Grief is the Price We Pay

by Scyphi


That We Don't Have

It had reached late morning by the time Thorax returned from his scouting trip. Until then, Spike had spent it largely uneventfully sitting on the warehouse floor with the rest of their scant gear, writing down a list of things they should try and obtain in order of priority on the back of the piece of wood Thorax had been doing risk assessment on. He was not disturbed the whole time, and found that, now that it was overall better lit with sunlight, the warehouse was a rather peaceful place to be. Especially once you got used to the smell, which Spike realized he had at some point, but couldn’t help but wonder if the smell might have rubbed off on either him or Thorax. To play it safe, he was sure to add “get baths” to the list as he figured the two of them were going to need one soon.

When Thorax returned, still disguised, he did so carrying a small neckerchief of cloth in his magic, full of small berries. “Here,” he said, handing them over to Spike. “Ientaculum.”

Accepting the berries, Spike gave him a puzzled look. “Beg pardon?”

“It means ‘breakfast,’” Thorax explained as he dropped his disguise, reverting to his normal changeling form. “Since you showed interest, I thought I’d try teaching you a bit of linguae mutationis—the language of the changelings.”

“Oh,” Spike said. “…how do you say ‘thank you’ then?”

Thorax grinned. “Gratias tibi ago.”

Spike frowned as he worked to repeat the unfamiliar phrase. “Gr—gratias tibi ago, then.” He regarded the berries again. “Where did you get these, anyway?” he asked, picking up one of the small berries between his claws and holding it up to the light.

“There’s a big bush growing nearby that’s covered with them,” Thorax explained as he wandered over to where he had left his cloak when he woke up. “Not entirely sure what kind they are, but I can at least tell you they’re safe enough to eat. As its growing wild in an empty lot nearby, I figured nopony would mind if we helped ourselves.”

Spike popped the berry into his mouth and bit into the chewy berry. He pulled a face at the taste of the juice that subsequently burst into his mouth. “Kinda bitter,” he noted aloud.

“Sorry,” Thorax apologized as he gathered up the cloak. “But I figured it was better than nothing, and you need to keep fed just as much as I do.” He noticed that Spike opted not to eat more of them however and instead stuffed the cloth and berries into the saddlebags lying next to him. Thorax gave the dragon a look that said he didn’t approve of that, but he chose not to make a verbal comment. “So, you got a list of things we want to get put together?” Spike handed over his list to Thorax, who looked it over. “Hmm,” he said aloud and began to read it aloud. “Food—non-perishable, water, blankets, backpack for you to help carry things in, a flashlight…” he trailed off as he nodded in approval. “This is actually a pretty reasonable list.”

“The question I’m worried about is how much of it we’ll be able to get,” Spike said aloud.

Thorax had the same concern. “I found Vanhoover’s marketplace has all of these things we could get, even a discount shop that stocks everything half-price. But the problem is that in order to get these things from these shops…”

“…we’ll need money that we don’t have,” Spike summarized, nodding his head with a sigh.

“Assuming that’s the route we choose to go, of course,” Thorax reasoned vaguely.

Spike caught what he was suggesting though and winced. “I’d rather not have to resort to stealing anything,” he stated.

Fortunately, Thorax was of a similar mind. “Agreed. Not only would we risk getting caught, it’d leave a trail that anypony pursuing us could follow.”

“Not to mention that it’d get us into more trouble than we’re already in,” Spike added. “And frankly…becoming an outcast was bad enough.” He sighed, massaging his forehead with his claws. “Could we at least get food we could travel with?”

“I did search,” Thorax said. “But the only place I could find where we could get reliable food without having to use money to get it is this place where they were giving it out to ponies off the street…someplace called a ‘soup kitchen?’…”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Spike said. “And good to know we have that as an option, but unfortunately, everything they serve there isn’t going to be non-perishable.”

“Actually, I could work around that, as I could create a small cocoon we could keep it in that’ll keep it fresh…though it’d have to be kept in a bath of suspensive fluids to do so,” Thorax explained. But before Spike could object with any misgivings to that idea (and he had many), the changeling went on. “No, the problem is that I noticed when they permitted ponies inside they also worked to collect information to identify them in the populace records…something about wanting to use it to help the ponies turn their lives around from what I heard?…anyway, if we were to get in, we would need to provide something similar, and considering that we’re technically banished, that would only get us caught.”

Spike nodded in agreement. “I don’t think a soup kitchen is going to let us take a couple days’ worth of food off them anyway,” he said. He sighed once more. “But doesn’t leave us with many options, does it?”

“It would appear the only way out is to find some way to obtain some money,” Thorax deduced logically.

Spike nodded. “We’re going to have to get jobs.”

“Jobs?”

“Probably nothing complex…just something part-time and out of the way long enough to get us enough bits to move on to our next destination.” Spike looked at the changeling. “By any chance, did you see any places that are advertising that they’re hiring?”

Thorax shrugged. “I wasn’t looking,” he admitted. “I did not know I needed to.” He tilted his head at Spike. “You can do that in Equestria though? If you want a job, you can just go and ask for any one you like?”

Spike grinned, amused. “It’s not quite that simple, but it’s something like that. Do changelings not do that?”

“Not really…it was more the queen determined what she deemed we were best or most useful at and then assigned us to do that job until such time we either could no longer do it, or she told us to do another job. She does all of the job assigning herself, not the individual changelings.”

“Well in Equestria, finding a job is up to the pony, or this case dragon and changeling, to go and find themselves on their own time, by advertising to the pony looking to hire that they have skills needed to the job in hopes the employer agrees and hires them over another. It’s called job hunting.”

Thorax considered all of this for a moment. “Then I guess we’re going job hunting,” he concluded simply.