• Published 6th Apr 2012
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The Man With Two Names - Tarot Card



A human is off to a rough start when Fluttershy finds him eating one of her chickens, and breaks his arm. Can Derpy and the human convince Ponyville to give him a second chance?

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The Assistant (Lucky)

I had to fire him. Frankly, it was a mistake to even take him under my wing in the first place. It wasn’t until he attacked me –and tried to break into Pokey Pierce’s house– that I realized how dangerous he truly was. Carnivore or not, he was bloodthirsty. Say what you want, but firing him was the best thing I could have done.

What happened before I fired him? We were finishing up a job, when he started flipping out on me, and went straight for the Pierce’s. I had to tackle the human, and chase him away. There’s not much more to it than that. Elaborate? Fine. We were working on that theater near the big fountain on Anise Street.

“Hold it up,” I grunted. He positioned the display case against the wall of the theater entrance, holding the bottom corners in his hands. All I could see were those simian appendages grabbing my Lyra, stroking her mane, running down her back; those hands just as easily twisting her neck as caressing it. “Higher.” He lifted it up another foot, his chest pressed against the wall. I took a nail in hoof, and drove it into bottom left corner.

Jerry moved his hand away in the nick of time. “Hey, careful there Lucky, you almost gave me Stigmata.”

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

I drove the nail home. “Watch your grip, you son of a mule. It’s too dark to see.”

Jerry stepped aside, and I began driving the next nail in. “Actually, I was meaning to talk to you about that. I was thinking that maybe we could start working in the daytime.”

“Move. You’re blocking the light.”

He reluctantly obliged. His shadow moved off the display box encasing a poster for the next performance of Othello. I was never one to go to shows, but I was somewhat familiar with the plot. It was about this pony named Iago, and how he took revenge on his friend for sleeping with his wife. I reflected bitterly how similar my situation was.

“Lucky, did you hear me?”

“Yep.”

“Aren’t you sick of working by streetlight? Don’t you want a full night’s sleep?”

I didn’t reply.

“I know I am,” he added hesitantly.

“I get plenty of sleep during the day.”

“A friend suggested that everypony would get used to me if they saw me in daylight more often.” I wondered if it occurred to him that I didn’t work in the dark for his benefit; I did it to protect everypony from him.

“Would this friend happen to be Lyra Heartstrings?”

His face went a shade paler. “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

“I think it is.” I drove the last nail in. A large patch of wood in the corner splintered and broke off.

“Derpy suggested it.”

“That’s funny. I haven’t seen you walking around with Derpy.”

“Are you all right Lucky? You’re acting a little off,” he said. He looked warily at me, and I got the distinct impression that he was choosing his words very carefully.

“I’m fan-fucking-tastic. Even more so now that you expect me to work in the daytime, so that everypony can see you in public, and give me crap for whatever you did.”

“Hey, I haven’t done anything, at least not recently,” he said. I gritted my teeth as he continued speaking. Didn’t do anything my flank! “But this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Maybe, if the ponies see me in the light of day, they’ll stop being so suspicious of me.”

“Can we just clean up and get out before anypony sees you and makes a scene?” I snapped.

Reluctantly, he packed up along with me. He held open the bag as I threw each tool inside, one by one. One hammer landed on his hand. The impact did almost nothing, and he placed the hammer back inside before zipping up the bag with a leery glance.

I began making my way back home, ready for a good beer before sunrise. All I wanted was to forget about this bastard of a human, but I was stopped by Jerry’s hand clasping my shoulder.

“Lucky, I actually did something you won’t complain about.”

“What the hell do you want?”

He frowned as he produced a multiple page form, and flipped through it. “I got a work visa application right here. You wanted me to be registered as your employee, right? All you have to do is fill some stuff out for me.”

He had finally got the work papers, after three god damned weeks. It was about time. I flipped through the pages, and my heart froze. The first page was filled out by none other than Lyra. She couldn’t find a moment in her day to so much as look me in the eye for the past six months, but she found enough time in her day to fuck an animal, and then write him a letter of reference.

After all I had done for her. I devoted my heart, my home, my life to her. I gave her everything she could possibly want, only to have her spit in my face, and leave me sobbing in the dust.

After all I had done for him, giving him a job when nopony else would, taking flak from other ponies, and moving my work to the dead of night. I stuck up for him when Twilight Sparkle wanted him gone, and that ape repaid me by mounting my marefriend in an alleyway! Then he has the audacity to try ask me for my blessing to become part of this community.
He would be nothing without my support, without my grace. I gave him everything he has in his pitiful existence, and I can just as easily take it away. I gave and I gave, and I sacrificed for this wretch, and he takes the one treasure in this world I hold dear. If Twilight wanted him gone, she could get her wish. I smirked. “No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? Lucky, if you can’t sign this, I’m not officially your employee. Twilight’s liable to throw me back into the forest.”

“I’m not signing shit.” I donned my saddlebags, and began walking down the road. “And as far as Ms. Sparkle is concerned, you’re not my employee.”

He ran to catch up with me. “Hold on, hold on. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t work for me anymore. You’re fired.”

“Excuse me? What did I do to get fired?”

“You know goddamn well what you did.”

“Actually, I don’t. If you could please enlighten me on why you’re fucking me over, that would be just dandy.”

“They may not have such a thing as common decency wherever the hell you came from, but we ponies don’t sleep with each other’s marefriends,” I growled.

“Is this about Lyra? Okay, Bon Bon warned me about this. I know that things have been rough between the two of you, but I’m just her friend. That’s all. I’m not trying to steal anypony away from you.” He seemed to regain some sense of composure. Of course Bon Bon was speaking ill of me. I hope the irony of warning the human about me wasn't lost on her.

“Friends? You mean the kind of friends that try to have sex in public?”

“Lucky, this is crazy—”

“You had the audacity to mount my marefriend in front of my face,” I snapped back at him. He went pale. “Then you have the nerve to show up and act like everything’s sunshine and rainbows, like we’re best buddies. Guess what? I don’t want to sign a paper just so you can stay in Ponyville and keep screwing my girlfriend!”

“It wasn’t like that Lucky.” His voice was dangerously low. “I was just explaining something about my own world. Are you really going to fuck me over because of a little misunderstanding.”

“Don’t try to pull that shit with me. The only kind of explanation that requires wrapping your scrawny legs around Lyra isn’t something I want to hear about. In fact, the only explanation I want is why I shouldn’t get Twilight to throw you into the fucking forest this instant. I want you away from my mare, away from me, and away from my town! Take your god damn papers back.” I threw the packet into his face.

He glared at me for a moment, but picked up the packet, and shoved it back into my hooves. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation. All I want to do is live, and you’re wrapped up about my stealing some girl that broke up with you months ago. I’m not the reason Lyra doesn’t talk to you anymore. All I need for you to do is sign this, and we’re good.Think, Lucky. You need me, and my hands just to get work done. You were struggling with business before I showed up.”

“You think you’re better than me? I fucking made you. The only reason why you’re not hippogriff chow is because of my good graces. Fuck you.” I took his precious form, and ripped it in half. I let the bits of paper fall to the ground, and I stomped on them for good measure.

He stared at me in disbelief. I could see his whole pitiful existence come crashing down around him in his eyes. He had crossed me, and he would pay dearly for it. Not only did he lose the mare he had tried to steal from me, he also lost his means of support, the only barrier between him and exile. Soon, guard ponies would be knocking on his door, ready to throw him back into the forest from whence he came. I knew it, and he knew it. The sense of doom and despair was palpable on his face. I allowed myself a satisfied smirk, as any hope he had slowly died.

Then he punched me in the nose. Hard.

I stumbled backward. My snout had throbbed horribly, and blood flowed freely from my nostrils. “God damn it, Lucky, god fucking damn it! I thought you were my friend. I thought you wanted to help me.” I caught a glint of a tear in his eye. “Then you just fuck me over, like every one of these god damned ponies. I thought you were different, you bastard!”
I whirled around, and delivered a buck to his stomach, he grunted, and fell against the wall of a nearby house, nearly banging his head on a window sill. “Listen, you greasy morlock. You thought the two of you were alone in the alley, didn’t think anypony would see the two of you, huh? I’m not going to put up with that kind of shit. You’re in for a world of hurt, you sick fuck.”

I raised my hoof, ready to return the nosebleed, when he stared at me, with fire in his eyes. “Go ahead, beat the crap out of me, chase me out of town. Kill me if you want. Is it going to win Lyra back?”

“Shut up!”

“She’s not even you girlfriend anymore. You fucking blew it months ago. If you do anything to hurt me, any chance you have of getting her back.”

I wanted to strike him, but I knew it was true. As perverted as the whole situation was, Lyra would never speak to me again if I was the one who chased her little pet away. But if someone else were to beat the snot out of him all the way to the Everfree forest… I peered through the window into the dark room, and I made a out a family portrait sitting on the mantel. It was of Pokey Pierce and his wife, Rain Drops,with their two children beside them. He was a family stallion, who harbored a strong, and rather vocal animosity towards the human. My lips curled. It was almost too perfect.

“No, Jerry! Don’t kill the poor ponies in this home!” I shouted as loud as I could.

His eyes widened. “What?”

I smashed my hoof into the glass window, sending shards flying into the house. Within moments, I heard anxious murmurs, and hoofsteps from within the house. Jerry must have realized that what was happening and turn to flee.

I wasn’t going to let him get away with trying to kill Pokey’s family that easily. I caught him by the back of his shirt, and I clamped down tight. He was going to stay here, and be caught by Pokey, come hell or high water. He threw an elbow at my jaw, but I held on tight. I swept my leg under his, and sent him crashing down. But as he fell, he grabbed onto my neck, and brought me down with him. He landed on top of me, and he pressed his hand under my jaw, hard, until my vision swam, but I still held onto his shirt. I thrashed and trashed, until I was on my back, and had managed to hoof him in the chest a couple of times. He recoiled in pain, and rolled out of range of my wild swings.

“Who’s out there?” I heard Pokey call out. Check and mate.

I saw pure animalistic fear in his eyes. He frantically grabbed the pink fabric I was biting down on, and pulled with all his might. I pulled back until my teeth ached. The fabric gave way and ripped. I laid there, dumbly watching him, with a scrap of his shirt in my mouth.

I tried to get onto my hooves, and give chase, but he shoved me back down with the heel of his boot. I writhed in pain. I watched in agony, as he grabbed his tool belt and fled into the October night. Just like that, the desperate melee between the two of us was over. “You better run! Mark my words, the next time I see you I’ll have you strung from a tree!” I shouted.
The front door of the tudor house flew open, and Pokey stepped out, his mane a muss. He frantically searched around until he spotted me, panting and sore, blood still dripping from my nose. “Lucky, what the hell is going on?”

“The human tried to break into your house. I stopped him.”

“Oh my Celestia, he messed you up bad.” He ran inside, and got me a rag.

“If it wasn’t for me, he’d be gnawing on your wife’s wings right now,” I grunted. I pressed the cloth against my nose.

He gulped. “Lucky, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Tell me something. You have two kids right?”

“Yes, Featherweight, and Sparkler.”

“Do you love your family?”

“With all my heart and soul.”

“And do you care about your friends and neighbors, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“This is the second time he tried to break into somepony’s home. It’s time we do what’s best for everypony, and get rid of him.”

Pokey raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Wait, if he was so dangerous, why did you even hire him?”

“Call me stupid, but I thought I could train him. I thought maybe, if we just gave the human a second chance, he wouldn’t hurt anypony, and he could make himself useful. That way everyone would win. He needed a home after all. But he took that trust and ran with it, and now look what’s he done. He’s trying to steal away my Lyra, and he’s tried to eat your family.” I gestured to the window.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s report this to the police, they’ll have him carted out of Ponyville. I know a hoofull of ponies that are just itching for a reason to get him out of here.”

I eyed the scraps of papers on the ground. Somepony high up must have given him that form. Lyra, Derpy, and Bon Bon had signed it to. “He has more friends than you realize. I don’t think we’ll get his ass carted off with just a broken window as evidence. We need to catch him doing something a lot worse.”

“Screw that. I’m not going to wait around for him to try to attack my family again just so we can have somepony else chase him out of ponyville. I say we find that son of a bitch, and take care of him ourselves.”

I winced. Lyra had a certain affection for the human, and hearing of me chasing him out would make him the martyr, and me the villain. There was no way she would ever speak to me again, even though I would be doing it for her own safety.

Oatmeal’s words echoed through my mind. Every mare loves a hero. I thought of Lyra’s affection for the scrawny beast, in spite of the inherent danger. I saw Pokey Pierce, ready to do whatever he could to rid the town of the human, and something clicked. I grinned. “I think I have a better idea.”

What about the window? No, I told you, the human broke the window when he tried to break into Pokey’s house. Look, all I did was stop him from hurting Pokey’s family. You know what? I’m done answering your questions.

Author's Note:

Do you ever wonder who all these ponies are talking to?



read my analysis of this chapter here