Maelstrom

by QQwrites

Three

For headaches, there’s always cider. Apple is the most common kind around, but just about anything can be cider with enough patience. Pear’s good. Pineapple’s the sweetest. I’d recommend a nice Blackberry for particularly somber occasions, like funerals or visits from the in-laws.

Salutations! was a local purveyor of such beverages, boasting a more or less complete selection. I was seated in a quiet booth near the kitchen, pony-watching. When you’re trekking from town to town, searching for work, you don’t usually have time to make friends. After a while, you become detached. It’s not something you mean to do. It creeps up on you like tub scum or hoof rot.

I wonder if that’s what happened to Maelstrom.

Even here, a good kilometer away from the office, I’m thinking about her.

It isn’t like that.

More of a curiosity.

Why did she hire me? Speed? Accuracy? A handout that worked out? Those were the questions on my mind, even after all this time. I guess they’re the kinds of questions you can never ask. Nothing says, “Please assuage my insecurities,” like the mewling whine of someone who can’t identify their own self-worth.

Whoa. That’s too much.

I was about to set my drink to the side—clearly, it wasn’t helping my mood—when Raine walked in with a couple of grunts. They got a table near the piano and proceeded to drink and sing. Badly. In civilized society, there are only two possible responses to this behavior:

One, abandon your table and run for the hills.

Two, drink more.

I tolerated their rendition of On the Clouds We Ride. I suffered their belting of The Minstrel Colt. By Celestia’s Golden Fields, I had joined them with the rest of the restaurant.

As the crowd broke up, I slinked back into my booth with the intention of disappearing, when Raine, flanked by her friends, approached. For a moment, in the dim light, her messy hair and jacket reminded me of a time, not long ago, when I was traveling from town to town, looking for any job that’d take me. I was feeling something like sympathy for how I had acted earlier: pushing her report in the trash.

Then she opened her mouth.

“Drinking alone?” she smirked. “How sad!”

I let it ride.

“Who’s this, Summer?” asked the one who had been playing the piano.

“Just some desk-jock, Earth Pony nobody who tried to stonewall my report!” She said with the kind of bravery that comes in a bottle.

One of the other Pegasus made a disgusted noise.

“How long have you been at this?” I asked Raine, ignoring the others.

“Six moons since I graduated!”

“And you already know better than your Leaders and the WSARG—who, by the way, wrote the original estimates for the region?”

Quick to her defense, one of the grunts chimed in: “Summer was, like, valerian or whatever.”

I smiled, “Valedictorian, huh? Well, good for you.” I got out of the booth and threw some bits on the table. “Since I’m leaving tips, here’s one to chew on,” I paused for dramatic effect while gathering my coat and hat: “No-pony cares about your grades—or you—only what you bring to the agency.”

Pushing past them, I found the exit and went home.

It was with great pleasure that I was instructed to have Raine summoned to the Deputy Director’s office the following afternoon for a low-key, level-headed beat-down. Maelstrom, ever in her calm monotone, raked Raine over the coals for a good hour before turning her loose.

It wasn’t the report: by Maelstrom’s own admission, it was excellent work. Rather, it was Raine’s attitude:

“One comment here states you called the Chief Meteorologist of the WSARG a,” she cleared her throat, “‘contemptuous clod’. As I am sure you are aware, all members of this organization are vital to the successful stewardship of Equestrian weather. As it stands, our current CM has been a colleague of mine for nearly my whole career…” And so on and so on, until Maelstrom had beaten all the smugness from Raine’s expression.

To say I wasn’t a little pleased would be far from the truth. At the same time, watching her slink away, tail and ears low, I wondered how it would play out. Was this the moment she realized the world wasn’t her playground? Will this be that memory she always goes back to, when she was pushed back and knocked down? Would it even stop her?

If Small Talk is a disease, then Cynicism is a plague: relentless, self-gratifying, recursively-justifiable, and oh-so-appealing. You can wrap yourself warmly in cynicism while still feeling the cold sting of what the cynic calls “reality”. That’s the sweet lie that comes with rejecting hope or joy: a certainty that nothing is genuine, everything is a lie, and you alone possess this mystic wisdom.

The cynic sits high on a soap box, pontificating truths, while spreading a hopeless idea. Fail at a task? That's what you get for trying. Unhappy with your job? Nothing you do matters, anyways. Feeling lonely? You get what you deserve.

In every child’s smile, the cynic sees a future of tears. In every public figure’s words, a conspiracy. No grin lasts long on a cynic’s lips, unless it comes from the telling of some biting, sarcastic wit.

I know because I am that pony. Staring across my desk, watching Raine leave, feeling joy in her sorrow—watching someone I knew could fly circles around me fall—it felt good.

Author's Note:

Four goes up, 2018-04-11