Blue fire roadside diners
Pasodoble
Ch.00 “Blue fire, roadside diners”
“If someone tries to block, show them that you rock!”
Iron Wills voice boomed over the masses. He had put all his fervor and conviction into that simple sentence, and his reward was the roaring applause of the masses. He was in his element, this was what he was born to do, and nothing would be able to stop him.
“No means no.”
The words had been nearly inaudible against the background of the crowd, but to Iron Will they rang loud and true, more so than the loudest battlecry or even the Royal Canterlot Voice
Feverish he scanned the teeming masses that had come to learn the art of self confidence from him. If only he could find those two orbs of ice blue fire that haunted him so.
“Baaa?” the concerned voice of his stage crew bleated out of his headphones. Quickly he recomposed himself, trying to continue with his routine. His temporary lapse of composure however hadn’t gone by unnoticed. A few ponies had stopped cheering and just stared at the stage with somewhat confused expressions.
Another catch phrase thrown at the masses like he was feeding frenzied sharks, but his fire was gone. No matter what he did the crowd didn’t latch onto it like they usually did, and with each failed attempt his confidence waned, which in turn only worsened his performance further.
Quickly a few troubled faces, turned into a crowd of displeased ponies. Jeering and booing replaced the usual ambience of cheers and whistles and before long the audience was raging at him.
His mind raced as he tried to come up with something that would recapture the audience’s attention, but in the end he just blurted out what came to mind first.
“NO MEans..... no....”
His voice faltered as he realized what he had just said, who he had quoted. He fell silent.
Something soft hit the side of his head causing him to flinch. Soon the crowd was throwing whatever they could find at the stage and Iron will had to flee into the backstage.
On the walk back to his changing room the reproachful eyes of his stage crew rested on him. This wasn’t the first time a show had failed, not by a wide margin.
He sat down in front of his mirror, and looked at the face that was staring back at him. The last remains of a rotten tomato were dripping of his horns, were it was neatly impaled.
“I can’t do this anymore...”
Stopping proved harder than he thought. His team had reacted just as he suspected, some shocked, some indifferent, and some angry. In the end he had to step in to stop a fight between his manager and the stage crew. With no Iron Will however there was no show, and no show meant no money, and before long they all accepted his decision and moved on if only to be able to feed their families.
Harder was the fight with his sponsors, and co-contractors. They had invested a lot of money in making his tour a success and they wanted to see dividends. Their lawyers came to him, first with smiling faces feigning interest in his problems with the show trying to coax him into continuing, and then when he wouldn’t budge with barely concealed threats. But even a broken Iron Will was still more than enough to push through any resistance they could come up with.
In the end he had nothing left but the tie around his neck, but finally he was free to do what he wanted.
What he wanted?
What did he want?
Ever since he had quit his job as a manager to became a motivational speaker, that had been the centre of his life. Making people stand up for themselves had been the best feeling he had ever experienced, and he had never wanted anything else in life. And when he wasn’t able to do so anymore his mind had been filled with the desire to get away from it all, that he hadn’t spent a second thinking about what to do afterwards.
He took to drifting, roaming the countryside once more, this time with no particular goal or task in mind. He wasn’t trying to get anywhere he just needed to keep moving.
But no matter who you are you can’t keep running forever, and so it happened that he finally got stuck in one place.
His own road ended in a small roadside diner, in the middle of nowhere. For some reason or another the owner had chosen a place not quite on the bustling equestrian frontier, but yet too far for the people of the heartlands to stumble upon it.
Like every morning for the last three months Iron Will was sitting at his table in the empty restaurant, staring at the half burnt eggs on his plate. In his hands was a cup of coffee (which for unknown reasons rivaled even that of the most skilled baristas of canterlot), that was slowly cooling down.
He stared at a stack of board games, remnants of some hare-brained plot to attract more customers. He didn’t know what had attracted his attention, since nothing had changed about the pile of faded cardboard boxes, but for nearly an hour now he had sat here gazing at them like his life depended on it.
With a groan he pried himself from the bench and went toward the dust filled corner. He reached for one of the boxes seemingly not different from the other discarded games and with a huff from his sizeable lungs he blew away the thick layer of grime, revealing the games title.
“Labyrinthion”
Mesmerized he went back to the table, holding the box like it was some kind of revered relic of olden times. As he opened the box he could see that it contained cardboard squares, each depicting a part of a stone walled maze, that could be arranged to form the game board.
Piece by piece he set up the playing field. Piece by piece memories he had long since thought forgotten resurfaced, filling his mind with images of the past.
He slammed his hand down on the table putting the last piece into place, then he got up and walked out the door.
Mr. Capony the owner of the small diner, was outside drawing water from a nearby well, and saw him walking down the road. Seeing as he had grown fond of his freelodger during the three months, he asked, “Oy Will, where are you going?”
Iron Will turned towards the elderly neightalian pony and waved: “Iron Will is finally going home!”
Author's Note
Why?
Because of Iron Will in a matador's suit.
And no, this isn't a IronShy fic.
