Seeing Red

Seeing Red -

[ ♀ + ♂ ]

I couldn’t avoid watching as angry tears welled within the corners of Venus’ eyes. Mars continued laughing beside her, oblivious to her hurt. Her severe sensitivity to Mars’ insensitive comments was causing her to begin tipping on the edge of waterworks, yet again. Apparently, she was the butt-end of some kind of joke I think, I wouldn’t know for sure nor did I normally care to know.

I felt angry. Burning, erratic emotions were boiling within her wildly, but they were also laced with feelings of betrayal. I felt those emotions so vividly they might as well have been my own.

Venus tried to hold the tide back, even though her will was already beginning to crumble. Her loss of control must have been the reason why the barrier between us was not keeping her emotions separate from mine. In fact, it was because of these feelings that I was paying attention at all.

Her internal pain, so full of vicious lashing emotions that almost felt like killing intent to my eyes. Oh how badly she wanted to hurt somepony else- it radiated from her in waves. The tenderness of a freshly inflicted wound in her heart was the only thing that tainted the vivid, boiling rage.

If it weren’t for that one stinging pain, then these sensations would be an oh so lucid a reminder of how powerful an emotion anger could really be.

I curiously spread my senses along the rest of Venus’ body and I had discovered that she was straining her muscles, as if getting ready to jump into a fight. She craned her neck slightly at a slumped angle, while she gripped the soft couch cushions beneath her hooves. The mare was having a fight or flight reaction, I understood.

Throughout her life, she managed to slowly hide the subtle signs that indicated when she was upset until they were almost gone entirely. However, I would always know what she was feeling despite her efforts to keep them hidden.  We’re close enough together that we are practically the same pony, after all.

Much too suddenly, the rage that I once felt had receded into nothing, alongside it went away the almost unnoticeable shaking that she had been doing. It took me completely off guard in that moment that her emotions were just cut off suddenly. In that very same instant, I felt her become completely numb to her base sensations. That irresistible rage that I had felt from her… it just simply vanished. The mare had become totally become catatonic.

What happened? I wondered.

A breath of air came out of her lungs as she raised her head. The ends of her lips moved upward into a soft, but clearly forced smile.

She isn’t quite happy, she felt more detached than anything else. It was a rather creepy moment, due to the lack of sensation. I wondered what she was smiling about.

Hey, what are you do-…

I paid her senses some semblance of attention and found her visual sights focused entirely on Mars. His laughing facial features were shaped good naturedly, as if this were nothing more than two friends sharing happy times together.

The mare was putting up a façade of false smiles for somepony who had just recently harmed her emotionally, even if unknowingly. And she was just going to let her feelings get swept under the rug as if they were useless trash and waste?

How could you stand to be around this idiot? I asked with distaste, not really too annoyed by the not so unexpected silence.

“That’s funny Mars.” I heard Venus say through our shared voice.

I could have sworn I heard glass shatter then.

Confusion.

She continued, “E-especially the part where you c-called me a s-slut.”

What. I stated.

I felt an emotion stir.

Contempt.

No, you’re lying. You are a liar. I spoke spitefully toward Venus, as if she would hear me.

Our smile grew slightly wider as if that would actually make the insulting term somehow less demeaning.

Hypocrite. I added.

When Mars looked our way, his wide-grin was too much for Venus’ vulnerable mind that he was actually able to comfort her enough to bring back a little bit of feeling into the numbness. Her heart was warmed just a little bit by the simple act of him looking at her with the twinkle of his maroon eyes.

Mars didn’t seem to be aware of the fact that anything had happened in the past few seconds. The red stallion leaned forward and patted our side. I seethed in discomfort at his touch, wanting to recoil away, but Venus was the one who let him continue.

“Yoo nead tu lighttun up Veenis, iz jus a joke.” He said in his characteristically bad speech.

I felt something bubble up to the surface of my being. It was the kind of sentimentality that I knew couldn’t have come from Venus, yet it felt too alien to be me mine. Like rage, but not quite similar enough.

Animosity.

The meaning of his words didn’t make sense in any context unless he was aware. Had he been toying woth Venus’ emotions intentionally?

I peered through Venus’ head. I could tell that a part of her wanted to verbally hit him back, or tell him that what he said was rude, or just to leave the room right then and there. I wanted her to take all three.

But there was a much larger part of her that was opposing those actions.

I could feel that small twinge of longing hiding beneath Venus’ veins. The ‘love’ that she wants to believe in. The chance that maybe if she just trudged through it all, forgive just this once, then he would make it up to her again. That a single jest meant nothing if they could get past it. Maybe she could even fulfill her need to indulge in Mars’ presence. To never be without him. To never be without the one pony who gave her life true meaning.

Venus sought to convince herself into believing that this relationship was good for her.

No… You yourself aren’t lying, not really. You just managed to fool yourself into believing a lie. I concluded.

Our eyes moved away from Mar’s face and I quickly lost interest in whatever they were going to do now. And so I sunk back into my usual activities, allowing myself to be submerged by the recesses of old memories, of happy memories, where the world seemed to be so much less complicated than it is. In most of them, Mars was there.

The sentimentality I had felt earlier was still there as I watched, but it did not seem to recede in strength.

You never change, do you? I let that thought echo to myself as I looked on at a scene of a young filly and colt making silly faces at a mirror.

[ ♀ + ♂ ]