SCOOTS

Chapter Four: "Have we become that predictable?"

When I was a filly still going to school in Cloudsdale I got into a serious fight with my best friend of the time, a griffin named Gilda. It happened right smack at the start of my horny, rebellious teenage years. Unlike the other girls in my class, Gilda included, puberty wasn’t doing me any favors in the body department. None of the hormone-crazed colts had eyes for me because I didn’t curve in any of the right places the way Gilda and the others did. It didn’t matter that my friend was a griffin living in a town of mostly ponies; she had an adult’s body before most of her peers and that was the only thing colts our age cared about.

But there was one colt who didn’t. His name was Slipstream and at the time he was sex on four legs. Slip was hunky, brooding, moody, popular, cool. He was the bar, and boy oh boy was the bar high. Colts hated him. Fillies loved him. And to be blunt, he was way out of my league.

Gilda wanted Slipstream in that nonchalant way pretty girls seem to want everything in the world. One night during a sleepover at my place, Gilda made a big stink about being madly in love with Slip. Apparently she had been crushing on him since preschool and figured now that she had the goods (i.e. a slamming supermodel body) it was time to grab the little snot by the balls and make him her boy-toy. Her confession was only mildly obnoxious right up until the part where she made me promise I wouldn’t try to steal Slip from her, at which point it erupted into a full blown what-the-fuck fest.

Let’s get one thing straight right now: I wasn’t a spiteful kid. I got made fun of for my tomboyishness so often that I eventually learned how to let things roll off my shoulder. Being teased by school bullies didn’t bother me much, mostly because I was too busy flying circles around those losers to care. But something about the way Gilda made me swear not to put any moves on Slip got under my skin. Anypony with eyes could see that a colt like Slip was about six divisions out of my league. I didn’t have a chance. I didn’t have half a chance. And the weirdest part of the whole thing was that Gilda already knew I was a little rug-muncher in training. I never came out and told her I was gay, (I wasn’t sure myself then) but I’m positive I faux-flirted with Gilda often enough for her to do the math on her own.

To this day Gilda will claim that the whole thing was just in my head—and maybe it was—but I swear she was taunting me. She knew I could never score with a prime piece of ass like Slip, but she wanted to make sure I knew it too. It was her way of keeping our playing field uneven.

Despite her laziness and total lack of respect for authority, Gilda did fine in school because she was smarter than most of her teachers. We both got high marks in class, and we were both heads and shoulders above our peers in all things related to flying. I was the faster flyer, of course, and even at a young age I could corner on a dime—a trick it took Gilda years to wrap her head around. After all the numbers where good and crunched it wasn’t hard to see which of us was better in the air. Still, Gilda had a grace about her when she took to the sky that even I couldn't match. I was good, but only because I was trying to be good. With Gilda it was different; you could tell she didn’t give a fuck. She could pull off some truly amazing stunts when the mood struck her, but flying wasn’t a competition for Gilda the way it was for me. She flew the same way she did everything else: at her own pace and only when she felt like it. She didn’t need to prove anything to anyone, griffin or pony. Gilda knew who she was and didn’t care what the world thought of her. It was a quality I didn’t have. I envied that about her. I really did.

We were pretty much even in scholastics and flying, but at the end of the day Gilda was the sexy one and I was the dumpy-looking best friend. I had no problem admitting that she had better luck with colts, but the fact that my best friend felt the need to elevate herself by pushing me down really, really ticked me off.

After Gilda rolled over and fell asleep I decided there and then that nothing in the world was going to stop me from hooking up with Slipstream.

The saddest thing about this story is that I didn’t even like Slip. I thought he was a jerk who strutted around acting like his shit didn’t stink, but none of that mattered after Gilda’s confession. Gilda thought I wasn’t good enough for him. Worse, she thought she was better than me. Well fuck that, I thought. Fuck that and fuck her too.

I went after Slip like he was a limited time offer and supplies were running low. Admittedly, I may have been a tad too aggressive in the beginning. I figured a dick head like Slipstream, with his bullshit punk rock attitude and his totally fabricated edginess, would appreciate the forward approach. In hindsight, I realize he probably thought I was too easy. I never offered to suck him off behind a bungalow or anything crazy like that, but I flaunted myself so often I might as well have.

Slipstream blew me off dozens of times, but I also noticed he blew off every other filly as well. He even blew off Gilda. It happened one day after cloud busting class and all the popular kids in Gilda’s “other” circle of friends were there to see it. I was there too. I’m not proud of it, but I have to admit I enjoyed watching my best friend’s public humiliation.

Later that same day Gilda came over my place after school and cried her eyes out for like two hours. I seriously considered dropping the whole stupid feud right then and there. Yeah I’d lost the race, but Gilda and me were tied for last place and I figured that must have counted for something. Rejection had made us equals again, and for the moment that was good enough for me.

The moment was short lived. The next day at school I saw Slip leaning against his locker with his nose buried in an old issue of Batmare. It was the one with the totally kick-ass, totally misleading cover image of Batmare smashing through a skylight with her cape thrown wide as she dropped down on her arch nemesis, The Kidder.

Worst. Issue. Ever. Printed. Ever. Seriously, I had been following the adventures of Batmare since Amble Moore revived The Kidder’s persona in The Slaying Gag, and in the span of only twenty-six pages I almost gave up on the entire series. And judging from the disgruntled expression of on Slip’s face as he flipped through page after page, I figured the feeling as mutual.

Without thinking, I trotted up to him and said, “Pretty lame, huh?”

He lowered the comic and gave me a look like somepony had just punted his puppy into the stratosphere. Turns out Slipstream was a die-hard fan boy who was deeply distressed that he had fallen behind in Batmare only to catch up and find himself balls deep in the worst story arch of the series. I wasn’t a die-hard fan myself; Amble was the only reason I had discovered comics. I had read Watchmares, seen the movie version of C for Contention, and only heard about The Association of Phenomenal Cavaliers (which sucked because that was Slip’s favorite book by Amble). I didn’t know the ins and outs of the comic world like Slip did, but I figured if I pretended to he would find me more…appealing, I guess (cut me some slack, I was like fourteen at the time).

The conversation gradually shifted from geekdom to dating. I asked Slip if maybe he wanted to catch a flick with me this weekend, and he flashed this adorable smile and told me the flirting thing was getting old fast. Then he rolled up his comic like it was newspaper and tucked it under his wing before trotting off. The bell rang a few minutes later, and as I watched the other foals scurry off to their homerooms, I realized something had changed. I didn’t feel any closer to Slip, and I still thought he was jerk, but now he was a mildly dorky jerk who had wrinkled his nose at issue #137 of Batmare.

And he had smiled at me…

I didn’t see Gilda that day until lunch after third period. For the first half of the school day we didn’t have any classes together, a phenomenon that had never bothered me until that day. I remember wanting very badly to tell Gilda about my moment alone with Slip, and the agony of keeping it bottled up for three periods seemed to be shaving years off my life. I wasn’t planning to rub such a tiny win in Gilda’s face. Nothing worth bragging about had happened between me and Slip, but I knew just talking about the only pony who’d ever rejected her would be enough to annoy Gilda. It was the least I could do after she’d tried to make an ass of me during the sleepover.

I ended up never saying a word about me and Slip. When lunch came and I saw Gilda shooting the shit with a couple of her friends seated at the “Griffin Table,” I decided our faux-love triangle wasn’t worth piss. Mentioning Slip now was only going to upset Gilda for less than a minute and make me look like a petty jerk who couldn’t shut her gob and lose gracefully. Besides, our so-called rivalry over Slipstream existed nowhere except in my own head. Slip still didn’t like either of us, Gilda still had half the guys on campus wrapped around her talon, and I was still stuck playing the field, though at this point I was mostly running in place.

After lunch me, Gilda, and two of her griffin friends decided to ditch class for the rest of day. Gilda’s parents were never home, so we went to her place to eat junk food and laugh our asses off at her dad’s cringe-worthy collection of old shitty, racist flicks. The movies were made during an age of Equestrian history that apparently predated tact by several decades. There was this one—I don’t remember the title now—but it was about a wealthy mare from Manehattan who had to hide her zebra lover from her ignorant, bigot parents. The story was about love and tolerance and cultural acceptance, and it might have been a touching romance if the “zebra” hadn’t been played by an earth stallion with stripes painted on his face. The funniest thing was they didn’t even bother finding a stallion with a white coat. The mare’s lover was this hideous black and lime green monstrosity that talked in rhyme for the entire two hours the movie ran. It was soooo bad.

That flick impressed me. Before then I had no idea how wildly amusing a truly bad movie could be. The four of us laughed so hard and so often that we kept sporadically missing chunks of the flick, but it was still so memorable that me and Gilda quoted lines from it up until graduation. That was a good day. I won't say it was the last truly awesome day I shared with Gilda, but it was definitely one of the last. There were more good times waiting for us further down the road, but we never laughed like that again.

A week later I started scheming up new ways to get Slip’s attention. Winter was right around the corner, so I decided to start working part time at a weather factory that wasn’t too far from the school. I got a job making snowflakes. The work was infuriatingly tedious, but it was a seasonal job that only lasted three months, so I managed to tough it out.

Most of my money got spent on random comic books. I realize now that it wasn’t much of a plan, but I didn’t know what other angles to work. One crappy issue of Batmare was the only thing me and Slip had ever bonded over, and with the exception of the few titles I remembered from that one conversation, I had no idea what books Slip liked. I knew he was a die-hard fan boy; anypony could tell that much by the enthusiasm that snuck into his tone when he talked about his favorite heroes. He was also a teenage colt, so I figured anything with copious amounts of face-punching was a safe bet. But was he mainstream or indie? Was he a superhero purest, or did he dabble in other genres? I needed to know if I as going to impress him. Pretending hadn’t worked so I figured it was time to give the real thing go.

The questions only got deeper when I actually went to do some browsing at the only comic shop I knew of in Cloudsdale, a store called Page’s Pages. I asked the owner, a grubby, middle-aged stallion with the world’s least conspicuous overbite, if he had any books that were like Batmare. He adjusted his glasses dramatically before extending a friendly hoof and introducing himself as Page Turner.

I liked Page right away. He was the first adult I’d ever met who didn’t talk like an adult. He didn’t talk like a kid either. Page and his fellow stallion-foals spoke in their own language, which consisted of mostly movie one-liners and obscure references to shows nopony had ever seen and books nopony had ever read. They were impressively lame, and half of them were probably still virgins—Page included—but they also reminded me of Gilda in a way. Page and his friends knew who they were, and they were happy living vicariously through their mountainous heaps of picture books.

Page told me to start with Amble Moore. So I started with Amble Moore…

It didn’t work. I learned a ton of useless junk I figured Slip would dig, but he kept shooting down all my advances. For a stretch of almost three weeks I was literally getting rejected daily, and I definitely wasn’t wearing Slip down. The situation called for a change in tactics. I started interrogating Slip’s friends. I needed to know what kind of music he listened to, what sports he liked, what his hobbies were—anything that might give me a new edge.

I kept learning, kept trying, kept getting shot down. It was mostly Slip’s fault that I kept coming back for more punishment. He never just said no. He was always coy about it in a way that made me figure I still might have a chance if I tried working a new angle. After a while I think it just became this sick game neither of us could stop playing. I was addicted to the challenge of chasing him, and Slip was addicted to the attention. In a weird way, Slipstream helped me get over my fear of rejection. I used to be embarrassed about my body, and I knew colts weren’t into me so I just avoided the entire dating scene as way to spare myself the sting of not being wanted. But then Slipstream came along and made not being wanted this casual thing. Rejection started hurting less and less every day, until it eventually it became a mundane part of my life. I got up in the morning. I ate breakfast. I went to school. Slip rejected me. I went home. Maybe I did some homework. Maybe not.

With the fear of rejection gone all that remained was the thrill of the chase. I was so addicted to the challenge of hooking up that I started flirting with just about every colt on campus. Almost none of them liked me, and the ones that did were creeps, but that was never discouraged me. The challenge was plenty fun on its own. Dating was this big, stupid, thing I couldn’t do, and struggling to make sense of it made me feel alive.

Colts were the only thing that interested me for a long time. School was a breeze, and I had already performed a Sonic Rainboom before I even got my cutie mark. I don’t mean to brag, but with exception of snagging a coltfriend most everything I did came too easily. Colts were the only challenge the world had to offer at the time, and without a challenge I felt numb.

Eventually I let my colt obsession spiral out of control. I realized things had gone too far when one day Gilda pulled me aside after lunch and told me half the school was talking about me. I asked her what they were saying and she shook her head and shouted, “That’s not the point!”

And she was right: that wasn’t the point. The point was the chase. I had something new and fun to dive into and get lost in. Lost…yeah, that’s definitely the right word. My obsession got so bad that I up and stopped caring about a ton of things I used to love. Whenever Gilda asked me to hang out I’d tell her I couldn’t because I had twenty some-odd issues of assorted Marevel Comics to root around for at Page’s place, hoping I could use my knowledge of geekdom to impress Slip. My grades took a nosedive. My flight skills got sloppy. The manager at the weather factory cut me loose, claiming he’d never met a more unfocused worker in all his life.

The crazy thing was I didn’t even care. My friends and parents were all crawling up my ass about “responsibilities” and “priorities,” but none of them understood the importance of what I was doing. Everything else bored and depressed me. I felt empty if I wasn’t batting my eyelashes at some random guy strolling down the hall or trying to chat up the foreign exchange students who hadn’t been around long enough to know what a freak I was. And I hated feeling empty. It was the worst feeling in the world.

Then one day Slipstream ruined everything when he finally accepted my advances. At first I was so excited I could hardly think straight. The hottest colt in the school said yes to me! I’d done it! I beat Gilda! I beat them all! Every single colt who had turned me down and all the fillies who had made fun of me were gonna have to watch me prance up and down the campus holding hooves with the hottest colt in school. Gilda could blow me. Cloudsdale Middle could kiss my ass. The entire world could eat my box. I won. Fuck everypony else, I won.

A few days into the relationship I realized I had lost. The chase was over. The thrill was gone. I didn’t give a shit about Slipstream; he was the destination, and now that I had arrived there was nowhere else to go. I slip into a depression that lasted for days. When Slip caught on and asked what was wrong, I told him we were done. He asked me why, and as I fumbled with my answer Slip leaned into me and planted a sweet, shadow of a kiss on my open mouth. When the kiss ended I shoved Slipstream and screamed something about hating his guts and never wanting to see him again. He didn’t say anything back, but he had this look on his face like he couldn’t decide if what had just happened was hilarious or heartbreaking. It was long flight home that day.

Thankfully, the next day was a Saturday so I didn’t have to go to school. I had my parents helped me haul all my stupid comic book paraphernalia to Page’s place so I could sell it pack to him. He frowned and told me he’d only be able to give me a fraction of what I originally paid.

“That’s cool,” I remember saying as I stood in front of his counter, sheepishly scratching the back of my neck. “Not like I was expecting a refund.”

As Page riffled through my boxes of childhood adventure I tried to ignore the flicker of nostalgia in his big, goofy-looking hazel eyes. Selling my comics felt like a betrayal. Page and I had shared laughs and been swept up in heated discussions over the words and illustrations in these stupid glossy-paged picture books, and saying that I didn’t want them anymore was like saying I didn’t want Page anymore. That didn’t seem fair to him.

Page stopped his riffling half way through the third box and dramatically adjusted his glasses. He plucked a single issue from the bunch and laid it down on the counter for me to see.

“Sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to buy this one,” he said, feigning a disappointed look. “It’s worthless. You’ll have to keep it.”

I looked down at the lone comic and smiled. It was Batmare issue number #137. Page winked at me. It was a cheesy thing to do—but I was glad he did it.

On Monday morning I bumped into a very angry Gilda. She was waiting for me at the gate wearing a scowl that reminded me that griffins are predators. She told me to meet her behind the bungalows after school because we needed to talk, and I laughed in her face and asked her what there was to talk about it. It was a fucked up thing to do, but Slip and Page and this whole crazy semester had me feeling sick and mixed up. Gilda was the last person in the sky I wanted giving me shit about everything that had happened, but by then it was too late. Our time and place of reckoning had already been set. After school behind the bungalows. It was time to pony up and face the music.

I remember standing behind the bungalows and watching the sun hide its face behind a mass of grey clouds. It’s strange to experience a cloudy day in Cloudsdale. It only happens every blue moon and only because some lazy factory worker is pulling his dick instead making sure all the clouds are hanging at the right altitude.

As I squinted up at the grey veil that hid the sun’s face, it occurred to me that I couldn’t chalk up the dreary weather to simple equine error. Doing that would have cheapened all the thoughts, emotions, and events that had brought me here. I wanted the cloudy day to hold a more esoteric meaning. I wanted to believe that the sun was a sentient creature that hid it’s face because it wasn’t interested in seeing my petty high-school drama run its course. I remember looking up and wondering how many stories like mine it had ignored. I remember feeling small and alone, and in that moment I realized just how utterly insignificant my story was. Then Gilda shouted my name from behind, and I forgot all about the sun with its mask of grey fluff and its bored disposition.

Gilda called me all sorts of names. She screamed. She might have cried; I don’t remember now. What I do remember is that Gilda shoved me during her tantrum. It wasn't painful, just surprising. Jarring. I had been picked on and bullied before but nopony had ever gotten physical with me. Ponies don’t fight all that much; our heads aren't wired for it. Gilda's no pony but she'd been living like us for so long our sensibilities had been bred into her. She was domesticated—a jungle cat without fangs or claws, no more of predator than I was.

The moment after the shove was strange and frightening for both of us. It was as if we'd discovered this entirely new way of communicating. Of solving problems.

Thinking about it now, I never would have hit Gilda if she hadn't shoved me. I couldn't have hit her; I wouldn't have known how. It was Gilda who taught me that new way of speaking. She opened my eyes to something ugly and to show my thanks I hit her so hard I broke her beak. I hit her so hard I cracked the domed ceiling of the sheltered world our parents and teachers had built for us with their lectures and their warnings and their rules. And hidden in the dull thump of my hoof slamming into her beak was a high that was better than flying or colts or the escapist fantasies trapped in the pages of my old comic books.

A sudden rush of adrenaline made my pulse pound. I hit Gilda again. Again. Again.

Then she hit me back…

After the fight I remember sitting on a cot in the nurses office with a wad of gauze pressed to the talon marks on my neck while I tripped out on the crazy thump, thump, thump of my heart going nuts in my chest. That was the first time since the day I pulled off the sonic rainboom that I was sure I was alive.

It was the same way I felt the night Twilight lost her horn. Same way I feel now...

Rainbow looks at me like I'm a stranger, like she doesn’t know who am in or where she is. Then something clicks in the back of her head and her expression softens. Her eyes turn into feathered pillows and she smiles at me like the punch-drunk clown she is. I try to match her smile but the cold air and the colder thing beating in my chest make forming the expression a chore.

"What are you smiling at?" I ask, unsure if Rainbow's grin is bothering me or not.

"Your face," Rainbow says as I help her back to all fours, her tone sober. "You remind of this punk I kicked in the beak when I was kid."

Rainbow winces as I lace one of her forelegs around my neck and tell her to lean on me.

"So, is this the part where you say sorry and I fall back into your hooves like nothing happened?" Rainbow says. She might be joking. She might be dead serious. Honestly, I can’t tell which.

"No. That part comes after you chide me for getting AJ hurt," I answer ruefully.

Rainbow laughs weakly. It’s a hollow sound at the back of dry throat, almost a wheeze. When the wheezing laugh becomes a cough the two of us start trudging toward Junior’s bar. I focus on putting one hoof in front of the other. I count the steps, trying hard not to think Applejack lying face up on the concrete or Spike lying curled up in the back seat of rainbow’s car or Junior’s corpse lying face down in the walk-in freezer.

I count the steps.

One. Two...

"Have we become that predictable?" says Rainbow. The notion seems to upset her.

Three. Four...

I wait for Rainbow to bring up AJ as we transverse the parking lot. When she doesn’t I find myself thinking about the flecks of saliva that sputtered from Junior’s mouth as I strangled him.

Five. Six...

I remember my thighs scissored around his midsection, squeezing, trying to grind his ribs into paste.

Seven. Eight...

I remember the sounds. The breathless, dogged gurgles. My name, desperate and misshapen on his foamy lips.

Nine...

He trashed for a long time. Longer than he should have.

During the trudge a random pedestrian catches sight of me and Rainbow and stops to watch us. Rainbow shouts at the poor stallion, asking him what the hay he thinks he’s staring at. The stallion gives a start, then shuffles off hurriedly with his nose pointed toward the ground. Others pass by without heeding us. Apparently we aren’t much of an anomaly this far into the bad side of town.

"...I'm sorry about all of this, Dash," I hear myself mumble as we cross the invisible threshold that marks the halfway point between where we started and where we’re going.

Rainbow keeps her gaze fixed on the blood trail forming beneath her she speaks. "Don't ever apologize to me again, egghead,” she says. There’s something like anger in her voice, but quieter. More detached. “If you say sorry one more time I'm going to start hitting you and I'm never going to stop. Just tell me what to do next. I want to help you nail these jerks, okay. So just tell me what's next."

She doesn't even look at me as she talks. I don't see her expression and her tone is hard to read, somehow I know Rainbow and I are done fighting. We've been chipping away at each other with chisels made of words and mean looks for the better part of a year, but that's over now. Rainbow just ended it with a few words.

She wants to help me. After all I've put her through, she's still dedicated to my mad cause. Element of Loyalty, I guess.

As I reach the door and push it open I'm struck with the almost crippling realization that Dash won't survive my crusade. Dash is dedicated to loyalty. To honor. There's no place for her this far from home. Not among all these thieves.

Without thinking, I nuzzle Rainbow’s cheek with my own as we cross into Junior’s bar. I think I’m trying to tell her that everything will work out in the end—but it feels like I’m saying goodbye.

Rainbow understands. She nuzzles me back, saying goodbye as well.

From wear Ah'm lyin' on the concrete Ah watch Twi 'n' Rainbow nuzzle each other as they stumble into Junior's place. Now ain't hardly the time to be gettin' jealous, but Ah feel the old green-eyed monster get to rustlin' 'round in mah guts just the same. It’s good to finally see them gettin' along, but it still grinds mah gears watchin’ them be so...close.

The door swings closed behind them, and for one minute too long Ah’m all alone with the cold air and the ache in mah back and the night sounds. Never much cared for the city at night. Ain’t like the countryside. The countryside gets tuckered out after sundown and goes to straight to sleep right along with the ponies livin’ on it. It’s quiet and peaceful, and if ya happen to wander out and have a gander up at the midnight-blue sky there ain’t no streetlights or neon billboards to stop ya from seein’ the stars. There ain’t nothin’ to see now. The sky’s empty and black.

After the minute goes by, Twi pushes open the door and steals across the empty lot. Ghostin’. Not makin’ a sound as she trots up to me. Neither of us says a word as Twi bites mah jacket collar, drags me inside, and lays me down across from Rainbow in a booth near the bar’s entrance. The table that’s separatin’ us might as well be a continent ‘cause that’s how far away Rainbow feels right now. She don’t so much as look at me as Twi piles mah limp body into the booth. She don’t say nothin’ either. Ah reckon Ah expect the silent treatment from Twi; when she ain’t barkin’ orders or throwin’ hissy fits Twi's usually clammed up in her own head, thinkin’ and schemin’. But Rainbow’s always been a doer, not a thinker. Ain’t like her to brood.

Twi steps out for a spell and then returns carryin’ Spike on her back. The little guy’s still asleep as she sets him down in the booth beside Rainbow. Then she plops down in the free space beside me and stares at her own hooves restin’ on the table. Ah watch her mouth get to workin’ silently. She don’t say nothin’, but her lips flap and she gets to drawin’ on the tabletop with her empty hoof like she’s strugglin’ to work through a complicated math problem only she can see. During her calculatin', Twi shakes her head a bunch of times like she keeps makin’ mistakes. The longer it goes on the more frantic her lip flaps get, until eventually Ah’m sure she’s cursin’ as she suffers through her make-believe equation. Then she stops all at once, runs a hoof through her frayed bangs, and starts rubbin' her forehead. Her eyes widen as she stares down at her unfinished math problem, and by now she’s sweatin’ all over and breathin’ heavy.

It’s a right frightenin’ sight, like watchin’ a nervous breakdown on mute. Ah look over at Rainbow to see what she’s makin’ of Twi’s behavior, only to find her passed out and lying face down on the table. Guess the beatin’ finally got her.

When Ah look back to Twi she’s starin’ square at me, and, without warnin, she pulls me into a tight hug. A burnin’ sensation two-steps across mah back as Twi squeezes, but Ah don’t have the heart to tell her she’s hurtin’ me. Ah grit mah teeth to keep from hollerin’ in pain as Ah pat her on the back. Ah even let her rest her chin on mah shoulder. Ya know, let her have her moment.

After what feels like a long time, Twi breaks the hug and slides out the booth. Ah watch her disappear into a door behind the counter that Ah reckon must lead to the kitchen. She reappears a few minutes later, strugglin’ to walk as she balances a metal tray on her back. There’re three bowls of what looks like ice cream sittin’ on the tray, and all three of them accidently drop to the floor as Twi comes stumblin’ from behind the counter. She stares down at the wasted ice cream and frowns.

Her eye twitches.

Then she loses it.

The sound of metal banging against wood jolts Rainbow awake. She swivels in her seat, sees Spike sleepin’ by her side, and blankets herself across him, hopin’ to shield the little guy from whatever’s attackin’ the bar. A few seconds skirt by before Rainbow chances a look up, and together me and her watch Twi throw herself quite the hissy fit. Twi don’t shout or curse or nothin’; she just keeps bangin’ her tray against the countertop until the wood chips and the metal tray bends and changes shape under the force of the blows. Me and Rainbow watch in silence, and when Twi huffs and stomps back into the kitchen, Rainbows turns and cocks an eyebrow, shootin’ me a look that says, “Seriously?”

Ah shrug, not knowin’ how else to answer.

Twi gives it another go. This time she carries each bowl one at a time, settin’ one down on the table before staggering back to the kitchen to grab another. When all three bowls are in place, Twi sits down in the booth and stares at us like she’s waitin’ to watch us eat. It’s so quiet and awkward Ah almost let out a nervous laugh.

“Right, spoons,” Twilight says with a start before joltin’ out her seat and racin’ back to the kitchen. Ah hear a crash followed by swearin’, then Twi wobbles back to the booth with a mouthful of silverware.

“Sorry,” she says, letting the spoons fall onto the table as she talks. “Guess I’m still not used to moving things without my magic. I don’t know how you earth ponies and pegasi do it.” Twilight lets out a bleak laugh and stares down at her front hooves like she don’t know what they’re for. “Oh wow, are my hooves shaking? It must be cold in here. Are you guys cold?”

“You’re just tired, sugar cube,” Ah say in the most soothin’ voice Ah can muster.

“Yeah. Just tired.” Twi hugs herself tight, shakin’ from a cold only she can feel. “You guys should eat something. Sorry I don’t have any real food to give you, just this ice cream.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrow. Ah ain’t sure why, but she glares at Twi as the purple mare gets up and tries nudgin’ Spike awake.

“Time to get up, little guy,” she coos. Spike don’t budge. “Come on, Spike, you’ve slept long enough. You need to eat something too.”

She nudges him a bit harder. Still nothin’. “Seriously, Spike, get up.”

Spike don’t move a lick. His bandages are soaked through and his face is sickly pale and he don’t move a lick.

“Spike… Spike!” Twi scopes him up in her forelegs and nuzzles his face. “Spike, get up. You—you need to eat something… You need to…”

Twi’s voice dies in her throat but her mouth don’t stop movin’. She scoops a spoonful of ice cream and tries to force Spike’s lips open.

Ice cream smears across the dragon’s cheek.

Rainbow buries her face in her hooves and shakes her head.

Twi tries force-feedin’ Spike for another half a minute before callin’ it quits. “Uh…It’ll be here when you wake up,” she says weakly, pattin’ the dragon’s crest. “I’ll be here too. I promise.” She sets Spike down in the booth and reclaims her seat beside me. She stares blankly and waits for one us to pony up and admit what we already know is true. Ah reckon Ah'm waitin' on Rainbow for the same thing. Waitin' for her to be the brave one and tell Twi how bad she messed up this time. Ah end up waitin' a long time for nothin'.

“Go ahead and eat,” says Twi, forcin’ a smile. “You don’t want it melt, do you?”

Me and Rainbow exchange wary glances.

“I said eat!” Twi roars, makin’ the bowls jump as her hooves come crashin’ down on the table. She stands up, her shoulders square, her hooves restin’ on the tabletop. She glares at me from behind frayed bangs. It’s a challengin’ look. The kind one pony give another when they're lookin’ for an excuse to get some hurtin’ done.

Ah glance down at the bowl of ice cream. Twi’s gettin’ sloppy. Losin’ her touch. Whatever poison she sprinkled or poured into this here bowl is givin’ off a mighty powerful stink. If she thinks Ah’m dumb enough to eat this slop then she really has lost her—

“Mmmm, thanks egghead,” says Rainbow with a satisfied sigh as she swallows a mouthful of ice cream. “That really hit the spot.”

Ah almost scream as Ah start to warn Rainbow about the food, but she pops another spoonful into her mouth and shakes her head at me real inconspicuous-like.

She knows. Rainbow knows Twi’s drugged the food but she’s playin’ along anyway. Element of Loyalty, Ah reckon. Rainbow still trusts Twi. As crazy as our hornless friend is, Rainbow don’t think Twi has it in her to really hurt us. Least that’s what Ah’m guessin’ as Ah lift mah spoon and close mah lips around it. Ah could be dead wrong. Could be Rainbow’s just lookin’ for a way out. Maybe we're swallowin’ a helpin’ of somethin’ lethal. Maybe it’s just meant to knock us out so Twi can cut our throats while we sleep. Either way we’d be done with it. Maybe that’s all Rainbow wants. Shucks, maybe that's what Ah want mah self.

The ice cream ain’t half-bad. It don’t even taste tampered with...

After the first three spoonfuls, the room gets darker, like somepony put shades on all the lamps. After the fourth mah forelegs turn into wet noodles. Ah drop mah spoon and knock over the bowl as Ah smack face-first onto the tabletop.

A smile that must look mighty dopey settles on mah lips as the pain in mah back ebbs away.

Ah hear a dull thud that must be Rainbow fallin’ out the booth.

Twilight mumbles an apology from miles away.

Before the creepin' darkness eats me alive, Ah think about how Twi and Rainbow nosed each other as they stumbled into the bar. Ah think about me and Twi’s fight in the backseat of the car and her cruel wire garrote wrappin’ ‘round that feller Soprano’s neck.

Ah wonder what happened to Soprano. Ah ain’t seen him since Twi broke his forelegs and dragged him inside.

Ain’t seen Junior neither…