A Hard Mane’s Night
By Alaborn
Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc. I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein.
She released a puff of air from between her lips, the slight air current pushing an errant strand of her amaranth mane into place.
“Perfect.”
Babs Seed spent most of her life fighting with a mane that just wouldn’t stay in place, and only recently figured out a way to wear her tail long without it becoming a tangled mess. But she didn’t think twice about it. It was just something she did. Then, one fateful day, something changed.
That day started like any other, with school. Boring classes, tedious lessons, and droning teachers tormented her as, outside, a fine spring day went to waste. As soon as the school bell rang, Babs ran to the overgrown lot that housed the clubhouse for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Manehattan Branch.
There weren’t any crusades planned that day, but she knew somepony would come by to hang out. And some ponies did, both the current crusaders and the “graduates” who had found their special talent. Close to a dozen ponies showed up that afternoon, and they passed the time shooting the breeze and kicking around a hoofball.
Babs had just finished closing up the clubhouse when she heard somepony approaching. She heard sobbing. Babs investigated and recognized the crying foal as Simoon, a pegasus filly who was one of the first Manehattan Crusaders. She was all gussied up in a fancy dress. Simoon was from somewhere across the ocean, where her parents were big shots, and while she and Babs had little in common, they shared being blank flanks and being bothered by the same bullies.
“What’s the matter, Simoon?” Babs asked.
“Goldie and Clover, they… they did this!” she sobbed. Simoon turned, revealing that the bullies had stuck a huge wad of gum in Simoon’s brown mane. It looked like she had tried to remove it, which only made it an even more tangled mess.
“Ooh. That looks nasty,” Babs said.
“The ball is this evening! I can’t go looking like this! I would bring shame on my family. I... I don’t know what to do, Babs.”
“Now, hold your horses, Simoon. I ain’t gonna let you down.” Babs had tamed her own mane on that really humid day when they had school pictures. A little gum was a piece of cake.
Babs rummaged through the clubhouse, finding a pair of scissors in the pile of art supplies. She took the scissors in her mouth and carefully cut the gum out of Simoon’s mane.
Babs frowned as she saw what she had left to work with. Inspiration struck as she recalled a lesson from art class. Running the strands of hair from the other side of her head over the blade, she added a slight curl to Simoon’s normally straight mane, and arranged an artistic wave of hair atop her head, just in front of the ear. Using her own brush, she swept the rest of Simoon’s mane to one side of her neck.
Babs borrowed some hairpins from her own mane to secure her design, and finally appraised her work. It was a manestyle both geometric and organic, calling to mind the Grand Dame of Bridleway, Lime Light. “Whoa,” she muttered.
“Is it bad?” Simoon asked hesitantly.
“No, it looks good!” Babs replied. She ducked into the clubhouse, finding a small mirror buried in a pile of junk. “See?”
Simoon gasped, and then smiled brightly. “Thank you, thank you, a thousand times, thank you,” she said.
“Anything for a fellow Crusader,” Babs said. “You’d better hurry and get to your shindig, Simoon. Knock ‘em dead, will ya?”
As Simoon galloped away, Babs Seed smiled. “That felt really good,” she said. Babs felt warm all over, but especially on her flank. She looked, and then jumped and hollered. “My cutie mark!”
Babs Seed shook her head, breaking from her revelry. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Her mane was still perfect, which was the most important thing this morning. Long story short, the manestyle she gave Simoon turned heads at her little party, the bigwigs talked, and Babs got an invitation to learn from the greatest manestylist in all of Manehattan, Vital Bassoon.
She hailed a cab, which took her to the stylist’s famed shop on Celestia Avenue. With one last check of her mane in the reflection of the shop’s glass door, she stepped inside.
Babs recognized Vital Bassoon, an elderly but still energetic earth pony stallion with a perfect silver mane. The only other pony in the shop was a chubby unicorn colt around her age, also with a scissors cutie mark. He definitely wasn’t from the neighborhood, but for some reason he looked familiar.
“You are all here. Good,” Vital Bassoon said. “To become a master manestylist, you must make the customer look good. As I have often said to my clients, ‘If you don’t look good, we don’t look good’. Babs, make this colt look good!
Babs swallowed hard. The colt’s orange mane was messy, sticking out as if he had just woken up. It would require some work to style. But she was in the salon of the greatest manestylist in the world, with access to all his tools and mane care products. She looked to Vital Bassoon, and then to the colt. “Sit down,” she ordered. “We got a lot of work to do.”
She kicked the chair and spun it around, and then tilted it back, the colt’s head resting in the sink. With a nudge to the counter, a bottle of shampoo fell over, its contents falling on his hair. Shampoo and warm water combined into a rich lather under Babs’s hooves. With a flourish, she rinsed his mane.
Returning the chair to its upright position, Babs went to work. She expertly wielded the tools of her trade, grasping a comb with her tail while her mouth worked the scissors. She evened out his mane, tamed the uneven mess around his neck, and combed his mane with a classic part. The colt wouldn’t be mistaken for a Bridleway actor, but he’d fit right in with all those ponies on Wall Street.
Babs turned to face Vital Bassoon, a confident grin on her face. That grin faded as the old stallion’s expression changed to a frown. “What is the meaning of this?” he spat. “You call yourself a manestylist?”
“But I…” Babs started. She turned, and the colt’s mane was back to its previous messy state. It was dry as well, as if she had never touched it.
“Out! OUT!” Vital Bassoon yelled.
Babs dashed out the door. She leaned against the wall of the building, breathing heavily. A foreleg crossed her withers; the same colt pulled Babs into a comforting embrace.
“There, there,” he said. “You already know what your special talent is. But maybe you should set your sights lower.”
Babs Seed stood behind the chair of her beauty salon. The chatter of ponies and the whirring of the bulky mane dryers made it hard to think. The stench of dye and chemicals was overpowering. Babs remembered this place. As a small filly, she wasted many a Saturday sitting, waiting, while her mother gossiped and got her mane done.
A frumpy mare sat in Babs’s chair. “What’ll it be?” Babs asked.
“Oh, the usual,” the mare said, her Broncs accent prominent.
“One usual, coming right up.” Babs attacked the mare’s mane with gusto. She worked gel and mousse into it until her hooves felt as sticky as cotton candy. Up, up the hair went, as she teased the mare’s mane into a massive beehive.
What was she doing? A pony’s mane was a canvas, her canvas. She could do so much with it. Why was she doing a manestyle that was already old-fashioned when she was young?
“It’s perfect,” the mare said. “Just like always. Just like everypony here.”
At once, the mane dryers lifted, revealing the now dry beehive manestyles of each mare. Babs looked around. Everypony in the shop had the same manestyle.
The mare slapped Babs on the shoulder. “But it never looks as good as it does on you.”
Babs turned, seeing her reflection in the dirty mirror. Her own mane was in a beehive, as tall as her. And she was wearing curlers in her tail.
Babs screamed.
“There, there.” The same colt held her close. “Let’s go home.”
Babs Seed lay slumped on her old couch. Her ear twitched as it rubbed on the threadbare part of the cushion, but she didn’t care. “I thought my cutie mark meant I was going to be somepony,” she muttered.
“You’re somepony to me,” the colt said. “Maybe you just need a break.”
“A break?”
“Yes, a break. I can work longer hours at the barbershop, and you can stay home with the twins.”
“The what?” Babs said. The sound of crying foals filled the room. She looked down and saw two fillies, one unicorn and one earth pony, cradled in her forelegs.
“Hush, hush,” the colt said softly to the fillies as he lifted them in his magic. “Mommy needs her rest.” A blanket drifted over Babs’ form and magically tucked her in. “Especially with the triplets on the way.”
“Say what?” Babs looked down, and saw her belly was swollen. Really swollen. She tried to scramble to her hooves, but being thoroughly wrapped in a blanket, she instead tumbled to the floor. Lying on her back, all she could see was the old ceiling. Cracks crossed it, tracing erratic paths, like a spider that tried to spin a web during an earthquake.
It was a ceiling she knew very well. She stared at it many a night as she wondered if she would ever find her special talent.
Her. Babs. Babs, a filly that was still in school. Not somepony with a husband and foals.
With that, the ceiling faded, to be replaced with the brilliant night sky. Stars and distant galaxies, far brighter than could be seen from the streets of Manehattan, cast a dim glow on the featureless room. The moon rose, and its light illuminated the form of the alicorn of the night.
“Princess Luna!” Babs shouted.
“Good evening, young Babs Seed,” Luna said. “I see you have not found rest to be easy tonight.”
“This? This ain’t nothin’,” Babs said.
Luna shook her head. “Stubbornness can be admirable at times, but you should not let worry consume you. Tell me, what is bothering you?
“Fine.” Babs paused, blowing that errant strand of mane back into place. “I got a care package from my cousin and her friends in Ponyville. Letters. Apple Bloom talked about how the work I would be doing was good and important. Typical for my cuz. Sweetie Belle wrote that she hoped I would be the next Vital Bassoon. And then I couldn’t stop thinking. I found my special talent, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.”
“It is a common fear. Every foal worries about her cutie mark. And every pony worries about using her talent. But that is a worry best left for adults. Enjoy your youth, young Babs Seed. As your body grows, so shall you grow into your own talent. Let your path reveal itself.”
“I guess,” Babs said. “I mean, I still got school to finish, right?”
“Indeed.”
“Heh. Guess this means I better get out of this nightmare, or I won’t be able to stay awake during Mr. Chalkboard’s history class.”
“Yes. Rest, Babs Seed. Remember this lesson.” Princess Luna jumped, her wings flaring, as she returned to the night sky. “And please, please tell your friends in Ponyville that worrying about one’s newly discovered special talent is a normal worry, not a nightmare.”
“Gotcha, Princess,” Babs said.
“Farewell,” Luna replied, her voice fading as she faded into the night sky.
Princess Luna exited the dreamscape, returning to the physical world. She felt first, the plush cushions supporting her form as she lay reclined on her bed. Then hearing returned, as her ears picked up the creaks of her bed and the clink of the armor of the lunar guards standing vigilant outside her chambers. She smelled the crisp night air as the breeze fluttered through the curtains surrounding the open window. Finally, she opened her eyes.
The light of her moon reflected off a gold and platinum celestial sphere, the model of the heavens that guided her every evening. The precious hoofcrafted masterpiece rested atop a hexagonal base of lacquered wood. Reaching out with her magic, Luna slid open a hidden panel on the wooden base. From within, she removed a bottle of amber liquid and a crystal tumbler.
She conjured a single cube of ice in the tumbler, and added a shot of the liquid. The potent aroma of the whiskey tickled her muzzle. For good measure, she added a second shot.
“I do love my little ponies,” she said, just before taking a sip of the whiskey. “But sometimes, they drive me to drink.”
Author's Note
A quick one-shot inspired by the most recent episode.
Chapter 16 of Clean Slate included a glimpse of Babs Seed's life in Manehattan, so I mined that story to create the story of how Babs got her cutie mark. That much was real, but everything else was in Babs's head.
Babs was, of course, seeing Snips in her dream. His name isn't used because she doesn't know it. He's somepony she saw during a past trip to Ponyville, and her subconscious mind used him to fill in the dream.
