Author's Note
Where's the gosh darn Moondancer tag when you need it?
Chapter 1
Hoh boy.
There she was again. Walking to the library like she always does at 3:06, walking at a pace of 2.12, average pulse, no sudden movements, eight books in her saddlebag, same look permanently stuck in an uninterested scowl, same updo hairdo like she hadn't touched her mane in four years. She likely hadn't, but that's up to individual interpretation.
His attention to detail was beginning to scare him.
He looked at the clock that hung on a nearby wall. The minute hand was always exactly on VI. It was never slightly off, not even once. This unicorn could keep to a schedule like nopony's business. He never saw her leave the library because he always left before she exited. Though, he did see her once when he was at the library for research purposes. She was just barely leaving as he walked in. That was the first time he officially met her. He accidentally bumped into her. She dropped her books, causing quite the commotion around them. The librarian and everypony else shushed them and went back to their book browsing.
Stumbling about, he tried to look around for what he bumped into. He noticed a light yellowish gray unicorn mare with a red mane sitting on her hindquarters, patting the ground trying to find something. Xavier, at the time, wasn't exactly the most... pleasant pony to be around, so his reaction wasn't the most suitable for a public area.
Xavier pushed exactly what he said to her out of his mind. Let's just say that it wasn't something you want your mother hearing you say. Or a sailor. Or a foal in middle school. They would all learn some new words that they really didn't need to.
And to really seal the deal, he stepped on her glasses, snapping them in half.
That was a year ago. It was different now. His language was cleaner and his firm hoof was softer, but he was still as approachable as a moaning homeless pony. Not so much of a teddy bear, but more of a cynical old stallion. He may appear to be mean, but there was a beating heart underneath that graveyard stare.
That same cynic found himself staring at the same unicorn mare from afar. Whenever the smallest image of her appearance even slightly grazed his line of sight, he was on high alert.
And there she was, yet again. And she was... alluring. Somewhat of a mystery to him. She never talked to anypony that walked by, she never stopped to eat at a restaurant, and she never made eye contact with anypony. The only thing she had ever stopped to do was to adjust the books on her back. And that rarely ever happened. He could only recall four times that she needed to adjust herself. He never even saw her trip or even drop her books.
You'd think after two months of doing the same thing over and over, this mare would try mixing it up a little. But no, same library, same amount of books, same pace, same same same same same. There are only so many times you can watch somepony go about their business until they start to make you crack. If that pony didn't do something different, he was going to make her. He didn’t know how, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.
That’s a good word to describe her. Pretty. Fitting. You know, ‘cause she looks nice, and he didn’t really want to come out and just say that he’s got some kind of crush. To Xavier, that wasn't the case. Pretty seemed like a good word to describe ponies that he definitely wasn't interested in. He didn’t know a thing about her. If, and that’s the key word, if he wanted to have a crush, he would rather focus on personality traits instead of looks alone. All he knew was that she really liked going to the library. There was nothing wrong with that, but that’s all she really seemed to do. He considered following her to see if she did anything else. But he knew better. He didn’t have an obsession. You can’t prove anything.
He watched as the unicorn mare disappeared into the library's corner of knowledge, clinging to his chair to keep himself from shaking.
Those unexplained convulsions began some time ago. Whenever he felt anxious, he would shake uncontrollably. Everything would disappear from him, and he could only focus on making them go away. But that was a hopeless endeavor.
He chalked it up to lack of sleep, but that was a poor conclusion. These started right after he left his job. His sleep schedule was perfect then. It had only been two months, and his sleepless nights didn't start until last month. Eight hours of sleep each night, nothing more, nothing less.
But his sleep schedules never lasted. A plan can only go so far until it eventually gets shoved aside for something trivial. Like the desire for something different in a life of sameness and banality. And nothing stuffed that cursed word into his head more than boredom.
The unspeakable c-word circled around that dusty ol' head of his. It nearly escaped his mouth once while he was with his ex-coworkers during their bi-weekly dinner. The word was doing its usual song and dance, Xavier swallowed his bread awkwardly, and it somehow managed to hop the fence while Xavier was unprepared. The word rolled off his tongue like a barrel. Luckily for him, the word was crushed by his teeth, nearly tasting the tainted oxygen of the real world.
He thought about voicing his thoughts to his friend sitting across from him. However, that thought didn't get so far through his brain. His friend was a sixth grader. When it came to stuff like this, he giggled and made a joke of it, telling him that he "had a crush." Then would come the giggling from his other classmates. The teasing, the rumors quickly spreading through the school, the looks he was given, the constant shouting of, "Xavier loves Candy Cane, Xavier loves Candy Cane!"
The thought of his friend doing that made him cringe with fear. Never again, he said to himself.
"I can't help but notice that you haven't touched your food."
Xavier looked up to his friend. He was chowing down on his Chef's salad, while Xavier's had to be prepared again, thanks to the waiter’s incompetence.
I mean, how hard is it to hold up a plate?
His friend couldn't see it, but he wasn't too amused. He considered pushing away his plate, just to watch him try to look around for it.
He’d appreciate it, though. That was the problem with his friend. Jabs at his disability would often hit him where it didn’t count. Then he’d offer his own jab, usually in the form of a bad pun. There wasn’t too much that Xavier could do to make his friend angry. He was like jello. Anything could go through him, and he would still remain tasty and delicious.
“How’s your salad?”
“The cook left out the croutons. But the rest is just how I ordered it,” Char smiled.
“Glad you're enjoying your food," Xavier said.
Char smirked, setting his fork down.
"Hey, is there something wrong? You've been like this for some time."
"Like what? Moody? A little absent minded? Not present? Take your pick, I could go on."
"Second and third option. You're always moody."
Xavier sighed. "...I don't know. Maybe it's from the lack of sleep, maybe it's from the incident at Glass House, or maybe it's... something else."
His friend chewed on a salad leaf. Xavier could hear the tiny crunching in his friend's mouth.
"What's been on your mind?"
Xavier considered telling him about his little... interest. He didn't want to call it by its actual name. It made him sound like he was a stalker. He considered just saying "stuff" but his friend was very perceptive when it came to lies. Maybe that was an added bonus to the nothing he always sees.
"I don't need to tell you what's in my head."
"Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But sometimes, just letting something out of your mouth is the best feeling in the world. Even if what comes out is garbage."
His friend couldn't stop spouting his nonsense.
But there was something inside of him that knew that Char was right. Somehow. For the first time in a long time, Xavier thought. Really thought. About how he lost almost everything, how he managed to somehow land himself in a career that did more harm than good, and how he managed to get infatuated with a pretty face that he hardly knew.
He didn't want to sit in that restaurant. As much as he enjoyed his friend's company, he would rather be working along Char's side. He wanted his old job back, he wanted his colleagues. Minus a few of them, but the ones he liked could stay.
Xavier glanced at the library where the elusive recluse avoided all of the distractions of her existence. What was she even doing in there? What could she possibly do in there that warranted her to go back every single day?
What Xavier found to be his greatest desire at the moment was her. He wanted to get to know her, find out what she was doing in there. Perhaps even take her out of there. Show her something that wasn't dusty and outdated.
Xavier peered over his friend's shoulder. He saw the waitress walking towards their table, carrying a plate of unknown contents in their direction. Xavier's head lifted off its perch. His stomach growled a fierce roar. His head hit the table as the waiter walked straight past him. Her destination was a small colt, bouncing in his seat as she set down his plate of a hayburger and hay fries. The colt practically threw his head into the plate, splattering salt and bits of everything all over the restaurant. The little brat's mother look disinterested at her own food, barely noticing the volley of fattening food. There wasn't even a casual glance up, there was only a blank stare that she couldn't be bothered to actually give.
Other ponies were hit as well. But they did nothing. It's like they didn't have any feeling in the back of their heads. Not a single pony demanded that the colt sit still or eat like a proper pony should. Utensils were not a suggestion. A proper scolding was what this foal needed, and there was not a single pony was going to give it.
"You know, impatience is voluntary," said his friend.
Combined with his friend's incessant talking and the atmosphere around him, Xavier felt those shakes starting to make its way down his body, down to his hooves.
"I need to get away for a second."
Xavier got out of his seat. As he left, he could hear his friend say something. It wasn't clear what exactly what he said, but it was probably along the lines of a bad pun.
Xavier found himself lounging in the front of the restaurant on a rusty bench. Nopony else was around to see him at his weakest. The only things around were the bugs lurking in the grass and the squirrel crawling around in the trees. Other than that, alone was the ideal word. Nothing but the gentle breeze of the wind and the rattle of a near empty medication bottle to provide an ambiance that sounded like music.
Four pills left. He'll take one now, then one later tonight. The medication was to expire in two days. There was plenty of time to take the last three. It wouldn’t take that long before they were gone, anyway. With his luck, the trembling would reappear when he would retire to his bed for the night. His Doctor told him two pills a day, and no more than that. Xavier had seen the effects of an overdose in his life, he didn’t feel like joining his ex-friends six feet under a tree.
Xavier popped one in his mouth, being careful to keep the other three in the bottle. As it slid down his throat, he let out a breath. The effects wouldn’t begin until ten or twenty minutes, so he’d have to wait it out.
Here was his worst. The lowest of his lows, the single saddest image of himself that he had ever known. He was stronger than this, but the pills had an iron grip on him.
Xavier shoved the pills into his coat pocket. Letting out a long, belated sigh, Xavier slipped into the fetal position on the bench. The only thing to watch him wither inside of himself were the bugs crawling around in the grass. Though they were very much alive, he couldn’t feel their judging eyes drive nails into his head.
The thought of science helped him calm down. The feeling of his equipment in his rough hooves was a lost sensation. His shakiness slowed down with the thought, but it was still there. As his legs vibrated against the bench, creating a faint dinging noise, he rested his head in his clattering hooves. He shut his eyes, expecting to fall asleep.
Ten minutes passed. Sleep seemed to be on the verge, but a clinking noise delayed his train to sleepy time junction. Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes.
Standing in front of him was the unicorn mare he had been obsessing over.
"Are you aware that this isn't a place for a nap?" she asked. Her voice was slightly deeper than he anticipated.
Xavier shook away the sleep in his eyes and stood himself up.
The realization that the schedule that she had carved into obsidian was broken. He could barely believe his eyes.
There was the most unpleasant silence as they stared each other down. Xavier was about half-a-foot taller than her, just tall enough for her to stick her horn in his chin. That about happened with the last mare he talked to, and this mare had about as much motivation to stab him, so what was stopping this one from doing the same?
"Do you need something?" Xavier asked, trying hard not to sound like he was screaming on the inside.
The unicorn held in her magical grasp a bottle with three pills.
Xavier tensed up.
"I found these down the hill over there." She pointed somewhere down a grassy incline. Nopony else was down there.
Xavier took them from her. Trying to be discrete about it, he shoved them into his coat pocket.
"Thank you,” Xavier said.
As if there wasn't anything more that needed to be said, she nodded. Going on her merry way. It was as if she didn't just pick some pills up after breaking her regular schedule.
"I suppose that I should mention... That's not real medication you're using."
Xavier gave her a look.
"What?"
The unicorn turned around, staring him down.
"If I recall, Damasius was discontinued about sixteen years ago, due to some... Side effects it yielded on those who took it."
"No, that can't be possible. How else does it stop my... Problem..."
Xavier took the bottle out of his pocket. Damasius. Known for causing sinus infections, sinus headaches, and terrible allergic reactions. All for trying to cure a simple headache.
"These are Celestia damned placebos," Xavier swore under his breath.
"The pony who developed them disappeared shortly after they were discontinued."
Xavier cast the pills aside. "How did you know that?"
The unicorn mare's maturity vanished. She froze up and stopped looking him in the eye.
"I, uh... I read a lot."
And with that, she turned around and walked away. Xavier saw her poor attempt at trying to casually walk away.
She was far enough away to not see Xavier's hoof reach out for her. Long for her, to put it at extremes. Request her to come back, to put it mildly.
She was out of eyesight. Xavier couldn't help but feel something spread across his face. It was like there was an invisible force slicing a demented drawing into his face. The last thing he wanted to do was look at exactly what was on his face, but it was so tempting.
Turning around, Xavier raced over to a window. He was slightly scared about how he was going to look, but his nervousness took a back seat as soon as he arrived at his destination. Staring back at him was a smiling monstrosity. Something he couldn't recognize. He turned his smile to a slightly amused scowl. That seemed to do the job without making him look unapproachable.
Maybe apply a little more curve to it... And we could go somewhere with that.
Xavier, absolutely giddy for no apparent reason, trotted back into the restaurant. He was nearly skipping by the time he entered. He spotted his friend finishing up his salad, and his garlic bread and rice ready to be swallowed whole.
“Char, Char! You won’t believe it! She gave me pills!” Xavier shouted.
Xavier didn’t realize how loudly he said it until the young couple sitting at the table beside them looked over. Their expressions locked in surprised mode. Xavier quietly chuckled as they turned around and resumed their meal. Though, the male of the group continued to shoot looks at him.
“I’m not going to judge, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Char said.
“No, it’s... I mean... Look, I need to tell you something, but... I’d rather tell you where it’s not so... crowded.”
Char stared off into space. A recurring habit of his, since he couldn’t really look at much else. Space was the default for him, and Xavier was absolutely certain that Char didn’t mind that at all.
“Alright,” Char said.
Before Xavier could locate his fork, Char spoke.
“By the way, your food is here.”
“...I noticed.”
“So did eye.”
Tomorrow came a little quicker than Xavier thought it would. He didn’t sleep that night. He only thought to himself, thinking of the best possible ways to approach her, the comprehensible ways that she could reject him, the incomprehensible ways that she could reject him, the appropriate reactions to her saying yes, and the inappropriate reactions to her saying no. Xavier was almost completely prepared. Every single unexpected turn was accounted for, every single detail planned out in such excruciating detail. The only thing that he was afraid of was the possibility of her not being where he thought she was.
If only this kind of planning and thinking was used back at Glass House, he thought to himself, leaving his room to face the day ahead of him.
The stairs leading downstairs seemed like a child’s plaything because he took a monumental leap down to the bottom.
Age, however, came flooding back to him at the worst possible moment. Just as his legs made contact with the floorboards, he stumbled forward and tripped over himself. His face made a lovely indentation on the wall, along with the four other indentations.
Pain steered through his legs like he dipped them in steaming hot water. Instinctively, he hissed. Reverting back to his old, cynical age, he walked cautiously down the steps, eyeing and hissing at the stairs as if he was a cat.
The house greeted him with the same kind of silence that he was so fond of. It reminded him of the same kind of swinging silence that always greeted him whenever he knew that his father wasn’t home. A semi-happy time of his life. He supposed that it could have been worse. His father could have beaten him savagely. But, eh. What can you do about the past besides burying it next to your dog?
He began to walk but retreated. There was a noise coming from his kitchen, like the sound of somepony pouring a liquid into a cup. It was so strange and so unfamiliar, that he didn’t fully recognize until it came flowing through the air like a snake in the grass. Xavier also recognized machinery pumping in filtered fluids and raspy breaths trying in desperation to try and sound normal.
Xavier finally recognized it. He groaned loudly, making sure that the pony could hear him, and hear him well.
“I’m not that repulsive, am I?” said somepony from the kitchen.
Xavier begrudgingly entered the kitchen. As expected, an old “friend” sat at his two pony dining table. Rudely, he loudly sipped a cup of milk. Milk that Xavier was saving until it became rotten. Now that the milk had been compromised, he needed to go and buy more.
“I don’t believe I invited you here, Mr. Injection,” Xavier said, avoiding eye contact.
“I didn’t need the invite. Your door was just unlocked.”
Xavier looked towards his back door. The doorknob was lying complacently on the floor, dented and smashed.
“What do you want? I have some... things I would like to attend to today.”
“Like what? Mope around your house and pretend that you’re doing work?”
Xavier considered shoving him out, but Deep Injection was a much larger pony than he. The fear that Injection could just touch him and he would fall over and break both of his ankles were a fear that made Xavier fairly adamant of not making him angry. A habit that was very hard to follow.
“Look. I’ve never had the need to invite anypony over, so when somepony like you comes along uninvited, there’s a serious problem. Now, what in Equestria do you want?”
Injection put the glass of milk on the table. Exhaling, tubes pumped some kind of liquid into his body. With no remorse in his eyes, Deep Injection let out a statement so blunt, breaths he would take in the next half-hour halted themselves.
“Percival took his life last night.”
Of all the things that Xavier expected to hear, Percival biting the bullet was unsurprisingly on the top of the list. Percival was never the calmest and collected one in the group of friends. Xavier vividly remembered how he first met Percival. Screaming, shouting, telling every pony with ears that he wasn’t supposed to be a test subject. He tried to escape a few times until they finally just said, “Screw ya!” and let him go. As far as Xavier knew, Percival was somewhere in Equestria trying to get himself into trouble. But hearing that he killed himself...
Xavier’s breath caught itself in his teeth. Deep Injection let his head down, muttering something to himself.
“How did he...”
“Overdose. He was in Manehattan. Mugged a pony coming out of a pharmacy, downed the whole bottle then...” he breathed in deeply, more liquid went into his neck “...and there. Kept shouting that he wanted to cure himself of it. They tried to do something, but... Well, you know how Manehattan is.”
Xavier took the seat opposite of Deep Injection. If there were any words that could cross his brain, Xavier would have used them. But this made him speechless. For the first time in his life, Xavier Priston found himself confused and without a comment.
“The funeral is this Sunday. 3:00 in the... cemetery. I think you might want to be there.”
Deep Injection finished off the milk, the tubes pumping in liquid with a sickening *slurp.* With a thud, the cup clinked on the table. The small drops of milk left swam in an empty pool.
“You know what his last words were?” he suddenly said. “Find her.”
“Find who?” Xavier asked, staring at the empty the glass.
From his jacket, he pulled out a slip of paper. Deep Injection was scribbled onto the page. He unfolded the paper and flattened it out onto the table.
“Percival wrote this the day before he killed himself. I won’t read the whole thing, but it says that for a good long while, he’s been searching for his kid. A daughter that he never knew about until this mare told him that he was a father. Apparently, dealing with alcoholism proved to be a bit too much for him to bear. He never found her.”
Xavier never knew Percival too well. It hurt to know that he learned this much about him through a suicide note.
“Percival wanted me to find her.”
Xavier looked up. “W-why you?”
“I was the closest to him. He went so far to consider me one of his only friends. If there was anypony to tell her the bad news, he said that he wanted it to be me.”
“Do you even know where to look?”
“You wanna start providing actual input? This whole time, you’ve been asking questions and not even giving me an answer! You really think that I know how to...” He calmed himself down in time for a larger dose of liquid. “No. The only thing he knew and I know now is that she’s a traveling magician. Has no permanent home, nowhere to stop and smell the... roses. After the funeral, I’m going to look for her. Let her know that her father loved her very much.”
Xavier nodded. He could already picture the following week's dinner party. An empty seat, a flickering light, less of a song in her heart and no bounce in Sugar Sprinkles’ step, and a lingering silence that felt like the sting of death. Who knows how long it would take for it to finally dissolve back into their usual hardy laughs and friendly eyes bouncing back and forth from the table like a four-way, ten-pony game of ping-pong.
“...I’m sorry. I, uh...” Nothing Xavier said felt right to him. “If you find her... give her a hug for me.” Xavier didn’t even know what else to say. The only other thing that came and went through his head were more and more questions.
Deep Injection got out of his seat. “The milk is a little spoiled, by the way.”
“I know.”
Without saying another word, Deep Injection exited through the back door. He didn’t even bother closing it behind him.
Xavier’s breath was sour. A coarse sigh ejected from his mouth, cracking open his mouth. The scent of sour milk entered his nostrils. He gagged, breaking him out of a stupor of denial.
Alone. Silence. All of it hanging from the rusty hook on the ceiling, so dangerously close to snapping. Taking a deep breath of fractured air through his nose, he left his house as well. Being sure to close the door behind him this time.
Xavier broke the news to Char. Char wasn’t as close to Percival - he didn’t even know him all too well - but it still saddened him to hear news like that. He offered his condolences, and a few sniffles to go with it. Their daily lunch would have to take a sick day, but neither of them expected to resume such an activity after the death of a friend. The only thing that would come up in conversations would be Percival.
Everypony but Char would always comment about how Xavier and Percival were so alike. Both of them were frustrated addicts, both liked eating the same thing day in and day out, both even liked the same kind of pastime.: sitting alone and thinking. Xavier knew, however, that Percival’s thoughts were much different than his own. Except perhaps the question of suicide. Whether or not it would be worth it to finish off their life early. Xavier always kept the idea in his mind, but never acted upon it. He was far too busy with science and other studies to drink a tube of bleach.
That was one difference between them. Xavier would never let his life end when he still had so much to do.
What shocked Xavier after some careful thought was why Percival did it. Percival had a pretty hefty goal in mind. Whenever the thought of Percival came up, the first thing that anypony would picture in their mind was his tenacity. Even though he did not want to be in Glass House Science Facility, whenever anypony asked him to do something that would require a lot of cooperation from both test subject and scientist, he would do it diligently. Granted, they all suspected that he was doing it only to get himself out of there, but they all admired how he would do it until it was thoroughly finished.
The more he thought of it, he realized just how similar Percival and Aegis Strap were. Xavier smiled to himself. The name brought back warm memories. However, with those smiles and laughs, came the horrors of what he’s done. Day after day, they told him that it wasn’t his fault. He was just a pawn in her sick game, forced to comply or lose everything he held dear, but... Xavier couldn’t accept that. He still went ahead with the experiment despite that gut feeling that wouldn’t stop bothering him. And to this day, Xavier Priston is still cursed by Aegis.
Aegis stared at him from the opposite side of the cell. A thick, plastic wall separating Xavier from Aegis stood like a monolith. The dusty brick room behind Xavier was such a stark contrast from the shiny, freshly painted white cell that Aegis was sadly the only resident of.
Red tear stains adorned his face like tainted face paint. Wrapped tightly around his entire body was a plain white straight-jacket. Aegis made an effort of trying to get out of it. Rocking back and forth, wildly attempting to tear the thing off of him, and even scraping against the walls in vain.
“I need to stop it! You don’t know what’s coming!” Aegis screamed, groaning in agony and slamming his body against the wall.
Xavier tried his best to ignore himself retching.
“I can save us! I can save us all!”
It seemed like just yesterday Aegis was just a normal pony. A young, headstrong stallion that Xavier had gone so far as to consider him one of his best friends. And it pained him to think that Aegis was permanently damaged. All because of him.
“I know how! Just let me out! Celestia almighty, I will save you bastards!”
The experiment could have been stopped if only he just pulled the plug. He should have listened to himself when he knew that this wouldn’t work. Everything he thought could go wrong, went terribly wrong. He could have saved Aegis from living a life unfit for habitation. Nopony could survive like this.
“Xavier!”
On the verge of tears, Xavier looked up to see Aegis, doubled over and looking directly into his eyes.
“Ortiz is ready for you now,” Aegis said directly to Xavier.
Xavier turned around. Aegis stood right in front of the cell, staring deep into Xavier’s eyes. He knocked his head against the cell.
“I’m so sorry, Aegis. I’m so sorry.”
Xavier turned around. Aegis slammed himself against the glass wall, screaming his lungs out.
“You can stop this, Xavier! You can stop Glass House from creating their damned Kingdom! Save us all! Save Equestria! The wall can’t stand!”
