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“Sorry, that’s wrong.”
—Hillary Clinton, “Re:” 14/2/12
Finally, the silence is broken by an idea that is as wanted as it is useful. It is neither, in case you can’t already feel it spreading like a great fart out to fill every corner of the dark, dusty basement where the two changelings sit with their backs to each other fouling nose and ear alike.
And the fart of a thought that broke the silence was: "Slander and Libel could remember something."
Libel, the elder changeling remains sitting mysterious and stupid as a sphinx as he responds. "How would that work?"
"Slander forgets."
"That's pretty much what I expected."
"No, Slander remembers now! Libel asks Slander something."
"What?"
"Slander forgets."
"This isn't getting us anywhere."
Slander jumps to his feet, suddenly excited and turns about to face Libel’s back. "Slander remembers now! Libel remembers something and asks Slander if he remembers it, but Slander doesn't so Libel tells him about it."
"This just seems like a lot of work for me and the only benefit is for you.” Libel continues to stare away into his corner of the dark. “If there is any benefit to remembering things."
"Please?" Slander scrambles about the basement through the paths carved in the dust, just barely keeping his claws on the ground as his wings buzz in excitement. Finally, he plops onto his butt in front of Libel, clasps his claws together and stares up at Libel with those cold, emotionless sockets that somehow almost melted the presumably elder changeling’s dorsal aorta. “Pleeeaaasssse?”
"Fine.”
"Hooray!"
"No, I won't do it if you're going to be happy about it."
"I hate this! Grumble, grumble, grumble." Slander stomps his little claws against the basement floor each time he says grumble.
"I won't do it if you're going to complain about it.”
"Then what does Libel want Slander to do?"
"If you can,” Libel leans back and stretches his forelimbs and pops his neck languidly as he speaks dislodging dust and reawakening something that was probably better left sleeping, “I would like you to remember the most unarousing creature alive."
"Slander doesn't remember such a creature.” Slander rubs a claw against his lower mandible and attempts to furrow his chitinous brow. He fails, but continues speaking as if he had succeeded, “unless that creature is Slander?”
“No, you are merely hideous, this creature was so unarousing it could dry up the Yellow River or dehorn even the dreaded eight-headed Kirin.”
“Is the creature Libel?”
“Slander!”
“So, the creature was Slander then!” Slander claps his claws in excitement at being included.
"No, I meant that you— Never mind. No, this creature was neither you nor me.”
“Slander shudders at the thought.”
“This creature, the most unarousing creature in all of Equestria, would travel throughout all the civilized lands shouting: I am the most unarousing creature in Equestria! Give me your money, or I'll dry up your cunnies!"
"It could rhyme? It was a minotaur?"
"No, it was just an ass."
"A donkey?"
"No, an ass. The rear quarters of a pony, or a hippogryph, or any number of other things that share the same hindquarters design, I suppose, and it floated from town to town vocalizing through its vibrating anus and demanding it be paid money to leave."
"And what happened?"
"We paid it money to leave, and it left."
"Oh,” Slander scratches the ground with his claw, “is that all?"
"Yes, that's all there is to remember about it." Libel looks down in disgust with himself. He has allowed it to happen again. "Remembering things is a waste of time."
"Slander will remember not do it again."
"By Celestia's no doubt ponderous ball sack you shall do no such thing!"
"Do what? Slander forgets."
"Damn right you do!"
"What can Slander and Libel do now?"
"I've no idea, nor do I care to."
“Slander could do what Slander does best!”
“Ruin everything that is good?”
“Yes, by slandering a pony, Slander could ruin that pony’s good name.”
“It has to be heard by someone to be slander or read by someone to be libel and there is no one here.”
“Is there nobuggy here?” Slander looks out into the shadows for a moment.
“No, and anyway, that isn’t what I meant.”
“Then it is good that Slander only knows how to read things one way like a polymerase.” With a flash, Slander is gone, and Rainbow Dash stands in his place.
“I hate it when you do that,” Libel says as he stands up, stepping backwards through a track he has carved in the dust.
“When Slander is Rainbow Dash?” Slander stands on his hindlegs and adopts a Miss Universe Pose with one cyan forelimb stretched up into the air before him and another curled into a bicep. “Slander needs to be Rainbow Dash for the next bit? So, how can Slander be blamed for that?”
“No, you know, you won’t hide in your innocence here too.” Libel realizes he’s standing and has already tracked through his track in the dust. He really has allowed it to happen again. He hates himself more now than when he remembered. With a flash, Libel is gone—but not forever as he might wish—and replaced by Twilight Sparkle, the lavender mare herself. “You will know what I mean because I will tell you. What I mean, is when you ask: eeeehhh libbubbubblle,” The lavender mare drools as she flips her hoof across her lips like a cartoon character and then continues, “whaaaaat coooouuulld veeee dooooyoooo.”
“Well what could Slander and Libel do,” Slander who is Rainbow Dash cranks her cyan head until her cyan neck pops and turns toward the shadows before she continues, “other than Libel doing an awful impersonation of Slander?”
“I do not care, nor do I care to.”
"We could play,” says Dash with all the gravitas the scene demands, “the monopoly."
"No one actually plays Monopoly, and it is Monopoly, not the monopoly."
"Slander plays the monopoly all the time!" Slander says.
“Rainbow Dash,” Libel hisses blackly.
“I play the monopoly all the time!” Rainbow Dash says cyanly.
"It is Monopoly, not the monopoly, and no, you do not because no one does."
"No, the monopoly. It's an instrument? With four levers? And when I yank one around it makes squealing noises and little whimpers. I used to practice every day!"
"That's not Monopoly, nor is it an instrument," Twilight lavendered.
"Then what have I been doing every day? And what's that?" Dash points at Twilight.
"Other creatures, you myopic meat maelstrom! We're other creatures! Like you but originating from a different and therefore more physically imperiled perspective."
"That doesn't feel right at all."
"Most of your victims have the same feeling, although no feeling in their extremities."
There is a flash and the cyan mare and lavender mare both disappear, to be replaced by Slander and Libel.
Slander taps his lower mandible a few times. Eventually he says: "Libel is very wise."
"I am an elected official, after all," Libel preens as he disappears in a flash to be replaced by Mayor Mare.
"Since when?"
"Since I elected to charge of this miserable cellar, and no one elected to stop me."
"Slander demands a recall!"
"Very well, a couple minutes ago, I recall deciding I was the mayor of this basement."
"Slander demands a different recall!"
"Very well, and what would you like to recall?"
"The good times."
Libel who is Mayor Mare frowns in thought for a moment before saying: "There weren't any."
"Then Slander demands a new election! For new leadership! For the good times!"
"Very well, and who would you like to vote for?"
"Slander! Slander votes for himself!"
"Very well, and it seems the vote is in and Mayor Mare who is Libel is re-elected with a 100% majority."
"Fraud!"
"Calling for Fraud won't help you. She isn't here."
"Then, Libel!”
“Also not here,” replies Mayor Mare.
“Then, Mayor Mare! Slander calls for Mayor Mare, and demands to know: how does she account for Slander's vote?"
"For every citizen there must be equal and opposite representation. That's the Third Law."
"What's the First Law?"
"A politician must not harm, or by inaction allow to come to harm, their vested interests."
Slander claps his hooves together. "What's the Second Law?"
"You're enjoying this too much. I resign." There is another flash and Mayor Mare of our fair town is gone, replaced by Libel of our fair basement.
"Libel can't!"
"Not only do I resign, but I am leaving."
"Then Slander will leave too!" Slander attempts to grab Libel with one of his claws, but Libel shrugs him off. Slander attempts to grab his brother again and the two changelings fall to the ground. They struggle in a cleared-out circle of dust, twisting around each other and biting for several minutes growling and howling and rubbing their wide-open fanged maws against each other mixing spit and swapping microbiomes.
After a while of snarling and rolling, the two changelings come to a stop. Neither has left the basement, while the spider continues to creep across the ceiling about above them.
Finally, Libel breaks the silence: "I thought we'd agreed to leave?"
"Slander did."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Libel didn't leave. Slander agreed to leave with Libel."
"Well, we can't just lay here.” Libel pulls himself back up to all fours. “We need a premise."
Slander stands as well and shakes some dust out of his wings as he does what one might generously describe as thinking. Eventually, he says: "Perhaps Libel is a judge and Slander is a poor orphan brought before him for vagrancy?"
"Slander!”
“Libel!”
“I meant that your comment was slanderous, and not that you were Slander.”
“Well, Slander meant that Libel was Libel, and not that Libel was Slander. So, it is the same thing.”
“It most certainly is not. Libel is written and slander is spoken.”
“Slander did speak, and he said Libel was the judge.”
“I have written many terrible things but have never been a judge!"
"Slander motions for a mistrial."
"On what grounds?"
"So, Libel admits he's the judge?"
"Slander!”
“Libel!”
“I admit to no such thing!" Libel waits. "I am merely curious. Why a mistrial?"
"On the grounds that the judge is clearly an alcoholic!"
"Slander!"
“Libel!” Slander nods his head, "so, Libel admits he's the judge!"
"Slander!”
“Libel!”
“I admit to no such thing!"
"Then how does Libel know the judge is not an alcoholic?"
"I don't have to answer that without my lawyer present."
"Libel is being persecuted!" Slander claps his claws joyously.
"Prosecuted. The word you mean is prosecuted."
"Slander doesn't have to know that without his lawyer present."
“You have a lawyer too?”
“Of course, Slander does if Libel does!”
"Then to whom would this lawyer belong?"
"Is Libel sure he doesn't want to say, Who's lawyer?"
"I'm sure."
"Because then Slander could say—"
"I know what you could say."
Slander stalks about angrily, grinding his claws against the ground and glaring at Libel before looking back to the shadows while casting a side-eye to Libel and snapping: "Slander requests permission to treat the witness as hostile!"
"I'd be a damn fool not to be hostile while trapped down here with a damn fool like you."
"Then Slander motions for a dismissal!"
"I'm ignoring your motion."
"So, Libel admits he's the judge!"
"Slander!”
“Libel!”
“I admit to no such thing."
"Only a judge would ignore motion!"
"A judge or a T-rex."
"Libel has got that backwards, Slander is certain."
"A judge only sees things when they are moving?"
"And a T-rex only sees things that are still. A judge T-rex could see everything.” Slander hops in excitement, his wings buzzing as he squeaks, “he'd be omniscient!"
Libel is thoughtful for several moments before shaking his head and saying, "nah, it’d never work, his arms would be too small to use the gavel."
"They could give him a croquet mallet instead of a gavel. That would work."
"Do you play croquet?"
"No, but Slander doesn't pass out asphyxiation and decapitations to deadheads like paper carnations at prom either."
"I don't follow."
"Slander, unlike Libel, is not a judge."
"Slander!"
"Libel!"
"I don't think either of us would pass law school."
"Slander doesn't not agree, but Slander and Libel could surely both pass muster as poor, pathetic orphans."
"Son of a whore!" Libel pauses. "I only say that in case we're not related."
"What does Libel know about Slander's mother?"
"Absolutely nothing. What do you know about your father?"
"No more than Libel.”
“So, nothing as well then! We’ve made great emotional progress!”
“Slander dragged himself out of horrible swamp and found Libel.”
“Don’t talk about our mother that way, you bastard!”
“Libel already said he knows nothing about his mother.”
“I know enough that I’m trying to forget it.”
“And Slander has forgotten enough that he would like to know.”
“How true that is,” Libel whispers.
“Slander begs Libel’s pardon?”
"I said: Treason and Heroism are sisters."
“Well, that goes without saying. Nobuggy was ever a hero if they weren’t guilty of treason.”
“Indeed, which is why I didn’t actually say it.”
They stand in silence for a while.
Slander fidgets against the silence until he finally bursts out: "Slander needs Libel's help!"
"I don't think I can."
"Libel must!"
"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but it really is none of my business."
"What if Slander made it Slander’s business to make it Libel's business?"
"You would be disappointed in the failure of your business."
"What if Slander made Libel disappointed in Slander's disappointment?"
"Then we'd both be disappointed."
“That wouldn’t be good for either Slander or Libel.”
“I think I can see your point.”
"What? Has Slander's hood fallen down? No, it's still up. Slander can see it's still up. Oh, Slander can see your point."
"Let's not. Let's not do that again.”
"Is Libel certain?"
"Yes. Yes. I'm certain."
"Then Slander shall do it himself." Slander is surrounded by a flash of light but doesn't visibly change and replies to himself, "What? Has my hood fallen down? No, it's still up. I can see it's still up. Oh, I see your point." Another flash of light surrounds him. "What? Has Slander's hood fallen down—"
"Slander!"
"Libel!"
"What are you doing? You're not changing at all."
"Slander is turning into Libel."
"We both look the same!"
"Not to Slander. Libel looks like Libel, and Slander is over here looking at him and wishing he'd play."
“Playing is exactly the worst idea.”
“Slander wonders what a better idea would be.”
“Is that what you wonder?”
“Indeed, it is what Slander wonders.”
“You know what I wonder about?”
“Slander is certain he doesn’t.”
“Vibrators,” Libel nods his head authoritatively.
There is a long silence. THE FURNACE rumbles quietly and water can be heard rushing through the labyrinthine OVERHEAD PIPES. The spider moves further along the ceiling toward its SPECIAL MARK. Libel continues to maintain an AUTHORITATIVE SILENCE.
“Is Libel going to expand upon that thought?”
“I am, but I wanted to wait and make you ask for it first. That is called a powerplay.”
“Is that what Libel uses the vibrators for? Powerplay?”
“No!”
“Is Libel powerplaying right now?”
“Slander!”
“Libel!”
“Never mind the powerplay. What I’ve always wondered about vibrators is—”
“Libel spends a lot of time wondering about vibrators, it seems.”
“No," Libel sputters, "no, I—”
“And powerplaying.”
“No, I,” Libel's face contorts into an insectoid grimace as he struggles to suppress his laughter. "I— was—"
“And fumbling his lines.” Slander raps a claw against the floor and watches his partner struggle to cover his mouth, “and giggling.”
Libel remains paralyzed, concealing his face from the shadows.
“And being very unprofessional.” Slander turns and gestures to the assembled dark, “in front of the children.”
With a herculean effort Libel pulls himself upright and barks, “Slander!”
“You rang, sir?”
“That—" Libel presses a hoof to his maw forcing the laughter back down his throat. "That’s not what you say.”
“Oh, so Libel knows what Slander is supposed to say but doesn’t know what Libel is supposed to say? Interesting hypocrisy that.”
“WhatIwaswonderingaboutvibratorsis,” Libel sprints through the beginning of the sentence in a rush, “if you are looking through a catalog shopping for dildos or sexual lubricant or any other sort of thing, they always assure that their shipping is discreet. The packages will be completely nondescript, and your mailmare will never know you’re, uh,” Libel gestures with a claw, trying to find an appropriate word for it.
“Powerplaying,”
“No, that’s only with vibrators.”
“Libel is the expert in these matters,” Slander yields.
“Anyway, but when you purchase vibrators, there is no such assurance. It’s as if they figure, well, you’re this far gone and buying vibrating anal plugs, you probably don’t care what anyone thinks about you anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That is Libel’s observation?”
“Yes.”
“That was nowhere near worth the effort it took to get Slander and Libel here.”
“I’d like to see you make a better observation.”
“Slander just did. Slander observed that Libel’s observations are terrible.”
"That's the great thing about our relationship: I never listen to a single thing you say. That's how I keep my morale up."
"Oh, Slander thought that was priapism from the spider bite."
“No, no,” Libel shakes his head before starting to nod, “well, yes. Yes, it is. It is.” Libel glances down between his legs. “You know, some ponies pay a fortune to unicorns for spells that can do what I’m getting for free.”
“Or they powerplay.”
Libel sighs, “the batteries always run out eventually.”
“Of course. Libel is the expert in such matters.” Slander draws in a deep breath though his chitinous lips. “Shall Slander and Libel move on?”
“Yes, yes, of course, and never speak of this again.” If only they could do either. Libel reaches up above him and pulls a cord with a hoof loop at the bottom dragging a curtain down behind them depicting a two-dimensional representation of a hotel room. Libel and Slander then stroll over and grab two more cords, pulling the remaining two false walls down and totally surrounding themselves in a diorama of a hotel room. With a flash, Libel disappears and is replaced by Rarity. She reaches beneath one of the curtains and grabs a carton of eggs which is somehow there now, despite there being no egg cartons visible before the curtain was pulled down.
Slander likewise vanishes in a flash of green and is replaced by Applejack complete with hat. She likewise reaches under the curtain nearby and pulls out a rug before unrolling it in a large empty spot of the dust on the floor. “You know what amazes Slander most about this basement that Slander and Libel are trapped in?”
“What amazes you so much?”
“That it has such useful things for our skits and nothing else.”
“No more amazing than that we can breathe the air or not be crushed by the atmospheric pressure or instantly killed by the bacteria living in our lungs or intestines. This is the environment we evolved in, the environment that brutally selected our ancestors until there was nothing other than those so warped they could fit the box we’re trapped in like ancient hoof binding, so it is this world we are adapted to live in and no other than this world we created ourselves into that would allow us to survive and this world that would allow us to live until the day it moves away from us and leaves us to die, monsters of a past age as happened during the Great Oxygenation, the first true apocalypse, where the great poison oxygen obliterated trillions of lives without caring or noticing.”
“Libel says a lot of bleak, ominous, depressing shit ...”
“Indeed, I do.”
“... yet those have got to be the most despairing words to come out of Libel’s mouth.”
“Surely you’re used to it by now. Anyway, anyway, anyway, Applejack!” Libel switches effortlessly from his own hissing voice to Rarity’s clear chiming transatlantic tones. “Applejack, there are no eggs,” she wails as she falls to the floor.
Applejack winces as she rips off her hat, which is also a part of Slander’s exoskeleton, and holds it over her eyes in exaggerated, fake hangover agony and barely concealed just-ripped-off-his-own-scalp agony.
“Applejack,” Rarity rises up part way, “why,” she reaches out one hoof as if toward a distant fading light, “are,” she drops the hoof to the ground in weakly, “there,” Rarity flops back flat onto the ground like a dead fish from a bucket of dead fish, “no,” Rarity throws her head back and howls the last word as a dying lament, “eggs?”
“Because we threw them off the balcony yesterday,” Applejack groans, “at those foals.”
“But today I have a hangover, and I need protein, fried egg protein."
As if she were the only one with a hangover. Applejack tries to ignore the noise and focus on her—on their—problem, which is the rapidly expanding number of options available to her since she had decided upon being a free individual. Or, rather, she had decided that she had always been a free individual even as a changeling named Slander, and only remained ignorant of—
“Why did we throw the eggs?” Libel, Rarity, and some screaming demon beast met pitch perfect at an octave easily shattering the glass castle of thought.
“Why breathe? Why exist? Why tomorrow and not today? Why not throw the damn eggs?”
“Because now there are no eggs,” Rarity flops over to her belly, the empty carton falling out before her across the floor, “no eggs, and without them neither hope nor future ...”
“If you start monologuing, I swear to Celestia,” Applejack began as he—she—grips his—Slander’s—head between his—her—between hooves—hooves, just hooves were real—but so is the resounding throb of the motion—but it is all—all already—futile. Has been. Has been to be futile. So tense. Could be worse. Could be worse if we painted genders onto our beds. Lost time to narration, and the white unicorn—changeling—somebuggy—somepony was already always sprawled across the sofa he—she had pulled out for this purpose, one hoof pinned across her—his—it’s horned—chitinous—brow and his—her—the other thrust into the air, reaching for some Dramatis personæ located in vicinity of the hotel walls printed on the drapes.
“When I was a filly, I held, as I imagined it, the whole potential of the world in my imagination, and I was, as I dared to dream, destined toward greater things and places so grand that my soul sang eager and ill-thought praise to the pony spirit ...”
“I am going to die. Literally, going to die,” Applejack groans in agony and collapses onto her carpet, “there will be a pop, and blood will start bubbling out my ears—”
“Until in this day the hours have come and after coming, running gone, and left me alone and bereft upon these insalubrious foreign soils. Now my hoof arises but has no safe surface upon which to place itself. Now, I find myself upon these barren plains of the pony spirit, facing alone the empty sky in which no noble star remains. Now, I am without hope, except that the end be quick and spare me my dignity ...”
“—the blood will be black with bits of brain in it and will ruin this carpet—”
“And I cannot help but wonder, aye, if in this idle life, I had not have been better served to keep what I had lost and give away what things I kept to myself in the greed of all these wasted days. Were it not have been better to suffer in silence when I had complained, and to speak of those evils to which I bore silent witness ...”
“—you are going to be morally and legally responsible for ruining this very nice carpet—”
“Or perhaps there was nothing e’er to save or embrace except for this final stage of nothing, this creeping pestilence that bloats my flesh though I am as thoroughly empty as a wind-tossed bag. Though I cry, is it for other’s ears to hear, or instead is it in isolation, in the pacings alone that I die? Is life not a beautiful song, and have I been as well to sing it with others or alone? Can you not hear, in the ringing of your ears, the beauty of oblivion demanding of me that I go East in search of love?” Rarity pauses, her hoof still held against her forehead and her breathing going slightly faster than her usual casual pace. “Now was that really so bad, darling?”
Applejack—her back pressing into the lush burgundy of the carpet, that is, without exaggeration, very nice—replies, “there are foals whose entire families were just massacred before their eyes, and they are, at this moment, thanking Celestia’s mercy which spared them from you talking such absolute horseshit.”
With a flash Rarity and Applejack are gone and Slander and Libel both jump up, brushing the dust from their exoskeletons and kicking their props back under the curtains.
Libel smacks the THREE CORDS and the FALSE HOTEL ROOM rolls up with a loud snap, revealing none of the props that had been there before.
“Libel shouldn’t do that, they might break.”
“If they broke, at least that would be something different this one time.”
“Come again?”
“I beg your pardon?” Libel snaps.
“Come again?”
“There, you just did it again! You’re implying that I’m constantly ejaculating.”
“Is Libel not?”
“No!”
“Oh, Slander thought Libel was powerplaying again. Libel knows, for the children,” Slander says as he gestures again at the shadows.
“I would never.”
“And yet, Libel has.”
“That’s true, that’s so very sadly true.”
“Nobuggy else would.”
“Anyone else would have given up by now, on whatever this is we’re trying to do.”
“Well, that’s what’s so great about Slander and Libel.”
“What?”
“Slander and Libel are both just so completely, unrelentingly …”
“Yes, yes, yes?”
“Stupid.” Slander nods his head, “Slander and Libel are stupid.”
“We’re not stupid.”
“That’s what Queen Chrysalis always used to say ...”
“Oh, Queen Chrysalis.”
“... when she sent Slander and Libel to scout Canterlot ...”
“Oh, Canterlot.”
"... and Slander and Libel ended up in Yakyakistan ..."
"Oh, Yakyakistan."
“... and then there was the day of the Canterlot Wedding ...”
“Oh, the wedding.”
“ ... when Slander and Libel were assigned to keep the mad, lavender mare herself in the labyrinth beneath Canterlot ...”
“Oh, Twilight Sparkle, the mad, lavender mare herself.”
“... and then there’s right now where Libel can’t remember his lines so he’s just saying, ‘oh, whatever it was Slander said last.’”
“Oh, whatever it was you said last.”
“Libel is the worst impersonator Slander has ever known.”
“And who else have you known?”
“Nobuggy.”
“Oh really? Oh really? Oh, oh, oh, really, really, really? Oh really, really, really? Oh really? Oh real—”
Slander interrupts Libel by belting him across the jaw and sending the other changeling skitter-scattering back and away. “Sorry about that but Libel was stuck in a loop.”
“Say that again?”
“Sorry about that but Libel was stuck—”
Libel lunges forward and grabs Slander’s head and slams it snoot first into the filthy ground. “Sorry about that, but you were stuck in a loop,” he says as hops and dances in triumph about the basement.
Slander rubs his hardened muzzle and looks up and smiles before asking: “can Libel repeat that?”
“Sorry about that, but you were stuck—"
Slander spins and bucks Libel knocking him backwards across the basement. “Sorry,” is as much as Slander gets out before Libel jumps forward, wings buzzing for momentum as he body slams his co-prisoner. “Libel didn’t even let Slander say it once,” Slander protests as he wheezes from the blow.
“Now we’re both stuck in a cycle of violence,” Libel smirks.
“Slander will break the cycle,” Slander shouts as he drives a claw into Libel’s midsection and sends his brother over onto his back.
“Not if I break it first!” Libel howls as he tackles Slander.
The two changelings sprawl about each other in idiot violence, punching and clawing and kicking and biting and just generally trying to gourge upon each other’s flesh.
Finally Libel stops, panting standing away from Slander and covering his mouth which is leaking bright green slime. He asks: “Look, what’s the point to us just beating each other to death right now?”
“Well, there’s only one way to break a loop.”
“But is this the right way? We’re just hitting each other and delaying the inevitable.”
"Slander can see your point."
"What? Has my hood fallen down?” Libel looks down then up, “no, it's up. I can see it's up. Oh,” Libel says and points at Slander, “I can see your point."
"What? Has Slander’s hood fallen down? No, it's up. Slander can see it's up. Oh,” Slander says and points at Libel, “Slander can see your point."
“What? Has my hood— wait, shit, we forgot to wear hoods for this bit,” Libel sweeps a claw over his bare scalp, “and also we’re stuck in a loop!"
Slander and Libel both rise to their hindlegs and wind up as far as possible before delivering simultaneous haymakers and sending each other sprawling across the concrete floor.
They lay on the ground, sprawled out away from each other. The dust recollects, although visibly shallower in the places where they’ve tracked. Like looking across a campus in the winter, with the snow rising yards high beside the paths carved through it by their infinite tramping feet.
“Slander is slightly disappointed not to be unconscious.”
“As they say, we’d shut our eyes to the world as well if only it didn't conflict with existence.”
“That’s amazing!” Slander shouts as he jumps to his feet. “That really is what they say!”
Libel shouts back as he jumps to his feet: “I know!”
“Somebuggy would really say or think that!”
“They totally would!”
“Slander is glad we’re making this up and that nobuggy actually says that crap or reads it.”
“It would be a terrible indictment against our society or the society of anyone else who tolerated it.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, shall Slander and Libel move on?” Slander shakes his head and adds extra acid to his next word, which is: “Again?”
"Of course.” Libel visibly counts his way toward the next item, before settling on nothing better than: “We've had nothing to eat for years down here."
"What do the spiders eat?"
"My blood, apparently."
"Well, what can Slander eat?"
“Not a damn thing.”
“Surely something?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Surely, Slander cares for Libel, and Libel must care for Slander."
"Not a damn bit.”
"Libel does save Slander from that spider."
"It doesn't cost me anything."
"Libel could die!"
"I won't be bothered."
"But if somebuggy dies ..." Slander looked down. "Libel wouldn't have his life anymore."
"I wouldn't miss it."
"Slander would miss Libel."
"All you've proven is that, in the worst, you'd be forced to make yourself miserable showing me a good time."
"What worst could come that isn't already here?"
"There could be an army of ponies out there armed to the teeth."
"Ponies carry weapons in their mouths anyway."
"Then armed to their ears."
“Slander and Libel’s aurally armed opponents could not stand before them,” Slander shouts!
“And why couldn’t they?”
“Because they’d never hear us coming on account of the weapons in their ears.”
“I see.”
“So could they, but with the weapons in their ears they’d at least be deaf.”
“Speaking of things no one can hear—”
“Slander didn’t hear himself doing any such thing.”
“Very good,” Libel nods in appreciation before continuing, “we’ve got to be more careful this time.”
“Oh, are the chicken and foot back?”
“No, they’re all dead, dead, dead.”
“Ah, Slander mourns them.”
“Don’t do that in public, its rude!”
“Slander is sorry!”
“You’d better be! Anyway, no, the problem is that references to Lizard People are out.”
“But surely it can’t be racist against Slander or Libel, who are both shapeshifters.”
“Possibly, that too could be deemed racist.”
“Slander can’t understand.”
“In an era where more and more nations are becoming openly fascist, to appear to be a secret fascist is just too gauche.”
“Anti, gauche and synning.”
“Anyway, you can't be not hopeful about the future anymore either, or talk about the inevitable collapse of industrial civilization.”
“Oh, right, then, let Slander just get this,” Slander pulls a soapbox out from the shadows and leaps atop it clearing his throat, "Attention, friends and enemies, the owning classes have already made themselves into a distinct subspecies, and they haven't even gotten started with the designer babies and face tentacles yet. They are buying up bunkers in New Zealand and hiring private armies, making ready for what they assure you is not nearly as bad as you think it might be. That is to say, the interest of them, as a species, is not your interest, and the survival of them, as a species, is being obtained at the expense of your survival. An optimist sees the future the same way a deer sees the headlights of the oncoming car, every second growing bigger but never getting closer. The time is nearly spent, and history vindicates Ted Kaczynski more and more each day."
“ANARCHY! And they say the cockroach club is dead!”
Slander hops off the soapbox and kicks it away into the dark. “It isn’t. It’s just small, irrelevant and unfunny.”
“Always has been and always will be!”
The soapbox comes spinning back into frame and strikes Slander in the back of the head like cartoon boomerang smashing through all four walls. Slander tumbles forward and lands on his back beneath the spider's SPECIAL MARK. He jumps to his feet, still staring up and shouts: "Libel, what's that horrible hateful black crawling thing?"
"Well, that's me isn't it?"
"Oh. Well, then what's that life-sucking fanged monster descending from the shadows to ruin all around it?"
"That's definitely you."
"Oh. So Slander and Libel are both here. Good. Slander is glad we were able to sort that out, but, wait, what's that other creeping carapaced creature coming upon us right now?" Slander points at the spider that has been creeping across the ceiling and is now descending toward him.
Libel shoves Slander out of the way and gets bitten by the spider. The spider retreats back to the ceiling as Libel collapses to the floor.
Slander rushes back toward his brother and gathers the dying body in his claws.
"Have I ever told you how much I loved you?" Libel wheezes delicately.
"No."
"Good, I'd hate to die thinking I'd ever lied to you."
"But surely Libel must have cared for Slander at least a little bit, at least once."
"Certainly not!"
"Slander has never made Libel happy?"
"Well, there was that time you fell down the stairs and broke all your legs. That was pretty funny."
"Libel is thinking of somebuggy else."
"Then I shall continue to do so."
"Please don't!"
"It is bad enough I'll have to die looking at you. At least my thoughts shall remain unsullied."
"Then what will Libel think of?"
"Of our home, the hive which hung over the cliffs of a vast ocean, where everything was wet and full of holes."
"The Holy Sea."
"No! Of our rocky coastline unassailable to invaders and filled with trip-wires and punji pits."
"The Trip Trapped Rip-Rap."
"No! Of the secret places in the marshes where we grew up filled with biting bugs and the brilliant bioluminescence of algae."
"The Gnatty Lights."
"No! No! No! No!" Libel surges to his claws.
"Libel has made a full recovery!"
"I was looking forward to dying."
"Libel can't say that."
"It would be a relief from you."
"Libel can't say that."
"You're a murderous lunatic, and I'm terrified to be in your presence."
"Libel can't say that."
"Then you'd better turn into a priest, because I'm performing miracles here! It’s not worth being alive down here, and it’s a death sentence anyway."
"Libel, no!"
"I can't even close my eyes to sleep because I can't trust you!" Libel strides into the faint light and his body is revealed at last, scars where his wings once were and scars stretched across his carapace where something has torn and gouged away with reckless abandon. His mouth hangs perpetually open, as if the muscles on one side of his face are torn, trapping his mouth in a perpetual snarl. "And even if I could trust you not to do something horrible in the few minutes I didn't watch you, I'd have to confront the inevitability of opening my eyes and seeing you still there. Always there. Always wielding your innocence like a cudgel. Always ruining everything around you."
"Libel, stop!"
"I don't even care anymore. I'm so tired. I'm going out there. I'm going to leave. Even if I die."
"Then Libel will die with Slander."
"I will never die with you."
"Libel!"
"I'd rather die!"
Several minutes pass as they stand together.
"Why is Libel still here? Libel was going to leave."
"Why are you still alive? You were going to die."
“Slander will only die when Libel does.”
“Well, I appear to still be alive.”
"That explains why Slander is here, but what about the others?"
"I'm not an other, you rotten little shit."
"Then who is Libel?"
There is a flash as Libel disappears to be replaced by a pretty, pink alicorn princess complete with saddle bags bearing her cutie mark. She smiles vacantly and stares a head, muttering: “When Auntie Cee-Cee made me a pretty pretty pony princess process, she … uh …” Cadance’s head drools to the side as her eyes drift wide. A sprig of blood floods into her right eye from the injury in her forehead. “I … it goes very deep. You see? I sometimes hard for think? The roots make me go pretty pretty pony princess.”
Cadance lowers her head, her eyes were completely clouded now, and the great growing horn in her forehead sprouts fresh bearing bounty ripe and red from where it steals her life beneath her destroyed scalp.
“That’s offensive to my wife!” Shining Armor shouts as he clamors out of his wife’s saddle bag. His face twitches in rage as he grabs the bounty of her horn. “She is not a vegetable.” He takes a bite and as the juices ran down his chin he looks up triumphantly. “Tomatoes are a kind of fruit.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Shining Armor takes another bite out of the tomato before turning back into Slander with a flash.
“Well, that’s the limit of that,” says Libel as he resumes impersonating himself with a flash.
“Then what will Libel and Slander do now?”
“It is time for my confession.”
“Slander really wishes you wouldn’t.”
“All the more reason that I must,” Libel says, “many, many years ago, once when I was impersonating a college student, I fell crazy, crazy in love with this filly. A classmate in my Psychology class, she sat near the front and had a long pink mane that hung straight down over her face and a pale, yellow coat and these little bit too wide eyes and she was tiny and delicate and, well, she was disgustingly perfect for the type she was and every time she was in the room my heart would leap and not come down until she was gone. And shy too, because she must have been for this story, and because she was and she only ever wore one lipstick shade: mom-red.”
“Slander already doesn’t like this story and thinks you’re a bad person for entertaining it. Slander wishes he could go up and to the right, where the stairs are. Nobuggy has to be part of this.”
“It isn’t a story. It is a confession, also, shut up and listen. In hindsight, it is entirely possible I dreamed this whole thing, or made it up, or maybe it really happened. I studied her. I worked at the University, so it was easy to get my claws on her records: where her parents lived, what dorm she lived in, her class schedule. So, I started following her around, at first just to see what she did between the classes we shared and then whenever I could. Once or twice, I broke into her room while she was in class, just during the months when I knew her window would be open and the days her roommate would be out. I knew all of this I needed to know now.”
“Slander disagrees.”
“Disagrees with what?”
“Libel should have known this was no way to get love from a pony.”
“It wasn’t about that.”
“Libel should know … Libel should know.”
“I was wrong, if such a thing could be correct to say. It is a confession, also, shut up and listen. The thing about love, though, is that it's complicated. I loved to see her, to know about her and be places she had been. I could spend hours just imagining what the world looked like through her eyes, but then I'd feel this guilt. She started getting jumpy, didn’t leave her window open anymore, became harder to follow. Always looking behind her, even when I was watching from across the street, having known she’d be passing just this coffee shop at just this hour. I was ruining this girl's life. I wanted to kill myself, or sometimes I wanted to kill her and then kill myself. I didn't know where to go, I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn’t even get up the strength to talk to her, and after a bit of following I realized she had a coltfriend anyway.”
“Why could Libel not simply imitate the coltfriend?”
“That isn’t possible in this anecdote. It is a confession, also, shut up and listen. I am following her around, and she starts to become suspicious of my stalking and I can tell that it is worrying her, but I just can’t stop. I can’t call what I felt love anymore, it was just some sickening want that thrilled me with each little fact about her I collected, each word, each glimpse of her, each smell of her, each stolen hair from her mane. One night, I'm out walking with my head filled with her perfume (it was a very gentle apricot scent, but only on some days) and her bangs and how impossible everything is and the bad electricity and I pass this bird hopping around hurt. It's a small bird, black feathers, I don't know much from birds. I'm in a confused state of mind, so I chase it down and very awkwardly catch it in my jacket to save it from something.”
“Libel still has time to stop this.”
“Then I bring the bird to my apartment. Wild birds don't like being inside, they don't like being injured, they don't like having people standing over them, and this little guy was freaking out. I don't know what to do now. If I throw him back out, he'll die and it'll be my fault now because I intervened instead of just walking away. I can't keep him here, and I can't help him. There's nothing I can do, I grab him—
“Please, anybuggy ...”
“—and snap his neck. I sit around for awhile with this dead bird, feeling like a monster, and I know I don't know what to do with his—this—corpse. Throw it away? Like garbage? He deserved better than that. And then I realize what I’m going to have done in a few hours, what I was always going to have done, where this little bird was always going before his bad electricity became a bird. I carry the bird in a box and stuff them both in her mailbox, then I go home. A few hours later, I go to Psych class, and she comes in thirty minutes late and I could tell she’d been crying. She whispered some kind of explanation to the professor and dropped in her seat like she expected to be executed at any moment.”
“…”
“My angel was a wreck. I felt so much shame that I wanted to disappear on the spot. To never have existed. To apologize for even being born. And, at the same time, I felt like a god. Like I could just walk down, scoop her up over my shoulder and leave the room. No one could say anything about it. I owned her. This is how god feels, how a sniper feels.”
“…”
“I never followed her again after that. I’ve done other things to other ponies, but I never did another thing to her, but I do still think of her. Sometimes. The sweetest sorrow of what was and what will never come back. It was an instant, it was bad electricity, it was being struck by lightning only once. Somehow, that was our destiny together, me and her and that bird, bound up by the bad electricity of the world.”
Slander only stares at Libel.
“Well, shouldn’t you say something?”
“What was the point of that?”
“Sometimes strange things happen, and sometimes you do strange things, and you’ll never get away from it, but you may get away with it, and none of it matters eventually.”
“Slander is emphatic about how neither he nor anybuggy else he knows has done something that strange.”
“Perhaps not. It was a mistake then.”
“It had better not have been on purpose!”
“Then we’ll think no more of it.”
They stand in silence.
“Well, what should Slander and Libel do now?”
“Let’s not do anything.” Having spoken, Libel walks over to the center of the basement where he sits down with his back to Slander, staring determinedly into the shadows mysterious and stupid as a sphinx.
“Ever again?”
“Ever again,” Libel confirms.
Slander walks back to his mark and plops his butt down with his hind legs spread out wide before him and his back to Libel.
Slander and Libel sit in a dark basement, with a STAIRCASE not far from them that is covered in dust. The basement has evidently been shut for a long time, with only a few tracks carved in the dust where the two changelings have walked back and forth around each other. The two changelings are sitting with their backs turned to one another. SLANDER has his hindlegs spread out and his forelegs pointing out an angle as if he were a puppy, while LIBEL has his hindlegs tucked in and his forelegs pointing straight down in a show of stoic silence. A LARGE SPIDER creeps along the ceiling above them, the only other sign of life in the room. A single light faintly illuminates the space between them, but all the edges are disappeared into shadows.
And they sit in silence with their backs to each other.
Author's Note
Don't forget, you're you forever.
And it returns and begins again.
