//------------------------------// // Disinterest // Story: Mad and Markless // by Discorded SheepcityUSA //------------------------------// “So indeed while we all have different talents, different ways of looking at life and so on, ponies everywhere are still able to embrace their differences and come together to all be friends and….” Twilight stopped mid-friendship lecture to look at Starlight, whose eyes were half lidded and didn’t bother to look up at the group of ponies before her. Instead it looked like Starlight had taken more interest in building up a house of cards with her magic to a rather impressive height. Even then though, she still looked pretty bored and unenthusiastic. “…Starlight are you even paying attention?” Twilight asked. “Yeah yeah just keep going, I got it.” she mumbled almost inaudibly as she used her magic to place another card at the top of her ever-growing tower. Truthfully she’d barely retained anything that Twilight had told her over the last few minutes in favor of this. It was certainly more interesting than listening to Twilight go on about embracing individuality and differences and all that nonsense. All she was really getting from this was ‘some ponies are just going to be more important than others, get over it.’ She wouldn’t accept that. “Ya know, you’re makin’ this awfully difficult. If ya didn’t wanna listen to us, why’re ya even here?” Applejack asked, clearly annoyed at Starlight’s seemingly uncaring behavior. Starlight was about to continue her house of cards endeavor but stopped to answer Applejack’s question, expression not really changing all that much. “Be honest, you’re good at that. Where else was I going to go? I don’t exactly trust that you’d keep my past crimes a secret from Equestria. Sooner or later, someone would recognize me, and inevitably someone would kill me. It’d be in my better interest to stay here and let you try all you feel like to change my ways. Nopony said I had to listen.” Starlight replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Sooooo we’re trying to reform you and it’s just not sinking in by choice soooo…aren’t you just freeloading at this point then?” Rainbow asked. “Call it whatever you want, but I’m just going to say you’ve got your agenda right now, and I’ve got mine. I’m only saying this because I don’t have any reason to lie.” Starlight responded, about to put the final pieces atop her house of cards to where the entire thing ends at a point. Before she got the chance to steady the structure though, the door to the room swung open sending a gust of air right into Starlight’s house of cards and completely toppling it. Starlight, now completely stunned, looked down at the fallen cards in disbelief and then back up only to see she was still holding the final two. Now having a very bemused expression on her face, she took a deep and aggravated breath and let the cards flutter back onto the map table. “I really do hate my life sometimes.” She grumbled. The one who’d entered the room was a very panicked-looking purple dragon, frantically waving his arms. “T-TWILIGHT! GIRLS! T-Th-Th” Spike stumbled over his words while pointing to the outside of the door, followed by unintelligible gibberish. Fluttershy tried patting the young drake’s back to calm him down. “Shhh shhh, use your words Spike” she cooed. “Spike, what is it? Why’re you so worked up?” Twilight asked her assistant. It wasn’t uncommon for Spike to have an occasional freakout, but lately he’d been keeping them pretty few and far in between. Even then she hadn’t seen him this frantic since the events of chasing down Starlight through time. Spike breathed in and out to calm himself, along with the back pats from Fluttershy. “O-Okay so I went to my usual spot at the lake to take a breather a-and I see this homeless pony over there. He was practically just skin and bones so I gave him a donut and we started to chat it up. A-A while into it though I saw the guy...h-had one of those equality marks you told me about.” Spike nearly mumbled the last part, though not enough where no one could hear. Rarity put her hooves over her mouth and let out a shocked gasp. “O-Oh my goodness! You mean, he didn’t have his real Cutie Mark?” Spike shook his head. “Unless his special talent is math and he just hasn’t realized it, yeah his mark’s gone.” Immediately after Spike had finished his addressing of the situation he’d uncovered, all eyes fell on Starlight, who could feel the six mare’s stares weighing down on her. “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t taken anypony else’s Cutie Mark since I was forced out of my village.” Twilight narrowed her eyes a little bit. “And how do we know you’re not just lying to us again?” Starlight scoffed at her question. “I already told you I don’t have anything to gain from lying. At this point I doubt you’d believe a word that comes out of my mouth. But the fact is that my hooves are clean here.” Normally Applejack could be able to tell quite well if a pony was truthful or not. It was in her nature to be able to do so. However since this was Starlight they were talking about, and given the facts presented about the pony Spike described, she couldn’t tell completely. “…Spike, did ya at least get the pony’s name?” she asked. Spike nodded. “He said his name was Laughingstock. Though with a name like that he sure didn’t seem like the type to mess around.” Starlight’s ears twitched a little when she heard that name pass Spike’s lips, and her eyes widened greatly in size. “…Well…it turns out I may not be as innocent as I thought I was in the case of the missing mark.” “S-So wait. You DID take this pony’s mark?” Fluttershy asked very nervously. She wasn’t a fan of the idea of putting one of the most unstable ponies she knew on the spot, but it had to be done. Starlight let a slightly aggravated sigh escape her mouth. “Yes. But I still stand by the fact that I haven’t committed those acts RECENTLY. Laughingstock was in my care during a time where I wasn’t as…refined when it came to my conditioning-“ “You mean brainwashing.” Rainbow blurted out. “Don’t interrupt me, it’s fucking rude.” Starlight growled a little. “Anyway, that stallion was one of the first few to get my unmarking treatment. My methods of convincing others to join me were not as effective when I first started. I hadn’t developed a nearly 100% success rate method of doing so yet. He was VERY resistant. So much that he decided he wanted to escape, which somehow managed to do. Must’ve known he was outmatched because he didn’t even look back to go for his mark.” Starlight explained, seeming to do so half-heartedly. Talking about her failures was always something she was never fond of doing. It felt all too similar to the notion of undermining what magical skill she had. But it was her early years, what else was there to say? The ponies before Starlight’s were all in a state of disbelief as shown very obviously for the bewildered expressions they all wore. “Starlight….that pony’s been out and about in Equestria, drained of his special talent, and according to Spike he was homeless and horrible-looking. Do you know how hard it can be out there for a full grown pony with no Cutie Mark?” Twilight asked. As partially expected, Starlight just dismissed her question. “Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I do. Which is why I wanted him to just stay with me after he was de-marked. In my society, that would NEVER have been a problem for him. But no, he just had to go and play rebel and escape. Now he’s paying the price for his own stupidity.” Before any of the ponies could counter-argue with her, Starlight received her own reply from a new voice that she recognized for sure, and not in a good way. “Oh of course she knows what it’s like. She just doesn’t give a shit.” Everypony jolted at the sound of the new voice, which came from none other than Laughingstock himself who was now standing in the doorway of the room. Spike of course, took this with the most surprise. “U-Um h-hey um…I didn’t tell you to follow me.” he stuttered nervously. “You expect any different after you run away from me, screaming like a maniac just from seeing my flank?” He replied with a sarcastic eye roll. “But it doesn’t matter, I’ve got something else to deal with now.” Laughingstock quickly approached Starlight, who was now standing up to meet him at eye level, and both of them were now glaring intensely at each other. “…How’s life been treating you, traitor?” she growled. “Shitty. But at least you’re looking awful comfy for a criminal, bitch.” He shot back with an ever-deepening scowl. Twilight quickly got in between the two of them, hoping it would at least keep them from coming to blows. Because if it did come down to it, the facts where that Starlight would physically destroy Laughingstock. “So um….you must be Laughingstock. We were just talking about you. I’m sure you know who WE are.” Still not hiding his anger, the dark red pony didn’t take his eyes off of Starlight but still gave Twilight his answer. “Exactly, no need to waste my time with introductions, Princess. Though since you ARE royalty, maybe you’ll be able to answer the question of why this lying monster isn’t locked up?” he growled. The ponies all flinched at the blatantness of Laughingstock’s question. Of course they’d experienced that Starlight was not a pleasant pony, but they’d never heard anyone call her a straight up monster until now. “Gracious, do you maybe think that’s taking things just a little far?” Rarity asked. “What, you expect me to be nice to the pony that ruined my life? I honestly don’t care to know if you see anything in her because from where I’M standing, calling her a cunt to the tenth degree is being subtle.” Laughingstock replied coldly. “Ooooh you are really pushing it.” Starlight growled, looking fully ready to fire magic from her horn at him at any given moment. “Okay everyone calm down, now!” Twilight raised her voice to a loud level. “Laughingstock, I’ll answer any questions you have as long as you answer mine. But neither of you are going to hurt each other, am I clear?!” Both the Pegasus and the unicorn looked at Twilight with slightly widened eyes, and then back at each other, both now giving the “I’ll deal with you soon enough” look. “…I don’t promise anything, but I’ll answer whatever you want.” He replied. “Disobedient and stupid as usual, looks like that hasn’t changed.” Starlight grumbled under her breath. Twilight put a hoof to her own chest and took in a breath of air before letting it out. Thank Celestia for Cadance’s breathing techniques or else she might’ve completely lost her mind about now. “Very well. Now can you tell me what exactly it is that happened between yourself and Starlight?” she asked. “I’d LOVE to.” he said raising his voice a bit and putting emphasis on his answer. “And you listen real good yourself, bitchlight Glimmer. I want you to know every last detail of what you fucking did to me.” “Name calling will not get you anywhere, Laughingstock.” She replied with a cold tone of voice. Ignoring his nemesis, Laughingstock deeply sighed and began to speak. “Everything started in Las Pegasus….”