Older Mares

Chapter Two: Picket Signs and Poison Joke

A band of student protesters haloed the perimeter of Canter U, brandishing picket signs that spelled out, or perhaps merely hinted at, a slew of lofty demands. Wisps of magic light buoyed the signs in midair, while the magic of lazy indignation, bloated self-righteousness and barely concealed racial prejudice buoyed the unicorn activists that held them.

Their leader—a stallion with a grey-black coat and the strongest chin in Canterlot, probably a guard in training—held a bullhorn to his mouth and shouted, “We, the hard working stallions and mares of this fine country, refuse to stand by and allow these third world invaders to come into Equestria, steal our jobs, overrun our communities, endanger our families and tarnish our very way of life!”

The line of protesters erupted into a cannonade of cheers, filling the air above Canter U with inspired aphorisms like “Go home gryphons!” and “Equestria is for Equestrians!”.

Although Cheerilee was standing on a rooftop across the street, and currently surrounded by three members of Canterlot’s most notorious street gang, she still found time to scrutinize the drivel spewing from the protester’s bullhorn. In her steadfast (albeit passive-aggressive) one-pony war against “The Mare”, she always made time for calling bullshit, even while tattooed hooligans shook her down for protection money.

“Can you believe these ignorant jerks?” said Cheerilee, gesturing toward the mob of would-be social activists.

“Bunch of bloody animals if you ask me,” said one of the hooligans: a brawny pegasus stallion dressed in snug jean shorts, fishnet stockings and a wrinkled, tied-above-the-navel shirt that said “Rapists Gonna Rape,” in glittery pink letters. He sported a pixie cut that couldn’t have been gayer if it was made of refracted multicolored light, and his long eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings with every blink of his made-up eyes.

As he hovered above the rooftop, Cheerilee ogled the truism printed on his shirt, torn between ambivalent feelings of amusement and disgust. A wry remark popped into her head, but she quickly stifled it, choosing not comment on the pastimes of Canterlot’s rapist community (an upstanding bunch, she was sure). Instead she muttered, “Animals is right,” with a revolted tone that evinced a sense of solidarity. Her show of camaraderie won over the apparent rapist and/or rapist supporter, and he shot his fellow toughs a collaborative glance, as if making sure everypony was on the same page. Then, apparently pleased, he stepped back and gave the floor to a pegasus mare with a face full of piercings and the acronym ‘DOD’ tattooed across her neck.

“Now I know you haven’t got me money, Ms. Cheers, and that’s fine—really it is—but you must realize I have to break your bloody kneecaps now.”

The mare threatening to break Cheerilee’s ‘bloody kneecaps’ bore an uncanny resemblance to Fluttershy, an observation that instantly ruined her attempt at sounding menacing. She was a top enforcer for the Canterlot chapter of a nationwide gang known as the Daughter’s of Discord, and the owner of the single most ridiculous and infuriating name Cheerilee had ever heard: Flocka-Flocka. Although the schoolteacher prided herself on being an educated mare, and could rattle off many facts and figures without effort (granted most of them were perfectly useless), the name Flocka-Flocka befuddled her, much in the way the word ‘befuddled’ befuddled many of the students in her language class.

Flocka-Flocka... Was it a reference to some obscure young adult novel or underground indie movie? Was it a joke? A play on words? A anagram, maybe? And why two Flockas? Why wasn’t one enough…?

In the distance, the lead protester shouted more nonsense into his bullhorn, arguing the merits of strict border-control laws while simultaneously complaining about the lack of cultural diversity on his own college campus. How he could hold both contradicting ideas in his mind at once confounded everypony on the rooftop. She and Flocka-Flocka (maybe ‘Flocka’ was the Minotaurian word for poultry) exchanged cringes, unable to ignore the protesters’ indignant shouts.

Cheerilee and Flocka-Flocka had been business associates for nearly four years, and by means of Stockholm Syndrome, or perhaps a permanent caffeine-induced state of delusion, the dignified college professor considered this tattooed hoodlum her friend. They had first met in Canter U’s student store, after Cheerilee’s old poison joke dealer was chased out of the neighborhood by the Daughters.

Things had been much simpler with her old dealer. They met on campus once every two weeks where they made their drug transaction, and he often awarded Cheerilee discounts for being one of his best regulars. Sometimes they’d smoke a bowl together at the end of a long day, then stumble into their favorite gryphon-owned pizzeria and pig out on cheap deep-dish vegetarian specials. The owners didn’t care that they always reeked of poison joke, and they didn’t mind that the pizzeria smelled like cooked meat, grease and clogged arteries.

Those were the good old days, during Cheerilee’s second year in Canterlot while she was still attending school at Canter U. Now she had to deal with Flocka-Flocka and the Daughters, who went around harassing ponies like they were some kind of donkey cartel. Heh, 'donkey cartel'; the comparison tickled Cheerilee’s funny bone. She couldn’t imagine a lowly goon like Flocka pushing hardcore drugs in Appleloosa’s deep south, decapitating buffalo in borderline ritual killings and leaving behind cryptic warnings for rival gangs. Actually, no, she could definitely imagine it—not the ritual killing part, but the cryptic messages bit didn’t seem that farfetched. All she had to do was picture the words ‘LA FLOCKA’ carved into the wall of an abandoned grow house, and a mess of poison joke stems arranged on the floor in the shape of a feather.

Wait… La Flocka-Flocka… was the name of donkey origin? (Cheerilee really should’ve known this, given that she was a language teacher).

“The fuck are you smiling about, lovely?” said Flocka-Flocka, speaking in the Trottingham accent that was common among the Daughters.

“Yeah,” said the second pegasus stallion, who Cheerilee assumed was also a member of the capital’s rapist community. “The fuck are you smiling about?”

“Lingerie!” snapped Flocka-Flocka. “What did I tell you about echoing me while we’re give ponies a shakedown?”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Don’t say ‘sorry, boss’, just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Cheerilee often wondered if Lingerie’s parents had predicted their son would grow up to become a cross-dressing hooligan, or if the name ‘Lingerie’ had acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy, dooming the poor soul the moment he escaped the womb. He was built like a rhinoceros, and wore a filmy chemise lingerie number that Cheerilee couldn’t have pulled off ten years ago.

“Come on, Flocka, can’t you break my kneecaps next week?” said Cheerilee. As a way of maintaining order in discordant world, Cheerilee never referred to the gang enforcer as Flocka-Flocka. She had decided long ago that one ‘Flocka’ was more than enough, and that two was outright preposterous. “It’s too early for this shit, and I’m already late for my first class.”

Flocka yawned, displaying a mouth fraught with jaundiced teeth, tinted yellow by years of coffee and cigarette abuse. “Oh, fuck off, Cheers. You think I want to be up at this bloody hour surrounded by horny nitwits? You think I like shoving black sacks over pony’s heads and dragging them up and down these long ass city blocks?”

“You dragged me across the street,” Cheerilee interjected. “I can still see the school’s entrance from here.” She gestured toward the steps where she’d been standing a moment ago, largely unimpressed with Flocka’s lazy kidnapping.

“I’m here on business, Cheers,” Flocka continued, ignoring Cheerilee's smart remark. “A business that you insist on fucking up by not paying me and me sisters when you’re bloody supposed to.”

“Pay you? With what money?”

“With the money you’re supposed to collect from your fucking johns!”

“The other mares don’t charge. How am I supposed to get laid if I’m the only pony charging?”

“The other mares are criminals, Cheers. They sell drugs. They steal shit. And they bloody pay me when they’re bloody supposed to.”

“Well we can’t all be young and carefree,” Cheerilee complained. “Some of us have real jobs, with real bosses that will filet our asses if we’re late for another class.”

“Are you dizzy, lovely? Are you out of your fucking head?” Flocka shoved her forehead against Cheerilee’s, driving the teacher back as she stared her down. “I got a boss too, you know. And when she finds out I didn’t collect all of this month’s insurance fee ‘cause some old slut with a soggy cunt doesn’t want to pay her due, she’s gonna march down to me crib, cut off me legs and use me bloody kneecaps to break your bloody kneecaps. Is that what you want, Cheers? You want us both to be hobbling about with busted kneecaps?”

“I think this fixation you have with kneecaps is unhealthy. I know a shrink—great guy, affordable—”

Flocka jabbed Cheerilee in the throat, making her croak and clutch at her neck. “Cadenza’s cunt!” rasped the hurt schoolteacher. “The fuck was that for?”

“I’m sorry I had to do that just now—I really am—but you need to learn to shut your fucking mouth and listen when somepony is talking to you,” said Flocka. “I don’t like using violence, Ms. Cheers, but you’re not giving me any options here. I can’t go back to me boss empty-hoofed and spare you an arse kicking. It just don’t work that way.”

“Flocka, please, it’s broad daylight,” said Cheerilee, massaging her throat. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m pretty sure assaulting a college professor across the street from Canter U is going to make headlines.” Cheerilee rammed her forehead into Flocka’s and shoved her back. “I’ll pay you what I owe, alright? Just give me until tomorrow morning, and I promise you’ll have your money. And stop jumping me outside of the campus. It’s not exactly conspicuous.”

Flocka glanced around, as if worried she were being watched. “Fine, I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” she huffed. “And I better not hear a single bloody excuse from you when I come knocking, understand?”

“Luna, Tia, and Twilight, would you relax? I’ll have the money, okay.”

Flocka glowered. “One of these days I’m gonna break your spine over me stifle.”

Cheerilee glared. “Not before I rip out those piercings and make you eat them—”

“You keep talking like that, and I’ll knock every one of your fucking teeth out of your fucking skull—”

“—I think I’ll black those pretty eyes of yours too—”

“—gonna mash up your bloody big mouth—”

“—smash your ribs to splinters, you shit-eating—”

“—throttle you one of these days—”

“—cave in your skull with a—”

Without warning, Flocka snatched Cheerilee by the chin and yanked her into a rough, open-mouthed kiss. They rose to their hind legs and held each other close, hooves roaming over fur as their tongues rolled and lapped.

“Fuck,” Flocka gasped between kisses, “I love it when you talk dirty like that.”

“I missed you too, baby.”

“Hey.” Flocka grabbed the back of Cheerilee’s neck and wrenched her face away. Their eyes met. “Please pay off your debt tomorrow, Cheers. I don’t want to break your bloody kneecaps—I really don’t—but I love me job more than I love you.”

“Why do you always have to be like that?”

“Like what?” Flocka released Cheerilee’s neck and returned to all fours. “I’m not being like anything; that’s just the way things are.”

“Stop it,” Cheerilee laughed. “When are you going to drop the tough mare act and admit you want me?”

“When a bloody flying pig shits on me head, that’s when.”

Cheerilee laughed again and pecked Flocka on the mouth. “Why are so vulgar all the time?”

“I’m a criminal. I got an image to uphold.” Flocka bent her stifles and flared her wings, ready for a quick takeoff or a quicker rutting. “Climb aboard, Cheers.” (Hmmm… the latter it is then). “Me and the girls are going to grab a bite and pass around the pipe for a spell. You’re welcome to tag along if you like.”

The phrase, ‘you’re welcome to tag along if you like,’ was actually Flocka-talk for, ‘you’re welcome to rut me silly with the first dick-shaped object you can find lying about--if you like’. As a language professor teaching at the prestigious Canter U, Cheerilee understood every foreign tongue from Minotaurian to Gryphonic to Donkish, but there were few languages she comprehended more thoroughly than Flocka-talk. It was a simplistic tongue, limited to a few repeating sounds like ‘bloody’ and ‘fucking’, or sometimes ‘bloody fucking’, when she was feeling especially creative.

“Sorry, but I can’t,” said Cheerilee. “I need to get to class, I’m late enough as it is.”

“Shut your fucking cock-slot and climb on me back.” Flocka spun around and gave her rear a playful wiggle, enticing Cheerilee. It was tight and firm with youth, worthy of the older mare’s envy.

Knowing she would regret this decision roughly three hours from now, she climbed onto Flocka’s back and looped her hind legs around the thug’s barrel, giving it a playful squeeze.

“In the mood for a quick roll, are you, lovely?” Flocka purred.

“Shut up and fly,” Cheerilee chuckled. “And take me someplace trashy, where the food is greasy and the napkins are brown.”

“Aye, Miss Cheers.”

Several wing beats later, the trio of thugs and their passenger were high above the boorish student protesters, riding a swell of warm springtime air that whisked them away toward empty calories and good times.

A blue-tinted haze of noxious gas and feel-good vibes billowed from Cheerilee's nostrils, mixing with the water vapors that flitted from the exhaust pipe of her newly stolen Reins Royce: a luxury steam-powered carriage that cost more money than Cheerilee had accumulated in her entire life. Flocka and her gang had pinched it from the parking lot of an upscale theater a few blocks from Canter U. There had been numerous vehicles too choose from in the lot, all of them over-overpriced and too gaudy for words, but when Cheerilee spotted one bearing a licence plate that read "The 1%", it became obvious which asshole deserved to has his driving privileges revoked.

With her lips wrapped around the nozzle of a glass pipe, she took a second hit of poison joke and let her mind float away with the smoke, daydreaming about the dozens on chemical substances polluting the atmosphere: CO2, THC, whatever junk they put in aerosol cans. Contrary to whatever nonsense the heads of Canterlot’s Weather Control Department would like you to believe, capital city air was far from the cleanest in Equestria—an unfortunate fact that had more to do with incompetent weather workers than mass corporate pollution, or Cheerilee's recreational drug use.

She blew smoke in Flocka's face before passing the pipe, her lips puckered in a flirtatious O. Smiling, Flocka took a hit, pressed her lips to Cheerilee's and breathed smoke into the older mare's lungs. Her kiss carried the chemical stink of blazing poison joke leaves, as well as the greasy aftertaste of thirty-minute-old veggie burgers. As they kissed, Cheerilee thanked the junk food gods for her Gryphonic brothers and sisters—those shameless peddlers of cheap empty calories.

Cheerilee didn’t love fast food—as she had little interest in the culinary arts in general—but in her war against all things upscale, the potent combination of fat, salt and sugar was one of her most invaluable weapons. She loathed the so-called “fine dining” establishments plaguing every other block of her new home, and was currently boycotting all unicorn owned-restaurants, especially those that had garnered high esteem in the culinary world.

The concept of fine dining annoyed Cheerilee, but the absolute worst was this pervasive upper class notion that cooking was some kind of “art”—as if baking a cheesecake were an act akin to painting a masterpiece or writing a novel. No. No, no, no; absolutely not. Cheerilee didn’t care how much time, effort or preparation went into creating that perfect dinner entrée; real art didn’t end up floating in a toilet bowl hours after being ingested.

“What’s that little pea brain of yours mulling over now?” said Flocka, reading the distant expression on Cheerilee’s face. She took a second hit and passed the pipe to Lingerie, who was dozing in the passenger seat, his highlighted mane flouncing in the wind.

“The absurdity of the modern condition,” said Cheerilee.

“What?” Flocka laughed. “Be specific, lovely. The ‘modern condition’ is a bloody broad topic.”

“Food as art.”

“And what’s so absurd about treating food like art?”

“Because food isn’t art. Art is art. Food is fuel.”

Flocka cocked an eyebrow at this. “Just because your palette is less sophisticated than a starving zig-zag’s doesn’t mean you get to decide what’s art and what’s not.”

Cheerilee wrinkled her nose at Flocka’s callous use of the word ‘zig-zag’—a derogatory term for immigrant zebras—but withheld the cataract of smart-ass remarks that flooded her brain. Rather than drown the hapless thug in downpour of sarcasm and droll wit, she muttered, “See, that right there is the problem with you Canterlot ponies: your priorities are all screwed up.”

Flocka cocked her second eyebrow. If she'd had a third, she would have cocked it as well.

“The reason you’re all so fat is because of your relationship with food,” Cheerilee explained. “You eat when you’re bored, you eat when you’re depressed, you eat for pleasure, you watch ponies eat on TV, you make celebrities out of chefs, you waste as much food as you consume, and you have the audacity to criticize food you don’t like, and even dispose of it—all while those starving zig-zags suffer miles away in obscurity. It’s disgusting. You’re all disgusting.” As she rambled, her speech patterns gradually shifted into her trademark ‘Instructor Mode’, a form of expression accented by smugness, glibness and several other noun forms of adjectives bearing negative connotations.

Flocka chuckled as the driver—the apparent rapist in the front seat—passed the pipe back to her. “You know what I like about you, Cheers?” She sparked her lighter, took a quick hit and said, “You have no idea how completely full of shite you are. It’s bloody adorable—really it is.”

“I’m not full of ‘shite'," Cheerilee assured. "I’m full of cancerous punch lines and despair for my fellow Equestrians.” With a drug-induced chuckle, she reclaimed the pipe and sucked back a another cloud of noxious fog. “And who cares about art anyway? Art isn’t gonna save my job, or my precious kneecaps.”

They shared laugh, agreeing on this undeniable, always-present verity. Despite her affinity for rash behavior and love of surprises, Cheerilee enjoyed having a few constants in her life, even if said constants were the ever-looming threats of occupational termination and fractured leg joints.

Outside of the luxury Steamer, Downtown Canterlot sped by at roughly sixty-seven miles an hour—not fast enough to melt the city into a single amorphous blur, but quick enough to obscure certain details: the words scrawled on billboards, the shapes of traffic signs, the clothing worn by pedestrians. Or maybe it wasn’t the speed warping Cheerilee’s reality, but the drugs, playing their tricks on her mind—their practical jokes. Either way, she preferred this simplified version of Canterlot; it was free of bus stop advertisements for cuteceñera dresses and smug celebrities beaming from on high, their shit-eating grins enlarged to massive proportions and superimposed on the sides of highrises.

It was nice to get away from it all, even if her vacation remained confined to city limits. The streets of the Canterlot's Downtown areas were just as squeaky clean as the uptown roads, a grievance Cheerilee remedied by tossing an empty plastic bag out of the Steamer—that simplest and most holy of all drug-carrying receptacles.

As she watched the bag drift away, she wondered how a city as seemingly orderly as Canterlot could mask such a vast undercurrent of sheer chaos. Racist protesters, sexually confused hooligans, train-riding pegasi, government overspending, homophobic marriage laws, Guard brutality, severe anti-drug laws, economic recession, the desecration of the middle class, corporate greed, bloodthirsty drug cartels, comments on YouView… The entire city had gone completely mad and nopony had even noticed, let alone cared.

Cheerilee sighed as she stretched her forelegs high above her head, wearing a smile that was just for her and nopony else.

Nah… never mind all the social justice twaddle—that was just the drugs talking anyway. As of right this very moment, Cheerilee couldn’t be bothered with the never-ending battle for truth, justice and the Equestrian way, she was too cozy nestled in the backseat of a stolen Steamer as she and her gangster friends went joy-riding around Downtown.

It was midmorning when the drugs completely submerged her mind in a vast cosmic sea of… uh… hmmm… something deep and existential-sounding. Cheerilee wasn’t sure; she was too stoned to think of a decent metaphor. Time didn’t speed up or slow down the way it always did in novels and movies. It flowed at its normal pace, but the events floating in the time stream—bobbing on the surface like forgotten buoys, or worse, like aquatic mines discarded in foreign waters—drifted this way and that, and in no particular order.

Cheerilee sped down the street.

Cheerilee lapped at Flocka’s neck.

Cheerilee belted out off-key notes at a karaoke bar.

Cheerilee licked an ice cream cone (or maybe that was Flocka’s neck).

Cheerilee cried out as a Guard twisted her foreleg.

Cheerilee vomited in a unicorn’s top hat.

Cheerilee moaned in ecstasy, her hooves grabbing at Flocka's mane.

Cheerilee laughed. Cheerilee cried. Cheerilee sped down the street…

…and then she was standing outside of Canter U’s ivory double-doors—three-to-six hours wiser and twice as loose in the limbs. Rosy-cheeked and rancid.

Young.

Her watch was gone. Her saddlebag too. She stopped a diamond dog dressed for work in a janitorial uniform and asked him for the time, hardly flinching when he rasped “Twenty-five after.”

“Twenty-five after what?” she giggled

“After two.”

Wonderful. That meant she had all of five minutes to scurry inside before her afternoon class started. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Unable to decide whether her inner monologue was being sarcastic or sincere, Cheerilee ambled through the doors, up several flights of marbled steps and then through more doors. She passed many students on her way up, most of them clothed and horny-looking, so different from the platonic nudity of her old home.

Within the metal frame of a hallway bulletin-board, the words “THIS IS A SHARK FREE CAMPUS!” screamed at Cheerilee with comical sincerity. The message was printed on a flier, and below it the stoned professor read “IT HAS PROUDLY BEEN 19 DAYS SINCE THE LAST SHARK INCIDENT.” For reasons she didn’t understand, Canter U's explicit exclusion of aquatic predators made perfect sense.

Inside the classroom, wide windows beckoned Cheerilee in friendly tones. Heeding their call, she glanced through one of their clear faces and spied a gaggle of pegasi jocks playing Frisbee in the quad, catching the disk between their teeth like feathered dogs off their leashes. The scent of fresh apple pie whisked past the classroom entrance—a culinary student venturing from the toil of Baking 103 to the drudgery of Baking 104, working too hard for his own, or anypony else's, good.

A stack of nondescript paperwork sat piled on her desk. It might have been hers. It might have been anyone’s. Curious, she plucked up the top page and squinted down at it, trying hard to marvel at the words on the page.

Words. Her first love. The one that got away.

Outside, protesters held fast to their ignorant beliefs. Inside, Cheerilee returned the page to its stack, abandoning hers.

Students began filing in. A unicorn stallion in skinny jeans and a striped scarf. A lady zebra wearing sunglasses. An earth mare with her mane and tail styled in the same fashion: close-cropped and highlighted at the ends. A snow gryphon boy wearing a headphones the size of dinner plates and... what was that?... some kind of jacket made of feathers?… but… why…?

…Cheerilee stifled a laugh. This kid, how could he stand coming to class today, and in that getup no less. The gryphon boy greeted Cheerilee with a half-wave, half-salute, and, high off her ass, she saluted right back.

When the seats filled, she faced her class as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Indeed, nothing was; she’d given dozens of lectures while tripping on stronger stuff than a few diluted hits of joke.

“Okay, class,” she began. “Today I’d like to talk with you about a very important subject…”