Kids. Kids. Your uncle’s had a tough day. I can’t take one more minute of screaming. It’s bad enough I have to hear it at work.

A game? That’s a great idea. Lemme see what’s on. Grab me a beer from the—

Ow! Whaddya doing? Not the tail! Not the tail! Let go of my—

Dammit.

I have no idea how that got in there.

No, it’s not a tail extension. Why would I need a—

—gimme that!

—keep your voice down, you little—

—okay, okay. I’ll play a game.

I got a great game. The best. It’s called “Dragon”. I’m the dragon, see. And this—this box of toys, over here, is my treasure.

So the dragon lies down on this sofa here, like this, see? And it’s sleeping. And you gotta sneak past the dragon without waking it and steal all its treasure, one piece at a time.

I’m going to sleep now. So just sneak past, on your toes. Real quiet. Yeah, that’s—

OW!

Oh, kid. You are pushing your luck.

Did I ever tell you about your little brother? The one you don’t have no more?

No. No, I don’t think I should tell you a story. Or anything else. You’re dangerous enough already.

It’s not a tail extension.

I’m gonna tell you a story now, aren’t I?

Clever little bastards. Heh.

Okay, whaddya wanna hear? The bearskin? How the bear lost his tail?

What? I like stories with bears.

I don’t know that one. No, I dunno that one either.

Now you’re making stuff up. The stinky cheese man is not a story.

Beauty and the beast? Oh, boy, do I know that one.

Once upon a time, see, there was this stallion who fell in love with a beautiful mare. If you could’ve just seen her walk into a room. The way she swayed her hips should’ve been a crime.

I don’t mean some winking low-class burley-que come-hither. I mean she’d glide. Every part of her added something to it, moving in waves on waves, none of them ever stopping or slowing down. Just sliding, curving back, and coming around again. Made everyone else look like puppets jerking on strings. The air would part around her, it wouldn’t dare touch her.

Sure that’s the story. Don’t tell me I don’t know the story. Every stallion knows this story, sooner or later.

But you shoulda seen her smile, kids. Like she had stars inside her.

Do not ever tell anypony I said that.

No. No, you’re not getting another story. You can’t prove a thing.

You ever walk outside on a cold night under a full moon? Everypony scuttles by in a trance, hunched over cold, staring at their own breath, hoofclops bouncing off the brownstone. Maybe some horns honking. Maybe a drunk’s eyeing you from a doorway and you’re wondering if you should roll him before he rolls you. Maybe you step into something nasty leaking from a dumpster, again. Maybe some dam’s leaning out the window, hooves on her hips, shouting at some mumble-faced guy down on the street so the whole world can hear. And then you look up, and hanging in the gap between two apartment buildings is the moon, perfect and ghostly and shimmering. From another world, but it’s like you could reach out and touch it.

Imagine you could reach out and touch it. That it was right there on the street with you. But you weren’t supposed to. You could only look. Maybe lean in a little, catch a whiff of its perfume.

It’d drive you crazy, wouldn’t it?

Better the moon should stay in the sky, kids. And better that stallion had gone home and had a cold shower. But he was a fool. When she turned his way and smiled, he smiled right back and stepped right up to her, like he thought he could get inside her to where all those stars were. And then he looked into her eyes, and he felt the shape and heat of her body, through the air, like sonar, and he was lost, kids. Lost.

No. No, he is not a big stupid-face.

Did you at least get what I said about the moon?

Say it’s the night before Nightmare Night, and there’s not a candy in the house. Not even one of those lousy waxy candy corns. You know there’s bags and bags of it all around you, stashed away secret, but you can’t have any.

Oh, so the moon and the stars and all is dumb, but candy you understand.

Pearls before swine, I tell ya.

Now I don’t want you thinking the way a stallion feels about a mare is the same as a colt or a filly feels about a bag of candy. It’s more like...

Eh, close enough.

But he really wants that candy. It’s the only candy in the world for him all of a sudden. If he can just get that candy, nothing else will matter. Only it ain’t candy, it’s a metaphor.

What it means is, she ain’t really candy, okay?

No, I don’t got no candy.

So he took her out to parties and such. Fancy ones where old stallions with monocles told stories and old mares in dresses with too many frills laughed at them like they were funny. Wild ones where zebras played crazy music in basements while everypony danced. If she said she liked the sound of the water, he’d take her on a riverboat cruise. If she said the moon was beautiful, he’d get a magic lasso and haul it down outta the sky for her.

Turns out there’s a law against that. Who knew?

Now the amazing thing, kids, is that it turned out this mare, she loved candy too. I mean, of course she did. Everybody likes candy. But it seemed like a miracle. And she wanted his candy.

No. I told you, it’s a metaphor.

What it means is, she liked him. Oh, it’d be easy to sneer and say she liked the parties and the pearls. But I think she really, really liked him. They lit up the night together. And one day he finally did get inside her and see all those stars.

Also a metaphor. Ask your mother.

So the two of them, they got married and moved in together. They laughed a lot, and smiled at each other a lot, and did other things a lot. It was great. Soon enough, some foals came along, fuzzy and cute. Happy ending, right?

But suddenly the things she’d like about him before, she didn’t like no more. Before, she liked that he was big and strong and laughed too loud. She liked that he could pick her up and swing her around in the air when they danced. She liked that he said what he thought, and didn’t take guff from no one or care what anypony thought.

But now it was, “Keep your voice down! Don’t burp! Wipe off your hooves! Take your clothes off the floor!”

I ask you, kids: Can a pony be the kind of stallion who cuts his own path through life if he can’t fart in his own home? If he’s worried about whether his dirty socks are in the dark pile or the light pile?

No. No he can’t.

Yes, I said fart. That’s not the important point here, kids.

That mare, she couldn’t be happy. She’d stand there watching him, like she wanted to say something, and he’d say “So what is it?”, and she’d say, “Nothing.” So he’d go back to whatever he was doing, and then she’d suddenly burst out with, “We never go out anymore.”

Like he was supposed to keep up this whole rigamarole of buying her things and taking her places forever. What did she think he married her for, am I right?

And like they had time for parties or riverboats anymore. She was too busy with those foals, and he was too busy working late every night, trying to put hay on the table.

He’d come home after a hard day, just wanting to sit down, have a square meal, and rest his four feet. And she’d kinda hover over him, and if he wasn’t quick with something about how tender the carrots were or how crunchy the hay was, she’d say, “You don’t appreciate how hard I work for you!” Which was ironic, what with him being just home from busting his balls all day for her.

Ask your mother.

And then she’d want to talk. Like he hasn’t heard enough talk all day. And, honestly, what was she gonna say? It was all gonna be about how Pansy wouldn’t eat her grass, or Nightshade was getting bad grades in Equestrian history, stuff she should be able to handle on her own.

She’d say, “I’ve been with the kids all day, just waiting for you to come home to have somebody adult to talk to, and you come in and don’t speak a word and sit down with your nose glued to the front of that tube like some dumb animal.” Like she’s been waiting all day, but now she can’t wait just till the end of the quarter.

Then she’d put her hoofs on her hips and stand right in between him and the set and glare at him, usually right when there was a fumble or a breakaway pass, like how a cat has an instinct to sit on the paper just when you’re reading something good. And he’d have to lean way over just to see how the play ended.

So sometimes he’d stay a little later at the bar, watching the game, catching up with some of his pals, like guys do. Nothing wrong with that. I’m not saying he didn’t still love her, only a fellow needs a break sometime. Some time with the guys.

Then he’d head home with a smile on his face. Not four sheets to the wind or anything. Just a little warm glow from the bar. And she’d be waiting for him, and I don’t mean waiting the way that makes a stallion happy. She’d be standing there in some frumpy sweater, glaring out from under a mane that looked like a rat’s nest. I mean she’d started to let herself go, kids.

“We need to talk,” she’d say. “About our relationship.” “We don’t got a relationship,” he’d say. “We’re married.” And then she’d start crying, and blowing her nose into her fancy monogrammed silk hoofkerchiefs he bought for her, what cost a damned sight more than’s decent for a little shred of fabric that all you do is fill with snot and stuff into your pocket anyway.

“You never tell me I’m beautiful anymore!” she’d sob. “Lay off the donuts for a few days and maybe I will,” he’d say. I mean, he was just trying to be helpful, kids.

Or, “You never buy me pearls anymore!”, she’d say. “What’s the matter with the pearls I bought you before?” he’d say. “Did they go bad? Did they invent some new pearl-stringing technology?”

Then she’d pull out the big guns: “You just don’t understand!”

And, kids, he didn’t. He didn’t have a clue why everything had gone wrong. She’d said she wanted to settle down, and he had settled down. He had a good job, good home-cooked food, a comfortable armchair, and somepony to snuggle at night without having to go out and tear up the town and show up a lot of other guys first.

It wasn’t enough for her, and he just didn’t get it. He didn’t get it until the day he came home after one or two or three rounds at the bar, and the house was empty and there was nothing on the table except a vase with a couple of flowers. He didn’t think much of it, just took off his shirt and sat down in front of the TV chewing on the flowers, spitting the stems out onto the floor, until he heard angry stomping and she came down the stairs wearing a red dress and a snarl, and he remembered they had dinner reservations and the kids were away at her mother’s because it was their anniversary.

She musta done herself up earlier, but her makeup was running down her face and smeared all around her eyes and in her mane, like she’d been crying and rubbing her eyes. The dress didn’t fit her no more, and she spilled out of it at both ends like a tube of toothpaste you’d squeezed in the middle.

She clomped over to him, leaned over right into his face and brayed. She called him crude and brutish and inconsiderate. She said she couldn’t take it anymore and she was gonna leave and take the kids with her. Her lips twitched and twisted all out-of-shape, like rubber bands, spraying flecks of foam over him each time she spoke. And then she leaned into him, grabbing onto his mane, her nose dripping into his chest, and she sobbed that she’d forgive everything if only he said he still loved her.

And that moment, kids, was when he realized what had happened: The beautiful mare he’d married had turned into a repulsive beast.

And that’s the story of beauty and the beast.

How does the story end? Hah.

It never ends, kids. It never ends.