The Week From Hell Pt 2
Wednesday
After spending the rest of tuesday in the morgue, trying to do as much work as he could before having to go help the girls with their clubhouse, Marjoram had collapsed into bed after almost forty-eight hours of wakefulness and fell asleep.
Wednesday morning, Twilight woke Marjoram up, gave him a sack of bits, his saddlebags, and practically pushed him out the door, her brow drawn in concern and worry. Marjoram wanted to ask what was with the rush, but his brain was still foggy with sleep by the time Twilight had shut the library door.
In spite of himself, Marjoram was hurt at Twilight’s attitude. Did she not forgive him for an honest accident? Did she simply want the whole mess over and done with?
Plodding down the road, Marjoram tried to ignore the stares and sudden hush that seemed to follow his appearance near other ponies. Marjoram grit his teeth and pressed onward, out of town. If he could get the girls’ support, the rest of Ponyville’s population would follow, hopefully.
By the time Marjoram had reached Sweet Apple Acres, his head ached from his lack of caffeine, and he was more awake than he had been when Twilight had shoved him out the door. He saw Applejack outside the house, and he couldn’t help but feel mildly intimidated. That mare could be scary when she wanted to be, her attitude becoming more like Rainbow Dash’s if provoked.
Marjoram didn’t want to hurt Twilight, so he would do his best to keep his snarkiness in check. Though that would be a tall order if Marjoram didn’t get his hooves on something heavily caffeinated soon.
Applejack seemed more calm than she had been the day before, but Marjoram couldn’t be sure. He stared at her, blinking at the harsh sunlight that seemed intent on making the caffeine headache worse.
“Coffee?” Applejack asked bluntly.
“Please.”
Applejack beckoned for Marjoram to follow her into the house. Granny Smith and Big Mac weren’t present, but Apple Bloom and her friends were.
Applejack gestured for Marjoram to sit, and poured him a cup of coffee, “Alright girls, so, what do you want to do with the clubhouse?”
“Fix it,” Scootaloo replied dryly, “You leaned into a wall and it collapsed.”
“Well Apple Bloom here is mighty good at fixing things up and making them pretty,” Applejack smiled, pouring Marjoram another cup when he finished the first.
“So we need building supplies, paint…” Apple Bloom tapped her chin with a hoof, mouth pursed in thought, “Decorations, furniture…”
As the list grew, Marjoram began to wonder if it wouldn’t have been easier to simply give the girls a large amount of money and be done with it.
“So,” Sweetie Belle began, her voice shrill with uncertainty, “What can you help us with?”
Marjoram watched as four pairs of eyes swiveled to meet his gaze. Marjoram blinked, sighed, and found the bag of coins in his saddlebags. He plopped it onto the table, much to the surprise of the others.
“I’ll pay for everything. I can steady things with my magic and help in any ways you girls need.”
Apple Bloom nodded slowly, “Um...okay...How are we gonna do this?”
“Do what?” Applejack asked.
“We need to get the supplies, which we can carry with Scootaloo’s wagon,” Sweetie Belle explained, “And with...uhm,” Sweetie Belle looked to Apple Bloom, clearly unsure.
“Marjoram’s sick,” Scootaloo said bluntly, “and it’s a long way back into town.”
Marjoram shrugged, pushing the bag of bits over to the girls, “I trust you girls to spend this wisely. Just show me the treehouse, and I can get started with cleanup of the original structure.”
“Seriously?” Applejack looked amazed, “All that money?!”
“Yes,” Marjoram replied flatly, “I have no knowledge of building supplies and furniture. As far as I know it could cost a small fortune to make all this stuff work.”
Applejack shook her head, “It shouldn’t, really. This is too much.”
“No, it’s not enough,” Marjoram replied quietly. He shook his head, downing the last of his coffee, “Let’s go. Show me where the clubhouse is so I can get started.”
Applejack and Apple Bloom shared a look; and once Applejack nodded, the girls stood up and escorted Marjoram out of the house.
This is going to be a long morning. Marjoram had to bite back a groan.
Later
Marjoram stared up at the dilapidated building, little more than a shack, wondering where he was supposed to start. The girls had gone off into town to buy what they thought they needed while Marjoram was supposed to get started on cleanup.
Sighing, Marjoram took off his saddlebags, and began to feel around the edges of the building with his magic. The foundation seemed stable, though some boards were loose. Crumbling walls, a sagging roof, and the fact that one wall had collapsed into the room made Marjoram reluctant to approach the building.
Using his magic, Marjoram began to pull apart the wreckage, hoping with every iota of his being that the whole thing wouldn’t collapse around him.
(LINE BREAK)
When Scootaloo crested the final hill in front of the clubhouse, she was surprised to find a pile of discarded material waiting to be thrown away beside the remains of the clubhouse. Little much beyond the frame and foundation was left standing, though parts of it were missing.
Marjoram was sitting in some shade, eyes shut, his horn emitting a gross, blackish magic. There was a water puddle at his hooves, but he stopped doing whatever he was doing as the girls pulled up.
“How’d it go?” Marjoram asked.
“We still need more stuff,” Scootaloo replied flatly, watching with interest as the building materials floated out of her wagon and piled neatly beside Marjoram.
“I’m going to need a hoof getting everything started again-”
“Apple Bloom, you can build and paint. You can help while Sweetie and I get the rest of the stuff!”
Apple Bloom was pushed out of the wagon, and left to choke on dust as Scootaloo flapped her small wings and zoomed away. Apple Bloom took off her helmet and sighed, looking at Marjoram, then the clubhouse.
Marjoram sighed, “No point delaying. Let’s just get all of this done and over with.”
Apple Bloom nodded in agreement, “What do you need me to do?”
“I can hold things steady if you can hammer them into place,” Marjoram replied, hoofing over a hammer and a bucket of nails.
“I can do that,” Apple Bloom replied, taking the bucket and hammer into her mouth, “Big Ma’ ta’t me!”
Marjoram nodded, “Good. Because I don’t know how.”
Apple Bloom put the bucket down, “Really!?”
Marjoram shrugged, “I’m a historian, a mortician, a researcher. I am not a pony of labour, and I don’t desire to become one. I am not fond of physical labour, since I can’t do much with my illness. Anyway, we’ll start with the foundation. Get going.”
Apple Bloom nodded, picked up a few nails and the hammer, and positioned herself near the glowing beam. With Marjoram’s assistance, the foundation was stabilized and repaired, before they moved onto the frame of the clubhouse.
“So...how long have you been a mortician?” Apple Bloom asked suddenly.
“Since I was seventeen. I trained for a long time before that.”
“So...you saw,” Apple Bloom swallowed nervously, “stuff like we saw you doing since you were a colt?”
“No. I didn’t even see a body until I was much older than you three,” Marjoram replied, not meeting Apple Bloom’s gaze, “You shouldn’t have seen what you saw.”
A high-pitched, awkward chuckle escaped Apple Bloom, once she’d moved onto another board, “I think we learned to knock.”
Marjoram winced, and didn’t reply. Apple Bloom looked up from her work to see him looking pointedly at anything other than herself.
“I..uh, I don’t know if this helps, but I don’t really blame you. I know you feel bad about what happened.”
There was a beat of silence. And if Apple Bloom had begun to hammer the nail into place a second earlier, she would have missed Marjoram’s reply:
A very soft, heartfelt, “Thank you.”
(LINE BREAK)
Sweetie Belle was pleased with the decorations and furniture she and Scootaloo had picked out. Everything was relatively cheap, sturdy, and perfect for three small fillies.
Sweetie Belle had thought that Apple Bloom and Marjoram would have steadied the structure, and repaired rotted boards. She hadn’t expected them to have the walls up, floor down, and working on the roof.
Marjoram had a magical field under Apple Bloom, clearly keeping her aloft. At the same time, he was holding shingles steady while Apple Bloom nailed them into place. As Scootaloo crested the hill, coming to a stop, Sweetie Belle watched as Marjoram floated Apple Bloom over, the magic leaving the section of the roof they had completed. It stayed.
“You guys got everything!?” Apple Bloom called down, setting the hammer down onto the golden platform that she stood on.
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle called back, “It’s all super awesome, Apple Bloom! You’ll love it!”
Apple Bloom beamed down at her friends, “That’s awesome!”
“Apple Bloom!” Marjoram called, “I hate to remind you, but-”
Apple Bloom scooped up the hammer with her mouth, “I kn’w! H’rry u’!”
Now they were closer, Sweetie Belle could see the sweat coating Marjoram’s body. His sides were heaving, his legs shaking, and his face was pinched with exhaustion. Clearly, the magic required was rather extensive.
Less than twenty minutes later, Apple Bloom was lowered to the repaired deck of the clubhouse, beaming, “See girls! Look how awesome it looks!”
“It looks brown,” Scootaloo deadpanned.
“We have to paint it, silly!” Sweetie Belle shook her head in exasperation.
“I know that! I just thought it would be...fancier,” Scootaloo shot a pointed look in Marjoram’s direction.
Marjoram, for the most part, seemed to be ignoring them. He had sat down, and was clearly trying to catch his breath. He looked exhausted, and didn’t seem to notice or care about what was going on around him.
“So, what’s next?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Apple Bloom shrugged, “Well...we can paint. Two inside, two outside. Then we can switch. I’ll paint out here with Scootaloo, Sweetie! You and Marjoram go paint inside-”
“What colours are going where?” Scootaloo asked.
“Well, we aren’t really painting the inside,” Sweetie Belle stated, “More like staining the wood. The outside is this awesome brown, orange-y pink shade.”
Marjoram blinked, trying to imagine the described shade and coming up short. He shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind. He levered himself to his hooves, and made his way up the ramp to where the clubhouse rested in the tree.
Sweetie Belle picked out some brushes and the can of wood stainer, and hurried after the stallion, glaring at Apple Bloom as she did so.
Sweetie Belle didn’t necessarily blame Marjoram for what happened, but she also knew that he hadn’t tried to stop them and hadn’t tried to chase after them to make sure they were okay. Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure what to think of Marjoram, and as such, didn’t really trust him.
Marjoram’s golden magic took the can and one of the paint brushes. The lid popped off, and the can was set down beside the nearest wall, “Here. Let’s get this started. I’ll start here, you start there. Get as high as you can, and I can get whatever you can’t reach.”
Sweetie nodded, dipping the brush into the can. Marjoram did the same, and the pair began to work.
Some time later, when Sweetie Belle’s jaw ached from holding the brush for such a long time, she set the brush down, and looked over to Marjoram, who looked better than he’d had outside.
“How long were you at school?” Sweetie Belle blurted.
“I attended school for most of my life before I turned fifteen. After that, it didn’t matter very much. In the years following my eighteenth birthday, I’ve attended many lectures held by Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns, and completed a few courses. It’s hard to say, really.”
“Wow.”
Marjoram shrugged, “I lived less than ten minutes away from the facilities most of the lectures were held. It was just tricky trying to get there with work, Twilight, Spike, and my illness. Sometimes, Celestia would tape a lecture for me so I could watch it if I was too busy or sick to attend.”
“That’s nice of her,” Sweetie said quietly, clearly a little in awe at the mention of the princess.
“She’s a very kind pony.”
Sweetie nodded, moving her jaw to try to stretch the aches out of it, “Have you known the princess for a long time?”
“Since I was younger than you. Did I miss a spot over here? Can you tell?”
“Bottom left corner,” Sweetie pointed with a hoof, “Right there. Have you lived in Canterlot your whole life?”
“Not my entire life, but close enough.”
“Do you have any family?”
“A half-brother. Everypony else I’m related to by blood is long dead.”
Sweetie blinked, wincing at Marjoram’s hard expression, “Sorry,” she squeaked, “I didn’t know.”
“I know,” Marjoram said softly, “There, how about now?”
“You got it. Are you going to get over here?” Sweetie pointed at the upper section of the wall she’d been staining, where she couldn’t reach.
“Yes. Can you get started on another wall? No point wasting time.”
Sweetie Belle nodded, fetching her brush even though her jaw still felt achy. There was a beat of silence, then:
“Do you live with your parents?” Marjoram asked.
“Sometimes, but my parents live really far away from any big towns,” Sweetie put down the brush, thankful for the reprieve, “‘Ponyville has better opportunities’. That’s what they always say. That’s why Rarity is here too, because of Carousel Boutique. It wouldn’t do well where we’re from.”
Marjoram nodded, “Interesting.”
“Not really. Where my parents live is super boring. There’s never anything to do, and nopony to talk to my age,” Sweetie kicked idly at the wooden floor, “I miss them a lot, but I’m always miserable when I go back.”
“They must love you too, then,” Marjoram replied without thinking, “Sending you here, even if it means being away from them. They care for you enough to try to give you the best life they can.”
There was a pause, and Marjoram turned around to find Sweetie Belle staring at him, her eyes welling with tears. Marjoram’s eyes went wide, and his magic flickered, almost dropping the brush. He recovered quickly, then swallowed, “Was that wrong for me to say?”
Sweetie shook her head, galloping over, and wrapping her front legs around his own legs, since Marjoram was too tall for her to reach anything else, “Thank you!”
Marjoram froze, stiff and unresponsive, “You’re welcome?”
Sweetie let go, smiling through her tears. She went back to work, her mind already working on a new song.
“Are we done yet!?” Scootaloo asked, reaching up as high as she could so she could paint the top of the door, her voice muffled by the roller she held in between her teeth.
“Nope!” Apple Bloom replied, “Not even halfway.”
Scootaloo let out a heart wrenching moan, “I don’t think we’re gonna be done by the end of the day, and I don’t think everypony will let us miss out on another day of school.”
“Probably not,” Apple Bloom agreed.
“Are we switching yet!?” Sweetie called from inside the clubhouse.
“Let me finish the door!” Scootaloo called out, “then we can swap!”
“Okay!” Sweetie called back.
Scootaloo looked over at Apple Bloom, and froze at the inquisitive look her friend was giving her, “What?”
“You haven’t spent any time with Marjoram today, have you?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Erhm...no. Why?”
Apple Bloom smiled, a wicked grin that made Scootaloo’s spine shiver. Scootaloo suddenly knew she was doomed. She set down her paintbrush, and sighed, “What are you planning?”
“We still have to get the podium, right? Why don’t you take Marjoram with you?”
Scootaloo sighed, “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Nope!”
“You done with the door yet?!” Sweetie asked.
“Yes!” Scootaloo answered, “Just be careful with it! Paint’s still wet!”
Sweetie emerged from the clubhouse first, stretching her jaw to ease tension she felt. Then Marjoram exited, squinting at the late afternoon sun.
“Scootaloo needs to go get some furniture from town,” Apple Bloom said brightly, “Would you mind going with her, Marjoram?”
Marjoram blinked, “Sure, I suppose...but I don’t know if I could make it into town and all the way back-”
“You could ride in Scootaloo’s wagon! It’s big enough!”
Marjoram grimaced, “No can do, girls. I get motion sick. I’d be lucky not to puke all over the wagon, or the contents. Or the road,” Marjoram looked like he could continue, but stopped himself before he got into more details.
Scootaloo’s face scrunched up in disgust, “Yeah. That would be gross.”
“I thought you’d rather not take me with you if you knew I was going to puke.”
“Thanks for that,” Scootaloo returned dryly.
Marjoram shrugged, “So...is she going alone?”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shared a look, and without any obvious communication, the pair darted for where the wagon and the scooter were parked. Apple Bloom grabbed the handle of the wagon, while Sweetie Belle’s magic flared, releasing the wagon from the harness that attached it to the scooter.
After less than a minute, the pair were running down the dirt path, leaving Marjoram and Scootaloo to stand awkwardly on the deck of the clubhouse, staring at each other.
“That was rude,” Marjoram said finally.
Scootaloo nodded, “Yup.”
“So...want to get back to work?”
“Not really, but we should anyway.”
Marjoram nodded, “Outside or inside?”
“Inside first. That way we can lay a beating down on them when they come back!”
“Sounds good. Let’s get started.”
Moving to opposite sides of the clubhouse, the pair began to stain the sections of the walls that hadn’t been stained previously. From where Scootaloo was working, she could see Marjoram’s magic flicker briefly before steadying again.
“Are you okay?”
“Just tired. I’ll be fine.”
Scootaloo nodded, her mouth occupied with the task of holding the paintbrush. An uncomfortable silence reigned, making Scootaloo feel like a weight was being slowly lowered onto her chest, cutting off the oxygen.
“I-I don’t think you’re a bad stallion,” Scootaloo said, spitting out the paintbrush, “I know we messed up by not knocking, but I also think you should have locked your door from the beginning,” Scootaloo took a deep breath, “That being said, though, I don’t think you’re a bad pony.”
Marjoram blinked, his magic faltering for a moment again. A small, crooked smile spread across his lips, “Thank you.”
Scootaloo nodded, but paused before she picked up the toothbrush, “I’m never going to repeat this.”
“I didn’t expect you too,” Marjoram replied quickly, the smile twisting into a wry version of itself, “I don’t expect a thrill-seeking filly like you to damage your reputation.”
Scootaloo felt like she was being insulted in some way, but she couldn’t begin to guess how. She nodded once, picked up the brush, and got to work again.
(LINE BREAK)
It was well after nine-thirty that night when Marjoram made his way back into Ponyville proper. His horn, and head, ached from overuse of magic, and a potent mixture of emotions were swirling in his chest from the interactions he’d held with the three fillies.
Marjoram highly doubted any of them would be considered friends in the near future, but they seemed to not hate him; something that was always a bonus in his books.
Marjoram looked up, at the gorgeous night sky, and wondered how the ancient ponies of one-thousand years previous could have shunned such beauty. He remembered the skies Celestia had created, and while they had been pretty, none had reached the level of complexity and beauty that Luna had been able to create.
Feeling good about himself, despite his exhaustion, Marjoram hurried back into town as quickly as his body would allow. Hopefully, he could get back to the library, and catch a few hours of sleep before having to finish the last of the autopsies-
Marjoram stopped, freezing in the middle of the empty street, just passed his morgue. Blinking, and backing up, Marjoram shot a small ball of light at the morgue, and his heart plummeted into the very depths of Tartarus.
The newly repaired door was smashed, shattered glass laying inside and outside of the building. Marjoram crept forward, easing the door open cautiously. His sensitive eyes, and eager brain rushed to fill in the details of the darkened room.
His filing cabinets were overturned, loose papers scattered the floor. His desk was split down the middle, probably by a heavy blow. Ink had spread across the carpet, and the papers that lay on top of it. Quills, thankfully mundane, were snapped and had been burnt. Moving into the next room, where his equipment was, Marjoram was relieved to find the majority of the equipment was fine; simply scattered all over the floor.
Marjoram turned, back towards his office, and his lost concentration on the orb illuminating what was suppose to be his space. Even though he couldn’t see the word painted over the door leading into his office, the sight of the garish red paint was burnt into his memory:
Necromancer.