"I said, 'You'll make me a champion?'"
"I was going to say gourmet, but I like the way you think." He grinned and led me to the ice-filled glassed-in display cases.
His quip didn't assuage my misgivings and more feelings bubbled up. It was funny and not in a good way: my food was playing with me!
Some of the fish were whole, eyes and all, with scales and blue markings that lightened from the dorsal fin on down. Others were... I couldn't think of the right term. Rendered? So unlike sliced squash or cubed radishes, or especially cut hay ready for hay fries. More like tomatoes, the way it glistened, or melon. Gelatin, maybe, but the small white, pale orange, and ominous red striated slabs didn't look like lemon, tangerine, or strawberry. Beyond that lay seashells, some like snails but much larger, some like... Well, I knew what clams were. I had a word for the other case. They weren't sea-insects. They were...
"Crustaceans," I said. "I was tutored in ocean biology—" and I occasionally paid attention. The smell of the seashore again filled my nose; that iodine taste reasserted itself, all thanks to my imagination.
Whistlebutt asked, "What are you thinking about?"
I looked at the armored creatures and said, "He told me it wasn't a planned storm. Pegasi didn't cause such destruction. It wasn't the first time I learned about monsters, but it was the first time that I understood that not all monsters were ponies."
I examined the lobsters and shrimp. The shrimp looked like insects one might stomp caught scuttling across the floorboards. I appraised the ranks of chitinous soldiers anticipating an antenna to twitch, expecting I'd screech if one did. I'd encountered live crabs before.
I related how the storm had blown in from the coast changing day to dark night in minutes, spreading out with clouds so heavy with rain that their bottoms sagged. Then they burst. It rained and hailed and battered homes into the higher piedmont of Grin Having, only to break a half-hour after sunset. It left twinkling stars and the scents of electricity and a crackling in the air.
The next day, Proper Step had taken me and my hoof maid to the beach. I wore a canvas windbreaker and the stiff breeze in the wake of the storm dragged at it and made it snap like the jib and mizzen on a yacht. Definitely not a vacation. Proper Step didn't take me anywhere if it didn't have a pedagogical purpose.
No, he told me I was here to be "seen" and to "help." Though the supernatural storm had dispersed, pegasi had populated the sky with blue-grey cumulus, letting the sun shine through anon and thither, like in poems.
My nose became cold. I remembered wearing a fluttering scarf. That grey day, winds tugged at my mane and tail as they made foam break from the waves on the choppy sea. I waved at ponies when they engaged me. I talked about how sad it was. I even held open bags with my magic so volunteers could fill them with detritus as the ponies of the seaside community cleared the mess.
I remembered asking Proper Step that if monsters caused this, why hadn't somepony fought them. He'd replied... Funny, that. I remembered his face framed by the heavy black coat he'd worn with the collar up, every hair of his slicked-back mane in place along with his moustache as if they'd become petrified.
"Oh course, somepony fought. The princess stopped by last night and rested awhile, but insisted we not wake you. Pity. It would have been instructive for you to host a tea for her."
I remember having frozen there, blinking not at the wind in my eyes, but that the princess had dared enter my sanctum. Looking away, I realized I had dropped the bag I'd held for everypony. My hoof maid took that over.
I'd stared over the wreckage beyond, at the broken logs and cracked off branches, at the seaweed strewn across the sand, at the motionless silver-sided fish that glistened, looked slimy, and had begun to stink. I spotted a crab.
Not everything was dead.
The crab scuttled sideways and poked at the fish. The armored thing had no expression. It wasn't an insect, but a crustacean. A monster had brought the storm which provided him food. In that, the windigo had actually been a force for good.
My life had strange monsters populating it.
I shook my head and saw the produce case. Okay, I guess it didn't have produce inside. Display case? No, that was for something in a museum. I shook my head and mumbled, "Whatever."
I had related my story as I stared into whatever it was called, but had left out the names, not specified the locale, nor admitted a visitation by a hateful alicorn who existed largely to destroy my young life. I had been staring at a blue and white crab with small claws and stalk eyes, a different species than the one I'd seen slicing away pieces of fish amongst the seaweed, but similar, too.
A hoof grabbed it away.
I heard a register and the clink of bits. Whistlebutt levitated a number on a steel pole as he turned toward me and I looked up. He said, "I ordered for you."
The stallion was bigger than me. For a moment, a kinder emotion rolled through me. Though no pony would replace my father whom I barely remembered, he'd done a fatherly thing and I didn't have to be older than I was, always adult, being a mare that I was now—and would always be in at least one sense. For a brief moment, I became simply an older filly, somepony that didn't have a care other than worrying about grades at school, collecting posters of her favorite colt-band, and wondering whether she would catch the eyes of a certain somepony. Nostalgia. For a moment, I pretended Sunburst was still around and that we were still magic buddies.
I felt like somepony's "little pumpkin."
For a moment.
I took a deep breath and said, "We're going splitsies on that— Coach."
He snorted lightly. "Sometimes you show your age. Adults would say 'That's fudge treat, or going fudge.'"
I nodded. "Still—"
"Not today, Gelding."
I nodded again as he looked around for a table. Proper Steps' training insisted that the stallion was to pay, unless there was a class distinction and the better was to pay. Me.
What-ev.
I spotted the pegasi Whistlebutt trained. They sat at a large table and I trotted over. The snowy white mare looked up. She smiled.
I smiled, poked a hoof over my shoulder, and asked, "So, is— Is Coach really that good?"
Her plate had a piece of buttered bread with a chomp out of it, a couple stalks of escarole that smelled of sesame oil, and some charred—skin, maybe, that she'd chosen not to eat. Her eyes were hard like emeralds, and sparkled with amusement. Nothing soft about this mare, especially her muscles. Her bangs flipped up into a scroll over the crown of her head that had to have been lacquered into place. It looked as stiff as her attitude.
Her left wing whooshed out toward my eyes. No warning. No change of expression. Pure action.
I barely managed to duck. I felt my mane swept up and aside.
Her extended wing stopped suddenly.
A blue-green aura had caught her wing at the apex of the two bones that formed the fan of feathers—my magic.
For the second time today, I'd cast reflexively. Or had I? I'd sensed a threat, or rather, had trotted up with the subconscious thought of provoking. Yeah, I'd done that.
Regardless, for an instant, I felt very proud of myself.
Our eyes locked. My hooves clattered on the terrazzo tiles as I stepped just out of reach and let go.
She nodded.
I nodded.
"Oh, he's good," she answered, looking to her stallion companion. With a lemon yellow coat and a long mane the color of grass piled like a hill above his head, he didn't look at all masculine. His muscles belied that, as did the toothy smile below his magenta eyes. He had just witnessed an unprovoked attack. He simply nodded.
She continued. "He's so good, the last championship he coached was the Secretariat vs Punch Drunk fight, two years ago. He coached both fighters!"
"Can he do that?"
"He's fair."
"Good to know. Let me guess. Punch Drunk lost."
"Guess? You don't follow the fights?"
I shrugged and the two fighters looked aghast. I followed the new discipline of cutie mark science, and if his (or her) parents named their foal Punch Drunk, I could bet—
"Yeah, he lost. On points. A brutal matchup. White Towel is an amazing coach!"
I heard hooves and looked to see Whistlebutt there. "You're embarrassing me, Shadow Strike. This is— Do you want to go by—"
"Gelding," I said, offering a hoof.
Shadow Strike bumped it.
"I'm On Fire," the stallion said, bumping it, too. "Interesting name, Gelding. Strange for a mare, but... Hmm. I think I've heard it somewhere." He put a hoof to his jaw and I realized something.
He didn't look masculine because his mane was up in a bouffant. The first time I had taken a real note of that was the day I'd met Trigger and encountered what I now knew were rival gangs. It had set their stallions apart. Though it had been quite cool outside, inside the restaurant felt warm—yet, inside, he wore only a wide goldenrod color scarf that wrapped his neck. Hiding something. A brand. I didn't know for sure, but I knew I was right. Like the tagging of gang "logos" on buildings and bridges to mark territories. Living territories.
Gang member.
"It's a verb," I responded.
He chuckled.
Whistlebutt asked, "Can we join you?"
"Always, though we're just finishing. A unicorn pescatarian?" On Fire asked.
"An initiate."
Shadow Strike said, "We'll stay. Gotta see this."
I shuddered involuntarily. "Thanks, I think."
"No problem."
I listened as Whistlebutt checked their training schedules. Plates arrived soon after, introduced by a wafting scent of hot oil. The white earthenware clicked on the metal mesh table top to display in a bed of broccolini and golden caramelized hay what looked like oblong breaded potato dumplings, brown and crocanté. It didn't smell like fried potatoes, but the oil and pepper mixed with this other scent that, though very strange, made my mouth water. The scent of that cheese they usually grated on spaghetti made me even hungrier.
I lifted the fork and knife and cut it open to find a slightly grey, white and pink streaked center that steamed. I didn't wait, other than to blow swiftly on it, before popping it into my mouth.
Yes, I lived dangerously. As did Shadow Strike and On Fire: Had I spat it out explosively, I might have hit them.
I chewed and tasted and felt my eyes widen and my skin blush. I was already cutting another piece when I swallowed and said, "This is really good! Crab right?"
"Aww," Shadow Strike said, obviously anticipating the explosive ejection of food. "Too bad."
"Not a total loss," On Fire said, adding, "It's always good to see a cute little filly smile in amazement. Oof!"
That had earned him an elbow to the chest. "Gotta go," Shadow Strike said, pulling up her companion with a wing as she stood. They were a couple, then.
Yes, the crab croquettes had cheese on them. That's a milk product, I know, but cheese was spoiled and fermented and molded, stuff like that. As far as I was concerned, it didn't count as milk anymore. I made short work on the three pieces and eye'd Whistlebutt's plate.
He said, "That's enough. New food should be introduced slowly. You wouldn't want to be put off your feed."
"Sweet Celestia, no!" I said.
That Her name had passed my lips said volumes about my level of enthusiasm, though he hadn't a clue. "Coach?"
"Yes."
"Thanks for breakfast. Still kind of hungry. Can I have my oats when I get to work?"
"Yes, and eat more. Start weighing yourself. Don't let yourself lose weight; weight loss counters you working to build muscle."
"Yes, Coach," I said and that got a grin out of him.
I spotted a heap of caramelized hay pushed aside on On Fire's abandoned plate. Like an earth pony, I reached a hoof across the table and dragged his plate over. I couldn't count the number of times I'd dumpster dived discarded food or grazed in parks over the last year. It didn't bother me grabbing the plate. I thought it educational for Whistlebutt to disabuse him of thinking that I might be some father's coddled filly princess.
For his part, he just snorted and chewed on his grilled swordfish.