“Wow. A real werewolf?” Fluttershy leaned on her shovel, tipping the broad straw sunhat out of her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure.” Artemisia gestured to the pull cart hitched to his withers, where the surviving chickens clucked contentedly in their cages. “I’m down to nineteen.”
She nodded slowly, the recognition of someone who knew exactly what kind of death he was talking about. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She set her shovel aside and dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief. “Would you like to come inside?”
Out of the sun, Artemisia found tea and paperwork in abundance. “So boarding nineteen chickens for fourteen days at one bit per chicken per day, plus a feed fee–”
“I brought a fifty pound sack of the feed. If you take off the feed fee, I’ll leave you the rest as a donation.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Okay, so minus the feed fee, that comes out to two hundred and twenty four bits.” Artemisia flinched at the price, but he’d already done the math back home. All part of the plan. “And I promise I’ll take care of them like they were my own, but I do have a no-liability clause on page two.” Her smile turned awkward. “For business purposes.”
Once the paperwork was signed, the pair set about getting the chickens acquainted with their temporary lodging.
“It must have been an awful experience for you,” Fluttershy said as she unloaded the chickens. “Did you see the werewolf?”
“Yeah.”
“Not to sound uncaring, but I’m amazed to hear there are even werewolves left in this part of the world. They’re exceedingly rare.”
“If it wasn’t terrorizing my birds, I’d be amazed too.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your plan?”
“Honestly? No clue. I don’t think there’s any way for me to fight it. At this point, all I can do is werewolf-proof my chicken coop.”
Fluttershy nodded. “I think that’s very prudent of you. Werewolves are as dangerous as they are rare. Have you ever considered seeking out a specialist?”
“There are werewolf specialists?”
“Oh yes. One actually lives not too far away from here. She’s very professional. She helps me with my cockatrice issue.”
“Your, uh.”
“They get exceedingly violent during their breeding season, so she helps me keep the compound safe for the other animals.” She motioned him to wait and went inside, returning a moment later with a laminated business card. “She can be a little eccentric, but for the price, there’s no one better.”
The name on the card read, Metromesta Mercy. Demon Consultant. PhD. Artemisia studied the tiny embossed logo of a wolf’s head beneath the name. He knew from experience that he could trust Fluttershy. But she didn’t know the deepest parts of him, nor he hers. He was no element of harmony, and she was no Artemisia. The idea of bringing a stranger into a situation this close to home filled him with a sense of anxiety he couldn’t articulate--the same kind of anxiety he got whenever he got close to the Everfree.
Fluttershy spoke up again. “You seem to be taking this all in stride. Most ponies would have moved out. Or at least called the sheriff.”
Artemisia shrugged. “This is nothing compared to my family Hearth’s Warming parties.”
They laughed. He liked hers better. It lingered like the kiss of the sun on his shoulders. He noticed that whenever they were together, he tended to pitch his voice to match hers. He remembered reading somewhere that ponies pitched their voices higher when they were attracted romantically to the pony they were talking to. He wasn’t attracted to Fluttershy. But he loved her voice. He wished he could have something like it. His own voice sounded so rough in comparison.
“Does your family live in town?” she asked.
“No.” He cleared his throat. “No. They live in Canterburg. It’s about an hour’s walk.”
“They must be on the edge of their seats waiting to hear from you.”
He paused. “I haven’t told them. It’s complicated.”
Fluttershy nodded, ever the graceful conversationalist. “So how do you stay calm when you’re facing down a werewolf?”
“Please, you’ve faced down a lot worse.”
“It’s different. I face those things with my friends. If I were alone, I’m not sure I’d know what to do.” She smiled encouragingly. “So how do you do it?”
Artemisia thought of the mountain of pills and bills cluttering his bedside table back home.
“I moved out under some difficult circumstances,” he said finally. “I got those chickens to force myself out of the house. They were all I had for a long time.” He trotted over to the cart and hefted the fifty pound bag of chicken feed, depositing it into a nearby wheelbarrow to make it easier for Fluttershy to move around. “I also really like omelets.”
Fluttershy laughed again. If only he could sink into that sound, assimilate it.
Metromesta Mercy lived unnervingly close to Artemisia’s parents, a meager four miles from Ponyville. She lived above her shop, a two-story wood-paneled building no doubt responsible for the declining market value of houses Artemisia’s family was so fond of complaining about.
Before Artemisia had a chance to knock on the door, a muffled voice came from inside. “Go away.”
“Uh. Are you Metromesta Mercy? I got your address from Fluttershy. She said you might be able to–”
“Go away.”
“She said you could help me with a monster problem.”
A pause. “A monster-sized problem? Or a problem that’s a monster?”
“A werewolf.”
Inside, a floorboard near the door creaked. “If it’s bigger than ten feet tall, I can’t help you.”
“It’s eight. I could really use your help.” He got no reply for nearly a full minute. “I don’t need you to hunt it or anything. I just need some consultation. I can pay you for your time.”
“Consultation’s expensive,” came the same voice, this time clear as a bell and inches from Artemisia’s ear.
Artemisia screamed. He launched himself off the front stoop, landing with a painful thud on the sidewalk. A false section of wall next to the door slid away, and Mercy peeked out. She cradled a speargun in her hooves, not pointed at him, just there.
“Please put that away,” Artemisia said.
“My consultation fee is a hundred and fifty bits per hour.” She shifted the speargun from one hoof to another. The pointy end of the bolt caught the sun just so.
“Don’t point that at me.”
“I’m not.”
“Just put it away.”
“You said you had a werewolf problem?”
His ears perked up. “Yes. It’s already killed–”
“Don’t wanna know how many ponies it’s killed. That’s just gonna stress me out. And if you wanna kill a werewolf, you gotta be chill.”
“I don’t need you to kill it. I just need–”
Mercy wriggled back into the hole in the wall and shut it tight behind her. More floorboards creaked from inside. A moment later, Artemisia heard ten locks jangle, one after the other.
The door opened. Mercy stepped outside. She was a full head taller than Artemisia, double that if you counted the ego.
“Come in. They got satellites in Canterlot aimed at this house.”
The interior of the house reeked of stale tobacco and expired milk. Buckets of freeze-dried emergency food gathered dust in one corner. File cabinets stuffed with enough documents to make a tax collector flee in terror lined the walls.
“It’s a good thing you came to me,” Mercy said. She led him to what at one point must have been the kitchen. The fridge was a tangle of copper wire guts. The oven looked like she’d chucked a grenade inside. “Werewolves are tricky beasts. Exceptionally rare. Very few ponies know how to deal with them.”
“Well, I’m hoping–”
“Did it bite you?”
“No.”
She glanced at his legs. “You’d know if it bit you. Their teeth have a unique bacteria profile, and bite wounds get infected easily. Count yourself lucky.”
“Right. I just need–”
“I know, you need somepony who can get this dirty job done.” She made a show of smacking her hoof on an outdoor table serving as her dining room table-turned-workspace, rattling the tempered glass surface. Documents and stacks of old silverware shivered. “It’s gonna be tough. They have exceptional night vision and they’re working with the crown to undermine Equestrian values. They have powerful allies.”
Well, at least she wasn’t completely crazy. Artemisia knew from experience that his night sight got much better after he transformed. But he couldn’t just come out and say that. For all he knew, she might think he was some kind of undercover agent and jump him.
“That’s horrifying,” he said, playing along, “but I don’t actually need you to kill it. I just need some advice on how to werewolf-proof my house and my chicken coop.”
“Are they indoor or outdoor chickens?”
“Outdoor?” He didn’t think there could be indoor chickens.
“Oh! No wonder the beast’s targeted you. You’re dangling a free meal right under its nose.” She shook her head condescendingly. “Ditch the chickens. The attacks will stop. That’s my consultation. I’m gonna charge you for the full hour, by the way.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Sorry, but this is a rounding up household, and ten minutes is close enough to an hour that–”
“No, I mean I’m not getting rid of my chickens.”
That finally got Mercy to pause. “Why not?”
“Because I like my chickens.”
“Do you like getting attacked by werewolves, too?”
“Look, if you can’t help, I’ll just go. Thank you for your time.”
She bounded past him and blocked the door. “If you really don’t want to get rid of the chickens, it’s gonna be a lot tougher to fight it.”
“I know.”
“But it will be easier to track it.” She leaned in, waggling her eyebrows. She smelled like keyboard dust and pyrotechnics. “In fact, we won’t have to track him at all. He’ll come to us.”
Something about the way she said him set Artemisia on edge. “I just don’t have the bits,” he said again.
“So you want your chickens to get eaten?”
She gave him a look of such intensity, he swore she could see right through him, right down to his furry, carnivorous core.
“Okay,” he said. “One night.”