“But here’s the thing, Princess –” began Lily.
“Please, call me Twilight. I’m no different now than I was before.”
“All right. But here’s the thing, Twilight. If a meteor is more likely to hit us tomorrow than, well, any other time ever – and you agree with me on that, right? – then why aren’t we casting anti-meteor spells?”
“I think you misunderstand the nature of proba… bility… Hold on, what anti-meteor spells? I’ve never heard of any –”
“Wai-yai-yai-yait!” Lily, previously poised to sip her drink, slammed it down on the table. “Call yourself the bearer of magic and you don’t know any anti-meteor spells!? Are you kidding me? What if we got blown up tonight? That should be number one on your list of priorities, Princess!”
“I said please call me Twilight. And the reasoning is extremely fallacious. No, listen…”
At the table near to theirs, Roseluck sat and let the argument wash over her. She’d never heard Lily enjoying herself so much, and by the sounds of it, Twilight had found a worthy if slightly hysterical successor to the throne of Doc. She wouldn’t go so far as to say, “successor to the throne of reason”. Lily’s claim to that particular throne was kept separate by a long list of ponies next in line, and possibly by restraining order too.
At least one of us is enjoying ourselves, she thought, leaning back. Despite remaining full, her drink also remained untouched.
Opposite sat Doc, not drinking his drink.
The night was young. There was always a party on; they could hear Pinkie’s yelling over the DJ’s beatbox, without at any point making out what she said. Only wild excitement broke the surface. She seemed possessed by its spirit.
Daisy had stayed at the shop, trying to recover and pass the night without sleep, waiting for Luna’s purge. How she intended to stay awake, Roseluck hadn’t the faintest idea, but Daisy had insisted. And while Lily seemed satisfied, even casual, about the whole thing, Roseluck kept rehearsing their return in her mind’s eye, coming back into the shop to see Daisy slumped as though lifeless on the bed.
Around them, the music thumped-thumped-thumped on.
“You know,” said Twilight in her special I’m-being-reasonable-against-all-the-odds voice, “if I knew this was how I’d be spending my break away from the conference –”
“It’s a chance to relax,” said Lily happily. “Now, about that Bungled Nine Queen thingy –”
Twilight was so relaxed she groaned at this chance for more. “Bundle-Quinine Thesis. And as I’ve patiently explained, it has nothing to do with –”
“It has everything to do with what we’re talking about! You can’t rule out the possibility that the whole world might end tomorrow because… um… there’s always something you missed. You never really see it coming.”
“No, you’re mixing that up with Gravy Gloom’s induction problem. Which I don’t think you’ve quite understood, either…”
Roseluck looked up at last.
Opposite sat Doc, not drinking his drink.
She opened her mouth, and then rammed it shut.
Opposite sat Doc, still not drinking his drink. Why doesn’t he say something?
At one point, he did glance up at her, guiltily, but then just as guiltily his gaze dived back down again.
“Ahem,” she said. “Doc?”
He stiffened, then kept on firmly examining the drink as though it had contemplated drinking him instead.
Every word being dragged out of her, Roseluck said, “Thank you.”
Doc’s examination of his beverage now took on a distinctly puzzled tone, as though it had contemplated doing the macarena. Somehow, Roseluck resisted the impulse to go over and thrust his head up when she talked to him.
“For getting Twilight to help,” she continued.
“Yes,” he said. Defeat lined every inch of his words. “I suppose one should be thankful for small mercies, eh Roseluck?”
The growl prowled out before Roseluck could leash it and stuff it back indoors. He didn’t have to say it like that.
Doc swallowed and made to pick up the drink. He must’ve heard the growl because he soon added, “In light of recent evidence, that is to say, the, uh, incident, I suppose it’s time to reconsider my, um… I suppose it’s time to reconsider… things.”
Their eyes should have met; Roseluck’s heart was certain of it. They should have swapped small smiles, maybe made a little light talk, inched a little closer together while doing it, perhaps moved on to something worthier of Roseluck and Doc…
Opposite sat Doc, not drinking his drink.
Roseluck grunted impatiently and nursed her cup. Around them, the bright lights of fun flared on and the happy voices of two disputants near the brink of insanity – Twilight slowly inching towards it, Lily practically camping on it – were boisterous strangers to Rose and Doc, completely clueless and annoyingly nudging their elbows while the two of them sat there. Not drinking their drinks.
Daisy was cured. The nightmare was over. Hooray!
So where was the sense of victory? True, she’d been there with Daisy from the first day, always checking, always wondering if they should drag Doc into the bedroom to make sure Daisy would wake up soon. How had she followed this up? By bumbling after Doc, to the hospital, to his home, and to what felt like an endless party. Feeling stupid and pointless the whole way. If she hadn’t been there, she knew, he could have done the whole investigation by himself. Probably faster, too, since he wouldn’t have to stop every five minutes to explain something to a helpless baby in tow.
She tried to remember the details of the Oneiroscope. What had the helmets actually done? Yet no matter what she tried to remember about mind-reading graphs and connecting to power sources or whatever, their secrets were basically no better than magic to her. She always fell back to square one.
Stupid brain.
Yet she wouldn’t drink her drink. What would be the point? It’d distract her. Like she needed any distractions right now.
“Actually,” said Doc, sitting upright. “I, uh, did have something for you, my dear Rose.”
Roseluck cocked an ear. She too sat upright. “Doc?”
“Yes, I –”
“Excuse me! Doc!” Lily popped in next to him. “Quick question: where’s Quickfix staying? I’ve just had an idea.”
And Roseluck slumped back down again. Doc looked positively thrilled to have been met with a more quotidian problem.
“Oh,” he said, “she has her HQ up along Golden Delicious Street. Near the river. In fact, I helped her once relocate her workshop there after we had that parasprite infestation. Now that was quite a story to tell –”
“Golden Delicious Street near the river. Thank you.” Lily popped out of the conversation again, soon lost to the crowds.
“Haha, I say, she’s certainly enjoying herself tonight. Usually, you can’t get a word out edgeways, eh? Getting a word in, on the other hoof.”
Roseluck grimaced. She was starting to regret Lily’s newfound confidence.
Evidently, Doc picked up her less than enthusiastic response, because he smoothed his tie down and hastily reached under the table. His muzzle focused entirely on her.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve been saving this for a while. Couldn’t think of the right time. What with one thing and another…”
A spark of interest awakened.
Roseluck’s ears rose up. Her eyebrows even strained to peek over the table. Her mouth gaped with the stretching effort. Perhaps he’d seen the light at last?
Doc met her gaze for gaze. “Roseluck, my dear, dear Roseluck…”
“Yes?” she whispered, and then raised her voice because the music kept beating her ears down. “Yes!?”
And he lifted up from below –
“Voila!” He offered it to her. “For you, Rose! Pretty good, eh?”
Roseluck waited for her eyes to correct themselves. They did not.
Her ears drooped, her eyebrows sank, and she had just enough time for a groan before she slumped, hoof in her cheek like a fist, over the table.
“A book,” she said.
“A book!” he said proudly. “You’ve been such an eager science beaver, I just had to express my delight at your interest in the field. Especially after the spirit you’ve shown today. Roseluck, ma chérie, I sincerely believe that in your heart – metaphorically speaking, since we know our anatomy, eh? – lie the makings of a true scientist!”
Roseluck stared at the cover.
“The Pleasure of Stumbling Over Things in a Muddle,” she read aloud. “By Mister Fine Horse.”
“I did consider Science for Complete Nincompoops, but you know how it is. Can’t get you into the technical stuff too soon, fair apprentice!”
He even winked. On Goldengrape, she knew, it absolutely would have worked. On Doc, it looked like he had something irritating in his eye.
He’s not the only one, she thought, staring at him.
Roseluck wiped her hooves over her face. “I’m tired. Let’s just go –”
“Back to my place? What a splendid idea, Roseluck!” Before she’d even swallowed the words, there Doc stood, forelimb extended like a gentlecolt who’d learned gentlecolting out of manuals. “Allow me the honour?”
“How romantic,” she muttered.
Yet she let him, anyway, leading her through the meaningless noise and excessive happiness of other ponies. Not that she had many options, stupid little wannabe like her. Might as well take what little romance she could get.
Walking alone at night had never featured high on Lily’s wish list. Over and over, the idea curled around inside her head. If it was the closest thing she’d get to a night light, she was taking it. She’d take anything, whether or not it glowed or even could glow in any literal sense.
In the dark, she tried to remember which direction the Everfree Forest was. Of course, she hadn’t heard of any monster attacks recently, but still…
By the time she got to the intended door, sheer nerves heckled what little courage she had until she rattled the knob and knocked hard, over and over. She almost beat her way in.
A unicorn opened the door. At least, presumably it was. Most unicorns weren’t covered in soot.
“‘Allo, duck,” said the unicorn. “Here for the tradesmare’s entrance?”
“What?” snapped Lily. “Never mind. Let me in! I want to check something.” Politeness checked confidence for a moment. “Please?”
“Ha! At this time of night? You getting my goat, blondie?”
“It’s important, Quickfix. Life-saving, even. I remembered something. Look, can I come in? Please?”
“I don’t usually trade at this hour, blondie. It’s that important?” Quickfix looked her up and down with what Lily considered an indecent lack of haste.
In truth, and eccentric hours or not, Lily saw the leaning interest in the unicorn’s stance. Quickfix’s plan to collect rubbish and then sell it for profit rarely got beyond the first stage. A mare begging to see the merchandise was high on the list of things Quickfix liked to see, right after said mare parting with little coins.
For the sake of appearances, though, Quickfix hummed as if in doubt before saying, “All right, if you’re quick as a carpenter’s spell.”
“What does that mean?”
Quickfix frowned. “What what, sorry?”
“How quick is a carpenter’s spell?”
The smirk vanished. Its lips opened and shut repeatedly before Quickfix supplied them with, “Pretty quick, I expect…”
Lily was ushered through the main hall into a side room. From ceiling to floor, Quickfix’s workshop swelled with junk. The point was, though, that the junk had been arranged, rowed, columned, sorted, sized, grouped, and laid out as though Twilight Sparkle herself had briefly developed a craze for tin cans and half-rotten teddy bears.
The room wanted to be a library. Instead of books, it held everything else.
Broken whisks, empty bottles, action figures with parts missing, ripped and soiled blankets piled near enough mattresses to satisfy a mouldy pea and an extremely unfussy princess: boxes and crates and plastic cubes ran along and up the shelves, which themselves flexed in and out of the room so bizarrely that, from above, all would have looked like a splodge of iridescent paint. This was the room of someone who had committed to their dream, and who never, ever threw anything away, in case it came in useful – or at least profitable – later on.
Just the place she’d been looking for.
She made the mistake of breathing in.
“So,” said Quickfix, smugly beckoning for applause with a grin while beside her, Lily fought a gag reflex. “What can my humble little tinkerer’s earhole do for a lovely mare like you?”
Lily gripped the idea in her head tight. This was no time for exploring.
“A book,” she said firmly.
“Got hundreds, blondie.” Quickfix beckoned her further into the heckhole. “Shocking, ain’t it, what gets thrown out? But they all end up here, and you got that straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Lily eyed her up, full of suspicion. “And what’s that one mean?”
Again, the smirk vanished. “What one?”
“Straight from the horse’s mouth. What does that mean?”
Quickfix gave her a puzzled look. As far as she was concerned, idioms were for dazzling, not for being picked apart.
“I dunno?” she said helplessly. “Racing, or something? Racing’s an industry,” she added indignantly, a waste of time since the soot and the smell made it impossible to believe she’d ever done anything dignantly.
Lily crossed to the bookshelf and glanced over the covers, trying not to breathe too heavily. Even now, some acid pricked her nostrils and left threatening little messages.
Still faintly puzzled, Quickfix said, behind her, “What’s the important thing, Miss, uh…?”
“Lily Valley,” she said without looking round.
“Miss Lily Valley? A particular book, was it?”
“A very particular book. I think a friend of mine might have thrown it away.”
“Accidentally?”
“I don’t think so. They didn’t understand what they were doing, though.”
Quickfix tapped her on the shoulder. “Look, blond– Miss Lily Valley, just what’s the deal with burning the candle at both ends?”
“And that idiom means what?”
Embarrassed silence followed, before: “Old workmare idiom, that. Old practice of… uh… working at night?”
“Are you making these up?”
“N… No?”
Turning away from the shelves, Lily growled. There must’ve been enough shelves here to keep her the whole night.
“All right,” she said. “Here’s what I’m looking for…”
She needed a few minutes to explain. This particular book hadn’t been stock issue. Besides, she kept stopping Quickfix mid-clarification to pop any particularly obnoxious idioms she tried on Lily.
“…and that’s it,” said Lily calmly.
“And that’s it,” repeated Quickfix.
“Yes. And I want it now. No ‘making a pig’s ear out of it’, no ‘striking while the iron’s hot’, and definitely – and I mean this – no mentioning Query Street.”
“I worked hard on that idiom.” Quickfix sulked. “Not many chums know Query Street’s a reference to a Canterlot bankruptcy court, you know. I take industry idioms seriously, come what may.”
“Well, I read books, and I know my idioms from my idiots. So don’t try any of that chummy-old-ducky stuff on me, got it? Just a book. A plain, simple book. Not a chip off the old block. Not a rustle of the binder’s art. A book. Understand?”
“All right, all right, I’m getting it. Got it?”
Lily fought not to breathe in again – the speech had placed one too many demands on her lung capacity – and watched Quickfix wheel out the ladder. A scurry up, a shuffle of pages, a scurry down again, and a thump.
“There you are,” said Quickfix. “Straight from the horse’s –”
“Ah?” said Lily.
“As bright as a brass –”
“Ah?”
“Fresh off the trolley –”
“Ah?”
Wishing death through her scowl, Quickfix levitated the promised item. “Your book, Miss Lily Valley.”
“See? Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Lily bit the book and made to tug it out.
“Ten bits,” said Quickfix at once.
Lily let go. “Ten bits!? For a thrown-away book?”
“Well, it’s vintage. Thrown away a few years ago, if I’m not mistaken. Plus, I’ve got the business to think about. Just be grateful I’m not upping the price to meet demand.”
“I’m the only one who wants this!”
A vengeful smirk resurfaced. “Exactly! And I’ve got the only copy you want, so fair’s fair in love and profit.”
Mere seconds passed, most of which involved shoving aside any money concerns. The sooner she was out of the dark and back home, the better. Besides, she’d resolved not to leave this place without the book.
“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll have some sent down tomorrow morning.”
“Ha! Up front. In cash.”
It had been a long night. Lily reached forwards and placed a hoof on each shoulder. Then she delivered…
A face.
She immediately had to grip Quickfix tightly to stop her scurrying backwards.
Words of judgement left Lily’s twisted mouth. “I’ll have some. Sent down. Tomorrow morning.”
For the first time in her entire life, Lily faced someone more frightened than she was. On deep dark nights, she would get out and savour this memory, if only for its sentimental value.
“That,” said Quickfix with much effort. “Seems. Fine. To me.”
“Glad we cleared that up.” Lily snatched the book. Time to leave. The universe would never let her get away with being the giver of fear for long. Not when everything was used to her being the taker.
At the threshold, however, she did hear Quickfix ask, “This book is that important, blond– Aaiiee, I mean Miss Lily Valley? Ma’am?”
A little honesty poked through the shield of fearlessness. Lily put down the book to clear her mouth.
“I think it could help, yes.” Halfway down again, her head remembered and raised itself once more. “By the way, you ever considered taking this stuff to the city? Might have more luck in a place like that?”
“The city?” said Quickfix.
“Uh huh. I remember reading a book about some business pony who got rich selling garbage in the city. Pretty good book, I thought.”
“That’s just copycatting. I’m filling a niche here. Anyway, ain’t polite to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Lily scowled at her. “Seriously, do you have an idiom dictionary, or something?”
Surprise caught Quickfix around the midriff. Her blinking never seemed to stop.
“Just a lucky guess,” Lily added, picking up the book.
The last thing she heard before she braved the night was: “I need one! Ma’am, I raid garbage for a living. Do you know how hard it is to keep up the chirpy cheeky chummy act when you smell like a blacksmith’s underpants?”