A Chance of Grey

Chapters

A spider and dark wings...
Daisy Rain...
A Mad Magpie

A spider and dark wings...

A Chance of Grey - Chapter 1 - A spider and dark wings - by RandomGreymane

My first memories were of a spider. I was a tiny foal, barely birthed but shakily taking my first steps in the world.

We were gathered at my grandmare’s house, as we often were, which still amazes me to this day as my grandmare’s house was pretty small. It was meant to be a temporary house while grandpa slowly built the main house. (Grandpa passed away the year before I was born. From all the stories I’m both happy and sad that I never met him.)

Grandma’s kitchen was no bigger than twice that of a garden shed. The “dining room” was the about two thirds of that size and set off at right angles to it.

In the center, right-hoof, was a small laminated kitchen table with a flat steel edge running around the outside. The pattern, I recall, was this sharp white with speckles in it that varied from coal black to slight grey in color. It was kind of like as if someone had bleached a robin’s egg and used the shell to fill in the top of the table.

Around it my aunts and uncles sat, their voices only partially decipherable to my young ears. Each of them sipping the drink of their choice, mostly coffee, and re-hashing the family gossip with vigor.

In the farthest left-hoof corner was an old icebox. (Refrigerators existed by then, and my grandmare had one, but she kept the old wooden icebox because it made good storage. And grandma was always keen on not throwing things away if there was another purpose for them.)

As I wobbled past the front of the lower doors, and rested a hoof on them to steady myself, an enormous spider came skittering out into the light right in front of me.

I was shocked. I stood there staring intently at the spider. Partly fascinated but more than a little afraid. I remember that it looked so large to me at the time, especially the eyes, as large as the hoof of a full grown stallion.

One of my uncles, Uncle Hairy, noticed me staring. “What are you waiting for colt? Step on it!”

Without opening my mouth I slowly shook my head. I didn’t have the words to express myself so I just stood there. I didn’t want to get bit, or get spider all over my hoof.

Uncle Hairy looked me over and expressed himself with an irritated snort. “Salvia what kind of colt are you raising here?”

His tone was so harsh that I started to cry and immediately ran into the nearby living room to get away from him.

“Oh leave him alone Hairy!” my mother exclaimed in exasperation “He’s still very young!”

“He’s a dullard is what he is.” Hairy replied with a snort.

“Oh hush!” my mother scolded.

A moment later she entered the living room and picked me up to comfort me. Slowly the emotions of the moment subsided and I stopped crying. Mom always made things better back then.

From that point on though I had a healthy fear of Uncle Harry and avoided him whenever possible. (I still do.)

My mother was a certified nurse’s aide back then and worked at a nearby hospital in Coltcago. She worked long hours and her and my father didn’t get along. In truth I know that the issue was me - I wasn’t expected. I saw a photo years later of my parents getting married in the courthouse - she was at least 6 month pregnant with me when the photo was taken.

Not to say that my father wasn’t a good stallion. He did his best, always, to provide for our family. That meant he worked long hours. He was a unicorn and was one of the first ponies to maintain the new automated spell clusters that kept track of the bits that flowed back and forth between what passed for modern businesses back then.

One year they had a fight and my mother left him. She took me to grandma’s and we lived with her in the tiny house for a full year before moving back in with my father.

Living with grandma was a striking change to say the least. I wasn’t old enough to start school yet so I spent my days in the tiny house and on the surrounding ten acres.

This was absolutely fantastic to me and far different than my previous few years in the big city.

My grandmare delighted in showing me around her 10 acres of farm. There were no animals except the one dog, but she showed me just about every inch of that property. (If she didn’t, my Uncle Jimmy did. I never realized how odd his name sounds. Jimmy.)

One day she took my hoof and led me out of the house. There was a large apple tree there that shaded the entire front yard. She had a bucket in her hooves that had something in it that I couldn’t see.

We stopped just past the tree and waited while she scanned the nearby treetops of the small orchard across the other side of the driveway.

Without a word she nodded her head sharply. There was a rustle in one of the trees, the pear tree I think, and a large bird took flight.

It was jet black and it’s wings were ENORMOUS. I remember being surprised when it landed in front of us and was taller than my grandmare when she was sitting, and twice my size. He was shiny, and black, and every bit the largest raven I’d ever seen.

“This...” my grandmare said as she pointed a hoof in the raven’s direction “...is Night Wind. He visits from time to time.”

The raven bent his head to one side so his right eye was clearly focused on me. “He doesn’t speak.” my grandmare continued “Or at least he hasn’t since I’ve known him.”

My grandmare put the bucket on the ground and reached into it to toss something to the raven. I was too mesmerized by the sheen of the black feathers to notice or remember what it was. Night Wind immediately attacked the offering and swallowed it whole. She repeated this action a few times then stopped.

“You can touch him if you want.” she whispered softly to me. “Just don’t look directly in his eyes or he’ll peck yours out.”

I was trembling. I could reach out to this wonderful thing in front of me? Really? I moved slowly forward and when I got close enough I brushed my hoof down the side of one wing, careful to look at the wing itself and not Night Wind’s eyes.

The bird regarded me with a look of intense observation. I knew that if I made the wrong move I would be pecked and pecked hard. But, oddly, I wasn’t afraid.

Gathering what remained of my courage, I moved right up to Night Wind and carefully put my forelegs around him and gently hugged him. I may have imagined it but I think he leaned into me a little bit. (My memories aren’t what they used to be.) I remember he smelled like clean air. Like nothing of the earth had ever laid a hoof on those ink-black wings. He smelled like winter snow, and summer breezes, and all those times the air moved without any visible source and brought a freshness with it.

After a time, I released Night Wind and backed away to stand next to my grandmare. With little fanfare, and a noise that sounded suspiciously like derision, Night Wind spread his gigantic wings and launched himself into the sky.

I watched him disappear over the treetops and slowly became aware of my grandmare grinning at me. “Like him?”

I nodded mutely.

“We’ll see him next year.” she said as she raised her head to follow the dwindling black speck.

And, as with many things, grandma was right. Night Wind visited us the next year. And the next. And the next. Then one year...he didn’t appear.

I was crushed. I’d come to expect that quiet moment of peace filled with shiny blackness. That moment when I felt...connected.

And now it was gone.

In one moment my world was amiss. Like having the proverbial rug pulled out from under you or missing that last step on the stairs before you hit the floor unexpectedly.

I miss him still.

But life, as it does, moves on. Eventually my parents reconciled and we moved back to the city to live in an apartment in one of the internal neighborhoods that my parents deemed suitable for the entire family.

I was in preschool at the time and I remember not doing well. I wanted to do nothing but play and I couldn’t understand why nobody else wanted to do so as well.

After several notes from my teachers about my activities, my mother scheduled an appointment for us to visit a special doctor. I didn’t know at the time but it was a developmental specialist.

I remember entering the office and a nurse taking me aside and having me try different things. I distinctly remember the old-style “square peg, round hole” test. I happily was playing as I attempted to force a block where it wouldn’t fit in the frame.

After a time, my mother entered the room and we both sat down next to the doctor I’d seen her go off with when we came in. I’ll never forget his first words:

“Your colt is not a genius.” he said after he had reviewed the paperwork the nurse had written up.

“Well...okay...” my mother replied. “What are his prospects?”

“He will be good for nothing more than pushing a broom.” the doctor continued.

I can’t remember all of what happened next. She had such a mixed look on her face during the walk home. Looking back, it was a mixture alternating between both sadness and anger.

After that things changed a little. My mother read to me a lot and had me do a lot of little things that felt a lot like school. Eventually I moved from kindergarten to the formal Celestial school across the street.

I remember the teachers of the Celestial Sisterhood being extremely strict. More than once I got my hooves smacked with a ruler for not paying attention. I did horrible in classes and was behind all the time. In time I made friends that lasted with me the entire time we lived in the city. Mostly other ponies who had similar problems with school that I did.

In case you’ve never been to a big city like Coltcago, the buildings aren’t usually built with peaked roofs like in smaller towns and villages. They are flat with gutters on the sides that collect the water and guide it into the storm sewers.

My friends and I regularly would use a nearby mulberry tree to make our way onto a ladder that led to one of the roofs. And since all the roofs were close together...well you get the idea.

I remember one time we were on a roof that overlooked a street with shops and people walking back and forth on it. We were hanging our heads over the sides of a low block wall on the front of the building. The space behind the wall was littered with the leftovers of some long-gone gang of construction ponies. A brick here, an iron spike there, that sort of thing.

I picked up and iron spike to look at it.

“Drop it over the side!” one of my friends said. (In retrospect Tank wasn’t the brightest of ponies. His ego far outweighed the thin and wiry stature of his frame.) “Drop it! I dare you!”

“Umm...” I was undecided. I mean I knew enough that I could hurt somepony. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“C’mon! I double dare you!” Tank exclaimed, jumping up and down now. “Take a chance Chance!”

Okay, yeah, my parents named me Chance. It was the most popular pony name for years until recently. I’ve never been comfortable with the name really...where was I.

Tank was still waiting on my answer, hopping from one set of hooves to the other. “C’monnnnn!” he whined.

I don’t know what happened next really. I think Tank sat the steel bar on top of the edge of the building and when I turned I knocked it off. Or I might have purposefully knocked it off. To this day I’m not sure. Regardless it fell to the ground on the sidewalk with a loud clang! The ponies on the sidewalk looked up at us and one of them started yelling. “You could have hurt somepony badly!” the stallion said angrily. “You all just wait there while I call the guards!” he continued.

We of course weren’t going to wait for that to happen. We turned and galloped across multiple rooftops until we were far away.

I can laugh about the experience now but in hindsight it was the first time I really realized that my actions had serious consequences for others. It was the first time I realized that something I did could seriously hurt someone.

That didn’t sit too heavy on my mind though at that age of course. I was too focused on having fun and trying to understand the ponies and world around me.

About the middle of my third year at school we moved out to a suburb named Nailtown. It was kind of a mixed blessing because my sister and I got our own rooms finally but it meant I lost all my friends and had to make new ones.

I don’t make friends easily, nor let them go...

On top of all this my parents continued to fight a considerable amount. It wasn’t like an argument each night, maybe every other night. Still bad but not bad enough to be unlivable. (Though more than once I thought about running away.)

I did even more poorly in school than I’d done before. Each time I failed my mother told me it was okay but my father got angry. If you’ve ever heard the expression ‘Child of the crop’ you know how he reacted often. I learned really quickly not to make him angry.

There’s so much that happened when we lived here it’s hard to fit it all into a framework. This is true of my life all over. It’s all so...disjointed. Like everything is happening at once and I have to take myself and puff myself up to not be affected by it all. Kind of like how you have to turn up the light to burn away the fog. It gets more difficult to brighten that light as I get older.

The friends I made were good ones for the most part. A few were fair-weather but not the core group.

During school I was put into extra classes to deal with a lisp I’d developed but for the most part I did just as badly as I had done previously in school. I tried, I really did, but no matter what I couldn’t grasp the things I needed.

To top it all off, I had developed a hairless patch on the top of my head. The bullies started calling me “Hole In One”.

During one of the teasing sessions I just stood there unable to rebut any of their insults. Suddenly a filly about my age came up and shooed them all away.

“Don’t worry!” she said after they left. “I am missing hair too!” She pulled a knit cap off her head to reveal large empty spots as if she’d been shaved wrong. “Call me Patch.” she said cheerily.

I don’t know what it was about her but I immediately trusted her. Despite the insults and innuendo she and I started hanging out. One day I heard she was sick so I went to her house with some cookies for a gift.

She was in her bedroom. As I entered I was so surprised at how white it was. Like everything had been bleached and the only color left was the bright lack of it.

She explained that she was very sick but that I shouldn’t worry. We played games and talked and just existed as if the world outside was so much empty. In time she was tired so I went home.

Over the course of the next few months we met in that room and one day she explained to me that she might have to go away. It was a tough concept for me. But I think I understood because I was in love with her. Truly in love. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the same way with anyone else in Equestria.

Then one day I showed up at the house and stood there on the wide flagstone. Her parents were stacking moving boxes on the front porch. The conversation still sits with me.

“Is Patch here?” I asked.

“No she’s not Chance.” her mother replied.

My mouth was not sure what to say next. I looked at the boxes. “...did she die?” I asked quietly. “Because she told me once that she might.”

Both of them suddenly had tears welling up in their eyes and for several long moments they didn’t speak. Grandma taught me to be patient sometimes so I said nothing.

Finally, Patch’s father spoke, “We are moving to Prance so she can get better treatment.”.

To this day I’m not sure if those words were lies or the truth. They felt false.

“Tell her I miss her.” I told them, my eyes welling up. “Tell her I love her.”

It was at that point her parents broke down and openly cried. I couldn’t confront this so I ran. I galloped most of the way home and sat in my room and cried.

This memory has stayed with me for all my life. And to this day I still think about her from time to time. I don’t even recall her real name, her cutie mark, or much else about her. The truly sad part is I never knew what happened to her. I never took the time to go find out and I don’t think I’ll ever do so. I think...I think I still love her. Insane and foolish of me, I know. But there it is.

Without Patch around the bullying intensified. I endured it because there was really nothing else I could do. I cried so much that it only increased the insults with “Crybaby!” and other similar things. I found some relief by hiding away.

The house that my parents purchased had a crawl space underneath it. It was to all appearances a basement that had been made of poured concrete but then filled back in with very tiny gravel. A grown pony couldn’t stand up in it. I couldn’t even fully stand up in it, but it was secluded, had plenty of room, and above all it was quiet.

It was perfect.

I can’t tell you how many times I hid down there. The opening in the floor was in my room so I could hide down there whenever I wanted.

So many times I hid down there with a bean bag and a lantern and read fantasy books. It was my escape, my release. It allowed me to recover from being forced to be around all the other ponies that insisted that I was the ‘weird’ one. It was blissfully silent of noise It was the one place I was able to just lose myself in my thoughts or a book.

I read so many stories back then. Stories of rockets! Stories of knights! Stories of magick! And not the everyday kind of magick that unicorns use but the spectacular kind that moved mountains and brought the stars to my hooves.

In time I mentally and emotionally balanced a little bit and was able to spend more time outside of the “pit” as my family called it. (My sister hid down there with me as well from time to time but she was more an extrovert than I will ever be so it wasn’t often.)

Then something happened. The school I was attending got in a system of automated spell clusters of the same type my father worked on.

My father had already introduced me to them by taking me to his workshop once or twice. I was always mesmerized by how the spells he crafted created things that worked, things that moved, things that produced one number from the ones given it. I hated math but I loved this!

This was actually my second introduction to these clusters. When we were still living in Coltcago, after my parents got back together, my father brought one of the sub-clusters home to do some work on it. It wasn’t much, all bland and frankly a little ugly. But he taught me how to do some things with it. And I enjoyed every bit of it. It made sense. It was organized. It wasn’t like all the strange and fluctuating things I had to deal with where ponies were concerned. But he had to give it back when we moved out of the city. I didn’t see another cluster until I entered the middle grades.

I was hooked to say the least. Every spare moment I spent involved with those systems. The teachers tried to use it to motivate me at my other classes but often I ignored them until I couldn’t. I worked at bringing up my grades because I finally had something that I could wholly understand! I couldn’t let them take that away from me.

So I worked harder. I brought my grades up. I didn’t make any more friends than I already had, but I suddenly fit into the structure around me. People knew where I stood finally. They understood. They still teased me and insulted me and excluded me. But they accepted me.

And of course it had to all fall through. My parents decided to move from Nailville to another suburb further out called Lattice Lake.

When I found out we were moving I begged and pleaded that we find some solution so could at least finish out my 3rd year at the upper grades. I tried and tried to find a solution but time and time again the answer came up with a harsh bleakness. “I’m sorry but you can’t finish school if you don’t live in the area.”

I was crushed. I would be starting all over again. I would be losing all my friends again. And that’s exactly what happened.

It was pure hell of a different order...

Daisy Rain...

A Chance of Grey - Chapter 2 - Daisy Rain - by RandomGreymane

As expected it was more than a little problematic.

Here is was, thrown into a completely different environment. It was so confusing because it was at once some of the same dung I’d experienced but also different.

It was the same group of ponies...jocks, nerds, ponies with their snoots in the air, and all of them still with more bits than I’d see. I think I made three friends in that whole time. One of which died in a cart crash.

I was pretty alone. And it didn’t help that no matter what I did, nothing seemed to help. My grades slipped again but were just barely tolerable. I failed the Equestrian Constitution Test once and had to take a class to do it again. In the end I went an extra year of upper grades before graduating. In some ways that worked out - I had a year of half day schedules - but in most it set me back.

Once school was done it was time for me to look into university schooling. I was still interested in the crystal clusters and their components but there was no way I could afford anything more than the local community site. So I enrolled there. I paid my tuition by working selling cart parts and took as many classes on weekends and nights that I could.

I did make a life-long friend there who I still talk to today. However overall the experience was mixed. I had some instructors I couldn’t stand, and others that I wanted to teach all my classes. In the end I was able to get a simple certification in the components of the crystal structures. That was enough to land me a simple job building and repairing the smaller ones.

It was a sweet job for a long time. I worked long hours, traveled to different businesses, and learned things I would have never learned any other way. And, for a time, I was paid what I was worth and for how hard I worked.

Like many things in my life, that didn’t last.

The owner of the business became involved with the Stellarite Cult and very soon he was pushing his rhetoric onto myself and the others working for him. He changed the pay system from hourly to a different one so that we were paid less. He required us to attend Stellarite instruction. In the end I started believing in the Stellarite Way of doing things.

During all this, I met and wed my long-time marefriend. We even had our child while in the cult. We didn’t stay in it long after that. They didn’t pay us for our work really, and we almost lost everything we owned and all we held dear. Somewhere in the process we moved back in with my mother and father. We ended up giving all we earned to help support that house as my parents divorced and neither was working.

We started new jobs at different places and washed our hands of the cult. The fresh start was painful, but we started moving up again rather than down. I started a good job doing matrix support for a small fastener company, and my mare got a job working at an advertising firm.

We also learned that our foal had issues of the mind. She didn’t talk at all until she was much older and showed problems learning. Among many other things. The doctor bills mounted of course as we tried to find some way to help her.

In the end, the center could not hold. My mother announced that she was selling the house to my sister and moving.

We had no place to go. Well...this isn’t strictly true. My mare and our daughter had someplace to go. My mother-in-law stated that it would be okay for my spouse and our daughter to move in with them but not myself.

While we were planning for this, a friend of mine’s father had to move out to Californeigha to keep his sales job. His house was paid for, and he didn’t want to sell it, so he offered to let us rent/house-sit it while he was gone. (My friend was moving out there as well to pursue his long-time marefriend.)

This was Celestia Sent! We didn’t have to split up our family and it was a wonderful, and inexpensive, house to live in! And for a few years we were happy. I had moved on to a full manager’s position at another company and it paid very well. She had moved to a position in Purchasing at a book warehouse. We had enough money and we worked and paid off most of our bills.

In time, my friend’s relationship fell through and he moved back to the area. I saw how lost he was, so I offered to let him move back into his old room until he could get back on his feet. (I didn’t realize how bad a mistake this was at the time.) So we moved our stuff out of that room and he moved back in.

And that’s where another round of trouble started. Nothing we did was good enough for his parent’s house. We did things “wrong” in every manner. We ended up becoming silently subservient to him. To the point where we let the house maintenance slip because we just couldn’t take being told we were wrong any more.

After a time, and at least once incident where his parents confronted us about the state of the house, they informed us that they would be moving back in.

Wait...I’m missing an important memory here...

Daisy. I’m missing Daisy.

Daisy Rain was my cousin on my mother’s side. I was extremely close to her and another cousin named Dive. We used to get together after family gatherings to have coffee and talk for hours. Daisy and I would talk via spell-cluster for long hours and trade scroll messages regularly. We talked of everything from philosophy to magick and even family history. We talked all the time.

Then, one day, the phrase ‘She’s made her decision. She’s made her choice.’ came to me. It was like someone plucked a string inside me and it vibrated the message. Stranger still, it appeared in phrases in the plays I watched, in the papers, even in messages I received from others. It felt...bad...dark...ominous.

Now please understand that our family contains many gifts. Gifts of magick. Gifts of prophecy. Gifts...somehow I knew this one was related to someone in trouble.

I spent two days contacting people by dragon-scroll trying to find out where the trouble was. Two. Days. Not once did I think to contact Daisy.

Two Days later...I got a scroll from my mother. Daisy...Daisy had obtained a combat-magick scroll...and...in the basement of her duplex...placed it on her head and activated it. All that was left was a mark on the wall and a blood-soaked couch.

It was only then that I understood the purpose of the message. The universe had given me a chance to help her.

The universe had given me a golden opportunity to save her.

And I failed. I failed miserably. That still haunts me to this day. Intellectually I know that I likely couldn’t have stopped her. She’d have tried later, or found another way. But I was given the golden chance that so many others weren’t. And I blew it.

Dive and I don’t speak any more.

Her death was a turning point of sorts in my life. I tried to do more with less. But I failed at that as well.

I don’t think I’ve ever truly gotten over her passing. The tears are still there to cry even though I let them out afterwords. They probably will always still be there until I too pass into the arms of the Guardian of Dreams.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be whole again. At least that’s what I tell myself when I reach out mentally and she’s not there. She taught me so much about how my life and our family gifts work. I’ll always miss her.

Moving on...

My friend’s father informed us that, thanks to those flank-heads in the Equestrian Council who caused the value of the bit to tank, he had been released from his position and would be moving back soon.

My mare and I were looking for our own place, and this only accelerated the process. We purchased a small red and black single-story house and promptly moved in. (A note to perhaps help somepony in the same position - don’t ever overpay for a house, and get RID of things BEFORE you move. Ask me how I know.)

And just like that, once again, we were happy for a time. The house gave us a place that was truly ours and we were able to get rid of a couple of bills with the money made in the deal. We moved in.

And then I became unemployed myself a year or so later.

Fortunately we were able to pull out money from our retirement and pay off our remaining debts that were not involved in the mortgage of the house. The unemployment funds we received via the Celestia Employment Agency kept us afloat. Fortunately, my spouse remained employed during all this.

When you have time to think, you learn. It’s unavoidable. I learned several things while I was unemployed.

I learned I could be artistically creative. I learned that I was something worthwhile to everypony but an employer looking for someone to hire. I learned more about how my mind worked. And...I learned that I had been abused earlier in life. Or at least learned that those fleeting moments of pain and terror that I’d been having since childhood weren’t “just me”.

It was the same sort of scandals that you read in the papers. Young colt becomes an acolyte of The Church Of The Sun Princess, young colt gets threatened with being sent to Tartarus, young colt is taken into a private room and...well...you know. Those memories, what was left of them, were very old. From when I was young and living in Nailville.

Doctor Whooves once said “You can always tell the shape of something that’s missing by the hole it left.”, and that’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with here. I can recall the abuse of friends. I can recall the warnings from them about the priests. I can even remember walking in on a colt crouched on the floor of a tiny room in the back of the church. Another of the colts hustled me out before I asked too many questions. There was even one very young colt who killed himself by setting fire to his home and locking his bedroom door.

The shape of the hole is quite clear. And so are the ripples of how it has affected me through the years. It’s the reason I hate cream sauces. The reason I can’t eat eggs that are rubbery when I had no problem with them as a child - they gag my throat and an image flashes in my mind in an instant. An obscene image, along with a particular smell. It’s the reason my reactions in the privacy of our bedroom are so strange, and always have been.

Yet another thing I’ll never be free of. I don’t have the insurance nor the bits to see someone about the memories.

In time, after some temporary jobs, I found a position with another company and worked my flank off the moment I set hoof through the door.

And I haven’t stopped since.

I work at least 50+ hours a week. For a while I was in the overnight rotation for emergency scroll alerts for the cluster networks.

Eventually I moved into assigning out those scrolls instead of handling. It’s not nearly the bits I was getting before I was originally laid off, but it’s enough if we spend it carefully. Sometimes we don’t. Heck, a lot of time we don’t.

The long hours at all my jobs, the bad eating, the lack of exercise, the time I was unemployed, they’ve all taken their toll. My body is now damaged enough that I can’t eat certain things, have to take medicine every day, and have pain in my hind legs every night when I try and fall asleep. Not to mention the failed operation that took away my ability to be intimate. *cough*

And....I’m going blind now. The failure in my body, has damaged by eyes so much that they bleed inside. It hasn’t caused a loss of vision - just blurriness for now - but it’s progressive. And there is no cure. Even the best spells only temporarily alleviate the situation.

I’ve come to terms with it. In a few years I’ll likely be blind. That means I’ll be unable to work and have to go on Lunar Disability.

So...in the meantime...I’m trying to get everything handed over to my loving mare before things get out of hoof. We still have a lot of debts, but we’re working to get rid of them. I don’t want her to have to deal with those as well as the current load.

And that’s where we stand now. I’m going blind. We are in debt. We never seem to have enough.

This doesn’t feel fair. But the universe isn’t fair. And others have it far worse than we do. I guess the best I can do it try and make sure I’m not a burden to those around me until the time comes for me to move on.

I often feel like I did something to deserve this. And perhaps, in another life, I have. But I can’t think of anything this time around that would fit the bill.

I'll have more later but thanks for listening and Luna Bless You.

A Mad Magpie

A Chance of Grey - Chapter 3 - A Mad Magpie by RandomGreymane

Memories...they’re tricky things for me. Always shifting. Nothing ever seems completely stable with them.

One moment I’m trotting along just fine and then all of a sudden I’m being attacked by the memory of say...the time I accidentally insulted a purple princess who was just trying to help.

That one is particularly annoying to be honest. It wasn’t enough for me to go to an immortal princess for help, but then to insult her. Not my best moment.

It was years ago, when my wife and I were still involved in the Stellarite Cult.

Being involved with that group had taken a heavy toll. My wife was working days and I was doing night security. We were living hours away from the location and we were spending a lot of resources just to keep working there.

I remember being so tired days that I had to stop the cart and sleep halfway home.

At one point a very good friend of ours saw that we were getting in too deep and called Princess Twilight in to help. (She was the only one confronting the Stellarites at the time. Lesser ponies couldn’t get involved for fear of the cult ruining them, and of course Celestia couldn’t get involved because they were always within the letter of the law. And we all know how High and Mighty Princess Celestia loves the letter of the law.)

But Princess Twilight was different. All she wanted to do was help a friend of a friend....and I rebuked that offer of help. “I know what I’m doing you arrogant nag! I don’t know how the hell you got your wings but take them and fly your happy flank to Tartarus for all I care!”

She stood watching me and just sighed before replying. “Chance...everypony is worried about you. Look at yourself, look at your wife and foal! Look what the Stellarites are doing to you...you need help.”

“We’re just fine!” I screamed back at her.

“Is that why you’re no longer living in your apartment?” she asked pointedly. “They aren’t even paying you now! Why the HAY are you staying with them!”

“They’re going to show me how to handle all my memories!” I replied hotly.

“You don’t need the kind of help that they ‘give’ you.” she intoned calmly. “And it’s not even free, they work you to death for it. I know some of the best memory specialists...”

“No.” I said flatly. “Every memory specialist I’ve ever gone to has treated me like shit. Either they tell me I’m remembering things wrong or exclaim that all the things I have wrong, and all the things that have happened to me, couldn’t possibly be. Just...no.”

I still recall the sound of her final sigh. It contained exasperation, and anger, and above all finality. “Fine. Be it on your own hooves.” she said. In a purple flash she vanished and I was left alone with the realization that I’d screwed up. Not only had I rebuffed some real help that had been freely offered, but I’d insulted an immortal princess.

She did visit me later but I was too stubborn to apologize. Wrapped up in my youth and arrogance, I once again failed to be true.

Truth...that’s another thing that I failed at for a long time. It took me decades to learn that lying got me nowhere. Especially to myself.

Where was I...oh yeah...memories.

Some of my worst memories are bound up in small moments. Those tiny moments stick to other moments, and other moments, until all you’re left with is this “ball of timey wimey” as The Doctor would put it. (I’ve never been lucky enough to meet him. Were it not for live recordings in the history books I really might think he’s just a myth.)

And all you can see is the outer layer of that tangle of moments and emotion until the ball turns and the light reflects off something and you get a flash of sound or a vision or a feeling. Sometimes the recall is so strong that I start responding to it. Arguing with the ponies in the memories so _this time_ I come out ahead. Most of the time that one happens in the shower thankfully where nopony can hear me.

(...)

I went to the doctor the other day. So far things are doing okay but the breakdown of this body keeps happening no matter how hard I try and hold it back. He did say that my eyes have not gotten any worse yet. I’ll take that. It’s the little things sometimes.

The little things...our daughter is one of those. But also one of the larger things as well. I worry a lot where she’s concerned.

Our daughter is wonderful but she has something different going on with her mind. The doctors say it came from my side of the family and I can see that. There have been quite a few colts and fillies on my side of the family.

There is the branch of the family that frankly drinks themselves to death. That branch of the tree has cider with their coffee if you know what I mean. So there’s where my addictive stuff comes from - my daughter has that worse in some ways.

Then there was my dad’s mother who became demented early in life and the doctors used so many different spells on her that in the end she was just a lump of flesh parked in a rocking chair in the sitting room.

There was the cousin who was so angry at my uncle after he died that she ran a cart over his headstone!

But I think the winner for worst pony in my family goes to an aunt I have long called Aunt Magpie.

On some level I feel sorry for her as she was abused by the stallion she married. He was a war veteran and at least once chased her around with a meat cleaver during a flashback to his time in combat.

When he died, something in her clicked in one particular direction and she decided that she wanted all the things despite not having the money to pay for them.

So...what she would do...is go into the houses of family members after they passed away and take what she wanted. Nobody in the family but my Uncle Jimmy stood up to her. She wouldn’t do it if he could at all be involved and possibly stop her.

So when he died, she and her three fillies pestered my grandma to give her stuff of his. My grandmare was the one who said no finally. She stood up to her and sent her on her way. Kindly but firmly. My mareternal grandmare was like that. Tiny tine pony but with fire if you pushed her too far.

When Aunt Magpie started talking to the other siblings about what would happen to my grandmare’s land when she died, my grandmare was ready and made sure she couldn’t touch it until then. (She basically sold the land to someone who gave her the right to live there until she passed. Then she divided the money and gave it to all the remaining siblings. If one of the siblings wasn’t alive it went to their descendants.) Aunt Magpie was furious.

When grandmare died, Aunt Magpie was in the house and looting it literally before she was in the ground. She was in the house one day and the next day we had the funeral.

I didn’t want a thing but my grandmare left strict instructions with my mother and my Aunt Bayberry that I was to take some things from the upstairs bedroom she kept my uncle’s things in. (It doesn’t matter really but I took his service medals and a box of sheet music that he had collected from music magazines over the years. He played guitar, a talent I’ve never been able to master.)

Again Aunt Magpie was furious. SHE was the one who was supposed to get those things and SHE was the one who was supposed to decide who BESIDES HER got anything at all.

But that’s not the crowning achievement that made me write her off for good. (So much so that she’s currently ill and I am having difficulty caring.)

The straw that broke the donkey’s back is what she said and did when Daisy took her own life.

Besides ransacking her apartment. Besides taking all her things that the really didn’t need. Besides all that...she delayed Daisy’s headstone for a full year.

She prevented the headstone from being installed for a full year. For a full year my cousin lay in an unmarked grave. I had to have a graveyard map to find where she was buried. When I found it, I buried a metal marker of my own so I could find it again if need be. (One of the old style TARDIS keys on a chain. The kind with the weird shape made of pewter. It was what I had at the time and it seemed appropriate as Daisy was always a fan of The Doctor and things of wonder in general.)

Aunt Magpie’s reasoning? I’ll give you her words exactly - “She committed suicide. She’s lucky she’s buried on hallowed ground.”

That was when I decided she’s not worth my time. Sometimes ponies try and tell me that I should forgive her but those words ring in my ears and the anger is fresh behind my eyes.

*sigh* Look...I know I’m supposed to be the bigger pony but honestly I’m not. I’m just not. Especially where she’s concerned.

She was the pony that taught me, in a very real way, how bad ponies could be. I’d seen ponies do bad thing, sometimes around me, but never a member of my own family. It really broke my trust in the good in the average pony. It took me a long time to get that back.

But then our family has always had questionable things about it. For instance, several of the family told me that my grandmare killed a stallion to protect the family.

It was years before I was born, back before all the original uncles and aunts were on the scene.

My grandmare once told me that she and grandpa were forbidden to get married by the Stallion Mafia. And that since they did, they were on a hit list from grandpare’s side of the family.

So...they changed their names...and moved to a town south of Marewaukee. Ten acres of almost worthless land. They planted black walnut trees and planted a family.

One day, one of the mafia came to the door. “Nice house.” he said. “Nice colts. be a shame if something happened to them.” (Please take these words with a grain of salt. They came from old ponies with old memories and I’m sure they were paraphrasing.)

My grandmare looked at him, thought about her family, then hit him in the back of the head with a shovel until he was dead. My uncles disposed of the car, and grandmare used that same shovel to dig a hole. She couldn’t drag him any distance so she dug it right in front of the, then, newly planted apple tree.

And everypony kept silent about it for years.

I didn’t find out about it until after grandmare had passed away. When my aunts and uncles told me about it, suddenly some things came together. The fact that there was a flower garden in front of the apple tree with a cross in it. The fact that grandmare sprinkled Celestial Water on it every Sunday. The fact that she kept anypony from walking on it. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t see it sooner.

But then I’m “only good for pushing a broom”.

Now of course you’re probably grumbling or yelling at me because how dare I judge Aunt Magpie when grandmare killed somepony.

The difference is that he would have killed them.

The times were different back then. Rougher. Things were not quite as civilized as they are now, and the mafia could do as they pleased without the guards even confronting them. (Those that weren’t being paid off that is.)

Knowing this, grandmare took the swing...so to speak. I find no fault in her actions. I too would kill to protect my family. Grandmare’s actions were all to help and protect, Aunt Magpie’s actions only benefit her. Her crimes stand while grandmare gets a pass in my book.

The family grew and continued growing. Seven original foals, each with one or two foals themselves later. A large family. There’s one picture of that contains my grandmare and all five generations. (She passed away at 91 years of age.)

She taught me a lot about how to act as a human being. My mother taught me some things too, but grandmare she made SURE that I knew things I needed to survive and be a good pony. Even if my mother didn’t like some of then.

How the hell did I become me then?? This tired and twisted individual you see here?

I honestly don’t know.

I do know that I keep trying. No matter what. No matter how tired I am. No matter what physical problems I have. No matter what.

She used to do the same and I learned that lesson from her and kept it close to my heart.

That doesn’t mean I’m a perfect pony. Hell, Celestia isn’t perfect let alone myself.

But now I’m tired of trying. And my will is faltering. And I’m not sure what to do. For the first time in a long time I’m not sure what to do.

Maybe that’s a sign that I should ask others for help. But honestly I’m so tired of ponies hauling my flank out of the fire. I should be able to stand on my own four hooves...but each time I try...things happen. They’re almost never super serious, but sometimes they are. They always happen at exactly the wrong moment though.

And I mean _exactly_ the wrong moment.

Daisy once told me our family was cursed. The odd circumstances and bad fortune that has plagued our family over the years certainly doesn’t make me doubt it really. Our family acts like it’s cursed. And the universe seems to respond in kind.

Between the bits owed to the doctors for myself, and the bits owed for my wife, we’re amassing some debt. Shortly after I became employed again the last time, we had to take out credit to pay off the bills we’d gathered while I wasn’t bringing in an income. That has also left us with a hefty debt of bits to be repaid. We’re nibbling at it slowly but it never seems to go away.

And I’m having the dreams again.

They seem to come in the middle of the night, filled with hectic action that pushes me until I wake sweating and panting as if I’ve run a marathon.

A friend of mine, (yes I still have those despite all), joked that it was The Dream Warden trying to contact me.

As screwed up as that sounds, I could probably buy that with all the other odd things that have happened in my life.

But Luna has been gone a long time from the public eye. And neither Princess Twilight nor Celestia are talking.

And why the hay would she want something from somepony like me? I’m nothing special. Point in fact I’m everything ordinary.

So I laugh at my friend and shrug it off.

Still...I kinda wish it was her. She alone might be someone I could talk to about all this.

I’ve always been a night pony to be honest. The day schedules don’t suit me even though the work I do requires me to keep them.

The night is always better. Quiet and serene. There’s an elegance to it that the day just can’t match.

I think I’d tell her how much it helps to stay up late in that quiet night so I can compose myself. It helps calm the ball of memories and maybe make some sense of them at times.

But she hasn’t been seen for years. Decades in fact. All the other princesses but not her. I’ve always wondered why. I tried looking it up once but there was nothing but an...ending...in the records. It’s almost like she faded from history except for her name and likeness.

One thing I did find though - she was a master with spell clusters. The same kind of clusters I’ve spent my life working with.

I took the time to check and almost every one of the cluster creation and maintenance spells that I learned came unchanged from her original archived spellbooks.

There’s something to be said for a spell that’s useful that long even when the cluster designs themselves have evolved far beyond the originals.

The more I read about her the move amazed I am. Also the more puzzled. There’s not one clue as to why she’s not around any more. I checked everywhere. I was even curious enough to send a message to Princess Twilight.

I got no response. I’m betting she’s still angry with me even after all these years.

...I wonder if this is what my aunt feels like in her quiet moments. Does she regret her actions now? I don’t know...

As wondrous as this night is, it’s time for me to cease writing and try and get some sleep.

*sigh*

Sleep doesn’t come easy to me these days. The mind won’t shut down, and when it does the body betrays me. So in the darkness I lay twitching and trying to get my hooves under control. Sleep is only when I’m exhausted now.

I wish...I wish Princess Luna were here to help me. I just wish for peaceful rest. I think were she here she’d be able to help me.

Who am I kidding? I made this bed by not taking care of the things in life I should have. I don’t deserve that help.

Still...were she here...I’d tell her how beautiful I find her spellwork. It’s like the finest silver woven into intricate patterns so complex I can barely make head nor tales of them.

While I love my wife, where spellwork is concerned I truly worship Luna. (Don’t tell my wife I said that please. She’d be pretty offended. I don’t want her to be hurt.)

Still...just once...I’d like the chance to talk with The Dream Warden.

Just once.

I’d tell her...I’d tell her how much I admired her. And how much I respect all she’s done.

Goodnight everypony. May The Dream Warden guard you and keep you.