It had started as a good day, a quiet day, a normal day, Brighteyes thought to himself.
The morning had been a very pleasant one, he had set his alarm clock earlier than usual without worrying about waking up his sweet Scramble Patch, and also had stretched while still lying in bed. As much as he loved his wife, the small pinto mare had the miraculous ability of taking up the lion's share of the bed while she was asleep, a behavior that even the thought of would mortify her in a waking state.
With the extra time, he had been able to update his To-Do lists and check some points, such as cleaning the sales area of his eyewear shop below the apartment, including the gargantuan round bay store window that was the reason his fine little business was only known as The Glass House.
He had even managed to scrub the drinking trough and some of the pigeonholes in his dovecote in the attic floor. With almost all of his prized birds being present today - his friend Peafowl had declared it unnecessary to take a whole flock of messenger pigeons on a three-day business trip, especially one to a civilised area like Manehattan -, the act of cleaning the colombier and himself afterwards had not been an easy task.
But this was Canterlot, and one hair out of place in his blonde mane and pearly white coat could ruin his good reputation with the members of the nobility and high society, so a routine of thorough grooming before opening the store was mandatory.
Hurrying through the streets in a frantic search for answers about life and death of his loved ones however was not part of a good, quiet and normal day, at least not in Brighteyes’ book.
It had been foolish to assume that today would be anything but eventful with what was considered one of the most important trials in the history of Equestria going on at Canterlot Castle. All because of some low scum of a reporter that had published horrendous lies about the young suitor of the Royal Pony Sisters, the pegasus guard known as Gosling. The newspaper and its owner Mister Mariner had been about to face consequences by the hooves of Prince Shining Armor and Prince Blueblood.
As if two unicorns as judges instead of an alicorn was not strange enough, the particular choice of Prince Blueblood seemed even stranger. He was the Lord Mayor of Canterlot, a respected member of society, but all one ever heard Blueblood to do was complain and be unpleasant. Brighteyes on the other side was just a little gentry unicorn, somepony like him had no right to question the decisions of the crown.
But, something seemed to have gone wrong. The participants of the trial and the journalists had been escorted from the castle and since then, it had been very quiet around its walls. If that wasn’t enough, the crown had scheduled a public announcement in an hour. It had only been the first day of the big and complex trial, it was impossible that they had already proceeded to final judgement.
Nopony knew what had happened in detail, only rumors were flocking through the city. That there had been a riot within the court room. That there were changelings on the loose in Canterlot. That the equalists, the radical group that wished to overthrow the princesses, had something to do with this.
That there had been a fight, even an attempt to assassinate one of the Royal Sisters. Some said that the target had been Princess Celestia, others claimed to know that it was Princess Luna who had fend off the attacker. Nopony had seen Mister Mariner exit with the others, so there were countless stories about him, some with him as a victim and some that painted him as the villain.
At first, he had ignored these ramblings. While all of this sounded troubling, these were only speculations, and many ponies in Canterlot had a wild and vivid imagination, and some of them had an even wilder craving for recognition. This was a city of artistry after all. Most of them had enough material and inspiration just from the normal oddities that Canterlot presented them though and did not make up such tasteless horror stories just to gain attention.
He had remained behind his counter, safe from all the gossip behind the polished wooden rampart, and sorted this afternoon’s mail to calm his nerves, into six neat stacks like always, one for business mail and one for private mail of each of this address’ inhabitants. What was he to do about the situation anyway, put a pair of lenses on it?
The last letter however had had a frustrating lack of indicators on its purpose. It had been one for Peafowl, of course, but instead of a return address, it only had featured a symbol of a dark magenta paint blot with the silhouette of a butterfly cut out from it. Not a company emblem as far as he knew.
There had been a few letters like this before, and after some internal debate, he had placed them on the stack for private mail. Peafowl had not complained about it, and the pegasus was never shy or short of criticism. On the other side, neither did he appreciate the art that was proper scheduling.
What had driven Brighteyes into the streets to listen to the announcement was the rumor that the major cities of Equestria were experiencing a crisis, and that Manehattan had been hit worst. Some even claimed that the telegraph had gone dead.
One of the owners of the neighboring tearoom, an earth pony by the name of Tiffin Treat, who was a bit of a chatterbox but very reliable, had brought this news instead of his usual cup of tea and run off to find out if her friends in Las Pegasus were alright.
Now he too had closed his shop for the time being, not without leaving an appropriate message of course, and was navigating through the alleys and passageways of Canterlot to avoid the crowded main streets.
Most of these paths weren’t very pretty, they were narrow, they were shady, and sometimes even neglected, nothing a tourist would want to see. Nothing a tourist should ever see for that matter, Canterlot had an image to uphold after all. But, they were a byproduct of a city that had been built on the side of a mountain and that had no space to waste, but at the same time wanted its main streets to be broad for the tourists to admire and the nobles to parade.
Brighteyes stopped when he stepped out of an alley into one of these streets. Right ahead of him lay one of the many telegraph offices of Canterlot. He felt his blood run cold as he surveyed the crowd that had formed in front of the building. The ponies seemed neither calm nor happy, and the office’s staff seemed not eager to let any of them in.
So it was true. The telegraph had gone dead, just like Tiffin had said.
This meant that ponies were not exaggerating. That Equestria in fact was in a state of crisis.
That Manehattan lay in anarchy, and his wife and his friend were in the middle of it.