A/N: Maybe someday, when I'm not distracted by real life and other stories I wanna write, I'll get around to actually remembering to write something for this myself. In the meantime, we have Donny's Boy! You rock, whoo-hoo! Again, I absolutely love this and wish I'd written it myself, so you guys can all do me a favor and pretend this actually WAS written by me, okay?

"Behind Blue Eyes"

Guest Submission by Donny's Boy

“But my dreams, they aren’t as empty

As my conscience seems to be.

I have hours, only lonely--

My love is vengeance that’s never free.”

--The Who, “Behind Blue Eyes”

The main problem, as far as she could determine, was that there were only so many archetypes available to be filled in an adventure story. And somehow over the last few weeks, this had become an adventure story, a tale of intrigue and romance, of danger and mystery, of secrets and lies.

She couldn’t be the hero, obviously. Heroes were brave and bold and selfless and always dedicated to doing the right thing. And she was … well, none of that. She was, in fact, pretty much the exact opposite of everything a hero should represent. Besides, this little story already had a hero, a hero who actually was brave and bold, charming and clever.

A hero who was dashing, even, one might say, if one was particularly fond of bad puns. Which, of course, she was.

So, no, she wasn’t ever going to be the hero. She’d resigned herself to that inevitability long ago. What did that leave her with, then? She could be the sidekick, she supposed. Dopey, slow-witted, always tucked away in the shadows and denied the light. Relegated to being the wacky comic relief, as two-dimensional as a sheet of paper. Goodness knew that it was a role she was good at performing. It was a role she’d been rehearsing for her entire life, in fact, and she had her acting honed to perfection.

But she’d grown so tired of being the sidekick. The role had always strangled her, every bit as much as the mask of Mare Do Well strangled her now. She didn’t want to play a sidekick any more, and she didn’t want to feel as though she had to laugh and act the clown even when her heart was being torn apart.

Not a hero, then. And not a sidekick. But what? Where did she fit into this story? What role was left open for her to play? It was at this point in her ruminations that a voice, a voice that seemed not quite her own, whispered softly in her ear: You could be the villain.

She felt her breath catch in her throat even as the thought flitted across her mind. It was a ridiculous, crazy thought. She wasn’t a villain. Was she? She didn’t want to be a villain, anyways.

Did she?

She tried not to even think about it, but once the idea had wormed its way into her brain, it wouldn’t leave. Villains were … interesting. Villains lurked in the shadows of their own volition and for their own reasons, not because they’d been shoved there by someone else. Villains could take the things they wanted, without asking, without worrying. Villains answered to no one but themselves.

But she wasn’t a villain. Of course she wasn’t a villain.

Still, as days and weeks went by, as all their little games intensified and spun out of control, she found her thoughts drifting back to that same question over and over again. What role was she playing here? What role did she want to play? Not the role of the villain, she knew that much, even though …

Even though. Villains weren’t lackeys or second-stringers or laughingstocks. They were the equals to their respective heroes. Worthy opponents. Smart, cunning, capable. Even charming, in their own way.

She remembered the way it felt to circle around her chosen prey like a patient vulture, to lean in so close she could almost taste the other pony’s nervousness, to whisper words soft and awful and true. She remembered how the pegasus had stared at her with wide open eyes--as though she was something powerful and impressive, someone worthy of respect. She remembered how her own heart had thudded painfully in her chest and how an overwhelming cocktail of excitement and terror had rushed through her veins.

She remembered how she had realized, just for a split second, just in passing, that she could have done anything. She could have done anything at all, and no one would have been able to stop her. No one. She remembered how it felt to have absolute, complete control for once in her life. It had felt amazing. Sweet and intoxicating, like the nectar of forbidden fruit.

At least, it had felt that way at first--until later that night, when she’d returned home and peeled off her mask, shrugged off the cape. Then, she wasn’t the mysterious Mare Do Well any more. She was just … nothing. Nobody.

Finally coming down from her earlier high, she’d started trembling uncontrollably as the room turned cold, so bitterly cold, colder than anything and anyplace she’d ever known. Without warning her stomach gave a lurch, and suddenly she was vomiting all over the floor of her bedroom.

After she finished emptying her stomach, she just laid there on the hard, wooden floor, and she wondered if villains were supposed to ever have second thoughts. If they were even allowed to have regrets. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a villain.

Not that she was a villain. She wasn’t a villain. Of course she wasn’t a villain.

She couldn’t stand to look at herself in the mirror the next morning. Or the morning after that.

Back at the very beginning, she had thought that she might be able to become the hero of this little story. It seemed foolish now, and almost painfully naive, but at the very beginning she had actually entertained that as a real possibility. That had been what she’d wanted, anyways. To be a hero. To be brave and strong. To save the day.

To win the girl.

Maybe that was what all villains wanted. Maybe the only difference between heroes and villains was how successful they were in obtaining that tantalizing object of desire. Maybe heroes wouldn’t be quite so heroic if they had to exist in continual deprivation, always denied the warmth of the sun. Maybe villains wouldn’t be quite so villainous if once in a while they’d be granted a tiny taste of what they longed for so desperately. Maybe that was where everything had started going so very, very wrong.

Maybe she was making excuses for herself.

She forced herself, once, to look in the mirror. To look into her own eyes. When she did, she found that she didn’t really recognize those eyes any more or the pony to whom those eyes belonged. But maybe she never had, not really. She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter, anyways.

Nothing mattered, any more, except for Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash was everything. Rainbow Dash was what kept her putting on that mask, putting on that cape, even as doing so dragged both of their lives farther and farther down into that chaotic vortex. Even as she felt their entire world begin to rip apart right at the seams. Even as she felt herself slip almost subconsciously into the role of villain, in an instinctive response to Rainbow’s heroic nature.

Because even as Rainbow resented her, screamed at her, hated her, Rainbow was nonetheless there, right within reach. Tangible. Touchable. Hers and hers alone, if only for a few hours every night.

But all that was understandable, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t anyone feel that temptation, that urge? Or was it these very urges themselves that made her a villain? Except--she began to feel a bit confused, a bit panicky, as her thoughts jumbled all together--except that she wasn’t the villain here. Wasn’t a villain at all. She wasn’t. She wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t.

Was she?

The eyes in the mirror refused to answer. Next Chapter: Alternate Ending: The Games We Play: Pinkiefied (Guest submission from Bellum_Civille) Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 42 Minutes