Donut Steel. His job was sitting behind a police desk and getting his flank chewed off by the mare of Fillydelphia. There were other components to it, but that seemed the main one.
He was also the bearer of a very unfortunate name and cutie-mark. He hadn’t liked his childhood name either, Doughy, it made him sound like a big squishy pile of unbaked bread. There’s the chance when one’s cutie-mark comes in, to take a better name. After all, it’s not as if any parent knew exactly what their foal was going to get when it was born, although yes, they were bakers and had hopes. Sadly, a lot of those names sounded like desert dishes or specialized performers. The problem being that the new name wasn’t so much chosen as applied by mutual frienemies who had no sympathies for the future.
Also, Donut Steel hated ‘cutie-mark’. He would have preferred the term be flank-flag, or butt-brand, or ass-pass, something. Something else, without the ‘cutie’. Donut felt there was nothing cute about himself, there should be nothing cute about himself, but Princess Celestia decreed it was to be called a cutie-mark, and that was that. It was difficult enough getting your way with a headstrong mare that was forty, never mind one with a couple millenia of practical stubbornness, and the powers of the galaxy at her disposal, that was hard enough to give her sister a thousand year time out on another planet. No, better to be metaphorically gelded than actually. If she wanted it to be called a cutie-mark, it would be called a cutie-mark, and no stallion was going to challenge that. Some could be real thick, but they weren’t that stupid. Steel still wished it was something else. At least he wasn’t pink.
The mayor was, and she had teleported into his office for the aforementioned rump roast.
“You have have half of the downtown core completely screened off. What exactly is going on Donut?”
“Miss Mayor, you don’t want to know.”
“I need to know Donut! The Celebration of Life Parade has a route right through your tent city. They have to be cleared, or I need a good reason for re-routing.”
“I can’t tell you, Miss mayor.” The other part of his job was keeping information from ponies, details that would keep them up at night, make their stomachs gurgle and burn. He deployed his euphamisms, “It’s one of those inevitable, unfortunate, conclusive aspects of existence. We’re cleaning the specifics up as fast as we can.”
She turned a pale pink. Ponies were aware of mortality, in part that’s what the parade was about, but most didn’t like to think about it. Births were celebrated, as were the memories of those who had passed on, but the details of the transition at the end of life, those were best just pushed under the carpet.
“I’ll... I’ll say everything needed a new coat of paint, and it just couldn’t be finished in time.”
“Don’t say that, ponies will want to pitch in and help. Although, that’s not a bad idea. We can rush some base coats down, you can make the announcement and then they can jump in. It has to be painted anyhow.”
“It was that... extensive?”
“Yes.”
She blanched even further. Nodded, and with a blinding flash and an ear-ringing pop she teleported out.
Donut Steel looked at the folder on his disk, it had him taken three attempts to read it, with long breaks in between, and was the reason his lunch felt like phosphor inside him. Officer Smiley had been the lead investigator, but there was no way Steel was leaving him in charge. He had ordered that broken pony to immediately take a week in the country, or a month. Steel needed him in a week, that pony deserved a month for what he’d seen.
He didn’t know there were four other folders just like it in Steel’s desk. Three were from out of town, a hunch that paid off in ways Donut wished it hadn’t when the files came in response to his circumspect requests. The fourth was from a month ago, in the city suburbs, and had been handled by the only pony Donut had met who could look at these things and keep a lunch down.
This had Special Division written all over it. Donut leaned on his inter-comm, “Somepony find Flare Star.”
* * * * * *
Artrageous was tired. He’d been flying for several hours now. His coat had gone slick with sweat, baked dry in the sun, and gone slick again. He could smell himself, even with a headwind. A good strong stallion scent, nothing wrong with that, he thought, mares will flock. His mane was feeling unpleasantly oily, his tail, dusty. Somehow he had found dirt in the sky and it was clinging to him just as if he’d been pulling this cart along a track. He was uncomfortably hot, and wet, under his tail and in his foreleg pits. Things were beginning to chafe. The harness pulled uncomfortably at his shoulders, it was sweat-slick beneath it and he wondered if he should have used a blanket as a pad. His wings were holding up, but there were strange pops and clacks transmitting themselves through his bones.
He looked around for a good cloud to rest on. There weren’t any. There were, at most, a few wispy altostratus, but they were too high and thin to be practical. He gazed down at the ground, looking for a good landing place. He might as well set down the cart and sleep on top of it.
There was a brighly coloured dot moving along an earth pony track. He lowered his head for a closer view, then balked as the cart accelerated on the slope, pushing him. Too steep! He reminded himself, I can’t fly like it’s just me. That was warning enough, he leveled out, it was time to put down. When you slip behind the power curve and start making mistakes, it’s time to stop flying for a spell.
He was rapidly moving away from the dot, whatever it was. At his current height, it was too large to be a pony. Some kind of farm wagon, perhaps, but it shouldn’t be garish. He spared another look to gauge its direction. Same as mine, he determined. He wouldn’t be able to land exactly beside it, but he could get close and wait for it to catch up. He’d have someone to talk to, and might even ask for directions.
Artrageous took the cart down as steeply as he dared, backwinging the whole way while it pressed on his shoulders. He was glad he’d gotten the balance right, otherwise there would be the danger of it fishtailing and flipping around in front of him. As it was, he was extra cautious in maintaining a smooth, straight path that parallelled the track on the ground. Finally his hooves touched ground, and the wheels thumped down right after. A quick run, that slowed to a trot, then a walk, and he was ready to pull over and wait.
He did. He unhitched himself, and sprawled across the top of his cart like a cat in a sunny spot. He let his muscles stretch, his wings hang, that felt good.
Something sparkled on the ground. A coin. He lept down to examine it. It was a bit. Well that’s good luck, he thought, as he picked it up and returned to his perch. He started flipping it, knocking it in the air with his hoof, catching it on the white line, and slapping it on his fore fetlock.
Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads.
Hmmm.
Heads. Heads.
This continued for a while. Art felt that it was important to look as casual as possible when the other traveller arrived, and that meant he should keep flipping the coin even if no pony was watching. Not that he was posing, exactly, but if he just sat there and did nothing he’d start to think. He didn’t want to do that, he’d get wound up and seem like some creepy stalker forest pony. Best to concentrate on flipping the coin.
It wasn’t long before the other wagon rumbled into view, about a thousand coinflips or so. It was pulled by a unicorn mare. She was a light blue with an even paler mane and tail. He looked for the cutie-mark, hers was a wand with some sort of swirl. She was also as dirty, dusty and tired looking as Arty felt. He wished now he’d taken a moment to preen. There was a name printed in bold letters across the side of her wagon. She was some kind of performer.
“Hello there,” Artrageous called out, flipping his coin, “what kind of show would you give me for this?”
She eyed it, “The Great and Powerful Trixie is not a bit player, so nothing.”
“Really? It’s a magical coin,” flip, “It keeps coming up heads, don’t you think that is significant?”
“It’s nothing to write home about,” she said, watching him flip it again, but she still asked, “what is it this time?”
“Heads.”
“Again.”
Flip, “heads.”
“Give it here, what does a dirty pegasus know about magic?”
Arty spun the coin down at her. It landed in the dirt. Her horn glowed, she levitated it up, turning it in front of her face and examining it.
“You foal! It’s heads on both sides! It’s a new one with both Princesses, how dumb a pegasus are you?”
Arty decided he wasn’t going to tell her it was always coming up Luna. “You keep it, maybe it will bring you luck. So what do you do?”
“It’s ‘So what does the Great and Powerful Trixie do?’ and the answer is simple. Anything you can do, I can do better!”
“Great! Make me a cup of tea!”
That... felt interesting. Fortunately it didn’t last long. The flash of her horn was still lingering on his eyes as the feeling faded.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie has no time for this nonsense. You smell, and she has a long way to go. Good day.” She leaned into her harness and strained to get her wagon moving again. Her horn glowed, adding an arcane push to the wheels and setting her in motion.
“Hey, Trixie, I’m sorry. I’ve been travelling all day and you’re the first pony I’ve spoken to. I wanted to know if anything was around, a place to stay the night.”
“Great and Powerful Trixie.”
“Great and Powerful Trixie, then, are there any inns on this road, where does it go?”
“It goes to Ypslanti, then Hoofington, and there are not any inns you can reach tonight. There are farms, but the earth ponies here are uncooth and do not appreciate the Great and Powerful Trixie’s magic, they expect a show and for her to pay for lodgings. In your case, they have daughters, I doubt you could pay enough.”
That sounded like a joke at his expense, or theirs, and an insult at both. This was rapidly getting tiring. He felt the temptation to whip out his credentials, but she wasn’t the sort of mare that would be impressed, he knew that. Parading around as an ex-Wonderbolt to get some respect, that’s the picture of insecure. Instead, he sighed, “Look, enough already. I thought maybe you’d like some company, to talk about yourself, but if you’re happy on your own, be alone. I don’t need to waste my time pretending to be nice. I don’t need anypony doing me favours.” A little more bitterness than Arty intended slipped into his voice, and something else.
Trixie stopped her wagon, she was out of sight now, the back end of it blocking view of her. She was quiet for a moment, there was just the sound of her tail wisking. Something must have resonated with her, for she called out, “The Great and Powerful Trixie accepts your challenge, she can pretend to be nice better than you. You may travel with her.”
“And listen to her talk about herself?” He had to ask, maybe that was it.
“Yes. The Great and Powerful Trixie is not doing you any favours.”
All right, there was a sense of humour in there. He laughed and hopped down to get into his harness, and set his cart in motion.
“Lay some story on my Trixie.”
“Great and Powerful,” she corrected.
Okay, “Oh, Great and Powerful Trixie, please tell me about yourself, this road is so long.”
“Well Dark Pegasus, I once saved...”
I probably should introduce myself, Arty thought, once she stops talking. At least that’s better than ‘Stinky’.