Chapter 7: A Bid for Reason
For the last several weeks, for the first time since I started to put down what had happened to me on paper, I won’t lie in saying that I don’t really know exactly how to end this. Looking at what I wrote, about forty pages worth of all the weird, surreal, painful, humiliating and at times downright embarrassment that has happened ever since the accident, part of me wonders if all of this is even enough. Sure, the weirdos might be entertained, the critics might demand to serve my head on a silver platter for writing something so short and to the point. And there may be those that even question me if everything that I wrote here was true and not me exaggerating it all.
Believe me, if someone told me all of this before Celestia came to town, I’d probably just call up the police in telling them that I’ve encountered an escaped mental patient that really needs some more shock therapy. But with all that has happened, I won’t be surprised if I’m slowly getting used the Stockhoof syndrome. Then again, all I’ve been doing is venting the craziness.
So yeah… how do I end this?
Well… Perhaps I could share one more story.
This took place after Starlight’s visit to have me question life, the universe and everything in which the number of forty-two kept popping up for some reason that I decided to give her a second chance. Truth be told, the very first thing she did when we met up again was to apologize for being unprepared for the whole magical discharge that she wasn’t able to prevent. Even when I told her that it was fine, she insisted that she wanted to make it up in some way.
In Starlight’s definition of an apology, this meant dinner in which she would pay for the whole thing. Truth be told, even if she wasn’t the unofficial magic teacher that’s just teaching me the basics, I still would have gone just by the free food alone. I admit that it’s of the weaknesses I have, you could invite me to the most bigoted, crazed, out of touch with reality group of ponies you could imagine, but if on the invite they say that they’ll be serving free biscuits… I might stay for a moment to hear what they’ll have to say. Likewise, Starlight had me hooked with the words: “I have a way into the Rosemary Club.”
(For those who are not in the know, Las Pegasus is known for being home to some really high-end restaurants, but the Rosemary Club was one of those places that are so exclusively difficult to get into that it makes Ramsay’s places look like the public library. You know, one of those places that’s impossible to get into where you have to get a reservation a good hundred years in advance. That the only easy way in is to sell your soul to work for them until you drop dead.)
So here’s the ingredients for this story: take one brand new alicorn that got his own religion quicker than getting a divorce in Las Pegasus; a unicorn mare carrying nothing, not even a bag of bits while teaching me how this magic thing works; season generously with some mystery customers that’ll come in sooner or later; a meal that’s worth as much as the national debt; squeeze them onto the top floor of the Applewood Hotel; and bake them in a potential Murphy Lawsuit for about an hour or until golden brown.
This started on the way up to the top floor of the hotel on the elevator when I noticed something from Starlight. “Don’t you have any money?” I pointed this out.
She shook her head. “No need to.”
“Huh? Why? Did you pay for everything in advance or something?”
“Nope.” She smiled. “I didn’t have to either. If anything, I actually have a trick for getting anything pretty much for free.”
“You do? But that’s impossible.”
Her smile didn’t waver. “Just watch.”
As soon as the door opened up, she strode up to the guy at the podium. The kind that wore a tuxedo at all times and a thick chalone coating of Prench snootiness number five. “Are you a member?” He asked without looking up from the podium flipping a really thick book.
“Nope.” Starlight chirped.
“A reservation?”
“No need for that.”
He looked up with a raised eyebrow but mechanically said, “Do go away before I call security.”
“Especially when he’s hungry and willing to try your food?” She pointed a hoof at me. The waiter looked up at me with the kind of look as if he walked in on his dead grandmother trying on a thong that’s emblazoned with the words I’m Juicy on it. But Starlight wasn’t done. “Of course, if you want us to turn us away, we can always go to McHaystack’s-”
“W-Wait!” He cried out as he desperately flipped through his book before closing it. “As it uh… so happens, there has been a table that just opened up so...” he said waving a hoof with a very forced smile on his muzzle, “right this way please.”
Before I could process what was happening, Starlight dragged me through the restaurant. Pass the purple curtains, the gold leaf, the china that is worth more than my neighborhood, the surprised customers that were shocked to see me go by towards a room that looked like something out of a movie set. And I mean it, in every place that I’ve eaten in Las Pegasus, I never saw anything like it. Underneath a copper tiled ceiling that held up a crystal chandelier with purple curtains that drape down to the floor was a table setting that looked like something out of a fairytale. Not just the rows of fine, shiny white china, gold and silverware, and antique candelabras with lit candles on them. It had a bowl of fresh fruit that looked like from the pineapple to its apples, oranges, grapes, and cherries were plucked minutes ago. A swan ice sculpture in the very center, with a chocolate fountain flowing.
Even wall all of this, I couldn’t help but notice that the fancy table was already occupied. There was a small party of ponies that looked that, by the looks on their faces, were not expecting us to suddenly burst through.
“This table is no longer available,” said as a matter-of-factly, “so please go away for someone more important.”
“What!” One of them stood up. A gray earth pony with a powdered wig, dark sunglasses and had one of those white cuffs on his front hooves. “How dare you! Do you know who I am.”
“Oh, quite sir, you are the gentlecolt I’m about to call security to show you where the door is.”
“B-But I’ve made reservations five years ago for this!”
“And it looks like you’re going to have to wait five years more, now be off with you and your friends, I’m sure there’s a McHaystack’s that has greasy hayburgers suited for your tastes.”
“How dare you!”
“Oh security!” Our waiter called out in a half-singing voice. Then suddenly, four stallions in suits that I’m fairly convinced were made out of nothing but steroid muscles came charging in, grabbing these customers before galloping out. But not before I heard one of them yelling out at him.
“You’ll hear from my lawyer for this!”
“As if that would be likely,” I heard our waiter muttered before pulling a chair for me, “your table is ready.”
I hesitated. “Does this always happen here?”
“Only for our most exclusive, esteemed, well-respected members.”
“But I’m not one.”
“You are now.”
My eyes narrowed, “It’s because I’m an alicorn, isn’t it?”
“Why yes. Yes, it is. So, your seat, sir?”
Sigh… Why am I not surprised? “Out of curiosity,” I said taking my said, “how much is the food usually?”
“Oh, don’t worry any about that, for you and your friend, whatever you order is on the house.”
I was about to ask why’s that, but then I remember the bump sticking out of my head. Starlight took the seat across from me with a smile. After our waiter guy left, I turned to her, “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?”
“What? This stuff always happens with Princess Twilight, she told me that ever since she became an Alicorn, she rarely has to pay for anything, even taxes.”
“Like going to restaurants?”
She nodded. “Yeah, turns out that when you’re an alicorn, ponies, especially if they’re in business, pretty much always go out of your way to give you the best with no charge. You could pretty much go anywhere saying you want this, and they’ll feel obligated to give you what you want.”
“All because I’m an endangered pony tribe? Isn’t that unnecessary.”
“Maybe not,” Starlight shrugged, “but it’s convenient.”
I… had no words. None that came to mind at that moment anyway. Even now I’m still trying to comprehend how to describe what happened. One that I’m not sure if there’s a word for – where it’s something like the opposite of a bigoted, tribalist, spiciest act that instead for being discriminated for being inferior, you’re being worshiped for not doing anything except for what you happened to be. That we’re giving you the god treatment just because of your physical appearance despite whatever you wanted it or not. I’m sure there’s a word out there to describe it but… I just don’t know what it is.
So anyway, when the guy returned, he didn’t come to us with a menu, but rather with the whole meal that looks like something out of a Hearth’s Warming special. Dishes in diamond encrusted platinum domes where wheeled out, a procession of foods and drinks that to me looked like food from another world. Somehow that small room was able to contain the entire encyclopedia of prestigious, gaudy, needlessly complicated food that I couldn’t believe existed. We were served glasses of chilled smoked water; hay fries with a side of really sweet black garlic ketchup; a soup that had flakes of edible gold; petite carrots cooked on cracked Yakyakistanian Salt Blocks; a bourguignon hayburger with a side of caviar potato chips; a soufflé made out of ancient gold leafed Aztec chocolate. This by-the-way is only the very tip of the this-is-why-Equestria-has-a-very-large-deficit iceberg compared to the parade of food that rolled in and out like a caver belt of pretentiousness.
After choosing out food that was at least familiar to me being put on my plate, I was about to pick up a fork when Starlight stopped me.
“Ah-ha! I think this is the perfect time to practice that magic of yours.”
I think my eye twitched at this sentence. “You do realize that the last time I did lit up my horn like a cheap firework, it sends me to another realm that, if I think too long, it would break up reality.”
“Like spending teatime at Discord’s house?”
“I wish it was.” I giggled. “But I’m getting distracted. Why do you want to teach me magic at a time like this?”
“Because magic isn’t just for having a natural light show. When shown how it can be a very useful tool. Besides, since you already had that big of a magical discharge, you should be fine.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And if I accidentally replaced this whole hotel with a mushroom cloud?”
“At least this time I got you covered. Here, try to levitate that fork. Imagine using your hoof to pick it up without moving it.”
So after rolling my eyes, I let my horn lit up again. Mercifully there was no explosion as after giving a couple of tires, the fork was indeed floating in my face. For unicorns, they might not understand how significant to see something like that. I guess that for unicorns that use magic on a daily basis, others have seen them use levitation, teleportation and all that, it seems mundane. But to someone like me, who is able to use that kind of magic stably for the very first time without anything blowing up in your face… awe-inspiring doesn’t fully describe that moment.
Too bad that moment was interrupted by the most annoying sound in Equestria. “My Lord! I finally found you!”
‘Oh, don’t tell me…’ and sure enough, the revenant nut job, Euphoria, was right there with a hoofful of followers.
“At last we finally see your face!” He said with a grin.
“Go away!”
“A BLESSING!” His followers cried, no doubt getting everypony’s attention. “A BLESSING FROM ONE MOST HIGH!”
“How shall we go away, O Master?” Euphoria asked.
“Uh, excuse me,” Starlight waved to them, “Who exactly are you?”
“I am the prophet Euphoria, and these are but a few of my followers.”
“Euphor… Wait-a-minute!” The mare suddenly got up. “Weren’t you Princess Twilight’s stalker at one point?”
“No, I’m not, I’m merely a humble follower of the mighty alicorn.”
Starlight narrowed her gaze. “If I recalled correctly, Princess Twilight told me about a cult that didn’t leave her alone for a week so she cast a spell right around Ponyville to act as a restraining order against you. And now you’re doing the same thing to Mr. Marshal?”
Before he could reply, the windows were suddenly shattered in which ninjas in black swarmed around all of us, and several dozens with swords encased me in a tight ring of black fabric. “Back away from the alicorn!” One of them yelled out. “You’re not-”
“Guys!” I barked so loudly that the entire floor had paused in which there was not a sound from anywhere or anyone. Calming down a little, I said, “Guys, let me handle this.”
“But sir!” One of the ninjas said but I raised a wing.
“I got this.” They let me pass through to clear a path towards the nutcase that he and his followers bowed. For a brief moment, I felt like my mother as I gazed down at them. “So you think that I’m a god?”
“Of course, my Lord.” Euphoria answered.
“Why?”
He looked up to me, blinking. “My Lord?”
“For what reason, in your twisted mind of yours, are you worshiping me for?”
“Well… Because you’ve ascended to Alicornhood. The most sacred, honorable, inspiring blessing that only very few have ever achieved.”
“Euphoria, do you know how I became one?”
Euphoria blinked some more. “I don’t understand. Celestia herself had given you a blessing-”
“By accident.” I interrupted. “She simply sneezed, and her horn discharged. It wasn’t fate, it wasn’t destiny, it just happened. Celestia didn’t choose me at all, she just caused an accident that she can’t reverse.”
“B-But… you have a pair of wings and a horn.”
“And you have wings, your point?”
“All the Princesses are alicorns.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever cracked open a history book? Or picked up a newspaper? I mean, Blueblood is a unicorn prince, and he gets to live with his aunts. Plus, there have been other royals that were Earth, Unicorn, and Pegasi. And yet, nopony has ever treated them like gods since the bronze age.”
“B-But, uh…” I could see it in his eyes that he was searching for something. “None of them were as powerful as the alicorn. They have lived for many centuries, all-powerful, and blessing all ponykind with peace and prosperity.”
“Two words: Nightmare Moon. She wanted eternal night and was defeated by ordinary mares with randomly shaped jewelry.”
“But they can control the sun, moon, love, and friendship!”
“Oh yeah? And what am I then? If I am a god, what am I of?”
There was a pause as he looked back at his followers, who one of them said: “Yeah… you didn’t mention that part.”
“Y-Yes I have! He’s the God of… of… the average pony! Yeah, that’s it! The average pony.”
I raised an eyebrow while folding my forelegs. “Says you. You’ve been worshiping me blindly all this time, and suddenly you just made up what you think I am? Either you’re a liar or a lunatic, which is it?”
Sweat was running down the side of his forehead. “B-But you must be a god of something.”
“I never claimed I was, and for good reason. If I were a god, I would have known it. But since I’m not one, I’m gonna lead you in a little secret: my brain, I promise you, is no bigger or better than yours. Why would you believe in someone as divine, when all they are is that they just look different for you?”
“I-I…”
“You don’t know a thing about me.” I poked a hoof at his withers. “You don’t have a clue about who I am, my job for guiding air traffic, or anything else. By Celestia, you declared a whole religion around me when you don’t even know who I am! I’ve repeatedly said that I don’t want a cult, or followers, or offerings, or temples, or shrines, or sacrifices or-or anything!”
“B-But My Lord-”
“Stop! That’s your problem, right there! You don’t see me as a pony. You put me on a pedestal when I didn’t do a thing to deserve it! I never did anything heroic. I don’t control what goes on in the skies, or in charge of everything that’s fill-in-the-blank. You need to stop putting me up there and put me back down to earth to where you are – just someone off the street going about his day. I mean, I’m normal. I go to work full time, head to a bar on Saturday Nights. Visit my parents once a week. Pay taxes. Listen to the radio to unwind. You see me like something big, grand and great – when in reality, I’m none of those things.
“Look, I’m sorry if I have to bring down your faith here, but I’m not the kind of guy that deserves something like this. If anything, you don’t need to follow me – you don’t need to follow anypony. You could respect someone, I get that, but not at the cost of thinking for yourself. You can’t rely on someone like me, or the princesses to solve your own problems. Ya just have to face ‘em.”
For a brief moment, I hoped against sanity that maybe, just maybe, I’ve reached out to him and changed his mind.
Euphoria thought about it but then said, “Nope. It’s easier to believe you’re a god than reasoning you are not. As we all know, My Lord is that reason is the enemy of faith.”
Welp, I tried. “Sic’em boys,” I said to the ninjas in which they proceeded to chase the nutcases out.
“Well, you can’t win at everything.” Starlight said as I returned to my seat.
I on the other hoof, just shut up and ate my dinner. If I couldn’t convince him, maybe… Maybe my story might get others to see.
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I almost want to ask for an epilogue, about a few months after the book is published and to know how he was doing.
I really want a sequel that explores the ship between air Marshall and Starlight. He finds her attractive and she finds him attractive. They have good chemistry. She's already taken him out for dinner. I ship them so hard, even if Starlight is the crazy that you never want to stick your dick in.
Wait......its over? Awwwww......but I thought this was going to go on for a long time. Had a good plot going for it and everything.
Not sure what you're saying here.
"but if on the invite they say that they’ll"
"as if he walked in on his dead grandmother"
"that’s emblazoned" (embattled means means a place preparing or fighting a war).
I think you mean "made reservations five years ago for this!”
"four stallions in suits that I’m fairly convinced were made out of nothing but steroid muscles came charging in," (lose the comma)
" just someone off the street going about his day"
And they're tight. This does have potential for a sequel. Especially after the sisters see his existential crisis with the writer!
9182043
Just do control-F and copy/paste the piece I quoted, it should find it immediately. All you need is a couple of words for that. It works great in the FimFiction on-line editor
Euphoria should have protested that he is the alicorn of ninjas.
9182087
Firstly, I've went pretty much through all of your stuff except for one in which I couldn't find. And considering that my original proofreader has vanished off the face of the earth before this was completed, I'll add your name to the credits for doing a little bit of editing.
Secondly, I guess it might have potential of having a sequel in the future, but as of now, I'm just glad it's finished. After all, I did wanted it to make this a short story so I could get back to the other unfinished stories that I haven't tackled yet. So I can't promise that it would happen... but needless to say, it is a thought.
Very, very nice. it started off as some kind of crack-fic, but blossomed into a compelling everyman story. And the ending was picture perfect. I look forward to whatever you write next.
Funny fic... Yes Marshall, remember you live in the land of four hooved nutjobs where weird is the rule, get used to it
Okay...when you first published this story I thought to myself ''hm. that's something new and interesting '' then was like ''nah i'll read this when it's completed.'' cut to weeks/months later i'm totally bored out of my mind and thought ''What the hell! i'm gonna read this story.'' only read from chapters one to five. Chapter six where air Marshall meets his creator (cue of the gif of Pinkie pie's eyes bulging out of the paper reading about Cadence and Shining armor's baby!) I love the description of your bedroom. finished reading the final two chapters on a Sunday.
here's my verdict...
This the best story you've ever done/created! you took an average joe who was relatable & very well flesh out character. i'm satisfied, I don't think it needs a sequel. but if you ever do i'll read that one as well;)
9182043
Does this have a sequel?