Chapter 20: Salvation for the damned
The moon rested soundly in the vast lake of rich indigo above. Chiliads of stars accompanied the rocky behemoth in its short but fruitful reign over the airspace. The sole entity overhead offering salvation from an existence of utter and complete isolation. A fate too grim even for a celestial body. And there was only the famed Princess Luna to thank. Families of crickets chirped happily, their twittering being lost in the flowing stream of white noise running down Ponyville’s empty streets. Becoming one with the nightly ambience, accompanied exclusively by the low whistling of the chilly breeze. An auditory tradition that Pinkie Pie had grown accustomed to ever since the Cakes gave her free reign over Sugarcube Corner long ago. A decision that would prove ruinous for Pinkie’s once pristine, flawless sleep schedule.
When the bright pony’s 16th birthday came and went, she had been informed by her cake-loving guardians that the responsibility of opening and closing the beloved shop was in her hooves. A duty she took more seriously than they ever could’ve dreamed of. With running and working in the bakery being the activity she loved more than anything, it was no surprise to anyone when the colorless open sign was flipped incredibly early. Giving Pinkie hours to prepare for the sugar-starved swarm of equine to flood the glass doors when the sun finally rose to usurp it’s throne. Sending the moon’s comrades back to their periodic slumber, charging their batteries until their presence was needed again. It had become a custom Pinkie followed religiously with no sign of stopping whatsoever. So much so to the point where, if she overslept by meager minutes, the mood of the remainder of her day would be thrown into jeopardy.
As such, forgetting her daily routine was nothing short of a cardinal sin. Pinkie would rather face death head-on than miss it. She never did. And tonight was no exception.
The clock struck the boldly-printed five in the Cake household. Pinkie’s longtime guardians and closest friends continued to frolic in their peaceful repose. Sinking ever-so-deeper into the broad ocean of slumber, running headlong to the siren’s song of the murky fathoms. Even on holidays or rare acts of God where the shop wouldn’t open its doors, Pinkie Pie was a proud and experienced night owl. No stranger to the dead of night or the brightest, earliest mornings. Filling the mundane space between where her brain wouldn’t permit the respite she craved for with feverish journal writing or reading. How somebody as active and jumpy as her could handle sitting in one spot for any amount of time was anyone’s guess. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t trade it for the world. Relishing every moment and beat of silence in-between pages. Wholeheartedly enjoying the shifting of old paper and the dulcet singing of owls, residing placidly outside the vibrant walls of her humble abode.
However, as pleasant and timeless as her nightfall activities were, she, akin to everyone else in Ponyville, had responsibilities. And quotidianly, sans remarkably rare occasions, she was the one to fulfill them.
It wasn’t a burden by any means. The furthest thing from it, in fact. Her vast and colorful vocabulary, no matter how tediously she scrutinized it, the proper word to describe it. Love was simply too sub-par for her liking. Pinkie fell head-over-hooves for the way her heart slammed excitedly against her chest when her eyelids sprung open. Responding to her slightly obnoxious alarm’s cries and bleating, screaming for the acknowledgment of the party pony. Leaping from her mattress, blanket hovering down from the sudden hurtle, ardor surged through her being. For any equine in Ponyville that fit society’s definition of “normal”, no sane person alive could be this energetic and squirrely mere instants from awakening. Much less deliberately choose to and thoroughly enjoy it. If Pinkie’s hyperactive antics didn’t already prove she was poles apart from the average equine, this certainly proved it by leaps and bounds.
The moonlight that morn was somehow even more beautiful than the countless other times the zealous pony had laid eyes on it. By the time her lids bisected and her globes were relieved from the endless darkness, pale slender shafts had already filtered through the small gap in her curtains. Showering her small frame with its brilliant radiance. The rocky behemoth’s reign over the vast lake of tenebrosity above was unfortunately temporary. A fact that Pinkie, contrary to what others may suspect, wished was a mere falsehood.
It would be utterly mind-rattling to anyone who knew her that Pinkie Pie, a pony with enough adrenaline whirling through her to kill an army, preferred Luna’s peaceful monarchy over the daytime. While yes, the dusk had its fair share of pros and cons that Pinkie wasn’t particularly fond of. One of the numerous disadvantages she loathed was the severe scarcity of people to tenant her aura of verve. Ever since the day she began this day-to-day ritual, the sole beings to accompany her in the early stages of daybreak were the families of crickets and occasional boisterous owls. Other than that, loneliness was her solitary ally. Nothing to satisfy her undying lust for conversation other than her own thoughts and the rare Rainbow Factory worker returning home. Stumbling through the polished glass doors, drenched head-to-hoof in a thick mire of sweat. Their faded cyan work shirt honeycombed with dark orbs of grease and long streaks of vigorous color, like vibrant vipers holding a marathon down their worn fabric. Seeing somebody barely able to stand on his own two hooves made her more-than-appreciative of the life she was fortunate enough to live. Not having to return home encased in a putrid aroma that laid waste to her senses. Or for the zeal to be beaten from her crystalline globes by tortuous, grueling hours, leaving dull remnants in its wake.
And it wasn’t just them who would saunter into Sugarcube Corner with vastly different intentions than a hankering for sugar and caffeine.
Weeks before Nightmare Moon’s nigh-cataclysmic return, a cloaked zebra meandered her way into the bakery. Her sable cloven hooves clicking against the tiles akin to clattering dice as she approached. Radiant gold irises stabbed her vision, slicing through the thin screen of darkness between them. The torn, patch-riddled sack tied around her neck with an elderly rope cloaked her features in rich tenebrosity. Despite the mere inches separating the two, Pinkie tried and failed to decipher the mind-jambling puzzle that was her face. All the thick shadow granted access to was the protruding banded muzzle, alongside her razor-sharp eyes.
Zecora was her name. A newcomer to Ponyville. Not much was revealed in their brief yet surprisingly informative conversation. Apparently, the immensely small handful of civilians who didn’t cower in fear at the sight of her spoke Pinkie’s name in reverence. Showering the equine in praise. That was all the encouragement she needed to seek out Pinkie’s allegedly high-spirited, and dare she say addictive, atmosphere. Zecora’s heart begged on their knees with clasped hands to stay, permitting her to absorb all of Pinkie’s energy down to the final ounce. But the beckons of her home echoed down the ill-lit Ponyville streets, carrying the slightest hint of the olid swamp tang with it. Pinkie and just about everyone she knew, Applejack the sole exception, would face death head-on then be within a mile radius of any bog Equestria had to offer. How a pony could live and sleep there willingly was mind-boggling.
Other than Zecora’s fleeting yet memorable interaction, her nights were occupied solely by the tranquility she signed up for from the get-go. Jubilated families of crickets chirping to their heart’s content, singing their passionate song from every corner of the pacific village. Spasmodic, somewhat ominous, hoots of roisterous owls. Glancing out of the window and seeing the desultory unicorn going on their morning jog. Or a pegasus taking their dog on a much needed bathroom break. The stark difference in grogginess between the two makes it seem as if they were from different planets. A pup happy as can be trotting down the Ponyville avenues, restricted only by the leash tugging their nape. And then there was the owner. Eyelids drooping, beseeching for merely a moment of repose from the inflicted torment. Hooves shuffling against the ground. Small-scale plumes of dirt and sediment rising from their fatigued appendages, blending into the midnight surrounding them.
Pinkie couldn’t help but beam ear-to-ear at the sights she witnessed on those lengthy fall nights. To others, the spectacles would be nugatory. Simply an event occurring in somebody else’s life that doesn’t concern them in the least bit. A wedge of Ponyville’s background, if you will. But to her, they were far more than that. More than the owner or the innocent jogger could ever begin to understand.
Turning a meaningless exchange of commerce with a complete stranger into a chat with a brand new friend was Pinkie Pie’s specialty. The cream of crop in the world of talent. Perhaps by brightening her day with their presence, she could mirror the same effect on theirs. No matter how gloomy or foreboding it was. However, the aggregate of Ponyville’s population wasn’t wholly civilians or world-rescuing groups of friends. Sometimes, albeit extremely rarely, evil prevailed over the supreme serenity she had become accustomed to. Nightmare Moon was a prime example that came to mind. She wasn’t particularly keen on diving headfirst into the rabbit hole of “what ifs'' when it came to that dreadful night. Sporadically sprinkled in the weeks following the avoided travesty, her mind would wander to distant lands while restless in the dead of night. Exploring far and wide the array of possible outcomes and endings that could’ve easily befallen them. How many times death could’ve annexed her on their perilous trek through the Everfree. Or the manifold of opportunities where the untold horrors of the decrepit castle would have revealed themselves. In unimaginable ways. And Nightmare’s wrath wasn’t explicitly reserved for her. It could’ve been unleashed full-force on any one of her dearest friends. Twilight. Rainbow. Possibly even Levi. Although with that corpse that Pinkie refused to look at in the corridor, it appeared he was dealt the lion’s share of her fury. Face bruised. Skin split. Carmine dashed across the flesh in sickly belts. Buttons popped from his shirt.
It was a miracle she wasn’t the one leading the charge against the nefarious alicorn. If she was, who knows what that monster with the demolished truck might’ve had in store for her. His fists were clearly parched from the taste of blood. It mattered not to him who the unfortunate victim was.
With that in mind, it was perfectly reasonable for Pinkie to be wary of individuals who brought a bubble of unease with them. People who shook the silence to its core without so much as a peep or a movement. Making the formerly amicable bubble Pinkie inhabited tremble in fear at the sight. Contaminating her euphoric vanity with its anxiety-inducing venom. Whetted teeth sunk deep into the fragile walls of her castle in the air, razing it to a pitiful mound of ash and glowing embers. Luckily, barely anyone fitting that harrowing bill had crossed her path for some time. And it was much better that way.
However, life was a cruel sod. Heeding not to the feelings of those it manipulates remorselessly. Refusing to bend or bow to the emotions of others. Twisting lives without an inkling of ruth. Whether he was blind to the ruin he wrought or simply didn’t give a damn was unclear. An inquiry with no lucid answer. And there would most likely ne’er be one. If the sadistic hands of fate tugging the strings didn’t bear the brunt of the pain they blatantly summon, what reason would they have to care? None at all.
Pinkie Pie would learn that lesson harshly. Just the same as a myriad of ponies have before her.
Five o’clock rolled around, the same as it always did. The same alarm thundered in her eardrums. She jolted from her slumber in the same manner she always did. Leaping from the cocoon of blankets and sheets as though electricity replaced the blood in her veins. Akin to her bones being wreathed in glowing-hot coils. The catastrophe of lively pink curls atop her head resembled the grisly aftermath of a hellish war. Each loose lock protruding from the loch of tousled mane like gravestones of fallen soldiers. Without even the slightest allusion towards a deviation from her routine, Pinkie pranced happily to her bedroom door. While her lush arresting carpet aided in her stealthy awakening, the aged hinges keeping her door stable were the reverse opposite. Textbook definition of a clear-cut Judas. Every single morning without fail, her beautifully hand-crafted mahogany door set out to stab her deep in the back. If rudely reeling everyone in Sugarcube Corner from their blissful slumber was the main objective, it was a miracle succession strayed far from its path.
In stark contrast to the desolate groaning ricocheting off the brightly painted walls, the deep maroon carpet was Pinkie’s number-one trusted ally. Having her back in muting her otherwise clamorous trots night after night. Rescuing her from the potential sweltering scowl of a rudely-awaken Cake patriarch. A strident hum rose from the extremity of her throat, the grueling night of inactivity having taken its toll. In spite of seizing consciousness mere minutes prior, Pinkie’s impatient bones were already settling into their old habits. Bouncing with avidity leaking from her hooves, forever welding her mark into Sugarcube Corner until time reached its coda. Even posterior to the manifold of times Pinkie had drilled through her crafted formality, nix was ever homogeneous. Every uncharacteristically soundless stride. Every hymn she ever crooned, blessing the stale air with the marvelous tune. Every dream she experienced moments before her brain was wrenched from slumber. All of it culminated into a grade-A Pinkie Pie experience. Chiseling a dull and downright insufferable state of affairs into an exponentially more enjoyable ordeal for everyone involved.
The pastel equine bounded enthusiastically down the coiling flight, her jolly carol on no occasion losing its infectious merriness. Her heart battered happily against her robust ribs. Pinkie’s frame was arrested by the iron-tight clutches of unbridled excitement. What would the upcoming handful of hours hold for the jubilated pony? The question didn’t yet harbor a clear answer. But that was what made it so incomprehensibly fun for her. Discovering in real time what was in store for her was precisely the reason she kept continuing these mores on a consistent basis.
Amidst the blaring jamboree raging on within her core, something else somehow managed to slip through the cracks of her palisade of gaiety. A sensation more sinister than Pinkie ever could’ve thought of anticipating. It wasn’t a feeling she endured often. In fact, heretofore that nerve-wracking calamity of a celebration, fear hadn’t truly gotten its hands on her longer than her memory spanned. Pinkie Pie was the polar opposite of a pony easily deterred from her usual cheery way of life. If anyone else in her shoes had trudged through a boring existence for years, only for it all to be shattered by a single beam of color, who would forsake those emotions. The circadian intoxicating waves of pure, unchained delight that drowned her was teetering on the border of addicting. Even so little as a fleeting second drifting from her epoch of glee would be spent in agony.
Pinkie’s hooves greeted the chilly Lincoln green wooden floor blanketing the bottom level with a drawn-out whine. Not every inch of the house actively worked in Pinkie’s favor. That much was transparent. Perhaps the wretched golden door hinges and the damned treen beneath her had been conspiring together all along. Working to fabricate the perfect plan to burn her to a meaningless heap of illuminating cinders. If only the truth was as bright as her undying love for this place.
Clear glass tables held together by a faded green, slender metal skeleton, like the hue of deteriorated copper, dotted the border of the shop. Accompanied by steel chairs, crafted from the same rangy material. That waning copper green, as though the small family of restaurant appliances had stood the test of time ten-fold. From the outside looking in, one would be forgiven for mistaking the five-star bakery for a lawn display at a hardware store. And if Pinkie was honest, that was precisely what she felt upon first glance. However, after many years of meticulous cleaning and treating it akin to her own child, the willowy seats and framework exceeded that stereotype. Situated bare centimeters from the vast pock-cleared windows, any and all who were fortunate enough to bask in Sugarcube Corner’s glory got the best space any diner could offer. Granted full faultless, uncensored access to the picturesque spectacle that was Ponyville, in all of its scenic beauty. Watching colts and fillies frolic up and down the plodded roads, no care in the world about anything else sans their innocent games. Seeing unicorns dragging grey-haired wagons behind their back, the grumbling of old tires and placid chatter muffled by the unsoiled aperture. Heaven was the only word in Pinkie’s surprisingly elephantine vocabulary that barely scratched the surface of accurately describing it.
She stepped down off the final tread board, no longer tethered to the demarcations of the noise-killing territory. Numerous stands were sporadically scattered across the shop tier. Mountainous cakes just barely rivaling the one made before it and trays of muffins were stacked atop them, basking in the moon’s pale beams streaming from above. Bronze chandeliers with several oval bulbs dangled from an elderly chestnut chain. In spite of being abandoned by the sun’s glorious rays, the arresting decorations adorning the tan walls continued to burglarize Pinkie’s attention. Resuscitating the otherwise bland, uninspiring varnish with new striking features.
Pinkie pranced on the eau de Nil planks to the sanctuary behind the register, heart palpitating at the dazzling display before her. It didn’t matter how many hundreds or thousands of times the awe-inspiring myriad of sugar-concoctions grazed her vision. Each and every time, bereft of failure, it was always special. Unique in its own exceptional, and in Pinkie’s eyes, beautiful way. Either an amalgamation of sweet and tangy, or a conglomerate of sour and cloying. Perhaps even both combined into a single mass of icing and sense-obliterating taste. And the non-stop barrage of piquancy wasn’t the sole enchanting characteristic. The semi-thick layer of candied varnish was the dusty rays of moonlight’s personal playground. Witnessing the glittering alabaster shafts frolic along the polished edges of the layers was beyond mesmerizing, like a microscale colorless parade. Aisles of barely discernible specks of shimmer dancing carelessly to the beat of their drum. All in unison, giving their extremities free reign to bask in the temporary relaxation. Knowing fully that, when the sun inevitably returned in meager hours and exiled their overlord, the party would be over. Mercilessly cleaved without an ounce of ruth. Leaving the lacerated soon-to-be corpses to bleed into the blood-orange horizon of a new day in Equestria. And through it all, there was Pinkie Pie. Standing idly by as the utterly oblivious celebrations dawned, and the equally ravenous massacre came to fruition. Night after night, second after second, it ne’er deviated. At least when her eyelids divorced and were eager to tackle the daybreak, it was something to look forward to that was guaranteed to arrive. On time and ready to deliver the entertainment and viewing pleasure of the gorgeous spectacle. Unlike many other outlets of entertainment she pursued with cipher to show for it.
The mule for all the money earned fair and square was polar to the touch. A feeling that would make even the mightiest mountains of Yakyakistan grow green with envy. With fall briskly approaching Equus, darkness now brought a new bloodthirsty, esurient foe to the table. Cold. It was a salivating beast of a force that forlornly roamed the streets of Ponyville, silently pleading with the heavens above to provide it with a space to invade. Infect the entirety of whatever was unfortunate enough to cross its path with its influence. As luck’s cruel hand would have it, Sugarcube Corner was dead-center in slobbering monster’s crosshairs. It wasn’t long before it pounced with bisected jaws. And it left nothing to be buried. Wooden floorboards metamorphosed into sheets of pure ice, piercing the equine’s soles with every chance it got. Once lukewarm, comfortable air was shattered into combers of splintered glass, laying waste to Pinkie’s not-yet-acclimated flesh. The glass shielding the plethora of baked goods from the prying hooves of the outside world. The coins that Pinkie counted absentmindedly, each drop onto her hoof adding a small jingle to the auditory wasteland. None of it was spared from its wrath.
Pinkie’s cerulean globes flicked from the polar steel skin of the cash register to the scenic view of tenebrous-cloaked Ponyville. It wasn’t often one bore the fortune of witnessing a normally buzzing and animated town, almost always ensnared in some form of thunderous uproar, in this state of serenity. But even with oak treen blinds shielding their ill-lit rooms from the moon’s eminent luster, a whisper of that nigh-daily rumpus continued to linger. As though it too was resting soundly and bereft of a care in the world along with Ponyville’s placid population. But that term was neither here nor there on some days. And when a villain got his way and chaos reached a formerly unachievable climax, a new discordant atmosphere would be formed. A crude mockery of the quaint nation of Equus. Hints of the tranquility that previously reigned supreme lingering in the air, barely smothered into oblivion by the malador of death. Pinkie managed to prevent drowning in that bottomless ocean of “What ifs?” and turbulent scenarios. With her cyanic optics now fully drawn to the present, she can revel in the existing beauty she was lucky enough to live in.
A soft gale whistled down the drubbed, hoof-imprinted streets, the percolating aroma of dew-frosted grass being carried along with it. In some form or fashion, the early-morning fragrance managed to breach the ultraclean windows of Sugarcube. While others were prone to annoyance at the smell of nature infiltrating indoors, Pinkie gloried in it. After all, it beat the tacky ridicule of pine tar that Mr. Cake insisted was sprayed in every corner of the Earth. The reason? Who knew. Whether it was a heart-stopping phobia of undesired odor or a simple hankering for the scent was unknown. But either way, Pinkie loathed it. A harmonious orchestra of chiliads of crickets chirped to their tiny heart’s content. Joining the ragtag acapella group were a generous lot of cicadas scattered throughout the quaint village. There sonorous song like the creaking of an old swing one would expect to find collecting dust on an abandoned house’s front porch. Swaying pitifully in the wind, hinges groaning akin to the dying breaths of a frail elderly man. However, in spite of how inherently absonant the noise was on its own, it was an unlikely duo with the joyful song of the crickets. Sporadically throughout Pinkie’s nightly duties, the boisterous, prideful call of an owl would join the indignant quartet. The only source of music that traveled into Ponyville with an intent to stay. Not a nomadic unicorn with unbelievable magic tricks or a traveling loosely-strung band. It was a nice change.
Pinkie happily pranced from behind the frigid counter. Both corners of her mouth crimped to the absolute utmost. In the face of the unwanted baltic air gnawing on her extremities like hordes of famished mosquitoes, it was a miracle her breath remained invisible. A small white sign dangled from a peg stuck firmly into the glass door by a thin colorless string. In jumbo, bold sable letters, “OPEN” stared her square in the face. Pinkie declared a fiery war against the urge to grimace at the travesty before her. If she had it her way, the beloved one-stop-shop for all things sugary would ne’er come close to the concept of closing. At a certain point, the prospect would soon become foreign. Her own pitch-perfect reality. But alas, Pinkie’s dreams of keeping the Cakes’ pride and joy open all year-round would forever stay as just that. A dream. An unsatisfiable hankering.
Pinkie corrected the cardinal sin in a heartbeat.
Regardless of how rich the tenebrosity burying Equus was, Ponyville always seemed to prevail no matter how cumbersome the dusk was. Each and every individual building withstood the night’s defeatist and futile efforts to terminate their radiating energy. No matter how gloomy the time of day or weather proved to be, not a thing seemed to phase town. As if Ponyville was some form of puppet show with a painted cardboard background. Rainy. Snowy. Morning. Night. Stormy. Balmy. Ponyville remained all the same. Flipping the illustration to the blackest dusk or the shiniest morn changed nought. The atmosphere was the sole thing no being alive was able to alter by any means. A mere speck among the innumerable things Pinkie cherished about the town. There was ne’er a shortage of happiness to go around. And the party pony simply couldn’t get enough.
The limitless society of trolling insects outside greeted her presence with a buoyant carol. A living, breathing torch to shed Sugarcube’s robe of gloomy fatigue and grant it a brand new cloak to don. One of newfound vim to welcome strangers and comrades alike through its polished maw, permitting Pinkie’s motormouth to let loose. Show no signs of stopping for the foreseeable future. The very instant a sleep-deprived factory worker, a jogger, or even a dog-walker sauntered in, they would be caught in her trap. Entangled in the vines of boundless conversation and balls-to-the-walls energy. A sight that they had probably seen before during one of her many town-wide shenanigans, but had never experienced up-close. Enlisting random civilians to belt out lyrics to her own song as she marched through the village. Hosting a colossus of a party for the smallest of accomplishments her friends and family achieved. Blessing the beholden townsfolk with her bakery expertise. Although, throughout her cosmic roster of celebrations she had hosted, not many could boast about experiencing the magic first-hand. Let that be the case, whoever happened to trot into Pinkie’s domain would be the luckiest there ever was.
Pinkie’s pearly whites cast out a small chunk of the murk annexing the lower floor. The sheer power of her pearly whites knew no bounds. But the old bronze chandeliers sagging from the ceiling mirrored that robustness, all but surpassing it. Her urge to switch it on and cleave the thick, obnoxious crepuscule in two was borderline overwhelming. To the point where averting her gaze from the arresting features of it was the lone remedy to wan her cravings. The years were cruel to the bulbs, and they were prone to buzz from active use. While in the hustle-and-bustle of everyday life, the monotone bombinating was tolerable. In fact, its existence was scarcely, if not never, noticed by the earth pony manning the register. But when that commotion died and Luna carried out her duty, the droning seemed to roar in her ears. And with the lightest sleeper the world has ever seen resting soundly on the floor above, that was the last thing she wanted to activate. Her feverish nature was enough as it is.
A great majority of her time during the Lunar Princess’ reign was the waiting game. With the shop open for commerce, anything could happen. Maybe it was Rainbow Dash who would stumble in, sapped of fuel from an early fly. Or perhaps Twilight would rear her multi-colored head, walking in to talk to Pinkie about the newest book she read. Levi was also a perfect candidate. While she didn’t know the human as much as she wanted to, she could still cling to the hopes that he too was a night owl. Choosing to indulge in the quietude instead of sleeping through it. She couldn’t forecast any of it. That was the grounds for its name from the get-go. Waiting was the furthest thing from Pinkie’s specialty. It was the only portion of her routine she dreaded in the slightest. Standing there, surrounded by sweets she battled the appetite for, feigning patience for anyone to greet her. Sometimes the full length of the morning was spent in solitude. Others she would get a visitor of some sort. Griping from an overworked, stress-ridden factory grease monkey, bringing the malador of sweat and oil with him. Or casual chats with normal, run-of-the-mill ponies going about their business. Any and all conversation, paying no mind to who the outlet was, is what kept Pinkie Pie sane.
A solid half-hour had passed since the Sugarcube Corner’s lock was turned and the mouth thrown open. Not a thing had deviated from the usual path her nightly ritual was set on since its inception. No creak or groan of any tempo or degree infiltrated the household. Breezes still carried that semi-nostalgic fragrance of dew-blanketed fields, some more strident than others before it. And at the heart of it all, the daily show of Insects in E minor continued to rage on, where Pinkie was gifted front row seats.
By all accounts, it appeared there wasn’t anything that would disrupt the constant flow of sights and sounds. Crickets were still chirping. The small golden bell looking down from above the doorframe didn’t chime. No form gloved by darkness shambled out into Pinkie’s line of sight. For a split-second, boredom managed to peek its head from the roiling, tempestuous ocean of jubilation within her. Just as briskly as it rose, it was devoured once again. Dragged deep into the inconceivable fathoms below.
‘Another night. Just the same as the last,’ Pinkie lamented, ‘Does nopony else enjoy the night other than me?’
From the outside looking in, no-one else did. The only physical beings accompanying the equine during these uneventful morning hours were the civilization of insects. Their brains unable to process the alien prospect of boredom, or anything remotely similar. Sleep, eat, survive, repeat. That was the mantra their minds were programmed to since their genesis. Blissfully unaware of whatever events, important or niche, may be transpiring before there beady, pinpoint eyes.
Pinkie’s ears perked. Heart skipped a beat. Mountainous waves of excitement slapped her ribs lustily. Hooves threatened to spring from the forced blocks of concrete they were encased in.
Turns out there was somebody else who enjoyed the dusk just as much as her.
The singular crunch of a leaf being put to eternal rest was what ignited her intramural uproar. Somewhere out there amidst the thick fog of tenebrosity jacketing Ponyville, somebody was coming to pay her a visit. Cradle her in their arms of salvation, rescuing her from the inevitable existential conversations she had in her lonesome. A trend that had followed her for years and manifested itself during her nightly practice. Inner debates about the existence of an afterlife. Contemplating her inevitable demise decades down the road. The circadian invasion of these dread-inducing, while simultaneously eye-opening, thoughts was badgersome to say the least. And thankfully for her, another pony had been dropped from the golden vault from heaven. Pinkie peered out of the clear glass door, head leaned forward to the utmost as her orbs worked overtime. Attempting to slay the rich mist of gloom clouding her vision. All to no avail.
The imperceptible cloak of gloaming disguising its features worked wonders. There wasn’t a thing that, no matter how diligently she attempted to carve a peephole in the murk, could do to discern his characteristics. All but one. The blatant, unbelievably obvious fact screaming in the equine’s face. Slinging her limp frame back and forth, adjuring Pinkie's full, undivided attention. And the very instant her nucleus had caught wind of what the thing’s camouflage failed miserably to hide, dinner plates replaced her optics.
It was not a pony. The furthest thing from a pony Pinkie had ever witnessed with her own two, practically bulging irises. A human was marching head-long towards her, forging a beeline for Sugarcubes alluring maw. The singular time when the bakery’s unrivaled charm and enticement hadn’t worked in her favor.
Step by step. Merciless execution of leaves, one after another. A grotesque melody of rhythmic snuffing. The human approached, closer and closer. Hands stuffed deep in their tattered pants pockets. A short-sleeve button-down fitting their beefy frame snugly, stark white buttons managing to pierce the palisade of darkness. Heavy boots sinking deep into the Ponyville terra firma with every long stride, as though Pinkie was his number-one objective.
Pinkie heard through a miscellaneous grapevine that Levi Cronell wasn’t alone in his meteoric arrival into Equestria. While yes, he agonizingly staggered alone into Fluttershy’s haven, but another human being resided somewhere in Equus. Equally as worried for the welfare of their friends as Levi was for him. No matter how happy or vibrant his voice was or how brightly his eyes exploded with glee, there was an underlying sorrow lying deep below the surface. Like a serpent slithering clandestinely in the tall grass, undiscovered by all except for her. A hunch goes a long way. However, someone in the same village as their best friend, who’s status is currently unknown, their mannerisms went bereft of lucid reasoning. Flicking their globes left and right in rapid-fire succession. Their head pointed at a sharp 45-degree angle, concealing their face from the world around them. As if a dangerous, ne’er-undefeated assassin had a hankering for his head above a fireplace. Scouring every corner of his peripheral vision for a crimson laser sight or a barrel of a gun ready to crop dust the town with his gore. Not exactly scared. But more desirous than anything else. Mayhaps he was the blood-starved assassin prowling the empty streets. Skulking for the victim he’ll execute in a heartbeat.
Maybe his true intentions being masked in secrecy was for the better.
The closer he approached the small lamp stationed above the diner’s entrance, the more his deceptive shroud of tenebrous slowly began to go phut. There was no shortage of patches missing from his threadbare pants, as though he had precipitated into a ichor-stained war zone. Holes honeycombed into the textile. Tears and fixations sprinkled throughout. If Pinkie’s eyes were granted access to the skin underneath, there was no doubt in her mind they matched, if not surpassed, the abysmal cloth in sheer grime. Turquoise fit snugly over his physique. Legions of blemishes and pocks desecrated the once silky, beautifully sewn shirt. Whatever cruel, barbarous fate the bottom-half of his attire was subject to, his upper, and arguably better, bisection subsequently suffered the same. With the enigma now mere inches from crossing the threshold into Pinkie’s realm, leaf after leaf met their grim demise. One after another, no hint of relent to be seen. A discordant orchestra consisting solely of hefty thumping of boots and the strident whistle of fall’s gradual debut.
Pinkie had ne’er been scared of a confrontation before in all of her two decades of life. Sure, she had experienced a spell of nervousness before her nerves were fully acclimated to her brain’s hunger for interaction. Anxiety had swarmed her before. So had apprehension. But fear… It was territory the equine never believed she would step into where potential new friends were concerned. But now…perhaps the darkened form shrouded by mystique was better off far away from Pinkie’s existence. Trudge somewhere miles away from the comfortable boundaries of Sugarcube Corner. Leave her to her own devices, allow a more suitable outlet of banter to assume it’s stead. Mayhaps pursuing the high-bounty target it nigh-incessantly searches the outskirts of his vision for was a better road to follow.
Alas, her hopes fell on deaf ears. The Trojan horse had arrived, and there was null that could be done to cease it. She could either face the quandary head-on without a droplet of fright to be discerned, or flee to the peaceful confines of her bedroom. Grant the bottomless lake of slumber to envelop her with its broad, mammoth jaws. Without a shadow of a doubt, salvation from these intrusive emotions lied within the bowels of the loch. If she were to pursue it, that is. Seeing a thick arm materialize from the aquamarine and grey contours, that avenue was long-since clogged.
Calloused, wrinkled digits coiled around the metal bar. The dreadfully slow-but-assured genesis of Autumn chilled every fiber of the stainless-steel handle. But the tenebrous-masked silhouette cared not how savagely his nerves fulminated with baltic stinging. It had a goal, and stopping was tucked neatly in the furthest tartarean corner of his mind. Sinking deep into the fathoms of obscurity and unimportantance. The individual stole one final glance in each direction, hoping that maybe, by some solidus of unfiltered luck, the manslayer shadowing him would manifest itself. Abandon his cowardly ways and forsake skulking in the gloom of Ponyvillle’s alleys. Emerge with a prodigious equalizer in-hand and an equally lethal iron adorning his hip. The fated battle would be a glorious sight to behold, indeed.
A euphonious chime ricocheted off the walls of Pinkie’s skull, echoing sonorously throughout the entirety of the lower floor. A pair of cumbersome, inconceivably sullied boots greeted the Lincoln green planks harshly. The wood groaned miserably to the foreign weight depressing it, like the conclusive breath of a man greeting his fate arriving at his concluding terminus. Pinkie believed that the blemishless screens of glass were doing the man a favor. Hiding at least some of his patches of missing cloth or blotches of grime and grass-stains. But, judging by the abomination in human flesh that just shambled into her happy-place, she had been a clear-cut fool.
The glass door returned to the sanctity of its frame. Every last shred of the calm, lighthearted atmosphere that Pinkie developed a fond endearment for was dust. Razed to nothing but a heart-rending mound of ash by the unknown human that stood before her. Piercing amber irises cut through the palisade of tenebrous like a flock of whetted spearheads. Dusk did virtually nothing to aid in concealing his sorry-excuse for attire, as though even the darkness was repulsed by the idea of claiming him. Referring to the male as “there's” would bring bile erupting from there core. Oh how Pinkie longed for whatever monster of unimaginable proportions raked the roads of Ponyville to have its way. Provide respite from the constricting binds of the uneasy, strangling air the cipher dragged in after him.
That was not her reality. That would ne’er be her reality. What was, however, was the inescapable discussion the pair were fated to have from the moment he emerged in her line of sight. The dead-set line he crafted, no deviations or anything remotely similar to a variance to be seen. Marching with a purpose. A reason to be.
The gloom had annexed Sugarcube Corner’s bottom level refused to abut the raven-haired man, as if he was patient zero for the most bloodthirsty diseases the world had ever endured. In its eyes, the human was covered head to toe in oozing, nauseating puss sores, launching arrows of pale yellow sanies every which way. Because of the dark’s refusal to claim him, a great majority of his features were exposed to Pinkie’s naked globes. No squinting or further examination of who, or what, had just sauntered into her home unannounced. And quite frankly, unwanted.
The man possessed a face one would expect to be complimented by a dense cloud of expensive cologne enveloping his chassis. Somebody who the equine fully anticipated to reside in the bougiest, top-of-the-line towers in Canterlot. In colossal marble skyscrapers chiseled and molded by those the inhabitants viewed as lower than them. Those miserable sods in that equally miserable city had an unspoken hierarchy. That much was clear from the incredibly scarce handful of visits she made to the capital of Equestria. A boundless sea of gold and silver, civilians hiding behind monocles and laborers sweating pearls to meet a quota. All for a disdainful paycheck and a glower as they depart from a company that loathes them. Exactly where this gentleman belonged, it appeared.
There was one characteristic that ninety-nine percent of the time, without fail, provided an uncensored view of who someone truly was. No filters. No sugarcoating. No beating around the bush. And that was his eyes. Those shrewd moonstones embedded in his sockets that played an extensively grim tale. A horrific story that Pinkie didn’t desire any detail for. All that she wished wasn’t known to her was he wasn’t hunted by any stretch of the imagination.
It was him who was neck-deep in a restless pursuit. She should’ve known from the get-go.
“Hey,” The man’s voice carried the full length of distance graciously placed between them. Tiny, barely discernible hints of drowsiness, eagerness, and an unidentified craving sprinkled in his words.
“Hi!” Pinkie replied jubilantly, her forced gaiety-braided response a far cry from her inner turmoil. And it was better that way.
It was very possible that the male before her was the furthest thing from a foe. Perhaps there just a lost traveler prowling the endless stretches of Equus for the one who wronged him. Or a potential new friend who’s underlying good-hearted nature lied behind a screen of faux emotions, given life by nothing more than a bad day. While the latter seemed more of the benefit of the doubt than anything else, it was better than jumping the gun and sounding the alarm over this person.
Murder was a crime punishable by execution in Equestria. It had only been done once before. Nearly a millennium before Pinkie’s spawn, by two creatures that the party pony was never told the names of. It didn’t matter how unshakable a facade of nonchalance and carelessness was, deep down, everyone valued their life to an extent. Voluntarily choosing to lay it down as a means to pay for another soul to perish was insanity. Surely her fears were simply a byproduct of rapid-fire overthinking. Surely this male wasn’t window-shopping for a life he deemed vile enough that he’d choose to die for it. Surely the man standing meager feet from her wasn’t a complete and total madman…
Right?
“How can I help you?”
“A friend of mine told me you’d be here,” The human replied, “also told me you know what I wanna know.”
Pinkie cocked an eyebrow. “What do you wanna know? ‘Cause I know everybody in Ponyville! Ask me anything!”
The human grinned nefariously. “‘Everything’, huh?”
Pinkie nodded feverishly, the icy swords of dread impaling her heart laid waste to her imitation of her usual self. Everything screamed for Pinkie to burn rubber upstairs and put this night behind her. To not fall prey to the male’s siren song of a smile any longer. But she couldn’t turn away. Her nature to see the best in everyone had machinated against her.
“I’m Gary,” The noirette introduced himself at long last, his hand stuck deep in his pocket, rifling around the lint-littered corners for whatever was hibernating there.
His manus emerged from the ill-lit pouch, a singular gold, slightly scratched coin fitted gingerly between his fingers. The golden face of the beloved Princess of Equestria glimmering in the gentle moonlight.
“I need to find Levi. Levi Cronell. I know he’s here somewhere.” Gary broke eye contact for a split-second, silently surveying every corner of eau de Nil floorboards.
“What’s your best drink?”
This was it. No turning back now. Either the harmonious pealing was the start to a new, contemporary friendship, or a sneak peak at the knells roaring from a distant church tower at her funeral. There was only one way to find out, she supposed.
Pinkie reached across the spotless counter, unsheathing a tall milkshake glass from a stack.
This was going to be a night to remember.
Morality.
Morality was the mammoth slab the Golden Dashers were founded on. Without it, they had nothing. The building blocks of the team that Silver Spears and her trusted confidant Cloud Rider both relied on. A simple prospect. Let the team’s broad array of talented fliers be bereft of a solid, unmovable set of ideals and morals, failure would rear its ugly head. Honesty. Hard-working spirits. Integrity. In order to be rigidly soldered by respect, all of those boxes needed to be checked. In a way, they were all veins leading to a teeming, drumming heart in the core of the Dashers. Morality.
Their fearless leader, however, seemed to forget that lone fundamental principle. The solitary idea of ethics and a basic understanding of right versus wrong was fundamental. Let that succumb to non-existence, and disaster was sure to follow. Silver’s trusted, more-than-skilled roster of unflagging soldiers viewed the team as a whole like a body. An organism, if you will. Each individual ideology, in spite of how benign or meaningless it appeared to be, all led to a greater divine purpose. Arteries forging knotty roads and winding paths guiding the rivers of blood where it needs to be. The totality converging at the same avenue, rushing into the same palpitating core. And there it was. Basking in all of its righteous, earned glory.
Morality.
But Silver Spears was the polar opposite of moral. For years, being moral had become an alien conviction to her. Victory was her muse. A better way of referring to it, a drug. One she had been addicted to beyond comprehension for the latter part of her reign over the Dashers. And if she couldn’t see her bronze stare reflected off the face of a solid gold trophy, there would be hell to pay. Hell was a perfectly fitting word. The chances were few and far between Silver simply accepting a loss and finding another team to skirmish. More often than not, despite how allegedly hardened she had become since being sworn in as head honcho, grudges would be held. Rancor that could only be fizzled out by seeking the services of her vice. Her other, drastically more sinister muse that rarely ever saw the glorious light of day. A feature that even her closest friend was unaware it existed. It wasn’t until numerous newspapers deluged all of Equestria of a vicious attack befalling an innocent flying team. Their leader found marred, beaten far beyond the point where mercy should’ve been applied. No picture was provided, but the harrowing image forever engraved into her brain would suffice.
The image was made more stomach-roiling when the realization walloped her like a freight train.
Incidents were cropping up, coincidentally, after every single loss the Golden Dashers suffered. One after another, month after month. Rocketing out of the woodworks for a reason shrouded in the utmost mystery. An enigma among the complex network of teams. No-one could put a face to any sort of name of the culprit behind it all. Some believed it was Cloud hiding her underlying twisted nature behind a masquerade of honesty. That, at the root of all this discord, she was behind it all. But gaining what from it? A medal? A worthless accolade that’ll rot for decades on a wooden shelf? Collecting dust and watching the office they overlook grow old and frail? That was certainly not worth risking the second-highest capital punishment from the supreme law of the land. And Cloud, unlike a vast majority of the spearheads in her tight inner circle, harbored a rigid palisade of morals. A strict laundry list of philosophies she’d follow until the day her time on Earth reached a coda. Cheating. Lying. Bribery. Rigging. Those were a small fry in comparison to the Bible-length directory of sins the other teams committed haphazardly. Almost all, sans the Wonderbolts, were guilty of some form of deception. Getting what they want was consistently the top priority. It mattered little how the public opinion of them shifted and deviated from the usual trail of positivity. As long as what they yearned for ultimately landed in their possession, the ones they tricked and led astray were fed to the void.
In comparison to that, those chiefs were mere ants scouring for food in a derelict sandbox. Silver, on the other hand, was a sharp-eyed, cunning hawk. Prowling the clear Cloudsdale skies for their next meal. A new gang of fliers to rock to their core. Inflict them with a grim, carmine-stained memory they would never forget. Scars that would remain until the curtain drew on their existence. It took more time than Cloud liked to discover the truth. Silver Spears, her best friend she had loved like her own sister since childhood, was not only a monster, but betrayed every ounce of trust they had constructed. Going behind her back and beating a virtuous pegasus who didn’t deserve it. She should’ve known from the get-go. Hearing her stumble into their shared apartment in the dead of night, scarlet-soaked hueless rag cloaking her hoof. Chest swelling and contracting like a vengeful sea. Ring of sweat choking her brow, begging to be mopped by one of her sore extremities. Cloud would unsurprisingly be stirred from her sleep by the raucous yelping and the jittery activation and deactivation of the bathroom sink. But, she figured the furious clutches of yet another bar fight had abducted her. And she did what she did best. Inflict agony upon another living pony all as revenge for taking the title of victor away from her. Even if triumph wasn’t in her future regardless of her prowess.
In fact, that was exactly where Silver was heading right now. The bar. An unlikely sanctuary that no-one from a first glance could tell was her outlet of comfort during rocky patches. Thankfully, upon introductions, nobody could discern she was one of those ponies. A pony who found comfort and solace in the bowels of a half-empty bottle. Staggering home at any odd hour of the night with a fresh bruise or black eye was her afflatus. Even in the face of how greatly it would vandalize her image if any picture from a prowling paparazzi were to be published. But on the off-chance it did, why should she care? None at all. That was the grounds behind her decision to be as casual as humanly possible. Not a hint of a bother to try and hide her appearance from any potential prying eyes or swarm of camera-wielding pegasi, flocking her like emaciated locusts. Because, for reasons she could never begin to understand, a single photograph of a celebrity, in spite of her relatively small social status, was the holy grail. Revered to the utmost for their “expertise” in snapping a photograph of a pegasus already in the newspaper.
WONDERBOLTS VICTORIOUS OVER DASHERS!
Her face painted with a begrudging beam and faux-acceptance of her turbulent defeat. Humiliating. Absolutely, undeniably, incomprehensibly humiliating. Something she wouldn’t wish on the worst of her titanic catalog of enemies.
The Rusty Tavern was, in every way blatant and tenuous alike, a gorgeous place. Not just in the realm of appearance that left Silver in a puddle of awe when her eyes first grazed it, but the atmosphere. The view. The ambience. The lack of tumultuous pollution from the auditory cacophony of Cloudsdale’s major city. It was a miracle she had discovered this pristine location to begin with. Stress from her day-to-day life managing a team devoured her, sending her on a late-night fly. This inadvertently set her in the crosshairs of the Tavern, which she had stumbled upon when the afternoon hours were crawling to a close. A rich, striking indigo declared war against the mishmash of soft orange and pale yellow when she entered. And crepuscule had annexed the sky when she departed.
Tonight was bound to be another one of those nights.
Situated on a small cloud disk resting in a limitless ocean of cyanic sat the Rusty Tavern, basking in the moon’s illustrious rays. Bathing in its own undiscovered glory. A relatively minute two-floor building with sanded oak wood decorating the exterior, glazed with a vandyke brown varnish. Standing the test of time with little to show for the years that had passed it by. Four windows were installed, two above and two below. The glass duo residing in the upper level were cloaked with thin forest green curtains. Light from the multitude of lamps and bulbs illuminating the owner’s personal space breaching the textile. On eye-level with Silver was another glass pair, built about a foot away from either door. Shrouding the magic that lied posterior to the umber set of double doors from scrutinizing outside gazes. A round metal tube was erected from the ceiling, lengthy tendrils of smoke rising to infiltrate the heavens. Adding the intoxicating scent of rare steak into the otherwise mundane airspace.
Silver quickly fell in love with every individual detail inside and out. But simply the endoskeleton didn’t do the Tavern the justice she knew it needed to. Being the head coach and leader of a mammoth team of fliers, Silver knew good and well that a bad mien wasn’t definitive of who they were. The equine had met several of her once former, now current, Dashers that possessed tremendously questionable looks. Under the flesh, however, was a starkly different story. Others may perceive the Rusty Tavern as just another honky-tonk georgic bar manned by a run-of-the-mill hillbilly. Chucked from the woodwork at Appleloosa and thrown to the wolves in Cloudsdale. But it was borderline painful how wrong they were. So unbelievably wrong.
She retreated to this place more instances then she could count when things didn’t go the way she planned. Whether that be a place to alleviate her fury after a loss or soothe the fire singing her ribs from a blow-out fight with Cloud Rider. And tonight deviated not from that established trend.
It was a clash unlike any other the dynamic duo ever ignited before. And, to virtually no-one’s surprise at all, the topic that lit the match was Silver’s sinful tactics. Her hypocritical nature that garnered them an existence of grandeur and luxury, but blood was the price that had to be paid. Carmine flowing from split skin and knocked out teeth. Left to corrode in a foul pond of their own bodily fluids. Something Cloud wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. In short, tempers flared. Spiteful words were shared. A door was slammed. That’s what led the Dashers leader to where she was now. Trudging across a terrain of fluffy, angelic clouds. The white-hot glowing choler trouncing her veins forging a barricade of immunity from the raw Autumn breeze. Too angry to experience any sensation other than the inferno clamping its titanum jaws around her heart. An unrivaled longing for that familiar burning to ravage her throat once more. Time to metamorphose into a tranquil rushing river flowing past her, the discordant roaring of water being mashed into seafoam bleeding into limbo.
Gloaming had long-since cascaded over the glorious, buzzing city of Cloudsdale. The never-ending billows of prismatic smog percolating from the gargantuan stone pillars of the Rainbow Factory had taken its toll. Silver vividly recollected twenty odd years ago when the ravenous armies of air pollution didn’t lay waste to the pristine Equestrian sky. While the clear blue mesmerizing blood-orange remained identical no matter the environment, it was when the sun’s throne was robbed when Cloudsdale truly boomed. Its beautiful sights and sounds of a clear serene night being worn on its sleeve. Ponies from far and wide, included but not limited to the Dragon’s Kingdom and Las Pegasus, burned rubber just to see a snippet of the hypnotic spectacle. After all, the ceaseless hustle-and-bustle of a casino and black clouds erupting from volcanoes were ne’er good for the environment. This much was proven in every way by the bleak, dead, starless dusks that the inhabitants bore the misfortune of experiencing. However, that was a time forsaken in antiquity. Some would go so far as to call the once captivating exhibition that drew tourists like a siren’s dastardly tune “ancient”. To Silver, it surpassed that term by leaps and bounds.
In the present, there was nothing to accompany the stone-grey pony on her trek to the bottom of a bottle. Just a thin blanket of soft indigo with an incomprehensibly sparse handful of white pinpoints haphazardly adorning it.
Silver’s hooves landed gingerly onto the bijou plate of lush cloud, the soft chiliad of feathers creating her wing gently tickling her obliques as they retracted. The blistering vexation churning in her molten bronze eyes was a memory. Glowing embers of torrid fury piercing the gloomy air just moments before, but no longer. However, the savior taking the form of The Rusty Tavern cradled her in the arms of salvation before. Freeing her heart from the tyrannic, hampering binds of anger. Spleen no longer ruled her mind with an iron-fist. That wretched haze of indignation a fleeting memory. And it would do it all again. For the first time following her meteoric departure from her shared dorm, the corners of Silver’s lips were reeled to the sky. Cheek bones ached from the infrequent sensation. Silver pranced excitedly on bandaged front hooves, the serpents of pain wreathing her bones strangling ever-so-tighter with every step. The prospect of the pain, physically and everything in between,
The few feet separating her from the sovereign succor and relief she forlornly yearned was briskly squashed. Two curved branches served as ghetto substitutes for regular knobs. Melded into the oak door by a couplet of coal black metal rectangular bars. Two marred eyes stared back at the shoddy reflection presented in the semi-blemishless glass. One blackened with swollen purple eyelids disfiguring her optic and the other inflicted with a measly bruise. An act of mercy, if you will. Both brought upon by the same spate of skull-crushing punches. With competitive flying being some of, if not the most, attractive and revered events in all of Cloudsdale, it’s no surprise Silver was a vital organ in the knotty web of spearheads. Mutually agreed upon reverence about the tough-as-nails flame-haired pegasus became the topic of conversation more often than she would’ve liked.
“Her leadership is outstanding!”
“How does she do it so well? We gotta take notes.”
“We’re in trouble this season, boys and girls.”
To anyone on the outside looking in, that utterance would be regarded as prophecy.
They were in the same trouble every season, without fail. Spitfire, who departed from the clannish group years ago, always led a savage conquest through the flying scene. Any team who was unlucky enough to be assigned as their adversary had enough time to pray and write their will before the unavoidable beatdown. Bearing witness to their blood, sweat, and tears being pulverized into a fine powder would brew sorrow within anyone. The more she thought about it, labeling it trouble would be a criminal understatement. In a way, Silver fulfilled an unspoken yet intensely longed for favor that no-one before her harbored the courage to pursue. Beating that show boaty cur into the tiles kindled an undying satisfaction of unfathomable proportions. An epic deluge of tingles and sensations ne’er seen before by ponykind in any capacity. Every throe climbing up her throbbing forelimb like a vine of thorns slithering over her bone. Every movement, no matter how slight or benign, that caused her bruised chassis to wince. All of it brought her back to that crucial day. A day where Silver Spears committed the crux of her drawn-out life of blatant sin and transgressions.
But Silver possessed no reason to ponder over anything else sans the present. The inevitable repercussions that sought to raze her to ash and dust were bound, but not current. All she had to think and internally wrestle about was how deep into the night she’d spend wallowing in liquor. Not the acute scrutiny from a legion of stoic Canterlot detectives. Not the inexorable interviews and blistering glares she’d receive. Or the ever-so-slight pangs of regret while reading the incident in the Cloudsdale paper. The leader’s name printed in garish bold, accompanied by the title of the team that she decided to decimate. A brief description of the injuries they were dealt. Silver could almost smell the match thrown onto a gas trail leading to a bonfire of mystery. One that would rage for days that melted into weeks. Then dripped into months. Silver didn’t have the mental vigor to tackle easily quellable future problems. Here and now were the solitary two words that owned any sliver of significance in her mind.
The strident whine of senior, rusty hinges added life to the otherwise dead, soundless night. Gauze-wound hooves reunited with the arresting titus wooden planks, akin to a soldier charging into the open arms of his family. Horrors of war finally drawn to a close and that hankering for familial warmth could finally be satiated. The inflaming fragrance of pine sap-scented polish set her heart into jubilated hysteria. A triad of flamboyant bulbous light bulbs dangled from the ceiling. Rangy stygian wires slithered out of a baseball-sized hole in the tan roof, providing a means for the illumination to defy gravity. It wasn’t exactly clear whether the punched cavity was unintentional or a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment idea. Given the saw-blade-esque ridges bordering the crater and the overall dingy appearance, the truth was leaning towards the latter. The umber walls proved just as staggering as the undervalued exoskeleton. Several framed, and surprisingly clean, paintings and photographs bedecked the chestnut interior.
A decades-old image of the Rusty Tavern’s owner standing beside a suit-clad gentlecolt. Bright beams furnishing both of their features. One genuine with a singular gold tooth glittering in the camera’s blinding flash, the other deviating from the flaring pride of his comrade. Brown cowboy hat, grimy checkered flannel, sun-baked skin. In comparison to the goodie-two-shoes, bougie mustang he proudly stood beside, the clarity was undeniable that that relationship was doomed to fail. And that was precisely what occurred. Slicked-back hair and newly tailored attire. He looked as though bile roared from the pit of his stomach at the mere mention of anything remotely southern. With forelimbs wrapped around their broad shoulders and pulled tightly together, not much of the building behind them was visible. But, from what minute slivers were discernible between the two forms, very little was altered since the bar’s inception.
A myriad of other miscellaneous snapshots, mounted deer antlers, and taxidermied animal heads littered the lightly blemished walls. The decapitated pate of an uber-minacious grizzly bear was the only amidst a plethora of decorations that Silver despised. Those obtruding, smoky amber globes and ample jawbones forever locked in a perpetual state of menace. Flashing their chiefly intimidating features for all the bar-goers to stop in awe. Anytime the rickety stool welcomed her presence and her back was to the beast’s remains, it always felt as though it was watching her. Somehow, from beyond the grave, a slight sliver of the life it lived endured the baltic snare of death. Watching her. Stalking her. Lying patiently for the day when her guard was down and it would burst from its facade of quietus with a thunderous roar. The dome of the brute overlooked numerous wiped-down tables. Picked-clean beer mugs and shot glasses lie sporadically scattered across the lake of unsullied wood. To the right of the seating area was a long bartop, mirroring the appearance of just about every other ligneous appliance in the Tavern. Similar to the droves of tables across from it, pegasi neck-deep in a fit of loneliness and sorrow cared not what condition they left the bar in when they departed a drunken mess. All that mattered to them was getting what they wanted and then some. Condemn their internal misery to a watery grave, suffocated in a long river of razor-sharp liquor. As such, ravaged glass and half-vacant flasks dotted the countertop.
Behind the bench was a large cabinet, brimming with all kinds, variations, and revisions of alcohol the mind could imagine. Bitter whiskey. Sweet tequila. An ovoid jar of spiked lemonade. Home-brewed flavors never touched by man. The vast roster of bottles, all unalike from each other in some way, was a sight to behold. Tall and short. Round and rectangular. Bulky and skinny. Bright and dull. It was almost beautiful to the equine. She had been there so many times, she could probably individually name and describe the taste accurately of every poor decision up there. Well, if her mind wasn’t a totally stressed and muddled mess, then probably. On either side of the array of spirits were two doors, almost identical to the set that permitted her inside, but sans the glass. They led to the kitchen that, surprisingly, Silver barely ever saw activity in. Granted, there was always some intoxicated sot who craved a middle-of-the-road steak or a burger served on stale buns. She rarely, if not ne’er, bought food from there. But the enticing, permeating aroma of smoky beef always added to the already immensely comfortable environment.
A line of venerable stools rested soundly beneath the bartop, stygian streaks vandalizing the speckless floor left in their wake. Each and every seat possessed their own set of grooves carved into the flooring. The obvious fallout of years upon years of constant dragging and scraping as drunkards scrambled for a seat. A place to rest their drowsy, inebriated forms before an unfortunate bar-goer had to lift them back to their hooves. To say hoisting a stupified, befuddled pegasus bereft of basic motor control was a burdensome task would be a criminal understatement. Silver picked a chair from a row of its brethren, raucous screeching against the abused planks splintering the comfortable silence. Not that there was anyone there to spall it to begin with. Barring the small petite frame shrouded in a sable cloak brooding in the farest corner. Veiled features buried intently in a book, extremities stock-still. As though a transmogrify occurred in the blind spot of Silver’s vision. Metamorphosing into an ancient tree, forever rooted into the dark maroon leather bench they were seated on. Not a sliver of anything remotely hinting at the secreted pony’s identity was visible. The only thing that could barely be considered a hint was a pair of cyan hooves intently gripping the edges of their novel. Concealing the author or the title from the prying eyes of the nosy outside world.
All the equine gave to the enigma was a fleeting glance. Over the years she spent sulking absentmindedly at the Rusty Tavern, she bore witness to some oddly entertaining episodes every now and again. Distraught fathers stumbling in at the peak of the moon’s reign, bloodshot irises and puffy sockets telling a grim tale of sorrow and misery. One that, based on the destination they lumbered into, didn’t harbor a light at the end of their decrepit tunnel. Wailing inconsolably about their wife robbing him of his children. Labeling his supposed love for life a handful of very colorful words. Others were average down-in-the-dumps stallions, pondering the drastic plummet their life is about to take. Oncoming unpayable bills they can’t escape, an unforgiving divorce, imminent bankruptcy. She saw it all. But not once had she bore witness to a pony willingly coming to a bar to…read in quietude? It was unusual. Abnormal, even. But everyone had their unique vices. Mayhaps this was there, in spite of the anomalous nature of it.
A set of heavy hooves caused the planks below them to yawn gloomily. A familiar sound she immediately identified the source like a callous bloodhound snagging the scent of fresh prey.
“Miss Spears,” A profound, resonant voice beckoned every inch of her attention span to the gray-haired being residing behind the countertop. Akin to the rumbling plucking of an untuned guitar string. “I was startin’ to wonder when you’d stop by again.”
Silver grinned. An uncanny spectacle to anyone omitting the senior before her.
“I had to swing by and see my favorite bartender someday, Moonshine.”
The elder mirrored her beam, flashing a maw of nicotine-stained, yellowed teeth. Spending half his life with a gob of chewing tobacco between his jaws didn’t come without consequences.
“Well, ain’t that a joy.”
Moonshine, the long-time owner and sole caretaker of the Tavern, was an old bronco some would derogatorily refer to as ancient. One would be forgiven for assuming he was a pillar of wisdom and guidance prophesied travelers would seek out for knowledge. While his barely sunken seafoam green globes and creased features, face wrinkled like a discarded plastic grocery bag, certainly implied that tale, it was poles apart from the truth. The only utterances that could be considered knowledge was detailing how many different alcohols he had tasted in his glory days.
Silver locks poured from down the back of his head like a cascade of molten silver, argent tendrils hanging down the sides like argent vines. A tattered, patch-littered brown cowboy hat shielded his most likely balding crown from the world. A hoary coffee brown and coal black checkered flannel sleeved his frail frame, barely noticeable holes exposing an equally aged white t-shirt beneath. Dark brown tattered pants appeared to be hand-me-downs from his father. Whether he was a rancher or some adrenaline junkie rodeo king was a mystery Silver had been striving to solve for years. The decades passing him by since the coda of his golden age reflecting on his sun-baked, crinkled olive skin. A grizzled, pale brown hook mustache invaded by lengthy veins of stone-grey enshrouded his top lip. Illumination radiating from the pendulous lights casting a small glimmer onto his golden tooth. One of its kind, sitting in solitude on his bottom jaw among ranks of flaxen chompers.
“You can just call me Silver, you know,” The argent pegasus spoke, “we’ve known each other too long to be on a last name basis.”
“It’s just how I was raised, Miss Spears. Manners over everythin’. Nothin’ personal.” Moonshine replied, his low, thick country timbre caressing her ears.
In one hoof held an erstwhile grimy beer mug. The home of some unfortunate sod’s liquid, and unrelentingly bitter, happiness. In the other gripped a vibrant orange sullied rag, one that was inside the belly of the glass, rhythmically turning and twisting. Laying waste to the dross that dared to invade his pride and joy.
The Tavern owner’s hoof ceased the massacre of the filth befouling the mug, stuffing the pock-littered rag into his equally ramshackle pants pocket.
“The usual, I suppose?”
Silver nodded. “Put it on my tab, Shine.”
“Will do.”
Elephantine hoofsteps amplified the natural wear-and-tear the vandyke floors already possessed. Groaning forlornly like the culminating gasps of a dying old man, lying in a mess of sheets and tear-stained tissues that was a sorry-excuse for a hospital bed. The air being sapped from his lungs and baltic swords of dread fixating his core as Death greeted him. Cloying respite to some, a burglar to others. The Rusty Tavern would most likely take the Grim Reaper’s guant hand in theirs if the opportunity befell it. Nigh-constant desolate moans and whines at the slightest of movements. Things that could barely be discerned from adjusting their seating position to an intentional shuffle caused the building’s joints to ache and lament. Howl to the heaven’s above to ease their suffering. A miserable pleading that would ultimately prove fruitless.
Moonshine returned the tall, daunting bottle of her ad interim remedy for choler back to its home. Standing high and mighty in all of its three-quarters-empty glory, looking with utter gratification and content for the bar. Its rectangular torso and slender scrag gazing with gaiety at the dark wooden planks, scarred with scratch marks from scraping chairs, and the trophy-riddled walls. Even the perplexing cloaked frame still residing in the furthermost corner. Features perpetually veiled in ambiguity, securely hidden behind the striking colors of her novella’s cover. The distance, combined with Silver’s out-and-out lack of interest towards the enigma, cast the book’s title into ever-stretching mystique.
A calloused hoof prudently placed a tankard of acetous, ocher alcohol inches from Silver’s beyond eager clutches. Waiting on bated breath to abduct the rangy handle in her grasp, like a colony of vultures excitedly flocking around a soon-to-be cadaver. Primed to plunge their rancid beaks deep into its gangrene-ridden flesh.
Silver lifted the cup of pity to her lips, a halo of condensation staining the finely varnished bartop in its wake. The stone-grey pony greeted the bittersweet, familiar tart with open arms. Traveling down her throat like a mudslide of TV static brewed with searing magma, burning and singing the sensitive walls of her throat. If a day of barking orders and thundering reprimands at her subordinates wasn’t enough to raze her esophagus, this would achieve that goal with flying colors. Mayhaps an array of arresting fireworks apace with a blizzard of confetti was appropriate for the accomplishment.
“When are you gonna get to payin’ that tab of yours?”
Silver winced. The wallop of her panacea partly to blame. Despite having consumed lagoons of the acidic firewater in her lifetime, the sadistic acupuncture on her taste buds felt the same every time. Even after downing thousands of shots with repeated ferocity over the years, there was a quality in the ale she couldn’t quite pinpoint. But whatever it was, she couldn’t prepare for it. No matter how laborious her efforts were.
“When I stop forgetting to bring my wallet.”
Moonshine released a short hum from his lungs, muffled by closed lips. Eyes falling to the moist ring perverting his pristine counter, fishing for Ol’ Reliable out of his pocket.
“You better stop forgettin’,” Moonshine swiped the violation into oblivion, “tabs got limits, you know?”
“I should know that better than anyone,”
Silver’s heart burned. A colossal pot of ne’er-ending flames of anger and a slight wisp of regret, complemented by a frail phantom of dread, staring down upon the vile concoction with an unknown conviction. The wrathful inferno born from the tongue of magma drooling from her core burned bright. Solely fueled by the legion of pestilent locusts latching onto the rear of her mind with an undying ferity. Plaguing her mind with their incessant bombinating. Her greatest failures replaying before her tired pleading eyes like a grotesque projector reeled from the bowels of Hell. A torture device designed and built solely for her. Personal damnation she was forced to endure. One that no-one could save her from, sans herself. If only she was aware of exactly how she could.
Guilt. There was a time long-ago when she felt it. A period of years where her sinful deeds robbed her of a peaceful sleep. And when the slumber she desolately longed for finally claimed her, it spat her out in an abominable loogie of night terrors and rues. Seeing the blood flash before her vision, no longer tinted scarlet by a film of pique over her retinas. In the moments prior to her sacrilege of life, she toiled tirelessly to close her heart to their suffering. Block out the inevitable comber of incomprehensible grief before it arrives. And she did. Until the reality of what she’s done hit her full-force as she stared down upon the battered sack of flesh and bone.
Another swig traveled down her gullet like a chute of slag. She winced, eyes shut ever-so-tightly for a split-second. It didn’t matter how many tens of thousands of bottles she imbibed with unimaginable ease, the acidic blazing would ne’er show her the beauty of mercy.
“Anything interesting happen lately?” Silver inquired, declaring war against the tears threatening to sting her orbs.
Her muse was a foul abomination. There was no question lying on anyone’s conscience as to why she endured this torture from the wrathful alky. Her intramural turmoil needed to die somehow. But not by swords or a barbaric skirmish. A waterlogged casket was the only solution.
“Any new bar fights I missed out on? New people?”
Moonshine shook his head. Gaze intently fixated on the sullied mug fit snugly in his hoof. Bright orange rag splitting the ill-lit atmosphere with its attention-robbing features.
“Nothin’ really noteworthy,” He rumbled, mustache bouncing and undulating with every word, “just a few idiots punching each other’s heads off. I wouldn’t feel too bad about missin’ it.”
“A fights a fight.”
The senior nodded. “‘Least I didn’t have to replace a table, this time around.”
Silver snickered at the vivid memory. A recollection that, outside the demarcations of the pub, fell prey to forgetfulness. The umber framework and scent of sub-par meat stoking the flames of the evocation. Years ago. A barrage of alcohol-influenced insults rained down.
David and Goliath. A drunk pipsqueak made small and timid under the blistering gaze of a walking, breathing mountain. An all-expenses-paid viewing experience to a modern-day gladiator fight. One swift motion, and the weakling was down, like a scarecrow plowed by a pick-up truck. Smashed through a table, a snowstorm of splinters and glass shards tossed every which way. Bathing innocent bar-goers in the amalgamation of inanimate gore. The puny pony lied immobile. Limbs encased in cement blocks. The humiliating memory forever welded into the wrinkled walls of his brain. As far as objective-less battles between drunkards go, this wasn’t going to be topped anytime soon.
“What I wouldn’t do to see that again,”
“Easy for you to say. Tables are expensive, Miss Spears.”
“You’ll live,”
Moonshine returned a freshly cleaned glass to his right-hand side. A genesis for a stack that was soon to come. At least Silver was there to keep the old pegasus company.
He reached under the table and pulled another sullied mug out of seemingly nowhere.
A bandaged hoof reached for the cup of lava. The subject of an intense love-hate relationship.
Wrinkled lips parted in speech once more. The elephant standing proudly in the room was yet to be addressed. He knew it and she knew it, in spite of her refusal to acknowledge its existence.
“Mind if I ask you somethin’?”
“Feel free.”
Whether it was foresight or blatant common sense, Silver could see the question hurtling from miles away. The resonant, borderline gravely voice preparing to utter it was almost crystal-clear in her mind, alongside the nigh-ceaseless aches and throes befouling her. Every slight movement or shuffle. Every titanic gulp. No matter how insignificant or benign a motion seemed, a subway train inhabited by agony zipped down her bones at breakneck speed. A buzzing railway of remorseless pangs. Those dire images flickering in her vision. Those macabre crimson-tinted pictures that didn’t understand the concept of ruth or relent. Just torment. It was what their heart pumped and the very thing that kept them alive for the sole purpose of torturing her. Torment. All else were alien prospects. Ideals of simple-minded beings.
Silver wouldn’t be surprised if she had perished in the nap after the blasphemy was committed and wound up in purgatory. Her own personal Hell until the heavens saw it fit she experience the real deal. A chamber of maltreatment masquerading as the Tavern she knew and cherished deeply. Torturing her with snapshots of her crimes and transgressions. That bloodied heap of feathers and yellow flesh, marinating in her grume.
May God have mercy on her wretched soul.
“How did you wind up with them bandages?”
“Got in a fight.”
“Is that so?” Moonshine replied, ever-so-slight surprise painted over his creased features, “with who, might I ask?”
“Somebody I wish I didn’t.”
Moonshine’s rhythmic annihilation of germs tennating his mugs and shot glasses drew to a close. His aquamarine irises like cloudy emeralds flicked to greet bronze eyes, flooded with, despite her prevalent attempts to stow it away, regret. For the first time since she could remember, rue inhabited her sockets. But for who? It was a cipher Moonshine wished to solve.
“We got all the time in the world, Miss, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Moonshine crooked, orange rag and begrimed glass returning to their respective homes.
Leaning forward on his rickety forelimbs. Attention entirely magnetized and absorbed by her burnished optics. Expression blank. Mouth a measly line scribbled upon a wizened canvas of skin. His gateways to the soul spilling more than he’d like. Empathy. Concern. Worry. Pervasive curiosity threatening to overrule all else.
This bubbling concoction of emotions and sentimental sensations for an unrighteous pony. Somebody who the senior should throw out of his doors with a boot in her ass, bark until his lungs collapsed about how she was blacklisted from entering. If only he knew the truth. The true evil that lie secreted expertly in the bowels of her black hellscape of a soul. A slight pinpoint of…something positive remained undeterred by the darkness around it, but with each and every crime, it dwindled more and more. Soon enough, there wouldn’t be a Silver Spears anymore. There’d just be a walking husk with a chip on it’s shoulder, hellbent of emerging triumphant over others no matter the cost. Violence and carnage being the only two languages it spoke. And if someone else didn’t, they would wind up ambushed in a desolate hallway. In a place they thought was a sanctuary. How dearly wrong they were.
“Miss?”
“Hmm?”
With every passing moment of speechlessness, Silver sunk deeper into this trance she found herself in more often than not. And this newfound gentleness in the oldster’s tone didn’t help one bit. She could be lulled to slumber in a matter of seconds if she so desired.
“It’s just us two alone,”
Moonshine threw a fleeting glance to the manifold of deserted seats and tables occupied solely by void. Rich burgundy leather benches bare sans the loner residing in the farthest corner. No alcohol to enjoy. No soul around to possibly ignite conversation with to fill the stale silence. Just her, at least he presumed it was her, and the book whose pages submerged her. The oldster’s observation was clearly noticed. A sliver of a magenta globe peeking from the top of the cover, only to almost instantly disappear. Moonshine cherished each and every one of his customers unconditionally. But some of their shenanigans never ceased to befuddle him.
“Well, mostly alone, anyway.”
He focused his undivided attention back to the task at hand.
“Listen, whatever’s troublin’ ya, it’s safe with me. You have my word.”
Moonshine's eyes continued to brim with that same hybrid of emotion. Each individual vehemence was a river feeding into a singular, malnourished mouth, ultimately leading to the old pegasus’ orbs. There, the magic truly happened. All of the spirits conjoining as one, melting into a singular glowing ring of waning green. Those optics Silver had grown incredibly fond of. Was opening the floodgates to her screaming, agonizing heart worth a potential prolonged stay in the Canterlot dungeons?
“I’m fine, Shine. Really-”
“Bullshit.”
“Can we just drop it?”
“Why?”
“It’s just-” Silver rubbed her forehead. “It’s complicated, okay?”
“You know I’ve been in my fair share of complicated jams, Miss Spears. I got some experience in handling them.”
Silver’s creativity knew no bounds when it came to imagining the sheer ferocity of the antics Moonshine found himself in decades prior. When his arteries flowed with the youthful robustness Silver took for granted that, to him, was akin to the elixir of the gods. A time long before the rust that age brought in tow annexed his joints. Silver bled into his hair. Bones shackled with manacles held tightly by senescence. His new and perpetual leader, who’s iron-fisted reign would persist until his time arrived at its coda. Even if she was granted knowledge to everything Moonshine had accomplished in his glory days, no fair share of “complicated” anything could compare to her. Beating someone half-to-death in contrast to sneaking booze in the middle of the night was standing a scarecrow in front of a mountain. The difference was crystal-clear.
“I don’t doubt that, but…”
“But what?”
Silver’s eyes were torn from his. The fathoms of the orange, bitter abyss situated next to her hoof greeted her gaze. Almost beckoning for her to ingest it. Slay her sorrows with a single gulp.
“Why are you being so persistent, Shine?” Silver inquired, “if I told you it’s fine, then it’s fine.”
Moonshine cocked a brow. “I know you must think I’m some crazy old geezer, but I know a hurt pony when I see one.”
“You’re hurtin’, Miss. Bad. I can feel it.”
“Moonshine, I came here to drink and unwind, okay? Not to talk about my feelings,”
Silver’s urges emerged triumphant. That familiar trek down Bitter Avenue was just as acidic and sharp as before. No change to pain and discomfort it wrought. Yet, for some reason, she couldn’t stop. The psychology of addiction was a knotty labyrinth of contradictions and complications too daunting of a subject for her to tackle.
“Unwindin’ is talkin’ ‘bout ‘em, in a way.”
Silver returned the glass to the table. She paused. Glancing back at the practically non-existent hooded figure continuing to moon over nothing in the corner. Eyes still asphyxiated under the mounds of aptly written pages. No shred of a nudge towards the idea of departure anytime soon among her frozen limbs and shrouded hallmarks. At the end of the day, this was just tadpole amidst the extensive ocean of bar-goers that come and go on a daily basis. Surely she’s heard dire, never-before-heard secrets that people would die to keep hidden under a dense blanket of secrecy in her time here. What’s the worst that could happen?
“If i’m houndin’ you then don’t feel pressured, Miss. I’m just offerin’-”
“Somepony might die because of me.”
Moonshine’s face was paralyzed. Forever locked in a perpetual state of confusion, disbelief, and a multitude of other sensations Silver couldn’t pinpoint in those seafoam orbs. Gateways to the soul, if you will. Let that be the case, Moonshine’s spirit was a muddled realm of chaos and discord. A euphoric reality for a certain draconequus she learned about in history class in her younger years. Out of all the benign, meaningless information drilled into her cranium back then, the legend of Discord was one she remembered.
Now, even Discord of all beings would lour down upon the metal-haired pegasus with searing shame. A precise replica of the scowl primed to paint Moonshine’s wrinkled mug in the near-future.
“I made a mistake… A huge one.”
“What do you mean somepony might die?”
“I hurt her… Badly.”
Her gaze fell, eye contact plummeting to its grisly demise. The cloaked frame skulking out of her peripheral vision listened intently.
“Who?”
She paused. A heartbeat swayed on the brink of being discerned in the deafening quietude.
“Spitfire.”
Shame was braided within her words as they shambled out of her lungs, polluting the midnight air with her self-pity. Whether the regret was a work of fiction or a true display of guilt was up to interpretation.
“She won. She beat me and… I wouldn’t let that pass me by.”
“The anger was so painful, Shine. I could barely contain it on the fly there. Then when I finally did…”
Those snapshots of misery blackened by ichor ravaged her psyche. The screams of the flame-haired pegasus before her hooves thoroughly silenced her. That sickening crunch as her skull and the checkered floor became one. Clacking of teeth scattering. Hooves impacting with nauseating slapping sounds, like they were both merely punching bags thronged with raw meat mistakenly given life. For one of the two in that vacant, dusty hallway, that was true. No further investigation was necessary to uncover the identity.
“I tried to stop myself. It wasn’t my choice after a while. I was… I was a puppet. My heart tugging the strings that I couldn’t cut, it was-”
Silver rubbed her face. Her skin still harboring the effects of the brisk crepuscule breeze whistling by the pub.
“Dammit! I can’t even describe it.”
“Ya don’t have to, I got a pretty clear picture as is.”
Unbelievably, the air remained as tranquil as it did before her bombshell of a confession. His mood and facial expression refused to deviate. No disgust or choler towards the equine like she wholeheartedly expected. Merely a patient line defying his wrinkles that was his mouth, almost entirely hidden by his bushy mustache.
“That was… awful, to say the least. But there was something else that’s been bothering me about it. I can’t really put my hoof on it.”
“Again, we got all the time in Equestria. I’m listenin’.”
Silver paused for a moment before a frustrated sigh escaped her lungs.
“I’ve been feeling this weird sense of dread. Almost like my brain and my body know something big is coming, but I don’t. I want to know so bad but I just can’t. Am I making sense?
Moonshine wordlessly nodded.
“And that human, Levi, I think, gave me the creeps when I first met him.”
Levi was an oddity without a shadow of a doubt.
The way her fleshy hand felt in her hoof. How vibrant emerald green met molten bronze with an underlying, not-so-hidden wisp of apprehension. As though the first human being to ever grace Equus in thousands of years was some sort of mythical being, able to pry and peer deep into the ruinous chasms of her soul. All her past sins and transgressions, no matter how small or benign they may seem, being seen by the Man in Blue. Silver knew in the back of her psyche that wasn’t the case. But, if in some way it was, surprise would be the last thing infiltrating her heart.
There was something about him she couldn’t quite decipher. A sensation that radiated off his lively-dressed frame with no name or exact origin. In spite of her laborious efforts in the few seconds their manuses met, identifying exactly what it was proved to be more daunting than she anticipated. Whatever it was, it accomplished the grim goal it most certainly intended to. Stoking a roaring inferno of worry within the pegasus. An unshakable ghost of terror, haunting her as a punishment for crossing the male’s path. A behavior it intended to rectify.
“The way he looked at me… there was something so, how do I say it? Angry, I guess? It’s hard to put a name on it.”
“Why would he be angry with you?”
“No clue,” Silver answered, honestly threatening to leak from her words onto the dark wooden floor. “Some premonition or dream he had is the only thing I can think of.”
“Otherwise, Shine…I’m out of ideas.”
The air shifted, as though uttering the serpent among ponies’ name had conjured his presence. Silver’s ears perked. The cloaked cyan pegasus posterior to her drew a close on her abnormal reading session, but Silver chose to not pay the noise of rustling paper any mind. Something was drawing near. Ever-so-dangerously close. She could feel it. Her bones racked with the sensation, like an army of spiders scaling her skeleton.
Moonshine’s gaze, confusion gradually drizzling into his dwindling orbs at the abrupt death of the conversation, stretched to impossible lengths. Time passed like slag crawling down a charred hill face. Floundering incomprehensibly with laggard movements. Anxiety turned her flesh to marble, holding her hostage in this endless period of nervous anticipation.
The maroon bench behind her creaked. A goodbye to the blight among the vandyke flooring. It wouldn’t surprise a bit if she arrived at the conclusion that she had some part in orchestrating this. Whatever she could possibly classify the sudden and drastic slope in the ambience. The crescendo of the famed orchestra of crickets came and went. All hints or inklings of noise ran for the hill in what could only be considered fright. Putting a name to the face of what lied beyond the invisible curtain of secrecy was nonviable. It was clear somebody was tugging the strings, playing with circumstances as though they were merely shoddy childrens toys. Inanimate, emotionless objects designed to entertain the vices of an unripe toddler’s mind. Paying no heed to the judgment of others as they thoughtlessly trifle with her conditions.
In a way, this pathetic display of idiocy was, at the end of the day, a show of sorts. An intricately delineated game that, like all things, possessed an inevitable end that no oasis could offer refuge from. One inescapable moment where that sheet of confidentiality is drawn, revealing the headmaster in all of his glory. It didn’t take a bona fide genius with a doctorate to realize when that veil was torn away. With a longer-than-usual miserable moan from the senior hinges and the creak of floorboards, the mastermind behind it all stood in all of his glory. His vivid blue, attention-robbing, very human glory.
Whetted emerald orbs lacerated the tenebrosity. And soon enough, the sword resting soundly against his thigh and dangling from his waist would too. The weapon looked undeniably familiar. Was it an artifact? Some magical relic hidden expertly in the belly of Canterlot’s knotty royal castle? It would come as a shock to no-one if all the secrets of that labyrinth of crimson carpets and burning torches were unlocked by the Princesses and delivered to him on a silver platter.
He reeled a deep, hefty breath into his lungs. The intoxicating scent of the Rusty Tavern luring him into an unavoidable drunken stupor like it had done to her countless times. Mayhaps Moonshine cast a spell onto the building to have that effect.
Levi exhaled. Loudly and with tightly closed eyes. Arresting green met molten bronze. Hands balled tightly at his obliques. Ambience irreparably stained by his presence. The double doors returned to their default positions, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the broad doorframe.
And then, he took the first step towards her.
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Alot of big words 🤪
I just realized this ENTIRE TIME I've been spelling the masculine form of brunette wrong. I think it's about time I retire from writing. It was fun while it lasted.