The World's Indeed a Stage
The racket emanating from the nigh-forgotten orchard at the northern end of the border between the Apple and Pear orchards finally died down as a young blue-gray colt with no Cutie Mark finished torquing down a handful of bolts pinning the last wheel to his "project". With a huff of satisfaction, he released the contraption from his magic, letting the nearby corner slam into the ground with a force that would have popped said wheel right back off if he'd done a lesser job. He checked his flank with a quick glance, confirming what he already knew he'd see there: nothing new.
The object he was constructing was a monstrosity built into the hull of a junked cargo cart that could have comfortably seated a half dozen adult ponies if it had been converted to a stagecoach instead of being used for his purposes. It had taken weeks to refurbish the hull, and months to build in and calibrate all of the accessories he had chosen to add. There were fireflower launchers, a full set of miniature stage lights, including a trio of tiny spotlights; a pair of small classic theatre curtains, and even a variety of cheap but entertaining props that even a unicorn nearly absent magic like his little sister could make use of. Not that he wanted her to. Somber didn't want the little brat anywhere near his precious creation. This was a work of the mind and heart as one, not a toy for some filly so stupid she still couldn't spell her own name correctly.
With that thought in mind, the colt ascended the trio of stairs leading into the coach's cabin and prepared to test its most important elements. Taking a deep breath, he stomped on the curtained wall with a forehoof, causing its outer shell to violently collapse out and drop foldable table legs, simultaneously releasing its split inner shell to spread open wide and latch its halves into place on either side of the instant makeshift stage. Judging by the much louder sound this action made than any of his work up to this point, Somber was pretty confident that he'd successfully made an acoustic amplifier for it.
Trotting out onto said stage, the colt heard his hoofsteps pounding around on it and practiced walking so that he couldn't. Once that was accomplished, he did something that he would only ever do at the height of his confidence that nopony was near enough to know about: he began to sing. He paused, listening to how his voice sounded and trying to adjust as he went until it "rang true" in his own ears. This was obviously difficult given how near he was to puberty. His voice kept cracking in an embarrassing manner that made him glad he was so far away from anypony else. He didn't get past the third line before he was interrupted by one of several things he'd come all the way out here to avoid.
"Somber!" a familiar assault on the eardrums clawed at him from the distance. "SOMBER! Where are you, stupid-face?"
The colt closed his eyes and took a deep breath, in what was functionally the opposite of a sigh but still served the same purpose. He should have known better than to even think of Trixie. That alone almost reliably seemed enough to summon the little demon from whatever pit of Tartarus she had carved out for herself. He considered ignoring her.
"SOMBER! MOM'S LOOKING FOR YOU! She says you have more STUDYING to do!" her voice, raucous and shrill enough to offend a raven, was getting louder with every word.
But that wasn't what chilled his blood enough to wonder if this was a possible route to hypothermia. He gauged where Trixie might be by the sound and direction of her voice, and teleported to that spot. A distinctive and familiar shriek from just out of reach informed him that he had guessed correctly.
"Don't do that, you jerk! You KNOW I hate it when you sneak up on me!" Trixie bellowed at maximum pitch and volume into his face.
"I didn't sneak up on you, I teleported here. Anyway, you know I hate it when you scream at me, but that never stops you." Somber snapped back, rubbing his right ear with the corresponding hoof.
"Well then you shouldn't make me come looking for you!" Trixie screamed at him as he passed by her in the direction of home. "When I tell Mom how far away from home you got, you're gonna be in BIG trouble, Mister!"
As if on cue, a jade amulet Somber didn't notice Trixie had been wearing shimmered, and there was a brilliant flash a couple meters away from them. The air filling the spherical core of said flash blasted away from it as though its molecules were instantly terrified of the pending newcomer, and a fraction of a second later, the core was gone. In place of the sudden blinding light was the mare whose presence he was certain was always heralded by a clap of thunder: Abacus Cinch. The one who called herself their mother.
"Well done, Trixie. It appears that you are good for something, after all." Abacus quipped, and the filly preened, oblivious to the notion that what had been said to her might not actually be flattering. "As for you, young stallion..."
Somber just barely resisted the urge to make the cliched gagging noise as the mare's starfield caught him by the throat and dragged him to within reach of her forehooves, whereupon she immediately struck him across the face with her right one. Abacus towered over her adopted son like a menacing ursa. She only meant to hit him once, but when her vision cleared, her starfield was holding him up as much as his own hooves, if not more. She released his throat and grabbed his horn instead.
"You worried me half to death!" She bellowed at Somber, incensed at how he still wasn't focused on her. "Stop being melodramatic and listen to me you little bastard! You need to know what your punishment is going to be for running off and troubling these nice Earth Ponies by tearing up their trees like you did! You're almost half Earth Pony yourself, you know! You should be showing more respect for your heritage! Where was I? Oh yes. You will be making copies of the Encyclopedia Equestria anthology, in print and in calligraphy, and while you're at it you're going to learn about PROOFREADING. Flori's very dear to my heart, but the poor mare can't write to save her life. Don't tell her I said that, or there will be consequences. Trixie!"
"Yeah, what?" the filly responded in a tone that Somber was pretty sure would get him literally murdered.
"We're going home now. What do you want for dinner?" Mrs. Cinch was significantly less worried about Trixie knowing any secrets, since she was sure her adopted daughter had a mind like a sieve.
"Ice cream pie!" Trixie cheered, earning a sigh and head-shake from Abacus.
"That's dessert, Sweetheart. Come on, let's go." Abacus commanded as though either foal had a choice, since she teleported the three of them back home with marginally less fanfare than she'd arrived with.
* * *
Hitherto unnoticed, Fluttershy had been stalking Somber since he had passed the cottage she'd taken refuge in since her decision to stay on the ground. She couldn't believe what she'd just seen and heard. Up until it finally happened, she thought it'd be great to meet somepony who knew what it was like to have her level of family troubles. Now that it had, though, she couldn't help but feel like she'd wished this misery into existence. It was such an awful feeling, but at least there was a convenient way she could cheer herself up now. She fluttered her wings, lifting herself off the ground and landing on the stage. There, she started to sing the rest of his song.
"Love is just a camouflage, for what resembles rage... again...
"You got expelled for violent outbursts again?"
Many were the rumors that circulated through Canterlot, indiscriminate of economic classes. A rational mind would be inclined to ignore them to the best of one's ability, but that would mean relying on official news and the word of nobles for recent information. As it happened, most rumors tended to be true. Ponies by nature were not typically malicious and the world was amazing and strange enough that lying just wasn't worth the effort. So it then became a matter of sorting out which rumors one was interested in enough to listen to.
"You're supposed to grow up to be somebody important, like a doctor or lawyer! Not some worthless thug!"
Somber never realized it, but the reason for this in his case was because virtually anyone he prompted for the least amount of conversation "rewarded" him with a brief summary of their day, week, month, season, year, or life story. Which wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't periodically stop and ask him for his opinion, then continue before he responded. It seems that the price to be paid for being a "good listener" was having to demonstrate that trait all day, every day. He wondered sometimes if he should go into journalism or work as an interrogator for the police or government. It wouldn't even be that hard, all he'd have to do is ask somepony how they're doing today.
"What the hay is wrong with you? Are you TRYING to ruin my image!? That does it, I know how to sort you out, Mister!"
The rumor that the still Cutie Markless blue-gray colt was actually interested in was the one about a zebra who had apparently seen fit to move into the Everfree Forest and had since been haunting Ponyville. So while the rest of the cadets at Hurricane Joint Forces Academy went home to see their families, one young pony ventured out where no others dared. Well, no other pony that is, not for the past thousand years. But given that there had once been an entire castle here and Somber didn't see much difference between a pony and a zebra, he felt that he had little to fear. He could only hope that whatever threat presented itself was sufficient to incite him to break his chains and show it what a real threat was. He'd lost many fights in Canterlot because he was so bound by pity for his opponent that he ended up being whittled down without being able to hit back, falling to the damage of wounds he barely felt.
At the edge of the Everfree, he looked up at the looming trees and listened to the cries of untamed creatures mixed with the rush of unguided winds. There was a certain beauty to it, now that he thought about it. In this wild place, each and every living thing answered only to its own will, and yet life here thrived at least as much as that under the ponies' yokes for over a millennium. Roots threatened to trip and hid venomous snakes and large spiders. Brambles reached out to ensnare and tear at pony manes and hides. Canopy branches supported the weight of diving vines and ambush predators of all shapes and sizes. There was a harmony buried somewhere in these woods, a hidden method to the madness waiting to empower whomever was willing and able to brave them.
Somber closed his eyes and focused on the spell of courage he'd written for himself based loosely on a cadence he'd heard at the Academy.
"Though I trot through the Forest in the Shadow of Chaos,
I shall fear no Nightmares.
For I walk proudly and alone.
And those monsters and beasts that look upon me.
Will see and know one of their own.
When he opened his eyes, it seemed as though he could see a path into the woods. Whether it had been opened purely for his benefit or simply noticed only by his calmed nerves, he neither knew nor cared. There was only the march forward to meet another as intimate with loneliness as himself. Or at least, so he thought. But a hundred or so paces in and he finally solidified the feeling he had been getting every time he visited this tiny town and the surrounding area. Somepony was not only watching him, but also following him. Conducting an about-face and taking fifty paces back, he found himself facing a terrified-looking pegasus filly.
"What are you doing in there?" she asked, although her tone and body language strongly indicated she was afraid of learning the answer.
"I'm going to meet someone." Somber replied. "Why are you following me?"
"W-we're not supposed to go into the Everfree, it's forbidden," the filly protested.
"'We' are not going into Everfree," Somber stated so calmly that his tone made her relax. "I am."
"B-but the creatures in that forest! And the plants! And maybe even the water and the rocks too, are... ARE..." Fluttershy struggled to find the words to express how potentially scary everything in the forbidden forest was supposed to be.
"Free?" he asked, sitting in place and studying her.
"Wild!" she shouted into normal conversational volumes, flailing both her forelegs and her wings to emphasize her point. She would have fallen flat onto her face, but a wind that was not wind caught her and lifted her up. Instead, she was righted and found herself facing the colt. He was smiling brightly, but something about the expression made her gasp. "Your teeth!"
"What about my teeth?" he asked quizzically as she struggled to break free of his telekinesis until he released her, allowing her to scamper away a short distance. After all, it wasn't like he didn't know the answer. It was always the same.
"They're beautiful!" she burst out, her voice more of a gasp than anything.
"What?" Scratch 'always'.
"They're super straight and clean, but it's not just that! You have teeth like a bear, but pony-sized! I love bears!" Fluttershy gushed, forgetting herself as she swept to just within reach of him, then remembered and flitted back out. "But how? You look just like a regular pony!"
"I have a... complicated family history. Let's just say my ancestors were very... experimental with their partners." Somber reluctantly confessed. It was such an awful thing in Canterlot: his bloodlines were so mixed as to render his city-state of ancestral origin utterly unplaceable. "I have some Wild Mustang blood, and Burro, and Earth Pony, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some Zebra and Celestia knows what else mixed in, too. Come to think of it, even she might not. I'm kind of a genetic mess."
"Oh my... so does that mean you're a Chimaera? That's so amazing." Fluttershy spoke between her hooves and blushed around them as she'd partially covered her face, hovering in place so she could.
"What? No!" Somber snapped, internally wincing as he saw the filly wither in an instant. He took a breath to dial down the aggression he'd built up for this adventure. "Those are real things, and they're pretty ugly. I'm what you'd call a Viable Hybrid. At least I hope I'm viable, because finding out I'm not would not only be utterly heartbreaking, it would give those uppity yucks back in Canterlot yet another thing to laugh at me about."
"Oh... I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. Despite everypony else's best efforts, I'm proud of what I am. I know what I'm worth, I just need to go find out exactly what I'm supposed to be applying that to."
"Oh. So, do you want me to..."
"Go home." Somber replied, fixing her with an expression that would be burned into her memory for the rest of her life. It was the look of a pony who was willing to face any pain, whether it be to his heart or his body, to accomplish his goal. More importantly, it was the threat of the resolve to kill a foe if necessary. "You're not like me. You're a normal pony, with a good heart and a peace-loving mind. You don't belong in a place like Everfree. You belong in Ponyville, where the world is bound by warmth and light, and love and law. This forest is for freaks like me. Oh please don't cry. I know you don't understand, but I'm not doing this to reject you. I'm doing it to protect you. Go away. Please."
Fluttershy did. In her wake, she left a trail of tears and only in their complete absence from one another did they each realize they had not caught the other's name.
* * *
"Oh my, but that was such a lovely tale, Darling!" Rarity commented as she closed up the little bit of romantic fluff she had snatched from Fluttershy after catching her writing it. "This 'Prince of Many Rivers' you wrote about is certainly an intriguing figure, if perhaps the very antithesis of a 'prince', and I could really feel the heartbreak in your parting company. But it's a bit disappointing, is it not? You didn't even get to-"
"Excuse me!" Fluttershy snapped, flushing furiously. With motions so fast Rarity couldn't quite see, she retrieved her journal pages from the shelf her classmate put it on and returned to her initial position. On the return leg, she flicked her tail at Rarity's snout. "It is NOT just a tale! He's real! And this is mine!"
"Well I never! I can understand you being passionate about the subject, but that doesn't justify such... such rudeness! I know you spend a lot of time around animals, Fluttershy, but you really ought not to act like one!"
"Did you just equate acting like animals with rudeness?"
"Well if the horseshoe fits!"
"Horseshoes don't fit on animals!" Fluttershy was actually angry enough now that she had exceeded pleasant conversational volumes.
"You know what I'm talking about! Critters are cute and all, but they are fundamentally uncivilized!"
"Uncivilized! UNCIVILIZED!? At least animals aren't a bunch of pompous, self-absorbed, heartless, bit-worshipping-"
A feminine voice clearing its throat interrupted Fluttershy's building rant and drew both opponents' attention to the door.
"We are tres de regret to be interrompre," Lotus Blossom said hesitantly from the door to the abandoned library Fluttershy and Rarity had taken to fighting in, rather than writing the fluff fics as they intended to.
"But we wish to be début a spa proche," Aloe continued for her sister as she followed her inside. "Would you maybe like to be échantillonnage nos services? We have just emménagé from Prance, and have noun des clients yet."
"A spa, you say?" Rarity asked, instantly forgetting the barrage of offense Fluttershy was in the process of slinging at her.
"Oui, mademoiselle," Lotus replied, reaching back into her posh saddlebags and extracting a flyer for the new spa in her teeth before releasing it to roll out before the two formerly fighting fillies. Somehow, she managed to make the whole series of actions look rather graceful. "We are to be offering les massages!"
"Et les hooficures!" Aloe interjected brightly. "Et les bains de boue!"
"Aussi les enveloppements d'algues! Et..." Lotus continued until on some unspoken cue, both foreign fillies moved to either side of Rarity to whisper in her ears in unison. "Dépôt de corne..."
A spark raced down Rarity's spine. It took all of her willpower not to faint on the spot. At this point, she had forgotten Fluttershy even existed.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Rarity tried to bellow in a ladylike fashion. "I would be tres excité to be the premier among your clientèle!"
The twins were thrilled. They eagerly galloped out the front door of the library, first following her because she was faster, then leading her because they actually knew where they were going. The door was slammed shut behind the trio.
"What... what just happened?" Fluttershy asked nopony.
Performers and Portrayers
Zecora's residence of choice was a short walk from Ponyville, but only if one knew where it was and more important still, what one was looking for. In hindsight, maybe she should have thought of that before. It was true her fresh solar Cutie Mark revealed her destiny to be tied to the nation of ponies, but she wasn't exactly keen in knowing what that should mean. An error in judgement left her as alone among them as her own kind, and she could not seem to see the way out of her new social bind. In an effort to stave off a despairing mood, she ventured out in search of fresh herbs and food.
Life in the Everfree was typically bereft of fun, and time seemed to lose meaning without sight of the sun. It was typical to be haunted in the midst of her rounds by the threat of the forest's native wooden hounds. Other monsters she knew posed a similar threat but she was content she hadn't made their acquaintances yet. Still, darkened clouds above threatened with rain; as the not-distant-enough Timberwolves' howls deafened her to the sound of her own stomach's growls. However fearful she was, the relentless need remained. She didn't have long to brood, before the strangest of things occurred: deep in the wood, another fiend's howling could be heard. At first Zecora believed that new troubles had joined her day, but then the Timberwolves seemed to be moving away.
She went about her business while trying to ignore the chill of the Everfree at once going silent, and still. Untroubled for a while by any manner of beast, she couldn't help but smile at her easily gathered feast. The fire of victory burning in her heart, she sought out supplies for her alchemical art. Even as the first drops fell, her smile remained strong until she realized it had been silent for far too long. A maelstrom of possibilities raged in her mind while she galloped home as fast as she thought she could without leaving too much behind. Zecora doubted she could but she outpaced the storm, relieved that inside was reliably dry and warm.
A fire once ignited brought light to her face, making it easier to find everything its place. She had two hours for potion work before bed, just enough to quell the worries plaguing her head. The pattering rain had no rhythm or rhyme, and she found their quiet melody luring away the time. A rush of wind gently rustled her home's leaves, yet no stray drops found routes through the eaves. The sense of accomplishment had banished her fright, and it became easy to turn in for the night.
* * *
(I'm an idiot...) a certain blue-grey colt thought as he looked around at the growing number of glowing green eyes manifesting in the darkness of the woods nearby. Each pair was matched with a menacing growl, and the harmony of the combined noise seemed to threaten the rhythm of his heartbeat. The fool organ was trying to pound faster and harder and stop at the same time. "I can't believe I actually thought that howling back would throw them off..."
He didn't even realize when he started speaking aloud, but the Timberwolves did. Twelve pairs of leafy ears perked at once, and wooden snouts opened into snarls that revealed splinters in the shape of canine teeth. They circled him, closing in and menacing him from all sides. It wasn't clear whether the wolves fed on pony flesh or just their fears, but he wasn't keen on being the one to learn. What was clear was that they were trying to incite him to run in a specific direction by giving him a faux opening and snapping at him from the other side.
There was just one problem with their strategy. A problem that Somber had his entire life, and which at this moment seemed to have come to a head: he was a fighter. That is not to say that he enjoyed combat, or inflicting pain, or even ruining somepony else's day. What it does mean though is that when something scares him, and adrenaline pumps through his system, he does not flee like a normal pony does. Instead, he attacks whatever inspired that fear, and since all rationality has fled him, he acts like an animal and doesn't stop his assault until he regains his senses.
The first Timberwolf to get too close with its snapping got a hind-kick to the jaw, upon which it was revealed that they tend to explode. Naturally, this startled Somber even more than the existing low-key terror of the predators' threats, and initiated a chain reaction where he blindly lashed out at anything that moved within the radius set by the pack.
The curse-animals, acting on instincts alone, didn't know how to handle the crazed pony. For one thing, he actually bolted in the direction they'd intended after shattering one of their own, but deviated just enough to tackle another and send it flying into pieces too. Each after the next, a Timberwolf started to pursue the apparently fleeing prey, only to find him returning at speeds easily mistaken for teleportation.
The pack was reduced to brambles and splinters in the space of about six seconds, which was far too short a time for the colt's adrenaline rush to wear off. So after panting took over the growling he didn't know he was the source of, he continued his assault against less threatening targets: branches were torn off trees by magic, fronds were torn out of ferns by teeth, spiders and insects were crushed underhoof. Everything. Everything must stop moving until the fear went away.
The fallen pack reassembled into a Timberwolf Alpha, which had a brief few seconds to growl in a menacing choral voice before Somber turned on it. Rocks pelted through it at relativistic velocities and punched holes in the clouds before the unicorn dove at the wooden behemoth, only finally calming down as he found himself being rained on by parts and pieces... and actual drops of water.
(I'm a monster...) he thought, looking at the damage he'd caused. Meanwhile, his body ignored his mind's strife and instead reacted to the threat of rain and the opportunity of suddenly available resources. A large square hole was carved into the ground by a cube of magical force. (Should I even be doing this?) was also ignored as wolf-timber was mixed in with the regular variety as well as mud and moss. He tried to will his body to stop building, to give up and die, but it disobeyed. The mixture was pressed up against the cube and blasted into something like a cheap cement, then the fronds were mixed with even more mud and wolf-timber to make a roof. "Maybe it's best for that zebra if I never find her. Maybe it's best for everypony if I never come back."
A strike of lightning revealed something like a hideous, angry face on a tree, which was immediately cut down with an arcane blade and hewn into log quarters that were used to brace the inside of the walls and roof. Some were stacked on top of a pile of dried fronds and lit aflame. The cube was let down to test the stability of the hut, and to release the smoke through the vent-holes just under the overhanging roof.
As usual, sleep was slow to take him, and when it did, it dragged him into a realm of nightmares. When he was younger, these were just of angry mobs with torches or empty places where ponies should be, with only the occasional ghost screaming demands to know where he's been. But now that he was older, he alternated between hearing distant cheers as some radiant hero or heroine pummeled him into the ground; and the much more frightening dreams of "stepping back" away from the world and somehow opening the part of it that encompassed everything he knew to reveal the gears of a clock or the strings of a marionette show, or strange lines of strange metals with armies of sparks racing down them. Even those were broken up by the worst dreams of all: those where he gave his life for the world, and was paid for his blood by being discarded in an utterly callous manner.
They say you're not supposed to die in your dreams, but how close are you allowed to get? Somber has lost track of the number of times where he's felt his body go cold, seen color drain from his vision, and heard his breath first become loud then go silent. He couldn't help but wonder how many ponies suffered like this, what with the regent of the Dream Realm having become Nightmare Moon. Maybe that's why he had become a monster. Maybe his real purpose in life was to punish ponies like her for what they've done.
Author's Note
Zecora chapters are damn hard to write.
