“Three minutes!” Neighsay’s voice was pitched a little too high. Gladmane was too well versed in his colleague’s moods — each of them as repressed and understated as the last — not to hear the panic there.
“Relax, amigo.” Gladmane pitched his already bass voice a little deeper, trying to soothe. “The kids have spent months prepping for this. They’ll be stellar.”
Eyes wide, Neighsay stared at him. “Stellar isn’t good enough. This isn’t Las Pegasus, Gladmane. This is the Canterlot Conservatory!”
Gladmane chuckled. The familiar oily sound that he could trot out a millisecond’s notice, smooth and charming, just like the rest of him. “I think I’m capable of reading a sign as much as you are, Neighsay.”
“Chancellor!” snapped Neighsay, and Gladmane grinned. That never failed to distract him.
“It’ll be fine. I gave all of them three espressos, Las Pegasus strength. I used to do that for my performers at the resort — well, sometimes it was a little more than coffee — and it always worked like a charm.”
Neighsay gave a tight sigh. “if we don’t get that bursary, St Whinnian’s will be…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but Gladmane understood well enough. All their little economies, all their attempts to paper over the cracks with gold foil and razzmatazz — it all came down to this.
The students looked pale and drawn. Two consecutive nights of non-stop practice would do that to a pony. Not that they had anything to complain about, in Gladmane’s view. He had provided everything they needed. Every single whey-faced filly and twitching colt had been fuelled by all the caffeine a minor could legally imbibe, and then a little extra on the top. It went against all the economic principles Gladmane had worked to instil in St Whinnian’s — but then victory never was cheap.
“Remember, my little friends,” he said, his voice warm and genial as a parent’s. “Your entire future rests on this one performance. You’re up against these other schools, and only one can win. And more than that, only one of you can win the St Whinnian’s continued study scholarship. There’s everything to play for out there.” His eyes rested briefly on a few students, allowing each of them to labour under the pleasant delusion that it was them that he was personally rooting for.
Little Baloney, the weakest of the sixth-years, collapsed in a dead faint. His tuba clattered noisily to the ground. Gladmane sighed as though he hadn’t expected this. There was always one.
“Get another espresso shot down him, Candyfloss,” he ordered, and she set down her flute to obey.
“You can do this,” he promised his orchestra. “You alone have what it takes.”
Each student puffed out their chest, stood a little taller despite the dark shadows circling their eyes. Each of the twenty believed wholeheartedly they were Gladmane’s protege. Each of them was aiming to outcompete the others, and each would give this performance their all. And then he and Neighsay would be rolling in bits.
The children trooped away, eyes feverishly bright, faces pinched with the stress of it.
Neighsay watched them go, his eyes narrowed. “If this works…”
“St Whinnian’s will be back on the map,” Gladmane reassured him.
The first few scrapes of Grizzly Flare’s bow against her violin strings signalled the start of the symphony — and then all at once the rest of them burst into glorious sound. Gladmane closed his eyes and let the noise of sweet success wash over him. His orchestra was better than any of the pathetic attempts the other schools had fielded. The children were frightened and distrustful of each other, and some —like Little Baloney — were on the edge of a breakdown, but what did that matter? Success demands sacrifice. Gladmane smiled with contentment. His old method still worked like a charm. If anything, children were even easier to con than his employees had been.
If the expression on Neighsay’s face was anything to go by, he was feeling the relief as well.
The soaring strains of the woodwind section spiralled up towards the rafters. The heavenly notes sounded almost like money jingling in a pocket.
Neighsay was fidgeting with his robes.
Gladmane glanced at him. “What’s wrong? You don’t like winning?”
“What?” Neighsay flinched. “No, no. It’s not that. It’s…well, there’s something else.”
“And what’s that?” Gladmane was still listening with half an ear to the orchestra. Princesses, they really were doing marvellously. Especially the violas. He’d told Marabelle that Sugarcube was out to poach First Chair from her, and he’d told Marabelle that Sugarcube had spread the rumour that Marabelle had been the one to trip Grammy down the stairs. In fact it had been Gladmane himself who had spread the rumour, and tripped that little dweeb. He couldn’t play the triangle worth a damn, and there was no room for failures in Gladmane’s orchestra — not when there was a nineteen-thousand-bit bursary on the line. And it had worked — Marabelle and Sugarcube were mortal enemies now, and no one played better than mortal enemies trying to outdo each other.
“Gladmane, I…I have found myself dealing with some certain emotions over these past months.” He broke eye contact, lowering his gaze and shuffling his hooves.
If Gladmane hadn’t been so miserable, he might have actually laughed. Chancellor Neighsay himself, nervous. It was almost too much to credit.
“Certain emotions?” he echoed, the pit in his stomach deepening, a bottomless void. Gladmane pitched his voice up a little, to signal interest — but he could see the almost desperate look in Neighsay’s eyes, and his heart sank.
He already knew the path the conversation would take. He’d had it dozens of times before — though usually with a little more lying on his end. He didn’t care about the mares he’d fleeced; by the time they reached this stage he’d already wrung every drop of utility and cash from them.
But Neighsay was different.
Neighsay was still blundering on down the path that would make them both miserable. “Though you’re not a unicorn, and I never thought that I would feel…this for anyone but a unicorn, I…”
Finally, Gladmane held up a hoof. “Let me stop you there, Chancellor.”
Neighsay paled. Behind him, the flawless playing of the orchestra seemed to falter, just for a moment. “Ah. Then you aren’t…you don’t care for stallions in that way?”
Gladmane shook his head, his pompadour quivering. “It ain’t that.”
“Then…you don’t return my sentiments.”
“It ain’t that either.”
Neighsay drew himself up. “Is it that I am not an earth pony?” He looked scandalised at the very possibility.
Despite himself, that did draw a chuckle from Gladmane. “Naw. Most ponies don’t have the weird tribal hangups that you do, Big C.”
“Then what?” Neighsay spread his hooves, exasperated.
“You pointed out I ain’t a unicorn.”
“You keep saying that,” Neighsay interjected, looking pained. “It’s aren’t, Gladmane. We must set an example.”
“Well,” said Gladmane grimly, “A unicorn isn’t all I aren’t.”
Neighsay mouthed the words, his brow wrinkling as he struggled to make sense of them. “I don’t quite understand.”
“I’m not…” Gladmane tailed off. It never got easier. “You ever notice I always wear a cape, Chancellor?”
“Of course,” said Neighsay, who never removed his own robe. “It’s dreadfully sparkly, and you leave glitter everywhere. I wish you’d choose one more fitting to the atmosphere of St Whinnian’s.”
“I know,” Gladmane sighed. “You tell me every week.”
“What about the cape?”
Gladmane considered reneging on his decision. On telling Neighsay that he didn’t just feel that way about him. That was what he did for all the mares in Las Pegasus. That was what he did for Pelvis, the stallion with the beautiful eyes and the quiff as high his own — the only time he’d ever come close to revealing the secret.
But this was Chancellor Neighsay. His friend. His ally. His fellow con-pony.
And for the first time in his life, Gladmane told the truth. “Well, I…I ain’t quite regular, down there, Chancellor.”
The line between the Chancellor’s eyebrows deepened. “I don’t see what you mean.”
“I’m not…I ain’t a regular stallion.” The words were like knives in his throat.
“You’re…a mare?” Neighsay flushed. “I mean — you were one, once?”
At least the Chancellor didn’t suffer from that particular flavour of bigotry, then. He was more concerned with if you had a horn on your head than one on your — Gladmane cut the thought short. It cut too close to home.
“No, not that. I’m same as I always was.”
“So…what, then? I don’t understand.” And that, for Neighsay, who prided himself on his knowledge, was the worst thing of all.
“I’m not a mare.” That bit was easy. But the next part…Gladmane had always prided himself on his masculinity. His strong jawline, his deep velvety voice, his glorious flip of thick silver hair, his muscular frame. It always hurt to admit this — which was why he had stopped, shortly after high school. Why he had buried himself in sparkles and capes and an aura of mystery. Gladmane the friend, the con artist, the performer, the puppetmaster. There was no room inside all of that, for Gladmane the pony. “But I ain’t quite a stallion neither.”
“Oh.” Neighsay seemed floored.
Gladmane heaved a sigh. “So you see why.” With a deep, painful effort, he mustered his strength. “I hope it won’t…affect things. At St Whinnian’s, I mean. We got a good thing going there. And with the bursary money we can make some real changes. Fix the roof, get you that mahogany desk you’re always on about. I wouldn’t mind one of them baths with the little clawed feet, myself.”
“Of course,” said Neighsay, almost automatically. “It won’t — I mean, it doesn’t change anything.”
“Good,” answered Gladmane. Wishing he could feel relieved, and feeling only a terrible weight pressing down on his lungs.
“No,” Neighsay insisted. “I mean, it doesn’t change anything. I still — I still want to—”
The sentence hung unfinished in the air between them.
“You still want to?” For the first time in his life, Gladmane felt like he wasn’t in control. This wasn’t one of his master plans. There was no one to play Neighsay off against. No money to be made. No grift.
“I do.” Neighsay inched a little closer. The hem of his robe brushed Gladmane’s hooves. “I mean…you’re not a unicorn, Gladmane. You’ve got no horn, and you’re about as magical as a teaspoon.”
Gladmane laughed. It sounded a little like a sob.
“That mattered to me, once.” Neighsay’s beard brushed his cheek. “But then I got to know you. I saw what you could do. The school is…my school is still open, thanks to you. My students are about to win the most coveted trophy in Equestria’s junior musician landscape. Thanks to you I’m…I’m going to get my mahogany desk.”
They both laughed, small and quiet. On stage, the performance was ending. There was a distant clatter as Sugarcube launched herself at Marabelle’s throat.
Neighsay’s eyes were shining. “You’ve worked miracles for me, Gladmane. You’re what I want.”
The din of exhausted foals brawling in front of an audience of shocked Canterlot elites was like the sound of heavenly choirs.
“I am?”
Neighsay’s lips were a hairsbreadth from his own. “You are.”
“Professor Gladmane!” howled Little Baloney. “I had too much espresso! I think I’m going to—”
And Gladmane heard the sound of retching, heard the sound of the front row screaming, but he paid attention to none of it. He was kissing the stallion he loved — the immoral, unethical, deliciously unprincipled stallion of his dreams. And nothing else mattered.