//------------------------------// // Dangerous Learning Curves Ahead // Story: Anchor Foal: A Romantic Cringe Comedy // by Estee //------------------------------// She needed a place to think. Somewhere she would have privacy, without having to worry about being interrupted by the animals roaming on the periphery of the cottage grounds -- and since Fluttershy didn't use what Fleur felt would have been basic, common sense precautions, the cottage residents might see "periphery" as stretching just about all the way to Ponyville. A place where ponies moving to and from the cottage wouldn't disturb her, and now she'd had her first taste of proof that Fluttershy, even without the veterinary license, effectively had the profession's hours: if somepony needed help, the cottage was open for business. Fleur needed solitude, at least for a few minutes. The abandoned mill provided. She wasn't thankful for the circumstances which had given her the opportunity to check up on it, but being able to venture within during daylight hours allowed her to see just what level of pony inquiries had been made in the wake of her first break-in. The answer quickly turned out to be "none." When she'd initially gone inside, there had been no protections beyond a few locks which had been rapidly proven as something much less than unicorn-proof, at least for a unicorn who knew what she was doing. And now she knew that at least when it came to daily checks, nothing was happening. She'd evened out the coating of interior dust before leaving, negated all physical signs of pony presence. Nothing new had appeared. Nopony had gone inside since she'd left, and the telltale splinters she'd arranged across the door frame only broke when she entered. It still wasn't a good time for a full exploration. Daily security checks were off the board: once-per-moon visits only required two ponies to intersect within the non-miracle of perfectly bad timing. But she did glance around at the machinery as it rested (and rusted) under the dust-laden glow of Sun. The water wheel continued to turn, for the river outside was flowing and the axle had yet to permanently jam. But Fleur suspected that time was coming: there was an odd creaking to the rotations, and the portion of the wheel which could be viewed from the mill's interior had an unsteady wobble at the apex. That vibration traveled into the gears, teeth skipped slightly -- but everything continued to turn, at least for a little while longer. Energy without direction, work without purpose. The mill was dead: she'd known that at the moment of first sighting. It just didn't know it was a corpse. It laid perfectly still and pretended to breathe, tried to present the illusion that those breaths brought in air which would still do some good. It twitched instead of moving, but it kept twitching and you would wait for one of those twitches to gain a little more strength, become true movement, the stretching out of a foreleg as chance for first step or -- -- it was dead. Dead and rotting under Sun and Moon. In time, the twitching would stop, and that time couldn't come soon enough. But for now, it was a place to think. She made sure she wasn't standing in a sight line for any of the windows, even the highest ones: pegasi could always be flying by. The best place turned out to be behind a long conveyor belt, the heavy canvas still going around and around as the water insisted on providing the corpse with that ineffective illusion. She watched the same dark stain go by three times as her thoughts finally began to shift into some sort of workable order, and they led off with the same refrain which had followed Fleur all the way down the path from the cottage. Something happened to her. Something bad. Something dark. Something when Fluttershy had been a child. Something... inevitable ...which shouldn't have happened. An event which had expressed its opinion of that by happening anyway. Because childhood was often laughably described as innocence and hope and potential in a world which hated all of it, and so that world had hated Fluttershy. It couldn't be stopped. No intervention ever came. Things -- happened, and the most anypony could hope for was to survive, learn from them, and find a way to forge their pain until it hardened into steel at their core. The purpose of pain was to make you strong, and Fluttershy... wasn't. Fleur thought she knew the rough shape of what had happened, just from the words which had emerged before Fluttershy had fled. The world was cruel, and it often expressed that cruelty not only towards the young, but through them. But the words... it was unlikely they had been spoken on purpose. You forged pain into a solid because if you let it flow through you, the heat would continue to rise until blood turned to steam and everything found a way to vent. Things came out. Sentences which weren't meant to be spoken, actions you hadn't wanted to take. Fluttershy's pain had reached its boiling point, and the pressure had pushed out words. A pony who'd deliberately spoken might have done so as a sympathy ploy: come near me, talk to me, pity me -- and now that you feel sorry for me, you'll do anything to make me feel better, anything I say... because pain, sufficiently solidified, could be wielded as a weapon against the world. But Fleur, even with having only known Fluttershy for so little time, was sure the pegasus was incapable of that. The words hadn't been meant to emerge, and she'd hidden from whatever had been done in their wake. She would want to forget, even when doing so was impossible. She would ignore it, allow the heat to drop into the lower level of background torment while the inner river flowed and waited for its chance to flood through her again. And she would not want Fleur to talk about the words, in any way, at all, and possibly ever. So what can I do with her? No matter what anypony might lie about, there was no cure for pain. There was only the forging, and Fleur only knew how to place her own river under the pressure of cold logic, force bale-weights of time and need against it until only the steel remained. Pain happened, for that was the way of the world and when you chose what to do with it, you could only choose for yourself. Fluttershy's river would push against her from the inside and every so often, a gear would skip. Dam it and the flow would push on the barrier until everything exploded. "She has... certain problems." So in addition to a potentially infinite amount of time, Celestia had both a gift for understatement and a rather snide skill at creating unusual prison sentences, because Fleur's had just turned out to be for life. There was no cure for pain, and Fluttershy's agonies would forever keep her from finding a mate -- --no. There has to be a way out of this. Even if there's no way to match her with anypony, match a blank who won't ever let herself believe anypony could be attracted to her when she's that beautiful with that tail, there has to be some way I can get enough leverage over Celestia to get out of Ponyville, and that could still start with the Bearers. With Fluttershy. I can't abandon this. Not that she could anyway, at least not in a way which involved physical departure. She could have prospectively just shown up at the cottage every so often, pretended to go through the motions of teaching while claiming she was taking the slow path -- but that would have been aiding and abetting in her own jail time. Pain can't be cured, because the past doesn't change. What happened to her -- happened, and she's not the sort of pony who can forge it. Or forget. Nopony could ever truly forget. Gears clicking nearby. Mesh, mesh, mesh -- skip -- mesh, mesh... But maybe it can be diverted. Send it flowing in a new direction. Fleur had been taught how to do that, as a first hoofstep towards living with everything. Did Fluttershy know how to do it? Could that be taught? Or would just getting her out into a social setting provide new opportunities, carve out fresh channels... She took a deep breath, watched the dust swirl within the light. She wasn't a therapist. She'd met several and managed not to laugh at any of them over the moons in which she'd been forced to have some degree of contact, because nopony could get their escort's license without passing certain classes, including one in psychology -- and that was a course which those future escorts shared with future psychiatrists, each gazing with mildly horrified fascination at the alien form of life on the other side of the aisle. To a large degree, Fleur had found that course beneficial: she'd already had a pretty good idea of how ponies thought (and her talent didn't exactly hurt there: the hardest part to get through without full-scale public mirth had been the chapters on equine sexuality, and Fleur could have merrily rewritten most of that if it hadn't been so blatantly self-sabotaging, plus she was certain nopony ever would have published it), and having some portions of it confirmed didn't hurt. But to hear her teacher talking about means of cure... it had taken too much to stay on her bench, and she'd usually wound up exiting the campus at high speed, trying to find a private place before the giggles could completely take over. Pain couldn't be cured. Ever. But you could live with it. You could work with it, use it. And somehow, she would need to find a way of working with Fluttershy's. It would hurt the pegasus: Fleur knew that. It might kick her over and over until something broke, and Fleur would have to try and prevent things from going that far. But it still had to be done. Pain was many things, including inevitable Another breath, gazing around at the mill. Shadows were playing across one filthy windowpane. It could have been wind shifting a branch, or it might have been something flying by: either way, she shifted deeper into the darkness. Just in case. We keep going. There were hours to work with, unexpected ones, and Fleur made the most of them. A few queries brought her to the bookstore, and it gave her two of the things she'd needed most: a personal copy of Ponyville's weather schedule -- and a map, one which had been commissioned by many of the local businesses and therefore not only indicated streets, but had various highlighted sections where marks were overlaid on buildings and nearby text indicated just what kind of facility was operating there. She quickly located the spa she'd passed earlier, saw the library tree, noted with some surprise that there was a public bathhouse -- "Excuse me?" The bookseller reluctantly turned to face her. (Fleur already knew the shop owner didn't like her. Beauty had its price, and part of the payment could come in jealousy from those who were strictly average in appearance and couldn't stand the thought of anypony who surpassed them being allowed to exist.) "The veterinarian." Fleur's corona ignited, and a tiny spot of glow indicated the proper place on the map. "Is she any good?" "Sweetbark?" the bookseller asked, looking in as closely as she could manage without any degree of actual approach. And then, with a completely unexpected smile as the dislike towards Fleur's appearance was momentarily overridden by the shared bonds of what the pony was now perceiving as another pet owner, "She's perfect." "Really?" Fleur casually asked. "She," the bookseller declared, "has never lost a patient. Everypony here knows that. You're currently in the same settled zone as Equestria's best vet. Just feel lucky if you ever get to see her." Get to? Fleur examined the thought, then allowed it to manifest as speech. "Well, because she's perfect," the bookseller explained, "there's a lot of demand for her services. So much that she can't see everypony, or every animal they bring her. She has to decide who she can squeeze in. But if she can see you, your pet will be perfectly fine. You can count on that. I've been taking my Kori to her for years --" a quick nod to the green-and-gold cockatiel preening itself on the perch near the front display window, proudly standing guard over the bestsellers "-- and she's perfectly healthy." Carefully, "Well -- what if she can't work me in? Where do I go then?" "You could take the train to Canterlot," the mare told her. "But if you're desperate... well, there's a cottage out by the fringe. But you might want to avoid that, unless there's no other choice." A tiny shudder traveled across the skinny body, and several nearby magazines seemed to vibrate in sympathy. "Why?" More softly, tone dipping into the near-whisper of casual gossip. "Because that one isn't perfect. Animals die there. All the time." Fleur's field carried the unfurled map some distance in front of her as she trotted out of that shop, still thinking. Mark magic was, in many ways, subtle: relatively few talents had overt manifestations beyond boosts to their possessor's skills. But within Equestria, that subtle power was also just about universal, and all the little magics added up into something which could move the world. And it was true that some ponies had stronger talents than others. (Fleur, who'd had practically no chance to discuss such things, still suspected she was fairly advanced within the herd.) So somepony whose mark and talent was for being a vet, assuming they'd backed natural inclinations with study, would always be more skilled than somepony who'd put in an equal amount of work without having the appropriate icon to back it up. Fluttershy's mark appeared to be for communication with animals -- not healing. And in that sense, when it came to the treatment of her charges, she was effectively destined for some level of second place. A natural vet who'd taken all the courses and kept up with the unending flow of journals would be better. Period. But -- perfect? Fleur had known ponies with veterinary marks. Not well: she'd occasionally had a question answered if she'd piped up with just the right tone, but she'd mostly been treated as either intrusive background material or extra equipment while the vets went about their duties: either hold this and steady that while lifting here or leave. Those vets had been skilled, and she'd occasionally thought she could see when their marks went into action, spotting the little flashes of insight as they arrived within pony eyes. But they hadn't been perfect. As far as Fleur knew based on the strength of the talents she'd been able to observe, a pony could be the best vet in the world and when faced with a fatal wound or incurable disease, all your mark would do was tell you that the organs wouldn't heal, the infection was beyond all hope, and it was time to approach the owner and ask if they wanted some time alone with the one who was about to be lost. For a vet to have never lost a patient would mean a talent which could magically cure those diseases, knit flesh and replace blood -- something she'd never personally witnessed. So is it possible she has one of the strongest talents in the world and ponies are coming from all over the continent for a chance at guarantee, hoping she can squeeze them in? And Fluttershy gets the leftovers, most of which are going to be really bad cases because any pony who comes that far did so for a major reason. Without that same magic helping her, the animals die at the cottage. It would let her maintain a practice with a true vet in town, because that vet is perfect -- so perfect and so nationally reputable for that perfection that it's impossible for her to see everypony. Was that within the realm of possibility? Could any mark grant magic that powerful? It was remotely possible that Sweetbark was the Bearer of Magic, taking the Element simply due to mark strength, and that the Element had further boosted her ability. Anypony in the settled zone could be the Bearer of that Element, and perhaps being a Bearer of any kind would bring such benefits. But... When it came to magic, Fleur wasn't an expert. She'd never attended any level of gifted school, although she'd spent more than a few nights accompanying their graduates to parties, because it sometimes seemed as if the ability to learn about how thaums interacted cost more than a few former students any capacity for figuring how ponies did it. Get beyond her own abilities plus the things she'd personally observed and it wouldn't take her long to enter the worrisome realm of guesswork. She wasn't an expert -- but she knew when to listen to her instincts. And in this case, that deeper voice was telling her something was wrong. I have to identify the other five Bearers. Soon. Fleur took another look at the map. The light brown earth pony stallion had a mane which moved across his head in waves, a series of small spiky crests working their way down his neck into what never quite resolved into a final cascade. He was perhaps a decade older than Fleur, somewhat handsome, wearing a ridiculously-long rainbow-hued scarf as first shield against a light touch of fall chill, and he was attracted to her. She'd felt his attraction from several body lengths away, noticed the movement of familiar pieces coming to rest against each other. Fleur wasn't exactly his type: there were a few requirements which she was missing, and he had no way of judging what she was capable of in the privacy of a bedroom. But he had hope, and it had all come surging into his pupils at the moment she'd pretended to coincidentally glance in his direction -- followed by a shy smile and careful, half-timid trot towards him. (He liked initial timidity, and he liked it to vanish upon contact with a mattress.) "Yes?" he said, with most of the hope shifting into his voice. (He had a pleasant voice, lightly accented, and she decided he was Trottingham-born.) "Can I help you with something?" "Please," she smiled. "I'm new in town, and I was just looking at this map..." Her field opened it a little wider, rotated it for his viewing pleasure. "I noticed how many things are indicated, all the businesses which want a new arrival to know where they are. Is this part really true? Is that the original Barnyard Bargains?" "Surprisingly," he smiled back. "I know -- most ponies think it's the one in Canterlot. But yes, that's the very first. In fact, the owner lives in town." Which got a genuine blink of surprise out of her, and she filed that little fact away for later. "Oh! I just thought they might have decided to sneak the claim past the head office. And... well, I am new." She held back the 'sir,' as to address this pony as an elder would break the illusion of his actually having a chance with her. And illusion it was, because while he was certainly handsome enough, unless he turned out to be the Most Important Pony Around, there was just about no way Fleur was ever going to spend too much time with somepony whose mark displayed an hourglass. "And I've heard so much about Ponyville! Well, I guess everypony has by now. And I was looking at the map, and..." She tilted her head, made the smile a little shyer. "...I was curious about something." "What?" he quickly asked. "I've been here for years. I can probably answer pretty much any question you might have about the town." "It's a silly thing, really," she smiled. "But in a way... well, I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for them. Not under Sun or on stable ground. I was thinking about that, just from being in town. I guess most ponies don't think about it at all, even when they're this close, but... I thought, since I'm here, I could thank them... but I don't know where they live. The Bearers, I mean. And if you could just show me --" The smile had vanished. Blue eyes moved their gaze over her, completely avoiding the barrel he'd been taking so much care not to get caught looking at. They went over Fleur's face a few times. "Are you just visiting here?" he slowly asked. "Or have you moved in?" "Moved in!" she declared, trying to shore up his sudden ebb of enthusiasm with a balancing surge. "Just a little while ago. I'm actually about to start house-hunting --" "-- good," he cut her off, and the right forehoof lightly stomped. "Welcome to Ponyville. I hope you enjoy being here. And because I also hope you enjoy living here, I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell pretty much everypony who asks me that. What just about anypony here would tell you when somepony asks that question. Only this time, I'm going to be a little more polite about it." He took a deep breath. The lean muscles along his torso shifted. "If you were a tourist," he told her, "I would tell you not to bother them. And if you're going to be a resident -- then you should mostly find out which ponies they are on your own. Because once you manage to meet them, once you know them... you'll realize why they shouldn't be bothered." He shrugged slightly, started to turn away from her -- then glanced back. "How long have you been in town?" Fleur, half-frozen with the shock of having been denied, still managed to keep most of her scramble to recover completely internal. "This is my second day," she continued to smile. "So I really do need somepony to show me around, who's been here for years and knows the best neighborhood to live in --" "-- second day?" A small snort. "Then I can pretty much guarantee you've already met one. Or she's met you. You've been in the presence of Laughter's Bearer, and I hope you got a giggle out of it, at least once the shock wore off. And once she's fully done her part for you, there's a good chance you'll meet at least a few of the others. They probably won't tell you who they are. Most of them usually don't. But given enough time, you'll see all of them, you might speak with most of them -- and after that's happened, when you figure out which ponies they are -- then, when the next new arrival comes into town and asks you who the Bearers are -- you'll tell that pony not to bother them. On the day that happens, no matter where you were born or how long you've been here, you'll be a Ponyville native. I hope it happens soon. But until then -- let it happen. All of it." Is he smelling the cottage on me? She had to find the Foal-Castille soap -- no, that couldn't be it, there was no way under Sun that Fluttershy could have been Laughter... "Now," he continued, "if you're looking for a place to live, I do have a suggestion. The settled zone is expanding fast: we've had more than a few ponies moving in since the Elements were rediscovered. New neighborhoods are springing up. But there's a few older places available and if you really want to learn about Ponyville, I'd suggest moving into one of them. It'll be easier when you're among ponies who've been here a while. So -- if you're looking to rent, I know a house which has been empty for -- a while. It's actually switched owners because the last landlord couldn't keep a tenant in it any more, and the current one dropped the price into the basement as their last possible lure. Would you like to see it?" He smiled again, and there was warmth in it. Fleur, who'd been denied, didn't care. But -- low rent was low rent, although it begged the question of why the owner(s) couldn't keep a tenant in the house. "It's in a good neighborhood?" "Decent," he assured her. "It's on the east side of town, and there's a lot of families in that area." Which would at least put her closer to the cottage, and there was a chance she'd already gone past the For Rent sign in the dark. "Would you show me? Please?" Another smile, and he flicked the spiky curve of his tail: an invitation to follow. She did, but not too closely, and only pretended to ignore the additional regard he tried to sneak across her form. Stallions sneaking glances at her was hardly anything new, and she was familiar enough with the cons generally directed towards new arrivals to be fairly sure he wasn't trying to lure her into one -- while still being fully on guard because in the event that she was wrong, she'd have to do something to stop him. (She could sense his attraction, and that he wouldn't proceed without her permission -- but perceiving other intentions was beyond her talent. It was perfectly possible to be attracted to somepony you were about to rip off.) But there were other things to think about, because Fluttershy couldn't be Laughter -- that was seriously supposed to be an Element? -- and he seemed so sure that she would have already met that pony -- "...once the shock wore off..." -- no. No, that is not possible. There was a little shock when I went into the library and saw an alicorn doing reshelving, but that wasn't the least bit funny unless you think royalty being employed as a librarian is a joke. (At best, that wasn't funny/ha-ha, that was funny/what the buck is going on?) So the only other pony that shocked me is the one who came out of the bakery. Pinkie. An Element which would choose that pony as its Bearer was, charitably, an Element with a very strange sense of humor. But the stallion seemed so certain -- and a pony who threw welcome parties would certainly have a method of meeting new arrivals. ...it's possible. Fluttershy. Pinkie. One who wants nothing and one who's a trysexual. She had many ways of getting to know a trysexual, and thinking about pretty much any of them already had the headache working its way in. She would have to attend her own welcoming party. All of it. No excuses, no cutting out early, and with a considerable amount of attention paid to who her hostess was spending time with. Four to go. "So how do you know about this place?" she asked the stallion. (He'd given her his name, and it had made her all the less likely to spend hours with him after this. The hourglass would have been bad enough alone, and given that degree of fresh reinforcement -- it was easier to just think of him as 'the stallion'. It was certainly less nauseating.) It produced a small sigh. "I'm friends with the mailmare who has this route. She knew the last long-term occupant, and because she comes through on every delivery day, she sees when ponies move in. And when they move out again." Fleur looked at the house. The strange inward triangle slant of the upper level, the dipping path which exposed the stone foundation and basement as it worked around to the back. "So what's wrong with it?" "Because ponies wouldn't be moving in and out if something wasn't wrong, yes?" he admitted, adding a touch of wince. "Right... look, before I tell you the big thing: the upper floor is cramped, the plumbing isn't perfect, and the ramp is outright treacherous. But the insulation's been redone, you've got a porch, and the rent is about as low as you're going to find while still getting a roof. It has problems, but it's a good value for the rental price." Fleur needed to present a public image, and that requirement was often a costly one -- for other ponies. Saddlebags which went so far into decorative that they forfeited most of their practicality because thinned-out bottom layers were in style, dresses that consisted of translucent layers more flimsy than cotton candy and just as prone to dissolving in the rain -- all things she could generally acquire as gifts. But that was her public image. The house was oddly shaped, more than a little ugly, and desperately in need of numerous outer renovations. There was a chance the inside was worse. It wasn't a home anypony wanted to occupy if they needed to make a strong impression, especially one which was meant to be backed by the raw impact of perceived wealth. But as an escort, she went to the homes of other ponies or, just about as often, their hotel rooms. Nopony ever came to hers. "Then what's the big thing?" He swallowed, and got it over with. "Ponies have been saying it's haunted." And there was the con. (She decided he probably wasn't running it and had just made the mistake of believing it. Still, she was going to stay on alert.) "There's no such things as ghosts," she said. "Would you please take me to the realtor?" Get a price. Get a look at the interior. Possibly get a roof, one which wasn't dead. And after that, she just might find herself doing a little scouting. Fluttershy needed to gain confidence, and the best way to do that remained giving her a success. The pegasus was attracted to nothing -- but no matter what she said and somehow believed, Fleur knew it wasn't the other way around. Somepony in the settled zone wanted Fluttershy. That pony might not be the right one for her, and Fleur was going to be careful about that -- but somewhere in Ponyville was a stallion (or mare: for a pony who wanted nothing, anything was a potential option) who would at least say yes. Once the realtor visit had wrapped up for better or worse, Fleur was going to draw up the lesson plan. And after that -- she had a map, and what passed for Ponyville's nightlife had also been clearly marked. It was time to start setting up for the first evening of Date Camp.