//------------------------------// // Not All That Shimmers... // Story: The Zebra and The Bat // by Apple Bottoms //------------------------------// Candle luxuriated in the hot bath the maid Zamra drew for him. She had started to pick up a scrub brush before Candle clumsily asked her to leave; he didn’t want to be offensive to his new host, but he could wash himself perfectly fine on his own, thank you! He’d wished for fresh water once the tub turned a light shade of brown due to his previous dust bath, but he dutifully scrubbed himself down all the same. Warm, fluffy towels waited for him when he climbed out, and he luxuriated in those too, practically singing by the time he emerged from the bathroom.  “O - Oh. Hello,” Candle said awkwardly, freezing mid-step as he realized that there were four zebra maids waiting for him when he emerged, and none of them were Zamra. “I’m, uh, I’m ready for dinner?”  One of the maids (the familiar grey and black of Zecora) shook her head briskly, and gestured to a tufted seat in front of a mirrored vanity. “We will dress you. Please sit.”  “Oh, well - okay, I guess,” Candle followed her gesture, trying not to let his skin crawl obviously as the quartet stared him down in uncomfortable silence. “Thank you.”  He received no answer, but once he sat, they set to work on him. One combed his hair, still a little damp from the bath, and began to curl it into intricate waves. Another took what looked like a strange, flat brush, and began combing his coat. He didn’t even know that you could comb a coat, but with a few drops of a golden oil, his coat soon shone and dazzled like it never had before. The third brought various items of clothing back and forth, measuring them against his fore and hind legs, tutting occasionally as she compared various colors to his silky grey coat. The fourth brought shiny bits of jewelry; she compared dangly earrings to his massive bat ears, comparing them.  “Oh, I don’t need jewelry,” Candle interrupted her gently, leaning away from the earrings. “But thank you all the same.”  “Master insists,” the purple zebra said simply, ignoring him, and brought his chin back with a surprisingly firm hoof. She compared for a moment longer, then set another pair back down. “This will pinch.”  “Pi - OW!” Candle gasped, startled by the sudden pain at the base of his ear. “That hurt!”  “It will only hurt for a few moments,” the zebra said smoothly, and lifted a bottle, squirting something on his ear. The pain faded instantly. “And now the other.”  Candle had seen earrings his mother owned, as a colt; they had pinchy little grips, and she’d tried one on him during a game of childhood dress-up. They hadn’t pinched this badly, but then Candle supposed that memory faded with time, and that he had bigger ears now. Bigger ears, bigger pinch. He gritted his teeth for the second painful pinch, but with another squirt of the bottle, the pain faded once more.  Once his ears were finished, the mare set to work comparing necklaces, and Candle allowed himself to get lost in comparing them, too. He tried on a couple of different outfits, and the mares finally settled on something that seemed like it was mostly gauze, if he was being honest. It was frilly, and soft, sort of like the drapes that he and Zeffir had worn at the party - wedding, Candle recalled with a sharp drop in his middle. But this was - well, it had to be at least fifteen layers of some transparent, silky material, in every color of the rainbow. When they were layered that thickly, it whispered as he walked. There were two holes on the back for his wings, and when they folded against his back, he felt a little bit like a winged cloud. A bat cloud! I wish Zeffir was here to see me, Candle thought with a little chuckle, turning in the mirror to admire himself.  He looked expensive, which was the only thing he could think of to describe himself. His grey coat shone as a lustrous, burnished silver, glossy and brushed smooth, and his lavender hair was spun silk, brushed back and curled into shimmering waves. As he considered himself, noting the spider-spun gold chain that tangled around his throat elegantly, one of the mares leaned close, and brushed a shimmery powder along his cheekbones.  He looked … transcendent. Transformed. He almost didn’t recognize himself.  “Dinner,” came a male voice from the doorway, and Candle spun to realize that Zeffrey stood there, “is served.”  Candle followed Zeffrey down the marble hallway, but he barely took notice of the portraits that frowned down at him; all he could hear was the click click of his hooves on the marble, and the whispering of the fabric on his body.  “Oh! You made it!” Pantaloons clapped again when he saw him, and eagerly trotted over to his side. Frilly Pantaloons wore an outfit almost as ridiculously opulent as Candle’s, but his was nothing like Candle’s; his was purely Ponyville, with a starched suit and tie, in an expensive looking white linen to match his coat. He wore a jeweled bauble for a tie pin, but it was so heavy and glittering it dragged the tie down a few inches. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t clean up in time! You were so dirty, I thought it might take hours!”  Thanks for that, Candle thought with a prick of annoyance. “Thank you for lending me the clothes and - everything, it’s beautiful.”  “Oh, nonsense, nonsense! It’s no trouble at all! They look much better on you than on a hanger!” Pantaloons grinned, and happily trotted to the head of the table, leading Candle to two elegant place settings. The plates were gold, and Candle was starting to wonder just how much opulence was too much opulence. Two zebra servants pulled out their chairs for them, and Candle slid into his, more than a little uncomfortable.  “So! Tonight’s dinner is wheatgrass and cheese souffle to begin, and then we have a woody merlot to go with that; the main meal of course will be a -”  “Did Zeffir ever come in?”  Pantaloons’ eye twitched at being interrupted, but he allowed it with a gracious sweep of his hoof over his mane. Perfectly curled, as before. “Oh, your rugged travelling companion? No, I imagine he’s left by now. Now, for the primary course, I asked the chef for a special -”  “He left? He can’t leave, we have to go to Xatl tomorrow!” Candle frowned worriedly. “Perhaps I should go find him -”  “NO.”  Candle jumped; the voice didn’t seem like it could have come from Pantaloons, it was so angry, and when Candle turned to look at him again, his expression was a stormcloud.  “We are having dinner.”  “Well - can’t I have dinner after? I don’t want him to get too far -”  “What do you care about that zebra? You’re here now, and we are having dinner!”  “But how will I get to Xatl on my own?” Candle frowned, deciding not to add, how will I get a divorce if I can’t find my groom?  Pantaloons gave an easy little laugh, and the stormcloud faded. “Oh, who wants to go to Xatl? My compound is far nicer than that dirty little zebra city! You can’t find elegance like mine anywhere in the Eastern Desert.”  Candle frowned at him more seriously this time. “I want to go to Xatl.”  Frilly Pantaloons considered him for a beat, then neatly lifted his napkin, and tucked it into his starched linen collar. “Oh, you’ll soon think differently. Come, let’s enjoy our souffle! If we aren’t careful, it will deflate.”  Candle stood up, his skin twitching under his finery. “I don’t think I will.”  Pantaloons’ eyes were sharp where they cut to him. “I think you will.”  “No, I won’t. I’m going to find Zeffir,” Candle shoved his chair back with a screech of wood on marble; it pleased him to see Pantaloons flinch. “Thank you for your hospitality,” Candle said coldly, but when he turned to leave, Zeffrey was in the doorway. Blocking the doorway, actually; was he always that big?  “No, I don’t think you will,” Frilly Pantaloons said lazily, and when Candle whirled to look at him, he had a matching lazy little grin curling his lips. “I haven’t ever met any pony like you before, Candle. What are you - some kind of bat pony? I’d heard they were all extinct.”  “We aren’t,” Candle snapped, and his skin was twitching even harder now.  “Oh, but perhaps you are. And if there’s one thing I’m good at,” Frilly Pantaloons was still grinning, “it’s seeing the value in things. You are an incredible find, Candle; I can’t just let you slip out of my hooves into some dirty little Eastern backwater, never to be seen again.”  “I’m not a thing,” Candle hissed, trying to keep the fear out of his voice, “I’m a pony. You can’t - collect me.”  “Oh, a collection implies a group of items!” Pantaloons laughed gaily, and Candle’s skin crawled. “You are absolutely one of a kind, my dear. Perhaps I can start a collection of one-of-a-kinds, though; you will be the first, the jewel of my collection of unique oddities. And always my most treasured, never fear.”  Candle stared at him; he wasn’t sure when he’d started breathing hard. His eyes darted to the plate, and before he could reconsider, he grabbed it, and flung it at Pantaloons’ head. The white stallion cowered away with a whinny of fear, and before Candle could even react, he was grabbed up in Zeffrey’s strong forelegs.  “Zeffrey!” Pantaloons whined, still cowering and shielding his perfect curls. “Take him to his room! No dinner for Candle! Not until you can learn to be a good boy,” Pantaloons sniffed, and dabbed at the corner of his eyes with his napkin as Zeffrey wrestled the thrashing Candle out of the dining room.  “Let me go! You can’t keep me! He’s insane, you have to see that!” Candle snarled, writhing like a bat pony possessed, but Zeffrey’s grip was like steel. Candle tried to grab onto the doorway as they went through it, but all he earned was a wrenching pain in his foreleg as Zeffrey yanked him through, and threw him onto a massive, four-postered bed. “Zeffrey!” Candle shouted, but the door slamming behind him drowned out his cry for help, and the click of a lock sealed his fate.  Candle sat there for a moment, listening to the steady click click of Zeffrey’s hooves on the polished marble as he left, and then Candle leapt from the bed. He raced to the other doorway, only to find the bathroom he had bathed in only an hour before. No exit. He ran back into the bedroom, searching its opulence for some hidden escape, and found only the window. The window, he noted suddenly, with heavy, intricate iron scrollwork covering it.  Candle grabbed the tufted stool he’d sat upon, and threw it at the window, shielding his face as the glass shattered. He tried to sidestep any glass that had fallen inside, and pressed his face to the iron. He could see only the lush compound, the gardens and its unnatural greenery in the surrounding desert; no Zeffir.  “Zeffir!” Candle shouted, despite himself. “Zeffir! Are you out there? Zeffir, help! Zeffir! Zeffir!!”  Candle shouted until his voice went hoarse, and until the tears got too thick to shout past. Zeffir did not appear; Zeffir was probably gone by now, in fact, and had already forgotten the troublesome bat pony who had him traipsing all over the Eastern Desert. He would go back home to his little village, and forget all about the worst husband he’d ever had. And Candle would - Candle would grow, grow old, and - and die, in a fancy mansion, dressed up like - like a doll, and - and never see his home again, or his family, or even Zeffir, who wouldn’t - wouldn’t even miss him - would probably be glad to be rid of him, in fact -  Candle eventually dragged himself away from the window, so that at least he could muffle his weeping into the silk pillows of his gilded prison.