//------------------------------// // 2. Good Business Transactions - 1004 A.C. // Story: The Wool we Weave // by Lambs Prey //------------------------------// ~Year 1004 A.C. ---[[[]]]--- The floating key dropped out of the unicorn's silvery aura into her nervously waiting talons. "The second floor you may use as your personal living quarters. You may bring in personal affects. You may not paint, nail up any pictures, or otherwise damage the walls. You may rearrange any furniture inside the flat. You may not rearrange any furniture on the ground floor inside the office. You may retire to the second floor during your lunch work hours. You may not take any documents to work on out of the ground office. You must be available in the office during the hours of eight until five every day." "Yes, Miss." Yevetta made sure she was remembering all of the rules as her new boss, a pony, flatly laid out the rules. Yevetta needed this job, this place, this opportunity. "You may bring in a cloud to use as a bed if you wish. You must clean up any leaks or water damage. Broken windows, furniture, or other damage you cause will be deducted from your wage. You will not be held responsible for damage caused by external factors. You may not bring around friends, family, or guests. You may not have a pet. You may not discuss private business information outside of work." "Yes, miss." Yevetta said again, nodding along to prove she was paying close attention. Her boss and landlord did not pause or halt in their dispassionate recital. There was something off about the thin pink mare. Something flat, uncaring. It showed in her eyes. Blank, and cold. Yevetta was in absolutely no position to be picky. No matter what happened, she was going to have to bite her beak, hunker down, and do whatever it took to keep this job. This wasn't Griffonia, this was Equestria. The only direction left was down for a griffin like her if this didn't work out. Her pride flared at the thought of acting so meek. If this had been a month ago, she might even have listened to her stung pride. But that was back before it had gotten so bad. Now, the harsh necessity of reality yanked pride back by the tail, and clubbed it over the head. Harsh necessity, and one other good reason stayed her tongue and kept her eyes lowered, as ponies disliked griffin eye contact. "You may make, and are expected to, offer suggestions relating to the running of the business. You may not make business purchases without prior permission. You are expected to work to the best of your ability. You may not slack. You may leave early on work days if you are taking cheques or bits to be banked. You may not steal or keep any for yourself." Yevetta did not squawk or flare her wings at the insinuation, because she had the impression her new boss would've said the exact same thing to any pony employee too. "Yes, Miss Lemon Pink." And that other last good reason? The thin pink pony was genuinely intimidating. A griffin, being intimidated by a pony! Yevetta was ashamed. But pride didn't put food on the table here in Equestria, where hunting was illegal, where meat was taboo, where it was even more expensive to come by, and where stealing would swiftly get her deported. This was just a business transaction. As they said back in the Southern Kingdom; "Needs must when the winter gales drive". --- Griffonia was, at present, hostile to Equestria. That was a fact. Just ask anyone with a modicum of political awareness. Griffonia had closed its borders and ejected all non-native born ponies a year ago. That also was a fact. The real reason why though, if indeed there was just one reason, was a mystery though. Equestrian and Griffonian official statements both said many different and contradictory things, and everyone had their own personal pet theory. Another fact though? Almost nopony in Equestria cared one whit. What happened outside the borders of Equestria, could stay outside the border of Equestria, and good riddance. And the ones who were suffering the most from cutting off trade with the wealthiest trade nation on the known planet? It was Griffonia. Fact. It was into this rapidly plummeting griffin economy that Yevetta had come of age, looked around, and realised yet another fact. She had no prospects in Griffonia. As one of an ever increasing flock of unemployed young adults, all competing for the same dwindling pool of underpaid jobs, as the oldest of four of her struggling, recently widowed mother, Yevetta had to do something drastic if she wanted to survive. Those were just the facts. Things might be different over here, but back home, when a griffin reached of age, they were expected to go out and find employment. Fact. Here, young ponies might be allowed and even encouraged to flitter about like ditzy bees, trying whatever caught their fancy in the all important quest to find their 'One-true-special-talent', but in Griffonia, it was very culturally accepted to be earning money and supporting yourself the moment you were able. And the sad fact was, that no matter how much it would make other griffins call her a traitor alicorn-worshipper, was that the rich, golden sun-kissed lands of Equestria looked a lot better than any of the alternatives to gain employment. Yevetta had graduated in the top of her Equestrian language class, she knew all of their numbers and letters, had passed the basic years accountancy training she'd opted into after school before the border had closed. And Griffonia was freely letting griffins come and go. Just not ponies. Factually speaking, it was her best option. So Yevetta took it. --- There were just a few facts that Yevetta had failed to properly consider before her inglorious arrival, in the company of a talonful of other griffins who'd braved the stigma and had the same idea. They'd all arrived, and wings aching from days of flying, and been escorted by a pair of pegasus Border Guards to an immigration processing office. It really should have clicked before she spent that first fruitless day job hunting, that maybe a lone griffin in pony lands would be just as unpopular as a pony in griffin lands. And secondly, just how utterly alone she would be. Nobody and nothing familiar to cling to. Nothing from home. Her surroundings here were all different. The customs were different, and nobody would explain what she was doing wrong. The trees, plants, and land were all different too. The weather was different and not how it should be. The language was different, and not at all like what she'd learnt in school because of the accents. She had so much trouble understanding the ponies when they both spoke too fast and their accent twisted the words, and they in turn didn't understand her warped accent and laughed at her behind raised forehooves. Equestria was also more expensive, her kingdom coins were worth less, and nopony was looking to hire a job experienceless pony, let alone an experienceless griffon, not even on probation. And meat, such a basic and accepted necessity of life back home in Griffonia that it hadn't even crossed her mind how it would not be readily available in Equestria. It had first angered her, and then frightened her when the realisation had fully sunken in. That she was going to end up going hungry very soon when her coin ran out. It was a horrible, humiliating feeling which she couldn't get out of her chest. The only meat trade which really existed within Equestria was the small time raising of pigs and chickens, which were then shipped off via rail to Griffonia. And Griffonia had now shut its borders against Equestrian trade. So what few butchers existed within Equestria to provide to the nations minority carnivorous residents, like griffins, were raising their prices to make up for their losses. Was she going to have to resort to begging on the street? No, no she couldn't. She wouldn't. There was fishing all the way out on the coast, but again, that too was only to trade with Griffonia. And Yevetta didn't know how to fish beyond sticking a worm on a hook. That had been the state of things a month ago, when Yevetta had arrived fresh from the immigration office. Her dire situation had only steadily declined from there. --- What were the chances that she ended up somehow ended up employed by one of the rare few meat producers in the whole of Equestria? The winds of fate must really have been blowing in her favour that day. Yevetta hadn't the foggiest how her new boss had found her, or known that she was desperately searching for a job, or even that she had basic accountancy training. Because Lemon Pink certainly hadn't asked for any of that information from Yevetta herself. The thin, cold eyed unicorn with her curved horn had simply appeared out of seemingly nowhere on the street, dressed in a tightly clasped travelling cloak she seemed to wear everywhere, and without asking a single question first, had offered Yevetta a probationary place in her new business. Yevetta had of course immediately smelled a trap, but just as immediately pounced upon the offer, because she was desperate and didn't have any other options. She'd been working for Lemon Pink for one week now, and no trap had yet been sprung. So maybe there wasn't a trap at all? Ponies didn't seem the sort to go in for traps. And if worst came to worst, Yevetta was a griffin, she could take care of herself in a pinch. A week spent in the technically new, small but neat office building. Technically, because it had recently been renovated. The base itself though was probably nearly as old as Canterlot was. The ground floor made up the actual office and occasionally used reception, and the second floor was Yevetta's personal accommodation. It was quite literally a live in job. The office front was a bland, non-descript wood and glass window affair, which didn't actually give any hint to the business's actual profession. That 'profession' being meat. Because ponies didn't want to know about meat, or even acknowledge the quiet trade pig farmers ran. All the sign beside the plain front door said was; 'Eggs n' Benedict Co.' Eggs n' Benedict Co. dealt in pork, poultry, and eggs, only the latter of which was actually advertised, the first two being too offensive for delicate pony sensibilities. The small business mainly acted as an intermediary. They run any farms themselves, they simply bought up the produce from all the actual individual farms and then sold on in bulk without ever actually having to handle the goods themselves. Or at least the business used to, before the whole thing with the Griffonian border happened. Only one week in, and Yevetta was already losing sleep privately panicking over if Eggs n' Benedict was going to go under. She'd only just taken over the books, but already she'd seen how they were making a steady loss each month as a result of the loss of trade with Griffonia. Not a big loss, they still had the egg trade, but it was still a loss! And it'd been going on for months. Eggs n' Benedict Co. was a small time business. How could it keep manage to survive like this? And yet, from the books records, every month the boss would make a deposit into the business to put the ledgers back into the green. Yevetta pushed the ledger away and slumped back in her seat. She raked her talon's through her head feathers in worry and frustration as she sat there, a numbers induced headache coming on. She was only a new accountant, and what with having to translate everything from Equestrian in her head first, she was struggling. It was hard. To her disgust, her talon came back with loose under-feathers in it. Was she literally losing her feathers with stress over her situation? But she was too young for that! "Doesn't make sense. Just doesn't. How? Why isn't she cutting her losses and shutting it down?" She asked the empty office. And the question she didn't dare ask out-loud; 'How long can she afford to keep employing me?' Was Lemon Pink secretly some entrepreneur? How could she keep affording to invest more? Was she secretly rich? Well, maybe actually. Yevetta didn't know anything about her boss, she realised. The mare was very secretive. She could be rich or something. Yevetta decided it would not be a good decision for her continuing state of employment to ask her boss. Temptation, and the memory of her so recent desperation made Yevetta consider if she could get away with skimming from the business. She wrote the books and dealt with the money. She could do it if she wanted to, the opportunity was there. But this wasn't Griffonia. The expectations were different here. And for some reason she couldn't pin down, Yevetta shied strongly away from the thought of stealing from her boss. Not because of being intimidated, because street rats stole still from bigger and stronger griffons that they were also scared of. It was how high she judged the risk of getting caught. Lemon Pink would catch her if she tried to steal. Fact. That was what Yevetta's instincts told her. The pink unicorn would somehow know, and then she'd be well and truly plucked. No, she needed this job so badly. She wasn't going to ruin everything. She was going to keep her beak down, her claws clean, and be the honest, hardworking employee who survived. "Your work has been acceptable. Here is your pay cheque." "SKREEE! Mother of-!" The ruler and pencil went flying across the office, and her stool hit the floor with a loud clatter. Yevetta's boss stood inside of the shut front door which she hadn't seen, heard, nor noticed open or close. Unmoving face framed by that razor straight mane, indigo eyes empty, and without a single twitch in her ears to indicate any sort of normal healthy emotion, Lemon Pink seemed to be nothing more than the unnerving mannequin she so resembled in that moment. She didn't even raise an eyebrow at Yevetta's outburst for Four Winds sake! Yevetta put a talon over her pounding heart, splayed feather's and fur all standing on end like a cat's. "Bei den vier winden." She muttered, trying to regain control of her pulse. "Your work has been acceptable. Here is your pay cheque." Lemon Pink repeated. Still trying to get her painfully thudding heart back under control, Yevetta finally noticed the brown envelope levitating in her boss's inoffensive, pale silver magic. It was levitating right there in her periphery. And she hadn't noticed when it'd gotten there either. Gingerly she plucked the envelope out of the air, avoiding the corner holding it by the silvery glow, and with a talon slit the paper flap open. It was only after she'd suspiciously scanned to the bottom of the unfamiliar pony cheque layout, and confirmed that, yes, it matched her promised pay, that it occurred to Yevetta it might've been rude by pony standards to be doing so in front of her employer. And that she was also expected to say thankyou. Hastily she shoved the cheque under a wing, secretly thrilled inside to have received her first pay day after so long in Equestria, and tried to get out a coherent thank you. "Thanks, er, is much appreciated. I mean, boss. Yeah, Mrs. boss Lemon Pink miss." She snapped her beak shut. There was a too long moment of stilted quiet, filling the dusty empty office between them. Yevetta didn't like it. The dragged out moment of enforced quiet was stifling, like cobwebs settling over her face. Just as she became uncomfortable enough to re-open her beak- "You haven't attempted to skim or steal so far. Well done." Yevetta gaped, then bristled, anger flashing through her from nowhere. Her talons curled, digging up fine lines of sawdust out of the floor, "I. Didn't. Steal. Anything." "Yes. I am aware. I just said so." Lemon did not appear the slightest bit intimidated. Yevetta belatedly recalled the pay cheque under her wing, and also how badly she needed this job, and hurriedly modulated her tone and fervently hoping the grooves she'd clawed into the floorboards had gone unnoticed, "I, yes well, actually how would you even know? I could've for all you know. I haven't, but how would you know? Uh, boss." She added. "I double checked." "You... you double checked?" Yevetta stared. When had-? How? When had the weird unicorn had the time to double-check the books? Or access for that matter? Lemon had never stopped by the office for more than ten minutes during the day, just to look in. The nasty thought that the silent mare had slipped in and back out of the office during the dead of night, while she'd slept on oblivious overhead, made itself known. "Uh... yeah, well I didn't steal nothing." Yevetta finished weakly, neck feathers prickling. "Yes. Your competence is also acceptable, as evidenced by your work. Improvement will come with experience as your Equestrian improves. Again, also acceptable." Lemon stated, and then just stopped talking and let the words hang. The stifling silence descended again. Yet again, Yevetta was just about to open her beak to say anything to cut the silence and was too slow. "If you intend to remain in my employee long term, you will require further training. You may decline this option, but you will be more dispensable and easier to replace if you do." The blunt, unfeeling words were like a slab upside the head. The way Lemon just straight up stated them, all the while looking coldly bored, it was... And those words, "trained", "dispensable", it put Yevetta in mind of a hound. But no, she needed this job, she needed this room and pay. And rationally, she knew her boss must mean 'business' training. Yevetta swallowed her unease, and then her pride next with a harder swallow, and carefully asked; "What kind of training are we talking here?" Lemon Pink didn't even blink. Actually, when had she last blinked? "One working day a week, I will send you to college to study for an accountancy degree. This will be during normal work hours, and no longer. Your pay will not be affected. The course fees will be covered." Yevetta only had to think about it for a few seconds before coming to the conclusion she really didn't want to be the lone griffin in a classroom surrounded by staring ponies. It also only took a few seconds to realise that for the sake of her continued employment, she likewise had to continue doing what the boss wanted. And the boss wanted her to get a pony degree. So she nailed a griffish grin onto her beak, and answered; "Sure thing boss. You just tell me when and where." Holding the grin became a stain as an oppressive silence stretched out between them. Like there were invisible audience of unblinking eyes hiding in the corners of the office, staring, watching. "Very well. You will be informed nearer to the time, then." Lemon finally broke it. Yevetta wasn't sure how she expected the unicorn to leave, but simply walking out of the door was not it. But that's what happened, the door opening and shutting behind her boss's tail without barely a whisper. Lemon Pink had seemingly appeared from nowhere, why shouldn't she disappear similarly too? Powerful horned ponies could teleport, Yevetta knew. Was Lemon Pink not actually powerful? Physical power or mastery mattered a fair amount to griffins. It was a metric you judged both yourself and other griffins by. You had to take pride in your power, as well as defend it. You weren't allowed to falsely brag though, it had to be the truth. Only teenagers and chicks falsely bragged. But... that thought didn't fit Yevetta's feeling on Lemon Pink. She realised that despite now living in Equestria, she in reality knew almost nothing for a fact about pony magic. Just what she'd observed day-to-day, and what she'd been told. 'If she didn't teleport in, then how'd she get inside without me noticing at all?' She thought. Her tail arched and stood on end. She found she disliked that possibility even more somehow. Yevetta didn't manage to get to sleep that night until she'd tied strings of tins and cutlery as a makeshift alarm to the insides of her door's handle and window latches. Yavetta had been working here in Eggs n' Benedict's out of the way office for a month, and she'd just about settled into the daily work routine. Just last week for example, she'd finally managed to get the bank to agree to give her an overnight deposited box, so she could drop off the daily earnings without having to actually go into the bank and queue. She was really sick and tired of the bank teller ponies asking her the full list of the same security questions each and every time, simply because she wasn't a native. Like, she came in every other day. After the first few times, they knew perfectly well who she was. Besides, why did they even care when she was giving them money, not taking it out? As a griffin, Yevetta had stood her ground and loudly demanded to know why right there infront of the teller's counter. She wasn't going to take passive abuse from nobody! But the stuck up manager who'd come over to deal with her had looked down his punchable pony muzzle at her citing, "Rules" and "Moving with the times". Anyway, the point was, Yevetta was just starting to relax, just starting to get comfortable that she was not going to be forced back out onto the street because of something stupid. Lemon Pink didn't care if she was a griffin or a pony, because the pink mare seemed to disdain everyone equally, regardless of race. And then a month in, her boss appeared out of nowhere, (as always), making her nearly die of a heart attack, (as always), and threw her previous routine out the window with both of its wings broken. Yevetta had been working behind the desk on balancing off a customers credit account at the time. She'd looked up, and found her boss standing on the other side of the table. "SKRE-! B-boss lady." Lemon Pink had on her near omni-present short travelling cloak, as well as a completely plain sunhat pushed back and hanging by a string. It was sunny outside, because it was always sunny outside in the capital. Canterlot made it so. Lemon Pink had stepped around the desk, coming up next to Yevetta. She scooted away on her seat from the pink mare before she could stop herself. She wasn't in Yevetta's personal space, but... if she dared to reach out and lay her palm against the mare's nearly unhealthily slender neck, there above the cloaks' thick collar and that silver choker, would the close-cropped pink fur actually be warm? Or cold like a snakes? A jolt had gone through Yevetta, and she had to hastily stop her wings from giving her away as she'd caught a glimpse of a very nasty looking twisted scar on her boss's neck, mostly hidden by mane. "Your pass, induction booklet, and student ID." Lemon said blandly, lightly slapping down a brown paper packet. It was a very precise slap. It didn't touch any of the things Yevetta already had on the desk. Yevetta had hesitated, then picked up the packet and shook out the contents. A sheaf of documents, a brightly coloured poster declaring 'Welcome!', and a rectangular badge on a lanyard with her name stencilled on it slid out. "Your accountancy course starts tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp. Be there early by half-eight. Take a note book and pencils. A packed lunch is optional. You are excused from your normal work duties. Put up the closed sign when you leave in the morning." Lemon Pink had blinked her cold, lifeless eyes down at the seated Yevetta, "Don't be late." The suddenness of finding out you were enrolled to start a course the very next morning wasn't what had destroyed Yevetta's routine, although it had played a part. What had really done it though was turning up at the academy's address the next morning, and discovering just where she'd been enrolled. It was in Upper Canterlot. On a full on, expansive campus. With prestigious educational awards. Full of upper-class unicorns. --- Utterly out of place, with a buffer ring of empty seats on her every side, Yevetta sat at her desk in her first class of 'Tax Law and Higher Business Studies', surrounded by staring unicorns on every side. The classroom was big, bright, white, and sunny. Every person in here, rather every pony in here, was her age or older. She was likely the youngest here. And absolutely, positively, and very, very, very conspicuously, she was the only bird-lion in the whole place. Yevetta's wings were stiff against her sides, and she was having to sit on the end of her tail to keep it from trashing around. All the multi-coloured horn-heads would just Not. Stop. Staring. Or. Muttering! 'I'm not gonna take this.' Yevetta decided. She wasn't going to sit here like some freak show exhibit. She was a griffin! Either she did something about this right here and now, or else she'd be treated as weak by these ponies every time she came back here. Yevetta deliberately slammed her notebook shut and stood up to her full height, head feathers up and wings half-flared to make herself look bigger. She panned her glare around the classroom until one blue unicorn in a very stiff collared shirt made the mistake of not looking away in time. She stalked over to him, the blue unicorn's maybe-friends on the desk's beside him leaning away, leaving him on his own. The whole classroom was watching. He opened his mouth. Yevetta beat him to it: "What're you here for?" She demanded. "The- For the Tax and Higher Business course?" "That a question or an answer?" She shot back. His eyes darted around the classroom furiously, as if to reassure himself he was indeed in the right place. "This is the Tax and Higher Business course. I'm here to take it." "What a coincidence. I'm here to take that exact same course. Is that going to create a problem?" She asked loudly. The stallion's throat bobbed against his still collar, "Everypony's here for the course. Why would there be any problem?" He managed. Yevetta raised her voice for the whole class, "Great. So there isn't going to be a problem. Right? Right?" She waited for five seconds to see if anyone was going to answer her challenge, still standing over the blue unicorn. Nobody did. Predictable. They didn't do head on challenges like real griffins. Ponies just all banded together behind your back and whispered. Yevetta wheeled around with a snort and stalked back to her seat. She tried to lounge casually in her chair. She wasn't sure if she managed it. Why was her heart beating so hard? A greenish mare in an even greener dress two rows ahead of Yevetta's seat, also a horn-head since all the ponies in here were, turned in her seat to give her a look that was probably supposed to be disapproval. "War nicht nötig." She said in poor, badly accented Griffish. ''. Yevetta blinked, and then rolled her eyes. So the mare could speak Griffish? Good for her. Guess what? Yevetta could also speak a foreign language. And her Equish was much better than the green mare's Griffish was. "Du musst an deiner aussprache arbeiten." She dismissed the pony, turning back to the front, ''. Luckily just then, before anybody could say anything further, the door opened and their unicorn professor entered, magically dragging a chalkboard on wheels with them. Then Yevetta was too busy frying her brain with garlic, struggling to keep up and understand the Equestrian business concepts, to focus on anything else. It was challenging and mentally exhausting, and by the end of the day, she barely felt like she had the energy left to fly herself back to the office and her flat. ------ "You confronted and challenged your entire class of peers on your very first day." Yevetta choked on her heart as it sought to leap out of her throat. What, how? How?! How had the pink unicorn even found out? By the Four Winds, could she turn invisible? Was she watching Yevetta's every move? "B-boss lady, you-that's not-You don't..." She felt like a hatchling again, caught red-taloned trying to pilfer jerky from the neighbour's smoke shack, along with that same irrational childish terror she was about to suffer some disproportionately violent punishment. She was... afraid of Lemon Pink. She was afraid of Lemon Pink? She was afraid of Lemon Pink. But-but Yevetta was a griffin, she wasn't supposed to be afraid! She was larger, faster, with claws and talons, she was a predator. Yevetta's pride shrieked in shrill outrage at her. Lemon Pink wasn't a predator or even some sort of trained guard! Yet she was shrinking behind the office desk, as if the flimsy wooden barrier would shield her. Lemon hadn't come any closer though, she was just standing there, staring at Yevetta with that face of stone, waiting for her to answer and condemn herself. On a hunch, or maybe she was just grasping at straws and taking hope where there was none, Yevetta steeled her voice and tried to look her boss in the eye. "I did. Do you care?" She held her breath. It was a shot in the dark. All she knew was what she thought she knew, which could be horribly off target. Lemon Pink's face never so much as twitched, "About your classmates? No. About whether you will be able to study in that environment to complete your degree? Yes." Yevetta let out the breath shakily. She'd been right, thank the Four Winds. Lemon Pink didn't care so long as Yevetta could keep doing her job. "I can, I got it, don't worry boss. I can and will pass my class." Yevetta assured with more confidence than she actually felt. And then, unexpectedly; "If you are being harassed by your fellow classmates, inform me. As your sponsor, I will file a formal complaint with the college faculty." Lemon stated. Yevetta blinked, beak parted. That did not sound like the boss she knew at all. Rather than reassure though, it unnerved her. Lemon wasn't finished though: "However do not expect much to change. Your complaints will almost certainly go ignored by the faculty if they are not serious in nature. You have a choice. Either conform to fit in with your class so as to receive study help, or be shunned and have to study alone. What do you choose?" Yevetta stared, wings slack, dumbstruck. Lemon just said that. She just openly up and said that so bluntly. Lemon Pink had just openly and blatantly acknowledged the discrimination Yevetta had been receiving ever since she arrived in Equestria. Every other pony denied it or got offended for even suggesting they were racist twats. But Lemon Pink just said it. And she was so unfeelingly matter-of-fact about it too. Hearing the blunt truth, it hurt Yevetta a little inside, which made her angry. She already knew this, why did hearing it said out-loud make it worse? She was just being a chick, foolishly hoping. And anyway, where did Lemon Pink get away with saying that? She was a pony herself! But then, Lemon Pink was the only one who'd hired her. And Lemon Pink never pretended or put on an act either, she was always exactly like this. "Well?" Lemon Pink's demand snapped Yevetta out of her turmoil, "What will you choose?" What would she do at the college? Pretend to apologise and blend in? Or turn her back on them and focus completely on her studies. Yevetta narrowed her eyes, lion tail starting to lash. Pretend to fit in a make friends? 'As if!' "I'll pass the course all by myself. I'll do it. Just wait and see." Lemon Pink regarded her, still coldly logical and indifferent, "Good. Now get back to work." It wasn't until later that Yevetta noticed her boss's word choice. 'Good'? Did that mean that was the answer Lemon Pink had wanted to hear? Or was she just imagining it? Probably just imagining it. --- Yevetta received her first letter from back home. It did not contain good news. She'd only sent a few letters back to Griffonia, but this was the first one she'd received back. Before, she hadn't had an address, so her mother hadn't had anywhere to send a letter to. But now she did, and her mother's letter finally arrived. It was over two weeks old, but unfortunately that was to be expected. With the border situation being what it was, getting anything across into or out of Griffonia was slow and difficult at best. At worst, it never arrived at all. Times were tough. Her Ma had told her not to try to send them money, because it wouldn't arrive. It would either be stopped at the border or stolen by the mail carriers if it got across. Yevetta lay on her bed in her flat above the office. The letter lay opened on the rumpled covers in front of her beak. It was quiet. There was barely any street traffic in this little business section of Lower Canterlot. She didn't like this quiet. Back in Griffonia, their family had shared a four story long house with a dozen other squawking, flapping families, built right on the side of the busy main road. Yevetta dragged a claw through her crest feathers and forced out a breath. Her mother's letter had been written on the back of Yevetta's own letter, the Griffish letters small and cramped together. Ma had mostly filled the letter with how her three younger siblings were growing, but there was one line which threw the background into a stark light. "" It was hard to accept, but there was nothing she could do about it. Griffonia was too big for anything she, a young griffin hen, could affect, and what precious little she could personally do from here, her mother had warned her not to try. At least she'd not condemned or blamed Yevetta in her letter for joining Equestria. Although she also knew her Ma would never abandon Griffonia herself. Her Ma loved Griffonia. There was nothing she could do. But she still felt guilty. It was hard, but Yevetta made a conscious decision to not actively look up news about Griffonia anymore. It just made her angry. Two weeks. Three weeks. Then a month. Every week Thursday, Yevetta attended her course at the college to struggle and sweat over learning. However, she often found herself having to spend long hours after work the other four week days continuing with self-directed study, that never failed to spill over into the weekends, least she fall behind in her degree. She resented having to do that, but it wasn't as if she had anything else to spend the hours on. Where would she go? To the pubs and bars? With whom? She had no friends here, no other griffins to talk and joke with. Not even any hobbies. Yevetta made herself still go out flying, to at least keep in some kind of shape, but it wasn't the same, wasn't right. The temperature and weather were all so different, all sunshine and gentleness. And she had nobody to go flying with. She was tired of all the pegasi staring and flying a wide berth around her. Apparently, at least according to all the calendars and outbreak of autumn advertisements, the days were getting colder. Yevetta couldn't really tell the difference. She wasn't feeling the cold. Equestrian winters were about the equvilent of Griffonian summers. And as the month end rolled around, Lemon Pink again made a deposit to keep Eggs n' Benedict afloat, in keeping with the previous trend in the business's ledgers Yevvta had observed. Again, she privately wondered where her boss found the gold, or if she was indeed rich. --- These and other small happenings came and went as the month passed. She continued to work, struggle over studying, and battling with the culture and language. She wasn't going hungry, ate meat, and had enough spare to begin saving some up. When out in Canterlot, Ponies continued to stare or pretend she wasn't there, Equestria continued to be unaffected by Griffonia's bans, and Lemon Pink continued to be an emotionless, cold, and menacing boss. It came as an enormous shock when she met the boss's coltfriend. It had been a day in the quiet office much like any of the rest, approaching five o'clock and closing time, and Yevetta had been beginning to wonder what to have for supper when the unexpected earth pony had come through the door. --- Yevetta looked up at a very polite knocking coming from the office's front door. There was a speckled chestnut coloured stallion outside the front window. He gave an uncertain smile and little wave. Hiding a sigh, she straightened behind the front desk and called; "Please come in." It was really rare that a customer actually came by the office. Mostly, it was done via mail, or, and she was assuming here, by meetings in person with Lemon Pink. Eggs n' Benedict wasn't a shop, it was a contract bulk supplier. It made a few large sales each month, not lots of small individual ones. Not that there was much business to begin with, what with the Griffonian border issue and all. In fact, during her time here, Yevetta'd only actually had to deal with a few customers coming by the office itself. The chestnut pony entered and closed the door behind him. He was very average to Yevetta's eyes. Although, she noticed, he seemed to have a fair bit of earth and dust on his hooves and legs. She would've thought he was a stereotypical earth pony farmer, if they weren't in Canterlot up the side of a mountain. "Good afternoon and welcome to Eggs n' Benedict, sir. May I help you?" Yevetta recited, pretending to be friendly. Huh. She was expecting a flinch or something. He was looking so meek and polite, but also he wasn't looking like he was about to bolt strangely. "Hello, Yevenna is it?" Oh. He knew her name. She wracked her brains, was this stallion a return customer and she'd forgotten? "Almost. It's Yevetta. How can I help you?" "Oh, I won't take up more than a minute of your time. I'm Randy Pickaxe, by the way. I just popped in to ask if Lemon Pink was here?" He enquired, politely glancing around the office as if the emotionless pink unicorn would suddenly appear. Not an impossibility. "I'm afraid she's not. The boss has not been at all today. Why, did you have an appointment?" Randy Pickaxe blinked, then something seemed to click, "Oh! No I'm not here for-I mean, I'm not a customer or anything. I just got off early today at the park, and popped in to maybe see if I could catch Lemon here early." What did any of that have to do with Yevetta? Nothing, that's what, and apparently he wasn't even a customer. This pony with his non-explanations was both annoying her and raising her suspicions. "Sorry, but the boss isn't in. Do you want to leave a message with me to give to her? Not much else I can offer, I'm afraid." "No no, thanks but it's no problem. I'm already meeting with Lemon later. I was just trying to catch up with her early to get dinner first or something." Randy bobbed his head to her, going for the door, "Thanks for your time, enjoy your evening." "W-wait, hold on a moment." Yevetta squawked, before she could think, but this earth pony had just implied something impossible. This normal pony was going out on a dinner date? With Lemon Pink? Yevetta's boss, Lemon Pink? Because just no way. "Um, yes?" Randy hesitated at the door, unsure about her sudden shout. Yevetta tried to calm herself, smoothing her wings back to her sides, "Just, just to check, but how'd you know my boss? Er, Lemon Pink." The brown stallion's face split into a big, stupid grin, "Lemon Pink's my marefriend. I'm a really lucky pony." Yevetta tried to mentally add the image of Randy Pickaxe and Lemon Pink together and came to the answer: 'What?' "Lemon Pink. Thin, pink, really straight mane. Always wear's a cloak. Tallish, bent horn. That Lemon Pink?" She checked. Randy winced a bit, "Her horns nice the way it is." He defended. "What?" "What?" Yevetta waved that confusion away with a talon, "Doesn't matter. Look, pony, you're dating my boss? Are you... is this a new thing?" "New? No. Well, what do you count as new? We've been together for, ooh, nearly two years now. Our anniversary is coming up soon actually. We're both taking the Friday off and going out of Canterlot for a long weekend." Randy said with a happy smile of fond anticipation. Lemon Pink. Taking a day off. Going on a mundane, domestic, romantic anniversary trip. No matter the angle she looked at it, it still came out wrong. It suddenly occurred to Yevetta that she should be being a lot politer to her boss's coltfriend if she wanted to keep her job. She shouldn't push, but this, she just had to know. Like morbid fascination, she just had to poke the dead rat in the gutters to see what happened. She coughed into a closed talon, "Ehem, Mr. Pickaxe, was it-Did the boss tell you about me? Is that why you know my name?" "Why yes, Lemon tells me about some of her work and businesses. She said she'd found a new griffin employee." Businesses, as in, more than one. Well that answered one of her questions. Now a more worrying one, "Did, uh, did the boss say anything about me?" She asked nervously. "Uh, I think she thinks you're a good worker?" Randy offered encouragingly. Yevetta stared, "She said that?" Randy sheepishly glanced away, "Well, Lemon did mentioned you by name. And she didn't say she didn't like you. So for Lemon, that more or less means she likes you. Kinda'?" Yevetta supposed she could see that, if she squinted. Through the bottom of a beer glass. It seemed they both had very different experiences of Lemon Pink. "How did you two meet? If it's not personal, Mr. Pickaxe." "Just Randy is fine, please. I'm not a Mr. or a sir or anything. And we met in the Canterlot park. We'd sit and eat lunch together." Randy smiled, then paused in thought, "Well, technically, only I ate lunch. She was just on lunch." "The... park." Yevetta echoed, not sure if she was getting the whole story. That sounded just too... 'normal'. "Yes, I work in the park. I'm one of the Head Park Gardeners," Randy said, bashful, "Well, I wasn't Head back then, just a normal Park Gardener. I've really had a string of good luck recently." Well that explained the dirt and dust, then. Most ponies in Canterlot that she'd observed seemed to hate the stuff. "It took a while, but we slowly got to talking, knowing each other a bit, and, well, things just went from there I guess. We went out on a couple of dates, and decided it was working, so we became colt and marefriend. I get that to other ponies, Lemon's a bit, uhh, reclusive. Stand-offish? But really, I swear she's very kind when you get to know her. In her own way. She's very, very clever too. She's studied all kinds of magic, you know. Really complicated stuff, too. Lemon's always studying and reading. She's never happier than when she's got a book in her hooves." Randy smiled, gone all misty-eyed. "Really? Like what kinds of magic?" She asked, trying not to show her ignorance. She needn't have worried. Randy was oblivious, "Like university or even mage tower level stuff. Well, she studies it, even if she can't cast it. Probably can't. Anyway, magical research is part of her job, or her other job. But she's got like, a bunch of NDA's she's signed, so she can't tell me the details." "Secret magic research stuff?" Yevetta echoed. It wasn't that she couldn't see it, it was just, what did any of that have to do with running a failing meat and poultry business like Eggs n' Benedict? "Yeah, Lemon has..." Randy slowed, brows drawing together, and seemed to double check what he was about to tell Yevetta first, "...She used to work for a secret boss who ran her ragged, sending her all over Equestria. But she doesn't work for him anymore. Apparently it was really important work, but... hard. Lemon doesn't talk about it. But I think she misses it. Or misses something about it. I'm glad she's retired from that, though. You shouldn't have to put yourself in danger for your job." In a rare moment of self-introspection, Yevetta caught her instinctive demand to know more before it left her beak, and really thought about it before she spoke. Because this? This was prying into her boss's personal life. An unpleasant tingle went down her tail. What would Lemon Pink do if she found out? Although, Randy had just provided her a lot of information to believe she didn't need to be so wary of her boss. Tartarus, if Lemon Pink could fall for some ordinary sap like this stallion, she really mustn't be all that tyrannical, no matter that cold mask she wore. It reassured Yevetta actually, to realise that at least half of Lemon Pink's act was merely a front. In fact, it was a very griffin thing to do. You had to walk the walk on the streets, to look and act tough even if you weren't. Still, Lemon Pink was her boss, and Yevetta needed to remain in her good graces to keep this job. For that sake, she'd better keep acting the same around Lemon Pink not to let on that she she knew, just like you did around older, bigger griffins too. "Thank you very much for sharing that, Randy Pickaxe," She grinned at him, and he only flinched a tiny bit, "I hope you and your bird-er, marefriend have a great night." "Why thanks. It was nice to meet you to, Yevenna. Put a face to the name." "Yevetta." "Sorry, sorry. It was nice to meet you Yevetta. I hope you have a nice night too." Yevetta waved a talon and watched through the window the chestnut stallion trotting off up the street. Feeling a bit more optimistic, and a little less scared about losing her job for no good reason, she closed up the office for the evening and went up stairs to start supper. --- That was how Yavetta met her boss's coltfriend, and came away with a fresh pair of eyes. The next time Lemon Pink came into the office, Yevetta looked on their interactions under a fresh light. It was much nicer to not have to worry if she was doing something wrong all the time, that she could relax a bit. She was even a bit smug, knowing that she was playing along with the act, without her boss realising. Yevetta thought she understood what was going on, thought she finally knew what was what, and thought had a handle on her new life here in pony lands. The cruel world bent down from on high to flick the caterpillar climbing up its grass stalk back down into the dirt, an laughed. --- As a superstition, griffins believed in the number four. Apparently, ponies believed in three, but for griffins, it was four. Good things came in fours. One from each corner of the Four Winds. Likewise, they believed good and bad came in cycles, good luck following bad, and bad following good. In Griffonia, Yevetta had suffered bad fortune. Getting hired here in Equestria had marked the end of her run of bad fortune, and the start of the good. But now all of her good fortune was used up, and it was time to pay back the balance. The first of her four misfortunes seemed to only be a small thing at first. It didn't provide any hint as to the string of bad luck it was preceding, like merely the first falling pebble rattling down the mountain side. Yevetta caught a cold. It was nothing unusual. It was unpleasant, and made everything in your day that much harder than it needed to be, but it was life. You got sick, suffered through it for a week, then got better, and that was that. But the cold meant she was missing sleep, tossing and turning, irritable, red-eyed, with a stuffy head and blocked nose, and had a hard time concentrating on the Equestrian letters and numbers while working. And it was while grumpily suffering the effects of her bad cold, that the second misfortune rolled in. Griffonia, the High and Low Kingdoms both, declared Martial Law as the slowly building civil unrest finally boiled up and overflowed into food riots. The riots weren't in every city, and not where her Ma was living thank the Four Winds, but it was still bad that it happened at all in the first place. The governments of both Low and High Kingdoms took challenges to their authority during this time of already spiralling economical finance very seriously. Yevetta was not a strong patriot, she'd left Griffonia after all, but she still considered herself first and foremost a Griffonian. But she loved her homeland, if not the two kingdoms. The pine forests, the harsh, beautiful mountains, the misty mores and locks. She still felt guilty about leaving, running away really, in search of better prospects. This was not some small political posturing like the Low and High Kingdoms usually did. It was big, it was shocking, and the knock on effect was more than likely going to ruin the lives of the few griffins she really cared about back in Griffonia. That being her Ma, and her three younger siblings. Yevetta had not felt like a traitor before. She'd merely been looking out for number one. But now... Now she had a twisting in her gut, and a weight on her neck, and it had nothing to do with her head cold. Which just made her angry. Which in turn, made her all the more confused, frustrated, and sad. The bad news affected her in things she didn't expect it to, in little ways she hadn't foreseen. Her already restless nights became all the more so. She caught herself just staring at her breakfast, not eating. Or flying into a rage and cursing with truly foul language at the kitchen sink when it played up again even slightly. She made stupid bookkeeping mistakes one after the next, and had to spend painstaking hours struggling to concentrate going over her own work to find and correct them. Yevetta hated this, the way the news was infecting her whole new life with its taint. She was so incredibly homesick. The whiney emotion violently hitting her all at once for the first time. Before, she'd been fine and hadn't cared. But now that she was sick and worried for her mum and family, she couldn't shake the pining. And then hot on this second misfortune's tail, ploughing right in before she'd even begun to fully process it, came the third. Cruel and spiteful in form, the third misfortune waited until her back was turned, before it struck. She was trying to manage to stay on top of her business studies, while suffering cold and being constantly distracted worrying over what was going to happen back home in Griffonia, when they were served up with a group project. A group project with her pony classmates. The ones she'd already rejected. What was more, it was a mandatory project, worth one fifth of her overall passing grade. She didn't have a choice if she wanted to pass her course, she had to complete the project. The kick in the beak though was that the groups weren't assigned. You had to form them yourselves. In the scramble that followed, Yevetta was left alone at her desk, the outsider and with no partner. Every group pretended they didn't see her yellow glare when she looked around the classroom, Yevetta even approached the professor after the day finished to ask if she could instead do the project solo, no matter how difficult that would be. The unicorn professor had sniffed, and with rather too much glee, informed her that the minimum group size was three. "Business is a cut-throat business. If you're not a go-getter, perhaps you're on the wrong course." He'd sniffed at her, and then told her to leave as class was finished and he was busy. Which was just more horseapples, as the professor always had extra time for his normal pony students. Yevetta was plucked. She literally could not pass the course without joining a group. And no group would let her join. She'd flapped home to the apartment with its temperamental plumbing, coughing, nose running, and shivering the whole way, with a half-baked plan to blackmail the professor into letting her work alone once she could just think clearly without fever and tiredness muddying her thoughts. However when she finally fumbled the key into the lock and stumbled inside, all she really cared about was her nest bed and getting some sleep. She pulled the blankets over her head, and lay lightly shivering and coughing until sleep reluctantly came. --- Did she wake? 'Is this awake?' Stiflingly hot. Sweating. The air against her face felt like a sticky oven. If this was awake, it sure didn't feel like it. Too hazy. Too black. Her grainy eyelids too heavy to lift. It was too hot, and her throat was too dry. Painfully so. Her head was pounding, but in a dull, far off way. She didn't like it. She didn't like this... This. This blackness, this wet, panting heat. Was this awake? Yevetta opened her eyes. Then realised they'd already been open, and staring into the impenetrable darkness. But with the thudding in her skull, she wasn't sure of anything right now. So she tried opening her eyes again. If anything, the cloying blackness pressed in even closer, sticking to her sweat dampened feathers. This was her room, right? Wasn't it? She tried to focus through the pounding, fumbling blindly for the answer. It was slow in coming. '...Yes.' Yes, that's right. The apartment. Her nest bed. It was the dead of night. Her throat was dry, her head was hurting, and she couldn't make out the pillow her head was lying on. That realisation finally broke through her slowly boiling mind; She couldn't see her pillow it was so black. Her limp feathers stood up. 'Can't see. Blind? I'm so sick I've gone blind!' Yevetta jerked bolt upright, the suddenly smothering blanket sliding off her back. She jerked her head around wildly in the dark. But nothing. No room, no walls, no nothing. She was floating in a sea of black. She couldn't even see her own beak on her face. She tried to breathe evenly. But her throat was cracking with dryness. Her head was thumping. And it was so stiflingly hot. So hot she might suffocate if she didn't get the window open. She couldn't see it, but it had to be over that way. Yevetta didn't move. She didn't dare extend a single talon out from the safe island of the mattress. She couldn't see the floor. Maybe because there wasn't a floor any longer. Maybe the floor was gone. Maybe it was now a sucking black ooze. It was so hot in the darkness. Sticky, panting wet heat. Yet her throat was so painfully dry and sore. It was black. But it wasn't silent. There was a noise Yevetta had been hearing. Was it really a noise? She couldn't place it though, it was so very, very faint. Like, like the softest tapping...? Or maybe more like flicking? Muffled behind cloth, maybe. Yes, yes that was it. The softest *thwip* of a light flick against cloth. *thwip-tap...* *thwiiip-tap...* Where was it coming from? The horrible thought that it was coming from somewhere on the bed sized her. Yevetta hurled the blanket away in a frenzy and flung it off the bed, certain whatever giant spider or thing that was on the blanket would be hurled off too. She didn't hear the blanket land. The pressing blackness just swallowed it whole. The light rhythmic tapping kept on going. Yevetta breathed out, her chest tight. Good. That was good. The noise hadn't been interrupted by her throw. That meant it was probably coming from somewhere outside. 'Or from downstairs.' The unwanted thought crept in. All her relief strangled as her too-tight chest sized up again. *thwiiip-tap...* *thwip-tap...* Yevetta struggled to think. Her head ached, her throat ached, her neck ached, her eyes ached, even her tail ached. Thinking was a struggle through hot molasse. 'Lemon Pink...?' Was that it, her boss, downstairs for a midnight visit? It had to be. Yes, it had to be. She tried to say the name out loud, to make it real. Her beak moved. Just a silent whisper came out. She choked down a dry swallow, tried again. ".... ..'ink." Her throat was too dry. She didn't want to disturb the darkness. Didn't want to draw attention to herself crouched on the bed. Ridiculous. She knew that. There was nothing in here with her. Everyone knew that there was no monster under the bed, just as everyone knew it was all in your head. She knew she was alone in the black bedroom. She hoped. *thwiiip-tap...* *thwip-tap...* 'It's Lemon Pink downstairs. Come to secretly check the books again. That noise is her turning pages. Pages. That's all.' And the blackness and fever hot room, that was just because she was sick and exhausted. It was just Lemon Pink. Yevetta was just sick. It was just a lingering nightmare. A bad dream. Illness. An overactive imagination. That was all. *thwip-tap...* *thwiiip-tap...* *thwip-tap...* All of a sudden, Yevetta remembered the candle lamp on the bedside table. She couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. Light and safety. With clumsy haste, she reached out in the dark. And snatched her talons back at the last second, biting down a whimper. Lean out over the bed? Stick her talons out into the empty blackness, passed the safety boundary of the bed? No. She couldn't. Wet breath on her leathery palm, like the hot darkness was waiting with stretched wide open jaws trembling with eagerness for her arm. But the lamp was just there. If she could just make herself reach it-! Before she could fully process what she was doing, Yevetta shot her claw out to where the low bedside table was. Where? Where?! She fumbled about, swinging her talons around and- -And knocked the lamp onto the floor. Yevetta let out a chocked keening, snatching back her talons. She huddled there on the bed, blind, afraid, sweating and shivering in the grips of the fever. Now what? Now what? Rattling around and around in her pounding head. Now what? And still that soft, muffled tappity-tap-tapping sliding along the very edge of her hearing. Now what? Now what? Now what now what-now-what-now-what? It was so, so stiflingly, chokingly hot. Too dry to swallow. Too dark to see. Too afraid to leave. Now what?! 'Matches!' The matches meant to light the candle. Those were there too, also on the bedside table. Slowly, shakingly, she stretched out her claw, flinching and prepared to snatch it back, panicked that she'd destroy her last chance for light. Thin wood. Hard table top. Fumbling her claws blindly over its surface. The corner, an edge, too far, go back. Feel around. Please, where was it? Her pinkie-talon scuffed the cardboard box. Yevetta snatched back her talons, clutching the match box safely to her breast feathers. She was breathing too hard, too harshly. Tight, like her head, the band around her chest was painfully tight. She slid open the match box-It was upside down. All the matchsticks tumbled onto the bed, lost in the dark. But she could still feel, she could still find them, pinch one up, get the matchbox the right way around, strike it too hard- *Snap* The splinter of wood snapped. She dropped it and scrabbled for another one. Rush, she had to rush. Something invisible in the blackness was counting down. Getting closer. She could feel it! *Snap* Yevetta hiccupped. No, no, stop fumbling. Work! Work like talons, not fat pony hooves! *Ssscratch* *Ssscratch* *Sss-Snap* Something didn't want her to light a match. Something wasn't letting her. An awful crawling stole up her neck. It leaned out of the darkness, almost right on top of her now. Her talons were shaking too much, she couldn't even make a proper strike. *Ss-Ss-cr-sc-ssc* *Sccc-scrr-craaa-* *S-S-Ss-* *Snap* 'Please. Bitte.' *Snap* Somewhere in the blackness, she heard the door opened. *Snap!* 'Vater der Winde, beschütze dieses jungtier.' It had stopped. Silent. The ticking-tap had ceased. Yevetta did not register, did not feel, did not remember raising the next shaking match or striking it. Only realised when it too broke. *Snap* The pieces dropped from her nerveless talons. Hot. Hot on her face, hot on her feathers, and burning in her frozen lungs. She couldn't see what was standing at the foot of the bed. Couldn't see what could see her. One more match, the last match she would have time for. Yevetta prayed. She prayed with all her heart. She couldn't even put words or a name to what she prayed for. She just prayed, and struck the match. *snap* The matchbox was abruptly pulled from her talons. Something in the darkness at the foot of her bed began to strike a match. Unhurried, methodical. *Ssscratch.* *Ssscratch.* *Ssscratch.* Yevetta had prayed so desperately for a spark of light. Now she prayed for anything but. Please, don't let it light. Please, don't let the match light. *Ssscratch.* *Ssscratch.* *Sss-Fwuush!* Flare. Pain shooting into her eyes. A spark, a flame of light. The rearing shadows suddenly given terrible solid blackness and definition. You're not afraid of being alone in the dark. You're afraid you aren't. Yevetta didn't want to see. She didn't want to seeDidn'tWantToSeeDidn'tSeeDidn'tSee! It was Lemon Pink. It was her thin face. Her curved spiral horn. Her faint silvery telekinetic aura, her pink fur, and her razor straight waterfall mane. The air whoosed into Yevetta's lungs in a collapsing gasp. And then it caught and froze in a choke, the single instant of fainting relief peeling away like a second skin. The tiny match flame didn't banish the dark. It just made it all the more solid. The wavering sphere of light only stretched wide enough to reveal Lemon Pink's head. Just the head. Awful certainty sunk its claws into Yevetta's chest, about the rest of the shadowed body her watering eyes couldn't see. It was Lemon Pink's head. It was the same sallow cheeks covered by light, pink fur. It was her same blank, limpet-like indigo eyes. But that was it. Just the head. The cold lips parted, and Yevetta was too terrified to even scream as she cringed in anticipation of the dead tongue to spill out, of rotting grave breath, of darkness or tendrils or teeth. "Unfortunate. You should not be awake tonight." Lemon's words weren't cold. They weren't flat. They were just the reiteration of a fact. Not-Lemon Pink wasn't looking at Yevetta. She was looking straight through Yevetta, "Stay in your bed. Don't come down the stairs. For your own good." Lemon's eyes swivelled all the way to the side in her skull, looking towards something Yevetta couldn't see. "I have an important guest I'm entertaining. Don't disturb us." She blew out the match, and the darkness rushed back in. "N-!" Too late. Frozen there inside the pounding blackness in her own skull, the wafting of sour smoke lightly touched her. Invisible, it languidly crept across her face, featherlight and smothering. Lemon's voice, if it ever really had been Lemon standing there at the foot of her bed, was a soft. The sing-song tone of someone trying not to wake a sleeping chick: "~Now sow up your beak, and go to sleep. You need your rest." Yevetta stared blindly into the waiting darkness. Because she hadn't heard the door close. Because she hadn't heard Lemon Pink leave. Because she was afraid she hadn't returned to being alone. Somewhere, the soft, flickering tap-tap-tapping crept back in. "Bitte..." Her beak silently mouthed into the dark. ''. "Bitte bitte bitte bitte bitte bitte bitte-" Yevetta woke up. She was lying on her front, lion tail curled up around her tucked in hind paws. There was light coming in under the drawn curtains. She could actually see. There were no blinding shadows. Her snotty cold hadn't left, and her throat was so painfully dry she didn't dare to swallow, but the head-pounding fever had finally broken. She felt wrung out and yet also strangely clear. The blanket was half spread over her back. Yevetta turned her head back and stared uncomprehendingly. Jerkily, painfully, she turned her head to the little bedside table. The stubby wax candle set in its little lamp holder sat on the bedside table as if it always had been. Her chest heaved in and out. Confusion, relief. And fear that this was all a horrible trap. But that's what nightmares did. Exhausted, sick, and riding a high fever, her traitorous mind could have conjured it all up. Had any of it been real? Relief turned her muscles to jelly. Her head dropped back into the sweaty pillow with a groan. She felt like she could sleep for another entire day. Something small and sharp poked her, stuck in her breast feathers. Yevetta wormed a paw between her chest and the mattress, and combed around with her talons until she managed to snag it. She brought whatever it was up into her eyeline, resting on the pillow. It was the broken half of a splintered match. Yevetta pushed herself upright onto her haunches so fast her vision darkened and swam. She flapped, casting the blanket off her back, scrabbling around on the mattress. The scattered remains of a clawful of snapped and broken matches lay beneath her. She wheezed as her chest constricted, beak clenched as her face muscles went ridged. No. Wait wait wait. Pause, think about this logically first. This was just more evidence of it having been a half dream. That was the only thing that made sense. Delirious, fevered, she must've been unconsciously imitating the actions undertaken while in her nightmare. That of striking matches. In fact, she was very, very lucky that in her addled state, she hadn't managed to actually strike a light in the end. She could've set the whole building on fire! Yevetta started breathing shakily yet again. She couldn't take another one of these heart attacks. She stayed crouched on the bed for a long time, just taking deep, calming breaths and revelling in the sunlight. The previous bouts of misfortune suddenly didn't seem so bad, in retrospect. She was still alive, wasn't she? After she finally got up, Yevetta bundled up the sweat soaked sheets to wash and hang up later. Even that light effort left her tired. She didn't have any appetite either, picking listlessly at her breakfast, but forced the whole bowl down her beak, because she knew she'd need her strength. Then, at opening time, Yevetta shuffled downstairs to open the office. She ended up standing in the open doorway, eyes closed and face tilted up into the morning sun, the brisk morning air pleasantly ruffling her head feathers. The wonderful bright sun. Yevetta hadn't ever considered it deeply before, but it suddenly made sense to her why so many ponies in Canterlot worshipped Princess Celestia and her light. And also why they didn't like Princess Luna's night and the darkness it brought. --- Daylight couldn't quite banish all of her feverish memories, however. It might just have been a particularly vivid nightmare, but no matter how she repeated that, a part of it still lingered. And that part was the exact same height, breadth, and depth and her boss. Lemon Pink. It had just been a nightmare, and indeed the Lemon Pink in her nightmare hadn't even actually done anything in the end, but... But... But now Lemon Pink was back to occupying the place in her head from before she'd spoken to Randy Pickaxe, with Yevetta jumping every time the thin, pink mare opened her mouth. Yevetta couldn't quite shake it. She couldn't stop momentarily tensing every single time her boss looked over, or internally cringing every time she heard that flat, emotionless tone. It was the little thoughts, the worming whispers, the silent ponderings in the back of your mind while the rest of your brain was occupied. They were the rare second thoughts which watched your first thoughts. Thoughts like; 'It wasn't real, but if it was, what sort of 'guest' could Lemon Pink've been entertaining?' Or, 'It was pitch black. How did she see in the dark?', Or worse, 'If that was the case, how did she even know I was awake in the first place?' But since it hadn't been real, she was just being a scaredy-cat. It rankled Yevetta that she couldn't just get over the stupid nightmare immediately. She was a strong, independent griffin! Adults weren't scared of make-belief dangers, there were plenty of real-world one's to worry about instead. Like having a roof over your head, or where your next meal was coming from. 'So you had a fright. Big whoop. Grow some feathers and get over it, pussy-cat.' But much to Yevetta's frustration and private shame, it was going to take time to shake out the lingering roots of this fear. --- Yevetta swallowed her pride in the end, and wrote a letter to the college faculty about not being allowed to pass the business course without a group, but not having any group to join. Going above her teacher's head felt like snitching, and as the saying went on the streets back in Griffonia; "Snitches get stitches." Here though in Equestria, it worked, and the faculty made her stuffy unicorn teacher assign her to one of the already formed groups, albeit grudgingly and with poor grace. There was nothing Yevetta could do about the deteriorating economic situation back in Griffonia, though. It was too large a problem for her to even comprehend. Her Ma's latest letter told her not to come back. She wrote that Yevetta had gotten out just in time, and to make something of herself over in Equestria with the golden opportunities she'd been given. On the crumpled, cheap letter paper, she'd written; "This isn't your fault, and not your responsibility." Yevetta struggled to put words to paper in her letter back. What were you supposed to say to any of that? When your mother told you not to come home because it wasn't safe? It made her feel like even more of a traitor, which was so much worse than being a mere snitch. The problem of her nasty cold passed as colds did, you unfortunately just had to endure though them. However the lingering effects of the last, fourth misfortune she'd suffered, Yevetta wasn't quite so swift to shake off. It wasn't that she did not want to, it was that she didn't seem able to. The immediate fear which came after that feverish nightmare had faded, but she couldn't shake her new fear of Lemon Pink. Or was it the same old original discomfort of her boss, just now established? Yevetta didn't want to go back to flinching and being scared of a pony again. She shouldn't have to be scared, she was a griffin. A griffin flew above their fears. Especially when it was an irrational fear! Why, when she'd been a chick, she'd had a dumb fear about pulling water from their street's well in case she fell in. It came to a head when she refused to complete her daily chores when it was her turn to fetch the water. Her Ma had sat her down, explained it, tied a rope around her middle to be safe, and then pushed her into the well. And what did you know? The well wasn't nearly as deep as it looked from above. What was more, it wasn't some bottomless hole, she could actually touch the bottom if she ducked her head. And lastly, that even if she couldn't spread her wings to fly out, finding purchase with her talons and claws to climb back out was relatively easy. Once out, she'd shaken herself off, and felt silly. Of course, the other griffin families on their street had been less than pleased about a fledgling polluting their daily water. Now that was a much more rational fear. So Yevetta decided to stop sitting on her tail and be proactive in defeating her newest irrational fear. --- The Eggs n' Benedict office was only open for a few hours in the morning on Saturdays. So after closing up and locking the front door, she took herself off to Canterlot park in search of answers. Which really meant in search of the earth pony, Randy Pickaxe. Because someone seemingly so scary as Lemon Pink couldn't have a stallion so inoffensive and normal as Randy Pickaxe as a coltfriend, and it was that very realisation which'd dissolved her fears about Lemon Pink the first time around. So now, she aimed to repeat that feat a second time. When he'd come to the office that day, Randy had said he was employed as a gardener at the park. So that's where Yevetta went, beating her wings against the very slight wind towards the park. Here in Equestria, there was barely ever any strong weather which wasn't intentional. A slight head wind was about the extent of what Cloudsdale's weather teams were prepared to permit without their express permission. From up in the sky, finding the park was always easy. The big flat sprawling patch of green and trees stood out from the rest of Canterlot's roads and roofs in a way that only fliers with an arial view could appreciate. She went into a long, swooping dive to land in the park, ignoring the pegasi who got far, far out of her way. The park's lush grass was all cut in neat rows, the path edges all just as cleanly squared away. Yevetta looked around as she folded her wings, and realised the park was much bigger and more sprawling than she'd thought. There were flowerbeds and sparkling ponds, benches and picnic areas, meandering tree shaded pathways, and an open playground area for foals. Yevetta scowled in irritation. Great. Now she was going to have to trek all over the park looking for Randy Pickaxe, who might not even be working today for all she knew. She started stalking down the closest path, yellow eagle eyes peeled for any park gardeners in uniform. Even if they weren't Randy Pickaxe, she could still demand to know if he was here this morning or not. --- As luck would have it, Randy Pickaxe was here today. He recognised her first though, not the other way around, and he cantered over. Well, she was one of the few griffins in Canterlot, so maybe it wasn't surprising now that she thought about it for a second. Still didn't explain why, then, that he wasn't all nervous and jumpy around her like the rest of the stuck-up pony population. Randy was wearing the earth stained, green and brown park gardener's overalls, with a bucket half-filled with dirt encrusted trowels, forks, and shears balanced on his back. "Hello there, miss Yevetta. Nice to see you're enjoying the park." He greeted her cheerily. He at least got her name right this time. "Aren't you supposed to be working?" She asked reflexively. Randy grinned sheepishly, "Ah, I can spare five minutes? But I see you're busy, so I'll not disturb your walk, miss. Have a good morning-" "Hold on!" She quickly called him back, "I was just saying, are you allowed to just stop working and talk to people?" "We're here to manage the park, and also help all of the park users. That means if anypony needs help or just wants to talk, we're happy to help." He turned back, seemingly unperturbed by her brusqueness. Yevetta paused and reminded herself why she was here. She wanted answers about Lemon from Randy. That meant being polite and not making him suspicious by rushing into questioning. "Ah, got it. I did not know you worked today. Or that you worked at this park." She added, as she belatedly remembered that Canterlot had more than one public park. This one just happened to be the largest. "Yep, I've been a park gardener for going on nearly four years now. It's a great job, and I'm lucky to have it." "Yes, I think you said something about that last time. You said you met Lemon Pink here in the park too, yes?" Not her smoothest transition, but if it worked, it worked. "Oh yes. I can show you the very bench, actually. It's just down this path over here." Yevetta briefly pretended to care and followed his pointing dirt scuffed hoof, "That's nice. Say, since you have five minutes, I have a few questions about my boss actually." Randy's brows drew together briefly speculatively, but then he was all open earnestness once again, "Sure, as long as it's, uh, nothing embarrassing, I'll try my best." She caught her tail before it could swish in satisfaction. So far, so good. Hopefully this would continue going so easily. There was one question Yevetta absolutely wanted to get a definite answer on, but she should ease into that one a bit more first. For now, she'd let Randy ramble for a bit. Yeah, that sounded like a smart plan. She settled her wings more comfortably at her sides, "Okay then. Like, what is Lemon Pink's favourite colour?" --- As it turned out, the answer to that inane question wasn't pink. It was white. A very sterile and inexpressive choice. "It used to be midnight blue, but she changed her mind." Randy had told her. Which didn't signify anything to Yevetta. Randy Pickaxe's favourite colour was, to her non-existent surprise, brown. And when he'd politely asked her in turn what hers' was, she answered red. Other questions and answers followed. You could pick up a lot of gossip from a chatty pony in a very short space of time, and Randy Pickaxe was no exception to the rule. He, like ponies everywhere, loved to talk about his life. And his life seemed to be Lemon Pink. Or at least a lot of it was. Which was fine, because that's what Yevetta had come to learn about, after all. Such as the fact that her boss was an orphan. Yevetta had already gotten the feeling that Lemon Pink didn't have any family, but Randy had confirmed it. What Yevetta hadn't thought about though, was what it meant. As in, Lemon Pink's family hadn't tragically died recently, she'd never even known them at all. She'd grown up from a young foal in a pony orphanage, never knowing any parents or grandparents. For some reason, Yevetta felt that explained quite a few things. Yevetta also found herself learning a lot of useless trivia about her pink boss; such as that Lemon had a love for spicy food, just like Randy apparently did too. Or that she religiously kept and tended to a large window garden collection of potted-plants and herbs every morning. "Some of them are from all over the world. Why, she's got this one funny plant from Zebrican that snaps at your hoof if you poke it." Randy had said. He'd also said that Lemon enjoyed violin music, but hated dancing. She found the idea of taking a day off weird, and was apparently unbeatable at monopoly. "What about you? What music do you like?" Randy had asked her. "Oh, this and that. Nothing in particular." She'd deflected, and turned the conversation back to learning more of what she could about Lemon Pink: "How about other friends? Is there anyone who she'd invite around as a guest, for example?" Randy had blinked at her, nonplussed, "Uhh, me?" He suggested. "You of course, of course. But how about anyone else? Any other guests?" She emphasized. The park gardener had rubbed a dusty hoof under his chin, not minding the dirt he left behind, "Well, yes I suppose. There's a couple of ponies..." He'd hedged. When Yevetta had tried to press him for a name though, Randy had grown uncomfortable and tried to deflect. She'd been about to press him harder, before remembering she needed to stay on her boss's coltfriend's good side, and reigned back her impulse, reluctantly letting Randy change the topic. "She's just now taken up a fascination with painting, actually. I like it, it means we get to try out painting picture's together. Neither of us are very good yet." Randy confessed wryly, "Although, Lemon could probably be better at it than me, but she's insisting on painting with her magic." "So?" Yevetta had asked, not understanding. "Like, painting with her magic aura. Not with a brush at all, actually holding the paint in her magic. Something about trying to imbue the magic into the final picture? But hey, it's just for fun." Randy had shrugged, and proceeded to tell her unprompted about the time he'd taken his marefriend to the Summer Sun Celebration here in Canterlot. Lemon had ended up getting them so deeply into playing the fair stands, that they'd missed the actual grand event, and not even gotten to see Princess Celestia. "Lemon was taking it slow, taking her time each game. Then there was this hoop toss game, you know, with a big stuffed animal toy prize. Lemon just sort of stopped and stared at it, which was weird, but so I asked her if she wanted it. Of course, she said 'No', but I thought she really did. After all, isn't that what mare and colt friends do at fairground stalls? She pretends no, he thinks that this is his chance to be a true gentlecolt, and proves he's incompetent by wasting all his bits on tickets on a rigged game instead." Randy had laughed, sounding genuinely delighted. "And? Did you win?" Yevetta asked, momentarily drawn despite herself. "Of course not. I'm pretty sure the game was rigged, remember?" Randy grinned, not sounding overly put out over being cheated. She'd raised her feathered brows, "So then why...?" "Because it was so, so, so funny. There I was missing every shot, laughing so hard I couldn't even throw straight, because I was the exact stereotype like in every story ever, and Lemon had this disbelieving look on her face, and just the whole thing was so un-serious, and then the sun had risen and we, or I, had been laughing so hard we'd missed it, and the whole thing was just the dumbest." "Huh. What was the stuffed animal?" Yevetta asked, unable to think of any other question. "For the life of me, I can't remember now actually. What was it? I think, maybe, hmm, a white fluffy dog? No, wait, a white kitty-cat. No, that's not right either." Randy had trailed off into thought, frowning, but hadn't been able to recall what the stuffed prize which had started the whole frankly stupid sounding affair in the first place. Well, she'd asked, but she didn't actually really care about the answer. She'd just been being polite. Randy sounded happy and secure in his relationship with Lemon Pink though, which was surprising to Yevetta. It just wasn't she'd envisioned. There was none of the nervous tension in Randy that she personally felt whenever Lemon Pink's cold eyes fell on her. But wasn't this exactly what she was hoping for? To be reassured and convinced again that Lemon Pink was really a normal pony underneath it all, and not some kind of psycho? Yet there was still just this disconnect between Randy's Lemon Pink, and her boss Lemon Pink. She couldn't fit the two halves together no matter how she turned the pieces over in her head. But it was something at least. No one as oblivious and dense as Randy could be the coltfriend of someone who truly didn't have a heart. She'd flown to the park to get some reassurance, and she'd gotten some. So, mission accomplished. Now that she'd got her answer, she just had to complete the difficult task of disentangling herself from a conversation with an enthusiastic sharing pony where she'd initiated. An undertaking even harder than it sounded. --- Yevetta banged her head on the underside of the sink, dropped the wrench, jerked back, swore, got water in her eyes, swore again, and then spent a minute clutching her talons to her head, trying to breathe evenly while repeatedly reminding herself that she was a big griffin, and wasn't allowed to whimper or cry. She was in the apartment, her apartment really, struggling around with the pipes in the dusty gloom of the too small cupboard beneath the sink. She was tired of fighting with the buildings water pressure. It was always a dice roll whenever you turned on the tap whether you'd get a normal water flow, a bare trickle, or a high powered blast which left you with a face full of wet feathers. That wasn't a too big of an ask, was it? This was Canterlot, center of learning and wisdom, right? She just wanted reliable running hot water. Yevetta had thought it'd be a simple task of maybe tightening some gaskets or something, which was why she'd decided she could do it herself. She now regretted ever picking up the hateful wrench. The tool she should've gone for was the hammer, so as to turn the tin sink into the pile of scrap it rightfully deserved to be. Coming from somewhere from deep within the pipes, the sink belched out a gurgle at her efforts. A long, drawn out *sloooooop-suck* Yevetta threw up her talons, wet feathers bristling, "Pluck it! I'm done. Done! Vier Winde können es saugen!" At her back, the sink let out another sucking gurgle, louder this time. *Sllloooop-SUK* Like talons drawn over slate, it got an entirely instinctive shiver of disgust out of Yevetta. She whipped back around to eye the sink warily: "If you explode, I swear to the Four Winds-!" *Sllloooop-SSUUKKKK* Yevetta backed up before she caught herself. She glared at the inanimate tin sink. It was empty, no black gunk bubbling out, but that had been far too loud for her peace of mind. Mentioning her mind... There was a thought flapping around in the back of it, trying to get her attention. She was not any sort of expert, but the sloshing sucking noise had sounded almost like something moving in the pipes, pushing the water before it. Yevetta's eyes narrowed into slits, thinking hard. Were there... snakes in Canterlot? She didn't think so, or at least not many. Not up here at the top of a mountain. Not when ponies so tightly clamped down on pests. Yevetta couldn't help herself. Morbid fascination made her lean over the dark plug hole, trying to see anything down there. She wasn't stupid, she kept her head craned back as high as she could, ready to dart back, but she just had to look. Anti-climatically, nothing shot out to grab her beak, and it was too black to see anything down the pipe. Just a wet glistening of cold water around the ring, the shadow of the pipe, and black. Then the black squirmed into something rubbery and long. Yevetta ran out of the door, leaving claw gouges in the floorboards and bristling wings nearly getting caught on the doorframe. She came back half and hour later, and poured the entire bottle of bleach she'd bought down the sink. That should kill it. Whatever it was. She hoped. Yevetta fervently promised herself to hammer home the plug before she went to bed every night from now on. She giggled, sounding a bit unhinged even in her own ears. "Of course my flat would be haunted, of course it would! Why not, right? Hah hah." Yevetta didn't really believe that, ghost stories were just that, stories. It'd almost certainly been something completely logical such as... nothing was coming to mind. But something logical! Not... some horrible sewer pipe monster, or what have you. So she told herself repeatedly. Yevetta already had enough sleepless nights of worry, and she was barely out of her teenage years. It wasn't right. She shouldn't have to go to sleep scared. "Debit the corporate tax account... carry the five over... then credit the income account..." Yevettta muttered out loud to help keep track as she bent over the page. She had a slow building headache from concentrating so hard for so long, blooming behind her eyes. "Then make double sure... mark as received, add the cheque to the bag... file the remittance..." Yevatta worked until it was finally finished, dropping the quill and slumping back with an explosive sigh. "Please remain seated and quiet until everypony else has finished their own test." The examiner told her coolly, not impressed. Yevetta didn't reply, just linking her talons together and stretching them above her head until they popped. She let out a sigh of relief. Done. Finally done! She'd been staying up late cramming every night for the last fortnight just for this test, worrying over if she'd be able to remember all the correct Equestrian terms and rules on the day. Yevetta was... 'reasonably' confident she'd passed. Unless the pony examiner decided to be a racist chicken and fail her on purpose, she should pass. 'Just one more of these exams to sit at the end of the year, and then I'm done.' Yevetta encouraged herself. Really, she hadn't expected this business course to be quite so hard when she'd told Lemon Pink she'd go. Hard yes, she was a griffin in a pony school speaking a second language after all, but not this hard. Her chest warmed at the thought of sticking it to all those stuck up goodie-goodie two-shoe pony teachers who'd thought she couldn't manage it. Take that! She'd made her own place here in Equestria, taken it with her own talons, and ain't nobody was going to taker it back from her. Maybe she'd even be able to get a raise once she passed this course? Maybe. That would involve asking Lemon Pink for one though... Yevetta hesitated at the thought. But she'd never get anywhere if she didn't stand up for herself. She was a griffin, it came with the territory. Yet even so... Lemon Pink. She was back to being wary of her thin, severe boss. Not scared any longer, but not back to being fully comfortable with either. Because it was Lemon Pink, and Lemon Pink was Lemon Pink. Yevetta promised herself she'd think more about asking for that raise when she actually passed the course. She could delay thinking about it until then. She hadn't actually been seeing much of the boss lately. Or even less than usual, that is. Yevetta pondered about that as she sat at her exam desk, since she had nothing better to do until the examiner allowed them to leave. Randy Pickaxe had said his marefriend was into a number of businesses and research, so Lemon was probably busy with one of those. Yevetta wondered which poor shmuck Lemon Pink had doing those business's books, since it wasn't Yevetta. Or what those businesses might even be? More to do with meat and poultry supply maybe? But no, Lemon Pink was making money somehow, and with Griffonia shutting Equestria out, that made turning over a profit impossible, as evidenced by Eggs n' Benedict's own losses each month which Lemon Pink had to cover. She had to be getting that money from somewhere else, somewhere more successful. This wasn't the first time Yevetta had wondered what else Lemon Pink did when she wasn't appearing out of nowhere in the office, but just like those times before, Yevetta had to bite her beak and resign herself to the unknown. 'I could see her working as some sort of high court judge or something, actually. She never smiles, and is as grim as death all the time, she'd fit right in.' Yevetta stifled a chuckle to herself. She continued daydreaming until the big clock on the wall finally ticked over onto the hour, and the unicorn examiner finally called out; "Quills down", and they were allowed to file out. Back out on the street, Yevetta stretched, ignoring the other examinee's who parted around her, and gave her wings a few flaps to warm them up. Yevetta couldn't help but take an extra few seconds before take of though eyeing the shield in the sky. Translucent, a pale purple-pinkish, and so high up it was like a paper film viewed from this distance. It was so wide, so all encompassing, that the shield's curve almost appeared straight it was so gradual. Yevetta had spied shimmering ripples, like water droplets onto a ponds surface, as the distant specks of birds flew into the pinkish magical barrier and rebounded. And it encircled the entire city. The literal entirety of Canterlot! It had been up for four days now, and Yevetta was still just as boggled by the sheer size as day one. How many teams of unicorns were they having to use to keep this shield up? Hundreds, surely. Or maybe it was just Princess Celestia doing it herself. Or her lesser sister, Yevetta supposed. Yevetta also didn't know what the giant shield was for, and that made her nervous. Defence against a dragon maybe? What else would be the point of such a massive shield? Because she knew the barrier wasn't to keep anyone specific out, ponies were still coming in and going out via the trains and main gates. That was the first thing Yevetta had checked when she'd woken up and seen the giant magical dome encircling Canterlot, and locking the sky down for all fliers. Fliers like her. She may have panicked a little, until she'd known she was still able to leave whenever she wanted. Yeah there were Royal Guards in their fancy gold armour checking every pony coming in, but hoof traffic was still as busy as ever. More so, even. There were many disgruntled and complaining pegasi in the line. Yevetta had stayed and watched for a while, just to be sure, and the Guards hadn't denied entry or exit to anybody, but they hadn't. So what was the big idea? Yevetta didn't have a clue, and doubted anypony important would unbend their stiff neck long enough to tell her or any of the other common folk anything. She was just going to have to resign herself to never knowing what the secret reason was, much like with Lemon Pink. But, like, on a much different scale of importance. "You are blocking the entrance. Kindly remove yourself." The haughty voice of the examiner from earlier came from behind her. Yevetta restrained herself from saying something that would make him fail her, and took a running start to take off. --- Down below in the wide marble streets she flew over, Yevetta saw pink, blue, and white everywhere. Pink for the bride. Blue for the groom. And white because of Princess Celestia, who as the ruler of Equestria, was symbolically part of every wedding and matrimonial union in the land. Pink heart encrusted posters, declaring the open public wedding reception that would be held. Blue lines of bright hanging flags. And white streamers, ribbons, and garlands interwoven into the rest. It was all for the Royal Wedding. The Royal Wedding. The wedding of the century, or at least all the newspapers, billboards, and colourful bunting on every street corner declared it to be so. And Yevetta meant literally on every street corner. There had been ponies dispatched on behalf of the Palace who'd gone around with carts of the stuff, making sure every intersection and street was suitably bedecked. Yevetta turned up her beak in a scoff as she saw below, on a private veranda, a stallion getting down on his knees to propose to his besotted marefriend, who immediately burst into tears. It was soppy, ridiculous, and completely overblown. Maybe Yevetta was getting jaded, but this must've been the tenth such proposal she'd witnessed this week. Moreover, the tenth such proposal she'd seen made in public. How many more ponies were getting married behind closed doors? The Royal Wedding was spreading like a disease. Ponies were catching it left, right, and center! She disdained all of these copy-cat wedding ponies. Either they had no self control and were jumping on the band wagon, or they had no self confidence, and could only work up the courage to propose now because everybody else was doing it too. Pathetic. A proper griffin needed to know what she wanted, when she wanted, and to go get it herself. Just from all the hype and pre-celebrations, Yevetta was willing to bet good bits on exactly the kind of pony the alicorn of love was in person. She knew the type. There'd been a few similar instances of griffon nobles getting married back home in Griffonia, who had made an enormous production out of their 'big day'. They wanted to biggest bouquet, the grandest dress, the largest reception, the best music, and the choicest cuts of meat for their wedding. This Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, she probably didn't care half so much about her husband-to-be as about the wedding itself. A completely unrealistic vision built up from foalhood of a big romanticised, rose-tinted special day, where for that one day, the entire world would revolve around and adore her. Rich folk were all the same like that in Yevetta's humble opinion. It was strange thing, though. As a result of the upcoming Royal Wedding, or at least Yevetta thought it was because of the Royal Wedding, the pony citizens of Canterlot weren't panicking about the city-wide shield. She'd been kinda' expecting stampedes in the streets, if she were honest. Yevetta banked as she flew over the lip of Upper Canterlot, the sudden drop down to Middle Canterlot was mirrored by the just as sudden drop in air pressure as the previous updrafts rising off the roofs and roads likewise dropped. A lot like swimming out over a rock shelf in the sea, the water temperature fell and the currents intensified. It was the same with the sky. Yevetta wasn't some fledgling still learning how to preen her own feathers properly, she'd flown in the lower mountain slopes back in Griffonia with real wild weather, so she didn't even miss a wingbeat as she flew out of Upper Canterlot. Pah! She'd seen inattentive pegasi go into flapping, panicking messes crossing the divide. Amatures. That was merely wasted effort. You just had to ride it out, let yourself drop down until you hit the updrafts coming off of Middle Canterlot, and you'd equalize back out at a new cruising height. She used the opportunity of the drop in height to go into a long glide, angling towards the business district where the office was, rather than pointlessly working to hold onto her altitude. She'd have to shed it sooner or later when she came in to land anyways. She came nice and gradual, unhurriedly flapping down the length of the street leading to the office. After sitting that exam earlier, she still had a half-day left of work to clock in. Here too same as in Upper Canterlot, the intersection turn into the street was strung with bright pink, blue, and white streamers. Just as Yevetta was about to start flaring her wings to brake, a fast moving pegasus came skimming past her the other way, casually twisting around her mid-air in a high-speed aerial move. Startled, then ticked-off, Yevetta flapped in place so she could turn back and screech after the departing red pegasus, "" The red stallion rolled in the air, so for a moment, he was on his back and could clearly face her looking back. Stunned at the stunt worthy aerial maneuver, it took her a second or two to actually process that the pegasus answered. "No. My father did." He'd understood her Griffish, and answered. And what was he doing taking off right where she was about to land anyways? By the time Yevetta regathered her wits to counter-respond, the pegasus was out of earshot and a rapidly dwindling silhouette. "", Yevetta searched for something negative to shout back to the pegasus, although he was already long gone. Wait, that stallion had been wearing a blue ribbon in his mane. Vindication! He was just another pasty-wedding-band-wagon-sucker, and not even as a mare either. "" She shouted to the now empty Canterlot sky. Satisfied that she'd gotten the last word, even if only in her own head, she finished descending to the street and landed. Pulling out the office keys from her haversack as she walked up to the door, she stopped as she found it already unlocked. Hesitating, she pushed the door open and pocked her head in. "Come in, Yevetta." Said Lemon Pink's voice from right beside her ear. "SKRAAAaa-Ahh ha ha. Ha. Boss, y-you startled me." "So I see. I apologize." Lemon stated, voice as flat as frozen lake. What was the travelling-cloaked unicorn even doing waiting there right beside the door frame? If Yevetta weren't certain Lemon Pink didn't give two hoots, she would've been convinced her boss kept doing this on purpose just to scare the feathers of her crest. Getting her heart back under control, Yevetta slipped around Lemon Pink at a wide berth. And Lemon Pink? She just stood there, eye's following Yevetta as the griffin slunk passed. Yevetta was just taking off her haversack to sit down at her desk, trying to pretend Lemon standing there in dead silence wasn't incredibly awkward, when Lemon spoke again in that uninterested, bored tone of hers: "You are aware of how the upcoming Royal Wedding has been declared a public holiday." It wasn't technically a question, but it sounded like one. Yevetta stopped and looked up, "Yes. What about it, boss?" "I have decided to give you up until the wedding as additional time off, too." "Uh...Wow, thanks boss." Lemon Pink's head fractionally turned, cold eyes looking at something out of the front window only she could see, "Do not expect to see me again before then. I am going to be very busy. Something important has come up." "Yes boss." Yevetta nodded along like she understood. Lemon's curved horn faintly glowed, and her aura pulled the door open. She paused to give Yevetta one last piercing look up and down. "Attend the wedding. Or don't. Or take a day trip out to the countryside, perhaps. Stay safe, and don't trust strangers." "...Sure thing, boss." Lemon Pink left, shutting the door. Yevetta slowly sat down at the desk, reaching for the quill and inkwell. She paused, looking down at the quill between her talons. 'Hang on, when she said I had the rest of the time up until the wedding off too... does it also include the rest of today or not?' Four Winds take it, she should've thought to ask! --- With her sudden boon of unexpected free time, Yevetta was left at a bit of a loss about what to do with it all. Canterlots streets were filled with constant preparations and gossip about the Royal Wedding on never ending repeat. She couldn't escape it, it was everywhere she turned. When picking up groceries, the cashier spent ages gossiping with the pony in front of her about what the dress would be like. When she went to get some bits from the bank, they were busy sticking up wedding posters everywhere. Even when she tried going for a flight, she passed by clouds sculpted into puffy white love hearts. Yevetta didn't have any friends she could go hang out with here, a fact that was abruptly hammered home to her. She'd been so busy before, what with work during the day and studying like crazy after hours so as to pass her course, and still struggling to adjust to Equestrian life and language, that she hadn't had the time to fully appreciate her lack of social life. Now she did realise though, and the emptiness of not having any of her old griffin street pals to turn to stung much more than she was expecting. So to salve the sting, Yevetta threw herself into enjoying her unexpected time-off. She couldn't focus on being homesick if she was too busy enjoying herself, after all. Yevetta took a long walk, and then a long flight, in Canterlot's park. She brought along a packed lunch, and made a day of it, skimming the green tree tops, napping in the sun stretched on the soft, manicured grass, and ignoring the city shield. She didn't encounter Randy Pickaxe again, though. Then, in the evening, she decided to go do something she hadn't done in a long time, six months at least, and also something she'd promised herself never again. Just like the time before that. And the time before that. Yevetta headed out to a bar to get drunk. Not just to have a mug or two, but with the aim to actually get drunk. A hazy night of warmth, artificial cheer, squawking at things she could only half recall, fumbling with the door key in the dark, and then crashing out in a deep, dreamless sleep. "Oh Winds..." Yevetta retched into the toilet the morning after, "Oh Winds..." So it was that Yevetta spent the most of her second day off slowly recovering in the bathroom, wishing she were dead, or that past-Yevetta who'd decided to get drunk was dead. Eventually after an eternity of suffering, by the time dinner rolled around she at least felt solid enough to risk eating a light meal of just toast. Then she guzzled what felt like twenty gallons of water from the bathroom sink's tap, not the kitchen sink, she didn't trust that thing anymore, before collapsing miserably onto her mattress. 'Never again. Never ever never again. It's just not worth it...' Had been her last coherent thought that day. Feeling mostly better the next day, if still tender and delicate, Yevetta finally managed to get into the shower to wash the stink of booze off her feathers. The steaming hot water was bliss. Then, feeling ravenous but not wanting to cook, she set out into the bright morning sun in the hunt of a large, hot, greasy breakfast. Her grand hunt ended in glorious success, and that morning Yevetta dined upon the spoils of potato wedges, beans, and eggs until she was stuffed to bursting. Indeed, she'd felt so fat and lethargic afterwards, that she'd waddled back to the flat rather than fly. It was amazing how swiftly you could become accustomed to something. In the background, the pinkish city-wide shield still stood, and nobody was making a fuss anymore. Yevetta was not guiltless of this attitude either. Already, she wasn't giving the massive translucent dome more than a second glance. It was just there, in the background, not doing anything. It was a bit like all the statues, Yevetta reflected. Statues and shields. Back in Griffonia, their cities had very few statues or sculptures. Yevetta recalled how when she had first arrived here in Canterlot, how she'd gawked at the hundreds of statues of Princess Celestia everywhere, but nobody else on the streets had thought it at all odd. To them, it was normal. Now this, the shield, was rapidly becoming normal too. That said, the Royal Wedding hype was also only ratcheting higher and higher every day too. It was a palpable buzzing in the air on the streets, an ever rising sense of nervous excitement. Each hour passed was but one hour closer to the grand event. No matter which direction you looked, you'd be looking at preparation for the wedding. It had far exceeded just Canterlot's upper class, those closest in terms of social standing to the happy couple, the wedding had firmly worked its way into even the lowest earth pony worker's home in Lower Canterlot. "Fresh of the press, 'Guard to Groom to Gold'!" A newspaper pony hawker was enthusiastically calling as Yevetta strolled passed, "The rise of Shining Armour right here!" For a moment Yevetta thought about doing just that, to get some idea what all the fuss was about. Then she saw eager ponies converging to read the latest gossip, and haughtily turned up her beak at their behaviour. She could behave better than a bunch of gossiping hens at the fish market! Or ponies, in this case. And lacking the fish. Yevetta wouldn't mind some fish later. It had been so long since she'd had a piece of salmon. She thought longingly of her Ma's salmon back home, baked in the coals. But you couldn't get salmon anymore in Equestria, not unless you went out to the mountain streams where they met the sea, and caught the salmon yourself. Daydreaming about tastes from home, Yevetta wandered back to the office and her flat. --- The bells, the wedding bells. ---{O}--- Yevetta had seen an avalanche once. Back in Griffonia, when she was fourteen, during the winter months. It had been snowing hard for an entire week, and then out of the blue, a brilliantly clear blue day, where the sun shone so strong you got sunburn even though you were freezing your tail off. It had happened out from the city, on one of the higher mountain slopes. A sheet of glaring white, spotted with the green tops of pines. It had been a controlled avalanche, triggered on purpose by a team of griffins before it could reach critical mass. Yevetta and a bunch of other bored street griffins with nothing better to do, had flown up to watch the avalanche from the air. It had just been a low rumble. Then, spread out below them, the mountainside of white just snapped off and fell. A sweeping wave of rushing white, the driving spray of powdered snow travelling before it like the sea foam at the crest of a wave. It had been something awesome to witness. The roaring rumble, vibrating in her ears even all the way up in the air, the seemingly slow but impossibly fast speed of it. Witnessing the avalanche's power had filled her with excitement. The thrill! The rush! Get the blood pumping. Yevetta had whooped and hollered along with the rest of them, exclamations escaping as white puffs from their beaks. Then, thinking that the avalanche had settled, they'd swooped down to land on the flow, to laugh and point at just the tips of the pines left poking out of the churned up snow, like tiny new trees. They hadn't heard the griffin team still up the mountain shouting and waving for them to get off. A rumbling vibration through the snow under her talons. What was that rushing-? Some griffin shrieked. Yevetta had looked up- -And beheld the second wall of obliterating white bearing down on her. From the air, it had been so exciting to watch. From the ground, it was a very, very different experience. The heart pounding inrush of horror, as you realised it was now happening to you, that it was very real, and that this was ground zero. No longer was she a spectator. Now, she was a participant. That was what had stuck with her afterwards, burned forever into her memory. Things were very different when you were the one it was happening to down on the ground. She and all her friends had managed to take off in time, flapping like mad, but they'd all made it before the second avalanche hit. They hadn't been laughing and joking anymore though, as they hovered pale-faced and shaky, looking down on at the wake of the second snow avalanche. Ma had still tanned her tail for being so stupid when she'd gotten back home, but she'd learnt her lesson. ---{O}--- The bells, they were wedding bells no longer. ---{O}--- It was completely different when you were a participant. When you were the one the disaster was happening to. When the world grabbed you from your safe comfy seat on the sidelines and threw you into the ring, it didn't matter if you thought you'd only been a spectator, because now it was you. You were the spectacle. And the world loved to laugh at the tragedies it created front and center stage. ---{O}--- The bells, they were alarm bells. ---{O}--- Yevetta was on the ground. She was there. Standing frozen in a herd of likewise frozen ponies, all looking up. She couldn't blink. Her wide eyes hurt. Her blood was a cold, a leaden weight in her veins. The city shield broke, disintegrating away. And the avalanche of howling black came thundering down to wipe her out. --- The roaring buzz of a thousand giant wasp wings drowned Yevetta, so loud she couldn't even hear herself screech. Black insect monsters, so many they darkened Canterlot's sky, swarming everywhere, and cutting off escape to the air. Yevetta still tried. She couldn't help it. Her instincts screamed to get off the ground and into the safe sky. She didn't even clear the roof tops before she had to dive back down, shrilling in terror she couldn't hear all the way as snapping armoured black monsters followed her. Her talon's skidded for purchase on the street, and a galloping pony slammed into her side. Yevetta slipped and went down, wings all akimbo. A hoof stamped on her tail, some pony else kicked her wing, tripping all over her. She screamed at them to get off. The roaring buzz drowned hers' and everyone else's screams out. Get up, she had to get up! Get away, run, fly! She clawed a pony, desperate, forcing them to get off her. The insect monster ponies, they were almost upon her! Yevetta turned and blindly ran. She had no plan, no thought, no destination. She just ran with all the rest. Right then, she was just another face in the herd, become one of them, ruled by primal instinct. Run. A flood of black spined bodies poured out of the sky like a waterfall, blocking the road ahead. If any of the ponies heard Yevetta's scream of warning over the buzz, they didn't stop. They couldn't stop. The herd couldn't stop or turn, it could only stampede straight ahead, and locked in the crush of bodies Yevetta could only do the same. A solid wall of insect mandibles, huge fangs, black spines and armour-! The stampede hit the wall. It parted without resistance, splitting to either side to let the galloping, wild-eyed ponies charge past. She didn't realise until they were out the other side that half of the herd was gone. Grabbed, snatched away by the many grasping fangs and clawed hooves as they passed, stripped like a branch of leaves and bark. If she hadn't been running in the middle of the herd, if she hadn't been shielded in the middle-! "" She had to get away, had to get free of the crush, she didn't want to get stripped away next! Buildings, the street, trampled flowers, pink banners, the stink of fear, rolling eyes, roaring buzzing. Yevetta's head spun, adrenaline swimming. Terror was in the skies, a massing swarm of buzzing hungry mouths. If she couldn't go into the skies, she had to find somewhere to hide instead! Yevetta tried to slow her pace, tried to break out of the press, but she couldn't, the momentum of the herd was too strong, and she was terrified if she stopped she'd be dragged under and trampled. Yevetta saw struggling, bucking and kicking ponies in al the colours of the rainbow being carried off into the air by groups of the black plated invaders. "" There was a mother try to stand infront of her pram and screaming foal. She got pounced on by a dozen of the snarling insects, her and the foal both vanishing underneath the mass. There was a trio of desperate unicorns, back to back, flinging half-formed spells. It was no good, they were surrounded. Yevetta lost sight of what happened to them, but the chasing hoard didn't divert, hot on their tails. Yevetta screamed and put on a burst of speed seeing the snapping, hissing tide of hunger racing up the street after them and gaining! Hide, where to hide?! Why were there no guards saving them?! Pony! Pony at the wide open doors of a hall building. They were shouting and waving, frantically gesturing them to run into the building and safety. Safety, there were walls and safety just beyond those doors! The herd blindly turned and rushed in, and then Yevetta was getting crushed on every side, fighting to shove through the doors. The buzzing roar was insect wings was almost on top of them! Yevetta screamed with effort and shoved with everything she had. The wedge of stuck ponies jamming the doors fell inwards, rolling and flailing. Yevetta nearly sobbed. Walls, barricaded windows, piled tables and cabinets, safety! And she could finally think, finally hear, the roaring buzz cut in half by the walls. So she could actually hear for someone screaming to; "Shut the door!" Yevetta didn't get it. She staggered upright, turning in confusion. Shut the...? The open doors! The same pony from before was just standing there beside the still wide open doors, staring in frozen in fear at the oncoming hoard. Yevetta lunged for them and the doors, trying to slam them shut. The pony spun and hissed in her face. A face of one of the monsters, plastered over the pony's. Giant spider mandibles, beetle black carapace, snapping and snarling right infront of her beak. She reared and fell over backwards, feathers flying, scrabbling backwards and away from the false pony. It chittered horribly at her, and then stood aside. Through the open doorway, there was nothing to block her view of the swarm. Like a wave just about to break over the entire building, their shadow blocked out the light. The open doors, the monster wearing pony skin, the bait of safety, all the blocked up windows. Too late. 'Too late!' Her mind screamed. It had been a trap all along. Luck. It was pure luck and chance that Yevetta caught the glow of a unicorn charging up some kind of big spell just to her left. She thought it was a shield, or an attack, it didn't matter which. On instinct Yevetta grabbed the ridged unicorn, aiming to push them in front of herself to cast their spell. *CRACK* Flash. Yevetta's stomach heaved, light blinded her, and she staggered. Her ears popped, and suddenly the buzzing had roared back to its full, terrible volume. The unicorn which had teleported them outside, barely ten hoof lengths from where they'd been but still outside beyond the walls, fainted dead away in magical exhaustion of having brought along an unexpected passenger. Not even one in ten adult unicorns could teleport, and of those, few could jump anything farther than a hundred yards, and even fewer reliably so. Luck. Pure chance and luck. Yevetta stood there stupidly for a precious second, staring down in dumb incomprehension at the fainted unicorn at her talons. 'What th-?' She looked up, and turned and blindly fled. She left her unwitting saviour behind without conscious thought. There was no time for thought, no space for anything else in her head. Just self-preservation. Run, get away, get just a minute to hide. She just had to hide, just had to find somewhere to hide! Away from the buzzing, chasing, hissing, slavering- 'Hide. Somewhere to hide. Just hide. Hide.' Her head spun. A broken storefront window ahead. If she could reach it-Breath sawing, she put on all the speed she had, giving it everything. She leapt, skidded on the outdoor table top, and leapt again through the shattered storefront's window. Tumbled pony manaquins in tangled wedding bunting, broken glass shards on trampled cloth. Panting, she tripped and scrambled over upturned racks. The back door, the 'Staff Only' store rooms. She could hear them, they were right behind her! Yevetta burst through, only half took in shelves of neat boxes and racks, and the fire exit door. She slammed the fire door open, dug in her talons and juked back inside, diving behind a shelf just in time. The store room door slammed open for a second time, cracking into the wall, and one of the horrible, skeletal black insect monsters raced in. The thing saw the open fire door, clearly saw it still swinging shut, and completely ignored it. Unerringly, its jagged horn and fanged head swivelled to her shelf, and through the shelf with terrible focus to the griffon cowering behind it. Her trick had failed, and now suddenly trapped, the monster was between her and the doors, it wasn't courage that flipped Yevetta's desperation on its head. Snap. From desperate to escape, to desperate to fight. From one to the next in a single breath and rush of every single emotion at once. The only way out was through. Fight! Fight to live. Fight through! Yevetta came out screeching like her highland warrior ancestors of old. Fur and feathers all on end, she rushed it beak and talons first. If she could just overwhelm it first, if she could just bite and claw it first-! It lunged right back at her, jagged mandibles snapping for her face. They slammed into each other, hard chitin bruising into her chest. Yevetta screamed as the mandibles snapped shut a feather's breadth from her face. She shoved at it's upper body, desperate to keep the fanged head away from hers. For a moment they strained against each other, both reared up on their hind legs. She pushed, it pushed back. Yevetta dug in her hind claws and pushed! It dug in the spurs on its own hindlegs and pushed back. For all it was lighter, skeletal, and whip thin, the black monster matched her. "Gggggrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnng-!" She strained, blood rushing to her head. They shoved and jostled, reared up, trying to throw, trying to kick-! Yevetta's larger mass finally overcame the pony insects'. It tipped over backwards, Yevetta coming down on top of it screeching in victory. She grabbed it's neck, to claw and throttle it, but the carapace wouldn't bend or break, and she was loosing her grip as it thrashed like a wild animal- The air was driven from her lungs in a painful whoosh as it's hind legs got inside and planted themselves in her guts. She was kicked off, hacking spittle, hot pain in her stomach. She rolled over and scrabbled back to her feet, clutching at her stomach. Opposite, her opponent did the same, snarling horribly all the way as it got up. Yevetta flinched as she felt hot sharp stinging, and creeping wetness across her belly fur. She looked down in alarm, lifting her claw away. Scored lines of bleeding red seeped from where the giant insect's spur like spines had cut into her when she got kicked. Mistake. She shouldn't have looked down for even a second. She was still looking down when she was slammed into. They crashed into a shelf, clothing boxes burying them both. Yevetta couldn't see, boxes piled atop her head, spilled packing paper in her mouth. She flailed about blindly, somehow landed a hit, and got her talons kicked with stinging force in instant retaliation. Get off, get off! She needed to see, she couldn't fight if she couldn't see the-Oh, there it was. Face to face, monster and griffin stared in surprise at each other as they both came up out of the box pile to find themselves right next to each other. It bit for her face in a flash of black mandibles. Yevetta instinctively bobbed and struck. In unison, both of them screamed and hissed in eye-clenching pain. Blindly, eyes streaming, Yevetta kicked and stumbled her way out of the pile. She swung her wings around clumsily, blindly swiping. Her head! It bit her in the head! That wasn't tears in her eyes, it was blood, running from the gash in her forehead. Frantically, she mopped at it, knowing she was about to get blind-sided again any moment. She got one eye clear, wings stretched out defensively, and managed to spot the insect monster. Yevetta had got off lucky. A barbed mandible had only torn a gash on her forehead. The monster had not gotten off so lucky. One of it's solid, reflective blue eyes was now also filled with blood. But blood from the ruined orb, not from a cut. Green, stinking blood stained it's spined forehoof as it shakily lifted its limb away from the injury. It was keening in buzzing pain. It looked with its one good eye at its ichor stained forehoof, then looked up at Yevetta. Only now did she belatedly realise there was a horrid, burning taste like lemons in her beak. She backed up at the full-body hiss of pure fury that tore out of the monster's jaws. Yevetta was shaking, panting. She was exhausted, feeling like she might fold at any moment. Fighting for her life had hit her like nothing else she'd ever experienced. Twenty seconds of mortal combat had reduced her to this. She was bleeding. The wounds on her belly hurt enough to scare her terribly. Now she was exhausted and afraid. So instead, she made herself take a step forwards. "You *pant* wanna' go again?" She growled, flaring her wings to appear as large as possible. It did want to go again, oh how it wanted to hurt her in return, she could taste it. It wanted revenge for its eye. Its wasp wings buzzed lowly with fury, and its mandibles were opening and shutting like they were already gnashing on her flesh. Yevetta bluffed and held her ground. She was a paper tiger filled with nothing but hot air. She'd deflate at the slightest poke. But still she held her ground. Her wounded opponent stalked one step towards her, just one, but even that caused its ruptured eye pain. It staggered, hissing like a choked kettle. Yevetta stared the monster down as it painfully reassessed the situation. 'Just go away, just go away. Just go away.' Not turning its back on her, the half-blind monster slunk away. Blood dripping from her forehead and into her eyes, it was all Yevetta could do to remain standing pretending to be strong as it fumbled for the back door's handle, hissing hatefully at her the entire way. It was running away! She'd done it, she'd won, she was still alive. The realisation was exquisite, the sweetest thing she'd ever tasted. The rush of victory and relief over surviving was like a second wind of healing. Sudden energy. Yevetta stood straighter, spread her wings even wider, and screeched from the bottom of her chest in a threat display. "SkkkkkrrrrrrRRRRRAAHH! " Still not looking away from her, the oversized insect finally fumbled the push-bar handle down, and opened it. Half-a-dozen more waiting monsters filled the open door, their wings a vicious buzz. "No. No please no, no this isn't fair..." ---<<>>--- .... Muffled. Afar-off hazy... Hazy something... Tired. ...Bumping. Movement. Definite movement.... where...? Fading out again into.... ---<<>>--- ...Jostled. Woken. ...Something more... Something less... Sound echoing underwater... ...A bright shining... Shining pink light... ---<<>>--- Heavy. Her eyes were so very heavy. Her whole body was heavy. Terribly so. And weak. Yevetta felt as if she'd been reverted to a trembling fledgling, weak winged and struggling against a spring breeze. It was a nasty, empty weakness, like coming down with a fever. Yevetta lay there, or hung there, or wherever here was, just... Just lethargically existing. Thinking. Thinking was hard. There was a cloud in her head. Fog, fog was the correct word, not cloud. It would be easier to go back to sleep. To give into the exhausting fog. But, but... But that was scary. Deep down, there was an alarm ringing. Something had been very wrong. Bad. But what...? ...What had it been? She couldn't for the life of her struggle through. But the deep-seated alarm of distress was rising ever higher. It was bad bad bad whatever it was. All at once, a blood freezing deluge of memory. A snow avalanche, into a black buzzing avalanche. Chasing spines, fangs, mandibles, then stinking green blood. Wedding. Canterlot. Shield. Swarm. Fleeing. Monsters. Yevetta summoned up everything she had and thrashed. Out out out get out! Get out! Get out of these sticky, clinging bindings. She was going to be eaten, they'd wrapped her up to eat like a spider with a fly. Rubbery, stretching, darkness. She struggled harder. Her weak muscles strained, shook, and failed. Yevetta panicked. "MMmmpPHh! MmmPH! Nnnghpphhhh!" Her beak was glued shut, covered. Her jaws felt like they'd crack she strained so hard to break free, the scabbed over gashes on her stomach flaring in stinging pain, but the solidified rubber just. Would not. Break. "MMMMMPPPHHH!" She screamed as loudly as she could for help. All she got was the smothered mewling of a desperate animal. She couldn't get her beak free, couldn't see anything in the shadows and blackness, couldn't flap her too-tightly bound wings, couldn't flex free her claws in heavy mitts of the hard rubber, couldn't anything. "MmmMPPHH! MmNnnNNGGHH!" Exhausted from her efforts, she hung there weakly, only able to breathe through her nose. She was stuck to some sort of stone wall. A cellar. She could vaguely feel the flat, square edges of heavy cut stone bricks through where her back was glued against the wall. She was trapped here, in some cellar, like a cut of meat hanging in a cold room, helplessly waiting for the insect monsters to decide when they wanted griffin for dinner. They were going to bite her and suck out her insides like giant spiders. Yevetta cried in the darkness of the cellar. --- Nearly all fliers have claustrophobia, fearing having their wings trapped and not being able to use them. Yevetta was no different. But worse was the silence and the dark. People aren't meant to be alone in the dark. It does something to them, warps time and their mind. Isolation and sensory deprivation is a certified kind of non-invasive torture. Any way to keep track of time like a clock or sunlight is removed. Moreover, it's a kind of torture that works every time. No matter how resilient the victim, no matter how strong their will, no matter how strong they think they are, being trapped in isolation and darkness breaks even the strongest in the end. All that varies is the time it takes to break. Being trapped alone in the darkness, waiting in utter dread of the certain and very horrible death which lay at the end of the waiting... It was worse in every conceivable way. Yevetta wasn't old, she didn't have a wealth of experience. She was barely a young adult, only recently left Griffonia and home. The concept of her own mortality had not yet sunk its inexorable claws into her like it did the middle-aged and old. Yevetta didn't want to die. She didn't want to die horribly, she didn't want to die to monsters, she didn't want to die trapped, she didn't want to die in the dark. Waiting.... waiting.... waiting... Waiting.... waiting.... waiting... Waiting.... waiting.... waiting... Waiting.... waiting.... waiting... --- Yevetta had no way to keep track of time, and didn't know how long she'd already been trapped down here unconscious to begin with. There were no sunbeams coming through cracks from above, no discernible lightening or darkening of the shadows, not even any dripping of water. Hours, certainly. Ten. A dozen? More? Or was it just the fear warping her panicked breathing, stretching reality out into one long, eternal torture. Counting didn't work, didn't help, just made it worse as she panicked and lost track over and over again. Five-hundred, or six-hundred seconds, and she'd lose count and have to start again. And she was counting the seconds too fast, she was sure of it, but couldn't still the frantic racing pace of her mind. Thirst. It came slowly at first. Then settled in. Then started clawing at her throat with earnest. Thirst meant hours. Thirst meant the passing of time, steadily growing worse and worse. And still none of the insectile monsters came back. --- *c'op* *...'trop clop* *tap* Hooves. Those were faint hoof steps. Yevetta snapped back to awareness. She'd spent months in Canterlot, she'd know a hoof step muffled by a floor somewhere overhead anywhere! Hooves, meaning ponies, not the wasp buzzing of the black monsters! "MmmmpphHHH!" Yevetta shouted into the gagging resin, dry throat cracking she tried so hard. The scuffing of hooves somewhere above kept going, moving away. *Trop* *....crop* *...'rop* "MMMMPPPHH! MMMPH MMNNPH NNNPH!" The hoof steps and their owner left, and didn't come back. --- It was dark. Still dark, that is. Was it really dark? Or were her eyes no longer working properly. She kept seeing flashes of swimming colour, like ripples in the edges of her vision. There were no hoof steps. They hadn't come back. Why? Why couldn't they realise that she was right underneath... underneath... Yevetta jerked out of her exhausted doze and realised it had been the black colours of her shut eyes. She wished she hadn't woken, because it meant she was now painfully aware again of her thirst. Hungry too, a cold hollow pit inside, but the thirst was by far the worst. *click* *Rattle* Right in front of her very eyes, the cellar door she'd been unable to see in the pitch darkness opened. Yevetta flinched reactively, then stared. And stared. She was hallucinating, she had to be, there'd been no hoof steps or warning, but the painful brightness of a crystal lantern said otherwise. A dream, then. A painful dream. Because in her desperate, addled, dehydrated state, Yevetta couldn't comprehend it being anything else but a waking dream. Because how else was she supposed to rationalize her unicorn boss standing there? In her omni-present traveling cloak, wearing that sliver choker, levitating a glowing white crystal lantern, and a wide brimmed sunhat of all unexplainable things hanging off the back of her head, there was just no way it was really be her boss. It was a trick, it had to be, one of the monsters in magical disguise. It certainly sounded like her boss, though: "Yevetta. About time." And it was said in the exact same flat, bored tone of voice too. 'Lemon Pink...?' Was it... was it really her? Could it really be? The painfully bright lantern floated into the room, making Yevetta squint, and illuminating the bare stone walls of the abandoned cellar that was her prison. Cobwebs and dust sat thick in the corners. The light stung her watering eyes fiercely, but Yevetta was transfixed, she couldn't look away as it banished the darkness. It was beautiful. And, she realised, not gripped in the usual sparkling silvery aura of Lemon Pink's magic. It instead followed Lemon Pink into the cellar, bobbing along like an obedient pet on an invisible leash. Staring at that, she barely noticed what Lemon tucked away what she was levitating, a seemingly blank cut-out of metal, under her cloak. Yevetta did notice however what Lemon Pink pulled out instead. Yevetta went very still at the dagger Lemon casually pulled out. She didn't dare to even blink as the dagger zipped up and came to a halt, floating just under her beak. Close up, the metal was cold, oiled and deadly sharp, and the handle unadorned. It was a dagger distilled down to be what a dagger was, completely practical and nothing more. "Hold still." Lemon Pink ordered, completely unnecessarily. Yevetta was already holding her breath, not daring to breathe. The blade parted the black rubbery resin binding her beak shut with barely the slightest catch. Yevetta had not been able to break free of the stuff, either around her beak or gluing her limbs to the wall no matter how hard she'd struggled, but just like that, Lemon's dagger slid through it. The horrible stuff must have been very weak to cutting, that was all Yevetta could think. Up one side of her beak, around the tip, then down the other the dagger went. The moment Lemon lifted the sharp metal away, Yevetta gasped for the first time in so long, parched dry mouth sucking in air, able to finally fill her lungs without struggle. She greedily sucked air in and out, the heavy weight of the resin still glued to her beak and face, but she could open her beak. It was simple, but so wonderful. She was never going to take being able to open her beak for granted again. The levitating blade dipped down and came to a stop over the black mess sticking her bound left foreclaw to the wall. "Are your claws splayed out, or in a fist before I start cutting?" Lemon enquired. "...'crk-" *HackCough Cough* Yevetta tried to answer, and immedidetly descended into dry coughing. She was parched. "I will get you down. Then you may drink." Lemon informed her, "Now, nod or shake. Are your claws splayed or clenched? Nod once or twice." Yevetta nodded weakly once. "This will take longer then. Hold still." With care, but not enough care for Yevetta's nerves considering how easily the dagger cut through the hardened resin, Lemon Pink began cutting an outline around her claws. When Lemon was done, Yevetta pulled hard, and with a jerk, the last thin threads of stretchy resin snapped and her left claw was free. Still heavily encrusted with the heavy black gunk, but free. She flexed it open and closed, whimpering through the cramps. Lemon Pink though had already started on her right claw, repeating the outline she'd cut, before levitating the knife down to do Yevetta's hind paws and tail last. Which still left Yevetta with her wings glued to the wall. "Here. Do your own wings." Lemon flicked the knife around and offered it hilt first in her magic. "...'y?" Yevetta croaked. "They're your wings. If you cut wrong, it'll be your fault, not mine." Lemon answered bluntly. Yevetta protectively tried to draw her wings in, but of course, they were stuck to the wall and all she accomplished was pulling out a couple of feathers somewhere under the resin. She winced and swallowed painfully. "...'wa'er?" She croaked out hopefully, miming drinking. Without otherwise shifting, Lemon withdrew the proffered dagger and levitated out a water-skin, one of the old fashion ones, from somewhere under her cloak instead. Yevetta greedily drank, choked, drank some more. *Glup, glug, glug, glug* She almost drained the water-skin by the time she was done, breathing heavily. She felt almost immediately better, clarity coming back to her mind. With her free claw, she carefully touched at the scabs on her belly. They seemed okay, at least. Same too for the cut on her forehead. With a start, she recalled her rescuer, who was still just standing there like a pink, cloaked statue. Guiltily, she held the water skin back out to Lemon and cleared her throat: "Thank you. For coming. And the water too, but, I meant for coming for me. Really, thank you boss." Lemon blinked as she telekinetically offered the dagger again, "Interesting. You've a more realistic mindset as a griffin, it seems." Yevetta hesitated in gingerly testing the edge of the dagger, "Er, I'm sorry?" "The first thing you said was thank you. Some ponies are so ungrateful to be rescued." "What? But why wouldn't they be...?" "Because they're angry not to be saved sooner." Lemon Pink shrugged, as if it was as simple as the sky being blue, and water being wet. Yevetta decided to concentrate on cutting her wings free. Who knows how much time she had? None of the insect monsters had returned yet, but if they were going to, she didn't want to be here when they did. The dagger was incredibly, terrifyingly sharp, unnaturally so. As she twisted to cut away the resin on her wings, she suspected if she pushed too hard, the blade would cut through the stone bricks beneath just as easily. Perhaps unwisely considering what a moments distraction and a slip might cost her as she worked, but she had to know, she asked Lemon: "The monsters, are they...? Are they...?" "Changelings." "Change-? What? The monsters? How do you know-?" "The whole of Equestria knows by this point. Their leader announced who and what they were for all of Canterlot to hear." Lemon Pink explained, tone still bored. "How long has it been? How long have I been down here?" Yevetta asked the next question. "It has been one day and eighteen hours since the Royal Wedding." Lemon promptly supplied. The way Lemon said that... "Wait, 'since the Royal Wedding'? You say that like the wedding still went ahead." "Indeed. It still went ahead, yes. Nearly the moment after the changelings were banished." Yevetta almost slipped. She stopped cutting to gape at the pink mare. Here she was, starving, hurt, still covered in resin, having been kidnapped to be eaten or worse, and the ponies had still gone ahead with their pink alicorn's wedding?! She couldn't process that, she just couldn't. She could hear the words but they just didn't add up in her head. Feverishly, she grabbed ahold of the other half of what Lemon Pink had said with both metaphorical claws. "Banished? We won?" She eagerly asked, holding her breath. Lemon unhurriedly nodded, "Yes. With a giant kinetic forcefield of love." "They're gone? All of them?" "Most of them. Ninety-nine percent. Some have no doubt snuck back into the city since." 'Snuck back in?' But how would they get passed the guards-? Green fire. That monster wearing a pony's face to trick them into a trap. "How do I know you're really my boss Lemon Pink...?" She asked slowly, tightly gripping the dagger in her talons. Lemon didn't seem to care, "You personally can't, at least not with absolute certainty." Yevetta thought fast, "W-when we first met, when you offered me a job, what diner did you find me in?" Lemon Pink nodded approvingly, "You weren't. I approached you outside on the street." Yevetta slumped in relief, still half glued to the cellar wall. She didn't think she could take it if this had been some horrible trick, to dangle freedom in front of her beak just to snatch it away in a flash of vile green flames. A nasty thought occurred to her, a flash of a future where nobody could trust the person infront of them wasn't a shape changing monster. After all, how could you prove you weren't a monster if someone accused you? Nobody would ever admit to being a monster. What if some people decided to strike first in pre-emptive self defence? "Uh, how do you even know I'm really Yevetta?" Again, Lemon gave her an approving nod, "Magic." "There's a way you can check with magic?" Yevetta asked with relief. Lemon studied her for a long second, "If you mean a spell, no. At least not yet. There will be one invented soon though, no doubt. With other magic though, yes." "What other magic?" "Other magic." Lemon repeated unhelpfully. Yevetta dropped that line of enquiry, and went back to freeing her wings from the wall. Yet after only a dozen seconds, she found more words tumbling from her beak. She couldn't seem to hold her tongue, she was too jittery to stop. After the isolation and darkness, she couldn't help herself. "I was, I was waiting. I woke up down here like this, didn't know how long it'd been or what'd happened, but-I was running. With, with everyone else. Did you hear it? The buzzing, I couldn't hear, it was so loud. Nobody came. I was waiting, but nobody came. I mean, some ponies came into the house, I heard their hooves above, but they didn't hear me, and they didn't come down. Why? Aren't, weren't they searching? Aren't they searching out there? Isn't everybody? Why didn't anybody come except for you?" "Simple. Because the Guard are out searching for missing ponies. Not griffins." Lemon said. "What?!" Lemon didn't flinch, not even at the shrill noise in the enclosed cellar, "In the interest of fairness though, it is simple incompetence, not deliberate. There is a spell, very close range, which can detect pony magic. The Royal Guard are going building to building, making everyone go outside, then casting the spell to see if there are any hidden or trapped ponies left inside." She made a considering noise, shrugging, "It's even worked. The Guard has pulled other ponies likewise trapped as you were from hidden rooms and holes." Yevetta felt the anger bubble. The Royal Guard wasn't searching for griffins, only ponies. She didn't care if they had the right spell or not, or how busy they were, they could've still could've taken the thirty seconds it took to come downstairs and actually check the cellar! If not for her boss, she'd never have been found. They were going to pay. She didn't know how or when, but somebody somewhere was going to pay for that. With a lot of effort, Yevetta pushed the anger away and relaxed her clenched talon's on the dagger. Later. She couldn't do anything about it now, so later. "Bastards! Didn't want to put in the effort. You still found me in the end, so why couldn't they?" Yevetta growled. Lemon Pink didn't comment. After a moment of breathing hard, Yevetta went back to carefully cutting her feathers free, "Thanks again for coming to find me then. Erm, how did you find me? Is there a different spell for finding griffins?" "Not as such. I simply used a... 'different' source of magic." "Really? How many different kinds of magic can there be?" "Many." "Many huh? Like what?" Eventually when Lemon didn't answer, Yevetta glanced up. Lemon was still just standing there, but studying Yevetta in a way she disliked, like a monger critically examining the gasping fish on their cutting board. "Curiosity. That is the second time you have asked after strange magic. Perhaps you'll learn of some of the other sources of magic one day. Maybe not. But either way, it is not relevant to you today." Yevetta ducked her head, mouth feeling numb, and got back to work. She was almost done freeing her first wing before she asked again: "I am not ungrateful, but how come it took so long to find me? The monsters, the changelings, you said they were beaten two days ago. Why so long?" "I was busy," Lemon stated bluntly, "There were three others on my list who came first." There was absolutely no apology in Lemon's tone or posture, no regret for leaving Yevetta hanging for so long. Somewhere behind her cold, limpet eyes, Lemon Pink had a list of her priorities, and Yevetta's place on it was set. No higher, and no lower. Yevetta opened her beak, then shut it. What could she say in the face of Lemon's cold, unapologetic logic? At least Lemon was completely upfront and honest about it. Somehow, that was more palatable than the Royal Guards, who'd simply been incompetent. Wordlessly, she finished freeing her first resin laden wing, and started on her second, trying not to think about what damage getting the solid filth out was going to do to her feathers. She was going to be grounded for a solid week at the very least when all of this was over, until enough new feathers grew in. Who were the three, even? Randy Pickaxe certainly, but the rest? Yevetta hadn't the faintest clue. She hadn't realised Lemon even cared about that many people in the whole world. Unexpectedly, it was Lemon took the initiative to break the silence which had fallen on the cellar. The thin mare, still with that pushed back sunhat which Yevetta kept overlooking, made a little motion with her curved horn, and the bobbing crystal lamp floated closer so as to better illuminate Yevetta as she worked. "You've held yourself together remarkably well..." Lemon mused, "Two days in darkness. No food, no water, no help, no company. But you did not break. I can see it in your eyes, I would know if you had broken. You kept up enough hope to hold on." Lemon took a step closer, "You've at least some strength of character. Useful. I could use that. Perhaps a test. Yes. Yevetta, how would you like the opportunity to undertake a test?" "What for?" Yevetta asked warily, trying to hide her nervousness. She drew her one freed wing closer to herself protectively. "For a potential promotion to undertake some of my lighter 'other' lines of work." "A promo-? Now? Right now?! That's what's important now?" Yevetta gawked. "Yes. Are you interested?" "Sure. Why the hells not? A promotion interview. Makes perfect sense. Might as well, right?" Yevetta almost laughed, equal parts frustration at her boss's skewed priorities, and relief at something so mundane after all this danger and tension. It was like the world was saying; 'This disaster is over, and normal life is resuming'. With one wing free, and now able to better turn her body, Yevetta finished cutting her second wing free of the changelings resin in half the time. Lemon Pink magically plucked the dagger from her talons before Yevetta could reflexively tighten her grip, the incredibly sharp implement flying back to vanish somewhere beneath the unicorn's travelling cloak. "Come." Yevetta did not need to be told twice. She hobbled for the cellar's stairs as fast as her stiff limbs would allow, hot on Lemon's tail, the floating lantern likewise following. Fresh air, light! The opening at the top of the stairs was a warm portal beckoning her up. She never wanted to ever see this cellar again, never so much as wanted to fly over whatever neighbourhood this was, didn't want- There was a stink in the air, acidic. Like a sharp memory on her tongue. Yevetta stepped out into the room behind Lemon. A large kitchen waited. A cluttered, shattered mess. Torn blinds half drawn over frosted panes. The stink, it was cooling green ichor. There were three skeletal changeling corpses slumped in the trashed kitchen. Yevetta stopped. There was a far away high pitched whine in the back of her head, a single unbroken note going on and on. There were three corpses right there. Stark, real, in her face. Lying and sitting in stinking pools of their green blood. Each insectile corpse was the same. Green, sticky blood, spilling down their faces and drenching their necks. Out of their their noses, squeezed out of the corners of their solid blue eyes, even out of their ear holes, and pooling out of their grossly distended, unhinged fanged maws. No fight. The changelings hadn't died standing and fighting back. As if they'd each just slumped down and bled out on the floor. Yevetta couldn't seem to look away. Three faces hidden behind masks of spilled green, dripping down their drenched fronts, and into those stinking pools of it. It was horrible and almost hypnotic. Lemon Pink was saying something. She couldn't hear her over the high pitched whining. And Lemon was just standing there, as if nothing was wrong, without so much as a second glance at the grisly corpses. Lemon Pink. Her scary boss Lemon Pink. her cold, unfeeling, merciless boss Lemon Pink. Who she'd been first wary of, then thought she understood. Then frightened, then reassured. Yevetta had thought she was finally understanding. And then this. There wasn't a mark on Lemon, not so much as a green splash on her cloak's hem. Yet there wasn't a single doubt in Yevetta's heart of whom had killed these three changelings. Yevetta remembered her life and death struggle, how she'd barely held off one changeling. Lemon was just standing there, as unbothered as she ever was, acting like she had no trouble breathing the stink filled air. Her instincts had been right on the money about the pink unicorn the first time. That feverish night and dark nightmare... It no longer felt like it had only been an awful nightmare. Part of it had been real. Maybe even all of it. What had the dark Lemon Pink hummed as she blew out Yevetta's last match? "Sow up your beak and go to sleep." Yevetta could never tell anyone ever about what'd happened here today. Never ever Ever. Her beak finally creaked open like a rusty hinge, thick tongue fumbling the words out. "" "" Lemon answered back in accented Griffish. Yevetta was too shocked for any more shock to register. It was too much. It had all morphed into this one big numb ball of acceptance. 'Oh. I guess this is just the way things are going to be now.' Lemon had killed these changelings, how she didn't know, on her way downstairs to free Yevetta. That was good for her chances, right? Lemon wouldn't rescue her only to silence her, right? And changelings were monsters. They'd just invaded Canterlot, they were the enemy. Lemon didn't have to worry about getting into trouble over, over self-defence. She'd just claim self-defence, and that would be that, right? Yevetta was glad these changelings were dead. They'd attacked her, hurt her, been going to eat her. But they'd been monsters, rabid beasts. But now she had the sinking feeling she was standing in a room with a wholly different kind of monster, and it wasn't the obvious kind. Oh right. Lemon Pink was speaking. Yevetta should definitely be paying very close attention. "...open the back windows. Keep the curtains shut. Don't be seen. We will exit by the back door only." Lemon repeated patiently. Yevetta didn't understand. Did it matter? Was she going to disobey Lemon Pink? Tartarus no to the second, which made the answer no to the first too. "Got it. Will do. No problem." Yevetta's legs carried her in a daze into the house's front room. There was a table, sofas, and scattered floor cushions. For the life of her, Yevetta couldn't focus long enough to even count them. The windows. Open the windows, close the curtains, and don't be seen doing it. Right, do that, then go back into the stinking, disgusting kitchen to use the back door. 'Right. Yes. Do that.' Yevetta did that. Then her legs carried her on autopilot back to the kitchen. Lemon Pink was... was doing something. Levitating little short sticks of wood in all the corners of the room, and one underneath each of the... of the... of the three bodies. "Um. I'm done. Now what?" She asked, voice faint. Lemon didn't look up from her work. She was setting something up in the middle of the floor, focusing hard on whatever it was. "Did you do the same upstairs too?" Upstairs? There was an upstairs? Yevetta hadn't even looked. "Oh. Right. Of course. I'd better get on that." --- When Yevetta's resin encrusted claws carried her back into the kitchen the next time, Lemon Pink was done, and standing waiting by the back door. Her cold indigo eyes swept Yevetta up and down, assessing her state. "Put this on. Do not take it off until I tell you to." Lemon ordered, magically holding out her sunhat. Yevetta blinked stupidly at the proffered hat. Of course. The sunhat that Lemon had been wearing. She wasn't focusing at the moment. 'Wait, what good is a hat going to do?' "Of course. Sure. Whatever you say, boss." She put on the sunhat. It fit snugly atop her crest. She had no idea why, and felt silly. "Follow me closely. Do not make eye contact with anyone. Do not speak to anyone. Do not respond to anyone. Do not take the sunhat off until I say. Understand?" Yevetta nodded dumbly, feeling lost and disconnected from where she was and what she was doing. What was she even doing? Not just here, but in the world? Why was she here, and not back in Griffonia? The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. Dumbly, Yevetta trooped out the back door after Lemon. Behind her, there was a quiet fizz, then *Woomph* of displaced air. Crackling dry heat bathed Yevetta's hind quarters, instantly crisping her fur and tail tuft. She couldn't help herself, she looked back. The kitchen she'd barely exited as a raging fire. Nearly smokeless flames were everywhere, licking higher by the second. So sudden, so fast. The heat dried out her eyes in a single moment. How? Nothing, and then, this glowing furnace-? The back door slammed firmly shut in Lemon's magic, cutting off Yevetta's view. Even the ravenous crackling of the flames was silenced. "Don't linger. Follow." Lemon ordered into the sudden quiet. Yevetta meekly obeyed. --- Three blocks blocks away and down a tier, in a Canterlot which eerily looked like it hadn't been touched at all by the invasion which had swept its streets, Yevetta looked back. Ponies rushed passed them, going the other way. Up the rise, on the road gently running up to the next tier of buildings, a house blazed high like a torch. Snapping orange flames raced for the orange evening sky. Yevetta kept turning to look back, again and again, until they were out of sight. --- Like the rest of Canterlot, the Eggs n' Benedict office was strangely untouched. Yevetta sat blankly on her work chair she used everyday, but now not working, just sitting there feeling numb and completely beyond caring about anything. If Princess Celestia walked through the front door right now, and declared Yevetta was to be crowned, Yevetta would likely just shrug 'Okay', and go with it. Early night was descending outside. There was as-of-yet untouched plate of cold three-day-old fish and potato bake beside her. She was hungry, but not yet. She just needed, just needed to... needed to sit and think, to stop and absorb everything. Nothing was logical, nothing had made sense since the Royal Wedding was first announced. Lemon Pink sitting on the other side of the office, flicking through the business's monthly paperwork was not helping the surrealness subside at all. Paperwork. She'd just returned from killing three changelings and burning down a house, and she was more concerned about catching up on delayed paperwork! How ice-cold did you have to be to seamlessly transition from one to the other? 'Sow up your beak and go to sleep.' The memory again passed through Yevetta's head. She couldn't tell anyone about this. Ever. Not that she would've blabbed to the guards, but now it wasn't even an option. Yevetta was not allowed to talk. Tellingly, Lemon had not set back out into the city to search for anyone else. Lemon had said Yevetta was fourth down her list. She had a sullen suspicion fourth was also last place on the list. Fourth. At least she ranked above paperwork in her boss's skewed sense of priorities. 'Oh, she told me to open the windows to feed the fire.' Yevetta belatedly realised as she sat there. She was now an arsonist. Okay. "" Yevetta started and looked around the office. Who'd said that, and in Griffish too? Oh. It had been her. She hadn't meant to. "Obvious. To dispose of the changeling bodies." Lemon answered, but in standard Equestrian. Yevetta slowly blinked tired eyes. She didn't understand, "" "There are many who would care if they knew. Now they don't." Yevetta thought on that, but still only half got it. She focused and switched back to Equestrian, "But burning it, that's so obvious. Everybody's going to know it was on purpose. Um, boss I mean." "Correct. It will be obvious it was deliberate. But so what? The real evidence is still burned." Lemon said, turning a page. "But what evidence? They were bad guys, the enemy. What were you, uh, we, even hiding?" "My methods. How I did it. Keep your secret weapons secret for next time." 'Next time.' Preparing for if she had to secretly kill a room full of changelings again. The next time. "Huh." Yevetta fervently hoped... she didn't know quite what she hoped. "Also, it served as your test. Well done. You passed." Lemon added disinterestedly. "...W-what?" "That was your promotion test. It wouldn't have been much of a test if you knew it was a test." That wasn't what Yevetta had meant at all when she'd said yes! She'd thought, she'd meant, a normal promotion for a normal job! But Lemon Pink had completely misunderstood, and now she was in too deep and couldn't take it back, didn't dare even think of taking it back. 'It was just a misunderstanding' Yevetta mentally lamented in a tiny, lost voice. "So... so the test was...?" She weakly trailed off. "A test of your professionalism working on the other side of the law. Quiet, quick, obedient, and efficient. These are the professional standards I expect you to maintain both off and on the clock. Don't expect to be introduced to any of my personal work, furthermore do not try to pry into my personal life anymore, so absolutely no seeking out Randy to speak to him regarding any of this, understood? But otherwise, welcome aboard." There was a question she had to ask, had to know how deep she was in, "But what if I'd said no? What if I didn't agree to the test?" Lemon's apathetic answer was not the response she'd been expecting; "Then you would not have seen the changelings. and we would simply have left. Since you will be working for me, there is little harm in you knowing that while I am far from a master, I do have some skill in the magical school of illusions." What? Yevetta wasn't a unicorn, hadn't grown up around unicorns, but surely illusions weren't that common? Or were they? How would she know if they were or weren't? The thought that the three dead changelings had all been an illusion, part of the test, appealed tempted her. But no, it was best that she treat everything she'd seen as if it had been entirely real. It was better than the alternative of mistakenly thinking something wasn't real when it was. If she started second guessing everything she ever saw... "Do you have any more questions? Or are you satisfied?" Lemon prompted, all cool professionalism, Yevetta looked down at her open talons, still laden with dried sticky resin, then back up at the expectantly waiting pink mare. "...Sure thing, boss. Whatever you say." And that was how Yevetta Kreecaw, dutiful eldest daughter of four, immigrant to Equestria, freshly trained business accountant, ended up in the employment of a secret crime boss. Really, looking back after two months, despite all her silent internal screaming, it wasn't much different from her day job at Eggs n' Benidect. There was less than expected, (meaning none-what-so-ever), armed burglary, skulking in alleyways, or stealing from orphans. Just a different sort of paperwork, and more fetching and carrying sealed parcels. And when her boss told her to stay in her room at night and not open the door no matter what she heard, well, it was certainly better than not knowing not to open the door. Right? If Lemon Pink was doing anything truly evil and vicious behind the scenes, Yevetta didn't know, and wasn't interested in finding out. It wasn't her business. Furthermore, unless she volunteered to do some 'overtime', Lemon wouldn’t make it into her business either. Yevetta wouldn’t be volunteering. She was perfectly happy with her new position and comfortable with her level of responsibility. Her promotion came with a nice starting bonus, a raise, and increased job security. And 'other' forms of security too. There was a certain reassurance in knowing if or when the next time monsters came knocking, your boss would knife them without so much as blinking. Reassuring, and terrifying. Because Lemon would faithfully keep her word, as long as Yevetta faithfully kept hers. Really, it was just good business to keep your word. ---I---