Devotion comes with sacrifice, and a rewarding sense of passion. It gifts those within its provincial bubble with a rewarding subservience. One such bond, the assistant, aids their masters and mistresses with the goals of joint success. It was too late to realize when things would go downhill, and it would be any later until he realized it was his fault. It was no longer a loving bond, but a longing need to separate. He loved the mutual solitude. He really did. Nothing made him smile more than to walk out the door in a huff.
“I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth. From her.
He took residence at a diving motel on the outskirts of Manehatten. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, and the moon hung in the air with its illuminating discomfort. Shadows flickered and danced with scraggy murmurs, lost in the massive expanse of the dark streets, thrilled from its thieving, criminal rush. Thrilled. That seemed to make him laugh. He could see why he understood their standpoints, seeing as how this is what they made with what society had thrown at them. And yet, why? Why embrace it? Why not aspire to better things? Why live in the shadows of society’s enlightenment and camaraderie, to live ignorantly and cutthroat? The mere thought made him remember Trixie. She was a coy mare; she was always trying to underhand the next pony she saw. She gave the highest opinions to herself, and lived in her own world of indulgence and egocentrism. In reality, she became a street rat, along with the rest of the swindlers and gypsies that she called herself, no matter how glorified.
His steps kept down the path, before his feet touched cool, grimy water. Street swill. Great. After hours of walking, he was tired and impatient. His feet rippled the water as he stepped out, but he turned his head to look at the waving reflection. Somehow, the ripples in his own world, and the world unreachable, settled him where he needed settling.
“You have shown no advance. You have only proven to be a disappointment.”
A disappointment, she said. A disappointment, for Celestia’s sake! She would have been nothing without him, and he knew it. He knew it all too well. That’s why he smiled when he left; he wanted to watch his mistress struggle. He wanted the world that he held in his claws for her to come crashing down, with one tip of his hands. He reached into his pocket, searching for his wallet; the desk attendant was giving him a rotten look, as did the rest of them. They didn’t understand him; all they saw was a wet-footed skivvy. A nopony.
“You are a nopony. You have given me nothing but strife ever since that meteor shower.”
The meteor shower. Ah, what an amazing night. It was truly an event nopony would forget any time soon. Those comets ran down through his mind as he walked through the hallway to his room. He turned to count the numbers as they passed by, and then looked down as he kept going towards the turn. His feet were still a little wet, but the carpet beneath him helped to lessen the water. It was much nicer in the motel than outside; at least there were walls and light to shield him from the darkness outside. The candles dangled in gold torches between each door, twinkling before him like falling meteors. He hated those meteors now.
The room he requested eventually faded into view; Room 145. A quaint little room; a rough fifteen-foot square, a small bed with wrinkled covers, a stained couch of some sort off in the corner, a connected bathroom with a funny smell, and a polished desk. It was strange how the desk looked the nicest in the room; it was almost like it was made for a writer. Or it wasn’t used at all.
His mind drifted off once again as he sat down on the unmade bed. His hands tested the mattress beneath, and grimaced at how lumpy it felt. He sighed; nice send-off, he told himself. Reduced to sleeping in a dump like this. He turned his attention back to the desk, shining from a dim lamp in the corner of the room. Cautiously, he began to approach the piece of furniture, and his hands drifted over each drawer. There were two on each side of the desk, along with a wide central drawer, to which he quickly opened each one. He wanted to see if there was a room service menu, or a map. Anything to take his mind away from her.
“I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth.
His hands felt around inside the central drawer before, to his surprise, a familiar touch crept over his fingertips. A feathery quill’s end. His mind went blank for a moment, then his arm retracted, pulling out the feather. To his surprise, the quill had been broken, and the pointed, ink-laden end was missing. He was confused, but interested at the same time. There was a game behind this, at least in his mind; he began to search the room for the other half of the broken quill.
“Please leave now.”
His hands scanned underneath the desk…
“It would be best for both of us if you went now.”
Under the couch…
“I’ll send for your things. Go.”
Finally, his hands felt under the bed, and he pricked his finger. Pulling back instinctively, he held his finger in his hand’s grip tightly, and he reached out once again, pulling out the pointed end of the broken quill. He wondered why it was under the bed, and sat on that lumpy bed again, just staring at the two pieces of the quill.
“This takes me back.” He muttered. And it certainly did; back to his earliest work in Canterlot. He was trained by the Princess herself, and considered a prodigy at his own craft. For something so young to learn a valuable skill, and master it at that. He was perfect. Perfect for the other prodigy the Princess had taken under her other wing.
It was the perfect pairing, she said. Perfect. As perfect as a stick of dynamite and a lit match. Except, she had a fuse that stretched to the corners of Equestria. He almost felt sorry for that old mare; having to take in a patient student like that, and knowing her own limitations. This powerful teacher knew almost every little thing about his ex-mistress. What teacher wants that knowledge? Why would they want to go so far in knowing their student? It was creepy, and a little sad. Her future was in the Princess’s hooves, and she didn’t even know.
His gaze stayed down on that broken quill, and he could feel a tear in his eye. It was a beautiful quill; the feather was from an Alpha-phoenix, if anypony could believe that. The feather was a bright burst of reds and yellows, and the stem appeared to become a greyish-yellow from disuse. The tip of the quill was stained with old ink, blackening the greyish-yellow stem and soft scarlet feathering. His tears fell down his cheeks, landing on the dirty carpet that sat underneath his damp feet. In a huff, he stood up and ran into the adjacent bathroom in his room.
“You have only proven to be a disappointment.”
He faced the saggy mirror that hung in the bathroom. He rested his arm against the marble-topped sink before him, and his tears continued to fall down his face. His green eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and his skin was cracking. He looked a mess. He looked like a skivvy. He looked like a nopony.
“You are a nopony.”
He couldn’t stand hearing her voice in his head, and he couldn’t stand looking at him. Reaching up, he punched the glass as hard as his stumpy arm could allow. His puffy eyes shot open, and he jumped back into the wall, holding his hand close to his body, and sobbed. He never would have thought his less-dominant hand would be so weak. Still clutching his balled fist, he allowed his body to slide to the floor, and his tears to keep rolling from his stained cheeks.
“You have shown no advance.”
He swore, telling her to shut up, not caring that he was talking to himself.
“It would be best for both of us if you went now.”
He yelled at her to shut up now. He sounded mad, banging his head against the wall behind him to try and get the voice out of his head.
“Go.”
He stood up, screaming at the top of his lungs. He yelled everything to her, everything that he couldn’t say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted. But I’m not a nopony! I have a will to become better, and neither you nor the Princess can change that!” He ran out of the bathroom and jumped onto the lumpy bed, yelling into the stained covers. His tears kept gushing down the sides of his face, dampening the blankets that he laid upon. His mind was plagued with the sight of watching her push him out the door. He could see himself smiling as he left the home where he once lived, worked, and rested. He saw himself standing at the wooden podium she had, the one with the Canterlot-style carvings as he recalls, and writing to the Princess while she read off her thoughts. Except, when he saw his writing hand, that broken quill was right there. He was holding the pointed end, and writing in a bright red, matching the feathering of the top. His arm moved mechanically, writing down the same three words down the length of the page. “Dear Princess Celestia”; that one phrase was repeated over and over again down the parchment. He hated that phrase now.
He suddenly remembered another old memory. He remembered when her mistress had gone crazy, and he tried to help her and counsel her. She ignored him completely, and continued to destroy herself. It was not long before, low and behold, her teacher arrived to fix the mess she made. He was right all along, and nopony listened. They would rather listen to the damn babbling of his mistress’s perfectionist insanity than his sound mind. The thought made him sick, and he pushed it aside. He looked down again, and saw that the broken quill was still gripped in his hands. His fingers ran along the length of the feathered end; it was soft and warm, and made him feel safe. His arm relaxed as he sat there, just stroking the quill’s end. And with every time his finger pulled away, another “Dear Princess Celestia” popped into his mind. He stopped stroking it all of a sudden, feeling depressed again.
He couldn’t understand why this depressed him so much; the quill was beautiful, comfortable, and familiar to him. It felt like home. Like how home used to feel. It felt good every time he wrote “Dear Princess Celestia”, and that warming feeling of home was there with each lift of the inked end. He turned once again to the desk. It was his workspace, huge and accommodating, to satisfy his mistress’s written requests. It was his paradise to write, even when the world around him was horrible. The hotel room was his oppressive world, surrounding him and the paradise that he desires and trusts. Finally, his eyes fell to the pointed end of the quill, the other half of the broken instrument. It was him. He was that pointed end of the quill, or he used to be. He was once the symbol of writing, to be the tool of the master, and to weave the literary masterpieces of history. To bring word to the rulers and to be the messenger of the mistress he was entitled. He was a tool to them all, but it was different. He didn’t know how or why, but it was different somehow. He wasn’t just their tool, he was a companion. He was a reliable source. Dare he say…a friend?
But it was gone now. Wasted by his own hand. That night, he slept on top of the desk, not thinking any more of the matter. He held the feathered end of the quill close to his body, and put the pointed end back in the drawer, where it belonged. His past self would be needed again in the future, but in the present, all he needed was that warm feeling of friendship. Of home.
“I don’t need you anymore.” Right from the horse’s mouth.
“But I still need you.” Right from the dragon’s mouth.
Her life was controlled by hierarchy, from the very beginning of her apprenticeship. It was an oppressive lifestyle that, even after she realized it, had allowed her to grow as a prodigy. A prodigy, that is, in the Princess’s eyes. Behind the closed doors of her library, there was a powerful aura of tension. She could sense the hatred building up in her lowly assistant, and she discerned it; what was the point of trying to reason with him? He had always been obedient to her, through the best and worst of times. Then came the night of the meteor shower. His envy swallowed the subservience that he held dear, and the parasitic desire to grow built up inside him. She shouldn’t have let him get off so easily; setting an example would have quelled that growing demon. It was her own fault, and he knew it better than anypony else. His mistress had slipped up, and he was going to take the reigns as the master.
“And I don’t need you either.” Right from the dragon’s mouth. From him.
Such audacity! Such childish audacity! What gave him the right to just walk away, after everything he had devoted himself to? After everything SHE had devoted herself to? It was apparent, at least in her mind, that he was trying to act tough. He was thinking only of himself, and only of his vain desire to be right. He would come crawling back on his stomach, begging at her doorstep to return to her home; he would understand how selfish he was. How greedy he had truly become.
She smiled as she watched him out the door; he refused to take anything with him just to prove his self-reliance. Self-reliance, he said! She had more self-reliance in half an eyelash than he had in his entire body. His world has been snatched away by his own greed, and all he can think about is proving himself to her? He was truly a moron in her eyes at this point. It was no wonder she saw him as a lost cause.
“Advancing is hard to do under a tyrant like you.”
Tyrant. She didn’t know why or how, but that word stung her. It drew back memories of her indictment into royal life. The Princess was as kind-hearted and patient as nopony she’d ever met, and her knowledge stretched to the far ends of Equestria. She remembered the hopelessness and disappointed faces of those judges. Her teeth gritted in annoyance as she could hear their quills scribbling on their clipboards. That scribbling sound; it annoyed her to no end. That cutting sound of paper, the dragging of the dark ink, the imprinted permanence!...
“You would be a nopony if it weren’t for me.”
A nopony? This was truly laughable; he would not even be alive without her power! She gave him the life he had, and he had one job: to be an assistant. A tool to her. And through it all, he still managed to fail. She groaned and retreated into her library. Surrounding her were selves upon shelves of magical tomes, enveloping her and her ex-assistant in the warmth of boundless knowledge. On the floor sat multiple piles of books; they had been stacked according to relevance to her current topic. With a simple signal, he would have these books sorted, shelved, and categorized in a matter of minutes. He was efficient, and it certainly made her feel important. Like a somepony.
Her head turned to a familiar sight: the podium where she would have him write letters to the Princess, the one with the Canterlot-style carvings. Countless times, she recalled back to every instance he would write that one overlying phrase. “Dear Princess Celestia”. It was an imprint in her mind, scribbled on the walls like a quill’s ink on parchment. She shook her head, dismissing the memories with a few waves of her spectral hair.
She approached the podium and found an unfinished letter that was meant for the Princess; this letter was in progress before the fight happened. Before he snapped and left his subordinate caste. She could remember it all too vividly; the insults, the arguing; he even went as far as to snap her quill in half and storm off. Those pieces were sitting on the ground before her, the ink from the pointed end leaking down onto the floor. She sighed, her warm breath shaky from the aftermath, and proceeded to the podium. Her eyes scanned the document, and she could see where he decided to quit. “Even though somepony can be close-minded, we…” and it cut off. That worthless sloth didn’t even finish her letter. Using her ethereal grip, she proceeded to pick up the broken quill and stand over her podium. Her face hardened. “I can write my own letters. I don’t need him anymore.”
“And I don’t need you either.” Right from the dragon’s mouth.
Her grip was stalwart, but her mind was dulled and blank; for the life of her, she could not finish the letter. Even as the intellectual the Princess saw her as, her writing was a lot to be desired. It was his specialty, not hers. In anger, she pushed the unfinished letter aside and paced about the room. Her mind drew back to the origin of the letter.
One of her friends had made another angry because they both didn’t share common interests. One was down-to-earth and homely, while the other was prim and proper. Albeit they settled their differences, it showed that they could still…be friends? She shook her head; they still couldn’t appreciate each other’s difference. If anything, they merely put up with one another, just like she and her assistant did. She sighed and looked down at the saggy parchment; there was no purpose in getting this angry. Her grip fell to the parchment and lifted it back to the podium.
“I’ll leave so I don’t have to put up with you.”
She opened her mouth to laugh, but it was fake; behind her eyes, there were tears. She couldn’t realize now that her laugh was as phony as a changeling’s identity.
“Then I’ll leave! Will that satisfy you?”
Her laugh increased. She paced anxiously about her homey library, through the slaloms of books that were stacked on either side of her. She read off each category as they passed her body; history, magic, botany…
“Good riddance, you tyrant!”
She stopped in her tracks. Her tears splashed quietly on the wooden floor, staining it like the ink of her now broken quill. She sniffled; how is it that he could still reach her? That worthless sloth shouldn’t have this influence over her; he was a tool! She created him! She ran up the stairs of her private library and jumped into her bed. As she ran, she saw the little wooden basket at the foot of the bed, and inside was a disheveled blanket and a pillow. It was his bed. In reflex, she kicked it off, letting the basket’s straw body whine as it impacted on the ground. Her head was buried in her pillow, and the tears were starting to flow a bit more harmoniously. “Good riddance to you too!”
She wished, from the bottom of her heart, that he would come back just so she could say that to his face. She could see his sneer as his head turned; the twistedness of his plans was unseen as his stumpy legs trotted down the dirt road. He was venturing out alone, without her; he needed her. He was weak, small, and helpless, and he knew it as well. And yet…why would he go? His spiteful mind was clouding him from reality, but…why did this hurt her so?
“You would be a nopony if it weren’t for me.”
His greed, his audacity; it stung her to no end. She screamed in her pillow. “You would be nothing without me! Why would Celestia pick a greedy bastard like you as my assistant?” Just then, it sprung to her. Her head shot up, and she revealed her bloodshot, drippy eyes. He was the perfect tool in the Princess’s eyes; a free-thinking tool. He had a mind of his own, but a mind bound in hierarchy. He knew his place, and didn’t want it. It was a perfect pairing, the Princess told them. But she knew that it was all too perfect.
“Then I’ll leave! Will that satisfy you?”
She shook her head no. In her mind, she even began to beg to him not to leave her alone. Not to leave the warmth of her home.
“Good riddance, you tyrant!”
“I’m no tyrant! I’m your…” But she couldn’t finish that sentence. What was he to her? Her possession? Her assistant? Any of these would have worked in her mind. And yet…none were correct. She felt herself on the brink of breaking down; her legs were shaky and her heartbeat was quick and chilling. She felt cold inside, even when surrounded by the coziness of her world. The world she built for both of them.
She looked around the floor and found the broken quill once again. Her courage built up, and reaching down, picked the pointed end up first. The tip’s ink was freezing to the surface, and the excess had dripped off and stained the polished wooden floor. The feathery end laid daintily on its side; she left it on the floor, as it was causing no harm. Her shaking legs then took her to the one other place she dared not approach: her podium. The incomplete parchment sat motionless on the carved wood, and the last sentence burned its way into her eyes. “Even though somepony can be close-minded, we…” Her mind continued to draw blanks at the meaning behind this; the incident with her two friends had only happened yesterday, and she was still hazy on its meaning. There was never an instance when she was lost on discovering an answer to something. The ignorance burned into her mind, scrawled roughly underneath the “Dear Princess Celestia” that had been sitting there for months. “We can be what?” She kept repeating to herself, but she kept drawing blanks; she couldn’t stop thinking about him. His arrogant tone, his short-sighted plans, his stinging insults, how he used to write for her with a quill at the ready, how he used to curl up in bed with her when he had a nightmare, how adorable he looked when he slept…
“Damn it!” She stomped the ground in annoyance. “Why did you have to leave like this?” She felt completely helpless, just how he wanted her to feel. He walked away, taking nothing with him, and yet taking virtually everything from her. She, too, was incomplete now. As she walked back into the confides of her now cold library, she could see the shimmering puddles that her tears and the ink left. They were integrated into the wood now, permanent, and left her scarred from what she had witnessed. No, what she had helped to create. She stepped around the two puddles, not wanting to disturb them for some reason, and stepped in front of the Princess’s letter. This is who she was now; she was brought up by her ex-assistant’s determination to grow, and it ultimately became too large to control. His greed overtook him, and all he wanted was more. He wanted to be alone for his own instinctive purposes, as she wanted to let him learn his lesson in insubordination. They loved the mutual solitude. And now, it was only pain.
Her eyes scanned the parchment with her message to the Princess. In her mind, a new ending began to formulate, but it was not complete. Unsatisfied, she looked back at the pointed end of the quill that sat on the podium. Its sharp, stinging tip spelled the end of her…coalition with him. Written in the permanent ink that stained her once clean wooden floors. She remembered the feathery end as well, still lying on the floor. The soft touch of its end was what gave him the comfort of home, the comfort of his job. She could see it on his face when she remembered back to his countless written passages. The stacks of books around her only added to the confusion of her mind, and stood as towers, punctuating the skies of her closed world. Everything made sense to her now. She wasn’t mad at him; she was mad at him growing up and leaving her to be a confused mess. A nopony.
“You would be a nopony if it weren’t for me.”
And now, she could see the truth. Her head turned back to the unfinished letter, and she gripped the broken end of his quill. At the same time, her vice drifted down to the feathery end of the quill, and she set it back on its side of the podium. She could feel a light warmth that flickered weakly when she picked up the feathered end of the quill; it was as if he was still there grasping it. It was like he was home.
She began to write the ending of her letter to the Princess, reading the final draft aloud to herself.
“Even though somepony can be close-minded, we…” She ended up crossing out the “we” that he had left and replaced it with an “I”; this was no longer about her friends. It was about the closest thing to her. The tool she lost. The companion she was destined to have. The…friend she grew to love.
“…I still need him.” She read silently, finally setting the broken quill down beside the feathered end. She no longer needed him to satisfy her hierarchy. She needed her friend. She needed that warmth that he created at home. He was the basis of her hierarchy. He was basis of her home.
“And I don’t need you either.” Right from the dragon’s mouth.
“We need each other. And I need you more, you crazy child.”
She sat quiet for a long time, whimpering silently as the finished letter sat on the wooden podium with the Canterlot-style carvings. Her eyes were shut, holding back a plethora of tears, as she read the three-line mantra that was permanently inked into the parchment of her mind.
“Dear Princess Celestia...”
“...Even though somepony can be close-minded…”
“…I still need him.”
