Act 1. Forget
Mane dye
By Owlor
A Story in two Acts.
Act One. Forget
I am a very discrete pony. It comes with the territory, for y'see, ponies around here places a lot of importance on their manes. It's at least half of your identity after all; you might be “Rainbowshine” or “Cloud Kicker” to your friends, but to everypony else you're the wisteria pony with the puffy pink mane. Changing your mane colour is tantamount to changing your identity.
If I where the sort of unicorn to tell, I'd be rich by now. You'd be surprised what a lucrative source of gossip this area of manecare can be. Who's had their mane dyed and why can fuel many a tea party, lemme tell you that.
There are a few questions that I keep getting asked, so let's at least get the major one out of the way first: No, that is Rainbow Dash's natural colours, I swear on my horn!. She's visited my shop exactly ONCE and that was only to cover up a grey hair.
Mayor Mare? Oh you mean Ivory! Yeah, she used to come here from time to time, every time her hair started to fade back to her natural pink. I found it strange, I get plenty of ponies who wants me to make them look younger, but I have never before gotten a client that wanted me to make he look older. I had assumed she did it in order to look more statespony-like.
She began dying her mane at home with me sending the bottles in discrete brown packages, and I'm sorry to say that it was an incident in this very shop that prompted her to be this reclusive. It has to do with another one of my client, one miss Carrot Top.
She's one of the ponies I often see outside of my shop, eyeing it meaningfully, but being too afraid to go in for fear of what others may think. But something happened that day to break that mental barrier of hers and I found her trotting into my parlour with the heavy step of someone whose demons have caught up to them.
“Welcome to Salon Prisma,” I said. “Can I help you with anything?” She looked at the ground, then up at me, then back at the ground again. She had doubts buzzing in her head that could be felt from across the room.
“Do I look like a giant carrot?” she asked and I was taken slightly aback by the question. Truth is, she DID look a bit like a giant carrot, but I wasn't going to say anything.
“No, most certainly not!” I replied, sensing that a sales pitch would not be the best response to this situation.
“Well, I do!” she lamented. “That's what they all say: 'did your parents pull you out of the ground Carrot Top?', 'Hey don't eat those carrots, Carry, that's like cannibalism!', I've heard every single joke anyone thought was funny you could think of.” She looked to me as if daring me to joke, but I merely studied her with the same professional eye I'd use for all my clients.
“I see,” I said, furrowing my brow. “Well, if it's bothering you, you've come to the right place. Any particular colour you had in mind? I'm thinking a nice shade of burgundy.”
“Orange,” she said. “Do you think it'd work?”
“It'd work fine!” I said and invited her to sit down in my barbers' chair. I must say, her choice of colour where surprisingly fitting. Carotenoids –The pigment used to create an orange tint– is actually found in green plants, it's just that the chlorophyll mask it. The symbolism of this did not escape me as I began working on spreading the dye.
I keep a stash of old magazines around for those ponies who aren't fond of conversation or just need something to occupy their eyes. Fashion magazines mostly, but also a few seed guides –there's no actual magazine for colourists around and a liquor guide just created the wrong impression, but flowers work well as a substitute– and precisely ONE comic book, for the colts and fillies.
To my surprise, that was the magazine she picked up. I suppose comic books –I'm sorry, graphic novels– are considered a legitimate art form now, but when I think of comic book fans, I think of a fat pony with a goatee living in their parents stable, not a young farmgirl like Carrot.
I was a little out of my depth here; I can talk about fashion for hours, especially if Ponyville's own self-appointed fashionista, Rarity, comes up, oh the things I could say about her mane-style... I can talk about fine wine and brandy for hours and I can even fake my way trough a conversation about flowers or root vegetables if it came to that, but comics? Well, I've seen some of the films, so I could at least try...
“So... reading Mare Do Well: The Pink Avenger?” She looked a bit guilty at this
“Yeah...” She searched for plausible excuses. “I'm more interested in home decoration than fashion, and I'm trying to avoid the seed catalogues, because whenever I read them, I end up ordering something, and I've run out of beds.
“I see,” I hummed politely while looking over her shoulder. She was reading a splash page that consisted of a fairly stylized rendition of the Ponyville clock tower drawn in a frog-eyed perspective with the mayor tumbling down from it with a hoof dramatically stretched out towards the “camera”.
A grappling hook was snaring itself around her hind legs, leading to a masked pony clad entirely in pink and sky blue, with a hot pink mane to match. Watching over this was a manically laughing figure clad in an elaborate, music-themed hood. Carrot Top studied this image for much longer than its quality warranted, apparently looking for something.
“Anything wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, It's just that I could've sworn that this scene where different when I read it as a filly. I remember that the mayor actually died in this scene, it startled me a lot. Maybe I just misread it back then?”
“You must've,” I joked. “Because the mayor is still alive.”
“Oh yes, that's true,” she said, giggling slightly.
“Of course,” I continued. “It's just a comic book, so I'dn't expect them to get details like this right.”
“Heh, she did exist, y'know? Mare Do Well,” she informed me. “So many ponies seem to have forgotten that.”
“Oh, really? I thought she was just a fictional character like Batmare or Spidermane”, I was incredulous, even tough I took pains not to show it.
As proof, she flipped the magazine over to show a grainy black and white image and a short blurb detailing the history of the real Mare Do Well, and who am I to question the factual accuracy of comic books?
She looked a little embarrassed to reveal that she cared so much about comic books and quickly turned defensive: “It’s just that this was the first comic I read as a kid, and it makes me kinda nostalgic.”
“Yeah, my brother used to read those, that's one of his old ones, actually. I remember he had to wait for hours outside of the store to get it.”
Oh, you're not really from around here, are you? I could tell by the look on your face.
The truth is that while we where growing up, Ponyville wasn't doing too well. For a while, it looked like we'd become a ghost town as more and more ponies moved to Manehattan. Our Mayor Mare just wasn't like she is today and seemed to be more interested in kissing up to the flank of Filthy... I mean mr. Rich than she was actually fixing the town.
If you only knew her like she was today, eager to raise any money to improve any public building that might need it, even if she have to take it out of her own pocket, you'd think her and the mayor from back then were two entirely different ponies... and you'd be right, but I'm getting to that.
What was the problem? Well, before the zoning reform, it was nearly impossible to start a business around here. Mr. Rich technically owned most of the land, and could sit on it indefinitely, meaning he did not need to worry about competition with his own stores. And the fact that it was slowly strangling the town was of no consequence to him, he had more than enough business elsewhere. If Ponyville degenerated into nothing but an extremely large front yard for his lavish mansion, he'd loose nothing.
Aaargh! I'm sorry, I shouldn't talk about politics like this, it's just that Ponyville is my home, and while I longed out for bigger and better things, at the time this was relevant –just like any filly that age– I've grown to appreciate Ponyville over time.
After I grew up, I opened a small wine shop in Canterlot, but failed to attract any customers, then I started a semi-succesful chain of barbershops in Manehattan. I even tried to start a franscise in the Griffin kingdom only to find out the hard way that my dyes simply doesn't work on feathers. But Ponyville is the one place in the world I've ever been able to call home without something in me shouting out in protest.
I love this town. I love the fact that this town seems to be built entirely out of clay, straw and the occasional pieces of painted wood. I love the fact that hollowed-out tree-trunks are considered an acceptable substitute for a home. I love the dirt roads and the orchards and the weird little fences with hearts on them pretty much everypony seems to have. Not to jinx it, but If I met a lovely stallion with a long golden mane and a rod between his legs and he didn’t want to settle down here in Ponyville, I'd dump him on the spot for the first dork that would.
Anyway, not long after me and Carrot Top finished talking, another pony trotted into my salon, her face shielded by an enormous blue hat. It took us only a fraction of a second to recognize her, and when we did, we both jerked slightly in surprise. This was esteemed company and even I, who saw her fairly regularly had a respect for her presence: It was no other than the mayor of Ponyville herself.
She looked over to Carrot Top with a note of hesitation, and nearly turned towards the door to leave, but I extended my hoof to stop her.
“Don't worry, we can work with this, you forget my talents,” I told her, while I signalled to Carrot Top not to pay attention to this conversation. After one questioning look, she obediently returned to skimming the content of that old comic book.
“Why yes, I suppose I am being paranoid,” the mayor admitted and sat down in a chair next to Carrot.
Taking off her hat, the mayor revealed that a rosé streak was beginning to show in her otherwise light hair, such a lovely colour, but the customer is always right. “Gray as usual, I presume?” I said with a little sigh as Ivory removed her hat. “I suppose I couldn't interest you in a nice shade of chartreuse?”
The mayor just chuckled and picked up my oldest fashion magazine, heavily foxed after lying around in my basement before I brought it here.
I must admit, I was a little nervous as I prepared the mayors dye. Because most ponies want to maintain plausible deniability, it's important that I get the colour exactly right every time. However, this was a pretty delicate position. The mayor was revealing a secret simply by being here, and while I know how t to deal with secrets, I also know how uncomfortable it can be to be on the verge of discovery. I really needed to star dyeing the mayors hair right away, if I wanted to keep her as a customer.
The recipe was simple, I only needed to mix an equal amount of obsidian-weed and bleach, but my hooves where shaking, and my magic refused to obey me. I glanced over to Carrot Top, while the levitated bottle of obsidian oil threatened to stain my coat. When her eyes started going from the rather crudely inked four-colour portrait of the obscure pink hero, to the distinguished mare sitting right beside her, comparing the faces... and most importantly, mane colours, I knew something was going wrong. Ivory began whimpering slightly as Carrots eyes widened.
I was pouring the bottle out blindly into the bleach, darkening the concoction more and more as I simply watched the scene play out. I forced myself to keep somewhat cool, but I couldn't help feeling like I was about to witness a train crash
“You... not it cannot be, can it?! YOU'RE the Pink Avenger, the first Mare Do Well?” Carrot nearly shrieked, prompting the mayor to raise a hoof to hush her. Carrot top complied, but her eyes quickly turned from simple respect to outright adoration.
“Omigosh! I was such a fan of you as a filly... well, of your comics anyway,” she admitted with a sheepish grin. “Tell me, how much of it is true?”
“More than I care to admit,” she mumbled in response and suddenly got very interested in a random article that was at least twenty years out of date.
It was impossible to stop Carrot once she had gotten going, tough. She reminded me of the first time I had a sip of a Sauvignon Blanc; eager to untangle every nuance of its aroma and unable to shut up about it for weeks afterwards.
I could see the gears turning in miss Tops head, and I could see how miss Scroll shifted as if she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. The dye in front of me had turned midnight black, and I was forced to wash it down and start again.
“B-but... I don't understand! If YOU are the mayor, how did you save the mayor from the villian Pitchfoal in the clock tower? Some ponies SAW that in real life, did they not? Or is that part made up?”
Mayor Mare just sighed deeply at this and glanced over to me. I once again fumbled with the obsidian oil at the sudden attention and ruined the second batch by colouring it charcoal. I gave her a reassuring nod in return and the mayor began her story.
“Have you read the original version of that story,” she asked. “Before they retconned it?”
“I think so, at least I think the version I read as a filly was slightly different.”
“And you'd be right. In the original revision, when Mare do Well caught me... the mayor,” she corrected, “in her grappling hook, her neck snapped. That is what actually happened. But in most printings, they tastefully removed the “Snap!” sound effect after an official committee complained.” The mayor looked as if she had swallowed bitter medicine but Carrot Top just sat stunned.
“At the time that the comic was published, the idea that she died was only a rumour. But the story was originally written so that the incident was a calculated move on my part, It think it was an attempt to market superheroes to a more 'mature' audience. Unfortunately, the comics had up to that point been accurate enough for most ponies to take them at face value and the story was enough to sink my reputation. Soon afterwards, nopony trusted me. I became a bogeyman rather than Ponyville's protector.
“Without my image, I was nothing but a vain pony in pyjamas, wandering around at night scaring decent ponies more than actually deterring crime. It had been a lonely job from the beginning, but while I used to be able to find respect and adoration in the ponies I saved, I know found nothing but fear. As the Pink Avenger, I was truly alone and I began to wish more and more that I had died instead of the mayor.
“One day, I realized that's exactly what I could do. Me and the mayor looked very similar; a pair of glasses, a quick dye-job and a cover story about a secret vacation in Why-Hati was all I needed to replace her. I let my superhero persona fade into obscurity and as the mayor, I slowly began to make amends for my mistake.”
The silence after her story got interrupted by a loud crash as the bowl containing the third batch of grey dye fell into the sink. I smiled sheepishly as the perfectly mixed mane dye swirled down the drain.
“Is there a problem with the dye, miss Forget?” the Mayor asked me with her eyebrow slightly raised.
“Ah... uhm... no, it'll be ready in just a moment, hang on.” I replied and scrambled to mix the fourth and hopefully final batch.
“Mare do... Mayor?” Carrot Top finally replied weakly.
“Yes?”
I” just want you to know that I never blamed you for killing the mayor back when I first read the comics. And I don't blame you now either.”
“Thanks, that means a lot.”
“To be perfectly honest, it may have been for the best. You were a horrible mayor.. Uhm, no offence, but most everypony agreed that you vastly improved during your second term.”
The Mayor smiled weakly at this pronoun-confused statement as I finally got to dyeing her hair. In the meantime I still kept an eye on Carrot Top, who seemed to be reeling somewhat from the revelation.
“It's just, I-I can't believe it, this is fantastic, wait until...” she rambled, half on edge, until a realization brought her down. “Oh I shouldn't tell anypony shouldn’t I? And even if I did tell somepony, nopony would believe me, right?”
She slumped back into the chair and after making sure the greyish goop was evenly spread over Ivory's mane, I inched back towards her and put one hoof on her shoulder.
“Do you think it would be easier if you could just forget everything you heard?” I asked her and got only a quick nod in reply. “Well, that can be arranged!” I could taste her confusion as I put my head close to hers, as if to kiss her. But instead, I touch her forehead with my horn. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen except for a brief glow. But then her eyes began to unfocus and she announced:
“I'm feeling kinda dizzy, maybe I should go home?... “
“Sounds like a good idea, I said with a chipper tone of voice, trying to place myself between her and Mayor Mare, who aided me by burying her face in the old magazine. “But first, could you look into the mirror and tell me what you think about your new mane colour?
She turned to the mirror and let out a loud gasp. “IS this my mane?!” she exclaimed. “Oh yes, I remember thinking about dyeing my hair... This looks fantastic! Thank you very much! How much do I owe you?”
“Five bits.” She put the sum of money on the counter and gleefully began trotting home, with no memory of her conversation with the mayor.
Once she was gone, Mayor Mare looked over to me with a stern expression. “I don't suppose you could do that trick on yourself as well?” she asked.
“I'm afraid I can't, they don't call me 'Forget-me-not' for nothing, but I promise you that my reputation for being discrete is well founded.
I would hope so,” Ivory said as she was leaving.”But I still don't think I can come here anymore.”
“Understood.” My words barely reached her as she went out the door.
Yeah, I suppose me telling you all this seems to go against my reputation. It's just... a certain degree of small talk is expected from a hairdresser, and when you get as many juicy secrets as I do, it's hard to resist the urge to gossip.
Don't worry however, I've found a way around that. There's a very mild amnesia potion mixed in with your mane-dye, miss Scratch, and it should take in effect soon after you paid my bill. You might have a vague memory of being here, but nothing I've said will stick in your mind, have a nice day!