Black Angel

by Zobeid

20 - Wings Wetted Down

Nim sighed as she pushed a mop. Standing on her hind legs, she had her front hooves wrapped around the mop handle, one of them looped into a strap to help keep the handle from getting away. It was awkward, though she preferred it over pushing the mop with her mouth.

She dropped the wet mop head into a pail, then pushed down a lever with her free hoof to squeeze dirty water out of it. Then she plopped the mop head back onto the floor and began to mop up more water from the aisle. Faintly audible was the drum of rain on the store’s roof, and the plip-plip of water dripping into buckets strategically placed under the leaky spots of the ceiling.

She turned — and her horn thwacked the shelf, sending some cans tumbling into the floor. “Stupid horn!” she cursed. Then she grumbled, “useless appendage…” She unhooked her hoof from the mop and began picking up the cans of “FOOD,” as each was marked in generic black text on a generic white label.

Close by where she was working, a slate-gray pony was stacking cans into a large pyramid-like display. Like Nim, the other pony was wearing the store uniform: an apron-like bib and bow tie. Unlike Nim, this pony had on a pair of thick glasses and began happily singing a little tune as she stacked the cans:

Gimme a break! Gimme a break!
Break me off a piece of that Snik Snak bar!
Gimme a break! Gimme a break!
Break me off a piece of that Snik Snak bar!
You could keep it to yourself, but that wouldn’t be fair,
Because that blackstrap molasses taste is loved everywhere.
Gimme a break! Gimme…

“Slate, stop singing!”

The mare blinked at Nim. “What? I’m a singing gal.”

Nim swung the damp mop around so that it slapped Slate in the face. “I’m right here next to you and you’re bucking singing. Cut it out!”

Slate flinched and then wiped at her face with her pastern. “Sheesh! Why so tense, Nim?”

A more masculine voice called out, “Nim!”

The two mares glanced to the aisle where an older, dull brown stallion had approached while they bickered, and he was accompanied by a burly gnoll in a security guard uniform.

Slate gasped, “Mister Storey!”

The stallion kept his focus on Nim. “You were late again this morning. Now, normally I’d let it go, but it’s been brought to my attention that you’re not paying attention to the way you space the cans.” Nim didn’t meet his gaze as he spoke to her; rather she continued wringing out the mop in the pail.

“Many young ponies of your age in these uncertain times…” Mr. Storey paused, then leaned closer to her. “Nim? Are you paying attention to me?”

The gnoll leaned over and jabbed Nim with his meaty paw, getting her to look up, and then pointed to Mr. Storey. “Hey! He’s talking to you.”

She turned her gaze to Mr. Storey, looking directly at him for the first time, and said: “Buck you!”

The stallion gasped and stepped back, but Slate began to giggle. Nim glared at her for a moment, then ducked her head, hooked her horn under Slate’s leg and flipped her back into the pyramid of cans she’d just been stacking. The cans tumbled and rolled all over the aisle while Slate sprawled helplessly flailing in their midst.

“Good lord!” choked Mr. Storey.

Meanwhile the gnoll pulled a studded billy club out of his belt and brandished it at Nim, as if getting ready to whack her. He taunted, “Jackass! Come on, bucker, just try it! Come on!”

Nim backed away slowly, then reached up with a hoof to hook her bow tie, ripped it off and flung it at the gnoll. Then she turned and walked away, toward the front of the store and her exit.

From the floor Slate yelled, “Way to get fired from your job in a big way, Nim!”

Mr. Storey looked down at Slate and said, “What are you laughing at? Louie, throw her out too!”

Louie grabbed Slate’s bib. “C’mon you bucking worm!”

As he picked her up she blinked uncomprehendingly and squeaked, “Me?”

He gave her a shove, sending her staggering into a cart and falling to the floor again; then she scrambled to get away and out of the store too.

---

Nim and Slate sat on a gray concrete slab of a loading pier, under a gray metal overhang that provided some shelter from the gray clouds and rain. Nim was nosing through the classified section of a newspaper. She read: “Night watchpony, Misty Town?”

“Yep,” nodded Slate.

“Asbestos worker, Drizzle City?”

“Yep, yep,” nodded Slate.

“Hay fry maker, Fogsville? heheh… It’s absurd.”

“Yeah, well you think it’s funny, huh? There’s room to move as a fry cook, Nim! You know, I could be manager in two years. Queen! Goddess!”

Nim passed the soggy paper over to Slate. While she perused it, Nim said: “Y’know, Slate… I had this wild dream last night. It was with you and me, and… we were working in this sleazy dump of a hotel, down in Fort Raine. And we were bellhops. And we were 65 years old.” Slate snuffled indifferently. Nim insisted, “It was so real… it was really… realistic, you know?”

Slate snorted. “Yeah, and then what? You woke up in a puddle?”

Nim gave Slate a light jab with her horn, and then hopped off the pier.

“Ow! You jerk! Where are you going, jackass?”

“Away from you,” Nim answered, and she trotted off into the rain.

---

Nim plodded along the street, sullen, brooding, her black wings bedraggled, hooves splashing in muddy puddles, and her midnight blue mane and tail plastered with rain. Most of the other ponies she saw as she passed were old, shuffling, wrinkled as though pruned by the damp.

She didn’t belong here. She, the raven-black mare with both wings and a horn, and her slit-pupil eyes, didn’t look like any other pony. She didn’t fit in. And she knew, somehow, that she was meant for more than this. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, settle for this life. But what could she do? This was not a world of hope.

Paying no mind to where her feet carried her, she wandered past a junk yard. She kicked a can a few times. She passed a laundry, a pawn shop, a domino parlor.

Then something caught her eye, and she paused. There was a store she hadn’t seen before. Its neon sign was a beacon of color on the otherwise gray street, and it read: SAMEYE’S CANDY OUTLET.

A candy store? The cheerful colors of the sign, and the colors in the window, drew her. It seemed like ages since she’d seen any color. She pushed through the door and went inside.

It was quiet inside. The gentle drumming of rain on the roof and the plip-plip sounds of water dripping into buckets somehow made the shop seem quieter than no sound at all. There was candy everywhere, of every kind. There were jars of jelly beans, gummis and jawbreakers. There were baskets of taffy. There were bags of caramels and peppermints and lemon drops. There were fancy chocolates inside the display case. Nim had never seen so much candy before.

She wanted some. She was seized by a sudden, irrational desire for candy — as if it was the only thing that might appease her troubled soul. She knew that she had no money, though.

“Looking for something?” called a soft, raspy voice. Nim glanced at the counter. There was a unicorn pony with a deep purple coat and green mane. He was old and wrinkled, like so many who lived in this town. She didn’t answer, looking down at her hooves instead. The unicorn grabbed a large, glass jar between his hooves and lifted the lid off, and pushed the jar forward on the counter. It was filled with bright green spheres, almost glowing with fluorescent color. “Sour apple delights! Try some, won’t you?”

Almost against her will, Nim moved closer. Hesitantly she sniffed until the chemical tang of artificial apple flavoring stung her nostrils. And yet she was tempted. There had been no color in her life for so long, she could hardly remember it. She shuffled closer.

“Come on, girl!” urged the shopkeeper. “It won’t cost you anything you’ll miss.”

Something sparkled. She caught a glimpse in the corner of her eye, something on the shelf behind the old pony. Some sort of candy roll wrapped in shiny foil with a label in all the colors of the rainbow. “SWEET DREAMS,” the label read, and Nim knew what she wanted. With a fluid motion she reared up, placed her front feet on the counter top, and stretched her neck and muzzle way over past the clerk, and snatched the roll of candy from the shelf with her lips.

“What? No!” cried the old pony. “You can’t have those. They’re not supposed to be here. They’re not for sale!” Nim giggled past the roll of candy clutched in her mouth and she turned and trotted to the exit. The old stallion, more spry than he looked, hurried around the counter. As Nim pushed out of the door and began to run, she could hear him yelling: “THEY’RE NOT FOR SALE! STOP, THIEF!”

She ran and ran, splashing in the puddles and laughing around the candy roll still clutched between her teeth. She ducked into an alleyway, looking for a dry and clean place to hide. She found a shed where carts were stored behind a place of business. She went to the small stoop at the back of the shop and dropped the roll of candy onto the bare concrete. She gazed at the colorful wrapper for only a few moments, then she wedged the roll between her front hooves and nibbled at it, trying to get a purchase on the wrapper with her teeth. She fumbled the roll, then tried again.

She caught the edge of the paper, and it began to rip. Carefully she manipulated it with her teeth and lips until the wrapping came apart and candies spilled onto the concrete floor.

They were cheery pastel colors, and each one had a bit of writing on it. Her eyes flitted from one to another:

SUNNY DAZE

TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

CUPS AND CAKES

PEPPERMINT TWIST

FUN AND GAMES

THE PLAY’S THE THING

CLEAR NIGHT MOONLIGHT

Her lips moved as she silently read that last one. Clear Night Moonlight. Deliberately she picked it up with her lips, then pulled it into her mouth with her tongue. She closed her eyes and bit into it. The tart-but-sweet flavor of dreamberries flooded her mouth.

When she opened her eyes again, she stood twice as tall as she had before, and her horn had tripled in length. A tingly sensation came from her hindquarters. She turned her head in time to see the sigil appear on her hip, as if clouds were parting in front of a crescent moon. She gasped softly, “I remember now.”

---

Two tall, spindly figures stood in front of a scrying mirror. They watched as Nightmare Moon summoned her armor and dressed herself.

The one wearing a brown suit ventured, “Lord, I do not understand. If I may ask, why did you send her assistance, when she has only shirked her assigned duties and sought out trouble?”

The very pale personage, not quite so tall and wearing a black cloak, rubbed his chin thoughtfully before answering. “Lucien, recall the reason why I bade my sister fetch Nightmare Moon to The Dreaming. By giving her free rein and observing where she ventures, I have learned much. I sense there is more to learn. Her story was not meant to end in Dankendreer — not like that. So, I have given her a nudge.”

In the mirror, Nightmare Moon spread her wings and took flight, and then the vision faded.

Morpheus continued, “Do not concern yourself, Lucien. All things in The Dreaming are within my grasp, should I choose to tighten it. She cannot escape, nor cause any harm that I cannot repair.”

Comments

[Pillbug]

Well, bugger.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

Im guessing penstroke will be conversing with deeam momentarily