"She Called Me a Villain, LT."
“Hehe, y’know what? You know… you know what? I kinda like you, Stakes.” The pony chuckled, nudging the griffon slumped next to him at the empty bar. “It’s a shame it had to be this way—crying shame, yes. Shameful.” He leaned in, winking conspiratorially: “One gambling man to another? We coulda been fast friends, you and I. Yep. And you know what they say about friendship these days.”
It was late: too late to be open, even for a dive like this. Central Canterlot or no, the night was dead. The only ponies out were thieves, salt-sniffers, rapists, and the poor, lost souls that they preyed on. I glanced again at the clock ticking away on the wall opposite the bar and shivered. As much as I enjoy working late beneath the flickering lamps of my pride and joy, it’s nights like these that almost make me regret opening a business in the back alleys of Canterlot.
“Hey barkeep! Another—ahem—another round over here please!”
Flinching at the stuttering, clearly inebriated earth pony, I made my way over to the east end of the bar, shuffling glasses with my hooves along the way to make room for the two empties in front of my “customers,” a pair I had never met until that fateful evening. Well, unfortunate evening.
Smiling nervously, I tilted my head at the slumped bird of prey. Catching my gesture, the deep-brown stallion waved a hoof: “Yeah, yeah for him too.”
Sliding two clean glasses beneath the tap, I filled both to the brim—cheap apple cider, grown down the mountain someplace—and placed one within reach of the animated stallion. Glancing nervously at the griffon, I put the other glass next to his outstretched claw, eyes carefully avoiding the knife shoved squarely between his drooping wings.
“Why’d ya have to do that eh, Stakes?” the pony slurred, playfully chucking the dead bird on the shoulder. “I’m a reasonable fuckin’ stallion, aren’t I?” He took a swig from the drink I’d given him, nearly falling off his barstool. Eyes widening, the wobbly pony spat half a mouthful of cider into his lap, wetting his rather expensive looking jacket. Snorting and shaking his head he looked back up at me incredulously. “Have I been drinkin’ this swill all night? Goddess-be-damned.”
Blanching, I held up a hoof: “I’m so sorry, sir. I haven’t been able to get anything premium since last year. I can”—my eye twitched—“I can get something else. I have a little save—”
He waved me off, eyeing his drink carefully before unceremoniously tossing the amber liquid over his shoulder. “No, no. It’s fine. It’s fine. I understand.” He looked me square in the eyes, the dim lighting flashing and flickering across his own bloodshot orbs. “You think I don’t understand?”
I quickly shook my head, afraid to break eye contact with the staring pony.
He just looked at me for a moment, up and down with his bulging, grey eyes. He opened his mouth: “What’s your name, kid?”
“Lemon T-Twist, sir,” I lied, blinking as he finally looked away. He rotated on his stool, looking across the room toward the door his two bodyguards—or at least they’d looked like bodyguards—had left through before returning his gaze to me.
“I ain’t gonna tell ya mine. Y’know that, right? Yeah. You seem like a smart pony, LT.” He snorted, running a hoof through his greasy, grey mane. “You mind if I call you that? LT?”
“I… okay,” I stammered, forcing a nervous smile.
Pushing his now empty glass toward me, he smiled full, baring browned teeth in a nightmarish display. “Pour me another: from the other tap. That pale shit you served that skinny hornhead earlier.”
I looked over at the tap for the Orchid Ale, a lighter drink that was popular with quite a few of my regulars. “Are,” I coughed, “Are you sure, sir? Because I do have—”
Again he interrupted me, pushing the glass toward me so fast I had to catch it before it fell and shattered on the floor.
“Pour the drink and listen to me, kid: the night is old, but I’m still young enough to spend it right.”
Nodding hurriedly, I mumbled a short “yessir” before sidling toward the tap. He started talking again as I poured his drink.
“You remind me of me, y’know?” He licked his lips. “Kinda.”
I handed him his drink but he paid little attention to it. He stared at me as if waiting for an answer, eyes glinting dangerously in the lamplight. Coughing timidly, I gave him what I thought he wanted.
“I-Is that so? I’m… I’m flattered,” I stuttered, watching him carefully from across the bar. I let out a mental sigh of relief when he smiled.
“Tha’s right, LT. Tha’s right. You remind me a lot of me—a lot—from when I first came to this shit town.” He closed his eyes, remembering, and I used the opportunity to back a little further away. “Goddess it must’a been thirty years ago.” He opened his eyes again, looking magnanimously around the room—making a show of it. “You own this place?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” I responded, smiling despite myself. “Saved since I was young.”
My guest nodded, finally taking a sip of his drink. He grimaced at the taste and slid the glass back toward me. “I started out that way too. Left school when I was old enough and bought a small parlor south a-ways in the city center. Ratty little thing. It’s still there, though it’s not the little card-hole I started anymore.” He laughed to himself, wobbling. “Probably a salt den, now. Wouldn’t that be ironic?”
The way he sat swaying back and forth, a content smile on his foalish muzzle… it gave me an idea for a sculpture. I watched silently from my place across the bar, smiling anxiously as I waited for him to continue. I watched and I thought.
“Anyways,” he continued, once again looking straight at me, “it’s a nice little place. Mine was too. Mine was the only gambling hole for eight blocks. I was smart, y’see. Maybe you are too. Maybe.”
Unsure of what to say, I gave the stallion a hesitant nod. I was ignored.
“Pulled in enough bits to buy out the hardware store across the street after about three years. I didn’t eat much, and I never was one for spendin’ money on a mare.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “M’not into stallions either. I know what you’re thinking.” I paled, quickly shaking my head in negation, but as quickly as he had been glaring at me he was once again enraptured by the room. “I just like… I like business, y’know? I like it when it works just right. Sure, sometimes ponies”—he glanced at the griffon still seated to his right—“get in the way of that, but the trick is knowing how to deal with ‘em.” He leaned forward, unsteady on his shifting stool. “You understand, don’t you?”
Afraid to say otherwise, I agreed. He smiled crookedly at that, giving me a knowing look with those swimming, grey eyes.
“I knew we would find some common ground, you an’ I. You remind me of me, after all.” He winked and waved a hoof in the direction of the storage room over my shoulder. “You got something hidden, eh? I’d like to share a real drink with ya, if you don’t mind.”
Relieved at the thought of leaving the presence of the murderous stallion who waltzed into my establishment earlier that evening, I mumbled a quick “sure” before practically galloping into my small, cluttered storeroom that sometimes doubled as a studio on those nights that I felt especially creative. Boxes and crates lay in jumbled piles that receded into the darkness of the barely-lit chamber, but I made a beeline for the small shelf of bottles to the left without a single glance into the gloom. In the back of my mind, a sculpture began to form. There was a rustling in the dark, but I ignored it in favor of the task at hand.
I made him his drink.
“Don’t you worry, kid,” he shouted from the other room, his voice tinny and muffled through the swinging door between us. “You keep running this place well and maybe I’ll finally have some competition in this fuckin’ city.” He chuckled. “Might even send some business your way. Got a couple card-houses not so far from here. Ponies get thirsty when they’re feelin’ lucky… but you probably know that, eh?”
I shuffled in, holding one glass in my muzzle and another in my hoof. When I got close enough, the business stallion quickly snatched his beverage from my grasp and swirled it under his muzzle, sniffing. I placed my own glass on the bar as he sighed contentedly to himself.
“I don’t even need a taste to know what this is.” He smiled as he took a sip. “I appreciate it, kid—truly I do. I know how difficult it must’a been to get ahold of a good bottle a' brandy: 'specially these days.” I took a swig myself, coughing lightly as it burned its way down my throat. Guffawing at my display of weakness, the stallion took another sip and reached into the pocket of his jacket. I did my best to suppress a flinch as he pulled out—oh goddess not another knife—a thick, off-white business card embossed with an address and a picture of the brown stallion’s cutie mark: a flared hand of playing cards.
Setting the card down on the table, he settled back into his seat and yawned. “If you’re ever in need of ‘assistance’, ahem, just show this card to one of my boys outside the address listed there.” He tapped the card for emphasis. “I remember when somepony does somethin’ for me, and I reward ‘em for keeping quiet about certain things.” He gestured meaningfully toward the body leaking next to him. “Get it?”
“Yessir,” I gulped, gripping my glass a little tighter. He looked at me carefully, up and down, before showing off his dying teeth again.
“I’m serious now, LT. Business is hard these days. Lots of ponies—big and small, yes, big and small—have been making life hard for us working stallions. I’ve gotten rather good at makin’ problems go away.” He looked down at his drink and glanced at the door. “You mind mixing another couple glasses for my boys?” He shifted, struggling to pull something else out of his jacket pocket. A jingling bag of gold landed on the bar. “Do tha’ and I’ll give ya a story. I was tellin’ a story wasn’t I?”
Not yet daring to touch the substantial pile of bits, I once again slipped into the storage room. The rustling in the back got louder, and I sighed, chuckling nervously.
“Just a minute, Lula. Shhhh. It’s okay.”
Two more. The bottle was half empty now. No matter: I could get more easily enough.
He started up again as soon as I was through the door.
“When it comes to problems, y’see, it’s actually the big ones that get solved the quickest.” I walked as best I could toward the door, him following me all the way with those eyes. Can a drunk madpony still smell fear? “Our glorious sovereign”—I caught a shaky salute out of the corner of my eye—“is very sympathetic toward the common stallion these days, what with the recession and all. Nonetheless, since one of her darling hicks from down the mountain disappeared I’ve had to really step up to keep the Royal Guard properly, ehm, greased.”
I made it to the door to my humble waiting area—for coats and whatnot, of course—and gently pushed through flank first. I found the stallion’s “boys” standing silently at either side of the double doors leading into the Canterlot streets. They quickly took the offered drinks, trying to hide their smiles as they set them aside. I quickly left, ducking my head at another shout from the bar proper:
“You better drink all a’ that! I’ll be damned if you waste any of LT’s or my hard earned bits!” I slipped back inside to find my guest leaning more heavily on his seat. He blinked owlishly at me before continuing his slurred “story.”
“You ever met an Element of Harmony?” he asked. I shook my head. “Neither have I. Closest I came was when one of ‘em started really taking an interest in the city. The real city: not that porcelain fairyland closer to the castle.” He took another sip of his drink. “Thought herself an activist, she did. Tried to ‘clean up’ the city center. Led a campaign and everything. I lost almost a third of my best mares to her ‘freedom: body and soul’ march.” He looked pointedly at me. “You ever get a little lonely, I’ve got a few establishments on Cobble that may tickle your fancy. Young, clean mares, all of ‘em.”
“Th-Thanks,” I mumbled, focusing on my reflection in his glass.
“Where was I?”
“That march that happened a few m-months ago?”
“Right, right. Like I said before: big problems are easier to deal with than small ones. I called in a few debts and haven’t heard from that prissy nag since… nopony has, for that matter. Sure it costs me a pretty bit to keep Celestia’s pets on company payroll now, but now that my employees aren’t continually harassed profits have more than made up for it. Small problems on the other hand”—he tilted his head toward the griffon—“Well sometimes those need a more personal touch.”
We were silent for a moment, him swirling his drink and eyeing the display bottles above my head, myself looking at the dead griffon. I could smell the blood puddling below his stool. I tried not to think of the cleaning I’d have to do later. I thought of other things, like the burning urge to slip back into my studio and create... something.
“She called me a criminal, LT. An ‘unscrupulous villain’.” He chuckled, sounding out of breath. “Not me, specifically. My name isn’t associated with anything out there. No paper trails or nothing. She had an idea that there was somepony, though. Made it pretty clear in her little speeches.
“She called me a villain,” he snorted. “Can you believe tha’? I’m not denying that my work is a little unsavory, but there’s a kind of honor to what I do… not like Discord, the bug queen, or that psycho who’s been leaving corpses in the streets uptown. I conduct a business. What’s a little gambling, drugs, and prostitution compared to that kind of evil? She had me all wrong. Too bad, too: she ha-hah a pruhtty good bizness of er own. M’nah in th’ markeh f’ drsses, buh—damn whuh hap... happenin’?”
Suddenly, he was on the ground, limbs flailing weakly as his glass shattered on the scuffed floorboards next to his head. A panicked trill escaped his lips and his eyes bulged as he stared up at me, the ceiling, the lamps, me.
“Finally,” I sighed, icy relief flooding my tired mind. I looked down at my guest and he looked right back, terror and confusion mixed seamlessly in his screaming, marble eyes. He was still struggling—I could see it in his frozen, straining grimace—and I admired that. I really did.
Perseverance. Yes, that’s perfect. I could see it in my mind’s eye: a piece like no other. I took a closer look at the griffon still slumped against my bar and smiled. I even had extra materials. Licking my cracking lips I circled the bar, ignoring the distraught wheezing of my guest, and carefully trotted towards the double doors to the waiting room. I peeked in, wincing at the creaking bottom hinge, and I was rewarded with two crumpled shapes and two more pairs of frightened eyes. My grin widened.
Perfection.
Humming a tune from distant memory, I trotted into the small waiting area and grabbed one of the paralyzed bodyguards, dragging him further inside to lie next to his employer. I did the same with the other, humming that same insufferable little melody through grit teeth and strained huffs. Where had I heard that song before? It was on the tip of my tongue… Ah, well. It didn’t matter.
Once they were all laid out in front of the bar, I took a moment to admire the clay that providence had so graciously bestowed upon me. This was the first time I’d picked up a subject within the confines of my little establishment. It was… refreshing in a way. No “shopping” to be done. I could get right down to the fun part. I beamed happily down at my terrified company, gauging the size, shape, and pliability of each subject.
Yes. Yes this would work quite nicely.
I stooped down, gripping the collar of the business stallion’s jacket in my teeth, and began to drag him back into the storage room. Hired thugs fighting a loosing battle to keep me within their line of sight, I managed to quickly pull the talkative colt into my studio.
It wasn’t much, but hey: art can be made anywhere—from anything.
Halfway through the door, I had an epiphany. I knew what to call my newest sculpture.
The Jack of Hearts.
With a grunt, I unceremoniously let my cargo fall to the ground. A soft cough escaped his lips, but otherwise he laid still, eyes darting around the room as they adjusted to the dim candlelight.
Turning to get my toolbox from the shelf that held my prized “Basilisk Brandy,” I mulled the title over in my head. No. It wasn’t quite right.
I pulled a small paring knife from the depths of the metal container, my guest’s wheezes quickening almost erotically as I turned to face him with it held firmly in my jaws. I repeated the name again in my head as I approached, and it became less appealing with each step.
“Damn,” I muttered, spitting the knife into my hoof and steadying myself with the other upon his weakly spasming flank. “Just what am I going to call you, hmm?” Blade pierced skin and I began to carefully slice the hand of cards from his cutie mark, meticulously following each small curve. The wheezing had blended together into one long exhalation—a scream of sorts—and only reached its crescendo when I tore the unique moniker from the various connective tissues that had once held it in place. Blood began to pool on the concrete floor, flowing toward the drain in the center of the tiny room, but I ignored the mess in favor of the mess I held in my hooves.
I stared at it: a full house. I hadn’t noticed before, but his cutie mark was a full house. A smile slowly spread across my face. I have a name. The perfect name.
A muffled crow from deeper within my studio wrested me from my thoughts.
“Oh… Oh I’m sorry dear. I’m not leaving you out: I promise.” Dropping the borrowed flesh on the floor, I rifled through my toolbox until I felt a small length of pliable rubber. “Safety first!” Snorting, I pulled out my goggles—specially tinted for the unique nature of my artwork.
They fit quite well. Made them myself.
Looking around the considerably darkened room, I located a pair of cinderblocks that would do as a pedestal and set them aside. Lifting my bleeding clay with my neck, I maneuvered him onto the improvised dais. He immediately fell on his side, but that didn’t matter quite yet. I needed to clear some space first: direct line of sight and all that.
I pushed empty crates and boxes aside, moving through the darkness in the back of the room with practiced ease. Eventually I cleared enough away to find the tarp, and the vague shape of the container beneath. A rank smell seeped from beneath the ratty covering—the aroma of something damp and alive—and I wrinkled my muzzle accordingly. I really needed to bring the hose down again. Sighing, I searched the darkness for a moment until I came upon the pull rope I had set up nearly a year ago. One end tied to the dirty tarp, I grabbed the coil from its place on the wall-hook. Careful not to pull too hard, I walked back to my work-in-progress, uncoiling all the way.
I spat the rope out:
“Okay. Okay, now let’s get you situated, huh?” There were tears in his eyes, now. I looked at them pooling there, mildly intrigued. “You know what’s going on? Who I am?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. The stallion just kept up his labored breathing, teeth clenched in an eternal grimace as tears streamed ever downward, darkening his coffee fur. “I’m sure you do. Yeah. But you haven’t met my friend yet, have you?” I paused, gesturing into the darkness. “Shall we remedy that?”
I approached, dragging the recovered pull-rope behind me. Righting him with my hooves, I managed to face my clay toward the back of the room, toward the tarp. Checking one more time that my goggles were secure, I sat down behind the stallion, using my own limbs to hold his hooves in the proper position. His head hung back, resting on my withers. I could feel his tears. They were cold.
Without further ado, I jerked the rope in my teeth.
The tarp slid away, pooling like dirty water at the base of a rusting, iron cage. Within flapped my only true peer in the art community: Lula, my dear feathered friend from the Grass Wastes.
Intense, maroon eyes pierced the darkness, and I stared back without fear. I once again spat the pull-rope from my lips and grinned.
I always liked to believe that she was grinning back.
Taking his mane in my jaws, I raised the stallion’s head until he had a direct line of sight to the cage. When nothing happened, I let go of his right hoof and forced his eye open. In my experience, without special protection, one look into Lula’s eyes was enough to keep any living thing staring until the job was done. One eye would be enough.
The labored wheezing quickened, and I could feel the business stallion’s body tense against my own. I quickly got ahold on his right hoof again and forced it into place. A desperate, keening whine reverberated from the petrifying colt’s throat, getting louder. Louder.
“Shhhh-shhh.” I comforted through grit teeth. “Shhh.” I nuzzled him as best I could, still trying to hold his head just so. They weren’t usually this vocal. Many black out with eyes wide, stone tearing their bodies apart from the inside out.
He didn’t though. The stone took him awake, screaming all the way.
Perseverance. Yes. An embodiment of perseverance against all odds.
I didn’t really know how long I sat there, holding the stallion as he froze, but when it was over I didn’t stand for quite a while. I just sat, listening to Lula crow and pace about in her cage, holding him.
Finally, I stood. I slowly walked to my toolbox, cooing a quick thank you to my partner in sculpture. I pulled out a hammer and chisel: there was still much work left to be done.
When I began, there were still fresh tears dripping from the stallion’s granite muzzle.
There was a café across the street from the First Canterlot Bank: a small, family owned restaurant. Owned by a “working stallion” as a guest of mine had once said. It was a quaint little place, and I was surprised I hadn’t been there before. It was certainly inexpensive enough for me: not like most places this close to the castle. I had ordered a bagel and some coffee, and when the server finally brought it to me she looked tired and harried despite the early hour.
I would be a little tired too, given her position. Pretty sure she wasn’t used to getting this much business.
Crowds of ponies filled the café—runoff from the veritable ocean of bodies jostling about outside, held several yards back from the bank building by taut, yellow tape. Royal Guards patrolled the inner perimeter in twos, occasionally stopping to answer questions or push somepony back. I watched quietly, sipping my coffee to hide my small smile.
This was my biggest audience yet. I had a right to be proud.
Across the cobbled street, directly in front of the doors to the bank, stood my latest masterpiece. The investigators were there now, taking photos and looking for evidence. They wouldn’t find anything of course. Never did. This time was a bit different, though.
This was the first time that one of the princesses came to view my work.
She had arrived when I was still a part of the crowd, gliding in on her own, unescorted and without the usual fanfare. I spent the better part of an hour watching her examine my sculpture and ask questions of the forensics ponies. It took quite a bit of self-control not to answer her myself, actually. She seemed so interested.
“‘The House Always Wins?’”
“The Sculptor always leaves us with some pithy title or another. This one makes the most sense so far.”
“How… How long have they been like this?”
“Hard to say, your grace. By Tape’s estimate, the two larger stallions have been dead only a couple of hours. The griffon, however, has been sitting for a bit longer.”
“And the, ahem, other one?”
“It’s… difficult to tell.”
She was still standing there, looking at it with those young eyes of hers. So young and yet so old… Intriguing.
I looked at my finished piece, standing proudly in the street. The Royal Guard hadn’t come to take it away quite yet, but they would. I had to enjoy it while I could.
The table was the most difficult part, really. Had to take apart a few of the wooden crates from the back and nail them to the two former bodyguards. Keeping the two colts upright to make a proper table had been even harder.
“So you’re telling me these two were still alive when the top was nailed on?”
“Yes… but that’s not the worst of it, Princess.”
It was a good thing I had saved that extra rebar from last month’s renovation. Eight pieces: one for each limb. A little messier than I had expected but it got the job done quite well if I did say so myself.
“There… there’s… inside?”
“Yes, your grace. It’s holding them steady enough to support the tabletop and the, well…”
My creation made a princess vomit. That’s more than many can say of their own work.
“Are you alright, Princess?”
“Yes... Yes, I’m fine. Please continue.”
After recovering, she had taken a special interest in the griffon for a while, trotting around the bleeding table to view him from every angle. I had laid him much as he had previously been, slumped forward, knife in back. The only difference was the hand of cards I had laid by his claws: a pair of princesses, beaten by his opponent’s full house.
“The stallion’s cards… are they—?”
“Magical analysis confirms they are of organic origin: probably the stallion’s missing cutie mark.”
“Were you able to identify him?”
“We’re working on it, but it doesn’t look good. There’s too much… alteration. We sent the blood in for testing, but even so it’s a long shot that this guy is in our DNA bank.”
When I had first started my work I remember how surprised I had been by the amount of blood involved. That’s the thing nopony ever tells you about cockatrice victims: they’re still alive in there, and they still bleed when “cut.”
I had never seen a stone bleed before, but by then, after almost three years of my life’s work? I saw it every night when I went to sleep.
I didn’t think Princess Twilight had seen it before either, though I heard tell that she was familiar with petrification. What it was like to be stared down by a true predator while the cold, granite darkness crept along the edges of your vision.
“What I find interesting, Princess, are the alterations carved here. Sure there’s the chiseled smile and the empty eye-sockets, but that’s been pretty consistent with all of the victims so far.” the detective pointed along the spine of the petrified stallion, forced to sit at a makeshift card-table, his own cutie mark in his hooves. “Three diamonds, all in the same vaguely triangular pattern, repeating over and over. Look familiar?”
“Yes, detective. V-Very. I think the Sculptor is trying to tell us something this time.”
I smiled at the memory, watching through the window as she sat, militantly ignoring the crowds in favor of the sculpture rotting before her. She was a smart one: certainly smart enough to grasp the complexity of my work. As new to royalty as she was, I respected her for being the first to take a real interest in my little exhibitions.
When the disposal crew arrived I took my leave, breakfast finished and paid for long ago. As I left, I took one last look at the Princess. She was directing the workers herself, giving orders quickly and confidently.
Fair, strong, intelligent—she had all the makings of a great leader. A wicked grin stretched across my muzzle, and I began my long journey home. There was quite a lot of planning to do.
I had an idea for another sculpture.
