Steadfast Minds

by GardenOfSilver

Steadfast

Bright Eyes groaned loudly at the static crashing back and forth in her skull and pulled the too-thin pillow over her head. It was far too bright as well, and her bed felt kinda lumpy. The air was full with the musty smell of age, irritating her nose. Her ear itched. Realization came together with her returning wakefulness, this wasn’t her bed. Where were she?

It all came rolling back to her, traveling. She’d spent all of yesterday on the boat heading for a little town in the middle of nowhere and arriving at the docks well past the witching hours of the night. From there she had been forced mosey over to the local inn through a haze of fatigue and shadows.

From there everything was too fuzzy to make sense of.

She groaned as she rolled of the bed, her hooves connecting with the floorboards with a soft ‘clack’ and the groan of old timbers and she had a look around. The room was all aged dark oak, polished to a sheen both by wear and meticulous care, and granite of the outer wall. Furnishing the room was an large dresses of pinewood upon which sat a polished brass mirror leaning jauntily against the wall while the bed was tucked into a corner, draped in faded and worn green covers. Standing at the end were a small trunk bound with iron, seemingly hammered into shape by inexpert hooves. Much like the covers a faded and threadbare green carpet laid sprawled in the middle of the floor and thick curtains, likewise coloured, hang before the room’s sole window, bare of windowpane but furnished with set of thick and sturdy oak shutters. A single candle stood on top of the trunk, to provide light during the dark hours of the day. To call the room archaic would be to put it simple, Bright Eyes felt as if she’d stepped centuries back in time.

Her roommate back in Manehattan would have loved this place she realised with a chuckle, he’d spending hours and hours just picking over the room and marveling over every little detail. Then again, Highlight’s obsession for details was the reason he worked forensics for the Manehattan police.

Shaking her head Eyes trotted across the room, grabbing her coat and fedora as she went and pulled them on. A quick check in the pockets revealed that she had both her notepad, magnifying glass and her stunner wand. It was time for some detective work!

Her stomach growled at her angrily.

...right after eating something!

* * * * *

Say what you will about the rooms but it turns out the inn had an excellent cook in the proprietes, Mrs. Casserole, and before long Eyes had found herself seated by one of the long tables, a large bowl of her hostess’ namesake on the table. And surprisingly enough a glass of wine as well.

“I’ll have to say, Mrs. Casserole, this wine is exquisite. You say you produce it locally, yes?” she asked, turning her gaze towards the earth pony.

“Indeed, there are a few orchards up on the hills near the manor, Lady Eyes. Apparently the grapes they grow are something of an oddity, and I understand Mr. Cauldron does give a helping hoof with it as well,” the earth pony mare said with a wide smile of pride.

From what Bright Eyes had gathered from their conversation the mint green mare had been born in Steadfast and had lived here her whole life. Apparently that was a point of pride, not just for her but for everypony in town judging by the way she went on about it. It rather did make the way she made sure to please her customer all the weirder though.

The detective suppressed a groan as she took another sip from the wine, the mare was almost sickeningly friendly, and cheery. Hopefully everypony else were a bit more down to earth.

“I’m going to have to remember to buy a bottle when I return home, my roommate have a weird thing about wine. He’d love it. Now, how much do I owe y-”

“Oh don’t worry about that, Lady Eyes. Sir Regal Script said you eat and sleep for free, so you eat and sleep for free. Said that he wanted you to be able to focus on your work,” the mint-green mare said with a smile. “Speaking of which, the guard came down here earlier. Brought you an invitation to the manor. Tonight! Such an honor, isn’t it exciting? Though surely you are used to it.”

Eyes couldn’t help but cringe at the look of dreamy adoration on Mrs. Casserole’s face as her voice trailed off. Dinner at the manor must be a pretty big thing in town, by the sound of it. She took her time to down the rest of the wine, it was shocking how much that made her mellow out, trying her best not to look at the other mare. Her gaze was still glossy, and Bright Eyes could swear she was starting to blush. Nope, she wasn’t mellow enough for this. It was downright creepy, like stumbling upon somepony’s favorite dirty fantasy.

She glanced at Mrs. Casserole again. Yup, it was exactly like that, she thought with a shudder.

“Okay... In that case, thank you. I guess I’ll have a look around town. You know, do detective work? S’okay, right?”

No response.

“Okay.”

Bright Eyes couldn’t get out from there quick enough.

* * * * *

She felt downright silly for having even entertained the idea that the rest of town was more down to earth than Mrs. Casserole. It wasn’t. It was impossible to trot down the street without being peppered by some form of greeting by the locals, everything from friendly waves and polite nods from the earth ponies to a pegasi coming down to not only introduce herself but ask if she was feeling okay.

Actually, greetings of the later kind started to become a lot more common as she wound her way between the buildings. Bright Eyes had always been of the opinion that ponies in Manehattan could stand to be a bit friendlier but now she was glad they weren’t, friendly was incredibly grating as it turned out.

The town itself was almost as bad in broad daylight, the buildings didn’t loom overhead nearly as much and away from the waterfront the streets opened up, lined with verdant trees, beds of flowers and deep green ivy. The place was downright pretty. She also realized her first estimate of Steadfast’s size must have been wrong, it didn’t house a hundred ponies. There had to be a thousand at least. How such a large community could live in near isolation was mind boggling.

Up above the weather ponies finished clearing up the remains of last night’s cloud cover and began fluttering down to greet their earth pony neighbours. A sizable number of them alighted upon the ground ahead of her where the buildings fell away on either side and the road opened up into a small and irregular plaza lined with storefronts and small cafés. Situated dead in the middle, of at least middle-ish, stood the town’s clock tower. It was quite the affair erected in classical gothic style and decorated sculptures of earth ponies and pegasi working or frolicing, several large arches at it’s base opening up into the space within through which Eyes though she could see a large well.

Curiously enough the old gothic building looked far newer than the surrounding houses. And then there was the magical static rolling of the spellwork within, an omnipresent little niggling feeling. It had slipped her mind after she woke up, but right near the tower it came back above the threshold of the conscious mind.

“Um, Lady Eyes?” a voice asked behind her, making her whip around. Startled.

“Huh? Oh, yes that’d be me. How’d you know?”

“Oh, um, Sir Script told us so? Forgive me for interrupting, um, Lady Eyes. I was just wondering, would you want something?”

It took Bright Eyes a moment to realise that the sky-blue pegasus hiding behind the curtain of straight, white hair was actually a he. He had a little white bow tie around his neck and a wing raised towards the seats and tables of one nearby café. Kinda cute.

“It’s on the house, Lady Eyes?” he hesitated, guessing rather erroneously at the reason for hesitation.

The detective stifled yet another groan. These ponies were way too nice for their own good! She had work to do, she couldn’t just sit down and lazy the afternoon away. No, she had looking for clues, talk to ponies and scout out the area and-...

And-...

Her frustration just evaporated. Maybe taking her time at the café wasn’t that bad an idea anyway. After all she’d have a good view over the town well and the square. She could even ask the staff for more information about the surroundings and the goings on. Yes, that sounded reasonable. Right?

Right!

“Oh, sure. Tell me, do you have chocolate and strawberry cake?”

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

There are a few errors in the second chapter. Overall, this chapter felt a little rougher, somehow.
From there she had been forced to mosey over to the local inn through a haze of fatigue and shadows.
I’m going to have to remember to buy a bottle when I return home, my roommate has a weird thing about wine.

Still an excellent first story. I'm interested. Please, go on.

[GardenOfSilver]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, both of you. As of right now I got the third chapter in writing though it’ll most likely be a while, this project is half ment as practice and I need to get into writing shape. Also, the friend who is helping me edit readability into these won’t be able to help me out for a week or two.

1572236 My mistake, there. I know I talked with my pre-reader about this, though it must have slipped my mind that I never did get it properly looked over. I’ll see what I can do to clean it up. If nothing else I’ll have it fixed with chapter three. Thanks.

1576842 Thank you. And it’s not, I’m mostly writing this as practice and for my own enjoyment. I hope it will be a interesting read, it certainly is interesting to write. I’ve never tried to write something like this before, so I find myself a bit worried I’m not going to be subtle enough with some things. Or to subtle with others.

[totallynotabrony]

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