//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: 500 Kilometres 
// by Wheller 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 3


Twilight Sparkle lay in bed next to the snoring schäferhund. There was certainly no chance of getting any rest with that racket. Twilight looked over at Heinrich Büchsenmacher, and considered how easy it would be to smother him with a pillow while he slept. Some nights, Twilight wondered why she hadn’t done it already. She didn’t need Heinrich Büchsenmacher as much as he needed her. He was really quite pathetic when she thought about it, and it wasn’t hard for her to see why.  Apparently, at least to schäferhund standards, Heinrich was pretty ugly looking, something about his teeth not being big enough for the bitches of his race or something stupid like that.

To Twilight, Heinrich was a means to an end, she didn’t particularly care about him, though, she didn’t particularly care about anyone at this point. Not since she had left Ponyville behind her. She didn’t need friends, all she needed was her gun, her wits, and the Tome of Alhazred and she was set for life. The only reason why she kept Heinrich around was for his ammunition press, that and the few weapon smuggling jobs that he set up for her was good money, even if it was the Nederlands’ second rate decimalised paper money. In truth, the nederlands gulden wasn’t actually worth anything compared to the Equestrian pound, as it wasn’t pegged to anything, unlike the pound, which was pegged to gold. Twilight supposed it mattered little, money was money, and here money was paper.

Twilight slipped out of bed, she felt like she needed a bath after sharing a bed with the smelly schäferhund. That would wait until morning, however. She had things that needed doing. She trotted into the main room of Heinrich’s workshop, the small, dark, dank room had little in the way of light, though Twilight wasn’t sure what she would have expected, it was the middle of the night after all. She trotted over to where she had hidden her saddlebags, over in the far corner where Heinrich would not notice them. The last thing Twilight wanted was him poking through her things. She used her magic to pull a book out from the bag and opened it up.

The Tome of Alhazred, her guide to the world was a book filled with experience and knowledge that Equestrians could never hope to know, and Twilight didn’t feel like sharing. She peered into the book for hours, mesmerised in the book’s words. She didn’t understand all of them, as the book had been written in Old Equestrian, but Twilight also noticed that the actual words on the pages didn’t matter, rather, all she had to do was just look at the pages and the meaning seemed to come to her as if they were a line of her own casual thoughts. Twilight Sparkle had never encountered a book like the Tome of Alhazred before, and she never intended to be apart from it. She had learned much from the book, all she had to do now was make sure that that information stayed hers.

She looked up at the clock in the room, and discovered that she'd been sitting here reading for the last several hours. She shut the Tome of Alhazred and slid it back into her saddlebags and began her trot over to the washroom just as she heard Heinrich’s yawns. He was awake and pulling himself out of bed.

Twilight gave him a small smile, suggestively shaking her flanks as she walked by him, and giving him a wink. He was so easy to take advantage of that it was almost a crime. All Heinrich needed was a bat of her eyelashes or a flick of her tail and he'd do whatever it was that she wanted. That was the real reason that Twilight kept him around. She had Heinrich on a leash, to use an adequate metaphor.

Twilight closed the door to the washroom behind her, locking it up, while useful, Heinrich could get to be pretty clingy. Twilight's morning bath was the only time she could really get to herself. She turned on the facet and watched for a moment as water gushed from the spout, and as steam from the hot water rose into the air. Twilight reached out with a hoof and stuck it into the water slightly. Nice and hot, just how she liked it. She climbed into the bath and gently laid herself back, allowing her self to submerge into the water, where soon enough, only her head stayed above.

She had almost taken the Tome of Alhazred into the bath with her. The book had multiple enchantments on it, one of which made it impervious to water. Twilight had decided against it however, just because it did repel water, didn't mean it wasn't disrespectful. Twilight reached out for a bottle of bubble bath with her magic opening it up and pouring a small amount into the tub. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to lean back and relax, making sure that her head wouldn't go underneath the water.

She must have fallen asleep in the bath, because when she opened her eyes, the bubbles were all gone, and the bath water had become cold. Her skin felt like prunes, indicating that it had taken on more water than normal through osmosis. Twilight pulled the plug on the bath and hopped out of the tub, grabbing a towel with her magic and drying herself off. She felt more than a little groggy. It had been a couple of weeks since leaving Equestria, and she was still having trouble getting her circadian rhythms into proper alignment.

She walked out of the washroom to discover Heinrich sitting in front of the door, waiting patiently for her to come out. She gave him a wink, casually and 'accidentally' brushing her flank up against his. Causing the schäferhund's tail wag to pick up speed. Twilight notice this sign of his arousal, and she gave him a wink. He was way too easy.

Soon enough, the two of them were out to make their rounds. They'd head out into the market district and check on their suppliers, who handled the importation of the raw materials, Twilight considered it boring, but did take slight amusement in trying to figure out just how much they were cheating Heinrich. Once they were squared away, and Twilight was getting bored again, they'd stop for a brief lunch and then continue on to meet the respective buyers.

This was a normal day, and this would be how all the days went, at least until they would get an order to smuggle some weapons into l'Afrique, or to rebels in the Capran Empire through their maritime boarder with Österungarischereich. The aging Capran Empire was a nation of horned goats and their vassals that was on the verge of falling apart. Independent weapon merchants were all jumping to sell weapons to bands of rebels, where they could make a killing on them. After all, the Capran's decimalised gold standard Lira was worth far more than the currencies of Europa. The weapon merchants could set pretty much any price they wanted and rebels would buy them.

Heinrich was, of course, sympathetic to their cause, and allowed himself to be taken advantage of by the rebels instead of taking advantage of them like he should have. She would have to have a talk with him about that.

Twilight glanced over her shoulder, someone was following them, she could feel it. She lead Heinrich away from their set path, and into a dark alleyway. Their tail was still following them. Twilight turned around and looked. Their tail was standing at the edge of the alley, smirking slightly at them.

'Bonjour mademoiselle', he said.

Twilight rose an eyebrow in confusion, their tail was a dark grey coated cheval, with a short, shaggy brown mane. His eyes were a brilliant green and he was wearing a black greatcoat. She didn't speak cheval, and she turned to Heinrich for translation.

'He says: “hello ma'am”', Heinrich said.

'I don't care, ask him what he wants', Twilight said with annoyance. Heinrich coveyed the message, causing the cheval to smirk.

'Je m'appelle Pierre La Roche, comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?' he asked with a smirk.

'He says his name is Pierre La Roche, and he wants to know how you are', Heinrich said.

Twilight sighed. 'That's nice I don't care. Ask him what he wants', she asked, and Heinrich conveyed.

'Je ne pouvais pas m'empêcher de remarquer que vous êtes une licorne.Les licornes sont seulement trouvés dans Equestria, non?' La Roche asked.

Twilight looked to Heinrich. Heinrich looked nervously at her. 'Uh... he didn't answer'.

'I don't care what he didn't say, I want to know what he did say!' Twilight said in annoyance.

'He says that he noticed you're a unicorn, and he's wondering if unicorns come from any place other than Equestria', Heinrich said.

'No of course not', Twilight said, rolling her eyes. This Pierre La Roche was starting to annoy her.

'Vous êtes loin de la maison alors. J'espère que rien de mauvais arrive à vous, si loin de la maison. Bonne journée', La Roche said, and he turned and walked away.

Twilight looked at Heinrich for translation.

'He says.... you're a long way from home, and he hopes nothing bad happens to you', Heinrich said.

Twilight thought about what he said for a moment. Then it hit her. 'Heinrich? We need to leave, and we need to live now'.

'What? Why? Where?' Heinrich asked.

'Out of the city, we need to leave. He was Police Internationale', Twilight said. 'He knows who I am, and we need to get out of here'.