A Different Kind of Love: The Untold Chapters

--------------- Life of an Addict: Maggie - Part 1 ---------------

"Maggie!" She groaned and tried to curl tighter into the threadbare sheets. "Maggie! Git yer ass up, woman!" The first kick to her side made her gasp and her eyes fly open. She rolled away instinctively across the hardwood floor, glaring up at the man who had delivered it to her. "You're gonna be late for school." He growled at her, fire in his eyes. Her own were cold as she rose up, squeezing the growing bruise in her side.

"It's five in the morning."

"And you gotta cook breakfast before you leave."

"Cook it your own damn self." Her words earned her a slap across the face. At least, they would have, if she hadn't have blocked it with a shimmering field of magic.

"Oh ho ho. So you've got some balls after all." The man with his hand encased in an aura of magic, his lips spread in a vicious grin, was her father. He was tall, muscular, and a magi just like her. A fact that was about to become painfully clear. His own hand glowed with a field just as dense as her own, the two forces nullifying one another and allowing his hand to complete the motion. Rather than dance away, as she had every day before, she took the slap and charged forth, catching the man off-guard.

"I've had..." She muttered, ignoring the stinging pain in her cheek. "Just about..." Her magical field quickly enveloped the rest of his body. "Enough of your SHIT!" Lifting him up, Maggie effortlessly threw her father against the far wall, driving the wind from his lungs. Her hands still glowed, this time with a force far more dense than he had seen from her in the past. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt, hauling him up face-to-face with herself.

"I'm eighteen now, FATHER," She spit the word like venom from her mouth after sucking on a snake bite wound. "And I don't answer to you anymore." He wheezed and fought at her hand holding him there, his field too weak to battle with Maggie anymore. "You think," She droped him unceremoniously, glaring down at him. "You can leave for four whole months, come back, and expect to just start kicking me around again? Oh, what about the SIX months you were gone before that? Or the two years that you disappeared before THAT?!" Maggie stood over her father, glaring furiously down at him.

"Get out, then." He offered weakly, still wheezing. "No daughter of mine treats me like this... Get out of my house, you filthy little cunt." He stood up, leaning heavily against the wall. The fog from her sleep gone, Maggie saw now he was drunk. Like always. At five in the morning. "And since you're eighteen, FATHER," He mocked her openly. "You can find yer own way in the world. Don' come cryin' back to me when you can't handle the real world."

"The real world's the one you've been running from for years, pop." Maggie spun around and grabbed her bag. She kept it packed for whenever he returned. It had her life in it. A portrait of her mother, all the money she had managed to set aside from working after school, supplies she couldn't keep in her locker at said school, and a change of clothes. She threaded her arms through the straps, still in her pajamas as she opened the door to the threadbear room that served as her bedroom. "Good luck with life, pops." Down the stairs, out of the front door, and into the world.

So began the tale of Maggie Yarwick.

"Listen, my dad just kicked me out, I've got nowhere to go, and I'm not asking to stay long... Just a week. Maybe. until I can find a place that I can afford." She leaned against the frame of the pay phone, having just spend the past freezing two hours huddled up in the doorway to a closed restaurant. Once she was sure her one friend, David, had woken, she used the rest of her loose change to call him. He answered, reluctantly, and was now silent on the other end of the phone.

"I'm gonna have to run it by my brother..."

"That's fine. I can wait."

"When he gets home."

"Oh... Look, I'm freezing... Can I AT LEAST come over to warm up before class?"

"Ugh, fine! Look, just... Wait, warm up? How long have you been out there?" She paused, twirling the cord around her finger a few times.

"Since five..."

"Where are you? I'm on my way to pick you up." Relief and thanks washed through her body as she visibly sagged against the side of the payphone.

"Fourteenth and Downing. I'm outside this restaurant... Uuh... The Flaming Pig. Wow. Horrible name."

"I'll be there in five, okay?"

"Thank you, D." She said quietly. "For everything." The line clicked and she hung up, grimacing when the machine didn't give her any change. Instead, she went back to the doorway, shivering despite the shelter from the slight breeze. Canterlot mornings could be a touch cold, even this early in September. Her senior year of school had just begun, and it promised to be a year to remember. Especially since-

The roar of an engine cut off her thoughts, and she looked up the road as a dusty old truck came squealing around the corner. Smoke billowed around the tires as David gunned the engine straight towards the intersection. She walked out to the curb to meet him as he came to a halt.

"Fuckin' A, Mags, get in!" He said, noting how badly she was shivering. The heater was cranked on high, and Maggie was thankful for his haste as she numbly slid into the passenger seat. "You gonna be okay?"

"Trust me. Nights at my place are worse."

"Shit..." He shifted into gear and took off once more, markedly slower this time. Maggie rubbed her hands in front of the vent for the heater, feeling her body slowly soak up the warmth once more. The old truck chugged along faithfully back towards David's apartment that he shared with his older brother. They had been friends all through high school, both of them products of a broken home. For Maggie, it was because her father was a drunk and a wanderer, never faithfully sending money and disappearing for months or even years at a time. He hadn't even really cared when his wife passed away, just disappeared again and left Maggie to fend for herself.

For David... Well, his story was a touch darker. Maggie had never heard the whole thing, and for that she was thankful. But his parents weren't in the equation, either, and his older brother held down two jobs to help make ends meet. Times for them were tough, but they made it through. If the chugging, running beast she was sitting in was any indication, then David was finally coming into his own. He had always been the sort to make things work. Maggie remembered when he had found this old thing, just begging to be dragged away. The owner was actually waiting for the trash company to come and pick it up when Maggie and David had come across him on their way home from school. Rather than lose the thing to a junkyard somewhere, David offered to take it, and using both of their magic, had wheeled the thing back to his place. That was the beginning of last summer, and now, at the end, it looked like he had the thing in running order. He and his brother had no money to spare, so he had to have recovered parts from a junkyard.

"Ever think about working at a mechanic shop or something?" She asked, bracing herself against the rusty interior as they crossed a set of train tracks.

"Heh. Maybe..."

"Well, if you could get this piece of shit working, you could fix anything." She grunted. "I thought that old thing was dead. How the hell did you get this to work?" David had been the sort of magi that could make things work. He would often fix spells, equations, or magical devices with the simplest of ease... He wasn't very original, or even that talented when it came to casting his own. But for one reason or another, he could just look at something... And point out what was wrong. Even if he couldn't fix it himself, which he usually could, he was an extrememely valuable friend to have on homework nights.

"You think so?" He asked, downshifting as they turned a corner onto his home street.

"let's put it this way, if I owned a mechanic shop, you'd be the first motherfucker I'd call. Dude, this thing wouldn't even ROLL right when we picked it up!" She glanced out the window at the smooth, if slightly bumpy, ride. A vast improvement from the loping, frame-shaking ordeal that the old truck HAD been. "Now you got it running, and you've probably got sixteen more things you can fix with some tape and a copper tube." They laughed as he pulled into the driveway of their apartment complex, just another shitty jumble of houses and rooms in the bad part of Canterlot.

"Home sweet home." He teased, locking her door after she slipped out. Maggie followed him up the stairs to a second-story apartment, the simple decorations markedly better than even her own home. Hell, it even had heat. She sighed and slumped into the couch, the morning finally catching up with her. "Hey," he said, nudging her side as he sat. "If you need to shower and change or whatever, feel free. You're still in your PJ's." So she was... The flimsy cotton material probably didn't help with the cold morning, and the idea of at least a warm shower was very enticing.

"Thanks, man..." She groaned, taking her pack with her to the bathroom.

"Just don't use all the hot water!" She waved him off before closing the door. She took a minute to look at herself in the mirror. For a girl of eighteen, Maggie really was attractive. A hard diet and harder work gave her a slender, fit frame, and her hormones at their peak meant her hips were just beginning to flare outwards, her bust was beginning to grow. She didn't seem to suffer from the same acne that other girls her age did, and her straight raven-black hair only ever needed a shower and a brush before laying flat. It might have lacked the luxurious sheen that a good conditioner could give her, but it fell long down her back, almost to her rear. Which, she noted in the mirror, was rather shapely.

David wasn't a bad guy, though... Why hadn't she had sex, like every single other girl in her class already had? In fact, David wasn't even the only one... There were three other really handsome guys she could just as easily have started a relationship with... Was she so stuck-up or bookwormish that none of the other guys would approach her? Sighing, she stripped out of her pajamas and stepped into the shower. She turned the water on just lukewarm and quickly scrubbed herself down. She learned herself the virtues of room-temparature showers done double-time. When she was finished, though, she noticed something...

"Shit, hey DAVID!" She called, standing in the middle of the bathroom, dripping. Through the thin walls came his voice.

"What?"

"There are no towels."

"Shit, HANG ON!" She could hear his footsteps in the hallway, doors opening, muttering and cursing. She opened the door and stood back with just her hand outside the small crack, waiting until she felt him push a towel into her palm.

"Thanks, man."

"No prob. Don't rub that on your snatch or anything, it's the only one we got left." She laughed and closed the door, toweling herself off as best she could without rubbing anything too offensive into the one remaining piece of laundry. The rest would have to stay wet, though admittedly, not from just the shower. Sighing softly, she pulled the change of clothes from her pack, using her old bra and panties before slipping into jeans and a tight blouse. She dried her hair last, though the long strands still clung together as she exited.

"Thank you." She said, tossing him the towel. He smiled and ruffled her hair before slipping into the bathroom himself. David was tall, dark, and handsome. If he had tried out for sports or something like that, he probably would have been the hearthrob all the hormonal girls at school wanted to date. Wide shoulders and prominent pectoral muscles, a flat stomach and a toned butt... Maggie wondered why she hadn't come on to him sooner. Her smile wasn't entirely friendly as he slipped into the bathroom, and unless she was mistaken, he shot her a sly wink before slipping in. His features were strong, ass opposed to Maggie's own, which were more sharp. Especially around the eyes. But he had a wide forehead and a moderate, pointed nose, a double chin and a strong jaw. Puberty was treating him VERY well. Slumping on the couch, Maggie's thoughts wandered to hot showers and tender lovemaking in the hour left until their first class...

"Maggie!" The piece of chalk flew right for her head, and she easily snatched it out of the air. She hadn't been expecting the second one, however... The chalk impacted her skull with the same amount of hilarity a swift kick to the nuts was... For everybody else. The class burst out in laughter as she rubbed the spot, tossing the first piece of chalk back at the teacher. "I SAID, what is the inv-"

"Fourteen, and if you mirror it, the effects are doubled against creatures at or below fourty pounds weight, like most househould dogs and woodland mammals before their first year of life." Maggie said, in a dull monotone. Magic theory was probably the most boring class. Probably because she had already read the textbook over the summer. Memorized it, even... "And for your next question, you're going to ask what the inverse of an invocation of air is on a primal point of the zenith of a seventh quarter Mire spell is. The answer is twelve-point-oh-four, and if you invert THAT point, it's seventeen-point-six-six-two, and will result in a spell failure if countered with even the simplest shields, as it is nullified by the sixteenth aperture on the basic structure. Therefore, it's best used when laid like a trap or will be activated manually." The teacher, and the entire class, were stunned. Not the first time that year, and they were only two weeks into the first semester.

"Go and see the principal." The teacher said quietly, snatching the fallen piece of chalk with a thin thread of magic. Maggie glowered at him but stood and gathered her things nevertheless. On the way out of the door, she shot a withering glare at one of the students sitting in the front row, which changed her expression rather well. Her tennis shoes squeaked a little on the waxed floors leading down the hallway from her first class, and she used the brisk walk to shake her groggy mind of sleep. Work the night before, the rude awakening, and the cold had made her a lot more tired than she should be at that moment. Still, she made good time to the principals office, and was ushered in without a second's wait.

"Have a seat, Maggie." The principal said. He was a middle-aged magi, dressed casually. His office was decorated as she supposed any school official's office should be, with college diplomas and various knick-nacks of magical purposes, she was sure. With a sigh, she took the seat, wondering if they intended them to be uncomfortable or if it was just her nerves. "It's come to my attention-"

"That I'm ahead of the curve of most of my classes." Maggie finished his sentence for him. She had a knack for doing that. The principal, most likely used to such things, just nodded and continued.

"Therefore, I'm recommending-"

"Remedial lessons, extracirricular activities, advanced courses, I've heard it all, principal." She groaned. Her head rolled about lazily as she heaved a hearty sigh.

"I'm recommending, MAGGIE." He re-asserted himself. She arched an eyebrow. She had been wrong? "That you go to this address. And get yourself lunch along the way." Completely taking her by surprise, the principal now pushed a simple slip of paper across the desk, along with a twenty dollar bill. The numbers and street name were hand-written, and the money was enough that she could have fed herself for a week on.

"Uuh..."

"I know you come from a broken home, Maggie. So if you feel like saving the money, that's fine. But I'll have you know that a magi's body can't run on magic and wishes alone. You burn carbs whenever you use your magic, and without any carbs to burn, your magic will fail you." He tapped the bill again. "Eat. Trust me on this." He smiled and sat back in his chair, tenting his fingers to hide his warm smile. Maggie was still shocked as she looked between him, the money, and the address...

"Um..."

"Consider this a direct order from your principal, under threat of disciplinary action, including but not limited to expulsion. Go, Maggie. Make sure you're there by three this afternoon." She looked up at him, his wide smile, his crossed leg one more time. Swallowing, she snatched the money and the slip of paper, stuffing both into the back pocket of her jeans before she left.

What the hell just happened? Her thoughts were racing through her mind as she left the school, practically jumping down the front steps and turning out onto the street. She thought long and hard over what the could possibly be wanting from her, why he would send her here. And more importantly, what did it have to do with her schooling? Alas, over lunch at a cheap fast food place, with sixteen dollars leftover, she couldn't think of a single reason. The person taking her order knew enough to at least point her in the right direction. Stomach full with a greasy burger and salty fries, with a caffiene-laced soda and a fair amount of water to weigh it down, Maggie left for her distination...

Which was, ironically, an open field. Standing on the sidewalk, looking at the chain-link fence with a simple board attached to it, Maggie compared the address with the one on her paper. It was a little past noon, so she was very early, but seriously... An open field? Why the hell did she have to come here? Next to the sign was the simple gate, unlocked, but latched. She picked up the latch and pushed the gate open, dipping inside and closing it again behind her. The next action made her feel very silly.

"Uuh, hello?" She called out, even though there wasn't a soul in sight across the entire field. "Great, now I'm talking to nobody..." She groaned, then cursed herself for doing it again. She walked towards the middle of the field, shuddering in a stiff breeze as it blew past her. Standing about as close as she could get to the middle, Maggie shrugged out of her pack, setting it on the grass next to her feet and turning a slow circle. Still, no one was nearby. Which made it all the more shocking when a voice rang out, clear as day, right behind her.

"My, but you're early!" Maggie whirled around, and thanks to both nerves and anxiety, her hands glowed as she summoned her best shield. Completely uneccesary, as it was, because none other than Princess Celestia stood behind her.

"Princess!" Maggie gasped, quickly dropping both her shield and her head as she bowed low.

"Oh, come on, Maggie Yarwick." The princess teased, a rather interesting display for one so strikingly beautiful. She was barefoot, with a long, flowing white skirt that hung halfway past her knees. She wore a simple white blouse, with a brown sleeveless vest over it. Her long, flowing hair moved, not in the wind, but of it's own accord as she smiled down at Maggie. She was tall. Very tall. And very large-chested, Maggie noted with a blush. In fact, she was probably the very picture of femininity. A sort of regal, beautiful grace and a womanly figure that made her such a strikingly beautiful and at the same time all-together powerful woman. Her teasing smile made it all the easier as she crossed her hands behind her back.

"H-how..."

"The principal of my own school called me this morning, you see..." Celestia said softly, standing perhaps ten feet away from Maggie. "Singing the praises of this talented young mind. A song I've heard, and a dance I've danced, mind you. But he went on to tell me how you do the most complex mathematical equations in an instant, in your head. How you can recite textbook definitions of spells, AND the unincluded application. How the raw force of your power rivals his best student. He also tells me how you sleep in class and disrespect your teachers." Maggie blushed at this, even as Celestia's expression turned from a teasing sort of fun one to something markedly more serious. "But. You are punctual, and if he spoke so highly of you, you must be talented in one form or another. So." Celestia's smile returned, though this time it seemed to be slightly more devious than anything else.

"Prepare yourself."

"What?" Maggie said quietly, not sure she heard correctly.

"I said prepare yourself."

"F-for what, Princess?" The smile widened.

"Your evaluation."