//------------------------------// // The mare // Story: The Painted Mare // by Mosernous //------------------------------// It was another beautiful day in the town of Ponyville. The sun was shining, the temperature a balmy but reasonable degree, with a nice, gentle wind to work the edge off. All through the town, ponies talked, walked, and enjoyed the day that Celestia had brought them. All except a certain Ponyvanian Stallion that had taken up residence in the Hoove's household. Coal stirred, attempting to get back to the land of dreams, when a knock at his door reminded him of why he had woken in the first place. "'At is it?" Coal moaned out, voice barley above that of a whisper. Fortunately, or unfortunately, in Coal's case, the knocker happened to be Derpy Hooves, mother of two, one of which happened to be a teenager. This made her more than qualified to understand his quiet mumblings. "Two o'clock in the evening, is what it is, mister. You don't plan to sleep all day, do you?" Derpy asked, covering her mouth to stifle the giggle she had at how young he was acting. "I was seriously considering it," Coal said, gaining coherency the more awake he got. "Well, too bad, because you are living in my house, and as long as you are under my roof, you're going to have to follow my rules. One of which is that everypony is up and functional by at least noon. As you can see, I already gave you an extra two hours, so consider yourself lucky," Derpy said, giving the door one more final and firm knock. "I'm getting up, hold your hooves, geez," Coal muttered, grumbling something to the tune of 'mother hens' and where they could stick their punctuality. "What was that, dear?" Derpy asked innocently. "Nothing!" Coal quickly shouted, throwing himself out of the bed and getting into the process of getting ready for the day. "That's what I thought," Derpy replied smugly. Coal vaguely heard the sounds of her walking away, probably off to terrorize another poor victim for getting their beauty sleep. Coal was stuck looking for his saddlebags for almost five minutes before he remembered that he had forgotten them. The night before came rushing back. He had forgotten his saddlebags on the moving cart with the rest of his stuff. So desperate to get out of the city of Ponyvania and start his new life in the quiet town of Ponyville, he had rushed ahead of the movers, making the nearly five day trip in only two. His hopes to finding some sort of lodging with the promise of money and loans in the future had been dashed when he found out that the mare he needed to talk to was 'out on business'. Lucky for him, Derpy Hooves had been kind enough to take him in for a couple of days till everything could be settled. The prospect had seemed promising, just him and a beautiful mare, alone, in a house together. That is, until he found out about Mr. Hooves, first name Doctor. Though what he was a Doctor of, they wouldn't say. "That was a bit of an awkward moment, for me at least," Coal mumbled to himself as he patted down his freshly washed mane. He had always combed it back in Ponyvania, appearance always came first there. It felt good to just leave it were it lay. He reluctantly left the warmth of the fogged bathroom, not wanting to suffer the wrath of a housemare on a mission. He trudged to his room, making sure to his hooves made more noise than necessary on the hard wood floor to voice his annoyance. He thought he caught the sound of a sigh and a whispered 'like a foal' coming from down the stairwell. He stopped at the door to his temporary lodging, admiring the homey little guest room. Sure it was small, but more in a quaint country house sort of way than a old house turned apartment/broom closet. He walked over to the bedside nightstand where he had placed the only three objects he had on him from the night before. The first two where a pair of leather wrist bands, tough and darkened by sweat that spoke of years of use. Out of place in the old Ponyvania style and sensibility, yet he had never been seen outside of his shop without them on. Coal slipped them on, tightening the straps that where hidden on the inside, the comforting and familiar feel of the leather's softened edge digging into his leg helped with the feelings of unease coming from the unfamiliar surroundings. "Look at me," Coal muttered to himself, "barley even a half a week, and I'm already homesick." He scoffed. His gaze was pulled by the third object on the nightstand. This one made an odd and conflicting mixture of emotions rise in his stomach. His eyes rested on the the soft, but unyielding handle, grooves dug into the sides from being constantly gripped in his teeth. His eyes then moved to the edge, a small, unassuming hilt, polished to a shine. There was a groove going from the top, at the hilt, that led to the bottom. Even though he couldn't see it, Coal knew that there was a blade, sharp enough to cut a single follicle of hair hidden in the groove, able to be brought forth at a slight pressure to the base of the handle. The switchblade brought up several feelings, practically opposites of the spectrum. The first being that of familiarity and safety. The second was that of guilt and uncertainty. "That was the past, Charcoal, you don't need it anymore," He muttered to himself, just like every morning, every day. "It's a symbol of things that have come, and gone, you should just get rid of it." This had become as ingrained in his daily routine as the shower and the teeth brushing. The same conversation with himself, every day. And just like every day, he quietly picked the tool up in his mouth, careful not to activate the spring trigger release of the blade, and tucked away into his left wrist band, sliding it into the custom made slot that was meant to hold it just out of sight, but still within reach of an easy and effortless draw. "Are you almost done up there?" Derpy's voice yelled up the stairs, nearly causing him to jump in surprise. He shook himself, trying to rid himself of the negative feelings the blade always brings on. "Yeah, just a sec," Coal yelled back, forcing his face into a look of believable indifference with just a hint of annoyance. A look in the mirror proved the usual flawlessness of his mask. Off we go, to start the day. **** “Where are you heading?” Ditzy asked. Coal stopped on his way to the door. He had been hoping to leave without alerting the mare of the leave of his presence. “Out, house hunting,” Coal said, “maybe find some place where a stallion can sleep in peace and quiet.” “What was that?” Ditzy asked. “I said, maybe I can find a place with a land-mare as kind, understanding, and caring as you.” “That’s what I thought I heard. And what? You think you could just leave without a goodbye?” "It was my hope," Coal mumbled to himself. "What're you mumbling about?" Ditzy asked, to which Coal silently cursed mothers and their bat hearing. "I was just wondering why Dinky was running by the kitchen doors with those scissors in her mouth," Coal nonchalantly replied. Watching as the mother instincts caused Ditzy's eyes to go wide as she took off in the direction of the kitchen, yelling about never running with scissors. Coal quickly ducked out the door with a load but short goodbye, nearly tripping over his own hooves on in his haste to escape the danger zone. Coal had been walking for all of five minutes when he was blindsided by a lavender blur going at speeds that should be unattainable by those beings of the landlocked variety. It took all of his control to allow the fall and sprawl. “Ahh!” So the blur had the power of speech, interesting. The tumbling finally came to end finding Coal straddling a young, lavender unicorn mare, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Oh, no! I am so sorry, I should have been watching were I was going, nice going Twilight. I'm so so sorry mister, it's just that I heard about this sail going on at the quill store and I was like 'Twilight, you should go, because you only have 20 quills and you never know when you might have to pull and all nighter one day for the princess, and you'll run out of quills..." the worried mare rambled on, somehow connecting her lose of quills to the end of Equestria, the opening of Tartarus, the downfall of the Gryphon empire, and, strangely enough, something about Magical Kindergarten. But that wasn't what really got Coal's attention. neither was the compromising position that the two had ended up in with the mare above him practically straddling his waist, though, he was a stallion, and to be fair, part of his brain was devoted to this predicament. "I'm sorry, miss, but did you happen to say your name was Twilight, as in Twilight Sparkle?" Coal asked politely, as contrite and to the point as always, even in such awkward situations as this. "What?" the mare in question asked, thrown off her rant by the sudden and odd question. It was at this point that she noticed their current position, and, blushing and apologizing profusely, got off the poor, in her opinion at least, stallion that she had been sitting on. As she watched the stranger stand up and dust himself off with a few quick pats, she gave him a quick, unconscious once over. He was a bit on the tall side, with her only coming up to about his shoulder, though he was nowhere near as tall as Big Mac, and not nearly as muscled either. Not to say he wasn't fit, he was trim, lithe maybe even, with a shaggy mane of a dark, black color, I'd almost call it Charcoal' she thought to herself. When the stallion in question had finished brushing the last of the dirt off his once clean tan coat, and turned to look her in the eye, she was struck, paralyzed by the sharp, blue eyes that seemed to see right through her, making her blush deepen. "I asked if your name happened to be Twilight Sparkle," the stallion repeated, snapping Twilight out of her thoughts. She gave her head a firm shake, clearing her thoughts 'What was that? It was like I was some schoolfilly looking at her crush, come on Twilight, you're a big mare now, use your words. He's starring at me, why is he doing that, maybe he likes me too, maybe he wants to ask me out. Or maybe he's still waiting for that answer to the question he asked about an hour ago. "I'd love to go o... I men, yes, Twilight Sparkle is my name, that is me, why wouldn't it be, who could be more Twilight Sparkle than me? Ooh, that rhymed, except that it was me and ... me," Twilight was quiet for a second, the look of amusement poorly hidden on the stallions face. "I rambling, yea, I'm going to go jump off a cliff now, bye." Twilight began walking off in a random direction, hoping to get away from the stallion she had just completely embarrassed herself in front of. She had only walked about three steps before a hoof on her shoulder stopped her. "Well, for starters, and I've only been in Ponyville for about a day and a half now, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the nearest cliff is in fact in the opposite direction," the stallion said, the poorly disguised amusement clear in his voice. But before she could correct her route and head in the right direction, the stallion's hoof stopped her again, pushing her around so that she now faced the owner of the hoof, who just so happened to be the same stallion as before, though he was considerably closer, being within the range of what the book she had read once on social mechanics as close relation distance, passed friendly distance, and definitely passed stranger/new acquaintance distance. "And secondly, if you were to do such a thing, that would be just awful, for you see, I've been looking for you, Ms. Sparkle, and now that I've found you, it sure would be a waste to my time to lose you now," Coal said, before getting closer, close enough to practically whisper in Twilight's ear, "That is not to mention what a lose it would be to Equestria in general to lose such a cute mare as yourself to something a cliche as suicide by cliff, would it not?" Twilight tried to search for a response, but nothing came, her face continued to heat up at the closeness of the stallion and his whispered words, before her brain finally came upon an answer to the situation, though it wasn't with words. The stallion grunted as he caught the fainting mare in his hooves, a look of confusion on his face. "I was just teasing," he mumbled to himself. I guess Ponyville mares are a bit different. He again looked down at the fainted mare in his forhooves. "If I had a nickel..."