The walk between the Skydock and Caesar Salad’s diner was a quick one. Primarily because both of us were trotting the whole way. While I wasn’t strictly cold, Minuette kept shivering. And every shiver sent a spike of guilt through me, even though this wasn’t my fault. She wasn’t my size at all! It would be like asking Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to wear the same dress!
Well, okay, we weren’t that different, but we were still different!
Thankfully, the issue became moot when we arrived at the diner. I took a quick glance around and realized it was built in the same style as most of the buildings in Canter Basin. In fact, everywhere I looked, there were rustic-looking log wood cabins, old-style structures that looked like they were from two hundred years ago, and even gas-lit streetlamps instead of the enchanted firebulbs I’d seen in every city I’d ever been to.
But that was as far as I got before we rushed into the restaurant, stomping our hooves and rubbing them together to get the chill out.
“Okay, yeah, I need something better than this parka,” Minuette said with chattering teeth.
“I’ll get you something!” I cried. “I promise! Let’s just get some food first, warm up, and then we’ll find Tulip Tool’s shop, okay?”
Minuette blew out a long, deep breath that fluttered her mane a little before nodding. “Okay. Okay, I’m good.”
And then her smile returned. That return settled something in me, something I couldn’t quite put a hoof on. And something I didn’t want to spend too long thinking about.
I glanced around for a waitress, but only saw a sign that read ‘Seat Yourself’ next to a pile of menus. I snatched two off the top and glanced around the place. Minuette kept looking back at the menu table for some reason. I was about to ask her why when I realized a horrible truth.
The place was packed with ponies.
Apparently, we’d come at their peak time. Most of the people around here looked like locales, with a smattering of tourists. There were also a hoofful of well-dressed unicorns with postures that were far too straight for my liking. In fact, every single table was taken, save for a single booth.
A booth near a very familiar group of ponies.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered as I stared at them.
“What is it?” Minuette asked as she scanned the room. She didn’t see the open spot at first glance, which, considering how crowded it was, didn’t say much. “What’s wrong?”
“Remember that airship we passed on the west ridge?” I said, shoving my glasses all the way up my face with a scowl.
“The super fancy one? The same one at the Skydock?”
I nodded and pointed just to the left of the empty booth. “Guess who’s next to us?”
Instead of showing annoyance, Minuette looked excited. Why did she look excited?
“Well, come on!” she cried as she hurried forward, using her magic to pull me along despite my weak protests.
And before I knew it, we were seated right beside the group from the To Dream in Colour. I quickly hid behind my menu and floated Minuette’s menu up to do that same.
“Minuette, what are you doing?” I hissed.
“You heard what High Winds said!” Minuette replied in a normal voice. “Maybe they’re doing the same thing as us. I mean, we have the advantage, but wouldn’t be nice to have someone to bond with over this?”
“If you want a shot at this, then no, it would not! I didn’t even think we would have a single pony on this insane quest, but now it looks like some idiot reporter unleashed half of Canterlot on the Equestrian Northwest a week ago! I mean—”
“Wow,” said a voice from behind our menus. “Late to the party much?”
The voice wasn’t dripping condescension. It was positively raining it. It tweaked me in all the worst ways. Superior, self-righteous and so much more. Instantly, I felt my hackles rise and I slapped down my menu to find the source of that voice.
And sure enough, it was the cream-colored unicorn. She had a spiky yellow and orange mane with a few odd neon pink highlights showing under a somewhat lumpy-looking red bandanna. Dark blue eyes, and one of those rare ponies with natural white socks and that splotch-thing on their forehead. She was leaning a hoof on the counter between our two tables and smirking at us like she’d discovered the secret to becoming an alicorn months ago.
My eyes flicked to the two other figures. There was another cream-colored pony there, a filly who looked barely old enough to have a cutie mark—though she wore reddish overalls so I couldn’t actually tell if she had one—with a silver-white mane. She stared at me with strangely distant eyes, as if she were focusing on a point somewhere on the inside of my head.
The other was currently rolling his eyes, the orange pegasus with sleek-looking wings and a mane that was just a mop of dark gray and purple plopped atop his head and spilling over his shoulders, sticking up in odd angles because of the old-fashioned flight goggles he wore on his forehead. He was dressed in a thick brown coat with a tattered-looking red scarf. He waved at me, looking almost as cheerful as Minuette.
“Hello?” the mare said, her voice like a cheese grater against my horn. “Anypony in there, or are you too busy staring at the competition and realizing how outclassed you are?”
Minuette had put down her menu now and was starting openly at the crazy mare. I was doing practically the same thing, though I recovered a little faster.
“Excuse me?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Don’t give me that!” she snapped. “I heard you talking about the article! You’re here for the same reason we are, but you’re already too late!”
“Daisy—” the pegasus said, only for the mare to turn and give him a death glare so strong I was surprised he didn’t crumble to ash on the spot. “Fine, Snappy. Can you try for five minutes to not act like a rampaging Ursa Minor?”
“She would likely prefer the designation of an Ursa Major,” whispered the filly in a tiny voice that somehow sent chills down my spine.
“You’re damn right!” she shouted, then turned her attention back to us. “And here I thought all the little Canterlot snobs had mostly cleared out.”
I noticed a group of ‘Canterlot snobs’ directly behind them eyeing the mare disdainfully.
“So, if you just want to watch our taillights for the next few weeks, you’re more than welcome to.” She sneered. Did she have any other expressions? “But don’t you dare try and get between us and our prize! The Cloudshark is ours!”
I gaped at her, trying to comprehend just what in Equestria was going on in that frizzy-maned head of hers.
“You mean… it’s really real?” Minuette squealed softly. “I mean, really really real?”
“Oh, it’s real,” said the stallion. “Only reason we’re out here. Just a simple recovery operation. If somepony would listen to reason, it would go a lot faster.”
He gave the mare—Snappy, I think he called her?—a glare of his own. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as hers had been.
“But if everypony already came through here a week ago,” Minuette asked, tapping a hoof on her chin. “Why didn’t you go through with them?”
Snappy snorted loudly before floating a cider bottle over to her lips. After a couple chugs, she smacked her lips and slammed it back onto their table, where their half-eaten meal still lay. The filly continued to eat her peanut and celery sticks with a somewhat frightening level of precision with her knife and fork.
“That reporter gets all the details wrong!” Snappy laughed. “Like how the article reports that the goods are on east ridge. Every other location has something wrong with it. You think they’d stop using Captain’s Log by now. It’s obviously intentionally wrong.”
For the first time, the filly spoke up in an odd emotionless tone. “Sis says that anyone who follows the directions of Quick Print is a—”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that!” Snappy… well, snapped. “But it’s true anyway!”
As she was ranting about how everypony else was wrong, I started to wonder. The mare was definitely drunk. Or maybe she was just that cocky. I glanced at Minuette, who was listening in rapt attention. The other two seemed to be ignoring her for the most part, aside from the pegasus’s occasional eyeroll.
That’s when I got a crazy idea. However, before I could do anything about it, the waitress showed up, a tired-looking earth pony mare with frizzy blue hair and a frizzier green coat beneath a coffee-stained apron.
“What can I get ya girls?” she asked with a weary smile.
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t even looked over the menu. Snappy had started to argue with the pegasus, so we were probably clear for a minute or two. Minuette squeaked and quickly scanned through the menu.
“Chocolate chip pancakes, please!” Minuette chirped at her with a smile. “And just a water for now.”
The waitress didn’t write anything down, but she nodded anyway before turning back to me. “And for you?”
“Uh…” I scanned through the menu as fast as I could. Thankfully, spending most of my life reading helped me process the data efficiently. “Mountain Mare’s special, well done, extra mushrooms, please. And the blackest coffee you have.”
The mare nodded. “Out in a bit, dears.”
Then she trotted off toward the kitchen. Probably. I lost track of her quickly when one of the other parties got up and started filing out of the place.
“Chocolate chip pancakes for dinner?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Minuette. “Really? What are you, seven?”
Minuette stuck out her tongue at me. “‘Blackest coffee you have’? What are you, sixty?”
I could point out a dozen flaws in her logic. Instead, I just laughed with her quietly and shuffled the menus to the back of the table.
“Minuette, I got an idea, but you’re going to need to trust me,” I hissed quietly as I eyed the trio. “You’re the one who wants to find this thing. Well, if it’s real, I know just who can help us. Do not mention the Waystone.”
“But—”
“Seriously, Minuette!” I dropped my voice until even I could barely hear it. “You’ve got to trust me. I said I’d help. This is me helping.”
Minuette looked conflicted, but finally nodded just as Snappy turned back to us.
“And that’s why I’m in charge!” she proclaimed loud enough for the whole diner to hear it. “Can’t believe you ponies are still trying.”
I blew a raspberry at her. “Yeah, news flash, this whole thing is a hoax.”
The stallion sucked in a breath, his expression a warning. “You might want to be—”
“A hoax?” Snappy whispered.
“Oh dear.” The filly scooted away from the older mare.
“You think that the pride of my family—and of his family—is… is… a…” She stabbed a hoof in the direction of the stallion. “Hoax?”
“Like you said, there’s only the article in the Canterlot Times,” I said with a shrug as I leaned back against my cushion. “And you’re right, I’ve seen it reprinted in the records of the Canterlot Cosmo. If there was any truth to this treasure, it would have been found by now.”
“That’s because no one can actually read the Captain’s Log for what it really is: misinformation!” Snappy’s eyes got huge as she waved her hooves in my general direction.
It took everything I had not to laugh at her. Minuette did some sort of cute giggle-snort thing though.
“And you’re the only one who can unravel it, huh?” I pushed my glasses up my face. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like Daring Do.”
“None taken,” the stallion said with an easy smile.
I decided that while Snappy might be a raging bitch, her companions were… decent. Well, the stallion was. I had no idea what to think about the filly.
“In fact,” I continued before she could say anything—and because I was sick of thinking of them as ‘the stallion’ and ‘the filly,’ “who are you supposed to be anyway?”
The pegasus stallion jumped in before Snappy could hiss out something.
“I’m Easy Wing,” he said, eyeing his companion. “The quiet one is Whispering Trinket. We usually just call her Trinket.”
She paused in her eating for about three heartbeats before continuing. That was as much as we got for an acknowledgment.
“And this radiant bloom of moonlight is—”
“My name is Snappy Comeback, and don’t listen to anything that idiot says about anything else I might be called!” Snappy spat out in a rush, giving Easy another death glare.
“And who might you fine mares be?” Easy asked as if Snappy hadn’t said a word. “Forgive me, but I swore I’ve seen you before.”
It was odd. Coming from another stallion, that would have been the opener to a bad pickup line. But his friendly, casual manner soothed all the nerves that Snappy constantly jangled.
“Well, this little ray of blue sunshine next to me is Minuette,” I said, gesturing to her with a hoof.
She happily waved back.
“And I’m—”
“You’re Moon Dancer,” Trinket suddenly whispered.
When I glanced at her, I almost jumped out of my seat. Her eyes were fixed squarely on me as if I were a moderately interesting rat in a maze.
“H-How could you possibly know that?” I gaped at her.
“Newspaper.”
Minuette cocked her head. “What newspaper?”
“Canterlot Chronicle,” Trinket said, her head cocking to the side a little as she regarded Minuette. “You were in it as well. Short article, written six years, five months, and twelve days ago.”
I did the math… and ice filled my veins as she returned her attention to me. I braced as best as I could, even though I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
“There was a photograph of you embracing Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
My ears flattened so quickly they stung. I could still feel her hooves. I could still remember the tears. From both of us. How her wings had—
“You were in the background,” Trinket continued, looking at Minuette. “You looked pleased.”
“I… uh… was that the party Pinkie helped with?” Minuette asked me. “The one Twi threw for you, right?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and took one long deep breath to make sure my voice didn’t crack.
“Yes,” I replied, my voice far steadier than I had anticipated. “Yes, it was. Though, I hadn’t been aware an article had been written about it.”
Trinket met my stare and I lost the contest very quickly.
“It was in the Lifestyle section,” Trinket replied. Jeez, did this filly ever blink? “Third page, right side on the top. The article was four hundred and twenty three words long.”
A silence descended upon both of our tables as both Snappy and Easy seemed to wake from a trance.
“You actually know Princess Sparkle?” Snappy cried in a shout so loud everypony in the room stared at us.
“I haven’t seen her in some time,” I said flatly in a low voice. “We went to school together. That’s it.”
“I haven’t seen her personally in…” Minuette tapped her chin. “Four months?”
I tensed yet again. When ponies found out you knew the reigning monarch of Equestria, one of two things happened. Either they nodded, said something along the lines of, ‘that’s cool,’ and moved on, or, they went completely nuts and started to demand introductions, favors, and any number of things.
I watched the room.
Within a minute or two, most of the ponies had simply shrugged and gone back to their meals.
Most of them.
The group of Canterlot unicorns sitting on the other side of Easy, Snappy, and Trinket started to unfold themselves from their seats. I caught the eye of the first one, a navy-coated stallion who looked like he had chronic neck pain from staring down his nose at everypony he met. He was dressed in a black vest and a cravat.
And when he met my gaze, he paused. I lit up my horn and glared him back down into his seat. The stallion glowered at me briefly before gesturing to his companions that they should remain seated.
“Please don’t yell that again,” I said coolly. “I’d rather not deal with the consequences.”
Easy’s body jerked, as if he’d suddenly kicked somepony. Snappy yelped and held up one of her hindlegs to rub it, glaring death once more at her companion.
As for Trinket… she’d gone back to nibbling her food.
“Anyway,” I said, redirecting the conversation away from rocky waters. “I had been wondering how you thought you were so amazing to unravel a six-hundred-year-old myth.”
“It’s not a myth!” Snappy cried. “Listen, you ignorant little nerd, stop blabbing things you don’t know!”
“Then you’re going to have to give me a reason,” I said with a smile. “Especially after that little outburst could have brought the entire diner down on my head. Do you have any idea how crazy ponies are about anypony even remotely connected to royalty?”
Just because I hated what had just happened didn’t mean I couldn’t use it to my advantage. In fact, maybe that would work out as a coping mechanism.
“You want the truth?” Finally, Snappy stabbed a hoof at Easy. “That is the great-something-grandcolt of Admiral Fairweather herself.”
“Oh!” Minuette cried, clapping her hooves together. “Isn’t that the commander of the Valiant Sunrise? The ship that—”
“So, Smiley here does know something!” Snappy snarked with a snort of a laugh. “Yes, filly, the Valiant Sunrise was the ship that chased the infamous Cloudshark all over the Equestrian Northwest after the equally-infamous Diamond Crown train heist.”
She sounded like a tour guide. A really bad one, but still, a tour guide.
“Thank you so much, Miss Encyclopedia Blue,” I said, waving my hooves to get the mare to move on. “Do you know anything that’s not in a history textbook?”
“Don’t give me that!” Snappy shot back at me. “Most ponies think the Cloudshark isn’t even real! And almost everypony else thinks it was some stupid insurance fraud scheme by Diamond Crown!”
I almost swore, but managed to keep my expression intact. That had been a dumb move, almost tipping my hoof and showing I knew more than I was trying to let on. Minuette glanced at me, a tiny frown on her lips, but Snappy’s attention was back on me, exactly where I wanted it.
“And I’ve never bought that scheme idea,” I shot back. “The Cloudshark was real. The historical reports of Admiral Fairweather and the crew of the Valiant Sunrise all but confirm that.”
“No,” Snappy said, her smug grin growing by the second. “They do confirm it. And they also confirmed that there was a pitched battle right over Canter Basin.”
“Okay.” I raised an eyebrow while mentally I did a little happy jig. “And?”
“Ugh, seriously?” Snappy facehoofed. “How can you be this dense? What, do I need to actually show you the proof that it’s real?”
Trinket let out a loud yawn and stretched her hooves. Easy eyed her and looked up at Snappy.
“Snappy, Trinket’s about ready to pass out. Let’s just—”
“No!” Snappy shouted. “I’m not about to deal with this nonbeliever making fun of us. She dares to question the validity of our heritage! In fact—”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said our waitress—not sounding sorry at all—as she returned with our meals. “But I believe you mares ordered dinner?”
Everyone went silent for a moment. I’d forgotten entirely that we’d ordered and at a sidelong glance at Snappy’s table and her half-eaten meal, I knew she’d forgotten there had been food at all.
“Thank you!” chirped Minuette. “I’m starving!”
The waitress made sure to give Minuette her tower of pancakes first. And when I mean tower, it looked like a true tower. There had to be twelve pancakes in that stack!
My meal, which was supposed to be an omelet with a side of waffles, was technically as advertised. Only the omelet looked like it had come from a roc and there were at least five waffles stacked on one another, not to mention separate plates of fruit and toast.
“Maybe I should have gotten the kid’s meal,” Minuette mumbled as the waitress finished putting down my three plates.
“Um… yeah,” I said as I took in the size of the meals. I took a large gulp of my coffee. The bitterness gave me courage.
“Miss?” Minuette called before the waitress could get away. “Could I get a hot chocolate please? Extra whipped cream?”
The waitress nodded. “Sure thing, hun.”
She hurried off to help some other tables as Minuette suddenly attacked her stack of pancakes. I nibbled on some of my omelet before looking back up to Snappy.
She just glowered at us. “Saved by the bell, hm?”
I sighed. This game was starting to wear on me. “Look, if you have proof, just tell us so we can be properly amazed. And so we can get back to our meal.”
Snappy’s eyes narrowed and her ears went flat. The filly scooted closer to Easy Wing, while the pegasus put a wing over his face.
“You’ve seen our ship?” Snappy hissed.
“Yeah, kind of hard to miss,” I rolled my eyes.
“Be at the forward gangplank at nine-thirty tonight. And I’ll prove it to you. You look like you have half a brain—maybe—so I’m hoping that showing you this will be enough to get you out of our manes. Then you’ll realize just how outclassed you are and skulk home in that little boat of yours.”
“Snappy, I—” Easy began, but—shockingly—Snappy didn’t let him get any further.
“Nopony asked you!” she hissed to him, her eyes never leaving me. “Just be there.”
With that, the mare spun around and began practically mugging her food, not breathing a word to anypony else at her table.
I glanced at Minuette and smirked just a little.
“What was that all about?” she whispered, ducking her head to make sure her voice didn’t carry. “Moondancer, that… well, that seemed kinda mean.”
“I’m the one who’s kinda mean?” I scoffed. “Minuette, you heard what she said. She practically called you clueless!”
Minuette thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “I don’t think she meant it that way.”
I gaped at her as she attempted to conquer Mount Pancake. “You can’t be serious.”
She waved her fork at me in her magic. “Completely serious! Anyway, you were egging her on!”
“I was not!” I cried, a little louder than I should have.
She continued to smile, but cocked an eyebrow. I folded in seconds.
“Okay, maybe a little, but she had it coming! In fact—”
Before I could point out the flaws in Minuette’s logic, Snappy suddenly sat up and marched right by us with only a muttered reminder of our ‘appointment.’ Easy Wing just looked awkward and waved. Trinket? Trinket just stared at us listlessly as she trotted past us. I shivered.
“That is one creepy filly,” I muttered to myself.
“I think she’s adorable,” Minuette announced.
“You would.” I rolled my eyes.
“So, what were you saying?”
I took a few more bites of my waffles, as I’d been attempting to dismantle my meal while we’d been talking. However, it seemed a little easier now that they were finally gone. I should be able to speak freely.
Though an improved whisper charm I cast on the table itself helped.
“Okay,” I said after a swig of coffee to collect the rest of my thoughts. “Here’s my plan—”
“Tell me you’re not going to steal their evidence,” Minuette said, looking pained.
“What?” I cried, flushing. “No, of course not! Why would you think that?”
“I remember there was a time when you sometimes got a little too into… um… things.” She at least had the decency to blush a little and not meet my eyes.
I ignored the implication. “No. I’m still not entirely convinced this is real. And even if the Cloudshark was real and it dropped some of its payload, I really doubt it’s still there. Or can even be found.”
“I thought you believed after seeing the message on the Waystone!” Minuette’s ears went flat again.
“I mean…”
This all seemed so absurd that even with that evidence. I was having a hard time believing it. We’d spent a long time on the ship after seeing the message and the more I played it through my head, the less realistic it seemed.
But in the face of Minuette’s pleading eyes, I once again found myself unable to dash her hopes, though I didn’t have a clue why this was so important to her.
“I… I don’t know…” I trailed off lamely.
“Then why did you maneuver her into showing us her proof?”
I couldn’t help but crack a grin. “Because if it is real, I want to know what they know. How they know what they know. Because they seem to be taking it seriously. Snappy’s a nutjob and I have no idea what to think about Trinket, but Easy Wing seems to have a good head on his shoulders. I doubt he’d go along with this if it was all a ruse.”
“You baited them to actually find it!” Minuette gasped, her hooves flying to her mouth in shock. “You do want to find it!”
“No, that’s not what I said!” I protested. “I just—”
“Just say you believe!”
“No!”
“Moony!” she said in a sing-song voice. “Come on, Moony!”
“I said no! Shut up!” I crossed my hooves and shoved a large piece of waffle into my mouth.
Minuette kept grinning at me.
For once, I had enough fortitude to fight her off. I shook my head again and grabbed another bite.
Minuette finally burst out laughing after I’d stuffed my mouth so full I probably looked like a chipmunk. I certainly felt like one.
That was my signal to actually swallow before I choked.
“Now, admit it!”
“Ask me later tonight,” I said, adjusting my glasses and gracing her with a smirk. “And we’ll see.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
After all, whatever Snappy had might actually be good. It still wasn’t likely, but there was no harm in a little investigation. The Crystal Empire wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t need to rush.
I glanced at Minuette who continued to wage war against Mount Pancake and smiled.
Nope. Didn’t need to rush at all.