//------------------------------//
// Two 
// Story: Lightning Bug 
// by QQwrites 
//------------------------------//

The next morning, I went looking for the janitor. Squeaky Clean was an older stallion living in the Canterlot Downs, a district whose road was apparently paved with potholes. His employee file, which was sent over from the CIM Pony Resources Department the previous evening, listed an address and little else.

Janitors don’t get backstories. They’re fixtures in the background of society, quietly wiping away our dirtier habits for a few bits and no thanks. Janitors, trash collectors, sewage workers, farmhands: dirty jobs nopony wants, nopony thinks about, until they go missing. Without them, society would fall apart faster than it was put together.

I was standing in what passed for Squeaky Clean's living space: a squalid little room with stacks of newspapers as tall as the ceiling, yellow jars of mayonnaise, and hundreds of empty tin cans. The smell was horrendous: it curled my nose hair into cheese and spoiled it at the same time. I found myself alternating between nose and mouth, uncertain which was worse.

I pushed through the house from room to room, calling his name. Nopony answered and each room was more of the same: newspapers and jars and cans and mold and the feeling I’ll never be clean again. There were a few pictures on the wall: I saw Squeaky and a mare. They looked happy, then they looked old, then he was all alone and had the face of a fellow who loved too much and lived too long. I couldn’t say why he lived like this or if being alone did it, but that’s all I could find: tattered remains of a life, but no proof it was actually lived.



I knocked on a few doors and checked around with the neighbors. Squeaky had a regular routine: he left each evening for work and came back the next morning. He should have been in his home sleeping at this time for day, they all said. If they knew anything about his living conditions, they had the decency to leave their impressions of it out.

One fellow called me a “G-Pony” and slammed the door in my face. The whoosh of wind was enough to knock my hat off. As I walked away, I saw conspicuous eyes watching me between window blinds. I wondered if the cops got around to this neighborhood often, or if it was like the Manhattan slums of my youth: occupants on the fringe of society, quietly eking out a modest life with modest means. It took more than wanting to escape, you had to work for it and even then, luck played a big role. I was lucky: good job, nice apartment, pretty mares called me “Mister Quill” and flashed me the kind of smiles that made me want to say “I do.”

I grabbed a sandwich and thermos of coffee from a local delicatessen and sat on a bench just outside Squeaky's neighborhood. It was a warm day and I was sweating by the time a messenger landed next to me. The letter she was carrying was a dinner invitation, made out in an elegant script.

I wiped my forehead with a handkerchief.



Dinner came too soon. I had showered twice to scrub all traces of Squeaky Clean's volatile home from my body. From my assortment of drab suits, I picked an old favorite: navy with khaki pants. Good things happened for me in that suit.

I was still wondering where Squeaky Clean might have gone when I arrived at Caramel Gardens, a restaurant slash bakery nestled in the heart of Canterlot's nightlife. The crowds were packed and absurdly diverse: opera lovers shared the walkways with teens causing mischief, soldiers on liberty, and families out for a ruckus.

I spotted her across the room, already seated. Her mane was up and she wore earrings of sapphires. Her dress was long and had just enough sequence to catch the eye politely, as if to say, “notice me, if you please.” She rose as I approached, a gesture which seemed ridiculous but I accepted the compliment as it was intended.

We sat and ordered drinks and a basket of bread. There was a band playing nearby: the bassist was heavyset and his neck and jowls quivered excitedly with each rhythmic slap of the bout. Velvet said little in the beginning. She watched the band and the jowls with the kind of quiet introspection, perhaps moved by one or the other. When the band finished, she applauded and turned her attention to me:

“How are you enjoying Canterlot, Mister Quill? Is it everything the storybooks say it is?” Her voice was gentle, like a kitten’s purr or a tiger’s growl.

“I think it’s swell, if you like cities.” I took a sip of water—it went down well on my parched throat.

“What is there not to love about such a grand city?” she asked innocently. “The buildings are a beautiful marble and the lamps magical. So many precious lights; who could look at them all and say it was anything but breathtaking?”

I was watching her talk, appreciating the way her dress moved as she spoke. The sequence was distracting me: it would glitter just long enough to catch the eye, then dart away before you could focus on it. “’A city is a poor foal’s sky,’” I quoted from somewhere.

I guess she recognized it: “He reads! What a delightful surprise!” It seemed genuine. It all seemed so damn genuine. “Tell me, who is your favorite author?”

The evening was going well. I decided to ruin it: “The local fire chief: his report on what happened at CIM is a nice bit of fiction, with just enough truth to be believable.” Her face scrunched in a way that made me think, after fifteen years of marriage, I would confess it was adorable and the driving force for a decade and a half of bad puns.

“Whatever do you mean?” Formality was a defense: I could see fear growing in her eyes.

“The chief says busted lightning jar. What do you say?” The date was over, the interrogation begun.

“I defer to the fire department in this regard,” she said dismissively. “You seem to have a different opinion.”

“No opinion, just questions,” I said, taking a sip from my glass. “Some things don’t add up: where is the janitor? What was a lightning jar doing in that wing? Why was it powerful enough to blast a hole in the wall? Why was the janitor’s pail still in the hall? Why did you pass through the North Wing to Juniper, when the street runs just outside the East Wing?”

She didn’t like that last one: “Are you in the habit of accusing ladies of impropriety?” There was the promise of venom in her voice, an edge of acid just under her usual soft tone.

“The Director gave me a job. I’ll do a lot worse before this thing is over. You still haven’t answered my question: what were you doing in that wing?” I kept my expression indifferent, like I couldn’t care one way or the other if she knew nothing or everything. Most people want to tell their story, even if it’s a lie—especially if it’s a lie. Velvet was too smooth, too cool to spill her heart to me. 

The band had started while I was talking. Velvet turned her attention to it once more and seemed lost. I was going to press her again when she leaned across the table and spoke softly.

“Have you heard of LN-16?” she asked. I told her I’d never heard of it. “Then I’m afraid I can’t say more.”

Our dinner arrived and we ate tensely. Now and then I’d catch her looking at me over a glass. We watched the band play for a while longer, but any magic the evening might have held had died. Even the sequence shone a little duller. Whatever promise was hidden in her voice before had firmly been retracted.

After dinner, we went our separate ways. I went to my hotel room, poured a cup of coffee, wrote some letters, and sat in a chair facing the window, waiting for the sun to rise.



I spent the next day loitering outside Squeaky Clean's home on Pothole Lane. He never showed. That afternoon, I went back in and took the most recent picture of him off the wall. I wasn’t sure how he connected to this, but his disappearance was too coincidental.

The picture itself was unremarkable: a candid shot of an old stallion under a tree in a field. The Canterlot Castle spires could be seen just above the tree line. He looked sad and lonely and his face was eroded by years and chemicals and long empty nights.

When I stepped outside, I took a deep breath. The smell of freshly cut grass and pollen helped wash away the mayo and mold. I turned, half in an oxygen-deprived dream, and ran into a gold breastplate.

The armor's occupant was a tan Pegasus. Blond, tall, with wings that cast as much envy as shadow. She carried a short sword with a decorative hilt. A shield rested on her back and she had the expression of someone for whom surprises were both unwelcome and in mortal peril.

I excused myself and tried to step around her. Local cops will tango, but the royal guard were a different story: they don’t dance; they’re no friends of mine.

“Halt, Citizen!” she commanded. I stood still and breathed little.

“I am Knight-Paladin Radiant of Her Majesty’s,” blah blah blah. They also talk too much and like to exposit their résumé at every opportunity. She eventually got to a question: “What are you doing at this residence?”

I put my voice in my nose and replied cheerfully, “Life insurance, Ma'am! Yes, Ma'am life insurance! Why, you look like a discerning individual who'd benefit from an opportunity, rarely offered, yes Ma'am, for only 100 bits a moon, your loved ones can benefit from your untimely demise! Would you like to see a brochure?” I started reaching into my coat, as if to produce a brochure which didn’t exist.

Thankfully, she replied with an emphatic, if not regal, no. “Did anyone answer the door?”

“No, Ma'am! Not a soul!”

She dismissed me and I scampered before she changed her mind. I rounded a corner and turned back to watch what she did next. Chest out, she banged on the door loud enough to rattle the windows of the house I was leaning against. The neighbors were coming out and I saw the blinds of a familiar house down the lane open. The eyes started at Radiant but found me, were they stayed.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only arm of the government looking for one poor janitor. The Royal Guard—or somepony with connections to them—was involved. This was very unusual: the guard only became involved with the civilian government in matters of state. Maybe things were different in Canterlot. After all, this was the Capitol: you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a statue or poster or commemorative plate of a princess and somebody blew up part of a government building.

But, that was an accident—as the report stated. If that was true, why the guard? Why the interest in one old janitor?