Episode 6: Fear and Loathing in Las Pegasus
Unsurprisingly, the phone operator had no idea if a relatively-obscure band from San Flankcisco would still be in town. After a few minutes of fruitlessly trying to explain to her the very concept of the band, I gave up and hung up the phone.
Great.
I kicked at the ground beneath the payphone as I walked back to the Great Red Shark and climbed back in. The leather seats felt warm in the sun as I lay back in them. This was a real mess I had thrown myself into, wasn’t it? Stuck in the desert and promising Sterling a big surprise when I had . . . nothing.
I tapped the steering wheel and thought for a moment. What were my assets? I had Sterling . . . and Trixie I wasn’t entirely sure was real . . . and me. Crap. Not good, not good.
“Ugh, think, Minty!” I growled, rubbing my temples. “There’s got to be a way out of this! There has to be!”
“Uh, ma’am?” a voice asked.
“What?!” I snapped at the pony standing next to the car.
The stallion in the gas station’s grubby overall blinked at me. He licked his lips, then said, “Uh, I was just wanting to know if you want your tires pumped. They seemed low to me.”
I felt my face start to flush. “Oh, yeah, that’ll be fine.” I tried to laugh. “Um, sorry about that.”
The stallion brought a hose over and fixed it to a point on one of the wheels. “It’s no big deal,” he said, “we all get frustrated sometimes.” He took out a pump machine and fiddled with the dials a bit before looking back at me. “What level do you want it, miss?”
“Oh, uh, fifty.”
“You want it at . . . fifty psi?”
PSI? What did that mean? “Yeah, sure, that sounds good,” I said. I tried to smile convincingly.
The stallion shrugged and started the machine, muttering something about “your funeral.” He sauntered over to a bench out front of the convenience store and picked up a newspaper to read. I noticed, to my detriment, that it was just a paper from Los Celestias. Too bad.
Watching the air pump work, though, did give me an idea. An idea so powerful that I started to laugh and set my head on the steering wheel. I had one more asset in Las Pegasus, of course. Cog!
Oh, that wonderful silver and blue mare. A common friend to Sterling and she knew the band already! I questioned not thinking of her before, but then again asking Sterling’s dubious friend to help me express my feelings toward him wasn’t the brightest idea I had had that day. It wasn’t the stupidest, either.
The station attendant finished with the wheels and I started the car and took off. Immediately, I could feel a difference in the handling. The car felt slippery . . . but secure. Like I was gliding across the road instead of digging into it. It was a good feeling, really, on the long stretches of highway.
It let time burn away as the highway unfolded before me in my unceasing route back to Las Pegasus. The desert and the cacti eventually fell away and out of my view, to be replaced with a single vision: finding Cog.
The city threw itself over me as desert turned to concrete and suddenly I was among the streets of Las Pegasus again, hustling and bustling with the rest of them. I took a sharp turn nearly halfway across town and took the long way to the expo stadium. I didn’t actually have any idea where Cog would be staying, so I hoped I’d find her there.
My press pass got me into the gated parking area of the expo center, though the place was almost completely deserted. Only a small stand of steamcars clung to one side of the parking lot, so naturally I parked as far away from the as possible. Readjusting my hat and coat, I found the front door and went inside.
* * *
The sound of the door clicking shut behind me echoed through the almost-empty stadium. A few inventors here and there remained to work on their projects. I maneuvered my way down one of the aisles of inventions to reach the area where the Great Red Shark had perched just yesterday.
I took a deep breath before rounding the final corner of the aisle to reach the very back stage. There was a lone light shining down on it, so I didn’t see her at first. When my eyes adjusted, however, I spotted Cog hunched over some sort of object on the stage.
She was wearing a plain, white cotton shirt and not much else. Her mane was let down and she looked positively dirty. She’d probably been awake all night.
I walked to the front of the floor before the stage. “Hey,” I called.
“Hey, we’re not open,” she said back, not bothering to turn around. “Come back tonight to see the new steamless car.”
I paused. “I find that somewhat hard to believe, seeing as how you and Sterling don’t even have the car in your possession.”
“How did you-” she began, but when she turned around to see me, the confusion in her eyes softened. “Minty?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I came back.”
Something seemed to click inside her head, and suddenly her eyes tensed and lit up like there was fire inside. “You!” The wrench she had been holding in one hoof was sent flying through the air straight at my head, and I barely had time to throw myself on the ground before it slammed into the wall behind me.
When I looked up, however, I saw she wasn’t done. With a gutteral growl, she leapt off the stage and charged right at me. She hit me right as I was halfway back on my feet, and sent me sprawling once again to the floor.
She pushed her weight on top of me, and raised her torso above mine. “You bitch!” she screamed. “You’re the one who stole the car!” She slapped me across the face and my ears rang. “And you made Sterling worry himself sick!”
“C-Can you please stop choking me?” I managed to get out. She loosened up her grip, but stayed on top of me, fury still burning strong in her eyes.
“Would it help if I apologized?” I said.
“It would be a start.”
I looked to the side. “I ran away, okay?” I said. “I took the car and ran away.”
“But . . . why?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed. “I don’t know, okay. I was confused and stupid and lost and-” I took a deep breath. “. . . and I thought you were taking Sterling away from me.”
Cog looked at me and started to laugh. In the process, she pushed herself off of me and stood next to me, though I remained on the ground. “You-You really thought that I was trying to move in on Sterling?” She laughed some more and started to hit the ground.
I pouted. “What, are you trying to say he’s ugly or something?”
“No, no, not at all. I mean, I guess he is.” She tapped her chin. “I don’t really tell ponies this, but since you’re with Sterling then, uh, there’s a certain reason I wouldn’t think of being with him.”
I looked her over. Coltish personality, bouncy, willing to tackle me to the ground and lay on top of me . . . “You’re-” I began, then pointed at her, “. . . his cousin!”
She smacked herself in the face. “I like mares, you dolt. I wouldn’t try to move on your boyfriend ever. Period.”
“So . . . you’re gay.”
“Yeah.”
“And you sat on top of me for like five minutes.”
“. . . .Yeah.” She coughed. “Hey, don’t look so weirded out; you’re not my type anyway.”
“What’s your type?” I said.
She winked. “Good looking.”
When I glared at Cog, she started to laugh again, though in a more high-pitched and whiny tone. Or maybe that was me being jealous. Probably not, though, since I’m not much of a jealous pony.
“So what made you to decide to come back?” Cog asked when she had finally calmed down. “I mean, I’m assuming you came to bring the car back, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I had a run-in with a, uh, certain mare who got me to see what I had been doing was wrong. So I decided to come back here to deliver the car . . . and to talk to Sterling.”
“Well talk to him; he’s back at the hotel.”
I shook my head. “No, not like that. I promised that next time I saw him, I would have a surprise; I want to make it special and show that I’m not just going to run off.”
“You know there is this thing a mare does with her stallion to make a night special . . .”
I held up my hooves. “No, no, not like that! I just want to show him that I care, you know? In a way that doesn’t involve . . . that.”
“You mean sex. We’re adults, Minty. You’re talking about sex.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose you’d have an idea of this surprise you’re making for Sterling do you?”
“So you’ll help?” I asked.
“Well yeah; Sterling’s my friend, after all. It’s my job to help him with all these pesky fillies that come along,” Cog said. “So like I said, do you have a plan?”
I scratched the back of my head. “Kind of. It mostly hinges on one thing, though: Do you know if Jefferson Airship is still in town?”
* * *
I roared away from the convention center in the Great Red Shark with Cog in the passenger’s seat. I felt more confident than before, that was for sure. As it turned out, Jefferson Airship was in town, but at the airport.
I gunned my way through town, taking care to weave around the cars ahead of us to get as much speed as possible. “So you really think they’ll help us?” I yelled over the roar of the engine.
“Probably!” she cried back. “I mean, they’re all really nice; I’m sure they’ll play one last concert.”
“What about money?”
“We’ll worry about that later, okay?”
I slammed on the gas and darted through the gap between two large trucks, just barely avoiding scraping my sides. Cog grabbed one of my hooves and squeezed it tight as I continued my speedy dance through traffic.
I turned onto the Las Pegasus Strip and roared back out toward the desert. I had seen the airport with its massive landing pad filled with airships on my way back to the city, so I figured it would be a simple matter of getting over there.
“You know, you’re a pretty interesting mare,” Cog said after a few minutes.
“Well thanks,” I said. “What makes you say that?”
“I mean, you are willing to go through all of this crazy trouble for Sterling, but can’t just talk to him about your problems? I mean, did you really need to drive halfway to Los Celestias just to figure out that you couldn’t let jealousy go to your head?”
I smiled a little. “I’m a reporter. We’re a strange bunch; some lessons come easy, but others . . . not so much.”
She laughed. “And you really tell yourself that?”
“What?” I pouted. “It’s totally what being a reporter is all about.”
“Right, sure.”
We kept driving, though once I was on the highway, she started to turn around a bit. She got up out of her seat, even, to confirm where we were.
“Hey, uh, I think we have a problem,” she said.
“What is it now?” I said.
She pointed across the desert to a massive slab of concrete slapped into the desert and covered in airships. “The airport’s over there.”
“Yes, and?”
“This highway doesn’t let out to the airport. I rode in on an airship; we had to take a different road.”
I groaned. “Alright, fine, I’ll turn around . . .”
Cog looked at a pocketwatch that she pulled from a chain underneath her shirt. “No time,” she said. “Their airship leaves at five.”
“What time is it now?” I asked.
“Just about five.”
It only took me a second to decide my next course of action, which should have told me right away how stupid it was. Before I could smack myself for thinking of something so stupid, I jerked the car left and onto the dry patch of desert between the incoming and outbound lanes.
“What are you doing?!” Cog screamed, now locking me into her death grip as I fought to keep control of the Great Red Shark.
“I’m not going to miss this airship!” I yelled back. Though she was right next to me, the insane amount of noise created from driving a massive car over uneven terrain was enough to drown everything but screams. We had plenty of those.
Suddenly, the ground flattened out and we angled up onto the inbound lane of the highway. The Big Red Shark paused in the middle of the road for a moment as I looked around for the best path to the airport.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay very long. A very large steamcar was honking its horn and driving straight toward us, threatening to hit the Shark across its middle. “Drive, drive, drive!” Cog screamed at me.
I glared at her, but stomped on the gas anyway and dove back onto the rough ground away from the highway and sped toward the airport. Sand and bits of rock kicked up under the car and thumped against the metal side and out the back of the vehicle. Every time a little pinging sound was made, Cog would cringe a little more.
The airport loomed ahead, but there was one small problem: it had a fence around it. Not a very strong fence, mind; just a chainlink one to keep out ne'er do well fillies and colts, but a fence nonetheless.
“Minty, the fence!” Cog cried.
“I see it!”
Not that it stopped me from not changing our course. Before Cog could protest again, we had hit the fence and plowed right through it, tearing the flimsy metal poles of out the ground and leaving the chainlink sliding around on the hood of the Shark.
Cog cringed until I turned a sharp right away from the warehouses storing the airship fuel and parts and toward the actual landing strips. The sight of a car roaring down the runway was enough, it seemed, to keep ponies from stopping us out of sheer surprise and bewilderment.
“Which airship?” I called to Cog.
She pointed to a massive one with a red balloon. “That one!” she said. “The Cloud Chaser!”
“Right, right,” I said. I steered us over to the frickin’ huge airship and parked near a large staircase that let ponies walk up to the passenger compartment, which hung off the ground. Most of the ponies milled around on the ground, though I didn’t at first spot the band.
However, Cog quickly climbed out of her seat and started waving toward a group of ponies, who trotted over to the car. An earth pony with a bushy beard and mussy mane smiled at Cog.
“That was quite a, uh, entrance,” he said. “What brings you and your car here?”
“Paul,” she said, pointing to me, “meet Minty Flower. Minty, meet Paul Canter, the leader of this band.”
I waved to him. “Uh, hi,” I said.
Cog smiled. “Minty here had one big, huge, enormous favor to ask all of you.”
Canter’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, yeah?”
“Tell him, Minty.”
I gulped. “Uh, well, you see . . . you remember Sterling from the other night? I’m kind of his marefriend, and, well, I need your help.”
So I told them.
Sitting on the airfield while their airship started to board, I told a band of six strangers my entire story and what I had learned. Barring the more explicit bits, of course. But still, I spilled my guts for them, though after a while I was more telling the story for my own benefit than theirs. To get my story straight in my head was nice for once.
The feelings of mistrust and jealousy. The decision to leave and the flight to Los Celestias; meeting Trixie--which they didn’t seem to believe in the slightest--and shooting the gun in the desert.
When I finished, Canter just kind of looked at me funny. “So you want us to play another show at the inventor’s expo . . . for free . . . so you can get your coltfriend back and prove that you really like him?”
“Well it just sounds stupid when you say it like that,” I said. “But I promise it’ll be worth it!”
Canter scratched his head. “Your story might make a decent song . . . but otherwise, how? I mean, we’ll have to buy new airship tickets and everything.”
“Well think of all the rich inventors and judges there!” Cog said quickly, surprising even me a bit. “It’s big publicity for sure.”
“And I’ll write you up in my story covering the event,” I threw in. “I’m a reporter after all.”
“So a publicity stunt?” Canter said.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
He scratched his chin. “Give me a minute to talk to the band.” They walked a few paces away and sat together in a little huddle before whispering sharply to each other. I couldn’t hear what was going on, but it seemed the argument was fierce.
“So you’re actively helping me now?” I asked Cog.
“Only if it helps Sterling,” she said. “He’s a good friend; I can’t have some mare go messing him up.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot.”
“My pleasure.”
The band’s meeting was quick, but when they returned my heart skipped a beat when I saw them smiling at us, particularly Canter. “Alright, we’ll take it,” he said. “It’s about time we moved our act out of San Flankcisco, anyway.”
“Well then,” Cog said, leaning over the windshield. “Get in.”
* * *
We drove out through the hole in the fence again to avoid questions from the airport security and got back onto the section of the highway leading into the city. The desert sun was just starting to dip down toward the horizon, so Cog warned me to go a bit faster just so we could make it.
“We appreciate the car ride,” Canter said between bumps. “Though it is a bit cramped.” He and the entire six ponies of the band were somehow crammed into the backseat and riding up with every bounce the Great Red Shark took. The rest had been introduced as Jorma, Marty, Signe, Jack, and Skip. Problem was, I couldn’t really tell them apart. Not that it quite mattered; they were more than happy to ignore me.
That was, they kept ignoring me until I was hitting about sixty miles per hour coming into the city. One of them spoke up, “Uh, I think we’ve got a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” I said through gritted teeth.
“A police kind of problem.”
I looked in the rearview mirror to see that, sure enough, there were cop cars edging through traffic behind us. Their familiar red and blue lights whirled from the black, sleek chassis of their oblong steam cars.
“I’m not even going that fast!” I said.
“You’re going sixty,” Cog pointed out.
“Like I said: not that fast.”
“It is when most steamcars barely make it up that high; the limit’s forty here.”
“Oh.”
The police cars, naturally, had a bit more speed to them than the average car, so they were starting to catch up to me. My natural instinct to just pull over, however, was noticeably absent.
“If they pull us over, we’re not going to make it to the expo are we?” I asked Cog.
“No, most likely not,” she said.
“Well, that just simplifies things.”
I rammed the car into the next gear and soared down the highway, putting the cops far behind me as I pushed one hundred straight through downtown Las Pegasus. The wailing of sirens faded and I could bear to calm down a little, if just for the moment. The other passengers, however, were a bit more excitable.
“What are you doing?” one of them cried. “That’s the police!”
“Yeah, and if we stop we won’t make it to the expo,” I said calmly.
“It’s just an expo; it’s not worth jail time, especially for all of us!”
“Look,” I said, “I’ll take all of the blame for this; you guys just focus on playing once we get to the expo. With any luck, we’ve outrun them anyway.”
They seemed to believe that little lie, so they were placated for the rest of the trip across town to the expo building. By the time we had gotten there, however, the place was crowded to the point of ridiculousness.
“Whoa, check out how many ponies are here,” I heard one band mate say to another.
“Yeah, tons of publicity,” said another.
I turned to Cog. “I thought tonight was just for judges?” I said.
“Oh, right.” She laughed a little. “Well, you see, I may have exaggerated a little about the car around town . . .”
“They’re all here for us?!” I cried.
As it turned out, she didn’t even have to confirm that for me. As soon as our car was within sight of the gate, steamcars started pulling out of our way so we could get through. I felt nervous as I was let through the gates without question and allowed to park out back next to the vehicle entrance for the expo.
The band members climbed out and retrieved their luggage from the trunk before giving us a wave and going inside. I climbed out while Cog inspected the car. She looked grim.
“You really did a number on it,” she said. “While you guys set up, I’ll have to clean her up until she’s in better condition.”
“Yeah, that’ll be good.” I paused. “Hey, Cog?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks. For everything.”
“Hey, don’t mention it. It gave me something to do.” She laughed. “Though this day isn’t over yet; you’re going to have to get this whole band thing going, and hope it impresses Sterling.”
I sighed. “Yeah, that’s going to be a real joy.” I kicked the ground a little before speaking up, “Wh-What do you think his reaction would be if I, you know, sang a song for him?”
“Are you serious?”
“I mean, if it’s a stupid idea . . .”
She laughed. “If you can sing and convince the band to let you to . . . I’d say go for it. He’s all into that sentimental junk anyway. He likes it when his mares are all lovey-dovey.”
“Well, uh, good.” I chose to ignore the “mares” remark.
Cog and I trotted inside and back behind a stage they had set up over the former presentation area for the car. Quite a few ponies were gathered out front, but luckily they were hidden from view. Cog grabbed her toolbag and ran back outside, leaving me alone with the band.
Canter walked over from a scruffy-looking pony and smiled. “Alright,” he said, “I got them to agree to let us perform.”
“How, exactly?”
“Something about a riot if the crowd isn’t given something soon, and the car isn’t ready.”
I gulped and looked at the curtain, trying to imagine the crowd on the other side. Their noise volume was still at a talking level, but I knew it could get nasty real fast. And I was going to have to be the one to go out there and placate them. Not the my favorite thing to do.
“You going to go tell them about the concert?”
“Yeah, I will in a minute,” I said. “But, can I, uh, ask you another favor?”
“Is it bigger than abandoning our flight to do an impromptu concert for free?”
“. . . no . . .”
“Then go ahead.”
I gulped. “Could I, uh, sing one of your songs? Just one, but one for Sterling. The first one, even! Just let me sing the first and I’ll let you guys do the rest . . . is that okay?”
Canter looked at his fellow bandmates, then back to me. He started to laugh. “You know what, kid?” he said. “I . . . think I’m going to say okay. Why the hay not, you know? If we’re already doing all this other stuff, might as well.”
He coughed. “Now, do you have any song in mind?”
I rubbed the back of my head. “N-Not really . . . do you have anything about wanting to, you know, be close to somebody?”
The bandmates all looked at each and grinned. Canter winked. “I think I have just the thing. Now, get out on that stage and introduce us, and then we’ll give you the lyrics on paper. Just sing along, get your song done, and we’ll take the rest of the show, okay?”
I nodded hurriedly. “Alright, I can do that. Most likely.”
I took a deep breath, gave one last look at Jefferson Airship, and stepped past the curtains and out onto the stage. The crowd was even larger than I had realized, and my stomach started doing flip-flops. Especially as dozens of pairs of eyes--if not hundreds--suddenly turned and focused on me.
I tried to smile. There was a microphone on a stand at the end of the stage that jutted out into the audience. When I stepped out to it, I was surrounded on three sides by ponies. I tapped the microphone once and heard the sound echo through the convention center. Oh, this was bad.
“Uh, hello,” I said into it and listened to my voice carry across the crowd through large speakers in their midst. “Thanks for coming tonight!”
No response other than silence and a few coughs.
I gulped. “Well, uh, I know you all came to see the new gasoline car, but it’s not quite ready yet. Don’t worry, it’s being cleaned up as I speak!”
A few of the ponies started to trickle away, and I began to shake a little. I was losing them! “But, we have something very special while you wait! Backstage, all the way from San Flankcisco is Jefferson Airship!”
The band members, luckily, chose that moment to move themselves onstage, which had the effect of keeping the audience not only there, but whispering among themselves. I saw more than a few smiles, for which I was lucky.
While they did that, I searched the audience frantically for Sterling. There were more than a few ponies with similar coat or mane colors, but never the same together. I looked and looked but couldn’t find him.
I did spot a very different sight, however. They were near the back of the crowd, but moving rapidly forward. Members of the Las Pegasus police adorned in their full uniforms and carrying weapons were making their way toward the stage. My heart sank.
Canter apparently saw them too. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “I guess they found us after all.”
“To be fair, there aren’t a whole lot of cars like ours in the city,” I grumbled.
“What are you going to do then?”
I paused. The whole thing, if they rushed onto the stage would not only be bad, but embarrassing . . . but that also gave me an idea. “I’m going to try something,” I said.
I stood next to the microphone again. “Myself and the band would like to thank you all for being here,” I told the crowd. “We would especially like to thank the members of Las Pegasus’ law enforcement that could join us here tonight. We’re sure that they’ll have just a good time as the rest of you!”
The police officers in the crowd stopped in the crowd as suddenly every single pony focused their attentions on them. Many of them gave me dirty looks, but none tried to rush the stage again. Instead, they gathered near the back of the convention center, making it clear we wouldn’t be able to run away after the performance.
Not that I planned to, anyway. I was only here to impress Sterling . . . but where was he, anyway?
The amps at the back of the stage crackled as the instruments were plugged into them. The drums rattled a bit and the guitars were strummed to test, but still Sterling did not show up. The more we stalled, though, the more restless the crowd became. The police also appeared to be a little more bold the longer we refused to start.
Eventually, as the crowd began to rustle below us, Canter walked up to me. “We have to go on now,” he said. “If we don’t, we risk losing a lot of the audience and being arrested.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Sterling still isn’t here, though.”
“Do you want us to play a song first?”
I sighed and shook my head. “It wouldn't feel right that way.”
He tried to smile. “Hey, maybe if you start singing, he’ll show up? Worth a shot, I think.”
“Yeah . . . I just have to trust him.” I gulped. “He’s trusted me so far, so I can trust him the rest of the way.”
I took the microphone in one hoof and spoke into it, “Alright folks, we’re just about to start! Now, before the band really starts, they’re going to do a song, but, well, I’ll be the one to sing for all of you.”
Surprisingly, maybe because they had never heard of Jefferson Airship, nopony in the crowd actually booed or anything like that. Mostly, they just kind of looked like they wanted me to get on with it, so I did.
I looked back at the band, who picked up their instruments and held them at the ready, and nodded. “Alright, this song . . . this song goes out to someone very special to me, Sterling. I only hope that, wherever he is, he can hear it.”
Canter gave me a piece of paper with the lyrics on it before disappearing backstage to wait for his turn to sing. I looked down at the lyrics and took a deep breath to hopefully stop my legs from shaking as the song started up.
I gulped and started to sing.
And all the joy within you dies.
Don’t you want somebody to love?
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love.
I wouldn’t say my voice was the greatest. Definitely not. But the crowd at least wasn’t completely cringing. In fact, I found myself starting to get into it and sway my body a little. It was oddly exhilarating, to tell the truth.
And your mind, your mind, is so full of RED.
Don’t you want somebody to lo-
While I was swaying, I also wasn’t quite looking where I was going, and one my hooves slipped. The paper with the lyrics dropped away from me, and though I desperately tried to catch it, I had to watch it drift down into the audience.
The band kept playing, though looked oddly at me. I gulped. The lyrics: I had lost the lyrics! Now Sterling wouldn’t find me . . . or even care about the whole thing.
I was just about to jump off the stage in defeat, however, when a new voice piped up to sing:
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love.
I looked over at the side of the stage to see Sterling himself, with a big loopy grin on his face, singing along to the song. He edged up next to me and kept singing, though he gave me a wink.
With my confidence restored, together we sang:
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love!
The song ended, and I was content to just smile at him and give him a big thanks. Sterling, however, had other ideas. In front of the crowd, he swept me up and kissed me to an approving chorus to the ponies below us.
To me, though, I didn’t even care.
* * *
Jail again. It wasn’t much more fun than the last time, though it involved a lot less hitting by an insane mayor. Which was a step up, really. Though at least Pullmare-slash-Golden had been exciting.
The police who had arrested me backstage at least had been amicable about the situation. When I explained the whole thing to them, they agreed to only take me in instead of the whole band. Then again, they seemed to enjoy the music enough that they probably only wanted a scapegoat anyway.
My dank cell was small comfort to that fact, though. A little toilet, an even little-er cot, and concrete walls. I sighed, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel too bad. Sterling had at least seemed to be having the time of his life when I left. He and Cog had brought the car onstage to the roars of the crowd. Their very appearances were drowned out by the flashing of camera bulbs as just about every reporter within a two hundred mile radius came to see them.
I sat on the edge of my cot and swung my hind legs in the air under me. Here I was, ever the martyr. At least I had a title. Though the story was a complete bust, along with my very title as reporter.
I thought back to the kiss. Somehow, it was worth it.
The clopping of hooves on concrete outside my cell alerted me to the imminent arrival of somepony else. My stomach growled; hopefully it was dinner. I supposed I had better get used to prison food.
When I went up to the cell bars, however, I got a surprise with the arrival of a very surprising pony. Sterling stood on the other side of my cell, grinning widely.
“Hey, Minty,” he said.
“Sterling!” I cried. “I’m so glad to see you! Did the show go well while I wasn’t there?”
He nodded. “It was great. Though, well, it would have been better if you had been there instead of . . . here.”
“Yeah . . .” I rubbed the back of my head. “I guess you’ve got a jailbird marefriend now, huh?”
Sterling stuck out his tongue. “Oh definitely not. I couldn’t even think of it.”
My heart sank, but it only lasted for a moment before he started laughing at my stricken expression and stepped out of the way to reveal a police officer with a shiny set of keys who stuck one in the door to my cell.
“You’re a very lucky mare,” he said. “A royal pardon from the Blueblood family is a pretty rare thing, especially in a town like this.”
He opened the door and I stepped out, though the officer kept a close eye on me the whole way back to the front of the staccato-roofed police station.
“Marshmallow?” I asked Sterling.
He winked. “You got it. Said something about it messing with her ‘mayoral campaign’ but our desperate phone call was enough for her to make another call here on such short notice.”
“Mayoral campaign?”
“I’m sure she’ll explain when we get back.”
The officers at the station let me fill out my paperwork and reluctantly let me walk out the front door as a free mare once again, though with the threat to never drive in Las Pegasus again. I was more than happy to agree to that term.
Sterling and I climbed into the Great Red Shark and roared off, away from the police station and the city. Cog was already on an airship home, Sterling had checked out of the hotel, and the luggage was in the Shark’s trunk. All that was left was to drive back to Fillydelphia.
* * *
It was night by the time we stopped again. Sterling told me something about having a place he wanted to show me, and pulled off the road somewhere in the middle of nowhere and parked the car on a small bluff.
We got out and sat on the hood of the Great Red Shark, the cooling engine keeping us warm against the desert’s night breeze. From the bluff, I could look out on the whole of the empty desert and see where the rim of the mesas met the night sky. Stars swirled overhead and a half-moon lent its light to the countryside around us. It was quiet.
“One of the judges told me about this place,” Sterling said at last. “He said it he used to take his wife to it back when they were dating; said it was one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen.”
“Are you saying you’re taking me here so I’ll marry you?” I said.
He looked stricken. “No, no, of course not! I just meant-”
I laughed. “Calm down, I was just joking. How’d the judging go, anyway?”
“We won,” Sterling said. “I’ll have to work out the money and other stuff when Cog and I are both back home.” He turned to me. “Speaking of that, what are you going to do about your story?”
I laughed. “I was thinking of turning my entire adventure into a story itself. Maybe a book, even.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“I dunno. Maybe . . . Fear and Loathing in Las Pegasus.”
He smiled. “That could work.”
We sat in silence for a long time after that. He scooted close to me, and I leaned against him. His coat was warm against my own. Above us, a shooting star silently slipped its way across the sky. A small breeze blew through the scattered cacti and tumbleweeds.
There was certain beauty in that great, empty desert illuminated by pale moonlight. It was a quiet sort of beauty, and breathtaking to the right kind of pony. As we sat on top of that Great Red Shark, I felt more at peace than I had in a very long time.
Sterling draped one of his forelegs around me and pulled me a little closer. I looked up at him.
“Sterling?” I said.
“Hmm?”
“Do you . . . do you still like me?”
He looked down at me. “Now why would you ask a question like that? Of course I do.”
I sighed. “Well, I mean, all that’s happened here . . . the car stealing and running away . . . I just find it amazing you still want to be with me.”
Sterling laughed. “I thought the same thing when you left.”
“Really? How?”
“Well I kind of figured you left on account of, you know, me.”
I looked down. “Oh.”
He tucked a hoof under my chin and brought my face closer to his. “But you know what I told everyone when they accused you of running off on me?”
“N-No, what?”
“I told them: ‘This is Minty. She can be pretty crazy sometimes, but she has one of the most caring souls of any pony I’ve ever met . . . she’ll come back.’”
My heart beat a little faster. Caring soul? Well, I wasn’t going to dispute that with him. Not now. “But now that we’re back together . . . do you think this will work?”
“I don’t know, will it?” He grinned.
I smiled. “Well, I think-”
I didn’t get to finish. He leaned in to kiss me again and we held together as the stars burned away in the night.
Just two more freaks, together in the freak kingdom.
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Well, that's it for 2012. If you want know why Freeze Frame won't be updating again this month, take a look at this blog.
And hey, if you liked this chapter, please feel free to comment on it. I read every last one, and it helps me keep going on a story like this that can be tough to write.
we-we-we have to wait...
nice chapter though. I'm glad it all came back together for them in the end.
That ending.
Still ain't nothin' good comin' outta 'Vegas.
All though... Sometimes the good things that go in can come out just a little bit better than they were.
EDIT; Can't help but notice, but is this the 1 year anniversary of Freeze Frame? If so, congratulations on having such a good piece of well crafted and long running fiction!
Oh Minty...
Dat concert and dat ending.
Hey, better it not update for a month, than have you quit on the story altogether
Beautiful chapter.
Wonderful story arc. Very well done.
virginmobilelive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Slow-Clap.gif
Noice.
1792380
I might incorporate them later, but this story's outline was written midway through Season 2, so Changelings, Shining Armor, the Crystal Empire and the like aren't really shown.
Wow, uh... I wonder when that gun's going to turn up again. Firing guns tends to have consequences. Never know who or what you might hit.
Still, it'll be nice to see the sights turn back to Filly.
1614423
I am me - nobody more, nobody less.
1883292>>1883779
And him that is he is the FiMFic-famous guy with awesome storess who happens to like Freeze Frame...I think. I also imagine every one of his comments in Echo's voice, but that's unrelated.
1960008
FINALLY SOMEONE GOT THE ADOLF HITLER REFERENCE AND DISCWORLD REFERENCES.
*ahem* Glad you are liking it so far. The official time period is 30-ish years after the start of the show, by the way.
1960847
These comments. I enjoy them.
1960323
HOLY COW I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE ADOLF HITLER REFERENCE
Seriously, I had not been expecting that. I had to try, though.
I guess I was reaching a bit with my predictions for this chapter, but between Minty making up with Cog, driving onto the airstrip, pulling a Blues Brothers when the cops showed up to bust her for speeding, and reuniting with Sterling on stage in the middle of a song, I certainly can't say this chapter has been disappointing. I was kind of expecting the bit with the tires to come back and bite her down the road (literally), but I suppose if they lasted long enough to get back to Las Pegasus, Cog would have let the air out anyway. And yeah, I can guess where the gun probably came from, but I'm still wondering if I might be wrong...
1965614
Honestly, reading your comments as you go through the story again has been a joy. It really reminded me of how far the story has come, and I thank you for that. Also, you are a very astute observer, so it was nice to see the references noticed for once. Those chapters are all for now, though, but the story will resume shortly, probably sometime around this weekend or early next week. And I can't say much about your predictions other than you have not quite been wrong before.
Thanks for reading!
Aww, that end!
50 psi? Holy crap! I hope the tire doesn't explode in the middle of the Expo or something.
Marshmallow, you've done it again. That girl just keeps getting better every time I hear about her.