Friendship Letters
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on November 25, 2020
“Dad? DAD!”
“Don’t go in there, it’s too dangerous!"
“We need medical staff on Floor Four, Potion Room.” “What happened?!”
“DAD!”
“He just collapsed...” “Out of the blue?”
“Tonnage, stop!!”
“Something happened, look at the gas!” “Bet Ferode never fixed that vent system. Lockdown work’s just fine. Figures.” “He’s dead, don’t open the door!”
“Dad!! Let me in!” “Tonnage, stop! You’ll die too!”
——————————————
No matter how much he tried to scrub his brain clean of that incident, his eyes just kept seeing the hazy gas. The collapsed man on the floor of the potion room. His friend, practically clawing to get in. “I could’ve saved him,” Cynbel spoke, his fork idly prodding at the small mound of peas on his dinner plate.
“What happened to Mr. Moorsom was an accident. It could’ve happened to anyone. You, me, your father. Just an unfortunate accident,” his mother, Chantal, spoke after taking a large sip from her glass of wine. Her slurred words besmirched the beauty of her heavy Prance accent. Her body-filled, hickory colored mane was done in a typical twist updo, though strands of the twist were beginning to come undone. A scratched pearl necklace was laced across her peachy pink neck, while he crystal blue eyes remained focused on the drink. Remnants of red lipstick smeared both the rim of her glass and the mouth of the wine bottle.
His mother’s words did little to ease his mind. Cynbel only spoke louder, and his poor smushed peas suffered for it. “Anullroot’s a dispelling agent if you vaporize it. If I only had some on me... it could have evaporated the clouds. Paramedics could have gotten in there...” His father set his fork down, an exaggerated sigh carried over the clinking silverware. “How often do you carry anullroot on you? How often does anyone just have anullroot on them? And even if you did, any second longer in that room and you would’ve died too. Mr. Moorsom pushed you to the door shortly before he collapsed. He saved you! He’d want you to be thankful— and to eat the meal Mr. Grey made for us.”
“But I—”
“Not another word,” spoke Clovis in a stern tone. “Eat. Good sons do what they’re told.”
The young alchemist nodded and silently shoved a mouthful of freshly smushed peas into his mouth. The normally sweet flavor was overwhelmed by a disgustingly bitter gall. Just choking it down was a struggle in it itself.
The only one at the table who hadn’t yet spoke was Bismarck, who greatly resembled Cynbel aside from a more stocky build, green eyes and a more saturated color scheme compared to his older brother. He had no issues eating, and seemed unbothered by the topic at hand, up until he noticed Cynbel’s despair. “You don’t get mad when I take your pawns in chess, right? Why are you so sad over this?”
The three of them all stared at the youngest Ferode in disbelief. Chantal spoke up first, her fork clinking against the plate. “Bismarck! The nerve to say that.” The younger colt blinked, confused by the sudden shift of anger directed toward him. “What? Dad’ll replace Moorsom. ‘Never leave a position open for long’, right, dad?.” Chantal then looked between Bismarck and her husband. “What does he mean by that, Clovis?”
The older Ferode adjusted the napkin in his lap, his eyes averting the burning gaze of his angered wife. “Oh come now, Chantal, I’m as pained by Mr. Moorsom’s death as the rest of us, but I’m also thinking about this financially. Mr. Moorsom was a hard worker with a fantastic attitude and stallions like him aren’t easy to find! He was basically my link between the drivel downstairs and myself. We’re getting shipments in more regularly, so I’ll need to begin searching for a replacement almost immediately..." Clovis clinked his fork against his plate. Suddenly, he lit up, his cunning smile aimed at Cynbel. "Cynbel, this is a perfect learning opportunity for you. Workplace fatalities are an inevitability and you’ve got to be quick. I've got a list of candidates... how about you help me decide?"
Chantal slammed the flat of her hoof down at the table, briefly sending all their silverware and platters up in the air. "The man isn't even buried yet, you swine, and you're throwing all the work on your eleven year old son? I'd say 'over my dead body', but I doubt that'd mean much to you." Clovis was struck silent. A rare occurrence, but it was a calculated de-escelation tactic when Chantal was starting to grow hostile. It worked, as it always does, as she was soon taking an angry spoonful of her vegetarian loaf. The adults had silently decided to drop the topic, but Cynbel still had questions.
Tonnage. His mother was gone...and now, so was his father. With no parents, where was he supposed to go? At the risk of adding another keg of powder to the smoldering flames, he nervously spoke up. "What's going to happen to Tonnage?" His mother stabbed her fork into an innocent leafy green, and instantly brought it to her lips and open-mouth chewed. Her eyes stared daggers into Clovis's, her eyebrows raised briefly. Every signal she sent him warned that his survival relied on his answer. Clovis finally spoke, making himself seem smaller in Chantal's presence. "Well... I've lined up a cozy spot at him at the local orphanage."
Obviously that was the wrong answer. "Clovis!" snapped the mare. "First you kill the man, then you send his boy to live in an orphanage?!"
"It was the best I could've done!"
Cynbel shook his head and crossed his hooves. With a venomous hiss, he whispered, "The best you could've done was fix the vents when he asked you to..."
It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room and all the lights dimmed. In a tone of silent anger, Clovis seethed his question and turned to look at Cynbel. What was that?"
“...Nothing, sir. I was just thinking about Tonnage.”
Then, it was as if a switch was flipped in the head of Clovis Ferode. His golden eyes looked Cynbel over once, before a twisted grin surfaced upon his chapped lips. "Thinking about that distraction will do you no good, Cynbel. You should be thinking about much, much more than just a sad, little boy. You should be thinking about your studies. You're just two years away from earning your alchemy license and I'll be damned if I'm letting you continue to be a laughing stock."
Clovis's offhanded comment almost made Cynbel throw up. With a torn gut, he looked up, his hurt eyes looking for some solace in his father. "What? Who's laughing at me?"
"The folks downstairs, of course. They can't believe that you are supposed to be the heir. They think it's a joke, or worse: a threat. I've seen your progress... your instructor's concerned about you, Cynbel. Krypton says you've been slacking. Even worse so after you started bringing that... undesirable to class with you. I thought alchemy meant so much to you— I thought we meant so much to you. But you’re throwing it away for some snot-nosed orphan?"
The young Cynbel could only shake his head. Denial set in with shallow roots, immediately uprooted by his father's poisonous thoughts. They were starting to set in as he could only silently suffer in a pony-shaped pool of anxiety, until a sharp sound broke his spiraling thoughts. A porcelain plate shot across the room and shattered against the wall, sending shrapnel of white and stained shards on the floor. The thrower, Chantal, stood up from her chair. Her flushed, heated face contorted into a hideous scowl. “Stand up for yourself, you spineless child! Are you just going to let him walk all over you? Speak!”
Cynbel stared at his plate as the tears welled up in his eyes, but he would not cry. Bismarck continued to eat, unbothered by the traditional Ferode family dinner. Clovis simply sighed and buried himself in his meal and turned away.
“Unbelievable," Chantal scoffed, her magic gripped the sanguine colored wine by the neck and hoisted it to float near her as she stormed out of the room. “To hell with you all.”
Though Chantal's wound was fresh, Cynbel was more worried about his father's sudden turn. It's been happening more frequently, starting since his failings in transmutation class were starting to become a regular conversation between Krypton and Clovis. Still, his thoughts turned to Tonnage, his only friend. An orphanage sounded reasonable, but he wasn't able to say goodbye? He didn't know how, but his neurons made a shack-esque, rickety bridge that connected to a panic-stricken memory from his first time downstairs: a doctor-coated stallion, quietly warning Clovis of a "breach" on the western wing of the subterranean laboratory.
There, he will finally understand just what happened to his only friend.
