Filetages Fatidique et Fleurs de Soie

by Indulgence

Un Lit Inconnue

The usual alarm clock of a drill making a concerted effort to crack open her forehead dragged Fleur painfully into the waking world. Actual consciousness lagged behind, stopped by fleeting hopes of returning to the sweet nothingness, meaning that she did not immediately recognise that the bed she now occupied was not her own. This realisation was slow to strike, coming out of the firm but un-sprung feeling of the mattress beneath her, but when it did it struck hard, snapping open her eyes and forcing her fully awake. The room revealed as she pulled back the covers was alien: simple papered walls set with a quartet of similarly plain doors and a pair of curtained windows, whose grey glow revealed an overcast day lay behind their fabric.

A hotel maybe? Buck!

The drill struck deeper, cutting in behind her eye sockets, making her wince as she rose to a seated position, clutching her face as she threw away the smothering sheets. Two things stood out as she tentatively reopened her vision. First her head felt remarkably heavy, as if her mane had been transmuted into something entirely different from hair. Second, and far more importantly, she was alone, the un-creased space beside her devoid of anypony.

Double buck!

Dejection fell down like a hammer to pound apace with her agonising headache in striking her being. She had awoken as the sole occupant of an unknown room, presumably a hotel in which she had been left, without any idea of where she was and with even less clarity as to how, when or in what company she had got there. Neither was this pleasant nor was this the first such occurrence. Only a crushing aversion to the thought of loud noise stopped her from screaming.

---

I dash through a portal into an unknown entry hall, fleeing from the rainstorm raging outside which in the briefest of moments has left me soaked to the skin. My body, already well and truly drenched, feels heavy under the added weight of water, my mane fallen flat and damply glued across my face. I shiver slightly as I toss back the leaden strands of hair, attempting to clear my sight, meanwhile the earth mare I have been intently following, brown coat darkened by a similar soaking, steps past me. She treads a path of damp hoofprints over the foyer carpet, making for a pair of silver doors at its centre.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Blocked by the orders of a red sign, she stops in her tracks and her voice sounds out her annoyance.

Foalishly I jump at her aggravated words, surprised by their suddenness, still severely off kilter as I sway slightly on my hooves.

‘Looks like we’re taking the stairs.’ She turns back, gesturing with a sigh to a second doorway, before leading me onward.

In my continued haze I don’t question, I just trustingly follow, coming to her side.

Now we are climbing upward, the drab grey stairway seeming more like a mountain with every sapping step. Pitifully I’m struggling by the third flight, my body deciding that this is the perfect moment to start giving up. I stumble over literally nothing, simultaneously losing my hoofing and tripping into a fall. A split second before I topple over however she is beside me, moving impossibly to catch my collapsing form. Half of me feels wretched, well aware of how pathetic this both is and must look. The other half more confusingly is in two minds, with part of it just revelling at being held by her, whilst another knows how desperate this sounds and is therefore in agreement with the depressed first half. Nowhere near lucid enough to pick through this mess, I’m stuck in conflicting limbo, unimpressively slumped against her as we continue.

---

Could’ve been worse, at least it’s a not a gutter.

The thought was not exactly comforting to Fleur, who was busy facing down having been bedded and abandoned for the millionth time, combined with the unholy union of a crippling hangover and drawing a total blank as to her immediate past. The last in any way “clear”, although that in itself was code for sketchy at best, image was entering some stupidly named club, with everything else between then and the present being an absence. Although in no way new and no matter how many times it had happened before, blacking out would always be mildly disturbing to her in the sense that stuff occurred and she was a part of it, but whatever there had been was lost from her existence. This impossibly managed to make the powerless place the past already was even more so.

Already over the hurdle of sitting up, Fleur swung her hind legs over the bed’s edge, preparing to go through the now routine process of easing her various ailments.

Meds, shower and then a coffee, followed by forgetting what has been forgot.

Her movements caught a bucket set on the floor, causing it to briefly whirl in a circle. Thankfully the receptacle was empty, but its presence seemed out of place if this was indeed a hotel. ‘I must’ve been really messed up when I rolled in here.’

No, ya think?! Well done Genius!

Her eyes were drawn to a cluster of objects on the side table, finding her four matching studded anklets, the choker which completed the set obviously lost to the night. Next to these, a water filled glass and a box of painkillers sat waiting for her on a coaster.

Well that’s a new one.

Although the act probably took mere moments on the part of the pony who had done it, it marked the first vaguely pleasant surprise of the morning, somewhat dulling the sharpened points of gloom hanging over her. She downed the pills, taking the first few sips from the glass, beginning to cleanse the long staled tastes from her mouth.

---

I’m seated on what may well be the most comfortable thing I have ever sat on, my whole tired body celebrating as it lounges on the padded surface. It is as if I have run a marathon and the strain has just caught up with me. The space wobbles, a reminder that I’m actually in motion, causing my gaze to lazily drift to the cab’s window. Night time Manehattan rushes past in a haze of brilliant colours, made doubly blurry by my spinning head and the speed of the carriage. As I look upward, tracing the imposing heights of light studded skyscrapers, I reach the clouds and they are broken by an electric crackle from within. There is a booming sound high above and the pane becomes immediately slick with water, smearing the paints of the canvas beyond.

The storm’s beginning in earnest outside merely makes the inside all the cosier and I find myself curling up on the seat in response. Before my head can hit the pillow however, I bump into a far softer fur coat, the form beneath it stiffening at my touch. Reluctantly I rise, stumbling over apologies to the mare who I’ve just inadvertently laid on, although truth be told I’d much rather just lay straight back down against her. I feel a hot red flush bloom across my cheeks at this thought, meanwhile for some reason I find the same embarrassed tone mirrored on her face. My eyes dart back to the window, my mind feeling silly, attempting to conceal it.

The droplet streaked world continues to hurry away behind us. By now I have long lost track of where we’re going, with each new street looking as alien as the next, but I don’t particularly care. The taxi lurches for a second time, in this instance far more violently, sending me sprawling across the seat. I once again bump into the mare, my head coming to rest against her shoulder, again feeling her go tense, but only for a moment this time. I’m slow to react and pull away, jumbled thoughts failing at the easy task of forming new apologies, but before I can I feel a foreleg gingerly wrap itself around my shoulders. At first my body is stunned, but it too quickly relaxes into what had been an accidental embrace. From the corner of my vision I catch the eyes of the driver in his rear view mirror, cap pulled down tight against the rain which has already soaked the rest of him. I receive a disapproving eyebrow raise from the stallion, but I remain unflinching. Instead I nuzzle deeper into her shoulder, enjoying the feeling of warmth between us, and let my eyes close.

---

Fleur had finally made it to her hooves, leaving what she had found to be a futon (and not a bed as previously assumed), casting further doubts on the hotel theory, and she now stood before a wall length mirror. The unicorn that looked back at her was a mess, pure and simple, eyes ringed by dark smudges and mane tangled in a thick waxy mass, gel having sat too long in its strands.

Hardly a boast-worthy conquest at any rate.

That overall conclusion however fitted all the less the more she thought about it. The bucket and her present “style” were clear testament to the not exactly attractive state she must have been in when she arrived here, plus she was now convinced that this was no hotel room, but rather an apartment maybe.

You still seem to have been left though.

She decided that continuing to try and put the puzzle together with less than half the pieces in a solid form was probably a lost cause. Far more worthwhile was continuing to address what she actually could and then move back to, or instead ignore, her questions once on an even keel.

Step two: shower.

Presented with a one in four chance of success she shrugged, randomly selecting the nearest door. Some kind of storeroom lay beyond, too dark to make out its cluttered contents. ‘What’s behind door number two?’ The second was locked, confusing initially until she caught the light sound of falling water from behind it. ‘Not alone then.’ This was more of a revelation, both partly answering and furthering the querying jumble of her thoughts of her situation. It was strange to be faced with the reverse of having been carelessly dumped, but the parts fitted. This still left questions hanging over the abyss of the previous night, but it was something. At any rate the door’s closure blocked the path to any further conclusions, so what now?

Coffee.

---

I feel alone in a crowd. All around is a cordon of leering masks forming an impenetrable wall, every single one of their eyes locked onto me. Each of their judging stares bores inward, placing me on a podium against my will, whilst my mind rebels and my own skin clings uncomfortably tight around me. The choker about my neck somehow seems to dig deeper against my throat, an unpleasant feeling which is matched by the belts around my ankles.

I’m angry, although I seem to have lost whoever it was originally meant for. The sparks therefore become fire, igniting a large pile of kindling which has slowly built up within me. My rage is absolute, I hate everypony: I hate the staring crowd, I hate the two guards in their midst who keep telling me to ‘calm down’ and on top of this I hate myself. Why do I care about what they think? What am I even doing? Why am I in this position? These questions, vague as they are, fuel my self-loathing, long held back, its flames starting to lick across my flesh, and it hurts.

I’m alone. I shout my fury at all of them, neither in control nor totally aware of what I’m saying. Stupid as it seems I don’t care what’ll happen after this, I just want to scream. I need to let it all out, but even as I do it doesn’t get any better, rather I’m just left increasingly empty. Something nudges me and I wheel round, losing my vision’s limited focus for a moment in the process, wanting to attack whatever it is like all the rest. My clearing sight is met by a pair of almost recognisable azure orbs, my verbal assault being routed into silence in their calming depths before it can begin. The earth mare behind them, starkly neat in amongst the chaos, is also somewhat familiar. She’s beautiful. Again what is said is lost but she smiles and, although small and tentative, it bears behind it a care absent from all others. I really try and hope I manage to smile back in the same way, feeling warm inside.

---

‘You’re quickly becoming the bane of my existence’ Fleur grimaced at the juice box which hovered out of the exceptionally empty fridge before her. She floated a glass, of a far more appropriate style this time, to meet it, pouring out a helping of the greenish-orangey liquid to stain the clear container. Somepony had obviously made the same mistake she had and regretted it, the carton’s contents being only marginally dented by the purchaser. Her quest for caffeine had already failed, finding none in the limited space of the apartment’s kitchen, meanwhile this substitute was as just about palatable as before, on the cusp of vile but not quite there, as she took her first cautious sip.

Still a step up from water though. Barely.

Her steps retraced, glass in ethereal hoof, ending up by the previous room’s hooded windows. Veils pulled aside, a decidedly grey day did indeed lie behind them, rainclouds in the sky taking a deep breath as if considering whether or not to continue. The building she was in was one in a cluster of uniformly nondescript tower blocks, the ponies not far below either caught in the fluster of lateness or slow uncaring movements, both of which pointed towards late morning. Uninspiringly dull, she turned her back on it, seeing the space at her back in new light. The bedroom’s walls were not in fact plainly papered, but rather covered in groupings of pencilled sketches, some sparsely standing out in colour as if a rainbow had been detonated to send its stripes outward like shrapnel. The dotted points of colour congregated on all sides to shine inward as stars through the swirls of a shaded night’s sky.

Fleur approached the closest of these clouds of pictures, illuminating even in the overcast light of the day. They were designs depicting articles or full outfits of clothing exploring an infinite series of styles. Although internally she sought to deny it, part of her will for a ‘fresh start’, this was a pet passion of hers and she found herself tracing the experiments of the unknown hooves as they danced between pieces of paper. Concepts flared, sending out shoots to other pages where they blossomed, flowering and sent their petals spreading still further. Traditional lace details blended with sharp geometric forms, in turn merging with naturalistic graphics. The anonymous creator did not stop there, building atop these fluid foundations, forming accessories to stand alongside each creation. It was an intense form of channelled personal artistry, passionately flowing in each drawn line, exploded as gloriously unfettered possibility.

The click of a door opening in the background caught Fleur’s ear, absorbed as she was in the enthralling thoughts of another.

‘Oh… hi.’

A mare’s voice crept forward as she turned towards the noise, providing the first solid piece of information about her as yet unseen host. Azure eyes shone out from a pale brown face, seizing her in the same way they had roughly twenty four hours previous, staring, or rather stealing glances, in the same way they were now.

So bucking cute.

‘Cute’ was hardly adequate, but it was again about all her mildly stupefied mind managed to articulate, both genuinely surprised and a little captivated by the reappearance of this mare, now standing with mane wrapped in a towel and coat still damp from the shower before her. ‘Erm… hi’ her mouth replied, not much more eloquent than the voice in her head. The two silently looked at one another, a tension and the awkwardness of ignorance hanging almost tangible in the air between them.

‘I’m Coco, Coco Pommel.’

‘Fleur, Fleur De Lis.’

‘Yeah I know’ Coco began bluntly before her tone immediately switched to reproach herself for it. ‘Sorry, we kinda did introductions last night, but you were pretty out of it at the time so I didn’t think you’d remember. I mean, you couldn’t remember where you lived, hence…’ she trailed off, gesturing about the apartment as she did so.

Buck!

“pretty out of it” was probably a major understatement Fleur concluded, feeling a tad embarrassed in spite of having long figured that one out. ‘So erm… I guess I owe you a thank you. If it’s okay if I get a shower, do you want to go grab some brunch afterward?’ she found herself asking.

‘It’s okay, you really don’t owe me anything’ Coco replied, slipping back into slight timidity.

‘C’mon, it’s no biggy’ Fleur insisted, really wanting the chance to talk more with this intriguing mare whom chance had chosen to cast into her path for a second time, ‘my treat.’

Author's Note:

Title: A Bed Unknown (French)