Paper Girl

by leeroy_gIBZ

3: A Wickedly Desperate Affair

The garden was as I had left it – nice until a horde of unruly seniors, students that is not the elderly, trashed it beyond all recognition. It was green still, yes, but most of the plants wouldn’t be very green for long. Judging by the amount of fern scattered about, somebody had broken into the groundskeeper’s shed and had quite the time with his weedwhacker.

I spotted him comatose next to the device, technicolour vomit trailing down his jaw, getting into his dreadlocks. Beside him, a girl with similarly-styled hair smoked a blunt and possessed an expression suggesting that, whatever she saw, it certainly wasn’t earth. Her eyes were redder than cherries and more glazed that a Krispy Kreme donut preparing for winter with a double glazing.

Treehugger – I recall Fluttershy introducing me to her, once – made an obscene gesture at me at I passed by her patch of the lawn. I imagine she must’ve thought it a peace sign, but her hand was pointed backwards. Glaring at her for a second, I sniffed and turned away my head.

She chuckled and, thumping her chest, coughed up a smoke ring or two. “Hey, Rarity, dude, check out Sandy over here. Looks like he’s in Equestria, right?”

Sandy, or whatever the green-haired boy’s name actually was, blinked once or twice, stared intensely at nothing in particular for a breath, before his head went limp again against the weedwhacker’s handle.

“How charming,” I muttered.

“Dude, want a piff?” She said, offering me the blunt.

I raised a hand in protest. “Not with my constitution, Darling. But, since you’re in such a helpful mood, mind telling me where our host is? Sour said something, but I didn’t quite catch her over the music.”

Shrugging, Treehugger scratched her chin – spilling ash all over her sackcloth sarong. “Dunno. Nobody ever asked me that before. Guess you could say she’s all around us. Yeah. Gaia’s the land, lady dude. I met her once, you know. Best summer camp of my life, Rares.”

“I mean the host of this party. Sunny Flare? About yay tall, cyan skin, pink hair. Dresses like myself, only not as well. Have you seen her?”

Treehugger scanned the horizon. She made a noncommittal grunt. How attractive, honestly.

“Very well, be unhelpful. I’ll track her down myself,” I said, turning and starting away.

About five feet of distance was put between myself and the pair of stoners before the girl cried out. “The pool!” she yelled, “she’s tanning by the pool. Got ultraviolet lights and everything. Dude, Sandy, you saw her, right?”

Sandy snored. Treehugger elbowed him in the ribs and he awoke in a fit of coughing. So much for the pacifistic hippie, I suppose. However, I always did want to see militant tie dye…

“Dude!” Treehugger grabbed her friend by the shoulders and shook the sleep out of him. Alas, the high – and the dreadful scent that accompanied it – remained.

“Yeah?” he groaned, “why’s it cold all of a sudden?”

“... It’s called Winter, Darling. It happens once a year.”

“Shit!” Sandalwood jumped to his feet, “I forgot to stop global warming, dudes! Like fuck I am so sorry, Vanuatu. I just needed a power nap.”

Not as if I had the faintest as to who this “Vanuatu” was, but that was irrelevant. Trying to stay calm, I rested my head in my hands. “Firstly, it's called climate change these days. Secondly, just tell me where Sunny is, please. I do not wish to spend all night here, out in the freezing cold, surrounded by moronic addicts.”

“I’d hardly say that two of us counts as surrounded, Rares,” Treehugger said.

At least she knows her own intelligence, or lack thereof. Now if only she could know her own smell.

“She’s by the pool, waiting for either you, her girlfriend, or Christmas Day” said somebody else, “Just take a left by the dolphin statue and head down the right footpath, keeping going until you’ve passed the pansies and the pansies passed out in them.”

“Why thank you… ah… Darling,” I said, turning to the odd girl with unripe-banana-green hair and a muddied beige sweater.

“No problem. My name’s Wallflower Blush, by the way. You made my prom dress last year and also shot me with rainbows that one time.”

“I can’t say that rings a bell, Darling. I think I would remember doing something as… memorable as that.”

Wallflower, apparently, spat the blunt out of her mouth, crushed it into the dirt with a well-worn Converse heel, and stamped away with her hands in her pockets and a scowl across her face.

“Fuck’s sake. Soon as I want to be recognized…” she grumbled.

What an odd girl; so familiar too. If she cleaned herself up a bit, I’d imagine she’d look quite fetching in a satin kaftan. I must make a note of that; what was her name again? Wallfly Bleak? Ah, never mind.

Breaking out of his panic, Sandalwood turned his head and glared at her intensely, muttering something under his breath. Treehugger crossed her arms behind her head and sat back against her tree. Starting after her, the boy of the pair then tripped over his weedwhacker and wound up out cold again.

I decided that it would be prudent to put some distance between them and myself, before their stench overpowered that of my perfume.

Taking the directions given to me, Sunny was easy enough to find. She was seated with her legs hanging over a ledge and she was overlooking the swimming pool and she did so in what was actually a rather fetching black bikini. I suppose it could’ve had a pattern printed upon it, but there was in reality remarkably little material upon which to print it. On anyone else, it might’ve looked slutty. On her, for her precise brand of wealth-endowed naivety and intellect-given inability to perfectly comprehend social cues past alternating between being needlessly haughty and throwing money at things, the swimsuit actually managed to look modest, accidental, forgivable. Besides, Bombay Sapphire gin glows in UV light and a third of a bottle of bright cyan liquid is ever-so-slightly more eye-catching than her rear end.

Only a little though.

It’s a very nice rear end.

Rather pert and all.

I sat down next to her. She didn’t notice, and continued to wave side to side with the wind. Her bottom lip quivered as she stared numbly out over her estate, and to the skyline beyond. Stars were in the sky tonight – and it occurred to me that she looked bluer than usual. Forgive the pun, but the combination of the cold and the melancholy that had seemed to overcome her does no wonders for one’s complexion; she was no exception, and there was a pimple just beneath her left ear, partially hidden by her bangs, shown only when her hair fluttered in the breeze.

“Well,” I said, softly, “you asked for me and here I am.”

Sunny Flare gasped and nearly fell in the pool. At the last second, I grabbed her arm and managed to hold her up until she found her footing on a loosened brick jutting out from the poolside wall. Heaving and huffing in a most unladylike manner, we managed to get her back up to safety.

Never in my life had I ever seen the girl swim and I wasn’t about to start now; lounging beside a body of water is far more dignified than actually being in it, what with the sort of dirt that accumulates in those things. Disgusting, honestly.

That and she was so drunk that I feared she might drown, invalidating my entire reason for trudging over here in the first place.

“Rarity?” she slurred, blinking, “You’re really here?”

“Yes, Darling. I couldn’t miss your birthday party, now could I?”

She giggled, “Guess not.”

“Indeed. Now, whatever are you doing out here, in the cold?”

That, apparently, was not the right thing to say. Personally, I thought it made me come off as fairly compassionate and just more than a bit interested in her; the latter of which I actually was. However, Sunny swore under her breath, and turned away.

I put a hand on her shoulder. My, she was freezing.

“Darling, you know can tell me anything. And I am terribly concerned for you right now, with you being out here… alone, barely decent, all alone… out in the cold.”

If only there was a picnic blanket nearby. Then, perhaps, she could warm me up.

Sunny sighed. “You sound like parents.”

“Well, excuse me for having a vested interest in keeping you alive, Darling. But, really, we must get you back inside. Having you being frostbiting would be the worst possible thing! You cannot manicure fingers you don’t have.”

You can’t do other certain things with fingers you don’t have either but that is most definitely beside the point; at least for the next half hour anyway.

She snorted. “Seriously, lay off for a second.”

“If you insist. At least tell me what’s got you… so angry.”

“Fine, I guess I did ask you to be here, after all.”

“Yes, you did. Fleur, if I recall, was out of town. You were looking for some company. As a matter of fact, so was I.”

Well, I was after I received your text.

“This isn’t about Fleur,” Sunny grumbled.

To take a page out of Bon-Bon’s book, what?

“Ah, pardon me Sunny? What do you say, again?”

“You heard me. This isn’t about Fleur. Well, not totally anyway. It’s about Lens. My mother. Wanton arrogant workaholic of a... person.”

“Yes, the fashion designer. What of her?”

“Do see her here!” Sunny shouted.

“Come to think of it, I do not. Then again, I can’t exactly imagine why a woman like her would exactly frequent a celebration as…” chaotic, disgraceful, unbecoming, mess-creating, incrimination, disgusting? “as unique as yours.”

“Because she is my mother, Rares. But no, no! She had a press conference in Los Angeles! A press conference? More important than me,” she pointed to herself – I had forgotten exactly how nicely shaped her breasts were – “her daughter? She has missed all but one of my birthdays, Dearie, and I am getting a bit annoyed!”

Presumably, the birthday Lens Flare had actually been present for was Sunny’s birth itself.

“Calm down, Darling. We… can’t change that now.”

“I know,” her voice was anything but calm, “so I asked Fleur to keep me company. But she’s visiting her grandparents in Geneva.”

“Tell me about it, that Fleur, not to speak ill of your beloved but-”

She cut me off, “Ha! Beloved? Once she gets back to Canterlot City, I am absolutely breaking up with her. That was the last straw, honestly. She knows how much my birthday means to me! How I’d like to spend it…” Sunny paused for a beat, “with my family for once.”

“Ah. You, you poor thing.”

“So, I threw a really kickass party in her house.”

Len Flare’s house, that is, not Fleur’s. Not yet, anyhow and, at the rate this conversation is going, not ever.

“Yes. That is a word you could certainly use to describe this party.”

“And I invited Vinyl, who brought PCP or bath salts or crack or some other thing that makes you go crazy.”

Well, that definitely does explain a few things. I can’t remember Sour Sweet being that off-kilter or Lemon being that out of it or Indigo being that violent. Competitive yes, but bloodthirsty? not really, no. Perhaps somebody told her it was a game though. I can certainly recall Lemon being that out of it.

“I certainly can see the reasoning in that. Quite a good revenge, I must say. In fact, now pardon my French here, but I do believe I saw a guy a while back pleasuring himself with one of your Makiwas. Lens Flare certainly will not appreciate that. At least, I believe it was a Makiwa. Now I daresay it better resembles a Jackson Pollock.”

Sunny blinked. She stopped sniffing too. “One of my whats?”

“Makiwa. He’s an upcoming Zimbabwean artist. One of your guests was…” I mimed what he was doing, “yes, with the painting.” The resulting expression Sunny made split her face between embarrassed amusement and utter disgust.

“What, did he, like, roll it up?”

“Possibly. Last I saw he had carved a hole for… himself.”

Sunny gagged and then burst out into laughter. Then she gagged again and slumped against me.

“Fuck, Dearie, I drank sooo much,” she muttered, wiping her mouth off on my scarf.

“Indeed. Let’s get you inside right this instant.”

“I thought she’d think I was cute out here. But she didn’t show up,” Sunny slurred, as I helped her up.

And the implications of that just hit me. I do hope she meant Fleur there; I am nowhere near old enough to be remotely motherly.

Noticing my grimace, Sunny continued, “Yes, I realize that it was a stupid idea, especially since Fleur left yesterday. Sugarcoat told me it was but did I listen? Lol. No… But I love you. You’re like my third, wait not Fleur’s a bitch now, second, yeah, my second most-loved person in the world. And you’re great.”

“Why thank you, Darling. I love you as well.”

I’d say that you didn’t rank on my list of beloved people but, then again, I’m mentally incapable of keeping such a list in the first place.

“You know,” she continued, voice slurred as thick as a milkshake that was trying and utterly failing to be sultry, “My bedroom’s got a lock on it. Nobody could get in. Or out.”

That sounded more like a threat than a flirt – another reason why intoxication is so terribly unladylike.

“That sounds lovely, Sunny. Positively lovely, indeed. Let’s go there, shall we?” I asked, taking her arm; she’s female and about my height and also spectacularly blitzed so I do believe this change of arrangement is, for once, acceptable.

She hung off me like a diamond. A drunk tipsy diamond.

Suddenly, she stopped, bent over, and was sick in a bush.

A very tipsy diamond.

“Ah, Sunny?” I asked.

“Yeah?” she groaned – her voice was muffled; her mouth was pressed against my scarf.

“Is that bedroom of yours en-suite by any chance?”

To my relief, she nodded.

“Excellent. I think we’ll start our evening off with a shower then. A hot, steamy, sensual, and hot shower. Yes, with a bit of foam, ah?”

“Sounds fine,” Sunny mumbled.

“Fantastic, Darling. Also, do feel free to keep that scarf. It’s my gift. It’s your birthday present.”

Sunny’s eyes went wider than satellite dishes. Her jaw thumped against the cobble of the garden path. She went limp in my arms, sobbing and getting a drip of vomit on me and hanging her arms around my neck.

Equal parts disgusting and, well no, that’s it. Disgusting. I suppose, if not for my condition, I would’ve been incredibly touched by the fact that she was so impacted by somebody actually being nice, genuinely, nice to her on what was supposed to be one of the best days in her year.

But, then again, she was getting me dirty. That shower sounded more and more enticing by the second, and I wasn’t even planning on actually stepping into it – I would absolutely not sleep with her while she was drunk tipsy; furthermore, she stank of gin, half-digested kale and rice cakes, not to mention crippling insecurity and all the other things nerdy girls usually smell like. Very glossy lips though.

“Rarity,” she mumbled, staring up at me as I held her up.

“Yes, Darling?”

“Love you.”

“I know.”

“No, no no no. No, like, more than you can possibly imagine. You’re Here. For. Me. And nobody else is! Like, all those assholes in the house just like me for my looks and my money and for who my mother is but… but…” she sniffed, I pointed her head away from my cleavage in case she was ill again, “you’re different.”

No, Sunny. Unfortunately, I am not.

“Why, I’m sure there’s somebody… li-” I wracked my mind trying to conjure up a name and I came up, for once, utterly blank; well, not entirely blank but… gah, Sugarcaot? no, that would be disgusting. “Yes!” I said, “I do love you more than anyone else in the world so let’s go inside and have a shower!”

Phew.

Sunny beamed. She had kale in her teeth. “Thanksooomuch! That sounds super amazing, Dearie.”

“Of course, it does. All things do when a proper lady thinks of them.”

She giggled. Giggling is something that can be very seductive when performed properly. I was not feeling very seduced right now but, hopefully, both of us would be prettier in the morning.

Navigating the mansion was never an easy task; doing so with Sunny draped across me like a heliotrope-and-chartreuse mink did not change that reality. Under her direction, I re-entered the building via another entrance and, to my disgust, I found myself in the kitchen. Well, what remained of it, anyhow.

Like a carmine comet, Pinkie Pie had collided with the once-elegant brushed steel, frosted glass, polished granite room to ruinous effect. Every available surface was coated with cookie dough, spilled alcohol, or candy – what I assumed to be candy, I trusted that Vinyl was a sensible enough person not to leave her narcotics out in the open. Other surfaces were not available due to being either sprawled upon by drunk teenagers, or on fire, or splattered with unmentionable substances. The baker herself was dancing in a corner of the room, beside the oven.

Let me take a moment to remind you that I had personally disabled the music some minutes ago.

Pink hair poofed up and down to the tune of some unseen, unheard, rhythm. Spinning on a plate, the girl turned to face us, eyes closed and mouthing into a whisk as if it were a microphone, before spinning away and performing, on one foot might I add, the hokey-pokey.

“Should we… um… help her?” Sunny groaned.

I eyed her. Smoke began to emerge from the oven nearby. “I can’t imagine why we would. She looks like she’s having the time of her life dancing in a destroyed room.”

“We should, like, at least check on her. I think she’s high.”

“Nothing to worry about if it’s a good trip, Darling. Besides, I’ve got you to worry about. Wouldn’t you oh! like to do something else right now?” I said, batting my eyelashes at her.

Sunny started forward, and her foot skidded in a pile of icing; she shouted in surprise and latched onto my arm. Did I mention that the nails of the hand she used were rather long, and rather sharp? I managed to drag her back to her feet, rubbing the pain from the bruise-to-be forming on my arm.

“Good grief, please watch where you step!” I shouted.

Sunny gulped; I took an involuntary step back. Pinkie noticed me.

“Hey! Rarity! I didn’t know you came to Crystal Prep parties,” she shouted, hopping off of her plate, “They’re super fun, aren’t they? Not like the ones in Ponyv-er-Canterlot at all! We certainly did not have drugs back at the rock farm, no siree. I mean, not drugs like these. There was laudanum, sure, but you weren’t really supposed to drink that. Then you’d really need to drink it… vicious circle, actually.”

“Well, you never know where the wind might take you,” I said, “and tonight, it has taken me here.”

“Yeah,” Sunny nodded, “We’re back together.”

Pardon my French, but oh for fuck’s sake shut up!

Pinkie raised a dough-spattered eyebrow and her whiskless hand went to scratch her chin. From it she plucked off a piece of candy and she popped it into her mouth, chewing intensely. “Wait a minute,” she muttered, after swallowing.

“I really cannot afford to,” I replied, “you see, Sunny here had a little too much gin and really ought to lie down right about now. Don’t listen to a word she says. I was just taking her to bed actually.”

Somebody hammered on a pantry door. “I can take her! If you let me out of here!” Sugarcoat yelled, from within.

“It’s too early for you to come out!” Pinkie yelled back, then turned to us, “Gotta keep pacing right, you know?”

I wonder if she, Pinkie Pie, takes Ubers?

Sunny stood up straight and managed to sway only a little. She attempted to glare at Pinkie and point, incriminatingly at her, with a finger – if she weren’t 5’4” and drunk tipsy verging on liver failure, I might have been mildly intimidated by the act. “Why did you lock my best friend in the pantry, Pinkie Pie?” she asked.

Pinkie shrugged, “Eh? Seemed like a good idea at the time. Because she super, duper, totally needs to get laid. Have you seen how uptight she is? Total party pooper and I think the stick up her ass is even wallpaper flavoured. So I set her up for some Seven Minutes in heaven, you know?”

“I’m alone in here, you candyfloss-haired hyperactive moron! And if you do not hurry up, you’ll be the one worrying about sticks and the insertion thereof into uncomfortable places for sticks to be.”

“Hey, she sounds just like my sister’s fiancé when she does that. Oh! Maybe they’d be up for a threesome? Also Sugar kept whining at me about me trying to bake her a birthday cake. She said it wasn’t even her birthday. She said she didn’t want skittles on it! And they make you feel really neat too! Can you imagine?” Pinkie gasped, like she had requested we imagine something actually horrible, like cannibalism or socks with sandals, “A skittle-less rainbow cake? Terrible.”

“Dearie, I’m the one having the birthday here,” Sunny said, raising a hand and subsequent bottle of Chinese cooking wine.

“Oh no! Seriously, I made the cake for the wrong person. Not again!”

“Also, Darling, your ‘cake’ appears to be on fire.” I pointed towards the oven, and at the plume of oily black smoke emerging from it.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m smoking ribs in there. We ran out of hors d’oeuvres a few hours back and, well, it can’t be a rich people party without little bits of meat on sticks nobody really likes, right?”

Agreed. Somewhat. Myself, I am quite partial to a good chipolata with a bit of Dijon dressing. I can’t speak for Sunny though – she’s changed from looking overly blue to looking uncomfortably green.

“So anywayyyy, how’s life Rarity?”

I gritted my teeth. Good grief, this girl doesn’t stop, does she? “I’m quite fine, Pinkie, but I really ought to get going.”

“S’okay, we’re here all night,” Sunny said, uncorking the Shaoxing and having a swig. She retched immediately afterwards, into a nearby handbag. How fortunate I had decided to bring Twilight’s along, safely on the other side of her right now.

“And Twilight?” My blood went colder than the night sky. Pinkie, perpetually oblivious, continued. “I heard you went to that fancy new café with her. Is it true? The rumours, right? That they make the best croissants in the city there?”

What a relief – pastry. I feared for a second she was going to mention our relationship to Sunny.

“Also are you and her still going steady? She said she was taking you to meet Cadance, right?”

Sunny pulled her head out of the ruined handbag and hiccupped. I handed her the scarf; it did not suit her. “Hey, I know a Cadance. She’s dean of my school, actually.”

“Oh cool! Did you know she’s married to Twilight’s brother? Crazy small world, right?” Pinkie giggled.

“Yes, it is a very small world but I really do have to get going right now. Lovely seeing you again, Pinkie,” I said, grabbing Sunny’s hand and dragging her out of the kitchen before anything else bothersome decided to happen.

Eventually, after another few discomforting run ins and incidents, one of which involved a kangaroo suit of all things, Sunny and I finally reached her room. It was located on the four floor and, once we had reached it, Sunny stumbled over to the wall beside the doorway and tapped in a code on the security gate. A second later, the gate clanked open and made available to us the rest of the floor instead of just confining us to the stairway and hall it led up to.

“Code’s 0-0-0-0, by the way,” Sunny said.

“So, it is,” I said, following her into the corridor. I suppose one cannot always be vigilant in terms of technology but, then again, nobody in their right minds would consider that either mother or daughter would be so negligent as to not set a proper security code for their rooms; rather cunning, actually, in an absent-minded alcoholic sort of way.

The interior of her and her mother’s apartments appeared much the same as the rooms downstairs, except somewhat logically laid out and also not currently being desecrated. Intact, the décor was actually rather fetching, if one likes Art Deco. Sunny immediately stumbled off to her own room, kicked the door open on the fifth try, and proceeded to collapse – dead to the world – on her bed, not bothering to even crawl beneath the duvet, let alone change out of her bikini and into her pyjamas.

After turning her head to the side, so that she wouldn’t choke on her own sick, I took a second to examine the room. It had been a good year since I had slept here last, and the bedroom was, in fact, larger than my family’s living room and my father’s mancave study put together. To the west lay a wall of French windows, with minimalist railings glimmering a copper colour in the dim light of the room’s clap-on chandelier. Said light fitting was a rather charming bronze colour, with lamps sculpted in the shape of candles. Beneath it was the bed – king size and elaborately arranged with layer upon layer of sugar white and pastel pink bedclothes – and atop that drooled an unconscious Sunny. The opposite side of the room was dominated by a wall of cupboards, flush with the wall and filled to shattering apart with fashionable shoes, designer jeans, masterwork jewellery; not to mention a few armfuls of dresses, some of which I myself had tailored for her and some of which she herself had crafted.

Overlooking the garden was a modest balcony with railings in the same twirling orange copper as the windowsills inside. Under its roof was an elegant mahogany desk – it had a delicate, and marvelously expensive, Mac laptop lying closed upon it.

I turned and left the room, shutting off the lights behind me. Then I went and locked the security gate and shut off the light that illuminated the staircase up to it. No point in setting myself up for any disturbances; I’m sure there’s a kitchenette here somewhere and Sunny did say that her room was en-suite. Of course, now there was the matter of where I was going to sleep.

But first things first. Sitting myself down on a couch in the smoking room, mint-dark paisley wallpaper and velvet furnishings and mahogany redwood panelling made it could the comfortable seat indeed, I removed my phone from Twilight’s handbag. 2% of battery and numerous missed calls met my gaze.

Firstly, I sent a text to Sweetie Belle, asking her to reserve me a bottle of Windhoek, if there was still such a thing in the house to reserve and I informed her that I would be staying with friends this weekend. Then I messaged Twilight and I told her that I was safe and sound and, also, I had no idea where her brother’s car was – claiming that there was a family event of great importance, technically true, I had to call myself an Uber, literally true, and rush home immediately, lest my darling sister be traumatized for life upon seeing the comatose form of my diabetic father, false on all accounts obviously. Her phone binged in response.

That bit of admin done with, I fetched the steel drinks mixer out from the handbag and poured myself a martini, seeing as Sunny wouldn’t be wanting another this evening – or at all ever again, hopefully. Despite her numerous faults, Sour can actually mix them decently. Keeping that in mind, I had another and left the pair of stainless cups on the coffee table for somebody else to worry about.

And I was just about to fall asleep in a guest bedroom, tucked snugly between sheets with thread counts higher than my bank balance, when I heard a truly terrible sound.

Sirens.

Pardon my French – but, actually, no you know the deal by now: shit!

Shit! Shit!

After combing my hair into a semblance of presentability and after climbing back into my dress, which wasn’t presentable at all considering how filthy it actually was, I walked over to the window and I peered out between the terracotta satin curtains.

What I saw was a pair of police cruisers driving up through the left-open gate and into the mansion’s grounds with what was either suicidal determination or reckless abandon. One swerved around the house and halted, presumably, right beside the front door. The other stopped by one of the house’s back doors.

I wrenched the curtains shut.

The events which ensued thereafter made me feel very glad I had gone to the, admittedly minimal, efforts of making it appear as though the uppermost floor of this building was currently uninhabited – Lens Flare, being away on business and all, must’ve seen it wise to ensure than none of her daughter’s delinquent friends encroached upon her sanctum and trashed it like a school hall on graduation evening. Policemen, at least four of the uniformed apes, marched into the house with baton in hand, brutality in mind, and MP-25s strapped to their sides. One I thought I recognized; another I knew I recognized, and a chill slashed through my spine when I realized why his pallid demeanour seemed so easily recognizable.

Shining Armor was here.

Keep in mind that I had stolen his car and stuffed the crushed-up corpse of some skateboard riding pickup artist in its trunk.

I hope you’ll forgive me for doing something terribly unbecoming – namely, manual labour. After the third couch I’d shoved by the door, I considered myself to be relatively safer.

In hindsight, that might have been an overreaction. And it did leave the ugliest scratches across the ebon floorboards.

A single gunshot, colder and sharper than a frozen stiletto icicle – echoed throughout the mansion.

Briefly, between the ensuing silence its carved and the ensuing commotion it demanded, I realized that another armchair to barricade the door couldn’t really hurt.

Besides, as Sugarcoat said – not that I’d ever admit it to her, the dreadful girl – I do actually need the exercise. Not as if I can stick to a diet; if you were interested, I more so blame that on my fondness for wine and my tendency for a good slice of cake every now and then rather on my mental condition.

I can concentrate. I merely do not feel poorly if I concentrate on doing something most would regard as wicked.

Such as having an affair with one’s ex-girlfriend.

To my surprise, she was awake again when I entered the room. Alas, she was still fairly grimy and sprawled in a deeply unsexy way upon her bedspread, one leg pointed right up towards the sky, the other dangling off her bed and brushing gently against the shag carpet.

“Rares?” Sunny mumbled, collapsing around to face me.

“Yes, Darling? I hope I didn’t wake you. Oh my,” I said, checking the time on my phone, “its still so early it's late!”

Unsuccessfully, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Why’s everyone screaming now?”

“Oh, do not worry about that in the slightest. I’m just watching a horror movie in the other room. I do hope you don’t mind but I saw you had Texas Chainsaw Massacre in your collection and I just had to give it a glimpse after the movie club at school gave it such a rave review.”

Honestly, I had no clue whether or not Sunny had that movie at all; it was just the first horror film that came to mind. Never mind that said movie club consists of my fourteen-year-old sister and her similarly-aged friends, a hyperactive scooter-wielding maniac and a hick who’s more inbred than a Habsburg; I would be immensely surprised to learn that they had watched the above movie and more so to discover that they actually enjoyed it. Well, maybe not Apple Bloom - shifty little bugger, she is.

“Thought we’d got rid of those,” Sunny muttered, “Lens said she wanted to do a paperless office.”

Drat.

I smiled. “I meant on your computer, Darling.”

Sunny blinked. “Thought I changed the password on that.”

“You told me, remember? As you let me in?”

“I swear I changed it, Rares. Its Fleur’s name now, followed by a number one.”

My eyes narrowed; only two people I despised more than Fleur dis Lis. One was a policeman who couldn’t keep his baton to himself and the other was the creatively-named Applejack Apple.

Sunny realized her mistake. She gulped. Then her stomach growled and she decided on gagging instead. I moved the wastepaper basket to her bedside, tucked a blanket over her and kissed her, lightly, on the top of her head. She smiled and muttered thanks through gritted teeth.

“Sleep well, Sunny,” I said, closing the door behind me.

As a matter of fact, it is remarkably hard to fall asleep to the dual annoyances of people vomiting and people screaming “fuck the police” before said police applied a truncheon to their skulls. However, there were no more gunshots, and the cars eventually screeched away, presumable noise complaint verified silent, and they left me to a well-earned rest.

Sometimes, I wish I was normal.

But I’m doing quite fine now.

Comments

[Blood Rarity]

party!!!party!!!

[Leondude]

Treehugger – I recall Fluttershy introducing me to her, once – made an obscene gesture at me at I passed by her patch of the lawn. I imagine she must’ve thought it a peace sign, but her hand was pointed backwards.

You have no idea how many non-Brits do that.

Chances are it's the same number of people that use the word "spaz" without knowing how offensive it is in the UK.

[MrGhoul]

lovely chapter i await further madness

[leeroy_gIBZ]

9799756
Thanks mate. Glad to see you're enjoying it.

[Orphan]

9795493
Why is it offensive?