//------------------------------// // Chapter 56 // Story: The Mask Makes the Pony // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// “If I were a chocolate, I’d be the dark, bitter kind that nopony likes!” Piper let out a huff and sniffled a bit, trapped on the verge of tears. It was almost dawn, it had been a long night, and Piper’s current state of exhaustion wasn’t doing anything to help her mood. She flounced over onto her bed, bounced, and almost fell out. Flicker, lying in his bunk on his back, turned his head to look at Piper. “I like dark, bitter chocolate.” “Oh, you would!” Piper let out a half-laugh, half-sob, almost choking, and curled up in her bed as she pulled her blankets over her. “Princess Twilight seems to think I was abused! Can you imagine that? Sure, my parents were less than perfect, and they weren’t too keen on my magic, but abuse? I think not! Twilight seems to think that my little… my little… outburst was due to my magic and my emotions being suppressed…” the filly’s words trailed off and ended with a faint soft but shrill squeak. “Piper?” Hennessy’s voice was sleepy, but filled with concern. “Magic was something that my parents always promised that we would talk about later, but never did. The talk never happened—when I tried to talk to them about it, there was always some reason to avoid it, or they would put me to work, or I’d be lectured about being frivolous when there was so much to do.” Closing her eyes, Piper pulled the blanket over her head. “My mother and father love me… or they say they do… how could they abuse me? Is that really abuse?” “I don’t think it was done on purpose,” Hennessy remarked, trying to prevent a void of silence from forming. “I think I disagree—” “Flicker, how can you say that?” Wiggling in his bed, Hennessy rolled over so that he could look over the edge of his bunk so that he might see Flicker down below him. “Piper is a unicorn. Magic is a part of what she is. Rather than face that, her parents just delayed and avoided the issue every time it was brought up. That seems like avoidance, which is something you have to choose to do. It’s like when Knick-Knack has a tantrum and my mother decides to let her cry it out. She has to ignore my sister’s crying and pretend like it isn’t happening.” There was a whimper from Piper’s bunk and she was just a nondescript lump beneath her blankets. In his bunk, Hennessy pulled his head back from the edge and laid it back down upon his pillow as he pulled his blankets up to his chin. The earth pony colt yawned, unable to help himself. The silence crept through the room as the trio began to succumb to sleep. It had been a long night and now, it was almost dawn. “We’ll talk about it when we wake up,” Hennessy said as he fought to hold back another yawn. He managed to hold out for a while, but it finally escaped and he let out a whine as his mouth fell open. “I still don’t think it was intentional, but I’d like to think that your parents love you, even if they don’t like your magic.” “Thanks for trying to make me feel better,” Piper whispered from beneath her blankets. The trio was now expected to eat in the common mess hall with the others. They sat together in a corner, by themselves. Hennessy was still half-asleep, Piper, anxious, was wide awake, and Flicker ate like a machine, shovelling stuff into his face because it was a job that needed to be done. “Twilight wants me to send her friendship reports,” Piper said around a mouthful of food. “What a fine bunch of ponies we’re turning out to be… I have to answer to Princess Twilight for using dark magic by accident and Flicker has to dig himself out of his cutie mark hole. What a fine mess we’re in.” “Why dig when there’s dynamite?” Hennessy asked, trying to be funny. When nopony laughed, not that he expected Flicker to laugh, but the earth pony colt was something of an optimist, Hennessy stuck his muzzle down into his plate full of pinto beans and rice. “I’m still miffed that Twilight dared to suggest my parents abused me.” Her lower lip protruding, Piper stabbed her beans and rice with her spoon. “I’m even more upset that she might be right. She told me to tell her everything and so I did and now I wish I hadn’t because some things, once they’ve been said, can’t be unsaid. Things feel complicated now.” Lifting his head, Hennessy, still hoping to somehow change the mood, began to recite a poem: “Beans, beans, they give you gas—they make you fart, and burn your ass. The more you eat, the more it hurts—so slow down your eating to stop the squirts.” Piper choked on a mouthful of food and Flicker’s spoon fell down on his almost empty plate with a clatter. With a slow, almost glacial turn of his head, Flicker focused his absolute best penetrating stare upon Hennessy, and there was no readable expression upon his face. Hennessy, unconcerned by Flicker’s domineering stare, reached over and gave Flicker’s cheek a light pat with his hoof. The earth pony colt was fearless and knew that Flicker was full of bluster, but not malice. Coughing a few times, Piper tried to regain her composure, and failed. She sputtered and spat out a pinto bean onto her plate, then rolled her eyes as she let out a huff. “Colts.” She sighed the word and shook her head. “Really.” “I can’t be the only one who’s had a chapped asshole from farting.” Hennessy gave his companions a good natured grin. “My aunt, Dixie Whistles, she can press her dock down over her asshole and make it whistle a tune. She takes requests and that’s how she makes a living.” Flummoxed, flabbergasted, Piper gave Hennessy an incredulous stare. “She what?” “She can press her dock down against her asshole so she can vary the pitch and volume when she farts. She travels around as part of a vaudeville act.” Hennessy’s ears stood up straight and he gave Piper a nudge with his hoof. “Ponies pay bits to see the act, so that’s proof that farts are funny.” Not wishing to even acknowledge that this conversation was taking place, Flicker changed the subject. “Last night was how things should be, other than your little slip up, Piper. You still did good work and we cleared away thousands of rats from Ponyville. A pretty good haul, all things considered. Wicked says the numbers are up from last year.” “My little slip up,” Piper replied, drawing her words out and saying them in a slow, almost bored sounding manner. “My little slip up… that sounds like a cartoon movie for foals… My Little Slip Up.” “Try not to worry about it.” Flicker, his voice hard and emotionless, gave Piper an unfeeling, chilly stare. “I’m going to help you redirect all of that anger and give you an outlet. We can’t have you doing that again and we can’t count on Princess Twilight to always be merciful. If you do it again and again, at some point, she is going to see it as an intentional act, and then you will be punished. As for myself, I will not tolerate it either. It is forbidden.” “So you are going to sort me out.” Piper’s voice was fearful and she blinked a few times as she wondered just what Flicker planned to do. Nothing nice, she already knew that, it just wasn’t Flicker’s way to do anything the easy way or the nice way. Flicker’s way probably involved something unpleasant. “You’re going to help me and I’m going to help you. It is in our own best interests to help one another with our respective problems.” Flicker’s words were blunt, but he felt that they were true. He lifted up his spoon, resumed eating as if nothing had happened, and ignored the way Hennessy was staring at him. Some things just couldn’t be acknowledged. “I can’t help but feel that both of y’all are ignoring me,” Hennessy drawled. Her head bobbing up and down, Piper replied, “Yes. We are. Ignoring you and your talk of whistling assholes.” “Y’all ain’t no fun.” Hennessy let out a snort and then resumed eating, looking a little miffed that nopony else thought that what he said was funny. “I didn’t get enough sleep,” Piper remarked as she ate. “Intentional,” Flicker replied. “Intentional?” “Sometimes, while doing our job, we are deprived of sleep.” “Oh, I see.” “There are times when we are deprived of sleep or kept awake for an inordinately long time and then our performance will be evaluated. In times of crisis, we do not always have the luxury of sleep.” There was a long pause and then Flicker added, “Prepare yourself, I’m going to work you over in the gym once we are done eating. It will not be pleasant.” “Oh bother,” Piper sighed as she shook her head. At least she had been warned. A rather large crowd had gathered to watch and Piper couldn’t help but feel self conscious about her actions and her performance. Mister Pepper was the instructor in charge of the gym at the moment and he watched with mild amusement, which annoyed Piper for reasons she could not explain. “Come at me, filly,” Flicker commanded as he waved his heavy wooden sword around. “Give me your anger so I can repurpose it… I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” Gritting her teeth, Piper’s whole body tensed. She had been doing that for a while now, lashing out with as much telekinetic force as she could muster and trying to take a whack at Flicker. Even worse, he was taunting her, he was smug to the point of being infuriating, and she had no real chance of actually landing a blow on him. But in some ways, she felt better. Right now, it was good to feel angry and Piper had plenty of anger bottled up inside. She could be angry without thinking about it, without trying to make sense of it, indeed, right now, she didn’t have the luxury of reflection, because if she became distracted again, Flicker was going to add a third welt to her hide, which she did not want. The first two were more than enough and she was proud to have them. In the Rat Catcher’s Guild, friendship was measured in lumps, cuts, and bruises. “Miss Pie,” Moonlit Gambit said in a loud voice, “don’t just chop down, stab down at an angle… it will act like a wedge and push Mister Nicker’s blade away.” She understood and the concept of a wedge made sense. Backing away, wary, she kept her eyes on Flicker’s sword, wondering where it might go next. She was feeling confident that she could at least stave him off for a while. Unleashing a flurry of blows, she tried using her blade at an angle and found that it worked, striking at an angle did more to push Flicker’s blade away, but she also became aware that he had been doing this to her. It made her furious and sweat ran down her neck in rivulets. As Piper tried to think of what to do next, something heavy struck her in the back of the head, striking with enough force to make her see stars. As she staggered about, she realised that she had been clobbered with a medicine ball, which thumped, then bounced off of the floor not far away. It took her only a few seconds to understand that Flicker had done this, and he was taking advantage of the fact that she was only watching her sword. “In organised duels, direct magical assaults are not allowed, but distractions are,” Flicker explained as he raised his wooden sword high. “You must be mindful of the dangers around you.” As expected, during her moment of weakness, a flurry of blows rained down and Flicker’s sword came at her from every conceivable angle. Piper knew that she was in trouble and sure enough, she failed to keep her defense up. She cried out when the wooden sword struck her on her fleshy croup, no doubt raising yet another welt. As it had happened during the night, the dam holding back Piper’s fury broke and she charged forwards to unleash a wave of clumsy but powerful blows, chopping at Flicker with reckless, rage-filled abandon, no longer caring for her own safety, no longer worried about pain or injury. Each time the wooden swords connected, she could feel the pain of the strain in her mind, her horn tingled, the pressure behind her eyes became almost unbearable, but she didn’t care. Harder and harder she struck, trying to hit as hard as Flicker did, she relied upon brute force and savage ferocity. It felt good to be angry, and it felt even better that this violence was consensual. Had Piper been paying attention to her own body, she might have noticed the moist heat that burned through her nethers and her guts. The muscles on the insides of her thighs twitched, convulsed, pulled tight, and quivered. Shrieking with fury, Piper brought her sword down at a stabbing angle, was blocked, and then bringing as much force as she could muster to bear, she tried to riposte Flicker’s parry. There was an almost deafening clatter of wood striking wood, and Piper’s sword shattered against Flicker’s from the force of the impact of the two swords meeting. Blinking, Piper looked at the chunk of splintered wood that was mere inches from her eye and felt her blood run cold. Flicker had caught it, because of course he had, he could dismember and behead the training dummy with no pieces hitting the floor—he was quick. Panting, her sides heaving, her entire sweaty body covered in a foamy lather, Piper’s magic ceased to be and the remains of her wooden sword fell to the floor. “Your anger belongs to me,” Flicker said in a cool, calm voice, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. “I will give it purpose. For now, you are weak, but I will make you strong.” These words caused Piper to shiver and her blood ran cold through her overheated body. It was at that moment that she knew the fundamental difference between her and Flicker—she had tapped into her inner darkness, the shadowy part of her psyche, by accident—while Flicker had done so on purpose, he had embraced it, he had integrated with it and had found strength. Piper wanted strength. “Go hit the showers, both of you,” Mister Pepper instructed as he collected the pieces of the broken wooden sword, including the bit that was still hovering near Piper’s eye. “Congratulations, Mister Nicker, on becoming a mentor to one of your fellow apprentices. Expect high marks for performance if she does well.” Turning about, Flicker bowed his head to Mister Pepper, then slid his wooden training sword back into the display rack. “Come, Miss Pie, let us do as we were told…”