Buggy and the Beast
I’m Gonna Miss Her
“What are you doing, you crazy bug?” hissed Beet Salad, taking a quick glance over his shoulder in expectation of seeing a battalion of Night Guards carrying nets and tranquilizing darts. Fortunately, the only other pony in the hallway was Nectarine, who was taking the sight of the disguised changeling in the middle of Beet Salad’s apartment as something which was going to require a great deal of study to come up with the perfect pickup line.
“Shampooing the carpet,” replied Sultry Breeze, or whatever the changeling’s real name was. Beets was suspecting it was probably something like Aggravation or Pure Frustration.
“You have to get out of here! Now!” he hissed, darting inside and grabbing the disguised changeling. “Do you have any bits? Do you need money for a train ticket? Do you need to pack any—”
Beet Salad’s frantic babbling was cut off when Sultry kissed him full on the lips in a long, fierce pressing together which was only interrupted when Nectarine cleared his throat while standing in the doorway.
“Do you two need a little privacy? Or company?”
The frustrated pegasus blushed bright pink and gestured to Nectarine. “Sorry, Beets. I got carried away. Come on in, Nek.”
“I thought you were gone,” said Beets once he had gotten his breath back. “You said you were leaving. You have to leave.”
“I know.” Sultry’s voice was just one small fraction away from a whine and she took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “I couldn’t let go. I had to see you one more time before I left, even if it meant getting caught. I know it’s stupid and dumb and—”
Beets kissed her again, very gently this time. “It’s not that stupid. I don’t even think Roquefort is going to bring a full forensic team complete with dogs and the mobile crime lab. He just wants to make sure with his own eyes that we’re not running some sort of hive full of changeling cocoons here, or a whole room full of eggs or something. He’s still going to want to talk to you for as long as he can, so he can collect as much information on changelings as possible, and he may even try to detain you on some trumped-up charge for a week or twelve, but it’s only because he cares.”
“I care too.” The disguised changeling winced and looked away. “It’s not supposed to happen. It never happened before.”
“Same here,” said Beets. This time he swept the smaller ‘pegasus’ up into a gentle hug and just held her for a while as Nectarine discreetly looked away. “Now come on,” he added once the hug had gone on for a long, long time. “You need to get going and… Who is knocking on my door now?”
The soft rapping against the apartment door repeated and Beets looked back and forth between the door and the changeling. “Try changing into Missus Spitonoikokýris,” he hissed. “Maybe you can slip out while Roquefort is searching.”
A sharp hiss of green magic later, Beets opened up the door, only to find another Missus Spitonoikokýris standing outside, peering at him through thick glasses. “Mister Salad,” started the ‘griffon’ in Idiosyncracy’s clipped tones while breathing heavily, “It is imperative— What!”
With a sharp tug of magic, Beets pulled the changeling inside and slammed the door. It was Nectarine’s turn to look back and forth between the two ‘griffons’ this time, and he sniffed the air once as a broad smile leapt onto his face.
“Beets, you dog! Two of them? I underestimated you.”
Beet Salad pointed at the two ‘griffons.’ “She’s married and she’s leaving. Sultry, you have to go now.”
There was another flare of green magic from Idiosyncrasy this time and the glasses-wearing changeling shifted forms into her nondescript unicorn disguise again. She took a few deep breaths and nodded. “I’ll take her with me, Mister Salad. We don’t have much time. Your Royal Guard friend dropped by right at the end of Princess Luna’s session this morning. They were still talking back at the office when I left.”
“You don’t have to leave,” snapped Beets. “You’ve got a husband and a life here, and the guards don’t know about you. Sultry’s the one who needs to get out of town.”
“I can’t take the chance,” said Idiosyncrasy. “It could do a lot of damage to Princess Luna’s reputation if my relationship to her were to leak out to the public.” The psychologist’s sharp gaze snapped over to Nectarine, who managed to blurt out his instinctual reaction before she could react.
“You’re banging the Princess? You lucky bug!”
Beet Salad spared enough time for a quick hoof-plant to the forehead. “Her professional relationship, Nek. Not in that way,” he added. “Look, Miss Idiosyncrasy. Go home to your husband. You trust him with your secret, and you can trust my idiot friend, so why can’t you trust an Equestrian Princess?”
He paused again when a sharp knocking at his apartment door sounded through the room. Two ponies and two changelings considered the closed door before Beets trudged over. “Sergeant Roquefort, did you bring a warrant this time?” he called out through the door.
“Not… exactly,” sounded Roquefort from the other side. “Look, it’s a complicated situation. Just open the door.”
“You have a complicated situation?” muttered Beet Salad in exasperation. “How much more complicated can it get than a double-bug infestation? No offense intended, ladies,” he added with a scowl at the two changelings.
“You might as well open the door,” said Sultry, clicking the beak of her griffon disguise. “He’s just going to sit out there until you do. I’m sensing a lot of stubborn determination, and it isn’t all coming from you or your flirting friend.”
Doctor Idiosyncrasy lifted an eyebrow fractionally and nodded. “The emotion is heavily suppressed, but I doubt waiting him out is an option.” She paused and glanced towards the door. “It seems strangely familiar, though.”
Despite his better judgement, Beets opened the door and looked out into the crowded hallway. If Sergeant Roquefort was out there somewhere, he was behind three other ponies, or at least creatures who looked like ponies, if Beets were stupid enough to fall for another changeling trick. The probability that Princess Cadence, Prince Shining Armor and Princess Luna of all ponies, would all be standing outside his apartment door ranked right up there with winning the lottery twice in a row without buying tickets.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding,” snapped Beets with a short huff of anger while glaring up at the tallest of the changelings. “More changelings? What, is my apartment the crazy train station now for your migration home?”
The tall changeling in the disguise of Princess Luna seemed set back at his attitude and actually retreated a step before responding. “Beg pardon, but is this the residence of a Mister Beet Salad?”
“No, it’s the bucking bug Highway to Hades,” snapped Beets. “Look, the real Roquefort will be here any minute. Take Sultry here and fly home to your hive. I’ll distract him or something. Shards, maybe I’ll even play the guitar for him.”
“Oh.” The tall changeling with the waving mane seemed more amused than concerned. “Thou thinkst we are changelings?”
“Well, duh!” Beets reached behind him with his magic and grabbed onto Sultry’s tail, pulling her towards the apartment doorway and her convoy of fellow bugs out in the hallway for the trip home. “You bugs picked a damned poor time to drop by, too. The real Royal Guard will be by here in a few minutes, so you need to take—” Beets heaved on his magic and dragged the struggling ‘griffon’ closer to the door “—my stubborn little houseguest back home now.”
“What if I don’t want to go?” asked Sultry, planting all four hooves and switching to her pegasus disguise in a blaze of green fire. “What if I want to stay, you moron!”
“You’ll get hurt,” snapped Beets, still keeping his magic around her tail and pulling her towards the door. “Ponies have gone all kinds of squirrely about changelings lately. Maybe when things calm down and we both get our heads on straight, you can come back for a little bit, but now you have to go!”
“My head is on straight!” argued Sultry, spreading her wings in the doorway and sticking there like a burr even after Beets pulled on her tail with his magic.
“Tell her, Doc,” grunted Beets while attempting to push the reluctant changeling out of the doorway without getting in reach of her flailing hooves.
Idiosyncrasy coughed once in a discreet fashion indicating that she was not really needing to cough, but only using the action as an attention attractant. “Mister Beet Salad is correct on several points, and incorrect on others,” she said from behind Beets. “Primarily, both of you currently do not have the correct mindset to engage in any kind of personal relationship. Miss Breeze is still exhibiting signs of severe mental stress from her recent near-fatal accident and involuntary cocooning, while Mister Salad has undoubtedly been exposed to far more changes in his mental state than he has been able to cope with. These are both long-term issues you need to deal with. There is something far more important we all must deal with in the short term. It is time for the truth.”
Idiosyncrasy flared with green light again and returned to her natural changeling form. She bent her head and carefully knelt down on Beet Salad’s stained carpet, pointing her head towards the doorway and bending down until her chitinous chin was flat against the last greenish stains of changeling goo which had resisted the carpet shampooer. Only when she was in place, did she speak again.
“Please, we beg your forgiveness, Your Highness, Princess Luna. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Prince Shining Armor. We did not mean harm.”
Beets looked back out into the hallway at the three ‘Royals’ with a scowl. “Pull on the other one. It has bells on it.” Still, there was just enough uncertainty in him to light his horn with the first changeling detection spell and look out into the hallway again, feeling his heart drop out of his chest to splatter on the carpeted floor at what it revealed.
Those aren’t disguises.
Both Shining Armor and Cadence had a light green dusting of changeling magic across their coats, mostly faded away into nothingness but still visible in streaks and blotches which would probably be visible for months before vanishing totally. Luna, and there was no mistaking the Princess of the Night now, had a somewhat different pattern of magical changeling residue splattered across her legs and chest, with a greenness to her long horn that Beets was afraid had been caused by changeling impalement instead of something less unsettling to his suddenly unsettled stomach.
Princess Luna took a single step forward, and Sultry moved backwards so fast she was a blue blur to Beet Salad’s vision. In less time than it took to blink, she had taken cover behind Beets and was using his body as a shield from the divine vengeance she was obviously expecting to follow.
“Miss Sultry Breeze.” Princess Luna remained in the doorway much like a cosmic cork in Beet Salad’s mostly-concrete-with-no-back-door apartment. “As Miss Idiosyncrasy hath said, the time for deception is over. Reveal thyself, and I assure you, no harm shall come to your kind if you remain peaceful.”
Beets could feel the scorching cold fire of a changeling transformation across his tail when shimmers of green light reflected in Princess Luna’s eyes, but he could not look behind him to see the changeling’s transformation without taking his eyes off of the moon princess. Those dark eyes held him captive, as a goddess descended from the sky to rule over the star-strewn expanse which he walked through on a nightly basis. He had never actually been this close to a real princess before, excepting Princess Cadence, of course. The Princess of Love did not carry nearly the same level of divine grace and power as Luna, who met his eyes with a intense gaze of her own which brought a chill down his flanks and a sharp pain in his leg.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed when the changeling behind him kicked one rear ankle so sharply he almost stumbled. “Stop!”
The elegant dark princess lifted one eyebrow and looked down at him. “Stop, changeling? Your companions have dropped their disguises. It is time you joined them.”
With a sudden realization that his coat had enough changeling magic in it to make him glow like a torch in the changeling detection spell, Beet Salad tried to say something, but he was too late. Princess Luna lit her horn with the second changeling-related spell, and Beets winced when the wave of magic swept over him. Fortunately, the empty tooth sockets in his jaw had healed enough to just give a sharp twinge when the spell touched them, but it still stung all over his coat worse than the time Nectarine had convinced him to do a belly flop off the high dive board. For just one long frozen moment, Beets thought about grabbing a chair out of his apartment and returning the favor to Luna, but the changeling behind him promptly kicked him in the ankle again.
“Ow! Will you stop that?”
The look of consternation on Princess Luna’s face was priceless, but somehow bothersome to Beets, and he quickly added, “Not you, Your Highness. My… Um…” He decided to just jab a hoof over his shoulder at the nearby changeling instead of trying to explain their relationship. “Her.”
“Ah.” Princess Luna appeared unperturbed at the two changelings inside the apartment and the scowling unicorn blocking her path. “My apologies. I do not believe we should converse on this topic in public. Might we step inside thy residence to discuss this further?”
“What if I say no?” asked Beets, feeling more than slightly petty about being forcefully purged of any potential changeling disguises.
“Then I shall ask again,” said Princess Luna with just the smallest hint of an infectious smile that mirrored Beet Salad’s own involuntary lifting of the corners of his lips and a suspiciously impish sparkle to her eyes as the tension lifted slightly.
“I suppose. But only if you say ‘Pretty please,’” said Beets before he could stop himself. “I sort-of promised your guard that I wouldn't… um… Ow!” Beets glared behind himself before shuffling off to one side. “I mean, please come inside.”
It took considerable effort to remain silent while Beets stood to one side of the doorway, watching the parade of His and Her Highnesses walk in. Sultry headed straight for the kitchen to despair at the lack of appropriate dining ware, food, and drinks for their unexpected guests, while Idiosyncrasy made herself useful by grabbing cushions and pillows, distributing them around the faded green stain over most of the living room carpet. And Nectarine, of course, stood staring at Princess Luna with the same eager anticipatory expression he had every birthday right before the cake was served.
His apartment had never felt so small before, and Beets managed to quickly close the door on Roquefort’s nose before the guard could follow his royal charges in. It did not stop any criticism, however, because he still had to deal with the hissed complaints of “Why did you buy generic white tea?” and “These olives are large, not jumbo!” from Sultry while she rummaged through his kitchen in search of a royal repast.
“So,” started Beet Salad, looking at his royal guests arranging themselves in a circle in his small living room. Further words escaped him. They did not escape the changeling psychologist, though.
“Mister Salad, if you will please be seated there.” The short-horned changeling with the thick glasses pointed at one of his bedroom pillows, currently repurposed. “And if your friend will be seated—”
“I love your mane!” blurted out Nectarine, still staring in rapt fascination at Princess Luna. “Are you single?”
Dead silence filled the room.
“Just a moment, Princess Luna,” said Beets, lighting his magic and towing his friend back into the apartment’s small bathroom. There was a small amount of noise involving the shower curtain in the bathroom and Cadence’s subdued snickering in the living room before the shower turned on full-force and Nectarine’s anguished howl emerged.
“BEETS! That’s freezing! Turn it off! Turn it off!!”
Beet Salad strolled back out into his living room and regarded his royal guests. “Sorry, Princess Luna. Nek only has two brain cells.”
“Sit. Right there,” directed Idiosyncrasy, who had switched back to her earth pony disguise while Beets was in the bathroom. It seemed to make both princesses more comfortable and Shining Armor more uncomfortable, leading Beets to believe that perhaps the changeling psychologist’s secret identity had been less than she had expected, but still kept from the traumatized prince. The relieved glance from Shining Armor indicated a certain camaraderie with a fellow unicorn stallion in a room full of females, although Beets got the distinct impression he would be far more comfortable if the two of them could just go out and get hammered at a bar while waiting for the results of whatever the females of both species were plotting.
The discussion flowed fairly rapidly, mostly focused on the repercussions of the wedding and the rather indeterminate state of conflict between ponies and changelings. No real resolution of the ongoing dispute was possible with the limited representation from the changelings, so in the end they agreed to disagree, with both of the Baltimare changelings being declared to have been sufficiently alibied from the invasion by way of distance. It still felt a little to Beets as if ponies were negotiating with grass over the amount of nibbling to be tolerated, but then again, his head had been turned inside-out over the last few weeks and he was admittedly not thinking straight.
If he was uncomfortable with the discussion, Sultry seemed almost in pain whenever she got close to the conversation. She flittered back and forth between the princesses and the stove while Beets tried to consider just what kind of magical furnaces burned in alicorns to chew through that amount of food almost casually while talking. Even when Nectarine slunk out of the bathroom with a damp towel wrapped around his mane and a suspiciously-theatrical shiver, the changeling avoided him as if he were a light and she was a cockroach. It took until both princesses and the psychologist convinced Sultry to sit down in their discussion circle before she settled down, and the conversation turned into a group therapy session.
And they talked. Oh, they talked. The changelings and the princesses took the monopoly on conversation to an extreme, with Beets, Nectarine, and Shining Armor turned into spectators for the most part. Hours flowed by, and Beets learned more about the office politics of the Baltimare City Hall than he had wanted to know, ever, as well as getting a peek inside Sultry’s head while she talked about the ways everypony she had ever known had eventually turned on her. It had become a long-standing pattern for her. She would strike up an association with a pony, it would continue for a while, and when they betrayed her trust, she would already be on the way to her next victim/associate/target with whatever love she had stolen during the process.
Her story was disturbing, much as Beets had expected, only with more tears. It was also intensely personal to Beets, as he tried his best to downplay what the changeling insisted were positive character traits of his. To his acute embarrassment, the changeling admitted both to her early attempt to end her own life as well as Beet Salad’s determination to prevent it, going as far as to risk his own life to be with her during her emergence from her cocoon. It actually seemed to strike Nectarine the hardest, because he seemed guilty about not having been enough of a friend to stand by Beets during his ordeal, but Luna became suspiciously immobile during that part of the discussion.
By the end, there was one certain conclusion to be drawn from the discussion/therapy session: ‘Sultry Breeze’ had to leave Baltimare. She might be able to stay for a few more days while closing out her bank account and tying up any loose ends, but the longer she remained in the city while in her current mental state, the more probable it was that she or somepony else would do something stupid, and the wave of changeling panic which had just begun to die down would get stirred up all over again. Ponies would get hurt, and not just from embarrassing internal burns.
Beets knew one pony who had already been broken beyond repair.
He got his chance to talk privately with Idiosyncrasy when the group psychology session broke for lunch. Rather than venture out into the city with all of the chaos that went along with one princess, let alone two of them, Sultry volunteered to run an order over to the pizza place that Beets frequented. She scribbled down all of their preferences for toppings and Princess Luna passed along a chubby bag of bits before the ‘pegasus’ took off to retrieve fuel for the ongoing discussion.
With only one small bathroom for two large mares, there was quite a bit of uncomfortable standing-around involved while waiting for lunch. Although the apartment across the hall was vacant and undergoing renovations, the situation was not quite dire enough for Beets to go asking Missus Spitonoikokýris for a key or anything like that, although he wondered just what the guards he had caught a glimpse of outside did during their guarding when they needed to use the loo.
The changeling psychologist had maintained her familiar earth pony disguise throughout the counseling session and Beets suspected the billing which the Port Authority received would result in him receiving more than one visit from Corporate inquiring just how he had managed to get a home visit from a doctor, let alone one who was accompanied by two princesses. It would be embarrassing, but Beets had gotten accustomed to a level of embarrassment which would have boggled his mind a few scant weeks ago.
That was probably the reason why he was able to ask Idiosyncracy the question which he had not wanted to verbalize under any conditions.
“I’m a screwed-up mess, aren’t I, Doc?” Beets hung his head and looked down at the green-tinged carpet while trying not to listen to Nectarine and Shining Armor doing dishes or Princess Cadence tapping on the bathroom door and encouraging Luna to greater speed.
“With all we have gone through, Mister Salad, could you please just call me Id?” Beets looked up quickly enough to catch the twinkle in the disguised changeling’s eyes, which were the exact shade of Sultry Breeze’s disguise at the moment.
“Doctor, I think I would prefer for us to keep things on a professional level,” said Beets. “After all, I’m going to be seeing you for sessions every week until my lopsided noggin levels out, and if your husband still plans on fixing my nose, I would prefer him not to turn it into a beak or something.”
The disguised changeling sucked on her bottom lip for a moment before responding. “True. As you wish, I’ll keep our contacts professional while you’re under my care. I’m just grateful we are able to even have those sessions.”
It turned out one of the side-effects of Idiosyncrasy’s weak magic was a corresponding weakness in her susceptibility to the changeling detection spell. Although she still showed up, her aura was weak enough to be explained away as a ‘false positive’ artifact of the spell, particularly with a signed statement given to the Royal Guard by Luna which in effect put her Royal Hoof firmly down on any overzealous enforcement actions against her trusted physician.
Sergeant Roquefort had been crushed by the news, until Princess Luna had commended him for his diligence and permitted him to kiss the same Royal Hoof which had been placed down upon his interrogation plans. He wound up looking nearly as blissfully blitzed as Nectarine, who had actually somehow managed to wheedle a kiss on the cheek out of the Lunar Princess.
Personally, Beets thought it might do Roquefort some good to be alone in a room with the psychologist, because even if their discussion started as an interrogation, just as certain as the sunrise, it would eventually transition into the guard confessing his longtime fear of daylilies and an expressed concern about his mother not loving him as much as the rest of his siblings.
As the Dance of the Bathroom continued, Beets found himself in the living room again with Prince Shining Armor, who was somewhat conflicted about how the day was going, as well as lunch. He looked in all directions and lowered his voice, trying to keep the two alicorns in the kitchenette from overhearing while asking, “Mister Salad, how long have you known Idiosyncrasy was a changeling?”
While he considered his answer, there was a sharp knocking on Beet Salad’s apartment door, followed by a young griffon hen who looked inside with a loud call of, “Who ordered pizza?” Nectarine nearly got trampled when the two princesses claimed the stack of hot cardboard boxes and carried them off to the kitchenette for the unnecessary addition of plates and napkins to the pizza consumption process. By the time the unicorn stallions had claimed their own slices of pizza and gotten situated back out in the living room, the answer to his question was clear.
“Doctor Idiosyncrasy confirmed my suspicions on my first visit,” said Beets, feeling somewhat superior for a few moments. “I was deeply impressed by her dedication and concern, and I’ll have you know that I consider anything which I have told her in confidence will be kept private, and not scattered around.”
“So you say.” Shining Armor chewed his way through his slice of mushroom and eggplant pizza with the speed of somepony who had learned to eat fast before the rest of the food vanished, but he stopped at the end of the slice to add, “You really trust her?”
“You trusted her before you found out she was a changeling,” pointed out Beets with a wave of his own cheese and mushroom slice. “Luna knew. I’ll bet Cadence knew. Trust merely means you have a fairly good idea of what somepony else is doing, and it is not based on simple physical similarities. For example.” Beet Salad nodded his head backwards at the front door. “Most of Luna’s Nocturne are fiscally responsible. I love Nek like a brother and trust him with everything, but I wouldn’t trust him with ten bits loose change. Right now, I’ll bet he’s chatting up the delivery griffon, and in about ten minutes, he’ll try to hit me up for twenty bits to take her out for a date. I don’t have to see it to know it is going to happen.”
“I thought she was your bugfriend, in a different disguise,” said Shining Armor, looking in the direction of the apartment door with a brief flash of green light from his horn. “Oh, I guess not.”
“It’s Missus Spitonoikokýris’ granddaughter. She works at the pizzeria, so we get a discount,” explained Beets. “Look, just because one bug screwed around with your brain doesn’t mean there aren’t a few of them with some morals.”
“You’re one to talk,” grumbled Shining Armor. “Your little bug buddy screwed around in your head too.”
“She could have sucked me dry and left me dead right where you’re standing,” said Beets in a very controlled low voice. “I don’t know if I trusted her or if I just didn’t care, but I’m alive, she’s alive, and it’s a new day.”
“I had a sergeant in training who said if you string enough of those days together, you get a life,” said Shining Armor, although with a little bit of distraction in his voice while peering at something happening by Beet Salad’s front door.
“Kissing?” asked Beets while intentionally not looking over his shoulder at Nectarine’s second-favorite hobby.
“Yeah.” Shining Armor quit staring and took another bite of pizza, although he continued to cast occasional brief glances at the ongoing makeout session. “That is so wrong.”
“Just because they’re different species?” Beets shrugged and finished off his first slice of pizza. “Welcome to my world. Such as it was.”
“Was?” Shining Armor looked around the living room with a frown. “Where’s your changeling?”
Beet Salad closed his eyes and took a deep breath before letting it back out slowly, trying not to shudder or show tears in front of his fellow stallion. Something deep inside his heart cried out for release in a plaintive voice which had been ignored for far too long. It was the sound of a young colt with everything taken away from his life except himself, a colt who had clung onto those memories as if they were the only good things in his life he would ever know. He had built a shell around his heart to hold his fleeting happiness inside, a walled fortress to keep the world away while he withered away in silence amidst his fading memories. Now the walls had fallen and the gates were breached, but the invader had retreated to her own wrecked castle, far, far away.
For the longest time, Beets had thought his life would be over if he ever emerged back into the world. He was wrong, and so right at the same time. He took a bite of the second slice of pizza to smother the incipient tears, following it up with a long, long drink of warm white tea in an attempt to drown his regret too. As much as he did not want to hear the words, he had to say them in order to let go, or the whole cycle of pain would start all over again.
“I knew it from the minute she volunteered to get the pizza. She’s not coming back.”
~ ~ ~ ♥ ~ ~ ~
He knew there was a note somewhere. It cast a shadow across the bright and cheery day outside even after all of his guests had left and Beets was pacing around the empty apartment. She had been an annoying pest, but Beets had gotten to know the changeling as much as anypony could, most probably. There was no way Sultry could leave without some little fragment of paper left behind to shred his wounded heart into ribbons. A sense of dread squeezed at his chest every time he spotted some innocent little corner of white paper sticking out of some hidden niche, and the constant discovery of bits of trash while he was picking up never let that crushing constriction relent, not even for a moment.
After a shower and quick tooth-brushing, followed by a careful and extensive use of his toothbrush in a fashion which any dentist would approve, Beets trudged out into his living room and pulled down the Murphy bed for a few hours rest before work tonight.
He was just winding his alarm clock when he found it.
There were chores left undone, so Beets shoved the note back under the clock and got up. He trudged around the apartment, collecting the last of the trash and taking it out to the building dumpster, then returned to the kitchenette sink to scrub away some imaginary stains. He was halfway through reorganizing the tattered remains of his depleted icebox when he abruptly stood up, slammed the icebox door, and tromped back over to his bed to open the note.
Beets,
I can’t stay. You don’t know how close I was to sucking every scrap of your love out and leaving you a worthless wreck. It may not have killed you, but it would have killed me. Find somepony else, like Spivy’s granddaughter. She’s young, single, and pony tolerant. I’m never coming back. I’ll send you the money I borrowed when I get a chance, but you’ll never see me again.I owe you one. Goodbye forever.
P.S. Burn this note. And take out the trash before it attracts roaches.
He read it twice, then carefully folded the paper back up and considered the small, white square before lighting up his horn. It took a few minutes with a pencil to draw her face on the back of the paper, her pony face, that is. Then he picked up the photograph of his family and slipped the paper inside, tucked to one side where it did not block any of the rest of the faces. The picture went back on his bedstand, the alarm clock was checked again, and Beets flopped back down on his bed after his magic turned off the light.
“Liar,” he muttered.
And faded away into dreamless slumber.