“Two adults,” you say as you slide a twenty under the ticket window. The purple star stamp that the girl in the booth presses onto the back of your hand is cold, like a kiss. She smiles when Luna raises her hoof and lets her stamp her shoe.

“Do you fellas want beer bracelets?”

You glance at Luna. “No, I’d better not. I’m driving, and the missus here doesn’t drink.”

“The missus? O … K …” The other girls start giggling. One is snapping a photo with her phone and making a piss poor attempt to hide it. Five seconds and she’ll be uploading you all over Snapchat.

You sneer, but hold your peace. Nothing you could say right now is going to help you. “Which way is the petting zoo?”

The one with the stamp is spazzing. Laughing, it looks like, but holding it in. Real funny, huh – a man and his waifu? She points to a spot on the map they had taped to the window. “Here’s where you two are now. Follow the main road,” she traces her finger up the brown rectangle on the page, “then when you see the 4H exhibit take a right. You’ll see it right there. White tent, lots of animals.” Her pink polished fingernail taps a circle with an outline of a goat in the middle.

“Thanks,” you mumble. Luna had already left.

You hurry, muffling your thoughts like you always do when you want to be invisible. If you think as little as possible, no one will notice you chasing a giant blue unicorn with wings. That’s how it works.

In no time you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She has her head high, nose up. Not good. Lots of people are heading in the opposite direction, carrying bags of cotton candy and balloons while they laugh about how scared they were on this ride or that. Most are families with kids, but there are more than a few knots of teens and twenty-somethings looking for a place to chill, or to fuck with people. You’re getting looks from all of them, of course.

Looks, giggles, comments, and all the usual shit. The beer tent is coming up on the left. If you can just make it past here without anybody …

“The fuck?”

Shit. Three shitfaced guys in wife-beaters are standing at the door of the tent. The douchenard gang of this douchenard town.

“Take off the suit, asshole! This isn’t fucking Disney World,” the tall one shouts at Luna. People call him Gorilla, on account of the carpet of hair he’s got sprouting everywhere it shouldn’t. He lifts, but that’s all he does, and he only works his arms. He’d been a real fuckwad in high school. Considered himself a natural leader since the days of European History, when they covered the World War II Axis powers.

The wannabe Gorillas, Schlong and Poop Scoop, crack up as all three step out from under the tent. “Hey! Is that your boyfriend in there?” yells Schlong. “Tell him to come out, I got something for him.” He extends his cobra-and-grizzly-bear-tattooed arm, holding out a hot dog.

Gorilla you could handle. At least you could reason with him, when he wasn’t speedballing. But Schlong-dong was a different story. The conversation would always come back to his cock ring, most often right before he showed it to you.

“Ha ha! Come out. Nice!” blurts Poop Scoop. First thing you’d heard him say in two months. They didn’t let him out of the Johnsonville Wastewater Treatment Plant very often. He picks an onion ring out of his cardboard tray and tosses it at the tip of Luna’s horn.

“Look, just like horseshoes!”

Schlong laughs and gives him a high five. “Have a go, Gorilla. Betcha Pooper can land a ringer before you.”

“A ringer with the rings. Gimme one of those,” Gorilla grunts, scraping up a handful. He throws one like a Frisbee. Too low. It bounces off Luna’s clenched eyelid and gets caught in her mane.

Her rage boils up inside your chest like superheated radiator fluid, her thoughts streaking into your turtled brain. I shall incinerate them where they stand.

She’s getting a spell ready. One with enough power to make the beer tent a pile of ash and roasted dickfaces.

Shit … uh … shoot! No! No. You don’t want to do that. Too many people watching. Just let me handle it, OK?

Her murderous gaze turns to you, but she holds the inferno she’d been about to unleash in check.

You hold out your hands, trying to block some of the shit they’re throwing. “Nah, bruh. He’s my brother. He’s kind of a clown.”

Gorilla’s having none of it. “Fuck that. Clowns wear wigs and make balloon animals, dude. They don’t go around wearing that shit.” He tries for a skyhook jumpshot. Not even close.

“He’s got issues, OK? Can you take it easy on him?”

Schlong is twirling a soggy onion ring on his finger like an old west gunslinger. “Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Just tell him to stand still for a minute.” He goes into his best Major League wind up and chucks it at Luna as hard as he can, not even trying for her horn.

The other two open fire. The sounds of the missiles splattering as they hit their suffering mark are being drowned out by the jeering of the crowd. They think it's a show.

Dripping bits of breading and onion are appearing on Luna’s face, mane and sides, peppering her once-stainless coat. Tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes.

Fuck your life. They’re triggering her rejection complex. All sorts of baggage about her sister comes crashing to the front of her closet, spilling onto your floor.

Schlong’s got his A-game on now. He lobs his beer at her, solo cup and all. It hits her wing, soaking into her brilliant blue feathers and coating them with foam. The crowd laughs. Some of the dads join in, throwing the stale ends of their softie pretzels and popcorn, or sloshing out experimental splashes of icy soft drinks at her back.

All her anger had become a raging torrent of despair. The tears were flowing now, mingling with the grease that was caking up on her cheeks. She had never stopped looking at you.

What say you? Will you do nothing to defend my honor?

You feel like shit that a dog had eaten and shit out a second time, but you know when you’re outgunned. Just … just let them finish. I know these guys. If I say the wrong thing they’re going to kick my ass.

They keep pelting her with onion rings, absorbed in their game, until one accidentally catches on her horn. It spirals all the way down to her forehead.

Gorilla takes one last gulp of his beer and crushes the cup. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Let these two fairies go kiss on the Merry-go-Round or whatever.”

“Yeah, let’s go hit up the bar,” Poop Scoop agrees. The three of them shuffle off. The circle of people who’d been watching clap and go on their merry way.

Luna snuffles. You hate seeing her like this. She can’t even clean herself off, since you’d agreed early on that using magic in public is a bad idea. Worst of all, her feelings are all torn to hell.

Still, you have to try to make the best of it. You can’t let those assholes ruin your waifu’s special evening. “Hey, I’m sorry about what they did. Maybe if I win you something at one of the booths, would that make you feel better? Do you like goldfish? I could …”

“I have a sudden desire to see the swine race,” she growls, and stomps away before you can answer.

You hustle to the beer tent. “Wait a minute! Let me at least get some napkins for you!” You grab a bunch off the top of the stack along with a couple of moist towelettes and fast-walk up the road after her. Running would make it look like you were having a tiff, and after what Gorilla had implied, that was the last thing you wanted people to think.

By the time you catch up, she’d reached the restrooms they keep year-round for hikers and park visitors. “Hey,” you call out, “I think the pig race is over that way, by the announce tower.”

She keeps moving like she hadn’t heard you, slipping into the shadows behind the building.

You take a quick look around. Nobody here but the drunk guy that had just stumbled out of the men’s room talking to himself. Not wanting Luna to get too far out of sight, you hurry forward into the dark. There’s a good chance she’s having a crying fit back there, and you might be able to calm her down before she gets too out of control.

She’s waiting for you at the rear of the building, wearing a scowl that could burn a city down. It’s hard to see outside of the lights of the lamps and the rides, but you could swear that all the shit those jackoffs had mucked her up with was gone. And she’s definitely not crying.

You fan the napkins. “Hey baby, you need these? Listen, you can’t just step up to those guys. I could take one of them, no problem, but not all three. I’m sorry. I feel really, really bad. You’re not hurt, are you? Hey, I still got this,” you drop the napkins on the ground and pull the cantaloupe out from under your arm. “It’s not a three course fireside dinner like you’re used to back home, but I made sure to get a juicy one. You gotta be hungry after …”

You feel the melon tug out of your grip. She’s floating it with her magic, turning it around and around like one of the planets they had on the third grade science class mobiles. She glides it next to your head as if comparing the sizes.

“No, honey, it’s for you. I’m not …”

The melon explodes. Chunks of watery orange flesh splatter you and everything around you. The coarse-skinned rind bites into your face, stinging like a swarm of hornets.

Before you can wipe the pulp out of your eyes, something cold and hard slams against your temple. You sprawl back against the water stained brick wall, a migraine already pounding away in your skull.

Luna steps forward, too close for you to move. When you see the glittering hatred in her eyes, you put two and two together.

She’d hit you.

Her hoof comes up again, lightning-quick. The metal of her shoe connects below your ear like an aluminum baseball bat, its force sending you to your knees. The night goes black, just for a second, and your lunch heaves halfway up your throat. You hold your gut, trying not to puke.

Seeing you try to protect yourself only provokes her wrath. It’s exploding now, releasing in bursts from her volcanic heart. Her blows hammer down on your face and collar bones and head, raising welts and opening cuts in a hail of misery. When you try to crawl away, the rock-hard hooves slice in from the side and crack against your ribs.

She knows where to hit. Of course she does. She’d spent the last three months studying humans. Culture, politics, psychology, and anatomy. She knows every tendon. Every nerve.

And you? She’d read your mind and feelings like a book. All day, every day.

She knows everything about you.

Her anger grows every time her hoof finds your groveling body. You can feel that this goes far beyond the spectacle that had played out a few minutes ago. It’s you. Her intentions are screaming inside your thoughts, vaporizing everything else. She wants to keep hitting you until you stop moving.

You have to do something before she knocks you out and stomps your brains to jelly. “Please, sweetie, stop! I’m not like you. I’m not strong like you. You’re gonna kill me!”

Something in your voice must have gotten her attention. Through blackened eyes you see her hooves step back onto the grass and gingerly wipe off your blood.

The beating had stopped, for now.