something nice for his father, but he didn’t know what. There was a sense of gratitude that demanded acknowledgment though. “I can’t even begin to understand what you see in me.” For the first time, Flicker heard the sound of his own voice, really heard it, and was shocked to hear a rather smooth Canterlot accent. It was a shocking reminder of how much he had changed since leaving home. Ponyville had its own twang, and Hennessy… well, Hennessy’s drawl was poured from a bottle. “You’re like a blank page, a sheet of paper that needs fancy words written on it, or maybe a nice painting or a sketch. See, lots of ponies, they like art, and I love art, it’s what kept me going, and while ponies love art, I feel that artists should love what they done draw on, or write on, or paint on. I done reckon it’s ‘cause I did without for so long and I ain’t never had much in the way of art supplies. But a blank sheet of paper has its own beauty, Flicker, it’s a promise of beauty yet to come. Ya just gotta wait around to see how it turns out.” “I… can’t even understand what you are saying,” Flicker confessed, shaking his head, “but there is something meaningful to it. But that meaning eludes me. Even your words are like art, and I don’t know what to make of them.” “My words is art. Ayup. Or as my father might say, ‘You stop with that sissy faggot talk, you little queer piece of shit, afore I’—” “Don’t say that.” Flicker looked over at Hennessy, feeling a dreadful pain, and in a very stern voice, he added, “Don’t ruin this. It’s hard for me to think when there’s rage in my mind. My brain moves slow as it is. I don’t need anything making it slower.” “I talk slow, you think slow. I have a spoken drawl, you have a mental drawl.” Hennessy blinked and the moon reflected in his eyes. “‘Cause both of us is all slow, ponies tend to think we is dumb. I watch how ponies look at you and react to you. They look at you in the same way they done look at me, and think I’m ‘tarded cause I talk funny.” “I could listen to you talk all night.” “Well, that’s good, Flicky, ‘cause with as slow as I talk, it might take me all night to say something.” Hennessy smiled just a little bit, cheering up, and his bright amber eyes flashed silver in the moonlight. “Back where I come from, ponies talk so slow that, afore a filly has time to tell you they ain’t that kind of pony, they is… and the cycle of life goes on. So it goes.” Flicker, oblivious, didn’t get the joke. Shrugging off the attempt at humour, he changed the subject, as he was wont to do when faced with humour that he didn’t understand. “In Canterlot, near the cemetery, there is the Chapel of Night. It was just finished during the winter. Prince Gosling had it built for Princess Luna as a token of his deep and abiding friendship with her. I’ve never been there, but I’ll take you there. I think you might like it.” The laboured sound of Hennessy breathing filled the night, his barrel hitched up and down, and little snorts came out of his nose as he fought to keep himself composed. “That sounds nice. You’d do that for me?” Hennessy paused and sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold. “Wait, did you just ask me on a date?” “At no time did I ask a question,” Flicker replied, mulling over his own words. “I stated that I would take you there. Never once was a question mark implied in what I had to say.” “I see.” Hennessy smacked his lips together and his ears folded back against his head. “Well.” He smacked his lips again and looked up at the moon. “So, that’s how Lord Death of Murder Mountain goes about dating. I’m not sure how I feel about this approach.” “There’s room up here on the mountain for two.” Flicker couldn’t tell if he had just tried to make a joke or not, but he had tried to be as clever as his slow thinking brain would allow. He was rather proud of it, success or no. His sweaty frogs dried up a bit as his confidence soared. “I can’t give you a lot of fancy words… I’m a doer, I do things, when things happen, I don’t think about stuff, or try to talk my way through a situation… I just do it. I’m not that great at asking questions, at least I don’t think I am. I make Doctor Sterling frustrated a lot of the time.” “So you don’t ask, you just do stuff.” Again, Hennessy smacked his lips. “You’re the doer.” Flicker felt as though he was missing something, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was or what it might be. “Yes, I am the doer. That’s what I do. I do. I find what needs to be done and then come Tartarus or high water, I do it until the job is finished or it can’t be done no more.” “You so dense…” Hennessy shook his head, smirking in the moonlight. “All this feels so magical… you’re flirting with me and you ain’t even knowing of it.” “I am?” Puzzled, Flicker’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to think of how he might have flirted with Hennessy. After many long, stretched out seconds, he drew a blank. He suspected that Hennessy was pulling his leg, as in no way was Flicker flirting. A dull sense of confusion settled in and Flicker tried to figure out what was going on. “I has me a powerful need to cool off.” Grinning, Hennessy launched himself from the top of the rock and then a second later he splashed into the river below. Flicker, still very confused, sat there on top of the rock, bathed in moonlight, with a blank expression on his face, trying to figure out what had just happened. Whatever had just transpired, he was unaware of it, and left mystified from the encounter. Left with no other option, with no other recourse, with no means of understanding, Flicker whispered four words he never imagined himself saying. “Princess Luna, help me.”