We were enjoying “a few” drinks at our favorite bar in Ponyville, my best friend Maelstrom and I, when the foalnapping idea came to us. It seemed like a good idea at first, heck, everything sounds like a good idea when you get as wasted we were.
Now before you get the wrong idea, we aren’t bad stallions, at least from my point of view anyway. We were just looking for a way to get back at Filthy Rich, but you know what they say about the pathway to Tartarus.
I could probably write an entire series about everything that that slave driver does that rubs us the wrong way, but the thing that had the two of us in such a nasty mood on that particular day was our paycheck - if you could even call it that. The first few times we brought it up Filthy laughed us out of his office. After that it was always, “Can’t talk about it right now, I’m busy”. Today it was, “If you two morons have time to complain then you have time to work. Next time don’t bother me unless it’s important.”
For most of the ponies who work for Filthy Rich losing their jobs would almost be the equivalent of a death sentence, and so they put up with him, no matter how unfairly he treats them. Me and Mael weren’t quite as desperate as some of our co-workers, but we still needed a way to keep up with our payments or else we’d be out on our flanks within a month.
In any case, we felt that Filthy owed us some money, lots of it, and needed to be taught a lesson in what happens when you play games with your employees.
Maelstrom and I talked things over the next day on the doorsteps of my apartment. We decided on going after Filthy’s daughter, Diamond Tiara. The filly was about six or seven at the time, hadn’t even gotten her cutie mark yet. Since she was his foal, our thinking was that he would give in to our ransom of one million bits without a second thought. The plan was to split the money evenly between the two us. After that we’d use the money to leave Ponyville and start fresh in some big city somewhere.
About six miles outside the Western edge of town was a mountain. At the foot of this mountain was a cave. I figured that it would’ve been as good a place as any to store food, water, and any other supplies that we might have needed.
One evening, after our shift at work had ended for the day, we pulled up next to Filthy’s mansion in a stolen taxi carriage. We were dressed in camping gear and had ski masks pulled over our heads just to make sure that nopony would recognize us. We found Diamond outside on the front lawn juggling plates, all made out of some expensive looking glass, while wearing a blindfold. She was actually pretty good at it too. If I remember right, she was mumbling something about trying to find her special talent in performing.
“Hey, little filly!” Maelstrom half whispered half shouted. “You want a bag of candy and a free ride? Come over here for a second and it’s all yours!”
The mentioning of free candy worked like a charm. If there’s one thing that’ll never change in this world it’s foals and their weak spot for sweets. Unfortunately, that broke her concentration and she lost control over those plates that she was juggling. Next thing I know, a dinner plate about twice the size of my head got sent flying through the air like a frisbee and shattered perfectly against the front of Maelstrom’s face, deadcenter.
“That’s gonna cost that cheap asshole an extra three-hundred bits,” Mael muttered under his breath after he climbed inside with our new guest while I pulled the carriage forward.
Diamond had fallen asleep by the time we got to the cave. I told Mael to grab her and set up camp inside. Meanwhile, I pulled the carriage back into town and ditched it in an alleyway. My thinking was that by then word had probably gotten out that that filly was missing and somepony from the taxi business had likely sent out a report that one of their carriages had been stolen. I didn’t want to risk some random pegasus guard spotting the carriage out by the mountains and getting curious. Getting arrested would have made us look like the bad guys, which would have been ironic seeing as how Filthy was the one stealing money from ponies.
***
I took a few minutes to make sure that there was no obvious evidence left inside the carriage that could tie either of us to the missing carriage or the foalnapping. After I was satisfied, I flew back to my apartment for a short nap. When my alarm clock woke me back up, I threw my ski mask back on and touched back down at the campsite under the cover of nightfall.
Mael was sitting off in a corner playing a game of solitaire. Sitting next to the bonfire that was burning behind the big rock in the center of the cave was our little guest. She galloped up to me at full speed, pointed a stick in my face, and shouted “You peasant! How dare you enter the cave of Queen Diamond Tiara! Now you have to bow and say that you’re sorry!”
I was about to swat that little stick out of her hooves and break it in half until Mael walked over and filled me in on what was going on. “We’re playing make-believe,” he said in an unenthusiastic tone. “I’m Big Baby Gray, the Queen’s captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak.” I tilted my head in confusion at his imaginary new name. As if reading my mind, he shook his head at me and said, “Don’t ask.”
I spent the next hour preparing a meal for everypony while Diamond tried to lasso me into her little fairy-tale game. She dubbed me Toothpick, the spy, and announced that, when the king and his forces returned from the battle against the closet monster, I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. It didn’t end there either. She made a during-dinner speech that went something like this:
“I’m having fun! I’ve never been this far away from home before; but I had a pet kitten once and the tooth-fairy came by my house last Monday. I made a new friend named Silver Spoon. I saw Princess Celestia raise the sun once. Why do Timberwolves eat meat when they’re actually plants? I want some more hay. How much of a chicken is a chicken and what part of it is a bird? I can count to a hundred, wanna watch? Why are you guys wearing those ski masks when it isn’t snowing? My dad has a lot of money. The moon can’t be made out of cheese because cheese is yellow and the moon is white. I think colts are gross. Sometimes I eat paste when noponies looking.”
“Queen Diamond Tiara,” I said to the filly, “do you wanna go home?”
“Aaawwwww, why?!” She looked like she was about to start crying, a drastic change in character compared to the almighty royal figure she portrayed moments ago. “I don’t have fun at home and school is boring! I don’t wanna go back Toothpick!”
“Then shut-up.”
***
At the first light of day, I was jolted awake by a series of awful screams from Mael. They weren’t yells, howls, or shouts, like you’d expect from a masculine set of vocal organs - they were high-pitched, disgraceful, and embarrassing, kinda like the sound that a mare would make if a mouse ran across her hoof. It’s an unpleasant experience to hear a grown stallion screaming in a cave at daybreak, especially when you’re trying to sleep.
I leapt onto my hooves to see what the problem was. The first thing I noticed was that Mael’s ski mask had been removed. The second thing I noticed was that Diamond Tiara was sitting on Mael’s chest, with one hoof entangled within Mael’s icy blue mane. In her other hoof was the knife that I had used to slice the carrots that we had eaten for dinner. That was when I recalled what Mael had said to me yesterday.
‘We’re playing make-believe. I’m Big Baby Gray, the Queen’s captive, and I’m to be scalped at day break.’
“Shit!” I yelled as I hurried over to the two.
I snatched the knife away from the filly and made her lay back down, but, from that moment on, Mael’s spirit was broken. He crawled back inside his sleeping bag, but he never went back to sleep as long as that filly was with us. I went back to sleep for a little bit, but around sunrise I remembered that ‘Queen Diamond Tiara’ had said that I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t scared or anything - after all, she was just a foal and I was a grown stallion - but I decided to go outside the cave and perch on top of a small cliff that stuck out from the side of the mountain. It was just high enough that I was out of range if that filly decided to try anything funny.
“What are you getting up so early for, Flint?” asked a voice from down below. It was Mael.
“Oh, me?” I asked nonchalantly. “My wings felt a little cramped. I thought given’ em’ a little exercise might help.”
“That’s a hot steamin’ pile of manticore-shit and you know it!” he screeched. “You’re scared! You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid that she’d do it! And she would, too, if she could find a match!”
“Look, just take a deep breath and calm down,” I said in an attempt to help the guy relax. “She’s just some spoiled little foal. As long as you don’t give her any attention she’s harmless.”
“Says the only one here who can fly!” He got quiet again before readdressing me. “This is insanity … she even pulled my mask off, so now she knows what my face looks like. Do you really think that Filthy Rich would actually pay good money to get a little demon like that back home?”
“No question about it, Maelstrom,” I replied using his full name. I then went back inside the cave and dug around inside our supplies until I found my old telescope. “Now, you and the Queen get up and cook breakfast, while I do some recon work. Oh, and if you hurry and put it back on, she’ll probably forget what your face looks like. Everypony knows that foals only have a five second memory span when it comes to details like that.”
I flew up to the peak of the mountain and adjusted the lens on the telescope until I had a pretty good view of Ponyville. I expected to see the townsfolk armed with torches and pitchforks, backed by a platoon of Princess Celestia’s most elite guard, all stomping through the area for the evil ponies responsible for the disappearance of Filthy Rich’s “sweet and innocent” little filly. What I saw instead was a more or less peaceful little town, filled with ponies who were going about their merry little way like nothing had happened.
‘Maybe,’ I thought to myself, ‘word hasn’t gotten out yet that the daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest stallions vanished from her own doorstep yesterday in broad daylight.’ I shook my head in disappointment and went back down the mountain. When I got to the cave I found Mael backed up against a wall, breathing hard, and Diamond Tiara threatening to crack his head open with a rock that probably weighed almost as much as she did - not that she would have been able to even lift it.
“She put a red-hot boiled potato down the back of my shirt,” explained Mael, “and then mashed it with her hoof; so I clocked her on the side of the head. Did you happen to pack a spear and some steel plated armor when we were getting ready to set up camp?”
I got in between the two and tried my best to diffuse the argument. “I’ll get you good, you fat tub of lard!” she yelled at Mael while angrily waving a hoof in the air. “Nopony strikes Queen Diamond Tiara and gets away with it! You’d better watch out, peasant!”
An eerie silence fell over the cave while we ate around a newly lit campfire during breakfast. Mael was too unnerved to eat; each time he looked up, that filly was shooting him a death glare. Not long after I had finished eating, Diamond walked over to our camp stash and started digging around for something. Mael complained to me about it in protest, but I didn’t see the harm in it. The only object I packed that was even remotely dangerous was the knife from earlier, and I made sure that there was no chance of her ever getting it back.
Somehow she was able to tear off a piece of leather from one of the jackets in my suitcase, wrapped some string around it, and then walked outside the cave, while twirling her newly designed toy in circles. I couldn’t get a good look at it, and to be honest, I didn’t really care what it was supposed to be. As long as it kept her distracted long enough to give me and Mael a break then I was happy.
“What’s she up to now?” Mael asked nervously. “You don’t think she’s gonna run back into town and rat us out, do you, Flint?”
“I doubt it,” I answered matter-of-factly. “She doesn’t seem like she enjoys being cooped up at home all the time. But we need to figure out a plan about the ransom. There doesn’t seem to be any excitement around Ponyville over our little guest. I figure they probably don’t realize that she’s gone yet. I don’t know, they might think that she spent the night at a friends house. And if her dad treats her anything like he does us, then it’ll probably be weeks before a light bulb finally goes off.”
“What?!” Mael shouted in alarm.
“Relax, today she’ll be missed for sure. I’m gonna drive the point home to Filthy Rich directly and demand the one million bits for her return.”
Just then we heard a war-cry, the likes of which you’d expect from some evil creature lurking within the darkest corners of the Everfree, moments before going in for the kill on unsuspecting prey. Time slowed down for me as I turned towards the source, Diamond Tiara. She had that new toy of hers pointed right at me; now that I had a better look I was able to see what it was that she had made. It was a slingshot and it appeared to be fully loaded and ready for launch.
I ducked out of the way and then I heard a heavy thud, followed by a winded sigh from Mael that reminded me of the sound you hear when air gets forced out from a balloon. A rock about two and a half times the size of an egg had clonked Mael right on his forehead. I watched in horror as his body leaned back and fell into the still burning campfire that we had been eating around only a few moments prior.
Had it been anypony else, I probably would have ruptured my insides from laughing like a mad stallion, but because it was Mael I felt genuinely concerned. After pulling him away and beating the flames off of him with my sleeping bag, I spent the next half hour pouring cold water over all over him.
“Flint …” he finally said to me in a daze while massaging the newly formed bump on his head, “did ya happen to see who was pulling that carriage that slammed into me?”
I went out, grabbed Diamond Tiara, and shook her so hard that her soul probably got knocked out of her body for a few seconds.
“Now listen here you little imp!” I yelled at a volume loud enough to get the point across that I had had enough of her shenanigans. “I’m getting real tired of you cuttin’ up! If you don’t behave then we’re gonna take you straight home! Now are you gonna be a good little filly or not?!”
“I was only playing around,” she said with a forlorn look on her face. “I didn’t mean to hurt Big Baby Gray, but he didn’t have to hit me. I promise I’ll be good if you don’t send me home, and if you let me play Knights and Dragons today.”
“I don’t know anything about that game and I don’t really care. That’s for you and … Big Baby Gray to work out. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m gonna be gone for a couple hours on business. Now get back in there, make friends with him, and apologize for hurting him, or else I’m taking you back home.”
I made her and Mael shake hooves, then I pulled Mael to the side and told him that I was going back into Ponyville to ask around and see if everypony else had caught wind of the kidnapping yet. I also thought that it’d be a good idea to write Filthy Rich a letter explaining that we had his daughter and that he wasn’t getting her back until he paid us our money.
“Flint,” Mael said to me, “I stood by you without question through thick and thin. I never once lost my faith in any of your schemes until we agreed to foalnap that loose-cannon of a filly. She’s driving me nuts man … please tell me you won’t be gone for very long.”
“At best I’ll only be gone for about three hours. I’ve never steered you wrong before and I won’t start now. All you need to do is keep her entertained until I get back. But before I go, I’m gonna finish writing this letter out.”
I pulled out a pen and some paper and started writing while Mael watched. He begged me almost tearfully to lower the price. “Flint, I’m tellin’ you this upfront. I believe in showing compassion and decency to my fellow stallion. I live my life by a certain set of morals, and I’m tellin’ you that it’s beyond immoral to make another pony, even a tyrant like Filthy, give up a million bits for that fifty pound Demon spawn!”
I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think that you’re over-reacting a little? All you need to do is assert your dominance. Raise your voice and shake her around a little bit like I just did, and bam, problem solved.”
“I don’t care man! I’ll settle for fifty thousand, you can keep your half of the million! It’s not worth it anymore! I don’t think it ever was!”
After rolling my eyes at his silly behavior, I began to write. I went through several sheets of paper before I got it right, but I was finally able to finish the letter.
Dear Filthy Rich
We have your daughter hidden away in a place far from Ponyville. Don’t even bother trying to find her. You and the greatest detectives in the kingdom could search for all of eternity and you still wouldn’t find a trace of her. The only terms on which you will have her returned safely into your custody are as follows: We demand five-hundred and fifty thousand bits for her return. The money is to be left at midnight tonight where the railroad tracks divide the western half of Ghastly Gorge and the Everfree Forest. If you agree to these terms then send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger tonight at eight o’ clock. The messenger is to put your reply letter in the same location instructed for the money dropoff. Any attempt at betrayal, or failure to comply with the exact instructions listed above in this letter, will be met with appropriate consequences.
Two Angry Stallions
***
After I’d finished signing the letter, I put it away inside my coat pocket. I was about to head out when Diamond Tiara walked up to me and said, “Hey, Toothpick, you said I could play Knights and Dragons while you were gone, right?”
“Yep. Mr. Gray will play with you. What kind of game is it?”
“I’m the Knight,” she explained. “And I have to ride to the castle to warn the royal family that the shape-shifting body-snatchers are coming to try and take over the kingdom. I’m tired of playing the Princess. I wanna be the Knight this time.”
“Fine. It sounds innocent enough to me …” I said out loud while I pondered over the rules. Feeling more or less satisfied with her answer, I looked back down at the filly, I smiled and said, “I guess Mr. Gray will help you foil those dastardly invaders.”
Diamond Tiara was beaming, but Mael had a look of absolute terror. “What am I supposed to be doing exactly?” he asked questioningly.
“You’re the big tough dragon,” the Knight explained with a smile. “Now get down on your knees! How can I ride to the castle without my trusty dragon to fly me across the land?”
“Don’t know, and frankly I don’t give a damn!” Mael shouted in protest. “You’ll figure somethin’ out.”
Suddenly, Diamond Tiara’s eyes grew so large that I was worried that they’d pop right out of her little skull. “Ooooo,you said a bad word! You can get a spanking for that if daddy finds out!”
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!” Mael fired back while sitting down on the other side of the cave and pulling out his cards for another game of solitaire.
“Hey, come on now …” I said to him in a hushed tone. “I know its been a tough road , but we’re almost done here. You just need to keep her entertained for a little while longer. And besides, remember why we’re doing this. We need to teach Filthy a lesson that he’ll never forget! This’ll all be worth it once we get our money.”
With a heavy sigh, Mael reluctantly got down on all four knees, but then his eyes lit up in fear just as Diamond climbed onto his back. “Wait, hold on, how far is it supposed to be to the castle?”
“A hundred miles!” she shouted with barely contained excitement. “Now, we’re short on time so you’re really gonna have to move it! Now get it in gear and fly!” she exclaimed while digging her hooves into his side.
Mael turned to me and said in a tone hardly above a whisper, “For Celestia’s sake … please hurry back. I wish we hadn’t ‘ve made the ransom more than two-thousand bits.”
***
I flew back into town and sat around inside Sugar Cube Corner. I wasn’t just there to get a quick bite to eat, I was also there to listen in on some of the other conversations. The restaurant, believe it or not, is actually a pretty popular gathering spot for ponies of all sorts of varying ages. There was a young mare who wouldn’t stop talking about some crazy thing one of her friends did at school, an elderly couple celebrating their 50th year anniversary, and some little colt who was trying to show his friends some new card game. I wasn’t in there for more than an hour before I finally overheard heard one of the restaurant's owners, Mrs. Cake, saying something to her husband about how “they still haven’t figured out where Filthy’s little filly wandered off too.”
‘Perfect!’ I thought to myself with a smile. As soon as I was done with my meal, I flew to the local post office and requested that my letter be delivered to Filthy Rich’s mansion as soon as a possible. The postmaster said that the mail-carrier would be back within twenty to thirty minutes.
When I got back to the cave, Mael and the filly were nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere: the cave, the mountain, the grasslands outside the immediate area, but there wasn’t any sign of those two anywhere. I finally gave up after some time and got comfortable outside the mouth of the cave. It’d been awhile since I was able to just kick back and enjoy some peace and quiet.
I don’t know for sure how much time had gone by, but I was finally alerted to the sounds of rustling bushes, and then out popped Mael. He was worn out and gasping for breath. Behind him was the filly, stepping quietly as if trying her best not to make a sound. She had this silly looking grin on her face too. Mael took off his ski-mask and wiped some sweat away from his face using the back of his hoof.
“Flint,” Mael called out to me, “you won’t like what I’m about to tell you, but it needed to be done. I’m a full grown stallion, and there comes a time when enough is enough. That filly isn’t here anymore. I sent her back home,” he said with a smile. I stared back at the filly behind him who was waving at me now, and then I looked back to my unsuspecting friend.
“In the past,” he continued on, “There have been martyrs who chose death rather than giving up the thing that they enjoyed. I’m not one of those ponies. None of em ever had to go through the unholy supernatural torment that I had. I honestly tried really hard to see this thing through to the end, but I have my limits. If this is what it takes to get Filthy to stop being such a tightass, then it’s just not worth it.”
“I see,” I said in a neutral tone while Diamond silently stuck her tongue out at Mael and did some goofy looking dance behind his back. “And what exactly did she do that prompted you to chicken out?”
“I was rode.” He began to quiver in fear as if he were re-living some sort of past traumatic event that caused him to re-think his life goals. In a way, I suppose he was. “The one hundred miles to the castle. Then, after the royal family was rescued, I was given a gem sandwich. Pebbles and sand aren’t very welcomed substitutes.
“And then for an hour I had to try and explain to her why it’s a bad idea to drink water from a swimming pool, why the word ‘knife’ has a ‘k’ in it if it doesn’t make a sound, and why the sky changes from blue to black at night-time. I dragged her down the trail and showed her the pathway back to Ponyville, then I hightailed it back here as fast as I could. I’m sorry about the ransom, but it was either her, or old Maelstrom goes off to the nuthouse.” Mael was still huffing and puffing, but he had a growing look of joviality spreading across his face.
“Hey, is there any heart disease that runs in your family?”
“No. Well, nothing chronic anyway,” he answered. “Why?”
I pointed a hoof behind him and he turned around and froze. “Hi, Big Baby Gray! So, there’s this new game I want to play -”
All of a sudden his eyes shrank to the size of pin pricks, and he started hyperventilating. “Oh, and by the way,” I added in, “now she knows my first name and what your face looks like.” Mael just stood there for awhile at first, he didn’t even blink. When I finally asked him if he was alright, he walked inside the cave, fell to the ground, and started to have a full blown conversation with himself. To this day I still don’t know what he was saying, but I was afraid for his mental well being.
I looked down at my watch and saw that it was almost about time to start heading over to the meetup spot I listed in the letter. I tried asking Mael if he wanted to go there instead while I stayed with the filly, but he didn’t give me an answer, so I went off on my own.
I had arrived about half an hour early. In order to help my chances in the event that our little business deal went south, I stayed perched on top of a cloud with my telescope ready so that I could stay on the lookout in case of a setup.
A half grown colt, a pegasus like me, landed into the area at eight o’clock exactly. He looked around for a moment, as if to make sure that he was in the right spot, and then he set an envelope onto the ground. After that he turned around and flew back into town. I waited for an extra hour and concluded that it was safe. I descended from the clouds, grabbed the note, and then flew back to the cave as quickly as I could.
I opened the letter, grabbed a lantern, and read it out loud to Mael.
Two Angry Stallions
Gentlecolts: I received your letter today in the mail, in regard to the ransom that you asked for my daughter’s safe return. I think your demands are a little high, but I’m a business stallion, so here’s my counter proposal, which I believe that you’ll accept if I know Diamond’s personality as well as I think. By now she’s probably driving the two of you insane. You two bring Diamond Tiara back home and pay me five hundred bits each, and I’ll agree to take her off your hooves. You’d better come while it’s still dark. My house servants have been in a much happier mood lately since her disappearance, and I can’t be held responsible for what they might do if they saw you bringing her back.
Very respectfully,
Filthy Rich.
“Oh, that son of a bitch!” I shouted in outrage, finally losing my cool for the first time since our little adventure began. “Forget being diplomatic, I outghta go up there, and tear him a new one!” But then I glanced back over at Mael who clearly wasn’t as upset by the letter as I was.
“Flint,” he finally said to me after a moment of silence. “What does a thousand bits between the two of us matter? We’ve got the money. If I have to put up with one more night of that filly, I’ll probably end up hanging myself from a noose. Besides being a well mannered gentlecolt, I think Filthy Rich is a saint for making us such a kind offer. As your friend, I’m beggin’ ya,” I then watched him sink to his knees. “Please don’t let this chance go to waste!”
I shook my head and sighed in disappointment. “To be honest, Mael, that filly has been getting on my nerves somethin’ fierce, too.” I chuckled a little as I reflected back on everything that Diamond Tiara put us through, or rather, everything that she put Mael though. “We’ll take her home, pay the ransom, and go on like none of this ever happened.
We showed up at Filthy’s doorstep with Diamond around midnight, the same time when me and Mael should have been walking away with over half a million bits. We were both wearing our ski-masks so as to stay anonymous. We got Diamond Tiara to come along with us by telling her that her dad had a late night surprise party planned for her, and that there’d be extra cake if she promised not to give out our real names.
Filthy came to the door with a sly grin on his face and he started snickering as Mael and I counted the bits out loud while handing them in.
When the filly figured out that we were leaving her at home, and that we had lied about the party, she was absolutely livid. To say that she had a look of sheer madness plastered on her face would be an understatement. The filly had nearly gone downright feral. She probably would have lunged at us if it wasn’t for the fact that Filthy had a vicegrip on her tail. “How dare you two peasants betray me! Do you know who I am?! I am Queen Diamond Tiara the Great, and when I find you you’re gonna pay dearly for your treachery! So help me, I’m -”
Her little rant was interrupted by a bright flash of light. After everypony’s eyes had readjusted, Mael’s jaw almost hit the ground, and me and Filthy were wearing looks of absolute shock. When Diamond finally saw what we were looking at she became just as surprised as we were. Plastered on her flank was a silhouette of what looked to be a small, silver crown.
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ I thought to myself. ‘The little brute bossed us around so much that it actually became her talent.’
“Oh my gosh,” Diamond Tiara finally shouted, her rage from before now completely forgotten. “Dad, did you see that?! I finally got my cutie-mark! And it’s all thanks to my two new friends -” she blinked in confusion and looked around. “Where did they go?”
Me and Mael had split a few seconds after Diamond started checking out her new mark. We took off at speeds that I’d like to believe would’ve made the Wonderbolts look like a grade school track team, instead of a professional organization.
I guess Mael was a bit anxious, because, despite whatever athletic advantages I might have had over the guy, he nearly had a one mile lead over me.