//------------------------------// // Custody // Story: Stolen Fire // by Tzelael //------------------------------// Stolen Fire by Tzelael Chapter 1: Custody __________________________________________________________________________ The Ponyville Marketplace bustled with activity, the air buzzed with the indistinct chatter of the ponies who did business with each other. Many of them congregated toward the center of the road today, the nebulous sound of several conversations at once created an almost hectic atmosphere as they milled about. Fluttershy stood among them, weaving her way gingerly through the crowd while she inspected a list she carried with her. “Let’s see, lettuce, carrots, mangos, guavas... If I don’t get this exactly right, Angel Bunny’s going to throw a fit,” she thought, going over each of the items on her grocery list. She vividly remembered the last time she was unable to complete a recipe verbatim as per Angel Bunny’s request. It led to the pegasus seeking the help in a seminar from a minotaur named Iron Will, whose techniques instilled in her just that. “I can’t believe I ever acted that way. I must have seemed like a total–” “–BRUTE! YOU HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE BRUTE!” It wasn’t often that anypony’s thoughts were both interrupted and completed at the same time, and it certainly grabbed Fluttershy’s attention. Her head shot up from the list, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Several ponies gathered around in a circle. In the center were the tomato merchant and an unfamiliar pony. He was an earth pony stallion with a muted, grayish-green coat, a white mane and a brown cloak. The tomato merchant continued to scream at the stallion. “Someone! Help! He’s here to steal my tomatoes, I know he is!” The stallion in front of the tomato stand only grunted in response, his head darting back and forth as he looked between the crowd and the merchant. Fluttershy immediately associated this reaction with an animal surrounded on all sides by predators, desperately searching for an escape route. “Um, excuse me... Pardon me...” Fluttershy muttered as she weaved through the crowd. She examined the ponies around her, who appeared outraged and confused at the idea of a thief, but Fluttershy could see something deeper affecting their collective demeanor, though it was difficult to place. The best guess she could make was “Fear,” but she couldn’t tell what this fear was directed at, aside from the stranger in the center of the scene, and even then, it didn’t seem to be the fear generated by the presence of anyone violent or otherwise unpleasant. Puzzled, she simply watched the scene unfold before her, despite being unaffected by whatever had gripped the minds of the other ponies present. A few ponies stepped in to grapple and throw the cloaked stallion away from the tomato stand, though his panicked confusion prompted him to pull himself away from the grips of each of those who made their attempt. His resistance, oddly enough, didn't stop other ponies attempts to tackle him, push him, pull him or throw him away from the stand in an inexplicable burst of collective aggression. One of the ponies that he shoved away earlier tried to charge at him and yelled out as fierce a battle-cry as he could muster. “Graaaa–!” As the pony from the crowd leaped in the air to tackle the cloaked stallion, his panic overtook the stranger, swatting his attackers back while trying to escape. With a whump, the charging pony went flying over the mob and into a nearby stand. Upon impact, he bent and cracked the support beam he slammed into. His face, along with everypony else's, was frozen in a dumbstruck expression as he fell to the ground. A loud whistle screeched out from the other end of the road. “What in the hay is going on here?!” Roused from their shocked stupor, the mob of ponies parted as two town guards approached the scene. They examined everypony present closely, particularly the cloaked stallion in the center. The corners of their mouths turned down in clear disgust as soon as they saw him. One of the guards cautiously approached him. “You just sent a pony flying twelve feet into a marketplace stand, and you've been accused of theft. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, mister.” The stallion only grunted and growled. The guards stepped back into a fighting stance. The whole marketplace grew quiet. The massive crowd could only watch the standoff. The stranger’s eyes darted back and forth between the guards and the crowd, his fear lined with a hope for an opening of some kind or a way out. The tension between the three figures present was virtually tangible, a tension that was broken by a soft, gentle voice that shattered the silence. “Excuse me...” The dirt road crunched as all the ponies turned nearly simultaneously to face Fluttershy. She shrank away from all the eyes that stared at her at once. A tense silence overtook the area again as Fluttershy stammered out what she had intended to say, nervous now that she was the center of attention. “I... Uh... I think that he doesn’t mean any harm...” One of the guards trotted toward her. He glowered while he spoke to her in a voice that barely avoided being a snarl. “Doesn’t mean any harm? He threw a pony into a merchant stand! How is that not meaning harm?!” Being yelled at didn’t make the situation any easier for Fluttershy. Even on a good day, she had a hard time speaking up, and while she could assert herself when she needed to, the stares a whole crowd of unusually hostile ponies made it difficult. “They’re looking at you, Fluttershy... Say something! Anything!” her mind screamed out at her from inside. “I don’t think he’s well.” “You think he is ill?” The ponies glanced at the stranger and subconsciously backed away. “Alright! It’s working! Keep going!” She wracked her brain, her sentences plagued with “Uh”s, “Um”s and “Er”s, with awkward pauses long enough for a carriage to pass through. Coming from anypony else, this would be immediately seen as the flimsy attempt at lying that it was. However, this was Fluttershy– speaking to a crowd, of all things. It was entirely believable that she might be telling the truth, but was just nervous about the group in front of her. “I mean, um... I’m no expert, but he looks like he’s...” There was dead silence as the ponies continued to stare in her direction. She looked at the stranger, trying to determine what manner of affliction he looked like he was suffering. With the cloak on, it was difficult to tell anything, though something about him did seem to look sickly and pallid. While she couldn’t see much of it, the skin underneath his cloak lacked any kind of color, and the green of his coat was washed out. Something about him just looked wrong, though she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was. She settled on his pallid gray color, then finally finished her sentence. “... Like he’s infected with... Um... Death Mask Plague.” The entire crowd gasped at once. After a minute, they glanced at each other and realized they had no idea what she was talking about. They turned back to Fluttershy for clarification. “There’s no such thing as Death Mask Plague! Oh no... I need to explain it, and quick! One of them will comment on it at any moment...” “I’ve never heard of this Death Mask Plague, Miss Fluttershy. Would you care to explain the symptoms?” The second guard glared at her, though at the very least, there was a hint of concern. “Well... Um... It starts when... When...” She looked at the stranger, who was staring at her and fidgeting in place. “...When the skin turns gray! Yes. And then... Then the victim isn’t able to speak... And during this time, their coat starts turning gray, and then they... Um...” She desperately looked, trying to remember other peculiarities concerning the stranger that she hoped could be explained away with a made-up disease. “It... Also makes the pony victim very aggressive and they start getting adrenaline rushes more often. That’s why he’s all fidgety! It’s a... Um... It’s a good thing I caught it before his eyes turned gray, or we’d really be in trouble, because... By then it’s both contagious and incurable! I should get him to a hospital right away.” She wore a confident smile and nodded encouragingly, fighting every urge to run away or cower in a corner. “Theydon’tbelieveyoutheydon’tbelieveyoutheydon’tbelieveyou...” “Oh. Well, I don’t want this Death Mask Plague spreading...” The guards looked between each other, then back at Fluttershy. “Well... Take him to the hospital and... For goodness’ sake, keep him away from everypony else!” The entire crowd dispersed, keeping their distance from the stranger. He looked at Fluttershy, then his eyes darted around, looking for an escape route. His gaze settled on Fluttershy after she spoke to him again. “Come along... I won’t hurt you.” She kept her voice low and gentle, bending down and holding out one of her forelegs. The stranger eyed her apprehensively, stepping toward her carefully, not making a sound on the dirt road. His head kept turning back and forth, but he accompanied Fluttershy, staying close to her. “So what’s your name?” she asked quietly. The stranger focused on Fluttershy again, though didn’t answer. He cocked his head to one side, as if confused by the question. “Your name?” she repeated. She received the same confused response. “Maybe he doesn’t actually understand me... It’d explain his confusion back at the marketplace.” Her gaze fixed on him as the two walked toward the Ponyville Hospital, getting a closer look at the stranger. He did look sickly, though he looked far more unusual up close. In addition to his distinct lack of color, bits of his fur seemed to knot up or stop, particularly around the joints, though never in the same places. His eyes were different colors, a dull yellow and a bright electric blue, and some of his limbs seemed slightly different sizes, making him appear rather clumsy and unbalanced. His white, wispy tail didn’t flick, but bounced lifelessly as he moved forward, and didn’t actually seem to move of its own power at all. “I may have lied about that disease, but he looks like there might be something wrong with him after all... Good thing I’m bringing him to the hospital, maybe Doctor Stable could get a good look at him. I’m sure he can help us out here.” **** “What is that thing doing in my hospital?!” Fluttershy visibly flinched at the sound of Doctor Stable yelling at her as she and the stranger entered. The stranger bared his teeth and growled at the doctor, who only gave him a glance of disgust. She stood stunned, staring in disbelief at the doctor’s sudden outburst of anger at the pony she brought with him, who, to her knowledge, he had never met. “He can be gruff sometimes, sure but he’s never this mean... Maybe if I try to explain the situation, he'll understand.” “I-I-I just th-thought you m-might be able to...” She wasn’t given a chance to complete the thought. “Out! Out!" She squeaked, words failing her, and turned to leave. The stranger, however, had other ideas. He roared at the doctor in an unearthly deep, booming voice that caused most of the more fragile items nearby to shudder. He stepped in front of Fluttershy protectively and growled at the doctor. “Well... At least he’s defending you now.” She held up her hoof, touching the stallion’s shoulder for a second. His head shot to her, his teeth bared and nostrils flared, though his anger disappeared once he saw her gentle smile and felt her hoof on his skin. He grunted under his breath and backed down as Fluttershy spoke to the doctor. “If it’s okay for me to ask, what did he do to you? I don’t think he’s ever been here before.” The doctor was struck silent when he realized that he really had no reason to be so cruel to the stallion in front of him. Fluttershy smiled. She briefly entertained the thought that it meant that he realized that he was in error, though the smile faded with his next response. “Just look at that face! It spells trouble! Hay, his whole body spells trouble! I can practically smell it on him! I’ll have no part of this!” Fluttershy stood petrified, the flimsy excuses of the doctor shocking her to the core. “Why is he turning down a patient? He never acted like this! He’s never been this mean to anyone, even if they were being difficult! Why is he acting so strangely now? I suppose it doesn’t matter... He won’t take him in, so I’m left with little choice...” She mustered up every bit of willpower that she had, took a deep breath, held her head up high and stamped her hoof on the ground with determination. “If you won’t take care of him, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.” She turned around, placing her hoof back on the stallion’s shoulder, then urged him out the door, the doctor staring at her with a blind, shaken rage as she left. “Get out, and don’t ever let me catch him coming here again!” Once they left the hospital, Fluttershy looked over to the stranger, who was still shaken with anger from the doctor’s hostility. She looked to the ground and placed her hoof on the bottom of her chin. “First the tomato merchant, that mob of ponies, the guards, and now the doctor... Everypony’s being so unpleasant to this stranger, but why? He looks a little strange, but that’s never made anypony in Ponyville really mean to anyone... Except maybe Zecora, but nopony ever tried to attack her or yell at her.” She furrowed her brow in concern, then put on a smile and looked back up at the stallion. “Guess we should head to my house then. I think you’ll like it. It’s nice and comfy, and it’s got all sorts of little critters running around to play with...” She kept her voice soft and gentle. She knew that he probably had no idea what she just said, but when it came to beings who couldn’t understand speech, and even with many who could, tone often said far more than the words themselves did. His hard features softened. The stranger’s head continued darting around, looking away, then back towards the path. He watched Fluttershy in the corner of his eye, waiting for her to walk ahead. “Follow me... I promise I’ll take good care of you.”