In No Uncertain Terms

by SilverBrony

The Masks We Wear

“Ugh! I had the most horrid dream last night, you wouldn’t believe–!”

Chocolate Oats raised his head from a bowl of roasted barley, cream, and sugar, slowing his chewing as the shrill voice continued. With a thumping clatter, his beloved wife fumbled into the seat opposite him looking every bit as frazzled as the tone of her voice indicated. Her voluminous white robes seemed to swallow her as she sank into the chair.

“It was just the worst thing, what with their cruel stares and undisguised sneering and bloated laughter — as if they had any right! Ugh!” She snorted again, with a flick of her nose that set her electric pink curls to bouncing. “What hypocrites! Undeniably mean, the lot of them.”

The stallion, whose coat had spawned his namesake, licked away the frosty mustache and beard that stubbornly appeared every time he had cereal, and carefully watched his wife. She appeared as one might right after they experienced the Wonderbolt Lightning Blitz’s signature move, the blitzkrieg, which shocked everypony’s manes into a frightful mess. However, more than that, her eyes sagged as if she hadn’t slept at all, and she tried without success to magic a few pieces of bread into a nearby toaster. Chocolate Oats was genuinely concerned for her.

“Lily, dear, let me get those for you,” he appealed, slowly and calmly rising. She thanked him and slumped further into the ornate wooden chair, letting her magic fade. He managed to catch the bread before the pieces hit the floor and carefully guided them into the toaster with his hooves, ignoring with practiced ease a sudden resentment of being without magic or wings. Turning to look at his resting wife helped get rid of the thought. “Good morning, gorgeous,” he purred softly, nuzzling her in that ticklish spot near the nape of her neck.

Ah! There it was, that smile that captured his heart so many years ago. After a bop to his nose, she rewarded him with a peck to the cheek.

“Thank you, Coco, honey,” she offered, before turning her eyes away with a weary sigh. “Wish I could say the same.”

Coco returned to his own chair, a far more unassuming piece of furniture than her own — and far more comfortable. Instead of returning to his own breakfast, however, he pushed it away so as to give his wife his full attention. Resting his forelegs on the varnished surface, he made small, though obvious, beckoning motions. She rolled her eyes and looked aside.

“C’mon,” he admonished reassuringly. “You know it works.”

Lily puffed a sigh through loose lips and looked askance at her husband. Looking away once more, she groaned and placed her own, delicate hooves onto the table. He touched his huge hooves to her diminutive ones. Had they always looked so tiny …?

Finally she was looking directly into his eyes. As her crystal amethyst met his mossy green, he flashed his most winsome smile. She couldn’t help but return it with one of her own, however small.

“Now. Close your eyes.” Immediately, Coco shut his. A short pause, then– “Your eyes closed?” He heard a quiet, exasperated sigh.

“Yes, dear.”

He sneaked a peek with his right eye.

“Good. Now. Breathe in … breathe out … breathe in … breathe out …” He repeated this a couple more times, dwelling on the rush of her breath. “Okay, now open them– slowly,” he amended hastily. Lily refused to look into his eyes after hers opened, but her shoulders were more relaxed than before and her lips rested in a contented line. His smile broadened. “Now will you tell me what your dream was about?”

Immediately she frowned, but the breathing exercise had done its work. Her body remained more relaxed, though her shoulders still tensed and she unconsciously began smoothing her mane as she talked.

“Well, we were — or rather, I was. I’m not certain you were there at all — I was in our home, just leaving to go shopping.” She paused, eyebrows furrowing and hooves slowing their motions. “I, don’t think I noticed `them` yet. The first thing I believe I noticed was the city. It was like our Canterlot, but–” at this she brought her hooves over the table, making patting motions with both facing the other, “–but it was so much … more, squashed, or something.” She glanced behind him and out one of the tall windows, sweeping silk curtains pulled to the side to let in the dazzling morning light. The light reflecting off of them must have distracted her, for there was a very long pause. Coco turned to glance behind him, but the only ponies he could see were the two of them, reflected in the window.

“Anyway,” she continued, closing her eyes and shaking her head vigorously. “As I was saying, the city seemed squashed. And then `they` appeared. Fat, grotesque, undulating things moving down the street toward me like giant slugs. Of course I screamed and ran, but now they seemed to be everywhere! It wasn’t until I had exhausted myself that I realized they weren’t after me — well, at least not then. They seemed to be the natural inhabitants of … of … the squashed Canterlot, I suppose I should call it. And they did have legs. It’s just that they were so fat that from a distance, their bodies hung and swallowed much of their stubby legs. At least, I assumed they were stubby. Who knows how long their legs actually were supposed to be.

“Regardless, they were hideous creatures. All bulging body fat and beady eyes and gigantic mouths and–” She abruptly stopped. For a moment, Coco wondered if she’d seen something, but then she began again with the slow, rising inflection of an epiphany. “Hippos. They looked akin to hippos.” Coco drew back and fiddled with his hooves, brows lifting before knitting together, mouth making an uncomfortably stretched expression.

“Now, dear, don’t you think that is a bit … racist ...?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she scoffed, brushing the matter aside with a hoof and going back to smoothing her mane. Now she began to unconsciously untangle it. “I said they were akinto them, not that they were hippos. Hippos are a … mh, a fine people, regardless our `cultural differences`. It’s just …” she huffed again, frowning. “I just don’t know how else to explain them. They looked similar, but, at the same time nothing alike. In fact, I think they were supposed to be ponies, but I can’t fully explain it. I don’t mean to be rude–” But Coco was nodding reassuringly.

“Never mind it dear. I understand. Just continue.”

Lily smiled.

“Thank you. As I was saying, they were these hideous, bulbous things, ugly as sin, but the worst part was this: the uglier they were, the more prosperous they seemed!” Coco’s eyebrows and chin raised ever so slightly. Lily didn’t seem to notice. “There were some that would simply be considered obese in our world, but they were much slimmer than the others. And these obese ones were ridiculed for it! These hippo-pony-blob things were so critical of their weight and size, but all in the wrong direction! It was as if ugliness and beauty were completely flopped. And that–” she began to fiddle with her mane, tying it into knots then unraveling it over and over again, “–that was when they noticed me.”

Her movements suddenly became more jerky and frantic as she looked down. Coco had seen his wife panicky before, but nothing like this. Her shoulders were as knotted as her mane. Eyes were frantically roaming the floor for something far beneath it, as if she were looking into another dimension and couldn’t see where she was. Her breath came in quick, short bursts, and her eyes began to shimmer with tears.

Bounding to his hooves, Coco crossed over to her in hardly more than three steps. Wrapping his hooves about her, he began to coo softly.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright. None of it was real, you’re safe here.” He brought her closer to his chest. “You’re my precious Lily. Nothing can hurt you here.” It didn’t take much longer for her to calm down, but the shimmering in her eyes remained.

“They called me grotesque,” she whimpered quietly. “A skeleton. That no one would ever love someone like me. That I was worthless, that I’d never become anypony and should just … just die.” Slowly but surely, a hard look came into the mare’s eyes, a faraway look that Coco recognized, that he had prayed would leave and never return. Her voice, rising with each word that tumbled out of her mouth, was spiteful and victorious.

“But I showed them! I showed them, didn’t I, Coco?”

He didn’t respond, knowing all too well she was no longer talking about her dream.

“I showed them!” she shouted, standing up into a rigid, commanding pose, nose tilted imperiously. “I didn’t curl up and die, like they hoped. I stood tall and fought back. I played their little game and I won! I beat them! I showed them the truth!”

Coco flinched as his wife snapped the last word with a viciousness quite unusual for her. Then she stormed off with a sharp `hah` of superiority, besting once more the ghosts that lingered in her memory.

She was soon out of sight, up the lush, crimson carpeted stairs, with its intricately carved banister, and into the gigantic master bedroom; into a bathroom filled with crystal and painted, delicate porcelain, befitting a queen. His scarred and pained gaze drifted around the house; from the pure silver utensils and bone china they used daily; to the glorious stained glass window in the foyer, ten feet in diameter and worth more gold than many would see in their entire lifetime; finally, to the trophy display filled with the rewards of the hundreds of beauty pageants his wife had won over the years.

All of it, worse than worthless: wicked knives that continually cut into his heart, twisting in a wound that still festered.

A sudden clink and the following flump of paper hitting polished wood indicated the mail had just arrived. A sick and sorrowful fury seeped into him as he stalked over, knowing what he would find.

Yes. There they were.

Underneath a few envelops were four magazines. Four out of many that he wished to grind under his hoof and burn. On the cover of each one was a picture of his beloved wife: model extraordinaire! She looked exquisite: beautiful, perfect, thinner than she usually was and yet somehow not the gaunt skeleton he knew lived under the fluffy robes she wore about the house. How long had it been since she had let him see her underneath them? How long had it been since this all began?

Burning tears flooded his gaze, seeping out from behind clenched eyelids, as he thought back to senior year of high school. He could still remember the smile of the perfectly healthy young mare that had stolen his heart, the same smile that was now restrained by inner demons. He thought it would end once they graduated and left behind the cruel mares who teased his Lily. But it hadn’t. They were the ones society considered beautiful. Coco knew better.

“Damn you,” he croaked, thinking of no one in particular. He crumpled to the floor, weeping silently.

“Damn you …”

Author's Note:

Hello reader! I’d like to thank you for reading this. It means a lot to me, and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’d continue to give me just a moment more of your time, I’d like to share something very important to me.
While I love properly paced character development that captures the reader and reveals more in what isn’t said than in what is, there are some things too important to not explicitly say. In this case, I refer to the character Lily and what she represents.
To make it obvious: yes, she is supposed to have an eating disorder. The reason I point this out is that our society has a warped view on eating disorders, and I want to be sure I do not exacerbate this problem, as I do not know how I could show the following as the story progresses.
Eating disorders are NOT something you say `just get over it` about. The causes for Eating Disorders are, in fact, 80% biological, which means it is something someone is born with (though current Psychological theory states that it requires some form of stress to trigger). Eating Disorders are also the deadliest of all mental illnesses. This is due not only to suicide, but also the fact that someone with Anorexia Nervosa can literally starve themselves to death. The fragility of those severely underweight also leads to accidents being far more deadly than usual.
I mention this here because I want to warn all of you of the danger of our society’s standard of beauty. The stresses we put on our girls and women (and men) concerning beauty ends up leading many to develop an Eating Disorder they might have otherwise not have had to deal with, which in turn leads to many, many deaths. I may not have an exact number to give you, but trust me: it’s too many. Besides, isn’t one death that could have been prevented one death too many?
(( Source: My Abnormal Psychology professor, whose specific area of focus is eating disorders. For those who want it, more info can be found here. ))

Comments

[TheWordsmith]

I remember reading this, and I'm glad you posted it. I'm curious to see where you take this.

and since you asked me to proof-read, I did. The wording looks fine, though I admit I'll have to reread it when I'm not half-asleep

I did notice one thing

"I said they were akinto them, not that they were hippos"

needs a space between 'akin' and 'to'.

Other than that, looks good, sounds good to me

[SilverBrony]

4296881
Thanks, Wordie! :3
Taken care of~