The Pony Who Wasn't Special
The Pony Who Wasn’t Special
Today was going to be the day.
Beige Blanche paced back and forth in the alleyway behind the post office where she worked stopping every few seconds to confirm that yes, she did still have a few minutes left in her lunch break. She’d been so excited that she’d wolfed her sandwich down in the first ten minutes, then spent the next forty-five wandering through Trottingham park psyching herself up for the big moment later this afternoon.
No more excuses. No more delays. Today would be the day she asked Gulf Stream out.
She’d gotten to know the new delivery stallion over the last couple of weeks. He flew the afternoon route, so every day a little bit after lunch he’d wander into the back office to pick up the letters she’d sorted that morning. The majority of delivery ponies were pegasi, barring a few Earth ponies who mostly handled heavier packages rather than day to day letter carrying, but in the back office where all the paperwork and filing was handled unicorns ruled the roost. He was friendly, chatty, quick with a joke or clever story, and all that exercise he got flying around delivering letters meant he wasn’t so rough on the eyes, either. Oh no, not at all.
Beige had decided a week ago that she was going to go for it. Due to a run of bad luck, an ill timed bathroom break, and her chickening out at the last second she hadn’t yet managed to actually ask him out, per se, but that was about to change.
She pulled a small mirror from her saddlebag and studied her reflection, tweaking and re-tweaking her mane for what must have been the hundredth time that day. She’d traded in her usual pent-up flaxen bun for a flowing manecut that was a little more playful and flirty, in the hopes it would rub off on her attitude. Her coat was still her namesake off-white color. She wasn’t crazy about it, but dyeing always proved more trouble than it was worth. If only because it guaranteed that every pony she met would ask her some variation of ‘why is your name Beige if your coat is green?’ within the first five minutes of a conversation. After a particularly catastrophic experiment with a black and red color scheme she’d decided that she didn’t mind the natural look so much after all.
She’d also expended a not inconsiderable amount of effort hunting down and destroying every photograph of her that had been taken that week. Nopony needed to know that fashion disaster had ever happened.
The single piece of jewelry she wore was a simple copper locket she kept close at all times. It was the one and only memento she had of her parents, having been an orphan for as long as she could remember. The mirror told her exactly what she already knew. Beige didn’t have the sort of looks that turned ponies’ heads, but she could put on a show when she wanted to. Attracting stallions was ninety percent self confidence anyway.
Beige looked back at her flank, self conscious about the one glaring detail no makeover would hide. Despite being a fully grown, healthy adult mare she didn’t have a cutie mark. It was something she’d come to terms with over the years, but the prospect of dating somepony brought the old fears and insecurities bubbling up again. Would Gulf Stream be weirded out by the prospect of going out with a blank flank? Would he think there was something wrong with her? Was there something wrong with her?
No. She wasn’t doing this to herself again. Gulf had never mentioned it before, and Beige was hoping he’d at least taken a quick peek at her flank once or twice. She didn’t have time to worry about it anyway. Her lunch break was about to be over. Trotting around the corner and out of the alleyway, she slipped back into the post office through the side door.
The back room of the post office was a living monument to functional anarchy. Letters from all over town were dumped into two piles, one for incoming messages and one for outgoing. Four desks surrounded the mountain of mail, all facing inward. Three of those desks were occupied by other unicorn mares like herself. Magical energy fields pulled chunks off the mountain to each desk where the unicorn gave each letter a single expert glance before flinging it into the correct box or bag to be delivered to their final destinations. Letters filled the air flying every which way at once. It was a fun place to work, if you could put up with taking an envelope to the snout every once in awhile.
“How was lunch?” asked Special Delivery, the pony directly across from her as Beige took a seat at her desk and grabbed a foothill of letters for herself. The unicorns were practiced enough that carrying on a conversation while they sorted wasn’t particularly difficult, so the four of them often passed the time chatting and gossiping.
“It was nice. I like to go to the park and clear my head. Helps me think” said Beige.
“Thinking about anything in particular? Or anypony in particular?” asked Merry Way from her left, flashing a suggestive grin. Beige felt her cheeks warm. Her crush was an open secret around the office, and the others weren’t above gently teasing her about it. Her new mane style hadn’t gone unnoticed that morning, either.
“Oh leave her alone, Merry. She’ll ask him when she’s good and OH HI THERE GULF!” said Sandy Shores, whose desk had the best line of sight to the office door. The mare’s voice jumped up about an octave as Beige heard the door close behind the pony who had just walked in. Perfect timing.
“Hey ladies! Any mail for me?” asked Gulf Stream from the entrance. The mares chuckled, more out of routine than amusement at the same corny line he used every day. Beige chanced a glimpse over in his direction. He must have just finished warming up to fly his route, because he was coated in a light sheen of sweat. Beige fixated on a particular droplet that was trickling down one of his forelegs, hugging the crevices between his rippling, well defined-
“Hey Beige,” said Gulf Stream, shocking her out of her trance. “I really like what you’ve done with your mane. Looks good on you.”
Hours of practice in front of her mirror the night before were suddenly rendered moot as she imagined snuggling up against his side, wrapped up in one of those big yellow wings. Maybe slipping her nose under his shaggy blue mane and finding out if the back of his neck was ticklish when she nuzzled it. Belatedly, she remembered that this was the part of a conversation where one was traditionally expected to respond.
“Thanks, Gulf. You have a mane good too,” was all she managed to get out. In the corner of her eye she saw Merry Way bring her front hooves up to her face and shake her head.
“Thanks... I think,” said Gulf Stream. “Well, looks like a busy afternoon, I better get going. Have a good afternoon ladies.”
He threw the messenger bag full of letters over his shoulder and turned to leave. Beige reflected that maybe she’d have better luck tomorrow. What would one more day of waiting mean, in the long run? She could be patient. Maybe another hour or two of practice tonight would-
Buck it.
“Gulfdoyouwanttohavedinnerwithmetomorrownight?” She heard the words fall out of her mouth in a jumble towards the retreating pegasus. There it was. No turning back now.
Gulf stopped and turned around. “Sorry? What did you say, Beige?”
Now that she’d actually said the words, The block inside her head seemed to have shifted. She took a deep breath and composed herself. “I said, do you want to go out with me tomorrow night? To dinner. On a date. Like a dinner date,” she said.
“Oh, Beige, wow. I’m flattered. But I, um, I asked that mare at the coffee shop out this morning and we’re kinda going out to dinner... tomorrow night...” said Gulf Stream.
Beige felt all the confidence and enthusiasm she’d scrounged up over the last week shatter in that instant. She knew exactly the mare he meant. French Press, a completely adorable young thing with the cutest little dimples and a sing-song laugh that positively lit up a room.
And he had asked her.
Gulf Stream stumbled onwards. “If I’d realized that you felt like that I wouldn’t have said... that is I wasn't trying to... I just didn’t know that you saw me that way. I mean I never saw... uh...” it suddenly dawned on Gulf that there were three other mares in the room with them. All three had wordless turned to glare at him. “Not that you're unattractive or anything! I mean, I’m sure someday you’re going to find a pony who’s totally into you! But I’m just... look, maybe we can grab a friendly cup of coffee one of these days? As friends? I have some other single friends, maybe I could introduce you to some of them and-”
“Gulf? Don’t you have some letters you should be delivering?” asked a gruff voice from behind the closed door of the branch manager’s office.
Gulf Stream seized on the suggestion and began backing towards the door. “Yes! My job! Deliveries! Sorry Beige, I have to go... be not here now,” he said. Not looking where he was going, he backed into a potted plant, tipping it over and spilling dirt all over the carpeted floor. Gulf looked over his shoulder at the leafy bush and moved to right it before stopping in mid-motion. His eyes darted between the plant, the mares who were still staring daggers at him, and the doorway to sweet, sweet freedom. After a moment of hesitation, he turned and bolted at a full gallop out of the room.
Beige considered it a tiny and bitter triumph that she didn’t let any tears fall until Gulf was gone.
The office had fallen silent except for Beige’s gentle whimpering as she wished she could just crawl into some deep hole and disappear. The door to the Trottingham branch manager’s office opened. An older Earth pony stallion stepped out and walked over to the mares.
“I’m sorry Beige,” said Courier. “I heard the whole thing. If it makes you feel any better, Gulf is an idiot.” Beige couldn’t help but let out a single chuckle between sobs at her boss’s characteristic bluntness. “Look, there isn’t much mail today,” he gently lied. “Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon and go home? The four of us can handle things here.” Merry, Sandy and Special Delivery all nodded.
“Thanks girls, thanks Corrie. That’s really nice of you. I’d probably just misfile half the letters I touched anyway,” said Beige. She gathered up her things and, after pausing to let Sandy Shores give her a big hug, walked out the same door her former crush had fled through a few minutes before.
------
Stepping out onto the main thoroughfare that ran through Trottingham, Beige wasn’t sure where she should go next. It was times like these a pony needed a best friend she could go cry to without fear of judgement. Somepony who would take one look at her and cancel whatever plans they might have had in favor of eating ice cream, commiserating over how terrible stallions were, especially big hunky yellow pegasus delivery stallions, and hopefully get as drunk as possible in the process.
Beige Blanche didn’t have anypony like that.
Oh she had friends, or at least glorified acquaintances who she could hang out with and go to parties with and generally have a good time around. But for some reason she could never seem to make the deep and abiding connections that just seemed to happen for all the other ponies she knew.
When she wondered why this might be, which she often did, the only conclusion she could ever reach was the vague sensation that she was for some reason unable to open her heart to others. A feeling that there was some part of her kept desperately locked away without even knowing what it was. The others somehow sensed this and reciprocated by keeping their guard up as well.
Maybe it had something to do with growing up in foster homes, always bouncing from place to place without ever putting down roots. These last two years living in Trottingham marked the longest time she could remember staying in one town. Other colts and fillies got adopted, but never her. Who would want a screwed up pony like her in their life? She had just aged out of the system before striking out on her own.
Her aimless wanderings had taken her back towards home, although she didn’t remember consciously deciding to go that way. She found herself standing in front of Sweet Treats and Eats, the confectionary shop where she rented a room. She debated whether or not to go in, but she couldn’t think of anywhere else she needed to go. Plus the longer she was out and about the greater the odds she would accidentally run into Gulf Stream making deliveries. The prospect was enough to make her canter right over to the door and push it open, anticipating the cheery jingling of the bell an instant before it happened.
“Welcome to... Oh, hi Beige. You’re home early. Everything OK?” asked the purple pegasus mare behind the counter. She idly tossed her glittering brown mane over her shoulder as Beige plopped down on a nearby stool.
“Not really, Sugar Plum,” said Beige to her landlord-slash-housemate. “I finally asked Gulf Stream out.”
“Based on the lack of cartwheels I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that it didn’t go the way you'd hoped,” said Sugar Plum.
“He’s dating French Press. As of this morning. Apparently I was never even in the running to begin with,” said Beige. Her eyes stung with fresh tears as she remembered the scene from not even an hour ago, reliving every horrible detail for what would likely be the first of many times.
Sugar Plum stopped milling around and reached across the counter to rest her hoof on one of Beige’s. “Well, the important thing is that you put yourself out there, even if it didn’t work out. If you hadn’t you could have spent the next six months pining for the guy before you ended up exactly where you are right now. Trust me, I’ve been there,” she said.
Beige sighed. On some level, she knew that Sugar Plum was absolutely right but that didn't make it hurt any less. “It’s just that I was hoping that I’d finally found a pony who wanted me to be an important part of their life. Not just... background noise.”
Sugar Plumb opened her mouth to protest when the bell over the door jingled again and a family of ponies walked in, the youngest colt bounding over to the display case to stare hungrily at the tarts within. ‘Sorry’ mouthed Sugar Plum silently before she trotted away to greet her customers and take their order.
“Case in point,” mumbled Beige as she laid her head down onto the counter with a sigh. No sooner had Sugar Plum taken the family’s order than two more big groups of ponies walked in. Then she heard a chime from the kitchen and Sugar Plum disappeared into the back before reappearing with a freshly baked peach cobbler, still piping hot from the oven.
Beige watched her friend flow from customer to customer, expertly wrapping up cookies and cakes by the dozens without once missing a step. She would dart back into the kitchen a moment before a timer went off to retrieve a fresh loaf of bread. Words like ‘baking’ and ‘cooking’ failed to capture the grace and efficiency of action Sugar Plum performed with. The only word that really seemed fitting to Beige was ‘creation.’
Sugar Plum loved it. That much was clear to anypony with eyes. The first week Beige had lived with Sugar Plum she had assumed it was just an act, your basic service with a smile that kept ponies coming back to buy. Then she had come downstairs early one morning, at an hour when no reasonable pony would ever choose to wake up of their own accord, and found Sugar Plum dancing and spinning around the kitchen as she made the first batch of bread for her morning customers, hours before they would walk through the door.
There was no act. Sugar Plum glowed with radiant joy because she really felt it. Even after a 14-hour day in the kitchen when all that was left to do was scrub pots and pans you couldn't watch her in action without concluding that there was nowhere else she would rather be.
Beige hungered to feel that too, just for a moment. To know first hand what real passion was. She was good at a lot of things, but none of them made her feel the way Sugar Plum did every single day. None of them made her feel special.
Wrapped up as she was in her own thoughts, she didn’t notice Sugar Plum shuffling towards her until the gentle clatter of a ceramic plate in front of her nose startled her back to reality. Beige looked up at the smiling pony in front of her. “On the house,” said Sugar Plum, darting away again before Beige could reply.
Sitting on the plate was a little square of confectionery perfection. A crumbly graham cracker crust topped with a layer of fluffy, lemony meringue that looked like it was light enough to float away on the gentlest breeze, covered in a heavy dusting of powdered sugar. Atop all this, the piece de resistance, was the biggest, juiciest, ruby-reddest strawberry Beige had ever seen.
Beige Blanche was allergic to strawberries. A fact she was certain she had mentioned in Sugar Plum’s presence before. Whether she’d been listening or not was an open question.
Nibbling around the edges that remained uncontaminated by strawberry juices, Beige couldn’t help enjoying the treat. It was quite tasty, as sweets went. She’d never understood why some ponies went so crazy for desserts, they didn’t taste all that much better than any other food in her opinion. The gift was left mostly uneaten. She slipped the rest of it into a napkin and surreptitiously threw it away when she was sure Sugar Plum wasn’t looking.
The crowd showed no sign of ebbing, so Beige slipped out the front door and went around to the back entrance, to the door that led directly to a staircase and up to her rented loft.
Her room was small and sparsely decorated, but functional enough. The walls were the same creamy white color they’d been when she moved in, and there were no photographs or portraits of other ponies hanging on them. Sometimes she looked at the color of her walls and wondered, if she flattened herself against them and stood very still, would anypony be able to see her there? The loft, really a full-fledged apartment, had its own closet, kitchen, and bathroom separate from the main building’s. It had everything she needed, all in a compact and efficient package.
It was barely even 4:00, but Beige decided she was done for the day anyhow. She dropped some scented oils and an extra-generous helping of bubble bath into her tub and left the water running while she uncorked a bottle of cheap red wine and filled a glass up to the brim. Taking a few sips to keep the glass from spilling she carried it slowly and carefully back to the tub, setting it down on the edge of the sink while she retrieved a well worn and dog-eared romance novel from under her bed.
She was halfway into the tub when she remembered she was still wearing her locket. Perching herself on the tub’s rim she took it off and examined it, running her hoof over the indecipherable designs carved into the metal. It was the only thing her parents had ever given her.
Well, besides a screwed up foalhood and a mile-deep pile of issues.
For an instant, Beige hated them more than she’d even thought it possible to hate another pony. Without thinking, she flung the locket against the floor as hard as she could. It struck the cold tiles and snapped into a half-dozen pieces.
The pieces hadn’t even finished settling before she regretted it. It wasn’t her parents fault she was so screwed up. The orphanage had told her long ago that they had died when she was very young, and left out most of the details. Even once she was old enough to know the whole story, she had never pressed the issue.
In her haste to recover the pieces she caught a hind leg on the edge of the tub and fell hard. Her little blue bathmat did little to cushion the blow as she landed on her side, gasping in pain as the impact knocked the breath out of her. She lay there for a moment collecting herself before trying to move. She’d be bruised in the morning, but nothing seemed broken. Taking a closer look at what remained of her precious locket, she was relieved to discover that it had come apart in a few major sections. None of the individual parts seemed to have snapped. She carefully gathered up the pieces and resolved to stop by a jeweler’s shop first thing in the morning to see to getting it repaired. After scanning the floor until she was confident that she hadn’t missed any tiny parts, she carefully deposited the remains on her nightstand before crawling back into the bathtub.
The bath was long, self-indulgent, and wonderful. Exactly the cure Beige needed after the day she’d had. It was after six before hunger and pruned hooves drove her to finally pull the plug and dry herself off. On her way to the kitchen to fix herself dinner, Beige noticed that the weather had taken a turn while she was in the bath, and now the town was covered by a light drizzle. Odd, since the weather schedule called for sunny, cloudless skies for the next three days. Still, at least it fit Beige’s mood. She found the pitter-patter of the raindrops against her window almost hypnotic, and had to tear herself away with the reminder that she hadn’t eaten anything since her lunch several hours ago.
Dinner was simplistic, as Beige reminded herself yet again that she absolutely had to ask her housemate for some new recipes or just give in and buy a cookbook. Just a basic salad of chopped vegetables would suffice for tonight, though. Rather than sit alone at a kitchen table made for four ponies, Beige reclined in an easy chair next to her window, the better to watch the deteriorating weather outside. Somepony on the weather team must have screwed up big time. She dutifully munched down the salad without really tasting it.
Beige briefly entertained the notion that Gulf Stream’s date tomorrow night could be ruined by the weather. Gulf would probably show up outside her door anyway even though it was pouring rain, clutching the pathetic, soaked remains of some bouquet he’d bought for his new filly friend. Of course, if he did that French Press would probably just invite him upstairs to dry off, she really was a sweetheart. Then she’d wrap him up in a towel and snuggle up to him to keep him warm. They’d stare into one another’s eyes. Their lips would drift closer and closer together, before they gave in to their baser instincts and...
OK, this was officially the worst revenge fantasy ever.
Beige wanted to hate Gulf Stream and French Press so much. But at the end of the day, she just couldn’t bring herself to feel anything that intense towards them. She stared through the window at the worsening downpour outside, distant rumbles of thunder now drifting within earshot. What had they done that she herself wouldn’t have if given the chance? But she never would be given the chance. Ponies like her never were.
Ponies like her. What did that even mean? Ponies stuck in some dead end job, without a passion to call their own? Ponies drifting through life, futilely waiting for happiness to be delivered on a silver platter?
Beige turned the bottle of wine upside down, letting the last few drops drip into her glass before she greedily slurped them up. Gone already? She looked around her room, which was refusing to stay still for some reason. With a single motion she rose from the chair she was seated in and lurched for her bed, belly flopping onto it and rolling around to haphazardly wrap herself up in blankets. Reaching out with her magic, she flicked the lights off on her third try. The pounding rain against the rooftop was like an angry lullaby, and before long she lay passed out and drooling on her bed.
-----
Beige woke in the middle of the night to an especially violent thunderclap outside her window. She wasn’t drowsy or disoriented. In fact she felt more alert, more awake than she had in a very long time. She rolled out of bed and walked over to her window to glance at the storm outside. Instead of pouring rain and streetlights she was taken aback when she saw her own reflection in the glass. It took her a moment to realize that rather than being shrouded in darkness she could see everything around her with perfect clarity. Her lamps were still off. The only light in the room was coming from...
...her. Her horn shone brilliantly in the darkness, even though she wasn’t channeling any magic. Not intentionally, anyway.
She closed her eyes and listened to the storm outside her window. It was far more intense than any summer thunderstorm the pegasi usually let roll through town.
It was calling to her.
The winds howled as they rattled every pony-built structure within a dozen miles. Sheets of rains drilled into every surface they touched. No sane pony would be caught outside during weather like this.
Beige shoved open the door at the bottom of her staircase and threw herself out into the maelstrom. Every raindrop that struck her was like a spark against her skin. She barely even noticed the mud on her hooves as she ran out into the middle of the street, her whooping cries drowned out by the noises of the storm around her. Stopping in the open, she looked up at the sky and laughed as the rain pelted her face, washing away the petty concerns she’d been troubled by. Some pretty-boy pegasus was hooking up with a coffee wench, and she’d actually cared?
She could do better than that. She deserved so much more.
A bolt of lightning struck somewhere nearby. No, not somewhere. Beige knew that the point of impact had been 8.1 miles away, on a heading of 37 degrees east of magnetic north. A tenth of a second later a wave of pleasure rippled through her body, bright fire dancing in her veins and at the edge of her vision. She couldn’t help but collapse as it overwhelmed her ripping away all the preconceptions and limitations she’d imposed on herself in the irrelevant past. The pain in her side from her earlier fall paled in comparison to the glorious agony that coursed through her now.
This was what she’d yearned to feel for so long. It reverberated within her, echoing through her bones as she rolled around in the mud savoring every moment. Every rumble of thunder sent a fresh batch of tremors through her body, forcing moans of pleasure from her lips. Even when she managed to stumble back onto her hooves, each droplet of water on her flank was to her like the caress of a lover, running along every inch of her body. Her cries of ecstasy were lost within the howling winds that whipped at her from every side.
The heavy shutter of a nearby window sheared away from its anchor under the relentless gusts of wind. It tumbled lazily in the air as Beige watched it fly towards her. She felt no real urgency to move or dodge. The notion that her storm would ever hurt her was idly amusing. When the shutter was just a few feet away the winds abruptly shifted and it was jerked away, crashing through a nearby storefront instead.
As the unfathomable power of the storm tore through her body, she felt her mind expand to match. She was more aware than she had ever been. Every crack and crevice in Trottingham was revealed to her. Every raindrop that struck the ground forced new information into her mind. For a terrible, glorious moment she felt every being within the city limits as if they were a part of herself. The revelation was overwhelming. She collapsed in the street, unable or unwilling to separate her former self from the city around her.
Beige wasn’t sure exactly how long she stayed there letting the forces of nature have their way with her. All she knew was that the light from her horn sputtered and died as the sun’s first rays peeked over the eastern horizon and the storm that had taken Trottingham began to dissipate in a hundred different directions. Beige was left laying alone in the street, gasping for breath and savoring the afterglow as the unexplained weather departed for parts unknown.
Everything was changed now. The life she'd known before was an illusion. Somehow, she could bring on these storms, these glorious and terrible and magnificent storms. She could be this way all the time, if she desired. Everypony else did, and her turn was long overdue. The miserable persona she had lived with all her life, the feeble joke of a pony who sorted mail and was so desperate to feel anything that she clung to every hint or scrap of affection, could be disposed of. The new Beige was ready to take control of her life.
Getting back up onto her unsteady hooves, Beige paused to survey the damage around her, seeing new details of her surroundings that she'd never noticed before. Uprooted trees blocked the roads, while nearby lamp posts were bent and cracked. She tiptoed through the debris that covered the streets, careful to avoid cutting herself on jagged glass from broken window panes that lay intermingled with leaves and sticks. The door to her apartment was cracked and dented. It took several tries to get the knob to turn.
Beige took the stairs three at a time as she planned her brand new day. It would be an hour or so before ponies began to come out, she’d need every second to get all the dirt and mud out of her matted coat. It was the first time in far too long that she was actually excited to get out into the world and-
“Hello Beige”
Beige spun around to face the voice’s source. Lounging there in the same easy chair by the window from which she’d watched the rain the night before sat a jet black unicorn stallion, leaning lazily on her armrest like he’d been waiting there for some time.
Old Beige probably would have screamed her lungs out. But Old Beige wasn’t in charge anymore. “Who are you and what are you doing in my apartment?” Beige demanded.
“Agent Palomino. Nice to meet you again,” he said, extending a hoof toward her in greeting. Beige made no move to take it.
“I don’t remember ever meeting you before,” said Beige
“Oh, good. At least that’s still working then,” said Palomino, withdrawing his hoof and settling back into the chair. “To answer your second question, I’m the pony in charge of managing your... condition. It seems I haven’t been doing a very good job, though, if last night is anything to go by. Why did you break your locket?”
Beige was thrown off guard by the sudden change of topic. “It was an accident,” she mumbled, still a bit ashamed of her foalish temper tantrum.
“Well it was the only thing keeping your magic surges in check. Most unicorns grow out of those after a year or two, but for reasons we don’t really understand you never have. Your parents were referred to our office when you were still having them at age four.”
“You knew my parents‽” asked Beige.
“I did. So did you until you were eight, but I’m getting to that. Your parents were both pegasi, and didn’t have any experience with unicorn magic. It’s typical for unicorns born from pegasi parents to have weather-related magic, but not to the degree you do. Fitting, though, from a foal named Tempest.”
“My parents named me... Tempest?” said Beige, settling down onto her fluffy carpet and trying to process everything she was hearing. She wanted to deny that it could be true. Saying the name aloud though, something about it just seemed right. It fit her, this new her, better than it should.
“Your surges kept getting worse. We studied you, tried to figure out a way to let you control them. All we could really do was clean up the damage after it was done. You think that storm last night was severe? It was nothing compared to what we were dealing with after your magic really ramped up,” said Palomino. He sat back and gave Beige a minute to take it all in while silence settled over the room.
“You said ‘until I was eight’, earlier. What happened when I was eight?” asked Beige.
“You had a surge we weren’t ready for. Your parents were weather handlers themselves and took it upon themselves to help us with it. They... didn’t make it.”
“I did not murder my parents!” screamed Beige, leaping back to her hooves and shouting right into the Agent’s face.
“I didn’t say you murdered them. But they weren’t the first ponies to die because of your surges, or the last,” he said, in voice that suggested nothing beyond professional interest. “Look outside. A town this size hit by a massive storm they weren’t expecting? You think there weren’t any casualties?”
“Liar,” spat Beige, pacing back and forth across the room while Palomino watched. “I’d remember all of this if it had ever really happened.”
“After your parents’ death, containing your magic surges became a higher priority. We had that locket constructed to suppress them entirely. Then we altered your memory so you'd never know about the surges at all, or about your parents. We’ve been monitoring you ever since,” concluded Palomino, ignoring her outburst.
“That’s stupid. Why go through all that when you could just give me the locket?” asked Beige.
“It’ll be quicker if I just show you,” he replied, reaching into a bag leaning against the base of the chair. He pulled out something on a chain and tossed it to Beige. She caught it in a field of magic, bringing it to her face to examine.
It was her locket, down to the last groove and scratch along its surface. She glanced at her nightstand. The stack of broken pieces were the only thing that would convince her that this was a replica. There they were, though, just the way she’d left them.
“Put it on,” said Palomino.
Hesitantly, Beige undid the chain and slipped it around her neck. It rested against her chest just like her old locket had. After a moment of fiddling, she snapped the chain closed.
The effect was immediate and intense. Even though she was sitting firmly on solid ground she was struck by the sensation of the world falling away from her. Colors became less vivid. Ambient sounds became distorted and twisted, and her tongue tasted like slimy copper. Her thoughts became sluggish and difficult, like she was thinking through an oppressive haze. Panic gripped her as she yanked at the locket, pulling it away from her skin like it was a red hot firebrand.
The chain snapped and the locket fell to the ground. She gasped for air as her senses gradually returned to normal. “That’s how you've been experiencing the world since you were eight. We couldn't let you realize it. If you knew you never would have consented to it,” said Palomino.
“Please don’t... Please don’t make me do that again,” she begged from the floor.
“We won’t. The locket plan has clearly failed. We need to implement a more thorough protocol. Cut the surges off at the source. We’ve figured out a way to... well the details are kind of technical, but basically we’ll burn out your magic completely. You won’t be able to cast any more surges, or anything else.”
Beige felt a wave of nausea rise in the back of her throat at the very idea. Her magic was a part of who she was, more so than she’d ever even realized, and this pony was talking about taking it away from her the way most ponies talked about taking out the trash. “You... you can’t do that. I won’t let you. I’ll go to Princess Celestia herself if I have to. I'll tell her what you’re doing. She’ll stop you.”
Palomino shook his head and sighed. “Beige, who do you think I work for? The Princess built those lockets herself. Magic powerful enough to suppress a cutie mark’s appearance isn’t exactly trivial to come by.” He got up and trotted over the spot on the floor where she lay nursing the migraine her locket had left in its wake. He sat down next to her and after a moment’s hesitation gently placed a hoof on her back. She twitched at his touch, but didn’t push him away. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry. For everything. If we had any other way to protect the ponies around you we would. Even if we moved you a hundred miles away from anypony else, the storms would grow out of control sooner or later.”
“Would it hurt? This procedure of yours, would it?” asked Beige. She turned her head to look him directly in the eyes as she did.
The flash of regret across his face before giving his answer told her all she needed to know. “You wouldn’t remember it hurting, afterwards. We’d relocate you again, build up a whole new set of memories and identities just like we did with Beige Blanche. You could even be Tempest again if you wanted to.”
“I am Tempest again. You just won’t let me stay that way. You want me to go back to being Beige. Just somepony who fades into the background where nopony will have to worry about me.”
“Plenty of unicorns can’t cast magic, for one reason or another. It’s a widely recognized disability. We could set you up with an income, whatever resources you needed. You’d never even realize you were missing anything,” said Palomino.
“You mean like I never realized anything was missing because of that locket? You think I didn’t know that something was wrong, just because I couldn’t pin down what it was? You broke me, and now that I've figured it out you want to do it again.”
“Beige, please understand-”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore. My name is Tempest,” said Tempest.
Palomino was silent for a long moment. “...Tempest, listen to me. I’m not asking you if this is what you want. This is how it’s going to be. How it has to be. It isn’t something that I ever wanted to have to do.”
“Oh gosh, that sounds so awful for you. How selfish of me not to consider how my brainwashing might make you feel bad.”
“You’ll be alive. The ponies around you will be safe. Besides, neither of us have any real choice in this matter. If you try to fight, they’ll hunt you down relentlessly. They won’t stop until you’re either dead or locked up under 24-hour sedation somewhere,” said Palomino.
Tempest sighed and closed her eyes. She lowered her head back down onto the carpet and let a heavy quiet fill the room. The only sound was the ticking of the clock atop her armoire in the corner. A minute passed. Then two. Then five. Palomino allowed himself to relax a little bit. In all honesty, he’d expected worse from the mare. Certainly he deserved worse. She’d seen the horrible but inevitable logic of the position they were in, and seemed to have come to terms with what had to be done.
Tempest mumbled something he couldn’t make out. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” said Palomino. Tempest’s mail, left unopened in a stack on the dining room table, began to rustle and stir.
Why was the room so drafty all of a sudden?
Tempest pushed Palomino away from her and stood up, her horn glimmering in the pre-dawn light. The draft turned into a breeze, which turned into an honest to goodness wind right there in her bedroom. “I said,” said Tempest, raising her voice to be heard over the gale that was already beginning to tear the books from her shelves, “that sounds like a choice to me.”
If Palomino said or screamed anything in response, Tempest didn’t hear it. The wind quickly grew to hurricane force, knocking over her furniture and sending the remains of the salad she’d made for dinner last night whipping through the air. She pushed as hard as she could with this new-found power, forcing the air to move faster and faster around her. She closed her eyes.
Tempest chose.
One last burst of willpower, and her apartment exploded.
-----
It wasn’t until a few hours later that the residents of Trottingham emerged from their homes to examine the state of their town. Somehow a massive storm had gotten loose and torn it apart. The ponies despaired as they surveyed the damage, at a loss to explain how something so catastrophic had descended on them without any warning. Too often, a wailing cry signaled that would-be rescuers had discovered the body of a pony who hadn’t made it through the night.
Despite the spectacle created by falling tree branches or rocks blown through walls, the most curious damage of all was to the loft that was rented out by the proprietor of Sweet Treats and Eats. Unlike every other building in town, this one looked like something had exploded out of it rather than being crushed under the weight of the raging storm. When asked, the local chief of meteorology had muttered something vague about pockets of high and low pressure before excusing himself from the conversation.
It wasn’t until three days later, after emergency assistance had arrived from Canterlot to give the thousands of refugees medical attention and food, that anypony got around to digging into the wreckage of the loft. They recovered two bodies from the rubble. The first was a jet black unicorn who none of the local ponies recognized. The body was barely out of the wreck before two unfamiliar stallions wearing sunglasses and dark suits took it, claiming the deceased had family back in Canterlot and that they would see to the remains.
The other body was identified on the scene by Sugar Plum, the owner of the establishment in question. It was the body of her renter and friend, Beige Blanche. Nopony who had known Beige well got a good look at the body before she was covered and taken away. If they had, they might have picked up on what had changed since they had last seen her.
Her flank now bore the image of a storm cloud, forever raging against some unseen force.