Despite my less wholesome nature, there are some rituals even I consider sacred. Every day without fail, whether surrounded by modern luxuries or prehistoric ruins, my routine remains unchanged: Coffee, newspaper, ink and quill, and finally quiet solitude to enjoy all of them together. Bon Bon was happy to provide while she performed her own routine in the kitchen. However, the presence of my other, more curious minty roommate was meddling with my morning tradition.
My best attempts to ignore Lyra’s gaze had utterly failed. She was not content with simply sitting quietly with her Earl Graymare elsewhere. I adjusted myself in my seat to block her with my reading material in vain hope she would take the hint. Instead, she peered over the headlines to analyze what I was doing without bothering to ask for clarity. Even when I clearly shifted my chair to ignore her, she craned her neck just enough to peek around the sidebar. Even when she was quiet, I could still hear the thrumming of her magic lifting her tea from her coaster.
At some point over the course of our table tango, Lyra’s confused pursed lips had shifted to a soft smirk after realizing how truly annoying she was being. Now the mare was just waiting for me to break as some sort of challenge.
I wish I could say her attempts were unsuccessful.
“WHAT?” I finally caved and slammed my fists, all three of them, on the table. Fortunately, I at least startled the mare, so it was not a total loss. Sadly, she recovered quickly.
“For the life of me, I can’t figure out what you could possibly be doing over there.”
Fie on this irksome minx of a mare! I pulled my paper taut, letting the crisp page rattle answer her inane question. It was painfully obvious why she got along so well with Lacerunner.
Not satisfied with my prop answer—because of course she would find the obvious unsatisfactory—she pulled the top of the page I was trying to read back with her magic and leaned into my face with a full-frontal assault to my personal space. “No, you’re not. Nopony reads a paper like that.”
While I could address my lack of equinity, I refused to follow the obvious pony pronoun set-up and went back to my business flipping through the pages and taking notes.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.” She added pointing to the pen and paper by my tail. “Are you reading five stories at the same time or something? I didn’t think anything could have that big of an attention deficit.”
It was too early to deal with morning ponies, but she just could not let my caffeine take hold before pressing for an answer. I closed the newspaper and slide it across the table. “I’m looking for work and your constant interruptions are helping no one.”
Her face sunk in disbelief. “Work?”
I nodded.
“In the Foal Free Press?”
“Every paper has work,” I answered curtly, only just suppressing my hands from reaching out and wringing Lyra’s neck like a sponge. I caught a much needed whiff of my morning brew and clutched it instead. I savored its bitter scent, letting the elixir tickle my nostrils with its invigorating aroma. Despite the candy maker’s proclivity for sweet things, she packed her black brew with enough strength to peel paint. The only way to start a morning properly was with a cruel reflection of the world in your cup. It almost made me forget the nuisance on the other side of my drink dragging me back to reality.
“And this?” Lyra asked pointing to my notes in the margins.
“A cipher.”
“‘Cypher?’ I thought that was a type of sword or something.” Lyra turned the paper right-side up and upside down trying to make heads or tails of my scribbles.
“Where did you hear that nonsense?” I shook my head and snatched the paper back from her magical grip to get back to reading. “Never mind. All you need to know is that I need it to find work in my field.”
“You mean like villainy stuff?” She rolled her eyes at the mere notion a true villain could find something in Ponyville.
“You cannot simply throw bounties around Equestria in the classifieds. You go through referrals or hide a hit in your newspaper.” I dipped my quill and started tail transcribing while I continued reading through the paper. After years of digging through newspapers, decoding work had become an automatic process. I scoured line after line, seeing the subtle markers pointing between pages. It was to the point I’d have to focus to read it normally without being distracted by cues, clues, and pointers. It was a negligible price for such brilliance.
She leaned back in her seat, messing around with her teabag and shooting me with a curious eyebrow. “You do know that’s the local schoolhouse newspaper, right? Written by foals? It’s in the title.”
I was glad she couldn’t see my face pale. I hadn’t considered that. Still, I felt like I was getting close to something. I flipped once more to the front page, then the third, and finally the advertisement insert before setting the paper down. I gently placed the quill inside the inkpot and pulled my notes closer for inspection of my work. A smile crept across my face and I slammed my hit down like a royal flush.
“Every. Paper.”
The dew-soaked grass glistened in the gentle shards of sunlight just peeking over Canterlot in the distance. With the sunrise rose the quaint ponies of the town to the start the new day basking in its protective warm rays. Friendly neighbors exchanging early greetings and well-wishes filtered out of their homes and onto the dirt and gravel roads to begin the next day of their carefree lives.
At least that is how Lyra described it.
I, on the other hand, was trying very hard to not think of said light’s incarnate behind the solar movement. While even I respected a brilliant sunrise, the long shadow of Canterlot only reminded me of the one who was more than willing to give me an up close and personal tour of the fiery orb. Besides, I had other, more pressing issues on my mind.
I did my best following the message’s instructions to the letter, but the unnamed contact obviously assumed whoever responded to the message would know the town like the back of their hand,or whatever it is that ponies have. I think maybe the inside of their frog, but… ugh, expressions. Either way, Lyra followed closely behind and my struggle with directions was not lost on her.
“Y’know, if you had been paying any attention to my amazing tour—”
“If your tour was ‘amazing’ in any sense of the word, I would have been compelled to listen even against my will.”
I would not let her have the satisfaction of finishing her snide remark. My grin only grew as hers soured in a facial representation of alchemic equivalent exchange. I am a creature of simple pleasures.
“So would you rather I take you home instead of finding this so called ‘work’ somewhere in Ponyville?” She asked threateningly. I scoffed at the very notion.
“‘Take me home’ you say? I did not ask you to come in the first place.”
“Of course you didn’t, but I can’t let my widdle-kitty wander big ol’ Ponyville all by his lonesome,” she squeaked while pinching my cheeks with her magic and making the most saccharine of kissy faces. If not for the morning rays reminding me of the terrifying consequences, I would rip that condescending mare’s lips off and make her eat them. I huffed and refocused my attention on my notes.
Looking back over the directions provided no respite from my Unicorn companion. Whoever penned this job was determined to lead me on winding and infurating path around all of Ponyville. It began us at the open-air market with strict instructions to pick up a special fritter from an apple vendor. The glaringly red stallion was one of very few words, only raising an eyebrow at me when I requested one. I could see why he was confused after he produced the pastry.
The Maple Apple Cinnamon Celebration as it was called was a diabetic’s nightmare dripping with cinnamon maple syrup, apple-shaped sprinkles, and what could only be described as “snuggles and wuv” from a sickeningly sweet grandmother. I could swear I had gotten a contact cavity from holding it too close to my nose. When I asked him if he had a bag to carry it in, his first and only words were “eeyup” before quickly wrapping it for me before either of us lost anymore of our masculinity.
Seeing this quiet exchange, of course, only made Lyra all the more eager to buy herself one to eat in front of me. Her palate for sweets had been tempered by a fire and chocolate bon bons leaving her immune to its overpowering sugariness. She gleefully smacked her lips as she chewed the gooey crime against calorie intake.
From there, the contact left incredibly specific and downright arbitrary instructions to find the meeting point. Turn left at the center water fountain and take the alleyways down Hoofer Street. Hide behind Mr. Solemn Night’s trash cans until you can cross the next intersection without being seen. Stay near porches and patios to limit your visibility from low-flying pegasi. As if I needed to be told how to remain inconspicuous!
Or at least as much as an ahuizotl can be in a town populated almost exclusively by pastel colored equines.
“This is kind of fun!” Lyra remarked as she scampered between hiding places. She followed the instructions to a T, going so far as to leap over fences while getting closer to the rendezvous point. I trudged down the street like any sane creature would while Lyra pretended to be a gods’ forsaken ninja.
As we drew ever closer to our goal, something began worming its way into the back of my mind. While this venture had led us through back alleys or cottages littering, the scenery only grew more pleasant as we walked. I initially brushed it off as Ponyville not having much of an area to be referred to as a slum, ghetto, or bad part of town, but now we were passing through picturesque family cottages wrapped with white picket fences close to the looming crystal tree-castle.
“I wonder if Spike can see us from here…” she pondered as she emphatically waved towards the castle. I tossed a cursory glance and scoffed at the idea, at least until I noticed a small purple and green speck waving back at her.
“Would you cut that out?” I hissed, pulling her into the shadows behind a large oak tree. “Just because I am free to roam here doesn’t mean I want to draw attention of the local royals, whoever they are!”
“Pfft, Spike’s not royalty. At least I don’t think he is. I’ve never really thought about it since the whole alicorn thing. He is a national hero though in the crystal empire, so maybe…” she continued to dribble on about potential royal statuses as we finally neared our destination. The scene forced me to pause, looked over the directions again just to make sure this was the right place.
Before us was the backyard of an unassuming, one-story home on the bleeding edge of town near the castle. It was the cookie-cutter, thatched roof cottage with the exception of several broken fence posts and impact damage on the outside of the house. I suppose if there could be a run-down shack in a prosperous friendly town, this was about as close as one could get. My years living around the underbelly of society had taught me the most pleasant of places could hide the darkest of secrets.
“Zotey, are you sure about this?” Lyra whispered with trepidation. “I think I know who lives here.”
“Oh? Does it surprise you that one of your close neighbors may not be so innocent? That even near light of a princess, there could be the darkest shadows.”
There was a pause as she considered her next words very carefully. “I guess that’s one way to put it…”
Putting her hesitations aside, I skulked my way to the leftmost back window and checked to make sure the coast was clear. Per the instructions, I ducked beneath the window and knocked eight times to the rhythm of some popular song by some Coloratura pony. At first, there was silence. I waited for a moment, thinking perhaps I had gotten the wrong location until a response knock came from the other side. Grinning devilishly, I replied with the last three knocks of the stanza and began to stand up to meet my client.
On the other side of the window was a small violet-gray unicorn barely able to pop her head above the windowsill. Where at first she had popped up excitedly to meet me had slowly drooped into abject horror as I slowly drew myself from the grass. I towered over the tiny filly. Tears filled in her terrified eyes and, for a moment, I felt a surge of warmth overcome me. I savored the intoxicating feeling of my mere presence striking fear into the hearts of all before me.
This fleeting feeling of power was quickly thwarted when I noticed her amber eyes darting back and forth between me and my hand. I then recalled the apple branded bag holding a joy filled affront to all things evil in my hand. Her agape mouth was paradoxically frozen in horror, but also salivating with a deep longing for the treat inside. She was torn between her fear for her life and the desire for the fritter. My blood ran cold and reality rammed me like a freight train.
The fritter wasn’t a signal for a job, it was the job.
For a time, we simply stared at one another, Each of us awestruck with the other and nothing to say. Time slipped away with each second lingering like an hour from our awkward and wordless exchange.
I had just weaved and dodged around Ponyville for the better part of the morning to see it had been wasted delivering a midday snack at the behest of a filly bright enough to encode a message in her school’s paper. The infantile instructions now made all the sense in the world, why they were written so naively despite the cleverness of the code. Anger burned beneath my skin. I felt my fur stand on end. I wanted to crush the accursed fritter in my hands to show her the extent of my rage.
However, to my surprise, what gripped me more than anything also stayed my hand: curiosity.
“Why?” I whispered after an eternity. I meant it to sound stronger, but I was unable to hide the defeat in my voice.
After lifetimes of waiting, the filly rubbed her foreleg, admonished by my disappointment, and looked away from my sorrow. After a sniffle, she pulled the fritter from my limp grasp with her magic, almost dropping it in the process without looking at me, never wanting to meet my gaze.
“B-because mommy grounded me for a week.”
“And then—Hic!—And then Dinky just—Hic! With the fritter…” Lyra tried her best to finish a comprehensible though her peals of laughter and hiccups, but collapsed again for the umpteenth time. She cried from how much her elation hurt. If there was any justice in this world, she would die from the paralyzing hilarity.
I made a point of keep my gaze locked forward as did her best to recount what had just transpired to me as if I hadn’t been there to witness it firsthand. She had given herself the hiccups after laughing for five straight minutes and had failed to say anything more intelligible than half started sentences on and off for the past ten.
Too many witnesses, I repeated to try to stave off my homicidal thoughts, though banishment to any celestial body was feeling like a bargain at this point.
The entire morning had been a wash thanks to that little pony. The paltry payment I had received for smuggling pastries had only covered the cost of the dessert. I may have felt a certain level of pride in her cryptography if not for the fact it had been my time she had wasted with it. Usually such abilities are tied to cutie marks, but Dinky Doo was able to craft a hit within her school newspaper. If given the chance and the right motivation, I bet she’d go far in the underworld.
I couldn’t help but sigh. Bon Bon had approved my day off under the pretense I was responding to an ad in the paper. She was more than happy to fund a job search to eliminate any other possibilities of scaring off more of her clientele. And now I was stuck listening to the minty one’s mocking laughter until it stopped being funny to her or she died laughing. Perhaps I could frame her murder around that…
I shook the errant thought away, only to wish I hadn’t come out of my thoughts when an unfortunately familiar sunhat bounced around the corner. Disgusted by each other’s presence, Country Comfort and I growled at each other momentarily before Lyra was able to eke out some noise to get her attention.
“Why Miss Heartstrings, you’re redder than my mother’s face after eating rainbow gumbo. I’dda guessed you got a featherfall spell wrong again seeing you all tickled pink, but…” she stopped to turn to me, putting two and two together to make misery for me. “I imagine by the face on this biggity clod means that it has to do with something mighty embarrassing for him.”
Lyra snickered and nodded feverishly while beckoning her closer.
“Now remember Lyra, a proper lady never gossips, but do go on,” she purred. Having had my fill of retelling my failures still fresh in my mind, I decided to ditch the two mares and find a proper newspaper to find work in. With any luck, the leads would still be fresh enough to take today.
I made my way to the nearby market, grateful for the relative silence. While the quaint market bustled with inane chattering, local music, and the occasional comment pertaining to my presence, I was finally at peace with nothing said being directed towards me. The scent of equine cuisine reminded my stomach it was drawing towards lunchtime. It took one cursory look to quell that desire seeing the nearby food stalls brimming with an overabundance of grains, fruit, and foliage. A wiser use of my paltry pocket change would be invested in purchasing a newspaper from the bookstore I had passed in the area this morning.
Smallcaps’ Books, Scrolls, and Sundries broke the mold of the town. It stood as one of the few permanent stores in the central market rather than a tiny stall, elaborate cart, or first-floor business built out of a home. Apparently the book business was doing well enough in Ponyville to warrant its own location, though it still maintained the earthen look with its cob walls and thatched roof. Just behind the storefront window, a diminutive coral colored pegasus hovered over her work and peered over the rims of her glasses at various titles she was putting on display. I supposed the tiny mare in question lived down to her name.
My eyes were drawn to the covers. Harmonizing Your Harmony, More than Your Mark, My Second Special Talent, and several other similar titles were prominently circling a center stand advertising a “Month of Motivation” sale of sorts. I suppose it made sense to have such self-help books in a rural nothing town like this dull place. Ponies lived with whatever fate dealt to their flanks. Imagining the endless horror of destiny declaring me to be the best dirt coddler for the remainder of my life sent shivers down my spine. I’d much rather cut it off like the cancer it is than live bound to a picture on my hind quarters.
Movement behind the window, or the lack thereof drew my attention Smallcaps, completely still aside from her idle wing flaps keeping her airborne. Her agape mouth threatened to drag the floor even from her height. I chuckled darkly as she desperately tried tucking her Daring Do saddlebag beneath her wing. With her attention drawn, I took the opportunity to let myself in before she could attempt to spontaneously take a lunch break.
The doorbell chimed upon my entry, causing her wings to lock up as she fell to the floor.
“I see you are a fan of my nemesis’ work,” I commented upon entering and seeing the Action/Adventure section littered with her published scribbles. I could feel the mare’s blood chill as she froze on the spot. Spotting my prize, I snatched one of the morning’s copies of the Ponyville Express from the stack. Surprisingly, the rustling of the paper brought Smallcaps out of her stupor enough to attempt some customer-friendly action.
“H-how may I can help you with what we are looking for having a sale,” Smallcaps flubbed through a panicked and forced grin. Her wings fluttered at the ready to fly to safety at a moment’s notice, and rightly so if we were anywhere else in the world. Though my roommates weren’t close by to see me pilfer the paper, the risk of losing the roof over my head over a trivial theft stopped my more favorable method of discount shopping. Instead, I looked away and offered my paltry bag of bits to her.
“This should cover the expense,” I grumbled quietly. I heard her breath hitch and turned towards her. This was received with a book in my face as the frightened mare screamed and flew behind the counter. While it pleased me to no end to hear her pitiful cry, I could have done without the hardback impact. I made a mental note to terrorize her at a later date when I wasn’t so busy.
I lifted the book from the floor to see on the spine that she had defender herself with a book by Iron Will. I suppose she hoped the name would help make a bigger impact. While it could be a pony, the only Iron Will I knew in the motivational section was the strong-headed minotaur with an ingenious idea to upturn Equestria from within. It seemed he was still at it trying to get ponies to spread disharmony with his “assertiveness seminars.” Not the grandest scheme I had ever heard, but quite the interesting long-game as long as he didn’t falter in his resolve.
“I wonder what he is writing these days,” I pondered aloud with some mirth. I briefly considered reconnecting with him. It’d be beneficial to find allies within this sea of frolicking ponies. Good villains only lasted so long in Equestria proper. That was until I read the cover.
“‘Finding Your Inner Pony: How I Found Myself in Equestria’?” This had to be a ruse. Some sort of play to throw off some sort of suspicion he had fallen under. I flipped to the inside book cover to see a fluff piece writing above a sickeningly sweet picture of Iron Will cuddling with a rather tall and stocky yellow mare, glancing through the words of it and the forward. By the gods, He had dedicated this book to Amber Waves, his newly wedded wife!
I sucked a pained breath through my nose and let the book fall to the ground. I couldn’t believe it, I wouldn’t believe it. There was simply no way that stubborn, bitter, ferocious minotaur bent on destroying harmony could’ve… had been… I didn’t want to speak the accursed word that had even felled the likes of Discord.
“Reformed…”