~ IX ~

A... Normal Mare

I knocked on the door no more times than needed, with the hope I could get out of this, the fleeing of my crew not doing wonders for my anxiety. Yet I stood my ground and played my act as the uncaring stallion. One who swore, without a fuck to give, seeking to cause some shit.

Though even my heart bought none of that.

Who the fuck am I? Have I even taken a second to think about this? Came out swearing and screaming without thinking if that's all who I am. T-Thought so at first. Then I surprise myself in being finer at points.

Was I actually decent before this? Or am I more decent now because of the state I'm in?

Fuck! Not this! Not fucking now! You're about to meet the wicked lady of the north, able to crush Rainbow in a way the town couldn't—and scare the shit out of the dragon with the little games she likes to play. Now is not the time for insecurity.

I breathed a few stabilizing breaths.

Bitch can probably smell that shit and use it against me.

The door pulled back to a shackling of dull chimes. Rarity stood at its side, pulling it around with a foreleg, her head, tilted ever so, one piercing eye set on me—the other hidden beneath the violet curl of her luxurious mane.

And in those moments of stunned silence, she looked at me, like a creature from another world, as though I was someone she never met before. Her lips opened for a breath and nothing more. Hushed. Refined. Delicate little breathing.

It quickly occurred to me that I was looking at perfection.

"Yes darling?" That voice. Soft with touches of elegance on its corners. It reminded me of the sophistication of Twilight—except more exuded. Melted snow was her coat and eyes like a glimmering pond of blue. "Perhaps you are lost? Is your mare nearby? I can put out a word for—"

I held out a foreleg and shook my head. "U-Uh. No. None of that." Seconds passed with my hoof's mental occurrence still out; I saved the exposure of my stupidity in inching the hoof to her. "I heard talks of you being a fantastic designer." Her quizzical muzzle tilted at my hoof as though it were a trap—but shook it nonetheless. "And as you can maybe tell: I need an outfit."

Her head kept at that adorable tilt with a muzzle inched back. Peering at me in confusion and looking around as though for some sort of aid. Did I come across as a creep? I blinked and held back a cough.

This whole time I'd been fighting crazy mare.

But now.

It felt as though I had to prove myself to this one.

Couldn't swear or curse or do my usual bits.

Even though... I should be doing that?

When the hell did I get so formal?

Focus.

"I was about to make mention of that, yes." Rarity urged my hoof to the ground as to retreat her own. I'd kept the hold for too long. She backed a step from the door and, when I looked to cover it, she twitched. I froze in my tracks. "I don't mean to be so rude as to assume dastardly and improper of you... but you don't come to me possessing malicious intent, do you?"

I retreat my hoof into the cushion of grass. "W-Wha?"

"Sorry darling! It's just I've done this little waste of a dance far too many times." Her head shook and she 'tut tut tut' in doing so. "Poor stallion wishes to have me in arriving naked. Needs clothing, immediately, despite lacking an appointment made by his mare."

Rarity patted a hoof to her chest and bent her head backward for dramatics. "Then it's an impromptu fitting with hooves unable to be kept to themselves! I swear you stallions take advantage of us mares."

My mouth hung open and my heart faltered in perhaps finding the one bitch... n-no, the one lady that wasn't crazy in this world. Suddenly I felt like the asshole in all of this. Hadn't even done or said anything yet. Though I felt as though I reflected on all the problems even I had with the stallions.

The shit they said, did, and got away with.

"Always trying to get intimate and recruit me to their herd! Three times this week already! Hoping that our little fitting sessions can allow them to fit something in various parts of me!" I blinked in how I could see that. Mare would give you a blowjob on the streets here. Not hard to expect stallions starting to demand that treatment from everyone—no matter what. "They say mares run the world, and yet! Yet stallions get away with such behaviour all the time!"

It was true. Stallions were weak and mares picked up the slack—a reverse of old gender norms and all that. Yet a stallion could still demand anything of a mare and have it done. Sometimes, even though it's reversed, some things keep the same.

"And now you! You come here—"

"Easy, easy! I'm not one of them! I promise you." I held up my foreleg to surrender it, slowly bringing it down. It helped to ease the pant that approached her breathing. The sudden exhaust of heat from her frame. "I'm not going to try to touch you or kiss you or anything like that."

Rarity nodded with a self-satisfied smile. "Because I won't let you."

I chuckled. "I don't doubt that one bit." I exhaled my tension. Even though Rarity was strong, aggressive, and control taking—I didn't fear her like I did other mares. They attacked me as a stallion. She, however, attacked the pony underneath that. "But I wasn't lying about the other stallions things. Just take a look at me real quick. Ever see a stallion like me before?"

Rarity rose on her back legs and leaned on the frame of the door, and in this, I realized something I hadn't before. This girl was twice my size. She towered from high on the frame as her pricing eyes swept across me. I shivered from the heat burning into my skin.

"No." Rarity pushed her lips to the side with an amused expression. "Can't say I've ever seen someone like you before. Messy mane. Coat unbrushed for who knows how long. And your demeanour."

Her lips parted in thought—before the next breath put it to words. "Just who are you, darling?"

"A-Anon. No last name." My right eye closed as my shoulder shrugged. "Still need to make something up. Haven't had the inspiration for it. Should probably change my first name to something—"

"More befitting the common names of ponies? Alas anon stands for anonymous—does it not?" Rarity's tongue licked the corner of her smirk. She fell forward to the ground. Even the smack of her hooves on the ground was delicate. "Anon is quite crude—although I do like it. No need to change to simply fit in."

She turned around to a wisp of mane floating over her eye. Rarity glanced back at me through it. Creamy purple to the low, intense glow of sapphire irises. Blowing a giggle out through her lips, she produced a hint of steam with it. "After all the brand of names should not all be cliches. How tiring it would be if everyone's title had to be 'Pinkie Pie' and 'Rainbow Dash.'"

That caught me. Rainbow Dash. Warned me of how dangerous this girl could be—the one that'd broken her heart. Yet as far as I could tell... it didn't seem like that. She seemed normal. Normal to someone like me.

Although would be anything else to anyone else.

"You and I are unique individuals in that regard, aren't we?" Rarity strolled from the door in a full turn and, in the frame, the mass of her ass was captured in its view. Voluptuous. Her rump was a touch larger than the rest of her frame. "Most know me fully as Rarity and you as Anon. First name creatures we seem to be. No 'Twilight Sparkle' for us."

I blinked and broke my tushy-trance. I looked across the side of her frame to see the mare looking back. Smiling. Catching me in something I shouldn't have been doing. Yet her lips stretched further for it as she nodded to behind her.

"Are you not coming in dear? You said you needed an outfit? Hopefully, you don't plan to bore me with the usual."

I chuckled as I stepped forward. "Only if you put a U and an N before it."

She snickered and disappeared into the darkness inside the boutique. "Wonderful. Maybe you are what I need to make a splash in my new line." White sunk into the night, yet the form floated, somewhere, in the dark mist. "Come on inside now. Close and lock the door behind you. We don't need anyone bothering this."

Back at the door... I couldn't shake it. That gnawing feeling at the back of the head. This girl seemed perfect. Tall and large, thick in dough of collapsed white, everything about her: powerful. Her ass hung a little higher than I could reach. Impossibility thick without reaching the size of being too much.

Her steps cracked on the floor, like snaps throughout the air, delicate one, pronounced, though still as crushing. This life before... I must have been a creep. Seeing a lady so lovely, so... thinged about guys. I felt like I was trying something. That I was disgusting in even being there.

It felt weird after throwing shade and shit at mares, accusing them of everything horrible that, in the presence of this one, now, I suddenly felt like I was in their place. Even then... I felt different around this one. More... refined. Professional. More like my own stallion.

No swearing or cursing or being a jerk as that wouldn't fly here. Was that all an image too? Pretending to be a high-talking jerk until someone denied me of it? Would I deflate at the first legitimate opposition? I hadn't really had any due to the nature of this world. Mares so amazed at a stallion that could talk back... that they never challenged him on it.

I'm going to be found out soon. Rainbow and Spike and all of them. They'll see that imposter that I am. What... what happened to my curses? Why aren't I fucking swearing anymore? Wasn't that who I am?

Or...

Am I someone different around different ponies?

Author's Note

Howdy all! Sorry for the shorter chapter as I wrote a little less—on the account of my birthday! Big ol' 23.

The next set of chapters should be longer and more spaced apart after this.

For anyone who cares, my pal Zacht and I will be playing through Resident Evil 3 on Twitch on the posting of this.

Link here.

Hope to catch you there!

~ Yr. Pal, B ~