~ ~ ~ Naos ~ ~ ~
The alarm buzzed just once at 8 AM before it was silenced by a hoof slamming down on it.
Celestia damn it.
Silence reigned once more. The colt whom had angrily struck the alarm for trying to cut his precious sleep time short remained buried under his sheets, while the summer morning’s sun streaked in through the blinds of his window in warm orange beams that spread across every surface they could reach.
The world in the small, messy bedroom lay still in time as the colt continued to snooze. It remained so, only the sun minutely gliding on the walls, until a voice was heard from downstairs.
“Naos! Get up or you’ll be late for school!”
From the depths of his bed, Naos growled in sleepy frustration. He could’ve stayed in bed as long as he wanted, but his mother’s was the only call to arms that had any effect on him, because it was the one he could not silence and that would grow only louder and more painful with every attempt to avoid it.
He rose slowly, pushing away the covers. His eyes remained closed to avoid getting any unwanted sunlight. For a moment he just sat upright, his blue coat and jet-black mane ruffled and a grimace etched onto his morning face as if he’d just eaten an entire lemon.
“Naos!”
He took a deep breath, and exhaled loudly.
Damn it. Damn it all to Tartarus.
Today was going to be a Long Day indeed.
After having lazily made his way downstairs, Naos walked into the kitchen, where his mother was doing the dishes.
“Good morning, Naos,” she said after a brief glance his way. “Your lunch for today is on the table.”
Naos opened the brown paper bag his mother was talking about and peeked inside. At the bottom lay a solitary sandwich, his mother’s usual minimal assemblage of hay in between two slices of bread.
“I don’t have school today,” he said. “It’s Saturday… remember?”
His mother turned around in surprise. “Oh… Well keep it for later, then,” she said before returning to her dishes.
Naos glared at her for a couple of seconds in disbelief before sitting down heavily at the kitchen table, where he started pouring himself a bowl of Cheerilee-o’s. As he did so, he heard frantic hoofsteps coming from the above floor. He sighed loudly. It was time for his daily routine to really begin.
The hoofsteps pounded across the ceiling, before making their way to the staircase and excitedly trampling down the steps and rushing to the kitchen.
“Gooooood morning, everypony!” loudly chimed Gliese. He stood on his hind legs, stretching out his limbs and tiny wings and beaming at Naos -- who was wincing in pain from the shrill sound of his little brother’s voice, which reached a decibel level that he found intolerable before noon.
Their mother put down the dish she was cleaning and walked over to him. “Gooooood morning my little angel!” she cooed, rubbing his cheeks affectionately with her hooves. “Sleep well?”
“Sure did! Good morning, Nao--”
In his rushing towards his older brother, Gliese bumped into the kitchen table, which caused Naos to spill his bowl of cereal and milk all over it. A moment of awkward silence ensued, during which Gliese stared at the floor with an astonished look.
“I’ll get that,” said their mother. “You just sit down, Gliese, and I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Gliese did as he was told and looked at his brother. “Sorry, Naos,” he said with the telltale voice of a guilty child. Naos, who was on the verge of flipping the table over, saw his mother stare at him from underneath it as she cleaned up the mess. Her eyes, wide open and fixed on his, were commanding him not to overreact. He looked at Gliese, who looked back at him like a lost puppy.
“That’s ok,” he muttered through gritted teeth, trying not to betray any emotion at all. Gliese’s expression immediately changed back to its previous glee.
“No use crying over spilt milk, right?” he said, feeling proud of his clever pun that made his mother giggle.
Naos looked at his little brother. The corner of his mouth twitched in an effort to force a grin, which only added to the discomfort he was feeling from the cold milk trickling down his legs.
Naos burst into his room and slammed the door violently behind him. He then went up to his bed and bucked it once with a furious grunt, making the bed sway on its feet before setting itself down with a loud noise. The colt then sat on his bed, punched his pillow, and cradled his head in his hooves.
He wished in that moment, as he so often did, that somepony else, somepony from the outside could just stand there and see what exactly was going behind the curtain of his life. He knew exactly how it looked from the outside. New Ponyville, a shiny bright suburb outside of Canterlot, and the nicest place to live away from the big city! So young and yet so perfect, who wouldn’t want to live here? The streets are clean, the people are always smiling, it’s always a brilliant day in New Fucking Ponyville!
It was all just a big, cruel joke.
He wanted to go out, to scream at the top of his lungs and make everypony see that he knew what all the billboards didn’t tell, he knew how it really was. In this day and age, nopony here wanted anything to do with anything that could be even the slightest kind of trouble. They chose to do away with their broken lives rather than rebuild them. They shrouded themselves in a polished little enclave of artificial happiness. They tried to salvage what peace and innocence was now gone instead of making it anew, and that was where the real trauma was. For all the dirt that didn’t show on the walls of rows upon rows of pristine model houses was on the inside.
And he had grown up here. Here, in the smack middle of this cesspool of suburban lies and secrets. He’d never wanted any of it, he had never chosen this life like his cowardly parents had, but it had been slapped onto him like another generic poster boy next to the words Welcome to New Ponyville, have a nice day!
He knew about it. He saw it all so clearly around him, as if he was a stranger stranded in this town. How?
Stupid fucking little shit.
The truth was that despite loathing the model of life that had imposed itself in New Ponyville, Naos wasn’t the only one who knew about it. In fact, every pony but the children living here knew what was afoot. Everypony wanted to show their neighbors that they were the ones who had bounced back best from the horror that had spawned the Long Day. It was why everything was so perfect on the outside; make sure you’re the cleanest sucker in the trash can, and that there’s always more jealous than you around. It was an everyday cold war, the collective result of individual façades of happiness coming together. It was poisonous air to breathe, but breathe it they did.
And Naos could’ve breathed it too. He, like all the others, could have made his peace with it and accept that that was how life was meant to be from here on out. But that wasn’t considering one small detail.
On the day the Changelings attacked Canterlot, they had come with a plan. Their prime targets were the unicorns and the pegasi, who had obvious combat advantage over their earth pony siblings. They hit fast and they hit hard, and as a result, unicorns and pegasi who were once commonplace became exceptionally rare. Time went on, and as family lines grew with it, unicorn and pegasus genes became so rare they became dangerously close to becoming a thing of the past. So in New Ponyville, national temple of envy and greed, what better way than to prove the superiority of your own life than being close to such a rare breed of ponies -- or better yet, being one of them?
That was where Naos’s family hit gold. With the unexpected birth, six years ago, of a pegasus foal named Gliese.
The kid was a living trophy. From the moment they had him, his parents had dedicated their lives to pampering him and making sure he could never be happier at any given moment. That was their sole motivation; to showcase the fact that their earth pony family had managed to create a fucking pegasus, the only one for many miles to be found! And that together, they were a happy family, the closest thing left to life before the Long Day!
And then there was their older son, Naos. Just another earth pony. There was no longer any need for a dull bronze cup like him.
That’s how his life was written out. He woke up, went to school in Canterlot, and came back home. All the while making sure he wasn’t in the way of Gliese being the star of the show. And unless he somehow stopped being an earth pony, there was no escape from this.
He shook some more, as he felt fresh tears wet the tip of his forehooves. Dammit, not this again. Why… Why can’t I just be better than this?
Suddenly, Naos heard a sharp noise in his room. He raised his head with a jolt, afraid that somepony might have seen him crying. He waited for a few seconds, to see if the sound would repeat itself. It didn’t, and Naos figured he had just imagined it. Nopony had seen him, but deep inside, he wished somepony actually had and that they would be coming to pull him out of this house.
Snap. The noise repeated itself, and this time Naos was sure he hadn’t imagined it. He looked around in surprise, and then it happened again. Snap. It was then that Naos realized that the sounds he was hearing were coming from his window. Somepony was throwing pebbles at it.
His heart racing, Naos leapt from his bead and to his window. Who could be calling him outside? Would he finally be introduced to somepony who would not just see him as a background pony?
Oh, fuck me.
Naos felt his heart sink as he recognized the pony throwing pebbles at his window. That crimson coat was unmistakably that of Antares. He knew that he’d wished somepony would come to see him, but it should have been anypony but him.
But it was too late to back away now. Antares had seen him, and was flashing him his stupid grin as he signaled Naos to come down. Naos swore, and made his way down to the garage.
He knew Antares after a fashion, as he was friends with Orion, a colt who was one of the rare ponies at school that Naos held in high esteem because he had actually bothered to talk to him. Naos considered Orion to be a good pony, so it was unfortunate that he would hang out with Antares, who just annoyed Naos. He was an arrogant joker, always bragging shamelessly about his recent run-ins with the authorities and how he’d managed to escape from the skin of his teeth. As far as Naos knew, the colt had no idea what true hardship was.
Once he was behind the garage door, he pressed a button to a side to open it. The metal door slowly slided upwards and folded itself back into the garage roof, revealing a blindingly bright day outside, and Antares, who slowly made his way towards the garage.
“Naos, my brother! What’s up?”
The nerve of that guy, brooded Naos as he recalled that Antares never spoke to him unless he was butting in on a conversation between him and Orion. Still, he wanted to prove he was above ignoring him back, and that he would listen to what he had to say.
There was a moment of silence during which Naos regretted not having pretended to be unavailable when he had the chance.
“You want to what?” he asked. What he had just heard seemed so unreal, he wanted to make sure he hadn’t misheard.
“I want to rob it,” Antares repeated.
Naos looked at him quizzically.
“You want to rob Cake & Cake’s. That’s what you want to do for your best friend’s birthday,” he said, his words dripping with sarcasm that he was sure even Antares wouldn’t be dumb enough to ignore.
“Yup!” replied the beaming colt. “So whaddaya say?”
Naos stared at him blankly for a few seconds before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Oh,” he said, raising his head with a jerk as if he’d realized something. “Oh, I just remembered. You’re a dick.”
Antares burst into laughter. “Well, I guess that from a certain point of view… Yeah,” he said with a wink.
“Are you suffering from brain damage, Antares? Is that it? Did you run into a street pole while running from the cops again?”
“No, not this time. But seriously, I think it would be a blast. We get together as friends, rob Cake & Cake’s, and get the heck outta there to celebrate our good chum Orion’s birthday! It’ll be a great surprise, he’ll never see it coming!”
“You’re right! Not on his birthday, especially not with his best friend and prank buddy spending the day away from him!”
Antares grinned, but threw back his head with a groan. “Naos, did you ever stop to think that maybe it was precisely because you do that kind of stuff that no one wants to talk to you?”
“Yeah well at least I’m not an aspiring criminal!” Naos retorted, a little hurt. “Times are rough but there’s always a better way to make money than stealing!”
Antares didn’t reply, and looked at Naos in astonishment before speaking again.
“Oh, no, no, no! No, you got it all wrong! I don’t want to steal money! I just wanna get my hooves on, let’s say, several birthday cakes of all sizes for tonight’s birthday bash!”
It was Naos’s turn to look surprised. “Wait… That’s what this is all about? You wanna steal cake?”
“Yeah!”
“Well why didn’t ya just say so?” said Naos, beaming at him.
Antares returned the smile with double enthusiasm. “Well there you go, that’s the spirit! So you’ll help me out?”
“Uh, no,” scoffed Naos. “This is bullshit. How are you even gonna go about looting an entire bakery?”
Antares ignored his friend’s cynicism, glad that the question had been brought up. “It’s simple, really. You and I show up at the back of the bakery at 7 PM sharp. We break in through the back door, that goes straight into storage. Meanwhile Bella and Orion will already be in the place, stalling the baker at the front while we raid the place, and then we all get the heck outta there!”
Naos listened to Antares’s plan with unconcealed skepticism. “And in your mind, this is a good plan?” he asked after a moment.
Antares nodded. “Trust me. I went over it a dozen times or so. It’s foalproof.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Naos turned his back on Antares. “You’re insane,” he said as he made his way back inside.
“Don’t wanna do it? That’s fine,” said Antares. “I’ll just tell Orion you didn’t think he was worth the trouble.”
“I’m sure he’ll see it as me being reasonable more than anything else.”
“That’s cool, I’ll just get Gliese to help out.”
Naos was practically back inside when he stopped in his tracks. He didn’t turn around for a few seconds, and when he did his expression was no longer one of smug skepticism but of seriousness. He shot a hard glare at Antares, who gave him a warm, victorious smile.
“I don’t think so,” said Naos.
“I’m sure he’d love it, though.”
“You are not dragging him into your stupid little games!” spat Naos, advancing menacingly towards Antares.
“Why not? I’m great with kids. Think he can’t handle it?”
“He’s just a kid! He can’t handle anything!”
The two ponies were now inches away from each other. Naos was practically smoking at the nostrils, but Antares didn’t budge. He just stared calmly into Naos’s eyes for several seconds.
“Oh… I see,” he said calmly. “I see what’s going on here. It’s not that you don’t want your little brother to get into trouble… You just don’t want him around anywhere, right?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Antares,” said Naos in a low voice.
“Look dude, I know how it is. This place sucks, I get it. I been around sucky places too.”
“As if.”
Antares raised his eyebrows. “You know I grew up in a New Cloudsdale orphanage, right? I’ve seen so many roaches crawl on my bed at night I started giving them names.”
He paused, expecting another snide reply, but Naos just kept boring holes into his eyes, so he kept talking.
“You know, back at the orphanage, there was this one dude. Unicorn. Big guy, too, bigger than all the other colts. And since he was a rare breed ‘n all, everypony looked up to him as their leader right off the bat. But me, I hated the guy. He acted like a pig who didn’t know he was rolling around in shit. Of course he was, I mean we were in a crummy orphanage, but he still had everything handed to him on a silver platter. And I didn’t even have a reason to hate him, I was just jealous ‘cause I wanted to be the big shot around. But I couldn’t be that guy. I was just another earth pony kid that nopony gave a shit about.”
It was rare for Antares to say anything seriously, but when he did, he was absolutely sincere. In that moment, though he would never admit it, Naos felt a connection with Antares that he never would have expected.
“We don’t talk a lot,” Antares continued, “but we do have a lot in common. I know what it’s like to want to break out of the mould and be somepony special. That’s why I act out… kinda. And I wanna help you break out of that mould too.”
He inched even closer towards Naos.
“But if you don’t let me… Well, Gliese will just be getting a lot more spotlight when I tell everypony who doesn’t know him just how special he is.”
A tense moment followed as Naos mulled things over carefully. He couldn’t tell whether the colt was reaching out to him or threatening him. Nonetheless, one detail stuck out to him more than anything. One he could not fight.
He lowered his head, giving a defeated sigh.
“What time?” he mumbled.
“7 PM, sharp!” replied Antares with his usual cheeriness. Naos shook his head, and looked back at him.
“If I do this, you promise Gliese stays away?” he asked seriously. Antares nodded.
With a grunt, Naos stepped out of the garage into the sunlight, walking slowly and keeping his scowling face low.
“Where you going?” asked Antares.
“Need some air,” muttered Naos. “Close the garage, if you would.”
He was about to ask Antares not to steal anything, thinking that it might be a possibility with him, but on second thought realized that he really didn’t care for this place enough to say so.
It didn’t take long after the two of them had stepped inside the bakery’s storage room for Naos to get claustrophobic.
Indeed, when they had arrived, the two colts found the door that connected the storage room and the baker’s counter slightly ajar. A single beam of light cut through the pitch-black room, running across the floor in a line that crossing too often would prove unwise, should an unsuspecting eye happen to look inside the room. Although this unforeseen and dangerous element considerably limited their roaming space in the storage room, Antares had insisted they follow through with their plan.
Naos’s job was to hold the Marblegem and shed some light on Antares in the darkness of the room, while the crimson pony moved the supplies around and made a pile of those various pastries he wanted to take with him. Naos couldn’t help but cringe, as he guided the soft purple glow of the jewel along with him, making sure it wouldn’t be seen from anywhere else in the bakery.
He stood unmoving, his partner in crime carrying out the operation in the shadows of a soft lilac light.
“I think that’ll do, let’s just get out of here,” he whispered as Antares added yet another batch of cupcakes to his treasure trove, which was getting much too tall to Naos’s taste.
“You’ve been saying that every 15 seconds now,” Antares whispered back. “Live a little. Besides, I can’t remember if it’s vanilla or cinnamon that Orion doesn’t like.”
Naos muttered a curse under his breath, and turned his head anxiously to the door, as he had done several times already to see if the baker wouldn’t make a surprise appearance. In the narrow space, he could just make out the back of the baker’s head, as well as the next customer that had just entered the shop.
“Well, hello there, little one! What can I get you?” he heard the baker say in her jolly tones. He kept staring at the counter. As he did, he managed to get a glimpse at the pony who had just entered the store.
For a few seconds, Naos forgot where he was and what he was doing. He was momentarily too surprised to remember that looking in that direction could expose him.
He slowly turned to Antares, who was discreetly sampling a cupcake to see if it would make the pile or not.
“You motherbucker,” Naos said in a low voice, just above a whisper.
Antares looked back at Naos, and saw the face of a silently fuming pony whose expression was only dramatized by the shadows cast onto his face by the purple shadow under his chin. He could only imagine his own expression, somewhere between confusion and amusement, under the lighting.
“Dude, keep it to a whisper, and tell me why I’m a--”
“I just happened to glance over at the counter.”
Antares squinted his eyes, trying to understand what Naos meant. Suddenly, he raised his eyebrows in understanding, and gave a long sigh, bracing himself for the explanation he would have to give.
“Naos…”
“You promised me this wouldn’t. Fucking. Happen.”
“Look, I didn’t think it would! But it just… kinda… happened.”
“We’re leaving. Now.”
“Naos, we are this close to getting all the cake in the--”
“I don’t give a shit about cake!” Naos hissed angrily.
Antares was about to reply when he heard the baker and her client stop talking. The two ponies watched in held breath as her shadow grew in the short line of light that streamed into their hiding place. She stopped at the door, pushing it ajar a few inches more and stepping inside...
“Ooh!” said a voice from inside the bakery. The baker stopped in her tracks for a tense moment before returning to the counter.
Antares didn’t move for a second, his heartbeat echoing in his head like an ominous drum before turning to Naos. He couldn’t tell if the other colt’s eyes were bloodshot or if it was just from the way the light from the Marblegem hit them.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I could’ve unraveled your foalproof plan just by blowing on it!” spat Naos.
“Let it go, we can talk about that when--”
Just then the door to the storage room flew open. The two colts froze, staring wide-eyed at the baker’s silhouette standing against the brightly lit room behind her. She looked back at them in utter disbelief.
Antares grabbed the Marblegem from Naos, who was too busy contemplating his impending doom to care. The jewel flashed a stronger light, casting a pale violet bubble around the pile of pastries he’d been putting together and making it levitate.
He turned to Naos.
“Run!”