The Mare With No Story And Other Promising Tales

by James Washburn

The Mare With No Story

The Mare With No Story

Back in the day, everypony told stories. At day’s end (because there was bugger all else to do) they’d meet up somewhere public and share stories. Or sing songs, or play music or (ulp) read poetry. And everyone would have something to tell, or sing, or play, or (Celestia forbid) read. Well, everyone except one mare.

They called her Shy, because, well, she was shy. Excessively so. She was tall, having suffered from gangling early in life, and had big blue watery eyes. She could look awkward anywhere. She slept awkwardly. And try as she might, she couldn’t tell stories. She loved to hear them, sure enough, but when it came to telling you were better off asking a brick wall. You’d probably have better luck, too.

When it came to her turn, she’d stand, maybe mumble a few sentences, then sit back down and hide behind her long pink fringe. This got her the annoyance of some, and the pity of others, but no matter what they might think, it always made Shy feel bad. She hated not being able to tell a story, but she just couldn’t. Not in front of all those ponies.

Anyway, this particular story starts with Shy walking home. And it was a horrible night to be walking home in. Rain pelted at her horizontally, soaking her through, the wind blew right through her gangly legs, and lighting flashed and thunder boomed making her flinch. She was struggling on down the road, when suddenly, she saw a flicker up ahead. She stumbled onwards, and the flicker became a light in a window and the window was in... well, what looked like a tree. In fact, it was a tree, but with a door, and windows, and all manner of homely touches.

Now, Shy was wary of this place. She’d heard about the mare who lived in this house, about how she practiced dark magic. That almost stopped her from going in, but common sense won through. Come on, she thought, it’s cold, it’s wet, and it’ll be warm and dry in there.

So she knocked on the door, and it was opened by a purple dragon. He ushered her inside, and although she was afraid, she wanted to be warm more than anything else. Inside, there was a wide circle of ponies who Shy recognised. At the far side, a purple unicorn rose and smiled.

“Hello and welcome, Shy!” she said. “You’re just in time.”

“In time for what?” said Shy, in a quiet kind of voice (as if she had another kind).

“In time for the competition, of course!” the mare said, cheerily. “We’re having a competition of stories!”

Shy almost dashed back outside. Stories! She couldn’t tell stories!

“Whoever tells the best story will get the golden cup of stories,” said the mare, levitating a small golden trophy. “And whoever tells the biggest lie will win the silver cup of lies,” which was levitated too.

“So take a seat, why don’t you.”

The ponies shuffled over to make space, and Shy took her place. Awkwardly, of course. A mare in a stetson stood at the far side of the circle.

“Unaccustomed as I am t’public speakin’, I got a story about stories, so I reckon that’s a good place to start.”

So she told her story, and everyone agreed it was a pretty good story. Then a blue pegasus stood.

"See, I’ve got a story a bit like that one, but not quite.”

And she told it, and everyone said yeah, that was a pretty alright story. So it slowly worked around the circle, and the whole time, Shy was panicking. What was she going to do? She wished the ground would open up underneath her. Right, she thought, when it gets to me, I’ll just say anything, and then my turn will be over and I can just listen to the others. I don’t want to win, after all.

Then, all of a sudden, it was her turn. All heads turned, and there was an awful, long silence. Slowly, very slowly, Shy stood, unfolded her long legs and opened her mouth to say something, anything. But she couldn’t. Not with all these ponies looking at her. Her mouth went dry, her knees started to shake and she clammed up.

All she could say was, in her quietest voice, “I’m sorry, I can’t tell a story.”

The unicorn shook her head slowly. “Tut tut, Shy. You know what this means? You’ll have to pay a forfeit. Go down to the lake. By the lake, you will find a boat. I want you to bail all the rainwater out of that boat with your hooves, and nothing else.”

Well, Shy thought to herself, that wasn’t so bad. If she was quick, she could be back to hear the end of the stories. So she went over to the door (the dragon opened it for her) and went out.

The rain and wind had stopped, and it was a clear, still night as Shy went down to the lake. The boat was on the shore, as the mare had said. It was resting, half on the pebbles, half in the water. And, as the mare had said, it was full of rainwater. Shy went over to it and cupped her hooves and tried to bail the rainwater out.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to bail with hooves, but it doesn’t work very well at all. You can’t cup hooves, for one thing. Only a trickle of water left the boat each time. Shy was getting pretty annoyed. She was getting a little trickle of water out each time, and the boat was still half full! (Or half empty, depending on your outlook).

Shy was having none of this. She might have been shy, but she took no nonsense from inanimate objects. She cupped her wings (because she was a pegasus, of course), and started to bail it out like that. That was better, she was getting a decent amount out each time. Soon the boat was three quarters empty, and Shy climbed in to get the last of the water out.

Unfortunately, she was just getting into the boat when she put her weight in the wrong place and it lurched. She tried to stop it, but her awkward limbs just got twisted up and she fell forward into the boat with a THUMP.

And like that, she went out like a light.

After a time, she came to. She was lying on her back in the boat, and her head felt like someone had worked it over with a claw hammer. She was staring at a dark sky, studded with stars. So it was still night time, and not too much time had passed. She got to her hooves, and the boat rocked alarmingly. She stretched her hooves out to steady it, and to her surprise, not only did it stop, but her hooves didn’t get all tangled up like they usually did.

She looked, and saw her legs weren’t gangly and wiry any more. They were sturdy, muscular and red. She patted herself down quickly, and found her thin, toast-rack chest had been replaced with one you could beat horseshoes on. She leaned over the side of the boat, and saw her reflection looking back at her.

Green eyed, ginger haired, red coated, unshorn fetlocks, muscles like they’d been chiseled from stone. Oh, and she was a stallion.

As is only natural for such circumstances, she freaked out. She curled up in the boat, shaking. She shut her eyes tight. Then, she opened them. Nothing changed. She shut her eyes again, and opened them. Nope, still a stallion.

She did it again, over and over, expecting to see her usual hooves and her usual lanky legs, but each time she was disappointed. She steadied her breathing and sat up in the boat. Okay, stop worrying. Stop worrying. You can deal with this.

Eventually, with a deep sigh (and when you’re built like she was, you can sigh as deep as the freakin’ ocean), she started to row herself back to shore. She pulled the boat up (surprisingly easy now all her limbs were in accord) and took stock. It was clearly not the same shore she had set out from. The trees were different, for one thing, and the pebbles were a different colour.

That meant she was either somewhere else entirely, or she was just on the other side of the lake. All things considered, she knew which one she’d prefer it to be, and in that case she could just walk around, go and see the mare in the tree and ask her to use her freaky-deaky powers to fix all this.

With that in mind, she set off around the lake, trying not to look at her new hooves. She found a road in short order, and was walking along, when a mare stepped out in front of her.

“Oh goodness!” said the mare, jumping with what looked to Shy like not entirely genuine fright. “You scared the life out of me.”

“Sorry,” Shy rumbled. Then she blushed for having rumbled.

The mare looked her up and down, and Shy looked the mare up and down. She was a unicorn, white coat (but with maybe a hint of grey?) with a fabulously maintained mane. Shy decided she really liked her mane. It stopped her eyes from wandering.

“You aren't from around here, are you?” said the mare. “Where’ve you come from?”

Shy wanted to talk about the forfeit, the lake and the boat, but it all seemed so strange. She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

“I don’t know,” she said instead.

“You don’t know? Well, alright, where are you going?” said the mare, kindly.

And Shy wanted to say about the tree house, the mare who practiced the dark arts, and how she could be changed back. But again, she just didn’t know where to start.

“I don’t know,” she said, after a bit of indecision.

“So, let me get this straight,” said the mare, in a very forthright manner. “You don’t know where you’ve come from and you don’t know where you’re going. You are, in short, lost!”

Shy shrugged and cast her eyes low.

“Well... don’t you worry about it,” said the mare, smiling and sidling up beside Shy. “My father's house is just down the way. We can put you up for the night.”

Shy thanked her profusely.

“Come along then,” said the mare, twitching her head down the path.

They set off. Shy walked beside the mare, keeping pace quite happily.

“So, what’s your name?” the mare said, idly.

“Shy,” she said, trying to control the rumble in her voice and not succeeding.

“Shy, eh? An odd name for a strapping stallion like you.”

She was glad it was dark. The mare couldn’t see her blushing furiously.

In short order, they reached the house. It was finely built, with pleasant, lilac-coloured stone, had purple tiles, and columns in a very nice neo-pegasus style. A merry light flickered in the ornate windows. They walked up to the door, where the mare stopped and turned to Shy.

“Don’t worry if my father is a little... abrasive,” she said. “He means well enough.”

She opened the door and walked in. Shy paused for a moment before following her in. Inside, the decorations were as lovely as the outside. Thick carpets, well upholstered furniture, crushed velvet curtains. Yes, a pony could live well in a place like this. A stallion with a fabulous mustache and a monocle sat in an armchair in the corner, smoking a pipe.

“Rarity!” he said, when he saw the mare enter. Then, when he saw Shy, he continued with, “who on earth is this?”

“This is Shy, father,” she said, standing by Shy’s side. “He escorted me home, and I’d like to repay the favour by letting him stay the night.”

“Escorted you home, eh?” said the stallion, rising like a vengeful sun. He walked over to Shy, and tried to look intimidating, despite barely coming up to her chin. He squinted, threateningly. “Out of the goodness of his heart, eh?”

“Father, don’t do this...”

“I have your best interests at heart, my dear,” he said, soothingly. Then, he turned back to Shy. “You have, I take it, treated my daughter with nothing but the greatest care?”

Shy nodded meekly..

The stallion nodded, his lip curled a little. “Well, I see nothing wrong with lending him the spare room. On the ground floor.”

“Yes, father,” said Rarity, rolling her eyes. “Of course.”

“Provided he is willing to lend his prodigious strength tomorrow for some chores.”

"Oh father...”

So it was, Shy got to sleep over the night in return for labour in the morning. The next day, at first light, she was up, hauling firewood in from a great cart. Oddly she found it easy work. She carried great logs to the shed at the back two, three, four at a time. It felt good to get her muscles moving. Once she thought she saw a flash of white and purple watching from one of the second storey windows, but she paid it no heed. After her work was done, she thought, she would go and see the mare in the tree.

But despite the luxurious house, the family had no servants, and seeing such a wonderful source of labour go to waste offended the father’s sensibilities. So after the firewood, there was water to fetch for Rarity’s bath, then there was breakfast to make and serve. Then there was dusting, windows to be washed, skirting boards to be scraped clean. Then there was dinner to make and serve and Rarity’s second bath to arrange...

Shy did the work of ten ponies that day. Luckily, she could.

That evening, she thought, she would go and see the mare in the tree house. Now was the time. She had finished her last chores, and was on the cusp of leaving, just opening the door a crack, when she heard a voice behind her.

“Leaving so soon?”

She turned, and saw Rarity wearing a dressing gown, with her hair tied up in a towel. Shy wondered idly how she managed to make wearing clothes look better than wearing none at all. Then she blushed for having thought that.

“N-no, I was just going out to fetch something,” she said.

The mare in the tree could wait, she thought. Tomorrow, she would go and see her.

But tomorrow, there was the same work to be done. Firewood, breakfast, bath, cleaning, dinner, second bath. The whole time, Shy was telling herself, this evening, this evening I’ll see the mare in the tree and I’ll get myself sorted out. However, that evening, though Rarity’s father had taken her aside.

“Say, it’s been awfully sporting of you to stick around and help us out here,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, so close the smoke from his pipe almost made her sneeze. “Not as spry as I used to be, you know. Been awfully useful, having you around to lend a hoof.”

Shy shrugged and muttered that it was nothing. He just laughed and slapped her on the broad back.

“So modest! Ha! Well I was wondering if you might stick around a while longer. It’d be a deuced help having you around.”

Shy thought to say no, to tell him about the mare in the tree who’d return her to her old body, but then she looked at the stallion who had looked so tough and imposing two nights ago, and saw the bags under his eyes, heard the way he wheezed when he spoke.

So she said yes. She agreed to stay and help him and Rarity. And slowly, she became a friend of the family. Whenever Rarity would talk on about small scandals and big business, she would listen patiently and speak her mind. She’d offer assistance whenever Rarity came home in tears about some problem with a customer or an acquaintance. And she liked to comfort her, the way Rarity would smile bashfully and pretend she had never had a problem in the first place.

And Shy became friends with her father, too. He would laugh and joke with her, helping her with the more physical tasks, even though it clearly pained him to. And she appreciated his company, for he was such a font of good cheer and well-meaning bluster.

Then, one night, he asked to see Shy alone. He poured brandy and offered Shy a cigar which she was too polite to decline. She puffed and coughed in roughly equal measure. Rarity’s father smiled and smoked his own quite calmly. For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the grandfather clock, ticking away. Then, he spoke.

“I’m getting old, Shy my boy,” he said, and the wheeze was out in full force. “I haven’t lived well,” he waved his cigar vaguely, “and it’s catching up. I’ll soon be moving on from this mortal coil.”

Shy protested. He’d never looked better, he was fine, it was just the dry air getting to him, but he waved it all down.

“I know it, Shy. In my bones, I know it. A stallion gets a feel for these things, once he’s lived to an age like mine.”

He paused and took a sip of brandy.

“I want you to look after her when I’m gone,” he said, slowly. “I want you to do the decent thing. I want you to marry her.”

Shy’s mouth dropped open. She mouthed a response, but Rarity’s father went on.

“I won’t hear anything against it. I know it must seem awfully indecent of me, forcing you two together, but there’d be talk if the two of your were living together under one roof out of wedlock, and I know how dear Rarity can’t stand scandal.”

(It was, you see, a long time ago. Ponies worried about such things)

“And anyway, you must’ve seen the way she looks at you, old thing," He said, leaning in, one eyebrow raised and his moustache twitching. Underneath, a smile unsuitable for foals lurked. "She’s got her eye on you. Both of them, a lot of the time.”

Shy bit her lip. She couldn’t marry! She was far too young to marry, and not to another mare. It’d be... well, it didn’t bear thinking about. She tried to think of the right thing to say, the thing that that would get her out of the situation. But then, she looked at the old stallion, and saw that that was out of the question. She’d be betraying his trust. She owed it to him. Besides, she thought with a blush, Rarity had been giving her odd looks...

So she said yes. And within the week, Rarity’s father had died. It was his lungs in the end, they said. Rarity and Shy stood by the graveside, long after everyone had left. Shy held an umbrella over Rarity, for rain had been scheduled that afternoon, specially for the occasion. Rarity was leaning against Shy, her cheek brushing her neck in a way that made Shy at once uncomfortable, yet comforted.

“It’s so odd, now he’s gone,” said Rarity, slowly. “He was always... there, you know?”

Rarity sighed and nuzzled Shy’s side gently.

“I don’t know what I’ll do. I just...”

Shy had been fully expecting her to cry, but she hadn’t expected the full force of it. Rarity didn’t embrace Shy so much as drape herself on her like wet laundry, sniffing and sobbing. Shy hugged her back with her strong hooves

“Promise me, Shy,” said Rarity, through the tears. “Promise me you won’t go.”

What could she say? So she said yes. Within a fortnight, they were engaged, and within the month they were married. And as they say, after love, and after marriage, there naturally come the babies in the baby carriage. In due time, Rarity gave birth to three foals, beautiful colts, much to Shy’s puzzlement. Two unicorns, and one pegasus, and she watched with pride as they grew up. They lived in the family house quite happily for many years.

Until, one day in summer, just as the sun was going down, the family made a fateful decision. They would go out on a family walk, just down to the lake and back to watch the sunset, and naturally that sounded like a wonderful idea. So off they went, Shy, Rarity and their three sons, down to the lake.

The sun was going down in the west like the big ball of fire it was, glittering off the pebbles of the lake shore. And sitting on the pebbles, with all the innocence of a loaded gun, was a boat. As they walked past it, Shy walked closer than the others. She inspected the boat, and found it very interesting indeed.

“Shy, what are you doing?”

“Just looking, dear.”

She ran a hoof along the timbers. It was very... familiar.

“What’s say we go out on the lake? I’m sure the view will be spectacular out there.”

And her family said that that was a fine idea. So, Shy went to push the boat into the water. She braced her hooves against the front and heaved. The boat glided down to the water, smooth as anything, until it reached the water’s edge, where it hit something. A rock, maybe. The jolt sent Shy flying, over the stern of the boat, and into it. She landed on her head with a THUMP.

The boat drifted out into the lake, as she drifted out of consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, she was on her back. She must have been out a long time, because the sky was dark and studded with stars. She went to sit up, but found her limbs didn’t end where she thought they did. And they all seemed to have had a falling-out while she was unconscious. She scrabbled and skittered on thin, yellow legs. Then she realised. Something was wrong. Oh no, she thought. Oh no, no, no...

She hauled herself over to the side of the boat and looked at her reflection. Sure enough, there were two, big watery eyes, four long lanky legs and a long, pink mane over her face. And, of course, she was a mare now.

Then a thought came to her, and fear ran down her back like an ice cube. Rarity! Her foals! She paddled the boat on with her hooves until she reached the shore, where she leapt out on to the pebbles. She ran up the beach, calling over and over again. The first house she came to, she burst in and said, as loud as she could.

“Has anyone seen Rarity? Has anyone seen my sons?”

The purple mare stood slowly. “Back so soon?”

Shy didn’t listen. “I said has anyone seen my sons?”

“Didn’t know you had any, Shy,” said a voice from the audience. “Didn’t know you had a family.”

Shy took a moment to look around. She was back in the tree house, back in front of the audience. She feared for herself, but feared for her family more.

“Yes, I have a family! I have a beautiful wife, and three handsome sons! Now, has anyone seen them?”

The purple mare walked up to her, smiling faintly.

“You’d better tell us all about them, first.”

So she did. She told them about the boat, about how she’d woken up as a stallion, how she’d met Rarity, how she’d been taken in, of her life with them, how the father had died and entrusted Rarity’s safety to her. How they’d married, had children. Every moment up until the moment she’d stepped back into the tree house.

When she finished, the unicorn considered it for the longest time. Shy stood, breathing heavily, her mane straggled across her forehead. Slowly, the purple mare levitated the golden trophy.

“More than anypony else, I think you deserve the golden cup of stories, for the best story.”

“But it wasn’t a story!” said Shy, desperately. “It’s all true.”

The mare laughed, and levitated the second trophy. “And for that, you get the silver cup, for the most outrageous lie I’ve ever heard!”

Shy wanted to say something, but the look the unicorn gave her changed her mind.

So, whenever ponies gathered to tell stories, Shy had one to tell. In time, she could tell other stories too, her eyes stopped being quite so watery, and she stopped walking so awkwardly. In time, she became confident. And ponies stopped asking her whether her story was true, because if you did, she’d only show you the silver cup and tell you, look, it was all a lie. It must have been.

Except, sometimes, when the sun sets over the lake, you can see her standing on the shore, looking out over the water. And maybe one day, she’ll set out in a boat to the shore where the trees are different and the pebbles are a different colour. And maybe one day, she won’t come back.

Comments

[j-grizz]

An excellent story. Thanks.

[LadyMoondancer]

Fantastic story! And I love the subtle humor. "When you’re built like she was, you can sigh as deep as the freakin’ ocean."