Mind Over Matter

by Boopy Doopy


Smiling and Laughing

“We don’t have to go home yet, Leo,” Herbal Essence told me as we left the school. “We could find something to do if you’d like.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we could go to the park again, or to the library if you’d like.”
Those options weren’t particularly appealing to me. I did want to spend time with them, but more like what we did yesterday, when I was mostly sleeping silently in their company. However, I was almost certain that they were told to get me to be with foals my age by Doctor Spark, so reluctantly decided on the park.
We quickly headed over, and I quietly lay in the grass, with them taking spots next to me. I used to go to the park all the time, mostly after I became homeless, and so did a lot of other people. It was in a section of the city the police really didn't patrol through, and was a place where you could probably get away with murder if you wanted to. It was dirty and filled with broken glass, and basically only existed to serve people like me.
This park, however, was quiet and clean, and while there was a lack of ponies, I assumed it was mostly because it was a school day. I already knew without seeing it that the rest of the city was like this. It made me sad to think about, sad that I couldn't have lived in a city like this before.
"No," I thought. "It wasn't the city. It was me."
I tried to get that thought off my mind. I was really trying to stop thinking about the past. There was nothing for me there. But still, I couldn't help it, and sighed because of it.
"Hey, Leo," Thundertail started, interrupting my thinking, likely seeing the sadness I was feeling pasted on my face. "What's yellow and dangerous?"
I looked up and stared at him for a second. I wasn't really in the mood for jokes, but the wide smile he wore didn't look like it would be denied. "What?" I asked.
"A shark infested custard."
It was the worst joke I'd ever heard, but it made me laugh. Not just chuckle, but laugh, so hard and so long that I had tears in my eyes and my sides started to hurt. I didn't know what came over me, but it sounded like the funniest thing I'd heard in my whole life. It might have been the fact that, as bad as I felt the past week, I wasn't naturally that person. Or maybe I just needed something to laugh about.
"Ow, ow, ow," I got out as I put a hoof to my side, still laughing a little.
"It was that good, huh?" Thundertail asked, laughing a bit himself.
"That was the dumbest joke ever," I told him, still smiling.
"You know what will make you smile more than that? Your face muscles."
Another bout of hard laughing came over me. I didn't think it was the jokes, but Thundertail that was making me laugh. He was like Herbal Essence in that he had a certain way about him, although to a lesser extent. He seemed like someone I'd be friends with as a human, and while Doctor Spark did tell me about his disorderly conduct charge, I didn't really care about that all that much. If anything, it meant that he probably wasn't going to be too serious with me, which was okay. Although it might also have meant that he wasn't going to be a good influence, but I wasn't planning on being influenced by him anyway.
"Wanna hear another one?" he asked as I tried to stop laughing, my stomach hurting.
"No," I told him, shaking my head as I took deep breaths to make myself stop laughing. "Laughing hurts now."
I stayed laying in the grass, my mood brightened considerably after something so small. I really didn't know why I was being so difficult before, or why I thought it would be hard to be a colt. Now that I had a change of scenery from that hospital, I slowly thought less and less about what either I or this colt went through. I could still feel my troubles there, but it was a great deal easier to ignore and manage now that there was no way for me to access what was wrong for me. I originally thought it would be easier to be an adult, but it was actually quite easy being a foal.


  “So Leo,” Herbal Essence started, “Your new teacher told me you’d be visiting Canterlot at the end of April. Are you excited about that?”
“Absolutely!” Leo responded excitedly, still grinning. “I want to see the castle, Princess Twilight, and everything else there!”
"It sounds like it'll be fun," she responded, continuing to smile, happy to see him happy, glad to see that he wasn't still bothered by what went on at the school earlier. Although she was a bit concerned. "In the meantime, was there anything else you wanted to do?"
He thought about the question for a second, then answered, "I don't know. Like what?"
“Well, is there anything you want?”
“Not really.”
"We can buy you some books or games if you'd like for when you're at home. I mean, we won't be able to go out all the time."
She said it with a smile on her face, but she was worried about him. Doctor Spark had highlighted the need for him to make friends, but Herbal Essence was worried he might not be able to do that. However, while she knew that buying things for him wouldn't help him make friends, and might actually make him more reluctant to try to, she couldn't help it. She didn't want him to be sad if he couldn't find companions.
However, despite being upset by his interaction earlier, Leo wasn't particularly concerned about being alone or feeling bored. He didn’t really have any friends after Mandy left, and large portions of his day as a human were spent staring at the sky doing nothing. And while he did want to get the full experience of being in Equestria, he viewed finding friends and having fun as a minor objective in comparison to changing his life and seeing all of the world. Besides, he didn’t really care for books or games. For now, he was content to just enjoy being here.
“It’s fine,” he told her honestly. “I don’t need anything.”
“We can get you whatever you want,” she insisted. “It’s really no problem.”
“I don’t want anything,” he said again as he closed his eyes, still laying down.
The way the colt said that didn’t help her worry about him. He sounded like he didn’t care. Not that he sounded unhappy, but Herbal Essence was concerned nonetheless. She looked to the stallion next to her, silently telling him to help her convince him.
Thundertail thought for a moment, then asked, “How are you going to practice your magic if you don’t have any toys to practice with?”
Leo’s eyes flipped open at that, he quickly announced, “I change my mind.”
Thundertail laughed at that. "Of course you do," he said.


A while later, the three were back at home, Leo acquiring a book about magic and a set of blocks to practice with. He was sitting alone with Thundertail, who was watching him very slowly try to build something while the two asked each other questions back and forth.
"What do you think your cutie mark is going to be?"
"I don't know. A syringe, maybe?"
"A syringe?" he asked with a weird expression.
"For if I became a doctor," he lied, laughing silently to himself at his joke.
"Do you want to be a doctor?"
"Not really."
"You could be one, with how smart you are."
"I'm not smart enough to be a doctor," Leo thought, "but okay."
"Or maybe you'll become a world-famous magician and get a star as your cutie mark."
"Probably not, seeing how bad I am at magic," he said, still struggling to try and build something.
"You're better than me, aren't you?" Thundertail asked.
"That's because you're not a unicorn."
"Which means you'll always be better than me," he responded, laughing a bit.
"I guess that's true," Leo confirmed. "What does your cutie mark mean?"
"Oh, this thing?" he asked, looking at a dollar sign on what appeared to be a piece of paper on his flank. "That just means I'm good with finances and budgeting."
Leo thought that was interesting. Most ponies had names that indicated their coat color or special talent, or sometimes their personalities. Given his cutie mark, the name didn't really seem like it fit well for him.
"Then how come you're not super rich?" the colt asked innocently. Not that the house he now lived in was run down. It was actually quite nice. He just had a feeling that, if not for Herbal Essence, Thundertail's situation might have been more like his own situation was before.
"That… is a story for another day."
Leo felt like he knew exactly what that meant. Thundertail was probably the kind of pony who would rather work as little as possible and make just enough money to get by than work hard and make a lot of money. In essence, he was probably lazy.
"How old are you?"
"I am twenty-two years old," he told him as a matter of fact.
Leo chuckled at that. "That's older than me," he said, smiling at how unknowingly close to his age he was.
Thundertail looked up, pretending to ponder the statement. "Hmm. I guess you could say it is."
"How old is… um… Herbal Essence?" he asked, a bit unsure of if he should just keep calling them by their full names.
"She's twenty-seven," he told Leo.
"She's kind of old," the colt commented, referring to the age difference between her and Thundertail. It seemed weird to him, but didn't question it. Although, he did want to ask how they met and what Herbal Essence might have seen in him, since they seemed kind of different from each other. However, he decided not to.
"Now don't go telling her that," Thundertail responded simply.
Leo went back to focusing on building, the stallion watching him quietly. To him, Leo didn't seem like a five or six-year-old. He seemed more like a ten or eleven-year-old. Or actually, all over the age spectrum, based on what he'd seen over the past week. It seemed weird to him, but, to be fair, he didn't really know that much about foals. Besides, if anything, it made him more interesting.