//------------------------------// // Chapter One: A Full-Time Job // Story: Kindness of a Fugitive // by A. Tuesday //------------------------------// Big band music echoed throughout the dressing room, the sweet sound of trumpets and saxophones providing relief from the pressure and awkwardness of the task ahead. The voices in the room were frantic, accompanied by the figures and shadows of ponies running about as if they were headless chickens. It was almost show time. I looked at myself in the smudged, dusty mirror. If you had asked me, say, five years ago that I’d grow up to become a showmare in some dingy, ramshackle casino outside of Equestria, you probably would’ve received a buck to the face. But, here I was, a pearl-white mane adorned with a golden tiara, feathers flying out of the headpiece like a fountain of plumage. The purple gem on the crown itself was made of plastic, and complemented the slightly risqué Carnival-like dress worn just above my flanks. What had my life become where I was dancing around on a wooden stage with a mix of ponies and zebras, attempting to swindle every bit from all the undeniably aroused patrons in the casino? I sighed depressingly, hanging my head. A comforting hoof appeared on my shoulder. I could guess who the mare was before she even spoke. “Something bothering you, Scarlet?” The soothing voice that uttered what wasn’t my real name in the slightest was fast recognizable. I turned my head slightly, not quite looking at her, but acknowledging her presence. “Nah. Just – just thinking about where I am currently.” “What do you mean?” The chocolate mare, dressed in the same showmare outfit I was, sat next to me on a ripped stool. “Just the fact that we’re doing this. Going out there and strutting ourselves like this.” She raised an eyebrow, confused. “We’ve been doing this for almost a month, Scar.” I exhaled, deciding to actually look her in the eye for this one. The green ones that returned my gaze were full of compassion. “No, I – I know that, Kisses. I just meant that I zoned out for a bit, I guess. Kinda surprising that my life ended up reduced to this.” “Reduced?” she returned, rather defensively. “Honey, this is a full-time job. Have you seen me out there? I’m sorry, Scarlet, but there isn’t another pony showmare in all of Zebraltar who can deliver on stage like I can.” I stifled a laugh. “Kisses, there are only four pony showmares.” We both broke into a fit of giggles. Zebraltar, whatever nation or country or section it was a part of, was primarily full of zebras, in case one couldn’t figure that out by the name alone. “Girls,” a deep, masculine voice called, cutting into the din created by the other ten or so fillies, “It’s showtime, let’s get out there.” A chorus of “ooh” and “oh” and “come on, come on” replaced the initial chatter, the swing song changing into one with large, short, booming brass sections. Good for a show. A single line formed into the room, slowly chugging out of it with the poise of a swan but with the immediate gracefulness of a hippopotamus. Kisses and I latched onto the back, the former shaking about a bit to “loosen up her nerves.” I stood still, my face remaining flat for as long as possible. This job is kind of degrading, especially with the mindset that I had about it. Sometimes, though, you have to put others before you. I knew many of the other showmares thought that – a husband out of a job at home, kids, perhaps, most of the time just trying to live, as there was nowhere else to go. Everypony had some sort of motivation. Mine was a pegasus, lying on her bed, back at the shoddy apartment just across town. * * * When one does what I do for a living, they’re there to do their job and nothing else. For a couple reasons. The number one reason is that the pony is in a bad situation, usually involving poverty. They wouldn’t be strutting themselves on a ramshackle casino stage unless they were at the absolute low (me) or they enjoyed the other…perks of it (Kisses). So, you focus on the job at hand – keeping in time to the music and dancing the right way. Another reason is that some of the patrons in the building are not exactly savory. Some are classy, and are simply there to admire the grace and form of the ladies while slowly bobbing their head to the lovely swing music echoing out into speakers. Others are there to admire the grace and form of the ladies… and then fantasize about it. Believe me when I say that you can tell who’s who. Yet another is that one may get distracted and mess up. There’s a paint chip in the wall, or that martini looks so appetizing, or that particular zebra looks appetizing (not even kidding, I’ve heard an identical phrase tossed around the dressing room). Or somepony looks shady. And, one shouldn’t mess up. I’m there to do my job and nothing more. There’s a paralyzed pony in my apartment who I plan to get out of this slummy town, and getting distracted and messing up is not going to get me the necessary bits. That’s when I stop becoming Firestarter, the mare from Equestria who successfully killed three of her childhood friends and burned down a good section of a port town. I become Scarlet – a down-on-her-luck mare seeing some entrepreneur stallion who isn’t having the best of luck. Staying in the same apartment together, while each goes to work for the day. Things didn’t work in Trottingham, so my “fiancée” is attempting to do so in Zebraltar. Get some money worked up, and then move back. Simple. Scarlet is a showmare who doesn’t get distracted. No bad situation, no unsightly looks, and no appetizing martini or stallion is going to keep her from “dancing her heart” out. As the spotlights came on the stage, silhouetting the zebra showmares in line in front of me, I saw him again. Scarlet doesn’t get distracted. But, she does get nervous. The sound of the same masculine voice that pushed us out of the dressing room resounded upon the walls once more. “Fillies and gentlecolts – The Zebraltar Cashbox’s very own Cashiers!” * * * The deep baritone voice singing became our guide in the world of a showmare. The last syllable in a certain verse becoming the cue for a wink, the cymbal clash magically lifting our backhoof in a kick, the trombone slide informing us to… well, slide. There’s a lot of fluidity in the dancing, and, despite the set-up of it, one can actually have a bit of fun at it. As long as the mare focuses on the music. “…Let’s float away to New Horseleans Bay, Where the air meets the wind and is lovely all day. Then bam! Trottingham on our agenda, Enough glamour and glitz, just enough to render You speechless…” That is, if you focus on the music. Instead, while strutting about the stage like everypony else, my eyes fell upon a zebra and stayed there. Not one of any real handsomeness or charm; but there was something dangerously mysterious in the way he was looking – not at the stage. Just like he had always been doing for the past two weeks. At every show. That black fedora kept his eyes hidden from just about everypony in the room, so no one could really tell what he was looking at. With one hoof dangled on the edge of his chair, and his upper body facing towards the exit door, however, one could make an easy guess. His other hoof fell towards his hip – from my brief glance, he was wearing a belt of some sort. I didn’t like the looks of it. Or rather, the lack of looking. Another instrumental section came in, which would have to be accompanied by a strenuous round of dancing with my casino family, which for the most part contained only Kisses. Not that I didn’t know the rest of them – but I didn’t really care to know them, per se. The multiple violins, accompanied by a lone saxophone brought to mind the title of the song. While my eyes continued to dart back to the zebra at Table 17, my mind attempted to wander other places, always being pulled back by some mental rope controlled by my eyes, strangely enough. The song was called “Foreign Relationship” – I’d heard it at least a million times, and I’d always despised the very last line. One in which Swing Sounder would hold out his last note, causing a massive, energy-draining and overall taxing can-can line. The group morphed into a single-filed design, as the brass instruments gave way to the voice on the speakers. “And, you know, I’ve gotta go… all too soon under this fine old moon… but, you know I’ll be back through that door… For you… And it won’t be very foreign…anymore!” Leaning on each other for support, I being stuck with Kisses and some zebra I barely knew the name of, we all stood up, bipedal, and began to kick out, one hoof at a time, alternating. Trombones, trumpets, all those bells and whistles blared as we bent, kicked, and repeat, the whole time with bright, big, mostly-forced smiles on our faces. The doors shot open in the back room, allowing the small noise of the gambling room to coincide with the swing music’s departure. Two figures, both too darkened to make out, held something in their mouths, between them. Long and thin, slacking in the middle. A rope. The showmare’s routine continued to go on, albeit a bit half-heartedly and disinterested, as patrons looked behind them to the spectacle that was forming. The last sax was holding out just as one of the figures said clearly, and yet through gritted teeth, “Where is she, hoss?” The voice was not from around here. Zebras tend to have thick accents, if a pony is lucky enough be in a town, such as Zebraltar, that speaks the Equestrian language. No, this was the voice of a pony. The voice following, however, was that of a zebra; a zebra wearing a black fedora who had been waiting the whole show for these two characters to come bursting through the door with a rope, and now pointed a striped hoof towards the showmare called Scarlet. In other words, he pointed at me. “There she is! Grab her!” * * * I stood frozen on the stage, for half a second, as patrons and casino regulars gasped and yelled in surprise. The sound seemed to slow down, as did the two ponies’ rush towards me. Their eyebrows scrunched in a fearsome grimace, the speed at which they moved – it occurred to me that the rope might as well have “Firestarter” written on it. They were coming straight at me. Time came back to regular speed, the two of them, quite the brutes, literally trucking through the tables and tossing them aside. The showmares all scurried away, leaving only four or five of us on stage to deal with this incoming mess, including the prize catch, who was apparently me. They ran forward, and I was still so unsure of what to do, I didn’t react as fast as I could’ve. I could’ve kicked one of them. Hell, I could’ve used some of my fire capabilities on them. But, what I actually did? As the rope came within only inches of my face, I ducked and made a beeline for the exit. The twines of the rope just barely missing my horn and taking the plumage crown off of my head. Yes. I ran. Great planning, Firestarter. Let them chase you through the whole town, huh? I heard the crash of fabric behind me as they ran right into the velvet curtain. I looked back only for a second, thanking Celestia that the tables were now strewn across the room in such a way that a clear path to the easy-swing doors were made. The hinges creaked, yelling out to me for freedom, for escape. The soft carpet seemed to fall out from under me as I appeared to leave the ground, going much faster than I expected I’d ever had. The trot of two sets of burly hooves came from behind. They were gaining on me. They were gaining on me. Just a few more – BANG. I stopped dead in my tracks, or at least tried to, as something small, fast, and lethal whizzed by my head and into the wooden wall to my right. My quick stopping resulted in a less-than-graceful tumble to the floor, flipping over myself and ending up sprawling. Wearily, I looked back up to see the fedora-wearing zebra standing just over me, his one dead eye boring into my soul. But not as much as the pistol he held within clenched mandibles did. I had only ever seen a gun, let alone one in use, in the movies. Never once did I figure I’d be staring down the barrel of one. Then again, I never thought I’d be a showmare outside of Equestria, or at all, now did I? The explanation to why he held his hip struck me almost as soon as the twines of rope did. I was rendered motionless by fear far before the two ponies began tying me up, Fedora himself watching over like the ringmaster he appeared to be. “You’re one fine filly, Scarlet,” the zebra said in his thick accent. “Or, maybe I should call you Firestarter, eh? You’re worth quite the amount of bits in Equestria.” What? What was he talking about? Why was he tying me up? My eyes remained locked on him as my body was forcibly twisted, patrons still running about and some of the showmares still screaming their heads off, one having fainted already. Eventually, my hooves were all pointed to the ceiling, a thick rope being run around them. The zebra reached around and put his pistol at his hip, seeing that his two cronies had already capacitated me. “Now, don’t you go using your horn on me, girl,” he warned, only bringing back to mind the ability that I could use it, “Because you’ll probably burn down this whole casino. Though, isn’t that what you enjoy? Killing the inno – “ BANG. His sentence was cut off by a .22 cartridge entering his skull and leaving a mark that was bound to hurt in the morning, had he lived through it. The ungulate immediately fell to the ground, sliding across the carpet for about an inch before coming to, quite literally, a dead stop. My two apprehenders, and myself, gawked at the body for a moment before a seductively feminine voice rang out: “Get away from her, you pigs – unless you’ve got a migraine that just needs taking care of, too.” There, the only showmare standing on the stage, stood a chocolate mare, pistol similar to the now-deceased zebra’s in her mouth, with a glare that looked more deadly than the gun. The two brutes exchanged a swear simultaneously, shooting each other glances of panic before darting out of the room, in the same door they came in, faster than a speeding locomotive. “Kisses?” I asked incredulously. * * * Still bound and on my back, in a room full of overturned tables and a few, remaining, cowering patrons, I looked back at the only companion I had found in this casino. “What the hell? What’s going on?” Kisses spat the gun out and jumped off the stage, rushing over to where I was to untie the rope. The zebras and few ponies around the room began to slowly get up, most making their way to the back exit, just as a precaution. One went over to the unconscious showmare and tried fanning her awake, but to no avail. “Equestrian bounty hunters,” Kisses replied casually as she yanked on the rope, getting rid of the hastily-formed knot that held it together. The whole of the bindings slid and separated, falling beside me. My friend continued, “You see, in case you haven’t been listening to the news recently, you just went up in reward price, Firestarter.” “Reward price? There’s a warrant out for me?” Not that I hadn't expected it. And then, after I had realized what I felt was the more pressing matter at the moment, “How do you know who I am?!” I leaned over, feeling my hooves actually touch the carpet for once, and stood up straight, feeling the showmare’s dress still on me, but now in uncomfortable disarray due to the scuffle. Kisses put a hoof on my shoulder, her eyes pouring a sense of urgency into mine. “Look, there’s not much time right now to explain – I wasn’t expecting them to come so early. We need to get you somewhere safe, and now!” She attempted to drag me away, those emerald eyes of hers inviting me to follow. Emerald eyes… just like somepony else I know. “No, wait!” I almost yelled, “What about my fian – I mean, her? She’s still in my apartment!” “They aren’t after her, Firestarter,” Kisses said coolly, “Rough-and-tough gun-wielding bounty hunters don’t want some small, kind filly to take back. They want a body in either a rope or a bag. That means you.” She stopped, stamping a hoof. “Oh, shoot, what if they use her as…?” Her trailing off in the thought process kept me from hearing her. Not that I would totally understand it. Not that I understood any of this. When did my showmare friend get a gun? And what the hell was she doing protecting me from bounty hunters? For the second time in ten minutes, I asked, “What the hell is going on?” Kisses sighed, looking down at the ground for only a second before pulling me towards the exit rather forcefully. “We need to get to the apartment. Now.” “Tell me what’s going on, first!” “Too long to explain. You know how I said this is a full-time job?” I nodded, beginning to walk into what was slowly forming into a trot as we ran down the carpeted hallway towards the rear exit. “I was lying a bit.”