After a long afternoon lost to the doldrums, the shadows grew long, the sun crept closer to the horizon, and the day began to suggest that it was ending. Nuance’s stomach was plagued with ceaseless growling now, and he was certain that he was going to die at any moment. With night coming, he was terrified, and he gave quite a bit of consideration on giving up, which would mean going home with Skyla and Flurry with his tail tucked between his legs in defeat.
Never in his life had he stuck with something for so long, and he was thoroughly impressed by his own actions in some strange, unknown-but-satisfying way. Under most circumstances, he would boast about any little thing he did, anything he accomplished, but this—this was meaningful. He was suffering for his friendship with Quiet, which was real and held deep meaning for him.
It was also something that his father would approve of, something his father would be proud of, because his father was a romantic goofball—something that Nuance held intense loathing for up to this point, but now gave serious consideration about asking his father for advice. As Blueblood’s apprentice, he could ask his Master for advice, but that might get weird, because he had heard some strange things about Blueblood and Raven.
Why would ponies spank one another?
He hadn’t been Blueblood’s apprentice for very long, but the lessons had begun, though not magical ones. Nuance had been charged with taking accountability for his own actions and making amends for his monstrous behaviour. To this end, the colt thought long and hard about what Sinister had said about how he and Dim had pride in common. Nuance was baffled—what could he possibly have in common with Dim?
“Guards!” Flurry barked in a voice of indisputable command, and not at all like a brat wanting to get her way. “It was fun to suffer for a cause, for a while, but night is coming. We are in need of food and shelter if we are to wait out the night. Go fetch a tent and maybe a few cushions so we can at least be somewhat comfortable. Also, go get a pizza. Nuance, what do you like on your pizza?”
Nopony had ever asked what Nuance liked on his pizza, not even once, and he gave Flurry a blank stare. Radiance would only eat cheese pizza and would throw fits if anything else was served, so Nuance, Corbie, and Radiance had always shared a cheese pizza among themselves. Nuance wasn’t even sure what he liked on a pizza and was totally mystified on how to respond.
“You scared him, Flurry—”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Look at him. He’s lost to us.”
“Nuance?” Flurry waved her wing to get his attention.
How had this become so complicated? His mouth opened, but try as he might, the words did not come. How could he even explain what was going on? Would they ridicule him? The anxiety grew more and more overbearing with each passing second, and the pressure was already unbearable. There was a click as his teeth clacked together when his mouth snapped shut. The shame of trying to explain what was going on was far too overwhelming.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Nuance, but he probably needs to eat something,” Flurry said, taking charge of the situation. “I know he likes tropical fruit, so get a Tropical Fruity Pirate’s Booty Pizza for him. For me, I want a custom pie with spinach, mushrooms, roasted garlic, and stinky feta cheese. Skyla?”
“Apple Slapple Pizza, same as always!”
“Blech, apples and applesauce on pizza!” Flurry rocked on her hooves while a powerful shudder of disgust overtook her body. “Gross!”
“Flurry, you big pink dummy, how is it any different than an apple pie with a slice of cheese melted over it, just the way you like it?”
“It just is!” Flurry shook her wing at her sister, rolled her eyes, and then endured more shudders of revulsion.
In silence, Nuance tried to recover from his anxiety. The decision had been made for him, and that was no small amount of relief. Though he would never admit to it, never say it, he was always relieved when his parents made a difficult choice for him, even though sometimes he hated the outcome. Sometimes, Luna was far too prying and would keep trying to get an answer out of him, which infuriated him and caused him terrible fits of temper.
Two guards took wing and flapped away, off to do Flurry’s bidding.
With his stomach growling, Nuance watched as a few of the unicorn guards erected a tent on a small patch of lush green grass that was located near the corner of the rear and side walls. The sight of a pile of cushions and a few folded blankets filled Nuance with unspeakable dread. What if he had an accident? With Flurry and Skyla around, it would pretty much be the worst thing ever. It would be better to give himself over to the vizard and beg for his own destruction.
Up on top of the tower, Blackbird could be seen, perched like some grotesque gargoyle. What she was doing up there was unknown, but it didn’t look like she was watching him, because all that he could see of her was her back. Perhaps she was watching as the sun fled over the horizon, chased by the terrible all-consuming dark. Like his sister, Corbie, Nuance was afraid of the dark, and he was worried about how he would survive the night.
The tiny pond over in the other corner along the rear wall was filled with croaking frogs—hideous, gross, disgusting, slimy things that left Nuance feeling repulsed. Quiet loved them, but she also sometimes ate them, much to his horror. Watching her slurp up a slimy, twitching, kicking leg had left quite an impression on him. A firefly flew too close to his nose and Nuance took a clumsy swipe at it with his hoof. Why wouldn’t nature respect his space? Ugh.
Turning to face the two sisters, Nuance asked of them, “Am I stupid?”
Both turned their bewildered eyes upon him and there was much blinking for a time. Flurry seemed to recover first and she gave Skyla a sidelong glance, but her younger sister seemed incapable of volunteering an answer. Now almost panicked, Skyla prodded her big sister with her hoof, but Flurry just shrugged.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Skyla began, saying each word with a great deal of hesitation, “Flurry is pretty stupid too. I mean, she picks fights with poop monsters and ice orcs and Uncle Seville keeps saying that Flurry and Twilight should become tag-team wrestlers together.”
At this, Flurry snorted, rolled her eyes, and still had enough angst left over to let out a huff.
“I suppose this is diplomacy?” Rather than be annoyed, insulted, or offended, Nuance struggled to keep his feelings in check.
Squirming, Skyla shrugged, nodded, shook her head from side to side, nodded, and shrugged once more. “Maybe? You look so miserable right now that I feel bad saying anything.”
“Yeah,” Flurry said, coming to her sister’s aid. “You look pathetic!”
Wincing, Nuance turned away and tried to look at something—anything—but the two sisters. The croaking of the frogs was far from soothing, or maybe he was already aggravated and just looking for a reason to be angry. Maybe it would be better if he gave up on Quiet. With him out of the way, she would be free to go off and do great things, wonderful things, marvellous things. Disheartened, the colt let heave a sigh and upon his long exhalation, he appeared to deflate a good bit.
“Oh look! Pizza’s here!” Skyla cried as she went prancing off.
When Nuance lifted up the cardboard lid of his pizza box, he was slapped in the face by the most delicious smelling steam and it was all he could do not to drool. The pizza was littered with dozens upon dozens of tiny minced pieces of dried, dehydrated tropical fruit and blobs of pale white cheese. So intense was the sight, the smell, the colourful, cheerful appeal of his meal, Nuance forgot his troubles and a broad smile stretched wide across his muzzle.
It did not go unnoticed, but he did not see the sisters exchange a glance with one another.
This pizza was his, all his, and he wouldn’t have to fight with Radiance and Corbie and their animalistic appetites. His siblings were monsters, terrible, dreadful monsters that between the two of them, could scarf and gobble an entire half of a pizza before he had even eaten one slice—and this was just one of the many things he hated about them.
So happy and so relaxed was he that the most peculiar thing happened: his magic—which had always been a bit wonky—allowed him to lift up a slice of pizza. It might not have seemed like much, but to Nuance, it was a miracle. Even though his horn sparked and fizzled, Nuance managed to hold on to his slice of pizza and he began to blow on it, something that his reckless siblings never did, only to moan and weep about the consequences after the fact.
Spreading her wings wide, the black terror on the roof took flight.
Nuance took a cautious nibble on the tip of his pizza and then almost dropped it when the taste of the fruit and cheese spread over his tongue like a raging conflagration, a wildfire of flavour that threatened to consume him. He was tempted to throw caution to the wind and have himself a big reckless chomp, but Nuance chose wariness over potential injury.
“Yuck, Flurry… that’s a grown up’s thrown up pizza.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Flurry nodded, and with her mouth full, she added, “I’m getting grown up’s thrown up tastes.”
“I want to be a grown up, but sometimes the food is gross,” Skyla said as she gave voice to one of her many laments. Then, very much like Nuance, she gave her pizza a dainty nibble worthy of a princess.
“My father still eats like a foal.” Nuance licked his lips and was quite surprised to find himself engaging in conversation over a meal. Most of the time, he was quiet, because Corbie was a chatterbox that just wouldn’t shut up, so he never got a word in edgewise. For a moment, Nuance was lost in thought, thinking of the times that his father had smuggled him into the kitchens for a treat or a snack—usually when Nuance’s mood had bottomed out. Much to his surprise, Nuance found that he missed his father right now, and this was just plain weird.
“Hey, Flurry, do you remember when you and Uncle Gosling snuck off and the two of you ate an entire gallon of bubblegum ice cream and—”
“UGH!” Flurry grunted, somehow expressing herself around a mouthful of doughy, chewy bread, spinach, mushrooms, and stinky cheese.
“—when Mom asked you if you knew anything about the missing ice cream, you threw up all over her?”
For a moment, Nuance feared he might choke on his pizza and he tried not to breathe, because doing so would mean being overcome with laughter. He chewed on the rubbery bits of dried fruit and could feel a hitching in his barrel that had nothing to do with crying. When he finally swallowed, he made a strange ‘urk!’ sound, and then the laughter escaped.
“She got Mom right in the face, too.” Mocking her mother’s voice, Skyla continued, “Now Flurry, don’t you lie to me… do you know what happened to all of the ice cream that was supposed to be served with—BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGLEBARGLE!” Ignoring Flurry’s frozen ire, Skyla laughed, not fearing her sister’s frosty retribution in the slightest. “It had real bits of bubblegum in it too, and Mom had bald patches all over.”
It was too much, far too much, and Nuance choked on his own laughter. Perhaps the most surprising part of all was, he wasn’t laughing at somepony, he was laughing with somepony, and he was having a nice time. A wonderful time. He was having a wonderful nice time and a part of him hoped that this would never end, even as he was about to cough up his own duodenum.
A lost duodenum was a small price to pay.
“It’s too bad that Uncle Gosling isn’t here, because we could have all kinds of fun camping together.” Heaving a fillyish sigh, Skyla continued to nibble on her pizza with a bit more gusto now that it had cooled.
Turning his head, Nuance caught the sunset blazing over the top of the wall and felt a jolt of panic. Night was coming and he took a much needed moment to watch the setting sun, which had turned the sky pretty much every good colour that could be found in a box of crayons. Purples, blues, reds, golds, pinks, yellows, oranges, it was all there, smeared across the sky like one of Corbie’s hoof-paintings. His sister’s paintings left a lot to be desired, mostly because they were just smeary messes that she had to explain what they were, but they were pretty to look at.
Perhaps, maybe, when his sister was down in the dumps, he might say something nice.
The sun was in a hurry now, racing past the horizon. It was that weird time of evening when the sun seemed to speed up, perhaps because it knew the coming darkness was catching up. In the west, there was a vivid explosion of colour as the sun blessed the clouds with its final, parting rays.
Chewing on a long sliver of dried papaya, Nuance watched as the sun vanished beyond the edge of the wall.