Taming Strange. Or: How I learned to stop worrying and make love in public

Picturesque spent most of her life going through the motions. A perpetual emotional neutral. Whereas most ponies would have fallen into a malaise, she simply didn't know any other state of mind.

So it was a marked difference when for the first time in her life she was genuinely happy. She had always walked about gracefully, but she simply couldn't keep her hooves on the ground. She floated about singing lightly to herself, and was always giggling at an unheard joke.

Dean Grasping Hoof was no foal. He was conniving, egotistical, vain, greedy, and selfish, but not foalish. He knew the tell tale signs, but didn't want to admit it to himself. "You're in rare form today my dear." He said trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice.

The jovial mare took a minute to register the comment. "Hhhmm?" She said dreamily. "Oh yes well, I received a very handsome complement from somepony today." She embraced her father. "It's got me all in a tingle." She kissed the spot where his coat was thinning a little, as he called it.

He ground his teeth together. He couldn't be mad at his precious little filly, but somepony was trying to take her away from him. He had always planned to marry Picturesque off to one of his cronies, and move them into the country home so that he could keep them both on a tight leash.

A horrible thought flashed across his mind. He went pale. No. No that couldn't be it. Not my precious little Picturesque. She couldn't be. Not with him. Not with that DEMON.

Picturesque full of all sorts of deviation of character recently, noticed her father's distemper. "What ever is the matter mon pére?" Grasping Hoof scrambled to find something to be wrong. He could handle this. He was a master manipulator, he could control his own dear, naive daughter.

"Oh its just this Roané Haycartes fellow again." He said, putting on his best "pity me" voice. "Everyday it's some new complaint, either about him or from him. He drives me to distraction." Picturesque thought to herself that she found him distracting too. "The pony is a blaggard, an instigator, a brawler, and a drunk!" He said now genuinely venting about the thorn in his hoof that the fillysopher was.

"Non mon pére! Not a drunkard." The Pegasus said genuinely concerned that she may be in love with a legitimately violent pony.

"YES!" The Dean was shouting now, jowls shaking violently. "He spends every evening, with that lowlife son of the Duke of Saddlesbury, drinking, and shouting, and fighting at the Breached Barrel."

Picturesque's ears shot forward. "Every night?" She thought to herself.

"He harasses my staff, and assaults my students!" The overweight unicorn bellowed.

Picturesque gasped. "No mon pére! Say it isn't so." Her heart ached at the thought of her first love being an eloquent brute.

"Yes! He-!" The Dean's volume slackened as he was forced to qualify the statement. "Well I mean he was acquitted by the disciplinary committee of any wrong doing and the." He was muttering angrily now. "Protester apologized and testified in his defense that he had attacked Haycartes."

Picturesque's heart lept in her chest. She was head over hooves for an honorable pony. She couldn't resist any longer. She decided to use this as an excuse to excuse herself. "Oh mon pauvre père." She put a hoof to her forehead. "I simply cannot stand to hear anymore! I must retire." She kissed her father's bald spot and flew out of the room.

Dean Grasping Hoof steepled his grasping hooves and chuckled a cruel chuckle to himself. "Perfect." If he weren't such a comically evil pony one might actually feel bad for how hard he's going to be fucked. The poor poor stupid stupid pony.

Picturesque only knew where the tavern in question was because the Dean's overly elaborate carriage passed it each day going to and from the University. It was the first time she had ever set hoof anywhere near a tavern. She felt a very unfamiliar feeling. Doubt. This love affair of her's was introducing all sorts of emotions to the graceful pegasus.

She pushed through the double doors and was instantly noticed by everyone with the exception of a certain unicorn and earth pony. A bar fly got up to go talk to the vision of loveliness that had just graced the hole in the wall, when his friend put him in a head lock and pulled them both behind the bar. The rest of the bar ponies had silently skittered out of the bar, fleeing for dear life.

The dorm mates of our acquaintance had spent the afternoon and early evening consoling the broken hearted pony. Well that is to say after they had made sure that the bash to the head Haycartes had sustained during his fall hadn't been dangerous.

The love struck fillysopher was actually factually pouting. His head on the table, a long miserable frown on his face. A preposterously large collection of pint glasses sat on the adjoining table. He was in such a state that everytime a pint of cider was placed before him, he took it like a shot, swallowing the drink whole. "My dear Haycartes, wee simply must sign you up for one of those delightful chugging contests one of these days."

The usually eloquent Haycartes only answered in a disinterested sigh. "Kay."
Wordsmith had to time his pints as to not allow him to have another incident. He kept trying to light his pipe but Haycartes constant pining sigh kept putting out his matches before he could get it lit.

The poet was dutifully trying to cheer his disheartened dorm mate. "My dear fellow don't you see? This is the best possible thing! She heard your amours off the cuff, straight from the horse's mouth, as the saying goes." The unicorn allowed the earth pony to swallow another pint whole.

"Don't worry old colt I'm sure she's right about to walk through that SON OF A WHORE!" His voice rose in shock at seeing the subject of their conversation standing within earshot. In the back of his mind wordsmith thought. "Maybe I should take up prophecy."

Roané Haycartes' head shot off the table. His eyes grew wide then went out of focus. Picturesque waved shyly at the apparent disturbance she had caused. He stood stock still and didn't say a word.

The three were now alone in the bar silently staring at each other. Wordsmith nudged his friend to say something but the stiffened corpse merely tottered back and forth like a ceramic bowl with audible sound effect to match. Picturesque giggled in spite of herself. She felt bad about the effect she had on the usually fiery stallion, but it was simply too absurd not to laugh at.

Wordsmith knew the risk involved in being around this mare but his duty to his friend forced his hoof. He whispered intensely to his friend. "Get a hold of yourself old colt. This young lady came all the way down here to see you now go and get her." The statue remained unmoved. "Oh for the love of Celestia!" He sighed to himself.

Wordsmith levitated the dumb struck pony over to his lady love and placed him less than a meter in front of her. "Hello sir." The pretty pegasus proclaimed, but no response came from the vacantly staring pony. Picturesque was growing genuinely concerned.

Wordsmith rolled his eyes, completely fed up with this farce. He levitated Haycartes again and did a poor imitation of his friends hard voice. It sounded like a disgruntled cement mixer. He bobbed the fillysopher like a filly playing with a doll does when she makes it speak. "Hello my name is Roané Haycarte and I'd like to stick my."

The earth pony's leg shot out bucking a bottle at the speaker, hitting him in the head and knocking him unconscious, before he could finish saying something so vulgar to the mare he loved.

Picturesque giggled at the display. "Well you are in there somewhere! Well, yes I heard what you said about me the other day, and." She blushed like a school filly and looked away, rubbing one hoof on the other. "It was the most romantic thing I've ever heard."

She came up to the statue that was once a pony and settled herself under his muzzle. "I've never met a pony like you. You aren't foul tempered like ponies say, you just don't like to be lied to. Like with the Bohaymian ogre." She spat the name distastefully. "That horrid professor tried to lionize him!"

A croaky cracked whisper seeped out from the still unmoving pony she was leaned against. "Scroll Scribe is an excellent historian. He just bought into the cult of personality surrounding Neighpoleon."

Picturesque gasped. Her love had finally spoken directly to her. Well sort of. She dashed in front of him hoping to see the stiffness lifted. She was disappointed to see him still staring distantly. Her ears drooped. "Mon amour why won't you look at me." She pleaded.

A very concussed Wordsmith raised his head long enough to say. "Oh will you just fu~." Another bottle hit him in the head and he was out cold.

Picturesque was unsure but resumed her snuggling position. "Mon amour, why can't you look at me?"

Again a hardly audible croak. "Because my mind can't reconcile the fact that something so beautiful can exist. So it shuts down when it sees you."

The mare blushed wildly and giggled. "Can you walk mon amour?" She cooed snuggling close.

"You led me all the way to the clinic yesterday so, maybe?" She gently pulled at a foreleg and the earth pony stiffly started to walk. They walked slowly matching step for step exiting the bar.

Wordsmith was left in an empty building unconscious on the floor. A minute later Sawbones burst in through the double doors. "SMITH! I just heard Picturesque was seen flying this way! We have to." He noticed his friend's condition. The medical student sighed heavily. "I'm gonna start charging you ponies for all this free medical attention I've been giving you." He trotted over to the prone poet and checked his vitals.

When he wouldn't wake upon shaking Sawbones levitated the other unicorn and looked him in the sleeping face. "You owe me big." He suddenly looked around suspiciously. Seeing the coast was clear he stole a quick kiss. He grinned widely and trotted out of the bar carrying Wordsmith in his magic. "Now we're even!"