//------------------------------// // Fighting what can be seen // Story: She came into my life like "ZOT!" // by Deleth //------------------------------// "Excuse me?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "There were at least two men at that market who were crying out to me for fashion help, and you let them – no – you pulled me away from my work. My calling!" She was yelling by the time she had finished speaking, her eyes narrowed and face flushed with anger. "Sorry, but in this dimension it isn't really appropriate to randomly assault people's clothing choices unless you're employed by TLC." I shot back and the yelling continued as she followed me to the door. "Sorry? You're sorry?! Sorry isn't going to save those poor men, Asher! Being dressed as such could prevent them from experiencing or having access to things that—" "We can argue about this as long as you want in a minute, Rares." I interrupted her, and used a nickname she had explicitly forbidden me to use weeks earlier, "But all this food needs to get put away before it goes bad so if you could help me do that first then we can argue until Spottie in the barn over there has her calf!" With eyes like little slits, Rarity's 'horn' suddenly burst to life and as soon as the front door had been unlocked and opened, three hundred and forty five dollars worth of food, supplies, and other things zoomed past me and into the house. The next minute or so was filled with the sounds of zip-lock bags, cupboard doors, bedroom doors and the storage space in my attic being opened, closed, packed, stacked and any other adverbs that I can't think of right now, until she finally finished and the rather bright light on her forehead was put out, leaving a tiny trail of sweat from her hairline. I noted that her using magic at that level apparently took a great amount of effort from the user and filed it away for later, there were more important things to take care of right now. "Fine then! Lets argue!" I threw my hands up. "Fine! Meet you in the living room in five minutes!" She yelled back. "Why Five minutes?!" "Because I have to use the little filly's room!" "Oh!" We entered the home each trying to shove the other out of the way and Rarity made a dash to the bathroom while I plopped down on the couch. I couldn't for the life of my figure out why the woman I was giving free room and board and food to for a month now would be reacting this way to something so trivial. Though my anger I felt like there was something else going on here that she hadn't been telling me about, or something she was keeping inside instead of talking about. Either way it seemed it was coming out now, whatever it was. A door slammed from down the hall and a moment later, Rarity appeared in the hall, facing me. Her eyes were still narrowed, face flushed, and hands on her hips. If we were a married couple I would be a dead man. "You, sir, are a Liar." She accused. "Umm…no?" I responded. "Hah! Then I present to you exhibit 'A': you told me four weeks ago that you would get around to telling me whatever happened to the two young mares in that picture over there. All I know is that they were an important part of your life!" She accused. "That's my own business!" I yelled back, "All you need to know then is that they were here with me and now they're not! I still barely feel like I know who you are, Rarity, so I'm not about to go into my personal life at your whim and you can't blame me for that!" "Oh you're not going to share anything but it is perfectly acceptable to pry information out of me about my own life in Equestria?" She countered. I had done that, point for her. "I – that still doesn't give you the right to ask about damaged and unresolved feelings." I said shakily. "So you'll at least admit that you are hiding some sort of hurt that you don't want me to know about for whatever reason?" She pressed. "YES! Just leave it be I'll tell you or I won't tell you! It's my decision!" I yelled back. "Fine, I'll concede that but you can't escape Exhibit 'B'! I know for a fact that Celestia herself had sent you a letter imploring you to take care of me and so far you have done a bang up job of that!" She glowered. "What?" I snapped, "I've cooked for you, cleaned with you, provided a roof to sleep under, I've even shot at wolves to keep them away from the farm!"' "You would have done that anyways!" Rarity stomped her foot. "That's beside the point! How in the name of all that is holy am I not taking care of you?!" "You didn't let me help those poor misshapen mis-dressed uneducated stallions at the market!" She shouted back. "Again, it's very rude in this world to do what you did." I repeated. "But why? Even if it's rude my intentions were nothing but pure in my want to help those two men, one even asked for my help and yet you still stepped in. I called out another man for the way he was dressed and yes, I'll admit, fainted because of how horrible it was and you still stepped in!" She whined, stomping a foot on the ground. I stood up, putting my hands on my hips and hoping to make a point that she might actually understand. "This isn't your world, Rarity! There are etiquettes and rules here that I bet are different than social rules in your world and you have to learn to live with that for the time being!" I Yelled. With a huff, Rarity turned on her heel and waked from the living room, leaving me in silence for the first time in fifteen minutes. I took a few deep breaths to sate the burning anger in my chest at the sheer…elitism that Rarity displayed. Her attitude leaned heavily towards the 'my ideas are better than yours and thus you should bend to my will' but in a nice way. So nice that whoever she would be pouring these ideas at would probably not know what was even happening to them. But even so, there was an underlying desire to help people buried somewhere beneath the pomp and circumstance. Maybe I was being a little hard on her and maybe I owed her an apology, but she defiantly owed me one too. But it was at that exact moment Rarity appeared in the hall again, stomping the whole way with a scowl on her face. "WHY I CAN'T BE MYSELF HERE!?" She all but screamed, and I'll admit, I blinked in surprise. "I can't use magic as freely as I do back home! I can't make the ideas for dresses and garments that I have – do you know how many sketches I have right now?! And what little sewing I can do is only for this malformed, misaligned, body instead of what a real dress should look like! And then today – To-DAY! – you stopped me in the middle of my calling in life and helping that man get a better wardrobe! I simply cannot live like this!" "Rarity I don't know what its like where you come from, but again, here on Earth it's not okay to just go around accosting the way people dress and forcing help on them!" I countered. "Well it should be!" She screamed. "Why?!" I cried, incredulous. "I just – I'm not happy!" Tears were brimming in her eyes now, "How am I supposed to be happy if I can't be who I am?!" At the end of her tantrum Rarity, still standing in the hall threw her little balled fists out hitting the wall on either side and in my mind's eye, I could see the small shock wave traveling as if in slow motion through the gypsum board to the picture of my wife and child on the far end, where the small movement was enough to make the frame jump neatly from its perch and tumble to the floor. The glass shattered as the corner of the frame gave way in the impact tearing the picture inside and leaving it crumpled and torn in the middle of a small pile of broken wood and glass. Silence ruled the room as I tried to comprehend what just happened. Rarity stood there eyes wide in shock and darting between the picture and myself. In my heart I felt something snap that had been under tension for a very, very long time. Even before Rarity had appeared in my life. But it was also not something I could control at that moment and like most good men, in a moment of anger I said something that I would later regret. "Get out." I said quietly. "Umm…I'm sorry, Ash…maybe I can use Magic to—" "GET! OUT!" I bellowed, and a short moment later the front door slammed shut. Silence ruled the home as I stared at the shattered remains of my family, a torrent of emotions raged through my veins bringing me from anger to sorrow to fury to depression in the span of only a few moments. At length I stood and walked to where the torn picture lay on the tiled entryway floor. The stupid tiled entryway that I was going to rip up later in order to install bubble wrap in its place. From the wreckage on the floor I plucked the torn picture of my wife and child, staring at the face of my former companion, the top of her hair disappeared in the tear but she was otherwise unharmed. As was my child, but it was my wife whom I was staring at when the realization hit me. It was the picture of my wife that made my breath catch in my throat. The reason that I hadn't been getting along with Rarity was so blatantly obvious that I was an idiot for not seeing it and an even bigger idiot for ignoring the feelings that were brought up because of it. Rarity smiled exactly like my wife. Oh lord, forgive this stupid, stupid man. I had to make this right, I needed to make this right. Making it right was the right thing to do but I was an idiot – apparently – and was probably going to make making it right wrong by not making it right, and by making it wrong I was not making the right wrong or the original wrong right and thus made the wrong wrong…er….right? Shaking my head I carefully folded the picture and shoved it into my pocket and strode to the door, wrenching it open. Rarity stood in the middle of the of the snowy drive, halfway between the barn and the house but even from that distance I could see the tremble in her hands, the shortness of her breath and the pinpricks that were her eyes. She stood there in the drive and was nearly surrounded by no less than half a dozen grey wolves. "Back you fiends!" She shouted, her magic flaring to life and throwing two of the wolves end over end out of my line of sight. I used the distraction well as adrenaline snapped in my mind, causing me to move faster than I usually would, throwing the drawer of the key table open and grabbing the small 9mm pistol and two loaded magazines that were taped to the top of the drawer. As I ran in nothing but socks into the snow I threw one of the magazines into the grip and cambered a round before firing a few times into the air while yelling like a man gone mad, all the while running towards Rarity. "What are you doing?!" She screamed. "Helping!" I yelled over the tinnitus. Her magic had been enough to scare off all but one of the pack, a large black wolf who still circled her, dodging her magic as she flung beam after beam of energy at him. His fur was somewhat matted and one of his ears, cropped from some sort of fight in the past. He snarled at us as he circled and in the distance I could see the pack half way to the tree line watching what was happening doing nothing to come back. Big black, meanwhile continued to circle us, darting forwards and back, looking for an opening to take one of us down on his own which wasn't normal wolf behavior. I had been harassed by this pack for a while, I knew most their habits and this was not it. But then, the white foam that I thought was snow at first wasn't normal either. The cut on his hindquarters that looked infected either from a sharp winter thicket or being winged by my shotgun wasn't a normal feature. "Rarity, can you still use magic?" I asked in a calm tone in spite of the roiling worry in my gut. "Yes, what do you need me to do?" She asked quickly. "I think he's got rabi—" I never got to finish my sentence as Big Black snarled again and lunged at me, mouth open wide for the kill. Instinctively I raised the pistol and fired but the shot went wide as his body collided with mine, turning my world into nothing but fangs, fur, and disorientation. Black and I rolled across the snow as his muzzle snapped at my throat. I had lost the pistol at some point during the struggle and I could hear Rarity screaming something at me but I couldn't understand what over the snarling and flailing paws. We rolled again as Black tried to get an angle at my head and I found my feet suddenly freed underneath him and kicked outward as hard as I could, sending Big Black flying a few feet away. He was quicker than me to regain his feet and lunge at me once more. With no weapon I raised my right arm just in time for it to be caught in the Big Black's jaw and it was as the force of his bite down to hear two snaps from my forearm. If I was operating on adrenaline and fear before I was operating on the pure will to survive now and screaming in pain or fear – or both – I punched the side of Big Black's face with my left hand once, twice, three times before he let go of my arm, only to lunge for my neck to instead. I rolled quickly and he met with the heel of my foot, throwing him aside. As I rolled away from the wolf to regain my footing there was a bright flash of blue that blinded my vision, followed by a loud thud and a pitiful 'yipe!', and then all was quiet. As I stood I snatched the black, pistol shaped object from the snow, holding it aloft with my left hand and walking to where Rarity had thrown Big Black against the barn. I noted that there was a large section of the corrugated metal wall that was bent inwards where the wolf had impacted the barn. My right forearm felt as though it had been on fire, but I dared not look down at it for fear of the shock wearing off and I didn't think I could afford to potentially lose consciousness just yet. My pistol shook in my outstretched hand as neared the wolf, which was moving. Well, I should say it was twitching and attempting to stand. Rarity had really messed the beast up with that exertion of magic and as I felt the wolf wasn't about to harm me, I glanced back to find here kneeling in the snow breathing heavily. Turning back to Big Black I assessed his condition and determined by way of pulling diagnoses from my posterior that his back or neck was severely sprained by the ordeal, or broken. He locked eyes with me and I saw the hate and madness that rabies brings to animals, but I also saw the pain, the loss of control. I had lost a bull to it once, so it was without hesitation that I repositioned myself, and aimed squarely at the creature's head. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The slide on the pistol kicked back and stayed there as I dropped it into the snow, turning away from the now still form of the wolf. I could hear the cows inside the barn pushing at the gates in fright but ignored it, they would calm down and couldn't break the pens. I was aware for some reason that it was very, very cold outside, namely my right forearm felt cold and warm at the same time, there was also the quick crunching of snow behind me. "Oh dear me…" Rarity said in a higher voice than normal. As I turned to face her I looked at my forearm for the first time and well, it was about as messed up as I thought it might be. While I was fortunate no bones were exposed the odd angle of the normally straight portion of my limb made the world tilt at an equally weird angle, and would you look at all that blood that should be in me! Rarity shouted something at me as I fell into the snow so I thought I'd shout something back. "Mumba Whumba!" Then the world went dark.