***

"The Supplication of a Dead Man’s Hand"

It was finally the day, one that had been most dreaded since the funeral (which was weeks ago but hardly forgotten, despite earnest attempts). The principal had initially gone to Twilight individually, but the girl had insisted that she not be the only one to perform the task. As such, the rest of the dearly resting student’s closest few friends had been drafted to clean and organize the few belongings their deceased peer left in her locker. Not that it was a duty that bore much esteem or one that was particularly desired, but one that had to be done. And it had to be done with the greatest of respect, something that the task force would attempt to portray.

Despite the sentimental importance of their job, Rarity resigned herself to merely flipping through the pages of the first interesting item that she had come across: namely a celebrity magazine. The halls were much less populated than usual because of the morbid atmosphere, but she found that it just made distracting herself all the easier. She slid her lace clad finger between two slivers of paper and flipped the colourful page as if it was much more enthralling than she actually found it. With her gloves stretching all the way under her three-quarter length sleeves and the masking of excessive foundation beneath the fabric, there was no possible way she might accidentally spot the numerical value of her own mortality.

“There’s that mathematics textbook she always claimed to have forgotten at home,” Twilight narrated as Fluttershy removed said object from it’s deceitful place behind scattered jewelry and accessories.

“I didn’t mind sharing mine with her,” Fluttershy murmured quietly, her eyelids falling fondly as her fingers traced the impressions left on the hard cover from when Pinkie Pie would jot notes to pass through the class.

“You’re not going to start crying again, are you?” Rainbow Dash asked with some disdainful tone, or perhaps it was uneasiness or disgust. Regardless, she made a scrunched up expression beneath the hang of her long black beanie to accompany her query.

“That’s why I put you two on sentimental sorting,” Twilight pointed a pen at the rude young girl and her blonde company, pausing from her inventory to tuck some stray hairs into her messy bun and adjust her crooked glasses. “Now Fluttershy, any more texts, or are we moving on to clothing yet?”

“Um, just a few notebooks. This one is hardly used, it could be recycled. But,” her voice quivered as her hands mirrored the motion, and she retrieved the other old notebook. It was stuffed with spare pieces of loose leaf paper, torn or worn down along the cardboard corners, and the wire binding had begun to twist out of shape. “I-I remember this one. It was where she kept her doodles, and ideas, and notes. She always carried this when…”

“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” Rainbow snatched it out of her weak hands and tossed it to Applejack casually, knowing to keep anything that might jerks some tears out away from the fragile girl.

“Thank you for keeping us on schedule,” Twilight iterated her appreciation and approval. Tugging her cardigan sleeve down over her wrists, she continued. “Who would have thought you could be so productive.”

“Uh, wow, uncalled for.” A click on her tongue accompanied the response.

“Do I have to be here?” the only boy in the group groaned and slammed his back against a nearby locker. “It seems like you guys have this handled, or whatever.”

“And cue Che acting all angsty in the corner. Truly tough as nails, fam. You’ve got us all fooled for sure.” The bright-headed girl scoffed and ignored the insulted look on Spike’s face.

“No I’m not. But I am sure bored, and this shit is trash,” he argued defiantly, his voice cracking as he tried to make his point. “No one wants all this garbage in her locker anyway, and I’m literally just standing here watching.”

“You’re fine doing that with porn though, right?” Rainbow casually remarked.

“Well then how about you do the clothes, Spike?” It was Twilight who handed him an article of Pinkie’s clothing, perhaps just to shut him up.

“I can’t even express how little interest I have in doing that,” he murmured in a curmudgeon tone, holding the object at the full extent of his arm and identifying it as a hoodie she once threw up in (and likely on).

“Can you please just help out? Please?” Twilight almost begged, though somehow it seemed like she was patronizing him.

He held his tongue as he thought up an appropriate response, but finally settled for being decent and succumbing to her pleadings. “Yeah, fine.”

His sneer searched the item reluctantly, turning it over in his hand twice before gathering the gall to dip his hands into the pockets. The first thing he found was cringeworthy, some kind of hard candy that was stuck to the lining of the pocket that left some crisp and crusty residue no matter how slowly he removed it. Scraping his tongue against his teeth like it might remove some foul taste in his mouth, he continued to sift through the sagging sweatshirt.

Though his attention span was short (especially considering he had so recently sucked fire through some grounded greenery he had hurriedly shoved into a nearly obsolete pipe he purchased at a smoke shop because he was pressured by the salesman to buy it and too proud to walk out with nothing), something sparked intrigue. In the left hand pocket, his fingers traced something that felt like a thin piece of plastic—the wrapper of that stray candy, perhaps. But the more he fondled it, the more he realized that it felt something like an undersized plastic bag.

Knowing how reckless Pinkie Pie had become lately, it was anyone’s guess what was hidden inside this ripped sweater, but Spike’s mind ran wild with ideas. Either way, he certainly thought that it was something valuable. Upon closer inspection (he cupped his hand with the item inside and caught a very slight glance under the shadow of the pocket), it looked very much like what he predicted: a clear bag with white, permissive contents. Whatever the case may be, he couldn’t risk taking it out and looking at it, in case someone saw and snatched it from him. As such, he acted like the whole article was disinteresting and slung it over his arm, careful to position his free hand nearest to his devious desire.

“Hey, uh, what’s all that crap in the bottom of her locker?” Spike tried to direct attention away from himself.

“Her locker is full of stuff, Spike. Pictures, clothes, old food, school work—or I suppose, lack thereof,” their most organized friend prattled on in an annoyed tone, incessantly tapping her red ballpoint against the clipboard she gripped like she anticipated sawing one end off of it.

“Why do you always talk about her like that,” Fluttershy passive aggressively interjected, like she was offended on Pinkie’s behalf.

“Like what? Realistically?” The most studious of the bunch pressed her clipboard against her chest and moved closer to the locker. “I’m not going to suppose she was perfect. She was real, we all are. And maybe if we had all been a little more involved, or tried harder to understand what all these numbers were saying…”

“What, she’d be alive?” Rainbow snorted at the prospect, shaking her head. “Sometimes, people just die. I mean, somebody has got to. You can’t keep everyone alive, or save us all or anything. Someone has to die. So that we all start noticing shit and cherishing it.”

“That’s,” Applejack spoke at last, though she wasn’t sure how to put it, “Sweet, I guess. In your crass way.”

“Great things don’t need to be said perfectly, love.” She winked at her girlfriend flirtatiously, shuffling the pictures in her hands that she had taken from under the magnets on Pinkie’s locker door.

“Oh, shoot,” Twilight chirped in a startled voice, though it was almost unheard under the clacking sound of her glasses falling from her face and hitting the scuffed laminate.

Twilight had been leaning in to see into the darkness of Pinkie’s locker when she had forgotten how loose her worn glasses were over her ears, which allowed them to leap to the floor. Spike took this opportunity, however, to quickly transfer the questionable, plastic sealed item into his own pocket. He covered it up by adjusting his undercarriage with a shift of his thigh and hoped no one noticed either move.

“This whole catalogue is très last season,” Rarity obliviously recounted her reading, sighing as she went back to the beginning to peruse it again.

“Il est inutile d'utiliser un mot français dans une phrase anglaise,” an irritable grumble came from Twilight’s chapped lips, but Rarity made no move to respond whether she understood the jab or not. “You may continue on to the bulk of the locker now Fluttershy. There’s nothing else on the top shelf, is there?”

“Um…” Fluttershy’s solemn eyes traced the small square object she had pressed against the rear wall along the shelf (which only she and Spike would have been tall enough to see, if the boy cared to glance inside). “No. It’s empty.”

“Wonderful. Carry on, are there any more clothes Spike can sort for us?” It seemed like she was trying to include him to make him feel better, but his expression betrayed her intentions.

“Two scarves, one leg warmer, and a crop top cardigan,” she meekly identified the articles as she passed them over to the reluctant Spike.

“Put it together, and we’ve got one really ridiculous outfit,” Rainbow Dash snidely commented.

“You can’t call it an outfit without any bottoms, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity stated like she was only half listening.

“You’re right. No pants? I call it sexy.” She slammed her back against the locker and looked Applejack over like she was dressing her down.

“Eww,” Spike grunted as he tossed the useless articles of clothing into the cardboard box beside the locker.

“I ain’t wearin’ it, whatever you call it,” Applejack replied in an even tone, pausing to look at one photograph she held in her thin fingers. “Hey, remember this?”

“That was at the Freshman Fair, wasn’t it?” Rainbow peered over at it curiously.

“She must have taken a thousand pictures that day, and dripped melted ice cream all over her brand new camera,” Twilight recalled accurately, a twitch of a smile crossing her features before they sunk back to stone.

Both Spike and Fluttershy scooted closer to take a peek at the picture Applejack still held. It was taken on an old park bench that had since been vandalized and fallen apart (one that bore the name of some deceased man none of them knew engraved in a plaque). It was before Spike had hit his growth spurt, and he and Rainbow Dash were at the same height. It looked particularly funny because they both had much longer hair back then. Fluttershy wasn’t fond of having her picture taken at all, but Rarity was beside her trying to cheer her up. Twilight was squinting in the sunlight, and had a headband holding her hair back instead of tieing it up in a bun. And of course, Pinkie Pie was striking some dynamic pose and sticking her tongue out. The only person who still looked just about the same was Applejack, who stood right up close to Rainbow Dash as always. They couldn’t even remember who had taken the picture of them all, but there it was.

It seemed like a time long lost. It was before a lot of things: before Applejack and Rainbow Dash were dating, before Twilight needed glasses, before Pinkie Pie would stay out late, before stress or drama or really understanding anything. It was clear, that it was before they had their Stopwatches.

“We were all just kids then,” Applejack spoke so carefully of the subject, her soft eyes tracing the history in her hands.

“We still are,” Twilight replied calmly, but it didn’t seem like any consolation.

Their attention was torn away by a stifled whimpering, and at first they seemed uncertain as to where it came from. But as Twilight turned back towards Pinkie’s locker, she noticed that Fluttershy had slumped down on the floor beside it, biting her knees with tears spurting from her tightly closed eyes. With the familiar square digital object wrapped around her wrist and tucked into her long sleeve to keep it all for herself, Fluttershy wept with increasing volume. Her friends nervously exchanged glances, but all came to the same decision as to what to do. It was Applejack who moved first to amend the situation.

“Oh, there there sugarcube, it’s alright,” her calm and maternal voice soothed the girl but did not stop the sobbing. “Y’all don’t have to do any more o’ this, okay? C’mon now, let’s get you up.”

Applejack leaned down to her slumped height and wrapped her arms around the shrinking girl, gently lifting her into a limp embrace and rising her to her shaking knees. Her tears flowed freely onto her confidant’s button-up, but the blonde said nothing about it. Gently directing her away from the scene now rich with discomfort and heavy with sympathy, Applejack nodded to Rainbow Dash to finish what Fluttershy could not.

“Th-Thank, thank you,” her weak voice squeaked out of her thin lips.

“Don’t you worry about it kiddo,” Applejack continued, even after she felt some tension after uttering the same colloquial word that Rainbow Dash had painted the fragile girl with. “Let’s get you some hot tea and fresh air.”

Once the cries could not be heard from the site of Pinkie’s old locker, Spike spoke up, “Jeez, that girl is a fucking wreck.”

“Don’t be such a dick, dick,” Rainbow Dash smacked him on the back of the head before casually striding over to Pinkie’s locker.

“Ouch, you’re the dick,” he snapped as he reached out to try and smack her back, but she was too far away so instead he placed both hands over his bright pink skull.

“Okay, we’ve got an old tupperware container, with what looks like a taffy sandwich in it. Gross. We’ve got three deflated balloons, a handful of scattered confetti, a paper airplane,” Rainbow listed off the items as she tossed them into the cardboard box beside the locker with no regard to organization. “There’s like a bunch of Twilight’s borrowed pens and pencils, I can tell because all of those damn things are monogramed like you have your own fucking law practise.”

“It improves the chances that I’ll get them returned to me,” Twilight casually replied as she scribbled down what Rainbow Dash tossed out.

“Or you can just wait until we die and find them with the rest of our crap bequeathals,” she mused in a rough tone.

“Easy there,” Twilight warned her, casting a serious look at the distracted girl.

“Candy wrappers, miscellaneous geometry supplies,” she continued narrating as she threw items haphazardly out of their places.

“This is going to bruise,” Spike grumbled in a much angrier voice than usual.

“I wonder if this comes in a pale lavender,” Rarity added absolutely nothing to the conversation.

“A calculator with the batteries removed, probably to put in her vibrator or some shit,” she noted in a disgusted voice, noticing sticky substances between the keys.

“That’s an unlikely assumption,” Twilight responded carelessly.

“I’m serious dude, why do you always have to fucking hit me?” Spike prattled on until his usually low voice squeaked in a juvenile way that betrayed his attempt to sound intimidating.

“You gonna tell mommy?” Rainbow mocked him in a teasing voice. “Sticky notes in the shape of a heart, nail polish in blue and yellow, tampons.”

“Do try to keep it down, I’m reading here.” With a flip of her dainty wrist, Rarity flipped another page.

“Yeah, I’m sure the articles are very enthralling,” a sarcastic remark escaped Twilight in a near whisper.

“I’m sick of you treating me like a child, Rainbow Dash,” another bark from Spike was aimed at his friend, though she didn’t seem concerned.

“A cell charger, crumpled up tissues, some fluffy scrunchie thing.” Rainbow Dash didn’t even bother addressing the boy to whom she spoke, “Quit acting like a kid and I’ll stop treating you like one. A shirt button, more trash. Trash. Trash.”

Directing their attention away from their own duties and interests, the bell rang through the desolate hall indicating the end of the period. It was then that they realized something was very different, something between them. They became aware of themselves in relation to those who they once called friends, and for some reason the word felt strange. It was tense. They were more aggressive, or distant, or irritated, but none of them dared utter it aloud. Silently finishing their tasks, Rainbow reached in and grabbed the last item in Pinkie’s locker.

“A pink highlighter,” Rainbow iterated as she turned the object around between the tips of her fingers. She scowled, flicking it over her shoulder towards the box without consideration, muttering, “Too bad she never knew what was important enough to highlight.”

“Rainbow,” Twilight stated the girl’s name in a hush, but instead of listening, she whirled around and snatched up the very full box in her defined arms.

“I’ll get this to the counsellor, her parents can pick it up after school, if any of it is worth keeping,” she harshly stated as she walked off in a stride.

Spite irritably watched his best friend stroll off, rolling the small baggie of questionable substance around in his pocket out of sight. His face fell as the others muttered barely anything before parting ways. There was some kind of tug in his stomach: guilt, or shame, or detest. But he felt right to have stolen and hidden away his intentions. Those people who fought as they emptied a girl’s life out of her former casual cubby, their behaviour made him both uneasy and upset. He didn’t want to conform to their standards and bear chagrin from their conceit. He squeezed the item in his soft hands, cursing his simplicity and youth.

Perhaps he should have been closer to Pinkie Pie in his own right, if that small ivory package was what he thought it was, then perhaps they might have gotten along after all. Not that any of his other friends would seem to have been the kind to understand in the slightest, even Rainbow Dash steered clear of drugs to his knowledge. Yet now, it seemed that he would earnestly chase his potential vices alone. Maybe he should have been alone more often, as it seemed there was some supposed stain on his friendships. The scuff and skid marks along the poorly buffed floor etched black marks into his head, marring his conception that any hall he once walked was ever clean at all. Nothing was clean.

Except, perhaps, Twilight Sparkle’s glasses, which she incessantly wiped with her sleeve or shirt tail. They were not, however, in immaculate condition otherwise. They bore a small crack against the frame for some time now, but as she made her way to class and habitually cleaned them, she noticed that the crack had grown a hair longer. She frowned at it, squinting her eyes as if that might change it back.

Twilight was always something of a klutz, though she preferred to promote her more prestigious qualities if queried (and attributed her lack of mastery in the physical world with her over attentiveness to her various intellectual pursuits). Therefore it wasn’t entirely uncommon that she might happen to break a material possession or two in her wake. She hadn’t even considered, as she adorned those slightly crooked glasses once more, that she might be increasingly distracted lately, and more prone to such accidents.

She preferred this particular course to many others, she noted as she stepped into her usual classroom and took her familiar seat (front row, second from the right; as all but one of her professors were right handed, and therefore more prone to point out their question answering students with that dominant hand). It was probably because this professor’s teaching style was lecture-heavy, giving her more time to study rather than waste time doing projects or group-work. Besides, the man’s rather dull appearance left no reason to be distracted from the course material, and he was very well read.

“Please, find your seats,” he was as prompt as always, and Twilight quite literally titled her head back to look up at him as he approached his lectern (the throne of the classroom, which many new-age teachers failed to acknowledge). “I trust you know where they are by now.”

“Excuse me,” Twilight spoke in a voice that seemed like she was trying to keep the conversation between the two of them, but quite clearly intended to draw the attention of her disinterested classmates. “But are we going to be moving out of the Romantic period soon? It is all too… phenomenally portrayed, yet entirely mundane.”

“Were Wordsworth, Keats and Blake too dull for you?” His tone sounded something like a taunt, though he was rarely the teasing type. He was always the quoting kind, though, “Oh, ‘you have given your heart away, a sordid boon’.”

“I was underwhelmed,” the girl quietly responded, organizing the notebook and pens on her desk to the way that she liked them.

“Very well, perhaps you will be more kind to Eliot.” After a short breath, and making certain that most students had taken their seats, he raised his voice to the class. “Open your texts to page one-hundred and six, if you will.”

Twilight always felt challenged by her professor, but she was not deterred. She needed this distraction as much as any other. As she went to flip to the page, her glasses wobbled down her nose, and it took her an extra few seconds longer than normal to adjust them and get to the correct page. By then, her professor was speaking aloud once more.

“Though many roots of Modernism can be traced to the late nineteenth century, we have a great influx of these works in many creative fields in the beginning of the twentieth century: Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Remarque, Pound, and as I mentioned and you may now be reading on the page, T.S. Eliot.” He was correct of course, the page that his pupils stared at bore the markings of such a name.

“Uh, what does the T.S. stand for?” some illiterate boy (or he might as well have been in Twilight’s mind) asked an unnecessary question before he was called upon.

“Thomas Stearns, but that’s not really a relevant question,” her professor dully responded. Running his fingers down the buttons of the dress shirt beneath his low necked and wide cardigan, he continued without pause. “He is an important figure in Modernist literature, and an excellent source on the Modernist idea. He was, among many things, a social critic, and a literary marvel. You may have heard a particularly powerful line, and perhaps a personal favourite: ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’.”

“Dust,” Twilight found herself quietly repeating, and remembered suddenly the smell of the fireworks on the night of the funeral. She shook off the uneasy feeling in her gut and put on a scholarly act.

“He is a good figure to aid in my introduction of our next focus.“ He paused as he noticed Twilight Sparkle shift in he seat and readily raise her hand. “Yes, is there a question?”

As her query had been noticed, Twilight proceeded to pose her proposal, “Concerning your choice of quotation, professor. Isn’t the emphasis on horror and dread more reminiscent of Romanticism?”

“Only if you consider mortality horrifying.” His amused smirk played tricks on her, but he did not elaborate on his notion. He did, however, go on with the lecture. “While Romanticism does indeed focus on awe, primarily of nature, imagination and nostalgia, Modernism, as represented in many of T.S. Eliot's works, makes a very conscious break from previous genres, even alluding to them. There is no definite order, or truth. There is only a reaction to it, to war, to politics, to society, and yes, to death.”

Twilight was silent in wake of his answer. She was always the first to speak up when she knew the answer to a problem, but at the moment, she was quiet. Something about the topic of death or order had stalled her, and she blindly stared at the page in thought. That is, until her usual cue arose once more.

“Do I have a volunteer to read the poem aloud?” She jolted when she heard his voice once more. As conditioned, she steadily rose her right hand, and was the only one to do so. He called on her, “Twilight Sparkle.”

“Ahem,” she cleared her nervous voice, lifting the small poetry book into her hands and reading it out loud, “A Penny for the Old Guy…”

No one seemed to notice the vacant chair just behind Twilight’s, as often the girl who occupied the space hid behind her more confident friend. This particular day, she had been escorted by Applejack to the nurse’s office, and from there, sent home. There was abnormal lenience for her, due to the recent loss of her dear friend. Instead of spending her afternoon in class, Fluttershy made her way home and closed herself off in her bedroom. It felt eerily quiet in there without her cell phone buzzing every few minutes with a text, but she needed the silence.

Her room felt terribly empty, with everything left nearly in its place as usual. The bed was wrinkled and ill made, but she went over and sat on one side of it anyway. Glancing once more over at the door to make sure it appeared to be locked, she relaxed and pulled her covers up over her back and arms. She pressed her pale lips together and felt around in her sleeve. With a small tug, she removed the stolen item from her loose cuffs, feeling its tremendous weight, though it weighed nearly nothing at all.

She was finally alone, with nothing but her racing thoughts and a dead girl’s most cherished possession. The small item shook between her fingers as she stared down at it between the folds of blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders. Despite all the extra layers she covered herself with, her whole body felt numb and cold. And there, at the extent of her arm was a nearly minuscule piece of technology that somehow represented something that she had lost, something that could give her some peace or tear her apart.

Though she had seen the device a thousand times, she seldom had the opportunity to hold it in her own hands. As such, it took her a good half moment to find how to even turn it on. As she did though, it lit up in her small hands and displayed a brand logo on the tiny square screen. It automatically showed her an image of her feet and floor, as it was set to be ready for pictures upon starting, but she eventually fumbled through the menu enough to find the saved pictures on the memory card. With her thin fingers absentmindedly tracing the circular lens on the rear side, her thumbs set to flicking through the pictures displayed before her.

The very first, or chronologically most recent, image she saw was a very dark frame containing some poorly angled image of Pinkie Pie’s shirt. There was a small play button pasted in the middle, indicating that it was a video rather than an image, but not only did Fluttershy have no idea how to play the thing, she wasn’t sure that she had any inclination to do so. There was no way she could have heard any muffled murmurings from her deceased friend, even if it was merely a second or two long video that she accidentally took while trying to take a photograph.

Instead of continuing backwards through chronology of the images taken, Fluttershy accidentally went the wrong direction, landing her at the very start of the camera roll. She didn’t even need to check any date to be reminded that the picture she saw (based upon the fashion choices, poor composition, and obvious carefree cheeriness) was taken years ago. It was obvious that Pinkie Pie had opted out of clearing her memory card on a regular basis. However, the picture remained there not through negligence, but due to the fact that the owner of the camera had selected to protect the photo from careless deletion. There must have been a reason for it.

The picture was a selfie that Pinkie Pie had taken, even though she sported frizzy hair blowing around wildly and many spots of acne on her pubescent face. Her teeth were still crooked, despite visibly having her braces at the time, and her thick, unkempt eyebrows reminded Fluttershy that there was a time before she would doll herself up. There was a time before Pinkie Pie had lost herself.

Indeed, Fluttershy was forced to remember, Pinkie was once the kind of girl who merely loved to spend time with her friends. Fluttershy couldn’t even pinpoint the time when that had shifted into some kind of need to throw herself into any social situation, with strangers and friend alike, to perhaps escape whatever was eating her up inside. She had thrown herself into the noise and the bustle and the night, by the time she decided to end it.

There at her fingertips was a girl that she had not seen in a very long time: throwing surprise parties for her friends, goofing around at school, annoying everyone into liking her, and cataloguing the entire journey. Fluttershy curled up even closer to herself, squeezing into a little ball like she wished she could bury her head in the sand coloured sheets. It was terribly haunting, realizing that she had pushed such a fragile girl away, and never even noticed what had changed within her.

“I’m so sorry, Pinkie,” she whispered softly, her face tugging at the corners like a frown was clambering up.

Her hands fell from limp wrists and she slammed her watering eyes shut. Her meek voice whimpered pathetic sobs beneath the edge of her blanket, and she did not even stop as she felt liquid dripping from her wide nostrils. Sniffling, she shuffled around in her bed before falling on one side and nudging herself deeper into the comfort of her mattress.

However, it wasn’t comfortable for long. With a jolt, Fluttershy flailed herself out of bed and nearly fell onto the floor, winding the blanket around her open arms. Gasping to gather her frantic breath, she darted her eyes over the wrinkled sheets until she spotted what had disrupted her rest. What first appeared to be dust caught her attention, but the closer she looked, the more obvious it became that it wasn’t just any dust. A horrified expression fell over her features like the shadow of death, and her aghast gasp twisted and tangled in her throat. Just the way that sand could be found all over the house shortly after a beach vacation, so sneaky and plentiful were the spilled ashes from Pinkie Pie’s urn.

Which, too, inhibited a young boy, who was otherwise lost in his bedroom mirror. Between fingerprints and pretentious band stickers adhered to display the illusion of diverse music taste, Spike stared into his own drooping green eyes. They watered against the prodding from his digits, and he squinted to see himself over the blurs of his tears and his own slight intoxication. The mirror (a gift from his mother when he turned thirteen that didn’t match any of the decor he had selected for himself since then) shook on its uneven screws as he bent in closer and bumped the dresser to which it was affixed.

He could smell the faint residue of marijuana smoke on his hands as they were drawn so close to his face, but he actually kind of liked the scent. It almost reminded him of a sense of uncertainty and danger, which although it made him anxious and terrified, also connected him to a fabricated personality he wished that he could replicate. However, it stung his eyes as he touched them. There seemed to still be some lingering pain from when he had been doused with Pinkie’s ashes during the firework display. He searched the corners between his tear ducts and his eyelid folds, but it the deeper he looked the more he became sure that it was the paranoia setting in. Or perhaps he had just scratched his cornea, he was too distracted to be critical or certain.

“Just my fucking luck,” he grumbled to himself with a coarse voice, pausing to cough up some phlegm he didn’t know he bore. Hacking it up and spitting it into his wastebasket, Spike raised his eyebrows and rubbed his closed eyes with his thumb and index finger.

Giving up on seeking what tormented his optics, Spike backed up clumsily and flopped back onto his own bed. There he laid, feeling the room slowly tilt around him as tears seeped from his burning eyes. Yet, his curious palms met the insides of his deep, linty pockets, and within them, a weak plastic sack of curious substance. His intrigue swirled, and the tips of his stained fingers perused and pondered the interest in what lurked in such a devilish package.

But instead, he retrieved his cell phone from the other pocket of his pants, casting the small package into the abyss between his mattresses like he was angry with his urge to discover its magic. His phone was a bit tough to get out while he was laying down, and the bulge always felt unnatural, which directed his attention there regularly. Slipping his personal pattern code, Spike stared at the blank screen as though he wished that someone would reach out from it. Yet it was still, and gradually faded to dim.

His fingers lit up as he jumped around through navigation and found his text messages, without needing to scroll down the list of recently sent before finding the conversation he was set on. Staring at it for several seconds like he was seeking new information, Spike reread the last text that he sent to someone he considered to be his best friend. It was poorly written, it was vague, and it was just one of about half a dozen unanswered notes in a row.

His frustrated swallow pulled at his frown, and his shoulders tensed up beside his irritated expression. Contemplating writing out another overly aggressive and analytical message had his mind spinning, but his body remained still. As much as he wanted the attention, the concern, the pity, he didn’t want to be perceived as just how desperate he was. So instead, he just scrutinized his own sent messages over the last few days.

“Dude, why aren’t you messaging me back? You’re being such a cunt. Just ditch her and come over. I knew this would happen when you two got together, it’s fucked up and unfair to me. We were friends first.” He could almost hear the contempt in his head as he read it over. “Sorry I guess, I’m being irrational or whatever. I just hate it when you have other things to do and don’t include me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I miss you.”

A heavy sigh blew out from his nostrils and his knuckles tensed up. He wanted to say a thousand other things, some more angry and some more pleading or pathetic, but he knew it was best to hold back. Whatever the reason may be, the girl he used to spend every other weekend playing games and pulling pranks with, she seemed to be slipping away. And it tore him apart more than he realized. One more text couldn’t hurt.

“Pinkie’s dead, Dash. And we all will be soon. If you can do whatever you want, then so can I. Whatever these manipulative games of yours are, I’m done. I’m done being your little bitch, and I’m done living in your shadow.” With a pound of his thumb, he vengefully hit the send button and threw his phone up onto his pillow.

He hardly waited for any semblance of a response before he crawled and shimmied his way up towards his window, pushing it open bit by bit with his clumsy hand. He sparked a stolen lighter three or more times before managing to catch a light on the end of some joint he had stored in a crease under his mattress, and though he pretended to be apathetic, he was careful to discretely hide each puff behind his cupped hand and through the screen of his window. He stifled a cough and pretended to adore the disgusting flavour, as if he was putting on a show for someone who wasn’t near at all.

Boredly watching the remnant smoke seep out of his nose, Spike felt his body tingle and relax against the comfort of his lumpy bed. Perhaps he wasn’t just angry with Rainbow Dash, but with all of them, with the situation, and with himself. There was all this tension, it was almost tangible. The lot of them had been distant with each other for the days following the funeral, each interaction feeling forced and stiff, and they had hardly seen each other at all until they cleaned out her locker. Which reminded him, and he wiggled closer to the side of the bed while holding his joint up against the window.

His free hand fumbled under his untucked sheet and into the crack between his mattresses. Pushing past the corners of explicit magazines, Spike fingered around until he found the small folded plastic baggie. He paused, considering what to do with the strange discovered item, and curiously considering his own safety and boundaries. With a frown, he discarded it all.

Another long drag finished the thin blunt her had clumsily rolled himself, and he squashed it out in a bottlecap he left on his windowsill for that exact purpose. He didn’t bother trying to hide the evidence of his transgressions this time, and carelessly flipped onto his back to inspect the new substance he came across. Holding it just above his face, he turned it over in his hand to get a feel for it. His watering eyes still stung, but he stared at the white powder like he was gazing into the eyes of a lover.

“You seductive siren,” his slightly intoxicated voice growled in a low tone, and it didn’t even sound like himself. But he loved that feeling.

He brought it up to his nose and smelled at it, as thought he might know what it smelled like and better identify it. But of course, that was not the case. He did, however, make up his mind about it in that self loathing and daring moment. Sitting up and opening the screenless side of his bedroom window wider than his whole body, he felt the cool bite of late autumn warning him against his terrible intention. But he heeded no one, not anymore.

“You underestimated me, Dash.” He whispered to an absent friend, feeling his adrenaline pulse down to his soft fingertips. His green eyebrows fell lower over his eyes, and through his teeth he promised, “I’m not the little pussy that you think I am, I’ll prove it.”

Slipping the ivory bag into his deep pocket, Spike grabbed either side of his window and pulled his body out through the opening. The old, hanging lattice just outside his room was rickety and bore the corpses of deceased vines, but he trusted it to carry him the few feet to the ground. Jumping off before he was too close to the grass, he tried to stifle the sound of his heels crashing to the dirt by slumping down carefully after. Slinking under the ledge of the kitchen window and hugging the wall, he sneaked his way towards the alley behind his house, only pausing to grab his skateboard from leaning against the garage.

He ducked his head just low enough to hide behind the fence until he was past any vantage point of his house. Falling into a jive of a stride, he felt himself grinning with pride after successfully sneaking out once more. He didn’t care at all about any potential consequences, not right now. His eager fingers twitched until her removed them from his pockets, shaking them out like he was about to start break dancing.

The first place that came to mind for him to go to was the skatepark, perhaps because he was hoping to find Rainbow Dash there and show her how hardcore he was pretending to be. Either way, he made his way there by throwing his skateboard down in front of himself and jumping onto it. It wasn’t that far from his house, and upon arrival he noticed a group of guys that he only recognized by seeing from a distance regularly. He knew enough to label them as Wonderbolts, a skateboarding group that Rainbow Dash had briefly been a part of before she bought her MG and sunk all her time into that ride and Applejack. She had also said something about them being reckless and selfish jackasses, but Spike was drawn to that kind of attitude right then.

For some reason, seeing them seemed to set a small fire under his skin. Like he knew that he needed to impress these slightly older kids to gain some confidence or street credit. He lightly slapped his hand against his cargo pants to feel for the strange package he carried around, and bet his faith on the contents.

Before he fully reached the skatepark, he removed the plastic sack from his pocket and carefully opened just a small corner, but hesitated thinking of where he could place it. There was no flat surface or adequate cover, so he knelt down next to his board and pretended to check the axles and wheels. He bent closer and placed just a pinch of the strange white substance on the flattest and least worn edge of his board, protecting it from the wind with his hand. Checking around himself once more to make sure he was just as invisible as he ever felt, he dove in.

“Pinkie, lend me some of that damn confidence, would you?” He whispered to the dust in his eyes, and quickly dropped his head before breathing the entire patch of powder up into his nostril.

Of course, he was inexperienced, and managed to scatter a few particles of it on his face and hands before he started coughing and tapping his thumb against his stinging nose. His eyes watered once more and he squinted to see if the Wonderbolts had seen his pathetic display, which they didn’t seem to have noticed at all. Sniffing the substance back once more, he was almost certain that he had just snorted salt or some kind of sugar or sour candy lining. Knowing Pinkie Pie, he would not have been surprised.

He stood up slowly, his shoulders sagging over his chest like they were too heavy for his weak muscles. He closed his eyes as he breathed in some clearer air, and could still feel the tingle from his last joint. But after going through all that trouble, he wasn’t about to back down and bitch out like Rainbow would have teased him for doing. He reached down and snatched his board up, wiping his face with the cuff of his black long sleeved undershirt and tapping any remnants off his deck.

Shaking his shoulders as if knocking the monkey off his back, Spike loosened himself up as he approached the bowl. He stared down at the sinking wall of concrete, and for a second it seemed to be actually falling deeper. With a huff of air, he shook his head roughly to get himself focused and psyched up. As he stood over the edge of the dip, he could feel the attention of the Wonderbolts gradually shifting to him.

“Don’t let me biff in front of all these guys,” Spike begged as though someone was listening and could protect him. “Please.”

Perhaps, if she was there, Rainbow Dash could have skated with him and watched out for him, as she did when she first taught him, but that was now a distant memory. He glanced down at his Stopwatch, peeling his sleeve back to get the best view. There it was, ticking away with some long number that he couldn’t care to remember. As he shifted his weight towards the farther edge of his skateboard, he could see it dropping in expectancy. Further and further it ticked away as he leaned closer to the drop, when suddenly he wasn’t sure what the numbers said at all.

Raising his head to look at the great obstacles of terrain that laid before him, he let his arm utterly drop to his side. Without another thought, his now numbing body tumbled forwards and he fell into the rhythm of the roll. The wind was harsh against his skin as he gained speed, but it tickled him like gentle feathers and guided him towards his tricks and turns.

There was a jolt of adrenaline and dopamine, and it felt like he was jumping out of bed and waking up for the first time. His eyes went wide despite the scratch of cold wind making them water, and an unstoppable grin sliced over his features. He felt great. He felt alive. He was invincible.

The wheels seemed to roll over air, and before he even knew it, he had traversed an edge of the concrete dip flawlessly. It was euphoric, this strange weightless sensation, and he chased it up the edge of the nearest quarter pipe and onto the neighbouring rail. But like anything else, it didn’t last long.

Skidding too quickly over a lip, Spike flew off his board and slammed against the ground in a ragdoll fashion, finally smashing his elbow against the flying deck of his board. However, despite the harmonious hums and haws of the boys just across the park, Spike immediately bounced back to his feet like they were the ones in control. His body still felt electric and full, and despite the blood trickling down his arm he leapt towards his board and flipped it back with a strangely graceful step.

He raced off again, his mind miles behind his seemingly haunted body, flipping or flying over the park like he had been born there. He was inaccurate and unsteady, but for some reason his spectators were captivated by his earnest attempts and his ability to bounce back like his body was made of rubber or tar. If nothing else, it was something interesting to look at.

But Spike fed off of it like he had been famished his whole life, adoring the few hoots and hollers he earned. Taking off of another pipe, he smashed his wheels against the flat concrete and glided over to the strangers he yearned to impress. Flipping his pink hair (and momentarily forgetting how silly the colour made him look, according to his friends), Spike stepped off his board and posed as though he knew how he was supposed to stand. A few of the kids in the group looked condescendingly at each other, but the tallest of the bunch pinched out his cigarette and tossed it to the ground haphazardly.

“Dude, you must be made of steel to take that much of a beating and keep walking,” he incredulously noted, running his dark hand through his slicked back blue hair. Spike had to try quite hard to actually comprehend what the boy was saying, but fought to stay aware as he finished his compliment or insult. “Or just fucking crazy.”

“Maybe a little of both,” Spike breathlessly responded, feeling his heart beating in his throat.

“I’ve seen you before,” a girl with bright orange hair spoke up, shifting her own cigarello from one side of her mouth to the other. “You Rainbow Dash’s friend?”

“Not lately,” he casually replied, rolling his lips under his teeth like he was making sure they were still there.

“Yeah, us either,” she responded into the filter of her smoke. “You’re a shitty skateboarder, but those balls are something to look at.”

“Oh shit,” Spike jumped back and looked at his pants as though he was afraid that he had accidentally zipped his scrotum into his fly. Noticing that she wasn’t be literal, he acted aloof and awkwardly laughed at himself.

“Dude this kid is a joke, Soarin,” she laughed loudly. “But I like it. Yo, you’re weird as shit, and it’s kind of cool. You smoke?”

“I do more than that,” Spike casually implied, twitching one eyebrow at the girl like he was interested in something harder.

“Ahh,” the fellow named as Soarin seemed impressed by the response, but it looked like the lot of them were going to take off without him regardless. He nodded back at Spike acceptingly and spoke one more comment before he ditched, “Spitfire and I have our ways around these parts. Let me know if you need anything, buddy. I know a guy.”

“Thanks, man,” Spike mouthed the colloquial word but it felt very strange to his ears and his lips.

Even though the prospect of conversing with Wonderbolts was usually a magnanimous aspiration for Spike, it felt very slow compared to the thrill he experienced flying and tumbling over concrete like a madman. Considering that was the case, he awkwardly slunk out of the conversation and skidded back over to the dips of the park. His eager, twitching fingers slammed back into his pocket as he greedily sought out the fantastic magic he had been entranced by.

Wide eyes earnestly gawked at the corner of the plastic bag that peeked meekly from his deep pocket, and his blood ran hot from their romantic connection. His thumb tapped and brushed over the deck of his board as he carried it, as if he was readying a spot for his next indulgence. Though he felt entirely lightheaded and distracted, he guided himself and his little curious friend to the edge of the obstacles. It was by no means secluded enough, nor private, but he readily dropped his board and set to making a show of fixing his wheels once more.

The white powder creased a thin line over his deck and utterly captivated the young boy, even as the whole lot disappeared into his breath once more. The euphoria was too enthralling to ignore in favour of any better judgement. Spike grinned until it felt like his skin might split, as he was so glad that none of his friends were around to scold him for any of it. He was free.

Author's Note

Wow, soooo Spike's becoming a bit "hardcore", hmm? And right when all his friends are growing apart. Can't be good. Also at this rate, this story is gonna shift into a "Mature" rating... What do you think?