So, What Happens Now?

by Fiddlebottoms

Don't Ask Anymore.

Spike looked over the plastic bags. There were really quite a lot of them, more each time they moved.

A small mountain, gathered up and heaped on the bed among quills and clothes, piles of letters and mounds of books, toothbrushes and cookware. The plastic bags had been a thing the first time they’d moved on, leaving the Ponyville library.

“I can’t just throw those out,” she’d explained, “they have a multitude of post-consumer uses and are mostly waterproof.” She hadn’t even looked up from where she was packaging a bottle of hoof polish, Burnished Purple, whatever that meant. The bottle and a brush, an old rag stained with polish of the years, a smaller brush for cleaning out the frogs and crannies, a bottle of gloss. These small things fit in the old ,plastic bag, and it folded around them magically before vanishing into a case that was far more expensive than warranted such contents.

He had made a mistake then, as was so often in his younger days. “But you don’t need to use this garbage, you can just buy-”

His words had triggered something, a landslide within the mare who spun on her hooves. Her wings were spread, voice stubborn and attitude inflexible. He had, for a moment, been afraid she would strike him.

What had come, instead, was more painful than any beating. A lecture. Very patiently, the newly minted princess had explained how important it was, especially among the newly elevated, that they not be seen to be putting on airs. Phrases like nouveau riche and irresponsible consumerism had appeared in their turn. It was irresponsible to waste just because one could. To simply discard and replace would soon leave Equestria impoverished and lost among the world. She couldn’t simply throw anything away.

So the plastic bags had been saved, and they had followed them. Just the two of them, Owlowiscious couldn’t be removed from the Everfree. Another lecture, about apex predators and the natural environment of critters. This one marginally more tolerable for the lack of a political angle.

And so the owl had remained with Ponyville and the rest of their friends, but the bags had followed. From Ponyville to Canterlot, from Canterlot to Phillydelphia, from Phillydelphia to Manehattan through half of Saddle Arabia, and from there back to Manehattan. When they’d first set foot back in Equestria, Spike had been filled with elation, and the strange desire to set the plastic bags free in their home and native environment. They could fly freely through the streets, liberated and enjoying the peculiar smog of Manehattan and the heaviness of fall in the temperate zones.

He was filled with many strange desires, none of which he performed anymore. Instead, he continued to follow his travelling companion through the world, and the plastic bags came with. The little yellow sun on the bags advised all and sundry to “Have a Nice Day.” It was good advice, if you felt like taking it.

A quiet knock on the door interrupted his thoughts on the purpose of late capitalist products and the literary meaning perhaps contained within. He hurried on his legs, no longer so stubby as they had been once, and opened the door.

The grinning landlord with his fussy mustache forced his way into their ... his apartment. The lease was terminated, so it wasn’t really theirs anymore. Still, Spike resented the intrusion. There was no excuse for this one being so pushy, but maybe he had dreams of writing himself a check from the royal coffers.

His disappointment as he noted the freshly cleaned carpet was almost palpable. As he walked through the nearly empty rooms, Twilight made sure to remind him of every nick and scratch she’d inventoried upon arrival. Yes, the door to the balcony had squeaked like that two months ago. No, the dragon had not smoked anywhere inside the premises. Spike had followed them at first, but quickly realized he was unneeded, so when they returned to the apartment from the balcony (No, there was no rust on the railing), he’d remained without.

The balcony last night had seemed so solemn as he stood on it, wishing there were some send off the inanimate could participate in. In the distance, the lights of the towers had blinked red and cheery, and he remembered the first night, imagining that he was living within the protection of some sort of shield. An ancient evil of the sort that always lurked in the earlier days was out there, just past the towers. He could send a letter back to Ponyville, calling Pinkie Pie and Applejack and Fluttershy to their aid, and on the way they’d pick up Rarity in Canterlot and Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale.

It had taken him six weeks to give up on that illusion.

As he stared over the empty streets, knowing that this was the end again, he wished he could bring the thought back one more time. Maybe it would be better to have left even earlier this time? There was a sense of contempt that came from their languages and accents, a sense of bitterness that grew out of being in one place and learning the habits only to discard them weeks later. It would be better to have fond memories for once.

Maybe it would be better, he wondered as he traced his claw across the concrete floor that was too hot during the day and too cold at night, to never be anywhere for more than one night.

When he returned to the small apartment, the landlord was gone. He must have been dissatisfied with his satisfaction, because Twilight was wearing the quietly triumphant grin of one who would be getting at least some portion of her deposit back. Even the toilet had been scrubbed until it sparkled.

He looked through into the bathroom, baffled again by how huge it was, and the empty medicine cabinet with its swept shelves. The shower curtain had been theirs, the shower had not. The empty basin expanded his little private world until it bore no resemblance to the familiar. The air reeked of disinfectant, not the familiar smell of almost mold and faint ammonia that a bathroom should have. The tiles were bereft of familiar clippings to be swept up tomorrow, because there would be no more tomorrows here.

It was a clean bathroom.

It was a good bathroom to come into or go out of.

It was thoroughly disturbing to stand in, and for a moment he tried to entertain the idea that he might vanish into the vast, untamed expanse of clean linoleum.

It was unlikely such would be the case, and he left the toilet, with the water spinning in glistening pristinity. The toilet paper holder beside it bereft of its roll, and the towel rack empty. Even the garbage can and hamper were gone, leaving huge gaping spaces of perfection behind them.

After resolving the matter of turnover, Twilight had returned to the bed, sorting her belongings into their appropriate bags. Everything had been hauled out of its old place and deposited on the burgundy sheets, it was important to leave nothing behind.

A bundle of socks flew across the room, and another bag locked up. Another little steel click as two months of sprawl was reconsolidated.

The mare froze. A single key floated before her eyes, hanging in her grasp. It had been buried in one of the bags, dislodged into the present as she sorted the detritus of her life.

The little blue ring had paralyzed her, with its black cloth strap and tiny metal rod burnished with a logo almost faded from wear.

He could inquire what it was, but there was no value in it. She’d never explain; she never did explain. This same scene played out every time they moved, at least seven times a year. It was a ritual as solidified as Twilight misplacing her day planner, or leaving a book in the night stand, or throwing out the packets of soy sauce which had been saved.

Spike supposed he should be grateful that Twilight didn’t insist on bringing the soy sauce packets with her every time they moved. The local griffon take-away had been particularly insistent on loading them down with the little containers of black liquid, and Twilight had stashed two months worth away in a drawer of her desk, as if she were a squirrel preparing for a long winter without take-out growing on trees.

It had been long enough contemplating the nature of griffon cuisine, and Spike cleared his throat, preparing for his traditional question and the lack of a response that would move them along to the next step. For the first time in three years she preempted him.

“It’s the key to my parent’s house,” she whispered.

Spike stuttered, the ritual lost. He should say something anyway, and so he found the first response that wasn’t a nonsequitur. “Didn’t you say your dad changes the locks every year?”

“At least as often.”

Twilight let the weight of the key pull it to the ground. The key was a leftover from the last time she’d been home, and the lock it went into would be rotting in a dump somewhere. Worthless, it bounced on the mattress.

“Just this once,” she said, gesturing her hoof across the bed, “let’s not bring all this with us.”

“You mean the bed sheets?”

“All of it,” Twilight said, pulling up the sheets and bundling them with a small collection of old papers and half the mountain of plastic bags. The hoof polish and a framed picture and a tube of toothpaste, and then the suitcases soon joined the heap, a huge pile of earthly belongings unceremoniously dropped out onto the balcony.

With a twist of her mind, Twilight captured the mess in a bubble of energy that began to shrink. Pressure built as it was contained and compressed until it all fizzled out with a whiff of ozone. Nothing but air and ash remaining.

Except for the books. Even in her most extreme, Twilight could never neglect her travelling library. Instead, they were left in the lobby, contained within a cardboard box, with a small piece of notepaper attached.

“Please adopt us :)” said nearly 500 bits worth of Equestrian knowledge.

Spike thought the idea, and especially the smiley face, hopelessly naive. The books would probably be used for fire fuel or torn apart by children or just dropped in the dumpster out back. Not that it truly mattered, Twilight would never come back this way again, and so she could imagine whatever fate she chose for them. Completely removed from effect, her magnanimous actions could stand on their own and spin off a thousand magical scenarios.

As naked as their forebears, Twilight and Spike left the hotel, and never returned in their steps.

Keep in touch.

Comments

[CanterlotGuardian]

this... this was amazing. Fiddlebottoms, I love you. like, for real.

[Amit]

i.imgur.com/v5o97jY.png

[Regidar]

2476581 The point of that being...

[Amit]

2476584
>regidar
>complaining about pointless comments

im just staking moi claim m8 u want 2 make sumn of it ill bash ur fockin ead in i sware on me mum

*the sound of Fiddlebottoms dramabating furiously fills the room*

[Regidar]

2476604
>not greentexting
Pleb

[Amit]

2476609
>not ninja-editing to appear right in every debate

you're not even commonwealth m8 right ill fockin rek u

[Regidar]

2476616 ur jsut scurred oph mah patrician tastes

[NUKER3X]

2476623
And then we all die and nothing we said or did on this site will have any merit. Good end.

Or, for whatever reason, every public site in existence is documented and archived to show the future generations the like of their ancestors' way of living. They stumble upon YouTube comments, newfag posts, and worst of all, community based sites with inter-warfare. The entire future cringes. Bad end.

Regardless, this fucking story was a masterpiece of literature. Nothing short of what is expected from Fiddleybums, though the lack of a silly cover to contrast the serious underlying themes and clever uses of literary devices is very surprising.

[Periphery]

Strange to read a fic that feels like an excerpt from a much larger story. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery.

[Assoe]

Le'ts go practice medicine.

[Ms_Fruit_Bat]

Poor Twi, running from life.
Poor Spike, for not knowing the reasons.
Poor us, our lack of knowledge prevents our understanding as well.

[xBeeCharm]

Huh. I guess we're supposed to feel exactly how Spike does.
Confused, clueless...
That's cool

[Queen Snugglebug]

Boop.

[TrollestiaSubject]

It should've sad tag, or I'm just depressed?

[WrathOfGod519]

2476616
2476623
well-aye, this kid doesn't evn talck like a mackum like

[WrathOfGod519]

So I take it you drew some inspiration from your past experiences?

Also why is Twilight sparkle running from life? Isn't she an alicorn, how is she getting away with it I mean.

---

Edit: new theory, Twilight does not want to be royalty (or rather believes that because she is royal she should live a minimalistic lifestyle due to the irrational fear that she will become like a member of the canterlot critics society).

That or bitches be crazy yo. On a side note, poor spike. I'd class this as child abuse.

[Still Wearing Black]

Beautifully written. Twilight really takes Spike for granted, doesn't she? It kinda bothered me, though, when Spike thought his sister/guardian was actually going to hit him. The only way such violence could be acceptable is if she first slipped into a leather corset and struck him with a riding crop.

[Cola_Bubble_Gum]

I know that feeling. The feeling of old keys and things unpacked from the last move.

This didn't make me cry, but it did something much worse in reminding me of every move I've ever had. It's so surreal to see the space you lived in empty of the things that made it a living space, and then walk out of it and know you'll never come back.

[Honeycomb]

Something very like this happened in my life a few years ago. Very, very like this. It resonates.

[Griseus]

Neat. I just junked some stuff from my last move and left some other stuff at my old apartment. That place is abandoned now. Going to move again in a couple of months. I hope I get to stay there more than three years. Well, that what I would have wanted a couple months before now. What I want now? To make my home wherever I lay my head down.

[Duplex Fields]

I do this digitally. Currently, programs for MS-DOS 6.2 are sitting on a 1Tb USB hard drive, tools that fit on a 1.44Mb floppy with lots of room to spare, tools for viewing text files and binary files and editing binary files at the byte level, and colorized versions of DIR which sort by three letter extension.

AXELF.MOD is on there, somewhere.

[Slippy]

2476673
We're all going to die someday, yep. Although it gets pretty tiresome when all the "internet intellectuals" who write poetry and try to win over girls with their sensitive sides neglect to shut up about it. It's a simple fact of life, and spending all your time thinking about it only draws it nearer. It's like not wanting to eat a sandwich because you know that once you finish, you have no more sandwich.

2502655
Want to talk about it?

[Honeycomb]

2873097

Eh, why not. tl;dr version because... because.

>raised by grandfather
>isolated from rest of family, he was all I had my whole life (so like the spike/twilight dynamic)
>a few years ago we up and moved, hopping around the States from hotel to hotel with no set destination
>dropped all our belongings in a self-storage facility in an unfamiliar state and just left them there
>ALL our belongings
>gone forever
>notasinglefuck.gif

[Slippy]

2876240 coolstorybro.png

[NUKER3X]

2873097 Was... was that supposed to be directed at me? I don't think anything I say comes off as poetic.

[PresentPerfect]

Rather impressed, but wondering what that last line means.

[wao]

Oh.

I've lived in my current house for about 15 years now. I am very near the end of my secondary education and will be moving out on my own pretty soon. Not only that, but my brother is changing schools, to one that is two hours away from where we live. My mother will be selling the house and probably getting rid of a lot of things too. We have a huge house. Two storeys and a massive floor area as well as a large yard. I really don't want to leave.

It's not exactly the same, but this story really resonated with me.