“One brain’s blueprint may promote joy more readily than most; in another, pessimism reigns. Whether happiness infuses or eludes a person depends, in part, on the DNA he has chanced to receive.”
― Thomas Lewis, A General Theory of Love
You walk through the market of Ponyville, a small rucksack casually draped across your shoulder. It's a fresh, wonderful, sunny day. It seems as if all of Ponyville has taken the opportunity to come out and enjoy the nice weather for either an afternoon stroll, or just to chat with some friends. Musicians sit in between a few stalls here and there, busking for a few extra bits, their smiles never wavering as they find themselves lost within their craft.
You walk up to a small stand of tomatoes and your mind buzzes with ideas for a fresh, healthy meal. They could be sliced into a healthy sandwich, or pureed into a paste for a pasta sauce. The opportunities are endless.
"Excuse me miss," you ask the mare behind the counter. She turns to you, a green mare with a darker forest green mane and a cutie mark of a tomato.
"Yes, can I help you?" she asks back, her voice as bright as the midday sun.
"I'd like to get a few tomatoes. How much do they cost?"
"Well, we have a huge harvest thanks to all the rain we've been having," the mare responds, a bounce in her voice and her posture light and spring-like. "Five for a bit!"
"Really!" you say in honest surprise. These sort of prices would run a stall like Applejack's out of business. "I'll take fifteen."
You toss some bits on the counter and nudges the box towards you. You look through the boxes and take your rucksack off your shoulder and pick some of the nicest looking ones to go into your sack of groceries.
"It's really so refreshing to have the nice weather," the mare says, looking up to the clear blue sky. "I was just getting so cooped up inside the house."
"You can say that again," you respond. "I don't know about you, but I get moody when I'm inside for too long."
"It happens to everypony. Even the best of us," the tomato mare says happily.
Just then, a piercing voice cuts through the crowd.
"HA!! AS IF. WHAT A JOKE?! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR CAPITALIST OVERLORD PRICES AND SHOVE IT!"
You stand up straight at the unusual display of anger and harsh language. You turn your head and see a blue mare, with an even darker blue mane screaming at Carrot Top, the mare at the carrot counter. Carrot has always been nice to you and been just as friendly as your new friend--
"I'm sorry, what was your name?" you ask the tomato mare.
"Way! Tomato Way."
As your friend Tomato. A little on the nose for a name, in your opinion, but hey, that's Equestria.
"Who the heck is the mare giving Carrot the run down?" you ask Tomato.
"Oh," Tomato says with a deep sigh. "That's Sage Post. Though everypony calls her Sage. I know she comes off as a bit rough around the edges, but..." she trails off, letting out a sigh and shakes her head. "She means her best."
"She sure doesn't seem like she means well."
"Well, that's Sage for you. She's just like that."
"Well, I dunno who pooped in her cereal, but I bet I can make her day a little better."
Tomato reaches out a hoof to say something, but pauses. She nods, biting her bottom lip.
"I hope you can."
And without continuing the conversation, you turn on a dime and head toward the blue mare. You notice that, strangely, her cutie mark is literally her name. 'Sage' is written diagonally across her flank. That's certainly odd. At very least, it's a solid conversation point. It just gives you more things to talk about with a possible new friend.
"Hey!" you say to Sage, who shoots you a glare, and you keep walking. "Is everything okay? I just couldn't help-"
"Everything's just peachy," Sage interrupting you.
You stop in place, taken aback by the rudeness. This isn't really a usual occurrence in Ponyville. Well, except for BonBon on occasion, but she's just been having a rough time recently. But, you can tell that something is clearly really wrong here. As the mare walks away, you can't help but feel some sort of driving force pulling you toward her. Not a matter of the heart, but rather... a calling? It's difficult to explain. Some deeper form of intuition that sits deep in your chest and will make you think about this as you stare at the ceiling trying to fall asleep on hard days.
You'd rather know, and try your best, rather than leave this thread in your life hanging.
"Hey, wait up!" you call out, jogging to catch up with the mare. "If everything's alright, then you wouldn't mind if I tagged along? My home is in this direction and I don't think we've properly met before."
"Really," Sage says sarcastically. "You don't even recognize one of your neighbors? Pshh. What a joke."
"Wait, really? We're neighbors?" you ask, surprised. Sure, you aren't really much of a neighbor person, you spend a lot of time in your home cleaning and trying to fill your life with hobbies and projects to stave off the boredom that life without electricity brings. "What house are you?"
"Same side of the street, three houses down. You'd know that if you paid a little attention once in awhile."
"Okay, ouch," you say, feeling a slight blow from her words. "But I probably deserved that. What's your name?"
"What's it matter?"
"Well, if you're my neighbor, then I should probably know," you say cheerily. "Heck, my name is-"
"I don't care," she responds.
You close your mouth, walking along with her, feeling sort of put off. Yeesh. You don't think you've ever met a pony this... angry before.
"Well, I'm going to call you Sage then, because it's your cutie mark."
"Well isn't that a great idea," she says sarcastically. "Let's just call each other by what people look like. Look, we can call that Earth pony "Mud," because he clearly works in the mud all day. Or we can call that zebra-"
"Okay, woah. Back up," you say, cutting her off and holding out a hand. "I didn't mean to offend you."
"Well maybe you shouldn't be talking to me," Sage says, picking her speed up to a trot.
You clench your fists. Maybe this pony is right. You don't need this sort of negativity in your life. Screw this. If this pony just wants to be a jerk to others, maybe you should just let her. She'll end up all alone and have to learn her lesson the hard way.
Unless, something is actually wrong.
Jeez, brain. Why would you do this to yourself? You could have just gone home, forgot all about this, and now you're concerned about a stranger that you've just met for the first time. What are you going to do? Follow her home? Be a total creep and ruin her day?
You follow the mare along the same path all the way home, and it turns out she was telling the truth. She lives just a few doors down from you. Her home is completely unremarkable by most standards. It completely blends in with every other home on your street. Between that, and her bad attitude, it's no surprise that ponies just leave her alone.
Your mind moves to the tomatoes in your backpack, and slowly, a plan begins to form.
You knock on the door of your neighbor's home three times.
"I don't want any and I'm not interested," a familiar voice yells toward the door.
"Well I'm not leaving until you let me in," you call back. "And I'll probably burn my hands."
"Fine, let your hands melt," Sage screams back. "Then I'll call the police, get you arrested, and you can take... whatever to jail with you for trespassing."
"Then I'll just have to eat all of this spaghetti all by myself! And it's a fresh sauce too. It'd be quite a shame."
Silence comes from the other side of the door to Sage's home. Free food works on almost everypony. Heck, everyone. All you need to do now is wait.
Then,the unlocking of a deadbolt, the door opens slightly, and you notice five different chain locks holding the door locked as it opens slightly, Sage peeks her eye out, looks from you, down to the pot of spaghetti, covered in parmigiano reggiano cheese that you always have on hand. Just in case of dire need for garlic bread.
She pauses, staring at you for a hot minute, then slams the door closed. But you remain as solid as a statue. Unless it will kill you, you are going to stand right here, and do something nice for somepony today. Especially since it's one who seems like they could use a little kindness in their life.
A silence hangs in the air for a moment. Then, you hear the sound of slide locks being undone.
The door opens wide once more and the blue pony inside sighs to herself.
"You're lucky that I don't despise spaghetti. Or else I would have called the police."
"I think most ponies don't despise spaghetti. Even the police."
You stand still, waiting for her to make a move, a scowl forms on her face as she turns around.
"Well are you coming in? Or are you just going to stand there like an idiot who isn't sure if they farted or ruined their clothes."
"Ouch," you say, stepping inside. "Something, something. Sticks and Stones."
"I hate that phrase," Sage says.
"What is this? An angry phrase that isn't directed at me?" you tease.
She glares at you angrily, and you immediately close your mouth. Probably better to stop while you're ahead.
"I'll get some stupid plates so you can get out of here," Sage says, walking to the kitchen.
You take a moment to look around at Sage's home. You can't help but notice the sheer number of books and movies that Sage owns, and her couch seems worn out, almost as if it were constantly being used, shifted on, rubbed against, since the day she bought it. It forces the question into your mind... how often does Sage go outside?
You place your plate of spaghetti on the dining room table, wiping off a thin layer of dust in the process. You wipe the dust against your pants as Sage comes back into the room, holding two plates and some silverware in her hooves.
"All I have is water. Deal with it," she says after setting down the plates. She heads back to the kitchen as you set the plates and silverware up for two seats at the table.
“Alright,” you say, unsure of what sort of response she would have expected.
The whole place seems to be clean but… arid. As you look closer, everything seems dusty. As if her whole home was kept clean then just… untouched. Just what does Sage do?
She returns with a tray with two glasses of water, then places it down at the table.
“Alright,” she says. “If I try this, will you leave me alone?”
“Maybe,” you respond, taking a seat and using the spoon you brought to dish some food on to her plate.
She sighs and sits down opposite of you at the place you made for her.
“So, what do you do for a living, Sage?” you ask.
“I write reviews and criticisms for the Canterlot Daily Tribune,” she says. “I rip into everything, even if it’s good. Ponies like watching other things getting torn down. At least that’s what my jerk of an editor thinks.”
“Really?” you ask. “That’s pretty cool. I’m guessing that’s sort of what your cutie mark is about then. Something about writing?”
She remains silent, takes a fork, grabs a mouth full of food, shoves it in her mouth, chews, then swallows in an almost dangerous speed.
“It’s garbage. Your food is garbage. There. I ate it. Now go home.”
“But you didn’t even finish your plate!” you say, the hurt edging into your tone. You spent hours on that sauce. You aren’t going to give up after only one bite!
“I don’t need more than one bite to know when garbage is garbage.”
“Well, what’s so bad about it then, huh?” you growl. “Was it the spices? Did it taste burnt?”
“It tasted… It tasted like,” she growls back, leaning toward you in her seat. She slams a hoof on the table. “It tasted like someone is clearly trying way too hard to get someone who they don’t even care about to do something they want. It tastes like manipulation. It tastes like you’ve backed some poor stranger into a corner where, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ and at the first sign of criticism you can’t accept you’ve done a single tiny thing wrong!”
You sit back in your seat, watching the pony’s eyes glare at you. There’s a fire in her eyes, a hatred you haven’t seen before in anypony else in Equestria. You open your mouth to speak, but you find your words caught in your throat. Who is this pony?
“You’re awful. Your food is awful. Don’t even try. Get out of my house,” she barks at you.
You rise to your feet, knowing that whatever line you’ve crossed has clearly put you in a place that you did not intend to be. You look at the pony whose eyes are hyperfocused on you, whose whole body shivers in anger.
“I don’t know what sort of event had hurt you in the past. What pony… what life trauma… what experience made you such a bitter, mean spirited pony,” you say softly. “But I really hope that one day that you can find peace with it.”
You turn on the spot, and begin to walk out of her home, leaving the food behind.
“What? You think you’re some idol of virtue?!” she screams at you. “You have NO idea what I’m like.”
There it is, your opening.
You turn to her, and brace yourself or whatever can of worms you’re about to possibly open. Even if your feelings get hurt, maybe this is the right thing to do. You’ll never know unless you try.
“Yeah?” you bark back at her. “Like what?”
“You think I WANT to be an insufferable jerk to everypony? You think I have a CHOICE? That’s a bigger joke than what I just forced down my throat that you called food. Do you even have an idea what a Sage is? Cause what my parents thought was a nice sounding herb, turned out to mean something totally different in old pony language. It means to kill. To hurt. To ruin or to maim. My special talent is hurting other ponies with what I say. Do you have any idea what that’s like? To know the perfect thing at all times to hurt somepony? To tear somepony apart? Or heck, to hurt somepony when you wanted to say something kind?!”
Her whole body shakes as she sits down into her seat.
“And what idiots like you don’t get, is that this is who I am. Everything I do, say, think, it’s hurting somepony. Why do you think I live alone? Because I want to, you idiot? Why do you think I try not to talk to people?! I’m doing this town a favor. No, I’m doing Equestria a favor by not having to make other ponies put up with a pony as miserable as….”
She pauses. A silence falls over the room as the pieces come together. Her thoughts are constantly filled with things that will hurt somepony. That will hurt somepony’s feelings. And if she doesn’t get an outlet to push that onto a target…
“Me,” she says, her voice quiet and broken. “So just go. Get out of here before I really do something stupid.”
You take a deep breath, and feel your feet rooted to the ground. She was born to hurt other ponies, so she locks herself away from society, to tear them down and to tear them apart. But since she can’t do that to somepony else, she does it to herself.
“You don’t have to be alone,” you say.
“Yeah, that’s what all the people like you say. But then it takes one stupid line, and then they’re gone. Don’t waste your time or mine,” she says quietly. She takes a deep sigh and rises from her seat. “Am I going to have to kick you out?”
You blink for a second, then stand tall.
Nopony deserves this.
“Yeah, you will,” you say. “Because I’m watching someone beat up my new friend, and I’m not going to stand for that. I don’t care if your special talent is stealing. You’re still a living, breathing life. I’m not going to let anypony, even yourself beat you up. So if the police are going to have to tear me away from my new friend, then yes.”
She blinks, staring at you.
“You’re being childish,” she says. “I’m just going to be mean to you.”
“Fine.”
“I’m going to make you hate everything, especially me.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m going to hurt you so badly, that you will never want to see me again,” she shouts at you.
“I’ll take that chance,” you say back.
She stares at you, and a tear runs down her cheek. Sage looks away, trying to cover up the water running down her face, and walks toward her television set.
“Well, I might as well put on a movie then. This one isn’t a complete waste of time,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Sounds nice. I’ll bring the plates.”
“Good, I’m hungry. Just, next time we hang out can you try to cook better than vomit?”
You laugh, watching the opening credits of the movie begin.
“Sure, I’ll aim for toilet water.”
One month later, you open your front door to grab your copy of the Canterlot Daily Tribune, specially delivered every day right to your door. You immediately open to the Entertainment section, where you know exactly what you’re looking for. Page three… There, a review by Sage Post.
The Heist Six - A Review by Sage Post
The movie was fine. Fans of the series will like the other movies in the series more for their action focus, but this movie focuses more on the mental state of the main character. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. This movie earns a solid 3 out of 5.
“What do you think?” asks a familiar voice.
You look up to Sage, looking at you inquisitively.
“People are going to hate if you keep being this nice to movies,” you say. “You might lose your readers.”
Sage shrugs, then gives you a light smile.
“Eh, who cares. I’m happy. I’ll tell them to screw off.”
“Good. Now get in here, you jerk. Your pancakes are getting cold.”
“Screw you, I’ll take my time!” Sage says, stepping inside your home.
“No, no. Screw you,” you say, closing the door behind her.
Author's Note
