“So, what’s the plan?” Lucky Catch asked.
“What makes you think there’s a plan?” I replied.
“You’re carrying a telescope and paid for a makeover costing more than I make in a week,” she surmised with a knowing smile. Lucky Catch had spent an hour being pampered at Equestria’s most expensive salon while I was across the street getting lunch. Her coat glittered in the evening light, false eyelashes had been added and her face had been subtly covered in grade A cosmetics.
She gave me a smile that revealed her whitened teeth. “There’s a plan, what is it?”
I found myself returning the smile. “Well I have a few theories about Blueblood’s Panther, but the only way to prove them is direct observation.”
“We won’t be able to get close to it. Is that what the telescope is for?”
I replied with a nod then added, “We have to watch it from outside the palace grounds and that means we need to see over the palace walls.”
“You mean we would have to be high up on a tall building near the palace itself?”
“Yes, and I can only think of one building suitable.” I looked at Catch and waited as she started to think of suitable buildings. We were walking down Palace Boulevard again in the direction of the palace. The afternoon herd had dispersed and the road had cleared as Princess Celestia prepared lower the sun.
“The Colton Stables Hotel,” Catch realised. “The hotel that fancy ponies and visiting nobility stay at, right? Just across from the palace?”
I nodded, “They do have lower priced rooms, but we need one with a balcony and high up enough to give us a view of the palace grounds.”
Catch broke out into a full grin shaking her head slowly, “you wouldn’t.”
“Well, I’m sure Blueblood can afford it, and we’re going to need the penthouse suite to solve this case properly.” I brought a grin to my face as well. “Some room service wouldn’t go too far astray either.” Lucky Catch began to laugh, a sure sign she was getting too comfortable with these sorts of antics. I am such a bad influence on her (1).
Once we arrived at the hotel we put our plan into action. I coached Catch a little before hoof as we planned out our little scheme. This was going to combine the old Hoofington Herding Trick and bit of Delusions of Grandeur for good measure. The first part of our scheme was the entrance; we needed to establish our characters in the minds of the hotel staff with some entertaining acting.
Lucky Catch stormed into the hotel lobby, pushing past other ponies without regard and walked right past the queue in front of the check in desk. I followed, apologising to every pony Catch slighted during her entrance.
Once Catch reached the desk she stopped and lifted her nose into the air in disdain, tapping her hoof impatiently. I galloped forward and rang the service bell three times. Then I stood waiting by Catch and did my best to look nervous.
The bell got the attention of the mare running the desk. Annoyed at the interruption, she gave a huff and came over to rebuke us.
Before she could say anything I proclaimed, “Presenting Baroness von Catch of Stalliongrad.” The counter mare swallowed the rebuke she was about to give and gave Catch a slight curtsy that was ignored entirely.
“How can we help you Baroness?” the mare asked Catch, but the Baroness refused to acknowledge the existence of the desk clerk.
I gave a polite cough. “The Baroness is visiting Canterlot at the invitation of Prince Blueblood. However the Baroness has declined the use of the Palace guest facilities and wishes to sojourn in one of the penthouse suites of this hotel.” I gave the clerk a slight pleading look and added in a quieter tone, “Please tell me you can accommodate us. My mistress is most demanding and if I cannot find her an appropriately luxurious suite she’ll send me to the deepest pits of Stalliongrad to mine gems with my bare hooves.”
Catch tapped her hoof to say she was getting impatient.
The desk clerk gave me a sympathetic look. “I’d love to help but we only have one penthouse vacant right now and it’s already been reserved.”
“Does the reservist have a landed title?” I asked in a low voice. The desk clerk turned to check the ledger further along the desk.
“She’s a wealthy tycoon from Manehatten. I’m sorry but we just don’t have any more penthouses available. The lead up to the Summer Sun Celebration always takes up most of our suites.”
I gave Catch a slight flick from my tail as a signal to move to our contingency plan. “Can’t you just bump her down a room? My mistress is really getting impatient and we need that suite. If Miss Tycoon has an issue with it get her to take it up with the Prince, because it’s not like—“
“I have endured enough of this foolishness!” Catch roared. She threw her hooves onto the desk and lifted herself up so she could stare down at the desk clerk. I had already given the clerk a way out – giving us the room – and now Catch was going to drive her into it. Later I would find myself favourably comparing Catch’s shouting with Luna’s “Royal Canterlot Voice”, but Catch can’t match the sheer volume the Princess can project (2).
“Turn over the room! or I shall ensure that everypony of worth in Equestria knows that you would favour a commoner over a thoroughbred noble!” Catch’s tirade had pushed the poor desk clerk down onto her plot and she was now melting under the ‘baroness’s’ wrathful glare.
“My Mistress,” I began to interrupt. “Please, it’s not her fault I’m sure there’s another—“
Catch rounded on me yelling, “How dare you speak on behalf of this commoner! You shalt remember who you are bound to serve. When we return to—“
“It’s yours,” the clerk blurted out.
“What‽” Catch asked in shock.
“The room, take it. Just don’t punish him, please.”
“Good to see you came to your senses,” Catch replied in a normal tone and she began walking towards the elevators. The entire room breathed a sigh of relief as Catch walked away. Most of the audience of ponies that had been watching the tirade did their best to pretend nothing happened.
I went to the clerk and she presented me with the key to the penthouse. “Thank you for your help.”
She nodded in reply, “be careful.” Then she leant forward and gave me a soft nuzzle, blushing as she did so. It was a good thing Catch had gone, the possessive mare would have gone into a genuine rage if she saw that.
I gave the clerk a thankful nod and galloped after Lucky Catch.
The elevator ride was quick at first, but began to slow as it neared the top of the building. Elevators are a rare thing in architecture and expensive to run. Most ponies assume that the cost is in the magic used to propel the car. In truth elevators actually use pony power, rather than magic, and there’s some poor earth pony turning a wheel somewhere to move the elevator car.
The car eventually reached the floor our penthouse was on and adjusted slightly so the doors lined up for us to open. We alighted onto a landing with a door at the end matching the key I received from the clerk downstairs.
I opened the door and Lucky Catch exclaimed in wonder at the sight, I was simply speechless. The Penthouse wasn’t so much a room as it was the entire floor, and we were eighteen floors up from the surface of Canterlot, itself halfway up a mountain.
I walked out onto the western balcony and looked out at the view below. The palace and its gardens were a magnificent view, but beyond them lay the rest of Equestria in an even greater vista. I could even see Ponyville and I could make out the clock tower from here as well as the vast orchards of Sweet Apple Acres. Sadly I couldn’t see my house from here.
“Timey, come see this,” I heard a call out from inside. Catch had decided to check the rest of the room and I went to see what she had found. Trotting through a grandiose doorway I found Catch lying across a princess sized bed (3) and she was giving me a come hither look.
It was at this point that I realized my mistake. I was so caught up in finding a spot for my telescope, and simultaneously looking for a way to spend as many bits as possible, that I had made a critical error. I brought Lucky Catch into an expensive hotel room with a princess sized bed. There was also a box of chocolates with a bottle of grape juice on the nightstand. The worst part was that the suite seemed to have been set up with a romantic environment in mind for the original guests.
Sweet Celestia’s Day Glow Mane, I thought to myself. I sighed, caught my breath and prepared to deal with the situation.
“Well, I see you claimed this room.” I tilted my head toward the door. “Let’s go order some dinner. I want to see the menu this place has.”
I think I briefly saw Catch’s expression fall as I turned and walked out the room. Keeping her distracted all night was going to be an amazing feat by itself.
The Colton Stables Hotel was a modern affair with all the modern conveniences its reputation required. A guest could hardly be expected to have to travel all the way to the kitchens to order a meal. Instead a very clever arrangement with scrying spells was used to send a message remotely.
A table by the entrance featured a glass surface, a notepad, a pair of gems, and a large hoof friendly button. I took a sheet from the notepad and filled out what I wanted from the menu. I took the opportunity to sample a few of the fine delicacies that a common pony could never afford.
“Is that the menu?” Catch asked as she looked over my shoulder at the list of overpriced meals.
“Closer to the endangered flora list I imagine,” I noted. The list was filled with rare flowers with limited habitats, including a dish labelled “Poison Joke Surprise”. I took the poison joke dish, which advertised a chaotic flavour created using specially treated flowers from the Everfree Forest.
Lucky Catch opted for a “Fire Flower Fulmination” which promised to be bright and hot. Finally I added an order for the “Chocolate Mousse Moose” dessert and a bottle of a drink named “The Rainbow Chaser”.
I placed the paper onto the glass surface of the table, pushed the button on the device and one of the gems lit up with a red glow. The table used a scrying spell to create an image of the paper we had written on down on a similar glass in the kitchens. After a few moments the second gem lit up with a green glow to say then order had been received.
“Modern enchantments are so incredible,” Catch noted.
I nodded. “Indeed, now let’s go get the telescope set up.” I picked up the case containing our borrowed instrument and we went out to the western balcony. While Catch admired the view, I started to set the telescope up. I was delighted to discover this one was of earth pony make that could be set up easily without the use of magic or hours of hoof work.
I set the case on the ground, pushed the setup button and took a few steps back. The case flipped open and the telescope sprung open onto a tripod. A few adjustments and I had it pointing down toward the palace.
“Timey,” Catch began. “Take a look at the sunset.”
“Trying not to, I don’t want to lose an eye to this telescope,” I replied as I adjusted the focus on the eyepiece. Focused on my task, I paid little attention to Catch as she started to open her own bags. Just as I managed to get the thing focused on the palace gates I felt a tap on my flank.
“Time Turner,” Catch asked.
“Yes Catch?” I said as I turned toward her and found her sitting on her flank with a fore hoof in the air, holding an open box. The box held a golden tail ring that probably took Catch a month to save up for.
It was rather… strange. We were together on a balcony high above Canterlot with what might be one of the best views in Equestria, watching the sun set. It was probably the most poetic moment for a proposition like this.
“Reset,” I invoked.
Time reset itself back to where it had been moments ago as Lucky Catch made her observation, “Timey, take a look at the sunset.” I broke away from the telescope to look at the sight, I actually felt guilty.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Catch asked as she turned to look at me.
“It is,” I agreed. “Catch, can you look through this telescope and adjust it a bit, I just need a moment.” Catch nodded and took my place while I retreated back inside the suite.
Once I was alone I sighed to myself. Shame, I was feeling shame of all emotions. Normally I never felt anything near that, it’s hard to feel regret when you can often avoid it entirely. Another proposal avoided. I suppose by now it was starting to build up and Catch’s persistence was getting to me. I liked her enough to want her to be happy, but what was I going to do with her?
I’ll Cross that bridge when it comes, I told myself. Though someday I’ll need to give her an answer. Introspective moment over, I went back outside to check on Catch’s progress.
“Turner, come have a look at this,” she said as I came out. She quickly moved away to let me see for myself. “What do you think of that?”
I peered into the eyepiece, and drew back in horror from the image the telescope showed. A distant echo of laughter came to mind. “The statue…” I felt a little shaken having seen the monstrosity again.
“That’s the statue?” Catch asked as she looked back through the telescope again. “So this is the one in your nightmares. That’s Discord: the representation of disharmony.”
“It’s called Discord?”
“You didn’t know?” Catch gave me a concerned look. “You named your detective agency after him.”
“I-I called it Discordian because it meant disharmony, and it sounded cooler,” I admitted.
“I thought you said you went on the palace tour as a colt?”
“I did,” I said with a nod. “But I didn’t pay any attention to the names.”
My mind rapidly filled horrible thoughts. The statue was the Celestia damned representation of chaos and disharmony, the very basis of my detective career. This did not bode well, everything I had learned as a discordian detective was telling me something was wrong here.
Before I could go into a panic attack there was a knock on the suite door. I was relieved to have a mundane problem to solve. I left Catch on the balcony and left to answer the door. On the other side of the door was a mare with a small chef’s hat perched on her head, and a trolley holding several trays of covered food.
“Good evening sir, this is your order with complements from the head chef. Would you like to charge this to your room or somewhere else?” the mare asked.
“Charge it to Prince Blueblood.”
“Sir?” the mare asked quizzically.
“The Prince has offered to pay for my mistress’s stay here, in lieu of staying in one of the palace suites. Just send it to him with the note, ‘Time Turner’s Expenses’.”
“Very good sir,” she nodded while recording my instruction on a bill and presented it to me. “Sign here please.” I made my mark on the bill for the food and the mare left.
I took the trolley out to the balcony just in time to see the sun set entirely.
We took turns between eating our dinner and watching the palace though the telescope. Now that night had fallen I was expecting to see Blueblood’s panther anytime now. The Poison Joke Surprise surprised me with a taste that changed between each bite, ranging from a chocolate taste to dirt.
Catch displayed a surprising resistance to the taste of spicy food and easily ate a dish that forced me to down my drink when she gave me a bit to try. When I returned the gesture she found mine tasted exactly the same as hers. That was the joke I supposed; plants have a terrible sense of humour.
During one of Catch’s turns on the telescope she asked me a question from this morning. “Timey, you said I should ask you about your cutie mark sometime. Nothing’s happening yet, so could you tell me now?”
I agreed and drank another glass of the Rainbow Chaser. “Before we begin, I want you to promise never to tell anypony about this. It’s one of my deepest secrets.”
“I promise,” Catch replied.
“Uh-huh, you will.” I coughed. “Now, repeat after me: ‘Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye’.”
Catch followed me through the motions and then asked, “What was that for?”
“That was a Pinkie Promise. It’s something we take it very seriously in Ponyville. Because trust between friends is something that should last…”
“Forever!” Came the sound of the promise’s enforcer as she flew across the Canterlot sky in a ballistic arc toward Ponyville.
“Was that… Pinkie Pie?” asked a shocked Lucky Catch.
“Or a pig flying, I stopped asking questions about her a while back. Alright, let’s get on with the story.”
“It was a week or so after my encounter with the statue – Discord – on my school’s field trip to Canterlot. We had returned home to Trottingham – yes Catch, I was born in Trottingham, notice the accent? – And I had started to calm down after my encounter. However Discord’s voice was still haunting me with the words, ‘You will live in interesting times’.
“So here I was, walking through the town on my way home when I saw something amazing. I saw an adult stallion with a tan coat, a dark mane and the same eyes as me. It’s not every day you see somepony that looks just like you, so I followed him. Eventually he seemed to notice me and turned down into an alleyway, where I ran into him.
“The next thing I noticed was that we sounded almost the same as well, his voice was deeper and was the same as mine is now. ‘Hello there little colt,’ he said with a smile. Considering the way he greeted me, it clear to me who he was.
“‘Sweet Celestia,’ I said. ‘you’re me.’
“The future me replied, ‘Yep, I suppose so, we’ll go with that.’ He stopped to consider me for a moment. ‘It’s probably not a good thing that we met. This can cause problems in the timeline, all sorts of wibbly wobbly, timey whimey problems.’
“I was young at the time and as you might have guessed, currently obsessed about getting my mark. So there I was, looking at myself, and my eyes wandered to the hourglass mark on my future flank. ‘An hourglass, that means time right?’ I guessed. ‘You’re here, so that must mean you can time travel. So that means I’m going to get a time traveling cutie mark!’ So I looked back at my own flank imagining the mark that I knew I was going to get, and it appeared right before my eyes.
“Before I could break into the traditional celebratory dance, my future-self stopped me. ‘Okay... me, I need to get going before we tear a hole the size of Manehatten in the universe. Be careful, stay in school and don’t let too many people know how you got your mark. That could end badly.’ I nodded and my future-self left the alleyway, walking away from the road I would have to take to get home.
After a few minutes of blissful celebration I went home to show my family my mark. I still keep this story quiet because I don’t want to blow a hole in the universe. So don’t go spreading it around, okay?”
Story finished, I refilled my cup and had another drink.
“Well that’s probably the strangest cutie mark story I’ve ever heard,” Catch stated.
“Did you expect anything normal at this point?” I replied dryly. Catch refused to dignify that with a comment and returned to her shift on the telescope.
A few minutes later she saw something. “Turner, the Panther just appeared.” She moved aside to let me look through the telescope.
“Where is it?” I asked while I got my bearings.
“Palace gardens, in the southern quarter, near the wall.”
I spotted the Panther just where Catch said it was. “It’s walking along the wall, it must know where it’s – wait it just jumped.”
The Panther had leapt up to one of the lower balconies on the palace and waited. After about two minutes it leapt up again to another balcony above it where it waited again before continuing its pattern of leaping up another two floors.
Then it started to move along the palace wall, keeping to the same floor as it moved along the balconies toward the south tower. Once at the tower it waited and the “head” seemed to gaze up at the tower. I shifted the telescope to focus on the tower to find out what the Panther was after. I didn’t have to look for long. The door on one of the largest balconies halfway up the tower opened and Prince Blueblood emerged with his two bodyguards.
Blueblood quickly spotted the Panther waiting below, and retreated inside with his guards into what I presumed to be his chambers. The Panther took a flying leap larger than any it had made before and landed on Blueblood’s balcony, where it sat.
“Catch, you’re the animal expert. What do you make of this?”
Catch took my place at the telescope and peered through at the Panther. “It’s just sitting there. Though it does look like it's waiting for something; it’s alert, not lounging around. It also looks like it’s got its back to the room and facing outwards.”
“So, it’s not watching Blueblood like a griffon would watch a rabbit then?” I asked.
“No, it’s just watching everything but Blueblood and it’s being attentive, but not aggressive.” After a moment Catch gave me her professional opinion, “I think it’s guarding him.”
“Now it makes sense, the story wasn’t entirely true then.” Catch turned to give me a questioning look, nonverbally asking me to elaborate. Or I just thought she was and elaborated anyway.
“The story implied that the Panther left and never returned once it was freed from its bond after it killed Blueblood the 4th.” I started to pace back and forth across the balcony. “Yet here it is acting like the guardian it always was. It’s been following Blueblood for days, and even though Blueblood thinks it wants to harm him it hasn’t. It’s perfectly capable of doing so, and I doubt his bodyguards could stop something that just leapt halfway up the tower.”
“But why is it here now?” Catch asked.
“That is a good question. It hasn’t been seen in more than a thousand years, but is that really a surprise when Equestria has been more or less peaceful for a millennium? It’s a guardian that knows that a visible presence would cause more problems than it would solve. So it has only quietly guarded the Blueblood line over that time. Which brings us to another good question: why is it guarding Blueblood so overtly?”
“Because… it thinks it needs to?” Catch asked hesitantly.
I nodded. “As the story said, ‘forever will it protect you and your descendants from creatures of the night, the forces of darkness and those that hide in shadow’.”
I snorted. “Blueblood is right to be worried, but he’s focusing on the wrong threat. The Panther is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. There’s something else out there after him and if the Panther hasn’t struck back at it, then it doesn’t know what it is either.”
Luna’s Notes:
(1) Alternatively, Catch is becoming a good influence on Turner.
(2) The Royal Canterlot Voice is the result of centuries of practice combined with a mild voice amplification spell that together became second nature to us. However I have yet to see any of my subjects replicate it nearly as well as we can.
(3) Recall if you would the stature our sister enjoys and note that the “princess” sized bed is roughly based on the size of the royal divan in her chambers.