//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Soarin's Folly 
// by a human 
//------------------------------//

Being homeless was more difficult than Soarin had expected. 

While yes, he had been left alive, all of his fortune and property had been seized. In addition, whatever he had been charged with, he never was quite clear on what it was, had so completely besmirched his reputation that few people were willing to help him. Occasionally, someone would begrudgingly spare him food, but never enough to fill him up. 

It had only been a week, and Soarin could already feel his willpower began to diminish. He had realized he would not be able to take this lifestyle for much longer. He had been putting it off, since it would mean admitting defeat, but he finally gathered his resolve and decided.

Tomorrow, he would walk through the front doors of the local homeless shelter.

– – – –

He had only heard of it in hushed whispers. Celestia had never been a fan of philanthropy, and while she would never do something as uncouth as shutting the shelter down, if she found out about it, she would definitely make the inhabitant's lives considerably more difficult. Her philosophy was, yes, the poor can live in my country, but they'll have to be on their toes to do it.

After some desperate asking around, and in-depth homeless interrogations, to ensure he wasn't one of the princesses in disguise or Chrysalis or both, he finally found out where the place was and what the password was.

He stood before a large, imposing warehouse door. On the surface, it looked like any other industrial section of the city. 

But apparently, this building was special. 

He gulped, and inhaled, and said the password.

"The orange one ravages those beneath her with her whip."

Immediately, as if powered by magic (and most likely actually powered by magic), the doors slowly opened. Very quickly, though, they stopped, leaving a space just wide enough for Soarin to squeeze through, but not see inside. 

He needed to get inside, he knew that much, so he walked through the gap.

To his surprise, the building was empty, save for Spitfire holding a whip. She was stepping on the back of an old mare, who looked up at her with rebellion in her eyes. "I like that password," Spitfire said. "As soon as I heard it, I knew I had to reenact it. Celestia went through the same thing, you know. When she read that book. Our goals happened to coincide very nicely." She sent the whip cracking down on to the back of the old mare's head, knocking her out.

"What are you doing here!?" Soarin said, too shocked to interfere.

"To destroy your hope, of course," she said, stepping off the old mare, now properly incapacitated. She walked towards Soarin. "After going through that much trouble to get your verdict, I couldn't just let you go and find friends."

She said each word with a smile on her face. Despite the words coming out of it, it's wasn't an unusual smile at all. It was a completely ordinary, if slightly smug smile. She said everything as if it was not unusual in the slightest to her. 

"Wait… you mean you're responsible for all this?"

Spitfire twitched slightly, and her body froze mid-step, with the exception of her tail, which, in intermittent spurts, angrily flared up behind her. "You didn't know?" she said, her voice clearly the one of someone who was at the limit of their patience.

"Of course not!" Soarin said. "I didn't think you were capable of something like this!"

The whites of Spitfire's eyes shone into Soarin's. She was now inches away from him. He had never seen her move. "Capable of this?" she said, but something was wrong with her voice, as if it was slipping in and out of audible range. "That's something, coming from you."

She leaped up into the air and landed on a girder above. She flared her wings, snorted, and looked down upon him, beams of sunlight illuminating her from behind. "Tell me, what is wrong with the beauty of a daisy?"

Soarin blinked. "What?"

"Tell me!" Spitfire roared, causing Soarin to cower back.

"Nothing! Nothing! I don't have anything against daisies!" Soarin said, very confused. "I don't know what you're—"

Spitfire started laughing, but Soarin could swear he could not hear a single thing. Something was in his head, though, and he began to feel lightheaded. "Then tell me," she said, her face now rapidly degrading into a twitching bundle of random emotions, "why did you choose peanut butter?"

Soarin felt a sinking feeling. At first, her response completely floored him, but then he thought back and back, through the most banal recesses of his memory, until finally…

He stepped back, terrified. "Over that?" he said. "You did all this over something so… trivial?"

Within a second, Soarin was pinned to the ground, Spitfire's nose pressed to his. "Trivial!?" she screamed, and silently fumed for a few moments. It felt longer, though, as Soarin began to sense that his life was in danger around her. Then, she backed away and smiled, which was arguably more worrying. "Oh, you'll pay for that," she said, hardly louder than a whisper. "You'll definitely pay for that." 

She started to slowly walk away, and Soarin dared not follow, even though, even after all that, something about the way she moved, the way her body slinked forward, seemed to constantly entice him. Just when he was distracted the most, she snapped up into the air and brought the whip down upon the old mare with such force that it instantly killed her and made cracks in the asphalt. Then, she dropped the whip on the ground and continued out, as if nothing exceptional it happened.

Soarin fell to the ground.

– – – –

After that day, Soarin learned not to expect help anymore. If Spitfire had Celestia on her side, there was no limit to what she could do to him. In addition, she seemed to possess some strange ability of her own. 

He was afraid that, if he relied on anyone too openly, she would appear and finish them off, as she had done to the homeless shelter. So he subsided on petty thefts, stealing food where he could, which mostly consisted of very pathetic rations from soup kitchens.

One day, he was leaning against a shop window, tired and haggard, planning out his next move to stay alive, when one of the passerbys stopped. It took Soarin a while to notice this. People rarely stopped for him. They rarely stopped for any homeless, honestly. They preferred to ignore the problem, and believe whatever Celestia was doing was somehow solving it. He looked up and saw a slightly familiar face.

"Soarin?" it said. "Is that you?"

Soarin looked at the stallion. "Yes?" he said weakly.

"What happened? I hardly recognized you!" the stallion said, touching Soarin's shoulder.

Soarin shrank back. "Didn't you hear?"

"No, not at all."

Soarin considered explaining the situation to him, but considering how everyone else was treating him, he decided against it. "It's a long story," he said. He looked around, not wanting to make this last too long. "Listen, do you have any food?"

"Oh, more than that. You look awful. Here, come to my place, and you can freshen up a bit, too," he said. He began to turn away. "Come on."

Soarin thought of Spitfire and lurched. "I can't."

The stallion looked back. "You can't?"

"You'd be risking your life, taking me in."

The stallion drew closer. "How? Have you fallen in with a bad crowd? Is someone after you?"

Soarin froze. Almost unintentionally, he ended up muttering, "Celestia's…"

Suddenly, the stallion became resolute. "Then you definitely need to come with me," he said. "Follow me. Now."

Wherever he was, he clearly knew what he was in for. Soarin followed.

– – – –

They went up many floors of a derelict apartment until they finally reached the stallion's room. He unlocked the door, and motioned for Soarin to enter first.

It was a small room, but nearly every part of it was filled. The walls were covered with posters and pieces of paper with elaborate drawings on them. A drafting table was squeezed into a corner, a pillow and blanket set up underneath it as a makeshift bed. A dusty window was the only source of light. A small door opposite to it led to what was presumably a bathroom.

As he looked at the posters, Soarin felt recognition dawning, and he turned to the stallion.

"Wait, aren't you the guy that—"

"Did the Wonderbolt posters? Yes," the stallion said. "El Furioso at your service. That was always one of my favorite pieces to do. Usually, I don't get to let loose that much on my artwork."

Soarin had never really thought about the posters much until now. "Really?"

El Furioso approached the window. "Usually I have so many rules I have to obey," he said. "Most of my work comes from designing the stained-glass windows in the castles. Someone else actually manipulates the glass, of course, but I'm the one that does the initial sketches." He looked out. "Working for the princesses is… interesting to say the least. I've had glimpses into a world I never wanted to see." He turned to Soarin. "Which is why I want to help you out."

Soarin balked. "But you're risking your life!"

"Only a little bit," he said. "I'm one of the few people that knows all the rules necessary for constructing royal artwork. Do you know all the royal artwork is calculated to produce an exact amount of fear in the populace? Some combinations of shape and color naturally terrify people. I know which ones. The rules are never written down, so I'm a commodity. They'll need a better excuse than this to get rid of me." He patted Sorin's neck, and nuzzled his hair for a bit, which was a bit more personal contact than Soarin liked, but under the circumstances, he couldn't argue much. "Now go get washed up. I'll have food ready when you're out. You'll need to look your best for your job interview, after all…"

Soarin smiled. Maybe things were finally looking up. At this point, he would take any job, no matter how undignified.