//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Where There is Smoke // by Fizzy Orange //------------------------------// Trixie was singing. Pokey could hardly believe it! Not the singing part itself as that was par for the course when Trixie was in her shower. In fact, he was pleasantly relieved that she didn’t conjure up an illusionary cheering audience this time. No, the real problem was with the timing. He was already running late by the time he had entered the Residency, meaning that Trixie must have woken up quite later than usual to not be done with her morning ritual yet. On the other hoof the singing was a good sign that Trixie wasn’t nursing a hangover. Then again she was friends with Carrot Top, so she usually had the farmer’s hangover cure on hoof. The fact Trixie was still in her shower was a problem because Pokey had done a very good dramatic entrance, only to find nopony to witness it. He decided to wait for his boss by getting ahead in his paperwork. Something told him they wouldn’t be doing much office work today. From his desk he could fully appreciate Trixie’s singing, the tune of the day being something from her native Neigh-Orleans that Pokey didn’t understand. J'suis né dans un bar au bord d'un marécage Par une nuit de lune fine J'ai appris à marcher dans le fond d'une barque Contre les crosses des carabines J'suis né dans le Bayou Je peux lire le futur dans les entrailles des tatous Après j'essuie le sang sûr mes jeans J'étais dans les meilleurs à l'école de vodou Des sorciers zebres de New Orléans J'suis né dans le Bayou J'suis né dans le Bayou J'ai le cuir dur comme de l'alligator Celui qui sèche dans la court J'en mange un peu Je danse autour On dit que c'est bon pour l'amour J'suis né dans le Bayou En parlant de ça, j'suis pas un phénomène Mais je me débrouille pour plaire J'ai mon beau costard pou les fins de semaine Quand Peggy met sa robe légère J'suis né dans le Bayou J'suis né dans le Bayou Et je danse je danse sur la terre que j'aime Celle que si gagne sur la boue Et je marche je marche dans la belle lumière Verte du Bayou Et je danse je danse sur la terre que j'aime Celle que si gagne sur la boue Et j'avance j'avance dans la belle lumière Verte du Bayou J'suis né dans un bar au bord d'un marécage Par une nuit de lune fine J'ai appris à marcher dans le fond d'une barque Contre les crosses des carabine J'suis né dans le Bayou J'suis né dans le Bayou Trixie came down, mane wrapped in a purple towel, to find Pokey seated at his desk and engaged in paper work. “Oh! You’re already here!” she said, surprised. Her assistant looked up at her, sent a glance toward the clock on the wall, and lifted his eyebrows in an inquisitive fashion. Trixie rolled her eyes in a huff. “Yeah I know I got up late. Want to make something of it? Bite me!” Pokey sighed and got up, heading toward Trixie. She gasped in shock, backing away with a look of panic on her face. “Wait! I didn’t mean literally!” Much to her relief, the stallion just walked past her and headed for the front door without saying a word. Trixie stood there, blinking, staring at the door in complete confusion. Did her assistant just quit? Just as she was asking herself that question, Pokey Pierce’s silvery magic opened the door in a dramatic slam, sending a gust of wind that threw Trixie’s towel off her still wet mane. The stallion leapt into the residency and struck a dramatic pose. “Trixie!” he yelled loudly, looking positively frantic. “There’s been another mysterious fire! I was on my way to work when I noticed a commotion at the market place. Someone torched Mister Cabbage’s stand!” he quickly explained, pointing a hoof in the direction of the market. Trixie was taken aback by this sudden change in the mood. She wasn’t fully convinced this wasn’t some sort of performance actually. Pokey could be a pretty good actor if he wanted to. In fact he showed more of his talent as he dragged his hooves into the office, a look of dramatic dismay etched over his features. He put a hoof to his forehead as he began recounting how distraught Mister Cabbage had been at the loss of his cabbages. Trixie, who had yet to eat breakfast, took a second to think that a cabbage muffin would be pretty good right about now. She was, however, broken out of her culinary daydream by five simple words uttered by her assistance. “We have to do something!” Trixie shook her head in confusion. “Wait…What? Why?” she said, moving a strand of her wet hair out of the way. “It’s obvious we have an arsonist in Ponyville, Trixie,” Pokey said, “and it’s not like Ponyville has any investigator. You’re the Night Court representative, you’re supposed to be there for Equestria and I think Ponyville needs you right now.” Trixie had recovered her towel using her magic, and was busy rubbing her mane to dry it out. “What’s in it for me?” she asked, her mane exploding into a fluffy mess. Pokey was courteous enough to not giggle at the sight. The two of them got back into the office proper just as a Trixie summoned a brush in a flash of blue magic. This was a spell she had learned watching Lyra summon her lyre. She had since then adapted it to her hat, cape and hairbrush, among other random items in her house. “Well, you would be considered a hero for finding the culprit,” said the stallion. “I saved the world from the Tyrant Sun!” replied the mare, somewhat offended. “And some ponies in town still think you were about to sell them out to her to save your own hide,” said Pokey, shrugging as if those accusations were none of his concerns. “Besides, it would let you play Ace of Clover instead of doing paperwork.” Trixie perked up at the mention of her newest literary heroine. She grabbed her hat off the coat rack and landed it on her head. With a flash of her magic her wizard hat turned into a purple star-studded fedora. “Get your hat! We got a case to solve,” she declared. Pokey smirked. “I don’t have a hat with me right now.” “Where’d you get the magnifying glass?” asked Raindrops. “The same place I got his hat,” said Trixie, pointing to Pokey’s new black bowler hat. “There’s a ton of old stuff in the residency basement.” The male unicorn was currently interviewing witnesses around the market place. The way he was blushing while talking to Doctor Minuette seemed to suggest his interrogation had already moved past the subject of the incident. “My cabbages! My cabbages!” wailed Mister Cabbage. It had been about half an hour since Pokey had originally chanced upon the scene of the fire, and yet the poor Earth Pony stallion was still crying over his lost stand. Raindrops had been on the scene when they arrived, but this time it had been a unicorn, the aforementioned Doctor Minuette, with a bucket of water that had saved the day. The pegasus was still worried about all those fires and had stuck around. At the very least she could keep the owner company while he recovered. Trixie wondered if the overtly dramatic farmer was related to one of the Flower Trio. Trixie had quickly used her magic to scan the spot. Without Raindrops’ magic flooding the site she did manage to make out a faint aura of wild magic. This was clearly not the work of well-molded magic, like a unicorn would do, and more a natural expression akin to that of a pegasus or earth pony. There was a quality about it that was hard to put into words for anyone without the same magic sight as her. The closest analogue Trixie could find was the word ‘spicy’, but she elected not to volunteer that description and kept it for herself. It didn’t look quite like pegasus magic but she was no expert on them so she wasn’t ready to just outright ignore the possibility. After that summary examination she had pulled out a magnifying glass out of nowhere and had went about examining every square inch of charred cabbages laid out before her. That’s when Pokey trotted back to her side, a certain far off look in his eye that told Trixie he had other things on his mind besides helping the pursuit of law and order. “Done flirting for today, Romeo? Finally realized you had no chance with her, huh?” Trixie asked, barely giving her assistant an annoyed glance. “I was not flirting, I was interviewing witnesses. And for your information she thinks my new hat gives me an air of class,” he said, closing his eyes and turning his chin upward. “Not flirting huh… classy is just a nice way of saying ‘stuffy’,” said Trixie, shaking her hoof as if to physically dismiss his claim. “She said it makes my eyes look a warmer shade of green. You’re just jealous because everyone thinks your hat looks goofy,” he added with a smirk. That comment got a rise out of Trixie who whipped her head around “What?! I’ll have you know my hat is perfectly fine! All my friends love my hat! Ask Raindrops!” “Well your wizard hat is kind of goofy,” said Raindrops, shrugging. “But I can’t imagine you without it.” Trixie grumbled something about the Element of Honesty and just went back to her examination while Pokey smile victoriously. “Why don’t you just make with the skinny, Casanova, and tell us what you’ve learned between two fits of flirtatious giggling with the good Doctor,” she finally said. “Not much to tell. She saw something orange flash by at the corner of her eyes and she turned in that direction only to see the cabbage stand was already in flames. She grabbed a bucket and took it out,” answered the stallion. “Mister Cabbage told me he was still setting up. He went back to his wagon over there to get a tarp and when he returned it was already on fire. A few seconds later Doctor Minuette came back with her bucket,” added Raindrops. Trixie nodded “No other witnesses?” “As far as I know Doctor Minuette is the only pony to have seen the fire start. Everypony else only noticed when she called for water,” said Pokey. “Guess we have a proper mystery on our hooves,” said Trixie, now on the opposite side of the stand from her friend. She finally spotted something that wasn’t burnt vegetable. It was small and orange in color. With some precise application of telekinesis she plucked the clue out of the mess. “Hah hah! Now we’re getting somewhere!” She declared. “Found a clue, Boss?” “Yes and don’t call me that. Here, take a look at this,” said Trixie, bringing her discovery about. Raindrops gave Mister Cabbage a final pat on the back and went closer to her friend. Floating in a field of sparkling blue energy was a tiny feather of a bright orange color. “You think our anonymous fiend left it behind?” asked Pokey. Trixie rolled her eyes. “No your mother left it behind… of course it’s his! Do you see any orange pegasi around? Raindrops, I’m no expert on pegasus anatomy, do you know what kind of feather this is?” Raindrops gazed at the feather, rubbing her chin with a hoof. “It’s assymetrical so it’s obviously a flight feather, but even by auxiliary covert standard it’s pretty small. If it didn’t have a vane and barbs I would think it was a downy feather.” “Know anypony this could belong to?” asked Pokey. Raindrops shrugged “By color and size I can only think of little Scootaloo, but I kinda doubt it’s her.” Trixie blinked “Any particularly compelling reason those fires couldn’t be chalked up to some childish mischief?” “Putting aside Cheerilee’s ranting about her behavior, I don’t think the kid has it in her,” began Pokey. “But more importantly, yesterday’s first fire occurred during class hours and I doubt Cheerilee would let one of her charges out of her sight long enough for one of them to cause the Flower Trio a panic attack.” “Not that it would take that long to do that,” pointed out Trixie. “There is that,” said Pokey, nodding. “Plus Scootaloo can’t fly yet, so I doubt she could pull this off without someone seeing her run away,” added Rainrops. “Well that sure got us nowhere fast,” said Trixie, turning her gaze back to the mess that used to be Mister Cabbage’s stand. Trixie cursed herself for not examining hoof prints around the stand when she first got on site Then again she doubted there was anything left behind to find, considering how dry the weather had been recently and that about a dozen ponies had come to gawk or offer words of encouragement to Mister Cabbage. The farmer had begun slowly making his way back to his cart by now and was probably going to go somewhere else to wallow in overblown despair some more. Trixie considered moving this little brainstorming party elsewhere; the smell of burnt cabbages was starting to bother her. “Wait a second!” she suddenly exclaimed, pointing a hoof at the charred mass, “If I found the feather in that mess then…” Pokey’s eyes widened as he realized where Trixie was going. “Then why isn’t it burnt like the rest of it?” “Exactly!” said Trixie, nodding. “Guess there’s more to our mystery firebug that we thought at first glance,” added Pokey. Trixie quickly turned to Raindrops “There isn’t a pony named Firebug in town is there?” Raindrops rolled her eyes “We’re not that lucky, Trixie.” Trixie gave a little pout and rubbed her chin with a hoof. Finally she had an idea and her eyes seemed to glimmer for a second. “Allright then… my dear Pierceson I believe it is time to divide and conquer!” she said, closing her eyes and waving her hoof in a wide arc dramatically. “Divide and conquer? Pierceson?” said the confused stallion. “Well maybe not conquer, but divide anyway. You will go see your underworld contacts while I speak with certain officials to see if any new pegasus arrived in town recently or if any pegasus is acting in a suspicious manner,” she added. Pokey stared at her, his eyebrow knitted in confusion. Trixie sighed before explaining herself. “I mean you go see Pinkie Pie and I’ll go talk to Ditzy at the post office. Meet me at Berry’s afterward. That is if you don’t spend half the morning fluttering your eyelashes at each other.” Pokey was about to object when Raindrops spoke up first, interrupting him. “Anything you want me to do to help? I can’t let some arsonist jerk mess with Ponyville like this," she said, pounding the ground with her hoof. “Well if you can keep an eye out from the sky, do a little reconnaissance over the village, that would be helpful. Do a loop around town and then meet with us, if you’re not too busy with work that is.” said the unicorn. The pegasus shook her head. “Nah, I’m on cloud patrol duty today, I just need to make sure clouds don’t clump together and that’s all. I can do that and keep an eye out for our pyromaniac at the same time.” “Sounds good to me! Now let’s go! I want to score a muffin off of Ditzy before she eats them all!”