//------------------------------// // From the Horse's Mouth // Story: From the Horse's Mouth // by Gilded Quill //------------------------------// Devotion comes with sacrifice, and a rewarding sense of passion. It gifts those within its provincial bubble with a rewarding subservience. One such bond, the assistant, aids their masters and mistresses with the goals of joint success. It was too late to realize when things would go downhill, and it would be any later until he realized it was his fault. It was no longer a loving bond, but a longing need to separate. He loved the mutual solitude. He really did. Nothing made him smile more than to walk out the door in a huff. “I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth. From her. He took residence at a diving motel on the outskirts of Manehatten. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, and the moon hung in the air with its illuminating discomfort. Shadows flickered and danced with scraggy murmurs, lost in the massive expanse of the dark streets, thrilled from its thieving, criminal rush. Thrilled. That seemed to make him laugh. He could see why he understood their standpoints, seeing as how this is what they made with what society had thrown at them. And yet, why? Why embrace it? Why not aspire to better things? Why live in the shadows of society’s enlightenment and camaraderie, to live ignorantly and cutthroat? The mere thought made him remember Trixie. She was a coy mare; she was always trying to underhand the next pony she saw. She gave the highest opinions to herself, and lived in her own world of indulgence and egocentrism. In reality, she became a street rat, along with the rest of the swindlers and gypsies that she called herself, no matter how glorified. His steps kept down the path, before his feet touched cool, grimy water. Street swill. Great. After hours of walking, he was tired and impatient. His feet rippled the water as he stepped out, but he turned his head to look at the waving reflection. Somehow, the ripples in his own world, and the world unreachable, settled him where he needed settling. “You have shown no advance. You have only proven to be a disappointment.” A disappointment, she said. A disappointment, for Celestia’s sake! She would have been nothing without him, and he knew it. He knew it all too well. That’s why he smiled when he left; he wanted to watch his mistress struggle. He wanted the world that he held in his claws for her to come crashing down, with one tip of his hands. He reached into his pocket, searching for his wallet; the desk attendant was giving him a rotten look, as did the rest of them. They didn’t understand him; all they saw was a wet-footed skivvy. A nopony. “You are a nopony. You have given me nothing but strife ever since that meteor shower.” The meteor shower. Ah, what an amazing night. It was truly an event nopony would forget any time soon. Those comets ran down through his mind as he walked through the hallway to his room. He turned to count the numbers as they passed by, and then looked down as he kept going towards the turn. His feet were still a little wet, but the carpet beneath him helped to lessen the water. It was much nicer in the motel than outside; at least there were walls and light to shield him from the darkness outside. The candles dangled in gold torches between each door, twinkling before him like falling meteors. He hated those meteors now. The room he requested eventually faded into view; Room 145. A quaint little room; a rough fifteen-foot square, a small bed with wrinkled covers, a stained couch of some sort off in the corner, a connected bathroom with a funny smell, and a polished desk. It was strange how the desk looked the nicest in the room; it was almost like it was made for a writer. Or it wasn’t used at all. His mind drifted off once again as he sat down on the unmade bed. His hands tested the mattress beneath, and grimaced at how lumpy it felt. He sighed; nice send-off, he told himself. Reduced to sleeping in a dump like this. He turned his attention back to the desk, shining from a dim lamp in the corner of the room. Cautiously, he began to approach the piece of furniture, and his hands drifted over each drawer. There were two on each side of the desk, along with a wide central drawer, to which he quickly opened each one. He wanted to see if there was a room service menu, or a map. Anything to take his mind away from her. “I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth. His hands felt around inside the central drawer before, to his surprise, a familiar touch crept over his fingertips. A feathery quill’s end. His mind went blank for a moment, then his arm retracted, pulling out the feather. To his surprise, the quill had been broken, and the pointed, ink-laden end was missing. He was confused, but interested at the same time. There was a game behind this, at least in his mind; he began to search the room for the other half of the broken quill. “Please leave now.” His hands scanned underneath the desk… “It would be best for both of us if you went now.” Under the couch… “I’ll send for your things. Go.” Finally, his hands felt under the bed, and he pricked his finger. Pulling back instinctively, he held his finger in his hand’s grip tightly, and he reached out once again, pulling out the pointed end of the broken quill. He wondered why it was under the bed, and sat on that lumpy bed again, just staring at the two pieces of the quill. “This takes me back.” He muttered. And it certainly did; back to his earliest work in Canterlot. He was trained by the Princess herself, and considered a prodigy at his own craft. For something so young to learn a valuable skill, and master it at that. He was perfect. Perfect for the other prodigy the Princess had taken under her other wing. It was the perfect pairing, she said. Perfect. As perfect as a stick of dynamite and a lit match. Except, she had a fuse that stretched to the corners of Equestria. He almost felt sorry for that old mare; having to take in a patient student like that, and knowing her own limitations. This powerful teacher knew almost every little thing about his ex-mistress. What teacher wants that knowledge? Why would they want to go so far in knowing their student? It was creepy, and a little sad. Her future was in the Princess’s hooves, and she didn’t even know. His gaze stayed down on that broken quill, and he could feel a tear in his eye. It was a beautiful quill; the feather was from an Alpha-phoenix, if anypony could believe that. The feather was a bright burst of reds and yellows, and the stem appeared to become a greyish-yellow from disuse. The tip of the quill was stained with old ink, blackening the greyish-yellow stem and soft scarlet feathering. His tears fell down his cheeks, landing on the dirty carpet that sat underneath his damp feet. In a huff, he stood up and ran into the adjacent bathroom in his room. “You have only proven to be a disappointment.” He faced the saggy mirror that hung in the bathroom. He rested his arm against the marble-topped sink before him, and his tears continued to fall down his face. His green eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and his skin was cracking. He looked a mess. He looked like a skivvy. He looked like a nopony. “You are a nopony.” He couldn’t stand hearing her voice in his head, and he couldn’t stand looking at him. Reaching up, he punched the glass as hard as his stumpy arm could allow. His puffy eyes shot open, and he jumped back into the wall, holding his hand close to his body, and sobbed. He never would have thought his less-dominant hand would be so weak. Still clutching his balled fist, he allowed his body to slide to the floor, and his tears to keep rolling from his stained cheeks. “You have shown no advance.” He swore, telling her to shut up, not caring that he was talking to himself. “It would be best for both of us if you went now.” He yelled at her to shut up now. He sounded mad, banging his head against the wall behind him to try and get the voice out of his head. “Go.” He stood up, screaming at the top of his lungs. He yelled everything to her, everything that he couldn’t say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted. But I’m not a nopony! I have a will to become better, and neither you nor the Princess can change that!” He ran out of the bathroom and jumped onto the lumpy bed, yelling into the stained covers. His tears kept gushing down the sides of his face, dampening the blankets that he laid upon. His mind was plagued with the sight of watching her push him out the door. He could see himself smiling as he left the home where he once lived, worked, and rested. He saw himself standing at the wooden podium she had, the one with the Canterlot-style carvings as he recalls, and writing to the Princess while she read off her thoughts. Except, when he saw his writing hand, that broken quill was right there. He was holding the pointed end, and writing in a bright red, matching the feathering of the top. His arm moved mechanically, writing down the same three words down the length of the page. “Dear Princess Celestia”; that one phrase was repeated over and over again down the parchment. He hated that phrase now. He suddenly remembered another old memory. He remembered when her mistress had gone crazy, and he tried to help her and counsel her. She ignored him completely, and continued to destroy herself. It was not long before, low and behold, her teacher arrived to fix the mess she made. He was right all along, and nopony listened. They would rather listen to the damn babbling of his mistress’s perfectionist insanity than his sound mind. The thought made him sick, and he pushed it aside. He looked down again, and saw that the broken quill was still gripped in his hands. His fingers ran along the length of the feathered end; it was soft and warm, and made him feel safe. His arm relaxed as he sat there, just stroking the quill’s end. And with every time his finger pulled away, another “Dear Princess Celestia” popped into his mind. He stopped stroking it all of a sudden, feeling depressed again. He couldn’t understand why this depressed him so much; the quill was beautiful, comfortable, and familiar to him. It felt like home. Like how home used to feel. It felt good every time he wrote “Dear Princess Celestia”, and that warming feeling of home was there with each lift of the inked end. He turned once again to the desk. It was his workspace, huge and accommodating, to satisfy his mistress’s written requests. It was his paradise to write, even when the world around him was horrible. The hotel room was his oppressive world, surrounding him and the paradise that he desires and trusts. Finally, his eyes fell to the pointed end of the quill, the other half of the broken instrument. It was him. He was that pointed end of the quill, or he used to be. He was once the symbol of writing, to be the tool of the master, and to weave the literary masterpieces of history. To bring word to the rulers and to be the messenger of the mistress he was entitled. He was a tool to them all, but it was different. He didn’t know how or why, but it was different somehow. He wasn’t just their tool, he was a companion. He was a reliable source. Dare he say…a friend? But it was gone now. Wasted by his own hand. That night, he slept on top of the desk, not thinking any more of the matter. He held the feathered end of the quill close to his body, and put the pointed end back in the drawer, where it belonged. His past self would be needed again in the future, but in the present, all he needed was that warm feeling of friendship. Of home. “I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth. “But I still need you.” Right from the dragon’s mouth.