Please Don't Let Them Look Through the Curtains
Valencia Orange had always liked stories about forbidden romance. Now she liked them for far darker reasons, ones that not even she herself wanted to admit, but when she was a foal, she figured that reading was one of the most rebellious things she could possibly do.
She had lived in a sprawling manor, the sort of place nopony expected to find in Manehattan. It hadn’t been the first place, or the last place, that she’d lived in over the years, but it was nevertheless the one that had stuck out the most to her. The castle that her ancestors, the Oranges, had kept for generations. Everything about the outside was a dream, from the perfect white columns to the vines that effortlessly crossed the garden. Back when she was young, she’d thought it was a dream on the inside too.
That didn’t last long. For while the mansion was as huge as any palace she’d ever imagined in Canterlot, she could never venture outside its manicured fence, not until she got married. And even when she did, she knew her creepy family, with its creepy traditions, would still hound her. The risks were just too great otherwise--whatever rich stallion or mare she’d be paired up with might not agree with the Oranges’ ideals, and that would mean someday, she might not either.
Valencia and her brother had spent the first five years of their life in ordinary Equestrian society, longer than most Oranges did. As the years went by, Valencia began to have a sneaking suspicion that this was why, eventually, even her parents had to leave her side. In order to ensure that she and her brother became perfect Oranges, anypony who disagreed with her family’s matriarch, Midsweet, had to be eliminated from their lives. And so, Midsweet became their mother, everything they had ever known, as their foalhood memories slowly, softly drifted away from them.
She would always tell them that the Oranges only had two rules: only fraternize with non-Oranges with another Orange’s permission, and a rule that was too shameful to discuss in public. A rule that, Midsweet told her, had been an unfortunate side effect of the otherwise fulfilling lives her ancestors lived.
In the same way, only two Oranges had been completely erased from the family. Disowning was something that happened far more often than anypony in the Orange family would have liked to admit, but just saying either pony’s name was expressly forbidden. The deeds that they had committed were just too terrible to acknowledge.
Valencia had always feared that the only reason there weren’t three fallen Oranges was because she knew how to keep a secret. She’d kept it lodged deep in her brain for almost forty years, and never intended to let it slip. Admitting it would mean that she was nothing short of shameful. Because even after all the plans her family had made, she had always wanted to stray from them, just a little. Just enough to jump the fence with the colt she met up with in the garden and come back with his tail in hers. Nothing too much, though. Nothing too much.
Because eventually, she came to realize that the Oranges were the only thing she really had. Just as everypony who crosses the Oranges’ path realizes, sooner or later.
****
Valencia Orange had always been fascinated by true crime stories. Not so much by the serial killers or cunning thieves themselves, but by the mares who loved them in spite of everything. It seemed like every time a new villain appeared, hordes of mares seemed to follow them--mares who had never even known the fiend to begin with. Who’d send criminals letters like they were old friends--or perhaps something more.
Before, when she was younger, she thought maybe they saw something in the hooligans that nopony else did. Innocence, or at least something resembling it. It just needed to be polished out with love, and all the tarnished and terrible sides of the offender would just go away.
But now, as she examined the magazine in front of her, she couldn’t help but wonder if the mares were attracted to something else.
They love these ponies, she reasoned to herself, because they see their own guilt in a criminal’s eyes.
The magazine was a typical Manehattan rag, the sort of thing a true Orange lady would never be caught dead with. But ever since the Oranges had disbanded a little over a year ago, Valencia allowed herself these sorts of mundane luxuries. She even allowed herself to trust its dubious journalism for just a little while, until she came across one of her beloved true crime romantic headlines.
MOSELY ORANGE AND COCO POMMEL: BACK TOGETHER IN PRISON?
Valencia let out an offended snort the minute she saw this slanderous tale. She knew Coco Pommel better than most ponies, and she knew for a Celestia-damned fact that Coco would never give that flankhole the time of day. Mosely was the worst of the worst, the type not even the craziest of mares wanted to be with. Not even if he still had his fortune as a loaded Bridleway producer. He’d been caught on fairly typical white-collar offenses at first--threatening his director and blackmailing Coco into a relationship with him--but sooner or later, worse charges had come out, too. He’d even gone as far as selling one of his relatives to some black-market characters for child labor--simply because he considered her illegitimate and wanted to cover up her existence.
If only Valencia could cover up his so easily--the fact that her older brother was one of Manehattan’s most notorious criminals. The fact that, once upon a time not too long ago, she had actually dared to defend him. Back then, she’d believed he was innocent, not because of the type of pony he was, but because that was just how things were supposed to go in her family.
It was the Oranges against the world, they had said. But as Mosely’s court date approached, more and more of his family wised up, went against him. Her then-husband, Torte Framboise, had advised her to stay out of Orange affairs back then, but she couldn’t just watch her brother be carried away.
So she let her marriage be carried away instead. It hadn’t even been a year since Mosely was convicted, and Torte was already out of her life. They’d divorced a matter of months after the trial. Before, Valencia felt she would have done anything to keep her and Torte together, but by now, she realized things hadn’t really changed. Things had been so distant for so long that it seemed like Torte had been long gone for years. Her marriage to him had been arranged and that was just how arranged marriages seemed to work with the Oranges. Utterly pointless, now that she’d left the Oranges and served her purpose.
Anyway, Valencia figured as she turned the page, that type of illicit relationship didn’t suit somepony like Coco, even if she had liked Mosely. If Coco would have been the cheating type, she probably would’ve gone with a gorgeous, outspoken, and tough-as-nails older mare, the type who’d been burned by stallions one too many times. The girl was so blindingly innocent that any affair she could possibly have would play out like an art house movie, the critical darling sort that ended with a mare discovering her sexuality.
Valencia, on the other hoof? If ponies knew about the sorts of illicit romances she imagined herself in, they’d be adapted into the trashiest, cheapest books imaginable. The types nopony, especially anypony of her stature, wanted to be seen with in public. Deep down, she was just a gilded Orange with a rotten heart.
As she thought on this, a yellow earth pony mare strode confidently into the apartment room, clearly satisfied from another job well done. Valencia was so taken by her that she barely even remembered the trashy tabloid on the table until it was too late.
“Ugh,” the other mare muttered, “Will they ever cease with those horrendous rumors?”
Her voice intoned with the accent of a cultivated Manehattanite mare, though unlike many of the mares Valencia held court with, she hadn’t been born with it. Cameo Citrus, somepony who’d broken from the Oranges before Valencia had even known such a thing was possible, was a full-blooded Ponyville Apple who’d been blessed with the misfortune of running into Mosely Orange. She’d played the dutiful Orange wife for years, but once she’d had enough of that, she’d opened a jewelry store and took Valencia on as her apprentice. Knowing full well that Valencia couldn’t make one of her signature cameos to save her life, she’d simply allowed Valencia to use her flower arranging talent to create new items for the shop. And, for the past few weeks, they had been living together.
Not out of love, or anything like it. Because Valencia had lost the house in the divorce, didn’t even want to see the place again, needed someplace to stay until she got back on her hooves. Because her rich and successful acquaintances had tired of her hopping from one friend’s mansion to another. Because Cameo said she owed her a favor. That was all.
“I doubt it,” replied Valencia. “They’ve stuck to their story for long enough. Frankly, I’m surprised Coco still hasn’t lost it in front of them yet.”
“We all are,” Cameo sighed. “Especially when she’s dating a fine, equally famous stallion. Don’t let him see that when he comes over, by the way.”
In stark contrast to her own love life, Coco’s was alive and better than ever. She and Spellshock director Scene Stealer had officially been going out for almost a year, and if the tabloids had any iota of sense, they would be speculating about an upcoming engagement between the two of them. But alas, the tabloids had gotten used to Coco being a mare down on her luck, and Valencia figured they’d have one last big go at it in the coming months until they realized they couldn’t shape either of their stories anymore.
“Wouldn’t want to cause any more failed relationships here. As hard as Coco’s had it, she’s fairly intact compared to the two of us, and it’d be best if she stayed that way.”
It’d be a miracle if she did, considering her past relations with Mosely Orange. As much as he accused the foal he’d sold of being a curse that spoiled everything she touched, a bad seed just like her name, he never quite realized just how much he’d managed to do the same. Cameo and Coco’s place was one of ponies down on their luck, with two mares who’d suffered through equally opulent and abusive affairs and two daughters with severe father complexes--though only one was related to Mosely by blood. It probably sounded all kinds of unstable to outsiders, but truth be told, it was more of a shelter for her than the Orange mansion had ever been. And, as much as she would have laughed at a house for wayward mares a few months ago, she couldn’t deny the fact that she was now one of them.
She glanced at the article one final time before storing the magazine away, hoping Coco’s coltfriend wouldn’t pick up the news from elsewhere. Just looking at it gave her a twinge of what should have been indignation, what could have been annoyance, and what was really neither of the two.
“Scene’s not the only pony who’d be jealous over something like this,” she said, closing the magazine for the final time.
It was the sort of thing she’d say to herself when her husband was away at work, when she was the only one inside a spacious and hollow mansion. It’d almost become a habit for her to confess her deepest secrets to something that could never reply back, so when Cameo gave her a confused stare, she stopped short. This was something that Cameo could never find out in a billion years, that no one ever could, because she knew what happened to ponies like her. The Oranges had told her endless stories about her type, after all. At the very best, she’d be left out on the streets with all her connections withered away, finally treated like the degenerate she’d been pretending for years not to be, or locked up somewhere for her own safety. But at worst, at the very worst, she’d be forgotten, erased from history with a single stroke of a pencil, spoken of only in conspiratorial whispers, the sort of thing the Oranges considered a mercy for anypony who went against their high--
“Hey,” Cameo finally spoke, seeing how much Valencia was shaking. “It’s all right. I get it. You’re a mare of culture who’s hopelessly in love with somepony who’s accounted for. Happens to the best of us. Considering that Coco was the one who essentially got you out of the Oranges, I’m not even surprised you feel that way about her. We tend to latch onto the ponies who get us out of our darkest points.”
That was the only part of the speech that Cameo had gotten remotely right, but nopony there needed to know that. For all their strictness, the Oranges were accepting towards romantic experimentation, as long as it fell within their narrow list of approved ponies. Valencia had even been a candidate to marry Cameo once, given an equal chance alongside her brother. It would have been so much easier if Cameo’s explanation was really the case. Valencia would convince her of it, and maybe, someday, convince herself, too.
As always, she could sense the side of herself that cried out for help in the worst situations, like a foal desperate to find their parents in a crowded place, but Valencia imagined tying a tight leash around that trusting inner child of hers. In fifty years of life, that was essentially how she’d managed to stay sane, and how she’d managed to get other ponies to see her as the mare of culture she was anything but.
“Right. I wasn’t really interested in her until after she got me out of that mess. But no matter what I do, I can’t bring myself to let go of her. That was why Torte and I couldn’t stay together. I know that acting on these feelings would be an insult to you and Scene, so I kept them secret all this time. Nothing more.”
Her story blended the truth with lies, to the point where Valencia still secretly wondered if she wanted Cameo to catch on. She’d heard about the dark part of ponies that made them randomly think about crashing their cart or burning their hooves on an open flame, just to see what would happen. She’d always figured she was above such things, but then again, she’d believed she was above a lot of things that didn’t turn out to be true.
She tensed with both curiosity and terror as Cameo’s eyes moved in front of her, seemingly catching onto the message behind her words. As long as they were lost in thought, Valencia figured, she would be home free, but the look of realization on Cameo’s face was equally unmistakable and unreadable.
For what could have quite possibly been the first time in her life, Valencia’s charade had failed, though she couldn’t say for sure if it had been because Cameo had been so smart or if she had been so irreparably dumb.
“Why would I be offended by that?” asked Cameo. “I might live with Coco, but I don’t have any feelings for her beyond that. I want to protect her from the mistakes I made when I was her age, but even if she would have broken up with Scene, I would have trusted her with you. I think you know that by now.”
“So just what are you implying?” Putting on the mask again, one last time, breathing and hoping Cameo didn’t see the way her words rotted as they left her tongue.
“That there’s more ways the Oranges have messed you up that you haven’t told me. And you’re not leaving this room until you do.”
Valencia tried to protest, told Cameo she had her confused with her daughter if she thought Valencia was obligated to tell her anything. But in the end, the other mare’s steely gaze had been enough to shut her down entirely, like a criminal forced into a confession.
“You say you love Coco, but you’ve always closed yourself off from her and the rest of us. You’ve closed yourself off from everypony in your life except one. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that. In my mind, there’s only one other explanation for the story you gave, and I’m only going to ask you once. You know the rumors by now, Valencia. Are you, or were you ever, romantically involved with my ex-husband?”
In the face of this question, Valencia did the only thing that could ever make sense to either of them. The same way she’d dodged that question every time those horrid tabloids ever dared to bring it up.
“How could you even imply such a thing? In case you’ve forgotten, he’s my twin brother!”
“Foreign royals have resorted to such relationships in the past. With how choosy your family tends to be with partners, plus the incredibly isolated foalhoods you’re subjected to, it’s likely he was your only male companion in your young age. Possibly your only companion, period. Ever since I broke ties with them, I’ve suspected they could be a breeding ground for such things.”
“No!” Valencia suddenly shouted. “The Oranges would never do anything like that! Tainting the family line like that would be unthinkable! We’d only do it if we were in immediate danger of dying out!”
Cameo bowed her head and gave a simple nod, as if to say that since the Oranges had already died out, nothing was truly off the table. Valencia had always hated how logical those rumors had seemed to outsiders, those who saw the Oranges as little more than a shadowy family of aristocrats who’d do anything to get ahead. And she’d always hated that every time somepony had ever asked her about it, she could feel an invisible arrow stab her right between the eyes. She should have known that one day, some archer somewhere would decide to pack one that could actually make a mark.
There was no point in dodging, not anymore. Not when her family’s honor was on the line, even if she’d given them up months ago, even if they’d done the same to her even before then, even if Celestia damn it, Valencia, you don’t owe them anything anymore--
With what was meant to be a final breath of surrender that instead turned into a rushing river, she whispered, “It’s...not their fault. It’s mine. I was never supposed to have feelings like these, they never ceased to terrify me, I don’t know how they started and I’ve never known how to stop them, Torte was never enough and even now...even now, I still feel it sometimes. Even now, I wish they would have just gotten rid of me sometimes. I had the wrong cutie mark, was attracted to the wrong pony, I came out warped and rotten beyond recognition…”
She had been in college the first time she’d heard the stories of the old gods, so blurred by history that nopony knew for sure if they had ever been true. Back then, they had been a comfort to her--ponies like her never really had feelings for their relatives. It could always be traced to one curse or another, one offense towards the love gods that would plague them for the rest of their lives. She could take solace in the fact that perhaps the Oranges had offended some higher power long ago and made her this way, not because of who she was, but because of some arbitrary prophecy. But the minute she got back to the Oranges, she knew that couldn’t be the case, because while she might be able to take the responsibility off herself, she knew the Oranges could never show her the same courtesy.
After her mind began to shut down for Celestia knows how long, she suddenly felt a hoof touch the back of her neck, so gently that she could barely even feel it.
“It’s not your fault,” Cameo said suddenly. “He took advantage of you like he did everypony else. He made it seem like he was the only pony you could trust back then. The Oranges may not have directly caused this, but they contributed to it. And I sure as Tartarus am not going to let them use him to break another mare!”
Pure confusion streamed through Valencia’s heart, the same as it had when these ponies had first taken her in. An image of a brown filly extending a hoof towards her flashed in the back of her mind, still determined to help her even in the most humiliating moment of her life. Really, the Pommel family had a way of being way too forgiving, and deep down, she’d always hated that.
“You’re...not going to abandon me after this?” she asked in a sluggish voice, the only sound she could muster at this point.
“Of course not,” replied Cameo. “You’ve carried this for so long, Valencia. If you have any hopes of getting over your Orange life, you have to tackle this head-on. And thankfully, you have a houseful of ponies who’ve gotten over the same stallion as you.”
She’d said that to Coco once, a slip of the tongue she’d cursed for months after the fact. Coco had probably been too dense in the moment to realize it’d meant anything other than getting over the things her brother had done, but that was the key word. Probably.
“Did she ever know?” she finally said after a moment of hesitation. “Coco, I mean?”
“No, but it might be best if I told her. It’s only been a year or so since she was involved with him, so she’d probably be more help than me.”
Valencia wanted to protest, but found the words snagging in her throat as if Tirek himself had drained them out. If Cameo really did see this as an opportunity to rehabilitate her, then she knew Coco would be equally up for it. And as much as she hated to admit it, the Pommels were one family she could trust.
“You’re probably right. Just be careful when you talk to her, in case she’s still recovering.”
“I will, and I’m glad you trust me on this. The mares in this house back each other up, and for now, you’re one of us.”
As Cameo said this, Valencia realized that was more than she had ever been to the Oranges. Or anypony else, really. The tears in her eyes gave all the thanks Cameo needed to see.
“Just get some rest, and we’ll talk more about it later. You have a long journey ahead of you, but it’s one that we’ve all taken before. We won’t leave you behind.”
She didn’t have enough energy to dispute that. As Valencia’s head hit the guest room pillow, a single thought crossed her mind before she drifted off.
Maybe this dark secret doesn’t have to stay that way...
Author's Note
~~*writes quite possibly the most serious chapter I've ever done for the site* lol let's name it after a Melanie Martinez lyric~~
More information about the Rotten Oranges project can be found here. This is an "experimental series" meant to gauge if any of you are interested in reading one of my more twisted concepts for the IYGALL universe. If you all don't like it, this will be kept as a oneshot, but if you want to see more of Valencia's recovery journey, I will expand this into a miniseries.
Special thanks to PatchworkPoltergeist for encouraging me to take the risk I've been holding out on since 2016.
