//------------------------------// // Boutique // Story: Mr Stripes Versus A Cthonic Horror // by Carabas //------------------------------// It was Plaid Stripes’ lunch break, and she whistled cheerfully and tunelessly as she dressed a ponequin at the back of Rarity’s boutique. It was a day for whistling. Any birthday was. The sunny streets of Manehattan matched her mood, and the background chatter and bustle of the city lulled her as she worked. The amount of screaming and crashing in said bustle seemed to be fractionally higher, admittedly, but not enough to distract her. She was in the zone. Pony figures cut white-hot lines through Plaid’s mind, figures adorned with gleaming metal, clad in clothes nopony had ever thought possible. Nopony apart from her. Her muse sang, and while it might not have been a song that shared a universe with notions of intelligibility and good taste as understood by most sentient beings, it poured regardless out from her mind’s eye and onto the ponequin like liquid fire. A extra rivet here, a trim of moulded skewers there, a fondue pot perched just so— The door jangled, breaking Plaid’s flow of thought, and she hurriedly turned away from the ponequin, drew a sheet over it, and bobbed her head out to see who’d entered. “Ah, um, hello! Welcome to —  oh! Hello, Miss Rarity!” “Good day, Plaid!” Rarity said, obscured by several large packages that orbited in her magical grasp like planets around an especially stylish sun. She puffed as she set the packages down, and smiled up at Plaid. “Gracious, it was quite a bumpy train journey from Ponyville to here. The walk here from the train station via the waterfront was quite divine, though, in this weather. Is there some sort of event on in the city, darling?” “An event?” Plaid frowned as she thought, still trying to pick bits of her brain out of the haze of creation. “Not that I’ve heard. Why?” “Oh, there seemed to be some sort of fracas going in the streets, nearer to Bridleway and the city centre. Perhaps more of a rumpus than a fracas. I even saw a group of Diamond Dogs loping towards the harbour with some alacrity.” Rarity thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “Quite peculiar, but no matter, I suppose. Could you be a dear and help me unpack these? They’re for the ponequins.” “Of course!” Plaid trotted up and nosed into one of the bags, uncovering a neatly-folded expanse of fine forest-green fabric, studded with tiny agate buttons. “Is this the new Autumn Range you said you’d bring round? Oh, it’s pretty.” “Why, thank you, darling, and it’s the promised range indeed,” replied Rarity, extracting a green-and-gold dress from another bag with her magic. “Hours upon days upon weeks of effort and tears and remonstrations with my sewing machine whenever it proved recalcitrant, but if I do say so myself, it’s all paid off marvellously. Voila!” She lifted several other dresses clear of their bags and flourished one like a banner. “Russet velvet for the overdress, with cream-coloured broderie anglaise and a studding of little pearls for the cuffs and underfrock. Here’s a darker number, charcoal-spun silk in the main and for the hat, offset by the peacock feather arrangement, of course. And here’s another. See how it catches the light? Silk charmeuse, offset by the jet on the front, and I couldn’t resist giving it just a hint of Rococo with the ribbon on the wither and the way it winds around the torso. And here’s ...” Plaid listened, spellbound, as Rarity detailed each dress and Fancé words began to fill the air like excited doves. Dad getting her a job under this sort of expertise was the luckiest thing that could have happened to her. She couldn’t wait to get Rarity’s feedback on her own creations. Eventually, however, the onslaught of Fancé slowed, and Plaid’s spellboundness wobbled. She felt almost grubby bringing the conversation back to more prosaic concerns. “Is it all for the boutique here, Miss Rarity? I’m not sure if we’ve got enough ponequins.” “Not all of it’s for here, Plaid. I’m on a whistle-stop tour today, dropping off stock where needed. Canterlot’ll be my next port of call after here. I trust nothing here’s gone awry since my last visit?” “Everything’s been fine, Miss Rarity!” Plaid replied, picking up one dress in her mouth and maneuvering it onto a ponequin in the store’s window display. “Business has been booming, Sassy Saddles’ been sending advice my way, Daddy’s been making sure the building’s fine, and...” Plaid’s eyebrows waggled in a conspiratorial way. “I’ve even had the time to do some more designs myself.” Years of cultivating proper comportment meant that Rarity’s voice only trembled a little, and the hitch in her movements when dressing a ponequin was all but imperceptible. “Oh, that’s lovely, Plaid.” “Would you like to see them?” “Oh, assuredly. But, ah, before that...” Rarity’s magic delved down into a saddlebag, and she withdrew a small package, wrapped up with a bow on top. “Happy birthday, Plaid!” Plaid gasped. “You remembered? You didn’t have to! Thank you!” “It was no trouble, darling. And I’ll confess Pinkie reminded me — do you remember her from the boutique’s opening? A pink blur of enthusiasm? She might have interacted with you for a brief instant and winkled out your whole life story and salient details in that instant. She tends to, by some magic.” Rarity motioned to the package. “I suspect it’ll be just your thing.” Plaid undid the ribbon with one tug of her teeth, and as it and the wrapping fell free, she ogled the contents. It was an old cutlery box, and when she nosed it open, a delicate little antique cutlery set sat revealed in its velvet lining, thin tines and surfaces and decorated handles glittering in the sunlight. “I was browsing Ponyville’s antiques shop one day,” Rarity said idly as Plaid regarded the set mutely. “And there that was on one shelf, at quite a steal of a price. And I thought, well, why not? I hope they’re —” “West Coast Baroque!” Plaid exclaimed suddenly and delightedly. “I thought I recognised the handle style! They’re so classic … and so well-preserved! Thank you so much, Miss Rarity. I know exactly what I can do with these. I’ve a pot in need of some side-plumes.” Rarity opened her mouth, closed it again, and then after a moment’s silence, dared enquire. “Oh. Er, do you?” “Oh yes.” Plaid leaned closer, her voice hushed and trembling with excitement. ”I’ve been planning an Archaic range.” “An Archia—? Ah!” Rarity donned a smile. “That sounds wonderful, Plaid. A solid starting ethos for your first set of designs! And, ah, dare I enquire—?” Plaid grinned, held up one hoof, bidding Rarity shush. She pointed towards to the sheet-covered ponequin she’d been working on at the back of the boutique, and the unicorn cautiously trotted towards it. Her magical aura alighted on the sheet, and she turned to Plaid with one raised brow. Plaid eagerly nodded, all but jumping up and down with excitement. “Behold!” she urged. Rarity swept the sheet off the ponequin. She beheld. “See, I’ve been thinking about diversifying,” Plaid gabbled delightedly, as Rarity stared at the dressed ponequin. “Cutlery’s good, but there’s plenty of other practical utensils, aren’t there? A pony should be able to wear them anywhere they go just in case they need them, and look good at the same time. And then one day I was out with Dad at the Royal Museum, and on the second floor, they had the old pony-armour of General Bucephalus himself, and just like that, I had the perfect inspiration!” Rarity’s gaze was mirrored in most every surface the ponequin’s garb had to offer. Pots, pans, serving dishes, skillets, and ramekins made up its bulk, a great dimpled suit of pony-armour. Rivets and hooks and coiled loops held the lot together, and in the gaps there twinkled smaller utensils: forks and knives and spatulas and skewers. A pair of ladles were slung over the withers, a set of kettles served as shoes, and on the head, a upside-down fondue pot sat with weighty gravitas. “Bucephalus’s helmet had three plumes. The cutlery box you got me’ll be perfect for those,” Plaid continued cheerfully. “I’m thinking the knives fanned out on one side, the forks on another, and the spoons up the centre. What do you think, Miss Rarity?” She paused then. “Do you … do you like it?” Rarity swallowed. “It’s … exceptionally avant-garde.” Plaid brightened. “Is that good?” “It’s a mark of rare distinction, Plaid.” Rarity flashed a smile at Plaid, and then looked back at the ponequin with the expression of a pony doing her valiant best to comprehend and failing. “And diversifying’s always a good step for a budding artiste.” “I know, right? I mean, cutlery on its own was good, but there was only so much I could do with it, you know? Kitchenware as a whole is such a good medium.” Plaid regarded her work once more with satisfaction, before smiling back at Rarity. “Is there any part of it you like in particular?” And as Rarity dithered there under the glow of Plaid’s expectant smile, her mind host to a three-way battle between her shoulder-Applejack, the wish to help a budding artiste without breaking her spirit, and the knowledge that said young artiste’s father would likely have words on the subject of any spirit breaking, mercy came in the form of the door jangling as it flew open and a panicked-looking pegasus stallion came lurching inside. “Behind the counter!” he blurted. “Take shelter! It’s coming this way!” “What?” Rarity blinked and trotted towards him, Plaid at her heels. “Sir, you’re in quite a state. What’s happening? What do you mean by ‘it’?” “I’ve no idea, but it’s horrible!” gabbled the stallion. “It’s been blundering around central Manehattan causing havoc! Is this building sturdy? It’s ploughed through a few walls, but it mainly sticks to the streets, so you might be—” “Sir, please, comport yourself. Deep breaths. Tell me what’s going on, and what’s responsible—” “And while you’re calming down, sir,” ventured Plaid, who had no idea what was happening but felt that a salespony approach was a safe fallback, “could I interest you in any of Miss Rarity’s designs? This hat here would go very well with your—” “Plaid.” The stallion’s gaze had focused at the mention of Rarity’s name, and he regarded her with some hope. “You’re … you’re Rarity? The Rarity? National hero, saviour of Equestria on multiple occasions, Chic magazine’s Most Promising Designer, etc?” Rarity preened slightly. “Well, one doesn’t like to boast.” The stallion looked from her to the outside, from which a distant clamour was growing, and then back to her. “Er,” he said. “Er. Help? Do the saviour thing? Please?” “Well, I’d be perfectly willing to pitch in, sir, but I’m still not quite clear on what’s happening. What needs to have ‘the saviour thing’ done to it?” The stallion opened and closed his mouth, brain working in silence as he fumbled for powers of description that he did not in fact have. “Right, er,” he stammered. “You know how you get alleyways in some of the grottier bits of the city? With piled-up garbage bags and rat tribes and glowing magical waste and puddles of who-dares-guess-what and smells that could knock you out at fifty paces, yeah?” “I’m … aware of the existence of such locales, yes.” “Right. Well, we’ve got what looks like one of those in living form, grown tentacles and lumbering every which way. It just came up underground after a pack of Diamond Dogs—” “Diamond Dogs? Really?” “Yeah. And once it was up, it just started blundering around the streets, wrecking wagons and knocking its way through buildings. It’s flattened nigh-on every cab in the carriage depot, flattened the carriage depot as well, crashed right through one wing of the Royal Museum, and went into the Stock Exchange!” “Gracious! That must have caused no end of a stir.” “Well, no. Nopony thought it looked out of place there. Until it went out through the other wall.” The stallion took a breath. “And now it’s heading this way, and nopony’s called in the Wonderbolts or Guard or princesses, ‘cause everypony’s been too busy fleeing or getting their pitchforks out! Do you know what to do?” “I … well, I confess I’m still somewhat unclear as to what exactly’s going on, but if you’d care to lead me to wherever this creature is, I’ll give it my best appraisal—” But any appraisal would have to wait, because it was at that moment the door jangled once again, and Mr Stripes entered proceedings. ‘Entered’ is too mild a term. He billowed in like a galleon under full sail, his face aglow like a particularly cheerful lighthouse. “Mr Stripes!” declared Rarity in some surprise, “Daddy!” exclaimed Plaid delightedly, and the pegasus stallion let out a brief shriek until Mr Stripes turned out to not be a underworld monstrosity. “Plaid!” boomed Mr Stripes, filling the gentile interior of the boutique in the same way tsunamis fill eggcups. “How has birthday been, gnome of my garden?” “Oh, it’s been wonderful, Daddy!” Plaid chirped, trotting forwards to be taken into an enveloping bear-hug. “I got some designing done, and everything’s been alright here, and when Miss Rarity came, she gave me these!” She fumbled with a spare foreleg for the wooden cutlery box at one side, and flipped it open and presented it for approval. “West Coast Baroque! Aren’t they lovely?” “Ah!” Despite proximity to Plaid’s enthusiasms, Mr Stripes had a decidedly average level of appreciation for historical kitchen utensils, but he was as susceptible to the spread of toothy grins as the next pony, and he mirrored his daughter’s expression. “They are very shiny, yes! And they have all the expected prongs!” He flashed his smile Rarity’s way. “Most kind of you, Rarity. Business booms, yes?” “Oh,” said Rarity, with a laugh that concealed a certain amount of wary confusion at the zigzagging nature of the last while’s interactions. “It does, Mr Stripes, thank you for asking. And it was no trouble, really.” “Er,” said the pegasus, throwing his own initial two letters nervously into the ring, as he tapped Mr Stripes’s wither. “You just came from outside? You… did you see it?” The lighthouse-beam that was Mr Stripes’s expression flickered momentarily at this interruption. “See what?” “The…  you know what I’m talking about! You have to! It’s been rampaging through the streets!” “Streets? I have been taking shortcuts. I have not seen whatever this is … a parade, or whatever.” The tone of Mr Stripes had grown slightly chillier, but warmed again as he discovered a way to tie the conversation back into his main theme. “Shortcuts from a locale, where I have bou— collected, rather, owing to my getting it in advance as a responsible and clever father would, a gift for my little bee of my blossom.” “...what?” “Yes indeed!” Mr Stripes reached into the front pocket of his jacket and turned back to Plaid. “For you, my darling. Much joy may it bring!” He produced two tickets with a flourish and pressed them into Plaid’s hoof. She squinted down at them, and then squeaked with excitement high enough that the windows groaned. “Two first-class tickets to Zebrica?” “Seemed suitable,” said Mr Stripes, as Rarity oo’ed in appreciation and the pegasus regarded proceedings in frank befuddlement. “They have sunshine, the zebras, or so I am informed. And many pyramids. You like pyramids, yes?” “Pyramids are nice,” Plaid said. “But they’ve also got museums and things that’re even older than Equestria, and they’ve been making clothes and making utensils for millennia! They made the first cooking forks, you know, out of bronze! Oh, if I could spend even just one day wandering their museums, I’d get so much inspiration for the Archaic range!” Her eyes all but glowed. “And their modern stuff deserves appreciation and use as well — they’ve got all sorts of different spoons and measurers for all the alchemy they do, see. Oh, I should try and see one of their own fashion shows, and get inside a zebra kitchen at one point as well. I bet there’ll be plenty of scope for—” “Excuse me?” the pegasus said, cutting into Plaid’s extemporising. “Could this maybe be talked about later? There’s some unearthly horror roaming the streets and—” Mr Stripes turned on him, cutting him off mid-sentence with the faintest of faint diaphragmal rumbles, like a mountain alluding to long-dormant volcanic tendencies. The pegasus stared up into Stripes’ gimlet eyes, which had narrowed thoughtfully to give the impression of some vast internal list being consulted. Despite them, the pegasus swallowed and tried again. “It’s just … priorities ...” Whatever mental list Mr Stripes had consulted seemed to draw a blank, and the crags and furrows of his frown deepened. “Not a tenant. Odd. Sir, you are interrupting birthday celebration for the jewel of my tiara. Are you here to buy from Miss Rarity? Finish your business and go.” “As I understood the gentlecolt,” Rarity said hesitantly, “there’s some manner of creature at large in the city and causing havoc. He thought I might be able to assist in the matter.” “Is creature relevant?” said Mr Stripes dismissively. “Is likely to be far away or to have wandered off in time this stallion has spent interrupting.” “It’s very relevant!” said the pegasus. “I thought I heard this crashing from outside coming closer a few minutes ago, and I’m sure it’s still—” “Bah, hysterics. Look at pretty clothes on display. Will make you feel better.” Mr Stripes turned back to Plaid the moment after, all suggestion of volcanicity gone. “Clipper shall leave harbour on the first of next month, glitter of my sequin, and make for Marephis. Should give us ample time to pack and look up guidebooks and plan whatever excursions you’d like, yes?” “I… um, yes, Daddy!” Plaid’s gaze initially flickered uncertainly from Mr Stripes to Rarity to the pegasus, before brightening. “We could get a boat up the Neighle for a couple of days. I bet the zebras upriver have lots of their own cool kitchenware as well.” “Dears, I don’t mean to impose, but—” Rarity started. “Miss Rarity, please, I think your customer needs dealing with,” replied Mr Stripes, flashing her a smile tinged with irritation. “He is being most disruptive. Perhaps a pretty dress fitting is called for. Or even hoofcuff fitting, if you have those. Do you? I do not judge.” “Underworld horrors!” wailed the pegasus. “Rampaging through the city! Am I speaking into a vacuum here? Am I hallucinating all the words I’m saying? Hello?” “Sir,” said Rarity, pulling the pegasus aside, “perhaps if you explain matters in more detail to just myself, matters stand a slightly better chance of being resolved. Now let’s do this calmly and with all due decoru—” And it was at that moment that there came an unearthly screeching from the street, and what sounded like the lamppost outside the door being slammed into with some force. And on closer inspection from everypony present, that was exactly what had happened. The inspection took some doing. Rarity boggled. Plaid dropped the ship tickets. The pegasus balked. Mr Stripes tilted his head. Over the tops of the dressed ponequins, past the boutique’s windows, there wobbled a writhing, building-sized mass of what seemed like all the appendages the Creator had had going spare after finishing Creating, blotting out all else with its bulk. Black things glistened and colours unseeable by the pony eye flickered amidst yonic folds and depths. Past a coating of debris, wooden splinters and pulped fruit and building fragments, arrays of inset and stalked eyes blinked in at the boutique’s occupants. “Glrr-gl-thwoog?” ventured the Dweller Below. “Aaagh!” Rarity was first to decide on a suitable outburst, shedding her ladylike comportment for a second. “What is it? It’s hideous! What is it?” “It’s like a — it looks like — I don’t know!” Plaid shrunk close to her father’s side, her eyes wide and betraying terrible fascination. “There’s octopus in there, and slug, and a hint of lobster, and one of these deep-sea things with all the tendrils, whatever the name is, and, and—” “I tried,” moaned the pegasus. As they all spoke at once, Mr Stripes stared up at it in considered silence. To a pony with sufficient imagination, there was enclosed within the creature’s coils and unutterable shape all the nightmares of an age long past. All these dark old days when monsters beyond pony ken had the world as their own, and when ponykind was dust, would have it once again. The promise of these days roiled and gibbered and ‘Cthoogl?’-ed before their eyes, had twisted its way up from the earth and capered on Manehattan’s sunlit streets, and had shredded away the cocoon of lies beings wrought to swaddle themselves in makeshift sanity and keep chaos at bay. To such a pony, a dark age was promised in that beast, an abyss without fathom and without end. Mr Stripes was not such a pony. “Bah, do not recoil from it,” Mr Stripes said, not entirely sure of the advice he was about to give, but certain it ought to be given regardless. “Just look big and imposing, and it shall be more scared of us than us of it.” “No, that’s bears!” wailed the pegasus stallion. “You’re thinking of bears!” “Ach, bears, underworld horrors,” Mr Stripes said irritably, waggling a foreleg. “What is difference, fundamentally? Look, I show you.” With that, he tottered up onto his hindlegs and waggled his forelegs at the confused Dweller Below. “Raargh!” he boomed. “Shoo, pest! Raargh! You are interrupting—!” He got no further. The Dweller Below’s many eyes had fixated on him, and after what seemed like a moment’s fluttery indecision on its part, dozens of tentacles unfolded from its form and smashed into the boutique’s front all at once. Chaos reigned for an instant that packed in as much incidence as possible. The windows and doors were knocked in, and wooden splinters and glass flew across the floor. Rarity yelped and reflexively rose a blue-tinted shield between the boutique’s occupants and the incoming shrapnel. It withstood the first flurry of glass and wood bits, but did less well against the incoming door, which punched right through and knocked Rarity and the pegasus off their hooves. Mr Stripes, for his part, had seized Plaid with a foreleg and leapt for the counter, and was aided in this by a ponequin slamming into him from behind. The other ponequins tumbled and fell this way and that, clothes and shreds thereof filled the air, and tentacles entered shortly after, sticky ichor glistening on their ropey lengths, Groans and yelps came from the back of the boutique, which held a pile of ponies and assorted wreckage, and countless eyes and tentacles peered and/or flailed around the front of the boutique’s space, as if the Dweller Below was keen to be sure that the large scary creature was gone. It ceased shortly, emitted a relieved burble, and withdrew all its tentacles the second after, taking whatever debris lay upon the floor with it. Plenty of glass and wood fragments. Several sundered ponequins. The tatters of the Autumn Range. And two fallen tickets. The Dweller Below rolled back into the street, and scooted off one way. From the distance, there came the sound of a crowd in pursuit of it. This took some time to register with everypony in the boutique, who had a great deal of groaning and ache-nursing to get through in those first few moments. But get through them they did. “Oh no! The boutique!” wailed Plaid, first to raise her head and survey the damage. “My nothe!” mewled the luckless pegasus stallion, who’d had the misfortune of being before the door when the Dweller Below smashed against the front, and who now had the better part of the handle wedged up one nostril. “My Autumn Range!” screeched Rarity, the words erupting like steam from an enraged kettle as her gaze flitted across the battered ponequins and the few ichor-stained shreds hanging from them. “THE TICKETS!” Mr Stripes outdid them all for volume and fury. He’d slammed forcefully back into the boutique’s counter, and now rose from its wreckage, shedding wooden fragments and tasteful items of underapparel like a wrathful god with a highly select domain. “PLAID’S TICKETS!” He rose fully, and would have plunged immediately into pursuit of the Dweller Below had one of said tasteful items not become entangled around his forelegs and guided him smoothly towards a forehead-first meeting with the floor. As Mr Stripes cursed concussedly at ground level, Rarity was next to rise. She rose, dishevelled and scratched and trembling and white — or whiter, rather — with rage. “Hours upon days upon weeks,” she hissed. Her diamond-hard gaze bored into a shredded piece of lace on the ground, damp with cthonic mulch. “That was broderie anglaise! Do you know much sweat and how many tears go into broderie anglaise? Do you?” She shook her head, teeth clenched, and forced herself to turn towards Plaid, Mr Stripes, and the pegasus stallion. Her magic uncorked the doorhandle from the latter’s nose with a sound like ‘plunk’ and a yelp, and brought a first-aid kit bobbing out from her sundered counter. An ice pack slid out from the kit and was pressed against his nose. “Keep that there,” Rarity said. “If anypony has any cuts, there are plasters and bandages in there as well. Plaid, kindly stay here and mind your father and this gentlecolt while I attend to things.” “Where are you going?” Plaid ventured, looking from Rarity to Mr Stripes to the groaning pegasus to Rarity again. “Matters have been made entirely clear. I,” said Rarity, in a voice that could have come from an oncoming iceberg, “am going to find those particular beings in town who are best equipped for the situation. And I shall have them deal with this.” And with that, she picked her way over the smashed front of the boutique and vanished in the direction of the waterfront, the air colder in her wake. “Glk,” moaned the pegasus, curled up on the ground with the ice-pack firmly applied. “Urk. Oh stars. I think it scraped my brain.” “Tickets,” mumbled Mr Stripes, pushing himself up with no little effort. His gaze slid blearily from side to side. “Creature stole tickets. Plaid’s tickets. Must ... urrgh. Retrieve—” “Daddy!” cried Plaid, scrambling over towards him. “Stay still. Please. I’ll get you a plaster or two.” “No … no time, pineapple of my fruitbowl,” Mr Stripes managed. He pushed himself up a little further. “Have to head … head after it. Take them back. If I don’t, what sort of stallion am I, eh?” “Daddy, no, the tickets don’t matter! Look, you’re all scratched! I don’t want you to get hurt more!” “Is but a scratch! Literally!” Mr Stripes pushed himself fully upright, and some fire was rekindled in the depths of his eyes for all he swayed. “Do not worry about my hurts, darling, Daddy is very tough. Shall be back shortly.” He kissed her on the cheek and scrambled towards the wide-open front, his movements initially unsteady but becoming surer as he went on, till something of his customary unstoppability had returned to him. A crowd was moving past them in pursuit of the Dweller Below, pitchforks bobbing in their midst, and Mr Stripes made to join them. “Daddy, wait!” Only almost unstoppable. Mr Stripes turned. “Plaid, please —” “If you have to go after it, Daddy, at least let me make you even tougher,” Plaid pleaded. Past her worried expression, a gleam had entered her eye, that of a great idea dawning. “You’re sort of built like Bucephalus anyway, so it should fit you.” “You, ah … might have to clarify, daisy of my garden.” “I’ll show you! It’s at the back of the boutique!” Plaid excitedly gestured, and Mr Stripes reluctantly trotted after her, side-stepping the hors-de-combat pegasus as he went. “You’ll like it! Miss Rarity said it was avant-garde. Exceptionally, even!” The Bonny Jenny, a sturdy and old-fashioned sailing brig docked at the quieter end of the waterfront, would have been perfect for Patches and his pack as a getaway boat. Perfect, that is, if not for the full crew of surprised donkey sailors who suddenly found themselves sharing the deck with a pack of Diamond Dogs. “An emergenthy, I thaid!” snarled Patches, leaning down to try and outstare the brig’s captain, Desperada, a weathered-looking jenny with notched ears and a countenance like a stormcloud. A younger mirror of Desperada looked down from the lookout point, a crossbow cradled in her forelimbs. “Do you know that word? It meanth thomething you thail far, far away from right now!” “Look, pal, this is my ship,” hissed Desperada. “And I sailed it into Manehattan with particular purposes in mind, alright? We’re going to offload some perfectly legitimate and legal cargo, yeah? We’re going to pick up some equally legitimate and legal new cargo. We’re going, by prior arrangement, to ferry some messages back to Asinia that the message-senders don’t trust to the telegrams. Those’re the purposes. Picking up passengers wasn’t one of them! Especially not ones who ain’t offering payment! And especially not a slavering pack of dogs with crates and … and bloody canaries in cages and whatever, who ain’t offering payment, and who say the city’s not safe for business! That last one didn’t feature as a purpose in the slightest, would you believe!” “Ma?” ventured the younger jenny from up in the lookout point, waggling her crossbow. “Does anyone need perforating?” “No, Conquista, nobody needs perforating. Yet. If I were you, dog, I’d think about the implications of that word and that emphasis.” “The longer you thpend threatening me and being thtubborn, the clother we all come to our imminent and horrible demitheth!” “Our… what? What in the Depths was that last word —?” “Ahem.” The sound of a throat being pointedly cleared came from behind Patches, on the gangplank bridging the brig and wharf. Desperada’s glower darkened as she craned round Patches to see who it was. “Oh, fantastic, someone new! That’s right, just come aboard! Apparently, all Manehattan’s been invited on the Bonny Jenny today!” “Apologies, captain,” said the newcomer, her tone cold and foreboding. “I shouldn’t be long here.” Patches turned around and looked down to see her, a white-coated and purple-maned unicorn. She was breathing heavily, as if she’d come here at a swift gallop, but her expression was grim and composed. And her eyes… The big, scarred Diamond Dog had delved down into the deep places of the world, where nameless things gnawed ceaselessly at the roots of Creation, and he had been unlucky enough to see some of these things. And even their fathomless gazes had been less scary than this unicorn’s. “Ma?” came a distant and unheeded voice from above, “should I perforate her, or …?” “Conquista, put the damned crossbow away!” Reports and dispatches from across the mines and underholds bubbled to the top of Patches’s mind, and the bell of realisation tolled once before falling silent in horror. His face twisted with confusion, before collapsing into the haunted look worn by every being who’s just found the universe interpreting the thought ‘Well, at least today can’t get any worse’ as a challenge. “Oh, thod,” he mewled. “It’th you.” “It is I,” said Rarity, her tone as frigid and arch as a winter sky. The pack collectively shrank back, and any dog on the deck that was lucky enough to not be in her direct line of sight tried to hide behind whatever was available, up to and including the mast, crates, off the side of the ship, and surprised donkey sailors. “I see I have a reputation.” “We’ve no quarrel,” Patches said desperately. “Our Lady Alpha put the word out, any other dogth caught trying to enthlave thurfathe-dwellerth would be nailed to a thtalactite by their earth. We were jutht paththing through.” “Passing through, were you?” said Rarity. “On your way up from underground, I presume? And no little problems you might have brought with you in need of being resolved? Are you quite sure of that?” “I, er, that, that ith to thay, I, er.” Patches, who was finding today eminently loathable, fought for a suitable line of thought. “Look, okay, maybe we’re connected in thome way to that thing in the thity. But not deliberately! We were jutht fleeing, nothing more!” “Pray tell, did the notion of fixing the problem once cross your minds?” “Yeth,” Patches cautiously allowed, “but it was thoon thidelined by the notion of thurviving the problem.” “Look, whatever this problem is, shall the discussion about how to solve it not happen aboard my ship?” snapped Desperada. “Cargo doesn’t offload itself!” “What about those wandering pine saplings on the last run to Al-Antalus, Ma?” ventured Conquista. “We had to tether them to the mast, the way they kept trundling around the deck all the ti—” “Alright, most of the time, cargo doesn’t offload itself! But that’s distracting from the overall thrust of my point, which is that —” “You have prior acquaintance with such creatures as the one in the city,” Rarity said icily to Patches as Desperada and Conquista quibbled in the background. “So I’ll thank you to come back into the city and help us deal with it, using whatever knowledge and tools you have your disposal. And kindly don’t argue. I have lost my Autumn Range this day, and I am not a safe mare to press.” Patches’s mind roiled in terrified revolt, as he found found himself caught between a rock and a hard place, the prospect of a fire after a frying pan, and all manner of similarly unhappy metaphors. And in the midst of that broiling broth of panic, a tiny mad spark of defiance spat up, and he found himself, to his own instant horror, saying the worst thing possible. “W-why? What’th the wortht you can do?” Silence descended, vast and crushing and pitiless. The pack stared at him, aghast. The donkeys looked mixed parts perplexed and intrigued. Patches barely had time to contemplate the magnitude of his mistake before Rarity closed her eyes, drew a breath, and slashed forth with the first high-pitched whine.