The Cost of a Sunrise

by No one is home

Quiet Nights - Last Stop till Stone Cross

You need to talk to the colt, Sunrise. His crush on you ain’t healthy

The snakes in the beasts mouth turned the page to the alabaster queen lounging across his back as if he were a piece of furniture.

“You’re not jealous are you, darling?” The monarch giggled playfully.

The serpents heaved a long suffering sigh as they wrote.

This ain’t about me, Sunrise, and I know you hate to be told this, but it ain’t about you neither. It’s about Slapstick and the only two fillies his age who feel like they have to compete with demigoddess to get his attention.

“I know,” she rolled her eyes and replied, heaving a tired sigh of her own, “I just… I need the attention. I need it. This isn’t something I have control over, it’s what those priests did to me. Do you think I like this? I hate it!”

I know it’s not easy for you.

“Do you?” The queens voice took a dangerous edge. “Everypony treats me like I’m some silly, shallow little airhead! The call me ‘your majesty’ to placate me, to make me shut up while the ‘grown ups’ are talking, and it makes me want to scream in rage! Only I can’t because it just feels so good to be called their queen, even if I know they don’t mean it.”

The queen’s anger broke down into quiet sobs. “Every time that fat, disgusting pervert leers at me, catcalling without any shame or decency, it makes me feel like my coat is covered in filth and bugs, but I can’t get rid of him because the attention just feels so good and I need it.”

It’s okay girl just let it out.

Sunrise read the words as she cried into her lovers greying, mohawked mane. Finally when she spoke, it was with quiet resolve. “You’re right of course. It’s wrong for me to lead that poor colt along, just to get my next fix of this damned addiction… but I can’t tell him to stop. I want to, but I can’t. It wont let me.”

The nameless beast pulled her off his back by the scruff of her neck in his mouth with the gentleness of mother cat. A giant hoof brushed the tears from her cheeks and a single shy snake nipped adoringly at her lips. He smiled and began to write once more.

I’ll ‘talk’ to him. He’ll resent it at first, but he already resents me. Once he understands that it hurts you, deep down, I don’t think there’ll be a problem. He’s a good colt, and he looks up to you. I know you see him like a son, and he needs to understand that he has to see you like a mother, or at least a big sister. Not some hopeless crush he can never attain.

“You’re such a wise old thing, my beastly prince,” Sunrise smiled past her tears, “I only wish you had a voice… I wish I could feel that glow from your words…”

Then how would you know it was real?

“Of course,” the queen laughed softly, “I hate the glow as much as I want it. This, what we have between us, it’s more than my hateful addiction. It’s like true love… only real.”

The pair embraced, clever snakes dancing with an equally agile pony tongue beneath the ashen sky while above, unseen, the Sun smiled knowingly.

-=-=-=-=-

“I’m not in the mood to read your flashcards right now,” the clown faced, insectile pony huffed a he tried to trot around the giant mutant.

The nameless thing stomped the ground with a heavy hoof and shoved it’s note book in the colt’s face with a mouthful of hissing snakes.

We gotta talk.

“Fine, you write I’ll talk.” The teenage colt sulked.

You need to stop clinging to Sunset, it’s not healthy. Not for you. And not for her.

“What do you know about it?” The colt puffed himself up fearlessly in the face of the monster. “She never had any problem with it before you came along. She likes attention, but I guess you never noticed. You don’t even address her proper, she’s Queen Sunrise. I don’t know why she lets you get away with…”

The beast interrupted him with a relatively gentle shoulder check that knocked the colt back a step and scowled as his snakes scribbled angrilly.

No! She doesn’t like the attention. And she doesn’t LIKE being called “Queen”, and “Your Majesty”. She’s addicted to it. I know you don’t mean to do it, but you’re exploiting her addiction, and if you really care about her then you need to stop.

“So what about Rollo?” Slapstick snapped. “Why aren’t you giving him this little ‘talk’?”

If that pervert steps out of line, Deadlift will break his legs. But she NEEDS the attention, do you understand that, boy? She needs that verbal praise, and I can’t give her that. At the end of the day, he’s got a limited number of times to cross that line before Ziggy gotta dig a really big hole to plant him in, ‘cause I don’t break legs. But Sunset cares about you. And that means I do too. We both believe you’re better than that, so be better than that.

“If it bothers her majesty so much why doesn’t she talk to me about it” The petulent teenager argued.

The beast glared and scribbled in his notebook.

You’re a good colt. So I’m being really nice bout this, but if you just wanna insist on being deliberately thick, I’ll put it in terms you can understand. Stop. Hanging. On. My. Mare. She’s old enough to be your mom. This ain’t a debate.

The giant reared up and brought both hooves down, shaking the earth as he shoved the message in the colt’s face in a mass of hissing snakes. Slapstick blanched visibly before fleeing from the angry monster, who for his part fell to his haunches with a sad expression of shame on his face as a single serpent whispered quietly, “I could have handled that better.”

-=-=-=-=-

“Welcome to the grown up’s table, Freak.” Franklin flashed a cocky sneer.

Watch it biped.

The beast growled a he flashed his notebook at the sneering human.

“Easy, Big Guy,” Deadlift spoke evenly, “We’re all friends here. And if you don’t wanna pick a name, then you can’t say much when people just call you whatever.”

I guess you got a point.

The beast nodded as he wrote, somewhat mollified.

“That said, you gotta make some kinda peace with the colt.” The giant pale horse looked the giant monster in the eyes.

I didn’t mean to scare him like that. He was just being so insufferable!

“Yeah teenagers,” Dealift laughed, “I got one. Between you an’ me, Marg been pushin’ me to have that same talk with him for a while now. But you two gotta talk this out.”

“Oh, the talk with Slappy gonna be easy.” Margarine tossed her bovine head in a hearty laugh. “Just wait till Dotty hears that you made her ‘little beezie’ cry.”

“The issue at hoof isn’t my apprentice,” Sunrise Flare replied in even, but regal, tones, “What are we going to do about the human clown?”

“A dark future looms over that boy.” Madame Baphomet casually examined her cards.

“So far he’s done nothing more than upset the twins… and they seem to have put him in his place,” Bailey huffed, “He’s less of an issue than Rollo. And the Wormers like him….”

“Our little fillies can handle the likes of Ziggy well enough.” Margarine snorted, rolling her eyes. “I see no reason to worry.”

The beast wrote his next words carefully.

He’s making moon eye’s with a pair of fillies, while he’s fooling around with a short leg acrobat. That’s a pattern, and not a good one. Last thing we need is him starting this kind of trouble in a town with some locals daughter. Rollo we can control. Ziggy… he’s young enough to be stupid...

“And he’s a dirty human,” Franklin rolled his eyes and the monstrous pony, “so it’s a small wonder the last pony soldier from the Great War wants him out.”

It wasn’t humans who drove my pregnant wife out of the bunker to die in the gas attacks when they found out she was doppel. They dropped the bombs, but I’m was a soldier, that wasn’t personal. What PONIES did was. I don’t dislike you because your human, Frank, I just think your a real bastard

The monster snorted as he turned the page towards the human beast master.

“Look, I agree with the Big Guy, and not just for the obvious reasons,” Deadlift sighed heavily, “but Marg and Master Baylie both make legitimate points, Daisy and Magpie are growing up and can handle themselves, and we can’t just run someone off just because they broke our little fillies hearts. Nine hells, if things had gone different, I would have welcomed the boy as a son in law.”

“As loath as I am to admit it,” Franklin said, stroking his chin in though, “the freak makes a good point. Ziggy’s shown a disturbing pattern. We’re arriving in Stone Cross in two days. After that it’s Turves, and the Calypsos have already said that’s as far as they’re going. Perhaps we’d do best to encourage the lad to go with them.”

Murmurs of general agreement were passed around the table and business moved on to plans for the upcoming show.

Comments

[fanreader999999]

Uhhh

[No one is home]

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