The prom was holding, somehow, in its entirety inside the sport field, stadium siding the lights of the Twilight University. Tables were lit on top of the terraces, alone, whereas the court itself was filled with colts and fillies. They were showing their dresses, smokings, their necklaces and ties for this one night where romance was a rule and a game for most. On top of their scene the orchestra was playing the school's finest, dancing notes for the three dance fields left empty among the many lanterns alight.
It was a beautiful night.
Icy had watched it all since the beginning, there amongst the first ones mostly since she helped install the last sets before the opening, and because she had a cousin among the musicians. So for some time already she had been tapping this corner of the bench, her drink at a hoof grasp as those last years entered, then sprayed in joy. After a speech it had begun, and so Icy had tasted the drink with her lips, then listening to the music, she thought she should have brought a book or something as annoying.
She had those thoughts where it was fine to have spent those years and find herself alone in the end, and where not all had to come in couples. Happy for her friends and all that, and with her light glassy bristle she felt like laying down and sleeping the whole night through, and kept watching the prom from her bench.
It was, technically, the bench where players would wait to enter the field.
As much as she had watched it Icy had seen nothing, mostly just mares she knew trotting along the crowd, friends too busy with the festivities - and a special one - to notice she was here. She sighed, she knew she was meant to get up and have fun, but it required efforts. And laziness was an excuse for all.
"Eh, you!" A colt called.
She seemed to wake up, left her bench and drink for this young stallion, cheeks and muzzle with spots adding pink to his firm green coat, the mane sadly brushed. It was, she took a second to get his name, it was Arthur and she smiled even though he seemed tense.
"What are you doing?" The stallion asked.
"I'm having fun, don't you see?" She answered as her eyebrows lowered.
He seemed not to understand, he was watching her with curiosity or disbelief. But, Icy thought, he was one to get how a filly could end up having to fill the time by herself. That meant, he had to be alone himself, so she didn't mind his tense words.
"You don't have some pony to ask out?" He asked with surprise, almost suspicion.
"I don't bother to."
"What?" Arthur stepped back, taken aback. "But... that's not..."
And he turned, speechless, trotted away. The filly rolled her eyes, didn't bother to try and get what had happened. She resumed tapping her bench and listening to the swift tone of the orchestra. There were so many lights, so many ponies she knew and liked, and she knew as her ear caught the trot that some other pony was about to disturb her loneliness. After a sigh Icy turned and smiled to the mare, her friend Mish Mash whose eyes were filled with tears.
Before one of them could say a word Mish Mash fell down on her friend's shoulder and sobbed, in such a way that the young mare wondered if it wasn't theater. She patted her back, asked what happened:
"It's Arthur!" She sobbed. "I asked him out!"
Patting her some more Icy tried not no chuckle. She was suddenly certain it was nothing, and so waiting for her friend to get it all out she said some "there there" of comfort. Then it occurred to her that Mish Mash already had a colt for the prom, and she began to worry. Did she mean Arthur asked her out, and then, why did it matter, the filly stopped patting then forced her friend a bit away to face her.
What happened was this: Mish Mash had come to the stadium- "With Honey Horn" Icy felt obliged to ask, or underline and her friend nodded, as if she had just remembered this detail. She had waited all along for Arthur's arrival, to the point that her colt had become impatient. Then, as soon as she heard he was there, she had galloped to find him. Icy blinked, trying to grasp what her friend just said and she wasn't sure if she was still listening. At the entrance, the story went on, there was a crowd of mares trying to reach the young stallion. "Arthur?" Icy's voice was completely lost. They had tried to reach him, to ask him out, to be his filly for the night. But he had rejected them, one after the other, and when Mish Mash tried, when she tried, when she, she, she fell in tears again in Icy's light blue legs.
Something was completely off, and she told her friend how weird that was. She asked, "why did you ask him out?" Why him and her friend's eyes plunged in hers, "what do you mean?" they were asking. Her sorrow was too much to care, soon she was sobbing again and Icy, getting out of her grasp, told her to stay there and that she would be back soon. Had to get them some drink and such, any excuse to quickly leave and think.
It made no sense.
Now that she was wandering among the crowd, she noticed how tense the prom was. Stallions were nervous, some angry. The mares, as if somewhere else, looked distressed, caught in dreams. Couples were fighting, cold words, cold sights and the nearest dance floor had hardly any dancer.
"Of course I don't care about him!" A filly said with false disdain to the colt facing her. And as she said so her head was turned somewhere around the entrance, adding to the colt's distrust. She had this lip trembling, that she would try not to bite, revealing her hard feelings.
"Go tell him that!" The colt said, boiling inside. He was hurt. It was obvious. He turned away, leaving her and she didn't seem to mind, he caught Icy watching them as she passed by. "Can you believe this?" He asked her.
"Believe what?"
"She came with me here, just so she could see another pony!" And then, breathing, "who cares. I need a dance, what about coming with me?"
"Are you..." Icy asked, but already her heart was beating. The colt was handsome, and she thought...
"You seem nice, and we don't want to be alone, right? Come, follow me!"
She blushed, and she felt like she should say no but she wanted to say yes, so she nodded and let him take her on the dance floor. She nodded and followed, with little steps first then trotting after him as he went faster, and Arthur looked at that scene, not even caring for the two mares pleading their case. He didn't even bother answering them, moved away and heard their voice shattering. "I can't even enjoy it" he muttered for himself, frustrated, and seeing other mares grouped near he tried to avoid them. All around him the prom seemed to fall in ruins, to hold only through the tiny lights of lanterns. More tears than joy.
Then, suddenly, he felt a presence, the kind of presence students had learned to dread in the university. He turned and face the strict look of Twilight Sparkle. Immediately, before the lavender alicorn Arthur thought, "caught!" But he tried to keep appearances, like all around him, as if everything was fine.
She strengthened her look, then: "Follow me." And he obliged, let her take him away from the sad festivities. Around him other ponies were watching, the student and his professor, and in their eyes were more anger than questions.
She took him under the terraces, in a quiet room that her magic rendered mute, once alone, she turned to him.
"Every mare wanting you for the prom? You refusing every of them?" She was throwing accusations. "I am listening."
He could act, he could try to get out of it through lies but the colt didn't feel like it. Something in his chest was too heavy to try. Something like a thought, so he looked away and admitted:
"I used a love potion."
"On all the mares?"
On his sister first, Pretty Bouquet. The potion had precise instructions, to force the mare to do two things. One, to give this same love potion to any filly who didn't like him. Second, to ask him out at the prom. They would love him and desire to be with him. His teacher was listening, not asking anything, so he continued. The potion was studied so that it would have no more effect past the prom. And he concluded, ironically, that his teacher had taught him well.
"I haven't taught my classes to play with other ponies' feelings" she scolded him, then her tone changing: "I'm really disappointed."
"Oh" he reacted, clenching his teeth. "Because they weren't playing with mine! They mocked me year after year!"
"You did this because of some mockery?"
"They made it a game." He growled. "And Pretty Bouquet took part in it."
Such things were usual. One filly would make as if she would be his special somepony, then reject the pony in front of her friends. Fault to the colt to have been a fool. When they told him face to face that her sister knew, something in him had broken. So he had made the potion, and Arthur looked on the face of the alicorn any expression, of approval, of disgust, only to find this soft disappointment.
"Even then," she returned to her professoral tone, "that doesn't justify your act. No!" She prevented him from answering. "I want you to admit publicly and say you are sorry."
"Don't you think I'm punished enough as it is?" He retorted, angrily.
She looked at him, then sighed. "This is not about punishment. This is about making peace." And feeling how the colt resisted: "It's not a choice. If by midnight you haven't told them, I will."
Midnight wasn't far, as the sky's lights were competing with those of the sport field, Icy thought she didn't want it to end. All felt so sad around her, but in this colt's grasp, valsing along couples and caring for nothing, she was too lucky to complain. He knew how to dance, she didn't, so the filly was letting him guide and made her move, flow and fly along the music. He was smiling, behind that smile she could still read his anger and frustration, his sorrow, and so she would simply look past it.
Then, as their pace slowed, she noticed the mare back, and then he noticed her, and she tried to ask for a moment of his attention. "You had your chance" he simply said, trying not to sound cold but his feelings were such, and still Icy could see that he cared. "I am sorry" the mare said, and the dance broke.
Of course, he wanted to be with her, Icy thought. She had just been a replacement. Maybe he read that in her eyes, he said: "Excuse me for a moment" and she nodded. She let him talk with the mare, as she apologized, about her conduct, and having neglected him, and her words were perfectly sincere. They were bells ringing in his heart. So, even before the mare finished, Icy began to pace away.
"Did this stallion just drop you?"
It was another colt, tense, a green sluggish coat and the face with spots. She thought, "it doesn't concern you" but it was just her being sad, so she simply nodded.
"It's fine, he was meant to be with her."
Then it occurred to her, as it occurred to him, "you are the filly who didn't ask me out!" And her: "you are the colt that all fillies are asking out!" He looked away, as if hurt. As if a confirmation, another mare approached and, flanking Arthur, asked if he wanted- "Why would I go out with you?" He answered in a flow of anger. "I don't even know you!" The mare was shocked, unable to react, then her face decomposed as she begged, as tears began to grow. Icy was watching it, remembered Mish Mash - and didn't even bother that she had left her friend alone - and felt angst. The mare, after a last vain attempt, turned and galloped away, shrieking.
When she turned to face Arthur, scold him or anything, she saw the stallion pacing away, head low. And was it curiosity or anything else, she felt the need to go after him.
"Why did you say no?" Was her very first question.
He looked at her, and in his eyes were something like distress, hidden by a veil of anger. But more than that, there was this surprise, as if her question was absurd. As if she should not even have been able to ask it.
"Why don't you ask me out?" He asked, not even realizing what he had asked.
"I... uhm..." She had stopped, embarrassed. How to say no without hurting, but she hadn't even thought of reasons to say no. He simply didn't really look good, that was all. That's when the stallion finally grasped what his question implied, and he quickly tried to backtrack, "I didn't mean it like that" being just as embarrassed as she was. So, to escape it he quickly rushed: "You'll say no anyway" which freed her from saying it.
She calmed, he calmed, they looked at each other. She didn't really remember why she was with him or about those sad mares and all. All she had in mind was, this colt was alone and would be alone, and she was feeling more sorry for him than for herself.
"Maybe..." She tried. "Maybe we could spend some time together? It can't hurt, right?"
The green stallion didn't know what to answer. For the first time it seemed, he was acknowledging her existence. For the first time since the beginning of the night, Arthur seemed to notice she was a filly. "Maybe" he answered, which meant yes, and they went to a table.
He asked the waitress for drinks, watched her leave with eyes shred by sadness and sighed. The prom was a disaster, the orchestra playing lone for nopony. Couples were dancing without conviction, in this poisoned mood were all were distrusting all. And then there was this filly with him, trying to smile, seeming not bothered, and he kept wondering why she hadn't fallen to the love potion. Did it even matter, in just a bit more than an hour midnight would come, and he would be hated by all.
So he asked, to not think about it, if she had friends in the crowd, learned about Mish Mash, apologized almost by habit. He didn't say he was sorry for her friend, only, "I'm sorry it happened". Their drinks arrived, he kept asking, what she had studied, and she explained she would have to do another year, she would have another prom, with new friends she guessed. Him? He would graduate, but he returned to her, why she had chosen a lemon syrup, if she liked sport and he had forgotten why he was asking all of that.
Then, they came, a bunch of stallions and he knew, at first sight, that they had got it too. But he had it slightly wrong. They were leaded by a light brown stallion, head of his friends, the first to put a hoof on the table and ask, politely, for the filly to let them for a moment.
"We were discussing" Icy answered.
But she felt the colt's anger, Arthur's fear and the stallions grouped. Already they had bypassed her, addressing him directly for explanations. "You made Promenade cry!" He meant his filly, and all the other stallions had the same story or were there to support him.
"She asked me out." Arthur coldly answered, readying. "I refused."
"You heard this?" The stallion called around him, and his friends nodded. There was no reasoning, no explaining, they weren't there for nothing but to defend their loved ones. The tone got up, Arthur having nothing more to say, all he could say, try to say, useless. "Listen when somepony talks to you!" And the hit came, nothing too harsh, just a movement of anger uncontrolled. The hoof smashed behind his ear, making Arthur hiss. At that moment he wished nothing more than to jump on his aggressor and fight, and what stopped him, what kept him sit, only throwing glares, was not the certainty to lose; it was that he did feel guilty.
Icy didn't know that. She suddenly screamed: "Stop it!" And she talked to them, and with his whistling ear Arthur couldn't hear what she was saying clearly. But she was defending him, and eventually the stallions, still frustrated, left them alone. He wished he knew what words she had used, what was behind the worried look she was giving him as the light blue filly tried to watch his wound, hardly a scratch, and proposed to go somewhere else.
He nodded. They left the field for the terraces, up and by the lone tables where candles were lit. From there the university, and then Canterlot, were visible, stars under stars of the sky.
"This night is horrible." Arthur lamented.
They were past the table, hung on the rail at the very end of the terraces. From there the wind could reach them, make their bristle flow. She smiled a bit, answered:
"Actually, I do like it."
"How so?" He asked, his hoof still put behind his ear.
"Well, for once, we are not alone, right?"
His heart began to race. She was smiling, and it caused him to want to smile in return. He hadn't thought that they were together. He kind of said it, that he didn't understand why she had nopony, because she was beautiful, with those eyes, with her mane and she laughed at his flattering. That's not what he meant, and to avoid the embarrassment he said, she had no reason to be with him. He wasn't "the most handsome colt around here", and he had been angry all the time.
"Well, yes." She replied. "But you are nice, right?" And then: "I did like dancing with that handsome stallion. It was thrilling! But right now? I don't want to be anywhere else!"
And for a second time she didn't even bother that she had left her friend Mish Mash alone.
"I didn't even ask for your name" Arthur said.
"It's Ice Shard."
Away they heard a bell, tone from the Twilight university announcing the approach of midnight. It came to him, what was about to happen, how could he have forgotten about it. Head low, the colt looked down on the dark grass, and he didn't know what to do. That all the mares would hate him, that all the stallions, and even his friends... but what really hurt was the thought that she, Ice Shard, would stop liking him. He when he turned his sight on her he feared to see a glare, only met her quiet smile.
He was about to lose her, and that meant, it was hard for him to even admit it, that meant she actually cared for him. No avoiding it.
"Come! The Princess is about to make a speech! We don't want to miss that!"
She seemed thrilled as he felt needles: "I think we can hear it from here."
"I promise" she said grasping him between her legs, and he felt her cool body, "I won't let ponies hurt you."
"Right?" He asked, not knowing why, and she nodded, right. They went down the stairs, as on the scene before the orchestra Twilight Sparkle had taken place, and with her the director and the most graded of this year. The alicorn had already begun speaking, so Icy tried to hasten their pace, pressed him to trot. His legs were heavy, his heart pounding to no end. He refused to believe tears were coming. Not even when he had felt his sister betraying him did he cry, so why now. The voice of the teacher was reaching to them, her words quite low but clear, talking about expectations and excellence, and then, about ponies emotions.
He walked along the crowd, following the clear tail of Icy as she seemed always to disappear before him, and each time he panicked, and panicked more as Twilight's voice was stronger and stronger. But each time Icy was reappearing, looking for him until they reached their place, and listened. And he wasn't listening anymore, just waiting for it to happen. He wasn't trembling anymore, almost at peace, readying.
"I know you are all sad, but I also know your feelings are strong. That you will remember all those days spent together, all those times of joy and sorrow, where you made friends, and more. That you will remember all the hardships, all the doubts, all the troubles you went through together, that strengthened your bond and made this spark happen in your hearts. Leaving the university won't change that. A single night can't change that. Because, eventually, you know those feelings were true, because you care and because you will keep fighting for what you treasure most."
"And now," Twilight Sparkle concluded in a more joyful note, "I want everypony to have the best prom of their life!"
Fillies and colts clapped, stomped the ground at the end of her speech. It was tepid at best, not even a cheer but, by just a bit, the mood had warmed. There were little smiles, soft words exchanged. In this crowd Ice Shard was thrilled, asked Arthur what he thought of the speech. He had still his eyes shut fast. He opened them. And he didn't understand what was happening.
The alicorn was looking at him, and when their eyes crossed, she finally left her spot for the director to leave a last word, as festivities resumed, and for more speeches. And the green stallion murmured, for himself: "She said nothing."
Ice Shard had put a hoof on his shoulder. He felt her toe, he felt her look on him and trembled. Having a hard time to breathe. He knew exactly what he had to do, and he was terrorized, but he had to, and he was repeating to himself, he had to. Time was running out, so he turned to the filly, her light glassy coat and this soft clear mane, and her eyes like shards. He was about to lose her, as if seeing her for the last time, he didn't know what to say. So he said:
"I have something to do."
And that were his last words. he turned, trotted around the scene to the steps, went past the orchestra and at that point he could still turn back, with hardly anypony having noticed him. But he went on, reached the director as one of the graded was speaking. He asked the director to let him talk, and the director refused at first, but, at his insistence, and maybe something else, she finally gave up.
So, as soon as the graded finished, returning to his place, it was his turn. He walked, but hardly, to where the princess had been. He closed his eyes. Said a word that echoed along the stadium. As suddenly, half the crowd went silent, mares looking at him everywhere, with hopes, with sadness, with so many emotions. And Ice Shard, before all, was just there looking at him, wondering what was going on. He was about to break in tears.
"I am here to apologize. I am the one who ruined the prom." Behind him the students lined and the director reacted, surprise or false surprise.
"As you may know, I'm not really popular with the fillies. I am a subject of laugh for them. It was hard, but I lived with it. One day I learned my sister was playing their game, and I got blinded. So I decided to hurt the fillies that had hurt me. I created a love potion, forcing them to ask me to be their colt for the prom, so that I could say no to them. So that they would feel what it's like. I created the potion so that it would spread to all the fillies who didn't like me, or mocked me."
"Which means," he continued, "that the potion couldn't affect those who didn't mind, or thought I was nice. When I came here tonight, I thought I would have my revenge. But instead, I saw how many fillies had thought low of me, and I saw how many ponies, fillies like colts, I had hurt. I felt a horrible guilt. I also got to meet a filly that wouldn't play with my feelings, one that sincerely cared for me, just to lose her now."
That's where Arthur missed words. He simply wanted to say, that he apologized, but he didn't know how to express it, to make sure it would sound as sincere as he was. Because he was convinced they wouldn't forgive him. Because he couldn't forgive himself.
"Well, fine by me!" A light brown stallion threw from among the crowd, and it spread around him, a rumor of approval. All the tension, all the sad mood seemed to break, as if a spell cast away, ponies were beginning to rejoice everywhere he could see. And he knew midnight had come, and the potion effect had ended. There were still colts angry at him, glares from fillies, of hatred, but the majority simply looked happy, happy to forget about it and go on with the prom. The crowd got taken by this mood, by the need to have fun and they began spreading to their activities.
He didn't know if he had to stay, to add a word or to leave. Arthur was blinded, deaf, waiting for something to happen that refused to come. Eventually the director touched his shoulder, "nice speech" to tell him that he could go. There was still, on the director's face, some form of anger, telling him he would be punished, but that went without saying. So the stallion paced away, a bit and behind the orchestra playing anew. He didn't feel relieved, but he didn't feel worse. That was as much as he could expect.
"I am glad you decided to confess." The alicorn appeared by his side, hidden until then behind the scene.
"Why didn't you denounce me?"
"Because I saw you on the terraces" she smiled and walked away happily.