Double Diamond was specially massaging Starlight Glimmer and that was a problem for him. Not strictly a physical problem since his body had been agitated by a jolt of magic, so he was fully alert and not shying away. But emotionally, and to a certain extent, physically, he tingled with deep disquiet. In fact, somepony could say that although he was enabled to perform what Starlight wanted, the performance was a deeply physical problem for him. Before coming to Our Town he'd backed away from mares after demonstrating he wasn't into intimacy despite their nuzzles. But in Our Town, he couldn't dissemble that he wasn't... physically at least... available since Starlight efficiently and brightly performed the same magical jolt when he was with any mare as part of the fairly apportioned equal massage rotations.
The problem he admitted he had was, even though he had committed himself to the "Common Cause" of Cutie Mark Equality and had his individual cutie-mark skill effaced away by Starlight's shimmering magical rod so he could better live in harmony with his fellow ponies, he felt filthy when he performed certain required emotionally-involved equalization tasks.
*
"The taste in my mouth is... bitter..." He commented.
Starlight sighed and rolled her eyes. "Metaphorically..."
"Of course."
"Memorize my book," she said. "The answers are within. Once you surrender yourself, you will enjoy all of your tasks."
"I like my other tasks."
"Of course," she nodded. And smiled. And winked. "I could use a little artifact if it would help," she offered and moved behind him. And it was... not entirely awful. Probably because she was supplementing with magic. She'd given up her cutie mark like all the others, but even though her mark had been related to some kind of magical talent--she still possessed remarkable powers.
Even though she wasn't his type, she was worthy of his attentions--not just in the generally equal sense that brought everypony in Our Town together, but because she was a great leader who deserved to fulfill her dreams.
Nopony other than Starlight--that glimmer of hope--could have saved so many lost souls. Not even Princess Celestia. Ponies still rotted because they failed to understand their cutie marks: because they failed to live up to the promise of their marks, because of scorn--a sin that wasn't present in Our Town because nopony had anything to live up to except supporting every other pony as they pursued their journey toward equality.
All that was true. But this aspect of his duties was also a chore.
*
Double Diamond completed many tasks for Our Town, but none of the physical ones left him as hollow and disturbed as the emotional tasks. Great joy exuded from his primary responsibility of growing food, harvesting, and chopping down thick stalks of celery and plucking tender tufts of tasty carrot. And his rotational construction work was fulfilling: pulling pipe for sanitation, erecting walls--sweaty, honest labor that ensured Our Town would grow well and continue to be able to accommodate all sorts of ponies looking for something special, looking for a place they belonged.
But the emotional work was disturbing and hard. Not for every pony, but for him. He wilted and was weak, whether he was blushing at a group tea or during a dreaded rotational massage session.
He mustered courage and confessed his shortcomings at one of Starlight's group auditing sessions. Starlight smiled and encouraged him that he was doing fine--improving each encounter--and he was bringing joy to the town's many mares. Lasciviously, several mares had nodded. He'd shied away. At least he eventually also had rotations with the other stallions, which was a bit less awkward since with them he didn't need magical assistance to not feel spooked. Starlight was doing everything she could to bring the stallion/mare ratio up to equality but there were so few stallions to start with.
These stallions, despite their occasionally attractive looks, though... they weren't like Written Script. Double Diamond snorted. Written Script could weave worlds with words. Ice and slush leaped off the page and landed on readers' muzzles, chilling them with eloquence. They'd skied together and Double Diamond had helped him with technical aspects of an incisive newspaper piece about how mare judges rated mares higher in subjective downhill skiing events. One thing had magnetically led to the other and there'd been a big flaming bonfire in Written Script's mushroom chalet on Candy Mountain--with tasty marshmallows roasting together. But, that literary truth-teller had cheated on Double Diamond.
*
"My licorice-smeared lips collided with those of the giggling gentlecolt before me..." Written Script had kissed a Wonderbolt--one of Equestria's greatest stunt flyers. And he'd written about it. With his classic culinary references to all sorts of candies and flavorful vegetables that had made him a sworn enemy of Canterlot's number on food critic, Zesty Gourmand, and had resulted in a controversy that sold more papers than that time a photographer thought she captured the image of a mole on Princess Celestia's purportedly perfect white buttocks--it had turned out to be a fly.
"Fresh news, fit to print," the Written Script in Double Diamond's memories laughed. "As fresh as a new-grown asparagus, crafted into a writing quill and filled with an overflowing reservoir of snark and love."
"Nopony wants to hear about that."
"But, Dear DD, it sells."
"Fine. It sold. Haven't you sold enough about it? You've written articles, poetry, a short story or two--I'm pretty sure some metaphors in that drabble you did in Playmare are also about that Wonderbolt."
"He has a name--"
"Cheating. Cheating. Cheating! You're emotionally cheating each time you pen those words for another market!"
"Who cares if a cigarillo smoking pony in Prance read a limerick about this Wonderbolt--" Written Script had leaned back in bed, chuckling and referring to the far more overt and mature piece he'd penned for the overseas market that was much more open to details that would have gotten a work classified as a pornographic plot piece in Equestria.
"You're writing it here. In the present. In the room with me."
"And then it's squeezed out of my head."
"You keep bringing up new variations and scenarios. Similes, synonyms, metaphors. It's never out of your head."
"It'll all come out eventually--it can't keep trickling forever," Written Script insisted. "Then I'll move on."
"You--" Double Diamond sighed. "From this thought, not from me."
"Do you truly trust me that little?"
"I--" Double Diamond bit his lower lip.
"Just because he's edging you out in my head?"
"I'm yours. I should be there--it's not fair!"
"Oh, you sweet summer child," Written Script giggled into his pillow.
Double Diamond got up.
*
Double Diamond was a great skier. But he couldn't beat a Wonderbolt on a mountaintop obstacle course. He, an earth pony, couldn't consistently get quite the air that the Wonderbolt, a pegasus, could maintain--even with the assistance of his triple snowflake cutie mark, which supposedly guaranteed his skiing expertise. Double Diamond pulled off twists and turns and flips and shredded all over the place. But it hadn't given him the needed edge.
"How dare they allow wing assistance!" He'd thrown his skis against a weather-beaten wooden wall, scratching it more--although nopony would probably notice the damage. His skis probably took the worst of the beating.
"You knew the rules when you entered the event. And he wasn't flapping."
"Of course he was flapping."
Written Script shook his head. "He was gliding."
"Unfair. Complete crud! I should have won." Double Diamond bucked the side of a building. Snow fell from its roof onto his rump and he teetered. Written Script steadied him.
"No. You shouldn't have." Written Script shook his head. Then he turned to leave.
"You're just... you just like him because he's a winner and this time--I'm not."
"I'm interviewing him because he won, yes. And you lost. No one wants to read about a loser."
Double Diamond spat in his face. Without a word, Written Script walked, leaving Double Diamond alone.
Written Script had embraced the winner during après-ski celebrations--conveyed an apology later to his stallionfriend and explained that articles were just business and there was a game to be played to get the best stories.
"That isn't right," Double Diamond had insisted. "And his victory wasn't right."
"I'm not arguing that again," Written Script said.
"Fine!" Double Diamond stomped his hooves. "But you--you need to stop fixating so much on the victory! On him!"
"I'll stop thinking about him if you stop bringing him up!" Written Script had tossed his head, and he started snorting and pacing.
Double Diamond bit his upper lip. "I'll stop bringing him up when you admit I'm right." Silence, except for an agitated watery snort. "Fine!" Double Diamond added. "I'll bail." He paused, then blinked. "On the point... not us. The Wonderbolt only glided. I'll accept that... even though it probably isn't true."
"You don't believe me, and you don't believe the entire judging panel."
"It was all mares."
"So what? He's a stallion."
"Your other article suggested--"
"My article, if you had read it carefully, suggested that based on certain psychological studies, it is plausible that mares may tend to rate other mares higher in subjectively scored events. Certain judges were shown to present scores outside the standard deviation and those particular mares merited special corrective reflection periods. But, on the whole, there was no statistically significant maretriarchial conspiracy. Besides... the Wonderbolt whose name causes you childish conniptions when I speak it is a stallion and so are you. If there was any bias, it would have been pro-Wonderbolt bias."
"Which is totes a thing. But fine. Maybe it wasn't a mare thing. I shouldn't have said that: I get so frustrated because they keep nuzzling me."
Written Script sighed. "I know that's--"
Double Diamond waved aside the comfort. "I've been thinking about it more and sure, he's a Wonderbolt. And yes, he has cheating pegasus magic. But, I beat other pegasi. The real unfair problem is his vapor cutie mark is more powerful than other ponies' cutie marks."
"Like how your mark is more powerful than other skiers'?"
Double Diamond said nothing for a long time. Written Script filled the silence: "Why should any pony compete? Why try when another pony has a bespoke mark?"
"They should... but I trained for this event more than he did."
"He's had years of training as a Wonderbolt."
"But not on this course. And Wonderbolts are stunt flyers, not skiers. This course is my course. It's me. This is my event."
"You can't win everything."
"That isn't fair."
*
Starlight Glimmer was smiling at him. "It was a lot better this time."
Double Diamond grunted and banished thoughts of times with Written Script.
She slapped, then rubbed his flank. "It just takes practice. And if you need more motivation, just study harder and remember what the Book says--"
"Practice makes perfect," he recited.
"Bellissimo." She blew a kiss.
He grunted again, kissed her on the cheek, dissembled some polite words and departed from her three-story house, strolling back to the one he had--identical and equal to Starlight's--except his had housemates. A mare on the first story, with doey eyes and a dyspeptic disposition. A mare on the second, who always patted his rear when he passed and sometimes, usually when drunk on berrywine, suggested they sneak some special massage time out of rotation. And his floor was the third.
He flinched when the mare on the second patted him. He scooted off without words of greeting and entered his room, wiped himself with his towel, turned on sink water, soaked his towel, then wiped more, rougher and deeper.
*
Twenty-seven ponies resided in Our Town. Only four stallions besides him. And he didn't love them.
One pony who coated his hide with perfume was as sporty as a stick in the mud. He couldn't understand Double Diamond's enjoyment of being sweaty and the odor of a good workout. Double Diamond disgusted that pony, Party Favor. So they left their special time at that--talking a little and faking sounds so nopony got too suspicious. And they gave each other a wide berth around town. Maybe, if he'd would freshen up--apply perfume, Double Diamond thought, there might be a chance for a spark of connection between them since Party Favor didn't seem to be favoring any pony--as was appropriate in Our Town. Nopony was supposed to have favorites since they were to all share each other equally. But Double Diamond wouldn't be two-faced like Written Script had been--pushing for something he didn't really care about. He'd do what another pony wanted if necessary, but Party Favor didn't want anything from him except for his "stink" to be far, far away. And so, although Double Diamond didn't break Starlight's rules when under supervision with mares, he broke them with this one stallion. Then he broke them with others.
Another stallion was a pegasus. And Double Diamond checked out mentally in their encounters. Sunshine was too reminiscent of the Wonderbolt who'd stolen Written Script. Handsome, determined. And he was also like Written Script... a great writer. With a gorgeous muzzle. But he was a pegasus. And Double Diamond felt like vomiting despite their pleasant teatime conversations. And he couldn't enjoy the sonnet Sunshine had written for him. Its rhyme was off. It was nothing like Written Script's soulful concoctions that Double Diamond had recited while skiing. He couldn't get them out of his head even after Written Script betrayed him and if they were going to fill his mind with pain, he never wanted to ski again. Still, he might have appreciated Sunshine's effort--if Sunshine hadn't looked so much like the love-wrecking Wonderbolt. Maybe Double Diamond could have made something work between them, but Sunshine was desperately in love with the first floor mare. So, Double Diamond skipped the deep massage and let Sunshine sneak down and double-dip with Cookie Cream.
"Sunshine..." Double Diamond asked while they were awaiting a signal from the first floor that Starlight had headed home... after which Sunshine could sneak downstairs.
"Sure, DD." He'd unknowingly used the same pet name Written Script had assigned. 'Intertwined, interlocking, II, Eye to eye, EE, diamonds dueling, DD.' One of Written Script's famous poetry bits went--a pet name enshrined in a popular poem.
Double Diamond sighed. "Why did you come to Our Town?"
Silence.
"Sorry I asked," Double Diamond said.
"No," Sunshine held aloft a hoof. "It's a fair question. I haven't shared my reasons, even in the group meetings... sessions, but I owe you an answer, at least." He paused for a while before carefully choosing his words.
"My cutie mark--"
There was a ringing of the bell Cookie Cream had rigged to signal when Starlight departed. Sunshine's attention traveled to that sound, and he increased his speed of speech--high pitched. "My cutie mark suggested I should have powerful abilities, like Princess Celestia. Solar cutie mark and all." He shrugged. "But, I wasn't great at flying--" his eyes darted to the door. "I could fly pretty high, so high my lungs got choked up and I almost passed out to my death a few times till I figured out safe limits. But flying that high isn't useful for anything other than keeping watch and I don't have great distance vision--even with glasses it's all cloudy on my eyes--so I'm better suited to the ground and--" he put his hoof on the doorknob.
He wasn't anything at all like that keen-eyed conniving striving Wonderbolt...
"It's fine. Go ahead." Double Diamond forced a soft smile.
"Here... I'm accepted and I can contribute." Sunshine added, quickly. "And ponies aren't forcing me to do something tied to a wild guess about my mark. I'm free here. I can be who I want."
"I know exactly how you feel." Double Diamond said, although he frowned.
Sunshine nodded, turned the handle, then quickly headed down.
Double Diamond blushed and bit his lower lip.
"Our Town is special," he'd written to Written Script. "Nowhere else in Equestria do ponies completely set aside their cutie marks and revel in the goodness of how each pony is deep inside, shorn at their core. Our visionary Starlight Glimmer glimpsed each pony's inner light and value and gave us a purpose that no other pony or town or village or society or team or group could." Then he crumpled those words and never sent them. Because Written Script wouldn't care. Or, he'd care too much and investigate and sensationalize everything and exploit him and cause Double Diamond's heart to ache. Double Diamond burned the words. His doubts couldn't escape.
And Double Diamond had no right to feel... sad when Sunshine left each rotation. Double Diamond should rightfully have a turn with Sunshine. But he couldn't bear Sunshine feeling as sad as Double Diamond felt when he was completing emotional tasks with mares.
When he figured out how to be happy with mares, then maybe he could demand an equal turn from Sunshine. But now wasn't right to insist on properly following Starlight's book even though Double Diamond knew he was undermining Our Town's purpose by letting Sunshine act outside the Plan. And... Starlight's demands on Double Diamond kept fueling his doubts. Even though his special arrangement with Starlight was better than with any other mare, he still felt he was completing a punishment chore detail... something like sanitation slop duty. He didn't want any other pony to feel that way about being with him. Sometimes... he wanted to leave.
But Our Town served a great purpose in helping ponies, like Sunshine. Nopony had ever left. Double Diamond had been Starlight's first follower. He couldn't be the first failure. He was already breaking some of her instructions. He was a bad pony for helping Sunshine violate the equality precepts. But he couldn't motivate himself to put Sunshine in the same position he suffered with mares. And he couldn't leave.
"Someday, you'll be an alicorn like Princess Celestia," Double Diamond had told Starlight.
She'd blushed. "I'm just doing what's right--pursuing true equality."
Double Diamond had sighed. "Someday, you'll ascend like how Princess Cadance's great work led to her exaltation."
"You're too kind," Starlight had smiled and batted away his compliments.
And when Starlight ascended, he, Double Diamond, would be renowned as the great stallion suitably and comfortably behind the mare--the one who helped it happen by relaxing her, by supporting her, by being the good caretaker. By being for her what he hadn't been for Written Script. He'd never been enough for the author. He couldn't be his sole muse for more than a few measly poems and a sonnet. Not even an epic story. A few articles. With Starlight, he'd be in the Book everyone studied--the fairest pony of them all who'd helped a great visionary bring equalization to Equestria. But those rewards were for later. Now, he continued to reflect on his options.
The last stallion in our Town was a stentorian Earth Pony brutalist who had also memorized Starlight's Book and abided by all its precepts even when other ponies could see he was visibly disturbed by some actions it prescribed. The less said about him, the better. They might have had a true connection, but that pony was just too emotionless and awful. The mares didn't like him either but they gossiped that Starlight had been improving his manner. Double Diamond did what he had to do, but beyond that, he didn't try and escaped into happier times in his head.
Actually, Double Diamond recalled, there was one more stallion. He was a new arrival and Double Diamond hadn't yet rotated with him. He didn't know much about the pony's character although he did know his name was Feather Bangs and he was an earth pony and he might be romantically acceptable. But, more likely than not, he wouldn't be. Double Diamond had seen him winking at Sugar Belle. Too often something like that was the case even though there was still a chance that Feather Bangs might still be interested in and open to other opportunities. Possibilities kept being blocked off. Double Diamond often didn't even have a chance.
*
Lying in his bed, Double Diamond smoothed sheets beneath his muzzle and closed his eyes. Our Town, the village Starlight had founded, was fair. Every pony's cutie mark had been removed. They'd been assigned jobs unconnected to their marks and rotated through tasks. They shared each other on a schedule so no pony would grow jealous. All would be friends... more or less. No foals would be born, thanks to Starlight's magic. So nopony would have ownership over a child. No pony to love unconditionally, although Starlight postulated the town could, when it was more established, raise a foal--"it takes a village, right?", she'd chortled.
Every pony had equal chances with each other and they all got along and everypony collaborated to build the utopian society where Ponies could live without worry about being outdone by somepony who had a stronger, better, more impressive cutie mark. Starlight Glimmer, their leader, was wise and brilliant and fair and kind and she had everypony's best interests in mind. She only had more space in her home than most because she used that space for guests--when new ponies entered the community, she indoctrinated them personally. Her first floor was for them to sleep. Her second was for her and her third was for... she said it was for storage of town records, which made sense. Records had to go somewhere and they hadn't built a town hall. They were doing the best they could to make everything fair even though true fairness and equality was elusive.
Written Script hadn't been fair.
"Double... I'm seeing someone else." The kiss ended with that. "I was attracted to his ardor, his passion, his performance. I'd say he has a certain je ne sais quoi, but I'm sure I can, when prompted, impart the necessary descriptive words. That is my job, after all." He winked, his heart beating fast.
"You're not talking about--"
He nodded.
"You hugged him; you said it was in the heat of the moment--"
"It isn't just the ardor. Comparatively, his maturity--less drama from an experienced veteran. He can still function even when matters do not go his way."
"He's a Wonderbolt! How, athletically, can you expect me to compete with that?"
He shrugged. "You can't."
"You're trading up. Moving on from a youth with skiing talent and gloming onto a veteran stunt flyer."
He shrugged again. "It's not just about the talent. He looks at things holistically. He doesn't jump into decisions--doesn't follow blindly what another pony says." He arched an eyebrow and Double Diamond snorted.
"Mind games!"
He rolled his eyes. "Those were a test."
"That's not right."
"You're not ready and that's okay. He's older, wiser--"
"You'll come back to me. He'll lose his talent, break a wing. Then you won't be looking up to him."
"We all get old--"
"Get out."
"It's my home." He picked up a cigarillo and motioned to the door.
Face reddening, Double Diamond left.
Later, Double Diamond put his things in storage and let the lease on his efficiency apartment run out. Then he went traveling, wiped out on slopes--a totally teary mess until he met Starlight Glimmer, who listened and hugged him and talked him into giving up his cutie mark, his past life, his aimless ambitions, and joining a society built on fairness and equality.
*
Life outside wasn't fair, but here... Our Town was fair. Starlight saw to that. But Double Diamond closed his eyes and sighed remembering, despite the unfair ending, his passionate time with Written Script. And then he winced, recalling his fairly allocated but far less satisfying passionate time with Our Town's mares and not-quite-suitable stallions.
"It's fair," he whispered. "But it isn't everything I want..." He bit his lower lip and resolved to re-read Starlight's manifesto on equality. The answers were in her book. It explained how everything in Our Town was fair and how ponies were all the same deep inside and fairness was equality and it was good. He could trust the book's words. Because he had to. Since, in fairness, he didn't trust himself.