Atlanta Neighs

Chapter 3 - I’m Just A Teenage Outer God, Baby

“We should totally go for ice cream.” Longsteve glanced around the busy marketplace of Ponyville, his roving eyes lazily scanning for delicious, frozen treats. “We should totes go for ice cream.”

A moment of silence stretched its long, sloth-like paws into the air. Longsteve turned around to look back at Roseluck, who very notably had not agreed with his desire for the frozen treats of the Gods. She looked like she could use some ice cream, what with the way she was just sort of trudging along behind him, head moping near the ground. She was being a mopey-head, was what she was being. Mopey, mopey, mopey. This could not stand! This should not stand!

So Longsteve poked her. “Why you bein’ a mopey-head, Rosie?”

When she didn’t respond, Longsteve merely poked her skull again. When it produced an out of place, dull and hollow thumping noise, Longsteve merely giggled and did it again. And again. And again. Soon he was bumping in tune to a rhythm that was known only by he, humming a jaunty rag-time tune that belonged to a song sung to him in his dreams by Nyarlathotep. The Crawling Chaos was a known admirer of Scott Joplin. This much he knew.

Suddenly, Roseluck let loose a roar that was more on par with a slightly aggravated tabby kitten rather than the fierce, premenustrating lioness she was aiming for as she flailed and batted her front legs about, attempting to vigorously dissuade Longsteve from using her skull as though it were some sort of percussion instrument with dreams of becoming a real pony. It worked, as Longsteve had backed off, a foreleg dangling in the air like a puppy’s wounded paw. He even went so far as to make small, whimpering noises.

The mare’s angry mewling soon died down, although her legs continued to do mortal battle with the open air. Eventually they, too, did stop. She landed back on all fours with a dejected sigh, not even paying any attention to the dozens of eyes that were focused upon her. She probably didn’t even notice them. Ears drooped and head hanging, Roseluck continued to trot through the marketplace, apparently not at all caring whether Longsteve had decided to follow or not.

He did. Although this time approaching with a tad bit more caution. It had been since breakfast, he noted, that her attitude had undergone such a major shift. Like an earthquake, or some other major seismic event. Soon after the mysterious, silver-maned, anime stallion attended what could best be described as a “curb-stomp symphony, as performed by the lovely and talented, Miss Bon Bon”, Roseluck had apparently lost the ability to vocalize through any means other than depressed sighs or, as Longsteve had recently discovered, angry cat calls.

Trotting carefully to Rose’s side, Longsteve spoke, “Are you alright, Rosie? Your somberness is totally harshing my mellow, man.”

She sighed.

“Because, like, my mellow is super mellow. I’m basically that one guy from every bad teen dramedy who’s perpetually tripping balls on some kind of whacky experimental super drug.”

Another sigh.

With a grunt, Longsteve skipped in front of her, facing her direction and walking backwards with almost ridiculous ease. “I mean, that isn’t to say that I do drugs. Because I don’t.” He placed a hoof under his chin. Good Lord, was moving so incredibly easy. He hadn’t even been in this body twenty-four hours and he was already swaggering about like a local. “Well, okay, there was that one time when my old man forced me to smoke pot. I mean that. He literally pinned me to the ground and forced me to me to get high. Seriously, how many folks do you know that have fathers that force joints down their throats and go, ‘Son! You better toke it, and toke it with love! Or else you get the fist!’” He shook a hoof for emphasis. “Coolest. Dad. Ever. Am I right?”

She stopped in her tracks and stared up at Longsteve. There were faint dark rings along the underside of Roseluck’s eyes as she regarded him with a weary, quirked brow. Longsteve did the same, tilting his head to the left causing his left ear to flop to the side. Angling her head downward and peering woefully at her own hooves, Roseluck pushed yet another sigh from her lips. Nonexistent lips. Which was odd, Longsteve noted. She quite clearly had lips, seeing as she could speak, but they were almost indistinguishable, as they looked more or less like the rest of her face. They were, overall, more like a defining line than actual lips, as opposed to the lips of a… the lips of a what? What other type of lips existed—if you know what he means—other than the ones of a pony? He didn’t remember seeing any others.

His right ear twitched, then flattened against his skull. “Huh. That’s weird,” he muttered. Ears flapping up and down like the epileptic pair of wings upon the back of that hippopotamus that stalked his nightmares, Longsteve wrapped a gentle arm around Roseluck. “C’mon, Rosie. Tell Uncle Patches what’s wrong. Was it because that bad cosplay stallion ruined our breakfast bash?” Yes. Yes, that was perfect. From then on, morning meals would be called “breakfast bashes”.

Rose pushed another sigh from her lungs and stared ahead, ears drooping pitifully. It was only thanks to a Herculean amount of effort on Longsteve’s part that he didn’t take the forlorn earther mare into a brutally loving bear hug that would have physically and emotionally traumatized her from the sheer, awesome force of his love, leaving her naught but a vegetable for the rest of her adorably tragic days. The duo continued to trot down the dirt street—Longsteve managing miraculously with only three legs—in silence for several seconds before the first utterances of something resembling words tumbled from Roseluck’s muzzle.

“It’s just, I—would you stop doing that thing with your ears?” she insisted flatly. In an instance, Longsteves ears settled upon his skull, effectively making him look like a sad, sad puppy. Another sigh. “Look, it’s not something I like to talk about, alright? Let’s just say, he and I have a bit of a history together and leave it at that.”

Longsteve’s ears once again raised themselves at this, readying themselves for glorious combat in the name of Chosen. “Aw, c’mon, you can’t give me that!” he exclaimed with a tiny frown.

“Give you what?” Roseluck frowned right back at him. Now neither of them were looking where they were going, a fact which ended up saving their lives when a magical gorgon possibly maybe zapped into existence in front of them for one-tenth of a second. Perhaps.

“That overly ambiguous, dramatic, we-have-a-dark-and-mentally-scarring-history-together crap. Honestly, this isn’t some bad piece of fiction.” He quirked a brow at her, frown forgotten. “So, how’s ‘bout you just tell me? We have the time, we can rebuild—I mean, it can’t be that long a tale.”

“Well,” Roseluck started, “alright then. A few years ago, four give-or-take, I met…” she seemed to take a moment to think, a long-drawn shudder marking the conclusion of her pondering. “Trinity Darkness Shadowmere Insomnia of Worthington, or rather—”

“Met who?” Longsteve queried.

“That emotionally unstable stallion you decked in the face. Now, as I was saying, it would be more accurate to say that he met me. So anyway—”

“You guys have the cutest names,” Longsteve teased, shooting Roseluck a cheeky grin and ruffling her mane. Now she looked like a member of an 80s English metal band. Longsteve held back a malignant chuckle. Yes, yes soon he would assemble a mighty band of adorable horse-people and harness their power to conquer galaxies!

“S-Steve?” Roseluck stammered.

“Yes?”

“Could you maybe stop grinning like that?” she requested, smoothing out her mane—No, Roseluck, what are you doing?! “Y’know, all evil and insane-like. It’s honestly kind of freaking me out over here.”

“Oh right. Sorry.” His face straightened. “My apologies, please continue.”

“Right.” Rose took a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. It had aroused imagery in Longsteve’s mind, of hot steam fuming from a sizzling-hot network of pipes. It had reminded him of the bittersweet Saturdays of his youth. Sitting on the floor, a bowl of cereal in his lap that would probably give any lesser man diabetes on sight, and watching old Steamboat Willie cartoons with his old man. Well, sometimes. Usually his father kinda just sat on the couch behind him. Sleeping in his robes. His legs spread out. And no underpants.

Roseluck continued her story, only barely taking note of Longsteve’s comment about never eating cereal again, “So anyway, we met a few years back when I was a freshman at Trottingham University. That’s a lie, by the way—the ‘university’ part? It was actually a community college trying to appear all prestigious and junk.” She sighed. “Best two years of my life, let me tell you. So yeah, I would always catch him stealing glances at me from time to time. He was cute, if not pretty foul-mouthed. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want a handsome, mysterious-looking buck with a badcolt streak as their secret admirer, right?” Roseluck huffed. “But after a while it just sort of delved into some really uncanny territory.”

“That’s what she said,” Longsteve muttered under his breath.

“I mean, I just started seeing him everywhere,” she said, putting emphasis on that last bit with a horizontal swipe of her hoof. “Dear Celestia, it was creepy. So one day, out of nowhere at all, he walks up to me goes on about how he’s been admiring me from afar—” Roseluck was cut off as trio of caped fillies dashed between she and her companion. “As if I hadn’t known that—and then, he just, asked me out.”

Longsteve continued to walk alongside monologuing mare, nodding his head emphatically. Where were they even going, anyway? “And you said?”

“I said ‘yes’!” Rose cried, stamping a hoof and facing the heavens. “I don’t know why, okay? I was just young—er, and horny, I guess. And he was kinda cute, so I just figured he might’ve, I dunno, been too nervous to ask me out until then or something.”

 Longsteve paused his interpretive dance sessions to quirk a brow at Rose. “My common sense is telling me that it didn’t really work out. Be it correct?”

Another sigh. “Well, the first couple of dates were, how would I say, awkward but enjoyable, to a degree. It was around date number three that things started to become really… unpleasant.” She cringed. “Half-fancy restaurant, good food, nice atmosphere, all that good stuff, right? But during the whole thing he was kind of… antsy, fidgeting and sweating. So when we finished we went for a walk by the part, pretty romantic, right?” Roseluck huffed at that. “Well, not for long. We’d barely even sat down for a few minutes to gaze at the stars before the—the creep tackled me to the ground! I tried to push him off, but he just lay on top of me, muttering about how beautiful I’d look with black mascara, trying to force his lips on me!”

Roseluck curled in on herself, her mouth forming into a grimace while her hoof pawed at her ribcage, trying to get to the tightness in her chest, to stroke it and alleviate it. The painful squeeze didn’t last long, though, as Longsteve pulled her into his side using the arm he had around her. The sincerity of physical contact calmed her down, and she nuzzled into his neck in gratitude.

“Maybe we should talk about something else, eh? This discussion isn’t really making anybody comfortable, I wager,” Longsteve whispered at her side, to which he got a quick snort from Roseluck.

“We’re not even at the best part yet, though,” Roseluck calmly replied. “That, that

“Git,” Longsteve supplied.

“—that git thought I’d look good in a Celestiadamned choker! Saying something about showing that I was his.” Roseluck’s scowl turned to a smirk. “He got what he had coming, though, soon as I saw that thing I kicked him right in the ‘nads.” She giggled. “I didn’t know bucks’ voices could get that high.” Her giggled soon evolved into a roaring guffaw. Longsteve joined in, although somewhat hesitantly, unconsciously squeezing his hindlegs against each other.

“Uhm, Sugarcube?” Roseluck looked to her side, where an orange mare in a stetson, with hay-blonde hair done up in a ponytail was keeping her booth. She was looking at Roseluck with a wary gleam in her eyes. “What’re y’all laughin’ at?”

Longsteve’s ears perked. Ever so slowly, his head crooked in the direction of the voice. That accent. That beautiful southern drawl. It filled the recesses of his mind with sweet, sweet imagery of apple pies on the windowsill one sunny afternoon. Wholesome family values! Racism and incest! He gasped. It was just like home.

“Holy shit-captain…” the stallion whispered, tears forming in his eyes.

“Beg pardon?” the orange mare queried.

“Oh hey, Applejack,” Roseluck greeted, finally calming down from her hysterics. She cleared her throat and smiled. “Sorry, I was just telling my friend here—” she jutted a leg in Longsteve’s direction. He did nothing, however, only staring at the blonde earth mare in near reverence. “—about my University days.”

The blonde mare, Applejack, as she was called, tipped her hat off at Longsteve, a pleasant smile adorning her face. “Well, ‘s a pleasure t’ make yer acquaintance, Mister…?”

“I am hight many things,” the stallion declared. “To some, I am ‘He Who Walks Amongst Kings of the Southlands’. To others, I am ‘The One True King of Phanar Lono’. But to most, I am simply referred to as ‘Oh God No’. You may call me Longshore Steve Patches, Horse.”

At the utterance of the word “horse”, Applejack’s cheeks burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. It required a great deal of willpower on Longsteve’s part to remain impassive in the face of such heat, for he knew that the sun was always out and about. Watching him, studying his weaknesses, and hankering for his blood.

“Eh, uh, well, Ah’m Applejack, Mist—uh, King Longshore,” Applejack hesitantly introduced herself. “Mah family n’ Ah own a sizeable little apple orchard, Sweet Apple Acres, lyin’ right outside town.”

Longsteve gave her a dismissive glance, slightly perturbed by how well she took his introduction. You’d almost assume she was used to obviously dysfunctional individuals, or something. “That’s all nice and good, Mister Applejack, but…” Longsteve got into Applejack’s face with an aggressive burst of speed, his eyes gazing into hers with the agonizing intensity of somebody very deliberately looking somebody in the eye. That kind of shit is awkward. “Where do you keep the guns?”

Applejack, swayed by how awkward eye contact had suddenly become, glanced to the side. “Uh...guns, Miste—King Longshore?” Applejack grasped an apple and held it tight to her chest, like a shield.

“Y’know? Them there shoot-bangs?” The False King jutted a foreleg in Applejack’s direction, the hoof twisting into some malformed abomination attempting to pass itself off as a Mongolian fishmonger’s heavily callused knuckle with aspirations of becoming a nerf pistol. “You know… those things. Loud, cool, important to people like you and me, and good for keeping the king of England out of your face.”

“Uh...Sugarcube, maybe y’all should talk to a friend of mine,” Applejack said, her tone bringing Longsteve memories of home, and the asylum. “‘Er name’s Twilight Sparkle. Ah think she could help y—”

Applejack never got to say what she had in mind, for in that moment Roseluck—nimble as a ninja—blocked her, as she muttered, “bloody stupid mouth” with a hoof. “I think that’s quite alright, Applejack, we don’t need to see Twilight or anything,” Roseluck affirmed with a gentle smile and killer eyes.

Applejack, in turn, tried to say something to the effect of “Are you sure?”, which just ended up sounding like “Would you like to sex me?”. Roseluck recoiled mildly in disgust, but ignored it and turned to Longsteve, who was imagining… things. “Maybe we should get going, Steve?”

“Yeah, you dirty thing, you. That’s right… All the tartar sauce…”

“Longsteve!”

“Huh? What?” His head snapped left, then right, and then back to center. Both Roseluck and Applejack affixed him with inquisitive glares. “What happened? And where’s the tartar sauce?”

“Tartar sau—”

In that instance, Longsteve’s hoof smashed into the ground with the force of an anorexic Asian elephant. He then raised the very same hoof into the air, the sun gleaming down over his magnificent figure, and casting a massive shadow over the small weed growing from beneath the wheel of Applejack’s stall. He held that pose for about ten seconds. Roseluck and Applejack never took their eyes off of him—in exasperation and befuddlement, respectively.

“Okay, right, we’re leaving now,” Roseluck sighed. “Sorry about all of…” She made a gesture in Longsteve’s direction. Longsteve, who was still holding his dramatic pose. “…Whatever this is.”

“T’ain’t no trouble at all, darlin’,” Applejack reassured. “Just be sure t’ do somethin’ about all that energy he’s got goin’ later, yeah?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I fully plan on—hey wait, what are you implying!?” Roseluck demanded as she stamped the dirt road beneath her, cheeks aflame.

“Sex,” Applejack stated blankly, although Roseluck could make out the nigh-invisible grin on the apple peddler’s mug.

To hell with her cheeks, her entire damned face just looked like it’d gotten into a slapping match with a drunken barracuda. Barracudas slap now, shut up. “I-I… No!” Roseluck shouted, resolutely. “No. I’m not having this conversation a second time, so nyeeeh!” she sneered, sticking out her tongue with such force it nearly popped free of her mouth and did a little song and dance routine before promptly getting lynched by the Ponyville masses on the sheer instance of it being too pants-on-head retarded. Which is why it never had a girlfriend. Come on, Roseluck’s tongue, get your shit together.

“Real mature, sweetheart,” Applejack retorted, chuckling despite herself. “Welp, go on, git!” she shooed with a chuckle. “Y’all’re scarin’ away potential patrons, now.”

Roseluck’s face twisted into a visage of pure, unrestrained hatred, glaring with complete and utter malice at the apple salespony. She continued to smolder in unending contempt, even while Applejack slowly got further and further away, looking at her with a blank, uncomprehending expression.

“Come on, let’s go,” Longsteve muttered, Roseluck’s tail in his mouth proving to not inhibit his rather glib tongue at all. “I just realized, does this mean I’m ‘getting tail’? Eh? Eh?” The effort of dragging Roseluck along wasn’t making itself known in his voice, either. Longsteve was pretty boss like that.

⇛THATBITCHBESITTINFUNNY⇚

“How long has she been like that?” the some-color-of-green unicorn asked, looking worriedly at Roseluck, a cute frown framing her golden eyes.

“Huh, what?” Longsteve muttered. It was when he was shaken from whatever stupor he was in that he had realized that he and his companion—whom he’d been dragging by the tail for the better part of ten minutes—had wandered into a small park. At least Longsteve thought it was a park, as there was notably more vegetation in this area, it seemed. Ahead of himself, Longsteve spotted a stream that periodically erupted with some kind of weird-ass-looking fish. He couldn’t help but shudder when, just for a moment, he and one of the little fishies established eye contact. Peering deeply into his soul. It was like it knew him. His fears, his weaknesses, his deepest, darkest desires. All of it, it knew.

All of it.

And then it smashed into a jagged boulder in the middle of the stream, flopping and flailing about for dear life. If one looked closely enough, one could see a solitary tear leak from one of its creepy little eyes.  Longsteve smiled. Life was good.

He turned to the direction of the enigmatic greenish-but-maybe-probably-not-for-Longsteve-was-an-Anthropology-major-and-therefore-knew-shit-all-about-math-unicorn.

He tilted his head when he saw the creature. And then his eyes bulged. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. So beautiful his eyes were moist with tears. That style! That posture! So much skill! He spat his mouth of Roseluck’s tail. Roseluck, who had now settled onto her belly, legs splayed out, teeth bared, and eyes furious, yet staring at nothing. Not that the terrified, teary-eyed, filly before her knew that.

Longsteve ignored this, however. He ignored everything with the sole exception of the magnificence that had graced him with its presence. The unicorn tilted her head, an eyebrow cocked. She looked as though she couldn’t whether or not she should offer help or call for it.

“Uh? Are you doing okay?” she asked.

Longsteve gasped and flinched backwards. He didn’t understand. Was she angry? Had he offended her? Oh God he had, hadn’t he? Good God, Lonsteve, you had one job, one job! Getting real tired of your bullshit, you stupid son of a bitch fu—

“Why are you growling…?” she asked, her eyes glistening with moisture.

“Wh—oh, pardon, I wasn’t—” Longsteve’s gaze scurried around the picturesque park, seeking refuge but finding none. Realizing his desolation, he fixed his gaze upon she and threw himself before her, prostrating his lowly body in honor of her majestic greatness “—you are so beautiful! The most magnificent I’ve seen all day!”

The teal-green-but-who-gives-a-fuck fur that covered her cheeks glowed with fire-red. She giggled shyly as she batted a hoof at him, the other one propped up against her cheek. “Oh, stop it you, I don’t even know your—”

“Please! I beg of you!” Longsteve cried, sinking to his knees. Oh dear God, how were they able to bend like that? That wasn’t right! That wasn’t right at all! That was like, five different stages of horrifically not-right! “Teach me how to sit like that!”

“Well… If you want, I suppose I can—What.” That was no question on the unicorn mare’s part. Just a blank statement.

“Yes, oh Radiant One!” Longsteve’s grin stretched into the realm of the absurd and slightly creepy. “Your posture shines with such magnificence like I’ve never seen before!” He slid forward over the grassy ground like a slug, his position never changing. “Please, Fair Lady, teach me how to sit like that, like a—like a human!”

Silence seemed to settle over the park in a pocket around the two mares and single stallion, painting a quiet scene. On the ground, a blue stallion leering devotedly and slightly creepily up at the mare on the bench. The mare herself, sitting with an irregular posture, putting weight on her rump and leaning her spine against the back of the bench. Unnoticed to Longsteve before, she held a mini-harp-thingy in the hoof furthest from him, and a small, puzzled frown was adorning her face. The second mare was just doing her thing on the grass. Nobody cared.

Alas, the silence was not meant to last, and finally the mare on the bench broke it. “What’s a human?” She asked, clearly having no idea what the everliving fuck was going on.

The blue stallion shuddered. “Don’t ask. I almost had a complete mental breakdown the last time I was asked that.” He puffed his cheeks, then sighed. “Did you know my mother wanted to kill all Germans? Probably in order to atone for my misdeeds of my great-great-grandpappy. Mom did and said a lot of funny stuff when drinking her happy-juice.”

A pause. “Alright?” the mare drawled, “First of all, my name’s Heartstrings—Lyra Heartstrings, what’s your name?”

Longsteve jumped to his fee—hooves, squaring his shoulde—withers and adopted a proud posture. “I am a Great Lord with many titles, they call me—”

“Longsteve,” the mare on the ground moaned from the side.

“—yes, that!” he nodded vigorously to show concordance with Roseluck’s comment.

“Oh hey, Rose. How’re you this fine afternoon,” the green unicorn, Lyra, greeted cordially, just noticing the slumped earth mare.

Roseluck, on her part, simply let out an exasperated groan and waved a forelimb around before allowing it to drop limply to the ground, crushing the small ant family that had been passing by into paste. Why did Roseluck have to suffer the worst? “Eh, could be better.”

“Blah, blah, blah, your needs,” Longsteve snapped. “Lady of the Lyre!” he cried, bowing his head in reverence. “Please! Take me, Steve, son of Kyle, as your student!”

Lyra tilted her head in the position of Roseluck, who merely continued to lie on the grass, legs splayed as though she were attempting to make dirt angels and lost interest midway through, and locked in an intense staring match with a monarch butterfly.

“Right,” Lyra muttered, turning back to the revering stallion. “First of all—no, wait, second of all, I sit like this because I have back problems. I don’t know anything about any… ‘humans’, you said? Jeez, and here I was hoping you’d ask me out on a date or something. I mean it isn’t like I just fell in love with you at first sight, but it would’ve been flattering, at least. Maybe even a little fun,” she huffed, ears drooping.

Longsteve ran his hoof along the underside of his chiseled, handsome mug. It was then that he wondered if his face fur actually counted as legit facial hair. Matter it did not, for on an Adonis, facial hair meant but nothing. “Huh. Didn’t think of that at all, actually. I mean, if you wanna grab coffee or something sometime, I’m totally down with that, but I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now, seeing as I have literally no finances as of now. It wouldn’t really be fair for me to enter into a relationship with someone only to then smack them in the face with ‘you now literally have to pay for my existence. Whoops.’ That, and I am a hor—”

“Don’t say it!”

“—I am an equine for an indeterminate length of time.”

A blink from Lyra. And then another. “Uh, sure?” She peered behind the blue stallion, eyes locked on his prone, rose-maned companion. She daintily waved a hoof in the direction of the downed pony with a bemused frown. “Is she alright?” she asked, tone more bemused than concerned.

“I… actually do not know,” Longsteve replied, eyebrow raised. He and Lyra gazed awkwardly at Roseluck, who had gone back to staring at the grass. Her expression was as blank and still as an undisturbed pond, and as they watched, she slowly reached out her hoof, moving it up and down and up and down in placid, relaxed movements. Longsteve craned his neck towards Lyra, initiating a stage whisper. “I think she’s pretending to murder Applejack.”

Roseluck’s hoof movements, and face for that matter, were taking on some decidedly violent and rather manic characteristics when Lyra decided to speak up. “Rose, sweetie, do you wanna come up on the bench and tell me about what Applejack did?” Stillness settled on Roseluck. Slowly, like some kind of amorphous blob, Roseluck dragged herself towards Lyra’s bench with sluggish and vacant movements. Under her companions’ watchful eyes she reached up and pulled herself onto the bench from a lying position on the ground, squirming over to Lyra and placing her head on Lyra’s stomach with an adorable whining sound, like a puppy having its first experience with anal. The green mare brushed a hoof across Roseluck’s soft, silky red mane and gently cooed, “Now, tell Aunty Lyra all about your murderous impulses, hmm?”

“Hey!” Longsteve chirped, blithely trotting over to the seated mares. “You know what’ll cheer her up? A good ol’ fashioned bonfire! Let’s grab the closest nerd and force them to allow us to use their books for fuel!” He paused, staring ahead as though he were peering into a cavernous void crawling with giant, exploding rape-spiders. His pupils became pinpricks, his ocular capillaries steadily encroaching upon the white of his eyes. A shudder shook through him as a solitary bead of sweat dropped from his brow, falling, and falling, and falling. Finally, it splashed onto a pebble with a thick, heavy, ‘blub’ that echoed deep within Longsteve’s canals over the thunderous drummings of his hammering heart. “Or their bodies. I’m not picky,” he shuddered, breath labored and eyes narrowed.

“Uh…” Lyra slurred, gaping at the stallion as though he were a group of large, combustible  arachnids that had just expressed interest in brutally copulating with her.

A lone, beige hoof reached up and firmly grasped Lyra’s attention, drawing it towards existence of its master. “Ignore him,” Roseluck deadpanned. “He has this tendency to make the atmosphere needlessly creepy and/or dramatic.”

“So…” Longsteve murmured conspiratorially, “it has come to this.”

“Zip it!” Roseluck snapped.

Lyra gently cleared her throat, regaining Roseluck and Longsteve’s attention. “So, about those murderous impulses?”

Roseluck huffed—an act that was quickly becoming redundant—and nuzzled Lyra’s belly again, clearly now in direct violation of her adorability rationing for the day. “Celestia damned Applejack, Lyra,” Roseluck said while Lyra smoothed her mane calmingly, “Celestia damned Applejack. Steve did that thing where he called himself a “whorse”, except not really, and Applejack assumed straight up that I was paying him for sex!” Roseluck flapped her ears with her full wrath, too cuddly to bother with any larger motions. “I don’t care what Bon Bon says, I don’t need a lay that badly!”

“‘Whorse’? Oh.” Lyra nodded imperceptibly. “That thing with the interrupting and the ‘don’t say it’, gotcha. Why’s he say that, anyway?” Lyra looked down at Longsteve, who was now sliding underneath the bench like a giant slug.

From behind the park bench erupted Longsteve, his teeth bared and mane even more chaotic than usual. “Because we’re all horses, of courses!” One ear stood erect, convulsing violently as though possessed by an epileptic sea rodent. The other lay limply against his head, reminiscing about the war.

]The two stared at the crazed-looking stallion in total silence. Roseluck lazily peered back up to Lyra, taking in the look of apprehension that bled through her features. “Ah, don’t worry,” she drawled, waving her hoof in small, circular patterns. “He isn’t completely crazy, I don’t think. Trust me, he’s quite harmless once you get to know him somewhat.”

A calm settled at those words, one of friendliness and relaxation. Lyra continued stroking Roseluck’s mane—getting a subdued cooing in response—while she grasped her lyre in sparkly sparkly magic, strumming a relaxing melody. Longsteve, bracing on the bench’s back in order to stand on two legs, was thoroughly enjoying Lyra’s musical proficiency while he batted at her ear with his tongue. Indeed, the quiet sounds of their party shaped like a bubble, isolating them from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, leaving them with a minor pocket of calm. Until one of the trees at the other end of the park caught fire.

“Well,” Lyra said, lifting the non-stroking hoof to point at the tree, “at least you didn’t have to deal with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“Did somebody mention the Rapetastic Genocidal Crusaders?”

“What are they doing now?” Roseluck mumbled, squeezing her eyes tight for just those few extra moments of blissful ignorance.

Longsteve gazed long and hard at the fiercely, yet unrealistically, burning tree. The flames had practically enveloped all the leaves, and yet it showed no signs of dying down, neatly illuminating the three, small figures sitting a safe distance from the base of the tree. “It would appear that they’re trying to summon Satan. Goddamn Luciferans—Faustian supremacy!”

Lyra sighed, and the calming sounds of her instrument came to an end. “I really with Applejack would keep a better leash on her sister. And her sister’s friends, for that matter.”

“Hmm? One of those three kids is kin to the Maiden of the Apples?” asked Longsteve as he rotated his ears in the direction of the blaze. Vague chanting was starting to become audible, emanating from the Witch’s Mark Crusaders. Oddly enough, one of them sounded not only really good, but also way too enthusiastic, whereas the other two sounded hesitant. No way would they get to hang out with Satan with such a paltry performance.

Lyra tilted her head to the right, the corresponding ear flopped limply about. “You mean Applejack?”

Longsteve nodded vigorously. The loud, sickening pops at the base of his neck bothered him none, as he’d heard that from a very reliable source that all the hip, young kids were into tetraplegia.

“Oh, well, yeah,” Lyra affirmed, “the yellow one with the red mane and the bow. Oh, and the accent. Those three always get into horribly dangerous—not to mention suicidally stupid—attempts to get their Cutie Marks.”

“Ah, youth,” Longsteve sang, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Still,” Lyra interjected, “if it wasn’t because Applejack and Big Mac had a monopoly on apples and a huge orchard, they wouldn’t be able to pay off all the damages those three cause. I swear, if the Apple Family wasn’t so loaded, the entire town would probably end up a pile of ashes and other such wreckage.” She sighed. “But they’re just too darned adorable to become truly angry with.”

The proverbial pin of the proverbial gramophone dropped to the proverbial ground, where the proverbial music screeched to a proverbial halt. Proverbial now meant rapetastic, deal with it. There was an oppressive cowl of silence that blanketed the area, kind of like when you discovered that the hooker you just had really filthy intercourse with was actually your long-lost biological father.

Longsteve’s eyelids twitched. Both of them, yeah. Hardcore. “They’re loaded?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I guess you could say so.” Lyra looked up to the blue afternoon sky, seemingly not noticing the warning signs emanating from Longsteve. Roseluck, more in tune with his patterns, had contented herself to a fate of willful ignorance as she hummed a quiet tune, her whole body tense. “I mean, the bits might not be flowing, but they’ve got a huge land area when compared to most Ponyville farmers, and they have the Zap Apple monopoly, so I guess they’re pretty well off.”

Lyra looked down from the sky, gazing in Longsteve’s direction. He was gone. Surprisingly, not a sound had been made at his exit. Neither mares spoke for an elongated while, a peace broken suddenly by a diminutive “Shit.” coming from Roseluck’s mouth.

⇒OHFUCKDOTCINNAMONTOASTCRUNCH⇐

“Thank ya kindly, mister,” Applejack said, accepting a sum of three bits for a small peck of apples from an orange maned pegasus stallion with white fur. She handed—fuck, mouthed him the sack of apples with a pleasant smile on her muzzle. The stallion accepted the apples—using. His. Mouth—and smiled back at her. He nodded graciously before trotting off with his prize in han—mouth. She waved him away, calling out, “Do come back now, ya hear?”

It was only a moment after she had uttered those words that she caught a flash of blue in her periphery. It was even less than that before the blue blur smashed into her. Applejack, caught flat-foot—hoofed, no, fuck you—footed, by the suddenness of its appearance

“Applejack!" screamed the blur. The eponymous mare shook her head, allowing reality to reinsert its grip on her view. She looked up to see Longshore Patches standing, out of breath, next to her booth.

“Applejack your sister’s doing something really dangerous you have to go stop her!” he released in one quick breath, sounding so rushed he even forgot his commas.

“Wha’s wrong, Longshore? Where’s the fire at?” To say he looked distressed would be like saying Twilight’s a mite tad nutty in the head. At her words, though, he took a deep breath, as if readying himself to impart the news of the decade.

“Eh… wha’? Wait, what’s Applebloom doin’?

The stallion’s eyes widened in abject horror, his pupils became pinpricks. “I’m not even sure, but it involves cupcakes, a noose, and endless gallons of industrial lubricant! Endless. Lubricant.”

Applejack needed to hear no more. She took off sprinting as fast as she could, faster than she had ever sprinted before, for she knew that such a random combination of items could only herald danger. Only later did she realize she didn’t know where she was sprinting to. Only after scouring the town for an hour did she learn that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were doing no such thing. Only after finding Applebloom and giving her a big hug and an “I love you” did she go back to her stall. And then, only then, did she realize that her stall was as empty as Longshore Patches’ words had been.

“What.”