Two Sides of the Same Coin

by Minute Trapping

Chapter 6

Twilight smiled and patted Caramel on the shoulder. "See? It's okay."

Caramel sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I'm fine, really. Thank you so much, Twilight."

"You're welcome. If you're ready, we do have an important decision to make, and I don't think we should put it off for much longer."

"I… I just don't know if I should tell everypony. What if they don't accept me?"

Twilight thought for a moment. "Well, whom have you told so far?"

"Just you and Zecora, actually. Nurse Redheart and my family found out before I was born. I've managed to hide it from everypony else, as far as I know. Well, except for Celestia."

"Luna probably knows as well; she's also in charge of the Royal Guard, and the Royal Pony Sisters share pretty much everything, especially official information."

"Right, Luna. I keep forgetting about her."

"Well, it's only the first year of the Second Sororal Era; you'll get used to it. But back on topic, how have they reacted? Did they accept you for who you are?"

"Yeah, but…"

"But what?" interrupted Twilight. "What's the worst that could happen?"

As soon as Twilight posed the question, Caramel's imagination started up.

• • •

Caramel was standing on a podium in front of a large herd of ponies assembled for his speech, which he was currently wrapping up. "…and so I hope that you can forgive me, and accept me for who I am."

There was an awkward silence after he finished his speech, and he hung his head and stepped off the stage.

"Well, I guess it went okay." comforted Twilight.

As if in response to Twilight's tempting fate, a verdant stallion swooped down from the sky and bucked Caramel square in the flank, toppling him sideways.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a stallion, huh?" he spat out with rage.

Caramel sputtered, and between gasping for breath he managed to wheeze out "I– Because… I… wasn't."

"I'm not blind, 'Toffee'. You toyed with me."

"Cumulus, please!" begged Caramel as the stallion stomped on his shoulder.

"This has been going on for long enough!" exclaimed Twilight, stepping forward horn aglow.

"Twilight, stop!" called the voice of a young colt.

The colt was a very light brown, and had a fluffy white mane with dark brown streaks in and eyes that were a bright cherry red; Twilight recognized him as Milkshake, one of Smoothie's sons. Twilight looked at the colt bewilderedly. "What are you talking about?"

Milkshake stood firm. "Don't hurt the green pony."

Baffled, Twilight relit her horn, but her concentration was lost when Milkshake struck her on the side of her head.

"I said no." repeated the colt, as Cumulus continued attacking Caramel.

Enraged, Twilight raised her voice at the obstinate unicorn. "He's assaulted Caramel, Milkshake!"

Milkshake shook his head, his eyes closed. "A good pony never responds to violence with more violence. If they do, the violence never ends, and that's not what Equestria is about."

"I… I guess you're right." said Twilight, and the two unicorns turned and walked away as Caramel was reduced to a pulp.

• • •

"Caramel, you trusted me enough to tell me your most personal secret. I'll always be here for you if you need me." assured Twilight.

"What should I do, Twilight? Should I keep it a secret?"

"It's really up to you, Caramel."

Caramel sighed. "Do you have any idea just how unhelpful an answer that is? I asked you for your opinion, and that's a pretty weaselly cop-out."

"I know, but this is a really big decision, and…"

"…and you don't want the blame to fall on you if I pick the wrong option."

Twilight turned her head and blushed guiltily with what even Caramel would've had to describe as "the utmost adorkablility". "Sorry. Well, I think the ponies in Ponyville are a lot more accepting than you give them credit for."

"You mean like how accepting they've been of Zecora? The whole town prejudged her, including me, and quite a few Ponyvillians are still pretty wary of her."

"That was different! Nopony knew Zecora, and she lives in the Everfree Forest, so of course they were skeptical. Ponyville already knows you, and they have known you for your whole life!"

"But still, it's only equine nature to be afraid of anything out of the ordinary."

"Okay, yes, that instinct is left over from–"

"And it's served us pretty well, hasn't it?" interrupted Caramel.

"…from eons ago!" finished Twilight, exasperated. "Yes, it kept us from getting eaten, but we've evolved past that stage. We aren't the beasts of burden we were when it was useful; we have tools, language, civilization, government! The paranoia is still there, but it's vestigial, orders of magnitude weaker than it used to be!"

"Oh, great." intoned Caramel sarcastically. "So instead of the whole town getting up and galloping away, there'll just be a niggling little mistrust at the back of everypony's mind. Sel , that makes me feel so much better about telling everypony."

"Caramel, can't you have just a little faith in ponydom?" Twilight implored with a sigh.

"I can't have faith in anything." answered Caramel. "In my experience, nopony has disproven what I've been saying."

Twilight pressed her hoof to her forehead. "Look, I'm probably the most skeptical pony there is, but without trust in one's fellow pony, society as a whole just doesn't work. You trusted me, didn't you?"

"Only because I though you could fix me. Then the whole problem would be moot." admitted Caramel.

"Caramel!" exclaimed Twilight scoldingly, as though he had just told a particularly offensive joke, "How can you expect other ponies to accept you for who you are if you can't even accept yourself‽"

"I don't expect them to! That's what we've been talking about this whole time!"

"That's not what I–"

"Hold on a second," interrupted Caramel, "what do you mean I don't accept myself? Of course I do!"

After shooting him an annoyed glare, Twilight elaborated. "Caramel, 'fix me'? '[T]he whole problem'? You can say you accept yourself for who you are, but you're talking about yourself like you're broken! There's nothing wrong with you, and you have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Right, but… wait," Caramel blinked, "do you really think that?"

"Of course! I don't know anypony who would think less of you if they knew."

Caramel took a deep breath. "I'll do it."

"You will? So have you–"

"I still think we're making a big gamble here, but I don't like the way keeping this secret has affected the way I look at myself, or the amount of time and effort it uses. Besides, if things go badly you could just magically make everypony forget about it and things would go back to normal."

Twilight's eyes went wide. "I could, but I certainly will not! The problems with that are more than I can count on my hoof!"

"…you mean more than one?" asked Caramel, raising his eyebrow.

"That's not the point!" sighed Twilight exasperatedly. "The moral and ethical problems entailed–"

"Isn't that redundant? Aren't 'moral' and 'ethical' the same thing?" asked Caramel.

Twilight shot Caramel a death glare. "Again you interrupted me, and again you missed the point. But for your information, no they are not. Morality refers to a simple distinction between right and wrong, while ethics connotes a more scholarly and systematic approach to the moral codes that guide our behavior. But what I was saying was that while I could in theory do that, I wouldn't, because it's wrong to tamper with a pony's mind without permission."

"Okay, now that you put it that way I can see the problem. I think I'll still go through with it, though. First, we should fix the records, though. That should make things a lot easier for me."

Twilight nodded. "Ponyville's records are kept in the basement of Town Hall, and the Canterlot records are based off those, so that's where we should head once we get to Ponyville."

Caramel concurred, and they finished the walk to Ponyville in silence, Caramel taking the opportunity to plan out how he would tell everypony his secret, but mostly trying to convince himself he wasn't about to make the worst mistake of his life.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Comments

[Minute Trapping]

Aaaand, it looks like it's time for my super special announcement!

As those of you who have read the preantepenultimate chapter know, Caramel has decided to tell Ponyville his big secret. Ponyvillians will surely have lots of questions after his big speech. What questions will they have, you might ask? It's all up to you!

Head on over to Ask Caramelle to pose a question to our favorite light amber earth pony! Just try to keep them to things that a Ponyvillian would feel comfortable asking in the midst of a crowd. The best questions (or perhaps all the questions, depending on quantity) will be featured in Chapter 8.

[pinkiepie4life]

I believe this question could be obvious but, Gay Strait or Bisexual

[Minute Trapping]

Caramel(le) is straight.

[Aburi]

Just found this today, thought I'd give my opinion. (I hope you don't mind)

Love the premise, especially since there seems to be both a male and female "Caramel" in the show (one in episode one and one in the winter wrap episode).

The story starts out well too, but around the time Caramel goes to see Zecora things stop being interesting. There's no conflict... Twilight readily accepts him and his story with a simple scan, Celestial is already aware and also accepts his condition... I honestly can't imagine any of the Ponyville residents giving him any trouble. So where's the challenge? What is it that the protagonist will need to overcome?

I will leave it at that unless I'm asked for a full critique
Anyways, good luck with the rest of the story

[Minute Trapping]

No, I can't imagine any of the Ponyville residents giving him any trouble, but Caramel can. The story is more about him coming to accept himself and building up the courage to "come out of the closet" if you will. Yes, he is accepted easily; this is to emphasize the disconnect between real life and Caramel's paranoid imagination. The conflict is internal.

At least that's what I've been going for. This is my first fanfiction, so I may not have succeeded in pulling it off.

[ssokolow]

For something to be a "beast of burden", it has to be carrying a load for something else. Unless your Equestria has its origins in real-world Earth and Twilight knows that, you'll probably want to change it to something like "herd animals".

Sel , that makes me feel so much better about telling everypony."

Who the heck is Sel?

2245673

I get the impression it's supposed to be Person vs. Self but the characters are too flat for that to come through.