Anon opened his eyes.
A light breeze from the open window swayed the curtains, parting them in the middle. With each gust of air a thin beam of sunlight penetrated inside, flickering directly into Anon's face. If he hadn't been so sleepy and had experience working as a signalman in the fleet, Anon would have noticed that the Morse code beam flashing on his face carried a message: "Get up, you lazy bastard."
Taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air, he sat up on the edge of the bed, exhaled, and looked through the bright gap between the curtains. From there, if he squinted, he could see that Ponyville had already woken up long ago and its residents were bustling around the Golden Oak Library in various directions, smiling and chatting among themselves. Today was another incredibly important holiday in honor of someone who three hundred years ago grew the first beet in the city's history somewhere nearby. Perhaps this event warranted a whole day off and a lavish festival, but it definitely didn't warrant getting out of bed. So Anon lay back down.
The sun continued to telegraph messages directly into Anon's eyes, and he got up again, pulled the curtains tightly shut so that not a single ray dared to disturb him, and crawled back under the covers, rolling onto his back, stretching out into a starfish pose and gazing at the ceiling.
It seemed he had promised that this time he would happily jump through the streets, sing songs, find friends, and unite with harmony and magic as Twilight wanted from him, and as Princess Celestia wanted from her in turn. The latter seemed to be tired of serious conversations with nobles and wanted to unwind by listening to Anon's versions of stories about Ponyville life, which is why she persuaded him to attend every existing festival. During their last tea party, while discussing human history her eye twitched more than usual, royal duties clearly weren't easy for her.
Princess Luna, on the other hand, tried to talk to him about friendship through the world of dreams, but lately Anon skillfully avoided her in his dreams, jumping between his memories and trying to find lost spoons with some ghostly old guy. Anon never lost any spoons in reality, but in his dreams the feeling of their loss still haunted him. Just tonight he had finally seen them for the first time and was ready to grab them, but the cursed sun decided that the hunt for cutlery couldn't end so easily.
“Thoughts, I order you to stop. Full shutdown.”
Yet they didn’t. So, the beet festival. In two minutes, someone would politely knock on the door, Anon wouldn't answer, Twilight would crack open the door, Anon would continue pretending to sleep, Twilight wouldn't believe him and would start convincing him to go out because he promised, Anon would stop pretending and start arguing with her bringing up any arguments to avoid going anywhere.
The beet festival itself was probably not bad, maybe even great. Worse than the apple, pear, carrot, tomato, and watermelon festivals, but better than the radish, potato, and mushroom festivals. But it was impossible to say for sure, because if Anon attended each of them, he would have gone crazy and turned into a vegetable himself. So he was determined to fight for his place in bed to the last drop of sweat and blood, and if possible, until the last ray of light, because by that time everyone would have dispersed and there would be no need to fight anymore. And who even likes beets?
Someone gently knocked on the door.
"Anon?" came a muffled voice.
Raise the shields, we're starting.
"Anon, are you getting ready already?"
No, and I don't plan to.
The door cracked open slightly, revealing a horn, and then slowly Twilight's muzzle appeared. Finding Anon amidst the rumpled bed, her face instantly fell, and after a second it even took on a look of offense, which he didn't see. Pony muzzles are a formidable argument in any dispute, and they should be avoided at all costs.
"Anon, you can't miss the fourth festival in a row! You promised, you promised everyone! You can't just not go!"
...
"You don't even have to be there all day, just a couple of hours, and you'll enjoy it yourself!"
...
"Anon, even foals don't behave like this! Up!" Twilight's horn lit up and the curtains parted, flooding the room with annoying bright light. Then her magic traveled to the blanket covering Anon, which began to rise toward the ceiling forcing him to cling to the fabric to prevent himself from being exposed. Twilight's magic proved stronger than human hands, but not by much, so the blanket soared upward toward the ceiling, and Anon, holding onto it, flew in the same direction.
"What the hell! I was sleeping, Twi!" Anon shouted from above, slowly spinning and clutching the blanket suspended in the air.
Twilight irritably flicked her tail and wrapped the ends of the blanket in magic, pulling them under Anon's feet to be ready to catch him but not yet returning him to the bed.
"Ok, alright! You know, I've been thinking all night about the value of beets in my life, and I've come to the conclusion that it leans towards zero. And in the end, because of a night of beet thoughts, I didn't get enough sleep. And besides, I've already been to three festivals and who knows how many parties." Anon looked down, assessing the height. "So there's no reason to go to them again. Can you ground me now?"
Twilight sadly lowered her head, and following her movement the blanket began to descend along with its passenger. "Anon, I understand that it's calmer and more interesting in the library than outside, I sometimes get too carried away too. But you can't always be like this! The princesses are worried that you talk to them less, our whole group is waiting for new stories from you, and everyone in Ponyville wants to see you! You used to be so... a-active when you first arrived here, but now you're appearing outside less and less. Everyone is starting to worry, and... I am too."
"If I hadn't been that active, you would have chased me with pitchforks and torches on the day we met." Anon, back on the bed again, wrapped himself back in the comforting blanket and looked at Twilight.
Oh no.
It was the saddest and most worried face he had seen in his entire life.
And the shields fell.
"So I uh... I just don’t really feel like going anywhere today. I’ll be fine, you go and have fun." Anon turned away, trying once again to shield himself from the heart-piercing sight.
"Did something happen? If something happened, just tell us, we're all here and can help you with anything, talk about whatever you want! Are you homesick? You've never talked about your family once!"
"By the holy light just stop, I’ll go. And now out, you’ve seen enough half-naked humans today."
Anon walked down the street with Twilight, passing various stalls with games dedicated to beets, dedicated to other vegetables because someone was too lazy to make a beet-related stand, stands with foal's toys in the shape of beets and sometimes just stalls with uncleaned beets in a box from local farmers.
"Well, here we are! What do you want to try first?" Twilight was extremely pleased that she managed to finally get Anon out into the open and was now looking for something to do here.
"Beet!" squeaked a voice in the distance.
Anon began to recall his past experiences. "No idea. At the apple festival I tried Applejack’s cider and passed out on the spot, at the watermelon one they got watermelon impaled on my head, after the tomato one I spent a week washing off, so I’m just gonna wait and see what kind of crap will happen this time."
"Beet!" a bit closer this time.
"Look, a magical mysterious tent! They say it's only set up once a year at this festival, we can’t miss this one, let's go!" Twilight hooked onto the edge of Anon's shorts with her magic and pulled him forward, dragging him along.
"Beets! Hehehe!" Out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie appeared in front of them, placed two beets in Anon's hands, and then disappeared just as suddenly, leaving him in a daze staring at his occupied hands, unsure what to do next.
"Guess this one's yours." He handed one of them to Twilight. She smiled and took her vegetable in a magical aura, taking a bite and continuing to walk forward.
The large tent in brown and crimson stripes stood alone in the middle of the square, slightly tilting away from any passing breeze or pony. And there were quite a few ponies passing by and ignored the entrance, apparently not sharing Twilight's enthusiasm for the unique attraction.
They approached the fabric canopy, and Anon pulled it aside, letting Twilight pass through and following her inside.
Inside awaited someone's attempt to create a mystical ambiance from a jumble of cupboards with figurines of various creatures, pyramids, scraps of fabric on the walls, colorful carpets, candles, and other junk stolen from an old lady's house. All the clutter was illuminated by red stars hanging from the ceiling on threads, and behind them, directly opposite the entrance at a table, sat the tent's owner.
Trixie, her head resting on a crystal ball, was asleep.
"Oh." whispered Twilight.
"And that’s what happens when you spend all night pondering orbs," whispered Anon, moving inside, closer to the sleeping Trixie.
Reaching the table, he squatted down and looked at her peacefully sleeping face, which was surprisingly stable lying on the ball. Anon remembered the beet he still held in his hand, lifted it, and tickled Trixie's nose with the root. Twilight chuckled from behind, covering her mouth with a hoof. Trixie wrinkled her nose and squinted, snorting at the root trying to climb into her nostril, but Anon didn't stop and continued his attack.
Trixie snorted again and took a short breath, then another, and finally...
"Achoo!"
Her face slipped and pushed the ball, which rolled off the stand to the left. Anon quickly reacted and slapped it with his palm, sending it in the opposite direction, but Trixie, not fully awake yet, squeaked, enveloped the crystal ball with her magic and threw it to the right with too much force, sending it off the table. Flying toward the metal statue in the shape of a minotaur victoriously pointing the sword to the heavens, the ball landed right on the sword’s edge and shattered into dozens of shards with a crack.
All three looked at the shards, shimmering beautifully under the light of the red stars from the ceiling.
"Well, good morning to you."
Trixie dropped her head back onto the stand and groaned, closing her eyes and rubbing her nose with her hoof. "The Great and Powerful Trixie foretells decades of misfortune and sleepless nights for you."
"I... highly doubt this ball can predict even that now," Twilight said, approaching the shards and trying to magically reassemble them into a whole again, but piecing together this puzzle was not a task for a couple of minutes.
"Trixie spent the whole night decorating the tent, even brought out this incredible ball she bought with her last money during her tour of Griffonia! The master who made them said it takes a thousand years for each such masterpiece! Where will Trixie get another one?!" she pounded the table with her hoof, opening her eyes, fully awake now, and letting her anger out, snapping at Anon.
Anon and Twilight flinched slightly at her outburst, but Twilight quickly started to figure something out. "Trixie, you know that griffons can't cast spells, right? It takes, not a thousand, but... Ten years for any crystal like this to be made for sure. Although it doesn't seem like this one went through even a year of crystallization..." Twilight levitated a large shard closer to herself and began to examine the pattern of the break, searching for something understandable to her alone. "I can inspect this piece with a crystallographic analysis spell, then prepare a perfect adhesive to reassemble every other piece and then we..." She picked up another piece of crystal, inspecting the pattern of the fracture. It promptly split into two more pieces, sprinkling crystal dust and crumbs on the carpet.
Trixie, who had been watching her attempts with a small glimmer of hope, once again shot an angry look at Anon.
"It doesn't seem like it works well, otherwise you would have been prepared for this to happen," Anon responded to her angry glare.
"Trixie is putting you on the blacklist of all her shows, and you can be proud because you're the first one on that list," she hissed, stepping away from the table, picking up a cloth from the wall with magic, and collecting some of the shards lying on the floor. "And now, leave, you've already broken enough here."
"Trixie, wait, maybe we won't be able to put it back together, but growing crystals like these is really easy for unicorns! I'll ask Rarity for a good gemstone, and the three of us can literally grow a new ball right at her house in just a couple of hours, even better quality than this one. And Anon can help with the, um..."
While Twilight tried to figure out exactly how Anon's lack of magic could help grow a crystal, a small smile appeared on his face. Anon stood up straight and turned to Trixie. "Sorry, Trix, didn't mean to ruin your day. I'll definitely compensate you for the damage, someday... But since everything seems to be getting settled - have a great bonding time with the girls! If you need me, I’m at the library."
As Anon finished speaking he turned on the spot toward the exit, but then was turned back by purple and blue magical auras, simultaneously grabbing the edges of his clothes.
"And you'll fully repay all the damage, today! While Trixie personally creates a new masterpiece," she said, to Twilight's obvious displeasure, "you'll entertain the visitors until you gather all three thousand bits! And don’t you try to break anything else here!"
Anon coughed upon hearing the amount one could easily live on for a year in Ponyville without even thinking about a job. "Are you okay there, Trix? Maybe you'll sleep a bit more? I'm sure your shows make that much money in a day in your dreams, but I think reality usually plays out a bit different."
"Trixie means it. Three thousand bits, today, or you'll be coming to every show as an unpaid test subject for untested tricks!" she proudly raised her head and headed for the exit, passing by the shards, Anon, and Twilight. "Now let’s go Twilight, Trixie can't wait to see how she can predict thousands of years into the future!"
"You can't actually tell the future even using crystal balls, they're only used to more effectively cast spells in spherical area, or," Twilight began, but Trixie had already left the tent. Sighing tiredly, Twilight carefully moved away from the shards and started following her, but turned back to look at Anon. Seeing him still standing there with a beet in his hand next to the table with a bunch of magical items on it, she couldn't help but giggle. "Have a good time at the festival, Anon!"
"And that's what you get when you get up in the morning," Anon said to himself, watching Twilight leave the tent following Trixie.
Resigned to his fate, he circled the table and landed on a chair, which was too small to sit comfortably and creaked painfully under the human weight. The semi-darkness of the tent indeed induced drowsiness, but Anon had no plans to discover some vegetable in his nose like Trixie. To avoid that, he finally took a bite of the beet he had in his hand and pondered what to do next.
He could discreetly sell some of the junk that was scattered throughout the cabinets, Trixie probably didn't remember all her stuff by heart. Or maybe sell the entire tent at once? Nothing broken, money received. On top of one of the cabinets stood a pretty cool looking multi-colored cross with pentagrams and symbols on it, this thing alone looked like it was worth no less than a thousand.
Contemplating where Trixie got so much junk from and how much could be earned from it, Anon spent the next half hour looking around, all the while chewing on the beet. The more time passed, the more he leaned towards the tent-sale being his only option to earn money by noon. There were still no visitors.
Extremely unexpected to Anon the flap of the tent opened, revealing not the Trixie and Twilight, but his first visitors, quite unexpected ones for any festival: Filthy and Spoiled Rich, and their daughter, Diamond Tiara. Anon quickly stopped chewing, assumed a more businesslike look, and covered the half-eaten beet with his hand, slowly pushing it closer to himself in an attempt to hide it from the important ponies and leaving a long red streak on the table's surface.
Spoiled Rich critically inspected the tent and raised an eyebrow, huffing upon seeing Anon at the table. Her husband, on the other hand, was somewhat surprised by the scene from the minotaur figurine, which stood in an epic pose amidst the shards of the broken crystal ball, but just smiled and continued walking towards Anon, who was wiping the beet juice from his cheek.
"Good day, Anonymous. Didn't expect to meet you here. I heard you were extremely busy with Twilight Sparkle working on some project and haven't left the library for quite some time. Care to share the secret?"
Anon swallowed the remains of the beet he was trying to chew inconspicuously. "Good day to you too... Didn't think you had time to attend such events. Can't say we're working on anything secretive, I just spend evenings reminiscing about various crap from the human world, and Twi tries to recreate it, usually with an explosion or melted floor."
Squirming in his chair, he continued to move his hand towards himself until he finally managed to push the vegetable off the edge of the table. The beet fell down, and he tried to catch it with his knees, but it bounced off his leg and landed on the floor with a dull thud, rolling out from under the table right under Filthy Rich's hooves. Diamond Tiara and Spoiled Rich wrinkled their noses simultaneously.
"Dad, can we go somewhere else? This place still looks boring, but now it smells and is all dirty," Tiara said, taking a step back towards the exit.
Spoiled Rich approached her husband, leaning against him, and gave Anon a reproachful look. "Nothing changed a bit since the last time. If you expect ponies like us to dedicate even a second of our time to your business, you should finally start doing at least something to properly run it."
"Girls, everything's fine," the stallion replied calmly. "You can go look for something more interesting outside for now, but I need to sort out a few things here, this won't take too long."
Spoiled Rich snorted quietly, turned around, and headed for the exit. "Those festivals never fail to disappoint. Let’s try to find some worthy entertainment, Tiara." The filly waited until her mother exited the tent and followed her.
Filthy stepped over the beet on the floor and approached the table, sitting down on a chair in front of Anon. "Let's talk business, shall we? Last year, as far as I remember, this attraction was run by Trixie Lulamoon, and I had the chance to hear a few of her predictions about my family, and most importantly, about my enterprise. I can't say that all of them were accurate and detailed, but there was a grain of truth in them, and I found some parallels with reality, so I want to have a couple of words with her. Are you her assistant today?"
"Trixie had urgent matters to attend to, so I have to sit in this tent to replace her and earn money, otherwise she'll have to live off free samples of vegetables she gets at this festival."
Rich tapped the hoof against the table and pushed himself away from it with his front hooves, backing up on the chair. "Well, that's a shame. I would have liked to speak with her outside of the festival, but these traveling magicians are so elusive, I never managed to figure out which routes she uses to move around. Thank you for your time, Anonymous."
"Oh come on, do you really think I'll do worse than her? I guarantee you, half of what she tells you she makes up on the spot, and the other half she takes from a handbook titled "How to give the most vague answers to any questions."
Rich stood up from the chair and pushed it back into place, not intending to stay. "I don't mean to offend you, but the fact that you have no magic in you is widely known throughout the town. Even if you doubt Trixie's abilities, there's no guarantee you have any yourself."
"Wanna bet?" Anon asked challengingly.
Rich froze in place, not expecting such a retort. He chuckled with an intonation exactly like his wife's and walked back to the table. "I see you have a competitive spirit? Admirable. But don't disappoint me, Anonymous, my time costs a lot of money." With these words, he deftly pulled five bits from a small saddlebag and placed them on top of each other in front of him, making Anon's eyes widen at the realization of the amount of work he had to do to turn Trixie's dreams of income into reality.
Having no idea what he was doing, Anon reached for the first magical item he could find on the table, which turned out to be a beige cloth with red squares, wrapping something inside. Unwrapping the cloth, he found a deck of cards facing him with golden reverse sides.
Rich tilted his head to the side, intrigued by the choice. "You have a somewhat different approach, interesting. Trixie told me that her crystal balls are more effective than any other tool."
Taking the deck in his hands, Anon began quickly flipping through the cards, trying to understand what he was supposed to do with them. They were covered with most diverse nonsense, from which one could only determine the fate of a medieval pony-knight, who had nothing to look forward to in his life but cups, swords, and sticks. Understanding that he understood nothing, Anon replied to Rich, "Trixie decided that there are things more effective, so she enthusiastically smashed her ball on the floor. Now she predicts the future only by the hairs falling out of a manticore's ass during the autumn solstice."
"Oh, that's... Unusual... Are you serious?"
"No. Or yes."
Obeying an inner feeling, Anon pulled out two random cards from the deck and placed them on the table in front of him.
The first card was signed at the bottom as "Wheel of Fortune" depicting an orange circle with incomprehensible symbols, and around it, on clouds with books in their paws, lay various magical creatures from the Everfree Forest. The second one had the inscription "Ace of Pentacles" and it showed a hoof extending from a cloud with a huge coin laying on the frog of the hoof.
So, is it really that simple? Luck and money?
I don't believe it. If it worked like this, the line to this tent would start from Canterlot. For sure there is some hidden meaning in these symbols, or you need to combine the drawings into some figure, or multiply the number of letters by the number of words on, uh...
Anon traced his finger around the yellow coin on the card, circling it. The surface of the card was smooth, and his finger easily slid across it. A strange sensation appeared in Anon's head, and the world around him became hazy. He couldn't tear his gaze away from the edges of the coin.
And then he sharply turned his head towards the wheel of fortune, which at that moment reminded him not of a wheel, but of a clock. The space between the cards blurred, not giving him a chance to look away from the drawings. Yielding to the ringing silence in his head and being in a trance-like state, Anon answered without hesitation.
"You are rapidly balding."
Filthy Rich's eyebrows shot into another dimension. "What?!"
Anon traced his finger around the coin again, feeling its smoothness. "Yes, it's all clear here - this is your future. Smooth and hairless, with a gentle breeze and your wife's hoof caressing your soft skin."
Anon pulled out the next card. Before them appeared the card "The Sun" half of which was occupied by the sun with a huge face on it. "Man, look at that, you are just s-h-h-h-ining in here. Just a couple more months and by going outside without a hat you'll be able to blind every passerby."
Anon tore his gaze away from the cards and directed it at Filthy Rich, who was bewilderedly blinking at what was happening. "And looking at you closely, your mane is already looks like it’s plastic or something. How much hair spray do you dump into it every morning?"
Rich snapped out of his stupor and thumped the card with the sun with his hoof, pressing it to the table. "Not a word to anyone about this."
"For real?! Did I get it?"
Rich groaned and leaned back, hiding his face behind his hoof. "It's a family problem. But even my grandfather didn't start losing volume until he was sixty, and me? Every morning, a full drain of fallen hair in the bathtub... And doctors give me useless excuses about genetics. It's more than unfair!"
While the businesspony began to recount his hairy tragedy, Anon reached for the next card. "And let me tell you, Anon, those who say that appearance doesn't matter - they blatantly lie to you. The first impression is the key to everything, and in my line of work, it's not even a key, it's a requirement without which it's not worth even starting to work..."
"The Chariot." In a construction more resembling a box with a cover on top than a chariot, stood another pony in golden attire, while lazily lounging at the bottom were two sphinxes in those Egyptian headdresses with black and white stripes.
Stripes and stripes, black and white... Ha, yeah.
"Have you tried going to Zecora? From what I know, she has a strategic storage of potions for absolutely any problem that appears in this world. Surely there will be something for baldness there."
"And I tried! I've already sent three hired couriers to her, and she sent them all back without anything. How am I supposed to approach a hermit who isn't even satisfied with absurd amounts of money?"
The deck rustled again, and on the table appeared the "King of Pentacles" and "Knight of Swords." On the first one, a unicorn sat on a throne, with his robe completely covered in grapes and vines. He held a coin in a magical aura with a somewhat arrogant expression, looking off to the side. On the second card, a pegasus flew forward splitting the air, with a sword clenched in its teeth.
"She's been living in a hut for years and feels great, chews grass and enjoys life. Do you suggest she should build a three-story mansion in the forest on your money, or open a factory for canning wild mushrooms? Go to her yourself." Anon tapped his finger on the drawing of the flying pegasus. "And ask for what you want personally. All she needs is a little respect."
"Anonymous, I am far from the adventures your friends so love, and I'm not going to wander through the Everfree Forest. I have a wife, a filly, a serious business, and I still want to live!"
Anon shrugged. "When you're completely bald, come visit. I've never seen a pony without hair before, that'll be cool."
Rich pursed his lips and looked at the cards on the table, then ran his hoof through his mane. The mane didn't move from the touch, completely solid from the insane amount of spray spent on it.
"I have no choice, do I?" Anon shrugged again, gesturing towards the cards. "You're right... Oh Celestia. I've tried everything, but I don't see any more ways out of this." He nervously tapped his hoof on the table. "Thank you for the advice.” He was silent for sometime, before speaking up once more. “However, now we must-"
Anon abruptly raised his hand, stopping him. Slightly closing his eyes and deeply breathing in, he reached for the cards already drawn from the deck and blindly picked up the "Wheel of Fortune" from the table, showing the card to Filthy Rich. "Time, Rich, time. I feel that your time is near. Hurry up."
"What? W-wait! I came here to-!"
His hand darted to the deck, drawing a new card.
DEATH.
Filthy Rich paled, his nostrils flared as he sucked in air. He recoiled in horror, falling off the chair, turned around, and galloped out of the tent.
Anon watched in surprise as Rich almost flew away from him and turned the card towards himself to examine it more closely.
A pony skeleton in black armor marched over bodies lying on the ground, carrying a black flag with a white flower on it. Kneeling before him was a unicorn-priest and a pony with a foal, praying for mercy. But all of that seemed extremely irrelevant.
To the right of them, in the background, stood two small white towers, between which, almost unnoticeable at first glance, the sun was shining, rising from the horizon.
"Hm, looks like he should have gone to her tomorrow morning."
Visitors hadn't come for quite a while. It was amazing how Trixie managed to survive with such a job, and how her life outside the festivals went was probably only known by magical spheres. On the other hand, even in Ponyville, there were enough celebrations for any idiotic reason, and it was quite likely that the situation was no better in other cities.
Anon shuffled the deck, and the rhythm of his movements resembled the rhythm of a heart.
Shik-Shik. Shik-Shik. Together with the rocking on the chair, it was very soothing, and Anon began to feel drowsy. Moreover, the crimson-colored tent was nicely warming up in the sun, intensifying the desire to just lie down on the table and turn this attraction from a mystical corner into the first museum in Equestria with a human body inside. For now just a sleeping one, but eventually the one who went extinct from boredom.
It was all so strange. Were the cards themselves magical, or was it finally a surge of the magic of friendship breaking through Anon, awakening some hidden abilities? The most logical explanation was the former, but Trixie was primarily doing non-magical tricks, and she tried not to enchant her things too often. And there was no burning Hiroshima radiation from the cards, which Anon usually felt from any enchanted items.
Finally, the edge of the tent swayed again, interrupting Anon's thoughts. A light sandy-colored pegasus cautiously entered, examining every corner, with lush crimson curls and green glasses.
“Oh, how mysterious... And...” She paused for a moment, slightly taken aback to find a non-pony at the table.
“Good day, or I hope it's evening, I can't tell from inside here. It’s Anon, and you are, miss?”
The pegasus, upon hearing a familiar name, took a few more confident steps forward. “Oh, it is Mrs. Shy, I think you might recognize me as Fluttershy's mother, if she mentioned me. She told me once that she had a new unusual, um... hu-man friend among her friends. I believe that's you?”
“Yes, a human, the only one around. Fluttershy didn't mention you, or maybe I just didn’t hear her as usual, but it's nice to meet you anyway. What brings you to my scorchingly hot abode?”
Shy managed to reach the table but couldn't quite bring herself to sit down or articulate her problem aloud just yet. “I don’t even know, now that I’m here… Please, forgive me in advance... It's a rather personal matter, and I'm not entirely sure I can share it that easily... Oh I just should’ve stayed home and talked with him...” Her voice trembled slightly.
Anon stopped shuffling the deck and placed it on the table to his right, stretching his shoulders and gearing up to get three more measly coins. "Don't worry, everything here is confidential. Absolutely no one will learn your story, I swear I won't go around telling it to everyone when I'm drunk or write memoirs based on it."
Shy sat on a stool in front of Anonymous and sighed intermittently. "Thank you, Anonymous, but it's still not easy to talk about all this..."
"Start whenever you're ready, we're not in a hurry." Anon began leaning back to rest against the chair's back, but there were no chair backs in Equestria, and he quietly cursed, almost falling backwards.
Shy had been staring at the floor the whole time, trying to find the strength to begin her story. Finally, she nodded her head and started. "Lately, my... relationship with my husband has changed somewhat."
Celestia save me, It would have been better if it had been another balding problem. I didn’t sign up to be a family therapist!
"We've been through so much together, raised two wonderful foals. I thought we'd faced all the trials, avoided all the fights that tear other families apart, and now we were looking at a peaceful life ahead..."
Anon nodded, listening, already expecting a story of intrigue, infidelity, divorce, splitting the cloud house in half with a magical saw, and a whole lake of tears on the floor of the tent.
"But about four months ago, our neighbors sold their house, and we immediately got a new neighbor."
Here we go...
Shy traced one hoof over the other, continuing. "She's my age, has no family. My husband met her first, and she immediately wanted to meet me, so we met right on the day of her move. She is very sweet and kind, so we quickly found something to talk about."
Now that’s a twist in a good direction, and please don’t twist anywhere else.
"She spends a lot of time with us, and I understand her feelings. It can be very tough for a lonely pegasus to live without a wing to support them... But I... I can't." Shy's voice quivered again, and she lifted the tip of her wing to wipe away a tear, using the other wing to hide her eyes. "I'm afraid that when I leave the house even for a minute, she comes... to him, and..."
Anon gritted his teeth, the second time today he had to endure the onslaught of adorable pony faces, losing to them without a single chance.
"I just want to know... Maybe these are just my foolish fears, but... What's going on between them? And what will happen to the three of us next?"
Anon sighed, unclenching his teeth and daring himself enough to look at Mrs. Shy, who sniffed and wiped away the last tear with her wing.
Why did you have to come here right now? I’m sure that Trixie has already learned a million answers to such questions that don't answer anything but leave everyone satisfied. But me? Hell. Fluttershy, if I ruin your family - sorry, it was an accident.
"This is a very serious question, Mrs. Shy. There's nothing silly here, you simply care about your family. I'll see what I can do."
With a little movement of hand, the first card landed on the table. The "Ace of Wands" depicted a dragon's claw emerging from a cloud, tightly gripping a large stick.
A stick. Just one. What am I supposed to get from this?
...
Just a stick. Bonk?
...
No, I don't get it. But I have the feeling that only the stick matters and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else?
...
Well, it's a good stick, looks like a nice club, very convenient for beating someone. Do they have fights with it? No? Bed wrestling? Also no? That’s good, at least that is out of the question. But still, what the hell does it mean?
…
Well then get out of here, I'll figure you out later. With a finger swipe, Anon sent the card to the left, and it slid across the table towards the cloth where the entire deck had originally been, half-disappearing under the fabric.
Time for the next picture, not yet seen by Anon. "The Fool" showed an earth pony at the edge of a cliff by the sea with a white flower in its mouth, elegantly and almost with enjoyment stepping forward. But one is not enough. The next one - "Page of Wands," showed a diamond dog holding a stick in his paw, looking at it as if seeing a piece of wood for the first time in his life.
The first one is definitely about her husband, I feel like he’s an idiot in this story. Okay, maybe just a fool. And he's free. No, not like that, he's just found freedom, look at how he holds it, eyes are sparkling like he found it all. What, got tired of your wife?
Anon reached for two cards at once, hoping to clarify everything at once this time. The dragon queen on the "Queen of Cups" was examining a golden cup in her claws while sitting on a throne surrounded by gold, but unlike the diamond dog from the previous card, her face did not express any satisfaction with the find. On the "Nine of Swords," a pony curled up and huddled in bed lay simply crying.
And here you are, Mrs. Shy. I see those "silly fears" didn't arise out of nowhere, you're blatantly lying to me. You're hiding something, you've found something. Obviously not the stash of gold your husband was hiding from you in the duffel bag in the closet. Or maybe it is gold? Found some money and felt like a macho, making new life plans with the new neighbor. Hell with it, I need to let her tell everything herself, the less I say, the less Fluttershy will kill me later.
Breaking away from examining the images, Anon shifted his attention to Shy, who had returned to scrutinizing the floor, waiting for his response. "Mrs. Shy." She lifted her head. "This is all very difficult, I understand, but my tools aren't always effective because they're covered in useless occult shit, so I need a little help from you. I know you found something, and you didn't like it at all."
Shy flinched and recoiled as if shocked. Summoning all her strength, she still managed to respond, "I-in the bedroom... I found a golden br-bracelet. It..." sobbing once more, Shy raised her wings and completely hid behind them, whispering the remaining words and finally bursting into tears. "It's not mine!"
Anon couldn't resist and leaned across the entire table, reaching out and gently stroking her wing. "Shy, we'll figure everything out, everything will be okay."
Crap, what a dick. But judging by what I've seen here the neighborly docking procedure was not initiated yet. But what was initiated? I still haven’t visited your head, family wrecker…
Continuing to stroke Shy's wing, Anon reached for another card, which turned out to be the "Queen of Wands." A pony-queen sat on the throne with a stick and a sunflower held in her front hooves, while a black cat sat beneath her throne.
She's a cat lady. Is this dangerous or not? Do cat ladies break families often? My mind is literally blank here, I need more of something.
But the next card was the title card of the deck, with the name of the deck written on an absolutely white background, and in the center lay a single white feather, casting a small shadow on the background.
The hell do you mean this is it?! I still don't get it, and I have a crying pony waiting! My magic limit is reached or what? Do I need to make a sacrifice? Summon Satan? What do you want? I just need to know what's going on in their bedroom, is it too much to ask?!
Almost giving up, Anon drew the "Seven of Cups" in a final attempt to understand anything in this situation. In the card, a unicorn stood with its back to Anon, facing seven cups among which the unicorn tried to make a choice: one with a snake, one with a crown, one with a head, one...
Not it, not it!
In one of the cups sat a pegasus, covered with white fabric that left only its splayed wings visible, while the fabric draped over him glowed with a red magical light, drawing attention to itself.
He's hiding. Hiding something under the fabric. Everything's hidden under the fabric, both here and there. And here?
Anon suddenly looked to his left, where the "Ace of Wands" card that he had drawn at the very beginning still lay half-covered by the cloth. Time around him seemed to slow and fixate his attention on the card, forcing him to look at it. And something flickered in Anon's eyes.
A vision.
OH GOD. What the fuck, why did you show me that?! It all makes sense now… But I don’t want it to make this sense, please unmake this sense! No-ho-hooo… How the fuck am I even supposed to tell her that?!
Withdrawing his hand from Mrs. Shy, who was quietly crying in her place, Anon covered his face with his hands and leaned back on the chair, which still had no backrest, so he fell and cursed loudly.
Startled, Shy opened her wings, seeing Anon rising from the floor. Sitting back down, he rested his elbow on the table and put his forehead in his hand, looking down at the cards with a thousand-yard stare.
"Mrs. Shy, you found not only the bracelet, right?"
Shy's lips trembled. "I-i found everything… The whole… The whole whorsehouse!" she exclaimed.
"Mrs. Shy, I uh… Look, it may be hard to believe... But I want to tell you that your new friend is not involved in this. I'm sure she's a very nice mare, and there's nothing between her and your husband."
Anon sighed heavily, glancing at the deck's cloth once more. A large piece of wood drawn on the card proudly stuck out from under the cloth.
"Everything you found at home... No matter what it was, gold bracelets, ribbons, cosmetics, and... Oh god, lingerie - those are not your friend's belongings,"
Shy froze, hanging onto his every word.
"but your husband's."
In absolute silence, echoes of pony conversations, vendors' calls, and foals' laughter echoed from the street.
"And I think while we're here talking, he's probably trying everything on."
Mrs. Shy's cheeks began to flush.
"Oh… Oh my."
Anon opened his eyes.
A light breeze from the street gently swayed the entrance of the tent, partially opening it and letting air inside. Sunlight also penetrated inside, breaking the mystical atmosphere created by Trixie with a yellow color.
After Mr. Shy unexpectedly quickly while blushing flew home another hour passed, during which no one entered the tent. So, after three hours - ten bits.
"Three thousand bits... Maybe I can pretend I misheard her and unload three thousand beets next to her wagon? That would definitely be cheaper if I manage to find a place with discounts for large orders."
From behind the tent slope appeared a familiar purple horn, followed by all of Twilight.
"Anon, I'm back!" Twilight said, approaching Anon. On her back, a large bag was securely fastened in the saddlebag, with something round inside. "We finished with the new orb, but Trixie couldn't handle it and fell asleep in the middle of the spell. Had to leave her with Rarity."
Anon nodded and gave her a quick thumbs up.
"How was your time? You look pretty tired, did clients come by?"
"A couple did, yeah," Anon replied tiredly, running a hand through his hair.
"Really? And did you predict their future?" Twilight smiled. "Or show them your disappearing finger trick?"
"I saw the future, Twilight. And the present. And I really want to go back to the past."
She looked at him in surprise, then at the table, noticing the deck of cards on it. "Did you use trot cards? You know they were invented by aristocrats about a hundred years ago for games and theatrical rituals, not for predictions?"
"I had no idea. But for some reason, they work for me."
"They work? They're just drawings, Anon, they're not even enchanted."
Anon took the deck in his hand and spun it around. He still didn't feel any magic.
"But if you're so sure... How does my future look like?"
"Probably very purple," Anon replied and began shuffling the cards, more skillfully than at the beginning of the day, gaining experience after spending a whole day in the tent with a deck of cards in his hands. His head felt remarkably light and free from thoughts. And slightly dizzy, so he wanted to stop this charade of predictions and at least go outside to breathe.
After finishing shuffling, Anon took three cards from the top of the deck and placed them face down on the table, then three more, and three more, laying each one in a corner, forming a diamond shape. Setting aside the deck, he leaned forward to the first cards, which he placed closer to Twilight.
The first card - labeled "The Magician", showed a unicorn with a black infinity sign above its head, holding a white wand in his magical aura, while his hoofes were hidden by lush bushes of flowers.
Well, she certainly is magical, no surprises here.
But the inscription at the bottom of the card suddenly faded into the background, and the infinity sign above the unicorn seemed like a black hole, attracting all attention, not allowing him to focus on other details.
And, she is uh... Infinite? Eternal? The hell does that mean?
His hand moved on its own to the remaining two cards from the trio, flipping them - "Two Of Pentacles" and "The Emperor."
On the first one, a pony stood on its hind legs and danced while holding the infinity sign with two coins on its ends, on the second one, a crowned pegasus sat on a throne, his beard catching Anon's attention.
Eternal dances of the elderly? Or an endlessly long beard? Eternal old age? Doesn’t make sense anyway. Listen, magic, I've played enough riddles for today, just highlight letters for me, it'll be faster.
…
Seriously? Couldn't you just do that from the start?
F... o... and o again... c... and another o... and now f... and again f. So... Foocoof... Wait, wait, fooc off? You fooc off!
Twilight examined the cards together with Anon, trying to guess their meaning on her own and throwing glances at her fortune teller, who studied the drawings with a tense face and furrowed brows.
Reaching for another card, he turned over "The Empress", where Celestia sat on a red cushion with an unreadable expression on her face. Something clicked in Anon's mind, and he pushed all the open cards closer, examining them all simultaneously.
Magic, eternity, old age, eternity, power. Eternal life and eternal power through magic, is that what you're trying to tell me? So that means...?
From the deck came "The Hermit" with a bearded unicorn holding a lantern in an aura and bowing its head down, with what seemed to Anon like silent agreement with his words.
Holy shit. Now that's some news I was not ready for, and certainly wasn't meant to know. The alicorn, the princess. Why would they need another one?
Now appeared the "Two of Swords," where a minotaur with a blindfold crossed two swords on his chest in a gesture resembling denial, followed by the "Six of Swords," with a pony in a boat setting off on a journey, and this card wanted to be placed right next to the card depicting Celestia.
The only princess? Holiest shit, they just left Twi to deal with all this alone. And what's next?
Anon felt goosebumps all over his body and scooped up all the cards he had laid out on the table and the deck as well, pulling out one card after another, haphazardly laying them in free spaces, grabbing one detail from each before moving on to the next.
"The Three of Cups" with a pony, unicorn, and pegasus cheering together and raising cups in the air, and they clearly were happy with everything, even though the faces are barely visible. Anon smiled.
She'll definitely have friends, and they'll always be there.
On the "Nine of Cups" a smiling zebra sat in the center of the drawing, surrounded from behind by nine golden cups.
And the further she goes, the more she'll have of them.
He pulled out "The Three of Wands", where a diamond dog held a stick protruding from the ground, finding support in it.
And with their help...
"The Ace of Swords" with a griffon claw holding onto a sword with a crown above it.
She will reign.
"The Ten of Wands", where a unicorn tries his best to hold many sticks in his aura, struggling and almost falling.
And she will tire, doubt herself, and almost give up.
"The Five of Cups" appeared, with a unicorn in a black robe, sadly lowering his head while looking at three spilled cups on the ground near his hooves.
And even endure failures.
"The Tower" came in, with a drawing of a tower engulfed in flames and smoke, with lightning striking it. Ponies and unicorns fell from its windows.
Some serious fuck ups.
"The Four of Cups" showed a pony under a tree, to which a cloud with dragon claws was handing a cup.
But the world itself will help her deal with them.
On the "Ten of Cups" a whole family of ponies rejoiced and danced under ten cups against the backdrop of a rainbow.
And harmony will always be on their side.
Anon continued to pull out card after card, and there was no free space left on the table in front of him. The cards lay on top of each other in a canvas of drawings and creatures of Equestria, cups, crowns, wands, and coins mingled into one whole.
He snapped out of the trance when only the title card remained in his hand, the last of all. Anon raised his head, and Twilight's expectant face emerged from the haze before him.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Anon exhaled, not even realizing he had been holding his breath.
"Anon?"
He looked down one last time.
"Anon?"
A couple of seconds of contemplation, and he laid his hands on the table, gathering the cards from both sides into a single line and starting to stack them.
"You know, you're right. This crap clearly doesn't work and will only come in handy when there's nothing left to do but pick your nose."
Twilight looked at Anon in confusion, expecting any other response from him.
But he didn't say anything else. Tapping the cards against the table, Anon aligned the deck and wrapped it back in the beige fabric. "Let’s go and do something outside while we still have time, it's too stuffy in this tent already."
