Chapters PoE:. Lowered Expectations
Arc I: Bubblegum BitchNottingham, England ~
Beep!-Beep!-Beep!-BEEP!!-BEEP!!-BEEP!!!-
With a jerk and a grunt, Clive turned and flung out his hand, smacking the corner of his bedside table. He hissed in a breath, before fumbling around until he found the back of the alarm clock and shut it off. He laid his head back and groaned, feeling the ache setting in already in the back of his head. Not to mention the dull pain in his hand. Probably be bruised, later.
It was Saturday. He just had to keep reminding himself of that. It was Saturday, tomorrow was his day off, and he could sit at home and relax.
Or more likely study up for exams.
Three days of classes at College, followed by three days of work at Iceland’s, when Sunday rolled around, he was generally pretty wiped out, but an astrophysics major couldn’t afford to take a break from his studies, if he wanted to get anywhere.
He also couldn’t afford to lay in bed thinking about his problems until he fell back to sleep and got fired for being late.
Again.
He clambered up out of bed and turned, a glance across the loft to the other side showed that the figure of Graham, childhood friend-turned-layabout moocher, was still fast asleep in spite of the alarm going off. Typical.
With a sigh, Clive got up and staggered out of the room, down the hall to the upstairs bathroom. He stepped in and shut the door and turned on the light. He hissed, his eyes squeezing shut against the blinding stab of light. He stumbled over to the stool and flipped up the lid and seat, before leaning against the wall, blinking rapidly to try and clear the spots from his eyes.
Once he was done there, he cleaned off and stepped over to the sink, looking into the mirror and gave a low huff of breath. Jesus, he looked like shit. He combed his hair out first, the short ginger locks tangling with the comb a time or two. He paused after and gave himself a look, narrowing his eyes at his hairline. He swore it was receding. He was going to be bald by the time he was thirty, at this rate.
Fuck it.
He washed his face, then brushed his teeth, scrubbing them thoroughly. Be damned to the trope that British people had bad dental hygiene! Fucking Austin Powers, reinforcing that shit. He hated those fucking movies.
When he was done with his teeth, he jumped in the shower, scrubbing himself all over, and then washing his hair. Once done with that, he dried off and stumbled back to the loft he shared with Graham. As he got dressed he looked at the sleeping form of his friend and thought that, if his life were a movie, this might be where the exposition drop explaining who they both were happened at.
But this wasn’t a movie, and he didn’t have time for that shit.
He got dressed and looked at the clock. He had ten minutes to go catch the tram to work.
He left a note for Graham, simply saying REMEMBER TO LOOK FOR A JOB TODAY!!!!, then headed downstairs.
Ms. Ferris was still in bed, thank God, or she’d have been trying to force feed him breakfast on his way out the door. Down the road he went, feeling the bite of winter’s approach in the air as he walked down to the tram stop. He got there with a few minutes to spare and stood, waiting in the cold, hunching into his jacket.
Graham had been staying with him now for the last four months and, as much as he loved the big idiot, he really needed to get a job and stop laying about all day, playing video games or collecting those damn girl’s toys he liked so fucking much. Clive was a nerd, and no mistake, although he preferred the term ‘Culturally Enlightened”, but how any self-respecting eighteen year old man could be proud of watching a show for little girls , and even go so far as to collect toys and other memorabilia of it, was beyond him.
Clive might be a nerd, but Graham took it to a whole other level of weird.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of the tram arriving, and with that he climbed on board and found his seat, and settled in to wait until he got to work.
* * * * *
Graham slowly peeled his eyes open and groaned, rolling over and blinking against the sunlight streaming in through the window in the middle of the room. After a few moments, he glanced aside at the clock. 11:43. Fuck, he was actually awake before noon! He grinned and nodded, adding it to a tally of recent personal wins that he felt would make him into a better man.
He shifted his weighty frame about on the bed and set his feet on the floor, yawning widely, and scratching his belly, before standing up and walking out to the bathroom. He used the toilet and brushed his teeth. He wasn’t certain who’s toothbrush he wound up using this time, as he hadn’t paid attention.
Ah, well. What Clive didn’t know would hurt him.
He looked at himself in the mirror, squinting his dark eyes at the visage of day old scruff, tangled bed-head and . . . was that a pimple? Reaching up, he pinched the offending lump between his fingers and hissed as he squeezed. With a little sput , mayo dripped down his cheek. He wiped it off with the washcloth, which he then laid on the side of the sink and, smiled, running his fingers through his hair and nodded.
Perfect!
He stepped out and sniffed the air, grinning as he smelled eggs, sausage and toast. Without further ado, he went back into the bedroom, throwing on a t-shirt which proudly proclaimed that it’s wearer was 20% cooler, although it failed to mention what , exactly he was cooler than, and headed downstairs.
It was, of course, quite a bit late for breakfast, but good ol’ Ms. Ferris had gotten used to the fact that Graham was a late riser by this point, and always had a fresh bit of breakfast prepped and ready for him by noon. As he walked in, Ali, her little Westie terrier, started yapping at him and he grinned, looking down at it.
“Hallo, Ali! Good morning to you, to, ya little scamp!” He said, and the little dog growled at him, sounding cute as a button.
“Oh, good morning, Graham, love! How’d you sleep?” Ms. Ferris asked as she walked into the dining nook from the kitchen, carrying a plate of food from which the delicious aroma from earlier wafted.
“Like a baby, Ms. Ferris!” He said, sitting down at the table as she set the plate in front of him.
“That’s good to hear! And, good on you, for being up so early!” She said, giving him a smile.
Ms. Ferris was a kindly, older woman, nearing fifty, who wore her graying hair long, and looked at the world from behind the lenses of a pair of old school, narrow, square framed glasses. That, as well as the bell-bottoms she constantly wore and the flower patterned shirts and blouses, always made him think of her as an ex hippie. If he was a bit better at maths, he might realize that at her age, she was a tad too young to have grown up during the hippie generation, and it would be more likely that her parents were the hippies, but, Graham had rarely excelled at maths, so this thought never crossed his mind.
Graham and Clive had been friends since their first years in Primary School, and had stuck by one another throughout there, and Secondary School. After they left there, however, they wound up splitting for a while, as they both went off to pursue an apprenticeship. Neither had been terribly lucky on that account, and Graham had found himself looking for a job soon after, on the insistence of his mother. He had found one, working at Tesco, and all been fine with the world.
Until about two months later, when he was, totally unfairly, mind you, let off for missing an entire week of work. He had tried to ask for the week off, but they wouldn’t let him, something about him not having worked there long enough.
But it was the week of GalaCon, and he and some friends had been planning the trip for three months, and he’d be damned if he was going to miss it.
His mother had not understood.
She had thrown him out, after screaming something about how he needed to grow up and be a man, and just like that, Graham was homeless. He had spent a couple weeks with his friends from the con, but their parents had started getting antsy about him staying any longer, so, after some digging, he’d found Clive’s mobile number. After praying that it still worked, the Gods had answered him, and now here he was, staying with his lifelong friend, in a nice loft that they were renting for . . . fairly cheap, from the lovely, motherly Ms. Ferris.
Well, he might think of it as “they” were renting, but a small voice in the back of his head kept telling him it was more accurate to say that Clive was renting it, and Graham was crashing with him. Ms. Ferris didn’t seem to mind. The old lady’s kids had left home a year or so before, and so she seemed to have replaced them with Clive and Graham. No, it was Clive who seemed to be growing frustrated, and Graham couldn’t blame him, really.
Celestia knew, if Graham had to work a part time job AND attend classes three days a week, AND study on his only day off, it might drive him up a wall as well.
And, Graham’s continued failing to find a job wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t easy to get a job, anymore. You couldn’t just walk in and be hired. He had been lucky as a dog to get the job at Tesco’s, and now here he was, jobless. He had tried. Really he had! But if you didn’t have a three piece suit and a college degree, it seemed nobody wanted you, anymore.
Still, he felt bad about it. He knew he wasn’t doing anything to earn his keep around here, and that it was only Clive’s loyalty and generosity that was keeping him from being homeless or, almost worse, living in a youth center.
He shook away those dark thoughts when he remembered it was Saturday. And he quickly finished eating, thanked Ms. Ferris, and ran upstairs to the loft, his bed, and his laptop. Once upon a time, he might’ve freaked when realized that he had slept this late on a Saturday, and had missed all his favorite shows. But that was back when he was a kid, before the internet, and streaming sites. Dubiously legal though they may be, they were a bloody life saver when the thought of getting up before noon terrified you.
And so, Graham booted up his laptop, opened his bookmarks and headed off to search for a good quality version of the latest episode. Sure enough, there was already one up, only a few short hours after airing. Celestia bless Russia.
As he pressed play and his head started bobbing, he sang along to the theme of the best damn cartoon show ever made, a smile on his face.
His life fucking rocked!
* * * * *
His life fucking sucked.
That was the only conclusion Clive could come to. If he believed in God, he’d say that He hated him. As he didn’t, it seemed that he had no choice but to accept that no one hated him, it was just . . . luck. He guessed.
Bad luck.
He sighed as he took another cardboard box off the cart beside him and, after locating where it went in the freezer in front of him, opened the door, resting the case on the edge and opened it up, and began to feed some lovely, processed shitty box meals into the frigid interior.
He only had about an hour left before he went home at four, but fuck it felt like it was a lifetime. Every minute was sludging past with the speed of a racing sloth, and he felt like if one more customer stopped him to ask where something was, he’d scream.
But of course, he couldn’t, as that would cost him his job. He couldn’t say or do what he wanted , of course not. Society wouldn’t accept that. He had to be presentable, decent and polite. Even if, sometimes, his thoughts were the opposite of those things.
He finished the case and broke the box down, sticking it in back of his cart and picking up another case. Rinse and repeat. That’s all this job was, the same bloody thing, day after day. It’s all school felt like, most of the time. Hell, it was all his life felt like, most of the time, each day, each week, jsut melting into one another in a sad mess of wasted life and lost dreams.
Had he had dreams, once? Yes, of course. But his life now held no time or place for them. It was just the grind, and there was nothing on the horizon to give him even a glimmer of hope that it would change.
Well. . . .
“Hey, Clive! How are you?”
At the sound of her sweet, Irish voice, he blanched, and then turned, smiling stiffly. Auburn hair that shone like fire in the right light, it’s ends touched with purple highlights. Big blue eyes and skin lightly dusted with freckles. So what if she was maybe a little chubby? Or her nose might’ve been a touch too narrow? She was gorgeous.
“Oh, er, hi, Ciara, I’m-I’m fine, how’re you?” He asked, trying to not come across as some kind of cringey nerd.
A difficult feat, at the best of times.
“I’m okay, just glad it’s almost time to go home.” She said, as she leaned against the cart she had been pulling behind her. She bit her lip for a moment, and then looked up at him. “You’re off tomorrow, right?”
“Err, yeah?” He said. Super smooth, if he said so himself.
She reached up and toyed with a lock of her hair for a moment, then looked him in the eye. “You wanna go out somewhere, tomorrow? I dunno, watch a movie or something?”
He gaped like a fish, a strangled sound leaking out of his throat as he stared at her, mind gone blank. “Errrr. . . . “
She looked at him for a moment, then glanced down. “I’m sorry, I know this is rather sudden I just . . . Like you, ya know?”
He blinked. “No.”
She leaned back a bit, a hurt look on her face and he shook his head sharply.
“Er, no, no! I mean, no, I di-didn’t know! I didn’t even think you knew I existed. . . . “
“Your kidding right? I sit with you every day at lunch!”
“Well . . . there’s, like, four other people at the table, I just assumed. . . . “
“You shouldn’t do that. It makes an Ass out of U and Me.” She said with a smirk, and he flinched a bit.
“Ouch, that’s just awful.”
“It’s a bloody classic.” She said, giggling lightly.
“Well, um . . . I mean . . . Damn.” He said, face falling, and she stepped up, putting her hand on his arm, which sent a zing through him.
“What is it, Clive?”
“Well, it’s just . . . I’ve, er . . . I mean. . . . “
“You . . . You’re seeing someone, aren’t you?”
“Whu, huh?! No! It’s just . . . Exams are coming up, and I kind of need to study. . . . “
She stared at him for a minute, quirking an eyebrow at him. “You . . . You’d rather study than go out with me?”
“N-No! It’s just, I need to pass the exams and, I mean . . . Ya know?”
She looked at him for a minute and sighed, shaking her head. “Alright, Clive. Maybe some other time, then?”
He bit his lip and nodded, and was immediately kicking himself as she nodded back and turned to take her cart back to the cooler. Fifty thoughts of how to call her back, to tell her he’d changed his mind, or that he loved her all rang through his mind. None were turned to action. He was far too insecure and introverted for that sort of thing. Instead he jsut turned back to his now even more depressing job, even more impatient for this shit to be over with so he could go home and pretend that the world didn’t exist for a while.
His life sucked.
* * * * *
Clive walked in through the front door and blew out a breath, loosening his tie as he went. He walked into the kitchen, smacking his lips as he looked at the pans on the stove. Bangers and mash, nothing fancy, but damn did it smell good. As he was loading up a plate, Ms. Ferris popped her head in from the living room, where she was sitting watching TV.
“How was your day, Clive?”
He thought about Ciara, and how stupid he was, and how his life sucked and nothing ever worked they way he wanted it to, and how much he wanted to just scream, yell, tell all the idiots to fuck off and run naked through the streets.
. . . . .
“Fine.” He said, heading to the fridge to poor himself something to drink.
Ms. Ferris hesitated in the doorway, clearly knowing that he was lying, but decided not to push it. “Enjoy your supper, love. Oh, and, er . . . “
She was interrupted by a disturbing twanging, moaning sound from upstairs, and they both flinched. “Ah, hell.” Clive groaned, rolling his eyes, while Ms. Ferris nodded, face still drawn tight in displeasure.
“Well . . . He is getting . . . better?” She said, uncertainly, and Clive just nodded, before thanking her for supper and heading, upstairs, steeling himself.
Upon entering the loft, he was greeted by the sight of Graham sitting on the edge of his bed, surrounded by a selection of plushies that looked like they belonged in a little girl’s room, an acoustic six string resting awkwardly across his lap as he tried to tune it.
“Graham.” Clive said, and his friend looked up, and grinned.
“Oh, hallo, Clive! Have a good day?” He asked, brightly, and Clive sighed.
“Yeah, sure. When are you going to stop trying to kill that thing?”
“Wha’?” Graham asked, confused, before looking down at the guitar. “Oh, no, I’m trying to tune it, silly! I’m sure I’ve got something out of tune on it, I just gotta . . . find it. . . “ He said, going back to glaring at the guitar, as though he would make it sound good through some sort of telepathy.
In reality all that was missing from Graham being an amazing guitarist was one simple thing.
Skill.
But, trying to tell him that would be like kicking a puppy, and so Clive put up with the overweight man-child’s horrific playing. With a sigh, he walked over and sat on the futon couch in the middle of the room, his back to the door, facing their television and the window outside as he ate.
“So, did you find any leads on a job?” He asked after a few minutes, and the sudden halt the question brought to Graham’s attempts at strangling a cat answered the question for him.
“God damnit, Graham, I left you a note to remind you and everything!” He said, turning to glare at his friend over the back of the sofa. Graham looked down at the guitar in his lap and didn’t say anything.
“Graham, you understand that . . . Look, you’re my friend, but this can’t go on! You can’t stay here without doing something to earn it, mate!”
Graham sighed. ‘I know, Clive! I know. I’m sorry. . . It’s just not easy!”
“I know that, but it’s like you’ve just given up! You never get anywhere if you give up.” He said, feeling a twinge as teh statement left his mouth. He often felt like he’d given up, like he wasn’t trying anymore. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t the right advice. Just that it was easier said than done.
“Easy for you to say!” Graham said, echoing Clive’s thoughts in a startling fashion. “You’ve got a good job, your doin’ good in class. . . . I don’t have any of that. I don’t have nothing.” Graham said, looking back down at his guitar with a forlorn expression on his face.
Clive sighed softly, setting his food aside, and got up, walking over and putting a hand on Graham’s shoulder, drawing his gaze up to him. He sat down beside him and sighed. “Look, Graham. You do have something. You’re . . . creative! Haven’t you written stories, before?”
Graham cleared his throat, glancing at his laptop. “Y-Yeah, but nothing to actually publish. . . . “
“So? Doesn’t mean you couldn’t, if you just put yourself to it! And as for a job right now, you’ve jsut got to get out there and try a little harder. Clean yourself up, make yourself presentable.” He looked at the toys on the bed, picking one up and holding it up. Some plush of a horse-like character with a rainbow coloured mane and tail and wings.
“These things, Graham . . . They aren’t going to help you make it, in life.”
Graham’s eyes turned hard and he snatched the toy away from his friend. “What would you know about it?!”
“Graham!” Clive said, standing up. “You need to get a job! Grow up, man! It’s time to stop being a kid and take life a bit more fucking seriously, isn’t it?!”
“Fuck off, mom! ” Graham said, standing up, and glaring, one hand clutching the plush to his chest, while the other was balled into a fist.
Clive stood up, teeth grinding, before blew it off with a harsh sound, turning and stalking to the door. “Tomorrow, you’re going out to look for a job!” He said, one last time, before he stormed out of the loft, slamming the door shut behind him.
As he came downstairs, he saw Ms. Ferris standing in the doorway to her bedroom, looking at him with a mix of worry and pity on her face as she clutched her nightgown at her throat. He sighed, shaking his head and grabbed his jacket, pulling it on angrily, and headed out the door. He needed to catch his breath, and a walk sounded like a good idea, in spite of the cold.
He headed off into the dark, feet stamping angrily along the road.
What was wrong with that idiot? Didn’t he understand that he needed to grow up? To get real? His bloody fantasies wouldn’t help pay rent! They wouldn’t get them out of this shithole they were both in!
As he walked his mind raced from one thing to the other like a pinball in a machine. He thought of Ciara, and what he should have said. Thought of all the things that made him sick, made him angry, made him hate the world. All the things he wanted to do, but couldn’t.
An hour or so later, it was getting quite late, and he found himself walking back down the road to the house. He sighed, feeling guilt now, mixing in with the other emotions. He knew how hard it had been on Graham, when his mother threw him out. To treat him the same way she had. . . .
He felt a sick little stab through his guts, like a knife being twisted, and instantly needed a drink.
He entered the house softly, locking the door behind him. It was all dark aside from the small light over the hob. He walked into the kitchen, spotting a piece of paper on the counter. He picked it up and read it as he walked over to teh fridge.
Clive, Graham says he’ll go out and find a job tomorrow. You really should apologize to him! It was very cruel what you did, you know? Love, Ms. Ferris.
He sighed, feeling the guilt even harder now. Of course Ms. Ferris would side with Graham, all things considered. She was a suck for the underdog. Problem was, Clive couldn’t really blame her. He felt like a bully, something that he and Graham both had plenty of experience with.
With a soft groan, he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer out of the fridge and popped it open, sighing again as he walked out the back door into the frigid air.
His breath plumed in front of him as he took a drink of the cold alcohol. He ran a hand through his hair, gritting his teeth against the urge to scream. What happened to life? It used to be so easy, didn’t it? So rich and lovely. . .
And now it was just shit. . . .
He stood there, in the cold, wondering what had happened to him, to Graham, to the world. He took a drink again, tipping his head back.
A glow bathed his face and it wasn’t the moon.
A glimmering rainbow, like the Aurora Borealis had ripped a tiny patch of the night sky open.
He slowly lowered the beer bottle, eyes gone a bit wide as he tilted his head and said the only thing that his three months of study in astrophysics and lifetime of scientific interest could come up with.
“What the fuck?”
Then, something came falling through the aurora, limbs flailing, and crashed hard into the bushes alongside the shed.
PoE:. Lowered Expectations
Ponyville, Equestria
It all started with the Mirror Pool. When Pinkie Pie found it, she couldn’t believe her luck! Now she needn’t worry about spending time with all her friends. She could just make a copy of herself, and that way she could double her time! So she had slipped into the pool, feeling the strange sensation of moving up and sideways and back and forth all at the same time, and found herself standing and blinking at an identical copy of herself, which had crawled up out of the water and was smiling at her.
There were two small problems, however. Firstly, and what, at that time, had seemed like the biggest problem, was that her exact copy wasn’t quite so exact, lacking any but the shallowest connection to Pinkie’s mind and having none of her memories. The clone leaped into the Pool, replicating itself again, and again, and again. In the end, that problem was easy enough to sort out, although it did leave Pinkie quite drained, emotionally, fearing that her friends could not tell her apart from the numerous others. It even made her doubt her own reality. If she was a clone, would she know? Or was there some other Pinkie out there, also feeling so depressed?
Still, Twilight’s quick thinking saved the day. Her plan to force the lot of them to sit and watch paint dry, the most boring task ever, was perfectly genius, if she didn’t later say so herself a million times. Only the real Pinkie had enough of an emotional connection to her friends to be able to make herself do it without breaking concentration. Only the real Pinkie could, and only the real Pinkie did. The rest were sent back into the pool from whence they came, and the Pool’s chamber was sealed away.
So that was the big problem solved, nice and neat and wrapped up with a bow.
But what about that which, at the time, had seemed like the smaller problem?
That was quite a bit more complicated. You see, along with Pinkie’s physically identical clone, something else came out of the mirror pool, as well. Something that looked . . . kind of like Pinkie, but also not. It looked like Pinkie, when Pinkie was depressed, or angry. Hair limp and straight, colours muted, grayed out. The pony’s face was almost always twisted in either a sneer of disdain or a grimace of disgust.
Rather than being a carbon copy, this creature was like the opposite of Pinkie in every way. Angry, where Pinkie was happy. Grim, where Pinkie was glad. Cynical, where Pinkie was ever the optimist. She seemed to hate everypony and everything around her, attempting to strike anypony that got too close, or else spit on those she couldn’t reach. When she spoke, her voice was both eerily similar to Pinkie’s, and yet different, carrying none of the joy and happiness that the pink mare’s friends expected from the party pony. She also tended to swear, a lot, and often seemed dissatisfied after, as though she had wanted to say something more, something that was somehow worse than “horseapples” or even “buck”.
Of course, she couldn’t, though, because of the Rating. In fact, we’re not even supposed to say things like “Buck”, but she gets away with it!
Oh, hi! You weren’t expecting me, were you?! Silly fillies, oh, an colts, of course! Of *course* it’s me! Who else would narrate this little part of the story? Duh! So, who was this weird creation of the Mirror Pool? Well, she’s like, my evil twin! Except she’s not evil, not really! She’s just a bit . . . dark, that’s all. A bit more mature than this world she’s found herself in. Such a shame, if she’d waited another seven years, the show would be over and we could all go do what wanted!
Oh, or Jersey! Ugggh
Anyway, where are we now. . . Ah, here we go!
“But, Twilight! Please, she’s not evil! Really!”
The purple unicorn sighed, turning and looking at her pink friend as they walked down the street heading out of Ponyville, towards Sweet Apple Acres.
“I know she’s not evil, Pinkie.” She said, only to be interrupted by the pink party pony bouncing to a halt in front of her.
“Then why are you sending her to Tartarus?!” She exclaimed, blue eyes popping out of her skull as she placed her forehooves on either side of Twilight’s face.
Twilight groaned, pushing Pinkie’s hooves off of her and walking past her. “For the last time, Pinkie! That’s not what this spell is supposed to do. It’s meant to transport her to somewhere she’ll be more . . . at home.”
“But she could be at home here! Isn’t that, like, what Equestria is?! A place to be yourself and be accepted?!”
“Well, yes, Pinkie but . . . even here, there are . . . limits.”
“Limits! Pfft! You mean the rating?!”
“Rating? What are you talking about, Pinkie?”
“Oh, er . . . nothing, Twilight. Hehehe.” Pinkie said, nervously, smiling at her purple friend, who stared at her for a moment longer before nodding and starting to walk again.
Pinkie sighed, casting a glare to the upper left corner of the screen. “Stupid Y rating, getting my other me kicked out and sent Celestia knows where!” She turned and looked directly at you, lovely readers and shrugged, seeming at a loss for what to do.
* * * * *
As the two ponies approached the barn at Sweet Apple Acres, which Applejack had offered to Twilight for use in the spell, they heard commotion from within. They rushed up and opened the door, and the scene that greeted them was . . . odd, to say the least.
Big Mac and Applejack were both attempting to restrain the . . . Pinkie’s evil twin? Bad Side?
“Try Dark Half, Twilight!”
“Oh, well, that works, thanks, Pink-” Twilight stopped and stared at Pinkie for a second, before sighing and shaking her head, reminding herself yet again not to question the Pink Party Pony.
Pinkie’s Dark Half screamed in rage and grabbed Big Mac with one hoof, shoving him away, sending him stumbling back nearly half a dozen feet. AJ tried to snare her with her lasso, but the dull pink pony caught the rope in her teeth and pulled, yanking the orange farm pony to the ground at her hooves. Her blue eyes blazed with disgust as she dodged an attempt by Rainbow Dash to catch her and hold her down.
“You get your bucking hooves away from me! I’m fine with some mare-on-mare action, Dash, but you ain’t my bucking type!”
“What?!” Rainbow exclaimed, jolting into the air. “What the hay are you talking about?!”
“Buck, you ponies are a buncha danged prudes, I swear!” Dark Half said, growling as she backed away. “Not one hoof touches me, ya buckin’ hear me?! Or I’ll snap it off and shove it up your flank!”
Big Mac, shaking his head to recover from his stumble, took a step forward, and those cold, hard blue eyes, like ice, locked onto his and he froze in place.
“Try it, big guy. I’ll bite your buckin’ . . . . Sh-horseapples! What’s a good replacement for that word?! Buckin’ Rating!”
“I know, right?!”
“Oh, buck, it’s you.” Dark Half grumbled as Pinkie bounced over beside her.
“Right-a-rooni, sis! Actually, you kinda remind me of Limestone. . . . “
“That’s because Limestone is what you could’ve been, if you hadn’t decided to be all bouncy and happy, all the buckin’ time!”
“Ah, but then where would the fun be in that?! Come on, Darkie, why not smile a little, hm?”
“Because there’s nothing to smile about here! You’re all a bunch of whiny, lovey-dovey saps! I fff-BUCK! BUCK! I bucking hate it here! I can’t even talk the way I bucking want!”
Pinkie drooped, backing away from her Dark Half as she spun, picking up a large oak table and throwing it across the room to shatter against the wall, in a firm display of what an Earth Pony could do when they weren’t holding back.
Twilight stepped forward, horn shimmering, and wrapped the pony in a strong barrier of purple magic. She spun inside the magical dome, glaring at the unicorn, who gulped, but faced her.
“Alright then . . . Dark Half. . . . “
“Mena.”
“What?”
“Ohhh, that’s clever, sis!” Pinkie said, grinning. “The last part of my full name, like how I use the first part of it! Nice choice!”
“Oh.” Twilight said, and then nodded, slowly. “Very well, Mena. What if I said I could send you somewhere that you could be what you wanted? Where you wouldn’t be tied down by the rules of our world?”
Mena paused, glaring mistrustfully. “How do I know you ain’t just gonna cart me off to buckin’ Tartarus, huh?”
“I promise that won’t happen, Mena.” Twilight said, hoping it was a promise that she could keep.
Mena stared at her for another long moment, pacing around the edge of the dome’s interior, before stopping and looking at Twilight from the depths of her tired, weary eyes. “You let me out of the cage, first.”
Twilight paused for a second, and Applejack spoke up, voicing the unicorn’s own thoughts. “I wouldn’t, if’n I was you, Twi. We cain’t trust her!”
Twilight looked the dull pink pony in the eyes and saw in them, for the first time, just how sad, how lost she was. She felt her heart break a little, and with a flicker of her horn, dropped the cage.
Mena stared at her for a moment, then stepped over to her, keeping eye contact the whole way.
Twilight leaned back a bit, and felt her friends tense around her, all but Pinkie. She wasn’t sure why, but that made her relax a bit. If Mena was really going to hurt her, she was sure Pinkie would know, and would stop her.
Mena stopped in front of her, glaring into her eyes. “You break your promise, and I will find a way out of there. I will find you, and I will bucking end you. Do you understand?”
Twilight took a breath and nodded, then stepped back. “Are you ready?”
Mena nodded, but Pinkie stepped forward. “I’ll miss you, sis!”
“Buck off, you freak! I ain’t your bucking sister!” She growled, angrily, and Pinkie stepped back, ears drooping again.
Twilight took a breath and her horn sparked to life. Lights began to dance around the dimmed pink pony, flickering like a rainbow as the air began to shimmer and warp. Hay, bits of splintered wood and other detritus from the floor of the barn flying around them as Mena was lifted into the air, surrounded by the shimmering light of the Aurora Borealis.
The others all stared on with awe and wonder as the warping air shifted and a portal, glowing with the same pulsating, multitoned light, opened up right underneath Mena.
She looked down, blinking, then back up at Twilight, a look of resigned annoyance on her face.
“Well, buck you too, ya-aaaAHHHH!!!!” She exclaimed as she fell through the portal and out of sight. With a bampf of displaced air, the lights gave a flash and then everything was back to normal. Twilight stood, shaking in exhaustion, lungs heaving.
Rarity and Fluttershy came over to check on her, voices laden with concern, while Applejack and Big Mac set to cleaning up the barn. Rainbow Dash blew out a breath and snorted.
“Good riddance!” The polychromatic pegasus said, before turning to help AJ and her brother.
Pinkie walked up to where her other half had disappeared and gave a low sigh, looking once more to you, dear readers.
I really hope she’ll be okay, and happy, wherever it is she landed. . . pfft, like I don’t know, right?
With that, a grin and a giggle, the bouncy pink party pony hopped away to prepare a celebratory party for her friends.
Author's Note
Did a bit of rewriting on this, to pad it out and give it a bit more length.
PoE:. Lowered Expectations
The Mena Who Fell To Earth
~Nottingham, England ~
Although it probably wasn’t as long as it seemed, Clive felt like he stood there for several long minutes, simply staring as the strange, multicoloured warp in the air closed with a flicker of light and the sound of displaced air rushing back into a sudden vacuum.
He lifted the bottle of beer slowly and peered at it. Was it possible that the hops or yeast had gone bad? Visions of ergot poisoning ran through his mind, and he gulped, thinking about tossing the bottle and going to the emergency room, when a sound from the bushes caught his attention. Holding the bottle as though prepared to throw it and run, he moved cautiously towards the rustling bushes.
As he grew closer, he stopped, clearing his throat, and cocked back his arm, ready to throw the bottle. “Who iii-” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat again, sharper. “Wh-who’s there?! I’m armed!” He said, wishing he sounded a bit less pre-pubescent in that moment.
The rustling stopped.
He leaned back, his breathing quickening.
And then the bushes parted a pink head shot out, blue eyes glaring at him. No, not pink as in dyed hair or some such. The whole head was pink. . . and elongated. With tall, pointed ears. It looked . . . vaguely like a horse, but more streamlined, a bit more soft and expressive.
Then it opened it’s mouth and spoke in an American accent.
“The fuck did you just say to me?”
Clive blinked.
The pink horse blinked.
“Wait . . . Did I just say ‘fuck’? Holy shit, I just said ‘fuck’! And ‘shit’!” The bushes erupted as the figure leaped up, landing with only a slight wobble on two large hooves and spread her arms, a malicious looking grin stretching her face. Clive only barely noticed this, however, as his eyes fell down to her very, very naked body. A pair of bouncy breasts, probably d-cups, judging by his very limited experience, with darker, rosier coloured areolas and nips, and below that a slightly pudgy stomach and below that, the obvious cleft of a vagina between her thighs.
He snapped his head up, blanching as she grabbed him by the arms, leering at him. “Where the fuck am I? Is this heaven?” She asked, a gleefully deranged look on her face.
“Uhh, n-no . . . it’s Clifton. . . . “ Clive uttered, his brain completely blank.
“Where? Wait . . . That accent . . . “ She stepped back, a frown clouding her features. “Really? Really?! Of all the fucking places your fucking spell can send me, Twilight, it sends me to fucking Britain?! Land of rain, shitty food, rain, dumbass fucking politicians and more fucking rain?! Fuck!”
“Hey!” Clive said, feeling slightly offended, and she whirled on him, blue eyes locking onto his and he gulped, leaning back.
“You got something to say, fucktard?”
“Well, er . . . our food isn’t really that bad. . . . “
“Pfft, yeah right.” She looked at the bottle of beer in his hand and cocked an eyebrow. “Armed, huh? What were you gonna do, drink me to death?” She said, stepping forward and snatching the bottle out of his hand. She chugged it in one go, tossing the bottle over the fence and belched. “Oh, fuck yeah! Real . . . really real alcohol and, hang on a sec. . . . “
She began to run her hands over her body, then lifted them and looked at her fingers as though shocked. Back to her body, her hands cupped and squeezed her tits, and then slid down between her legs and she froze.
“Ya know what, fuck it. Britain or not, I’m fucking ecstatic!” She leaped into the air, pumping her fist, making her breasts do some . . . rather interesting gymnastics. “I’m not a fucking Barbie doll anymore! Yes!”
As she did her little dance, he noticed something that his shock addled brain took as being important, and image, like a tattoo but not, imprinted in the short fur of her thighs, mirrored on either side. A trio of balloons, two blue and one yellow. For some odd reason the word ‘cute’ popped into his head and his mouth moving as she shook her hips, her tail flicking back and forth in time.
“What are you?”
She turned and cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m a pony, duh. Or, well . . I guess I was. Now I’m more of an anime nerd’s wet dream, ain’t I?” She looked at him and lifted an eyebrow. “Speaking of, keep your dick in your pants, there, bub.”
“Oh! Oh, god no! I wouldn’t . . . I mean, I’m not-”
“Don’t fuckin’ lie, you weirdo, you’re boner’s already sold you out! Seriously, don’t break that fuckin’ thing out unless you want it cut off.”
He gulped, leaning back and put a hand to his head. “I-I’m sorry, did you . . . did you say you were a pony ?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Like . . . As in, ‘My Little Pony’?”
She stepped into his personal space showing that she was actually quite small, probably only about 5’3” or so. Still, her glare was quite intimidating and once again Clive found himself backpedaling away from her. “What the fuck do you know about it?”
“Nothing! I mean . . . my friend . . . flatmate . . . he’s a fan of the show . . . . “
“Oh, is he? Fuck, I shoulda known. Of course little miss Twily’s special fuckin’ spell would plop me down in the backyard of a couple of homo fucking bronies!”
“Oh, we-we aren’t gay!”
“Sure you ain’t.”
“And I don’t like the show. Personally I don’t see what he sees in such childish nonse-”
Her face was suddenly inches away from his again, an eyebrow quirked. “Think really, really hard . . . do you wanna finish that sentence?”
He stared at her for a second, backing up until his back ran into the door of the house. “Um. No.”
“Good. Okay, you know what, this is fuckin’ lovely, but it’s fucking freezing out here and I’d like to eat something, so how about you take me into the house, hm?”
“Wait-Wha-in there?!” He asked, stammering in a panic.
“Uh, yeah. I’m gonna need someplace to stay, and your house looks as good as any other.”
“Uh, well, it’s not really mine . . . “
“The fuck does that mean?”
“I’m renting it, Ms. Ferris, if she saw you-”
“Ms. Ferris? What’s her first name, Beulah?” She asked with a snort and he frowned for a moment, before the pun set in.
“Oh . . .really?”
“What? I love the eighties!”
Well, whatever you can’t- Hey, wait!” He exclaimed . . . softly, as she pushed past him and went through the door. She stopped inside and frowned, looking around as he slipped in behind her and shut the door, as softly as he could manage. While she looked around the kitchen, he headed over to the door into the hall, looking around as surreptitiously as possible.
He didn’t see or hear anything to suggest that anyone had woken up, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he heard the refrigerator open, and turned to be greeted by the roundest, nicest ass he had ever seen outside of porn. So what if there’s a tail over it? , a small voice in his head whispered, and he shuddered and promptly locked that voice up and threw away the key.
Carefully ignoring the pink buttocks in front of him, he took stock of the situation, idly pondering when he became so easily distracted. Probably about the time that an impossibility stepped out of the bushes.
The pony was bent over with her head and arms in the refrigerator, digging around. As he watched, she stood up and turned, clutchign a bottle of beer and a cold slice of pizza in her hand. She took a bite out of the slice and nearly melted right there.
“Um . . . I should point out, that has meat on it.” He said, holding up a finger.
She paused in her chewing, looking at him, then down at the pizza, then back up at him, before shrugging and swallowing. “Fuck it, ya only live once.” She said, and proceeded to pop the cap off the beer bottle with her teeth.
He shook his head, stepping back out into the dining nook and collapsed into a chair at the table, putting his head in his hands. He sat there, trying to get his brain functioning again, trying to figure out if this was real or in his head, and what it meant if it was real.
He looked up as a plate hit the table in front of him, two slices of pizza on it, followed by a beer bottle. He glanced up as she sat down opposite him, her own plate and bottle accompanying her.
“You look confused, uncertain. Worried. Which only makes fuckin’ sense, if ya think about it. So, cold pizza and beer, seems like fucking ambrosia. Eat up.” She said, winking with a grin and took a big bite out of her pizza.
He looked down at the plate in front of him and shook his head, picking up a slice and taking a bite out of it. He chewed and swallowed, and took another bite. “How did you get here?” He asked as he chewed.
She swallowed a drink of beer and shrugged. “Long story short, purple unicorn casts a spell to send me ‘someplace I’ll feel at home’, next thing I know, I fall into your fucking bushes.”
He took a drink of the beet and sat back in the chair. “Spell? Magic doesn’t exist.” He said, and shelowered the piece of pizza she was about to take a bite out of and cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Ahem. Pink pony with a magical tramp stamp over here.”
“. . . . . Right. What is that, by the way?” He asked, gesturing uncomfortably at the mark on her thigh.
“Cutie mark. Ponies get one when they discover what they’re supposed to do with their life, what their calling is.” She looked down at it and a shadow passed over her face. “Thing is . . . this one isn’t mine.”
He frowned, shaking his head as he tried to ignore all the scientific facts rushing through his brain, arguing that this was nonsense, and instead focused on the situation at hand. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged, taking another drink of her beet. “Eh, long story. Also, someone just came down the stairs.”
Clive nearly choked on his pizza and stood up too fast, nearly knocking over his chair. He whirled in time to see Graham step into the doorway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“Oh, hey, Clive . . . I just needed a drink . . . of . . . “ He slowly came a stop blinking and leaning to look around Clive. “What’s . . . That?” He said, blinking.
“Errrr.”
“This the brony, then?” She said, and Clive turned with a flinch as she stood up, putting her hands on her hips.
Graham took one good look, from eartip to hoof. “It’s . . . . You’re . . . . Wha?” His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, hard, to the floor with a loud wham.
“Oh, fuck!” Clive exclaimed, softly, kneeling to check on him, before turning at the sound of laughter. The pony had her hands over her mouth, barely containing the giggles that were racking her body. “That’s not-” A sudden sound from down the hall make him freeze in a panic. “Oh, shit! Ms. Ferris!”
He started pushing and tugging on Graham’s unconscious weight, trying to get it out of view. The pony stood, grinning maliciously as she watched.
“Help me!” Clive begged. “It won’t go well if Ms. Ferris finds you! It could start a panic!”
“Sounds like a party.”
“The government would come for you! They’d want to experiment on-”
“I said I liked the eighties, not that I bought all the bullshit from eighties’ movies.”
“Goddamnit, would you just fucking help me!”
She paused, looking at him as the sound of the door at the end of the hall clicking open echoed through the dark.
Clive looked down that hall, towards his onrushing doom, the blood pounding in his ears blocking out most other sounds as Ms. Ferris stepped out into the hall and looked at him.
“Clive? What was that noise?”
“Oh, Ms. Ferris! I, this-” He looked down and blinked. Graham was gone. He looked sideways into the dining nook and saw the pony kneeling beside him, seeming to check something out, her hands on his head. She looked up at him, and made a ‘get on with it’ gesture with one hand.
He snapped his head back around and gave a stiff smile, hoping she wouldn’t be able to see in the dark, as he stood up. “Sorry, Ms. Ferris, I just, uh . . . I knocked over a chair in the dark. Everything’s fine.” He said, clearing his throat.
“Are you sure, Clive?” She asked, coming down the hall.
“Yeah, yeah, no, everything’s fine, Ms. Ferris! Sorry, I just . . . I needed something to eat before bed, and it was dark . . . “
She stopped a few feet away, leaving Clive very aware of the potentially heart attack inducing sight just around the corner. She was old, after all. She looked him in the eye and sighed. “You need to apologize to Graham, Clive. That was very mean, what you said to him.”
And, there it was again. Lost in the haze of all that had happened, all the guilt and anger from earlier in the night came back on him. He felt himself sag against the frame of the dining nook door. “I know, Ms. Ferris. I know. I shouldn’t’ve . . . I know. It’s just . . . I don’t . . . “ He felt his throat get tight and he turned, clearing it roughly. She laid her hand on his arm and he turned to look at her.
She gave him a soft, sad smile. “Sometimes, you need to stop worrying so much about getting somewhere, Clive, and pay attention to where you are.” She said, then leaned up and gave him a motherly peck on the cheek, before stepping back. “You apologize to him, tomorrow, Clive. Sleep well, love!” She said, with a smile, and turned and headed back to bed.
Clive stood, staring after her, wondering at her words, even after she had shut the door. He was snapped out of his reverie by the pony’s voice coming from right next to him.
“Well, ain’t she full of sweetness and wisdom. But, uh, don’t you think we should get fat boy here out of the kitchen, before it dawns on her that sound was a bit too . . . hefty to be a chair?”
Clive jumped, putting his hand to his suddenly racing heart, but then nodded, and walked into the dining nook. “Is he . . . “
“He’s fine. Might have a bit of a headache when he wakes up, but that’s all.”
“How did you get him in here, so fast.”
“Earth Pony.” She said, which only confused him more.
She looked at him and shook her head. “Quick explanation?” She said, then bent down, got her arms under Graham’s figure and lifted, with only a bit of strain, and was soon carrying him bridal style. She cocked an eyebrow at him as he stared with slack jawed incomprehension.
“H-How?”
She smirked and pushed past him. “Magic.” She said, and, shaking his head to try and clear it of the fog of shock that just would not let up, Clive fell in to step behind her as she made her way down the hall and up the stairs.
As they reached the top of the stairs, she used Graham’s head to push open the door which he had left to close on it’s own, and stepped inside. She immediately snorted, first looking at Graham’s bed, then at Clive’s. “I am so sorry. I called you an anime nerd, but now I can see that wasn’t right at all, was it?” She said, looking at ALL the sci-fi memorabilia everywhere.
She walked over to Graham’s bed and rather unceremoniously dumped him into it. She paused for a second, looking at some of the plushies he had, and then turned, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.
Clive had collapsed into the couch after shutting and locking the door. He sat, staring blankly at the television mirror black screen as she walked over and looked at the stuff around his bed. The sound of her clearing her throat made him look over at her, and cocked an eyebrow, pointing her thumb at a pair of posters that were almost side-by-side. One was the cover art for A New Hope, while the other was a collage of stuff from Star Trek: The Next Generation .
“Is this sort of thing allowed?” She asked, smirking.
He shrugged. “It’s the post-closet nerd age. It’s okay to like both.”
She stared at him for a minute, blankly. “Blasphemy and lies.”
“Whatever.” He said, turning back to look at the TV. She walked over and flopped down on the couch next to him, and he tried very hard to once again remind his libido that she was a freakish hybrid horse-creature that may or may not be real, and the fact that she was completely naked, and had lovely firm tits should not even factor into it.
He met with mixed results.
“So, what the fuck is your problem, anyway?” She asked, and he looked up at her.
“What?”
“What the fuck is your problem? Isn’t this sort of thing, like, the holy grail to nerds like you? Have a creature from another universe plopped into your house. . . one with awesome tits, I might add. Isn’t that like your fucking wet dream?”
He shook his head. “No, not really. I want to go to space, see the stars, that was always my dream. I don’t fucking believe in the multiverse! It’s a load of horseshit! Er, no offence.”
“None taken. Well, I guess you kinda fuckin’ have to believe in it, now, don’t ya?”
“No, I’m still not convinced any of this is fucking real! I could be passed out in a gutter, having a psychotic break . . . fuck knows I’ve been under enough stress lately.”
“Hey, I know a thing or two about psychotic breaks and . . . yeah, yeah, this could be one. It isn’t, but it could be.”
“Which is exactly what I would expect a psychotic break to say!”
“Really?”
“Well, no, but . . . look, this is crazy! You . . . can’t be real!” He said, nearly in tears.
“Why not?”
He blinked, looking up at her. “Because it isn’t possible!”
She nodded slowly, looking him in the eye. “Why not?”
“B-Because . . . Wha. . . Look, the very idea that there could be other universes out there created by our imaginations is preposterous!”
“Why?”
“Oh, fuck! You’re being deliberately fucking annoying, aren’t you?!”
“Of course I am, dipshit! It’s kinda who I am.”
“I thought his ponies are supposed to be all smiles and happy-happy joy-joy.”
“His are. . . . Which is why I am here. They couldn’t handle me, so they zapped me with a spell. Well, I suppose in full fairness, it should also be pointed out that my ‘verse isn’t exactly the same as the one he watches in the show, but it was close. Had the same cast, same feeling, even the same rules. Fuckin’ Y7 rating.”
Clive shook his head. “Oh, fuck me, this is ridiculous.”
“Okay, look . . . what’s your name?”
He looked up at her and sighed, leaning back in the sofa. “Clive King.” He said, holding out his hand on instinct, and she took it in hers. Warm, soft, the brush of smooth fur, and then she shook his hand.
“Call me Mena.” She said, taking her hand back and leaving him thinking that it had felt . . . very, very real.
“Mena?”
“Yeah. That’s what the fuck I said.”
“Sorry.” He said, holding up his hands.
She waved it off. “Forget about it. Look. Science says that everything you experience, everything you see, taste, touch . . . the reason you know I’m pink, my hand was warm, and I smell like cotton candy, is electrical signals firing in your brain, telling you what’s what, right?”
He hadn’t actually noticed her smell before, but once she mentioned it, he couldn’t ignore it. It smelled good. He cleared his throat, shaking himself out of it, and nodded. “Yeah, I mean, yes, yes, that’s basically correct.”
“Right. So, then, everything you experience, everything that is around you right now, is a product of your perception, right? It exists in it’s current form, because you perceive it to exist in that form, right?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Shut up, and let me finish. Now, who’s to say that if you changed the way you perceived the world, that it would not change for you? Who’s to say what is and isn’t real, right? You could open a fucking portal back to Equestria, or to the bridge of the Enterprise, or on to fuckin’ Naboo, right now, if you could just open your mind enough to the fact that you can. That’s the real secret of the universe: The only thing keeping you from doing whatever the fuck you want, is your own sad little mind.”
He sat for a long, silent moment, staring at her, then took a breath. “Well, that was unnecessarily insulting, and I’m afraid you over-simplified your science.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Look, I explained it to you as best as it can be explained. Do you honestly fucking believe that you can just . . . explain the universe?!”
“Yes.”
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, then nodded. “Right. You, sir, are a very sad individual, with that kind of thinking. Where am I sleeping, then?”
The sudden change of subject left him blinking. “What?”
“Well I ain’t climbing in to bed with your sad little ass, if that’s what the fuck you were thinking. And I damn sure ain’t with that lardass. He’d probably roll over on me and kill me in my sleep.”
He blinked again and then shook his head, standing up and, with a few simple movements, folded teh sofa out into it’s bed form. She blinked, then gave him a thumbs up. “Fuckin’ sweet.”
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll get you a blanket, and some clothes of some sort. If you’re going to stay here, you have to be dressed.”
“Why? Afraid of walking around with a boner all the time?”
“Fuck off.” He said, shaking his head as she laughed, and he turned and went to find her a blanket and some of his old gym clothes, back when he actually went to the gym.
A little while later, she was snoring softly from the futon, and he was laying in bed, staring at the light of the moon shining in through the window behind the telly. Could it be true? Could the whole universe really be that simple? Was it all just . . . made up? Created by someone’s mind? Fuck, that was frighteningly close to religion. It couldn’t be. . . And yet, there she was, something straight out of someone’s imagination, laying, asleep on their couch. The more time that had passed, the more it had become real to him that, whether he liked it or not, she was actually there. He didn’t know how to take that fact, or what it meant about him, and the world he lived in. Was he even real? Or was he just the product of someone else’s warped imagination?
No, that was just silly. His last thought before exhaustion claimed him, was that he was glad he was off work tomorrow. It was going to be a crazy day.
Author's Note
So, I forgot that I had this chapter completed, so, yeah. . . . Story is still on hiatus, but I thought I’d give you this.
