Valentine

The wind was whistling on the other side of the mist-tinted window of the common room, briging flakes along, pulling them out of the window's edge, and they were disappearing forever. Misty, who was lying under her sheets, was watching Valentine, and Valentine, who was lying under her sheets, was watching the wall. Silence was as heavy as lead, vaguely moves by those who had managed to fall asleep, but the lucid minds couldn't accept what had just happened.

Whistle Wishes was gone, taken away by the doctors after her fit of madness, and everybody knew it was not normal. She was a domineering pony, full of herself, and she behaved that way, but today, she had just lost face to something stronger than her. All fillies feared her, even those who pretented to be her friends. All of them had been rather ill worried after she had gone. Whistle Wishes was gone, and Whistle Wishes would not come back. Her expulsion had been tacitly delivered; a life of strict education had just flown into pieces, and this final refusal had forever closed Pretty Clouds boarding school behind her. Her empty bed, as a threat, was hanging over the whole room, and for most of its occupiers, there was someone who was responsible for all that. Valentine. Valentine the temptress, Valentine the romantic, Valentine the dreamer. Valentine Sluthooves, who had infected the blue mare's heart with her game of seduction, and who had to pay for it all.

Misty still couldn't sleep, and she gazed at Valentine before muffling a shout. The white unicorn was standing in front of her, watching her.

"Come," she whispered.

The corridors were empty. The monitors were certainly exhausted, and anyway, in case of problem, everybody would hear it; the walls transmitted sounds too well. The subtle clacking of hooves' points upon the stone floor and the carpets were merging with the creaking of beams submitted to cold, and no one head the two fillies that had walked alongside the walls until they had got to the last storey's chimney, from where a cold air was blowing. They would block it up soon when they would understand that it was the place she had used to get out from the very beginning. But for the last time, she was about to use it again. Valentine skilfully climbed, often stopping to wait for Misty who had followed without understanding why and who slipped on the narrow stones. When they reached the surface, there was no sign of their previous night's journey, nothing but snow smoothed by wind.

Valentine was watching, and Misty didn't understand.

"He's here."

Misty got scared. There was nothing but emptiness. The squinted eyes of her friend, them, saw, and their pupils were growing wider. She moved forward slowly and she coiled up against something invisible.

"He doesn't like you. You denied him."

Misty's teeth were chattering. It was cold enough; however cold was just an excuse. The white unicorn was gently rubbing her head against the wind, and a shiver ran through her body suddenly. Misty watched the sight, mesmerized. She didn't dare contradicting her friend for fear they would fight again. Valentine's shining and black eyes looked her up and down, with an almost haughty look, seeming to ask for a reaction. Then, Valentine spoke.

"The mind's plains," she whispered, "are so vast. Where reason looses itself, where feelings run free, where dreams die. We were born there. We loose ourselves there. We come back from there. And sometimes, we disappear.

Sometimes, the path forks, and the blind traveller goes on straight ahead, or takes the wrong way. Sometimes, they go round and round and stop on their tracks. The ways lead to abysses or outside. But there never is and end. And reason becomes dream, and dream becomes reason.

Here is the essence of madness.

The runaway spirit will never find its way back and fades into the horizon. And on the other side, a world.

"I don't understand anything..." mumbled Misty.

Valentine was still watching her, and parted from her invisible lover.

"You are still a child."

Her eyes were filled with lassitude, a millennial weariness. The eyes of someone who hasn't seen anymore since long. The eyes of someone who, failing to find what they seek, had started creating it. What could happen behind them ? What were the thoughts of someone who was that tortured ? Misty felt her tears pouring on the snow.

"I don't understand ! What is your problem, Valentine Intrigue ?" she yelled, stamping the snow with her hoof. "Who is that being you're so desperately searching for ?"

Valentine watched behind her, addressing a look to the night.

"Me. And I will never find it here... I've dreamt of magical places. And sunny. I've dreamt of passion, of caresses, I've dreamt of poems. There is no such thing here. The life we will have when we get out will be one of ghosts. Of objects. But my heart will never accept it, for I have seen the dream."

Misty had turned towards the chimney. The stone was old, worn by wind, cracked.

"I've never had any dream," she said. "I've never thought about all this. Nobody ever thinks of me, and I don't think of anybody. I'm well alone."

The wind was sweeping Valentine's mane. She came Misty's side. The snow's turbulences were playing around her body, gliding at full speed around her legs, making circles and spirals and whirls, cut through the wind, like a stallion galloping at the slender unicorn's side.

"You're still a child, Misty."

Valentine moved away a little, lifting her head up as if the wind was caressing her, and she contemplated the wind sweeping away the snow for a long time. Misty recalled their fight, this joust they had had in the snow only a day before. She remembered the tensed muscles, the impacts of hooves on flesh and bones, the pain, the hatred, and this desire of hitting again and again and again until she would fall on the ground with exhaustion.

When heading back towards the chimney, Misty saw the terrible red marks left by law's aegis on her croup, and remembered she had the same ones. Some of these marks would probably never disappear. Forever, that childhood within the boarding school would be reminded to her, like a sentence : You shall live as the others want you to. The high wall surrounding the park had surrounded her life for ages, like an eggshell, and she had never ventured outside. She knew nothing of the outside life. She was still a child, it was true, still naive. Valentine, she, had broken her shell.

"He is my nemesis," said the unicorn while sinking into the dusted conduct, as if she had read her mind. "He is my destructor, and what I'm living for. Passion will both consume us."

Misty was gazing far away. She was still afraid, but the biting taste of a forbidden desire was slowly awakening at the bottom of her throat and her kidneys. The shooting pain of her wounds was lashing through her body, reminding her of her punishment.

The wounds and bruises left by Valentine's hooves recalled the fight.

"You shall live," she whispered. Fear and anxiety came back, but it wasn't quite the same anymore.

The mare started to go down the conduct, hoping not to trip and fall over her friend, who had a solid horn. Before sticking her head out, she breathed in one last time the pure frozen air of the night.

A gust of wind lifted a thin veil of snow and took it along while swirling around far off. Just like the wind, whistling through the stamping hooves of the stallion from her mind's plains.

The way back was without incident, and Misty was able to focus her whole attention to watch not to get too close or far of her psychotic friend, pretending to behave casually. But the truth was that she was starting to be afraid of her friend, maybe even more than of Whistle Wishes, who had always been predictable even through her madness. Celestia only knew what could be a Valentine in a fit of fury like, and Misty did not care for discovering it. But her natural tendency towards compassion forced her to do her best to be at Valentine's side yet, whatever the risks.

A noble choice she soon wish she hadn't done.

When they entered the dormitory on tiphooves, they knew at once that something wasn't normal. All of the unicorns were awoken and stared at them, as if they were waiting for them to go in. And some beds were empty. "Now!" shouted one of them, and four fillies assaulted them straight away, tying up their legs with sheets and a formidable efficiency. Misty tried to call for help, but she was interrumpted by an apple stuffed into her mouth. Valentine, after a short struggle with her bonds, gave away to her fate, resigned.

"Sorry about ill-treatment, cuties, I know well that you must be fed up with always getting bonded..." chuckled Twilight Twinkle, moving forward with solemn and gracious step, like the one they were taught in Propriety class. "But you do understand well enough that we cannot let you get away through the chimney, as you usually do..."

"What do you want, Twilight ?" spat Valentine out of disdain. "To take it out on us ? To take Whistle Wishes's torch?"

"Oh ! what a dreadful misunderstanding." she went, pretending to be stricken. "No, we will not miss Whistle Wishes..." She grimaced and compulsively lowered her tail to protect her delicate croup. "... but here, in Pretty Clouds's dormitory, we have rules, and one of them clearly states that to cause one of their sisters to be sent into such a dreadful place af Blue Thistles's mental home..." She made a sign to a pale pink unicorn who brought her a bronze candlestick topped with an half-cracked candle. "...will not be tolerated."

Twilight Twinkle's horn was envelopped with a redish aura, and the candle wick suddenly caught fire. "I saw that into one of the Governess's secrets books. It is called the hot wax torture ! During the Witch Hunt, they used it to blind zebras by pouring the wax into their eyes... But since you're still worth more than a zebra, we are just going to pour it on your flanks ! Ha ha ha !" Holding the candlestick between her teeth, she slowly got closer of the two helpless fillies. "Pinchy !" she barked, indicating Misty with her hoof. "Hold her tightly."

"What ?" moaned the pale pink unicorn. "Why me ? I... I don't feel like it..." Twilight Twinkle gave her an annoyed look, and Pinchy pushed Misty upon her flank reluctantly and put herself astride above her, immobilizing her completely.

"I'm forbiding you to hurt her, you foul bitch !" moaned Valentine.

"Quiet Sluthooves !" yelled another unicorn from the top of her bed. "Your turn will come soon !"

Misty was frenetically struggling while giving cries of terror smothered by the fruiterer gag, but Pinchy's hold was too strong for her. Valentine saw her following the wax flow that was slowly pouring from the candlestick with her eyes, and a big drop came off the rest and fell right onto her cutie mark. For two seconds, there was nothing. Valentine only saw apprehension and confusion in her friend's big wet eyes.

Then Misty closed her eyes and let out an heartbreaking and neverending wail of pain. Immediately, Twilight Twinkle went into raptures and hoped on the spot.

"Ha ha ha ! Is it painful ? I knew it ! Serves you right ! Serves you right !" She started again to pour wax on Misty's already sticky flank, causing her to give more yells of pain. After several other minutes or torture, Misty didn't even struggle anymore and contented herself with moaning and sobbing with each new drop, apparently emptied from all energy and willpower.

"Hey, go easy on the wax !" said the unicorn from the top of her bed. "We've only got one candle, and it's already almost totally melted !"

"Damn it ! I got a bit carried away, sorry. I did not want to forget our Sluthooves friend either. She must be really bored..." She and Pinchy got away from Misty's trembling body, who cruled up as much as she could, always tied up. Twilight Twinkle leaned over Valentine and sweetly whispered in her ear : "We have no other apple, so avoid yelling too loudly, please..."

"I won't give you that pleasure !" mumbled the other, not really confident, while Pinchy was fussing to hold her in place, muttering some vague excuses.

"It's late. End this quickly so we can go to bed," yawned another filly, already under her sheets. "As a reminder, we have an arithmetic class tomorrow." She turned away and burried her head into the pillow.

"Yes, yes !" went Twilight Twinkle, irritated by the collective lack of interest for the dormitory's justice. Instead of taking her time and slowly pouring the wax, she poured what was left at once, splashing Valentine's flank on ten good square centimeters.

Valentine felt the heat and readied herself to the unavoidable burning sensation. But nothing came. Nothing but a soft heat that was already starting to dissipate. She slowly opened an eyelid, met Twilight Twinkle's confused gaze, then Misty's one. Her friend gave her an almost imperceptible sign with her head and an impatient wink. Suddenly, Valentine understood. Of course she did not feel a thing : every pony was born covered in a thick leather, and it was not a bit of hardly burning wax that would get beyond this natural protection. Furthermore, her coat was certainly preventing most of the wax to stick to her skin. That Twilight Twinkle was definitely a true idiot. And it was something to take advantage of.

"Aaaaaaarrrgh !" she began in a plaintive tone. "It's burning ! Aaaah ! Why ! Why ? Oh, Celestia, please put a stop for this suffering !" She then looked back at Misty, who rolled her eyes. She suddenly got scared of having exagerated a bit.

" Ahahahaha !" laughed Twilight Twinkle, excited and not very clever. "This is all you deserve ! Hope it teaches you a lesson, Sluthooves !" Valentine and Misty both let out an inward sigh of relief.

"So, will you get to sleep already, by Tarnation ?" yelled a unicorn from her bed.

"Shut up !" She threw the candlestick towards her and it ended its flight into the wall. She then slipped upon her bed, grumbling, while Pinchy was busy undoing the sheets that were holding the two fillies. "Sorry, sorry, hope you're alright..." she whispered, consumed with guilt.

"It's okay, Pinchy. Get back to bed now." said Misty, struggling not to burst out laughing. The two released fillies lay down on their beds and started scraping off the already dried wax, which turned out to be the hardest part of their torture, the hair tearing off in tufts.

"Oh, I'm giving up for tonight." whispered Misty, shaking up a piece of wax stuck to her hoof. "It will go away with a shower. Good night, Valentine."

"Misty..."

"Yes ?" she replied with an already sleepy voice.

"You really are an excellent actress."

Misty smiled, caressing her cutie mark, which showed two theatre masks.