After two arduous days of travel Ash had made it to Mulico City. Situated in a valley near Lake Texcoco and originally built by the Aztecas, it had been reconstructed following the great siege almost three hundred years earlier. Her grandfather had fought and died here in one of many wars fought between Mulico and Equestria. The few letters her mother had kept from him had mentioned it as La Ciudad De Los Palacios. The City of Palaces. From her position on the far edge of the desert where the Equestrian and Mulican borders blended she could see far into the Mulico Basin, a beautiful area of verdant green farmland and hazy orange suburbs on the edge of plentiful farmland. The city sprung up beind an ancient stone wall that was broken and disjointed, dense residential areas became tightly packed and smokey the further afield her eyes wandered.
Her journey continued as she descended into the valley and walked the dirt trail deeper into Mulico. She didn't travel alone now, many mule farmers stalked the fields, collecting the harvest or tending the crops, while many different species trekked into or out from the city itself. Mules, Ponies and Thestrals, she even saw a Griffin. There were abandoned fortifications at the edge of the farmland, three Mules in dirty sombreros and ponchos watched her approach from a blown-out fortification and eyed her with salacious interest. Ash stunned their wandering gazes by striding up into the guard post and snagging one of their water canteens. She greedily gulped and smacked her lips in satisfaction afterwards.
"You ought to watch yourself, mare. This ain't Equestria. You in Mulico now, puta," the dirtiest of the three stated harshly.
In answer, Ash removed a few bits and dropped them on the crate they were using as a blackjack table, "Where's North Park Station?"
Their eyes fell on the golden coins as she spoke. The one on the left who had a greasy mane tied back under his hat snatched them up. The other two began to fight and argue with him for it, greasy mane managed to break free of his amigos and escape out the back entrance with the others behind him. They must be seriously underpaid. Although unfortunately, that was also some of the last bits she had with her, the rest was left in her cart back in Saguaro.
She took the semi-full water canteen with her as she left, deciding to take her chances in town. The terracotta domiciles she walked by looked like they had only been built recently, although they seemed far too clean for the mud-covered farmers she saw back on the main road. As the streets thickened the many inhabitants and travellers seemed to spread and thin out. They entered an avenue and the noise and commotion of a largely populated city hit her senses. It must have been market day because the open-air stalls were pitched all across the square. The street she was on had another road that branched across this end of the avenue and connected to a massive cobblestone walkway. This walkway went on for perhaps a mile, the end blurred with masses of bodies and stalls.
She saw a signpost that read Sur Diego. Presumably, North Park Station was North of here. She stopped by the first stall which offered all sorts of leather materials and accessories. "I need directions," she started to say.
"No hablas," they interrupted.
She took out the copper band, maybe it was universally attributed to the place she wanted to go, "North Park Station?" She tried hopefully.
The mule seller dismissed her with a wave of his hoof and the words, "no se."
Ash frowned at the mule, who was busy greasing a leather vest piece with a soft cloth. The mule was a head shorter than she was, and had - like most of the inhabitants she’d seen since entering the market - a bushy moustache. Ash’s Mulican was rusty, but she knew a few phrases.
“Uh, amigo, uh… por favor, necesitas direcciones. Para el train station? Tú comprendes, no?”
The mule sighed heavily, his thick brows and arched muzzle lent him a look of utter boredom and disinterest. “Dinero.” He said.
“Money?” She parotted. She didn’t have much, maybe a dozen.
She took four bits out of her satchel and put them on the stall surface. The mule put down the cloth and held them up to appraise the gold coins. Bits were a common currency in these parts, mainly because they were more stable than Mulican pesos, and far more valuable. Something like 150 pesos to the bit. Although from the letters her grandfather had written you could get a meal for six ponies using just a few bits and the local mares cost even less than that.
He smiled suddenly, “hermoso.” Beautiful. His tone was as if they were old friends. He held out a hoof and pointed at her satchel.
“Uh,” was all she could say as he tugged the strap over her head, he was delicate with her wings, and paused as he eyed the burned appendages with slight sadness.
“¿Banditos?” He asked.
“Si,” she said.
“Dios,” he said. “Very, very bad.” He tutted as he spun the satchel. The strap was frayed and worn, damaged from the water and the weather.
The satchel was fabric, not leather. Yet he used a small set of cutters to slice the straps at their ends and then used a stiff brush to clean the bag. She watched him, interested. Within a few minutes, he’d pulled some of the frayed stitching and replaced it with fine thread. He snipped the ends and gave a pleased smile as he held the bag up, then he held it out and she took it, but it didn’t have a strap anymore. She looked at him expectantly and his mouth made an O shape. He bent under the stall and pulled out a length of leather, he attached some clips and an adjustable slider to taper the excess. He came around, took a quick measurement of her and slung the tape around his neck. Then he attached the strap to the satchel, and placed it over Ashes back.
The satchel felt smoother against her flank and it sat much better. The strap was likewise more comfortable and set in a position so that it didn’t interfere with her damaged wings too much. All in all she was both gratified and surprised at the act, having thought ill of the mule for trying to scam her or ignore her. But he’d done her a kindness.
He scraped two of the four bits into his coin purse and placed the other two back in Ash’s hoof. When she looked down and met his eyes she saw no sign of malice or contempt. He’d done her a favour for not much, out of nowhere as well. She didn’t know what to say.
“Gracias, seňor,” she said a bit formally.
He chuckled and pointed behind her, away from the market and down a bustling street with a few static stores and a hall of some kind, “Ve al parque y encontrarás la estación de tren.” He spoke fast and with a thick accent. All she understood was parque and estación de tren. Go to the park, and she would find the train station. Her latin equestrian class was worth paying attention to after all.
“Thanks, mister,” she would have tipped her hat if she’d had one. But she settled for a nod and he returned it after getting back behind his stall.
After a ten minute trot, Ask arrived at a park area, there was a winding path and arranged flowerbeds. A gardeneer was tending to some passion flowers and orchids. She only knew what they were thanks to her middle sister Bitter Cloud, a fishermare who hobbied as a florist. Ash had told her she’d be better off practising her swordwork if she wanted to make any real money than to waste time with floral decorations, and she’d say, “I’d rather wear flowers in my hair than diamonds around my neck.” Seeing the gardeneer sweat dirt as he made the displays prim and tidy didn’t elate Ash in any way to make her feel more connected to her sister. She’d take the diamonds any day.
Through the park and out via a stone arch with more orchids and vines, there was a cobble street of semi-paved red brick and levelled pavements. And there it was, North Park Statin, or Estación del parque norte, as the golden sign above read. The station building was long and curved, of stone, brick and terraced roofing tiles. There was a steel veranda of oak-leaf green and ornate golden fleur de lis’s. Colonial efforts by other equine nations, no doubt.
She went inside, there were ponies disembarking a gilded steam carriage on a platform she could see through a steel fence. Inside the station were vaulted ceilings that spiralled high with ornate patterns and sigels’ of different nations. This was a fancy place, it seemed. It also seemed she had come in via the commoners entrance, as through a security barrier guarded by national Mulican guards, there were Equestrian ponies and Mulican elite Stallions and Mares that slowly moved out into a luxurious courtyard hidden by a circle of tall trees and a wall. She could see the myriad of carriages being towed into place by Mules in red porter outfits and then the nobles would board and be hauled off for who knew where, probably the upper class municipalities. Whatever the case, Ash could smell the money already. Many of the Mares sported expensive jewellery and the Stallions had ornate canes and expertly crafted tophats and blazers.
The station was busy, on the far wall were teller stations with a dozen booths. Each one had a line of Mules and Ponies, many of them of working class based on their attire or lack thereof. As Ash was looking around something bumped into her, when she turned she saw a flash of dirty turquoise and a crooked smile. A young colt barely up to her hips had knocked her and was spitting out apologies in Mulican. He was backing off and turned around and that's when she saw her coin purse, complete with copper band inside, tucked under his tail.
"Hey!" She shouted.
He froze and then bolted. None of the travellers inside the station batted an eye and Ash found herself pushing herself to catch the evasive youngster. A thief - a pickpocket no less. It wasn't her style to draw attention to herself but she needed that band if she wanted to make contact with the syndicates here, as that was her meal ticket.
She followed him through the entrance, barrelled past a couple of Mules in overalls and a Pony wearing a grey tunic with crimson thread. The colt was already someway ahead by the time she'd turned the corner of the street. The stone road had a pair of steel rail lines going down it with a red trolley at the end, it was leaving ash in its dust and the pickpocket had just hopped on the back side. He spun to look at her with his tongue out in a mocking gesture. What I wouldn't give for my wings, she thought.
Ash was still pretty drained from the journey here, but the indignation she felt sent a shot of urgency up her butt. She was off, entering a sprint that funnelled air over her back like she'd started an aerial diving run. Storefronts and apartment buildings flashed past her periphery as the surrounding world started to blur. She was catching the tram, but then it rounded a corner and started winding down a slope faster than she could run. How she wished her wings were well again. The thief seemed acutely aware she wasn’t giving in and he scrambled over the rear divider and into the passenger compartment, much to the chagrin of the ponies and mules inside.
The trolley rounded a bend at the bottom of the slope and turned onto a wide boulevard of paved stone, iron lamp posts and three-story terraced buildings. There were ponies and mules milling around, many stopped to watch as Ash barrelled over a crossing merchant, nearly knocking him over to shouts of protest.
Ash’s anger was rising, “out of ma’ way! Stop that cart! ¡Para ya! ¡Para ya!”
The thief had managed to swing himself onto the roof of the trolley, and as the trajectory of the passenger car brought it alongside the back ends of some terraced common buildings, with wooden stairs, awnings and balconies all joined together to make a communal living space. The young pony hopped across and paused to laugh at Ash quickly.
There was a sign on the left with a wine glass and bottle, El Verano Medio. And a collection of wine barrels on the pavement that were being piled sideways by two stocky mules. Ash diverted and entered a gallop at maximum speed. She leapt up the barrels like a ramp and then jumped the three body lengths to the balcony. Even without her wings, a Thestral was capable of great agility. She was a balcony down from the thief who gasped and spiralled away from her in surprise. The landing sent her careening into the wall and her head cracked off a single-pane window which shattered easily. There was a feminine scream from inside the room and a male voice started bellowing in Mulican. She rounded the corner of the balcony and watched as the colt tripped over himself to leap into the next balcony, crossing the fall of an alleyway. She easily leapt through the divide and was about to tackle the colt when he diverted through an open window too small for Ash to fit.
“You wiry little fuck, I’ll rip your legs off!” Spit flew out of her mouth.
Ash tracked him through the building as he pushed past a waiter who was doing an inventory report to jump out the opposite window. Ash looped around the balcony which continued around the corner and over the next alleyway where she was able to feed down a plank onto the backside of the building. It looked like this block of terraced homes and businesses backed onto one another over a back alley courtyard. She heard a squawk of Mulican and a harsh slap kick around the otherwise quiet space. The walls of the courtyard softened the noise of the outside world considerably.
Ash leant over the railing by a staircase, and saw her quarry in the middle of a group of Mules dressed like vagabondos. They had patchwork leathers, dirty grey ponchos and she could practically smell the whiskey and body odour from here. At present they had her thief in custody and were shaking them down. She saw her coinpurse and several other valuables not hers getting passed around freely as they laughed and mocked the young thief. Ash’s displeasure was at its tipping point and she felt the need to crack somepony around the head as a consequence.
“Let me go!” The child said defiantly. “I ain’t afraid of you!”
There was another slap and a bellowing laugh, “mira, quit struggling and hoof over whatchu’ got, cabron!”
Ash ducked around the walkway, the interior of the courtyard had a complete ring of access ways onto the balconies and they all fed to crooked doors and boarded windows. Looked like the veneer of the buildings on the streetside was just for show, as back here was as rundown and decrepit as her grandfather had described Mulico City in his letters.
She was overhead of the Vagabondos and leapt over to drop behind one. He turned at the noise of her heavy landing. The stocky, shorter Mule sized her up with a raise of a rusty dagger. “Ey, back the way you come, que puta… this ain’t none of your business, tu perra!”
She understood the meaning, curse words were the first thing you learned in any new language. Ash would show him that this bitch whore wasn’t to be messed with. In a flash of Thestrian steel, her fine officer's sabre was out as she sliced the limb of the mule off at the knee with ease. He didn’t register the loss of the foreleg as the dagger, still magically clasped by the hoof, dropped wetly to the ground with a clatter of brass. The two amigos of the first backed away, but pulled weapons of their own.
After a good five seconds of delayed response, he let out a strained, pained groan. His eyes rolled back as a spurt of blood painted the young thiefs face and he collapsed backwards. The thief scattered back into Ash and stayed glued - almost in a child-mother role - to her side. She could feel him tremble and any pretence of bravery was gone. The other two moved out to the side as if to intimidate her, and with an easy flick of her sabre she painted a line of blood between her and them.
“Cross that line, you get hurt.” She said simply. “Drop all the loot, and you can go free.”
She didn’t know if they even understood her. The vagabondos looked at each other with matching dirty scowls, one seemed hesitant, the other had an angry ape-like expression with a ridged monobrow and flat muzzle. Ape-face came forward with a yell, the thief ducked under Ash and she nearly fell over him as she moved to parry. Ape-face came in with a high-raised strike, aimed for her head. She ducked the blow, sidestepped and cracked the shorter mule in the snout with a vicious headbutt that flattened him out into dreamland.
She dived forward, entered a sprightly roll that had her rise to her full height barrel-to-face with the next vagabondo. He tried to ward her off with a swipe of his rusty dagger, but she brought her sabre in close to twist the blade from his hoof in a flourish of steel. The blade clattered and the Mule fell onto his flank in abject shock. She turned and kicked him hard with a single leg, she watched over her shoulder and broken wings as the snot was thrown from his nose and mouth with the force of the blow. He toppled like a sack of shit to land in a pile, groaning in choking unconsciousness. She stowed her sabre.
The thief sat with slack-jawed awe, eyes glossy and wide as he regarded her like you might a caped vigilante. Ash quickly went through the ponchos of the bandits. She found tobacco, rolled cigarettes, a box of matches, a tin of beans, half a bottle of whiskey and some water in a bladder. All of which she stowed. The thief’s stolen possessions lay nearby, shaken from the colt at the hooves of the vagabondos. She retrieved her coin purse, inside was 6 bits and her copper band. But in the next pair of purses she found almost a thousand pesos in paper form, useful enough - but best of all was a pair of silver earrings adorned with amethyst crystals.
She whistled, the colt still hadn’t moved and wilted a little as she looked at him, “these are worth a few bits, I reckon. I’d whup you for being a thieving runt, but I should say thanks for the earrings.” She jingled them and put everything in her satchel.
Before she left she pulled the cleanest looking poncho from one of the bandits, the hesitant one - as it happens - the smell wasn’t altogether too unbearable. She figured she could wash it later, or replace it. She aquired his sombrero as well. The poncho was tan and crimson, it hid her features and sabre, and kept her wings free of the sun. Lastly she took the rope belt that was holding ape-faces canvas pants up and tied it around the amputated foreleg of the first vagabondo. It would stop him from bleeding out. She doubted anyone would care if he died, but she didn’t want to needlessly draw attention to herself.
As she brushed past the seated thief she said, “good hustle, kid. But keep away from me.”
With that said she disappeared down an alley, under awnings of wood and the end balcony that saw her back into the harshness of the Mulican sun and the busy sounds of the city. Ponies and Mules bustled across the street in front of shops and she saw a woodmill down one off road, where work ponies moved timber around into the backs of carts. A trolley went past on squeaky wheels, and Ash hopped aboard. The conductor eyed her warily. “¿Estación de tren?” She asked.
“Si,” he said, facing forwards.
“¿Quantos?” She asked. How much.
Ash pulled the Mulican money out, the thousand or so pesos were broken into twenties. He pulled three bills from her hooves and slapped a series of coins on the side rail. She put the change back in her purse with a brusque, “gracias.” And waited for her stop.
After a short circuit through the block, through similar looking terraced streets of homes, businesses and bars. North Park Station came into view. She hopped off the tram at the stopping point, although the trolley stayed in perpetual motion. Entering the station again she felt far more sure of herself. Her poncho hid her valuables from any would-be thieves and she kept her eyes on guard as her ears swivelled under the scratchy sombrero. She looked the part, but was still close to twice the size of the Mulican inhabitants and marginally larger than all but above average equestrian stallions that existed in the lineup, so she didnt exactly blend in. She joined the queue and waited.
After several ponies and mules left with train tickets in hoof, she was at the tellers booth. He regarded her, and spoke in perfect Equestrian, “how may I help you, miss?”
“I need some directions,” she flashed the copper band and the teller held out a well-manicured hoof to take it. He stashed it in a compartment in his cash register, printed a ticket, put a red stamp on it which she felt was unusual and then gave it to her as he lent in close over the counter.
“Take line 1, two stops and get off at Lechería station. Show your ticket on the way out and someone will meet you on the bench by the fountain.” He leant back, “Have a safe journey, miss!”
Ash left, moved through the security barrier and showed her ticket to a porter on the platform. He eyed the red stamp and then whistled, and pushed her towards another porter on a separate platform. There was already a three-carriage train alongside it, building steam. The second porter said, “Buenos días, may I see your ticket?”
She showed him with a little uncertainty, and he smiled smoothly. “Ok, miss, just step aboard. You are travelling to Lechería, correct?” She nodded.
He smiled again, “just two stops, miss and someone will meet you at the fountain. Safe travels!”
Once aboard the train she felt uneasy. Although she was heading in the right direction in terms of employment and hopefully far away from those Agents, the fact that the crime syndicates of Mulico City were apparently so well organised felt like it could be both a benefit and a detriment, depending on what your reputation was. The conductor blew the steam whistle as the train started to chug away from the station. Just two stops and hopefully she’d meet some pony who could get her on track to making the big bits, and that settled her unease and put a dopey smile on her face as she imagined all she could do with the money.