//------------------------------// // Person Mare (incomplete) pt 1 // Story: Short Scraps and Explosions // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// So, just like In the Darkness Where I Seek You, here is yet another epic that I started and simply couldn't finish. All things considered, I haven't done an epic story to match Background Pony (that wasn't a Daily fic). My two biggest attempts (save for Funeral of Derpy Hooves) were ultimately failures. I still believe in both story ideas, and I think this one has an awesome hook. As always with Skirtsian stuff, however, it's the execution that fell flat. I was first inspired to do this by an awesome fanart I had seen by the insanely talented artist sharpieboss at the tail-end of 2013. It's based loosely on an AMV done by IMMATOONLINK Reverie which was also based on a They Might Be Giants song. The pic hooked my imagination immediately, and I suppose if I had followed through with the inspiration at the time, then I could have gotten something uploaded much... much sooner. Instead, I floundered about for weeks... months. Then I hit a weird spot at a tangled plot hole and... just never looked back. Even after talking to friends of mine online and getting inspiration. The biggest fault of this story is in the protagonist. Yes, her life is supposed to suck. But the issue here is that both the story and the character's dialogue go out of their way to emphasize and reemphasize how much everything sucks. A little pointer: if you want the audience to sympathize with a character, don't tell them to. Ultimately, Persephone--the protagonist--just came off as way too angsty to me. She's a Pony for Nietzsche's sake. If anything, her joyful qualities should make her stand out more. Because of this, I realized that if I truly wanted this story to work, I'd have to start over from the first page and make her cheerful and optimistic in spite of her troubles. You know where that worked before? Fucking Background Pony. While Lyra may have come across as "emo" in the way she philosophized, she was ultimately a pleasant helper, doer, and optimist. That worked insanely well in the first chapter of Background Pony. But here? Persephone belongs in the lead role of a Square Enix Game. FFX not included. Ugh... So, here you have it. The skeleton of another unborn giant. I got about halfway through the contents of the fic before I ran out of steam. So, no, it's not complete. And don't worry about "spoilers" or nothing. If I do repeat this, it'll be dramatically different, with a far more appealing protagonist (hopefully). And I do want to salvage this one day. I think the concept is super awesome, and I really like the roommates that I have bunking with Persephone. There was a general theme to this work-in-progress, and I think Persephone's best friends in the fic serve to support the moral far more than she does. Which could have been the whole point, but who knows. Me? You? Panties? Persephone's legs were limping by the time she reached the alleyway. Night had fallen over the sprawling city, and with it came a light drizzle of freezing rain. Fresh moisture softened the crusty sweat still clinging to the earth pony's mud brown coat. Persephone sighed, her breath spitting vapors into the cold yellow glow of a dying streetlamp above. The pony paused, shivering, turning to gaze down the dark crevice between looming apartment buildings. She sensed something familiar down that bricklaid ravine, something dark and murky that beckoned her. After all she had been through over the past ten hours, it was almost a welcoming gesture. She didn't notice the wandering couple until she heard their gasps. A man and a woman scraped to a stop on the sidewalk, their boots splashing into a dirtied puddle. Clinging their umbrellas tighter, they gave Persephone a wide berth, staring in disgust the entire time that they spent walking around her. "For Christ's sake, will you look at that?" "What's wrong with her?" "Pffft. I thought the mayor had cleaned up all the crack whores from this city." "Can't she at least afford some rags?" "Shhh... Let's keep moving before she starts begging for—" Their voices were swallowed by the roar of a semi-truck speeding by, splashing mud and moisture all across the sidewalk. Persephone flinched, her mane and tail thoroughly doused. She shivered, sighed, and gladly shuffled her way into the blacker-than-black alleyway before her. Her trot was uneven, on account of sore limbs. The pony felt as if she had sprinted a marathon up hill, only without the mercy of a runner's high. Her muscles were drained, numb, and stretched raw, and every other step punished her hooves like a sea of needles. For a brief moment, the blackness of the cold alleyway soothed her, until she came to a junction where a lofty lamp besides a fire escape cast a sheen across the drenched place, highlighting the squalor of soiled cardboard boxes and overflowing garbage dumpsters. All was silent, save for the trickle of rain and the buzz of flies. Persephone sniffed, and she was startled to see another pony wrinkling her muzzle. Gasping, she looked straight down, and her ears instantly folded. It was a puddle's reflection, cast at the precise angle to haunt her. She saw a disheveled brown mane framing a miserable brown face, with amber eyes leeched of all their brightness and luster. Persephone's foreleg stretched towards the pony until the reflection's hoof made contact. When it did, it felt cold, yet it didn't chill her. She hadn't expected anything else, really. Just then, the pool of water shattered—as did everything else—from a glass bottle that had been thrown at a distance. With a gasp, Persephone hobbled backwards. Her eyes jerked up in time to spot a skeletal waif in rags waving his hairy arms dramatically. "Screw off!" hissed the man through three layers of a dusty beard. "Go strut your body somewhere else! Mmmnnghh—This is my alley, ya dumpster slut!" He hoisted another bottle out from a rusted shopping cart. But Persephone was already galloping away before the glass container flew. Panting in high-pitched little squeaks, she scampered around the corner of two adjacent apartment buildings and sprinted down a black abyss of masonry. She slammed blindly into something, filling the air with the clatter of garbage and broken glass. Not a second later, she slipped, rolling over something sharp. Her head bumped hard into alley wall, knocking loose the air from her lungs before she could yelp in pain. When the blood settled in her head, she felt a stinging pain throbbing through her flank. Wincing, she hobbled up onto her hooves and limped into the penumbra of a flickering lamp. The shadows of moths flitted by as she brought her body into the light, squinting worriedly at the fresh wound. A long, thin cut had formed just above her cutie mark, trickling blood over the emblem of a large, crooked horseshoe. Persephone blinked, bu the horseshoe was still there, along with the blood. She reached her hoof back and grazed the wet wound, instantly grimacing. The mare groaned. She tilted her head straight up, staring at the stone gray sliver of overcast night raining down on her. When her eyes fell back down, she spotted a splash of graffiti along the wall. Three obscene words orbited a series of hand prints that had been stenciled across the building's cement foundation. A soreness overwhelmed the pony's throat. She trotted to the wall, tilting her tiny body up until her muzzle was level with the hand prints. Without thinking, Persephone raised a hoof and pressed it within the center of one print. When she leaned back, she found that she had left a blood-stained curve within the graffiti's palm, like a miniature omega symbol, colored in crimson, that was utterly devoured by the spreading fingers. A tiny whimper escaped her lips. She didn't know where the sound was leading her until she spotted a dark shape in her peripheral vision. Turning aside, she trotted straight down a dead end, heading towards a lone garbage can propped up against the rain-slick wall. She paused, staring thoughtfully at the empty canister, at the bent metal frame of the thing and the lid that teetered off the very top. Her vision fogged, and through the spreading mists she felt many memories surfacing, and all of them colder than the air of that very moment. So she closed her eyes, haunted by the sounds of her own sobs. Crawling like an infant, Persephone slithered to the wall, sat down, and curled up besides the garbage can. She hugged herself, shaking into the night, listening dazedly as her cries blended with the trickle of rainwater, and soon she was one with the garbage. A fitting bookend, she thought, and then Persephone fell unconscious. Person Mare Three days earlier... BREEP! BREEP! BREEP! A pair of bright amber eyes flashed open... then immediately clenched shut. With a groan, Persephone curled up in bed, dragging a clumped wad of warm bedsheets over her muzzle. The armored shell of layered duvets did little to silence the room, and she could still hear the persistent shrieks of the alarm clock punishing her fuzzy ears. So, hissing like an angered cobra, she threw her hoof out through the layers of blankets and swatted blindly at the alarm clock. The plastic thing rattled from her touch and pivoted on its end, which aimed the blaring speakers directly at the mare, increasing the volume of its skull-shattering siren. Persephone groaned again, finally bursting from her bed like some parasitic larva. With a flounce of her nightie, she clapped both hooves over the top of the bedside alarm, but she still couldn't get the snooze button to press all the way. At last, she reached forward with her muzzle and used her nimble teeth to do the task. She succeeded, but had lost control of her weight in doing so. "Gaah!" Thud! Persephone's tiny body formed a reverse capital "L," with her bent neck on the carpet and her rear legs sticking straight up against the bed. Instead of trying to upright herself, she simply lay there, staring lethargically at the sideways "6:02" flickering in the center of her apartment with crimson digits. Her eyes swam across the bedroom, studying every dark shape and shadow: the mess of clothes hanging over her computer chair, the poster on the wall advertising a three-year-old track meet, a backpack overflowing with sheets, folders, and scribbled notes. A white envelope lay in the center of the mess, stabbing her eyes from afar. Persephone closed her eyes, giving into the relief of utter darkness, feeling the soothing hands of sleep lulling her frustrated mind once again— Knock knock knock! "Up'n at'em, filly girl!" A muffled voice loudly chirped from beyond the pony's door. "Today is shrink day! I hope you scrubbed the inside of your head all nice and sparkly clean!" "Nnnnghhh..." Persephone inched her body the rest of the way out of bed and sat up, rubbing her tired eyes with a fuzzy forelimb. "I'm going to murder you, Trisha." "That's fine!" The voice sing-songed. "Bury me in something pink, will ya? Come on, Percy! You know we gotta skedaddle early today!" Footsteps stomped towards the other end of the apartment. "You too, Cae! Stop counting ceiling popcorn and have yourself some breakfast already!" Persephone was standing up at this point. She shuffled across her room and teetered above her backpack, glaring thinly at the white envelope beneath her. The thing was open, and a letter spilled out. She tilted the edge of the paper up with her hoof, once again reading the hastily scribbled note beneath a printed address. "Go see Dr. Sharp, then come have a talk with me. Despite what the Company thinks, I'm certain that we can rectify this situation. I need you, Miss Ceres. Do not disappoint me." ~Pluto The pony's amber eyes narrowed. With a sigh, she turned and trotted towards the closet... only to trip on her nightie. "Gaaugh!" She flew like a missile into a pile of laundry, then groaned. Five minutes later, Persephone emerged from her room and lurched across the apartment. She carried a wad of clothes over her flank as she shuffled towards a brightly lit bathroom door. The thing was cracked open when she knocked on it, teetering blearily. "You'd better not be taking forever in there this morning, Trisha." "Beauty is as beauty does." A hand with painted fingernails pulled the rest of the door open with a creak. A young woman stood in khaki ankle pants and a lavender cardigan. She leaned forward, applying the finishing touches on her eyeshadow before the mirror. "I'm like the God Damn Forest Gump of divas just waiting to find her Bubba." Trisha smirked, tilting her head from side to side. "You think they have casual Mondays in the shrimping business?" "There are no runways in the telemarketing department," Persephone grumbled as she hobbled past the woman's knees and slapped her folded clothes onto the toilet's seat. "Besides, it's not like any of the angry people on the receiving end can see your glitter." "I like to look pretty when I'm called an asshole." Trisha turned her attention to her eyelashes. "In this city, there's no better philosophy. Wouldn't you agree?" "Meh." Persephone reached for the hem of her nightie with her teeth. She paused, glaring up at the mirror. "You mind looking away?" "Oh, please. Nothing you've got that I haven't earned." "You're funny when you're predictable," Persephone said. "Now scram." "Hmmm..." Trisha smirked, scooped half her makeup into a purse, and sashayed out of the room. "I'll keep the barn door open for you." "Cute." Persephone watched as the door was left open just a tiny crack. She waited for a few seconds, then briskly shimmied out of her nightgown. A pair of pink briefs hugged her flank, with a tiny hole in the back that allowed her brown tail-hairs to poke through. Going through the motions, Persephone unfolded a petite pair of pants—child-sized—and slid her rear legs down, one at a time. It was an extremely awkward affair, but Persephone's body was ritualistically programmed for it. At one point she had to lie down on the bathroom's tile floor, wriggling her entire figure until the ends of her hooves finally poked out beyond the pant legs. Catching her breath, she stood up and then unfolded her blouse, fighting with it as if it was a giant python. It took another three minutes, but—at last—she had the article fitted about her torso. Using a combination of her muzzle and forelimbs, she tucked the thing into her pants, then stood up, her face grimacing as her hind quarters wriggled and wriggled. Finally, her tail found its way through the tiny, matching hole formed in the seat of her pants, and it flicked freely in the air. Persephone took a deep breath. She dabbed at her forehead, feeling for perspiration. Having composed herself, she stood up on her hind quarters until she could glance into the mirror. Ignoring the lethargic face in the reflection, she reached her forelimb—stretching—and grasped her faithful brush. The thing had a custom handle duct-taped to the back, curved at just the right angle to allow her petite hoof to slip through. She gave her brown mane several long swipes with the brush, smoothing out the tangles and cowlicks of a restless night. When she was done, she lingered before the mirror, staring at everything and nothing in particular. Her tired eyes wandered down, spotting her blouse's left sleeve. The cuff had become unbuttoned. She reached down and fiddled with it, cursing inwardly as her blunt hooves failed to get a good grip of the button and the cuff. "Persephone." She instantly looked up, ears twitching. The mirror had blurred, as if rattling to a stop. She found herself blinking dazedly at her blank expression. After a few seconds, Persephone tilted her muzzle towards the cracked door. "Trisha?" Silence. "Cae?" More silence. She exhaled heavily. "Maybe I do need this appointment..." With defeatedly slumping hooves, the clothed pony gathered her belongings and trudged out of the bathroom door, leaving the mirror behind. A young man with a buzz-cut sat at the kitchen table. He stood in a blue hoodie and even bluer jeans, staring through a nightmarishly thick pair of glasses at an outstretched newspaper before him. A piece of buttered toast laid on a plate before him with only the crust eaten. "Heya, Cae," Persephone spoke in a neutral tone, dragging her backpack with her as she approached the table. "Did you sleep well?" "There are three thousand two hundred and twenty seven words on the front page today," he said in a wavering tone, his eyes bright and bulbous behind his lenses. "That makes an average of twelve thousand characters. Twelve thousand degrees is enough for sixty-six point six infinitely repeating polygons. To span the Straight of Gibraltar, a bridge would need two and twelve hundred times as many triangular reinforcement struts to support the necessary weight." "Uh huh. That's nice, Cae." Persephone reached for one of the stools, her legs straining in her blouse and pants. "Nnnghh... darn it..." She tilted her head up. "Where's Trisha?" "Saving the day, as usual." The roommate in question waltzed into the kitchen, shoving a phone book across the tile floor with her foot. "Y'know, it wouldn't kill ya to ask Cae one of these mornings." "Thanks." Persephone used the phone book as a stepboard and hopped up onto the stool. "And nuts to that idea. I'm afraid that he'll try to build me a catapult or something." "Who, Cae?! Pfft." Trisha rolled her glittery eyes. "He's mostly harmless." Cae looked up at Trisha with a quivering lip. "Patricia, this newspaper doesn't have enough words to span the Mediterranean Sea." "Ya hear that?" Trisha shrugged with a smirk before ruffling the man's hair. "Handsome here is saving Europe from getting their feet wet! What have you done with your morning?" Persephone exhaled with a shudder, struggling to sit upright on the kitchen stool. "Resisted the urge to paint the walls of the apartment with my roommates' organs." "Easy there, Mrs. Ed. I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer slept with his landlord to afford a place furnished for three people. So what's your excuse?" She winked before slapping a bowl full of apple slices before the pony. "There ya go, sunshine. Maybe you'll murder me softly for it." Persephone stared into the bowl, her mouth watering. Suddenly, she winced, and she spoke quietly with folded ears. "Thank you, Trisha. Really. I mean it." "Awwwww come on..." Trisha slid into a chair across from the two, digging a spoon into a bowl of oatmeal. "Think nothing of it. Besides, I'm not the hormonally imbalanced freakazoid you used to bunk with at night school." She took a dainty bite, swallowed, and pointed. "Besides, the torch has passed onto you." Persephone swallowed three apple slices in one bite and threw a weird look across the table. "The Hell is that supposed to mean?" "Oh, y'know..." Trisha shrugged through her breakfast, spoon clanking. "Figured I might be next on your hit list. From the way you talk about this 'Roger' punk, he sounds like someone almost as annoying as me." "Please, Trisha, don't ever compare me to Roger." Persephone took another bite... then nearly choked. She frowned across the table. "And I most certainly do not have a hit list!" Trisha smirked. "Well, you didn't exactly give the guy flowers last week, Percy, or is it a gardening session that you've been asked to attend this morning?" Persephone sighed, glancing over at Cae and his newspaper. "Please, Trisha, the less we talk about my situation at the office, the better." "Why? It sounds juicy!" Trisha leaned forward with a devilish smirk. "I heard he got five stitches! And that's just for his head! The jury's still out on the number you did on his ass crack!" "Trishhhh..." Persephone growled through her muzzle. Trisha giggled. "Lighten up, silly filly!" She pointed with her spoon. "Don't get me wrong! I'm proud of you! For once in your crazy life, you're growing some balls!" "Heh... you're one to talk." "Don't push it." "What time is it, anyway?" Persephone asked, fiddling with her cuff again. "You know how I am with watches..." "One thousand five hundred and twenty-seven seconds until we need to be at the Uptown Metro," Cae suddenly blurted. "Venus will be low on the morning horizon, thirty-five degrees east of the summit of the Central Bank building on Kennedy Street, which is thirty-two stories above the point that the subway would be if it ran continuously north from the station at a length of zero point eighty two kilometers." "Mister Universe here has a point," Trisha said. "Better give a move on. Bah!" Her face scrunched as she tossed the spoon into the bowl. "Goddess, I hate oatmeal." She scooted out of her chair with a smirk. "Let's bounce." Persephone hated this part. It was a ten minute trek from their apartment to the nearest subway station, and it took five and a half blocks and at least one crosswalk through a sea of people to scale. The pony weathered it as she did every other day, with her head hung low and her ears twitching against the scuffles and thuds of boots, shoes, sandles, and heels on all sides of her. She stuck close to Trisha and Cael—or at least to the shadows of them, which was all she could ever make out from where her eyes hovered two feet off the ground. "Jeebus," Trisha hissed, hooking an arm around Cael's elbow as she dragged the stiff-legged fellow down the sidewalk along with her. "It always freaks me out how he just... clams up everytime we step out of the house." "You know he can't help it, Trisha," Persephone murmured. "Huh? You gotta speak up, Percy." Persephone winced. "Ahem. He doesn't like crowds, is all I mean!" She shuddered, nearly being plowed over by a dangling suitcase. "Quite frankly, he's not alone." "Save the moping for the tunnels." Trisha smirked and tilted Cael's chin up as the three came upon the crosswalk. "Ya hear that, bright-eyes? We're going underground! Like a nineties band!" "Kurt Donald Cobain died on the Fifth of April, ninety ninety-four," Cael quietly stammered, clinging to Trisha as he stared a million miles away. "That's nineteen years, three months, one week—" "For once, could you recite us Courtney Love's cup size in centimeters or some shit?" Trisha turned to smile at a passing woman's grimacing face. "Good morning! How're the birdies singing today?" Persephone sighed. She tightened the straps of the backpack clinging to her figure and reluctantly tilted her head up. Her eyes squinted from the morning sunlight glinting off row after row of glass-laden skyscrapers. The sky beyond the building summits waxed yellow with the crisp infancy of dawn. As her head tilted back down, she felt herself dazed by the scrambling sea of faces looming high above her. Engines roared as yellow taxi after yellow taxi rumbled by, spitting exhaust onto the sidewalk so that it mixed with the foul smell of sewage wafting up from random grates. Just then, Persephone's whole body jerked. She stumbled awkwardly, teetering twice as much thanks to the four sneakers goofily ensnared about her fetlocks. She glared back at a gentleman's dress-shoe that was standing over her spasming tail. "Uhh... excuse me!" The man stopped squawking into his cell phone long enough to glare back down at her with a vexxed expression. "Excuse yourself! What's your problem, lady?!" Persephone opened her mouth, but froze. She glanced at his shoe pressing onto her tail, then back up at the man. With a sigh, she avoided his gaze. "Nothing." The man blew out the side of his mouth, then inched aside to return to his phone conversation while waiting for the crosswalk signal in private. His shoe finally lifted from her tail, and Persephone flicked the limb with relief. Something flashed in the peripheral of her vision. Persephone tilted her head with a dull expression, gazing at a row of plasma TVs positioned behind a glass store front stretching adjacent to the sidewalk. A political advertisement was showing on all monitors, featuring a broad-smiling Republican candidate in a montage of idyllic scenes overlaid with a rippling American flag. At one point, he walked with his family towards a barn, leading a well-groomed horse by the reins. Persephone's ears perked up. For the first time that morning, she smiled, and her tail flicked in the misty city air. Without warning, the advertisement ended, and a baby food commercial switched on. A loving caucasian mother cradled her infant, making happy faces while spoon feeding it. Persephone instantly blanched, tilting her head forward with a frown. By then, the crosswalk signal had flashed green. Trisha and Cael were already two steps ahead, and Persephone had to gallop briskly or else risk being stepped on by everybody around her. The city populace poured down the subway stairwell like a deluge of flesh. Persephone clung to the wall, wincing with each hop and leap she took to scale the steep steps. When at last she and her roommates had evened out, it was a mad dash towards the turnstiles. Cael and Trisha passed through first. Persephone fumbled, gritted her teeth, and raised her body so that her petite forelimbs gripped the topmost handle. It took several jerking motions with her torso, but she finally got the thing to rotate. She slumped forward, but came to a rigid stop, pulling and writhing at the length of her tail. "Oh, come the frig on!" She grunted, yanking and fussing with her tail after it was caught in the rotary mechanism. Trisha and Cael spun about. "Ya need help there, girl?" "I got it!" Persephone scuffed at the ground with all four hooves. "Nnnnnghh!" Somebody passed through the turnstile behind her, loosening the machine's grip on her tail-hairs. "Gaaah!" Persephone fell flat on her face. The click-clack of high-heels trickled past her ears. "Some of us have places to be, lady!" a disgruntled woman in a business dress stormed off towards the loading area. "Grghhhh..." Persephone struggled under the weight of her backpack. Trisha shuffled over and helped her up. "Want me to strip her and crucify her to the tracks for ya?" Trisha smirked, brushing her golden bangs aside as she looked past the crown. "I kind of want her skirt, actually." "Forget it." Persephone shook the cobwebs loose and trudged ahead. "Let's get on the damn train before we're too late." "Niagra Falls has a flow rate of one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four square meters of water per second," Cael nervously spat. "Wuh oh!" Trisha stood up staight, gazing all around the brightly-lit Metro. "Sounds like Cael's gotta visit the little genius' room. Come to think of it, I could use with a tinkle myself." "Don't you—like—normally get your morning energy drink at this point?" Persephone asked. "Dammit, you're right!" Trisha hissed through her teeth. "Can't risk taking too much time, what with you scheduled appointment to the witch doctor n'all." "For Christ's sake, Trisha..." Persephone rolled her eyes. "Ah! There they are!" Trisha pointed excitedly towards the men's and women's restrooms across the sea of people. "Percy, would you be a dear and drop by the mini-mart super quick and grab a Monster for me?" "Uhhhh—" "That way we won't be late for the train! I-I'll pay you back!" Trisha waved wildly from a distance, then said a few words into Cael's ear before splitting up into separate restrooms. Persephone sighed long and hard. Slumped over, she spun about and trudged towards a line of shops built into the underground infrastructure of the station. It took her the better part of a minute just to cross the lumbering crowd of workgoers. When at last she reached the stocked shelves of the tiny vendor, she fumbled for a can of energy drink, grunted, and finally lifted the rattling thing onto the counter-top with a pair of blunt forelimbs. Panting from the effort, she looked up, then froze. The sales associate was squinting at her with dull, studying eyes. Persephone gulped, tossed her mane, and cleared her throat. "Ahem. How much?" The man looked at her, at the still-spinning can, then back at her. He twirled a half-chewed toothpick towards the far end of his mouth and muttered, "Two twenty-five." "R-right." Taking a deep breath, Persephone reached back, unzipped her backpack with her teeth, then stabbed a hoof deep into the satchel, fishing around until she pulled out a wad of money. Someone rushed by, bumping into her from behing. "Ungh!" She gritted her teeth, staring hideously at the two bills and two quarters that had fallen to the tile floor. She glanced up. The sales associate was looking away for the time being, adjusting a series of magazines in a countertop stand. Persephone fumbled and scraped at the bills with her hooves, cursing under her teeth. As hard as she tried, she couldn't get the flimsy paper and metal bits off the tile floor with her hoof-ends. So, glancing up once more, she tilted her muzzle forward, pursed her lips, and gripped onto the money with her mouth. In a gesture of incredible ease, she propped her body up and deposited the bills and quarters onto the counter. "Muah..." She grinned victoriously at the rattling coins, then glanced up. Her ears drooped. The man was staring awkardly at her. The toothpick had fallen out of his mouth. He glanced from her lips to the money and back. "You sick in the head or something, lady?" Persephone exhaled through her nostrils. "Just take it, will ya?" She pivoted aside and scooped the can into her open backpack with the inner edge of her hoof. "And keep the change." "Errrrr... yeah..." The man grimaced, picking one of the saliva-stained Washingtons by the flimsy corner. "I'll do that." Trotting about, Persephone gladly hurried towards the middle of the station. She froze in her tracks at the sound of a woman's angry voice in the distance. "Go get some help, ya freak!" Persephone spotted Trisha and Caelus walking swiftly towards her. Trisha looked over her shoulder, and the enraged woman in the distance shook her fist. "Yeah! That's right, you! There are normal people trying to do their business, you know!" She stormed back into the bathroom. "Yeah, whatever!" Trisha hollered back over turning heads. "Nice silicone, by the way, lady!" She smirked. "Do the flight attendants make you turn those things off everytime you reach five thousand feet?!" Persephone winced, hoofing her roommate the Monster drink. "What was that all about?" "Ohhhhh, you know..." Trisha rolled her eyes, caught her breath, and popped the can open. "The usual." "Have you ever thought of just... y'know..." Persephone shrugged. "Settling for one of the family changing rooms? They're clearly marked." "Pffft!" Trisha took a swig and wiped her smirking chin. "And just who do you take me for?! The moment I do that, they'll have won!" "Trisha..." Persephone's eyes were thin as they trotted towards the loading area. "There is no 'they.'" "Says you." "The thermal stability of silicone maintains a physical constancy between negative one hundred and positive two hundred and fifty degrees celsius," Cael muttered, shivering. "Hah! Oh yeahhhh..." Trisha grinned like Lucifer. "I can already tell this is gonna be a killer day." Her voice was masked over by the hiss of a subway train screeching to a stop at the platform. Persephone sat on folded hooves in her seat as the subway train jostled and shook all around her. To her left, Cael sat, staring dead at his watch and counting downwards from a number in the five decimals. Trisha sat to Persephone's right, gripping a metal pole with one hand and swishing her energy drink in the other while humming an old Janis Joplin tune. In the meantime, the lone pony folded and unfolded the paper contents of her white envelope, reading and re-reading the note that had been scribbled to her days before. She took a deep breath, whinnying slightly out her nostrils. She heard a coughing breath and glanced across the subway train. A latino man with a thick beard glanced down into his newspaper. Beside him, a woman's eyes flickered past Persephone, then stared at the tunnel lights blurring outside the train car's windows. Persephone bit her lip. She noticed a stirring out the corner of her eyes and glanced down the car. Three hooded figures shuffled, turning away as they re-engaged in a muddled conversation. The pony began to squirm, adjusting the sleeves of her blouse with a nervous gesture. "Where'd the friggin' Mormons go?" Trisha randomly sputtered, eyeing a two-month old faded advertisement in a placard overhead. "Usually, there'd be two of the little bible-thumpers waddling their way through this place like white sardines lost in a foreign can." Her lips curved. "I'm telling you, this ride gets drearier by the day. Friggin' tunnels are practically screaming for Donny Osmond to do 'em." "Trisha, have you noticed... erm... that is..." Persephone fidgeted. "Hmmm?" Her roommate glanced over with glittery eyelids. "What, him and Marie? Pffft! Totally!" She took a final swig of her cup. "Mmmf... The way those two dance together? They've done the tango after dark, I swear to Goddess." "Not that." Persephone gulped and glanced out the corner of her eyes. "Are... are people staring at me?" "Not any more than usual. What, did you forget your annual streaking session?" "Trishaaaaaa..." "Seriously, Persephone! Why so paranoid android?" The pony sighed, staring at Cael's watch as it reflected both the young man's blank face and hers. "I dunno. I guess I'm just on edge today." "You're not having a relapse, are ya?" Trisha squinted. "Cuz you're kind of reminding me of the freaked-out chick from middle school." "Hell, no!" Persephone frowned. "I've gotten a lot better since then! You know that..." "Then what's up with the whole shrinkventure today?" "The appointment was not my idea," Persephone grunted. "It was—" "Your boss'. Right." Trisha nodded. "I dunno if he's head over heels for you or just desperate." "I'd feel better if it was neither," Persephone grunted, leaning her muzzle down on folded hooves. "What'd I tell you about slouching on the train?" "Grrrr..." Flames burned in Persephone's amber eyes. "Trish—!" "Shhhhh..." The woman had reached over to tilt the pony's chin up. "Hey..." She smiled softly, eyes glittering with the tunnel lights whizzing by. "It's gonna be okay, ya hear? No moping." Persephone exhaled heavily. "'Because moping is for mules.'" Trisha winked. "Damn straight." The pony's lips curved ever so slightly. Just then, the train lurched a bit as a screeching noise rattled beyond the windows. "Hey, this is your stop, r-right?" Trisha sat up, glancing down the train. "Two stops before the usual routine?" "Unnngh... right..." "Don't sulk so hard." Trisha scooted over to give Persephone room to slip her backpack on. "Me and Brother Galactus here got up early so we could walk with you most of the way, didn't we?" Persephone mumbled under her muzzle. "I said, did we or didn't we?" "You did, and th-thanks, guys." Persephone stepped down from her seat. As the train came to a stop, she glanced up at her roommates. "Meet you at the usual place for lunch?" "Assuming I get Cael to his math apartment in time. Goddess, those pencil pushing study buddies of his freak me out something awful. It's like they all wanna jump into my pants, drooling retainers and all." "Heh..." Persephone rolled her eyes. "You wish." "Oh go sit on an umbrella and unfold it." Trisha reached over and gripped Cael's shoulder. "Say good luck to Percy, Cael!" "Mmmm... 'good luck to Percy, Cael!'" he muttered, face full of watch. "Hah! Instant classic!" Trisha winked and waved. Persephone smirked weakly. The train car doors opened, and she was gone. The little pony could swear she was going to be late. It took her five minutes to climb the stairs on her lonesome. At last, she reached street level, and scampered briskly under morning sunlight for two and a half blocks. At last, she reached a tall, tall granite building marked with the names of two dozen different medical firms. Persephone stopped there, waiting patiently until another person walked through the front entrance, pulling at the door handle that she couldn't reach. She then dashed forward, squeezing her way into the front lobby before the thing could close on her tail. After galloping across the lobby with echoing clops, she reached the elevators, exhaling with relief when one of them loomed open with nobody inside. She hopped in and stripped of her backpack, opening the inner satchel while the doors automatically closed. Using her teeth, she folded the note open, eyes scanning for the floor and room number of her destination. When she saw that it was on the twentieth floor, she groaned inwardly, then glanced up at the elevator controls looming high above her mane. Scooting her backpack over, she planted it against the wall of the elevator compartment and hopped up onto the thing. Squeaking through a tightly gritting muzzle, Persephone reached up... up... up... and finally slapped the small of her hoof over the button marked '20.' She almost fell back from the force of her victorious exhale. The elevator ride was long, giving her time to slip her backpack on. At last, with a chiming ding, the doors opened and she trotted down an air-conditioned hallway with lush carpet. She could smell shampoo off the fibrous material beneath her, giving her little comfort as she hurried to her destination. At last, she reached a door marked "Dr. Ike Sharp, M.D. - Psychiatrist." It took some fussing, but the door handle was low enough for her to pull the thing open. She peaked her head in, her ears twitching to the sound of an artificial water fountain trickling in the corner of the dimly-lit waiting room. A lone receptionist with olive skin and curly hair sat at the front desk, plinking away at a keyboard. Pensively, Persephone shuffled inside, careful to flick her tail forward before the door could close on it. She made for the desk, glancing left and right at alternating potted plants and marble busts of Skinner and Freud. When she reached the receptionist counter, she leaned up on her rear legs, clearing her throat. The lady typed and typed. Persephone rolled her eyes, then cleared her throat louder before giving the counter's edge a light clippity-clop. The woman's eyes darted up. She adjusted the headset around her curls and leaned forward. "Yes? May I help you?" "I'm... uhm..." Persephone gulped, eyeing a vase of flowers looming directly in front of her. The pony's stomach growled, and she did her best to hide it by speaking up. "I-I'm here for my eight o'clock appointment." "Eight o'clock appointment..." "With... uh... Doctor Sharp?" "But of course. Give me one second." The receptionist pulled out a binder and scanned down a series of hours and names. "Hmmmm... Persephone Elizabeth Ceres?" "Yes, ma'am." "Hmmm... Company-Appointed, I see." The woman's eyes squinted at her. "In Step?" Persephone nod-nodded. "Right." She planted the binder down and sped her fingernails over the keyboard behind the counter. The only thing that clicked faster than the keystrokes was her tongue. "As you well know, In Step has agreed to pay for the sessions, presuming that you don't go over five visits, in which case terms of payment will be pending based on a written signature from Mr. Pluto Hayton himself..." "Yes... I've... uh... I've been briefed on the whole thing," Persephone said with a shuddering sigh. "I don't plan on taking too much of the doctor's time." "Uh huh..." The receptionist plinked a few more keystrokes, then slid the binder and a pen right in front of Persephone's face. "Just sign right here in the eight o'clock slot, then go take a seat. The Doctor will be with you shortly." "Right... uhm..." Persephone tapped the pen a few times with the small of her hoof, causing the instrument to spin from her blunt limb. She bit her lip, growing more and more antsy. The woman stared at her from behind the counter. "Is something the matter?" "No. Not really. It's just that... that..." At last, Persephone sighed. No longer hesitating, she reached forward, grasped the pen neatly between her teeth, and very daintily scribbled her signature with impeccable grace. Once done, her eyes darted up, catching the receptionist's face gawing at her. "Ptooie!" She spat the pen out and trotted backwards, smiling nervously. "I'm perfectly healthy." The lady gave a dazed nod. "Yeah, I'm sure of it." Persephone spun around, making a face to the wall as she trotted towards a line of chairs. For several minutes, she sat there, twiddling her hooves, staring dully at a stack of decade-old boots decorated with pastel covers and emblazoned with copious amounts of motivational rhetoric. At last, a door at the end of the office's hallway opened, and a handsome man in a gray suit stepped out, patting an elder woman on the shoulder. "Just keep my advice in mind, Mrs. Kramer, and you'll be flying in no time." "'It's not the plane moving, but the earth beneath me.'" The woman smiled nervously. "'Bless you, Dr. Sharp. My son's been begging to fly me to Fargo on his own plane for years. He'll be overjoyed to hear about my progress.'" "You'll be snowboarding with him in no time." The man pointed with a glinting smile. "I promise." "Right..." She shuddered as she shuffled up to the receptionist's desk. "Now just to fix my fear of snow..." "Doctor?" The lady behind the counter raised her hand. "Your eight o'clock is here." "Oh?" Sharp tilted his head to look into the ready room. "Miss Ceres?" "Yeah, uhm." Persephone waved and leaned forward from the chair. "I'm h-here because of the—" Thud! "Darn it!" She collapsed on her chest. "Whoahhhhh nelly!" Dr. Sharp winced as she walked over and helped her up to her hooves. "Careful, I'm not that kind of doctor!" He chuckled. "The physical therapist is two stories down." "Mmmffnngh..." She looked up, briefly frowning. "'Whoah nelly?!' Just wo've you been talking to?!" "I'm sorry?" His face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean?" Persephone sighed, glaring off into the corner. "It's nothing. Forget I said anything." "Hmmmm... I do hope we can do better than that." He patted her shoulder, stood up, and pointed towards his open door. "How about we get started, shall we?" "You... y-you sure you don't need a minute to prep after—?" "Nonsense. A therapist my age is always on his toes." He smiled calmly, smoothed back his slick black hair, and gestured again towards the office. "Come on in. There's a nice, comfortable couch to lie on. Yes... heh... it's just as cliche as it sounds." "Right..." Persephone trotted over the carpet and made her way inside. The office had several windows that looked out onto the noisy city, but it was nice, quiet, and insulated inside. She actually breathed with slight relief when her hoof made contact with the black couch's cushions. "You look beat from trucking that bag around." The Doctor said as he shut the door behind them and shuffled over to a desk chair. "Why not give your shoulders some relief? I'd like you to be at your most comfortable." "I'm making no guarantees, Doc... erm... Doctor Sharp." "Heh... Just 'doc' will do, Miss Ceres." He sat down, folding his hands together. "If it makes you feel better, of course." "Thanks. I can never really tell at times." She fussed and fidgeted with the backpack, finally shrugging it off as she sat on the couch with folded legs. "Every doctor is different." "So..." He raised an eyebrow and crossed his legs. "You've seen a psychiatrist before?" "Oh, pffft. Several. My life is a moldy old textbook filled to the brim with every bit of psychoanalytical adventure imaginable." Persephone rolled her eyes. "But I'm sure you don't need me telling you that. My boss at In Step most likely supplied you with a detail record." "It might help the both of us for you to tell me on your own." "It's..." Persephone gulped, shivering slightly as she gazed out the distant window. "It's not something I-I like reliving often." "Still, it could help. If you don't mind my saying so, Miss Ceres, but you seem rather nervous today." "Heh, yeah..." The pony sighed. "I'm always nervous at visits like this..." "Or perhaps it's something else." He leaned his chin against his fingers. "Perhaps it has to do with the same frayed nerves that brought you here today." "Unnngh..." Persephone's ears folded above a rock-hard scowl. "Are we going straight into the crap that happened at work?" "Do you think that we should?" "I..." Persephone's nostrils flared as she kneaded the couch with her hooves. "I-I didn't mean to hurt Roger that badly. At least... I'm sure of it." "Roger isn't my concern right now," Dr. Sharp said calmly, shaking his head. "Right now, I'm concerned about Miss Persephone Elizabeth Ceres' health. It's what we're both here for, after all. Perhaps we can root out the issue at hand together." "The issue at hand..." Persephone chuckled, shaking her head with a light flounce of her mane. "I've lived twenty-four long years on this stinkin' planet, and still that bothers me to no end." "What? Issues?" "No... hands..." She grunted. "And the off-the-cuff expressions people have that reference hands." Dr. Sharp merely raised an eyebrow. At last, Persephone turned towards him, absorbing his puzzled expression. She sighed and swiveled about. "You know what? Enough beating around the bush with this whole therapy business. After all, this isn't my first rodeo. Erm..." She blushed. "No pun intended." "Pun... Miss Ceres?" He folded his arms, giving her a quizzical glance. "I'm afraid I don't understand." "Heh. No, you wouldn't, would you?" Persephone gulped hard. "Ahem..." At last, her body stopped trembling, and she glanced up with vulnerable eyes. "Uhm, Doc? I'm a tiny colorful horse, and nobody seems to notice it but me." Dr. Sharp was silent. "Well... I-I mean... my roommates do... or one of them does." She smiled slightly, but the gesture was passing. "But that's only because I've asked her to, and over the years... she's been a nice person about it. The nicest person. The only one..." Her gaze fell to the floor. "But every other damn person on this planet—from the people I work with to the strangers I run into and even to the people I call 'family'..." She winced. "They... they just don't get it. Only I do. I'm... just... not... one of them..." She looked up with darting eyes. "I'm not. I'm... this... little itty bitty horse thingy. With... y'know..." She waved her forelimbs in front of her. "With hooves and fetlocks and fuzzy ears and a tail. The whole nine yards. And some days are harder than others—cuz I just get sick of people pretending like I'm not different... like I'm not me. And... and it drives me absolutely batty at times." She bit her lip. "Because I've come to believe that they're not really pretending, and that it's all in my head... s-somehow." Dr. Sharp slowly, calmly nodded. "And so..." He scooted forward on his wheeled chair. "Uhm... how long have you... been a horse?" Persephone looked up, lips quivering. "All my life."