[PRP] Smokey Nights (Scheherazade & Seraphim)

[Hattaki]

Somewhere a speaker was playing a tune, a dull beat that seemed to affect the undercurrent of the whole place and there were even a few ponies in the audience who's heads seemed to move up and down softly in time with it. A hoof or two might tap against the ground in a pseudo clap for the story that was being woven for them, a story that twisted around like the smoke that hung in the room like a haze. They'd lit a cigarette themselves, adding to the atmosphere of the place, though they hadn't drawn from it, only looked at the smoke as they told a tale. Inspiration could come from anywhere and Scheherazade knew that better than anyone present, they'd already inspired two ponies here tonight, but this was their turn, their spotlight. It burned above them and gave the alicorn something like a hazy halo as they spoke, weaving the tale of Blue Baby and her Smoke Boy, a tale that they'd told numerous times over the years, one that was quickly forgotten as well. Red eyes watched the crowd, gauging their reactions to each stage of the story they told, smiling as the strip around their form began to fill with small scribbles of the story they were telling.

It was their favorite after all. A whisper of two ponies made out of mist and smoke that found each other under the gleam of moonlight.

Coming to their favorite part, Scheherazade spread their wings out, the smoke swirled around them as they beat just a little and they watched as ponies lifted their heads to follow the swirl above them, soft gasps and sighs met their ears. This was their stage this time and they controlled what happened all around them, from the sway of the beat with the tone of their voice to the flow of the story and how quickly it came to the climax. Their world was the entire stage, it had been since they'd left that orphanage far behind them, all the pain of adolescence that came with fluctuating powers and uncontrollable. A life lived without ever knowing who they truly were until they were grown and learned that a lack of parents didn't make one who they were meant to be, or who they weren't meant to be.

This was home now.

A sweep of a wing and a tap of one cream colored hoof ended it, sunlight burned away the mist and smoke dissipated into the sky after the moon. Never to be together, such was life they supposed.

Slowly Scheherazade took a drag of their cigarette and scanned out over the crowd with interest, watching faces and gauging responses as hooves beat on the floor quietly in applause, not a story that one would give it thunderously for after all. Death and loss didn't deserve thunderous applause, thus it wasn't something that the alicorn sought out regularly in their life, one of loss and desperate dreaming, hoping, twisting stories to make up for what didn't exist. Who would tell the next story or poem? Who would weave the next bit of pain into a story that other ponies might eat up, never knowing what the truth behind it was?

@Nym