“Amber you say? What an odd name. Don’t you think so, Fleur?” Fancypants’ statement took the unicorn mare by surprise. She’d just given her first name out of habit to the unicorn pair. The pink unicorn, Fleur-De-Lis, was nodding her head.
“Quite odd, Fancy.” The unicorn pair was still sitting at the threshold of their manor, a rich warm light spilling out of the open doorway into the cooling air of night. Still seated on the cobblestone pathway to the house, the mare decided to defend her name or at the very least find out what was a normal name to these ponies.
“What’s wrong? Is my name really so odd?” she asked. Looking around outside, the stallion motioned for Fleur and his visitor to follow him inside.
Once the door was closed he spoke. “Nothing is wrong just so much as it is odd. I take it you are not originally from Equestria are you?” Deciding to just go along, Amber nodded her head. “Ah. I see. I imagine you are probably from one of the older unicorn bloodlines from the old country so long ago.” Seeing her expecting look on her face, Fancy pants continued on. “Around here it’s custom for many ponies to be born with one name and after earning their cutie mark, some families will allow the child to either change their name to something new or add a new word to their name. Some ponies will even take both names as their own and allow one to act as a surname.”
“I remember one unicorn, a musician, who did just that, Fancy.” Fleur interjected. “I believe she was born with the name Heartstrings and after earning her cutie mark, a lyre, took on the name Lyra.” By the end of her sentence, Fleur had once again struck a bizarre pose. After a moment of holding it, she relaxed and continued speaking. “I remember it mostly as she played with the Royal Musicians at the celebration of Twilight Sparkle’s graduation from Celestia’s trusted pupil to the Silver Pinnacle.”
“What’s the Silver Pinnacle?” Amber couldn’t help but ask, praying it wasn’t something that was common knowledge. However, the white unicorn seemed to think it was a legitimate question.
“The Silver Pinnacle is a newly founded order of mages whose goal is to study the full potential of magic.” Fleur-De-Lise attempted to stifle a girlish giggle but was unable to. “Technically it was going to be publically announced to all of Equestria, but Princess Luna counseled her sister, apparently telling Celestia that without a great many eyes on the new group of mages, they could perform more ranges of magic. Mostly Illusion magic which starts to break down once people realize it’s being used and people’s perception shifts.”
Fancypants’ blue eyebrow rose above his monocle. “And how do you know all of this, my dear?”
Fanning herself with a hoof, Fleur grinned again. “Oh let’s just say Canterlot Palace has very thin walls.” Turning his attention back to the other mare, he continued their earlier conversation. “As dear Fleur has mentioned there are some ponies that will take both names. In fact I believe her Majesty’s former pupil added Sparkle to her name upon receiving her cutie mark.” Amber could only guess the cutie marks were probably the symbols on Fancypants and Fleur-De-Lis’s flanks.
Seeing her turn back to look at her own blank flanks, Fancypants spoke up again. “I see you have no cutie mark of your own.” The mare flinched at that. “Don’t worry, m’dear. The constrictive roles and jobs of the old lands will do that. Doesn’t allow for much self-discovery. While a mare of your age not having a mark is pretty rare, the few cases I’ve heard about ponies not having it were usually visiting ponies from our ancient homelands of Eurohipp.” Seeing her stunned expression and misinterpreting it as shock at not being the only one at such an age without a cutie mark. In reality her mind was once again revolting against the names of this place. Canterlot? Equestria? Eurohipp? It didn’t help her mind that when Fancypants has said it, she had at first thought he had said Europe.
“So again why is my name odd?” She decided it was time to get back to the main point. Oddly enough it wasn’t Fancypants that answered but Fleur. She leaned over Fancy’s back to loom at her before speaking. “Most ponies’ names describe them to a degree even if the name doesn’t describe the cutie mark. Amber, while a pretty name, doesn’t describe you very well.” The unicorn in question had to stop herself from mentioning that if caught in an emotional moment that she could be quite sappy. Instead she offered the last thing she wanted, her last name, Mayberry. Not that she was ashamed of it. She just didn’t like the idea of being on a last name basis with everyone. Granted she was by no means used to this country/world’s customs, but she didn’t feel comfortable just giving her last name to everyone instead of her first. Still if it would keep the excessive questions at bay, she’d do it.
“If you’d prefer, I do go by Mayberry most of the time.” Looking at her navy blue mane and tail, Fleur smiled. “It fits much better, I think! Fancy?” The stallion nodded. “I quite agree. Though I must ask what’s a Mayberry anyway?” Shaking her head, the newly rechristened Mayberry shook her head. “I don’t know, sir. What are pants?”
Politely stifling a laugh at Fancypant’s expense, Fleur-De-Lise found herself stifling a yawn as well a gesture soon mirrored by Fancypants and Mayberry. “Let me show you to your room, Mayberry so we can all retire for the night.” Motioning for the slightly smaller mare to follow, the pink unicorn trotted towards the second floor. Fancypants headed into a study, calling a servant to bring him a glass of brandy.
As they walked through out the lavishly decorated manor, Mayberry couldn’t help but admire her surrounding. Much of the furniture was ornate and carpet rich and plush. Many items were gilded in gold. Fancypants and Fleur obviously had some hefty coin. As she followed her now silent guide, a new thought came to mind one that she couldn’t get out. When Fleur stopped at one door and told her it was her room for the next two nights if she needed it, Mayberry decided to chance it and ask the question burning in her mind.
“Miss Fleur?” Her host’s head swiveled back to her gaze at her. “If you were named for your cutie mark, what was your name before?” There was no mistaking the blush that quickly spread across Fleur’s cheeks before just as quickly disappearing. “Let’s just say one of the many pluses of having a tradition where a pony can change her name to fit her better. Like being able to get rid of an embarrassing name like Horsetencia which my mother thought was a good name for a filly for some reason.” She turned back to head to the room she shared with Fancypants and stifling another yawn, Fleur bid the mare a good night and headed off to bed.
The bedroom was quite nice as with the rest of the house. Mayberry imagined it was for when important guests were staying or perhaps family. Hoping onto the plush bed, she decided to plan her next move. From what Fleur had mentioned this Silver Pinnacle was probably her best bet for figuring out how she had gotten there. Unfortunately it sounded like it was an elite circle of mages. Mages, magic it made her head pound from the impossibilities. Mayberry covered her face with her hoof, trying to let that sink in. It shouldn’t be possible at all. Pulling her hoof from her face, the unicorn stared at the appendage. It this point continuing to deny something when the evidence is literally in your face would be a fast track to insanity. Practically crossing her eyes to do so, she looked at her horn that marked her as more than just a bizarrely colored horse.
“Ugh, this is too much for me!” She declared, flopping backwards on the bed. Leaning her head to the side she stared at the candles off to the side she wondered just how much magic had replaced technology. “Ugh, even more magic. Now I’m a horse, surrounded by talking intelligent horses, pegasi, unicorns and ruled by two princesses who seem to be both of the latter.” She pondered that point. She’d seen the two princesses together at a time where daylight was fading, but even she couldn’t have missed the majestic wings and the lance-like horns coming from both of their heads. How were they different? She’d seen the winged guards flying patrols at different levels of the palace. At the party in the main hall she had seen unicorns levitating glasses from the trays. As for the third type, like the maid she had blackmailed, what did she have, super walking abilities; the power to cut through grease and to scrub the dishes clean?
Quickly she snapped herself back to task, while also noting her inability at staying on task had apparently made it through her surprise transformation unscathed. “Right, first thing to do is find out how to contact those blokes at the Silver Pinnacle. From there I can find out how I got here. If it’s by pure accident, maybe I can convince them to send me back.” Looking at her four hooves in the air, she amended. “If I can convince them I’m not a pony but a human.”
Sitting up, she thought about it even more. “No, one of them should know I’m a human because otherwise I’d have landed on that roof as myself.” She shuddered at that idea. Mayberry knew she never would have made it down then. “Ok, so one of them knows I’m a human and where I landed there are a bunch of guards and one of them has had a close encounter with me.” Her eyes widened in realization. The guard didn’t need to say where he saw her, just the fact he did see her in the palace would start a search for her! If they couldn’t find her there, they’d spread the search to the city itself. Her choice was obvious. She had to skip town.
“Ok, first I’ll need a way out of this city.” Thinking back, Mayberry dimly remembered that earlier that evening that one of Fancypants’ entourage had mentioned how well their family’s railroad was doing. OK that was a start. All she would need was a ticket for a train ride somewhere else. Thinking back to the day before, she remembered seeing the lights of a rather large town or a small city a good distance away. That would do for now. Shame she didn’t know the name it’s name for when she went to buy the ticket. A lump formed hi her stomach. To buy her ticket, she needed money. The obvious thing would to ask Fancy or Fleur for some, but she was already resting on a sign of their generosity. Asking for money didn’t feel right. Plus, she thought, Fancypants is no fool. He’d be pretty suspicious of someone asking for train money. Heck asking anyone for train money would point out her goals to the searchers.
“IF there are searchers,” she murmured. “I could just be acting way too paranoid.” Still, caution had gotten her this far it wouldn’t hurt to continue to do so. First, she needed money. Money could get her food, shelter, and a ticket. She didn’t want to ask Fancy and Fleur for theirs and she sure as hell wasn’t going to steal from them. Still, she imagined that in a city as rich as this she could, say, appropriate limited funds from the unwary. Still doing so would make her feel pretty bad. “I know!” She thought. “I’ll target the richer guys! A few of them would likely not notice a coin or two missing here and there!” Glad for once she had kept her thoughts inside her head instead of out loud. Her plans finally given form, she snuggled into the bed, careful not to impale the pillow on her horn. Sleep came easily then.
The next morning she was still snoozing when a servant knocked on the door. After she announced she was up, the servant walked into the room and quickly drew her a bath. She hadn’t really noticed the facilities the night before; she had been so busy planning. Thanking the servant, who promptly exited the room, she sauntered over to the freestanding porcelain basin. Dipping a hoof in turnout not to be a very good way of judging temperature so she soaked the rest of the limb in the water. Thankfully it was quite warm. Climbing in, she looked around for soap. This lead to another problem; how does one soap up with hooves? She found she couldn’t very well hold it with her hooves.
“How the heck do I do this?” She wondered. Mayberry figured unicorns probably used levitation to do so and since she had no idea how to use magic, she made do with pinning the soap bar down and scrubbing her hooves against it to get them sudsy. She then ran her hooves across her fur to get the soap in her coat. It was a bizarre feeling at best. Like washing your hair with numb hands except without the ability to work it in with your fingers. Thankfully, the shampoo or whatever it was for the mane and tail came in a glass bottle she found she could easily hold in her mouth and pour on her tail. Her mane was cleansed in the same fashion as the rest of her coat. Standing, she did her best to drip-dry before grabbing a towel with her mouth. A firm scrubbing with the extra absorbent towel got her coat, mane, and tail mostly dry. Wrapping the towel around her head and mane to get the rest of the water out, she went to climb out of the tub.
Fancy and Fleur were about to partake in a quick and modest breakfast of eggs and toast. Not exactly a 6-star meal, but both admitted it was a filling meal and it had become a bit of a favorite meal for them. As the servants flitted about preparing drinks, toast and eggs, the two unicorns made small talk. Fleur it seemed was off to Hoity Toity’s to talk about a contract for modeling. All the odd poses she had practiced were to fit to his highly eccentric photographer, Photo Finish, who had requested her to practice certain dynamic poses she thought would show the clothing best on Fleur. Fancypants was planning on booking a flying chariot over to Manehatten to speak with a banker about opening an account there. Their conversation was interrupted by a loud “Waaaaaaaaa!” followed shortly by a heavy thud as their visitor made an unscheduled meeting with the floor. Fleur and Fancypants winced in sympathy with the impact.
“Fancy, maybe we should replace that old tub upstairs with one that ponies won’t trip on the side while getting out.” Fleur’s eyes caught her husbands. “Not a bad idea. Fell out of that one myself several times before we moved it up there.” A clopping sound down the stairs announced the arrival of Mayberry as the dark blue maned unicorn walked into the dining room. “Sorry about that. I tripped as I was getting out.” A polite laugh answered that. A pink aura surrounded Mayberry’s horn as Fleur magically pulled a chunk of wood off of it. Fancypants gave a tolerant smile as he called over a servant. “Have the carpenter, Buzzsaw, come by and replace that plank whenever he’s next available.” Seeing the cream mare’s sheepish smile, he laughed. “One of the downsides of being a unicorn isn’t it? Can’t turn this way or that without having to worry about putting someone’s eye out.”
Fleur smiled. “I dimly remember Princess Celestia mentioning another was never being allowed into those inflatable castle’s they have at parties sometimes without having this ridiculous cork being shoved onto your horn first.” This brought a hearty guffaw from Fancypants and a snort of laughter from Mayberry. “How would she know that?” The question was one shared by Fancypants and Mayberry, with the latter actually voicing it. Fleur’s smile widened further. “Oh something about seeing it first hand at a party.” A short pause and then she continued. “But at one of the parties at the palace, one of the few Princess Luna attended, she said first hand actually meant that Celestia had actually climbed into one at the behest of a bunch of foals. No one had dared mention the cork to her highness and predictably Her Majesty’s horn pierced one of the columns.”
At this point in the story Fancypants was trying his best to remain dignified, but at that point in the story, a laugh escaped him. Encouraged, Fleur continued. “When that happened she jerked her head back and her crown went flying and unfortunately pierced the main air cushion. Soon Her Majesty was surrounded by a deflated castle with the roof draped over her head and a bunch of foals who were about to start crying.” Even Mayberry had to laugh at the thought of the dignified figure she had seen that night covered in such a situation.
“What happened then, my dear?” Fancypants asked while wiping away a tear of mirth with a hoof before replacing his monocle. “Weeeeeell,” Fleur began drawing out the word for dramatic purposes. “After that, Her Majesty used her magic to capture the wind and used that to reinflate the castle after which she resealed it and promptly asked everyone to forgive her little mistake.” “How long ago was this anyway, Fleur?” the stallion’s question threw her off momentarily. “I’d say maybe one hundred years ago.”
Mayberry had to stop herself from spitting applejuice across the table. “A hundred years? How does either of them remember that?” At that Fleur’s face momentarily fell. “Princess Luna mentioned it was one of the things she noted while in exile on the moon. Said it was so Classic Celestia, that the memory of it somehow managed to pierce the haze Nightmare Moon had put over her vision and memory.” Mayberry cocked her head. Exile? On the moon? Well it made some sense to exile someone named Luna on the moon from some perspectives.
Excusing herself from the table, having had eaten her fill during the humorous recounting of their ruler’s run in with inflatable castles, Mayberry made for the front door. Once outside she made a mental note of where the manor was and made for the center of town. She figured the best place to look would be at the market where ponies where likely to spill coins. It turned out to be for the best. The market was full of ponies, both the high-class aristocrats and many of the lower class worker ponies. It wasn’t too hard to quickly get about 10 gold pieces just from looking at the ground. That instantly got her something she desperately needed. Horseshoes. This variety was much thinner and was often painted to match the pony’s coat. The best part was the shoes were imbued with magic that made manipulating objects with hooves possible. Not with the dexterity of hands, but it did allow her to pick up objects. Overall they made her task of acquiring a bit more coin much easier.
“Ok, now I can at least pick things up, time to go for the big fish.” With that thought in her mind she cast her eyes about for some of the upper class. She fervently hoped one of them would get careless, but unfortunately many of her upper class targets were very tight fisted for hooved creatures. “No wonder they’re so dang rich,” she thought. “They never let any thing go! I bet they leave hoof prints on every coin they do spend.” Her venture to gather enough money for a train ride out almost ended in failure until she heard the heard the sound she’d been hoping for all day. An urbane voice, obviously used to giving orders, could be heard calling for more wine. From the sound of it, who ever it belonged to had already consumed a sizable amount if the slurring of words was any indication.
Following the drunken voice, the mare came across what looked like an upper class bar. It seemed to be predominantly younger adults of both genders, though like everywhere else she’d seen so far, there were more female ponies than males. The voice could be heard quite clearly now and it seemed to be coming from the roof patio. Easing her way throw the mash of bodies, the unicorn managed to ease up the stairs without anyone noting her. Sitting at one of the table’s surrounded a swarm of weary waiters sat a large white unicorn with a blond mane. His mark was that of a compass, so Mayberry figured him to be either a rich explorer or an insanely successful cartographer. It didn’t matter to her as only one thing merited her attentions and that was the very large bag of coins sitting on the table. Deciding to bide her time, the mare planned her next move.