//------------------------------//
// Detour 
// Story: Mister Cook Goes to Canterlot 
// by Dave Bryant 
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“I can tell you she’s not one of ours.” The plump earth mare, I suspected, was nettled by the assumptions she perceived behind my inquiry, but was trying hard to remain civil. “Frankly, I’ve no idea who she could be. Canterlot may not be Manehattan, but neither is it Ponyville.”
We ambled side by side down the broad, echoing flagstone corridor, the ineffable patina of centuries clinging to its every surface. The faint yells and shrieks of foals at play filtered to us through the tall windows from the expansive yard outside, but the hallway itself was quiet, only the occasional staff member passing by. Finally she sighed. “Mister . . . Cook, was it? The mere fact you came here to relate your tale tells me you have leapt to some precipitous conclusions.”
“I see.” My reply was carefully polite.
“I’m not sure you do.” The matron was silent a moment. “Perhaps she is an orphan, but that’s no guarantee she has any connection to an establishment like this one, even a . . . less reputable one. Do you propose to visit them all?” She didn’t bother to wait for a reply before going on. “More likely she’s not. If her family’s poor or neglectful or both, she may be doing her level best to contribute or to win approval. If her family’s not poor, she may do it for the thrill or to be rebellious. I will grant she may indeed be part of a criminal ring; they often prefer foals who don’t have their marks yet and thus are less easy to identify. Shall I go on?” This time she did wait, eyeing me sidelong with a cool expression.
“No, ma’am. In truth, I thought to ask more because I felt you and your staff might have a better view of conditions in the city than I, a visitor, possibly could have,” I answered contritely. “Moreover, I wanted to alert some sort of authority without bringing the law into the matter. I apologize if I gave you any other impression.”
“Hmph.” Mollified, but again trying not to show it. She looked me up and down. “I’d lay odds you are not married, much less a father, young sir.”
My ears laid back, which was all the reply she needed. She let out a breath.
“Very well, Mister Cook. You may continue on your way, secure in the knowledge you’ve done your good deed for the day. I wish you a good Hearth’s-Warming. I shall call for an escort to convey you to the front entrance.”
Minutes later I found myself back on the busy street. “That went well,” I muttered to myself, then sighed and shook my head. The matron was guilty of a little conclusion-jumping herself, putting the worst interpretation on my anecdote and questions—but then, I supposed mine was not the first she’d heard in her career. It was easy to imagine the subject becoming something of a hot-button topic for anyone, or anypony, in the same field.
Ah well. However barbed her observation that I’d done my duty, it was essentially correct. Onward.


The vale was peaceful under the bright late-morning sky—what I’d heard a pilot once describe as “severe clear”—as I paced along a footpath delineated by brightly painted wands rising at intervals from the snow. The latter, along with the gravel under it, crunched softly beneath my feet, only slightly louder than the murmurs from a scattering of other visitors carried to me on the whisper of a shockingly cold winter breeze. Once in a while I paused, more or less randomly, to gaze at one monument or another.
A pegasus groundskeeper on his rounds gave me a curious look, which I answered with a silent but polite nod; this was not a suitable setting for casual holiday wishes. It was, however, a fine and lovely place, glorious and humbling in more ways than one. The breathtaking panorama of mountains, a few of the city’s and palace’s spires rising above the valley’s edge, and distant lowlands seemed altogether fitting for the neat ranks and files of stones marking one last formation for the high-flying pegasus soldiers whose marks, names, ranks, and dates adorned their upright polished faces. The rows stretched across the rolling landscape, dark against the bright snow, surrounded by yet unused ground and larger, albeit simple and spare, crypts.
Below, in the heart of the mountain, lay gorgeous crystalline caverns shaped and burnished to host their unicorn comrades; earth ponies occupied the terraced mountain slopes between. It was a unique and strangely moving arrangement for a military cemetery, at once celebrating both the unity on which their country was founded and the differences that made each tribe special.
The site was, however, singularly unrepresented among both the marks Moon Dancer provided and the brochures Twilight supplied. I doubted it even occurred to the former; conversely, I suspected the latter of considering, but rejecting, it. Someday, I mused, the sharply intelligent and perceptive Twilight Sparkle would be a formidable monarch—but she still had some way to go before that day arrived. No, I had Fancy Pants and Fleur to thank for the recommendation to visit this hallowed ground. They divined my true intent even more quickly and completely than either of the two fillies, but then they were older than the princess and, unlike her friend, knew my background thanks to their connections to the court.
My trail wended around a small shoulder of ridgeline to an outlying arm of the pegasus grounds, on its way to another set of switchbacks down to the earth-pony terraces; I looked into the distance and spotted a small family approaching from those switchbacks. A bluff earth stallion strode easily despite appearing on the cusp between middle and elder age, his earth-toned coat and mane graying. Close beside him walked a smaller and younger earth mare, solid but graceful and a weathered-bronze color all over. Bundled into the foal-carrier strapped to her back was a baby unicorn, black as night with lively green eyes, clutching a rag doll for dear life against the stiff wind plucking at the white wings and pastel mane that bore a suspicious resemblance to a certain solar diarch. My brows rose and my ears perked; as I understood it, offspring of a different tribe, while hardly unique, was unusual enough to be notable. The couple’s attention seemed wholly on each other and their baby, and I couldn’t help smiling at their tender regard.
Abruptly my smile melted way. The unicorn finally lost the tug-of-war against the elements and, as the doll tumbled through the air toward the nearby lip and the open sky beyond, put up an astonishingly loud screech. I tensed reflexively, even knowing how useless any effort on my part would be, and watched helplessly. The stallion swung around, mouth open; the mare turned to canter straight for the cliff, foal and all. In mid-step her whole form rippled and shimmered, and a moment later glittering insectoid wings spread to catch the same brisk winds.
It wasn’t until the brightly colored changeling returned to the path, doll held firmly in a green levitation aura, that they caught sight of me. Instantly the mother resumed her unassuming earth-pony form—letting the doll drop to the snow-covered ground—and dodged behind the father, who drew himself up and gave me a stern stare. The unicorn’s sobbing for the abandoned toy was the only sound any of us made as I approached slowly. I glanced down, levitated up the doll, and returned it to its owner without a word before continuing past them toward the track’s continuation downslope. Just audible over the whistle of the breeze were the words, “Thankee kindly, Mister. I reckon we ain’t gotta worry none.”
Without looking back, I nodded in agreement. My lips were sealed. As far as I was concerned, not only was it none of my business, but anypony could see how devoted the little family was. Only a brute would do anything to jeopardize their happiness, especially in this of all seasons.