Fluttershy spread out her wings and landed with a squeak on the hard cobbles. Beside her, Derpy and Bulk Biceps landed with bumps and grunts, shaking themselves down before falling into step on either side.
They were on shore leave at the moment, or so Captain Rainbow Dash had told them all. She wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, but it sounded like she could do whatever she wanted, so questions schmestions.
“IT’S BEEN A LONG WHILE!” Bulk swung his massive head around, taking in the towers and the crowds of the square. “LOOK AT EVERYTHING! IT’S SO BIG AND RICH AND TIDY NOW!”
“I remember the wonderful sweet shops,” said Derpy, her voice lost to a delicious dream. “Remember when we used to come here all the time, and we used to get loads of mix-and-mismatch bags, and we always went to Mellifluous Way, and I found a cake in the bottom of mine? Mmmm-mmmm, that was a good day for me!”
Fluttershy forced a smile onto her face. She remembered too, though most of the sweets had been too strong for her taste buds. Mellifluous Way to a pegasus was like a honey vat to a fly. Literally so: even the flies fought and kicked each other to get in.
It didn’t matter that she was now Lieutenant Fluttershy. Being Captain Fluttershy had been too much, and everyone knew it, including her. Things were better off this way. For a few moments, a few precious moments, she was just Fluttershy. No dark cloud was going to last long over that warm front.
“I liked the park,” she tried to say. It came out in a muffled undertone, but she was pleased the words could at least be dimly recognized.
“That’s right! The park!” Derpy beamed at her and focused with one eye while the other examined a nearby statue. “Do you reckon we could go there again? I think we were there for hours last time, looking for all the little animals and things.”
“WANNA SEE EVERYTHING!” Bulk Biceps’ tiny wings were a blur of excitement. “YEAH! LET’S LOOK AROUND ALL OVER!”
“Oh, OK.” Derpy shrugged. “We could do that too, I guess. Where did you wanna start?”
Fluttershy looked out at the crowd massing around the central plinth. There seemed to be a lot of shouts and cheers, and part of her warmed at the thought of so much collective joy and unity. Then she thought about what exactly they’d be shouting and cheering, and it got a bit chilly.
As she approached – with Derpy and Bulk Biceps trailing behind her, gaping slightly and cocking an ear each – the crowd died down and she could see, through the mass of waving wings and bobbing heads, the minotaur standing astride the great marble plinth. On the shore of the great sea of faces, she could make out many species mixed in. Not just pegasi and griffons, of course, but changelings, oxen, centaurs, and other minotaurs all punching the air with their various appendages. Overhead, a swarm of breezies hovered uncertainly. Phoenixes had perched on branches in the nearby trees or on parts of neighbouring statues.
Scattered among the crowd, a few goats were forcing their way in random directions, sweeping their gazes from side to side as though looking out for intruders. A ring of them encircled the plinth around the speaker.
For his part, the speaker was waving and gesturing with gusto, almost swatting nearby citizens and goats with his enthusiasm. Even this far away, she could clearly hear the words as though standing right next to him.
“This city,” he boomed, spreading his arms wide, “is overdue for a shakedown! You heard it here, folks! Crime sweeping through our streets, our walls shakin’ with monsters burstin’ in! Those in power should smell the flowers!”
A cheer rippled across the crowd. Several griffons roared with approval, briefly scattering the panicked breezies. Fluttershy crouched instinctively, and a goat bleated with surprise as it meandered past.
“You all heard the terrible tale of the latest and the greatest, our own Republican Carcarass! The biggest and the baddest snatched her away in the middle of the night! A mystery for history! We can’t even trust the shadows anymore. This masked menace could be anyone and anywhere! Doin’ the crime, duckin’ the time! And ladies and gents and everything in-between: If it happens at the top, the crime’s gotta stop!”
While the crowd cheered, Fluttershy cast around and soon her gaze alighted on a nearby breezie. With a cough, she attracted its attention. Now if she could remember her lessons in Breezie well enough, this might not be a total embarrassment.
“Excuse me?” she said, cursing herself for her slight accent, “but what crime is he talking about?”
The fey speck with wings fluttered down to her level. “You must be joking, little pegasus with the pink hair. You are new in town?”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No, I just came back from the Bellerophon Armada? I’m on shore leave again?”
At once, the breezie softened its tone and bowed in midair, its gauzy wings flapping hard in embarrassment. “Ooh… ah… Begging your pardon, Miss. I did not know. You are not in uniform.”
“It’s OK? It’s nothing?”
“Well, Republican Carcarass disappeared one night and never turned up for work. No one knows where she went, but they say some people on the south side saw a mystery figure running around the streets. It might have been her – it looked a bit like a griffon – but no one knows for sure. They say she has been kidnapped!”
“Oh dear? That is just terrible, isn’t it?” Fluttershy frowned. “But I thought Republican Gruff was the republican for griffons?”
“Nah. He retired months ago. Well, that crime is what this guy is on about. The mystery figure, I mean.”
Fluttershy peered at the shouting minotaur. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but who is he? Is he a republican too?”
“No bother at all, Miss! Yes, that is Republican Iron Will, Miss, for the minotaurs. He came in after Republican Copper Bottom got kicked out for stealing from the treasury.”
“I see? Thank you? You’ve been very helpful?”
“A pleasure, Miss. By the way, you speak good Breezie, Miss, though next time you will have to put a little more stress on the last word.”
Fluttershy tried to ignore her own blush. On the plinth, Iron Will threw another sweeping gesture at the audience and his associate goats ducked out of range.
“And I say to every one of you here,” he thundered, “the biggest and the smallest… Who, I ask, who are the ones who’ll stop them bad boys stone cold dead? Iron Will knows, and Iron Will knows that you knows it too! We need the guards, we need the squads, we need to send in the guard squads! Our coppers and peacekeepers give it up so we can sleep soundly in our beds and blankies, but they need us to give it up for them! Will you give it up for them!? I said WILL YOU GIVE IT UP FOR THEM!?”
Cheers and whoops and applause broke out, with much stamping and roaring and the occasional green flash from excited changelings. As ever, the goats wandered among the moving splashes of colour, bleating at each other as they passed. Another passed near Fluttershy and gave her a longer glance than she felt was necessary before moving on.
“Iron Will supports our peacekeepers! Iron Will supports tougher laws and prison doors! Iron Will supports clean streets and heroic feats! Iron Will says NO to crime, NO to grime, and he says it ALL the time! What’s the way to make ‘em pay? It’s a crackdown, fool!”
Overhead, the breezies began to light their antennae in joy. A lone sheep in the crowd reared up.
“And Iron Will is so confident in his initiative that Iron Will is going to pledge all the treasure he earns from the ‘Iron Will On Tour’ Tour to the Peacekeeper’s Fund, and he! Keeps! Nothing! Iron Will wants the trust of the city, so Iron Will shall GIVE to the Trust of the City!”
Cameras flashed instantly. Cheers overwhelmed them.
At this, the sheer noise and flurry of colour was too much for Fluttershy. Groaning, she staggered aside, bounced off Bulk Biceps’ elbow, and accidentally knocked Derpy into a nearby plinth.
Stone cracked around them. As one, they peered up at the statue rocking overhead. With the inevitability of a meteor strike, it swelled to fill their vision and then crashed down hard into the pavement. A cobweb of cracks spread out under their three hooves.
Further along, the crash shook the next statue, which creaked and toppled and finally hit the one next to it.
It was impressive how many fell over.
About twelve in a row.
Then silence.
Fluttershy turned to find the entire crowd staring at the three of them. Iron Will was squinting forwards to try and make them out.
“Oh no…” she breathed, and tried to hide behind a curtain of her own pink hair.
Rainbow exposed herself fully to the night air, and the rushing sounds brought life to her limbs.
There was the city laid out below. Spirals and criss-crosses and zigzags and parallel lines marked the constellations underneath, while the red tinge of the stratus cloud hung over the lot and over her. Thermals rose up, pushing her wings back and flicking at the tips of her feathers. Only a tilt of her wing later, she was twirling through the column with her rainbow hair flapping angrily.
Once, the city had been called “Pegasopolis”, but centuries of revolutions, protests, and creatively bad mismanagement had transfigured it into the much less catchy “Outpost 51”. Rainbow wasn’t mad about history, but she’d picked up a few titbits here and there. There’d been a Pegasus Empire, which had made her sit up, but it was only the seventh greatest empire in history, so she’d slumped over her desk again. Outpost 51, if she remembered it right, was where the pegasi first met another sapient species. Which one it had been, though, she wasn’t sure.
The Forum loomed. She aimed for the fountain in the middle, tilted back, and let her hooves down to skid along the surface, trailing white crests and two waves like twin arrows. The peacekeepers never taught her this trick. She'd taught herself most of her more unnecessary moves.
With a spring, she cleared the foals gaping at her and landed on the lawn surrounding the circle of stone. A few small hooves stamped in applause and she was greeted with young smiles and adoring gazes.
“When you’re done showing off,” said a stallion behind her.
Rainbow spun round and accidentally flicked a gob of water from the sodden tip of her tail.
“Oops,” she said. “Sorry. Keep forgetting about that.”
Thunderlane glared and wiped his face down. “And you always have a go at me when I fluff a trick. The horseshoe’s on the other hoof now, Rainbow.”
“That’s Captain Rainbow Dash to you!” Rainbow puffed out her chest and smirked at the gasps from the gaggle of foals. “And don’t you forget I’m telling you what to do when we get back.”
“Ha!” His backtalk exhausted, Thunderlane shrugged carelessly. “While we’re here, might as well brush up on some of our history. Museum visit? I heard they got a section on the early Wonderbolts. That could be useful.”
“Are you kidding? We’re taking a break! I’m not doing homework on a break.” She pushed past him, nose in the air. “I’m gonna go see what’s happenin’.”
“It’ll bite you in the croup one day!” he yelled after her retreating back. “They’ll test us when we’re not expecting it! You’ll see!”
Like you won’t fake a cough when that happens. Rainbow shook her head, guffawed under her breath, and marched across the open ground while clusters of creatures gathered around her.
Many of the clusters were babbling to each other, some throwing their limbs around as though trying to mould an argument in the air. She heard snatches, but though she knew some of the words, she didn’t know what they meant when she heard what else was being said.
“You see, the essence of being is what grounds reality, so you must axiomatically believe in it before you can…”
“No, the very notion of morality depends on the existence of a moral agent with desires and beliefs…”
“Don’t be daft. There is no fundamental choice, because deep down, the nature of cause and effect trumps everything you’re going to do before you…”
“Huh,” said Rainbow, and she kept going.
The others on the ships used to talk about this place. They called it the Forum, though it looked more like a big square full of chatterboxes to her. Pegasi from olden times had built more like them – as Rainbow understood it – so they could chill and hang out and ask the Big Questions, and they were still used for all that stuff, only with the other species joining in. Big Questions, she’d been told, with a capital B and a capital Q. “Philosophy”, they’d called it.
Rainbow steered well clear of the Big Questions. She barely bothered with the little ones, and a word like “Philosophy” had one too many syllables for her liking.
Where the grassy verge gave way to the cobbles, Rainbow passed a row of bollards and stood back to let an omnibus trundle by, its yoked oxen lowing with the effort of slowing down. To her right, the queue that had built up by a wooden post clambered up the steps to the large carriage’s entrance, and after a few seconds, the oxen trundled on and heaved the omnibus with them. Rainbow thanked the stars for making her a pegasus and trotted across the cobbles. Fancy getting stuck in one of those giant boxes, just to cross from one side of town to the other.
Opposite, the pegasus Raindrops glanced up from a map on the path and grinned at her. From the establishment behind, a trembling warble tugged at the heartstrings of all who heard its despairing notes, though the language was complete gibberish to Rainbow’s ears.
“Found any grub worth getting?” said Rainbow. “I could eat a silo.”
“This place behind me looks good, don’t you think?” said Raindrops.
The tables under the tarps could have been carved from glaciers, so immaculately white were their covers. White walls with black timber gave the establishment an old-fashioned look, its upper storey bulging out into the street. Over them all, the ebony made the golden, curly lettering stand out bold as brass. It even smelled faintly of rosebuds and fermented grape juice, tinged with exotic perfumes that made Rainbow sneeze.
“Boring,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it? It’s famous, it’s classy, everyone raves about it. Look.” Raindrops tapped the map with a hoof.
Rainbow winced at the flowery letters on the sign. It looked like a den of stiffs. The nearest table housed two goats with brass bells tied to their necks as they peered through a monocle apiece and bleated haughtily at each other.
“Gustav’s Gourmet?” she read aloud. A twinge in her head made her take a step back. “Seriously? Look at it! I don’t think it’s changed so much as a chair in the last thousand years!”
“It’s vintage!” Raindrops beamed up at her.
“Can’t they get a decent singer? You know? Someone more upbeat?”
“I saw the chalkboard outside. It’s the world-famous City Guard performing, and that’s Red Velvet Cake. Singing…” Raindrops turned her head round to squint at the board. “Singing ‘When the Rains Come, They Come Down Hard on My Head’. I think that’s what it translates as. They’re a new group with an eye on the old classics.”
Rainbow threw her wings up in a helpless gesture. “Can’t we just go somewhere, you know, normal? With bar fights, or music you can thump your head to? Somewhere cool. Pick somewhere cool.”
Rolling up her map with her hooves, Raindrops grinned the grin of one who knows she’s playing the trump card and loves watching everyone else’s faces when she does so. “General Spitfire used to come here to eat all the time. Can’t do cooler than that, now can you?”
“Aw come on. That’s not fair. This joint just isn’t me.”
“Whatever you say, Dashing Captain Rainbow Dash. It’s my turn to pick, so nyah-nyah. In we go.” The front door swung back, and Rainbow noticed gloomily that it even had stained glass. Stained glass, for Pete’s sake.
With a groan, she added, “Fine, but you’re paying the bill, and I ain’t going easy on you.”
“Come on! The others already got a table.”
Rainbow stopped for a moment, groaned at this news, groaned even louder at the implications, and tried to set her face to casual. They'd mention it. Sooner or later, they'd mention it.
She took a deep breath, hoped like heck they didn't mention it, and went inside.
The interior was just what she’d dreaded. There was a chandelier that made the eye water trying to keep track of its every detail. The “carved glacier” look of the tables put her in mind of a wedding reception, and there was too much pink on the walls. Every other person in there was decorated with a saddle or a glittery dress or cuffs and collars. She felt her skin crawl and realized she hadn’t washed since yesterday.
A pegasus on a candlelit table at the back waved at her, and she noticed a few others from the peacekeepers. Rainbow slipped between the tables, wishing she’d at least thought to pack a decent jacket in her saddlebag, which now felt like a bulbous growth on her side.
“Got to get up earlier than that, Dash,” said the pegasus. “I had to wait for you all over again.”
Rainbow sighed with relief. If Lightning Dust was taking this in her stride, then so could she. The pair of them exchanged smirks and gave each other quick nods of respect. Beside Lightning Dust, Gilda was sitting stiff-backed and hunched up as though trying not to touch anything. The griffon relaxed slightly at the sight of her.
“Hey Dash,” Gilda said with a smirk, while Lightning Dust took a sip from a straw. “Get held up on the way here, or something?”
“Nah. I was just chillin’. This city’d make a killer obstacle course if we ever got the time.”
“My thoughts exactly!” Lightning Dust sucked the last of her drink and pushed the glass away. “Name the challenge and the place.”
“How about a rooftop chase before breakfast?” said Gilda, and she shifted so that Raindrops could pull up an extra chair for Rainbow Dash. “Just the three of us. One side of the city to the other, freestyle, and No. Tricks. Barred. Just gotta learn the layout first. That’s it.”
“Hmm. Interesting. But let’s make it a blind course,” said Lightning Dust, “right after dinner, and you got yourself a deal.”
“What, and get a stitch halfway?” said Rainbow as she sat down. “Forget that. I’ve been chasing things for weeks. I wanna kick back, at least. Gotta give these bad boys their beauty sleep.” She flapped her wings a couple of times.
Gilda smirked. “Two against one, Dusty. And I got the captain’s OK, so chew on that.”
Lightning shrugged. “Please yourself. But don’t think because you’re captain now, Rainbow, I’m gonna go easy on you forever.”
“So hey! Captain Dash!” Gilda thumped Rainbow’s back so hard she almost knocked the pegasus off her chair. “The official captain of cool! Not bad goin’ for a pegasus.”
“Yeah, congrats to the champ!” said Lightning. “I’d give you a toast if we had any drinks left.”
Raindrops waved to a passing waiter – a griffon in a suit with tails – and a few minutes later, they were each staring down their various mugs. The handles on them were extra wide to allow a hoof to reach through and grip them.
“To Captain Rainbow Dash,” said Raindrops, raising hers, “and to a long and prosperous career.”
The others repeated it, except Gilda and Rainbow who snuck in silly words and sniggered to each other about it. Soon, they were all gulping down from various mugs, eyes briefly flaring at the taste explosion. Gilda was the first to finish.
“Whoa,” she said in a gasp. “That’s… good cider.”
“Yeah,” gasped Rainbow, who finished next. “Holy guacamole, I’ve got shivers. This stuff is like that god custard, you know, from the ancient myths?”
“Ambrosia?” said Lightning, suppressing her own gasp.
“Yeah! That! I want another one!”
“See?” said Raindrops, who had taken her time with hers. “This place ain’t that bad, is it?”
Gilda peered across the tables to the stage opposite, where a pegasus in a satin dress was warbling her way through a skulking tune. “The music still sucks, though. You know what this place could do with? Tiger Tiger. They’d wipe the floor with these guys.”
“Eh, they’re OK,” said Lightning. “Got nothin’ on Pigasus, though.”
“Are you mad?” said Raindrops. “Here Be Dragons could blow Pigasus away in their sleep. Who else could combine classical scores with modern anarchy like it was nothing?”
“Ha! Have you even heard of the Mephisto Mob?” said Rainbow Dash. “They put the ‘awe’ in ‘awesomeness’ and the ‘rad’ in ‘radicalness’. I dare you to listen to their openings and not feel like you could fly to the moon and back. Here Be Dragons just got style and nothing else.”
There were snorts of disapproval from around the table as the quartet began talking fast and loud over bands and songs and which of the four of them had the worst taste of all time. A few nearby patrons peered around at them, but as she talked, Rainbow was surprised at just how relaxed it was in Gustav’s. The plush seat was pretty comfy, and now that her gaze jumped from table to table, there were normal pegasi and griffons among the dressed-up gatherings. There was a polite stamping of hooves and talons as the band were given some applause, and then they kicked things up with a much jazzier number, this time in normal lingo.
“Ah,” said Lightning. “Now that’s more like it.”
So far so good, Rainbow Dash thought. No one's mentioned it.
Yet.
“Sweet. So Rainbow Dash,” said Gilda. “What are you gonna do now you’re captain? Do you have to kill somebody?”
“Very funny. I want some more of that cider, for a start.” Rainbow waved at a passing waiter. “Er, garkon, garkon, voolah voo plus cider, silvoo play.”
“Make that two ciders,” said Lightning.
“And you don’t have to do it in Gryph, you know,” said Raindrops. “They can speak normal.”
Rainbow Dash put an elbow on the table and leaned on it. She could feel the ache in her chest again, and no matter how much she tried to talk, it never went away. Not completely.
“Hey, I gotta learn something,” she said as the indifferent waiter drifted away. “They make you do more egghead stuff when you rise up in the ranks. It’s not like I just kick butt all the time.”
Lightning Dust watched the stage absently. “Wasn’t Thunderlane talking about going to the museum for the Wonderbolts exhibit? You could go with him.”
“I said that I gotta learn something, not that I’m desperate.”
“It’s pigswill, anyway,” said Gilda. “They told us all about this stuff in Flight Camp. ‘In the year of whatever in the land of who-cares, So-and-So set up this-and-that in order to do the blah-blah-blah.’ How’s that supposed to help?”
“It’s a pride-building exercise,” said Raindrops. “We learn about our history together, and we take pride in being a part of it. That’s how I understood it.”
Gilda shook her head at the folly of pegasi. “It’s easier on the griffon side. All they do there is point you at a straw pegasus and say ‘Turn that into chaff in six seconds, and you’re in’. Then they tell you how you could do it in four, and then you gotta do it in three. Then you gotta fly like a pro. You know, claws-on training, and stuff.”
“Hooves-on stuff, in our case.” Lightning reached for the mug of cider before the waiter had even put it down. “Ah well, your loss, Rainbow. No point whining about it.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow stared gloomily into the mug being placed before her. “No point.”
The City Guard on the stage finished their jazzier number, and the tables around them stamped harder and whistled with gusto. A couple of waiters stopped to clap their talons appreciatively before hurrying back to their errands. Near the edge of the stage, one changeling got out of his seat and jumped forwards. Red Velvet Cake leaned down and let the changeling whisper in her ear.
Evidently, it was a good request, because she then babbled to her fellow musicians excitedly, and a few seconds later they were silently creeping up on the tune.
A hush fell across the restaurant. The steady pace, the low notes, the rhythmic beats of each instrument, all of it built up and rose to the ceiling and then crashed down on the spectators in a sudden frenzied chase of musical chaos and excitement. Red Velvet Cake was getting applause before she’d even finished her first line.
Rainbow Dash sighed into her cider, sending ripples across its surface.
“Oh come on,” growled Gilda. “You’re not still sore about that yellow dweeb, are you?”
Raindrops moaned. “Not this again…”
“Well maybe I am!” Rainbow rounded on her, wings drawn like swords. “Maybe I am sore about it! How’d you like it if you were made captain, and it turned out the pegasus in front of you got kicked down for it?”
Gilda blinked up at her in surprise, and only then did Rainbow realize she was hovering in the air.
Lightning glanced away from the stage for a moment. “I’d say it was about time. Face it; she just didn’t have what it takes. Even you can’t deny that.”
“I’m not denying it!” Rainbow almost knocked her mug over with an elbow, but Raindrops snatched it up and yanked it out of reach. “I’m saying… Well, it’s like… I dunno, but how can you be so… so cold about it!?”
“Get real, Dash. We all saw it coming a mile away,” said Gilda, her own wings spreading wide. “What do you care, anyway? You kept saying you couldn’t believe she got that high before you did.”
“I know that!” Rainbow ground her teeth and groaned in frustration. “But she happens to be a friend of mine!”
Gilda blew a dismissive raspberry. “Yeah, right. That’s why you keep saying what a lamewad she is whenever she’s flying.”
“I never said she was a lamewad!” Something like inspiration hit her boiling mind. “It just… This feels like stealing…”
Lightning chuckled and waved her down. “Enough with the guilt trip, Dash. You’ve done nothing wrong. Think about it: Flutters goes back to something she can do, you get put where you belong, and once the storm dies down, life goes on as normal again. Everyone knows how the game works, right? Flutters just lost a round, that’s all. If she’s got what it takes” – the smirk was rather telling – “then she’ll get another chance.”
But Rainbow couldn’t shake it off. The ache, which had been dying down just then, flared up in full force at the sight of that smirk. Her head swore the words were totally correct, but the rest of her insisted it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and she didn’t know why. She was fighting so hard against it that she groaned with the effort.
“I gotta go,” she said suddenly.
Raindrops gagged. “But I haven’t even ordered food yet!”
“I’m not hungry. I’m gonna take a flap or two before the thermals go down.”
“You’re such a doofus at times, Dash,” growled Gilda. “Just get over it.”
“I am over it! I just need some fresh air! That's all! I'll be back before you know it!”
Without a backward glance, Rainbow shot over the heads of the matrons and out the door, snapping up to shoot into the sky. Part of her knew she was going to get it in the neck later, but it was shouted down by the rest of her. Soon, through the flow of the cold and the buffeting push, the troubles began to wash away from her, and they fell, like the ground, further and further behind.