//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The Corner of (Our) Eyes // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// Chapter 2 I didn’t so much as chase Ditzy down as I did trot hurriedly after her. Until I caught up, and then walked in pace with her. She wasn’t really saying anything, and I was kind of surprised that she wasn’t just flying away. Of course, nopony seemed to be coming after her, so she didn’t really have a reason to. Those in the crowd that had seemed at all interested had since dispersed, or were content in whispering behind their hooves. Not that I was surprised by this. The problem was, even after I’d caught up to Ditzy, I still had no idea what to say. I didn’t want to just ask her what happened, but I felt like I should say... something. “Ditzy, I was-” “My house,” was all she said. I didn’t even have time to figure out how my sentence was going to end. I thought about asking her to repeat herself, but she was plenty clear. She didn’t add anything to that, so we just kind of walked. We passed my place, where I saw Daisy just kind of staring out the window at us. I gave her a small smile and waved at her, hopefully getting the message across that she should just stay there and do whatever. I wasn’t sure if she got it, or if she was just acting on her own intuition, but she didn’t come out, or say anything through the window. She just waved back with a more enthusiastic smile than I thought I was wearing, and closed the drapes. Probably under the impression that I was just cheering up a sad pegasus. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. The walk to Ditzy’s house wasn’t a long one. And I was grateful she wasn’t like the Rainbow Dashes of the world, who felt they needed to flout there pegasusity in cloud houses above the rest of us. Hers was just a little two-story place, a bit like mine. Neither of us said anything until we got to the front door, when she opened it for me and said, “Come on in.” I uttered some generic thank you and walked in, directing myself to the living room. I figured I was going in the right direction when she didn’t stop or correct me. Ditzy’s home was obviously that of a single mother. There were toys everywhere, in some semblance of chaos, but enough space that it wasn’t necessarily messy. Just a bit complex. I found some rather generously empty space on a couch, and climbed up to make myself comfortable. Getting a good look at the rest of the place, I saw that it was rather haphazardly decorated with pictures, drawings, and some rather uncoordinated, if somewhat pleasant, carpeting and wallpaper. It felt like a home. Ditzy hadn’t made any offers for water, or tea, or anything to eat. She’d just let me take a seat, and then sat herself in a chair facing me. She looked ready to say something when I heard tiny hoofsteps bounding down the stairs. The effect was instantaneous. The grey pegasus’s expression went from solemn, apologetic, and contemplative to the sheer joy of being a mother. As soon as that little unicorn filly popped her head in the room Ditzy was all smiles and motherly warmth. It wasn’t a side I saw very often, although I did see her happy most of the time. Considering all of the criticism, and even bullying, she got on a regular basis, it was hard for me to understand exactly where she could pull all that happiness from. Watching her smile at her daughter was all I needed to figure it out. “Momma! Welcome home, momma! Did you get off work early?” little Dinky cried out, overjoyed. Ditzy nodded, scooping up her daughter in a big hug. “Of course I did! I told those big ol’ meanie boss ponies that I had to go home and play with my little Dinky Do!” she cooed. The giggled and laughed together, and Dinky wriggled around as her mother tickled her with her feathers. I was actually surprised when Dinky noticed me, so enveloping was there little world. “Auntie Rosie! Whatcha doin’ here?” Dinky asked cheerfully, appearing as happy to see me as she was her own mother. Not for the first time in my life I thought about having one of my own. “Well, I saw your momma was just walkin’ home, and I followed her cause I was bored.” I wasn’t as creative or placatingly cute as Ditzy, but the little unicorn took it in stride. “Well, we got lots ta do here! You won’t be bored no more!” Her excitement was contagious, and for a moment I’d forgotten why I was here. To be fair, I hadn’t exactly figured it out, but apparently Ditzy had. “Hey, Lil’ Do, I need to talk to Aunt Rosie for a bit, ok? Why don’t you go outside and play for a bit? We’ll all have something to eat when we’re done.” Her voice was a bit quieter, more solemn, and Dinky seemed to pick up on it. “Is somethin’ wrong, momma?” she asked, tilting her head. Her expression faltered just a bit, but her mother picked her up and tickled her just a little with her wing. “Nothin’ big. Nopony’s mad or anything. We just gotta talk about grown-up stuff.” “...is it about money again?” I saw Ditzy twitch, just a little. That small pang you feel when the weight of a world your kids shouldn’t be ready for weighs in. When even the little ones know something’s wrong. It was the kind of question you know your kids shouldn’t have to ask you. “No, Lil’ Do, it’s not about money. ...Miss Twilight’s not feeling well, so we’re trying to find a way to cheer her up till she gets better. You know, like we did when Sweetie Belle got the Chickity Pox,” she explained. Telling at least most of the truth gave Ditzy enough confidence in her voice that her daughter believed her. And all at once it was that childish innocence again. “Oh, ok! Ooh, I know! I’m gonna go pick a bunch of flowers for Miss Twilight!” She hopped down out of her mother’s reach again and headed for the door. “Auntie Daisy’s at my house, if you wanna ask her for help!” I called out as she threw the door open. I heard her call out, “Ok! Love you momma!” as she disappeared around the corner and ran past the window. “Love you Do!” her mother called back, full of the same cheer as when those little hoofsteps echoed down the stairwell. We paused for a moment as tiny trotting steps faded off into town. Finally, I commented, “She’s adorable.” “Yeah she is,” Ditzy agreed, full of motherly pride. “I’m so proud of her. She tries so hard.” We chatted for a little about little Dinky, and home life, but eventually we ran out of things to procrastinate on. Which, actually, didn’t take all that long. After only a few minutes of idle chatter, I felt the need to redirect the conversation. “So, about Twi-” “I’m not retarded.” “...” I didn’t have any response to that. Being interrupted again did irk me a little, mind you, but the statement was so out of left field I didn’t have time to process being bothered by it. “What?” “I’m not retarded, Rose. I know ponies say I am. Or that I have a head injury. Or something wrong,” she elaborated, pointing at her eye. The one staring off in another direction. “Ok, so... what does that have to do with Twilight?” She paused for a moment, seeming thoughtful, or maybe planning what she was going to say next. “Roseluck, I know you know that I’m not a creative pony. I’m not a good liar, because I don’t believe in it. That’s why Dinky knows that sometimes we have trouble with money. Because I don’t lie to her. So whatever I say next, you gotta know that I’m not lying to you, either. I’m not crazy.” It was one of those moments where you know that whatever comes next is something you can’t prepare yourself for. Like watching a doctor trot down a hallway, and he isn’t smiling. And you’ve been waiting for hours. But I didn’t feel like leaving. Or changing the subject. Whatever it was, whatever Ditzy thought was so outrageous she had to preface it so bluntly, it messed up Twilight pretty good. Or at least it was something about that. I felt like I was watching the train barrel down, and wasn’t in the right mind to remember I could step out of the way. “There are... I want to call them things, but they’re not, really. They’re alive, in some sense of the word. Creatures, maybe? It’s... hard to attach words to them. But they’re everywhere. Right alongside us. Some people see them all the time. You hear the stories. Vamponies, timberweres, the like. Just ponies making sense of something stranger. You probably think me a kook just bringing it up, but stay with me. It’s all relevant. There are... things in broad daylight that ponies can’t see. Most ponies. Or at least, they don’t want to. It’s not like they know about it. Their minds are protecting them,” she explained. I was already lost. “Ditzy, what are you on about? What does this have to do with Twilight? Did she see some kind of monster or whatever?” I was used to monsters. Not like, having them around, but the idea. We lived near the everfree forest. Manticores and dragons and cockatrices were common knowledge and public hazards. So I wasn’t really sure where Ditzy was going with all of this that she thought I might not believe her. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then changed tactics. “Do you ever get that feeling of ‘Over-your-shoulder’? Like there’s something behind you, and you turn your head real slow and there’s nothing there when you turn around? Like you read a scary story and all of a sudden all the noises in your house, all the darkness is just a little more so?” I nodded. I knew the feeling well. I loved horror stories. “They’re kind of like that. Except it’s all the time. Just that little glimpse in the corner of your eye. That itch down your back or on your leg. Like there’s a bug, and even when you look and don’t see a bug it’s still there. That feeling. That’s... them. They’re not really ghosts. They’re not dead. They just live... different. Like they’re alive differently than us.” I tilted my head, slowly catching up. “So what does this have to do with Twilight?” “They don’t like being watched, you see. They don’t like it when ponies see them. That’s why you can’t see them. Or more like why you don’t. They can tell ponies things. They tell them things, and then it happens. Small stuff, mostly. Like ‘Look over there’ or ‘Don’t turn around’. Nothing really dangerous. But sometimes, a pony doesn’t listen. They don’t like to be seen because they can’t move when they’re being looked at. They have to stare back. I don’t know if it’s a rule or something, but it makes them mad. They just sit there, or float, or whatever it is they do, and be mad. Sometimes they just scare ponies. Like Twilight. It just scared her. Didn’t hurt her. She’ll probably ok in her body as long as she gets ok in her head. Like I said, they can tell ponies things. I don’t know what it told her, but she didn’t like it.” While she talked, my shoulder itched. It itched something bad. I scratched it, of course. And I saw that the one eye that was looking at me glanced at the hoof that was scratching my shoulder. The other eye didn’t move. “But sometimes they get really really angry. Sometimes they hurt ponies. That little itchy feeling on your leg, or your back, starts to hurt. Then, maybe it... changes. Your fur gets darker. Or thinner. You can’t walk quite as good. Or stand up as straight. Maybe you see things. Not them. They don’t want you to see them. But you see things. You hear ‘em, too. Think them. Your dreams get darker. Your head gets heavy. But only when you’re not looking at them,” she kept rambling, but it wasn’t really rambling. She was distinct. Clearer than I normally hear her. Steady. Like she was trying to keep my focus. She had it, of course. But my shoulder itched. I wanted to see what was wrong with it. I scratched it again, and again, Ditzy’s one eye followed my hoof. The other one started to follow it, too. Just a little. “If you see them, you gotta keep looking. You can blink and stuff, cause they’re not really fast. They don’t disappear. Unless you look away. Sometimes they leave you alone. Sometimes you can talk to ‘em. Make a deal. You let them go if they leave you alone. We have power over them, you see. They don’t like that. They’re not used to it. So if you catch one in your sights, you gotta keep it there till it promises to be nice. That’s one of the other rules. They gotta keep their promises. I think. They haven’t lied to me yet.” “You, uh... you talk--to--them?” I asked, my attention wavering as my shoulder bothered me. I glanced a little at it to see what was wrong, but just a bit. I thought I saw something sparkle in the sunlight, or something, but I didn’t. Maybe. “Yeah. They show up a lot around me. Or, I don’t know. Maybe they’re everywhere and I just notice them a lot.” The more my shoulder itched, and the more I glanced at it, the more Ditzy looked at my shoulder. Soon, the one eye that was focused on me was focused on the shoulder, even as we were talking. The other eye was, too. I’d never seen her look straight before. That’s when I heard it. Just a little. (“turn around”) “They follow ponies that make them mad. Bother them. Sometimes just a little. Sometimes all at once, like Twilight. Sometimes for a really long time.” That’s when it clicked in my head. (“turn around”) “Ditzy?” (“turn around”) “Yes?” (“don’t look”) My head din’t turn, but my gaze followed hers. “What are you looking at?” There was something there- (“DON’T LOOK AT ME.”) I didn’t hear Ditzy’s answer. I didn’t hear anything. There was this high-pitched, loud noise filling my ears as I ran out the front door. As I ran across town. As I ran home. It was only when I got through my own front door did I realize I was screaming.