Balk

by Comma Typer

One Fantasy

To topple that god of stone, she throws the rope high in the air for the nth time, which Screwball catches in the whirlwind from which Moon Dancer zips away, flying on baseball bats and oars, all while Moon's tethered to the boat by rope that's miles long. Flee, commit to the hit-and-run, let Screwball do the real damage—Amare, Minuette—I should've closed the door on you ages ago! "No, Moon! We... we still need you!" You should've just left me alone! Twilight's already left me... why don't you just leave me alone?! "We won't!"—Knocked doors blasted open; a crimson sky thundered with each of her friends' arrivals.

The statue's untamed tendrils wake her up from the daydream. Moon Dancer zips away, the latest act in the hour-long chase, of laser rays and floating rivers and backwards floods that were probably lava or acid, Screwball always lunging in just in time with a bat to save...

Adrenaline-frenzied Moon grasps a fallen rope, hanging on to Screwball by the barrel. "You have to shout at it or something!" Screwball yells, flying and spinning the rope 'round the monster's claw. "Give it... uh, a story or something!"

"What?! Since when did this become lit class?!"

Screams of vegetable bats strike with seeds and pellets, terror from below in the windy skies. Her rummaging through sticky-notes and balloons in a treasure chest don't stop Screwball from shouting, "Just find something!"

Then a baseball bat is in Moon's hooves.

She rope-swings onto a tree for momentum, Screwball as another fulcrum (shouting "Dodge!") into flying platforms for Moon to gallop across (her heart beats, races, pumps like an engine), beams firing from Screwball's eyes from the past few minutes to get its attention—every muscle on Moon burns, tiring and toiling; blurry eyes rest on sweaty, foggy glasses—a stone statue ready to crush her so easily.

That face faces hers.

You'll make for good prey.

Eyes lock and the world melts. Keys to the kingdom are given to her in several envelopes, printed with FREEDOM, REALITY. (They are not weapons; the baseball in her magic is tangible, is real, can make the statue-monster bleed.)

I know you hurt. You are far in deep. Your friends are occupied, hm? So—

"Come on! Want to get me! Then get me! I'm right here, right here!"

Eyes unlock to watch Screwball.

She's diving straight into the statue's line of fire.

"What are you doing?!"

"On me!"

A tap of the hoof, and Moon's baseball in her horn's grip. The message, understood.

Two swings—of Screwball's hooves, of Moon Dancer's magic—sink their bats deep into the statue: chaotic rainbows pulse and spill out, hooves slipping, of everything, of random minds, jumblings of the head—all of you are trapped, join the chaos, the chorus—

The electricity explodes to kill the hisses, the voices.

So white-hot white is her world.

---

Transparent is the maze in her eyes and the fear within, yelling at her to leave now, while order still has a hoofhold. Curse lateral thinking! What was a rule, and wasn't this a baseball position? The pencil's ink bleeds out.

You know what to do. Or try to do.

The clump of smoke cannot suffocate the red light; the fog is shattered in its incessant blinking. In her magic, Moon is thrown into the wind like caution (caution is a mare she sees).

A hat on her head is enough to get her flying forever, give her enough power to radiate like a thousand suns, never to burn out. Never went to the fashion store before; never had a hat on her before like this, tiny helicopter she is now (what is a helicopter).

The world flickers but for that red light.

---

Pain inconceivable surges through all her life, slumped and crashed against the boat, unending dust, scraping her clean were it not for the rivers shielding her from the worst of the blast. The oar she still holds in her magic; the rest of her belongings, still intact, still in shape, still waiting for the sky to gift her Screwball.

Her hooves find purchase on moist grassland. They recognize they're still on a boat albeit turned over. Get the wetness off her clothes, then a pink flicker flies against the red. Pink like her.

"Screwball, wait! D-don't leave!"

Out the boat—vines lash out at her, wrangle her oars away, left with just a bat, no problem. Cicadas chitter, mimicking circus music—the air, fizzy like cola—they won't stop her. The red beacon and its promised exit lies yet beyond. That and Screwball.

---

The thicket morphs into spikes and ash-gray mazes where the smoke chokes, the fog proceeding with Screwball’s cumbersome bags and bats being her burden. That bleeding light persists, her salvation, a door ready for her in the green wilderness. FIRE EXIT, it proclaims as a treatise of hope and home. The little streets, her little family within reach, that reach that pinkened the grass its hooves hover over.

Flowers dance behind the door. They sing of Short Stop. Lemon flowers, lemon trees, lemonade stands proudly stand, saluting her return. Pristine skies kiss gardens and dirt patches alike, the road ahead graced with dugouts as far as the eye can see.

A boat lay at the end. It and him.

No... n-no, no! Not you! I'm…

His claw taps on the rim of the boat. "Good job, Screwball," drawls out the mad creature. Graying monstrosity, laying bare a colorful checkerboarded suit, he is that statue incarnate. (His survivors might've escaped. Just haven't come public yet with how they survived.) "Your reputation precedes you." Walls fence the river off. How she got into the boat already—a paw redirects her eyes back to the babbling, cackling, crackling river. "Should've just left her alone."

Moon Dancer, left dying in his pond of unreality, joining the chaos, singing their brazen song—not like this. Not how it should've died, not how she should've gone. Should've been Screw, should've been her, she's already here—

"Virgil would've been proud, little Screwie." Waves charge the canoe into blazing oil vats, the air as hot as a million stars; the sweat chills her forehead, tastes of mint. The winds come with screams and advertisements for the latest cotton candy—a madhouse already! The hairs on her mane stand on end—Discord splays open a claw, lifting a telescope, and a twist unblurs a floating island hidden ahead. "You took them through the depths safe and sound, intact. That's admirable. You deserve a good rest more than most, hmm?"

Resist.

"Your little cutie mark can mean so much, but oh, isn't it funny? Miss Screwball? You do know what else it means, right?" His paw unfolds into a ball and screw: her pitch's namesake. Juking. Out of left field. Back into her hoofside. How it tricks, swerves away from the target.

A swing of her hoof at him. And a miss, and almost falling over the boat, how she put the weight of her body and soul into that would-be punch.

Ball and screw are embedded in her eyes, in the reflection. Her life doesn't flash: the sky warms her like an oven, the crowd cheers with their popcorn popping. They ask her play ball, and the answer is how high. The sportball materializes in her hooves, laid there and laid bare. 20/20 vision has her zoom into the red stitches, into a red-tinted stadium, into herself standing on the mound: back here, with Discord and the crowd, all a tinge more crimson. Madder—mad at her(self), mad at him, how she can set her hoof against his world, against the audience occupying his bleachers—

"You hope that it'll just be a snap, hm?" He does snap. Nothing happens. The crowd's chants drown the world out. "I know you. A sliver and a glimmer of hope that maybe you wouldn't be around when they see you. There's a glimpse of your friends and family hanging out somewhere. Oh, you'll complain and whine against it when they see you, ask them to set you free. They won't know, though, hm? Then the monster becomes real, and that monster shall be your legacy forever, Screwball." His chuckle is the cherry on top. I am more than this! she shouts and will be nothing else, stripped to the bare bones—her cutie mark this, cutie mark that, so must it be, carpenter-pitcher.

Discord melts into the grass, the spotlights, the stadium, the boat itself. The damp smell of freshly mowed grass wafts into the backdrops imitating the sky, as canned as the PA announcements for an imaginary MVP. Pink dots blossom into little Screwballs that grow into her size, surrounding her in a natural hug machine, offering baseball bats and baseballs and a couple of screws for her to autograph. "No, get away!"—"Take this!"—"No, please!" so she runs, gallops away—"We're you! We'll always be with you! We're friends!"—"Here, something to redecorate your home with!"

Everyone chants her name in every color of the spectrum, sending love letters (you are not alone). Her crew of screws varnish the timber and the rest of the venue. Shovels thrive in the grass: so they dig, the pallbearers being herselves, watching her tomb, inviting her with their swirling eyes. Disempowered, broken and the lights come in, her little sunrise, so the world twists and rotates.

She sinks beyond the soil, one with the stadium, the sport. It fizzles and pops in her mouth like exploding lemons.

A tinge of the moon goes awash in the fallout.

Comments

[Casketbase77]

The foggy filter thickens through our first action scene. Screwball’s perception strains description of danger already blurred and mutated by Discord’s magic. However, despite Cause And Effect being abstract at best, we still get an all important “if X happens, Y will follow.” To conquer the animated statue, Moon Dancer must “shout at it or something.” Fittingly, this info comes from Screwball, our designated guide through the wilds. And frighteningly, Moon Dancer fails this first (and presumably easiest) obstacle. Screwball spends her already low sanity reserves like currency, and the reader wonders how many times she’s had to do this before. 

Discord’s entrance was satisfying. I’d been wondering whether he’d show up to play the role of shoulder devil, or if instead the story would keep him non grata, just letting the ripple effects of his reality pollution speak for themselves. His presence is not wasted, and he’s (pun intended) pitch perfect with his demonic allure. Screwball fails to punch him, fails to argue against him, and even her voice fails to form any insults when he lays her low. And yet,due to her defiance, his snap fails. I’m reminded very much of a Christian truism: 

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I can’t say much beyond this summary of plot points because the rest of this chapter is pure character building. Relentless reiterations of Screwball’s weakening psyche, mostly. The closing sentence snaps focus back to “moon awash in the fallout,” either metaphorically or literally having her reune with Moon Dancer. Her own strength exhausted, Screwball has to rely on her patron. This of course builds tension for their inevitable parting of ways when they reach their destination.