The faintly-lit figure nearly blended in with the lighting in the hospital ward – cold, dull, and with a faint hint of olive. Egg's whitish, wavy mane didn't do much to help either, and with the small pair of glasses perched on the tip of his face, it made him look like he was one of the doctors who had just forgotten to wear his coat that day.
In fact, he was stopped twice on the way to the room, once by a little old lady who needed her bedpan changed, and once by a little filly who wanted to know what it was like to be a doctor.
She had aspirations.
Egg told her to study hard, stay in school, and pursue her dreams. He knew she'd probably change her mind at least another three or four times by the time she reached high school, but his advice applied to whatever it was she wanted to be. It was good old generic advice which, sometimes, was the best kind.
Of course, the advice he gave to the old lady was a bit more specific.
Ask a nurse, he'd said, and whatever you do, don't tip it over.
That little morsel probably would not have applied to the little girl as much. It really was about saying the right thing at the right time.
But finally, after sneaking his way through the cold chequered corridors of the hospital's main wing, he arrived at the room where Survey was in. Room 79 of the third floor.
The building was built a little bit differently than modern Cloudsdale architecture. For one, it was very similar to the ground-side buildings – all square and blocky and hard. Parquet floors met chiselled walls, and even though most of it was still made out of fluffy white cloud, they had been pressed into very tight, solid shapes.
The wood that existed in abundance here was for the fact that a lot of things needed to be wheeled around. Machines, beds, and sometimes even emergency patients. They needed a hard, smooth floor to do that, and clouds did not make for gentle terrain.
It was also far more closed off than regular Cloudsdale buildings. It was necessary to keep disease in (or sometimes, out) and to prevent errant winds from blowing ponies out of their beds.
But despite all this, it still carried that distinct flavour of the sky cities, and the ceilings were left to fluff as they naturally would.
Everything in Survey's room, though, was shadowed by this strange eerie tinge of olive drab, thanks to the windows having drapes pulled over and all the lights having been turned off.
Egg knew exactly why, and without having the room number, he would have probably headed straight for this one room first anyway. Survey liked the dark. He liked sitting in it with nothing more than the glow of a television or a back-lit scientific calculator to keep him company.
Not that there was anything odd or weird about it, of course. He just liked it that way.
"Hey," he said, announcing himself after having stood there in front of Survey's bed for a good half a minute.
Survey opened an eye just a crack, a pale, smoky blue shining from behind a brighter blue coat. His hair was a darker hue of the same colour, even.
There was something very blue about Survey, and it allowed him to blend nicely into the darkness that he enjoyed sitting in so very much.
"Hey," he replied, wearily. His voice was cracking. He probably hadn't had to use it for a while. "You came."
"Yeah. I did," Egg said, walking beside his friend.
He was in terrible shape. Perhaps the messenger had understated it to save Egg some grief, but Egg wasn't that big a fan of obfuscation.
Eventually, he would have come, and eventually he would have known.
Eventually, he would have seen the bruises and the bleeding, and the torn feathers and the casts.
Eventually, he would have seen the tired eyes, one of which was cut, and the lack of energy that his friend normally had in spades.
Eventually, he would have known that Red Letter was a bit of a fibber.
But still, ponies liked being lied to. Even Survey.
"You look great," Egg said, plainly, without a hint of sarcasm.
"I know," Survey choked some words back. That was probably him trying to laugh. "Nurses… can't keep their hooves off me. Love to keep changing my… uh… that bag thing."
The room plunged into silence as Egg just tilted his head and thought, a small spell coming over him once more. Having considered it and seeing it was an entirely different experience. Being there in front of his injured friend once again forced Egg into a narrow corridor of numbers, facts, figures and statistics that were all pinned to the wall.
And he sat in the center of it all, his eyes darting left and right in rapt attention to the details and the connections and the fear, the fear of his friend and what ha–
"You're doing it again," Survey said.
"Oh. So I am." Egg nodded, intoning at his friend. "I was just thinking of things."
"Always the same, no matter what the situation, eh?" Survey croaked out. "But not this time, Egg, not thi–
"You're not going to tell me?" Egg frowned, furrowing his brow slightly. To others, this would be a mere sign of being slightly perturbed. For Egg, this was a cold, silent anger – the kind of fire that burnt slow, invisible, and extremely hot.
"Nope."
"Not even a little?"
"Not even a little."
"Well," Egg commented, looking off to the side at anything and everything else in the room.
"Stop that." The bed creaked as Survey shifted. With both of his wings in one of those contraptions meant to keep them raised, it was a bit difficult for him to move around.
"Stop what?"
"Stop this… how you're acting! You know how creepy it is! It's like talking to some sort of evil mountain skeleton king or something!"
"Tell me what happened," Egg intoned, stating it as a fact rather than a request. He spoke again before Survey could have his turn. "What's that?"
"Stop it, Egg."
Egg swept to the side of the bed, where a small piece of cloth lay on top of a table, next to a glass of water and a pitcher of even more water. It was a torn, rotten rag, crumpled and dirty. It was clearly torn off from some larger piece of fabric, which had to be just as rotten and crumpled as the fragment was.
"What's this?" Egg repeated, stepping toward the bed stand, eyes locked on the fragment of cloth.
"Fine. I'll tell you. Is that what you want?" Survey burst out suddenly, managing to swing all of three centimetres in the direction of the fabric.
"Pretty much, yes." Egg turned his head to look at his friend, stopping just before he reached the point of his focus. Now he had words, and words were better.
"Right. It isn't that difficult. I got mugged, alright? I was walking by the park last night. It was late. I was out buying bread. I ran out."
"You had to eat bread late at night?" Egg asked, trotting back to the foot of the bed to be able to face his friend head on.
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Bread is typically eaten in the morning," Egg observed.
"I can eat bread when I like! Do you have ponies telling you can't eat certain things or you must eat certain things during certain specific times of the day? Haven't you ever had a bowl of cereal for lunch? Haven't you ever had a pancake for dinner? Get off my back!"
Survey wheezed, eyes boggling in his frantic response. If Egg was conservative with dialogue, Survey was the one of the pair who stole all his words and used them extremely liberally. He tended to rant, but rarely ever meant it. Egg paused for a moment, waiting for the projection of words to slow.
"Go on?" he finally asked, steering the conversation back on track.
"These two stallions. Big, tough guys. They come out of nowhere. They hit me right on the back. Surprise attack."
"Messenger suggested that they asked you for your money and you refused."
"Well… I don't know about that. I might have been babbling a little when they found me. You know. Being beat up by a bunch of grown ponies would do that to you."
"I wouldn't know."
"I know you wouldn't! Anyway, listen. I didn't resist or anything. I mean, you know me. When would I ever resist anything?"
"That did sound unlike you, yes."
"Quiet. So, they go at my wings, right? They… I think they sort of knew where to hit, because they didn’t really do much damage. Just enough damage that I couldn't take off. I mean, it didn't even really hurt after the initial attack. Only that they wouldn't work right, after. I guess they just wanted to ground me."
Egg just blinked and nodded.
"Then they started kicking me in the head and stuff. Or chest. Or legs. I can't really remember. Everything hurts. I think I tried crawling away, but they kept on yelling at me, 'where's the bits? Where's the bits?' and then, I don't know. They kept hitting me until I took out the bag."
"Why didn't you just give it to them from the start?"
"Heck, I don't know! Have you ever been assaulted by two grown ponies before? It's not–"
"No."
"– something that you sort of sit around and think it through and then get beat up with perfect execution! You kind of just do stupid things and not know why until much later, when you realise it's a stupid thing and then you get pissed because your friend is standing there pointing out all the stupid things as if it were so easy to not do at the time!"
"Calm down, Survey." Egg gave a wry look.
Survey huffed, having gotten worked up for the third time in a single conversation.
"Sorry," Survey apologized. "Crazy day."
"What's with the cloth?"
"Pulled it off one of the thugs, I guess. I must have, right? Woke up with it in my hooves. Don't really remember doing it. I think I must have tried to reach out and squeeze his head or something. You know, in desperation. Like 'hey, let me be, or I'm gonna squeeze your head'. I'm real threatening."
"Nice to see your energy returning," Egg observed.
"Yeah, well, you just empower me," Survey responded, sarcastically, with a roll of his eyes. "Anyway, that's the deal, alright?"
"Alright."
Egg looked toward the cloth again. Looked toward Survey. Then at the floor, and the ceiling, as if they had something worth looking at.
I mean, the ceiling had a light, but… you know.
"You're thinking of it again, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I am."
"We've been through this. Many times. When was the last time?"
"Yesterday."
"And when did it start?"
"Since forever."
"No, Egg. Not since forever. Stop that 'since forever' thing. It started after that big article last month with the whole Changeling fiasco in Canterlot. Ever since then you've never shut up about the degrading state of the world."
"And I'm right, aren't I? Look where you are now. Look what's happened."
"Did you come here just to tell me you were right?"
"No. I came here to ask you how you were doing."
"Then why haven't you asked it yet?"
The stallion looked around the room yet again. His eyes kept crossing with his friend's, and roaming gazes kept returning to the scrap of cloth on the table.
"Why are you keeping that piece of cloth, anyway?" Egg asked.
"I'm fine, thank you," Survey replied.
"Really, Survey."
His friend sighed, shuddering, as the large exhalation caused a minor bout of physical discomfort.
"I'm not going to convince you otherwise, am I?" Survey gave one last futile chance at persuasion.
"I'm doing it today."
"Because of me?"
"Because of you."
"And what do you do if it doesn't work out? What if you die trying to do it?"
"I'll worry about it when it comes to that."
"You'll worry about death only after you die?"
"Yeah." Egg shrugged. "I suppose."
"You're an idiot, Egg. You know that? I can't… I can't help you with this. You know that, right?"
"I understand."
"You understand but you don't care."
"No." Egg stood firm, narrowing his brow.
"You have to do this." Survey narrowed his right back.
"Yes."
"And you're going to put yourself in danger for the rest of Cloudsdale. You. The great and mighty accountant."
Egg took in a breath before answering.
"Yes."
"Then go on. Leave. I have nothing more to say to you, and you have nothing more to say to me."
"Tell me what they looked like." Egg flicked his head at Survey. A show of force, perhaps.
"No. I told you. We're done here."
Egg turned, slowly, to the side, the tone on Survey's voice slowly etching worry into his heart. But yet, as quickly as he had came, he was leaving.
He stopped, though, after the first step, lowering his head and letting his senses wash over. There was something fundamentally stiff about this exchange. It was something that both Egg and Survey had gone through many times before, and nothing that they were going to hold against each other, but momentum, as it was, could rarely stop in mid-flight.
But still, Egg felt he ought to say something.
He turned towards his friend, out of the corner of his eye.
"You and I… we're still…"
"Of course we're still friends, you idiot. Now get out of here before I change my mind and drag myself out of this bed to stop you."
"And I can count on–"
"Not too often."
Egg resumed his pace.
"Thank you, Survey. Get well soon," he mentioned, exiting the door with a flurry and a rustling of his wings.
And there he left, from the room, from his friend, back to the office, where he was going to do it today. The fury of his misplaced dedication was the only thing carrying him down this path, back to Mr. Stackford's office, where he would tender his resignation and start a new life.
A life he was entirely, to put it lightly, unsuited for.
But he was going to do it anyway.
Just because.
The narrow strip of boardwalk that lay on the edge of the eastern Cirrus Shores was where Emberkite found his home. Unlike most homes, his tended to change from night to night, adrift on the streets as a cloud would in the untamed skies.
The good thing was that Cloudsdale, despite being the sprawling metropolis of advancement and culture, tended to be very forgiving to the un-housed. In fact, it was the less developed areas which didn't have modern materials, and everything there was fluffy and unrefined.
It made for a good bed, because honestly, who would prefer to sleep on a hardened surface? But it came with its own set of risks – the winds blew hard at night, and without the weather pegasi monitoring it closely, the very ground you slept on could catch a stray breeze and take you quite far away, or even worse, decide to deposit you on the ground.
The consolation to this was that the ground was so far away that you'd probably wake up before hitting it.
The sun had fallen under the horizon of Cloudsdale – first sunset, as it was called – and was now making its way behind the earth itself. With the eerie glow of red light illuminating the city from below like a badly-positioned lamp, the shadows it cast fell upward, and the world above shifted in flavour and activity.
Emberkite had spent the last few hours defending his turf – a popular tourist destination off the western edge of the Coliseum Cloud Cluster.
As a floating state, Cloudsdale certainly had no ocean, but in this part of the city, clouds pulled apart into wispy thin strands that, very much like waves, bobbed and billowed in the sky, blanketing the entire off-shore area with rolls and rolls of cotton candy.
Like the seas on land, simming through them deposited a refreshing, cool moisture upon the skin, and flocks of exotic birds made that area their home, adding life and colour to the area.
In a long thin band next to the Cirrus Shores was a large fluffy patch of unprocessed clouds, which, soft and gentle, acted as the beach. Any pegasus treading on its sponge-like surface would find its texture very similar to soft, wet sand, and facing the east, it always caught the full rays of the morning sun as it rose over the skyward resort.
A little further on and you had the boardwalk itself, a towering mega-structure of wood and planks all propped up on beams and a fine lattice-work of polished logs and support struts. This, by far, was one of Cloudsdale's most enterprising constructions yet, and many specialists in the fields of engineering and construction were called in to plan and oversee this ambitious project.
It was Cloudsdale's longest continuous wooden structure, and it was very, very heavy. In the end, it was an ingenious use of cumulonimbus counter-clouds that kept the whole thing aloft, and the result was a fantastic, gorgeous mock seaside, complete with ice cream stands and fried donut shops, a plethora of restaurants serving up various ethnic cuisines, and boutiques galore.
There were souvenirs for the fillies and toys for the colts, design for the mares and sporting equipment for the stallions.
And underneath the busy and bustling night life on top of the wooden edifice was the tangled net of sticks and twigs that kept everything together – under the pier where Emberkite found a place to rest.
During the day, he could be found above, performing aerial tricks for the applauding crowd, including his signature quick-start and quick-stop moves, which never failed to please and cause the children to open their mouths in wonderment and glee.
It took a certain level of expertise to be able to amuse a crowd that was already rather proficient in the skill one was attempting. He likened his craft to, perhaps, competitive eating, or being a strong-pony at the circus. Sure, everypony was capable of flight up in Cloudsdale, but he had that little something extra that took in the audience and regaled the masses.
At night, when the lights went down and performance art wasn't well received, he retreated to this net of timber.
It was humid there. The moisture released from the clouds had nowhere else to go, and remained solidly trapped in the wood. They gathered in small drops of perspiration that fell from the underside of the floor, and it was tricky – though not impossible – to find a dry spot to lay your head.
Most of them would already be taken by vagrants and other travellers, but there was always a spot for Emberkite.
Even though the other faces there, all shrouded by darkness, were just faces to him, they knew his name, they knew his unmistakable ferocity and unique mane just enough to know that he deserved and required a dry spot at night.
For he alone kept the place clean. He alone kept the place safe.
The other performers, even the ones who were better off and had a home to return to, appreciated his actions. He always made sure the buskers kept honest and kept the bits flowing. He always looked out for his fellow drifter, because when a crime occurs against a pony who owns nothing, no one else cares. He always made sure things were kept neat and tidy, and he did all this for nothing more than the showers of appreciation and the knowledge that he wore a metaphorical crown.
There was a little narcissism in that. A little smugness, too, but overall, a thankless job must be paid for somehow, and this price was a small one.
It was good enough for him to be known. It was good enough for him to be thanked, happily, by the rich family who was cheated out of their bits by a card shark. They didn't even need the bits, really, but Ember returned it anyway. It was the principle of the thing. And he made sure that everyone knew he was the one who did it.
He also made sure everyone knew, when they saw the concussed pony being carted away by the medical personnel, who put that pony there.
Emberkite smiled, as he threw his back against a log, one of hundreds in this buried forest. He sank to his hips in the cold, wet cloud, snuggling down and closing his eyes with a contented sigh.
He drew a bag closer toward him, gripping it tightly as a child would a blanket. It was a tatty old thing, with a popped button and scuffed leather, but perfectly useful as it was intended. He had rescued it from the beach – some inconsiderate must have left it there to float endlessly on the pure, white sand.
And there in the darkness of his own head, he reached into his bag to touch a stack of bounded pages that he'd touched a thousand times before. It gave him a sense of comfort. A sense of belonging. A guiding principle.
He withdrew his hoof from the comic, a piece of reading material that was even older and tattier than the bag he housed it in. He had forgotten where he'd got this thing, but yet, every night, he would remind himself that the figure on the cover, clad in blazing blue and streaks of gold, standing with mane to the wind and head held high, represented the one ideal that made him who he was today.
He was a hero.
And nothing else mattered.
Once Egg stepped onto the cold lino floor of the diner, everything suddenly made sense again. The confusion of what had happened over the last few hours erased itself from his mind, and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee and freshly-made Banoffee Pie hit Egg right in the senses, overtaking his thoughts with that special combination of sweet and bitter that could only be found right here in the Banana Blintz Café.
By this time of night, there was almost always no other pony left. Not in any of the booths that snaked its way around the wall, each offering a view out the glass windows to the streets outside, or the counter that placed itself in the middle of the establishment in a horseshoe shape, extending out from the kitchen.
As usual, there was no one else besides Egg.
No pony, save one.
A freshly brewed mug of hot black coffee and a slice of pie had been left lying in the third booth on the left – the same booth that Egg immediately went to without a second's consideration and slid in without a thought.
He picked up the cup of coffee and took a quick sip, roasted notes of almond and honey quickly being swept away by a luxuriously smooth acidity that stung at his tastebuds and ignited his olfactory senses.
It was exactly right.
Bitter.
He took a small piece of the pie, molten caramel dripping off a slice of banana that sat like a swaddled baby on a cookie crumb crust, all topped with a tiny dab of whipped cream.
Sweet.
Perfect.
Egg dropped the fork with a sigh, and sat back, reclining comfortably on a small red cushion. He reached, without looking, to his left, pulling up the newspaper that had been left there and bringing it to his face.
CLOUDSDALE? MORE LIKE CRIMESDALE!
STREET THIEVERY AND VANDALISM HITS ALL-TIME HIGH!
by Gale A. Mezzo
Not another word needed to be read.
"Long day?" said a voice, smooth as chocolate and warm as coffee. Sultry but sweet. Bitter, but coated with a fine sugary layer.
"Yeah."
"Well, you look even more expressionless than usual."
Egg's eyes ran into hers as he put the paper down flat upon the table. A mare, with coat as silky brown as milk chocolate and mane as thick and golden as coffee had planted herself in the seat across Egg's.
Her mane was tied up into a bun that hung off the left side of her head, strands and flaps of hair peeling off it like a flower in mid-bloom. One brown petal hung low, framing the side of her face, a set of deep black eyes staring from behind.
Mocha Leche, the diner's owner and only waitress, gave Egg a warm, encouraging smile, and she knew full well that she would not get one in return.
Egg gave her a look of tiredness.
And that was just fine by her.
"Something happen today?" Mocha asked, tilting her head and propping it up with a hoof as she turned to stare out the window toward the empty city streets.
A slight chill had fallen over the main hub of Cloudsdale, paths and roads spiralling outward from the central coliseum. The huge arena and sports venue had been considered one of the centers of the city for a long time due to its relative size and visibility in the sky.
With a multitude of levels and a rather 'variable' nature to the city, the citizens inhabiting this sprawling metropolis found it easier to base their city planning around landmarks rather than any other particular organized method. When you live in a city where re-arrangement was as simple as pushing the floor aside, forethought tends to fly off the edge of the nearest nimbus.
It was only recently that the leaders of the fine burg thought that perhaps some sort of fixed-position based city structure would be more beneficial to the citizens. With the growing population and rapidly expanding economy, along with earth-borne building techniques and materials, no longer were directions such as 'the shop with the three pillars outside, eh?' any more useful than throwing a rock into the air and going where it landed.
So roads were invented. Addresses were assigned. A permit was now required to move any building manually, and those found doing so without proper authority were in for a horrible talking to.
And the pegasi stopped getting lost as often.
Still, once in a while, a rogue and disgruntled building owner might get tired of the long waits in the bureaucratic greys of the thunderclouds that City Hall was crafted from, and decide to fly away with his house in tow. They called them 'wanderers', and most of them were eventually found, reclaimed by the government, and reinstalled back into the huge gaping hole in the neighbourhood that it had left behind.
Some wanderers remained undiscovered for weeks. Months even. But they were few and far between.
And then there were the ones that had particularly special circumstances.
The diner sat, nestled at the very corner of a set of corporate buildings, a tiny valley in the mountains that stood beside it. It was a common, and correct, assumption that the building wasn't originally built to go there.
Originally, it had been from another cloud entirely – The Rainbow Factory Cluster – where it was victim to a robbery.
It was too much trouble to search through and loot the place, the robbers reckoned, and decided that cutting the entire building off from the quaint, quiet suburban road that it was on was much quicker and quieter.
And so the small café, already a third full to capacity with the two elderly owners sleeping in the back and the three robbers that nabbed it, was floated across the darkened skies to The Coliseum Cluster, where it found its new home.
The robbers got away with the loot. At night, the commercial districts of Cloudsdale were as quiet as a mute badger, the perfect place to land at some random corner and take one's time with a quiet search.
That left the two rather confused and bewildered owners waking up the next morning and deciding that they were far too old for this, selling the building as fast as possible and making their way back to their home in the suburbs – which thankfully hadn't been shifted.
When the building was finally found and a full report was filed and processed, the café was now in the hooves of one Mocha Leche, who had bought it for a song.
And now this presented the government with a rather sticky problem.
The ones who moved the building were gone.
The ones who owned the building no longer did.
And the current owner clearly bought a building that sat where it sat, and so moving it back would then break the very same law that had been passed to prevent such nonsense from happening in the first place.
The government wisely decided to tear the report up and ignore everything.
The diner soon became a local hotspot, and the Banana Blintz Café soon grew a name for itself amongst the officeponies. And without a proper registered address, it was one of those places that either you knew or didn't.
At night when all the pegasi went home, the diner remained open, and only very few strange ponies bothered to venture in at that time.
Mocha pulled her eyes, weighed down permanently by dark bags, from the window. As sleepy as she was, as tired as she looked, she had purchased the place for that very reason.
So that she'd have a home that, just like her, remained awake twenty-four hours of the day, seven days a week.
But still, she smiled. Still, she had that soft, gentle honey in her expression, and the crisp nectarine tangs in the way she regarded all her customers, and she looked with nothing less but a whisper of appreciation to the only one who regularly came to her diner at night.
"Something on my face?" Egg asked, pushing aside his reading glasses to wipe at it.
"Answer my question," Mocha reminded, laying her head down on the table, stretching out a leg across to Egg's side.
"I was about to," Egg responded, turning to look out of the window that Mocha had just a moment ago. "Something else seemed to have caught your attention."
"Just… reminiscing." Mocha breathed in deeply. "Don't change the subject. What happened today?"
Egg took a pause. He almost never did. But this time, he had, leaving Mocha to raise her eyebrows, staring into the glass as she noticed it.
"I quit."
And just like a world of haze, was Mocha's reaction too, in delay, as she picked her head back off her reclined arm and gave her mane a quick shake.
"Really?"
"Yes. I did it."
"What did… what did Mister–"
"He wasn't entirely happy. He was more sad than angry."
"I'd be too, if I had to give you up."
"Told me that I'd been working there so long, that I was practically one of the family. I'd always have a job there should I want to return."
"That's all he said?"
"That's all he said."
"Didn't he mention," Mocha mused, thoughtfully, "didn't he ask you why you were leaving?"
"No."
"Isn't that…"
"Not odd. He probably already knew why."
"How?" Mocha asked softly.
"Ponies like him know everything."
Mocha didn't question it. If Egg said it was so, it was most likely so.
"And he just let you off? Just like that? Same day?" Mocha continued.
"Yes. But this isn't really what you're really asking me, is it?" Egg turned his attention to the one sitting across the table, prying into her dark, black eyes. There was then, suddenly, a flash of sadness behind it that didn't escape Egg's notice.
Conversations were like a cart ride to any destination – you always had to take the road there first. It'd be scenic, mainly pointless, and in the end all you wanted was to get to the final point.
All Egg wanted right now was to get to the final point.
Mocha sighed. It wasn't out of frustration or annoyance. Most conversations she had with this stallion ended up the same way. There was a brutal, rudely frank, but very targeted drilling down of the conversation to get it along. Egg didn't banter. He didn't waffle. The only time he engaged in small-talk were those times when that was all there was to the conversation.
But most conversations with him had a specific purpose.
Even if he wasn't the source of it.
"You're going to get hurt." Mocha started to waver, her voice turning gravelly as her throat tightened. "You're going to get hurt and you're going to die."
"I won't," Egg said, steadfast, declaring the truth, frowning slightly at the mare.
"You can't know that," She declared roughly, her ears falling down by the sides. She breathed in unsteadily, but a few quick swallows of air were all that were needed for her to regain composure.
Egg waited patiently for the wave to pass before amending his previous declaration. "I'll try not to."
"Why?" Mocha asked, almost pleading within a single word.
The newspaper was tapped, at the headlines, and at the article – two quick raps upon the paper in quick succession.
"Last week; report of hate crime against 'outsiders'. Day after; extortion of business owners up in the industrial district. Just three days ago, somepony stole eight barrels of liquid rainbow from the factories. Why would anypony even need that?"
Mocha stared at the paper on the table, vapidly.
"There is no answer," Egg confirmed what Mocha was thinking. "The correct question is why isn't anyone doing anything about it?"
"Well, the Wonderbolts–"
"Do nothing. They haven't ever since crime started to rise a few years ago and they aren't doing anything now. With all the troubles in Canterlot and the surrounding cities, they've had their hooves filled doing something they were never supposed to be doing in the first place."
"Well."
"They aren't anything nowadays but a trick-flying team. Their academy is… inefficient. They weren't even able to support Canterlot during the Changeling invasion last month. That's why you didn't read about them in the papers. All of us were just scared up here, cowering and just hoping that they might not attack us next. And what if Princess Celestia hadn't come through in the end? What then?"
Mocha shook her head. "Surely, you aren't saying you want to take on the next great Changeling invasion, are you?"
"No. We can't do anything on such a grand scale. But we can do something on our level. It's not about it being big or flashy, it's about doing it! It's about getting things done. It's about somepony finally taking a stand when no one else will!"
Egg wheezed, releasing the slight tilt on his eyebrows that he had given them. This was the most emotional he'd ever been in a while. He'd run out of breath with that inglorious speech. The newspaper lay crumpled and wrinkled under his hoof. Paper never fared well around the stallion when he was in a mood.
The diner fell into silence, the ticking of the clock on the wall behind the counter the only thing keeping it from completely degrading into a vacuum. It fell upon 2:19 with one final tick of the minute hand.
Egg snapped up his fork and shovelled another large piece of pie into his mouth.
He chewed carefully, and swallowed.
Mocha was playing with her hooves on the other end.
"I'm not going to do anything stupid, Leche," Egg told her.
"You already have."
"How long have we known each other?"
Mocha's eyes darted to the clock. "Since you first came in here? A year and eight months."
"In all this time, have you ever known me to do anything without a plan?"
"I suppose not."
"And have you ever known me not to have one?"
"Are you trying to show off?" Mocha asked, dryly.
"No, I'm trying to convince you." Egg turned his hoof upward. "I'm not the kind of pony to rush into situations without thinking first. And I've had good practice with making split-second decisions."
"What, as an accountant?"
"Yes."
There was not the slightest trace of irony or sarcasm in Egg's voice as he said that. Mocha decided to give herself the mental equivalent of shaking her head.
"That's not enough, Egg. That's just not enough."
"What do you mean?"
"I need more reasons to believe."
"Fine," Egg said, after a while of thinking. "Fine. I… My job. My old job. I managed millions of bits. Millions. Coming in from thousands of sources at any time of any day. I had to know where everything was from, and know how it all fit together. One small mistake and it would have cost the company."
"Yes, that's what accountants do. What–"
"I had eight juniors. Eight. You wanted to know why I was let off so easily, right? No two weeks, no advance notice? Because there were eight juniors who were ready, willing, and very, very eager to step into my place as soon as I had left. And they know everything I do. You want to know why they never had the chance to replace me before?"
"Why?" Mocha asked, flavourlessly.
"Because for the four years I'd been working as head accountant, I never made one single mistake."
Mocha closed her eyes, breathing in those words. It was a moment before she replied. "Alright."
"I will be in here every night, Mocha."
"Alright."
"And you'll know everything I'm doing, okay?"
"Alright."
"The day that I stop coming is the day you'll need to start worrying."
"I don't want that day to come," said Mocha.
Egg didn't reply.
"What else?" Mocha asked, continuing the conversation through a lead heart. "What else do you have to tell me?"
"I sold my house and bought a small base of operations."
"Wh– in one day?" Mocha objected; the surprises continuing to come one by one.
"Yes. I had my eye on the property already. The location was… desirable. About five minutes flight away from the Cirrus Shores. I had the paperwork prepared in advance for this eventuality. All I had to do was submit it."
"But… in one day, Egg!"
"Why not?" Egg raised his eyebrow. "You yourself bought this place in one day, if I recall. In fact, it was less than four hours since you set eyes on it if one remembers correctly."
"Wh– oh, but that's unfair, Egg!"
Egg's eyebrow dropped. "You're quite right. It is unfair. I apologize. But it is no less true. A day is all it takes, Mocha, for things to happen."
"And the Cirrus Shores too? That's where all the crime is happening!"
"Yes. It is."
"Egg…"
"I said I promise."
"… alright."
Eyes glazed over, Mocha pushed herself away from the table. It was that kind of moment when she wished she could curl up into bed and fall asleep, but likely she'd only be doing the former. But still, some rest was required, and while the diner remained open, she would be taking respite from the sudden turn of events.
At that motion, Egg dropped six bits on the table, sliding the newspaper back toward himself and shuffling out of the booth. He made for the door, fully recognizing the end of tonight's exchange.
"Egg, I've… I've told you a thousand times. You don't have to pay," Mocha said with a slight hint of exasperation. She had told him numerous times before, and normally she wouldn't bother anymore, but with her mind being sundered, she used the complaint as a little bit of relief.
"And I will pay each and every time."
"Even tomorrow, when you come?" Mocha asked hopefully.
Egg nodded. "Yes. Even tomorrow."