Chapter 81: Papercut — Linkin Park
In the moments after Cocoa had stormed off into their shared bedroom, Kernal had been able to do little. The most he had managed to do was move from his former spot in the center of the living room to his usual seat on the couch. In the spot where his wife often occupied next to him now sat their twin daughters.
And they each shared the same look of uncertainty on their faces.
They stayed like this, up until a long, drawn-out ring cut through the house. The three ponies jumped at this sudden alarm, then sat frozen in fear long after the ringing ceased, as it continued to echo inside their minds.
Kernal was the one to ask what they all thought, “What… What was that…?”
After a few seconds pondering this—as if they shared a mental connection—both Almond and Pecan cried out in unison, “It’s the timer!”
Before the father stallion could ask them what they meant, the twin fillies galloped into the kitchen.
This had been yet another lesson Bryce had drilled into them: when the walnut-shaped egg timer rang it meant whatever was in the process of cooking needed to be removed from the heat, be it from the burner atop the oven or within the small chamber of heat. Any longer than that and the food could become too dry, if not burned.
And had they remembered for what reason the timer had been set they would not have made such a mad dash.
When they peered through the window of the oven, they were at first shocked to see the oven empty. They began to question whether they had heard the timer at all. Then the memory of what had happened not a half hour before came rushing back, and once more the look of uncertainty returned to their faces.
By now Kernal had arrived, becoming disheartened as he saw his daughters’ shared look of worry. With a sigh he stepped forward and turned off the oven. The burners inside the oven confirmed this as they burned the last of the gas in the line and let out a ‘pop’.
Kernal then wrapped a foreleg around their necks and hugged them close. “Come on, girls, let’s go and get you ready for bed. You can try to make dinner tomorrow.”
After their father let them go the fillies did nothing at first. Then, accepting defeat, they followed their father’s orders.
Before they left the kitchen, a shared thought sprung in the twins’ minds—a thought which sprang up at the exact same time. “Wait,” Pecan almost shouted, “we need to put the food away, so it doesn’t spoil.”
Kernal looked to where Pecan indicated and found a pie tin covered by a paper towel. “Don’t worry. I’ll put it away after I clean up the mess.”
He took a long, hard look at the sweet potato soufflé. He could remember how proud everypony had felt about the dish, more so because it had received such praise from Bryce. And then it had all gone to pot. Kernal almost wanted to dip a hoof into the mess and try it, if only to have a taste. What kept him—ignoring how gross it would have been—was the possibility of tasting first the soufflé, then thin shards of glass, and last the coppery tang of blood.
“Papa, can we at least have some of what we made first?” Almond almost begged. “We haven’t eaten since lunch, and we worked hard,” she said, failing to mention the few nibbles they had had here and there.
The chestnut-colored stallion took only a second to consider. It would have been wrong to let it all go to waste, more so since they put so much effort into making a holiday meal. He returned a nod. “It wouldn’t hurt. But from what I can tell there isn’t much except mashed potatoes and uncooked pecan pie.”
Though he said this he felt it would not be a good meal. No matter how great the food may taste—and he could tell it was great based on the smell alone—without the whole family present it was a bittersweet meal.
He made to pull a few plates from the cabinet, but for a third time that night both twins had another shared eureka moment. “Well, it doesn’t have to be,” Pecan began. Before she could continue, Almond finished the thought with: “Not if we make the rest.”
“What do you mean?” Kernal asked.
“We can cook!” Both twins said in unison.
They waited a breath before Pecan said, “Well, we can at least put it all together,” to which Almond added: “We need you to do the actual cooking.”
Kernal stared, dumbfounded by the what they had said. He scratched the back of his neck as his ears drooped. “Girls, I know you may think it simple, but I’m hardly a chef. I don’t know the first thing about cooking a Thanksgiving dinner.”
“That’s okay, Dad,” Pecan said. “All you need to do is put it in the oven for us.”
“Yeah, we can handle the preparation ourselves,” Almond added.
They then took turns from there, each trying to convince their father.
“We already know what to do.”
“And what we don’t know we can read from the recipe.”
“And it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving dinner after Thanksgiving.”
“It won’t take long.”
“And we already have all the stuff ready.”
“All we need to do is put it together.”
“The oven can do the rest.”
“But we need you to work the oven.”
The father stallion could only stare in surprise. If it were only Pecan firing off reasons to go ahead with the meal as planned he could put in his two bits. But whenever Pecan finished a sentence Almond came in, at the same pace, to add yet another positive reason. And Pecan did the same for Almond, in turn.
With each look from Pecan, then to Almond, then back and forth, again and again, his former resolution to say ‘no’ diminished.
When both fillies had exhausted every possible reason they could think of, they stopped, and each shared the same wide, begging smile.
Once Kernal understood they had paused to hear his answer he tried to focus his attention on anything but them. “Well… I…do believe your hearts are in the right place,” he started, their eyes widening in relief, “I…want to help…” What he said next was enough to make them want to cry, “But…”
Without waiting for him to finish, they let out a deep groan.
“Now, I want to help,” he stated once more, “but you must hear me out first.” He swallowed to try and remove the lump in his throat. “I want to help, but this is really not my place. You both started this with your mother, and I… I only think it right if you three finished it together, as well.”
It was then they let go of any hope of finishing their work for the night. Their ears drooped as they both stared down at the floor.
Noticing their dejected looks, Kernal said, “Now don’t look down. I’m sure if we went together we can try and convince your mother.” Though he said this, he had the same doubts as his daughters.
With a little persuasion all three ponies walked to the outside of the master bedroom. Taking in a breath, Kernal reached forward and knocked. “Cocoa, are you okay in there?”
There came no response from the other side of the door, which did not bode well for the stallion. He knocked again. “Cocoa-!”
Before he could say more the cream-coated mare shouted, “Laissez-moi!”
“Cocoa, please come out. The girls and I want to talk with you.” He tried to open the door, but though the knob turned it would not budge. “Cocoa, did you put the dresser over the door again?”
“Yes, I did, and you can sleep on zee couch tonight!”
Kernal could remember only one other time his wife had done this. It was almost nine years ago, when the mother mare, heavy with their twin fillies, had become fed up with dealing with Kernal’s mistakes, however small or insignificant they had been. And yes, he had spent that night on the couch, as well.
With the emotion gone from his voice, he said to Almond and Pecan, “Girls, go to your room.”
“But Dad,” Pecan cried in protest.
“I said go now,” He said in a calm tone, one which held the same force as a shout.
Knowing they were defeated, Pecan did as ordered, with Almond following not long after.
The reason Kernal had sent them away was not meant as a punishment, though to them it felt like one. The real reason was for the father stallion to try and make a good, honest effort to try and pull his wife out of the room.
“Cocoa, the girls are gone,” he said after he heard their bedroom door close. “I don’t know if your listening, but… Cocoa, can we please talk about this face to face?”
At first Kernal took the silence as a ‘no’ and resolved to go off to first tuck in the twins, then set up the couch for the night. After a beat he heard hooves on the floor, and then noticed a chocolate glow emit from under the door. A few seconds later the door swung open, showing the cream-coated mare with a bad case of bedhead and bloodshot eyes.
After a pause, Cocoa asked in a squeaky voice, “What do you want?”
Kernal, trying his best to disregard his wife’s appearance, said, “The girls still want to cook.”
A visible shiver ran up the mare’s form. She began to shake her head, all the while saying, “Non, non, non!”
“Cocoa, please,” Kernal began to say.
The mare instead drowned him out with a frantic, “I will never…do anything related to…zat ever again!”
“Cocoa, now that’s just unreasonable. I mean, how else are we to eat?”
“We can… We can go out.”
“Yes, but do you know how much it would cost to go out three times a day for four ponies? And next week the girls will be back in school. What will they have for lunch?”
Cocoa turned and lay her front part on the bed, facing away from the stallion. “Zey can just…take some fruit, some vegetables, anything zat does not need any work to make.”
“Yes, that’s a simple fix, but they need more than fruit and veg. And what about breakfast? I’m sure they want something warm in their tummies—especially with snow just around the corner. The weather team is bound to push in a few snow clouds in a matter of weeks, if not days.”
Cocoa looked to her husband. She tried to think of a way to refute this, but she could think of none the stallion could not fill with holes. “I know you are right, Kernal, but I… I cannot…”
“You cannot, or you will not?” When the mare did not answer he said, “Cocoa, I can understand you not wanting to—not after everything that’s happened tonight—but you shouldn’t allow it to discourage you. I mean Almond still wants to, despite her injury.”
He took a few slow steps towards her, leaving enough room to where he was out of reach. “They’ve worked hard too. Is it right to make them stop just because of one bad experience? Not even Almond wants to quit.”
Cocoa looked down to Kernal’s hooves. She wanted to say something but did not know how best to transmit her thoughts.
In the end Kernal managed to say what dug into the mare’s mind. “But it isn’t just about cooking, is it?”
At this her heart sank. She shook her head, and with tears in her eyes said, “I just cannot believe he would do something like zis…”
Kernal wrapped his forelegs around her neck. “I know… I don’t know why he would do anything to hurt one of our girls. And Almond of all fillies, too.”
He began to stroke the mare’s back before he said, “I still can’t believe it, but I still want to believe it was an accident.”
Cocoa went tense. She regained herself enough to slip out of her husband’s grip and push him a foreleg’s length back. “An…accident…?”
One only needed to see the mare’s face to know that if Kernal was not in trouble before, he was about to have his head cut off now, and it was unfortunate for the stallion that he was well within reach for this fatal stroke.
Instead, Kernal met with a hard slap to the face.
Cocoa stared down the stallion, who held the same look of disbelief. She huffed in frustration wanting to strike him down once more, intent on knocking loose whatever the human had forced into her husband’s mind. She lifted her hoof to do so, biting into her lip hard enough to pierce her flesh.
The mare somehow managed to calm herself enough to lower her foreleg and say, “How can you believe…?”
Her face read of blind rage—at Bryce, of course, and now at her husband. It also showed a mixture of disbelief, over the events of that evening, of worry, for what said events meant for their family’s collective future. Above these, however, was sadness; she was hurt not only by Almond’s former pain but also at Kernal’s doubt.
Kernal stammered out his words. “I just want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
This all but confirmed everything to Cocoa. “What is zere to doubt? We all saw what he did, no?”
“I… I know, but it just doesn’t… Well, to me… He…”
Just…spit it out!” Coca shouted, after finding the proper term.
“I just cannot bring myself to believe Bryce, of all…sentient beings, would do something to harm Almond.”
“Oui, maybe you cannot believe but we all saw.”
“I know—you, me, the girls, Bryce, we all saw. But…” Despite the look his wife glared him down with he finished his thought. “It just doesn’t seem in his nature.”
Rather than allow the mare time to refute him, Kernal added on. “This is the one who defended not only Almond but Pecan and Rocksalt not three weeks ago. And when somepony hit Almond in the lip with a rock he was ready to paste the whole lot of them.
“And if he were half as bad as you believe would he have felt any guilt? He looked to me as hurt as anypony else here tonight. Maybe not as bad as you or Pecan, but he looked ready to collapse.”
“Well, he should feel that way. He was the one in zee wrong, no?”
“He… He was… But still it doesn’t prove he did it on purpose. Why would he hurt Almond of all fillies? She never did him any wrong.”
“I… I don’t know why… But I blame myself more.”
This took the chestnut stallion back a peg. “What do you mean, why would you blame yourself?”
“Because if I had never allowed him into our home this whole or… This… Ordeal would never have happened,” she said, not recalling it was Kernal who first welcomed the human into the Nut house.
The stallion remembered, however, and the way he scratched the back of his neck went passed Cocoa. “Well…Cocoa… While that may be true… Uh…”
“Just… Don’t…” The mare said, followed with a heavy sigh. “It was my mistake, and because of it our little Amandine had to suffer.” She placed the bottom of her hoof on her forehead. “Celeste, bon sang tout, first Pécan and now Amandine, mais qu’est-ce que je foutais?! J'ai été distrait par le putain sauce au fromage!”
She then said the one statement which summed up her frayed mind, “I should have known nothing good could come of him!”
For a moment the couple remained silent. When she saw Kernal said nothing—whether by a refusal to try further or at a loss for words—she said, “Now, are we going to bring up zis…cooking nonsense again?”
She said the word with such spite the stallion found himself nodding in agreement. But he shook the movement off.
“Well, which is it?! Yes, or no?!”
“I… No…” He said, glaring down at the floor.
“Good, I am happy you see my-“
Kernal cut her off. “No, Cocoa,” he said, turning his glower toward his wife. “I mean, I don’t approve. You may not enjoy cooking—and yes, I said it, and don’t regret it—but you can’t just make the girls have the same feelings. They-! They enjoy it too much for you to just refuse to allow them to at least try!”
At first the stallion’s sudden change in demeanor made Cocoa cower. But as the shock faded, she shot a glare back. “So, you would side with that…chauve bouffon?!”
“No, Cocoa, this has nothing to do with Bryce,” he said, trying his best not to yell back. “This is about not answering wrong for wrong. He did something bad but that doesn’t mean everything he’s taught them should go to waste. It’s just not fair.”
Cocoa had to bite her lip to keep quiet. Already a few hot tears began to flow from the corners of her eyes. Despite the stallion’s words she heard this as another failed attempt for the human’s defence.
When she could speak again, what she had to say made her attitude known.
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Through the whole of their parents’ discussion, Pecan stood with an ear pressed to her and Almond’s bedroom door. Most of what she heard came as muffled noise, but when she could make out the words—most of the time being a shout from their mother—it only served to diminish her hope.
At the same time Almond lied on her bed, trying though failing to show no interest. To prove this failure, she asked, “So… What are they saying…?”
Pecan took a few seconds to answer. No matter how hard she pressed her ear to the wood she could not hear half of what was said. “I can’t…make out-“
At that moment they both heard their mother shout all they needed to hear to know where she stood: “Tu salaud Trottinghamien!!!”
At this the fillies reeled back; Pecan did not need to listen on to know what this outburst meant. It did not matter; they could hear Cocoa through the walls, plain and clear.
A few seconds afterwards they heard their mother shout, “And you can sleep on the couch! Now, bonne nuit!” She followed this with a loud slam of the door, though to the fillies this sounded like a thud.
When the house remained silent for a few beats, Almond somehow found the courage to ask, “Do… Do you think Papa is okay?”
Pecan did not need to look back to know her twin sister’s fear. She did not believe their mother could bring herself to assault the stallion—yelling in Prench was the most she ever did. But she could never remember things being this bad, not since Bryce had thrown her from the merry-go-round that faithful day.
The thought of that day months before made Pecan shiver. Both she and Almond had been changed; herself into a thrill-seeking firebrand, and Almond as anything but. She could almost hear their mother yelling at Bryce now, looking like she wanted to jam her horn where the sun never shined.
But what happened before had happened to her, and Almond had been left physically unharmed. Today, Almond had been the one hurt. Though only a small shiny mark now graced her flank to show anything had transpired Pecan felt her pain, and she knew Almond had yet to forget the white-hot pain of the sweet potato souffle.
Despite their uncertain mental connection only twins could share, however, she did not know Almond’s feelings for Bryce. She wanted to say she felt angry at the human—who in their right mind would dare harm her twin?
She wanted to be pissed off for Almond’s sake, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but confusion. Like her father, what happened made no sense to her. She might have been young, but she knew Bryce’s life was not going well—if she knew the word, she would call it a literal shitstorm.
Which did nothing to change the fact she knew Bryce would never consider hurting Almond.
Though she was more frightened than Almond, Pecan needed to be strong. With a swallow she reached for the knob, not a full second before the brass orb appeared to turn of its own accord.
Both fillies shrank back, half expecting to find their cream-colored mother, but instead the door swung inward to reveal their chestnut-colored father.
Kernal looked down at Pecan with the same look of shock; he had not expected to find his daughters staring at him, but he could not think of any other way to find them.
After a few blinks to clear his head the stallion sighed and looked down at the floor to avoid their gaze. He could not bear to see the faces he would no doubt receive in the moments to come.
“Girls, please get ready for bed…” He said in a crushed tone.
It was Pecan’s turn to blink in confusion. “But… What about dinner…?”
“Girls…” The father stallion began, “Your mother… She doesn’t want to… She doesn’t…want you…” He began to stumble over his own words—what could he say to make them go to bed without a fight?
If Pecan was the only one to argue he would in time say ‘no’, and there was little chance of Almond putting up a thimble-full of an argument, but this assumed they fought him individually, without the other to fall back on. And moments ago, they had done something they had not done in months: they argued with him together.
It was this possibility which made Kernal fail to say a word, but it also made him unable to say ‘no’. Not because of how it might shatter them but because it may shatter what little headway it had made in rekindling their twin bond.
With a slow pace he looked up into their chocolate-colored eyes, and he knew if he said the one answer they both expected it would end them.
His face first turned into a scowl, then his frown turned upwards into a sly grin.
The twins did not know what to make of this sudden turn of events.
“Dad…?” Almond asked, almost scared to know what might come next.
“Girls, your mother does not want to help, but I think it best we finished.”
Whatever confusion they felt now expanded by at least twofold, apiece.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Kernal asked with a smile. “You both still want to cook, don’t you?”
“Yeah…” Pecan said, not trying to hide her skepticism. “But…won’t Mom-“
“Oh, but this is for your mother. I mean, wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise to see how much enthusiasm you have for cooking?”
When the girls said nothing Kernal added, “What’s the delay? I mean, you can cook; I’ve more than seen the results. I’ve also smelt it, put it in my mouth and swallowed it whole. You already know what to do, and what you don’t know you can read from the recipes. Plus, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving dinner the day after Thanksgiving, would it? And from what little I saw you don’t have much left to do except put it all together. The only part you need help with is putting it in the oven, which is where I come in.
“What do you say?” He followed with a wide, begging grin.
It was as if the stallion had taken a page out of their own book. They did not understand how but what he said made sense. They had finished with most of the prep work, and why let the food go to waste?
Pecan looked back to Almond, wanting to ask what she thought, but the look of determination on her face said it all, one she matched as she looked back at their father.
Kernal’s smile grew. “Brilliant! Then let’s get cooking.”
Though happy to see the mood had changed—if only for the moment—a part of him thought he had made a grave mistake. But for now, he did not care.
Kernal could now see there was no way to sway Cocoa; not with words at least.
But this did not mean he could not prove her wrong, and this was the only way he could think to sway her. Even if the mare never cooked again, she may at least see it would be wrong to stop the craft all together.
Though he thought this a part of him still thought the mare may want a toasted Kernal Nut with a side of Amandine, and Butter Pecan for dessert.
Bryce be damned for now—this had nothing to do with him. Wherever he was right now Kernal no doubt knew the human was eating himself up inside. But for now, he needed to help the girls where he could.
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In a booth in the back corner of a bar on the outskirts of Ponyville, one Bryce had been to only once before, the only known human of Equus was indeed eating himself alive from the outside and burning his stomach from within.
His poison of choice: Caballo Salvaje, a coffee liqueur made and bottled in Acolthua since YC 936. Since its creation the family has kept to only the finest sugarcane and vanilla beans to match the bitterness of the choicest Saddle Arabian coffee beans.
At least, this is what Bryce read on the bottle’s label as he sat with his back against the wall inside the booth. This he read along with the bottle’s alcohol-by-volume notice: 20%.
The sweetness of the liqueur more than offset the burning sensation it made in his stomach; a burn which matched his current mood and his burdened mind. It was the best the bartender could manage—being it was a bar—but it did help the human in his drained state, if only in part. While the brew did not have as much sugar or caffeine as he would have liked, it took the edge off his diminished life force.
In fact, the bottle was now more drained than himself; the once half-empty bottle was now down to the last drop. This did not last long as Bryce tilted the bottle up and shook it until said drop dripped down the neck, past the rim and onto his tongue.
As the small amount of flavor passed into nothing, he peeked into the brown bottle and found it empty. He let out a sigh as he sat back and placed the bottle on the table.
Then he eyed the glass stopper. It was in the shape of the front part of a pony, one cut off at the withers. Said pony also had its forelegs bent towards the barrel it never had. Its face bore a snarl as if it meant to throw off its rider, one which the original designer never considered including.
As if noticing the human’s bottle had run dry, the owner stepped over and asked Bryce as if were a regular customer, “Would you care for more?”
For a moment Bryce contemplated saying ‘no’, but when he considered the alternative—heading back to the apple farm and facing what he had done—he instead said, “Sure; why not?”
“Would you like another bottle, or would you prefer just a shot?”
Bryce took a few seconds to think again and ended up saying, “Bring both; a bottle and a glass, please.” He was not ready to leave, and with his life force in the low side the journey would not doubt be like walking in a wavy ship. Plus, with a glass he could better pace himself.
The bar owner took the empty bottle away, not thinking about its stopper.
Now alone, and without a drink to keep him occupied, Bryce stared at the amber glass cap. After a few seconds he picked it up, holding it with his thumb at the bottom and his pointer at the head. Then he took his pointer away.
If it had been anyone else—forgetting unicorns for the time being—the glass bob would no doubt have been taken by gravity’s pull. But instead it remained balanced on Bryce’s wide thumb.
He then began to play with his ability. He flicked his thumb from side-to-side, allowing his thumb to be under the cap for a miniscule fraction of a second, and yet the cap held its place.
When he became bored of this he looked to the wall. Lowering his hand down to the table he floated the cap to a point less than a finger’s width from the wall. He drew it away from the wall to a point over the middle of the booth.
He did this back and forth, slow at first but picking up speed, but he always stopped right before the glass could impact the wall, and no doubt break into innumerable amber shards.
At one point he came close to doing this, when the owner came over and said, “Sir, please stop that!” If it had been any faster the cap might have broken, but instead when Bryce released his telekinetic grip the cap dropped down, bounced off the wall and landed on the table, with the pony’s thin legs snapping off the body.
The owner held a stare at the human, pleased he would not have to worry about sweeping up broken glass in his ill-lit bar. After a tense few seconds the stallion slid a tray containing a tall shot glass and another bottle of Bryce’s chosen poison.
Before the stallion could leave a thought came to Bryce. “Can I ask you something?” As if giving his approval the stallion kept his place. “Why do you serve me? Don’t you know the Nightmare Night Nightmare when you look him in the face?”
After a few seconds of hesitation, the owner replied, “Do you have bits?” Bryce returned a nod. “Then as long as you pay any Nightmare is welcome here.”
As the stallion turned to go Bryce had another thought: “Are you overcharging me?”
This time, without a shred of hesitation, the owner said, “Of course not.” Though at the same time he thought, He may have bits but I’m not stupid enough to even consider overcharging this one-stallion wrecking crew. He’s lucky I value my life more than bits.
“Okay then,” Bryce said before he tried to loosen the stopper.
“Besides,” the owner said, interrupting him. “It’s already been paid for.”
Bryce stared down the stallion. “Are you saying it’s on the house?” ‘Not overcharging the one-man-wrecking-crew’. I’m not taking anything for free.
Bryce made to slide the bottle back, but the stallion answered, “Oh no, somepony else paid your tab.” He motioned with his head toward a table in the middle of the bar, a table occupied by somepony who incited a crowd against him before and commended him for catching the ‘ungrateful spawn of her own foal pouch’ later: the mare with a coat the color of dried blood and a mane the color of rusted iron.
As the stallion walked away, said mare made her way over to Bryce’s booth, and without asking permission sat herself across from him. “Hello, human,” she said without a hint of sarcasm or spite.
“Hi… Pony…” Bryce said, unsure of how to address the mare.
After a moment of tense silence, the mare broke her stare and huffed. “This is my apology to you.”
Bryce waited a few beats before he replied, “For which part?”
The mare glared back at him once more. “For what I caused to you the other day, and for my thieving spawn.”
Bryce rolled this over before asking, “What was the word you used earlier? The one that sounds like the F-bomb?”
“You mean ‘feck’?”
“Yeah, that one. That’s what I thought you said.”
“What of it?”
“Well,” Bryce said with a smirk. “Feck off, Ted.”
The comment had the intended effect of confusing the mare. “What did you call me?”
Bryce ignored this question. “I don’t care what you did to me. Now, what you did to… Almond…” He said nothing more as he looked at his distorted reflection in the bottle of Caballo Salvaje.
“What are you blathering about almonds for?”
“No… Almond… She’s the girl who got conked in the mouth with a rock.” He followed this by tapping his fist against his mouth.
“Oh…” For once the constant glare of the mare faltered into a look of concern. This lasted only a few seconds before her usual glare resumed. “That was never my intention.”
Bryce shot a glare to match the mare’s own back at her. “Well, it was your fault. You’re the one who got everyone there and riled them up.
The mare flinched, but one needed to be looking for it to have spotted it. “Yes… But it was never my intention, as I said before. My mission was to investigate some trouble, and when I first saw you…”
When the mare said nothing Bryce asked, “You thought I had something to do with it?”
The mare huffed. “I wasn’t wrong, now was I? From what I’ve heard you were the reason I was sent on this milk run.”
“Well… It was never my intention.”
“As I found out.” Without any notice the mare grabbed the bottle of coffee liqueur and removed the stopper. She locked eyes with the small halfpony. Under her breath Bryce heard her say, “Fecking moonflower.”
“What’s about moonflower?”
The mare chuckled. “You’re lucky, you know that. Even with your size you must have taken a lot moonflower tonic water.” By then Bryce knew the mare referred to the poison he had—unbeknownst at the time—ingested on Nightmare Night. “People can see a lot of crazy shite when they have it in’em.” She looked at Bryce; this time with her face relaxed. “And I bet you don’t remember anything you saw.”
“In truth, I don’t remember anything that happened before that afternoon.”
“Yep, that confirms it.” She again said something under her breath, something Bryce could not understand. “Why Luna created those damned flowers is beyond me.” She snorted a chuckle. “But by then I suppose she wasn’t Luna then. Her and that red-eyed blighter.”
“Red-eyed what?”
“It’s not something a human would know. It’s an old legend by now.” She placed the stopper down before she pulled the double shot glass over and poured herself a drink. She took a drink and almost spit the liqueur out. “Bleh, how can you stand something this sweet?!”
Bryce ignored this comment and asked. “What legend?”
She shot him a quick glare but decided to drop it. “It was about a thousand years ago, after Luna became Nightmare Moon. Do you know of her?”
Bryce nodded. He had been told the legend a few days before Nightmare Night.
“Then it saves me some trouble,” she said before pouring another shot. She decided to live with her purchase, as vile as it was to her taste buds. “While she was still roaming about—before Celestia imprisoned her in the Moon—she met the one called ‘Red Eyes’. That’s just a translation. His actual name sounds better but it’s hard to pronounce. Anyway, when they met, he told her, ‘Nightmare Moon, as great as your power is now you cannot lead on your own. Allow me some of your life force so I may create something to turn others to your cause.’
“So, Nightmare Moon did, and Red Eyes infused her life force with a shrub that was common at the time: the drooping angel’s trumpet, a plant once sacred to Celestia, and once beneficial rather than harmful to those who ate of it.
“It turned out to be a trick—as is the way of Red Eyes. Instead of turning everyone who ate moonflower—or devil’s trumpet as it came to be called—to Nightmare Moon’s whims it instead drove them bonkers. And most died while under this insanity.
“So, human, you can indeed call yourself lucky.”
Bryce took the bottle away from the mare. Lucky isn’t the word I would use, he thought. He turned up the bottle and took a few swigs.
“Pace yourself!” The dried-blood mare said as she tilted the glass down, causing some of the liqueur to spill onto Bryce. “Drinking like that you’re sure to cause more problems, human.”
Bryce coughed a little as he said, “My name—cough—is—cough, cough—Bryce!”
The mare misheard this. “Rice?”
“No!” Bryce said as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Bryce. Bryce Smales; and don’t you dare say Smiles… Whoever you are.”
“I heard you, Smales.”
“Well, you could have done it without spilling it on me! This is the only shirt I have on me.”
“Bah—it’ll dry!” The dried-blood mare said. “Now shut up; I’m not done.” She took her shot before she continued. “This isn’t all the flower does. It’s said that whoever ingests moonflower see and hear things—things that aren’t there, but also things yet to come.
“In their rambling close friends and family of the first victims were able to make out a few words. There isn’t a full record, but what little survives foretold events such as coming deaths, freak accidents, a few heavy storms and other natural disasters. The biggest—that has come to pass—was Celestia’s imprisonment of Nightmare Moon on the moon with the Elements of Harmony.”
With this said, the mare stared at Bryce. “Which makes me wonder what, if anything you saw, Smales. What lies trapped in that noggin of yours?” She leaned in close, her pale green eyes scanning the human. At this distance Bryce could not help but notice how different the mare’s eyes looked: the left eye looked normal, but her right eye looked milky.
For a while the mare stared at him, with enough time passing to make Bryce uncomfortable. As he went to speak, she belted out a hearty cackle.
When she finished, she said, “As if you could remember. Just like a thousand years ago no one can remember a Celestia-damned thing.” She laughed for a few seconds more. “So, what’d you think? Riveting enough for you?”
“Well, it’s something,” Bryce said, unsure of what else to say. “But, about this… Red Eyes, is there a certain way he looks?” Before the dried-blood mare could answer, Bryce added, “Because… I saw this thing with red eyes.”
“It’s normal, really. They say his influence still lies dormant within the flower, so if you see him in your dreams-”
“No, not in my dreams… Well, I did see it in my dreams, but I also saw it in the real world. It was this… Catoblepas, I think it’s called.” At this word the dried-blood mare’s smug look faltered. “It was like a wildebeest—or like a lean cow, if you don’t know what a wildebeest looks like. Except its head was big and looked like a large pig or boar’s head. It had this foul odor too, and its slobber killed the grass.
“But it was the eyes though. I remember them because of how big and red they were, and how they bulged out of its skull. And it wasn’t just the irises; it was as if each part was a different shade of red, even the pupils.”
By then the mare’s look had resumed its usual glower. It may have been the alcohol, but Bryce wanted to say the brown tone of her scarlet coat took on a shade of red. Or it may have been the sudden flush of red which spread across her face.
The mare raised herself up on her forelegs and sent a stern look into his eyes. She said something under her breath which sounded like, “The bastard ain't lying.” Her eyes shot to the right—to Bryce’s left side. “Show me your arm.”
Bryce did as ordered and raised his left arm. He thought she wanted to see his self-inflicted wound up close and prepared to be questioned. But there was something of greater interest to her.
“Lift up your sleeve,” she said, and waited as Bryce did so. As she examined the human’s limb—taking note of the vein-like burns which ran its length—her glare deepened. She said something in a higher tone than before, “Wisdom shall allow his mind to bend the word as he wills it, and the Sky shall place on him an arcing mark.”
She took the bottle of liqueur. Instead of a shot she proceeded to take a long swig. When she had drunken to her satisfaction, she slammed the bottle down, leaving about two inches worth of its contents.
“Bah, how anyone can stand this bile…” She slid the bottle back to Bryce. “Here; rest’s yours.”
He looked at the bottle for a second before he asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
The mare looked back and said, “You watch yourself, Smales. I don’t know yet how you’re alive and still sane, but if that thing’s around…” She shook her head. “It’s not Red Eyes, but it’s something just as bad. You’d do right to avoid anything with eyes as red as you described.” And with those words the mare turned about and left.
Without trying to stop her Bryce watched the mare leave. He did not know what to make of the mare’s behavior.
There was a part of him which wanted to storm after her, demand she tell him what her actions meant, to know what could make such a stern mare want to leave. If he were of a better attitude and not in such a drained state, he would have done just so.
But after the events of the day he felt it better to stay put. As it stood, he may bring down a building on her trying to force out an answer, as stubborn as she appeared.
For now, he wanted the day to end as he had wanted it to begin: with him being left alone to stare off into nothing, well away from anyone or anything he may inflict unintended harm upon.
He grabbed the bottle before him by the neck and swirled what remained a few times. He wanted to drink what remained and be done with it, but damn it if he wasn’t thirsty tonight, and the dried-blood mare had drunken most of the bottle. He sucked in his lower lip and let out a nasal sigh, and questioned no one in particular, “Can’t this day just fecking end?”
As he went to take a drink, he heard somepony ask, “Do you know who that was?” It was a voice Bryce knew, but someone he did not want to turn away.
Events put in motion will soon come to pass. To some the coming hours will be a welcome relief, bitter resentments are changed for the better, and it will be a night to remember for years to come. To others the coming events shall become a fight for one’s life and will be a constant reminder for the same amount of time.
What is the identity of this welcome visitor? Read the next chapter if you would know.