Breathing This Great Huge Thing

by KaleidoscopeYarn

Rating: mature
Tags: Drama, Anthro
Length: 25914

Bristles has been consumed by hez cutiemark. Suffering from cuteious-studiummania, ze would draw untill ze dropped dead if Nurse Firm would let hef. Meanwhile, Orbit has lost all interest in living.

Bristles was born with hez cutiemark. And it grew along with hef until now it covers hez entire body, and ze is so occupied with drawing and painting that Nurse Firm has to make sure ze doesn't die from lack of sleep, food, or water. Deciding this is bad enough, Nurse Firm brings Bristles to the princesses in hope of a cure.
Orbit doesn't have anything that he really cares about. His friends worry about him, but it doesn't seem to be helping his listlessness.

The pronouns ze/hef/hez/hevz are my attempt at a gender-neutral, singular pronoun. Rated mature for excessive nudity, [spoiler]light descriptions of masturbation and a suicide attempt[/spoiler]. Cover art by me.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2016-07-19 04:00:01 UTC

Cutieous-studiummania

Nurse Firm stepped off the train with Bristles in tow, holding hef by the arm. Nurse Firm was a dull pink earthpony with a white mane and tail, wearing a plain white shirt with plain gray pants and a plain brown backpack. Bristles, also an earthpony, didn’t wear any clothes at all—like the majority of the ponies flooding the station.  But hez cutiemark came close to being hez clothing; it covered hez whole body. Colors of paint all over hef sweeping lines of graphite-gray across hez chest and abdomen, charcoal black over hez arms and legs; painting knives blooming from hez back, painbrushes, too, in hez face, sticks of pastels, pencils, pallets. It all burst from hez hips where hez cutiemark should have been contained. The only place it didn’t crowd into was in the brown mane and tail of hevz, in hez hooves, and hez mouth when it was open. Ze also wore fingerless compression gloves that sucked hez muscles together from the hand to nearly the elbow.

Ze fidgeted as Nurse Firm pulled hef through the crowd, hez eyes darting and sinking into the sun-drenched world around hef, trying to claw up all of the detail in every tiny thing. Hez fingers itched, and Firm shifted her grip as hez arms arcked and the hands scribbled quickly in the sketchbook ze held, gushing out a graphite train station as they walked.

Nurse Firm tried to smile at the ponies as they past, and as Bristles continued to look only for the sake of drawing. By the time they’d squeezed through the crowd and made it to the streets, ze’d inscribed beauty into ten pages.

“Do you remember where we’re going?” Nurse Firm asked hef, to give hef something more normal to think about.

“Princess,” was all ze responded, rapidly crosshatching the face of a pony ze’d past a few moments ago.

“Princess Twilight, that’s right. Do you remember why?”

Hez hands skipped and started sketching the figure of a house near them; putting circles and shadows in the background that the house did not have, but ze felt it needed. “To stop.”

“That’s right—to help. To help you stop when you need to stop.”

Ze glanced up sharply, and around, hand still moving over the page, nearly as if looking for an escape route. But finding none, and not being able to focus on it, the page drew hez mind back again. Ze continued working on the house as one hoof somehow appeared in front of the other and the town moved by too quickly for hef to get it all down.

The crystal castle came up to them slowly and heavily, inspiring Bristles with every colored-spiked glint from the sunlight. “Sharp, sharp beauty,” ze mumbled. Ze flipped to a new page and started on a new image. Up the steps and to the door, ze kept drawing.

Nurse Firm knocked, and after a moment of appreciating the detail in the crystal door, Twilight appeared and let them both in. Bristles stared, and Nurse Firm bowed while saying, “Good morning, Princess Twilight.” She’d expected Twilight to be dressed in the royal regalia of her stature, but she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

Twilight motioned for them to come in, “Hello. You must be Firm Clay, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You can just call me Nurse Firm, please.” They walked inside.

As they did, Bristles saw fully Twilight’s wings, and the interior of the castle; it overwhelmed her. “Ahhh, ahh—ahh!”

Nurse Firm turned quickly, and held on to Bristles by hef shoulders. Hef wide eyes spun from wall to Twilight to wall. Hef hands started shaking, and hef breathing came too fast.

“Sit!” Nurse Firm commanded, pulling hez downward. “Sit and draw it out. Go on. No, no,” she pulled hez away from facing the confused Twilight and the long hallway, and pushed hez face into the corner of the foyer. She slung the backpack off her shoulders, and started rooting around in it while Bristles set hez notebook on the ground and added the interior of the castle to hez earlier sketch—in a sort of feat of cubism—with shaking fingers. “You can have your colors, here.” She handed hef hez set of pastels, and ze took two in hez left hand, and continued to use hez right hand for the pencil.

“Is ze alright?”

“Ze’s okay. Don’t look for now, just draw,” she said to hef, who had turned a bit to peek again. “Ze is just overwhelmed—it happens sometimes when ze sees a lot of new things. Can’t decide what to draw. The castle and you—you’re the first alicorn ze’s seen in person—it will just take a moment for hez to process it all, and ze’ll want to make you into a proper piece.”

“Oh. So you weren’t exaggerating in your letter when you said ze really draws everything.”

“It’s why I have to be here. Ze won’t even sleep on her own—ze’d draw until ze died from exhaustion or dehydration.”

After a moment, they both noticed Bristle’s arms ran outside of the page, and the color leaked from hez fingers into the marble.

“Bristles, no!” Nurse Firm jumped forward and pushed Bristles’s hands back toward the saturated paper. “Don’t draw on the floor; you remember this.”

“I—move! I need to—more space, no more space, I need more space—“ As Bristles and Nurse Firm struggled, Nurse Firm turned around to Twilight. “I thought this might happen, do you have the canvases I sent you?”

“Yes, they’re upstairs though. You don’t need to worry about the floor, I can just magic it—“

“I appreciate it, Princess,” she said, standing up. With visible effort, Bristles forced hefself into only occasionally continuing on outside the paper. “But I can’t let hef think ze can get away with it.” she took off her shirt and her bra and handed them to Twilight. “Could you take this, and lead us upstairs?”

“Of course. Do you want me to wash these, or..?”

“Just hold them, please. Bristles,” she said, pulling hef slowly to a standing position, “Come on, we’re going to go upstairs. There’s room for you to draw there, okay? Can you make it?”

Twitching and staring directly at Twilight, “I have to get it out, to get it out, to out, needs space.”

“Alright, you can do it. I’ve got your notebook,” She bent down and picked it up along with the pastels. But after it not having enough space for hef, ze didn’t want it now. Hez arms and hands twitched; gripping like vices over the supplies trapped in hez fingers.

“It’s this way,” Twilight said, leading slowly down the hall.

Nurse Firm urged Bristles forward, but after only a few steps, ze locked up, shaking and unable to walk. She moved in as if to hug hef, then scooped hez up fire-pony style, and turned to follow Twilight.

Twilight was about to ask why Nurse Firm had taken her shirt off, but as they stepped forward in front of her, she saw Bristles, still excited and jumpy, with the pencil in zev mouth, using both hands to send streaks of pastel down Nurse Firm’s back.

They quickly made their way upstairs, and into what might have originally been a conference room. There was only a small table in it now, with three chairs, and the floor wide and open with a huge, ten hoof by fifteen hoof canvas laid out. A few more leaned against the wall.

Bristles entered the room backwards, but Nurse Firm turned around to set hez down. As soon as ze saw the canvas, ze scrambled to it, with just enough presence of mind to grab the set of pastels from Nurse Firm.

Twilight sat on one of the chairs, and watched Bristles lean onto the canvas to start drawing. Nurse Firm sat down next to her and accepted back her clothes.  “I’ll have to wash the pastels out before I put these back on.” She laid them in her lap. “You can see why we’re looking for a cure.”

“Yes. I’ve read all I can find on it—so far as I know this is the first documented case of fully developed cutieous-studiummania in nearly eighty years.”

“That is part of why it’s been such an uphill battle. We came to you for your expertise in magic, as well as in friendship, before we move on. Hez disease is caused by magic, and ze has trouble making friends.”

“Has ze made many?”

Nurse firm shook her head. “Not real ones. Ze is very respected in the art world—hez paintings and all provide us with income. They’re beautiful because of how much ze practices. But ze has not gotten close to anyone.”

Looking at Bristles, consumed by hez cutie-mark and furiously rubbing pastels into the canvas, Twilight asked, “This is definitely a magical ailment, but do you think ze would be just as infatuated with it if ze was normal?”

“I’d have to say fairly passionate, at least. But it couldn’t be to the point that ze is now.”

“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear bout hef having no friends.”

“Ze just can’t keep them; they try, but the only thing in the world that ze cares about is drawing. That talent—that fervor from the mark mania—has consumed everything else in hez life.”

“It’s amazing to see that kind of passion. I’ve always heard being so ardent about something be romanticized, and never thought it could backfire like this. I would say that I’m passionate about magic and friendship and studying them, and I know I’ve missed a few meals and nights of sleep, but I don’t think I would ever stop eating or sleeping altogether for them.”

“It’s a blessing and a curse, I suppose.”

“I understand.” She noticed the damaged shoes on hez hooves as ze turned from her for a moment. “Does ze ever wear anything besides horseshoes?”

“Only in the winter, otherwise ze hides art supplies on hefself and draws on hez clothes. And even when it’s cold out, I have to wrestle hef into hez coat. Depending on what time we depart, we’ll both be going to get reshod today or tomorrow.”

“Hm. Well, would you like me to start running tests?”

“What do you have planned?”

It was nothing invasive, just some spells to try out for a start. Bristles glanced occasionally at Twilight as she stood, casting magic and charms around hef.

“I’m just getting a general feel for hef aura,” she said as she began, “It’s ridiculously strong with active magic—though obviously not from a spell but from the disorder.”

She tried some counter spells, and a few things she’d read about. Bristles kept drawing, and besides jumping as if startled once, nothing happened.

At the end of the day, Twilight felt tired and sweaty from using magic, and Nurse Firm and Bristles needed to eat. Ze’d finished hez piece on the canvas, and became content now to turn back to the sketchbook as they got ready to leave.

The piece ze’d finished held beauty in abundance. It was a full, gorgeous, portrait of Twilight herself, standing in the air with her arms outstretched, seven severed halos around her purple horn, and seven around her wings that stretched wide out and ran off the canvas. Ze’d rendered everything very well, and the anatomy of Twilight, from her glowing eyes to her dangling hooves, was close to photo-realistic yet artistically impressionist and glorified with whimsical lighting and colors; in the background so was the long hallway of the crystal palace. Nurse Firm let her keep the piece, and they scheduled another time to come back and continue trying to treat the disorder.

“I’ve got some friends who are very good at magic,” Twilight said, walking them back to the front doors. “Sunset, Starlight, Sunburst, Moondancer, Zecora—I’ll send them a note, if you don’t mind; I think they might be able to help us.”

“Anything you think will help, Princess, we are willing to do.”

“Right. For now, try avoiding anything that has a heavy amount of magic usage, like teleporting services or attending a magic show, or walking near a construction site that uses unicorn magic. I’d like to see if it will help at all—I detected quite a bit of magical residue, and it might be inflaming hez condition.”

“We can do that easily enough. Is there anything else?”

“Well… not that I can think of now. Good luck, Nurse Firm. It was nice to meet you.” They shook hands, and Twilight turned to Bristles, who busily worked in hez sketchbook. “It was nice to meet you too, Bristles.”

At the sound of hez name, ze looked up for a brief second. Ze reached out a hand, past Twilight’s extended one to shake, and gently gripped Twilight’s horn.

“Uhh.”

After a second, ze let go, satisfied. Ze looked like ze would have aimed for a wing next, but ze had more drawing to do.

“Sorry about that,” Nurse firm said. “Ze usually dosen’t—“

“It’s fine; don’t worry about it. Oh, the bathroom is right down the hall here, you can brush the pastel out there.”

After they left, Twilight rubbed her horn. It felt a little weird, but that was probably in her mind, she decided. She walked back upstairs and drew herself a hot bath, still thinking about it all. Starlight had left on vacation to catch up with Sunburst some more, and Moondancer and Sunset lived far away. She would write them about it, but for now she’d have to rely on local talent. But the more she mulled it over, the more it seemed like Zecora would be the most likely to have an answer.

Dispassioned

Orbit lay with the sheets twisted around his legs, the comforter half off, and the dust in the air still flowing into him as he concentrated on breathing deeply. He had to focus to do it, in the dark, staring at the ceiling. His lungs lethargic, almost resentful of him; unwanting to work as he tried to recall the distant memories of when it was an easy thing to do.

The clock dripped past one-thirty and the next thing he knew, he was waking up. His bedroom small and dark still, in the absence of sunlight. Standing, he threw his arms into the air and stretched his legs, sliding one hoof out in front, then the other. He rubbed his side, then walked into the kitchen. Orbit was an earthpony, and mostly an ordinary one. His cutie mark was a splash of water, symbolizing his natural aptitude in swimming.

Breakfast disappeared into his stomach, the bed folded itself under his hands, and soon enough he’d left to open the pool center.

It was a tall, wide building near the edge of downtown, with huge windows casting into the pool room, and bricks besides. He unlocked the glass doors, walked in, and started turning everything on.

The clock read six as he finished unlocking the last door. Officially open, Orbit waved to Rapid Sink, who worked as the receptionist, and headed to the lap pool to start his day off with the few other early birds already swimming.

Most ponies didn’t wear clothes around Ponyville, but as a competitive swimmer, Orbit had to take that one step further. He used to have a tail. He still had one, of course, but now it was only a long, pink, hairless appendage hanging over his butt. His mane, too, he kept shaved, and he did shave off his entire powder green coat as well—though it grew back so fast and took so long to remove that he only did it before competitions.

The cold water bit that tail cruelly like it did every morning as liquid lapped up his hooves, his legs, his balls, and up to his waist. He stood for a moment, watching the beautiful sunrise and the bright halogen bulbs above spark off the fragmenting water. He watched the other swimmers, full of life, throwing crystal spray into the air with every stroke, gliding swift, and behind them all the firm steel support beams and the huge open windows becoming dark no longer.

He shook his head, and splashed into the chemical-drenched, sterile-but-filthy water and started to swim. Halfway through his workout, Bluedrop showed up and crouched at the side of the lane he was in. Orbit stopped, pushed his goggles up, and shook some wet from his face. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re out of muriatic acid; I can use sulphuric for now, but we need to get some more. Rapid Sink told me you’ve already planned the budget for this month, but I can’t find the paperwork anywhere.”

Orbit pulled his hands onto the filter grill and nodded, “Right, it’s all in my desk, third drawer down.”

She stood up, “Thanks boss.”

“Hey, wait, listen, Blue, don’t work naked. Remember to wear gloves and an apron or something, okay? I don’t want to have to sew your burned skin back on when acid splashes all over you.”

She waved, “Don’t worry, I got it,” and kept walking.

At about eight o’clock he climbed out of the pool and stumbled into the showers. Some mares chatted about the stock market, and some stallions joked about a friend of theirs; it felt nice to hear ponies being happy. The conversations swirled warmly through the hot steam that pervaded the air and soaked into them all as they stood below their respective showerheads to washed up. Most of them recognized Orbit and smiled at him; he reciprocated the best he could.

One thing Orbit didn’t hate so much about all of it—he got to choose the soap they put in the locker room for the public. After marinating in chlorine, hair and fur got gunky and gross, and usually the cheap soaps just stripped all the oils again. But Orbit spared no expense; the stuff in these dispensers, he knew as he pumped some into his hand and started washing his body, was top notch shampoo. They even had conditioner in a separate dispenser, just so you could feel silky smooth again.

The day wore on, and eventually Orbit worked his shift and left. His house lived next to those of two of his friends, a pony named Quick in the home on his left and a pony named Tubs in the home to his right. They all ended up hanging around Tubs's house the most, because he was a good cook, kept everything tidy, and enjoyed them crashing in whenever. The little neighborhood laid closer to the outskirts of Ponyville, but Princess Twilight's crystal castle still stood boldly over the horizon.

He walked inside his own house, shut the door slowly, and looked around. It was kind of dingy because of the burned out light bulbs he'd yet to replace, and there were still things all over the floor. Empty soda cans, TV dinner wrappers, various types of paper trash; all stuff he could easily clean up in an hour or two, but hadn't yet. Instead, he flopped down on the couch, put his bag on the floor next to him, and closed his eyes.

The oppression of existing at all now squished him down more firmly with nothing to be distracted by. Everything was too much constantly and the long stretches of nothing, of just sitting or lying down, were a kind of respite from it all. It wasn’t boring to do nothing, it was peaceful. Sometimes he just imagined things to try and feel excited or happy about. Sometimes just let the seconds, minutes, hours slide by for a while. Guilt slipped into him easily, because he knew he should be doing something productive, but a gravity much grater than the planet’s kept him down and feebly choked his lungs.

He imagined the sky. Astronomy and meteorology didn’t particularly interest him, but something about the sky had always fascinated him. The wide rollings of clouds, the beauty of the sun and the clear, uncut wind and being high, high above everything—it was all beautiful to him.

After a while, he gathered enough strength to get up and disinterestedly wash the dishes until Quick knocked on his door.

Quick Fiddles was a short, brown pegasus with a tan mane and tail, white splotches all over hez coat, and a little stylized accordion as hez cutiemark. Ze’d only been in Ponyville for a few years, and ze made a living by playing for local orchestras, plays, commencements, other events, and busking downtown. Ze had his accordion case in one hand, and the door handle in the other.

“I’m going over to Tubs’s, are you coming?” Ze spoke in a kind of high, musical voice.

“Yeah, in a second.”

Orbit finished his dishes and ran out with him to go visit Tubs.

Tubs was at home, cooking, and their other friend, Sunluck, sat on the couch with a Playstable controller wired to the TV. She had a yellow-gold coat with bright gold mane and tail, and also had white blotch marks all over her coat and covering half her face; even going into her wings. The cutiemark on her hip was a hammer and she worked as one of Ponyville’s farriers.

“Hey guys,” she said, looking over and smiling.

“Hey,” Quick said as ze set hez accordion near the door and walked over to Tubs in the kitchen.

Orbit sat down next to her, one arm on the couch rest, and inspected the game she was playing.

“What’re you making today, Tubs?” Quick asked in the kitchen.

Tubs put the lid on the pot and smiled at hef. He was a dark blue earth pony with a black mane and tail, chubby, and wearing an apron so the soup wouldn’t splash on any of his body. His cutiemark was a clipboard with scribbles on it—symbolizing his skill of organizing and overseeing things and matching his job of the logistics manager at the sewage treatment plant.

He gave Quick a sideways hug and gestured with his wooden spoon toward the pot. “Just vegetable soup.”

Hef surveyed the stovetop, “It smells good. How come you make soup so much?”

“I just like putting stuff in a pot to simmer.”

Hef kissed him on the cheek and looked back at Orbit and Sunluck on the couch. “I’m going to go sit down, thanks for making dinner honey.”

“My pleasure, babe.”

Quick sat down between them and watched Sunluck play.

“You can go a few levels if you want, guys,” Sunluck said to them both.

“I’ll play some. I really like the music of this game.” Quick said, watching Sunluck move a little green crocodile around the screen. She finished the level, and handed the controller to Quick as the game counted up how many crystals she’d collected.

She noticed Orbit, and leaned forward to ask, “How do you feel today, stallion?”

He just let what he was thinking about spill out, “I can’t figure out how to create or do anything that I actually really care about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, I swim because I’m good at it. I take care of the pool because I get paid to. But I don’t really care about it. I don’t care if I never get to swim again. I don’t care if the whole pool building falls to the ground. I don’t care. I just don’t. But if I were to leave it all behind, just run away, I don’t know what I would do or where I would go. Because there isn’t anything I care about, at all, and I just wish I could find my passion and get something out of life that actually felt meaningful. I want to throw myself, unerringly, at one thing. I want to consume myself in something and become an expert of it. But I just don’t care about anything. At all.”

“Do you…” She hesitated, and glanced at Quick, who looked at Orbit, who stared listlessly at the TV screen. “Do you care about us?”

Orbit looked up almost blankly, only a hint of sadness in his eyes and the stretch of his mouth. “I really want to. I want to say that deep down inside, I do. But I can’t even tell, if I do or not. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to tell what I feel anymore. I don’t know if I really think of you as best friends anymore.”

Sunluck put her arm over Quick’s back and held his shoulder with one hand, and Quick put one hand on one of his hands. “It’s okay,” Sunluck said, “I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. I understand that you may not think we’re as good of friends as I do, but thanks for still being here for us anyway. And you should know that I still want to be your friend, okay?”

“Me too,” Quick said, “I really like you, Orbit. You are a good pony, and I hope you can think of all us as friends again one day.”

“Thanks. I don’t know.” He shook off the hands and curled into a tighter ball. “Maybe it’s because I just start hating everyone I get close to.”

“Do you hate me?” Sunluck asked.

“No, but. I do sort of dislike you now. There’s no reason for it; I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t understand, but whatever it is you’re going through, I won’t hold your feelings against you when you don’t know why you have them yet.”

“Thanks.”

Quick moved to hug him, “Is it okay if I—“

Orbit clamped his legs closer to him, hooves almost on the couch all the way, “Please don’t.”

Quick nodded, and let hez arm drop back to the Playstable controller. The character fell into a lava pit and jumped out with one less heart. “It’ll be okay, I think, somehow, it’ll all be okay,” ze said, as the little character died at the stumps of a monster resembling a jellybean. The level restarted.

“You’re really shit at this game,” Orbit said, through half opened eyes.

“I’m getting better. And besides, the game music is nice in this level anyway.”

Orbit sighed heavily, rested his muzzle on his arms, and closed his eyes. He listened to the videogame, Quick shuffling next to him, Sunluck shuffling next to hef, the noise of wind… of high up in the clouds, wind lapping all around him, his wings spread out for five yards on either side, gliding over the majestic softs of blue and crusts of gold of the sunset in the Everfree clouds. With nothing below but more clouds, and maybe somewhere very far away a sea wide and unbroken and the deepest aqua against the copper-gold of the sun; the sun that stirred petals of pink, rolls and flashes of orange, and a deep lavender haze in the clouds around him. Washing over him, drowning him into the sky.

He opened his eyes again and felt himself still on the couch. Still next to Quick, who’d moved on to the next level, and Sunluck, who watched hef play with actual interest. Still no wings. He bit his lip, stood up, and walked out.

Quick almost asked where he was going, but he could feel Orbit just wanted to be alone, and didn’t say anything. Only sadly stared after him. Sunluck tried to catch Orbit’s eye as he walked. She failed, and he left silently.

Tubs pulled the pot off the stove and called out, “Hey, soup’s ready.”

Sunluck and Quick hopped over to the kitchen table. Tubs brought over the bowls, and looked at the door. “He’s feeling empty again?”

“Yeah, I hope he gets better,” Sunluck said.

Tubs dished out the soup and sat down as well, pulling off his apron and putting it on the back of his chair. “We’ve all got our passions. I hope he finds his.”

They started to eat. “I know I’ve got a passion. Making horse shoes and nailing them to hooves,” Sunluck said. “And you guys have stuff you care about immensely. I hope he finds his thing.”

“He’s been swimming for a while,” Quick said through a mouthful of soft carrots. “I wonder if maybe he just hasn’t found, I don’t know, the right way to swim yet? Or thing to do with water. It might not have anything to do with his cutiemark, though. This is really good, honey.”

“Thanks babe. He has been swimming for a while, but I guess there’s still time. And yeah, I like cooking much more than logistics, and, yeah, it might not be about swimming.”

“Maybe one of these days he’ll finally get into the sky,” Sunluck said.

“Yeah.”

Outside, Orbit rubbed his thighs as he sat on a rock, breathing out stress and wrestling in the fresh air of the night, watching the clouds crawl over the stars and the gentle glow of the moon. He looked at his wrist and examined it. He couldn’t, because his friends depended on him, and everypony who swam at the pool needed him, and who even knew for certain if it would be better after death? Too much weighed on him for him to properly be nothing, if that was even what awaited. Or maybe he was just too weak to do it, or maybe things weren’t that bad yet.

In a moment he’d go back to eat that soup. But for now he stood up and walked across the street to the pond and stared into it. The black water punched a hole into the sky in the ground. It looked like he could jump right in and fall into glorious space. But the reeds around the edges and the land around the water broke the illusion. He turned back around to the little line of houses.

Sunluck licked her spoon again. “I know I can do this,” she said, squishing it onto her snout for the fifth time. “It’ll stay this time, watch.” Very slowly and carefully, she let go of the spoon. Tubs watched calmly, leaning back in his chair, and Quick watched with hez elbows bolted to the table in suspense.

The spoon stayed on her nose.

“Yeahh!” She threw her arms up in victory, Quick yelled along with her, and Tubs clapped sincerely. “I knew I could do it! Here, give me your spoons, quick, I bet I can fit more on.”

Orbit opened the door and walked in. They all looked over to him.

He smiled for her. “Nice job, Sunluck.”

She licked a spoon and smiled back, then concentrated on putting it on her face.

“Do you feel any better?” Quick asked.

Orbit sat down and started eating. The soup was good—a little cold, but that was his own fault. “A little. Sorry.”

“Take all the time you want, stallion,” Sunluck said. “You’ll find whatever it is you need one day.” The spoon clattered off her cheek without clinging, and fell into her lap. “Dangit.”

Orbit wiped his spoon off on his napkin and handed it to her. “Here. You can do it.”

She took it with a softened eyes, licked it, and pushed it onto her face. It didn’t stick.

He drank his soup from the side of the bowl. After only a few moments he was almost done.

Tubs stood up and gathered the bowls while Orbit kept scarfing. “Hope you can taste it.”

Orbit swallowed the last of it and handed his bowl up. “It was good—your food is always good.”

Quick stood up too, “Thanks again honey.”

“Not a problem.”

Sunluck gave up on her snout, though the one still hung from her nose. She took two and easily stuck them to her nipples. “Still got an extra,” she said, giving Tubs the last one. Then the one on her nose finally popped off. “Ahh, just take them all.” She picked up the one that fell and pulled the other two off her chest. “Here.”

Tubs took them and put everything in the sink.

They all piled onto the couch, Quick and Tubs sitting together on one end, Sunluck in the middle, and Orbit drawn up again on the other end. They watched Sunluck play for a while, and eventually Orbit left so he could sleep and wake up early in the morning, and Sunluck left to fly to her own house across town.

As soon as Sunluck was out, Tubs turned to Quick, “Change!”

“I don’t have to.”

“No, come on, I want to talk to the real you. To Xaquik Fadez, the changeling.”

“This is the real me. And I’m still a changeling. It’s just that I look different.” With a pop and a burst of green fire, ze changed. “I don’t subscribe to the idea that all you are is only what you look like. Xaquik is still Quick.”

Tubs hugged hez black, lumpy exoskeleton and poked at the base of hez bug-like wings with his fingers. “See, all better.”

Xaquik hugged him back and pulled away. “Don’t lie, Tubs. It took you months to get used to me. And you still have trouble with my compound eyes.”

Tubs met hez pale blue fields that definitely were not eyeballs. “It’s only because you don’t have pupils. I just don’t know where to focus yet.”

Ze sighed and leaned back onto the couch. “Isn’t it okay that I want to feel pretty?”

“Yes, but it’s not healthy that you only feel pretty when you’re disguised.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s just easier. And,” ze opened hez legs and pointed to the two divets in hez crotch. “You can’t honestly tell me you’re attracted to this.”

“How many times,” Tubs pulled hez legs up so he was hugging hez crotch to his chest, “How many times do I have to tell you that I like it. I do, really. I’m okay with your whole double cloaca system; it’s interesting. And if we ever get married, I won’t hesitate to suck your thin dick or try to fit myself in there.”

Staring up at the ceiling, wings a little rumpled, ze said, “Yeah, but some hermaphrodite hole isn’t as good as a dick or a vagina. We’ve talked about this.”

“And we’ve talked about you being honest.”

Ze straightened up quickly and sat next to him. “It’s not about honest. I mean—it’s about not being persecuted too.”

“I’m going to go to Twilight.” Tubs said. He pulled up Xaquik’s hands and held them. “I will, finally. I’m going to go tell her about you and she’ll tell the town not to freak out, and it’ll be okay.”

“Hmm,” ze laid hez head on his shoulder. “I don’t know. I don’t know about that; I don’t want her to freak out too.”

“She’s a princess; it’ll be okay. I just want you to be comfortable with yourself. Your real self.” He kissed Xaquik on zev hard shell of a head.

“Are you comfortable with yourself?”

“I am, I think. I try to be. I know it’s hard, babe. It’s hard for me because I’m fat—“

“You’re not fat, you’re husky.”

“I know I’m fat. I know I could be skinnier. But I’m not super unhealthy, I’m watching what I eat now, and I’m not obese, so it’s okay. I try to accept myself.”

Xaquik hugged him extra hard, and mumbled, “I love you, honey.”

“I love you too.”

Ze stood up, and moved to his accordion waiting by the TV stand. “I’m gonna practice for a while.”

Tubs stretched out on the couch, and gently folded his arms over his chest. “I’ll listen.”

Stripes Stripes Stripes

The next day, Twilight welcomed Bristles and Nurse Firm at the door as they walked up. “I’ve got some friends upstairs for our meeting today.”

“Alright,” Nurse Firm said, as Twilght led them in. “Who are they?”

“The shaman who lives in the Everfree, Zecora, and a friend of mine who’s also a painter. I’d like to see if him and Bristles can become friends, and Zecora knows quite a bit about stuff like this; she might be able to brew something that’ll help. ”

“Another painter, Bristles,” Nurse Firm said, turning to zef, “You’ll be meeting someone new and interesting.”

“I’m more than him,” ze said dismissively.

“Ze just means that ze is more passionate about painting.” Nurse Firm tried to rationalize to Twilight.

“Oh don’t worry about it, I told them about hez condition and all of that.”

She nodded, “Thank you.”

Upstairs, they walked in to see a naked Zebra and an earth pony in a vest sitting next to each other, chatting. Immediately, Bristles looked up from hez sketchbook and shouted, with great excitement, “Stripes!” Running, flailing, to the wall, ze pulled down another large canvas and threw it onto the floor, murmuring, “Big, big canvas, big stripes, yes.” Ze fell onto it and started drawing, staring at the intrigued Zecora, jerking hez head toward Nurse Firm while saying to Zecora, “Stand, stand, stand.”

Zecora stood, and manuvered out of the way of the table. Bristles started drawing faster, and Nurse Firm set hez colors, of which ze chose the oil paint supplies, down on the canvas.

Zecora turned to Nurse Firm, and smiled. “Nurse Firm you must be, a pleasure to make your company.”

Nurse Firm shook her outstretched hand. “Yes that’s right. You must be Zecora, then?”

“Yes mam, I am.”

She turned to the stallion, who stood up and offered his hand as well. “I’m Nurse Firm, I take care of Bristles. You’re a fellow painter, I’m told?”

“My Name’s Celluloid. That’s right, mam, I paint. Mostly watercolor. I do a lot of work for local magazines and papers, as well as some freelance stuff.”

“Well, It’s nice to meet you. If you want to try to connect with Bristles somehow, I would appreciate it. You can just draw on the canvas with hef, if ze’ll let you, and if not then I’ve got a large sketchbook you can use.”

“Alright.” He walked over and sat down next to Bristles, regarding hef almost as a child. “Hello Bristles. I’m Celluloid. Can I paint with you?”

Ze flicked hez head at him and back again. “Full piece, full canvas. Off, stay off.”

He looked to Nurse Firm, who handed him Bristles’s sketchbook already flipped to a new page. He put it on a portion of the canvas Bristles wasn’t filling up at the moment and started sketching. “I’m going to draw you as well, Zecora.”

She giggled, and took a pose as Twilight and Nure Firm settled in behind her at the table, and filled her in on all they knew about cutious-studiummania.

Celluloid marveled at how quickly Bristles created. Ze had everything, all the stripes and many of the facial details, outlined in only a few minutes. Drawing with both hands at the same time, ze almost never erased, and when ze did, ze did so furiously.  By the time Celluloid had a rough sketch of Zecora, Bristles was already reaching for hez paint.

“How is this, Bristles?” Celluloid asked hef, genuinely curious of the response.

Ze looked over at it briskly, only for a moment, and then back to hez own work. “Arms too long. Waist too skinny. Hooves turned wrong.”

“Um,” he looked back at his work, and suddenly those flaws were much clearer. He started to correct them, becoming self-concious. “Thanks. How did you see all of that so quick?”

Ze didn’t respond.

He fixed it, then asked hef again.

“All rough.”

“I’ll fix that when I paint it.”

“Mm.”

Zecora continued to stand and watch the two draw her. It was an odd feeling, but she liked new situations, and this would make a good story to tell. Keeping her body mostly pointed at the two artists, she turned her face to the two at the table. “I have some brews to rekindle passion, but not of the destroying fashion. Create one, maybe I can; I’ve never thought blandness to be in demand.”

“Yes, well, I don’t want Bristles to loose all hez passion, just lose enough to be able to take a break when ze needs to. Do you have any kind of self-control enhancers?”

“A few I can make, but I doubt they would take. They work more for focus than control, I’ve been shown the later you must grow on your own.”

Twilight piped up, tearing her eyes off her notes. “Focus spells are one of the things I tried the other day—they just made hez focus more on hez art. But it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to have her drink some of the self-control potions. Just in case. And I can look into self-control spells again. But you know—” she moved the tip of her pencil into her mouth and chewed it while she spoke, “—you should really try to find a unicorn psychiatrist. Maybe they would know more of those kinds of spells than I do, and you might have more success than the other pschiatrists you’ve met before. I don’t know if there’s one in ponyville or not, but there’s definitely some in Canterlot.”

“We can schedule a visit, if we can afford it, on our way to Princess Luna.”

“Princess Luna you’re going to visit? If I may ask, why is it?”

“You can sit down Zecora, I’m sure ze’s gotten a good enough look at you now.”

She did so, taking the chair facing away from the artists still laboring over their works.

“We’re going to Princess Luna to ask for her help. I know she has advanced dream magic, and I would like to try contacting Bristles in hez dreams. We’re actually on our way there now, and just stopping in Ponyville to rest and meet with Twilight here. We’re going to Rainbow Falls next, and we’ll probably see the waterfall before we leave, just because I doubt Bristles would let us skip it. I don’t know what all Twilight told you, so I’ll just start at the beginning.

“You see, cutiemark mania starts out from birth. Ze was born with hez cutiemark already on hez flank. And as ze grew, it grew as well. Ze became more and more distracted with drawing, until ze was about fifteen and the mark reached all but the ends of zefs extremities and zefs head, and ze stopped eating one or two meals a day to draw, and staying up well past midnight. That’s when hez parents hired me to take care of hef, and about five months ago, the mark finally debilitated hef and finished spreading. Well, I say finished, it might go into hez mouth and hooves next, I suppose. But it hasn’t yet. Anyhow, about a week ago we started for Ponyville from Bradoon. We need to find a cure or one of these days, ze’ll kill hefself.”

“And what did you do before you were hired, if it may so be inquired?”

The thought of her child slashed forward, but she smothered it. “I worked as an orderly.”

Celluloid, who was listening to all that Nurse Firm and the others were saying, said now to Bristles, “Well that’s not good. You have to take care of yourself, Bristles, because if you die you won’t be able to draw anymore.”

No response.

It was something he believed in as an artist, so he continued, “I mean it. You have to respect your art. You owe it to what you produce to stay alive. If you die, you’re abandoning all the visions and potential that your art could have used. You won’t produce what maybe was the one thing that the world really needed you to produce. So you owe it to your art to take care of yourself.”

Bristles did not stop drawing, but snatched a glance at him, and said, “Why exist if not drawing?”

“To prepare for better drawings. To give them the healthy, capable you that they deserve.”

“No. No, no. No no no. Practice and blood. The same. This is ecstasy.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” He painted a little more. “Your Zecora is coming along really well. I can’t believe you’ve already got most of her legs done.”

“Mm.”

“What do you think of mine so far?”

Quickly, ze looked. Took it in in a moment, and, moving as if Celluloid had stopped existing, took the brushes right out of his hand and made several strokes and corrections. After maybe a minute, ze handed the brushes back and returned to hez own work. Celluloid looked at the sketch now. A beautiful Zebra, holding herself with one hand high and one leg bent. Stripes all over. It looked much better, he had to admit, with the little edges he’d messed up fixed, the whites brightened, the ears made bigger. Inwardly, he sighed, but outwardly he was only impressed.

After a while, Twilight had a bunch of new notes, and Zecora and Nurse Firm had talked about everything relevant. Bristles crouched over the canvas, putting on the finishing touches, and Celluloid just finished with his.

Bristles had painted Zecora, standing facing the viewer, with a fire in her eyes, teeth barred, and arms held up with strong, ready fists. Hooves firmly on the dark ground, the muscles tense around her chest and abdomen. The background an uneasy, muddled brown-gray, as if the sky were raining mud, and Zecora was facing the villain who’d made that so. Sharp sunlight fell over her face and shoulders, one slash across her hips, a few over her legs, coming from something that felt too square to be anything but rocks, but somehow instinctively you could tell was a foe. She had about three times as many stripes all over her legs and arms, lapping at her chest and hips, as she had in real life, but it created a feeling of beauty. A long, red slash travelled geometrically behind her and hooked into both her left arm and right leg. It was abstract, but something that pressed itself into the world so well, amplified the strength of Zecora so much, that it seemed wholly necessary. As if that red cut was both a part of the build up and the release of the angry tension in the piece.

Zecora herself loved it. “It is such a beautiful composition, I am in shock. Although for many years a fighter I have been not. How much would this painting be, if I were interested in it commercially?”

Nurse Firm laughed. “If you don’t charge us for the potions that may or may not work, then it’s free.”

“I accept whole hartedly, Nurse Firm! Those potions ze has definitely earned.”

Twilight giggled, “Are you going to hang it up in your hut?”

“Of course! It reminds me so much of home, that I can not just leave it be all alone.”

“I forget that Zebrica is such a wild place.”

“Well, fighting was not every day, but, oh, what can I say?”

“It’s beautiful,” Celluloid said. To Bristles now, “How did you do it? How did you create something so accurate and strong just from looking at her?”

Bristles looked up at him, then back at the sketchbook ze was busy in. Drawing a bunch of little zebras, now, one of them talking to a little Celluloid.

“And,” he kept going, “How do you keep your work from stagnating if you never pause to take in the world and other art and stuff? Do you think you’ll ever hit that wall?”

Bristles looked at him reproachfully for a second. Then ze turned back to hez sketchbook without answering.

Zecora chirped in, “Perhaps it’s the just the case that locked in your head, you discover new space. Even if the new is sometimes at the cost of mental health completely lost.”

“Hmm. I think that does make sense here. Well, I guess I’ll get going then. It was nice to meet you, Nurse Firm, Zecora.” He shook their hands and turned to Bristles. “It was nice to meet you too.” When ze didn’t react, he leaned forward and hugged hef around the sketchbook. Ze didn’t move. But as he drew away, ze stirred.

“No, no,” ze deftly ripped a page out and pressed it, with a jab of the arm, into Celluloid’s chest, then impassively returned to drawing on a new page.

As he walked out, with the rest of them right behind, he admired the sketches on the back of the piece he’d drawn in hez sketchbook. Ze’d drawn him, very quickly, a bones-only pencil of his face and a line right through his head. It had a little S at one end and an N at the other. By that, it looked like he was traveling southwest.

In the inn Bristles and Nurse Firm stayed at while they were in Ponyville, Bristles continued to draw figures of zebras in addition to the odd Twilight and all of the other things ze’d seen that day.

Sitting on the couch, reading a book, Nurse Firm felt the time slipping by. She knew Bristles must feel it as well, because ze’d inched away from her for the last half hour until they were both on opposite sides of the couch.

At ten thirty by Nurse Firm’s watch, she stood up and announced, “Come on. You know it’s time for bed.”

“Mmmm.”

Nurse Firm walked over to the cabinet over the little stove and pulled out the bottle of liquid Zfether. She used to use pills, back when Bristles still had mind enough to not spit them out or hide them under hez tongue. “Don’t fight and you’ll get to wake up and draw more sooner, okay?” But when she turned back around, she could see hez hooves peeking out; Bristles was wedged under the bed, undoubtedly still drawing.

Nurse Firm put the medicine down on the nightstand and stripped, throwing her clothes on the bed for now. It didn’t always get messy, but sometimes it did. She walked over to the opposite side of the bed, and got down on her arms and stifles. “Bristles.”

Bristles squirmed frantically out from under, but Nurse Firm jumped the bed and wrapped her arms around hez hips. She started pulling hef out as ze struggled, and hooked one hand around the boxspring, and began to hum loudly from the pain of not drawing properly.

“Just—come—out!” She lifted Bristles up, with her hooves on the ground now, and the bedframe began to bite into hez back. For several tiring, hot moments, nothing happened. Bristles had too good of a grip to let go. Nurse Firm let Bristles back down and upended the bed. The covers feel into a lump and the mattress flipped over onto the floor. But Bristles was exposed, and Nurse Firm crouched swiftly to grab hez wrists.

“I swear, Bristles, if you don’t stop fighting, I will start mixing this into your food and you’ll be asleep by seven!”

Bristles beyond words, Nurse Firm prying now both of hez hands off by the wrists, ze started flailing. Ze lurched upward, Nurse Firm put her weight down over hef, and forced hef to sit up. Ze started shaking zefs head violently, still screaming, and with one arm clamped over both of Bristles’s, Nurse Firm grabbed the Zfether and opened the bottle with her mouth.

Spitting the cap out, “Stay. Still!”

She brought the bottle up slowly, pressing her fist clenched around it to hez chest first, and pressing up the neck. Some began to spill, she managed to pin hef into leaning in only one direciton, and brought the bottle up. She lunged at hez mouth with her other hand, wrenched it open, and poured a sizeable ammount down, little waves of it spilling out as Bristles kept fighting. Then she clamped both hands over Bristles’s mouth and nose until she saw hef swallow.

Defeated, Bristles slumped over and got back to drawing. Nurse Firm pulled hef up and out of the way, putting hef on the couch while she cleaned up the spill off the floor, herself, and Bristles, and got the bed back together. It was like this pretty much every night, but if Bristles didn’t take the sleep medicine ze’d stay awake straight through until ze collapsed sometime the next day or so. Once she was ready, she turned all the lights except the one on the nightstand off. Then pulled Bristles into bed and sat next to hef as they both waited for hef to fall asleep. The room only had one bed, so they slept in it together. Bristles didn’t mind because it didn’t interfere with drawing, and Nurse Firm didn’t mind because it meant she woke up at the same time as Bristles. It took about seven minutes before hez hand stopped moving and ze weakly fell forward. Nurse Firm pulled the gauntlets off of hez arms and put them on the nightstand.

Then she turned out the lights and waited to fall asleep herself.

Uncovering Brittleness

Orbit pulled himself out of the pool. He was done for the day, now. He stared down at his lap, and idly squished his balls together with his thighs, hooves still dangling in the water.

“Staring at your junk, boss?” Bluedrop appeared and sat cross-legged next to him.

He sighed. “Yeah, into the void or something.”

“Hey,” she pushed him on the shoulder, and he looked up. “I know taking care of you isn’t part of my job, but you’ve been even more morose these last few days than normal.”

“Have I? I usually hide it better.”

“I know this isn’t your passion,” she said, following his shifting gaze down into the shimmer of the pool water. “So I just wanted to take a moment to thank you. You’ve been a really good boss so far, even if you don’t really like any of this.”

He tried to smile, though he knew it came off weird. “Thanks. It’s not horrible; I don’t have any reason to hate it. And it keeps me strong, and fit. But I don’t feel attached to it.”

“I think I get it, at least some of it.”

He looked up at her, and squished his eyebrows down. “What brought all of this on?”

She shrugged. “My uncle died yesterday; it made me realize how fragile life is. I never really got to tell him just how much he meant to me—especially in my childhood. So before one of us dies, I want to tell you that you have been a good boss, and I believe you can find what you’re looking for.”

“Oh.” He straightened his back and tried to look more professional. “I’m sorry about your uncle. And, uh, thank you. I really appreciate how you take your job seriously, and uh, keep the facilities running smoothly.”

She smiled. “Don’t mention it.” Standing up, “Well, you can go shower now. I’ve got to go fix the pool vacuum.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said lamely, standing up and watching her go.

He thought about what she’d said in the shower, with the babble of steam and conversation nipping at his cognitive locomotive. He’d solidified, in his mind, over the past handful of years, that he was just doomed to unhappiness. That there wasn’t any way for him to be passionate, or even just joyful. But now, a tiny glimmer of hope had etched its shining self into his hard passing apathy and refused to be dislodged—for now at least.

He looked up on his walk home. The gray-and-yellow mailmare flying overhead waved at him. He waved back, and uncertainly put his eyes back onto the grass he trod.

At his own house, he sunk into the couch and stared at the ceiling for a while without turning on any lights. Eventualy, he managed to turn on some noise (Ponyville News) and wait until about 6, when Tubs was definitely home. Then he got up, turned off the TV and headed over to Tubs’s house.

Quick followed him in moments later, and while Tubs and hef talked in the kitchen, Orbit stood behind and looked around. There wasn’t much that needed doing. He picked a few things off the floor and wiped a sticky spill off the counter. It took too much energy to clean his own house, but at least he could help Tubs keep his clean. Somehow it was different; it wasn’t chores, it was helping. And he could do that still.

Sunluck came in as well, and settled in with them just as Tubs put the salad on the table. As they sat down and started talking, Sunluck had a story to tell.

“I shod the most interesting client today,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” With hez mouth full of spinach, Quick looked up at her. “Who was that?”

“It was this pony who’s cutiemark covered hez entire body.”

“Really?” Tubs asked. “Was it a tattoo?”

“No, it was all natural. Ze had a nurse accompanying hef, and they both got new shoes. The cutiemark was for drawing, and it just spread all over hef. Pencils and paints and pallets and all of that kind of stuff—from hez fetlocks to hez forehead. And the entire time ze’s laying down, ze’s drawing in a notebook. It was like ze couldn’t stop drawing; it was crazy.”

“What did ze draw?” Orbit asked, still looking into his bowl of greens like if he just pushed it around enough it would spill out all the secrets of the universe.

“I couldn’t see all of it, but I caught glimpses. Ze drew the shop with all my iron and leather working tools on the walls, while I was shoeing hef. And while I was shoeing Nurse Firm—who was like her caretaker—ze drew me and a bunch and a bunch of hooves getting horseshoes. It was all super beautiful; I felt like ze was trying to say something with each sketch.”

“That’s really interesting,” Quick said, looking at Sunluck. “Do you think hez cutiemark made hef crazy?”

“I think definitely. Ze seemed really passionate about it too.”

“Did the nurse say anything to you?” Tubs asked.

“We didn’t talk much, but she did say that ze doesn’t sleep or eat without her, because ze’s too busy drawing or painting.”

“That’s really crazy,” Quick said. “I hope ze’s okay.”

“I think that’s what hez nurse said—that they’re looking for help.”

“What do you think about it?” Tubs asked Orbit. “It sounds kind of like ze’s your exact opposite.”

“Well.” He rubbed the metal of the fork in one hand between his fingers, and looked up at them all. “I don’t know. It’s interesting. But if I had to choose—being crippled by passion or having no passion at all—I would choose to be in hez hooves. I know I’m healthier and all, technically, but It’s hard not think it would be nice, to just feel entirely consumed by it.”

“Hmm.” Sunluck leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “It certainly must be something. I kind of want to get to know hez more. If ze’s able to do anything like talk and stuff. Ze said a few words, but they were choppy and I don’t remember them.”

Quick frowned. “I don’t know, I think you might have gotten the better end of it,” ze said to Orbit. “I know you’re not passionate about anything but at least you get to do normal things and don’t have to be followed around twenty-four seven.”

“I’d rather be passionate,” Tubs said, turning to smile at Quick. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t like cooking and organizing. I just wouldn’t have anything at all.”

Orbit nodded.

Eventually they cleaned up diner and Orbit found himself on the couch again. Sunluck played the same game she did yesterday, and Tubs and Quick sat off to the side while Quick practiced accordion. It looked like Tubs was trying to talk hef into something, but into what Orbit didn’t know.

They filtered home, and Orbit fell asleep thinking about what Bluedrop had said to him, and about the mysterious passion pony.

Once Orbit and Sunluck had left, Tubs made Quick change back into Xaquik and kept talking.

“Come on,” he said, “Please tell them; I promise it’ll go alright.”

“I know, I know, I know,” ze closed the bellows of the accordion and pulled hez left hand out of the strap. They continued sitting on the floor, but ze put the instrument aside and faced Tubs with hez full attention now. “Can we just, please—I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You’ve had years to get ready, you have to take the jump now!”

Ze sighed and hugged hez hard legs together. Tubs shuffled over and put his arm around Xaquik’s back. Ze leaned into him and had to maneuver hez head so hez warped horn wouldn’t poke Tubs in the face. Ze closed hez eyes and let Tubs rub hez side.

“I’m afraid, Tubs,” ze whispered.

“I know.”

“I don’t want things to get worse.”

“They have to change, Xaquik. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to do it, Tubs.”

Tubs kissed Xaquik on the cheek, pulled his arm up to the top of hez back and, pulling his legs around perpendicular to hef and preparing to stand up, pushed his arm under Xaquik’s legs. He picked hef up and carried hef through the living room to the bedroom.

“Mmmm, thanks honey,” ze said, muzzle nuzzled into Tubs’s chest.

Tubs laid hef down on the bed, and crawled on top of the cover next to hef. “I think we should do it tomorrow.”

Xaquik took Tub’s soft hands in hez own hard ones, and meekly played with his fingers. Tubs gave hef his other hand and let hef mess with both. “Okay. Okay, okay. But, can we approach Princess Twilight first? I just—I would feel safer knowing that we’re—that I’m okay. Legally.”

“Of course we can do that.” He wiggled his fingers and gently stroked Xaquik’s chitinous chest. “How about tomorrow morning, do you think you can do that?”

Ze closed hez eyes and pulled Tubs’s hand up to hez face. Tubs stroked it gently. “Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow morning, we’ll do it.”

Tubs kissed hef on the forehead and rolled over off the bed. “Is your house all locked up?”

“Yeah,” Xaquik said.

“Did you get enough love to eat?”

“I tell you every day honey, one week with you could feed me for a thousand years.”

Tubs turned off the lights, smiling to himself, put up Xaquik’s accordion, and pulled out his toothbrush while Xaquik stared pensively at the ceiling.

“Come on,” he called with a mouth full of toothpaste. “At least brush your teeth, okay?”

Xaquik got up and stood with Tubs and brushed hez teeth like it might be the last time he ever did. Then they both settled in the bed, and Tubs cuddled and whispered with Xaquik until they both fell asleep.

In the morning, Xaquik was even more frazzled. Ze sat with one leg hanging off the bed, kicking gently, and staring out the window while Tubs woke up.

“Babe,” Tubs sleepily wrapped his arms around hez hips while ze continued to sit rigidly. “Were you up all night?”

“Just for about an hour.”

Tubs gently kissed hez lower back. “Come on,” he started sitting up, pulling the covers away, “One step at a time, okay? Let’s take a shower first.”

“Mmmm, yes, yes.” Xaquik got up and quickly walked around the bed to the bathroom. Tubs got to his hooves slower, and came into the bathroom with the water in the shower already flowing.

The steam bloomed over the tile and Xaquik stepped in first, buzzing hez wings under the water. They showered, helped wash each other, and Xaquik became steadily more agitated. They ate a tense breakfast of mushroom-laden omelets (Xaquik’s favorite, even if ze didn’t really need to eat).

Standing at the front door, Tubs held Xaquik’s hand as ze changed into normal mild-mannered Quick.

“If anything goes wrong,” he said as he opened the door, “We’ll run away, okay? Straight to Celestia. And if she doesn’t want us, then we’ll go to Cadence in the Crystal Empire. Then Griffinstone, and if we have to we’ll make our own settlement. But don’t worry, okay? That’s not going to happen; we’ll be back here for lunch if you don’t want to eat out.”

Xaquik walked through town as if approaching the gallows. They made it to the Crystal castle and knocked on the doors.

After a moment, Princess Twilight appeared. She rubbed the side of her face as if she’d gotten very little sleep, and looked at them both. “May I help you?”

“I’m Tubs, and this is Xaquik. We were just wondering if we could, uh, ask you something.”

She squished her face together in confustion, and looked at Xaquik, who trembled and looked very determinedly away from her. “Sure? Come on in.” They crossed the threshold and she closed the door behind them. “Are you okay?”

“We’re okay.” Tubs spoke for the both of them, while Xaquik cowered behind one of his arms, trying and failing to both be polite and make hefself as small as possible.

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure we can find the answer. Come with me,” she started leading them upstairs to the extensive non-fiction section of the library that overlooked the even more extensive fiction section.

Tubs tried to explain what was going on as they walked. “We—um—my other half sort of came to Equestria under  extraneous circumstances.”

“Oh!” She actually perked up, and as they entered the library, she grabbed several books at once with her magic. “Citizenship laws are very easy to understand—I’m sure you qualify as a citizen already, Zackit, you said?”

“Xaquik.”

She smiled reassuringly at them. Tubs gently elbowed Xaquik so ze looked up. “I. The circumstances are, well,” ze looked around at the library. There were only a few straggling patrons combing through the books; one or two sat at tables and read or took notes. “My country was sort of destroyed kind of, and I’ve been in Ponyville for about three years.”

“Oh, don’t worry at all, then,” she flipped open two books, found the passage she wanted on one and showed it to hef. “If your permanent residency is in Equestria, then you’re an official citizen of Celestia. And ponies seeking political asylum, which I think is closest to your situation, are granted it pretty much every time. All you’ll have to do is fill out a bit of paperwork. Where were you from, did you say?”

“That’s the thing, my country was kind of an enemy to Celestia while it existed.”

“Oh. Well, you’ll have to use a different form than the one I was thinking of, but that’s alright so long as you don’t harbor any serious ill will toward Celestia yourself.”

“I don’t.”

“Great! I’ll grab those forms, they’re over…” She set the books on a table, and lit her horn again, walking off a bit. Three manila folders sailed over the shelves and met themselves gently to her fingers. She pulled out a sheet from each and handed them all to Xaquik. “Here, just fill them out and send them to the Mayor’s office. I’ll even sign off on them if you want.”

“Thank you Twilight, but—uh—there’s more. I’m sort of. I’m…”

Tubs broke in, “It might be easier if we just show you. Could we go somewhere privet?”

“Uhhh, sure.” Twilight looked confused, but lead them both from the library to a door a bit down the hall. It had a small table in one corner, and the rest of the room was bare except for three huge canvases leaning against the wall.

She closed the door behind them both. “So what’s going on?”

For a moment no one said anything. Then Tubs briskly nudged Xaquik in the ribs, and ze said, “Okay, well, just please don’t freak out, Princess.”

With a pop and a flash of green fire, ze changed back into hez normal, buggy self.

Twilight didn’t say anything at first. Just stared with her jaw slack. She backed away quickly and slammed into the wall behind her. Then a wave of fierceness washed over her face and for a split second both Tubs and Xaquik were sure she was going to blast them into next year.

But she bit her lip. And curiosity took over, “Are you…friendly?”

“Oh, uh, yes. I’m—the country I left was the changeling horde.” Ze looked at her pleadingly, wringing hez hands.

“Do you—do you still eat love?”

“Well,” Tubs said now, putting his arm around Xaquik, who jumped a bit. “Yes. But I love hef, and it’s enough for hef to eat.”

Twilight seemed more at ease. “But does—wait, I’m sorry Xaquik, are you still a boy? Your genitals seem to have disappeared.”

“I’m like all changelings. We’re all hermaphrodites, and it’s all in our shell. I just have two openings down here,” still standing, ze opened hez legs and tried to show her. “One is for waste excrement and the other has both male and female reproductive organs. So, I’m neither. And I’m still a ze when I’m disguised around town.”

“Huh.” She looked genuinely interested now, but shook her head a bit and continued, directed at Tubs, “Does ze have the ability to give love?”

“As a matter of fact, ze does.”

“It’s just that other changelings can’t eat that kind of love.”

“Fascinating.” She opened the door again and a notebook and quill zoomed into the room and onto the table. “Come sit down; do you mind if I ask some more questions?” She smiled like she’d just discovered a new continent to map.

“Well—am I okay?”

“What?”

“As a citizen, is it okay if I walk around Ponyville non-disguised?”

“Oh yeah yeah yeah,” she waved a hand in the air very fast, “I’ll write a letter to Celestia and Mayor Mare and submit your paperwork and all, I’m sure it’ll be fine after everyone knows you’re friendly.”

Tubs held hez hand and led hef to sit at the table. He looked at hef, trying to communicate relief and positive feelings.

“Okay, I wrote down everything you said about hermaphroditism and eating changeling love; can you tell me more about how you metabolize emotion?”

About half an hour later, they stood, still talking to Twilight, who was very excited to get to know absolutely every detail about changeling life and clutched the documents ze’d filled out in one of her hands. When they finally managed to get away (“Yes, I’ll come back soon and tell you more about being a changeling, I promise!”), Xaquik hesitated at the front doors.

“Are you ready to go out undisguised?”

“Yes. Maybe? I don’t know. Do you think that we should maybe wait and tell Orbit and Sunluck first? Before the whole town?”

“Are you sure you’re not hiding from it again?”

“Tubs.” Ze took both his hands, pulled him forward, and kissed him. “I’m not, anymore, at least as much. I can do it, I think. But I also think I owe it to our friends to, sort of come out, to them first.”

“Well, I respect that.”

With a pop, ze was Quick again.

“This might be the last time I’m not myself.”

Tubs hugged zef hard. “I really hope so.”

They left the crystal castle, and just as they started down the steps, two ponies started up them. Discreetly as he could, Tubs nudged Xaquik and nodded at them.

The pink one was dressed, which was a little odd, especially in the summer heat, but the one by her side was the cutiemark pony. With colors and outlines all over hez body, lines and painting and drawing implements, swaths of paints, bursts of graphite and peals of paper. Ze was absorbed, completely, in a notebook ze held, scribbling in it quickly. Ze passed a glance at Xaquik, seemed somewhat excited by him, and as they passed on the steps Tubs could make out an already recognizable sketch of Xaquik’s chest. Hez hands filling in quickly the areas to shade and the areas not to shade with the patches of orange and white.

They stopped descending for a moment to see them reach the top and go inside.

“Woah, that was hef!” Xaquik said, turning to Tubs as they started to walk again.

“Yeah, it was. That was crazy, the cutiemark really did cover every bit of hef. Wow. Wow. And ze was drawing, too.”

“And that other pony must have been the nurse.”

“Yeah.”

They kept walking, and as they got closer to Tubs’s house, he had an idea. “Hey, Xaquik, we can go and see Sunluck and Orbit right now. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

“Hmm. Well, can we rest a bit first?”

“Yeah, of course. Do you want to crash alone for a while?”

“I wouldn’t mind. I’ll be back over in a bit.”

“Okay, babe.”

They got up to Tubs’s door, and hugged goodbye.

In hez own house, Xaquick changed back into hefself and flopped onto hez couch. Ze pulled a pillow to hez head and closed hez eyes for a moment. It had all gone much better than ze’d expected. But still, it was tiring. After a few moments, ze got up and straightened up hez house a bit. It was all very brightly lit, decorated gaily with flowers and flower-print upholstery, wallpaper, curtains, carpet.

After ze’d finished vacuuming, ze sat down on the couch again and tried to decide what ze wanted to do. Stressful, stressful. And soon ze’d be confronting hez friends about it. Slowly, hez hand snaked downwards, and ze focused on drawing out hez male part—a tin, tapered penis. Ze masturbated gently, just thinking about the pleasure of the sensation.

When ze finished, ze felt a little better, and waited a moment before getting up to clean hefself off.

Orbit rested for a moment, just finishing five hundred meters. He looked up and had to look back again. Outside, Sunluck, Tubs, and Quick were walking happily up to the center.

Sure enough, a few moments later they were walking into the pool room, beelining for him. He pulled himself out of the water, and stood to face them. “What’s going on?” They looked too happy for something bad to have happened. At least, that was what he thought.

“I don’t know,” Sunluck said, coming up to him with a smile. “Tubs and Quick have an announcement or something, so they’ve come and got me off work early.”

“You closed the Super Shoeing Shop?”

“No, no, Oxeye is watching it for me.”

“Oh, right.”

She looked down at the pool. “You have to shower off, right?”

“Yeah. Sunluck, you’re supposed to shower before—“

But she jumped in and started doing laps. Quick seemed nervous as ze watched her swim, but Tubs seemed happy. After a moment, he said, “Well, we’re just having a special early dinner at my house is all.”

“What’s it for?”

He smiled bigger, “It’s a surprise.”

Sunluck drew up to them again, splashing water over the filter grill. “Alright, I got to do two laps. Let’s go shower off.” She climbed out and walked with Orbit to the showers. They waved at Quick and Tubs, who walked back to wait in the lobby.

In the showers, Sunluck talked with Orbit while she soaped up her legs. “I bet I know what this all about. I bet you do too, huh?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Well come on, they’ve been dating for almost four years. Will be in a couple months. Either one of them—I bet it’s Quick—has proposed, or one of them is going to tonight.”

“It does make sense.”

“Hey,” she turned her back to him. “Can you get my wings?”

“Yeah, sure.” She stretched out one feathery appendage and Orbit carefully washed it with soap. He’d felt wet feathers before, but it had been a long time. It was a strange feeling, like it wasn’t supposed to be. As if, just like how he felt with swimming, the wings had been kicked out of the sky and into the closest thing resembling it: the water. He finished one wing and she offered him her other.

“So, what do you think?”

“Probably. I can’t see what else it would be.”

“I know, it’s so exciting!”

He finished washing and rinsing, but his hands lingered in the feathers. Feeling the muscles of the sturdy, if not particularly powerful, wing.

“Orbit?” The feathers left his fingers as she folded her wings and turned back around to face him. “You lost in thought?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About having wings and flying and stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay. You can play with my feathers later if you want, but let’s wash up for now, okay?”

“Right, right. Sorry, Sunluck.”

“I know you don’t mean anything by it. Besides, preening isn’t like having sex or anything. It’s like a massage—it’s only intimate if you make it so.”

“Thanks, that’s reassuring.”

They finished washing up, and each grabbed one of the fresh towels from the bin and dried off. About to walk out, Sunluck grabbed Orbit and pulled him in front of the large mirrors above the sinks.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

He did it, and felt Sunluck pressing her face and arms against his back.

“Okay, open.”

He opened his eyes and saw himself standing there, looking a bit confused and stupid, with huge, beautiful wings sprouting out of his back and arching all the way from the batroom stalls to the wall. He tried to feel it. Tried to imagine what it felt like. And it hit him, as he tried to put himself into the appendages that shivered without his control, that were too small and that clashed with his coat color, that these were never going to be his wings. That he would never have wings of his own, that this was the closest he was ever going to get to flying. He would never fall into the sky, and even if he could, what would it solve? What did all of that vague, wistful daydreaming really mean or amount to? Nothing.

Sunluck folded them back and pulled him around as he started to cry. “Woah, are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to taunt you or anything, I just thought—“

“N-no, it’s okay. I know, I know, I know.” He couldn’t get anything else out.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry. Um. Uh. Here,” she pulled his towel off his shoulders and balled it up so he could hide his face in something. He held it to his eyes and his running nose halfheartedly as at least half of the ponies in the locker room turned to look at him.

“Orbit, come on. It’s okay. Nothing’s happened, it’s alright.” She looked up and tried to communicate to everyone with her eyes that things were okay. He weakly walked out of the bathroom and collapsed into quieter sobs on a bench. With ponies still looking at them, Orbit took a minute to try to recover, drawn into a ball, and gradually shaking less. Gradually stopped until he was only staring intensely miserably at the floor.

Bluedrop entered the locker rooms with an air of purpose and a bit of fear. She found Orbit and walked over briskly. “Are you the one crying in here?” She asked gently.

Sunluck nodded to her. They’d met once or twice before, but didn’t know each other hardly at all. Blue drop sat on Orbit’s other side as he finished pulling himself together.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to freak you or any of the patrons out. It just hit me, kind of all at once, that I’m never going to fly.” He laughed bitterly, “It’s so stupid. Sorry. Just, give me a minute.” He rubbed his eyes like maybe he could solve all of his problems by squishing them into his skull, then stood up.

He hugged Sunluck. “Thanks for showing me that. I really needed it.”

Then he turned and hugged Bluedrop. “Thanks for checking up on me, again.”

“No problem, boss. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

“Already on my way.” He gave his nose a final wipe and moved with them out of the locker room, tossing his towel with Sunluck’s in the used towel bin.

They walked out, and Bluedrop patted Orbit on the shoulder before she left to return to work.

Sunluck asked him if he was really alright as they came up to Tubs and Quick. He nodded, deliriously and spitefully becoming happy, like a pony who’d been scheduled to burn at the stake finding out he would only be painlessly put to sleep.

“Tubs, Quick! Let’s go eat or something!”

They saw his puffy eyes, and Sunluck’s unease next to him. “Are you alright?” Quick asked. Tubs echoed the question with his eyes.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine, let’s go.”

They all walked out and followed Tubs to his house. Tubs got to work making dinner with an atmosphere of vague excitement tinged to feel like dread—because of his breakdown, Orbit thought. He tried to let it not weigh on him too much, but felt it prikle in his extremeties, like a cloud slipping around him.

“Do you want us to help, Tubs?” Sunluck asked, standing with her hands on her hips.

“No, it’s alright. Quick can help enough.”

“Alright, then. Orbit, come play Croc with me.”

“Okay.”

He sat on the couch and pulled up into his ball while she started up the Playstable. Then, once she’d gotten the game running and put in the password to get access to all the levels she’d beaten already, she pulled one of Orbit’s arms out and pressed the controller into it.

“You can start in the ice world if you want, that’s where I left off yesterday, or you can just play them all from the beginning.”

“Haven’t you beaten this whole game more than once?”

“Yeah, and it’s still great. Come on,” she moved closer to him and, keeping his hands on the controller, hit “start level” and moved him forward a bit. “I know you’re sad and you’re unhappy right now, so just don’t focus on it for a bit okay? Maybe it’ll help.”

“Alright.”

In the kitchen, Tubs talked in a low voice to Xaquik, whose nerves were growing and churning again.

“You can do this, okay? You’ve got permission from the princess, you’re fine.”

“But what if they hate me? Tubs, I don’t think I can do it.”

“You have to. And tomorrow—heck, just later tonight—everything will be okay.”

“Hhhh, Luna I can’t wait for three hours for now when all of this is over.”

“Just relax. They’ll be cool about it, trust me.”

Eventually, they sat around the table, eating a delicious confit byaldi. A few bites in, Tubs started to say, “Well, Quick has a bit of an announcement.”

Xaquik choked on a bit of vegetable, and swallowed it with some difficulty. Sunluck smiled hugely, and Orbit seemed quietly happy for hef. “Well, uh, I’m. I’ve kind of got a secret to break to you. I’m sorry I’ve been keeping it for so long, but, well, I’m going to tell you now, so please don’t freak out. Okay?”

Positively jubilant, Sunluck nodded eagerly.

“I’m a changeling, and my real name is Xaquik Fadez.” With a pop, ze became hefself.

Orbit didn’t really move at all. He shuffled a little, and looked surprised, but that was it. Sunluck jumped out of her seat.

“Woah, woah, what?” She backed up into the living room with one powerful beat of her wings and looked at him farther away. “Have you been a bug the entire time?”

“Well, a changeling, yes.”

Desperately, she turned her gaze away from hef, “Orbit? Tubs?”

Tubs leaned over to Xaquik, put his arm around hef, and kissed hef on the cheek.

Orbit laughed. It was so unexpected as to be rude, and he could tell, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Hahah, sorry Quick. Xaquik. Whatever.” He shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth, “I don’t care. Does this mean you two aren’t getting married?”

“What?” Flustered a little bit, “I mean—what does this have to do with marriage?”

“We thought you two were getting married,” Sunluck explained, warming up a bit, letting her muscles relax and wings fold again. Her hands remained fists, but fell loosely to her sides. “We thought this was going to be your announcement party.”

Tubs laughed now, and Xaquick smiled brightly at him. “Well,” Xaquik said, “we’re getting close I think.”

“What do you say, could we do it?”

“Get married?”

“Yeah.”

“Tubs, I’d love to marry you.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Ze pushed a little closer to him and seemed to glow with quiet happiness. “But we’ll have to do it later.”

Sunluck came closer. “Sorry I freaked out. I don’t know—you’ve lied to us for years, then. I feel hurt, even if you don’t, Orbit.”

Orbit looked up again at Xaquik, and took in hez buggy-ness. He shrugged. “It’s nice to finally see the real you. Did you come from that swarm that attacked Canterlot?”

Ze rubbed hez hands together and smiled awkwardly. “Yep. Sorry about that.”

“Whatever.”

Sunluck sat down again, keeping her legs crossed at the pastern and hooves under the chair. She pulled her plate closer to her and tried to smile. It came off warped.

“I’m sorry I lied to you both for so long,” Xaquik said, looking down a bit. “At first it was necessity; I wanted out of the swarm but I couldn’t go anywhere as a changeling. We all got blasted out of Canterlot, and I ended up halfway between Ponyville and where the rest of the swarm landed. So I came to Ponyville and disguised myself. I chose it all myself though—even though ‘Quick Fiddles’ isn’t real, ze isn’t just another pony you might find one day. I imagined it all fresh, the colors and the cutiemark.

“And I should have told you all when I told Tubs—he found out sort of accidentally—but I was afraid you’d all hate me and I’d get arrested. We saw Twilight, though, and I’m legal, and I’m here now. I’m out. So, I’m really sorry, Sunluck, and to you too, Orbit. But, uh, thanks for not freaking out.”

Sunluck nodded, and started to eat again. “It makes sense, I guess. But, I’m really, really sorry Xaquik, I hate bugs.”

Ze laughed, much to Sunluck’s relief. “That’s okay, I know it might take a while to get used to it.”

They kept talking over dinner, and slowly Sunluck became okay again, though still on edge just from Xaquik’s general appearance. About a half hour later, she suddenly jumped up. “Wait, you’re a changeling!”

“Yes?”

“Can you do me?”

“What?”

“Me, can you become me?”

Seeing her excitement, ze stood up. “Okay, I’ll do it, but remember that I’m not you—I’m still Xaquik underneath.”

She nodded briskly.

And with a pop, there were two Sunlucks standing on either side of the table.

“Woah, awesome!” She ran around the table and came up to hef. “Can I, like…”

The Sunluck in front of her shrugged hez shoulders. “What do you want me to do?”

“Woah, your voice is different. Turn around.”

Ze did so. “It’s actually the same—your voice resonates in your head so it sounds different from what you hear. This is what you sound like to all of us.”

“Huh. So I guess now you can hear what I think I sound like.” She put her hands on zev back as she explored it. “Dang, so this is what I look like from behind. Look at my tail, look at this, I’m totally changing styles later. Nice wings, though. Good butt. That’s my cutiemark, cool.”

Xaquik turned and smiled at her in her own skin, “What do you think, do you like the way you look?”

“Hmmm, can I see one of my arms? Cool. Look at these muscles. Huh.” She looked up to the area she’d been avoiding a bit, and stared into Xaquik’s eyes and face. “Sorry if this is making you feel weird, Xaquik, I’m going to touch your face, okay?”

Ze closed hez eyes. “Go ahead.”

She ran her hands over the face slowly. Over the muzzle and the eyebrows and the nose, the ears, the cheeks, the chin. “Well,” she said after she’d had enough, “I’m not as ugly as I thought I was.”

“You’re not ugly at all,” the other her said back to her, smiling. Ze took her hand again and put it to hez face again. “You’re beautiful. I feel beautiful.”

Sunluck teared up a bit, smiling despite herself.

“Sunluck, you’re the prettiest mare I know.” Tubs said.

“Yeah,” Orbit said as well, “You are pretty, really.”

“Guess it’s my turn to cry today,” she choked out, before she scooped Xaquik up in a hug. “I can’t communicate how much I appreciate that.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She separated and, wiping her eyes, said, “Okay, you can change back now. That’s really cool; we should prank someone sometime,” and sat back down.

Xaquik changed, then looked at Orbit, who could feel it coming and averted his eyes to the pepper grinder on the table.

“Orbit, do you want me to do you now?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t.”

Pop. “Are you sure?”

Almost automatically, against his will, he turned to look. He saw himself similing at himself, and it highlighted everything he hated. And that stupid face taunting him, so full of passion and life and wearing his dead husk as a joke. It happened too fast for him to stop himself, but his hands grabbed his plate and it sailed through the air to slam cleanly into hez face. The ceramic fractured and flung itself away in pieces, and in a flash Xaquik, a bug again, hit the floor fearfully holding a hand to hez scratched face and bleeding nose.

“What the hell, Orbit?” Tubs said, standing up so fast his chair fell over.

“I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry, I—It just happened—“

Xaquik tried to stand up again, falling back down from the shock.

It was too much. Orbit ran to the door, slammed through it, and sprinted to his house, locked himself in, and started crying again. As he sobbed, he ripped the bottle of Sleep-Aid off his nightstand and forced pills down his throat until his mouth went dry.

Still leaking, he pulled himself onto the bed and waited to see if he’d wake up.

Tubs helped the stunned Xaquik off the floor. “Are you alright?”

“My nose hurts, but I’m fine. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

Sunluck jumped up, “I’ll go get him,” and flew out the door.

While Tubs held a paper towel to hez nose and inspected the scratches on hez face, ze said, “Don’t blame Orbit.”

“I’m trying not to, but he hurt you and broke one of my nice plates.”

“It’s my fault. He said he didn’t want me to do it, but I didn’t think about how that could be a bad experience, I just thought it might make him feel better.”

“I know, babe, I know. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. It was like getting punched; I’ve been punched before, I’m alright.”

Tubs handed hef the towel to hold for hefself. He leaned back against the kitchen counter and sighed. “I’m sorry, Xaquik.”

“What are you on about, none of this is your fault.”

“I know, but I still feel bad.”

Xaquik kissed him clumsily and held him close with one arm. “It’s okay. Orbit just freaked out a bit, kind of like Sunluck did at first. It’ll be fine. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Sunluck knocked first. When no one answered, she tried to open the door. Finding it locked, she flew over the house and checked the back door. It resisted her the same. She tried the kitchen window and managed to pry it open. Kicking the screen off, she climbed in and shut the window behind her.

“Orbit? I know you’re mad, or sad, or whatever you are, but we’re not mad at you, okay?”

There came no response. Orbit wasn’t in the kitchen, the living room, but she saw him in his bedroom. Curled up and shivering in a ball on his bed. Walking quickly up to him, “Hey, listen, we’re not angry and Xaquik is okay. Ze’s fine, you didn’t really hurt hef”

Orbit moaned a bit in response, and Sunluck noticed for the first time the little white pills dotting the ground.

“Oh my Luna, you didn’t—how many pills did you take? Orbit, talk to me!”

“Too many,” he managed, eyes closed.

She grabbed the bottle and started reading over it, while moving dully toward the landline in the living room. She stopped. “Okay, it’s just melatonin. My mom takes that too, I think you’ll be alright. How do you feel?”

Moving like an alarmed slug, he fell out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. Sunluck followed him and he crumpled over the toilet to threw up; a fist twisting his stomach slowly into a knot.

She squeezed between him and the wall, still holding the bottle, and put her arm over his back as he trembled and the bile flowed slowly out of him.

Mouth coated in sick, he whispered, “I just want to die, Sunluck. I don’t want to be alive anymore. I just hate everything, I hate everyone, I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to be anything. I just want it all to stop.”

“I know you don’t like anything. I know you don’t like anypony, including us. And I know talking about how much we need you isn’t going to do anything but guilt trip you. I don’t know what to say, Orbit, besides just that there is stuff worth living for. I know you can find your passion one day—find people you like more and something that’s fulfilling for you to do. I believe in it. I believe in you. And so do Tubs and Xaquik and Bluedrop and everyone you know. Things can get better, I promise.”

He was quiet, resting his muzzle against the porcelain while he waited for more to come up. “There’s no good that I can see anymore. It’s all become rubbish for me.”

Quiet for a moment. Then, timidly, “Do you want, uh, would it make you happy if I—you know," she snaked a hand down his back and gently held his outer thigh.

Orbit vomited again and let himself fall onto the floor on the other side of the toilet. “Don’t prostitute yourself just because you think it’ll help. That’s a shit reason to have sex.”

Sunluck pulled her legs together and held them with her arms. “I know. I’m sorry, I just thought… yeah, that would only make this worse. Did you get it all out?”

He nodded, moving his thick face very slowly against the smooth, cold tile floor.

“We need to get some food into you before you pass out, okay? I’ll grab something from your kitchen.” She got up and went to the kitchen to rummage, feeling the stifled tinge of shame and fear as she did. Looking for something that felt wholesome she came up with oatmeal. “Just wait a minute while I microwave this, okay?”

From far back in the house, “Huu.”

They were quick oats, and only took two fidgety minutes to cook while she tried to think her way out of the gross feeling of the pity sex she’d offered. She grabbed some cream from the fridge and stirred it in so it wouldn’t be boiling when she gave it to Orbit.

Back in the bathroom, she closed the toilet and flushed, set the oatmeal down on the lid, and sat next to Orbit, propping him up on her side.

“Try to stay awake, okay? Just long enough to eat.”

He breathed out in a wheeze, “Hhh. I’m sorry I’m such shit.” His voice barely there.

She pulled the oatmeal off the lid and pressed it to his hands. “You’re not shit, okay? Just eat.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

He didn’t argue more. Slowly, moving spoon to mouth and swallowing weakly, he ate. In the little tiny world of the bathroom, the oatmeal went by very gradually. But after what might have only been seven minutes of uncomfortable sitting and an uneasy quiet, he’d finished it, drooping like he would pass out any second.

“Do you want to try to brush your teeth?”

He nodded. Sunluck helped him up and put toothpaste on his tooth brush, then helped support him as he forced his last energy into smearing his teeth with the bristles. With the final spit, he dropped the brush in the sink, swayed on the spot, and foal-stepped toward the bed. Sunluck held up his right side, and let him fall into onto the covers, then pulled half of the sheet he was on over him.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, when you wake up, okay?”

He was already asleep. She sighed and walked back to the bathroom, rinsed out his tooth brush and put it up, and took the bowl and spoon to the kitchen. Then she unlocked the front door, opened it, locked the handle, stepped out, and shut it again.

Tubs and Xaquik were just outside; she caught up to them.

“He kind of, uh,” she had no idea how to phrase it lightly, “Swallowed half a bottle of melatonin, then puked it up. I made him eat some oatmeal before he passed out; he’ll be okay in the morning.”

“Wait,” Tubs said, “You mean he tried to kill himself?”

“Oh Luna, I didn’t mean to make him that upset.” Xaquik said. “I really shouldn’t have done that, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Sunluck said. “It’s super hard to overdose on that stuff, he’ll be fine.”

Tubs looked at Orbit’s house. It held a new sinister shadow, in its black windows and vacant lawn and undecorated brick. “Maybe this will be good for him.”

“How?” Sunluck asked.

“Well, whatever he freaked out about is something already in himself,” he turned to Xaquik, “You can only look like him. Only show it to him. So, maybe this will help him understand himself and—you know—get better somehow.”

“I don’t know.” Xaquik shook his head slowly.

“Should we… call it a day, or what?” Sunluck asked.

“Well. You said he’s okay?” Tubs asked.

“Physically, anyway.”

“Alright. We did have dessert planned, if that sounds good.”

“I don’t know. Would it be right to eat cake just after a friend tried to kill himself?”

“Probably not.” Tubs nodded. “But it can be comfort food, not celebratory food.”

She sighed. “I don’t think so, Tubs. Thanks for the offer, and I’m sorry about the party kind of fizzling because of Orbit. I do accept you, Xaquik, and I’m sure that after a while I won’t mind hugging a bug. Maybe we can eat sweets tomorrow, okay?”

They nodded. Tubs hugged her, and she shook hands with Xaquik, shivering at his hard fingers and the holes in the palm. “I’ll be over early tomorrow—I told Orbit I’d check up on him.”

“We’ll be up too.” Tubs said, nodding seriously.

Sunluck flew home a little slowly. She felt bad for freaking out over Xaquik, and for Orbit and for not taking up the offer of dessert. But whatever. Orbit was safe, and so was everyone else, and in the end that was enough for one day.

She glided down to her porch and went inside, much more tired than usual. Before heading to bed, she drank two glasses of water. As all of the worry and stress crowded around her and fought off sleep, one positive thought floated back to her. “You’re beautiful. I feel beautiful.” It spread a warm heat of contentment and joy out from her heart, prickling all the way into her hooves, and carrying her gently off to sleep.

“Well,” Tubs said to Xaquik as they settled under the covers. “That went pretty well overall.”

“I’m worried about Orbit.” Xaquik got comfortable by squishing hez pillow extra hard and lightly cuddling with Tubs, who ze interlaced fingers with for a moment.

“Yeah, me too. I don’t think there’s anything we can do, though.”

“That worries me as well. I thought it would help, oh Luna, I wish I hadn’t done that. I heard him say no and I still did it. Uhg, stupid.”

Tubs squeezed his hand. “You didn’t know how he’d react. It’s okay, no one died.”

“He tried to die, how is this not a bigger deal?”

“Because he’s passed out, and we can’t do anything until he wakes up.”

“I guess. I don’t know honey, this all feels really bad.”

“Well, sleep on it. Maybe you’ll get better vibes tomorrow.”

“Mhm.”

Early in the morning, Xaquik flew over to hez own house to freshen up before they all went to make sure Orbit was okay. Ze checked the mail before ze went in, and to hez surprise, ze had a letter from Twilight.

It asked hef if ze’d be willing to come to the castle that afternoon to take the form of another pony in order to help them mentally. The request seemed almost ironic to Xaquik, but ze remembered watching Bristles and hez nurse climb the steps of the castle, and hastily put two and two together.

Mulling the idea over, ze showered and ate breakfast. Whatever would happen between hefself and Bristles, at least now ze’d be prepared for it.

Sunluck woke up and stared at the ceiling instead of getting out of bed. The clock on her nightstand displayed twelve six. She yawned, pulled her vibrator and bottle of aloe vera off the night stand and loudly pleasured herself. Then she sat up, glided over to the bathroom, and showered, bringing the toy with her to wash it off.

After drying herself off, she trotted to the open living room and started stretching on the rug. She had a few dozen yoga poses she’d memorized and that she practiced every morning to stay limber. It, most times along with masturbating, usually helped relieve the stress for a fresh day.

But today all it did was keep it at bay for a small time. While she flew to Orbit’s house, the warm, loose feel under her skin drained away with all the thoughts that pushed into her head.

She met with Tubs and Xaquik, who looked happy, outside Orbit’s house.

“This is the first time I’ve been outside without disguising myself.”

“That’s great, Xaquik.”

“Thanks.” Ze looked more genuinely and honestly happy then she’d seen hef before.

“Well, let’s go I guess.”

They all walked up and knocked on the door. After about two long, tense minutes where Sunluck knocked again, Orbit answered the door.

He looked okay. Not terribly good or bad, just sort of the morose neutral that he usually looked like. He saw Xaquik and immediately slumped into a crestfallen sort of slouch. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and pulled hef into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Xaquik, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Ze hugged him back, “Don’t worry about it, really, I’m okay. I’m sorry I freaked you out.” Ze couldn’t tell exactly, but it felt like he was fighting tears away. He started to pull back, and before he got too far away, Xaquik stopped him and, leaning up so ze could reach, kissed him gently on the forehead.

It broke him. He could feel the big, ugly tears stream down his big, ugly face as he stood before them all, burying his eyes in his elbows and trying not to whimper.

“Come on,” Tubs gently put one large arm behind his back and led him off the doorstep and toward Tubs’s own house. “I’ll make us all breakfast.”

Orbit sat on the couch with Sunluck on one side and Xaquik on the other; moving the little crocodile on the screen in pathetic tiny motions trying vaguely to save the little brown lint balls and get to the exit. They didn’t speak much.

Tubs made a blueberry pie quicker than they ever thought he could have. He gave the explanation for making pie over something more traditionally nutritious and breakfast-like as, “Well, I didn’t get to make dessert yesterday so I made it today,” even though they knew in the back of their heads that it was  comfort food. Almost like a reward for making it through the night, or maybe a tasty incentive for continuing on.

“Listen, I’m really sorry for ruining the party last night.”

“It’s okay—it’s my fault too.” Xaquik said.

“Orbit,” Sunluck said, “Is there anything we can do to help you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, we’re worried about you. I think maybe you should see a counselor.”

Shaking his head, “No, I’m not going to pay to have someone prod at me under a microscope.”

“You just tried to kill yourself, can’t you take that seriously?”

“It’s not that I’m not taking it seriously, I just don’t think it would help. I already talk to you guys, I don’t think a counselor would provide anything new.”

For a moment they were quiet. “Will you let us help?” Xaquik asked.

Orbit stared down miserably at his slice of half-eaten pie. It tasted too good for how he felt right now. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Quiet for a moment again.

Well,” Tubs said, trying to look the politically correct kind of optimistic. “We can do something fun, if you want. Why don’t we take the lake ride near Rainbow Falls tomorrow?” He turned to Xaquik, “It can be your first outing as a changeling.”

“That sounds nice. Orbit?”

“Alright. I think I want to make up for yesterday. If that sounds fun to you, then I’m for it.”

Xaquik smiled at him. “We can make it fun.”

“A psychiatrist.” Sunluck said.

Orbit shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s bad enough for that.”

“Bullshit, Orbit, and you know it.”

He looked over at her to retort, saw the fire in her eyes, and bit his tongue. Xaquik looked on at him with immense concern. Tubs pressed his gaze on him rather harshly; willing him to say yes. “Fine. I’ll look into it.” He dropped his fork onto the rest of his piece of pie and put his head in his hands. “I will. I’ll look into it, I promise.”

“Good. If you don’t care about yourself, fine. We’ll care about you for you.”

There were no more tears for him. It was only hollow, and hollower than usual. As if the walls were thinner now, so that they could have nothing inside to a higher degree. He stared down at the blueberry filling oozing slowly out of the protection of the crust of the little piece left. “Thanks I think. One day I’ll appreciate it, I hope.”

Eventually, Orbit left to report to the pool building late, and shortly after that they all returned to their respective daily grinds.

Bristles and Hefself

Xaquik reported to the crystal castle that afternoon. Twilight sparkled with excitement over hef, but she managed to reign it in better today. She ushered hef upstairs to the same room that ze’d come out as a changeling in. One huge, blank canvas sprawled itself on the ground.

“Okay,” she said to hef, “The idea is for you to take hez form and just do some ordinary things. Like, drink some water or read or a book, or solve a puzzle—just to show a version of hez that can focus on both nothing and things other than drawing. Nothing we’ve tried so far, spells and potions and trying to talk to hef, has worked, so I’m taking a chance with this. I think it could be really groundbreaking, to have hef see hefself just doing just something other than painting.”

“It evokes strong reactions, in my experience.” With a pop, ze became Bristles.  “What do you want me to do first?”

“You’ve done this—wow, you’re already a perfect copy of hef! I thought you’d need to see hef again before you could do that.”

Ze looked down at the cutiemark spanning hez entire body, then back at Twilight. “Changelings have a sort of magic sense when it comes to remembering and replicating ponies and bodies. I passed hef on the stairs yesterday; this should all be right.”

“That’s so interesting, do you think—whoops sorry, gotta stay on track. Here, we’re going to try to do this slowly, sort of ease hef into it.” She handed hef a book. “Just read for a bit, here at this table. Nurse Firm will be here in a moment with Bristles; when they walk in, you can look up and wave, but focus back again on the book right after. Then just wait for my signal.”

“Alright, I can do that.” Ze sat down at the table and opened the book—which happened to be the first book in the series of Hairy Putter. Ze’d read the first four books before, but hadn’t been able to finish the series for some reason. After a moment, ze was lost in the strange but still magical world of it.

Bristles drew through the castle, recording and warping again all of the crystal hallway and crystal everything. Ze focused less on Twilight now, but still occasionally created how ze imagined her interacting with whatever else was on the page at the moment.

Nurse Firm chewed quietly at the side of her tongue. She was ready, like always, to handle things if the meeting didn’t go well. Honestly, the kind of therapy session they were about to attempt was experimental and likely to fail, but she was willing to risk another sketching fit or anything worse.

They walked into the meeting room and a perfect copy of Bristles already sat nonchalantly reading a book at the table. Bristles saw hef immediately when they walked in. The version of hefself reading looked up, smiled and waved politely, then looked back at the book.

Bristles twitched, looked down at hefself as if to affirm that there was indeed a copy of hef in the room, then screamed and fell upon the canvas already on the floor.

“Colors!” Ze screamed to no one, which meant to Nurse Firm, then, as ze continued to furiously attack the material with art streaming from the two pencils ze held in each hand, ze looked up again and yelled, “Fake!” to the version of hefself that sat in front of hef. “A self portrait—self lying portrait—fantasy self portrait!”

Ze kept reading the book, appearing unperturbed.

Nurse Frim gave Bristles hez paint set and hez pastels, and ze took them greedily. Every few moments or so, ze would take hez face from the work to yell “Stop it!” at hez other self.

Twilight beckoned for Nurse Firm to sit down with them. She did, watching Bristles draw first, then looking square at Bristles reading.

“Well, ze certainly reacted to it,” Twilight said. “Nurse Firm, this is Xaquik Fadez, or Bristles for today.”

They shook hands, and Nurse Firm said, “It’s remarkable to see a normally functioning Bristles, even if just for the moment. Thank you for playing along with all of this, I want to apologize now for anything that happens.”

“Oh no problem at all, I’m happy you don’t mind the company of a changeling.”

“I’m fine with it, eat all the love off me you want. If you can help hef, it’s worth it.”

“Well, uh, that’s not how it works, but, thank you for the offer.”

She glanced over to watch Bristles do hez thing. Already, she could see multiple poses of a many self-portraits taking place, except that something was off with each Bristles ze drew. Each one was damaged somehow, with either lacerations or bruises, or one just flat out not having any face at all—just a void with some spilled paint in it.

“Wow, ze’s very fast.” Xaquik said.

“Yes, ze is.”

They let Bristles draw for a while until, about a half hour later, ze’d stopped looking up to yell at Xaquik and more lost hefself in hez work.

“Why don’t you try talking to hef?” Twilight suggested, notebook ready to take notes.

Xaquik nodded, and stood up. Ze moved over slowly to Bristles, who, as if with a sixth sense could feel hef coming and did not want to be near hef, moved over so ze could be as far away as possible while still painting and drawing on the canvas.

“Hey, Bristles.”

“Stop.”

“Do you mind if I draw with you?”

Ze stopped for just a moment, hesitated. Then kept going. “Don’t.”

With nods of encouragement from Twilight and Nurse Firm, Xaquik sat cross-legged and picked up a stray pastel.

Ze had no idea what to draw, and did not possess any particular skill with drawing. So ze leaned forward and self-consciously started doodling a few flowers, which ze liked and were easy enough to draw.

Bristles, in the middle of putting the cutiemark over a section of hez own arm, saw the derpy flowers, scowled, shouted, “Stop!” and lurched over the top of the canvas to draw new flowers on top of the ones Xaquik had been drawing. Ze drew them upside down so they were right side up for Xaquik, and in a matter of just a few moments there were beautifully accurate sketches of oxeye daisies covering the little tiny circles-with-petals-and-a-stem that had been there before.

Intrigued hefself about this behavior, Xaquik leaned over a bit and drew a rough outline of a cow.

“Stop—wrong!” Bristles said as ze then covered the cow with another excellent drawing of hez own.

Xaquik leaned even further away now, and, as well and as fast as ze could, drew a little Bristles looking happy and eating a hayburger—the first non-drawing activity that came to hez mind.

Bristles came to fix it and started just as well as ze had done everything else. But ze had trouble drawing the burger. Drawing Bristles holding the burger, drawing hef not focused on drawing—as ze was doing, or had just been interrupted from doing, in all of hez other sketches.

“No, no, mmmmmm.” Ze whispered.

Xaquik looked up at Twilight, who busily wrote down notes, and Nurse Firm, busily talking in low tones to Twilight.

Ze stood up, an act that Bristles seemed to take light offense too, and stepped closer to ask them both at the table, “Do you think it would help if I showed hef my own passion, which is not drawing?”

“What is it?” Nurse Firm asked.

“Playing my accordion.”

“That sounds like a good idea. How long will it take for you to get your instrument?”

“Well, if I change, I can fly—“

Twilight looked up, “I can teleport you there, and then you can run back. Does that sound good?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Will, um, will it hurt?”

Twilight giggled in spite of herself, and stood up. “No, not at all. Step out in the hall so Bristles doesn’t see.”

Xaquik stepped out with her, and she grabbed hez hands. Suddenly, ze was very nervous.

“Tell me where you live.”

“Twenty Forty Horsie Avenue.”

“Okay. Ready?” Ze looked into her clear, sparkling eyes so full of intelligence and know-how.

It came out in a wobble, and more of a question than an answer. “Yes.”

“Alright, then here you—“

A brilliant flash of pink swallowed everything in an instant and just as suddenly, ze was standing, swaying, balanced again, in front of hez house.

“Uhhhuh,” ze shook hez head to clear it and ran inside. Ze grabbed hez accordion, some sheet music (because ze wasn’t sure what to play yet), and the foam back guard so the bellows wouldn’t bite hez nipples. Then ze ran out again, with the accordion on hez chest, music in mouth, buckling the back strap as ze went.

When Xaquik arrived back in the conference room, ze was more out of breath than ze wanted to be. “I’m—back” ze said.

“Leave again,” Bristles mumbled.

“Do you need a moment? That’s a very beautiful instrument, by the way.” Nurse Firm said.

Xaquik nodded, “Thank you,” placed the sheet music on the table, and sat down in a chair for a minute. Nurse Firm stood up and pulled her own chair closer to Bristles, then walked back and stood next to Twilight. Nodding to the chair, “So you can perform in front of hef.”

“Thanks.” Ze took the moment of rest to decide what to play. Hez favorite piece was actually fairly simple and easy. Ze wanted something more impressive,  something that would show off hez skill at not-painting. After a moment of thought, ze decided on Viver’s Winter.

Xaquik made sure Nurse Firm and Twilight were ready, then walked over and sat on the chair facing Bristles, who noticed hef in passing.

Ze pulled the bellows out and pushed them back in with the air key, to warm up. Then, ze lifted hez head, stared straight at Bristles, and began to play. The sound burst out of the instrument with warm abrasiveness, filling the whole room into an excited sauna of music.

Bristles actually looked up as ze played, and, using the last of the un-draw-upon canvas, started to draw the accordion. The deep-brown polished wooden shell, the buttons on both sides, and the mesmerizing folds of the bellows. But ze stopped, as if confused, looked up again, and then started on the background with the actual instrument still very unfinished. Ze put in swirls and blending blooms of red, orange, deep yellow,flecks of green and purple like sparks—but ze stopped again, to stare at Xaquik, who looked just like hefself, playing.

Getting to a more intricate part of the song, Xaquik closed hez eyes to concentrate. Bristles drew this as well, added hefself playing with screwed up face trying not to mess up the notes. But the overall anatomy was off, and the instrument somehow warped.

She still seemed dissatisfied with it when Xaquik finished, and abandoned it to work more on one of the many figures of hefself on another part.

“That was beautiful,” Twilight said, “and very interesting—did you see the way ze paused?”

“Yes I did. I think,” Xaquik said, “I can do more. I really like that song, but it’s not my favorite. I don’t think I’m passionate about it enough. May I go again?”

“Of course.”

Ze put hez fingers to the buttons again and thought for a moment to recall the start of the song. Then, from a firm, fresly impassioned pull on the bellows, ze started. It was an old rock tune, one of the first rock songs ze’d ever heard. It had been foreign to hef at the time; they didn’t get much outsider music in the colony. But the song struck had hef the first time ze’d ever heard it. It was at once strange and new, filled with energy, and containing a sliver of the sound of the music from the colony that gave it an immediate effect, painful and joyous, within him.

Really getting into it, ze used hez hooves to make the beat, and started singing.

With Bristle’s voice.

Even though it wasn’t the voice Bristles was used to hearing for hefself, ze knew it was hevs. Ze stopped drawing. Ze watched and listened and twitched. Shivered with the effort of just keeping attention away from the canvas. Shaking uncontrollably, hez face blankly aghast and mouth slightly open.

Twilight furiously wrote down everything that was happening and her theories on it, while Nurse Firm looked more uneasy now than ever, on the edge of her seat, clenching her teeth.

Xaquik finished the song and looked up at Bristles. Ze looked down at hez canvas, weakly put a pastel to it, and burst into tears as ze tried to draw, suddenly scribbling over everything else ze’d drawn already. “Impostor,” ze choked weakly.

Nurse Frim rushed to hez side, and started to console hef. Twilight continued writing things down, though with less obvious enthusiasm now. Xaquik awkwardly closed the bellows and tried to grab Twilight’s eye. Once ze did, they both stood up and Twilight led hef out of the room.

“Thanks for doing this,” Twilight said, “we both really appreciate it. Uh, you can go now if you want.”

“Thanks—is ze going to be okay?”

Twilight looked at the door, then back at Xaquik with a wavering smile. “I’m sure ze’ll be fine.”

“Alright, well, tell Nurse Firm and Bristles that it was nice to meet them for me, please.”

“I will. Have a good day!”

“You too!”

With a pop, Xaquik was back to hefself and walking down the hall with hez accordion and sheet music. Feeling a little guilty, but also hopeful.

When ze got home, ze put the instrument up and laid down on the couch. So far, the only one who hadn’t freaked out as much when ze took their form was Tubs. And even he thought that it was kind of creepy (though also kind of funny).

Ze thought about that for a while, but got up after not long to go busk the streets for a bit longer—ze could get in an hour or so before the sun set.

Into the Sky

The next day, Xaquik went over to Tubs’s house in the morning to get ready for the day on the lake. They ate cereal and started talking plans.

“Someone should wear something with pockets, so we can carry our stuff,” Tubs told Xaquik, as they stared into Tubs’s closet. The majority of it was filled with warmer wear, as in the hot months he, like most ponies, just didn’t bother wearing anything. “You should just go naked, so you can show off your exoskeleton.”

Xaquik smiled. “Yeah, that sounds alright with me.”

“What do you think about this?” Tubs pulled a light sun dress from his closet, and held it up against himself. It was a sort of cream color, and ended at his stifle joint. “It has deep pockets.”

“Try it on.”

He slipped into it easily, and looked at Xaquik for hez approval.

“You look good, I like it. Do you think you can carry all of our stuff?”

“I might get a vest or something if we need extra pockets. How much do you think we’ll be bringing?”

“Some money for the tickets, the tickets, something for the train ride. I won’t be brining anything, I don’t think I need anything. Maybe a pocket knife, and a few band-aids just in case? And whatever Orbit and Sunluk are going to bring.”

“I think it’ll be enough.” He slipped out of it, folded it quickly, and threw it onto the bed.

Xaquik fingered the soft fabric, and asked, “Do you think Sunluck or Orbit will wear anything?”

“Sunluck might, I don’t think Orbit will though.”

“Sounds about right.”

After a while, Oribit and Sunluck came over and the stress that comes with trying to force yourself to have a good time pushed it’s sickly fingers between them all. Tubs pulled his dress on, put a few things in the pockets, and out they went. Sunluck wore a vest with pockets, and Orbit just went naked like Xaquik.

Rainbow Falls was about two hours away by train, and they passed the time by playing card games or reading or listening to music. They all tried to give Orbit an easy time, and he mostly stared out the window.

Xaquik gathered many sidelong and outright stares. Generally, ponies shrank away from hef, then cautiously relaxed as they noticed how close and romantically Tubs treated hef, and the whole little group of ponies listening to hez story about changing into some mentally disabled pony in a stunt of experimental therapy. Ze seemed happy to smile at everypony ze caught staring, and after a tense ten mintues, the coach re-achieved the more normal air it usually held.

In his staring, orbit noticed a pink mare through the door that viewed into the another coach. She wore a shirt at least, probably more, and for some reason Orbit felt like he should know her. But the feeling passed, and even the fleeting excitement it deposited left no substance for the vacuum within.

About an hour in, Tubs fell asleep, leaning half onto the window behind his seat, and half onto Xaquik next to him, his arms folded over his chest and legs spread far apart.

“He always has trouble staying awake on trains,” Xaquik said as ze shifted to support him better. “I think it’s the motion and the noise that kind of make him drift off.”

Sunluck observed him trying, and failing, to keep his mouth closed in his sleep. “He’s kind of cute like this, in an odd way.”

Xaquik giggled, “Yeah, I think so too.”

For the rest of the train ride, Xaquik and Sunluck talked to orbit, tried to cheer him up, and played more games with each other.

When they finally got to Rainbow Falls, they all shuffled out onto the station and started making their way down to the lake. It was a huge, glistening basin, visible from where they were, that stretched about a mile in every direction and swallowed rainbows from the falls.

The boat sat at the shore of the lake, using up a large portion of the area near the pier. As they started trotting across the wooden planks, Xaquik smiled at everyone looking hez way, and the few ponies playing in the surf seemed to pause a moment to watch.

Orbit found it hard to focus on anything, and just stared at the water that appeared between the cracks of the planks as if it were locked in a wooden prison. Everything smelled different, spicier, wetter, more pepper than the cinnamon of Ponyville, and easier to breathe in; he realized that that, at least, was nice.

The boat had been built for touring. It went around the whole lake, pausing at the waterfall, and coming back to the pier. They climbed up the bridge and paid their way in. Ponies mingled on the deck; there were a few shops actually on the boat that sold food and Rainbow Falls souvenirs. They made their way over to the railing and watched the water while they waited for the ship to depart.

Many ponies reacted to the sight of Xaquik. Quite a few came up to hef to ask about who ze was and if ze was friendly. More than a few wanted hef to transform into them, and more than a few hung back in reserved fear. But after a half hour of commotion, they mostly drifted away.

“You’re quite popular, Xaquik,” Sunluck said to hef, smiling.

“Well, I’m glad everyone seems to be okay with it.”

“Yeah, sure, Equestria is a very accepting place.”

Tubs hugged hef with one arm. “I’m glad you feel welcomed.”

“Thanks, honey.”

As the boat neared the waterfall, the mist slowly absorbed them all into a wet hug. Sunluck stood doubled over, with her hands on the middle of the railing, leaning out and trying to catch a bit of the rainbow. “I can’t taste much—it’s super watered down.”

“Go figure.” Tubs said.

“Further upstream they have pools of just rainbows, no water. Do you think they’ll let ponies swim in those? Can we go there today?”

“Yeah sure, if we’re all up for it. And hey, if you’re willing to jump in I bet they’ll let you swim. But I don’t think having rainbows splashed up your nose and vagina is going to be comfortable.”

She looked down at herself and frowned. “If it’s really so much like hot sauce as they all say, anyway. I forge shoes, stallion, I bet I can take a little heat.”

Xaquik giggled as Tubs smiled doubtfully at her.

Orbit stared at the rushing, rainbow water and tried to will himself to be happy. He wanted to be, he thought, for his own sake and everyone else’s. He stared up at the sky, watching some pegasi fly around in happy sweeps and curls. The hollowness within him still screamed out, but brittle as he felt there was nothing inside to protect. He stared down at the railing, then absently looked over his shoulder. The pink nurse and the art-smothered pony stood just on the other side of the boat.

They were at the waterfall, everypony taking pictures and crowding on one side of the deck, when ze noticed hef. Bristles, who was scribbling furiously with an oil pen into a notebook that proclaimed to be waterproof, saw Xaquik—a glorious bug creature with asymmetry punched through zefs legs and arms, standing there next to the farrier that ze remembered drawing.

Nurse Firm noticed hef becoming still, and turned to face hef, saying, “Bristles, relax, breathe.” She grabbed hef by the elbows as ze started to yell wordlessly and back up sharply. “Listen to the water, Bristles, listen to the thunder!”

Screaming, jerking desperately to free hefself from Nurse Firm, Ze stumbled and fell, one hoof coming up sharply and slamming into Nurse Firm’s jaw. She wavered; it was just enough for ze to free hefself, pushing hard away from her to—

Ze slammed hez back into the railing, the world tilted around hef, and suddenly the water reached up swiftly to consume hef.

Nurse Firm ran to the rail and tried to call for hef, while her own desperate hands started ripping off her shirt and skirt so she could swim—but as she struggled out of her long-sleeve button-up, something massive sailed over the railing next to her. It was a light green pony, with no mane or tail, reaching out to brace into the water.

It had been instinctual. Orbit was a trained lifeguard, after all, and he saw hef fall. It hadn’t been anything but understanding and urgency that had propelled him across the deck and smoothly over the rail. But the water, as it came up for him, reflected so clearly the crisp, castle-like clouds and the rolling rainbows that faded into the clearest blue of the atmosphere that ate at the edges of the cumuli, the air, and at—he thought he saw—the better half of a pale crescent moon, hanging in the day where it should not have been.

As he crashed into the sky, the rainbows, diluted as they were, stung every orifice on his body. They burned; in the half-black half-blue-rainbow, he squinted out hef fighting to stay near the surface. The stinging getting to hef as well, hez screaming traveling dully to him.

He swam to hef and started grappling with hef, trying to calm the flailing arms and legs, and mouth that already choked in water to the lungs. Ze began to sink, calmer now, and he grabbed hef by the waist to drag hef back up. As he turned upward, he noticed for the first time the dark all around them—the impenetrable side of the ship just above them. He swam sideways, to get out from under it, and as he did ze started thrashing again, giving one last fight. A solid blow connected to his diaphragm and involuntarily the air spilled out of his lungs. With both of them empty, they started to sink again.

Swimming as hard as he could, pumping legs and the arm that wasn’t hooked around Bristles, Orbit tried to just make it to the surface. But the boat moved too, and it floated in the same direction he swam, forcing them to stay underwater.

Bristles was no longer conscious. Taking hez limp body, Orbit started moving in the other direction, thinking to cross the length of the deck and come up to the closing the gap between him and the surface. But suddenly, the boat started moving that way again.

Frustrated and running out of oxygen in his system, Oribt turned around and dragged Bristles the opposite way once more. Whatever happened now, he knew he had to stick to this direction. The gap shrank, and spots of dark started corroding into what little vision he had left. He felt himself shake, harder and harder with each stroke, the water becoming golden and clear blue.

It was the sky. A monster in his lungs, but it was the sky. He dragged Bristles through the open, empty blue. There were clouds down below, and a dark thunder cloud just above them that he had to fly out of the way of. Suddenly, inexplicably ecstatic, he pulled the sleeping Bristles with him up, and up, and into a portion of the sky that felt immediately colder, yet he could tell was hotter. The membrane wasn’t invisible anymore; he was pulling them both out of another cloud and into the real sky, the sky that lit up brilliantly orange and fiery yellow on one side, blending and dancing over the clouds into deep indigo and purple on the other.

Some force kept them going and as they went higher and higher his friend fell away from him to rest on the cloud they had been navigating around. “I’m sorry,” he heard hef say. And he went up and up into the sky, a pressure on his back, rising higher and higher and higher until the only thing he could see was empty color.

Orbit jerked up and spasmed the water out of his lungs. He held himself up with one arm, turned sideways so he could get it out. The medic moved out of the way swiftly, and Orbit became aware that there were no hands pressing onto his stomach anymore.

The first thing he saw was Sunluck, staring into his face, deeply concerned. Then he made out Xaquik and Tubs right next to her, also distressed.

“Step back, please, let him breathe.” The medic pony shooed them back a few hooves, and examined Orbit while pain floated in and out of his head.

Nurse Firm sat looking flustered and sweaty, shirt hanging tucked into her skirt, next to Bristles, who choked on the ground like Orbit. It seemed the water was out of hez lungs, but ze remained unconscious. A stretcher arrived shortly, with two burly pegasi who flew hef off to get more advanced medical help. Nuse Firm stood to follow, but before she did, she turned to Xaquik, Tubs, and Sunluck.

“I have to follow—but you’re friends of his, yes?”

“We are,” Xaquik said.

“Can you thank him,  please, when he’s come back to his senses, for saving Bristles’s life?”

After a while, Orbit found himself eating a piece of whole wheat bread in an examination room, with Tubs, Xaqiuk, and Sunluck sitting on chairs in front of him and himself on the padded table. Dimly, he let the piece of bread in his hand fall back into his lap with each bite.

“Are you okay?” Xaquik asked.

“How do you feel?” Sunluck asked.

Tubs asked something equivalent, just using his eyes.

Suddenly, Orbit felt it was intensely foolish to describe what happened. Too stupid and somehow sophomoric. “I feel okay. I ache, but the rainbows don’t sting anymore since I showered off.”

Everything fell quiet again for a moment. Then, Orbit said, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Sunluck exploded, “Shut the fuck up, with that bullshit! You saved that damn pony’s life!”

He nodded. “I know that was good—I meant about earlier. I honestly don’t remember the last time I was just happy. Without something bad happening immediately or some guilt settling over me. I can’t stop being miserable. I’m sorry. I think you all know that I just want to kill myself. I just wanted to apologise for that.”

They waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “But..?” Sunluck urged.

“But nothing. That’s it—I want to die. That inconveniences you, and I apologize.”

Sunluck angrily stood up and sat next to Orbit on the examination table. She pulled his arm toward herself so he was leaning onto her side. There wasn’t anything to say, so she kept quiet. Xaquik stood up, and so did Tubs. Ze walked over to hug Orbit around his waist. As much as Sunluck wanted to shy away from the bizarre, creepy exoskeleton arm that rubbed across her ribcage, she didn’t. Tubs stood back a little; instead of crowding in, he just took Orbit’s other hand and held it firmly, putting one arm over Xaquik’s back.

Orbit tried to feel something. He felt all of his friends pressing on him, but nothing inside. It was only more warm flesh. He closed his eyes and imagined again moving through the sky, with Bristles in tow. It wasn’t good enough. It would never be good enough.

And Also the Moon (plus author's note)

Bristles woke up in a bed ze didn’t recognize. An IV in hez arm, hez compression gloves on the nightstand. Nurse Firm sitting on a stool at hez side, face in hands, asleep. Ze felt weak, like somepony had replaced all of the blood in hez system with mercury, and all of the sinew with dried leather. The muscles wood, the bones of soft lead. The world swam in and out of hez head. Ze groaned, and tried to look for hez sketchbook. Hez neck wouldn’t turn well. Fingers dragged.

Nurse Firm woke up, and comprehended immediately what ze wanted. She pulled the thing out of her lap, opened it to the nearest empty page, pressed it into Bristle’s hands, and put a pencil between hez fingers.

From the exhaustion or the drugs, she couldn’t tell, but Bristle did not draw much. Ze barely even moved hez hands or writs, making hollow, abstract scribbles with the graphite.

“Are you okay?” Nurse Firm asked.

“Mmm.” Bristles responded.

For a while, it was quiet, and ze continued to scribble. But after a few moments, ze stopped and put the pencil down. Nurse Firm straightened up and paid rapt attention. After about a minute of not drawing, Bristles closed hez eyes and fell back asleep.

Nurse Firm looked once more at what ze’d managed to get down before ze passed out again. It was the face, just barely recognizable, of Celluloid, that painter they’d met a while ago. There was a line through his head, with a little N near the front. She tried not to get excited, but this was progress, and she knew it.

A little later, someone knocked on the door to their tiny room and a buggy, fanged face appeared around it. “Nurse Firm? We came to see if Bristles is alright, may we come in?”

“Of course.”

She stood up as ze, Quick, Tubs, and Orbit walked into the room. Tubs and Orbit each shook her hand. “I’m Tubs, and this is Orbit. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you as well. I’m Nurse Firm, I take care of Bristles. Orbit, thank you so much for saving Bristles, I don’t know how to repay you—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted. “I work as a lifeguard sometimes, certified and all of that. It was just instinct, really.”

“Well, thank you for cultivating that instinct, then, because without you ze wouldn’t be here right now. If there’s ever anything I can do, please tell me.”

“There’s nothing, really, it’s fine.”

At the sound of cloth stirring, she turned to see Bristles sitting up and reaching for the sketchbook again. Nurse Firm moved to hef, and the rest of them came politely forward, trying not to crowd too much. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Too dead for him. Too much weight.” As ze spoke, ze tried very hard to use hez weak limbs in creating, just in the sketchbook, a drawing of Xaquik. The lines wavered a bit with the soreness of the muscles.

“Oh,” Xaquik said, “You’re drawing me. I’m a ze, by the way, like you.”

“Mm.”

Orbit watched Bristles draw as Nurse Firm and the rest talked, and felt a lump form somewhere in his chest. When a lull came up in the talk, he asked, “Does ze really draw like this all the time? Really not stop even to rest or eat?”

“Yes. Getting hef to sleep everyday is a chore. Eating is easier; so long as the food doesn’t interfere with what ze’s drawing, ze doesn’t mind chewing. Every now and then ze’ll forget ze has food in hez mouth, tough, and I have to remind hef to swallow.”

“Bristles,” he said, tentatively, “how do you love something so much without stopping?”

“This is life. Draw or die.”

“You draw very well,” Sunluck said to hef. “We can be friends, right?”

“Mm.”

Somehow, Orbit felt unsatisfied, watching this creature taken from the edge of death continue marching uselessness into the dust. Drawing and drawing and drawing; mostly figures and studies of Xaquik and hez anatomy. Ze felt flattered by it, and let Bristles closely examine the holes in hez hands and legs. With both appendages, ze put hez fingers through as many holes at once as ze could. It only took a few seconds for hef to be satisfied each time and return to drawing. Xaquik also offered up hez wings for Bristles to feel and draw.

As ze let hef inspect hez eyes, ze said, “I’m the changeling that was you a day ago, Bristles.”

“Mm.”

“I hope I didn’t make you too upset.”

“Used me. Fake.”

Xaquik smiled sadly.

After a while, ze started looking at Orbit. Enraptured with Xaquik, it took hef a bit to notice him, but as hez eyes flit quickly to him and back to the paper, Orbit felt hef reaching into his withered soul to better draw. Ze created a little, sad Orbit next to a happier Xaquik. Then ze looked up again and squinted, with some disgust, at Orbit.

“What?”

Ze didn’t answer, but flipped to a new page and started a new piece.

“Ze might reconize you.” Nurse Firm thought aloud. To Bristles, she asked, “Do you remember him? He helped pull you out of the water.”

“Yes.”

Nurse Firm smiled weakly back at him. “I’m sure ze appreciates it.”

Orbit just nodded. They talked a little longer, Tubs kissed Xaquik for hef, and they started their goodbyes when two o’clock snuck up to them. As they walked out, Bristles ripped the page from hez sketchbook and offered it to Nurse Firm. She handed it to Obit.

They looked at it while he, Xaquik, Tubs, and Sunluck walked down the hall. It was a waist-up sketch of Orbit, but only his hollow skin, with many holes punched through. A blank, tired look in what of his face still could be seen even with the crumbling of it and the pieces missing. The biggest hole prominently displayed his heart through holes in his lungs—a fairly anatomically accurate one; thick veins running up and out of sight from the pound of flesh—with one hand straining, reaching desperately for it off the page.

“I think it means you can get better,” Sunluck said.

“I think ze definitely saw your depression.” Tubs said.

“I think Sunluck’s right, Orbit.I think this is a message of hope.” Xaquik said.

The little splinter of hope that had lodged itself into him earlier now glimmered again, somewhere buried under the lungs that tried to behave today. “Mm.” Orbit said.

Nurse Firm gently squeezed Bristles’s shoulder as ze continued to draw. “I think you might have made some friends, Bristles.”

Luna put her hand on Nurse Firm’s shoulder. She started, and tore her eyes from the quivering mass of opened, peach and red flesh before her to instead fill her gaze with Luna’s reassuring face.

As they walked out of a freshly-appeared door, the child’s blood disappeared off her body and Luna asked, “Do you often have nightmares?”

“Sometimes.” They were in a hallway, standing on nothing with stars and nebulas swirling around them and overhead. Hundreds of thousands of doors stretched into the distance in each direction. “It’s not every day. It doesn’t really matter.” Their hooves made no sound as they started to walk.

“I’m sorry I haven’t seen this sooner. I focus on foals, as they have the most real-feeling and raw displays of terror, to the point where some will fear sleeping at all because they do not want to dream what they do. Adults usually have tamer, duller nightmares, and are more capable of shaking them off in the morning. But what happened in there—I will keep an eye on you from now on. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Thank you Luna. Next time, I think.” She could feel her cheeks burning, but fought off the urge to try and rub the heat away.

“I will remember. This is Bristles’s dream.” Luna said, stopping at a door made of plain oak. She opened it, and they stepped into an even meadow with a faint mist around the air. Immediately, Nurse Firm was struck by the brilliancy of the colors. Several, in the clouds and the grass and the air and the lungs, were entirely new and impossible. Colors she’d never before seen and that, even while she looked at one, she couldn’t imagine. She saw a color brilliantly unique and not anywhere on the visible light spectrum, but when she tried to hold it in her head, it became only a wavering pinkish mess. Luna smiled, and remarked in explanation, “This is a great perk of the job. Not many, but some ponies can imagine new colors when they dream. I see Bristles is among them.”

She closed the door behind them, and they started walking toward Bristles. Ze still had the cutiemark, even it had impossible colors, covering zefs entire body, and ze sat, naked like Luna, painting the mountains with oil paint and a canvas propped up on a stand.

Ze’s movements, Nurse Firm noticed right away, were much smoother and unhurried.

At the sound of hooves on grass behind hef, ze turned and smiled at them. “I wondered when you would be showing up, Luna,” ze took the brush in hez hand and put it in the hand that also held hez pallet of paint, then extended hez arm to the princess. “It’s an honor to meet you. I apologize for screaming so much when we met, and I’m glad you liked your painting. It was a thrill to produce.”

Nurse Firm was going to let them shake hands properly, as Bristles clearly wanted to do, but an overwhelming wave of impulse seized her, and she jumped forward and embraced hef harder than she ever had. It might have been the thin sheen of unreality over all of it, or that Bristles hugged her back just as hard, or that ze whispered, “Hey, Clay, I’m so sorry for all of this,” but the tears that almost never fell started falling and didn’t stop. When she pulled away, she noticed the stream of salt water from her face that floated sleepily to the ground.

“It—it’s just so nice, huhh huh, to hear you talk clearly again.”

Holding onto the hand that Nurse Firm wasn’t using to rub her eyes, Bristles led them over to a table that hadn’t been there before. They sat down, Luna poured a glass of something and asked, “What would you like to drink, Nurse Firm?”

“Milk, please, whole.”

Luna gave her the glass, and it was milk she’d poured earlier. She poured another glass. “Bristles?”

“The finest coffee you can imagine.”

Luna smiled at hef as she handed hef the mug. She poured something that looked like beer for herself, and nodded for Bristles to talk.

“Well, I want to say I’m sorry for how I act in the real world. I’m sure you want to hear why I do the things I do, and it’s pretty much the mania. I feel disgusting and useless and terrified when I’m not drawing. So I draw. I do like it, I love it, I do, but it’s also a compulsion. It’s not okay for me to exist not drawing. I don’t really know how else to say it. Even now, I want to get back up and keep painting while I can use all of these colors.” Ze pointed to the impossible, beautiful hues on hez pallet.

Nurse Firm, who had almost pulled herself together, asked, “What can I do to make you feel better when you’re not drawing?”

“I don’t think there is anything. I would’ve told you, I promise. There’s only so much that isn’t art that I can filter through my head to get to you, but I would do it if I could. Luna,” ze turned to her, “do you have any idea how to negate the magic of this?”

“I have some ideas, and I will try them when we wake. But I fear they will not work. I would suggest, as much as you dread it, that an institution might be a good idea. Somewhere where trained, capable ponies can research you and perhaps come up with an answer.”

Bristles’s face fell. Ze sighed and started to paint slowly on the table. “I guess maybe. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be locked up in the loony bin. I doubt they’d let me paint all day.”

“I could come,” Nurse Firm said. “I have credentials, I could still be there.”

Bristles looked over at her and, with unprecedented warmth in hez eyes, ze said, “I’m so sorry I’ve consumed so much of your life. If I don’t get better, please, don’t let me drag you down until one of us dies. I don’t want to be in the bin.” Ze looked back down again and painted a little more. Nurse Firm recognized herself, her coat an unreal pinkish, her eyes some non-existent shade of blue. “Maybe I can switch nurses every five years or something. You’d be off the hook by December.”

“I don’t want to change. You are my life now, Bristles, and you’re my responsibility.”

“Sorry about that.” Ze looked down again.

“It’s not your fault,” Luna said, “I’ve seen cutieous studiummania before, and it was just as debilitating then.”

“Wait, you know another pony in my hooves? What’re they doing, can I meet them?”

“Well, it was over a thousand years ago. He was a mechanic.”

“Was he cured?”

“Well, no. He died in a house fire, actually, when he was about nineteen.”

“Oh.”

“It was a tragedy. I was told there was one more case right after I was banished—an astronomer who made great strides. Also died young.”

“Well,” Bristles said, chewing hez lip, “Guess I better watch my step. At least we don’t use lead oxide anymore.”

They continued to talk, but in the end there was no headway to be made.

“I’m sorry, I am really, but I can’t stop. I can’t. I’d go mad in a snap, I’d slit my throat with my fingernails or bite open my wrist if I had to go an hour without painting or drawing. I-I just can’t. This is life for me, it’s how I live. It’s the only way to live. It’s the curse that’s made it like this, but it is like this and I can’t change it. At first I disagreed with Celluloid and what he said about art, but I agree with some of it now, after thinking about it. I might want to respect my art by taking care of myself, it’s just that there’s too much art in me. The only way for me to respect it is to get it out of my system, and that means drawing every second I can. To stop for even a moment is unacceptable and revolting and terrifying. I don’t know why. It just is.”

“I understand. And I don’t hold it against you. I don’t.” Nurse Firm looked down at her milk while she talked. It tasted good—cold and creamy with just the right kind of soft, refreshing bitterness. She looked back to Bristles’s clear eyes. “Is it scarier than almost drowning was?”

Ze stayed quiet a moment, putting strokes of thick pigment on the table. “Yes, absolutely. If… If I had been drawing while I was drowning, I don’t think I would’ve minded so much. Can you tell Orbit that I do appreciate it again? And all of those four, it was nice of them to come drop by for me. I hope I have made some friends.”

She smiled. “I will. And I think you have.”

“We must be leaving soon,” Luna said, looking upwards and downwards, at her fingers gently deforming, reading the in-betweens. “We’ll all be waking up in a handful of minutes.”

“Okay. Clay, before we leave,” Bristles said, standing up, “I want you to know that I do appreciate you. I’m sorry that I haven’t been showing it, I just haven’t really thought about it much until now. But I really wouldn’t be here right now if not for you, and I know I never make things easy. So thank you, really, for everything.” Ze pulled her up and into an embrace.

Nurse Firm hugged on tightly, “It’s okay. I’ll be here until we find a cure, I promise.”

“There might not be one, though.”

“By Celestia, I’ll find it. Don’t you worry about that.”

Bristles pulled Nurse Firm down and kissed her gently on the forehead. “It’ll be okay.” Ze let go, and Nurse Firm wiped her eyes again.

Luna hugged hef as well, and said, “Thank you again for the marvelous painting you did of me and the Lunar guard. I’ll be notifying everyone I think can help about this. Even though it’s far-fetched, we can hold on to hope.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

She looked up, and then nodded solemnly. “Here it comes.” Suddenly, standing up still, Nurse Firm could feel the pressure of the covers over her and the mattress pressing into her back. Feel herself wake up as the others raised their hands in parting. Her eyes opened to the stone ceiling above, and Luna squeezed her hand. She sat up. Bristles just now opening hez eyes and reaching for the sketchbook to start the day.

As Luna led them up to the main tower to let them watch as she lowered the moon, Nurse Firm saw Bristles creating a figure of herself in the sketchbook. A little Nurse Firm on the page, standing tall and strong, fully clothed but with her open shirt billowing in the wind, carrying the globe in one hand and a bouquet of wilted roses in the other.