Angry hoof steps next door. The tension makes me giddy. Dinner’s ready.
“Hazel, come here this instant!”
The shout from the single mum next door penetrates the paper-thin walls of the whole building. The other inhabitant’s annoyance seeps through the walls, the ceiling, the floor: a nice appetizer. I lie on my bed, stretched out, waiting for the main dish.
“Mrs Blossom just called and told me there’s scribblings all over her wall again.”
“I didn’t do it!” A young colt’s voice, no older than thirteen.
“Don’t lie to me, Hazel. Mr Bloom saw you last Thursday and they’re the exact same… things. I know you’re at an, uhm, curious age, but this is really inappropriate.”
“Last week wasn’t me either, mum, I swear! I’ve been out with Nuts and Dasher today, they’ll tell you it wasn’t me!”
“Oh yes, of course your little gang would cover up for you. I’ve just had it with you and your lies. N-no— “ Ohh, she’s struggling. The tightness in her throat is almost too cliché. “No supper for you today.”
“Bu—”
“And you’ll go clean that wall first thing next morning. And apologize."
“B—”
“Now go to your room!”
“But mum, tomorrow’s the funfair! “
“I don’t want to hear another word. Go!”
Slammed door. The resentment, uh delicious resentment. Anger and regret, tons and tons of regret. A sob as she picks up the trash. I get up for desert.
I open my door right before she passes, startling and stopping her in her tracks. I look her in the eyes. In front of yellowing corridor walls and illuminated by cold fluorescent lamps, she’s the perfect idol of liveable misery.
“Oh, hey there,” I say, stretching and yawning.
“Oh, h-hi Glitter.”
“Is everything alright?” I fake another yawn. “I heard shouting.”
“Did… did we wake you?”
“Yeah, well, kinda… you know, with the night shifts and all.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry, Glitter.” Isn’t she cute. “It’s… nothing, really. Hazel is being a little rebel.” A brave smile, oh so brave. “Just his age I guess.”
“Or maybe he needs a father.” Sting. Stingedy sting sting. She actually flinches. “Oh by Celestia, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”
“That’s okay. You’re probably right.”
“Your… I mean, Hazel’s father. Why did you say he, uhm—”
“A younger mare,” she says, eyes downcast.
“Oh well, I… I guess it can’t be helped, then.” I cast back the mane of my pony disguise, the embodiment of out-of-bed beauty. “I’m sure you’ll manage… somehow.”
The corners of her mouth twitch. “Thanks.” Pathetic creature.
“I’d so love to talk more but I’ve got to get ready and catch me some breakfast now. See you and, uhm… hang in there.” I get back inside my apartment and listen to her hoof steps as she leaves, leaving behind the noisy silence of an inner-city apartment building.
Well fed, I sink down onto my cheap bed again. Creaky creak. My gaze wander towards the crappy television set. Watch more about ponies, their woes and wonders? Nah. I look up at the ceiling, threadbare tapestry but for the spider in the corner. Would the spider watch fly television? No, it just sits there. It just is.
“We’re the same, aren’t we?” I ask quietly. No answer. I let the question hang, trying to endure the silence. I don’t remember how often I’ve competed with the spider like this, but today is no different than every day: I lose. Another rerun of The Rash Prince of Belle-Mare on Channel 5. Why not.
Working at a funfair: my former hive would laugh their heads off. It would be a feast for any regular changeling, but for a freak like me? Tricky. Shouldering my way through excited foals and happy ponies is disgusting. The torrent of emotions feels too much like what they tried to force-feed me back then, before they exiled me. Love never fed me.
There’s one thing though that makes it worthwhile: the haunted house. It’s funny, really; Ponies come in here knowing it’s all a hoax, but some are scared nonetheless. Some try to play it cool, pointing out bad effects and laughing. The louder they laugh, the louder they scream once you turn it a bit too real for their tastes. That’s where the fun begins.
I’m lurking in my usual spot in the darkest corner of the path through the house. The dusty smell of fake fog and the almost-stench of cheap latex fill the air. Sounds of rattling chains and the occasional distant screaming come from a cheap set of speakers; it’s so gratingly cheesy that I can’t suppress a frown. Then again, the cheesiness is exactly what makes ponies drop their guard.
I see a white unicorn foal approach through the gloom. It looks around, distressed and on the verge of tears already.
“D-daddy?”
It’s genuinely scared. Jackpot! I go up to it in my usual pony disguise, playing the helpful mare like so many times before.
“Hey there, little one.”
It looks up at me out of red eyes. An albino, of all things. “M-mommy?”
Whaaa…? Heck, I’ll just roll with it. “Yes, darling.”
She leaps at me and hugs me around the legs. “Mommy!”
“Yes, darling,” I repeat. “Don’t worry, we don’t need daddy. I’ll take good care of you from now on.”
The foal looks up again at my fake, warm smile.
“Yes, I’ll take good care of you.” I start to smile wider, baring my teeth. I’m gradually turning them pointier and larger, the smile turning into a grimace.
The foal takes three steps backward, I one forward.
“What’s the matter, darling? Don’t you love me?”
“Y-you’re n-not mommy.” Its voice is shaking.
“Aw, don’t say that, you’re hurting my feelings.” I take another step forward. “And if you hurt my feelings, I’ll have to… ” Another step. “Hurt… y—” I leap towards the foal. Then my head explodes and all goes dark.
Shouting. Hoof steps. I turn back into my pony camouflage just before the lights are turned on. I’m on the dirty floor of the Haunted House. Gosh, it is dirty. The dust and cobwebs and all the other things you never saw unless your snout was pushed right into them. But why am I on the floor?
I try to sit up, but my head spins and I lie back down. A strange, white face appears before me… with red eyes.
I groan and turn to the other side. In the back of the room, I hear snippets of another conversation. Something about “right in the head”, “threatened” and “sorry.”
Another face appears before me: the manager’s. “Man, she doesn’t look good. And she’s usually such a looker” He chuckles. “Glitter, can you hear me?”
“Uh,” I groan in affirmation.
“You okay?”
“Nu-uh.”
“Aw, she’ll be alright,” he says, standing up and addressing the other voice. “Can you take her off my hooves? Do see a paramedic, though, they’re supposed to stroll around the compound somewhere.”
Another face comes into view: Brown, square jawed, and worried. “Can you walk?”
I try to get up again, but the world spins and I nearly fall over to the other side. The stranger grabs me and almost lifts me off the floor. I half stumble, half get dragged out of the haunted house, into the bright sunlight of a summer’s afternoon. He sets me down on the short stairs outside, then takes a closer look at my head.
“Ivy, stay right here with the young mare, I’ll be right back.”
Off he goes. The albino foal—Ivy, apparently—sits in front of me, just staring at me with those red eyes. I wonder why she called me ‘Mummy’. I try not to stare back, but our eyes keep meeting.
The brown stallion returns with a medic pony. After a check-up that involved blinding me with a flashlight, the medic presses an ice pack to my head and concludes: “Think she’ll be alright, but keep an eye on her in case she develops symptoms of a concussion. Dizziness, nausea, sickness. Stuff like that. In that case you should get her to a hospital.”
“Alright, thanks, doc,” the stallion says. The doc gets swallowed by the crowd an instant later, leaving me with that brown oaf and his foal.
“So… did you kick me in the head or something?” I ask.
“Uhm… yeah. I’m real sorry.” Genuine regret, me likey. I stare silent daggers at him. “I uh… we. We lost each other in there, Ivy ‘n me.” He points at the foal. I keep staring. “When I found her, it looked as though you were threatening her and I… I panicked. Sorry.”
I sigh, bemoaning the inconvenience of this situation as well as the pounding in my head. Accidentally, I lock eyes with the foal again. I look back at Brown: “Okay, so I forgive you and everything. Now go,” I say. hoping he’ll get that foal out of my sight.
“No can do, Miss. The doc said I should keep an eye on you, so that’s what I’ll do.” His bright blue eyes pierce mine.
“I said go!”
Stern look. No reaction. Impatiently, I try to shoo him away by waving a hoof and hissing, dropping the ice pack I’d been holding to my temple. Before I can do anything about it, he bows down and picks it up for me. Stubborn goody two shoes. The worst kind. He holds it up to me and I rip it out of his hooves, press it to my temple and turn my head away. Maybe he’ll leave if I just ignore him?
“You’re Glitter, right? I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. I’m Autumn Rain, but just call me Autumn.” Nah, I’ll stick with Brown. “And this is Ivory, my daughter.” I cast a quick sideways glance; the thing is still staring at me.
A few seconds of silence pass. Then, he says: “How about some ice cream, huh?”
“Yay!” The foal’s demeanour changes instantly.
“How about you get us some, Ivy? The usual for me and, uh… what about strawberry for our new friend?”
“I don’t like sweets,” I hiss.
“Oh, is that so.” He’s amused. Why the heck is he amused? “Well then, get her my usual, too,” he says and passes the foal some bits. Grinning from ear to ear, she disappears in the crowd.
Another few seconds of silence.
“Ignoring me, huh?” You sure don’t learn quick, Brown. “That’s alright, although this would be more fun if you wouldn’t, you know.”
The foal bursts out of the crowd again, distressed. She looks up at her father. “Daddy, there’s a line and all the other foals, they’re… they’re…” She’s about to cry. How sweet.
“They’re pointing and laughing again?” Brown asks calmly.
The foal nods and starts sobbing. A little misfit. That’s what you get for being different: Laughing, pointing. Beatings. Exile.
“Remember what I told you about that?” Brown asks.
The foal is barely comprehensible between hiccups. “W-what they th-think of m-me doesn’t matter. O-only what I think of m-me.”
He nods. “That’s r—”
“But it’s hard!” The foal almost screams and starts all out sobbing again. Brown hugs her and holds her tight, and I soak up all the misery that’s pouring out.
“Then think of me,” he says. The foal looks up, puzzled. “When everyone makes fun of you and nopony accepts you the way you are, think of me. I love you, just the way you are. Just the way you decide to be. I always will. Okay?”
My coat stands on end. Ponies like that actually exist, huh?
“O… okay.” The foal wipes her tears before deciding to push her face into Brown’s chest once more. She turns and dashes off towards the ice cream stand again.
“Father of the year award, right there.” I say, grinning.
He turns to me and smiles. “Thank you.”
A wave of nausea comes and goes. Stupid idiot doesn’t know what sarcasm is.
“Do you have foals?” he asks.
“What, me?” I bark a laugh. “I can’t.” Why? Why did I say that? A simple ‘no’ would’ve been enough!
“Oh… I’m sorry,” he says, as though there was any chance that anything he said could hurt me.
“I’m not.”
Awkward silence. Then, the foal returns with the ice cream. I’ve been confronted with ice cream before, only this time, it’s black. The puzzlement must be written across my face. Brown laughs.
“Go ahead and try it. It’s not sweet. Promise.”
I have a taste. “What’s this?” It’s the best pony food I’ve ever eaten.
“Liquorice ice cream. You like it?” he asks, grinning foolishly, chomping down on his own ice.
“It’s… tolerable.”
“Daddy, can we go to the petting zoo now?” The foal’s already gobbled down hers.
Brown looks at his daughter, then takes a long look at me.
“Go, I’ll mana—”
“Can’t be helped,” he says and stuffs his whole ice into his mouth. He takes two steps towards me, gets under my side, and lifts me up on his back like it’s nothing. I can’t help smearing some of my ice into his mane.
“Wha, that’s… wh-what are you… I’m making a mess!”
He swallows his ice cone whole. “Go make a mess, then,” he says. The foal laughs.
He sets out with me on his back, apparently unfazed by the additional weight. “Off to more tolerable things!”
The petting zoo is a pen full of dogs, sheep, rabbits and other fluffy, good-natured animals. Foals laughing, giggling, having so much fun. I feel like ending myself. The albino foal runs ahead and delves right in.
I slump off Brown’s back just outside the entrance and sit down on the lawn. “From here on, without me.”
Brown stops and turns to me. “Don’t like animals, huh?”
I look inside the pen. One of the dogs stares at me, baring its teeth. Copying a pony’s appearance is easy. Copying it’s smell isn’t. They can always tell.
“Let’s call it mutual distrust,” I say.
Brown looks at the dog, then me again. I’m feeling sicker by the minute.
“Daddy, come on!” The annoying foal pops from the crowd, a bunny on her head. She grabs Brown by the foreleg and tries to pull him into the pen. He’s still looking at me, though.
“Go on, I’ll be waiting here.”
After another moment's hesitation, Brown and Annoying disappear in the fluffy crowd, and I get up from the ground. I’m still kinda wonky on my legs. I gotta do something to get my strength back.
I let my gaze wander across the ponies standing around the petting zoo pen. There’s a young mare smiling and looking at the animals. Can’t be older than sixteen. She’s all dressed up for the funfair: glasses, braces and the self-esteem of a newborn. Jackpot.
I turn myself into a handsome colt her age and walk up to her. “Hey,” I say, putting on the warmest smile I can muster. “Don’t you want to go in and pet them?”
She looks at me, eyes wide, cheeks flushing instantly. “Don’t… don’t you think that’s a little foalish?”
“Nah, absolutely not. Everypony loves animals, right? Wanna go together?”
She’s beaming. I can almost hear her little heart pounding with joy. “Y-yes!”
She takes a step forward, but I put out a hoof to hold her back. “Wait. Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all.”
“Wha… why?”
“The animals might get scared, you know,” I say, smiling apologetically.
“What? Why would they get scared?” Her brow is furrowed, her mouth slightly open. This is going to be sweet.
“Because you’re so damn ugly.”
Bullseye. Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops. I imagine all the hurt pouring out from her open mouth, but that wouldn’t be enough; she’s radiating like a beacon.
“Wh… wha…” She’s dumbstruck.
“Wha? Whawha?” I imitate her.
Her eyes start to well up. “Why would you be so mean? Why even talk to me?”
“Somepony had to tell you.” I try to look comforting. “I’m not being mean, I’m being honest. With that glasses and the braces you could be the next Robo-mare, even without a costume.”
“Jerk!” She tries to slap me in the face. I dodge easily, and she turns and runs away. That’s okay; I’ve had my fill. Something is strange, though. I should feel like the queen of the world. But I don’t.
I look at the place where the young mare stood. I wonder who has to give her a pep talk after what I’ve done. I wonder if she even has someone to do that. I wonder… wait, am I feeling sorry? For a pony? I slap myself in the face: snap out of it!
“Glitter? Glitter!”
I look back. Brown’s standing outside the pen, looking around frantically. I can feel his worry, his feeling of… loss? I turn my back on the scene and set out to leave.
I’ve only gotten ahead a few meters when something launches itself at my hind legs and grabs a hold of them. “Gotcha!” A squeaky, high voice. I snap around and see a streak of white coat before I lose my balance and topple over onto my side.
“Oi, Glitter.”
I look up. It’s that face again: brown, handsome, and worried. Wait, handsome? Give me a break!
“Glitter, you alright? Where were you going?” he asks. The vice lets go of my legs and the albino foal pops into view, too.
“Uhm… away?” I offer. I take a peek at myself: I’m back in the usual female, almost-fashion-mare disguise. When did that happen. And why?
He looks almost angry. “That won’t do. I’m keeping an eye on you for your own good, you know.”
I get up from the ground and sigh loudly. “Yeah, yeah. Not that I had a chance with that little cannonball around.” I give Ivory a pat on the head. She grins up at me. Something inside me cringes.
“Sooo…” Brown says. I look at him again. His calm smile is back in place. “Where do you want to go?”
“Who, me?” I ask.
“Yeah. Your turn.”
I scratch my head. Then, I remember the fear the friends of a young colt had felt when he’d pointed at the rollercoaster. I try to mimic his pose, along with the evil grin, and point: “There.”
“Glitter, your snout is bleeding.”
I probe it with my hoof, only to find it stained red. Brown hands me a handkerchief, and I plug my nostrils with it. Without forewarning, I’m lifted into the air again. “Ugh, wait! I’m fine going myself. I’m feeling much better now.”
“You sure?” Brown asks me, looking over his shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Sure sure?”
“Yeah, I’m… what the hay.” I raise my voice. “Carry me, my loyal steed. To battle!” Chrysalis knows what cheesy movie I picked that up from. I rearrange myself on his back and grab a hold of his mane.
“Your wish is my command!” he replies, rears onto his hind legs, neighs... and starts walking. Not a canter, not even a trot. Walking. I nearly fall off laughing.
The safety mechanism locks with a loud click. Brown and I got the front seats and the ride’s about to start. He casts a worried look at me, although the bleeding only lasted a few minutes, then waves at Ivy who’s standing some way off in the crowd, watching, looking fearful.
“You sure about leaving her?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, she’s afraid of heights. Also, unlike somepony else,” he says, “I can count on her not walking out on me.” He looks at me with an amused smile. “You’re crazy by the way, wanting to go on a rollercoaster ride when you can’t even walk on your own.”
“You! I could’ve… you wanted to carry—” The cart makes a jolt as it starts moving, silencing me mid-sentence. “Oooh it’s starting.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a rollercoaster virgin.” A look of mild disbelief has crept into his smile.
“Uhm, yeah. So?”
“Oh, nothing,” he shouts above the loud clanking as the cart is pulled up a high slope, looking ahead now. “Enjoy the ride!”
I let my gaze slide from him towards the ground, and notice for the first time how far away it’s gotten. I’ve been to the roof of my apartment building. Once. And this… this is definitely higher. “Oh.”
The clanking stops as the cart suddenly tilts forward into a level position. There’s absolute silence for a moment. I look forward, but there’s nothing but air. “Oh.”
The cart tilts forward once more. “Oh by Chrysa-AAAHHH!” We plummet towards the ground, then get pressed into our seats. My mane flies everywhere. I can’t stop screaming, and I can’t tell up from down. All I see is sky, ground, sky, ground. I feel like a toy in the hands of giants.
“...Aaahh.” After I-don’t-know-how-long, it stops. I can tell we’re facing upside-up again. I still can’t get my pounding heart or my breath under control, though. A hoof parts my mane that’s covering my face now, and through the gap looks a bright blue eye.
“You alright?” Brown asks.
I try to say something, but only gasp. I decide to nod instead. He laughs. The cart stops with another jolt, and we’re released from the safety mechanism. I basically fall onto the wooden planks next to the ride, my legs all shaky; Brown catches me.
“You were very brave for your first time. You only screamed, like, the whole time.”
I punch him in the chest with a hoof, then laugh. I let go off him and try to stand on my own, wobbly legs. Ivory comes running and hugs me round the foreleg.
I look straight at Brown “That. Was. Awesome!” I feel like jumping. “Let’s do it again, let’s—”
Something kicks me in the stomach with the force of a young bull. I vomit all over the wooden floor in front of me. I can’t breathe. Somepony shouts as my vision blurs. Then, all goes dark.
Something warm is resting on my belly. I jerk upright. The room is almost pitch black. Where am I?
“Oi, careful, Glitter,” a calm voice says and turns on a dull bedside lamp. It’s Brown.
“Brown, what—”
“Psst,” he hushes me, then lifts Ivory off me and puts her down on another bed right next to mine. “Sorry, but she’s been very upset and now that she’s asleep, I’d rather not wake her up.”
“Hospital?” I ask.
He nods. “Hospital.”
I let myself sink down into the pillows again. What a misery.
“I carried you here.” Of course you did. “You were out for a couple of hours. It’s nighttime, you know. I don’t know if you remember, but you were sick and then kinda cramped up. All that happened since was quite scary to be honest.”
“Geez, did the doctors say I’m a changeling in disguise or what.” Whoops.
“Haha, no, not that kind of scary,” he says, dropping his gaze. “It’s just that this is all my fault, and to see you in such a bad shape got me really worried.” He pauses.
“Anything I should know?”
“The doctors checked you for a concussion, but didn’t find one. They don’t think it was the roller coaster, either. They said you were cramping because of something called an anaphylactic shock.”
“What does that mean? Am I back to normal now?” I ask.
“Doctors said you were allergic to something. First I thought the ice-cream, but… they said that was highly unlikely, so they don’t know.”
“They don’t know?”
Brown shakes his head. “They said they could run some tests in a week or so when you’re a bit rested up. It’d be good if you thought about what it could be, though. Probably something you weren’t exposed to before, they said. Or maybe something you were over-exposed to in the past but didn’t come into contact with for a long time. Any idea?”
I shake my head, which still doesn’t feel right.
“Come on,” Brown sounds almost angry. “Think a bit harder, will you? The doctors said this could kill you!”
“I have no idea,” I say forcefully. “And I don’t want to think about things that could kill me right now, okay? My head hurts.”
His lips get thin and he stares at me for another second. Then, he drops his gaze.
My eyes wander to the sleeping foal on the other bed. I can see dried tears glistening in the dim light of the bedside lamp. “What got her so upset?”
“I guess it was all just a bit too much for her. You getting sick. This hospital. Bad memories, you know.” He pauses, not meeting my eyes.
I think for a moment, then look at him. “No, I don’t.”
He meets my gaze now. “She… well, we lost her mother in this hospital. She looked a lot like you, which doesn’t help.”
Oh, so that’s it. I knew there had to be a reason. Nopony is so nice without a reason. “Huh. I see. So you were so eager to take care of me because you couldn’t save her, and you could at least save me? I’m the replacement, huh? I should have known.”
I pause. He stares at me, mouth slightly open. Say something you oaf! I continue: “I’m not her, you know. You don’t even know me!” You have no idea. No idea at all. I could toy with you like a puppet, mess with your head so bad you’d kill yourself in a fortnight. I picture a fly sitting at the bed of a big, fat spider, and I have to suppress a laugh.
“I know you’re not her and I barely know you, but I like what I do know. I liked today...” He says. So innocent. So vulnerable. But why?
“You’re really, really strange, you know.” I say.
“And I don’t think you’re strange at all,” he says. The gears in my head creak in dismay, trying to digest these words. They make no sense.
I take a deep breath, “Ponies around me get miserable. That’s what I do. That’s what I am.”
“I don’t think—”
“You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Try me,” he says. That look… the same look he calmed his daughter with when she’d been bullied. Calm and earnest, as though there was nothing more important in the world than my worries right now. I think I hate that look.
“Get out.”
He takes a deep breath. “Alright. In case you change your mind, I left my phone number on a piece of paper on the bedside table. Give me a call. I’d really like to make this whole mess up to you. And… to see you again.”
He waits for a response, but I’m done talking. I pull the sheets over my head and turn away. He picks up his daughter and leaves the room. The door shuts with a soft thud.
I try to drop off to sleep again, but my head keeps spinning. Thoughts, images, the feeling of being carried on someone’s back. The clanking of a rollercoaster, going upwards. Something warm hugging me. The look of horror on a young mare’s face. I cringe. It goes on and on, until exhaustion finally takes its toll, and uneasy thoughts give way to uneasy dreams.
The next day, the doctors have another look at me. Then, I’m released from the hospital with a fake smile and the information that ’my friend’ already paid the bill. Bloody white knight, that Brown.
I walk out the front door and take two left turns, looking for a side entrance; I’m hungry. The hospital food was some indistinguishable vegetable mash-up which left me wholly unsatisfied. Not that pony food could sustain me anyway.
Side entrance found, I slip inside and find myself in a small room. Probably says ‘staff only’ on the other side. I grab a white coat from a hanger and some important looking notebook from a shelf, turn myself into one of the doctors that I saw this morning, and step out into the hospital once more.
It’s not the first time I’ve gone to feed in such a place. In movies, it’s where ponies mend, or celebrate that somepony lived through something. In reality, it’s a slaughterhouse for hopes and dreams. I wonder how often Brown and Ivory had to walk through these sterile corridors.
They all look the same: shiny surfaces in grey and white. Electric lighting that spreads discomfort. It matters little to me. I follow the typical hospital scent that’s meant to mask the stench of sickness. At last, I find a door inscription ‘Intensive Care’. Beyond that door is another hallway, lined with rooms that you can look into through a window.
The first few rooms are occupied by unconscious ponies that are hooked up to machines. They’re no good. I continue walking, looking for a set table. Feels a bit like window-shopping. How Brown would feel about me window-shopping in this place? Something curdles up inside of me. I manage to shake the thought, but the bitter lump in my stomach stays.
I stop. Inside one room, a mare with caramel coat and blonde mane is sitting in a chair, fast asleep with her head and forelegs resting on a bed. There are a lot of machines, pumping and beeping, and it’s only after following the tubes that I notice the frail foal they’re attached to. It’s so thin, it’s barely making a bulge in the sheets.
The mare’s eyes snap open and find mine. She casts a panicked glance at the monitors, then gazes at me again. She gets up and walks out of the room, confronting me.
“M-morning, Doctor Steady Hoof.” Her voice is trembling. Seems like this doc is only ever turning up when there’s bad news.
“Morning, Mrs…”
“Morning Dew. Please Doctor, are the test results in yet?”
“Morning Dew, right.” I open my notebook and rifle through it, savouring her anxiety. I halt at a page and pretend to read it, then look up at the mare again. Our eyes meet once more, and the delicious anxiety sours, almost making me gag.
The look of worry… I know that look. For a moment, the mare’s green eyes change to a bright blue before I shake my head and get rid of the illusion. There’s more, though: a deep, deep well of pain, and I can feel it. Not how I usually feel it, I feel the pain.
“W-what’s wrong, doc?” she asks, clearly upset. My face probably looks as though I’d seen a ghost. “Tell me. What does the biopsy say? Is the new therapy working?”
I take a quick breath and try to pry my eyes off hers. If I tell her the foal’s dying now, I’d be fed for a week. I look through the window at the mare’s son, making his tiny bulge in the sheets. Barely alive, barely even existing. Something grabs my foreleg, and as I turn my head again, the mare’s face is centimeters from mine. “Please, tell me!”
“Y-your son,” I start. My voice fails me. Do it, tell her. Tell her he’s going to die. Do it now! “He’s…” But it hurts!
I break away from the mare’s grip, turn my back on her, and run straight for the exist. She shouts after me, but I keep on running. I don’t slow down until I’m out the side entrance through which I came and have cast aside the coat and the doctor’s disguise. Still hungry and wondering what happened just now, I set out towards my apartment.
The journey home took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes too long. Twenty minutes in which my head didn’t shut up, alternating between images of half-dead foals, worried mares, worried Browns and, to add to the confusion unnecessarily, smiling and laughing Browns and Ivorys. Screw you, brain.
Back in my room, I toss the now crumpled up piece of paper from the hospital bedside table on the floor, fling myself onto my bed and switch on the TV. I zap through the channels: there’s nothing remotely interesting on. I stop at an infomercial about frying pans because at least they’re talking fast.
“The new, revolutionizing surface coating of The Power Pan 2000…” I wonder if the real doc showed up and talked to the mare. “Tired of endless hours of soaking and scrubbing with aggressive chemicals? The new, revolutionizing…” Is Brown still worrying about me? Is he thinking about me at all? “The first two hundred buyers will get this set of kitchen knives with a value of…” ‘Try me’? Really?
I start banging my head on the wall beside my bed, muttering to myself. “Shut.” Bang. “Up.” Bang. “Shut” Bang. “Up.” Bang. “Shut.” Bang. “Up.”
Bang, bang, bang. Three times. Not my head, the door this time. I switch off the TV and get up to open. It’s the single mum from next door… never bothered to remember her name.
“Uhm, hi. What’s up?” I ask casually.
“Hi. It’s just… I heard you banging something against my wall, and normally I wouldn’t dare disturb, but since you were shouting ‘shut up’ in between, well…” She grins, nervous and embarrassed.
“I was shouting?”
“Uhm… yeah.”
“Geez.” I rest my head against the door frame.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
Another pony worrying about me. Lie. Just lie. “No.” Damn it!
“Do you want to talk?” she asks.
If you knew how much I’ve hurt you and your son. If you knew. “No. I want to forget.”
“Hmm.” She smiles. Why does she smile? “I’ll tell you just this one thing then, young mare. From somepony who’s made a lot of mistakes in her life: Forgetting never works. The only thing you can do is try to fix things… whatever it is.”
I don’t know what to say. I just stare at her while she’s still smiling her sad little smile.
“I’ll be going then.” She turns to leave.
“Wait,” I say. “Your son wasn’t the one doing the smearing.”
She turns around, puzzlement etched on her face. “How do you know?”
Think fast, think fast. “I uh… I saw a colt that looked nearly exactly like your son at the funfair yesterday. I was working in the haunted house, you know. I heard him and his friends laugh about it. I... “
With dropped jaw and wide opened eyes, the look on her face reminds me of the mare I bullied yesterday.
“I told them off. They shouldn’t be doing it again.”
“And I’ve blamed and punished him all the time. I’ll need to apologize right now.” She turns and takes a few steps towards her own door. Then, she turns around again, flies right at me, and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Perplexed, I watch her leave before my stomach lurches. I dash for my bathroom and throw up. The hospital food looks just the way it did when I ate it, and I wonder why I even bothered.
An alergy, huh? Against being thanked? Against being liked? Or is it the other way around… that I can’t like? If somepony’d asked me the day before yesterday, I’d have laughed at them. I wouldn’t have cared. But now? Why can’t I forget?
I return to my room with half a mind to start banging my head against something solid again. Maybe it’ll work if I try harder. My eyes try to wander to the TV set, but lock onto the crumpled piece of paper on the floor instead.
A wave of hunger brings me to my knees. Fix things. I try to laugh, but the sound that comes out is more of a raspy moan. Why can’t I stop thinking about this oaf, with his warm smile and blue eyes. If I saw him again, if… yes, that might fix things.
Without giving my troubled mind another chance to rethink, I grab and unfurl the damn note, go to my old, second-hand phone, and punch in the number.
Toot. Toooot. “Hello?” The voice vibrates through my head, deep and warm, even over the cheap speakers.
“Brown?” I ask stupidly.
“Oh, hey Glitter. Are you alright? You sound a bit—”
“So-so.” I cut in. “Listen, I’m actually kinda busy right now but I wanted to ask if that make-up-for-it offer was still in tact.”
“Of course it is, I just said it last n—”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Uhm… how about dinner at my place? Tomorrow night 8 p.m.?”
“Sounds good. See ya.” I hang up the phone and start chewing my front hooves. I sit down on my bed. What the hay is wrong with me?
The phone rings. I jump and pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Glitter?” It’s Brown again… of course. I never use this phone.
“Yeah, what?”
“The address?” he asks with half a laugh in his voice.
“Oh, right.” I resist another wave of head-bashing urge.
“Got something to write?”
I grab the piece of paper with his number, then look around my room. “There’s no pen. No matter, I’ll memorize.”
“Alright then. I live at number 9, Copper Street.”
“Number 9 Copper Street. Got it.”
“I’m really happy you called, by the way. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
“Yeah… me, too,” I say, pause, think about what I just said, then smash the receiver onto the phone. A chip of the cheap plastic breaks off at the force and flies through air, finding itself a new life in a dusty corner.
Silence spreads through my room. My head feels a little quieter, but something strange is up with my stomach again. I fling myself on my bed and continue chewing my hooves, staring at the ceiling.
I look at the spider in the corner, sitting in its web. “Shut up,” I say. “And don’t look at me like that.”
The building before me is old and covered in vines, and seems to have a breath of its own on this mild summer’s evening. This isn’t one of those cheap apartment buildings… this is a home, and I’m an intruder.
I had managed to keep relatively calm throughout the day, but now? Gosh. I press the doorbell next to the nice brass name plate reading “Autumn & Ivory Rain” with a shaky hoof. Wait, nice brass plate? Give me a break.
The door opens and out flies something white, hugging me. I pat Ivory on the head. “Hey there, little cannonball. You alright?”
“Yeah!” she says, then pulls me inside the house, through a corridor with parquet flooring and wood panelling and into a brightly lit dining room with a table so laden with food, it almost seems to bend.
Brown comes into the room and fits another bowl of food onto the table. He smiles at me, and the funny feeling in my belly is back.
“Dinner’s ready,” he says.
Dinner passes as quickly as it is enjoyable; among the numerous fruits and vegetables are things I’ve never seen before, things I actually like—a rare occasion with me and pony food. Ivory keeps chatting away; I thought she was a quiet foal, but in her own domicile, she’s a whole different person.
At 9 p.m., Brown announces: “Bedtime for little fillies.”
Ivory takes a breath to protest, looks at me, lets it go, and kicks her chair aside to go hug me once more. She takes off and Brown goes after her, winking at me.
I’m left alone at the table for a while, still chomping down on what Brown said was called natto, when he comes back. “Says she won’t go to sleep unless you give her a good-night kiss.”
“A what?!” Seriously?
“She really likes you, you know,” he says.
“I… well… but—”
“Come one, don’t be shy.” He grins.
“Shy? Me? That’s… ugh.” I sigh. Apparently, that’s consent enough for him. He grabs me around the foreleg and leads me out of the dining room.
Ivory’s room is Princess Luna themed: all in blue, with a big moon on the ceiling. The lights are dimmed to a gloomy twilight. She’s lying in a bed with star-patterned, blue sheets.
“You like Princess Luna, huh?” I ask her.
“No, Nightmare Moon!” she says, grinning.
“Oh, so you like bad girls, huh?” She’s just scored a few points with me. I move over to her bedside, give her a kiss on the forehead, then caress her cheek. Probably some sitcom where I picked that up; I can actually hear the audience with their fake ‘daww’s’ in the background. I feel so out of place, I wouldn’t be surprised if the earth opened up and swallowed me whole right now.
“Good night.” Brown switches off the lights and we both leave.
Back in the dining room, I grab a slice of durian and stuff it into my mouth. “You know, with you, this thing called eating is actually kinda fun.”
Brown laughs and looks at me, but his smile fades quickly. “You’re bleeding again.”
Chrysalis-damnit. Allergic. It’s so ridiculous. But there’s just one way now: forward.
“Here.” He hands me another handkerchief. “Have you found out why this is happening to you?”
I take a deep breath. “No.” I smile at him, managing my best lie in days. “This time, it might be just lack of sleep, you know.” Lining one truth with another. Is that technically a lie?
For a moment, he looks as though he wants to start arguing again. Then, his features relax. “Well, alright. Let’s move somewhere more comfy,” he says, and leads me to a smaller room with a big couch, a TV set, and a rug in between. It’s all lit by a set of torchieres, scattered by white walls.
“So, this is Brown’s love cave, huh?” I say, flinging myself onto the couch.
“Hah, actually, it’s just the living room.” He sits down beside me. “I wanted to ask you before but: why do you call me Brown?”
“Hmm.” I stretch out. “I called you that in my head before I knew your name, and it kinda stuck.”
Brown laughs. “So you just called me what you first noticed about me, huh? Should I call you by that, too?”
I raise an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
“Hmm.” He scratches his chin. “Maybe ‘Hiding’.”
“Huh? What’s that mean?”
“You’re hiding behind a shield. Emotionally, I mean.” He looks me straight in the eye. “You think you’re different, and nopony could possibly understand you. You push them away, so they can’t disappoint you. This way, you think you’re invulnerable… but you’re lonely and miserable, too.”
Lonely. Miserable. “And you broke through that shield, huh?”
“Well, not completely,” he says and smiles. “But I hope I can, eventually.”
“You know, that name I’m giving you in my head? It’s starting to sound more like ‘oaf’ the more you talk.”
He chuckles “I think I’ll take back what I said the other day: you’re a bit strange alright.”
I think back to that talk we had in the hospital. There’s a sudden needle in my heart, and it’s on fire. “Does that mean I’m no good replacement wife?”
“What?” Brown looks shocked. “I never said you were—”
I jump from the couch and start pacing on the rug. “But you were thinking it, right?”
“No, I didn’t—”
“Well, that’s good then, because you should stay away from me. For your own good.” My voice, why is it trembling so much?
“Why?” His tone, defensive before, sounds calm now. “Because you’re a changeling?”
I stop in my tracks. Feels like somepony just cut my belly open and all that was in there fell out. “Wh-why… how?”
“You shape shifting right before my eyes was one thing. Screaming ‘Chrysalis’ at the top of your lungs during the roller coaster ride was another. I’m not that stupid, you know.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone? Have me arrested?” I ask.
“We can’t choose the way we’re born. Some are born short, some are born tall. Some are albinos, some are changelings.”
“But… I’m a monster!”
“No, you’re not.” He stands up from the couch and moves towards me.
“I’m the spider, you’re the fly.”
He laughs. “You’re getting a bit melodramatic with your comparisons, don’t you think?” He puts a hoof to my cheek. “Would you show me your true form? Would you drop your shield for me?”
I recoil at his words. I swallow hard, looking at the floor. This shield of mine… if there’s one thing all my senses scream right now, it is not to drop it. Then again, I said I’d fix things. I made my choice long ago. I lift my disguise, revealing my bare self. For the first time in front of somepony else, I feel truly naked.
“Thank you,” he says. I look up. He’s just looking at me with those bright blue eyes, smiling his calm smile. The smile I thought I hated.
A kick to the stomach. No! Please, not yet! I manage to keep my lips shut and keep the food in, but my legs give way and I go down to my knees.
“Glitter!” He’s beside me in an instant. “That… that allergy again?”
A lie… another lie? I’m through with lying. “Yes” I croak.
“I’ll call an ambulance right aw—”
“You’ll stay…” I grab him around the neck and pull him down onto the rug. “... right here. I want this to end on a high note.” I stare into his blue eyes, reading puzzlement and worry. Worry, always, always worry. My vision starts blurring. “I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it for the first time in my life. Then, I kiss him.
My skin goes from freezing, to on fire, to freezing again. I feel tears of both joy and sorrow fight their way through my clenched eyelids, and I listen to my heart beating defiantly, buying me time.
Ba-dum. One more second of the life I yearned for. Ba-dum. One more second shedding the life I hated. Dum. Truly naked. Dum. No more lies. Um. His lips on mine. Um. The last pony I had to hurt.
I’m sorry.
