To Cure Deception

by LegionPothIX


Act 2 | Obfuscation, Half-Truths, and Lies

The street outside of the famous shop was filled with the aroma of pastries since the breakfast rush was coming to a close. The propped-open door implied that it had been busier than whatever was normal for this establishment. Lacus strode inside whereupon he found Mr. Cake slumped over an empty display case; completely exhausted by the ordeal. To the side of which a sign read free coronation (mini)cakes. The words were distinctly written in Pinkie Pie’s large, flamboyant font. The Cakes had then added the phrase, one per customer with accompanying order, also in parenthesis. This explained the expression of Mr. Cake. With a beatific smirk, and in a comforting tone Lacus offered: “I guess that I’m not the only one having a rough morning.”

He wanted to put the mornings events with Habré at the hospital far from his mind. To know others were also suffering made him feel less isolated, though he didn't want to take pleasure in their misfortune. He thought that perhaps Mr. Cake may also feel the same solace if given a chance to vent.

Mr. Cake wearily replied, “We’re out of coronation cakes,” and it was quite apparent he had no intention of making more.

Lacus laughed, “That’s alright, I haven’t quite decided what I want yet. Why don’t you come take a break with me?”

Carrot welcomed the opportunity to get off his hooves and have a sit down. After arriving at the booth Lacus asked: “So, Pinkie is not here to help you with this promotion?” The question was a coy attempt at ferreting out the Element of Laughter.

A long drawn out sigh escaped from Carrot Cake and he looked about to deflate entirely. “Well, she was, but then she went to pack for the festivities in Canterlot. Her best friend is going to be crowned as a real princess now, you know.”

Lacus folded his hooves on the table. With furrowed brow he asked: “Aren't you going?”

To which Mr. Cake nodded, and added: “Yes. But as guests, not as caterers throwing a party or an after party.”

Lacus was beginning to see the problem. He took a thoughtful moment to mull before suggesting: “If you can’t get compensated for the services Pinkie is providing, perhaps there may be another way to recount those losses.”

Intrigued, but skeptical, Mr. Cake asked: “What do you mean?” His words were ones of caution as to avoid his hopes rising too high at the idea.

“What is it that Pinkie Pie does?” Lacus raised the question while motioning for Carrot Cake to provide an answer. An answer that came without hesitation.

“Throw parties I guess.” Mr. Cake’s voice was firm until Lacus motioned to go on. “To, um, make ponies smile?” he added with uncertainty.

It was as good as a reason as any, Lacus thought, and he nodded along. “How does that work?”

Mr. Cake looked almost insulted at the childish line of questions, but Lacus gave no appearance that he was yanking the Cake’s chain. “When ponies are happy they smile,” was all that Mr. Cake could add.

Lacus stroked his chin before stoking the fire. “And when they don’t smile?”

“Then, they’re not happy!” Mr. Cake nearly shouted in response in exasperation. After he did so it slowly began to dawn on him just what he had said, “They’re not happy…”

Lacus spread his forearms at the notion, as if to signify that they had arrived at the destination of his leading questions. “A form of therapy,” Lacus surmised, “Outreach therapy, if not subliminal marketing.”

With a raised eyebrow Mr. Cake asked: “Marketing?”

Lacus rested his hooves on his stomach in preparation to animate his statement. “If Pinkie spreads happiness with your food, then the association is that Sugarcube Corner fills the heart as well as the belly.” Lacus did not notice the irony of that statement coming from a changeling until after he had finished making it. He couldn't help but smile at it, and hoped that such a smile would simply be associated with just the idea itself.

Mr. Cake quietly took time to reflect on the implications, “So… How do we…” he started to ask on behalf of his business.

Lacus signified with a wave of his hoof that the proprietor needn't finish the sentence if he felt profiting from the misery of others was distasteful. “Perhaps you can donate these ingredients to the cause they are already being used for, officially that is. Maybe start a charity to back Pinkie with, and even collect donations from others on her behalf.” It sounded almost like a scheme when Lacus said it aloud, though he knew it would allow the Cakes to facilitate a great deal of good, instead of being ruined by it.

Mr. Cake was quiet for an even longer time while assessing the idea until the bell over the entrance called him back to work. “I should talk to my wife about this,” he said in his escape back to his post.

***

Lacus broke from the daze of his past life, to the omnipresent poison barbs from the shale haired unicorn with sandy skin. Her voice rattled him as she asked: “Are you fucking ignoring me?”

He looked up from the empty place at his table, in his window-side booth, at Sugarcube Corner to see Habré Kadabré sitting across from him. His confusion was could be heard in his furtive whisper: “I thought you were on assignment!”

Her brow wrinkled in annoyance at her time being wasted with things she already knew. “No fucking shit. FlashLight came back from the Crystal Empire to pow-wow with her dumbass friends–” she explained.

Lacus cut in with a jeering: “Nothing like what we are doing, I assume.”

Habré’s mouth scrunched together as her face took an angular tilt best for giving the evil eye, and Lacus fell silent to the look that said Bitch, I will fucking cut you. “This is serious,” Habré denoted with an absence of expletives. She let the words hanging in the air to pull themselves down onto Lacus’s mind by their own considerable weight. “After Twibrary’s coronation Cadence gave her an artifact similar to the Crystal Heart.”

Habré was visually perturbed to see that Lacus wasn't as surprised as he was supposed to be.

“Dammit, D!” Habré’s voice was growing harder to keep at an inconspicuous volume, as even Mrs. Cake was giving her looks. With hushed hostility she went on “If we knew she had this during Canterlot, we could have won, and gone on to get the real deal.”

Now Lacus really was shocked. He hadn't even considered the greater implications of the necklace from yesterday beyond his own selfish ends. With grave concern he looked to Habré, “But, I don’t remember being put on recon during Canterlot.”

This brought a glowering glow from H.K. who muttered: “No one likes a smart-ass, D.” Her complexion lightened as she analyzed him. “Goddammit, you really still don’t remember?” Lacus quietly shook his head as she went on. “Look bitch, while I was playing Paige the fuckin’ Page, you were on another assignment. What it was, I can’t say, but it wasn't your fuckin’ ball to drop... so it’s not going to your balls that get fucking curb-stomped.”

Lacus nodded with a sigh of relief, but there was still something eating at him, and he had learned that Habré was not the type of pony to dance around an issue with. An issue of her toys. With resolve in his quest for the truth he asked: “Did you try to kill me? I mean, with poison?”

Habré turned stark white for a moment as the accusation trickled down through her ears, like herbicide, to the soil that her flowery vocabulary took root in. Her voice betrayed the betrayal, and her pain erupted forth: “Is that how you remember it?” The words came in an unsettling primal tone.

It was clear to Lacus that she thought he was looking for someone to blame. He felt like trash but pressed on: “That's just it Habré, I don’t remember, but the doctor said it couldn't have been an accident.”

Habré Kadabré was unmoved by the assertions of monoforms, to whom transformation would also seem an impossibility, but still she did not deny the accusations. Despite being on the brink of coming unhinged, her words were selected with the utmost care, “I didn't try to kill you. I was there to save you from–” Her sentence was cut short in frustration, before she restarted again “Look, the poison wasn't my idea. I was just following instructions.”

As the words tumbled from her mouth, so too did her anger and disappointment. Both freed with or, perhaps, by the statements. For whatever she wasn't telling him it was plain to see that she wanted to. Lacus thought the truth could use a little push. “Instructions? From your mentor? What does that mean?”

The problem with a little push, though, is that sometimes it’s enough to push someone away. A fact that he was made aware of by her crestfallen response: “It means I don’t want to be late for the train that will take me very far away from you.”

With that Habré Kadabré slid out of the booth and walked out on Lacus Sceleratus.

***

Though a bell rings when the door is open, it cannot unring as it is shut, but instead simply rings again. A definitive black and white form approached the counter as Mr. Cake was clearing the coronation mini-cake sign. “Oh. Hello Zecora. What can I getcha?” he asked as the zebra hummed her indecision while skimming the barren shelves.

“Not much you have I see, in the way of pastries,” Zecora cooed to Cake senior.

As he blushed about his wares, he responded: “Me and the Mrs. are working hard to get restocked for lunch.”

It was at this time she noticed Lacus’s unflinching gaze upon her. Her necklaces clinked together as she cocked her head to meet it head on, “I encourage you to take your time, another subject is now on my mind. I bid you have a good day, for I must to speak with Lateré.”

The Zebra turned her authoritative gait to approach the changeling. There was no impatience in her step, and with each hoof-fall the jingle of her adornments further built tension in the heart of Lacus Sceleratus.

She stood next to his table, refusing to be seen seated with him, as she made her address: “It is still Latere Vesco? Or by another name do you now go?”

Lacus met Zecora’s derisive glare with confusion. “What?” he asked, not actually expecting a clear answer.

Zecora repeated her question: “Did you come in to feed; and lie in wait? Or was there something else you need to abate?”

Lacus was stunned the public reference to his true changeling nature, and admitted to himself that it shouldn't be a surprise that she knew what he was. After all, if she poisoned him, there would be no way that she wouldn't know. Though what did surprise him was that her body language was limited to smug superiority and, in her words, shallow accusations. It might be what he would do in her position to flush him out. He thought that he maybe able to bait her into using questions that revealed more of her than him.

“No. Well yes. It’s Lucas Greymane now,” he responded on rays of a sarcastic sunny disposition. “And my tummy hurts so I can’t eat anything. My doctor said I had a very interesting mixed drink this morning,” he added, while playing up the sarcasm even harder, this time with a great big grin that helped to reveal his changeling fangs.

For a moment her demeanor gave way to a slight glimpse of surprise, before her reply: “Well so you say, but you live with Kadabré. And now you are on the mend, because she cannot brew a simple blend.”

As scoffing as the statement sounded, Lacus was certain that it was actually a question that begged for confirmation. He was starting to get a little freaked out at the despondent way that they were conversing in the happiest place in Equestria. “Perhaps,” he began, “If you don’t feel comfortable talking here we can…” he addressed the statement before he finished making it by rising to his hooves while he spoke.

Zecora popped her chin up and to the right, as if to say come, follow me, to where we may speak peaceably, as she led Lacus to the door.

While leaving Sugarcube Corner, Lacus tried to hide his irritation at the implication that Habré was the poisoner. “What were you trying to say?” he asked Zecora while trotting along behind her. Though she wasn't facing him as to see the recognition in her eyes, he could hear it in her voice.

“So they did it anyway? With leaves and ledes mares do play?” she asked with grim amusement.

They trotted their way toward the Everfree Forest, while Lacus gave thought to her question, as he observed the citizens of Ponyville preparing for their respective celebrations of the new Princess of Friendship. Apparently, not everyone could make the trip to Canterlot for the coronation. He turned his attention to the zebra he was trailing behind to ask “I don’t understand how do you know this?” It seemed Zecora knew all too well what it was that Lacus was suffering from, and was torn by the idea of even humoring him.

Slowly, as she thoughtfully considered how much to say, Zecora began to explain: “We've met twice before, when you were felled at my door. The first you dropped broken and charred, straight into a pond in my backyard. If I knew then the trouble you would bring around, surely I would have left you there to drown.”

A quiet, uncomfortable cough could be heard from the changeling as he swallowed the fear that he was feeling, though Zecora continued undeterred: “Instead I dredged you out of that drink, and left you for the mare of yellow and pink. It was days before they returned from Canterlot, and by then of you I had all but forgot.” Zecora paused in the path so that Lacus could catch up to her. When he did, she gave him a deep long look, with such intensity that Lacus couldn't help but question it. With the animosity that she expressed their initial meeting in Sugarcube Corner he had to wonder why she was helping him now.

After the uncomfortable silence Zecora resumed the lead toward the Everfree Forest, as well as her story. “The second, you came into my tree, with that unicorn wannabe. In her mangled sense of grace, she spit venom in my face!” Even now it was clear that Zecora still was offended by the duo. “Then she asked me to brew that swill, what would be your memory pill. I declined then of course, but did it deter her from this course?”

Lacus stopped in his tracks. Was she implicating H.K. or somepony else? Though he hadn't scarcely considered the third mare—HK's mentor—before it became apparent that Zecora would give him no reprieve to do so.

She was steadily adding to her story, “Though both seemed a bit deranged, my time here has shown me things most strange. While one was cruel the other was no lout, and advised that I hold on to my doubt.” Her inflection reflected that the situation was humorous, but Lacus could not identify why it should be.

Her steps slowed as they reached the forest's edge, once there she stopped, and went on to say: “So I agreed to play my part, when you came with dreams in your heart. Until you can remember that day, I have nothing left to say. Though I will ask what it means to see, life through the lens of H.S.B.”

The dusk and disturbing atmosphere of the woods no longer sat well with Lacus though Zecora, however, disappeared seamlessly into it.

***

Lacus frowned. “I. Have had. Enough.” Each word was punctuated with ever increasing frustration. The outburst garnered strange looks from the other patrons of Sugarcube Corner. He could feel his world slipping into a frayed mess, as past and present blended so seamlessly together to create what he might call reality. He was tired of being lead around by the nose, like a horse being lead to water, and he refused to drink. He needed to take the reins, if he could guide these slips, perhaps then he could have the answers he sought.

Lacus’s stewing was interrupted by the pleasant Mrs. Cup Cake who inquired: “Are you alright, deary? You look like that foul-mouthed girl just ripped your heart out.” Being where they were the comforting words were, of course, escorted by comfort food.

A bowl of noodle soup. For his soul, Lacus assumed as he looked up to see Mrs Cake’s uncomfortable yet reassuring smile. “She’ll…” Lacus started but couldn't finish. He didn't know if she would be coming back, since she was more hurt than he had ever seen her. Even more so than when she was dying in his arms.

“Well. There’s plenty of other ladies out there for a smart lad like you. I know it may not seem like it now, but you've got a lot to offer.” Her sincerity made Lacus feel uneasy. Never mind that she had just assumed they were a couple. Two changelings? It’d never happen.

Mrs. Cake bashfully looked to the ground while fiddling with her hooves. “I just wanted to say, I really appreciate what you did for my husband the other day.” The reference of time solidified that Lacus was in the present again as she further explained, “We’re working with Minuette, the dentist, to make the Smile Foundation a reality. This is our first dish in a newly expanded teeth friendly menu,” she added with a pause, “it seems as though you could really use it, and it’s on the house as a thank you.”

Dumbfounded, Lacus nodded to Mrs. Cake, and sipped at the soup. Though it did not give him the power that changelings typically associate with feeding, he found that it was nourishing in its own way. It eased his mind, and allowed him to return to productive thinking. As Mrs. Cake left him to eat in peace he said with a smirk, “Pool’s stew.”

Mrs. Cake stopped and asked “What was that, deary?”

The smirk grew into a smile. “Nothing,” he said. For a moment he forgot that he was still Lucas Greymane, and nearly outed himself as Lacus Sceleratus, when it dawned on him that he wasn't distinguishing between the two anymore. “I think...” he added with the corresponding thoughtful expression, “That I need some time to meditate.”

Mrs. Cake stood in preponderance for a moment before suggesting that he see Zecora, as Twilight had spoken highly of her for such things. Lacus could only grimace at the idea. Though, her second suggestion was more palatable, as for clearing the mind was the profession of Lotus and Aloe. Lacus thanked her for the suggestion but didn't leave until after finishing his soup.