A Modern Mare in Search of a Soul
Confessions of a Bourgeois Unicorn
I awoke this morning from the most vivid dream I'd had in many weeks.
I dreamt that I was sitting in a meadow, not too far from a lake. I was in the countryside with my mother, who is now dead. She had died rather young, but in the dream she was even younger. It seemed to me that we were both the same age. I was thirty years old, as I am now, and so was she.
Of course, I am far wealthier now than my mother ever was.
She said to me, "Why don't you like taking a stroll more often, Fleur?" She said this as if I were still but a filly who had barely ventured out of grade school.
"I don't like the grass so much," I said. "It makes me feel itchy." For some reason, my ability to articulate myself had degraded to that of a filly's, despite my thirty-year-old body.
"But it's good for your health to be in the great outdoors every so often. Your father would agree with me."
"I know, Mother." Yet I still felt uncomfortable in the grass and among the flowers.
My mother started to prance through the meadow, as if she were a dog, or a rabbit, as if she cared for nothing else but the joy of breathing in the fresh air. She beckoned me to join her.
But then I woke up, and my mother was dead once again.
The streets of Canterlot were already busy, and I would soon be busy too.
After all, I had a date tonight. Eight o'clock.
In the afternoon I met up with Hoity Toity, one of my most trusted colleagues, at a café that is a mutual favorite of ours. We were there to discuss the schedule for this month's photo shoot, but naturally I now barely remember any of what had been said by either of us.
I recall when I used to listen more attentively, when I was just starting out in the modeling business. I was eighteen at the time, and Hoity Toity was not so much older than me, but he already knew what to do and what not to do. He sought me out because, as he's said countless times over the years, he adored my accent.
"I say now, honey, where did you come from? Certainly not Trottingham," he said.
"I'm from Lis, monsieur. It's a rural Prench town that... not many know about." This was during a time when I was still often stricken with nervousiness.
"Ah," he said. "And you hope to live the dream in Canterlot, yeah?"
"Oui, monsieur."
He took a sip of his coffee—almost black—and then said to me, "A most patrician city, I can assure you!"
I knew what he meant. I had only been living in the city for a month, with a filly who was a friend of mine at the time. Even as a newcomer, I knew the seductive smell of the city's perfume, and of its jewelry. "I hope you don't mind my lack of... familiarity with the city," I said to him, that one word making feeling so alien to my tongue. "I came here with only what money I could bring with me, which was not much."
"Not at all, honey," he said. "We see immigrants coming here every so often, wanting to hit the big time. A lot of them don't make it, the pitiful dears, but you have a gift about you!"
I was acutely aware of my own fine likes, and how they had gotten me to this point. At the same time, I knew that nopony acknowledged me as anything other than a visitor, that I was here on business for a short time, and would at some point return to the place where I surely belonged.
No, I wanted to belong in this city.
"But," I said, "when should I become a citizen of Canterlot?"
"Whatever do you mean?" He gave me an odd look.
"I mean—when will I be seen as one of the locals? A native Canterlot mare, pardon me."
Giving me the impression of sympathy, he said, "Honey, never. If you aren't born in Canterlot, you'll never become one of us locals. It's as simple as that, sad to say." Then he took another sip of his coffee.
I could never forget what he had told me all those years ago.
Eventually I rented the loviest apartment on Belle Street I could afford, which by a certain point had become a great amount. It was practically a suite, as I intended to help raise a family, to have foals of mine, to have a husband, and so on. I was twenty at the time, and I treated the whole ordeal as if I were a mother bird and the apartment were my nest.
Then a year passed... then another... then another...
I gained myriad connections. I even gained a few dear friends in the process. At first when I encountered the eternally respectable Fancy Pants, I thought we were destined to be together. He was a wealthy old stallion, and I was a wealthy young mare. But it was not to be.
Not that I didn't try to look for a potential husband. I had gone on several dates—perhaps too many. Every time it was essentially the same story. I would meet a fine-looking stallion who thought I looked fine in return. He wooed me and he treated me to exquisite dinners. He tries his hardest to impress me. Yet he never loved me. He gave me gifts without endearing me. He kissed me without touching me. He used me so that I might be of use to him.
It was always a question of money with these dates. The stallion who tried courting me looked and sounded different each time, but he always wanted to unlock the door that led to my vast wealth.
To this day I have not loved anypony since before I had left my hometown of Lis.
I no longer now what it means to love somepony who does not care for my wealth.
Without a husband, and by extension without foals, I must confess I have long since taken to seeing stray cats as substitutes. I see them as les enfants oubliés, as if they were my own.
It's an open secret that Canterlot, despite appearing patrician, has a serious stray cat problem. Dozens of them roam the streets in the night, when so few ponies remain awake. No matter who is awake to witness the coming of these mangy felines, though, nopony among the upper echelon acknowledges that such a problem exists. They go about their days, ignorant that beneath their hooves, or just out of the corner of one's eyes, there are many cats—some of them on their way to death—who need some food and proper hygiene.
Naturally, I could not ignore the cats once I saw them. The wretched state of their coats alone reminded me of the more impoverished households in Lis—the ones who could not even afford the modest conditions of my own family. So, without saying anything about it, I decided to make a habit of looking after these disgarded souls.
Just this evening I took in a desperately hungry cat and gave him food and water, if only for an hour.
He was a shabby black cat, with a patch of white hair at his breast, and I decided to name him Charlemagne. He was a splendid but bratty fellow. He much preferred tuna over the pellets I normally give to my so-called foals. So I obliged him, and even gave him a warm bath. Some cats hate taking baths, but he was certainly the gentlecolt about it. I even brushed his coat so that he no longer had any mats.
Charlemagne was in a cuddly mood, and I did nothing to resist his need for attention. While he had been stoic during the bath, and ate his pellets as if in a frenzy, he didn't long to start purring as he nestled up against my side. Ah, the purring of a cat—the most wonderful sound! Often I would simply listen to him, not even bothering to meet his gaze, and wonder if cats express the energy of their souls by purring. Truly such a sound of contentment indicates the existence of one's soul, but if that were the case, then how do I express the energy of my own soul?
I have not a clue.
After enjoying myself so much with Charlemagne, I let him go.
The time was roughly seven in the evening, and I was alone again.
Earlier I mentioned that I had a date tonight, at the Restaurant du Paradis, eight o'clock sharp. He's a kind stallion, judging from the single time we met. He says he is looking for a long-term relationship, and he claims to not mind the fact that I'm the well-known Fleur de Lis.
It's a shame that the clock now reads as 8:30.
I stood him up.
I have not left my apartment.
I will likely never see him again.
Even now, as I think about what I've done, I am incapable of believing in this stallion. For all I know he could be the one, but I do not believe him. The idea of believing that somepony will truly love me strikes me as foreign.
As I sit here, pretending to read a best-selling novel, my mind wanders again. I feel myself being slowly devoured by the dream world, which often surfaces when I am awake and yet do not wish to be so. Within this waking dream, my dear mothers comes back to me, looking as young as ever, but now possessing the chilly voice of a ghost.
"Now Fleur, my darling, why must you do this to yourself?" she asks me.
"I like it here, Mother."
"He seemed like a perfectly fine catch. It was unfair of you to abandon him like that." She starts to judge me, although I don't try to defend myself too strongly.
"I know, Mother."
If somepony were to walk up to me and ask me why I do what I do, I'm not sure how I could explain myself to them. Ever since I left Lis my ability to express myself has deteriorated. When my dear mother died, vanquished by an unfortunate illness while still in her physical prime, I did not immediately leave Canterlot to visit the house in which I was raised. Thinking about it now, I did not even see my mother between when I last saw her alive and when I attended her funeral. When she was dying, I said that I was busy.
After the funeral, I finally entered the home of my foalhood, and one of the first things I did was go up to the bedroom where my mother had slept. Up to this point, I did not feel much of anything about the situation. My mother had died, and she was not too old, but it appeared normal for grown-up ponies with important jobs to not get so emotionally distracted when their parents died.
Yet as pressed my cheek against the sheets of the bed, I felt a burning sensation in my eyes. I tried to feel the remnants of my mother's presence in those sheets, but I knew she was dead. For reasons that still elude me, I wanted so terribly to be a young filly again, and to hear my mother's voice with fresh ears.
I stayed at the house for the night.
The next day, I left for Canterlot. I had a photo shoot, after all.
