“Jamal, are you a good father?”
“I know I’m not,” Jamal muttered.
Scootaloo flinched as Reiko slapped Jamal again. “WRONG!”
Reiko shook Jamal like a rag doll. It shouldn’t be possible. He weighed more than her. The pain shooting through her muscles must have been incredible. She didn’t act as if this was anything new.
Reiko licked the blood from her cheeks. “You’re a good daddy. You care about her. You protect her. You don’t…you don’t do all the things that a parent shouldn’t do. And she is very, very, VERY lucky to have you.”
The ponies around them were silent.
“Do you, stupid bitch, have any idea how lucky she is to have that in her life? She could grow up to do great things, or do important but forgotten things, but it doesn’t matter. You are rarer than gold. You are a precious resource, a father who helps his children instead of hurting them.”
Reiko swayed on her two awkward feet and slowly lowered Jamal to the floor of the cloud.
“Scootaloo? Fix me a maretini. I know you know how.”
“What are you-“ Scootaloo began, worried about what idiocy her new friend might pull.
“Do it! Now!”
Scootaloo’s shuddering spine forced her inside, and she rifled through Rainbow Dash’s fridge and liquor cabinet without thinking.
She knew how to use the ice and the shaker. Reiko hadn’t specified dirty or not, but she put a carefully balanced amount of olive brine into the glass to hedge her bets. She curled off a section of lemon peel with expertise, then put the rest of the lemon in the crisper drawer. Rainbow Dash didn’t have any normal toothpicks, but she had some sword-shaped plastic ones.
“—without anesthetic. And my mother was much, much worse,” Reiko said, casually, to the assembled crowd. “It took me so long on tumblr and AIM to figure out that stuff wasn’t normal.”
Scootaloo stepped forward, tentatively, the chilled glass stem gripped between her wings.
“M-m Ms. Reiko? I got your drink ready.”
Reiko picked the glass up by its base, sniffed, and took a long, long gulp.
“Ahh. Scootaloo, you are a master of your craft. If the whole cutie mark crusaders thing falls through, you should try being a bartender.”
“Okay,” Scootaloo said. She didn’t feel okay.
“Jamal, my dude, my buddy, my guy, you think you don’t have anything to live for. You are dead yiffing wrong,” Reiko said, with the confidence of the hopeless.
“Where was I? Oh yeah. The emotional stuff was much, much worse. And this one time, I figured it all out. I took a risk. The purse was lying out there, and there were enough different credit cards she wouldn’t freeze the Amex Business Platinum one for a while. Also there was loose cash. So I went to one of the more prestigious starbucks, IMed my friends, and purchased tickets for the first, and last, convention of my life.”
“Uh, I thought you didn’t know unicorns ate humans?” Berry Shine asked.
“I didn’t. This isn’t about you,” Reiko said, with only a hint of irritation.
“Point is,” Reiko continued, “this has literally been the best time of my life. I’m incredibly lucky. I planned for something like this. Every night, I postpone the queued post that will explain everything to the people who really matter to me. My parents will get the insurance money, which is more than they deserve. My crush, well…she’ll forgive me.” Reiko chuckled.
It was the ugliest, most bitter chuckle that Scootaloo had ever heard.
“Jamal? You just keep doing what you’re doing. Be there for your wonderful little daughter. She’s lucky to have a dad like you, instead of just another father.”
Reiko spun around, laughing, tears running down her bloody cheeks. “You guys, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi? Stay friends. I love you so much, I’d do anything for you, and you’re all wonderful and magical. And I pray that you never have to recover from the kind of life I’ve known.” She hesitated, and her eye twitched. “No, I don’t pray. I KNOW that y’all never had to deal with what I have. Because I have to believe that there’s a better world somewhere, that Equestria doesn’t suck that bad. Okay? And if I’m wrong, don’t tell me.”
She knocked back the rest of the maretini.
“Just dig in, bitches.”
Reiko jumped.