No, not a sheep dog, a ship dog
Rustic and Turmeric kept their word. The both of them—being unicorns—made short work of unloading the food they brought. There were other things as well, mysterious wooden crates whose contents were unknown, but had Princess Celestia’s royal seal burned into the wood. Sundance suspected that something was up, but didn’t have a chance to say anything because Rustic and Turmeric were busy. So very busy.
“Those ponies are fabulous.”
The sudden, unexpected sound of Corduroy’s voice almost caused Sundance to jump out of his skin. When he turned his head to look up at her, his heart was racing while his ears rang. Unsure of her intent, he asked, “Is that a problem?”
“No, not at all. To each his own. But they make a cute couple. All that witty bickering.”
Relieved, Sundance grinned. “I’m not sure they’re a couple. They’re partners. I know that. Turmeric works for Rustic.”
“But… they’re cute together. They should hook up, if they haven’t.”
This was a side of his nurse that he did not expect.
“When I was a puppy, I liked to make my dolls kiss. When you’re as big as I am, everybody is doll-sized. Even you, Sundance. There is something deeply satisfying about observing others as they engage in ritualistic displays of mutual affection.”
Reaching out with her paw, she tousled Sundance’s mane and then stroked his ears. He wasn’t sure how to respond to this affection, but after a quick bit of soul-searching, he found that he didn’t mind. It didn’t feel demeaning, or degrading. Sundance hadn’t experienced much in the way of inter-species interactions, so he wasn’t sure what to expect or what the boundaries were. He barely understood pony interactions—and came to a conclusion. He was fearful, hesitant of new experiences, and interacting with non-equines was fraught with testing new boundaries, which was, in his own estimation, quite uncomfortable.
In that moment, he knew he needed to change his thinking somehow. These interactions, he had to see them as new horizons, and a pegasus pony was always happy to see a new, unknown horizon. Yet, even as he tried to make himself think and feel this way, the fearful hesitation lingered, that anxiety of the unknown, that anxiousness and stress when he didn’t know to respond or react.
But this was something he would sort out for his own good.
The day-old filly wore a rather cross expression and Sundance sympathised with her. It was noisy, with everypony talking and eating. She had no name, not yet. The entire barony doted on her, giving her all of the affection that they had. Sundance worried that with all of these grandparents, this filly would grow up spoiled. She lay on her blanket beside him, kicking and wiggling her legs around while making a valiant effort to try and roll over onto her belly.
But her stubby wings were in the way.
A yard away, Amber Dawn was gabbing away with Turmeric. Sundance worried about this, because he saw the unpleasant expression on Hollyhock’s face. Nothing had been said, but nothing needed to be said, because Amber Dawn’s mother had made her feelings quite clear without words. Sundance didn’t feel this was very fair; Hollyhock had exposed her daughter to some truly awful stallions, the very worst sorts, some of which had been downright abusive. Yet Hollyhock was clearly unhappy about her daughter chattering at Turmeric, and Sundance was almost certain as to the reason why.
It bothered him in a way that couldn’t be put into words.
He looked down at the pegasus filly who had been put down beside him so he could get to know her. She was still struggling to roll her chubby body over, and her wings were still thwarting her efforts to do so. It amazed him how active she was, just how much energy she seemed to have at the moment. Some of the peasants had quietly whispered to him that it was his duty to name her, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“You should be eating, Milord,” Earwig said.
“Yeah,” said Earwax, her head bobbing. Her lips were messy with chunky marinara. “The food is amazing.”
“Do my friends bother you?” he asked of the sisters, while keeping his voice low.
“No, why would they?” Earwax focused a piercing stare upon Sundance.
Unable to stop himself, his eyes darted over to Hollyhock, and he felt a bit of smouldering resentment when he saw her unpleasant expression. Earwig, clever in her own way, jerked her head around to see whatever it was that Sundance was looking at, and when she turned back around, she wore a shrewd, thoughtful expression. Her brows furrowed, she glanced once at her sister, and then the furrows that creased her brows smoothed somewhat. Leaning forward, she stared at Sundance with searching eyes.
“Should I give her a stern talking to?”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Sundance whispered with as much calm force as he could muster.
“What’s going on?” Earwax, clueless, licked the chunky marinara from her lips.
Leaning over, Earwig whispered something into her sister’s ear, and Earwax’s eyes widened considerably. Both mares then looked over in Hollyhock’s direction, and then, as one, returned their attention to Sundance. The filly on the blanket gurgled a bit, grunted, and then with a mighty huff, she went still. In mere seconds, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
He thought of his own moments of bigotry, his own shortcomings, and felt ashamed. It didn’t matter that he was trying to change his thinking, he felt bad for the resentment he felt towards Hollyhock, because he felt hypocritical. They weren’t so different, really. Sundance thought about his own struggles, his sexual orientation, whatever it was, and wondered how he might have turned out if he wasn’t so confused. Might he also resent ponies like Turmeric and Rustic? The thought unnerved him. He could have very well turned out that way without his own inner struggle.
Prejudice was a stone around one’s neck.
He wanted to feel angry with his mother, and a part of him did on some level, but the simple truth was, it was a sort of laziness on his part. It had been easier to just take his mother’s views, her beliefs, her ideals, and make them his own. That had been the easy path, and required no messy soul searching, like he was doing right now. How easy it had been to take his mother’s beliefs and make them his own, even if they were incompatible with the very core of his being on some level. That was easy. This was hard.
After just losing Cucumber, this was driving him crazy. Rustic and Turmeric—his friends—had come to bring comfort and spread good cheer. They had brought food. And poor Turmeric, he had stumbled into a trap unawares, a filly desperate for fatherly attention. And for Hollyhock to make the sorts of faces she was making right now, this very moment, this very second… without realising it, Sundance ground his teeth together. The ingratitude. He felt a hot lump growing in his throat, it was lodged tight, impossible to swallow, and the pain it caused was unbearable.
Then, he could almost hear Cucumber’s voice, reminding him of quiet mercy.
As was often the case after a meal, the dining hall was a mess. Cucumber typically cleaned up, because it was easiest for him to just whisk everything away. But Cucumber wasn’t here. Sundance tried to relax a little, because his back was hurting and all of his muscles felt far too tight for far too long.
Rustic was looking satisfied with himself whilst he waxed his mustache. Eating had left it a bit dishevelled. Most of the crowd had cleared out, save for Corduroy. There was still work to be done, and no amount of grief or hardship would stop that from happening. He turned to look at his nurse and watched as she examined her claws—her diggy-diggy claws, as she called them.
“Sundance, you look bent out of shape,” Turmeric said as he cracked open a bottle of Luna~Cola. It was cold enough that condensed vapour could be seen curling out of the top, rising like smoke.
“I am,” he replied, without saying why.
“Care to talk about it?” Turmeric asked while cracking open a second bottle of Luna~Cola for Sundance. He set it down, slipped in a straw, and waited, expectantly.
“No.” Sundance wanted to fold his forelegs over his barrel and sulk, but doing so would cause the skin of his back to stretch and tighten.
“It’s that mare, staring daggers at me, isn’t it?”
This was unexpected and Sundance bit his lip to keep from saying something.
“Of course I noticed. How could I not?” Turmeric took a sip of soda and then rolled his eyes whilst he pulled the bottle away. “That little filly asked me if I wanted to be her daddy. Awk-ward.”
“She did what?” Sundance’s ears pivoted forwards to hear better.
“She asked me if I wanted to be her daddy.” Turmeric’s expression became unreadable and his ears retreated back into his mane. “She also told me that you’re her daddy, and it occured to me that she was collecting daddies. Then, it further occured to me that her mama must be collecting daddies, and that sweet little filly was trying to follow in her mama’s hoofsteps.”
While all of this was being said, Rustic continued to wax his mustache.
“And her mother was busy just glaring at me for making her daughter feel like a princess. Or because I’m gay. Take your pick. At this point, it doesn’t really matter. Though I did wonder if her mama was jealous of the attention her daughter was getting and I—”
“I didn’t even think of that,” Sundance blurted out.
Turmeric lifted up his bottle of Luna~Cola and watched the effervescent bubbles rise along the inside of the glass. A whole new way of seeing the situation presented itself to Sundance, and the stark reality of it made him feel even worse. Now, he didn’t know the cause at all, he had only guessed at it, he had assumed he knew Hollyhock’s motivations. But now, he wasn’t so sure.
Hollyhock could very well start glaring daggers at him if he made Amber Dawn happy.
As the complication crept into the situation, Rustic pulled a crate closer, pried it open with magic alone, and then began to unpack it. This crate had the royal seal of Princess Celestia on the side and was full of straw on the inside. With his mustache now perfect once more, Rustic hummed to himself as he began to rummage around inside of the crate.
“Did you say yes?” Corduroy asked.
Sundance’s heart lept up into his throat and lodged there, thumping. He hadn’t even thought about that. All of his attention focused on Turmeric, the fussy, prim, rather feminine unicorn. He liked Turmeric and felt weirdly protective of him, because Turmeric needed to feel safe.
“Of course I said yes,” Turmeric replied. “Every little filly needs a fairy fag-father—”
“You shouldn’t say that.” Corduroy’s triangular ears went rigid and holding out her paw, she pointed her index paw-finger at Turmeric. “That’s degrading and demeaning. Stop that. Bad pony.”
Sundance saw confusion and a bit of hurt on Turmeric’s face. The unicorn’s mouth opened, and stayed that way for a while, but no words were said. He then closed his mouth and kept his soulful, searching expression focused on Corduroy.
“I understand why you do it,” she said to him, her tone one of calm, kind consideration. “You think if you own those words, they’ll hurt less when they’re said. But as a nurse, let me tell you, if you go dead and can’t feel the wounds, you can’t heal from them. You need pain to trigger the healing process. Let them hurt you. Allow yourself to feel it. Own the pain, not the words, and the healing will begin.”
Quite suddenly, Turmeric was a colt again. Or maybe a filly was a better description. He was bare, vulnerable, all of his outer self stipped away and his very soul laid bare by Corduroy’s words. Not only had she ripped off the bandage, but she scabs beneath as well, and she was busy doing her nurse-thing that she did. The hurt in Turmeric’s eyes seared Sundance’s soul, and he wasn’t sure if he could look at it, but he couldn’t turn away, either. His friend’s pain was now his own and he didn’t know what to do with it.
“I borrowed Marble’s psychology books when I was a puppy,” Corduroy said. “It seemed like just another form of healing.”
“You’re… you’re like this amazing mare that I didn’t know I needed in my life—”
“I’m a bitch,” Corduroy said to Turmeric, smiling as she cut him off.
“Can we be friends?” the spice-coloured unicorn asked. “Can we hang out and do girly things together?”
“Sure.” Corduroy shrugged. “Why not? We’ll bring Amber with us and make a day of it.”
“Oh, I’d like that.”
With but one exhale, all of the terrible tension left Sundance’s body. He felt okay again. No, he felt better than okay. All of a sudden, he had an appetite, and food sounded amazing. He started with the food left on his plate, but knew that he’d be eating whatever else he could find. More lasagna would be good—definitely more lasagna.
Meanwhile, as Sundance recovered his will and desire to eat, Rustic was setting up a two-in-one hoof-cranked radio hi-fi. At the moment, he was attaching the spindly brass legs to the main unit, screwing all four of them in at once. It wasn’t a pretty device; far from it, it was exactly the sort of rugged equipment that one brought on an expedition, all brass and hardwoods. But it was still handsome in its own way.
“I do believe the Observers are a bit enamoured with you,” Rustic said while he worked. “You give them something to talk about. You and Lord Sumac both. Adventurous types that do adventurous things. Foolhardy things. That story about you and the owlbear is going to grow like a beanstalk. That is to say, rapidly and with unexpected twists. Most ponies would be flying away from an owlbear, and not flying at it.”
Sundance, who had just crammed his mouth full of lasagna, could say nothing.
“You’ve made the leaderboard. Sure, you’re on the bottom, but I think that is expected from a member of the Canterlot Sub Gentlepony Club. We belong on the bottom. Let everypony else pile on top of us, we’re fine with that.”
Both Corduroy and Turmeric began snickering together.
“Did you really do the whole airborne axe murderer thing?” Rustic’s head swiveled so that he could affix his incredulous gaze upon Sundance. “See, Princess Celestia told me that there was an axe lodged in the back of the owlbear’s skull, and that you put it there. Is this true? I won’t actually come right out and say that Princess Celestia lies… but she does so enjoy her embellishments that she shares with those close to her.”
With his mouth full, Sundance could only nod.
“Well…” The word was a gasp and then Rustic’s barrel expanded greatly before he continued, “What could possibly make a pony do something like that? I mean, to come after another living creature… with an axe.”
“It was a splitting maul,” Sundance said after swallowing.
“That doesn’t make it better,” Rustic retorted. “In fact, that makes it worse.”
“How so?” Sundance wiped his mouth with his foreleg and then tucked back into his food.
“It just does.” Rustic shrugged. “A skull is not firewood, okay? I mean… violence.” The fastidious unicorn shuddered so hard that his mustache became mussed. “Conflict. Violence. Intentionally flying at another creature while holding a splitting maul with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm. I can’t… I can’t imagine myself doing it. Or anypony else for that matter. Violence makes me feel queasy… ill.”
Sundance swallowed, and then let go of a truly legendary belch, the sort of brap that one might (or might not) expect from the distant descendent of Princess Celestia. He licked his lips, his bright orange tongue flicked over his nose for a moment, and holding out his left front hoof, he spoke:
“If something was trying to hurt any one of you, I’d bury a splitting maul right into their skulls as well. And maybe I’d do better this time. I’m done losing friends.”
“That’s not bragging or boasting,” Turmeric said in a quiet, submissive way. “I mean, saying that you’d attack something with an axe, that’s just scary talk… unless of course you’ve established that you would, in fact, attack something with an axe… and you have. How am I supposed to feel about this? I don’t know how to feel about this. My girly little bunghole keeps clenching when I think about it. It’s like when Flicker comes over and Hennessy starts telling stories about farm equipment—” The sudden, abrupt stop was punctuated after the fact by a hard gulp.
Unsure of what to say or how to say it, Sundance tore into his food like a savage animal.
Stats
Page generated in 0.077 seconds
Total duration
777 users online
555,558 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Its the difference in running away from a fight and doing anything you can to win
I hadn't thought of Hollyhock being jealous of others being able to make her older daughter happy. That could be a part of it.
And, once again, I'd like to state that I like Corduroy. For lots of reasons. She can be funny but she is also insightful.
Name for the little filly? Pickle and Sweet Relish are options as tributes to Cucumber. And they would offer opportunities for puns and (more) word play. :) But I'm sure you have a name or three picked out.
9383421
I don't, actually.
Way to go, Sundance, you gave your flamboyant friends the vapors! Or you made them want to have you ontop of them, honestly I'm not sure which at this point.
I don't know what is the worst possibility.
That they are still telling that story, that Flicker did the same thing again later or worse made a habit of it.
I really think it would be nice for Amber Dawn to have someone to do girly things with on a regular basis.
Yeah, his unique version of 'farming' is the first thing i remember about Flicker.
They are!
Yikes.
Corduroy really was a fantastic choice to hire.
9383426
Sour Gerkin
Um... I’m just gonna’ drop this off here...
That's a pretty big change in Sundance's tone right there at the end there, huh? The use of the contrast to Rustic, who doesn't have the stomach for violence, is a nice touch, too. Sundance has had a loss and has experienced violence, but didn't run even after the fact.
Ponies need to stop misappropriating innocent farm equipment. Where will it end?
Heh. Ship Dog. I adore Corduroy.
9384245
You are an amazing person.
Turmeric may feel queasy about violence, but when flight is not an option few would not kill to defend themselves or those they love. I imagine if a rat was going to kill Rustic, he would probably feel differently.
Corduroy is one good, but tough dog. Though she is also very sweet and loving as well.
I look forward to reading more ^^
9385937
If East Asia has shown, it’ll end up as a form of martial art.
Farm equipment. I remember
9389668
9389893
Something tells me Soil Aerator-fu is not going to really take off as a tournament style.
9390003
In the House of Blue Moons, a lone creature stepped through the door, unsure of what it might find. The inside of the hall was as empty as a toothless mouth. Or was it? Something skulked in the shadows.
"You came," a voice said, its lips moving as if they were saying completely different words than what had come out.
"How could I not?" came the reply, also weirdly out of sync.
"Shall we compare techniques?" the shadow skulker asked. A skilled lip-reader might have read, You killed Kwan Lee. Death comes quickly for you.
"Huzzah! Battle!"
i.imgur.com/YAGpXPd_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium