On the Docks

by Mad Brochacho

Three

THREE

Sugarcube Corner was a giant cupcake built smack in the center of town, coated with sprinkles, candles and sequins. It had a pink mailbox, pink-tinted windows, pink flowers, a pink door and a pink sign hanging above the door with a pink cupcake painted in the center. I felt my insulin level rise just looking at the place. Somewhere out past Everfree a dragon sat on a mountaintop and stared down at the bakery, wondering whose birthday it was.

There were bushes the color of brownies planted on either side of the front steps, and the entrance to the bakery was flanked by two pink and white swirling pillars that might have been made from actual candy cane. Above the front door hung a cast iron horseshoe on a nail hammered not quite straight into the wooden frame. The horseshoe looked fit for an alicorn and the nail was about as long as the ones used to seal coffins.

No bell rang as I entered through the front door. I stepped inside and looked around. I was the only customer. The bakery interior was a stack of cupcakes, a series of frosting swirls, some candy canes in a box and a counter. Everything in sight looked edible. I felt like I was in a gingerbread house. Maybe I was.

I tipped my hat back and crossed the store to the counter. On the counter top sat a laminate price list and a desk bell. Behind the counter was an oak staircase climbing to the second floor, and the wall behind that opened into a small kitchen housing a fat, round baker’s oven. In a door frame opposite the staircase hung a pair of swing doors and from beyond them came the sound of somepony rummaging through the inventory. The somepony was humming.

I turned away from the counter and tiphoofed over to an end table that was backed against a sidewall of the room and had a gallery of photos stood on it. The photos were nice, family photos. Two candy-colored bakers, two newborns whose genes didn’t quite match up and one older pink mare who didn’t quite fit the picture, either. Strange family businesses were more than often run by strange families, no surprise there. It was the normal ones you had to watch out for.

I slid my hoof under the stand of the pink mare’s picture frame and lifted it. The photo inside spoke of a high grade lens and looked recent enough. She was posing with the two newborns at her forelegs and waggling her tongue at the camera. Not the type I’d peg as withdrawn and sad. I scoped her cutie mark, saw three balloons, two blue, one yellow, and set the picture frame back down on the table.

Beside the end table were some party favors and streamers and snakes of tissue paper piled in a bin on the floor. No cups or utensils that I could see. Some party I was in for tomorrow. Where did they keep the wine in a place like this?

I turned back to the center of the shop and stared. There were no strange smells, no bodies on the floor, no blood trails crawling down the woodwork. Just an empty bakery, same as any other, with a no smoking sign hung on the wall and a fine dusting of confectioner’s sugar spread over the floorboards.

In the absence of a headache it occurred to me I had accepted a job that was not only a job I would never accept, but was also one that I could not complete. What exactly did Rarity hire me to do? Keep an eye on Pinkie Pie, who was her friend, whatever that was supposed to mean. I wondered what Twilight would have had to say about that one. So a baker wrote some weird things in her diary, big whoop. What else were diaries for?

The only thing that made this mess a job was the money I was being paid to do it. It wasn’t a smear job, because Rarity evidently didn’t want to see her pink friend harmed. Not that I was complaining. On the other hoof, Rarity hadn’t asked me to look for anything in particular. I was to call her if anything turned up, but nothing would turn up. She had already found Pinkie Pie’s diary. What the hell else was there to find?

Maybe there was something to what Twilight had said. It didn’t take much to realize what made a good friend. A good friend wouldn’t hire a gumhoof to spy on another.

The whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth. Come to think of it, I couldn’t be sure that Rarity was even telling me the truth. Who was to say she wasn’t some big shot fashionista looking to trash a middle class pony who had the gall to insult her hat? She could have cooked up the whole diary story to set me on the trail of somepony who didn’t deserve it. In that case, she was using me right fine. I’d have to look into it further. Further than not at all.

I crossed the bakery floor to the counter and rang the desk bell and waited.

There was a crash, some stacked boxes falling in the storage room. A pointed voice sounded from nowhere: “Be with you in just a teensy-weensy minute!” The voice spoke with more energy than ought to have been allowed on a workday.

I looked down at a price laminate taped to the counter. Cupcakes were two bits a piece. Twenty bits would buy you a cake. Thirty, if it was dressed nice enough.

When I looked up from the list there was a charged ball of pink standing on the other side of the counter. She was candy-colored, soft-looking and round, like something the bakery might sell, and she wore a smile slightly dimmer than a lens flare. Her coat was vibrant pink and her mane was something you’d hack through with a machete. She was staring at me with the happiest thousand-yard stare I’d ever seen.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi! I know I said I would be a minute and that was only, like, five or ten seconds but it’s okay because I didn’t want to keep you waiting and I came out here and you were reading and I thought, ‘Why not let her read?’ So I did. Anyway, hi! I’ve never seen you in here before! Wait a minute, I’ve never seen you anywhere before! My name’s Pinkie Pie! What’s your name?”

I couldn’t tell if she was just excited or getting ready to tackle me. “Anna,” I said. “Anna Bride.”

Pinkie Pie giggled sharply. “Anna? That’s a silly name.”

“My parents had a strange sense of humor.”

She shut her eyes and giggled again. “Better than no sense at all, right?” I caught a glimpse of something dark, distant hiding in her eyes when they reopened. She blinked once and it was gone.

“Right,” I said.

“Anyway, new friend! You know what this calls for?”

I shook my head.

“A party!” Pinkie Pie jumped onto her back hooves and raised her forelegs to the ceiling. There was a burst of confetti from nowhere. She smiled at me.

“Cute trick, kid. I’ll pass.”

Pinkie Pie held the pose, huffing with excitement. “No party?”

“Not the party type,” I said.

Pinkie dropped to her hooves and smiled a bit less. I guessed that was her way of frowning. “Oh well, it can wait,” she said. “So! Are you gonna buy something? Hah! What a silly question, of course you want to buy something, I mean you walked through the front door and all.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll try —”

“A cake? A candy cane? No wait, a cupcake!”

I lifted my hat, ran a hoof through my mane, and sat it back on my head. “Sure, why not. One cupcake, please.”

“Great! What flavor do you want? We’ve got vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, darker chocolate, banana cream, coffee, apple, cherry, blueberry, maple syrup, cookie dough, marshmallow, red velvet, blue velvet, rainbow and friendship!”

“What’s in a friendship cupcake?”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “It’s my own special recipe. Wanna try one?”

“Chocolate’s fine.”

“Okie-dokie lokey.” She skipped over to the biggest oven on the rear wall and threw open the hatch. A powerful sugar smell rushed into the room, sweet as molasses and no less thick. Pinkie Pie slid a tray of cupcakes out, tossed one of them in a paper bag, shut the oven door, and bounced back to the counter with the bag held in her teeth. She slid the bag across to me and smiled. “There you go!”

I pressed two bits down onto the counter top and thanked her. There was nothing for me here. Not until I talked to Rarity.

As I turned to leave, Pinkie Pie called after me: “Uh, wait! One more thing.”

I looked over my shoulder. “What?”

She had moved out from behind the counter and was shining a straight grin at me. Her blue eyes wide and nervous. I saw that same speck of darkness floating again in her bubbly stare. It was right below the surface, a hint of ash, a fleck of something pained. You learn to notice these things.

“Remember to come tell me if you change your mind about the party,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s never too late for a new friend party!”

Another spray of confetti burst out from nowhere and showered to the floor. I searched along her pink coat while she posed but found nothing. No saddlebag, no pouch on her flank, nowhere to hide all that confetti. I wasn’t sure how she did it. I didn’t like that. “Good to know,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”

Pinkie Pie waved at me. “Come again!”

I walked out the door.

▼▼▼

On my way down the front steps of Sugarcube Corner I bumped sidelong into something light blue, fire-maned and slim. I heard a squawk of pain. A cyan wing snapped upward and smacked me in the chin and knocked my hat clean off. If it could knock your hat off it was a harder punch than anything feathered had a right to throw.

We both untangled. I stepped back and blinked a few times and glanced over the pony I’d walked into. It was a mare. She had rainbows streaked on her mane, rainbows trailing behind her, rainbow bangs, a rainbow smile, rainbows where the sun didn’t shine. Her dark amethyst eyes were set hard and wanting in her head like they missed the other colors of the spectrum, staring at me. I was damn near blinded by the all color.

“Sorry,” I said. “Wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Dangerous mistake, that, mule’s job or not. One blind step might see you slapped in the face with an athlete’s wing, might earn you a soft bump on the snout, might get you good and dead and full of holes to prove it. I’d seen it happen.

The pegasus shook her head and gave her wing a few testing flaps. She smiled at me, a jockish sort of smile, one that wanted very much to become a smirk, but wasn’t. “Yeah, yeah, don’t sweat it,” she said. “My wing’s fine.”

I crouched down, bit the brim of my fedora, whopped the hat against my coat to clear off any dirt and flipped it onto my head. The rainbow mare gave me a look that said, ‘Cool.’ For a moment, I felt cool. We were both cool. Her wing was fine, my hat was fine, no broken bones, everypony was fine.

“Don’t believe we’ve met,” I said, extending a hoof to her. “The name’s Bride.”

She grabbed my hoof and shook it like a tornado flings matchsticks. This sort of thing hurts once you’ve passed thirty-five. “Rainbow Dash, the one and only,” she said, smiling.

“The one and only?”

“No time to talk, sorry! I was supposed to meet Pinkie here, like, fifteen minutes ago. Sure hope those new cupcakes are still warm. See you around!”

“Alright then. Good—”

But she was already gone, up the steps and into the bakery and with the pink door shut behind her. Some ponies lived too fast for conversation. They had their things to do and you had yours and unless you wanted to talk business nopony could spare you the time of day. Or maybe I was just getting old.

I picked up my paper bag from the ground and set off toward the park district, near town hall. With the job falling through the floor like a sack of rocks and nothing to keep me busy, I started to feel a little out of place. I didn’t really belong in old town. It reminded me nothing of home. The roads were curvy and old-fashioned, and even when I knew exactly where I was the silly names written on the street signs made me feel lost. There wasn’t a bit of concrete in sight. Instead, there was color smeared everywhere, all over the houses and in the trees and on the streets. I got lucky that day, though. I hadn’t gone all that far down the road from Sugarcube Corner when I saw something that fit in even worse than I did: a car.

It was a flat black, open-topped ‘53 Koltswagen cabriolet with four shining hubcaps and two leather seats. The car was dark as obsidian and parked on the side of the street near a bright pink house, with one hubcap backed too close to the curbstone and the cover rolled down. Nopony around. It stood out like a pistol in a pile of plush toys. Ahead of me, a small group of ponies passed by and gave the car a curious side-look. Then a suspicious side-look. Then they walked on. It didn’t matter how suspicious the car looked, it was nopony’s business. But I had never learned to mind my own business. Still haven’t.

I crossed the street toward the car and stopped at its left front fender and memorized the plate number without thinking. Then I craned over the driver’s door and checked the interior. Empty as you’d expect. I stepped back and circled around the car. The windshield was spotless along with the mirrors and trim, which were freshly polished, and the tires had hardly a speck of dirt on them. The rear plate matched numbers with the front and checked out as valid, Ponyville-issue.

It was just a car. Nothing suspicious. No more suspicious than I was, anyway. I felt an odd sense of camaraderie with the thing. Hell, we were sisters, the two of us. Black and gray pilgrims lost on technicolor sands. I felt a bit silly for nosing around. I probably looked a bit silly, too. Carrying a paper bag in my mouth didn’t help.

Before I could leave, I heard hooves clopping over the stone behind me. Hard, heavy hoofsteps. They slowed as I turned and stopped about five yards from where I stood. It was a stallion. He wore a black jacket over his broad brown shoulders and let his greasy mane hang in strands about his face. He had cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and a mugger’s smile.

“Afternoon, graycoat,” he said. There was a whole box of nails rattling in his voice box. “Something I can help you with? Or were you hoping to find a body in the passenger seat.”

I confess, I got a little angry at that. You couldn’t knock me for poking around a car that looked straight off the mob’s payroll, not in this part of town. If the stallion wanted lip, he’d get it.

“Mmphn owph ampho,” I said. That would tell him.

It took me a moment to realize why my mouth wasn’t working. I spat the bag with the cupcake onto the ground and shook my head no more than a millimeter to either side. Not my finest hour.

Tall, dark and handsome just smirked at me. “Y’aint too quick to the punch, for a graycoat. Sad sight.”

I eyed the stallion’s jacket, which was black and long but not quite a trench coat. You could have fit a sawed-off underneath it and still had the body hang loose enough to move. The jacket sleeves ran clear down to the stallion’s yellowed, scuffed hooves, which were bent and curved and looked as if they’d met with a few faces in their time. You learned to size ponies up in my line of work. You weren’t always right but at the very least you could tell when being late to the punch wasn’t such a bad thing.

I ignored him and threw a hoof over my shoulder at the Koltswagen. “Fine car you’ve got here. Older model, restored, looks like. Bet that cost a fortune. Think I saw her this morning, parked in the lot at Sellem’s.”

“You’re funny. Want to see the registration?”

“No thanks. Not a cop.” From his expression, I’d say he thought the alternative was worse. “You leave your midlife crisis parked outside these funhouses often? You don’t look the type. No offense.”

He snorted. “Reckon that’s none of your business, gumhoof.”

I gave him a candid shrug and stepped back a pace. “Hey, I was only curious. Us southers ought to stick together. This part of town can grate on the nerves, sometimes.” I peered past him to the bright pink house, staring. It wasn’t all that pink. I’d seen pinker. “So what, your beau live around here?”

The stallion was too busy chuckling to notice, at first. He was feeling pretty confident in himself. Big men often are. “Souther? Listen here, ain’t no damn graycoat gonna act like —” He stopped. His smirk twisted a little and he shot me a prying look. He wasn’t sure how I meant it.

When he was done thinking and ready to talk back, I spoke instead. They didn’t like it when you did that. “I’m sure she’s nice. Probably a real looker. That is, unless —” I pretended to size him up, dragging my eyes from his thick brown forelegs to his thin, bony face. “— nah. Forget I mentioned it, slick. Hell, with manners like yours I bet you get all the mares. Why else would you buy such a shiny car?”

The smirk he’d worn since I fumbled the paper bag slipped off his face and swirled down the storm drain between us. His front pasterns flicked upward at me in annoyance. A bruiser’s gesture. He was a real souther, alright. “You got a lot of nerve, talking to me like that.”

I rolled the paper bag upright at my feet with one hoof. “Yeah, what do I know. I’m just a tired old mare. I’m all rusted up. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way and out of your mane. Nice chatting with you.”

I crouched down and picked up the paper bag and started back across the street. As I walked, I felt the stallion’s eyes center in on the back of my foreleg. He called after me in a low voice, all trace of humor gone.

“Scarred up, too. No surprise there. Happens to nosy ponies who don’t know how to keep their mouths shut.”

I stopped in the middle of the road. A weak chill ran down my spine. Hadn’t felt that in a couple of weeks. I looked slowly over my shoulder and saw standing beside the car not some punk from new town, but a threat. A pony who’d carry a gun in his pocket. A pony who had scarred.

“Nasty one,” the stallion said, grinning. “Bet that hurt.”

“Iph ghid,” I said. I stared blankly at him for a moment then turned away and crossed the rest of the street and walked on, making a point not to look over my shoulder. After a few seconds, I hadn’t been shot yet, which was always a good sign. Thirty paces along the sidewalk, I heard the engine catch behind me and the black body of the car went hurtling down the road and out of view.

Old towners could paint their straw shacks yellow and pink and talk about friendship all they wanted, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. That stallion was exactly where Ponyville was headed, the same low place to which every city eventually sunk. I wondered what Twilight would have said to him. He probably just needed some good, bright-colored friends and a hug. It was a cute dream, but nothing a short trip down fourth avenue couldn’t cure.

I walked the rest of the way to town hall and circled around the courtyard until I found an unoccupied bench. I set the cupcake bag down on the bench and sat down on the gumless side and reached into my pocket. There were six cigarettes left in the pack. I cut that number down to five and got lost in my own happy place for six or seven minutes. By now, the hard breeze from earlier had stiffened into plain old wind and my bangs were whipping around my head. This made smoking a little difficult. I had to balance the cigarette on one hoof, shield it from the wind with another and keep my head turned downwind. I got a lot of strange looks. Nopony smoked anymore. Not anywhere, especially not in old town. I reckon I stood out worse than the cabriolet.

One blank-flanked, burgundy filly stopped and looked at me like I was a museum exhibit. What was that mare doing, mommy?

The filly’s mother pulled her along, down the street. It wasn’t nice to stare.

I couldn’t blame her. I had been trying to quit for ages, but every time I cut down I’d end up drinking more instead. Then Font would jump on my case, and to cope I’d go right back to smoking. If anypony asked, which they did, I was quitting. They only had to know you were quitting and they’d leave you alone. Even if you were still quitting when the topic came up again six months later, that was enough.

The smoke burned out a full three minutes before I was ready to let it go. Every burnt stub was a small tragedy. I stomped the cigarette out, opened the top of Pinkie Pie’s paper bag, took one sniff of the cupcake inside and dove in with my snout.

Say one thing for Pinkamena Diane Pie, say she could bake. The chocolate frosting was whipped from distilled cocoa pods and the whole cupcake sat better than a five course meal at Savor’s. It was the best damn cupcake anypony had ever tasted. It finished sooner than I’d have liked. I’d have liked if it never finished at all.

I sat for a while on the bench next to the crumpled up paper bag and ponywatched. A couple trotters passed by, Walkstallions clipped to their flanks. Some weatherponies flew overhead. A pink mare with a flower tucked behind her ear looked to be returning from the market. Beyond her, a trio of fillies stood in a circle, giggling. There was a loose mess of suburban types heading north with ‘none of your business’ written on their faces. I wondered how they got that look down so perfect. A ways down the street they passed an odd pony sat straight up against the back of a bench without so much as a second glance. The things you see.

I made a mental note to never accept another job while hung over. The problem with smear jobs was you spent all your time eating cupcakes and sitting on benches instead of working. It was bad for the figure. Besides, I didn’t take smear jobs. Not unless the pony seemed worth smearing.

It wasn’t just that dirty work gave us a bad reputation. These sorts of jobs were downright boring. Nothing but a big, long streams of hearsay. This pony said that, this mare knew another mare who said this, this stallion needed to pay. What all this amounted to was a lot of flank-kissing and walking around. You could feel your eyelids sinking by the hour. You wanted work, real work. You really longed for a car to come tearing down the road with some well-toned stallion leaned out the passenger window and firing a Thompson from the hip at six hundred rounds per minute, of which six would hit the target. You’ll never catch me, coppers.

That sort of thing never happened. Real trouble wasn’t funny business. We all got into the job knowing it would kill us, someday. There wasn’t no way around it. Badge or no badge, it was the least we could do to make sure we spent our time searching out real jobs instead of running wish-wash surveillance for ponies with big hats.

“Ms. Bride, is that you? What a surprise, meeting you here.”

Speaking of big hats.

“Afternoon, stranger. Out for a stroll?”

“Yes, actually,” Rarity said, stepping farther along the sidewalk and into view. A sunbeam arched off one of the many diamonds sewn around her hat and sawed into my eye. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed her, wearing that thing. You could probably see it from orbit.

I squinted, trying to angle my head away from the glare. “Awful convenient running into you here. I was just thinking of calling you.”

Rarity eyed the unoccupied flat of the bench. Some wads of gum stuck on the boards convinced her not to take a seat. “Oh dear. Did you find something?”

“No. I have some questions for you. Questions that need answering.”

“But we just spoke a few hours ago.”

“Yeah, well, my head don’t work so good in the wee small hours. I’ll take a job I don’t particularly like if it means I won’t get evicted from my apartment, but I’m not in the habit of taking jobs that go nowhere. So, we have a problem.”

Rarity pursed her lips together. “Whatever do you mean?”

I shifted on the bench and reached into my coat and pushed the flip lighter around in my pocket. “I’ll tell you what I should have told you this morning. This is a ridiculous job, either way you cut it. You say Pinkie Pie’s your friend. If that’s the case, then you should think about talking to her yourself. Hiring somepony like me to tail her is just begging to be found out, and once that happens, she won’t be your friend much longer. Unless, of course, you’re lying, and you really just want to see Pinkie Pie take a fall. In that case, you can go ahead and throw your money someplace else. A firm would be more than welcome to help you.”

I settled onto the bench and waited for the unicorn to get angry. She didn’t get half as angry as I expected.

“I am not lying. Pinkie Pie is a dear friend to me, to all of us. I have no desire to see her harmed in all of this. I would approach her with my other friends. I know, I should. I’m just rather... confused, is all.”

“About what you found in the diary.”

Rarity nodded. “It’s as I said before. You would need to know Pinkie Pie like I do.”

“Look, I just met her twenty minutes ago. I see what you mean. She’s pink, she’s bubbly. A real happy mare. I get it. But what Pinkie Pie wrote was private. It was meant to stay private. So, what, you think because your friend wrote some odd things in her diary that makes her a serial killer?”

Now, Rarity was already whiter than the polished mammoth skeleton propped up inside the Canterlot Museum of Equestrian Natural History, so there wasn’t much color left in her face to drain. I waited for the unicorn to say something. About ten seconds passed and she was still staring at me with look of cold shock written on her face. She was hollow and shivering. All the blood had drained from her cheeks.

I rolled my eyes, planted a hoof in the center of my forehead and shook my head. This time it wasn't a millimeter-wide shake, it was a good old-fashioned shake, side to side so everypony could see it. You shook your head like that just in case somepony decided to eavesdrop on your conversation. That way, if the third party happened to overhear what the other pony had said, they would realize instantly that you knew it was the dumbest thing anypony had ever said. There could be no doubt. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

"That's rich," I said.

“Stop it.”

"No, that's really rich. And ponies call me paranoid.”

"I don't find it funny at all.”

I lifted my head from my hoof and stared at her with the flattest expression I could muster. "You've got a wild imagination, I’ll give you that. Been reading a lot of pulp stories lately?"

"I never said a thing."

"No, but you wanted to."

Rarity said nothing.

I scratched beneath my hat, trying to think of what to tell her. What the hell were you supposed to say something like this? "Okay, listen,” I said. “I know a thing or two about murder. It comes with the badge. Your so-called friend up there in Sugarcube Corner? She ain't a murderer. I won't say she's alright in the head, or even that her whole spiel isn't just an act. I don't know that. But unless you’ve got some more evidence to show me, I can’t go along with this.”

"I’m not looking for a police investigation, though. That’s exactly why I came to you. Please, I don’t mean to suggest that Pinkie Pie is...”

“A murderer?”

“I would appreciate if you don’t talk about my friend like that.”

I sighed. “Fine. You don’t mean to suggest that she’s a criminal.”

“Not in the least. Only now I’m not sure what do. After all, how can I be sure? Plenty of ponies hide things, right?”

"Not ‘plenty’. Everypony hides things. That doesn't mean your friend is a closet psycho, nor does it give anypony the right to run around pointing hooves without solid grounds for suspicion.”

Rarity glared at me. "Stop calling her that.”

I held up my front hooves. "Hey, you're the one who hired me. Not interested in straight talk? Fine. Kindly take your money and walk away. As it stands, you're not giving me any reason to believe Pinkie Pie is really your friend. Call me crazy, but if one of my friends thought I was moonlighting as a sicko, I'd reconsider calling that pony a friend. So tell me, other than the diary, what reason do you have to believe this crazy story?"

Rarity stomped a hoof on the ground. "I never said Pinkie was a psychopath, stop putting words in my mouth!"

"Either you’re afraid to confront her for that reason, wasting your money on a sleuth, or you're a liar. Take your pick."

"Excuse me for me feeling the slightest bit worried when I find out that one of my friends, one of my best friends, whom I can always trust to put a smile on everypony's face, might be lying to me! Might be lying to everypony! Do you know how that feels? I mean, what if it's all an act? What if the only reason Pinkie Pie acts that way is so nopony suspects that she..."

"That she what,” I said.

No answer.

I shifted positions on the bench, crossing my forehooves and facing her. I took a deep breath. "Rarity, I've seen this sort of thing before and I know what you're talking about. That guy who always smiles at you on the way in to work. You know, the quiet one, with the briefcase. He minds his own business. He’s friends with everypony at the office. Then one day you see his face in the paper. I get it. But that's not Pinkie Pie. Ponies with something big to hide tend to be recluses. They don't host weekly parties and surround themselves with friends.

"So, yeah, I want the job. I really do. Celestia knows Font and I need the money. But, to put it bluntly, I think you're lying. Hell, even if you’re not, which I doubt, I can’t help you. Skulking around like this is just going to get somepony hurt. I think that's what you want.”

Rarity stared points into the ground for a while before raising her head. Her bottom lip looked to be quivering. She nodded at me, sucked in some air and started to speak. She was cut off when something crashed into the back of the park bench.

Big tufts of cotton candy hair shot out through the gaps between the wooden backboards. “Whoopsies!” Pinkie Pie stepped back and shook her head, her big mane flapping around like fields of cotton in a thunderstorm. She looked at me and smiled sheepishly. Then she looked at Rarity's hat. Then she looked at Rarity. "Oh, hi Rarity!"

"Uhm, hello, Pinkie Pie,” Rarity said.

I raised an eyebrow. This changed things. Part of me had hoped Rarity was lying, that she was looking to trash on the poor baker. It would have all gone much easier, that way. I could have just said no.

I scooted down the bench away from Pinkie Pie, whose puffy-maned head was hovering over the back of the bench and by extension my shoulder. "You two know each other?"

Pinkie Pie whipped her head up and down. "Yesseree! Rarity's one of my best friends. Ooh, are you her friend, too? This is great!"

I glanced over to Rarity, who looked mortified, and was trying very hard not to seem mortified. I looked back to Pinkie Pie. "No, we just met. I flicked a cigarette right as Ms. Rarity here walked by. She decided to do her duty as a Ponyville citizen and tell me that I ought to dispose of cigarettes in the proper receptacle. How nice of her."

"Oh," Pinkie Pie said.

Rarity let out an audible sigh of relief. I threw her a mean glare from out the corner of my eye.

"Well, ha ha, would you look at the time,” Rarity said. She really was none too good at this. “It was nice chatting with you, Ms. Bride, but I really should be getting back to my —"

Before Rarity could finish her sentence, something crashed into Pinkie Pie's flanks and sent her flying over the back of the bench. She landed with a small bounce as if the ground were a trampoline, sat up, shook her head, looked over my shoulder and smiled. "Hiya Dashie!" She giggled. “That was fun.”

I glanced over the back of the bench. Pinkie Pie’s puffy mane had been replaced with a layered, rainbow one. Its owner stood up slowly, rubbing the side of her snout. Her eyes were reeling in their sockets. I swear I saw doves flying a halo around her head.

"Jeez, Pinkie, at least tell me where you’re going before you take off like that,” Rainbow Dash said.

"Whoops, sorry Dashie, but it really was an emergency!”

"What the hay could be so important?"

"I forgot to invite Anna Bride to my party tomorrow!"

Rainbow Dash slapped a hoof against her forehead. "Ugh. Seriously, Pinkie Pie?"

"Super seriously!" Pinkie Pie spun to face me and clasped her forehooves together. "Okay I know you don't want me to throw you a new friend party but maybe just maybe you could try going to my first-party-in-two-weeks party tomorrow? I promise it will be fun and nopony will bother you and even if you don't like it you can leave that's okay I won’t mind but I know you'll just love it if you give it a try and —"

"Okay, sounds good," I said.

“— if even you don’t like it that’s, wait. YES!” Pinkie Pie swept me up in an impressively one-sided hug.

“Hey, take it easy, kid.” I shrugged out of the embrace. I’d be picking pink hairs out of my mane for weeks. “I’ll show. I’m sure it’ll be a great party.”

Pinkie Pie straight blinded me with her teeth. I took a good look at her eyes and couldn't find anything wrong with them. She seemed about as happy as she ever was. You learned to size ponies up in my line of work. You weren’t always right, but you could tell when somepony was smiling daggers at you. Pinkie Pie wasn’t.

“Oh thank you thank you I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun!”

Rarity cleared her throat. “Yes, well, it was lovely seeing you girls, but I’m afraid I’m terribly busy at the moment and I really should be getting back to my boutique. I have an —” She looked directly at me. “— important phone call with a customer, later. Yes, that. I suppose I’ll see you all at the party tomorrow night.”

I estimated that Rarity couldn’t have acted more suspicious if she tried. It was her job to ruin, though, I figured. More power to her.

We all three said goodbye and watched the unicorn’s hat bob away down the road. Rainbow Dash seemed a bit vexed by her friend’s behavior, but otherwise said nothing. They both invited me back to the bakery to try out some new cupcakes. Caramel supremes, they were called. I told them I was busy.

“I’ve got a lot of work get through, down at the office.”

Pinkie Pie deflated. “Oh, okay. Maybe some other time?”

“Sure, when I’m not busy,” I said. But I would always be busy, even as the eviction crew hauled me out of my apartment. There were plenty of ways for me to spend an afternoon, and eating cupcakes with strangers wasn’t one of them.

As I walked off toward new town, Pinkie Pie waved after me. “Bye, new friend!”

I kept walking. I shook my head once I had turned a corner out of town square. Friendship was real cheap in old town. Cheap as glue.

---

by Mad Brochacho

Many thanks to:

Abacus, for his wonderful vector of Anna.

Chandler, for his pipe and his glasses and his pen.

Comments

[Mad Brochacho]

Apologies for the delay! I had to take a break from working on this story, as I was falling behind in school. I'm none too happy with the current state of this chapter. I see myself editing it heavily in the future.

In any case, I'm back.

[k12314]

... Rainbow Cucpakes? Caramel Supremes? Oh jeez... I already think Pinkie really IS a closet serial killer. It's always the ones the detective immediately strikes off as a suspect. It's ALWAYS the one the gumshoe doesn't suspect.

[Mad Brochacho]

390339

spoilers: it was derpy all along~~!

[Mad Brochacho]

449001

Apologies for the, uh, protracted release schedule so far. Real life kind of jumped up on me as soon as I posted the story and things have been going downhill since then.

Expect updates to become more timely once school lets out, roughly one month from now.

[iCuddles]

Waah why didnt u continue after this chapter?

[God Praiser]

Brilliant